Titan: mile-wide dunes on Earth's frozen twin intrigue scientists

Some dunes on Titan ? a Saturn moon seen as a chillier version of early Earth ? are huge. Scientists now have suspicions about what's going on, but they don't yet know how Titan's version of sand formed.?

The discovery of intriguing differences among vast fields of sand dunes on Saturn's moon Titan is opening a window on the haze-shrouded satellite's geology and climate, researchers say.

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Radar images from NASA's Cassini orbiter reveal that the size and spacing of the dunes change depending on the latitude of the dune fields and the elevation of the land on which they sit. The findings may help uncover the distribution of winds on the moon and yield clues to help resolve a long-standing debate over how and where the sand itself formed, according to the team reporting the results in the January issue of the journal Icarus.

"Understanding how the dunes form as well as explaining their shape, size, and distribution on Titan's surface is of great importance to understanding Titan's climate and geology," notes Nicolas Altobelli, Cassini project scientist with the European Space Agency, one of NASA's partners in the mission, in a statement.

Titan, Saturn's largest moon and the second largest in the solar system, has been a prime target for Cassini's instruments since the craft began touring Saturn and its moons in June 2004.

Formed mainly of water ice and rock, Titan hosts lakes of liquid hydrocarbons. When it rains on Titan, it drizzles liquid methane, rather than water.?

With its vast array of different hydrocarbons, astrobiologists have long viewed Titan as?a chillier version of Earth prior to the emergence of life. Some even suggest that the moon may hide potential habitats for life below its surface today.

Titan's dunes cover an area about the size of the continental United States, or roughly 13 percent of the moon's surface. The grains of sand making up Titan's dunes are thought to be clumps of solid hydrocarbons, rather than tiny grains of silicates, as on Earth.

From orbit, the dunes ? which appear within Titan's tropics ? display the same shapes and patterns seen in large dune fields on Earth. But Titan's dunes are larger, with dunes up to a mile wide, 300 feet tall, and hundreds of miles long.

Using data gathered by Cassini's radar, a team of US and French scientists determined that dune size appears be linked to the altitude of the surface the dune covers.

The largest dune fields appear in areas of lowest elevation near Titan's equator and tend to get smaller, less tightly packed, and show less sand between dunes at higher elevations. Dunes follow a similar trend the farther north they appear from the equator.

The team suggests that changes with altitude may mean that at higher elevations, wetter weather is eroding the sand faster than it is replaced.

Thinned-out dune fields in the northern tropics may be influenced by Titan's hydrocarbon lakes. Increased moisture around the lakes may dampen sand in source areas, keeping it from blowing into regions where the dunes form. In addition, winds may be weaker at high latitudes.

Periodic changes in wind patterns around an Australia-size plateau dubbed Xanadu also may affect the accumulation of Titan's tropical dunes, the team posits.

And where does the sand come from? The subject is a topic of intense debate, says team leader Alice Le Gall of the Laboratory for Atmosphere, Environments, and Spatial Observations in Paris, in an e-mail.?

Some measurements "suggest that the dune material is mainly made up of solid organics, which points to an atmospheric origin," she writes. Essentially, hydrocarbon aerosols form from reactions between gases in the atmosphere energized by sunlight.?The grains then fall to Titan's surface. Such reactions have appeared in laboratory experiments on Earth aimed at simulating conditions in Titan's atmosphere.

But these aerosols are tiny, less that 1/100th the width of a human hair. How they gather into grain-size clumps remains a mystery.

Scientists have posited several potential answers to the "clump" mystery. They include:

• The sand could be formed by erosion as liquid methane flows along the surface, much like the action of occasional floods in usually dry river beds in deserts on Earth.
• The larger grains may form through chemical reactions as Titan's northern lakes periodically dry out ? although its unclear how enough material could find its way south to build the large dunes seen in the regions along Titan's equator.
• Perhaps prolonged long wet periods provided the moisture needed erode Titan's surface, forming the sand.
• Or perhaps the erosive moisture welled up from beneath the surface in key locations.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/lm0EUQXDskI/Titan-mile-wide-dunes-on-Earth-s-frozen-twin-intrigue-scientists

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These People Will Make Any Movie You Tell Them To Do [Video]

I'm very impressed by Finite Films. They're a band of filmmakers who produce one Hollywood-level quality short film every month—and each of their short films works within the constraints that people give them on the web. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/135RNjWvvZM/these-people-will-make-any-movie-you-tell-them-to-do

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Weaker banks, commodities drag Britain's FTSE lower (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) ? Weakness in banks and commodity stocks dragged Britain's leading share index lower on Monday as the protracted search for a Greek bond deal and concerns about economic growth kept investors nervous.

The FTSE 100 (.FTSE) index closed down 62.36 points, or 1.1 percent, at 5,671.09, extending Friday's falls and retreating further from Thursday's six-month closing high.

The FTSE volatility index (.VFTSE) was also active, up over 10 percent, its biggest daily percentage rise in a month and signaling an increase in risk aversion.

Banks (.FTNMX8350) were the biggest blue-chip casualties, hit by concerns that extra liquidity injections from central banks had not addressed the sector's fundamental problems.

Credit Suisse reduced its recommendation on the European Banking sector to "underweight" as it said the direct earnings impact of the European Central Bank's (ECB) late-December splurge of cheap, long-term cash for the banks appeared to be over-estimated.

Barclays (BARC.L) was the UK sector's biggest faller, down 4.2 percent, while Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY.L) shed 4.1 percent, and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS.L) fell 3.5 percent.

EU leaders met in Brussels on Monday, the first summit of 2012, to sign off a permanent rescue fund for the euro zone -- Britain's biggest trading partner -- though the meeting was overshadowed by the unresolved Greek debt problems.

To avoid a chaotic default, which could have grave ramifications for sentiment and financial systems across the globe, Greece must secure a deal with its private bond holders and persuade international lenders it is serious about reforms in order to secure much-needed cash.

Fresh tensions between Greece and the euro zone's biggest economy Germany over the weekend regarding the debt bail-out terms also knocked sentiment.

"This isn't the first time Greece has shown resistance to accepting certain EU bailout terms and conditions, and given their weak position they may need to concede again, otherwise risk defaulting on the debt repayments due in March," said Jordan Lambert, Trader at Spreadex.

U.S. blue chips (.DJI) were down 0.6 percent by London's close, also suffering on concerns over the Greek debt situation, and after further dull U.S. economic data.

U.S. consumer spending was flat in December as households took advantage of the largest rise in income in nine months to boost their savings, setting the tone for a slowdown in demand early in 2012.

COMMODITIES DIP

Weakness in commodity issues also weighed on blue chips in London, with a retreat in crude knocking the integrated oils (.FTNMX0530) as an expected Iranian vote to suspend crude exports to Europe was postponed, easing supply concerns.

Miners (.FTNMX1770) also moved lower in tandem with weaker metal prices, as softer-than-expected U.S. economic data fuelled concerns about demand levels.

Defensive stocks dominated on the short list of blue chip gainers, led by drugmakers, with AstraZeneca (AZN.L) and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK.L) up 0.6 percent and 0.5 percent.

AstraZeneca will post fourth-quarter results on Thursday.

Utilities were in demand, with energy generator International Power (IPR.L) up 0.6 percent, and power distributor National Grid (NG.L) ahead 0.5 percent. Both firms are due to issue trading updates later this week.

And chip designer ARM Holdings (ARM.L) gained 0.3 percent, with its fourth-quarter results due tomorrow.

(Reporting by Jon Hopkins; Editing by Will Waterman)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120130/bs_nm/us_markets_britain_stocks

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Gingrich's baggage gives voters pause in Panhandle

Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, with his wife Callista, bow their heads in prayer during a campaign event at the The Villages, Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, in Lady Lake, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke))

Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, with his wife Callista, bow their heads in prayer during a campaign event at the The Villages, Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, in Lady Lake, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke))

PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) ? Newt Gingrich's personal and political baggage is giving even the most hard-core Republicans pause in a conservative swath of the state.

"Not Gingrich" is how Annette Purvis says she plans to vote. "I've never liked Gingrich. Never. Never in the history of Gingrich."

She's turned off by what she calls his moral and ethical issues. He's been divorced twice, is an admitted adulterer and was the first House speaker to be reprimanded by his colleagues for ethical misconduct. All that has Purvis, a 49-year-old wife and mother from Laurel Hill near the Alabama border, looking elsewhere. "I'll probably do Romney," she adds, her hesitation apparent.

Marty Upfield, a 64-year-old retiree from Pensacola, seems equally uneasy with Gingrich. She, too, pointed to Gingrich's political record and personal background as a problem. She's considering voting for Mitt Romney, who she says isn't conservative enough, even though her political views are more in line with Gingrich's positions.

"But it is about trust," says Upfield. "I need to have a little more certainty that he's changed in some ways."

This deep reluctance to back Gingrich was voiced by many of the dozen and a half people interviewed last week in this city in the Florida Panhandle that borders the Gulf of Mexico to the south and west and Alabama to the north. Gingrich's past, it seemed, was heavily influencing decisions about who to back. Many said they were resigned to choosing Romney.

In one of the most conservative parts of the state, many of those interviewed said they see their political philosophy more in line with Gingrich ? who led the GOP revolution that took control of the House in 1994 ? than with Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who in the past has espoused more moderate positions on social issues. But many also said they're considering voting for Romney, or already did during the state's early voting period, because they fear that Gingrich's history ? both personally and professionally ? will hurt him in a general election match up against President Barack Obama.

"I really like him. He's one of the finest speakers. He's got fantastic memory and recall," said Tim Fuller of Gingrich.

But Fuller, 68, and wife Vicki, 67, didn't pick him.

"We voted for the more electable candidate," Fuller said, adding that they chose Romney ? "the lesser of two evils."

On the minds of many interviewed: Gingrich's ethics case while serving as House speaker, the $1.65 million his businesses made off Freddie Mac before he criticized the mortgage giant during his campaign, and his three marriages.

"I like him. I like his mannerisms. I just don't think I can vote for him. There's too much out there," said Bonnie Meenen, 64. Romney may get her vote because of that.

Some also were put off by Gingrich's personality.

"I think Newt's temper is too short," said David Nobles, 57, who voted for Romney. "It came down to Newt and Mitt, and Mitt just seems like more presidential material than Newt."

That Gingrich, who has emerged as the more conservative alternative to Romney, doesn't have a lock on this part of the state, regardless of his flaws, may not bode well for his prospects in other, more diverse parts of Florida ahead of Tuesday's pivotal primary. And the reluctance among some Republicans here to embrace Gingrich indicates that Romney's strategy to raise questions about Gingrich's character may be working.

Over the past week, Romney and his allies have castigated Gingrich on the campaign trail and in TV ads blanketing the state.

"While Florida families lost everything in the housing crisis, Newt Gingrich cashed in," says a Romney campaign ad airing in this state. The commercial says that Gingrich collected more than $1.6 million from "the scandal-ridden agency that helped create the crisis."

Romney's team has taken a more subtle approach in attacking Gingrich for his flawed personal life. He has been emphasizing his own 42-year marriage to the same woman, as well as his five sons and numerous grandchildren, as a way to contrast himself to Gingrich. And an outside group backing Romney has run ads mentioning Gingrich's "baggage."

A Quinnipiac University poll released Friday showed Romney leading Gingrich, 38 to 29 percent. Among voters who identify as conservative, Romney and Gingrich are in a virtual tie.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-01-30-Florida-Panhandle%20Voters/id-73000d8ec5a943abaa3ed0e6f963bef9

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Arab League halts observer mission in Syria (AP)

BEIRUT ? The Arab League halted its observer mission in Syria on Saturday because of escalating violence that killed nearly 100 people the past three days, as pro-Assad forces battled dissident soldiers in a belt of suburbs on the eastern edge of Damascus in the most intense fighting yet so close to the capital.

The rising bloodshed has added urgency to new attempts by Arab and Western countries to find a resolution to the 10 months of violence that according to the United Nations has killed at least 5,400 people as Assad seeks to crush persistent protests demanding an end to his rule.

The United Nations is holding talks on a new resolution on Syria and next week will discuss an Arab peace plan aimed at ending the crisis. But the initiatives face two major obstacles: Damascus' rejection of an Arab peace plan which it says impinges on its sovereignty, and Russia's willingness to use its U.N. Security Council veto to protect Syria from sanctions.

Syria's Interior Minister Mohammed Shaar vowed the crackdown would go on, telling families of security members killed in the past months that security forces "will continue their struggle to clean Syria's soil of the outlaws."

Government forces launched a heavy assault on a string of suburbs and villages on the eastern outskirts of Damascus, aiming to uproot protesters and dissident soldiers who have joined the opposition, activists said.

Troops in tanks and armored personnel carriers attacked the suburbs of Kfar Batna, Saqba, Jisreen and Arbeen, the closest of which lie only a few miles from downtown Damascus, said the Local Coordination Committees activist network and the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Dissident troops were fighting back against the attackers, they said.

In a nearby suburb, Douma, gunmen ambushed a bus carrying army officers, the state-run news agency SANA, calling the attackers "terrorists." It said seven officers were killed.

The assault in the suburbs seemed to be a sign of the growing presence of dissident soldiers closer to the capital. Although the tightly controlled Damascus has been relatively quiet since the uprising began, its outskirts have witnessed intense anti-regime protests and army defectors have become more visible and active in the past few months.

"The fighting today is the most intense near the capital since the uprising began," said Rami Abdul-Rahman who heads the Observatory for Human Rights. "The Syrian regime is trying to finish the uprising militarily now that the case is being taken to the United Nations."

In Saqba, electricity and phone lines were cut off and mosque loudspeakers told residents to say in lower floors for fear high buildings might get hit in the fighting, said Omar Hamza, an activist in the district. "Random shelling and sound of explosions terrified the people," he told The Associated Press.

He said army defectors had managed to stop the advancing troops. The regime forces are putting all their force to finish the Free Syrian Army and protesters in the Damascus suburbs," Hamza said.

The Free Syrian Army force of anti-regime military defectors is based in Turkey, and its fighters frequently try to cross into Syria through the mountainous border area in the northwest. SANA reported that Syrian troops prevented gunmen from crossing in from Turkey on Saturday in fighting that it said left many of the infiltrators killed or wounded.

The LCC and the Observatory also reported intense fighting between troops and defectors in the town of Rastan near the restive central city of Homs.

The Observatory said at least 36 people, were killed across the country Saturday, including 17 civilians, three defectors and 16 troops, while the LCC said 20 died, half of them in Homs province, which has been one of the areas hardest hit by government crackdowns. The new deaths come after two days of bloody turmoil killed at least 74 people, including small children.

In the eastern oil-rich province of Deir el-Zour, an oil pipeline took a direct hit and caught fire as government troops shelled a nearby town, the two groups also said, reporting at least one person dead. State media blamed "terrorists" in the attack.

The month-old Arab League observer mission in Syria had come under widespread criticism for failing to bring a halt to the regime's crackdown. Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia pulled out of the mission Tuesday, asking the U.N. Security Council to intervene.

Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby said in a statement that the organization decided to halt the observers' work immediately because of the increasing violence, until the League's council can meet to decide the mission's fate.

He sharply criticized Damascus for the spike in bloodshed, saying the regime has "resorted to escalating the military option in complete violation of (its) commitments" to end the crackdown, Elaraby said. He said the victims of the violence have been "innocent citizens," in an implicit rejection of Syria's claims that it is fighting "terrorists."

Syria's state-run news agency quoted an unnamed official saying Damascus "regrets and is surprised" by the Arab League decision after Syria agreed to extend the observer's mission for another month. The official said the halt aims "to pressure the talks in order to call for external intervention in Syria's internal affairs," referring to the U.N. talks.

Elaraby's deputy, Ahmed Ben Heli, told reporters that the around 100 observers will remain in Damascus while their mission is "reevaluated." He suggested the observers could resume their work in the future...

Elaraby and the prime minister of Qatar were set to leave for New York on Sunday to seek U.N. support for the latest Arab plan to end Syria's crisis. The plans calls for a two-month transition to a unity government, with Assad giving his vice president full powers to work with the proposed government.

Syria has rejected the proposal, saying it violates its sovereignty. Elaraby had previously been due to travel Saturday, but his trip was pushed back to Sunday with no explanation.

The U.N. Security Council began closed-door negotiations Friday on a new Arab-European draft resolution aimed at resolving the crisis, but Russia's envoy said he could not back the current language as it stands.

Any resolution faces strong opposition from China and Russia, and both nations have veto power. Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters that the text introduced by new Arab Security Council member Morocco has "red lines" for Moscow, but he's willing to "engage" with the resolution's sponsors.

Churkin said those lines include any indication of sanctions, including an arms embargo. "We need to concentrate on establishing political dialogue," he said.

____

Batrawy reported from Cairo; Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, contributed to this report.

___

Bassem Mroue can be reached on twitter at http://twitter.com/bmroue

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120128/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_syria

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Source: http://www.earthinvest.info/choosing-the-most-effective-insurance-policy-selection/

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Ecuador to crack down on clinics that 'cure' gays (AP)

QUITO, Ecuador ? Ecuador will investigate and act forcefully against any clinics found to be trying to force homosexuals to change their sexual orientation, a Health Ministry official said Thursday.

Gay rights activists in the South American country say four clinics that engaged in coercive practices, three in the capital, have been shut down in recent months but that others still to operate clandestinely.

"Sadly, authorities have not yet taken the corrective measures necessary to regulate the work of clinics that offer 'de-homosexualization' treatment,'" said Efrain Soria, director of Fundacion Equidad, an anti-discrimination group.

Health Ministry official David Troya told The Associated Press the agency will deal firmly and drastically with any clinics that offer such treatments, which have been denounced by critics as abusive.

Newly named Health Minister Carina Vance, who studied at the University of California and has publicly defended gay rights, is hiring someone to work exclusively on the issue, said Troya, an adviser to Vance.

"We are going to take the necessary measures in a firm and drastic manner as regards this subject," he said.

The ministry is "clear and emphatic" that in line with the World Health Organization findings, "homosexuality is not an illness and that as such a cure can't be suggested, so that whoever offers treatments is deceiving people and acting illegally," Troya said.

Paola Concha told the AP that her family sent her in 2006 to a clinic to "cure" her of homosexuality.

"I received physical and verbal aggression during the 18 months I was interned in one of these centers," she said. "Nearly daily they beat me, and many times I was handcuffed to a pipe."

Concha said the women's ward of the clinic where she was held was later closed. She said other women who were "treated" along with her are afraid to go public with their stories.

Troya said the few clinics offering "de-homosexualizion treatment" that were shuttered by authorities were closed not because they offered such services but for other reasons, such as failing to meet sanitary standards.

Soria, the anti-discrimination activist, said complaints had been filed in courts against all of the closed clinics.

He said the clinics running "de-homosexualization" programs camouflage themselves by advertising that they treat such disorders as substance abuse.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/latam/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_ecuador_gays_clinics

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Anthropologists clarify link between Asians and early Native-Americans

Thursday, January 26, 2012

A tiny mountainous region in southern Siberia may have been the genetic source of the earliest Native Americans, according to new research by a University of Pennsylvania-led team of anthropologists.

Lying at the intersection of what is today Russia, Mongolia, China and Kazakhstan, the region known as the Altai "is a key area because it's a place that people have been coming and going for thousands and thousands of years," said Theodore Schurr, an associate professor in Penn's Department of Anthropology. Schurr, together with doctoral student Matthew Dulik and a team of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, collaborated on the work with Ludmila Osipova of the Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Novosibirsk, Russia.

Among the people who may have emerged from the Altai region are the predecessors of the first Native Americans. Roughly 20-25,000 years ago, these prehistoric humans carried their Asian genetic lineages up into the far reaches of Siberia and eventually across the then-exposed Bering land mass into the Americas.

"Our goal in working in this area was to better define what those founding lineages or sister lineages are to Native American populations," Schurr said.

The team's study, published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, analyzed the genetics of individuals living in Russia's Altai Republic to identify markers that might link them to Native Americans. Prior ethnographic studies had found distinctions between tribes in the northern and southern Altai, with the northern tribes apparently linked linguistically and culturally to ethnic groups farther to the north, such as the Uralic or Samoyedic populations, and the southern groups showing a stronger connection to Mongols, Uighurs and Buryats.

Schurr and colleagues assessed the Altai samples for markers in mitochondrial DNA, which is maternally inherited, and in Y chromosome DNA, which is passed from fathers to sons. They also compared the samples to ones previously collected from individuals in southern Siberia, Central Asia, Mongolia, East Asia and a variety of American indigenous groups. Because of the large number of gene markers examined, the findings have a high degree of precision.

"At this level of resolution we can see the connections more clearly," Schurr said.

Looking at the Y chromosome DNA, the researchers found a unique mutation shared by Native Americans and southern Altaians in the lineage known as Q.

"This is also true from the mitochondrial side," Schurr said. "We find forms of haplogroups C and D in southern Altaians and D in northern Altaians that look like some of the founder types that arose in North America, although the northern Altaians appeared more distantly related to Native Americans."

Calculating how long the mutations they noted took to arise, Schurr's team estimated that the southern Altaian lineage diverged genetically from the Native American lineage 13,000 to 14,000 years ago, a timing scenario that aligns with the idea of people moving into the Americas from Siberia between 15,000 and 20,000 years ago.

Though it's possible, even likely, that more than one wave of people crossed the land bridge, Schurr said that other researchers have not yet been able to identify a similar geographic focal point from which Native Americans can trace their heritage.

"It may change with more data from other groups, but, so far, even with intensive work in Mongolia, they're not seeing the same things that we are," he said.

In addition to elucidating the Asia-America connection, the study confirms that the modern cultural divide between southern and northern Altaians has ancient genetic roots. Southern Altaians appeared to have had greater genetic contact with Mongolians than they did with northern Altaians, who were more genetically similar to groups farther to the north.

However, when looking at the Altaians' mitochondrial DNA in isolation, the researchers did observe greater connections between northern and southern Altaians, suggesting that perhaps females were more likely to bridge the genetic divide between the two populations.

"Subtle differences here both reflect the Altaians themselves ? the differentiation among those groups ? and allow us to try to point to an area where some of these precursors of American Indian lineages may have arisen," Schurr said.

Moving forward, Schurr and his team hope to continue to use molecular genetic techniques to trace the movement of peoples within Asia and into and through the Americas. They may also attempt to identify links between genetic variations and adaptive physiological responses, links that could inform biomedical research.

For example, Schurr noted that both Siberian and Native American populations "seem to be susceptible to Westernization of diet and moving away from traditional diets, but their responses in terms of blood pressure and fat metabolism and so forth actually differ."

Using genomic approaches along with traditional physical anthropology may lend insight into the factors that govern these differences.

###

University of Pennsylvania: http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews

Thanks to University of Pennsylvania for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/117096/Anthropologists_clarify_link_between_Asians_and_early_Native_Americans

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Ashton Kutcher Parties with Supermodels in Brazil

Everyone deals with a breakup in their own way -- as Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher have demonstrated this week. While Moore, 49, is seeking professional help to deal with the stress from her divorce, Kutcher, 33, is hanging out with lingerie models in Brazil.

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/ashton-kutcher-parties-supermodels-brazil-while-demi-moore-seeks-treatment/1-a-422065?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Aashton-kutcher-parties-supermodels-brazil-while-demi-moore-seeks-treatment-422065

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Netflix customers return in 4Q; stock soars 16 pct

FILE - In this Nov. 22, 2010 photo, a movie selected from among Netflix's "Watch Instantly" titles begins to download on a home computer screen in New York. Netflix Inc., reports quarterly financial results Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, after the market close.(AP Photo/James H. Collins, file)

FILE - In this Nov. 22, 2010 photo, a movie selected from among Netflix's "Watch Instantly" titles begins to download on a home computer screen in New York. Netflix Inc., reports quarterly financial results Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, after the market close.(AP Photo/James H. Collins, file)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Netflix has regained almost as many customers as it lost following an unpopular price increase, signaling that the video subscription service is healing from its self-inflicted wounds.

Fourth-quarter figures released Wednesday show Netflix Inc. ended December with 24.4 million subscribers in the U.S., up from 23.8 million at the end of September. That gain of about 600,000 customers compares with the loss of 800,000 subscribers last summer after it raised its U.S. prices as much as 60 percent.

The uptick is a positive sign for Netflix after several months of upheaval battered its stock. The shares reversed course Wednesday, surging nearly 16 percent.

The fourth-quarter performance should help bolster confidence in Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, who was skewered in Internet forums and analyst notes for miscalculating how subscribers would react to higher prices.

A contrite Hastings had promised that Netflix would lure back customers, and so far it has been even more successful than he forecast.

"You are never as smart or dumb as they say," Hastings said in a Wednesday interview. "We know we are just beginning to climb back in terms of consumer trust and affection."

The fallout from the earlier customer defections contributed to a 14 percent decrease in Netflix's fourth-quarter earnings.

Netflix made $40.7 million, or 73 cents per share, in the final three months of last year. That compares with income of $47.1 million, or 87 cents per share, a year earlier.

Investors had been bracing for a bigger drop-off. Analysts polled by FactSet had forecast fourth earnings of 54 cents per share.

Revenue climbed 47 percent from the previous year to $876 million ? $19 million above analyst projections.

Netflix's stock soared $15.08, or nearly 16 percent, to $110.12 in extended trading. It had ended regular trading up $2.37, or 2.6 percent, at $95.04. If the rally carries over into Thursday's trading, Netflix's stock could close at its highest level in three months.

The stock still has a long way to go to return to its peak of nearly $305, which was reached in July, about the same time that Netflix announced the price increase that outraged customers.

"It's still too early to know how much success Netflix is going to have this year, but seeing those gains in customers makes investors feel safer," said Frost & Sullivan analyst Dan Rayburn.

Now that the backlash over the higher prices has eased, Netflix's biggest challenge may be fending off competitive challenges to its primary business of streaming video over high-speed Internet connections.

Amazon.com Inc. is rapidly expanding a streaming service it started last year while many analysts are expecting Verizon Communications to get into video streaming later this year, possibly in a partnership with Coinstar Inc.'s Redbox, whose kiosks already compete against Netflix in DVD rentals. Google Inc.'s YouTube also is supplementing the amateur video on its site with more content from movie and TV studios.

Netflix, which is based in Los Gatos, Calif., also must navigate an international expansion that will saddle the company with a loss this year.

Those losses can be pared if Netflix can keep accelerating its customer growth.

The company forecast that it will add 1.7 million U.S. subscribers to its Internet video streaming service. That would be in line with how many streaming subscribers signed up in last year's first quarter.

Netflix ended 2011 with 21.7 million streaming subscribers in the U.S. and another 1.9 million in Canada and Latin America. This month, Netflix introduced streaming plans in the United Kingdom and Ireland, too.

Most of the streaming gains will be offset by cancellations of DVD-by-mail rental plans, which Netflix is gradually phasing out. Hastings believes discs are becoming increasingly antiquated as technology advances. Netflix predicted its DVD subscriptions will fall from 11.2 million in December to 9.7 million in March. The company lost 2.8 million DVD subscribers in the fourth quarter.

"We expect DVD subscribers to decline every quarter forever," Hastings told analysts during a Wednesday conference call.

About 8.4 million Netflix customers subscribe to both Internet streaming and DVD rentals.

While Netflix sees its emphasis on streaming as a smart long-term strategy, the DVD attrition will hurt the company's full-year performance because Netflix's recent price increases made delivering discs through the mail more profitable ? for now.

Netflix is paying higher fees for the streaming rights to exclusive programming, as well as video already available in other outlets and formats. At the end of December, its video licensing commitments totaled $3.9 billion.

Netflix expects to produce an annual loss this year, for the first time in a decade. The company gave the first inkling of how big the setback will be with its projection for a first-quarter loss of 16 cents to 49 cents per share.

Analysts on average expect a first-quarter loss of 29 cents per share.

Netflix projected first-quarter revenue of $842 million to $877 million, compared with a forecast for $849 million from analysts.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-01-25-US-Earns-Netflix/id-7edc82fb754244fe9a1f7ffaab230a14

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Arduino hack gives a second screen to Android phones, isn't very useful (video)

Who knows why tech tinkerers do what they do. We're just happy to see those idle hands try the untested. Like this latest Arduino hack from modder Michael of Nootropic Design, who's seen fit to rig a 16 x 32 LED matrix up to an Android phone for use as a secondary display. The outputted video, downscaled via OpenCV software to an appropriate resolution and 12-bit color, is admittedly unimpressive, as it chugs along at a paltry four frames per second. But that's not the point of this can-do experiment -- it's all about the possibilities, however blurry and pointless they may be (although, we're sure Barbara Walters would beg to differ). Ready to see this modjob in motion? Then head on past the break for a brief video demo.

Continue reading Arduino hack gives a second screen to Android phones, isn't very useful (video)

Arduino hack gives a second screen to Android phones, isn't very useful (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BlackBerry maker co-CEOs step down (AP)

TORONTO ? BlackBerry maker Research in Motion'co-CEOs, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, announced Sunday they are stepping down from the once-iconic company that has struggled to compete in recent years.

The pair who founded RIM will be replaced by Thorsten Heins, a chief operating officer who joined RIM four years ago from Siemens AG, RIM said.

Balsillie and Lazaridis have headed Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM together for the past two decades.

"There comes a time in the growth of every successful company when the founders recognize the need to pass the baton to new leadership. Jim and I went to the board and told them that we thought that time was now," Lazaridis said in a statement.

The Canadian company has suffered a series of setbacks and has lost tens of billions in market value. A company that was worth more than $70 billion a few years ago now has a market value of $8.9 billion.

RIM said last month that new phones deemed critical to the company's future will be delayed until late 2012. And its PlayBook tablet, RIM's answer to the Apple iPad, failed to gain consumer support, forcing the company to give it deep discounts to move the devices off store shelves.

A widespread outage also frustrated tens of millions of BlackBerry users in October.

Lazaridis will take on a new role as vice chairman of RIM's board and chairman of the board's new innovation committee. Balsillie remains a member of the board.

"I agree this is the right time to pass the baton to new leadership, and I have complete confidence in Thorsten, the management team and the company," Balsillie said in the statement. "I remain a significant shareholder and a director and, of course, they will have my full support."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120123/ap_on_bi_ge/cn_rim_ceos_resign

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Gingrich says Romney desperate, punching wildly

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Newt Gingrich is keeping up the heated tone of his debate exchanges with Mitt Romney, calling his Republican presidential rival a "desperate guy" throwing wild punches.

Gingrich on Tuesday said Romney was "outrageously dishonest" when he accused the former House speaker of lobbying for mortgage giant Freddie Mac. He noted that Romney himself was an investor in the government-backed mortgage companies. Gingrich told Fox News: "I don't own any Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stock. He does."

During Monday's debate, Romney called Gingrich an influence peddler who promoted the interests of Freddie Mac while it was contributing to the mortgage mess that led to the nation's foreclosure crisis.

Meanwhile, Rick Santorum, behind in the polls, says he's happy to let the race's leaders point out each other's "severe flaws."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-01-24-Gingrich/id-aab384c1b384431ca5f3cede6fe6a790

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Could we see 802.11ac 5G gigabit Wi-Fi in iPhone and iPad in 2012?

802.11ac, sometimes referred to as 5G or gigabit Wi-Fi, hasn’t been finalized and Apple seldom if ever speaks ahead of time about the incorporation of new technology into the iPhone,

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/pQtY2KQsXgQ/story01.htm

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Mixed record for Obama's State of the Union goals (AP)

WASHINGTON ? As President Barack Obama prepares to deliver his annual address to Congress, many goals he outlined in previous State of the Union speeches remain unfulfilled. From reforming immigration laws to meeting monthly with congressional leaders of both parties, the promises fell victim to congressional opposition or faded in face of other priorities as the unruly realities of governing set in.

For Obama, like presidents before him, the State of the Union is an opportunity like no other to state his case on a grand stage, before both houses of Congress and a prime-time television audience. But as with other presidents, the aspirations he's laid out have often turned out to be ephemeral, unable to secure the needed congressional consent or requiring follow-through that's not been forthcoming.

As Obama's first term marches to an end amid bitterly divided government and an intense campaign by Republicans to take his job, it's going to be even harder for him to get things done this year. So Tuesday night's speech may focus as much on making an overarching case for his presidency ? and for a second term ? as on the kind of laundry list of initiatives that sometimes characterize State of the Union appeals.

"State of the Union addresses are kind of like the foam rubber rocks they used on Star Trek ? they look solid but aren't," said Jack Pitney, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College. "Presidents will talk about solving some policy problem, and then the bold language of the State of the Union address disappears into the messy reality of governing."

For Obama, last year's State of the Union offers a case study in that dynamic. Speaking to a newly divided government not long after the assassination attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Ariz., Obama pleaded for national unity, a grand goal that never came to pass as Washington quickly dissolved into one partisan dispute after another.

Many of the particulars Obama rolled out that night proved just as hard to pull off.

Among the initiatives Obama promoted then that have yet to come to fruition a year later: eliminating subsidies to oil companies; replacing No Child Left Behind with a better education law; making a tuition tax credit permanent; rewriting immigration laws; and reforming the tax system.

The list of what he succeeded in accomplishing is considerably shorter, including: securing congressional approval of a South Korea free trade deal; signing legislation to undo a burdensome tax reporting requirement in his health care law; and establishing a website to show taxpayers where their tax dollars go.

One of Obama's pledges from last January's speech ? to undertake a reorganization of the federal government ? he got around to rolling out only this month. And other promises are vaguer or more long term, such as declaring a "Sputnik moment" for today's generation and calling for renewed commitments to research and development and clean energy technology; pushing to prepare more educators to teach science, technology and math; promoting high-speed rail and accessible broadband; and seeking greater investments in infrastructure.

"Clearly as time goes on and a presidency matures you get less and less of it and the State of the Union becomes an aspiration for what you want to do as opposed to a road map for what you can accomplish," said Princeton University historian Julian Zelizer. As voters' enthusiasm fades and opposition deepens, Zelizer said, "You lose some of your power and you get closer to the next election and no one wants to work with you."

Last year's address already contained more modest goals than the speech Obama gave to a joint session of Congress a month after his inauguration, which although not technically a State of the Union report had the feel of one. At the time Obama called for overhauling health care and ending the war in Iraq ? promises he kept ? but also for closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and imposing caps on carbon pollution ? promises unmet.

Some of his goals, such as immigration and education reform, have resurfaced in multiple addresses, but still without being accomplished.

And rarely has Obama's rhetoric as president reached as high as the lofty promises of his campaign, when he pledged to change the very way Washington does business and remake politics itself. It's a far cry from those promises of change to the ambition of meeting monthly with Democratic and Republican congressional leaders ? but even that relatively modest goal, from Obama's 2010 State of the Union, went unfulfilled.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120123/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_state_of_the_union_promises

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Gingrich Delivers a Statewide Drubbing in S.C. (ABC News)

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Kodak told to reorganize business by 2013

By msnbc.com news services

Kodak, which filed for bankruptcy protection on Thursday, has received approval to borrow an initial $650 million from Citigroup to remain in business as it tries to sell its digital-imaging patents.

The fallen business icon is required under the financing terms to produce a reorganization plan by Feb. 15, 2013. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Allan Gropper in New York also set a June 30 deadline for Kodak to seek his approval of bidding procedures for the sale of 1,100 patents that analysts estimate could fetch at least $2 billion, The Associated Press said.

Source: http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/20/10200242-kodak-told-to-reorganize-business-by-2013

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Making the mirror for the world's biggest telescope

Flora Graham, deputy editor, newscientist.com

(Image: Ray Bertram, Steward Observatory, The University of Arizona)

Despite its huge 8.4-metre diameter, this mirror being cast inside the University of Arizona's giant red furnace is only the second of seven such reflectors being made for the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT).

The mirror was cast this week in the underground mirror-making lab that sits beneath the university's football stadium. To form the challenging off-centre shape of the reflector, 21 tonnes of borosilicate glass is heated to 1170 ?C and the furnace spins it into a parabolic honeycomb pattern. The cells of glass in the pattern are hollow, allowing the mirror to be lighter and more easy cooled to night-time temperatures, avoiding heat distortion.

With a total optical area of 24.5 metres, the GMT promises images 10 times sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope, but don't hold your breath: the telescope is scheduled to be finished in "about 10 years", and the first mirror has taken seven years to polish to perfection. Thanks to this practice, the mirror makers estimate that it will only take a couple of years to polish off this one.

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Costa CEO says captain misled company, crew

Rescue crews working on the cruise ship that capsized off the coast of Italy are running out of time to find any possible survivors. NBC's Michelle Kosinski reports.

By msnbc.com news services

Updated 5:30 p.m. ET

The cruise captain who grounded the Costa Concordia off the Tuscan coast with 4,200 people on board did not relay correct information either to the company or crew after the ship hit rocks, the cruise ship owner's CEO said Friday as the search resumed for 21 missing passengers.

CEO Pierluigi Foschi told Italian state TV that the company spoke to the captain at 10:05 p.m. , some 20 minutes after the ship ran aground on Jan. 13, but could not offer proper assistance because the captain's description "did not correspond to the truth," Reuters reported.?

Capt. Francesco Schettino said only that he had "problems" on board but did not mention hitting rocks.

Likewise, Foschi said crew members were not informed of the gravity of the situation.

Passenger video shown on Italian TV indicates crew members telling passengers to go to their cabins as late as 10:25 p.m. (2125 GMT; 4:25 p.m. EST). The abandon ship alarm sounded just before 11 p.m. (2200 GMT; 5:25 p.m. EST).

"That's because they also did not receive correct information on the gravity of the situation," Foschi said.

The $450 million Costa Concordia was carrying more than 4,200 passengers and crew when it slammed into well-charted rocks off the island of Giglio a week ago. Eleven people have been confirmed dead.

Updated at 2:25 p.m. ET

Rescuers have resumed the search for 21 missing people from the Costa Concordia that ran aground off the Tuscan coast a week ago. Rescue work is taking place at surface level, but not underwater.

Coast guard spokesman Cosimo Nicastro said authorities will determine in the morning whether to send divers back to search sections of the partially submerged vessel that are now under water.?

Sensors installed Thursday show constant vibrations in the ship structure, NBC News has learned. The ship is resting on two points underwater, keeping it from sinking. The remainder of the vessel is hanging and moves. Officials are worried the Concordia will sink further or suffer a sudden drop.

The search was suspended earlier in the day after the luxury cruise liner shifted.

Updated at 12:55 p.m. ET

GIGLIO, Italy -- The cruise ship grounded off Tuscany shifted again on its rocky perch, forcing the suspension Friday of search and rescue operations for the 21 people still missing.

Firefighters' spokesman Luca Cari said rescue squads would be discussing the next step after the movement made conditions unsafe for divers already hampered by poor visibility, floating objects and underwater debris.

Seven days after the ship ran aground and capsized off the Tuscan coast, hopes of finding anyone alive have all but disappeared and the cold waters around the ship have become rougher, with worse weather expected at the weekend.

"The ship is not in safe enough conditions for rescue operations to continue," Coast Guard spokesman Cmdr. Cosimo Nicastro told The Associated Press.

Attention is now turning to how to remove more than 2,300 tons of fuel aboard the vessel, which lies on its side on a rock shelf in about 20 meters of water off the little island of Giglio and which could slide off its resting place.

Salvage crews are waiting until the search for survivors and bodies is called off before they can begin pumping the half-million gallons of fuel out of the wreck, a process expected to take at least two weeks.

Worries in paradise
The fuel is in danger of leaking out and polluting some of the Mediterranean's most unspoiled sea, where dolphins are known to chase playfully after sailboats and fishermen's catches are so prized that wholesalers come from across Italy to scoop up cod, lobsters, scampi, swordfish and other delicacies.

Concordia lies dangerously close to a drop-off point on the sea bottom. Should strong waves nudge the vessel from its precarious perch, it could plunge some 20-30 meters (65-90 feet), further complicating the pumping operation and possibly rupturing fuel tanks. Italy's environment minister has warned that if those tanks break, globs of fuel would block sunlight vital for marine life at the seabed.?

A week after the Concordia struck a reef off the fishing and tourism island of Giglio, flipping on its side, its crippled 114,000-ton hull rests on seabed rich with an underwater prairie of sea grass vital to the ecosystem. The dead weight has likely already damaged a variety of marine life, including endangered sea sponges, and crustaceans and mollusks, even before a drop of any fuel leaks, environmentalists contend.?

"The longer it stays there, the longer it impedes light from reaching the vegetation," said Francesco Cinelli, an ecology professor at the University of Pisa, in Tuscany. And the sheer weight of the Concordia will also crush sea life, he said.?

The seabed where the Concordia lies is a flourishing home to Poseidon sea grass native to the Mediterranean, Cinelli told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.?

"Sea grass ... is to the sea what forests are to terra firma," Cinelli said: They produce oxygen and serve as a refuge for organisms to reproduce or hide from predators.?

The Tuscan archipelago's seven islands are at the heart of Europe's largest marine park, extending over some 60,000 hectares (150,000 acres) of sea.?

DigitalGlobe

The Costa Concordia ran aground Jan. 13 off the coast of Italy, resulting in the evacuation of thousands of passengers as the ship began heavily listing.

They include Elba, where Napoleon lived in exile, and the legendary island of Montecristo, a setting for Alexandre Dumas' novel "The Count of Monte Cristo" ? where rare Mediterranean monk seals have been spotted near the coast.?

Montecristo has a two-year waiting list of people hoping to be among the 1,000 people annually escorted ashore by forest rangers to admire the uninhabited island. Navigation, bathing and fishing are strictly prohibited up to 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) from Montecristo's rocky, cove-dotted coast. A monastery, established on Montecristo in the 7th century, was abandoned nine centuries later after repeated pirate raids.?

Come spring, Porto Ercole's slips will be full, with yachts dropping anchor just outside the port. It lies at the bottom of a steep hill, whose summit gives a panoramic view of a sprawling seaside villa, once a holiday retreat of Dutch royals, and of the crescent-shaped island of Giannutri, with its ancient Roman ruins.?

Alberto Teodori, 49, who said he has been hired as a skipper for the yachts of Rome's VIPs for 30 years, noted that the area thrives on tourism in the spring and summer and survives on fishing in the offseason.

If the Concordia's fuel, "thick as tar," should pollute the sea, "Giglio will be dead for 10, 15 years," Teodori fretted, as workers nearby shellacked the hull of an aging fishing boat.

Questions about safety
Late Thursday, Costa-owner Carnival Corp. announced it was conducting a comprehensive audit of all 10 of its cruise lines to review safety and emergency response procedures in the wake of the Costa disaster. The evacuation was chaotic and the alarm to abandon the ship was sounded after the Concordia had capsized too much to get many life boats down.

The owners of the doomed Italian cruise liner Costa Concordia were not aware of unsafe practices involving ships coming close to shore to give tourists a better view, Costa Cruises chief executive Pier Luigi Foschi told a newspaper on Friday.

Investigators say Schettino, the captain of the Costa Concordia, steered the ship too close to the Tuscan island of Giglio, where the 114,500 ton vessel ran aground and capsized last week, apparently while performing a maneuver known as a "salute" which took it within 150 metres of the shore.

Foschi told the Corriere della Sera that ships sometimes passed near to shore during what he termed "tourist navigation" but he said this was always performed safely and he denied that the company knew the Concordia would be going so close.

He said the Concordia's onboard newspaper had announced that the ship would pass five miles from Giglio.

"I can't rule out that individual captains, without informing us, may have set a course closer to land. However I can rule out ever having known that they may have done it unsafely," he said.

Doubts have already been expressed about whether Costa Cruises, a unit of Carnival Corp, the world's largest cruise operator, can have been unaware of the practice of ships "saluting."

The company had approved a similar maneuver in August and Lloyd's List Intelligence, a leading maritime publication, says its tracking showed that the ship's August route actually took the Concordia slightly closer to Giglio than the course that caused the grounding last week.

The $450 million Costa Concordia was carrying more than 4,200 passengers and crew when it slammed into well-marked rocks off the Tuscan island of Giglio. The ship then keeled over on its side and is still half-submerged nearly a week later.

'He saved over 3,000 lives'
Meanwhile,?a young Moldovan woman who translated evacuation instructions from the bridge after the Costa Concordia ran into a reef emerged as a potential new witness in the investigation into the captain's actions on that fateful night.

REUTERS/Zhurnal Tv via Reuters TV

Costa Concordia crew member Dominica Cemortan gestures in this still image from a Jan. 17 television interview. Cemortan defended the captain's actions, saying he helped to save the lives of passengers.

Italian media have said prosecutors want to interview 25-year-old Dominica Cermotan, who had worked for Costa as a hostess fluent in several languages but was not on duty when she boarded the ship Jan. 13 in the Italian port of Civitavecchia.

In interviews with Moldovan media and on her own Facebook page, Cermotan said she was called up to the bridge of the Concordia after it struck the reef to translate evacuation instructions for Russian passengers. She defended Schettino, who has been vilified in the Italian media for leaving his ship before everyone was evacuated safely.

"He did a great thing, he saved over 3,000 lives," she told Moldova's Jurnal TV.

Schettino, who was jailed after he left the ship, is under house arrest, facing possible charges of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning his ship.

Costa is owned by Miami-based Carnival Corp.

More from msnbc.com and NBC News:

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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Source: http://overheadbin.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/20/10196829-costa-ceo-says-captain-misled-company-and-crews

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Mortgage rates for the past 52 weeks, at a glance (AP)

Skip to navigation ? Skip to content ? By The Associated Press The Associated Press ? 37?mins?ago

The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage fell to a record low of 3.88 percent, Freddie Mac said Thursday. That's just below the previous record of 3.89 percent reached one week ago. Here's a look at rates for fixed- and adjustable-rate mortgages over the past 52 weeks.

Current week's average Last week's average 52-week high 52-week low

30-year fixed 3.88 3.89 5.05 3.88

15-year fixed 3.17 3.16 4.29 3.16

5-year adjustable 2.82 2.82 3.92 2.82

1-year adjustable 2.74 2.76 3.40 2.74

All values are in percentage points.

Source: Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey.

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