When we got hands-on with the Windows 8.1 preview earlier this week, it was on a Surface Pro -- i.e., an x86 system running full Windows. Until today, though, we hadn't had a chance to try the software on a device running Windows RT. Well, fortunately for us, Microsoft has a row full of freshly updated Surface RT units on display here at Build, so we took the opportunity poke around a little. As you'd expect, Windows RT 8.1 has all the trappings of the full Windows version, including an always-there Start button and new apps like Food & Drink and Health & Fitness. What's sort of interesting is that you can boot to the desktop here as well, just as you would on Windows 8.1. (We say "interesting" because, well, how urgently do you need the desktop on RT anyway?) The desktop also still comes with Office apps pinned to the Taskbar, in case you were wondering.
Performance seems much the same as before, particularly because we were handling last year's Surface RT, which still ships with a Tegra 3 SoC. Browsing and loading tabs in IE11 feels snappy but then again, IE11 was supposed to be a tick faster than IE10. Overall, navigating the OS can still feel slightly sluggish, but the build we tried is at least stable. Other than that, it looks like we'll have to wait for some new ARM chips before we can revisit performance in Windows RT. We'll also be back to take a look at the forthcoming RT Outlook app, which we haven't seen yet. Until then, don't expect us to write another 4,000 words on the subject.
Note: I'm not the GM for this RP and therefore take no credit for it. The RP is wholly the creation of Naga's Shadow, and I'm only posting this roleplayer's wanted thread on their behalf because they are currently unable to post on the forums.
That said, it's a fun little RP that needs just a couple more people to get going. No face-claims here-- though there are roles that need to be occupied and certain guidelines, nobody is going to tell you what your character looks like, nobody is going to tell you what their name is, the minutiae of their personality, etc. It's your character.
Misfits....every high school has them. The geeks, the nerds...the ones who aren't with the "in" crowd. They have their own little group, and most think they yearn to be apart of the populars, to be one of the ones on top.
But what about the other way around? Most populars think they're weird. They're different...they're "misfits".
But as one girl, the most popular girl in school, no less, is about to find out...
Being a misfit really isn't all that bad.
The RP is right over here: roleplay/what-misfit-really-means#introduction
Thanks for reading, and I hope it catches your interest.
Salmonella infection is a battle between good and bad bacteria in the gutPublic release date: 26-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Mary Beckman mary.beckman@pnnl.gov 509-375-3688 DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
New insights into food poisoning show Salmonella have a novel sugar preference
RICHLAND, Wash. -- The blockbuster battles between good and evil are not just on the big screen this summer. A new study that examined food poisoning infection as-it-happens in mice revealed harmful bacteria, such as a common type of Salmonella, takes over beneficial bacteria within the gut amid previously unseen changes to the gut environment. The results provide new insights into the course of infection and could lead to better prevention or new treatments.
"We're trying to tease apart a largely unknown area of biology," said systems biologist Josh Adkins and team lead at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. "Infection changes the populations of bacteria in the gut with resulting inflammation. We want to understand the interplay between these events."
Out this week in PLOS ONE, the study shows that Salmonella Typhimurium might use the sugar fucose either as a sign that it has found a good place to reproduce or use fucose to sustain itself during infection, or both. This was the first time researchers saw fucose as an important player during Salmonella infection.
"We were taken completely by surprise with the fucose results," said Adkins. They also saw other sugars that normally are eaten by resident bacteria going untouched. "By knowing what the bacteria eat, we can try to promote the good bacteria and throw off the battle."
The Mice
Food poisoning caused by Salmonella bacteria hits more than 40,000 people every year. One of the common types that infect people, Salmonella Typhimurium, doesn't usually get mice sick, so Adkins and colleagues used mice uniquely sensitive to Salmonella infection. After infecting mice with the disease-causing bacteria orally, the researchers could follow the course of the illness by analyzing what came out of the other end of the mice.
"In most studies, researchers clear out the resident bacteria with antibiotics before introducing infectious bacteria," said microbiologist Brooke Deatherage Kaiser. "In this study, we could watch Salmonella knock out the commensal organisms and then watch them come back. Following the interactions through time is not something we've been able to do before."
The story they put together shows how Salmonella usurps microbes that normally populate the gut. Known as commensal bacteria, resident bugs perform important functions such as breaking down carbohydrates and sugars that people and mice can't. Using advanced instruments and techniques, the researchers identified which populations of bacteria dominated as infection progressed and mice recovered, as well as changes in the gastrointestinal tract, such as the presence of inflammation and available nutrients. Some of the experiments were performed in EMSL, the DOE's Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory on PNNL's campus.
The Sugars
While many events the team witnessed were expected, such as infection causing inflammation in the gut, some were not. One unexpected change was in the kinds of sugars available for bacteria to eat. A handful of sugars that good bacteria normally chow down on lay around the gut untouched.
This stockpile of unusual sugars likely occurred because the good bacteria had, by that point, been overtaken by Salmonella and another bacterial variety, Enterococci. Enteroccoci are normally found in the gut, but can take advantage of opportunities to overgrow their welcome.
Unexpectedly, several lines of evidence suggested that Salmonella might use the sugar fucose as a food source. This study showed that the bacteria produced proteins that specifically help it digest fucose, which was the first time these researchers observed fucose proteins during Salmonella infection.
Although additional research will be needed to flesh out the role of fucose in the infectious cycle of SalmonellaTyphimurium, this observation may help to control or prevent gastrointestinal infection in the future by a better understanding of nutrient sources and signals in the gut.
Overall, the study allowed the PNNL researchers to follow the rise and fall of the infecting bacteria, the fall and rise during recovery of the commensal bacteria, and changes to the gut as the mice fended off the infection. Future research will focus on what happens in other areas of the intestine to get a handle on the difference between the type of illness this study represented, acute gastrointestinal disease, and more systemic infection.
###
This work was supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.
Reference: Brooke L. Deatherage Kaiser, Jie Li, James A. Sanford, Young-Mo Kim, Scott R. Kronewitter, Marcus B. Jones, Christine T. Peterson, Scott N. Peterson, Bryan C. Frank, Samuel O. Purvine, Joseph N. Brown, Thomas O. Metz, Richard D. Smith, Fred Heffron, and Joshua N. Adkins. A Multi-Omic View of Host-Pathogen-Commensal Interplay in Salmonella-Mediated Intestinal Infection, PLOS ONE Month Day, Year, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0067155. (http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0067155)
EMSL, the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, is a national scientific user facility sponsored by the Department of Energy's Office of Science. Located at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., EMSL offers an open, collaborative environment for scientific discovery to researchers around the world. Its integrated computational and experimental resources enable researchers to realize important scientific insights and create new technologies. Follow EMSL on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
Interdisciplinary teams at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory address many of America's most pressing issues in energy, the environment and national security through advances in basic and applied science. PNNL employs 4,500 staff, has an annual budget of nearly $1 billion, and has been managed for the U.S. Department of Energy by Ohio-based Battelle since the laboratory's inception in 1965. For more, visit the PNNL's News Center, or follow PNNL on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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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.
Salmonella infection is a battle between good and bad bacteria in the gutPublic release date: 26-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Mary Beckman mary.beckman@pnnl.gov 509-375-3688 DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
New insights into food poisoning show Salmonella have a novel sugar preference
RICHLAND, Wash. -- The blockbuster battles between good and evil are not just on the big screen this summer. A new study that examined food poisoning infection as-it-happens in mice revealed harmful bacteria, such as a common type of Salmonella, takes over beneficial bacteria within the gut amid previously unseen changes to the gut environment. The results provide new insights into the course of infection and could lead to better prevention or new treatments.
"We're trying to tease apart a largely unknown area of biology," said systems biologist Josh Adkins and team lead at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. "Infection changes the populations of bacteria in the gut with resulting inflammation. We want to understand the interplay between these events."
Out this week in PLOS ONE, the study shows that Salmonella Typhimurium might use the sugar fucose either as a sign that it has found a good place to reproduce or use fucose to sustain itself during infection, or both. This was the first time researchers saw fucose as an important player during Salmonella infection.
"We were taken completely by surprise with the fucose results," said Adkins. They also saw other sugars that normally are eaten by resident bacteria going untouched. "By knowing what the bacteria eat, we can try to promote the good bacteria and throw off the battle."
The Mice
Food poisoning caused by Salmonella bacteria hits more than 40,000 people every year. One of the common types that infect people, Salmonella Typhimurium, doesn't usually get mice sick, so Adkins and colleagues used mice uniquely sensitive to Salmonella infection. After infecting mice with the disease-causing bacteria orally, the researchers could follow the course of the illness by analyzing what came out of the other end of the mice.
"In most studies, researchers clear out the resident bacteria with antibiotics before introducing infectious bacteria," said microbiologist Brooke Deatherage Kaiser. "In this study, we could watch Salmonella knock out the commensal organisms and then watch them come back. Following the interactions through time is not something we've been able to do before."
The story they put together shows how Salmonella usurps microbes that normally populate the gut. Known as commensal bacteria, resident bugs perform important functions such as breaking down carbohydrates and sugars that people and mice can't. Using advanced instruments and techniques, the researchers identified which populations of bacteria dominated as infection progressed and mice recovered, as well as changes in the gastrointestinal tract, such as the presence of inflammation and available nutrients. Some of the experiments were performed in EMSL, the DOE's Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory on PNNL's campus.
The Sugars
While many events the team witnessed were expected, such as infection causing inflammation in the gut, some were not. One unexpected change was in the kinds of sugars available for bacteria to eat. A handful of sugars that good bacteria normally chow down on lay around the gut untouched.
This stockpile of unusual sugars likely occurred because the good bacteria had, by that point, been overtaken by Salmonella and another bacterial variety, Enterococci. Enteroccoci are normally found in the gut, but can take advantage of opportunities to overgrow their welcome.
Unexpectedly, several lines of evidence suggested that Salmonella might use the sugar fucose as a food source. This study showed that the bacteria produced proteins that specifically help it digest fucose, which was the first time these researchers observed fucose proteins during Salmonella infection.
Although additional research will be needed to flesh out the role of fucose in the infectious cycle of SalmonellaTyphimurium, this observation may help to control or prevent gastrointestinal infection in the future by a better understanding of nutrient sources and signals in the gut.
Overall, the study allowed the PNNL researchers to follow the rise and fall of the infecting bacteria, the fall and rise during recovery of the commensal bacteria, and changes to the gut as the mice fended off the infection. Future research will focus on what happens in other areas of the intestine to get a handle on the difference between the type of illness this study represented, acute gastrointestinal disease, and more systemic infection.
###
This work was supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.
Reference: Brooke L. Deatherage Kaiser, Jie Li, James A. Sanford, Young-Mo Kim, Scott R. Kronewitter, Marcus B. Jones, Christine T. Peterson, Scott N. Peterson, Bryan C. Frank, Samuel O. Purvine, Joseph N. Brown, Thomas O. Metz, Richard D. Smith, Fred Heffron, and Joshua N. Adkins. A Multi-Omic View of Host-Pathogen-Commensal Interplay in Salmonella-Mediated Intestinal Infection, PLOS ONE Month Day, Year, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0067155. (http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0067155)
EMSL, the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, is a national scientific user facility sponsored by the Department of Energy's Office of Science. Located at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., EMSL offers an open, collaborative environment for scientific discovery to researchers around the world. Its integrated computational and experimental resources enable researchers to realize important scientific insights and create new technologies. Follow EMSL on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
Interdisciplinary teams at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory address many of America's most pressing issues in energy, the environment and national security through advances in basic and applied science. PNNL employs 4,500 staff, has an annual budget of nearly $1 billion, and has been managed for the U.S. Department of Energy by Ohio-based Battelle since the laboratory's inception in 1965. For more, visit the PNNL's News Center, or follow PNNL on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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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.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) ? The chief prosecutor of the U.N. Yugoslav war crimes tribunal voiced concern Monday at the "destructive" effects of a critical letter written by one the court's judges that suggested the United States may have tried to influence verdicts.
The letter, which leaked into the media earlier this month, offers no evidence of possible outside interference, but even so it has ignited a storm of criticism of the court among survivors of the Balkans wars and led to calls for the tribunal's American president, Theodor Meron, to quit.
Washington has emphatically rejected the suggestions in the letter written by Danish Judge Frederik Harhoff in the aftermath of three high-profile acquittals of senior suspects from Serbia and Croatia of orchestrating atrocities.
"I am sitting here with a very uncomfortable feeling that the court has changed direction under the influence of pressure from 'the military establishments' in certain dominant countries," a translation of the Danish-language letter says.
Elsewhere, the letter reads: "Have any American or Israeli officials ever exerted pressure on the American presiding judge (the presiding judge for the court that is) to ensure a change of direction? We will probably never know."
U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for war crimes issues Stephen J. Rapp told The Associated Press in an email last Friday that U.S. officials "respect the independence of the tribunals (for Yugoslavia and Rwanda) and do not seek to influence their decisions in any case."
"We wish always to see a fair process with guilt decided solely on the evidence based on legal standards that are consistently applied," Rapp added.
The tribunal's press office denied repeated AP requests to interview Meron; Harhoff, when reached by phone, also refused comment.
In the first public comment about the scandal by a senior official of the tribunal, Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz said Monday he is "concerned about destructive elements in the debate" that followed the letter's publication. He also announced he will appeal the most recent acquittal and is considering seeking a review of another of the cases.
The first of the three shock acquittals came last November when the appeals chamber led by Meron cleared two Croat generals, Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac, of atrocities against Serbs in a 1995 offensive. It was followed by another acquittal by Meron's appeal's chamber of Gen. Momcilo Perisic ? a former chief of staff of the Yugoslav National Army who was convicted in 2011 and sentenced to 27 years for aiding and abetting Bosnian Serb forces responsible for vicious crimes throughout the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
Finally, last month, a tribunal trial chamber acquitted two former senior members of Serbia's secret service of arming and supporting murderous Bosnian Serb paramilitaries during the wars in Bosnia and Croatia.
The judgments were seen by experts as significantly raising the legal threshold for holding commanders responsible for the crimes of their subordinates and reversing years of jurisprudence at the ground-breaking 20-year-old court.
The acquittals of Perisic, Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic coupled with Harhoff's letter outraged Bosnian survivors, who are now urging Meron to resign.
"If he does not do it himself, we will make sure he will be replaced and we will even initiate a legal procedure," said Satko Mujagic, a survivor of the notorious Serb-run Omarska prison camp during Bosnia's 1992-95 war.
The Association of Victims and Witnesses of Genocide, which groups of about 15 different associations, also called on the American judge to quit.
And it is not only victims who are concerned by the letter.
Prof. David Crane, an international law expert from Syracuse University College of Law and former prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, said the tribunal has to publicly establish the truth or risk an indelible stain on its reputation.
"If this type of alleged ? and I underscore alleged ? manipulation if going on this is really quite problematic; it brings the whole system into question," said Crane. "And it certainly is a huge black mark on the ICTY. That's why I'm saying they've got to move quickly, neutrally, openly and fairly to get to the bottom of this so they can move on."
Crane said he had never been put under any pressure by U.S. authorities during his time with the Sierra Leone court.
Another tribunal watcher, Dov Jacobs, an assistant professor of international law at Leiden University, agreed that there could be cause for an investigation.
"If they're asking the court to investigate the fact that Judge Meron might have received directions from his government then I think that's fair enough," he said. "There's no evidence so far, but that would be a legitimate cause for investigation."
But Jacobs said the recent acquittals of top Serbian officials for involvement in Bosnian atrocities was in line with another ruling ? by the U.N.'s highest judicial organ, the International Court of Justice ? that in a landmark 2007 ruling refused to point to Serbia as chief architect of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in which some 8,000 Muslim men and boys were murdered by Bosnian Serb forces.
"The ICJ clearly said that Serbia did not commit genocide, was not an accomplice in genocide and only ? if you can use the term ? only failed to prevent genocide," he said. "So there is a consistency there."
____
Associated Press Writers Jan Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Aida Cerkez in Sarajevo, Bosnia, contributed to this story.
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Public release date: 26-Jun-2013
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