Chickens to benefit from biofuels bonanza

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31-Oct-2013

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Contact: Press Office
pressoffice@epsrc.ac.uk
01-793-444-404
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

Chickens could be the unexpected beneficiaries of the growing biofuels industry, feeding on proteins retrieved from the fermenters used to brew bioethanol, thanks to research supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

It has long been known that the yeasty broth left over after bioethanol production is nutritious, but it has taken a collaboration between Nottingham Trent University and AB Agri, the agricultural division of Associated British Foods, to prove that Yeast Protein Concentrate (YPC) can be separated from the fibrous cereal matter.

The researchers have also shown that YPC may be a cost-competitive substitute for imported soya-based and similar high-value protein feeds currently used in the diets of chickens bred for meat production.

The project was born out of the vision of biofuels pioneer Dr Pete Williams of AB Agri, who was convinced valuable material was being overlooked when cereals were fermented to make bioethanol.

With Dr Emily Burton of Nottingham Trent University, he was able to secure funding from the EPSRC for a CASE* studentship that allowed them to develop and analyse the process.

To establish the nutritional value of the concentrate, EPSRC CASE student Dawn Scholey examined the composition of the newly isolated, patented YPC in a series of experiments, which showed that it can be readily digested by chickens. A paper outlining this research is published in this month's issue of the journal 'Food and Energy Security'**.

Project supervisor, Dr Burton says the work is only just beginning: "Bioethanol is already a 60-billion-litre per year global market but this project shows the fuel itself is only half the story immense value lies within other co-product streams too. As well as the proteins, the yeast content provides important vitamins and other micronutrients."

Produced by distilling and fermenting wheat and other agricultural feedstocks, bioethanol has particular potential for use as a petrol substitute. Currently, the dried distiller's grains with solubles (DDGS) generated as a co-product are sold to the cattle-feed market but this is not big enough to absorb all material that would be generated if bioethanol production ramps up significantly in future.

Dr Burton believes the project helps address an issue often raised in connection with cereal-based biofuels: "One concern with bioethanol is the perception it will compete with food crops for limited farmland. Our new work shows how the two can live side by side."

The new, patented process separates DDGS into three fractions fibre, a watery syrup and YPC, allowing global production of almost 3 million tonnes of supplementary high-quality protein per annum alongside current levels of bioethanol produced. A project at a US bioethanol facility is now up and running, demonstrating the performance of the process at factory scale.

Every year, 800 million chickens are reared for meat production in the UK and 48 billion worldwide. As well as helping to feed these birds, YPC could partially replace the fish meal used on commercial fish farms.

Dr Pete Williams of AB Agri, the industrial sponsor of the work, says: "We couldn't have got this development started without the EPSRC CASE studentship that allowed us to establish the proof of concept, and to confirm the value-creation potential of our innovative separation process. By helping us to move to the next key stage of development, it has brought closer the prospect of full-scale industrial use that could deliver major benefits to the emerging 'green' fuel sector."

###

Notes for Editors

*CASE (Cooperation Awards in Science and Engineering) funding is provided by EPSRC for PhD students working with businesses on research projects of industrial relevance.

**The 'Food & Energy Security' paper can be viewed at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/fes3.30/abstract

The UK Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation stipulates that renewable fuels must account for an increasing proportion of fuel supplied on the UK's petrol station forecourts.

For more information on AB Agri: http://www.abagri.com

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is the UK's main agency for funding research in engineering and the physical sciences. EPSRC invests around 800 million a year in research and postgraduate training, to help the nation handle the next generation of technological change. The areas covered range from information technology to structural engineering, and mathematics to materials science. This research forms the basis for future economic development in the UK and improvements for everyone's health, lifestyle and culture. EPSRC works alongside other Research Councils with responsibility for other areas of research. The Research Councils work collectively on issues of common concern via Research Councils UK. http://www.epsrc.ac.uk

For more information, contact:

Dr Emily Burton
Nottingham Trent University
Tel: 0115 848 5346
E-mail: emily.burton@ntu.ac.uk

Dr Pete Williams
AB Agri Peterborough
Tel: 01733 422744
or 07912 669200
E-mail: Peter.Williams@ABAgri.com

Images are available from the EPSRC Press Office, Tel: 01793 444404 or E-mail: pressoffice@epsrc.ac.uk

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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.

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

31-Oct-2013

[


| E-mail

]


Share

Contact: Press Office
pressoffice@epsrc.ac.uk
01-793-444-404
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

Chickens could be the unexpected beneficiaries of the growing biofuels industry, feeding on proteins retrieved from the fermenters used to brew bioethanol, thanks to research supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

It has long been known that the yeasty broth left over after bioethanol production is nutritious, but it has taken a collaboration between Nottingham Trent University and AB Agri, the agricultural division of Associated British Foods, to prove that Yeast Protein Concentrate (YPC) can be separated from the fibrous cereal matter.

The researchers have also shown that YPC may be a cost-competitive substitute for imported soya-based and similar high-value protein feeds currently used in the diets of chickens bred for meat production.

The project was born out of the vision of biofuels pioneer Dr Pete Williams of AB Agri, who was convinced valuable material was being overlooked when cereals were fermented to make bioethanol.

With Dr Emily Burton of Nottingham Trent University, he was able to secure funding from the EPSRC for a CASE* studentship that allowed them to develop and analyse the process.

To establish the nutritional value of the concentrate, EPSRC CASE student Dawn Scholey examined the composition of the newly isolated, patented YPC in a series of experiments, which showed that it can be readily digested by chickens. A paper outlining this research is published in this month's issue of the journal 'Food and Energy Security'**.

Project supervisor, Dr Burton says the work is only just beginning: "Bioethanol is already a 60-billion-litre per year global market but this project shows the fuel itself is only half the story immense value lies within other co-product streams too. As well as the proteins, the yeast content provides important vitamins and other micronutrients."

Produced by distilling and fermenting wheat and other agricultural feedstocks, bioethanol has particular potential for use as a petrol substitute. Currently, the dried distiller's grains with solubles (DDGS) generated as a co-product are sold to the cattle-feed market but this is not big enough to absorb all material that would be generated if bioethanol production ramps up significantly in future.

Dr Burton believes the project helps address an issue often raised in connection with cereal-based biofuels: "One concern with bioethanol is the perception it will compete with food crops for limited farmland. Our new work shows how the two can live side by side."

The new, patented process separates DDGS into three fractions fibre, a watery syrup and YPC, allowing global production of almost 3 million tonnes of supplementary high-quality protein per annum alongside current levels of bioethanol produced. A project at a US bioethanol facility is now up and running, demonstrating the performance of the process at factory scale.

Every year, 800 million chickens are reared for meat production in the UK and 48 billion worldwide. As well as helping to feed these birds, YPC could partially replace the fish meal used on commercial fish farms.

Dr Pete Williams of AB Agri, the industrial sponsor of the work, says: "We couldn't have got this development started without the EPSRC CASE studentship that allowed us to establish the proof of concept, and to confirm the value-creation potential of our innovative separation process. By helping us to move to the next key stage of development, it has brought closer the prospect of full-scale industrial use that could deliver major benefits to the emerging 'green' fuel sector."

###

Notes for Editors

*CASE (Cooperation Awards in Science and Engineering) funding is provided by EPSRC for PhD students working with businesses on research projects of industrial relevance.

**The 'Food & Energy Security' paper can be viewed at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/fes3.30/abstract

The UK Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation stipulates that renewable fuels must account for an increasing proportion of fuel supplied on the UK's petrol station forecourts.

For more information on AB Agri: http://www.abagri.com

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is the UK's main agency for funding research in engineering and the physical sciences. EPSRC invests around 800 million a year in research and postgraduate training, to help the nation handle the next generation of technological change. The areas covered range from information technology to structural engineering, and mathematics to materials science. This research forms the basis for future economic development in the UK and improvements for everyone's health, lifestyle and culture. EPSRC works alongside other Research Councils with responsibility for other areas of research. The Research Councils work collectively on issues of common concern via Research Councils UK. http://www.epsrc.ac.uk

For more information, contact:

Dr Emily Burton
Nottingham Trent University
Tel: 0115 848 5346
E-mail: emily.burton@ntu.ac.uk

Dr Pete Williams
AB Agri Peterborough
Tel: 01733 422744
or 07912 669200
E-mail: Peter.Williams@ABAgri.com

Images are available from the EPSRC Press Office, Tel: 01793 444404 or E-mail: pressoffice@epsrc.ac.uk

---

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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.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-10/eaps-ctb103113.php
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'Sockpuppets' Lurking On Wikipedia

People using online identities to deceive Wikipedia users, according to the Wikimedia Foundation. Several hundred user accounts have been suspended because of suspicions that these "sockpuppets" were using the site to promote clients and/or give misleading information. Host Rachel Martin talks to foundation executive director Sue Gardner.

Copyright © 2013 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Chances are if you want to look something up, you've first Googled it and then you've read about whatever it is on Wikipedia. But as with a lot of things on the Internet, how do you know that you can trust what you're reading? That's a question that occupies a lot of time for the people at the Wikimedia Foundation, which is the not-for-profit organization that operates the online encyclopedia.

Sue Gardner is the executive director leading the fight against the so-called sockpuppets, who might not have your best interests at heart, when you read certain entries. She joins us from member station KQED in San Francisco. Sue, thanks for being with us.

SUE GARDNER: Hey, Rachel. How are you?

MARTIN: I'm doing well. What are these infamous sockpuppets?

GARDNER: Wikipedians noticed some suspicious editing patterns on Wikipedia starting, I don't know, about six months ago, I think. And what was happening was there were a bunch of user accounts on Wikipedia that were editing articles and seeming to insert promotional puffery language into them, and using a number of kind of deceptive-seeming practices. And so, just recently the investigation kind of culminated in the banning of 250 user accounts for sockpuppetry.

Do you know what sockpuppetry is?

MARTIN: I mean I'm thinking of a hand in a puppet and a lot of kids sitting around.

GARDNER: That's kind of the analogy. So what it is, is if I am one person, my name is Sue Gardner, I'm on Wikipedia, my user account is named Sue Gardner. I could also make a bunch of other accounts, you know, Sue Gardner 2, Jim Smith - whatever, right? Those are sockpuppets. And so, what it is, is when you use multiple accounts to mask the fact that you are one person making a bunch of edits. And sometimes sockpuppets do things, like, I might go into an article and say: Ooh, Sue Gardner 1, what a great edit. You are doing really well here. You know?

And so you can use multiple accounts to support your own actions and make it appear that there's consensus that your work is good, when it isn't good.

MARTIN: So are these rogue individuals or they're working for corporations who want to use Wikipedia as free advertising, propaganda?

GARDNER: That's not clear right now. What we do know is - so we have these hundreds of accounts and they've been making promotional edits on Wikipedia, and they've been using message to make those edits that are deceptive. Is it likely that somebody just really, really likes all these small companies and wants to burnish their reputations for fun - like as a leisure activity? That is not likely.

What's likely is that they are working for somebody - probably a black hat PR firm of some kind and they're engaged in bad practices.

MARTIN: So what's the punishment if you can identify these actors?

GARDNER: Yeah, they're banned. So they've all, you know, 250 of them have been banned. More will probably be banned. This is the largest sort of mass banning that has happened in our history for this purpose.

MARTIN: Was this just part of the deal? Is this just kind of the price of doing business with this kind of crowdsourcing?

GARDNER: I think so, yeah. And I mean, certainly all the studies show that every article in Wikipedia gets better over time, right? Time is what makes a good article, time and multiple editors. So if you look at Wikipedia, our best articles are articles on, for example, Barack Obama, right? It's been edited by thousands of people over many, many years. It is richly, you know, studded with citations. It takes you to the original sources where you can confirm what it says. It's a superb article.

Not everything on Wikipedia is going to be that level of quality today. The bargain, in effect, that you're making is that most people who edit the encyclopedia are doing a really great job, and they care about quality. They want to bring useful information to people. But the price tag on that is that it's open to everyone to edit. And so, yeah, I mean that creates some vulnerabilities - that's what we're seeing here.

MARTIN: Sue Gardner, she is the executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, the not-for-profit organization that runs Wikipedia. Sue, thanks so much.

GARDNER: Sure. Thank you, Rachel.

Copyright © 2013 NPR. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to NPR. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

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Source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=241145305&ft=1&f=1019
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Feds proving Internet-adept and inept at same time

WASHINGTON (AP) — When it comes to computers, the Obama administration appears simultaneously to be a bungling amateur and a stealthy wizard. The same government that reportedly intercepted the communications of America's leading consumer technology firms, Google and Yahoo, without leaving a trace is scorned because it can't build a working federal website for health insurance.

In a single day in the nation's capital, extremes of the impressive successes and stunning failures of the Internet age were on full display.

Computer professionals said the government can be both adept and inept at the same time because the tasks are so different and for reasons involving who is doing it, for how much money, how long it takes and how publicly it is done.

Under a classified project called MUSCULAR, the National Security Agency has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Google and Yahoo data centers around the world, The Washington Post reported Wednesday, citing documents obtained from former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden. In the past 30 days, the NSA swept up and processed more than 180 million new records, including metadata indicating who sent and received emails and when it happened, the Post reported.

Across town, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was apologizing to Congress over the bungled healthcare.gov website. New documents obtained by The Associated Press showed that officials had worried that a lack of website testing posed a potentially high security risk. In yet another conflict-riddled Capitol Hill hearing, a congressman told Sebelius that she had put Americans' personal financial information at risk.

The difference? National priorities, including big differences in how much the government spends, plus the talent and expertise of the people the government hires.

The NSA's annual budget was just over $7 billion in fiscal 2013, according to budget documents leaked by Snowden. The budget for the entire Health and Human Services Department was less than $1 trillion, and it spent $118 million on the website plus about $56 million on other IT to support the website, Sebelius said Wednesday.

The NSA is famous for employing small focused teams of highly talented, highly recruited experts with special skills, said Chris Wysopal, a former hacker who is chief technology officer for Veracode in Burlington, Mass. But the Health and Human Services Department's website designers? "They are sort of your average developers," he said.

Ex-hacker Marc Maiffret, who once wore his hair green in spikes and is the chief technology officer at BeyondTrust of San Diego, said Beltway contractors who work on civilian technology projects usually are over-budget and under-performing. Teams putting together large IT systems are complex and must coordinate across different government agencies, insurance companies, states and contractors.

"They may have underestimated the complexity when they started on it, which is again not surprising," said Purdue University computer science professor Gene Spafford.

Motivation is important too. Patriotic hacking on behalf of the NSA is exciting, especially among the mostly young and mostly male demographic.

"Breaking in, it feels like special ops," Wysopal said. "Building something feels probably like you're in the Corps of Engineers. You're just moving a lot of dirt around."

It's also widely understood to be easier to break something down than to build it. Siphoning the Google and Yahoo data is simpler to do than building a secure website for millions of people to get health care, Wysopal and Maiffret said.

Besides, if the NSA had failed to collect all the data it wanted during a classified mission, few people would learn about it — unlike what happened almost immediately when the health care website was launched and immediately experienced problems, said Matt Green, a computer science professor at Johns Hopkins University.

"If the NSA doesn't do something, you and I don't hear about it," Green said.

The government generally spends more money researching how to attack, not defend, computers, said Spafford, director of the Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security at Purdue.

The apparent contradiction between health care and the NSA, Spafford said, "is what makes computers magical."

___

Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security: http://www.cerias.purdue.edu/site/about

___

Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at http://twitter.com/borenbears

• Politics & Government
• Google
• Kathleen Sebelius
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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/feds-proving-internet-adept-inept-same-time-211932192--politics.html
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Where Rock The Bells Fails, Drake's Tour Succeeds

Drake backlit at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Monday night.

Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images

Drake backlit at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Monday night.

Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images

What does the concert-ticket buyer want? If we're accepting that the market for albums — physical and digital — won't ever rebound, that digital singles will never make up for the loss in revenue and that streaming can't be profitable under current licensing laws, professional musicians (and the labels that love them) need to figure this out. Rap music, with its younger audience, has been more flexible in this regard than other genres: Rap acts now run the multi-genre summer festival gamut after infiltrating smaller cities' club circuits long ago. Some use live bands and perform acoustically, others employ visuals that can support a single rapper onstage, without a slew of hypemen.

But it's not all coming up roses. At the end of September the Washington, D.C., and New York dates of the 10-year-old Rock the Bells Festival were cancelled because of woeful ticket sales. The two west coast dates, in San Francisco and Los Angeles, had gone off well earlier that month. I asked Chang Weisberg, who created and promotes that festival, why his company came up about 19,000 tickets short on the D.C. date, which was a loss that also sunk New York's scheduled stop the following week. "Probably the Number 1 factor in why maybe the shows weren't as successful as we hoped was that there was a lot more specifically great hip-hop shows on sale specifically at the same time we were on sale. Jay Z's Magna Carta tour is out, Kanye's Yeezus tour, Drake's tour, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis — these are all direct competitors to Rock the Bells," he said.

Rock the Bells has built itself into one of hip-hop's preeminent festivals, without any affiliations to major-market commercial radio stations. The tour holds onto its roots in paying respect to the genre's greats, and it flourished before rap acts were granted the bookings, insurance rates and Top 40 radio promotion that pop musicians enjoy. I last attended Rock the Bells in 2010 at D.C.'s Merriweather Post Pavilion, an outdoor seated venue, there to see Lauryn Hill, Wu-Tang, Snoop and A Tribe Called Quest. Since then it's expanded to two days at each stop (another factor in the east coast cancellations according to Weisberg, though he says he didn't want to deliver a "watered down version" of the show he put up on the west coast) and the lineup has tripled in size. "I'm not afraid to say that the talent budget for the D.C. Rock the Bells was very close to $2 million," says Weisberg.

This year Rock the Bells relocated to less formal venues — New York was scheduled for the racetrack at the Meadowlands (Weisberg considers the unfamiliar locale another reason for the lack of ticket sales), and the D.C. date was to take place in the parking lot of RFK Stadium (the place at least one high school girl fainted on the blacktop during Ice-T's set at the 1999 Warped Tour — shout to me). The musicians can be afforded only brief soundchecks, and they play through systems constructed just for that day. One of the more heart-wrenching moments of my interview with Weisberg was when he said that as he went about cancelling Rock the Bells — first calling the artists, then the venues, then security, in the confusion his unwitting vendors kept on building stages in the morning heat.

Nobody dresses up for Rock the Bells. It's for the heads — you will be called out if you don't know the words, or worse, the history — and it's an all-day event. The acts are either legacy or they're rookies still sorting out how they'll perform the songs they wrote in their mother's basement. Supernatural, KRS and Wu-Tang were to play Saturday in D.C., Bone Thugs, Rakim and Slick Rick on Sunday. Out of 56 acts, a grand total of four women (two of whom are rappers) — Jhene Aiko, Syd (of The Internet), Rapsody and Snow Tha Product — were booked, and there were zero heartthrobs, though you could argue Rocky and Kendrick qualify (I'll hear arguments for Sean Price, from the grown ass women among us). Most of the younger musicians on the bill encourage stage-diving at their shows, or a form of turning up that ends in flailing, irresponsible elbows.

Weisberg lists Rock the Bells' ticket pricing as a considerable factor in the cancellation, but he objects to the criticism he's heard. "A 2-day ticket starting at $125 and a single day ticket starting at $69 is very competitive when you look at what else is happening amongst all these other shows." That's fair — I spent a similar amount on Drake's tour with openers Future and Miguel, which landed in Brooklyn this Monday night. Tickets for the Barclays Center ranged from $59.75 (which actually cost the consumer $71.60 from Ticketmaster) to $109.75 (which cost $125.25, unless you buy at the door, which I did, despite Drake's proclamation that he had sold out Barclays).

From where I sit, the biggest factor in Rock the Bells failure and Drake's success isn't on Weisberg's list — it's a summation of those considerations, and it's called date night. What do you want in exchange for $70? If you set those two concerts in opposition, far more people would rather feel fancy, look cute and stroll around that new-car-smell arena until the lights go down than act like experts, look functional and struggle through packs of overconfident, sunburned teenage boys just to buy a beer. They also want a heartthrob.

At Barclays on Monday I stopped counting men in patterned pants at seven. Platforms were rife. The makeup was fresh, the dudes were holding doors. Future was in cold weather gear, then changed into leggings. Miguel sounded tired, and abbreviated sets don't do his tense songs any favors, but his footwork was on point. Drake wore denim on denim on denim, until he took his top layer off, which incited the loudest screams in the room to that point.

From my seats on the floor, Drake had the Barclays Center open — which isn't to say they were just going to give him a pass. The crowd listened hard to the new song, "Trophies," but didn't express judgment. His DJ played that for us during the breather Drake took, leaving us alone with his accompanists and billowing stage smoke, just like the 64-year-old Lionel Richie did when he played Barclays last month. And though Drake's glad-handing around the stripper heel catwalk was entertaining, if garish (it reminded me of the Ol' Dirty Bastard and Eazy-E holograms Rock the Bells had promised), that whole thing was preceded and followed by what both my next seat neighbors (a couple) and all the girls in the bathroom called his "R&B break" — the stretch of songs including "Come Thru" and "From Time," past "Hold On, We're Going Home" and into "Too Much" — almost a third of Nothing Was the Same. They also called this time "annoying."

To me, this portion of the show was aimed at the ladies, but flew right by the actual experience of the women there. It presumed that girls would rather get compliments than hear him rap. It forgot that, prior to the fawning over both a barefoot Jhene Aiko and a barefoot woman ostensibly pulled from the crowd, the Barclays Center, which was at least half women, had lost its collective mind to the opening strains of "Pop That," "Versace" went over bigger than he had any right to expect and the reaction to "No New Friends" shook the building. Drake's dancing throughout was a joy to behold; we should have charged him for the dancing we did during the hard-bodied hits.

One of the main reasons we concert and clubgoers part with our hard-earned money these days is to hear gigantic songs at the volume they were made to be played at alongside total strangers who want the same thing. When Drake brought out ASAP Ferg to do "Work" and all of ASAP Mob for "Shabba," then kept Rocky onstage for "F—-in Problems" (known party unifier) it felt like the room was finally answering in the affirmative to his earlier question: "Are we all in agreeance that tonight is my birthday party?" Drake said that we could consider OVO and ASAP Mob as one unit henceforth. I laughed, because the statement flies in the face of Drake's aversion to new friends — absurd already that evening, since Drake didn't come up with or under Busta Rhymes and yet there he was Monday night, a drop-in the length of a verse and chorus of "Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See."

People ask me all the time about listening to hip-hop, especially resolutely uncivil hip-hop songs like "Pop That" and "Versace," most of the time because I am a woman and sometimes because I'm a white woman. I have a few different answers — one is about subject position, one questions the purpose of the person getting in my face, one is a history lesson and another is the saying of a friend: dance now, deconstruct later. Hold opposed ideas in your mind at the same damn time. Women who spend money on rap shows do so because they love rap. Most people who spend money $70 on any concert want payoff. Comfort. High production value. We want to forget. We are tired. It would not be bad if your visuals sometimes made us think of Miami sunsets, sometimes of liberated killer whales, sometimes were in actual fact indoor fireworks.

In these days of dusty, overbooked festivals run rampant, a smooth-sounding, tight bill with the promise of a good-looking, down-to-party hometown crowd makes that cash register sing. Competition usually grows a market, but at a time when almost everyone is looking over their shoulder at debt or cutbacks, consumers are going to make decisions that cause pain to some producers. "I feel like I just broke up with my girlfriend," said Weisberg days after he cancelled Rock The Bells.

Drake, Miguel and Future on Monday night were an answer to the question of how performed rap can stay in business right now. Sell an evening. Consider climate control. Dance. All these are old suggestions; it's not so different from Big Daddy Kane taking Scoob and Scrap on the road with him, or an understanding of a hip-hop show as a party, not a recitation of an album. Cater to women, who control most wallets anyway — but cut it out with the patronizing. Don't forget why we're really there.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2013/10/30/241691557/where-rock-the-bells-fails-drakes-tour-succeeds?ft=1&f=1039
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Pandora updates UI for proper Android tablet design

Pandora today updated its Android application to finally bring about a proper design for tablets. 

The revamp smartly covers both portrait and landscape orientations, though the latter looks a little weird until you get two or three album covers onto the screen. No matter, though, it's absolutely an update you'll want to snag.

With the redesign you get easier access to your playlists, song lyrics and other sharing and purchasing options. Pretty self-explanatory, actually. 

read more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/8nGUhrpczmE/story01.htm
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Feds post food allergy guidelines for schools

In this Oct. 10, 2013 photo, an epinephrine auto-injector is shown that Tyler Edwards, 12, of Hendersonville, Tenn., carries with him because of his allergies. Only 27 states require or allow epinephrine, a drug used to treat anaphylactic shock, to be available in schools. (AP Photo/Mark Zaleski)

In this Oct. 10, 2013 photo, an epinephrine auto-injector is shown that Tyler Edwards, 12, of Hendersonville, Tenn., carries with him because of his allergies. Only 27 states require or allow epinephrine, a drug used to treat anaphylactic shock, to be available in schools. (AP Photo/Mark Zaleski)

ATLANTA (AP) — The federal government is issuing its first guidelines to schools on how to protect children with food allergies.

The voluntary guidelines call on schools to take such steps as restricting nuts, shellfish or other foods that can cause allergic reactions, and make sure emergency allergy medicine — like EpiPens — are available.

About 15 states — and numerous individual schools or school districts — already have policies of their own. "The need is here" for a more comprehensive, standardized way for schools to deal with this issue, said Dr. Wayne Giles, who oversaw development of the advice for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Food allergies are a growing concern. A recent CDC survey estimated that about 1 in 20 U.S. children have food allergies — a 50 percent increase from the late 1990s. Experts aren't sure why cases are rising.

Many food allergies are mild and something children grow out of. But severe cases may cause anaphylactic shock or even death from eating, say, a peanut.

The guidelines released Wednesday were required by a 2011 federal law.

Peanuts, tree nuts, milk and shellfish are among the food that most often most trigger reactions. But experts say more than 170 foods are known to cause reactions.

The new advice call for schools to do such things as:

—Identify children with food allergies.

—Have a plan to prevent exposures and manage any reactions.

—Train teachers or others how to use medicines like epinephrine injectors, or have medical staff to do the job.

—Plan parties or field trips free of foods that might cause a reaction; and designate someone to carry epinephrine.

—Make sure classroom activities are inclusive.

For example, don't use Peanut M&M's in a counting lesson, said John Lehr, chief executive of an advocacy group that worked on the guidelines, Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE).

Carolyn Duff, president of the National Association of School Nurses, which worked on the guidelines, said many schools may not have policies on food allergies. "And if they do, maybe the policies aren't really comprehensive," she said.

U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey, a New York Democrat who worked on the law that led to the guidelines, said in a statement that they are a big step toward giving parents "the confidence that their children will stay safe and healthy at school."

___

Online:

CDC guidelines: http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/foodallergies/

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2013-10-30-Food%20Allergies-Schools/id-33b7262cc9064170a81e124296422e61
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Johny Hendricks secures Reebok sponsorship for UFC 167 fight against St-Pierre

For the first time in UFC history, Reebok will be represented inside the Octagon.

Welterweight title challenger Johny Hendricks inked a blue-chip sponsorship with the athletic sportswear giant in early October. Now, in advance of his UFC 167 bout against champion Georges St-Pierre, Hendricks' new sponsor has agreed to pay the UFC's sponsorship tax and go to bat for Hendricks on November 16, 2013.

Ariel Helwani reported the news on Wednesday's episode of UFC Tonight after confirming it with Hendricks' agent Oren Hodak of KO Reps and his management, Team Takedown.

While Reebok also sponsors mixed martial arts fighter Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, in the past Reebok refused to pay the UFC's heavy sponsorship tax, which prevented a disgruntled Jackson from wearing any Reebok product during his Octagon farewell at UFC on FOX 6.

This time however, according to Helwani, Reebok has agreed to pay the tax for one fight -- Hendricks' battle against St-Pierre.

Hendricks joins the shortlist of UFC fighters sponsored by major sporting entities, which also includes St-Pierre, UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones, former middleweight champion Anderson Silva, and former heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos.

Source: http://www.mmafighting.com/2013/10/30/5048442/johny-hendricks-secures-reebok-sponsorship-for-ufc-167-fight-against
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