Context crucial when it comes to mutations in genetic evolution

June 13, 2013 ? With mutations, it turns out that context can be everything in determining whether or not they are beneficial to their evolutionary fate.

According to the traditional view among biologists, a central tenet of evolutionary biology has been that the evolutionary fates of new mutations depend on whether their effects are good, bad or inconsequential with respect to reproductive success. Central to this view is that "good" mutations are always good and lead to reproductive success, while "bad" mutations are always bad and will be quickly weeded out of the gene pool. However, new research led by evolutionary biologist Jay Storz of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has found that whether a given mutation is good or bad is often determined by other mutations associated with it. In other words, genetic evolution is context-dependent.

In a study to be published in the June 14 issue of Science, Storz and colleagues at UNL and Aarhus University in Denmark report that an individual mutation can be beneficial if it occurs in combination with certain other mutations, but the same mutation can detrimental to the organism if it occurs in other combinations.

The researchers studied mutations that alter the function of hemoglobin, the protein in charge of transporting oxygen in the blood. Physiologists have long known that many high-altitude animals have evolved hemoglobins with high affinities for oxygen, which can enhance oxygen uptake in thin air. Earlier research by Storz's group on populations of North American deer mice that are native to high and low altitudes had found that the high-altitude mice had evolved hemoglobins with an increased oxygen-binding affinity -- and that this difference is attributable to the combined effects of genetic mutations at 12 different sites in the hemoglobin protein.

For the discovery reported in Science, the researchers used a technique called "protein engineering" to synthesize hemoglobin proteins that contained each of the naturally occurring mutations in all possible multi-site combinations.

"By measuring the oxygen-binding properties of these engineered hemoglobins, we discovered that the same individual mutations produced an increased oxygen-affinity in some combinations and they produced a decreased oxygen-affinity in other combinations. Their effects are completely context-dependent," said Storz, an associate professor of biological sciences.

"One of the important implications is that if there are interactions between mutations, then some mutational pathways of evolution may be more accessible than others. The evolutionary fate of a new mutation will depend critically on which other mutations have already occurred. The order in which mutations occur can determine whether evolution is more likely to follow some pathways rather than others. Evolution may follow certain pathways just because certain interactions may be negative, other interactions may be positive. These kinds of interaction effects determine what mutational pathways are open and available for evolution."

Storz's collaborators on the Science paper include Hideaki Moriyama, an associate professor of biological sciences at UNL, and two other researchers in Storz's lab, postdoctoral researcher Chandrasekhar Natarajan and graduate student Noriko Inoguchi; and Roy E. Weber and Angela Fago of Aarhus.

The research was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health-National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and the National Science Foundation in the United States, and the Science Faculty, Aarhus University, in Denmark.

It's the fifth time in five years that Storz's research has been published one of the major international interdisciplinary journals. Science is published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/H970gjL5N3Y/130613142829.htm

apple stock Pro Bowl 2013 Kick Ass Torrents jamarcus russell Sloane Stephens Beyonce Lip Sync citizens bank

How's your customer service? | Sage Consulting

Poor customer service sucks. In fact, it is my number one pet peeve, closely followed by drivers on their cells phones that don?t pay attention. That?s why I?m pleased to introduce this new service we are offering starting this month?Superior Service from Sage. Why? Because we are tired of seeing great businesses look crappy because they dropped the ball with service!

Seriously though, as a business owner,?what is the perception of your clientele or customer base as it relates to their customer service experience with you or your?company? If you could be?the proverbial?fly on the wall, listening in as your clients and customers shared their experience about doing business with you, would you be pleased with what you heard or feel?embarrassed??Does email, phone calls, faxes and other means of communication go unattended days on end? How about your P.O. Box, do you even remember or have the time to check it?

As a business owner, are you overwhelmed with the myriad of tasks involved in keeping your customers and clients contented? Have you ever started a new campaign or promotion and saw it go south because the after sales service you provided was less than stellar? Do you want to give your clients and customer the very best service experience but lack the time and the know how to deliver?

Who said you had to do it all?

Here?s where Sage comes in. Years before Sage, I worked as the Customer Service Manager for a small brokerage company for 3 years. I made sure that no phone, email or fax query went unattended beyond a business day. ?I also ensured that calls and queries relating to the company?s service were addressed within the same day 97% of the times and made it my point of duty to teach my small team the importance of good customer service and the value each client held to the company regardless?of their attitude or personality. In my regular training sessions with the team, I also taught basic principles such as conflict avoidance and the art to dealing with angry, frustrated, belligerent?or just downright rude clients (you know they are always right!). In a nutshell, I helped the company to look like a star to their clientele. Here at Sage, I?ve trained my team to offer that same stellar service, topped off with the Sage touch!

When?you?allow us to assist you with your customer service you gain two basic things:

1. The freedom and time to focus on reaching new clients.
2. The assurance that comes from knowing that we are skilled and experienced in this field and well able to help you shine to your clientele or customer base.

Here?s how we can support you:

1. Provide efficient phone, fax, social media online and email support
2. Make and receive calls ?and faxes on your behalf
3. Receive and process your incoming calls
4. Receive and process faxes received from your clients and customers
5. Handle client queries and support tickets
6. General customer support:?Make follow up calls and send follow up letters, faxes and email to your clients and customers
7. As well as a host of other customer service oriented support tasks.

Have we piqued your curiosity or interest? Then feel free to contact us for more details on this service.

Sage Consulting is a progressive small business boutique with a mission of empowering clients? and helping them leverage opportunities in any economy. Sage is headed by Carlana Charles-Young, whose professional experience and skills runs the gamut with 15+ years experience that covers small business marketing, online event management, customer support, sales, administration and project management.

Source: http://sageconsulting.gd/hows-your-customer-service/

free ecards flying car masters golf tournament the replacements how to hard boil eggs new nfl uniforms derbyshire

Car bomb kills 7 people in central Syrian city

BEIRUT (AP) ? A suicide bomber detonated his explosives-laden car Saturday in Syria's central city of Homs, tearing through an area largely populated by the regime's Alawite sect and killing seven people, a state-owned TV station reported. Meanwhile, government troops took control of a key village as the regime presses its offensive to clear a path between Damascus and the Mediterranean coast.

With the help of Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, President Bashar Assad's regime has been chasing rebels from long-held strategic areas linking the capital, Damascus, with the government stronghold areas along Mediterranean coast. It gained momentum this week after seizing the strategic city of Qusair and the army has begun advancing north toward the cities of Homs and Aleppo.

Syrian state TV also said Saturday that government troops took control of the village of Buwaydah between Qusair and Homs after intensive clashes.

Abu Bilal al-Homsi, an activist in the old quarter of the city of Homs who has links with several rebel groups, said via Skype that rebels sustained heavy losses late Friday as they attempted to flee the village with their wounded and civilians. Al-Homsi asked to be identified by his alias because of security concerns.

The state-owned Al-Ikhbariya TV said the attacker detonated the explosives-laden car in a busy area near a roundabout in the Homs neighborhood of Adawiya, which largely houses Alawites, members of a minority sect that is an offshoot of Shiite Islam. The report said the seven killed included three women and a teenager, and said 10 other people were wounded as the blast heavily damaged nearby houses and vehicles.

Television footage showed frantic residents running around, blood splattered on the ground and a badly mangled car. Other cars on the street were also damaged. A reporter from the station on the scene said the car was carrying about 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of explosives.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of informants inside Syria, confirmed that the car was booby-trapped. It also said seven were killed, citing preliminary reports.

Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack, but car bombs are the usual tactic employed by Sunni extremists among the rebel ranks.

The rebels are largely from Syria's Sunni Muslim majority and have been joined by Sunni fighters from other countries, while the government is backed by fighters from the Shiite militant Hezbollah group, making the conflict increasingly sectarian in nature.

Homs, the capital of the province of the same name, is home to one of the biggest Alawite communities in Syria and is widely seen as pro-Assad. The rebels are in control of the city center, including its old quarter, but are besieged by regime forces on the outskirts.

Many towns north of Homs also are rebel-controlled, but Hezbollah-backed government forces have been clearing rebels from villages and towns to the south. Fierce fighting in the area in the past three weeks has left dozens of rebels, troops and Hezbollah fighters dead and hundreds wounded.

Government forces also battled rebel fighters north of Aleppo and by a military air base that has been under rebel siege for weeks. Clashes in the suburbs of Damascus, meanwhile, left seven people dead, including a rebel and a medic who was treating an injured fighter, according to the Observatory.

The Lebanese Red Cross announced that it has evacuated 38 people who were wounded in Qusair from the Syrian border to hospitals in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley over the past two days.

The Syrian conflict started with largely peaceful protests against Assad's regime in March 2011, but later degenerated into a bloody civil war that has killed more than 80,000 people, according to United Nations officials. It also has spilled over the borders with Lebanon, Israel, Turkey and Iraq, threatening to ignite a broader regional conflict.

Syrian rebels briefly captured a crossing point along a cease-fire line with Israel in the contested Golan Heights. It was later recaptured by government troops, but the fighting prompted Austria to announce it was withdrawing its peacekeeping contingent from a U.N. force that patrols the Israeli-occupied area.

Russia had offered to send its troops to replace the Austrians at the Golan, but the United Nations said the disengagement agreement that established the cease-fire along the Israel-occupied Golan does not allow the participation of troops from a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.

On Saturday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov wrote on his Twitter account that the cease-fire agreement was outdated and called on the U.N. Security Council to consider new arrangements.

If the U.N. Security Council "truly is concerned about the tension in the Golan Heights, sending a Russian military contingent there is the solution," Gatilov wrote. "And there's no need to refer to 40-year-old limitations. The tasks of supporting peace and stability require a different way of political thinking. Deciding which countries can join the UN contingent in the Golan is not within the competency of the UN General Secretary's spokesperson. It's an issue for" the Security Council.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/car-bomb-kills-7-people-central-syrian-city-153627979.html

neil degrasse tyson neil degrasse tyson davy jones death born this way foundation lytro camera lytro camera andrew brietbart

Sarah Dessen and Regina Hayes

Author Sarah Dessen and her editor Regina Hayes

Photos (from left to right) courtesy of KPO Photo and Mardie Cohen

Regina Hayes has edited Sarah Dessen?s young-adult novels at Viking since 2001. As Dessen?s 11th novel, The Moon and More, comes out this month, Hayes and Dessen emailed each other about finding the right title, adding the right cameos, and writing the right boys (and the wrong ones).

Sarah Dessen: I'm really happy to have the chance to talk about the editing process. It's something that I think doesn't get the weight it deserves, especially with the rise of self-publishing. Maybe other writers have perfect first drafts, but I am not one of them. I always try to get the book as tight as I can, but you reach a point as the author where you have lost all perspective.

Regina Hayes: From my perspective you really don?t need much line editing; you have a very distinctive style that I wouldn?t want to change. So my initial editorial letter always has to do with bigger questions: structure, plot, motives.

Dessen: The day I get your editorial letter is always both exciting and terrifying. On the one hand, I'm glad to not be all alone battling the revision process anymore. On the other, I'm always sure you're going to suggest something that I won't be able to fix or do.

We do our revision exchange in a very old school way, with the editorial letter and actual manuscript and pencil edits. We couldn't track changes in a Word document if you forced us! We joke that we're Luddites (and we totally are) but I like being able to go through the manuscript page by page and make all the little changes first before I tackle the bigger ones you bring up in the letter. It just gets me back into the book slowly, and gives me a sense of control. Even if it's a false one.?

Hayes: The girls in your books are always on a journey. The books are not problem novels, nor are they boy-meets-girl tales. They?re full, rich, stories about a person in transition, caught in a nexus of change. There is always a large, well-developed cast of characters, both major and minor. So my role, I think, is to provide a fresh eye on the overarching story and to ask a lot of questions.

Dessen: I think you're right about how the books are always about a girl going through changes. It's what makes the book so hard to describe and also difficult to categorize. It's also why I am always so grateful that you write the flap copy that people read when they first pick up the book. Whenever anyone asks me what one of my books is about, I always say, "Well, it's about this girl, and ..." Twenty minutes later they have lost all interest but I am still talking.

Hayes: And then there are the boys. Of course they?re different from book to book, but they?re always quirky and/or artistic or musical, sensitive, tender??and incredibly hot, natch.

Dessen: When I was a teen, I was never really into the captain of the football team or the student body president. The guys I liked were quirky and different: They listened to music I'd never heard of, never had lunch or gas money, and could always make you laugh. It's one of the perks of being the person writing the story that you also get to fall in love along with your narrator, so I guess I am just making it easy on myself. What's harder is when I know that the guy isn't the One for a character, even if she doesn't. It's definitely more fun to make someone totally and truly appealing. Having someone appear that way, but turn out otherwise, is a bit trickier. You and I encountered this a bit in The Moon and More. You?ll jot comments in the margins like, "He's such a jerk!" at the exact moment I can't have my narrator or the reader thinking it. So I know then I need to adjust both the boy and the way I am writing him.?

Hayes: I?ve been reading through the correspondence about the books we worked on together?seven so far. It?s really been an eye-opener to remember how much work you put in to achieve a seemingly effortless result. Along for the Ride is a perfect example. I was surprised to see that we were worried initially about Auden?s likeability. In the first draft, she came across as a bit prissy and self-satisfied, disdaining all things girly and frivolous. But as you developed the back story of the divorced parents, the feminist/academic mother, the school she attended, the lack of congenial girls to be friends with, she emerged as a girl who had been denied a lot of normal teenage experiences and was rather clueless and wistful.

Dessen: I think that it is a common issue in my first drafts, the tendency to overmake a point. I?m usually so worried that I?m not crafting a character effectively that I do it over and over again, knowing that in editing we?ll be able to cut to the point where we have just what we need. As a writer, though, I?d rather have too much than not enough. Cutting is easy. Stretching is really hard. And just a bit of backstory can change everything.

Hayes: Your characters acquire a life of their own, so when one of them turns up in a different book, I have the feeling that I?m encountering an old friend ? oh, hey, there are Wes and Macy having pancakes. Why did you start writing those cameos?

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2013/06/ya_author_sarah_dessen_and_her_book_editor_regina_hayes_of_viking_in_conversation.html

tyler perry good deeds pretty in pink shark tank john wall gordon hayward gas prices rising stars challenge

Runner's pain is no pulled muscle; it's a baby

This undated cell phone picture provided by Trish Staine shows Staine, right, with her newborn baby, in Duluth, Minn. Staine, a 33-year-old aspiring half-marathon runner, says she had no idea she was pregnant before giving birth Monday, June 5, 2013. (AP Photo/Patricia Staine)

This undated cell phone picture provided by Trish Staine shows Staine, right, with her newborn baby, in Duluth, Minn. Staine, a 33-year-old aspiring half-marathon runner, says she had no idea she was pregnant before giving birth Monday, June 5, 2013. (AP Photo/Patricia Staine)

This undated cell phone picture provided by Trish Staine shows Staine, right, with her newborn baby, in Duluth, Minn. Staine, a 33-year-old aspiring half-marathon runner, says she had no idea she was pregnant before giving birth Monday, June 5, 2013. (AP Photo/Patricia Staine)

DULUTH, Minn. (AP) ? An aspiring half-marathon runner in Minnesota attributed her unbearable back pain to a two-hour training session. A day later, she was cradling a newborn.

Trish Staine, 33, says she had no idea she was pregnant before Monday's surprise birth. The Duluth mother of three said she hadn't gained any weight or felt fetal movement in the months before. And besides, her husband had a vasectomy.

"I said 'no, no, that's impossible,' " Staine said Wednesday from her Duluth hospital room.

"I definitely thought I was done having kids," she joked. Staine and her husband, John, have a daughter, 7, and a son, 11. She's also stepmother to John's three boys, ages 17, 19 and 20.

Staine said she ran for about two hours Sunday in preparation for the Garry Bjorklund half-marathon on June 22.

"I had a sore back Sunday evening. I had taken a hot shower and was dealing with it," Staine said. "Monday morning, I woke up and had more back pain, and as the day went on it got worse. I thought I should go to the ER. I thought I ruptured a disc or pulled a muscle."

But she soldiered on, watching her husband play basketball at noon and going to her daughter's short play. When Staine got home, she thought a bath might help her pain.

As she talked to her husband on the phone, Staine said her pain was becoming unbearable. Her husband called an ambulance.

"I felt like I was dying. I didn't know what was going on," she said.

During the emergency room examination, Staine and her husband were stunned to learn medical staff had detected a fetal heartbeat. She was whisked to the delivery room and in what she said seemed like 5 minutes later, her daughter was born at 3:25 p.m. Monday. She weighed 6 pounds, 6 ounces, and was 18.9 inches long.

Staine said her husband has a good sense of humor.

"He's still in shock. Everybody is teasing him," she said.

Born about 5 weeks early, the Staines expect they will be able to take their baby home in about a week, a girl they have named Mira ? short for Miracle.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/aa9398e6757a46fa93ed5dea7bd3729e/Article_2013-06-05-Runner-Surprise%20Baby/id-6a058e3c1d7e4cfea5c17ca2109d69a9

tyler perry whitney houston r kelly r. kelly macular degeneration whitney houston funeral judi dench bobby brown leaves funeral

Soldier due to plead guilty in Afghan massacre

SEATTLE (AP) ? The American soldier charged with killing 16 Afghan civilians during nighttime raids on two slumbering villages last year is expected to recount the horrific slaughter in a military courtroom Wednesday when he pleads guilty to avoid the death penalty.

Staff Sgt. Robert Bales faces premeditated murder and other charges in the March 2012 attacks near the remote base in southern Afghanistan where he was posted.

Most of the victims were women and children, and some of the bodies were burned; relatives have told The Associated Press they are irate at the notion Bales will escape execution for one of the worst atrocities of the Afghanistan war.

Under the terms of his agreement with Army prosecutors, Bales will plead guilty Wednesday at Joint Base Lewis-McChord south of Seattle, and a sentencing-phase trial will be held this summer to determine whether he receives life in prison with the possibility of parole, or without it.

Bales' attorney, John Henry Browne, said Tuesday he expects the judge, Col. Jeffery Nance, to question the soldier closely about what happened before deciding whether to accept the plea. It's unclear whether Nance will make a decision Wednesday.

"Tomorrow is going to be about what happened, then in August is going to be a jury trial about why it happened," Browne said. "Obviously, avoiding the death penalty is our No. 1 goal. We've accomplished that, assuming the judge accepts the plea, and we believe he will."

Bales, a 39-year-old father of two from Lake Tapps, has signed a detailed stipulation of facts admitting his actions, Browne said. However, the document remains under seal, and the lawyer declined to provide details about it.

Browne said last week that Bales was "crazed" and "broken" but not legally insane at the time of the killings.

Although Wednesday's proceedings will provide Bales' account for the first time, survivors who testified by video link from Afghanistan during a hearing last fall vividly recalled the carnage.

A young girl in a bright headscarf described hiding behind her father as he was shot to death. Boys told of hiding behind curtains as others scrambled and begged the soldier to spare them, yelling: "We are children! We are children!" A thick-bearded man told of being shot in the neck by a gunman "as close as this bottle," gesturing to a water bottle on a table in front of him.

Prosecutors say that before dawn on March 11, 2012, Bales slipped away from Camp Belambay in Kandahar Province, armed with a 9 mm pistol and M-4 rifle outfitted with a grenade launcher.

He first attacked one village of mud-walled compounds, Alkozai, then returned to the base, woke up a fellow soldier and told him about it. The soldier didn't believe him and went back to sleep. Bales then left to attack a second village, Najiban.

The massacre prompted such angry protests that the U.S. temporarily halted combat operations in Afghanistan, and it was three weeks before Army investigators could reach the crime scene.

Bales was serving his fourth combat deployment and had an otherwise good if undistinguished military record in a decade-long career. The Ohio native suffered from PTSD and a traumatic brain injury, his lawyers say, and he had been drinking contraband alcohol and snorting Valium ? both provided by other soldiers ? the night of the killings.

The case raised questions about the toll multiple deployments were taking on American troops. For that reason, many legal experts believed it was unlikely he would receive the death penalty, as Army prosecutors were seeking. The military justice system hasn't executed anyone since 1961, but five men currently face death sentences.

"Any time you can strike a deal that saves your client's life, I would call that a win," said Dan Conway, a civilian military defense lawyer who is not involved in the case. "This is the right result for both parties."

___

Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/soldier-due-plead-guilty-afghan-massacre-070242198.html

walking dead season finale matt flynn denver news frozen planet creighton new smyrna beach st. joseph

Lax safety enforcement caused Canada beef contamination: report

(Reuters) - The contamination of beef at a Canadian processing plant last year that sickened 18 people was caused by a lax attitude toward food safety by government and plant staff, an independent report on the incident said.

Canada's largest-ever beef recall at 4,000 tonnes spread across the country and most U.S. states, after the XL Foods plant in Brooks, Alberta produced beef tainted with E. coli bacteria. It came just four years after an outbreak of listeria bacteria killed 23 Canadians who ate tainted meat produced by Maple Leaf Foods .

"We found a relaxed attitude towards applying mandatory (food safety) procedures," said the report by a retired veterinarian, doctor and food safety expert. Staff employed by the plant and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) were at fault, the review said.

It said XL Foods, privately owned at the time, was overwhelmed, having never practised a mock recall of that scale.

The report, issued on Wednesday, found that the contamination likely occurred after an animal entered the plant and passed the bacteria onto equipment that the review said was not being cleaned adequately.

The government, which was sharply criticized for its handling of the crisis, said it will spend C$16 million ($15.5 million) over three years to establish "inspection verification teams" that conduct unannounced checks of food plants.

That move addresses one of the report's 30 recommendations, which also include better training of CFIA inspection staff.

Ottawa has already increased testing and requirements for documentation to better control E. coli, and said it will address all remaining recommendations.

The largest beef-processing plants in Canada are owned by Cargill Ltd and JBS USA Holdings Inc , which bought the former XL Foods plant after the recall.

($1=$1.03 Canadian)

(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg, Manitoba; Editing by Dale Hudson)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/lax-safety-enforcement-caused-canada-beef-contamination-report-193102234.html

andrew luck andrew luck trent richardson robert griffin iii dontari poe space shuttle nyc monkeypox