No benefit of evening primrose oil for treating eczema, review suggests

Apr. 29, 2013 ? Research into the complementary therapies evening primrose oil and borage oil shows little, if any, benefit for people with eczema compared with placebo, according to a new systematic review. The authors, who published their review in The Cochrane Library, conclude that further studies on the therapies would be difficult to justify.

Atopic eczema, also known as atopic dermatitis, is an itchy skin condition with no known cure. Usually emerging in childhood, it affects about 10 to 20% of school age children, who may suffer with tight, red, painful skin, sleepless nights and low self-esteem due to appearance, itching and scratching. For around 60% of people, the disorder will improve or clear up by adulthood. Creams, ointments, bath additives, topical steroids and antihistamines are some of the treatments prescribed to ease the condition. However, people often turn to complementary therapies such as evening primrose oil and borage oil in the belief that they will avoid side effects of conventional eczema treatments. Both evening primrose oil and borage oil contain high quantities of gamma linoleic acid, which was once thought to play a role in reducing skin inflammation in eczema.

The researchers analysed the benefits and side effects associated with evening primrose oil and borage oil in 27 studies involving a total of 1,596 people (adults and children) in 27 countries. Participants took evening primrose oil or borage oil, or a placebo, for between 3-24 weeks. Overall, the researchers found that taking evening primrose or borage oil offered no clear improvement of eczema symptoms over placebos. Commonly used placebos included olive oil and paraffin oil. There was also no improvement in quality of life with the complementary therapies, although only two studies considered this measure.

"There is no evidence that taking either evening primrose or borage oil is of benefit to eczema sufferers," said lead researcher Joel Bamford of the University of Minnesota Medical School and Essentia Health System in Duluth, Minnesota, US. "Given the strength of the evidence in our review, we think further studies on the use of these complementary therapies to treat eczema would be hard to justify."

Some participants in the studies experienced mild side effects such as headaches and stomach upsets or diarrhea as they also did while taking placebos. However, none of the selected studies evaluated or mentioned bleeding or anti-clotting effects, which have previously been associated with evening primrose oil. "Consumers need to be warned that oral evening primrose oil is listed as a known cause of increased bleeding for those taking Coumadin or warfarin, a very common medication," said Bamford.

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Journal Reference:

1. Katja Boehm, Max H Pittler, Niall Wilson, Christel van Gool, Rosemary Humphreys, Edzard Ernst. Oral evening primrose oil and borage oil for atopic eczema. Cochrane Review, 2013 DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD004416

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

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/-8uZ96WRgmw/130429210913.htm

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Feast clue to smell of ancient Earth

Apr. 29, 2013 ? Tiny 1,900 million-year-old fossils from rocks around Lake Superior, Canada, give the first ever snapshot of organisms eating each other and suggest what the ancient Earth would have smelled like.

The fossils, preserved in Gunflint chert, capture ancient microbes in the act of feasting on a cyanobacterium-like fossil called Gunflintia -- with the perforated sheaths of Gunflintia being the discarded leftovers of this early meal.

A team, led by Dr David Wacey of the University of Western Australia and Bergen University, Norway, and Professor Martin Brasier of Oxford University, reports in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the fossil evidence for how this type of feeding on organic matter -- called 'heterotrophy' -- was taking place. They also show that the ancient microbes appeared to prefer to snack on Gunflintia as a 'tasty morsel' in preference to another bacterium (Huroniospora).

'What we call 'heterotrophy' is the same thing we do after dinner as the bacteria in our gut break down organic matter,' said Professor Martin Brasier of Oxford University's Department of Earth Sciences, an author of the paper. 'Whilst there is chemical evidence suggesting that this mode of feeding dates back 3,500 million years, in this study for the first time we identify how it was happening and 'who was eating who'. In fact we've all experienced modern bacteria feeding in this way as that's where that 'rotten egg' whiff of hydrogen sulfide comes from in a blocked drain. So, rather surprisingly, we can say that life on earth 1,900 million years ago would have smelled a lot like rotten eggs.'

The team analysed the microscopic fossils, ranging from about 3-15 microns in diameter, using a battery of new techniques and found that one species -- a tubular form thought to be the outer sheath of Gunflintia -- was more perforated after death than other kinds, consistent with them having been eaten by bacteria.

In some places many of the tiny fossils had been partially or entirely replaced with iron sulfide ('fool's gold') a waste product of heterotrophic sulfate-reducing bacteria that is also a highly visible marker. The team also found that these Gunflintia fossils carried clusters of even smaller (c.1 micron) spherical and rod-shaped bacteria that were seemingly in the process of consuming their hosts.

Dr Wacey said that: 'recent geochemical analyses have shown that the sulfur-based activities of bacteria can likely be traced back to 3,500 million years or so -- a finding reported by our group in Nature Geoscience in 2011. Whilst the Gunflint fossils are only about half as old, they confirm that such bacteria were indeed flourishing by 1,900 million years ago. And that they were also highly particular about what they chose to eat.'

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Journal Reference:

1. David Wacey, Nicola McLoughlin, Matt R. Kilburn, Martin Saunders, John B. Cliff, Charlie Kong, Mark E. Barley, and Martin D. Brasier. Nanoscale analysis of pyritized microfossils reveals differential heterotrophic consumption in the ?1.9-Ga Gunflint chert. PNAS, April 29, 2013 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1221965110

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

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/hiDQhD4eNRI/130429154107.htm

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Monday in politics: Obama expected to nominate Charlotte mayor to run Transportation, and more

BERLIN, April 29 (Reuters) - Barcelona will try every trick in the book to overturn a 4-0 first-leg deficit against Bayern Munich in their Champions League semi-final return leg on Wednesday, honorary Bayern president Franz Beckenbauer warned on Monday. Bayern crushed the Spaniards last week in a surprisingly one-sided encounter but Beckenbauer, former player, coach and president of Germany's most successful club, warned that Barcelona were not ready to surrender. "Barca will try everything to throw Bayern off balance," he told Bild newspaper. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/monday-politics-obama-expected-nominate-charlotte-mayor-run-095107327.html

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Obama Mixes Serious Tone with Humor at WH Correspondents' Dinner (ABC News)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/302082506?client_source=feed&format=rss

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CSN: Carlos Ruiz returns from suspension

NEW YORK ? Catcher Carlos Ruiz was back in the Phillies? lineup Sunday after serving a 25-game suspension for testing positive for a banned stimulant late last season.

To make room for Ruiz on the roster, the Phillies designated catcher Humberto Quintero for assignment. Team officials debated whether to keep Quintero or Erik Kratz as the backup to Ruiz. Ultimately they decided on Kratz, who filled in while Ruiz was injured late last season and got the bulk of the reps while Ruiz was out this month.

The Phils have 10 days to dispose of Quintero?s contract. He could be released, traded or outrighted to Triple A if he clears waivers. Quintero had previously agreed to go to the minors for 45 days. Phillies officials are hopeful that he clears waivers and can remain in the system as depth.

?We?ll see how it plays out,? assistant GM Scott Proefrock said. ?But there?s a chance he could still be with us and, selfishly, we hope he is.?

Manager Charlie Manuel wasted no time getting Ruiz in the lineup. He was holding down the No. 5 spot in the batting order between Michael Young and Domonic Brown. Ryan Howard got a day off with Mets lefty Jonathon Niese on the mound. The Phils countered with lefty Cole Hamels.

Ruiz, 34, had a career year in 2012. He hit .325 (50 points above his career average) with 16 homers and 68 RBIs in 372 at-bats. He blossomed into a middle-of-the-order hitter and made his first all-star team.

Kratz and Quintero combined to hit just .209 with four doubles, two homers and nine RBIs while Ruiz was out. Their combined on-base percentage was just .242 and they had 21 strikeouts and four walks.

Needless to say, the Phils will welcome Ruiz? bat ? even if there?s a leveling off after last year?s across-the-board career-highs.

Ruiz was asked whether he believed he could be the same hitter he was last season.

?I feel great,? Ruiz said. ?For me, that?s very important. I?m healthy and we?ll see what happens.?

As far back as early spring training, Ruiz has not answered specific questions about his use of Adderall last season. Adderall is used to treat attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder. Ruiz was using it without a therapeutic use exemption, hence the suspension.

Ruiz declined to say Sunday if he?d taken the necessary steps that would allow him to continue to take the drug.

?I don?t want to say anything about that,? he said. ?It?s all in the past.

?It?s a nice feeling that everything is over. I?m real happy to come back.?

Source: http://www.csnphilly.com/baseball-philadelphia-phillies/ruiz-back-lineup-phillies-hope-keep-quintero

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Disrupt NY Hackathon Gets Hacked: Man Takes Stage And Uses His 60 Seconds To Disrupt Capitalism

When you’re a hacker waiting to take the Disrupt Hackathon stage, you’re probably just making sure that your project actually works. One gentleman decided to scrap his project completely and use his 60 seconds to discuss his political views, attacking large corporations for using your data to make money. The crowd was a bit surprised as he read a prepared statement from his iPad, but listened to what he had to say nonetheless. “Do we really need a new way to share our shit?” he began his talk with. And it got people’s attention: He urged the attendees to stand up against sharing all of their data, opting to sell their content for a price they set. After the Hackathon resumed its regular tech show-and-tell programming, I met Todd Bonnewell?backstage to discuss what had just transpired and find out about the actual hack he scrapped to share his message. There you have it. Even a hackathon can get hacked.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/IZ6BWhkMWPo/

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Belief in God May Boost Treatment of Mental Illness

Patients who believe in God may experience better short-term treatment outcomes for psychiatric illness, according to a new study.

Individuals who described themselves as having strong faith reported having a better overall response to treatment, said David Rosmarin, a clinician and instructor in the department of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

"We found that patients who had higher levels of belief in God had better treatment outcomes ? better well-being, less depression and less anxiety," Rosmarin told LiveScience. [8 Ways Religion Impacts Your Life]

The researchers monitored 159 patients in the Behavioral Health Partial Hospital program at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass. The patients were receiving treatment for various psychiatric illnesses, including depression and anxiety, and their average length of stay in the program was two weeks, Rosmarin said.

The study results, however, can't necessarily prove any cause or effect; the researchers aren?t sure whether spirituality caused the treatment boost, some other factor played a role or if spiritual people, perhaps, are somehow healthier than others.

Evaluating spiritual belief

Study participants were asked to rate their belief in God and their expectations for the effectiveness of treatment on a five-point scale. At the beginning and end of the program, the researchers evaluated each patients' well-being?defined by their levels of depression, anxiety and self-harm.

Patients who reported more than a "slight" belief in a higher power were twice as likely to respond to treatment, Rosmarin said.

In addition to experiencing better treatment outcomes, patients who believed in God were also more likely to expect therapeutic benefits from their time in the program.

"Belief in God can facilitate belief in treatment," Rosmarin said. "People who had more faith also had more faith in treatment. They thought it was credible and were optimistic about treatment. They believed it was going to help them."

The impact of spirituality

When patients feel a sense of power outside their own lives ? whether through religious beliefs or through connections with friends, family or even nature ? it can boost their treatment outcomes, said Christina Puchalski, founder and executive director of the George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health in Washington, D.C. Puchalski was not involved in the new study, but has done her own research on clinical strategies to address patients' spiritual concerns.

"If people are able to see something outside of themselves, they tend to do better in general, so that's not surprising," Puchalski said. "From my own clinical practice, I certainly see that if people are able to have some sense of transcendence, they often have better responses."

Part of what makes this a fascinating area of study is that spirituality can take so many different forms, which means it can have diverse implications for patient care, Puchalski explained.

"Spirituality can be broadly defined," she said. "It's not just religion, or a belief in a higher power. The ability to connect to something outside of oneself ? things like hope and being hopeful, or having a sense of coherence ? it's all part of spirituality."?

Clinical applications

Although the new study did not specifically look at links between specific spiritual belief, types of psychiatric illnesses and reported treatment outcomes for that particular illness, Rosmarin said the findings indicate that faith plays an important role in therapy.

However, a lot more research is needed, he added.

"It's embarrassing that there's such a disparity between what we know about patient spirituality, and how to handle it," Rosmarin said. "It's an area that's relevant to us as a people, but we have no clue what to do about it."

With a clearer understanding of the impact of spirituality on treatment, doctors can develop better treatments that meet their patients' needs.

"When I speak to audiences, the clinicians are at the edge of their seats," Rosmarin said. "Studies like this equip us health care professionals with practical guidance on how to address patient spirituality and treatment. Our whole program of research is clinically focused. We want to know how this is going to make a difference in patients' lives."

The results of the study were published Thursday (April 25) in the Journal of Affective Disorders.

Follow Denise Chow on Twitter @denisechow. Follow LiveScience @livescience, Facebook?& Google+. Original article on?LiveScience.com.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/belief-god-may-boost-treatment-mental-illness-113218743.html

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Global Approval for Domestic Abuse Down

Around the world, domestic violence has become much less socially acceptable, new research suggests.

Views on domestic violence changed dramatically since 2003 in 26 middle- and low-income countries across the world, according to a study detailed in the April issue of the journal American Sociological Review. Half of the countries surveyed were in sub-Saharan Africa.

In Nigeria, for instance, 65 percent of men and 52 percent of women rejected domestic violence in 2008, compared with just 48 percent and 33 percent five years earlier.

Still, the data, which were collected by the United States Agency for International Development ?(USAID) from hundreds of thousands of people, shows that violence against women is still widely accepted. And in two countries ? Indonesia and Madagascar ? tolerance for domestic violence actually increased.

The survey asked people how justified men were in beating wives for things such as going out without letting her husband know, neglecting the children, arguing with her husband, refusing sex or burning food.

Unsurprisingly, those who live in urban areas and had more education were likelier to reject wife beating. Access to media such as television or newspapers also increased disapproval for domestic violence.

Interestingly, in 11 of 15 countries, men were more likely to reject domestic violence than women.

The attitude adjustments were found across societies.

"Often it's the case that social change starts with younger people," said study co-author Rachael Pierotti, a graduate student at the University of Michigan, in a statement. "But in this case, people of all ages became more rejecting of domestic violence."

Follow Tia Ghose on Twitter @tiaghose.?Follow?LiveScience @livescience, Facebook?& Google+. Original article on?LiveScience.com.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/global-approval-domestic-abuse-down-124136042.html

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"Trombone Shorty" carries on New Orleans jazz tradition

By Kathy Finn

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Musician Troy Andrews, better known as "Trombone Shorty," witnessed his first New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival at age 12 - not from the viewing area but on stage.

"I was playing with my brother's brass band," said Andrews, now 27.

At this year's New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Andrews will be given a high honor. He will perform for the first time as the closing act of the final day on the biggest stage. That time slot previously had long been occupied by one of New Orleans' most famous bands, the Neville Brothers.

The festival, which began Friday and ends May 5, has music lovers filling the walkways linking 12 stages arranged across 150 acres of the festival grounds, not far from downtown.

During the next two weekends, some 500 bands will perform at the festival, including a sprinkling of big names from Billy Joel, Dave Matthews and Adam Lambert to Jill Scott, George Benson and Willie Nelson.

The stars will help draw some 400,000 people through the gates over the seven days of the festival, but many fans are interested in less famous local performers such as Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue, Rebirth Brass Band, Irvin Mayfield, Anders Osborne and Tab Benoit, among the 400-plus bands in the lineup that hail from New Orleans and the surrounding area.

"I can't believe the mix of music here," said Keith Oliver, who came to the festival from Richmond, Virginia.

"I don't know where else you could hear great blues, jazz, gospel and all the rest all in one place," Oliver said as he and his wife merged into the sea of flowered shirts and sun hats heading for the next stage.

Festival producer and director Quint Davis said the festival showcases New Orleans' "musical DNA."

"People in New Orleans are wired different for music," he said. "It's not just entertainment here, it's sustenance. It's like po-boys and fried oysters - we can't live without it."

Davis, in his 44th year of producing the festival, said he continues to be impressed by the depth of the local talent pool. That enables him to book one out-of-town headliner per day on each stage and fill all the remaining slots with Louisiana bands in genres including jazz, blues, gospel, R&B, hip-hop, Cajun, zydeco, Latin and Caribbean.

PASSING IT ON

Davis said what distinguishes the New Orleans sound has to do with history.

"No matter what genre they're playing, a lot of this music has been passed through many generations," he said.

Trombone Shorty, one of the hottest musical artists in New Orleans, is an example of that history. His brother gave Andrews his nickname years ago, he said.

Andrews wields a trumpet as easily as the trombone and is also skilled at keyboards, drums and songwriting. His music mingles jazz, funk, hip-hop and soul in high-energy compositions that rev up audiences on frequent tours that take him across the country and abroad.

Andrews has played at the festival nearly every year since his first appearance, and this year, Davis contacted him about performing in the final festival slot.

"Quint Davis sent me a text saying it could be time for the passing of the torch and he asked if I'm ready," Andrews said, recalling how the scheduling came about.

Landing the time slot "is a dream come true" for a young man who grew up among the city's most famous musicians.

Andrews' grandfather, R&B singer-songwriter Jessie Hill, made musical waves in the 1960s working with Ike and Tina Turner, Sonny and Cher and New Orleans artist Dr. John.

Andrews' uncle played in Fats Domino's band "way before my time," he said, "and just about every brass band in the city had a member of my family in it."

As a kid growing up in the Treme neighborhood, Andrews hung out with the Neville family and often "sat in" when the Neville Brothers played around town. "I was put on so many different musical stages growing up that I didn't think about what kind of music we played," he said. "I just thought music was music."

Andrews said he was keenly aware that local musicians have a responsibility to pass musical styles from one generation to another.

"When I was younger, we all wanted to play like Rebirth (Brass Band), but people in the neighborhood said before you can play like that, you've got to learn some traditional music so you can understand how Rebirth got where they are," he said.

Now, he's helping his younger cousins, who are anxious to follow in his musical footsteps.

"It's what we've been taught to do," Andrews said. "We have to let the younger generations take our music - and approach it the way they want - but just teach them where it all comes from."

(Editing By Brendan O'Brien, Greg McCune and Bill Trott)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/trombone-shorty-carries-orleans-jazz-tradition-170337634.html

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Police: Boston suspects planned to attack New York

NEW YORK (AP) ? The Boston Marathon bombers were headed for New York's Times Square to blow up the rest of their explosives, authorities said Thursday, in what they portrayed as a chilling, spur-of-the-moment scheme that fell apart when the brothers realized the car they had hijacked was low on gas.

"New York City was next on their list of targets," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told interrogators from his hospital bed that he and his older brother decided on the spot last Thursday night to drive to New York and launch an attack. In their stolen SUV they had five pipe bombs and a pressure-cooker explosive like the ones that blew up at the marathon, Kelly said.

But when the Tsarnaev brothers stopped at a gas station on the outskirts of Boston, the carjacking victim they were holding hostage escaped and called police, Kelly said. Later that night, police intercepted the brothers in a blazing gunbattle that left 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev dead.

"We don't know if we would have been able to stop the terrorists had they arrived here from Boston," the mayor said. "We're just thankful that we didn't have to find out that answer."

The news caused New Yorkers to shudder with the thought that the city may have narrowly escaped another terrorist attack, though whether the brothers could have made it to the city is an open question. They were two of the most-wanted men in the world, their faces splashed all over the Internet and TV in surveillance-camera images released by the FBI hours earlier.

Dzhokhar, 19, is charged with carrying out the Boston Marathon bombing April 15 that killed three people and wounded more than 260, and he could get the death penalty. Christina DiIorio-Sterling, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz in Boston, would not comment on whether authorities plan to add charges based on the alleged plot to attack New York.

Investigators and lawmakers briefed by the FBI have said the Tsarnaev brothers ? ethnic Chechens from Russia who had lived in the U.S. for about a decade ? were motivated by anger over the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Based on the younger man's interrogation and other evidence, authorities have said it appears so far that the brothers were radicalized via Islamic jihadi material on the Internet instead of any direct contact with terrorist organizations, but they warned that it is still not certain.

Dzhokhar was interrogated in his hospital room Sunday and Monday over a period of 16 hours without being read his rights to remain silent and have an attorney present. He immediately stopped talking after a magistrate judge and a representative from the U.S. Attorney's office entered the room and gave him his Miranda warning, according to a U.S. law enforcement official and others briefed on the interrogation.

Kelly and the mayor said they were briefed on the New York plot on Wednesday night by the task force investigating the Boston bombing.

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said in a CNN interview that the city should have been told earlier.

"Even though this may or may not have been spontaneous, for all we know there could be other conspirators out there, and the city should have been alerted so it could go into its defensive mode," he said.

Asked about the delay, Bloomberg said: "There's no reason to think the FBI hides anything. The FBI does what they think is appropriate at the time, and you'll have to ask them what they found and what the actual details of the interrogation were. We were not there."

Kelly, citing the interrogations, said that four days after the Boston bombing, the Tsarnaev brothers "planned to travel to Manhattan to detonate their remaining explosives in Times Square."

"They discussed this while driving around in a Mercedes SUV that they hijacked after they shot and killed the officer at MIT," the police commissioner said. "That plan, however, fell apart when they realized that the vehicle they hijacked was low on gas and ordered the driver to stop at a nearby gas station."

A day earlier, Kelly said that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had talked about coming to New York "to party" after the attack and that there wasn't evidence of a plot against the city. But Kelly said a later interview with the suspect turned up the information.

"He was a lot more lucid and gave more detail in the second interrogation," Kelly said.

Kelly said there was no evidence New York was still a target. But in a show of force, police cruisers with blinking red lights were lined up in the middle of Times Square on Thursday afternoon, and uniformed officers stood shoulder to shoulder.

"Why are they standing like that? This is supposed to make me feel safer?" asked Elisabeth Bennecib, a tourist and legal consultant from Toulouse, France. "It makes me feel more anxious, like something bad is about to happen."

Above the square, an electronic news ticker announced that the Boston Marathon suspects' next target might have been Times Square.

Outside Penn Station, Wayne Harris, a schoolteacher from Queens, said: "We don't know when a terrorist attack will happen next in New York, but it will happen. It didn't happen this time, by the grace of God. God protected us this time."

In 2010, Times Square was targeted with a car bomb that never went off. Pakistani immigrant Faisal Shahzad had planted a bomb in an SUV, but street vendors noticed smoke and it was disabled. Shahzad was arrested as he tried to leave the country and was sentenced to life in prison.

With tens of millions of dollars in federal homeland security funding at stake, Bloomberg and Kelly have repeatedly sought to remind the public that New York remains at the top of terrorists' wish list. They have said the city has been targeted in more than a dozen plots since 9/11.

Kelly said Dzhokhar was photographed in Times Square with friends in April 2012 and was in the city again in November 2012, but "we don't know if those visits were related in any way to what he described as the brothers' spontaneous decision to hit Times Square."

He said the police intelligence division is trying to establish Dzhokhar's movements in the city and determine who might have been with him.

Meanwhile, the Tsarnaev brothers' father said he is leaving Russia for the U.S. in the next day or two, but their mother said she was still thinking it over.

Anzor Tsarnaev has expressed a desire to go to the U.S. to find out what happened with his sons, defend the hospitalized son and, if possible, bring the older son's body back to Russia for burial.

Their mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, who was charged with shoplifting in the U.S. last summer, said she has been assured by lawyers that she would not be arrested, but was still deciding whether to go.

___

Associated Press writers Verena Dobnik and Tom Hays in New York contributed to this story.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/police-boston-suspects-planned-attack-york-182015679.html

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Why Your Cellphone is Like Your Toothbrush - e.politics

April 25th, 2013

Great observation from Shannon Chatlos at CampaignTech: mobile devices are like your toothbrush, in that they?re deeply personal. She was talking in the context of political targeting, since reaching someone on a cellphone is far more immediate and even intimate than hitting them via a desktop or laptop. Shannon?s follow-up quote elaborated the point: ?You don?t share your toothbrush, and you don?t share your mobile phone.?

We?ve talked about the personal nature of mobile communications on Epolitics.com before, but mainly in the context of sending text messages. Shannon expands that to other forms of communications, including advertising, and you might make a similar argument for Twitter messages consumed on a cellphone (though in that case, Twitter?s particularities as a medium might override the broader characteristics of mobile comms in general). The more-personal relationship we have with our mobile critters goes a long way toward explaining why mobile communications can have such immediacy?and why a communicator who intrudes on that circle in a way that?s perceived to be inappropriate can face blowback.

? cpd

Source: http://www.epolitics.com/2013/04/25/why-your-cellphone-is-like-your-toothbrush/

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Stock Downgrades: McGraw-Hill Has Mountain To Climb - Minyanville

In a session that should have been?all about the Benjamins, Wall Street?s recently reliable money making machine suddenly ground to a halt. On an otherwise desultory day for the Dow (^DJI), Microsoft (MSFT) did gain 3.79%, as a?bunch of German jocks proved far more proficient with PowerPoint?that a?couple of Harvard economists just did with Excel.
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Mr. Softie, of course, instituted dividends years ago; a penny for its thoughts as?an utterly unloved?Apple Inc. (AAPL) (Steve Jobs of Bill Gates: ?He just shamelessly ripped off other people?s ideas?) apes it by becoming a dividend play. And a day after Twitter?s hacked bluebird temporary grounded stocks,?Red Robin?(RRGB) rose 2.92% on an analyst upgrade?and Boeing (BA) hit a half-decade high. Pity?none of us can fly at the moment.
?
The single busiest day of earnings season has arrived with Amazon (AMZN), AstraZeneca (AZN), Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY), Coca-Cola (KO), ConocoPhillips?(COP),?Exxon Mobil?(XOM),?Gazprom?(PINK: OGZPY),?JetBlue Airways (JBLU), Starbucks (SBUX), and United Parcel Service?(UPS) all due to report results.
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Air Products?(APD): Shares are now Neutral from Overweight at Atlantic Equities.
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Buckeye Technologies?(BKI): RBC Capital reduces its recommendation to Sector Perform from Outperform.
?
Cullen/Frost Bankers?(CFR): FBC Capital cuts the company to Underperform from Perform, trimming its target price by $2 to $56 in the process. First quarter results were weaker than expected amid NIM (Net Interest Margin) pressure.
?
First Solar?(FSLR): Yesterday?s top S&P 500?(^GSPC) stock is today lowered to Underperform from Market Perform at Raymond James.
?
Hatteras Financial?(HTS): The residential Real Estate Investment Trust gets moved to Market Perform from Outperform by Keefe Bruyette.
?
Interface?(TILE): Raymond James takes TILE to Market Perform from Outperform.
?
Intuit?(INTU): The TurboTax owner is downgraded by both Citigroup (Neutral from Buy) and JPMorgan (Neutral from Overweight.)
?
McGraw-Hill?(NYSE:MHP): Jefferies reduces the Standard & Poor?s ratings agency owner to Hold from Buy.
?
Mellanox Technologies?(MLNX): Shares are moved to Neutral from Buy at Mizuho, which notes a troubling lack of catalysts and uncertain visibility regarding large deals.
?
Noranda Aluminum?(NOR): NOR is now Neutral from Buy at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch.
?
SEI Investments?(SEIC): Keefe Bruyette cuts the asset management company to Market Perform from Outperform.
?
TC Pipelines?(TCP): TCP gets taken to Neutral from Buy at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch.
?
T. Rowe Price Group?(TROW): Shares are now Market Perform from Outperform with Wells Fargo.
?
Valley National?(VLY): Keefe Bruyette reduces the regional bank to Underperform from Market Perform.
?
VMware?(VMW): The tech stock is taken to Underperform from Market Perform by Sanford Bernstein, one of several downgrades this morning.
?
Western Digital?(WDC): Brokerage boutique Craig-Hallum downgrades WDC to Hold from Buy.

(See also: New Stock Coverage: Sink Your Teeth Into Diamondback Energy and Stock Upgrades: Yesterday?s Mutiny Provides Bounty for P&G Shareholders.)

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Source: http://www.minyanville.com/trading-and-investing/stocks/articles/Stock-Downgrades253A-McGraw-Hill-Has-Mountain/4/25/2013/id/49472

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Earth's center is 1,000 degrees hotter than previously thought, synchrotron X-ray experiment shows

Apr. 25, 2013 ? Scientists have determined the temperature near the Earth's centre to be 6000 degrees Celsius, 1000 degrees hotter than in a previous experiment run 20 years ago. These measurements confirm geophysical models that the temperature difference between the solid core and the mantle above, must be at least 1500 degrees to explain why the Earth has a magnetic field. The scientists were even able to establish why the earlier experiment had produced a lower temperature figure.

The results are published on 26 April 2013 in Science.

The research team was led by Agn?s Dewaele from the French national technological research organization CEA, alongside members of the French National Center for Scientific Research CNRS and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility ESRF in Grenoble (France).

The Earth's core consists mainly of a sphere of liquid iron at temperatures above 4000 degrees and pressures of more than 1.3 million atmospheres. Under these conditions, iron is as liquid as the water in the oceans. It is only at the very centre of the Earth, where pressure and temperature rise even higher, that the liquid iron solidifies. Analysis of earthquake-triggered seismic waves passing through the Earth, tells us the thickness of the solid and liquid cores, and even how the pressure in the Earth increases with depth. However these waves do not provide information on temperature, which has an important influence on the movement of material within the liquid core and the solid mantle above. Indeed the temperature difference between the mantle and the core is the main driver of large-scale thermal movements, which together with the Earth's rotation, act like a dynamo generating the Earth's magnetic field. The temperature profile through the Earth's interior also underpins geophysical models that explain the creation and intense activity of hot-spot volcanoes like the Hawaiian Islands or La R?union.

To generate an accurate picture of the temperature profile within the Earth's centre, scientists can look at the melting point of iron at different pressures in the laboratory, using a diamond anvil cell to compress speck-sized samples to pressures of several million atmospheres, and powerful laser beams to heat them to 4000 or even 5000 degrees Celsius."In practice, many experimental challenges have to be met," explains Agn?s Dewaele from CEA, "as the iron sample has to be insulated thermally and also must not be allowed to chemically react with its environment. Even if a sample reaches the extreme temperatures and pressures at the centre of the Earth, it will only do so for a matter of seconds. In this short timeframe it is extremely difficult to determine whether it has started to melt or is still solid."

This is where X-rays come into play. "We have developed a new technique where an intense beam of X-rays from the synchrotron can probe a sample and deduce whether it is solid, liquid or partially molten within as little as a second, using a process known diffraction," says Mohamed Mezouar from the ESRF, "and this is short enough to keep temperature and pressure constant, and at the same time avoid any chemical reactions."

The scientists determined experimentally the melting point of iron up to 4800 degrees Celsius and 2.2 million atmospheres pressure, and then used an extrapolation method to determine that at 3.3 million atmospheres, the pressure at the border between liquid and solid core, the temperature would be 6000 +/- 500 degrees. This extrapolated value could slightly change if iron undergoes an unknown phase transition between the measured and the extrapolated values.

When the scientists scanned across the area of pressures and temperatures, they observed why Reinhard Boehler, then at the MPI for Chemistry in Mainz (Germany), had in 1993 published values about 1000 degrees lower. Starting at 2400 degrees, recrystallization effects appear on the surface of the iron samples, leading to dynamic changes of the solid iron's crystalline structure. The experiment twenty years ago used an optical technique to determine whether the samples were solid or molten, and it is highly probable that the observation of recrystallization at the surface was interpreted as melting.

"We are of course very satisfied that our experiment validated today's best theories on heat transfer from the Earth's core and the generation of the Earth's magnetic field. I am hopeful that in the not-so-distant future, we can reproduce in our laboratories, and investigate with synchrotron X-rays, every state of matter inside the Earth," concludes Agn?s Dewaele.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by European Synchrotron Radiation Facility.

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Journal References:

1. S. Anzellini, A. Dewaele, M. Mezouar, P. Loubeyre, G. Morard. Melting of Iron at Earth's Inner Core Boundary Based on Fast X-ray Diffraction. Science, 2013; 340 (6131): 464 DOI: 10.1126/science.1233514
2. R. Boehler. Temperatures in the Earth's core from melting-point measurements of iron at high static pressures. Nature, 1993; 363 (6429): 534 DOI: 10.1038/363534a0

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

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/IAZlNezwVJ4/130425142355.htm

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Boston suspects' father says he's returning to US

Russian President Vladimir Putin listens to a question during an annual call-in show on Russian television "Conversation With Vladimir Putin" in Moscow on Thursday, April 25, 2013. (AP Photo/RIA Novosti, Alexei Nikolsky, Presidential Press Service)

Russian President Vladimir Putin listens to a question during an annual call-in show on Russian television "Conversation With Vladimir Putin" in Moscow on Thursday, April 25, 2013. (AP Photo/RIA Novosti, Alexei Nikolsky, Presidential Press Service)

MAKHACHKALA, Russia (AP) ? The father of the two Boston bombing suspects says he is leaving Russia soon for the United States.

Anzor Tsarnaev told journalists in the southern Russian province of Dagestan on Thursday that he is leaving "today or tomorrow."

The suspects' mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, said she was still thinking it over. She was charged with shoplifting in the U.S. last summer and is concerned that she could be arrested.

Tsarnaeva said she had been assured by lawyers, however, that she would not be.

The Tsarnaev family emigrated to the U.S. a decade ago, but both parents returned to Russia last year.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

The Boston bombings should spur stronger security cooperation between Moscow and Washington, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday, adding that they also show that the West was wrong in supporting militants in Chechnya.

Putin said that "this tragedy should push us closer in fending off common threats, including terrorism, which is one of the biggest and most dangerous of them."

The two brothers accused of the Boston bombings are ethnic Chechens who had lived in the U.S. for more than a decade.

Putin warned against trying to find the roots for the Boston tragedy in the suffering endured by the Chechen people, particularly in mass deportations of Chechens to Siberia and Central Asia on Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's orders. "The cause isn't in their ethnicity or religion, it's in their extremist sentiments," he said.

Speaking in an annual call-in show on state television, Putin criticized the West for refusing to declare Chechen militants terrorists and for offering them political and financial assistance in the past.

"I always felt indignation when our Western partners and Western media were referring to terrorists who conducted brutal and bloody crimes on the territory of Russia as rebels," Putin said.

The U.S. has urged the Kremlin to seek a political settlement in Chechnya and criticized rights abuses by Russian troops during the two separatist wars since 1994, which spawned an Islamic insurgency that has engulfed the entire region.

It also provided humanitarian aid to the region during the high points of fighting there in the 1990s and the early 2000s.

Russian officials have repeatedly claimed that rebels in Chechnya have close links with al-Qaida. They say dozens of fighters from Arab countries trickled into the region during the fighting there, while some Chechen militants have gone to fight in Afghanistan.

Putin said the West should have cooperated more actively with Russia in combatting terror.

"We always have said that we shouldn't limit ourselves to declarations about terrorism being a common threat and engage in closer cooperation," he said. "Now these two criminals have proven the correctness of our thesis."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-04-25-EU-Russia-Boston-Suspects/id-dc9cc3e0294a4428bf571aa9931d858f

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Column: Canadian dollar may slip on falling oil

-- Neal Kimberley is an FX market analyst for Reuters. The opinions expressed are his own --

By Neal Kimberley

LONDON (Reuters)- The Canadian dollar may weaken further against its U.S. counterpart in coming months as Canada's economic fundamentals and prices of its abundant natural resources become less supportive of the currency.

The arguments for Canadian dollar strength no longer resonate so strongly.

Global demand for Canada's natural resources has been a key driver of demand for the Canadian dollar, but with even China's appetite for imported commodities slowing, that pillar of support may be being eroded.

Indeed, the Canadian dollar, which was trading at below parity with the U.S. dollar in mid-January, lost 1.2 percent last week in reaction to weak global commodity prices.

This is particularly evident in the slide in the oil price.

In the first quarter of 2013, Western Canadian Select (WCS) crude oil sold for an average $67.19 a barrel, 12 percent less than the year before.

The benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) sold at an average of $94.35 a barrel.

If that $27 a barrel discount continues, given that WTI traded near $90 a barrel on Wednesday, that implies an oil price for WCS well below the C$75.29 ($73.24) being budgeted for by Saskatchewan, a province of western Canada heavily dependent on resource revenues.

Deeply discounted prices for Canadian heavy crude oil drove Saskatchewan's provincial neighbor Alberta to a sixth successive deficit, Alberta's finance minister said on March 7.

None of this can really be seen as supportive for the Canadian dollar.

More broadly, the Canadian economy is already struggling to cope with weak foreign markets and a strong domestic dollar.

Canada's central bank chopped its 2013 growth forecast to 1.5 percent from 2 percent on April 17.

Yet on April 18, Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney was still warning interest rates could rise sooner if the growth in Canadian household debt, which is related to the housing market, was not tempered.

Low interest rates have fuelled both a housing-market boom in Canada and a surge in household debt.

However data on Friday showed Canadian inflation slowing in March to 1 percent, half the Bank of Canada's 2 percent target.

Perhaps in response to the combination of the benign price data and the fact of the Bank of Canada's pared growth forecasts Carney has changed his tune somewhat, signaling on Tuesday he feels little pressure to raise interest rates any time soon.

The prospect of any tightening of Canadian monetary policy, despite those still near record-high household debt levels, can only have receded.

No doubt Carney would argue that there has been no change in his position, given his view that Canada is seeing "a continuation of what is becoming a positive evolution of household debt and aspects of the housing market," but it is hard not to conclude his tone has softened.

There may be room for the Canadian dollar, trading on Wednesday around $1.0260, to weaken back towards $1.04 per greenback in the next few months, a level not seen since June 2012, if traders conclude the outlook for Canada is not quite as rosy as they had thought.

(Editing by Nigel Stephenson)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/column-canadian-dollar-may-slip-falling-oil-093945418--business.html

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Boston's Dragnet and the Art of the Manhunt

America was transfixed by the hunt for Dzhokar Tsarnaev, one of two accused Boston Marathon bombers who killed three people and wounded more than 170. The images of heavily armed personnel sweeping the town of Watertown, Massachusetts, captured one of the largest, most complex operations of its kind in U.S. history.

Jack Schonely knows a lot about manhunts. After 30-plus years as a police officer, he now teaches perimeter containment tactics to other law enforcement agencies and wrote the book Apprehending Fleeing Suspects: Suspect Tactics and Perimeter Control, so we asked him how the Boston police executed their manhunt.

"There's a lot about that search and containment that was the same for all sorts of different bad guys, guys who rob banks and steal cars," he says. "But these guys are terrorists. They are throwing IEDs (improvised explosive devices) at officers. I've never heard of that. . . . This was not the normal police foot chase and search."

When Dzhokar was on the loose, the police set in motion a containment operation that begins as soon as police lose sight of a suspect. To police, containment means having a line of sight on all of a suspect's exits. Two observant cops can cover an entire block if positioned on diagonal corners. Vehicle checkpoints, K-9 searches, and?in a case as dramatic as Boston's?a shutdown of public transit can further seal off an area.

The size and urgency of the containment depends on the crime and the level of danger the target represents. Dzhokar's brother, Tamerlan, died while charging police, armed with explosives, so the reaction was sweeping. "Desperation goes hand in hand with the size of the perimeter," Schonely says. "And in that way, these two brothers were off the chart."

Officers on the scene typically determine the size of a perimeter. "It's that lone police officer who was on that street, who was just involved in a gun battle," Schonely says. "The decisions are made by street police officers, deputies, agents, and whoever happens to be there, on what to do and how to do it." The immediate goal of a containment operation is to make the suspect stop moving. "If you don't find a way to contain them, most of these guys will keep moving; they'll get on a bus or a train, they'll call a friend," Schonely says. "If he keeps moving, his chances of getting away increase."

The situation in Boston was extreme. Police had to assume the remaining suspect was armed with guns and explosives. Even more troubling, he had fled into a residential area. The police could call on a huge number of officers to seal off the neighborhood, and so they did. The size of the containment area measured about 20 blocks. Thosuands of officers swept the area. Yet this is more an art than a science?even with all these resources, Dzhokar was located one block outside the designated containment area. Luckily for police, he had stopped running and sought refuge in a boat.

Once the containment perimeter is established, the search begins. In Boston, officers in tactical gear went door to door in search of Dzhokar. In a manhunt, the police can access lawns and peer in windows, but the legal protection of probable cause still exists. If there is no sign of trouble?a blood smear, sign of forced entry, cries for help?the police cannot enter a home no matter who's on the loose. "We still have to follow the law," Schonely says. "Without probable cause, the police can only ask residents to come out for permission to enter."

"The officers were asking, 'How should we deal with the residents?' and we made it clear: 'As courteous and as professional as possible, yet getting the job done,'" Boston Police Department Superintendent William Evans says.

Searching a populated area is certainly a challenge, but it can also work to the police force's advantage. "It can be a plus or a minus," Schonely says. "All those people are put in danger, but they all have eyes and ears." Indeed, Dzhokar was snared by the report of a citizen who saw signs of someone on his property?the covering over his boat was out of place.

One benefit of containment is that it provides time to marshal extra forces for the search. A systematic plan is ideal, with patrol officers backed by police dogs and helicopters. In Boston, a Massachusetts state police helicopter used a Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) sensor to spot heat signatures.

Schonely, who works in police helicopters over Los Angeles, says the best use of FLIR is in advance of the foot patrols, where it can give the officers below information on the area they are entering. But a heat signature is rarely clear enough to identify as a human being, he says, making the clear image of Dzhokar in the boat a lucky break. Most of the time FLIR shows only a glimmer of heat that can be a reflection, an animal, or even household equipment. "Most officers on the ground think air units can do more than they can. That can make them overconfident," Schonely says.

When the suspect is found, police are supposed to pause, assess the situation, and formulate the endgame. With the manhunt over, it's time for the takedown.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/news/bostons-dragnet-and-the-art-of-the-manhunt-15393081?src=rss

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Chemical weapons inspectors ready to enter Syria

An international team of chemists and epidemiologists is in Cyprus this week, poised to fly to Syria at the request of the country's president, Bashar Al-Assad, in the first investigation of an alleged use of chemical weapons since the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) came into force in 1997.

Last week a high-level CWC conference in the Dutch capital, The Hague, noted its "deep concern" at reports of chemical weapons use in Syria. Delegates can do little else until the team in Cyprus begins its investigations ? despite Assad's invitation, he has so far denied the team entry to Syria

A two-year-long uprising against Assad has led to 70,000 deaths and created 1.4 million refugees, but much foreign concern has centred on Assad's stockpiles of chemical weapons, which could wreak havoc in terrorists' hands.

Assad claims that rebels killed 25 people using chemical weapons near Aleppo in March. Although Syria has not signed the CWC, he asked UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon to investigate.

Rebels allege the Syrian military used chemical weapons near Homs and Damascus. French and British authorities have reportedly given Ban analyses of soil samples smuggled out of Syria that support this claim.

Chemical clues

Ban said in The Hague that all these claims should be investigated. This may have given Assad second thoughts about the allowing the inspectors in.

If they get in, what can they do? Assad's regime is thought to possess mustard gas and nerve agents such as sarin. These, or their chemical remains, can be detected in victims' tissues six weeks after exposure, says Alastair Hay of the University of Leeds, UK, and for months after that in chemical-bomb craters ? although that does not show who detonated them.

Jean-Pascal Zanders of the European Institute for Security Studies notes, however, that pictures of alleged victims of rebel attacks, and attack sites, do not suggest either chemical agent. For example, the victims' attendants are not wearing the protective clothing required after nerve gas; no one has the distinctive symptoms of mustard gas; attack sites have no tell-tale chlorine gas corrosion; and no phone photos of spent, hollow shells designed for chemical weapons have flashed round the internet.

To complicate matters further, there are reports that riot-control agents such as CS tear gas have been used in attacks by Syria's military, rather than "classic" chemical weapons. The CWC allows these for domestic law enforcement, not as weapons of war, but it is not clear on how to distinguish the two states of affairs.

Michael Crowley of the University of Bradford in the UK reported in The Hague that several countries, including Syria's arms suppliers, have tear gas weapons of a range and size "only useful for armed conflict".

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Two militants shot dead in Russia's Dagestan

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Security officers shot dead two suspected militants in Russia's volatile North Caucasus republic of Dagestan, the epicenter of an Islamist insurgency, the National Anti-Terrorist Committee said on Wednesday.

Moscow is struggling to quell the persistent attacks by Islamist militants more than a decade after it fought two separatist wars in the adjacent republic of Chechnya.

Security officers surrounded a house in the village of Sogratl, some 100 km (60 miles) southwest of the regional capital Makhachkala, where the two suspected insurgents were hiding, the statement said.

Two unidentified women with a baby left the house after law enforcement officers demanded that the militants surrender. The two rebels then opened fire and were shot dead, the statement said.

Rights groups say the revolt is driven by a volatile mix of religion, corruption and grievances against the strongarm tactics of some local leaders against suspected militants and their families.

Russia has tightened security in the surrounding region less than a year ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics, which it is planning to host on the western side of the Caucasus mountains, 1,000 km (620 miles) from Dagestan.

(Reporting By Alexei Anishchuk; Editing by Michael Roddy)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/two-militants-shot-dead-russias-dagestan-163824144.html

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Apple Store app for iPhone now notifies you when you're ready for upgrade pricing on a new iPhone

The Apple Store app for iPhone has been updated with a handy little feature that will notify you when you're eligible for upgrade pricing on a new iPhone. You can even buy your new iPhone directly with the app after receiving the notification since all you need is your Apple ID credentials to do so.

Also, the Apple Store will now help you keep track of your shipments and send you notifications about important updates, and when it has delivered.

Anyone waiting for upgrade eligibility before buying the iPhone 5? Are you excited about being notified when that day comes?

• Free - Download now

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/9rhvbS8v_Co/story01.htm

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Appeals court upholds EPA ruling on W.Va. mine

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) -- A federal appeals court says the Environmental Protection Agency had the legal authority to veto permits for one of West Virginia's largest mountaintop removal coal mines.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Tuesday reversed a lower court's ruling and sent the case back for further proceedings.

In 2011, the EPA revoked a water-pollution permit the Army Corps of Engineers had issued four years earlier to St. Louis-based Arch Coal for its 2,300-acre Spruce No. 1 mine.

The EPA said destructive, unsustainable mining practices would cause irreparable environmental damage and threaten the health of people nearby.

Industry, politicians and state regulators wanted the appeals court to uphold a federal judge's ruling that EPA overstepped its authority.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/appeals-court-upholds-epa-ruling-155808897.html

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Did brotherly bond play role in Boston bombings?

This Monday, April 15, 2013 photo provided by Bob Leonard shows bombing suspects Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, center right in black hat, and his brother, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, center left in white hat, approximately 10-20 minutes before the blasts that struck the Boston Marathon. It's a vexing puzzle about the Boston Marathon bombings: The younger of the two accused brothers hardly seemed headed for a monumental act of violence. How could he team up with his older brother to do this? Nobody knows for sure, but some experts in sibling research say the powerful bonds that can develop between brothers may have played a role. (AP Photo/Bob Leonard)

This Monday, April 15, 2013 photo provided by Bob Leonard shows bombing suspects Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, center right in black hat, and his brother, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, center left in white hat, approximately 10-20 minutes before the blasts that struck the Boston Marathon. It's a vexing puzzle about the Boston Marathon bombings: The younger of the two accused brothers hardly seemed headed for a monumental act of violence. How could he team up with his older brother to do this? Nobody knows for sure, but some experts in sibling research say the powerful bonds that can develop between brothers may have played a role. (AP Photo/Bob Leonard)

NEW YORK (AP) ? It's a vexing puzzle about the Boston Marathon bombings: The younger of the two accused brothers hardly seemed headed for a monumental act of violence. How could he team up with his older brother to do this?

Nobody knows for sure, but some experts in sibling research say the powerful bonds that can develop between brothers may have played a role.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died last week at age 26 in a shootout with police, and his 19-year-old sibling Dzhokhar are hardly the first brothers involved in criminal acts. Three pairs of brothers were among the 9/11 terrorists, for example, and three brothers were convicted in 2008 for planning to attack soldiers at Fort Dix in New Jersey.

"There are a lot of criminal enterprises where you have brothers involved," said James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston. "It is almost always the older brother who is the leader. ... Typically the younger brother looks up to the older brother in many ways."

Friends and relatives paint markedly different pictures of the Tsarnaev pair. Tamerlan could be argumentative and sullen, saying at one point he hadn't made a single American friend since immigrating years earlier, and he was arrested in 2009 for assault and battery on a girlfriend before those charges were dismissed. Dzhokhar appears to have been well-adjusted and well-liked in both high school and college.

Tamerlan seemed to be the dominant sibling in the family.

"He was the eldest one and he, in many ways, was the role model for his sisters and his brother," said Elmirza Khozhugov, 26, the ex-husband of Tamerlan's sister, Ailina. "You could always hear his younger brother and sisters say, 'Tamerlan said this,' and 'Tamerlan said that.' Dzhokhar loved him. He would do whatever Tamerlan would say."

Federal officials say their initial questioning of Dzhokhar suggests both brothers were motivated by a radical brand of Islam without apparent connections to terrorist groups. Their uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, has blamed their alleged bombing partnership on Tamerlan, saying Dzhokhar has been "absolutely wasted by his older brother ... He used him ... for what we see they've done."

Research shows that older brothers can have a direct influence on younger ones, says Katherine Conger, an associate professor of human development and family studies at the University of California-Davis.

"Sometimes it's through having a high quality relationship. So they spend time together, they enjoy doing things together and kind of hang out," she said. But other times, she said, it's through coercion and threats.

Studies show that children and adolescents can be influenced toward theft, vandalism and alcohol use by their older siblings. The influence is even more pronounced when parenting is harsh, inconsistent or absent, and when the two siblings share the same friends, experts said.

So how might that apply to the Tsarnaev brothers? There are several reasons to be wary about extrapolating the research to this case: So little is known about the brothers' family lives and other details. And most sibling research examines more ordinary infractions occurring in Western cultures ? not the extreme behavior believed carried out by the Tsarnaevs, who shared both an American culture and an ethnic Chechen background.

Still, from the sketchy details in press reports, some experts said it makes sense that Tamerlan could have had a major influence on his younger brother. That may have been through a close relationship or coercion, Conger said. "It's really hard to know."

Lew Bank of Portland State University in Oregon said Dzhokhar may have looked up to his older brother and wanted to please him. "It was very likely exciting for the younger brother to be so intensively at work with his big brother at something that seemed so important to them both," Bank said.

The relationship may have intensified when both parents left the country within the past year or so, leaving Tamerlan as Dzhokhar's dominant family member, he said. Tamerlan may have taken on a father-like role, said Avidan Milevsky of Kutztown University of Pennsylvania.

But for Laurie Kramer of the University of Illinois, a key question remains. Why couldn't Dzhokhar tell his older brother, "This isn't right, this isn't acceptable?" she asked. "This seems to be a case where a little bit more sibling conflict might have been useful."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/b2f0ca3a594644ee9e50a8ec4ce2d6de/Article_2013-04-24-Boston%20Marathon-Brotherly%20Bond/id-a8f3b2b6f0af477b821f41f87dcde84d

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