শুক্রবার, ৩১ আগস্ট, ২০১২

Rare find: Feathered dinosaur feasts on flying food

Thursday, August 30, 2012

University of Alberta researchers found evidence that a feathered, but flightless dinosaur was able to snag and consume small flying dinosaurs.

The U of A paleontology team found the fossilized remains of three flying dinosaurs in the belly of a raptor-like predator called Sinocalliopteryx. Sinocalliopteryxwas about two meters in length and roughly the size of a modern-day wolf.

Sinocalliopteryx's flying meals were three Confuciusornis. Confuciusorniswas one of the earliest birds and had a crude version of a modern bird's skeleton and muscles. The researchers say such primitive birds were probably limited to slow take-offs and short flights.

According to the researchers, this is the first time a predator has been linked to the killing of multiple flying dinosaurs.

Scott Persons, a U of A paleontology student and research coauthor, says Sinocalliopteryx may have used stealth to stock the flyers. "Sinocalliopteryxdidn't have wings or the physical tools needed to be an adept tree climber," said Persons.

Persons explains Sinocalliopteryxhad feathers or hair-like fuzz covering its body creating a level of insulation that helped maintain a warm body temperature and high metabolism that required a lot of food to fuel.

"The fact that this Sinocalliopteryxhad, not one, but three undigested birds in its stomach indicate it was a voracious eater and a very active hunter," said Persons.

This find was made in China's Liaoning province, and U of A researchers analyzed stomach contents of a second Sinocalliopteryx fossil discovery from that area. The researchers identified this Sinocalliopteryx's last meal as a Sinornithosaurus, a small feathered meat-eater about the size of a house cat that may have been able to fly or glide short distances.

"Sinornithosaurus is a relative of Velociraptorwhich means this is the first direct evidence of a raptor becoming another predatory dinosaur's meal," said Persons.

###

University of Alberta: http://www.ualberta.ca

Thanks to University of Alberta for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/123092/Rare_find__Feathered_dinosaur_feasts_on_flying_food

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At Iran summit, Egyptian president calls for support for Syrian rebels

TEHRAN, Iran???In a sweeping message that Iran is on the wrong side of Syria's civil war, Egypt's new president urged the world Thursday to support the rebels seeking to topple Bashar Assad and suggested that Iran could risk a deepening confrontation with regional powers over the fate of the regime in Damascus.

The stinging comments by President Mohammed Morsi ? making his first visit to Iran by an Egyptian leader since the 1979 Islamic Revolution ? was another blindside blow for Iran as host of an international gathering of so-called nonaligned nations.

His speech, delivered while seated next to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, prompted Syria's delegation to walk out of the gathering.

Iran's leaders have claimed that the week-long meeting, which wraps up Friday, displayed the futility of Western attempts to isolate the country over its nuclear program.

But Iran also was forced to endure criticism from Morsi and another high-profile guest, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who cited concerns about Iran's human-rights record and called its condemnations of Israel unacceptable.

It's highly unlikely that Iran would abandon Assad as long as there is a chance for him ? or at least the core of his regime ? to hang on. Iran counts on Syria as a strategic outlet to the Mediterranean and a conduit to its anti-Israeli proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon.

But the meeting highlighted how much Iran is out of step with the rest of the region over Syria. Other major rebel backers at the conference included Persian Gulf states led by Iran rival Saudi Arabia.

"The bloodshed in Syria is the responsibility of all of us and will not stop until there is real intervention to stop it. The Syrian crisis is bleeding our hearts," Morsi told delegates at the 120-nation Nonaligned Movement, a Cold War-era group of mostly developing nations that Iran seeks to transform into a powerful bloc to challenge Western influence.

A major effort by Iran has been trying to showcase its nuclear narrative and cementing oil deals and trade with Asia and Africa to offset the hits from Western sanctions.

But some critics question whether the group ? promoted as a third way for developing nations during the decades of Washington-Moscow brinksmanship ? is too diverse and splintered by too many divisions, such as Syria, to find any common policies.

"Morsi's comments violated the traditions of the summit and are considered interference in Syrian internal affairs," said Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, who headed the Syrian delegation. He also accused Morsi of "instigating bloodshed in Syria," according to quotes reported by the state-owned Al-Ikhbariya TV. He didn't elaborate.

U.S. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell welcomed Morsi's comments on Syria as "very clear and very strong," particularly as they were made in Iran "to some people who need to hear it there."

Source: http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_21437571/at-iran-summit-egyptian-president-calls-support-syrian?source=rss

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CARACAS?? Marianela Hernandez?s biggest worry used to be finding cooking oil and meat in her working-class neighborhood here in the Venezuelan capital. That was before Venezuelan President Hugo Ch?vez decamped to Havana, Cuba, for mysterious medical treatment and belatedly announced late last month, after returning to Caracas, that he has cancer. Now Hernandez has far [...]

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5 Real Estate Rules of Thumb: Fact or Fiction? By Tara-Nicholle Nelson | Broker in San Francisco, CA We humans have a natural craving to simplify the complex. This same instinct, which explains why legends, films and fairytales from every culture tend to boil down to heroes vs. villains, also explains why so many buyers [...]

WASHINGTON ? A year after the Internet helped fuel the Arab Spring uprisings, the role cyberspace plays in launching revolutions is being threatened by proposed changes to a United Nations telecommunications treaty that could allow countries to clamp down on the free flow of information. For months, dozens of countries have been meeting behind closed [...]

Source: http://stoptbpartners.org/1850/see-which-celeb-couples-got-engaged-this-summer/

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Apple demands Samsung injunction hearing be moved up

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Tim Cook, Larry Page in secret meeting. Are they working out a patent agreement, or other business talk? Cast your vote in "Today's Poll..." in the left column below or go straight to the results here.

Friday Highlights: Samsung scores victory over Apple in Japan pertaining to music and video syncing between gadgets/servers, but the US win likely signals "fundamental shift in industry innovation", with additional reports in our Apple/Macintosh, and Op/Ed sections; meanwhile, in Germany, Apple vs. Motorola ruling is postponed; and reported talks between Tim Cook and Google's Larry Page are rumored to signal patent detente, or concessions whereby Google licenses proper patents from Apple, but Forbes' Anthony Kosner hopes the truce includes app standards; and in the EU, it appears Apple and publishers are offering antitrust concessions, perhaps heralding the return of cheaper e-books; MacMost shows you how to optimize your OS X dock, while Mactuts+ details methods to change the look of OS X; it seems iPad, more than iPhone, is now what's jazzing consumers; maybe a sign of surrender to the better company, Sony said to mimic Apple's business model; Apple Gazette has a run through of Steve Jobs' most outrageous moments; if iPhone 5 is LTE, this report suggests Verizon will see new customers defecting from AT&T; remember Qualcomm? Apparently they're all settled pertaining to patents, thus are insulated from effects of Apple vs. Samsung; South Africa may finally get the iTunes store!; Sprint fires back at Verizon's sharable data plans in this funny advertisement; Apple readying suppliers for iPad mini display; and the latest, purported, pictures of iPhone 5 have it sandwiched between iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 to show off its design?more in our Hardware/Software section; looks like Sharp is "lagging" in iPhone display production; iPad mini supposedly in iOS App developer logs; Ars Technica ponders how Apple could build a tablet selling for $249 at the same time beating Google's Nexus 7 at its own game; CNET on the one year anniversary lost iPhone prototype; The Verge reports on the phone patent holder juror's saying that our patent system will only change in "court of popular opinion".

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Rice, MD Anderson scientists probe mystery of operon evolution

Rice, MD Anderson scientists probe mystery of operon evolution [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 30-Aug-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Jade Boyd
jadeboyd@rice.edu
713-348-6778
Rice University

Solving 1960s genetics mystery could clear obstacles for synthetic biologists

HOUSTON -- (Aug. 30, 2012) -- The threads of an evolutionary mystery that dates to the birth of molecular biology are beginning to unravel, thanks to a new investigation by computational bioengineers at Rice University and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

In new research published online this week in PLOS Computational Biology, Rice's Oleg Igoshin and MD Anderson's Christian Ray offer a possible explanation for the existence of jointly controlled clusters of genes called operons, which are found in bacterial chromosomes but not in those of higher order organisms like humans.

The new study harkens to one of the earliest 20th-century discoveries in molecular biology, and it could help clear 21st-century hurdles for synthetic biologists.

In the early 1960s, just as scientists were discovering how cells transcribed information from DNA to create the necessary proteins for life, French scientists Jacques Monod and Franois Jacob found that the bacterium Escherichia coli used three specialized genes to create the proteins it needed to break down and digest lactose. They also found that these three metabolic genes were switched on and off together from a single control point.

Monod and Jacob had discovered the first operon, a set of multiple genes that are controlled as one. It marked the first time that scientists had identified a gene regulatory network, and it earned them a share of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Monod and Jacob's lac operon turned out to be the first of many bacterial operons. But by the late 1960s, it was clear that operons weren't the biological norm. None have ever been found in humans, for instance, and very few have been identified in multicellular organisms.

"There's never been a definitive explanation for why nature would preferentially select for operons in prokaryotes but not in eukaryotes," said Igoshin, associate professor of bioengineering at Rice. "In addition, we do not know how genes get grouped into operons. Why, for example, are some interacting genes selected to be in one operon while others are not?"

Igoshin and Ray are computational bioengineers who apply mathematics and computational bioinformatics to study cell signaling and other biochemical processes. Ray, a former Rice postdoctoral research associate in Igoshin's research group, is now in the Department of Systems Biology at MD Anderson. Ray and Igoshin began investigating operons in late 2009 to determine whether their evolution might have been influenced by the "noisy" nature of biochemical signals that regulate bacterial gene transcription.

"When a cell is responding to its environment, it can use regulators to control gene expression, but the amount of control that the cell has is limited by the number of molecules like messenger RNAs, which mediate protein production," Ray said. "So, in bacteria, the number of copies of a protein expressed by a gene can vary widely, say from 50 one hour to 100 the next. And this happens even when conditions outside the cell have not changed."

Igoshin and Ray knew that these random fluctuations were less of an issue for eukaryotic cells, which have larger volumes and more copies of messenger RNA and proteins. So they hypothesized that operons play a role in helping bacteria deal with these "noisy" conditions.

To test their idea, they developed a series of mathematical models of gene networks that could be run on a computer rather than on cell cultures, as well as statistical tests that could be performed using the information accumulated in bioinformatic databases.

Their mathematical models of gene networks covered six different types of protein-protein interactions. For each interaction type, they compared how operons affected noise in networks encoded by the member genes. For three of the six networks, operons worked to suppress noise. For the other three, they worked to increase noise. The findings from the simulations therefore suggested that operons could reduce the detrimental effects of noisy signals in some gene regulatory networks, but not others.

To further test the idea, Igoshin and Ray examined the operon organization of the E. coli genome. They found operons were frequent when the type of interaction that they encoded worked to suppress noise. When the encoded interaction did not suppress noise, operons were infrequent.

"Operons that emerged in the course of evolution in E. coli are consistent with selection for noise suppression and selection against noise amplification," Igoshin said.

The study also suggested why specific genes might be found in a specific operon.

"Certain genes perform much better when they're controlled as a unit, particularly if they produce co-ingredients that are required in proportional amounts," Ray said. "In the simulations, when these were split up and put onto separate operons, the inherent noise in the control signals would create a situation where the cell had way too much or too little of one co-product. In some cases, this is just inefficient, but in others the buildups could be toxic."

Ray and Igoshin said the study has implications for synthetic biologists who are trying to imbue cells with new biological functions not found in nature.

"For example, if you need to take multiple enzymes from different species and put them into a bacterium -- something that was done recently to produce a low-cost anti-malaria drug -- it might be easier to take them separately and put them into different parts of the chromosome," Igoshin said. "What this new finding shows is that there may be a cost for that in terms of overall fitness of the organism. Nature sometimes groups things together, particularly in cases where one of the enzymes makes or consumes toxic intermediates, and synthetic biologists would do well to pay attention to these types of interactions as they prepare their designs."

###

The research was funded by a fellowship from the National Library of Medicine Computational Biology and Medicine Training Program of the Keck Center of the Gulf Coast Consortia and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.



[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share 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.


Rice, MD Anderson scientists probe mystery of operon evolution [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 30-Aug-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Jade Boyd
jadeboyd@rice.edu
713-348-6778
Rice University

Solving 1960s genetics mystery could clear obstacles for synthetic biologists

HOUSTON -- (Aug. 30, 2012) -- The threads of an evolutionary mystery that dates to the birth of molecular biology are beginning to unravel, thanks to a new investigation by computational bioengineers at Rice University and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

In new research published online this week in PLOS Computational Biology, Rice's Oleg Igoshin and MD Anderson's Christian Ray offer a possible explanation for the existence of jointly controlled clusters of genes called operons, which are found in bacterial chromosomes but not in those of higher order organisms like humans.

The new study harkens to one of the earliest 20th-century discoveries in molecular biology, and it could help clear 21st-century hurdles for synthetic biologists.

In the early 1960s, just as scientists were discovering how cells transcribed information from DNA to create the necessary proteins for life, French scientists Jacques Monod and Franois Jacob found that the bacterium Escherichia coli used three specialized genes to create the proteins it needed to break down and digest lactose. They also found that these three metabolic genes were switched on and off together from a single control point.

Monod and Jacob had discovered the first operon, a set of multiple genes that are controlled as one. It marked the first time that scientists had identified a gene regulatory network, and it earned them a share of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Monod and Jacob's lac operon turned out to be the first of many bacterial operons. But by the late 1960s, it was clear that operons weren't the biological norm. None have ever been found in humans, for instance, and very few have been identified in multicellular organisms.

"There's never been a definitive explanation for why nature would preferentially select for operons in prokaryotes but not in eukaryotes," said Igoshin, associate professor of bioengineering at Rice. "In addition, we do not know how genes get grouped into operons. Why, for example, are some interacting genes selected to be in one operon while others are not?"

Igoshin and Ray are computational bioengineers who apply mathematics and computational bioinformatics to study cell signaling and other biochemical processes. Ray, a former Rice postdoctoral research associate in Igoshin's research group, is now in the Department of Systems Biology at MD Anderson. Ray and Igoshin began investigating operons in late 2009 to determine whether their evolution might have been influenced by the "noisy" nature of biochemical signals that regulate bacterial gene transcription.

"When a cell is responding to its environment, it can use regulators to control gene expression, but the amount of control that the cell has is limited by the number of molecules like messenger RNAs, which mediate protein production," Ray said. "So, in bacteria, the number of copies of a protein expressed by a gene can vary widely, say from 50 one hour to 100 the next. And this happens even when conditions outside the cell have not changed."

Igoshin and Ray knew that these random fluctuations were less of an issue for eukaryotic cells, which have larger volumes and more copies of messenger RNA and proteins. So they hypothesized that operons play a role in helping bacteria deal with these "noisy" conditions.

To test their idea, they developed a series of mathematical models of gene networks that could be run on a computer rather than on cell cultures, as well as statistical tests that could be performed using the information accumulated in bioinformatic databases.

Their mathematical models of gene networks covered six different types of protein-protein interactions. For each interaction type, they compared how operons affected noise in networks encoded by the member genes. For three of the six networks, operons worked to suppress noise. For the other three, they worked to increase noise. The findings from the simulations therefore suggested that operons could reduce the detrimental effects of noisy signals in some gene regulatory networks, but not others.

To further test the idea, Igoshin and Ray examined the operon organization of the E. coli genome. They found operons were frequent when the type of interaction that they encoded worked to suppress noise. When the encoded interaction did not suppress noise, operons were infrequent.

"Operons that emerged in the course of evolution in E. coli are consistent with selection for noise suppression and selection against noise amplification," Igoshin said.

The study also suggested why specific genes might be found in a specific operon.

"Certain genes perform much better when they're controlled as a unit, particularly if they produce co-ingredients that are required in proportional amounts," Ray said. "In the simulations, when these were split up and put onto separate operons, the inherent noise in the control signals would create a situation where the cell had way too much or too little of one co-product. In some cases, this is just inefficient, but in others the buildups could be toxic."

Ray and Igoshin said the study has implications for synthetic biologists who are trying to imbue cells with new biological functions not found in nature.

"For example, if you need to take multiple enzymes from different species and put them into a bacterium -- something that was done recently to produce a low-cost anti-malaria drug -- it might be easier to take them separately and put them into different parts of the chromosome," Igoshin said. "What this new finding shows is that there may be a cost for that in terms of overall fitness of the organism. Nature sometimes groups things together, particularly in cases where one of the enzymes makes or consumes toxic intermediates, and synthetic biologists would do well to pay attention to these types of interactions as they prepare their designs."

###

The research was funded by a fellowship from the National Library of Medicine Computational Biology and Medicine Training Program of the Keck Center of the Gulf Coast Consortia and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.



[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share 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/2012-08/ru-rma083012.php

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Admirers mark 15 years since Princess Diana died

PARIS (AP) ? Admirers from around the world are paying tribute to Princess Diana at the Paris tunnel where she was killed in a car crash 15 years ago.

Tourists prayed in front of the Flame of Liberty monument to Diana above the site. Flowers, photos and messages were piled around.

British visitor Patricia Williams said Friday that Diana "became an icon. She was a very beautiful woman and things have passed on now. But Charles is now happy and I hope her sons have come to terms with it."

Princess Diana and her partner Dodi Al Fayed died when the Mercedes they were in plowed into a pillar in the Alma Tunnel on Aug. 31, 1997. French police said driver Henri Paul, who also died, had been drinking heavily and was speeding.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/admirers-mark-15-years-since-princess-diana-died-130218643.html

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বৃহস্পতিবার, ৩০ আগস্ট, ২০১২

Hot DOG surprise reveals new stage in galaxy evolution

Here's a frankfurter that won't fit on a bun. Hot dust-obscured galaxies, or hot DOGs, are a new type of cosmic object that could help answer a decades-old problem: which came first, the galaxy or the black hole?

The newly discovered galaxies are among the brightest in the universe, 1000 times brighter than the Milky Way, but they are so heavily clouded by dust that they had gone entirely unnoticed until now ? hence the description "hot, dust-obscured".

Astronomers think they could represent a new phase in galaxy evolution."We may be seeing them at a crucial transformational stage," says Rachel Somerville of Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey, who was not involved in the new work. "Just as if we see a butterfly emerging from cocoon, it might suggest butterflies and caterpillars are the same animals, which we otherwise might not realise."

The hot DOGs showed up in an all-sky survey by the NASA WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) space telescope in 2010. WISE scanned the sky in infrared wavelengths corresponding to heat, meaning it could peer behind the veil of dust that obscures the visible light from hot objects.

Black hole shock

Astronomers expected the brightest objects captured by WISE to be active galactic nuclei ? formed when gluttonous black holes that lurk at the centres of galaxies guzzle gas and dust to grow bigger. Radiation from the black hole heats the gas and dust to white-hot temperatures just before the material falls in. The glow from that hot gas can outshine our galaxy by orders of magnitude.

And indeed, WISE uncovered millions of these galactic nuclei, finding that for every one that could be seen in visible light, there were two or three hidden behind a dust veil.

But surprisingly, the telescope also uncovered about 1000 objects that were even brighter ? and stranger. Follow-up observations showed that they were mostly about 10 billion light years away, and were 1000 times brighter than the entire Milky Way and more than twice as hot as the average galaxy. But they were so heavily obscured by dust that even WISE couldn't see them in two of its four cameras, which each sense a different infrared wavelength.

As well as pumping out huge amounts of light, hot DOGs also seem to concentrate more of their mass in their central black hole than in their stars. Most mature galaxies end up with a central black hole that is about 500 times the mass of all their stars combined. But the brightness of hot DOGs suggests that their central black holes are even more massive relative to the surrounding stars.

Different beast

"In that way they're definitely a different type of beast than we've seen before," says Peter Eisenhardt of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, a project scientist for WISE.

That centre-heavy bias could mean that these galaxies are in a phase where the black hole is eating material much faster than the galaxy can form new stars. At the same time, the pressure from the black hole's radiation is pushing the gas and dust around it away. Over time, the black hole will clear its surroundings of the obscuring gas and dust, transforming the hot DOG into an ordinary, visible galaxy. "We may be seeing a rare phase of galaxy evolution, where dust and gas are being heated and ejected by the supermassive black hole," says Eisenhardt's colleague Jingwen Wu.

"This suggests the supermassive black holes may grow before their stars are fully formed," Eisenhardt says. "If you call the stars the chickens, we're saying maybe the eggs are there first."

Despite their names, hot DOGs are actually not very hot ? their average temperature, taking into account not only their stars but the cold interstellar gas, is about 100 Kelvin, or -173 degrees Celsius. The average galaxy is just 30 or 40 K. But a real hot dog, the kind you might eat, is about 350 K.

Journal reference: Astrophysical Journal, DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/756/1/96

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Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/22e6dfab/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Carticle0Cdn222290Ehot0Edog0Esurprise0Ereveals0Enew0Estage0Ein0Egalaxy0Eevolution0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

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Roleplay Themed Card Game

The premise is simple! A card game themed around telling a story or roleplay. The community can contribute to the cards in the game, and in fact the game wouldn't exist if they didn't, so feel free to PM me an idea.

Both players agree to play with decks of equal size, 50 being the current 'standard'. As you play events will happen, characters will become friends, betray, fight, explore and do all the things they would in a normal story. At the end of the game you will have a Score, and the person with the highest Score is the winner! However the game doesn't have to end there. You can write down the key events and twists that happened during the game and you'll have a rough outline of a story. All its lacking at that point is the thoughts and emotions of the characters, or any specific details.

Get it?

But primarily the card game can still be played as a card game. So how do you play? To play you don't need to worry about having a physical deck. You can play online with just a list of the cards you intend to use. But what makes a deck? There are mainly five types of cards, each arguably a part of roleplaying. Theme, Characters, Plot, Combat and Setting.

The abridged version of the rules, from start to finish.

At the start of the game work out who goes first, then each player places their Theme, two Settings and one Character on the field.
Each turn is broken up into 3 Sets. Before every Set begins a player can choose to move his characters between Settings or give Equipment to the Characters. Unless a card specifies otherwise, you can only equip and move at these times. Each Character can only move once per turn and each Character can only have one Equipment at any time. Only one character may be played per turn for each player.
In the first set, the player who is going first is allowed to play a Plot Card. Their opponent is allowed to play one Plot Card to react to it. In the second set the players switch around, now the first player going second. For the third set it returns to the normal order. At the end of turn, it switches who goes first.
Abilities can be used instead of Plot Cards.

Combat follows a simple order. You take turns (starting with who initiated combat) to pick one Character and select one of three options, an attack, technique or ability, then the target/s. Effects apply in the following order. All interrupt effects apply (such as shoulder barge), then all temporary buffing and debuffing effects apply (such as 'gains 1 Skill'), then all health gain and loss apply (healing/damage) then finally all permanent buffs and debuffs apply. An attack deals the Characters skill in damage. When a character is killed, all allies of that character gain 1 Drama Point.

For example, say a character with 2 skill used Shoulder Barge on an enemy. From this point on, all of that targets attacks or abilities will not go through. Then is the stage where buffs/debuffs apply. Then the damage from Shoulder Barge is dealt to the target.
Another example is Overcharge explosion. It does nothing for the first two phases, then deals its damage, then lowers the users Power.

The game ends when no Plot Cards have been played for 4 Sets (2 chances for each player to play a card), or when a card specifies.

Common Terms Used
Drama Points - Points accumulated by all types of cards. A card can use these Drama Points to trigger an effect on the cards they are on.
Emotional Ties - Representing emotional connections between characters, be they love, friendship, hate, rivalry. Can be Strong Positive, Strong Negative, Negative or Positive.
Capture - When a character you control is on your opponents side and under your control, but cannot move or engage in Combat. To free them, engage Combat in that location.
Defect - When a character you control is on your opponents side and under your control and can engage in Combat or move.
Environment - A plot card which affects a Setting. If a Setting is played, all Settings without an environment are affected by it.

I'm sure I'm missing a lot of details, so when I've posted the cards if you can't figure it out, smack me on the back of the head.

Faq
Q: I don't get how to play
A: Alright, drop me a PM or try to catch me on chat. I'm pretty active there.

Q: X doesn't make sense
A: PM me and I'll try to explain it.

Q: Will you make a card based off something I made?
A: With your permission, I'd love to. I'll need to work out the details with you, so the best thing you can do is drop me a PM and we can get started from there.

Q: X is overpowered
A: I'll make a card to counter it, but please tell me what and why

Q: Where can I find someone to play with?
A: Post on here if you're looking for a game and wait for someone to PM you, or PM someone who has posted on this forum and expressed an interest in playing.

Q: A card of mine has become outdated for plot reasons
A: I'm happy to re-release the card with the new information.

Q: The card based off my character doesn't have enough Health/Skill/Power/Traits
A: Character card creation goes in two phases. Phase one, accuracy. I make the card as true to the owner vision as I can. Phase two, balance. I then make as minor as possible changes as I can to get the character I would like. If you're not satisfied, to be honest, I'd rather remove the character. I don't want to compromise on balance or accuracy.

CARD DUMP INC.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/PNyu5SP3rYM/viewtopic.php

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Samsung Waves Hello to Windows 8 With New All-in-One PCs

Samsung on Tuesday announced its new Series 7 and Series 5 All-in-One PCs designed to run Windows 8 when the OS is launched later this year. The PCs have high-resolution, 10-point touchscreens, as well as slim bezel displays, metal bases, and third-generation Intel Core processors. The displays also have five hand gesture recognition features that work when the user is up to three feet away.


Source: http://ectnews.com.feedsportal.com/c/34520/f/632000/s/22dab55b/l/0L0Stechnewsworld0N0Crsstory0C760A330Bhtml/story01.htm

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PFT: Tebow takes insult as compliment

NBC-Sports-Network-1-e1312231418815-1

Next week, the 2012 NFL regular season launches.? As a very, very, very (did I say very?) small footnote to that, the PFT weed will be spreading into new territory.

We?re taking the website to NBC Sports Network, with a one-hour show every weekday, at 5:00 p.m. ET.

The show, curiously dubbed Pro Football Talk, debuts on Tuesday, September 4.? Hosted by the highly competent and funny and engaging Erik Kuselias and by an Internet hack who is the exact opposite of those three traits, the show will bring the PFT temperament and attitude to the small screen, with help from NBC talent like Rodney Harrison, Hines Ward, Doug Flutie, Ross Tucker, Amani Toomer, and Peter King.

The powers-that-be tell me they?re sending out an official press release soon.? They wanted me to say something for it.? Here?s the best I could muster:? ?When we started the website, the goal was to create a place I?d want to visit as a football fan.? That same objective applies to Pro Football Talk. ?We wanted to make a show that I would spend time watching if I wasn?t involved in it.? Of course, some may say they?d be more likely to watch this show if I actually wasn?t involved in it.?

The content here won?t suffer a bit.? We?ll be tweaking the format of PFT Live so that it will be a shorter show, with less prep time, which gives me more time at the keyboard.? And we?ve put together an excellent stable of writers, from MDS to Darin Gantt to Josh Alper to Evan Silva.

Like the website, Pro Football Talk will be a creature of the moment, with the latest news you need to know, outside-the-box analysis, genuine debate, and some humor.? Not forced or phony laughs, but genuinely funny moments (hopefully) that will make you feel like you?re hanging out with a group of friends.? (Or at a minimum casual acquaintances whom you don?t hate.)

The party starts next Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. ET.? On Wednesday, I?ll be at MetLife Stadium for the show, as we get ready for the regular-season opener between the Cowboys and the Giants.

We?ll be seeking your questions and your input and your feedback; this show is for you not for us and we want to be sure we cover the subjects that you want us to cover ? and that we avoid low-hanging fruit and five-letter quarterback/punt protector/special-teams aces.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/08/29/as-usual-tebow-takes-an-insult-a-a-compliment/related/

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Thursday Apple Rumors: Apple Launches iPhone 4S Buyback

? ?

daily apple rumors AAPLHere are your Apple rumors and AAPL news items for today:

Unload That Old iPhone: With its next generation iPhone widely expected to be unveiled next month, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)?will purchase existing iPhone 4S models, Macworld notes. The company will pay about $285 for a 16GB iPhone 4S and as much as $345 for a white 64GB model ? provided the phone is in good condition. But users who sell Apple their old phones won?t get cash. Instead, they will receive a gift card for the amount that can be used ? where else? ? at Apple Stores. Wireless carriers, including Sprint (NYSE:S), Verizon (NYSE:VZ) and AT&T (NYSE:T), are also promoting buyback programs for the iPhone 4S, hoping to persuade consumers to upgrade to the new iPhone when it debuts. Buyback prices are likely to remain high until the new iPhone?is revealed,?after which they typically fall.

Apple History on the Block: An Apple-1 computer will be auctioned off at Christie?s London auction house on October 9, PC Magazine reports. Only 200 Apple-1?s were built by the company, each assembled by hand. The machine ? which came with 8K of memory ? was designed and assembled by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. When?it originally hit the market, the Apple-1 retailed for $666.66. That?s a bargain compared to the $127,000 it is expected to sell for at auction. With Apple?s share price soaring and a new iPhone to be unveiled next month, collectors are snapping up company memorabilia for increasing prices. In June, an Apple-1 motherboard was auctioned at Sotheby?s for $374,500.

No UAV Tracking: Apple has rejected an iPhone app that would notify users whenever news sources indicate that a U.S. drone has killed people with a missile strike, Wired notes. The app, called Drones+, has been rejected for placement in the App Store three times,?with Apple citing a variety of reasons for its exclusion ranging from terming it ?not useful? to describing its content as ?objectionable and crude.? The apps developer says Drones+ doesn?t show images of the drone strikes. It simply uses the data from Britain?s Bureau of Investigative Journalism to post alerts of deadly drone strikes and note the location on a map. The U.S. has employed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with missiles to carryout military operations against suspected terrorist groups in Afghanistan, Somalia and Pakistan.

For more about the company, check out our previous Apple Rumors stories.


Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, http://www.investorplace.com/2012/08/thursday-apple-rumor-apple-launches-iphone-4s-buyback/.

?2012 InvestorPlace Media, LLC

Source: http://www.investorplace.com/2012/08/thursday-apple-rumor-apple-launches-iphone-4s-buyback/

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Postcards from Mars show rover's key science targets

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Tue Aug 28, 2012 9:28am EDT

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA on Monday showed off the first high-resolution, color portrait images taken by the Mars rover Curiosity, detailing a mound of layered rock where scientists plan to focus their search for the chemical ingredients of life on the Red Planet.

The stunning images reveal distinct tiers near the base of the 3-mile- (5-km-)tall mountain that rises from the floor of the vast, ancient impact basin known as Gale Crater, where Curiosity landed on August 6 to begin its two-year mission.

Scientists estimate it will be a year before the six-wheeled, nuclear-powered rover, about the size of a small car, physically reaches the layers of interest at the foot of the mountain, 6.2 miles away from the landing site.

From earlier orbital imagery, the layers appear to contain clays and other hydrated minerals that form in the presence of water.

While previous missions to Mars have uncovered strong evidence for vast amounts of water flowing over its surface in the past, Curiosity was dispatched to hunt for organic materials and other chemistry considered necessary for microbial life to evolve.

The $2.5 billion Curiosity project, NASA's first astrobiology mission since the 1970s-era Viking probes to Mars, is the first to bring all the tools of a state-of-the-art geochemistry laboratory to the surface of a distant planet.

But the latest images from Curiosity, taken at a distance from its primary target of exploration, already have given scientists a new view of the formation's structure.

The layers above where scientists expect to find hydrated minerals show sharp tilts, offering a strong hint of dramatic changes in Gale Crater, located in the planet's southern hemisphere near its equator.

SLANTED LAYERS EXPOSED

Mount Sharp, the name given to the towering formation at the center of the crater, is believed to be the remains of sediment that once completely filled the 96-mile- (154-km-) wide basin.

"This is a spectacular feature that we're seeing very early," project scientist John Grotzinger, with the California Institute of Technology, told reporters on Monday. "We can sense that there is a big change on Mount Sharp."

The higher layers are steeply slanted relative to the layers of underlying rock, the reverse of similar features found in Earth's Grand Canyon.

"The layers are tilted in the Grand Canyon due to plate tectonics, so it's typical to see older layers be more deformed and more rotated than the ones above them," Grotzinger said. "In this case, you have flat-line layers on Mars overlaid by tilted layers. The science team, of course, is deliberating over what this means."

He added: "This thing just kind of jumped out at us as being something very different from what we ever expected."

Absent plate tectonics, the most likely explanation for the angled layers has to do with the physical manner in which they were built up, such as being deposited by wind or by water.

"On Earth, there's a whole host of mechanisms that can generate inclined strata," Grotzinger said. "Probably we're going to have to drive up there to see what those strata are made of."

Also Monday, NASA said it used the rover to broadcast a message of congratulations to the Curiosity team from NASA chief Charles Bolden, a demonstration of the high bandwidth available through a pair of U.S. science satellites orbiting Mars.

"This is the first time that we've had a human voice transmitted back from another planet" beyond the moon, said Chad Edwards, chief telecommunications engineer for NASA's Mars missions at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

"We aren't quite yet at the point where we actually have a human present on the surface of Mars ... it is a small step," Edwards said.

(Editing by Steve Gorman and Philip Barbara)

(The photo previously attached to this story was incorrectly identified as Mars' Mount Sharp)

Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/reuters/scienceNews/~3/gwRxw8zuKpg/us-usa-mars-idUSBRE87R03620120828

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Paralympics-Baghdad orphan Kelly eyes pool gold for Australia

MELBOURNE, Aug 29 (Reuters) - He has described himself as

the happiest man alive, yet in 20 years Iraq-born swimmer Ahmed

Kelly has risen above extreme hardship to become one of

Australia's leading medal hopes at the London Paralympics.

Kelly, along with his brother Emmanuel, was born severely

disabled, with under-developed limbs as a result of their

parents' exposure to chemical weapons.

He was left on an orphanage doorstep in Baghdad, a world

away from the Aquatic Centre pool that he will dive into for his

100 freestyle, 50 breaststroke and 150 individual medley events

starting next week.

In 2000, the boys were brought to Australia for surgery and

were adopted by humanitarian Moira Kelly, who would later add

Trishna and Krishna to the family, conjoined twins who were

separated in a groundbreaking surgery in 2009.

Kelly took to Australia's sports-mad culture with gusto, and

loved playing Australian Rules football with prosthetic limbs.

But the high-contact indigenous football code took a toll on

his body, and he later took up swimming after participating in

the Australian Paralympic Committee's talent identification

programme.

Kelly, who swims with prosthetic legs but without arms, was

paired with coach Brad Kelly, who has helped him channel raw

determination into stunning success.

"When we started, I had a guy with no arms and legs who

wanted to be the best he could be," Harris told Reuters.

"There's nothing too hard for him ... He'll always say yes."

Kelly soon began competing at an elite level and broke the

world record in the 100 breaststroke in 2010 and 2011.

Now, only four years after he first began swimming, the

20-year-old is competing in his first Paralympics.

The journey to London has been far from easy.

To qualify, Kelly has had to shift from racing the 100

breaststroke -- an endurance event in Paralympic terms -- to

sprinting in the 50 distance.

While mastering the new discipline and training hard in his

other events, Kelly has had to juggle school work while

supporting his mother's charity, the Children First Foundation.

"It has been difficult, but you have to do your best," Kelly

told Reuters. "It's tough, but it's meant to be tough ... You

have to know what you're doing every lap for."

Kelly and his coach Harris remain as ambitious as ever.

"I love sports, I want to keep swimming well, keep adapting,

and I'm still learning about these things," said Kelly, who has

already set his heart on competing at the 2016 Paralympics in

Rio.

"I want to get the best out of myself. But everyone has been

so supportive and I couldn't have done it without them."

(Editing by Ian Ransom and Greg Stutchbury)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/paralympics-baghdad-orphan-kelly-eyes-pool-gold-australia-022345613--spt.html

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Raid book shows bin Laden raid up close

FILE - This book cover image released by Dutton shows "No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama Bin Laden," by Mark Owen with Kevin Maurer. The firsthand account of the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden contradicts previous accounts by administration officials, raising questions as to whether the terror mastermind presented a clear threat when SEALs first fired upon him. (AP Photo/Dutton, File)

FILE - This book cover image released by Dutton shows "No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama Bin Laden," by Mark Owen with Kevin Maurer. The firsthand account of the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden contradicts previous accounts by administration officials, raising questions as to whether the terror mastermind presented a clear threat when SEALs first fired upon him. (AP Photo/Dutton, File)

This undated file photo shows al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, in Afghanistan. A firsthand account of the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden contradicts previous accounts by administration officials, raising questions as to whether the terror mastermind presented a clear threat when SEALs first fired upon him. (AP Photo)

(AP) ? A Navy SEAL's firsthand account of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden pulls back the veil on the secret operations conducted almost nightly by elite American forces against terrorist suspects.

Former SEAL Matt Bissonnette's account contradicted in key details the account of the raid presented by administration officials in the days after the May 2011 raid in Abbotabad, Pakistan, that killed the al-Qaida leader, and raised questions about whether the SEALs followed to the letter the order to only use deadly force if they deemed him a threat.

Bissonnette wrote that the SEALs spotted bin Laden at the top of a darkened hallway and shot him in the head even though they could not tell whether he was armed. Administration officials have described the SEALs shooting bin Laden only after he ducked back into a bedroom because they assumed he might be reaching for a weapon.

Military experts said Wednesday that if Bissonnette's recollection is accurate, the SEALS made the right call to open fire on the terrorist mastermind who had plenty of time to reach for a weapon or explosives as they made their way up to the third level of the house where he hid.

Bissonnette wrote the book, "No Easy Day," under the pseudonym Mark Owen as one of the men in the room when they killed bin Laden. The book is to be published next week by Penguin Group (USA)'s Dutton imprint. The Associated Press purchased a copy Tuesday.

For years, the primary weapon in the war on terror has been unmanned drones firing missiles from the sky. But the Bissonnette book reveals a more bloody war waged by special operators, one the public almost never gets to see close up.

The book offers intimate details of a special operations mission. The most memorable scenes are also the most human moments. Bissonnette describes one of the SEALs dressing the wounds of a woman who was shot when she lunged toward the SEALs. In another scene, a terrified mother clutches her child and a young girl identifies the dead man as Osama bin Laden, seemingly unaware of the significance of those words.

In that regard, the bin Laden raid seems destined to become an anachronism. Nearly every top al-Qaida figure killed by the United States since the 9/11 attacks has died in a remote-controlled strike by unmanned drone aircraft ? their deaths seen back in Washington via high-definition video. An estimated 80 top terrorist leaders have been killed in places like Pakistan and Yemen, according to The Long War Journal.com, which tracks such airborne strikes.

Special operations troops often conduct raids similar to the bin Laden strike a dozen times a night in Afghanistan, and previously in Iraq, killing thousands of mostly mid- and lower-level terrorists. It's all part of a war on terror that is winding down and giving way to the drone war outside traditional war zones, given the scheduled drawdown of most U.S. troops in Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

"No Easy Day" shows how routine such operations have become. But the public rarely hears about them. This raid to capture bin Laden, though, was historic.

The SEALS, according to Bissonnette's description, were prepared as they had been in other raids for a gunfight in close quarters, which likely would last only a few seconds, with no margin for error. By the time the SEALs reached the top floor of bin Laden's compound, roughly 15 minutes had passed, giving the terror leader adequate time to strap on a suicide vest or get a gun, he said.

Bissonnette says he was directly behind a point man going up the stairs in the pitch black hallway. Near the top, he said, he heard two silenced shots fired by the first SEAL into the hallway. He wrote that the point man had seen a man peeking out of a door on the right side of the hallway, but Bissonnette could not tell from his vantage point whether the bullets hit the target.

The author writes that the man ducked back into his bedroom and the SEALs followed, only to find him crumpled on the floor in a pool of blood with a hole visible on the right side of his head and two women wailing over his body. Once they wiped the blood off his face, they were convinced it was bin Laden.

Bissonnette says the point man pulled the two women out of the way and shoved them into a corner. He and the other SEALs trained their guns' laser sights on bin Laden's still-twitching body, shooting him several times until he lay motionless.

The SEALs later found two weapons stored by the doorway, untouched, the author said.

National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor late Tuesday would not comment on the apparent contradiction between the administration's account and the book's version.

Bissonnette writes that during a pre-raid briefing, an administration lawyer told them that they were not on an assassination mission. According to Bissonnette, the lawyer said if bin Laden did not pose a threat, they should detain him.

"If they didn't feel like there was a threat, they would have captured him," co-author Kevin Maurer told the AP on Wednesday. "But from when they first hit the ground, all the way until they got to the third deck, they had encountered armed men, which made the use of force essential," said Maurer, a former AP reporter.

Bissonnette writes that none of the SEALs were fans of President Barack Obama and knew that his administration would take credit for ordering the raid. One of the SEALs said after the mission that they had just gotten Obama re-elected by carrying out the raid. But he says they respected him as commander in chief and for giving the operation the go-ahead.

In an interview scheduled to air Sunday on CBS' "60 Minutes," Bissonnette said the book was "not political whatsoever" and not timed to influence the upcoming national elections. He said it was to commemorate the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and credit those whose work made the mission to get bin Laden a success.

"My worry from the beginning is, you know, it's a political season. This book is not political whatsoever. It doesn't bad-mouth either party, and we specifically chose Sept. 11 to keep it out of the politics. If these ? crazies on either side of the aisle want to make it political, then shame on them."

CBS Bissonnette was disguised and his voice altered for the interview. The network used only his pseudonym and not his name.

A former deputy judge advocate general for the Air Force defended the decision to shoot the man the SEALs saw in the hallway.

"In a confined space like that where it is clear that there are hostiles, the SEALs need to take reasonable steps to ensure their safety and accomplish the mission," said the former JAG, ret. Maj. Gen. Charlie Dunlap, who now teaches at Duke University law school.

The Pentagon and the CIA, which commanded the mission, are examining the manuscript for possible disclosure of classified information, and could take legal action against Bissonnette.

In a statement provided to the AP, the SEAL author says he did "not disclose confidential or sensitive information that would compromise national security in any way."

The book does include information not previously reported about specific CIA officers' involvement in the raid.

Bissonnette's real name was first revealed by Fox News and confirmed to the AP.

Jihadists on al-Qaida websites have posted purported photos of the author, calling for his murder.

___

Associated Press writers Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman contributed to this report.

___

Follow Kimberly Dozier on Twitter: http://es.twitter.com/KimberlyDozier

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2012-08-29-Bin%20Laden%20Book/id-75150bd54c6b45cd92ade4f183016078

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