Perry says he's dropping out of presidential race

Anita Perry, wife of Republican presidential candidate Texas Gov. Rick Perry listens at left, during a news conference in North Charleston, S.C., Thursday,Jan. 19, 2012, where Perry announced he was suspending his campaign and endorsing Newt Gingrich. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Anita Perry, wife of Republican presidential candidate Texas Gov. Rick Perry listens at left, during a news conference in North Charleston, S.C., Thursday,Jan. 19, 2012, where Perry announced he was suspending his campaign and endorsing Newt Gingrich. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

El gobernador texano Rick Perry anuncia su abondono de la campa?a por la candidatura presidencial republicana y su apoyo a Newt Gingrich, en conferencia de prensa el jueves 19 de enero de 2012 en North Charleston, Carolina del Sur. (AP Foto/David Goldman)

Republican presidential candidate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, accompanied by his wife Anita, right, and son Griffin, announces he is suspending his campaign and endorsing Newt Gingrich, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012, during a news conference in North Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

(AP) ? Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Thursday dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination and endorsed Newt Gingrich, adding a fresh layer of unpredictability to the campaign two days before the South Carolina primary.

"Newt's not perfect, but who among us is?" Perry said. He called the former House speaker a "conservative visionary" best suited to replace Barack Obama in the White House.

While the ultimate impact of Perry's decision was unclear, it reduced the number of conservative challengers to Mitt Romney. The decision also reinforced the perception that Gingrich is the candidate on the move in the final hours of the South Carolina campaign, and that front-runner Romney is struggling to hold onto his lead there.

Perry had scarcely finished speaking when Gingrich issued a statement welcoming the endorsement. "I ask the supporters of Governor Perry to look at my record of balancing the budget, cutting spending, reforming welfare, and enacting pro-growth policies to create millions of new jobs and humbly ask for their vote," Gingrich said.

Romney reacted by praising Perry for running "a campaign based upon love of country and conservative principles" and saying he "has earned a place of prominence as a leader in our party."

Perry said he decided to suspend his campaign after concluding "there is no viable path forward for me."

Spokesman Ray Sullivan said money was also a factor: "We have spent the bulk of our funds." Perry chose to drop out before Saturday's primary because he wanted to "respect" the state's voters by giving them a choice among other candidates, Sullivan said.

Perry made his decision Wednesday night and began telling staff and supporters, spokesman Ray Sullivan said. The Texas governor called Gingrich with the news Thursday morning to inform the former House speaker of his endorsement.

Sullivan wouldn't say whether Perry intended to hurt Romney but noted that Perry and Gingrich have a long-standing relationship and said Perry is enthusiastic about the possibility of a Gingrich presidency. But Perry will support the candidate who wins the Republican nomination, Sullivan said.

Perry's exit marked the end of a campaign that began with soaring expectations but quickly faded. He shot to the head of the public opinion polls when he announced his candidacy last summer, but a string of poor debate performances and campaign flubs soon led to a decline in support.

His defining moment came during one debate when he inexplicably could not recall one of three federal agencies he had pledged to abolish. He joked about it afterward, telling reporters, "I stepped in it," but never recovered from the fumble.

Also problematic for conservative supporters: Perry's support of a Texas policy to allow children of illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition rates and his 2007 order to require schoolgirls in Texas to be vaccinated against human papillomavirus, an order later overturned by state lawmakers.

Perry also risked backlash from elderly voters after calling Social Security a fraud and a "Ponzi scheme." He said the popular federal retirement program for seniors was financially unsustainable and pledged to retool it if elected president.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor considered the more moderate candidate in the race, has benefited thus far from having Perry and several other conservative challengers competing for the same segment of voters. New polls show Romney leading in South Carolina but Gingrich gaining steam heading into Saturday's contest in a state where conservatives hold great sway in choosing the GOP nominee.

Perry's decision to endorse Gingrich does not necessarily mean conservatives will rally behind the former House speaker. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, an anti-abortion champion, is still in the race and last weekend was endorsed by a group of evangelical Christian leaders.

And there is no guarantee the Texas donors who fueled Perry's bid will shift to Gingrich, even if the governor asks them to.

Romney has been working to court them in recent weeks and has also won the backing of former President George H.W. Bush. Several Perry supporters, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid publicly discussing their next steps before Perry's announcement, said they have been approached by Romney's campaign and will support him as the candidate most likely candidate to face President Barack Obama in November.

Also in play are at least three influential "super" political action committees supporting Perry. One so-called super PAC, called Make Us Great Again, aired more than $3.3 million worth of ads in Iowa and South Carolina supporting Perry. A spokesman for the group did not immediately return calls from the AP seeking comment about whom the PAC will support with Perry out of the GOP race.

Perry, 61, was relatively unknown outside Texas until he succeeded George W. Bush as governor after Bush was elected president in 2000. A former Democrat, Perry had already spent about 15 years in state government when he became governor. He went on to become the state's longest-serving chief executive, winning the office three times, most recently in 2010.

Part of Perry's appeal came from his humble beginnings in tiny Paint Creek, Texas. He graduated from Texas A&M University and was a pilot in the Air Force before winning election in 1984 to the Texas House of Representatives. He switched to the GOP in 1989 and served as the state's agriculture commissioner before his election as lieutenant governor in 1998.

Perry's success as a politician suggested he would be a strong competitor to Obama. He had never lost a race in Texas, and his fight against Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 2010 showed how tough he could be on a rival.

___

Associated Press writer Chris Tomlinson in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-01-19-Perry/id-9bcabb594c1c4e2dbdd717d01cc01081

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Ethiopia forcing thousands off land: U.S. rights group (Reuters)

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) ? Ethiopia is forcing tens of thousands of people off their land so it can lease it to foreign investors, leaving former landowners destitute and in some cases starving, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Tuesday.

The Horn of Africa state has already leased 3 million hectares - an area just smaller than Belgium - to foreign farm businesses and the U.S.-based rights group said that Addis Ababa had plans to lease another 2.1 million hectares.

The United Nations has increasingly voiced concern that countries such as China and Gulf Arab states are buying swathes of land in Africa and Asia to secure their own food supplies, often at the expense of local people.

HRW said that 1.5 million Ethiopians would eventually be forced from their land and highlighted what it said was the latest case of forced relocation in its report "Ethiopia: Forced Relocations Bring Hunger, Hardship."

"The Ethiopian government under its "villagisation" program is forcibly relocating approximately 70,000 indigenous people from the western Gambella region to new villages that lack adequate food, farmland, healthcare, and educational facilities," HRW said, adding it had interviewed more than 100 people for the report.

"The first round of forced relocations occurred at the worst possible time of year - the beginning of the harvest. Government failure to provide food assistance for relocated people has caused endemic hunger and cases of starvation," it said.

Government officials deny the charge and say the affected plots of land are largely uninhabited and under-used, while it has also launched a program to settle tens of thousands from the remote province in more fertile areas of the country.

"Human Rights Watch has wrongly alleged the villagisation program to be unpopular and problematic," government spokesman Bereket Simon told Reuters.

"There is no evidence to back the claim. This program is taking place with the full preparation and participation of regional authorities, the government and residents," he said.

Ethiopia says its prime intention in leasing large chunks of land is technology transfer and to boost production in a country that has been ravaged by droughts over the past few decades.

(Editing by Richard Lough and Ben Harding)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120117/wl_nm/us_ethiopia_rights

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The Science Online 2012 Keynote Speaker

Carin and I will soon be at Science Online 2012. ?As I mentioned last post, we both will be running workshops on video-making and will be your hosts for the Cyberscreen Science Film Festival 2012.

The Keynote speaker this year is National Geographic Host and Primatologist, Mireya Mayor. Her speech is titled?The Vain Girl?s Survival Guide to Science and The Media

Earlier this year, she published her book describing her very exciting life, called Pink Boots and a Machete: My Journey from NFL Cheerleader to National Geographic Host.

Her story is quite inspirational, especially for teenage girls.

Joanne and teen daughter, Amanda

To that end, I had my 17 year old daughter Amanda read the book, too,

and we filmed a review together. Here?s what we had to say:

?

?

I look forward to meeting Mireya in just a few days. I must remember to bring the book for her to sign for Amanda!

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Paul promises deep cuts in military spending (AP)

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. ? Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul says he will make deep cuts to the military budget even though many voters in South Carolina and elsewhere are employed by the military.

The Texas congressman was grilled Monday on his position on military spending during a nationally televised presidential debate. He has called for closing bases overseas and reducing spending on what he calls the military industrial complex.

Paul said he wants to protect military jobs domestically and insists there's a difference between military spending and a strong national defense.

Paul said conservatives should insist on cutting spending on military projects, not just domestic spending. He said overseas military spending should be cut before trimming federal jobless benefits for the long-term unemployment.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120117/ap_on_el_pr/us_gop_debate_military_spending

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Overweight Teen Girls May Have Higher Acne Risk (HealthDay)

MONDAY, Jan. 16 (HealthDay News) -- Teenage girls who are overweight or obese are significantly more likely to develop acne than their normal-weight peers, a new Norwegian survey suggests.

Researchers looked at whether weight, and more specifically body mass index (BMI, a ratio of weight to height), had any bearing on the onset of the common skin condition among teens.

Teens' responses to questionnaires focusing on acne history and weight suggested an association among girls but not boys.

The reasons behind the link aren't clear, one expert said.

Overweight girls "may perceive their acne as being worse than it actually is, possibly due to self-image issues," said Dr. Robert Kirsner, a professor and vice chairman in the department of dermatology and cutaneous surgery at the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine.

On the other hand, biology could play a role, said Kirsner, who was not involved with the study but is familiar with its findings.

"It is possible, but not yet known, that in girls, but not boys, excessive androgens caused by obesity has a greater additive effect on acne," he said. "It may be also possible that the psychological effect of being overweight in girls is greater than boys and thus leads to a more pronounced increase in stress hormones in girls, with acne as a consequence."

The Norwegian team led by author Dr. Jon Anders Halvorsen, of the department of dermatology at Oslo University Hospital and the faculty at the University of Oslo, reports its findings Jan. 16 in the Archives of Dermatology.

The authors point out that between 10 percent and 20 percent of teens struggle with moderate to severe acne, with many developing serious psychological issues revolving around poor self-esteem and difficulty socializing. At the same time, more and more children are falling prey to the so-called obesity epidemic.

To explore whether a connection could exist between the two, the investigating team conducted a survey involving roughly 3,600 Norwegians ages 18 and 19.

None of the participants was actively seeking out medical care at the study's launch. All provided their weight and height, and all reported on whether or not they had had pimples, and to what degree, the week before the study.

All responded to questions about drinking or smoking, history of mental distress and dietary habits -- especially concerning sugar, sweets, chocolate, raw vegetables, fatty fish and potato chips.

Overweight was defined as having a BMI of 25 and up, while obesity referred to a BMI of 30 and up. Just under 10 percent of the girls and just over 15 percent of the boys were deemed overweight; fewer than 40 of either gender were classified as obese.

Overall, roughly 13 percent of all the girls were found to have acne. When looking solely at girls who were overweight or obese, however, this figure rose to almost 19 percent.

The story was different among boys, with between 13 percent and 14 percent having acne regardless of their weight.

After accounting for an array of other possible factors that might affect acne risk, Halvorsen's team concluded that excess weight is associated with acne risk among teenage girls, but not boys.

It should be noted, though, that the study revealed an association between excess weight and acne, but did not prove cause-and-effect.

Dr. Joel Gelfand, medical director of the department of dermatology clinical studies unit at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, described the effort as "very important," given the paucity of research in the field.

"There's not a lot of work out there understanding what the risk factors are for developing acne," he said. "And we're talking about a disease that affects virtually everyone at some point, and can have a devastating impact on a person's quality of life. So any work to better understand why people develop it and ways of preventing it -- which we don't currently have -- is of substantial importance."

More information

For more on acne, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/health/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20120116/hl_hsn/overweightteengirlsmayhavehigheracnerisk

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Sony teases Dot Switch: Multi-display future coming in February (video)

There's only so much Sony could show off at the world's biggest consumer electronics show. According to the video embedded below, the company's looking to tie together all of your (presumably Sony-branded) screens with a single "Dot Switch". On the concept demo, a pair of ethereal arms are able to control music, TV, lights and a confetti shower through what appears to be an Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc. The company's keeping pretty vague on the technicalities of it all at this point, but it looks like it would forgo the typical infra-red communication seen on other devices. Expect to hear more on this in just over a month away. Until then, let the delicate chiploops of this teaser ameliorate that post-CES come-down.

Continue reading Sony teases Dot Switch: Multi-display future coming in February (video)

Sony teases Dot Switch: Multi-display future coming in February (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Jan 2012 03:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/17/sony-dot-switch-multi-display-controls-tease-february/

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Santorum targets Romney in South Carolina (Reuters)

FLORENCE, South Carolina (Reuters) ? Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum took aim at front-runner Mitt Romney on Sunday as he sought to build on a late endorsement from evangelical leaders and narrow the crucial South Carolina contest to a two-man race.

Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, said conservative voters should not let concerns about the shaky economy or defeating Democratic President Barack Obama interfere with their beliefs.

"America is a moral enterprise, not an economic enterprise," he said at a seafood restaurant in Florence, South Carolina.

Romney has built his campaign on his experience in business and criticism of Obama's handling of the economy but rivals have attacked his moderate stint as governor of Massachusetts and his tenure as head of a private-equity firm.

With South Carolina's January 21 primary approaching, time is running short for other candidates to slow Romney's march to the Republican presidential nomination.

Santorum would appear to have the best chance to stop Romney, after Christian leaders backed him at a meeting in Texas on Saturday.

An organization allied to Romney is sponsoring an attack ad airing frequently in South Carolina that says Santorum supported wasteful spending and wanted to extend voting rights to felons while in Congress.

"That is a lie," Santorum said. "To go and mislead the people of South Carolina as to what our record is on this is just yuck."

Arguing that he would be the strongest Republican against Obama, Romney has opened up a 21-point lead in the state as the conservative vote remains splintered, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll on Saturday.

Santorum was at 16 percent of the vote, tied for second place with Texas Congressman Ron Paul.

ENDORSEMENT MAY NOT HAVE IMPACT

Santorum's endorsement by conservative Christian leaders appeared to have little immediate impact among evangelicals, who play a prominent role in South Carolina Republican politics.

"I make decisions for myself and I don't listen to what a bunch of leaders say to do," said Victoria Jaworowski at the Cathedral of Praise in North Charleston.

Meeting in Texas, the Christian leaders narrowly endorsed Santorum on Saturday in a vote that went to the third ballot. It is not clear how they will help him with money or staff.

Santorum, a Catholic, rode the support of evangelical voters to a surprise second-place finish in Iowa's January 3 caucus, losing to Romney by just eight votes. He finished far back in the pack a week later in New Hampshire, where religiously motivated voters are less prominent.

South Carolina could be favorable terrain for Santorum as evangelicals accounted for 60 percent of the Republican primary vote in 2008. But several candidates split the evangelical vote that year and Senator John McCain, the eventual nominee, was able to win the state with strong support from military retirees and other voters who saw national security as a top priority.

That could happen again this year, as former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Governor Rick Perry are competing with Santorum for the evangelical vote.

Several members of the First Baptist Church in Florence said they had not decided on a candidate.

"You just haven't seen that standard-bearer rise up," said insurance salesman Mike Newton.

MAKE OR BREAK STATE?

South Carolina could be a make-or-break-state for many candidates. The winner of South Carolina's primary has gone on to capture the Republican nomination in every election since 1980. Those who finish far back could have a hard time raising money and convincing voters in other states that they are still viable.

Senator Jim DeMint, a leader among conservatives, praised Santorum and Gingrich at a Tea Party convention in Myrtle Beach but said he would not make an endorsement.

With the shaky U.S. economy a top concern for voters, Santorum has sought to broaden his appeal beyond religious conservatives with a populist pitch to revive working-class jobs through a tax break for manufacturers.

Santorum has declined to join in Gingrich and Perry's attacks on Romney's career as head of private-equity firm Bain Capital, but he has criticized the financial industry as a whole.

"You need a leader who's going to go out on the Republican side and fight the interests of Wall Street and big business," he said in Gaffney, South Carolina, on Friday.

Santorum also has said the statewide healthcare overhaul that Romney put in place while governor of Massachusetts served as a model for Obama's national healthcare reform, which is toxic among conservatives.

Romney won endorsements from newspapers in Greenville, South Carolina, and Charlotte, North Carolina, on Sunday. Jon Huntsman, who finished third in New Hampshire, won the endorsement of the newspaper in Columbia, the state capital.

(Additional reporting by Thomas Ferraro in Washington and Deborah Charles, Andy Sullivan and Nick Carey in South Carolina; Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Bill Trott)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/religion/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120116/ts_nm/us_usa_campaign

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Video: Spielberg on making animated movies

Stephen Spielberg, winner of the Golden Globe for best animated feature film, talks about how he chooses which project to work on, and the personal nature of bringing animation to life.

Related Links:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/

Source: http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/46008810/

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Nitrogen Fixation

Fritz Haber

Fritz Haber

I?m haunted by one of the stories in the latest episode of Radiolab, can?t get it out of my head. Like everyone else, I love Radiolab and often sprinkle stories I learned from the show into cocktail party conversation (do I go to nerdy cocktail parties or do I make cocktail parties nerdy?), but the Bad Show was especially gripping, in particular the story of Fritz Haber. Haber was a German chemist working in the early 20th century, but his name is well known in Chemical Engineering departments (he is, after all, one of The Most Popular Chemical Engineers Ever.) I?ve even looked him up in wikipedia recently, focusing on the details of the chemical process he invented and never scrolling down to learn more about his life. It?s in this scrolling down that Radiolab is amazing, bringing his complicated and tragic story to life.

Haber invented a process that sustains one third of the population on earth: the production of ammonia fertilizer from nitrogen gas. Nitrogen is required for life, a crucial component of both DNA and proteins, but even though nitrogen is the most abundant gas in our atmosphere, our cells can?t use it in its atmospheric form, relying on other processes to ?fix? that nitrogen into a biologically available form. A few microorganisms possess nitrogenase enzymes that can perform this chemical reaction, and about half of the nitrogen in your body comes from these microorganisms. The other half comes from the Haber-Bosch process (Carl Bosch scaled up Haber?s process to large-scale industrial levels).

Azolla caroliniana by Kurt St?ber

Biological nitrogen fixation and utilization in agriculture is a fascinating, multi-layered symbiosis. Just as we live in a kind of symbiosis with our domesticated crop plants, depending on their growth for our survival, so too are many species dependent on ?domesticated? nitrogen-fixing microbes that live in or near them and provide the nutrients they need. One of the best-known examples is the rhizobia bacteria that form nitrogen-fixing nodules inside of the roots of legumes. Crop rotation alternating between legumes and crops that can?t form symbiosis with rhizobia keeps the soil nitrogen-rich and able to support plants that need an external source of fixed nitrogen. Similarly, the small fern Azolla forms a symbiosis with the nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria Anabaena. Azolla are then used as nitrogen-rich fertilizer for growing rice.

The Haber-Bosch process uses high pressure and temperatures to do what the microbial nitrogenase enzymes can do inside the cell, producing fertilizer at an immense scale and making industrial agriculture possible. Artificial fertilizers have prevented perhaps billions of people from dying of starvation, but they also contribute to significant environmental degradation that now threatens many many lives as well. The Haber process alone contributes significantly to greenhouse gas production: first, hydrogen is produced through steam-reformation of natural gas, which is then combined with nitrogen gas from the atmosphere at incredibly high temperature. The industrial Haber-Bosch process uses about 3-5% of the world?s total natural gas production for the production of hydrogen, as well as approximately 1-2% of the total yearly energy supply. Artificial fertilizers also cause significant pollution due to agricultural run-off of excess nitrogen into bodies of water.

An interesting robo-ecological installation that was part of the ?synth-ethic? art and synthetic biology exhibition in Vienna last year explores some of the complex symbioses of mechanized industrial agriculture. Andy Gracie?s Autoinducer_Ph-1 is a self-sustaining system where a robotic arm will scoop Azolla in symbiosis with Anabaena onto growing rice plants in response to nitrogen conditions monitored by electronic sensors. This piece explores how these organisms evolved to live together, and how they can further evolve in symbiosis with artificial, bioengineered or electro-mechanical systems. Perhaps such an evolution will enable high-yield agriculture at lower impact, without the need for artificial ammonia fertilizer.

Autoinducer_Ph-1 by Andy Gracie

But the ethics of industrial agriculture aren?t the only thing that make Fritz Haber?s story complicated. Ammonia is not only good fertilizer, but its high-energy bonds also make an excellent explosive. Chemistry has other uses in war, however, and Fritz Haber was one of the leaders in the development of chemical warfare during World War I, even going to the front to oversee the deployment of chlorine gas against the soldiers in the trenches. I won?t spoil the tragedy of the story because Radiolab does it better, but Haber was proud of his country, and is quoted as saying that ?During peace time a scientist belongs to the World, but during war time he belongs to his country.? These are stories that have particular resonance today, as bioengineers debate the ethics of using their research directly for defense-related projects and the potential for research on deadly diseases to be misused by those who would want to wage biological warfare. It?s difficult to think about the ways that technologies can be used for both good and evil, it?s impossible by definition to think about the unexpected consequences of any technology, and stories like Haber?s are difficult to hear but necessary (seriously, go listen to it now) to reminds us that it?s important to keep ethics as part of any discussion of science and technology, not just as a discussion of possible risks and downstream consequences after it?s done.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=d7636c7c1f55a032bbd68e233eadb812

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