Stephen Colbert offers a tip of the hat to NASA's Mars Rover

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NASA administrator and veteran astronaut John Grunsfeld appeared on the Colbert Report on Wednesday, where he discussed the planned landing of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, which is scheduled to land on the Red Planet on Sunday night.

Even TV comedian Stephen Colbert isn't immune to the excitement surrounding the historic upcoming landing of NASA's newest rover on Mars.

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The huge Mars Science Laboratory, also known as theCuriosity rover, is slated to touch down on the Red Planet on Aug. 5 at 10:31 p.m. PDT (1:31 a.m. EDT Aug. 6; 0531 GMT). The rover's thrilling descent through the Martian atmosphere is so complex that it has been nicknamed "theseven minutes of terror."

John Grunsfeld, a former veteran astronaut and NASA's associate administrator for science missions, spoke to Colbert about the Curiosity rover's landing Wednesday (Aug. 1), during an appearance on Comedy Central's hit late-night faux-conservative news show "The Colbert Report."

With the help of an animated video of Curiosity's landing, Grunsfeld detailed the steps involved in the rover's harrowing journey to the surface of Mars.

"As it enters the atmosphere, it will start slowing down," Grunsfeld explained. "It will reach about 10 Gs of acceleration."

Before setting its wheels down on the Red Planet, a supersonic parachute, followed by a rocket-powered sky crane, will help slow the rover's speed from more than 13,000 mph (21,000 kilometers per hour) to zero in only seven minutes. [Photos: Stephen Colbert Visits NASA]

"That's not science fiction that's really going to happen on Monday," Colbert said following the animation.

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Stephen Colbert offers a tip of the hat to NASA's Mars Rover

Will NASA's $2.5 billion Mars rover crash on Sunday?

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NASA's Curiosity Mars rover faces a terrifying seven-minute plunge through the Red Planet's atmosphere using a first-of-its-kind landing system involving a supersonic parachute and a 'sky-crane' that will lower the rover to the Martian surface.

Day by day, hour by hour, the tension is building. NASAs mega-mission to Mars and delivery of the Curiosity rover could be a smashing success or just smashing.

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The Mars Science Laboratorys 1-ton Curiosity rover is factory-equipped with science gear to delve into whether Mars ever was or might be today an eco-friendly setting able to sustain microbial life.

A seven-minute, terrorizing plunge through the planets atmosphere awaits the spacecraft. MSLs Curiosity rover is scheduled to touch down at Gale Crater at 10:30 p.m. PDT on Aug. 5 (1:30 a.m. EDT, 0530 GMT, Aug. 6).

At that moment, NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is to attempt imaging the final seconds of the robot's death-defying high dive.

"We will indeed be imaging the spot MSL is predicted to be about 60 seconds prior to landing, but the odds of capturing it are estimated at 60 percent," said Alfred McEwen at the University of Arizona in Tucson. He is principal investigator of the orbiter's super-powerful High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE). [Mars Rover Curiosity's Daring Landing in Pictures]

"The chips are really down on this one," said Robert Zubrin, president of the Mars Society, which is dedicated to the human exploration and settlement of Mars.

"If it succeeds, it will be far and away the best Mars mission ever. It will make extraordinary scientific discoveries and fire the public's imagination with the vision of exploring another world," he told SPACE.com.

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Will NASA's $2.5 billion Mars rover crash on Sunday?

NASA Marking Historic Mars Rover Landing with Flurry of Events

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NASA's car-size Curiosity rover is days away from its high-stakes landing on Mars, and a host of planned events will allow people to follow along as the spacecraft makes its thrilling journey to the surface of the Red Planet.

After traveling through space for about 8.5 months, Curiosity (also called the Mars Science Laboratory) is scheduled to touch down on Mars on Aug. 5 at 10:31 p.m. PDT (1:31 a.m. EDT Aug. 6; 0531 GMT).

The rover will descend to the surface attached to a rocket-powered sky crane, which will be used to slow the spacecraft's speed from more than 13,000 miles per hour (21,000 kilometers per hour) to zero as it flies through the Martian atmosphere. This unprecedented landing is so complex that it has been nicknamed "the seven minutes of terror."

"The Curiosity landing is the hardest NASA robotic mission ever attempted in the history of exploration of Mars, or any of our robotic exploration," John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science missions, said in a recent news briefing.

Curiosity is equipped with a suite of 10 instruments to investigate whether Mars is, or ever was, a suitable place to host microbial life. The rover's nail-biting landing on Mars, coupled with its intriguing mission, could garner wide interest in the $2.5 billion endeavor, NASA officials said. [Photos: How Mars Rover Curiosity's Landing Works]

It also helps that the high-profile landing happens to fall during a time when more people, particularly students, are able to pay close attention, Grunsfeld said.

"Given that we are in the heart of summer, there's a real opportunity to achieve tremendous broad public engagement on this adventure on Mars," he said.

NASA is planning a host of events for educational outreach and to build awareness about the mission among the public.

"We're going to engage summer camps, science centers, our NASA centers," Grunsfeld said. "In fact, all around the world, people will be following the Mars Science Laboratory landing and the subsequent adventures of the Curiosity rover."

The agency is hosting its first-ever multi-center social media event tomorrow (Aug. 3). The simulcast event will connect seven NASA centers, including the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., the mission control epicenter for the Mars Science Laboratory mission.

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European researchers identify materials at the nanoscale

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Spanish and German researchers have made a new instrumental development that solves a key materials science and nanotechnology question: how to chemically identify materials at the nanometre scale.

One of modern chemistry and materials science's main goals is to achieve the non-invasive chemical mapping of materials with nanometre-scale resolution.

Although a variety of high-resolution imaging techniques currently exist, such as electron microscopy or scanning probe microscopy, their chemical sensitivity cannot meet the demands of modern chemical nano-analytics. And despite the high chemical sensitivity offered by optical spectroscopy, its resolution is limited by diffraction to about half the wavelength, thus preventing nano-scale-resolved chemical mapping.

But now the European team has come up with a new method called Nano-FTIR, as they explain in the journal Nano Letters.

Nano-FTIR is an optical technique that combines scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscopy (s-SNOM) and Fourier Transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy.

The team illuminated the metallised tip of an atomic force microscope (AFM) with a broadband infrared laser, and analysed the backscattered light with a specially designed Fourier Transform spectrometer. This meant they could demonstrate local infrared spectroscopy with a spatial resolution of less than 20 nanometres.

Lead study author Florian Huth from Spanish research centre nanoGUNE, based in San Sebastin, comments: 'Nano-FTIR thus allows for fast and reliable chemical identification of virtually any infrared-active material on the nanometer scale.'

To boot, nano-FTIR spectra match extremely well with conventional FTIR spectra. The spatial resolution is increased by more than a factor of 300 compared to conventional infrared spectroscopy.

Rainer Hillenbrand, also from nanoGUNE, says: 'The high sensitivity to chemical composition combined with ultra-high resolution makes nano-FTIR a unique tool for research, development and quality control in polymer chemistry, biomedicine and pharmaceutical industry.'

For example, nano-FTIR can be applied for the chemical identification of nano-scale sample contaminations.

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Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers Goes to Penn Medicine Researcher

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PHILADELPHIA A physician from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has received the highest honor bestowed by the United States Government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers. Peter Reese, MD, MSCE, assistant professor of Medicine and Epidemiology, received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers for "innovative work on ethical approaches to expanding access to organ transplantation."

"I feel very grateful to receive this award. I owe a great deal to my mentors and collaborators at Penn for their support," said Dr. Reese. "I hope that the award will direct attention to the pressing need to increase organ donation and reduce waiting times for transplants."

Dr. Reese, who takes care of kidney transplant recipients and living kidney donors, received the PECASE award for his efforts to develop effective strategies to increase access to kidney and liver transplantation. He uses tools from epidemiology, biostatistics, health services research and medical ethics to describe disparities in transplantation and methods to overcome them. Through policy development work with the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), his work helps to translate clinical research into effective national policy.

Dr. Reese's research was among the first to examine the practice and ethical implications of accepting live kidney donors with risk factors for kidney disease. He has written specifically about barriers to live donor transplantation, the use of kidneys from deceased donors at increased risk of HIV and other blood-borne viral infection, and the implications of proposed organ allocation systems for the elderly.

Dr. Reese's research efforts have been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the American Society of Transplantation, a T. Franklin Williams Award in geriatric research (co-sponsored by the Association of Specialty Professors and the American Society of Nephrology), and the Leonard Davis Institute.

For more information on the award, please see the press release from The White House.

###

Penn Medicine is one of the world's leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. Penn Medicine consists of the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (founded in 1765 as the nation's first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which together form a $4.3 billion enterprise.

The Perelman School of Medicine is currently ranked #2 in U.S. News & World Report's survey of research-oriented medical schools. The School is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $479.3 million awarded in the 2011 fiscal year.

The University of Pennsylvania Health System's patient care facilities include: The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania -- recognized as one of the nation's top "Honor Roll" hospitals by U.S. News & World Report; Penn Presbyterian Medical Center; and Pennsylvania Hospital the nation's first hospital, founded in 1751. Penn Medicine also includes additional patient care facilities and services throughout the Philadelphia region.

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Vet medicine supplier fined

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A VETERINARY medicine supplier, Ceva Animal Health (formerly Nature Vet), was convicted last week on two counts under Australias agvet chemical laws for supplying veterinary antibiotics contrary to their permit conditions.

Under permit, Ceva was allowed to sell a combination of two antibioticsrifampicin and erythromycinunder very strict conditions to minimise the risk of antibiotic resistance developing. Both these antibiotics are important in human as well as animal medicine, with rifampicin being regarded as high importance in treating bacterial infections that are resistant to other antibiotics.

The APVMA uncovered the permit breaches through a compliance audit, following some irregularities identified through routine internal screening, said APVMAs Compliance Manager, Dr Jan Klaver.

Following Cevas guilty plea in the NSW Local Court, the court found the offences proven.

Ceva was convicted and fined $5000 for supplying the antibiotics contrary to requirements of Section 78 (1) of the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Code Act 1994.

The company was also convicted and fined a further $3000 for wrongfully supplying these antibiotics beyond their use-by date. Costs were also awarded to the APVMA.

The APVMA is actively monitoring compliance of agvet chemicals and their supply with relevant manufacturing, registration and permit conditions, Dr Klaver said.

We make no apologies for taking strong action against companies who take chances with these products and even more so when we are dealing with products that are so important to human medicine as well.

The combination of erythromycin and rifampicin is a treatment of choice for Rhodococcus equi infectionan important cause of pneumonia in foalswhich may become established as an endemic disease at breeding facilities.

Immuno-compromised people, such as transplant patients or those with HIV-AIDS may also be at risk of contracting R. equi infections.

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Commonwealth Medical college names new leader

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The Commonwealth Medical College has named a new leader.

Steven J. Scheinman, M.D., professor of medicine and pharmacology at SUNY Upstate Medical University, will become the second permanent president and dean of the region's only medical school.

Dr. Scheinman's appointment comes less than two months after the school received provisional accreditation and as the college continues to seek an affiliation with a hospital or another college to ease financial difficulties. He will also be charged with seeing the school's first class of students through their fourth year, with the college's first medical-degree graduation this spring.

He begins Sept. 10.

After the school's founding dean and president Robert D'Alessandri, M.D., abruptly resigned in April 2011, Lois Margaret Nora, M.D., served as interim president for one year. Robert Wright, M.D., has served in the interim role since the end of June.

Dr. Scheinman previously served as SUNY Upstate Medical University's senior vice president and dean of the College of Medicine. He earned international prominence for his research into the genetics of inherited kidney diseases and kidney stones, according to TCMC. He has been on the faculty at Upstate for nearly 30 years, during which he served as chief of the nephrology division in the department of medicine for 10 years where he doubled the size of the faculty and grew the dialysis program.

He received his medical degree with honors from Yale University and is board-certified in internal medicine and nephrology.

"After an extensive national search, Dr. Scheinman emerged as an exceptional leader with a strong and broad vision to advance the college's educational, administrative, and research activities in exciting new ways," Louis DeNaples, chairman of the college's board of trustees said in a statement from the school. "TCMC is extremely fortunate to have recruited a leader with Dr. Scheinman's outstanding talents and breadth of experience in medical education. His character is consonant with TCMC's mission and values."

Check back for updates.

Contact the writer: shofius@timesshamrock.com

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Lawsuit: Corpse was too fat for med school

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Published: Aug. 2, 2012 at 12:01 PM

NEW YORK, Aug. 2 (UPI) -- A New York family's lawsuit against a hospital alleges a medical school rejected a man's corpse for being too large.

The family of George Cardel filed a lawsuit after the 59-year-old man, who weighed about 300 pounds, was pronounced dead at Long Island Jewish Medical Center after suffering a heart attack Dec. 29, 2011, the New York Daily News reported Thursday.

The lawsuit alleges Cardel's last request was for his body to be donated to science, but the Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine at Hofstra University rejected the corpse for being too large and the hospital took 13 days to return the body, resulting in heavy decomposition that led to the body needing to be cremated.

"We thought everything was taken care of until 13 days later," said Cardel's sister, Maryann O'Donnell.

Officials at the hospital said they attempted to donate the corpse to multiple medical schools, but there were no takers.

The lawsuit alleges "grave humiliation."

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Lawsuit: Corpse was too fat for med school

Liberty University Strengthens Ties with Chick-fil-A: New Restaurant Location to Open on Campus with Second One Planned

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Liberty University has had a longstanding relationship with Chick-fil-A and shares its values as the world's largest Christian university. Founder S. Truett Cathy received an honorary doctorate degree at its Commencement in May and visited the campus when it first opened a Chick-fil-A in 2007. Today Liberty announced a new restaurant opening on campus on Aug. 16, with a second one being planned ...

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Liberty Energy Secures Acreage in Tx. Lease

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Liberty Energy Corp. has recently secured an average 97.9 percent working interest on over 626 acres in Caldwell, Texas.

The Company intends to target 3 main pay zones: the Dale Lime, Austin Chalk and Edwards. New field discoveries based on logged but undeveloped shows are also possible in the Salt Flat and Dale Lime fields. With the application of acid/fracture jobs and/or 'far-out perforating' it is believed that the Company could be able to increase production and possibly access undeveloped reservoirs that could produce at significantly higher daily rates and overall total production.

Typically there is between 2 and 160 acre spacing for well bores in this region. There are currently 385 operators (including Eagle Ford Oil Co., Inc., Luling O&G LLC and Texas Petroleum Investment Co.) and nearly 9,000 wells in Caldwell County. The Salt Flat oil field, (where the Company's 106 acre lease lies) in Caldwell County, is on a fault structure about 20 miles southeast of the main Balcones fault. The area is drained by the San Marcos River, and the main producing formation is the Edwards limestone of the Comanchean Cretaceous. The field is 7.5 miles long and averages about 0.5 mile wide. To date the field has produced over 34 million barrels of oil from a total of around 350 wells. It is further estimated that ultimate recovery will be approximately 30,000 barrels of oil per acre.

There is an old assumption that only the top five (5) feet of the Edwards is productive. However, new field information suggests that there are different producing intervals in the Edwards formation. These intervals are not separated by the normal shale intervals found in other producing formations, but are rather separated by chert layers in the limestone of the Edwards which reduce the permeability to zero. This raises a number of possibilities and traps for production from lower zones in the Edwards.

The Dale conformably overlies the Austin Chalk and is considered to be part of the Austin Group. The Dale Limestone, recognized in the Travis volcanic field east of Austin, is associated more closely with individual volcanic mounds. Dale carbonates are at several stratigraphic horizons on the flanks of mounds, reflecting alternating conditions of volcanism and reef growth. The Dale has reported thicknesses of as much as 423 feet and a mean thickness of about 58 feet.

"We are pleased to announce even more acreage into our Caldwell County and Texas portfolio; we are currently in the process of determining how best to explore this exciting lease and will provide further updates as soon as possible," commented Ian Spowart, CEO of Liberty Energy Corp.

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S.Africa's Liberty H1 profit up, eyes Ghana and Nigeria

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JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Liberty Holdings, Africa's third-largest life insurer by market value, posted an expected 43 percent rise in first-half earnings on Thursday and said it was looking for expansion opportunities in the western part of the continent. Liberty, majority owned by South Africa's Standard Bank, owns 50 percent on a Nigerian health insurer but wants more exposure to Africa's most ...

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Libertarian says he has enough signatures for ballot slot

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Moser

It's not really a race if there's only one person in it.

That's why Libertarian David Moser collected the 300 signatures he needed by Wednesday to run against Eugene DePasquale in the 95th House District.

"It's all about the options, really," Moser said.

Moser, 34, said he takes no real issue with DePasquale's performance as a state representative. Rather, he just wanted to give York City residents an option come November, particularly one that he believes will listen to Republicans and Democrats because "I get to be the common ground."

DePasquale was running unopposed in the 95th, but he is also the Democratic nominee for state auditor general. Republican Kyle King, who works in the district attorney's office, had announced his intention to challenge DePasquale in January but bowed out a few weeks later after being told his candidacy was a violation of the federal Hatch Act.

DePasquale has said he'll leave the 95th position if he wins auditor general and the 95th. A special election would have to take place in that event for the 95th. Moser acknowledged he'd have to start from scratch just like any other candidate at that point. But he's hoping the extra name recognition from being in the public eye this year will help.

Or, Moser said, people could vote for DePasquale for auditor general and Moser for the 95th, which would avoid the need for the special election cost to taxpayers and having the position vacant for a matter of months.

"Everybody gets what they want," Moser said.

DePasquale welcomed Moser to the now two-man race and said his legislative record shows he supports making it easier for people to get on the ballot.

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Gary Johnson, Libertarian

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Our story in Aug. 1 paper, Obama advisers see hope in 3rd parties, highlighted Gary Johnson, the nominee of the Libertarian Party. By coincidence, Johnson was in Seattle that day, and I spent 45 minutes with him.

The point of the story was that Johnson and another third-party candidate could draw away Romney votes in key states and hand the election to Obama. That is possible. It is what Ralph Nader did to Al Gore in Florida in 2000.

I asked Johnson if the prospect of being the Nader of 2012 bothers him.

It doesnt bother me a bit, he said.

Johnson, 59, was a Republican because he is for balancing budgets without tax increases and cutting back on the welfare state. As the Republican governor of New Mexico 1995-2002, he says, he vetoed hundreds of spending bills.

New Mexico is a blue state, 47% Hispanic. Johnson won the governorship the first time with 49.8 percent of the vote in a race against an incumbent Democrat and a third-party Green. He won the second time with 54.5 percent. In 2008 he supported libertarian Republican Ron Paul for president, and in 2012 Johnson announced a run himself. He would have had Pauls supporters this year, except that Paul ran again and kept them for himself.

Johnson was shut out of most of the Republican presidential debates. He told me several media organizations said they would include anyone with 2 percent, or 4 percent, in certain pollsand those polls didnt include him. He still fumes about that. In one case, he said, he had a 4 percent poll and was left out anyway. And without media attention, his campaign died.

Regrettably, you cant crawl out from under a culvert and run for president of the United States, Johnson says. (Maybe thats not so regrettable. I've had to listen to some culvert crawlers, and there is something to be said for shunning them.)

Late last year Johnson suspended his campaign as a Republican and went over to the Libertarians, who were glad to have him. In 2008 for president they ran another former Republican, Georgia ex-Rep. Bob Barr, but Barr had been a drug warrior not too long before and a lot of Libertarians had to hold their noses to accept him. Johnson is quite liberal on civil liberties. In an ACLU ranking on civil liberties, Johnson was rated good on 21 of 24 questions, which was higher than Ron Paul (18) or Barack Obama (16). On that survey, the ACLU rated Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney at zero.

Johnson famously came out for legalization of marijuana when he was governor. Thats a radical position for a Republican, but not for Libertarians, whose standard position is to legalize them all. So I asked him: What about methamphetamine? I can imagine marijuana being a commercial product; at a dispensary less than a mile from my house, it already is one. But how about meth? Could it ever be a product of a company that a business license, a street address, paid taxes, bought insurance, and was invited to membership in the Rotary Club? (My answer: no.)

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Gary Johnson, Libertarian

'Night in the Islands' serves up Greek culture Saturday in Tarpon Springs

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TARPON SPRINGS "Night in the Islands," a free city-sponsored event, returns this Saturday with Greek music, dancing and food on the Sponge Docks.

The event is held the first Saturday of each month from 6 to 11 p.m. along Dodecanese Boulevard between Hope and Athens streets.

Saturday's event features live music by Ellada, a band that performs nisiotika, the lively traditional music of the Greek islands, as well as old and new Greek tunes.

"The live band plays from 7 to 11, and the tables start filling up around 6 despite the heat," said Tina Bucuvalas, Tarpon Springs' curator of arts and historical resources. "When the sun goes down, it's really quite pleasant out there by the river. Restaurants put tables by the docks, and a lot of the dancing is in the street."

"It's very culturally Greek. People say it's kind of like a village celebration. It's as close as you can get to being in Greece."

Night in the Islands also will be held on Sept. 8, Oct. 6 and Nov. 3.

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'Night in the Islands' serves up Greek culture Saturday in Tarpon Springs

Third asylum boat intercepted near Cocos Islands

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An asylum seeker boat carrying six people has been intercepted near the Cocos Islands.

Customs says those on board have been taken ashore for health and security checks.

They will then be transferred to Christmas Island.

The boat ,which was spotted by an RAAF surveillance aircraft, is the third to be found in the area in the past day.

Yesterday a boat carrying 67 Tamil at the Cocos Islands.

The boat was 200 metres from the Cocos Islands when four of the men onboard swam ashore.

The first boat, carrying 28 asylum seekers, had been intercepted west of the islands early on Wednesday.

The asylum seekers from those boats are in custody and will also be transferred to Christmas Island.

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Storm closing in on Windward Islands

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Published: Aug. 2, 2012 at 5:07 PM

MIAMI, Aug. 2 (UPI) -- A tropical depression strengthened into Tropical Storm Ernesto heading for the Windward Islands in the Caribbean, U.S. forecasters said Thursday.

At 5 p.m. EDT the storm was 295 miles east of the Windward Islands moving west at 22 mph, sporting maximum winds of 50 mph, the National Hurricane Center in Miami reported.

The center said the storm should be near the Windward Islands Friday.

A tropical storm watch had turned into a warning for Barbados, St. Vincent, the Grenadines, Dominica, St. Lucia, Martinique and Guadeloupe.

The center predicted 2 to 3 inches of rainfall across the Windward Islands Friday.

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Genetic copy-number variants and cancer risk

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Public release date: 2-Aug-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Elisabeth Lyons elyons@cell.com 617-386-2121 Cell Press

Genetics clearly plays a role in cancer development and progression, but the reason that a certain mutation leads to one cancer and not another is less clear. Furthermore, no links have been found between any cancer and a type of genetic change called "copy-number variants," or CNVs. Now, a new study published by Cell Press in The American Journal of Human Genetics on August 2 identifies CNVs associated with testicular cancer risk, but not with the risk of breast or colon cancer.

Some cancers, including breast and colon cancer, are caused by mutations that are passed from one generation to the next. However, most cancers, including testicular cancer, are sporadicthey arise without a family history of cancer. Many of these sporadic cancers result from genetic mutations in germ cellsthe cells involved in reproductioneven though neither parent has the mutation. Scientists call these "de novo" mutations.

In order to identify rare de novo mutations associated with cancer risk, Dr. Kenneth Offit and colleagues searched for CNVs, which are duplications or deletions of one or more sections of DNA, in cancer patients and their cancer-free relatives. They found a significant increase in the number of rare de novo CNVs in individuals with testicular cancer as opposed to breast or colon cancer. Although such CNVs have been associated with autism and other neurocognitive and cardiovascular disorders, they were not previously known to be associated with cancer.

The authors propose that de novo changes (as opposed to those inherited from parents) might be indicative of conditions that have traditionally resulted in reduced fertility. Although modern treatment regimens allow more than 90% of men with testicular cancer to live long and reproductive lives, the condition traditionally left affected men childless. "We speculate that the paradigm of a de novo germline disease etiology may be less applicable to late-onset cancers," says Offit, "in part explaining the lower frequency of de novo events we found in adult-onset breast and colon cancer cases." Pinpointing the specific genetic changes that lead to cancer development will improve the understanding of the origins of cancer, leading to new treatment strategies and ultimately easing the burden on those afflicted with these diseases.

###

Stadler et al.: "Rare De Novo Germline Copy-Number Variation in Testicular Cancer."

ABOUT THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN GENETICS

The American Journal of Human Genetics (AJHG) is ASHG's official scientific journal, published by Cell Press. AJHG is the most highly regarded peer-reviewed journal dedicated to studies in human genetics and earned an impact factor of 11.680 in 2011. AJHG provides cutting-edge research and review articles related to genetics and genomics and the application of genetic principles in health, disease, medicine, population studies, evolution, and societal impacts. For more information about AJHG, visit: http://www.ajhg.org.

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Republicans grill IRS commissioner on health care

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- House Republicans on Thursday grilled the head of the Internal Revenue Service on the agency's decision to apply the health care law's tax credits in states that decide not to carry out a key provision of the statute.

Commissioner Douglas Shulman defended the IRS rule that applies the tax credits to federal insurance exchanges, which are the bodies that will be developed to allow those without health insurance to buy it. He testified at a House hearing.

The issue is a new controversy over President Barack Obama's health care law. Several states already have decided not to establish their own insurance exchanges. In those states, federal exchanges would be created.

The credits would help consumers pay for private insurance beginning in 2014.

The IRS had to decide whether the credits would be available in the entire country regardless of whether states or the federal government ran the exchanges.

"Congress writes the laws and we interpret them. If you disagree, there's always the courts," Shulman told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Overall, Shulman said the tax agency will be ready in 2014 to fulfill its new role of providing tax breaks and incentives to help pay for health insurance. The IRS would impose penalties on some people who don't buy coverage and on some businesses that don't offer it to employees.

During the hearing, Shulman tangled with Rep. Scott DesJarlais, R-Tenn., a physician. DesJarlais accused the IRS of bypassing Congress by trying to expand the subsidies when the law gave the tax agency no authority to do so. "You're trying to twist" the law, he said.

Shulman responded that IRS lawyers "look at the statute and come up with the best interpretation."

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office and the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation have interpreted the law in the same way as the IRS.

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