The good news: we're back at our regular time today. The great news: the man, the myth and the legend, Richard Lai, will be joining Myriam Joire and Brad Molen from the other side of the Pacific on this week's edition of the Engadget Mobile Podcast. We'll talk to him about his behemoth review of the ASUS Padfone and pick his brain on the rest of this week's wireless news. So meet us back here at 5PM ET and we'll have a great time. Hopefully you will too.
Within the next few decades, ocean acidification ? an effect of global warming ? could leave sea creatures along the West Coast unable to maintain their protective shells, according to a new study.
By Pete Spotts,?Staff writer / June 14, 2012
A couple sits on a park bench and watches the setting sun on the Pacific Ocean in Encinitas, Calif., June 5.
Mike Blake/Reuters
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Over the next few decades, coastal waters off of California, Oregon, and Washington are in danger of becoming acidic enough to harm the rich fisheries and diverse marine ecosystems there, according to a new study. Blame it on global warming's evil twin.
The process changing the seas' chemistry has been dubbed "ocean acidification." It refers to the impact that rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are having on seawater. CO2 levels are increasing as humans burn fossil fuel and change land-use patterns. The oceans absorb up to 26 percent of those emissions ? a number that is expected to go up as the Arctic Ocean loses more of its summer sea-ice cover.
By 2050, the team conducting the study estimates, more than half the near-shore waters governed by the California Current system are likely to become so acidic throughout the year that many shell-building organisms will be unable to maintain their armor?. That point could come within the next 20 to 30 years for some sea-floor habitats on the continental shelf, the researchers estimate.
While the team anticipated it would see marine conditions deteriorate with rising atmospheric CO2 levels, "I was really surprised to see how quickly some of these changes will be occurring," says Nicolas Gruber, a biogeochemist at the Swiss Institute of Technology in Zurich who led the team.
The team "points out fairly clearly that if it wasn't for anthropogenic carbon, we wouldn't be passing that tipping point" from encroaching, acidic water, says Richard Feely, a senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in in Seattle. "That's a very important part of that paper."
Although the study doesn't directly address the question of which creatures get hit hardest first, the team does suggest that other studies indicate oysters could be vulnerable, especially as juveniles. Still, the team acknowledges that some organisms are hurt by even small changes in acidity, while others can tolerate larger changes, at least for relatively short periods of time.
The results were posted Thursday on ScienceExpress, the online outlet for research journal Science. Science will publish the results in paper form later.
A delicate environment
To some, the phrase "ocean acidification" may trigger visions of house keys melting in the surf. While the changes are more subtle than that, at least on a human scale, they can harmful to many forms of marine life.
As CO2 dissolves in the ocean, seawater gradually acidifies. Shell-building marine creatures ? ranging from tiny plankton to headliners for bouillabaisse and bisque ? have a far more difficult time building and maintaining their protective shells. The tiny creatures that build coral reefs also have a harder time drawing on the chemical construction materials once available to them.
In this new research, Dr. Gruber's team conducted modeling studies of the effect that rising CO2 levels are likely to have on ocean chemistry along a stretch of coastline influenced by the California Current system, which runs from that runs long the West Coast from British Columbia through the southern end of Baja California. The area the team focused on stretches from Point Conception, near Santa Barbara, northward to the California-Oregon border.
Politics: it's not a game, exactly. But there are rules, and when you?break them you are running?.Politically Foul!
Colin Powell: retired 4-star General, Secretary of State, suggested?Presidential Candidate and....future pop star? Appearing on CBS This?Morning with Gayle King, the former Cabinet Secretary used a?commercial break to drop his rendition of Carly Rae Jepsen's hit "Call?Me Maybe." Powell even went so far as to break out some signature?dance moves showing that while the Retired General may have given up?the march, he will never lose his need to boogie.
Speaking of kicking it old school, Ragin' Cajun James Carville had?some advice for President Obama this week warning that when the White?House talks, "people take that as a signal that [the Obama?administration] thinks things are fine." Hold on?flashback to 1994?when then-aide David Axelrod had this advice for President Clinton:?"When you stand up and claim great progress, you are only alienating?this frustrated middle class." If only he had a Mr. Fusion and a way?to reach 88 MPH, he could fire up a DeLorean and we might not be in?this mess!
Campaigns are doing all they can to woo the all-important Hispanic?vote. Consider Exhibit A: the RNC's Spanish language website?RNCLatino.com. Only one problem?the kids featured in that photo on top?of the site? They're Asian. Despite the potential of chalking this one?up to color-blindness, the RNC put the blame on an outside vendor and?quickly took the picture down.
From the outside, Presidential campaigns look glamorous?they travel to?foreign capitals, ride in motorcades with lots of guys with?earpieces?but at the end of the day it's the regular people, yes those?darn voters who live in the unglamorous towns, that make or break a?campaigns. During a campaign stop at a small-town Iowa caf? this week,?Republican nominee Mitt Romney and his staff were not exactly the most?gracious of guests at Diane Bauer's Main Street caf?. Ms. Bauer says?the Romney campaign threw the tablecloths out the back door in?addition to damaging other items in the diner and she didn't even get?to meet the Presidential hopeful.? Although he apologized, maybe next?time Romney will be better off with carry out.
Those are the political blunders we flagged this week. Tell us your?best and worst moments and we'll survey the field again next week.
When you decide to go into business, you assume the risk and implicitly know you?ll have your fair share of mistakes. You?ll find that some mistakes are totally unforgiving and your business can go belly-up overnight. The beginner to all this is at a huge disadvantage because there is so much to find out about. Nevertheless, all online businesses will make an occasional mistake. If you don?t pay attention to your budget, even as a solo online marketer, then you?re headed straight for trouble. This is simply managing your money, and this is a critical part of running a successful business even if you are a one person operation. That?s why it?s a good idea to make a business or marketing plan so you can see everything that?s going on. When you are right in the very beginning, you need to get everything you need and you must shop wisely. Totally avoid the mistake of buying an ebook and then never reading it ? lots of people do that. Always ask yourself if the information you have about your marketing is complete before you implement it. Failing to plan properly includes knowing all the right facts before you pull the trigger. So before you get a lot of experience, make sure your knowledge is well rounded. It?s easy to make mistakes like these if you read something and feel confident but it?s not enough. The solution to this is finding information that takes you all the way from concept to completion. You have heard about doing your due diligence, and that applies to the learning information you are looking at. Sabotaging your efforts is rampant in all of our lives, and that extends to your business on the internet. You must develop a strong discipline because it will help you budget your money and not buy all the shiny objects. The nicest people will turn out to be out to rip you off, and you must take care if you are basically a trusting person. This situation can result in some painful and hard lessons for you to learn. Some folks learn from experience and others just don?t, so it?s really best to try and learn. One thing that can prevent a majority of mistakes is gathering as much knowledge from as many places as possible. If you were starting an offline business, you would probably be more careful so that should tell you something. This is about chances and odds, and your chances of doing something costly increase the less you know.
Tags: business, business mistakes, business online, internet, mistakes
Food, fun, and music were delivered as promised at the Twilight 5 K Run and Fitness Walk held downtown on Sunday, June 3rd. The skies were clear and the closed streets became a mini town square with bounce houses and climbing walls for kids. Area business folks and not for profit representatives in white tented informational booths greeted the crowds of bright spandex bedecked attendees pushing strollers or chatting with friends. Athletes of all shapes and sizes from Palm Beach to South Dade came together on a balmy summer evening for fitness, friends, and family.
Sponsored by Team Footworks and South Miami Hospital, Hans and Laurie Huseby host the fundraising event which caps the Footworks Fitness 101 season and will benefit After School House and the South Miami Police Explorers not for profit organizations.
?We have over 1300 people registered and it is really a great evening,? said Laurie Huseby moments before the starting gun went off for the 5K. ?This is our annual neighborhood fun run party for a good cause, it?s a wonderful event and another great year.?
Miami native Miguel Arbesu is a disabled Air Force veteran who just finished the Fitness 101 series and wanted to continue his wellness goals into the summer. ?My family has been encouraging me to get back into shape like I was in the 90?s,? said Arbesu. ?They are concerned that I am getting too obese and I?ve had some blood pressure and health problems.?
Based in Moreno Valley, California during his four years of active service in between the Gulf and Iraq Wars from 1992 to 1995, Arbesu was accompanied by his Veterans Affairs case worker Darryl Morrison. ?This day is about Miguel?s continued initiative to participate in a program he realizes will improve his quality of life,? said Morrison.
?We are here as part of a health and fitness program promoting an alternative to the use of medications for quality of life for our veterans. Through education Miguel is learning how this can help him and prevent many of the illnesses veterans are dealing with right now.?
With similar fitness goals, the Black Girls Run National Organization was represented by over 50 enthusiastic participants stretching out and warming up for the race while taking photos together, and catching up with friends. As part of a 20 day wellness challenge to prepare healthy meals, give up caffeine, and work out, the ladies from Broward and Miami-Dade Counties were cheering each other on.
?We have groups from Palm Beach to Miami,? said co-organizer Miriam Cato. ?Ladies from different areas unite a few days a week to exercise and events like this give us a chance to all get together. We are here to support women to be active and to motivate each other while addressing the high rates of obesity and inactivity in the community.?
?Whether it is to lose weight or sometimes gain weight depending on the concern, we are here to encourage walking, running and good health rather than sitting on the coach and eating,? added co-organizer Nathalie Caty. ?This event gives us an opportunity to support each other and a good cause.?
Team Footworks volunteer for over two decades, Bob Medina, was busy at the registration table getting the runners and walkers signed up and on their way. ?It is a chance to bring the old timers back together, for me it?s more of a party than a run.?
To find out more about Team Footworks not for profit organization visit www.teamfootworks.org
Short URL: http://www.communitynewspapers.com/?p=38229
ScienceDaily (June 14, 2012) ? The morphology of coelacanths has not fundamentally changed since the Devonian age, that is, for about 400 million years. Nevertheless, these animals known as living fossils are able to genetically adapt to their environment.
This is described by PD Dr. Kathrin Lampert from the RUB's Department of Animal Ecology, Evolution and Biodiversity along with colleagues from W?rzburg, Bremen, Kiel and Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) in the journal Current Biology. "Coelacanths are rare and extremely endangered. Understanding the genetic diversity of these animals could help make preservation schemes against their extinction more effective" says the biologist.
Different populations in Africa studied
Previous genetic studies focused mainly on the biological relationships of coelacanths to lungfish and and vertebrates. In order to assess whether the fish are still able to adapt to new environmental conditions, however, you have to know the genetic diversity within the species. For this purpose, the research team examined 71 specimens from various sites on the east coast of Africa. The researchers analysed genetic markers from the nucleus and from the mitochondria, the powerhouses of the cells.
Geographical differences in the genetic makeup
The data generally revealed low genetic diversity. As presumed, the evolution of these animals is only progressing slowly. Nevertheless, certain genetic patterns were only found in certain geographic regions. "We assume that the African coelacanth originally came from around the Comoros Islands, home to the largest known population" Lampert explains. Since then, however, two further, now independent populations have established themselves in South Africa and Tanzania. In addition, the animals around the Comoros belong to two genetically distinct groups. "We have thus been able to show that despite their slow evolutionary rate, coelacanths continue to develop and are potentially also able to adapt to new environmental conditions" says the RUB researcher. "The image of the coelacanth as a passive relic of bygone times should therefore be put into perspective."
Link between water and land
Coelacanths, Latimeria chalumnae, were regarded as extinct until Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer discovered a live specimen on a fishing boat in 1938. Since then, more than a hundred have been found off the coast of East Africa, most of them off the Comoros. There are probably only a few hundred specimens left in the world, which are seriously threatened with extinction. "Coelacanths are close relatives of the last common ancestor of fish and land vertebrates, and therefore of great scientific interest," says Kathrin Lampert. "By researching them, we hope to gain new insights into one of the major steps of evolution: the colonisation of land."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Ruhr-University Bochum.
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Journal Reference:
Kathrin P. Lampert, Hans Fricke, Karen Hissmann, J?rgen Schauer, Katrin Blassmann, Benjamin P. Ngatunga, Manfred Schartl. Population divergence in East African coelacanths. Current Biology, 2012; 22 (11): R439 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2012.04.053
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SHERBURN - On a beautiful Saturday morning, Dixie Crissinger and Dale Meckes, Sr., sat in her garage among tables covered in Tupperware containers, handmade blankets, children's items and exercise equipment as they watched both strangers and neighbors wander around hunting for a bargain.
The event was much like others taking place during Sherburn's city-wide garage sales, but signs set up in Dixie's garage and a basket for donations told shoppers this sale's proceeds were for more than just pocket money.
All proceeds went to the American Cancer Society in honor of Jarrett Meckes, Dale's son and Dixie's nephew.
Jarrett was just 13 years old and living with his mom and dad, two brothers and a sister, near Philadelphia, when his dad noticed he was losing his balance and seemed unusually tired.
"He didn't have no pep," Dale said.
Concerned, his parents took him to a couple doctors before receiving the devastating diagnosis - cancer on the brain stem.
"He was diagnosed on his mom's birthday, Oct. 6, 1997," Dale said.
Jarrett began cancer treatments right away, but by February, doctors gave him only two months to live.
But Jarrett was a fighter.
"When he heard that, he said, 'I am going to prove them wrong,'" Dale said, tears forming in his eyes. "He told us he was going to live to his 14th birthday."
Jarrett's birthday wasn't for six more months, on Aug. 3. Jarrett made it. He died two days later, on Aug. 5, 1998.
During his life, Jarrett enjoyed his visits to Winnebago to visit his mother's family.
"(Jarrett) made us promise we would move out here when he died," Dale said. "We moved to Blue Earth in 1998. He is buried in the Winnebago Cemetery."
In their grief, Dale and his wife, Claudine, participated in the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life that year.
"We both thought it was amazing," he said.
Since then, Dale has had two garage sales per year to raise funds for the walk.
When he isn't preparing for his own garage sales in Blue Earth, he scours other sales and auctions to find items he can resell. People know him and his story around town and will call him up to donate items to his sales.
"I take just about everything," he said. "Anything but clothing."
He said he has raised about $1,200 per year the last couple of years. His 10-year average is about $800 per sale.
If something doesn't sell after three or four sales, he will donate it to the Salvation Army or Epilepsy Foundation.
This year, when Dale's sister-in-law Dixie came across a few items she no longer needed and decided it was time for a sale, she knew where she would direct her proceeds.
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MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) ? Authorities searching for a man charged with fatally shooting three people near Auburn University swarmed a house Monday where they believe he's hiding, firing tear gas and sending a tactical team on forays inside.
Authorities arrived in the late afternoon, and investigators were still on the scene after midnight without bringing someone out of the house. Montgomery Mayor Todd Strange said they were going to continue to scour the attic, air conditioning ducts and "every crevice" of the house until they were satisfied.
Investigators said thermal imaging and other technology indicated a person was in the attic area of the house and that they'd heard coughing and movement. But after midnight, they acknowledged that they hadn't heard those noises for several hours. Strange said the next briefing was likely to come after daylight Tuesday.
The tactical team had searched the lower portions of the house and made deliberate moves into the attic where suspect Desmonte Leonard was believed to be hiding, said Montgomery Public Safety Director Chris Murphy. He declined to give a timetable for them to bring someone out.
"We are having to slowly put our people up there and do an inch-by-inch search," he said during a briefing several hours after police surrounded the house.
Police had hoped to flush out the person with tear gas and verbal commands, but sent in the tactical team after getting no response. They've used thermal imaging and other technology to narrow down what part of the attic he's in. The attic is cramped, complicating investigators' efforts.
"This is a pretty driven person. He's got nothing to lose," Murphy said. "You cannot rush it."
Murphy says investigators believe he's likely covered in insulation and suffering from the tear gas.
"He's got to be in a lot of pain," he said.
Dozens of police cruisers, trucks, fire vehicles and vans surrounded the house, located in a middle-class area a few miles from Alabama's Capitol.
Authorities received two 911 calls that someone who looked like suspect Leonard was in or near the house, Strange told reporters. One of the calls came from the owner of the home.
Police spokeswoman Regina Duckett said it appeared only one person was in the home. Authorities were able to hear coughing and movement in the house after the tear gas was used.
"I'm actually surprised he's still in there," she said.
Officers said they assumed Leonard is armed.
Authorities said Leonard was charged with three counts of capital murder in the shooting Saturday night during a pool party at University Heights apartments. He's also accused of wounding three others.
The dead included two former Auburn football players.
Earlier in the day police said they had arrested two men accused of hindering the search.
Auburn police said Jeremy S. Thomas, 18, of Montgomery was charged with hindering prosecution after he fled the scene of the shooting with Leonard. Records show Thomas was free on bond at the time of the Auburn shootings while awaiting a manslaughter trial set to begin June 18 in last year's shooting death of a teenager.
Montgomery police said Gabriel Thomas, 41, was also charged with hindering prosecution after having contact with Leonard after the shooting and providing false information to officers.
Police said it wasn't known whether Jeremy Thomas and Gabriel Thomas are related. Officers also were looking for a third man described as a person of interest in the case, but it wasn't clear why.
The dead included former Auburn players Edward Christian, who had to quit the team because of a lingering back injury; and Ladarious Phillips, who was transferring from Auburn to Jacksonville State University to play football. The other person killed was Demario Pitts, 20.
Of the three people who were wounded, current Auburn football player Eric Mack and Xavier Moss were both treated and released from a hospital. The third, John Robertson, remained in critical condition after being shot in the head.
A witness who identified himself as a friend of Pitts said he didn't know the man who pulled out a gun and began firing into the crowd following a dispute over a woman.
"I ain't never seen him a day of my life," said Turquorius Vines, 23, who wasn't injured in the melee.
Police arrested Leonard on two previous charges involving guns.
Court records show Montgomery police arrested Leonard in 2008 on a charge of carrying a pistol without a license, after stopping a suspected stolen vehicle and finding him inside. Documents available online didn't show whether the case was ever resolved, but Leonard was freed on bond within days.
Leonard was charged in 2009 with assault after a man was shot in the groin, but prosecutors dropped the case after the victim told authorities Leonard wasn't the shooter.
A Montgomery woman filed a paternity suit against Leonard on Friday that identified him as the father of a girl who turned 1 last month.
Another woman sued him in 2009 seeking unpaid child support for a girl who is now 4. A court ordered monthly payments of $305 by Leonard, who records show was working at a Walmart store at the time.
Auburn police said the shootings did not appear to have anything to do with some of the victims being former or current players on the football team, which won the national championship in 2010. The swimming pool at the apartment complex frequently is the site of parties.
___
Associated Press writers Phil Rawls in Montgomery and Jay Reeves in Birmingham contributed to this report.
Teaching autistic teens to cope Public release date: 12-Jun-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Mark Wheeler mwheeler@mednet.ucla.edu 310-794-2265 University of California - Los Angeles
Unique UCLA program that teaches social skills proves effective over long term
Teenagers with autism spectrum disorder are in a bind. The disorder is characterized by impairments in communication and social interaction, but it's a continuum, so some teens diagnosed with ASD are considered high functioning and healthy enough to be "mainstreamed" in school.
But without the proper social skills, even mainstreamed teens don't quite fit into the general social milieu of middle school or high school. As a result, they suffer from all the slings and arrows of that world.
Since 2006, however, the UCLA PEERS (Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills) clinic has assisted high-functioning teens with ASD by literally teaching them the strategies they need to fit in better with their peers. And while previous research demonstrated that the program was effective, it wasn't known whether the new skills "stuck" with these teens after they completed the PEERS classes.
In the current edition of the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, Elizabeth Laugeson, director of the PEERS Clinic and a UCLA assistant clinical professor of psychiatry, and colleagues report that in a long-term follow-up study, they found that the skills taught and learned stayed with the kids and in some cases even improved.
ASD includes a range of pervasive developmental disorders characterized by problems with communication and socialization; it's estimated that one in 88 children born in the United States has some form of ASD.
The researchers' findings show that the PEERS intervention resulted in significant improvements in social skills, as reported by parents and teachers using standardized measurements of social functioning. Reports from parents also suggested that teens' ASD symptoms related to social responsiveness decreased significantly by the end of the class and even at the long-term, 14-week follow-up. In addition, the teens' knowledge of social skills improved, as did the frequency of their get-togethers with their peers.
Teacher ratings of the teens' social functioning in class also showed significant improvements at the long-term follow-up an important finding, since the teachers did not know the teens had participated in the PEERS class.
Both parents and teachers also reported there were fewer problem behaviors with the teens 14 weeks after the program was over.
"Teens not only showed better social competence and greater understanding of social skills, but they were having more frequent get-togethers with their peers because they had developed the critical skills needed to make and keep friends," said Laugeson, who also directs The Help GroupUCLA Autism Research Alliance.
Studies on the effectiveness of social-skills training for individuals with ASD indicate that intervention during childhood and adolescence is critical. However, very few evidence-based interventions focus on improving the social competence of teens with ASD, which makes the present findings unique and important, Laugeson said.
"This is exciting news," she said. "It shows that teens with autism can learn social skills and that the tools stick even after the program is over, improving their quality of life and helping them to develop meaningful relationships and to feel more comfortable within their social world. The fact that these social skills are sticking is critical, because we need them to thrive throughout our lives."
Laugeson attributes the power of the program to the parents. The PEERS classes, which focus on teaching the rules of social etiquette to teens, require parents to participate as well. In separate meetings, the parents are also provided with information on how to be social coaches for their teens in the real world. Many of the social skills taught are those most of us know intuitively: how to have a conversation (by trading information), showing good sportsmanship ("Hey, nice shot!"), and how to avoid bullying or deflect taunts ("Yeah, whatever").
The classes meet for 90 minutes once a week for 14 weeks and include brief didactic instruction, role-playing demonstrations, behavioral rehearsal exercises for teens to practice newly learned skills, in-class coaching with performance feedback, and weekly "homework" assignments, supervised by parents, such as inviting a friend over for a get-together at home.
"The class is very structured, and the skills are broken down into small rules and steps of social etiquette that give the teens specific actions they can take in response to a social situation," Laugeson said. "This method of instruction is very appealing to teens with autism because they tend to think concretely and literally and often learn by rote."
What makes this program even more unique, Laugeson said, is that it teaches the skills used by socially accepted teens not what adults think teens should do. For example, if teens with ASD are teased, "most adults will tell teens to ignore the person, walk away or tell an adult," she said. "But when you ask teens if this works, they say no. So we want to teach our teens to do what kids that are socially accepted are naturally doing. In this case, that would be to give a short comeback that shows what the person said didn't bother them like saying 'whatever' or 'yeah, and?' They learn not to take the bait."
###
Other authors of the study included Fred Frankel, Alexander Gantman and Catherine Mogil, all of UCLA, and Ashley R. Dillon of the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology. The research was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (grants U54-MH-068172 and U54MH068172). The authors report no conflict of interest.
The Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS) is part of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, an interdisciplinary research and education institute devoted to the understanding of complex human behavior, including the genetic, biological, behavioral and sociocultural underpinnings of normal behavior and the causes and consequences of neuropsychiatric disorders.
For more news, visit the UCLA Newsroom and follow us on Twitter.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Teaching autistic teens to cope Public release date: 12-Jun-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Mark Wheeler mwheeler@mednet.ucla.edu 310-794-2265 University of California - Los Angeles
Unique UCLA program that teaches social skills proves effective over long term
Teenagers with autism spectrum disorder are in a bind. The disorder is characterized by impairments in communication and social interaction, but it's a continuum, so some teens diagnosed with ASD are considered high functioning and healthy enough to be "mainstreamed" in school.
But without the proper social skills, even mainstreamed teens don't quite fit into the general social milieu of middle school or high school. As a result, they suffer from all the slings and arrows of that world.
Since 2006, however, the UCLA PEERS (Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills) clinic has assisted high-functioning teens with ASD by literally teaching them the strategies they need to fit in better with their peers. And while previous research demonstrated that the program was effective, it wasn't known whether the new skills "stuck" with these teens after they completed the PEERS classes.
In the current edition of the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, Elizabeth Laugeson, director of the PEERS Clinic and a UCLA assistant clinical professor of psychiatry, and colleagues report that in a long-term follow-up study, they found that the skills taught and learned stayed with the kids and in some cases even improved.
ASD includes a range of pervasive developmental disorders characterized by problems with communication and socialization; it's estimated that one in 88 children born in the United States has some form of ASD.
The researchers' findings show that the PEERS intervention resulted in significant improvements in social skills, as reported by parents and teachers using standardized measurements of social functioning. Reports from parents also suggested that teens' ASD symptoms related to social responsiveness decreased significantly by the end of the class and even at the long-term, 14-week follow-up. In addition, the teens' knowledge of social skills improved, as did the frequency of their get-togethers with their peers.
Teacher ratings of the teens' social functioning in class also showed significant improvements at the long-term follow-up an important finding, since the teachers did not know the teens had participated in the PEERS class.
Both parents and teachers also reported there were fewer problem behaviors with the teens 14 weeks after the program was over.
"Teens not only showed better social competence and greater understanding of social skills, but they were having more frequent get-togethers with their peers because they had developed the critical skills needed to make and keep friends," said Laugeson, who also directs The Help GroupUCLA Autism Research Alliance.
Studies on the effectiveness of social-skills training for individuals with ASD indicate that intervention during childhood and adolescence is critical. However, very few evidence-based interventions focus on improving the social competence of teens with ASD, which makes the present findings unique and important, Laugeson said.
"This is exciting news," she said. "It shows that teens with autism can learn social skills and that the tools stick even after the program is over, improving their quality of life and helping them to develop meaningful relationships and to feel more comfortable within their social world. The fact that these social skills are sticking is critical, because we need them to thrive throughout our lives."
Laugeson attributes the power of the program to the parents. The PEERS classes, which focus on teaching the rules of social etiquette to teens, require parents to participate as well. In separate meetings, the parents are also provided with information on how to be social coaches for their teens in the real world. Many of the social skills taught are those most of us know intuitively: how to have a conversation (by trading information), showing good sportsmanship ("Hey, nice shot!"), and how to avoid bullying or deflect taunts ("Yeah, whatever").
The classes meet for 90 minutes once a week for 14 weeks and include brief didactic instruction, role-playing demonstrations, behavioral rehearsal exercises for teens to practice newly learned skills, in-class coaching with performance feedback, and weekly "homework" assignments, supervised by parents, such as inviting a friend over for a get-together at home.
"The class is very structured, and the skills are broken down into small rules and steps of social etiquette that give the teens specific actions they can take in response to a social situation," Laugeson said. "This method of instruction is very appealing to teens with autism because they tend to think concretely and literally and often learn by rote."
What makes this program even more unique, Laugeson said, is that it teaches the skills used by socially accepted teens not what adults think teens should do. For example, if teens with ASD are teased, "most adults will tell teens to ignore the person, walk away or tell an adult," she said. "But when you ask teens if this works, they say no. So we want to teach our teens to do what kids that are socially accepted are naturally doing. In this case, that would be to give a short comeback that shows what the person said didn't bother them like saying 'whatever' or 'yeah, and?' They learn not to take the bait."
###
Other authors of the study included Fred Frankel, Alexander Gantman and Catherine Mogil, all of UCLA, and Ashley R. Dillon of the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology. The research was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (grants U54-MH-068172 and U54MH068172). The authors report no conflict of interest.
The Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS) is part of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, an interdisciplinary research and education institute devoted to the understanding of complex human behavior, including the genetic, biological, behavioral and sociocultural underpinnings of normal behavior and the causes and consequences of neuropsychiatric disorders.
For more news, visit the UCLA Newsroom and follow us on Twitter.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
[ [ [['Connery is an experienced stuntman', 2]], 'http://yhoo.it/KeQd0p', '[Slideshow: See photos taken on the way down]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['Connery is an experienced stuntman', 7]], ' http://yhoo.it/KpUoHO', '[Slideshow: Death-defying daredevils]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['know that we have confidence in', 3]], 'http://yhoo.it/LqYjAX ', '[Related: The Secret Service guide to Cartagena]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['We picked up this other dog and', 5]], 'http://yhoo.it/JUSxvi', '[Related: 8 common dog fears, how to calm them]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['accused of running a fake hepatitis B', 5]], 'http://bit.ly/JnoJYN', '[Related: Did WH share raid details with filmmakers?]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['accused of running a fake hepatitis B', 3]], 'http://bit.ly/KoKiqJ', '[Factbox: AQAP, al-Qaeda in Yemen]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['have my contacts on or glasses', 3]], 'http://abcn.ws/KTE5AZ', '[Related: Should the murder charge be dropped?]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['have made this nation great as Sarah Palin', 5]], 'http://yhoo.it/JD7nlD', '[Related: Bristol Palin reality show debuts June 19]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['have made this nation great as Sarah Palin', 1]], 'http://bit.ly/JRPFRO', '[Related: McCain adviser who vetted Palin weighs in on VP race]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['A JetBlue flight from New York to Las Vegas', 3]], 'http://yhoo.it/GV9zpj', '[Related: View photos of the JetBlue plane in Amarillo]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['the 28-year-old neighborhood watchman who shot and killed', 15]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/white-house-stays-out-of-teen-s-killing-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/cv/ip/ap/default/120411/martinzimmermen.jpg', '630', ' ', 'AP', ], [ [['Titanic', 7]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/titanic-anniversary/', ' ', 'http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/b/4e/b4e5ad9f00b5dfeeec2226d53e173569.jpeg', '550', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['He was in shock and still strapped to his seat', 6]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/navy-jet-crashes-in-virginia-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/cv/ip/ap/default/120406/jet_ap.jpg', '630', ' ', 'AP', ], [ [['xxxxxxxxxxxx', 11]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/russian-grannies-win-bid-to-sing-at-eurovision-1331223625-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/1/56/156d92f2760dcd3e75bcd649a8b85fcf.jpeg', '500', ' ', 'AP', ] ]
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Despite being half its size, Finland actually surpassed Greece in first quarter GDP last year. What is Finland doing right, and what is Greece doing wrong?
By Stefan Karlsson,?Guest blogger / June 11, 2012
A replica of an ancient Drachma coin is pictured outside the Numismatic Museum, as the main building of the central Bank of Greece is seen in the background in Athens on Tuesday June 5, 2012. Greece's GDP lagged behind Finland's in the first quarter of 2012, despite being twice its size in population.
Dimitri Messinis/AP/File
Enlarge
Greece and Finland are both in the geographic eastern periphery of the euro area, except that Greece is in the south east and Finland is in the north east. In terms of population, though Greece is almost exactly twice as big as Finland, having 10.8 million people versus 5.4 million for Finland.
However. the most recent quarter, Finland actually surpassed Greece in terms of economic size, despite the fact that Greece has twice as big population. In the first quarter Greece had a GDP of??47.19 billion?versus ?47.42 billion for Finland. First quarter GDP was for seasonal reasons lower than usual in absolute terms in both Greece and Finland, but since the seasonal effect appears to be basically the same for both countries, this has little or no relevance for their relative position.
So despite being twice as many as the people of Finland, the Greeks can't produce more. To what extent this reflects bad behavior from the Greeks and to what extent it reflects good behavior from the Finlanders can be discussed, I for one think it reflects on both, though mostly the former.
The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best economy-related bloggers out there. Our guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs. To contact us about a blogger, click here. This post originally ran on stefanmikarlsson.blogspot.com.
Unfortunatly the time has come for this scraper to come down (seemingly it may come as a shock to some that this is not provided by the BBC). I wrote this back in 2005 and have modified it a couple of times since mainly so that I could more easily consume RSS on the move. In short, I no longer use it, I find consuming live news is not actually something an RSS reader does very well and I face a constant battle against sites trying to use these feeds to monetize BBC content and failing to pay any attention to etag or last modified headers (hello palin-pedia.com et al). Please update your RSS subscription as the last remenants of this will be removed soon , the official BBC RSS feed you are looking for is: http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_uk_edition/world/rss.xml
The Electronics Entertainment Expo is no place for the easily distracted, every inch of convention center carpet devoted to capturing the attentions of calloused video game journalists. In spite of the customary flash however, it's hard to come away from this year's festivals without a creeping sense of disappointment, that for all the showmanship, we didn't actually see all that much at E3 2012 -- an in-between year that seemed lackluster even by those standards.
It's diminishing to break such a show up into clearly delineated binaries like "winners" and "losers" certainly, but if impact can be measured by lasting buzz, Epic's certainly sitting pretty at the close of the event. It's telling, really, that Unreal Engine 4 generated some of the most excitement around the show. In a year when Sony and Microsoft are no doubt focused on churning out next generation consoles, one of the show's highlights came in the form of a gaming engine -- a backend on which the next generation titles will be built.
FILE - In this Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, file photo, former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is wheeled into court in Cairo, Egypt. An Egyptian security official says former president Hosni Mubarak has been slipping in and out of consciousness, more than a week after he was transferred to a hospital inside a Cairo prison to serve his life sentence. The official says Mubarak's wife, former first lady Suzanne Mubarak, and her two daughters-in-law were visiting him in prison Sunday morning June 10, 2012 after rumors circulated that he had died. (AP Photo/Mohammed al-Law, File)
FILE - In this Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, file photo, former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is wheeled into court in Cairo, Egypt. An Egyptian security official says former president Hosni Mubarak has been slipping in and out of consciousness, more than a week after he was transferred to a hospital inside a Cairo prison to serve his life sentence. The official says Mubarak's wife, former first lady Suzanne Mubarak, and her two daughters-in-law were visiting him in prison Sunday morning June 10, 2012 after rumors circulated that he had died. (AP Photo/Mohammed al-Law, File)
CAIRO (AP) ? Egypt's ailing former president Hosni Mubarak is slipping in and out of consciousness eight days after he was transferred to a hospital inside a Cairo prison to serve his life sentence, a security official said on Sunday.
In order to squash rumors of his death, authorities granted his wife, former first lady Suzanne Mubarak, and her two daughters-in-law special permission to visit him early on Sunday morning, according to the official who spoke from inside Torah prison.
Since then, he has suffered from an irregular heartbeat and required assistance in breathing. The official told The Associated Press that Mubarak lives only on liquids and yogurt. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Mubarak's health is reported to have collapsed since his June 2 conviction for failing to stop the killing of protesters during the uprising that overthrew him in 2011. His life sentence saw him transferred immediately to a prison hospital, instead of the military hospital and other facilities where he had been held since his April 2011 arrest.
Authorities have turned down several requests by Mubarak's family to transfer the ousted president back to a military facility, the official said.
On Saturday Mubarak's wife was denied access to the Intensive Care Unit where he was placed, as authorities limit family visitations to one a month.
According to security officials quoted by al-Masry al-Youm daily, Mrs. Mubarak lashed out at wardens for not giving her husband permission to seek treatment outside the prison. "You will be responsible for his death," she allegedly said.
Mubarak's two sons Alaa and Gamal are also being held. They were acquitted on June 2 of corruption charges, but still face separate charges of insider trading.
On Saturday, Egypt's state run news agency MENA quoted officials as saying that Mubarak is at risk of stroke, quoting a medical team's report.
Other media reports said that his lawyer Farid al-Deeb informed him that he will soon be transferred back to a military facility in the Cairo suburb of Maadi.
In his last public appearance on June 2, the bedridden Mubarak sat stoned-faced in the courtroom cage. However, officials said that he broke into tears when he learnt that he will be transferred to Torah's prison. It took officials hours to convince Mubarak to leave the helicopter that ferried him from the courthouse to the prison.
Media reports quoted Mubarak at the time as saying the military council who took over after his ouster had deceived him. "Egypt has sold me. They want me to die here," he reportedly said.
The verdict sparked a new wave of protests by tens of thousands of Egyptians around the country who allege the verdict was determined by political pressure from the country's military rulers, doing a favor for their former president.
They say the verdict as issued can be easily overturned in an appeal, and that the acquittals of six top security officials mean that killers of the protesters will remain unknown. Many hoped Mubarak or his top officials would be convicted of murder and receive the death penalty.
Miami Heat's Dwyane Wade, left, and LeBron James stand together during the trophy presentation following the Heat's 101-88 victory over the Boston Celtics in Game 7 in the NBA basketball Eastern Conference Finals playoff series, Saturday, June 9, 2012, in Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
Miami Heat's Dwyane Wade, left, and LeBron James stand together during the trophy presentation following the Heat's 101-88 victory over the Boston Celtics in Game 7 in the NBA basketball Eastern Conference Finals playoff series, Saturday, June 9, 2012, in Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
Oklahoma City Thunder small forward Kevin Durant holds the western conference trophy after Game 6 in the NBA basketball Western Conference finals against the San Antonio Spurs, Wednesday, June 6, 2012, in Oklahoma City. The Thunder won 107-99 and move on to the NBA Finals. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Miami Heat's LeBron James (6) drives to the basket as Boston Celtics' Kevin Garnett (5) defends during the second half of Game 7 of the NBA basketball playoffs Eastern Conference finals, Saturday, June 9, 2012, in Miami. At right is Celtics' Brandon Bass (30). (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)
After surviving those old Celtics, LeBron James and the Heat get the Thunder's young guns in the NBA finals.
Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and the rest of the Western Conference champions will host Game 1 on Tuesday night when the NBA's championship series comes to Oklahoma City for the first time.
The Thunder finally got their opponent Saturday night when the Heat finished off the Celtics with a 101-88 victory in Game 7, sending Miami to its second straight finals berth and giving James a third attempt at his first ring.
James had 31 points and 12 rebounds to set up a marquee matchup with Durant, the NBA's scoring champion whom he beat out for the league's MVP award.
"We all know how tough it's going to be but we're going to fight to the end no matter what, leave it out on floor and we'll live with the results," Durant said.
James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh fell short in their first season together, losing in six games to Dallas last year. The Heat earned another chance by winning the final two games against the Celtics, whose older legs might have run out of steam after Boston led the decisive game by seven at halftime.
Energy won't be a problem for the Thunder, whose core of 23-year-old Durant, the league's three-time scoring champion, Westbrook (23) and James Harden (22) was born when the Celtics' Big Three of Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce was around middle school age.
The Thunder, who moved to Oklahoma City in 2008, roll into their franchise's first finals appearance since the Seattle SuperSonics lost to Chicago in 1996. They surged past San Antonio by winning the final four games after dropping the first two to the No. 1 seed.
After eliminating defending champion Dallas and the Lakers in the first two rounds, the Thunder look to knock out another heavyweight in the Heat, the 2006 NBA champions.
The Thunder will host the first two games before the series moves to Miami for Games 3-5.
The teams split a pair of meetings during the regular season, each winning at home.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly described Simple's financial results last year. Josh Reich had said in an interview the company "made some money," but he did not mean it was profitable.
When Josh Reich managed growth equities at a small Wall Street investment firm in 2009, he could dip anytime into the portfolio of money he oversaw and grasp its comings and goings. Yet he never found the same clarity in his own bank statements. It was too hard, he said recently, to figure out why his bank charged fees for his checking and savings accounts or for his debit card. Writing checks seemed antiquated, when so much of commerce happened online. ?There?s a lot of innovation in finance, but not lots of things that help consumers,? the 33-year-old Australian native said.
So, in February 2010, Reich and a friend started to envision the type of bank they would prefer to use?a bank built from scratch. It would dispense with unwarranted fees and?thanks to the engineer they lured from Twitter?offer snazzier designs for its Internet and mobile applications.
They called it BankSimple?now, simply Simple. Two years later, according to Reich, Simple serves 1,000 customers, a group small enough to test the company?s fledgling systems, and has a waiting list that numbers more than 100,000. The company offers no storefront banking locations; nor does it actually hold any of its depositors? money. Instead, it partners with Bancorp Bank in Delaware to handle federally insured deposits, checking accounts, savings, and money transfers. Simple?s 36 employees in Portland, Ore., concentrate on dealing with customers by using an active Twitter feed and service reps who try to engage potential depositors and answer questions promptly.
Simple makes its money the old-fashioned way: by pocketing the difference between what its bank partner pays consumers for deposits and the interest it earns from its bank partner?s loans. (Simple splits this ?interest margin? with the bank.) According to Reich, Simple brought in revenue last year but didn't turn a profit, although he would not provide figures.
But Reich?s ambitions are far grander than that. Ultimately, they include nothing less than to upend the banking industry as a whole. He hopes to obliterate?at least, to weaken?the Goliaths such as Bank of America, Chase, and Citibank by offering financial services that are inexpensive, transparent, and electronically responsive. ?Banking has been a race to the bottom,? Reich declared. ?It will take customers, like ours, demanding that sort of service to show other institutions how to run a profitable and well-liked business.?
Rather than requiring customers to put money into either a checking or a savings account, Simple lets them set ?goals? of, say, buying a car or furnishing a down payment on a home. Then, Simple automatically deducts money from each deposit and invests it across a series of financial products to yield the highest return. Simple also distinguishes itself from traditional banks by charging no overdraft fees and by making it easier to search accounts online.
Simple isn?t the only start-up trying to challenge the mega-banks by offering a savvier online experience. Another is called Square, started by Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey in late 2009. This is a payment system that turns any mobile device into a terminal, so that small shops or individual entrepreneurs can accept credit cards and conduct business anywhere via tablets or smartphones. Another financial start-up, Dwolla, allows people to send payments to one another or to retailers online, bypassing the credit-card networks. And then there?s the behemoth of online payment, PayPal. ?That is clearly a niche that was not being served by the big credit-card processors,? said Brad Strothkamp, the principal analyst at Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass.
But, really, will this work? Can a smattering of tech start-ups disrupt the banking and financial sector so much that it changes its business model or consumers? mind-set about how they handle their money?
Maybe, but not for a while?several years at least, financial analysts say. ?It?s taken more time for financial start-ups to disrupt than many industries, but there has been an impact,? said Jim Bruene, founder of the Finovate Group, which puts on conferences about financial technology. ?The biggest changes are, likely, yet to come.?
One hindrance is the banking industry?s concentration. Ten big banks control more than 80 percent of the country?s financial assets, according to data from Morningstar, the investment-research firm, and see 80 percent of all U.S. purchases flow through credit cards they issue. As technology start-ups have made inroads by rethinking smartphones as mobile credit-card or banking devices, the big guys, too, are getting hip to the Internet. Wells Fargo offers a Twitter account to monitor its customer relations, and Bank of America redesigned the look of its online banking interface. Visa, MasterCard, Discover Financial, and American Express have launched projects to let consumers pay for purchases using their tablets or smartphones.
Another obstacle is the ubiquity of federal and state regulation, intended to avert fraud and contain risk. If money is stolen or a depositor?s account is hacked, a bank is held responsible. Banks need to plan for their customers? long-term financial health by offering loans, CDs, and high-yield savings accounts. ?That?s a lot to take on,? analyst Strothkamp said. ?If I were a bank, I?d feel secure that nobody can become a bank unless they take on the baggage.?
Simple isn?t a bank, at least not yet, but more like a tech start-up that partners with a bank. Still, maybe in 10 years?that?s Strothkamp?s guess?Simple and other such start-ups will have figured out how to truly compete with the big boys and to attract a substantial market share. Four of the five functions that most consumers rely on banks for, such as paying bills or viewing their statements, can already be done online, Forrester Research reports. Simple?s consumer base, so far, is college-educated adults earning between $40,000 and $100,000 a year who don?t demand complex financial transactions and who get mad at checking-account fees.
That?s a growing demographic. ?It?s a long game,? Reich said. ?Fundamentally, the answer lies in the consumers? expectations of the banking markets. Customers just expect that banking will be terrible.? That?s an assumption he can probably bet the ranch on.
The author is an economics correspondent for NationalJournal.
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Public release date: 12-Jun-2012
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