Libertarians convention a first for city

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Libertarian Party leaders and their candidates from 16 Northeast Texas counties plan to gather Saturday in Longview for the Senate District 1 Convention.

Gregg County Republicans and Democrats also will hold their county conventions Saturday.

Party delegates to all three Longview conventions will choose delegates to their state conventions. They also will adopt any resolutions they hope their parties will vote to add onto the statewide platforms.

The public is invited to all three conventions, but voting delegates have already been selected by local members of each party.

The GOP convention, which is set for 9 a.m. in the Pine Tree Road Auditorium, also will welcome incumbent Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who is in a May 27 runoff with Sen. Dan Patrick of Houston to face Democratic Sen. Leticia Van De Putte of San Antonio in November.

He didnt even carry the county, Gregg County GOP Chairman Keith Rothra said of Dewhurst, who is defending his job against a tea party favorite. But his people sent an email to us late (Monday) afternoon saying he was going to attend.

Democrats meet at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Downtown Meeting Place, 314 E. Cotton St.

Were asking people to come around 9:30 a.m. to get pre-registered, Precinct Chairman Vik Verma said.

The first-time Libertarian senate district confab in Longview is set to produce delegates to represent the fiscally conservative and socially open political party at its state convention next month in Temple.

It also follows perhaps the first-ever precinct and Gregg County conventions earlier this month, Gregg County Libertarian Chairwoman Brandee Brown said.

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Libertarians convention a first for city

Why I fly ! A Manual Airbus Approach from the Cockpit – Amazing view into the FAroe Islands – Video

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Why I fly ! A Manual Airbus Approach from the Cockpit - Amazing view into the FAroe Islands
An RNP-AR Approach converted into a Manual Visual approach into the amazing Faroe Islands 🙂 Enjoy the scenery. Welcome to join up in our facebook group " SI...

By: Thomas Bo Petersen

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Why I fly ! A Manual Airbus Approach from the Cockpit - Amazing view into the FAroe Islands - Video

Dance Like No One's Watching: Future Islands Break Out On Their Own Terms

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Future Islands in New York City, February 2014 Photo by Rebecca Smeyne for SPIN

It's a very cold February night in Baltimore and Future Islands frontman Sam Herring is shuffling across the Floristree stage like a cranked-up Elvis impersonator. Exuding memory-haunted menace, he stalks around as if he were hunting prey, pauses, finds a fan's eyes and stares into them, stopping mid-dance move. Dozens of diehard fans in the front become one swaying, sweaty clump of pumping fists and pogo-ing legs with the occasional crowd surfer poking out. Not quite a mosh pit more like the moves and grooves of a rave dancing its pain away, mindfully concentrated. Most of the people in the front of this legendary (and quasi-legal) DIY performance space were raised on patron saint of B'more spaz-out, Dan Deacon, and his one, simple rule for going nuts at a show: Jump up and down, not side to side, so nobody falls down and gets fucking hurt.

"It was bonkers," Herring proudly brays the next day. It's early in the afternoon and Future Islands are gathered in their rehearsal space, a tiny room in the basement of Baltimore's Current Space Gallery. Last night was the group's sixth time playing Floristree since 2007, though they've been there plenty more times if you count side-project gigs and, as Herring fondly recalls, watching Ravens football games with friends. "There's a spirit at Floristree," Herring says. "It's a living space. Like, this is also somebody's home."

Here in Baltimore, Future Islands are local heroes, with a wider, more populist appeal than they have elsewhere, which means plenty of people at Floristree were there for the first time after encountering the band at, say, 2012's Virgin Free Fest or the city's more conventional rock clubs. But that night was an important moment for the band bringing old and new fans into (or back to) a personally special space just before the release of what will certainly be their most high-profile record to date. This month marks the release of the four-piece's fourth album, Singles, a major indie-rock release (on fabled indie label, 4AD) that will finally push the trio rounded out by bassist/guitarist William Cashion and multi-instrumentalist producer Gerrit Welmers to a much higher level of visibility, but still on their own terms.

Nearly one month after their hometown Floristree show, the group performs Singles' "Seasons (Waiting On You)" on the Late Show With David Letterman in New York, becoming mini-memes in the process. Herring, blindly grooving on the stage, pounding his chest hard enough for it to pop on the mic, boldly sold the drama of their bittersweet single. "Buddy, come on!" Letterman yelled, as he strode over to thank them afterwards. "How about that? I'll take all of that you've got!" The performance itself was the Floristree show writ large: a DIY victory lap for longtime fans and a commanding introduction for the previously uninitiated, the moment when people outside of Baltimore and the Acela DIY corridor they've long traveled finally got around to realizing how special these hyper-sincere synth-punks truly are. In short, Future Islands went on national television and did exactly what they've been doing at venues all over the country for the past eight or so years. And people responded in turn.

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In 2006, Future Islands formed in Greenville, North Carolina out of a high concept, high-drama, Devo-esque group called Art Lord & the Self-Portraits. As arch as Future Islands are heart-on-the-sleeve, Art Lord which swirled around Herring, who played the role of a pretentious German art rocker imploring everyone to love his music, improvising lyrics live around previously written hooks and shambling synth-pop foreshadowed the caustic charisma and earnest theatrics that would define their next project. Theatrics were a part of their DNA from the start. "We were 18-year-old kids and we wanted to throw a party," Herring says of the Art Lord days.

With Future Islands, though, they threw compelling fragility into the middle of the party. With this approach, they would quickly became an integral part of Baltimore's Wham City collective, and the fractured, sugar-rush party music the scene proffered. Their debut EP, 2006's Little Advances, was full of relentless, rinky-dinky beats and frenetic screams. (Seek out the frustrated utopianism of "Nu Autobahn.") It was and is, paradoxically and simultaneously, their least characteristic release and the recording that most closely matches their manic onstage presence. Their follow-up, 2008's Wave Like Home, released after the band relocated to Baltimore, introduced their more explicitly maudlin side by way of "Little Dreamer," which often closes their shows to this day.

But Future Islands made their name by consistently and aggressively touring behind a generous live show that balanced, precariously, both club-friendly and collapse-to-the-ground-and-cry catharsis. And until 2010's In Evening Air, their first for Chicago label Thrill Jockey, the band's live show overwhelmed their recorded output. Though that record was the furthest they'd come yet to striking a balance between extremes on tape, On The Water, a simmering break-up album that followed the next year, made it clear that they maintained a healthy contrarian streak as well. "With On The Water, we knew people were gonna be like, 'What the hell is this," Herring admits. "In Evening Air brought us a lot of new fans and people expected an In Evening Air 2, and we gave them a slow-burning record." Releasing a subtle bummer of a record like On The Water though, "allowed [the group] to never have to deal with expectations ever again."

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Dance Like No One's Watching: Future Islands Break Out On Their Own Terms

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March 21, 2014

Theyre jewels of the oceans, small paradisiacal islands and atolls that rise up in the middle of the sea often developed for the pleasure of holidaymakers seeking tropical getaways. But they wont last long.

Hyperbole? Not for the scientists whove been sounding the alarm for years on the dangers of rising sea levels; the locals whove already borne weather-related disasters on their islands; or the families whove already been uprooted from their homes and been relocated the worlds first climate change refugees.

Last year, presidents and leaders of small island nations assembled before the United Nations pleading with the worlds most powerful nations to save their countries from the threat of extinction.

We are disastrously off course, said President Anote Tong of Kiribati, a string of 33 islands in the central Pacific Ocean about 4,000 km (2,500 miles) southwest of Hawaii.

Already, families on the Carteret Islands in the South Pacific have had to abandon their homes and be relocated to neighboring islands due to rising sea levels that have slowly swallowed parts of their island.

With World Water Day set for March 22, heres a look at some tropical island destinations you may want to visit, before rising sea levels threaten to bury them forever.

Maldives As the lowest lying country on the planet, the Maldives is particularly vulnerable to the threat of rising sea levels. Pleasure seekers may know the destination for its thatched-roofed huts, luxury hotels like the Conrad Maldives and its underwater restaurant, but underneath the fantastical extravagance lies a grim reality that threatens to put the island under.

Seychelles Set in the Indian Ocean, 1,600 km from the east coast of Africa, the Seychelles is another island destination well-frequented by pleasure seekers. Comprised of 115 islands, luxury hotel brands like the Four Seasons and Hilton set up locations on this remote tropical outpost for their well-heeled clientele. What the holidaymakers may fail to see above their spa treatments and beach vacation, however, is that the country has experienced the worst coral die-off in the world, and worrying spans of drought.

Marshall Islands History buffs may be particularly drawn to the Marshall Islands for its marine graveyard of sunken ships following the Second World War. Tourist activities include diving trips to the shipwrecks and big-game fishing. But island president Christopher J. Loeak has been vocal about the plight of his nation, saying that in recent months his country was ravaged by an unprecedented drought and a few weeks later a giant king tide that flooded the capital unusual phenomenon unseen during his lifetime, he said. In the Marshall Islands, like elsewhere in the Pacific, climate change is no longer a distant threat, nor at the doorstep. Climate change is here.

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Video Proof That Future Islands' Singer Is Good at Rapping

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Future Islands have been on a tear as of late. They were one of the breakout acts at SXSW (seeSPIN's Stubb's party),wowedLettermanviewers with incredible dance moves,and their new albumSingles is due out via 4AD on March 25. We also learned in our new profile of the Baltimore synth-pop group that frontman Sam Herring is a true hip-hop head who composes his songs by freestyle rhyming over the band's musical ideas. But Herring's rap skills don't end there a few months back, he recorded a VHS video for lo-fi rap projectTime Spent under his Hemlock Ernst moniker, and the results are damn impressive. Taped to, um, tape, the clip shows Herring casually walking into a room, sitting on a bed, and rhyming his life's story with ease. Though we're already psyched about Singles, we'd love to see more of Herring's hip-hop.

Actually, here's some:

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Dance Like No One's Watching: Future Islands Break Out On Their Own Terms

The 40 Best Things We Saw at SXSW 2014

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Video Proof That Future Islands' Singer Is Good at Rapping

Gene family linked to brain evolution implicated in severity of autism symptoms

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The same gene family that may have helped the human brain become larger and more complex than in any other animal also is linked to the severity of autism, according to new research from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.

The gene family is made up of over 270 copies of a segment of DNA called DUF1220. DUF1220 codes for a protein domain -- a specific functionally important segment within a protein. The more copies of a specific DUF1220 subtype a person with autism has, the more severe the symptoms, according to a paper published in the PLoS Genetics.

This association of increasing copy number (dosage) of a gene-coding segment of DNA with increasing severity of autism is a first and suggests a focus for future research into the condition Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). ASD is a common behaviorally defined condition whose symptoms can vary widely -- that is why the word "spectrum" is part of the name. One federal study showed that ASD affects one in 88 children.

"Previously, we linked increasing DUF1220 dosage with the evolutionary expansion of the human brain," says James Sikela, PhD, a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, University of Colorado School of Medicine. Sikela is the corresponding author of the study that was just published.

"One of the most well-established characteristics of autism is an abnormally rapid brain growth that occurs over the first few years of life. That feature fits very well with our previous work linking more copies of DUF1220 with increasing brain size. This suggests that more copies of DUF1220 may be helpful in certain situations but harmful in others."

The research team found that not only was DUF1220 linked to severity of autism overall, they found that as DUF1220 copy number increased, the severity of each of three main symptoms of the disorder -- social deficits, communicative impairments and repetitive behaviors -- became progressively worse.

In 2012, Sikela was the lead scientist of a multi-university team whose research established the link between DUF1220 and the rapid evolutionary expansion of the human brain. The work also implicated DUF1220 copy number in brain size both in normal populations as well as in microcephaly and macrocephaly (diseases involving brain size abnormalities).

The first author of the autism study, Jack Davis, PhD, who contributed to the project while a postdoctoral fellow in the Sikela lab, has a son with autism and thus had a very personal motivation to seek out the genetic factors that cause autism.

The research by Davis, Sikela and colleagues at the Anschutz campus in Aurora, Colo., focused on the presence of DUF1220 in 170 people with autism.

Strikingly, Davis says, DUF1220 is as common in people who do not have ASD as in people who do. So the link with severity is only in people who have the disorder.

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Gene family linked to brain evolution implicated in severity of autism symptoms

The gene family linked to brain evolution is implicated in severity of autism symptoms

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20-Mar-2014

Contact: Dan Meyers dan.meyers@ucdenver.edu University of Colorado Denver

The same gene family that may have helped the human brain become larger and more complex than in any other animal also is linked to the severity of autism, according to new research from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.

The gene family is made up of over 270 copies of a segment of DNA called DUF1220. DUF1220 codes for a protein domain a specific functionally important segment within a protein. The more copies of a specific DUF1220 subtype a person with autism has, the more severe the symptoms, according to a paper published in the PLoS Genetics.

This association of increasing copy number (dosage) of a gene-coding segment of DNA with increasing severity of autism is a first and suggests a focus for future research into the condition Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). ASD is a common behaviorally defined condition whose symptoms can vary widely that is why the word "spectrum" is part of the name. One federal study showed that ASD affects one in 88 children.

"Previously, we linked increasing DUF1220 dosage with the evolutionary expansion of the human brain," says James Sikela, PhD, a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, University of Colorado School of Medicine. Sikela is the corresponding author of the study that was just published.

"One of the most well-established characteristics of autism is an abnormally rapid brain growth that occurs over the first few years of life. That feature fits very well with our previous work linking more copies of DUF1220 with increasing brain size. This suggests that more copies of DUF1220 may be helpful in certain situations but harmful in others."

The research team found that not only was DUF1220 linked to severity of autism overall, they found that as DUF1220 copy number increased, the severity of each of three main symptoms of the disorder -- social deficits, communicative impairments and repetitive behaviors became progressively worse.

In 2012, Sikela was the lead scientist of a multi-university team whose research established the link between DUF1220 and the rapid evolutionary expansion of the human brain. The work also implicated DUF1220 copy number in brain size both in normal populations as well as in microcephaly and macrocephaly (diseases involving brain size abnormalities).

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The gene family linked to brain evolution is implicated in severity of autism symptoms

Pathways to Privacy Symposium: Helping Canadians Find Pathways to Privacy – Video

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Pathways to Privacy Symposium: Helping Canadians Find Pathways to Privacy
AGENDA March 21, 2014 8:00 am Registration 8:30 am Welcome Remarks Sukanya Pillay, General Counsel Executive Director, Canadian Civil Liberties Association...

By: Pathways2Privacy/Parcours2Protection de la Vie Prive

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Pathways to Privacy Symposium: Helping Canadians Find Pathways to Privacy - Video