Daily Archives: October 12, 2012

Policewoman's criminal love affair

Posted: October 12, 2012 at 7:17 am

Source: ONE News

A policewoman working as a jailer at an Auckland court formed a romance with a criminal over their shared interest in the Illuminati and the apocalypse, a court has been told.

Karis Rewa Charnley, 39, appeared in the North Shore District Court yesterday to defend charges of supplying her police uniform to her boyfriend, Cameron Ross, who used it to steal a red Mitsubishi Evo.

Charnley testified that she exchanged numbers with Ross in October 2011 after meeting him in the corridor of the North Shore District Court where he was waiting to have his 24-hour bail curfew relaxed.

"He was sitting by himself, I felt sorry for him so I said hello," she said.

Six weeks later, Charnley met Ross at the caravan park he was bailed to, where they had sex, but in the coming weeks the relationship started becoming abusive.

She was suspended from the police in mid-December after she was found to have "had an inappropriate relationship with a criminal and his family".

It was alleged Ross used the uniform to impersonate a police officer to steal the car from a Devonport address on February 8, claiming it had been used in a hit and run.

Charnley originally faced charges of theft and impersonation but these were withdrawn and the new charges re-laid.

The car belonged to Jerome Kino who had built the car up with his father and had insured it for $11,000.

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Casey Anthony Linked to Illuminati in Zany Lawsuit

Posted: at 7:17 am

A whacked-out woman from Pennsylvania is suing Casey Anthony for $3 billion, and alleging the "Tot Mom" has deep ties to the mysterious Illuminati secret society.

The Illuminati was founded in the 18th century by German Adam Weishaupt, and is cited by conspiracy theorists as the organization which secretly orchestrates global events.

Riches apparently has many issues with Tot Mom, including her belief that Casey is in cahoots with talk show host Nancy Grace. These claims of course sound totally absurd, but it's so simple to file lawsuits in America, and there is really nothing judges can do about it. Unfortunately, the judicial system is always clogged with bizarre and frivolous lawsuits.

With Naomi Riches, it sounds like Casey has met her match in the crazy department. When you read the documents, it's difficult not to laugh at the bizarre accusations, although it's also pretty sad.

"Casey Anthony is an Illuminati actress who has used the summers 2009-2011 to mock and harass my current circumstances," the lawsuit states. "Casey Anthony called my house August 2011 and told me that my life was being exploited and that I was a hated nation wife, she told me she would come to my house in Fort Collins, Colorado and kill me just as they did Peggy Hettrick in 1987."

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LETTER: Feehan is the clear choice for gun owners

Posted: at 7:15 am

There is one candidate running for the 32nd state Senate District who will stand up for our Second Amendment rights, and thats Bill Feehan.

Feehan spoke up as a La Crosse County Supervisor when the board tried to ban law-abiding people from carrying guns into the public buildings. I want to thank Feehan for calling for a public hearing and opposing that ban.

Feehan has been a hunter and fisherman his whole life, and he has been endorsed by the National Rifle Association with an A rating. Feehan also has been endorsed by the United Sportsmen of Wisconsin.

Feehan supports concealed carry, which allows law-abiding people to exercise their most basic right to self-defense. Illinois is the only state left that doesnt have a similar law.

Feehan also supports the Castle Doctrine, a law that allows people to defend their home and family and not fear being prosecuted for it. Feehans positions stand is in stark contrast with those of his opponent.

We have a strong outdoors tradition in the Coulee Region, and protecting our Second Amendment rights is important. I applaud Feehan for standing strong for sensible rules and for being a voice for outdoorsmen. Thats why I encourage everyone to vote Feehan for state Senate.

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Gun groups split North Dakota political loyalties

Posted: at 7:15 am

FARGO The North Dakota U.S. House race has attracted dueling endorsements from the pro-gun lobby.

Pam Gulleson, the Democratic candidate, was recently endorsed by the National Rifle Association.

Meanwhile, Republican Kevin Cramer has picked up the backing of the Gun Owners of America, a more hard-line group on Second Amendment issues.

Gulleson, who from 1993 to 2009 represented District 26 in the state House, received an A rating for her voting record and stance on gun-rights and Second Amendment issues, the NRAs Political Victory Fund website states.

Public Service Commission member Cramer received an AQ rating from the NRA.

AQ means a candidate is recognized as pro-gun according to an NRA-PVF survey. But, it also indicates the group believes the candidate doesnt have a voting record on Second Amendment issues.

Cramers website touts the endorsement by the Gun Owners of America Political Victory Fund.

GOA-PVF gave Gulleson no rating and said on its website that she is careful to conceal her views on gun rights and did not answer their questionnaire.

GOA regularly differs with the NRA on endorsements and politician ratings, accusing the older group of being too soft on Second Amendment issues.

The NRA is backing Republican Senate candidate U.S. Rep. Rick Berg, giving him an A rating, while tagging his Democratic opponent Heidi Heitkamp with an AQ rating.

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Gun groups split North Dakota political loyalties

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Free speech restrictions at SteelStacks in Bethlehem may be put to test

Posted: at 7:15 am

A challenge may be mounted to the free speech restrictions at SteelStacks in Bethlehem after opponents heard from an expert today about the restrictions unconstitutionality.

Columbia Law School Professor Mark Barenberg said the provision disallowing labor-related gatherings and any activity offensive to Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem on city-owned property at SteelStacks could be overturned for a multitude of reasons.

Bethlehem officials have said they dont plan to enforce the provision that was included in a deed they signed with Sands to get the land for free. Barenberg told a crowd of 50 gathered at Lehigh University today that theyd have a winning case in either circumstance of the city enforcing or not enforcing the provision.

If the city enforced it, opponents would have a very strong first-amendment lawsuit because of the right to free speech on publicly-owned land, Barenberg said. If the city didnt enforce just one labor-related gathering on the property, it would legally nullify the entire provision, Barenberg said.

If they dont arrest you and throw you off, thats a huge victory, he said.

Lehighs South Side Initiative brought Barenberg to Bethlehem to lead a public forum on the free speech restrictions at SteelStacks. Initiative Director Seth Moglen said he and others have continued to be troubled by the restrictions since they were approved in June 2011.

Members of both the United Steelworkers and the American Civil Liberties Union said they were interested in testing the restrictions following Barenbergs talk. Joe Welsh, an ACLU member from Forks Township, said the groups local chapter has been monitoring the question of free speech at the city-owned land at SteelStacks for some time but needed more legal insight.

We are so grateful for the input and analysis given tonight, Welsh said.

The decision of whether to challenge the restrictions would be made by the state ACLU chapter, he said.

Some Lehigh Valley labor leaders have said theyre not worried about the speech restrictions because they dont think legally enforceable. United Steelworkers Local 2599 President Jerry Green, however, said hes grown more concerned about the restrictions the more he learns about them.

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Giller Prize nominee Alix Ohlin on writing, and reading

Posted: at 1:24 am

Here at Maclean's, we appreciate the written word. And we appreciate you, the reader. We are always looking for ways to create a better user experience for you and wanted to try out a new functionality that provides you with a reading experience in which the words and fonts take centre stage. We believe you'll appreciate the clean, white layout as you read our feature articles. But we don't want to force it on you and it's completely optional. Click "View in Clean Reading Mode" on any article if you want to try it out. Once there, you can click "Go back to regular view" at the top or bottom of the article to return to the regular layout.

Photography by Stephanie Noritz

Alix Ohlin, 40, moved around a lot in her life before she came to rest two years ago as a professor of creative writing at Lafayette College in Easton, Penn. But she was born and bred in Montreal, the city thats home to many of the characters in her novel Inside, shortlisted for the 2012 Scotiabank Giller Prize (and this years Rogers Writers Trust Fiction Prize). I feel very rooted there, in a place so particular and vibrant, she says in an interview. Wherever I go, I always identify as a Montrealer. The city, though, took a while to enter into Ohlins writing. In grad school, she was reluctant to set a story there, for fear her classmates, mostly American, wouldnt understand the references. I used a generic suburb instead, sort of like the one I grew up in, but it felt really wrong. One of the purposes of this novel was to go back to writing about Montreal in a way that felt truer to the memories I have of it, including the way people move back and forth between English and French. But Inside is far from being a novel of place, Ohlin agrees. Theres a line in it, she points out, that reads that some people are destined to leave a place and keep on leaving. The book moves from Montreal to New York to Iqaluit to Los Angeles. And to Kigali in Rwandathe one place in Inside where Ohlin herself has never beenduring the 1994 genocide. In a story about therapists and patients, the latter scarcely more psychologically damaged than the former, the Rwanda section is, in some regards, the entire novel writ small. The book is about rescue and the importance of attempting to helpwhether or not the attempts succeed, theyre central to our humanityand the Rwanda section was a way of writing that theme in an international way, to reflect and underscore how it unfolds in individual lives elsewhere in the novel. Here is Alix Ohlin on reading (and writing), followed by an excerpt from Inside:

Prince Edward Island in the 1870s. A mansion on Long Island during the roaring twenties. Mars in the early years of colonization.

Ive never been to any of these places, of course, but each of them feels like home to me. They were as much a part of my childhood as my actual house in Montreal, because they were the settings of books I loved. Anne of Green Gables, Jay Gatsby, the troubled explorers of The Martian Chronicles (to name just a few)these people populated my universe, kept me company, made me laugh and cry. Ive spent most of my life reading, blinking with confused surprise when I look up to discover that Im sitting in a chair, somewhere in the 21st century.

Writing for me is first and foremost an act of gratitude toward the books that have shaped my life and helped me make sense of the world. It is a way of participating in an ageless conversation, across culture and time, about what it means to be alive. The writer Iris Murdoch once said that the subject of her work was the otherness of other people, and to me this has always rung true. Literature gives us access to the interior lives of people different from ourselves, no matter where or when they live, in their fascinating, mysterious, even frustrating complexity. Its nothing short of miraculous.

When I first began writing, I would sometimes copy out, by hand, passages from books I particularly admired. I wanted to feel what it might have been like to build those sentences, clause by clause, word by word. I remember doing this with Herzog by Saul Bellow, a writer pretty remote from me in subject matter and style. It wasnt that I wanted to write exactly like Bellow, or the other writers I chose. I was trying to catch the music of their language, to understand how it led to such wit and perception and depth of humanity. I do this less often now, but a friend recently reminded me of another book I love, David Marksons Wittgensteins Mistress. I went back and looked at the opening line: In the beginning, sometimes I left messages in the street. I had to write it down, because it is so enigmatic and simple and sad. A sentence like that can break your heart: what an amazing thing for words on a page to do.

People sometimes ask me whether I get lonely, spending so much time by myself working. But I hardly ever do. I have all these books on my shelves, waiting to be read and reread. And I know that there are writers like me all around the world, hunched at their desks, each of them crafting singular, beautiful universes, telling stories about what it means to be alive.

*EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT*

Montreal, 1996

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Engineered flies spill secret of seizures

Posted: at 1:24 am

ScienceDaily (Oct. 11, 2012) Scientists have observed the neurological mechanism behind temperature-dependent -- febrile -- seizures by genetically engineering fruit flies to harbor a mutation analogous to one that causes epileptic seizures in people. In addition to contributing the insight on epilepsy, their new study also highlights the first use of genetic engineering to swap a human genetic disease mutation into a directly analogous gene in a fly.

In a newly reported set of experiments that show the value of a particularly precise but difficult genetic engineering technique, researchers at Brown University and the University of California-Irvine have created a Drosophila fruit fly model of epilepsy to discern the mechanism by which temperature-dependent seizures happen.

The researchers used a technique called homologous recombination -- a more precise and sophisticated technique than transgenic gene engineering -- to give flies a disease-causing mutation that is a direct analogue of the mutation that leads to febrile epileptic seizures in humans. They observed the temperature-dependent seizures in whole flies and also observed the process in their brains. What they discovered is that the mutation leads to a breakdown in the ability of certain cells that normally inhibit brain overactivity to properly regulate their electrochemical behavior.

In addition to providing insight into the neurology of febrile seizures, said Robert Reenan, professor of biology at Brown and a co-corresponding author of the paper in the Journal of Neuroscience, the study establishes

"This is the first time anyone has introduced a human disease-causing mutation overtly into the same gene that flies possess," Reenan said.

Engineering seizures

Homologous recombination (HR) starts with the transgenic technique of harnessing a transposable element (jumping gene) to insert a specially mutated gene just anywhere into the fly's DNA, but then goes beyond that to ultimately place the mutated gene into exactly the same position as the natural gene on the X chromosome. HR does this by outfitting the gene to be handled by the cell's own DNA repair mechanisms, essentially tricking the cell into putting the mutant copy into exactly the right place. Reenan's success with the technique allowed him to win a special grant from the National Institutes of Health last year.

The new paper is a result of that grant and Reenan's collaboration with neurobiologist Diane O'Dowd at UC-Irvine. Reenan and undergraduate Jeff Gilligan used HR to insert a mutated version of the para gene in fruit flies that is a direct parallel of the mutation in the human gene SCN1A that causes febrile seizures in people.

When the researchers placed flies in tubes and bathed the tubes in 104-degree F water, the mutant fruit flies had seizures after 20 seconds in which their legs would begin twitching followed by wing flapping, abdominal curling, and an inability to remain standing. After that, they remained motionless for as long as half an hour before recovering. Unaltered flies, meanwhile, exhibited no temperature-dependent seizures.

The researchers also found that seizure susceptibility was dose-dependent. Female flies with mutant strains of both copies of the para gene (females have two copies of the X chromosome) were the most susceptible to seizures. Those in whom only one copy of the gene was a mutant were less likely than those with two to seize, but more likely than the controls.

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Claim That Links Economic Success and Genetic Diversity Draws Criticism

Posted: at 1:24 am

Genoeconomists' use of population-genetic data to predict economic success is sparking a war of words, including charges of racism

By Ewen Callaway and Nature magazine

The United States has the right amount of genetic diversity to buoy its economy, claim economists. Image: D. ACKER/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY

Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...

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From Nature magazine

The invalid assumption that correlation implies cause is probably among the two or three most serious and common errors of human reasoning. Evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould was referring to purported links between genetics and an individuals intelligence when he made this familiar complaint in his 1981 book The Mismeasure of Man.

Fast-forward three decades, and leading geneticists and anthropologists are levelling a similar charge at economics researchers who claim that a countrys genetic diversity can predict the success of its economy. To critics, the economists paper seems to suggest that a countrys poverty could be the result of its citizens genetic make-up, and the paper is attracting charges of genetic determinism, and even racism. But the economists say that they have been misunderstood, and are merely using genetics as a proxy for other factors that can drive an economy, such as history and culture. The debate holds cautionary lessons for a nascent field that blends genetics with economics, sometimes called genoeconomics. The work could have real-world pay-offs, such as helping policy-makers to set the right level of immigration to boost the economy, says Enrico Spolaore, an economist at Tufts University near Boston, Massachusetts, who has also used global genetic-diversity data in his research.

But the economists at the forefront of this field clearly need to be prepared for harsh scrutiny of their techniques and conclusions. At the centre of the storm is a 107-page paper by Oded Galor of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and Quamrul Ashraf of Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It has been peer-reviewed by economists and biologists, and will soon appear in American Economic Review, one of the most prestigious economics journals.

The paper argues that there are strong links between estimates of genetic diversity for 145 countries and per-capita incomes, even after accounting for myriad factors such as economic-based migration. High genetic diversity in a countrys population is linked with greater innovation, the paper says, because diverse populations have a greater range of cognitive abilities and styles. By contrast, low genetic diversity tends to produce societies with greater interpersonal trust, because there are fewer differences between populations. Countries with intermediate levels of diversity, such as the United States, balance these factors and have the most productive economies as a result, the economists conclude.

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Nurture trumps nature in study of oral bacteria in human twins, says CU study

Posted: at 1:24 am

Public release date: 11-Oct-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Kenneth Krauter krauter@colorado.edu 303-492-6693 University of Colorado at Boulder

A new long-term study of human twins by University of Colorado Boulder researchers indicates the makeup of the population of bacteria bathing in their saliva is driven more by environmental factors than heritability.

The study compares saliva samples from identical and fraternal twins to see how much "bacterial communities" in saliva vary from mouth to mouth at different points in time, said study leader and CU-Boulder Professor Kenneth Krauter. The twin studies show that the environment, rather than a person's genetic background, is more important in determining the types of microbes that live in the mouth.

For the new study, doctoral student Simone Stahringer sequenced the microbial DNA present in the saliva samples of twins. She and the research team then determined the microbes' identities through comparison with a microbe sequence database. Saliva samples were gathered from twins over the course of a decade beginning in adolescence to see how salivary microbes change with time.

After determining the oral "microbiomes" of identical twins, who share the same environment and genes, and the microbiomes of fraternal twins who share only half their genes, the researchers found the salivary microbes of the identical twins were not significantly more similar to each other than to those of fraternal twins. "We concluded the human genome does not significantly affect which bacteria are living in a person's mouth," said Krauter of CU-Boulder's molecular, cellular and developmental biology department. "It appears to be more of an environmental effect."

Krauter said while the twin data from the oral microbiome study indicates that genetics plays a more minor role, it's possible the genes still affect the oral microbiome in more subtle ways -- an effect he plans to further explore.

A paper on the subject was published online Oct. 12 in the journal Genome Research. Other co-authors included doctoral student William Walters of MCD Biology, Jose Clemente and Rob Knight of the chemistry and biochemistry department, Robin Corley and John Hewitt of the Institute for Behavioral Genetics and Dan Knights, a former doctoral student in the computer science department.

The researchers also found that the salivary microbiome changed the most during early adolescence, between the ages of 12 and 17. This discovery suggests that hormones or lifestyle changes at this age might be important, according to the team.

Stahringer said that when several pairs of identical twins moved out of their homes and, for example, went off to college, the oral microbes they carried changed, which is consistent with the idea that the environment contributes to the types of microbes in the saliva. "We were intrigued to see that the microbiota of twin pairs became less similar once they moved apart from each other," Stahringer said.

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Nurture trumps nature in study of oral bacteria in human twins, study finds

Posted: at 1:24 am

ScienceDaily (Oct. 11, 2012) A new long-term study of human twins by University of Colorado Boulder researchers indicates the makeup of the population of bacteria bathing in their saliva is driven more by environmental factors than heritability.

The study compares saliva samples from identical and fraternal twins to see how much "bacterial communities" in saliva vary from mouth to mouth at different points in time, said study leader and CU-Boulder Professor Kenneth Krauter. The twin studies show that the environment, rather than a person's genetic background, is more important in determining the types of microbes that live in the mouth.

For the new study, doctoral student Simone Stahringer sequenced the microbial DNA present in the saliva samples of twins. She and the research team then determined the microbes' identities through comparison with a microbe sequence database. Saliva samples were gathered from twins over the course of a decade beginning in adolescence to see how salivary microbes change with time.

After determining the oral "microbiomes" of identical twins, who share the same environment and genes, and the microbiomes of fraternal twins who share only half their genes, the researchers found the salivary microbes of the identical twins were not significantly more similar to each other than to those of fraternal twins. "We concluded the human genome does not significantly affect which bacteria are living in a person's mouth," said Krauter of CU-Boulder's molecular, cellular and developmental biology department. "It appears to be more of an environmental effect."

Krauter said while the twin data from the oral microbiome study indicates that genetics plays a more minor role, it's possible the genes still affect the oral microbiome in more subtle ways -- an effect he plans to further explore.

A paper on the subject was published online Oct. 12 in the journal Genome Research. Other co-authors included doctoral student William Walters of MCD Biology, Jose Clemente and Rob Knight of the chemistry and biochemistry department, Robin Corley and John Hewitt of the Institute for Behavioral Genetics and Dan Knights, a former doctoral student in the computer science department.

The researchers also found that the salivary microbiome changed the most during early adolescence, between the ages of 12 and 17. This discovery suggests that hormones or lifestyle changes at this age might be important, according to the team.

Stahringer said that when several pairs of identical twins moved out of their homes and, for example, went off to college, the oral microbes they carried changed, which is consistent with the idea that the environment contributes to the types of microbes in the saliva. "We were intrigued to see that the microbiota of twin pairs became less similar once they moved apart from each other," Stahringer said.

Krauter said there appears to be a core community of oral bacteria that is present in nearly all humans studied. "Though there are definitely differences among different people, there is a relatively high degree of sharing similar microbial species in all human mouths," he said.

The authors say the new study has established a framework for future studies of the factors that influence oral microbial communities. "With broad knowledge of the organisms we expect to find in mouths, we can now better understand how oral hygiene and environmental exposure to substances like alcohol, methamphetamines and even foods we eat affect the balance of microbes," said Krauter.

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