Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Wasp transcriptome creates a buzz

Feb. 22, 2013 ? New research delivers a sting in the tail for queen wasps. Scientists have sequenced the active parts of the genome -- or transcriptome -- of primitively eusocial wasps to identify the part of the genome that makes you a queen or a worker. Their work, published in BioMed Central's open access journal Genome Biology, shows that workers have a more active transcriptome than queens. This suggests that in these simple societies, workers may be the 'jack-of-all-trades' in the colony -- transcriptionally speaking -- leaving the queen with a somewhat restricted repertoire.

Studying primitively eusocial species -- like these wasps -- can tell us about how sociality evolves. Seirian Sumner and colleagues sequenced transcriptomes from the eusocial tropical paper wasps -- Polistes canadensis. All social species ultimately evolved from a solitary ancestor -- in this case a solitary wasp, who lays the eggs and feeds the brood. But how does this ancestral solitary phenotype split to produce specialised reproducers (queens) and brood carers (workers) when a species becomes social?

This paper gives a first insight into the secret lives of social insects. It shows that workers retain a highly active transcriptome, possibly expressing many of the ancestral genes that are required for our solitary wasp to be successful on her own. Conversely, queens appear to shut down a lot of their genes, presumably in order to be really good reproducers.

Long-standing analyses based on the fossil record holds ants and wasps in a clade known as Vespoidea, with bees as a sister group. The team reassess the relationships between the subfamilies of bees, wasps and ants and suggest that wasps are part of a separate clade from ants and bees, though further genome sequences and comparative data will help to resolve this controversy.

The dataset offers a first chance to analyse subfamily relationships across large numbers of genes, though further work is required before the term Vespoidia could be dropped, or reclassified. Sumner says: 'This finding would have important general implications for our understanding of eusociality as it would suggest that bees and ants shared an aculeate wasp-like ancestor, that ants are wingless wasps, and that bees are wasps that lost predacious behaviours.'

Their work suggests that novel genes play a much more important role in social behaviour than we previously thought.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by BioMed Central Limited.

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Journal Reference:

  1. Pedro G Ferreira, Solenn Patalano, Ritika Chauhan, Richard Ffrench-Constant, Toni Gabaldon, Roderic Guigo and Seirian Sumner. Transcriptome analyses of primitively eusocial wasps reveal novel insights into the evolution of sociality and the origin of alternative phenotypes. Genome Biology, 2013 [link]

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

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/EbH3qr8IcW4/130225201823.htm

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Obama rejects plan for more say in spending cuts

Standing in front of a ships propeller, President Barack Obama gestures as he speaks about automatic defense budget cuts, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013, at Newport News Shipbuilding in Newport News, Va. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

Standing in front of a ships propeller, President Barack Obama gestures as he speaks about automatic defense budget cuts, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013, at Newport News Shipbuilding in Newport News, Va. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

President Barack Obama speaks at Newport News Shipbuilding Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013, as part of his public campaign to sway Congress to block automatic spending cuts that are scheduled to begin on March 1, in defense and domestic programs. (AP Photo/The Virginian-Pilot, Steve Earley) MAGS OUT

President Barack Obama speaks Tuesday, February 26, 2013 at Newport News Shipbuilding as part of his public campaign to sway Congress to block automatic spending cuts in defense and domestic programs that are scheduled to begin on March 1. (AP Photo/The Virginian-Pilot, Steve Earley) MAGS OUT

President Barack Obama speaks at Newport News Shipbuilding Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013, as part of his public campaign to sway Congress to block automatic spending cuts that are scheduled to begin on March 1, in defense and domestic programs. (AP Photo/The Virginian-Pilot, Steve Earley) MAGS OUT

(AP) ? President Barack Obama brushed off a Republican plan Tuesday to give him flexibility to allocate $85 billion in looming spending cuts, wanting no part of a deal that would force him to choose between the bad and the terrible.

Three days out and no closer to any agreement, both parties sought to saddle the other with the blame for the painful ramification of the across-the-board cuts set to kick in Friday. Obama accused Republicans of steadfastly refusing to compromise, while the top Senate Republican, Mitch McConnell, chided Obama's effort to "fan the flames of catastrophe."

McConnell and other top Republicans were lining up behind a plan that wouldn't replace the cuts but would give Obama's agency heads, such as incoming Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, greater discretion in distributing the cuts. The idea is that money could be transferred from lower-priority accounts to others that fund air traffic control or meat inspection.

But Obama, appearing at a Virginia shipbuilding site that he said would sit idle should the cuts go through, rejected the idea, saying there's no smart way to cut such a large chunk from the budget over just seven months ? the amount of time left in the fiscal year.

"You don't want to have to choose between, 'let's see, do I close funding for the disabled kid, or the poor kid? Do I close this Navy shipyard or some other one?'" Obama said. "You can't gloss over the pain and the impact it's going to have on the economy."

Giving the Obama administration more authority could take pressure off of Congress to address the sequester. But the White House is also keenly aware that it would give Republicans an opening to blame Obama, instead of themselves, for every unpopular cut he makes.

Not all Republicans were on board, either.

"We'll say, 'Mr. President, it is now up to you to find this $85 billion in savings,' and we'll say it's to make it easier for you, but every decision he'll make, we'll criticize," acknowledged Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina in a CNN interview Monday.

The White House has warned the $85 billion in cuts could affect everything from commercial flights to classrooms to meat inspections. The cuts would slash domestic and defense spending, leading to forced unpaid days off for hundreds of thousands of workers.

The impact won't be immediate. Federal workers would be notified next week that they will have to take up to a day off every week without pay, but the furloughs won't start for a month due to notification requirements. That will give negotiators some breathing room to work on a deal.

Although Obama was to discuss the cuts among other topics Tuesday in a White House meeting with Graham and GOP Sen. John McCain, there were no indications that negotiations between Obama and congressional leaders were under way. Dampening hopes for a compromise was a key disagreement about whether new tax revenue, by way of closing loopholes and deductions, should be included in any deal, as Obama has insisted.

In the Republican-controlled House, Speaker John Boehner of Ohio said he'd already done his part, complaining that the House twice passed bills to replace the cuts with more targeted reductions.

"We should not have to move a third bill before the Senate gets off their ass and begins to do something," Boehner told reporters.

Senate Democrats have prepared a measure that would forestall the automatic cuts through the end of the year, replacing them with longer-term cuts to the Pentagon and cash payments to farmers, and by installing a minimum 30 percent tax rate on income exceeding $1 million. But that plan is virtually certain to be toppled by a GOP-led filibuster vote later this week.

Recharging his effort to lay out the stark consequences for letting the cuts take effect, Obama traveled Tuesday to eastern Virginia, where he warned that workers at the state's largest industrial employer, Newport News Shipbuilding, would sit idle. He stood in front of a massive submarine propeller, with workmen and the few female employees watching up from the cavernous assembly floor and said the cuts would mean construction and repair of Navy ships would be delayed or canceled altogether.

"These cuts are wrong. They're not smart, they're not fair. They're a self-inflicted wound that doesn't have to happen," Obama said.

The highly staged visit earned him a harsh rebuke from Republicans, including Boehner, who claimed Obama was using U.S. troops as props in his campaign to scare Americans into raising taxes.

But Obama, grasping eagerly for the chance to portray his positions as having broad appeal, singled out for praise the few Republicans who say they're open to new revenues as part of a deal. At the top of his list was Virginia Rep. Scott Rigell, who traveled with the president on Air Force One to call attention to the need to find a way out of the cuts.

"I boarded the plane knowing that some would potentially misinterpret this," said Rigell, who both criticized Obama for not putting forward a detailed plan and criticized Republicans who say there's no room to raise revenue or that the sequester should go into effect. "Even if you hold the view that defense spending should come down, this is not the right way to do it."

Also on Tuesday came word of the first tangible impact of the looming budget cuts on the nation's security at home. To save costs, the Department of Homeland Security has started releasing illegal immigrants being held in immigration jails across the country, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.

___

Associated Press writers Andrew Taylor in Washington and Nedra Pickler in Newport News, Va., contributed to this report.

___

Reach Josh Lederman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-02-26-Budget%20Battle/id-8a04322b441c4f06acf09735236928b9

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Group: Syrian regime missiles kill 140 in Aleppo

BEIRUT (AP) ? At least 141 people, half of them children, were killed when the Syrian military fired at least four missiles into the northern city of Aleppo last week, Human Rights Watch confirmed Tuesday after a researcher visited the area.

The international rights group said the strikes hit residential areas and called them an "escalation of unlawful attacks against Syria's civilian population."

Aleppo, Syria's largest city, has been the scene of some of the heaviest fighting of the civil war pitting President Bashar Assad's regime against rebels fighting to oust him.

Rebels quickly seized several neighborhoods in an offensive on the city in July, but the government still controls some districts and the battle has developed into a bloody stalemate, with heavy street fighting that has ruined neighborhoods and forced thousands to flee.

A Human Rights Watch researcher who visited Aleppo last week to inspect the targeted sites, said up to 20 buildings were destroyed in each area hit by a missile. There were no signs of any military targets in the residential districts, located in rebel-held parts of Aleppo, said Ole Solvang, the HRW's researcher.

"Just when you think things can't get any worse, the Syrian government finds ways to escalate its killing tactics," Solvang said.

Human rights watch said 71 children were among the 141 people killed in the four missile strikes on three opposition-controlled neighborhoods in eastern Aleppo. It listed the names of the targeted neighborhoods as Jabal Badro, Tariq al-Bab and Ard al-Hamra. The fourth strike documented by the group was in Tel Rifat, north of Aleppo.

"The extent of the damage from a single strike, the lack of (military) aircraft in the area at the time, and reports of ballistic missiles being launched from a military base near Damascus overwhelmingly suggest that government forces struck these areas with ballistic missiles," the report said.

Syrian anti-regime activists first reported the attacks last week, saying they involved ground-to-ground missiles, and killed dozens of people. The reports could not be independently confirmed because Syrian authorities severely restrict access to media.

Human Rights Watch said it compiled a list of those killed in the missile strikes from cemetery burial records, interviews with relatives and neighbors, and information from the Aleppo Media Center and the Violations Documentation Center, a network of local activists.

The rebels control large swaths of land in northeastern Syria. In recent weeks, Assad's regime has lost control of several sites with key infrastructure in that part of the country, including a hydroelectric dam, a major oil field and two army bases along the road linking Aleppo with the airport to its east.

A key focus for the rebels in the Aleppo area is to capture the city's international airport, which the opposition fighters have been attacking for weeks.

Opposition forces have also been hitting the heart of Damascus with occasional mortars shells or bombings, posing a stiff challenge to the regime in its seat of power.

U.S. and NATO officials have previously said that Syria has a significant ballistic missile capability and is believed to have a few hundred missiles with a range of some 700 kilometers (440 miles) that could hit targets deep inside Turkey, a NATO member and one of the harshest critics of the Assad regime.

NATO has in recent weeks deployed Patriot missile systems along Turkey's border with Syria.

The missile attacks have outraged the leaders of the exiled opposition who have accused their Western backers of indifference to the suffering of the Syrian people.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/group-syrian-regime-missiles-kill-140-aleppo-052548844.html

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Sunday, February 24, 2013

Men's Nordic Skiing at NCAA Central Region Championships at Houghton, Mich.

Men's Nordic Skiing at NCAA Central Region Championships Houghton, Mich.

Classic Results

The Gustavus men's nordic skiing team travels to Houghton, Michigan for the NCAA Central Region Championships.? Competition begins on Saturday, February 23 and concludes on Sunday, February 24, 2013.

Source: https://gustavus.edu/calendar/men-s-nordic-skiing-at-ncaa-central-region-championship/35682

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MC Hammer: 'Not bitter' about arrest in Calif.

DUBLIN, Calif. (AP) ? MC Hammer suggests he was a victim of racial profiling when he was stopped and arrested by police in the Northern California city of Dublin.

The '90s rap star tweeted on Saturday that an officer approached him in his car and asked "Are you on parole or probation?"

He says that as he handed over his ID, the officer reached inside the car and tried to pull him out.

Dublin police Lt. Herb Walters told the Oakland Tribune (http://bit.ly/YPesHt) that Hammer, who was born Stanley Burrell, was arrested Thursday for investigation of obstructing an officer in the performance of their duties and resisting an officer.

He declined to comment to KTVU about Hammer's version of the arrest.

Hammer tweeted that he wasn't bitter and considered what happened "a teachable moment."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mc-hammer-not-bitter-arrest-calif-022019490.html

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Source: http://yahoodiary.com/blog/54042/picking-rational-solutions-with-health-and-fitness-supplements/

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NASA telescope spots smallest planet yet

Located some 210 light years from Earth, Kepler-37b is only slightly larger than our moon, making it the smallest planet ever discovered.

By Irene Klotz,?Reuters / February 21, 2013

This artist's illustration compares the planets in the Kepler-37 system to the moon and planets in our solar system. NASA's Kepler mission has discovered a new planetary system that is home to the smallest planet yet found around a star like our sun.

NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech/Handout/Reuters

Enlarge

Astronomers have found a mini planet beyond our solar system that is the smallest of more than 800 extra-solar planets discovered, scientists said on Wednesday.

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The planet, known as Kepler-37b, is one of three circling a yellow star similar to the sun that is located in the constellation Lyra, about 210 light years away. One light year is about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion km).

"We see very large planets and they're uncommon. Earth-sized planets seen to be pNASAretty common, so our guess is that small planets must be even more common," said Thomas Barclay, with NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California.

The smaller the planet, the more difficult it is to find.

Kepler-37b, as well as two sibling planets, were discovered with a NASA space telescope of the same name, which studies light from about 150,000 sun-like stars.

The Kepler telescope works by detecting slight dips in the amount of light coming from target stars caused by orbiting planets passing by, or transiting, relative to the observatory's line of sight. The smaller the planet, the less pronounced the dip.

Of the 833 confirmed planets found beyond the solar system, 114 were discovered by the Kepler science team, according to the project's website. Nearly 3,000 more Kepler candidate planets are being analyzed.

Planets located in "habitable zones" around their host stars, where water can exist on their surfaces, are of particular interest. Water is believed to be necessary for life.

A planet positioned about where Earth orbits the sun would take a year to fly around its parent star. At least two, and preferably three or more, orbits are needed to confirm that a transit spotted by the Kepler telescope is indeed a planet and not a star flare or some other phenomenon.

Kepler-37b flies about 10 times closer to its star than Earth circles the sun, which gives it a surface temperature of about 800 degrees Fahrenheit (427 degrees Celsius).

"This particular one is nowhere near habitable," University of Florida astronomer Eric Ford said.

Mercury is the closet planet to the sun in our solar system, so scientists compared Kepler-37b to a mini Mercury.

The little planet, which is slightly larger than Earth's moon, has two somewhat larger siblings. Kepler-37c, which is slightly smaller than Venus, circles the trio's parent star in 21 days and Kepler-37d, about twice the size of Earth, orbits in 40 days.

The whole system would fit within the orbit of Mercury, which circles the sun in 88 days.

"When we first found exo-planets, they were all much larger than anything we have in the inner solar system. We didn't know of anything that was smaller. This is the first time we've been able to probe the smallest range, smaller than anything we have in our solar system," Barclay said.

The research was published in this week's Nature.

(Editing by Jane Sutton and Stacey Joyce)

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/Z4CvP1yyaYM/NASA-telescope-spots-smallest-planet-yet

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Saturday, February 23, 2013

Future of Public Golf Courses in Doubt






CJOB News Team reporting
2/22/2013

The running of four public golf courses in Winnipeg has become to expensive? so the city is exploring other options..

Colin Craig of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation told CJOB??? privatization is a? viable? option..

????????????

But, ?the head of the city's largest union? Mike Davidson says reported losses of 850-thousand dollars a year are bogus..?? And, He ?claims the? City has raided a fund to help cover the cost of operations

?????????????

Davidson?? told CJOB's nighthawk?? the union has suggested?? adding? miniature golf coures or revisiting leasing agreements with semi-private courses?? and both those ideas and others have been rejected..

Source: http://www.cjob.com/News/Local/Story.aspx?ID=1894292

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Lost but found: Tornado-displaced pets finding their way back home

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

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Friday, February 22, 2013

Flowers get an electrifying buzz out of visiting bees

Plants could turn out to be one of the more chatty organisms. Recent studies have shown they can communicate with a surprising range of cues. Now it turns out they could be sending out electrical signals, too.

As they fly through the air, bees ? like all insects ? acquire a positive electric charge. Flowers, on the other hand, are grounded and so have a negative charge. Daniel Robert at the University of Bristol, UK, and colleagues set out to investigate whether bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) were able to make use of these signals.

To test the idea, the team created artificial flowers, filling some with sucrose and others with quinine, a substance bees don't feed on. To start with, the bees visited these flowers at random. But when a 30 volt field ? typical for a 30-centimetre-tall flower ? was applied to the artificial blooms containing sucrose, the team found that the bees could detect the field from a few centimetres away and visited the charged flowers 81 per cent of the time. The bees reverted to random behaviour when the electricity was switched off.

"That was the first hint that had us jumping up and down in the lab," says Robert. The result suggests the bees may use the electric field as an indicator of the presence of food, much like colour and scent do. In the absence of a charge, they forage at random.

Next, his team looked at whether the bees were influenced by the shape of a flower's electric field, which is determined by the flower's shape. By varying the shape of the field around artificial flowers that had the same charge, they showed that bees preferentially visited flowers with fields in concentric rings like a bullseye: these were visited 70 per cent of the time compared to only 30 per cent for flowers with a solid circular field.

Ruthless evolution

The researchers don't know exactly what information is contained in the flowers' electrical signals, but they speculate that flowers could evolve different shaped fields in their competition to attract pollinators. "Flowers are a ruthless expression of evolution," says Robert. "They exploit the bees."

It's likely that a flower's electric charge reinforces the cues provided by its colour and scent, says Robert, in much the same way as TV commercials use a mix of visual and aural cues to convey their message. The team showed, for example, that bees took a shorter time to distinguish two very similar shades of green when an electric cue was applied. "Electricity is part of their sensory world," says Robert.

When a bee visits a flower it transfers some of its positive charge, incrementally changing the flower's field. With repeated visits, the charge may alter significantly, which could tell other bees that the nectar supply has been diminished. "The last thing a flower wants to do is lie to a bee," says Robert. "Electricity is a way to change cues very quickly: 'I look perfect, I smell nice, but my electrics aren't quite right ? come back later!'"

Of course, there may be a few cheaters out there that won't budge a millivolt when visited, he says. But both flowers and bees have limited control over their charge. "All that comes for free," says Robert. "It's just atmospheric physics." He hopes to find out whether other pollinators ? including bats ? also use electrical cues.

Dishonest advertising

Robert Raguso at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, agrees that the changing electric field may signal that nectar is running low. "Flower colours and scents change slowly, but nectar or pollen can be removed quickly by a pollinator, creating a situation in which the just-visited flower still advertises, dishonestly," he says. The rapid change in electric charge would cut through those out-of-date cues. "Just as the chemical marks left by bee feet can be used by subsequent bees to avoid visiting a depleted flower," he says.

Lars Chittka at Queen Mary, University of London, also thinks it is an interesting finding. He notes that an electrostatic charge can cause pollen to jump short distances from flower to bee, making it easier for the bee to pollinate ? another reason bees may favour flowers with a charge.

However, Chittka points out that we cannot yet say with certainty that the bees' ability to detect an electric charge is a true sixth sense. It may be that when a bee hovers over a flower it simply feels the static charge making its hairs bend, in the same way that hairs on our arm bend towards a charged balloon.

If, however, bees do have a true electrical sense, they will join the ranks of certain fish and amphibians. They would be the first animal found to detect electrical fields in the air. "It's previously only been seen in animals in soggy environments," says Chittka.

Journal reference: Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1230883

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Satellite television on pc or satellite television is television delivered through orbiting communications satellites located 37,000 km above the earth's surface.

cardsharing - The initial satellite tv signal was relayed from Europe for your Telstar satellite over The united states in 1962. The first domestic United states of america satellite to carry television was Canada's Anik 1, that has been launched in 1973.

Satellite TV, like other communications relayed by satellite, starts off with a transmitting satellite antenna in an uplink facility. Uplink satellite dishes are targeted at the satellite what needs signals will be transmitted to, and so are large, as much as 9 to 12 meters (30 to 40 feet) in diameter. The greater the dish, the more often accurate positioning and improved signal reception about the satellite. The television signals is transmitted to devices located on-board the satellite called transponders, which retransmit the satellite signal back towards the Earth using a different frequency.

The satellite signal, quite weak after traveling through space, is collected having a parabolic receiving dish, which reflects the weak signal for the dish's centerpiece and it is received, down-converted for some lower frequency band and amplified by using a device known as a low-noise block down converter, or LNB.

A brand new type of satellite antenna, that won't use a directed parabolic dish and could be utilized on a mobile platform for instance a vehicle, was recently announced by the University of Waterloo. On popularly known as car satellite system.

The satellite television signal, now amplified, travels with a satellite television on pc receiver box through coaxial cable (RG-6 or RG-10; can't be standard RG-59) and is also converted by using a local oscillator to the L-band variety of frequencies (approximately). Special on-board electronics within the receiver box help tune the signal then convert it having a frequency a standard television may use.

While you known, tv business in United states mostly are dominated by two companies, Dish Network and DirecTV. In order to get yourself a satellite television on pc in your own home, your options mostly are restricted to the disposable tv packages that made available from every one Dish Network or DirecTV.

This is a quick take on Usa tv industry: Hughes's DirecTV, the original high-powered DBS system, went online in 1994 called the first Us DBS service. In 1996, Echostar's Dish Network went online in the usa and contains gone to similar success.

Source: http://www.proman-help.isys-informatik.ch/index.php/Benutzer%3AKinderLandon265

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ConfigMgr 2012 SP1 Windows 8 Server Scheduled Updates?

Problem:

Some of you might have tried to use the Scheduled updates feature in ConfigMgr 2012 SP1 to apply patches to a Windows Server 2012 Image.? Well i am sure you didn't expect to see that there wasn't any updates available when indeed several updates have been released for Server 2012 already.?

SMSProv.log

ExecQueryAsync: START select * from SMS_UpdateCategoryInstance where LocalizedCategoryInstanceName like '%Windows 8 Server%'??????

Cause:

An incorrect reference?in the ConfigMgr database pointing to %Windows 8 Server%?was the culprit?luckily the product group quickly resolved this issue with the below released hotfix.

Fix:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2793237

The Schedule Updates Wizard does not list content for Windows Server 2012 in System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Service Pack 1

?

Disclaimer: The information on this site is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, confers no rights, and is not supported by the authors or Microsoft Corporation. Use of included script samples are subject to the terms specified
in the
Terms of Use.

Source: http://blogs.technet.com/b/brandonlinton/archive/2013/02/21/configmgr-2012-sp1-windows-8-server-scheduled-updates.aspx

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Microsoft Takes a Shot at Sony's PlayStation 4 Reveal

Hiding the adverts

Hiding the adverts

Arrogant or nervous?

Sony may cut a more humble figure following the catastrophic mistakes of the PlayStation 3, but it looks like Microsoft?s ready to step into the platform holder?s old shoes. Tweeting shortly after last night?s PlayStation Meeting press event, Xbox corporate slut Larry Hryb couldn?t resist chiming in on the announcements ? or the lack thereof.

?Announce a console without actually showing a console? That's one approach,? he said, prompting a barrage of retweets and guffawing amongst the community manager?s fans. The employee was, of course, referring to the omission of a hardware reveal last night, a move which has prompted plenty of criticism in the mainstream press.

You know what, Larry, we reckon Sony will take that one on the chin. After all, announcing a rushed console with a borderline illegal failure rate is another approach entirely.

Source: http://www.pushsquare.com/news/2013/02/microsoft_takes_a_shot_at_sonys_playstation_4_reveal

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Boston's sandal-wearing cardinal gets papal buzz

AFP - Getty Images file

Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley, shown here at a 2009 press conference, is generating buzz ahead of the papal conclave in Rome.

By Tracy Connor, Staff Writer, NBC News

Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley is generating buzz in Rome as a possible contender to be the next pope, even though Vatican watchers have long said an American pontiff is a longshot.

John L. Allen, a columnist for the National Catholic Reporter, took note this week of the growing number of Italian newspapers and commentators who have mentioned O'Malley as a candidate or written favorably about his cleanup of the archdiocese's sex-abuse scandal.

"Right now, it's tough for an American journalist to walk into the Vatican Press Office without fielding questions from colleagues about him," Allen wrote.

O'Malley -- a distinctive figure in the monkish brown cassock of the Capuchin religious order -- isn't entertaining questions about his chances of succeeding Pope Benedict XVI when the College of Cardinals convenes.

"As the Cardinal said last week at his press conference, he has a round trip ticket to return home and will rely on the guidance and wisdom of the Holy Spirit as the College of Cardinals enter the conclave in March," spokeswoman Kellyanne Dignan said.

O'Malley, 68, was named archbishop of Boston in 2003, after Cardinal Bernard Law stepped down amid allegations he covered up sex abuse by priests. He was elevated to cardinal three years later.?

Thomas Groome, a theology professor at Boston College, said that of all the American bishops who've had to deal with the abuse crisis, O'Malley "has come closest to satisfying the victims." He sold the archdiocese's palatial headquarters and used the money for victim settlements.

A low-key personality who prizes simplicity and "isn't a hardened idealogue," O'Malley would bring a starkly different style to the papacy, Groome said.

"We'd go from Prada booties to sandals and no socks," he said. "He wouldn't be a blustering public personality like John Paul. You'd have to go back to John XXIII to find someone analogous."

Groome said that when O'Malley's name surfaced he initially laughed it off but now thinks he could emerge as the next pope from a brokered conclave where the cardinals from the northern and southern hemispheres square off.

Franco Origlia / Getty Images file

Cardinal Sean Patrick O'Malley, archbishop of Boston, attends a concistory held by Pope Benedict at Saint Peter's Basilica on November 24, 2012, in Vatican City, Vatican.

"There are 117 cardinals and probably 116 of them would love to be pope," he said. "The one who wouldn't is O'Malley and that could be why he gets it."

Rocco Palmo, who writes the popular Whispers in the Loggia blog, noted that O'Malley heads the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' high-profile pro-life committee, giving him exposure outside his Boston archdiocese.

But he said it's way too soon to say he's on a short-list.

"It's a wide open field, and anything is possible," Palmo said. "But there are 117 voting cardinals and in the next 25 days, I expect to hear every one of those cardinals' names mentioned."

O'Malley is no Vatican insider and some will question whether he has the managerial mettle to accomplish a much-needed overhaul of its sprawling bureaucracy. And there's never been a pope from the Capuchin order of friars, who are noted for their service to the poor.?

It's been conventional wisdom that American cardinals have little chance of being the pope because of a global phobia of a U.S.-dominated Vatican. Allen says that may have changed because the country's superpower status has dimmed over the decades.

"The Americans have the second-largest voting bloc -- 11 -- after the Italians," Palmo said. "It's only natural an American name is going to appear at some point."

Previously, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan was mentioned by many as America's top papal possibility. He says those predictions are off-base.

?Those are only from people smoking marijuana,? Dolan said Sunday at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Javier Barbancho / AFP - Getty Images

Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. Look back at his life from childhood through his papacy.

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/20/17031704-bostons-sandal-wearing-cardinal-omalley-getting-papal-buzz?lite

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Saturday, February 16, 2013

Tickets For One Direction Concerts Is The Latest Talk Of The Town ...

One Direction- the latest craze for music lovers has taken the industry by storm. After the sensation debut, all eyes are strictly on their next album Take Me Home. However, that is some time away. As a music lover, one would love to enjoy this British Irish band as they perform live. However, if there are any such plans, a bit of planning is required. Popular bands such as them perform on a daily basis. As a fan, one will have to stay updated of the date they will be performing. Then one can think of arranging tickets for one direction shows.

With the advent of internet, these are hardly any issues to ponder over. Since they perform quite frequently, every piece of information is there online. In fact, why only just the show dates? One can get to know additional information such as venues or ticket pricing online. One can log in and check the availability factor. There is scope to book tickets online. Since, everything is over the net one must know the options of payment before booking. Most online sites take plastic money or even the net banking system works. Most tickets are guaranteed so any fears of missing the show can be put to the backburner.

Now the worry may be in the form of extra tickets. These online sites have a system where one can look to resell those extra tickets. It is hardly a worry considering their huge popularity. The tickets will disappear even before one can think of it. There are people who are offering One Direction news updates. As a fan, one can always look to book. One will be constantly updated regarding their concerts and the latest releases. In the modern corporate sector where everyone is busy surfing the net on a daily basis is not possible. Hence, it is these updates, which help a person to stay in touch.

The diary of this boy band is packed. Hence, at some point of time if one desires to hear them live there are opportunities. Therefore, for fans on the lookout for one direction tickets 2013 is the year where they will be performing a large number of shows. Music lovers worldwide can get a great opportunity to watch this talented band live in action. All that is required is to log into the website and have a peek into the show scheduling dates, venues and the ticket prices. They are cheap when compared to the quality of talent.

For more information on one direction tickets manchester, check out the info available online; these will help you learn to find the one direction tickets in london

Source: http://www.articleswide.com/article/16544-Tickets_For_One_Direction_Concerts_Is_The_Latest_Talk_Of_The_Town.html

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Friday, February 15, 2013

Instant View - UK retail sales post surprise fall in January

LONDON (Reuters) - British retail sales posted a surprise fall in January as unusually snowy weather hurt food stores in particular, data showed on Friday.

ANALYSTS' VIEWS

PHILIP SHAW, INVESTEC

"This could well be a snow story, but it does run contrary to a more buoyant BRC (British Retail Consortium) survey. Markets and policymakers all know that the numbers are volatile and unreliable at this time of year but I'd rather be explaining away a period of volatile strength ... than numbers like these."

"We have seen a weakening in retail sales figures in recent months, which is curious given that official data actually shows that the real income background has been relatively buoyant."

RICHARD LOWE, HEAD OF RETAIL & WHOLESALE SECTOR, BARCLAYS

"While snow slowed sales on the physical high street, larger retailers were able to stave off falls in footfall with strong virtual traffic as shoppers avoided the bad weather conditions. I expect this trend to continue as retailers feed consumers' growing need for convenience and carry on investing in their online offerings."

DAVID TINSLEY, BNP PARIBAS

"It looks like it's genuinely erratic weakness rather than anything to signal an underlying weakening. It very much sounds as though, being located in food and in smaller retail stores, it's very connected to the weather. It does raise the risk marginally of a contraction in Q1 in GDP terms but there's a lot of other data to come before we can judge that too clearly.

"Inflation was, albeit at the high annual rate, relatively benign on the month so I don't think it played a big part.

"It does genuinely sound as though it's a shock erratic factor that's doing that, which does mean because it's happened in January you can get some catch-back in February and March.

"So it shouldn't necessarily have too much implication for overall Q1, so I wouldn't over-egg the triple dip side of it. If that weakness got reflected in the broader service sector output then that would be more worrying for January."

JENS LARSEN, RBC

"You have to be careful here. There is never a lot of signal in retail sales for consumption demand, and here we have to be particularly careful because of the weather effect.

"But it does look a surprisingly weak number and not all of it can be a weather effect. There is no escaping that this is a weak start to Q1."

AMIT KARA, UBS

"The numbers are clearly disappointing and in part that's because of the snow. But I think if we look through the month-on-month variations, the picture is quite dismal.

"That said, our judgment is that this year will be a modestly better year for the consumer. But again there are huge risks on either side, primarily depending on the evolution on oil and commodity prices more generally."

ROB WOOD, BERENBERG BANK

"This probably brings the question of triple dip back on the table again. If this is the sort of disruption we see from snow, and it's reflected in output in the rest of the economy, then it could be bad news for Q1."

GEORGE BUCKLEY, DEUTSCHE BANK:

"It shows that what we've seen over the Christmas period has been very weak. Not only did we have a fall in the pre-Christmas period but we saw a fall in the January sales as well. And when we look at the overall numbers for Christmas - we tend to look at between November and January - they've been exceptionally weak. We didn't see anything big in November and we've seen two declines thereafter.

"So I think they're disappointing. One of the reasons might be because inflation has picked up and that might mean that volumes of sales have been weaker. Inflation picking up has probably been one of the main reasons why that has come down."

KEY POINTS

- Biggest yearly fall in overall retail sales volumes since April 2012

- Biggest 3m/3m fall in retail sales since March 2010

- Largest monthly fall in food sales since May 2011

- Largest yearly fall in food sales since April 2012

(Reporting by UK economics team)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/instant-view-uk-retail-sales-post-surprise-fall-094524899--business.html

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Palm oil casualty? 14 pygmy elephants fall prey to pesticides in Borneo

Malaysian wildlife officials say 14 dead pygmy elephants were found last month in Borneo, apparently poisoned by chemicals used by farmers on the country's massive palm-oil plantations.

By Jason Motlagh,?Correspondent / February 11, 2013

A Borneo pygmy elephant looks for food along the Kinabatangan river in Malaysia's state of Sabah on the Borneo island in this file photo.

Bazuki Muhammad/REUTERS/File

Enlarge

A rare breed of elephant appears to be the latest casualty of the palm oil boom that is sweeping Malaysian Borneo, reigniting an already heated debate over the pros and cons of the world?s cheapest cooking oil.?

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Malaysian wildlife officials say 14 dead pygmy elephants were found last month in the wilds of Sabah Province, apparently poisoned by chemicals used by farmers to keep pests from eating the palm fruit grown on plantations that blanket vast swaths of the countryside.

In once instance, a 3-month old baby elephant was photographed nuzzling its mother, who lay on the ground next to three other corpses. For activists, the image is emblematic of nature?s losing battle with man in and around the farms.

Favored in developing countries for its versatility and long shelf life, palm oil is now found in more than half of processed foods in Western supermarkets, from cosmetics to Girl Scout cookies. Surging global demand has generated billions in profits for Indonesia and Malaysia, the world?s first- and second-largest producers, bringing prosperity to once poor corners.

The boom is changing the complexion of Borneo, the resource-rich island they share that is one home to one of the oldest rainforests on earth. But environmental groups say the palm oil boom is driving the expansion of plantations deeper into hyper-diverse tracts of forest, accelerating global warming and forcing rare species like the?pygmy elephant and orangutan into deadly confrontations with humans.

In a statement following the elephant report, Dionysius S.K. Sharma, executive director of World Wildlife Fund-Malaysia, said the ?central forest landscape in Sabah needs to be protected totally from conversions? and called for "frequent and large-scale patrolling" of forests to protect elephants. Yet he conceded this would be a "massive task" given the remoteness of the terrain and large areas involved.?

The scale of the plantations is massive. Take a flight from Kota Kinabalu, the provincial capital, to Lahad Datu, also known as ?Palm City,? and permaculture reigns: Palm plantations sprawl for miles on end, occasionally pocked with the smokestacks of large processing facilities. The largest are owned by agribusiness giants like Sime Darby and Wilmar International, with clients that include top consumer goods companies Unilever and Nestle.

Business booming

Thanks in part to new US laws mandating the removal of oils rich in trans-fats, business has never been better.

In 2011, the export of palm oil and palm-based products netted the Malaysian economy $27 billion, a fivefold increase over the past decade. With such profits at hand, the Malaysian government wants to double the area under cultivation by 2020.

This is welcome news to longtime residents of Lahad Datu, the coastal?town that has been transformed in years from a crime-ridden backwater to an investment-friendly hub. Real estate prices are soaring, investors are pouring in and the streets are safer than ever, replete with fast-food franchises and shiny hotels. ??This place is opening up, finally,? says Arnan Angkut, at a bustling seaside teashop. ?We are doing much better than before because of palm oil.?

But this kind of enthusiasm could spell long-term trouble for communities in the region and beyond.

A joint study published in October by Stanford and Yale universities revealed that land-clearing operations for plantations in Borneo have emitted more than 140 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions in 2010 alone, equal to annual emissions from about 28 million vehicles. Over the past two decades, about 6,200 sq. mi. of primary and logged forested land have been destroyed in Borneo.

Orangutan populations reduced by half

Activists say that palm oil deforestation and hunting have already combined to reduce Bornean orangutan populations to half the total of the 1980s. At this rate, some predict the iconic animal could be extinct within years.

For its part, the pygmy elephant, a rare sub-species of the African elephant, is in even greater peril: WWF-Malaysia estimates there are about 1,200 left in the wild. And Malaysian wildlife authorities have said they expect to find more dead elephants as they comb the jungle.

*Jason Motlagh reported this story on a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/csmonitor/globalnews/~3/ZfEOPB1FxNU/Palm-oil-casualty-14-pygmy-elephants-fall-prey-to-pesticides-in-Borneo

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Want a home-cooked meal? It's in the can

In this Friday, Aug. 24, 2012 photo, Campbell's new Skillet sauces are displayed at the Campbell Soup Company headquarters in Camden, N.J. As more people try their hand at mimicking sophisticated recipes from cooking shows and blogs, food companies are rolling out meal kits and starters that make amateur chefs feel like Emeril Lagasse or Rachael Ray in the kitchen. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

In this Friday, Aug. 24, 2012 photo, Campbell's new Skillet sauces are displayed at the Campbell Soup Company headquarters in Camden, N.J. As more people try their hand at mimicking sophisticated recipes from cooking shows and blogs, food companies are rolling out meal kits and starters that make amateur chefs feel like Emeril Lagasse or Rachael Ray in the kitchen. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

This undated product image provided by General Mills Inc. shows the company's line of "Progresso Recipe Starters". As more people try their hand at mimicking sophisticated recipes from cooking shows and blogs, food companies are rolling out meal kits and starters that make amateur chefs feel like Emeril Lagasse or Rachael Ray in the kitchen. (AP photo/General Mills)

This undated product image provided by General Mills Inc. shows the company's line of "Progresso Recipe Starters". As more people try their hand at mimicking sophisticated recipes from cooking shows and blogs, food companies are rolling out meal kits and starters that make amateur chefs feel like Emeril Lagasse or Rachael Ray in the kitchen. (AP photo/General Mills)

(AP) ? There's nothing more satisfying than a home-cooked meal, especially if it comes out of a can or a pouch.

As more people try their hand at mimicking sophisticated recipes from cooking shows and blogs, food companies are rolling out meal kits and starters that make amateur chefs feel like Emeril Lagasse or Rachael Ray in the kitchen.

Call it the next generation of dinner-in-box sets like Rice-A-Roni and Hamburger Helper that were rolled out as moms flooded the workforce in the '50s, '60s and '70s. But the new kits and starters go beyond just browning meat and throwing evaporated cheese and seasonings into boiling water ? the idea is to make people feel like they're making their meals from scratch.

General Mills Inc. has a line of "Progresso Recipe Starters," which are pre-made sauces in flavors such as "Fire-Roasted Tomato" and "Creamy Portabella Mushroom" that can be a base for a variety of dishes. Kraft Food Group Inc.'s "Sizzling Salads" dinner kits pair a meat marinade with salad dressing: you provide all the other ingredients. And Campbell Soup Co. has "Skillet Sauces" that can be mixed with fresh meat and veggies. Total prep time: 15 minutes.

Scott Jones, a public relations specialist in Fort Worth, Texas, uses Kraft's Velveeta Skillets, a deluxe version of mac-n-cheese in a box with flavors such as Chicken Alfredo and Lasagna.

Jones likes that the box suggests ways to customize the recipe by doing things like using different types of meats. He says the creamy cheese packets are a step up from powder mixes. And he likes adding personal touches (Think: diced tomatoes and peppers.)

It's not the same as the pot roasts feasts that he cooks on Sundays but on weekdays it allows him to give his family a "satisfying meal, quickly and conveniently."

Cooking shortcuts long have been an American way of life, of course. But demand has grown for time-saving recipes as busy Americans eat more meals at home to save money. The NPD Group estimates the average number of meals eaten at home at 902 last year, up from 870 four years earlier.

At the same time, there's a growing "foodie culture" that values authenticity and fresh ingredients. It may be why sales of Rice-A-Roni ? essentially a box of rice and powdered seasoning mix ? have dropped 16 percent to $196 million from five years ago, according to the market researcher Euromonitor International.

The companies that make the new starters say it's too early to make sales projections but the hope is to appeal to the people who want it both ways: a home-cooked meal that doesn't require much sweat and labor. In particular, companies are aiming for those in their 20s and 30s whose cooking skills may be outmatched by their increasingly sophisticated tastes.

"Their definition of cooking is different," says Darren Serrao, who heads innovation for Campbell Soup, based in Camden, N.J. "Assembly is cooking."

Indeed, Kraft Sizzling Salads dinner kits aren't exactly your mother's "made from scratch" recipes.

They direct people to heat up some chicken with the marinade and toss a salad with the dressing. But in case aspiring home cooks need some extra guidance in their culinary adventures, Kraft provides cooking tutorials online.

In a video for the Chicken Caesar meal kit, a woman demonstrates how to squeeze the marinade over four chicken breasts in a frying pan. She then guides viewers through the steps of adding croutons and shredded cheese into a bowl of chopped lettuce. The finishing touch? Squirting in some Kraft dressing.

Progresso's sauces involve a little more work. For example, let's say you want beef stroganoff. All you need is two pounds of boneless beef sirloin, an onion, garlic, Worcestershire sauce and a can of Progresso's Recipe Starters in Creamy Portabella Mushroom flavor. The dish takes 35 minutes from start to finish, according to the recipe on the can.

Making beef stroganoff from scratch, by contrast, would be a deeply involved ordeal, in large part because of the sauce, says Brendan Walsh, dean of culinary education at the Culinary Institute of America.

"You're dealing with stocks and reductions. It's a good 12-hour process," he says.

Although Walsh wouldn't put Progresso's version of beef stroganoff "in the realm of chef-dom," he notes that companies have gotten better at making products with improved taste and nutritional content. And given busy schedules, Walsh says such "survival cooking" is often an easy way to put a hot meal on the table.

Some starters are even more basic.

Land O' Lakes has "Saute Starters," cubes of butter that contain olive oil and are packed with the right mix of spices to make a dish, coming in flavors such as Italian Herb and Lemon Pepper.

Cooking instructions? Toss a square in a pan, add some meat, shrimp or fish, then serve with rice or pasta.

Peggy Ellingson, Land O' Lakes' vice president of innovation and new business development, promises that the aroma from the butter will have everyone asking what mom is cooking for dinner.

In other words, it's all part of the show.

___

Follow Candice Choi at www.twitter.com/candicechoi

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-02-13-Pretend%20Cooking/id-2dea4fbd4015458a8673dfeb5588d329

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Thursday, February 14, 2013

Reasons to buy stock photos - ArticlesWide.com

Photos are frequently used for article postings, blogs, on websites, in slideshows and more. The need for photos has increased, since images have a more powerful impact these days compared to text. This is why more and more people buy stock photos instead of having professional photographers organize photo shooting. This also helps with the copyright issues and the cheap stock photos can actually represent anything you need: nature, animals, holidays, people and others.

Taking images from the internet is not always the best option and the financial implications can be higher than you can imagine. On the other hand, cheap stock photos can be found at agencies with photo galleries and online galleries that can send the photos desired for a reasonable amount of money in return. To protect yourself and the company you are representing, or website or blog, stock photos can be the best option.

There are many benefits for people who buy stock photos and one of the most important one is time. Cheap stock photos are available for download immediately, right after you make the payment. The membership with the websites is free and subscriptions can be done in order to stay updated with the freshest newcomers in the galleries. The buying process is fast and easy and it can be done from the computer, without the need to visit the actual agency. To get the work done, buying unique photos featuring models, nature, travel places, online buying is the best choice.

Another reasons to consider buying stock photos is the wide selection offered. Agencies usually have thousands and even millions of photos in their databases. And to make the find easier, they have search engines enabled on the website, so you can find exactly what you are looking for. Collections are quite diverse and they include various themes, beautiful colours and illustrations. They do look professional and they will emphasis any website. With membership, you can be sure they will inform you with their personal collections and you will have the chance to buy stock photos in the utmost quality.

What is more, the cheap stock photos do not look cheap at all. On the contrary, when you actually find the images that interest you the most, you have the possibility of choosing the resolution needed. The photos will then comply with the website or blog you have, so you can be sure they will reflect the essence of the website and will make it look stunning. Stock photos can even be used to represent products and services, as they can be modified on the process and added any effects or text desired.

Perhaps the most important aspect to consider is license. Being able to buy stock photos for your projects allows extended rights and more freedom and protection. Images that are widely available on search engines do not have the standard licensing protection and while using them, it could cost you more than the stock images. Photos you download has a royalty free license, meaning you are protected by the agencys terms and conditions.

If you want to buy stock photos, there are many advantages implied and you can certainly benefit from them. Not to mention that cheap stock photos offer the high quality you usually expect from investing money.

Source: http://www.articleswide.com/article/16479-Reasons_to_buy_stock_photos.html

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Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Mussels with fennel and star anise

Mussels steamed in a buttery broth of shallots, garlic, tomatoes, and star anise are an easy, delicious, sustainable dinner. Use this recipe to wow your sweetheart on Valentine's Day with a home cooked meal.

By Terry Boyd,?Blue Kitchen / February 13, 2013

This dish combines many wonderful flavors, a faint hint of licorice, a bite of garlic, and bright tomato blend with a buttery broth.

Blue Kitchen

Enlarge

A funny thing happened on the way to this recipe,?and it illustrates the twists and turns that often occur in our kitchen. The idea to do something with mussels started with a comment on my?Black Bean Soup with Ham Hocks?post, oddly enough. In passing, reader Dani H. mentioned that she?d finally gotten around to cooking the?Moules Marini?res?recipe I?d posted a couple of years ago. The next day, I came across a recipe for mussels using fresh ginger and lemongrass. OK, the delicious, easy-to-cook bivalves were back on my radar screen.

Skip to next paragraph Terry Boyd

Blue Kitchen

Terry Boyd is the author of Blue Kitchen, a Chicago-based food blog for home cooks. His simple, eclectic cooking focuses on fresh ingredients, big flavors and a cheerful willingness to borrow ideas and techniques from all over the world. A frequent contributor to the Chicago Sun-Times, his recipes have also appeared on the Bon App?tit and Saveur websites.

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Lemongrass, ginger, and fresh mussels were acquired. I was busily mapping out how I would make the recipe my own. Then I took a quick look at past Blue Kitchen mussels recipes (and was shocked to find?four?of them) and realized I had cooked mussels with lemongrass and ginger already. Granted, it was a curried version, but it still seemed like time for a new direction.?

Sticking, for the moment, with the Asian direction the ginger and lemongrass had suggested, I thought of star anise. This seed pod of an evergreen tree grown in China, Vietnam, and Japan is a staple in Eastern Chinese cooking. It also is featured in Vietnamese and Indian cuisines.

I assumed my search for ?mussels star anise? would yield Asian or Asian-influenced dishes. Instead, numerous recipes took advantage of its distinctive licorice taste to enhance that same flavor in fennel. This appealed to me for a couple of reasons. First, we?ve been enjoying cooking with ? and eating ? fennel bulbs lately.?Ziti with Sausage and Fennel?has become an instant favorite at our house. And second, this unexpected mash-up of ingredients from different corners of the globe is at the heart of much of Blue Kitchen?s approach to cooking.

There are any number of reasons to love mussels.?They?re delicious and insanely versatile, playing nicely with all kinds of cuisines and flavors. Mussels are fast and easy to cook ? in fact, about the only way to screw them up is to overcook them. They?re cheap too, especially for seafood. The most I?ve ever paid for them is $5 a pound ? usually, they?re less.

One of the coolest things about mussels, though, is that they?re sustainable. Even ? or perhaps especially ? the farmed variety.?They?re filter feeders, so farming mussels doesn?t require feeding them wild fish and doesn?t deplete the wild fish stock, as does farming of many other species. And they actually clean the water, instead of polluting it as some farmed seafood does. In fact, David W. Dunlap reported in the?New York Times?last summer that New York City was installing an artificial mussel bed in the East River. No, the city isn?t looking to get into aquaculture; their goal is to have the them help clean up the river.

Need another reason to love mussels? This dish just might be it. There are so many wonderful flavors working together here, from the faint, fresh hint of licorice from the fennel and the star anise to the bite of the garlic, the buttery, winy broth, the bright tang of the tomato and the briny goodness of the mussels themselves.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/Bis4T6KCZNI/Mussels-with-fennel-and-star-anise

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