Trade Policy: In a forehead-slapping development, Neiman Marcus and two other retailers settled federal claims that they had marketed rabbit, raccoon and other real fur as fake fur. The House on Thursday approved legislation that could set in motion changes in Puerto Rico's 112-year relationship with the United States, including a transition to statehood or independence.LONDON -- Global stocks rose Friday after the world's seven leading industrial nations moved to rein in the Japanese yen, whose surge to record highs this week was hurting a country already brought to its knees by natural disasters. SoftBank completed its US$21.6 billion acquisition of Sprint Nextel on Wednesday, capping a months-long effort that was complicated by two bidding wars and some national-security objections but is expected to produce a stronger rival to the dominant U.S. mobile operators.     GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA -- At the U.S. naval station here, a handsome electronic sign hangs between two concrete pillars. In yellow enamel against a blue metal backdrop is a map of Cuba, the "Pearl of the Antilles," above flashing time and temperature readings. The pop star Kesha comes across as a fun-chasing woman on the road with moments of vulnerability in the new MTV documentary series “Kesha: My Crazy Beautiful Life.”     U.S. trade talks with Europe seem, on the surface, like a slam-dunk. The world’s richest nations will sit across a bargaining table stacked with potential compromises on regulatory and other issues that may represent tens of billions of dollars in extra sales and jobs. Read full article >> In 1973, Richard O'Brien wrote a musical celebrating sci-fi and B-movies, with a large splash of transvestism thrown in. The tiny Upstairs theatre at the Royal Court produced it, and the rest is his- and herstory An inviting aroma wafted through Yorktown High School in Arlington as I walked down the hall from the principal's office. Inside Rosemary Molle's classroom, I discovered the source: paella, the Spanish mix of rice, chicken, shrimp, sausage and plenty of seasoned onions, peppers and other vegetables. Remarkably, I found 18 students -- mostly boys -- happily cleaning up after cooking and eating their mouthwatering creation. Jennifer LaRue Huget explains how best to incorporate the new dietary guidelines on seafood into your diet. What do laptop keycaps, bismuth and North Korea share in common?This week, we meet the element astatine, whose very name tells us almost half of all that we know about it. Astatine's chemical symbol is At and its chemical number is 85. Its name comes from the Greek and means "unstable". Ain't that the truth. Since it was first discovered in 1940, astatine was thought to be the rarest of all aquaponics 4 you review on Earth. However, this distinction was lost after the hair-splitting realisation that highly-concentrated uranium deposits are capable of producing a few measly atoms of berkelium. As you can see in the above image ... hang on, you do see it, don't you? No? Well, that's because no one has ever seen astatine. In fact, the total amount of astatine present on Earth in any one year could easily fit on one of your laptop's keycaps. But if you had that amount of astatine sitting on your laptop at this moment, you would not be able to describe its appearance for us since it would immediately vaporize you, your laptop and office, along with a significant portion of the landscape surrounding you. This means we are free to imagine astatine's appearance. Inspired by that most-huggable element, bismuth (and also by the lovely vanadium), I chose the above featured image as my idea of what astatine might look like. Your ideas may differ. But being scientists, we can also do some chemistry sleuthing to get a more accurate mental image of astatine's appearance before it explodes and triggers a nuclear meltdown. Since this element is found below iodine in the periodic table, it is a halogen and thus, it shares many qualities with its smaller sister elements: like the other halogens, it's probably highly toxic, highly chemically reactive, and very electronegative -- aggressively stealing electrons from other elements. But unlike its smaller sister elements, astatine is also highly radioactive, which is one of the reasons it does not appear in the above image. Since all isotopes of astatine have fleeting half-lives (astatine-210 has longest half-life, which is only 8.3 hours, whereas astatine-213's half-life is less than half a microsecond), and since this element only pops up momentarily in the aftermath of nuclear disintegration, it's unlikely that anyone ever will see it unless North Korea makes good on its penis-waving threats to "nuke America". In this short video, our favourite chemistry professor fills us in on most of the remainder of humanity's collective knowledge about astatine:[video link].. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. Video journalist Brady Haran is the man with the camera and the University of Nottingham is the place with the chemists. You can follow Brady on twitter @periodicvideos and the University of Nottingham on twitter @UniofNottingham You've already met these elements:Polonium: Po, atomic number 84Bismuth: Bi, atomic number 83Lead: Pb, atomic number 82Thallium: Tl, atomic number 81Mercury: Hg, atomic number 80Gold: Au, atomic number 79Platinum: Pt, atomic number 78Iridium: Ir, atomic number 77Osmium: Os, atomic number 76Rhenium: Re, atomic number 75Tungsten: W, atomic number vitiligo treatment atomic number 73Hafnium: Hf, atomic number 72Lutetium: Lu, atomic number 71 Ytterbium: Yb, atomic number 70Thulium: Tm, atomic number 69Erbium: Er, atomic number 68Holmium: Ho, atomic number 67Dysprosium: Dy, atomic number 66Terbium: Tb, atomic number 65Gadolinium: Gd, atomic number 64Europium: Eu, atomic number 63Samarium: Sm, atomic number 62Promethium: Pm, atomic number 61Neodymium: Nd, atomic number 60Praseodymium: Pr, atomic number 59Cerium: Ce, atomic number 58Lanthanum: La, atomic number 57Barium: Ba, atomic number 56Cæsium: Cs, atomic number 55Xenon: Xe, atomic number 54Iodine: I, atomic number 53Tellurium: Te, atomic number 52Antimony: Sb, atomic number 51Tin: Sn, atomic number 50Indium: In, atomic number 49Cadmium: Cd, atomic number 48Silver: Ag, atomic number 47Palladium: Pd, atomic number 46Rhodium: Rh, atomic number 45Ruthenium: Ru, atomic number 44Technetium: Tc, atomic number 43Molybdenum: Mo, atomic number 42Niobium: Ni, atomic number 41Zirconium: Zr, atomic number 40Yttrium: Y, atomic number 39Strontium: Sr, atomic number 38Rubidium: Rr, atomic number 37Krypton: Kr, atomic number 36Bromine: Br, atomic number 35Selenium: Se, atomic number 34Arsenic: As, atomic number 33Germanium: Ge, atomic number 32Gallium: Ga, atomic number 31Zinc: Zn, atomic number 30Copper: Cu, atomic number 29Nickel: Ni, atomic number 28Cobalt: Co, atomic number 27Iron: Fe, atomic number 26Manganese: Mn, atomic number 25Chromium: Cr, atomic number 24Vanadium: V, atomic number 23Titanium: Ti, atomic number 22Scandium: Sc, atomic number 21Calcium: Ca, atomic number 20Potassium: K, atomic number 19Argon: Ar, atomic number 18Chlorine: Cl, atomic number 17Sulfur: S, atomic number 16Phosphorus: P, atomic number 15Silicon: Si, atomic number 14Aluminium: Al, atomic number 13Magnesium: Mg, atomic number 12Sodium: Na, atomic number 11Neon: Ne, atomic number 10Fluorine: F, atomic number 9Oxygen: O, atomic number 8Nitrogen: N, atomic number 7Carbon: C, atomic number 6Boron: B, atomic number 5Beryllium: Be, atomic number 4Lithium: Li, atomic number 3Helium: He, atomic number 2Hydrogen: H, atomic number 1Here's the Royal Society of Chemistry's interactive Periodic Table of the Elements that is just really really fun to play with! .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. Follow Grrlscientist's work on facebook, Google +, LinkedIn, Pinterest and of course, twitter: @GrrlScientistemail: [email protected] © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds The IIDA New York Chapter recently hosted its 5th Annual Sustainable Quilt Auction at Openhouse Gallery in New York. Gunmen overran an Iraqi army checkpoint and then fired on a trailer packed with policemen breaking their Ramadan fast in the western Anbar province, authorities said Thursday.     Insecticides are harming bees, argue environmentalists, who believe pollinators are greatly undervalued. Leo Hickman, with your help, investigatesLeo Hickman The bakers at Artuso Pastry shop in forex growth bot pdf famed for their Pope Benedict XVI cookies, made their first batch of Pope Francis cookies on Wednesday. MEXICO CITY - In all of Mexico, there is only one gun store. The shop, known officially as the Directorate of Arms and Munitions Sales, is operated by the Mexican military. The clerks wear pressed green camouflage. They are soldiers. A NASA physicist explains why scientists are increasingly concerned about the effect of solar flares on our wired world. The couple met at the University of Michigan.     BEIJING - The earthquake and tsunami that devastated northern Japan may help temporarily ease Japan's strained relations with China, allowing the two Asian rivals for the moment to look past lingering territorial, economic, military and historical disputes. The Chinese government said employees of the British drug giant had used bribes, taken kickbacks and committed other crimes to bolster drug sales. Louisville topped Michigan, 82-76, and Rick Pitino became the first coach to win a national title at two schools. Mike Huguenin and other Times reporters provide highlights and analysis of the championship game.     For immigrants, the path to citizenship in many countries is filled with hurdles: finding a job, learning the language, passing exams. But for some people, the biggest obstacle of all may be one they cannot help: their country of origin.That’s one conclusion of a methodologically innovative study of European immigrants suggesting that, other qualifications being equal, migrants from certain countries may be roughly 40 percent less likely than others to gain citizenship. Even if an immigrant has obtained a good education and job, and solid language skills, simply being from the wrong country can be a “massive disadvantage,” says Jens Hainmueller, an associate professor of political science at MIT and a co-author of the study, along with Dominik Hangartner of the London School of Economics and Political Science.“By far the most decisive factor in the applicants of immigrants is their country of origin,” Hainmueller says. However, there is good news for immigrants: The study also suggests that such biases against people from particular nations tend to shift over time, and often occur due to temporary social circumstances, such as the number of immigrants arriving from one country at a particular moment.“The results suggest that interactions with immigrant groups can really remove prejudice over time,” Hainmueller says. Citizens speaking at the ballot boxThe study’s findings are based on voting from 1970 to 2003 in Switzerland, where many municipalities used direct referendums in which local citizens voted on citizenship applications — an unusual approach among European countries. In particular, immigrants from Turkey and the former Yugoslavia fared worse in the voting than trademiner download other countries. The results are in a paper — “Who Gets a Swiss Passport? A Natural Experiment in Immigrant Discrimination” — published in the latest issue of the American Political Science Review.The use of voting data allowed Hainmueller and Hangartner to circumvent problems that may occur when studying attitudes toward immigration in other ways. While public opinion surveys about immigration may be useful, not all respondents reveal their true views to pollsters, especially if they think those opinions might seem controversial. But the Swiss data reflect “people who are just voting their true preferences, what they really think about this,” Hainmueller says. “And the outcome really mattered to people.” Moreover, the detailed descriptions of the immigrants on their applications allowed Hainmueller and Hangartner to construct close matches between applicants, finding cases in which, for instance, characteristics such as the level of education or type of job were equal, but the country of origin differed. All told, the researchers studied 2,429 naturalization cases in 44 municipalities. The overall rejection rate for applicants was 37 percent — but for Turkish and Yugoslavian immigrants, that increased to more than 50 percent, an increase of about 40 percent compared to the overall rate. By contrast, for immigrants applying for citizenship from central or eastern Europe, Asia, or other non-European countries, the rejection rate never topped 45 percent, while immigrants from southern Europe fared better than the average applicant. To an extent, the researchers believe, this bias reflects the presence of a straightforward anti-immigrant sentiment among many voters; in municipalities where Switzerland’s leading anti-immigration party was popular, voters were three times as likely to reject Turkish or Yugoslav naturalization applications, compared to the municipalities where the anti-immigration party was least popular. “It has much to do with stereotypes and prejudice,” Hainmueller says. However, Hainmueller says, the voting results do not reflect an immutable Swiss bias against Turks or Yugoslavs. The source of the prejudice, the researchers believe, is partly due to the volume of immigration from the countries in question. The dynamic, Hainmueller says, represents a kind of “threat mechanism” in which some Swiss citizens become concerned that having too many immigrants from one particular country at one time will disrupt the social order.“As the immigrant groups got larger, particularly in the 1990s when there was a lot of immigration from Turkey and Yugoslavia, the country of origin-based discrimination increased dramatically,” Hainmueller says. “Turks were doing all right [in naturalization votes] in the 1970s and 1980s when there were not as many around.” In the 1960s and 1970s, a larger proportion of immigrants to Switzerland were Italian, and in turn, Italians fared worse in tinnitus miracle in the 1970s. But over time, Hainmueller suggests, immigrants from any given country become more accepted in their new land, because “people get used to them, and recognize their contribution to society.”Power to the people?While the study focused on Switzerland, Hainmueller suggests that the results, with proper caution, may apply to other countries as well. As Hainmueller notes, the precise constellation of political forces and social conditions that affects sentiment about immigrants varies in every country. However, he adds, survey evidence — whatever its limitations — does show similar levels of anti-immigrant sentiment across many European countries.“It’s a big topic that, in particular, right-wing parties are using to drum up support now,” Hainmueller says. “We see this in France, Denmark, Austria and other countries. If in these countries, people were given the opportunity to vote on these applications, it does strike me as plausible that the results could look similar.”Rafaela Dancygier, a political scientist at Princeton University, calls the study “very important in helping us understand native hostility toward immigrants,” particularly in its use of data gathered over three decades, which she terms “a big improvement over most work, which tends to only take a snapshot of a given point in time.” This allows researchers to analyze the interplay between changing economic and political circumstances and attitudes toward immigrant groups.Stanford University political scientist David Laitin also praises the paper’s use of the data, noting, “It is as if the Swiss cantons held up a generous gift to social science and Hainmueller and Hangartner ingeniously grabbed it.” Still, he adds, scholars should “keep looking for replication opportunities” to see how generally the current findings might apply across Europe. Hainmueller thinks the immigration issue also bears on the question of when direct democracy should be used, as opposed to indirect democratic mechanisms. “I think the results suggest that the [impact] of direct democracy can be very substantial for these immigrants,” Hainmueller says. “On the one hand, this seems like a very legitimate way of deciding policies: Let the people vote. On the other hand, there is a serious cost for minorities if the majority decides based on preferences which might be discriminatory.” To pursue the issue further, Hainmueller and Hangartner have conducted a follow-up study of immigration applications in Switzerland after 2003, when power to approve naturalization petitions was handed back to local legislators; their initial findings suggest that elected representatives are significantly more likely to approve citizenship applications. The bride and groom graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, where they met.     After Google announced that it would be shutting down Google Reader on July 1, unhappy customers turned to the Internet to protest the

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