Tourism NZ and STA Travel team up | Stuff.co.nz

Young, longer-staying visitors will be targeted to visit New Zealand under a joint $2.4 million marketing programme between Tourism New Zealand and the London-based STA Travel Group.

Tourism NZ and STA, the world's largest youth travel operator, today announced a one-year memorandum of understanding at the Trenz 2013 tourism conference in Auckland.

Both sides will contribute $1.2m each and plan to continue the marketing venture, but have yet to agree to any future marketing budget.

Tourism New Zealand chief executive Kevin Bowler and STA chief executive John Constable, said the memorandum formalised an existing, long-standing relationship between the two organisations.

"As the world's largest youth travel organisation offering student and youth exclusive discount pricing, STA is already a key partner in our work to target youth travellers in our key long-haul western markets," Bowler said.

"When combined, these markets contribute over a third of total youth arrivals each year."

Under the memorandum, the organisations will collaborate to promote youth tourism to New Zealand across marketing, online and trade activity.

Tourism NZ general manager long-haul markets Gregg Anderson said the memorandum would form the basis for a multi-year collaborative partnership with STA.

"Under the agreement we will jointly target the influential long-haul youth sector from the UK, Europe and America," Anderson said.

"This group accounts for about a quarter of our annual arrivals, and the western long-haul markets account for about a third of that total."

He said STA would help get extra visitors into New Zealand.

STA Travel Group market development consultant Emma Hudson said the youth market travellers tended to stay about three times as long as older travellers.

"From an economic point of view for an input for the New Zealand economy it represents a very important market," she said.

"(STA) has seen some great results. We're looking at up to 15 per cent growth (year on year) since the beginning of this year in all our key markets.

"Our demand online has been up about 200 per cent."

STA would also look to bring more travellers from the Australian and Asian markets, as well as travellers from the United Kingdom and Europe who had already travelled to eastern Australia.

"We're seeing the Australian opportunities, converting them once they've travelled to Australia to get them across the pond over to New Zealand." she said.

- ? Fairfax NZ News

Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/8586572/Tourism-NZ-and-STA-Travel-team-up

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They sing and they dance (oh way oh) (Unqualified Offerings)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/300552124?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Primitive fish with butt fins shows evolution's quirks

Robert Sansom

The Euphanerops sported bizarre fins below its anus, revealing some of the odd turns evolution took on the path to vertebrate evolution.

By Tia Ghose, LiveScience

A 370-milion-year-old, primitive fish sported a weird pair of fins just below its anus, new research shows.

The strange appendages, detailed Tuesday in the journal Biology Letters, were found on an ancient jawless fish called Euphanerops longaevus that lived around the time that jawless fishes like lampreys split off from jawed vertebrates, which include everything from sharks to humans.

"What's weird about this organism is that it had a paired anal fin. It's unique ? no other known fossil or modern fish is known to have that disposition," said study co-author Robert Sansom, a paleontologist at the University of Manchester in the U.K.

The findings suggest that early in primitive vertebrates' history, evolution experimented with a number of wacky body plans, only some of which survived, Sansom told LiveScience. [Image Gallery: The Freakiest Looking Fish]

Early fish
The Euphanerops fish were 3.9 inches long and looked somewhat like modern-day eels. The specimens were unearthed in a fossil bed in Miguasha, Quebec, decades ago, and were stored in collections in the National History Museum in London and the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, Miguasha, in Quebec.

Previously, researchers weren't sure exactly what to make of the creatures' weird fins. Some thought the anal appendages might actually have been displaced from another part of the animal's body in the fossilization process.

Early body plan
The researchers weren't convinced of the displacement explanation. By comparing the 3-D surfaces of the fossil under a microscope, the team concluded that the fin pair was actually located below the anus on the living creature. Though it's not clear exactly how the fins were used, the fins most likely helped the fish get around, Sansom said.

The fossil dates to a critical period of vertebrate evolution: Jawed and jawless vertebrates diverged roughly around this time. Eventually jawed fish developed paired fins (but not anal fins) that evolved to become arms and legs. In fact, the same genes code for shark fins and human limbs.

The discovery changes the view of how fishes were evolving at this time, Sansom said.

"Rather than gradual acquisition of complex characteristics, maybe there was a bit more experimentation and odd acquisitions," he said.

Specialized trait?
The finding of paired anal fins is "beautifully illustrated," said Michael Coates, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Chicago, who was not involved in the study.

"It might just be the first vestige, it might be some kind of precursor to generating paired fins" that are commonly seen throughout jawed vertebrates, Coates told LiveScience.

But it's also possible they were a specialized trait that only Euphanerops possessed, not reflective of the evolutionary history of jawed vertebrates as a whole, Coates said.

Follow Tia Ghose on Twitter @tiaghose.?Follow?LiveScience@livescience,Facebook?&Google+. Original article on?LiveScience.com.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Facebook Home Review: Surrender Yourself Unto Zuck

Facebook Home isn't a Facebook Phone, nor is it really "a bunch of apps," or a new operating system. It's an admission: Facebook means a lot to me, and is an interesting view of my life—and I want to look at it all the time, everywhere I go. If that sounds like you, Home is where your heart should be. If not, your phone will become something you hate. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/1G0C2ePjfAA/facebook-home-review-surrender-yourself-unto-zuck

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Why Obama's 'dead' budget still matters

Copies of President Barack Obama's proposed federal budget plan for fiscal year 2014 are prepared for delivery??
President Barack Obama on Wednesday unveils his latest budget?a symbolic document that doesn?t directly decide government spending, won?t pass Congress, and isn?t likely to do much to create jobs. No budget does that by itself.

But the non-binding blueprint already has done something that the president himself has only rarely accomplished since taking office: It?s basically united Washington. In opposition.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner has repeatedly attacked the plan, based on carefully calculated disclosures from the White House about what the plan is expected to include. At the other end of the spectrum, Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders has promised to fight against Obama?s call for adopting a less generous cost-of-living formula for entitlements such as Social Security.

Other Democrats are perplexed by and annoyed at the White House strategy, which they view as a premature compromise.

Obama himself doesn?t even sound that rah-rah about the document.

"It?s not my ideal plan to further reduce the deficit, it?s a compromise I?m willing to accept," the president said in his weekly address on Saturday. "It includes ideas many Republicans have said they could accept as well. It?s a way we can make progress together."

Despite all of that, the document could still matter.

While budgets serve chiefly as political mission statements for presidents, and political punching bags for their opponents, they can still cast a long shadow over public debates. And there's no shortage of urgency for Washington to do something in the face of sluggish economic growth and unsettlingly weak job creation.

?The timeline between the submission of a president?s budget and someone saying the phrase ?dead on arrival? is the shortest measure of time in Washington,? Tony Fratto, a spokesman for George W. Bush?s Treasury Department and later his White House, joked to Yahoo News.

But Fratto still calls himself ?a big believer? in the process. Why?

?They are the aspirational game plans for each party. It?s the way they would like to see the world, lays out markers for the programs they consider priorities,? Fratto said.

And by offering to cut entitlement spending?a key driver of U.S. government deficits and the debt?in exchange for new tax increases that chiefly target the well-off, Obama aims to bridge the gap between Republicans and Democrats and restart so-called "grand bargain" talks aimed at finding $4 trillion in deficit reduction over the next 10 years. Obama aides, though, say that any big deal has to include new revenues, something that makes Republicans balk.

The White House says that, if reflected in spending legislation, Obama's new budget would cut $1.8 trillion over 10 years. Republicans say the real figure is $600 billion because the budget replaces existing so-called "sequestration" spending cuts of $1.2 trillion with an equivalent amount.

But both sides agree the budget does not balance over its 10-year horizon. The House-passed GOP budget does so thanks to mostly undetailed spending cuts to mostly unidentified programs.

The White House budget predicts that the deficit will run $744 billion in fiscal year 2014 (which starts Oct. 1). That's about 4.4 percent of gross domestic product. And senior administration officials, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, said Tuesday that it would fall to 2.8 percent of GDP by 2016 and 1.7 percent by 2023. They did not give a dollar figure, which means those estimates could rely on rosy predictions of economic growth that are typical in any president's budget.

Budgets serve as guidelines, sometimes influential ones, but they don't become law. Actual spending levels for individual agencies are supposed to come in a two-step legislative process of authorizing programs and then appropriating funds for them, though this spring it?ll be in the form of a catch-all ?continuing resolution.?

All this is to say that, when you hear a politician compare a government budget to a family budget, that?s only true if your family disregards its budget.

One early test of whether the GOP?anyone in the GOP?is willing to consider Obama's offer will come Wednesday night, when he is scheduled to host 12 Republican senators for a fence-mending dinner where the budget will surely be discussed.

But Fratto warned there might not be an opportunity for a major budget breakthrough even if both sides want it, thanks to a deal reached during the so-called "fiscal cliff" negotiations in early January where Republicans agreed to raise taxes on higher earners.

A major budget agreement "may be too much to ask because I don?t know that the components of a grand bargain exists any more since the tax increase deal, tax cut deal, whatever you want to call it," Fratto said.

In that accord, Republicans agreed to extend Bush-era income tax cuts on income up to $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for households. Since then, GOP leaders have publicly ruled out new tax hikes even as the White House has pushed for raising revenues, notably by closing loopholes and slicing into deductions for wealthier Americans.

"What we?re left with now is a situation where all of the components of a so-called grand bargain cause pain for somebody?except for inside-the-beltway deficit hawks," Fratto said. "It would be some combination of tax increases, entitlements cuts, discretionary spending cuts, so who are the winners?"

One possibility is that Obama views a "grand bargain" as a way to polish his legacy?he would be The Democratic President Who Reined In Entitlement Spending. He still has the "bully pulpit"?the ability to dominate the national political conversation.

Whether Democrats see it that way and are prepared to run the political risks to help the White House is an open question.

Party strategists say they got clubbed like baby seals in the 2010 mid-term elections in large part because of GOP ads accusing the president's party of wanting to cut Medicare. That line of attack was based on Democratic support for Obamacare, which reduced Medicare spending by $716 billion, mostly taken from insurance companies and hospitals rather than beneficiaries.

And the 2014 mid-terms aren't that far away.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/obama-budget-dead-arrival-may-second-life-095859326--politics.html

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Could Coffee Bean Extract Help Control Blood Sugar? - Health ...

By Maureen Salamon
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, April 9 (HealthDay News) ? A natural extract from unroasted coffee beans may be a tool in fighting the uncontrolled blood sugar levels characteristic of diabetes, a small, preliminary new study suggests.

Research done in India on normal-weight participants with normal blood glucose (or blood sugar) levels found that various doses of supplements containing green coffee extract all lowered blood sugar, with higher doses associated with larger drops.

?If this can influence a normal person?s [glucose levels], then it should be even better for diabetics because they have a problem,? said study author Joe Vinson, a professor of chemistry at the University of Scranton, in Pennsylvania. ?The green coffee [extract] is the best aspect of coffee to be taken, I think.?

The study was funded by Applied Foods of Austin, Texas, manufacturers of the green coffee extract.

Vinson was scheduled to present the research, done in India, on Tuesday at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in New Orleans. Studies presented at scientific conferences are typically not yet peer-reviewed and results are considered preliminary.

About 26 million Americans have type 2 diabetes, which is the most common form, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Diabetes is linked to conditions including heart disease, blindness, kidney failure and lower-leg amputations.

A great deal of research has examined the potential health benefits of coffee. A much-touted 2012 study in the New England Journal of Medicine suggested that death rates fell with each additional cup consumed daily. Meanwhile, a 2009 Archives of Internal Medicine review of 18 studies involving more than 457,000 people indicated that each additional daily cup of coffee was associated with a 7 percent drop in the relative risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

The studies did not prove that coffee caused these health effects, but merely that an association existed.

Vinson?s study analyzed 30 men and women of normal weight who did not have diabetes. They took supplements containing between 100 milligrams (mg) and 400 mg of the green coffee extract in a capsule with water, followed by glucose tolerance tests at several points afterward.

All doses of the extract appeared to lower participants? blood sugar levels, Vinson said, but a dose of 400 mg was associated with a 24 percent drop 30 minutes after taking the extract and a 31 percent drop 120 minutes later.

Vinson said he believes the sugar-lowering effects of green coffee extract are due to its concentration of chlorogenic acids ? antioxidants found in apples, cherries, plums and other fruits and vegetables. High temperatures used to roast coffee beans typically break down chlorogenic acids, he said, so coffee beverages contain less of them than extracts found in supplements.

?This study had strictly normal [participants], but it has a lot of potential for diabetes [control],? Vinson said. ?It?s a fairly cheap intervention and might cost less than a dollar or two per day ? less than a coffee at Starbucks.?

But Dr. John Anderson, president of medicine and science at the American Diabetes Association, cautioned against reaching any firm conclusions from the research. Green coffee extract would need to be studied extensively before it could be offered as a potential prevention or remedy for diabetes, he said.

?To say that something can prevent or delay diabetes is almost impossible to prove unless they?re willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on research. This needs rigorous scientific experiments to prove,? Anderson said. ?This is only [30] people, and all they did was look at a glucose tolerance test. I think it?s interesting, but I don?t think we really know any more than that.?

More information

The American Diabetes Association offers more facts about type 2 diabetes.

Source: http://news.health.com/2013/04/09/could-coffee-bean-extract-help-control-blood-sugar/

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Italy economy minister to discuss new decree with EU Commissioner: source

MANCHESTER, England, April 5 (Reuters) - Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini believes a lack of goals and maverick striker Mario Balotelli's departure to AC Milan in January has harmed the defence of their Premier League crown. Second-placed City are 15 points behind rivals Manchester United, whom they face at Old Trafford on Monday, and Mancini said last week the title race was over. "Mario scored 15 goals last season. This is the difference, the goals we did not score," Mancini told a news conference on Friday. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/italy-economy-minister-discuss-decree-eu-commissioner-source-132602678--business.html

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Third Major Oil Spill In A Week Is No Big Deal, Right?

Huh. So maybe these pipelines are shoddy or poorly designed, since this is the third accident in a week. If only there was some kind of movement to keep these pipelines out of ecologically sensitive areas like the Gulf of Mexico! Oh, wait....

Thousands of gallons of oil have spilled from a pipeline in Texas, the third accident of its kind in only a week.

Shell Pipeline, a unit of Royal Dutch Shell Plc, shut down their West Columbia, Texas, pipeline last Friday after electronic calculations conducted by the US National Response Center showed that upwards of 700 barrels had been lost, amounting to almost 30,000 gallons of crude oil.

By Monday, Shell spokespeople said inspectors found ?no evidence? of an oil leak, but days later it was revealed that a breach did occur. Representatives with the US Coast Guard confirmed to Dow Jones on Thursday that roughly 50 barrels of oil spilled from a pipe near Houston, Texas and entered a waterway that connects to the Gulf of Mexico.

Coast Guard Petty Officer Steven Lehman said that Shell had dispatched clean-up crews that were working hard to correct any damage to Vince Bayou, a small waterway that runs for less than 20 miles from the Houston area into a shipping channel that opens into the Gulf.

Y'all come on down and enjoy some of our oil-soaked shrimp!

The spill was contained, said Lehman, who was hesitant to offer an official number on how much crude was lost in the accident. According to Shell spokeswoman Kim Windon, though, the damage could have been quite significant. After being presented with the estimate that said as much as 700 barrels were found to have leaked from the pipeline due to an unknown cause, investigators determined that 60 barrels entered the bayou.

"That's a very early estimate--things can change," Officer Lehman told Dow Jones.

Source: http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/third-major-oil-spill-week-no-big-dea

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Could the Ford C-Max Be Getting an Update Already?

It sure looks that way. An updated Ford C-Max disguising Ford?s new Aston Martin nose has been caught winter-testing in Sweden.

From the looks of this early prototype, Ford may only have minor updates in store for the C-Max, which just landed on our shores last year, and has only been on sale in Europe since 2011. Based on this mule, the major changes we should expect to see on the updated Ford C-Max consist of a new nose, with the Aston Martin-styled grille that?s graced the Fusion and updated Fiesta. Revised headlights with LED running lights, and tweaked rear-end styling may be in the cards as well.

We expect the updated C-Max to hit Europe first with a range of gas and diesel engines late this year. The U.S.-spec C-Max will remain hybrid-only, and will likely be updated next year. When we compared a Ford C-Max hybrid with the Toyota Prius V, we picked the Ford because it drives better and is quieter than the Toyota, which still saw better observed mileage on our testing loop.

How do you think Ford should update the C-Max?

Source: CarPix

Source: http://wot.motortrend.com/could-the-ford-c-max-be-getting-an-update-already-352127.html

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Essential Creative | 18 Big Video Marketing Statistics

Have you climbed on board the video marketing train yet? If you own a small business or are in business for yourself, there?s a lot of compelling evidence suggesting that online video marketing should be a major focus of your advertising and marketing budget. Here?s just one big number that should make you sit up and take notice:

1.8 Million Words

That?s the value of one minute of video, according to Dr. James McQuivey of Forrester Research.

Do you have the time and energy to write 1.8 million words? That?s the equivalent of 3,600 typical web pages. If you write an average of one web page an hour, it would take you 150 days of writing to achieve the impact of one minute of video.

When you look at it that way, online video marketing is the single most practical use for your marketing time and energy. Not convinced yet? Here are 15 more big video marketing numbers that should make you sit up and take notice.

What?s The Market for Online Video?

45.4%

According to comScore, which measures online engagement and use, that?s the percentage of Internet users who view at least one video online over the course of a month. The average user is exposed to an average of 32.2 videos in a month, increasing the chances that your marketing message will be seen. But what does that work out to in real numbers?

100 Million

That?s the number of Internet users who watch online video each day. Granted, a lot of those are watching the latest viral video with a goofy cat or a cute kid, but an awful lot of them are looking for advice on how to do something or how to make something work better. And a whole of them are looking to buy a service or product.

90%

The percentage of online shoppers at a major retailer?s website who said they find video helpful in making shopping and buying decisions. Retailers who provide online video to show off their products report that the products with video sell a lot more than products with no video.

75%

That?s the percent of executives who told Forbes that they watch work-related videos on business websites at least once a week. The results breakdown:

• 50% watch business-related videos on YouTube
• 65% visit the marketer?s website after viewing a video

16 minutes and 49 seconds

According to comScore, that?s how much time the average user spends watching online video ads every month.

Takeaway:?If you?re not using video marketing, you?re missing out on a huge market opportunity. It?s not just the number of people who are watching videos that?s important ? it?s the reasons why they watch it. When you post an online marketing video to a business website, you?ve got a great chance of engaging with a busy executive who is specifically looking for your services but might not have reached out to schedule a meeting for a presentation. Your marketing video is a great way to get your elevator pitch out into the ether and let it reel in leads.

What?s the Payoff for Online Marketing Video?

8 Big Video Marketing Results Numbers

80%

According to the Online Publishers Association, that?s the percentage of Internet users who recall watching a video ad on a website they visited in the past 30 days. It gets even better. Of that 80%, 46% took some action after viewing the ad. In fact:

• 26% looked for more information about the subject of the video
• 22% visited the website named in the ad
• 15% visited the company represented in the video ad
• 12% purchased the specific product featured in the ad

64%

That?s how much more likely website visitors are to buy a product on an online retail site after watching a video. In addition, visitors who view videos stay on the site an average of 2 minutes longer than those who don?t view videos, comScore says.

Online Video Marketing Is Not Just for Retailers

403%

An Australian real estate group reports that real estate listings with videos receive 403% more inquiries than those without videos. In other words, real estate ads with videos generate quadruple the leads of those without videos.

59%

According to Forbes Insight, that?s the percentage of senior executives who?d rather watch a video than read text. About 65% of those who view a video click through to visit the vendor website, 50% look for more information and 45% report that they contacted a vendor after seeing an online video ad. About 50% of those who viewed an online marketing video went on to make a purchase for their business.

And It?s Not Just Online

96%

In 2010, an Implix email marketing survey found that including a video in an introductory email increased the click-through rate by 96%. That?s nearly twice as many people clicking through to your website when you include a video in your marketing emails.

200%

The Forrester Marketing group surveyed businesses in 2010 and found that video did even better. When marketers included a marketing or explainer video in an email, the click-through rate increased by 200% to 300%.

75%

Do your email subscribers drop like flies? Eloqua, an automated email marketing provider, noted that including video in an introductory email reduced the number of subscriber opt-outs by 75%. Maintaining that contact is a vital part of establishing a relationship with prospects.

51%

One online marketer reported a 51% increase in subscriber-to-lead conversion rates when video was included in an email marketing campaign.

Takeaway:?Video marketing increases sales and leads. If you?re not using video marketing, you?re losing customers to those who do. Businesses that incorporate video marketing into their overall marketing strategy see higher engagement rates, higher click-through rates and higher conversion rate. Why would you leave all that value sitting on the table?

How to Make Video Marketing More Effective

4 Big Numbers About User Engagement with Video Content

10 seconds

That?s how long you have to grab the attention of viewers in a video marketing clip. According to research by Visible Measures, 20% of your viewers will click away from a video in 10 seconds or fewer.

And it doesn?t get a lot better than that. You?ll lose about 1/3 of your viewers by 30 seconds, 45% of them by 1 minute and almost 60% by 2 minutes. And those numbers remain the same no matter how long the video is.

5 minutes

There?s good news, though. While desktop viewers tend to stick with videos for 2 minutes or less, mobile users seem to have a longer attention span. iPhone users tend to watch for about 2.4 minutes. Android users give a video three minutes to engage them and Symbian users stick around for just over 4 minutes. iPad users have the longest attention spans of all, sticking with a web video for an average of 5 minutes.

16%

That?s the percentage of YouTube videos that are embedded, linked or shared on Tuesdays between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., according to Sysomos.

15 seconds

According to research conducted by Jun Group (2011), videos that are 15 seconds or shorter are shared 37 percent more often than those that last between 30 seconds and 1 minute. If you make your video longer, that stat goes down. Those shorties are only shared 18% more often than videos of longer than 1 minute.

Takeaway:?Effective video marketing has to be engaging right from the start, but how do you know where your video is going off the rails? That?s where video analytics comes in. Detailed video analytics will tell you who?s watching your video, how long they stay engaged and exactly where they click away. Armed with that information, you can sharpen your message and target it more precisely. If you haven?t started your own video marketing campaign, isn?t it time you jumped in with both feet? There?s nothing to lose and about 403% more profit just waiting for you.

FULL POST at http://www.videobrewery.com/blog/18-video-marketing-statistics?

Source: http://www.esntl.com/social-video-marketing/18-big-video-marketing-statistics/

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Facebook Mom Blocked Over Breastfeeding Pics; Company Apologizes Amid Backlash

Source:

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Antarctic blue whales pinpointed with sonar

Kylie Owen

The blow hole of an Antarctic blue whale.is easily seen as it breaks the ocean's surface.

By Becky Oskin
LiveScience

Whales may be the biggest animals on Earth, but finding them in the vast open ocean isn't easy.

Now, an Australia-led research team has demonstrated a novel idea for chasing down the massive marine mammals. To search for Antarctic blue whales, the group dropped sonar buoys in the Ross Sea west of Antarctica, and listened for whale calls. They triangulated the whale's location from their calls, and then sailed to the right spot.

During the research cruise, the scientists photographed 57 blue whales, collected 23 skin biopsy samples and stuck on two satellite-tracking tags. They also spotted 11 pygmy blue whales and eight humpback whales, among a total 720 cetacean species (the group that includes whales, dolphins and porpoises).

"In many respects our expectations of what we could achieve have been exceeded," the scientists wrote on the expedition's blog.

The deep, resonating song of Antarctic blue whales travels hundreds of kilometers across the Southern Ocean, Brian Miller, of the Australian Antarctic Division?and the lead marine mammal acoustician of the mission, said in a statement. The team returned with 626 hours of recordings, with 26,545 blue whale calls analyzed in real time. [See how they found the whales]

Virginia Andrews-Goff

The Amaltal Explorer is dwarfed by a tabular iceberg during the Antarctic voyage.

The whale's satellite tags will transmit never-before obtained data on how the whales feed near the edge of the Antarctic ice, marine biologist Virginia Andrews-Goff of the Australian Marine Mammals Center said in a statement.

The International Whaling Commission estimates the population of Antarctic blue whales is between 400 and 1,400 individuals. The leviathans were slaughtered to near extinction in the early 1900s by whalers, who took some 340,000 whales, according to a statement from the Australian government.

Researchers worldwide have used acoustic technology to track whale species for decades, including blue whales, humpback whales and right whales. This is the first time that scientists have located whales for tagging and identification by identifying their positions with sonar, the statement said.

Email Becky Oskin or follow her @beckyoskin. Follow us?@OAPlanet, Facebook?or Google+. Original article on LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Infected

After infection, the virus "plugs in" and activates junk DNA in it's victim, resulting in biological changes that create (and recreate) sentience within the infected creature cellular makeup. It acts by affecting the protein encoding regions of the promoter introns in each cell. As a retrovirus, it contains both RNA and the reverse transcriptase enzyme, allowing it to insert its own genetic codes into living cells. It enters, re-purposes and changes the cell, replicating previously dormant non-coding segments of DNA.

More often than not, these changes are too drastic and 99.99% of subjects die from massive organ failure and cell saturation. However, some variants have yielded other beneficial results; endowing the infected organisms with incredible superhuman genetic prowess, that greatly increase their natural abilities to levels far exceeding human capability, these variants include DX-1120 and DX-1118 C.

The virus is highly contagious and can infect organisms through a multitude of means.
Physical Contact: If a non-infected person is bitten or scratched by an Infected person, or Hunter, the virus can spread directly to the victim resulting in their infection.

• Exposure: Coming into contact with an Infected Water Tower, or a Hive can result in the infectious agents spreading to nearby humans.
• Bodily Fluid Contact: Infectious bodily fluids and materials are capable of infecting through open wounds.
• Injection: As used on the Project D-Code soldiers, the Virus can be spread through direct application via injection.

A group of scientists led by Dr. Alex Mercer managed to synthesize a new virus strain which they named Blacklight. The Blacklight virus' effects are variable and far more infectious than the Idaho strain. The Blacklight virus outbreak does not follow the pattern of the Hope outbreak: it causes too many infections, spreads over too wide an area, and leaves too many surviving entities. The Blacklight virus mortality rate is lower than that of the Redlight virus, and the incubation period is much longer. The full capabilities of the Blacklight virus were unknown, but were discovered in New York.

In 2006, the Redlight virus from Hope, Idaho was released in New York. Alex Mercer, code named Zeus, was an abomination of a different strand of the virus, the Blacklight Virus. Through the hard work of Blackwatch, the infection was purged from the city.

This peace, however, only lasted for 14 months. Alex Mercer started a new outbreak, this time of the Blacklight virus. An infected marine, James Heller, gained powers immensely similar to those of Mercer. In a final confrontation between the two titans, James Heller killed Alex Mercer, and consumed all the infected in the New York red zone. Just after the battle, the city was completely destroyed by a hydrogen bomb. The city, and miles around the city, were destroyed beyond repair. The events were labeled as an attack on terrorism, and fear of nuclear weapons exploded among the American public. James Heller has not been seen since the incident, and has been classified as dead.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/wqfQHY6lxys/viewtopic.php

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HTC First hands-on (update: video)

After endless months of speculation, the collaboration between HTC and Facebook has finally been revealed to the world. It's not a Facebook Phone per se, it's simply a skinned Android smartphone that just so happens to bestow deep social media integration upon the OS, a move which makes the First -- as well as future devices that feature the newly announced Facebook Home interface -- an appropriate candidate for the term. The First will be available April 12th for $100 on AT&T, but it can be pre-ordered starting today.

While Facebook Home is taking the spotlight, let's examine the first piece of hardware it will be featured on. On the spec sheet, the First isn't going to take anybody's breath away: it's a midrange phone with dual-core Snapdragon 400 processor, 1GB RAM, 5MP rear camera, Android 4.1 and a 4.3-inch 720p display. We're just getting our hands on the device right now and will continue to offer up our First impressions, along with a full gallery of images.

Gallery: HTC First hands-on

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, HTC, Facebook

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/04/htc-first-hands-on/

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7 great lines from Roger Ebert's reviews

By Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, TODAY

Roger Ebert, who died Thursday at age 70, became a television personality, a Twitter legend and a beloved American icon, but what he was first and foremost was a movie critic.

Movie critics are as plentiful as popcorn, but there was truly no one like Ebert. He never buried his reviews in academic language or flowery comparisons. A down-to-earth writer, he brought his whole life and his entire understanding of human nature, plus a great sense of humor, into his writing.

Sure, he was known for his commentary on classics such as "Citizen Kane," but often, the movies that made him suffer the most gave us the most delightful reviews. Here are some of his gems. Rest in peace, Roger.

The Pullet Surprise?
Perhaps his most classic line references Ebert's own 1975 Pulitzer Prize, the first awarded to a film critic. Back in 2005, Rob Schneider complained that another reviewer who didn't like?"Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo"?wasn't qualified to review it because he didn't have a Pulitzer. In response, Ebert wrote, "Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks."

Where the stars don't shine?
"I am required to award stars to movies I review. This time, I refuse to do it. The star rating system is unsuited to this film. Is the movie good? Is it bad? Does it matter? It is what it is and occupies a world where the stars don't shine."?? ?From review of?"The Human Centipede"

Tell us how you really feel, Roger?
"I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering, stupid, vacant, audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it."?? ?From?"North" review

Soft-soap job?
"One of the details that 'A Christmas Story' gets right is the threat of having your mouth washed out with Lifebuoy soap. Not any soap. Lifebuoy. Never Ivory or Palmolive. Lifebuoy, which apparently contained an ingredient able to nullify bad language. The only other soap ever mentioned for this task was Lava, but that was the nuclear weapon of mouth-washing soaps, so powerful it was used for words we still didn't even know."???From"A Christmas Story" review

A kiss is still a ...?
"(Rhett Butler) tells Scarlett in a key early scene, 'You need kissing badly. That's what's wrong with you. You should be kissed, and often, and by someone who knows how.' For 'kissed,' substitute the word you're thinking of." ?From?"Gone With the Wind" review

Over the rainbow?
"... The elements in 'The Wizard of Oz' powerfully fill a void that exists inside many children. For kids of a certain age, home is everything, the center of the world. But over the rainbow, dimly guessed at, is the wide earth, fascinating and terrifying. There is a deep fundamental fear that events might conspire to transport the child from the safety of home and strand him far away in a strange land. And what would he hope to find there? Why, new friends to advise and protect him. And Toto, of course, because children have such a strong symbiotic relationship with their pets that they assume they would get lost together."? ?From?"Wizard of Oz" review

What they really, really want is an acting coach.
"(The Spice Girls)?occupy 'Spice World' as if they were watching it." ??From "Spice World" review

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Source: http://todayentertainment.today.com/_news/2013/04/04/17604124-7-great-lines-from-roger-eberts-movie-reviews?lite

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