Rural California community on lockdown as killer sought

VALLEY SPRINGS, Calif. (AP) ? A region of oak-studded hills in California, where big-city dwellers come to get away from crime, was on lockdown Monday, two days after a mysterious intruder stabbed an 8-year-old girl to death at home before being spotted by her 12-year-old brother.

With the suspect still on the loose, some of the kids in this enclave nestled in the Sierra Nevada foothills were hunkering down after school at James Barci's ranch.

"Nobody is staying alone," said Barci, a truck driver and parent volunteer at Jenny Lind Elementary School, where victim Leila Fowler was a popular third-grader. "I told my work I'm not coming in, and I'm just going to have all of my kids' friends at the house until this is over."

The apparently random attack has the tightknit community on edge. Parents such as Barci spontaneously showed up Monday at the school of 500 students to give hugs or tie purple and pink ribbons ? Leila's favorite colors ? to trees on campus.

Later Monday, authorities identified the girl's parents while also saying a witness saw a person running from the family home that had a similar description of a man who fled from the home when the girl's brother confronted him.

In a hastily called news conference, Calaveras County sheriff's Capt. Jim Macedo identified the father of Leila Fowler as Barney Fowler and the mother as Krystal Walters.

The names of the parents hadn't previously been released.

As Macedo spoke, Fowler and Walters ? both solemn and declining to speak, and with Walters near tears at times ? stood in the background. Macedo said Leila's parents wanted to convey their requests that their privacy be respected, but also that a memorial fund had been set up for their daughter. A vigil is also planned for Tuesday night.

No suspects have been named, but officials said a second witness saw someone with a description similar to one provided by Leila's brother of a man who ran from the home when the boy confronted him.

Investigators have also checked registered sex offenders in the area and parolees.

In a pastoral place where fat horses swish their tails in knee-high grass and few people had ever bothered to lock their doors, residents now say their guns are loaded.

"My husband wanted me to put one in my car so I'd have it in my hand when I entered the house," Tabatha Camden said as she dropped off a neighbor's children at the school. "I drew the line at that. We've always had one gun loaded in the house at all times, but now we have four."

The sheriff's office has released little information about the killing other than a vague description of a man with long gray hair. Calaveras County Deputy Coroner Steve Moore said the girl died from multiple stab wounds.

The Fowler family's hillside street is blocked off as a crime scene, since nobody knows for sure how the intruder arrived or where he went.

Violent crime is so rare in the community of 7,400 people that even law enforcement officers have to stop and think when asked about the last time there was a stranger killing in the area.

"Probably five years ago was the last one I can remember," said Officer Rebecca Myers of the California Highway Patrol, who was assigned to block access to the neighborhood of one-acre ranchettes.

The killing of the little girl known for her sweet smile, generous hugs and friendly demeanor has hit the community hard. It's a place where parents read about tragedies in other places and give thanks that they live in Calaveras County, which makes the news only when the jumping frog contest celebrated by Mark Twain is taking place at the county fair.

"I don't know how our children are going to adjust to this," said Kathryn Danielli, who moved here from Stockton with her sixth-grade daughter to escape crime.

Danielli was among about 20 parents who drove their children to school then stayed to lend support. Sheriff's deputies patrolled the area and sheriff's volunteers stood guard at the entrance.

"Everybody up here who has kids moved up here because your kids can go outside and play," said Kim Hoeke, who moved from Antioch in the San Francisco Bay area seven years ago.

Calaveras Unified School District Superintendent Mark Campbell said at least two therapy dogs and 10 counselors were on hand for students, teachers and staff to guide them through the grieving process.

Campbell said he met with Leila's parents Monday when they came to the school to thank teachers and staff for the support they had offered.

The parents were at a Little League game at the time their daughter was attacked, Campbell said. Leila's brother found her and notified the father, who called 911 and went home, he said.

Part of the school-guided grieving process included classrooms taking turns writing notes to Leila and hanging them on the fence at the entrance to the school. They came in somber groups and attached their notes one by one.

"Dear Leila: You were a fun person and very smart. I enjoyed being around you every minute," one girl wrote.

"I know you are in heaven looking down at us but you will always be in my heart," wrote another.

Campbell said officers will have a presence at the school at until the case is resolved.

The suspect is the subject of a broad manhunt by the sheriff's departments of Calaveras and surrounding counties, the California Highway Patrol and the state Department of Justice. Sheriff's officials say investigators collected fingerprints and what they believe is DNA from the home on Sunday.

"Our normal has changed and we will move forth and heal by coming together, as we all are here today," said Linda Stoes, whose daughter dressed in purple Monday to honor her friend. "Our perspectives have changed forever."

___

AP writer Terry Collins contributed to this story from San Francisco.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rural-calif-community-lockdown-killer-sought-223919213.html

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Comparing proteins at a glance: Technique for easy comparisons of proteins in solution

Apr. 29, 2013 ? A revolutionary X-ray analytical technique that enables researchers at a glance to identify structural similarities and differences between multiple proteins under a variety of conditions has been developed by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). As a demonstration, the researchers used this technique to gain valuable new insight into a protein that is a prime target for cancer chemotherapy.

"Proteins and other biological macromolecules are moving machines whose power is often derived from how their structural conformations change in response to their environment," says Greg Hura, a scientist with Berkeley Lab's Physical Biosciences Division. "Knowing what makes a protein change has incredible value, much like knowing that stepping on a gas pedal makes the wheels of a car spin."

Hura led the development of what is being called a structural comparison map for use with small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), an imaging technique for obtaining structural information about proteins and protein complexes in solution. Cynthia McMurray, a biologist with Berkeley Lab's Life Sciences Division, provided the cancer-relevant protein used to test the new SAXS structural comparison map.

Says McMurray, "In biology, the first step in correcting a problem, such as the formation of a cancerous lesion, is understanding the conditions under which the problem arose. With the SAXS structural comparison map, we can compare multiple protein structures en masse and quickly identify areas of interest."

Greg Hura, Helen Budworth and Cynthia McMurray, shown here at the Advanced Light Source, developed a structural comparison map for SAXS imaging and tested it on a chemotherapeutic target protein. (Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt, Berkeley Lab)

Hura is the lead author and McMurray one of two corresponding authors of a paper in the journal Nature Methods that describes this research. The paper is titled "Comprehensive objective maps of macromolecular conformations by quantitative SAXS analysis." Also a corresponding author is John Tainer, who holds joint appointments with Berkeley Lab's Life Sciences Division and the Scripps Research Institute. The other authors are Helen Budworth, Kevin Dyer, Robert Rambo and Michal Hammel.

In perhaps no other area of science does the maxim "function follows form" hold more true than for proteins and protein complexes. The structural conformations created by the folding, twisting and turning of a protein's amino acid chain can allow or prevent the protein from doing what it's supposed to do and this can mean the difference between a healthy and an unhealthy cell. A protein can assume multiple distinct conformational states as it undergoes various chemical processes such as phosphorylation, nucleotide or ligand binding, ATP hydrolysis or the formation of complexes.

The most widely used technique for determining a protein's structure remains crystallography, but many proteins and protein complexes can't be crystalized. Furthermore, though precise, crystallography is a low-throughput process that can only capture one conformational state at a time. Enter SAXS, a high-throughput technique that can image any protein or protein complex in solution under any condition, and provide nanoscale resolution for distinguishing and characterizing the different conformational states that flexible biological macromolecules such as proteins can assume.

"With SAXS, there are relatively few restraints on conditions, construction, concentration or solution chemistry," Hura says. "However, analytical methods have not kept pace with the hardware. While there are many factors that may induce a protein to undergo structural changes, these factors are difficult to predict. Our structural comparison map technique gives us a high-throughput screening capability. The combination of SAXS and our maps allows us to highlight those factors that make the biggest difference in structural conformations. We're also able to track trends and identify intermediate states and other factors that shift equilibrium from one structure to another."

The data in a structural comparison map is presented in the form of a color-coded checkerboard with similarity scores displayed as gradients moving from red, indicating high, to white, indicating low, and various shades of orange and yellow in between.

"With structural comparison maps, I can immediately see which structures under which conditions are the same and which are not," says McMurray. "The maps provide both structural and chemical information and enable us to identify those conformations we should be looking at."

To test the structural conformation map technique, co-author Budworth, a member of McMurray's research group, prepared samples of a protein known as MutS?, an inviting chemotherapeutic target because of its ability to remove problematic DNA that can lead to cancer and other genetic mutations.

"MutS? is a heterodimer whose two macromolecules undergo an ordered series of nucleotide-dependent steps to initiate DNA repair," Budworth says. "Each discrete nucleotide-bound state is a conformational state decision point that primes the next pathway step. A mechanistic understanding of these steps is crucial to learning how cells avoid mutation."

Says McMurray, "Initially this was a very big puzzle because MutS? had no crystal structure, nor could we take a look at any one conformational state and say this is good or this is bad. The structural conformation maps allowed us to characterize the different conformational states individually and then compare them to one another. We discovered that DNA has surprisingly little impact on MutS? conformational structures, a fact that was not evident from biochemical measurements, but obvious when examining the maps."

From the SAXS imaging and structural conformation map analysis, McMurray and her group believe that DNA is sculpted to the protein conformation and that nucleotide-binding drives MutS? conformational changes. This, they say, holds implications for future cancer therapies.

The MutS? samples were subjected to SAXS at the SIBYLS beamline of Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source, a synchrotron that generates premier beams of X-ray and ultraviolet light for scientific research. The acronym SIBYLS stands for Structurally Integrated Biology for Life Sciences. The beamline is maintained by Berkeley Lab's Life Sciences Division under the direction of corresponding author Tainer.

Says Tainer, "The structural comparison map technique is a big step forward in the development of tools that will help biologists use the full potential of the awesome throughput we expect to achieve with the next generation of light sources."

This research was supported by funds from the DOE Office of Science and from the National Institutes of Health.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Greg L Hura, Helen Budworth, Kevin N Dyer, Robert P Rambo, Michal Hammel, Cynthia T McMurray, John A Tainer. Comprehensive macromolecular conformations mapped by quantitative SAXS analyses. Nature Methods, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.2453

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

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/_XQpz2Ub8Bw/130429130545.htm

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Larry Page Says Mobile Apps Won't Hurt Search: ?The Information Wants To Be Found'

During the conference call discussing Google's latest earnings report, executives were asked about how mobile will affect the company's business ? both the general usage of search, as well as Google's revenue and profits from advertising. CEO Larry Page responded that he "always" gets asked about how the popularity of mobile apps affects Google search, but he's "not super-concerned" about it.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/GN0qMY6SEzo/

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Chinese foreign fisheries catch 12 times more than reported, study shows

Apr. 3, 2013 ? Chinese fishing boats catch about US$11.5 billion worth of fish from beyond their country's own waters each year -- and most of it goes unreported, according to a new study led by fisheries scientists at the University of British Columbia.

The paper, recently published in the journal Fish and Fisheries, estimates that China's foreign catch is 12 times larger than the catch it reports to the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization, an international agency that keeps track of global fisheries catches.

Using a new method that analyzes the type of fishing vessels used by Chinese operators around the world and their catch capacity, the UBC-led research team estimates Chinese foreign fishing at 4.6 million tonnes per year, taken from the waters of at least 90 countries -- including 3.1 million tonnes from African waters, mainly West Africa.

"China hasn't been forthcoming about its fisheries catches," says Dirk Zeller, Senior Research Fellow with UBC's Sea Around Us Project and the study's co-author. "While not reporting catches doesn't necessarily mean the fishing is illegal -- there could be agreements between these countries and China that allow fishing -- we simply don't know for sure as this information just isn't available."

"We need to know how many fish have been taken from the ocean in order to figure out what we can catch in the future," says Daniel Pauly, principal investigator of UBC's Sea Around Us Project and the study's lead author.

"Countries need to realize the importance of accurately recording and reporting their catches and step up to the plate, or there will be no fish left for our children."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of British Columbia.

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Journal Reference:

1. Daniel Pauly, Dyhia Belhabib, Roland Blomeyer, William W W L Cheung, Andr?s M Cisneros-Montemayor, Duncan Copeland, Sarah Harper, Vicky W Y Lam, Yining Mai, Fr?d?ric Le Manach, Henrik ?sterblom, Ka Man Mok, Liesbeth van der Meer, Antonio Sanz, Soohyun Shon, U Rashid Sumaila, Wilf Swartz, Reg Watson, Yunlei Zhai, Dirk Zeller. China's distant-water fisheries in the 21st century. Fish and Fisheries, 2013; DOI: 10.1111/faf.12032

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

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/yq_8oDvN0Pg/130403104210.htm

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Year Walk and Year Walk Companion (for iPhone)

In Year Walk (iOS), you take the role of young Swedish man who desires to see the future by undertaking the ancient titular vision quest. To do this, you must walk from your home at the stroke of midnight to the local church, encountering strange creatures and visions along the way. The game is ostensibly a point-and-tap adventure puzzler, but the emphasis is on mood and atmosphere, making it feel like more of a journey than a game.

?With a healthy dollop of inspired artistry, unique gameplay tailor-made for the platform, and some moody Scandinavian horror, you have one of the most interesting games on the platform.

Playing Year Walk
Year Walk is unusual in many ways, not the least of which is that it occupies two separate apps. One is just the iOS game, which retails for $3.99 and runs on most recent iOS devices. The second is called the Year Walk Companion, which is free. At first blush, the Companion seems like a way for the developers to avoid needless in-game exposition (of which there is none). This is true, though the Companion is essential to the game.

Cleverly, the two apps have a nearly identical control scheme. In the Companion, you page left and right between articles on the monsters and the conceit of Year Walking, scrolling up and down to read the full text of each article.

In Year Walk, can move left and right by dragging your finger, or forward and backward. It's a little like moving through a story book (or the Companion app), an effect which is compounded by the stark, flat paper-cut-out landscape and creatures. The game beings in a bleak, quiet woods filled with stark bare trees. The game is best enjoyed with headphones, to fully appreciate the subtle sounds of crunching snow and blowing wind.

Though Year Walk's navigation is unique, it's clearly designed to intentionally confuse and disorient the player. This certainly is in-line with the mood, but it can be frustrating. Especially when you're struggling to remember how to get to the next puzzle.

The game makes full use of iOS devices' multi-touch screens and motion sensors, but seems to go out of its way to do so in clever ways. Multi-touching with more than two fingers is frequently required to solve the puzzles as is some out-of-the-box thinking. Great care was clearly taken so that the game wouldn't play like other iOS games, so it's important to be open to the game's internal logic and try new things.

Scares, Story, and Puzzles
Year Walk is entirely story driven, which in this case means entirely linear (but it does manage to sneak in multiple endings). This enforces the game's weirdly fatalistic mood where you'll find yourself working hard to achieve rather gruesome goals. The game even teases you by always keeping your house visible, but never allowing you to enter and end the Year Walk. You have to keep going.

On balance, the story itself is a bit wonky. But its shortcomings are easily forgiven since the game is delivered with such beautiful imagery and utilizes experimental story-telling techniques like those seen in alternate reality games.

It's also a horror game, though it isn't always sure how to go about this. It's not gory, though blood and trauma play key roles. However, both are treated more in the way of fairy tales, as contractual or ritual. The game is best when it's quietly horrifying and moody. A sequence in a cramped, disused shack with a creepy doll early in the game is spine-tinglingly memorable.

Despite this, the game has shoe-horned shocking moments, where grisly images flash on the screen and startling music plays. Sure, this made me jump (more than once!) but it felt a little forced and cheap. Especially when compared to the game's overall mood.

And though the game is short?it takes between two and hours to play, depending on how deep you go?its puzzles can be devilishly hard. One I solved by accident, and had to look up how I pulled it off. It's the kind of game that will make you keep pen and paper handy to jot down notes as you play.

Take a Year Walk
Year Walk is a fun, scary, and smart exploration in story telling that challenges other creators to match it. What shortcomings it has are balanced by a game that is both engaging and refreshing compared to many other iOS titles. If you've got a few spare dollars, take a walk through its landscape and give yourself over to it for a short while. You might not be the same afterward.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/zXEOVmd0R-4/0,2817,2417367,00.asp

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Who's the Youngest "Tonight" Host? Not Fallon. And Oldest Is a Shocker

By Tim Molloy

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - Jimmy Fallon will be the next "Tonight Show" host because NBC hopes he can draw younger viewers. But he isn't the youngest person to get the job. Not by a longshot.

And the oldest person to take the job is a shocker: At 46, Conan O'Brien was older than any other full-time host when they first got the job. (Jay Leno was older, of course, when he took it back from Conan.)

For viewers who remember Johnny Carson's retirement at 66 - and who tune in to the grey-haired Letterman or Leno today - it's easy to believe that late night has always been an older man's game, and that it's only recently that relative whippersnappers like Fallon (38) and Jimmy Kimmel (45) have gotten into the action.

Not so.

"Tonight" was first launched in 1954 with the 32-year-old Steve Allen at the helm. Jack Paar, the show's next permanent host, took over in 1957 at the age of 39 - the same age Fallon will be when he takes over next year.

Carson, the longest-serving host, got the job in 1962 at the age of 36. He handed off three decades later to Leno, then 42.

Leno briefly ceded the show to O'Brien in 2009, and we all remember how that went down, right? Like Fallon, O'Brien is perceived as appealing to a younger, edgier audience than the middle-of-the-road Leno. O'Brien and his "I'm With Coco" army took to Twitter and Facebook to press his case.

O'Brien got his first show, "Late Night," at 30, which gave him a youthful image that stayed with most viewers even over his 16 years with the show. His shock of red hair doesn't hurt.

If you're summoning up this story on your holotablet in 2034, two decades into Fallon's tenure on "FacebookGoogleCorp Presents Tonight," we hope it gives you a good laugh.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/whos-youngest-tonight-host-not-fallon-oldest-shocker-210239978.html

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Aereo's Victory: Is Streaming TV from an Antenna Legal?

Bunny ears on an iPad: Amusing, but probably not the ideal way to watch broadcast TV on your tablet. But the startup Aereo just won a court battle that could help its model of mobile TV take over the country.

In a country where most people get their TV via cable or satellite, it can be easy to forget that the local networks still broadcast their signals the old-fashioned way, from towers that spread the signal around their viewing area, allowing anyone within reach to tap that signal with an antenna. Aereo simply set up a farm of antennas in Brooklyn and charges users a small fee, currently $8 per month, to operate one of those antennas and stream local TV channels from it over the Web. An Aereo user can watch the Oscars, the NFL, or anything else that airs on network TV live on their mobile devices. Users can also record to a DVR.

You might think networks would love this, as Aereo takes signal that's publicly available and uses it to put local channels in front of more eyeballs. But the networks, many of which are developing their own streaming services, aren't happy about somebody redistributing their signals without compensating them for it, the way a cable company must if it wants to include local TV channels in its package. The argument: One person collecting a signal broadcast over the airwaves through their own antenna is fine. A business collecting signals broadcast over the airwaves and reselling them over the Internet is not.

The big media companies are not bombarding Aereo with lawsuits, but the little guy is winning the early rounds in this fight. Yesterday, an appeals court in New York upheld a previous ruling that had gone Aereo's way and refused the media giants' request to shut it down; the New York Times says a trial could be up next. Bolstered by the early decisions, Aereo is moving forward with a plan to expand its service, which is currently available only in New York City, to 22 new markets around the country.

Could the courts curtail Aereo? The argument by ABC, NBCUniversal, and others is that Aereo violates their copyright. In one of the actions, they cite the "public performance" part of copyright law, which grants the owner exclusive right to publicly perform their works. The appeals court's decision wades into some murky legal questions about public versus private communications: Is Aereo's service a "public performance," as the courts have deemed cable TV to be? Or is it a private communication, like that between an old-fashioned rooftop antenna and your personal TV set?

"Unanticipated technological developments have created tension between Congress's view that retransmissions of network programs by cable television systems should be deemed public performances and its intent that some transmissions be classified as private," the appeals court writes. In other words: The Copyright Act of 1976 couldn't have foreseen a technology like Aereo's, but, given the way the law has been written and interpreted, the court refused to call Aereo transmissions "public performances" and therefore refused to rule against the startup in this copyright matter.

Still, this isn't over. One judge who dissented in the appeals court ruling called Aereo "a Rube Goldberg-like contrivance" designed to work around the spirit of the law, so the broadcast giants have plenty of points to argue in future cases.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/how-to/blog/what-you-can-and-cant-do-with-a-broadcast-tv-signal-15297523?src=rss

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The Weirdest Thing on the Internet Tonight: Creepy Watson

There's always been something just a little off about Dr. Watson and his uncanny ability to always appear by his partner's side. But now that your suspicions of Sherlock Holmes' faithful man-servant have been proven correct, will you survive the night? More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/M9gUOn6LzsE/the-weirdest-thing-on-the-internet-tonight-creepy-watson

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Shadowgun: DeadZone 2.0 update hits with loads of new features

Game adds localization for several new languages; remains free-to-play for everyone

As one of the most popular mobile-only online multiplayer games, Shadowgun: DeadZone is keeping the experience fresh with a 2.0 update in the Play Store today. The update brings new maps, weapons and stat boosters for things like armor, damage and accuracy. Also new is a "friends" menu that lets you invite friends to your game or view real-time stats while they play. First time players will like the new "tutorial" mode to help get acquainted with the game.

The update also localizes the game for several new languages, including Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Korean and Japanese. If you haven't yet given the multiplayer version of Shadowgun a try yet, now may be the time.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/VLq7q_7zQhw/story01.htm

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