In lab, Pannexin1 restores tight binding of cells that is lost in cancer

Monday, January 30, 2012

First there is the tumor and then there's the horrible question of whether the cancerous cells will spread. Scientists increasingly believe that the structural properties of the tumor itself, such as how tightly the tumor cells are packed together, play a decisive role in the progression of the disease. In a new study, researchers show that the protein Pannexin1, known to have tumor-suppressive properties, plays an important role in keeping the cells within a tissue closely packed together, an effect that may be lost with cancer.

"In healthy tissues, the recently discovered protein Pannexin1 may be playing an important role in upholding the mechanical integrity of the tissue," said first author and Brown University M.D./Ph.D. student Brian Bao. "When we develop cancer, we lose Pannexin1 and we lose this integrity."

The results appeared in advance online in the Journal of Biological Chemistry on Jan. 20.

To conduct their research, the group at Brown University and the University of British Columbia employed a "3-D Petri dish" technology that allows investigators to watch closely how cells interact with each other, without scientists having to worry about additional interactions with surrounding scaffolding or the culture plate itself. How readily the cells form large multicellular structures therefore reflects their interactions with each other, not their in vitro surroundings.

Bao's advisor, Jeffrey Morgan, associate professor of medical science, developed the 3-D Petri dish technology. Morgan is the paper's senior author.

Cancer cells converge

Starting with rat "C6" glioma (brain tumor) cells that do not express Pannexin1, the researchers left some unaltered and engineered others to express Pannexin1. After putting the different cells into the 3-D Petri dishes and watching them interact for 24 hours, they saw that the Pannexin1 cells were able to form large multicellular tissues much faster and more tightly than the unaltered cancer cells.

To confirm that Pannexin1 was indeed causing these changes, Bao and his colleagues treated their samples with the drugs Probenecid and Carbenoxolone, which are well known inhibitors of Pannexin1. They saw that sure enough, the drugs negated Pannexin1's accelerating effect.

Then the team was ready to achieve the the study's main aim, Bao said, namely to determine how Pannexin1 was able to drive these cells to clump together faster and tighter. They found that Pannexin1 sets off a chain reaction involving the energy-carrying molecule ATP and specific receptors for it.

When all experiments were done, Bao, Morgan, and their collaborators had found that as soon as the cells touched each other, Pannexin1 channels were stimulated to open and release ATP. The ATP then bound to cell surface receptors, kicking off intracellular calcium waves that ultimately remodeled the network of a structural protein called actin. This remodeling increases the forces between the cells, driving them to bind together more tightly.

Figuring out that sequence, and Pannexin1's role in it, is perhaps the study's biggest contribution to cancer research, Bao said.

"Using their single-cell systems, others have been able to carefully study individual pieces of this cascade," he said. "We came from a different perspective. Because the strength of our assay is that we can look at gross multicellular behavior in 3-D, we could ask, 'Does this actually manifest into something tangible on the multicellular level?'"

Having gained this understanding of Pannexin1's role in the mechanics of tumors, Bao is now engaged in research to answer the obvious next questions: Does Pannexin1 affect the tumor's ability to spread and invade? When cancerous cells regain Pannexin1 expression, are they less likely to spread and leave the tumor?

###

Brown University: http://www.brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau

Thanks to Brown University for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/117181/In_lab__Pannexin__restores_tight_binding_of_cells_that_is_lost_in_cancer

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?Israel firsters? (Balloon Juice)

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Mitt Riffs Hard on Newt (TIME)

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Public spending fuels Ecuador leader's popularity (AP)

QUITO, Ecuador ? Amparo Martinez's universe is two small, tidy rooms in a poor Quito neighborhood that she shares with her 83-year-old mother and a severely handicapped daughter.

Her predicament makes holding a job impossible, so the three depend on a $240-a-month government stipend introduced by President Rafael Correa under a program for the disabled.

Martinez adores Correa.

"I hope he's re-elected many times," she says.

Correa is regularly assailed by human rights, press freedom and business groups as intemperate, autocratic and intolerant of dissent. Yet he is popular among millions of Ecuadoreans for programs which, like the initiative for the disabled, have improved their lives.

An array of state-funded programs implemented or broadened since Correa's 2006 election have brought stability to this traditionally unruly South American nation that previously churned through six presidents in 10 years.

A doubling in public spending under Correa adheres to a formula that has also aided the political longevity of his leftist allies Presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Cristina Fernandez of Argentina and Evo Morales of Bolivia.

But Ecuador devotes a greater share of its economy to public investment than any other nation in Latin America and the Caribbean, spending 10 percent of gross domestic product.

The main strategic ally of this tall, pugnacious U.S.- and European-trained economist has been the high price of oil, currently at $99.50 per barrel, which helped fuel 8.9 percent economic growth last year. Oil accounts for about a third of government revenues in this OPEC member nation.

Straying from Latin American custom, Correa has also engineered a vertiginous rise in income tax collection, boosting compliance by businesses and professionals. From $4.9 billion in 2007, income tax receipts rose to $8.4 billion last year.

He has exhibited uncanny resolve in coaxing higher numbers into the revenue columns of the balance sheet in a country that made the U.S. dollar its national currency in 2000.

That included rewriting oil extraction contracts with multinationals to radically boost the state's share of windfall profits. Some multinationals left, others stayed.

The government is now on the verge of reaping more raw material royalties. It is set to shortly sign contracts designed to yield the state $3 billion annually from the mining of gold, copper and other metals.

Correa has been coy on whether he'll run for re-election in balloting that could come as early as a year from now. If voting were held today, he'd be difficult to beat. Never in five years in office has Correa's approval rating dipped below 50 percent. It currently stands around 70 percent.

Critics accuse Correa of building castles in the air by creating expectations on the uncertain promise of continued high oil prices. If oil drops below $73 a barrel, they say, his ambitious public spending will need to be curbed.

"It's not sustainable as an economic model over time," said Xavier Ordenana, an economist with the Escuela Politecnica del Litoral in Guayaquil. "It can last for some years but not forever."

Ordenana says the government realizes the private sector must also grow or it risks insolvency. Heavy industry, export-oriented manufacturing and high-tech work remain scarce in Ecuador.

In all, 5 million of Ecuador's total population of 14 million have personally benefited in some measure from government largesse, researchers at the FLACSO graduate school calculate. Under Correa, the state has built homes for 30,000 families, plowed $8.5 billion into education and $5.3 billion into health care. It has rebuilt or improved nearly 3,400 miles (5,500 kilometers) of roads, nearly two-thirds of Ecuador's highway system, spending $4.5 billion.

Other programs have zeroed in on helping individuals and families.

The government says the program for the disabled, a flagship Correa initiative, has benefited 300,000 people. They receive medical attention, welfare payments and equipment including wheelchairs. Some have even been given housing. Public wheelchair access is improving.

Another popular program provides a $35 monthly boost to 1.6 million poor people, chiefly homemakers with no other formal income.

"My husband died many years ago but now I have the president as a spouse because he gives me a little money every month," said Maria Pillajo, a stooped 67-year-old who scrapes by washing clothes and loading baskets in the market of Quito's poor southern district of El Camal.

"Until poverty is eliminated it's a good measure," Correa said of the program when asked about it during a recent meeting with foreign correspondents. The government says the poverty rate stands at 29 percent, down nine percentage points from when Correa took office. Meanwhile, unemployment is officially at 5.1 percent.

It's not just the poor for whom the government is writing checks.

Some 100,000 middle-class first-time home buyers have received a $5,000 one-time "housing subsidy" grant that enable them to afford down payments.

"The payments have a direct bearing on the president's image. In political terms, they have the excellent effect of sustaining his political project," said Simon Pachano, a FLACSO political scientist.

Correa has also plowed millions into education, giving free uniforms to a million students, texts to 3 million and regularly feeding 1.6 million breakfast.

"It's a great relief because sometimes we just don't have the money," said Francisco Carvajal, a 28-year-old father of three who said he earns $750 a month from his job as a construction material sales company.

His children got free uniforms and texts as well as English and computing classes free of charge.

Correa is far from Ecuador's first populist leader. Yet he has been hounded by none of the accusations of corruption that drove previous presidents from office.

His popularity is anything but universal, however.

In striving for what he and Chavez call "21st-century socialism," Correa has alienated bankers, industrialists, the Roman Catholic Church and even indigenous groups. Initially backing him, the latter now object to his insistence that the state can extract minerals from their traditional lands without their consent.

Many business leaders are angry with Correa over his chumminess with Iran, fearing that he is distancing Ecuador from Washington, still the country's top trading partner.

On no adversary has Correa unleashed such bile as on the opposition news media, which he claims "oligarchs" have used to seek to discredit him.

Correa has had a columnist and three directors of the opposition newspaper El Universo successfully prosecuted for criminal defamation. They have been sentenced to three years in prison each and a collective total of $40 million in fines, though the sentence is on appeal.

Human Rights Watch has decried how Correa used a May referendum to obtain a popular mandate for reforms that could "constrain media and influence the appointment and dismissal of judges."

It also complained that people involved in protests where violence occurs "may be prosecuted on inflated and inappropriate terrorism charges."

___

Associated Press Writer Frank Bajak contributed to this report from Lima, Peru.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/latam/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120125/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_ecuador_correa_s_popularity

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Climbing higher at German wind farm

A German wind farm offers a ropes course at the foot of a towering wind turbine, providing an alternative view of green energy.

? A local, slice-of-life story from a Monitor correspondent.

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Welcome to the world?s first ropes course ever installed on a wind farm. Built by the Juwi Group, one of Germany?s leading renewable-energy companies, and located at the foot of one of the farm?s 10 towering wind turbines, it?s attracting tourists in droves.

Why would a green company also build a climbing ropes course?

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?We wanted to make the windmills more inviting,? says Ricarda Schuller, a spokesperson for Juwi. As interest in green energy use grows, the interactive course could help provide an alternative view of wind farms, which are often criticized here for being eyesores.

The course also fits into the company?s overall philosophy of providing attractive services to its employees: In addition to the ropes course, Juwi has a kindergarten, a swimming pool, and a beach volleyball court.

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Arab committee wants extended Syria mission: sources (Reuters)

CAIRO (Reuters) ? An Arab League committee on Syria will ask Arab foreign ministers on Sunday to extend a monitoring mission in the country by one month, sources attending the committee meeting said.

Hundreds of Syrians have been killed since the mission began its work in late December and political opponents of President Bashar al-Assad are demanding the League refer Syria to the United Nations Security Council.

"The committee will recommend an expansion of the monitoring mission for an extra month," said one source attending the committee meeting in Cairo who asked not to be named. The decision was confirmed by a second source at the meeting.

The foreign ministers are due to meet later on Sunday to debate the committee's conclusions on the mission, whose mandate expired on Thursday, and will have the final word on whether to extend, withdraw or strengthen it.

Arab states are divided over how to handle the crisis in Syria and critics say the monitoring mission is handing Assad more time to kill opponents of his rule.

Some want to crank up pressure on Assad to end a 10-month-old crackdown on a popular revolt in which, according to the United Nations, more than 5,000 people have died. Syria says 2,000 security personnel have been killed in the violence.

Others worry that weakening Assad could tip Syria, with its potent mix of religious and ethnic allegiances, into a deeper conflict that would destabilize the entire region. Some may fear the threat from their own populations if he were toppled.

Two representatives of Arab states told Reuters some small disagreements needed to be ironed out by the five-nation Syria committee on the phrasing of its final report but there was broad agreement on the outlines.

"The differences were mainly on the phrasing of the evaluations and recommendations ... but we managed to agree on most of those points and on how to reach agreement on the remaining part," one said.

The opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) says the observers lack the resources and clout to truly judge Assad's compliance with an Arab peace plan Syria signed up to in November and has called upon the Arab League to refer the Syrian crisis to the Security Council.

But Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia told the head of the Arab League, Nabil Elaraby, they would oppose such a move, a League source said on Sunday.

"The three states support solving the Syrian crisis inside the Arab League," the source told Reuters.

FUNERAL PROCESSION

Two Syrian army officers, an infantryman, a rebel and two civilians died in clashes on Sunday in Talfita, a village in the Damascus region, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Intermittent fighting continued in the town of Douma, nine miles northwest of the capital, which had been encircled by the military, said the UK-based rights group.

An opposition activist and a rebel fighter in Douma told Reuters by telephone the fighting had eased and the rebels held about two thirds of its main streets.

Masked fighters had set up checkpoints and a funeral procession for five civilians killed on Saturday was passing through the town, they said. Angry cries could be heard in the background as they spoke.

The rebel fighter said there were several casualties on Sunday but no confirmed deaths.

The head of the monitoring effort, Sudanese General Mohammed al-Dabi, was presenting his findings to the League's Syria committee and the foreign ministers of the 22-member regional body will decide their response later on Sunday.

Maintaining the 165 monitors, and perhaps giving them a broader remit, could give Arab states more time to find a way out of the crisis.

Elaraby met several Arab officials on Saturday and another source close to the League said the ministers could decide both to extend the mission and to offer it additional support in the form of U.N. or military experts.

Qatar and Saudi Arabia, regional rivals of Syria and its ally Iran, are impatient for decisive action against Assad, and Qatar has suggested sending Arab troops to Syria.

The League is due to discuss the idea but military action against Assad would need unanimous backing and several countries still believe in a negotiated solution, League sources say.

The Security Council is also split on how to address the crisis, with Western powers demanding tougher sanctions and a weapons embargo, and Assad's ally Russia preferring to leave the Arabs to negotiate a peaceful outcome.

Suggestions to send in U.N. experts to support the Arab observers made little headway at the last meeting earlier this month and Damascus has said it would accept an extension of the observer mission but not an expansion in its scope.

Syria, keen to avoid tougher foreign action, has tried to show it is complying with the Arab peace plan, which demanded a halt to killings, a military pullout from the streets, the release of detainees, access for the monitors and the media, and a political dialogue with opposition groups.

This month the Syrian authorities have freed hundreds of detainees, announced an amnesty, struck a ceasefire deal with armed rebels in one town, allowed the Arab observers into some troublespots and admitted some foreign journalists.

Assad also promised political reforms, while vowing iron-fisted treatment of the "terrorists" trying to topple him.

(Additional reporting by Erika Solomon in Beirut and Lin Noueihed in Cairo; Writing by Tom Pfeiffer; Editing by Diana Abdallah)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120122/wl_nm/us_syria

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Nano Patents and Innovations: Why Do We Sleep With Our Pets And ...

In the U.S., it's perfectly normal to sleep with your dog or cat, but huge cultural battles are being fought over whether it's odd, or even detrimental, to sleep with your baby. In much of the developing world, people think just the opposite, says anthropologist Carol Worthman.?

iStockphoto.com

Emory anthropologist Carol Worthman first began thinking about the cultures of sleep while traveling across Kenya in 1979 as a postdoctoral fellow. She was headed to the coast in an old, classic train with wooden slats that rolled down over the windows. The cheap ticket section was so packed for the overnight journey that mothers and children shared bunks in the women?s section.

?Children were crying. It was really noisy and I couldn?t get comfortable. I didn?t sleep much at all,? Worthman says.

The locals, however, took it in stride. ?In the morning, everyone around me got up looking bright and beaming,? Worthman says. ?I thought, ?They don?t sleep like Westerners do.??

iStockphoto.com

Nearly two decades later, Worthman was asked by a pediatrician to sum up what anthropologists know about sleep. She thought about it and had to respond, ?Not much.? While most waking moments of human activity were well-documented, their sleeping ones were largely ignored by anthropologists.

?When people go to sleep is when we can finally write up our notes,? Worthman jokes.

But the realization that her field had overlooked one-third of human life spurred her to work on the first analytic framework for comparative studies of human sleep behavior in 1998.

iStockphoto.com

She pored over the literature, and interviewed field researchers about their observations of the ecology of sleep from across continents, cultures and climates in the developing world. From foragers to farmers, islanders to mountain dwellers, patterns of sleep behavior began to emerge.

?I was startled,? Worthman says. ?You learn just how weird our sleeping habits are in the United States.?

For instance, many Americans consider it odd, and perhaps detrimental, to sleep with a newborn baby. And yet it?s perfectly normal to sleep with a dog or cat.

?In much of the developing world, people think just the opposite,? Worthman says. ?It?s pretty much universal that babies don?t sleep alone. They either lie right next to their mothers, or nearby on a mat, or in a cradle or a sling.?

Putting a baby in a separate room to sleep would be viewed as tantamount to child abuse in many cultures, Worthman says.

Credit: iStockphoto.com

For much of human history, humans have slept in family groups, with one ear cocked for danger. They were comforted by the sounds of their livestock shuffling, their babies breathing and the crackle of a smoky fire to ward off bugs and larger predators. ?Sleeping like a log? is not so desirable if you could roll into the fire, or miss the sound of an approaching predator.

Worthman?s work has shown that rural, and even some urban, communities of the developing world have markedly different sleeping patterns than the typical American. ?You can actually quantitatively show that culture drives human sleep behavior,? she says.

Building on her decades of research, Worthman is about to launch the first quantitative study of a pre-electric sleep culture, a major experiment set to begin soon in rural Vietnam. Click here to read more about the study.

It?s only relatively recently that electricity, larger homes, box springs, non-allergenic mattresses and climate-controlled interiors have altered our sleep environments. This rapid shift leads Worthman to wonder if modern sleep practices have set us up for chronic problems such as insomnia, sleep apnea and parental anxiety over a newborn?s sleep patterns.

Photo by Klaus Roesch

For instance, in many cultures, people tend to take more naps and have less rigid expectations for sleeping straight through the night. Some evidence indicates that in pre-gaslight Europe, it was not uncommon for people to have an early evening sleep, then wake up later in the night for a while, before returning to a deeper sleep state.

Modern-day insomniacs may actually be the more normal ones, Worthman notes. ?In our culture, we have this very fixed idea that you should lie down and go out like a light,? she says. ?One of the problems with insomnia is that people become very anxious about it. If they relaxed, went with the flow, and perhaps took a nap during the day, maybe it would help.?

All images, , unless otherwise noted.

Contacts and sources:
Story by Carol Clark?

Source: http://nanopatentsandinnovations.blogspot.com/2012/01/why-do-we-sleep-with-our-pets-and-not.html

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Multiple attacks in Nigeria kill at least 143

The series of coordinated attacks were attributed to a radical Islamic group.

A coordinated attack by a radical Islamist sect in north Nigeria's largest city killed at least 143 people, a hospital official said Saturday, representing the extremist group's deadliest assault since beginning its campaign of terror in Africa's most populous nation.

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Soldiers and police officers swarmed Kano's streets as Nigeria's president again promised the sect known as Boko Haram would "face the full wrath of the law." But the uniformed bodies of security agents that filled a Kano hospital mortuary again showed the sect can strike at will against the country's weak central government.

Friday's attacks hit police stations, immigration offices and the local headquarters of Nigeria's secret police in Kano, a city of more than 9 million people that remains an important political and religious center in the country's Muslim north. A suicide bomber detonated a car loaded with powerful explosives outside a regional police headquarters, tearing its roof away and blowing out windows in a blast felt miles away as its members escaped jail cells there.

Authorities largely refused to offer casualty statistics as mourners began claiming the bodies of their loved ones to bury before sundown, following Islamic tradition. However, a hospital official told The Associated Press at least 143 people were killed in the attack.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the death toll to journalists. The toll could still rise, since other bodies could be held at other clinics and hospitals in the sprawling city.

State authorities enforced a 24-hour curfew in the city, with many remaining home as soldiers and police patrolled the streets and setup roadblocks. Gunshots echoed through some areas of the city into Saturday morning.

Nwakpa O. Nwakpa, a spokesman for the Nigerian Red Cross, said volunteers offered first aid to the wounded, and evacuated those seriously injured to local hospitals. A survey of two hospitals by the Red Cross showed at least 50 people were injured in Friday's attack, he said.

A Boko Haram spokesman using the nom de guerre Abul-Qaqa claimed responsibility for the attacks in a message to journalists Friday. He said the attack came because the state government refused to release Boko Haram members held by the police.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Saturday that he was "shocked and appalled" by the attacks in the former colony.

"The full horror of last night's events is still unfolding, but we know that a great many people have died and many more have been injured," Hague said in a statement. "The nature of these attacks has sickened people around the world and I send my deepest condolences and sympathies to the families of those killed and to those injured."

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New Target Discovered for Pain Relief

News | Health

A neuropathic pain expert says, however, that in the past 30 years virtually no new drug targets have made it into the clinic as effective pain-relief drugs

By Katharine Sanderson and Nature magazine ?| January 22, 2012

Image: National Cancer Institute

An uncharted trawl through thousands of small molecules involved in the body's metabolism may have uncovered a potential route to treating pain caused by nerve damage.

Neuropathic pain is a widespread and distressing condition, and is notoriously difficult to treat. So Gary Siuzdak, a chemist and molecular biologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., and his team decided to take an unusual route to finding a therapy. Their results are published today in?Nature Chemical Biology.

They took rats with surgically damaged paws, who were consequently suffering from neuropathic pain, and instead of analyzing changes in gene expression and proteins in the animals, focused on metabolites?the biochemical intermediates and end-products of bodily processes such as respiration and the synthesis and breakdown of molecules. The science that looks at the body's metabolite composition is known as metabolomics. Using mass spectrometry, which can detect many different chemicals simultaneously, the researchers were able to identify the metabolites present in these animals 21 days after surgery.

Surprise finding

The team analyzed samples of the injured rats? blood plasma, of tissue near the injured paw, and of tissue from different areas of the spinal column, and compared the metabolites present with that of the same site in healthy rats. One particular area differed markedly between the two cases: the dorsal horn in the spinal column.

"It took me by surprise,? says Siuzdak, who had expected to see most differences in metabolite composition near the site of injury.

The researchers then looked more closely at the metabolites and recognized that the ones that were changing the most were associated with the metabolic pathway that synthesizes and breaks down the phospholipid sphingomyelin, a component of cell membranes, and its ceramide precursors.

?It was a huge flare to us that this was something we should home in on,? says team member Gary Patti, a chemist at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, Missouri.

Using cultures of spinal cord cells the researchers then tried to work out which of the altered metabolites might be responsible for pain. One molecule,?the previously unidentified metabolite?N,N-dimethylsphingosine (DMS), stood out for the amount of pain signallng it triggered in the cells.

Untargeted screening

To test experimentally whether this molecule was involved in neuropathic pain, the team then injected small amounts of DMS into healthy rats, and sure enough, those rats showed signs of pain.

The team hopes that DMS might prove to be important in the biochemistry of pain, and perhaps offer a target for drug manufacturers. But neuropathic pain expert Andrew Rice at Imperial College London says that in the past 30 years he has seen many targets identified, but virtually none of them has made it into the clinic as an effective pain-relief drug.

Rice lauds the attention shown to neuropathic pain but is concerned that the current animal model for pain is limited: it only corresponds to pain resulting from trauma, and not to the many other sources of neuropathic pain, which include diabetes, HIV infection and stroke. ?I?d like to see if this is more than a peripheral nerve damage model,? he says.

Siuzdak says his untargeted screening technique could prove useful in identifying drug targets for many other conditions. The more conventional way of using metabolomics is with targeted searches, where the molecule of interest is identified first, before seeing where it might be present. ?[Our approach] is more challenging than targeted analyses,? he says. ?You have to be open to any possibility of what pathways are affected.?

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=5967977961895dbf40382ede0b3926fc

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After Laying Off 60 People, RueLaLa Raises $22 Million

Members-only shopping site RueLaLa, a former subsidiary of GSI Commerce (before the eBay acquisition) just cut roughly 60 positions from its workforce of 550 employees, but an SEC filing published yesterday afternoon reveals that the flash sales company also recently completed a $22 million financing round.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/tVQhJmtEL0M/

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Ice storm blankets Washington day after snowstorm (AP)

SEATTLE ? A monster Pacific Northwest storm coated Washington with freezing rain on Thursday and brought much of the state to a standstill as the Seattle airport shut down and hundreds of cars slid off roads a day after the region was hit with a major snowfall.

The storm claimed at least one life ? a child whose body was pulled from an Oregon creek where a car was swept away from a grocery store parking lot. Rescuers also searched Thursday for an adult missing in the creek in the Willamette Valley community of Albany, about 70 miles south of Portland, said fire department spokeswoman Wanda Omdahl.

The National Weather Service used the Emergency Alert System to break into Thursday morning broadcasts with an ice storm warning until noon for the Seattle area and southwest Washington. Among the concerns were widespread power outages and the threat that structures could collapse under the weight of ice.

Authorities are also worried about flooding in the coming days as temperatures warm up.

"It's a very dangerous situation," with a major impact on roads, said Brad Colman, the meteorologist in charge of the Weather Service office in Seattle. "We're expecting a significant impact on power."

Ice closed Sea-Tac Airport and officials said airlines would likely cancel flights because taxiways remain a problem even as runways are deiced. Forecasters expect up to 0.4 inch of ice before temperatures rise above freezing by afternoon.

The state Transportation Department closed one highway because of falling trees that also took out power lines. Puget Sound Energy reported 70,000 outages at 7 a.m. Thursday, after crews had already brought 46,000 customers back on line since Wednesday.

"It's like a storm in slow motion that keeps happening again and again," said PSE spokesman Roger Thompson.

The ice follows a huge snowfall on Wednesday. Nearly a foot of new snow fell in Olympia, Wash., where 11 inches was measured at the airport. The record is 14.2 inches on Jan. 24, 1972.

Oregon didn't receive the snowfall that Washington did ? but got plenty of rain.

Rising water from heavy rains swept a car carrying at least three people into an overflowing creek in Albany. Two people escaped but at least one child was missing and feared drowned Wednesday night.

"The water just got high so fast," Omdahl said. "It's a big tragedy."

Washington State University in Pullman was closed. The University of Washington also cancelled Thursday classes at three campuses, including Seattle. Seattle schools were also closed again Thursday, as were schools in Bellingham in northwest Washington, and in southeast Washington's Pasco, Kennewick and Richland.

Lewis County, south of Olympia, had the highest snowfall amounts, ranging from 12 to 17 inches.

"It's unusual to get this much snow for western Washington," said Dennis D'Amico, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Seattle.

Forecasters warned that heavy rain combined with snowmelt could lead to some Washington river flooding, especially in the Chehalis River Basin, an area that has been hit by significant floods in recent years.

The storm caused hundreds of accidents but no fatalities.

"I saw a guy in my rear mirror," said Washington State Patrol trooper Guy Gill. "I saw headlights and taillights and headlights and taillights again as he spun around off the road."

In Oregon, high winds hammered parts of the coast and caused power outages that initially affected tens of thousands of customers, with reports of gusts as high as 113 mph. There were no immediate reports of serious damage.

___

Associated Press writers Doug Esser and Gene Johnson in Seattle, Ted Warren in Tacoma, Wash., and Jonathan J. Cooper in Portland, Ore., contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/weather/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120119/ap_on_re_us/us_washington_snow

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Susan Lucci To Host Real Life Soap Opera Show ?Deadly Affairs?

Soap opera life will continue for Susan Lucci after all, sort of. Sorry soap fans she is not going to another show, she will be hosting “Deadly Affairs” a real life soap opera show. Yep if you thought her days in Pine Valley were crazy you haven?t seen anything yet. Susan Lucci became a household name by playing Eric Kane on the ABC soap opera All My Children. As Erica she was involved in all sorts of drama from affairs, to corruption, to kidnapping to being married a lot. So she is used to drama. That of course was all fantasy now she is getting the chance to be a part of some real life soap opera style drama. The lovely Lucci is set to host and narrate the show ?Deadly Affairs? for Investigation Discovery. Sounds very intriguing right, well it is. The show will reportedly focus on deceptive love relationships, including love triangles and betrayal, that end badly but instead of it being fiction these stories will be fact. Susan told The Hollywood Reporter that the show ?will feature true-life tales of crimes of passion, that lead people down very dark paths?. I have to say I am quite [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RightCelebrity/~3/uOwGYjRqoY4/

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Thunder beat Spurs 108-96 to win 3rd in 3 nights

Oklahoma City Thunder center Nazr Mohammed (8) knocks the ball away from San Antonio Spurs forward Tiago Splitter (22) in the first quarter of an NBA basketball game in Oklahoma City, Sunday, Jan. 8, 2012. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Oklahoma City Thunder center Nazr Mohammed (8) knocks the ball away from San Antonio Spurs forward Tiago Splitter (22) in the first quarter of an NBA basketball game in Oklahoma City, Sunday, Jan. 8, 2012. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

San Antonio Spurs guard Tony Parker (9), of France, shoots in front of Oklahoma City Thunder center Nick Collison (4) in the second quarter of an NBA basketball game in Oklahoma City, Sunday, Jan. 8, 2012. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Oklahoma City Thunder guard Thabo Sefolosha, right, of Switzerland, knocks over San Antonio Spurs guard Gary Neal (14) as he drives to the basket in the first quarter of an NBA basketball game in Oklahoma City, Sunday, Jan. 8, 2012. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) ? The Oklahoma City Thunder became the first team to win three games in three nights during the NBA's condensed schedule this season, and they managed to make it look easy.

Kevin Durant had 21 points and 10 rebounds, reserve James Harden scored 20 and the Thunder rested their starters throughout the fourth quarter in a 108-96 victory against the San Antonio Spurs on Sunday.

"I just think the big thing was not to dwell on it and not make too much out of it. It's not sometimes as bad as people think," said Nick Collison, who had his first double-double by recording season bests of 12 points and 10 rebounds.

"I'm glad it happened earlier in the year. I think that was a positive but I think we all felt fine."

The Thunder were also able to rest their starters throughout the fourth quarter on the front end of the back-to-back-to-back after leading Houston by 21 through three.

This time, they outscored San Antonio 37-21 in the third to build a 22-point cushion.

"I knew our guys were going to compete and they were going to give everything they had for the three games. You were hoping that you could win them all," Oklahoma City coach Scott Brooks said.

"Fortunately for us, we did."

The Spurs, already without Manu Ginobili because of a broken left hand, played without point guard Tony Parker after he came out of the game and walked to locker room midway through the third quarter. He returned to the bench a few minutes later, and a team spokesman said Parker was fine and could have played.

DeJuan Blair also pulled himself from the game after he cramped up just after halftime. He didn't come back either.

Gary Neal, who scored a team-high 18 points, would not let their absences be an excuse.

"I just think a couple turnovers here, and their athletes were able to get out and run the lane, and the score ballooned on us," Neal said.

Parker left near the beginning of a 25-8 run that put the game away for Oklahoma City.

Russell Westbrook hit a driving layup and then set up Serge Ibaka for a three-point play to start it, and rookie Reggie Jackson's 3-pointer with 7 seconds left in the third quarter stretched the lead to 91-67.

Oklahoma City outscored San Antonio 13-0 in fast-break points in the quarter. The Spurs had a 15-8 advantage the rest of the game.

"One of our keys to the game was transition defense. In that third quarter, they got started with the transition with Russell and before you knew it, it was an eight-point game and then it was a 14-point game and a 20-point game," Neal said. "It kind of got away from us."

Durant needed only three more assists to record his first career triple-double but instead kept busy in the fourth quarter by getting up to give pointers to his teammates. After Durant spent an entire free throw sequence chatting with reserve Lazar Hayward, who was in the game, he shared a laugh with Brooks on the way back to the bench.

"I gave him my coaching notes just to make sure if he wanted to finish out the game," Brooks said. "Kevin loves the game. There's so many things that we all see in Kevin every day and sometimes we take for granted, but I like the fact that players love other players to do well."

Spurs star Tim Duncan didn't play in the last period either as the deficit remained in double digits.

Westbrook finished with 13 points and five assists in under 25 minutes and Jackson ? taking over Eric Maynor's role as the backup point guard ? had 11 points and four assists. Maynor sustained a season-ending knee injury in the Thunder's 98-95 win at Houston on Saturday night that allowed them to become the first to win the first two games of a back-to-back-to-back.

"It just shows you the depth that we have on this team. We have 10 guys in the rotation, so any given night any guy can step up and make plays," Harden said.

"These three games, we really needed it and we got the job done."

Atlanta, Denver, Houston, Sacramento and the Los Angeles Lakers had all failed to win three straight games on consecutive nights this season.

Oklahoma City finished it off and even had time to rest the starters, running away after Richard Jefferson's 3-pointer to start the second half got San Antonio within 54-51.

Westbrook answered with a 3 and his fast-break layup restored the lead to double digits at 65-54 after an 11-3 burst. Parker came out a few minutes later and the Spurs never mounted a comeback.

Rookie Kawhi Leonard had 13 points and 10 rebounds, and Jefferson also scored 13 for San Antonio. The Spurs never led after the first quarter and gave up a run of nine straight points to the Thunder reserves to start the second period.

NOTES: Blair and Oklahoma City's Kendrick Perkins earned double technical fouls after a scuffle in the second quarter. ... Danny Green, who scored a career-high 24 points in San Antonio's 121-117 win at Denver on Saturday, didn't score until hitting two 3-pointers in the final 90 seconds with the game out of hand. ... During the lockout-shortened 1999 season, there were eight sweeps in the 64 back-to-back-to-back sets.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-01-08-Spurs-Thunder/id-94f7970c452e4656beb9760bcb4ab402

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Laura Prepon pushes boundaries with 'Chelsea'

By Randee Dawn

When Laura Prepon bounded out onto the TODAY plaza, blonde, tall and smiling, fans of "That '70s Show" saw a familiar face -- if not a familiar hair color. When they knew her, she was a redhead, playing brash, bright Donna Pinciotti for all eight seasons of the Fox sitcom.

Laura Prepon talks about her role in the new NBC comedy, "Are You There, Chelsea?" and explains how she pulls off playing a younger version of comedian Chelsea Handler.

She's back on series TV now, heading up??"Are You There, Chelsea?, the show based on Chelsea Handler's writings. On Tuesday, Prepon addressed whether audiences were ready for Handler's edgy, alcohol-fueled style: "If you look at the shows that are successful now, 'Two and a Half Men,' and 'Modern Family,' even shows on HBO are pushing boundaries. We're right in there.... I think people will be able to handle it."

Speaking of alcohol, the series -- in which Prepon plays Chelsea Newman and Handler herself will occasionally appear as her born-again sister Sloane -- takes place largely in a sports bar. But this is no "Cheers" revamp: "'Cheers' would never be able to get away with what we get away with," laughed Prepon.

And the other burning question? Well, Chelsea Handler decided not to play Chelsea Newman because -- as Prepon says Handler has told her, "She always says 'I'm sick of being myself. I want someone else to do it.'"

And so they have. "Are You There, Chelsea?" premieres Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. ET.

Also in The Clicker:

Source: http://theclicker.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/10/10092045-laura-prepon-pushes-drinks-boundaries-with-chelsea

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can a automotive fuel filter be used to filter drinking water?

I am working on an emergency water?filtration system for when?I go camping. This system would be used to manually filter out sediment before I purify the water. Automotive fuel filters are cheap and easy to connect to tubing, but?I am afraid that the paper filter element might be coated in some sort of toxic chemical that will leech into the water as i filter it. I cannot find any information about this subject on the internet, so if you know anything please tell me. thank you.

Source: http://www.instructables.com/answers/can-a-automotive-fuel-filter-be-used-to-filter-dri/

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Black Sabbath's Tony Iommi diagnosed with cancer

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi has cancer.

The band released a statement Monday saying the 63-year-old has been diagnosed with lymphoma and is working with doctors on treatment.

The news comes two months after the pioneering heavy metal quartet's original lineup announced it was working on its first album in 33 years with producer Rick Rubin in Los Angeles. The album remains set for a fall release and the rest of the group - vocalist Ozzy Osbourne, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward - will go to England to continue working with Iommi.

There was no word about Sabbath's plans for its live dates.

His bandmates asked fans "to send positive vibes" to Iommi.

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Online:

http://www.blacksabbath.com

Source: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_MUSIC_BLACK_SABBATH?SITE=KVUE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

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NIST releases 2 new SRMs for monitoring human exposure to environmental toxins

Public release date: 11-Jan-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Mark Esser
mark.esser@nist.gov
301-975-8735
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has developed two new Standard Reference Materials (SRMs) for measurements of human exposure to environmental toxins. Used as a sort of chemical ruler to check the accuracy of tests and analytic procedures, the new reference materials replace and improve older versions, adding measures for emerging environmental contaminants such as perchlorate, a chemical that the Environmental Protection Agency has targeted for regulation as a contaminant under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

The CDC will use the new SRMs3668, "Mercury, Perchlorate, and Iodide in Frozen Human Urine" and 2668, "Toxic Elements in Frozen Human Urine"as quality controls for urine tests during their biennial National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (see www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes.htm.)

Because sample collection is non-invasive and the test results reflect exposures as recent as two days, urine is preferred for clinical diagnostics and monitoring of toxic environmental chemicals. Once collected, samples are frozen while they await testing.

In order to generate comparable results among tests, best practices in clinical chemistry state that a reference material should closely mimic how a specimen would respond to these tests. The best way to achieve such close resemblance is to make the physical, chemical and biological properties of the reference material as close as possible to the specimen. NIST researchers developed these new SRMs to replace the freeze-dried SRMs 2670a, 2671a and 2672a because when the frozen urine SRM is thawed it matches the properties of clinical urine specimens much more closely than reconstituted freeze-dried urine SRM.

In addition to NIST, the CDC, Mayo Clinic and the New York State Department of Health made certification measurements of the two SRMs to ensure their relevance for the intended applications. The development of SRMs 2668 and 3668 reflects NIST's commitment to continually improve chemical metrology to improve the health of the nation.

###

For more on SRM 3668, see https://www-s.nist.gov/srmors/view_detail.cfm?srm=3668. For more on SRM 2668, see https://www-s.nist.gov/srmors/view_detail.cfm?srm=2668.

Standard Reference Materials are among the most widely distributed and used products from NIST. The agency prepares, analyzes and distributes about 1,300 different materials that are used throughout the world to check the accuracy of instruments, validate test procedures and serve as the basis for quality control standards worldwide.

---

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?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 11-Jan-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Mark Esser
mark.esser@nist.gov
301-975-8735
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has developed two new Standard Reference Materials (SRMs) for measurements of human exposure to environmental toxins. Used as a sort of chemical ruler to check the accuracy of tests and analytic procedures, the new reference materials replace and improve older versions, adding measures for emerging environmental contaminants such as perchlorate, a chemical that the Environmental Protection Agency has targeted for regulation as a contaminant under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

The CDC will use the new SRMs3668, "Mercury, Perchlorate, and Iodide in Frozen Human Urine" and 2668, "Toxic Elements in Frozen Human Urine"as quality controls for urine tests during their biennial National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (see www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes.htm.)

Because sample collection is non-invasive and the test results reflect exposures as recent as two days, urine is preferred for clinical diagnostics and monitoring of toxic environmental chemicals. Once collected, samples are frozen while they await testing.

In order to generate comparable results among tests, best practices in clinical chemistry state that a reference material should closely mimic how a specimen would respond to these tests. The best way to achieve such close resemblance is to make the physical, chemical and biological properties of the reference material as close as possible to the specimen. NIST researchers developed these new SRMs to replace the freeze-dried SRMs 2670a, 2671a and 2672a because when the frozen urine SRM is thawed it matches the properties of clinical urine specimens much more closely than reconstituted freeze-dried urine SRM.

In addition to NIST, the CDC, Mayo Clinic and the New York State Department of Health made certification measurements of the two SRMs to ensure their relevance for the intended applications. The development of SRMs 2668 and 3668 reflects NIST's commitment to continually improve chemical metrology to improve the health of the nation.

###

For more on SRM 3668, see https://www-s.nist.gov/srmors/view_detail.cfm?srm=3668. For more on SRM 2668, see https://www-s.nist.gov/srmors/view_detail.cfm?srm=2668.

Standard Reference Materials are among the most widely distributed and used products from NIST. The agency prepares, analyzes and distributes about 1,300 different materials that are used throughout the world to check the accuracy of instruments, validate test procedures and serve as the basis for quality control standards worldwide.

---

[ | 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.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/nios-nrt011112.php

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New Zealand beachgoers grab milk from wrecked ship (AP)

WELLINGTON, New Zealand ? New Zealand authorities trying to clean up a wrecked cargo ship that split in two over the weekend want beachgoers to stay away from the debris that has washed ashore ? especially the bags of powdered milk some of them have been scavenging.

Waihi Police Sgt. Dave Litton says police closed public access to popular Waihi Beach on Monday morning after four cargo containers and other debris from the vessel Rena washed ashore. He says police received calls about people driving off with some of the bags of milk powder that are strewn along the beach.

Authorities say the milk and other items washed ashore could be a health hazard.

The Greek-owned Rena grounded on a reef in October and split in two in over the weekend, spilling about 300 containers.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) ? A cargo ship grounded off the New Zealand coast since October has split in two, spilling sea containers and debris and sparking fears of a fresh oil spill, maritime officials said Sunday.

The wreck of the Greek-owned Rena was described as New Zealand's worst maritime environmental disaster even before the rear section of the ship, lashed by pounding seas, broke away overnight. The ship previously spilled heavy fuel oil that fouled pristine North Island beaches and killed up to 20,000 seabirds, and despite salvage efforts nearly 400 tons of oil remain onboard.

Maritime officials said the front section of the wreck remains stuck in its original position, but the stern section slipped at least 100 feet (30 meters) away from the bow and is "moving significantly," pounded by 19-foot (6-meter) swells.

The storm that split the vessel will continue for another three to four days, Maritime New Zealand spokesman Ross Henderson said.

Officials said up to 300 of the roughly 880 containers that had been on board were lost when the ship broke apart. Of those, about 30 percent had been fitted with monitoring devices and some 30 containers had already been located.

Oil has been seen leaking from the broken ship. Alex van Wijngaarden, on-scene commander for the national response team, said oil from the vessel could come ashore around midnight Sunday.

"While reports at this stage indicate there has not been a significant release of oil, with the Rena in its current fragile state, a further release is likely," he said. "While it is unknown at this stage exactly how much oil may be released, teams have been mobilized and will be ready to respond to anything that may come ashore."

Environment Minister Nick Smith told reporters that the "risks for the environment are a fraction of what they were in October," though the roughly 385 tons of oil still aboard the ship is about the same amount that leaked from the vessel soon after it ran aground. Salvage crews previously removed 1,100 tons of oil from the ship.

Most of the oil is in tanks in the stern section, which could end up sinking. Some of that oil could end up dissipating in the ocean rather than washing up on beaches.

The containers, meanwhile, spilled goods including timber, wool, bales of recycled plastic and bags of milk powder. The debris could begin washing ashore later Sunday.

Some containers have been sighted floating up to 20 miles (32 kilometers) northwest of the stricken ship, Port of Tauranga chief executive Mark Cairns said.

"They have been caught in a strong coastal current" fueled by the storm, he said.

The Rena ran aground on Astrolabe Reef 14 miles (22 kilometers) from Tauranga Harbor on North Island on Oct. 5.

Salvage crews have plucked 389 of the ship's 1,370 loaded cargo containers from its decks since it ran aground, while some 98 have been washed over board in the past three months.

One eyewitness, Warwick Roberts, said the rear section was sliding along the reef.

The "stern has reared up and center section is not visible. Large breaking waves observed on bow," he told the New Zealand Herald website.

A two-mile (three-kilometer) no-go zone is in force around the wreck.

Investigations by The Associated Press last month revealed that Australian authorities impounded the vessel, but released it the next day after Liberian maritime authorities intervened, essentially saying the ship was safe to sail and the problems could be fixed later. The Rena, like many ships, is registered in Liberia.

Some 10 weeks later, the Rena ran full-steam into a well-marked reef off the coast of New Zealand. It's not clear whether the previously identified problems played any role.

The captain and Rena's navigating officer face criminal charges of operating a ship in a dangerous or risky manner, polluting the environment and altering the ship's documents after the crash.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120109/ap_on_re_as/as_new_zealand_grounded_ship

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House GOP gets it right on ESEA funding flexibility

yes Chris Tessone / January?9,?2012

?

House Republicans have released two more bills in their effort to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act piece by piece. The draft legislation proposed last week seeks to provide superintendents and state departments of education with more flexibility about how to spend federal dollars, dramatically remaking the American school finance system in the process.

The first gift the committee wants to give districts is increased flexibility to transfer categorical funds aimed at one underserved population into Title I. (You may recall that Mike called for something very similar more than a year ago.) This could wind up being a huge plus for children in these programs, enabling the funding of whole-school programs to address the needs of underprivileged youngsters without the mountains of red tape that currently accompany these dollars.

Second, the proposed law would repeal the so-called "maintenance of effort" requirement, which makes certain federal grant funds contingent on states and localities continuing to spend the same amount of their own money on education. This is becoming increasingly difficult to do in light of other budget pressures, including rising health care costs (both in Medicaid and on public worker payrolls).

On a whole, the House committee's proposals seem like a step towards more sensible school finance system.

Maintenance of effort requirements also hold federal grant-giving hostage to the fallacy that education simply costs what it costs, year in and year out, with regular increases in funding and no improvements in productivity. With continuing fiscal pressure at all levels of government, districts and charter schools are beginning to explore smart ways to improve instruction at lower cost. It makes perfect sense for the federal government to loosen the maintenance of effort requirement and give local governments some room to balance their budgets.

These budget pressures are having mostly negative effects in the short term, of course. It's tough for every affected district to innovate their way out of spending cuts all at once. However, the mandatory cuts to grant programs under the MOE requirement are merely a symptom of the "new normal" for state and local agencies. Removing the specter of those cuts is a net positive for schools and their leaders.

On a whole, the House committee's proposals seem like a step towards more sensible school finance system. In their concern with preventing bad decisions about how federal grant dollars are allocated, previous iterations of ESEA created onerous requirements that made those funds tough to use well and tied local hands too tightly. As always, however, if the feds do ease these restrictions, the onus will be on state and local governments to step up and create great programs on tight budgets to justify their new-found flexibility.

NCLB

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6 airports you don't want to get stuck in

Carlos Ortiz / Getty Images

A traveler sleeps on a baggage carousel at Chicago's Midway Airport after flights were canceled during a December 2005 snowstorm.

By By Sascha Segan, Frommers.com

Many airports are awful. Some are lovely, like the 10 prettiest airport terminals we profiled last week. But most are at best joyless econoboxes, at worst purgatorial warehouses of stalled lives.

Some airports deserve special condemnation, though. In some cases, they deserve to be literally condemned. Assembling this top 10 list of misfits, I scanned professional surveys and delay statistics and asked my frequent-traveler friends to come up with the 10 airports where you'd least like to spend an extra hour.

I'm sticking to major airports here. There are small airports around the world that consist of a shanty that swelters in the summer and freezes in the winter, with a hole in the wall for baggage claim and a single sad concession stand. (I'm actually describing my experience at Udaipur Airport in India in 1999.) But that's not fair. These 10 airports should deliver better service, and they don't.?

Frommers.com slideshow: More tragic terminals

Chicago Midway Airport
Chicago's Midway airport ranked as the nation's worst for on-time departures in the most recent federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics data, earning it a spot on this list. It isn't a bad place to hang out, with a new food court and a frequent subway connection to downtown Chicago, but any airport is the worst airport if you're stuck there and you aren't getting on a plane.

Consider this the least-worst of our set of bad airports. Midway's curse may come more from Chicago's notoriously difficult weather than from any problem the airport itself can fix.

"Paris" Beauvais Airport, France
A solid fifty miles north of Paris, this depressing low-cost box of an airport in Picardy got saddled with a bait-and-switch name by Ryanair, the ultimate bait-and-switch airline. It rated as one of the world's worst airports by Frommers.com friends SleepingInAirports.net because of its lack of seating, lack of services, and general half-tent, half-warehouse atmosphere.

It lacks a rail link to Paris and closes overnight, so hope that your flight doesn't get too delayed, or you may be camping out on the lawn.

LaGuardia Airport US Airways Terminal, New York City
I don't hate LaGuardia, but it was recently rated the worst major airport in America by both JD Power and Associates and Zagat Survey, so who am I to argue?

LaGuardia has no rail link to anywhere -- even between its own terminals -- and regularly suffers from congestion, overcrowding, and delays. While its terminals are shaping up, they're still each smaller and with fewer services than you'd expect from an airport at one of the top tourist destinations in the world.

I'm giving the US Airways Terminal the worst-terminal award here because at least the central terminal has an atrium and the Delta terminal just got some new food options. The US Airways terminal is dull and sad.

Moscow Sheremtyevo Airport Terminal B/C, Russia
One of the two airports rated "two stars" by global consulting firm Skytrax (nobody got one star), SVO B/C got particularly bad marks for anything where you have to interact with airport staff: their attitude, their language skills, and the speed with which they process passengers.?

Reviewers suggest that you brush up on your Russian if you intend to transfer flights, because signboards and staff tend not to work in English. Apparently, you can fix up a Russian airport, but it's harder to fix up Russian customer service. (In capitalist Russia, customer services you!)

Depressingly, SVO Terminal B/C is partially a new terminal, but it still got one or two-star rankings from Skytrax on "leisure facilities," "baggage hall," and "meet and greet." It's also several miles away from the rest of the airport and from its rail station, making inter-terminal connections difficult. Air France cautions "Take official claims of short transfer times with a pinch of salt: delays of up to two hours have been reported."

Manila Airport Terminal 1, Philippines
Last May, the ceiling at Manila airport's Terminal 1 caved in, injuring two people. That's part of why Sleeping in Airports rated it the world's worst terminal last year.

"The terminal has been a frequent target of criticism with travellers and the business community complaining it is congested, run-down and filthy, with toilets that do not work," Agence France Presse commented. According to SleepingInAirports.net, bribery and theft are also rampant in the terminal.

The negative press attention seems to have had some effect; this November the Philippine government said it would renovate the terminal starting in January. It looks like changes can't come too soon.

JFK Airport Terminal 3, New York City
In 1960, Pan American Airlines built the Worldport: a grand, flying-saucer-shaped gateway to the Jet Age.

Fifty one years later, this decrepit, crumbling chunk of concrete is still used by Delta as an international hub. Terminal 3 is the worst single airport terminal in America, and probably in the Western world. Even Delta acknowledges this: they're tearing it down and replacing it with a giant glass structure connected to the nearby Terminal 4. It's unsalvageable.

Terminal 3 is known for endless immigration lines in a dank basement, for an utter lack of food and shopping options, three crowded and confusing entry points, hallways that could have been designed by M.C Escher and for vomiting international travelers out onto an underground sidewalk with no cabs available. There's also a sense that the cleaning crew gave up in despair a while ago.

JFK's terminals range from the awful to the mediocre, but Delta's hubs take the rotten, worm-infested cake. Right next to T3 there's Terminal 2, an ugly box with an undermanned security line where I really hope you're never caught hungry.

More from Frommers.com

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Source: http://overheadbin.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/28/9773678-6-airports-you-dont-want-to-get-stuck-in

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(Video) Lil? Wayne Sings Drake?s ?Shot For Me? On Stage In Africa

At a show in South Africa, Lil? Wayne accompanied by Drake performed the first verse of ?Shot For Me?, his favorite track off of Drake?s Take Care. I?m thinking he should stick to his day job! Check it out after the jump!

Capri S.

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Source: http://www.inflexwetrust.com/2012/01/07/video-lil-wayne-sings-drakes-shot-for-me-on-stage-in-africa/

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