ufoittakis: মে 2013

মঙ্গলবার, ৭ মে, ২০১৩

PFT: Denver sees Super Bowl opportunity after Miami failure

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With the Dolphins not getting public money to upgrade Sun Life Stadium, it?s widely being assumed that South Florida will be shut out of the Super Bowl rotation.

The logic is simple, which makes it far easier for me to follow.? The NFL has strongly suggested that Miami won?t get another Super Bowl without upgrading the stadium.? The Dolphins, who have made a more clear link between the lack of upgrades and the absence of Super Bowls, have said the upgrades won?t happen without partial public money.? The partial public money isn?t available.? Thus, the upgrades won?t happen.

So future Super Bowls won?t happen, right?

Perhaps.

While we?re told it?s ?not very likely? that Miami will get additional Super Bowls without a stadium upgrade, it?s not impossible.? Ultimately, the owners collectively decide where Super Bowls will be played.

Miami landed on the endangered Super Bowl species list after a continuous rainfall marred Super Bowl XLI between the Colts and the Bears.? The league wants the paying customers to be protected from the South Florida elements ? less than a year before the NFL will be subjecting the paying customers to the New Jersey elements.

That remains the biggest disconnect, in our view.? It?s fine to drop the Super Bowl experience into Manhattan in the dead of winter, and to charge fans four figures to freeze while watching the game, but it?s no longer acceptable to spend a full week in Miami with the remote possibility that it will rain for four hours on Sunday night?

The problem for the league is that, if the owners relent and award additional Super Bowls to South Florida, the not-so-subtle ?upgrade or else? mandate will come off as hollow.? But by removing Miami from the rotation, the league necessarily won?t have as much leverage to squeeze every last penny out of the other potential Super Bowl locations.

Even now, the owners need Miami at the table in order to get the best possible deal out of San Francisco for Super Bowl L and Houston for Super Bowl LI.? Likewise, it?s possible that Miami will launch a dramatic, eleventh-hour reconfiguration of its bid to give the NFL more money to make up for the lack of a stadium upgrade.

At a time when the NFL is trying to expand the universe of potential Super Bowl locations in order to have more bids to pit against each other, it makes no sense to slam the door on playing the game in one of the best places it can be played, regardless of whether the stadium is renovated.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/05/06/denver-sees-a-super-opportunity-in-miami-stadium-defeat/related/

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AT&T Beam is a USB LTE modem with built-in LCD, due May 10th for $20

With the onset of MiFis, smartphone hotspots and other methods of tethering your computer to the 'net, USB modems aren't exactly the most popular devices on the block anymore. It doesn't mean they're not desirable to business folk, however, so most carriers keep at least one or two in their lineup. AT&T just introduced the Beam, its latest dongle from Sierra Wireless, which offers the usual LTE domestically (700/AWS) along with tri-band HSPA+ (850/1900/2100) and quad-band GSM / EDGE.

The key feature here is its built-in 96x64 black-and-white LCD panel, which displays signal strength, data usage and other stats. Finally, it offers mobile hotspot capability, GPS and microSD card support (up to 32GB), and will work on Win 8 / RT laptops and tablets. Dimension-wise, it weighs 1.91 ounces and measures a stout 1.97 x 2.58 x 0.46 inches (50 x 65.5 x 11.7mm). If that fits your purposes, the Beam can be all yours starting May 10th for $20 and a two-year commitment.

Filed under: Peripherals, Wireless, Mobile, AT&T

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Wind, not water, formed mound on Mars, new analysis suggests

May 6, 2013 ? A roughly 3.5-mile high Martian mound that scientists suspect preserves evidence of a massive lake might actually have formed as a result of the Red Planet's famously dusty atmosphere, an analysis of the mound's features suggests. If correct, the research could dilute expectations that the mound holds evidence of a large body of water, which would have important implications for understanding Mars' past habitability.

Researchers based at Princeton University and the California Institute of Technology suggest that the mound, known as Mount Sharp, most likely emerged as strong winds carried dust and sand into the 96-mile-wide crater in which the mound sits. They report in the journal Geology that air likely rises out of the massive Gale Crater when the Martian surface warms during the day, then sweeps back down its steep walls at night. Though strong along the Gale Crater walls, these "slope winds" would have died down at the crater's center where the fine dust in the air settled and accumulated to eventually form Mount Sharp, which is close in size to Alaska's Mt. McKinley.

This dynamic counters the prevailing theory that Mount Sharp formed from layers of lakebed silt -- and could mean that the mound contains less evidence of a past, Earth-like Martian climate than most scientists currently expect. Evidence that Gale Crater once contained a lake in part determined the landing site for the NASA Mars rover Curiosity. The rover touched down near Mount Sharp in August with the purpose of uncovering evidence of a habitable environment, and in December Curiosity found traces of clay, water molecules and organic compounds. Determining the origin of these elements and how they relate to Mount Sharp will be a focus for Curiosity in the coming months.

But the mound itself was likely never under water, though a body of water could have existed in the moat around the base of Mount Sharp, said study co-author Kevin Lewis, a Princeton associate research scholar in geosciences and a participating scientist on the Curiosity rover mission, Mars Science Laboratory. The quest to determine whether Mars could have at one time supported life might be better directed elsewhere, he said.

"Our work doesn't preclude the existence of lakes in Gale Crater, but suggests that the bulk of the material in Mount Sharp was deposited largely by the wind," said Lewis, who worked with first author Edwin Kite, a planetary science postdoctoral scholar at Caltech; Michael Lamb, an assistant professor of geology at Caltech; and Claire Newman and Mark Richardson of California-based research company Ashima Research.

"Every day and night you have these strong winds that flow up and down the steep topographic slopes. It turns out that a mound like this would be a natural thing to form in a crater like Gale," Lewis said. "Contrary to our expectations, Mount Sharp could have essentially formed as a free-standing pile of sediment that never filled the crater."

Even if Mount Sharp were born of wind, it and similar mounds likely overflow with a valuable geological -- if not biological -- history of Mars that can help unravel the climate history of Mars and guide future missions, Lewis said.

"These sedimentary mounds could still record millions of years of Martian climate history," Lewis said. "This is how we learn about Earth's history, by finding the most complete sedimentary records we can and going through layer by layer. One way or another, we're going to get an incredible history book of all the events going on while that sediment was being deposited. I think Mount Sharp will still provide an incredible story to read. It just might not have been a lake."

Dawn Sumner, a geology professor at the University of California-Davis and a Mars Science Laboratory team member, said that the specificity of the researchers' model makes it a valuable attempt to explain Mount Sharp's origin. While the work alone is not yet enough to rethink the distribution of water on Mars, it does propose a unique wind dynamic for Gale Crater then models it in enough detail for the hypothesis to actually be tested as more samples are analyzed on Mars, Sumner said.

"To my knowledge, their model is novel both in terms of invoking katabatic [cool, downward-moving] winds to form Mount Sharp and in quantitatively modeling how the winds would do this," said Sumner, who is familiar with the work but had no role in it.

"The big contribution here is that they provide new ideas that are specific enough that we can start to test them," she said. "This paper provides a new model for Mount Sharp that makes specific predictions about the characteristics of the rocks within the mountain. Observations by Curiosity at the base of Mount Sharp can test the model by looking for evidence of wind deposition of sediment."

The researchers used pairs of satellite images of Gale Crater taken in preparation for the rover landing by the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite managed by Caltech for NASA. Software tools extracted the topographical details of Mount Sharp and the surrounding terrain. The researchers found that the various layers in the mound did not form more-or-less flat-lying stacks as sediments deposited from a lake would. Instead, the layers fanned outward from the mound's center in an unusual radial pattern, Lewis said.

Kite developed a computer model to test how wind circulation patterns would affect the deposition and erosion of wind-blown sediment within a crater like Gale. The researchers found that slope winds that constantly exited and reentered Gale Crater could limit the deposition of sediments near the crater rim, while building up a mound in the center of the crater, even if the ground were bare from the start, Lewis said.

The researchers' results provide evidence for recent questions about Mount Sharp's watery origins, Lewis said. Satellite observations had previously detected water-related mineral signatures within the lower portion of Mount Sharp. While this suggested that the lower portion might have been series of lakebeds, portions of the upper mound were more ambiguous, Lewis said. First of all, the upper layers of the mound are higher than the crater walls in several places. Also, Gale Crater sits on the edge of Mars' northern lowlands. If it had been filled with water to near the height of Mount Sharp then the entire northern hemisphere would have been flooded.

Soil analyses carried out by Curiosity -- the rover's primary mission is two years, but could be extended -- will help determine the nature of Mount Sharp and the Martian climate in general, Lewis said. Wind erosion relies on specific factors such as the size of individual soil grains, so such information gleaned from the Curiosity mission will help determine Martian characteristics such as wind speed. On Earth, sediments need some amount of moisture to become cemented into rock. It will be interesting to know, Lewis said, how the rock layers of Mount Sharp are held together and how water might be involved.

"If the mechanism we describe is correct, it would tell us a lot about Mars and how it operates because Mount Sharp is only one of a class of enigmatic sedimentary mounds observed on Mars," Lewis said.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/space_time/nasa/~3/ipMHIwY0nO4/130506132407.htm

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Video: Issa: "No question" Clinton's circle involved in Benghazi "cover-up" (cbsnews)

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সোমবার, ৬ মে, ২০১৩

OK, maybe some sages shouldn?t be on stages (Unqualified Offerings)

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Still 'Money': Floyd Mayweather Jr. picks apart Robert Guerrero

LAS VEGAS ? The countdown to the end of Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s legendary career began on Saturday with a brilliant performance in a victory over Robert Guerrero at the MGM Grand Garden.

Mayweather rolled his record to 44-0 and kept alive a dream to end his career with a perfect mark.

He signed a six-fight, 30-month contract with Showtime in February ?? likely his final contract ? and he started it off on the right foot.

Floyd Mayweather punches Robert Guerrero their WBC welterweight title fight. (USA Today)

He won a unanimous decision, with all three judges seeing it 117-111, to keep his WBC welterweight title.

Though Guerrero's trainer and father Ruben Guerrero shouted at the conclusion, "He ran like a chicken, baby," it was a masterful boxing performance by Mayweather.

Guerrero tried to pressure Mayweather, but Mayweather had none of it. Guerrero had some success pinning Mayweather in the corner in the first two rounds, but after that, Mayweather used his lateral movement and a laser accurate right hand to pummel Guerrero.

He landed more than 60 percent of his power punches and was never in danger. Only Guerrero's solid chin kept him from being stopped. He repeatedly took clean, hard shots from Mayweather.

[Related: Celebrities, athletes react to fight on Twitter]

Mayweather said he was injured in the middle of the fight, but he didn't show it.

He landed 195 of 476 punches and landed 153 of 254 power shots.

Robert Guerrero sits in his corner after the fifth round. (AP) "I don't remember what round it was, but I hurt my right hand," Mayweather said.

Mayweather rarely took two punches in a row during the fight and was able to spin away or duck under trouble. He reunited with his father, Floyd Mayweather Sr., and brought back the defensive brilliance that his father preaches.

"My father always talks defense first," Mayweather said.

Guerrero praised Mayweather for his performance.

"That's why he's the best," Guerrero said, shaking his head.

Guerrero said "he was slipping by the britches," and noted that Mayweather was very difficult to hit.

It wasn't one of Mayweather's classic performances, but that probably was not that much of a surprise given he was coming off a 57-day stint in the Clark County Detention Center on a domestic violence charge and hadn't fought in a year.

But if that was Mayweather at less than his best, it showed how great he is because he routed a quality fighter on Saturday.

Guerrero landed just 113 of 581 punches overall, and had dozens of his punches picked off or blocked by Mayweather.

"Give him credit," Guerrero said.

Unless he moves up in weight, there aren't a lot of great challenges to Mayweather remaining, particularly if he gets past a likely bout with Canelo Alvarez. Alvarez defeated Austin Trout on April 20, and a bout with Mayweather is likely the biggest pay-per-view bout that can be made.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. lands a left jab against Robert Guerrero in the fifth round during a WBC welterweight title fight, Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

Related boxing content on Yahoo! Sports:
? Wladimir Klitschko retains belts with KO
? Watch: Mayweather's last moments before fight
? Abner Mares stops Daniel Ponce De Leon in 9th

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/boxing--floyd-mayweather-robert-guerrero-money-unanimous-decision-050412117.html

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রবিবার, ৫ মে, ২০১৩

EU predicts eurozone recession to continue in 2013

European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Olli Rehn addresses the media at the European Commission headquarters in Brussels, Friday, May 3, 2013. The European Union is predicting that the recession in the Eurozone will continue in 2013 and that unemployment will stand at record levels. In Friday's spring economic forecast, the EU said that gross domestic product in the 17 nations that use the euro currency will shrink by 0.4 percent this year, slightly better that the estimated -0.6 percent for last year. (AP Photo/Yves Logghe)

European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Olli Rehn addresses the media at the European Commission headquarters in Brussels, Friday May 3, 2013. The European Union is predicting that the recession in the Eurozone will continue in 2013 and that unemployment will stand at record levels. In Friday's spring economic forecast, the EU said that gross domestic product in the 17 nations that use the euro currency will shrink by 0.4 percent this year, slightly better that the estimated -0.6 percent for last year. (AP Photo/Yves Logghe)

BRUSSELS (AP) ? Europe will take longer to recover from its economic crisis as it tackles a worse-than-expected recession in the eurozone and unemployment at record levels, the European Union warned Friday.

In its spring economic forecast, the EU said that gross domestic product in the 17 member countries that use the euro will shrink by 0.4 percent this year, better than the 0.6 percent contraction in 2012 but 0.1 percentage points worse than the EU had forecast back in February.

The report also had bad news for the wider 27-country EU: it now expects the region's economy to shrink by 0.1 percent in 2013, against a forecast of 0.1 percent growth in February.

"Grappling with the aftermath of a profound financial and economic crisis, the EU economy is set to pick up speed only very slowly in the course of this year," the report said.

The grim outlook even forced EU Commissioner Olli Rehn to raise the specter that France, the bloc's second biggest economy, may be given two extra years to bring its deficit within the target 3 percent of gross domestic product needed for a sustainable future.

"It may be reasonable to extend the deadline by two years and to correct the excessive deficit at the latest by 2015 in France," Rehn told reporters.

After the eurozone crisis over too much debt broke in late 2009, the region's governments slashed spending ? either to meet conditions for bailout loans, or to reassure jittery bond markets. But austerity has also inflicted severe economic pain. Slashing spending and raising taxes have proved to be less effective at reducing deficits than initially thought ? and perhaps counter-productive. As economies shrink, so do their tax revenues, potentially making it harder to close budget gaps.

The impact of the eurozone's austerity measures and recession are being felt even in the region's more prosperous countries. The EU report forecasts GDP growth in Germany, Europe's largest economy, will fall from 0.7 percent in 2102 to 0.4 percent this year as demand from other parts of Europe falls. France, meanwhile, is expected to fall into negative territory in 2013, with GDP dropping 0.1 percent.

Against such a depressing background, Rehn chided France for the "persistent deterioration of French competitiveness" and called for "substantial structural reforms in the labor market."

Instead of moving toward a safe 3 percent deficit, France is forecast to have a deficit of 3.9 percent this year and 4.2 percent next year. The French government said that new legislation is already in the pipeline to cut spending and increase the fight against fiscal fraud to bring its deficit down.

In a move designed to help the eurozone's economic recovery, the European Central Bank on Thursday cut its benchmark interest rate a quarter-point to a record low of 0.50 percent. Bank President Mario Draghi added that the ECB was prepared to flex its muscles further, saying the ECB stood "ready to act if needed." But Draghi also implored Europe's governments to do more to stimulate economic growth.

Unemployment across the eurozone is expected to hit an average of 12.2 percent this year, up from 11.4 percent in 2012. In both Greece and Spain it is expected to peak at 27 percent.

Rehn said that "in view of the protracted recession, we must do whatever it takes to overcome the unemployment crisis."

There are currently 19.2 million people out of work in the eurozone, leaving EU leaders with an uphill battle to turn the economy around while making sure the population continues to back the austerity measures aimed at whipping public finances back in shape.

Rehn insisted that after the 2012 recession, GDP growth is expected to start picking up again in the second half of 2013. He added that, under the assumption of unchanged policies, GDP would even rise by 1.2 percent in 2014.

But overall, the news remained bleak as the report said that "the recovery of economic activity is expected to be too slow to reduce joblessness."

Not much improvement in unemployment is expected in 2014 and "differences across member states are expected to remain very large."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-05-03-Europe%20Economy/id-04d419e2225342fb8d4299ad2056eef5

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শনিবার, ৪ মে, ২০১৩

Telling time on Saturn: Undergraduate student shows how planet's magnetosphere changes with the seasons

May 3, 2013 ? A University of Iowa undergraduate student has discovered that a process occurring in Saturn's magnetosphere is linked to the planet's seasons and changes with them, a finding that helps clarify the length of a Saturn day and could alter our understanding of Earth's magnetosphere.

Saturn's magnetosphere is the third largest structure in the solar system, eclipsed only by the magnetic fields of the sun and Jupiter. Unlike Earth, which has a visible rocky surface and rotates once every 24 hours, Saturn is composed mostly of clouds and liquid gas layers, each rotating about the planet at its own rate of speed. This variation in rotation made it difficult for scientists to pin down time for the planet.

Decades ago, a strong and naturally occurring radio signal, called Saturn kilometric radiation (SKR), was believed to give an accurate measurement of a Saturn day. But data gathered by an ESA/NASA spacecraft proved otherwise.

Now, using data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, which entered orbit around Saturn in 2004, UI space physicist Donald Gurnett and other scientists showed that the north and south poles have their own SKR "days" that vary over periods of weeks and years. How these different periods arise and are driven through the magnetosphere has become a central question of the Cassini mission, according to NASA officials.

The discovery by Tim Kennelly, a UI junior majoring in physics and astronomy, is one of the first direct observations of seasonal changes in Saturn's magnetosphere. In addition, the finding carries over to all planets having a magnetosphere, including Earth.

"I'm pleased to have contributed to our understanding of Saturn's magnetosphere so early in my career," says Kennelly, the lead author of the paper published online in the American Geophysical Union's (AGU) Journal of Geophysical Research. "I hope this trend continues."

Scientists have known for some time that Saturn's magnetospheric processes are linked together, from the activity generating the SKR emission relatively near the planet to the periodic signatures in Saturn's magnetosphere stretching millions of miles downstream in the planet's magnetotail. But they didn't know how they were linked.

Kennelly analyzed phenomena recorded between July 2004 and December 2011 by Cassini's UI-built Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) instrument and came to some novel conclusions about how the events are linked. First, he looked at inward-moving "flux tubes" composed of hot, electrically charged gas, called plasma. Focusing on the tubes when they initially formed and before they had a chance to dissipate under the influence of the magnetosphere, he found that the occurrence of the tubes correlates with activity in the northern and southern hemisphere depending upon the season.

Kennelly found that during winter in the northern hemisphere, the occurrence of flux tubes correlates with SKR period originating in the northern hemisphere. A similar flux tube and SKR correlation was noted for the southern hemisphere during southern winter. The events are strongly ordered, he says, and follow Saturn's seasonal changes.

This finding may alter how scientists look at Earth's magnetosphere and the Van Allen radiation belts that affect a variety of activities at Earth ranging from space flight safety to satellite and cell phone communications.

Commenting on his research experience, Kennelly says, "I'm really happy with the support I've received from Don Gurnett's group. They let me do a lot of the research on my own. I'm really appreciative." He adds that he will begin applying to graduate schools next semester and plans to earn his doctorate in plasma physics.

In addition to Kennelly, UI researchers include UI postdoctoral scholar Jared Leisner, associate research scientist George Hospodarsky and Donald Gurnett, head of the RPWS instrument investigation and the James A. Van Allen/Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver Professor of Physics and Astronomy.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Iowa. The original article was written by Gary Galluzzo.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

T. J. Kennelly, J. S. Leisner, G. B. Hospodarsky, D. A. Gurnett. Ordering of injection events within Saturnian SLS longitude and local time. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, 2013; 118 (2): 832 DOI: 10.1002/jgra.50152

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/space_time/nasa/~3/jruyssL9gf4/130503094951.htm

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Jolla names Tomi Pienim?ki as new CEO, Marc Dillon to become Head of Software Development

As Jolla gears up for the imminent unveiling of its first smartphone packing the MeeGo-inspired Sailfish OS, there's been another shake-up at the highest level of the company. Marc Dillion will no longer be CEO as of May 6th, with a man by the name of Tomi Pienimäki taking over leadership of the company. He's no stranger to Jolla -- he's an investor and his brother Sami is one of the company's founders. Using nearly the same wording as when previous CEO Jussi Hurmola changed roles, Dillon will now be able to "fully concentrate on the development of Sailfish operating system" under his new title of Head of Software Development. Pienimäki's record shows he's all business, with experience in management, logistics, supply chains and driving growth -- you know, all the fun stuff that keeps a company ticking. Following the handset reveal in May, Jolla expects to start a "pre-sales campaign" in the same month and have devices available for purchase during the second half of this year.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile

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শুক্রবার, ৩ মে, ২০১৩

Pickups spur increase in April auto sales

In this Thursday, April 25, 2013, photo, GMC trucks are lined up on the lot of Capitol City Buick Pontiac GMC in Montpelier, Vt. The auto industry is expected to post its best April sales totals since 2007 when major automakers report monthly tallies Wednesday, May 1, 2013. (AP Photo/Toby Talbot)

DETROIT (AP) ? Detroit was king in April, with demand for its big pickups helping to boost U.S. auto sales and offset a soft month for Toyota.

Ford, GM and Chrysler sold a total of 144,042 full-size pickups, up 29 percent from last April, driven by strength in the U.S. housing industry.

Overall sales grew 8.5 percent to nearly 1.3 million. While that's the industry's best April total since 2007, the pace slowed from the first three months of this year. On an annualized basis, April sales were 14.9 million, the first month below 15 million since October.

One reason for the slowdown: Toyota. The Japanese automaker's U.S. sales dropped by 1 percent, or around 2,000 vehicles, from last April. Alec Gutierrez, a senior market analyst with Kelley Blue Book, said he and other analysts underestimated the impact that increasing competition is having on Toyota.

Popular Toyota vehicles like the Corolla and Camry sedans lost sales to fresher models like the Hyundai Elantra and the Ford Fusion. Gas prices ? which are 30 cents cheaper than at this time last year ? hurt sales of the Prius hybrid, down 21 percent. Toyota's share of the market fell to 13.7 percent from 15 percent a year earlier, putting it behind GM and Ford.

Analysts still expect the industry to sell more than 15 million cars and trucks this year. Gutierrez is keeping his forecast at 15.3 million. That's up from sales of 14.5 million last year. The most recent high was 17 million in 2005, while the trough was 10.4 million during the recession in 2009.

"We're not reading too much" into the April number, Gutierrez said.

Ford, General Motors and Chrysler reported double-digit sales increases last month. Nissan led Japanese automakers with a gain of 23 percent, while Honda's sales rose 7 percent. Volkswagen sales dropped 10 percent, according to figures released Wednesday.

Detroit dominates the pickup segment, as U.S. buyers remain loyal to domestic brands despite efforts by foreign brands to win them over. Sales of Ford's F-Series, the best-selling vehicle in the U.S., rose 24 percent, while Chevrolet Silverado sales rose 28 percent. Chrysler's recently redesigned Ram pickup saw a 49-percent increase.

The gains bode well for second-quarter earnings, since pickups are among automakers' most profitable vehicles.

Truck sales have been strong all year because of customers like Adrien McFrederick, who recently put down a deposit on a 2013 Ram 3500.

McFrederick, 35, owns a marble and tile business, and needed to replace the 2007 Silverado he kept while work was slow. He started looking at Rams late last year after he and his wife bought a Chrysler Town and Country minivan.

Businesses like McFrederick's are getting a boost from a rise in home building, which increased 7 percent from February to March. A revived housing sector means higher sales of big pickups as companies and laborers return to the market. GM said its sales to small businesses rose 32 percent to 57,000 in April.

A different kind of business ? natural gas drilling ? is propelling sales at Chuck Eddy Jr.'s Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram dealership near Youngstown, Ohio. Eddy said energy industry workers from all over the country were coming in to buy trucks last month, keeping him in tight competition with a nearby Ford store.

"I'm selling heavy-duty trucks. We had people coming in from all over the country buying. We had a guy come in from Montana," Eddy said.

Jesse Toprak, a senior analyst for the TrueCar.com auto pricing site, said full-size trucks made up around 11.5 percent of sales in April, up from around 10 percent last year. He expects them to top 12 percent of total sales ? or nearly 2 million vehicles ? by the fall of this year, when truck sales are usually strongest. Full-size truck sales peaked at 15 percent of the U.S. market in 2004.

The growth in truck sales shows underlying strength in the economy, Toprak said, since small businesses won't buy them unless they're confident in the future.

The U.S. economic recovery is far from smooth. Unemployment stands at a stubbornly high 7.6 percent and factory activity expanded at a slower pace in April, held back by weaker hiring and less company stockpiling.

But many factors favor car and truck sales. Interest rates are low ? the average four-year loan on a new car is 2.4 percent, according to Bankrate.com. Credit is widely available, even to those with low scores. Buyers can currently get good trade-in value for their old cars. Lease deals are good. Gas prices have fallen since February, and ended April at $3.51 per gallon. And cars and trucks have reached a record average of 11 years old.

All that, plus record-setting stock markets and a recovery in home prices, is boosting sales in many segments of the auto market.

GM sales rose 11 percent in April, and not just because of pickups. Even though gas is cheaper than last year, small cars like the Chevrolet Cruze and Sonic saw 20-percent gains. Cadillac sales increased 34 percent thanks to the new ATS and XTS sedans.

Chrysler's sales also rose 11 percent. Sales of the Jeep Grand Cherokee SUV increased 27 percent. The Dodge Dart compact car posted its best month ever with sales of nearly 8,100. But sales of the Chrysler brand fell 13 percent.

Ford sales jumped 18 percent thanks to a 52 percent gain for the retooled Escape SUV and a 25 percent jump for the Fusion sedan, which both went on sale last fall. The new MKZ midsize sedan pushed Ford's struggling Lincoln brand to its first sales increase since August. Sales of the hybrid version have been so strong ? particularly in Los Angeles, where they make up 60 percent of all sales ? that Ford plans to increase the percentage of hybrid MKZs it builds from 20 percent to 30 percent.

Other automakers reporting Wednesday:

? Nissan's sales rose 23 percent on demand for the recently redesigned Altima midsize car and Sentra compact. The company also took a step toward boosting future numbers. It announced price cuts on seven models that make up 65 percent of its U.S. sales. The cuts, effective Friday, run from $580 on the top-selling Altima to $4,400, on the Armada big SUV.

? Honda's sales rose 7.4 percent thanks to growing sales of its newly redesigned Civic and Accord and a big increase for the subcompact Fit.

? Hyundai's sales were up 2 percent, hurt by tight supply of the Sonata midsize sedan. Sales of the Elantra small car jumped 45 percent.

Associated Press

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Turning human stem cells into brain cells sheds light on neural development

May 2, 2013 ? Medical researchers have manipulated human stem cells into producing types of brain cells known to play important roles in neurodevelopmental disorders such as epilepsy, schizophrenia and autism. The new model cell system allows neuroscientists to investigate normal brain development, as well as to identify specific disruptions in biological signals that may contribute to neuropsychiatric diseases.

Scientists from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research led a study team that described their research in the journal Cell Stem Cell, published online today.

The research harnesses human embryonic stem cells (hESCs), which differentiate into a broad range of different cell types. In the current study, the scientists directed the stem cells into becoming cortical interneurons -- a class of brain cells that, by releasing the neurotransmitter GABA, controls electrical firing in brain circuits.

"Interneurons act like an orchestra conductor, directing other excitatory brain cells to fire in synchrony," said study co-leader Stewart A. Anderson, M.D., a research psychiatrist at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "However, when interneurons malfunction, the synchrony is disrupted, and seizures or mental disorders can result."

Anderson and study co-leader Lorenz Studer, M.D., of the Center for Stem Cell Biology at Sloan-Kettering, derived interneurons in a laboratory model that simulates how neurons normally develop in the human forebrain.

"Unlike, say, liver diseases, in which researchers can biopsy a section of a patient's liver, neuroscientists cannot biopsy a living patient's brain tissue," said Anderson. Hence it is important to produce a cell culture model of brain tissue for studying neurological diseases. Significantly, the human-derived cells in the current study also "wire up" in circuits with other types of brain cells taken from mice, when cultured together. Those interactions, Anderson added, allowed the study team to observe cell-to-cell signaling that occurs during forebrain development.

In ongoing studies, Anderson explained, he and colleagues are using their cell model to better define molecular events that occur during brain development. By selectively manipulating genes in the interneurons, the researchers seek to better understand how gene abnormalities may disrupt brain circuitry and give rise to particular diseases. Ultimately, those studies could help inform drug development by identifying molecules that could offer therapeutic targets for more effective treatments of neuropsychiatric diseases.

In addition, Anderson's laboratory is studying interneurons derived from stem cells made from skin samples of patients with chromosome 22q.11.2 deletion syndrome, a genetic disease which has long been studied at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. In this multisystem disorder, about one third of patients have autistic spectrum disorders, and a partially overlapping third of patients develop schizophrenia. Investigating the roles of genes and signaling pathways in their model cells may reveal specific genes that are crucial in those patients with this syndrome who have neurodevelopmental problems.