see-tv.info

Vice President Joe Biden said Wednesday that his trip to Baghdad ahead of the U.S. military pullout marks a new beginning between Iraq and the United States, but already protests in Iraq against his visit are demonstrating the difficulties the relationship will face. Biden arrived Tuesday in an unannounced visit to Iraq at a pivotal time as the last of the American troops withdraw, and the U.S. must establish a new relationship with a country that is home to billions of barrels of oil and more closely aligned with neighboring Iran than the U.S. would like. “In one month, our troops will have left Iraq and our strategic, close partnership, God willing, will continue, it will not continue in Iraq for Iraq but in this region,” Biden said in a statement to reporters ahead of meetings with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. “Our troops are leaving Iraq, and we are working on a new path together, a new face of this partnership,” he added. “This is marking a new beginning of the relationship that will not only benefit the United States of America and Iraq. I believe it will benefit the region and will benefit the world.” Sitting next to Biden, al-Maliki said the meetings Wednesday were designed to lay the ground for future cooperation and partnership. “We’ve passed a very difficult page of confronting al-Qaida and terrorism in Iraq during which we achieved joint success … We made many sacrifices from both sides,” al-Maliki said. “Iraq’s and the United States of America’s ambitions are to succeed in this relationship,” al-Maliki said. Alluding to the turmoil going on in the Middle East, al-Maliki also said the region is “sensitive” and that as changes occur, there should be cooperation between the U.S. and Iraq. One area in which Baghdad and Washington have been on different sides of the argument is Syria. While Washington has harshly criticized Syrian President Bashar Assad’s bloody crackdown that has killed more than 3,500 people so far, Baghdad has taken a more conservative approach and not supported Arab League sanctions against its western neighbor. The White House said Biden is expected to meet with Iraqi officials, including President Jalal Talabani and Parliament Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi, during what is his eighth visit to Iraq since being elected. The White House said he is also to take part in a ceremony commemorating the sacrifices of U.S. and Iraqi troops during the eight-year war. But he will almost certainly not be meeting with some of al-Maliki’s key allies, government leaders loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Al-Maliki is navigating a tough position of trying to maintain a relationship with the U.S., from whom Iraq is buying billions of dollars in weapons in the coming years, and al-Sadr, whose backing last year ensured al-Maliki a second term. Followers of al-Sadr rallied in Basra and Baghdad on Wednesday, chanting “Biden get out of Iraq,” and “No to America.” Baghdad and Washington failed earlier this year to come to an agreement on keeping a small American military presence in Iraq next year, meaning all U.S. forces must be out of the country by Dec. 31. Some 13,000 U.S. troops remain, down from a one-time high of about 170,000. The U.S. will still have a massive presence here, including the largest embassy in the world and offices in the northern cities of Irbil and Kirkuk and the southern oil city of Basra. An official in al-Maliki’s office said the prime minister and vice president will discuss the issue of U.S. training help for the nascent Iraqi security forces and set the outlines of al-Maliki’s visit to Washington on Dec. 12. The official did not want to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Security was tight for Biden’s visit, which was not announced ahead of time. In the week leading up to the vice president’s trip, Iraq has seen an uptick in violence that has renewed concerns about the abilities of the country’s security forces. A suicide bomber slammed a car packed with explosives into the gate of a prison north of Baghdad on Monday, killing at least 19 people. On Saturday a string of explosions killed 15 people. Three days earlier, a triple bombing in the southern city of Basra killed 19 people. Many U.S. and Iraqi officials are concerned insurgents may use the transition period when American troops depart to launch more attacks in a bid to regain their former prominence and destabilize the country.

VP Biden’s Iraq Trip Designed To Solidify Ties

Investing in Home Depot (NYSE: HD)
If You Can?t Buy or Sell It: Fix It

by Jason Jenkins, Investment U Research
Friday, December 02, 2011

Tuesday on CNBC?s ?Closing Bell?, Maria Bartiromo had a little Q&A with Senior Equity Research Analyst Alan Rifkin of Barclays Capital and Homebuilder Analyst Buck Horne of Raymond James called ?Taking Stock in Housing.?

As you can expect, it wasn?t the cheeriest of conversations?

There was the usual talk of too many foreclosures in the pipeline, a glut of vacant homes on the market, Baby Boomers downsizing and the inability of younger generations to come up with the means in order to buy a home in this new housing/mortgage environment due to strict credit and capital guidelines.

But as a good moderator should, Bartiromo pressed the issue for hidden gems ? or whether there was anything in the sector that deserved our investment attention. On the homebuilder front, there?s a phenomenon called the ?Hope Trade,? where annually from the middle of November to Super Bowl Sunday there?s an uptick with major homebuilders.

However, those industry fundamentals are absolutely horrible after the NFL football season and in the foreseeable future.

A Gem in a Rough Market

What was more interesting is the current trend to fix what you got because you can?t trade up. And this is where Home Depot (NYSE: HD) comes in. We need to look at how they boosted profitability in a bad housing market.

According to an interview with Home Depot Chief Financial Officer Carol Tome, consumers continue to spend money to maintain their homes, lifting same-store sales of transactions over $900 by 3.6 percent, including increases in more discretionary categories such as kitchen cabinets.

?We see the core repair projects remain strong,? Tome said. ?We do see some movement in big-ticket items.?

A Strong Third Quarter

Two weeks ago, when the Atlanta-based company announced its third-quarter numbers, it raised its full-year earnings outlook to $2.38 a share from $2.34 a share and increased its dividend by 16 percent to $0.29 a share. Dividend increases are good right now.

Last quarter?s net income rose to $934 million, or $0.60 a share, from $834 million, or 51 cents, a year earlier. Sales rose 4.4 percent to $17.3 billion. Comparable-store sales rose 4.2 percent, including a 3.8-percent increase in the United States.

Analysts, on average, had estimated Home Depot would earn $0.59 cents a share on sales of $17.1 billion, according to FactSet. Same-store sales topped the 2.9 percent gain analysts surveyed by Retail Metrics expected.

Tome went on to say later in that same interview, ?We are gaining share,? adding that there are still pockets of ?extraordinary housing weakness? in the west. ?Our growth is tied to the general economic growth. We grew faster than GDP. A lot of it is because we are taking share.?

Going forward, why like Home Depot?

Here are two major reasons:

• Last week, Fitch upgraded its rating on Home Depot to an A- due to its solid operating momentum, strong free cash flow and public commitment that it?ll maintain its current financial leverage.
• Home Depot?s 3Q results left its smaller archrival Lowe?s (NYSE: LOW) in the dust. Lowes reported a 44-percent drop in third-quarter profit with a 0.7-percent same-store-sales increase and there is fear its fourth-quarter outlook may fall short of analysts? estimates.

A three-percent dividend yield doesn?t hurt, either. It may be smart to keep an eye on ?The Depot.?

Good Investing,

Jason Jenkins

Any investment contains risk. Please see our disclaimer
Related Investment U Articles: **By submitting your comment you agree to adhere to our Comment Policy and Privacy Policy.

Source: http://www.investmentu.com/2011/December/investing-in-home-depot-nyse-hd.html

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President Barack Obama delivers remarks at the White House Tribal Nations Conference, Friday, Dec. 2, 2011, at the Interior Department in Washington. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

President Barack Obama delivers remarks at the White House Tribal Nations Conference, Friday, Dec. 2, 2011, at the Interior Department in Washington. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

President Barack Obama listens while touring a building under construction in Washington, Friday, Dec. 2, 2011, part of his Better Building Initiative to promote energy efficient buildings. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama wants voters to get involved in the debate over extending the reduced payroll tax and he’s asking them to tell members of Congress to keep the cut in place.

“Let your members of Congress know where you stand,” Obama said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address. “Tell them not to vote to raise taxes on working Americans during the holidays. Tell them to put country before party. Put money back in the pockets of working Americans. Pass these tax cuts.”

Obama’s address directs listeners to the whitehouse.gov website, where an online calculator lets them determine how much money it’s worth to them to continue the 2 percent reduction in the payroll tax that took effect this year. A family with income of $50,000 a year would pay $1,000 more in payroll taxes if Congress does not act by the end of this year to extend that reduction.

Democrats want to expand the reduction in addition to extending it. Republican leaders say they’re committed to passing an extension, fearing political fallout if payroll taxes rise on Jan. 1 on 160 million wage-earners. The GOP rank-and-file appears divided, with many Republican senators voting against an extension supported by their leadership this week.

There’s also disagreement about how or whether to pay for any extension. Democrats favor a new tax on millionaires; Republicans prefer to cut federal spending.

“We’re going to keep pushing Congress to make this happen. They shouldn’t go home for the holidays until they get this done,” Obama said in his address. “And if you agree with me, I could use your help.”

Obama also took note of a new monthly jobs report out Friday that showed the economy added 120,000 jobs in November, a positive number. “We need to keep this growth going and strengthen it,” the president said.

Republicans devoted their weekly address to promoting a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, which is headed for a vote in the Senate after failing in the House last month.

Democratic leaders worked aggressively to defeat the measure in the House, saying that such a requirement could force Congress to cut billions from social programs during times of economic downturn and that disputes over what to cut could result in Congress ceding its power of the purse to the courts. The result was that the amendment got majority support but fell short of the two-thirds needed to advance a constitutional amendment.

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said “the impending vote to amend the Constitution represents a choice between changing business as usual in Washington or embracing the status quo that we can no longer afford.”

“The real reason many lawmakers don’t want a balanced budget amendment is the exact reason why it’s so essential,” Snowe said. “They don’t want their hands tied; they want to continue to spend without restraint.”

Like Obama, she asked listeners to make their views known.

“Contact your senators and urge them to support our balanced budget amendment,” Snowe said, “so that we finally seize the fiscal reins and reclaim our future for our children and our grandchildren.”

___

Online:

Obama address: www.whitehouse.gov

GOP address: http://www.youtube.com/gopweeklyaddress

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-12-03-Obama/id-3b2a5be2387b48f88515e94eea927565

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Tens of millions of flamingos, storks, pelicans and other migratory birds are being killed across the world when they fly into power lines, according to a new study.

The AFP news agency reported that wildfires had been caused in dry areas of the United States and Eastern Europe by birds hitting power lines, then falling to the ground in flames.

The study was published at Convention on Migratory Species in Bergen, Norway, according the news agency.

Tens of millions of birds are killed in collisions and hundreds of thousands are electrocuted in Africa and Eurasia, the study said.

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Dutch ornithologist Hein Prinsen, who took part in the study, told AFP that “collision and electrocution are among the most important human-related causes for bird mortality,” along with hunting.

Solution needed
There are about 43 million miles of power lines in the world, the news agency reported.

“Today, Eastern Europe is a hot spot for problems, for great bustards and birds of prey for example,” John O’Sullivan, an ex-member of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, told AFP.

“But the worst situation may well be soon to be found in India and Africa where vast amounts of power lines are being built and where there are very large populations of birds,” he added.

O’Sullivan said it “completely makes sense” to try to solve the problem because power outages resulting from collisions had a “high costs for society.”

AFP said that 12 percent of blue cranes died annually after flying into power lines in South Africa. The blue crane is that country’s national bird.

? 2011 msnbc.com Reprints

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45443549/ns/world_news-world_environment/

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SANAA, Yemen ? A U.S.-backed deal for Yemen’s authoritarian president to step down fell far short of the demands of protesters who fought regime supporters on the streets of Sanaa Thursday in clashes that left five dead.

The agreement ending President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 33-year rule provides for only the shallowest of changes at the top of the regime, something the U.S. administration likely favored to preserve a fragile alliance against one of the world’s most active al-Qaida branches based in Yemen.

The plan drawn up by Yemen’s oil-rich Gulf neighbors does not directly change the system Saleh put in place over three decades to serve his interests.

“It gives an opportunity for regime survival,” said Yemen expert Ibrahim Sharqieh at the Brookings Doha Center. “The only one we’ve seen changing here is the president, but the state institutions and everything else remain in place. Nothing else has changed.”

Saleh signed the agreement Wednesday in the Saudi capital Riyadh, transferring power to his vice president within 30 days. If it holds, he will be the fourth dictator pushed from power this year by the Arab Spring uprisings.

But the deal leaves much more of the old regime intact than the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya ? something that will almost certainly translate into continued unrest. Protesters who have been in the millions for nearly 10 months were out again Thursday, rejecting a provision that gives Saleh immunity from prosecution.

Throughout his rule, Saleh consolidated power through wily tactics that included exploiting tribal and regional rivalries and putting close relatives and confidantes in key security positions. For years, he accepted funds from the West to fight Islamist militants, then turned around and used some of those militants to help fight his enemies.

Ruling party and opposition members say Saleh signed the deal under heavy pressure from the U.S. and Saudi governments and that he feared possible sanctions against him and his family, who are suspected of having huge fortunes stashed in foreign banks. Some doubt that the deal marks the end of political life for the president, who has proved to be a wily politician and suggested in remarks after the signing ceremony that he could play a future political role in the country, along with his ruling party.

Yemen is the poorest country in the Arab world and even before the uprising, the government exerted only weak authority over most of the country. The uprising led to a collapse in security that created a vacuum al-Qaida militants exploited to gain a firmer foothold in the country. The militants even seized some territory in the south.

The U.S. has long considered Saleh a necessary though unreliable partner in fighting terror, training and funding his special forces to fight Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which has been linked to plots against U.S. targets.

Sharqieh, the Yemen expert, said both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia had reasons to ease Saleh’s departure while not calling for deeper regime change. Saudi Arabia, a deeply conservative hereditary monarchy, fears the pro-democracy uprisings sweeping the Arab world will spread to its shores and worries that collapsing security in Yemen will also spill trouble over its borders.

With this deal, the U.S. may want to appease the protesters while ensuring it can still count on Yemen to fight al-Qaida.

“Saudi Arabia does not want to see a successful youth revolution on its southern border, and Washington does not want security in Yemen to be in the hands of those protesting in Change Square,” said Sharqieh, referring to the Sanaa square that is the center of the protest movement.

Likewise, the U.S. stood by its ally Hosni Mubarak, the longtime authoritarian leader of Egypt, throughout much of the uprising against him in January and February. For the U.S., Mubarak was a valued counterweight to Islamists in the Middle East and a staunch support of Arab-Israeli peace.

Saleh is transferring power to Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. In the coming days, an opposition group that signed the deal will name a prime minister, whom Hadi will swear in. The new prime minister will then form a national unity government, evenly divided between the opposition and Saleh’s ruling party. Hadi will also announce a date for presidential elections, to be held within 90 days.

The deal ensures that Saleh’s party will play a large role in the country’s future. More importantly, it does not mention Saleh’s son, Ahmed, who commands the elite Republican Guard, or his other relatives and associates who command security forces. These units are often the enforcers of Saleh’s regime and could remain more loyal to him and his associates than to a new coalition government.

Under the plan, the new government will also appoint a committee to “restructure” the security forces, including the army, the police and the intelligence services. But it remains unclear what powers it will have to push through its suggested reforms.

Inside Yemen, many of the protesters who have braved lethal government crackdowns to demonstrate for democratic reforms rejected the deal.

Thousands marched Thursday in the capital Sanaa, the central city of Taiz and elsewhere, protesting the deal and calling for Saleh to be tried for charges of corruption and for the killing of protesters during the uprising.

Security forces and pro-Saleh gunmen opened fire on a protest march in Sanaa, killing five protesters, said Gameela Abdullah, a medic at the local field hospital.

A video posted online by activists showed men in long robes and Arab head scarves firing assault rifles at protesters, who scrambled for cover. Some hurled rocks and carried large pictures of Saleh.

“We’ll keep fighting until Saleh is tried for all the crimes he has committed against the people in his capacity as the head of the armed forces,” said activist Bushra al-Maqtari in Taiz, which has seen some of the most violent crackdowns on anti-regime protesters. Hundreds of demonstrators have been killed nationwide since January.

Abdullah Obal, a leader in the opposition coalition that signed the deal, said his group would meet with protesters to try to address their demands.

“The agreement does not cancel the youth’s demands or go against them,” he said. “It is their right to protest.”

___

Hubbard reported from Cairo.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111125/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_yemen

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CONCORD, N.H. ? Whether they like it or not, Republican presidential candidates are joining New Hampshire’s intensifying gay marriage debate.

State lawmakers plan in the coming weeks to take up a measure to repeal the law allowing same-sex couples to wed and a vote is expected at some point in January ? the same month as New Hampshire holds the nation’s first Republican presidential primary contest.

Already, candidates have been put on the spot over the divisive hot-button social issue when most, if not all, would rather be talking about the economy, voters’ No. 1 concern.

The impending focus on gay marriage carries risk for several of White House contenders ? including former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former businessman Herman Cain ? whose inconsistencies on the topic are well documented. The GOP candidates’ increasingly vocal support for “traditional marriage” also threatens to alienate a growing number of younger Republicans and independents here who support legal recognition of same-sex couples. That note of divisiveness could bode poorly for the eventual GOP nominee come the general election.

Even so, the Republican candidates aren’t shying away from the topic as they run for the nomination of a GOP dominated by conservatives and pushed further to the right by the tea party over the last few years.

“As conservatives, we believe in the sanctity of life, we believe in the sanctity of traditional marriage, and I applaud those legislators in New Hampshire who are working to defend marriage between one man and one woman realizing that children need to be raised in a loving home by a mother and a father,” Perry told a New Hampshire audience recently, becoming the latest contender to address gay marriage directly.

While the issue hasn’t yet become a regular talking point on the campaign trail, most Republican candidates declare support for the effort to repeal the law. And groups like the National Organization for Marriage hope to force the presidential contenders to publicly embrace the repeal.

“We will be using all the tools at our disposal to lobby the New Hampshire legislature and the broader population,” said Christopher Plante, regional director for the National Organization for Marriage. “One of those tools is the echo chamber of presidential candidates continuing to show their support of marriage as defined by one man and one woman.”

Plante concedes that for some candidates, “there has been an evolution on a number of fronts” on this issue.

Romney was the Massachusetts governor when his state legalized gay marriage. The Romney administration, as directed by the courts, granted nearly 200 same-sex marriage requests for gay and lesbian couples in 2005.

Campaign spokesman Ryan Williams said the former governor had little choice but to follow the state Supreme Court ruling at the time. He noted his candidate’s consistent opposition to both civil unions and gay marriages, adding that Romney openly supports the New Hampshire repeal effort.

But Romney has reversed himself on whether gay marriage should be addressed at the state or federal level.

This past June, he said during a debate that he favors a federal constitutional amendment banning the practice. That’s been his position at least since the beginning of his 2008 presidential bid, when he was the only major Republican candidate to support such an amendment.

But as a Massachusetts Senate candidate back in 1994, Romney told a Boston-area gay newspaper that same-sex marriage is “a state issue as you know ? the authorization of marriage on a same-sex basis falls under state jurisdiction.” Aides say it’s unfair to scrutinize Romney’s position in 1994 ? when there was virtually no discussion of a federal amendment. And they suggest Romney’s rivals have far more blatant inconsistencies in recent months.

Both Perry and Cain have drawn conservative criticism for recent comments related to gay marriage.

Asked in mid-October whether he supports a federal marriage amendment, Cain told the Christian Broadcasting Network that federal legislation is necessary to protect traditional marriage. That seemed to be a direct contradiction from his statement of just six days earlier, when he told “Meet the Press” host David Gregory that states should be allowed to make up their own minds.

“I wouldn’t seek a constitutional ban for same sex marriage, but I am pro traditional marriage,” Cain told Gregory.

In Perry’s case, the Texas governor says he supports the New Hampshire repeal. But in July he said that New York’s move to legalize gay marriage was “fine by me.” A week later, facing social conservative criticism, he walked back the comments.

“It’s fine with me that the state is using their sovereign right to decide an issue. Obviously gay marriage is not fine with me,” he said then.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has another problem.

Earlier in the fall, he told an Iowa audience that gay marriage is a “temporary aberration” likely to go away because it defies convention. Gingrich, who has been married three times, has a half-sister in a same-sex marriage.

“The truth is that you’re living in a world that no longer exists,” Candace Gingrich-Jones wrote the former speaker in a letter posted on the Huffington Post in 2008: “In other words, stop being a hater, big bro.”

Despite the presidential candidates’ support for the New Hampshire repeal, younger Republicans in this state are skeptical, especially as voters are focused on the economy.

“Why is the NH House wasting time trying to repeal gay marriage? Capital ugh,” Robert J. Johnson, chairman of the New Hampshire College Republicans, wrote on Twitter.

Polling suggests it may not be a winning issue.

A recent University of New Hampshire poll found that 62 percent of state residents oppose repealing the same-sex marriage law. And nationally, public opinion has gradually shifted toward supporting same-sex marriages, even among Republicans.

An August Associated Press-National Constitution Center poll found that 53 percent of Americans favor legal recognition of same-sex marriages; 32 percent of Republicans say same-sex couples should get some legal recognition from the government, compared with 71 percent among Democrats and 50 percent of independents.

Democrats hope to use the Republican contenders’ positions against them in the general election next fall.

“While these radical stances might win them a few votes in their primary, it will lose them the support of the majority Americans, and ultimately put them on the losing side of history,” said Ty Matsdorf, spokesman for American Bridge, an independent group aligned with Democrats.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111124/ap_on_el_ge/us_republicans_gay_marriage

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BRUSSELS (Reuters) ? Belgian political parties negotiating a coalition agreement have reached a deal on the 2012 budget, seen as the last major obstacle to forming a government and Belgium’s King Albert called for rapid steps to form a new cabinet.

“The King is pleased that agreement has been reached. Accordingly, the King instructed the formateur to form a government as quickly as possible,” the statement said, referring to the Belgian term for a person responsible for negotiating the coalition.

Belgium has set a modern-day record for being without a formal government — it has been 19 months since elections were held last June.

The country’s squabbling politicians need to find 11.3 billion euros ($15.09 billion) of savings so that Belgium can cut its deficit to below 2.8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) next year, in line with EU rules.

On Friday, Standard&Poor’s downgraded Belgium’s sovereign credit rating to AA from AA+ because of the protracted lack of government which impeded the country’s funding prospects.

(Reporting By Jan Strupczewski and Luke Baker)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111126/wl_nm/us_belgium_budget

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pic via andy z at flickr.com

The credit agencies have been busy with a new round of threats. Here?s one:

Standard & Poor?s said Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda?s administration hasn?t made progress in tackling the public debt burden, an indication it may be preparing to lower the nation?s sovereign grade.

And another:

Portugal suffered a double blow Thursday after Fitch Ratings downgraded its debt to junk

And yet another:

Moody?s Investors Services warns it could downgrade the U.S. government?s top credit rating if Congress backs off $1.2 trillion US in automatic deficit cuts scheduled over the next decade.

I do believe the world?s credit agencies are readying their escape pods and are preparing to escape the gravity of the Earth they?ve helped create.

Source: http://firedoglake.com/2011/11/25/investing-in-mars/

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Wednesday, November 23, 2011

New research sifts through the entire genome of thousands of human subjects to look for genetic variation associated with height. The results of the study, published by Cell Press in the December issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, suggest that uncommon genetic deletions are associated with short stature.

Height is a highly heritable trait that is associated with variation in many different genes. “Despite tremendous recent progress in finding common genetic variants associated with height, thus far these variants only explain about 10% of the variation in adult height,” explains senior study author, Dr. Joel N Hirschhorn, from Children’s Hospital Boston and the Broad Institute. “It has been estimated that about half of height variation could eventually be accounted for by the sorts of variants we’ve been looking at, so it is possible that other types of genetic variants, such as copy number variants (CNVs), may also contribute to the genetic variation in stature.”

Dr. Hirschhorn, co-authors Dr. Yiping Shen and Dr. Andrew Dauber, and their colleagues were interested in looking for associations of human stature with CNVs, something that has not been done before. A CNV is an excess (gain) in genetic material or an absence (deletion) of parts of the genome. Some CNVs are common, meaning that they are observed often in the human genome. Other CNVs are rare or occur with low frequency in the human population.

“To investigate whether CNVs play a role in short or tall stature, we conducted a genome-wide association study of copy number in a cohort of children who had comparative genomic hybridization microarray screening for clinical reasons and we observed an excess of rare deletions in children with short stature,” says Dr. Shen. “We extended our findings to a large population-based cohort, and again observed an excess of low frequency deletions in shorter individuals.” The findings were not due to known gene deletion syndromes and no significant associations were observed between CNV and tall stature.

Taken together, the results demonstrate that there is a correlation between low frequency genetic deletions and decreasing height. “Our findings strongly support the hypothesis that increasing burden of lower frequency deletions can lead to shorter stature, and suggest that this phenomenon extends to the general population,” concludes Dr. Dauber.

###

Cell Press: http://www.cellpress.com

Thanks to Cell Press for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/115443/Is_short_stature_associated_with_a__shortage__of_genes_

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All Critics (120) | Top Critics (40) | Fresh (108) | Rotten (12)

With so many balls in the air the temptation is to rush from one plot strand to another, but Payne takes the opposite approach. He also captures the complexity of emotional reactions that grief stirs.

It’s a lovely, heartfelt character study of common, everyday people trapped on the horns of an uncommon but not unheard-of dilemma.

The latest exhibit in Payne’s careful dissection of the beached male, which runs from Matthew Broderick’s character in “Election” to Jack Nicholson’s in “About Schmidt” and Paul Giamatti’s in “Sideways.”

This mature, well-acted dramatic comedy is deeply satisfying, maybe even cathartic.

A tough, tender, observant, exquisitely nuanced portrait of mixed emotions at their most confounding and profound — all at play within a deliciously damp, un-touristy Hawaii that’s at once lush and lovely to look at.

A splendid comedy-drama about a father coping with his comatose wife and difficult daughters represents high points for George Clooney and Alexander Payne.

Payne displays a knack for both perfect casting and using his lead actor in sometimes unconventional, unexpected ways

Director Alexander Payne prefers to start a movie with one strike against him. He always picks a dislikable protagonist… Then, as he slowly gives characters self-awareness, he gives us reasons to watch and care about them.

In playing an everyman stranded between anger and duty, Clooney earns an emotional payoff that a lesser actor would simply demand.

An introspective and heartwarming film, unafraid to convey its story with pleasing simplicity.

It’s Clooney and Woodley’s movie, as they become a team before our eyes.

I kept expecting it to get better, but it just sort of did its thing and called it a day.

A family drama whose distinction comes primarily from its nuances and subtleties.

Director and co-writer Alexander Payne again shows the most acute and perceptive understanding of the American psyche of any current director.

Flawless in the still manner it approaches crippling encounters with grief and disgust, dryly expressing the necessary unraveling of a distracted man. The Descendents is simply terrific, profound yet understated.

Payne has a particular skill for making movie stars seem like normal people, and the resolute normalcy of the cast helps to show Hawaii not as a resort paradise, but as a place like any other where people live, work, love, and die.

Payne continues to live up to his name as a wry observer of modern American crises.

Even as Payne’s weakest film, The Descendants is still worth seeing

I understand Clooney is playing a detached father and husband, but there’s no explanation why a financially well-off man basically without a job has no clue about his wife and children.

Clooney will most definitely be getting an Oscar nod for his touching, open and honest work.

“The Descendants” has all the qualities of a special story. And it should be on the short list of Oscar’s favorites.

More Critic Reviews

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_descendants_2011/

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