While most Olympic athletes are backed by strong support in their home countries, Afghanistan's Tahmina Kohistani has encountered not just disapproval, but outright opposition.
But the 100m sprinter said her appearance at the London Olympics, as her country's only female athlete, was important not just for her, but for all women in conservative Afghanistan.
"This means a lot for me and my country. There were a lot of people who were trying to disturb me, to stop me from training, but I am here," she said on Tuesday.
"A lot of people will be watching me," she added. "Being a Muslim female athlete is most important for me.
"I represent a country where every day there are suicide bomb blasts. It is important that a girl from such a country can be here."
Kohistani, 23, from the north-eastern province of Kapisa, admits it would be a "miracle" to reach the 100m final, let alone claim a medal.
The 1.60m (five foot three) runner, instantly recognisable on the track by her traditional headscarf, has a personal best of 15.0sec -- more than four seconds slower than the late Florence Griffith-Joyner's long-standing world record.
The slow time is not surprising given Kohistani comes from a country with few facilities, where many people are openly hostile to the involvement of women in sport.
She is part of a six-strong Afghan team in London including Rohullah Nikpai, whose taekwondo bronze at Beijing 2008 was the war-ravaged, deeply religious country's first ever Olympic medal.
"I know that having a medal at the Olympics is very difficult, but I am here to open a new way for the women of Afghanistan because in my society there is no sport for females," Kohistani said.
"My people do not accept sport for women, they think sport is not good for them, but my family supports me and they have no problems."
And Kohistani, who will take part in the 100m heats on August 3, holds out the faint hope that a slip-up by her rivals could open the way to a place in the final.
"It is all in the mind. The race is fast. If any of the favourites make a mistake, maybe it will be a miracle for me," she said.
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Fitness & ActivityPublished date: 14/06/2012
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'It's not a political statement. It's just ... we had to use what heads we had lying around,' show runners explain in DVD commentary. By Gil Kaufman
The George W. Bush prop head on the set of "Game of Thrones" Photo:
A lot of heads roll on HBO's "Game of Thrones." Hardly an episode goes by without someone getting forcibly detached from their noggin. But even die-hards who study every scene of the lushly shot show might not have noticed that one of the heads on a spike in the dramatic season one finale looked a bit familiar.
In a scene in which sneery teen King Joffrey is proudly showing his captive wife-to-be Sansa Stark a row of traitors' heads on spikes, even eagle-eyed viewers may not have seen that one of those craniums belonged to former President George W. Bush.
In the DVD commentary for the first season, show creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss revealed, "People may not have noticed this but back up ... the last head on the left is George Bush ... George Bush's head appears in a couple of beheading scenes." And though they said the inclusion of the former commander-in-chief's head, which sported a long, scraggly wig, was "not a political statement," and they just had to "use what heads we had lying around," that explanation didn't sit well with some fellow Republicans.
"Whether you like him or dislike him, whether you're of the same political persuasion or not, we still have to respect the office of the presidency and all of those who hold that presidency," Brooklyn Republican party chairman Craig Eaton said, according to E! Online.
"Americans of all political persuasions should stand up and demand that things like this should not continue. They should boycott watching this particular show ... It doesn't matter what their intent is. They didn't intend it to be political, but now that it is, they should remove it."
Once word of the controversy broke, HBO, which is currently airing a loving documentary about Bush's father, former President George H.W. Bush, was quick to issue an apology. "We were deeply dismayed to see this and find it unacceptable, disrespectful and in very bad taste," read a statement from the network posted on Deadline Hollywood. "We made this clear to the executive producers of the series who apologized immediately for this inadvertent careless mistake. We are sorry this happened and will have it removed from any future DVD production."
Benioff and Weiss also issued an apology, explaining how the Bush head ended up in the show. "We use a lot of prosthetic body parts on the show: heads, arms, etc. We can't afford to have these all made from scratch, especially in scenes where we need a lot of them, so we rent them in bulk. After the scene was already shot, someone pointed out that one of the heads looked like George W. Bush."
The pair said that they mentioned this curious fact in the DVD commentary, "though we should not have. We meant no disrespect to the former President and apologize if anything we said or did suggested otherwise."
India's coalition names Mukherjee for president in econ shakeup
Reuters | June 15, 2012 | 10:16 AM EDT
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's ruling Congress party named Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee as its nominee for president on Friday, capping a week of political turmoil that exposed the fragility of a coalition government that has lurched between crises as the economy sputters.
The political machinations over who should fill the largely ceremonial post of president have proven a major distraction for the government at a time when investors and business leaders have been demanding that it take prompt action on the economy.
Congress, which has governed India for the most of the 65 years it has been independent, struggled to win support from key allies for its candidate. Analysts saw this as evidence of the weakness of India's grand old party in the face of increasingly powerful regional parties with their own agendas.
Mukherjee, 76, is expected to step down by June 24, and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, 78, could take charge of his portfolio for the next several months, a source close to the finance minister told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Singh's reputation as the architect of landmark economic reforms in 1991 that unleashed two decades of faster growth has been badly tarnished by widespread criticism of his leadership of Asia's third-largest economy. Critics say his government has failed to take concrete steps to rein in spending on subsidies and bring down stubbornly high inflation.
Mayor Setti Warren told the School Committee and School Department Monday night that the city is ?aggressively pursuing? moving up the feasibility schedule for a building project at the Cabot Elementary School after a group of parents called on city officials reprioritize Cabot in its list of pending building projects.
?We know that Cabot needs work desperately and we know how important it is to children,? Warren said. ?I personally have been in touch with the MSBA. We share your urgency in fixing things at Cabot.?
The city is already working with the Massachusetts School Building Authority on the Angier School building project. City officials have previously said they weren?t sure if the city could be engaged in multiple projects with the MSBA at the same time, but Cabot parent Lisa Adams told the School Committee that she saw a number of school district with concurrent projects on the MSBA?s website.
Cabot parent Amy Fleishman told the School Committee her son was offered an enrichment class for math but turned it down because the class was going to be in a bathroom that was converted into a closet and then converted into a bathroom.
"Please keep the Cabot School a priority," Fleishman.
Contact: Lee Siegel lee.siegel@utah.edu 801-581-8993 University of Utah
Plant poison turns seed-eating mouse into seed spitter
SALT LAKE CITY, June 14, 2012 In Israel's Negev Desert, a plant called sweet mignonette or taily weed uses a toxic "mustard oil bomb" to make the spiny mouse spit out the plant's seeds when eating the fruit. Thus, the plant has turned a seed-eating rodent into a seed spreader that helps the plant reproduce, says a new study by Utah and Israeli scientists.
"It's fascinating that these little mice are doing analytical chemistry, assaying the fruit for toxic compounds" and learning not to bite into the seed, says Denise Dearing, a coauthor of the study and professor of biology at the University of Utah.
"It adds a new dimension to our understanding of the ongoing battle between plants and animals," she adds. "In this case, the plants have twisted the animals to do their bidding, to spread their progeny."
The study was set for online publication June 14 in the journal Current Biology.
The study illustrates the first known case within a single species of what is known as the "directed deterrence" hypothesis, namely, "the fruit is trying have itself eaten by the right consumer one that will spread its seeds," Dearing says. "The plant produces a fruit to deter a class of consumers that would destroy its seeds."
The best known example before the new study involved chili peppers and two different classes of animals. Chili peppers deter mammals from eating their seeds because mammals can register pain from the ingredient capsaicin. Birds "don't feel the heat at all," says Dearing. "They tend not to crush the seeds while they are feeding, so they are good dispersers of chili pepper seeds."
The researchers observed two other species another spiny mouse species and a rodent named the bushy tailed jird also spitting out sweet mignonette seeds while eating the fruit. They say the new study is the first to find seed-spitting in rodents, although it has been documented previously in several primate species.
Dearing visited Israel in 2010 to help with the study. She conducted the research with first author, Ph.D. student and ecologist Michal Samuni-Blank and physiologist Zeev Arad, at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa; Ido Izhaki and Alon Lotan, ecologists at University of Haifa; Yoram Gerchman and Beny Trabelcy, biochemists at University of Haifa at Oranim; and wildlife ecology Professor William Karasov at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
The research was funded by the U.S.-Israel Bi-National Science Foundation, the Israel Science Foundation and U.S. Agency for International Development's Middle East Regional Cooperation program.
Fleshy-Fruited Plant is a Hub of Activity but Holds a Toxic Bomb
The study involved a fleshy-fruited shrub Ochradenus baccatus, known in Israel as sweet mignonette but also commonly known as taily weed. (Sweet mignonette is the name also used for Reseda odorata, another member of the same family.)
Ochradenus baccatus grows 3- to 6-feet tall and lives in wadis or washes ranging from Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Israel east to Pakistan.
The plant has radiating, narrow, spiny leaves, and a central stalk containing yellow-green flowers and, ultimately, immature white berries and mature black berries less than a quarter-inch diameter. It fruits year-round, producing thousands of berries. Each berry holds up to 20 seeds. The plant or its fruits are eaten by camels, ibex, rodents, lizards and many birds.
The researchers say the plant is a key species that plays a critical role in extreme deserts because it often is a focus for animal activity providing food, water, shade and nesting sites and sometimes serves as a "nurse plant" to help other plant species become established.
The mustard oil bomb produced by Ochradenus baccatus is activated when an animal eating the plant's small berries chews the seed as well as the fruity pulp. Enzymes (myrosinases) in the seed activate toxic substances (glucosinolates, or GLSs) in the pulp, which otherwise would be harmless.
The reaction produces chemicals named thiocyanate, isothiocyanates and nitriles. Isothiocyanates are responsible for the characteristic hot flavor of mustard. This mustard bomb first was discovered in mustard plants, and it already was known to deter insects from eating leaves of certain plants.
The chemical reaction in Ochradenus baccatus "has more of a punch than Grey Poupon," Dearing says. "It must taste very strong."
A Mouse that Eats the Fruit but Spits the Seeds
Strong enough so the memory of it makes the common or Cairo spiny mouse Acomys cahirinus spit out most of the seeds while chewing the pulp. The new study documented that in photographs and video. The study also found the nocturnal mice will revert to eating the seeds if the mustard bomb is deactivated.
So the mustard bomb is "encouraging seed dispersal via seed spitting by rodents," the researchers wrote.
"It's not that these mice have poor table manners," Dearing says. "They deliberately wiggle the seed out of the pulp of the fruit like a person does when eating watermelon. This removal of the seed keeps the toxins in the pulp from being activated."
She calls it "an elegant example of the interesting adaptations and counter-adaptations in the arms-race between plants and animals. On the surface, it seems that the mouse has the upper hand by circumventing the plant's defense, yet it's the plant that benefits by having the mouse distribute its seeds."
"This spiny mouse is a member of a family of rodents that are typically thought to be seed predators," and, indeed, the researchers were surprised to find it didn't eat the seeds at the same time they ate the fruit, Dearing says.
"Some of them will eat the seeds of this fruit several hours later after the pulp has been digested," she adds. "When we do experiments in cages, some will spit out the seeds and leave them alone for several hours and then come back and ingest all the seeds." She is not sure they do so in nature.
To show if the animals would eat the seeds with the mustard bomb deactivated, the researchers presented captive mice fruits with seeds that had the bomb-triggering enzyme deactivated. The mice left less than 20 percent of the seeds intact, compared with 73 percent of the seeds that still contained the active mustard bomb ingredient.
"Thus, when faced with a 'disarmed' mustard oil bomb, Acomys behaved as a seed predator," the researchers wrote.
Another experiment showed mice lost weight when they were fed the ingredients necessary for an active mustard bomb, but not when they were fed them separately.
In another part of the study, the researchers left sweet mignonette berries in lab petri dishes in both rocky crevices and under the sweet mignonette shrubs, videotaped the mice eating them, and then counted more seeds were left intact in the crevices than under the parent plants.
"The mice are actually dispersing the seeds to a suitable habitat for germination," says Dearing. "Under the parent plant is a bad spot. A rocky crevice would be a cool, suitable location because it's not in direct sunlight."
The researchers collected seeds spit out by mice in the field and tried germinating them in the lab, which all the seeds from mature berries did successfully. They also found that seeds spit out by the mice germinated at twice the rate of seeds left inside intact fruit.
###
Video of seed-spitting mice may be seen at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgKFIYffReY
University of Utah Communications 201 Presidents Circle, Room 308
Salt Lake City, Utah 84112-9017
(801) 581-6773 fax: (801) 585-3350
www.unews.utah.edu
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Contact: Lee Siegel lee.siegel@utah.edu 801-581-8993 University of Utah
Plant poison turns seed-eating mouse into seed spitter
SALT LAKE CITY, June 14, 2012 In Israel's Negev Desert, a plant called sweet mignonette or taily weed uses a toxic "mustard oil bomb" to make the spiny mouse spit out the plant's seeds when eating the fruit. Thus, the plant has turned a seed-eating rodent into a seed spreader that helps the plant reproduce, says a new study by Utah and Israeli scientists.
"It's fascinating that these little mice are doing analytical chemistry, assaying the fruit for toxic compounds" and learning not to bite into the seed, says Denise Dearing, a coauthor of the study and professor of biology at the University of Utah.
"It adds a new dimension to our understanding of the ongoing battle between plants and animals," she adds. "In this case, the plants have twisted the animals to do their bidding, to spread their progeny."
The study was set for online publication June 14 in the journal Current Biology.
The study illustrates the first known case within a single species of what is known as the "directed deterrence" hypothesis, namely, "the fruit is trying have itself eaten by the right consumer one that will spread its seeds," Dearing says. "The plant produces a fruit to deter a class of consumers that would destroy its seeds."
The best known example before the new study involved chili peppers and two different classes of animals. Chili peppers deter mammals from eating their seeds because mammals can register pain from the ingredient capsaicin. Birds "don't feel the heat at all," says Dearing. "They tend not to crush the seeds while they are feeding, so they are good dispersers of chili pepper seeds."
The researchers observed two other species another spiny mouse species and a rodent named the bushy tailed jird also spitting out sweet mignonette seeds while eating the fruit. They say the new study is the first to find seed-spitting in rodents, although it has been documented previously in several primate species.
Dearing visited Israel in 2010 to help with the study. She conducted the research with first author, Ph.D. student and ecologist Michal Samuni-Blank and physiologist Zeev Arad, at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa; Ido Izhaki and Alon Lotan, ecologists at University of Haifa; Yoram Gerchman and Beny Trabelcy, biochemists at University of Haifa at Oranim; and wildlife ecology Professor William Karasov at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
The research was funded by the U.S.-Israel Bi-National Science Foundation, the Israel Science Foundation and U.S. Agency for International Development's Middle East Regional Cooperation program.
Fleshy-Fruited Plant is a Hub of Activity but Holds a Toxic Bomb
The study involved a fleshy-fruited shrub Ochradenus baccatus, known in Israel as sweet mignonette but also commonly known as taily weed. (Sweet mignonette is the name also used for Reseda odorata, another member of the same family.)
Ochradenus baccatus grows 3- to 6-feet tall and lives in wadis or washes ranging from Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Israel east to Pakistan.
The plant has radiating, narrow, spiny leaves, and a central stalk containing yellow-green flowers and, ultimately, immature white berries and mature black berries less than a quarter-inch diameter. It fruits year-round, producing thousands of berries. Each berry holds up to 20 seeds. The plant or its fruits are eaten by camels, ibex, rodents, lizards and many birds.
The researchers say the plant is a key species that plays a critical role in extreme deserts because it often is a focus for animal activity providing food, water, shade and nesting sites and sometimes serves as a "nurse plant" to help other plant species become established.
The mustard oil bomb produced by Ochradenus baccatus is activated when an animal eating the plant's small berries chews the seed as well as the fruity pulp. Enzymes (myrosinases) in the seed activate toxic substances (glucosinolates, or GLSs) in the pulp, which otherwise would be harmless.
The reaction produces chemicals named thiocyanate, isothiocyanates and nitriles. Isothiocyanates are responsible for the characteristic hot flavor of mustard. This mustard bomb first was discovered in mustard plants, and it already was known to deter insects from eating leaves of certain plants.
The chemical reaction in Ochradenus baccatus "has more of a punch than Grey Poupon," Dearing says. "It must taste very strong."
A Mouse that Eats the Fruit but Spits the Seeds
Strong enough so the memory of it makes the common or Cairo spiny mouse Acomys cahirinus spit out most of the seeds while chewing the pulp. The new study documented that in photographs and video. The study also found the nocturnal mice will revert to eating the seeds if the mustard bomb is deactivated.
So the mustard bomb is "encouraging seed dispersal via seed spitting by rodents," the researchers wrote.
"It's not that these mice have poor table manners," Dearing says. "They deliberately wiggle the seed out of the pulp of the fruit like a person does when eating watermelon. This removal of the seed keeps the toxins in the pulp from being activated."
She calls it "an elegant example of the interesting adaptations and counter-adaptations in the arms-race between plants and animals. On the surface, it seems that the mouse has the upper hand by circumventing the plant's defense, yet it's the plant that benefits by having the mouse distribute its seeds."
"This spiny mouse is a member of a family of rodents that are typically thought to be seed predators," and, indeed, the researchers were surprised to find it didn't eat the seeds at the same time they ate the fruit, Dearing says.
"Some of them will eat the seeds of this fruit several hours later after the pulp has been digested," she adds. "When we do experiments in cages, some will spit out the seeds and leave them alone for several hours and then come back and ingest all the seeds." She is not sure they do so in nature.
To show if the animals would eat the seeds with the mustard bomb deactivated, the researchers presented captive mice fruits with seeds that had the bomb-triggering enzyme deactivated. The mice left less than 20 percent of the seeds intact, compared with 73 percent of the seeds that still contained the active mustard bomb ingredient.
"Thus, when faced with a 'disarmed' mustard oil bomb, Acomys behaved as a seed predator," the researchers wrote.
Another experiment showed mice lost weight when they were fed the ingredients necessary for an active mustard bomb, but not when they were fed them separately.
In another part of the study, the researchers left sweet mignonette berries in lab petri dishes in both rocky crevices and under the sweet mignonette shrubs, videotaped the mice eating them, and then counted more seeds were left intact in the crevices than under the parent plants.
"The mice are actually dispersing the seeds to a suitable habitat for germination," says Dearing. "Under the parent plant is a bad spot. A rocky crevice would be a cool, suitable location because it's not in direct sunlight."
The researchers collected seeds spit out by mice in the field and tried germinating them in the lab, which all the seeds from mature berries did successfully. They also found that seeds spit out by the mice germinated at twice the rate of seeds left inside intact fruit.
###
Video of seed-spitting mice may be seen at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgKFIYffReY
University of Utah Communications 201 Presidents Circle, Room 308
Salt Lake City, Utah 84112-9017
(801) 581-6773 fax: (801) 585-3350
www.unews.utah.edu
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Redmond?s ?major announcement? may be just around the corner, but mum?s the word on Microsoft?s lips. Still, that hasn?t kept the rumor mill from churning, and the latest is just in: Microsoft?s next slate may be built in-house. According to sources from The Wrap and AllThingsD, the firm is planning to introduce a Microsoft-built tablet, undercutting the efforts of third-party builders to more directly compete with the iPad. Rumors flit back and forth between the slate running the ARM optimized Windows RT, the full on x86 version of Windows 8 or both, separated by different models. Is Microsoft building its own army of tablets to go toe-to-toe with the iPad? We?ll find out Monday ? hopefully, whatever the firm announces will last longer than the Zune.
Will Microsoft show its own Windows 8 tablet on Monday? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Jun 2012 00:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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