President Barack Obama addresses a crowd at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, Sunday. Obama makes the point that 60 percent of Africans are under 30-years-old while discussing the region's future.
By Andrew Rafferty, Staff Writer, NBC News
President Barack Obama on Sunday announced a sweeping?initiative?to help bring electrical power to some of Africa's poorest regions, while reflecting on the legacy of Nelson Mandela and urging the continent to continue the work of?South Africa's ailing former leader.
Speaking at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, the president announced a?$7 billion initiative?to bring electrical power to sub-Saharan Africa in an effort to help modernize the continent and better connect it with the rest of the world.
The program, called "Power Africa," will also include more than $9 billion in investment from private companies, according to the White House.??The iniative will focus on six African countries:?Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria and Tanzania.?
"We believe that nations must have the power to connect their people to the promise of the 21st century. Access to electricity is fundamental to opportunity in this age," Obama said.
"It's the connection that's needed to plug Africa into the grid of the global economy.? You've got to have power," he added, citing that two-thirds of the population in sub-Saharan Africa does not have regular access to household electricity.?
Obama's hopes to modernize the continent came the same day as he urged Africa's youth to remember the?sacrifices?of beloved leader Mandela, who is in "critical but stable" condition in a South African hospital, according to government officials.
Earlier Sunday, the president and his family visited Robben Island prison, the place where Mandela spent most of his 27 years in jail. The 94-year-old anti-apartheid champion has been in the hospital for weeks, and his health has become one of the main?story lines?of the president's week-long trip.
In his speech in Cape Town, Obama said that standing in Mandela's small cell helped his daughters appreciate the?sacrifices made by?the the leader and is an experience they will never forget.
"Nelson Mandela showed us that one man's courage can move the world," he said.
White House officials said the speech drew inspiration from remarks delivered by Robert F. Kennedy in June of 1966 at the same university. Kennedy's now famous "ripple of hope" speech was delivered soon after Mandela was?sentenced?to prison also called on African youth to fight against injustice.
"There is no question that Africa is on the move, but it's not moving fast enough...That's where you come in -- the young people of Africa.? Just like previous generations, you've got choices to make. You get to decide where the future lies," Obama said.
While in Cape Town, the president also visited an HIV/AIDS clinic where he commended the work of President George W. Bush in helping fight AIDS in Africa.?
"We have the possibility of achieving an AIDS-free generation...and making sure that everybody in our human family is able to enjoy their lives and raise families, and succeed in maintaining their health here in Africa and around the world," Obama said.
As the nonstop developments in the Aaron Hernandez murder case(s) begin to subside, it?s time to broaden the lens and address a topic that has popped up from time to time over the past two weeks.
Should the Patriots have avoided drafting Hernandez in 2010 and/or giving him a long-term, big-money contract in 2012?
Many are suggesting that the Pats screwed the proverbial pooch on this one, that they negligently brought a potential murderer to Massachusetts and, two years later, made him a multi-multi-millionaire.? But there are multi-problems with that logic.
For starters, there really was no indication that Hernandez was anything other than a kid who:? (1) liked to smoke marijuana; and (2) periodically made mischief.? As the folks at CFT pointed out on Saturday, Hernandez was indeed questioned in connection with a shooting nearly six years ago in Gainesville.? But it was perfunctory and brief.? Other Gators were questioned at the time, including safety Reggie Nelson and the Pouncey twins.
The only true red flag that attached to Hernandez from his college days came from an affinity for inhaling the fumes of a plant that, if anything, make the user less likely to commit violence or do anything other than sit around and eat Fritos.? And if there?s a link between smoking pot and murder, there would be a lot more murders.
Whatever was wrong with Hernandez, he supposedly had been rehabilitated by former Florida coach Urban Meyer, who according to the New York Times personally conducted ?daily Bible sessions? with Hernandez in order to turn him around.? Meyer presumably vouched for Hernandez to Patriots coach Bill Belichick.? Given the strong friendship between Belichick and Meyer that likely went a long way to persuading Belichick that Hernandez?s talents justified the risk.
Of course, some are now painting the picture that Hernandez entered the NFL with a pair of six-guns strapped to his side and ink on his arms that not-so-cryptically spelled out plans for his future crime sprees.? But where we these ?sources? with knowledge of supposed gang ties and other actual or perceived misdeeds or antisocial tendencies when Hernandez emerged as a fourth-round star in his second NFL season?
That would have been the obvious time for scouts, General Managers, and coaches to cover their collective asses by leaking the notion that, even though Hernandez was playing at a very high level, they avoided Hernandez in rounds one through three because he had more problems than marijuana.? But there was nothing ? not until after Hernandez was tied to a murder case and scouts and sources and some in the media all began to join in a hands-across-Whoville chorus of I told you so.
Even if Hernandez?s antics had generated real warning signs beyond marijuana, it?s impossible to connect dots from off-field misbehavior to premeditated murder.? It?s far more reasonable (or, as the case may be, far less reckless) to connect a substance-abuse problem (drugs or alcohol) to the potential for accidental death or dismemberment while driving a car.
Murderers come from all walks of life, with no way to prospectively screen for them ? unless they?ve actually killed in the past.? For every Aaron Hernandez there?s a Jovan Belcher, who generated no objective evidence to suggest that he would get into serious trouble before he repeatedly shot the mother of his young child and then killed himself in the presence of his coach and G.M.? Ditto for Rae Carruth, who orchestrated the murder of the mother of his unborn son because Carruth apparently didn?t want to pay child support.? The Chiefs and the Panthers saw neither problem coming, because there?s rarely any reason to suspect someone of having the capacity to deliberately kill someone else, regardless of the person?s history.
For the best proof of this, look no farther than O.J. Simpson.? Revered as a player, beloved as a broadcaster, and celebrated as an actor, he would have been the last man anyone would have regarded as the potential murderer of his ex-wife and a stranger who was in the worst possible place at the worst possible time.? (Simpson was acquitted in criminal court, but found legally responsible in civil court for the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.)
On one hand, this is an extreme example of how the Modified Patriot Way of buying low ? via trades, free agency, and the draft ? can go very wrong.? On the other hand, the only way to avoid blame for harboring a potential murderer is to shun any player who has generated at any time any reason to believe that he could do anything wrong as an NFL player.
Even then, there?s still a chance that a player with no red flags will be the next Jovan Belcher, Rae Carruth, or O.J. Simpson.
BALTIMORE ? Kevin Gausman said he knew it was going to be a good day for him as soon as he donned his Superman socks. Once he put those special socks on, Gausman was truly the man of steel for the Orioles.
Following a subpar first major league start by T.J. McFarland, Gausman came to the rescue and threw a dazzling 4 1/3 innings, limiting the New York Yankees to three hits and lifted the Orioles to a 4-3 win before 40,041 at Oriole Park on Friday night.
All week, it seemed that Gausman, who was recalled on Monday, was being prepped for a start against the Yankees. Manager Buck Showalter decided that T.J. McFarland, not Gausman, would give his team the best chance to beat New York.
After McFarland left with a 3-0 deficit, Gausman came on and delivered a four strikeout performance with a new way of motivating himself.
?I was thinking last night about what the best relievers have and they have that bulldog mentality. That?s something I definitely tried to kind of do today,? Gausman said.
Gausman (1-3) hadn?t pitched in nine days and threw 55 pitches and didn?t walk a batter.
"Sometimes, when you put young pitchers in a come-to-the-rescue mode, there's a little different culture [when] they come into in a game,? Showalter said.
Nate McLouth?s fifth home run of the year with two outs in the seventh off CC Sabathia (8-6) was the big hit.
It hugged the right field line, and was his fifth of the season and his first since May 21 when his 10th inning shot beat New York (42-37). It evoked memories of McLouth?s ball in Game 5 of last October?s American League Division Series game at Yankee Stadium. That ball was called foul. This one wasn?t.
?I wasn?t even out of the batter?s box before I thought that. Off the bat, I knew it had the distance, it just stayed true. It stayed straight, and I was happy about that,? McLouth said.
Tommy Hunter pitched two scoreless innings, allowing one hit and striking out three, for his second save.?
Sabathia, deprived of his 200th career win, retired the first eight Orioles. Alexi Casilla grounded to third and reached when Alberto Gonzalez booted the ball. He set down the next seven hitters until McLouth led off the sixth with a single to center.
Casilla reached on an infield single, and after Nick Markakis popped out, Manny Machado hit his major league leading 37th double to score McLouth and Casilla. Machado moved to third on J.J. Hardy?s fly to center and scored on Adam Jones? infield single.
Showalter credited Machado with helping turn the game around.
?It's a 90 foot gain that puts some pressure on a lot of people,? Showalter said.
?I saw him camping under the ball and in that situation there, you really don?t want to tag up especially with the ball in left center field, but he camped up and I thought I had a pretty good shot at it and I went for it,? Machado said.
On Tuesday, the Orioles didn?t have a hit for the first four innings. On Wednesday it was six, and this time, it was five.
?We didn't get anything until the sixth inning. We got everything in spurts. Let's try tomorrow to get a hit earlier in the game to not put any pressure on us late in the game,? Jones said.
The score was tied at 3 after six.
In the first, Brett Gardner led off with a double off McFarland. He scored two batters later on Robinson Cano?s RBI single.
The Yankees made it 3-0 in the third when Jayson Nix and Cano began the inning with singles. Nix scored on Vernon Wells? single, and Cano scored on Chris Stewart?s soft single to center.
Showalter replaced McFarland with Gausman, making his first major league relief appearance.
McFarland pitched 2 2/3 innings, allowing three runs on seven hits, walking one and striking out four. ?I?m kind of upset with myself. I didn?t do as well as I thought I wanted to,? McFarland said.
On June 13, McFarland got his first major league win in a 13-inning game that Gausman started. The reverse was true
?I?m extremely excited and proud that we ended up winning the game. For him to go out there and throw four and a third, get his first W, for us to come back against Sabathia like that. I?d like to think that it takes away what happened, but it really, for me, it doesn?t,? McFarland said.
NOTES: Brian Roberts came out of Norfolk?s game after six innings because of rainy conditions. He?ll be activated on Sunday.
-Zach Britton (1-2, 5.51) starts against David Phelps (5-4, 4.01) on Saturday. Game time is 7:15 p.m.
Monday, June 24 2013 11:39 AM EDT2013-06-24 15:39:24 GMT
Heavy rains on Monday morning, June 24, 2013 have caused flash flooding in Lowden, Iowa.Eye witnesses report floating debris along Highway 30, including an anhydrous ammonia? tank.Many roads also appearMore >>Heavy rains on Monday morning, June 24, 2013 have caused flash flooding in Lowden, Iowa.Eye witnesses report floating debris along Highway 30, including an anhydrous ammonia? tank.Many roads also appearMore >>
Door To Door Magazine Sales Warning
Door To Door Magazine Sales Warning
Friday, June 28 2013 11:19 PM EDT2013-06-29 03:19:28 GMT
A consumer alert for door to door magazine sales. There is a group of people pursuing those sales in Davenport without a permit as of Friday. The salespeople are selling magazines for Nation's Top Sales,More >>A consumer alert for door to door magazine sales. There is a group of people pursuing those sales in Davenport without a permit as of Friday. The salespeople are selling magazines for Nation's Top Sales,More >>
Conservation Officers: Stay Off the Water This Weekend
Conservation Officers: Stay Off the Water This Weekend
Friday, June 28 2013 11:25 PM EDT2013-06-29 03:25:52 GMT
This first really nice weekend of the summer would have been a perfect time to get out on a boat. It also would have been the annual "Operation Dry Water" safety event, cracking down on drinking and boating.More >>This first really nice weekend of the summer would have been a perfect time to get out on a boat. It also would have been the annual "Operation Dry Water" safety event, cracking down on drinking and boating. But a rising river has a lot of people spending the weekend on dry land.More >>
Efforts To Make US 6 & IL 84 Intersection Safer After Deadly Crash
Efforts To Make US 6 & IL 84 Intersection Safer After Deadly Crash
Friday, June 28 2013 11:31 PM EDT2013-06-29 03:31:21 GMT
Efforts are underway for more safety at a busy intersection where a Geneseo man and his son died two weeks ago. Scott Teerlink and ten year-old Luke were on motorcycle when a car turned in frontMore >>Efforts are underway for more safety at a busy intersection where a Geneseo man and his son died two weeks ago.More >>
Rock Island County Sheriff Conducts Warrant Sweep
Rock Island County Sheriff Conducts Warrant Sweep
Friday, June 28 2013 7:34 PM EDT2013-06-28 23:34:36 GMT
If there's a warrant for your arrest in Rock Island County, local law enforcement are looking for you. Friday was the first warrant sweep the sheriff's department has done since 2005. The sheriff gaveMore >>If there's a warrant for your arrest in Rock Island County, local law enforcement are looking for you. Friday was the first warrant sweep the sheriff's department has done since 2005. The sheriff gaveMore >>
First Alert Weather 24/7
KWQC 24/7 Weather
KWQC 24/7 Weather is our 24 hour weather channel.? It's available here at KWQC.com, on Mediacom Channel 247 (in the Quad Cities), over the air on Digital 6.2 or you can call your local cable company...More >>KWQC 24/7 Weather is our 24 hour weather channel.? It's available here at KWQC.com, on Mediacom Channel 247 (in the Quad Cities), over the air on Digital 6.2 or you can call your local cable company to ask for KWQC 24/7 Weather.More >>
CHICAGO (AP) - Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn has signed three bills to fund education in the state for the next fiscal year, and he used it as another opportunity to push pension reform.
Quinn's office announced the bill signing Thursday in a statement that noted "current funding for education is only at 89% of what's required by law."
The Chicago Democrat signed legislation Thursday that authorizes spending of $8.68 billion for education. The money goes for early childhood education, public schools, community colleges, public universities and scholarships for students in need.
The governor has set a July 9 deadline for state lawmakers to act on comprehensive pension reform.
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) ? The murder case against former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez has led investigators to his hometown of Bristol, Conn., the working-class Hartford suburb where he began a meteoric rise that would carry him to the upper echelons of the NFL.
He is remembered as a fun-loving teenager at Bristol Central High School, where he followed in the footsteps of his older brother D.J., who would star as a quarterback and tight end at the University of Connecticut.
Some recall him struggling with the death of his father, Dennis, in 2006, but always determined to become a pro athlete, spending hours working out before and after school. As Bristol police assist Massachusetts investigators, arresting one local man as a fugitive from justice, the community was left to ponder the fall of the hometown hero with the $40 million pro contract and a new family of his own.
A former high school teammate, Andrew Ragali, 24, said the troubled street hood he has seen portrayed on television is not the Aaron Hernandez he knew.
"You could maybe say he was immature, but he wasn't a gang-banger at all," Ragali said. "I think when he went to college things might have changed, hanging around with the wrong people, but in high school, he wasn't like that at all."
The 23-year-old Hernandez was arrested Wednesday at his mansion in North Attleborough, Mass. and accused of orchestrating the execution-style shooting of his friend, Odin Lloyd, allegedly because Lloyd had talked to the wrong people at a nightclub. He was denied bail at a Thursday hearing in a Massachusetts courtroom, where a prosecutor said a Hummer belonging to Hernandez turned up an ammunition clip matching the caliber of casings found at the scene of Lloyd's killing.
Hernandez's lawyer argued his client is not a risk to flee and the case against him is circumstantial.
On June 16, the night before the slaying, a prosecutor said, Hernandez texted two unidentified friends and asked them to hurry to Massachusetts from Connecticut. A few minutes later, he texted Lloyd to tell him he wanted to get together, the prosecutor said. Authorities said surveillance footage showed the friends arriving, but they did not say who fired the shots.
New Britain State's Attorney Brian Preleski said Thursday that his office and Bristol police have been assisting investigators in Massachusetts and that Carlos Ortiz, 27, of Bristol, had been charged as a fugitive from justice. He waived extradition to Massachusetts and was being held on $1.5 million bail in Hartford.
Ortiz's public defender, Alfonzo Sirica, declined to comment about the case.
Massachusetts state police said Thursday night they were seeking another man, Ernest Wallace, in connection with Lloyd's killing. They issued an alert and wanted poster for Wallace, saying he was considered armed and dangerous, and sought the public's help in tracking down a silver or gray 2012 Chrysler 300 with Rhode Island license plates he was seen driving.
In Connecticut, Bristol is known to many as the home of ESPN, Otis elevator and the Hernandez family.
Aaron and his brother each earned honors as the state's Gatorade high school player of the year, although they played several years apart at Bristol Central. Aaron would often visit his brother at UConn, and at one point verbally committed to follow D.J. and play for UConn himself. But Aaron became too big a star for the state school and signed instead to play at the University of Florida, a national powerhouse where he was an All-American.
Ragali recalled seeing Hernandez again, years after high school, at a Hartford bar. He described him as quieter, with more tattoos. But said he was very nice, asked about his family and took pictures with his girlfriend.
It was after his father's death that Hernandez began smoking marijuana and hanging out with a rough crowd, Hernandez's mother Terri, told USA Today in 2009.
"The shock of losing his dad, there was so much anger," she said at the time.
Hernandez's mother works in the office at the local South Side elementary school, and other family members still live in Bristol.
"All I can say is that he will be cleared of all these charges in the end," she told the Bristol Press outside her home Wednesday. "Just let it play out until the end."
On Wednesday night, police searched a Bristol home and garage owned by Andres Valderrama, whom WFSB-TV identified as an uncle. A message was left at the home Thursday seeking comment.
The Patriots, who cut Hernandez following his arrest Wednesday, drafted him in 2010 and signed him last summer to five-year contract worth $40 million.
During the draft, one team said it wouldn't take him under any circumstances, and he was passed over by one club after another before New England picked him in the fourth round. Afterward, Hernandez said he had failed a drug test in college ? reportedly for marijuana ? and was up front with teams about it.
A Florida man filed a lawsuit last week claiming Hernandez shot him in the face after they argued at a strip club in February.
Hernandez became a father on Nov. 6 and said he intended to change his ways: "Now, another one is looking up to me. I can't just be young and reckless Aaron no more."
Hernandez could face life in prison, if convicted.
____
Associated Press writer Michelle R. Smith contributed to this report from Fall River, Mass.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - A small NASA telescope was launched into orbit on Thursday on a mission to determine how the sun heats its atmosphere to millions of degrees, sending off rivers of particles that define the boundaries of the solar system.
The study is far from academic. Solar activity directly impacts Earth's climate and the space environment beyond the planet's atmosphere. Solar storms can knock out power grids, disrupt radio signals and interfere with communications, navigation and other satellites in orbit.
"We live in a very complex society and the sun has a role to play in it," said physicist Alan Title, with Lockheed Martin Space Systems Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto, California, which designed and built the telescope.
Scientists have been trying to unravel the mechanisms that drive the sun for decades but one fundamental mystery endures: How it manages to release energy from its relatively cool, 10,000 degree Fahrenheit (5,500 degree Celsius) surface into an atmosphere that can reach up to 5 million degrees Fahrenheit (2.8 million Celsius).
At its core, the sun is essentially a giant fusion engine that melds hydrogen atoms into helium. As expected, temperatures cool as energy travels outward through the layers. But then in the lower atmosphere, known as the chromosphere, temperatures heat up again.
Pictures and data relayed by the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, or IRIS, telescope may finally provide some answers about how that happens.
The 4-foot (1.2-meter) long, 450-pound (204-kg) observatory will be watching the sun from a vantage point about 400 miles above Earth. It is designed to capture detailed images of light moving from the sun's surface, known as the photosphere, into the chromosphere. Temperatures peak in the sun's outer atmosphere, the corona.
All that energy fuels a continuous release of charged particles from the sun into what is known as the solar wind, a pressure bubble that fills and defines the boundaries of the solar system.
"Every time we look at the sun in more detail, it opens up a new window for us," said Jeffrey Newmark, IRIS program scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C.
The telescope was launched aboard an Orbital Sciences Corp Pegasus rocket at 10:27 p.m. EDT Thursday (0227 GMT Friday). Pegasus is an air-launched system that is carried aloft by a modified L-1011 aircraft that took off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California about 57 minutes before launch.
The rocket was released from beneath the belly of the plane at an altitude of about 39,000 feet before it ignited to carry the telescope into orbit.
IRIS, which cost about $145 million including the launch service, is designed to last for two years.
(NEW YORK) ? This holiday season Microsoft launches its $499 Xbox One and Sony its $399 Playstation 4. It?s a big year for gaming fans and their wallets, especially when you consider that those prices don?t include any of the games. But starting this week there is a new, significantly more affordable gaming console on the market, which will sit next to those other hotly anticipated systems on Best Buy and Target shelves later this year.
It?s called Ouya. It costs $99 and it?s nothing like the other consoles in terms of price, performance and offerings. And that?s the point.
?Ouya is a different type of game console. We wanted to bring gaming back to the television by making it accessible to gamers,? Julie Uhrman, the founder of Ouya, told ABC News in an interview. ?All the games are free to try, and we allow any developer with the creativity and passion to build a game for the television to do so.?
Unlike the big clunky Xbox, Wii or Playstation boxes, the Ouya is a small little box, no bigger than other small set top boxes, such as the Apple TV or the Roku. The little vase-shaped device houses the guts of a high-end tablet or smartphone, including an Nvidia quad-core processor and a Wi-Fi radio. There?s no CD or Blu-ray drive ? you download the games right to the device.
For $99 you get that box, an HDMI cord to hook it up to your TV and a single, AA-battery-powered controller. Additional controllers will cost $49.95.
The box doesn?t only have some of the same parts as your phone, but it also runs the same software as some of those phones. The menus and all the games have been written on top of Google?s Android platform. But it?s not just a stretched version of the software ? the games and the Ouya software have been created for TVs, Uhrman emphasized.
The whole point of using Android, which is an open platform, was to make Ouya an open console. In fact, the O in Ouya stands for ?open.? The uya? That stands for fun.
The console launched on Tuesday with more than 160 games, all of which are free to try. ?You shouldn?t be gouged by paying $60 for a game if you don?t even know if you like it,? Uhrman says, taking a knock at the high-priced console games out there. The only requirement of game makers when submitting games to the Ouya store is that playing some part of it must be free.
But, no, you won?t find Halo or Call of Duty or Madden NFL 13 on Ouya. The new console has attracted a range of game makers with experience making games for the PC and game consoles. It also attracts game makers who have never made a game before.
One game available for the console called Astronaut Rescue was created by a father and his 8-year-old son. ?His son broke his leg skiing, and the dad was like you aren?t going to sit inside all day long and play games, so they decided to build one,? Uhrman said.
Joining games like Astronaut Rescue are some names that are more familiar to people, such as Sega?s Sonic the Hedgehog, Final Fantasy and You Don?t Know Jack. The lack of well-known titles might be a sticking point for many, but the free options might be all it takes to bring users in, say some experts.
Early reviews of the Ouya knock the system for some software and graphics bugs.
Still Uhrman believes the console, which is already sold out through Amazon for now, offers something very different for a clear purpose. And, of course, there?s also that other reason to consider it, Uhrman says: ?I mean, it?s $99.?
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Interest rates on new student loans are going to double because the Senate does not plan a vote before Monday's deadline.
The chairman of the Education Committee and other Democrats said Thursday that the Senate would vote on July 10 on a one-year extension of the current interest rates. Without congressional action, rates on subsidized Stafford loans are set to go from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent on July 1.
Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin says lawmakers could pass a bill that retroactively lowers rates after they double on Monday.
A previous attempt in the Senate to extend rates for two years failed to overcome a procedural hurdle.
The House has already passed a student loan proposal.
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Justin Bieber has been sued by a paparazzo who claims the singer kicked and punched him last year at a Southern California shopping center.
A lawsuit filed Wednesday alleges the "Baby" crooner attacked Jose Osmin Hernandez Duran after Bieber and his then-girlfriend went to the movies at The Commons in Calabasas.
Bieber's representatives did not respond to a request for comment.
Duran claims Bieber started to leave the shopping center in his Mercedes, but got out of his car and sprinted toward him.
Duran says Bieber jumped into the air from 6 to 8 feet away to deliver a martial-arts-type kick to the photographer's gut before punching him in the face.
The suit seeks unspecified damages for "severe and extreme emotional distress" and negligence.
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces have retaken a town on the Lebanese border as they press an offensive against rebels in a conflict that has now cost more than 100,000 lives, activists said on Wednesday.
The army took full control of Tel Kalakh, driving out insurgents and ending an unofficial truce under which it had allowed a small rebel presence to remain for several months.
The fall of Tel Kalakh, two miles from the border with Lebanon, marks another gain for Assad after the capture of the rebel stronghold of Qusair this month, and consolidates his control around the central city of Homs, which links Damascus to his Alawite heartland overlooking the Mediterranean coast.
Like Qusair, Tel Kalakh was used by rebels in the early stages of the conflict as a transit point for weapons and fighters smuggled into Syria to join the fight against Assad.
Pro-Assad websites showed video footage of soldiers patrolling the town in armored cars and on foot.
"Terrorist groups infiltrated and terrorized the local people," an army officer said in the video. "In response to the request of the local people, the army entered Tel Kalakh to cleanse the area and restore security."
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition monitoring group, said rebels left the town on Tuesday, retreating towards the nearby Crusader fort of Crac des Chevaliers. Three rebels were killed as the army moved in.
Six months ago, Assad's opponents were challenging the president's grip on parts of Damascus, but are now under fierce military pressure there, while their supply lines from neighboring Jordan and Lebanon have steadily been choked off.
DEATH TOLL TOPS 100,000
In response to Assad's gains, achieved with the support of Lebanon's pro-Iranian Hezbollah fighters who spearheaded the assault on Qusair, Western and Arab nations pledged at the weekend to send urgent military aid to the rebels.
Hezbollah's involvement has highlighted the increasingly sectarian dynamic in the Syrian conflict. Hezbollah and Tehran back Assad, whose Alawite minority is an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, while Sunni Muslim states such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have stepped up support for the mainly Sunni rebels.
Radical Sunni militants from abroad, some of them linked to al Qaeda, are also coming in to fight alongside the rebels.
Jordan's King Abdullah said the war could ignite conflict across the Middle East unless global powers helped to convene peace talks soon.
"It has become clear to all that the Syrian crisis may extend from being a civil war to a regional and sectarian conflict...the extent of which is unknown," the monarch told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper in an interview.
"It is time for a more serious Arab and international coordination to stop the deterioration of the Syrian crisis. The situation cannot wait any longer," he added.
But prospects for proposed "Geneva 2" peace talks look bleak. Talks on Tuesday between the United States and Russia, which support opposing sides in Syria, produced no agreement on who should attend the conference or when it should be held.
Saudi Arabia, which views Shi'ite Iran as its arch-rival, has stepped up aid to Syrian rebels in recent months, supplying anti-aircraft missiles among other weapons.
"Syria is facing a double-edged attack. It is facing genocide by the government and an invasion from outside the government," Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said on Tuesday. "(It) is facing a massive flow of weapons to aid and abet that invasion and that genocide. This must end."
The Observatory, which monitors violence through a network of security and medical sources in Syria, said the death toll from two years of conflict had risen above 100,000 - making it by far the deadliest of the uprisings to have swept the region.
It said the figure included 18,000 rebel fighters and about 40,000 soldiers and pro-Assad militiamen. But the true number of combatants killed was likely to be double that due to both sides' secrecy in reporting casualties, it said.
In addition to the casualties, it said, 10,000 people had been detained by pro-Assad forces and 2,500 soldiers and loyalist militiamen had been captured by the rebels.
The United Nations has put the death toll from the 27-month-old conflict at 93,000 by the end of April.
The violence has fuelled instability and sectarian tensions in Syria's neighbors, particularly Iraq and Lebanon.
At least 40 people were killed this week in the Lebanese city of Sidon in clashes between the army and gunmen loyal to a firebrand Sunni cleric who backs the Syrian rebels and has urged Sunnis to challenge Hezbollah's military might in Lebanon.
On Wednesday, unidentified attackers stabbed at least five passengers on a bus carrying Syrians in Beirut, security sources said. None of the victims was seriously wounded, they said.
(For an interactive look at the Syrian uprising - http://link.reuters.com/rut37s)
Ben-Gurion U. and UChicago research collaboration targets water resource innovationsPublic release date: 26-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Andrew Lavin andrewlavin@alavin.com 516-944-4486 American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
More than $1 million committed for 5 inaugural projects
BEER-SHEVA, Israel, June 25, 2013 The University of Chicago (UChicago) and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) will begin funding a series of ambitious research collaborations that apply the latest discoveries in nanotechnology to create new materials and processes for making clean, fresh drinking water more plentiful and less expensive by 2020.
The announcement came on Sunday following a meeting in Jerusalem among Israeli President Shimon Peres, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, University of Chicago President Robert J. Zimmer, BGU President Rivka Carmi and leading scientists in the field. The joint projects will explore innovative solutions at the water-energy nexus, developing more efficient ways of using water to produce energy and using energy to treat and deliver clean water.
The University of Chicago also brings to the effort two powerful research partners already committed to clean-water research, the Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Illinois, and the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
"We feel it is critical to bring outstanding scientists together to address water resource challenges that are being felt around the world, and will only become more acute over time," said Zimmer.
"Our purification challenges in the Great Lakes region right now are different from the scarcity issues some of our colleagues at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev are addressing, but our combined experience will be a tremendous asset in turning early-stage technologies into innovative solutions that may have applications far beyond local issues," he said.
"Clean, plentiful water is a strategic issue in the Middle East and the world at large, and a central research focus of our university for more than three decades," said Carmi. "We believe that this partnership will enhance state-of-the-art science in both universities, while having a profound effect on the sustainable availability of clean water to people around the globe."
The first wave of research proposals include fabricating new materials tailored to remove contaminants, bacteria, viruses, and salt from drinking water at a fraction of the cost of current technologies; biological engineering that will help plants maximize their own drought-resistance mechanisms; and polymers that can change the water retention properties of soil in agriculture.
UChicago, BGU and Argonne have jointly committed more than $1 million in seed money over the next two years to support at least five inaugural projects, with the first projects getting underway this fall.
One proposed project would attempt to devise multi-functional and anti-fouling membranes for water purification. These membranes, engineered at the molecular level, could be switched or tuned to remove a wide range of biological and chemical contaminants and prevent the formation of membrane-fouling bacterial films. Keeping those membranes free of fouling would extend their useful lives and decrease energy usage while reducing the operational cost of purifying water.
Another proposal focuses on developing polymers for soil infusion or seed coatings to promote water retention. Such polymers conjure visions of smart landscapes that can substantially promote agricultural growth while reducing irrigation needs.
Officials from both the U.S. and Israel hailed the collaboration as an example of the potential for collaborative innovation that can improve quality of life and boost economic vitality.
Mayor Emanuel said, "Chicago's worldwide leadership in water management continues to grow as we invest in our water infrastructure, creating jobs for our residents and economic activity in our neighborhoods. I strongly support this partnership and I look forward to working with leading institutions like BGU and University of Chicago to create innovations and opportunities for the future."
The institutions have moved swiftly following the signing of an initial memorandum of understanding in Chicago on March 8, 2013 to explore a research partnership that would innovate water production and purification technologies to meet a growing thirst for fresh water resources globally. Leading the efforts are Matthew Tirrell, the Pritzker Director of UChicago's Institute for Molecular Engineering, and Moshe Gottlieb, BGU's Frankel Professor of Chemical Engineering.
For its part, the Institute for Molecular Engineering will commit tens of millions of dollars to the molecular engineering of water resources over the next decade. The institute is pursuing the molecular engineering of water resources as one of five emerging research themes, with plans to hire up to six faculty members specializing in this area. BGU researchers will have a significant presence at Hyde Park to further facilitate the collaborations.
"The Institute for Molecular Engineering aims to bring molecular-level science to technological problems of global importance," Tirrell said. "Water technology clearly meets that standard, and the institute brings new ideas for materials, membranes, biotechnologies, and catalytic technologies, among other approaches, that could address major needs in this domain."
Tirrell's and Gottlieb's teams met for two days in Israel in April to explore their mutual interests in water chemistry, materials science, flow in soils and other porous substances, microbiology, and nanotechnology. The first day of meetings took place on BGU's main campus in Beer-Sheva. The researchers reconvened for a second day at BGU's Sede Boqer campus, site of the Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research.
The Israeli government founded BGU with a mandate to spearhead the development of the Negev Desert. BGU has worked at the forefront of water-related research for more than four decades, having developed several innovative technologies in the field. Work at the Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research has helped make it possible for Israel to produce more than 60 percent of its fresh water needs by desalination.
Tirrell's team includes researchers at Argonne, which UChicago manages for the United States Department of Energy. Argonne has assembled state-of-the-art infrastructure and gathered extensive scientific expertise for the study of clean water technologies. The laboratory's water-research portfolio includes projects pertaining to wastewater discharges into Lake Michigan, the effects of Glen Canyon Dam operations on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, and carbon tetrachloride contamination of surface and groundwater in Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska.
Researchers at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole have been prominent in bringing problems of water contamination to the attention of scientists and the public. MBL brings additional strengths in biological sciences and the marine environment to this developing partnership. UChicago and MBL recently signed a landmark affiliation, effective July 1, joining the leadership and scientific eminence of the two institutions, while bringing outstanding researchers together for innovative collaborations and education programs in microbial sciences, molecular engineering and related areas.
###
Links to Photos:
BGU President Prof. Rivka Carmi and UChicago President Prof. Robert Zimmer sign a water research agreement in the presence of President Shimon Peres of Israel and Mayor Rahm Emanuel, City of Chicago, on Sunday June 23, 2013 at the President's Residence in Jerusalem.
http://imagelibrary.bgu.ac.il/pf.tlx/H3EH3lHdzzNo
BGU President Prof. Rivka Carmi and UChicago President Prof. Robert Zimmer with Mayor Rahm Emanuel, City of Chicago, at a press conference in Jerusalem on Sunday June 23, 2013 to announce a major water research partnership.
http://imagelibrary.bgu.ac.il/pf.tlx/kL2kfIk6omc8
Photo Credit: Dani Machlis/BGU
American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (AABGU) plays a vital role in sustaining David Ben-Gurion's vision, creating a world-class institution of education and research in the Israeli desert, nurturing the Negev community and sharing the University's expertise locally and around the globe. With some 20,000 students on campuses in Beer-Sheva, Sede Boqer and Eilat in Israel's southern desert, BGU is a university with a conscience, where the highest academic standards are integrated with community involvement, committed to sustainable development of the Negev. AABGU is headquartered in Manhattan and has nine regional offices throughout the U.S., including one in Chicago. For more information, please visit http://www.aabgu.org.
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Ben-Gurion U. and UChicago research collaboration targets water resource innovationsPublic release date: 26-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Andrew Lavin andrewlavin@alavin.com 516-944-4486 American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
More than $1 million committed for 5 inaugural projects
BEER-SHEVA, Israel, June 25, 2013 The University of Chicago (UChicago) and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) will begin funding a series of ambitious research collaborations that apply the latest discoveries in nanotechnology to create new materials and processes for making clean, fresh drinking water more plentiful and less expensive by 2020.
The announcement came on Sunday following a meeting in Jerusalem among Israeli President Shimon Peres, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, University of Chicago President Robert J. Zimmer, BGU President Rivka Carmi and leading scientists in the field. The joint projects will explore innovative solutions at the water-energy nexus, developing more efficient ways of using water to produce energy and using energy to treat and deliver clean water.
The University of Chicago also brings to the effort two powerful research partners already committed to clean-water research, the Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Illinois, and the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
"We feel it is critical to bring outstanding scientists together to address water resource challenges that are being felt around the world, and will only become more acute over time," said Zimmer.
"Our purification challenges in the Great Lakes region right now are different from the scarcity issues some of our colleagues at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev are addressing, but our combined experience will be a tremendous asset in turning early-stage technologies into innovative solutions that may have applications far beyond local issues," he said.
"Clean, plentiful water is a strategic issue in the Middle East and the world at large, and a central research focus of our university for more than three decades," said Carmi. "We believe that this partnership will enhance state-of-the-art science in both universities, while having a profound effect on the sustainable availability of clean water to people around the globe."
The first wave of research proposals include fabricating new materials tailored to remove contaminants, bacteria, viruses, and salt from drinking water at a fraction of the cost of current technologies; biological engineering that will help plants maximize their own drought-resistance mechanisms; and polymers that can change the water retention properties of soil in agriculture.
UChicago, BGU and Argonne have jointly committed more than $1 million in seed money over the next two years to support at least five inaugural projects, with the first projects getting underway this fall.
One proposed project would attempt to devise multi-functional and anti-fouling membranes for water purification. These membranes, engineered at the molecular level, could be switched or tuned to remove a wide range of biological and chemical contaminants and prevent the formation of membrane-fouling bacterial films. Keeping those membranes free of fouling would extend their useful lives and decrease energy usage while reducing the operational cost of purifying water.
Another proposal focuses on developing polymers for soil infusion or seed coatings to promote water retention. Such polymers conjure visions of smart landscapes that can substantially promote agricultural growth while reducing irrigation needs.
Officials from both the U.S. and Israel hailed the collaboration as an example of the potential for collaborative innovation that can improve quality of life and boost economic vitality.
Mayor Emanuel said, "Chicago's worldwide leadership in water management continues to grow as we invest in our water infrastructure, creating jobs for our residents and economic activity in our neighborhoods. I strongly support this partnership and I look forward to working with leading institutions like BGU and University of Chicago to create innovations and opportunities for the future."
The institutions have moved swiftly following the signing of an initial memorandum of understanding in Chicago on March 8, 2013 to explore a research partnership that would innovate water production and purification technologies to meet a growing thirst for fresh water resources globally. Leading the efforts are Matthew Tirrell, the Pritzker Director of UChicago's Institute for Molecular Engineering, and Moshe Gottlieb, BGU's Frankel Professor of Chemical Engineering.
For its part, the Institute for Molecular Engineering will commit tens of millions of dollars to the molecular engineering of water resources over the next decade. The institute is pursuing the molecular engineering of water resources as one of five emerging research themes, with plans to hire up to six faculty members specializing in this area. BGU researchers will have a significant presence at Hyde Park to further facilitate the collaborations.
"The Institute for Molecular Engineering aims to bring molecular-level science to technological problems of global importance," Tirrell said. "Water technology clearly meets that standard, and the institute brings new ideas for materials, membranes, biotechnologies, and catalytic technologies, among other approaches, that could address major needs in this domain."
Tirrell's and Gottlieb's teams met for two days in Israel in April to explore their mutual interests in water chemistry, materials science, flow in soils and other porous substances, microbiology, and nanotechnology. The first day of meetings took place on BGU's main campus in Beer-Sheva. The researchers reconvened for a second day at BGU's Sede Boqer campus, site of the Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research.
The Israeli government founded BGU with a mandate to spearhead the development of the Negev Desert. BGU has worked at the forefront of water-related research for more than four decades, having developed several innovative technologies in the field. Work at the Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research has helped make it possible for Israel to produce more than 60 percent of its fresh water needs by desalination.
Tirrell's team includes researchers at Argonne, which UChicago manages for the United States Department of Energy. Argonne has assembled state-of-the-art infrastructure and gathered extensive scientific expertise for the study of clean water technologies. The laboratory's water-research portfolio includes projects pertaining to wastewater discharges into Lake Michigan, the effects of Glen Canyon Dam operations on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, and carbon tetrachloride contamination of surface and groundwater in Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska.
Researchers at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole have been prominent in bringing problems of water contamination to the attention of scientists and the public. MBL brings additional strengths in biological sciences and the marine environment to this developing partnership. UChicago and MBL recently signed a landmark affiliation, effective July 1, joining the leadership and scientific eminence of the two institutions, while bringing outstanding researchers together for innovative collaborations and education programs in microbial sciences, molecular engineering and related areas.
###
Links to Photos:
BGU President Prof. Rivka Carmi and UChicago President Prof. Robert Zimmer sign a water research agreement in the presence of President Shimon Peres of Israel and Mayor Rahm Emanuel, City of Chicago, on Sunday June 23, 2013 at the President's Residence in Jerusalem.
http://imagelibrary.bgu.ac.il/pf.tlx/H3EH3lHdzzNo
BGU President Prof. Rivka Carmi and UChicago President Prof. Robert Zimmer with Mayor Rahm Emanuel, City of Chicago, at a press conference in Jerusalem on Sunday June 23, 2013 to announce a major water research partnership.
http://imagelibrary.bgu.ac.il/pf.tlx/kL2kfIk6omc8
Photo Credit: Dani Machlis/BGU
American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (AABGU) plays a vital role in sustaining David Ben-Gurion's vision, creating a world-class institution of education and research in the Israeli desert, nurturing the Negev community and sharing the University's expertise locally and around the globe. With some 20,000 students on campuses in Beer-Sheva, Sede Boqer and Eilat in Israel's southern desert, BGU is a university with a conscience, where the highest academic standards are integrated with community involvement, committed to sustainable development of the Negev. AABGU is headquartered in Manhattan and has nine regional offices throughout the U.S., including one in Chicago. For more information, please visit http://www.aabgu.org.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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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.
Abigail Fisher, who sued the University of Texas when she was not offered a spot at the university's flagship Austin campus in 2008, stands at a news conference at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, Monday, June 24, 2013. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action in higher education will have "no impact" on the University of Texas' admissions policy, school president Bill Powers said Monday, noting UT will continue to use race as a factor in some cases. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Abigail Fisher, who sued the University of Texas when she was not offered a spot at the university's flagship Austin campus in 2008, stands at a news conference at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, Monday, June 24, 2013. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action in higher education will have "no impact" on the University of Texas' admissions policy, school president Bill Powers said Monday, noting UT will continue to use race as a factor in some cases. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
University of Texas president Bill Powers, right, address questions during a news conference, Monday, June 24, 2013, in Austin, Texas. Affirmative action in college admissions survived Supreme Court review Monday in a consensus decision that avoided the difficult constitutional issues surrounding a challenge to the University of Texas admission plan.(AP Photo/Eric Gay)
The Supreme Court's ruling on the use of racial preferences in college admissions left many questions unanswered: Is the University of Texas' admissions policy that uses race as a factor constitutional? And do colleges around the country need to change how they use racial preferences to achieve a diverse student body?
Those and other questions will have to wait, at least until the next time the court considers an affirmative action case.
But the ruling was nonetheless significant. On the one hand, it validated earlier court rulings that racial diversity is a "compelling state interest" and that colleges may use racial preferences to achieve it. However, the justices also sent a sharp reminder to higher education. The 7-1 decision, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, showed virtually the entire court believes that colleges must, at the very least, meet a high bar in demonstrating such preferences are absolutely necessary, and that race-neutral methods of enrolling a diverse student body won't create such a student body on their own.
A look at some of the key questions and possible results of the ruling.
___
Q. What was this case about?
A. The focus of the case was a University of Texas admissions policy, used to select a small portion of the class at its flagship Austin campus, which took race into account as one factor among many. Abigail Fisher, a rejected white applicant, sued. But in deciding her case, the court also had the opportunity to consider the broader issue of how far colleges nationally can go in taking race into account in their admissions policies.
The key question is how to resolve sometimes conflicting rights ? the educational right of a college to create a diverse class it believes will benefit all students, versus the equal protection right of students not to face discrimination on the basis of race.
Q. What did the court decide?
A. On the Texas policy, it sent the case back down to a federal appeals court, which previously had sided with the university against Fisher. The Supreme Court said the lower court hadn't subjected the university's justification for the preferences to enough scrutiny. A university's educational judgment and experience can play a role in justifying racial preferences, the court said. But it also said lower courts shouldn't just take a university's "good faith" word that racial preferences are educationally necessary, or that such programs have been "narrowly tailored" to achieve their goals.
Rather, the justices ruled, courts must closely evaluate a college's claims about why it needs to use racial preferences, and why race-neutral alternatives (such as simply giving a boost to low-income students, regardless of race) won't achieve the diversity they need.
Q. What happens now?
A. The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will reconsider the case in light of the Supreme Court's instructions to give the University of Texas more scrutiny; the university will now have to meet a higher standard to persuade the court it needs to use racial preferences. If the university can meet that standard, its policy could survive. But the case could return to the Supreme Court for another ruling, which could open the door to a broader decision on exactly what colleges can and cannot do when it comes to implementing racial preferences.
Q. Who won?
A. Both sides will claim something of a victory. Opponents of affirmative action will cheer the court's sharp reminder that colleges must prove they have tried other alternatives before resorting to racial preferences. Many may now be more vulnerable to lawsuits, which could cause them to use racial preferences less aggressively (you can certainly count lawyers among the winners).
Overall, however, defenders of affirmative action are most relieved. The court upheld the essence of an idea it last articulated in a 2003 case involving the University of Michigan: Diversity is so important in education that it can justify racial preferences ? at least sometimes. "It's a strong affirmation of the importance of student body diversity in higher education, by a strong majority of the court," said Marvin Krislov, who was the University of Michigan's general counsel during the last affirmative action case and is now president of Oberlin College in Ohio.
"Relief is a good word," said Lee Bollinger, a constitutional scholar and president of Columbia University who previously had warned that the use of affirmative action might be imperiled by this case. He emphasized that the court, in a series of decisions, now has upheld the value of diversity in education and made that value "completely solid constitutional doctrine."
Q. What effect will the ruling have on college admissions policies, and which students go to which schools?
A. Probably very little, at least in the short run, according to numerous experts. First, remember that racial preferences are mostly an issue at perhaps several hundred colleges nationwide where slots are scarce; the majority of schools take anyone who meets baseline requirements and are able, even eager, to make room for more.
Many selective schools, however, have been practicing some form of affirmative action since about the early 1970s. Presumably, those schools used race in a manner they believed was consistent with what the Supreme Court allowed in 2003. On Monday, the court didn't change those standards; it just instructed courts to review more closely what colleges do.
Q. What about in the long run?
A. The ruling could embolden rejected applicants like Fisher who believe they've been discriminated against, because universities know they must meet a higher bar to show such policies are justified. Such litigation likely would produce cases that get more deeply into the nuts and bolts of how admissions offices use race to make decisions. If those cases bubble up to the Supreme Court, the justices may then address more specifically what they think colleges can and cannot do.
But for now, the general right of colleges to make use of racial preferences to ensure a diverse student body is safe.
___
Follow Justin Pope on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/JustinPopeAP
June 24, 2013 ? Nanoparticles that deliver short strands of RNA offer a way to treat cancer and other diseases by shutting off malfunctioning genes. Although this approach has shown some promise, scientists are still not sure exactly what happens to the nanoparticles once they get inside their target cells.
A new study from MIT sheds light on the nanoparticles' fate and suggests new ways to maximize delivery of the RNA strands they are carrying, known as short interfering RNA (siRNA).
"We've been able to develop nanoparticles that can deliver payloads into cells, but we didn't really understand how they do it," says Daniel Anderson, the Samuel Goldblith Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT. "Once you know how it works, there's potential that you can tinker with the system and make it work better."
Anderson, a member of MIT's Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and MIT's Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, is the leader of a research team that set out to examine how the nanoparticles and their drug payloads are processed at a cellular and subcellular level. Their findings appear in the June 23 issue of Nature Biotechnology. Robert Langer, the David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT, is also an author of the paper.
One RNA-delivery approach that has shown particular promise is packaging the strands with a lipidlike material; similar particles are now in clinical development for liver cancer and other diseases.
Through a process called RNA interference, siRNA targets messenger RNA (mRNA), which carries genetic instructions from a cell's DNA to the rest of the cell. When siRNA binds to mRNA, the message carried by that mRNA is destroyed. Exploiting that process could allow scientists to turn off genes that allow cancer cells to grow unchecked.
Scientists already knew that siRNA-carrying nanoparticles enter cells through a process, called endocytosis, by which cells engulf large molecules. The MIT team found that once the nanoparticles enter cells they become trapped in bubbles known as endocytic vesicles. This prevents most of the siRNA from reaching its target mRNA, which is located in the cell's cytosol (the main body of the cell).
This happens even with the most effective siRNA delivery materials, suggesting that there is a lot of room to improve the delivery rate, Anderson says.
"We believe that these particles can be made more efficient. They're already very efficient, to the point where micrograms of drug per kilogram of animal can work, but these types of studies give us clues as to how to improve performance," Anderson says.
Molecular traffic jam
The researchers found that once cells absorb the lipid-RNA nanoparticles, they are broken down within about an hour and excreted from the cells.
They also identified a protein called Niemann Pick type C1 (NPC1) as one of the major factors in the nanoparticle-recycling process. Without this protein, the particles could not be excreted from the cells, giving the siRNA more time to reach its targets. "In the absence of the NPC1, there's a traffic jam, and siRNA gets more time to escape from that traffic jam because there is a backlog," says Gaurav Sahay, an MIT postdoc and lead author of the Nature Biotechnology paper.
In studies of cells grown in the lab without NPC1, the researchers found that the level of gene silencing achieved with RNA interference was 10 to 15 times greater than that in normal cells.
Lack of NPC1 also causes a rare lysosomal storage disorder that is usually fatal in childhood. The findings suggest that patients with this disorder might benefit greatly from potential RNA interference therapy delivered by this type of nanoparticle, the researchers say. They are now planning to study the effects of knocking out the NPC1 gene on siRNA delivery in animals, with an eye toward testing possible siRNA treatments for the disorder.
The researchers are also looking for other factors involved in nanoparticle recycling that could make good targets for possibly slowing down or blocking the recycling process, which they believe could help make RNA interference drugs much more potent. Possible ways to do that could include giving a drug that interferes with nanoparticle recycling, or creating nanoparticle materials that can more effectively evade the recycling process.
The research was funded by Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
Paranoid corporate types living in fear of bring-your-own-device employees can soon relax: BlackBerry has just launched its Secure Work Space app, right on schedule. It'll allow organizations to manage and secure Google and Apple devices through BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES) 10, which forms the mobile backbone of many a company's internal network. By using it, personnel without BlackBerry devices like the Z10 or Q10 will gain a way to check their company's calendars, email and organizers without fear of snooping. At the same time, IT types will be able to securely see, manage and update all Android and Apple devices network-wide. For its part, the Waterloo outfit should gain another source of revenue through the software (which consists of a suite of apps and BES 10.1 update), even with companies that haven't invested in its devices. For more info about the software or to grab a trial, check the source.
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Public release date: 26-Jun-2013
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