No. Sociologists started using the word cult with some regularity in the 1970s, to distinguish emerging groups like the Jesus Movement, the Children of God, and Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church from more established religions, but academics were never able to settle on a clear definition. For many at the time, the essential feature of a cult was that its ideology and structure opposed those of the larger society in which it resided. Where mainstream society is rational, for example, cults are mystical. If most members of a society are individualists, cult members practice collectivism. Other scholars argued that cult members had to be in active conflict with other religions, or that cults always had charismatic leaders who were aggressively recruiting new members. No matter which definition you prefer, no one would ever have referred to the Latter-day Saints as a cult. It has millions of members; its ideology and organizational structure are similar to those of mainstream churches; and an average Mormon?s way of life isn?t radically different from that of any other American.
CALGARY, Alberta ? TransCanada Corp. said Thursday that it has received customer support to undertake an extension of its stalled Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL oil pipeline pending regulatory approval in the U.S.
Russ Girling, TransCanada's president and chief executive officer, said in a statement that the potential 50-mile (80-kilometer) expansion of the Keystone XL pipeline would increase the capacity of the pipeline to 830,000 barrels per day from 700,000 barrels.
Instead of ending in Port Arthur, Texas, the pipeline will reach into the Houston market, known as the Houston Lateral, as well. That will more than double the U.S. Gulf Coast refining market capacity the pipeline can access if it's approved.
"This significant demand and additional long-term customer commitments confirm the continued strong shipper support of TransCanada and the need for Keystone XL to move forward," said Girling.
"Proceeding with the extension of the Keystone XL system to Houston and increasing capacity on the pipeline system will further enhance the connection of a secure, growing and reliable supply of Canadian crude oil and domestic U.S. crude oil with the largest refining market in North America, while providing additional flexibility to our shippers," he added.
The Houston Lateral is within the original scope of the regulatory process that is currently under way, TransCanada said.
The U.S. State Department was originally set to announce its final decision by year-end, but in November said more time was needed to weigh a new route for the pipeline to take through Nebraska, in order to avoid environmentally sensitive areas.
The pipeline would carry oil from western Canada to refineries in Texas, passing through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma and Houston if the expansion is approved.
Montana state officials on Thursday announced environmental approval for the pipeline.
But TransCanada spokesman Shawn Howard said there were no immediate plans to begin work in Montana while federal approval is pending.
The U.S. State Department ? which has final say because Keystone XL would cross an international border ? now expects to make its decision in early 2013. If it's approved, TransCanada expects Keystone XL, including the Houston Lateral, to be in service by the end of 2014.
Republicans in Congress are trying to speed up a decision by linking approval to a measure renewing a payroll tax cut.
Keystone XL is one of several pipeline projects to draw the ire of environmental groups waging a wider war against the development of "dirty" oilsands crude. Heavy crude from Alberta's oilsands takes a lot of work to process and has a long way to travel to U.S. refineries that can handle it. Critics say Keystone XL could bring risks of oil spills to the central United States and foster more development of carbon-intensive tar sands production.
It's a battle pitted against those who argue the pipeline will provide massive job opportunities at a time when the economy is in dire need of jobs on both sides of the border.
A University of Calgary report released Thursday said the Canadian oilsands industry's improved access to international markets could add as much as US$126.73 (CA$131) billion to Canada's gross domestic product between 2016 and 2030, which could garner US$26 billion (CA$27 billion) more in government tax receipts.
"The rewards of additional pipelines for all of Canada are too great to ignore," said report co-author Michal Moore. "Pipelines must be a national priority."
TransCanada Corp. is looking to relieve the bottleneck at Cushing, Oklahoma, a massive storage hub that has become a major choke point.
The report said producers stand to gain US$10 for every barrel they produce if they can get their oil past Cushing to the Gulf Coast, where it would displace imported crude like Mexico's Maya.
"It seems to me that the right role of government is to make it clear that this resource is a world product and should be allowed to get access to world markets and, where possible, they can seek out the help to do that."
NORWALK, Conn. ? The Multiple Myeloma Research Consortium today announced that it has expanded its clinical research network to include the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit.
Following a rigorous evaluation, this NCI-designated?comprehensive cancer center joins the existing MMRC?member institutions in promoting and facilitating collaborative research and accelerating drug development in multiple myeloma, an incurable blood cancer.
?We are proud to join such a highly respected model for accelerating the development of new treatment options for multiple myeloma?patients,? said Jeffrey Zonder, M.D., associate professor of Medicine and Oncology, Karmanos Cancer Institute and Wayne State University School of Medicine. ?We are very much looking forward to collaborating with the MMRC, its elite member institutions, and its partners in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries to bring patients the next generation of multiple myeloma treatments.?
As an MMRC?member institution, Karmanos will participate in all clinical research activities of the consortium, including the conduction of Phase I?and II clinical trials of promising myeloma?treatments. In this role, Karmanos will also contribute multiple myeloma?patient tissue samples to the MMRC Tissue Bank, a cutting-edge resource that bridges laboratory and clinical research.
Said Beverly Harrison, vice president of clinical development at the consortium: ?Like all MMRC?Member Institutions, Karmanos was selected to join this exclusive network based on its outstanding reputation for clinical excellence, its demonstrated commitment to rigorous research, and its true spirit of collaboration and team-science. We have no doubt that Karmanos will prove to be an invaluable asset in our efforts to rapidly shepherd the next generation of treatments through the MMRC.?
The Multiple Myeloma?Research Consortium (MMRC) is a 509(a)3 non-profit organization that integrates leading academic institutions to accelerate drug development in multiple myeloma. It is led from MMRC offices in Norwalk, Conn., and comprises 16 member institutions. More at www.themmrc.org.
The Karmanos Cancer Institute is one of 40 National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer centers in the United States.
WASHINGTON ? Senate defeat of competing Democratic and Republican plans to extend a cut in the Social Security payroll tax has punted the issue to the House, where GOP leaders are facing ideological divisions within the party over whether to pass the tax holiday.
The focus is on the GOP-controlled House after Senate votes Thursday exposed wide reluctance by Republicans to go along with the costly proposal ? a centerpiece of President Barack Obama's jobs agenda.
As expected, Senate Republicans defeated Obama's plan to extend the payroll tax cut through the end of next year while also making it more generous for workers.
But in a vote that exposed rare divisions among Senate Republicans, more than two dozen of the GOP's 47 lawmakers also voted to kill an alternative plan backed by their leader, Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to renew an existing 2 percentage point payroll tax cut.
A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Republicans weren't planning on negotiating with Democrats before unveiling a payroll tax cut plan ? and the spending cuts to pay for it ? next week. But the Senate vote would seem to indicate that House Republicans will be hard-pressed to muscle a payroll tax cut through without Democratic support. And those votes could be hard to come by if the GOP plan contains spending cuts Democrats dislike.
Many Republicans and even some Democrats say the payroll tax cut hasn't worked to boost jobs and is too costly with the deficit requiring the government to borrow 36 cents of every dollar it spends.
"I can't find many people who even know that they're getting it, OK?" said Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who opposed both plans. "So with that being said, we're going to double down on something that we thought should have worked that didn't work."
Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., said after Thursday night's vote that previous tax rebates "stimulated little and increased the debt a lot" and that it would be better to simply cut spending than turn around and use spending cuts on stimulus-style tax cuts.
The defeat of the competing Senate plans came as Boehner said for the first time that renewing the payroll tax cut would boost the lagging economy. Boehner also promised compromise on a renewal of long-term jobless benefits through the end of 2012.
The payroll tax cuts and unemployment benefits are at the center of a costly, politically-charged year-end agenda in which Democrats seem poised to prevail in renewing a tax cut that many Republicans back only reluctantly. But Republicans are insisting ? in a switch from last year ? that the payroll tax cut and jobless benefits be paid for by cutting spending.
Both parties are seeking the political high ground as next year's elections loom, with Democrats accusing Republicans of siding with the rich, and Republicans countering that Democrats were taxing small business owners who create jobs.
The first payroll tax plan to fall was a Democratic measure that was at the heart of the jobs package Obama announced in September. It would cut the Social Security payroll tax from 6.2 percent to 3.1 percent next year and also extend the cut to employers, with its hefty $265 billion cost paid for by slapping a 3.25 percent surtax on income exceeding $1 million.
Republicans and a handful of Democrats combined to kill the measure on a 51-49 tally that fell well short of the 60 votes required under Senate rules. For the first time, a Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, voted to support the millionaires' surcharge.
In a surprising result, Democrats and more than two dozen Republicans then voted 78-20 to kill the $120 billion GOP alternative that would have simply extended the existing 2 percentage point payroll tax cut, financed by freezing federal workers' pay through 2015 and reducing the government bureaucracy.
Republicans offered a simple one-year continuation of the existing law, jettisoning Obama's call to deepen the cut to 3.1 percentage point on workers' first $106,800 in earnings, while expanding it to cut in half employers' Social Security contributions for their $5 million in payroll.
To pay for the measure, Senate Republicans proposed freezing federal workers' pay through 2015 ? extending a two-year-freeze recommended by Obama ? and reducing the bureaucracy by 200,000 jobs through attrition.
The Democratic plan would give a worker earning $50,000 a more than $1,500 tax cut; the GOP plan would provide a $1,000 tax cut for such an earner. A two-income family making $200,000 would reap a $6,000-plus tax cut under the Democratic plan and a $4,000 tax cut under the GOP version.
Outwardly, life seems normal; but as drug war kidnappings, extortion, and violence brush closer to the average citizen, experts say, the mental terrain looks like post-traumatic stress.
It was not a stifling evening, so Carolina Gomez, a pretty and petite kindergarten teacher in this Gulf coast city, turned off her air-conditioning unit and slid open the window over her bed. The tropical breeze lulled her to sleep by 11 p.m.
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But not three hours later, she was jolted awake by a rumbling, like rocks being dumped on asphalt. As her head cleared, alarm dawned: The air of her neat middle-class neighborhood was thick with automatic weapons fire and explosions.
Wishing she could hide under her bed, she lay immobile, partly due to a sprained ankle she was nursing and partly assessing her fears: How close was the shooting? Could bullets stray into her window? Worse, could a fleeing gunman enter her home, her bedroom?
Her cellphone rang: It was her parents in the room next door. "Are you OK? Stay put," they advised.
Next, they placed a call to their son, Enrique, who lives on the ground floor of a two-story apartment building next door. "Get in your bathroom," they told him, because there are no windows there.
He and his new wife crouched for 40 minutes on the tiled floor as gunfire continued to pierce the air, interrupted finally by the arrival of authorities in helicopters flying so low that Carolina's father, Sergio, says he saw one pilot's face through his window.
Even now, six months later, the bullet-pocked commercial street six blocks from the Gomez home is a testament to the collateral damage of the drug war ? the imprint of fear on ordinary lives and what it can do to the civic fabric, from choices as simple as changing shopping habits to changing the nation's presidential politics.
A culmination of months of creeping insecurity, the April shootout here was a defining moment for the extended Gomez family: They began arranging an escape ? to immigrate to Spain.
The family agreed to explore their experience with the Monitor if they could use pseudonyms they felt would assure their safety.
The shootout itself seems almost statistically ordinary in a nation that in 2010 saw 14 mayors assassinated, a surge in kidnappings and extortion acknowledged by the government, and cautionary beheadings become a new standard of criminal threat.
Indeed, here in Veracruz it was hardly the first time Carolina had had a brush with violence; and it wouldn't be the last. In the past 22 months, a corpse was left outside her school, family members of her kindergarten students have been kidnapped, and she had to undergo security training in how to survive in the event of a shootout at the school.
"But," she explains, "it was the first time I did not feel safe in my bed. I used to go to sleep with confidence. I have become totally convinced that there is not a single safe place in Veracruz."
It's a new prism through which an increasing number of Mexicans see their world. The fight against organized crime, begun by Mexican President Felipe Calder?n when he took office in December 2006, has cost more than 40,000 lives. The government maintains that 90 percent of victims are rival traffickers.
'Just chill?' Relaxing can make you fatterPublic release date: 1-Dec-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: George Hunka ghunka@aftau.org 212-742-9070 American Friends of Tel Aviv University
50 percent more fat can be produced by sustained stretching, Tel Aviv University researchers say
Conventional wisdom says that exercise is a key to weight loss a no-brainer. But now, Tel Aviv University researchers are revealing that life as a couch potato, stretched out in front of the TV, can actually be "active inactivity" and cause you to pack on the pounds.
Such inactivity actually encourages the body to create new fat in fat cells, says Prof. Amit Gefen of TAU's Department of Biomedical Engineering. Along with his Ph.D. student Naama Shoham, Prof. Gefen has shown that preadipocyte cells the precursors to fat cells turn into fat cells faster and produce even more fat when subject to prolonged periods of "mechanical stretching loads" the kind of weight we put on our body tissues when we sit or lie down.
The research, which has been published in the American Journal of Physiology Cell Physiology, demonstrates another damaging effect of a modern, sedentary lifestyle, Prof. Gefen notes. "Obesity is more than just an imbalance of calories. Cells themselves are also responsive to their mechanical environment. Fat cells produce more triglycerides, and at a faster rate, when exposed to static stretching."
Stretching the fat
Prof. Gefen, who investigates chronic wounds that plague bed-ridden or wheelchair-bound patients, notes that muscle atrophy is a common side effect of prolonged inactivity. Studying MRI images of the muscle tissue of patients paralyzed by spinal cord injuries, he noticed that, over time, lines of fat cells were invading major muscles in the body. This spurred an investigation into how mechanical load the amount of force placed on a particular area occupied by cells could be encouraging fat tissue to expand.
In the lab, Prof. Gefen and his fellow researchers stimulated preadipocytes with glucose or insulin to differentiate them into fat cells. Then they placed individual cells in a cell-stretching device, attaching them to a flexible, elastic substrate. The test group of cells were stretched consistently for long periods of time, representing extended periods of sitting or lying down, while a control group of cells was not.
Tracking the cultures over time, the researchers noted the development of lipid droplets in both the test and control groups of cells. However, after just two weeks of consistent stretching, the test group developed significantly more and larger lipid droplets. By the time the cells reached maturity, the cultures that received mechanical stretching had developed fifty percent more fat than the control culture.
They were, in effect, half-again fatter.
According to Prof. Gefen, this is the first study that looks at fat cells as they develop, taking into account the impact of sustained mechanical loading on cell differentiation. "There are various ways that cells can sense mechanical loading," he explains, which helps them to measure their environment and triggers various chemical processes. "It appears that long periods of static mechanical loading and stretching, due to the weight of the body when sitting or lying, has an impact on increasing lipid production."
Counting more than calories
These findings indicate that we need to take our cells' mechanical environment into account as well as pay attention to calories consumed and burned, believes Prof. Gefen. Although there are extreme cases, such as people confined to wheelchairs or beds due to medical conditions, many of us live a too sedentary lifestyle, spending most of the day behind a desk. Even somebody with healthy diet and exercise habits will be negatively impacted by long periods of inactivity.
Next, Prof. Gefen and his fellow researchers will be investigating how long a period of time a person can sit or lie down without the mechanical load becoming a factor in fat production. But in the meantime, it certainly can't hurt to get up and take an occasional stroll, he suggests.
###
This research was done in collaboration with TAU's Ruth Gottlieb, Dr. Uri Zaretsky, and Dr. Orna Shaharabani-Yosef from the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Prof. Dafna Benayahu from the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology.
American Friends of Tel Aviv University (www.aftau.org) supports Israel's leading, most comprehensive and most sought-after center of higher learning. Independently ranked 94th among the world's top universities for the impact of its research, TAU's innovations and discoveries are cited more often by the global scientific community than all but 10 other universities.
Internationally recognized for the scope and groundbreaking nature of its research and scholarship, Tel Aviv University consistently produces work with profound implications for the future.
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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.
'Just chill?' Relaxing can make you fatterPublic release date: 1-Dec-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: George Hunka ghunka@aftau.org 212-742-9070 American Friends of Tel Aviv University
50 percent more fat can be produced by sustained stretching, Tel Aviv University researchers say
Conventional wisdom says that exercise is a key to weight loss a no-brainer. But now, Tel Aviv University researchers are revealing that life as a couch potato, stretched out in front of the TV, can actually be "active inactivity" and cause you to pack on the pounds.
Such inactivity actually encourages the body to create new fat in fat cells, says Prof. Amit Gefen of TAU's Department of Biomedical Engineering. Along with his Ph.D. student Naama Shoham, Prof. Gefen has shown that preadipocyte cells the precursors to fat cells turn into fat cells faster and produce even more fat when subject to prolonged periods of "mechanical stretching loads" the kind of weight we put on our body tissues when we sit or lie down.
The research, which has been published in the American Journal of Physiology Cell Physiology, demonstrates another damaging effect of a modern, sedentary lifestyle, Prof. Gefen notes. "Obesity is more than just an imbalance of calories. Cells themselves are also responsive to their mechanical environment. Fat cells produce more triglycerides, and at a faster rate, when exposed to static stretching."
Stretching the fat
Prof. Gefen, who investigates chronic wounds that plague bed-ridden or wheelchair-bound patients, notes that muscle atrophy is a common side effect of prolonged inactivity. Studying MRI images of the muscle tissue of patients paralyzed by spinal cord injuries, he noticed that, over time, lines of fat cells were invading major muscles in the body. This spurred an investigation into how mechanical load the amount of force placed on a particular area occupied by cells could be encouraging fat tissue to expand.
In the lab, Prof. Gefen and his fellow researchers stimulated preadipocytes with glucose or insulin to differentiate them into fat cells. Then they placed individual cells in a cell-stretching device, attaching them to a flexible, elastic substrate. The test group of cells were stretched consistently for long periods of time, representing extended periods of sitting or lying down, while a control group of cells was not.
Tracking the cultures over time, the researchers noted the development of lipid droplets in both the test and control groups of cells. However, after just two weeks of consistent stretching, the test group developed significantly more and larger lipid droplets. By the time the cells reached maturity, the cultures that received mechanical stretching had developed fifty percent more fat than the control culture.
They were, in effect, half-again fatter.
According to Prof. Gefen, this is the first study that looks at fat cells as they develop, taking into account the impact of sustained mechanical loading on cell differentiation. "There are various ways that cells can sense mechanical loading," he explains, which helps them to measure their environment and triggers various chemical processes. "It appears that long periods of static mechanical loading and stretching, due to the weight of the body when sitting or lying, has an impact on increasing lipid production."
Counting more than calories
These findings indicate that we need to take our cells' mechanical environment into account as well as pay attention to calories consumed and burned, believes Prof. Gefen. Although there are extreme cases, such as people confined to wheelchairs or beds due to medical conditions, many of us live a too sedentary lifestyle, spending most of the day behind a desk. Even somebody with healthy diet and exercise habits will be negatively impacted by long periods of inactivity.
Next, Prof. Gefen and his fellow researchers will be investigating how long a period of time a person can sit or lie down without the mechanical load becoming a factor in fat production. But in the meantime, it certainly can't hurt to get up and take an occasional stroll, he suggests.
###
This research was done in collaboration with TAU's Ruth Gottlieb, Dr. Uri Zaretsky, and Dr. Orna Shaharabani-Yosef from the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Prof. Dafna Benayahu from the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology.
American Friends of Tel Aviv University (www.aftau.org) supports Israel's leading, most comprehensive and most sought-after center of higher learning. Independently ranked 94th among the world's top universities for the impact of its research, TAU's innovations and discoveries are cited more often by the global scientific community than all but 10 other universities.
Internationally recognized for the scope and groundbreaking nature of its research and scholarship, Tel Aviv University consistently produces work with profound implications for the future.
[ | 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.
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