Memorial service to cap 3-day mourning for Paterno (AP)

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. ? A simple two-word message flashed this week on the electronic signboard outside Penn State's Bryce Jordan Center.

"Thanks JoePa."

On Thursday, a capacity crowd of more than 12,000 is expected to pack the arena for one more tribute to Joe Paterno, the Hall of Fame football coach who died Sunday from lung cancer.

His death at age 85 came less than three months after his stunning ouster as head coach in the wake of child sex-abuse charges against a retired assistant. But this week, thousands of alumni, fans, students and former players in Happy Valley are remembering Paterno for his record-setting career, his love for the school and his generosity.

Small clusters of mourners continued to visit Paterno's statue outside the school's football stadium hours before the memorial.

Sharon Winter, a 1963 graduate and long-time season ticket holder from Wernersville, dabbed tears from her eyes as she looked at the hundreds of items that well-wishers since Paterno's death.

"If you haven't lived it, you can't explain it," said Winter, who, with her husband Carl, keeps an apartment in State College. "We never knew the place without Joe. He's always been a part of our lives and who we are."

Many Penn Staters found themselves reflecting on Paterno's impact and the road ahead.

"What's Joe's legacy? The answer, is his legacy is us," former NFL and Nittany Lions receiver Jimmy Cefalo said Wednesday before Paterno's funeral. Cefalo is scheduled to be one of the speakers at the tribute called "A Memorial for Joe" at the arena across the street from Beaver Stadium ? the place Paterno helped turned into a college football landmark.

Paterno's son, former Nittany Lions quarterback coach Jay Paterno, also is expected to speak at the memorial, which will cap three days of public mourning for Paterno. Viewings were held Tuesday and Wednesday morning, before the funeral and burial service for Paterno on Wednesday afternoon at the campus interfaith center where family members attended church services.

Cefalo, who played for Penn State in the `70s, said it will be the most difficult speech of his life. But he offered a hint of what he might say.

"Generations of these young people from coal mines and steel towns who he gave a foundation to," Cefalo said. "It's not (the Division I record) 409 wins, it's not two national championships, and it's not five-time coach of the year (awards). It's us."

The memorial Thursday is expected to feature a speaker for each decade of Paterno's coaching career, according to Charles V. Pittman, a former player who said he will represent the 1960s.

Pittman said he was in Paterno's first class and was the coach's first All-America running back. Pittman's son later played for the Nittany Lions as well, making them the first father-son pair to play for Paterno, Pittman said. They wrote a book about their experiences called "Playing for Paterno."

Pittman said he spoke with Paterno two or three times a year. In 2002, the coach chided Pittman for moving to South Bend, Ind. ? home of rival Notre Dame ? to take a job as a newspaper executive.

"He called me a traitor," said Pittman, senior vice president for publishing at Schurz Communications Inc., an Indiana-based company that owns television and radio stations and newspapers, and a member of the Board of Directors of The Associated Press.

Pittman attended Wednesday's funeral, which also drew other notable guests including former NFL players Franco Harris and Matt Millen; and former defensive coordinator Tom Bradley. Nike founder Phil Knight and actor William Baldwin were there, too.

A procession wound through the Penn State campus and the surrounding State College community. Quiet mourners lined the route, watching with grief and reverence as the electric-blue hearse carrying Paterno's casket slowly drove by.

Some took pictures with their cellphones, or waved to his widow. Others craned their necks hoping for a better glimpse through the crowd sometimes four or more deep.

A family spokesman, Dan McGinn, said Paterno's grandchildren escorted the casket down the aisle during the opening procession, and again at the end of the service. Jay Paterno and his brother, Scott, were among the pallbearers.

___

Associated Press writer Kathy Matheson in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_on_sp_co_ne/fbc_penn_state_paterno

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Michigan Celebrates 175 Birthday On Anniversary Of Statehood (PHOTOS)

Description: Portrait of William Hull taken from life. Pastel on paper. Date: c. 1795-1801 Source: Currently in the collection of the City of Philadelphia Author: James Sharples Sr. (1751-1811)

Description: Portrait of William Hull taken from life. Pastel on paper.
Date: c. 1795-1801
Source: Currently in the collection of the City of Philadelphia
Author: James Sharples Sr. (1751-1811)

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/26/michigan-175-birthday-statehood-anniversary_n_1233931.html

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Automotive Small business Analysis | Startlogic Review

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Automotive Internet business Explore Reviews cover data about the newest happenings within the automotive community, these kinds of since the new launches, creation and innovation in design and style in the motor vehicles, adding of new parts and components for the motor vehicles, etcetera. The reviews are a thorough and specific document in the marketing, managing, and manufacturing ptsahfoundation.com approaches in the automotive firms. make clear the desire and supply atdiscountedprices graphs of many different automotive giants in detail and display their growth potential within the global market place.
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Source: http://www.startlogic-review.org/automotive-small-business-analysis/

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Making Your Pets Get Along Without Creating Havoc in Your Home ...

Pets

Having multiple pets in your home really takes a lot of work in keeping your home and your pets in harmony. Co-existence can happen even if you have multiple pets in your home. Some owners may find it a mission impossible and sometimes even disaster. But for the pet owners, all it takes it some work and they would have a home that has a balanced and harmonious relationship with both the people and the animals that are living in it.?

Let them get to know each other slowly.

It may take a while for your pets to get along. However one of the things that you can do to make your pets get along is slowing introducing them to the different animals in your home. They may be situated different rooms in your home and you can allow them to group in one common room. Each animal would get used to the sight and sounds that the other pets are making. You can start by allowing them to be in the same room for at least an hour and then build up from them until they are fully comfortable with each other?s presence.

How do they react?

After allowing your pets to spend some time in each other company, the next step that owners would need to take is to note of their reaction to each animal?s presence. Do some of the animals feel protective of their area? Are they inquisitive of the other animal?s presence? These are some of the things that would help the owners whether their pet animals would get along together or not.

Treats might also come in handy.

Keeping treats in handy would also help in teaching your pets to get along. You can use the treats as a distraction for older pets as you slowly place the new pet animals in the room and you can reward them with treats for either behaving passively with the new animals.

?

Pet owners may feel daunted with the idea of getting their pets get along with their home without any damages. However, if you let the other animals get to know the other pets in the home by slowly introducing them in a common room for short periods until they get used to the other animals smells and sounds. Pet owners should also take note of how the animals would react in each other?s company. And lastly if everything else fails, you can use treats to distract your pets and reward them for their behavior.

Source: http://intheloopnashville.com/pets/making-your-pets-get-along-without-creating-havoc-in-your-home/

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Engineered bacteria effectively target tumors, enabling tumor imaging potential in mice

ScienceDaily (Jan. 25, 2012) ? Tumor-targeted bioluminescent bacteria have been shown for the first time to provide accurate 3-D images of tumors in mice, further advancing the potential for targeted cancer drug delivery, according to a study published in the Jan. 25 issue of the online journal PLoS ONE.

The specially engineered probiotic bacteria, like those found in many yogurts, were intravenously injected into mice with tumors, after which the researchers took full body bioluminescent images. The 3-D images revealed information about the number and location of the bacteria, to the level of precisely revealing where within the tumor the bacteria were living, providing much more information on the interaction of bacteria and tumors than was previously available using similar two-dimensional imaging methods.

According to the authors, led by Mark Tangney of University College Cork in Ireland, "before now, researchers used luminescence to provide an approximation of where a test organism was within the body, and would then follow up with multiple further experiments using different techniques to try to find a precise location."

This new research suggests that such bacteria can be engineered to contain diagnostic or therapeutic agents that would be produced specifically within the tumor for targeted treatment.

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Journal Reference:

  1. Michelle Cronin, Ali R. Akin, Sara A. Collins, Jeff Meganck, Jae-Beom Kim, Chwanrow K. Baban, Susan A. Joyce, Gooitzen M. van Dam, Ning Zhang, Douwe van Sinderen, Gerald C. O'Sullivan, Noriyuki Kasahara, Cormac G. Gahan, Kevin P. Francis, Mark Tangney. High Resolution In Vivo Bioluminescent Imaging for the Study of Bacterial Tumour Targeting. PLoS ONE, 2012; 7 (1): e30940 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0030940

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

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/8zkKz8QFODQ/120125172319.htm

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Russian probe crash sparks conspiracy theories, confusion

Russia's Phobos-Grunt space probesuffered a debilitating malfunction shortly after its November 2011 launch, which stranded it in low-Earth orbit for more than two months before it succumbed to gravitational forces and plummeted through the atmosphere on Jan. 15.

When an ill-fated Russian Mars probe fell to Earth over the weekend, the spacecraft's untimely demise set off a flurry of conflicting media reports and conspiracy theories.

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Russia's?Phobos-Grunt space probe?suffered a debilitating malfunction shortly after its November 2011 launch, which stranded it in low-Earth orbit for more than two months before it succumbed to gravitational forces and plummeted through the atmosphere on Jan. 15.

The $165 million spacecraft reportedly broke apart over the Pacific Ocean, but inconsistent reports soon surfaced, which sparked different theories about?where the probe had landed, and what had caused it to malfunction in the first place.

The Russian Federal Space Agency is notorious for closely controlling any information released, but part of the issue is the tricky nature of calculating re-entry predictions for dead satellites and other?pieces of orbital debris.

"Predicting an impact point is problematic because it involves fundamental factors that cannot be noted in advance and cannot be measured in real time, such as atmospheric density," space consultant James Oberg, a former NASA space shuttle mission control engineer, told SPACE.com. "These can only be averaged or guessed, sometimes even after re-entry. These known unknowns are more than enough to throw off any kind of prediction by thousands of kilometers." [Photos: Russia's Phobos-Grunt Mission to Mars Moon]

A curious case

Still, the Phobos-Grunt saga was shrouded in mystery long before it crashed back to Earth. The cause of the spacecraft's malfunction has not yet been determined, and claims ranging from accidental radar interference to outright sabotage have been reported by Russian news outlets.?

Russian space officials suggested that strong?emissions from an American radar station?on an island in the Pacific Ocean could have accidentally interfered with Phobos-Grunt, reported the Russian news agency Ria Novosti.

But, these claims were later dismissed by a Russian scientist who was involved with the development of Phobos-Grunt. Alexander Zakharov, a scientist at the Russian Academy of Science Space Research Institute, told Ria Novosti that the radar theory is "far-fetched," and suggested instead that issues with the spacecraft itself were likely to blame.

American experts were also quick to write off the idea that a U.S. radar station could have been the source of the spacecraft's demise ? accidental or otherwise.

"I do not see any evidence that supports the suggestion that the United States somehow played a role in the failure of Phobos-Grunt," Brian Weeden, an orbital debris expert at the Secure World Foundation in Washington, D.C., told SPACE.com in an email. "I have examined the claims made about the U.S. tracking radar on the South Pacific potentially interfering with Phobos-Grunt and they are without any credibility whatsoever."

Following?Phobos-Grunt's fall from space, the Russian Federal Space Agency released an official statement confirming that the spacecraft had landed in the Pacific Ocean. But, the agency admitted this impact zone was based on orbital predictions, and they lacked tracking or visual?data.

This fueled speculation that the spacecraft had overshot its predicted landing zone and broke apart elsewhere along its orbital track, such as over Argentina or Brazil. [6 Biggest Spacecraft to Fall Uncontrolled From Space]

"You're never quite sure," said Emmet Fletcher, Space Surveillance and Tracking Manager at the European Space Agency (ESA). "Eyewitness accounts are good, so if someone sees it coming in and takes a picture, that can tell you about where it lands. But, if you're fortunate and it lands in the ocean, which is where we like things to go, there shouldn't be anyone there. So, if something lands in the South Pacific, you won't have anyone there to observe it."

Tracking a falling spacecraft

Fletcher is part of ESA's?Space Situational Awareness?team which monitors space junk and operates a network of tracking stations. Fletcher could not comment specifically on Phobos-Grunt, but he has worked on coordinated international efforts to deal with spacecraft and orbital debris that has re-entered the atmosphere.

"It's all a learning experience," Fletcher said. "There are lessons learned and conclusions about what we can do better. A lot of work is being done to standardize data."

Right now, different agencies and organizations have different methods for calculating re-entry predictions. This has advantages and disadvantages, Fletcher said, but ultimately, a more standardized approach could help foster more efficient cooperation between entities.

But the story of Phobos-Grunt doesn't end there.

In a recent development, the U.S. military appeared to have?removed links to Phobos-Grunt tracking dataon a public website that ordinarily details such events.

Information about the doomed Russian probe's re-entry was removed from Space Track, a website operated by U.S. Strategic Command. The military also did not publish any confirmation of the probe's fall, which breaks with standard protocol.

This handling of the data seemed unusual, said Weeden, a former U.S. Air Force officer, who once also directed the Joint Space Operations Center's orbital analyst?training?program.

"[T]he final re-entry prediction data is still missing from the U.S. military's website where they normally publish the information," Weeden said. "I do not really have any idea why they would withhold this information for Phobos-Grunt. They have published the full?re-entry prediction data?on three other space objects so far this year, and they are continuing to publish re-entry predictions as normal for the next object, Cosmos 2176, which is a Russian Kompass-2 satellite that is due to re-enter in the next several days. "

Falling spacecraft and human error

But Friday evening (Jan. 20), a spokesperson from U.S. Strategic Command told SPACE.com that data was not, in fact, removed from the Space Track website. Rather, a human error had accidentally misfiled the information.

"All actions taken during the Phobos-Grunt re-entry were designed to improve international data sharing on this event," Julie Ziegenhorn, Deputy Chief of Public Affairs at U.S. Strategic Command, said in an email statement. "Unfortunately, shortly after the re-entry event, there was human error that led to all Phobos-Grunt entries on spacetrack.org being misfiled into the year 2011 data, which made it difficult for customers to access the information. Shortly after the error was discovered, the information was re-posted to the site and is accessible at this time."

Still, experts are hoping that more precise information about Phobos-Grunt's impact zone will be released, but it's unclear which agencies will make their reports available to the public. ESA plans to release a final report on Phobos-Grunt, but officials are currently still waiting for "additional data from non-ESA sources," agency spokesperson Andreas Schepers said in an email.

The Phobos-Grunt spacecraft was?designed to collect soil samples?from the Mars moon Phobos and return them to Earth in 2014. The botched mission is one of several space failures that plagued the Russian Federal Space Agency over the past year.

"It was one of the boldest cavalry charges, and they said it was a cavalry charge to restore Russia's honor in space," Oberg said. "But, cavalry charges can also wind up disastrously, so the use of that metaphor was particularly apt."

You can follow SPACE.com staff writer Denise Chow on Twitter?@denisechow. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter?@Spacedotcom?and on?Facebook.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/VriRWoZoLG8/Russian-probe-crash-sparks-conspiracy-theories-confusion

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First diagnosis of disease by DNA sequencing

DNA sequencing has identified difficult-to-diagnose diseases in humans ? the first time the technology has been used in a clinic.

The technique, which decodes thousands of genes simultaneously, has been used in laboratories to uncover genes related to diseases since 2009.

Now it has successfully moved to the clinic, where patients do not know what is wrong with them and may not know their family history of disease, and clinicians have few clues about which genes might be causing the problem.

Mitochondrial diseases, which affect the way the body produces energy, are notoriously difficult to diagnose. Found in at least one in every 5000 people, the diseases often involve many genes, and symptoms vary across organs. For example, common manifestations can include blindness, seizures, slow digestion and muscle pain.

Currently, diagnosing such disorders can take months or even years, and involves an invasive muscle biopsy. DNA sequencing technology may help to speed things up.

Diagnostic data

Elena Tucker and colleagues from the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute in Sydney, Australia, along with Vamsi Mootha from Harvard Medical School, sequenced the genomes of 42 children who had traits that suggested they carry a mitochondrial disorder. To work out exactly which disorder each child carries, the team looked both at the DNA in their mitochondria and at the 100 or so genes within their nuclear DNA that have already been linked to mitochondrial diseases. They also looked at a further 1000 nuclear genes that play a part in mitochondrial biology.

To distinguish between harmless genetic variations and those that might cause a disease, the team compared the patients' genomes with databases of genetic variation recorded in the general population.

Ten of the children had mutations in genes previously linked to mitochondrial diseases, and so could be given a precise diagnosis. Mutations not previously associated with any disease were found in another 13 children. Tucker says that these patients can expect a full diagnosis once studies confirm the function of these genes.

"We are quite excited," says Tucker. "Most of these diagnoses were in children whose [illnesses] could not easily be diagnosed using traditional methods."

Needle in a haystack

Michael Ryan, a biochemist at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, who was not involved in the work, says the diagnosis rate "will improve" within the next couple of years as the list of genes known to be linked to mitochondrial diseases grows, and it becomes clearer how mutations combine to cause diseases.

"It's a fantastic study," says Matthew McKenzie at Monash University in Melbourne. Finding genetic mutations in mitochondrial patients is "like searching for a needle in a haystack", he says. "I think it was a very good result to transfer to a clinical setting."

Journal reference: Science Translational Medicine, DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.3003310

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Report: Demi Moore Hospitalized for Nitrous Oxide Inhalation


More information is leaking out regarding the hospitalization of Demi Moore last night.

According to TMZ sources, a friend of the actress' called 911 because Moore fell into a semi-conscious state due to nitrous oxide inhalation. She was, oddly enough, apparently taking part in what's known as "whip-its," the name teenagers have given to this cheap, easy process of getting high.

Very Thin Arms

Demi Moore in Harper's BazaarLife After AshtonMoore, D.Demi Moore Movie Premiere PicDemi Moore: So Hungry!

Where is Moore at the moment? Under doctor's care at a Los Angeles hospital, and Radar Online claims to know why.

That site reports that while the star may have been taken away in an ambulance due to the abuse of a substance, the real issue at hand here applies to her dramatic weight loss (depicted in the photos above).

"Demi is in getting treated for anorexia, as well as other issues that caused her seizure," an insider says. "She has not taken care of her health at all lately and has lost a ton of weight."

Regardless of whatever else is going on with Moore, that much is undeniable. We'll continue to wish the actress a full recovery and will keep readers apprised of her progress along the way.

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/01/report-demi-moore-hosptialized-for-nitrious-oxide-inhalation/

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Positions of the Republican candidates, in brief (AP)

WASHINGTON ? A look at where the 2012 Republican presidential candidates stand on a selection of issues.

They are former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.

___

ABORTION:

Gingrich: Platform calls for conservative judges and no subsidies for abortion but not a constitutional abortion ban.

Paul: Says federal government should have no authority either to legalize or ban abortion.

Romney: Says Roe v. Wade should be reversed by a future Supreme Court and states should decide their own abortion laws.

Santorum: Favors constitutional abortion ban and opposes abortion, including in cases of rape.

___

DEBT:

Gingrich: As House speaker in 1990s, engineered passage of a seven-year balanced-budget plan. It was vetoed but helped form a bipartisan balanced budget later.

Paul: Would eviscerate federal government, slashing nearly half its spending, shut five Cabinet-level agencies, end spending on existing conflicts and on foreign aid.

Romney: Defended financial sector bailout, criticized GM and Chrysler bailout. Cap federal spending at 20 percent of GDP.

Santorum: Freeze social and military spending for five years to cut $5 trillion from federal budgets.

___

ECONOMY:

Gingrich: Repeal the financial industry regulations that followed the Wall Street meltdown. Restrict the Fed's power to set interest rates artificially low.

Paul: Return to the gold standard, eliminate the Federal Reserve, eliminate most federal regulations.

Romney: Lower taxes, less regulation, balanced budget, more trade deals to spur growth. Replace jobless benefits with unemployment savings accounts. Repeal new financial-industry regulations.

Santorum: Eliminate corporate taxes for manufacturers, drill for more oil and gas, and slash regulations.

___

EDUCATION:

Gingrich: Shrink Education Department. But supported Obama administration's $4 billion Race to the Top grant competition for states.

Paul: Abolish the Education Department and end the federal role in education.

Romney: Supported No Child Left Behind law. Once favored shutting Education Department, later saw its value in "holding down the interests of the teachers' unions."

Santorum: Voted for No Child Left Behind law, now regrets vote. Wants "significantly" smaller Education Department but not its elimination.

___

ENERGY:

Gingrich: Let oil and natural gas industries drill offshore reserves now blocked from development, end restrictions on Western oil shale development.

Paul: Remove restrictions on drilling, coal and nuclear power, eliminate gasoline tax, provide tax credits for alternative fuel technology.

Romney: Supports drilling in the Gulf, the outer continental shelves, Western lands, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and offshore Alaska; and exploitation of shale oil deposits.

Santorum: Favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, scaling back "oppressive regulation" hindering drilling elsewhere, and eliminating energy subsidies in four years.

___

ENVIRONMENT:

Gingrich: Convert EPA into "environmental solutions agency" devoted to research and "more energy, more jobs and a better environment simultaneously." Once backed tougher environmental regulation.

Paul: Previously said human activity "probably does" contribute to global warming; now calls such science a "hoax." Says emission standards should be set by states or regions.

Romney: Acknowledged that humans contribute to global warming, but later said "we don't know what's causing climate change." Cap and trade would "rocket energy prices."

Santorum: The science establishing human activity as a likely contributor to global warming is "patently absurd" and "junk science."

___

GAY MARRIAGE:

Gingrich: If the Defense of Marriage Act fails, "you have no choice except a constitutional amendment" to ban gay marriage.

Paul: Decisions on legalizing or prohibiting gay marriage should be left to states.

Romney: Favors constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, says policy should be set federally, not by states.

Santorum: Supports constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, not leaving decision to states. "We can't have 50 marriage laws."

___

HEALTH CARE:

All would seek repeal of Obama's health care law.

Gingrich: Prohibit insurers from cancelling or charging hefty increases to insurance holders who get sick. Offer "generous" tax credit to help buy insurance. Previously supported mandatory coverage.

Paul: Opposes compulsory insurance and all federal subsidies for coverage.

Romney: Opposes federal mandate to obtain coverage; introduced mandate in Massachusetts. Proposes "generous" subsidies to help future retirees buy private insurance instead of going on Medicare.

Santorum: Would seek to starve Obama's health care law of money needed to implement it. Supported Bush administration's prescription drug program for the elderly, now regrets doing so.

___

IMMIGRATION:

Gingrich: In contrast to most rivals, supports option of giving legal status to illegal immigrants with deep roots in the U.S. and who have lived otherwise lawfully. Supports path to citizenship for illegal immigrants' children who perform U.S. military service. Make English the official language. Divert more Homeland Security assets to at Mexican border.

Paul: Do "whatever it takes" to secure the border, end right to citizenship of U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants, no social services for illegal immigrants, aggressive deportation.

Romney: Would veto legislation that seeks to award legal status to some young illegal immigrants who attend college or serve in the armed forces. Favors complete U.S.-Mexico border fence, opposes education benefits to illegal immigrants.

Santorum: Supports complete border fence, opposes education benefits to illegal immigrants.

___

SOCIAL SECURITY:

Gingrich: Give younger workers the option of diverting Social Security taxes to private retirement accounts.

Paul: Says younger workers should be able to opt out of Social Security taxes and retirement benefits; benefits for today's retirees should be protected.

Romney: Starting with workers now under 55, raise age to qualify for full benefits, and limit inflation increases for wealthier beneficiaries. Protect status quo for people 55 and older.

Santorum: Proposes immediate steps to lower benefits for wealthier retirees, raise the age to qualify for full benefits and restrict inflation increases in benefits, both for current and future retirees. Supports option of private retirement accounts.

___

TAXES:

All support eliminating the estate tax and keeping Bush-era tax cuts.

Gingrich: Choice of filing under current system or paying a 15 percent tax, preserving mortgage interest and charitable deductions. Cut corporate tax to 12.5 percent.

Paul: Eliminate the federal income tax and the IRS, and defund close to half the government.

Romney: No one with adjusted gross income under $200,000 should be taxed on interest, dividends or capital gains. Cut corporate tax rate to 25 percent.

Santorum: Triple the personal exemption for dependent children, reduce the number of tax brackets to two ? 10 percent and 28 percent, exempt domestic manufacturers from the corporate tax and halve the top rate for other business.

___

TERRORISM:

Gingrich: Supports extending and strengthening investigative powers of Patriot Act. Supports continued use of Guantanamo Bay detention for suspected terrorists. Supported creation of Homeland Security apparatus. In 2009, said of waterboarding: "It's not something we should do."

Paul: Opposes Patriot Act as an infringement on liberty. Says terrorists would not be motivated to attack America if the U.S. ended its military presence abroad. Says: "Waterboarding is torture. And it's illegal under international law and under our law. It's also immoral."

Romney: No constitutional rights for foreign terrorism suspects. Campaign says he does not consider waterboarding to be torture.

Santorum: Defends creation of Homeland Security Department. Voted to reauthorize Patriot Act. Says airport screeners should employ profiling; "Muslims would be someone you'd look at, absolutely." Supports continued use of Guantanamo Bay detention but says Americans accused of being enemy combatants should have right to challenge indefinite detention in court. Says waterboarding has proved effective.

___

WAR:

Gingrich: Supported Iraq war and opposed early withdrawal. Said U.S. forces should not have been used in Libya campaign, after he had called for such intervention. Opposes "precipitous" pullout from Afghanistan.

Paul: Bring most or all troops home from foreign posts "as quick as the ships could get there." Opposed U.S. intervention in Libya. Cut Pentagon budget.

Romney: Has not specified the troop numbers behind pledge to ensure the "force level necessary to secure our gains and complete our mission successfully" in Afghanistan.

Santorum: Says he would order bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities unless they were opened for international arms inspectors. Proposes freezing defense spending for five years.

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Associated Press writers Brian Bakst and Chris Tomlinson contributed to this report.

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Study Fails to Confirm Existence of Arsenic-Based Life

A scanning electron micrograph of GFAJ-1, the bacterium at the center of the controversy. Image: Science/AAAS

A strange bacterium found in California?s Mono Lake cannot replace the phosphorus in its DNA with arsenic, according to researchers who have been trying to reproduce the results of a controversial report published in Science in 2010.

A group of scientists, led by microbiologist Rosie Redfield at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, have posted data on Redfield's blog that, she says, present a ?clear refutation? of key findings from the paper.

?Their most striking claim was that arsenic had been incorporated into the backbone of DNA, and what we can say is that there is no arsenic in the DNA at all,? says Redfield.

But the authors of the Science paper are not retreating from their conclusions. ?We are thrilled that our results are stimulating more experiments from the community as well as ourselves,? first author Felisa Wolfe-Simon, now at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, wrote in an e-mail to Nature. ?We do not fully understand the key details of the website experiments and conditions. So we hope to see this work published in a peer-reviewed journal, as this is how science best proceeds.?

Open criticism
In the Science paper, Wolfe-Simon and her co-workers reported that they had found a bacterium called GFAJ-1 that can use the element arsenic in place of phosphorus in molecules essential to life (see Arsenic-eating microbe may redefine chemistry of life). This was surprising because phosphorus is thought to be essential for life, whereas arsenic is usually toxic.

But after Redfield and others raised numerous concerns (see Microbe gets toxic response), many of which were published as technical comments in Science, Redfield put the results to the test, documenting her progress on her blog to advance the cause of open science.

Redfield grew GFAJ-1 bacteria in arsenic and a very small amount of phosphorus, as had Wolfe-Simon and her colleagues. She then purified the DNA from the cells and sent it to Marshall Louis Reaves, a graduate student at Princeton University in New Jersey. Reaves used a caesium chloride gradient to separate the cells' DNA into fractions of varying densities, then used a mass spectrometer to identify the elements present in each fraction of DNA. He found no arsenic in any of the DNA.

But Redfield?s methods might leave defenders of the arsenic life hypothesis some wiggle room.?For instance, Redfield was unable to grow any cells entirely without phosphorus.* Because it is not clear how much phosphorus was used to grow the bacteria in the original paper, its authors could argue that Redfield's cells were not sufficiently phosphorus-starved to be forced to use arsenic in its place.

Wolfe-Simon also says she would not expect to find arsenic in DNA analysed on a caesium chloride gradient, because the arsenic-containing DNA might be so fragile that it would break apart and appear only in very faint bands separate from the bulk of the cell's DNA.

However, Redfield says that Reaves analysed all of the DNA purified on the gradient, so he would have detected any arsenic. Redfield also analysed the size of DNA from cells that had been stored for two months in her lab refrigerator. The DNA fragments from cells that had been grown with and without arsenic were similar sizes, indicating that DNA from arsenic-grown cells is not unstable.

'Relatively definitive refutation'
David Borhani, a biochemist and structural biologist in Hartsdale, New York, would have liked to see additional control experiments ? to determine, for instance, the lowest possible level of arsenic that Redfield could have detected, and to find out where any arsenic from the GFAJ-1 DNA ends up when the DNA is purified on a caesium chloride gradient. ?With appropriate controls, the caesium-chloride-gradient data would constitute a relatively definitive refutation, at least for most scientists,? he wrote in an e-mail to Nature.

Other researchers who published critiques of the arsenic-life paper say that Redfield and her collaborators have produced a reasonable refutation of its findings. But it will be difficult to definitively prove the complete absence of arsenic from GFAJ-1 DNA.

?I fear that there will be a prolonged slow rearguard battle of its advocates until the whole story will finally be forgotten, rather than an outright retraction of the original paper,? says Stefan Oehler, a molecular biologist at the Alexander Fleming Biomedical Sciences Research Center in Vari, Greece.

Ronald Oremland at the US Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California, who led the arsenic-life work, says that the results "do not look encouraging for the arsenic-in-DNA hypothesis", but adds that he will issue an official comment only once peer reviewers have examined Redfield's data.

Redfield and her collaborators hope to submit their work to Science by the end of the month. She says that if Science refuses to publish the work because it has been discussed on blogs, it will become an important test case for open science.

Wolfe-Simon is still looking for arsenic in the bacterium. ?We are looking for arsenate in the metabolites, as well as the assembled RNA and DNA, and expect others may be doing the same. With all this added effort from the community, we shall certainly know much more by next year.?

Redfield, however, does not plan to do additional experiments to address objections raised by defenders of the arsenic-life hypothesis. ?We've done our part. This is a clean demonstration, and I see no point in spending any more time on this,? she says.

This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on January 20, 2012.

*Correction (1/24/12): This sentence was edited after posting. It originally stated that Redfield was unable to grow any cells without adding a small amount of phosphorus.

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