Transportation plays a vital role in our lives today. With the advancement of humanity, there is even more to make us believe that. There are different methods of transportation, such as cars and planes for instance. There are some more intriguing ways to be transported, which most people don't think about as well. In case you value proper transportation and you are in the area of Orlando, there is one possibility which might intrigue you, and it comes in the face of Orlando limousine service.
Most people will easily consider that employing a limousine will be something out of their budget for sure. This is something, which you could easily appreciate, and even though it might be a little pricy, you might definitely benefit from trying it out. This is especially suitable for corporate clients, as a proper limousine service in Orlando will no doubt offer safe and comfortable transportation to and from your hotel. Your loved one might enjoy a good limousine trip significantly as well if you are willing to try it. You just have to make sure you observe all the different applications for this service.
There is more than one benefit to be seen in the Orlando limousine service too. It is easy to state that the drivers employed by such agencies are always experienced, and you can expect a lot of the driving quality. You will simply have to give the team at the agency at a call and tell them what you want, and you can enjoy a full range of various luxuries during the ride. It can easily be said that traveling in luxury is something you can enjoy thoroughly, and you should explore the options carefully.
There is no rocket science to employing a good limousine service in Orlando. All you have to do is contact a provider. You can get full information about different offers and prices from their team, with just a few simple questions. The choice will come by itself after you do that. The quality is not as high everywhere, as you might want it to be. Obtaining some feedback is your best bet when it comes to that. There is an abundance of forums online, which might be able to help you out with this.
You really need to take into consideration the possibility of trying out the Orlando limousine service. Going to a nice hotel for vacation is a great idea, and with a limousine ride you can make it even better. Even if it is a bit slow to find an agency to provide you with proper service in that department, you will no doubt enjoy it fully. Even if it happens only once in a lifetime, you should really try and enjoy it. You should never hesitate to try it out, as it will bring the comfort and luxury, which your vacation requires.
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Lindsay Lohan is going into rehab next month, but first she had to face David Letterman.
In an appearance taped for Tuesday's "Late Show," Lohan was pressed by Letterman about her upcoming rehab stint. She faces a 90-day stay as part of a plea deal in a misdemeanor traffic accident case.
Letterman tried to draw Lohan out, asking how many times she'd been in rehab, how this time would differ, and what she's being treated for.
Lohan looked uncomfortable and said she didn't expect Letterman's line of questioning.
But she said that she wants to be healthy and focus on what she loves ? her work. She added that she looks at rehab as "a blessing and not a curse."
CBS released a partial clip of the interview before it aired.
Singer Beyonce, center holding camera, walks with her husband, rapper Jay-Z, right of her, as they tour Old Havana,?? Sure enough, Beyonc? and Jay-Z may have 99 problems but the State Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) Ain't One.
OFAC, which enforces sanctions against Cuba, assured Republican Representatives Maria Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in a letter Tuesday that the pop power-duo's recent trip to the island on the occasion of their fifth anniversary had the governmental green light. The Florida lawmakers had written to the Treasury Department demanding to know whether the trip fell afoul of Cold War-era restrictions on Americans' travel to Cuba.
"It is our understanding that the travelers in question traveled to Cuba pursuant to an educational exchange trip organized by a group authorized by OFAC to sponsor and organize programs to promote people-to-people contact in Cuba," Alastair Fitzpayne, Assistant Treasury Secretary for Legislative Affairs, wrote in the letter, which was obtained by Yahoo News.
Fitzpayne, however, also seemed to put a little distance between OFAC and the globe-trotting couple, who gave vast sums to President Barack Obama's reelection campaign. He noted that "organizations holding people-to-people licenses must certify in writing to OFAC that any travel that they conduct will consist of a full-time schedule of educational activities that will result in meaningful interaction between the travelers and individuals in Cuba."
But OFAC "does not request the identities of the travelers on each trip," he said.
Ros-Lehtinen was unimpressed.
"If the tourist activities undertaken by Beyonce and Jay-Z in Cuba are classified as an educational exchange trip, then it is clear that the Obama Administration is not serious about denying the Castro regime an economic lifeline that US tourism will extend to it," the Cuban-born lawmaker said in a statement.
"That was a wedding anniversary vacation that was not even disguised as a cultural program," she said. "As more human rights activists engage in hunger strikes, I don't think they will see any evidence of how this scam endeavor will help them become independent of the regime."
If you?re inclined to dig through Treasury's regulations,?here they are, but it?s probably enough to say that, as part of a 60-year-old embargo imposed after Fidel Castro seized power, Americans aren?t supposed to go there. And lawmakers like Ros-Lehtinen and Diaz-Balart have denounced tourism in Cuba because it provides the Communist government there with sorely needed foreign currency.
The embargo, first imposed by Dwight Eisenhower in 1960 and tightened by many of his successors, aimed to punish Castro?s government for nationalizing U.S. property, to dissuade other Latin American countries from following in Castro?s revolutionary footsteps, and, ultimately, to drive Castro from power.
Tourism to Cuba -- notably from Europe and Canada -- has increased over the years as the island has seen the development of luxury hotels. Americans have been going there in larger numbers as well, and advice on how to?go there illegally has proliferated online (just watch out for the "Mexican death stamp"). With the Soviet Union long gone, Americans have also?softened their support for the embargo.
That's not to say that everyone approves. In March, Republican Senator Marco Rubio?ripped American visitors to Cuba. "Cuba is not a zoo where you pay an admission ticket and you go in and you get to watch people living in cages to see how they are suffering," Rubio said in a speech.
LONDON (Reuters) - The FTSE 100 rose on Tuesday, led by miners as benign Chinese inflation data stoked expectations the world's biggest metals consumer's monetary stimulus will stay in place.
Helped also by the U.S. corporate earnings season getting off to a solid start, the FTSE 100 was up 17.28 points or 0.3 percent at 6,294.22 by 1154 BST, building on a 0.4 percent advance in the previous session.
U.S. aluminium group Alcoa kicked off U.S. earnings, unveiling higher-than-expected profits after Wall Street's closing bell on Monday, easing concerns about corporate results.
Other big U.S. companies are set to report results during the week - including JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup - a particular focus for investors in British blue chips given the latter earn around a quarter of their revenues in North America.
Forecasts for first-quarter earnings have been trimmed since the beginning of the year, with profits seen rising just 1.6 percent from the year-ago quarter, according to Thomson Reuters data. In January, earnings were seen rising 4.3 percent.
"On the basis that expectations ... have been battened down, there is an opportunity especially for those quality blue chips to outperform expectations and that could actually provide something of a fillip for the market," Richard Hunter, head of equities at Hargreaves Lansdown, said.
SOME VALUE
Aside from lifting broad sentiment, Alcoa's earnings helped lift miners 2.4 percent - up for a second day and recovering off seven-month lows set at the end of last week - with the firm viewed as a bellwether for the materials sector.
The sector has slid more than 10 percent in 2013 on concerns over falling demand and rising prices.
"The FTSE 350 mining sector index has really been hit hard this year ... If nothing else, this definitely suggests there's some value to be had in these stocks, so the rally is likely to continue," Mike McCudden, head of derivatives at Interactive Investor, said.
In general, cyclical sectors that rise with optimism over the economy outperformed those seen as defensive plays against economic uncertainty, with banks ahead 1 percent.
This counters the unusual theme which has characterised market trends so far this year, with defensive stocks outperforming cyclical counterparts in rising markets.
The beverage sector has risen some 14 percent, outperforming the FTSE's rise of nearly 7 percent. However, Tuesday saw a rotation out of highly-rated defensive stocks, with Diageo leading the fallers with a 2.4 percent drop.
"Woeful though they were, I think on reflection the markets realise that the non-farm figures on Friday were just one economic indicator," said Hargreaves Lansdown's Hunter, referring to weak U.S. employment data.
"Even though the U.S. economy is perhaps not growing at the speed that many would like, it is nonetheless maintaining its recovery."
(Additional reporting by Blaise Robinson and Alistair Smout; Editing by David Holmes)
Spring cleaning in your brain: New stem cell research shows how important it isPublic release date: 10-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Kara Gavin kegavin@umich.edu 734-764-2220 University of Michigan Health System
Years of mouse research lead to discovery of how autophagy keeps neural stem cells ready to replace damaged brain and nerve cells
ANN ARBOR, Mich. Deep inside your brain, a legion of stem cells lies ready to turn into new brain and nerve cells whenever and wherever you need them most. While they wait, they keep themselves in a state of perpetual readiness poised to become any type of nerve cell you might need as your cells age or get damaged.
Now, new research from scientists at the University of Michigan Medical School reveals a key way they do this: through a type of internal "spring cleaning" that both clears out garbage within the cells, and keeps them in their stem-cell state.
In a paper published online in Nature Neuroscience, the U-M team shows that a particular protein, called FIP200, governs this cleaning process in neural stem cells in mice. Without FIP200, these crucial stem cells suffer damage from their own waste products -- and their ability to turn into other types of cells diminishes.
It is the first time that this cellular self-cleaning process, called autophagy, has been shown to be important to neural stem cells.
The findings may help explain why aging brains and nervous systems are more prone to disease or permanent damage, as a slowing rate of self-cleaning autophagy hampers the body's ability to deploy stem cells to replace damaged or diseased cells. If the findings translate from mice to humans, the research could open up new avenues to prevention or treatment of neurological conditions.
In a related review article just published online in the journal Autophagy, the lead U-M scientist and colleagues from around the world discuss the growing evidence that autophagy is crucial to many types of tissue stem cells and embryonic stem cells as well as cancer stem cells.
As stem cell-based treatments continue to develop, the authors say, it will be increasingly important to understand the role of autophagy in preserving stem cells' health and ability to become different types of cells.
"The process of generating new neurons from neural stem cells, and the importance of that process, is pretty well understood, but the mechanism at the molecular level has not been clear," says Jun-Lin Guan, Ph.D., the senior author of the FIP200 paper and the organizing author of the autophagy and stem cells review article. "Here, we show that autophagy is crucial for maintenance of neural stem cells and differentiation, and show the mechanism by which it happens."
Through autophagy, he says, neural stem cells can regulate levels of reactive oxygen species sometimes known as free radicals that can build up in the low-oxygen environment of the brain regions where neural stem cells reside. Abnormally higher levels of ROS can cause neural stem cells to start differentiating.
Guan is a professor in the Molecular Medicine & Genetics division of the U-M Department of Internal Medicine, and in the Department of Cell & Developmental Biology.
A long path to discovery
The new discovery, made after 15 years of research with funding from the National Institutes of Health, shows the importance of investment in lab science and the role of serendipity in research.
Guan has been studying the role of FIP200 -- whose full name is focal adhesion kinase family interacting protein of 200 kD in cellular biology for more than a decade. Though he and his team knew it was important to cellular activity, they didn't have a particular disease connection in mind. Together with colleagues in Japan, they did demonstrate its importance to autophagy a process whose importance to disease research continues to grow as scientists learn more about it.
Several years ago, Guan's team stumbled upon clues that FIP200 might be important in neural stem cells when studying an entirely different phenomenon. They were using FIP200-less mice as comparisons in a study, when an observant postdoctoral fellow noticed that the mice experienced rapid shrinkage of the brain regions where neural stem cells reside.
"That effect was more interesting than what we were actually intending to study," says Guan, as it suggested that without FIP200, something was causing damage to the home of neural stem cells that normally replace nerve cells during injury or aging.
In 2010, they worked with other U-M scientists to show FIP200's importance to another type of stem cell, those that generate blood cells. In that case, deleting the gene that encodes FIP200 leads to an increased proliferation and ultimate depletion of such cells, called hematopoietic stem cells.
But with neural stem cells, they report in the new paper, deleting the FIP200 gene led neural stem cells to die and ROS levels to rise. Only by giving the mice the antioxidant n-acetylcysteine could the scientists counteract the effects.
"It's clear that autophagy is going to be important in various types of stem cells," says Guan, pointing to the new paper in Autophagy that lays out what's currently known about the process in hematopoietic, neural, cancer, cardiac and mesenchymal (bone and connective tissue) stem cells.
Guan's own research is now exploring the downstream effects of defects in neural stem cell autophagy for instance, how communication between neural stem cells and their niches suffers. The team is also looking at the role of autophagy in breast cancer stem cells, because of intriguing findings about the impact of FIP200 deletion on the activity of the p53 tumor suppressor gene, which is important in breast and other types of cancer. In addition, they will study the importance of p53 and p62, another key protein component for autophagy, to neural stem cell self-renewal and differentiation, in relation to FIP200.
###
The new Nature Neuroscience paper's first author is post-doctoral fellow Chenran Wang, Ph.D. Co-authors include Richard Chun-Chi Liang, Ph.D., who is now a postdoctoral research fellow in the U-M Department of Neurology, research lab member Christine Bian, and Yuan Zhu, Ph.D., an associate professor in Molecular Medicine & Genetics and Cell & Developmental Biology.
The research was supported by National Institute of General Medical Sciences grant GM052890.
For more information on all types of stem cell research at U-M, visit: http://www.umich.edu/stemcell.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Spring cleaning in your brain: New stem cell research shows how important it isPublic release date: 10-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Kara Gavin kegavin@umich.edu 734-764-2220 University of Michigan Health System
Years of mouse research lead to discovery of how autophagy keeps neural stem cells ready to replace damaged brain and nerve cells
ANN ARBOR, Mich. Deep inside your brain, a legion of stem cells lies ready to turn into new brain and nerve cells whenever and wherever you need them most. While they wait, they keep themselves in a state of perpetual readiness poised to become any type of nerve cell you might need as your cells age or get damaged.
Now, new research from scientists at the University of Michigan Medical School reveals a key way they do this: through a type of internal "spring cleaning" that both clears out garbage within the cells, and keeps them in their stem-cell state.
In a paper published online in Nature Neuroscience, the U-M team shows that a particular protein, called FIP200, governs this cleaning process in neural stem cells in mice. Without FIP200, these crucial stem cells suffer damage from their own waste products -- and their ability to turn into other types of cells diminishes.
It is the first time that this cellular self-cleaning process, called autophagy, has been shown to be important to neural stem cells.
The findings may help explain why aging brains and nervous systems are more prone to disease or permanent damage, as a slowing rate of self-cleaning autophagy hampers the body's ability to deploy stem cells to replace damaged or diseased cells. If the findings translate from mice to humans, the research could open up new avenues to prevention or treatment of neurological conditions.
In a related review article just published online in the journal Autophagy, the lead U-M scientist and colleagues from around the world discuss the growing evidence that autophagy is crucial to many types of tissue stem cells and embryonic stem cells as well as cancer stem cells.
As stem cell-based treatments continue to develop, the authors say, it will be increasingly important to understand the role of autophagy in preserving stem cells' health and ability to become different types of cells.
"The process of generating new neurons from neural stem cells, and the importance of that process, is pretty well understood, but the mechanism at the molecular level has not been clear," says Jun-Lin Guan, Ph.D., the senior author of the FIP200 paper and the organizing author of the autophagy and stem cells review article. "Here, we show that autophagy is crucial for maintenance of neural stem cells and differentiation, and show the mechanism by which it happens."
Through autophagy, he says, neural stem cells can regulate levels of reactive oxygen species sometimes known as free radicals that can build up in the low-oxygen environment of the brain regions where neural stem cells reside. Abnormally higher levels of ROS can cause neural stem cells to start differentiating.
Guan is a professor in the Molecular Medicine & Genetics division of the U-M Department of Internal Medicine, and in the Department of Cell & Developmental Biology.
A long path to discovery
The new discovery, made after 15 years of research with funding from the National Institutes of Health, shows the importance of investment in lab science and the role of serendipity in research.
Guan has been studying the role of FIP200 -- whose full name is focal adhesion kinase family interacting protein of 200 kD in cellular biology for more than a decade. Though he and his team knew it was important to cellular activity, they didn't have a particular disease connection in mind. Together with colleagues in Japan, they did demonstrate its importance to autophagy a process whose importance to disease research continues to grow as scientists learn more about it.
Several years ago, Guan's team stumbled upon clues that FIP200 might be important in neural stem cells when studying an entirely different phenomenon. They were using FIP200-less mice as comparisons in a study, when an observant postdoctoral fellow noticed that the mice experienced rapid shrinkage of the brain regions where neural stem cells reside.
"That effect was more interesting than what we were actually intending to study," says Guan, as it suggested that without FIP200, something was causing damage to the home of neural stem cells that normally replace nerve cells during injury or aging.
In 2010, they worked with other U-M scientists to show FIP200's importance to another type of stem cell, those that generate blood cells. In that case, deleting the gene that encodes FIP200 leads to an increased proliferation and ultimate depletion of such cells, called hematopoietic stem cells.
But with neural stem cells, they report in the new paper, deleting the FIP200 gene led neural stem cells to die and ROS levels to rise. Only by giving the mice the antioxidant n-acetylcysteine could the scientists counteract the effects.
"It's clear that autophagy is going to be important in various types of stem cells," says Guan, pointing to the new paper in Autophagy that lays out what's currently known about the process in hematopoietic, neural, cancer, cardiac and mesenchymal (bone and connective tissue) stem cells.
Guan's own research is now exploring the downstream effects of defects in neural stem cell autophagy for instance, how communication between neural stem cells and their niches suffers. The team is also looking at the role of autophagy in breast cancer stem cells, because of intriguing findings about the impact of FIP200 deletion on the activity of the p53 tumor suppressor gene, which is important in breast and other types of cancer. In addition, they will study the importance of p53 and p62, another key protein component for autophagy, to neural stem cell self-renewal and differentiation, in relation to FIP200.
###
The new Nature Neuroscience paper's first author is post-doctoral fellow Chenran Wang, Ph.D. Co-authors include Richard Chun-Chi Liang, Ph.D., who is now a postdoctoral research fellow in the U-M Department of Neurology, research lab member Christine Bian, and Yuan Zhu, Ph.D., an associate professor in Molecular Medicine & Genetics and Cell & Developmental Biology.
The research was supported by National Institute of General Medical Sciences grant GM052890.
For more information on all types of stem cell research at U-M, visit: http://www.umich.edu/stemcell.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Women ? and their families ? are disproportionately affected by the low US minimum wage.?Equal Pay Day serves as a stark reminder of that reality.?Raising the minimum wage would boost the economy, and it would help close the gender wage gap.
By Emily Martin, Arjun Sethi / April 9, 2013
Jennifer Diagostino, executive director of the Coalition for Economic Justice, CWA Local 1122 vice president, John Mudie, center, and president, Jim Wagner, right, participate in a rally in Buffalo, N.Y., Feb. 25, to call for a raise in the state's minimum wage. Op-ed contributors Emily Martin and Arjun Sethi say 'America's workers are shouldering more but receiving less.'
Derek Gee/The Buffalo News/AP
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For more than three decades, Amie Crawford was a successful interior designer, transforming residential and commercial spaces in Washington, D.C. and North Carolina. Her team was even shortlisted to renovate the Pentagon.
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In 2011, she moved to Chicago to be close to her family. For months, she scoured job postings, attended job fairs, and sent out dozens of resumes. The recession, however, proved insurmountable. The 56-year-old had to settle for a restaurant job at $8.25 an hour, the minimum wage in Illinois. Fourteen months later, Ms. Crawford is barely getting by. She draws on her retirement savings daily and receives $150 in food stamps monthly.?
Crawford isn?t alone. Millions of Americans make the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, don't have any savings, and have to support a family, to boot. They toil tirelessly for a wage entirely divorced from living costs in today's economy.
America's workers are shouldering more but receiving less. A full-time minimum wage employee earns $14,500 a year, roughly $4,000 below the poverty line for a single mother with two children. If the minimum wage had kept pace with inflation since 1968, it would now be almost $10.60 an hour. If it had kept pace with increases in employee productivity, it would now be $22.00 an hour.
Countless workers are harmed by these low wages, women especially. Today, Equal Pay Day, serves as a stark reminder of that reality. April 9, 2013 marks how far into 2013 a woman must work to match what a man earned in 2012. Women represent nearly two-thirds of all minimum wage workers and are a large majority of workers in the 10 largest occupations typically paying less than $10 an hour: They constitute 88 percent of home health-care professionals, 88 percent of maids and housekeepers, and 94 percent of childcare workers. They also represent about two-thirds of tipped workers ? and the tipped minimum cash wage of $2.13 per hour hasn?t been raised for more than 20 years.
Raising the minimum wage wouldn?t just help these women make ends meet; it would also help close the gender wage gap. In 2011, women working full time, year round were paid only 77 cents for every dollar paid to men. The wage gap was even larger for women of color: Black women working full time, year round made only 64 cents, and Hispanic women only 55 cents, for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men.?
Of course, multiple factors contribute to the wage gap, including pay discrimination, family caregiving obligations that constrain women?s employment opportunities, and the undervaluing of work traditionally performed by women. But the bottom line is that women ? and their families ? are disproportionately affected by the low minimum wage.
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Public release date: 10-Apr-2013
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