Authorities: Hofstra student was killed by police

MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) ? Authorities say a police officer's bullet killed a New York college student during the response to a home invasion at an off-campus home.

Nassau County homicide squad Lt. John Azzata said Saturday night that Andrea Rebello was killed by a police officer as she was being held in a headlock by a masked intruder.

Azzata says the police officer opened fire as Dalton Smith made a motion to fire at the officers early Saturday morning.

Azzata says the officer fired eight shots, hitting Smith seven times and Rebello once in the head, killing her.

Earlier Saturday, police said Smith had an extensive criminal history and was wanted on a parole violation related to a first-degree robbery conviction.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/authorities-hofstra-student-killed-police-003456565.html

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Reading rock to understand how climate change unfolds

May 18, 2013 ? What happened the last time a vegetated Earth shifted from an extremely cold climate to desert-like conditions? And what does it tell us about climate change today?

John Isbell is on a quest to coax that information from the geology of the southernmost portions of the Earth. It won't be easy, because the last transition from "icehouse to greenhouse" occurred between 335 and 290 million years ago.

An expert in glaciation from the late Paleozoic Era, Isbell is challenging many assumptions about the way drastic climate change naturally unfolds. The research helps form the all-important baseline needed to predict what the added effects of human activity will bring.

Starting from 'deep freeze'

In the late Paleozoic, the modern continents were fused together into two huge land masses, with what is now the Southern Hemisphere, including Antarctica, called Gondwana. During the span of more than 60 million years, Gondwana shifted from a state of deep freeze into one so hot and dry it supported the appearance of reptiles. The change, however, didn't happen uniformly, Isbell says.

In fact, his research has shaken the common belief that Gondwana was covered by one massive sheet of ice which gradually and steadily melted away as conditions warmed. Isbell has found that at least 22 individual ice sheets were located in various places over the region. And the state of glaciation during the long warming period was marked by dramatic swings in temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels.

"There appears to be a direct association between low CO₂ levels and glaciation," he says. "A lot of the changes in greenhouse gases and in a shrinking ice volume then are similar to what we're seeing today."

When the ice finally started disappearing, he says, it did so in the polar regions first and lingered in other parts of Gondwana with higher elevations. He attributes that to different conditions across Gondwana, such as mountain-building events, which would have preserved glaciers longer.

All about the carbon

To get an accurate picture of the range of conditions in the late Paleozoic, Isbell has traveled to Antarctica 16 times and has joined colleagues from around the world as part of an interdisciplinary team funded by the National Science Foundation. They have regularly gone to places where no one has ever walked on the rocks before.

One of his colleagues is paleoecologist Erik Gulbranson, who studies plant communities from the tail end of the Paleozoic and how they evolved in concert with the climatic changes. The information contained in fossil soil and plants, he says, can reveal a lot about carbon cycling, which is so central for applying the work to climate change today.

Documenting the particulars of how the carbon cycle behaved so long ago will allow them to answer questions like, 'What was the main force behind glaciation during the late Paleozoic? Was it mountain-building or climate change?'

Another characteristic of the late Paleozoic shift is that once the climate warmed significantly and atmospheric CO₂ levels soared, the Earth's climate remained hot and dry for another 200 million years.

"These natural cycles are very long, and that's an important difference with what we're seeing with the contemporary global climate change," says Gulbranson. "Today, we're seeing change in greenhouse gas concentrations of CO₂ on the order of centuries and decades."

Ancient trees and soil

In order to explain today's accelerated warming, Gulbranson's research illustrates that glaciers alone don't tell the whole story.

Many environmental factors leave an imprint on the carbon contained in tree trunks from this period. One of the things Gulbranson hypothesizes from his research in Antarctica is that an increase in deciduous trees occurred in higher latitudes during the late Paleozoic, driven by higher temperatures.

What he doesn't yet know is what the net effect was on the carbon cycle.

While trees soak in CO₂ and give off oxygen, there are other environmental processes to consider, says Gulbranson. For example, CO₂ emissions also come from soil as microbes speed up their consumption of organic matter with rising temperatures.

"The high latitudes today contain the largest amount of carbon locked up as organic material and permafrost soils on Earth today," he says. "It actually exceeds the amount of carbon you can measure in the rain forests. So what happens to that stockpile of carbon when you warm it and grow a forest over it is completely unknown."

Another unknown is whether the Northern Hemisphere during this time was also glaciated and warming. The pair are about to find out. With UWM backing, they will do field work in northeastern Russia this summer to study glacial deposits from the late Paleozoic.

The two scientists' work is complementary. Dating the rock is essential to pinpointing the rate of change in the carbon cycle, which would be the warning signal we could use today to indicate that nature is becoming dangerously unbalanced.

"If we figure out what happened with the glaciers," says Isbell, "and add it to what we know about other conditions -- we will be able to unlock the answers to climate change."

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/lad7DFFJLRs/130518153259.htm

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Ben Affleck Hosts SNL & Explains Oscars Speech (VIDEO)

Ben Affleck Hosts SNL & Explains Oscars Speech (VIDEO)

Ben Affleck hosted “Saturday Night Live” for his fifth time last night for the season finale. He took a chance to try and explain his Oscar speech about his marriage being “work”. The episode was also a farewell for cast members Bill Hader, Jason Sudeikis and Fred Armisen. Check out the highlights of last night’s ...

Ben Affleck Hosts SNL & Explains Oscars Speech (VIDEO) Stupid Celebrities Gossip Stupid Celebrities Gossip News

Source: http://stupidcelebrities.net/2013/05/ben-affleck-hosts-snl-explains-oscars-speech-video/

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Google Glass 'prescription edition' makes a cameo at Google I/O

Google I/O is always full of surprises, and we came across yet another elusive bit of hardware on the show floor today: Google Glass "prescription edition". No, it's not actually called that (we made up the name), but what you're looking at is definitely Glass that's been neatly integrated with a pair of prescription glasses -- in fact, it looks a lot like the version of Glass that Google recently mentioned on its blog. We don't really know anything else about this device, but we've reached out to Google for comment. Is this a custom design built by combining Google Glass Explorer Edition with off-the shelf eyewear? Is this a Glass prototype that's designed specifically for people who wear prescription spectacles? Share your thoughts in the comments and don't forget to check out the gallery below.

Update: Google's confirmed it's a prototype the company's experimented with.

Gallery: Google Glass 'prescription edition' at Google I/O

Brad Molen contributed to this report.

Filed under: Wearables, Mobile, Google

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/qG5_ZBR-RfE/

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Probe begins after commuter trains crash

FAIRFIELD, Conn. (AP) ? Two commuter trains packed with rush-hour commuters collided in a crash that sent about 70 people to the hospital, severely damaged the tracks and threatened to snarl travel in the congested Northeast Corridor.

Three patients remained in critical condition Saturday morning, with two of those stable, according to officials at two Bridgeport hospitals.

The crash happened Friday evening on the Metro-North Railroad, which serves the northern suburbs of New York City. Passengers described a chaotic, terrifying scene of crunching metal and flying bodies.

"All I know was I was in the air, hitting seats, bouncing around, flying down the aisle and finally I came to a stop on one seat," said Lola Oliver, 49, of Bridgeport. "It happened so fast I had no idea what was going on. All I know is we crashed."

About 700 people were on board the Metro-North trains when one heading east from New York City's Grand Central Terminal to New Haven derailed at about 6:10 p.m. just outside Bridgeport, transit and Bridgeport officials said.

The train was hit by a train heading west from New Haven to Grand Central on an adjacent track, Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman Aaron Donovan said. Some cars on the second train derailed as a result of the collision.

"We're most concerned about the injured and ultimately reopening the system," Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said from the scene about three hours after the crash.

A team from the National Transportation Safety Board was headed to the area to survey the crash site Saturday morning with Malloy, U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy and other Connecticut officials, according to Malloy's office.

Officials planned to update journalists on the crash following the tour.

Malloy said most people in the crash were not seriously injured.

The nursing supervisor at St. Vincent Medical Center said Saturday morning that 44 people from the crash had been treated there, and that five of those were admitted. One of the five remained in critical but stable condition, the supervisor said.

Bridgeport Hospital spokesman John Cappiello said two patients were admitted in critical condition, and one of those was now stable. The hospital treated 24 other patients from the crash, and many had been released already, with the rest expected to be released by late Saturday morning, Cappiello said.

The Metro-North Railroad, a commuter line serving the northern suburbs, described the crash as a "major derailment." Photos showed a train car askew on the rails, with its end smashed up and brushing against another train.

Malloy said there was extensive damage to the train cars and the track, and it could take until Monday for normal service to be restored. He said the accident will have a "big impact on the Northeast Corridor."

Amtrak, which uses the same rails, suspended service indefinitely between New York and Boston.

Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch said the disruption caused by the crash could cost the region's economy millions of dollars.

"A lot of people rely on this, and we've got to get this reconnected as soon as possible," Finch said.

Investigators on Friday night did not know what caused the first train to derail. Malloy said there was no reason to believe it was anything other than an accident.

Passenger Bradley Agar said he was in the first car of the westbound train when he heard screaming and the window smash behind him.

"I saw the first hit, the bump, bump, bump all the way down," he said.

Agar had returned to work this week for the first time since breaking his shoulder in January. And since he was still healing, he thought it would be safer to take the train than drive from his home in Westport.

The area where the crash happened was already down to two tracks because of repair work, Malloy said. Crews have been working for a long time on the electric lines above the tracks, the power source for the trains. Malloy said Connecticut has an old system and no other alternate tracks.

By late evening, Bridgeport Police Chief Joseph Gaudett said everybody who needed treatment had been attended to, and authorities were beginning to turn their attention to investigating the cause.

"Everybody seemed pretty calm," he said. "Everybody was thankful they didn't get seriously hurt. They were anxious to get home to their families."

The MTA operates the Metro-North Railroad, the second-largest commuter railroad in the nation. The Metro-North main lines ? the Hudson, Harlem, and New Haven ? run northward from New York City's Grand Central Terminal into suburban New York and Connecticut.

___

Associated Press writer Michael Melia contributed to this report from Hartford, Conn.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/probe-begins-conn-commuter-trains-crash-070249473.html

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Calif. doc promising cancer cure to be sentenced

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? At the age of 3, Brianica Kirsch was diagnosed with brain cancer.

Her parents, desperate to find alternative measures for their daughter who had undergone surgeries and chemotherapy, turned to Dr. Christine Daniel, who offered an herbal supplement with a success rate she claimed was between 60 and 80 percent.

Brianica's parents spent thousands of dollars on the herbal product and their daughter spent much of her time in those last few months before she died in the summer of 2002 being shuttled from her Ventura County home to Daniel's clinic in the San Fernando Valley.

Daniel, 58, is scheduled to be sentenced Friday in a Los Angeles courtroom where federal prosecutors are asking for 27 years in prison for crimes they deem cruel, despicable and heinous. Daniel's lawyer is seeking a nearly six-year prison term.

In all, authorities believe Daniel siphoned about $1.1 million from dozens of families between 2001 and 2004.

She was convicted in September 2011 of 11 counts, including wire fraud, tax evasion and witness tampering. Authorities said Daniel used her position both as a doctor at the Sonrise Wellness Center and a Pentecostal minister to entice people from across the nation to take her herbal product to remedy cancer, Parkinson's disease and multiple sclerosis.

Federal prosecutors argue that Daniel preyed upon people in their most vulnerable state and gave them false hope.

Daniel "repeatedly demonstrated a merciless and callous indifference to the suffering of her patients and their family members," Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Johns wrote in court documents. "It is unlikely that our federal criminal justice system will see the like of defendant Christine Daniel again."

Some of her patients, relying on her product, died from complications of cancer within three to six months after taking the supplement. In one case, prosecutors contend a 22-year-old woman who had highly curable form of neck lymphoma died because she relied on Daniel's recommendation to avoid radiation or chemotherapy treatments.

For Brianica's parents, they implored Daniel for the stark truth given their daughter's condition.

"I remember telling Dr. Daniel before we started, 'If this isn't real, if you can't really help my daughter, please don't take away our last time with her,'" LuAnn Kirsch testified at Daniel's trial. "'Just let us go home if you can't really help.' Because you don't get that time back."

For other patients, they endured additional pain and suffering because they took the herbal tonic provided by Daniel. At trial, experts called by federal prosecutors said chemical tests of the product showed it contained beef extract flavoring and a sunscreen preservative among other ingredients.

"I live with the guilt that I should have seen that none of what she was going through was helping her, but instead was hurting her," Debra Harris wrote in a letter submitted to the court about her sister and Daniel's one-time patient Barbara Davis who later died. Harris said Daniel's patients were not only convinced by the physician that they could be cured but so were family members who "wanted to believe it just as bad."

Paula Middlebrooks also put her faith in Daniel, who billed her nearly $60,000 over a five-month period to help treat her terminal breast cancer. Eventually, Daniel pronounced Middlebrooks was free of cancer and threw her a party. But in reality the cancer was spreading and Middlebrooks died shortly after she returned to her home in Georgia.

"This heinous conduct was a clear effort to rid herself of a problematic patient, to lull other cancer fraud patients and to create yet another miraculous 'marketing' example of the success of her herbal cancer treatment that would be sure to spread throughout the evangelical Christian community," prosecutor Johns wrote in court documents.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/calif-doc-promising-cancer-cure-sentenced-134459685.html

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Google Play Music

With its All Access subcription service, the updated Google Play Music has come of age. The inclusion of this subscription service trumps Apple's iTunes, and Google delivers an excellent, well-designed system, with a large catalog of any music most people are likely to crave, and a beautiful, full-function interface similar to Rdio's. Equalling iTunes Match is Google Play's scan and match feature, which saves you from having to upload all your music files to your Google digital locker. Unless you're tied to your iPhone or iPad, Google Play Music, and in particular, its new All Access option, at $9.99 a month, is worth a very close look. But Play Music still falls slightly short of the best streaming services in some ways, and if you use Apple's mobile devices, you're out of luck.

Google Play Music All Access
We've complained about Apple's not offering and all-you-can-eat music subscription in the iTunes Music Store for years, so maybe Google's move here will finally force Apple to reconsider its policy on music subscription. Facebook users already have easy access to Spotify app, which over 10 million users have used. Another strong contender and Editors' Choice is Slacker Radio ($9.99 a month), which offers fine-tuning of your custom internet radio stream. Google's All Access costs the same $9.99 a month as Spotify, but only $7.99 if you sign up before June 30. Google, however, surprisingly doesn't offer a free ad-supported account type. If you want an excellent free music player, you're well served by Songza, our Editors' Choice for free streaming music services. The also excellent Rdio also costs $9.99 a month for full access.

As mentioned, Apple has no equivalent to All Access, but you do get some pretty great stuff with the iTunes ecosystem that you don't get with Google Play Music?AirPlay, podcast playing, access to public internet radio stations, and the ability to play easily to a home theater system through Apple TV. This last is important to me, since when I'm serious about listening to something, I want to be able to do so on my hi-fi system. Microsoft offers subscription with its Xbox Music Pass, also $9.99 a month, but it only works Windows 8, Windows Phones, and Xboxes. The Xbox part, however, solves the problem of getting your music to you home theater sound system, to which Google Play Music has no simple answer.

Setting up Google Play Music All Access couldn't be easier. It's far less of a process than you have to go through to get up and running with Spotify, which you can't even use unless you specify some contacts whose music choices you want to follow. This brings up the point of social integration: if you really need the input of your friends' music ideas, you're better off with Spotify or Rdio, but if you just want to discover on your own All Access serves you well. All Access does of course require your entering a payment method, and if you have a Google Wallet account, you'll simply have to okay the transaction.

The service worked fine in all browsers?even Internet Explorer 10! Remember, competitor iTunes doesn't run in a web browser at all, but it does have the advantage of an unobtrusive mini player window.

Sound quality was excellent. The service detects your internet connection speed and serves up an appropriate bitrate. Fast connections get a very fine 320Kbps bitrate. While listening, you can click the full-screen icon to show the album art moving around the browser window.

Creating a Station
Once you're in your Google Play Music All Access account, you just search for a musician, and a grid of tiles with artist images shows up. Click on one, and you've got a playlist of related tunage. Google only claims "millions" of songs in its catalog, where competitors like Spotify boast 15 million, so you may not find what you want. I didn't have much problem with the selection.

I first tested with Ulrich Schnauss, an otherworldly German electronica artist, and then with a lesser known artist, Leggo Beast, and neither tripped up the service. Switching musical gears drastically, the service did find Stile Antico, a top-notch vocal early music ensemble, but the group's latest album wasn't available?but it wasn't on Spotify, either, but Rdio did! It did find an impressive 88 albums sung by Kings College Choir.

I like how the All Access radio's music affinity engine finds not just a very limited genre of nearly identical songs with the same "musical DNA," the way Pandora does. Instead, it pushes the edges of the style of the musicians you select. This lets you create playlists including everything you like, not just a narrow band of musical style. I also found Google Play Music's interface easier on the eyes than the busy iTunes-like Spotify, though Rdio's slick web interface is its equal.

But there was one major problem with Google Play Music All Access's radio stations: After an hour, its browser window told me, "The queue is currently empty." This would never happen in Pandora or any other of its ilk. It could be a sign that Google doesn't have as large a music library or that its algorithm still needs tuning.

Another downside was that there was a sometimes a significant pause before the next song in the playlist started playing. I couldn't find any setting to omit this gap. Another problem is one shared with most digital music is that you don't get all the performance information you would on a CD booklet?soloists for choral performances and other credits.

You can thumbs up or down any tune in the playlist at any time, and switch to any song to play immediately. In the browser, no matter what you've got going on in the main window area?settings, library, whatever?you'll see the play controls with the album thumbnail, repeat, skip back, pause, skip ahead, and shuffle. The volume slider, thumbs up and down, and playlist buttons are to the right of these. A nice touch is that the song you're playing becomes the browser tab title?this means, that in Windows 7, you can hover the mouse cursor over the browser's taskbar button to see the track name. The same goes for when you're working in another browser tab and you hover the cursor over the Google Play tab.

At any time while you're playing the radio stream, you can add the current song to your library, create a new playlist, or share the song. The sharing option at first looks like it's limited to acquaintances with Google accounts, but you can also type an email address in the To box. Unlike a lot of streaming radio services, you can see several songs ahead, and nix those you don't want to hear or play those you do immediately.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/9J1aS6WoKDs/0,2817,2385570,00.asp

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