Crafting is having quite a resurgence, and many are forgoing TV time to work on homespun projects. If you?re looking for a new hobby, check out this list of crafts that offer productive and fun ways to spend your leisure time.
-??????? Knitting is one of the most popular craft hobbies today. The supplies are inexpensive and very portable ? you can easily carry your yarn and needles in your purse and take them out whenever you have time. You can also work on projects in short periods of time, like during a commute or while in a waiting room.
-??????? Origami is an ancient and lovely crafting choice. The Japanese art of folded paper can make some awesome shapes if you keep at it. An inexpensive hobby, all you really need are square sheets and instructions.?
-??????? Quilting has become increasingly recent years, as people are recognizing the artistic expression possible in these traditional blankets. Though it?s not portable, the end product can be spectacular and very useful.
-??????? Screen printing is now easier than ever to do at home. You can purchase a one-piece kit at a craft store that lets you expose an image, burn a screen, and print on paper, fabric, or other materials quickly and easily. This simple?method is loads of fun and makes great gifts for family and friends.
NEW YORK (AP) ? The price of oil is rising Monday as political leaders in Washington appear closer to a resolution in critical budget negotiations.
Benchmark crude rose 73 cents to $87.46 around 10:30 a.m. in New York.
Seeking to break an impasse in budget talks, House Speaker John Boehner has offered to raise taxes on some wealthy earners ? but only if President Barack Obama agrees to cuts in benefit programs.
Leaders must strike a deal soon or the country will reach the so-called "fiscal cliff," a combination of spending cuts and tax increases that go into effect on Jan. 1.
Prices at the pump dropped 4 cents over the weekend to an average of $3.25 a gallon, the lowest level in almost a year.
(Reuters) - Clearwire Corp agreed to sell roughly half of the company for $2.2 billion to majority shareholder Sprint Nextel Corp, which would then have full ownership of spectrum that will help it offer high-speed wireless services.
The $2.97-per-share deal is only 7 cents per share higher than a bid many minority shareholders said was too low days before. Clearwire shares tumbled 12.2 percent to $2.96 in morning trading on Monday.
Sprint already owns slightly more than half of Clearwire. The company said owners of 13 percent of Clearwire shares - Comcast Corp, Intel Corp and Bright House Networks LLC - had agreed to vote for the deal.
But it was not immediately clear whether Sprint, the No. 3 U.S. wireless carrier, could win the backing of a majority of Clearwire's minority shareholders, which it needs to take control.
"This is not going to be popular with the minority shareholders," said Davidson & Co analyst Donna Jaegers.
But Clearwire's top executive told analysts on a Monday call that the company had little alternative.
"Despite our efforts we have been unable to secure new partnerships," said Clearwire Chief Executive Officer Erik Prusch. "Our existing governance agreements prevented us from offering third parties the governance rights they desired in a partnership."
Shareholders with more than 13 percent of Clearwire shares said last week that they were not happy with the $2.90-per-share offer, and some have said Sprint should offer as much as $5 per share.
Crest Financial, which owns more than 3 percent of Clearwire, recently filed a lawsuit to stop the company from selling itself to Sprint.
After the deal was announced on Monday, Crest said it had amended the lawsuit to make it a class action.
Another shareholder, Mount Kellett, said last week that the $2.90-a-share deal "grossly" undervalued Clearwire.
Clearwire, which also counts Sprint as its biggest customer, has been seeking financing for a high-speed wireless network upgrade and to keep itself afloat.
While some analysts and shareholders said Clearwire did not need to rush into a sale to Sprint, others have said that move would be its best hope for survival.
Sprint, whose shares rose 1 percent to $5.61 on Monday, needs Clearwire's substantial spectrum to better arm itself against larger rivals Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc.
Reuters reported last week that Japan's Softbank Corp, which recently struck a deal to buy 70 percent of Sprint, would not consent to a bid of more than $2.97 per share.
Softbank said on Monday that it supported the deal.
(Reporting by Sinead Carew in New York and Sayantani Ghosh in Bangalore; Editing by Rodney Joyce, Sriraj Kalluvila and Lisa Von Ahn)
Ordinary heart cells become 'biological pacemakers' with injection of a single genePublic release date: 16-Dec-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Sally Stewart sally.stewart@cshs.org 310-248-6566 Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
LOS ANGELES (EMBARGOED UNTIL DEC. 16, 2012 AT 1 P.M. EST) Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute researchers have reprogrammed ordinary heart cells to become exact replicas of highly specialized pacemaker cells by injecting a single gene (Tbx18)a major step forward in the decade-long search for a biological therapy to correct erratic and failing heartbeats.
The advance will be published in the Jan 8 issue of Nature Biotechnology and also will be available today on the journal's website.
"Although we and others have created primitive biological pacemakers before, this study is the first to show that a single gene can direct the conversion of heart muscle cells to genuine pacemaker cells. The new cells generated electrical impulses spontaneously and were indistinguishable from native pacemaker cells," said Hee Cheol Cho, PhD., a Heart Institute research scientist.
Pacemaker cells generate electrical activity that spreads to other heart cells in an orderly pattern to create rhythmic muscle contractions. If these cells go awry, the heart pumps erratically at best; patients healthy enough to undergo surgery often look to an electronic pacemaker as the only option for survival.
The heartbeat originates in the sinoatrial node (SAN) of the heart's right upper chamber, where pacemaker cells are clustered. Of the heart's 10 billion cells, fewer than 10,000 are pacemaker cells, often referred to as SAN cells. Once reprogrammed by the Tbx18 gene, the newly created pacemaker cells "induced SAN cells" or iSAN cells had all key features of native pacemakers and maintained their SAN-like characteristics even after the effects of the Tbx18 gene had faded.
But the Cedars-Sinai researchers, employing a virus engineered to carry a single gene (Tbx18) that plays a key role in embryonic pacemaker cell development, directly reprogrammed heart muscle cells (cardiomyocytes) to specialized pacemaker cells. The new cells took on the distinctive features and function of native pacemaker cells, both in lab cell reprogramming and in guinea pig studies.
Previous efforts to generate new pacemaker cells resulted in heart muscle cells that could beat on their own. Still, the modified cells were closer to ordinary muscle cells than to pacemaker cells. Other approaches employed embryonic stem cells to derive pacemaker cells. But, the risk of contaminating cancerous cells is a persistent hurdle to realizing a therapeutic potential with the embryonic stem cell-based approach. The new work, with astonishing simplicity, creates pacemaker cells that closely resemble the native ones free from the risk of cancer.
For his work on biological pacemaker technology, Cho, the article's last author, recently won the Louis N. and Arnold M. Katz Basic Research Prize, a prestigious young investigator award of the American Heart Association.
"This is the culmination of 10 years of work in our laboratory to build a biological pacemaker as an alternative to electronic pacing devices," said Eduardo Marbn, MD, PhD, director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute and Mark S. Siegel Family Professor, a pioneer in cardiac stem cell research. A clinical trial of Marbn's stem cell therapy for heart attack patients recently found the experimental treatment helped damaged hearts regrow healthy muscle.
If subsequent research confirms and supports findings of the pacemaker cell studies, the researchers said they believe therapy might be administered by injecting Tbx18 into a patient's heart or by creating pacemaker cells in the laboratory and transplanting them into the heart. But additional studies of safety and effectiveness must be conducted before human clinical trials could begin.
###
The study was supported by the Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors Heart Stem Cell Center, the Heart Rhythm Society, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, the American Heart Association (12SDG9020030), the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (1R01HL111646-01A1), and the Mark S. Siegel Family Professorship. The authors report that they have no conflicts of interest.
Citation: Nature Biotechnology, "Transcription factor-driven conversion of quiescent cardiomyocytes to pacemaker cells," online Dec. 16, 2012; print publication in issue dated Jan. 8, 2013.
Embargoed until 10 am PST (1 pm EST; 6 pm London UK), Sunday, Dec. 16, 2012
VIDEOLINK ENABLED
Thanks to a new, state-of-the-art in-house studio, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center can now instantly broadcast quality HD video directly to newsrooms around the world.
[ | 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.
Ordinary heart cells become 'biological pacemakers' with injection of a single genePublic release date: 16-Dec-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Sally Stewart sally.stewart@cshs.org 310-248-6566 Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
LOS ANGELES (EMBARGOED UNTIL DEC. 16, 2012 AT 1 P.M. EST) Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute researchers have reprogrammed ordinary heart cells to become exact replicas of highly specialized pacemaker cells by injecting a single gene (Tbx18)a major step forward in the decade-long search for a biological therapy to correct erratic and failing heartbeats.
The advance will be published in the Jan 8 issue of Nature Biotechnology and also will be available today on the journal's website.
"Although we and others have created primitive biological pacemakers before, this study is the first to show that a single gene can direct the conversion of heart muscle cells to genuine pacemaker cells. The new cells generated electrical impulses spontaneously and were indistinguishable from native pacemaker cells," said Hee Cheol Cho, PhD., a Heart Institute research scientist.
Pacemaker cells generate electrical activity that spreads to other heart cells in an orderly pattern to create rhythmic muscle contractions. If these cells go awry, the heart pumps erratically at best; patients healthy enough to undergo surgery often look to an electronic pacemaker as the only option for survival.
The heartbeat originates in the sinoatrial node (SAN) of the heart's right upper chamber, where pacemaker cells are clustered. Of the heart's 10 billion cells, fewer than 10,000 are pacemaker cells, often referred to as SAN cells. Once reprogrammed by the Tbx18 gene, the newly created pacemaker cells "induced SAN cells" or iSAN cells had all key features of native pacemakers and maintained their SAN-like characteristics even after the effects of the Tbx18 gene had faded.
But the Cedars-Sinai researchers, employing a virus engineered to carry a single gene (Tbx18) that plays a key role in embryonic pacemaker cell development, directly reprogrammed heart muscle cells (cardiomyocytes) to specialized pacemaker cells. The new cells took on the distinctive features and function of native pacemaker cells, both in lab cell reprogramming and in guinea pig studies.
Previous efforts to generate new pacemaker cells resulted in heart muscle cells that could beat on their own. Still, the modified cells were closer to ordinary muscle cells than to pacemaker cells. Other approaches employed embryonic stem cells to derive pacemaker cells. But, the risk of contaminating cancerous cells is a persistent hurdle to realizing a therapeutic potential with the embryonic stem cell-based approach. The new work, with astonishing simplicity, creates pacemaker cells that closely resemble the native ones free from the risk of cancer.
For his work on biological pacemaker technology, Cho, the article's last author, recently won the Louis N. and Arnold M. Katz Basic Research Prize, a prestigious young investigator award of the American Heart Association.
"This is the culmination of 10 years of work in our laboratory to build a biological pacemaker as an alternative to electronic pacing devices," said Eduardo Marbn, MD, PhD, director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute and Mark S. Siegel Family Professor, a pioneer in cardiac stem cell research. A clinical trial of Marbn's stem cell therapy for heart attack patients recently found the experimental treatment helped damaged hearts regrow healthy muscle.
If subsequent research confirms and supports findings of the pacemaker cell studies, the researchers said they believe therapy might be administered by injecting Tbx18 into a patient's heart or by creating pacemaker cells in the laboratory and transplanting them into the heart. But additional studies of safety and effectiveness must be conducted before human clinical trials could begin.
###
The study was supported by the Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors Heart Stem Cell Center, the Heart Rhythm Society, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, the American Heart Association (12SDG9020030), the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (1R01HL111646-01A1), and the Mark S. Siegel Family Professorship. The authors report that they have no conflicts of interest.
Citation: Nature Biotechnology, "Transcription factor-driven conversion of quiescent cardiomyocytes to pacemaker cells," online Dec. 16, 2012; print publication in issue dated Jan. 8, 2013.
Embargoed until 10 am PST (1 pm EST; 6 pm London UK), Sunday, Dec. 16, 2012
VIDEOLINK ENABLED
Thanks to a new, state-of-the-art in-house studio, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center can now instantly broadcast quality HD video directly to newsrooms around the world.
[ | 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.
All Critics (50) | Top Critics (15) | Fresh (48) | Rotten (2)
"Sister" avoids sentimental indulgence. There's no room for wallowing in this spare, almost ascetic exercise ...
French-born director and co-screenwriter Ursula Meier balances the scenario's bleak, wrenching aspects with a stirring confidence in the redemptive power of love.
Seydoux perfectly captures the anger and self-defeat of ill-educated, hedonistic, man-chasing young women who live on the fringes.
L?a Seydoux fulfills Louise, and Kacey Mottet Klein, as Simon, is one more to join the pantheon of film's excellent child actors.
Haunting and sad. And absolutely worth seeing.
The chemistry between the two leads is a razor's-edge dance: feral, childish, tender and always complex.
The storytelling is exciting and the characters well-observed.
For the most part a distant film, Sister supplies a full behavioral experience that's riveting at times, with lead performances by Lea Seydoux and Kacey Mottet Klein communicating isolation in bravely vulnerable ways.
Emotionally engaging and impeccably crafted
Klein and Seydoux give such naturalistic performances that they're never overwhelmed by the spectacle.
"Sister" is loose and episodic, but held together with nicely sketched characters.
[A]voids bathos. . .reveals unexpected depth in a heartbreaking bond. . . Different classes conflict [in] adjacent spaces . . .in spare, realistic Dardennes' style.
Meier draws out wonderfully naturalistic performances from her young stars, with Mottet Klein particularly good as the young roustabout Simon ...
It comes over like a subtle short story and is well acted.
Meier's portrait of Simon ... is richly atmospheric and never sentimental.
An enigmatic, heartfelt account of a vulnerable young boy's yearning for a better life.
Most intriguing is how the writers and director have transformed what's essentially a rather dark, bleak story into something involving and emotionally resonant, all without ever turning sentimental.
It is an interesting and well-made movie, though with an uncertain ending.
Sister gradually reveals pattern in its tapestry of everyday life.
An expert piece of storytelling with a host of strong character turns and thematic depth to burn.
A healthy seam of mischief helps cut through the occasionally rote social comment.
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ROME (Reuters) - Italy's main center-left party, leading polls for next year's election, criticized calls for Prime Minister Mario Monti to run for a second term, a move one of the party's leading figures said would be "morally questionable".
The Democratic Party (PD) has supported Monti's technocrat government in parliament. But, while it has pledged to continue his fiscal discipline and wants him to stay on in some role after the election, it says he should stay out of the campaign, which polls suggest he would lose anyway.
"It would be illogical and in a certain sense morally questionable if the professor were to enter the race against the main political force which supported him in his reform efforts," Massimo D'Alema, a former prime minister and an influential center-left elder statesman told Friday's daily Corriere della Sera. "I have great esteem for him and I hope he doesn't."
center-right candidate Silvio Berlusconi has offered to stand aside to allow a Monti candidacy.
European politicians from German Chancellor Angela Merkel to French President Francois Hollande also heaped praise on Monti and at a meeting of European center-right parties on Thursday, he was urged to run in the election.
Monti avoided public comments on his political future, telling a news conference in Brussels it would not be "either possible or appropriate" for him to speak on the matter. But in an interview with an online religious magazine, Monti said Italians had earned respect for their economic sacrifices.
"Italy did not derail and it will succeed", Monti told Francescan magazine sanfrancesco.org.
Industry Minister Corrado Passera also declined to comment on whether Monti would be a candidate in the vote, expected by February, "at least for now".
"I'm confident that our work will continue under a new government and a new parliament," Passera said at an Italy-American conference in New York. He added that he thought the worst was over for the euro zone's third-biggest economy and that it would improve in the second half of 2013.
Monti's austerity measures have helped reduce borrowing costs since he took over in a financial crisis last year. Italy's public debt nonetheless rose above 2 trillion euros ($2.62 trillion) for the first time in October, the Bank of Italy reported on Friday.
PD party leader Pier Luigi Bersani said on Thursday he would call on Monti to perform some kind of role immediately after the election. But he has said it would be better for the respected former economics professor to stay out of the campaign.
Opinion polls suggest Monti would be defeated if he ran, and PD officials say that would make it harder for him to replace President Giorgio Napolitano, who must step down by April.
"He would have been a political competitor not 10 years earlier, or something like that, but last week," Stefano Fassina, the main PD spokesman on economic affairs told Reuters.
POLL NUMBERS
Napolitano, who named Monti to replace the discredited Berlusconi a year ago, said last month that Monti's special lifetime seat in the Senate would not allow him to make an election bid.
Monti also would be cautious about associating with the scandal-plagued Berlusconi, whose position switches have caused frustration and alarm across Europe and in his own party.
Berlusconi reiterated criticisms of Monti's austerity programs on Friday and said he would be obliged to lead the center-right if Monti did not accept the role.
"I have had to return because of this," he told his own Italia Uno television station. "We're convinced that moderates will never allow the left to win with its policies of more spending and more taxes especially on the middle class."
A potential Monti election vehicle, a centrist group recently set up by Ferrari chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, is polling under three percent in most surveys.
An average of two weeks' opinion polls by website termometropolitico.it gave the PD 32.7 percent, ahead of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement on 16.8 percent and Berlusconi's People of Freedom party (PDL) on 15 percent.
A potential centrist coalition that could back a Monti candidacy polled 9.2 percent.
($1 = 0.7628 euros)
(Additional reporting by Francesco Guarascio in Brussels, Paul Ingrassia and Nicola Scevola in New York, Antonella Ciancio in Milan; Writing By James Mackenzie; Editing by Barry Moody and Michael Roddy)
This week, Congressional leaders are due to meet with President Obama in The White House for talks about resolving the so-called Fiscal Cliff, the series of tax hikes and spending cuts that will go into force on January 1 if there's no change to current law.
However, even before this happens we're already learning a lot.
For example, John Boehner reportedly held a conference call with his house caucus telling them that although the GOP would resist any efforts by Obama to raise taxes, this was not the time for a brutal showdown, a la the debt ceiling fiasco from last year. Not only that, Boehner apparently didn't get much resistance. This seems like a good sign for a deal getting done.
And in fact "conciliatory" is the meme of the moment, as other folks in Congress expressed similar optimism about a deal getting done.
Senators Bob Corker (R) and Kent Conrad (D) both suggested that some kind of "framework" for a deal was possible.
Interestingly, one of the biggest early roadblocks may not come from the raucous GOP house, but rather Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Senate.
JPMorgan notes:
Republican Senator Minority Leader McConnell hasn't been as conciliatory as Boehner re the fiscal cliff; McConnell conducted a long interview w/the WSJ this weekend and while he said a fiscal deal is certainly possible Republicans weren't going to countenance higher tax rates.? McConnell said he doesn't trust the White House on fiscal matters after the break-down of 2011's "grand bargain" deal.? McConnell wants all the Bush rates extended for another year as a "bridge" w/negotiations taking place in 2013 on comprehensive reform.? WSJ??? http://goo.gl/aiTeB
One thing to know about McConnell is that he faces re-election in 2014, and therefore a possible Republican party primary challenge.
Finally over the weekend, we had writer Bill Kristol asking why the GOP was falling on its sword for millionaires, a quote that got quite a bit of play, as a conservative wondering why taxes can't go up a little bit on the rich is interesting.
Kit Juckes of SocGen has a good line on how he sees things: "You can't be sure there won't be an outbreak of narrow-minded thinking but I remain ludicrously optimistic that the US can avoid the Cliff Crisis, and surprise on the upside on terms of growth in the New Year."
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Public release date: 16-Dec-2012
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