ATLANTA (AP) ? The first of more than 30 defendants expected to surrender Tuesday in Atlanta's school cheating scandal have turned themselves in to authorities.
Fulton County Jail records show that Tameka Goodson was in custody early Tuesday after being booked into jail on charges of racketeering and making false statements and writings. Goodson was an instructional coach at Kennedy Middle School.
Her attorney, Raymond Lail, told WAGA-TV that Goodson is "absolutely not guilty of these charges."
News media outlets reported that a second suspect, Usher/Collier Heights Elementary School test coordinator Donald Bullock, turned himself in around 6 a.m.
Thirty-five Atlanta educators, including former Superintendent Beverly Hall, are named in a 65-count indictment that alleges a broad conspiracy involving cheating on standardized tests.
The defendants face a Tuesday deadline to surrender.
But back East, cicadas are about to climb out of their little holes in the ground, wriggle out of their skins, like this ...
... so after 17 years of getting ready, they can now do the thing they hope, hope, hope to do ? which is, if at all possible, make a baby.
The (Centerville, Ohio) one you see on this page was placed on a bedspread a few years ago by Nathan Mundhenk, who filmed it for two hours, then edited its molt ? that's what it's doing, it's molting ? down to 6.3 seconds. You don't see the half-hour nap this little guy takes to get the energy to finish. (You try unzipping yourself. It must be exhausting.) By the billions, trillions maybe, this is what cicadas will be doing very soon, first in Virginia, then in Maryland, then Delaware, New Jersey, New York, all the way up to northern Connecticut.
Cicadas have distinct populations, called "broods," and like popes, they carry Roman numerals like Brood II, X, XIV and XIX, which will emerge in 2013, 2021, 2025 and 2024, respectively.
I live with Brood II here in New York, so in a few weeks, I will meet thousands of them, face to face, foot to body (mine on theirs ? squish), and I will hear uncountable numbers more, because the males gather to sing in giant choruses, Mormon Tabernacle-sized, and their mating songs are, famously, LOUD.
So loud, that when the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock back in the 1630s, their leader, Gov. William Bradford, was astonished:
... all the month of May, there was such a quantity of a great sort of flyes like for bignesss to wasps or bumblebees, which came out of holes in the ground and replenished all the woods, and ate green things, and made such a constant yelling noise as made all the woods ring of them, and ready to deaf the hearers ...
A century later, I learned from David Rothenberg's about-to-be published book Bug Music,American naturalists were still reeling from the noise; writing to the Royal Society in London in 1733, Paul Dudley described what it was like to ride along a cicada-infested American country road (clearly it didn't improve his spelling):
... They are in great numbers in our woods, the noise is loud to the degree that our farmers have not been able to hear their cowbells tho in sight. I have myself been trvelin thro the midst of thousands of them, and the noise was such that there was no conversing for some miles together, & it carried even some terror in it. ...
It's not just the volume, it's the tone. Male cicadas chorusing sound a touch menacing, even nasty. A couple of years ago, a bunch of Columbia, Mo., alternative musicians produced a compilation album called Cicada Summer, after the emergence of Brood XIX in their area. Their song titles, "Why Do You Keep Me Up at Night?" and "Piercing Siren of Death" suggest how the sound affected them; their "Death" song, especially, is a joyous a cappella riff with an opening chorus that goes, "BuzzNasty, BuzzNasty, BuzzNasty." Here it is, all 56 seconds of it:
This has been a continuous theme: These bugs, often called "locusts" (which they're not), feel like dark messengers from a dark place. In Nashville, back in 2011, Joel Anderson of the Anderson Design Group played with this theme when he created this poster (still available, he tactfully told me), called "I survived the Cicada Attack!"
The cicada isn't as bad as its reputation. David Rothenberg, in his book, quotes a 1936 article from The New York Times that reminded readers "that cicadas are not locusts, they do not eat crops, they do not sting babies to death, and they will not harm your fruit flies excessively."
The Times back then urged its readers "to respect the cicada, to think of all the dangers it must face in its short, few weeks of life aboveground: being chased by birds, eaten by dogs, cats, and foxes ... " and, these days, by Internet chefs.
In 2011, the Missouri Department of Conservation (!? Did someone forget their mission?) happily disseminated four cicada-based recipes for Cicada Pizza, Cicada-Portobello Quiche, "El chirper" Tacos, and Emergence Cookies. You could get yourself Cicada Ice Cream at Sparky's in Columbia (till the Missouri state government decided that wasn't a good idea), or do a pasta-cicada dish with Tennessee's Anderson Design Group on YouTube.
And then, just when you are getting used to hearing them, eating them, making fun of them, seeing them in your trees, your windshield, your shoes ? suddenly they go poof! And disappear. Their going is as odd, as evocative, as their coming.
In Eastern Virginia, back in 1920, entomologist H.A. Allard described what it was like when they left:
I felt a positive sadness when I realized that the great visitation was over, and there was silence in the world again, and all were dead that had so recently lived and filled the world with noise and movement. It was almost a painful silence, and I could not but feel that I had lived to witness one of the great events of existence, comparable to the occurrence of a notable eclipse or the invasion of a great comet.
The most poignant goodbye was written more than a thousand years ago, in 1056, by the Chinese poet Ouyang Hsiu, who loved hearing them ...
Here was a thing that cried upon a treetop sucking the shrill wind To wail it back in a long whistling note ...
And who seemed to miss them when they vanished ...
Again your voice, cicada ... ... as suddenly as it began suddenly ceases.
And now, countless generations later, on a different continent with a different brood, here on the Atlantic Coast, it's our turn.
David Rothenberg's new book, Bug Music: How Insects Gave Us Rhythm and Noise goes on sale in a couple of weeks.
As more and more teams picking in the top 10 pick up veteran quarterbacks, it?s impossible to know which teams are consciously getting out of the quarterback market at the top of the draft, and which teams are trying to mask their interest in a player like Geno Smith.
The Bills are believed to still be in the first-round quarterback fray, and it?s possible the Cardinals, Eagles, Raiders and even the Browns have been trying to throw other teams off the scent by lining up their fallback options pre-emptively.
For the Raiders, drafting Smith likely will mean keeping Flynn, since $2 million of his $5.25 million salary for 2013 is fully guaranteed.? It?s possible, then, that the Raiders also would keep Terrelle Pryor, given that he?ll earn only $595,000 in base salary for the coming season.
Still, even with the third overall pick going to a quarterback, the entire depth chart would take up considerably less cap room than Carson Palmer?s $13 million base salary would have consumed.? It?s possible, then, that the Raiders will enter the season with Flynn, Pryor, and a first-round rookie.
Researchers find link between blood clotting, immune responsePublic release date: 1-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David Ruth david@rice.edu 713-348-6327 Rice University
Rice University research suggests trigger for immune response and blood clotting
Rice University researchers have found an unexpected link between a protein that triggers the formation of blood clots and other proteins that are essential for the body's immune system. The find could lead to new treatments for thousands of patients who suffer from inflammatory diseases and disorders that cause abnormal blood clotting.
The research is available online in the journal PLOS ONE.
"This link opens the door for studying severe, debilitating inflammatory disorders where the disease mechanism is still poorly understood, including lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, regional ileitis and ulcerative colitis, as well as age-related macular degeneration," said study co-author Dr. Joel Moake, a hematologist and senior research scientist in bioengineering at Rice. "There's clinical evidence that clotting and inflammation are somehow linked in many patients, even in the absence of an infection. This linkage could help explain some of the clinical cases that have long baffled physicians."
The link is biochemical. Nancy Turner, a research technician in Moake's lab, established the link after conducting hundreds of experiments on more than a dozen proteins, including key molecules involved with both clotting and the body's innate immune response.
"In addition to the clinical evidence, there's also a logical basis for this connection," Moake said. "Clotting is a type of wound response, and wounds are magnets for infection, so there could be a selective advantage in triggering both responses at the same time."
But the link could also have a downside. For example, if a person has a genetic mutation or acquired disorder that causes their blood to clot more often or more extensively than normal, the overactive clotting could lead to the kind of inflammation that would typically be caused by an infection. Furthermore, initiation of the clotting process may initiate clinical relapses in patients susceptible to various types of severe inflammatory disease.
In fact, the symptoms in the above scenarios are not uncommon. For example, in prior research, Moake's lab conducted pioneering research on two disorders: thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP), which causes clots to form in small blood vessels throughout the body; and hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), which causes abnormal blood clots in the kidneys. Both HUS and TTP come in two varieties -- one that is triggered by infection or inappropriate antibody formation, and another that is hereditary. Moake said the newfound link between clot formation and the immune response could help improve the diagnosis and treatment for TTP, HUS and other puzzling blood disorders with similar symptoms.
The experiments Turner used to establish the link between clotting and the body's immune response involved a key clotting protein called von Willebrand factor (VWF) and about a dozen other proteins that are components of the "complement system." The complement system, a part of the body's innate immune system, is one of biology's most ancient forms of defense against invading pathogens.
The complement system consists of a series of proteins that are produced by a variety of cell types. These proteins circulate continuously in the bloodstream and react sequentially upon activation. When triggered, the complement component proteins join together to form a biological weapon called the "membrane attack complex" (MAC), which kills both invading bacteria and the body's own cells if they become infected or damaged.
Turner and Moake first thought of looking for the link more than two years ago after they collaborated with physicians at Texas Children's Hospital on several puzzling clinical cases. Turner designed and conducted a series of experiments to examine whether any of the proteins in the complement complex were likely to bind onto long strands of VWF. Each complement protein was detected with a specific antibody and a fluorescent tag that could be viewed with a specialized microscope.
She found that C3, an important complement pathway initiator protein, was produced by cells in such low concentration that it was almost impossible to see -- even with a fluorescent microscope. But that changed when she looked at experimental samples that contained both C3 and VWF.
"The signals were so clear," Turner recalled. "The VWF had so much C3 on it that it looked like a Christmas tree."
Moake said he and Turner are conducting follow-up research to measure more effectively the activation of C3 on VWF. They are also measuring whether the C3 activation stimulates the sequential cascade of reactions that leads to MAC formation. In particular, they are interested in studying how the connection might lead to autoimmune diseases by causing MAC to target the body's own healthy cells rather than sick or damaged cells.
"We'd like to know what happens on a cell's surface that ordinarily enables it to protect itself against MAC," Moake said. "We'd also like to know what can go wrong with cells in terms of sickness or trauma that might make them more susceptible to being attacked and killed by overactivation of the complement sequence during clotting."
###
VIDEO is available at:
http://youtu.be/_nWP17-9-eQ
High-resolution IMAGES are available for download at:
http://news.rice.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0329-COMPLEMENT-MoakeTurner-lg.jpg
CAPTION: Rice University researchers Nancy Turner (left) and Joel Moake have found an unexpected link between a protein that triggers the formation of blood clots and other proteins that are essential for the body's immune system.
CAPTION: Von Willebrand factor (VWF) (green) is a long, thin protein that promotes blood clot formation. One end of VWF stays anchored to the blood vessel wall, while the rest unfurls like a sticky streamer, attracting platelets.
CAPTION: A strand of the clot-forming protein von Willebrand factor (VWF) glows brightly (green) under a microscope. The VWF is bound to many fluorescently labeled complement proteins called C3 (red dots), which are a part of the innate immune system.
CREDIT: Nancy Turner/Rice University
A copy of the PLOS ONE paper is available at:
http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0059372
This release can be found online at news.rice.edu.
Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.
Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation's top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,708 undergraduates and 2,374 graduate students, Rice's undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice has been ranked No. 1 for best quality of life multiple times by the Princeton Review and No. 2 for "best value" among private universities by Kiplinger's Personal Finance. To read "What they're saying about Rice," go to http://tinyurl.com/AboutRiceU.
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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.
Researchers find link between blood clotting, immune responsePublic release date: 1-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David Ruth david@rice.edu 713-348-6327 Rice University
Rice University research suggests trigger for immune response and blood clotting
Rice University researchers have found an unexpected link between a protein that triggers the formation of blood clots and other proteins that are essential for the body's immune system. The find could lead to new treatments for thousands of patients who suffer from inflammatory diseases and disorders that cause abnormal blood clotting.
The research is available online in the journal PLOS ONE.
"This link opens the door for studying severe, debilitating inflammatory disorders where the disease mechanism is still poorly understood, including lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, regional ileitis and ulcerative colitis, as well as age-related macular degeneration," said study co-author Dr. Joel Moake, a hematologist and senior research scientist in bioengineering at Rice. "There's clinical evidence that clotting and inflammation are somehow linked in many patients, even in the absence of an infection. This linkage could help explain some of the clinical cases that have long baffled physicians."
The link is biochemical. Nancy Turner, a research technician in Moake's lab, established the link after conducting hundreds of experiments on more than a dozen proteins, including key molecules involved with both clotting and the body's innate immune response.
"In addition to the clinical evidence, there's also a logical basis for this connection," Moake said. "Clotting is a type of wound response, and wounds are magnets for infection, so there could be a selective advantage in triggering both responses at the same time."
But the link could also have a downside. For example, if a person has a genetic mutation or acquired disorder that causes their blood to clot more often or more extensively than normal, the overactive clotting could lead to the kind of inflammation that would typically be caused by an infection. Furthermore, initiation of the clotting process may initiate clinical relapses in patients susceptible to various types of severe inflammatory disease.
In fact, the symptoms in the above scenarios are not uncommon. For example, in prior research, Moake's lab conducted pioneering research on two disorders: thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP), which causes clots to form in small blood vessels throughout the body; and hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), which causes abnormal blood clots in the kidneys. Both HUS and TTP come in two varieties -- one that is triggered by infection or inappropriate antibody formation, and another that is hereditary. Moake said the newfound link between clot formation and the immune response could help improve the diagnosis and treatment for TTP, HUS and other puzzling blood disorders with similar symptoms.
The experiments Turner used to establish the link between clotting and the body's immune response involved a key clotting protein called von Willebrand factor (VWF) and about a dozen other proteins that are components of the "complement system." The complement system, a part of the body's innate immune system, is one of biology's most ancient forms of defense against invading pathogens.
The complement system consists of a series of proteins that are produced by a variety of cell types. These proteins circulate continuously in the bloodstream and react sequentially upon activation. When triggered, the complement component proteins join together to form a biological weapon called the "membrane attack complex" (MAC), which kills both invading bacteria and the body's own cells if they become infected or damaged.
Turner and Moake first thought of looking for the link more than two years ago after they collaborated with physicians at Texas Children's Hospital on several puzzling clinical cases. Turner designed and conducted a series of experiments to examine whether any of the proteins in the complement complex were likely to bind onto long strands of VWF. Each complement protein was detected with a specific antibody and a fluorescent tag that could be viewed with a specialized microscope.
She found that C3, an important complement pathway initiator protein, was produced by cells in such low concentration that it was almost impossible to see -- even with a fluorescent microscope. But that changed when she looked at experimental samples that contained both C3 and VWF.
"The signals were so clear," Turner recalled. "The VWF had so much C3 on it that it looked like a Christmas tree."
Moake said he and Turner are conducting follow-up research to measure more effectively the activation of C3 on VWF. They are also measuring whether the C3 activation stimulates the sequential cascade of reactions that leads to MAC formation. In particular, they are interested in studying how the connection might lead to autoimmune diseases by causing MAC to target the body's own healthy cells rather than sick or damaged cells.
"We'd like to know what happens on a cell's surface that ordinarily enables it to protect itself against MAC," Moake said. "We'd also like to know what can go wrong with cells in terms of sickness or trauma that might make them more susceptible to being attacked and killed by overactivation of the complement sequence during clotting."
###
VIDEO is available at:
http://youtu.be/_nWP17-9-eQ
High-resolution IMAGES are available for download at:
http://news.rice.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0329-COMPLEMENT-MoakeTurner-lg.jpg
CAPTION: Rice University researchers Nancy Turner (left) and Joel Moake have found an unexpected link between a protein that triggers the formation of blood clots and other proteins that are essential for the body's immune system.
CAPTION: Von Willebrand factor (VWF) (green) is a long, thin protein that promotes blood clot formation. One end of VWF stays anchored to the blood vessel wall, while the rest unfurls like a sticky streamer, attracting platelets.
CAPTION: A strand of the clot-forming protein von Willebrand factor (VWF) glows brightly (green) under a microscope. The VWF is bound to many fluorescently labeled complement proteins called C3 (red dots), which are a part of the innate immune system.
CREDIT: Nancy Turner/Rice University
A copy of the PLOS ONE paper is available at:
http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0059372
This release can be found online at news.rice.edu.
Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.
Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation's top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,708 undergraduates and 2,374 graduate students, Rice's undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice has been ranked No. 1 for best quality of life multiple times by the Princeton Review and No. 2 for "best value" among private universities by Kiplinger's Personal Finance. To read "What they're saying about Rice," go to http://tinyurl.com/AboutRiceU.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
If you are anything like me, (and you should be in this case) you have many different passwords for many different websites. My husband has three pages of passwords in a notebook for all of his accounts. So, when I was browsing Kickstarter, I was pretty stoked about seeing the myIDkey by Arkami, Inc. My [...]
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