Kathy Griffin Strips Down For David Letterman


Kathy Griffin's still got it.

The proud D-list comedienne famously stripped in Times Square for Anderson Cooper. To boot, last week, she followed that stunt by disrobing in front of David Letterman.

The Late Show host appeared mildly flustered but for the most part dead panned it as if it were your average occurrence, even asking if she needed "pliers."

Nice of him to help out, wasn't it? We highly advocate for her to continue this pattern. Jay Leno, Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon, you're all on notice.

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/01/kathy-griffin-strips-down-for-david-letterman/

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NBC, G4 airing 'American Ninja Warrior' in summer

(AP) ? NBC and its G4 cable sister will crown an "American Ninja Warrior" this summer ? and it's a good bet that person will be tired.

The network said Tuesday that it will air a summer competition series putting contestants through an arduous obstacle course, sort of a serious version of ABC's "Wipeout" series. Regional rounds will winnow a field of 100 contestants before a winner is chosen at a Las Vegas course.

Weekly episodes will air on NBC and G4, both networks owned by the Comcast Corp. Spokesman Dave Welch says it hasn't yet been determined how many episodes will air or when the show will premiere.

The competition began three years ago. NBC aired the finale last season and was pleased by the ratings, leading to the expansion.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2012-01-24-TV-Ninja%20Warrior/id-60a0ca279ffa4fd3a968adaa8b5f62ff

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Starbucks to sell beer, wine in select stores

Starbucks Corp plans to begin selling beer, wine and more upscale food in a small number of cafes in Atlanta and Southern California by the end of this year as it explores an expansion beyond morning coffee and afternoon pick-me-ups.

Starbucks is planning to add beer, wine and food such as savory snacks and hot flatbreads to the menus in four to six outlets in both Atlanta and Southern California.

The world's biggest coffee chain started selling those items at a Seattle cafe in October 2010. Five stores in the Seattle area and one in Portland, Oregon, now offer the extended menu.

Vote: Should Starbucks sell alcohol?

Late last year, Starbucks announced similar plans for five to seven Chicago-area cafes by the end of 2012.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46104924/ns/business-retail/

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DNA motor programmed to navigate a network of tracks

Monday, January 23, 2012

Expanding on previous work with engines traveling on straight tracks, a team of researchers at Kyoto University and the University of Oxford have successfully used DNA building blocks to construct a motor capable of navigating a programmable network of tracks with multiple switches. The findings, published in the January 22 online edition of the journal Nature Nanotechnology, are expected to lead to further developments in the field of nanoengineering.

The research utilizes the technology of DNA origami, where strands of DNA molecules are sequenced in a way that will cause them to self-assemble into desired 2D and even 3D structures. In this latest effort, the scientists built a network of tracks and switches atop DNA origami tiles, which made it possible for motor molecules to travel along these rail systems.

"We have demonstrated that it is not only possible to build nanoscale devices that function autonomously," explained Dr. Masayuki Endo of Kyoto University's Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS), "but that we can cause such devices to produce predictable outputs based on different, controllable starting conditions."

The team, including lead author Dr. Shelley Wickham at Oxford, expects that the work may lead to the development of even more complex systems, such as programmable molecular assembly lines and sophisticated sensors.

"We are really still at an early stage in designing DNA origami-based engineering systems," elaborated iCeMS Prof. Hiroshi Sugiyama. "The promise is great, but at the same time there are still many technical hurdles to overcome in order to improve the quality of the output. This is just the beginning for this new and exciting field."

###

Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences, Kyoto University: http://www.icems.kyoto-u.ac.jp/e/

Thanks to Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences, Kyoto University for this article.

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

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/116928/DNA_motor_programmed_to_navigate_a_network_of_tracks

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Experts: Paterno's death won't stop court cases

FILE - In this Aug. 6, 1999, file photo, Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno, right, poses with his defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky during Penn State Media Day at State College, Pa. In a statement made Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012, retired Penn State assistant coach Sandusky, who faces child sex abuse charges in a case that led to the firing of Paterno, says Paterno's death is a sad day. (AP Photo/Paul Vathis, File)

FILE - In this Aug. 6, 1999, file photo, Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno, right, poses with his defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky during Penn State Media Day at State College, Pa. In a statement made Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012, retired Penn State assistant coach Sandusky, who faces child sex abuse charges in a case that led to the firing of Paterno, says Paterno's death is a sad day. (AP Photo/Paul Vathis, File)

(AP) ? Joe Paterno would no doubt have made a dramatic courtroom witness. But legal experts said his death will have little or no effect on the criminal or civil cases to come out of the Penn State child sex-abuse scandal.

"Obviously, you're taking away a great deal of the high-profile nature of this case, because it deals with Joe Paterno's football program," said Jeffrey Lindy, a criminal defense lawyer involved in a clergy-abuse case in Philadelphia. "But with regard to the legal impact of his death, there is none."

Paterno died Sunday at 85, two months after former coaching assistant Jerry Sandusky was charged with molesting boys and two university officials were accused of perjury and failing to report child sex-abuse allegations against Sandusky to police.

The criminal case against the two university officials may even become more streamlined without Paterno in the mix.

Former university vice president Gary Schultz and athletic director Tim Curley are charged with failing to report to police what graduate assistant Mike McQueary said he told them in 2002: that McQueary saw Sandusky sexually assaulting a boy in a locker room shower.

McQueary first told Paterno, who said he reported it to Curley and Schultz the next day. The administrators told the grand jury they were never informed that the allegations were sexual in nature.

With Paterno's death, though, a jury is free to focus not on what Paterno knew or did, but on the defendants' actions.

What McQueary told Paterno "was a distraction, and now that that part of the case is really gone, it will focus much more on his interaction not with Paterno, but with the Penn State officials," said Duquesne University law professor Nicholas P. Cafardi.

McQueary is also the more crucial witness in the case against Sandusky, who is charged with abusing 10 boys, at least two of them on the Penn State campus.

Paterno testified for just seven minutes last January before the grand jury. He gave only vague answers ? and was never pressed ? when asked what he knew about anyone accusing Sandusky of molesting boys.

"Without getting into any graphic detail, what did Mr. McQueary tell you he had seen and where?" Paterno was asked, according to the grand jury testimony read in court last month.

"Well, he had seen a person, an older ? not an older, but a mature person who was fondling, whatever you might call it ? I'm not sure what the term would be ? a young boy," Paterno replied.

He was asked if he ever heard of any other allegations against Sandusky, who had been the subject of a lengthy campus police investigation four years earlier after a mother complained Sandusky had showered with her young son at the football complex.

"I do not know of anything else that Jerry would be involved in of that nature, no. I do not know of it," Paterno said, adding, "You did mention ? I think you said something about a rumor. It may have been discussed in my presence, something else about somebody. I don't know."

Paterno's grand jury testimony cannot be used in court, because the defense never had the chance to cross-examine him.

"His passing deprives folks from finding out, directly from his lips, exactly what he knew and when he knew it, and what he did or didn't do. But the reality is, sometimes those things can be proved by other means," said Jeff Anderson, the St. Paul, Minn., lawyer who filed the first civil case against Penn State on behalf of a Sandusky accuser.

It's not unusual for a witness to die or become infirm before trial, especially in child sex-abuse cases, which can take years or even decades to surface. In Philadelphia, prosecutors won the right to question 88-year-old retired Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua on video last year to preserve his testimony before the spring trial of three priests and a church official. Bevilacqua suffers from dementia and cancer.

Prosecutors never got the chance to preserve Paterno's testimony, given his surprise cancer diagnosis and rapid decline after they filed the charges Nov. 4.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-01-22-Paterno-Legal/id-5bc7bfbf3a914437a49e15cb7bce7219

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Steal This Book!

Swarm-coverNobody wants to be told that their business model is obsolete. Ask Kodak. Or Hollywood. And the publishing industry is slower on its feet than most. Bookstores don't want to believe that they'll ultimately lose 75% of their pre-e-book business to that scourge plus Amazon delivery. (I'm assuming e-book market share will eventually plateau somewhere north of 50%.) Meanwhile, publishers cling to the model wherein readers purchase books individually, usually before they've been read: a model so entrenched that many seem to find it literally impossible to believe that alternatives might exist. I've been lamenting that paucity of imagination in my columns here for some time now. It's why publishers have lashed out so ineptly at any suggestion of a subscription model. But I've also been saying for five years that publishing's business model will ultimately become even less restrictive than that. In the end, lo these many decades from now, most books--and all novels--will be free to read, and their readers will decide whether and how much to pay for them after reading them. I know, big talk, no action, right? So:

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/BB4cV3WbE6w/

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6 killed in Afghanistan were Hawaii-based Marines (AP)

HONOLULU ? All six Marines killed in the crash of a U.S. helicopter in Afghanistan were based in Hawaii, a Hawaii congresswoman said Friday.

The CH-53D helicopter crashed Thursday in Afghanistan's southern province of Helmand.

U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said Friday she's saddened to hear of the deaths. Her spokeswoman, Ashley Nagaoka Boylan, said the congresswoman was notified Thursday evening that all six Marines were Hawaii-based.

"All who have called Hawaii home are part of our island ohana, and every loss like this touches us deeply," Hanabusa said in a statement, using the Hawaiian word for family.

A senior U.S. defense official confirmed all six were Marines on condition of anonymity because the U.S. command in Afghanistan had not yet publicly released details.

The Vietnam War-era helicopter is the same model as one that crashed and killed a Marine in a bay off Hawaii on March 29. An investigation later revealed mechanical failure caused that accident.

The defense official said there is no indication that the helicopter in Afghanistan was hit by enemy fire.

Thursday's crash was the deadliest in Afghanistan since August, when 30 American troops died after a Chinook helicopter was apparently shot down in Wardak province in the center of the country.

The cause of the latest crash is still being investigated, but a statement issued by the NATO international military coalition said there was no enemy activity in the area when it happened.

German Brig. Gen. Carsten Jacobson, a spokesman for the NATO coalition in Kabul, said officials were looking at a "technical fault" as the possible culprit.

"The helicopter is one of the safest forms of transport," Jacobson said. He said not only does it protect troops the danger of roadside bombs on the ground, but it is well-tested, well-proven way to travel.

CH-53D Sea Stallion helicopters were first used in the 1960s, and the Marine Corps used them in the Vietnam War.

All Sea Stallions still used operationally are stationed at Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kaneohe Bay. The military plans to replace them with the MV-22 Osprey.

"The loss of the six U.S. Marines in yesterday's helicopter crash in Afghanistan comes as tragic news for our island community and our nation," U.S. Rep. Mazie K. Hirono, of Hawaii, said in a statement. "We owe them and all of our brave servicemen and women a debt of gratitude for their dedication to our country."

In 2005, the same base lost 27 Marines when a CH-53E Super Stallion deployed to Iraq crashed during a desert sandstorm. Altogether, 30 Marines and a Navy medic were killed in that crash.

___

AP National Security Writer Robert Burns in Washington contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120120/ap_on_re_us/us_us_afghanistan_helicopter_crash

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Video: Redefining autism

>>> a possible change in the definition of autism and one top expert says the change could, quote, make these autism epidemic go away. the new definition under consideration by american psychiatrists first reported by "the new york times" will not change how many children are born with the problems now labeled collectively as autism, but it will vastly narrow the set of problems now called autism. many experts are predicting that the changes, if they go into effect, will lead to big battles over which children are entitled to special education and other benefits.

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/46063559/

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Insight: Top Justice officials connected to mortgage banks (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Lanny Breuer, head of the Justice Department's criminal division, were partners for years at a Washington law firm that represented a Who's Who of big banks and other companies at the center of alleged foreclosure fraud, a Reuters inquiry shows.

The firm, Covington & Burling, is one of Washington's biggest white shoe law firms. Law professors and other federal ethics experts said that federal conflict of interest rules required Holder and Breuer to recuse themselves from any Justice Department decisions relating to law firm clients they personally had done work for.

Both the Justice Department and Covington declined to say if either official had personally worked on matters for the big mortgage industry clients. Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said Holder and Breuer had complied fully with conflict of interest regulations, but she declined to say if they had recused themselves from any matters related to the former clients.

Reuters reported in December that under Holder and Breuer, the Justice Department hasn't brought any criminal cases against big banks or other companies involved in mortgage servicing, even though copious evidence has surfaced of apparent criminal violations in foreclosure cases.

The evidence, including records from federal and state courts and local clerks' offices around the country, shows widespread forgery, perjury, obstruction of justice, and illegal foreclosures on the homes of thousands of active-duty military personnel.

In recent weeks the Justice Department has come under renewed pressure from members of Congress, state and local officials and homeowners' lawyers to open a wide-ranging criminal investigation of mortgage servicers, the biggest of which have been Covington clients. So far Justice officials haven't responded publicly to any of the requests.

While Holder and Breuer were partners at Covington, the firm's clients included the four largest U.S. banks - Bank of America, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo & Co - as well as at least one other bank that is among the 10 largest mortgage servicers.

DEFENDER OF FREDDIE

Servicers perform routine mortgage maintenance tasks, including filing foreclosures, on behalf of mortgage owners, usually groups of investors who bought mortgage-backed securities.

Covington represented Freddie Mac, one of the nation's biggest issuers of mortgage backed securities, in enforcement investigations by federal financial regulators.

A particular concern by those pressing for an investigation is Covington's involvement with Virginia-based MERS Corp, which runs a vast computerized registry of mortgages. Little known before the mortgage crisis hit, MERS, which stands for Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, has been at the center of complaints about false or erroneous mortgage documents.

Court records show that Covington, in the late 1990s, provided legal opinion letters needed to create MERS on behalf of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and several other large banks. It was meant to speed up registration and transfers of mortgages. By 2010, MERS claimed to own about half of all mortgages in the U.S. -- roughly 60 million loans.

But evidence in numerous state and federal court cases around the country has shown that MERS authorized thousands of bank employees to sign their names as MERS officials. The banks allegedly drew up fake mortgage assignments, making it appear falsely that they had standing to file foreclosures, and then had their own employees sign the documents as MERS "vice presidents" or "assistant secretaries."

Covington in 2004 also wrote a crucial opinion letter commissioned by MERS, providing legal justification for its electronic registry. MERS spokeswoman Karmela Lejarde declined to comment on Covington legal work done for MERS.

It isn't known to what extent if any Covington has continued to represent the banks and other mortgage firms since Holder and Breuer left. Covington declined to respond to questions from Reuters. A Covington spokeswoman said the firm had no comment.

Several lawyers for homeowners have said that even if Holder and Breuer haven't violated any ethics rules, their ties to Covington create an impression of bias toward the firms' clients, especially in the absence of any prosecutions by the Justice Department.

O. Max Gardner III, a lawyer who trains other attorneys to represent homeowners in bankruptcy court foreclosure actions, said he attributes the Justice Department's reluctance to prosecute the banks or their executives to the Obama White House's view that it might harm the economy.

But he said that the background of Holder and Breuer at Covington -- and their failure to act on foreclosure fraud or publicly recuse themselves -- "doesn't pass the smell test."

Federal ethics regulations generally require new government officials to recuse themselves for one year from involvement in matters involving clients they personally had represented at their former law firms.

President Obama imposed additional restrictions on appointees that essentially extended the ban to two years. For Holder, that ban would have expired in February 2011, and in April for Breuer. Rules also require officials to avoid creating the appearance of a conflict.

Schmaler, the Justice Department spokeswoman, said in an e-mail that "The Attorney General and Assistant Attorney General Breuer have conformed with all financial, legal and ethical obligations under law as well as additional ethical standards set by the Obama Administration."

She said they "routinely consult" the department's ethics officials for guidance. Without offering specifics, Schmaler said they "have recused themselves from matters as required by the law."

Senior government officials often move to big Washington law firms, and lawyers from those firms often move into government posts. But records show that in recent years the traffic between the Justice Department and Covington & Burling has been particularly heavy. In 2010, Holder's deputy chief of staff, John Garland, returned to Covington, as did Steven Fagell, who was Breuer's deputy chief of staff in the criminal division.

The firm has on its web site a page listing its attorneys who are former federal government officials. Covington lists 22 from the Justice Department, and 12 from U.S. Attorneys offices, the Justice Department's local federal prosecutors' offices around the country.

As Reuters reported in 2011, public records show large numbers of mortgage promissory notes with apparently forged endorsements that were submitted as evidence to courts.

There also is evidence of almost routine manufacturing of false mortgage assignments, documents that transfer ownership of mortgages between banks or to groups of investors. In foreclosure actions in courts mortgage assignments are required to show that a bank has the legal right to foreclose.

In an interview in late 2011, Raymond Brescia, a visiting professor at Yale Law School who has written about foreclosure practices said, "I think it's difficult to find a fraud of this size on the U.S. court system in U.S. history."

Holder has resisted calls for a criminal investigation since October 2010, when evidence of widespread "robo-signing" first surfaced. That involved mortgage servicer employees falsely signing and swearing to massive numbers of affidavits and other foreclosure documents that they had never read or checked for accuracy.

Recent calls for a wide-ranging criminal investigation of the mortgage servicing industry have come from members of Congress, including Senator Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., state officials, and county clerks. In recent months clerks from around the country have examined mortgage and foreclosure records filed with them and reported finding high percentages of apparently fraudulent documents.

On Wednesday, John O'Brien Jr., register of deeds in Salem, Mass., announced that he had sent 31,897 allegedly fraudulent foreclosure-related documents to Holder. O'Brien said he asked for a criminal investigation of servicers and their law firms that had filed the documents because they "show a pattern of fraud," forgery and false notarizations.

(Reporting By Scot J. Paltrow, editing by Blake Morrison)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120120/bs_nm/us_usa_holder_mortgage

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RedPad: Android tablet for Chinese politicians that costs twice as much as the iPad (Yahoo! News)

An Android tablet designed for Chinese officials without special features inexplicably costs $1,600

Would you buy a $1,600?Android tablet that doesn't have any special features compared to other slates half its price? A relatively unknown Chinese manufacturer seems to think people would, and released a tablet called the RedPad ? a?Honeycomb device specifically meant for?China's government officials, that costs almost two grand.

The 9.7" RedPad?is a pretty standard Android?tablet fare, with 1GB of RAM, and 16GB of storage, which is usually the lowest capacity found in mid-range slates. For $2,000, you'd think buyers will get a top-of-the-line device or at least a few extras. But the only bonus they will get is a rather shoddy looking leather case, and an inscription of China's "Serve the People" slogan at the back of the tablet. The total cost for manufacturing each device is $480, so why it's priced at $1,600 is beyond us. An?interview with the company spokesperson, Xianri Liu, reveals RedPad's somewhat twisted reasoning for that price point: the company believes people think expensive things are good. Therefore, RedPad must be good.

He also argues that RedPad comes with a bunch of apps including tablet versions of periodicals, and a state-sanctioned Chinese version of?Twitter. Installing those kinds of apps on the?iPad, he says, will cost as much as $1,600 in a year. A device of that price point targeted toward?politicians will almost certainly cause a stir not only within China, but all over the internet.

Liu says the company plans to release RedPad to market, and compete with?Apple's iPad?? a feat that will be extremely hard to accomplish when the tablet costs that much.

[via?Penn Olson,?The Verge]

(Source)

This article was written by Mariella Moon and originally appeared on Tecca

More from Tecca:

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/applecomputer/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_technews/20120120/tc_yblog_technews/redpad-android-tablet-for-chinese-politicians-that-costs-twice-as-much-as-the-ipad

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