Obamacare can't seem to catch a break. A month in and its problems continue to pile up.
First, it was the disastrous unveiling of Healthcare.gov, which was supposed to help Americans buy health insurance coverage, but instead, gave those who tried to navigate it either a splitting headache or rapidly rising blood pressure.
In the light of a seemingly endless series of revelations about the NSA's multi-faceted infiltrations of just about every network there is, including the private fiber used by Google and Yahoo, more and more folks are stepping up to offer possible solutions.
But because both the Internet and encryption aren't as singular or straightforward as they could be, it isn't likely to be something that can be delivered as a single product anytime soon.
The most common analogy used about email security is that it's no better than a postcard written in pencil and sent via conventional mail. To do something about it, two big names in security, Lavabit and Silent Circle, are joining forces to create a project they call the Dark Mail Alliance.
Silent Circle, a provider of both encrypted email and phone solutions, and Lavabit, a secure email provider, both made headlines earlier this year when they voluntarily shut down their email services in the wake of Edward Snowden's leaks about NSA actions against ISPs, rather than be a party to such spying. Their plan is to help create a new email system that is as resistant as technologically possible to spying.
The idea isn't to offer a product per se, but rather to create an open standard that could be freely implemented by themselves or by third parties. "1,000 Lavabits all around the world," was how Jon Callas, CTO and founder of Silent Circle, described it in a discussion with Infoworld.
This decentralized plan is both the best and worst thing about the project: Best in the sense that no one person has explicit control over it, but worst in the sense that it's also not possible to guarantee how consistently it can be delivered if it's an open project.
The technical details of Dark Mail involve taking existing email clients -- Outlook and Exchange were cited as possible targets -- and outfitting them with add-ons that would use the XMPP Web messaging protocol in conjunction with another encryption protocol developed by Silent Circle, named, appropriately enough, SCIMP, or Silent Circle Instant Message Protocol. Encryption keys are held on the end user's system and not managed by the email providers themselves, so a court order against the ISP will yield nothing. Both the message's contents and metadata (e.g., to/from headers) are encrypted.
The thing is, the technical details of encrypted email aren't themselves the real obstacle. The difficulties tend to be social -- that is, getting people to use the existing standards and projects in the first place. Many existing packages, such as Enigmail, already allow you to equip email clients with encryption without too much difficulty. But few non-technical users bother with them, in big part because in order to send someone else an encrypted message, they have to be running the same software. The lack of a common implementation, as common as a web browser, is a big stumbling block, but end user indifference is ultimately the biggest reason why most email isn't encrypted.
The other issue is something Silent Circle and Lavabit are at least attempting to tackle: Participation from common email providers. If Gmail supported the Dark Mail standard, for instance, that would provide a great many existing email users with a near-seamless way to make use of it, but so far, no third-party mail providers have piped up. That might well be a defensive measure: If they announced early on they were working on such a thing, it would give attackers all the more time to try and plan a way to subvert it.
The Snowden papers have also showed how even those who do take the pains to encrypt can have their privacy subverted by attackers who simply perform an end-run around the encryption and intercept information either before or after it's ever encrypted. Unfortunately, the only way to prevent such a thing is via such extreme measures as an air-gapped system.
So what can we expect from Dark Mail? If it's ever implemented as its creators intend, it ought to serve two functions: Give end users a way to casually encrypt email without going through a whole hassle, and make them that much more conscious of how, on the current Internet, there may not be any safe places at all.
This story, "Email goes 'Dark' -- encrypted, that is," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog. For the latest developments in business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — All-Pro 49ers linebacker Aldon Smith was activated to the 53-man roster from the non-football injury list Thursday, two days after he turned himself in to Santa Clara County authorities as he faces weapons charges.
One of San Francisco's dynamic pass rushers appears ready to return.
Smith had been undergoing rehab at an in-patient facility for substance abuse since late September and missed five games. With San Francisco (6-2) on its bye this week, Smith could resume practicing and working out on his own, then formally practice next week ahead of a Nov. 10 home game against the Carolina Panthers.
Smith was charged Oct. 9 with three felony counts of illegal possession of an assault weapon, stemming from a party at his home in June 2012.
49ers coach Jim Harbaugh said on his weekly radio show with 95.7 The Game that Smith met with 49ers officials Wednesday at team headquarters. General manager Trent Baalke said last week in London that Smith would have to show "progress" to play again this year.
Smith will be due in court twice — Nov. 12 and Nov. 19 — to face DUI and weapons charges.
The 24-year-old Smith had been on what the team called an indefinite leave of absence from the NFC champion Niners. Smith's agent didn't immediately return requests for comment Thursday.
Harbaugh traded text messages with Smith when he was gone, and the coach said on the radio "he's made quite a bit of progress."
While Smith is likely to face a suspension from the NFL, the league typically waits until all legal issues are resolved before handing down its own discipline.
Also in September, Smith and former teammate Delanie Walker were named in a lawsuit filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court by a Northern California man who said he was shot at a party at Smith's house on June 29, 2012.
The players charged a $10 admission and $5 per drink, the lawsuit said. Smith and now-Titans tight end Walker, 29, were allegedly intoxicated on Smith's balcony when they fired gunshots in the air while trying to end the party, the lawsuit said.
Before the 2012 home opener last September, Smith was the passenger in a car during an accident in Santa Clara County in which the driver swerved to avoid hitting a deer. Smith sustained a cut beneath his right eyebrow. He apologized and insisted he would change his ways.
Smith, selected seventh overall in the 2011 draft out of Missouri, had previously been arrested on suspicion of DUI in January 2012 in Miami shortly after the 49ers lost in the NFC championship game.
There was no NFL minimum for the number of games he had to miss while on the non-football injury list. The 49ers continued to pay Smith his weekly salary of more than $98,000 while he was away.
Smith played in a 27-7 home loss to the Colts on Sept. 22 and had five tackles just two days after he was arrested and jailed on suspicion of DUI and marijuana possession. Smith apologized for his behavior after the game then later announced he would leave for treatment.
Smith set a franchise record with 19 1/2 sacks last season.
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AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-10-31-FBN-49ers-Aldon-Smith/id-fee944da5d1640b39f3f67c3bcdaad92NEW YORK (AP) — October, with its history of big crashes on Wall Street, didn't scare off investors this time. To the contrary, the stock market seemed unstoppable.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index closed at a record high seven times and ended the month up 4.5 percent. The market climbed even after October began with the 16-day government shutdown and the threat of a potentially calamitous U.S. default.
"The market didn't waver in the face of the shutdown," said Anton Bayer, CEO of Up Capital Management, an investment adviser. "That was huge."
After being rattled by a series of down-to-the-wire budget battles in recent years, investors have become inured to the ways of Washington lawmakers. Instead of selling stocks, they kept their focus on what they say really matters: the Federal Reserve.
The central bank is buying $85 billion of bonds every month and keeping its benchmark short-term interest rate near zero to promote economic growth. The Fed stimulus has helped generate a stock market rally that has been going on since March 2009.
With October's gains, the S&P 500 is now up 23.2 percent for the year and is on track for its best year since 2009. The Dow Jones industrial average is 18.6 percent higher, and the Nasdaq composite index is up 29.8 percent.
The S&P 500 has climbed 160 percent since bottoming out at 676.53 in March 2009 during the Great Recession.
Some analysts say the precipitous rise in stocks may now make the market vulnerable to a drop.
"Because stocks have gone up so much, people will get nervous about another big sell-off at some stage," said David Kelly, chief global strategist at JPMorgan funds.
Some investors will be relieved to see October behind them. The Stock Trader's Almanac refers to October as "the jinx month" because of its fraught history.
The Dow lost 40 points on Oct. 28, 1929, a day that became known as Black Monday and heralded the start of the Depression. Almost 60 years later, on Oct. 19, 1987, the Dow suffered its biggest percentage loss, plunging nearly 23 percent in the second Black Monday. The index also plummeted 13 percent on Oct. 27, 1997.
There was no such drama on Wall Street on Thursday. Stocks were mostly flat as investors took in disappointing corporate earnings.
The S&P 500 slipped 6.77 points, or 0.4 percent, to 1,756.54. The Dow dropped 73.01 points, or 0.5 percent, to 15,545. The Nasdaq composite fell 10.91 points, or 0.3 percent, to 3,919.71.
Avon slumped $4.90, or 21.9 percent, to $17.50 after the beauty products company reported a third-quarter loss, reflecting lower sales and China-related charges. The company also said the Securities and Exchange Commission is proposing a much larger penalty than it expected to settle bribery allegations.
Visa fell $7.15, or 3.5 percent, to $196.67. Its quarterly profits fell 28 percent as it set aside money for taxes. Visa also expects a slow recovery for the economy.
Overall, company earnings are beating the expectations of Wall Street analysts and lifting stock prices. Companies are benefiting from low borrowing costs and stable labor expenses, which are enabling them to boost earnings even as sales remain slack.
Earnings for companies in the S&P 500 are expected to grow 5.3 percent in the third quarter, according to data from S&P Capital IQ. That compares with 4.9 percent in the second quarter, and 2.4 percent in the same period a year ago.
The stock market is likely to keep climbing as long as the central bank keeps up its stimulus, said Up Capital's Bayer. But stocks could fall as much as 20 percent when the Fed starts to cut back on its bond-buying program, he said.
TORONTO (AP) — Toronto police said Thursday they have obtained a video that appears to show Mayor Rob Ford smoking from a crack pipe — a video that Ford had claimed didn't exist and has been at the core of a scandal that has embarrassed and gripped Canada for months.
Police Chief Bill Blair said the video, recovered from after being deleted from a computer hard drive, did not provide grounds to press charges. But it is bound to renew calls for the resignation of Ford, a populist politician who has repeatedly made headlines for his bizarre behavior.
There was no immediate comment from Ford, who giving tours of his office's Halloween decorations Thursday. Before the disclosure, Ford angrily screamed at reporters to get off his property as he left his house in the morning. He didn't respond to questions shouted at him.
Blair said he was "disappointed" after viewing the video which he said "depicts images that are consistent with those previously reported in the press."
Ford faced allegations in May that he had been caught on video puffing from a glass crack pipe. Two reporters with the Toronto Star said they saw the video, but it has not been released publicly. Ford maintains he does not smoke crack and that the video does not exist.
Blair said the video will come out when Ford's friend and sometimes driver, Alexander Lisi, goes to trial on previous drug charges. Blair did not say who the computer belonged to but police later said Lisi has now been charged with extortion for trying to retrieve the recording from an unidentified person.
"As a citizen of Toronto I'm disappointed. This is a traumatic issue for citizens of this city and the reputation of this city," Blair said.
The scandal has been the fodder of jokes on U.S. late night television that has cast Canada's financial capital in an unflattering light.
Ford was elected mayor of Canada's largest city three years ago on a wave of discontent simmering in the city's outlying suburbs. Since then Ford has repeatedly appeared in the news for his increasingly bizarre behavior. He has refused to resign.
The prosecutor in the Lisi case police released documents Thursday showing they had rummaged through Ford's garbage in search of evidence of drug use. They show that they conducted a massive surveillance operation monitoring the mayor and Lisi following drug use allegations.
The documents show that friends and former staffers of Ford were concerned that Lisi was "fuelling" the Toronto mayor's alleged drug use.
The documents also detail evidence that led to Lisi's arrest on drug and extortion charges.
The police documents, ordered released by a judge, show Ford receiving suspicious packages from Lisi on several occasions.
"Lisi approached the driver's side of the Mayor's vehicle with a small white gift bag in hand; he then walked around to the passenger side and got on board," reads one document dated July 30, 2013. "After a few minutes Lisi exited the Escalade empty handed and walked back to his Range Rover."
Another dated July 28 says Lisi "constantly used counter surveillance techniques" when he met with Ford that day.
On August 13 documents say Lisi and Ford met and "made their way into a secluded area of the adjacent woods where they were obscured from surveillance efforts and stayed for approximately one hour." Police later recovered a vodka and juice bottle from where they met. "So as not to reveal that the original bottles were seized replacement ones were left behind," the document says.
Ford recently vouched for Lisi in a separate criminal case, praising his leadership skills and hard work in a letter filed with the court. The letter was part of a report prepared by a probation officer after Lisi was convicted of threatening to kill a woman.
Ford said previously that he was shocked when Lisi was arrested earlier this month, calling him a "good guy" and saying he doesn't abandon his friends.
The documents also say that Payman Aboodowleh, a volunteer football coach at Don Bosco Catholic Secondary School, where Ford coached the team, told police that Lisi met Ford through him. He told police he was "mad at Lisi because he was fuelling the mayor's drug abuse," the document says.
Ford former staffer, Chris Fickel, told police he didn't know where Ford got marijuana from, but "has heard that 'Sandro', Lisi's nickname, may be the person who provides the mayor with marijuana and possibly cocaine," the document alleges. However, Fickel added, he has never seen Lisi provide the mayor with drugs. The mayor would call Fickel and tell him to tell "Sandro" that "I need to see him," Fickle told police.
Toronto councilor Paula Fletcher said Ford needs to act in the best interests of the city. She said all citizens of Toronto are disappointed.
"The mayor has said there wasn't a video," Fletcher said. "He has said there is a conspiracy against him. With Chief's Blair's press conference I think that's put to rest."
Councilor Joe Mihevc said he continues to be shocked by the "depth and revelations that are coming out"
"The mayor has to come clean and do it as soon as possible. He needs to talk honestly about his use of illicit drugs," Mihevc said.
The 'Carrie' remake, Guillermo del Toro's new book and Britney Spears' 'Thriller' narration top our list of All Hallows' Eve enjoyments.
By Amy Wilkinson
Ellen DeGeneres' Halloween costume this year earns her the booby prize! The 55-year-old talk show host kicked off her special Halloween episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Thursday, Oct. 31, dressed as a scantily-clad Nicki Minaj.
"Let me start by saying my eyes are up here," DeGeneres joked. "This year I decided to go as something really scary -- half naked."
"Of course, I'm Nicki Minaj," she explained. "Nicki was on the show a few weeks ago and her shirt was not. She took our show from PG to double D."
PHOTOS: Celebs' 2013 Halloween costumes
For her costume, DeGeneres copied the exact outfit the 30-year-old rapper wore on her show last month. Minaj wore black leather pants and a black cardigan that was only buttoned at the top and exposed her massive cleavage underneath. The talk show host also wore a long blonde wig to match Minaj's hairstyle, and bright pink lipstick.
PHOTOS: Nicki Minaj's most outrageous Twitter photos
"I got the whole look down. I even have the same shoes on. I think I do -- I can't see my feet -- but I think I do," DeGeneres joked. "I normally don't wear things this sexy, but when you dress as Nicki Minaj you have to. So here are my boom booms and my super bass," she quipped, referring to Minaj's "Super Bass" song while showing off her curves.
"And in case you're wondering these are real," she added, flaunting her cleavage. "It's all real." To top off the look, DeGeneres turned around and twerked in front of the audience.
PHOTOS: Celebs in matching costumes
What did Minaj think of DeGeneres dressing up like her? The "Starships" singer tweeted, "I didn't know Ellen could get any sexier."
Tell Us: What do you think of DeGeneres' Halloween costume?
October 31, 2013
Just when you thought Apple couldn't get more censorious or heavy-handed, it surprises you and takes things to a whole new level.
Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig found himself being thrown into Apple's memory hole this week when he tried to draw attention to a way in which some Apple users could regain Wi-Fi functionality in the wake of iOS 7's problems with same.
According to Violet Blue at ZDNet, some Apple users who upgraded to iOS 7 have been plagued with malfunctioning Wi-Fi, and since September have had their questions consistently ignored on Apple's official forums. Lessig was one of those bitten by this bug.
Lessig found that for U.K. users at least, one possible form of redress might be available in the form of returning the device under warranty laws in the U.K. Almost immediately after posting that comment on Apple's forums, it vanished. Lessig reposted the comment, only to have it deleted once again -- and this time, Lessig received a warning from Apple that "these posts are not allowed on our forums."
Astounded, Lessig wrote about his experiences on his blog, and expressed dismay at the way comments were being scrubbed from the forums for no defensible reason. "When did it become inappropriate to inform people about legally protected rights related to technical issues?" he declared. "Is talking about legal rights the new porn?"
Lessig also echoed a complaint others have made about Apple: The company remains frustratingly tight-lipped about most every issue raised. "Unlike really helpful companies which try to reward people who spend time making community boards the best source for technical support by engaging with posts, and at least acknowledging the problems," Lessig wrote, "Apple’s policy seems to be a 'never comment' policy. Which leads its users -- and again, people who are volunteering their time to help lower Apple’s customer support cost -- to express increasing exasperation at the unanswered problems."
Since his experience, other posts in the same vein also have been deleted, according to Lessig.
And so it begins. Twitter, now firmly on the road to IPO, has equally firmly turned its attention to monetisation — which means it’s turning on new features that are designed, first and foremost, with advertisers in mind. And with the goal of attracting a more mainstream user-base.
Exhibit A: in-stream photo and video previews on the Twitter web client and Android and iOS apps.
(This being timed to coincide with Halloween is probably not at all coincidental. The disproportionate pull of people dressing up for Halloween on apps and services would make a fascinating study — see also FrontBack recently tweaking its offering so you can compose a shot with two images from the rear camera — thereby enabling users to take lots of shots of other people’s costumes).
Returning to Twitter, what that means in practice is the densely packed wall of 140-character tweets which allowed Twitter to be an exceptional information delivery mechanism is now being interrupted by visual media.
Pictures, as countless photo-sharing apps prove, draw the eye and the attention. They crowd out words. Which means that the Twitter timeline has become less functional, and more trivial.
Pictures are distracting. That’s why advertisers love them. The big bold image can grab you, even if the product itself isn’t something you’d go looking for yourself. Images by their nature are arresting.
But if your primary product is an information network, then injecting visual media necessarily dilutes the offering.
Literally in the physical space sense. These visual media tweets take up more room than a typical text tweet (unless it’s stuffed with line breaks) — so users’ screen real estate is getting disproportionately hogged by anyone choosing to tweet out Twitter photos or Vine videos.
Obviously, Twitter users should expect vast amounts of visual media to be spewed out by advertisers all too soon — giving them a neat workaround to make an advert stand out in a sea of 140-characters.
Twitter’s core product is also now being diluted. The density of the information conveyed by the timeline is being watered down by whatever random visual imagery your followers are tweeting at any given moment (real-time events like popular TV broadcasts and big sports matches could easily end up overwhelming Twitter, more so than they already do).
It’s not that images and videos can’t be interesting; of course they can. But by forcing users to view media before deciding whether it is worth viewing (i.e. by reading the context provided by the accompanying text tweet before they click on the media link), Twitter is removing a vital content filter from its own network.
Now, if you’re using Twitter’s web client, there is no opt out of this visual clutter. And that makes Twitter step a little closer to the kind of content you’re forced to eyeball on Google+ or Facebook. So basically:
You can turn off the new media injection ‘feature’ in Twitter’s mobile apps (perhaps for download speed/data conservation reasons), but Twitter has confirmed to TechCrunch there is no off switch in its web client.
At the time of writing Twitter had not responded to a question asking why it is not offering an opt out to users of its web client.
What this means is that if you value Twitter as a fast information resource on your desktop device then the only option is to use an alternative Twitter client such as Tweetbot (which costs £14 on the Mac App Store vs Twitter’s free web client).
(On that point, Twitter has previously limited its API, thereby throttling the growth potential of third party clients, so opt-out options are being limited too.)
In my view, Twitter forcibly injecting media previews is not cool and makes the service less useful to me. But on the flip side — and there is a flip-side — pictures are very accessible, and are more likely to appeal to a mainstream user vs a dense wall of text that needs to be filtered and unpicked on the fly. So it’s easy to see their rational here.
A wall of tweets is great for busy journalists, but likely somewhat alienating for a first time user trying to figure out what Twitter is for. And attracting more users, and more mainstream users, is a key challenge for Twitter — being as it has a growth problem.
Injecting visual media is not the only recent change Twitter has made that tweaks its product to do a bit more hand-holding for newbies and less techie folk, either.
Back in August, for instance, it flipped the format of the timeline by adding a new conversation view that displays @replies in sequence to the tweets that generated them. For seasoned Twitter who knew how to follow the @reply trail, this change was an irritation — because it also dilutes the density of and interrupts the flow of the timeline.
But for newbies it probably helps to generate context on the fly, and also signposts how the service works. In other words: two Twitter birds, one stone.
I recently went through the process of setting my mum up on Twitter, and when you revisit the process of starting again from scratch with zero followers it’s easy to see how hard it is for a newcomer to hook into the service.
A lot of effort is required to ‘get’ Twitter, in terms of finding other users who are tweeting about things you’re interested in. And, unlike Facebook, none of my mum’s peer group is using Twitter. It become evident that a big portion of Twitter’s efforts at the new user sign-up stage are focused on pushing newcomers to follow celebrity accounts, as a way to offer a mainstream way into its service.
As Twitter prepares to IPO, and becomes answerable to a new influx of investors, it’s inevitable that it’s going to have to find more and more ways to make its service more mainstream. And that’s going to change its core product — in ways that long-time users are going to struggle with.
Add to that, with so much energy and attention still being sucked into photo-sharing services/visual social networks like Instagram, Twitter is evidently feeling a need to diversify beyond text.
Prettying up the timeline with pictures is therefore an obvious next step — it’s just a shame Twitter can’t throw a bone to the subsection of long-time users that value its service as an information resource and give us an opt-out of these mainstream changes.
By all means bury that off switch deep in settings where mainstream users will never find it. But give us an out so we can keep on using the Twitter we know and love.
After all, if we wanted to spend our time idly eyeballing a stream of random eye candy, we’d have long since migrated to Google+…
The Obama administration came out with a report Monday arguing that 1 million single adults between the ages of 18 and 35 will be eligible for an Obamacare insurance plan costing less than $50 a month.
That’s news to me.
I’m a healthy 34-year-old with a taxable income hovering right around the Obamacare subsidy level who, for the last several years, has purchased a relatively inexpensive catastrophic health insurance plan from Blue Shield. I get to see the doctor four times a year for a $30 co-pay, and I won’t have to spend the rest of my life working off the debt if I get hit by a bus.
Even Google's notification mascot is getting in the Halloween spirit. Clear your Google+ notifications on the web or in the latest version of the app and you'll see Mr. Jingles is all dressed up and ready for today's celebrations!
If you've got a particularly awesome costume ready for tonight, there's still time to enter our #LloydOWeen contest, which closes noon PDT tomorrow.
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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 30-Oct-2013
ShareContact: Megan Fellman
fellman@northwestern.edu
847-491-3115
Northwestern University
Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), the brain cancer that killed Sen. Edward Kennedy and kills approximately 13,000 Americans a year, is aggressive and incurable. Now a Northwestern University research team is the first to demonstrate delivery of a drug that turns off a critical gene in this complex cancer, increasing survival rates significantly in animals with the deadly disease.
The novel therapeutic, which is based on nanotechnology, is small and nimble enough to cross the blood-brain barrier and get to where it is needed -- the brain tumor. Designed to target a specific cancer-causing gene in cells, the drug simply flips the switch of the troublesome oncogene to "off," silencing the gene. This knocks out the proteins that keep cancer cells immortal.
In a study of mice, the nontoxic drug was delivered by intravenous injection. In animals with GBM, the survival rate increased nearly 20 percent, and tumor size was reduced three to four fold, as compared to the control group. The results will be published Oct. 30 in Science Translational Medicine.
"This is a beautiful marriage of a new technology with the genes of a terrible disease," said Chad A. Mirkin, a nanomedicine expert and a senior co-author of the study. "Using highly adaptable spherical nucleic acids, we specifically targeted a gene associated with GBM and turned it off in vivo. This proof-of-concept further establishes a broad platform for treating a wide range of diseases, from lung and colon cancers to rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis."
Mirkin is the George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and professor of medicine, chemical and biological engineering, biomedical engineering and materials science and engineering.
Glioblastoma expert Alexander H. Stegh came to Northwestern University in 2009, attracted by the University's reputation for interdisciplinary research, and within weeks was paired up with Mirkin to tackle the difficult problem of developing better treatments for glioblastoma.
Help is critical for patients with GBM: The median survival rate is 14 to 16 months, and approximately 16,000 new cases are reported in the U.S. every year.
In their research partnership, Mirkin had the perfect tool to tackle the deadly cancer: spherical nucleic acids (SNAs), new globular forms of DNA and RNA, which he had invented at Northwestern in 1996, and which are nontoxic to humans. The nucleic acid sequence is designed to match the target gene.
And Stegh had the gene: In 2007, he and colleagues identified the gene Bcl2Like12 as one that is overexpressed in glioblastoma tumors and related to glioblastoma's resistance to conventional therapies.
"My research group is working to uncover the secrets of cancer and, more importantly, how to stop it," said Stegh, a senior co-author of the study. "Glioblastoma is a very challenging cancer, and most chemo-therapeutic drugs fail in the clinic. The beauty of the gene we silenced in this study is that it plays many different roles in therapy resistance. Taking the gene out of the picture should allow conventional therapies to be more effective."
Stegh is an assistant professor in the Ken and Ruth Davee Department of Neurology at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and an investigator in the Northwestern Brain Tumor Institute.
The power of gene regulation technology is that a disease with a genetic basis can be attacked and treated if scientists have the right tools. Thanks to the Human Genome Project and genomics research over the last two decades, there is an enormous number of genetic targets; having the right therapeutic agents and delivery materials has been the challenge.
"The RNA interfering-based SNAs are a completely novel approach in thinking about cancer therapy," Stegh said. "One of the problems is that we have large lists of genes that are somehow disregulated in glioblastoma, but we have absolutely no way of targeting all of them using standard pharmacological approaches. That's where we think nanomaterials can play a fundamental role in allowing us to implement the concept of personalized medicine in cancer therapy."
Stegh and Mirkin's drug for GBM is specially designed to target the Bcl2Like12 gene in cancer cells. Key is the nanostructure's spherical shape and nucleic acid density. Normal (linear) nucleic acids cannot get into cells, but these spherical nucleic acids can. Small interfering RNA (siRNA) surrounds a gold nanoparticle like a shell; the nucleic acids are highly oriented, densely packed and form a tiny sphere. (The gold nanoparticle core is only 13 nanometers in diameter.) The RNA's sequence is programmed to silence the disease-causing gene.
"The problems posed by glioblastoma and many other diseases are simply too big for one research group to handle," said Mirkin, who also is the director of Northwestern's International Institute for Nanotechnology. "This work highlights the power of scientists and engineers from different fields coming together to address a difficult medical issue."
Mirkin first developed the nanostructure platform used in this study in 1996 at Northwestern, and the technology now is the basis of powerful commercialized and FDA-cleared medical diagnostic tools. This new development, however, is the first realization that the nanostructures injected into an animal naturally find their target in the brain and can deliver an effective payload of therapeutics.
The next step for the therapeutic will be to test it in clinical trials.
The nanostructures used in this study were developed in Mirkin's lab on the Evanston campus and then used in cell and animal studies in Stegh's lab on the Chicago campus.
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Northwestern has one of nine Centers of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence (CCNE) funded by the National Cancer Institute. Mirkin and Stegh are members of both the CCNE and the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University.
The title of the paper is "Spherical Nucleic Acid Nanoparticle Conjugates as an RNAi-Based Therapy for Glioblastoma."
The co-first authors are Samuel A. Jensen, Emily S. Day and Caroline H. Ko. In addition to these three, Mirkin and Stegh, other authors of the paper are Lisa A. Hurley, Janina P. Luciano, Fotini M. Kouri, Timothy J. Merkel, Andrea J. Luthi, Pinal C. Patel, Joshua I. Cutler, Weston L. Daniel, Alexander W. Scott, Matthew W. Rotz, Thomas J. Meade and David A. Giljohann, all from Northwestern.
Editor's note: Chad Mirkin, Alexander Stegh, David Giljohann, Weston Daniel and Pinal Patel have interest in AuraSense Therapeutics, which develops SNA-based technologies. Mirkin is a co-founder of the company.
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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 30-Oct-2013
ShareContact: Megan Fellman
fellman@northwestern.edu
847-491-3115
Northwestern University
Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), the brain cancer that killed Sen. Edward Kennedy and kills approximately 13,000 Americans a year, is aggressive and incurable. Now a Northwestern University research team is the first to demonstrate delivery of a drug that turns off a critical gene in this complex cancer, increasing survival rates significantly in animals with the deadly disease.
The novel therapeutic, which is based on nanotechnology, is small and nimble enough to cross the blood-brain barrier and get to where it is needed -- the brain tumor. Designed to target a specific cancer-causing gene in cells, the drug simply flips the switch of the troublesome oncogene to "off," silencing the gene. This knocks out the proteins that keep cancer cells immortal.
In a study of mice, the nontoxic drug was delivered by intravenous injection. In animals with GBM, the survival rate increased nearly 20 percent, and tumor size was reduced three to four fold, as compared to the control group. The results will be published Oct. 30 in Science Translational Medicine.
"This is a beautiful marriage of a new technology with the genes of a terrible disease," said Chad A. Mirkin, a nanomedicine expert and a senior co-author of the study. "Using highly adaptable spherical nucleic acids, we specifically targeted a gene associated with GBM and turned it off in vivo. This proof-of-concept further establishes a broad platform for treating a wide range of diseases, from lung and colon cancers to rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis."
Mirkin is the George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and professor of medicine, chemical and biological engineering, biomedical engineering and materials science and engineering.
Glioblastoma expert Alexander H. Stegh came to Northwestern University in 2009, attracted by the University's reputation for interdisciplinary research, and within weeks was paired up with Mirkin to tackle the difficult problem of developing better treatments for glioblastoma.
Help is critical for patients with GBM: The median survival rate is 14 to 16 months, and approximately 16,000 new cases are reported in the U.S. every year.
In their research partnership, Mirkin had the perfect tool to tackle the deadly cancer: spherical nucleic acids (SNAs), new globular forms of DNA and RNA, which he had invented at Northwestern in 1996, and which are nontoxic to humans. The nucleic acid sequence is designed to match the target gene.
And Stegh had the gene: In 2007, he and colleagues identified the gene Bcl2Like12 as one that is overexpressed in glioblastoma tumors and related to glioblastoma's resistance to conventional therapies.
"My research group is working to uncover the secrets of cancer and, more importantly, how to stop it," said Stegh, a senior co-author of the study. "Glioblastoma is a very challenging cancer, and most chemo-therapeutic drugs fail in the clinic. The beauty of the gene we silenced in this study is that it plays many different roles in therapy resistance. Taking the gene out of the picture should allow conventional therapies to be more effective."
Stegh is an assistant professor in the Ken and Ruth Davee Department of Neurology at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and an investigator in the Northwestern Brain Tumor Institute.
The power of gene regulation technology is that a disease with a genetic basis can be attacked and treated if scientists have the right tools. Thanks to the Human Genome Project and genomics research over the last two decades, there is an enormous number of genetic targets; having the right therapeutic agents and delivery materials has been the challenge.
"The RNA interfering-based SNAs are a completely novel approach in thinking about cancer therapy," Stegh said. "One of the problems is that we have large lists of genes that are somehow disregulated in glioblastoma, but we have absolutely no way of targeting all of them using standard pharmacological approaches. That's where we think nanomaterials can play a fundamental role in allowing us to implement the concept of personalized medicine in cancer therapy."
Stegh and Mirkin's drug for GBM is specially designed to target the Bcl2Like12 gene in cancer cells. Key is the nanostructure's spherical shape and nucleic acid density. Normal (linear) nucleic acids cannot get into cells, but these spherical nucleic acids can. Small interfering RNA (siRNA) surrounds a gold nanoparticle like a shell; the nucleic acids are highly oriented, densely packed and form a tiny sphere. (The gold nanoparticle core is only 13 nanometers in diameter.) The RNA's sequence is programmed to silence the disease-causing gene.
"The problems posed by glioblastoma and many other diseases are simply too big for one research group to handle," said Mirkin, who also is the director of Northwestern's International Institute for Nanotechnology. "This work highlights the power of scientists and engineers from different fields coming together to address a difficult medical issue."
Mirkin first developed the nanostructure platform used in this study in 1996 at Northwestern, and the technology now is the basis of powerful commercialized and FDA-cleared medical diagnostic tools. This new development, however, is the first realization that the nanostructures injected into an animal naturally find their target in the brain and can deliver an effective payload of therapeutics.
The next step for the therapeutic will be to test it in clinical trials.
The nanostructures used in this study were developed in Mirkin's lab on the Evanston campus and then used in cell and animal studies in Stegh's lab on the Chicago campus.
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Northwestern has one of nine Centers of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence (CCNE) funded by the National Cancer Institute. Mirkin and Stegh are members of both the CCNE and the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University.
The title of the paper is "Spherical Nucleic Acid Nanoparticle Conjugates as an RNAi-Based Therapy for Glioblastoma."
The co-first authors are Samuel A. Jensen, Emily S. Day and Caroline H. Ko. In addition to these three, Mirkin and Stegh, other authors of the paper are Lisa A. Hurley, Janina P. Luciano, Fotini M. Kouri, Timothy J. Merkel, Andrea J. Luthi, Pinal C. Patel, Joshua I. Cutler, Weston L. Daniel, Alexander W. Scott, Matthew W. Rotz, Thomas J. Meade and David A. Giljohann, all from Northwestern.
Editor's note: Chad Mirkin, Alexander Stegh, David Giljohann, Weston Daniel and Pinal Patel have interest in AuraSense Therapeutics, which develops SNA-based technologies. Mirkin is a co-founder of the company.
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My recent conversation with Stateless Media’s Peter Savodnik was a bit discombobulating. He’s had what seems like a successful career in longform journalism, with publications in The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, GQ, and elsewhere. Yet he sounded awfully pessimistic about print — and as someone who makes his living as a writer, that’s not exactly what I wanted to hear.
On the other hand, Savodnik has a vision for what might replace the feature magazine articles that he used to write, and he’s pursuing it through his new company. (Stateless Media’s website describes the content as “post-print storytelling”.) Traditional media outlets, he argued, aren’t giving the younger audience “what they want.”
“We can lament the fact that people don’t want to read long, thoughtful stories, but that doesn’t change the facts on the ground,” he said. “I guess my very strong feeling is that we have a real opportunity here to reconnect with millions and millions of media consumers.”
The vehicle for that connection is something Savodnik has dubbed the “shortreal”, which is essentially an 11-minute online documentary. Stateless Media has released two shortreals thus far, one called “The Brothers Shaikh” (embedded at the end of this post) and a second called “Chutzpah“. And it just released the trailer for a third (which you can watch below), “Being Radler,” covering “the hunt for an East German spy.”
I thought “Chutzpah”, in particular, was well done — it addresses a familiar topic (politician Anthony Weiner), but in a fresh and entertaining way (and according to the Stateless Media site, it has been viewed 14,326 times).
But what makes a shortreal different from any other online video and actually worthy of a new buzzword? Savodnik argued that the aims are implicit in the name — a shortreal doesn’t take much time to watch (the 11-minute duration was chosen because it’s half the length of a 30-minute TV episode, minus the commercials) and it tells a true story. That storytelling, he added, is what’s missing from many documentaries, some of which are more concerned about being beautiful, while others are “cause-driven” and “predictable”: “We know from the start where we’re being led and what we’re going to think.”
“I have the utmost respect for that, but a story is a real story,” Savodnik said. “There are complicated characters who develop over time.”
The initial shortreals were directed by filmmakers Edward Perkins and Kannan Arunasalam. Perkins told me via email that even though he’s directed documentary films for the National Geographic Channel and behind-the-scenes featurettes for films include The Eagle and Searching For Sugar Man, shortreals are “fundamentally different from anything I have worked on before” because they combine “the best of investigative journalism and documentary filmmaking.”
“People have always wanted to hear great stories, and will continue to do so,” he said. “But the way in which they want to consume stories is changing. We want to give people people these stories exactly how and when they want them. On phones. On laptops. On tablets. And in a short 11 minute format that still explores complex issues, embraces ambiguity, and throws up surprises.”
Arunasalam said that a shortreal is closer to a short film than a documentary, “with a very cinematic look and feel.” He offered this explanation for how they’re put together:
For me, it’s an interesting dynamic between the investigative journalist and the filmmaker working together. Usually, as a filmmaker you’re on your own to tell the story. But here, the story is reported by the journalist, who does the investigating and the digging for characters and story-lines — so far mainly by Peter — and the responsibility of making the film rests with the filmmaker. With the Stateless Media approach, the skills of both filmmaker and journalist are fine-tuned to the storytelling process, to make the best possible film.
Stateless has been self-funded thus far, and it sounds like it’s still very much in the experimental stages — for example, Savodnik said he learned a lot from the production of “The Brothers Sheikh” that led to big improvements in “Chutzpah”.
The ultimate goal, he said, is to build out a team of filmmakers who create shortreals from around the world, and to turn Stateless Media into the destination site for that content: “Basically the stories that we like to tell are stories that are — I guess there’s no other way to put it — unexpected, stories that don’t fit into conventional frameworks.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama claimed "full responsibility" Wednesday for fixing his administration's much-maligned health insurance website as a new concern surfaced: a government memo pointing to security worries, laid out just days before the launch.
On Capitol Hill, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius apologized to frustrated people trying to sign up, declaring that she is accountable for the failures but also defending the historic health care overhaul. The website sign-up problems will be fixed by Nov. 30, she said, and the gaining of health insurance will make a positive difference in the lives of millions of Americans.
Obama underscored the administration's unhappiness with the problems so far: "There's no excuse for it," he said during a Boston speech to promote his signature domestic policy achievement. "And I take full responsibility for making sure it gets fixed ASAP."
The website HealthCare.gov was still experiencing outages as Sebelius faced a new range of questions at the House Energy and Commerce Committee about a security memo from her department. It revealed that the troubled website was granted a temporary security certificate on Sept. 27, just four days before it went live on Oct. 1.
The memo, obtained by The Associated Press, said incomplete testing created uncertainties that posed a potentially high security risk for the website. It called for a six-month "mitigation" program, including ongoing monitoring and testing.
Security issues raise major new concerns on top of the long list of technical problems the administration is grappling with.
"You accepted a risk on behalf of every user ... that put their personal financial information at risk," Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., told Sebelius, citing the memo. "Amazon would never do this. ProFlowers would never do this. Kayak would never do this. This is completely an unacceptable level of security."
Sebelius countered that the system is secure, even though the site's certificate, known in government parlance as an "authority to operate," is of a temporary nature. A permanent certificate will be issued only when all security issues are addressed, she stressed.
Spokeswoman Joanne Peters added separately: "When consumers fill out their online ... applications, they can trust that the information they're providing is protected by stringent security standards and that the technology underlying the application process has been tested and is secure. Security testing happens on an ongoing basis using industry best practices."
The security certificate is required under longstanding federal policy before any government computer system can process, store or transmit agency data. The temporary certificate was approved by Medicare chief Marilyn Tavenner, the senior HHS official closest to the rollout. No major security breaches have been reported.
The memo said, "From a security perspective, the aspects of the system that were not tested due to the ongoing development, exposed a level of uncertainty that can be deemed as a high risk for the (federal marketplace website)."
It recommended setting up a security team to address risks and conduct daily tests, and said a full security test should be conducted within two to three months of the website going live.
A separate page stated that "the mitigation plan does not reduce the risk to the (website) itself going into operation on October 1, 2013. However, the added protections do reduce the risk to the overall Marketplace operations and will ensure that the ... system is completely tested within the next 6 months."
That page was signed by three senior technical officials below Tavenner at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. All the officials deal with information security issues.
Republicans opposed to Obama's health care law are calling for Sebelius to resign. She apologized to people having trouble signing up but told the committee that the technical issues that led to frozen screens and error messages are being cleared up on a daily basis.
Sebelius' forthright statement about her ultimate accountability for problems with the sign-up rollout came as Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., peppered her with questions about the "debacle."
"Hold me accountable for the debacle," Sebelius responded. "I'm responsible."
Rep. Henry Waxman of California, the ranking Democrat on the committee, scoffed at Republican "oversight" of a law they have repeatedly tried to repeal.
"I would urge my colleagues to stop hyperventilating," said Waxman. "The problems with HealthCare.gov are unfortunate and we should investigate them, but they will be fixed. And then every American will have, finally have, access to affordable health insurance."
The website HealthCare.gov was intended to be the online gateway to coverage for millions of uninsured Americans, as well those who already purchase their policies individually. Many people in the latter group will have to get new insurance next year, because their policies do not meet the standards of the new law.
Throughout the 3 ½-hour hearing, Sebelius was respectful, often addressing lawmakers as "sir" or "congresswoman." She kept her cool as some lawmakers repeatedly cut off her answers. But she did not shy a few times from tersely interjecting her views while a member was speaking.
The standing-room-only hearing room was silent when she swore an oath to tell the truth and began her opening statement.
Addressing consumers who've tangled with the confusing system, Sebelius added, "So let me say directly to these Americans, you deserve better. I apologize."
She parried questions about problems with the website as well as a wave of cancellation notices hitting individuals and small businesses who buy their own insurance. Those notices are coming because many existing individual policies are too skimpy to meet the law's requirements. The administration says consumers affected will be able to find better coverage.
Lawmakers also wanted to know how many people have enrolled in plans through the health insurance marketplaces. Sebelius stuck with the administration response, promising to release the data in mid-November.
Starting Jan. 1, most Americans will be required to carry health insurance or face fines. At the same time, insurance companies will no longer be able to turn away people in poor health. The law provides subsidized private insurance for middle-class people who don't get health care on the job. Low-income people can access an expanded version of Medicaid in states that agree to expand that safety net program.
Congressional Republicans have introduced competing versions of legislation to let insurance companies continue selling coverage that has been available, freeing them from a requirement to cancel policies that do not meet the standards established in the law.
One bill in the House, authored by Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan, would cover the sale of policies providing individual coverage through 2014.
Republican officials said the House was likely to vote on the issue next month.
Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Marco Rubio of Florida back Senate legislation that would apply to existing individual or group policies, and would permit their sale indefinitely. It was not clear if or when a vote might be held in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Identical legislation has been introduced in the House by Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla..
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Associated Press writers Jack Gillum and David Espo contributed to this report.
We wouldn't be surprised if you're looking for a more secure email provider after the whole government surveillance debacle. That's why Lavabit and Silent Circle have joined forces as the Dark Mail Alliance to develop a new snoop-proof email technology. Dark Mail's "Email 3.0" tech applies peer-to-peer encryption not only to the body of the digital missive, but also to its metadata (To:, From: and Subject fields) that third parties are most likely to collect. One downside is that encryption only works between Dark Mail accounts -- messages sent using the tech to Gmail or a Hotmail addresses won't be protected from prying eyes. If the two firms sound familiar, that's because they used to offer secure email services of their own, which shuttered earlier this year. However, they're determined to rise from the ashes and make the tech available to the public via mobile and desktop apps by 2014.
[Image credit: g4ll4is, Flickr]
"How I Met Your Mother" fans, prepare for celebration: the producers behind the smash-hit sitcom are preparing for a follow-up series named, "How I Met Your Father!"
Following the same premise as the original show, the new series will track the female perspective on the quest to find the ideal man, against the backdrop of relationships with friends and other love interests.
Although production has not yet begun, and reports state that the show is only it its preliminary stage, there are “ongoing discussions” that will attempt to break it out of the idea stage.
If it makes it out of its infancy, the series finale of "How I Met Your Mother" may showcase the brand new cast of completely unrelated characters!
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveils new Kindle reading devices during a 2012 news conference.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveils new Kindle reading devices during a 2012 news conference.
The daily lowdown on books, publishing, and the occasional author behaving badly.
The Robotboys featuring Poppin John have all the right moves!
Source: http://www.ivillage.com/video-robotboys-dance-poppin-john/1-a-550895?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Avideo-robotboys-dance-poppin-john-550895Three to Offer iPad Air in UK on November 1, 2013
UK, London - October 29, 2013 -Three today announced that it will offer iPad Air with Wi-Fi + Cellular in UK on Friday, November 1, and iPad mini with Retina display with Wi-Fi + Cellular later in November. Three will offer these new iPads with a range of attractive data plans that will allow customers to connect to its fast DC-HSDPA+ 3G network and its 4G network that will be available at no extra cost, in December.
iPad Air features a stunning 9.7-inch Retina display in a new thinner and lighter design. Precision-engineered to weigh just one pound, iPad Air is 20 percent thinner and 28 percent lighter than the fourth generation iPad, and with a narrower bezel, the borders of iPad Air are dramatically thinner-making content even more immersive. iPad mini with Retina display brings all the pixels from the 9.7-inch iPad to its 7.9-inch screen, delivering razor sharp text and detail in the same amazingly thin and light design. The new iPads feature the powerful and power-efficient Apple-designed A7 chip with 64-bit desktop-class architecture, ultrafast wireless with faster built-in Wi-Fi and expanded LTE cellular connectivity, and the newly-designed iOS 7 featuring hundreds of great new features.
Customers can buy iPad Air with Wi-Fi + Cellular at all Three retail shops, online or by calling 0800 358 8460, beginning November, 1. For complete details on pricing and pre-registration, please visit www.three.co.uk.
For more information on iPad please visit www.apple.com/ipad.
NEW YORK (AP) — Smokers under 21 will soon be barred from buying cigarettes in New York City.
The City Council voted Wednesday to raise the minimum age for purchasing cigarettes and electronic-vapor cigarettes from 18 to 21.
By passing the bill, New York became the most populous place in the U.S. to raise the tobacco-buying age that high.
The city's current age limit of 18 is a federal minimum. It's standard in many places.
Some states and communities have raised the age to 19. At least two towns have agreed to raise it to 21.
Advocates say higher age limits help prevent young people from taking up a hazardous habit.
Manufacturers have suggested young adult smokers may just turn to black-market merchants.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration supports the council's plan.
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-10-30-Smoking-Minimum%20Age/id-1e0d757346104319bf2d36e1a9b9276b
