Things to read on my other blog: #scio12 preparations, truthiness at NYT, and an interview with a chloroplast.

For those of you who mostly follow my writing here on ?Doing Good Science,? I thought I should give you a pointer to some things I?ve posted so far this month (which is almost half-over already?!) on my other blog, ?Adventures in Ethics and Science?. Feel free to jump in to the discussions in the comments over there. Or, if you prefer, go ahead and discuss them here.

The month kicked off with a bunch of posts looking forward to ScienceOnline 2012, which is next week. First, on the issue of what to pack:

Packing for #scio12: plague relief.
Packing for #scio12: what are you drinking?
Packing for #scio12: sharing space with others.
Packing for #scio12: plumbing the inky depths.

Then, a discussion of what?s special about an unconference: Looking ahead to #scio12: the nature of the unconference. In this post, I put a call out for contributions to the wikis for the two sessions I?ll be helping to moderate: one (with Amy Freitag) on ?Citizens, experts, and science?, the other (with Christie Wilcox) on ?Blogging Science While Female?. Those wiki pages are just calling out for ideas, questions, or useful links. (Your ideas, questions, or useful links! What are you waiting for?)

After that, my response to a recent blog post by the New York Times?s Public Editor: Straightforward answers to questions we shouldn?t even have to ask: New York Times edition.

Finally, courtesy of my elder offspring, Friday Sprog Blogging: Interview with a Chloroplast..

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=a67d16672d01c84b0ff0f64ca8e7dac6

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Zappos says customer database hacked

PORTLAND, Oregon (AP) ? Online shoe seller Zappos.com says a hacker may have accessed the personal information of up to 24 million customers.

The company says customers' credit card and payment information was not stolen. But names, phone numbers, email addresses, billing and shipping addresses, the last four digits from credit cards and more may have been accessed in the attack.

Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh alerted employees and customers of the cyber-attack in an email on Sunday that is posted on the company's website.

Zappos is contacting customers by email and urging them to change their passwords.

Zappos said the hacker gained access to its internal network and systems through one of the company's servers in Kentucky. Zappos is based in Las Vegas. It is owned by Seattle-based Amazon.com Inc.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2012-01-16-Zappos-Cyber%20Attack/id-cc9aef0d928e4585b2fa3f5512c632ef

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Li Na, Azarenka into 2nd round at Australian Open

Victoria Azarenka of Belarus makes a backhand return to Britain's Heather Watson during their first round match at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 16, 2012. (AP Photo/Andrew Brownbill)

Victoria Azarenka of Belarus makes a backhand return to Britain's Heather Watson during their first round match at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 16, 2012. (AP Photo/Andrew Brownbill)

Victoria Azarenka of Belarus reacts during her match against Britain's Heather Watson during their first round match at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 16, 2012. (AP Photo/Andrew Brownbill)

Victoria Azarenka of Belarus waves to the crowd after defeating Britain's Heather Watson during their first round match at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 16, 2012. (AP Photo/Andrew Brownbill)

CORRECTS MISSPELLING OF RUSSIAN PLAYER'S FAMILY NAME - Italy's Flavio Cipolla makes a backhand return to Russia's Nikolay Davydenko during their first round match at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 16, 2012. (AP Photo/Sarah Ivey)

Blaz Kavcic of Slovenia prepares to serve to Britain's James Ward during their first round match at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 16, 2012. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) ? Li Na returned to the tournament that launched her onto the global stage last year, breezing to a 6-3, 6-1 win over Ksenia Pervak of Kazakhstan on Monday in the first round of the Australian Open.

Li was a trailblazer for China last year, reaching a Grand Slam singles final for the first time before losing to Kim Clijsters in the deciding match of the Australian Open. At the next major, she won the French Open to become the first player from China to win a Grand Slam singles title.

"I hope I can go one better this year," Li said of her Australian Open campaign. She had a confidence-boosting buildup that included match wins at the Hopman Cup and Sydney. "So I was happy what I'm doing. ... Yeah, I think I just continue. This week was another story. So nothing about how I was doing in Perth, how I was doing in Sydney. This tournament is even bigger, more important."

Fifth-seeded Li could meet Clijsters much earlier than the final this time, with the pair drawn into the same tough quarter along with No. 1-ranked Caroline Wozniacki. Clijsters and Wozniacki were both due to play first-round matches later Monday.

Third-seeded Victoria Azarenka won 12 straight games to finish off Heather Watson 6-1, 6-0 in 67 minutes in the opening match on center court.

Azarenka, one of six women who can finish atop the rankings depending on results at Melbourne Park, is coming off a victory over Li in the Sydney International final last week.

"Well, the score is easy. To actually play the match, it's never easy, especially for me coming here only Saturday," she said of the win over Watson, adding she was unsettled because she had to get to Melbourne Park so early there was nowhere open to buy her morning coffee.

"First time I actually hit on center court was today in the morning," she said.

The Sydney champion has gone on to reach the Australian Open final six times since 1997, winning twice. Li Na won in Sydney last year but lost the Australian Open final to Clijsters two weeks later.

After her win over Li in Sydney on Friday night, Azarenka is starting to gain a following in Melbourne's Chinese community.

"After beating Li Na, a lot of Chinese people started recognizing me," the 22-year-old from Belarus said about her experience at a Chinese restaurant. "That's a plus."

She'll get more local attention in coming days, with a second-round match against Australian wild-card Casey Dellacqua, a 6-3, 6-2 winner over Serbia's Bojana Jovanovski.

For now though, the local attention is on 19-year-old Bernard Tomic, who rallied from two sets down to beat No. 22-seeded Fernando Verdasco 4-6, 6-7 (3), 6-4, 6-2, 7-5. A five-set win over the 2009 semifinalist will no doubt give Tomic a confidence boost as he attempts to become the first Australian man to win the title since 1976.

"Today wasn't fun, it was torture," said Tomic, who reached the Wimbledon quarterfinals last year. "I don't know how I found the energy to lift, how I did it, but I thank the crowd."

Eighth-seeded Mardy Fish, the highest ranked of the U.S. men, had a 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 win over Gilles Muller to progress along with 2009 U.S. Open champion Juan Martin del Potro, No. 7 Tomas Berdych, No. 10 Nicolas Almagro, No. 18 Feliciano Lopez, No. 21 Stanislas Wawrinka and No. 30 Kevin Anderson.

Of the six women who can reach the top ranking, eighth-ranked Agnieszka Radwanska has the biggest task, having to win the Australian title. She had a battle on her hands just to make the second round, fending off American Bethanie Mattek-Sands 6-7 (10), 6-4, 6-2 in a three-hour match on Show Court 2. Mattek-Sands hit a 81 winners but also had 65 unforced errors.

Radwanska remained composed after trading breaks early in the third set, winning five of the last six games.

Other women advancing included No. 16-seeded Peng Shuai of China, No. 20 Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia, No. 22 Julia Goerges of Germany, No. 26 Anabel Medina Garrigues of Spain and Eleni Daniilidou of Greece beat 41-year-old Kimiko Date-Krumm of Japan 6-3, 6-2.

After an unusually cool buildup to the tournament, some players were unsettled by the strong breeze and rising temperatures that hit 93 on Monday.

In later matches, Clijsters was due to play Maria Joao Koehler of Portugal and Wozniacki, still searching for her first major title, faced Australia's Anastasia Rodionova.

Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are on the same side of the draw for the first time since 2005.

Third-seeded Federer, a four-time Australian Open winner, was set to play on Rod Laver Arena in a Monday night match against Russian qualifier Alexander Kudryavtsev. Second-ranked Nadal had the last match on Hisense Arena ? the second show court at Melbourne Park ? against Russian Alex Kuznetsov.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-01-16-TEN-Australian-Open/id-5979ffd9df444b7f86ae234ad6aadc60

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Multiple Sclerosis Damage Washed Away By Stream of Young Blood

Even if you were able to communicate and had your mental state preserved, there is no guarantee that you would be able to enjoy life or do much of anything. What would someone in that state do to pass the time?

In two words, 'the internet'

Many of us already spend considerable time learning new things and talking to new people over the net, once you have the ability to sort the crap information from the good there is far more to learn in this world than can possibly be done in a lifetime.

After several years of being trapped in a useless husk of a body and spending your days staring at the ceiling, would you still want to live?

Good old fashioned suicide solves that, if you no longer want to live.

Would people still come to see you after your friends and family passed on, assuming they didn't get the treatment?

Some people enjoy the peace and quiet of being alone, and while human psychology tends to like communication and interaction with others there will always be at

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/cEZRuhGiNuQ/multiple-sclerosis-damage-washed-away-by-stream-of-young-blood

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Obama takes on big government: `It has to change' (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Seeking more power to shrink the government, President Barack Obama on Friday suggested smashing six economic agencies into one, an election-year idea intended to halt bureaucratic nightmares and force Republicans to back him on one of their own favorite issues.

"The government we have is not the government we need," Obama told business owners he'd gathered at the White House. Lawmakers seemed willing to at least consider his ideas.

Sounding like a manager of a disorganized company, and looking like one by pointing to slides as he spoke, Obama asked Congress to give him a kind of reorganization power no president has had since Ronald Reagan. It would guarantee Obama a vote, within 90 days, on any idea he offers to consolidate agencies, provided it saves money and cuts the government.

His first potential target: Merging six major trade and commerce agencies into a one-stop-shopping department for American businesses. The Commerce Department would be among those that would cease to exist.

Attacking senseless duplication across the executive branch he runs, Obama said: "Why is it OK for our government? It's not. It has to change."

Politically, Obama is seeking advantage on the turf often owned by Republicans: Smaller government.

He is attempting to directly counter Republican arguments that he has presided over the kind of regulation, spending and debt that can undermine the economy ? a dominant theme of this year's debate and one often cited by his potential re-election rival, Republican Mitt Romney.

Obama said he would use his expanded authority to recommend the collapsing of other agencies across the government, not just in the business field, without getting specific. Congress would keep the final say over any proposal. But fast-track power would give Obama a stronger hand to skip much of the outside lobbying and turf battles and get right to a vote.

Congressional reaction was mixed, but generally followed a pattern from both parties ? support for making government more efficient, and wariness about how Obama's plan could upend the trade American trade agenda or undermine the prerogatives of Congress.

Republicans skeptically pointed to Obama's past promises as the size of the nation's debt keeps growing.

"It's not often that we see real proposals from this administration to make government smaller," said Rep. Fred Upton, the Michigan Republican who is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "I look forward to reviewing the proposal and hope that it will be the first of many to unravel the red tape."

Indeed, Obama promised more plans to shrink things if given more power, citing inefficiencies all across the government.

In an unusual united front that underscored some bipartisan skepticism, the chairmen of two of Congress' most powerful committees joined in a statement that questioned the president's desire to wrap the U.S. Trade Representative office into a new agency. The House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont, said government cannot be reduced "at the expense of programs that are helping businesses, ranchers and farmers create jobs."

For Obama, it was all about common sense.

He spoke of business people who deal with the government as part of their daily life and are exasperated by a maze of agencies, permits and websites.

"We can do this better," he told them. "So much of the argument out there all the time is up in 40,000 feet, these abstract arguments about who's conservative or who's liberal. ...You guys are just trying to figure out, how do we make things work? How do we apply common sense? And that's what this is about."

Obama had an imperative to deliver. He made the promise to come up with a smart reorganization of the government in his State of the Union speech last January.

Not in decades has the government undergone a sustained reorganization of itself. Presidents have tried from time to time, but each part of the bureaucracy has its own defenders inside and outside the government, which can make merger ideas politically impossible. That's particularly true because "efficiency" is often another way of saying people will lose their jobs.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she hoped Congress would quickly approve Obama's proposal, which she said tracked with worries Democrats have been hearing from small business owners.

Beyond the politics, the merger Obama offered would have big implications for trade and commerce in America.

Presidents held a fast-track reorganizational authority for about 50 years until it ran out during Reagan's presidency in 1984, the White House argued.

Obama wants to merge: the Commerce Department's core business and trade functions; the Small Business Administration; the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative; the Export-Import Bank; the Overseas Private Investment Corporation; and the Trade and Development Agency.

The White House says 1,000 to 2,000 jobs would be cut, but the administration would do so through attrition. The administration says the consolidation would save $3 billion over 10 years by getting rid of duplicative overhead and programs, although it has yet to spell out any plan in detail.

Obama's announcement treads on ground that Romney, the Republican front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, frequently stakes out on the campaign trail. Romney often says he would try to shrink government by eliminating offices that duplicate functions performed somewhere else, citing as examples more than 80 different workforce training programs.

Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said streamlining government was always a potentially good idea but expressed suspicion about whether the plan by Obama would really help business. Don Stewart, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, pledged Obama's plan would get a careful review.

But he added: "It's interesting to see the president finally acknowledge that Washington is out of control."

__

Associated Press writers Kasie Hunt, Alan Fram, Erica Werner and Ken Thomas contributed to this story.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120114/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_trimming_government

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Katy Perry, 'Harry Potter' are People's Choice

LOS ANGELES?? "Harry Potter" cast a spell at the People's Choice awards on Wednesday on a night that also saw big wins for singer Katy Perry at the start of the Hollywood awards season.

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" ? the last installment of the hit movie franchise about the British boy wizard ? won four awards, including best movie and favorite ensemble cast. But the film's stars also weren't present at the ceremony, leaving more time on the CBS broadcast for winners in other categories.

Perry won five trophies, including best female music artist and favorite song for "E.T." But the perky pop star pulled out of Wednesday's live TV ceremony following her split with British comedian Russell Brand two weeks ago.

Perry told fans on Twitter earlier this week that she wouldn't attend the show but that "I want to thank u all for voting for me, fingers crossed!"

"Bridesmaids" won best comedy movie, while "Water for Elephants," starring "Twilight" heartthrob Robert Pattinson, won best movie drama.

Emma Stone took the trophies for both movie actress and favorite comedy actress for her roles in civil rights era film "The Help" and "Crazy, Stupid, Love."

"I moved to L.A. eight years ago this week with my mom, who's right there," Stone said while accepting her pair of crystal trophies. "It is so insane to be standing up here right now. It is hard to describe to you."

Morgan Freeman was bestowed with the first-ever favorite movie icon award.

"When I found out that I'd been nominated for the first-ever People's Choice movie icon award, I decided to look up 'icon,'" Freeman said. "Here's what I found: The first definition said an icon is a tiny picture on a computer screen that represents a file."

Former Disney Channel star Demi Lovato, 19, was voted favorite pop artist, beating the likes of Lady Gaga and Beyonce, while Maroon 5 won best band. Television honors went to "Glee" star Lea Michele and Neil Patrick Harris for "How I Met Your Mother," which also won favorite TV comedy show.

The show was hosted by "Big Bang Theory" star Kaley Cuoco.

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The People's Choice is the earliest of Hollywood's glittering annual awards shows. But unlike the Oscars or the Golden Globes, the People's Choice is totally fan-driven and provides few clues to the likely winners of the movie industry's highest honors in February.

The People's Choice hands out awards in more than 40 categories covering film, music, television. Organizers said on Wednesday that the winners were decided by more than 230 million public votes online, via text and through social media websites.

The popular "Twilight" vampire romance franchise, which has dominated People's Choice for the past two years, was not eligible to compete this year because of the timing of the "Breaking Dawn-Part 1" release in November.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45967175/ns/today-entertainment/

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National Opera plans to stage 'Ring' cycle in 2016 (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Washington National Opera, which recently merged with the Kennedy Center after struggling financially for years, announced an ambitious long-term agenda Tuesday, including plans to stage Wagner's complete "Ring" cycle in 2016.

The company's five-year plan is capped by the commitment to present all four episodes of the "American Ring," 10 years after the company spent considerable time and money developing the production but couldn't complete the endeavor. When funds ran short in Washington, it was left to the San Francisco Opera to complete the cycle.

The "American Ring" draws on settings from U.S. history to explore Wagner's greed, ambition and betrayal.

"It was always intended and inspired by Washington," said Francesca Zambello, the director of the cycle and the Washington opera's new artistic adviser. "We will also have a lot of new cast members for here who audiences will have never seen, so there will be a chance to see something that has grown and evolved and morphed, which is often what happens with `Ring' cycles. They develop like fine wines over time."

Casting and fundraising can begin in advance for the production, which will add $10 million to the budget for the 2016 season.

A year ago, the Kennedy Center agreed to take over business, fundraising and marketing operations of the Washington National Opera to ensure its survival after several years of money troubles. Placido Domingo, who served as the opera's general director for years, left the company last year.

The new arrangement with the Kennedy Center "has given us the possibility to think with more confidence into future seasons," said Christina Scheppelmann, the company's director of artistic operations.

The company is creating a New American Works project as a commissioning program for young composers and librettists to develop new American operas. Scheppelmann said it will be the first major post-conservatory training program to develop new operas.

"There are the conservatories. They work there, they study there, they leave, and then what?" she said. "We cannot expect the composer to then turn around and then write the next masterpiece for a main-stage three-hour opera."

The program begins next season with three student teams charged with creating new 20-minute operas based on contemporary American stories. The new operas eventually will be presented at the Kennedy Center's 500-seat Terrace Theater.

Advanced stages of the program will commission a new one-hour opera each year and a full-length opera on an American theme.

The opera company also is planning a new tradition of presenting holiday operas each year to present programs nearly all year long on various stages.

"These kind of projects are what define us," Zambello said. "This really allows us to make a bold statement and hold up a banner of who we are."

___

Washington National Opera: http://www.dc-opera.org/

___

Follow Brett Zongker at http://twitter.com/DCArtBeat

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/music/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120110/ap_en_mu/us_national_opera_ring_cycle

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