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Fossil shows origin of stuffing your face
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Leap Motion unveils contents of its own app store
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Dropping a smartphone is an absolutely horrifying experience. And on my first day in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress, it happened to me with my BlackBerry Z10.
As much as I hate to admit, it was a dumb move on my part. Unfortunately, tragedy can strike with as simple an act as brushing one's elbow across the table, and that's all it took for me to knock my smartphone right onto a hard surface -- facedown in a perfectly horizontal position. If you've ever been through such an accident, you know the few seconds it takes to pick up the phone and survey the damage can be incredibly nerve-wracking and one of the most suspenseful moments of your life.
I'm happy to say that this particular story has a positive ending, as I turned the phone over to see if I would need to call BlackBerry HQ in a panic. To my shock, it was completely fine. There wasn't a single scratch or ding, and the touchscreen was just as responsive as ever. It would've been a different story had it fallen onto a concrete floor, but this still significantly increased my opinion of the Z10's durability.
Had my Z10 come face to face with concrete, I would've been in a nasty predicament. Not only would I have had to pause or put the kibosh my 30-day trial run with the BlackBerry Z10, but I'm also on the other side of the world in a foreign country. While getting a new phone isn't impossible, it's expensive, time-consuming and frustrating. Yep, this was how my 10-day international adventure began, but how well has it gone for me since?
The aim of mental health services is usually to offer adults and children with the chance to access good quality therapeutic support. Individuals are assisted in each and every way doable to locate appropriate therapy procedures. This way, clients can attain optimal functioning and integrate into their environment for productive living.
Just about all adults will expertise some form of psychological illness or associated symptoms at a stage in their lives. Frequently children below the age of 16 will be diagnosed having a mental condition and will require particular programs to aid progression by means of school for positive outcomes. Every single individual requires a service which is tailored to their particular circumstance and specifications.
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Just about every service is designed to adhere to a specific principle for specialist care. Every strategy should be made to include a comprehensive strategy to assist patients in reaching the highest probable degree of functioning within a safe and non-restrictive environment. Emphasis is constantly placed on the most effective outcomes for the patient and integration into society for healthy living.
The techniques of treatment obtainable to individuals should be diverse and include a number of approaches so the most suitable service is supplied to address the demands of the patient. Although tailoring programs to individual needs is significant, the implemented strategies really should incorporate a program of care for special groups. This way, entire communities receive proper help.
For patients who seek psychological treatment there is often a have to have for a continuity of care. Programs are designed to coordinate the delivery of created plans so that patients receive the proper attention for a needed time period. This really is supplied to people across the state having a focus on early intervention for those at risk of developing psychological disorders.
Patients suffering from debilitating conditions need to get top quality and continuous care that is usually offered by way of specially developed programs and state clinics. The supplied services encourage individuals to work with professionally trained counselors in making critical decisions concerning care and outcomes. An method that incorporates the rights of others is adopted in being able to empower individuals and families in their recovery procedure.
Precise approaches are devised in addressing the requires of entire families in a safe and warm atmosphere. Pros function in collaboration with clients for the creation of culturally proper programs for the well-being of other people. The developed service is committed to improving the lives of people and communities and are usually state funded for people who call for reasonably priced assistance.
Data relating to where to find mental health services may be identified via a rapid net search. Skilled people who?ve the capacity to assist within your problems are able to develop suitable plans to aid in successful coping techniques for enhanced psychological well-being. Through consultations, trained experts determine essentially the most suitable method for your desires.
Click here for more info on Developmental Disabilities NJ and Capitol Care Services
RT on DVD & Blu-Ray: Twilight Ends and The Master Mesmerizes - Rotten TomatoesNews ? Columns ? RT On DVD ? RT on DVD & Blu-Ray: Twilight Ends and The Master Mesmerizes
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This week on home video, we've only got five major releases to talk about in detail, but they certainly run the gamut. From angsty (and ridiculously popular) teen vampires to thrill-seeking surfers, from an exploration of cult dynamics to a cinematic dream, and including a doc with that rare 100% Tomatometer, we think you'll be hard pressed not to find something to watch this week. See below for the full list!
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Two Criterion Collection titles today: A Blu-ray of Kenji Mizoguchi's 1954 masterpiece Sansho the Bailiff (100%) sees a release, and Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin's influential 1961 documentary film Chronicle of a Summer is newly available on both DVD and Blu-ray.
Girls Against Boys (13%), a combination revenge flick/obsession story starring Danielle Panabaker and Nicole LaLiberte.
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FILE - In this Jan. 31, 2013, file photo, Secretary of Defense nominee Chuck Hagel testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee during his confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. A deeply divided Senate is moving toward a vote on President Barack Obama?s contentious choice of Chuck Hagel to head the Defense Department, with the former Republican senator on track to win confirmation after a protracted political fight. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, file)
FILE - In this Jan. 31, 2013, file photo, Secretary of Defense nominee Chuck Hagel testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee during his confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. A deeply divided Senate is moving toward a vote on President Barack Obama?s contentious choice of Chuck Hagel to head the Defense Department, with the former Republican senator on track to win confirmation after a protracted political fight. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, file)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? A deeply divided Senate voted on Tuesday to confirm Republican Chuck Hagel to be the nation's next defense secretary, handing President Barack Obama's pick the top Pentagon job just days before billions of dollars in automatic, across-the-board budget cuts hit the military.
The vote was 58-41, with four Republicans joining the Democrats in backing the contentious choice. Hagel's only GOP support came from former colleagues Thad Cochran of Mississippi, Dick Shelby of Alabama and Mike Johanns of Nebraska ? all three had announced their support earlier ? and Rand Paul of Kentucky.
The vote came just hours after Republicans dropped their unprecedented delay of a Pentagon choice and allowed the nomination to move forward on a 71-27 vote.
Hagel, 66, a former two-term Nebraska senator and twice-wounded Vietnam combat veteran, succeeds Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Hagel is expected to be sworn in at the Pentagon on Wednesday.
Obama welcomed the bipartisan Senate vote, although 41 Republicans opposed his nominee, and said in a statement that "we will have the defense secretary our nation needs and the leader our troops deserve."
The looked past the divisions and said he was grateful to Hagel "for reminding us that when it comes to our national defense, we are not Democrats or Republicans, we are Americans, and our greatest responsibility is the security of the American people."
Republicans had opposed their onetime colleague, casting him as unqualified for the job, hostile toward Israel and soft on Iran. The objections remained strong well after the vote.
"I continue to have serious questions about whether Chuck Hagel is up to the job of being our secretary of defense," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in a statement. "I hope, for the sake of our own national security, he exceeds expectations."
Hagel joins Obama's retooled second-term, national security team of Secretary of State John Kerry and CIA Director-designate John Brennan at a time of uncertainty for a military emerging from two wars and fighting worldwide terrorism with smaller, deficit-driven budgets.
Among his daunting challenges are deciding on troop levels in Afghanistan as the United States winds down its combat presence and dealing with $46 billion in budget cuts set to kick in on Friday. He also will have to work with lawmakers who spent weeks vilifying him.
Republicans insisted that Hagel was battered and bloodied after their repeated attacks during the protracted political fight.
"He will take office with the weakest support of any defense secretary in modern history, which will make him less effective on his job," said Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the Senate GOP's No. 2 Republican.
Not so, said Democratic Sen. Jack Reed, who pointed out that Hagel now has the title and the fight is history.
"All have to work together for the interest of the country," said Reed, D-R.I.
The vote ended one of the most bitter fights over a Cabinet choice and former senator since 1989 when the Democratic-led Senate defeated newly elected President George H.W. Bush's nomination of Republican John Tower to be defense secretary.
In the course of the rancorous, seven-week nomination fight, Republicans, led by freshman Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, insinuated that Hagel has a cozy relationship with Iran and received payments for speeches from extreme or radical groups. Those comments drew a rebuke from Democrats and some Republicans.
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, dismissed the "unfair innuendoes" against Hagel and called him an "outstanding American patriot" whose background as an enlisted soldier would send a positive message to the nation's servicemen and women.
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., questioned how the confirmation process devolved into a character assassination in which Hagel was accused of "having secret ties with our enemies."
"I sincerely hope that the practice of challenging nominations with innuendo and inference, rather than facts and figures, was an aberration and not a roadmap," she said in a statement after the vote.
Obama got no points with the GOP for tapping the former two-term Republican senator. GOP lawmakers excoriated Hagel and cast him as a radical far out of the mainstream.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., clashed with his onetime friend over his opposition to President George W. Bush's decision to send an extra 30,000 troops to Iraq in 2007 at a point when the war seemed in danger of being lost. Hagel, who voted to authorize military force in Iraq, later opposed the conflict, comparing it to Vietnam and arguing that it shifted the focus from Afghanistan.
McCain said several GOP lawmakers also had "a lot of ill will" toward the moderate Republican for his criticism of Bush and his backing for Democratic candidates.
Shortly after a White House meeting with Obama on immigration on Tuesday, McCain voted against his onetime friend and fellow Vietnam veteran.
Republicans also challenged Hagel about a May 2012 study that he co-authored for the advocacy group Global Zero, which called for an 80 percent reduction of U.S. nuclear weapons and the eventual elimination of all the world's nuclear arms.
In an echo of the 2012 presidential campaign, Hagel faced an onslaught of criticism by well-funded, Republican-leaning outside groups that labeled the former senator "anti-Israel" and pressured senators to oppose the nomination. The groups ran television and print ads criticizing Hagel.
Opponents were particularly incensed by Hagel's use of the term "Jewish lobby" to refer to pro-Israel groups. He apologized, saying he should have used another term and should not have said those groups have intimidated members of the Senate into favoring actions contrary to U.S. interests.
The nominee spent weeks reaching out to members of the Senate, meeting individually with lawmakers to address their concerns and seeking to reassure them about his policies.
Hagel's inconsistent performance during some eight hours of testimony during his confirmation hearing last month undercut his cause.
On Feb. 12, the Armed Services Committee approved the nomination on a party-line vote of 14-11. Two days later, a Democratic move to vote on the nomination fell a few votes short as Republicans insisted they needed more time to consider the pick.
Hagel's nomination also became entangled in Republican demands for more information about the deadly assault on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, last September. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed in that attack.
Republicans allowed the nomination to move forward, with 18 Republicans joining the Democrats. Many had warned against the precedent of denying a president his Cabinet choices.
Paul's vote for Hagel came as something of a surprise. Moira Bagley, a spokeswoman for the senator, said that while he disagrees with Hagel on a number of issues, Paul believes a president should have some leeway in his political appointments.
Missing the vote was Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey.
___
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DETROIT (AP) ? The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it will investigate problems with stalling or surging engines in nearly 725,000 Ford cars and SUVs.
The probe affects Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner SUVs and Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan sedans from the 2009 through 2011 model years.
The vehicles can unexpectedly go into "limp home mode" at reduced power, the agency said in documents posted Monday on its website. NHTSA and Ford have received almost 1,500 complaints about the problem. There were three crashes and one injury.
NHTSA began looking into the cars and SUVs after getting a request from the North Carolina Consumers Council last year. Nonprofit safety groups and consumers can petition the agency to investigate vehicle problems.
The cars and SUVs haven't been recalled, but the investigation could lead to a recall.
The Fusion and Milan are nearly identical cars with the same engines, as are the Escape and Mariner. Ford scrapped the Mercury brand in 2010.
The North Carolina organization said it received two complaints about 2009 Escapes that had been diagnosed with throttles either stuck open or closed. The group said that owners reported repeated stalling and surging.
Ford told NHTSA that vehicles made from June 22, 2009, to Oct. 15, 2009, may have faulty printed circuit boards that control the throttles. Ford and its throttle body supplier, Delphi Corp., changed the circuit board manufacturing process after Oct. 15, 2009. That resolved the problem, NHTSA said in documents posted Monday on its website.
NHTSA said it analyzed 123 complaints about the cars or SUVs going into what's known as limp mode, in which vehicle speed was limited to 20 mph or 900 engine revolutions per minute. Drivers may interpret the limp mode as stalling, even though the engines still move the vehicles, the agency said. Vehicles usually go into limp mode when computers detect an engine problem. This allows drivers to get to a safe place while protecting the engine from damage.
Power surges appear to happen when the engine revolutions fluctuate to prevent stalling during limp mode, the agency said.
But even though Ford said the throttle problem with the Escape was resolved with the manufacturing change, NHTSA still decided to investigate vehicles from the 2010 and 2011 model years. The agency says it received 59 complaints of engine stalling in 2010 and 2011 Fusions. Eighty percent of the complaints were received starting in March of 2012, showing an increasing trend, the agency said.
In addition, Ford has received 27,505 warranty claims in which the throttle bodies were repaired or replaced, NHTSA said.
Ford said Monday that it's cooperating with NHTSA on the investigation.
Its shares rose 4 cents to $12.52 in morning trading. They have traded in a 52-week range of $8.82 to $14.39.
Feb. 26, 2013 ? In a paper published online Feb. 26 in the journal Nature Communications, a Yale University team and collaborators propose a way of predicting whether a given glass will be brittle or ductile -- a desirable property typically associated with metals like steel or aluminum -- and assert that any glass could have either quality.
Ductility refers to a material's plasticity, or its ability to change shape without breaking.
"Most of us think of glasses as brittle, but our finding shows that any glass can be made ductile or brittle," said Jan Schroers, a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at Yale, who led the research with Golden Kumar, a professor at Texas Tech University. "We identified a special temperature that tells you whether you form a ductile or brittle glass."
The key to forming a ductile glass, they said, is cooling it fast. Exactly how fast depends on the nature of the specific glass.
Focusing on a new group of glasses known as bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) -- metal alloys, or blends, that can be extremely pliable yet also as strong as steel -- researchers studied the effect of a so-called critical fictive temperature (CFT) on the glasses' mechanical properties at room temperature.
When forming from liquid, there is a temperature at which glass becomes too viscous for reconfiguration and freezes. This temperature is called the glass transition temperature. Based on experiments with three representative bulk metallic glasses, the researchers said there is also, for each distinct alloy, a critical temperature that determines the brittleness or plasticity of the glass. This is the CFT.
Researchers said it's possible to categorize glasses in two groups -- those that will be brittle because in liquid form their CFT is above the glass transition temperature, and those that will be ductile, because in liquid form their CFT is below the glass transition temperature.
They previously thought a liquid's chemical composition alone would determine whether a glass would be brittle or ductile.
"That's not the case," Schroers said. "We can make any glass theoretically ductile or brittle. And it is the critical fictive temperature which determines how experimentally difficult it is to make a ductile glass. That is the major contribution of this work."
The finding applies theoretically to all glasses, not metallic glasses only, he said.
"A glass can have completely different properties depending on the rate at which you cool it," Schroers said. "If you cool it fast, it is very ductile, and if you cool it slow it?s very brittle. We anticipate that our finding will contribute to the design of ductile glasses, and in general contribute to a deeper understanding of glass formation."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Yale University. The original article was written by Eric Gershon.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Golden Kumar, Pascal Neibecker, Yan Hui Liu, Jan Schroers. Critical fictive temperature for plasticity in metallic glasses. Nature Communications, 2013; 4: 1536 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms2546
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.
FILE - In this Feb. 11, 2013 file photo, a customer takes a pack of frozen beef Hachis Parmentier from a freezer in a supermarket in Nice, southeastern France. The Europe-wide uproar over fraudulently labeled horse meat, sold as beef, has exposed the labyrinthine path of companies and countries across the continent that meat for prepared dishes takes before it reaches that microwave. But the back story reveals a France as dependent on factory food as other nations, and a people increasingly torn between their heritage and their hectic lives. (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau, File)
FILE - In this Feb. 11, 2013 file photo, a customer takes a pack of frozen beef Hachis Parmentier from a freezer in a supermarket in Nice, southeastern France. The Europe-wide uproar over fraudulently labeled horse meat, sold as beef, has exposed the labyrinthine path of companies and countries across the continent that meat for prepared dishes takes before it reaches that microwave. But the back story reveals a France as dependent on factory food as other nations, and a people increasingly torn between their heritage and their hectic lives. (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau, File)
FILE - In this April 27, 2006 file photo, an exterior view of the Ikea furniture store in Duisburg, western Germany. The Czech veterinary authority said Monday, Feb. 25, 2013 it detected horse meat in meat balls labeled as beef and pork imported to the country by Sweden's furniture retailer giant Ikea. The State Veterinary Administration says the one-kilogram packs of the frozen meat balls were made in Sweden to be sold in Ikea's furniture stores that also offer typical Swedish food. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein, File)
Spain's agriculture minister Miguel Arias Canete, left, talks with British Secretary of State for the Environment, Food, & Rural Affairs Owen William Paterson, during the EU agriculture ministers council at the European Council building in Brussels, Monday, Feb. 25, 2013. The European Union's agriculture ministers gathered in Brussels Monday to discuss the widening scandal's fallout, with some member states pressing for tougher rules to regain consumer confidence. (AP Photo/Yves Logghe)
Advertising for Ikea meat balls at the parking area at an Ikea store in Malmo Sweden Monday Feb. 25, 2012. Furniture retailer Ikea says it has halted all sales of meat balls in Sweden after Czech authorities detected horse meat in frozen meatballs that were labeled as beef and pork. (AP Photo/Johannes Cleris) SWEDEN OUT
Advertising billboards for Ikea meat balls are taken down from a parking at the Ikea store in Stockholm, Sweden, Monday, Feb. 25, 2012. Swedish furniture giant Ikea was drawn into Europe's widening food labeling scandal Monday as authorities in the Czech Republic said they had detected horse meat in frozen meatballs labeled as beef and pork and sold in 13 countries across the continent. (AP Photo/Jessica Gow) SWEDEN OUT
DUBLIN (AP) ? So hungry you could eat a horse? Chances are, if you've regularly consumed processed-meat products in Europe, you already have.
Since Ireland published surprise DNA results on Jan. 15 showing that a third of frozen "beef" burgers in Ireland contained at least a trace of horse, food scientists in more than a dozen countries have found the animal trotting into products where it was never meant to roam.
Daily revelations from an ever-increasing menu of supermarket, catering and restaurant goods have taught the world one lesson: When minced up with other meat or slathered with spices, consumers cannot tell equine from bovine in the food chain.
MEATBALLS
Well, IKEA never did call them beef balls. The Swedish furniture giant has discovered that its signature cafeteria dish ? spiced meatballs of mixed beef and pork ? also might contain horse. Ikea said Monday it has suspended all meatball sales in Sweden and plans to withdraw stocks of frozen "Kottbullar" meatballs traced to a specific production batch from stores in 13 other nations: Belgium, Britain, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia and Spain. The IKEA meatball controversy, like the other suspect products below, has yet to leap the Atlantic.
BURGERS
This is the product that started the January stampede to Europe's DNA labs. Irish authorities doing a random quality check were shocked to find horse meat in frozen burgers produced for five Irish and British supermarkets, and eventually traced the source to Poland. The Irish producers' top two customers ? Burger King's British, Irish and Danish restaurants and the British supermarket chain Tesco ? quickly took their business elsewhere.
PIZZA
There's something rotten in Denmark, but it's not the meat itself. The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration says a product enigmatically described as "pizza meat" and sold by the Harby Slagtehus meat wholesaler contains cow, pig and horse. The company insists that its customers in pizzerias across Denmark knew the topping contained horse, even if that little fact was nowhere on the ingredients list. Government vets don't believe a word of that.
SPAGHETTI BOLOGNESE
Better make that "bolo-neighs." Many of Europe's leading makers of microwaveable frozen foods ? including Birds Eye of Britain, Nestle of Switzerland, and Findus of France ? found that some suppliers had mixed horse into the ground beef used for Europe's most ubiquitous pasta sauce.
PASTA
Not to beat a dead horse, but Europe's food-testing labs are indicating that any factory-made pasta product containing "beef" sauce or filling might be horse in drag. Among those caught at the DNA finish line are the frozen "beef" lasagnas of Birds Eye; Nestle's Buitoni brand of ravioli in Italy and fusilli in Spain; and Combino-branded tortelloni and penne in Austria. France's Comigel blamed the discovery of up to 100 percent horse in its "beef" lasagnas ? sold under other brand names, including Findus and Tesco ? on a complex supply chain stretching from its Luxembourg factory back via Dutch and Cypriot middlemen to Romania horse butchers.
PASTRIES
Thank goodness there's no such thing (yet) as a beef doughnut. In Spain, Nestle's recall of products includes meat-filled, semicircular pastries called empanadas.
PIES
You might be surprised to find horse meat hiding under a frilly layer of potato. British-style cottage pies, with gravy, beef and carrots under the smashed spuds, have been withdrawn from scores of school cafeterias in England, Wales and Scotland after DNA tests found horse meat inside. France made similar discoveries in its potato-topped pie called hachis Parmentier.
VEGETABLES
Mom might tell you to eat your vegetables, but the Nestle product recall in Spain included meat-stuffed peppers.
KEBABS
Once you've blended a handful of meats, does one more really matter? The Austrians found horse in kebab meat produced by a Vienna firm, Lilla Gastronomie, that was supposed to contain a blend of only beef, pork and turkey.
SAUSAGES
Fry 'er up: Despite sausages' worldwide reputation as a favored destination for mystery meat, only Austria has found equine DNA hiding in sausages, in two brands made by Josef Freitag, aka "Joe Friday."
In this technical age there are myriad kinds of software and web applications that are out there on the market and online for people and companies to download. When your business is ready to get online it is essential to download these web applications however, it?s similarly vital to run web application testing and software performance testing. By doing this, it guarantees that your company is safe, protected, and is ready for your business to be on the Internet and get the most from your software programs. Some things to do to get your business off the ground and online is by performing web application load testing, software security testing, and performance testing web applications. All of these tests are imperative to conduct in the early phases of your company so that you can respond to work without having to bother with software safety and all your web applications will run as smoothly as possible. When you do a web application load test, you are essentially making sure that your business?s computer systems can take care of several connections at the same time when working on different databases at the same time. This is necessary because possibilities are you will be doing a great deal of work on various databases to get the most from your business?s online efforts. Databases can reduce your work efficient for that reason, by performing a web application load test you can go about your day not needing to fret about slow software and programs. Since we are living in a connected and online world where information is so readily available and simple to gain access to, safety is an absolute necessity. Luckily, a software testing company could help you with software security testing that highlights any threats or possible dangers that your business may encounter in the future. Preventative measures should be taken with any and all hazards that could occur with the safety of your online business. If these hazards are not taken care of it can negatively impact your company and livelihood for that reason, do not take this lightly. Take for example, a doctor office that uses software that homes the information for thousands of their patients. If software security testing did not occur on all the workplace computer systems there?s an increased possibility that a hacker could infiltrate the software and get their hands on classified details such as doctor records, and account and billing information. functional software testing To keep your company running efficiently and efficiently it is very important to perform efficiency testing for web applications. Testing for web applications looks deep into the efficiency of the software to see why software is running slow and ways to make it run quickly and properly. By preventing any bottlenecks that could decrease the work you must never have problems with your software. Overall, by contacting a software testing company, you will optimize your business from day one. These specialists will make certain that your software, safety, and web applications are taken care of. After that, your company will be ready to take on your workload with convenience.
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Disruption comes in all shapes and sizes, and benefits people of all shapes and sizes. When you think about global entrepreneurs solving hard problems, you might not think about creating hardware products that aim to save the lives of premature babies.
The beaches of Mauritius contain fragments of a type of rock typical of ancient continental crust ? rock which could have been brought to the surface by volcanic eruptions.Image: http://www.nature.com/polopoly_fs/7.9116.1361551494!/image/HIRES%2042-32415022%20reduced.jpg
The drowned remnants of an ancient microcontinent may lie scattered beneath the waters between Madagascar and India, a new study suggests.
Evidence for the long-lost land comes from Mauritius, a volcanic island about 900 kilometers east of Madagascar. The oldest basalts on the island date to about 8.9 million years ago, says Bj?rn Jamtveit, a geologist at the University of Oslo. Yet grain-by-grain analyses of beach sand that Jamtveit and his colleagues collected at two sites on the Mauritian coast revealed around 20 zircons ? tiny crystals of zirconium silicate that are exceedingly resistant to erosion or chemical change ? that were far older.
The zircons had crystallized within granites or other igneous rocks at least 660 million years ago, says Jamtveit. One of these zircons was at least 1.97 billion years old.
Jamtveit and his colleagues suggest that rocks containing the wayfaring zircons originated in ancient fragments of continental crust located beneath Mauritius. They propose that geologically recent volcanic eruptions brought shards of the crust to Earth?s surface, where the zircons eroded from their parent rocks to pepper the island?s sands. The team's work is published today in Nature Geoscience.
Crustal remains The paper also suggests that not just one but many fragments of continental crust lie beneath the floor of the Indian Ocean. Analyses of Earth?s gravitational field reveal several broad areas where sea-floor crust is much thicker than normal ? at least 25 to 30 kilometers thick, rather than the normal 5 to 10 kilometers.
Those crustal anomalies may be the remains of a landmass that the team has dubbed Mauritia, which they suggest split from Madagascar when tectonic rifting and sea-floor spreading sent the Indian subcontinent surging northeast millions of years ago. Subsequent stretching and thinning of the region?s crust sank the fragments of Mauritia, which together had comprised an island or archipelago about three times the size of Crete, the researchers estimate.
The team chose to collect sand, rather than pulverize local rocks, to ensure that zircons inadvertently trapped in rock-crushing equipment from previous studies did not contaminate their fresh samples. The nearest known outcrop of continental crust that could have produced the Mauritian zircons is on Madagascar, far across a deep sea, Jamtveit notes. Furthermore, the zircons came from Mauritian sites so remote that it is unlikely that humans carried them there.
?There?s no obvious local source for these zircons,? says Conall Mac Niocaill, a geologist at the University of Oxford, UK, who was not involved in the research.
Also, it does not seem as if the zircons rode to Mauritius on the wind, says Robert Duncan, a marine geologist at Oregon State University in Corvallis. ?There?s a remote possibility that they were wind blown, but they?re probably too large to have done so,? he adds.
Other ocean basins worldwide may well host similarly submerged remains of ?ghost continents?, Mac Niocaill notes in an accompanying News & Views article. Only detailed surveys of the ocean floor, including geochemical analyses of their rocks, will reveal whether the splintered and now submerged Mauritia has any long-lost cousins, he suggests.
This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on February 24, 2013.
'Exact same jokes. They aged well,' the 'SNL' alum tells MTV News of mining his 2009 hosting gig for Saturday's show. By Kevin P. Sullivan, with reporting by Josh Horowitz
Andy Samberg attends the 2013 Indie Spirit Awards Photo: Getty Images
WASHINGTON (AP) ? John Kerry embarked Sunday on his first official overseas trip as secretary of state, hoping to bring new ideas to Europe and the Mideast about how to end nearly two years of violence in Syria.
Kerry's nine-nation, 10-day trip will take him to America's traditional European allies of Britain, Germany, France and Italy, along with Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. In addition to Syria, he will focus on conflicts in Mali and Afghanistan, and on Iran's nuclear program.
Kerry has said he is eager to discuss new ways of persuading Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down and usher in a democratic transition in the country that wracked by escalating violence that has killed at least 70,000 people.
Kerry, a former Democratic senator from Massachusetts who succeeded Hillary Rodham Clinton in President Barack Obama's second-term Cabinet, has not offered details of his ideas but officials say they revolve around increasing pressure on Assad and his inner circle.
Kerry's first stop is London, where he will hold talks with British officials on a range of issues, from Afghanistan to the status of the Falkland Islands. Britain is in a major dispute with Argentina over the Falklands.
In German, Kerry will discuss trans-Atlantic issues with German youth in Berlin, where he spent time as a child as the son of an American diplomat posted to the divided Cold War city. He also will meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the German capital.
In Paris, Kerry plans to discuss France's intervention in Mali, while in Rome he'll attend a meeting with Syrian opposition leaders.
U.S. officials have said the trip will be primarily a "listening tour" when it comes to Syria and won't result in immediate shifts in U.S. policy that has until now stayed clear of military support for the rebels fighting Assad.
Despite the numerous Middle East stops. Kerry will not travel to Israel or the Palestinian territories. He will wait to visit them when he accompanies Obama there in March.
Heavy hitters like Google breaking into the streaming music arena has always been a concern for companies trying to make it in that tough business, and now it seems as though that often discussed hypothetical is about to come true.
The Financial Times is reporting that Google is in talks with major music labels in an effort to launch their own streaming music service.
It is easy to assume that this new venture for Google would include both subscription and ?free? access supported by their almost monopolistic online advertising platform like many of the current fan favorites. Not only does Google have deep pockets but they also have something the competition does not, a vast reaching experienced ad sales team, and millions of advertisers plugged into their AdWords service.
As if that were not enough, one could easily imagine Google pre-installing this new music streaming product and integrating it into their ever expanding network of mobile, tablet, and now high end laptop hardware devices ? much like Apple does with iTunes on all of its products. Competing with free AND preinstalled won?t be easy.
Will Google soon dominate the music streaming landscape or will they fall short, much like they did when trying to break into social with Google+? With their deep pockets and built in ad sales team, failing won?t be easy but, even if they do, they could spend years putting pressure on the competition, bleeding them dry.
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's new president Park Geun-hye urged North Korea on Monday to abandon its nuclear ambitions, and to stop wasting its scarce resources on arms development, less than two weeks after the country carried out its third nuclear test.
Park, 61, the daughter of South Korea's former military ruler Park Chung-hee, is the first female president of prosperous South Korea and one of her campaign promises was to engage with the North if it halted its nuclear weapons plans.
"I urge North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions without delay and embark on the path to peace and shared development," Park said after being inaugurated on Monday.
North Korea is ruled by Kim Jong-un, the third of his line to hold power in Pyongyang and the grandson of a man who tried to assassinate Park's father.
Park's father seized power in a 1961 coup and ruled for 18 years until he was gunned down by his security chief in 1979. He helped transform South Korea from a poverty-stricken country where income was just $100 a year into what is now Asia's fourth largest economy and an industrial powerhouse whose cars, telephones and ships are sold worldwide.
Park also urged South Koreans to recreate the drive of a country that was once dubbed "the Miracle on the Han River", as she prepared to return the presidential mansion 33 years after her father's assassination.
In December's presidential poll, one of the most hotly contested elections for years, Park won about 52 percent of the vote, compared with 48 percent for her liberal opponent.
Park served as First Lady to her father Park Chung-hee after her mother was gunned down by a North Korean-backed assassin in 1974. She has been a top legislator since 1998 and has been dubbed "The Queen of Elections" for her ability to score victories for her conservative party.
Park has promised "economic democracy" and to increase "national happiness" in a country where income differentials between the poorest and the richest have soared in recent years.
(Additional reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by David Chance and Michael Perry)
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) ? North Korea warned the top American commander in South Korea on Saturday of "miserable destruction" if the U.S. military presses ahead with routine joint drills with South Korea set to begin next month.
Pak Rim Su, chief of North Korea's military delegation to the truce village of Panmunjom inside the Demilitarized Zone, sent the warning Saturday morning to Gen. James Thurman, Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency said, in a rare direct message to the U.S. commander.
The threat comes as the U.S. and other nations discuss how to punish North Korea for conducting an underground nuclear test on Feb. 12 in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions banning Pyongyang from nuclear and missile activity.
North Korea has characterized the nuclear test, its third since 2006, as a defensive act against U.S. aggression. Pyongyang accuses Washington of "hostility" for leading the charge to punish North Korea for a December rocket launch that the U.S. considers a covert missile test.
The U.S. and North Korea fought on opposite sides of the three-year Korean War, which ended in a truce in 1953, not a peace treaty, and left the Korean Peninsula divided by a heavily fortified border monitored by the U.S.-led U.N. Command.
Washington also stations 28,500 American troops in South Korea to protect its ally against North Korean aggression.
South Korea and the U.S. regularly conduct joint drills such as the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises slated to take place next month. North Korea calls the drills proof of U.S. hostility, and accuses Washington of practicing for an invasion.
"You had better bear in mind that those igniting a war are destined to meet a miserable destruction," KCNA quoted Pak as saying in his message to Thurman. He called the drills "reckless."
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, meanwhile, has been making a round of visits to military units guiding troops in drills and exercises since the nuclear test, KCNA said.
Contact: David Ruth david@rice.edu 713-348-6327 Rice University
Studies show particulate matter also has direct impact on heart attacks in Houston
BOSTON (Feb. 17, 2013) Researchers at Rice University in Houston have found a direct correlation between out-of-hospital cardiac arrests and levels of air pollution and ozone. Their work has prompted more CPR training in at-risk communities.
Rice statisticians Katherine Ensor and Loren Raun announced their findings today at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) conference in Boston.
Their research, based on a massive data set unique to Houston, is due to be published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation.
At the same AAAS symposium, Rice environmental engineer Daniel Cohan discussed how uncertainties in air-quality models might impact efforts to achieve anticipated new ozone standards by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Given that the American Lung Association has ranked Houston eighth in the United States for high-ozone days, the Rice researchers set out to see if there is a link between ambient ozone levels and cardiac arrest. Ensor is a professor and chair of Rice's Department of Statistics, and Raun is a research professor in Rice's Department of Statistics.
For the new study, the authors analyzed eight years' worth of data drawn from Houston's extensive network of air-quality monitors and more than 11,000 concurrent out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA) logged by Houston Emergency Medical Services (EMS).
They found a positive correlation between OHCAs and exposure to both fine particulate matter (airborne particles smaller than 2.5 micrograms) and ozone.
The researchers found that a daily average increase in particulate matter of 6 micrograms per day over two days raised the risk of OHCA by 4.6 percent, with particular impact on those with pre-existing (and not necessarily cardiac-related) health conditions. Increases in ozone level were similar, but on a shorter timescale: Each increase of 20 parts per billion over one to three hours also increased OHCA risk, with a peak of 4.4 percent. Peak-time risks from both pollutants rose as high as 4.6 percent. Relative risks were higher for men, African-Americans and people over 65.
For the study, OHCA events were defined as cases where EMS personnel performed chest compressions. Ensor and Raun noted the patients died in more than 90 percent of the cases, which occurred more during the hot summer months (55 percent of total cases).
The researchers also looked at the effects of nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide levels, none of which were found to impact the occurrence of OHCA.
The work is expected to help Houston EMS fine-tune its deployment of personnel and equipment and provide early warnings to health officials and the public when weather and/or incidents warrant an alert for high ozone levels in specific areas, Ensor said.
Co-author David Persse, Houston Fire Department EMS physician director and a public-health authority for the city, said it's long been thought by EMS workers that certain types of air pollution, including ozone, have significant negative effects on cardiac and respiratory health. "But this mathematically and scientifically validates what we know," he said.
Houston is already acting upon the results.
"The city has targeted educational resources to at-risk communities, where they're now doing intensive bystander CPR training," Raun said. Early intervention is seen as critical, as the chance of survival for a person suffering cardiac arrest drops 10 percent for every minute he or she is left unattended. She said statistics show one life is saved for every 26 to 36 people who receive cardiopulmonary resuscitation from a bystander.
Houston's effort is part of a range of interventions to mitigate the consequences of poor air quality days, though none are substitutes for the primary strategy of improving air quality, according to the city's Health and Human Services Department.
Cohan's talk focused on uncertainties in estimating the health benefits that will result from efforts to control ozone pollution. Ozone itself cannot be controlled, he said, as it forms from several precursors. Cohan's research has shown that reducing nitrogen oxide emissions is typically the most effective way to control summertime peak afternoon ozone, but may be less effective than hydrocarbon emission reductions at other times.
Ozone standards focus on peak conditions, but some epidemiological studies show that substantial health benefits can also result from reducing ozone at other times, he said. Thus, emission-control strategies aimed solely at achieving regulatory standards may not yield as great a health benefit as strategies that reduce ozone year-round. This research has important implications as states aim to attain national ozone standards. The standards are now set at 75 parts per billion (ppb), but the EPA is considering tightening them to a level in the 60-70 ppb range.
A 2012 study by Raun and Ensor published by Rice's Baker Institute for Public Policy determined that, overall, the current EPA standard for ozone serves its purpose, while the particulate standard of 35 micrograms per cubic meter does not.
"The bottom-line goal is to save lives," Ensor said. "We'd like to contribute to a refined warning system for at-risk individuals. Blanket warnings about air quality may not be good enough.
"At the same time, we want to enhance our understanding of the health cost of pollution and celebrate its continuing reduction."
The Houston Endowment and city of Houston funded the study led by Ensor, Raun and Persse. Arturo Blanco, chief of the Bureau of Pollution Control and Prevention, Houston Department of Health and Human Services, supported the research.
###
This news release can be found online at news.rice.edu.
Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews
Related Materials:
Uncertainties Influencing Health-Based Prioritization of Ozone Abatement Options: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es200165n
Association of Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest with Exposure to Fine Particulate and Ozone Ambient Air Pollution from Case Crossover Analysis Results: Are the Standards Protective?: http://www.bakerinstitute.org/publications/HPF-pub-RaunEnsorParticulateExposure-101212.pdf
Meta-analysis of the association between short-term exposure to ambient ozone and respiratory hospital admissions: http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/2/024006
RICE CONTACTS:
David Ruth
713-348-6327
david@rice.edu
Mike Williams
617-281-6854
mikewilliams@rice.edu
CITY OF HOUSTON CONTACT:
Kathy Barton
832-393-5045
kathy.barton@houstontx.gov
[ | 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.
Contact: David Ruth david@rice.edu 713-348-6327 Rice University
Studies show particulate matter also has direct impact on heart attacks in Houston
BOSTON (Feb. 17, 2013) Researchers at Rice University in Houston have found a direct correlation between out-of-hospital cardiac arrests and levels of air pollution and ozone. Their work has prompted more CPR training in at-risk communities.
Rice statisticians Katherine Ensor and Loren Raun announced their findings today at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) conference in Boston.
Their research, based on a massive data set unique to Houston, is due to be published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation.
At the same AAAS symposium, Rice environmental engineer Daniel Cohan discussed how uncertainties in air-quality models might impact efforts to achieve anticipated new ozone standards by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Given that the American Lung Association has ranked Houston eighth in the United States for high-ozone days, the Rice researchers set out to see if there is a link between ambient ozone levels and cardiac arrest. Ensor is a professor and chair of Rice's Department of Statistics, and Raun is a research professor in Rice's Department of Statistics.
For the new study, the authors analyzed eight years' worth of data drawn from Houston's extensive network of air-quality monitors and more than 11,000 concurrent out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA) logged by Houston Emergency Medical Services (EMS).
They found a positive correlation between OHCAs and exposure to both fine particulate matter (airborne particles smaller than 2.5 micrograms) and ozone.
The researchers found that a daily average increase in particulate matter of 6 micrograms per day over two days raised the risk of OHCA by 4.6 percent, with particular impact on those with pre-existing (and not necessarily cardiac-related) health conditions. Increases in ozone level were similar, but on a shorter timescale: Each increase of 20 parts per billion over one to three hours also increased OHCA risk, with a peak of 4.4 percent. Peak-time risks from both pollutants rose as high as 4.6 percent. Relative risks were higher for men, African-Americans and people over 65.
For the study, OHCA events were defined as cases where EMS personnel performed chest compressions. Ensor and Raun noted the patients died in more than 90 percent of the cases, which occurred more during the hot summer months (55 percent of total cases).
The researchers also looked at the effects of nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide levels, none of which were found to impact the occurrence of OHCA.
The work is expected to help Houston EMS fine-tune its deployment of personnel and equipment and provide early warnings to health officials and the public when weather and/or incidents warrant an alert for high ozone levels in specific areas, Ensor said.
Co-author David Persse, Houston Fire Department EMS physician director and a public-health authority for the city, said it's long been thought by EMS workers that certain types of air pollution, including ozone, have significant negative effects on cardiac and respiratory health. "But this mathematically and scientifically validates what we know," he said.
Houston is already acting upon the results.
"The city has targeted educational resources to at-risk communities, where they're now doing intensive bystander CPR training," Raun said. Early intervention is seen as critical, as the chance of survival for a person suffering cardiac arrest drops 10 percent for every minute he or she is left unattended. She said statistics show one life is saved for every 26 to 36 people who receive cardiopulmonary resuscitation from a bystander.
Houston's effort is part of a range of interventions to mitigate the consequences of poor air quality days, though none are substitutes for the primary strategy of improving air quality, according to the city's Health and Human Services Department.
Cohan's talk focused on uncertainties in estimating the health benefits that will result from efforts to control ozone pollution. Ozone itself cannot be controlled, he said, as it forms from several precursors. Cohan's research has shown that reducing nitrogen oxide emissions is typically the most effective way to control summertime peak afternoon ozone, but may be less effective than hydrocarbon emission reductions at other times.
Ozone standards focus on peak conditions, but some epidemiological studies show that substantial health benefits can also result from reducing ozone at other times, he said. Thus, emission-control strategies aimed solely at achieving regulatory standards may not yield as great a health benefit as strategies that reduce ozone year-round. This research has important implications as states aim to attain national ozone standards. The standards are now set at 75 parts per billion (ppb), but the EPA is considering tightening them to a level in the 60-70 ppb range.
A 2012 study by Raun and Ensor published by Rice's Baker Institute for Public Policy determined that, overall, the current EPA standard for ozone serves its purpose, while the particulate standard of 35 micrograms per cubic meter does not.
"The bottom-line goal is to save lives," Ensor said. "We'd like to contribute to a refined warning system for at-risk individuals. Blanket warnings about air quality may not be good enough.
"At the same time, we want to enhance our understanding of the health cost of pollution and celebrate its continuing reduction."
The Houston Endowment and city of Houston funded the study led by Ensor, Raun and Persse. Arturo Blanco, chief of the Bureau of Pollution Control and Prevention, Houston Department of Health and Human Services, supported the research.
###
This news release can be found online at news.rice.edu.
Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews
Related Materials:
Uncertainties Influencing Health-Based Prioritization of Ozone Abatement Options: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es200165n
Association of Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest with Exposure to Fine Particulate and Ozone Ambient Air Pollution from Case Crossover Analysis Results: Are the Standards Protective?: http://www.bakerinstitute.org/publications/HPF-pub-RaunEnsorParticulateExposure-101212.pdf
Meta-analysis of the association between short-term exposure to ambient ozone and respiratory hospital admissions: http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/2/024006
RICE CONTACTS:
David Ruth
713-348-6327
david@rice.edu
Mike Williams
617-281-6854
mikewilliams@rice.edu
CITY OF HOUSTON CONTACT:
Kathy Barton
832-393-5045
kathy.barton@houstontx.gov
[ | 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.
QUITO (Reuters) - Ecuador's President Rafael Correa held his first cabinet meetings more than 35 years before he was elected.
As an 8-year-old in the bustling port of Guayaquil, according to his brother, he would play head of state with friends who gathered around him to serve as ersatz ministers taking his orders.
The innate charisma that he showed as a schoolboy has helped make Correa one of the Andean nation's most popular presidents, celebrated as a champion of the poor by supporters from windswept highlands to sweltering Amazon jungle.
The country of 15 million gave Correa a sweeping re-election victory on Sunday, according to early official results, allowing him to continue a "Citizens' Revolution" focused on fighting poverty and expanding the reach of the state.
Yet critics might see in those childhood games the authoritarian traits of a leader they now accuse of hoarding power: he somehow always managed to be the chief.
"I used to say to his friends, 'when you play cops and robbers, sometimes you're the cop and sometimes you're the robber,'" said Correa's brother, Fabricio, once a close ally who is now a fierce critic after a theatrical falling-out.
"'But you guys are always the stooges and he's always the president,'" he said in an interview.
A savvy political operator, the 49-year-old Correa has built up solid support by boosting state spending on health and education.
His strident anti-American rhetoric and showdowns with Wall Street investors and oil companies have helped him build the image of a populist crusader battling elites in the name of the poor.
To detractors, however, Correa is a dangerous and impulsive authoritarian who brooks no dissent and persecutes adversaries while squashing free speech and free enterprise alike.
They say his political success has come from a vast expansion of presidential powers and indiscriminate use of government coffers swollen by rising global crude oil prices, higher taxes, and financing agreements with China.
After winning a new four-year term on Sunday, Correa is set to be in power for a decade, a remarkable feat in a country where military coups and violent protests had turned the presidency into more of a revolving door than a stable institution.
It may also give Correa a bigger leadership role in a coalition of left-wing leaders in Latin America as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, for years the region's main agitator against U.S. power, struggles with life-threatening cancer.
Though Correa has said he is not interested in replacing Chavez, he is likely to continue replicating the Venezuelan's ferocious verbal bashing of the U.S. "empire."
He has canceled U.S. anti-narcotics flights from Ecuador, and in 2011 he expelled the American ambassador.
Last year, he set his government on a new collision course with Western powers when he allowed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to take refuge at Ecuador's embassy in London, saying he feared Washington wanted to persecute the former computer hacker for leaking thousands of secret U.S. cables.
HERO FOR THE POOR
Driving Correa's diatribes about corrupt media and immoral bankers is a profound anger over poverty, which he witnessed up close in 1987 while volunteering with a Roman Catholic organization in the remote Andean village of Zumbahua.
He spent a year living in a tiny room in a dilapidated building, playing guitar and sharing meals with the local Kichwa indigenous people while learning their language.
The malnutrition and lack of basic healthcare he saw in Zumbahua was a stark contrast to his own lower middle class upbringing.
"The time he spent here left a mark on him. He saw that these people were trapped in poverty. He would go around saying things were going to be different when he became president," said Pio Baschirotto, a 71-year-old priest who works in Zumbahua and is friends with the president.
Correa went on to study economics in Belgium, where he met his future wife, and in 2001 completed a doctoral thesis at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign that argued against the free-market reforms that swept Latin America in the 1990s.
The father of three won the presidency in late 2006 on promises to tackle poverty by boosting the state's share of the OPEC nation's oil industry proceeds and increasing government spending on social welfare.
Since then he has doubled spending on education, linked remote villages to big cities by turning muddy dirt paths into proper roads, and expanded access to healthcare by building 20 new hospitals and revamping some 500 clinics.
"We've done a lot. ... Our roads are envied throughout the Americas, ports, airports, hydroelectric dams. For sure, things have changed," Correa said when he kicked off his re-election bid in November in front of thousands of supporters.
"But there's a long way to go and that's why we're here."
An avid cyclist, Correa filmed one campaign spot showing him changing out of a sharp suit into biking clothes and then riding his bike over mountain peaks and past tropical fishing villages to show the improvement of roads under his leadership.
TAILOR-MADE STATE
Supporters say Correa's charm and heavy state spending have helped him put an end to the political turmoil that ousted three predecessors in the decade before he took office.
But critics say the key to Correa's longevity is that his allies drafted a new constitution in 2008 that expanded the reach of the presidency, made it easier for him to put allies in key posts and has allowed him to run for two consecutive terms.
He also bypassed Congress by calling a referendum on an overhaul of the justice system in 2011 that critics say boosted his power over courts. The opposition-controlled legislature would have likely rejected the reforms.
At the same time, he expanded the use of adulatory state media to burnish his image, began calling critical reporters "dogs" and "hired assassins," and sued two opposition newspapers for libel.
Business leaders say his expansion of state control over the economy and creation of onerous taxes has weakened the private sector while fostering corruption, an approach his rival Guillermo Lasso calls "franchise socialism" because of its similarity to reforms in allied Venezuela and Bolivia.
Allies who helped him win the presidency quickly found there was no room for dissent or even disagreement. Within two years, Correa elbowed as many as 10 people out of his inner circle.
"We were like brothers. Sometimes neither of us was able to say who had said something first," said Alberto Acosta, a political mentor who said he fell out with Correa over the president's plans to expand the mining industry at the expense of the environment.
"I don't know him anymore ... he has become authoritarian, domineering and arrogant. He's a caudillo now," said Acosta, using a label often given to autocratic rulers in Latin America.
COMBATIVE SHOWDOWNS
One of his most bitter brawls was with his own brother, Fabricio. The two campaigned together in the election that swept Correa to power, and they had been close since childhood.
The president openly broke with him in 2010 following accusations that Fabricio Correa's engineering firm had profited from government contracts that violated anti-nepotism laws.
The elder Correa denies the charges and says the relationship broke down when he complained about irregular contracting practices. He says he learned via the vice president that his brother had barred him from the presidential palace.
"He turned into a fanatic," said Fabricio Correa. "He believes he is a messiah, and he always envisioned a totalitarian system because he believes that's the only way to help the poor."
The president has ready responses to such charges.
"They say we're obsessed with power. Yes! We're obsessed with the power to serve the citizens, especially the poor," he said last month when he celebrated six years in office.
"We're obsessed with the power to build more schools, more hospitals, more roads, more bridges."
Supporters and rivals alike complain that Correa's sharp temper and hostile attitude have led him to pick unnecessary fights and to implement policies based on confrontation.
His most notable showdown was his 2008 decision to default on $3.2 billion in global bonds, even though Ecuador had the funds to continue making payments. Correa insisted the debt had been illegally contracted under previous governments.
Ecuador later repurchased the debt at a steep discount in an aggressive operation that turned Wall Street's rough-and-tumble playbook back on the investors themselves - but also locked Ecuador out of global capital markets.
He also forced oil companies to sign contracts to give the state greater income, pushing out Brazil's Petrobras in the process, and bullied mobile phone carriers into paying more for their operating licenses, deterring potential investors.
"His biggest defect is his biggest virtue: he fights for what he believes without thinking about the consequences," said Correa's friend and former minister, Susana Cabeza de Vaca.
(Additional reporting by Maria Teresa Escobar; Editing by Kieran Murray and Mohammad Zargham)
Disruption comes in all shapes and sizes, and benefits people of all shapes and sizes. When you think about global entrepreneurs solving hard problems, you might not think about creating hardware products that aim to save the lives of premature babies.
Heavy hitters like Google breaking into the streaming music arena has always been a concern for companies trying to make it in that tough business, and now it seems as though that often discussed hypothetical is about to come true.![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 17-Feb-2013
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