You want to improve teamwork. So you reward group performance, praise any signs of collaboration and prod loners to become joiners.
That?s a good start, but why stop there?
Raising teamwork to the next level doesn?t mean you must hire team-building consultants and send employees on Outward Bound. Take these simpler steps:
Campaign against an enemy. People will band together if they see themselves as fighting a formidable adversary, especially if they view themselves as the underdog. Focus a group?s attention on a fierce rival. If you run a small retail chain, build team spirit by calling for your troops to trounce the big national department stores.
Publish a ?team book.? Ask every employee to prepare a one-page biography. It can include a photo, a list of hobbies, personal interests and family information. Collect their responses and assemble them in a bound volume that you distribute to everyone, or create a simple web page.
As employees read through the bios, they?ll become better acquainted with their co-workers. They?ll also bond more readily when they learn what they have in common.
Exchange praise. Play the ?anonymous praise? game in which everyone lists what he admires about a specific co-worker. Collect the responses and summarize the highlights in a memo to each team member.
This way, employees see a compilation of praise based on what their peers think of them. By keeping it anonymous, the compliments count even more because the messages?not the messengers?stand out.
Unclog team communication channels. You want teammates to share ideas, but if they?re scattered in field offices or different floors, they may lack ?face time? to update each other. Solution: Use your company?s networking capabilities so that employees can inform each other of new developments. For a low-tech option, designate a centrally located bulletin board as the place for team members to post notices, give progress reports and pose questions.
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Two years after the devastating T?hoku earthquake and tsunami, Google has launched Street View images of Namie-machi in the Fukushima exclusion zone. The area encompasses Fukushima Daichi Nuclear Plant, which after the disaster was the scene of the largest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. The 360-degree panoramic imagery, showing ruined buildings on empty streets, is both eerie and heartbreaking.
Mar. 26, 2013 ? The genome of the mountain pine beetle -- the insect that has devastated British Columbia's lodgepole pine forests -- has been decoded by researchers at the University of British Columbia and Canada's Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre.
This is a first for the mountain pine beetle and only the second beetle genome ever sequenced. The first was the red flour beetle, a pest of stored grains. The genome is described in a study published Tuesday in the journal Genome Biology.
"We know a lot about what the beetles do," says Christopher Keeling, a research associate in Prof. Joerg Bohlmann's lab at the Michael Smith Laboratories. "But without the genome, we don't know exactly how they do it."
"Sequencing the mountain pine beetle genome provides new information that can be used to help manage the epidemic in the future."
The genome revealed large variation among individuals of the species -- about four times greater than the variation among humans.
"As the beetles' range expands and as they head into jack pine forests where the defensive compounds may be different, this variation could allow them to be more successful in new environments," says Keeling.
Researchers isolated genes that help detoxify defence compounds found under the bark of the tree -- where the beetles live. They also found genes that degrade plant cell walls, which allow the beetles to get nutrients from the tree.
Keeling, Bohlmann and their colleagues also uncovered a bacterial gene that has jumped into the mountain pine beetle genome. This gene codes for an enzyme that digests sugars.
"It might be used to digest woody tissue and/or the microorganisms that grow in the beetle's tunnels underneath the bark of the tree," said Keeling. "Gene transfers sometimes make organisms more successful in their environments."
This study involved researchers from the University of Northern British Columbia and the University of Alberta.
Characteristics of the mountain pine beetle genome
12 pairs of chromosomes
Approximately 13,000 genes
The mountain pine beetle separated from the red flour beetle -- the only other beetle genome sequenced to date -- about 230 million years ago. According to Keeling, "the two insects have about the same relatedness as a pine tree and a head of lettuce."
The mountain pine beetle is closely related to other significant pests in North American forests such as the southern pine beetle, Douglas-fir beetle, eastern larch beetle, and spruce beetle. Insights gained from sequencing the mountain pine beetle genome can be transferred to these beetles, and other forest insect pests around the world.
Mountain pine beetle epidemic
The mountain pine beetle has infested over 18 million hectares of lodgepole pine in British Columbia -- an area more than five times larger than Vancouver Island -- causing enormous damage to the environment and forest industry. In recent years, the insect has moved further north and east, over the Canadian Rockies, and is now approaching the Alberta-Saskatchewan border. It is also beginning to infest other pine trees -- jack pine, a jack-lodgepole hybrid, limber pine, and the endangered whitebark pine. Jack pine boreal forests extend from Alberta to the Atlantic provinces. The mountain pine beetle also lives in Colorado, Wyoming, Arizona and South Dakota.
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Journal Reference:
Christopher I Keeling, Macaire MS Yuen, Nancy Y Liao, T Roderick Docking, Simon K Chan, Greg A Taylor, Diana L Palmquist, Shaun D Jackman, Anh Nguyen, Maria Li, Hannah Henderson, Jasmine K Janes, Yongjun Zhao, Pawan Pandoh, Richard Moore, Felix AH Sperling, Dezene PW Huber, Inanc Birol, Stephen JM Jones, Joerg Bohlmann. Draft genome of the mountain pine beetle, Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins, a major forest pest. Genome Biology, 2013; 14 (3): R27 DOI: 10.1186/gb-2013-14-3-r27
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.
Brandi Glanville and Kyle Richards have words during the "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" post-finale reunion.
By Ree Hines, TODAY contributor
It was a night of she-said/she-said on "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills," as the season wrapped up with one fight after another.
"I really don't like getting involved when I see other people arguing," Kyle Richards claimed when she spied Faye Resnick giving Brandi Glanville grief at Lisa Vanderpump's party, "but now I see a potentially volatile situation."
So why not jump right in? Everyone else did -- and how.
Despite all of the back and forth, there was one moment of peace on the season-ender. Lisa and her husband, Ken Todd, (with their always-present pup Giggy by their side) renewed their vows in a surprisingly fight-free ceremony.
"I love you, darling," Ken told her. "And whatever I said 30 years ago still stands. I promise to obey you. Again.?
Aw! But don't let that sweet stuff fool you. The action didn't end there. No sooner had the season wrapped than the first part of the reunion special aired.
It should come as no surprise to "Housewives" fans to learn that the fights were far from over. In fact, one feud in particular has continued beyond the reunion -- or more accurately, reunions.
?Lisa has never let go of the fact that I didn?t defend her on the reunion last year,? Kyle told In Touch, referring to Lisa's past blowout with Adrienne Maloof. ?I?m?still being punished one year later for not jumping in.?
According to Kyle, she and Lisa haven't spoken since this season's reunion was taped.
See where the hubbub kicks of next week, when part two of the reunion special airs Monday at 9 p.m. on Bravo.
What did you think of the finale night fracas? Share your thoughts on our Facebook page.
T-Mobile already let its new "UnCarrier" plans loose on its website without much fanfare this past weekend, but it's now finally talking a bit more about them at its big launch event in NYC. Dubbed Simple Choice, the new plans all of course do away with the traditional two-year contracts, and they all start with both unlimited talk and text. The differences come with the data options: the basic $50 a month plan will get you 500MB of high-speed data with rates throttled down to 2G speeds after you hit that limit. Heavier data users can opt for 2GB of unthrottled data for an extra $10 per month, while fully unlimited 4G data will set you back an extra $20 a month (or $70 total). A second line will run another $30 on top of that, with each additional line costing $10 apiece. Not surprisingly, the carrier is also making a big marketing push to promote its new approach. You see its first commercial after the break, and find a full breakdown of the plans at the source link below.
Contact: Catherine Meyers cmeyers@aip.org 301-209-3088 American Institute of Physics
Ultra-precision positioning is required for the success of many scientific applications, including manufacturing semiconductors, aligning optics and manipulating cells. One of the challenges of ultra-precise positioning is providing sufficient torque through small, precise angles. In a paper accepted for publication in the Review of Scientific Instruments, a journal of the American Institute of Physics, researchers describe a new rotary actuator that accurately delivers more torque than previous devices.
Like many other ultra-precise rotary actuators, the new device's action is driven by piezoelectric material, which converts electrical signals into mechanical movement. The researchers improved upon previous designs with a clamp that integrates the driving and stopping action and can be moved to different distances from the rotor's center. That gives the researchers both more power and control of the driving forces. Like rotating a bicycle wheel, it is easier to control the torque and speed of the wheel by varying both the force as well as the distance from the center that force is applied.
The researchers report approximately four-fold improvements in both maximum loading torque and accuracy over other piezoelectric actuators at the maximum driving frequency of the other devices. While the new device can be driven at higher frequencies, the resulting higher speeds mean less accuracy because the rotor is harder to stop due to the additional rotational inertia of the rotor. The researchers are working on a new clamping design to overcome that limitation.
###
Article: "Design and experimental research of a novel inchworm type piezo-driven rotary actuator with the changeable clamping radius," is published in the Review of Scientific Instruments.
Authors: Hongwei Zhao (1), Lu Fu (1), Luquan Ren (2), Hu Huang (1), Zunqiang Fan (1), Jianping Li (1), and Han Qu (1).
(1) Jilin University, College of Mechanical Science & Engineering
(2) Jilin University, Key Laboratory of Bionic Engineering (Ministry of Education)
[ | 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.
Contact: Catherine Meyers cmeyers@aip.org 301-209-3088 American Institute of Physics
Ultra-precision positioning is required for the success of many scientific applications, including manufacturing semiconductors, aligning optics and manipulating cells. One of the challenges of ultra-precise positioning is providing sufficient torque through small, precise angles. In a paper accepted for publication in the Review of Scientific Instruments, a journal of the American Institute of Physics, researchers describe a new rotary actuator that accurately delivers more torque than previous devices.
Like many other ultra-precise rotary actuators, the new device's action is driven by piezoelectric material, which converts electrical signals into mechanical movement. The researchers improved upon previous designs with a clamp that integrates the driving and stopping action and can be moved to different distances from the rotor's center. That gives the researchers both more power and control of the driving forces. Like rotating a bicycle wheel, it is easier to control the torque and speed of the wheel by varying both the force as well as the distance from the center that force is applied.
The researchers report approximately four-fold improvements in both maximum loading torque and accuracy over other piezoelectric actuators at the maximum driving frequency of the other devices. While the new device can be driven at higher frequencies, the resulting higher speeds mean less accuracy because the rotor is harder to stop due to the additional rotational inertia of the rotor. The researchers are working on a new clamping design to overcome that limitation.
###
Article: "Design and experimental research of a novel inchworm type piezo-driven rotary actuator with the changeable clamping radius," is published in the Review of Scientific Instruments.
Authors: Hongwei Zhao (1), Lu Fu (1), Luquan Ren (2), Hu Huang (1), Zunqiang Fan (1), Jianping Li (1), and Han Qu (1).
(1) Jilin University, College of Mechanical Science & Engineering
(2) Jilin University, Key Laboratory of Bionic Engineering (Ministry of Education)
[ | 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.
US President Barack Obama, left, listens to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during their visit to the Children's Memorial at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, Israel, on Friday.
By Martin Fletcher, Correspondent, NBC News
News analysis
TEL AVIV ? The verdict among Israeli pundits was unanimous: if President Barack Obama was an Israeli politician, he'd be a shoo-in to lead the liberal left.
His call for the Israeli government to halt Jewish settlement building in the West Bank, for a Palestinian state, his recognition of Israel's historical claim to the land and his demand for a secure Israel, is all straight out of the playbook of what remains of Israel's left.
His speech to Israeli students Thursday, who were carefully vetted to make sure they were in political agreement with him, was greeted numerous times by applause and a few standing ovations. And while many Israelis may have disagreed with the content of the speech, Obama's sincerity was felt by all.
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Obama drew a clear parallel between the Passover story of Jewish slaves fleeing Egypt and fighting for their rights, and the African-American struggle out of slavery and fight for their rights. That bond of shared experience, and the genuineness of his feelings, really came through.
So when Obama insisted that "all options are on the table" to stop Iran's nuclear program, he sounded convincing. And when he moved on to demand that Israel stop building settlements and make tough decisions to reach peace with the Palestinians, his words met with a more receptive audience.
For many Israelis, Obama won their hearts and their minds, but as one said to this reporter: "What now?"
President Obama spoke to an audience of more than 2,000 Israeli citizens at the Jerusalem Convention Center and stressed the necessity of peace between Israel and Palestine.
Any closer to peace talks? Are Israel and the Palestinians closer to peace talks than they were before Obama came? Did the fine words add up to momentum?
That will be up to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to discover when he returns to Jerusalem Saturday to try, as so many have before him, to kick-start the peace process.?
Overall, Obama's message had something for everyone.
The first half of Obama's speech, in which he confirmed Israel's right to the land, pleased Israel's right wing. The second half, in which he called for compromise with the Palestinians and a Palestinian state, pleased the left wing.
When he said this is a Jewish democratic state, Jews were thrilled and Palestinians were furious.
When he said Israel will not survive as a Jewish democratic state with settlements on Palestinian land, Palestinians were thrilled and many Israelis were furious.
But after trying to be all things to all people, Obama departed leaving behind a question: What just happened? Was there any American commitment to get started with the talks?
Israelis charmed, Palestinians insulted The answer is: no. The message was: we are here to help, but first you have to do the work. In other words, nothing changed, beyond people?s impression of Obama as a leader.
President Obama, alongside and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, says the U.S. remains "deeply committed" to the creation of an independent and sovereign state of Palestine.
Israelis were encouraged that Obama really does like them; Operation Charm worked.
But Palestinians were left fuming, and many say they were insulted.
They complained that he mentioned a Jewish rocket victim by name, but didn?t mention any of the many Palestinian victims, or the approximately 4,500 prisoners in Israeli jails. He visited the grave of two Israeli icons, Theodor Herzl and Yitzhak Rabin, but refused even to walk by the shrine to Yasser Arafat. He did not repeat the Palestinian demand that Israel stop building settlements as a condition for peace talks.
In short, Palestinians got very little, and Israel got a bit more.
At least, that's what the public saw.
Big brother still calling the shots There was at least one big surprise from the backroom talks between Obama and Netanyahu that should go a long way toward improving frayed ties between two important U.S. allies in the region.?
After three years of refusing to do so, Netanyahu called his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan Friday to apologize for "any error" that may have led to the deaths of nine Turkish activists during a 2010 raid on a boat off the Gaza Strip.
The two agreed to normalize relations ? a major breakthrough. It means the two big U.S. allies can now resume military cooperation, which should help to contain the spillover of the Syrian civil war in the region ? and lessen Israel's isolation in the volatile region.
What isn't known yet is what was agreed to behind closed doors about how to deal with the twin threats of Iran and Syria.
In the press conference that followed their discussions, both sides seemed satisfied with the current degree of military and intelligence cooperation on both subjects.
But did Obama leave with the certainty that Israel would not interfere with the American timetable for dealing with the Iranian threat?
We don?t know more than we knew before, which is that impatient little Israel can't do much without their more patient bigger brother.?
But at least, after this visit by the American president, the brotherly relationship appears more credible than before.
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Related:
Israel's Netanyahu apologizes to Turkey over deadly flotilla raid
Photo Blog: Obama wraps up Holy Land visit at Bethlehem church after Holocaust tribute
Obama visits a Bethlehem in midst of change, Islamization
Obama appeals to Israelis: Give justice to the Palestinians
Iran threatens to destroy Tel Aviv, Haifa if Israel attacks
Obama: 'Still time' for diplomatic solution to Iran nuke dispute
NEW YORK (AP) ? East Coast residents were buzzing on social media sites and elsewhere Friday night after a brief but bright flash of light streaked across the early-evening sky ?in what experts say was almost certainly a meteor coming down.
Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environmental Office said the flash appears to be "a single meteor event." He said it "looks to be a fireball that moved roughly toward the southeast, going on visual reports."
"Judging from the brightness, we're dealing with something as bright as the full moon," Cooke said. "The thing is probably a yard across. We basically have (had) a boulder enter the atmosphere over the northeast."
He noted that the meteor was widely seen, with more than 350 reports on the website of the American Meteor Society alone.
"If you have something this bright carry over that heavily populated area, a lot of people are going to see it," he said. "It occurred around 8 tonight, there were a lot of people out, and you've got all those big cities out there."
Matt Moore, a news editor with The Associated Press, said he was standing in line for a concert in downtown Philadelphia around dusk when he saw "a brilliant flash moving across the sky at a very brisk pace... and utterly silent."
"It was clearly high up in the atmosphere," he said. "But from the way it appeared, it looked like a plane preparing to land at the airport."
Moore said the flash was visible to him for about two to three seconds ? and then it was gone. He described it as having a "spherical shape and yellowish and you could tell it was burning, with the trail that it left behind."
"Set as it was against a cloudless sky over Philadelphia, it was amazing," he said.
Derrick Pitts, chief astronomer at Philadelphia's Franklin Institute, agreed that the sightings had all the hallmarks of a "fireball." These include lasting 7-10 seconds, being bright and colorful, and seeming to cross much of the sky with a long stream behind it.
He said what people likely saw was one meteor ? or "space rock" ? that may have been the size of a softball or volleyball and that fell fairly far down into the Earth's atmosphere.
He likened it to a stone skipping across the water ? getting "a nice long burn out of it."
Robert Lunsford of the American Meteor Society told USA Today "it basically looked like a super bright shooting star."
The newspaper reports that the sky flash was spotted as far south as Florida and as far north as New England.
Pitts said meteors of varying sizes fall from the sky all the time, but that this one caught more eyes because it happened on a Friday evening ? and because Twitter has provided a way for people to share information on sightings.
He said experts "can't be 100 percent certain of what it was, unless it actually fell to the ground and we could actually track the trajectory." But he said the descriptions by so many people are "absolutely consistent" with those of a meteor.
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Associated Press writer Norman Gomlak in Atlanta contributed to this report.
This Sept. 21, 2012 photo released by NBC shows Jay Leno, host of "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," on the set in Burbank, Calif. As Jay Leno lobs potshots at ratings-challenged NBC in his "Tonight Show" monologues, speculation is swirling the network is taking steps to replace the host with Jimmy Fallon next year and move the show from Burbank to New York. NBC confirmed Wednesday, March 20, it's creating a new studio for Fallon in New York, where he hosts "Late Night." But the network did not comment on a report that the digs at its Rockefeller Plaza headquarters may become home to a transplanted, Fallon-hosted "Tonight Show." (AP Photo/NBC, Paul Drinkwater)
This Sept. 21, 2012 photo released by NBC shows Jay Leno, host of "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," on the set in Burbank, Calif. As Jay Leno lobs potshots at ratings-challenged NBC in his "Tonight Show" monologues, speculation is swirling the network is taking steps to replace the host with Jimmy Fallon next year and move the show from Burbank to New York. NBC confirmed Wednesday, March 20, it's creating a new studio for Fallon in New York, where he hosts "Late Night." But the network did not comment on a report that the digs at its Rockefeller Plaza headquarters may become home to a transplanted, Fallon-hosted "Tonight Show." (AP Photo/NBC, Paul Drinkwater)
FILE - This Jan. 13, 2013 file photo shows Jay Leno, host of "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," left, and Jimmy Fallon, host of "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" backstage at the 70th Annual Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif. As Jay Leno lobs potshots at ratings-challenged NBC in his "Tonight Show" monologues, speculation is swirling the network is taking steps to replace the host with Jimmy Fallon next year and move the show from Burbank to New York. NBC confirmed Wednesday, March 20, it's creating a new studio for Fallon in New York, where he hosts "Late Night." But the network did not comment on a report that the digs at its Rockefeller Plaza headquarters may become home to a transplanted, Fallon-hosted "Tonight Show." (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, file)
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Jay Leno is keeping up a comedy assault on his NBC bosses even after being treated to a make-nice dinner.
During his monologue Friday, the "Tonight Show" host asked his Burbank studio audience if they'd heard about his "alleged feud" with NBC.
Leno started taking on-air potshots at the network this month amid reports that the network plans to replace him at "Tonight" with Jimmy Fallon.
According to a NBC transcript from Friday's taping, Leno said that he had dinner Thursday with a "bunch of NBC executives" who offered to make things up to him: He and his wife are going on an all-expenses paid Carnival Cruise, he joked.
In February, passengers endured five nightmarish days on a crippled Carnival Cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico.
In another wisecrack, Leno cited news reports of a Canadian man who had a knife pulled from his back after three years. Sniped Leno: "He must have worked at NBC, too."
NBC confirmed this week it's creating a new studio for Fallon in New York, where he hosts "Late Night." But the network did not comment on a report that the digs at its Rockefeller Plaza headquarters may become home to a transplanted, Fallon-hosted "Tonight."
This isn't the first time the "Tonight" stage has been used for a workplace dispute. In 2010, when Conan O'Brien briefly took over as "Tonight" host and Leno was moved to prime-time at NBC, the two traded on-air barbs.
Although late-night hosts are known for needling their network bosses, the timing of Leno's latest jabs seemed to make NBC's executives particularly uncomfortable and they asked him to stop. They don't want a repeat of the publicly messy turnover of just three years ago.
The 62-year-old Leno's current contract expires next year. For NBC, the 38-year-old Fallon represents a bid to launch a next-generation host for "Tonight" ? although Leno has kept the show No. 1 in the ratings despite a challenge from Jimmy Kimmel's ABC show, which was moved back an hour to compete with it.
"You know the whole legend of St. Patrick, right? St. Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland ? and then they came to the United States and became NBC executives," Leno joked on Monday's show.
On Tuesday, he played off a news report about a Serbian woman with a rare brain condition that causes her to see the world upside down: "Isn't that crazy? It's unbelievable. She sees everything upside down. In fact, she thinks NBC is at the top of the ratings."
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Online:
http://www.nbc.com
___
Lynn Elber can be reached at lelber(at)ap.org and on Twitter (at)lynnelber.
North Carolina coach Roy Williams yells to his team during the first half of a second-round game against Villanova in the NCAA college basketball tournament at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Mo., Friday, March 22, 2013. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)
North Carolina coach Roy Williams yells to his team during the first half of a second-round game against Villanova in the NCAA college basketball tournament at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Mo., Friday, March 22, 2013. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)
Villanova guard Tony Chennault, front, gathers a loose ball while covered by North Carolina guard Marcus Paige (5) during the first half of a second-round game in the NCAA college basketball tournament at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Mo., Friday, March 22, 2013. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)
North Carolina forward James Michael McAdoo (43) puts up a shot during the first half of a second-round game against Villanova in the NCAA college basketball tournament Friday, March 22, 2013, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
North Carolina guard/forward Reggie Bullock (35) gets past Villanova guard James Bell (32) to put up a shot during the first half of a second-round game in the NCAA college basketball tournament Friday, March 22, 2013, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
North Carolina forward James Michael McAdoo (43) gets past Villanova forward JayVaughn Pinkston (22) to put up a shot during the first half of a second-round game in the NCAA college basketball tournament Friday, March 22, 2013, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) ? First his North Carolina players gave Roy Williams a tough, hard-fought, milestone victory.
Then they surprised their coach with a specially made gift to help him commemorate the occasion.
As soon as the Tar Heels got into the locker room after beating gritty Villanova 78-71 in the second round of the NCAA tournament Friday night, they gave Williams a jersey with the number 700 emblazoned on the front. It was his 700th career win, a plateau he had been downplaying all week but a moment his players had said they all wanted to be a part of.
"It was special because Coach didn't even know we had the jersey for him," said P.J. Hairston, who led North Carolina with 23 points. "He wasn't expecting it at all. He is proud, but he wasn't even thinking about the 700."
The never-say-die Wildcats (20-14) have plenty to be proud of as well.
They erased a 20-point deficit that North Carolina built in the first half and then nearly climbed out of a nine-point hole in the final minutes after the Tar Heels hit three consecutive 3-pointers and once again appeared to take control.
"I'm proud of this team. I'm proud of their effort," Villanova coach Jay Wright said. "They're tough guys. They've got faith in what we do."
The milestone victory Williams' players were so proud of also set up a possible dream matchup in the third round for Kansas fans. They've been jamming the Sprint Center in downtown Kansas City, about 30 minutes from the Jayhawks' campus. The eighth-seeded Tar Heels (25-10) take on the winner between Western Kentucky and No. 1 seed Kansas, where Williams coached for 15 years and rang up 418 wins.
By beating Villanova, he extended his NCAA record of consecutive tournament appearances with at least one win to 21.
"I love the mental toughness of our team the last eight or nine minutes," Williams said.
Picking on a season-long weakness for the ninth-seeded Wildcats, North Carolina shot 11 of 21 from 3-point range while getting outrebounded 37-28.
JayVaughn Pinkston had 20 points and Darrun Hilliard scored 18 for Villanova.
After UNC took a seemingly comfortable 65-56 lead on Hairston's 3-pointer and James Michael McAdoo's jumper, Ryan Arcidiacono answered with Villanova's second 3, cutting the lead to 65-59. But Marcus Paige dropped in a short jumper that put the Tar Heels on top 67-59 before a media timeout with 3:03 to go.
A pair of foul shots by Arcidiacono, James Bell's 3-pointer and Pinkston's two free throws sliced the lead to 67-66. Paige then drilled a 3 and Hairston completed a three-point play a little while later for a 76-68 lead with 42 seconds left.
"I thought earlier in the game it was all happy and smooth and the ball was going in the basket," Williams said. "Then all of a sudden they started competing a little harder than we did."
Earlier, trying to protect a precarious 54-50 lead over the plucky Wildcats, North Carolina went to its strongest weapon and unleashed 3-pointers on three straight possessions by Hairston, Reggie Bullock and Hairston again.
Shooting from long range, the Tar Heels were openly exploiting a season-long weakness for Villanova, which had struggled with perimeter defense.
"We worked really hard on trying to prevent them from getting 3s," Wright said. "They do a great job. They know you're trying to stop their 3s."
Paige had 14 points and Bullock added 15 for UNC.
Mouphtaou Yarou scored 17 points and Arcidiacono had 10 for Villanova.
A 15-0 run midway through the first half led to a 32-12 North Carolina lead and Williams appeared poised to comfortably cruise to victory No. 700. A jumper by McAdoo gave North Carolina its biggest lead with 7 minutes to go in the half.
But after going without a field goal from the 10:56 mark to 5:16 showing on the game clock, the Wildcats regrouped, pounced on some sudden sloppiness by North Carolina and closed out the half on a 14-3 spree to go into halftime trailing only 37-29.
Then, opening the second half on an 11-3 spurt, they finally caught up when Hilliard's layup tied it 40-all at the 16:04 mark.
"We just couldn't make a shot," Hairston said. "We took some crazy shots, we rushed some shots, we turned the ball over and at the same time Villanova was coming down and getting chip-ins and easy two-point plays."
Hilliard's bucket and Pinkston's putback gave Villanova a 44-42 lead, its first since it was 4-3. But at the 12:06 mark, Bullock's third 3-pointer gave North Carolina a 47-45 advantage.
Paige, Hairston and McDonald all hit 3-pointers while the Wildcats were committing five turnovers during North Carolina's first-half run. After Leslie McDonald took a pass from Bullock and moved in for a layup, Hairston scored on an underhand scoop and McDonald drilled a 3 to put North Carolina on top 28-11.
Two free throws by McAdoo made it 30-11, then Pinkston and Arcidiacono hit free throws before Pinkston dropped in a jumper to end the Wildcats' field goal drought.
Pinkston got open for a 12-footer and Hilliard followed with another short jumper, making it 37-23. After a Tar Heels turnover, Tony Chennault kept the spree alive with another bucket.
New method developed to expand blood stem cells for bone marrow transplantPublic release date: 21-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Lauren Woods Law2014@med.cornell.edu 646-317-7401 Weill Cornell Medical College
Research shows fewer donor cells may be needed for transplantation and bone marrow banking may be possible
NEW YORK (March 21, 2013) -- More than 50,000 stem cell transplants are performed each year worldwide. A research team led by Weill Cornell Medical College investigators may have solved a major issue of expanding adult hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) outside the human body for clinical use in bone marrow transplantation -- a critical step towards producing a large supply of blood stem cells needed to restore a healthy blood system.
In the journal Blood, Weill Cornell researchers and collaborators from Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center describe how they engineered a protein to amplify adult HSCs once they were extracted from the bone marrow of a donor. The engineered protein maintains the expanded HSCs in a stem-like state -- meaning, they will not differentiate into specialized blood cell types before they are transplanted in the recipient's bone marrow.
Finding a bone marrow donor match is challenging and the number of bone marrow cells from a single harvest procedure are often not sufficient for a transplant. Additional rounds of bone marrow harvest and clinical applications to mobilize blood stem cells are often required.
However, an expansion of healthy HSCs in the lab would mean that fewer stem cells need to be retrieved from donors. It also suggests that adult blood stem cells could be frozen and banked for future expansion and use -- which is not currently possible.
"Our work demonstrates that we can overcome a major technical hurdle in the expansion of adult blood stem cells, making it possible, for the first time, to produce them on an industrial scale," says the study's senior investigator, Dr. Pengbo Zhou, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Weill Cornell.
If the technology by Weill Cornell passes future testing hurdles, Dr. Zhou believes bone marrow banks could take a place alongside blood banks.
"The immediate goal is for us to see if we can take fewer blood stem cells from a donor and expand them for transplant. That way more people may be more likely to donate," Dr. Zhou says. "If many people donate, then we can type the cells before we freeze and bank them, so that we will know all the immune characteristics. The hope is that when a patient needs a bone marrow transplant to treat cancer or another disease, we can find the cells that match, expand them and use
them."
Eventually, individuals may choose to bank their own marrow for potential future use, Dr. Zhou says. "Not only are a person's own blood stem cells the best therapy for many blood cancers, but they may also be useful for other purposes, such as to slow aging."
A Scrambled Destruction Signal
Bone marrow is the home of HSCs that produce all blood cells, including all types of immune cells. One treatment for patients with blood cancers produced by abnormal blood cells is to remove the unhealthy marrow and transplant healthy blood stem cells from a donor. Patients with some cancers may also need a bone marrow transplant when anticancer treatments damage the blood. Bone marrow transplantation can also be used to treat other disorders, such as immune deficiency disorders.
The process of donating bone marrow, however, can be arduous and painful, requiring extraction of marrow with a needle from a large bone under general anesthesia. A donor may also need to undergo the procedure multiple times in order to provide enough stem cells for the recipient.
Because of these issues of extracting donor bone marrow, there have been a number of attempts to expand HSCs that have focused on the transcription factor HOXB4, which stimulates HSCs to make copies of themselves. "The more HOXB4 protein there is in stem cells, the more they will self-renew and expand their population," Dr. Zhou says.
But all previous efforts are limited in their applicability. HSCs are notoriously refractory to gene transfer. Virus-based vehicles are thus far the most efficient means to deliver therapeutic genes into HSCs in the laboratory setting. In the past, scientists used a virus as a vehicle to deliver a therapeutic gene into patients with severe combined immunodeficiency disease (SCID) to correct their immune deficiency. However, four children receiving SCID gene therapy developed treatment-related leukemia due to the inability to control where the virus inserts itself in the genome, often on the so-called "hot spots" that activate oncogenes or inactivate tumor suppressor genes. Also, other investigators have shown that it is possible to directly insert HOXB4 protein into extracted bone marrow stem cells. "All you do is add a little tag to the protein, which acts like a vehicle, driving the proteins through the cell membrane, directly into the nucleus," Dr. Zhou says. "But the half-life of the natural protein is very short -- about one hour. So that means that in order to expand blood stem cells, these HOXB4 proteins have to be added all the time. Because the proteins are very costly, this process is both expensive and impractical."
Dr. Zhou and his team, in collaboration with Dr. Malcolm A. S. Moore's group from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, took a different approach. They examined why HOXB4 protein doesn't last long in HSCs, once these cells are removed from the protective stem cell niche that they nest quietly in. They found that HOXB4 is targeted for degradation so that stem cells can start differentiating -- that is, turn into different kinds of adult blood cells. "HOXB4 prevents blood stem cells from differentiating, while, at the same time, allows them to renew themselves," Dr. Zhou says.
The researchers found that a protein, CUL4, is tasked with recognizing HOXB4 and tagging it for destruction by the cell's protein destruction apparatus. They discovered that CUL4 recognizes HOXB4 because it "sees" a set of four amino acids on the protein. "HOXB4 carries a destruction signal that CUL4 recognizes and acts on," Dr. Zhou says.
The research team engineered a synthetic HOXB4 protein with a scrambled destruction signal. They produced large quantities of the protein in bacteria, and then delivered the protein into human blood stem cells in the laboratory. "When you mask the CUL4 degradation signal, HOXB4's half-life expands for up to 10 hours," Dr. Zhou says. "The engineered HOXB4 did its job to expand the stem cell, while keeping all its stem cell properties intact. As a result, cells receiving the engineered HOXB4 demonstrated superior expansion capacity than those given natural HOXB4 protein. Animal studies demonstrated that the transplanted engineered human stem cells can retain their stem cell-like qualities in mouse bone marrow."
Dr. Zhou says the engineered protein HOXB4 can potentially be administered every 10 hours or so to make the quantity of blood stem cells necessary for patient transplant and for banking.
"This is the ultimate goal for what we are trying to achieve," he says. "There are likely many roadblocks ahead to reach our goals, but we appear to have found ways to deal with one major hurdle of adult hematopoietic stem cell expansion."
Cornell Center for Technology Enterprise and Commercialization (CCTEC), on behalf of Cornell University, has filed a patent application that covers the work described here.
###
Other co-authors include Dr. Jennifer Lee, Dr. Jianxuan Zhang, Dr. Liren Liu, Dr. Yue Zhang, and Dr. Jae Yong Eom from Weill Cornell Medical College; Dr. Giovanni Morrone from the University of Catanzaro "Magna Graecia," Catanzaro, Italy; and Dr. Jae-Hung Shieh from the Cell Biology Program, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
The study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (CA118085, CA098210 and NIHA12008023), the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Scholar Award and the Irma T. Hirschl Career Scientist Award.
Weill Cornell Medical College
Weill Cornell Medical College, Cornell University's medical school located in New York City, is committed to excellence in research, teaching, patient care and the advancement of the art and science of medicine, locally, nationally and globally. Physicians and scientists of Weill Cornell Medical College are engaged in cutting-edge research from bench to bedside, aimed at unlocking mysteries of the human body in health and sickness and toward developing new treatments and prevention strategies. In its commitment to global health and education, Weill Cornell has a strong presence in places such as Qatar, Tanzania, Haiti, Brazil, Austria and Turkey. Through the historic Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, the Medical College is the first in the U.S. to offer its M.D. degree overseas. Weill Cornell is the birthplace of many medical advances -- including the development of the Pap test for cervical cancer, the synthesis of penicillin, the first successful embryo-biopsy pregnancy and birth in the U.S., the first clinical trial of gene therapy for Parkinson's disease, and most recently, the world's first successful use of deep brain stimulation to treat a minimally conscious brain-injured patient. Weill Cornell Medical College is affiliated with NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, where its faculty provides comprehensive patient care at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. The Medical College is also affiliated with the Methodist Hospital in Houston. For more information, visit weill.cornell.edu.
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New method developed to expand blood stem cells for bone marrow transplantPublic release date: 21-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Lauren Woods Law2014@med.cornell.edu 646-317-7401 Weill Cornell Medical College
Research shows fewer donor cells may be needed for transplantation and bone marrow banking may be possible
NEW YORK (March 21, 2013) -- More than 50,000 stem cell transplants are performed each year worldwide. A research team led by Weill Cornell Medical College investigators may have solved a major issue of expanding adult hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) outside the human body for clinical use in bone marrow transplantation -- a critical step towards producing a large supply of blood stem cells needed to restore a healthy blood system.
In the journal Blood, Weill Cornell researchers and collaborators from Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center describe how they engineered a protein to amplify adult HSCs once they were extracted from the bone marrow of a donor. The engineered protein maintains the expanded HSCs in a stem-like state -- meaning, they will not differentiate into specialized blood cell types before they are transplanted in the recipient's bone marrow.
Finding a bone marrow donor match is challenging and the number of bone marrow cells from a single harvest procedure are often not sufficient for a transplant. Additional rounds of bone marrow harvest and clinical applications to mobilize blood stem cells are often required.
However, an expansion of healthy HSCs in the lab would mean that fewer stem cells need to be retrieved from donors. It also suggests that adult blood stem cells could be frozen and banked for future expansion and use -- which is not currently possible.
"Our work demonstrates that we can overcome a major technical hurdle in the expansion of adult blood stem cells, making it possible, for the first time, to produce them on an industrial scale," says the study's senior investigator, Dr. Pengbo Zhou, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Weill Cornell.
If the technology by Weill Cornell passes future testing hurdles, Dr. Zhou believes bone marrow banks could take a place alongside blood banks.
"The immediate goal is for us to see if we can take fewer blood stem cells from a donor and expand them for transplant. That way more people may be more likely to donate," Dr. Zhou says. "If many people donate, then we can type the cells before we freeze and bank them, so that we will know all the immune characteristics. The hope is that when a patient needs a bone marrow transplant to treat cancer or another disease, we can find the cells that match, expand them and use
them."
Eventually, individuals may choose to bank their own marrow for potential future use, Dr. Zhou says. "Not only are a person's own blood stem cells the best therapy for many blood cancers, but they may also be useful for other purposes, such as to slow aging."
A Scrambled Destruction Signal
Bone marrow is the home of HSCs that produce all blood cells, including all types of immune cells. One treatment for patients with blood cancers produced by abnormal blood cells is to remove the unhealthy marrow and transplant healthy blood stem cells from a donor. Patients with some cancers may also need a bone marrow transplant when anticancer treatments damage the blood. Bone marrow transplantation can also be used to treat other disorders, such as immune deficiency disorders.
The process of donating bone marrow, however, can be arduous and painful, requiring extraction of marrow with a needle from a large bone under general anesthesia. A donor may also need to undergo the procedure multiple times in order to provide enough stem cells for the recipient.
Because of these issues of extracting donor bone marrow, there have been a number of attempts to expand HSCs that have focused on the transcription factor HOXB4, which stimulates HSCs to make copies of themselves. "The more HOXB4 protein there is in stem cells, the more they will self-renew and expand their population," Dr. Zhou says.
But all previous efforts are limited in their applicability. HSCs are notoriously refractory to gene transfer. Virus-based vehicles are thus far the most efficient means to deliver therapeutic genes into HSCs in the laboratory setting. In the past, scientists used a virus as a vehicle to deliver a therapeutic gene into patients with severe combined immunodeficiency disease (SCID) to correct their immune deficiency. However, four children receiving SCID gene therapy developed treatment-related leukemia due to the inability to control where the virus inserts itself in the genome, often on the so-called "hot spots" that activate oncogenes or inactivate tumor suppressor genes. Also, other investigators have shown that it is possible to directly insert HOXB4 protein into extracted bone marrow stem cells. "All you do is add a little tag to the protein, which acts like a vehicle, driving the proteins through the cell membrane, directly into the nucleus," Dr. Zhou says. "But the half-life of the natural protein is very short -- about one hour. So that means that in order to expand blood stem cells, these HOXB4 proteins have to be added all the time. Because the proteins are very costly, this process is both expensive and impractical."
Dr. Zhou and his team, in collaboration with Dr. Malcolm A. S. Moore's group from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, took a different approach. They examined why HOXB4 protein doesn't last long in HSCs, once these cells are removed from the protective stem cell niche that they nest quietly in. They found that HOXB4 is targeted for degradation so that stem cells can start differentiating -- that is, turn into different kinds of adult blood cells. "HOXB4 prevents blood stem cells from differentiating, while, at the same time, allows them to renew themselves," Dr. Zhou says.
The researchers found that a protein, CUL4, is tasked with recognizing HOXB4 and tagging it for destruction by the cell's protein destruction apparatus. They discovered that CUL4 recognizes HOXB4 because it "sees" a set of four amino acids on the protein. "HOXB4 carries a destruction signal that CUL4 recognizes and acts on," Dr. Zhou says.
The research team engineered a synthetic HOXB4 protein with a scrambled destruction signal. They produced large quantities of the protein in bacteria, and then delivered the protein into human blood stem cells in the laboratory. "When you mask the CUL4 degradation signal, HOXB4's half-life expands for up to 10 hours," Dr. Zhou says. "The engineered HOXB4 did its job to expand the stem cell, while keeping all its stem cell properties intact. As a result, cells receiving the engineered HOXB4 demonstrated superior expansion capacity than those given natural HOXB4 protein. Animal studies demonstrated that the transplanted engineered human stem cells can retain their stem cell-like qualities in mouse bone marrow."
Dr. Zhou says the engineered protein HOXB4 can potentially be administered every 10 hours or so to make the quantity of blood stem cells necessary for patient transplant and for banking.
"This is the ultimate goal for what we are trying to achieve," he says. "There are likely many roadblocks ahead to reach our goals, but we appear to have found ways to deal with one major hurdle of adult hematopoietic stem cell expansion."
Cornell Center for Technology Enterprise and Commercialization (CCTEC), on behalf of Cornell University, has filed a patent application that covers the work described here.
###
Other co-authors include Dr. Jennifer Lee, Dr. Jianxuan Zhang, Dr. Liren Liu, Dr. Yue Zhang, and Dr. Jae Yong Eom from Weill Cornell Medical College; Dr. Giovanni Morrone from the University of Catanzaro "Magna Graecia," Catanzaro, Italy; and Dr. Jae-Hung Shieh from the Cell Biology Program, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
The study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (CA118085, CA098210 and NIHA12008023), the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Scholar Award and the Irma T. Hirschl Career Scientist Award.
Weill Cornell Medical College
Weill Cornell Medical College, Cornell University's medical school located in New York City, is committed to excellence in research, teaching, patient care and the advancement of the art and science of medicine, locally, nationally and globally. Physicians and scientists of Weill Cornell Medical College are engaged in cutting-edge research from bench to bedside, aimed at unlocking mysteries of the human body in health and sickness and toward developing new treatments and prevention strategies. In its commitment to global health and education, Weill Cornell has a strong presence in places such as Qatar, Tanzania, Haiti, Brazil, Austria and Turkey. Through the historic Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, the Medical College is the first in the U.S. to offer its M.D. degree overseas. Weill Cornell is the birthplace of many medical advances -- including the development of the Pap test for cervical cancer, the synthesis of penicillin, the first successful embryo-biopsy pregnancy and birth in the U.S., the first clinical trial of gene therapy for Parkinson's disease, and most recently, the world's first successful use of deep brain stimulation to treat a minimally conscious brain-injured patient. Weill Cornell Medical College is affiliated with NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, where its faculty provides comprehensive patient care at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. The Medical College is also affiliated with the Methodist Hospital in Houston. For more information, visit weill.cornell.edu.
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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.
Indiana guard Yogi Ferrell drives against James Madison in the first half of a second-round game at the NCAA college basketball tournament, Friday, March 22, 2013, in Dayton, Ohio. Ferrell led Indiana to an 83-62 win with 16 points and six assists. (AP Photo/Al Behrman)
Indiana guard Yogi Ferrell drives against James Madison in the first half of a second-round game at the NCAA college basketball tournament, Friday, March 22, 2013, in Dayton, Ohio. Ferrell led Indiana to an 83-62 win with 16 points and six assists. (AP Photo/Al Behrman)
Indiana forward Cody Zeller, left, and guard Victor Oladipo smile on the bench in the closing minute of Indiana's 83-62 win over James Madison in a second-round game at the NCAA men's college basketball tournament, Friday, March 22, 2013, in Dayton, Ohio. (AP Photo/Skip Peterson)
Indiana guard Victor Oladipo (4) dunks past James Madison guard Devon Moore in the first half of a second-round game at the NCAA college basketball tournament on Friday, March 22, 2013, in Dayton, Ohio. (AP Photo/Al Behrman)
Indiana coach Tom Crean urges on his players in the second half of a second-round game against James Madison at the NCAA men's college basketball tournament, Friday, March 22, 2013, in Dayton, Ohio. (AP Photo/Al Behrman)
James Madison guard Andre Nation (15) sits on the bench at the end of their 83-62 loss to Indiana in a second-round game at the NCAA college basketball tournament on Friday, March 22, 2013, in Dayton, Ohio. Nation led James Madison with 24 points. (AP Photo/Al Behrman)
DAYTON, Ohio (AP) ? Indiana's got a few brutes, some big boys from the Big Ten who know how to throw their weight around.
But in their NCAA tournament opener, the Hoosiers turned to their speedy, 178-pound point guard to make James Madison's knees buckle right away.
Yogi Ferrell was the bully.
Ferrell scored Indiana's first nine points and had 14 in the first six minutes as top-seeded Indiana powered its way to an easy 83-62 win in the second round of the East Regional on Friday.
Not taking any chances with a No. 16 seed, the Hoosiers (28-6) started fast, building a 21-point halftime lead. They pushed it to 33 in the second half before letting up and had little trouble with the Dukes (21-15), who won their first tournament game in 30 years on Wednesday and thought they could hang with the Hoosiers.
"The speed they play with is unbelievable," Dukes guard Devon Moore said. "We haven't seen anything like that."
After being bruised and battered all year in the Big Ten, the Hoosiers finally got a chance to pick on a little guy.
"I've been waiting for this all week," said Ferrell, who added eight rebound and six assists. "A lot of us are jacked up to get out here, play against some different competition."
Looking every bit like a team capable of cutting down the nets in Atlanta next month, Indiana, which spent a good chunk of the season atop the AP poll, will play Temple in the second round on Sunday.
Will Sheehey scored 15 and Cody Zeller 11 ? eight on rim-rocking dunks ? for Indiana.
Freshman Andre Nation scored 24 and Charles Cooke 18 for James Madison, which made the score somewhat respectable in the final minutes but never really threatened.
Of the many upsets in NCAA tournament, there still hasn't been a No. 16 over a No. 1. And any thoughts James Madison, which beat LIU Brooklyn in a First Four game to get here, had of making history were over shortly after player introductions.
Indiana wasn't fooling around.
"We played excellent," Indiana coach Tom Crean said.
With Ferrell, playing in his first tourney game darting in and around the Dukes, the Hoosiers unleashed their offensive fury on the Dukes and clamped down on a James Madison team that never experienced anything like Indiana's man-to-man pressure this season in the Colonial Athletic Association.
After falling behind by 20, the Dukes got within 34-20 when Nation made two straight 3-pointers. However, the spurt only seemed to anger the Hoosiers and they closed the first half with a 9-2 run to take a 43-22 lead at halftime.
As he headed to the locker room, James Madison coach Matt Brady straightened his tie and scratched his head. Back in the staging area inside Dayton Arena even the Dukes' cheerleaders huddled to try and figure out what they could do better.
Too late.
Jordan Hulls and Christian Watford, seniors who helped Crean rebuild an Indiana program in shambles five years ago, hit 3-pointers and Zeller zoomed down the lane for a huge dunk as Indiana opened the second half with a 13-4 run. The Hoosiers barely let up, and later in the half, Victor Oladipo and Sheehey scored back-to-back baskets so quickly that the p.a. announcer said their names without taking a breath.
It was breathtaking, all right.
Indiana entered the tournament as a No. 1 seed for just the third time and saddled with higher expectations than the Hoosiers have had to deal with in years.
"Banner Up" has been the war cry of Indiana fans this season, a not-so-subtle dig at rival Purdue's "Boiler Up" cheer but also a reference to hanging a sixth NCAA title banner inside Assembly Hall.
The Hoosiers believe they can, and after overcoming a tough late-season loss at home on senior night against Ohio State, Indiana showed some of the resolve and toughness of a champ by winning at Michigan in the regular-season finale to win their first outright Big Ten title since 1993.
They've got loftier goals this March, and Oladipo said anything short of a Final Four appearance would be a disappointment.
Crean said there was a point in the season when it crossed his mind that the "gauntlet and grind" of the Big Ten would leave his team wobbly in March.
"I'd be lying to say it didn't," he said. "There's no way around it. You're in that league, and it's possession by possession, and it's so physical and taxing."
Indiana's size was a problem for James Madison right away. The 7-foot Zeller ran down a loose ball in the corner and grabbed a rebound as the Hoosiers had the ball for nearly a minute before Ferrell scored.
The lightning-quick guard scored on two more drives and then hit a 3-pointer to make it Yogi Ferrell 9, The Fourth U.S. President 0.
Brady called his first timeout, but there wasn't much he could say to his team other than to hang in there.
"We clearly lost to a better team," he said. "Watching them on tape and trying to prepare your team for Indiana is one thing, and then being on the court with them and having to play against the speed and power with which they play was really impressive."
Gaping security holes are a pretty terrifying thing, especially when they involve something as sensitive as your Apple ID. Sadly it seems that immediately after making the paranoid happy by instituting two-step authentication a pretty massive flaw in Cupertino's system was discovered and first reported by The Verge. Turns out you can reset any Apple ID password with nothing more than a person's email address and date of birth -- two pieces of information that are pretty easy to come across. There's a little more to the hack, but it's simple enough that even your non-tech savvy aunt or uncle could do it. After entering the target email address in the password reset form you can then select to answer security questions to validate your identity. The first task will be to enter a date of birth. If you enter that correctly then paste a particular URL into the address bar (which we will not be publishing for obvious reasons), press enter, then -- voilà -- instant password reset! Or, at least that's the story. While we were attempting to verify these claims Apple took down the password reset page for "maintenance." Though we've received no official confirmation from Apple, it seems the company is moving swiftly to shut down this particularly troublesome workaround before word of it spreads too far.
Elvin Daniel, right, whose sister Zina was killed by her husband last October at a Brookfield spa, said the tragedy could have been avoided if the law required background checks for private transactions of guns during a news conference with law enforcement officials and some Democratic lawmakers, including Rep. Jon Richards, left, Thursday, March 21, in Madison, Wis. Democrats have a new proposal that would make it illegal to purchase or transfer guns without running background checks. (AP Photo/Kevin Wang)
Elvin Daniel, right, whose sister Zina was killed by her husband last October at a Brookfield spa, said the tragedy could have been avoided if the law required background checks for private transactions of guns during a news conference with law enforcement officials and some Democratic lawmakers, including Rep. Jon Richards, left, Thursday, March 21, in Madison, Wis. Democrats have a new proposal that would make it illegal to purchase or transfer guns without running background checks. (AP Photo/Kevin Wang)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Gun control legislation the Senate debates next month will include an expansion of federal background checks for firearms buyers, Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday in a victory for advocates of gun restrictions.
The announcement underscores that Democrats intend to take an aggressive approach in the effort to broaden the checks, currently required for transactions involving federally licensed firearms dealers but not private sales at gun shows or online.
President Barack Obama and many supporters of curbing guns consider an expansion of the system to private gun sales to be the most effective response lawmakers could take in the wake of December's elementary school massacre in Newtown, Conn. The system is designed to keep guns from criminals, people with serious mental problems and others considered potentially dangerous.
The overall gun measure will also include legislation boosting penalties for illegal gun trafficking and modestly expanding a grant program for school security, said Reid, D-Nev. Its fate remains uncertain, and it will all but certainly need Republican support to survive.
Reid said that during Congress' upcoming two-week break, he hopes senators will strike a bipartisan compromise on broadening background checks. Without a deal, he indicated the gun bill would include a stricter version approved this month by the Senate Judiciary Committee and authored by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., expanding the system to virtually all private gun transactions with few exceptions.
"I want to be clear: In order to be effective, any bill that passes the Senate must include background checks," Reid said in a written statement.
Opponents including the National Rifle Association say background checks are easily sidestepped by criminals and threaten creation of a government file on gun owners ? which is illegal under federal law.
"We remain as committed as we have been to opposing gun bans. History shows us that gun bans don't work to reduce crimes," said Andrew Arulanandam, an NRA spokesman. He declined to comment on a potential compromise but said if the Senate considers Schumer's version of background checks, "We will do whatever we can to defeat it."
The NRA wants Congress to fund more armed guards at schools, step up prosecutions of people who file false gun applications and increase the background check system's access to state records of people with serious mental illness and other problems.
Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said of Reid's announcement, "I don't know how the leader expects members to vote on an ever-changing piece of legislation that has yet to gain bipartisan support."
If not included in the overall gun bill, an expansion of background checks could have been offered as an amendment. But that would have likely meant it would have needed support from 60 of the 100 senators to prevail ? a difficult hurdle for Democrats.
Including expanded checks in the gun legislation signals either of two courses by Democrats: A feeling that they can win bipartisan support for the measure, or a willingness to essentially challenge Republicans to reject the entire gun-control package and face the political consequences in next year's elections.
It also pleases gun control backers who have said that in response to the Newtown killings, they expect Congress to do more than toughen gun trafficking penalties and boost school safety aid.
"Senator Reid's announcement is a tremendous step and we recognize there is still a tough road ahead," said Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, adding that his group would activate supporters to contact lawmakers.
"The majority leader's been a pretty steady guide throughout, and this a good example," said Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg helps lead.
Reid said during next months' debate, he will allow votes on amendments including an assault weapons ban, curbs on high-capacity ammunition magazines and mental health. There is wide-ranging agreement that many states poorly report mental health records to the federal background check system.
Days ago, supporters of gun restrictions suffered a blow when Reid decided to exclude a proposed assault weapons ban from the gun bill the Senate will debate.
Reid said the ban lacked the 60 votes it would need and including it would risk defeat of the entire package. The ban's sponsor, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., plans to offer the provision as an amendment that seems certain to lose.
In a hint of possible movement, Schumer and two other senators who have spent weeks searching for a bipartisan deal are considering several options, including requiring background checks and record keeping for private sales at gun shows and commercial sales online. It would exclude in-person, non-commercial transactions between people who know each other. The idea was described by a lobbyist and Senate aide who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private talks.
Other exclusions could include gun transactions between relatives and acquisitions by people with state-issued concealed carry permits, and there would be an online background check system for people in remote areas. Veterans officially determined to have some psychological problems would be given a way to appeal that decision, which would otherwise bar them from getting firearms.
Besides Schumer, the Senate's No. 2 Democratic leader, other senators involved are moderate Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who has an NRA A-rating for his votes, and moderate Republican Mark Kirk of Illinois.
Schumer has been insisting on record keeping for all private gun sales, saying the files are needed to keep the system effective. That led to stalemated talks with conservative leader Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who says the data would lead to federal records on gun owners.
On Thursday, Bloomberg stepped up pressure on Congress to expand background checks, saying it would save lives and win broad public support.
"The only question is whether Congress will have the courage to do the right thing, or whether they will allow more innocent people, including innocent children, to be gunned down," he said at a New York news conference.
"It's time for the political establishment to show the courage your daughter showed," said Vice President Joe Biden, standing beside Bloomberg and motioning to the nearby family of a substitute teacher among 26 first-graders and educators killed at Newtown.
Biden later sent a Tweet thanking Reid for his decision.
___
Associated Press writer Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed to this report.
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