Tiny human liver grown inside mouse's head

It may be small, but is it perfectly formed? A tiny human liver, just 5 millimetres in size, has been grown inside a mouse. It remains to be seen whether the organ can replicate all liver functions ? and if it will be possible to scale up the tiny structure to useable dimensions.

Hideki Taniguchi and Takanori Takebe at Yokohama City University generated induced pluripotent stem cells from human skin cells, then encouraged them to develop into liver precursor cells. They added two more types of cell ? mesenchymal cells, and endothelial cells from umbilical cord blood vessels. Without the aid of any underlying scaffold, the cells "guided themselves" and generated a microstructure almost identical to normal liver tissue, says Takebe.

"We mixed and graded the cells onto the culture dish and they moved to form a cluster," he says. "It was a surprising outcome from what was, to be honest, an accident."

The structure was then transplanted inside the skull of severe combined immunodeficiency mice, which would not mount an immune response to the tissue. Transplanting the structure here allowed the researchers to make use of the increased blood flow to the brain to encourage growth of the new tissue.

Within just 48 hours, human blood vessels began to form within the tiny liver, along with human proteins. Levels of glycogen and amino acids in the tissue were also the same as those found in human liver.

Obstacles

"It's not yet a perfect liver," says Takebe. "Improvements need to be made, such as the reconstruction of a bile duct." Other big obstacles yet to be overcome include finding a way to scale up the resulting organ, he adds.

The research team presented their research findings at the International Society for Stem Cell Research annual meeting in Yokohama, Japan, last week, but have yet to publish the work in a peer-reviewed journal.

Yoichi Tagawa at the Tokyo Institute of Technology says that only when the data are received and scrutinised by liver experts will the true value of the research be known. "Hepatologists have a deep interest in real regenerative medicine that can be applied clinically, so they may evaluate [the research] very strictly," he says.

George Q Daley, the director of the stem cell transplantation programme at Children's Hospital Boston, Massachusetts, agrees that questions remain to be answered. "These data encourage us to believe that engineered organoids may one day provide replacement organs," he says. More work remains to be done, though. "The absence of formation of bile ducts is curious, and would need to occur for true liver function."

This article has been edited since it was first posted

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Report: 26,000 uninsured in US die each year

WASHINGTON?? More than 26,000 working-age adults die prematurely in the United States each year because they lack health insurance, according to a study published ahead of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling on President Barack Obama's health care reform law.

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The study, released on Wednesday by the consumer advocacy group Families USA, estimates that a record high of 26,100 people aged 25 to 64 died for lack of health coverage in 2010, up from 20,350 in 2005 and 18,000 in 2000.

That makes for a rate of about 72 deaths per day, or three per hour.

The nonprofit group based its findings on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a 2002 Institute of Medicine study that showed the uninsured face a 25 percent higher risk of death than those with coverage.

The findings are in line with a study by the Urban Institute think tank that estimated 22,000 deaths nationwide in 2006.

Families USA Executive Director Ron Pollack said the group released the study to illustrate the potential human toll behind a high court ruling that could overturn the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act by the end of next week.

"Lives are truly on the line," said Pollack, who supports the reform law. "If the Affordable Care Act moves forward and we expand coverage for tens of millions of people, the number of avoidable deaths due to being uninsured will decrease significantly."

The reform law would extend coverage to more than 30 million Americans who are uninsured. But 26 U.S. states have asked the Supreme Court to overturn the legislation on grounds that it exceeds the government's constitutional authority.

The $2.6 trillion U.S. health care system, which represents nearly 18 percent of the economy, is accessible to most working-age Americans only through private health insurance. But insurance costs ? premiums, deductibles, copays and co-insurance ? are unaffordable for many and increasing.

U.S. Census data show that 50 million Americans lack coverage, and experts say those in such straits forego medical care, doctor visits and preventive tests including cancer and blood pressure screenings.

"The uninsured get health care about half as often as insured Americans, on average," said Dr. Arthur Kellermann, director of the think tank RAND Health and co-chairman of the committee that produced the 2002 IOM study.

"There is an overwhelming body of evidence that they get less preventive care, less chronic disease care and poorer quality hospital in-patient care," he said.

Pollack and other health care advocates say the number of uninsured will continue to rise without reform as health care costs accelerate, employers scale back on benefits for their workers, and the social safety net frays under fiscal pressures.

The Families USA study includes a state-by-state breakdown on uninsured deaths. The list excludes Massachusetts, which adopted reforms similar to the Affordable Care Act in 2006. The group said it was concerned that statistics on uninsured people for the state might not accurately reflect the growing rate of coverage.

IOM's 2002 report, "Care Without Coverage: Too Little, Too Late," based its finding of a 25 percent higher mortality risk for the uninsured based on thousands of scientific studies analyzed as part of a multi-year effort that produced six reports in all.

"The figure was as rigorous as could be done with the huge amount evidence we had at the time," Kellermann said.

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Check for restrictions at: http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp

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Samsung Galaxy S III review

Samsung is the world?s leading Android manufacturer. The company?s latest smartphone, the Galaxy S III, had an?enormous?around of hype surrounding it before the phone was even announced. A series of exclusive BGR reports painted a partial picture of the device, but Samsung went to such great lengths to keep the phone a secret that no one outside the company and its partners really knew what Samsung had in store. Now, the Galaxy S III is finally ready to hit store shelves in the Unites States ? it will launch on all four major U.S. carriers beginning this month ? but can Samsung?s latest Android phone live up to the hype? The the jump for my review of the Samsung Galaxy S III.

The Galaxy S III is packed with some of the latest cutting-edge specifications, things like Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, 4G LTE in the U.S., a fast dual-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon processor, 1GB of RAM, an 8-megapixel camera with 1080p HD video recording, and large beautiful 720p resolution display. Oh, that display though? It?s a Super AMOLED PenTile display, and you know what that means? Regardless of the resolution, the screen will always look just a little bit worse than a non PenTile display like Samsung?s Super AMOLED Plus panels, and it?s noticeable.

The screen also seems less bright and less vivid than alternatives, and the dimming on it is just plain bad ? the phone doesn?t dim smoothly, instead stuttering a bit as it jumps from one level of brightness to the next. For the average smartphone user, the screen on the Galaxy S III will be more than good enough. Samsung?s AMOLED panels are all very impressive, but I really would have liked to see a Super AMOLED Plus display on the company?s flagship phone for 2012.

Looking at the front of the phone, Samsung almost mashed up the Galaxy Nexus with the Galaxy S II, which isn?t a bad thing at all. It?s a more rounded design, though practically the same shape as the Galaxy Nexus. The face includes an oblong home button and two touch sensitive Android keys, back and menu.

The entire phone is encased in plastic, but not just any plastic? Glossy, thin, flimsy, fingerprint-loving Samsung plastic!

While the phone does seem solid and very well-built, I can?t help but think that if Samsung for once actually used a different material besides flimsy plastic, its smartphones would?feel?so much more high-end. It?s almost funny: the company that?s accused of copying Apple to a T takes a polar opposite approach when it comes to build materials.

On top of the phone, there?s a 3.5-millimeter headset jack and a second microphone for noise cancellation. A volume rocker sits on the left side, and power / on / off button on the right side. Around back is an LED flash, an 8-megapixel camera and a speaker. Underneath the battery cover is a battery with integrated NFC, a microSIM slot and a microSD slot for expandable storage.

Even after using the faster Global quad-core version of the Galaxy S III for around a week, I still found the U.S. versions for AT&T and Sprint to be as quick when performing almost any task. Battery life also seems to be exceptional, and is one of the best battery performers of any Android smartphone I?ve used.

The new Galaxy S III features a bunch of software additions, starting with S Voice. S Voice isn?t just Samsung?s take on Siri, Apple?s popular voice assistant service, S Voice is a cheap and borderline useless knockoff. It rarely works and when it does, it supports far fewer queries than Siri. I received network errors and unexpected crashes countless times during my tests with S Voice, and there?s just no charm when using it.

There are, however, a few software features that I really like on Samsung?s new Galaxy smartphone. S Beam is a great feature that lets you share photos, contact information, webpages and other information with another Galaxy S III user with an NFC connection, and there?s also a photo capture mode when taking pictures to automatically tag your friends using face detection which works reasonably well.

Users get much more control and flexibility in terms of image and video capture compared to an iPhone, with burst modes, smile detection, panorama, a really innovative way to automatically share your photos with all of your friend?s phones instantly called share shot, integrated photo filters and more. The camera performs well and though it includes the same sensor as the iPhone 4S, I?ve found that the iPhone takes better photos in terms of clarity.

Samsung?s TouchWiz UI has evolved a tad, but it?s mostly the same interface you?ve used, if you?ve ever used a Galaxy S II or similar smartphone.

Honestly, you can?t have a game-changer every time around. I didn?t like Samsung?s first run of Galaxy S smartphones, but I absolutely loved the Galaxy S II (especially the AT&T version). They say greatness skips a generation, and I believe that?s true with the Galaxy S III. It feels like an afterthought to try and stay?competitive?with Apple and other leading Android vendors.

Does the world really need another Android smartphone that stuffs one-upped specifications into a borderline mediocre package? Probably not. That?s not to say the Galaxy S III is a failure, it?s just not good enough to hang with HTC?s One X. Not in the hardware department, and not in the software department.

Samsung is absolutely on the right track with the Galaxy S III however, and I like where the company is going. We?re nearing a point in time when being just another Android phone vendor won?t be enough, and Samsung is look for ways to separate itself from the pack. The Galaxy S III is just the tip of the iceberg, and ?I think?we?ll see much more from Samsung in terms of unique software features in the near future.

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Euro 2012 co-host Poland out

By RYAN LUCAS

Associated Press

Associated Press Sports

updated 4:26 p.m. ET June 16, 2012

WROCLAW, Poland (AP) -The Czech Republic became the first team to reach the quarterfinals of the European Championship on Saturday after midfielder Petr Jiracek's stylish winner earned his side a 1-0 victory over Poland.

Poland, the tournament co-host, was knocked out with its defeat in the team's final Group A game.

The Czechs finished top of their group and will now play the runners-up in Group B.

Pushing forward in the 72nd minute, Jiracek collected a pass from Milan Baros in the box, cut right to clear past Poland's Marcin Wasilewski and slotted the ball inside the far post.

"We had a poor start but we gradually improved, started to create chances and finally, we deserved to score," Jiracek said.

Poland, which had to win to advance to the quarterfinals, immediately brought on two attacking players in the last 30 minutes to push for a goal but couldn't punch through the Czech defense.

After the final whistle, the Czech players swarmed around each other on the pitch. The Poles fell to the ground, covering their faces.

"I think that probably we were too sure about winning this game. The Czechs played excellent football," Poland coach Franciszek Smuda said. "We had some opportunities before halftime, we didn't take advantage of them and we lost the game."

The Czechs pulled off the win despite playing without their captain and playmaker Tomas Rosicky, who was sidelined with an Achilles tendon injury.

Without his creative skills the Czechs were listless in the first half, struggling to put together any fluid passing and reduced to knocking long balls forward.

But as the Poles pushed forward in the second half in search of a goal to put them through to the quarterfinals, more space began to open up in midfield.

That space gave the Czechs the opportunity to strike on the counter, and the punishment came with Jiracek's second goal of the tournament. He also scored in the Czechs' 2-1 over Greece on Tuesday.

Poland responded well, though, and the final chances were all for the home team.

A cross from the right was deflected to the far post, where Marcin Wasilewski met the ball with a header that just cleared the bar. Minutes later, Poland captain Jakub Blaszczykowski's angled effort was cleared off the line by Michal Kadlec as the Czechs sealed their place in the last eight.

"In the first half we had some chances and didn't take advantage of them," Blaszczykowski said. "With the time passing, we had to open up more and more, and I think this is the reason we conceded a goal on the counter."

---

Lineups:

Czech Republic: Petr Cech, Theodor Gebre Selassie, Tomas Sivok, Michal Kadlec, David Limbersky, Tomas Hubschman, Jaroslav Plasil, Petr Jiracek (Frantisek Rajtoral, 84), Daniel Kolar, Vaclav Pilar (Jan Rezek, 88), Milan Baros (Tomas Pekhart, 90).

Poland: Przemyslaw Tyton, Sebastian Boenisch, Marcin Wasilewski, Damien Perquis, Lukasz Piszczek, Dariusz Dudka, Eugen Polanski (Kamil Grosicki, 56), Ludovic Obraniak (Pawel Brozek, 72), Rafal Murawski (Adrian Mierzejewski, 73), Jakub Blaszczykowski, Robert Lewandowski.

? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Euro 2012 co-host Poland out

Petr Jiracek scored a second-half winner to give the Czech Republic a 1-0 victory over Poland and a place in the quarterfinals of the European Championship on Saturday.

Greece beats Russia to earn quarterfinal spot

WARSAW, Poland (AP) -Giorgos Karagounis put Greece into the European Championship quarterfinals Saturday, scoring just before halftime to give the 2004 European champions a 1-0 victory over Russia.

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Ron Paul Supporters, Iowa GOP Fight for Relevancy

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Chinese delegates pull out of Doc/Fest

DOC/FEST: A delegation of Chinese broadcasters have withdrawn from Sheffield Doc/Fest at the eleventh hour following a row about documentaries that criticise the country?s government.

A delegation of 10 Chinese channel executives, including CCTV9 documentary channel MD Liu Wen, was due in Sheffield this week to meet delegates and present a panel on coproduction opportunities.

However, Doc/Fest organisers announced at the start of the festival that the group would no longer be attending, and the coproduction session due to take place later today has been replaced by a talk from BBC Storyville editor Nick Fraser.

Fraser told delegates at a panel on day one that the Chinese were unhappy at the Doc/Fest decision to air Alison Clayman?s Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, a feature on the Chinese artist and activist who is under house arrest by the country?s authorities.

In a statement festival director Heather Croall said: ?Officially we have been told that the reason they cancelled is related to a restriction on the number of travel trips they can make to Europe. Unofficially though, there were a number of difficult conversations regarding films we are screening in our programme that are critical of the Chinese Government.

?We are very disappointed that the Chinese delegation will now not be attending the festival, but we remain very hopeful that they will attend in future. Chinese filmmakers, distributors and commissioners will always be welcome at Doc/Fest. We believe in the power of coproduction and have helped to facilitate hundreds of co-productions over the years.?

Organisers say the Chinese Embassy in London telephoned them directly the day before the festival opened asking them to cancel screenings of the Ai WeiWei film and the delegation then withdrew when that request was refused.

New legislation from the Chinese government on building the country?s television production community and promoting the country abroad has seen television executives travelling the world this year to promote themselves as coproduction partners. Phoenix TV and the Golden Eagle Documentary Channel were among those scheduled to attend Doc/Fest.

Speaking to C21 at the recent MipTV event in Cannes Liu Wen said: ?One of the main aims this year is to hold several events to make more people aware of us. Attending international documentary festivals we can be more exposed and within the circle of the documentary world is very important to us.?

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Timothy Bradley Defeats Manny Pacquiao In Controversial Split Decision

LAS VEGAS -- Timothy Bradley didn't need big power to beat Manny Pacquiao after all.

Bradley won a contested split decision over Pacquiao, ending the Filipino fighter's remarkable run and handing him his first defeat in seven years. It didn't come easy and it wasn't without controversy, with the pro-Pacquiao crowd booing loudly when the decision was announced.

Pacquiao landed more punches and seemed to land the harder punches. But when the scorecards were added up, Bradley was up 115-113 on two scorecards and behind by the same margin on a third. The Associated Press had Pacquiao winning 117-111.

Pacquiao tried to turn the fight into a brawl, using his power to hurt Bradley in the early rounds. But Bradley changed tactics in the middle rounds and used his boxing skills to win enough rounds to take the narrow decision for the welterweight title.

"I thought I won the fight," Bradley said. "I didn't think he was as good as everyone says he was. I didn't feel his power."

Ringside punching statistics showed Pacquiao landing 253 punches to 159 for Bradley, who vowed before the fight to take the 147-pound title from Pacquiao.

Bradley was so confident that he had oversized tickets printed up for a Nov. 10 rematch that will now likely happen.

Bradley seemed hurt in the fourth and fifth rounds, but Pacquiao had trouble landing big punches after that. Still, he seemed in control of the fight everywhere but on the judge's scorecards.

"Can you believe that? Unbelievable," promoter Bob Arum said. "I went over to Bradley before the decision and he said, `I tried hard but I couldn't beat the guy.'"

Bradley said he hurt his ankle in the second round, and that trainer Joel Diaz said he could either quit or try to take the fight to Pacquiao.

"I did my best," Pacquiao said. "I guess my best wasn't good enough."

Pacquiao said he studied Bradley on tape before the fight and wasn't surprised by anything he did. He said he thought he was in control of the fight and was shocked when the decision went against him.

"He never hurt me with his punches, most of them landed on my arms," Pacquiao said.

Arum said there would be a rematch, though he criticized the judging. Arum has contracts with both fighters.

"I'm going to make a lot of money on the rematch, but this was outrageous," Arum said.

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Al-Qaida offshoot in Somalia offers unusual bounty on Obama

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Women kill buzz for guys who hire, fire them ? Business ? Bangor ...

NEW YORK ? We?ve seen this movie before and the ending still stinks.

The sex-discrimination lawsuit by Ellen Pao against the Silicon Valley venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers may be the gender and workplace story of the moment. But let?s get one thing straight: This doesn?t describe anything that?s new. It seems to happen routinely. Just this week, at a hearing in London, a lawyer for Latifa Bouabdillah, a former Deutsche Bank director, said the woman?s male colleagues were paid bonuses ?double or triple that of the claimant? for the same work.

Swap out Pao for Pamela Martens, who led the class-action ?Boom-Boom Room? lawsuit against Smith Barney in the 1990s, or Allison Schieffelin, who sued Morgan Stanley in 2001, or Carla Ingraham, who sued UBS in 2009, and you wind up with some combination of the same old complaints: coworker come-ons, power meetings for guys only, higher pay for men and retaliation against the uppity women who have the nerve to complain.

In the venture-capital world, where you get more than the usual share of people who are prone to thinking their every experience is novel, there is shock over news that a highly qualified woman has filed a suit against a celebrity firm. But sex discrimination isn?t the iPad, folks. It?s more like the electric typewriter.

Only a week before Pao filed her lawsuit on May 10, Jack Welch, the former General Electric Co. boss, told a gathering at a Dow Jones ?Women in the Economy? conference that women who wanted to advance just needed to work harder. ?Over-deliver,? he counseled ? advice that would strike a lot of glass-ceiling casualties as exactly what they had been doing their entire careers.

I don?t know about you, but I got tired of this very predictable narrative about 20 years ago.

I have no idea if Pao?s allegations, filed last month in San Francisco Superior Court, are true. But they sure sound familiar. Pao alleges in her complaint that one male coworker gave her a book with sexual drawings and poems on Valentine?s Day and another cut her out of business meetings after she terminated a brief relationship with him. In her 2007 performance review, she was labeled ?the top performer of the junior partners,? according to the suit. After that, Pao says she complained about discrimination. Then things changed, with two subsequent reviews citing her ?issues and clashes? with other partners, the lawsuit says.

Pao?s San Francisco lawyer, Alan B. Exelrod, declined to comment. Kleiner Perkins said in an email that the suit ?is without merit? and will vigorously defend itself. Kleiner general partner John Doerr, whose name is frequently decorated with the phrase ?legendary venture capitalist,? said in a statement posted on the firm?s website May 30 that it all amounted to ?false allegations? against his firm, which has ?the most? women of any leading venture-capital firm.

Twelve of Kleiner?s 49 partners are women, and in the venture-capital business, that?s considered very, very good.

How is it that 20 years after Anita Hill broke the silence about gender discrimination and harassment at work, there are still companies that can take a bow for being gender-equality heroes when 75 percent of their leaders are men?

There are many excuses used to explain away the snail?s pace progress for women at work, but the two most popular go something like this: It takes time to get women in the pipeline with education and experience. Or ? don?t you hate when this happens? ? those ungrateful women get jobs only to bail out because they can?t take the stress, want more free time for Pilates or miss staying home with the kids.

Let?s take that last one first.

New York-based Catalyst Inc., which does research on women in business, started tracking the progress of 4,100 full-time Master of Business Administration graduates around the world in 2007, homing in on those it identified as ?high-potential employees.? No matter how Catalyst sliced the data in its four reports on ?high potentials? since 2009, men started with higher salaries ? a pay gap of $4,600 in the first job out of school ? and enjoyed larger increases each year.

To address the argument that women are dropping out of corporations because they want more personal time or less stress, Catalyst teased out just the men and women who aspired to be senior officers or chief executives of for-profit companies. They also compared only men and women who had no children to address the ?mommy wants to be home with the kids? argument. In each case, men started out making more and advanced more quickly.

So much for the girls-can?t-handle-it argument. As for the pipeline argument, consider Pao. She had seven years of business experience, an electrical-engineering degree from Princeton University, and a law degree and MBA from Harvard by the time she landed at Kleiner in 2005. She?s had a lot of female company accumulating the right pedigrees for years, too.

Women earned only 10 percent of undergraduate business degrees back in 1971, receiving 10,460 degrees compared with 104,936 by men. By 1985, women had increased that number tenfold; in 2002, women received more degrees than men. That doesn?t sound like an empty pipeline to me.

It?s time to shift the focus from trying to ?fix? women, to trying to understand the subtle forces in organizations that may be holding women back, Christine Silva, a senior director of research at Catalyst, told me in a telephone interview.

Good idea. But part of the issue isn?t subtle at all.

Some employers just don?t want to hire women. Period. The biggest eye-opener I?ve seen in academic research to support that idea was a study in 2000 that tracked 26 years of auditions and hiring statistics for symphony orchestras.

Orchestras had come under pressure in the late 1960s to hire musicians in an unbiased manner, and began to conduct ?blind auditions? where judges couldn?t see the person trying out. They literally performed behind a screen. In the end, professors Claudia Goldin of Harvard University and Cecilia Rouse of Princeton University found that a woman?s chance of being hired increased by 25 percent when juries were clueless about a tryout?s gender.

We could benefit from a corporate version of that blind- audition idea. Until someone figures out how that would work, my guess is we will keep rolling through lawsuit cycles of predictable allegations and ugly revenge strategies. Comb through the reader comments at the end of articles about Pao, and you will see that she is already getting a blast of a tried- and-true ?nuts or sluts? attack that deems women who sue as either crazy or a little loose.

Pao herself reveals in the lawsuit that after a peer badgered her, she had sex with him two or three times, which is enough for some of her critics to conclude that she has no case at all.

Her foes are also anxious to get the word out that her husband, hedge-fund manager Alphonse Fletcher Jr., is black, litigious and unconventional. Don?t be surprised to see reporters put more energy into investigating Fletcher than they do probing Pao?s allegations. Fletcher does indeed have what can only be described as an unusual biography. He has sued an employer for discrimination, has himself been sued for sexual harassment of two men and lived with a male partner in New York?s famous Dakota building (which he sued for racial bias) before marrying Pao. His spokesman, Stefan Friedman, said he would ask Fletcher for a comment, but he never got back to me.

Fletcher?s history is an open invitation for guilt-by- association coverage that already is distracting from his wife?s allegations. It has nothing to do, though, with an office culture where, as Pao describes it, women were barred from power dinners with important clients because their presence would ?kill the buzz.?

Back in 1987, a Smith Barney office manager in Garden City, N.Y., sent out an invitation to ?All Garden City Brokers? for a day of golf and dinner at his country club. When several of the women tried to RSVP, the message came back that women weren?t invited. Presumably they, too, would have killed the boys? club buzz. For too many women at work, 25 years later, this bad workplace act is still in reruns.

Susan Antilla, who has written about Wall Street and business for three decades and is the author of ?Tales From the Boom-Boom Room,? a book about sexual harassment at financial companies, is a Bloomberg View columnist.

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Nate Silver: Obama slightly ahead for re-elect, but only slightly (Americablog)

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Price is Right Unveils Brand New Game ... - Tv Food and Drink

The Price is Right introduced their newest pricing game on this morning?s show (Thanks to Alex and Buzzerblog for the tip).

?Doublecross? is a two-prize game. Contestants must slide ?highlight boxes? across a series of digits populating an X grid until the correct prices of both prizes are highlighted at the same time, while intersecting one another through a single, mutual digit.

Sound easy?

As is often the case with the debut of a new game, it didn?t go off quite as well as producers might have hoped. The only problem I really have with it is that the contestant is positioned directly in front of the X-grid while playing, and this blocks some of the available numbers from the camera, killing the home viewer?s chance to play along. And contestant Janice was rather tiny. What happens if a 6-foot two hundred pound linebacker from UCSB is called up from Contestant?s Row to play?

Check out the video below and decide for yourself. Do you want to see more DoubleCross on Price?

Tags: Alex Davis Buzzerblog, Price is Right Drew Carey, Price is Right new game, Price is right new game Doublecross, Price is Right new game Doublecross video, Price is Right new game June 2012 Doublecross, Price is right newest pricing game

Posted in TV Now 14 hours, 51 minutes ago at 3:57 pm. 3 comments

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Palestinians mull non-member state status at UN

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Yemen: 23 al-Qaida militants killed in south

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Blood test 'can save breast cancer patients' lives'

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RolePlayGateway?

From: NotSoHeartless
To: Exodyus

Hello. I would like to reserve a spot in your RP, but before I make a character would you mind explaining the plot a bit more to me? I understand the history, it's the present that has me a bit muddled.

I also have some questions for you if you don't mind my pestering:
What kind of characters are you looking for? When under the shards' influence does the victim keep their persona, do they become slightly warped, or do they become mindless beings? What sort of symbiotic relationship occurs when the shard implants on a person? Are they granted certain abilites? Does anything change physically? Can you explain the Guild a bit more? In the skelly, how are you ranking threat levels?

Hope I'm not bothering you too much, just like as much detail as I can before joining anything. Thanks for your time.

In truth, it's a port from a site to this one, to run an alternate universe or alternate plot the one currently in play with others. I wanted to see really how the boards were created on this site, and how all of the RPs worked, but there's so many people to so few actually good stories and writers alike.

For the sake of not explaining everything, let's say that the simple present plot is character development and calling. The shard is more like a symbiote that is parasitic in nature, inside of you and controlling your every action -- should it so choose (you so choose).

It can warp your mind if you allow it. It can break an already broken mind. It can strength and bolster something that is already confident, making you feel invincible. Imagine it's a super-drug of the mind, based around something that's living inside you -- to give you the potential to grow stronger with each use.

There's a lot more shown and explained on our site, but the gist of it is growth and development. There's an evil on the horizon, but what is it? Is it you? Me? Something else? Subjecting yourself might be the only way to defeat it -- or the only way to give in. How will we know? ;)

-----

What kind of characters are you looking for?
-- Any you'd like to make. Preferably human, or humanoid.

When under the shards' influence does the victim keep their persona, do they become slightly warped, or do they become mindless beings? What sort of symbiotic relationship occurs when the shard implants on a person?
-- As I said before, persona is whatever you decide to develop. I never tell anyone how to play who they are or what they want to play. The relationship you build can be horrible for the host or good, all depending on how you write it.

Are they granted certain abilites?
-- The ability of Psionics.

Does anything change physically?
-- No.

Can you explain the Guild a bit more?
-- Preferably not, lol. The Guild is simply another name for God, the gods, a higher power, The Raven's Brand, etc...

In the skelly, how are you ranking threat levels?
-- I don't think I'm going to port the Stats over to this RP, so we'll play it slow.

Frankly, I didn't think anyone would find interest in this or PM me. I just wanted to test the boards out and do a little writing, lol. The concept is original and about 8 years old now, the Zenith, that is.

- Jeff

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