May 20, 2013 ? There is a link between use of anabolic-androgenic steroids and reduced mental health later in life. This is the main conclusion of a new study on elite male strength athletes that researchers from the University of Gothenburg recently published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Twenty per cent of the subjects in the study admitted steroid use.
The study is published by CERA, which is the University of Gothenburg's centre for education and research on addiction. Together with colleagues from Sahlgrenska University Hospital, they found a connection between abuse of anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS) and mental health problems many years later.
The study included almost 700 former Swedish wrestlers, weightlifters, powerlifters and throwers who competed at the elite level sometime between 1960 and 1979. Twenty per cent of them admitted using steroids during their active careers. The purpose of the study was to look for links between AAS use and mental problems.
'We found a clear link. AAS users were more likely to have been treated for depression, concentration problems and aggressive behaviour,' says Claudia Fahlke, director at CERA.
The researchers also found that AAS users were more likely to have abused other illicit drugs and alcohol. However, it remains unclear whether the steroid use actually caused the mental health problems or the mental health problems rather caused the steroid use.
'What we were able to show, though, is that psychiatric symptoms and use of steroids and other drugs tend to reinforce each other in a vicious cycle. This suggests that the anti-doping efforts remain very important, both in and outside of sports,' says Fahlke.
BEIJING (AP) -- A massive blast ripped through an explosives factory Monday in eastern China, killing five people and leaving another 20 missing, state media reported.
Rescue work was continuing at the site of the mid-morning explosion in Shandong province's Caofan township, the Xinhua News Agency said. The company website said the factory run by the Baoli group manufactures 10,000 tons of industrial explosives annually.
A total of 34 people were inside the factory at the time of the blast, and only 14 of them have been found so far, including those that died, Xinhua said. The cause of the blast and condition of the nine survivors were not known.
A government spokesman for the surrounding city of Zhangqiu said a full accounting of the dead and injured was being compiled and would be released. Like many Chinese bureaucrats, he would only give his surname, Cao.
China has sought to tighten access to explosives used for quarrying following a series of attacks by people using homemade bombs. However, safety rules are often ignored and industrial accidents remain common.
Some of us have a tendency to accumulate a lot more possessions than others. Whether you own a business, have multiple properties, or just have lots of things to keep track of, Inventory List can help. Unlike profesional inventory apps, Inventory List lets you add things and track them in your own way through the use of storage banks and locations.
There are lots of subscription inventory options out there but not all of us need that many features. Inventory List makes a pretty happy medium without being too over the top. The first thing you'll be asked to do is start adding locations and storage banks. Inventory List works as a nested hierarchy in order to keep track of your items with the top most level being a physical geographical location. For many of us this will be home, office, summer home, beach house, or any other location you need to inventory.
After you've created actual places, you can move on to creating locations within that space. For homes, this may be kitchen, bedroom, bathroom while at work it could be storage room, waiting room, or any other space you have a need to inventory items for. You'll also be given one more location spot that is nested so you can drill down to items such as cabinets, storage bins, or something else. I personally found this space better suited for categories instead of locations where I like to break things up into electronics, furniture, or any other category of item I'd like to inventory.
To add an item to Inventory List, you'll have to be drilled down all the way inside a physical location, space, and secondary space. This is one feature I wasn't too crazy about. Some people won't have a need for the secondary space and since categories are already supported when creating items, it seems redundant. A nice option would be for the user to be able to choose whether or not they even need that second location classification within settings and have the ability to disable it.
Once you're drilled down into a list, you can start adding individual items or quantities of a specific item. You can include a name, price, SKU (only if you want), a photo, and additional notes. This item will then be shown inside that list. You can also toggle between locations and individual inventory items on the home menu of Inventory List.
When it comes to syncing your items, Inventory List supports Dropbox sync and CSV export which should help keep active backups of all your items in case you ever needed to restore them or share them with others.
The good
Easy to see icons with quite a few choices which can help visually identify lists and items faster
Much simpler and easier to manage than advanced inventory programs
The drill down of categories helps to keep organization on point
The bad
Secondary location classification isn't always needed and should have a way to be turned off
Dropbox sync was finicky and kept yelling about development mode until it finally went through on the 5th or 6th try
The bottom line
Inventory List is really made for people that have a large amount of items to track such as contractors or property managers. If you're in one of these professions, Inventory List is a must have. It's also great for self employed individuals or those who many have storage units they'd like to keep a better handle on.
iPhone owners who aren't self employed or work with a moving inventory won't find much need for it, but those that haven't yet found a solution they're happy with should definitely give Inventory List a hard look.
An Iraqi woman passes by the scene of a car bomb attack in Kamaliyah neighborhood, a predominantly Shiite area of eastern Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 20, 2013. A wave of car bombings across Baghdad's Shiite neighborhoods and in the southern city of Basra killed and wounded dozens of people, police said. (AP Photo/ Hadi Mizban)
An Iraqi woman passes by the scene of a car bomb attack in Kamaliyah neighborhood, a predominantly Shiite area of eastern Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 20, 2013. A wave of car bombings across Baghdad's Shiite neighborhoods and in the southern city of Basra killed and wounded dozens of people, police said. (AP Photo/ Hadi Mizban)
Civilians inspect the scene of a car bomb attack in the Kamaliyah neighborhood, a predominantly Shiite area of eastern Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 20, 2013. A wave of car bombings across Baghdad?s Shiite neighborhoods and in the southern city of Basra killed and wounded scores of people, police said. (AP Photo/ Hadi Mizban)
Iraqi security forces and civilians inspect the scene of a car bomb attack in the Kamaliyah neighborhood, a predominantly Shiite area of eastern Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 20, 2013. A wave of car bombings across Baghdad?s Shiite neighborhoods and in the southern city of Basra killed and wounded scores of people, police said. (AP Photo/ Hadi Mizban)
Civilians inspect the scene of a car bomb attack in Kamaliyah neighborhood, a predominantly Shiite area of eastern Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 20, 2013. A wave of car bombings across Baghdad?s Shiite neighborhoods and in the southern city of Basra killed and wounded dozens of people, police said. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Iraqi security force members gather at the site of a car bomb attack in front of a crowded popular restaurant in Basra, 340 miles (550 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 20, 2013. Two car bombings in the southern city of Basra, killing and wounding dozens of people, police said. Iraq has seen a spike of attacks, including bombings hitting both Sunni and Shiite civilian targets over the last week. (AP Photo/ Nabil al-Jurani)
BAGHDAD (AP) ? A wave of attacks killed at least 95 people in Shiite and Sunni areas of Iraq on Monday, officials said, pushing the death toll over the past week to more than 240 and extending one of the most sustained bouts of sectarian violence the country has seen in years.
The bloodshed is still far shy of the pace, scale and brutality of the dark days of 2006-2007, when Sunni and Shiite militias carried out retaliatory attacks against each other in a cycle of violence that left the country awash in blood. Still, Monday's attacks, some of which hit markets and crowded bus stops during the morning rush hour, have heightened fears that the country could be turning back down the path toward civil war.
Sectarian tensions have been worsening since Iraq's minority Sunnis began protesting what they say is mistreatment at the hands of the Shiite-led government. The mass demonstrations, which began in December, have largely been peaceful, but the number of attacks rose sharply after a deadly security crackdown on a Sunni protest camp in northern Iraq on April 23.
Iraq's Shiite majority, which was oppressed under the late dictator Saddam Hussein, now holds the levers of power in the country. Wishing to rebuild the nation rather than revert to open warfare, they have largely restrained their militias over the past five years or so as Sunni extremist groups such as al-Qaida have targeted them with occasional large-scale attacks.
But the renewed violence in both Shiite and Sunni areas since late last month has fueled concerns of a return to sectarian warfare. Monday marked the deadliest day in Iraq in more than 20 months, and raised the nationwide death toll since last Wednesday alone to more than 240 people, according to an AP count.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki accused militant groups of trying to exploit Iraq's political instability to exacerbate sectarian tensions at home, and blamed the recent spike in violence on the wider unrest in the region, particularly in neighboring Syria. At the same time, he pledged Monday that insurgents "will not be able to bring back the atmosphere of the sectarian war."
Many Sunnis here contend that much of the country's current turmoil is rooted in decisions made by al-Maliki's government, saying his administration planted the seeds for more sectarian tension by becoming more aggressive toward Sunnis after the U.S. military withdrawal in December 2011.
The worst of Monday's violence took place in Baghdad, where 10 car bombs ripped through open-air markets and other areas of Shiite neighborhoods, killing at least 48 people and wounding more than 150, police officials said. In the bloodiest attack, a parked car bomb blew up in a busy market in the northern Shiite neighborhood of Shaab, killing 14 and wounding 24, police and health officials said.
The surge in bloodshed has exasperated Iraqis, who have lived for years with the fear and uncertainty bred of random violence.
"How long do we have to continue living like this, with all the lies from the government?" asked 23-year-old Baghdad resident Malik Ibrahim. "Whenever they say they have reached a solution, the bombings come back stronger than before."
"We're fed up with them and we can't tolerate this anymore," he added.
The predominantly Shiite city of Basra in southern Iraq was also hit Monday, with two car bombs there ? one outside a restaurant and another at the city's main bus station ? killing at least 13 and wounded 40, according to provincial police spokesman Col. Abdul-Karim al-Zaidi and the head of city's health directorate, Riadh Abdul-Amir.
A parked car bomb later struck Shiite worshippers as they were leaving a mosque in the southern city of Hillah, killing nine and wounding 26, according to police and health officials said.
In the town of Balad, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Baghdad, a car bomb exploded next to a bus carrying Iranian pilgrims, killing 13 Iranians and one Iraqi, a police officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, but the fact that they all occurred in Shiite areas raised the suspicion that Sunni militants were involved. Also, Sunni insurgents, particularly al-Qaida in Iraq, are known to employ such large-scale bombings.
Monday's violence also struck Sunni areas, hitting the city of Samarra north of Baghdad and the western province of Anbar, a Sunni stronghold and the birthplace of the protest movement.
A parked car bomb in Samarra went off near a gathering of pro-government Sunni militia who were waiting outside a military base to receive salaries, killing three and wounding 13, while in Anbar gunmen ambushed two police patrols near the town of Haditha, killing eight policemen, police and army officials said.
Also in Anbar, authorities found 13 bodies dumped in a remote desert area, officials said. The bodies, which included eight policemen who were kidnapped by gunmen on Friday, had been killed with a gunshot to the head.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
___
Associated Press writer Nabil Al-Jurani in Basra contributed to this report.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) ? Arkansas' state treasurer was accused Monday of taking at least $36,000 in cash ? sometimes stashed in a pie box ? from a broker who later came to manage a large share of the state's $3.3 billion stock and bond portfolio.
Democrat Martha Shoffner, who made her initial court appearance Monday, said she had no plans to resign despite members of her own party joining Republican calls for her to step down.
Shoffner and was released on her own recognizance. She was also ordered to surrender her passport.
Federal prosecutors allege Shoffner accepted $12,000 a year from a broker who would sometimes deliver cash in a pie box, pie included. The broker is cooperating with investigators.
"The allegations against Ms. Shoffner are serious and they completely erode the public trust that we put in our elected officials, if they prove to be true." U.S. Attorney Chris Thyer said at a news conference.
Shoffner told reporters outside the courthouse Monday that she does not intend to resign. She was re-elected in 2010 and has faced inquiries over the past year about the way her office has handled state investments.
She didn't enter a plea Monday, and her attorney, Chuck Banks, said she'd plead not guilty at the appropriate time. A federal grand jury will decide whether to indict Shoffner, who is charged with attempt and conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right. A next court date was not set.
Shoffner spent the weekend in Pulaski County Jail.
"This has been a very, very tough proceeding for her and a tough weekend," Banks said. "I'm going to send her home right now. We're going to get some rest, and I will talk to her this afternoon about preparing her defense."
An affidavit filed in Little Rock federal court said a broker ? unidentified in court documents ? would roll up money in $6,000 increments and have it delivered to Shoffner's office in a pie box. The document, by FBI Special Agent Richard McLain, said the broker has been granted immunity in exchange for his or her cooperation.
Shoffner was criticized in a legislative audit last year for bond sales that blocked the state from earning more than $400,000.
"(The broker) began receiving more of the state's bond business after he/she began paying Shoffner $6,000 cash every six months," the affidavit said. The broker "recognized his/her bond business with the state grew because of the payments he/she made to Shoffner."
The affidavit said the payments were made after Shoffner asked the broker for $1,000 a month to pay her rent in Little Rock.
The state's top elected officials, including Gov. Mike Beebe, Attorney General Dustin McDaniel and U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, called for Shoffner to resign.
"I think she should resign immediately," said Beebe, adding that the details provided by prosecutors are so specific that Shoffner has been rendered unable to lead.
"It would be very hard, in my opinion, for that office to properly function under her continued leadership," the Democrat added.
The heads of the Democratic and Republican parties also said Shoffner should step down.
"The incompetence that has been uncovered, the criminal charges that are pending, and the distraction from her office that due process will involve make her unfit to continue in her service as State Treasurer," Arkansas Republican Party Chairman Doyle Webb said.
When asked after the hearing whether she planned to step down, Shoffner responded: "No, not at this moment."
Banks said he "probably" would advise Shoffner to resign, but that the call is ultimately up to her.
"If she cannot properly perform her duties and responsibilities and still protect herself in a crime accusation, then to me it would be something for strong consideration," he told reporters.
The affidavit said Shoffner was arrested at her home in Newport in a sting operation. The broker agreed to record the meeting and bring $6,000 stashed in a pie box, the affidavit said.
Shoffner was arrested after the broker left her home and special agents with the FBI executed a search warrant. The affidavit said the $6,000 was located inside a cigarette package in Shoffner's kitchen.
"Shoffner admitted she knew it was wrong to accept the payments," the affidavit said.
Thyer said he did not know how much the state had invested with the broker, or how much commission the broker made from the bond transactions. Thyer said it wasn't an easy decision for prosecutors to grant immunity to the broker, who he wouldn't name.
"It was a decision made out of necessity more than anything else," Thyer said. "At the core of this particular conspiracy as alleged in the affidavit there were two people, and if both of those two people remained silent we would not be here today."
Shoffner told The Associated Press in a September interview that she was trying to maximize profits for the state when she sold the bonds early.
"We're here to work for the people of Arkansas," Shoffner said at the time. "We're the safekeepers of the money and, as I said, that's my responsibility. I certainly want to work with audit in whatever avenue they want to follow."
___
Associated Press Writer Chuck Bartels contributed to this report.
___
Follow Andrew DeMillo on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ademillo
Nintendo seems to have a knack for repeat performances. Nintendo DS? Quickly supplanted by the DS Lite -- and the DSi didn't last too long either before it was succeeded by the DSi XL. Even the 3DS saw a revision, when it was supersized last summer. These redesigns typically don't change more than the device's size, but when the 3DS XL was announced, some gamers were left wanting. Didn't the original 3DS get an accessory specifically to address the lack of a second analog pad? Why didn't Nintendo take the opportunity to add dual-analog controls? Well, if that happened, Nintendo couldn't release an encore Circle Pad Pro accessory, could it? Let's take a look at the 3DS XL Circle Pad Pro and see what's changed.
Israel Channel 2 broadcast this satellite image showing a Damascus airport warehouse before and after the airstrike (Screenshot: Channel 2 News)
The Justice Department's seizure of Associated Press reporters' phone records was reportedly one element of a "sweeping" federal investigation to find out who leaked classified information about a failed Al-Qaeda plot to bomb an American airliner.
Now, the Obama administration has reportedly apologized to Israel for another leak of classified information to the media, one that occurred earlier this month and which Israeli officials are concerned could place Israeli lives at risk.
Israel Radio's diplomatic correspondent Chico Menashe reported Sunday morning (via the Jerusalem Post):
American officials apologized to their Israeli counterparts for confirming that Israel was behind the airstrikes on the Damascus airport earlier this month, Israel Radio reported on Sunday.
The confirmation reportedly came from the lower ranks at the Pentagon, and the reasons for the leak are being investigated.
Menashe tweeted: "The U.S. has apologized to Israel for leaking details of the attack in Syria. Senior administration officials said to their [Israeli] counterparts that they are examining the issue and that low-level [officials] were responsible for the leak."
Menashe also wrote, "US officials told that they [will] review the matter. The leak forced Assad to react harshly."
U.S. apologized for leaking details of Israel. US officials told that they review the matter.The leak forced assad to react harshly.
The New York Times attributed its report about the bombing on May 3 to an Obama administration official: "Israel aircraft bombed a target in Syria overnight Thursday, an Obama administration official said Friday night, as United States officials said they were considering military options, including carrying out their own airstrikes."
CNN, which broke the story first on May 3, quoted two unnamed U.S. officials:
The United States believes Israel has conducted an airstrike into Syria, two U.S. officials first told CNN.
U.S. and Western intelligence agencies are reviewing classified data showing Israel most likely conducted a strike in the Thursday-Friday time frame, according to both officials. This is the same time frame that the U.S. collected additional data showing Israel was flying a high number of warplanes over Lebanon.
One official said the United States had limited information so far and could not yet confirm those are the specific warplanes that conducted a strike. Based on initial indications, the U.S. does not believe Israeli warplanes entered Syrian airspace to conduct the strikes.
Two weeks later, Israel still has not officially taken responsibility for the bombings, which allegedly targeted Iranian Fateh-110 missiles intended to bolster Hezbollah's arsenal.
Israeli security analysts suggest that confirmation of Israel Defense Forces involvement - even if leaked via American sources - not only could potentially endanger any agents still on the ground in Syria, but would also put pressure on embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad to retaliate against the Jewish state.
Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center, told TheBlaze, "It requires the Syrians to react officially rather than deny that it happened or that it was an accident. It forces Syria and Hezbollah and Iran to react officially and say they want to seek revenge, which makes things more dangerous for Israel."
"Can you imagine if things were reversed and somebody did that to the U.S.?" he added.
Assad may already be responding. Britain's Sunday Times reported that the Syrian military has placed advanced weapons on standby to strike Israel, in the event Israel strikes targets again in Syria.
The report said that reconnaissance satellite images show Syria has surface-to-surface Tishreen missiles ready for use and aimed at Tel Aviv. Each can carry a half ton payload, according to the paper.
In an interview with CNN shortly after the airstrikes, Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al Mekdad called the attack a "declaration of war," adding that Syria would retaliate in its own time and way.
At the opening of the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to the tumult facing the Middle East, calling it "one of its most sensitive periods in decades with the escalating upheaval in Syria at its center."
"We are closely monitoring the developments and changes there and we are prepared for any scenario. The government of Israel is working responsibly and with determination and sagacity, in order to ensure the supreme interest of the state of Israel - the security of Israeli citizens in keeping with the policy that we have set, to - as much as possible - prevent the transfer of advanced weapons to Hezbollah and to [other] terrorist elements," he said.
"We will work to ensure Israelis' security interest in the future as well," Netanyahu added.
Last week, Russia said it would move forward with a sale of S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems to Syria, after Netanyahu made a visit to Moscow in person to try to convince the Russians to halt the deal. Once deployed, the advanced system will make future Israeli sorties over Syria more difficult, as well as rendering any notion of a U.S. or European-led no-fly zone much more complicated to implement.
Beyonce at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit.
It's the hottest not-yet-confirmed story in entertainment at the moment: Are Beyonce and Jay-Z about to announce that baby No. 2 is on the way?
E! Online and other outlets seem positive this is the case, though thus far "sources" are the only place information has come from -- no one's spokesperson has stepped forward to put the official stamp on it.
But perhaps Beyonce herself reportedly did, on a since-deleted post on her Instagram account (see link for screen shot of post). According to several outlets, shortly after the initial rumors began surfacing, the singer apparently posted: "I can?t stop the rumors from starting, and I can?t really change peoples minds who believe them, all I can do is sit back and laugh at these low life people who have nothing better to do than talk about me.?
So since Beyonce won't say "yes" or "no," what's fueling this burning question?
In April, Beyonce told Shape magazine that they would definitely have more children in the future, saying ?I?ll probably start after this tour.? Her first, Blue Ivy, is 16 months old. She hit the road with her "Mrs. Carter Show World Tour" that month, and will be on the road until September -- but maybe she just couldn't wait.
Her appearance at the Met Gala in early May featured her in a "stomach-concealing Givenchy gown," as E! Online described it, and as the site suggested, concealment could only mean one thing.
On May 13, the New York Post went into full rumor mode, saying that "music insiders are chattering" about her newly-pregnant status, and noted that photos from her tour seem to reveal a baby bump.
On May 14, the singer postponed a concert in Belgium, saying in a statement she was "advised by her doctors to rest as a result of dehydration and exhaustion." She posted a note to her Tumblr page later in apology, noting "I've never postponed a show in my life."
Other celebrities like Russell Simmons are already taking the rumors as fact, and tweeting congrats.
People are just excited to read about Bey's comings and goings, as indicated by her recent controversial trip to Cuba with Jay-Z and the fact that the announcement of her first pregnancy -- on the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards -- set a Guinness World Record for most tweets per second related to a single event.
Meanwhile, Beyonce is unlikely to ease off of work any time soon, regardless of whatever announcement she may make. Other E! sources are saying the tour won't be affected by the rumored pregnancy.
Beyonce will be heard soon, though -- she's the voice of Queen Tara in the animated film "Epic," which opens in theaters on May 24.
The Arab Spring countries of North Africa and the Middle East are ushering in a new generation of contemporary artists, eager to express their social and political perspectives in an era of post-revolutionary change. Journalists have taken notice, shining a light on the region and its potential for explosive creativity by reporting on individuals and communities in Egypt, Libya, and Yemen who are leading the way for a renewed artistic culture in their respective locations.
The World Nomads festival is echoing this sentiment by choosing Tunisia as their country of focus for the 2013 biennial celebration. For the fifth edition of the festival, the French Institute Alliance Fran?aise (FIAF) is hosting a month-long bevy of multi-media events in New York dedicated to the art, music, dance and theater of the North African state. From the street art of eL Seed to the musical compositions of Emel Mathlouthi, the series of exhibits, lectures and performances seeks to showcase the innovation and experimentation brewing all across Tunisia.
We chatted with Marie-Monique Steckel, President of FIAF, via email, who explained the festival's interest in Tunisia and the burgeoning contemporary art scene she's witnessed there.
By Tunisian artist eL Seed, who presented during "The After Revolution" event at IDEAS CITY Festival.
What attracted you to the art world of Tunisia?
The timing of World Nomads Tunisia was particularly great. The explosion of young talent in Tunisia after the revolution made me consider Tunisia with renewed enthusiasm for the return of our biennial World Nomads festival, after focusing on the art and culture of Morocco in 2011. Indeed, when I had the chance to go [to Tunisia] six months ago with Elizabeth Krief Manardo, our Tunisian-born Visual Arts Advisor, we saw a real thriving scene with young talent, particularly the involvement of women in the arts scene, which we wanted to showcase in NY.
What types of art-making dominate the creative scenes in the country?
As you know, Street Art was illegal under the pre-revolutionary government, and is therefore a newly expanding medium for expression. Truly though, what dominates the new creative scene is music, songs, and photography. Our festival reflects this with three wonderful singers, notably Emel Mathlouthi, the voice of the revolution, who will perform songs banned in Tunisia at her concert at FIAF on May 22. The photography exhibition at White Box is also particularly powerful, with great pictures of street demonstrations and photos of women that capture the new creative scene in the country.
Emel Mathlouthi (Listen to her music here), who will be performing in New York on May 22, 2013.
How important do you think the artist's role is in this period of identity building post-revolution?
I feel the artist?s role is extremely important and felt by a lot of Tunisian young women and men. The revolution was an opening for creative talent to flourish and an invitation for people to express themselves. I believe they have an important role in the shaping and sharing of a sense of freedom that is experienced by the entire country.
Is a lot of the art you see in Tunisia politically oriented? What types of social or political issues are addressed by artists?
A lot of the art that we see deals with the role and status of women, and the strong desire not to return to a time of oppression and restrictive rules for women, who had made great strides for increased rights since 1956. Whether it is photography, painting or sculpture, many works are influenced by this tension, keenly felt by many artists. A key example is work by Mohamed Ben Slama, whose strong, evocative paintings of women were the subject of controversy. In June 2012, a painting of his featuring a nude woman surrounded by hovering, bearded men was lacerated and burned by the Salafists at the La Marsa art fair. He even received death threats and had to flee Tunisia, and is now in political exile.
If you could choose a few emerging Tunisian artists we should know about, who would they be?
It is so difficult to choose with so many great artists represented in this festival, and so many more we did not get a chance to showcase. I would say Mohamed Ben Slama for his courage in the face of the political situation, but all of the artists presented in our gallery exhibits have struggled. For graffiti artists, Jaye and eL Seed have done amazing work with our festival in NY, and I am excited to continue to watch their careers.
World Nomads Tunisia is hosting events throughout the month of May. Check out the calendar here. Scroll through the slideshow below for a look at the work of Tunisian visual artists and festival participants eL Seed and Mohamed Ben Slama.
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Eloise and her brothers were kidnapped in 2009 while on holiday in London. Her best and only friend Grant found her brothers three years later. They said she was dead. But now he's found her, and everything is on the line.
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Classical X-ray radiographs provide information about internal, absorptive structures of organisms such as bones. Alternatively, X-rays can also image soft tissues throughout early embryonic development of vertebrates. Related to this, a new X-ray method was presented recently in a Nature article published by a German-American-Russian research team led by KIT. For periods of about two hours, time-lapse sequences of cellular resolution were obtained of three dimensional reconstructions showing developing embryos of the African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis). Instead of the absorption of X-rays, the method is based on their diffraction (DOI: 10.1038/nature12116).
"X-ray diffraction enables high-resolution imaging of soft tissues," explains Ralf Hofmann, one author of the study and physicist at KIT. "In our work, we did not only manage to resolve individual cells and parts of their structure, but we could also analyze single cell migration as well as the movement of cellular networks."
Using X-ray diffraction, similar tissues can be distinguished by minute variations of their refractive index. However, in contrast to classical absorption imaging, this does not require any contrast agent, and X-ray dose is profoundly reduced. The method is of particular advantage when probing sensitive tissues in living organisms, such as frog embryos. In their study, the researchers concentrated on the motion and shape changes of tissues, cavities, and single cells during the developmental milestone of gastrulation.
During gastrulation, germ layers are formed and organized in their proper locations. Thereby, an initially simple spherical ball of a few hundred cells turns into a complex, multilayered organism with differentiated tissues eventually turning into the nervous system, muscles, and internal organs. Quoting the renowned developmental biologist Lewis Wolpert: "it is not birth, marriage, or death, but gastrulation that is the most important event in your life."
"Employing X-rays, we were able to watch joint and individual cell movements during gastrulation," zoologist Jubin Kashef points out who is a co-author and head of a young investigator group at KIT. For the first time, it was appreciated how cells interact with each other in a living embryo and how regions void of cells form and disappear. "It is like the migration of peoples. Stimulated by the migration of individual cell groups, other cells join in. They form functional cellular networks, which adjust to their changing environment. During migration, cells specialize to form progenitor tissues of future organs, e.g. the brain or skin."
"It is fascinating to have digital capabilities to observe and analyze these processes in an individual living frog embryo," Hofmann and Kashef emphasize. "In this way, fundamental results are obtained." The new method not only reveals morphological and dynamic aspects of embryonic development but also provides insights into their underlying molecular biology obtained by comparing the development of wildtype embryos and morphant phenotypes. The African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis) is one of the most important model systems of developmental biology whose study is of relevance in understanding human embryogenesis and diseases. In future research, morphant phenotypes will be correlated with the targeted switch-offs of key proteins. For this purpose, the novel technique -- combining latest X-ray measurement technology with advanced image analysis and developmental biology -- will be established at the synchrotron radiation facilities ANKA in Karlsruhe and APS in Chicago for routine use by a broad community of scientific users.
In their study, KIT researchers, which were supported by biologists from Northwestern University, used coherent X-rays from the Advanced Photon Source of Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago. Prior to this investigation, the method had been developed at ANKA. During measurement, a coherent bundle of X-rays passes the nearly spherical 1-mm frog embryo, which rotates half way around its axis within 18 seconds. By variation of the irradiation direction, information on the three-dimensional (3D) structure is acquired. As X-rays pass through different types of tissues at variable speeds, diffraction occurs. In turn, this generates a characteristic intensity distribution by interference a certain distance behind the embryo. Within the 18 s of tomographic scan time, about 1200 images were recorded. Similar to digital photography, every image consists of several million pixels. From this vast amount of data, the three-dimensional structure and the development of the embryo over time is inferred at micrometer resolution. If this process is repeated at intervals of several minutes, the resulting sequence of 3D images reveals all gastrulation movements occurring inside the embryo. Image reconstruction and analysis algorithms for the here-employed X-ray phase-contrast microtomography were developed at ANKA.
Immediate results of this research are the discovery of new morphological structures and the clarification of fluid redistribution processes. Moreover, the locations of centers driving the migration of tissues and cells during gastrulation were determined by differential flow analysis.
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Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres: http://www.helmholtz.de/en/index.html
Thanks to Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres for this article.
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So you want to build the Enterprise. Don't we all! Well good news: according to some quick, messy, napkin math, it's possible. Kind of. The bad news? It's going to be stupid expensive. But not unfathomably so! Start scrounging up your space-pennies.
One little constraint
Since we can't predict the future, or even come close to gauging the cost of development for revolutionary new inventions or substances like warp and impulse drives, shields, and teleporters, we're going to stick to what we know. It might not make us a real Enterprise, but it's about as close as you're going to get.
So where do we start?
First we have to pick our Enterprise. Obviously, with Star Trek: Into Darkness coming out, we're going to go with the one from that universe, from a size perspective anyway. According to some stats we got back when the original Star Trek reboot came out a few years ago, we know the new Enterprise?or as the Star Trek wiki calls it: USS Enterprise (Alternate Reality)?is 725.35 meters, 2379.76 feet, or roughly half a mile long. So, huge. And while the exact measurements vary, other sources give us a height of 625 feet, and a saucer diameter of 1,000 feet. She's a big girl.
Photo: Paramount
Raw materials
The closest thing we have to compare this to in the real world is probably a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. The new Gerald R. Ford-class suckers will be bigger and more expensive, but we haven't finished one of those yet, so we'll stick with a Nimitz-class, specifically the George H.W. Bush, the most recent?and last?of the Nimitz breed.
Photo by: Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Nicholas Hall/US Navy
At 1,092 feet long, the GHWB comes in at just under half the length of the Enterprise. And with a 252 foot wide flight deck, it's a fair bit thinner. But there's a lot of empty space in the Enterprise, whereas aircraft carriers are more like solid chunks. Getting really specific with a starship's actual volume would involve some annoyingly real math and measurements we don't have, but we can safely assume it would take about two GHWBs-worth of material to build a suitably sized, Enterprise-shaped brute when you stretch it all out. Make it air-tight and we'll call it a spaceship.
Unlike the Nimitz-class cruisers before it, which cost about $4.5 billion, the GWHB cost more like $6.2 billion thanks to modern day perks, and we need two. And we're just getting warmed up.
Running Total: $12,400,000,000
Some assembly required
Photo: Paramount
According to the first JJ Abrams Star Trek film, the specific Enterprise we're talking about here was built in Iowa. We'll assume it's getting the ISS treatment: Build it on Earth as a series of trivially sized modules that get assembled in orbit.
This is where the real cost comes in. If we go by the numbers from SpaceX, the Falcon Heavy can transport stuff to space for the low, low price of about $1,000 per pound. A GHWB worth of stuff weighs about 114,000 short tons. So a pair of them are 228,000 short tons, or 456 million pounds. Multiply that by $1,000 dollars per pound and... Yeah. We're talking $456 billion just to get this into orbit, or $468.4 billion for an Enterprise-shaped space station, total. And that's not including labor.
That's a lot of scary zeros, but really it's not too too bad. This year, the United States defense total budget expenditure was $3.803 trillion. So it's not like we don't have the cash.
Construction cost (ex-labor): $456,000,000,000
Running Total: $468,400,000,000
Tea, Earl Grey, hot
Now that we've got our big, hulking shell assembled, it's about time that we start filling it up with some awesome tech. One of the (many) iconic technologies in the Star Trek universe is the ubiquitous replicator, making pesky things like staying fed a piece of cake. Sometimes literally. We don't have anything close to the kind of build-anything-from-anything replicators from the series, but we do have something called the Replicator. The Replicator 2, as a matter of fact. Even better.
While MakerBot's Replicator 2 is stellar 3D-printing tech here on Earth, the thought of outfitting our enormous, enormously badass Enterprise with just one seems ludicrously cheap and lame. That being the case, let's set it up with a suite of 50 and just pretend we've got five that are 10 times the size. One MakerBot Replicator 2 retails for a scant $2,200, so we're talking an acquisition cost of (a still scant) $110,000. We need stuff to print with too, though. Let's say 45 kilograms (100 pounds) of plastic, assorted colors. MakerBot plastic is $48 to the kilo, so that's $112,160 in printers and ink.
The shipping weight of each Replicator 2 is 37 pounds, or 1850 pounds total, plus our 100 pounds of plastic which brings us to 1950 pounds. Launch that into space ($195,000) and now we're talking.
We looked into estimating the cost of something like one of Organovo's crazy Bio-Printers, but they couldn't help us out with any kind of number regarding price or weight, so we had to leave it out.
Total Replicator Cost: $307,160
Running Total: $468,400,307,160
Hit the (Holo)deck
Microsoft has a promising little at-home holodeck on the way with its IllumiRoom tech, but while that'd be great in your living room, we can probably spring for something a little fancier on our Enterprise. How about the CAVE 2, complete with 320 degree, panoramic 3D LCD display?
This isn't exactly a retail product, so we'll have to piece together the cost (and weight) in broad strokes. The awesome curved, 3D TV we saw at CES has recently been priced at around $14,000 and we'll need 72 for a total of $1,008,000 in TVs. We also need 36 "high performance PCs," that are maybe $3,000 a piece? And also a setup of 10 motion tracking cameras that we'll just say costs about $10,000. We wind up at $1,126,000 for procurement.
After a little black magic involving shipping weights and wild estimation, we can guess that this rig weighs somewhere around 5,378 pounds. As for software development, well, you're you're going to have to program you own games. Sorry.
Holodeck cost: $6,504,000
Running Total: $468,406,811,160
Fire photon torpedoes!
But really that's only half the battle. Or really it's none of the battle; this thing can't shoot yet. The GHWB already had some armaments that are theoretically on our Enterprise now, but they are pansy Earth-weapons. We need photon torpedos and phaser arrays.
When it comes to photon torpedos?well, we don't have photon torpedos. But tactical nukes seem pretty close, preferably in missile form. The UGM-133 Trident II is a modern-day ballistic missile that can rock a nuclear warhead. And, it can be launched from a submarine which means it's pretty much a torpedo, right? Kinda? Sorta? Regardless, it seems like it could be strapped to?and fired from?a spaceship just fine.
Photo: Department of Defense
It's pretty unclear how many photon torpedoes the Enterprise?specifically the reboot Enterprise?has, but we know the USS Voyagerwas designed specifically for scientific missions and had 38, so that seems like a fair bare minimum. Each Trident II costs $30.9 million to make, and weighs 129,000 pounds. So that means the cost of buying one "photon torpedo" and getting it into space is $159,900,000. The whole kit of 38 will cost us $6,076,200,000.
The Navy's LaWS system cost $40 million to develop and build, so we'll peg the sticker price at maybe $15 million per unit, for a total cost of $90 million for all six. The Navy's been tight-lipped about how much they weigh though, so we'll have to pull something really iffy out of the air and say each is about as heavy as a radar-guided Phalanx machine-gun bank just because that looks kind of similar-ish. So that's 13,600 pounds each, or 81,600 pounds of gear (total) to blast into space.
Phaser Bank Cost: $171,600,000
Running Total: $474,654,611,160
Man Up
And what good is any of this if the ship is a ghost town? While it's technically not a cost of building the Enterprise per se, we'd be remiss if we didn't at least briefly consider the cost of manning this beast. Who knows exactly how many people man the Enterprise, including all the (hundreds of?) low-level nobodies, so we'll just set it up with a skeleton command crew.
Photo: Paramount
Going by a list of notable crew members, we can figure we need?at minimum?11 people on this thing. Luckily for us, a recent agreement between NASA and Russia pinpoints the cost of flight-training a 'naut and shooting him/her into the great void at $70.7 million. So assuming our cadets already know how to do their jobs, and only need a little space-training, that gives us a transportation cost of $777,700,000
Of course, you also have to pay these guys and keep them alive. Recent estimates put the cost of keeping a soldier in Iraq for a year at between $850,000 and $1.4 million, so let's go with the higher end of that spectrum since we're talking exclusively about officiers and they are also going to space. That nets us a $15,400,000 additional personnel cost.
Lastly, they've got to be fed and watered and whatnot. In 2008, NASA awarded a roughly $3.5 billion dollar contract to SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp to perform that very same job of ferrying cargo, except to the ISS. That seems like a perfect estimate so let's just steal that wholesale as our supply cost.
Personnel and supply cost: $4,293,100,000
Running Total: $478,947,711,160
To boldly go...nowhere
Now that our Enterprise can defend itself, the only think left is to make it move. Unfortunately, that's pretty impossible under even the vaguest realism constraint. Warp drives, while they are being researched, aren't close to existing. And impulse drives?essentially fusion rockets?aren't much closer; we almost had a fission rocket once, but it got mothballed.
More recently, there's also been discussion of an impulse drive that could actually run on something stunningly like dilithium crystals: deuterium (a stable isotope of hydrogen) and Li6 (a stable isotope of lithium). This engine doesn't exist yet though. And it'd likely require some very delicate orbital-construction that we can't really hack yet.
That being said, we're going to have to call it quits here, with our weaponized, Enterprise-shaped space-station, which is pretty damn cool in its own right.
Grand Total: $478,947,711,160
(Or: 12.59 percent of 2013 US Defense expenditure total budget)
Exercise rider Jennifer Patterson gallops Preakness Stakes favorite and Kentucky Derby winner Orb at Pimlico Race Course Friday, May 17, 2013 in Baltimore. The Preakness Stakes horse race is scheduled for Saturday. (AP Photo/Garry Jones)
BALTIMORE (AP) ? Everything?s a go for Orb.
The Kentucky Derby winner was in a playful mood the day before the Preakness, making faces for photographers between nibbles of grass outside his stall at Pimlico Race Course.
?He?s really settled in well. He seems to be energetic about what he?s doing so I couldn?t be more pleased,? trainer Shug McGaughey said on a warm and sunny Friday morning. ?We?re excited about giving him a whirl to see if we can get it done and go on to the next step.?
Getting it done would mean defeating eight rivals in the 1 3-16-mile Preakness to set up a Triple Crown try in the Belmont Stakes three weeks from Saturday. Orb is the even-money favorite, and there?s a growing feeling that this 3-year-old bay colt may be special enough to give thoroughbred racing its first Triple Crown champion since Affirmed in 1978.
?We?d sure love to have that opportunity,? said McGaughey, seeming relaxed and confident. ?Probably the racing world would love to see it, too. It brings a lot more attention to what we?re doing from all standpoints.?
Orb extended his winning streak to five with a thrilling victory in the Derby two weeks ago, when jockey Joel Rosario patiently guided the colt from 17th to first in the final half mile over a sloppy track.
In the Preakness, Orb will break from the No. 1 post, a spot that has seen only one winner ? Tabasco Cat in 1994 ? since 1961.
?Who knows how this race is going to go, but I don?t think it will be a problem,? Rosario said of the inside post. ?He?s a horse that comes from behind, so I really don?t think it will affect him. I?m just excited to go into this with a horse who has a chance to win.?
A chance?
While rival trainers aren?t conceding the race, most agree Orb is the best of the bunch.
?Orb, he?s a freak. Right now, everybody should be rooting for Orb, except for the connections of the other horses in the race,? trainer Bob Baffert said ? and he?s got a horse in the race, 12-1 choice Govenor Charlie. ?Anybody who?s not rooting for Orb, there?s something mentally wrong with them.?
Baffert has been there before. Three of his five Preakness winners had also won the Derby, but were unable to complete the Triple Crown with a win in the Belmont. He says the Preakness is the least stressful of the three races.
?There is absolutely no pressure, believe it or not because you?ve just won the Derby,? he said. ?You?re flying high and everybody?s excited. You don?t think about it. The next one (the Belmont) is the pressure.?
Getting to the next one may sound easy. It isn?t. Six of the past eight Derby winners did not win the Preakness, and McGaughey is well aware of the pitfalls.
?There are a lot of ways you can lose. Freaky things can happen,? he said. ?You hope he doesn?t get in any trouble, you hope he handles the track, you hope he handles the kickback of the dirt, you hope he handles the day. If he does all that, I would have to think it will take a pretty darn good horse to beat him.?
Maybe it?s Goldencents, who did not take to the slop at Churchill Downs and finished 17th after winning the Santa Anita Derby in April.
?Orb?s not like a one-race hit. All year long he?s been super impressive,? said Goldencents trainer Doug O?Neill, who won the Derby and Preakness last year with I?ll Have Another, only to scratch the colt the day before the Belmont because of a tendon injury. ?But we?ve seen Goldencents do some brilliant things in the afternoon. If he does, I think he can beat him.?
Maybe it?s Itsmyluckyday, another top 3-year-old who did not handle the sloppy track and finished 15th in the Derby.
?He?s given me every sign that he?s ready for the war; he?s ready for the race; he?s ready for the battle,? trainer Eddie Plesa Jr., said. ?Let?s just get it on.?
Or maybe it?s Departing, one of the three horses in the race who did not run in the Derby. Orb knows Departing well ? the two were pals growing up at Claiborne Farm in Paris, Ky., and ran around together in the same field. The gelding has won four of five starts, and comes into the Preakness off a win in the Illinois Derby.
And, of course, there?s D. Wayne Lukas, who has three of the nine entries in Oxbow, Will Take Charge and Titletown Five, a colt owned by Green Bay Packer greats Paul Hornung and Willie Davis. Lukas, like Baffert, has five Preakness wins, and his next victory in a Triple Crown race would give him a record 14 ? one more than ?Sunny Jim? Fitzsimmons.
Oxbow was sixth and Will Take Charge eighth in the Derby, while Titletown Five is a maiden winner who ran fourth in the Derby Trial.
?You have to be careful about that much emphasis on one race,? Lukas said of Orb?s Derby win. ?You change the surface, you shorten the race, you put him in the one hole. These are things he?ll have to overcome. He?s the best horse. It?s his race to lose. But it only takes one horse to spoil your day.?
Weather could be a factor, too. The latest forecast for Saturday is calling for a 50 percent chance of rain with temperatures reaching the low 70s. Post time for the race on NBC is 6:20 p.m.
While Orb will take his shot at becoming the 34th horse with a chance at the Triple Crown ? 11 have done it, 19 failed and three others did not run in the Belmont ? several other historic milestones are in play. Rosie Napravnik will be aboard 5-1 second choice Mylute in an attempt to become the first female to the win the Preakness and Kevin Krigger, who rides Goldencents, looks to become the first black jockey to win since Willie Simms with Sly Fox in 1898.
Orb?s rapid rise began with his win in the Fountain of Youth, followed by a solid victory in the Florida Derby before he ran off with the Kentucky Derby. The colt is co-owned by racing royalty ? Ogden Mills ?Dinny? Phipps and his first cousin, Marylander Stuart Janney III. They run their racing operation the traditional way ? breeding and racing their own horses rather than attending sales and trying to buy champions.
McGaughey has been the Phipps? trainer for 28 years, and has campaigned such champions as Easy Goer, Inside Information and the undefeated Personal Ensign.
?This has kind of shown that with Stuart Janney?s relationship with breeding that it can be done in a different way,? McGaughey said. ?There?s a long line of pedigree that?s been in their family for years and years and years and there?s a lot of thought process in breeding horses to mares ? whether right or wrong. And we might have gotten a little lucky this time.?
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