FILE - In this Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2010 file photo, Chinese technicians man drilling equipment on an oil rig in Paloich, South Sudan. Militants apparently captured 29 Chinese workers after attacking a remote work site in the volatile South Kordofan region of neighboring Sudan, and Sudanese forces were increasing security for Chinese projects and personnel there, China said Sunday. (AP Photo/Pete Muller, File)
FILE - In this Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2010 file photo, Chinese technicians man drilling equipment on an oil rig in Paloich, South Sudan. Militants apparently captured 29 Chinese workers after attacking a remote work site in the volatile South Kordofan region of neighboring Sudan, and Sudanese forces were increasing security for Chinese projects and personnel there, China said Sunday. (AP Photo/Pete Muller, File)
BEIJING (AP) ? Militants apparently captured 29 Chinese workers after attacking a remote worksite in a volatile region of Sudan, and Sudanese forces were increasing security for Chinese projects and personnel there, China said Sunday.
China has close political and economic relations with Sudan, especially in the energy sector.
The Foreign Ministry in Beijing said the militants attacked Saturday and Sudanese forces launched a rescue mission Sunday in coordination with the Chinese embassy in Khartoum.
The Ministry's head of consular affairs met with the Sudanese ambassador in Beijing and "urged him to actively conduct rescue missions under the prerequisite of ensuring the safety of the Chinese personnel," the statement said.
In Khartoum, a Chinese embassy spokesman said the northern branch of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement announced that 29 Chinese workers had been captured in the attack. The spokesman, who asked not be identified, gave no other details and it wasn't clear if the militants had demanded conditions for their return.
Other details weren't given. The official Xinhua News Agency cited the state governor as saying the Sudan People's Liberation Movement attacked a road-building site in South Kordofan and seized the workers.
The Sudan People's Liberation Movement are a guerrilla force that has fought against Sudan's regime. Its members hail from a minority ethnic group now in control of much of South Sudan, which became the world's newest country only six months ago in a breakaway from Sudan.
Sudan has accused South Sudan of arming pro-South Sudan groups in South Kordofan. The government of South Sudan has called such accusations a smoke screen intended to justify a future invasion of the South.
China has sent large numbers of workers to potentially unstable regions such as Sudan and last year was forced to send ships and planes to help with the emergency evacuation of 30,000 of its citizens from the fighting in Libya.
China has consistently used its clout in diplomatic forums such as the United Nations to defend Sudan and its longtime leader Omar al-Bashir. In recent years, it has also sought to build good relations with leaders from the south, where most of Sudan's oil is located.
Chinese companies have also invested heavily in Sudanese oil production, along with companies India and elsewhere.
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Associated Press writer Mohamed Saeed contributed to this report from Khartoum.
This iimage provided by the Fischer family shows Clare Fischer, a Grammy-winner composer, arranger and pianist, who died on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012 at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, Calif. (AP Photo/courtesy of Fischer family)
This iimage provided by the Fischer family shows Clare Fischer, a Grammy-winner composer, arranger and pianist, who died on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012 at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, Calif. (AP Photo/courtesy of Fischer family)
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Clare Fischer, a Grammy-winning composer who wrote scores for television and movies and worked with legendary musicians like Dizzy Gillespie, has died. He was 83.
Fischer died Thursday at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank after suffering a heart attack two weeks ago, family spokeswoman Claris Sayadian-Dodge said.
An uncommonly versatile musician, Fischer worked as a composer, arranger, conductor and pianist for more than 60 years.
He is best known for his arrangements for Prince, Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney, Branford Marsalis, Raphael Saadiq, Usher and Brandy.
Nominated for a Grammy 11 times in the Best Instrumental Arrangement category, Fischer won in 1986 for his album "Free Fall" and in 1981 for "Salsa Picante plus 2+2."
Born in Durand, Michigan, Fischer got his start playing piano and writing jazz-inspired arrangements for the group The Hi-Lo's, an a cappella quartet popular in the 1950s.
He worked as the arranger on Gillespie's "Jazz Portrait of Duke Ellington."
Fischer recorded 51 albums over his lifetime with his son Brent Fischer. The music ranges in style from jazz to salsa to symphonies.
"Clare Fischer was a major influence on my harmonic concept," Herbie Hancock is quoted as saying on Fischer's website.
"(Fischer) and Bill Evans, and Ravel and Gil Evans, finally. You know, that's where it really came from. Almost all of the harmony that I play can be traced to one of those four people and whoever their influences were," Hancock said.
Clare Fischer is survived by his wife, Donna; sons Lee and Brent; daughter Tahlia; and three grandchildren.
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) ? A U.S. citizen kidnapped by gunmen in Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta has been freed after a week in captivity, the U.S. Embassy said Friday.
U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Deb MacLean told The Associated Press that the man had been released after being kidnapped in Warri in Delta state on Jan. 20. MacLean declined to offer any other details, citing privacy rules. Delta state police spokesman Charles Muka said he had not been informed about the man's release, as his company refused to cooperate with local authorities.
The freed hostage was identified as William Gregory Ock, 50, of Bowdon, Ga., by his sister, Dee Dee Patterson.
Patterson told the AP on Friday that the family had no details of his release.
"The only thing we know is that he is safe and he is in a secure location," Patterson said by telephone.
She had no information on when Ock would return home to Georgia.
It was not immediately clear whether a ransom had been paid to secure his release, though many companies working in the region carry kidnap insurance and simply pay a negotiated price to see their employees freed. Kidnappers had made contact with authorities previously and demanded a $333,000 ransom.
The attack Jan. 20 occurred outside a bank branch in Warri, one of the main cities in nation's Niger Delta, a region of mangroves and swamps where foreign oil companies pump 2.4 million barrels of crude oil a day. The gunmen attacked Ock as he came outside, shooting his police escort to death before abducting him, Muka said.
Investigators believe the gunmen trailed him for some time before the attack, Muka said.
Foreign firms have pumped oil out of the delta for more than 50 years. Despite the billions flowing into Nigeria's government, many in the delta remain desperately poor, living in polluted waters without access to proper medical care, education or work.
In 2006, militants started a wave of attacks targeting foreign oil companies, including bombing their pipelines, kidnapping their workers and fighting with security forces. That violence waned in 2009 with a government-sponsored amnesty program promising ex-fighters monthly payments and job training. However, few in the delta have seen the promised benefits and criminal gangs still roam the region, increasingly targeting middle-class Nigerians.
In 2011, there were five reported kidnappings of U.S. citizens in Nigeria, according to a recent U.S. State Department travel warning about the country. The most recent occurred in November when two U.S. citizens and a Mexican were kidnapped from a Chevron Corp. offshore oil field and held for about two weeks, the State Department said.
A German working in the city of Kano in north Nigeria was abducted Thursday by unknown gunmen, authorities have said.
___
Associated Press writer Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, contributed to this report.
___
Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.
LOS ANGELES ? Demi Moore smoked something before she was rushed to the hospital on Monday night and was convulsing and "semi-conscious, barely," according to a caller on a frantic 911 recording released Friday by Los Angeles fire officials.
The woman tells emergency operators that Moore, 49, had been "having issues lately."
"Is she breathing normal?" the operator asks.
"No, not so normal. More kind of shaking, convulsing, burning up," the friend says as she hurries to Moore's side, on the edge of panic.
The recording captures the 10 minutes it took paramedics to arrive as friends gather around the collapsed star and try to comfort her as she trembles and shakes.
Another woman is next to Moore as the dispatcher asks if she's responsive.
"Demi, can you hear me?" she asks. "Yes, she's squeezing hands. ... She can't speak."
When the operator asks what Moore ingested or smoked, the friend replies, but the answer was redacted.
"Some form of ... and then she smoked something. I didn't really see. She's been having some issues lately with some other stuff. So I don't know what she's been taking or not," the friend says.
The city attorney's office advised the fire department to redact details about medical conditions and substances to comply with federal medical privacy rules.
"She smoked something. It's not marijuana. It's similar to incense," the friend says to the 911 operator.
While Moore's friends don't say exactly what she smoked, an increasingly popular drug known as Spice is sometimes labeled as "herbal incense."
Spice is a synthetic cannabis drug and also called K2. It's sold in small packets over the Internet, in smoke shops and at convenience stores. The packaging sometimes reads "not for human consumption" to conceal its purpose.
In 2011, there were twice as many spice-related calls to Poison Control Centers nationwide as in the previous year, according to the National Office of Drug Control Policy.
The adverse health effects associated with synthetic marijuana include anxiety, vomiting, racing heartbeat, seizures, hallucinations, and paranoid behavior.
Asked if Moore took the substance intentionally or not, the woman says Moore ingested it on purpose but the reaction was accidental.
"Whatever she took, make sure you have it out for the paramedics," the operator says.
The operator asks the friend if this has happened before.
"I don't know," she says. "There's been some stuff recently that we're all just finding out."
Moore's publicist, Carrie Gordon, said previously that the actress sought professional help to treat her exhaustion and improve her health. She would not comment further on the emergency call or provide details about the nature or location of Moore's treatment.
The past few months have been rocky for Moore.
She released a statement in November announcing she had decided to end her marriage to fellow actor Ashton Kutcher, 33, following news of alleged infidelity. The two were known to publicly share their affection for one another via Twitter.
Moore still has a Twitter account under the name mrskutcher but has not posted any messages since Jan. 7.
During the call, the woman caller says the group of friends had turned Moore's head to the side and was holding her down. The dispatcher tells her not to hold her down but to wipe her mouth and nose and watch her closely until paramedics arrive.
"Make sure that we keep an airway open," the dispatcher says. "Even if she passes out completely, that's OK. Stay right with her."
The phone is passed around by four people, including a woman who gives directions to the gate and another who recounts details about what Moore smoked or ingested. Finally, the phone is given to a man named James, so one of the women can hold Moore's head.
There was some confusion at the beginning of the call. The emergency response was delayed by nearly two minutes as Los Angeles and Beverly Hills dispatchers sorted out which city had jurisdiction over the street where Moore lives.
As the call is transferred to Beverly Hills, the frantic woman at Moore's house raises her voice and said, "Why is an ambulance not on its way right now?"
"Ma'am, instead of arguing with me why an ambulance is not on the way, can you spell (the street name) for me?" the Beverly Hills dispatcher says.
Although the estate is located in the 90210 ZIP code above Benedict Canyon, the response was eventually handled by the Los Angeles Fire Department.
By the end of the call, Moore has improved.
"She seems to have calmed down now. She's speaking," the male caller told the operator.
Moore and Kutcher were wed in September 2005.
Kutcher became a stepfather to Moore's three daughters ? Rumer, Scout and Tallulah Belle ? from her 13-year marriage to actor Bruce Willis. Moore and Willis divorced in 2000 but remained friendly.
Moore and Kutcher created the DNA Foundation, also known as the Demi and Ashton Foundation, in 2010 to combat the organized sexual exploitation of girls around the globe. They later lent their support to the United Nations' efforts to fight human trafficking, a scourge the international organization estimates affects about 2.5 million people worldwide.
Meanwhile, Millennium Films announced Friday that Sarah Jessica Parker will replace Moore in the role of feminist Gloria Steinem in its production of "Lovelace," a biopic about the late porn star Linda Lovelace. A statement gave no reason for the change. The production, starring Amanda Seyfried, has been shooting in Los Angeles since Dec. 20.
Moore can be seen on screen in the recent films "Margin Call" and "Another Happy Day." Kutcher replaced Charlie Sheen on TV's "Two and a Half Men" and is part of the ensemble film "New Year's Eve."
Seriously, we can't caveat this one enough -- there is no way of knowing if this is in fact the Galaxy S III or, if it is, when it might come to market -- but, it looks like Samsungs "next big smartphone" just made a cameo on the company's support pages. Listed as the GT-i9300, the mystery device reared its head over at the Global Download Center of the United Arab Emerites site. If Sammy is to keep with its naming scheme i93XX would be a flagship device -- the i90XX line was the Galaxy S, i91XX represents the S2 series, while the i9250 and i9220 are the Nexus and Note respectively. As we warned before though, this could be some mid-range device and Samsung could be changing its naming conventions. Or, perhaps, its yet another variation of an existing model. Still, we'll take this as a good sign that Seoul squad has something interesting brewing.
New York ? The federal government is trimming the salt and fat in cafeteria meals. Will it help slim down America's students?
For the first time in more than 15 years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is raising nutrition standards for school meals, arguing that the "historic" changes will ensure that kids across the nation get healthier meals in their cafeterias. (The rules apply to all schools serving meals subsidized by the federal government.)?Here's what you should know:
How will the new rules change school lunches? They'll set limits on calories: Elementary students will get no more than 650 calories per meal; middle-schoolers will get up to 700 calories; and high-school students will get up to 850. Favorites such as pizza will contain less salt and more whole grains. Breads, buns, cereals, and pastas will have to list whole grain as their No. 1 ingredient. Whole milk is out, low-fat milk is in, and flavored milk must be nonfat. Plus, kids will be getting more servings and bigger portions of fruits and vegetables. Most of these new lunch rules will take effect next school year.
SEE MORE: Americans' ton-a-year eating habit: By the numbers
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Why the big push now? It's part of an effort to combat the rising rate of childhood obesity ? a third of U.S. kids are now overweight or obese. The 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act directed the USDA to boost school nutrition standards to help get kids into healthy eating habits early. "When we send our kids to school," says First Lady Michelle Obama, "we expect that they won't be eating the kind of fatty, salty, sugary foods that we try to keep them from eating at home."
What kind of impact will this have? Potentially, it could be tremendous. Nearly 32 million children eat lunch at school every day, and almost 11 million eat breakfast there, too. As a result, American children get between 30 percent and 50 percent of their daily calories in the school cafeteria.
SEE MORE: Georgia's 'grim' anti-obesity ads
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Is everyone pleased? No. The rules don't go as far as some nutrition advocates wanted. For instance, the USDA had proposed scrapping an existing rule that allowed the tomato paste on pizza to be classified as a vegetable, since striking that classification would have cut the amount of pizza kids could eat. But food companies that sell frozen pizzas to schools objected, and Congress blocked the change, along with another that would have limited servings of potatoes to two a week. School districts also got some rules watered down, saying they would have cost too much.?
How much is this going to cost? The USDA estimates that the cost of preparing each school lunch will rise by 11 cents under the new rules; the cost of each breakfast will go up 28 cents. The federal government will kick in 6 cents per lunch to help schools meet the standards. Over five years, the total pricetag for the rules will be $3.2 billion. But advocates of the higher standards say they'll pay big dividends by reducing medical bills related to diabetes and other obesity-related conditions. "A healthier population will save billions of dollars in future health care costs," said Dawn Undurraga, staff nutritionist at the Environmental Working Group.
SEE MORE: Paula Deen's diabetes: Don't blame Southern cooking?
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Sources:?Fox News, Guardian, TIME, USA Today, USDA
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President Barack Obama signs autographs after arriving at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, in Mesa, Ariz. (AP Photo/Matt York)
President Barack Obama signs autographs after arriving at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, in Mesa, Ariz. (AP Photo/Matt York)
President Barack Obama shakes hands after speaking about manufacturing and jobs during a visit to Intel Corporation's Ocotillo facility Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, in Chandler, Ariz. In 2011 Intel announced a more than $5 billion investment to build the new chip manufacturing facility, called the Fab 42, bringing thousands of construction and permanent manufacturing jobs to Intel's Arizona site. (AP Photo/Haraz Ghanbari)
President Barack Obama jogs toward a group of onlookers to shake hands after arriving at the airport in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)
President Barack Obama speaks about manufacturing jobs at the Conveyor Engineering & Manufacturing plant, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
President Barack Obama speaks about manufacturing jobs, at the Conveyor Engineering & Manufacturing plant, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
CHANDLER, Ariz. (AP) ? If President Barack Obama is showing some swagger, it shouldn't be a surprise.
His job approval ratings point to an uptick. The Navy SEAL unit that killed Osama bin Laden just pulled off a daring rescue that Obama authorized in Somalia. He's fresh off a big speech before Congress, and the Republicans who want his job are criticizing each other probably more than they are Obama.
As he hits the road for three days of travel to important political states, Obama is on a roll.
Feeling good, he even tried his hand at a bit of public crooning a few days ago, channeling the Rev. Al Green to a fundraising crowd at the Apollo Theater in New York and securing the highest of pop culture distinction: a ring tone.
It could be a fleeting moment for Obama. While the economy is improving with indicators trending positively, unemployment remains high at 8.5 percent and international debt crises and tensions could unravel the gains. A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows signs of increasing optimism that the economy will improve with 37 percent saying it will get better in the next year, the highest level in that poll in more than a year.
For now, Obama is not hiding his upbeat demeanor.
Arriving in Iowa on Wednesday, he jogged, grinning, to a rope line of a couple of dozen supporters. He later expressed nostalgia for the days in 2007 when he was campaigning in Iowa, and he struck a defiant tone against congressional Republicans that was even sharper than the repudiation he offered Tuesday night in his State of the Union address.
"Our economy is getting stronger, and we've come too far to turn back now," he told workers and guests at a conveyor manufacturing plant in Cedar Rapids. Speaking of Republicans, he said, "Their philosophy is simple: We're better off when everyone is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules."
"Well, I am here to say they are wrong," he said.
In a stop later in the day in Arizona, Obama stripped off his jacket and joked about the warm weather to a crowd at an Intel chip plant, seeming to revel in being out on the stump.
He even mixed it up with the state's Republican governor, Jan Brewer, confronting her over how she depicted him in her book. Reporters witnessed the two in intense conversation after Brewer greeted Obama on the tarmac at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, and Brewer later said it was over a passage in her book in which she describes Obama as lecturing her over immigration.
A White House official said Obama, who opposes Arizona's controversial immigration law, responded to an invitation from Brewer to meet with her by telling the governor he'd be glad to, but adding that Brewer had inaccurately described their last meeting in her book.
The spring in his step comes as polls show slight improvement in his job approval ratings. A Washington Post/ABC poll last week had him evenly split 48-48 on that question. A Gallup tracking poll has him even in recent surveys, compared with a few months ago when more disapproved than approved.
On the road through Friday, Obama will bask in the afterglow of his prime-time address and use the power of the presidency to compete for headlines with leading GOP White House hopefuls Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich as they knock heads ahead of the Jan. 31 Florida primary. He will try to promote a populist message of income equality that Obama's team believes can resonate with voters.
Underscoring the political subtext, four of the five states he will visit will hold Republican presidential caucuses or primaries within the next month. The two caucuses ? in Nevada and Colorado ? come within two weeks of his visit.
If 2011 began with overtures to Republicans and big business, 2012 is about operating on his own terms. He will challenge Congress to pass his initiatives, some of which he has tried before without success. For now, Obama is liberated. The thrust and parrying of governing has not picked up in Washington yet.
The road gives him an opportunity to goad congressional Republicans, believing he has been able to sway public opinion with his presidential megaphone before. He cites Washington's decision to extend, for two months, a payroll tax cut for workers. He's now seeking to extend it for the full year, and while there's little doubt that Congress eventually will agree, Obama prodded anyway.
"Your voices convinced Congress to extend this middle-class tax cut before," he said. "You remember there was little resistance there last year. I need your help to get them to do it again. Tell Congress to pass this tax cut without drama, without delay. No soap operas. Just get it done."
Political events are going his way as well.
Just as he stepped up his call for a minimum 30 percent tax rate for millionaires, Romney released his tax returns under pressure, revealing that he paid an effective tax rate of 14 percent. That not only underscored Romney's wealth, it also provided an argument for altering the nation's tax laws, a central element of Obama's re-election campaign.
Gingrich on Wednesday helped keep the focus on Romney's wealth, saying that the wealthy businessman lived in "a world of Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Island accounts and automatically $20 million income for no work."
Romney and Gingrich have been forced to target each other in the GOP presidential contest, freeing Obama from the fray. For instance, Romney has ads in Florida and Nevada blaming the housing crisis on Gingrich and concludes that nothing would make Obama happier than Gingrich winning the nomination.
___
AP Deputy Polling Director Jennifer Agiesta in Washington and Associated Press writer Cristina Silva in Las Vegas contributed to this report.
Wasp found in upstate New York shows up in Southern CaliforniaPublic release date: 24-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Iqbal Pittalwala iqbal@ucr.edu 951-827-6050 University of California - Riverside
UC Riverside entomologist discovered Gonatocerus ater in Irvine; wasp arrived in the United States from Europe
RIVERSIDE, Calif. In August 2010, an entomologist at the University of California, Riverside discovered a tiny fairyfly wasp in upstate New York that had never been seen in the United States until then. Nearly exactly a year later, he discovered the wasp in Irvine, Calif., strongly suggesting that the wasp is well established in the country.
Called Gonatocerus ater, the wasp is about 1 millimeter long and arrived in North America from Europe. It lays its eggs inside the eggs of leafhoppers.
Leafhopper females lay their eggs inside plant tissue. Gonatocerus ater females find these eggs and lay their own eggs inside them. When the wasp eggs hatch, the larvae eat the leafhopper eggs.
"This wasp was accidentally introduced in North America," said Serguei Triapitsyn, the principal museum scientist in the Department of Entomology and the director of the Entomology Research Museum, who made the discovery. "It most likely got here in parasitized eggs of the leafhoppers in twigs of Lombardy poplar seedlings coming from Europe, perhaps long ago."
Triapitsyn explained that the wasp had been reported in Italy where the leafhopper Rhytidodus decimaquartus was determined to be its host.
"In California, we do not know if the wasp's host is this leafhopper, but I found it on the same Lombardy poplar trees that had the wasp, so an association is very likely," he said.
Triapitsyn found the wasp on August 7, 2011, when he was doing field work along a trail. He caught the insects in a net that he had swept over Lombardy poplar leaves. He preserved the sample of insects in ethanol and brought it to his lab at UC Riverside for analysis and identification, which can take long. He got a positive identification of the potential leafhopper host only two weeks ago.
"I identified the wasp as Gonatocerus ater by comparing it to wasps from upstate New York and also Europe," he said. "It would not surprise me if this wasp is found wherever Lombardy poplars are located because its likely leafhopper host prefers these trees for feeding."
According to Triapitsyn, the wasp poses no known risk besides killing leafhopper eggs.
"It actually helps naturally control leafhopper numbers," he said. "In its absence, leafhopper populations could have skyrocketed. This illustrates how plant pests are sometimes accompanied by their natural enemies across very long distances without our knowledge."
In August 2010, Triapitsyn discovered another species of Gonatocerus on a large willow tree in the middle of a lawn on the campus of the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, NY.
"This wasp, which has yet to be described, is native to the United States," he said. "The fact that I found it in a relatively well visited and studied area shows just how little we know about these minute insects."
###
The University of California, Riverside (www.ucr.edu) is a doctoral research university, a living laboratory for groundbreaking exploration of issues critical to Inland Southern California, the state and communities around the world. Reflecting California's diverse culture, UCR's enrollment has exceeded 20,500 students. The campus will open a medical school in 2013 and has reached the heart of the Coachella Valley by way of the UCR Palm Desert Center. The campus has an annual statewide economic impact of more than $1 billion.
A broadcast studio with fiber cable to the AT&T Hollywood hub is available for live or taped interviews. UCR also has ISDN for radio interviews. To learn more, call (951) UCR-NEWS.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Wasp found in upstate New York shows up in Southern CaliforniaPublic release date: 24-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Iqbal Pittalwala iqbal@ucr.edu 951-827-6050 University of California - Riverside
UC Riverside entomologist discovered Gonatocerus ater in Irvine; wasp arrived in the United States from Europe
RIVERSIDE, Calif. In August 2010, an entomologist at the University of California, Riverside discovered a tiny fairyfly wasp in upstate New York that had never been seen in the United States until then. Nearly exactly a year later, he discovered the wasp in Irvine, Calif., strongly suggesting that the wasp is well established in the country.
Called Gonatocerus ater, the wasp is about 1 millimeter long and arrived in North America from Europe. It lays its eggs inside the eggs of leafhoppers.
Leafhopper females lay their eggs inside plant tissue. Gonatocerus ater females find these eggs and lay their own eggs inside them. When the wasp eggs hatch, the larvae eat the leafhopper eggs.
"This wasp was accidentally introduced in North America," said Serguei Triapitsyn, the principal museum scientist in the Department of Entomology and the director of the Entomology Research Museum, who made the discovery. "It most likely got here in parasitized eggs of the leafhoppers in twigs of Lombardy poplar seedlings coming from Europe, perhaps long ago."
Triapitsyn explained that the wasp had been reported in Italy where the leafhopper Rhytidodus decimaquartus was determined to be its host.
"In California, we do not know if the wasp's host is this leafhopper, but I found it on the same Lombardy poplar trees that had the wasp, so an association is very likely," he said.
Triapitsyn found the wasp on August 7, 2011, when he was doing field work along a trail. He caught the insects in a net that he had swept over Lombardy poplar leaves. He preserved the sample of insects in ethanol and brought it to his lab at UC Riverside for analysis and identification, which can take long. He got a positive identification of the potential leafhopper host only two weeks ago.
"I identified the wasp as Gonatocerus ater by comparing it to wasps from upstate New York and also Europe," he said. "It would not surprise me if this wasp is found wherever Lombardy poplars are located because its likely leafhopper host prefers these trees for feeding."
According to Triapitsyn, the wasp poses no known risk besides killing leafhopper eggs.
"It actually helps naturally control leafhopper numbers," he said. "In its absence, leafhopper populations could have skyrocketed. This illustrates how plant pests are sometimes accompanied by their natural enemies across very long distances without our knowledge."
In August 2010, Triapitsyn discovered another species of Gonatocerus on a large willow tree in the middle of a lawn on the campus of the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, NY.
"This wasp, which has yet to be described, is native to the United States," he said. "The fact that I found it in a relatively well visited and studied area shows just how little we know about these minute insects."
###
The University of California, Riverside (www.ucr.edu) is a doctoral research university, a living laboratory for groundbreaking exploration of issues critical to Inland Southern California, the state and communities around the world. Reflecting California's diverse culture, UCR's enrollment has exceeded 20,500 students. The campus will open a medical school in 2013 and has reached the heart of the Coachella Valley by way of the UCR Palm Desert Center. The campus has an annual statewide economic impact of more than $1 billion.
A broadcast studio with fiber cable to the AT&T Hollywood hub is available for live or taped interviews. UCR also has ISDN for radio interviews. To learn more, call (951) UCR-NEWS.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Stock index futures pointed to a weaker open for equities on Wall Street on Monday, with futures for the S&P 500, the Dow Jones and the Nasdaq 100 down 0.2 to 0.3 percent.
Gas producer Apache (APA.N) is to buy privately owned oil and gas company Cordillera Energy Partners III in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $2.85 billion to expand its acreage of oil and petroleum liquid fields.
News Corp (NWSA.O) is considering bidding for Turkish group Calik Holding's media assets ATV and Sabah, the Wall Street Journal reported citing sources familiar with the matter.
Asda, the British arm of U.S. retailer Wal-Mart Stores (WMT.N), said on Monday it would invest over 500 million pounds ($776 million) this year, opening 25 new stores and three depots and creating up to 5,000 jobs.
CSX, the No. 2 U.S. railroad operator, reports results. It is expected to post higher profit driven by auto and metals shipments.
Texas Instruments (TXN.O) is expected to report weak fourth-quarter results due to broad-based soft demand. Since the company already warned that the fourth quarter would be weak, the focus will be on its guidance for the first quarter.
Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International releases at 4:30 a.m. ET its book-to-bill ratio for December. In November, the ratio was 0.83.
Halliburton (HAL.N), the world's second-largest oilfield services company, is expected to report a sharply higher quarterly profit, and will be watched for any indication of how the U.S. hydraulic fracturing market is holding up.
Euro zone finance ministers will decide on Monday what terms of a Greek debt restructuring they are ready to accept as part of a second bailout package for Athens after negotiators for private creditors said they could not improve their offer.
France and Germany will call on Monday for a relaxation of global bank capital rules to prevent lending to the real economy being choked off, the Financial Times reported on Monday.
European shares (.FTEU3) were flat on Wednesday as investors dumped shares in defensive sectors, offsetting a rally in banks.
U.S. stocks posted their best week since Christmas, even with a mixed finish on Friday after strong earnings from tech bellwethers IBM (IBM.N) and Intel (INTC.O) contrasted with Google's (GOOG.O) disappointing report.
The Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) closed 0.8 percent higher, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index (.SPX) rose 0.1 percent and the Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC) fell 0.1 percent.
(Reporting by Atul Prakash; Editing by Erica Billingham)
ScienceDaily (Jan. 22, 2012) ? Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes have identified a finely tuned mechanism by which fetal heart muscle develops into a healthy and fully formed beating heart -- offering new insight into the genetic causes of congenital heart disease and opening the door to one day developing therapies to fight this chronic and potentially fatal disorder.
In a paper being published online in Nature Genetics, researchers in the laboratory of Gladstone Senior Investigator Benoit Bruneau, PhD, describe the roles that two genes -- Ezh2 and Six1 -- play in embryonic heart development, while also uncovering how the genetic basis of embryonic heart formation can have profound health consequences later in life.
This research highlights the emerging importance of a biological process called "epigenetics," in which a genetic change that is inherited by a cell or organism early during development has long-term consequences. Epigenetics is of particular interest in heart development, as the incorrect activation of genes in fetal development can lead to congenital heart disease into adulthood.
"Approximately 1.3 million children and adults in the United States live with congenital heart disease -- requiring daily medications, surgeries and for some, heart transplants," said Dr. Bruneau, who is also a professor of Pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, with which Gladstone is affiliated. "An understanding of the epigenetic regulation of heart development could someday bring us closer to improving the lives of these individuals."
At specific times during healthy heart development, Ezh2 acts as a "master regulator," shutting off genes that are no longer needed or that need to be kept off. In the past, the focus has been on which genes get switched on during normal heart development. But in this paper, Dr. Bruneau, along with Gladstone Postdoctoral Scholar Paul Delgado-Olguin, PhD, investigated which genes must remain off to ensure the development of a healthy heart.
In laboratory experiments, Drs. Bruneau and Delgado-Olguin removed Ezh2 from mice at various developmental stages, monitoring any ensuing genetic or physical changes and comparing them to mice whose Ezh2 remained intact. Surprisingly, mice without Ezh2 developed normally in the uterus. It wasn't until after birth that they began to show problems. Their hearts became enlarged and weakened and were unable to pump blood efficiently. An enlarged heart is a hallmark feature of cardiomyopathy, a form of congenital heart disease that afflicts thousands of children each year and for which the only manifestation may be sudden death.
Further analysis revealed that Six1 is normally on only for a brief period during heart development, after which Ezh2 shuts it off for good. But without Ezh2 to act as a regulator, Six1 remains on -- leading to heart problems later in life.
"When Six1 remains active for too long in Ezh2-deficient mice, it boosts the activity of other genes that shouldn't be activated in heart-muscle cells -- such as genes that make skeletal muscle," said Dr. Delgado-Olguin. "The enlargement and thickening of the mice's hearts over time eventually led to heart failure."
This breakthrough may help researchers improve their understanding of the genetic causes of congenital heart disease while also pointing the way to potential therapies. For example, a type of congenital heart disease called dilated cardiomyopathy is caused by mutations in Eya4, a gene that is also regulated by Ezh2 in the heart.
"Six1 is just one of many Ezh2-regulated genes that are vital for heart development," said Dr. Bruneau. "Our next goal is to find out exactly how Ezh2 regulates these other genes, so that we can begin to develop a complete genomic blueprint of how a heart becomes a heart."
Senior Research Technologist Yu Huang, MD, PhD, also participated in this research at Gladstone, which received funding from the National Institutes of Health, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the DeGeorge Charitable Trust, the American Heart Association and William H. Younger.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Gladstone Institutes.
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Journal Reference:
Paul Delgado-Olgu?n, Yu Huang, Xue Li, Danos Christodoulou, Christine E Seidman, J G Seidman, Alexander Tarakhovsky, Benoit G Bruneau. Epigenetic repression of cardiac progenitor gene expression by Ezh2 is required for postnatal cardiac homeostasis. Nature Genetics, 2012; DOI: 10.1038/ng.1068
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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (Reuters) ? U.S. drone aircraft fired missiles in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal region on Monday, killing at least four militants, intelligence officials and tribesmen said, the latest strikes in a resumption of the air campaign.
The unacknowledged Central Intelligence Agency drone program, a key element in President Barack Obama's counter-terrorism strategy, was seemingly paused after a November 26 NATO cross-border air attack killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, triggering fury. The United States resumed the program on January 10.
In Monday's attacks, two missiles hit a vehicle in the village of Degan, and another two struck a house in nearby Mohammedkhel village.
Intelligence officials said the strike on the vehicle killed mostly Turkmen, who were possibly members of al Qaeda. There may be more casualties, the officials added.
The use of unmanned armed aircraft over Pakistan has been a sore point with the public and Pakistani politicians, who describe them as violations of sovereignty that produce unacceptable civilian casualties.
But despite its public stance, Pakistan has quietly supported the drone program since Obama ramped up air strikes after taking office in 2009, and even asked for more flights.
Several militant groups have strongholds in Pakistan's northwestern tribal regions, taking advantage of the porous border with Afghanistan to conduct cross-border attacks.
A Pakistan security source told Reuters that the Jan 10 strike, which targeted senior al Qaeda leader Aslam Awan, and a follow-up attack two days later, were joint operations.
There are unconfirmed reports that Hakimullah Mehsud, leader of the Pakistani Taliban, the militant group that poses the gravest security threat to the country, was killed in the January 12 drone strike, but many in the American and Pakistan intelligence communities doubt this.
Relations between Islamabad and Washington plunged to their lowest level in years after the November 26 NATO attack next to the Afghanistan border, and prompted Pakistan to put its ties with the United States "on hold" for a review.
(Additional reporting by Saud Mehsud in DERA ISMAIL KHAN and Jibran Ahmad in PESHAWAR; Writing by Qasim Nauman; Editing by Chris Allbritton; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
It’s actually happened — after bringing BlackBerry from pager to the top of the smartphone world only to see the iPhone and Android all but demolish their share, RIM today
On the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, women are watching, and they are angry at what they see.
On January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed every woman's right to make her own medical decisions without government interference. At the time, the Supreme Court recognized the inherent right to privacy for women, an urgent issue given that women were dying in emergency rooms across the country from self-induced abortions.
But today, women across the nation are disturbed to see a set of politicians doing everything they can to undermine this landmark decision that has stood as a critical safeguard for women's health for four decades.
Last year, anti-women's health politicians across the country launched what was surely the most aggressive assault on women's rights since the Roe decision was handed down. The scope of their attacks has been mindboggling. According to the Guttmacher Institute, in 2011, state legislatures passed more than triple the number of anti-women's health laws than in 2010 -- the highest ever. Twenty-four states enacted 92 new abortion restrictions last year, shattering the previous record of 34 adopted in 2005.
Behind these numbers, real women are feeling the impact. For example, just a year ago, women living in rural Arizona could count on high-quality and compassionate abortion care in their own communities. But now, due to anti-women's health laws passed in that state last year, those women will have to travel long distances ?and presumably go out of state in some instances ? for safe, legal abortion care. That means time away from work, transportation costs, someone to take care of the kids ? it all adds up to an additional burden on women who are already going through a very stressful experience.
Ironically, just last week, Guttmacher reported that in countries where abortion is illegal ? which we are close to becoming ? abortion rates are actually higher. Contrary to what anti-women's health politicians would have us believe, evidence shows that restricting access to safe, legal abortion care does not lower abortion rates. It just forces women to search for clandestine and unsafe abortion care. And, according to the World Health Organization, complications from unsafe abortion account for an estimated 13 percent of all maternal deaths worldwide.
The best way to reduce the need for abortion is to reduce unintended pregnancy. But in the U.S., politicians are also increasingly putting up roadblocks to access preventive care, including the birth control that helps women avoid unintended pregnancy. In fact, in the past year, the House of Representatives and extreme state legislatures have worked to cut many women off from access to birth control and lifesaving cancer screenings for breast and cervical cancer.
Women have another idea. We think that when women have access to preventive care --including birth control, breast exams, and pap smears -- it is good for women, good for their families, and good for America.
So this year, Women are Watching. It's our campaign to spread the word about these unprecedented attacks on women's health and to let the public know where candidates stand on pivotal health care issues. By empowering one another to hold politicians accountable for what they say and do, we can cast informed votes for candidates who support women and women's health.
By the looks of things, we've got a lot of work ahead of us. With November in their sights, the crop of GOP presidential candidates have zeroed in on women's health and rights. In a reckless political game, every one of them has vowed to overturn Roe and take away the right to safe and legal abortion care for women in America -- even in the case of rape or incest.
And they aren't stopping there. In complete defiance of the majority of Americans, these candidates want to prohibit women from getting birth control and cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood health centers. They want to end the nation's family planning program, which provides preventive care to more than five million women and men, and cut off access to birth control for women who need it the most. They want to end health care for millions by repealing the Affordable Care Act. They even support so-called "personhood" measures, declaring a fertilized egg a person, which could result in outlawing birth control, in vitro fertilization (IVF), and abortion, even in the case of rape or incest. It's become a national race to the bottom to see who can be the worst possible president for women.
In short, a whole class of elected officials currently in office is dead set on turning back the clock nearly half a century. And another band of them is waiting in the wings ? with their eyes on the White House.
Opposing Roe and essential women's health care isn't just bad policy -- it's bad politics. That's because Americans agree with the protection that Roe provides. Polling consistently reaffirms that a majority of Americans support a woman's right to make her own decisions about pregnancy in consultation with her doctor and her family. Politicians who oppose this firmly held notion are swimming against the tide, putting themselves outside the mainstream.
So, as Roe heads into its 40th year as a touchstone for women's health -- and the opportunity, equality, and self-determination that health brings -- women are standing up and taking note of who is supporting their best interests and who is playing politics with their health and lives. And they are raising their voices to let their leaders know that this is not a game.
We must continue to raise those voices and keep the pressure on. Every day, from now through November, we need to remind politicians that women are watching. We see what they are doing. We hear what they are saying. And we vote.
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Follow Cecile Richards on Twitter: www.twitter.com/cecilerichards
Brazilian designer finds way to combine the joy of scooter ownership with the joy of backpack ownership
Have you ever looked at your backpack and wondered, "gee,?why can't this be a scooter, too?" No, of course you haven't. Still, that didn't stop Brazilian designer?Gustavo Brenck from inventing the?Gig Pack, a backpack that converts to a scooter.
The Gig Pack's design is simple ? or, at least, as simple as a?backpack-turned-transportation can be. When you're ready to leave the house, just pull out the base of the scooter, fasten the straps to keep them from getting caught up in the wheels, and ... scoot.?When you've arrived at your destination, the aluminum scooter folds up inside the backpack without compromising space for other items.
The?fashion-conscious scooter can safely support people weighing up to 200 pounds. But don't go out grabbing a second mortgage on your house to buy one just yet ? Brenck is still looking for manufacturers.
(Source)
This article was written by Fox Van Allen and originally appeared on Tecca
ScienceDaily (Jan. 19, 2012) ? A new University of Florida study shows a hybrid plant species may experience rapid genome evolution in predictable patterns, meaning evolution repeats itself in populations of independent origin.
Researchers analyzed genes of a naturally occurring hybrid species, Tragopogon miscellus, and the study, recently published online in Current Biology, suggests genome evolution in hybrid plants may follow a set of "rules" that determine which parental genes are lost. The research may be used to create higher and more stable yields in other hybrid polyploid plants, including agricultural crops such as wheat, corn, coffee and apples.
"The repeatability of gene loss in populations of separate origin is a really exciting result," said co-author Pam Soltis, distinguished professor and curator of molecular systematics and evolutionary genetics at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus. "Scientists have often wondered if there are 'rules' that govern patterns of evolution, and data for Tragopogon polyploids suggest that such rules may actually operate at the genetic level."
Scientists analyzed about 70 of the hybrid plants commonly known as goatsbeard, a species in the daisy family that originated in the northwestern U.S. about 80 years ago. The new species formed naturally when two plants introduced from Europe mated to produce a hybrid offspring, and hybridization was accompanied by polyploidy, or whole genome duplication. Following a polyploidy event, the hybrid offspring contains twice the number of chromosomes, totaling 24.
Researchers compared the patterns of gene loss in the hybrid to patterns of gene loss in other species from the same family that experienced an ancient polyploidy event about 40 million years ago, and found similar results. The data support an evolutionary hypothesis that genes whose products interact closely with other gene products are more likely to be maintained in duplicate after polyploid formation, meaning some aspects of genome evolution are predictable and repeatable in independent lines.
"We were surprised at the speed at which patterns seemed to form in which genes show loss versus retention," said lead author Richard Buggs of Queen Mary University of London, who worked on the study as a postdoctoral researcher at the Florida Museum.
Soltis said one possible mechanism of gene loss may be linked with changes in chromosome structure, an occurrence documented in a study published Jan. 6 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. By further researching the connection between specific gene losses and chromosomal changes, researchers hope to better understand how these patterns affect fertility and physical characteristics of hybrid plants.
"Hybridization and chromosome doubling have played a major role in the evolution of flowering plants, and Tragopogon miscellus gives us an amazing window into this process," said study co-author Doug Soltis, a distinguished professor in UF's biology department.
The polyploid's two parent species, Tragopogon dubius and Tragopogon pratensis, were introduced to the U.S. in the 1920s. Because their flowers only bloom for a few hours in the morning, Tragopogon plants are often referred to as "John-go-to-bed-at-noon." It looks like a daisy except for being yellow in color.
Researchers analyzed genes from five natural populations of T. miscellus, as well as polyploid plants re-created in UF greenhouses. The DNA was extracted from the leaf tissue.
"Although Tragopogon miscellus is perfectly positioned to allow examination of genome evolution after hybridization, it is not a traditional research model organism and virtually none of the tools and resources that allow these types of studies had been developed for it," said co-author Brad Barbazuk, a UF associate professor in biology and member of the UF Genetics Institute. "The availability of cost-effective, high-throughput genomics technologies has enabled us to examine this important phenomenon in this young species."
The two-year study was funded by UF and the National Science Foundation. Study co-authors include Srikar Chamala of the UF Genetics Institute, Wei Wu and Pat Schnable of Iowa State University and Jennifer Tate of Massey University in New Zealand.
"Polyploidy, the duplication of whole genomes, is a huge and really important process in plant genetics and plant evolution, and what the Soltises have is a beautiful system for studying these early stages of polyploid formation in nature," said Jeffrey Doyle, a plant biology professor at Cornell University. "If you know something about the rules by which genomes evolve, you may be able to predict what's going to happen when you try to genetically engineer something."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Florida. The original article was written by Danielle Torrent.
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Journal Reference:
Richard J.A. Buggssend email, Srikar Chamala, Wei Wu, Jennifer A. Tate, Patrick S. Schnable, Douglas E. Soltis, Pamela S. Soltis, W. Brad Barbazuk. Rapid, Repeated, and Clustered Loss of Duplicate Genes in Allopolyploid Plant Populations of Independent Origin. Current Biology, 19 January 2012 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2011.12.027
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Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
NEW YORK ? Apple Inc. on Thursday launched its attempt to make the iPad a replacement for a satchel full of textbooks by starting to sell electronic versions of a handful of standard high-school books.
The electronic textbooks, which include "Biology" and "Environmental Science" from Pearson and "Algebra 1" and "Chemistry" from McGraw-Hill, contain videos and other interactive elements.
But it's far from clear that even a company with Apple's clout will be able to reform the primary and high-school textbook market. The printed books are bought by schools, not students, and are reused year after year, which isn't possible with the electronic versions. New books are subject to lengthy state approval processes.
Major textbook publishers have been making electronic versions of their products for years, but until recently, there hasn't been any hardware suitable to display them. PCs are too expensive and cumbersome to be good e-book machines for students. Dedicated e-book readers like the Kindle have small screens and can't display color. IPads and other tablet computers work well, but iPads cost at least $499. Apple didn't reveal any new program to defray the cost of getting the tablet computers into the hands of students.
All this means textbooks have lagged the general adoption of e-books, even when counting college-level works that students buy themselves. Forrester Research said e-books accounted for only 2.8 percent of the $8 billion U.S. textbook market in 2010.
Pearson PLC of Britain and The McGraw-Hill Cos. of New York are two of the three big textbook companies in the U.S. market. The third one, Boston-based Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, also plans to supply books to Apple's store, but none were immediately available.
The new textbooks are legible with a new version of the free iBooks application, which became available Thursday.
The textbooks will cost $15 or less, said Phil Schiller, Apple's head of marketing. He unveiled the books at an event at New York's Guggenheim Museum. Schools will be able to buy the books for its students and issue redemption codes to them, he said.
Albert Greco, a professor of marketing at Fordham University in New York and a former high-school principal, said schools would need to buy iPads for its students if it were to replace printed books.
It wouldn't work to let students who can afford to buy their own iPads use them in class with textbooks they buy themselves, alongside poorer students with printed books.
"The digital divide issue could be very embarrassing. Because if you don't have the iPad, you can't do the quiz, you don't get instant feedback ... that is an invitation for a lawsuit," Greco said. "I would be shocked if any principal or superintendent would let that system go forward."
Greco said hardback high-school textbooks cost an average of about $105, and a freshman might need five of them. However, they last for five years.
That means that even if an iPad were to last for five years in the hands of students, the e-books plus the iPad would cost more than the hardback textbooks.
Apple also released an app for iTunes U, which has been a channel for colleges to release video and audio from lectures, through iTunes. The app will open that channel to K-through-12 schools, and will let teachers present outlines, post notes and communicate with students in other ways.
Greco called the new app "a shot across the bow" of Blackboard Inc., a privately held company that provides similar electronic tools to teachers. It, too, has applications for cellphones and tablets.
Apple also revealed iBook Author, an application for Macs that lets people create electronic textbooks.
According to biographer Walter Isaacson, reforming the textbook market was a pet project of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, even in the last year of his life. At a dinner in early 2011, Jobs told News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch that the paper textbooks could be made obsolete by the iPad. Jobs wanted to circumvent the state certification process for textbook sales by having Apple release textbooks for free on the tablet computer.
Jobs died in October after a long battle with cancer.
Android: The official Wikipedia app for Android lets you save articles for offline viewing, search articles pertaining to your location, share articles, and more without the need for a mobile browser.
Wikipedia has had an iPhone app for awhile, and now it's finally available for Android users to try. Not only can you save articles for offline reading, but you can view your article history, read an article in any language with a few taps, and see what local landmarks have Wikipedia pages. The app is fast and responsive, too, and a solid replacement for Wikipedia's mobile page. Not to mention it's another way to access Wikipedia during its SOPA blackout.
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Public release date: 24-Jan-2012
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Android: The official Wikipedia app for Android lets you save articles for offline viewing, search articles pertaining to your location, share articles, and more without the need for a mobile browser.