Fish and Game Commission Moves to Protect Mountain Yellow ...

Media Contacts:
Mitch Lockhart, DFG Fisheries Branch, (916) 323-3422
Kirsten Macintyre, DFG Communications, (916) 322-8988

The Fish and Game Commission has voted unanimously to protect two species of native frogs under the California Endangered Species Act (CESA). The unanimous vote was taken at the Commission?s Feb. 2 meeting in Sacramento.

Following recommendations from the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG), the Commission moved to list the Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog (Rana sierrae) as a threatened species and the southern mountain yellow-legged frog (R. muscosa) as an endangered species. Collectively the two species of frogs are commonly known as the mountain yellow-legged frog.

Under protection afforded listed species by CESA, the ?take? (harming or capturing) of mountain yellow-legged frogs will be illegal without prior authorization from DFG.

Mountain yellow-legged frogs live in lakes, ponds, streams and meadows in the Sierra Nevada, Transverse and Peninsular mountain ranges of California. They have disappeared from more than 75 percent of their historical habitats, largely due to the introduction of trout to high elevation water bodies and the spread of a potent fungal pathogen implicated in amphibian extinctions worldwide.

DFG?s High Mountain Waters program has been at the forefront of mountain yellow-legged frog conservation and management efforts since the mid-1990s. The program has collaborated with federal agencies to restore mountain yellow-legged frog habitat, support important research and provide recreational angling opportunity in a manner that does not conflict with mountain yellow-legged frog recovery efforts.

Source: http://cdfgnews.wordpress.com/2012/02/03/fish-and-game-commission-moves-to-protect-mountain-yellow-legged-frogs/

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Nini Life: How to Create an A-List Blog Plan

Guest post by Adam. How to create an A-List blog plan. Everyone should plan out their blog and what they will be doing with it before going live. I didn?t do this which means I?ve had to start doing so whilst my blog is still live, which is a bad time to start making a blog plan because I have to actually run my blog at the same time: adding new posts, getting backlinks, getting followers etc.

If you create you plan before you actually go live you have as much time as you want to create a plan and write posts because you aren?t burdened with the fact you have to keep adding blogs and getting traffic to an already live blog.

Another great thing about your plan is the fact you can choose any moment to initialise it, if your blog is already live.

So What Attributes Form A Good Blog Plan?

Note: I suggest you keep your plan offline on your hard drive or on paper (my plan is on paper, in my desk, written in bright coloured felt tips so I can find different pieces of information quickly ? I suggest you do something similar.)

My blogging plan consists of:

• Blog Details
• Blog Posts
• Guest Posts
• Social Networking

Your plan may contain different attributes if for example you are aiming for SEO value you might have ?SEO? as one of your key attributes, whilst I have ?Guest Blogging?.

Note: ?Blogging Details? is a must have attribute for any blog, for a new blog especially.

Blog Details

Blogging Details are vital to any new, or old, blog because it tells you what you should be blogging about in which topic, who your target audience are and your latest growth your aiming at.

Here?s how I set out my blogging details?

Blog: Social Puma
Topic Area: Social Media and Social Networking (Social Networking Experts.)
Target Audience: Middle age, male and female, employed, USA
Aiming Growth: 150+ views per page by next month

Pretty simple right? The only thing there that may seem complicated is ?Target Audience? ? How do I find out who my target audience is? ? You should be asking, what you shouldn?t be doing is guessing as this information will really help towards what you write and to which social networks you post your bookmarks to.

Here?s how you can quickly find this information out:

1. Find the most successful blog in your niche area
2. Copy the site URL
3. Head over to Alexa.com
4. Paste in the URL
5. Click on the ?Audience? tab
6. Read over all the information to get a good idea of your target audience

Note: head over to the ?Clickstream? tab, this is a great way of finding out where you should be getting your traffic from.

?Blog? is simply your blog name (I?ve written this down because I?m working on more than 1 blog ? it may not be that necessary.)

?Topic Area? is very important, you need this to be able to tell your readers what you blog about and what they will get from reading your blog. I also suggest writing out a strap line as I have above so you can tell your readers what you do in just 1 simple line.

?Aiming Growth? is for tracking your growth and for telling you whether or not your plan is working ? to keep it, and if it?s not ? to modify and test it to get a better outcome.

Blog Posting

You need to monitor how much blog posts you write, I?ve found with my plan that writing more posts in my niche area (thanks to the ?Blog Details?) I was able to get much more traffic and a fair amount of new comments.

Here?s how I set out my blog posting?

Content needs to be relative, re-readable and shareable

1. Relative so that it?s what the readers want to read about and so it?s to do with your blog niche.
2. Re-readable so that the reader will learn something from the post so that he/she?ll want to go back to it, thus bookmarking the post URL.
3. And shareable so that it will attract traffic from social networks and bookmarking sites.

Note: I?ve found that writing diverse posts in your niche area will attract different types of social networking users e.g. 1 of my posts got 7 diggs, 1 retweet and 2 shares the other got 1 digg, 11 retweets and 5 shares due to the diversity of both posts.

Posts Per Week: 5 (the more the better) : 1 per working-day.

Guest Posts

Here?s how I set out my guest posting?

Posts Per Week: 2

Writing For: example1.com, example2.com, example3.com (confidential I?m afraid ? but you get the idea.)

Social Networking

On my blog I have Tweet Meme, Facebook, Blog Engage, Stumble Upon and Digg ( plus Sphinn but I don?t really write content for ?internet marketing? so I very rarely submit it to Sphinn.)

Here?s how I set out my social networking?

1. Twitter

• Gain 1k followers on Twitter, per week.

Obviously not everyone can do this but I have the know how (if you are going to use Twitter then I?d suggest 1k per month or 80 per week as a good starting point.)

• Talk to 10 people on Twitter per day.

It?s good to keep interacting with followers once you?ve got a good community on Twitter.

2. Facebook

• Befriend 20 people, per week

This is a good starting point for a newcomer (I?ve not succeeded as well on Facebook as I have on Twitter yet.)

• Invite friends to fan-page, individually, when they befriend back.

3. Blog Engage

• Submit posts during daytime

There is more traffic during the day and Brian (the founder) is usually online at this time ? he retweets some of my BE submitted posts.

4. Stumble Upon

• Stumble 5 posts per day
• Follow 5 people per day

5. Digg

• Follow back followers, every day, (on ?Digg email notification?)
• Comment on followers posts ? 5

And thats it, if you followed the steps, you should now have a handy little blog plan to utilise, test and edit ? hopefully you?ll be able to grow your own blog as much as you want to, as I?m doing.

Other than that you may want to add few extra notes to your blog plan like reminders or social network sites.

Guest author Adam Smith is a social media blogger who writes about his methods of gaining more Twitter followers, Facebook likes etc. on his blog Social Puma. You can also write guest articles here.

Enjoyed reading? Share this

Source: http://www.niniday.com/2012/02/how-to-create-a-list-blog-plan.html

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Novo Nordisk results soar on diabetes drug sales

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) ? Sales of its blockbuster diabetes drug helped boost fourth-quarter profits at Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk AS by 19 percent.

The world's biggest insulin maker said net profit in the last three months of 2011 reached 4.68 billion kroner ($825 million), up from 3.95 billion kroner in the same period of 2010.

Quarterly sales rose 12 percent to 18.12 billion kroner ($3.2 billion) from 16.12 billion.

Chief Executive Lars Rebien Soerensen said Thursday that 2011 "had been a very positive year," and said the Copenhagen-based group saw "significant progress for our portfolio of clinical development projects."

For 2012, it said it expects a sales growth of 7 to 11 percent, which is about 4 percentage points higher than initially expected.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-02-02-EU-Denmark-Earns-Novo-Nordisk/id-1d517c2042df4898b64c7c2342f11a60

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AT&T seeks to impose conditions on Dish LTE network, FCC to settle wireless squabble

You know the saying, second place is the first loser? Well, it looks like AT&T, which recently saw its attempt to absorb T-Mobile thwarted, is living up to that adage by petitioning the FCC to impose an "overly aggressive buildout" of Dish's planned mobile network. In a recent filing to the Commission, the satco countered this request for "LightSquared-like" requirements, defining its operation as a strictly retail endeavor, one that faces entirely different hurdles than that of its wholesale competitor. If granted, however, these conditions could see the fledgling network rushed to the marketplace before the completion of an LTE-Advanced standard and widespread availability of compatible devices -- both key elements of the MVPD's service strategy. The company also goes on to contest interference issues surrounding its 700MHz holdings, stating that it has no current plans to repurpose the spectrum for mobile broadband use, despite AT&T's claims to that effect. We'll keep you posted as this wireless battle plays out. In the meantime, hit up the source below to peruse the dense legalese.

AT&T seeks to impose conditions on Dish LTE network, FCC to settle wireless squabble originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink dailywireless, FierceWireless  |  FCC  | Email this | Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/03/atandt-seeks-to-impose-conditions-on-dish-lte-network-fcc-to-sett/

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Judge: Civil rights photographer was FBI informant (AP)

MEMPHIS, Tenn. ? A judge says documents confirm that civil rights-era photographer Ernest Withers secretly served as an informer for the FBI.

District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled Tuesday that FBI documents confirm Withers, who died at 85 in 2007, informed for the agency. Withers was known as "the civil rights photographer" for iconic images of the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and others protesting for racial equality in the South.

Berman's ruling follows a lawsuit by The Commercial Appeal. The Tennessee newspaper conducted a two-year investigation reporting Withers worked as a paid FBI informant at least from the late 1960s until 1970.

Jackson ordered the FBI to produce an index of any and all records in Withers' file by March 16.

It was unclear if the government would appeal the ruling.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120201/ap_on_re_us/us_civil_rights_photographer

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Sex & Parenting Genes Discovered in Mice (LiveScience.com)

Men are from Mars and women are from Venus, but how did they get there? Our gender differences might be a function of how our brains react to hormones, a new study on mice suggests.

The study showed that when different sex hormones were turned on or off genes in the brain, the mice showed different parenting behaviors.

Though the research was performed in mice, these sex hormones show similar effects in mammals and many of the genes the scientists discovered are found in humans, the researchers say. It's possible that hormones are having an effect on brain genes in humans, too, though the behaviors controlled might be different.

"Testosterone and estrogen control sexually dimorphic behaviors in vertebrate species, we've known that for a long time that they control behaviors at a very large-scale level," study researcher Nirao Shah, of the University of California, San Francisco, told LiveScience. "What we've discovered are [some of] the gene networks that are regulated by these sex hormones."

Hormonal brain

The researchers focused on the hypothalamus, a specific region of the adult mouse brain that is involved in mating and parenting behaviors, like courtship, nursing and defending pups. They looked to see what genes were being turned on and off in this region by the presence of sex hormones, such as testosterone, estrogen and progesterone.

They found 16 genes that showed clear sex differences. The researchers then studied four sets of mice that were missing one of these hormone-reactive genes (Brs3, Cckar, Irs4 and Sytl4) to see how their behaviors might change. The mice all looked normal, but when the researchers studied specific mating and parenting behaviors they found that the mice all had slightly different quirks. [The Animal Kingdom's Most Devoted Dads]

"In each one of these mutants we found deficits in one or another behavior, but everything else appeared untouched, it was normal and looked like the controls did," Shah said. "The larger implication of this is that you can take a complex social interaction like mating or fighting and you can sort of break it down into genetically controlled elements of that behavior."

Controlled behaviors

These genes seemed to control male sexual behavior, male aggression, maternal behavior and female sexual behavior in the mice. For example, the female mice missing the gene Cckar had lowered sex drives ? about two to three times lower than normal females. Another gene, Irs4, controlled maternal aggression; female mice missing Irs4 were less aggressive to invaders in their nest and didn't chase after escaping pups as quickly.

Male mice missing the Tytl4 gene had subtle changes in the pattern of their mating behaviors ? they performed their courtship displays in a different order than normal mice, though they still behaved like males and were able to impregnate females. The other gene they discovered, Brsr3, also controlled male mating behaviors: Males missing the gene initiated sex faster with females and were faster to start fights with other males. [10 Surprising Sex Statistics]

The researchers are looking at the rest of the 16 genes they discovered to determine if they are also regulating certain behaviors. "I suspect there are many more genes like this that are going to be discovered," Shah said.

Gendered diseases

Knowing that genes controlled by sex hormones can have impacts on behavior, Shah says in humans this could help explain why some mental disorders, such as ADHD or autism, affect one sex over the other. "With the genes we've identified that are involved in setting up male and female sex dimorphism in the mouse brain," Shah said, "we can see how the brains could be differentially vulnerable to disease conditions."

Scientists can't be sure yet how these specific genes will translate to humans, but Shah suspects there may be hormone-gene interactions in the human brain. Hormone-controlled brain genes could play a role in behavior in humans, but we really don't know what behaivors might be controlled, since human sex and mouse sex are so different.

"There are efforts under way to look at gene expression in the human brain, but we don't know what that's going to look like yet," Shah said. "At least with animals we can say, yes, we can explain at least some of the variation and we can at least now begin to think about genetic explanations for some differences in social behaviors."

The study will be published today (Feb. 2) in the journal Cell.

You can follow LiveScience staff writer Jennifer Welsh on Twitter @microbelover. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/biotech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20120202/sc_livescience/sexparentinggenesdiscoveredinmice

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Prep Winter Track Notepad: Lions' Burruss amazed at hitting long ...

It takes a lot to surprise Javanique Burruss at this point in her track and field career.

The Louisa High School junior set the Group AA state record in the long jump when she leaped 19 feet, 5 inches in June.

But on Saturday at the St. Christopher?s Invitational in Richmond, Burruss set a new personal best in the event.

Her jump of 20 feet, 1 inch places her No. 1 in the United States among high school girls.

?It was my first time ever jumping over a 19,? Burruss said. ?When I jumped it and the lady said ?20?1? my mom and I started jumping up and down. We both started crying. We were really happy.?

Burruss hadn?t cleared 20 feet, not even in practice, before the meet.
She has had limited time to work on the long jump this winter because she also plays for the Lions? girls basketball team.

Louisa?s previous school schedule didn?t help, either.

Before a new modular high school opened on Wednesday, the Lions attended class three days a week from 8 a.m. to 4:50 p.m. because their school was damaged by an earthquake in August.

Burruss could practice only two days because of her commitment to the basketball team.

And when she was able to get on the track, she couldn?t practice the long jump because it was too dark outside. She has practiced the event just twice this season.

?It was frustrating sometimes because the long jump is my favorite,? Burruss said.

Still, that didn?t prevent her from a major accomplishment at St. Christopher?s last weekend.

?It makes me feel good, being that I didn?t expect it to happen this year,? Burruss said of jumping 20 feet. ?I figured it would happen my senior year after I get some more training. But now when I go to nationals, I want to try to pop a 21. This gives me a lot of extra motivation.?

?Taft Coghill Jr.

Source: http://blogs.fredericksburg.com/sports/2012/02/01/prep-winter-track-notepad-lions%E2%80%99-burruss-amazed-at-hitting-long-jump/

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