Political parties plan conventions

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The Upshur County Libertarian Party will hold its county convention on Saturday, at which it is expected to nominate Peggy LaGrone for County Clerk.

The convention, which county Libertarian Chairman Vance Lowry said is expected to last no more than 10 minutes, is scheduled for noon at La Finca Mexican Restaurant on Warren Ave. in Gilmer.

Unlike Republicans and Democrats, who nominate their candidates in primary and runoff elections, Libertarians nominate theirs at conventions.

Ms. LaGrone, who served as County Clerk as a Republican from 2007-2010, is the only candidate seeking the Libertarian nomination for an Upshur County office in the November general election. She would face Terri Ross, who won the Republican nomination for the post without opposition in the March 4 GOP primary.

No Democrats are seeking the Clerks post. Incumbent Barbara Winchester, who was appointed to the office last year when Brandy Lee resigned it to become County Auditor, did not seek election to it in her own right.

The Upshur Libertarians were scheduled to hold their annual monthly meeting and combined precinct conventions Tuesday night (March 11) at La Finca after The Mirrors deadline for this edition.

Republicans and Democrats are scheduled to hold their respective Upshur County conventions March 22. Both will meet at 2 p.m.the Democrats at the Newsom Law Office on Hwy. 154 in downtown Gilmer, and the GOP at Wayne Arnolds new Event Center on Lantana Road just north of the city.

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Political parties plan conventions

Five things to know about India's Andaman Islands

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By Katia Hetter and Marnie Hunter, CNN

updated 2:35 PM EDT, Fri March 14, 2014

An Indian military search operation for the missing airliner is being launched from Port Blair in the Andaman Islands.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- The Andaman Islands are at the center of one of the newest theories in the increasingly tangled search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

Analysis of radar data revealed Friday by Reuters suggests the plane was flying toward the Indian Ocean archipelago. Reuters cited unidentified sources familiar with the investigation.

Aviation experts and locals are debating whether it would even be possible for a giant 777 to land -- or even approach -- the islands undetected. An Indian military search operation is being launched from Port Blair, the administrative center for the islands.

Here are five things to know about the islands now enveloped in the missing plane mystery:

They're remote and mostly uninhabited

The Andaman Islands are part of India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands territory. There are 572 islands in the territory, only three dozen of which are inhabited. The territory has a population of nearly 380,000, according to India's 2011 census.

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Five things to know about India's Andaman Islands

Andaman Islands: 5 Things About The Place Flight 370 Could Have Landed

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New radar data suggests that themissing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370may have been hijacked and deliberately flown towards the Andaman Islands. Were sure you have a lot of questions about the Indian-owned islands where the plane may have landed, so HollywoodLife.com has rounded up five key facts aboutthe Andaman Islands.

Investigators have expanded the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 to includea remote, mostly uninhabited, Indian-owned archipelago called the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. At the request of the Malaysian government, the Indian government is conducting a huge search of the waters surrounding the island chain.Lets take a closer look at the islands.

1.The Andaman Islands and the Nicobar Islands form an archipelago located in the Indian Ocean, approximately 850 miles east of the mainland. There 572 islands in the group, but only 37 are inhabited, according to The Washington Post.Nearly 380,000 people live on the island chain, according to Indias 2011 census.

2.In December, 2004, the Andaman Islands and the Nicobar Islandswere devastated by a 9.1-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami that caused the deaths of more than 200,000 people across a dozen countries, according toThe Straits Times.

3. The island chain was once a penal colony. British colonial rulers used to send criminals to the islands then known asKalapani during the 19th century.

4.Marco Polo discovered the islands in the 13th century. He described the natives in his writings, calling them cannibals, according to the Daily Mirror, and referred to one island asAngamanain.

5.Sir Arthur Conan Doylewrote about the Andaman Islands in hisSherlock Holmes novel The Sign of the Four.

New theories are still being posited one full week after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing on March 8. Was ita hijacking? An act of terrorism? Or did the aircraft, which was carrying 239 passengers, just crash? On March 14, new data was reported that seemed to confirm the last possibility, that Flight 370 plunged into the sea after making awayward turn towards the Indian Ocean.

The newly revealed claim that the Boeing 777 changed its course and began flying towards the Indian Ocean (afterits transponders had been switched off) seems to support the theory that this is a case of hijacking.

Analysts from U.S. Intelligence, the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board have tracked satellite data and pings in the Indian Ocean area that they attribute to Flight 370. And without any visual confirmation of the aircraft, there is only one grim conclusion to make: There is probably a significant likelihood that the aircraft is now at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, an official said, according to CNN.

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Andaman Islands: 5 Things About The Place Flight 370 Could Have Landed

UPDATE 1-India scours jungle islands for lost Malaysian jetliner

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* Planes and helicopter find no trace of missing flight yet

* Largely uninhabited islands known for dense forest

* Operation 'like finding a needle in a haystack' (Adds fire on North Sentinel island)

By Sanjib Kumar Roy

PORT BLAIR, India, March 14 (Reuters) - Indian aircraft on Friday combed Andaman and Nicobar, made up of more than 500 mostly uninhabited islands, for signs of a missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner that evidence suggests was last headed towards the heavily forested archipelago.

Popular with tourists and anthropologists alike, the islands form India's most isolated state. They are best known for dense rainforests, coral reefs and hunter-gatherer tribes who have long resisted contact with outsiders.

The search for lost Flight MH370 has expanded dramatically in the past week but failed to locate the plane or any wreckage, making it one of the most baffling mysteries in aviation history.

Initially focused northeast of Malaysia, search operations took a new turn after Malaysia's air force chief said military radar had spotted an unidentified aircraft, suspected to be the lost Boeing 777, to the west of Malaysia early on March 8.

On Thursday, two sources told Reuters the unidentified aircraft appeared to be following a commonly used navigational route that would take it over the Andaman and Nicobar islands.

The Indian Navy has deployed two Dornier planes to fly across the island chain, a total area of 720 km (447 miles) by 52 km (32 miles), Indian military spokesman Harmeet Singh said in the state capital, Port Blair. So far the planes, and a helicopter searching the coast, had found nothing.

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UPDATE 1-India scours jungle islands for lost Malaysian jetliner

Critical Role of One Gene to Our Brain Development

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Newswise Research from the University of Adelaide has confirmed that a gene linked to intellectual disability is critical to the earliest stages of the development of human brains.

Known as USP9X, the gene has been investigated by Adelaide researchers for more than a decade, but in recent years scientists have begun to understand its particular importance to brain development.

In a new paper published online in the American Journal of Human Genetics, an international research team led by the University of Adelaide's Robinson Research Institute explains how mutations in USP9X are associated with intellectual disability. These mutations, which can be inherited from one generation to the next, have been shown to cause disruptions to normal brain cell functioning.

Speaking during Brain Awareness Week, senior co-author Dr Lachlan Jolly from the University of Adelaide's Neurogenetics Research Program says the USP9X gene has shed new light on the mysteries of brain development and disability.

Dr Jolly says the base framework for the brain's complex network of cells begins to form at the embryo stage.

"Not surprisingly, disorders that cause changes to this network of cells, such as intellectual disabilities, epilepsy and autism, are hard to understand, and treat," Dr Jolly says.

"By looking at patients with severe learning and memory problems, we discovered a gene - called USP9X - that is involved in creating this base network of nerve cells. USP9X controls both the initial generation of the nerve cells from stem cells, and also their ability to connect with one another and form the proper networks," he says.

"This work is critical to understanding how the brain develops, and how it is altered in individuals with brain disorders.

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Critical Role of One Gene to Our Brain Development

Scientists Spot New Obesity Gene

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Latest Diet & Weight Management News

WEDNESDAY, March 12, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists who identified a gene that appears to be strongly linked with obesity say their discovery could help efforts to find drug treatments for obesity and diabetes.

"Our data strongly suggest that [the gene] IRX3 controls body mass and regulates body composition," study senior author Marcelo Nobrega, an associate professor of human genetics at the University of Chicago, said in a university news release.

Although the research showed an association between the gene and obesity, it did not prove a cause-and-effect link.

The IRX3 gene was first pinpointed through an analysis of about 150 brain samples from people of European ancestry, according to the study, which was published online March 12 in the journal Nature.

To verify the role of IRX3 in obesity, the researchers created mice without the gene and found that they weighed about 30 percent less than normal mice. Much of this weight difference was due to reduced amounts of fat in the mice without the IRX3 gene.

"These mice are thin. They lose weight primarily through the loss of fat, but they are not runts," study co-author Chin-Chung Hui, a professor of molecular genetics at the University of Toronto, said in the news release.

"They are also completely resistant to high-fat diet-induced obesity," Hui said. "They have much better ability to handle glucose, and seem protected against diabetes."

The researchers also found that mice with altered function of the IRX3 gene in the hypothalamus -- the part of the brain that controls eating and energy output -- were as lean as mice that lacked the gene.

This suggests that the gene's activity in the hypothalamus controls body mass and composition in mice, and that genetic predisposition to obesity is wired in the brain, according to the study authors.

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Scientists Spot New Obesity Gene