Changed minds & demographics in gay marriage shift

This video framegrab, provided by the Human Rights Campaign shows former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announcing her support for gay marriage, putting her in line with other potential Democratic presidential candidates on a social issue that is rapidly gaining public approval. Clinton made the announcement in an online video released Monday morning by the gay rights advocacy group Human Rights Campaign. She says in the six-minute video that gays and lesbians are "full and equal citizens and deserve the rights of citizenship." (AP Photo/Human Rights Campaign)

This video framegrab, provided by the Human Rights Campaign shows former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announcing her support for gay marriage, putting her in line with other potential Democratic presidential candidates on a social issue that is rapidly gaining public approval. Clinton made the announcement in an online video released Monday morning by the gay rights advocacy group Human Rights Campaign. She says in the six-minute video that gays and lesbians are "full and equal citizens and deserve the rights of citizenship." (AP Photo/Human Rights Campaign)

FILE - In this Aug. 29, 2012 file photo, Ohio Senator Rob Portman waves to the delegates during the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. Portman said Thursday, March 14, 2013 that he now supports gay marriage and says his reversal on the issue began when he learned one of his sons is gay. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The nation's views on gay marriage are more favorable in large part because of a shift in attitudes among those who know someone who is gay or became more accepting as they got older of gays and lesbians, according to a national survey.

The Pew Research Center poll also finds that a large group of younger adults who tend to be more open to gay rights is driving the numbers upward. The issue has grabbed the national spotlight recently with the public embrace of same-sex marriage by Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio.

"We've certainly seen the trend over the last ten years," Michael Dimock, director of the center, said Wednesday. "But we're now really in a position to talk about the combination of generational change and personal change that have sort of brought the country to where it is today."

Overall, the poll finds 49 percent of Americans favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally, and 44 percent opposed to the idea. That's more people now favoring gay marriage than opposing it. A decade ago 58 percent opposed it and a third supported it.

The 49 percent who now support same-sex marriage includes 14 percent who said they have changed their minds.

When asked why, almost one-third say it's because they know someone who is gay ? a family member, friend or acquaintance. A quarter said their personal views have changed as they thought more about the issue or just because they've grown older and more accepting.

One of those polled said: "My best friend from high school is a gay man, and he deserves the same rights," adding that his friend and a partner "are in a committed relationship."

Another person attributed the shift in attitude to "old fashioned ignorance," and said "I grew up a little bit."

Just 2 percent overall said their views have shifted against gay marriage.

Another major factor in the long-term shift in the public's view: the so-called millennial generation of young adults born since 1980_today's 18- to 32-year-olds who entered adulthood in the new millennium. The survey finds 70 percent of millennials favor same-sex marriage.

Gay marriage has long been an issue of partisan political debate, but it resurfaced recently with Clinton and Portman declaring their support, and as the Supreme Court prepares to take up the issue.

On Monday, Clinton announced her support for gay marriage ? lining up with other potential Democratic presidential candidates who favor it.

In an online video released by the gay rights advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, Clinton says that gays and lesbians are "full and equal citizens and deserve the rights of citizenship."

And last week, Portman reversed course and said he now supports gay marriage. He said he had a change of heart after he learned one of his sons is gay. "I have come to believe that if two people are prepared to make a lifetime commitment to love and care for each other in good times and in bad, the government shouldn't deny them the opportunity to get married," he wrote in an op-ed in The Columbus Dispatch. His reversal makes him the only Republican in the Senate to back gay marriage.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments next week in a challenge to a provision of the Defense of Marriage Act ? the federal law that defines marriage as between one man and one woman. It's also reviewing California's Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage.

The Pew Research findings are based on a survey of 1,501 adults nationwide conducted Mar. 13-Mar. 17. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

____

The report can be found at: http://www.pewresearch.org .

___

Associated Press Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta and News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-03-20-US-Gay-Marriage-Shift-Poll/id-8bb140386aad469999fbd896bd459c79

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Silicon Milkroundabout Spins Out From Songkick To Staff Startups With Talent By Way Of Events

Silicon Milkroundabout, the London-based networking event started as an informal side-project by two of the founders of the live music alert service Songkick, is growing up. Three years on from its first oversubscribed meet-up in a pub, it is now spinning out into a standalone startup of its own, led by Pete Smith, the co-founder of Songkick who until now had been the company's COO.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/KocbrrYiq-M/

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Princess Diana's gowns fetch hefty sum at auction

LONDON (AP) ? A collection of some of Princess Diana's most memorable evening gowns, including one she wore to a White House dinner where she danced with John Travolta, fetched over 800,000 pounds ($1.2 million) at a London auction Tuesday.

Diana famously wore the deep navy, figure-hugging velvet gown to a gala dinner hosted by President Ronald Reagan, during her and Prince Charles' first joint state visit to the U.S. in 1985. Photographs of her taking to the White House dance floor with Travolta have become some of the most celebrated images of the princess.

The Victor Edelstein gown was sold for 240,000 pounds, Kerry Taylor Auctions said. It came slightly below the expected maximum price of 300,000 pounds.

The auction house did not disclose the identity of the buyer, only saying it was sold to a "British gentleman as a surprise to cheer up his wife."

Nine other of Diana's dresses were sold to bidders, which came from around the world and included three museums, the auction house said.

Two dresses by Catherine Walker, one of Diana's favorite designers, went for 108,000 pounds each. They were a black velvet and beaded gown worn for a Vanity Fair photo shoot by Mario Testino at Kensington Palace in 1997, and a burgundy crushed velvet gown the princess wore to the film premiere of "Back to the Future" in 1985.

Diana sold dozens of her dresses at a New York charity auction at the suggestion of her son, Prince William, in 1997 ? three months before she died in a Paris car crash. Florida-based socialite Maureen Dunkel bought about a dozen of the dresses ? including the 10 to be sold next month ? and put them up for auction in Canada in 2011, but the prices were set too high and many dresses didn't sell.

Also on Yahoo! News:

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iconic-princess-diana-dresses-fetch-1-2m-uk-171144769.html

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New version of the Google Play app leaks, with an all new interface style

A new version of the Google Play app has leaked, and it shows a new Holo-esque (and colorful) user interface. Droid-Life got their hands on an apk file labeled 4.0.16, and while it's clearly not ready for prime-time, it does show off a look we haven't seen before from Google.

Everything is clean, the font is all new, the icons are bigger, and the colors match the categories as displayed on the Google Play website. There are also a few changes in the settings, namely in the auto-update section which separates out Wifi from your data connection to auto-update apps.

The app is pretty broken, and they aren't making it available for folks to try themselves. That will probably change shortly, nothing stays secret on the Internet for long. And while everyone is speculating that this is the change for the next version of Android, we all need to remember that apps like Google Play can be easily updated without a system-wide change.

For now, you can head over to Droid-Life and have a look at what may be coming to everyone soon.

Source: Droid-Life

 

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/r32PgmK8Luo/story01.htm

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Study reveals potential immune benefits of vitamin D supplements in healthy individuals

Public release date: 20-Mar-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Jenny Eriksen
jenny.eriksen@bmc.org
617-638-6841
Boston University Medical Center

(Boston) Research from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) shows that improving vitamin D status by increasing its level in the blood could have a number of non-skeletal health benefits. The study, published online in PLOS ONE, reveals for the first time that improvement in the vitamin D status of healthy adults significantly impacts genes involved with a number of biologic pathways associated with cancer, cardiovascular disease (CVD), infectious diseases and autoimmune diseases. While previous studies have shown that vitamin D deficiency is associated with an increased risk for the aforementioned diseases, these results go a step further and provide direct evidence that improvement in vitamin D status plays a large role in improving immunity and lowering the risk for many diseases.

Vitamin D is unique in that it can be both ingested and synthesized by the body with sun exposure. It is then converted by both the liver and kidneys to a form that the body can use. An individuals' level of vitamin D, or their vitamin D status, is determined by measuring the level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D in the blood. Vitamin D deficiency, which is defined as a status of less than 20 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL) of 25-hydroxyvitamin D, can cause a number of health issues, including rickets and other musculoskeletal diseases. Recently, however, data suggests that vitamin D deficiency (

The randomized, double-blind, single-site pilot trial involved eight healthy men and women with an average age of 27 who were vitamin D deficient or insufficient at the start of the trial. Three participants received 400 International Units (IUs) of vitamin D per day and five received 2,000 IUs per day for a two-month period. Samples of white blood cells (immune cells) were collected at the beginning of the two-month period and again at the end. A broad gene expression analysis was conducted on these samples and more than 22,500 genes were investigated to see if their activity increased or decreased as a result of the vitamin D intake.

At the end of the pilot, the group that received 2000 IUs achieved a vitamin D status of 34 ng/mL, which is considered sufficient, while the group that received 400 IUs achieved an insufficient status of 25 ng/mL.

The results of the gene expression analysis indicated statistically significant alterations in the activity of 291 genes. Further analysis showed that the biologic functions associated with the 291 genes are related to 160 biologic pathways linked to cancer, autoimmune diseases, infectious diseases and CVD.

Examining gene response elements, or sequences of DNA bases that interact with vitamin D receptors to regulate gene expression, they also identified new genes related to vitamin D status. To ensure that their observations were accurate, the researchers looked at 12 genes whose level of expression does not change, and those genes remained stable throughout the trial period.

"This study reveals the molecular fingerprints that help explain the non-skeletal health benefits of vitamin D," said Michael F. Holick, PhD, MD, professor of medicine, physiology and biophysics at BUSM and leading vitamin D expert who served as the study's corresponding author. "While a larger study is necessary to confirm our observations, the data demonstrates that improving vitamin D status can have a dramatic effect on gene expression in our immune cells and may help explain the role of vitamin D in reducing the risk for CVD, cancer and other diseases."

###

This research was supported by a pilot grant from the National Institutes of Health's Clinical Translational Science Institute under grant award # UL-1-RR-25711.

To view the full article, visit http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0058725.

---

[ | 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.

Public release date: 20-Mar-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Jenny Eriksen
jenny.eriksen@bmc.org
617-638-6841
Boston University Medical Center

(Boston) Research from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) shows that improving vitamin D status by increasing its level in the blood could have a number of non-skeletal health benefits. The study, published online in PLOS ONE, reveals for the first time that improvement in the vitamin D status of healthy adults significantly impacts genes involved with a number of biologic pathways associated with cancer, cardiovascular disease (CVD), infectious diseases and autoimmune diseases. While previous studies have shown that vitamin D deficiency is associated with an increased risk for the aforementioned diseases, these results go a step further and provide direct evidence that improvement in vitamin D status plays a large role in improving immunity and lowering the risk for many diseases.

Vitamin D is unique in that it can be both ingested and synthesized by the body with sun exposure. It is then converted by both the liver and kidneys to a form that the body can use. An individuals' level of vitamin D, or their vitamin D status, is determined by measuring the level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D in the blood. Vitamin D deficiency, which is defined as a status of less than 20 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL) of 25-hydroxyvitamin D, can cause a number of health issues, including rickets and other musculoskeletal diseases. Recently, however, data suggests that vitamin D deficiency (

The randomized, double-blind, single-site pilot trial involved eight healthy men and women with an average age of 27 who were vitamin D deficient or insufficient at the start of the trial. Three participants received 400 International Units (IUs) of vitamin D per day and five received 2,000 IUs per day for a two-month period. Samples of white blood cells (immune cells) were collected at the beginning of the two-month period and again at the end. A broad gene expression analysis was conducted on these samples and more than 22,500 genes were investigated to see if their activity increased or decreased as a result of the vitamin D intake.

At the end of the pilot, the group that received 2000 IUs achieved a vitamin D status of 34 ng/mL, which is considered sufficient, while the group that received 400 IUs achieved an insufficient status of 25 ng/mL.

The results of the gene expression analysis indicated statistically significant alterations in the activity of 291 genes. Further analysis showed that the biologic functions associated with the 291 genes are related to 160 biologic pathways linked to cancer, autoimmune diseases, infectious diseases and CVD.

Examining gene response elements, or sequences of DNA bases that interact with vitamin D receptors to regulate gene expression, they also identified new genes related to vitamin D status. To ensure that their observations were accurate, the researchers looked at 12 genes whose level of expression does not change, and those genes remained stable throughout the trial period.

"This study reveals the molecular fingerprints that help explain the non-skeletal health benefits of vitamin D," said Michael F. Holick, PhD, MD, professor of medicine, physiology and biophysics at BUSM and leading vitamin D expert who served as the study's corresponding author. "While a larger study is necessary to confirm our observations, the data demonstrates that improving vitamin D status can have a dramatic effect on gene expression in our immune cells and may help explain the role of vitamin D in reducing the risk for CVD, cancer and other diseases."

###

This research was supported by a pilot grant from the National Institutes of Health's Clinical Translational Science Institute under grant award # UL-1-RR-25711.

To view the full article, visit http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0058725.

---

[ | 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.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/bumc-srp032013.php

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Elite athletes also excel at some cognitive tasks

Mar. 18, 2013 ? New research suggests that elite athletes -- Olympic medalists in volleyball, for example -- perform better than the rest of us in yet another way. These athletes excel not only in their sport of choice but also in how fast their brains take in and respond to new information -- cognitive abilities that are important on and off the court.

The study, of 87 top-ranked Brazilian volleyball players (some of them medalists in the Beijing and London Olympics) and 67 of their nonathletic contemporaries, also found that being an athlete minimizes the performance differences that normally occur between women and men. Female athletes, the researchers found, were more like their male peers in the speed of their mental calculations and reaction times, while nonathletic females performed the same tasks more slowly than their male counterparts.

The study appears in the journal Frontiers in Psychology.

"I think we have learned that athletes are different from us in some ways," said University of Illinois psychology professor and Beckman Institute director Arthur Kramer, who led the study with graduate student Heloisa Alves.

"We found that athletes were generally able to inhibit behavior, to stop quickly when they had to, which is very important in sport and in daily life, " Kramer said. "They were also able to activate, to pick up information from a glance and to switch between tasks more quickly than nonathletes. I would say these were modest differences, but they were interesting differences nonetheless."

Overall, the athletes were faster at memory tests and tasks that required them to switch between tasks. They were quicker to notice things in their peripheral vision and to detect subtle changes in a scene. And in general, they were better able to accomplish tasks while ignoring confusing or irrelevant information.

Perhaps the most interesting discovery was that female athletes had significant cognitive advantages over their nonathletic counterparts, Kramer said, advantages that minimized the subtle speed differences between them and the men. The female athletes were faster than their nonathletic peers at detecting changes in a scene and could more quickly pick out relevant details from a distracting background. Their performance on these and the other tasks was on par with the male athletes, whereas nonathletic males consistently outperformed their female peers.

Nonathletes excelled at only one of the cognitive tests the researchers administered. In this test, called the stopping task, participants were asked to type a "Z" or "/" key as soon as they saw it on a computer screen -- unless they heard a tone shortly after the character appeared, in which case they were told to refrain from responding. Nonathletes tended to be faster in cases where the tone never sounded, while athletes were better at inhibiting their responses after hearing a tone.

The ability to inhibit a response is one marker of what brain researchers call "executive function," the capacity to control, plan and regulate one's behavior, Kramer said. While it has obvious advantages in sport, the ability to quickly inhibit an action also is useful in daily life, he said.

"One way to think about it is you're in your car and you're ready to start off at a light and you catch in your side vision a car or a bicyclist that you didn't see a second ago," he said. Being able to stop after having decided to go can be a lifesaver in that situation.

"So both facilitating and inhibiting behavior is important," he said.

Kramer said the athletes' slower performance on this one task might be the result of a strategic decision they had made to wait and see if the tone sounded before they committed to pressing a key.

"My bet is that the athletes were just learning to read the task a little better," he said. "So if I'm a little slower in going, I'll be a little better at stopping if I need to."

All in all, the new findings add to the evidence that those who spend years training on specific physical tasks tend to also have enhanced cognitive abilities, Kramer said.

"Our understanding is imperfect because we don't know whether these abilities in the athletes were 'born' or 'made,' " he said. "Perhaps people gravitate to these sports because they're good at both. Or perhaps it's the training that enhances their cognitive abilities as well as their physical ones. My intuition is that it's a little bit of both."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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

---

Journal Reference:

1. Heloisa Alves, Michelle W. Voss, Walter R. Boot, Andrea Deslandes, Victor Cossich, Jose Inacio Salles, Arthur F. Kramer. Perceptual-Cognitive Expertise in Elite Volleyball Players. Frontiers in Psychology, 2013; 4 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00036

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

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/MGGdIeiAfaw/130318151634.htm

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online marketing kenya | JAMODESIGNS

Most companies/businesses in Kenya are now scratching their heads, and wondering how can we gain visibility online? How do we improve our sales? How do we beat our competitors?
The answer is Online Marketing that is achievable through digitalization and social media. These two have a lot of potential which companies and their employees can tap to market their products and services, interact with customers and popularize them and beat their competitors. They have bridged the gap between the entrepreneurs and the consumers.
Surprisingly, Kenya alone, which is Africa?s second highest tweeting nation has, 57 percent tweets done from mobile phones. There are 28 million mobile subscribers and 17.4 million Kenyans are Internet users. Some 1.6 million Kenyans are Face book and Twitter users.
What majority don?t know is that online marketing doesn?t drive sales directly, but it significantly impacts sales indirectly. One would tend to ask HOW?
It Increases Awareness: The first step in online marketing is to get your prospect?s attention.
Selling is difficult for most companies online because, no one?s ever heard of you hence no one?s going to buy without recognizing your brand. By gaining visibility online, you create an identity in your industry.

Establish Trust to Accelerate First-Time Purchases: Email marketing is consistently one of the best performing marketing channels from a research carried out in September 2012, but it?s not because companies are exceptionally good at it, I it?s because following up with leads consistently over weeks, months and years builds trust and recognition. Think of fans and followers as leads, and nurture their trust over time to accelerate first-time purchases.

Increase Purchasing Frequency: Marketing 101 says it?s cheaper and easier to keep an existing customer, than to acquire a new one, digitalization is an easy and effective way to increase your profitability by increasing the lifetime value of a customer. People will buy more products and services, or simply buy more often once they search what they want and get it instantly.

Some of the most effective strategies to increase your visibility include: social networks such as face book, twitter, pintrest, online video services such as You-tube, online directory listing (which is part of? our Search Engine Optimization), and Quality Content writing. The Keywords used in your website, URLs, Social networks e.t.c should be taken into?? consideration if you aim to appear first on search engines. I.e. Google, yahoo, Bing?? etc.

Make sure your social media/digitalization strategies? gain attention, inspire trust, and then increase profitability. It takes a little longer to get started, but it can pay off significantly in the long run.
NB. With the right strategies on board, just check on the table below to find out how many people in Africa?? would get to find out about you through the internet.

ISN?T THIS AMAZING???

Source: http://jamodesigns.com/online-marketing-in-kenya-becomes-a-necessary-marketing-tool

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