Occupy protesters arrested in New York (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Hundreds of anti-Wall Street protesters took to New York City's streets on Saturday in an attempt to establish a new encampment, with scores arrested as they tried to move onto church-owned land.

The protesters had used a wooden ladder to climb over a chain-link fence into the lot owned by Trinity Church, an Occupy Wall Street spokesman said.

Police had no immediate figure on how many protesters were arrested, but Gideon Oliver, president of the New York City chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, put the number at about 55, including between five and 10 members of the clergy.

The demonstrators continued moving around Manhattan's streets into the evening, at one point saying they were headed to the house of the Trinity Church rector.

"We are unstoppable. Another world is possible," and "Whose street? Our street," were among the chants from the protesters, who blocked some streets as they marched.

Later, as they started to move toward Midtown, some of the demonstrators were hemmed in by lines of police, and police on motorcycles tried to disperse protesters who were in the middle of streets.

The Occupy movement began with protesters taking over a park in New York in September to draw attention to economic inequality and a financial system they say is unfairly skewed toward the wealthy.

In ensuing weeks the protests and encampments spread to cities throughout the United States as well as to some in other countries.

But Occupy camps in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and a number of other major cities were shut down in recent weeks in operations that resulted in hundreds of arrests and have raised questions about the movement's future.

Authorities have justified their moves against the camps on a variety of grounds, including that the camps were causing sanitation problems and were dangerous to public safety.

(Writing by Jerry Norton; Editing by Dan Whitcomb)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111217/us_nm/us_protests_newyork

black friday 2011 rhodium uppity uppity stuffing brandon mcinerney brandon mcinerney

NASA revises its commercial spaceship plans

Sierra Nevada Corp.

A worker checks out Sierra Nevada Corp.'s structural test article for its Dream Chaser spaceship at a facility in Colorado. The Dream Chaser is in the running to become a successor to NASA's space shuttle fleet.

By Alan Boyle

Budget uncertainties have led NASA to change its policy on funding the development of commercial spaceships, shifting to a process that provides more flexibility but also more risk for the space agency.

More than $365 million has already been devoted to NASA's commercial crew development program, or CCDev. Congress has approved another $406 million to be paid to would-be spaceship builders, with the aim of having U.S.-made, crew-capable successors to the space shuttle fleet flying to the International Space Station by 2017.

During the first two phases of the program, the effort has been managed through a set of Space Act Agreements, which award money to the companies in stages as they reach agreed-upon milestones. For the third phase, known as CCDev3, NASA had planned to switch to a different fixed-price contracting system that would give the space agency more control over the management of the companies' development efforts. NASA was?scheduled to issue a request for proposals under that system on Monday.

But because of the uncertainties surrounding the federal budget for the next couple of years, NASA has decided to stick with the Space Act arrangement, said Bill Gerstenmaier, the agency's associate administrator for human exploration and operations. "It's really tough to lock into a fixed-price contract with the number of providers that can keep us moving forward," Gerstenmaier explained during a teleconference with journalists.


The shift means NASA will have to delay its?announcement for proposals until the first quarter of next year, but Gerstenmaier said he still hoped agreements could be made in mid-2012 to cover a 21-month period lasting into early 2014. Two potential spaceship providers,?and perhaps more, should be able to get close to a critical design review on that timetable with NASA funding, Gerstenmaier said.

In a statement, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said the space agency is "committed to ensuring that U.S. companies are sending American astronauts into space."

"This new acquisition strategy will allow us to preserve competition as we maintain our momentum to provide a U.S.-based commercial crew launch capability at the earliest possible time," he said.

Crucial difference
The crucial distinction has to do with how much control NASA will have over the designs that are produced.

"We can't actually approve their designs, we can't say we're needing a service or getting a service," but the companies at least will be able to keep making progress, Gerstenmaier said. He used the rocket-science term for "change" to describe how the process could go: "There's going to be some potential delta that has to occur when we complete this phase."

The companies involved in CCDev had initially voiced reservations about the fixed-price contract plan, out of?concern that NASA could exert too much control or even cancel the program altogether in midstream. One of the CCDev?companies, California-based SpaceX, issued a statement in support of?today's shift.

"Given budget realities, NASA and domestic space companies need to innovate more than ever," SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell was quoted as saying. "Space Act Agreements yield amazing results ? we need only look at the Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket, both highly advanced, all-American vehicles designed using 21st-century technology.? We applaud NASA's decision to use Space Act Agreements for the next round of commercial crew and look forward to the competition."

However, U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall, the Texas Republican?who heads the House Science, Space and Technology?Committee, questioned the move.?

"The disadvantage of using Space Act Agreements is that NASA cannot impose its safety requirements as would be possible under a normal acquisition," Hall said in a statement.?"Therefore, it is vitally important that NASA and its industry partners work cooperatively to ensure the highest level of crew safety, even in the absence of safety requirements."

In a report issued today,?the Government Accountability Office,?Congress' independent investigative arm,?mentioned fixed-price, performance-based?contracts as one of the "good acquisition practices" that NASA was planning for future CCDev work. The report was drawn up before NASA's announcement.

What lies ahead
CCDev funding is currently going to Blue Origin, the Boeing Co. and?Sierra Nevada as well as SpaceX for spaceship development. For the next phase, commercial ventures will have to?propose a full-service system, including the launch vehicle,?to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Gerstenmaier said that once the 2012-2014 design phase is done, he expected that?fixed-price contracts would be drawn up for the follow-up work,?such as?spacecraft certification.

NASA?originally planned for commercial spacecraft to start ferrying astronauts in 2016, but because Congress authorized only half as much money for the current fiscal year as the White House was seeking, NASA?now says flight operations?won't begin until 2017 at the earliest.

In the meantime, NASA has to purchase seats from the Russians for rides on Soyuz capsules, at a price that's due to?rise to more than $60 million in 2014. Gerstenmaier said NASA will now have to negotiate with the Russians for additional seats in the 2016-2017 time frame.

Today's GAO report raised further concerns about the development timetable. It?said the "critical need to transport crew to the space station beginning in 2016 requires an aggressive program schedule that may not be attainable, given NASA's experiences with past government and commercial development efforts."

NASA is also supporting the development of commercial cargo spacecraft under a separate program known as Commercial Orbital Transportation Services, or COTS. A key test flight in that program is scheduled to come in February, when SpaceX is due to launch a Dragon cargo capsule to a potential linkup with the space station. Orbital Sciences Corp., the other COTS company, is planning to begin test launches next year as well.

Update for 2:05 p.m. ET: Blue Origin issued a statement from its president, Rob Meyerson, about NASA's change of plans:

"We applaud NASA?s plans to continue using competitively awarded Space Act Agreements to accelerate the development of truly commercial crew capabilities.? We believe commercial means significant private investment and competition to accelerate technologies and capabilities designed to enable a space economy, one that includes trips to the International Space Station. ...

"We suggest NASA limit its co-funding to 20 percent?of any single private effort, and perhaps less.?This keeps the effort predominantly a private endeavor, with the private sector having real 'skin in the game.'? This level of co-funding limits the government?s role to accelerating a private marketplace, not distorting it."

More on the future of spaceflight:


Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Source: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/15/9471717-nasa-revises-its-spaceship-plans

evelyn lauder nfl standings devin hester devin hester shayne lamas cain velasquez dos santos

Theron reveals monstrously funny side in 'Adult' (AP)

NEW YORK ? Jason Reitman was under the same impression many are of Charlize Theron. He knew she was a fiercely talented actress, prone to burying her stunning beauty behind gritty, intense performances like her Academy Award-winning one as a murderous prostitute in 2003's "Monster."

Then she told him a dirty joke.

Theron approached Reitman at last year's Oscars to tell him how much she liked his then recent film "Up in the Air" and that she'd love to work with him.

"I got a tap on the shoulder and I turn around and it's all 6-foot-6 of Charlize Theron," recalls Reitman, intentionally exaggerating Theron's height by eight inches. "I was really understandably intimated."

But when Theron, already a few drinks into the night, revealed a more depraved sense of humor than her image would suggest, Reitman realized they had more in common than he expected: "I was like, `Oh! I like you.'" (Theron, for her part, doesn't recall the joke, but, with a glimmer in her eye, acknowledged, "That sounds about correct.")

The meeting was both fortuitous, in that it directly led to Theron staring in Reitman's new film "Young Adult," and an early hint to the tone of their collaboration. In "Young Adult" (which was penned by Diablo Cody of "Juno"), Theron plays Mavis Gary, a teen fiction ghost writer who returns to her hometown in rural Minnesota to lure her now-married former boyfriend. As a woman whose nostalgia has swelled to demented proportions, Theron is bitingly caustic and hilariously candid.

The performance not only reveals Theron's comedic side, but shows more of her true nature than her previous work. Not that Theron is anything like Mavis' more deplorable aspects, but she shares Mavis' sharp elbows and sharper wit.

"Most people who know me who have seen the film are not that shocked," Theron said in a recent interview during which she was self-deprecating, unguardedly foul-mouthed and thoughtful. "The film is way more my personality and closer to anything that I've done."

It's also Theron's first film in nearly three years. In between, she prepared to star in an ambitious "Mad Max" sequel, "Fury Road," which was repeatedly delayed and still hasn't been shot. She worked on developing projects with her production company, including a drama series for HBO with David Fincher. She also split with the Irish actor Stuart Townsend after nearly a decade together.

"I'll be very honest: I wasn't missing it," Theron says of acting. "It's hard to miss something when nothing was kind of sparking that instrument to get excited about."

That period, though, appears to be over. Following "Young Adult" ? which is earning Theron her best reviews since "Monster" ? she'll be seen in Ridley Scott's "Prometheus" and the fantasy "Snow White & the Huntsman," which also stars Kristen Stewart.

Theron, 36, grew up on a farm outside Johannesburg, South Africa. While she was a teenager, her mother shot and killed Theron's alcoholic and abusive father. When she was 16, she became a model in Milan. She later moved to New York to train as a ballet dancer, but a knee injury pushed her out of dance and toward acting.

After a number of small roles as girlfriend types in films such as "The Devil's Advocate" and "The Cider House Rules," her performance in "Monster" changed her trajectory considerably. When she won best actress at the Oscars, Nelson Mandela hailed her for putting South Africa "on the map."

Since then, Theron, who lives in Los Angeles, received a second Oscar nomination for her performance as a miner in "North Country." Though the science fiction "Aeon Flux" bombed, Theron drew acclaim again for a supporting role in the somber anti-war film "In the Valley of Elah" and for the atypical superhero film "Hancock."

But all the while, there were hints in her filmography of comedic leanings. In 2005, she had a memorable arc on "Arrested Development" as the love interest of Jason Bateman's character. Her character was mentally disabled, but the joke was on those around her, who didn't notice because of her British accent.

The opportunity arose when "Monster" director Patty Jenkins directed an episode of the series, and Theron asked her to relay to creator Mitch Hurwitz her pleading to be on the show. She calls the experience a "great, great learning experience" in how comedy needn't be played for comedy, but rather portrayed realistically.

Theron also appeared on an early episode of Zach Galifianakis' faux-interview Web series "Between Two Ferns," as revered of a comedy calling-card as there is. On it, Theron flirted with Galifianakis before pulling the rug out from him, cackling at the idea of her being attracted to a "fat garden gnome."

"The bizarre thing is that I've always had kind of a sick, twisted sense of humor," says Theron. "But my work, for some reason, has always veered to the dramatic stuff. I think that's because I've never really been that driven by genre, but I find that I want to play people that feel real. I do think in comedy it's harder to find non-caricatures. I always said that I would love to do something like that kind of comedy that the Coen brothers do, that more character study stuff. And that stuff is hard to come by, and I feel like my career was setting itself up to be another thing."

The comedian-actor Patton Oswalt, who plays an old high school acquaintance of Mavis' who turns into a drinking buddy in "Young Adult," said at the Gotham Awards that Theron "has the kind of humor that someone who looks like me has."

The two found an unlikely chemistry in "Young Adult" right from the start. Before ever meeting, they did a table read in Reitman's dining room and immediately connected.

"I realized I was going to be working with a really great actor," says Oswalt. "It made me work even harder so that I could be on her playing field. She is so instinctual and already ready to go every shot."

Whether it's "Monster" or "Hancock" or "Young Adult," Theron typically commits fully to a character. Asked how she manages that, she doesn't miss a beat: "Alcohol."

But thinking a little more about it, she says that ballet instilled in her a relish for performance. Though she acknowledges she's not a trained actor, she says she learned from other actors as her career unfolded.

"It was amazing to watch Al Pacino at 3 in the morning and suck ... and then be brilliant," says Theron, recalling "The Devil's Advocate." "It was one of the greatest teachings that I could have been given. He taught me that in order to be great, you have to be willing to fall on your face. You don't get to that place unless you go balls out."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111213/ap_en_ce/us_film_charlize_theron

earthquake today earthquake today droid razr oklahoma news atomic clock earthquake map geoffrey mutai

Tenn. woman's body found; search on for killer

By Msnbc.com staff and wire services

Investigators are searching for clues after the?body of a West Tennessee woman who had been missing for more than a month was found in a wooded area in Dyer County over the weekend by a pair of men visiting a nearby cemetery.
??
Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Special Agent John Mehr tells the Associated Press that the body of Karen Swift was found Saturday.?The authorities are treating the case as a homicide, he said.
??
The mother of four had not been seen since late October. Dyer County residents had joined authorities in searching for Swift.

John Robinson,?a preacher at Bogota Church of Christ, found the body along with his friend, Mark Rickman, as they were leaving Bledsoe Cemetery, according to a report on the Dyersburg State Gazette.

"At least they can quit looking for her and start looking for somebody,"?Robinson told the newspaper.

Dyer County Sheriff?Jeff Boxx said investigators are?awaiting?the testing of DNA samples from evidence found in Swift's car, the family's home, and from her body, according to a report on WREG.com.He said?Swift's husband, David, has cooperated in the case.

?

"That includes DNA samples, he's come in and was interviewed,"?Boxx told WREG.com. "He allowed us to interview one of the children. So far he's submitted to every request for search of anything on that property."

The Associated Press, the State Gazette and WREG.com contributed to this report.

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

Source: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/14/9448891-authorities-search-for-killer-after-missing-tenn-womans-body-found

robert wagner live with regis and kelly heavy d funeral oklahoma state university osu football osu football christopher walken

Bodies turn up in suburban Chicago house for sale

SAUK VILLAGE, Ill. -- The bodies of two men were discovered in a vacant home Tuesday evening by a property owner hoping to make a sale to a potential buyer, The Chicago Tribune reported Wednesday.

The victims, ages 19 and 18, were shot multiple times and appear to have been inside the house in Sauk Village for at least a day, officials told the Tribune. The bodies were discovered just after 9:30 p.m. CT Tuesday.

Both were dead at the scene, the medical examiner's office said. Their identities were not released pending notification of their relatives. An autopsy is scheduled for Wednesday, local media reported.

The house is a four-bedroom property listed as a short sale that has been on the market for 121 days, according to WLS-AM.com.? The asking price is $44,900, according to Realtor.com.

The tiny Sauk Village is just five square miles and has 10,000 residents, according to its website. It's about 30 miles south of Chicago.

Source: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/07/9271836-bodies-turn-up-in-suburban-chicago-house-for-sale

coach outlet apostasy chiefs canon powershot elph 300 hs christmas lights canon eos rebel t3 christmas photo cards

McCain: Hispanic vote 'up for grabs'

(AP) ? Sen. John McCain said Sunday that the potentially powerful Hispanic vote in the upcoming presidential election remains "up for grabs" because neither President Barack Obama nor Republicans have convinced these voters that they are on their side.

The one-time GOP presidential hopeful, whose own 2008 candidacy was shaped in part by immigration, said that large Hispanic populations in his home state of Arizona and elsewhere are listening carefully to what Republican candidates have to say on immigration and could become a "major factor" in 2012.

"I think that the Republican party has to discuss this issue in as humane way as possible," he said. He later added, "the enthusiasm on the part of Hispanics for President Obama is dramatically less than it was in 2008, because he has not fulfilled his campaign promises either. So I view the Hispanic vote up for grabs."

McCain comment, on CNN's "State of the Union," is a warning to the GOP primary candidates who have mostly embraced a hardline on immigration, lest they be accused of supporting any kind of "amnesty" for the some 12 million illegal immigrants estimated to be living in the U.S. Newt Gingrich was most recently attacked by his opponents for saying he would grant legal status to those with longstanding family and community ties; he has since endorsed a South Carolina law that allows police to demand a person's immigration status.

McCain said he believes the Hispanic vote could sway Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico. The key, he said, was for Republicans to address immigration in a humane and pragmatic way that every voter could appreciate. More specifically, McCain said, GOP presidential candidates should find a way to address the status of illegal immigrants already in the country while finding a way to secure the border to deter others from crossing the border.

"It's a careful balance of addressing this issue, which I think the majority of Hispanics would appreciate. . . . We have to have empathy. We have to have concern. We have to have a plan," he said.

In 2008, McCain watched his own standing in the election suffer when he backed a plan to give some illegal immigrants an eventual path to citizenship.

Gingrich has challenged his GOP opponents to come up with their own plans for dealing with the millions inside the U.S. illegally.

"What is it that you're going to do? Are you really going to go in and advocate ripping people out of their families?" he said.

In 2008, Mitt Romney had supported the idea of allowing some illegal immigrants to sign up for permanent residency or citizenship. More recently, he has said it would be a "mistake" for the GOP to allow anyone to "jump ahead of the line" and characterized Gingrich's approach as a "doorway" to amnesty.

In the interview Sunday, McCain declined to comment on the position of individual candidates. "I respect the views of the voters," he said.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2011-12-04-US-GOP-Immigration/id-3b148c918da649518a464d3607b37e0c

big game jeremy london jeremy london butterball turkey fryer butterball turkey fryer yale harvard dan henderson

The Royal Road to Romney

So Herman Cain dropped out of the race. Yawn.

And Newt Gingrich is surging. Yawn again.

Republican primary voters aren't enthused by Mitt Romney. But he is the more disciplined candidate. And he has better organization skills. And a bigger war chest. ... Yawn, yawn and yawn.

If you really want to know how the GOP presidential primary is going to turn out, you don't need much analysis. You didn't have to wait this long, either. Long before trapeze artists Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Herman Cain ended their acts with spectacular thummps, long before the false springs of Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, and Mike Huckabee, long before today?s leading candidates had even declared they were running?all you had to know is that the winner of the GOP presidential primary is the candidate who came in second last time wins this time.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=8c61fcdebefe728828e740f636827ba5

plane crash plane crash kelly ripa reno wildfire reno wildfire osu osu

Samsung?s two-faced SCH-W999 Android plays the dual core, dual SIM game

Remember Samsung?s second-gen dual-screen Android clamshell we spotted about a month ago? Well, here it is at last: announced in partnership with China Telecom, this SCH-W999 flip phone packs two 3.5-inch 480 x 800 Super AMOLED panels back to back, along with a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm MSM8660, Android 2.3 with TouchWiz, HyperSkin back cover (as featured on the Galaxy Nexus for grip plus anti-smear), five megapixel camera, Bluetooth 3.0, WiFi and WAPI (China?s not-so-successful take on WiFi, basically).

Like many phones on China Telecom, the W999 comes with dual SIM slots and dual-mode connectivity (GSM and CDMA2000, with the latter offering EV-DO 3G), but with the additional support for penta-band radio for globetrotters. Want to nab one? We?re looking at a 2012 launch, though there?s no word on prices just yet ? well, just so you know, the predecessor W899 starts from ?8990 ($1,410), so good luck with your garage sale. We got you some pictures from the China launch event after the break, courtesy of Samsung Mobile.

7915f5e7tw1dnoll1pij7j1 Samsungs two faced SCH W999 Android plays the dual core, dual SIM game

p 89EKCgBk8MZdE198 Samsungs two faced SCH W999 Android plays the dual core, dual SIM game

Source: http://dailygizmonews.com/2011/12/03/samsungs-two-faced-sch-w999-android-plays-the-dual-core-dual-sim-game-2/

nook tablet eagles magic johnson involuntary manslaughter stevens johnson syndrome verdict in michael jackson trial verdict in michael jackson trial

Insight: Stem cell therapy poised to come in from the cold

Sun Dec 4, 2011 11:08am EST

(Reuters) - A rogue surgeon injects stem cells from a fetus into a sick man's brain. The cells morph and form body parts. When the man dies, the pathologist finds cartilage, skin and bone clumped in his brain.

The scene is not from a horror movie; it happened to Max Truex, a former Olympic runner who suffered from Parkinson's disease. The case sent a chill through the scientific community when it came to light 15 years ago and typifies some of the hurdles researchers have faced while trying to bring stem cell therapies to the market.

Now, it appears, their efforts are closer than ever to paying off.

Dozens of adult stem cell treatments are moving through clinical trials and showing early success, raising hopes that some could reach the market within five years.

"It will only take a few successes to really change the field," said Gil Van Bokkelen, chief executive of Athersys Inc and chairman of the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine. "As you see things getting closer and closer to that tipping point, you're going to see a frenzy of activity take place."

Many of the trials focus on heart disease and inflammatory conditions, some of the biggest markets in medicine. The cells used are derived from adult tissue such as fat, or bone marrow, thereby circumventing the ethical concerns raised by the use of cells derived from embryos.

Data for the most part remains early, but as more results emerge, pharmaceutical companies are beginning to take note.

"A lot of big companies are looking to place bets on some Phase II products once that data has been confirmed," said Paul Schmitt, managing partner at venture capital firm Novitas Capital. "Even now they're attending all the medical meetings and talking to all the stem cell companies."

Venture funds like Novitas are taking different approaches to playing the emerging field. Novitas invested $4 million in Amorcyte Inc, a company recently acquired by NeoStem Inc that is developing a treatment for heart disease. It is sticking to that investment for now.

By contrast, Aspire Capital Partners LLC is investing more broadly in the hope that one success will offset the inevitable failures.

"My philosophy in the stem cell space is that it's very difficult at this point to pick the winners and losers," said Steven Martin, managing member at Aspire. "We believe that over time there will be some very significant clinical progress, and valuations will improve, but we're still a long way from an approved therapy."

In the meantime, he said, "we are willing to be patient because we think the upside is tremendous."

GROWING INTEREST

Aastrom Biosciences Inc recently presented promising results from a mid-stage trial of its treatment for patients with critical limb ischemia, a disease in which blood flow to the extremities is restricted, at the American Heart Association's annual meeting. A mid-stage trial from Australia's Mesoblast Ltd showed its stem cell product reduced the rate of heart attacks and the need for artery clearing procedures by 78 percent.

"We're actually developing products now," said Timothy Mayleben, chief executive of Aastrom, which is using cells derived from a patient's own bone marrow to develop treatments for cardiovascular disease. "For the first time you are starting to see data being presented at major medical meetings."

Mesoblast has attracted more interest from investors than most. In late 2010, Cephalon Inc took a 20 percent stake in the company, which now has a market value of $2 billion -- far greater than any other pure play company in the space. Cephalon was bought this year by Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd..

"Mesoblast gets this out-sized valuation by being a standard bearer in a risky field that everyone feels has a lot of promise," said Raghuram Selvaraju, an analyst at Morgan Joseph TriArtisan.

Shire Plc said in May it planned to establish a new regenerative medicine business, and kick-started it with the $750 million purchase of Advanced BioHealing Inc, which makes a skin substitute for treating diabetic foot ulcers.

Pfizer Inc, Johnson & Johnson and Roche Holding AG are members of the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine, a nonprofit group that promotes awareness of the field. Pfizer has a regenerative medicine unit and a partnership with Athersys. But their projects are small.

"Big pharma companies will be more interested in investing once they see data in hundreds of patients," said Schmitt.

Once that happens, there will be a land rush, he said, just as there was with monoclonal antibodies, genetically engineered molecules such as Roche's breast cancer drug Herceptin and Abbott Laboratories' rheumatoid arthritis drug Humira.

"Monoclonal antibodies were a missionary effort for many years, all through the eighties and nineties," Schmitt said. "They were called silver bullets, and eventually those bullets turned to gold."

According to GBI Research, the market for monoclonal antibodies was worth $15.6 billion in 2010 and is expected to reach $31.7 billion by 2017.

Stem cell therapy, which once promised to deliver cures for everything from Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's to spinal cord injury, has followed a similar path of enthusiasm followed by disappointment.

"There was a lot of hype around the industry early on and the industry failed to live up to that hype," said Aastrom's Mayleben.

Now stem cell therapy is gaining credibility again as real clinical data begins to emerge.

"From an investor standpoint, the time lines are long, but the opportunity to transform medicine and science is unlike anything else out there," said Aspire's Martin.

MASTER CELLS

The promise of stem cells, which have been used for 40 years in bone marrow transplants, lies in their ability to repair tissue, reduce inflammation, regulate the immune system, and respond to calls for help from multiple places inside the body. Stem cells are the body's master cells - blank slates that renew themselves and mature into specific cell types in the heart, muscle and other organs.

Embryonic stem cells are uniquely capable of differentiating into every type of mature cell in the body, and were long viewed as the most promising for regenerating tissue.

But harvesting stem cells from embryos requires the destruction of the embryo itself, a process opposed by conservative Christian groups. Moreover, their endless capacity to divide can lead to the formation of teratomas, or stem cell cancers.

Recently, Geron Corp, the world's leading embryonic stem cell company, said it could no longer fund its stem cell work and would focus on developing cancer drugs. It closed its trial for spinal cord injury.

Unlike embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells have a more limited capacity to differentiate, but appear able to reduce inflammation and promote blood vessel formation. Furthermore, they can respond to damage in the body in a flexible and dynamic way, offering advantages over traditional drugs.

"They seem to be preprogrammed to act some way in tissue repair, not to form an organ or a tissue," said Douglas Losordo, head of stem cell research at Baxter International Inc, which is developing cell therapies for heart disease. "The cells that we use are very effective at stimulating the formation of new blood vessels, but if I wanted to make a brain cell out of those cells they would not be very good at it."

These are the type of stem cell treatments, delivered by infusion, injection or catheter, that are being developed today.

Some companies, such as Celgene Corp, Pluristem Therapeutics Inc, Athersys and Mesoblast are developing so-called allogeneic products designed to be sold with the ease and scale of a traditional pharmaceutical. Cells are taken from a single donor, expanded, frozen and shipped for use in thousands of people.

"We wanted to create a product that everyone could receive and not have to match every donor to every recipient," said Robert Hariri, chief executive of Celgene's Cellular Therapeutics unit.

Aastrom, Baxter, NeoStem and Cytori Therapeutics Inc use cells taken from a patient's own body in what is known as an autologous transfer. This personalized approach eliminates the risk that the cells will be rejected.

"There are going to be dividing lines in the industry between autologous and allogeneic and there are some indications where one will be better than the other," said Jason Kolbert, head of business development at NeoStem.

"It may be that immediately following a heart attack you would want to use an allogeneic therapy to limit the damage in those first few hours, and then follow up after day five with an autologous product like ours."

Different types of stem cell are being used for different diseases. Cytori is developing a heart disease product derived from fat cells, for example, while Celgene is using placental cells for Crohn's disease and rheumatoid arthritis therapies.

Fetal cells are also being explored. Neuralstem Inc, for example, is developing treatments for neurological disorders from an aborted fetus and is in the early stages of testing a treatment for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known also as Lou Gehrig's disease.

"I think Neuralstem is one to watch," said Aspire's Martin.

CHALLENGES AHEAD

As cell therapies move further through clinical trials, companies will need more money, and funding is scarce. Aastrom's shares have fallen 37 percent since reaching a year high of $3.47 in June as investors brace for another dilutive capital-raising effort.

Companies with credible partners will likely have an advantage. Athersys has a partnership with Pfizer; Cytori has a partnership with General Electric Co; Pluristem has a partnership with United Therapeutics Corp. Celgene, which makes cancer drug Revlimid, has resources of its own.

Yet even if companies remain afloat long enough to bring a product through late-stage clinical trials, it is unclear what regulators like the Food and Drug Administration will require in order to approve them.

Some believe the regulatory hurdles for treatments derived from a patient's own cells will be lower than those where the cells come from donors, since there is less risk of cell rejection. However, no clear pathway has yet been established.

"We need a clear, consistent and rigorous regulatory framework," said Athersys's Van Bokkelen "The FDA is actually willing to provide lots of guidance and assistance to sponsors, if you just ask them."

(Reporting by Toni Clarke in Boston and Deena Beasley in Los Angeles; Editing by Michele Gershberg, Edward Tobin and Tim Dobbyn)

Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/reuters/scienceNews/~3/A1vDANDduCI/us-insight-stem-cell-therapy-idUSTRE7B30FH20111204

roasted pumpkin seeds pumpkin seed recipe mark madoff disturbia ufc results nick diaz michael myers

MasterCard and mFoundry partner to offer NFC payments within mobile banking apps

Hoping to add more punch to the standard mobile banking app, mFoundry has announed that it will be making MasterCard's NFC feature PayPass available in its financial apps. What that translates to for the mobile banking user is a quick and easy way to pay without having to use an additional service like Google Wallet or whatever Isis has up its sleeve. mFoundry currently provides mobile banking services for more than 560 financial institutions and credit unions including PNC, Bank of America and Citi -- so chances are, if you're using a mobile banking app, it's powered by mFoundry. Sadly, the same cannot be said for the extremely limited amount of NFC phones that can actually support the feature. Perhaps having the option within a standard banking app will help the trend take off -- at least amongst those with NFC phones.

Continue reading MasterCard and mFoundry partner to offer NFC payments within mobile banking apps

MasterCard and mFoundry partner to offer NFC payments within mobile banking apps originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/01/mastercard-and-mfoundry-partner-to-offer-nfc-payments-within-mob/

frank miller 60 minutes duggar family oobleck justin timberlake marine corps ball frank gore injury frank gore injury