Indonesia girl back with family after 2004 tsunami

Fifteen-year-old Wati, second right, poses for a photograph with her father Yusuf, right, mother Yusniar, left, and younger brother Aris at their home in Meulaboh, Aceh province, Indonesia, Friday, Dec. 23, 2011. The girl who was swept away in the Indian Ocean tsunami seven years ago has been reunited with her parents. (AP Photo)

Fifteen-year-old Wati, second right, poses for a photograph with her father Yusuf, right, mother Yusniar, left, and younger brother Aris at their home in Meulaboh, Aceh province, Indonesia, Friday, Dec. 23, 2011. The girl who was swept away in the Indian Ocean tsunami seven years ago has been reunited with her parents. (AP Photo)

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AP) ? A girl who was swept away in the Indian Ocean tsunami seven years ago said Friday she broke down in tears this week after tracking down her parents, who had long lost hope of finding her alive.

The 15-year-old showed up in Aceh province's hard-hit town of Meulaboh earlier this week, saying that not long after the wave hit she was "adopted" by a woman who called her Wati and forced her to beg, sometimes beating her and keeping her in the streets until 1 a.m.

When the teen stopped bringing in money, she was told, "Go ahead, leave ... go find your parents then, they're in Meulaboh."

With only patchy memories about her past ? she was only 8 when the tsunami hit, an age where most children don't know their relatives' full names ? Wati began her search, telling people she thought her grandfather was "Ibrahim."

She met a pedicab driver in Meulaboh, who brought her to a man by that name. Though she didn't look familiar, he, in turn, quickly summoned her parents.

"When I saw my mother, I knew it was her," said the wide-eyed girl, her hair cropped close to her head. "I just knew."

The family, who say the girl's original name is Meri Yuranda, is also now convinced.

The Dec. 26, 2004, tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen nations hit Aceh ? closest to the epicenter of the magnitude-9.1 quake that spawned the towering waves ? the hardest.

With tens of thousands of bodies washed to sea in that province alone, many families continue to cling to hope of finding lost loved ones. Reunions, however, are rare. And all announced in the last five years have turned out to be untrue. Even so, some mothers continue to believe a child is theirs even after DNA tests prove otherwise.

Either way, without any challenges to the claims, Wati now has a family.

Yusniar binti Ibrahim Nur, the mother, told The Associated Press she had all the evidence she needed.

"She has her father's face," the 35-year-old woman said by telephone. "And when I saw the scar over her eye and mole on her hip, I was even more sure."

It doesn't worry her, she said, that the girl and her husband have different accounts of what happened on the day the tsunami hit their tiny village of Ujong Baroh just outside of Meulaboh.

Wati remembers her father putting her into a boat with her younger sister, long presumed dead as well, and then getting separated. She says she remembers being surrounded by water and crying.

Her father says he put both of his daughters on the roof of their house hoping they'd be safe.

"Maybe she fell into the boat, maybe someone helped her. I just don't know," said Yusniar.

"I just thank God my prayers have been answered," she said. "For years, I searched everywhere. I'd really given up."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-12-23-AS-Indonesia-Tsunami-Reunited-Family/id-0fca14e61a6a40ed91da745f2e25872e

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New take on impacts of low dose radiation

ScienceDaily (Dec. 20, 2011) ? Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), through a combination of time-lapse live imaging and mathematical modeling of a special line of human breast cells, have found evidence to suggest that for low dose levels of ionizing radiation, cancer risks may not be directly proportional to dose. This contradicts the standard model for predicting biological damage from ionizing radiation -- the linear-no-threshold hypothesis or LNT -- which holds that risk is directly proportional to dose at all levels of irradiation.

"Our data show that at lower doses of ionizing radiation, DNA repair mechanisms work much better than at higher doses," says Mina Bissell, a breast cancer researcher with Berkeley Lab's Life Sciences Division. "This non-linear DNA damage response casts doubt on the general assumption that any amount of ionizing radiation is harmful and additive."

Bissell was part of a study led by Sylvain Costes, a biophysicist also with Berkeley Lab's Life Sciences Division, in which DNA damage response to low dose radiation was characterized simultaneously across both time and dose levels. This was done by measuring the number of RIF, for "radiation induced foci," which are aggregations of proteins that repair double strand breaks, meaning the DNA double helix is completely severed.

Berkeley Lab biophysicist Sylvain Costes is generating 3D time lapse of DNA repair centers in human cells to understand better how cancer may arise from DNA damage. (Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt, Berkeley Lab)

"We hypothesize that contrary to what has long been thought, double strand breaks are not static entities but will rapidly cluster into preferred regions of the nucleus we call DNA repair centers as radiation exposure increases," says Costes. "As a result of this clustering, a single RIF may reflect a center where multiple double strand breaks are rejoined. Such multiple repair activity increases the risks of broken DNA strands being incorrectly rejoined and that can lead to cancer."

Costes and Bissell have published the results of their study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Also co-authoring the paper were Teresa Neumaier, Joel Swenson, Christopher Pham, Aris Polyzos, Alvin Lo, PoAn Yang, Jane Dyball, Aroumougame Asaithamby, David Chen and Stefan Thalhammer.

The authors believe their study to be the first to report the clustering of DNA double strand breaks and the formation of DNA repair centers in human cells. The movement of the double strand breaks across relatively large distances of up to two microns led to more intensely active but fewer RIF. For example, 15 RIF per gray (Gy) were observed after exposure to two Gy of radiation, compared to approximately 64 RIF/Gy after exposure to 0.1Gy. One Gy equals one joule of ionizing radiation energy absorbed per kilogram of human tissue. A typical mammogram exposes a patient to about 0.01Gy.

Corresponding author Costes says the DNA repair centers may be a logical product of evolution.

"Humans evolved in an environment with very low levels of ionizing radiation, which makes it unlikely that a cell would suffer more than one double strand break at any given time," he says. "A DNA repair center would seem to be an optimal way to deal with such sparse damage. It is like taking a broken car to a garage where all the equipment for repairs is available rather than to a random location with limited resources."

However, when cells are exposed to ionizing radiation doses large enough to cause multiple double strand breaks at once, DNA repair centers become overwhelmed and the number of incorrect rejoinings of double strand breaks increases.

"It is the same as when dozens of broken cars are brought to the same garage at once, the quality of repair is likely to suffer," Costes says.

The link between exposure to ionizing radiation and DNA damage that can give rise to cancerous cells is well-established. However, the standards for cancer risks have been based on data collected from survivors of the atomic bomb blasts in Japan during World War II. The LNT model was developed to extrapolate low dose cancer risk from high dose exposure because changes in cancer incidence following low dose irradiation are too small to be measurable. Extrapolation was done on a linear scale in accordance with certain assumptions and the laws of physics.

"Assuming that the human genome is a target of constant size, physics predicts DNA damage response will be proportional to dose leading to a linear scale," Costes explains. "Epidemiological data from the survivors of the atomic bombs was found to be in agreement with this hypothesis and showed that cancer incidence increases with an increase in ionizing radiation dose above 0.1 Gy. Below such dose, the picture is not clear."

Previous studies failed to detect the clustering of double break strands and the formation of DNA repair centers because they were based on single-time or single-dose measurements of RIF at a discrete time after the initial exposure to ionizing radiation. This yields a net number of RIF that does not account for RIF that have not yet appeared or RIF that have already made repairs and disappeared. The time-lapse imaging used by Costes, Bissell and their co-authors showed that RIF formation continues to occur well beyond the initial radiation exposure and after earlier repair issues have been resolved. Time-lapse imaging also indicates that double strand break clustering takes place before any RIF are formed.

"We hypothesize that double strand break clustering occurs rapidly after exposure to ionizing radiation and that RIF formation reflects the repair machinery put in place around a single cluster of double strand breaks," Costes says. "Our results provide a more accurate model of RIF dose response, and underscore fundamental concerns about static image data analysis in the dynamic environment of the living cell."

Previous studies also mostly involved fibroblast cells whereas Costes, Bissell and their colleagues examined epithelial cells, specifically an immortalized human breast cell line known as MCF10A, which has a much higher background of RIF than fibroblasts, even without ionizing irradiation. To compensate for this higher background, Costes developed a mathematical method that enables background to be corrected for on a per- nucleus basis in unirradiated cells. Still the use of a special line of immortalized breast cells is an issue that Costes and his colleagues plan to address.

"We are now looking at primary breast epithelial cells that have been removed from healthy donors to determine if our results are repeated beyond just a single cell line and under more realistic physiological conditions," Costes says. "We'd also like to know if our findings hold true for fibroblasts as well as epithelial cells. Also, we'd like to know if double strand break clustering is the result of a random coalescence or if there is an active transport mechanism that moves these double strand breaks towards pre-existing DNA repair centers."

Working in collaboration with Rafael Gomez-Sjoberg of Berkeley Lab's Engineering Division, Costes and his group are also developing a special microfluidics lab-on-a-chip device that is integrated into an X-ray microbeam. The goal is to provide a means by which cells can be kept in a controlled microenvironment while being irradiated with multiple doses. This microfluidic array will be used to characterize DNA damage response in breast and blood cells collected from human donors.

"By characterizing DNA damage response in cells from many different human donors," Costes says, "we should be able to determine the variation across humans and gain a better understanding of how sensitivity to DNA damage from ionizing radiation might vary from individual to individual."

This research was supported by the DOE Office of Science.

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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.

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Journal Reference:

1. T. Neumaier, J. Swenson, C. Pham, A. Polyzos, A. T. Lo, P. Yang, J. Dyball, A. Asaithamby, D. J. Chen, M. J. Bissell, S. Thalhammer, S. V. Costes. Evidence for formation of DNA repair centers and dose-response nonlinearity in human cells. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2011; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1117849108

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://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111220133911.htm

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Statue Honors iPhone iPad iConoclast Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs was loved and admired around the world. ?Jobs support of ArchiCAD software helped make it popular. He is honored by the company with statue, dedicated, today.

GRAPHISOFT, Graphisoft Park, and AIT-Budapest unveiled a statue of?Steve Jobs in Budapest's Graphisoft Park.?The 6'5" bronze Jobs is wearing jeans, running shoes/sneakers, turtleneck shirt and Jobs' signature eyeglasses. ?He is carrying an iPhone.

"Steve Jobs made technology available to the masses first over the desktop, then in our pockets," said Gabor Bojar, the founder of Graphisoft who called?Jobs the creator of technology with a human face.

"Apple's support included cash and computers at a time when GRAPHISOFT was a small company with limited resources, working within the economic and political confines of what was, at the time, communist Hungary," Gabor Bojar said.

They claim the ?statue is the first in the world honoring the late founder of Apple, who passed away on October 5. Made by Hungarian sculptor Erno Toth, the life-like bronze statue stands near the entrance of architectural software maker GRAPHISOFT's Budapest headquarters.

Steve Jobs came across the first version of GRAPHISOFT's ArchiCAD software at the 1984 CeBIT in Germany. His first impressions of the software led him to throw Apple's support behind the development and distribution of ArchiCAD.??Apple also introduced?GRAPHISOFT?to its worldwide distribution network, which remains a cornerstone of the business today.

Graphisoft Park is the first science/technology park in Budapest, established by GRAPHISOFT in 1997 when looking for new premises. The mission of the Park is to enable its tenants to attract the best talent with an inspiring calm and green environment, located directly on the banks of the Danube River.

Related News:

Source: http://wirelessandmobilenews.com/2011/12/statue-honors-iphone-ipad-iconoclast-steve-jobs.html

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Snag This Glowing Apple iPhone 4 Mod Before Apple?s Lawyers Do!

Set the rear-facing Apple logo aglow with this simple mod. Per the video demo below, it only takes 5 minutes to install and seems relatively simple. Just pop off the back cover of the iPhone, remove 5 internal screws, disconnect the screen's cable and install the mod. From there, you're a hop, skip and jump from having a glowing Apple logo every time the iPhone's screen kicks on or displays a notification. But there's a catch. The retailer knows it won't be able to sell this thing forever. Apple will no doubt release its legal hounds as soon as it catches wind of the unofficial mod. K.O Store is currently selling the kit for $42, but only for a limited time. Per a countdown timer on the website, the kit will go into hiding in just over two days from now unless of course Apple gets to it first. So? Do you want it or not?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/ySBA0KQEJVg/

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Guild criticizes OWS, NYPD over "Law & Order" set snaffu (Reuters)

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) ? The Writers Guild of America-East has written an open letter to the Occupy Wall Street movement and New York Police Department criticizing protesters who dismantled a "Law and Order: SVU" set designed to replicate the occupation, and police who then halted shooting on the show.

Yes, that's the WGAE complaining about OWS and the NYPD over "L&O: SVU." Not since the WPA have so many enjoyed so much alphabet soup.

The eastern branch of the union, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, says it has "strongly and actively supported the Occupy Wall Street movement from its inception," and that it was frustrated that protesters dismantled a set last week, given that the show is written by union writers and that union crews work on it.

"The demonstrators' actions were as misguided and inappropriate as the City of New York's response -- revoking 'Law & Order''s permit for the shoot and directing the dismantling of its set," the union wrote. "Presumably the protesters and police did not set out to achieve a common end but together they prevented the scene from being filmed and the story from being told."

The NBC legal drama -- the last one standing from the once-thriving "Law & Order" franchise -- was scheduled to film on the "Mockupy" Wall Street set early Friday. It was created in downtown Manhattan, near the State Supreme Court building where "L&O" shows have frequently filmed.

Protestors danced, waved flags, poked through the library and kitchen elements of the set and even crawled inside tents, despite objections from people guarding the "L&O" production. One protester carried a sign that said, "We are a movement, not a TV plot."

(Don't most movements end up being both?)

Added the WGAE: "We continue to support Occupy Wall Street's aims and in the tradition of a city with a long history of upholding the right of free, peaceful speech for all, urge both the members of OWS and the police to treat last week's occurrence as an isolated incident, vowing that it not be repeated."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tv/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111215/tv_nm/us_wga_laworder

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Dell cuts Mini netbooks for non-business customers, ruins Christmas ...

If you needed a good, valid reason to Hulk Out today, this might be it. Dell, which recently retired its Streak 5 and Streak 7 tablets, is apparently axing its Mini line of netbooks as well. According to the MyDellMini forums, conducting a search for a laptop with a 10-inch display on the Dell Shop will yield no results, while a search for specific models brings up a variety of messages confirming the world's loss. Fortunately, the full-sized notebooks appear to be in abundant supply, and the search engine will happily suggest one of Dell's 14-inch laptops for $469 and up. Because, you know, a 14-inch machine will totally serve the same purpose as a 10-inch one.

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/15/dell-cuts-mini-netbooks-for-non-business-customers-ruins-christ/

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Panetta: Libya needs time to control militias

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta reacts as he listens to an unidentified U.S. army officer during a wreath-laying ceremony at the mausoleum of Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in Ankara, Turkey, Friday, Dec. 16, 2011. Panetta is in Turkey on a two-day visit for talks with Turkish leaders. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici)

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta reacts as he listens to an unidentified U.S. army officer during a wreath-laying ceremony at the mausoleum of Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in Ankara, Turkey, Friday, Dec. 16, 2011. Panetta is in Turkey on a two-day visit for talks with Turkish leaders. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici)

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, center, speaks with an unidentified Turkish army general during a wreath-laying ceremony at the mausoleum of Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in Ankara, Turkey, Friday, Dec. 16, 2011. Panetta is in Turkey on a two-day visit for talks with Turkish leaders. An unidentified U. S. army officer looks on at rear.(AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici)

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, right, and US Ambassador to Turkey Francis Ricciardone, take part in a news conference in Ankara, Turkey, Friday, Dec., 16, 2011. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, Pool)

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and US Ambassador to Turkey Francis Ricciardone leave after their news conference in Ankara, Turkey, Friday, Dec., 16, 2011. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, Pool)

U.S. Sec. of Defense Leon Panetta, right, walks across the courtyard as he arrives for a wreath laying ceremony at the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in Ankara, Turkey, Friday, Dec., 16, 2011. Ataturk was the leader of Turkish War of Independence and the first President of the Republic of Turkey. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, Pool)

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) ? The U.S. needs to give Libya's leaders more time to gain control of the militias that overthrew Moammar Gadhafi before determining how to help the fledgling government, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Friday, a day ahead of his historic visit to Tripoli.

While eager to encourage a new democracy that emerged from Libya's Arab Spring revolution, the U.S. is wary of appearing as trying to exert too much influence after an eight-month civil war.

At the same time, however, leaders in the U.S. and elsewhere worry about how well the newly formed National Transitional Council can resolve clashes between militia groups in the North African nation.

"The last thing you want to do is to try to impose something on a country that has just gone through what the Libyans have gone through," said Panetta, set to become the first U.S. defense chief to visit Libya.

"They've earned the right to try to determine their future. They've earned the right to try to work their way through the issues that they're going to have to confront," he said.

Ahead of Panetta's visit, the Obama administration announced it had lifted sanctions the U.S. imposed on Libya in February to choke off the Gadhafi regime's funds while it was violent suppressing peaceful protests. The U.S. at the time blocked some $37 billion in Libyan assets, and a White House statement said Friday's action "unfreezes all government and central bank funds within U.S. jurisdiction, with limited exceptions."

Recovery of the assets "will allow the Libyan government to access most of its worldwide holdings and will help the new government oversee the country's transition and reconstruction in a responsible manner," the White House said.

But the continuing violence in Libya, including recent skirmishes between revolutionary fighters and national army troops near Tripoli's airport, reflects the difficulties that Libya's leaders face as they try to forge an army, integrating some of the militias and disarming the rest.

Officials acknowledge that process could take months, and that they can't force the militias to go along.

Panetta told reporters Friday that his visit to the Libyan capital will give him a better sense of the situation and allow him to pay tribute to the people for bringing down Gadhafi and trying to establish a democratic government.

"It seems to me they are working through some very difficult issues to try to bring that country together," said Panetta. "It's not going to be easy. This is not a country that has a tradition of democratic institutions and representative government. This is going to take some work "

But he said he has seen indications that the Libyans are making progress.

"I think that any country like Libya that was able to do what they did and show the courage that they did in making the changes that took place there ? I'm confident that ultimately they're going to be able to succeed in putting a democracy together," he said.

Panetta said the U.S. is prepared to provide Libya any assistance it needs.

By traveling to Libya, however, Panetta was highlighting the different approaches that the U.S. and other countries are taking with respect to rebellions against tyrannical leaders.

The U.S. and NATO provided months of military power and assistance to the Libyan rebels, but officials have made it clear they do not intend to do the same in Syria despite the furor over President Bashar Assad's crackdown on pro-reform demonstrators.

Panetta, who met with Turkish officials Friday, said they did not discuss any specific steps to increase pressure on Assad to step down.

But they talked about the need to work together with other nations to "get Assad to do the right thing."

At some point, he said, he believes that the type of uprisings that happened in Libya and elsewhere across the Middle East will take place in Syria.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-12-16-US-Libya/id-3482198b65464863ac8ce5f99949dfc1

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