(Reuters) ? Elpida Memory Inc, Japan's biggest maker of DRAM chips, agreed to sell preferred stock in its unit EBS Inc to Taiwanese semiconductor company Walton Advanced Engineering Inc for 3.75 billion yen ($48.27 million), the Nikkei said.
EBS manages funds for its parent and the transaction is expected to be completed in mid-December, the business daily reported.
Walton and Elpida have a long-standing relationship, with the Taiwanese firm assembling and testing DRAM memory chips for the Japanese memory chip manufacturer, the Nikkei said.
With DRAM prices falling nearly 50 percent over the past half year, Elpida's financial condition has soured, the daily said.
Elpida, the world's No. 3 dynamic random-access memory chip maker, reported a 56.7 billion yen consolidated net loss for the April-September period, the Nikkei reported.
In this environment, Elpida has been selling preferred stock and plowing the proceeds directly into its business, the newspaper said.
Funds obtained through selling EBS shares to Walton will be partly used for debt repayment and equipment purchases, the Nikkei reported.
($1 = 77.6800 Japanese yen)
(Reporting by Shounak Dasgupta in Bangalore; Editing by Maju Samuel)
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Russia's Phobos-Grunt probe, which was supposed to fly to one of Mars's moons and return with a soil sample, broke down shortly after launch and is now uselessly orbiting Earth. Is Russia's space industry on the verge of collapse?
Russia's unsuccessful launch of a Mars moon probe points up the problems of a once-pioneering space industry struggling to recover after a generation of brain drain and crimped budgets.
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An unmanned craft, launched last Wednesday in what was meant to be post-Soviet Russia's interplanetary debut, got stuck in Earth's orbit and may drop down into the atmosphere within days.
The failure rattled Russian space officials but came as no surprise to many industry veterans who saw the ambitious mission to bring back dirt from the Martian moon Phobos as a pipe dream.
"Unfortunately, no miracle occurred," veteran cosmonaut Yuri Baturin quipped to the state-run newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta.
Despite improved budgets and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's pledge to restore pride in the sector, the Russian space industry is saddled the legacy of a lost generation of expertise, in many cases obsolete ground equipment and outdated Soviet-era designs.
It is plagued by the same corner cutting, decaying infrastructure and lack of effective quality control that are blamed for frequent disasters across Russia's industries, from coal mine and dam explosions to air crashes.
The Soviet Union began the space age over half a century ago by launching the satellite Sputnik, but Russia has been entirely absent from space beyond Earth's orbit for 20 years, while U.S. probes have voyaged into the farthest reaches of the solar system. Even newcomers India, China and Japan have sent unmanned missions to the moon and beyond.
Post-Soviet Russia's sole attempt to strike out to other planets ended in the spectacular breakup of its Mars-96 probe in the atmosphere in 1996.
Smarting from the crash, Russia withdrew from deep space for 15 years. The $165 million Phobos-Grunt probe, first conceived in the 1990s, was to be its comeback mission.
The troubles cap a humiliating string of costly botched launches that marred this year's celebration of the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's pioneering human space flight.
"It's very sad but it's a result of the difficult period we lived through in the 1990s. We are working almost from scratch," lead Phobos-Grunt mission scientist Alexander Zakharov said.
Space agency Roskosmos largely survived the funding crunch by selling tourists and foreign astronauts seats on its Soviet-design space capsules and lofting foreign satellites on rockets converted from Soviet-era missiles.
Since the U.S. space shuttles retired this summer, Russia's Soyuz are the only ships flying crews to the International Space Station (ISS), at a cost of about $350 million a year to NASA.
But Russia has nothing to be proud of in this, its new space agency chief told lawmakers last month in a gloomy speech outlining "deep" sector problems at the root of recent mishaps.
"While other countries are developing new things, we're forced to focus on ... old spacecraft," Vladimir Popovkin said.
Moscow has over-prioritized human space flight, he said, and must shift focus back to deep-space exploration and Earth observation, offering greater science and technology returns.
PHILADELPHIA ? Three American students arrested during a protest in Cairo and ordered released by an Egyptian court are in the midst of being processed by authorities there, a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman said Friday.
Katharina Gollner-Sweet, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, told The Associated Press that Derrik Sweeney, Luke Gates and Gregory Porter are being processed for their eventual release one day after a court ordered them released from police custody, according to information from Egyptian officials.
"According to the latest information that the Egyptians gave out they were ordered released in the court but they are in an administrative out-processing stage," Gollner-Sweet said. "We are continuing to provide normal consular services."
The three U.S. college students, who attend the American University in Cairo, were arrested on the roof of a university building near Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square on Sunday. Officials accused them of throwing firebombs at security forces fighting with protesters.
A court in Egypt ordered the release of the students, a lawyer in Philadelphia confirmed Thursday.
Attorney Theodore Simon, who represents Porter, a 19-year-old student at Drexel University in Philadelphia, said he spoke by phone with Porter, describing the student's demeanor as "calm and measured, demonstrating a maturity well beyond his 19 years."
"He was extremely thankful and appreciative for our efforts and the unconditional support of his mother and father," Simon said.
Porter is from Glenside, Pa., a suburb of Philadelphia.
Sweeney's mother, Joy Sweeney, said she is "absolutely elated" at the news of her 19-year-old son's release.
"I can't wait to give him a huge hug and tell him how much I love him," she said, adding that the news of the court order was the best Thanksgiving gift.
The 21-year-old Gates is a student at Indiana University.
His parents released a statement Thursday through the school, saying they were "extremely happy" to hear that their son would soon be released.
"This has been a difficult situation, and while we are disappointed that he will be held a few days longer to complete administrative procedures related to his release, we're confident he will be home soon," Bill and Sharon Gates wrote.
The State Department released a statement saying it was trying to independently confirm the reports of the students' release.
Earlier Thursday, Egypt officials said the Abdeen Court in Cairo had ordered their release. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media. They did not say when the students would be released.
Joy Sweeney said she wasn't sure when her son, a student at Georgetown University, would be returning to their home in Jefferson City, Mo.
"If he can find his passport (then he'll leave) tomorrow, if not, it won't be until Monday," she said.
She said the U.S. consul general in Egypt, Roberto Powers, recommended that her son leave Egypt as soon as possible.
"He also conveyed that that was what Derrik had conveyed to him that he wanted to do. He was enjoying his experience but (was) ready to be done with it," Sweeney said.
Derrik Sweeney interned for U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., earlier this year. Luetkemeyer's spokesman Paul Sloca, said the congressman is "extremely pleased that he's safe and coming home, especially on Thanksgiving."
Sweeney said she had not prepared for a Thanksgiving celebration, although a friend had taken her some food. She said the idea of a Thanksgiving feast had seemed "absolutely irrelevant" before the news of her son's pending freedom.
Asked what she thought her son would take away from his arrest, Sweeney said she thought he would make something useful of it.
"I'm sure that he'll put a life-lesson learning experience into a positive story," Sweeney said. "He's a writer, he will write about this experience."
___
Associated Press reporter Ed Donahue in Washington contributed to this report. Hadeel Al-Shalchi reported from Cairo.
NEW YORK (AP) ? Oil rose Friday after a see-sawing session in post-holiday, low-volume trading, but was down slightly for the week.
The benchmark for crude oil in the U.S. rose 60 cents to settle at $96.77 a barrel. It dropped $1.84 on Wednesday, before markets in the U.S. were closed for the Thanksgiving holiday. On the week, however, oil lost 0.7 percent.
Oil had fallen earlier as Europe's debt crisis continues to undermine confidence the continent will avoid recession next year.
In London, Brent crude for January delivery fell $1.38 to settle at $106.40 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
Investor concern that fiscal austerity measures aimed at lowering Europe's debt levels will hurt global economic growth and oil demand has helped pull crude back from above $103 last week.
Uncertainty about contagion spreading from Greece to Portugal, Italy, Spain and Ireland has begun to undermine confidence in Germany and France. The yield on Germany's 10-year bond rose above the 10-year UK government bond for the first time since 2009. And on Friday Standard & Poor's downgraded Belgium's financial standing, citing the country's government stalemate and the looming European recession.
"The eurozone sovereign crisis is starting to threaten the bond markets of even the most solid European economy ? Germany," Barclays Capital said in a report.
In the U.S., meanwhile, the average price for a gallon of gas has fallen to $3.31 (87 cents a liter) from $3.38 in just a week. The discount is an even heftier 20 cents a gallon (3.8 liters) compared with two months ago. In fact, American shoppers driving from store to store on the first weekend of the holiday shopping season are paying some of the lowest prices for gas since late winter.
Even with the recent declines, however, the price of gas is 44 cents a gallon higher than on Black Friday a year ago. Tom Kloza, chief oil analysts at Oil Price Information Service, says Americans are on track to spend $488 billion on gas this year. That will eclipse the record set in 2008 by $40 billion. OPIS said last week that U.S. households have spent 8.4 percent of their income on gasoline this year, up from 6.7 percent in 2010 and 7.9 percent in 2008.
The national average for gasoline peaked just below $4 a gallon ($1.05 a liter) in May.
That may be one reason that malls are bustling this year with shoppers looking marked down cashmere sweaters, videogame consoles, tablet computers and flat-screen televisions. Retailers hope shoppers reinvest their savings at the pump. Kloza estimates that, at current demand, for every 10 cent decline in the price of gas, Americans save a total of $36 million to spend elsewhere.
Kloza says current demand for gas in the U.S. remains "extraordinarily poor." That's the main reason why gas prices are dropping even though oil has risen about $17 a barrel, or 21 percent, in the last two months.
In other Nymex trading, heating oil dropped 3.1 cents to $2.94 per gallon and gasoline futures lost 4.45 cents to $2.5205 per gallon. Natural gas added 5.7 cents to $3.665 per 1,000 cubic feet.
RABAT (Reuters) ? A parliamentary election on Friday could produce Morocco's most representative government to date after King Mohammed responded to Arab Spring uprisings by giving up some of his powers, but many Moroccans doubt the vote will bring profound change.
The election will be closely watched as a test case for the ability of Arab monarchies to craft gradual reforms that satisfy demands for greater democracy without revolts of the kinds seen in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Syria.
In contrast to previous elections when the result was clear in advance, Friday's vote is a closely-run contest between a moderate Islamist opposition party and a new coalition of liberals with close ties to the royal palace.
Under constitutional reforms backed by the king earlier this year, the new government that will emerge from the election will have more powers than ever before, though the king still has the final say on issues of defense, security and religion.
But the move toward greater democracy could falter if polling day is marred by the kinds of vote-buying that has happened in the past, and if afterwards there are signs that palace officials are trying to meddle in the new government.
"It's crunch-time, really: a choice between the old style regime or some change," said Lise Storm, a senior Middle East lecturer at Britain's Exeter University.
"The rulers know they cannot continue to run public affairs the way they had been doing in the past."
EVOLUTION, NOT REVOLUTION
Morocco's leaders -- and their Western allies -- say the country is a model for the Middle East that offers a positive alternative to the convulsions of the Arab Spring.
Since succeeding his father to the throne in 1999, King Mohammed has won international praise for improving human rights.
When demonstrations, inspired by the Arab Spring, broke out earlier this year, he responded deftly by backing constitutional reforms that took much of the momentum out of the protest movement.
But there remains a vocal minority who say the king's reforms do not go far enough. Thousands of people joined protests in several cities at the weekend to back calls for a boycott of the election.
The bigger concern for the palace is not the boycott but that apathy among ordinary Moroccans will produce a low turnout, taking the shine off what is being portrayed as a showcase for democracy.
Away from Morocco's political classes, many people struggle to see how this election represents anything new, especially as the main players have all been on the scene for years and are a part of the establishment.
"This election will be no different from the others, nothing has changed," said Redouan, a 21-year-old man in a working class district of the capital, Rabat. "Same faces, same names. Same political parties."
The monarch has said he wants elections that are "free, fair and competitive." But there are already signs the murky electoral practices of the past are still in play.
"Money is what moves voter turnout in Morocco," said Ali Anozla, editor of independent news portal Lakome.com.
"The bulk of the candidates running in these elections are prominent land owners and businessmen and we are already hearing once again of massive use of money in these polls," he added.
CLOSE CONTEST
Under this year's constitutional reforms, the king will choose the next prime minister from the party that wins the biggest share of the vote. It is already clear Abbas Al Fassi, who holds the job now, will be replaced because his Istiqlal party is widely unpopular.
The moderate Islamists of the Justice and Development Party (PJD), say they believe they can take the largest share of seats. They hope to replicate the success of moderate Islamists in Tunisia who won an election last month.
Their principal challenger is the Coalition for Democracy, an alliance of eight parties that was formed in October.
The bloc is led by the finance minister in the outgoing government but many analysts say its principal power-broker is a friend of the king who used to hold a senior interior ministry post before founding a political party.
With opinion polls banned in Morocco in the 15 days before polling day, it is not clear which of them will win. Analysts say it is too close to call.
Whichever bloc emerges with the most seats in parliament, they are unlikely to be able to form a government on their own. That will force them to seek an alliance, and possibly even a "grand coalition" between the Islamists and the liberal bloc.
That worries economists, who want to see a cohesive government able to narrow the budget deficit, reduce the 30-percent-plus youth unemployment rate and address the needs of the 8.5 million Moroccans below the poverty line.
"What we want to see is a strong government," said Liz Martins, a senior Middle East economist at HSBC.
"Our concern is that Morocco ends up with a divided parliament and a not so-homogenous government that will not be able to get anything done. That would be a danger."
(Additional reporting by Zakia Abdennebi; Editing by Christian Lowe and Sophie Hares)
Thousands of Egyptians perform Friday prayers during a rally in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Nov. 25, 2011. Tens of thousands of protesters chanting, "Leave, leave!" are rapidly filling up Cairo's Tahrir Square in what promises to be a massive demonstration to force Egypt's ruling military council to yield power. The Friday rally is dubbed by organizers as "The Last Chance Million-Man Protest," and comes one day after the military offered an apology for the killing of nearly 40 protesters in clashes on side streets near Tahrir over the last week. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
Thousands of Egyptians perform Friday prayers during a rally in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Nov. 25, 2011. Tens of thousands of protesters chanting, "Leave, leave!" are rapidly filling up Cairo's Tahrir Square in what promises to be a massive demonstration to force Egypt's ruling military council to yield power. The Friday rally is dubbed by organizers as "The Last Chance Million-Man Protest," and comes one day after the military offered an apology for the killing of nearly 40 protesters in clashes on side streets near Tahrir over the last week. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
Pro-reform leader and Nobel peace laureate Mohamed El-Baradei, center, is surrounded by protesters during his arrival for Friday prayers in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Nov. 25, 2011. Tens of thousands of protesters chanting, "Leave, leave!" are rapidly filling up Cairo's Tahrir Square in what promises to be a massive demonstration to force Egypt's ruling military council to yield power. The Friday rally is dubbed by organizers as "The Last Chance Million-Man Protest," and comes one day after the military offered an apology for the killing of nearly 40 protesters in clashes on side streets near Tahrir over the last week. (AP Photo/Bela Szandelszky)
An injured Egyptian attends a protest in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Nov. 25, 2011. Tens of thousands of protesters chanting, "Leave, leave!" are rapidly filling up Cairo's Tahrir Square in what promises to be a massive demonstration to force Egypt's ruling military council to yield power. The Friday rally is dubbed by organizers as "The Last Chance Million-Man Protest," and comes one day after the military offered an apology for the killing of nearly 40 protesters in clashes on side streets near Tahrir over the last week. (AP Photo/Bela Szandelszky)
Thousands of Egyptians perform Friday prayers during a rally in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Nov. 25, 2011. Tens of thousands of protesters chanting, "Leave, leave!" are rapidly filling up Cairo's Tahrir Square in what promises to be a massive demonstration to force Egypt's ruling military council to yield power. The Friday rally is dubbed by organizers as "The Last Chance Million-Man Protest," and comes one day after the military offered an apology for the killing of nearly 40 protesters in clashes on side streets near Tahrir over the last week. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
CAIRO (AP) ? Egypt's military rulers picked a prime minister from ousted leader Hosni Mubarak's era to head the next government, according to state television, a choice that will almost certainly intensify criticism by tens of thousands of protesters accusing the generals of trying to extend the old guard and demanding they step down immediately.
Kamal el-Ganzouri, 78, served as prime minister between 1996 and 1999 and was deputy prime minister and planning minister before that. He also was a provincial governor under the late President Anwar Sadat.
"Illegitimate, illegitimate!" chanted the crowds at Cairo's central Tahrir Square on hearing news of el-Ganzouri's appointment.
"Not only was he prime minister under Mubarak, but also part of the old regime for a total of 18 years," said protester Mohammed el-Fayoumi, 29. "Why did we have a revolution then?"
The announcement followed a meeting late Thursday between el-Ganzouri and senior military ruler Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi. Tantawi was Mubarak's defense minister of 20 years and served in the government headed by el-Ganzouri.
El-Ganzouri will replace Essam Sharaf, who resigned this week after nearly nine months in office amid deadly clashes between police and protesters calling for the military to immediately step down.
Sharaf was criticized for being weak and beholden to the generals. The television announcement said el-Ganzouri will enjoy "authority," but did not elaborate.
El-Ganzouri's appointment was likely to deepen the anger of the protesters, already seething over the military's perceived reluctance to dismantle the legacy of Mubarak's 29-year rule.
Protesters chanting, "Leave, leave!" filled up Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday for what has been dubbed by organizers as "The Last Chance Million-Man Protest" aimed at forcing the military council to yield power.
Pro-reform leader and Nobel peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei was mobbed by hundreds of supporters as he arrived in the square and took part in Friday prayers, leaving shortly afterward.
"He is here to support the revolutionaries," said protester Ahmed Awad, 35. "He came to see for himself the tragedy caused by the military."
Swelling crowds of demonstrators chanted, "The people want to bring down the marshal", in reference to Tantawi, who took over the reins of power from Mubarak.
The rally comes one day after the military offered an apology for the killing of nearly 40 protesters in five days of deadly clashes, mostly centered around Tahrir Square. This was the longest spate of uninterrupted violence since the 18-day uprising that toppled Mubarak on Feb. 11. The streets were relatively calm on Friday as a truce negotiated Thursday in Cairo continued to hold.
The military also has said that parliamentary elections due to start Monday will go ahead on schedule despite the unrest in Cairo and a string of other cities to the north and south of the capital.
Protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square ? angry at the military for failing to stabilize the country, salvage the economy or bring democracy ? say they will not leave the sprawling plaza until the generals step down in favor of a civilian presidential council. Their show of resolve resembles that of the rallies which forced Mubarak to give up power.
The military has rejected calls to immediately step down, saying its claim to power is supported by the warm welcome given to troops who took over the streets from the discredited police early in the anti-Mubarak uprising as well as an overwhelming endorsement for constitutional amendments they proposed in a March referendum.
Tantawi has offered another referendum on whether his military council should step down immediately.
Such a vote, activists say, would divide the nation and likely open the door for a deal between the military and political groups, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt's largest and best organized group, the Brotherhood is notorious for its opportunism and thirst for power. It was empowered after the fall of Mubarak, regaining legitimacy after spending nearly 60 years as an outlawed group.
CAIRO?? Tens of thousands of Egyptians demanding an end to military rule converged on Cairo's Tahrir square Friday, while the White House hardened its rhetoric, urging Egypt's military to give way "as soon as possible" to full civilian rule.
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"Full transfer of power to a civilian government must take place in a just and inclusive manner that responds to the legitimate aspirations of the Egyptian people, as soon as possible," said White House press secretary Jay Carney.
The military men who took over after people power toppled President Hosni Mubarak on February 11 are themselves under fire from protesters who accuse them of clinging to power, leading to street battles that look like a replay of February's unrest.
The ruling army council named Kamal el-Ganzouri, 78, who served as prime minister under Mubarak from 1996 to 1999, to head a national salvation government. Prime Minister Essam Sharaf's cabinet resigned earlier this week amid the protests.
El-Ganzouri said the military has given him greater powers than his predecessor and that military ruler Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi has no intention of staying in power.
'Illegitimate'
In a televised new conference, the 78-year-old prime minister looked uncomfortable, grasping for words and repeatedly pausing.
"Illegitimate, illegitimate!" chanted the crowds at Cairo's Tahrir Square on hearing news of el-Ganzouri's appointment late on Thursday.
American filmmaker in Cairo tells of arrest ordeal
"Not only was he prime minister under Mubarak, but also part of the old regime for a total of 18 years," said protester Mohammed el-Fayoumi, 29. "Why did we have a revolution then?"
The United States, long a bedrock supporter of Egypt's military, earlier called on the generals to step aside "as soon as possible" and give real power to the new cabinet "immediately."
The military rulers say they are working on a transition of power, including parliamentary elections set for Monday, which could be overshadowed if violence continues. Some protesters say the army cannot be trusted to hold a clean vote.
US woman: I was sexually assaulted by Egypt police
Protesters chanted "leave, leave!" as they gathered in Tahrir Square on Friday.
The rally is dubbed by organizers as "The Last Chance Million-Man Protest," and comes one day after the military offered an apology for the killing of nearly 40 protesters in clashes on side streets near Tahrir over the last week.
Pro-reform leader and Nobel peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei was among those in the square.
"He is here to support the revolutionaries," said protester Ahmed Awad, 35. "He came to see for himself the tragedy caused by the military."
Swelling crowds of demonstrators chanted, "The people want to bring down the marshal", in reference to Tantawi, who took over the reins of power from Mubarak.
A truce between security forces and hard-line protesters brought
a nervous calm to the streets near Tahrir on Thursday
after five days of clashes that turned part of the capital into a battle zone and left residents choking in clouds of tear gas.
The army council said it was doing all it could to prevent more violence, offered condolences and compensation to families of the dead and a swift enquiry into who caused the unrest.
But reports of unjustified police brutality that have swollen the ranks of protesters continue to filter out in the media.
American students freed, leaving Egypt
Also Friday, three American students arrested during a protest in Cairo were released and prepared to take a flight out of the country, NBC News reported.
Derrik Sweeney, Luke Gates and Gregory Porter, who attend the American University in Cairo, were arrested on the roof of a university building near Tahrir Square on Sunday.
Officials accused them of throwing firebombs at security forces fighting with protesters. A court in Egypt ordered the release of the students.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Israeli startup Superfly, which debuted at TechCrunch Disrupt in 2010, launched earlier this year as a service to organize travel rewards (i.e. frequent flier miles or hotel rewards) and educate users on how to maximize their value when using rewards points or miles. Today, Superfly is taking this a step further by allowing users to book air travel through the website and receive personalized recommendations based on status, miles and more.
LONDON (Reuters) ? British singer George Michael has postponed a series of concerts after falling ill with pneumonia, his website said on Wednesday.
The 48-year-old former Wham! frontman called off a planned gig in Vienna on Monday and another in Strasbourg on Wednesday, and now his Cardiff dates have been put on hold.
"With great regret, George Michael has been forced to postpone his November 26 and 27 shows in Cardiff, Wales, due to his ongoing illness.
"George was recently forced to postpone tour dates in Vienna and Strasbourg under doctor's orders after being diagnosed with pneumonia. He is currently receiving treatment," a statement read.
Michael, whose chart-topping hits as a solo artist include "Faith" and "Careless Whisper", also announced that an earlier cancellation, an October 26 concert at London's Royal Albert Hall, would be rescheduled for May 2, 2012.
Details of other postponed shows will follow.
(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) ? By now, it's certainly no surprise that Tilda Swinton has turned in another riveting performance in a dark and difficult movie; from "Orlando" to "I Am Love," that's what she does, with occasional detours to play the white witch in the Narnia films and win an Oscar as a corporate lawyer in "Michael Clayton."
Swinton's latest, which has made her a dark-horse Oscar candidate, is "We Need to Talk About Kevin," an intense, intimate and disquieting drama drawn from Lionel Shriver's novel about a woman struggling through the aftermath of a horrific crime committed by her son.
Her performance is often wordless; she may be the only person in the family aware of the depths of evil that reside within her son (played by Ezra Miller and two younger actors), but she's unable to communicate with her husband (John C. Reilly) or turn to anyone in the aftermath of Kevin's actions.
Oscilloscope Laboratories is opening the film on December 9 for a one-week Oscar-qualifying run. Its commercial release begins on January 27.
Swinton flew to Los Angeles from her home in Northern Scotland for the Governors Awards earlier in the month. Not surprisingly, she's out of the loop when it comes to Hollywood buzz -- when I told her that Billy Crystal had signed on to host the Oscars just moments before we met, she was completely unaware of the turmoil that had surrounded the show in the previous few days.
TheWrap: Billy Crystal just tweeted that he's hosting the Oscars.
Tilda Swinton: Things have been happening with that show, haven't they? I didn't know anything about it, and then I got to L.A. and people were talking about something. But the news doesn't reach those of us who live on other planets.
TheWrap: Yeah, the original producer had to quit because he said "rehearsal is for fags" at a Q&A, and then talked about his sex life on the Howard Stern show.
Swinton: How fantastic! How fantastic.
TheWrap: You went through that circus once, with "Michael Clayton."
Swinton: Well, apparently so, but it didn't feel like it. I was somehow oblivious at the time. I'm trying to remember anything from it. I think maybe the second time you can feel it happening. It's like taking an anesthetic the first time. You don't feel it going in.
TheWrap: I understand your agent has your Oscar.
Swinton: My agent has my Oscar. His Oscar. I gave it to him.
TheWrap: I expected "We Need to Talk About Kevin" to be disturbing, and it was, But I didn't expect it to be as lyrical as it was.
Swinton: Did you know the book?
TheWrap: No, I didn't.
Swinton: The book is a lot less lyrical. That's one of the great things about (writer-director) Lynne Ramsay adapting the book. Because she is someone who is ... "Lyrical" is not exactly the word that I'd use, but she is definitely someone who is interested in atmosphere, particularly a kind of atmosphere of discomfort.
And it was important that it be beautiful. It's got a kind of elegiac quality, this feeling of her nostalgia for this life, as well as being a horror story.
TheWrap: Were you familiar with the book before the movie came along?
Swinton: Yeah, I was. I knew the book, and I was very keen to know what Lynne was doing next, and very interested that she had chosen to adapt this book. There had been this really unwieldy gap of time since (Ramsay's 2002 film) "Morvern Callar," and I was wanting to help her make another feature film in any way I could. But then this point came when it became clear that I wanted to be in it.
I can't really remember if it was my idea or hers. But we sort of slowly moved toward that idea.
TheWrap: Why?
Swinton: As it became more and more developed, and less and less about the social atmosphere in the book, more and more about this woman's interior life, then the more interested I became in playing it.
And to be honest, I think it was partly to do with a sort of huge budget cut that we faced at a certain point. I always hate to say this, because it sounds like I'm arguing for the stringencies of people cutting budgets, but it became very clear that we were only going to get about half of what we wanted. Which meant that we were going to really have to streamline it and reduce the social context. And there had to be less people in it, less locations. More claustrophic, in fact. Much more Greek. All the action had to take place offscreeen.
The cheaper it got, the better it got. But that's not always the case.
TheWrap: So the more it departed from the book, the more it improved?
Swinton: Well, it became much clearer as a Lynne Ramsay film. The book is very much about someone who's trying to work it out. She's writing letters, trying to work out what happened, trying to explain it to herself and to her husband. It's quite a political book about Bush-era America, and it's very socially aware. And we sort of pulled out of that, and locked into her mind, her memories, her fantasies, her nightmares.
It became a sort of phantasmagoria, and the more it became about someone who is lonely, who doesn't have anybody to talk to or to explain things to, the more it became interesting to me. That's really something I'm interested in, the idea of inarticulacy or dumbness.
TheWrap: Does it take away some of your tools as an actress?
Swinton: To me, it feels like you gain more capacity, the less you get to say, in cinema at least. I always say that I think cinema has gone downhill since people started talking in it.
It's just a personal preference. I like it when people ... Like what I'm doing now. I think I know what I want to say, but I'm searching for the words. I like that. I don't like it when people become playwrights on-screen. I like a level of inarticulacy, and also silence.
TheWrap: They may have helped develop the material, but did the time and budget constraints feel limiting when you were shooting?
Swinton: It meant that we had to work in a more prescribed way than we would have liked to do. Lynne and I were talking earlier about how we're both looking forward to working in a more loose way. But that is a luxury in this kind of filmmaking. If you get two takes, you're lucky. It's a discipline, and it's painful at times, but you've got to keep trucking.
TheWrap: Can it be frustrating as an actor?
Swinton: In terms of performance, when you've been thinking about doing something for four years and then you have to do it in half an hour and then leave it, that's always a bit tricky. But you just have to do it.
TheWrap: Your character, Eva, has a complicated bond with her son -- she's the one who really knows that something is wrong, but she's also connected to him in a deeper way than his father is.
Swinton: We were always clear that we wanted this to be a sort of double portrait of one person. We knew that Kevin and Eva had to feel like two sides of the same coin. The thing that's so horrendous is not that his violence and badness is exotic and foreign to her. It's really familiar -- that's the worst part. She knows it's hers, and he's acting it out in front of her.
So we needed them to feel very closely linked physically. If he had been short and round and red-haired, I would have been short and round and red-haired. As it happened, he looked like Ezra Miller, so I had to go that way. He led the way, and I had to follow.
TheWrap: Do you have to be sensitive when you're acting with younger children in a work that involves tough, disturbing material?
Swinton: To me, it's much, much easier to play with children. Children know that it's play. You ask a 6-year-old to dress up as a dog, he'll go there. You ask a 45-year-old to dress up as a dog, and you'll have to go through all sorts of questions of method and psychological background.
With children, it's very easy and relaxed. You ask a 3-year-old to be bad and growl at his mommy, it's easy. It's what a 3-year-old loves to do. So no, it's really graceful and easy, working with children.
TheWrap: As the lead actor but also a producer, was it easy for you to maintain the split focus required?
Swinton: Honestly, that's always been the way that I've worked.
If anything, it's stranger for me and rarer for me to just come in and play and get a check and go away. That's only happened to me a handful of times in my life. Most of the time I'm minding the shop as well. And I like that.
There's a kind of myopia you get with performance that feels to me potentially hazardous and weird. And I quite like having the actualities of knowing what time it is, and knowing how quickly you have to work.
TheWrap: What are you doing next?
Swinton: I feel like a farmer who's had a big harvest. There were three films that I was working on for the last 12 years. "I Am Love" I worked on for 11 years, "Julia" for five and this one for five. And they've all now been made, so I'm very happily facing a bit of a plowed field. I worked very briefly and very happily on the new Wes Anderson film, but apart from that I'm back to the drawing board.
TheWrap: Do Hollywood-type movies factor into your plans?
Swinton: I don't quite know how to answer that, because I never factored in Hollywood-type movies in the first place. You know, the mountain does tend to go to Mohammed, as far as I'm concerned. I'm totally available to have conversations with pretty much anybody who's inclined to chat. I have some projects that I'm slowly beginning to seed at home, but given my track record, they'll probably take so long that there'll be room at the table.
TheWrap: Did "Michael Clayton" and the Oscar change your profile with the industry?
Swinton: You'd be the one to tell me. I've got no idea.
TheWrap: Are you seeing different or better scripts from Hollywood?
Swinton: Well, the thing is, everything that I've done since then, I was going to do anyway. Because that 12 years I've just described, "Michael Clayton" was in the middle of it. I was already working on "I Am Love," and "Julia," and this. So I don't know.
The only real change I can see is that people ask me how my life has changed since then. And we'll see now, I suppose. If it helps take a little film like this and give it a bigger release than it would have had otherwise, then I'm really grateful.
Not since Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd has there ever been such a set of rivals as Tom Turkey and Hunter Bob. Hunter Bob just can?t seem to get a turkey today. He?s new to hunting and said he wanted to ?bag his own bird? this Thanksgiving. Tom, on the other hand, isn?t about to let that happen.
Hunter Bob lays low in the bushes but he isn?t fooling Tom. So what gives Tom Turkey an advantage over his rifle wielding foe Bob? How about his superior vision?
Turkeys have incredible vision and are able to detect motion many, many yards away. Supposedly, they are even able to see up to 3 times greater than 20/20, though I can?t confirm this, I have never given a turkey an eye exam.
In addition to their excellent visual acuity, turkeys also have awesome peripheral vision. Tom?s laterally positioned eyes give him a broader field of view. He has an approximate visual field of 270 degrees around him, substantial compared to Bob?s measly 180 degrees. Put that together with Tom Turkey?s uncanny ability to rotate his neck completely around and he can spot the Bobs of the world coming a mile away, 360 degrees around him, with a simple twist of his head.
The fact that Tom?s eyes are spaced further from each other and are on the sides of his head does give him one small disadvantage; he lacks 3-D vision. Ok, Bob, you got him there. However, turkeys can compensate for their lack of binocularity by using a series of head bobbing movements, much like you may see pigeons do as they walk along the sidewalk in the park. These quick head movements allow their eyes to gather information about relative depths and distances of objects in their surroundings so they can do without true depth perception like Bob?s just fine. Sorry Bob.
Another aspect of Tom Turkey?s vision which is outstandingly terrific is his color vision and ability to see UVA light. Tom relies heavily on visual information to evade Bob and luckily he happens to be in a class of animals- birds- which have ?the most complex retina of any vertebrae.?
The retinas of turkeys have seven different types of photoreceptors including 1 rod and 6 different types of cones, 2 of which are actually ?double cones.? Human retinas have only 4 different types of photoreceptors consisting of 1 rod and 3 single cones. One of Tom?s single cone photoreceptors has a spectral sensitivity to wavelengths near 400nm which is in the UVA light range. It is thought that being able to see UVA light helps birds when they are detecting prey, selecting a mate and foraging for food.
But what advantage (besides bragging rights) does seeing an extended part of the color spectrum give Tom over Bob? Well, you see, Bob is new to hunting and he bought a great new camouflage suit and vest for the occasion. Little did he know that the modern day laundry detergent he used to wash his new camo clothes in contained phosphates and other chemicals which whitened and brightened his clothes. These artificial brighteners also glow a bright blue color to turkeys who can see the ultraviolet light part of the color spectrum. So Bob, you may think you are doing a good job hiding in that natural looking roost you built using bushes and branches, but you might as well be a lost member of the Blue Man Group out here in the woods. It is hard for Tom not to notice someone wearing fluorescent blue clothes! Thanks to artificial brighteners, advantage once again goes to Tom.
Even if there is some way that Hunter Bob isn?t halted by Tom Turkey?s superior visual capabilities, Tom could most likely out run him. Turkeys can run about 20 mph. In contrast, the fastest human in the world has been clocked at running about 28 mph. Let?s say Bob happens to be very fast and is gaining on Tom. Well, Tom could always burst into flight and reach speeds of up to 55 mph. Can you fly, Bob? I think not. Tom Turkey once again proves to be elusive and does so this time with speed and style.
Bob, now don?t get discouraged you gave it a good shot. Maybe you should try to just make friends with Tom. Bury the hatchet, literally.
Why, you could even head up to Watkins Glen and attend the Farm Sanctuary?s ?Celebration for Turkeys? event. You could watch turkeys feast on their own thanksgiving dinner of stuffed squash, pumpkin pie and cranberries served to them on silver platters. Maybe even ?adopt a turkey? there.
I guess what I am trying to say is: Bob, just stick to golf.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Photo credits: (Turkey Eye Exam) created with permission using pictures from Cheryl Murphy and stock photo ?turkey? by Gargi Bhuyan/ stock xchng, (Wild Turkey) stock photo by Yousif Waleed/ stock xchng, (Sammi and Aya eating pie) by Jo-Anne McArthur of We Animals / used with permission from Farm Sanctuary, (Author) Erica Angiolillo/ Gotcha by Erica!
Special Thanks to the Farm Sanctuary, visit their website for more information on how to visit the farm and donate to their farm animal rescue programs.
References:
Dickson, James G. The Wild turkey: biology and management. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1992. Print.
Hart NS. The visual ecology of avian photoreceptors. Prog Retin Eye Res. 2001 Sep;20(5):675-703. PMID: 11470455
Hart NS, Partridge JC, Cuthill IC. Visual pigments, cone oil droplets, ocular media and predicted spectral sensitivity in the domestic turkey (Meleagris gallopavo). Vision Res. 1999 Oct;39(20):3321-8. PMID: 10615498
?Keeping UV Brighteners Out of Hunting Clothes.? Great Ghillies & Graphics.com Weblog. Great Ghillies & Graphics.com Weblog, 7 April 2010. Web. 1 Nov 2011.
Leighton, AH. The Turkey Vulture?s Eyes. The Auk. 1928 Jul; 45(3): 352-55.
Wild Turkey Facts. National Wild Turkey Federation, 2010. Web. 1 Nov 2011.
Big pest, small genomePublic release date: 23-Nov-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Lee Siegel lee.siegel@utah.edu 801-581-8993 University of Utah
Blueprint of spider mite may yield better pesticides
SALT LAKE CITY, Nov. 23, 2011 A University of Utah biologist and an international research team decoded the genetic blueprint of the two-spotted spider mite, raising hope for new ways to attack the major pest, which resists pesticides and destroys crops and ornamental plants worldwide.
The voracious mites, which technically are not insects, can eat more than 1,100 plant species a rare trait. The mites' newly revealed and sequenced genome contains a variety of genes capable of detoxifying pesticides as well as toxins plants use to defend themselves, the scientists report in the Thursday, Nov. 24 issue of the journal Nature.
"One key thing that makes spider mites unique is they can eat many, many different plant species," says Richard M. Clark, one of five main authors of the study and an assistant professor of biology at the University of Utah. "These mites are often house plant pests a major cause of people's house plants turning yellow and getting sick. They also are a major problem for agricultural nurseries and greenhouses, and for field crops."
Primary targets are tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, strawberries, corn, soybeans, apples, grapes and citrus.
Clark says the new study's "importance is largely in understanding how animals eat plants, with the long-term goal of developing effective ways to prevent crop damage from mites and insects. If we can identify the biological pathways mites use to feed on plants, we can potentially identify chemical and biological methods to disrupt those pathways and stop the mites from feeding."
The two-spotted spider mite, which is no more than 1 millimeter long, "is a major global pest, and is predicted to be a growing concern in a warming climate because they multiply extremely fast at high temperatures 90 degrees Fahrenheit or more," he adds. "They do really well in hot and dry climates like Utah."
Yet, the two-spotted spider mite "has been found to rapidly develop resistance to multiple types of pesticides, often within a couple of years after a pesticide is introduced," says Clark. "It is resistant to many common pesticides used against insects."
The Nature study deciphering the genome of Tetranychus urticae, the two-spotted spider mite (which has two red spots), was conducted by an international research team of 55 scientists from North America, Europe and South America.
Besides Clark, the other primary authors are biologists Yves Van de Peer of Ghent University and the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology in Belgium; Miodrag Grbic of the University of Western Ontario, Canada; Thomas Van Leeuwen of Ghent University; and Rene Feyereisen of the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis in France.
Genetic Blueprint of the Two-Spotted Spider Mite
Decoding the spider mite's genome required dozens of scientists with expertise in various gene families. Clark mainly studied which genes are "expressed" or activated and thus make messenger RNA, or mRNA, which in turn is used to make proteins.
The study found that the two-spotted spider mite has 18,414 genes. Clark and University of Utah graduate student Edward J. Osborne found that 15,397 genes are "expressed" or activated to make proteins.
The spider mite genome contains about 90 megabases that's 90 million "base pairs" of DNA letters (A,C, G and T) which is the smallest genome yet sequenced for any arthropod, which are invertebrate or spineless animals with external skeletons or exoskeletons, segmented bodies, and appendages with joints.
"Many of the other genomes are enormous," some close to 3 billion bases, or about the size of the human genome, and some up to 7.1 billion bases, Clark says.
Arthropods include hexapods (insects and insect-like animals), crustaceans (lobsters, crabs, shrimp, barnacles), myriapods (millipedes, centipedes) and chelicerates (spiders, scorpions, mites and ticks). Chelicerates are the largest group of animals after insects. The two-spotted spider mite is the first chelicerate to have its genome fully sequenced.
While there are other species of plant-feeding mites, the researchers chose to sequence the genome of the two-spotted spider mite "because of all the spider mites, this is the most widespread because it feeds on so many different plant species," Clark says.
The study's findings shed light on how the spider mites evolved differently than other arthropods. Compared with other arthropods, the two-spotted spider mite:
Uses a different molting hormone to shed its exoskeleton during growth.
Has only eight Hox genes to orchestrate body-plan development, compared with 10 in most other arthropods, and thus has only two main body segments instead of three. There are other cases in which Hox genes were activated differently in different arthropods, "but this is an extreme case," Clark says. "The genes are both gone.
Makes silk that is strong like spider silk but 185 to 435 times thinner. "Spiders spin silk from their abdomens, spider mites from the head region," Clark says. Spider mites use silk to hide from predators, keep themselves warm, and suspend eggs out of predators' reach. Silk from the mites may prove useful as biodegradable surgical sutures and bandages. It "is very thin and very easy to get because you can grow lots of mites on plants," Clark says.
A Genetic Arsenal to Attack Plant Toxins and Pesticides
The spider mite genome also revealed the presence of "families of genes involved in breaking down toxic compounds, either in plants poisonous to the spider mites or in pesticides," says Clark. "You would imagine that if these mites feed on such a broad number of plant hosts, they would have many genes known to be involved in breaking down toxic compounds. And we found that they did."
In some specific families of detoxification genes in the spider mites, "the number of genes was about three times that seen in other arthropods," he adds.
As part of the study, the scientists took a specific strain of spider mites that normally eat kidney beans and transferred them to tomato and thale cress (Arabidopsis) plants. On these new plants, the mites "expressed" or activated different genes and thus made different detoxification compounds so they could eat the new plant species. Some of those detox genes were previously unknown and thus provide new insight into how mites counteract plant defenses.
For example, half of the cytochrome P450 family of detoxification genes changed expression turned either on or off when the mites were switched to the new plants. That is a bigger change than seen before in any group of animals, Clark says.
"This suggests that these genes are critical for the ability of mites to be pests on many different plants."
Clark says the spider mite has 39 genes from one drug-resistance gene family (and the proteins they encode), compared with only nine to 14 in insects and vertebrate animals. That shows how an expanded set of genes evolved to help the pests feed on numerous plant species.
In a yet-unexplained mystery, the two-spotted spider mite has some genes similar to those in bacteria and fungi. "They somehow captured them from other organisms in the environment and now are using them for their own growth and persistence," says Clark. "They are mostly enzymes involved in changing other small molecules. The hypothesis is these genes may be involved in modifying [detoxifying] toxic compounds found in plants."
###
Clark's part of the study was funded by the University of Utah and the National Science Foundation. The study's key funding sources included the U.S. Department of Energy, Genome Canada and Belgium's Fund for Scientific Research Flanders.
University of Utah Public Relations
201 Presidents Circle, Room 308
Salt Lake City, Utah 84112-9017
801-581-6773 fax: 801-585-3350
http://www.unews.utah.edu
[ | 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.
Big pest, small genomePublic release date: 23-Nov-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Lee Siegel lee.siegel@utah.edu 801-581-8993 University of Utah
Blueprint of spider mite may yield better pesticides
SALT LAKE CITY, Nov. 23, 2011 A University of Utah biologist and an international research team decoded the genetic blueprint of the two-spotted spider mite, raising hope for new ways to attack the major pest, which resists pesticides and destroys crops and ornamental plants worldwide.
The voracious mites, which technically are not insects, can eat more than 1,100 plant species a rare trait. The mites' newly revealed and sequenced genome contains a variety of genes capable of detoxifying pesticides as well as toxins plants use to defend themselves, the scientists report in the Thursday, Nov. 24 issue of the journal Nature.
"One key thing that makes spider mites unique is they can eat many, many different plant species," says Richard M. Clark, one of five main authors of the study and an assistant professor of biology at the University of Utah. "These mites are often house plant pests a major cause of people's house plants turning yellow and getting sick. They also are a major problem for agricultural nurseries and greenhouses, and for field crops."
Primary targets are tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, strawberries, corn, soybeans, apples, grapes and citrus.
Clark says the new study's "importance is largely in understanding how animals eat plants, with the long-term goal of developing effective ways to prevent crop damage from mites and insects. If we can identify the biological pathways mites use to feed on plants, we can potentially identify chemical and biological methods to disrupt those pathways and stop the mites from feeding."
The two-spotted spider mite, which is no more than 1 millimeter long, "is a major global pest, and is predicted to be a growing concern in a warming climate because they multiply extremely fast at high temperatures 90 degrees Fahrenheit or more," he adds. "They do really well in hot and dry climates like Utah."
Yet, the two-spotted spider mite "has been found to rapidly develop resistance to multiple types of pesticides, often within a couple of years after a pesticide is introduced," says Clark. "It is resistant to many common pesticides used against insects."
The Nature study deciphering the genome of Tetranychus urticae, the two-spotted spider mite (which has two red spots), was conducted by an international research team of 55 scientists from North America, Europe and South America.
Besides Clark, the other primary authors are biologists Yves Van de Peer of Ghent University and the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology in Belgium; Miodrag Grbic of the University of Western Ontario, Canada; Thomas Van Leeuwen of Ghent University; and Rene Feyereisen of the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis in France.
Genetic Blueprint of the Two-Spotted Spider Mite
Decoding the spider mite's genome required dozens of scientists with expertise in various gene families. Clark mainly studied which genes are "expressed" or activated and thus make messenger RNA, or mRNA, which in turn is used to make proteins.
The study found that the two-spotted spider mite has 18,414 genes. Clark and University of Utah graduate student Edward J. Osborne found that 15,397 genes are "expressed" or activated to make proteins.
The spider mite genome contains about 90 megabases that's 90 million "base pairs" of DNA letters (A,C, G and T) which is the smallest genome yet sequenced for any arthropod, which are invertebrate or spineless animals with external skeletons or exoskeletons, segmented bodies, and appendages with joints.
"Many of the other genomes are enormous," some close to 3 billion bases, or about the size of the human genome, and some up to 7.1 billion bases, Clark says.
Arthropods include hexapods (insects and insect-like animals), crustaceans (lobsters, crabs, shrimp, barnacles), myriapods (millipedes, centipedes) and chelicerates (spiders, scorpions, mites and ticks). Chelicerates are the largest group of animals after insects. The two-spotted spider mite is the first chelicerate to have its genome fully sequenced.
While there are other species of plant-feeding mites, the researchers chose to sequence the genome of the two-spotted spider mite "because of all the spider mites, this is the most widespread because it feeds on so many different plant species," Clark says.
The study's findings shed light on how the spider mites evolved differently than other arthropods. Compared with other arthropods, the two-spotted spider mite:
Uses a different molting hormone to shed its exoskeleton during growth.
Has only eight Hox genes to orchestrate body-plan development, compared with 10 in most other arthropods, and thus has only two main body segments instead of three. There are other cases in which Hox genes were activated differently in different arthropods, "but this is an extreme case," Clark says. "The genes are both gone.
Makes silk that is strong like spider silk but 185 to 435 times thinner. "Spiders spin silk from their abdomens, spider mites from the head region," Clark says. Spider mites use silk to hide from predators, keep themselves warm, and suspend eggs out of predators' reach. Silk from the mites may prove useful as biodegradable surgical sutures and bandages. It "is very thin and very easy to get because you can grow lots of mites on plants," Clark says.
A Genetic Arsenal to Attack Plant Toxins and Pesticides
The spider mite genome also revealed the presence of "families of genes involved in breaking down toxic compounds, either in plants poisonous to the spider mites or in pesticides," says Clark. "You would imagine that if these mites feed on such a broad number of plant hosts, they would have many genes known to be involved in breaking down toxic compounds. And we found that they did."
In some specific families of detoxification genes in the spider mites, "the number of genes was about three times that seen in other arthropods," he adds.
As part of the study, the scientists took a specific strain of spider mites that normally eat kidney beans and transferred them to tomato and thale cress (Arabidopsis) plants. On these new plants, the mites "expressed" or activated different genes and thus made different detoxification compounds so they could eat the new plant species. Some of those detox genes were previously unknown and thus provide new insight into how mites counteract plant defenses.
For example, half of the cytochrome P450 family of detoxification genes changed expression turned either on or off when the mites were switched to the new plants. That is a bigger change than seen before in any group of animals, Clark says.
"This suggests that these genes are critical for the ability of mites to be pests on many different plants."
Clark says the spider mite has 39 genes from one drug-resistance gene family (and the proteins they encode), compared with only nine to 14 in insects and vertebrate animals. That shows how an expanded set of genes evolved to help the pests feed on numerous plant species.
In a yet-unexplained mystery, the two-spotted spider mite has some genes similar to those in bacteria and fungi. "They somehow captured them from other organisms in the environment and now are using them for their own growth and persistence," says Clark. "They are mostly enzymes involved in changing other small molecules. The hypothesis is these genes may be involved in modifying [detoxifying] toxic compounds found in plants."
###
Clark's part of the study was funded by the University of Utah and the National Science Foundation. The study's key funding sources included the U.S. Department of Energy, Genome Canada and Belgium's Fund for Scientific Research Flanders.
University of Utah Public Relations
201 Presidents Circle, Room 308
Salt Lake City, Utah 84112-9017
801-581-6773 fax: 801-585-3350
http://www.unews.utah.edu
[ | 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.
It?s easy to dismiss the concept of nothing as, well, nothing. In fact, nothing is everything to science ? understanding the intangible voids has lead to breakthroughs we could never have imagined possible.
Read on to find out why nothing is more important than nothing?
WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? Nearly half of all Americans lack economic security, meaning they live above the federal poverty threshold but still do not have enough money to cover housing, food, healthcare and other basic expenses, according to a survey of government and industry data.
The survey, released on Tuesday by the advocacy group Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW), found that 45 percent of U.S. residents live in households that struggle to make ends meet.
That breaks down to 39 percent of all adults and 55 percent of all children, the group found.
"This is a wake-up call for Congress, for our state policy-makers, really for all of us," said Donna Addkison, President and CEO of WOW.
"Nearly half of our nation's families cannot cover the costs of basic expenses even when they do have a job. Under these conditions, cuts to unemployment insurance ... and other programs families are relying on right now would push them from crisis to catastrophe."
The WOW survey compared 2009 pre-tax incomes to a budget of basic and essential monthly expenses for various families that it developed along with researchers at Washington University with funding from the Ford Foundation and W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
For example, in a budget for a family of one worker, it put housing expenses at $688 and food at $244. In a family of two workers with two young children, it assumed housing would cost $821 per month and food $707 a month.
It did not include nonessentials such as vacations, recreation, hobbies, college tuition, and other common expenses of the middle class.
A congressional effort to find $1.2 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years failed on Monday, raising fears that emergency benefits for the long-term unemployed would not be extended when they expire next month.
Other social programs including Medicare are also under threat as lawmakers seek to slash the nation's huge debt.
Some economists said while they agreed that the debt had to the reduced, targeting programs that helped the low income group survive the harsh economic environment was not the correct path to take.
"I am in favor of austerity, but not in this area," said Harm Bandholz, chief U.S. economist at UniCredit Research in New York. "This is the only austerity going on and this is hitting the long-term unemployed. It's not improving the long-term budget situation anyway."
Currently, the poverty threshold for the United States is an annual income of $22,314 for a family of four.
A little more than 15 percent of the country lives at or below that level, and the group wanted to look at the remainder, "many of whom live on the edge and are chronically at risk of financial crisis or falling into poverty."
More than four out of 10 adult women live in households that cannot cover those basic expenses, slightly more than the proportion of men, 37 percent.
That may be because in 2009 women's median earnings were 70 percent of men's median earnings, the group said.
More than 60 percent of single women live in economic insecurity, it added.
"While married women are more likely to have economic security than unmarried women, much of the stability is attained through a husband's earnings or other household income," the group reported, which can put those women in economic jeopardy if their husbands die or lose their job or if the couple divorces.
The group also found "that full-time work fails to provide economic security for 25 percent of adult workers," because of stagnating and falling wages over the last decade.
"A chief cause of economic insecurity is 1970s level wages that fail to cover modern expenses," it said.
While households with two full-time workers can help boost a family's economic security, 22 percent of adults with children who work full-time and have a partner who also has a full-time job cannot cover basic needs.
At the same time, 21 percent of homes headed by a college graduate lack economic security.
"In the past, threats to economic security were supposedly clear -- dropping out of high school, being a single parent or having a large family. In today's economy, we cannot assume we know who lacks security," it said.
(Reporting by Lisa Lambert and Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Diane Craft)
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Israeli startup 
Turkeys have incredible vision and are able to detect motion many, many yards away. Supposedly, they are even able to see up to 3 times greater than 20/20, though I can?t confirm this, I have never given a turkey an eye exam.
Another aspect of Tom Turkey?s vision which is outstandingly terrific is his color vision and ability to see UVA light. Tom relies heavily on visual information to evade Bob and luckily he happens to be in a class of animals- birds- which have ?the most complex retina of any vertebrae.?
Bob, now don?t get discouraged you gave it a good shot. Maybe you should try to just make friends with Tom. Bury the hatchet, literally.![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 23-Nov-2011
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