Nook Color dropping to $199; new software update brings Hulu Plus, music

Will cost just $50 less than the new Nook Tablet

Android Central

The venerable Barnes & Noble Nook Color hasn't been left out in the cold just because the new Nook Tablet specs and pricing are here. No, the Nook Color's going to find itself with a nice little price drop down to $199. That's only a $50 drop, and for that difference you'll get a pretty big spec boost in the new Nook Tablet, but we'll take what we can get.

And along with the price drop, a new software update is on the way for the New Color. Nook Color v1.4 will bring TV shows, movies and documentaries with Hulu Plus. You'll get music from Rhapsode, MOG and Grooveshark, with free trials. (Pandora is still included.) You'll get even more magazines and special Nook editions, expanding on current content. And more apps are on the way, too.

So, if you're in the market for an e-reader tabelet this holiday season, and don't want to break the $200 mark, the Nook Color is about to become very, very attractive.


Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/_lMJBlMOioM/story01.htm

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Biologists use flies and mice to get to the heart of Down syndrome

ScienceDaily (Nov. 4, 2011) ? A novel study involving fruit flies and mice has allowed biologists to identify two critical genes responsible for congenital heart defects in individuals with Down syndrome, a major cause of infant mortality and death in people born with this genetic disorder.

In a paper published in the November 3 issue of the open access journal PLoS Genetics, researchers from UC San Diego, the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., and the University of Utah report the identification of two genes that, when produced at elevated levels, work together to disrupt cardiac development and function.

Down syndrome, the most common genetic cause of cognitive impairment, is a disorder that occurs in one in 700 births when individuals have three, instead of the usual two, copies of human chromosome 21.

"Chromosome 21 is the shortest human chromosome and intensive genetic mapping studies in people with Down syndrome have identified a small region of this chromosome that plays a critical role in causing congenital heart defects," said Ethan Bier, a biology professor at UC San Diego and one of the principal authors of the study. "This Down syndrome region for congenital heart disease, called the 'DS-CHD critical region,' contains several genes that are active in the heart which our collaborator, Julie Korenberg, had suspected of interacting with each other to disrupt cardiac development or function when present in three copies. But exactly which of these half dozen or so genes are the culprits?"

"Identifying the genes within the DS-CHD critical region contributing to congenital heart defects is challenging to address using traditional mammalian experimental models, such as mice," added Bier, "since the number of possible genetic combinations that would need to be generated and tested is very large."

To simplify their search, the scientists turned to fruit flies, a simpler and rapidly reproducing biological system with many of the same genes as mice and humans. With help from collaborators Amir Gamliel,Geoff Rosenfeld and Kirk Peterson at the UC San Diego School of Medicine, Rolf Bodmer and Karen Ocorr at the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, and Julie R. Korenberg at the University of Utah, biologist Tamar Grossman in Bier's lab devised a sequential genetic approach to untangle the problem.

"First, fruit flies were used to test for all possible pairwise genetic interactions between these genes that might disrupt the function of the simple fluid pumping fly heart," said Bier." These comprehensive genetic studies pointed to a particular pair of genes known as DSCAM and COL6A2 that resulted in the most severe defects when over-produced together."

Then the researchers tested the effects of increasing the levels of these genes in the hearts of experimental mice. They first generated genetic lines of mice having elevated activity of each of these genes in the heart and then genetically crossed these mice to create offspring that over-produced both genes together. The parental mice as well as their offspring were then tested for heart function and visible heart defects.

Mice having elevated levels of each gene separately were largely normal. But the offspring with extra levels of both genes suffered from severe cardiac defects. These heart defects were of two kinds. The first resembled one of the salient features of Down syndrome cardiac patients, in which blood shunts between the two atrial chambers of the heart through small holes in a septum that normally isolates these two chambers. The second defect, which is not frequently observed in Down syndrome patients, but is a common and very serious condition in the general population, was a thickening of the heart wall -- referred to medically as cardiac hypertrophy.

"Such thickening of the heart wall greatly reduces heart function and can lead to fatal heart attacks, which indeed was observed among some of the more seriously affected DSCAM and COL6A2 over-producing mice," said Bier.

Bier added that the tiered genetic approach, using fruit flies, then mice, could be useful in identifying genes involved in other common genetic disorders that are thought to be caused by multiple genes.

"These conditions arise due to a surprising variation in the copy number of small intervals of human chromosomes that are carried by virtually all people," he said. "Depending on which small regions of the chromosome have extra or fewer copies of genes, various conditions can result including obesity, autism, and schizophrenia. Typically in these diseases, as in Down syndrome, the difficult puzzle is which of the possible genes with altered copy number are involved in causing the disease."

Funding for the research project was provided by grants from the National Institutes of Health.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - San Diego. The original article was written by Kim McDonald.

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


Journal Reference:

  1. Tamar R. Grossman, Amir Gamliel, Robert J. Wessells, Ouarda Taghli-Lamallem, Kristen Jepsen, Karen Ocorr, Julie R. Korenberg, Kirk L. Peterson, Michael G. Rosenfeld, Rolf Bodmer, Ethan Bier. Over-Expression of DSCAM and COL6A2 Cooperatively Generates Congenital Heart Defects. PLoS Genetics, 2011; 7 (11): e1002344 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1002344

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

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/vmqJ4JKuph8/111104091735.htm

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Teen Pot Use Unaffected by Medical Marijuana Law: Study (HealthDay)

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 2 (HealthDay News) -- The legalization of medical marijuana in some states has raised concerns that it will increase the availability and appeal of the drug among youth, but new research suggests no such link.

For the study, Rhode Island Hospital researchers examined adolescent marijuana use in Rhode Island and Massachusetts between 1997 and 2009. Rhode Island legalized medical marijuana in 2006.

The investigators analyzed survey data from almost 33,000 students and found that marijuana use was common throughout the study period, and a comparison of the two states revealed that there were no statistically significant differences in marijuana use in any given year.

"Our study did not find increases in adolescent marijuana use related to Rhode Island's 2006 legalization of medical marijuana; however, additional research may follow future trends as medical marijuana in Rhode Island and other states becomes more widely used," lead author and emergency medicine physician Dr. Esther Choo said in a news release from Lifespan, a health system in Rhode Island.

The study was scheduled for presentation Wednesday at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association, in Washington, D.C.

The data and conclusions of research presented at medical meetings should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more about marijuana.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/meds/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20111102/hl_hsn/teenpotuseunaffectedbymedicalmarijuanalawstudy

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Texas A&M center confronts antibiotic crisis with potential new bacterial treatment

[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 3-Nov-2011
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Kathleen Phillips
ka-phillips@tamu.edu
979-845-2872
Texas A&M AgriLife Communications

Confronting antibiotics resistance

COLLEGE STATION It's been called "the trots," "Montezuma's Revenge," "the runs" and worse. But no matter the name, when it strikes, victims wish for a medicine that could go straight to the offending bacteria to quickly knock it dead.

That wish will ultimately come true if work by Texas A&M University scientists stays on target at the Center for Phage Technology in College Station.

A "medicine that grows" is how the phage concept was described by Dr. Ryland Young, a professor of biochemistry and biophysics who was instrumental in establishing the center.

"Phage is a word that simply means viruses that grow on bacteria," Young said. "They are harmless to humans, harmless to animals, harmless to plants. The only things they attack are bacteria. And every kind of bacteria that are involved in the disease process has bacteria phages that will attack them. So if you are a bacterial cell, your enemy is the bacterial virus."

Young said new technology to fight bacterial diseases of which there are many in addition to "the trots" is critically important because people and animals have become increasingly resistant to antibiotics currently on the market. And yet, he said, there is no major U.S. pharmaceutical company currently trying to develop new antibiotics.

"There is not enough money in it," he said. "You can't blame them. They are companies and they are there to make money. They can make a lot more money making pain drugs and lifestyle drugs. Antibiotics are not a particularly attractive investment."

When antibiotics work, he explained, people get well and don't need drugs any more. Yet bacterial illnesses at a minimum cause lost productivity in the workplace and schools, and some bacteria, such one commonly called MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, can be deadly.

"There is kind of a worldwide crisis right now in human medicine because for some bacteria such as MRSA, we are down to only one antibiotic that works," Young said. "Bacteria have this very pronounced characteristic of being able to very rapidly become drug-resistant. And that's a problem. There is a need for alternatives to antibiotics."

So serious is the issue, that the Interagency Task Force on Antimicrobial Resistance was initiated in 1999 following a congressional hearing on the topic, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Ten federal agencies are participating in the effort. A transatlantic effort on the topic was formed between the U.S. and Europe in 2009.

"People infected with antimicrobial-resistant organisms are more likely to have longer, more expensive hospital stays, and may be more likely to die as a result of the infection," the CDC notes on its website.

Phages are not new to science. They were first described in 1915, before what Young called "modern biology." Years after the phage discovery, scientists began exploring molecular biology and the intricacies of DNA.

What researchers now know is that the phage, or bacterial virus, encounters a bacterial cell, absorbs to it, injects its DNA into it and "typically 30 minutes later, the bacteria cell explodes," Young explained. Several hundred new virus particles then continue on to eliminate other targeted bacterial cells, if any.

So, almost 100 years after their discovery, scientists can isolate bacteria phages, sequence their DNA and engineer them to be more effective against certain types of bacteria, he said.

"They are relatively cheap to produce," Young said. "All you need to grow them is a culture of the bacteria that you want to kill. You throw one bacterial phage particle in there, come back in a few hours and you have trillions of the bacteria phages, and the bacteria cells have all been killed. Phages grow themselves, that's the beauty of them."

However, regulation will play a role in future development, he noted, because U.S. Food and Drug Administration policies currently subject phage technology to the same criteria as chemical drugs.

"If I give you a chemical drug, that drug is likely to penetrate every tissue of your body your ears, your eyes, your nose, your heart, your kidneys. And a chemical can have a different effect on every organ," Young explained. "And that is why drug testing is so important. I would not advocate lowering the barriers for chemical drugs at all.

"But bacteriophages are not going to go to your eyes, your ears, your brain. And even if they did, they can't do anything," Young said. "They're not capable of even recognizing human cells, and even if they could, the way genes are set up in bacteria phages are completely different than the way they are in humans, so they would not be recognized as genes."

The researcher said part of the center's plan is to educate policy makers so that the rules can be changed for approving phage-based medications for humans without subjecting them to the same type of requirements for chemical pharmaceuticals.

He said phages will likely first be used in veterinary medicine because the barriers for testing for animal use are a lot lower. Veterinary applications could be in use within 10 years, Young believes.

"Once we are successful in veterinary applications, there will be a lot of pressure to get phage therapeutics approved for humans," he said. Dr. Jason Gill, program director, Center for Phage Technology

Young said the center is midway through its five-year development plan and is hiring faculty with phage expertise to conduct research and assist other scientists with projects where phage technology might be introduced. Young expects the phage center to eventually have 15 scientists developing different phages to target different needs.

"This is translational research," he said, "which means taking the basic research and translating it to practical applications as into commercial products. And we're the first such entity in the world."

"In the long run, we'd like to bacteria phages exploited to their fullest for human, animal husbandry and veterinary antibacterial uses," Young said.

###


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

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 3-Nov-2011
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Kathleen Phillips
ka-phillips@tamu.edu
979-845-2872
Texas A&M AgriLife Communications

Confronting antibiotics resistance

COLLEGE STATION It's been called "the trots," "Montezuma's Revenge," "the runs" and worse. But no matter the name, when it strikes, victims wish for a medicine that could go straight to the offending bacteria to quickly knock it dead.

That wish will ultimately come true if work by Texas A&M University scientists stays on target at the Center for Phage Technology in College Station.

A "medicine that grows" is how the phage concept was described by Dr. Ryland Young, a professor of biochemistry and biophysics who was instrumental in establishing the center.

"Phage is a word that simply means viruses that grow on bacteria," Young said. "They are harmless to humans, harmless to animals, harmless to plants. The only things they attack are bacteria. And every kind of bacteria that are involved in the disease process has bacteria phages that will attack them. So if you are a bacterial cell, your enemy is the bacterial virus."

Young said new technology to fight bacterial diseases of which there are many in addition to "the trots" is critically important because people and animals have become increasingly resistant to antibiotics currently on the market. And yet, he said, there is no major U.S. pharmaceutical company currently trying to develop new antibiotics.

"There is not enough money in it," he said. "You can't blame them. They are companies and they are there to make money. They can make a lot more money making pain drugs and lifestyle drugs. Antibiotics are not a particularly attractive investment."

When antibiotics work, he explained, people get well and don't need drugs any more. Yet bacterial illnesses at a minimum cause lost productivity in the workplace and schools, and some bacteria, such one commonly called MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, can be deadly.

"There is kind of a worldwide crisis right now in human medicine because for some bacteria such as MRSA, we are down to only one antibiotic that works," Young said. "Bacteria have this very pronounced characteristic of being able to very rapidly become drug-resistant. And that's a problem. There is a need for alternatives to antibiotics."

So serious is the issue, that the Interagency Task Force on Antimicrobial Resistance was initiated in 1999 following a congressional hearing on the topic, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Ten federal agencies are participating in the effort. A transatlantic effort on the topic was formed between the U.S. and Europe in 2009.

"People infected with antimicrobial-resistant organisms are more likely to have longer, more expensive hospital stays, and may be more likely to die as a result of the infection," the CDC notes on its website.

Phages are not new to science. They were first described in 1915, before what Young called "modern biology." Years after the phage discovery, scientists began exploring molecular biology and the intricacies of DNA.

What researchers now know is that the phage, or bacterial virus, encounters a bacterial cell, absorbs to it, injects its DNA into it and "typically 30 minutes later, the bacteria cell explodes," Young explained. Several hundred new virus particles then continue on to eliminate other targeted bacterial cells, if any.

So, almost 100 years after their discovery, scientists can isolate bacteria phages, sequence their DNA and engineer them to be more effective against certain types of bacteria, he said.

"They are relatively cheap to produce," Young said. "All you need to grow them is a culture of the bacteria that you want to kill. You throw one bacterial phage particle in there, come back in a few hours and you have trillions of the bacteria phages, and the bacteria cells have all been killed. Phages grow themselves, that's the beauty of them."

However, regulation will play a role in future development, he noted, because U.S. Food and Drug Administration policies currently subject phage technology to the same criteria as chemical drugs.

"If I give you a chemical drug, that drug is likely to penetrate every tissue of your body your ears, your eyes, your nose, your heart, your kidneys. And a chemical can have a different effect on every organ," Young explained. "And that is why drug testing is so important. I would not advocate lowering the barriers for chemical drugs at all.

"But bacteriophages are not going to go to your eyes, your ears, your brain. And even if they did, they can't do anything," Young said. "They're not capable of even recognizing human cells, and even if they could, the way genes are set up in bacteria phages are completely different than the way they are in humans, so they would not be recognized as genes."

The researcher said part of the center's plan is to educate policy makers so that the rules can be changed for approving phage-based medications for humans without subjecting them to the same type of requirements for chemical pharmaceuticals.

He said phages will likely first be used in veterinary medicine because the barriers for testing for animal use are a lot lower. Veterinary applications could be in use within 10 years, Young believes.

"Once we are successful in veterinary applications, there will be a lot of pressure to get phage therapeutics approved for humans," he said. Dr. Jason Gill, program director, Center for Phage Technology

Young said the center is midway through its five-year development plan and is hiring faculty with phage expertise to conduct research and assist other scientists with projects where phage technology might be introduced. Young expects the phage center to eventually have 15 scientists developing different phages to target different needs.

"This is translational research," he said, "which means taking the basic research and translating it to practical applications as into commercial products. And we're the first such entity in the world."

"In the long run, we'd like to bacteria phages exploited to their fullest for human, animal husbandry and veterinary antibacterial uses," Young said.

###


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

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-11/taac-tac110211.php

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Here?s The First GTA:V Trailer And It?s Spectacular

gta-v-logo1Rockstar Games just released the first trailer for the upcoming GTA V game and it's good to be home. Grand Theft Auto V is living large back in the beautiful state of San Andreas. The big city of Los Santos, the lovely ladies, and the fast cars -- it's all there. The game still doesn't have a release date but don't expect it this year. However, there will likely be a steady stream of trailers, teasers and random marketing until it's hyped to unreasonable levels.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/NTiksVo4fII/

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Despite debt deal, Europe may slide into recession (AP)

FRANKFURT, Germany ? Even if Europe dodges a financial meltdown, it may not be able to avoid a recession.

The deal European leaders reached last week to defuse the continent's debt crisis was thrown into turmoil Tuesday by the Greek prime minister's surprise move to call a referendum on Greece's latest rescue package. If voters reject the package, Europe could face a potentially devastating Greek default on its debt.

Stock markets plunged around the world, particularly in Europe.

Even if the debt agreement leads to a long-term solution to the crisis, the pact does nothing about other threats to Europe's economy: deep cuts by over-indebted governments, high unemployment, stingier bank lending and declining exports.

Many economists think Europe is nearing a recession that would harm the United States, China and other countries whose economies depend on the continent. The problems are illustrated by The Associated Press' latest quarterly Global Economy Tracker, which monitors data in 30 countries:

? Four nations ? Italy, Spain, Britain and Norway ? reported annualized growth of less 1 percent in the April-June quarter. Economies generally must grow at least 2.5 percent a year just to keep unemployment from rising.

? Spain had the highest unemployment among countries the AP tracked: 21.2 percent in August, which rose to 22.6 percent in September.

_Greece and Italy were buckling under the weight of government debt. In Greece, those debts equaled 161 percent of national output in the January-March quarter, second to Japan's 244 percent. Italy's government debt equaled 113 percent.

Financial markets have been spooked by fears that Greece and perhaps larger countries, like Italy, would default on their debts.

Banks would be stuck with huge losses on their government bond holdings. A panic like the one that nearly toppled the U.S. financial system in 2008 could follow.

European banks agreed last week to take a 50 percent loss on their Greek bonds. They are also to set aside more money to cushion against future losses. In addition, eurozone leaders hope to strengthen their bailout fund to keep the crisis from spreading to bigger countries.

Financial markets initially roared their approval. But fears that the debt deal will collapse or fall short of solving the crisis have triggered deep selling since late last week.

Analysts noted the paucity of details, wondered how many banks would adopt a voluntary 50 percent write-down on Greek bonds and questioned where the money for the enlarged bailout fund would come from. European leaders last week approached China for financial help.

The Greek referendum heightens the doubts.

"There is a risk that in this case the politicians may cut off funds to Greece and that the country may even leave the eurozone eventually," economist Christoph Weil wrote Tuesday. "Uncertainty looks set to surge again in financial markets."

Even without more chaos, some economists expect the continent to slip into a mild recession late this year or early next, though its strongest economy, Germany, may escape a downturn.

Economic growth in the 17 countries that use the euro will slow to 0.3 percent next year from 1.6 percent this year, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimated Monday. Some European economies may stop growing altogether, the organization of wealthy nations warned.

One reason for the pessimism: Smaller countries, particularly Greece, Ireland and Portugal, are slashing spending. The bigger ones are raising taxes and also cutting spending.

Italy, Europe's No. 3 economy, is carrying out a $76 billion package of spending cuts and tax increases to try to convince bond investors it won't default on its debt. Britain has imposed an austerity program that's stalled growth.

The debt crisis has shaken the confidence of those whose spending must fuel growth. Business executives and consumers seem less likely to step up purchases for new factories or SUVs.

And the prospect of having to absorb huge losses on their bond holdings has caused banks to retrench. The European Central Bank's October lending survey showed that banks cut net credit to businesses by 16 percent in the July-September quarter. The 124 surveyed banks expected even tighter credit as the year ends.

Automaker Daimler AG said last week that it saw little prospect of significant growth in Western Europe. Its French competitor Peugeot Citroen SA said it would cut 6,000 jobs because of flat demand in Europe.

The weakness has already caused pain across the Atlantic.

Jeff Fettig, CEO of U.S. appliance maker Whirlpool, said Friday that demand is tumbling in parts of Europe. Whirlpool cut its earnings estimates and said it would lay off 5,000 in North America and Europe.

The United States exported $240 billion in goods to the European Union last year ? more than twice its export total to China. U.S. companies have also sunk $2.2 trillion into long-term investments in Europe, such as factories and acquired companies. No other region comes close to drawing so much U.S. investment.

Germany has 2,200 American-owned companies. General Motors and Ford Motor Co. have divisions based there. ExxonMobil Corp., ConocoPhillips, GE, IBM, Hewlett-Packard Co., Procter & Gamble Co. and Dow Chemical Co., all generate billions in annual European sales.

Exports have accounted for 47 percent of growth since the Great Recession ended in mid-2009. That's more than twice their share after the previous three recessions.

"It is the reason Europe matters," says Steve Blitz, senior economist at ITG Investment Research.

___

Wiseman reported from Washington.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111101/ap_on_bi_ge/us_global_economy_tracker_europe

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New PBS series plums the depths of bluegrass (AP)

CUMBERLAND CAVERNS, Tenn. ? In decades of ceaseless touring, bluegrass icon Ralph Stanley thought he'd played in every venue imaginable.

Then he got an invite to play a "Bluegrass Underground" show earlier this year.

"It's a good day to be here," Stanley told a crowd of several hundred fans, some of whom hung from rocky ledges around the rim of the Volcano Room 333 feet below ground. "I hope we can get out. I've been playing for 65 years now, and I've never played in a cave."

In a few short years, "Bluegrass Underground" and the Volcano Room at Cumberland Caverns near McMinnville, Tenn., have become a hot destination for top bluegrassers and acoustic musicians around the country. And a new weekly show on PBS should help raise the profile of one of the nation's most unique concert spaces even more.

The show kicked off in September and acts like Ricky Skaggs, Darrell Scott, Justin Townes Earle, Mountain Heart, The Farewell Drifters and 18 South will appear in episodes this season. A second season's worth of shows will be taped early next year with a lineup that includes a few all-stars who are intrigued by the possibilities.

"I figure I've played everywhere above ground," Country Music Hall of Famer Vince Gill said. "We might as well go see what happens when you go underneath."

Todd Mayo had a similar sense of curiosity when he visited Cumberland Caverns for the first time as a tourist over Memorial Day Weekend in 2008.

Mayo had never visited a cave before and learned a handful of interesting facts on a tour with his family. Tennessee, for instance, is the nation's most cavernous state because of its limestone formations. And the cave, discovered in 1810, is the second largest in the U.S. east of the Mississippi, winding away under the hills of middle Tennessee for more than 32 miles.

His interest was really piqued, however, when they reached the Volcano Room, an unexpected cathedral-like space with a chandelier hanging from the ceiling about 40 feet above.

He immediately saw the possibilities.

"I asked the tour guide, `Do y'all ever have live music down here?'" Mayo said. "And she said, `No, but that would be a good idea.'"

Mayo ran with it.

His biggest concern was how the cave sounded and shortly had sound engineers take a look. Everyone was expecting it to sound like ... well, a cave. Turns out it was a pretty special cave.

"When they came down they were amazed," Mayo said. "I'm not a sound engineer but they said it basically has better acoustics than any manmade structure in the world, Carnegie Hall or wherever you want to say. It's literally akin to going to see a live concert in a recording studio."

That has been hard to believe for many of the performers scheduled to make the trip three stories down. Doyle Lawson, a two-time "Bluegrass Underground" performer, thought the sound might be a muddled mess.

Instead, he found the acoustics "excellent," he said. "I didn't know what to expect the first time we came here, but I found out the acoustics were just great. I was worried not so much for us ? we use in-ear monitors so the separation would always be fine for us. What I was worried about was would the resonance be too much for the audience, too much bouncing around or whatever."

Turns out nature has been working out the kinks for a very long time.

"The Volcano Room has been formed by 3 1/2 million years of water and time entwining," Mayo said. "There were two rivers running through the Volcano Room, one north-south, one east-west, and they created a whirlpool that through the ages carved out these wonderful porous, uneven spaces."

Just a few months after starting the process, Mayo put on his first show. He quickly lined up a radio deal, but had bigger things in mind. He hooked up with local producer Todd Jarrell, who has a history with PBS, and with the help of friends they built a show they hope will one day be as popular as PBS mainstays like "Austin City Limits" and "Soundstage."

Joining Gill in Season 2 will be The Del McCoury Band, The Civil Wars and Lawson with his band Quicksilver. So far, 60 PBS markets, including Boston, Dallas, Chicago and Seattle, have picked up the show, with about 60 percent showing it in primetime. And it continues to grow.

Even before the boost of TV exposure, however, the monthly show became a destination. Mayo has had several attendees from overseas and audiences often have a mix of locals and visitors. Mayo recently asked a couple where they were from. They responded California, but said they had heard about the show from friends in Michigan who'd already been.

"It's kind of a bucket list destination for folks," he said.

___

Online:

http://www.bluegrassunderground.com

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/music/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111102/ap_en_mu/us_music_bluegrass_underground

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Trio of Microsoft projectors lets you get quasi-physical with AR interaction (video)

You have to hand it to the tireless folks toiling away within Microsoft's Research department. They're hard at the task of making tomorrowland today's province. Perhaps spurred on by the rapturous response to their HoloDesk, the Cambridge gang's previewing yet another virtual reality, and this time it's a handheld trio. The palm-friendly devices, split up into camera, room and SLAM models, incorporate pico projectors, coaxial IR cameras, inertial measurement units (IMUs) and the company's Kinect (for the latter two only) to project augmented visions onto surrounding surfaces. If you've been honing your shadow puppetry game over the years, that oft-used skill's about to get very useful. The environmentally aware (no, not the Go Green! kind) systems allow for shadow- and touch-based interaction with the CG overlays, offering pinch functionality, icon selection and even painting -- don't worry, it's definitely removable. This neat tech hat trick could one day soon spare you a trip to IKEA, letting you test out potential decorative pieces from the comfort of your home. Unfortunately, we can't get handsy with the futuristic projectors just yet, so the video after the break will have to suffice.

[Thanks, Pradeep]

Continue reading Trio of Microsoft projectors lets you get quasi-physical with AR interaction (video)

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LifeCard Plans Announces Innovative Partnership with U.S. Legal ...

SALINA, Kan., Nov. 1, 2011 ? LifeCard Plans?, a leading provider of online storage and emergency access to medical and legal documents from anywhere in the world, announced in partnership with U.S. Legal Forms, Inc. that they now supply state-specific and editable legal documents that their subscribers can complete to assure their Advanced Medical Directives, Powers of Attorney, Wills and Trusts are in place and current.

?With Forbes.com telling us that 65-71% of Americans don?t even have these documents at all, we felt providing them through our service at a fraction of the cost of other legal forms sources, LifeCard Plans? would encourage more people to get their risks managed?, said LifeCard Plans? President Kevin Humphrey. ?In addition to giving healthcare providers and loved ones access to emergency medical information in times of crises, our customers now have legal do-it-yourself templates to assure that spouses, partners and authorized agents have access to each other?s legal wishes in the midst of a life event.?

There are online document access companies, web-based electronic medical record storage and there are legal forms providers, but no one has ever combined the three together. LifeCard Plans? already accommodated the need for always-on access to important documents and medical records with their basic DigitalVault? plan for $5.99 /mo. Now, for $9.99/mo. an entire family can store emergency medical information for access by emergency healthcare providers along with legal powers of attorney and advanced medical directives; $14.99/mo. for living wills for spouses/partners; and $19.99/mo. for a simple (living) trust. LifeCard Plans? has also added its new LifeMinder(SM) service to send subscribers gentle email reminders to complete their tasks and forms.

ABOUT LifeCard Plans, LLC.

LifeCard Plans, LLC. (http://www.lifecardplans.com) provides its subscribers EMERGENCY ACCESS TO MEDICAL & LEGAL DOCUMENTS FROM ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, so that informed medical, legal, and financial decisions can be made on their behalf, according to their instructions, when they are unable to make them themselves. For one low monthly fee, LifeCard Plans? provides your whole family with secure digital storage of key information and documents through an online portal that can be accessed via secure login from anywhere at anytime with unlimited revisions.

ABOUT U.S. LEGAL FORMS, INC.

U.S. Legal Forms, Inc. (www.uslegalforms.com) is a 14+ year online legal services pioneer and leading publisher of state-specific legal forms on the Internet. The company sells legal forms and related products to attorneys, small businesses, and the public. USLegalForms.com now lists more than 70,000 state-specific model legal forms, drafted with the language and style needed to conform to the laws of each state. U.S. Legal Forms, Inc. maintains an A+ rating (the highest) with the Better Business Bureau.

For more information, press only:

Rick Roberts, 877-753-7557 ext 1,

media-Insert the AT Symbol here without spaces or hyphens-lifecardplans-Insert a period here without spaces or hyphens-com

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Source: http://www.ereleases.com/pr/lifecard-plans-announces-innovative-partnership-legal-forms-68682

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