JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - The rand fell through the psychologically key 9.0 level against the dollar on Wednesday as increasing negative sentiment towards South Africa's economy triggered stop losses on the currency.
Violent labour protests in Africa's largest economy have hit invest sentiment since late last year, triggering three credit rating downgrades.
The rand lost over 1.6 percent to 9.0001/dollar, its weakest in over nine weeks. Its next support level is the 3-1/2 year low of 9.01 hit in November.
"We've seen some stop-loss activity, so people are stopping on long rand positions on a technical breakthrough of the 8.88-8.89 level," said Duncan Howes, a trader at Absa Capital.
Light liquidity conditions and global demand for dollars added to the rand's woes, although the currency is unlikely to weaken further on Wednesday as other emerging market units had either stabilised or strengthened, Howes said.
The rand also has strong support at the 9 rand level, and it had pulled back to 8.96 by 1229 GMT on Wednesday but remained the biggest loser against the dollar in a basket of 20 emerging market currencies tracked by Reuters.
Analysts say the rand is in over-sold territory against the euro but any dips will be restricted by negative sentiment towards South Africa.
Euro/rand hit 12 rand, before retreating to 11.95 rand.
Government bond yields were up, with the long end of the yield curve rising the most. The benchmark 2026 yield gained 7 basis points to a two-week high of 7.32 percent, while the 2048 yield climbed 9 basis points to 8.39 percent.
"It's a very bearish view on South Africa all round. Today has seen a somewhat snowball effect of the recent mood, which has been to sell the rand against EM and the majors, and bonds are taking the brunt of this too," said Anisha Arora of 4Cast.
Headline inflation data released earlier in the session showed CPI accelerated to 5.7 percent in December, its fastest pace since May, causing a further sell-off in the bond market as investors interpreted the high print to mean inflation may push out of the Reserve Bank's (SARB) 3-6 percent target range.
After three days of deliberations on monetary policy, the Bank will announce a decision on the repo rate on Thursday.
Economists polled by Reuters expect the SARB will hold rates steady at 40-year lows to support struggling economic growth.
"Bonds were already weaker after CPI basically confirmed that the SARB will not move rates in the short- to medium-term horizon and the poor forex outlook has spread to local assets, igniting this sell off further," Arora said.
Jan. 22, 2013 ? Public acceptance of climate change's reality may have been influenced by the rate at which words moved from scientific journals into the mainstream, according to anthropologist Michael O'Brien, dean of the College of Arts and Science at the University of Missouri. A recent study of word usage in popular literature by O'Brien and his colleagues documented how the usage of certain words related to climate change has risen and fallen over the past two centuries. Understanding how word usage affects public acceptance of science could lead to better science communication and a more informed public.
"Scientists can learn from this study that the general public shouldn't be expected to understand technical terms or be convinced by journal papers written in technical jargon," O'Brien said. "Journalists must explain scientific terms in ways people can understand and thereby ease the movement of those terms into general speech. That can be a slow process. Several words related to climate change diffused into the popular vocabulary over a 30-50 year timeline."
O'Brien's study found that, by 2008, several important terms in the discussion of climate change had entered popular literature from technical obscurity in the early 1900s.
These terms included:
Biodiversity -- the degree of variation in life forms within a given area
Holocene -- the current era of Earth's history, which started at the end of the last ice age
Paleoclimate -the prehistoric climate, often deduced from ice cores, tree rings and pollen trapped in sediments
Phenology -- the study of how climate and other environmental factors influence the timing of events in organisms' life cycles
Not every term was adopted at the same rate or achieved the same degree of popularity. Biodiversity, for example, came into popular use quickly in only a few years in the late 80s and early 90s. Other terms, like Holocene or phenology, have taken decades and are still relatively uncommon.
"The adoption of words into the popular vocabulary is like the evolution of species," O'Brien said. "A complex process governs why certain terms are successful and adopted into everyday speech, while others fail. For example, the term 'meme' has entered the vernacular, as opposed to the term 'culturgen,' although both refer to a discrete unit of culture, such as a saying transferred from person to person."
To observe the movement of words into popular literature, O'Brien and his colleagues searched the database of 7 million books created by Google. They used the "Ngram" feature of the database to track the number of appearances of climate change keywords in literature since 1800. The usage rate of those climate change terms was compared to the usage of "the," which is the most common word in the English language. Statistical analysis of usage rates was calculated in part by co-author William Brock, a new member of MU's Department of Economics and member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Note: A portion of O'Brien's experiment can be repeated using any computer with internet access.
1. Go to http://books.google.com/ngrams
2. Enter terms such as "climate change," "global warming," or "anthropogenic" and note how they have changed in usage over the past century.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Missouri-Columbia.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
R. Alexander Bentley, Philip Garnett, Michael J. O'Brien, William A. Brock. Word Diffusion and Climate Science. PLoS ONE, 2012; 7 (11): e47966 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0047966
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.
Chemists devise inexpensive, benchtop method for marking and selecting cellsPublic release date: 8-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Mika Ono mikaono@scripps.edu 858-784-2052 Scripps Research Institute
LA JOLLA, CA January 8, 2013 - Chemists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found an easier way to perform one of the most fundamental tasks in molecular biology. Their new method allows scientists to add a marker to certain cells, so that these cells may be easily located and/or selected out from a larger cell population.
The technique, which is described in a recent issue of the chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition, makes use of the tight binding of two proteins that are cheaply obtainable but are not found in human or other mammalian cells. As such, it has advantages over existing cell-marking techniques.
"This new technique is cheap, easy and sensitive," said TSRI Institute Professor Richard A. Lerner, who is the senior author of the new report. "The method should be useful in a variety of applications that require separating out certain types of cells."
Looking for a Better Way
The best-known cell marker in use today is GFP (green fluorescent protein), a jellyfish protein that emits a distinctive green light when illuminated by certain other light wavelengths. When scientists want to add a new gene to cells, for example to produce a therapeutic protein, they often construct a genetic sequence that also includes the GFP gene. Thus the cells that successfully produce the new protein will also produce GFP, whose fluorescence allows these cells to be identified and even sorted out from a larger population.
But fluorescence-based cell sorting is relatively expensive and cumbersome. Alternative cell-marking techniques use marker molecules to which antibodies or metals will bind tightly, but these are apt to have unwanted side effects on the cells that they mark. Lerner's team, led by first author Yingjie Peng, a postdoctoral fellow, set out to invent a better method.
The new method exploits a special property of chitinase enzymes, which evolved to break down chitina tough, sugar-derived material found, for example, in crab shells, squid beaks and the cell walls of fungi. In addition to a main chitin-breaking domain, chitinases have another active structure, a "chitin binding domain" (ChBD). "It makes a super-strong bond with chitin," said Peng. In recent years, scientists have begun to use this high-affinity binding of ChBD and chitin as a marker system, typically for selecting ChBD-tagged proteins in a lab dish. The new method uses ChBD to mark and select cells.
A Powerful Tool
In the basic technique, a new gene can be added to cells within a larger DNA vector that also includes the genetic sequences for ChBD and GFP. The ChBD molecule will be produced in such a way that it ends up being held on the outer surface of its host cell's plasma membraneand the GFP molecule will sit just inside the membrane. The GFP serves as a visual beacon, while the ChBD serves as a handy gripping point for cell selection.
After exposing a culture of test cells to this experimental ChBD-containing vector, the scientists was able to see, via the GFP tags, which cells were expressing them, and was able to select them out easily, with high sensitivity, using magnetic beads coated with chitin. "This is a relatively easy benchtop method," Peng said. Importantly, these selected cells could produce progeny cells that seemed normal and healthy.
Because the ChBD marker, in the vector, is produced in a way that anchors it to a cell's membrane, it also can serve as a powerful tool for selecting just the membrane fraction of a sample of cellular material. Peng and his colleagues demonstrated this using chitin beads to quickly isolate a pure fraction of membrane material from ChBD-marked test cells.
Cellulase enzymes, which break down the ubiquitous plant compound cellulose, also have a high-affinity cellulase-binding domain, which can be employed in the same way as the ChBD.
The scientists expect that the new cell-marking method will help to streamline another major molecular biology technique, which was pioneered by the Lerner laboratory in parallel with the group of Sir Gregory Winter at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Britain. This technique allows scientists to produce very large and diverse libraries of antibody arms, and to sift through them, or "pan"as gold miners pan for nuggetsfor those that might be of use, for example in therapies. ChBD-based markers should be useful in boosting the efficiency of this panning process, said Peng.
The Lerner laboratory is also investigating the potential use of ChBD-based cell marking in living animals, for example to track the fates of selected cell types throughout an animal's lifespan.
###
Those interested in using the new technology are invited to contact TSRI's Office of Technology Development, at (858) 784-8140 or through the department's webpage at http://www.scripps.edu/research/technology/contactus.html.
Other contributors to the study, "Engineering Cell Surfaces for Orthogonal Selectability," were Teresa M. Jones and Diana I. Ruiz of the TSRI Department of Chemistry, and Dae Hee Kim of the Scripps Korea Antibody Institute. For more information on the paper, see http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201201844/abstract
The research was supported by a grant from Scripps Korea Antibody Institute.
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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.
Chemists devise inexpensive, benchtop method for marking and selecting cellsPublic release date: 8-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Mika Ono mikaono@scripps.edu 858-784-2052 Scripps Research Institute
LA JOLLA, CA January 8, 2013 - Chemists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found an easier way to perform one of the most fundamental tasks in molecular biology. Their new method allows scientists to add a marker to certain cells, so that these cells may be easily located and/or selected out from a larger cell population.
The technique, which is described in a recent issue of the chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition, makes use of the tight binding of two proteins that are cheaply obtainable but are not found in human or other mammalian cells. As such, it has advantages over existing cell-marking techniques.
"This new technique is cheap, easy and sensitive," said TSRI Institute Professor Richard A. Lerner, who is the senior author of the new report. "The method should be useful in a variety of applications that require separating out certain types of cells."
Looking for a Better Way
The best-known cell marker in use today is GFP (green fluorescent protein), a jellyfish protein that emits a distinctive green light when illuminated by certain other light wavelengths. When scientists want to add a new gene to cells, for example to produce a therapeutic protein, they often construct a genetic sequence that also includes the GFP gene. Thus the cells that successfully produce the new protein will also produce GFP, whose fluorescence allows these cells to be identified and even sorted out from a larger population.
But fluorescence-based cell sorting is relatively expensive and cumbersome. Alternative cell-marking techniques use marker molecules to which antibodies or metals will bind tightly, but these are apt to have unwanted side effects on the cells that they mark. Lerner's team, led by first author Yingjie Peng, a postdoctoral fellow, set out to invent a better method.
The new method exploits a special property of chitinase enzymes, which evolved to break down chitina tough, sugar-derived material found, for example, in crab shells, squid beaks and the cell walls of fungi. In addition to a main chitin-breaking domain, chitinases have another active structure, a "chitin binding domain" (ChBD). "It makes a super-strong bond with chitin," said Peng. In recent years, scientists have begun to use this high-affinity binding of ChBD and chitin as a marker system, typically for selecting ChBD-tagged proteins in a lab dish. The new method uses ChBD to mark and select cells.
A Powerful Tool
In the basic technique, a new gene can be added to cells within a larger DNA vector that also includes the genetic sequences for ChBD and GFP. The ChBD molecule will be produced in such a way that it ends up being held on the outer surface of its host cell's plasma membraneand the GFP molecule will sit just inside the membrane. The GFP serves as a visual beacon, while the ChBD serves as a handy gripping point for cell selection.
After exposing a culture of test cells to this experimental ChBD-containing vector, the scientists was able to see, via the GFP tags, which cells were expressing them, and was able to select them out easily, with high sensitivity, using magnetic beads coated with chitin. "This is a relatively easy benchtop method," Peng said. Importantly, these selected cells could produce progeny cells that seemed normal and healthy.
Because the ChBD marker, in the vector, is produced in a way that anchors it to a cell's membrane, it also can serve as a powerful tool for selecting just the membrane fraction of a sample of cellular material. Peng and his colleagues demonstrated this using chitin beads to quickly isolate a pure fraction of membrane material from ChBD-marked test cells.
Cellulase enzymes, which break down the ubiquitous plant compound cellulose, also have a high-affinity cellulase-binding domain, which can be employed in the same way as the ChBD.
The scientists expect that the new cell-marking method will help to streamline another major molecular biology technique, which was pioneered by the Lerner laboratory in parallel with the group of Sir Gregory Winter at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Britain. This technique allows scientists to produce very large and diverse libraries of antibody arms, and to sift through them, or "pan"as gold miners pan for nuggetsfor those that might be of use, for example in therapies. ChBD-based markers should be useful in boosting the efficiency of this panning process, said Peng.
The Lerner laboratory is also investigating the potential use of ChBD-based cell marking in living animals, for example to track the fates of selected cell types throughout an animal's lifespan.
###
Those interested in using the new technology are invited to contact TSRI's Office of Technology Development, at (858) 784-8140 or through the department's webpage at http://www.scripps.edu/research/technology/contactus.html.
Other contributors to the study, "Engineering Cell Surfaces for Orthogonal Selectability," were Teresa M. Jones and Diana I. Ruiz of the TSRI Department of Chemistry, and Dae Hee Kim of the Scripps Korea Antibody Institute. For more information on the paper, see http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201201844/abstract
The research was supported by a grant from Scripps Korea Antibody Institute.
[ | 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.
(Reuters) - Citigroup Inc has fired Richard Cookson, chief investment officer of its private bank, as the company looks to cut costs, Bloomberg reported on Monday.
Citigroup will no longer rely on one person to lead the firm's investment strategy and will instead seek to "better leverage the existing in-house expertise across Citi," including its markets and banking research teams, Bloomberg said, citing an internal memo. (http://r.reuters.com/caw94t)
Chief Executive Mike Corbat named two company veterans to lead its institutional and consumer businesses on Monday and set lines of command to give him more direct responsibility for executives than his predecessor.
Cookson's dismissal was part of the job cuts the bank announced in December, Bloomberg said, citing a person familiar with the matter.
(Reporting by Sagarika Jaisinghani in Bangalore; Editing by Richard Chang)
A $20,000 diamond ring found in a tanning salon in St. Charles, Mo., appears to be at the center of a legal dispute over "finders keepers." The St. Louis Post-Dispatch attempts to explain murky statutes revolving around found property versus stealing. After Bonnie Land found the expensive ring and agreed to return it weeks later, she was arrested. She subsequently sued the ring's owner for $66,500 alleging breach of contract as Land wasn't given the posted $3,000 reward money.
It?s been such a year, we need a minute to re-coup! Our Division Street location will be closed until January 18th for a winter facelift. In the meantime, please visit Pok Pok Noi and Whiskey Soda Lounge for your Thai fix. See you soon!
"I have a wide-range of food experience - working in the restaurant industry on both sides of the house, later in the wine industry, and finally traveling/tasting my way around the world. Whether you agree or disagree, you can always count on my unbiased opinion. I don't take free meals, and the restaurants don't know when, or if, I am coming."
Leap Motion, the company in the forefront of motion-sensing technology for home use is rolling out their Leap Motion controller, which can in time nullify any need for your traditional computer mouse or keyboard.
In a time where computer companies are majorly focused on ?touch-screen? functionality, the San Franciscan startup is doing things differently, taking a ?hands-off approach.?
Asus technology company too, is thinking differently, partnering with the motion-control software and hardware company. The personal computer company will start bundling select models with Leap Motion controllers, launching them into the ?future of computer interaction.?
Leap Motion?s tiny device sits in front of a computer and tracks a user?s hand movements, which certain go-to gestures (say a hand wave from stage left to right or a simple point of the index finger) will be identified and automatically assigned to respond accordingly. Watching their demo video, which you should most definitely check out below, brings to mind an orchestra conductor.
Although I can foresee Apple computers adopting this technology in their line of personal computers, ASUS is ensuring the ?you?ve seen it here first? position for themselves, which for consumers can mean a lot. This type of innovation is attractive, possibly being just what the company needs to regain dominance in the PC market.
?Our commitment to innovation and exceptional quality drive us to provide the best technology to our consumes,? said Albert Wu, Desktop Division Senior Director at ASUSTek. ?We?re proud to be one of the first companies to partner with Leap Motion.?
The Leap Motion controller has a 150-degree field of view and tracks individual hands and all ten fingers at 290 frames per second. And the other guys are battling it out in the tablet market? I say forget finger prints on my touch screen, give me a Leap.
Maybe you change your Facebook cover photo according to the season. Maybe you hacked the Facebook cover photo to look seamless. Maybe you pranked people with your photo. But no matter what you did, it probably wasn't as pop culturally aware as Libby Cooper. She inserted her head into famous scenes from movies and paintings and other pictures and the result is hilariously adorable. More »
Jan. 3, 2013 ? Five personality traits widely thought to be universal across cultures might not be, according to a study of an isolated Bolivian society.
Researchers who spent two years looking at 1,062 members of the Tsimane culture found that they didn't necessarily exhibit the five broad dimensions of personality -- openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism -- also known as the "Big Five." The American Psychological Association's Journal of Personality and Social Psychology published the study online Dec. 17.
While previous research has found strong support for the Big Five traits in more developed countries and across some cultures, these researchers discovered more evidence of a Tsimane "Big Two:" socially beneficial behavior, also known as prosociality, and industriousness. These Big Two combine elements of the traditional Big Five, and may represent unique aspects of highly social, subsistence societies.
"Similar to the conscientiousness portion of the Big Five, several traits that bundle together among the Tsimane included efficiency, perseverance and thoroughness. These traits reflect the industriousness of a society of subsistence farmers," said the study's lead author, Michael Gurven, PhD, of the University of California, Santa Barbara. "However, other industrious traits included being energetic, relaxed and helpful. In small-scale societies, individuals have fewer choices for social or sexual partners and limited domains of opportunities for cultural success and proficiency. This may require abilities that link aspects of different traits, resulting in a trait structure other than the Big Five."
The Tsimane, who are forager-farmers, live in communities ranging from 30 to 500 people dispersed among approximately 90 villages. Since the mid-20th century, they have come into greater contact with the modern world but mortality rates remain high (approximately 20 percent of babies born never reach age 5) and the fertility rate is very high (approximately nine births per woman), the study said. Most Tsimane are not formally educated, with a literacy rate close to 25 percent. Some 40 percent speak Spanish in addition to their native language. They live in extended family clusters that share food and labor and they limit contact with outsiders unless absolutely necessary, according to the authors.
Researchers translated into the Tsimane language a standard questionnaire that assesses the Big Five personality traits. Between January 2009 and December 2010, they interviewed 632 adults from 28 villages. The sample was 48 percent female with an average age of 47 years (ranging from 20 to 88) and little more than a year of formal education.
Researchers also conducted a separate study between March 2011 and January 2012 to gauge the reliability of the model when answered by peers. They asked 430 Tsimane adults, including 66 people from the first study, to evaluate their spouse's personality. The second study revealed that the subject's personality as reported by his or her spouse also did not fit with the Big Five traits.
The researchers controlled for education level, Spanish fluency, gender and age. Previous research has suggested that formal schooling and greater interaction with others, such as when villagers venture to markets in other towns, can lead to more abstract reflection and may be one reason why the Big Five replicates in most places, according to the authors. However, there were no significant differences between the less educated, Tsimane-only speakers and the more educated bilingual participants.
Other recent research, some of which was outlined in an article in the American Psychologist, has shown the existence of Big Five personality traits may be lacking in some developing cultures, particularly in Asia and Africa, but this is the first study of a large sample of an exclusively indigenous population completed with rigorous methodological controls, according to Gurven. He suggested personality researchers expand beyond the limited scope of more Western, industrialized and educated populations. "The lifestyle and ecology typical of hunter-gatherers and horticulturalists are the crucible that shaped much of human psychology and behavior," he said. "Despite its popularity, there is no good theory that explains why the Big Five takes the form it does, or why it is so commonly observed. Rather than just point out a case study where the Big Five fails, our goal should be to better understand the factors that shape personality more generally."
The study was part of the University of California-Santa Barbara's and University of New Mexico's Tsimane Health and Life History Project, co-directed by Gurven and study co-author Hillard Kaplan, PhD, of the University of New Mexico, and was funded by the National Institute on Aging.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by American Psychological Association (APA), via Newswise.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Michael Gurven, Christopher von Rueden, Maxim Massenkoff, Hillard Kaplan, Marino Lero Vie. How Universal Is the Big Five? Testing the Five-Factor Model of Personality Variation Among Forager?Farmers in the Bolivian Amazon.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2012; DOI: 10.1037/a0030841
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.
Jan. 3, 2013 ? By examining a set of fossil corals that are as much as 7,000 years old, scientists have dramatically expanded the amount of information available on the El Nino-Southern Oscillation, a Pacific Ocean climate cycle that affects climate worldwide. The new information will help assess the accuracy of climate model projections for 21st century climate change in the tropical Pacific.
The new coral data show that 20th century El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate cycles are significantly stronger than ENSO variations captured in the fossil corals. But the data also reveal large natural variations in past ENSO strength, making it difficult to attribute the 20th century intensification of ENSO to rising carbon dioxide levels. Such large natural fluctuations in ENSO activity are also apparent in multi-century climate model simulations.
"We looked at the long-term variability of ENSO in the climate models and asked how it compares to the long-term variability of ENSO in the real world," said Kim Cobb, an associate professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "We show that they actually match fairly well. This project sets the stage for conducting more detailed data-model comparisons from specific time intervals to test the accuracy of ENSO characteristics in the various models."
The research, sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), was scheduled to be reported January 4 in the journal Science. Researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the University of Minnesota also contributed to the work.
El Nino Southern Oscillation extremes drive changes in global temperature and precipitation patterns every two to seven years. The variations are particularly pronounced in the central tropical Pacific, where Cobb and her team collected the fossil corals used in this study. By analyzing the ratio of specific oxygen isotopes in the coral skeletons, the scientists obtained information about ENSO-related temperature and rainfall variations during the periods of time in which the corals grew.
"Fossil corals are the kings of El Nino reconstruction," said Cobb. "Corals grow in the heart of the El Nino region, and with monthly-resolved records, they provide a very high level of detail."
The researchers collected the coral samples by drilling into massive coral "rocks" rolled onto Pacific island beaches by the action of strong storms or tsunamis. Cobb and her team studied 17 such cores of varying lengths and ages recovered from beaches on Christmas and Fanning Islands, which are part of the Line Island chain located in the mid-Pacific.
The islands are ideal places for obtaining records of past ENSO activity because they are close enough to the source region for ENSO to be affected by its temperature and precipitation variations, but not so close that the islands' corals are bleached by large temperature increases during strong El Nino warm events.
The study of each core began with careful dating, done by analyzing the ratio of uranium to thorium. That work was performed by co-authors Larry Edwards and Hai Cheng at the University of Minnesota. Once the age of each core was determined, Cobb and her team chose a subset of the collection to be studied in detail.
They sawed each core in half, then X-rayed the cross-sections to reveal the growth direction of each coral. The researchers then drilled out small samples of coral powder every millimeter down the core and analyzed them with mass spectrometers at Georgia Tech and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography to determine the ratio of oxygen isotopes.
The isotope ratio of the coral skeleton changes with the temperature and amount of rainfall, providing detailed information about environmental conditions during each period of the coral's growth. As many as 20 samples are analyzed for each year of the coral's lifetime.
"We are able to count back in time, following the seasonal cycles locked in the coral skeleton, as long as the core will allow us," Cobb explained.
In all, Cobb's team added 650 years of monthly-resolved information about ENSO variations across nearly 7,000 years. That required analyzing approximately 15,000 samples over the course of the study, which began in 2005.
Using the new sequences to quantify the range of natural variability in ENSO strength, the researchers have detected a modest, but statistically-significant increase in 20th century ENSO strength that may be related to anthropogenic climate change. However, the coral reconstruction shows an even higher level of ENSO strength 400 years ago, though its duration was shorter.
"The level of ENSO variability we see in the 20th century is not unprecedented," Cobb said. "But the 20th century does stand out, statistically, as being higher than the fossil coral baseline."
Information about the El Nino-Southern Oscillation is important for climate scientists because the cycle helps drive other aspects of global climate change.
"El Nino is something that people want to know about when they reconstruct past climate changes at a specific site," Cobb said. "Our data will provide a reference for the magnitude of ENSO-related changes that may have occurred, and allow researchers to probe the causes of past climate changes evident in other paleoclimate records and in model simulations of past climates."
The work has already called into question a long-held belief that ENSO was reduced some 6,000 years ago. Certain climate models support that picture, but Cobb said that fossil coral data from that period doesn't support a reduction in ENSO strength.
Looking to future research, Cobb believes the work will be useful in helping scientists assess the accuracy of climate models.
"Prior to this publication, we had a smattering of coral records from this period of interest," she said. "We now have tripled the amount of fossil coral data available to investigate these important questions. We have been able to provide a comprehensive view of recent variations in ENSO."
Beyond the researchers already mentioned, the paper's co-authors include Hussein R. Sayani and Emanuele Di Lorenzo from Georgia Tech and Christopher Charles, Niko Westphal and Jordan Watson from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. In addition to the National Science Foundation, the project received assistance from Norwegian Cruise Lines, the National Geographic WAITT program, and the Palmyra Atoll Research Consortium.
The bulk of the research reported here was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grant OCE-0752091. The content of this article is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NSF.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Georgia Institute of Technology, Research Communications, via Newswise. The original article was written by John Toon.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Report Kim M. Cobb, Niko Westphal,?, Hussein R. Sayani, Jordan T. Watson, Emanuele Di Lorenzo, H. Cheng, R. L. Edwards, Christopher D. Charles. Highly Variable El Ni?o?Southern Oscillation Throughout the Holocene. Science, 4 January 2013: Vol. 339 no. 6115 pp. 67-70 DOI: 10.1126/science.1228246
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.
Welcome back to Cribs, the TechCrunch TV series that takes you inside the offices of the industry's hot companies to see what it's really like inside the belly of the tech innovation beast (and check out the free food and fun perks that often help power it.) In this episode, we visited the downtown San Francisco headquarters of Airbnb, where we received a tour from co-founder and CTO Nate Blecharczyk.
In 2011 on New Year?s Day I posted ?New Year?s Resolutions for Filmmakers? ? 10 items filmmakers could embrace to improve their practice and thought processes for the year ahead. Last year, I thought about revising or updating it but couldn?t think of much to add. This year I looked at it again, and had some new thoughts. It?s still a decent list, and if you want to read something that will prod you in the gentle, empathetic, self-help-y manner of lists of these kind, a post full of to-do items you can file alongside ?lose weight? and ?be present in the moment,? I continue to recommend it. But for something more specific, more rooted in the now of ?13, I offer here a crankier addendum.
Stop making feature films. Why are you trying to make a feature film? If it?s for any other reason than that?s how your brain processes stories, that it?s the form that thrills and moves you, or because it?s the form most suited to your subject matter, stop. If you?re doing it because you think it?s the dominant story medium of our time, or because you believe it?s the way to a mass audience or because you think you?ll get rich, you need a healthy dose of artistic and personal self-examination. Telling stories through media of some form, yes. But buying into the conventional feature-film format and all its legacy business practices? that is no longer something you do by rote. And if you do answer those above questions in the affirmative, think of ways you can also extend and expand your content beyond that feature-film format because more and more new audiences aren?t wired with cinema as their default entertainment program.
Learn to interact with developers. Should filmmakers learn to code? That?s a question bubbling under the surface of the nascent film/tech convergence, and it?s one we will examine in a series of blog posts co-authored by MIT Story Lab this Winter. The jury is still out on that one, but I will argue that in order to realize the full potential of their creative content, filmmakers need to learn how to speak to developers. They need to understand what it is that they do, how they work, and what their tools are so that they can augment and extend their stories.
Prepare for the second screen. The second screen is already here. Do you watch TV with a tablet on your lap, or a smart phone in your hand? Have you ever tweeted a reaction to a show as its happening? Has some form of fractured attention involving another device become the norm of your home viewing? Recognize that you didn?t do this before. (Did you ever call a friend on the telephone and chat while watching a TV show? I didn?t think so.) The so-called second screen, where there is content and viewer interplay between devices, exists already, but it will be pushed into the center stage at some point in 2013. Yes, there should be an Apple TV next Fall, but other industry players like Intel are coalescing around this area too. And you know what? It won?t be some kind of split screen where your Twitter feed will follow along with the show, like some kind of Mystery Science Theater. Oh, sure, it may be that in its most uncreative examples. What will make the second screen transformative will be when its creative potential is enabled via SDKs to individual developers who will disrupt conventional viewing in ways we can?t even imagine. Think of how mash-ups, remixes, and fan-made parody videos have changed the face of short filmmaking, and now imagine similar experiments applied to streamed live content. Start thinking about how your creativity can flow into this space now instead of waiting for the mega-corps to define it for you.
Change your listening habits. Okay, I nicked this one from financial blogger Joshua Brown, who wrote that?s he?s switching from Dad Rock to rap in the AM on his way to work. ??You musn?t subject yourself to this Sad Bastard Music en route to the battlefield,? he wrote. ?Primarily because you?ll be playing against people like me, who?ve been main-lining an overdose of corner-holding bravado while you?ve been listening to an art major lick his own violin. Switch it up ? aggressive and inspirational in the AM, plaintive and beautiful in the PM when the fightin?s done. Try this for a week, watch what happens.?
Cut out news and stop following. If you?re like me, you follow too much. You have too many feeds, too many alerts, and you check in too many times a day to different news sources because, well, you want to be in the know but also because you?re wired to the 24-hour news cycle the media has addicted you to. Okay, there are times when you may want to immerse yourself in the news cycle, usually during moments of national or world importance. But during other times, and to quote Brown again, ?Let Twitter and Facebook exist without you for large swathes of the day. Like the news, they are always going to be there when you are ready to deal with them. Go into settings and block the sirens and bells and whistles and vibrations now.? Oh, and to my film colleagues, there are things that merit news alerts. New posters and trailers ? pieces of marketing that distributors should be buying advertising space for on our sites ? are not two of them.
Don?t just like. This lifted from a friend on Facebook. If you ?like? because you?re acknowledging something a friend posted, or saying hello, fine. But if you ?like? a political or social call to action, understand that that ?like? means not much more than another piece of indexable information about you sent to some cloud server and used at some point in the future to sell you something. ?Like? if you want, but figure out what other kind of real-world action you can do.
Share your data. I interviewed first-time filmmaker Adam Leon about his wonderful Gimme the Loot for the next issue of Filmmaker, and he revealed to me a revolutionary new method he and his producers devised to write a business plan containing actual acquisition and revenue figures for their comps. What is it, you want to know? They asked. They went to people, more established producers, and said we?re making a film and we don?t want your money, we want your help. And by being nice and sincere they got it. Look, there?s probably not going to be some kind of Rentrak chart for VOD numbers or sales figures. As independent filmmakers we have to start building this data ourselves, and the first step is by being transparent and by sharing ? privately but collaboratively ? our own info.
Figure out their business model and if you fit into it. Maybe you were outraged by Instagram?s TOS changes ? you know, where they posted that they could use your photos in advertising without compensating you. Well, what did you expect? It?s a free service Facebook paid $1 billion for. So instead of being periodically furious when services change their terms, try to figure out what their terms will inevitably be before you load all your crap into them. And you know what? This applies to our film business too. When you go into partnership with a producer, or an agent, or a distribution company, figure out from their past work what their business plan is. How do they make their money, or increase their prestige, and will you be able to help them in that goal? If not, you may wind up disappointed.
Read more. Okay, here?s a carryover from 2011. Then I quoted Werner Herzog, who said you can?t be a filmmaker if you don?t read. This year, I?m repeating it as a personal reminder. Fact is, I read a lot. I read all day. Stories, emails, pitches, scripts, blog posts, etc. But too much of that reading I do in a kind of accelerated, semi-ADD skimming fashion, and too much of it doesn?t sustain me the way finishing a great book does. I did have some success this year, reading about half of Bolano?s 2666 towards the end of the year. But I had some failures, like a prolonged limping through a very slender book by French philosopher Jacques Ranciere that I?m still not done with. So, once again, this year I?m going to take my earlier advice and cut off the feeds and read more.
Go to galleries. Not just because galleries are beautiful, meditative spaces that create a zone for your own creativity, but because there?s tons of important hybrid art/film work being exhibited these days. And because there are filmmakers who have discovered that their media work is more remunerative and better appreciated in gallery contexts than in microcinemas. And because if you didn?t see the Freeman and Lowe show you don?t really know what?s going on.
Walk. It?s good for you. It helps you think. Frankly, I do all my writing while walking. I try to push pause on the podcasts, wander around, and write in my head. Then I come home and type it all out. Sitting at the computer, staring at the screen, with all the feeds going off ? sometimes the writing can be brutal. So, I have to remember to walk. To quote Rebecca Solnit from her Wanderlust: A History of Walking: Language is like a road, it cannot be perceived all at once because it unfolds in time, whether heard or read. This narrative or temporal element has made writing and walking resemble each other.? And: ?Many people nowadays live in a series of interiors?disconnected from each other. On foot everything stays connected, for while walking one occupies the spaces between those interiors in the same way one occupies those interiors. One lives in the whole world rather than in interiors built up against it.?
Start building your own distribution platform. ?It?s not self-distribution, it?s distribution,? a filmmaker who I won?t name now but who is featured in the new issue of our magazine said to me. He may be right. 2013 may be the year where self-distribution loses the ?self,? meaning that the fact that the filmmaker is spearheading his or her own campaign will no longer be something out-of-the-ordinary and deserving of comment. The folks behind the movie Indie Game speak eloquently on this in our next issue as well, detailing how they built their own distribution platform and how you can too.
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden leave the podium after Obama made a statement regarding the passage of the fiscal cliff bill in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden leave the podium after Obama made a statement regarding the passage of the fiscal cliff bill in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
The "fiscal cliff" compromise on taxes leaves a big part of the nation's budget crisis still dangling.
Lawmakers bought a little time with a New Year's agreement to hold income tax rates steady for 99 percent of Americans while allowing payroll taxes to go up. But they left themselves only two months to settle seemingly irreconcilable differences over how much the United States should borrow and spend and where painful budget cuts should land.
Here's a look at what's been resolved and what's left hanging:
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AUTOMATIC SPENDING CUTS
The bipartisan deal approved by the Senate and House put off dealing with the nearly $110 billion in automatic spending cuts set for this year.
Unless Congress stops them by March 1, automatic cuts of about 8 or 9 percent are set to sweep through nearly all federal agencies, with half the money coming out of the military.
Both parties talk about the need to control spending, but lawmakers don't want the kinds of chaotic cuts now barreling toward them. Republicans worry that the Pentagon would be hamstrung; Democrats say vital federal programs would be crippled.
Federal workers would face furloughs or even layoffs, Americans would see all sorts of government services curtailed, and businesses would feel the pinch of reduced government spending.
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DEBT LIMIT SHOWDOWN
Around the same time, the United States would lose its ability to borrow money to pay its debts, unless Congress acts. That's a big deal, especially since the government borrows about 31 cents of every dollar it spends.
The U.S. bumped against its $16.4 trillion borrowing limit Monday, but the Treasury Department is using special accounting measures to avoid default for now. Private economists say those methods could probably stretch through late February or early March.
After that, the United States would risk its first-ever default.
Hopes of wrapping the issue into the year-end negotiations were dashed, setting up the potential for another standoff. House Speaker John Boehner says any debt increase must be paired with equal spending cuts. Obama says the debt ceiling is too important to negotiate.
The last time such a showdown brought the nation close to default, in the summer of 2011, it roiled the financial markets and contributed to Standard & Poor's decision to strip the U.S. government of its AAA bond rating.
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A GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN?
Yet another deadline looms on March 27. The stopgap measure that funds government activities expires; congressional approval will be needed to keep the government running. It's another chance to fight over spending.
In 2011, the nation came within hours of a partial government shutdown that would have furloughed an estimated 800,000 government workers, closed national parks and halted the work of the IRS.
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THE NATIONAL DEBT
The "fiscal cliff" deadline was originally designed to force lawmakers to confront trillion-dollar annual budget deficits that pile the nation's debts higher each year. As larger and larger numbers of baby boomers receive retirement benefits in coming years, the strain on the budget will be unsustainable.
Obama says Medicare's climbing costs must be addressed to fix this. Republicans want to rein in Medicare, Social Security and other entitlement programs more sharply. Many Democratic lawmakers object. And tampering with programs so popular with voters is never easy.
The "fiscal cliff" was supposed to be a way to force Washington to confront the long-term debt problem. The next two months will be another opportunity to come up with a plan or dodge the issues again.
The tough, unpopular decisions are further complicated by concerns that cutting spending too quickly could damage the nation's sluggish economic recovery.
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WHAT'S DONE
The year-end "fiscal cliff" deadline did inspire compromise between Republicans and Democrats on some hotly debated tax questions. Some of the issues settled:
? Payroll taxes are going back up, after being trimmed for two years to help stimulate spending and boost the economy. For most workers, that means paychecks will shrink by 2 percent ? another $1,000 for someone earning $50,000 a year. The wealthiest pay a lower share of their income, however, because the Social Security payroll tax applies only to the first $113,700 of earnings.
? The top 1 percent are getting socked with higher income tax rates. Income over $400,000 for individuals or $450,000 for couples will be taxed at a top rate of 39.6 percent, up from 35 percent. Everyone else gets to keep their current income tax rates, which date back to the George W. Bush-era tax cuts.
? The wealthiest Americans will pay higher taxes on their investments. Rates for their capital gains and dividends are rising from 15 to 20 percent. And the tax on estates worth more than $5 million will go up to 40 percent, from 35 percent.
? The alternative minimum tax ? designed to keep the wealthy from using loopholes to avoid taxes ? will be permanently indexed for inflation so it doesn't catch millions of middle- and upper-middle-income people in its net.
? Tax breaks for families with children, college tuition and low-income workers will continue for five years. A diverse group of temporary business tax breaks were extended for one year.
? Emergency federal unemployment benefits to help 2 million people out of work for at least six months will be extended a year.
? A scheduled 27 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors will be held off for a year in what's become a congressional ritual.
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Follow Connie Cass on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ConnieCass
Same-sex marriage ceremonies commenced shortly after Midnight in Maryland, beginning with James Scales and William Tasker.? Scales works for the mayor?s office and was married by Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.
Same-sex couples in Maryland have been able to get marriage licenses since Dec. 6, but they did not take effect until Tuesday.
Nine states and the District of Columbia have approved same-sex marriage.
The U.S. Treasury said it would hit a legal limit on borrowing on Monday but was launching new measures to keep the nation from defaulting on its debt.
A Treasury official said the federal government was hitting its $16.4 trillion ceiling on borrowing.
The government is facing a crunch on the debt ceiling because the issue has become tangled up in talks to avoid some $600 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts due to begin in early January. Failing to raise the debt ceiling could cause the government to default on its debt.
To cut government spending and keep the government from going over the debt ceiling, the government will suspend some investments in pension and health benefit funds for federal workers beginning on Monday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in a letter to congressional leaders.
The suspension of the investments is part of a series of measures announced last week to keep the country from defaulting on its debt.
Normally, these measures would buy the Treasury about two months before hitting the debt ceiling, the Treasury has said. But a series of planned tax hikes and spending cuts due to take effect in early January could give Treasury further time if they take effect as scheduled, Geithner said last week.
US Treasury to take steps to avoid debt ceiling
Many analysts believe the measures available to the Treasury can stave that date off into late February.
The U.S. Congress typically authorizes government borrowing in a two-stage process, first drafting plans to spend more than it raises in tax revenues. Every few years, it raises a limit on government borrowing to accommodate annual deficits, a process that this year has become ensnared by the contentious budget talks in Washington.
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Katy Saunders, left, Alex Mueller, center left, Rebekka Frank and Arina Motamedi, right, play with sparklers ahead of welcoming in the new year during the 2013 Edinburgh Hogmanay celebrations, Scotland, Monday December 31, 2012. See PA story SOCIAL NewYear. (AP Photo/PA,Danny Lawson)UNITED KINGDOM OUT
Katy Saunders, left, Alex Mueller, center left, Rebekka Frank and Arina Motamedi, right, play with sparklers ahead of welcoming in the new year during the 2013 Edinburgh Hogmanay celebrations, Scotland, Monday December 31, 2012. See PA story SOCIAL NewYear. (AP Photo/PA,Danny Lawson)UNITED KINGDOM OUT
Greek presidential guards seen during the changing of the guards ceremony outside the Greek parliament at the t?mb of the unknown soldier in New Year?s Eve in central Athens, Monday, Dec. 31, 2012. In austerity-weary Greece, New Year?s Eve festivities will be restrained, with Athens municipal officials saying their budget for this year has been contained to about a tenth of pre-crisis spending. In his televised New Year?s Eve message, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras promised Greeks that the worst of the crisis is past, and declared 2013 a ?year of hope? that will see the beginning of the country?s rebirth. (AP Photo/Dimitri Messinis)
Shaman Yessy, right, performs a New Year's ritual to bring good luck to her client in the coming year, at the Market of Wishes in Lima, Peru, Monday, Dec. 31, 2012. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)
Fireworks explode in front of the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre over the Victoria Harbor as celebrating the 2013 New Year in Hong Kong Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013 (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Fireworks explode in the sky above Sydney Harbour during the New Year celebrations in Sydney, Australia, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013.(AP Photo/Rob Griffith)
LONDON (AP) ? Lavish fireworks displays ushered in 2013 across the Asia-Pacific region on Tuesday, and Europe was holding scaled-back festivities and street parties in the hope of beginning a new year that will be kinder to its battered economies.
Asian cities kicked off New Year's celebrations in style and an atmosphere of renewed optimism, despite the "fiscal cliff" impasse of spending cuts and tax increases threatening to reverberate globally from the United States.
Huge fireworks lit up skylines in Sydney, Hong Kong and Shanghai, and even the once-isolated country of Myanmar joined the countdown party for the first time in decades.
Celebrations were planned around the world, including the traditional crystal ball drop in New York City's Times Square, where 1 million people were expected to cram into the surrounding streets.
In Russia, Moscow's iconic Red Square was filled with spectators as fireworks exploded near the Kremlin to welcome in the new year. Earlier in the day, about 25 people were reportedly arrested in Moscow for trying to hold an unsanctioned demonstration. But President Vladimir Putin gave an optimistic New Year's Eve address, making no reference to the anti-government protests that have occurred in his country in the past year.
"We believe that we can change the life around us and become better ourselves, that we can become more heedful, compassionate, gracious," Putin said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.
In Australia, a balmy summer night was split by 7 tons of fireworks fired from rooftops and barges in Sydney, many cascading from the city's Harbor Bridge, in a $6.9 million pyrotechnic extravaganza billed by organizers as the world's largest.
In Myanmar, after nearly five decades under military regimes that discouraged or banned big public gatherings, about 90,000 people experienced the country's first New Year's Eve countdown in a field in the largest city of Yangon.
"We feel like we are in a different world," said Yu Thawda, a university student who came with three of her friends.
Tens of thousands of people lined Hong Kong's Victoria Harbor to view a $1.6 million fireworks display, said to be the biggest ever in the southern Chinese city.
In North Korea, cannons boomed at midnight in Pyongyang as people crowded the streets of the capital to watch a fireworks show over the Taedong River. After being in mourning a year ago regarding leader Kim Jong Il's death, North Koreans celebrated the end of a big year that included the rise of new leader Kim Jong Un and the recent launch of a satellite into space.
Hotels, clubs and other sites in New Delhi, the Indian capital, canceled festivities after the death Saturday of a young rape victim touched off days of mourning and reflection about women's safety. People were asked to light candles to express their solidarity with the victim.
In Indonesia, Jakarta's street party centered on a 7-kilometer (4-mile) thoroughfare closed to traffic from nightfall until after midnight. Workers erected 16 large stages along the normally clogged, eight-lane highway through the heart of the city. Indonesia's booming economy is a rare bright spot amid global gloom and is bringing prosperity ? or the hope of it ? to its people.
In the Philippines, where many are recovering from devastation from a recent typhoon, health officials have hit upon a successful way to stop revelers from setting off huge illegal firecrackers that maim and injure hundreds of Filipinos each year.
A health official, Eric Tayag, donned the splashy outfit of South Korean star PSY and danced to his YouTube hit "Gangnam Style" video while preaching against the use of illegal firecrackers on TV, in schools and in public arenas.
"The campaign has become viral," Tayag said.
In austerity-hit Europe, the mood was more restrained ? if hopeful. The year 2013 is projected to be a sixth straight one of recession amid Greece's worst economic crisis since World War II. In fact, the new year was starting with a 24-hour strike by subway and train workers in Athens to protest salary cuts that are part of the government's austerity measures.
Still, in his televised New Year's Eve message, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras promised Greeks that the worst of the crisis is past, and declared 2013 a "year of hope" that will see the beginning of the country's rebirth.
Celebrating New Year's Eve with a vespers service in St. Peter's Basilica, Pope Benedict XVI said that despite all the injustice in the world, goodness prevails. In his homily, Benedict said it's tough to remember that goodness can win when bad news ? death, violence and injustice ? "makes more noise than good." He said taking time to meditate in prolonged reflection and prayer can help "find healing from the inevitable wounds of daily life."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's New Year's message warned her country to prepare for difficult economic times ahead. Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, decided to cancel celebrations in light of the economic crisis. Nicosia said 16,000 euros ($21,000) saved from the canceled event will be given to some 320 needy schoolchildren.
In Spain, where a recession has left unemployment at a staggering 25 percent, people are hoping for a better new year.
"It's been tough, but some celebrations are too deeply-ingrained to let go," said Olga Camino, 25. She said she would be celebrating in the streets of Madrid in fancy dress with a large group of friends. Camino said they would all eat 12 grapes as the clock in Madrid's central Puerta del Sol struck midnight, a tradition observed throughout Spain.
Scotland's Edinburgh, which traditionally hosts one of the biggest New Year's Eve parties in Europe, also planned good cheer. Festivities for the three-day Hogmanay ?or year-end ? celebrations began Sunday with a torchlight procession in the Scottish capital, and organizers said about 75,000 people are expected to line the streets for Tuesday's fireworks.
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McGuirk reported from Sydney. Associated Press writers Aye Aye Win in Yangon, Myanmar; Jean Lee in Pyongyang, North Korea; Chris Brummitt in Jakarta, Indonesia; Kelvin Chan in Hong Kong; Ashok Sharma in New Delhi; Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines; Nicholas Paphitis in Athens; Raphael Satter in London; Harold Heckle in Madrid, Spain; and Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus, contributed to this report.
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Public release date: 8-Jan-2013
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Leap Motion, the company in the forefront of motion-sensing technology for home use is rolling out their Leap Motion controller, which can in time nullify any need for your traditional computer mouse or keyboard.
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