Sudan?s links to Iran came under scrutiny Tuesday as it welcomed two Iranian warships less than a week after an explosion at a Khartoum weapons warehouse that Sudanese officials blamed on an Israeli airstrike.
Unconfirmed reports in Israel suggested that the arms factory was either storing or manufacturing weapons on behalf of Iran. Sudan has in the past denied that it allows Iranian weapons to be shipped through its territory to Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Sudan's information minister, Ahmed Belal Osman, last week accused Israel of carrying out an airborne attack on the facility. An explosion at Yarmouk, outside Khartoum, on Oct. 24 left extensive damage. Sudan has complained to the United Nations over the strike. Israel has refused to comment.
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The arrival of the Iranian Navy?s helicopter carrier Kharg and its destroyer Admiral Shahid Naqdi on Sudan?s Red Sea coast late Monday raised questions over strengthening relations between Khartoum and Tehran.
?They?re saying it?s pure coincidence, that [the visit] has been planned for weeks, and has nothing to do with the factory explosion last week,? says one Westerner in Sudan, who asked not to be identified. ?Maybe so, but it?s pretty clumsy timing and really raises the heat on both Khartoum and the Iranians over these alleged arms deals and links to Gaza and Hezbollah.?
The warships? visit was a chance to ?support strong political, security and diplomatic relations? between Sudan and Iran, Sawarmi Khaled Saad, a Sudanese army spokesman, told the country?s official SUNA news agency Monday.
It would allow Sudanese officials to study ?advanced weapons and advanced ships,? he added.
The two vessels have been based in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea since September, as part of Iran?s involvement in international naval efforts to beat Somali piracy. An Iranian vessel was hijacked in 2008.
Their visit to Sudan would ?convey Iran's message of peace to the regional countries and maintain the security of shipping corridors against maritime terrorism,? Press TV, an Iranian state-owned broadcaster, reported.
The government in Khartoum Monday issued a terse statement denying that there was any agreement for Sudan to assemble or store arms for Iran.
"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirms what is known by all: that Iran has no need to manufacture weapons in Sudan, for Iran or for its allies," the ministry said in a statement. "We want to deny any relation between Sudan's military manufacturing and any foreign partner."
Israel has in the past accused Sudan of allowing Iran to transport weapons to militant groups in the Middle East via its territory. The arms are then allegedly smuggled through Egypt to Gaza or on to Lebanon.
Sudan, whose president Omar al-Bashir is known to be close to Iran?s leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has twice accused Israel of carrying out airstrikes inside his country.
A convoy of vehicles traveling towards Sudan?s border with Egypt was destroyed by unknown aircraft in January 2009, and a single SUV was hit in Port Sudan last year.
It was reported in 2009 that the convoy included Iranian weapons, including anti-tank rockets, that were being shipped to Hamas in Gaza. Tehran and Khartoum have both denied this.
The two Iranian warships were due to leave port on Wednesday and continue patrols in the Red Sea, Sudanese officials said.
The Easiest Way to Get a Leica Camera Is with This iPhone 5 Sticker
By Casey Chan
Let?s be honest, most of us couldn?t afford a Leica camera and would do unspeakable things for one. But don?t worry! You don?t have to! You can buy a Leica Camera sticker for your iPhone 5 to front like you have a Leica.
ScienceDaily (Oct. 31, 2012) ? Like a Hollywood starlet constantly retouching her makeup, the giant asteroid Vesta is constantly stirring its outermost layer to present a young face. Data from NASA's Dawn mission show that a form of weathering that occurs on the moon and other airless bodies we've visited in the inner solar system does not alter Vesta's outermost layer in the same way. Carbon-rich asteroids have also been splattering dark material on Vesta's surface over a long span of the body's history.
The results are described in two papers released today in the journal Nature.
"Dawn's data allow us to decipher how Vesta records fundamental processes that have also affected Earth and other solar system bodies," said Carol Raymond, Dawn deputy principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "No object in our solar system is an island. Throughout solar system history, materials have exchanged and interacted."
Over time, soils on Earth's moon and asteroids such as Itokawa have undergone extensive weathering in the space environment. Scientists see this in the accumulation of tiny metallic particles containing iron, which dulls the fluffy outer layer. Dawn's visible and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIR) and framing camera detected no accumulation of such tiny particles on Vesta, and this particular protoplanet, or almost-planet, remains bright and pristine.
Nevertheless, the bright rays of the youngest features on Vesta are seen to degrade rapidly and disappear into background soil. Scientists know frequent, small impacts continually mix the fluffy outer layer of broken debris. Vesta also has unusually steep topography relative to other large bodies in the inner solar system, which leads to landslides that further mix surface material.
"Getting up close and familiar with Vesta has reset our thinking about the character of the uppermost soils of airless bodies," said Carle Pieters, one of the lead authors and a Dawn team member based at Brown University, Providence, R.I. "Vesta 'dirt' is very clean, well mixed and highly mobile."
Early pictures of Vesta showed a variety of dramatic light and dark splotches on Vesta's surface. These light and dark materials were unexpected and now show the brightness range of Vesta is among the largest observed on rocky bodies in our solar system.
Dawn scientists suspected early on that bright material is native to Vesta. One of their first hypotheses for the dark material suggested it might come from the shock of high-speed impacts melting and darkening the underlying rocks or from recent volcanic activity. An analysis of data from VIR and the framing camera has revealed, however, that the distribution of dark material is widespread and occurs both in small spots and in diffuse deposits, without correlation to any particular underlying geology. The likely source of the dark material is now shown to be the carbon-rich material in meteoroids, which are also believed to have deposited hydrated minerals from other asteroids on Vesta.
To get the amount of darkening we now see on Vesta, scientists on the Dawn team estimate about 300 dark asteroids with diameters between 0.6 to 6 miles (1 and 10 kilometers) likely hit Vesta during the last 3.5 billion years. This would have been enough to wrap Vesta in a blanket of mixed material about 3 to 7 feet (1 to 2 meters) thick.
"This perpetual contamination of Vesta with material native to elsewhere in the solar system is a dramatic example of an apparently common process that changes many solar system objects," said Tom McCord, the other lead author and a Dawn team member based at the Bear Fight Institute, Winthrop, Wash. "Earth likely got the ingredients for life -- organics and water -- this way."
Launched in 2007, Dawn spent more than a year investigating Vesta. It departed in September 2012 and is currently on its way to the dwarf planet Ceres.
JPL manages the Dawn mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital Sciences Corp. in Dulles, Va., designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the Italian Space Agency and the Italian National Astrophysical Institute are international partners on the mission team. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.
For more information about Dawn, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/dawn and http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov .
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The 8th International Lessons Learned Conference being held in Sydney, Australia, 3-6 December 2012?has proved extremely popular and is now fully subscribed.?
If you would like to add your name to a wait list please check the ILLC website registration page for more details.
The 8th International Lessons Learned Conference fully subscribed by ACMC Communications , unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia License.
Many households host a party or get-together sometime during the Christmas holiday season. It might be a cookie exchange with friends, a kids? party with your playgroup, a holiday tea, a casual family gathering of food and gifts, or a more formal dinner party with just adults.
Today?s Countdown to Christmas Challenge is to begin to think about what might be happening in your home in December. Maybe you?ve always wanted to host a get-together in your home but never considered the details in time to organize it. Maybe your home is already designated as the hub for Christmas gatherings in your family. Don?t wait! It will only bring stress if you put it off. Start thinking about your entertaining budget, list of guests, food, supplies, and location. ListPlanIt?s Holiday Party Planner* is a great way to get started with your Christmas party planning.
* Available as a download in the?100 Days to Christmas 2012 eBook. ?Members to?ListPlanIt.com?can print or download a blank Holiday Party Planner in?Holidays & Occasions?as a worksheet for your holiday event planning.
Visit the 100 Days to Christmas Facebook page and tell us where your holiday gatherings are usually held. If in your home, what are your best tips for hosting?
ScienceDaily (Oct. 23, 2012) ? Computer simulations provide new mathematical support for the "grandmother hypothesis" -- a famous theory that humans evolved longer adult lifespans than apes because grandmothers helped feed their grandchildren.
"Grandmothering was the initial step toward making us who we are," says Kristen Hawkes, a distinguished professor of anthropology at the University of Utah and senior author of the new study published Oct. 24 by the British journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
The simulations indicate that with only a little bit of grandmothering -- and without any assumptions about human brain size -- animals with chimpanzee lifespans evolve in less than 60,000 years so they have a human lifespan. Female chimps rarely live past child-bearing years, usually into their 30s and sometimes their 40s. Human females often live decades past their child-bearing years.
The findings showed that from the time adulthood is reached, the simulated creatures lived another 25 years like chimps, yet after 24,000 to 60,000 years of grandmothers caring for grandchildren, the creatures who reached adulthood lived another 49 years -- as do human hunter-gatherers.
The grandmother hypothesis says that when grandmothers help feed their grandchildren after weaning, their daughters can produce more children at shorter intervals; the children become younger at weaning but older when they first can feed themselves and when they reach adulthood; and women end up with postmenopausal lifespans just like ours.
By allowing their daughters to have more children, a few ancestral females who lived long enough to become grandmothers passed their longevity genes to more descendants, who had longer adult lifespans as a result.
Hawkes conducted the new study with first author and mathematical biologist Peter Kim, a former University of Utah postdoctoral researcher now on the University of Sydney faculty, and James Coxworth, a University of Utah doctoral student in anthropology. The study was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Australian Research Council.
How Grandmothering Came to Be
Hawkes, University of Utah anthropologist James O'Connell and UCLA anthropologist Nicholas Blurton Jones formally proposed the grandmother hypothesis in 1997, and it has been debated ever since. Once major criticism was that it lacked a mathematical underpinning -- something the new study sought to provide.
The hypothesis stemmed from observations by Hawkes and O'Connell in the 1980s when they lived with Tanzania's Hazda hunter-gatherer people and watched older women spend their days collecting tubers and other foods for their grandchildren. Except for humans, all other primates and mammals collect their own food after weaning.
But as human ancestors evolved in Africa during the past 2 million years, the environment changed, growing drier with more open grasslands and fewer forests -- forests where newly weaned infants could collect and eat fleshy fruits on their own.
"So moms had two choices," Hawkes says. "They could either follow the retreating forests, where foods were available that weaned infants could collect, or continue to feed the kids after the kids are weaned. That is a problem for mothers because it means you can't have the next kid while you are occupied with this one."
That opened a window for the few females whose childbearing years were ending -- grandmothers -- to step in and help, digging up potato-like tubers and cracking hard-shelled nuts in the increasingly arid environment. Those are tasks newly weaned apes and human ancestors couldn't handle as infants.
The primates who stayed near food sources that newly weaned offspring could collect "are our great ape cousins," says Hawkes. "The ones that began to exploit resources little kids couldn't handle, opened this window for grandmothering and eventually evolved into humans."
Evidence that grandmothering increases grandchildren's survival is seen in 19th and 20th century Europeans and Canadians, and in Hazda and some other African people.
But it is possible that the benefits grandmothers provide to their grandchildren might be the result of long postmenopausal lifespans that evolved for other reasons, so the new study set out to determine if grandmothering alone could result in the evolution of ape-like life histories into long postmenopausal lifespans seen in humans.
Simulating the Evolution of Adult Lifespan
The new study isn't the first to attempt to model or simulate the grandmother effect. A 1998 study by Hawkes and colleagues took a simpler approach, showing that grandmothering accounts for differences between humans and modern apes in life-history events such as age at weaning, age at adulthood and longevity.
A recent simulation by other researchers said there were too few females living past their fertile years for grandmothering to affect lifespan in human ancestors. The new study grew from Hawkes' skepticism about that finding.
Unlike Hawkes' 1998 study, the new study simulated evolution over time, asking, "If you start with a life history like the one we see in great apes -- and then you add grandmothering, what happens?" Hawkes says.
The simulations measured the change in adult longevity -- the average lifespan from the time adulthood begins. Chimps that reach adulthood (age 13) live an average of another 15 or 16 years. People in developed nations who reach adulthood (at about age 19) live an average of another 60 years or so -- to the late 70s or low 80s.
The extension of adult lifespan in the new study involves evolution in prehistoric time; increasing lifespans in recent centuries have been attributed largely to clean water, sewer systems and other public health measures.
The researchers were conservative, making the grandmother effect "weak" by assuming that a woman couldn't be a grandmother until age 45 or after age 75, that she couldn't care for a child until age 2, and that she could care only for one child and that it could be any child, not just her daughter's child.
Based on earlier research, the simulation assumed that any newborn had a 5 percent chance of a gene mutation that could lead to either a shorter or a longer lifespan.
The simulation begins with only 1 percent of women living to grandmother age and able to care for grandchildren, but by the end of the 24,000 to 60,000 simulated years, the results are similar to those seen in human hunter-gatherer populations: about 43 percent of adult women are grandmothers.
The new study found that from adulthood, additional years of life doubled from 25 years to 49 years over the simulated 24,000 to 60,000 years.
The difference in how fast the doubling occurred depends on different assumptions about how much a longer lifespan costs males: Living longer means males must put more energy and metabolism into maintaining their bodies longer, so they put less vigor into competing with other males over females during young adulthood. The simulation tested three different degrees to which males are competitive in reproducing.
What Came First: Bigger Brains or Grandmothering?
The competing "hunting hypothesis" holds that as resources dried up for human ancestors in Africa, hunting became better than foraging for finding food, and that led to natural selection for bigger brains capable of learning better hunting methods and clever use of hunting weapons. Women formed "pair bonds" with men who brought home meat.
Many anthropologists argue that increasing brain size in our ape-like ancestors was the major factor in humans developing lifespans different from apes. But the new computer simulation ignored brain size, hunting and pair bonding, and showed that even a weak grandmother effect can make the simulated creatures evolve from chimp-like longevity to human longevity.
So Hawkes believes the shift to longer adult lifespan caused by grandmothering "is what underlies subsequent important changes in human evolution, including increasing brain size."
"If you are a chimpanzee, gorilla or orangutan baby, your mom is thinking about nothing but you," she says. "But if you are a human baby, your mom has other kids she is worrying about, and that means now there is selection on you -- which was not on any other apes -- to much more actively engage her: 'Mom! Pay attention to me!'"
"Grandmothering gave us the kind of upbringing that made us more dependent on each other socially and prone to engage each other's attention," she adds.
That, says Hawkes, gave rise to "a whole array of social capacities that are then the foundation for the evolution of other distinctly human traits, including pair bonding, bigger brains, learning new skills and our tendency for cooperation."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Utah.
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This article is the second part of a four-part series on low self-esteem and shame, written exclusively for MyAddiction.com by Richard Harnett
ORIGIN OF OUR FEAR OF DISAPPROVAL
Low self-esteem is the result of our experience of disapproval in one form or another. This rejection is always undeserved and unwarranted.
Family of Origin: Our parents may have mocked us and put us down, we may have been abandoned, betrayed, or neglected. We may have been subjected to verbal, physical, or sexual abuse. And we may have been expected to hide what was done to us.
Current Relationships: We may be involved with someone who is abusive, demeaning, or dehumanizing.
Cultural: We may experience prejudice against us because we are alcoholics, addicts, female, black, Hispanic, Muslim, Jewish, Catholic, evangelical, poor, elderly, overweight, physically disabled, sexually different. We may not be occupationally successful or religiously obedient.
Self-Hatred: We may have internalized the unfair judgments of others so much that we castigate ourselves for being imperfect and making mistakes.
Not only do we feel inferior as a result of such disapproval, but we might accept the negative judgment and become ashamed of ourselves as well.
GETTING HIGH TO ALLEVIATE FEELING LOW
People with addictions get high in order to prop up their self-esteem. Because they alternate between feelings of inferiority and superiority, they are often diagnosed as having a bi-polar disorder, formerly known as manic-depression. They have internalized a negative opinion of themselves that is so severe they are desperate for relief. For this reason, they resort to the quick fix provided by their addiction of choice.
Some addicts, of course, deny that they have any negative feelings about themselves. They point to all their worldly success as proof. They lack insight, however, into what makes them tick. As long as they believe their self-worth can be measured by externals, their knowledge of themselves will remain superficial. Some kind of crisis may prompt them to examine their assumptions and realize how insecure they really are. Then they may explore their motives for getting high and uncover some deficiency they have overlooked.
Recovery from addictions entails self-study. A mere determination to not get high again will fail because it relies upon willpower and lacks perception. It is the ego?s attempt to reassert itself as the CEO of the whole personality, the very attitude that brought about the downfall to begin with. Unfortunately, some people will go through several rounds of this vicious cycle before they come to their senses.
Beneath the practice of getting high lies a chronic state of discomfort. It is the ego?s dim awareness that it lacks a foundation, since it has tried to validate itself as if it were self-sufficient. Only when the ego realizes how much it depends upon a Source deep within can it shed its insecurity and feel valuable. In other words, when we recognize we are constantly being lived and inspired, then we can be confident we are important allies to the Source we all share in common.
TOOLS TO FEEL VALUABLE
Once we recognize that our low self-esteem and our shame are the result of our being disapproved by others, then we can look deep within ourselves for the affirmation we need. Here are some suggestions that may help lift us out of the gloomy pit. They may require some effort on our part, but we can?t afford to stay stuck in the muck any longer.
HUMOR
We may recall how the comedian Flip Wilson used to say on the TV program Laugh-In, ?Here come de Judge! Here come de Judge!? It may help us to say it whenever we notice an inner figure condemning us.
BEFRIEND OUR INNER CHILD
The feeling of worthlessness usually originates in some childhood experience in which we were disrespected. It may take a while to remember, because we still don?t want to offend the person who hurt us. Or it may come back to us clearly. In either case, we picture ourselves as the child who was made to feel ashamed, and then we imagine ourselves comforting that child. We may need to repeat this exercise until we are confident we have become the mature adult who will hug us with genuine affection and kindness.
HANG OUT WITH HEALTHY PEOPLE
When we associate with hypercritical people, we are making it difficult to improve our self-esteem. If our friends are sarcastic, mean, or bitter, they will reinforce our own thoughts of self-loathing. We may have to deliberately find people who are positive, encouraging, and supportive, and then spend much more time with them than with the ones who only berated and defeated us. Perhaps in time we will have grown enough to withstand criticism, and we may even be able to help others heal their wounds.
Richard G. Hartnett, MA, MS, LCADC is a former Jesuit priest who now lives with his wife, Kathy, by a lake in northwestern New Jersey. He has served as the chaplain at Hazelden New York, pastoral counselor at the Chemical Dependency Department of the International Center for the Disabled in NYC, and continuing care counselor at the outpatient Chemical Dependency Program of High Focus Centers in New Jersey. Currently he maintains a private practice in New Jersey. He is the author of The Presence at the Center, Renewing Your Fourth Step, The Three Inner Voices: Uncovering the Spiritual Roots of Addiction and Recovery, and Sobriety and Inspiration: Entrusting Ourselves to the Source of Our Healing and Creativity.
Garth Brooks is one of the latest members to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, which may be the pinnacle but by no means marks the end of his illustrious career. The singer, whose three-year run as a performer at the Wynn Las Vegas ends next month, hints that fans may hear more music from him in the near future ... with his family's blessing, of course.
"We're just going to start," Garth tells The Huffington Post. "It will be fun. We've got our youngest baby [Allie], this is her junior year, and she's really in touch. Now, down from three to one [at home], you spend a lot more time with that one. She's in on every plan. She knows all the decisions. She's really well-educated in what's going on."
The Oklahoma native previously said he would consider resurrecting his music career when all three daughters were grown and out of the house, but his wife, singer Trisha Yearwood, reveals that there's another Brooks family member who would like to see that happen sooner.
"I think she's ready for us to go on the road because she'll be home by herself," Trisha jokes of her youngest stepdaughter. "She's doing every after-school activity you can do. 'You don't just want to sit and stare at us?' It's really fun."
Garth says he is counting on several of his fellow musicians to help him ease into the next chapter of his career. "You talk about songwriters, the great ones can birth a career but the greatest ones can bring life back into one," he notes. "So we'll be looking hard for songs just to see what the future might hold for us."
For now, Garth has four more shows to play in Sin City. See his remaining Wynn Las Vegas dates here.
I?ve been enjoying sharing lots of fall recipes, but today is a little break from fall themed treats.
Today we?re?part of?a baby shower!
Ok? so it?s just a ?virtual? shower, but when your a super sweet blogger like Kristan of Confessions of a Cookbook Queen, you?re bound to have friends from every end of the country.? Since we couldn?t all?celebrate with Kristan in person,?some of her?blogging buddies have teamed up to ?shower? Kristan with some special treats, made in her honor (but eaten by us!).
Kristan is due any?day with?a sweet baby girl, Lucy.
Lucy and Kristan, these are for you?
I made a batch of my favorite Chocolate Cupcakes and topped them with Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting.
Then, I added some personalized fondant toppers for this special occasion.
This style of topper could certainly be made for any variety of occasions!? You could spell out a message (as shown above), or include a single initial for a wedding, or personalized gift.
Want to make your own stamped fondant toppers?? They?re quite easy and so versatile!
Let?s get started!
If you?re not familiar with working with fondant, start with a previous post of mine, Fondant 101.
Directions (as shown above)-
1.? Roll out fondant.
2.? Cut a small heart, or any shape desired.
3.-4.? Press a stamp into the heart.
5.? Set the fondant?accent on a paper plate or lint free paper towel to dry.???Allow to dry several hours before adding to cupcakes.? Fondant accents may be made several weeks in advance and stored in a tupperware type container.? I keep mine sealed, but in more humid climates you may want to leave the container slightly cracked open.
The stamps shown are from a set I bought a Michael?s a while back, that was designed to be used for clay or cement crafts.? You can use most anything that creates an impression, such as a stamped designed for paper crafts.??There are also lots of fondant impression tools on the market,?sold in the baking section.?? (*Note- obviously use new stamps that have not been used for other non-food crafts.? Also, paper craft supplies may or may not be made with food-safe plastics, use at your own discretion.)
Prop note- The cupcake liners I purchased recently at Home Goods.? Similar cupcake cases available from The Tomkat Studio or Shop Sweet Lulu.
And what?s a baby shower without lots of yummy treats?
Check out all of?the beautiful and deicious things Kristan?s friends have whipped up!
Cookies and Cups | Zebra Cake Cupcakes
The Hungry Housewife | White Cupcakes?
She Wears Many Hats |? Pretty in Pink Party Marshmallows
Two Peas and Their Pod | Dark Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes
Bluebonnets and Brownies | Apple Cider Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Frosting
My Baking Addiction | Sugar and Spice Cupcakes
Picky Palate | Pumpkin Brownie Cupcakes with Vanilla Bean Buttercream
Blooming on Bainbridge | Twinkie Cupcakes with Pink Cherry Frosting
Food For My Family | Pomegranate and Lime Olive Oil Yogurt Cupcakes
ScienceDaily (Oct. 22, 2012) ? NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shook a scoopful of dusty sand inside its sample-handling mechanism on Sol 75 (Oct. 21, 2012) as the third scrubbing of interior surfaces of the mechanism.
The rover team is instructing the rover to deliver a sieved sample from this scoopful -- the mission's fourth -- onto Curiosity's observation tray on Oct. 22 and plans to analyze another sample from the same scoopful with the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument this week.
Curiosity collected this fourth scoop of soil on Sol 74 (Oct. 20). A later scoop will become the first delivered to the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument. While continuing with scooping activities at the "Rocknest" site, the rover also has been examining surroundings with the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) and Mast Camera (Mastcam) instruments, and monitoring environmental conditions with the Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD), Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) and Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) instruments of its science payload.
Sol 75, in Mars local mean solar time at Gale Crater, ended at 8:58 a.m. Oct. 22, PDT (11:58 a.m., EDT).
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Suzanne Hall is part of the team that helped launch the VMFA's Chihuly exhibit.
Suzanne Hall's early interest in fine arts brought her from North Carolina to Richmond, where she earned a bachelor's degree in fine arts and a master's in communication at Virginia Commonwealth University. Hall, 59, built a career in cultural communications and marketing. She's been at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts for 25 years. Her husband, Joe Willis, is "pure Virginian." They have four grown children.
"Chihuly at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts" opened Saturday. What's it like getting ready to launch such a high-profile exhibit?
It's like drinking through the fire hose! VMFA has been very fortunate to have the dynamic and visionary leadership of Alex Nyerges as the director. The VMFA team has masterfully created a portfolio of exhibitions with broad appeal as well as more academic, to engage the widest possible audiences.
The Chihuly exhibition was carefully organized and beautifully orchestrated by a team of professionals from Seattle and at VMFA. The VMFA team met regularly and had many conference calls with Team Chihuly. Not only did we manage all the details that go with an exhibition of this stature, we are poised to roll out a surprise very soon.
How involved was Dale Chihuly in designing and launching the exhibit?What's the role of the chief communications officer in the process?
Dale Chihuly's operation is made of many impressive, hard-working professionals. The director and deputy director have visited Seattle several times, and Dale and his team visited VMFA in April 2011 to see our facility.
I had the opportunity to take a group of media to Seattle this summer to experience the Chihuly operations firsthand. We spent half a day in his hot shop, which is located in a building called The Boathouse and is, in fact, a building on Lake Union in which racing shells were once made. We also visited his facility where they store, assemble and ship all of his amazing artwork. That facility is also home to all of the other Chihuly operations, including merchandising, graphic design, social media and brand management.
My job is to manage all the communications, working closely with regional and national/international media as well as social media for VMFA. For Chihuly, we have a robust social media plan, which includes Facebook, a blog, and a small army of highly influential and active tweeters.
What are your artistic interests and hobbies?
I majored in textiles in art school but also painted a lot. When I graduated, I was hired as the resident weaver at the Valentine Museum, later promoted to the director of the National Textile Resource and Research Center. I wanted to be a conservator until I realized it was not a profession that suited my personality.
My most passionate interest is mission work. I have been to Rwanda, southern Sudan and Honduras, and this summer led a group to Richmond Hill to assist in staffing a summer camp for Richmond's inner-city children. I serve on the World Mission Board for the Diocese of Virginia.
And I love to read and garden.
What's something that people don't know about you?
I'm an advocate for farmers marketing and local, sustainable food. I belong to a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture group) and have a herd share for fresh, unpasteurized milk.
What role should an art museum play in a vibrant metropolitan area?
An art museum is the hub of a creative city. It's where you come to see more clearly, to understand how to communicate, to quietly witness the visual language of artists throughout history. At a museum you can see what is important to a culture and should be treasured and protected for posterity.
By Agence France-Presse Sunday, October 21, 2012 10:25 EDT
?
CARACAS ? Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2011 and won re-election this month, acknowledged that campaigning while in recovery cost him votes.
Chavez on Saturday said in a meeting shown on state television VTV that after radiation therapy, he had only done ?10 percent? of what he would have normally done on the campaign trail, adding he would have done more if he had been ?fully fit.?
The 58-year-old populist socialist leader, in power since 1999, won 55.26 percent of the vote on October 7, against 44.13 percent for challenger Henrique Capriles, a businessman and governor of Miranda state.
?If I had been ? fully fit, I would have beaten the (opposition) candidate by at least 20 percent,? boasted Chavez, who was criticized by the opposition for keeping details of his illness close to the vest, and for seeking treatment in Cuba.
The anti-US firebrand has vowed to deepen his oil-funded socialist revolution after a ?perfect? victory.
But he also reached out to disenchanted voters by pledging to work with the opposition, a tacit acceptance that this was a narrower victory than in the past and that Venezuela is a country very much divided.
The fate of Chavez, the leading voice of Latin America?s left, was closely watched by communist ally Cuba, which heavily depends on Venezuela?s oil, and other regional partners.
In the annual race to score the most candy on Halloween night, kids can easily lose their way. App developer Iconosys has updated its family tracking app to include a safety compass that points children in the direction of home.
Its Trick or Tracker app links a parent's and child's phone and uses each phone's GPS capabilities to monitor locations. If parents leave the house to visit a neighbor, the compass will point in the direction of the parents' location. Children must have an Android phone , but parents don't need one; they can use their iPhone, BlackBerry or Windows 7 phone.
Parents can set a boundary or geo-fence by specifying an acceptable radius around the home on the app's map. If a child wanders out of range, the parent will receive a text message ?alert. Also, curfews can be enforced through Trick or Tracker. A "latchkey kid" feature sends an alert to the parent's phone when children arrive at the door.
On a lighter note, the child's app has a flashlight for illuminating dark pathways or finding that special treat at the bottom of a full pillowcase of loot. Kids can choose from white, glow-stick neon colors or other holiday hues.
Trick or Tracker 3.0 is available for download from TrickorTracker.com or from the Amazon App Store. The app costs $5 for a lifetime license. And though the app has a Halloween theme, its useful safety features won't disappear at the stroke of midnight ? it works all year long.
You may know what you want to get out of life but have no idea how to get it. Often, getting what you want requires change and self improvement. There are tons of ways to jumpstart your personal growth, and below you?ll find some excellent ones with which to begin.
Make your goals specific; this way, they can lead to self improvement success. Having a specific goal keeps you focused on what?s really important. Having goals laid out will increase your likelihood of being able to overcome the challenges you encounter, and you will feel good about yourself once you do.
Self improvement starts with leadership. Leadership is generally approached as being influential. Consider your leadership background. Which past events have had major, formative effects on your life? What kind of skills have you acquired? How did your leadership skills come into play during those events? If you explore the possible answers to these inquiries, you will become more capable of functioning effectively in a team setting.
Having trouble meeting a significant other in your life? Try the world wide web. These days, forty percent of all relationships start on the Internet. Yours could be out there searching for you. There are both advantages and disadvantages to these sites.
Stress is one of the biggest enemies of happiness. While experiencing stress, our entire body is affected in both physical and mental ways. In order to achieve our goals, we must learn to calm our minds and rid our lives of unnecessary stress. Find some spare time during the day to be by yourself and to clear out your mind by relaxing. This mental break each day will improve your peace and clarity of mind, and help improve your self-image.
It takes a lot of discipline to achieve self improvement. You should have the proper amount of self-control over your desires. Avoid desires like greed, lust, drunkenness, and over-eating. By learning to control yourself, you can stop negative desires from impacting your body in an unhealthy way.
Leaders are humble, though powerful and strict too. When rebukes are necessary, be gentle yet firm, and keep in mind that you must be able to serve to be able to lead effectively. Being a great leader requires that you uphold a standard of integrity and values that others are proud to follow, no matter what the capacity is in which you lead.
The introduction makes it clear that you need to get educated in order to really develop yourself. You need to apply what you?ve learned to your life. There are perhaps limitless ways in which one can grow as a person. Once you have started to apply this knowledge, you will begin to feel more confident in yourself and your abilities.
Minority obesity, perinatal health, and testicular cancer among topics for UH Rainbow doctors at AAPPublic release date: 20-Oct-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Vic Gideon vic.gideon@uhhospitals.org University Hospitals Case Medical Center
Combating obesity in minorities, looking at improvements in perinatal health in Ohio, and treating rare testicular cancer in adolescents are among the presentations physicians from University Hospitals (UH) Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital will give at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) 2012 National Conference in New Orleans Oct. 20 to 23. Susanna Briskin, MD, pediatric sports medicine physician at UH Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital, will present "Overcoming Barriers to Physical Fitness in Minority Populations;" Michele Walsh, MD, Chief, Division of Neonatology, will present "Ohio Perinatal Quality Collaborative-OBs and Neos Working Together To Improve Perinatal Health;" and Jonathan Ross, MD, Chief, Division of Pediatric Urology, will present data from his abstract "Management of the Retroperitoneum in Children and Adolescents with Malignant Germ Cell Tumors of the Testis" at the annual meeting.
"We have recognized the magnitude of the obesity crisis, particularly in minority populations," says Dr. Briskin, who is also Associate Professor of Sports Medicine at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. "We are looking at intervening in schools and at home by targeting high-risk groups early, including building daily routines, involving parents, building structured and unstructured playtime, and encouraging walking and biking."
Among high school students, Dr. Briskin found the obesity rate at 18.2 percent for African-Americans and 14.1 percent for Hispanics while it is 11.5 percent for Caucasians. The known health risks of obesity include high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes and stroke, but there are other non-apparent risks. "A non-obese child is more likely to have increased self-esteem, decreased anxiety and depression, lower teen pregnancies and engage in less risky sexual behavior," says Dr. Briskin.
"The best time to prevent a premature birth is before delivery," says Dr. Walsh, who is a leader in the Ohio Perinatal Quality Collaborative and is Professor of Neonatology at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine. "In Ohio, obstetricians and neonatologists have collaborated in a ground-breaking way to increase the number of babies born at 39 weeks or more. These efforts have led to over 24,000 infants who have avoided premature birth. Ohio is receiving great recognition for these efforts."
In her presentation, "Ohio Perinatal Quality Collaborative-OBs and Neos Working Together to Improve Perinatal Health," Dr. Walsh found Ohio ranked 18th in preterm birth rate at 13.3 percent and 14th in infant mortality rate at 7.8 percent. Under her direction, Ohio obstetricians have reduced scheduled births before 39 weeks by 60 percent after data suggested a higher risk associated with births before 39 weeks of gestation.
In Ohio, more than 26,000 births have moved from prior to the due date to full term (39 to 41 wks) with approximately 400 Neonatal Intensive Care Unit admissions avoided and approximately $10 million in annual Ohio health care savings. Meanwhile, neonatologists have reduced late onset infections in pre-terms from 22 to 29 weeks by 50 percent by educating all pregnant women of the benefits of human milk and encouraging kangaroo care among other practice changes.
Dr. Ross' study describes the findings in retroperitoneal surgery (in the abdomen) for metastatic disease in children and adolescents with testicular cancer and helps to begin to define how retroperitoneal disease should be handled in these patients. "These are rare tumors and so there is little data guiding their management in these age groups, which is why we're excited by our research," said Dr. Ross, who is a Professor of Urology at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine. The abstract is also one of seven the AAP has nominated for "Best Clinical Research Abstract."
Dr. Walsh will also present the Neonatal Education Award to Richard Martin, MD, the Drusinski-Fanaroff Chair in Neonatology, UH Babies & Children's Hospital. The Neonatal Education Award is given annually by the Section on Perinatal Pediatrics of the American Academy of Pediatrics to an individual for recognition of outstanding contributions in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine for health care students, professionals, or lay public.
An internationally renowned neonatolgoist, Dr. Martin has authored/co-authored nearly 130 peer-reviewed articles, has written more than 60 chapters, and edited several monographs and text books, the most prominent of which is Neonatal/Perinatal Medicine (now in its 8th edition) that he co-edits with Drs. Avroy Fanaroff and Walsh. He has been a member of the HED-1 Study Section of the National Institutes of Health, and currently serves on the Editorial Boards of Acta Pdiatrica, Journal of Applied Physiology and Biology of the Neonate.
Dr. Martin's laboratory has focused much of its attention on the biologic basis for apnea of prematurity and its management, employing state-of-the-art biologic tools, and clinical trials for new ventilatory and pharmacologic clinical strategies. In addition, his work has been concentrated on the development of airway function in health and disease, and the roles of lung and airway injury in the development of later respiratory morbidities such as wheezing disorders in children born prematurely. Additional research interest includes nitric oxide activity as it pertains to lung injury and its use in modulating airway contraction. His research has been funded continuously by the National Institutes of Health for over 20 years.
Dr. Walsh will present Oct. 20 during the morning session. Dr. Briskin's presentation is 7a.m. on Oct. 21. Dr. Ross will present Oct. 20 at 11:50 a.m. and a link to his abstract is at:
https://aap.confex.com/aap/2012/webprogrampress/Paper15832.html
###
About University Hospitals Case Medical Center's Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital
For 125 years, University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital has been dedicated solely to the care of children. As one of the most renowned pediatric medical centers and a principal referral center for Ohio and the region, UH Rainbow physicians will receive more than 200,000 patient visits annually. The 244-bed hospital is home to 850 pediatric specialists and 40 special care centers including Centers of Excellence in oncology, neonatology, pulmonology, cardiology, neurology and endocrinology. There is a full complement of pediatric surgical specialists who focus on minimally invasive techniques as well as an outstanding program in bloodless surgery. As the primary affiliate of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, UH Rainbow trains more than 100 pediatricians each year and consistently ranks among the top children's hospitals in the nation.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Minority obesity, perinatal health, and testicular cancer among topics for UH Rainbow doctors at AAPPublic release date: 20-Oct-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Vic Gideon vic.gideon@uhhospitals.org University Hospitals Case Medical Center
Combating obesity in minorities, looking at improvements in perinatal health in Ohio, and treating rare testicular cancer in adolescents are among the presentations physicians from University Hospitals (UH) Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital will give at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) 2012 National Conference in New Orleans Oct. 20 to 23. Susanna Briskin, MD, pediatric sports medicine physician at UH Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital, will present "Overcoming Barriers to Physical Fitness in Minority Populations;" Michele Walsh, MD, Chief, Division of Neonatology, will present "Ohio Perinatal Quality Collaborative-OBs and Neos Working Together To Improve Perinatal Health;" and Jonathan Ross, MD, Chief, Division of Pediatric Urology, will present data from his abstract "Management of the Retroperitoneum in Children and Adolescents with Malignant Germ Cell Tumors of the Testis" at the annual meeting.
"We have recognized the magnitude of the obesity crisis, particularly in minority populations," says Dr. Briskin, who is also Associate Professor of Sports Medicine at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. "We are looking at intervening in schools and at home by targeting high-risk groups early, including building daily routines, involving parents, building structured and unstructured playtime, and encouraging walking and biking."
Among high school students, Dr. Briskin found the obesity rate at 18.2 percent for African-Americans and 14.1 percent for Hispanics while it is 11.5 percent for Caucasians. The known health risks of obesity include high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes and stroke, but there are other non-apparent risks. "A non-obese child is more likely to have increased self-esteem, decreased anxiety and depression, lower teen pregnancies and engage in less risky sexual behavior," says Dr. Briskin.
"The best time to prevent a premature birth is before delivery," says Dr. Walsh, who is a leader in the Ohio Perinatal Quality Collaborative and is Professor of Neonatology at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine. "In Ohio, obstetricians and neonatologists have collaborated in a ground-breaking way to increase the number of babies born at 39 weeks or more. These efforts have led to over 24,000 infants who have avoided premature birth. Ohio is receiving great recognition for these efforts."
In her presentation, "Ohio Perinatal Quality Collaborative-OBs and Neos Working Together to Improve Perinatal Health," Dr. Walsh found Ohio ranked 18th in preterm birth rate at 13.3 percent and 14th in infant mortality rate at 7.8 percent. Under her direction, Ohio obstetricians have reduced scheduled births before 39 weeks by 60 percent after data suggested a higher risk associated with births before 39 weeks of gestation.
In Ohio, more than 26,000 births have moved from prior to the due date to full term (39 to 41 wks) with approximately 400 Neonatal Intensive Care Unit admissions avoided and approximately $10 million in annual Ohio health care savings. Meanwhile, neonatologists have reduced late onset infections in pre-terms from 22 to 29 weeks by 50 percent by educating all pregnant women of the benefits of human milk and encouraging kangaroo care among other practice changes.
Dr. Ross' study describes the findings in retroperitoneal surgery (in the abdomen) for metastatic disease in children and adolescents with testicular cancer and helps to begin to define how retroperitoneal disease should be handled in these patients. "These are rare tumors and so there is little data guiding their management in these age groups, which is why we're excited by our research," said Dr. Ross, who is a Professor of Urology at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine. The abstract is also one of seven the AAP has nominated for "Best Clinical Research Abstract."
Dr. Walsh will also present the Neonatal Education Award to Richard Martin, MD, the Drusinski-Fanaroff Chair in Neonatology, UH Babies & Children's Hospital. The Neonatal Education Award is given annually by the Section on Perinatal Pediatrics of the American Academy of Pediatrics to an individual for recognition of outstanding contributions in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine for health care students, professionals, or lay public.
An internationally renowned neonatolgoist, Dr. Martin has authored/co-authored nearly 130 peer-reviewed articles, has written more than 60 chapters, and edited several monographs and text books, the most prominent of which is Neonatal/Perinatal Medicine (now in its 8th edition) that he co-edits with Drs. Avroy Fanaroff and Walsh. He has been a member of the HED-1 Study Section of the National Institutes of Health, and currently serves on the Editorial Boards of Acta Pdiatrica, Journal of Applied Physiology and Biology of the Neonate.
Dr. Martin's laboratory has focused much of its attention on the biologic basis for apnea of prematurity and its management, employing state-of-the-art biologic tools, and clinical trials for new ventilatory and pharmacologic clinical strategies. In addition, his work has been concentrated on the development of airway function in health and disease, and the roles of lung and airway injury in the development of later respiratory morbidities such as wheezing disorders in children born prematurely. Additional research interest includes nitric oxide activity as it pertains to lung injury and its use in modulating airway contraction. His research has been funded continuously by the National Institutes of Health for over 20 years.
Dr. Walsh will present Oct. 20 during the morning session. Dr. Briskin's presentation is 7a.m. on Oct. 21. Dr. Ross will present Oct. 20 at 11:50 a.m. and a link to his abstract is at:
https://aap.confex.com/aap/2012/webprogrampress/Paper15832.html
###
About University Hospitals Case Medical Center's Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital
For 125 years, University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital has been dedicated solely to the care of children. As one of the most renowned pediatric medical centers and a principal referral center for Ohio and the region, UH Rainbow physicians will receive more than 200,000 patient visits annually. The 244-bed hospital is home to 850 pediatric specialists and 40 special care centers including Centers of Excellence in oncology, neonatology, pulmonology, cardiology, neurology and endocrinology. There is a full complement of pediatric surgical specialists who focus on minimally invasive techniques as well as an outstanding program in bloodless surgery. As the primary affiliate of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, UH Rainbow trains more than 100 pediatricians each year and consistently ranks among the top children's hospitals in the nation.
[ | 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.
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Many households host a party or get-together sometime during the Christmas holiday season. It might be a cookie exchange with friends, a kids? party with your playgroup, a holiday tea, a casual family gathering of food and gifts, or a more formal dinner party with just adults.
Today?s Countdown to Christmas Challenge is to begin to think about what might be happening in your home in December. Maybe you?ve always wanted to host a get-together in your home but never considered the details in time to organize it. Maybe your home is already designated as the hub for Christmas gatherings in your family. Don?t wait! It will only bring stress if you put it off. Start thinking about your entertaining budget, list of guests, food, supplies, and location. ListPlanIt?s Holiday Party Planner* is a great way to get started with your Christmas party planning.
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Public release date: 20-Oct-2012
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