Well, yeah ? for the three-time Super Bowl winner and for the Patriots.
There's nothing unusual about one of the game's best quarterbacks and leaders being coveted by his team. Or being rewarded.
What's rare is how well the three-year extension works for both Brady and for New England.
The two-time NFL Most Valuable Player did not really take a pay cut with this new deal. It might sound that way with salaries of $7 million in 2015, $8 million the next year and $9 million in 2017, far below the going rate for superstar QBs.
But Brady gets a $30 million signing bonus and $57 million overall in a contract that will run through the 2017 season. And New England gets space under the salary cap to spend on top free agents.
Patricia Krentcil attends "Tan Mom" Patricia Krentcil Skin Cancer Foundation Event at Westchester MMA-Fit on September 21, 2012 in Mt Kisco, New York.
By Tracy Connor, Staff Writer, NBC News
The New Jersey woman whose deeply bronzed complexion made her a national punchline after she was charged with putting her 5-year-old daughter in a tanning bed has been cleared of criminal charges.
A grand jury refused to indict Patricia Krentcil on a child-endangerment charge for allegedly violating a state law that bans children from using tanning salons, NBC New York reported Tuesday.
Krentcil, of Nutley, N.J., was arrested after her daughter appeared in school with burns on her legs last April. Her mother said they were from swimming outside and that she never put the child in a tanning bed.
After she was first arrested, Krentcil told NBC New York that she treated her tanning salon trips as an errand in which she brings along her daughter, but insisted the booth lights were never exposed to the girl.
"It's like taking your daughter to go food shopping," she said. "There's tons of moms that bring their children in ...?
"I tan, she doesn't tan," she continued. "I'm in the booth, she's in the room. That's all there is to it."
It's against the law in New Jersey for any child under 14-year-old to use an artificial tanning booth.
?We presented all the available evidence in the case to the grand jury, both the state?s evidence and the defense?s evidence,? said Assistant Essex County Prosecutor Gina Iosim. ?The grand jurors voted not to indict Mrs. Krentcil. We respect their decision."
Krentcil, 44, has admitted she went overboard with the ultraviolet rays that gave her a skin tone some likened to a roasted nut and made her the target of standup comics and late-night monologues.
She even took up a magazine's offer to stay away from the salons for a month and emerged looking much healthier, but complaining she felt "weird and pale."
More recently, she told the New York Daily News she was contemplating a move to overcast London, but denied it was because she had been banned by local tanning salons who considered her bad for business.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) ? A Saudi newspaper says officials may consider dropping plans for a barrier separating men and the newly appointed women in the country's top advisory body.
The reports follow the swearing-in ceremony Sunday for the first women in the ultraconservative kingdom's Shura Council. There was no barrier during the event as the 30 women sat on one side of the chamber and the 130 men on the other.
Saudi Arabia's strict Islamic codes sharply restrict mixing between genders.
The pro-government Al-Watan newspaper reported Monday that the original proposal for a barrier in the Shura chamber now could be reconsidered.
In 2011, King Abdullah said women can vote and run as candidates in the next municipal elections in 2015. The kingdom's women are still banned from driving and face many other restrictions.
Playing off his?pre-Oscars prediction?that everyone would hate him at the Oscars, Seth MacFarlane spent the first 19 minutes of the Academy Awards on Sunday making sure everyone would, in fact, hate him.?After some real stinkers, the main conceit was William Shatner descending on a screen as Captain Kirk, from the future, to tell MacFarlane to do a better job of hosting, in a kind of alternate-reality bit that turned pretty sordid?and pretty fast. ...
Catfight? Workplace conflicts between women get bad rapPublic release date: 25-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Andrew Riley andrew.riley@sauder.ubc.ca 604-822-8345 University of British Columbia
A new study from the University of British Columbia's Sauder School of Business suggests troubling perceptions exist when it comes to women involved in disputes at work.
"Our research shows that when it comes to workplace conflict, women get a bad rap," says PhD candidate Leah Sheppard, who conducted the study with Prof. Karl Aquino. "We show how the negative stereotyping around so-called 'catfights' carry over into work situations."
The researchers asked experiment participants to assess one of three workplace conflict scenarios, all identical except for the names of the individuals involved: Adam and Steven, Adam and Sarah, or Sarah and Anna.
The study, published in the current edition of the journal Academy of Management Perspectives, found that when the scenario depicted female-female conflict, participants perceived there to be more negative implications than the male-male or male-female conflicts.
Participants judged the likelihood of two managers repairing a frayed relationship roughly 15 per cent lower when both managers were female, versus male-male and male-female. Participants rated those involved in all-female conflicts as also being more likely to let the argument negatively influence job satisfaction than male-female or male-male quarrellers.
The study also found that female experiment participants were just as likely as males to see the all-female conflict as more negative.
"This study suggests there's still a long way to go when it comes to the perception of women in the workplace," Sheppard says. "Hopefully, our findings will help to increase managers' awareness of this bias, so they don't let stereotypes guide their decisions on how they staff teams and leverage the full talent of female employees."
###
Backgrounder
For the experiment, Sheppard and Aquino randomly generated a sample of 152 individuals 47 per cent female who were assigned to read about a workplace conflict involving two account managers in a consulting firm.
Participants were asked to make judgments on a scale of one to seven on the likelihood that the two managers would be able to repair their relationship going forward, and the extent to which the conflict would affect their job satisfaction and commitment to the company.
For the first question about whether the two managers would repair the relationship, participants judged the likelihood to be roughly 15 per cent lower when both managers were female, versus male-male and male-female.
For question two, related to job satisfaction, participants rated those involved in the all-female conflict as being 25 per cent more likely than those in the male-female conflict to let the argument negatively influence the way they felt about work, and 10 per cent more likely than the male-male quarrelers.
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?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Catfight? Workplace conflicts between women get bad rapPublic release date: 25-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Andrew Riley andrew.riley@sauder.ubc.ca 604-822-8345 University of British Columbia
A new study from the University of British Columbia's Sauder School of Business suggests troubling perceptions exist when it comes to women involved in disputes at work.
"Our research shows that when it comes to workplace conflict, women get a bad rap," says PhD candidate Leah Sheppard, who conducted the study with Prof. Karl Aquino. "We show how the negative stereotyping around so-called 'catfights' carry over into work situations."
The researchers asked experiment participants to assess one of three workplace conflict scenarios, all identical except for the names of the individuals involved: Adam and Steven, Adam and Sarah, or Sarah and Anna.
The study, published in the current edition of the journal Academy of Management Perspectives, found that when the scenario depicted female-female conflict, participants perceived there to be more negative implications than the male-male or male-female conflicts.
Participants judged the likelihood of two managers repairing a frayed relationship roughly 15 per cent lower when both managers were female, versus male-male and male-female. Participants rated those involved in all-female conflicts as also being more likely to let the argument negatively influence job satisfaction than male-female or male-male quarrellers.
The study also found that female experiment participants were just as likely as males to see the all-female conflict as more negative.
"This study suggests there's still a long way to go when it comes to the perception of women in the workplace," Sheppard says. "Hopefully, our findings will help to increase managers' awareness of this bias, so they don't let stereotypes guide their decisions on how they staff teams and leverage the full talent of female employees."
###
Backgrounder
For the experiment, Sheppard and Aquino randomly generated a sample of 152 individuals 47 per cent female who were assigned to read about a workplace conflict involving two account managers in a consulting firm.
Participants were asked to make judgments on a scale of one to seven on the likelihood that the two managers would be able to repair their relationship going forward, and the extent to which the conflict would affect their job satisfaction and commitment to the company.
For the first question about whether the two managers would repair the relationship, participants judged the likelihood to be roughly 15 per cent lower when both managers were female, versus male-male and male-female.
For question two, related to job satisfaction, participants rated those involved in the all-female conflict as being 25 per cent more likely than those in the male-female conflict to let the argument negatively influence the way they felt about work, and 10 per cent more likely than the male-male quarrelers.
[ | 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.
Feb. 23, 2013 ? Targeting CPR education in high-risk neighborhoods could increase the number of bystanders giving CPR and decrease deaths from cardiac arrest, according to a new American Heart Association scientific statement published in its journal Circulation.
Survival rates for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest vary widely in the United States, from 0.2 percent in Detroit, Mich., to 16 percent in Seattle, Wash. The variance is due in part to whether a bystander does CPR. For every 30 bystanders who do, one life is saved, researchers said.
Yet according to the American Heart Association, bystanders provide CPR only 40 percent of the time -- and rates vary widely by location.
The new statement calls for communities to determine which neighborhoods have a high incidence of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests and low rates of bystander CPR by using geographic information systems that map the latitude and longitude of each cardiac arrest. Then, they should focus public education efforts in the high-risk neighborhoods.
"We have always had a one-size-fits-all approach, blanketing a whole area with CPR training, and we assume that will get to everyone," said Comilla Sasson, M.D., M.S., the statement's lead author and assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in Denver.
"We are now saying that we need to shift our thinking to target CPR training to the areas where it is most needed."
"You have to have that kind of data to understand there are going to be specific areas that need to be targeted to increase awareness of cardiac arrest symptoms and how to do bystander CPR," Sasson said.
Such data can engage community members -- motivating them to learn hands-only CPR, she said.
Better geographic data can also help researchers learn more about why most bystanders don't perform CPR or call 9-1-1. Some people, unaware of laws that protect them, worry they will be sued if they do CPR wrong and cause harm.
"Most people don't know what a Good Samaritan law is," Sasson said. Others fear they or household members will have to show immigration papers before they can get help. And barriers to CPR training can be as simple as when and where the training is held, Sasson said.
Furthermore, charting addresses of everyone who receives CPR training can provide useful information, she said. "Are we hitting the same people who have always been trained and not really impacting these higher-risk neighborhoods?"
Predominantly African-American or Hispanic neighborhoods have higher rates of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest but lower rates of bystander CPR compared with whites, research shows.
Bystander CPR is also less likely to happen in low-income neighborhoods, independent of race, Sasson said.
The statement also recommends a standardized dispatcher-assisted telephone program for 9-1-1 operators to provide CPR instructions to willing bystanders.
The survival rate from cardiac arrest -- 9.5 percent -- has been roughly the same for three decades. To increase it, new strategies to promote CPR are needed, Sasson said. "If we keep training the same people, we're not going to make a difference."
Co-authors are Hendrika Meischke, Ph.D.; Benjamin S. Abella, M.D., M.P.H.; Frederick Masoudi, M.D., M.P.H.; Michael R. Sayre, M.D.; Robert A. Berg, M.D.; Bentley J. Bobrow, M.D.; Marcus Ong, M.D.; Elisabeth Dowling Root, Ph.D.; Paul S. Chan, M.D., M.Sc.; Michele Heisler, M.D., M.P.H.; Jerrold H. Levy, M.D.; Mark Link, M.D.; John S. Rumsfeld, M.D., Ph.D.; and Thomas D. Rea, M.D., M.P.H.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by American Heart Association.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Comilla Sasson, Hendrika Meischke, Benjamin S. Abella, Robert A. Berg, Bentley J. Bobrow, Paul S. Chan, Elisabeth Dowling Root, Michele Heisler, Jerrold H. Levy, Mark Link, Frederick Masoudi, Marcus Ong, Michael R. Sayre, John S. Rumsfeld, and Thomas D. Rea , on behalf of the American Heart Association Council on Quality of Care and Outcomes Research, Emergency Cardiovascular Care Committee, Council on Cardiopulmonary, Critical Care, Perioperative and Resuscitation, Council on Clinical Cardiology, and Council on Cardiovascular Surgery and Anesthesia. Increasing Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Provision in Communities With Low Bystander Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Rates: A Science Advisory From the American Heart Association for Healthcare Providers, Policymakers, Public Health Departments, and Communi. Circulation, February 25 2013 DOI: 10.1161/CIR.0b013e318288b4dd
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.
This might be strange to say on a Mac site, but does anybody miss the old Microsoft Do you remember when the sheer mention of the Redmond, WA, giant would send Mac geeks into apoplectic rants, and Linux geeks refused to spell the company's name ?
Some apps are essential, and everyone who's anyone knows to have them on their computer. Some apps, however, are fantastic yet fly under the radar. Today, we look at our top 10 underhyped apps for Mac.
We've shared our favorite underhyped webapps a few times before, but we were shocked to find we hadn't done the same for our beloved desktops. Last week we tackled Windows. Now it's time for the Mac.
10. Sonora
Even though it's now out of development, Sonora is still our favorite iTunes-alternative music player?especially now that it's open-sourced and free. The latest version greatly improves on an already awesome interface and updates Sonora's excellent on-the-fly song queueing features. My favorite part of Sonora, however, is the global hotkey that lets you bring up a search panel and type what you want. It works like an app launcher, except you get music results as you type. You can play a playlist, album, or just a song. If you still need to manage your music with iTunes because you use an iPhone (or other iDevice), Sonora will sync your collection at startup (or manually at any time of your choosing). It's a fantastic music app and we hope someone else continues its development, but in the meantime the latest beta is solid and deserves to be your music player of choice.
Download Sonora (Free)
9. Autograph
Need to sign a document? Got a multitouch trackpad? All you need is Autograph and you can sign with your finger or a capacitive stylus. All you do is invoke the Autograph window with a hotkey of your choosing, sign, and insert the signature into whatever document you need. It's pretty much the easiest way to digitally sign anything.
Download Autograph ($3)
8. ScreenSharingMenulet
ScreenSharingMenulet does one great thing: it puts a menu of computers available for screen sharing in your OS X menubar. Why Apple hasn't added this to OS X itself is hard to understand, because it's such a useful feature for anyone who accesses their computer screens remotely with any kind of regularity. Local and Back to My Mac Hosts show up in the menu by default, but you can add bookmarks to other desktops if you want as well. It may only do one thing, but it's one vital thing if you care about remote desktop on your Mac.
Download Screen Sharing Menulet ($1.99)
7. PopClip
PopClip has a very simple premise: add iOS-style copy and paste to your Mac. When you select text, PopClip will show copy and paste buttons. If that's all it did, however, it wouldn't be worth the cost. Fortunately, PopClip is extensible and allows you to integrate tons of other features of your choosing. Want to search for selected text on Google/Amazon/virtually anywhere else? No problem. Need an instant word count for your selection? Done. If you can think up a selected text function, PopClip can probably do it. It'll set you back $5, but a free trial is available if you want to give the app a shot first.
To learn how to get the most out of PopClip, check out our guide.
Download PopClip (Free Trial, $5)
6. GrowlVoice
Google Voice is awesome, but replying to text messages and checking voicemail from your computer could be quite a bit easier. GrowlVoice solves that problem on your Mac by shoving everything you'd want to do into your menubar. The elegant interface provides an easy way to send and respond to text messages, plus you can listen to voicemails and even call back if you want.
Download GrowlVoice (Free Trial, $5)
5. Unclutter
Unclutter stores all sorts of useful things at the top of your screen. Just move your mouse to the menu bar and swipe down with a couple of fingers to reveal a clipboard, file storage area, and a notepad. Basically, the app takes three handy tools you could use access to and throws them into one convenient, accessible-when-necessary space.
Download Unclutter ($3)
4. Found
You saved a file...somewhere. It might've been in some folder on your computer, or perhaps you left it on a cloud service like Dropbox or Google Drive. No matter, because Found will search it all?and quickly, for that matter. If you're dealing with issues of data fragmentation due to storing it in many different places, you won't have to worry about losing things anymore if you install this free app.
Download Found (Free)
3. Adapter
Most of us use the wonderful Handbrake to convert videos, but the user interface isn't exactly intuitive for someone unfamiliar with video encoding. On top of that, formats are limited and you can't convert audio files or images. What free can do all of that? Adapter, the lesser-known multimedia powerhouse that deserves a lot more attention than it gets. It can convert all your movies, encode audio, and change the format of your images. It's pretty much as fast as Handbrake, too, as it uses the same encoding libraries. If you have media of any kind to convert, be sure to check it out.
Download Adapter (Free)
2. XtraFinder
XtraFinder adds a bunch of useful features the OS X Finder is lacking, such as cut and paste, putting folders on top in list view, dual panel and dual window view, global hotkeys, and tabbed windows?just to name a few. While Pathfinder can do much more, it costs $40. If you want to supercharge the OS X Finder without paying, XtraFinder is the answer.
Download XtraFinder (Free)
1. DropZone
Dropzone is one of my personal favorite apps. If there's anything you want to do via drag and drop, Dropzone can handle the task. It can upload files to FTP sites, speak text, print documents, upload pictures to Flickr, and tons more. If a capability isn't built-in, Dropzone is extensible and might have a third-party option. If not, and you're feeling ambitious, you could even write an extension. All you do is drag a file to the menu bar, then move it to the task you want to complete. Dropzone will handle the rest. When uploading, it'll even copy a URL to the clipboard automatically. If you want to know more about what you can do with Dropzone, read our guide. It's a really awesome way to create a variety of useful shortcuts.
Ability of brain to protect itself from damage revealedPublic release date: 24-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: University of Oxford press office press.office@admin.ox.ac.uk 44-186-528-0530 University of Oxford
The origin of an innate ability the brain has to protect itself from damage that occurs in stroke has been explained for the first time.
The Oxford University researchers hope that harnessing this inbuilt biological mechanism, identified in rats, could help in treating stroke and preventing other neurodegenerative diseases in the future.
'We have shown for the first time that the brain has mechanisms that it can use to protect itself and keep brain cells alive,' says Professor Alastair Buchan, Head of the Medical Sciences Division and Dean of the Medical School at Oxford University, who led the work.
The researchers report their findings in the journal Nature Medicine and were funded by the UK Medical Research Council and National Institute for Health Research.
Stroke is the third most common cause of death in the UK. Every year around 150,000 people in the UK have a stroke.
It occurs when the blood supply to part of the brain is cut off. When this happens, brain cells are deprived of the oxygen and nutrients they need to function properly, and they begin to die.
'Time is brain, and the clock has started immediately after the onset of a stroke. Cells will start to die somewhere from minutes to at most 1 or 2 hours after the stroke,' says Professor Buchan.
This explains why treatment for stroke is so dependent on speed. The faster someone can reach hospital, be scanned and have drugs administered to dissolve any blood clot and get the blood flow re-started, the less damage to brain cells there will be.
It has also motivated a so-far unsuccessful search for 'neuroprotectants': drugs that can buy time and help the brain cells, or neurons, cope with damage and recover afterwards.
The Oxford University research group have now identified the first example of the brain having its own built-in form of neuroprotection, so-called 'endogenous neuroprotection'.
They did this by going back to an observation first made over 85 years ago. It has been known since 1926 that neurons in one area of the hippocampus, the part of the brain that controls memory, are able to survive being starved of oxygen, while others in a different area of the hippocampus die. But what protected that one set of cells from damage had remained a puzzle until now.
'Previous studies have focused on understanding how cells die after being depleted of oxygen and glucose. We considered a more direct approach by investigating the endogenous mechanisms that have evolved to make these cells in the hippocampus resistant,' explains first author Dr Michalis Papadakis, Scientific Director of the Laboratory of Cerebral Ischaemia at Oxford University.
Working in rats, the researchers found that production of a specific protein called hamartin allowed the cells to survive being starved of oxygen and glucose, as would happen after a stroke.
They showed that the neurons die in the other part of the hippocampus because of a lack of the hamartin response.
The team was then able to show that stimulating production of hamartin offered greater protection for the neurons.
Professor Buchan says: 'This is causally related to cell survival. If we block hamartin, the neurons die when blood flow is stopped. If we put hamartin back, the cells survive once more.'
Finally, the researchers were able to identify the biological pathway through which hamartin acts to enable the nerve cells to cope with damage when starved of energy and oxygen.
The group points out that knowing the natural biological mechanism that leads to neuroprotection opens up the possibility of developing drugs that mimic hamartin's effect.
Professor Buchan says: 'There is a great deal of work ahead if this is to be translated into the clinic, but we now have a neuroprotective strategy for the first time. Our next steps will be to see if we can find small molecule drug candidates that mimic what hamartin does and keep brain cells alive.
'While we are focussing on stroke, neuroprotective drugs may also be of interest in other conditions that see early death of brain cells including Alzheimer's and motor neurone disease,' he suggests.
###
Notes to Editors
* The paper 'TSC1 (hamartin) confers neuroprotection against ischemia by inducing autophagy' by Michalis Papadakis and colleagues is to be published in the journal Nature Medicine with an embargo of 18:00 UK time / 13:00 US Eastern time on Sunday 24 February 2013.
* The main funders of the study were the UK Medical Research Council and the UK National Institute for Health Research.
* The Medical Research Council has been at the forefront of scientific discovery to improve human health. Founded in 1913 to tackle tuberculosis, the MRC now invests taxpayers' money in some of the best medical research in the world across every area of health. Twenty-nine MRC-funded researchers have won Nobel prizes in a wide range of disciplines, and MRC scientists have been behind such diverse discoveries as vitamins, the structure of DNA and the link between smoking and cancer, as well as achievements such as pioneering the use of randomised controlled trials, the invention of MRI scanning, and the development of a group of antibodies used in the making of some of the most successful drugs ever developed. Today, MRC-funded scientists tackle some of the greatest health problems facing humanity in the 21st century, from the rising tide of chronic diseases associated with ageing to the threats posed by rapidly mutating micro-organisms. www.mrc.ac.uk
The MRC Centenary Timeline chronicles 100 years of life-changing discoveries and shows how our research has had a lasting influence on healthcare and wellbeing in the UK and globally, right up to the present day. www.centenary.mrc.ac.uk
* The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is funded by the Department of Health to improve the health and wealth of the nation through research. Since its establishment in April 2006, the NIHR has transformed research in the NHS. It has increased the volume of applied health research for the benefit of patients and the public, driven faster translation of basic science discoveries into tangible benefits for patients and the economy, and developed and supported the people who conduct and contribute to applied health research. The NIHR plays a key role in the Government's strategy for economic growth, attracting investment by the life-sciences industries through its world-class infrastructure for health research. Together, the NIHR people, programmes, centres of excellence and systems represent the most integrated health research system in the world. For further information, visit the NIHR website.
* Oxford University's Medical Sciences Division is one of the largest biomedical research centres in Europe, with over 2,500 people involved in research and more than 2,800 students. The University is rated the best in the world for medicine, and it is home to the UK's top-ranked medical school.
From the genetic and molecular basis of disease to the latest advances in neuroscience, Oxford is at the forefront of medical research. It has one of the largest clinical trial portfolios in the UK and great expertise in taking discoveries from the lab into the clinic. Partnerships with the local NHS Trusts enable patients to benefit from close links between medical research and healthcare delivery.
A great strength of Oxford medicine is its long-standing network of clinical research units in Asia and Africa, enabling world-leading research on the most pressing global health challenges such as malaria, TB, HIV/AIDS and flu. Oxford is also renowned for its large-scale studies which examine the role of factors such as smoking, alcohol and diet on cancer, heart disease and other conditions.
[ | 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.
Ability of brain to protect itself from damage revealedPublic release date: 24-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: University of Oxford press office press.office@admin.ox.ac.uk 44-186-528-0530 University of Oxford
The origin of an innate ability the brain has to protect itself from damage that occurs in stroke has been explained for the first time.
The Oxford University researchers hope that harnessing this inbuilt biological mechanism, identified in rats, could help in treating stroke and preventing other neurodegenerative diseases in the future.
'We have shown for the first time that the brain has mechanisms that it can use to protect itself and keep brain cells alive,' says Professor Alastair Buchan, Head of the Medical Sciences Division and Dean of the Medical School at Oxford University, who led the work.
The researchers report their findings in the journal Nature Medicine and were funded by the UK Medical Research Council and National Institute for Health Research.
Stroke is the third most common cause of death in the UK. Every year around 150,000 people in the UK have a stroke.
It occurs when the blood supply to part of the brain is cut off. When this happens, brain cells are deprived of the oxygen and nutrients they need to function properly, and they begin to die.
'Time is brain, and the clock has started immediately after the onset of a stroke. Cells will start to die somewhere from minutes to at most 1 or 2 hours after the stroke,' says Professor Buchan.
This explains why treatment for stroke is so dependent on speed. The faster someone can reach hospital, be scanned and have drugs administered to dissolve any blood clot and get the blood flow re-started, the less damage to brain cells there will be.
It has also motivated a so-far unsuccessful search for 'neuroprotectants': drugs that can buy time and help the brain cells, or neurons, cope with damage and recover afterwards.
The Oxford University research group have now identified the first example of the brain having its own built-in form of neuroprotection, so-called 'endogenous neuroprotection'.
They did this by going back to an observation first made over 85 years ago. It has been known since 1926 that neurons in one area of the hippocampus, the part of the brain that controls memory, are able to survive being starved of oxygen, while others in a different area of the hippocampus die. But what protected that one set of cells from damage had remained a puzzle until now.
'Previous studies have focused on understanding how cells die after being depleted of oxygen and glucose. We considered a more direct approach by investigating the endogenous mechanisms that have evolved to make these cells in the hippocampus resistant,' explains first author Dr Michalis Papadakis, Scientific Director of the Laboratory of Cerebral Ischaemia at Oxford University.
Working in rats, the researchers found that production of a specific protein called hamartin allowed the cells to survive being starved of oxygen and glucose, as would happen after a stroke.
They showed that the neurons die in the other part of the hippocampus because of a lack of the hamartin response.
The team was then able to show that stimulating production of hamartin offered greater protection for the neurons.
Professor Buchan says: 'This is causally related to cell survival. If we block hamartin, the neurons die when blood flow is stopped. If we put hamartin back, the cells survive once more.'
Finally, the researchers were able to identify the biological pathway through which hamartin acts to enable the nerve cells to cope with damage when starved of energy and oxygen.
The group points out that knowing the natural biological mechanism that leads to neuroprotection opens up the possibility of developing drugs that mimic hamartin's effect.
Professor Buchan says: 'There is a great deal of work ahead if this is to be translated into the clinic, but we now have a neuroprotective strategy for the first time. Our next steps will be to see if we can find small molecule drug candidates that mimic what hamartin does and keep brain cells alive.
'While we are focussing on stroke, neuroprotective drugs may also be of interest in other conditions that see early death of brain cells including Alzheimer's and motor neurone disease,' he suggests.
###
Notes to Editors
* The paper 'TSC1 (hamartin) confers neuroprotection against ischemia by inducing autophagy' by Michalis Papadakis and colleagues is to be published in the journal Nature Medicine with an embargo of 18:00 UK time / 13:00 US Eastern time on Sunday 24 February 2013.
* The main funders of the study were the UK Medical Research Council and the UK National Institute for Health Research.
* The Medical Research Council has been at the forefront of scientific discovery to improve human health. Founded in 1913 to tackle tuberculosis, the MRC now invests taxpayers' money in some of the best medical research in the world across every area of health. Twenty-nine MRC-funded researchers have won Nobel prizes in a wide range of disciplines, and MRC scientists have been behind such diverse discoveries as vitamins, the structure of DNA and the link between smoking and cancer, as well as achievements such as pioneering the use of randomised controlled trials, the invention of MRI scanning, and the development of a group of antibodies used in the making of some of the most successful drugs ever developed. Today, MRC-funded scientists tackle some of the greatest health problems facing humanity in the 21st century, from the rising tide of chronic diseases associated with ageing to the threats posed by rapidly mutating micro-organisms. www.mrc.ac.uk
The MRC Centenary Timeline chronicles 100 years of life-changing discoveries and shows how our research has had a lasting influence on healthcare and wellbeing in the UK and globally, right up to the present day. www.centenary.mrc.ac.uk
* The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is funded by the Department of Health to improve the health and wealth of the nation through research. Since its establishment in April 2006, the NIHR has transformed research in the NHS. It has increased the volume of applied health research for the benefit of patients and the public, driven faster translation of basic science discoveries into tangible benefits for patients and the economy, and developed and supported the people who conduct and contribute to applied health research. The NIHR plays a key role in the Government's strategy for economic growth, attracting investment by the life-sciences industries through its world-class infrastructure for health research. Together, the NIHR people, programmes, centres of excellence and systems represent the most integrated health research system in the world. For further information, visit the NIHR website.
* Oxford University's Medical Sciences Division is one of the largest biomedical research centres in Europe, with over 2,500 people involved in research and more than 2,800 students. The University is rated the best in the world for medicine, and it is home to the UK's top-ranked medical school.
From the genetic and molecular basis of disease to the latest advances in neuroscience, Oxford is at the forefront of medical research. It has one of the largest clinical trial portfolios in the UK and great expertise in taking discoveries from the lab into the clinic. Partnerships with the local NHS Trusts enable patients to benefit from close links between medical research and healthcare delivery.
A great strength of Oxford medicine is its long-standing network of clinical research units in Asia and Africa, enabling world-leading research on the most pressing global health challenges such as malaria, TB, HIV/AIDS and flu. Oxford is also renowned for its large-scale studies which examine the role of factors such as smoking, alcohol and diet on cancer, heart disease and other conditions.
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Just a few years ago, the budget was 2/3 of what it is now, so how were food inspections paid for then?
Most people don't realize that this big deficit spending problem started when the $787B "one time stimulus" became part of the baseline budget and was re-spent (and then some) year after year after year on the biggest government expansion ever seen on this Earth. That $787B is STILL being spent over and over again.
Bond Bubble Ben is still printing Bernanke Bucks at a rate of about $1T/year as well, because the FED is the only entity willing to buy new US debt anymore.
When are Americans going to wake up and realize that you can't spend money you don't have on things you neither want nor need and expect to come out ahead at the end of the day?
I guess "as long as I'm getting mine" is the new American Dream.
Here are some gross, as in disgusting, numbers for US Government Spending:
If you take the 2001 spending figure and adjust it for inflation, it is 2411B, so in 2011 dollars we're spending 1186B more than we were in 2001.
1.2T in government growth, people. That's 49%. And that's just government growth at the federal level. Government is taking fully 50% more money from us (and our kids, and their kids, and probably also their kids after that) than they were 10 years ago.
During his second visit to Israel, Rubio has appeared very presidential, meeting with both Israeli President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.? He even had the hutzpah to tell Peres that Jerusalem is, ??of course the capital of your country.?? Neither that sentiment, nor those words, will escape Obama?s mouth next month.?
Not wishing to offend America?s president, the Israeli government omitted that statement in its official press release of the Rubio/Peres meeting.? The nation?s newspapers and TV news programs broadcast it, however; most Israelis see Rubio as a true friend.
With Florida?s senator in the country, Netanyahu (yet again) warned that a ?UN nuclear report? confirmed ?Iran has begun installing advanced centrifuges at its main uranium enrichment plant?.??
Israel cannot wait forever to strike Iran, although she is holding off because the Obama administration still sees a ?window of opportunity? for a diplomatic solution.
The question is, of course, will the Jews wait too long?
The most popular tourist attraction in southern Israel is Masada, the site of the last Jewish resistance against Rome prior to the beginning of the Diaspora in 70 A.D.? Visiting Israeli soldiers take an oath there: ?Masada will never fall again.?? At that revered site, the Jewish rebels watched, and watched, and watched as the Romans built a road up to the side of their fortress.? Eventually, the Romans breached the wall, but not before all of the Jews had chosen death before surrender.? The Masada story is legend throughout Israel.?
Will Israel wait too long again?
Rubio has affirmed America?s resolve to keep Iran from attaining nuclear weapons, but the hour is late.? Quite possibly, it?s too late.? North Korea?s ?earthquake? a few days ago may have been its testing of a nuclear device for its Iranian allies.
And Israelis are feeling a growing sense of loneliness, as all of their bordering neighbors grow colder -- even America appears to be distancing herself from the Jews.? President Mohamed Morsi?s Egypt is openly antagonistic, as is Hezbollah?s Lebanon.? Syria is on life-support, and there are Muslim Brotherhood rumblings beginning in Jordan.? All of Israel?s neighbors are again potential foes in some future confrontation just as the revelation of American financial aid being cut becomes front-page news.
Naturally, a warm visit by a high-ranking, influential American politician is a much appreciated breath of fresh air.
In the past few days, the Israeli government has let it be known that during Obama?s visit, the president will be honored ?on behalf of the American people? and because of Israel and America?s long-standing friendship and common goals.? How is that for warmth toward Obama?
With Rubio, the nation of Israel sees a genuine friend who just might be able to mend damaged fences.? The smiles surrounding Rubio appear genuine.? There will also be smiles next month, but they will have a plastic element to them.
Walt Osterman is the author of "Not Home Yet: A Tale Concerning Israel's Rebirth." He served in Vietnam and is a Bronze Star recipient. He lives in Wyoming.
Want to see how Glass actually feels? It's surprisingly simple. Say "take a picture" to take a picture. Record what you see, hands free. Even share what you see, live.Directions are right in front of you. Speak to send a message, or translate your voice. Get the notifications that matter most. Ask whatever's on your mind and get answers without having to ask.All video footage captured through Glass.Welcome to a world through Glass. See more at http://www.google.com/glass/start"New Lipstick" by The Kissaway Trail on Google Play - http://goo.gl/v4dUfhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=v1uyQZNg2vE
In this Sept. 16, 2011 photo, media mogul Tsai Eng-meng smiles during a public event in Taipei, Taiwan. Appearing last year before Taiwanese regulators, billionaire media magnate Tsai appeared perplexed over a decision to fine his flagship newspaper for carrying camouflaged advertising on behalf of China's Communist government. Tsai, whose pro-China views have made him a lightning rod for criticism on this island of 23 million people, is on the verge of expanding his already substantial Taiwanese media empire through the acquisition of a 32 percent share in Next Media, currently owned by Jimmy Lai, an outspoken anti-communist reviled by Beijing. (AP Photo/Jameson Wu)
In this Sept. 16, 2011 photo, media mogul Tsai Eng-meng smiles during a public event in Taipei, Taiwan. Appearing last year before Taiwanese regulators, billionaire media magnate Tsai appeared perplexed over a decision to fine his flagship newspaper for carrying camouflaged advertising on behalf of China's Communist government. Tsai, whose pro-China views have made him a lightning rod for criticism on this island of 23 million people, is on the verge of expanding his already substantial Taiwanese media empire through the acquisition of a 32 percent share in Next Media, currently owned by Jimmy Lai, an outspoken anti-communist reviled by Beijing. (AP Photo/Jameson Wu)
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) ? Appearing last year before Taiwanese regulators, billionaire media magnate Tsai Eng-meng appeared perplexed over a decision to fine his flagship newspaper for carrying camouflaged advertising on behalf of China's Communist government.
"I really don't understand this," said Tsai, who became Taiwan's richest individual by selling treacly rice crackers on the Chinese mainland through his Want Want China Holdings company. "I think they should allow me to make this money."
It was a vintage statement from a man Forbes magazine says is worth $8 billion and whose pro-China views have made him a lightning rod for criticism among many on this democratic island of 23 million people. Since purchasing Taiwan's China Times Group in 2008, the rough-hewn Tsai has burst like a meteor onto Taiwan's political scene, leveraging his China-derived fortune to promote a political union across the 160-kilometer- (100-mile-) wide Taiwan Strait. Despised by Taiwan's Beijing-wary opposition, the crew-cut 55-year old seems to roll effortlessly over his detractors, proudly flaunting his limited formal education and soaring business success.
Now he seems ready to roll over them again. Next month Taiwanese officials will rule on his bid to take a 32 percent share ? through his son ? in the Next Media Group, owned by Hong Kong's Jimmy Lai, an outspoken anti-communist reviled in Beijing. Next properties include Apple Daily, which is Taiwan's biggest selling newspaper, and Next Magazine, its pre-eminent investigative journal.
If the deal goes through, Tsai would add substantially to his existing ownership of another major newspaper, an influential business daily, a top-rated cable TV news station, and a popular terrestrial TV channel. Critics, who believe Tsai uses his media empire's consistently laudatory coverage of China to advance his mainland business interests, say this new level of clout could stifle Taiwan's press competition and even undermine its young democracy.
The controversy over Tsai and his expansive Taiwanese media holdings goes right to the heart of the dominant issue in Taiwanese politics: Whether the island should attempt to maintain the separate political identity from the mainland it has maintained since splitting apart from it amid civil war in 1949, or whether it should bow to China's increasing political and economic might and accept its sovereign sway. Taiwanese media, particularly the island's four national newspapers and its seven major 24-hour cable news stations, play a crucial role in the debate, using their columns and broadcasts to promote the competing pro-China and independence agendas of the two main political parties.
The strength of Tsai's pro-China views were underlined in January 2012 when he told the Washington Post newspaper that he unreservedly backed Taiwan's unification with the mainland. "I really hope that I can see that," he said. In the same article he also attacked the widely held belief that Chinese security forces killed hundreds if not thousands of demonstrators during pro-democracy protests around Beijing's Tiananmen Square in June 1989, citing the refusal of a phalanx of Chinese tanks to run over a famously bold protester as evidence of the forces' restraint.
Want Want's own internal newsletter reported in its December 2008 edition that during a meeting in Beijing, Tsai told Wang Yi, head of the Chinese government's Taiwan Affairs Office, that Tsai had acquired the China Times Group "in order to use the power of the press to advance relations between China and Taiwan." The newsletter quoted Wang as saying that if Tsai's company had any future needs "the Taiwan Affairs Office will do its best to help it, including giving support to its food business."
After a lengthy exchange of emails with a Tsai legal representative, Tsai declined to be interviewed for this article. Contacted by The Associated Press, his public relations department also declined to answer questions on Tsai's China attitudes and his plans for Next Media. "We do not plan on repeating ourselves again," wrote his son, Cai Shao-zhong, explaining that Tsai had outlined his views in other forums in the past.
Interviews with media figures and former employees help fill in the blanks about Tsai. They paint a picture of a hard charging, detail-oriented businessman, loyal to his friends, but implacably hostile to anyone he feels is getting in his way. They also suggest he either lacks an understanding of the role of the media in Taiwan's democracy or does not consider it important.
"My understanding of Tsai is that's he's a businessman, all his thinking is about business, and how to make money," said Ho Jung-shin, who left his job as deputy editor of Tsai's flagship China Times newspaper last year over what he said was Tsai's use of his sprawling media holdings to conduct vendettas against perceived enemies.
Ho said he was particularly upset by repeated China Times Group claims, which the group later backed away from, that a researcher at Taiwan's prestigious Academia Sinica paid university students to mount demonstrations against Tsai's efforts to purchase a major Taiwanese cable TV distribution system. Regulators on Wednesday nixed that deal, at least in its present form.
"He took this public trust and turned it into a personal tool," Ho said. "He's sees the media only as a tool to advance his own campaigns."
Other former China Times employees also lambast him for turning both the China Times newspaper and the CTi cable news station into rubber stamp apologists for China's authoritarian government. They cite a long litany of examples, including the two outlets' harsh criticism of the Dalai Lama during a 2009 Taiwan visit ? Beijing reviles the Tibetan spiritual leader for allegedly promoting Tibetan independence ? and the short shrift the outlets gave imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo when he was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 2010.
Taiwanese newspaper columnist Antonio Chiang, a longtime Tsai acquaintance, said a key to understanding Tsai's larger than life personality is the intense pride he feels at having taken over his father's small food business as a young man in the late 1970s and building it into what is now China's largest snack food company, despite having never finished high school.
"He's always talking about how little education he had and how it didn't hurt him in the least," said Chiang, who strongly opposes Tsai's views on China. "He loves the fact that he has all these PhDs working for him and that they have to listen to what he says."
"This is a man with extremely strong will," Chiang said. "He's not very sophisticated but he's very self-controlled. And he's completely honest. What you see from him is exactly what you get."
The lack of pretense Chiang describes is reflected in Tsai's unpolished persona, which includes a shoot from the hip social style and a preference for his native Taiwanese dialect over the clipped, Mandarin Chinese employed by the better educated doyens of the Taiwanese business elite.
A 2012 Chinese language biography portrayed him as a simple man of the people, most comfortable chewing betel nut and conversing informally with food processing workers amid a hands-on management style that includes familiarity with every aspect of his business, from buying raw materials to managing production lines and kibitzing with customers.
But Chiang said that beneath Tsai's everyman personality is a single-minded approach that threatens Taiwan's free press, including the Apple Daily newspaper, Chiang's current employer, and Next Magazine, the investigative journal.
Apple, while better known for its racy diet of sex, scandal and celebrity gossip, has also been praised for its editorial independence that sets it apart from most other Taiwanese media outlets, which seem most comfortable parroting the views of one or the other of Taiwan's two main political parties.
"He ruined the China Times," Chiang said. "He can ruin Apple as well."
Tsai has also stirred controversy by taking initiatives that appear aimed at bringing Taiwan and China closer together on important foreign policy questions.
Last September, Tsai contributed five million New Taiwan dollars ($166,000) to underwrite the voyage of some 60 Taiwanese fishing vessels to an island group in the East China Sea hotly contested by China and Japan. The voyage ended in a confrontation between Japanese and Taiwanese coast guard cutters, significantly raising tensions in the area, despite the declared intention of Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou to avoid taking provocative actions on the sensitive island issue.
Fishermen involved in the demonstration said they were only interested in asserting their fishing rights around the Diaoyu, or Senkaku islands, and had no interest in politics, or making common cause with China. But 11 days after they returned to Taiwan, the China Times ran a hard-hitting editorial, calling on the Taiwanese government to join Beijing in pushing for Chinese sovereignty there.
Initiatives like this are feeding the belief among Tsai critics that he and other deep-pocketed Taiwanese business people are attempting to subvert the Ma government's relatively cautious China policy, which while consciously moving the island ever closer to Beijing economically, still opposes an early political union.
"These business people are definitely pushing the two sides closer together," said Ketty Chen, a Taiwanese-American academic at Taipei's National Taiwan University. "They're very influential."
Arrayed against the influence of Tsai and his pro-China allies is Taiwan's boisterous democracy and the blossoming among many Taiwanese of a political and cultural identity distinct from the mainland.
"I wouldn't sell Taiwan short," said Taiwan expert Mark Harrison of the University of Tasmania in Australia. . "It won't surrender without a fight. This battle isn't over."
For episode 4 of his ARTST TLK interview series, P sits down with skateboarding GOAT Tony Hawk.
From his first deck to Birdhouse to Boom Boom Huck Jam to a video game empire Tony Hawk talks to Pharrell Williams about experiencing things that were beyond his imagination as a kid. Tony talks about the evolution of skateboarding and the challenges that he still looks forward to as a skater and a businessman.
Previously: Pharrell Interviews KAWS & David Salle | Pharrell & Pedro Winter?s OFIVE Magazine Cover Shoot
Posted by eskay
on Thursday, February 21st, 2013 at 10:15 am
under: Interviews, Video
An excerpt from Eric Dinerstein's Kingdom of Rarities explores whether the anteater and other South American oddities can survive as Brazil's Cerrado grassland is converted into cattle ranches and soybean farms
By Eric Dinerstein
GIANT ANTEATERImage: Courtesy of Malene Thyssen
Excerpted from The Kingdom of Rarities, by Eric Dinerstein. ? January 2013, Island Press.
~
?Look for an overripe, black banana moving through the grass.? Edson Endrigo, our nature guide extraordinaire, was explaining his technique for spotting giant anteaters in Serra da Canastra National Park, just one of the rarities in this area. Obediently looking up on the hillside, I spotted a two-meter-long mobile banana. We jumped out of the van and circled behind a female anteater with a baby clinging to her back. My two companions, David Wilcove and John Morrison, and I closely tracked her progress.
If the greater one-horned rhino seems odd and prehistoric, the giant anteater offers good company as one of the most peculiar-looking mammals on the planet. Both are ranked as threatened on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The tamandua-bandeira, or papa-formigas, as it is known in Brazil, cuts a comical figure, sporting an elongate, arching snout and bowlegged limbs, all ending in an immense shaggy tail. The rest of the body is shaggy, too, featuring a striking long pelage of dark bands on light. The female in front of us moved along like an animated throw rug.
An anteater walks on thickened pads on the outsides of its paws, as its digits are turned under its feet. An observer might think of this awkward creature, with its poor eyesight, bad hearing, and odd gait, as defenseless against secretive jaguars and pumas. That would be a miscalculation. With its acute sense of smell, the anteater can make up for its nearsightedness. If cornered, it will stand up on its hind legs and slash with its massive claws any human or feline predator foolish enough to tangle with it.
The mama anteater stopped and flicked her tongue in the dirt. Unlike the vast majority of mammals, the giant anteater lacks teeth. It has no real need for them because it inserts its long, narrow tongue into crevices, removes ants and termites with its sticky saliva, and swallows them whole. Crouching downwind, I inhaled deeply to catch its scent and wondered if consuming 30,000 ants a day gives this creature, or its flatulence, the odor of formic acid. I smelled nothing unusual.
*
Human activities sometimes bring species back from the brink of extinction. But more often they exacerbate rarity even to the point of disappearance, drive into rarity species once common, or further constrain those species that normally have narrow ranges or live at low densities. The most dramatic change happening today that is pushing already uncommon species toward even greater rarity is the conversion of rain forests and natural savannas into commodities production for industrialized agriculture. Big Ag, as it is now known, is largely mechanized, highly profitable, and controlled by multinational corporations. Some biologists and geographers describe extension of this trend as the future; increasingly, we live on a cultivated planet. The loss of natural habitats through nonagricultural use?that is, human settlements?and in nontropical areas is also high, but the conversion is greatest in the tropics and through big agriculture.
Few field biologists bother to check the daily price of soybeans or palm oil. This is an oversight because the market value of these commodities?along with that of beef, corn, sugar, and coffee?may over the coming decades define the future of rare species more profoundly than will any other driver of habitat loss. At present, nowhere is the conversion and fracturing of rain forests by industrialized agriculture in the world?s hotbeds of rarity more evident than in Southeast Asia and Brazil. In Kalimantan and Sumatra, Indonesia, expansion of oil palm and wood pulp plantations threatens the most species-rich rain forests in the world. In Brazil, vast areas of the Amazon are turning into cattle ranches and soybean farms. In addition to causing habitat loss, such rampant conversion imperils climate stability. Nearly 70 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions released annually from tropical forests originate from agriculture-driven forest conversion in just two places, Riau Province, Sumatra, and the state of Mato Grosso, at the edge of the Amazon in Brazil.
Microsoft believes every Android device maker owes money for (reportedly) using its patents, and it's been striking a lot of matching royalty deals that mostly focus on phone designers. While there wasn't necessarily much doubt, we can confirm today that dedicated camera makers aren't exempt: Nikon just signed a similar deal. Although the terms are once again secret, the agreement will see Nikon pay Microsoft a royalty for "certain" cameras running Android, which likely involves the Coolpix S800c as well as any future shooters. In case you're wondering, Samsung's broader patent license deal already covers the Galaxy Camera. This new pact mostly gives Nikon equal treatment -- and shows that Microsoft casts a wide net.
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Public release date: 25-Feb-2013
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Some apps are essential, and everyone who's anyone knows to have them on their computer. Some apps, however, are fantastic yet fly under the radar. Today, we look at our top 10 underhyped apps for Mac. 
Even though it's now out of development, Sonora is still our favorite iTunes-alternative music player?especially now that it's open-sourced and free. The latest version greatly improves on an already awesome interface and updates Sonora's excellent on-the-fly song queueing features. My favorite part of Sonora, however, is the global hotkey that lets you bring up a search panel and type what you want. It works like an app launcher, except you get music results as you type. You can play a playlist, album, or just a song. If you still need to manage your music with iTunes because you use an iPhone (or other iDevice), Sonora will sync your collection at startup (or manually at any time of your choosing). It's a fantastic music app and we hope someone else continues its development, but in the meantime the latest beta is solid and deserves to be your music player of choice.
Need to sign a document? Got a multitouch trackpad? All you need is Autograph and you can sign with your finger or a capacitive stylus. All you do is invoke the Autograph window with a hotkey of your choosing, sign, and insert the signature into whatever document you need. It's pretty much the easiest way to digitally sign anything.
ScreenSharingMenulet does one great thing: it puts a menu of computers available for screen sharing in your OS X menubar. Why Apple hasn't added this to OS X itself is hard to understand, because it's such a useful feature for anyone who accesses their computer screens remotely with any kind of regularity. Local and Back to My Mac Hosts show up in the menu by default, but you can add bookmarks to other desktops if you want as well. It may only do one thing, but it's one vital thing if you care about remote desktop on your Mac.
PopClip has a very simple premise: add iOS-style copy and paste to your Mac. When you select text, PopClip will show copy and paste buttons. If that's all it did, however, it wouldn't be worth the cost. Fortunately, PopClip is extensible and allows you to integrate tons of other features of your choosing. Want to search for selected text on Google/Amazon/virtually anywhere else? No problem. Need an instant word count for your selection? Done. If you can think up a selected text function, PopClip can probably do it. It'll set you back $5, but a free trial is available if you want to give the app a shot first.
Google Voice is awesome, but replying to text messages and checking voicemail from your computer could be quite a bit easier. GrowlVoice solves that problem on your Mac by shoving everything you'd want to do into your menubar. The elegant interface provides an easy way to send and respond to text messages, plus you can listen to voicemails and even call back if you want.
Unclutter stores all sorts of useful things at the top of your screen. Just move your mouse to the menu bar and swipe down with a couple of fingers to reveal a clipboard, file storage area, and a notepad. Basically, the app takes three handy tools you could use access to and throws them into one convenient, accessible-when-necessary space.
You saved a file...somewhere. It might've been in some folder on your computer, or perhaps you left it on a cloud service like Dropbox or Google Drive. No matter, because Found will search it all?and quickly, for that matter. If you're dealing with issues of data fragmentation due to storing it in many different places, you won't have to worry about losing things anymore if you install this free app.
Most of us use the wonderful Handbrake to convert videos, but the user interface isn't exactly intuitive for someone unfamiliar with video encoding. On top of that, formats are limited and you can't convert audio files or images. What free can do all of that? Adapter, the lesser-known multimedia powerhouse that deserves a lot more attention than it gets. It can convert all your movies, encode audio, and change the format of your images. It's pretty much as fast as Handbrake, too, as it uses the same encoding libraries. If you have media of any kind to convert, be sure to check it out.
XtraFinder adds a bunch of useful features the OS X Finder is lacking, such as cut and paste, putting folders on top in list view, dual panel and dual window view, global hotkeys, and tabbed windows?just to name a few. While Pathfinder can do much more, it costs $40. If you want to supercharge the OS X Finder without paying, XtraFinder is the answer.
Dropzone is one of my personal favorite apps. If there's anything you want to do via drag and drop, Dropzone can handle the task. It can upload files to FTP sites, speak text, print documents, upload pictures to Flickr, and tons more. If a capability isn't built-in, Dropzone is extensible and might have a third-party option. If not, and you're feeling ambitious, you could even write an extension. All you do is drag a file to the menu bar, then move it to the task you want to complete. Dropzone will handle the rest. When uploading, it'll even copy a URL to the clipboard automatically. If you want to know more about what you can do with Dropzone, read our guide. It's a really awesome way to create a variety of useful shortcuts.
