Dr. Rita Levi-Montalcini, Nobel Winner, Dies At 103

Rita Levi-Montalcini, who has died aged 103, overcame racial and sexual prejudice to become a leading neurobiologist and one of the handful of women scientists to win a Nobel Prize.

Her triumph came in 1986, when she shared the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with her student, the biochemist Stanley Cohen, for their contributions to the understanding of growth factors in human development.

By the 1950s, the pattern of cell growth and differentiation had long been established, and scientists

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/HdPW_katgu0/story01.htm

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As climate warms, bark beetles march on high-elevation forests

Dec. 31, 2012 ? Trees and the insects that eat them wage constant war. Insects burrow and munch; trees deploy lethal and disruptive defenses in the form of chemicals.

But in a warming world, where temperatures and seasonal change are in flux, the tide of battle may be shifting in some insects' favor, according to a new study.

In a report published today (Dec. 31, 2012) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison reports a rising threat to the whitebark pine forests of the northern Rocky Mountains as native mountain pine beetles climb ever higher, attacking trees that have not evolved strong defenses to stop them.

The whitebark pine forests of the western United States and Canada are the forest ecosystems that occur at the highest elevation that sustains trees. It is critical habitat for iconic species such as the grizzly bear and plays an important role in governing the hydrology of the mountain west by shading snow and regulating the flow of meltwater.

"Warming temperatures have allowed tree-killing beetles to thrive in areas that were historically too cold for them most years," explains Ken Raffa, a UW-Madison professor of entomology and a senior author of the new report. "The tree species at these high elevations never evolved strong defenses."

A warming world has not only made it easier for the mountain pine beetle to invade new and defenseless ecosystems, but also to better withstand winter weather that is milder and erupt in large outbreaks capable of killing entire stands of trees, no matter their composition.

"A subject of much concern in the scientific community is the potential for cascading effects of whitebark pine loss on mountain ecosystems," says Phil Townsend, a UW-Madison professor of forest ecology and also a senior author of the study.

The mountain pine beetle's historic host is the lodgepole pine, a tree common at lower elevations. Typically, the insects, which are about the size of a grain of rice, play a key role in regulating the health of a forest by attacking old or weakened trees and fostering the development of a younger forest. However, recent years have been characterized by unusually hot and dry summers and mild winters, which have allowed insect populations to boom. This has led to an infestation of mountain pine beetle described as possibly the most significant insect blight ever seen in North America.

Because lodgepole pine co-evolved with the bark beetle, it has devised stronger chemical countermeasures, volatile compounds toxic to the beetle and other agents that disrupt the pine bark beetle's chemical communication system.

Despite its robust defense system, the lodgepole pine is still the preferred menu item for the mountain pine beetle, suggesting that the beetle has not yet adjusted its host preference to whitebark pine. "Nevertheless, at elevations consisting of pure whitebark pine, the mountain pine beetle readily attacks it," says Townsend.

The good news, he adds, is that in mixed stands, the beetle's strongest attraction is to the lodgepole pine, suggesting that, at least in the short term, whitebark pine may persist in those environments.

The study, conducted in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, one of the last nearly intact ecosystems in the Earth's northern temperate regions, also revealed that the insects that prey on or compete with the mountain pine beetle are staying in their preferred lodgepole pine habitat. That, says Townsend, is a concern because the tree-killing bark beetles "will encounter fewer of these enemies in fragile, high-elevation stands."

Whitebark pine trees are an important food source for wildlife, including black and grizzly bears, and birds such as the Clark's nutcracker, named after the famed explorer and which is essential to whitebark pine forest ecology as the bird's seed caches help regenerate the forests.

With their broad crowns, the high-elevation whitebark pines also act as snow fences, helping to slowly release water into mountain streams and extending stream flow into mountain valleys well into the summer.

"Loss of the canopy will lead to greater desiccation during the winter and faster melting in the summer due to loss of tree canopies for shade," according to Townsend. "This is possibly a short-term effect of the loss of whitebark pine," he explains "If -- and it is a big if -- other tree species replace it, eventually this service may be replaced."

The new study was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the UW-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Wisconsin-Madison. The original article was written by Terry Devitt.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Kenneth F. Raffa, Erinn N. Powell, and Philip A. Townsend. Temperature-driven range expansion of an irruptive insect heightened by weakly coevolved plant defenses. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1216666110

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/aS3JdueesYI/121231161015.htm

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A very good year for South Florida housing

Delray Beach Mayor Woodie McDuffie used to get an earful about foreclosures when he met quarterly with homeowner's association presidents.

"At one time ? two years ago ? the No. 1 topic was foreclosures," said McDuffie, whose term expires this week. "Now, it's no longer in the top 10."

And that's a good thing. South Florida's once-beleaguered housing market made big strides in 2012. After six years of declines, home prices started inching up again.

Homebuilders grew more confident, filling orders amid increasing demand from record-low interest rates. Foreign investors helped gobble up the excess supply of condominiums built during the housing boom, prompting a new wave of condo construction across the region.

Sellers, meanwhile, took control in negotiations as bidding wars often erupted over a dwindling supply of properties.

"What really moved the market in 2012 was the lack of inventory," said Amanda Wilson, a real estate agent with Esslinger Wooten Maxwell in Fort Lauderdale. "People were looking for properties they could have bought 18 months ago, but they couldn't find them. They waited too long."

Housing bottom

Heading into 2012, a common refrain among analysts was that South Florida home prices wouldn't hit bottom until late in the year at the earliest and more likely sometime in 2013.

But by the summer, most pundits and research firms agreed that the worst of the historic housing collapse was over.

Real estate website Zillow.com said in April that the bottom was here ? and it actually arrived in late 2011.

Roughly four in 10 South Florida homeowners with a mortgage still are "underwater," owing more than their properties are worth. But price increases will help reduce this so-called negative equity, Zillow Chief Economist Stan Humphries said in a statement.

"After a sluggish 2011, the housing market really turned a corner in 2012, as historic affordability and sustained investor interest helped keep demand at a boil," he said.

Despite concerns that the "fiscal cliff" could send the nation's economy into another recession, Humphries said "we can expect a continued slow transition to a more normal housing environment" in 2013.

Foreclosures

Florida posted the nation's highest foreclosure rate in November for the third consecutive month, according to RealtyTrac Inc. Still, the problem that escalated in 2007 isn't nearly what it once was.

Last month, for instance, more than 29,600 Florida homes received a foreclosure filing, but that number is less than half of the state's peak of 64,588 in April 2009.

Like Delray's McDuffie, Boca Raton Mayor Susan Whelchel said the issue of foreclosures rarely comes up at City Hall these days.

"People in Boca have no problem saying when they don't like something," she said. "We really get very few emails and/or phone complaints as a result of properties not being cared for, and we did have that a number of years ago."

In February, 49 state attorneys general announced a $25 billion settlement with five major lenders over allegations of improper foreclosure practices.

After the settlement, homeowners and their lawyers said banks were easier to deal with as they approved tens of thousands of mortgage modifications and short sales. Some homeowners even received mortgage balance reductions, which lenders had been extremely reluctant to offer in the past.

Industry followers still are bracing for the impact of thousands of distressed homes that have yet to hit the market. Some fear this "shadow inventory" could hurt the recovery, while others say lenders are likely to continue listing these homes for sale at a slow pace to keep prices from falling.

"It makes no sense for the banks to dump the inventory onto the market all at once," said Greg McBride, senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com in North Palm Beach.

Rental market

Former homeowners burned by the housing bust kept South Florida's rental market humming in 2012.

Occupancy rates for apartments in Broward and Palm Beach counties soared past 90 percent, while the strong demand allowed landlords to raise monthly rents.

With little new construction over the past several years, dozens of developers in 2012 announced or started apartment projects in Coconut Creek, Pompano Beach, Boca Raton, Delray Beach and other areas.

In Fort Lauderdale, The Related Group broke ground on the New River Yacht Club, a 249-unit apartment complex that's the first residential construction in the city's downtown in five years. Also on the south side of the New River, developer Asi Cymbal is moving forward with plans to build roughly 1,000 rentals.

"We think demand will outstrip supply for the right location, right product," Cymbal said. "We're seeing more of a transient population than we ever had in the recent past."

Powers@tribune.com, 561-243-6529 or Twitter @paulowers

Source: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/fl-real-estate-year-end-20121230,0,2767333.story?track=rss

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Samsung still needs to plug hole in Android devices

Samsung is apparently still working on an update for a software flaw that could allow attackers to siphon personal data from a phone.

The vulnerability affects Samsung's S II and S III phones and several models of its Galaxy line, including the Note, Note II, Note Plus and Note 10.1, all of which use the Korean company's Exynos 4210 and 4412 model processors.

Exploit shared

The flaw and an exploit was disclosed in mid-December on XDA Developers, a forum for mobile developers. Samsung's engineers apparently made a poor configuration mistake involving the Android kernel and failed to restrict kernel address space mapped to userspace via the /dev/exynos-mem device driver.

An application incorporating the exploit was created by a developer nicknamed Chainfire on the forum.

Chainfire's application allows users to modify the phone to make the exploit ineffective, but the fix also disables a device's camera in some instances depending on the device's firmware version.

Chainfire warned that other application-based fixes that have been developed are seriously flawed, so users should not depend on those to provide protection until Samsung issues an update.

"The only true solution is a kernel fix that simply removes the exploitable memory device, but that requires a non-universal device update," Chainfire wrote.

Samsung downplayed the seriousness of the issue, saying in a statement that "the issue may arise only when a malicious application is operated on the affected devices; however, this does not affect most devices operating credible and authenticated applications."

Samsung's devices can be updated over the air by operators, or users can do it with a desktop computer using the company's Kies software, according to a spokesperson.

Play Store scans for hacks

Android applications submitted to Google's Play store are checked for malicious behavior, but there are many websites around the Internet offering Android applications, many of which purport to be a legitimate but are actually malicious software and could incorporate this exploit.

Since an exploit has been published, Trend Micro said that it is only a matter of time before hackers begin to use it.

Samsung said it "will continue to closely monitor the situation until the software fix has been made available to all affected mobile devices." It did not specify when the fix would be available.

Send news tips and comments to jeremy_kirk@idg.com. Follow me on Twitter: @jeremy_kirk

Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2023265/samsung-still-needs-to-plug-hole-in-android-devices.html

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Intel's Business Plan From 1968 - Business Insider

Intel is a global mega-corporation with $50+ billion in revenue, 100,000 employees, and a $100 billion market cap.

It has been a fixture of the tech industry for so long that it seems as though it has been here forever.

But in 1968, it was just an idea.

In 1968, Intel's two co-founders, Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, quit Fairchild Semiconductor to start Intel. Before starting the company, they produced a rudimentary business plan. Pioneering venture capitalist Arthur Rock then used the plan to raise $2.5 million in convertible debt financing, and Intel was born.

The folks at Ideas Lab recently unearthed a page of the business plan, which Andreessen Horowitz partner Chris Dixon tweeted around a couple of days ago.

What did the business plan for the now-legendary massive corporation look like?

Not much.

In fact, if ever there was a document that illustrated that success is less about ideas than execution, this is it.

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SEE ALSO: Investors Have Now Lost More Money In Apple Than In HP and RIM Combined

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/intel-business-plan-from-1968-2012-12

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Adrian Peterson - Will He Set a New NFL Rushing Record Today?

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