US braces for tsunami debris, but impact unclear

In this June 6, 2012 photo provided by Ryan Pallister, Patrick Chandler removes tsunami debris on Montague Island near Seward, Alaska. More than a year after a tsunami devastated Japan, killing thousands of people and washing millions of tons of debris into the Pacific Ocean, neither the U.S. government nor some West Coast states have a clear plan for how to clean up the rubble that floats to American shores. (AP Photo/Gulf of Alaska Keeper, Ryan Pallister)

In this June 6, 2012 photo provided by Ryan Pallister, Patrick Chandler removes tsunami debris on Montague Island near Seward, Alaska. More than a year after a tsunami devastated Japan, killing thousands of people and washing millions of tons of debris into the Pacific Ocean, neither the U.S. government nor some West Coast states have a clear plan for how to clean up the rubble that floats to American shores. (AP Photo/Gulf of Alaska Keeper, Ryan Pallister)

In this Thursday, June 7, 2012 photo proivded by the Oregon Park and Recreations Department, unidentified workers shovel debris from the top of a dock float torn loose from a Japanese fishing port by the 2011 tsunami that washed up Tuesday on Agate Beach near Newport, Ore. Workers with shovels, rakes and other tools first scraped the structure clean, then briefly used low-pressure torches to sterilize the dock that was. (AP Photo/Oregon Parks and Recreation Department)

This May 28, 2012 photo provided by Chris Pallister shows a Japanese float is collected on the shore of Montague Island near Seward, Alaska. More than a year after a tsunami devastated Japan, killing thousands of people and washing millions of tons of debris into the Pacific Ocean, neither the U.S. government nor some West Coast states have a clear plan for how to clean up the rubble that floats to American shores. (AP Photo/Chris Pallister)

In this June 6, 2012 photo provided by Chris Pallister, debris is strewn across the shore of Montague Island near Seward, Alaska. More than a year after a tsunami devastated Japan, killing thousands of people and washing millions of tons of debris into the Pacific Ocean, neither the U.S. government nor some West Coast states have a clear plan for how to clean up the rubble that floats to American shores. (AP Photo/Chris Pallister)

In this file photo from Wednesday, June 6, 2012, a man looks at a 70-foot-long dock with Japanese lettering that washed ashore on Agate Beach Wednesday, June 6, 2012, in Newport, Ore. More than a year after a tsunami devastated Japan, killing thousands of people and washing millions of tons of debris into the Pacific Ocean, neither the U.S. government nor some West Coast states have a clear plan for how to clean up the rubble that floats to American shores. There is also no firm handle yet on just what to expect. The Japanese government estimates that an enormous 1.5 million tons of debris is floating in the ocean from the catastrophe. Some experts in the United States think the bulk of that trash will never reach shore, while others fear a massive, slowly-unfolding environmental disaster. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) ? More than a year after a tsunami devastated Japan, killing thousands of people and washing millions of tons of debris into the Pacific Ocean, the U.S. government and West Coast states don't have a cohesive plan for cleaning up the rubble that floats to American shores.

There is also no firm handle yet on just what to expect.

The Japanese government estimates that 1.5 million tons of debris is floating in the ocean from the catastrophe. Some experts in the United States think the bulk of that trash will never reach shore, while others fear a massive, slowly-unfolding environmental disaster.

"I think this is far worse than any oil spill that we've ever faced on the West Coast or any other environmental disaster we've faced on the West Coast" in terms of the debris' weight, type and geographic scope, said Chris Pallister, president of a group dedicated to cleaning marine debris from the Alaska coastline.

David Kennedy, assistant administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Ocean Service, told a U.S. Senate panel last month that in most cases debris removal decisions will fall to individual states. Funding hasn't been determined.

U.S. Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, and other West Coast political leaders, have called that scenario unacceptable, saying tsunami debris poses a pending national emergency. "If this was a one-time event all at once, we'd declare it an emergency and we'd be on the ground like that," he said, during the hearing he led.

One astonishing example of how the unexpected can suddenly appear occurred Wednesday in Oregon when a concrete and metal dock that measured 66 feet long, seven feet tall and 19 feet wide, washed ashore a mile north of Newport. A Japanese consulate official in Portland confirmed that the dock came from the northern Japanese city of Misawa, cut loose in the tsunami of March 11, 2011.

"I think that the dock is a forerunner of all the heavier stuff that's coming later, and amongst that heavier stuff are going to be a lot of drums full of chemicals that we won't be able to identify," Pallister said.

His group, Gulf of Alaska Keeper, works in the same region devastated by the Exxon Valdez oil spill, which dumped 11 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound in 1989.

Tsunami debris is tough to monitor. Winds and ocean currents regularly change, while rubbish can break up. Some trash, like fishing gear, kerosene and gas containers and building supplies, can be tied to the tsunami only anecdotally. But in other cases ? a soccer ball and a derelict fishing boat in Alaska and a motorcycle in British Columbia, for example ? items have been traced back to the disaster through their owners.

NOAA projects the debris having spread over an area roughly three times the size of the contiguous United States, but can't pinpoint when or how much might eventually reach the coasts of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California and Hawaii.

An independent group of scientists and environmental activists are scheduled to sail aboard the "Sea Dragon" from Japan Saturday to an area north of the Hawaiian islands, with plans to zigzag through the debris, document what's floating and try to determine what might reach the West Coast.

"You have a unique experiment," said Marcus Eriksen, a researcher at the Algalita Marine Research Institute in Long Beach, Calif., who is leading the expedition. "You have entire homes and all their contents ... anything you may find in a Japanese home could be floating in the ocean still intact."

Seattle-based oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer, who has been tracking ocean trash for 20 years, predicts the main mass of tsunami debris will reach the U.S. coast from Northern California to southeast Alaska as early as October, with the beginning of fall storms.

Cleanup plans should be finalized no later than September, Ebbesmeyer cautioned. There may also be sensitive issues to be decided, he said, including how to deal with any human remains or personal mementos.

But just who will clean up the debris and who will pay for it hasn't been fully determined.

Begich wants to make at least $45 million available for local community groups to conduct clean-up efforts. Gulf of Alaska Keeper believes Congress should set aside $50 million a year for four years.

As it stands now, NOAA has $618,000 allocated to clean up tsunami debris. The agency's total marine debris program budget could drop by 26 percent to $3.4 million, under President Obama's proposed budget.

Marine trash isn't a new problem. The ocean is littered with all kinds of things that can trap and kill wildlife, hurt human health and navigation and blight beaches.

NOAA has previously given grants to local groups for cleanup work. The agency expects the tsunami debris to simply add to the ongoing problem of massive amounts of trash flowing into the ocean every day.

Volunteers in California report their efforts being stretched thin just in dealing with day-to-day rubbish. Seasonal opportunity for cleanup could close as early as September at spots in Alaska, where some beaches are accessible only by boat or aircraft and removing trash can be difficult and expensive. Washington has monitored some incoming debris for radioactivity.

Eben Schwartz, marine debris program manager for the California Coastal Commission, said more recognition needs to be given to the fact that it will be beach cleanup volunteers who respond to tsunami debris.

"Given that, I would like to see more state and federal support for the volunteer programs that will be taking the lead," he said. They're going to need help, resources and funding, he said.

NOAA's marine debris program expects solid plans from the states within the next few months. The governors of Washington, Oregon and California, as well as the premier of British Columbia, have said they will work together to manage debris.

Widespread or concentrated die-offs of marine animals aren't expected, said John Hocevar, oceans campaign director for Greenpeace, but there could be local impacts.

NOAA officials say they don't think there's any radiation risk from the debris, despite the meltdown at a nuclear power plant in Fukushima.

Merrick Burden, executive director of the Marine Conservation Alliance in Alaska and Washington, said he thinks states, local governments, volunteers and industries including fishing and tourism need to pull together to clean up debris, and not simply wait and hope for federal funds.

"One of the things standing in the way is a unified, coordinated approach to this," he said.

Pallister worried that a lack of awareness may hamper the effort.

"You just don't have that visceral, gut-wrenching reaction to having oiled otters and drowned seabirds in that crude to get the public pumped up about it," he said of the tsunami debris. "And even if you could get the public pumped up, again, you don't have that culprit to go after ? a bad guy. It's kind of a tough one to deal with."

____

McAvoy reported from Honolulu. Associated Press writers Rachel La Corte in Olympia, Wash., Jeff Barnard in Grants Pass, Ore., and Jason Dearen in San Francisco contributed to this report.

___

Online: http://hosted.ap.org/interactives/2012/japan-debris/

Associated Press

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G.O.O.D. Music's Hit-Boy Drops First Single, 'Jay-Z Interview'

Kanye West protégé follows in his mentor's footsteps with first rap single.
By Rob Markman


Hit-Boy
Photo: MTV News

How fitting is it that Hit-Boy is signed to Kanye West's G.O.O.D. Music? As a producer, the Grammy-winning beatsmith has already built quite the discography, and now he wants to try his hand at rap. Sound familiar?

On Thursday (June 7), the California track dealer debuted the song and video for his first rap single, "Jay-Z Interview," and boy is it good. The Jelani Fresh-directed clip starts with Hov introducing Hit-Boy to the crowd at a Watch the Throne concert. "This young man is an incredible producer, a lot of passion. He made one of the most incredible records of all time," Jigga said, referencing Hit-Boy's board work on the Throne's "N---as in Pairs."

"Can y'all invite him to the circle? You ready for that Hit-Boy?" Jay asks.

With that, Hit-Boy the rapper is born. "All these n---as really know my at-bat average/ Ridiculous rap patterns/ And f--- who you know, this youngin got the coldest beats/ All my old hoes layin' in the coldest sheets/ Even if they married, they still ain't over me," he confidently raps over a soulful Bink beat.

The music video is comprised of a bunch of homemade videos Hit has accumulated through his travels. Kanye West, Big Sean, A$AP Rocky, Tyler the Creator, Frank Ocean and Fabolous all appear in the archival studio footage. The visual is strikingly familiar to Kanye's breakout rap video "Through the Wire," and just like Yeezy did in 2004, Hit-Boy proves he is much more than a producer.

Back in April, Hit revealed to MTV News that he planned to start a rap career but was pretty tight-lipped, only teasing his first single, which is now here. With G.O.O.D. Music's collaborative LP Cruel Summer due out later this year, it's plausible the label's in-house hitmaker will be spitting bars on the project as well as making beats, but he wouldn't confirm that either. "We'll see," Hit-Boy said sheepishly.

Kanye also made his bones behind the boards, crafting a big chunk of Jay-Z's The Blueprint album before anyone took him seriously as a rapper, so it's only right that he help the young man get out his dreams. The parallel isn't lost on Hit-Boy either. "This is Freshman Adjustment meets Late Registration," he raps on "Jay-Z Interview," referencing Yeezy's 2005 underground LP and sophomore album.

So why is the song named after Hov? Well, how else was he supposed to get your attention? Hit-Boy explains it all in the track's closing line: "Yeah, the sh-- I spit like, 'What the f--- has gotten into you?'/ I got 'em tuned in like a Jay-Z interview."

What do you think of Hit-Boy's rapping skills? Let us know in the comments!

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Let Online Marketing Firms Jump Start Your Business

Let Online Marketing Firms Jump Start Your Business

Author : Michelle Knuth

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You've heard that if you ever travel back in time you shouldn't touch anything. The slightest variation to anything can change the outcome of the future. Think about that in terms of your business. Everything you do, say or design can change the outcome of your business. Should your home webpage should be blue or red? Think about all the times you've opted for a different webpage when the page was loading too slow. Online Marketing Firms specialize in making sure you are making the right decision when it comes to those things, so you don't have to find out that you made the wrong choice later on.

Don't be fooled, marketing a business on the internet and the real world are two completely different things. As a matter of fact internet marketing is the strongest marketing tool you have at your disposal. Online marketing firms have the potential to take a small, local business and build it into a booming worldwide company.

Online Marketing firms use a number of tools to make sure a company is marketed successfully. Search engine optimization is used to make sure the best pages come up on the first page of a search engine such as yahoo.com or Google.com. They can improve the design of a company's webpage so it is attractive, informative and easy to use. The use of social media can get word out about your company faster than ever.

Social media may be the most powerful tool when it comes to marketing online. Think of it this way: Think about all the people you know. Now think about how many of these people are not on any sort of social media website. This includes Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc. The number of people not on at least one of these social media websites is likely considerably less than people that are, which means there it is a great opportunity to advertise. Social media can make or break a reputation because ultimately the users of these social media websites are consumers. A company like fishbat can help make sure social media is being used to attract more consumers to a certain product.

What makes or breaks a business is their ability to make money. The outcome of a company can end up good or bad based on marketing decisions that could end up deciding a company's reputation. All it takes is one bad decision and the reputation of your company could be gone. Online marketing firms can make sure your company's reputation is protected and still standing the next day.

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Katy Perry Admits Going Through 'Pretty Tough Times Last Year'

Pop star talks to U.K. talk show about how she kept performing amid marriage troubles.
By James Dinh


Katy Perry
Photo: Getty Images

In less than a month, Katy Perry's 3-D docu-concert, "Part of Me," will hit theaters across the world and give fans a look at the pop star's road to superstardom, including her divorce from husband Russell Brand. It's one of the more anticipated topics in the film, and it appears as if Perry has started to spill a little about how she coped with the fallout.

On Thursday, Perry visited the U.K.'s "Graham Norton Show" for a chat, and she discussed how she prevented any personal lows from affecting her extensive California Dreams World Tour.

"I love being onstage, and even though I went through some pretty tough times last year, I had to separate that because I know my problems are my problems and they are not the audience's problems," Perry told the talk-show host.

Always a true professional, Perry had a "show must go on" mentality, saying, "They are here to see a show and to be entertained, so I got on that lift, put a smile on my face and went up (onstage) with my t--s spinning!"

Perry hasn't given up on love either, as it's been reported that the singer rekindled her romance with Florence and the Machine guitarist Robert Ackroyd. After the television taping, the duo were spotted together walking the streets of London and getting comfy in a car. Back in May, Us Weekly reported that the duo amicably parted ways after dating for a just few weeks.

Nonetheless, Perry is rolling with the good times, especially with the looming release of "Katy Perry: Part of Me" on July 5. Earlier in the day, the media darling took to Twitter to share her excitement over her surprise appearance at a fan screening for the Paramount film. "Had tons o' fun in London today at a surprise screening ... Wish I could sit w/ all of u when u see #KP3D," she wrote.

Are you looking forward to Katy's "Part of Me" 3-D movie? Share your thoughts below!

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Florida county elections supervisors won't resume voter purge

Florida?s noncitizen voter purge looks like it?s all but over.

The 67 county elections supervisors ? who have final say over voter purges ?are not moving forward with the purge for now because nearly all of them don?t trust the accuracy of a list of nearly 2,700 potential noncitizens identified by the state?s elections office.The U.S. Department of Justice has ordered the state to stop the purge.

?We?re just not going to do this,? said Leon County?s elections supervisor, Ion Sancho, one of the most outspoken of his peers. ?I?ve talked to many of the other supervisors and they agree. The list is bad. And this is illegal.?

So far, more than 500 have been identified as citizens and lawful voters on the voter rolls. About 40 people statewide have been identified as noncitizens. At least four might have voted and could be guilty of a third-degree felony.

The eligibility of about 2,000 have not been identified one way or the other.

Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner says he hopes to get the supervisors to reverse course by working more closely with them. His effort has also inspired a noncitizen voter-purge movement in North Carolina, whose secretary of state Detzner plans to speak with on Friday. And while the Florida purge has halted, the fight between the state and the feds has just begun now that the Justice Department demanded last week that the state cease the purge due to two federal voting laws. Detzner said the U.S. government didn?t just get the law wrong, it?s harming the state?s efforts to remove ineligible voters by refusing to provide Florida access to a citizenship and immigration database maintained by the Department of Homeland Security.

?We need to do a better job,? Detzner acknowledged. But we can?t do a better job. And the reason is Homeland Security has pushed us back.?

Detzner, whose office has been requesting access to the database since October, has asked to sit down with Homeland Security to meet its demands and get access to the database. That way, the state could produce a more accurate and easy-to-check list for elections supervisors, he said. Without access to the federal database, the state matched its voter rolls with a Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles database that contains some citizenship information gathered when someone gets a state-issued ID.

But that database isn?t updated when a person becomes a citizen. So many people became U.S. citizens and then lawfully registered to vote ? but they can look like noncitizen voters when the elections department compares the motor-vehicle database against. To get around the problem, DHSMV has asked the federal government to give it updated citizenship information.

That would make Miami-Dade Election Supervisor Penelope Townsley feel more comfortable. She said in a written letter last week that she was concerned the list was unreliable and was ?only as good as the last time the voter made contact with the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.?

Miami-Dade has determined that 514 people on the list are citizens. About 14 are noncitizens. At least two have voted and have had their names forwarded to the State Attorney?s Office for investigation.

Townsley faulted the state for producing a list of about 1,600 voters that had no backup information and that contained duplicate IDs and the names of already removed voters, including three dead people.

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Craig Mackay's Blog: Step-parenting....

16 years ago today I became a Father for the very first time.

It was a day that was to change my life forever. ?My beautiful daughter was born weighing 7lbs 14.5ozs just 5 minutes into the day that she was due on [at this point I could make a cheap joke that it's the only time she's ever been on time for anything-but obviously I wouldn't be tempted to do that :-) ]
16 years later and I now have 5 children in our unique family. ?I love them all to bits, and so does Ellie !!

I'm a dad and I'm a step-dad.
Ellie is a mum and she is a step-mum.

The word "step" comes from the old English word "steop" which literally means "loss". ?There are many people in step-families up and down the country of course - we are not that unusual. ?However in our situation the loss isn't caused by divorce, betrayal or any other personal choice, it's caused by something we had no control over - the death of a loved one.

The most encouraging thing I know is that God's family is a step-family too. ?His family is made up of a jumble of different people from different backgrounds and experiences, uniting around their love for Jesus and for each other. ?God's family also represents the creation of something new out of the brokenness and loss of the past. ?It's a fabulous inspiration for our family!

This past year has been a huge learning experience, and has had many challenges, many tears, some failings and some great triumphs too. ?Sometimes as parents we've felt like we're treading on egg shells and much of the time life has felt overwhelmingly draining emotionally....but slowly and surely we are evolving a unique family identity that is a privilege to both Ellie and I; shepherding the hearts of five delightful and precious children into adulthood.

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Dean Obeidallah: Do Women Really Deserve to Be Paid the Same As Men?

What do you think the pay would be for two people working in the same workplace, doing the same job for the same length of time? If your answer was "the same," odds are you would be wrong if one of those two employees was a woman.

Women in America are in general paid less than men. That is a fact. And not just a few cents less, but women on average earn only 77 cents for every dollar a man is paid for the equivalent job. Think about this for a moment: Women will be paid almost 25-percent less than their male co-worker doing the identical job, not because one is better at the job but simply because one is a woman.

It's even worse for women of color. African-American women only earn approximately 62 cents, and Latinas only 53 cents, for each dollar earned by a white male co-worker.

That's the bad news. Here's the worse news: The U.S. Senate considered legislation that could have finally remedy this injustice, but Republicans in the Senate blocked the vote on this proposed legislation.

Here's my simple question: How can anyone be opposed to ending income discrimination based on gender? Do Republican Senators actually believe that America's working mothers, wives, and daughters are inherently less valuable than men? When the Republican Senators were raising their daughters, did they tell them that they should dream big but that because of their gender, they don't deserve to be paid the same as a man?

Senate Republicans opposed this proposed law for the simple reason that they stand with big business over the average American women. Taking their lead from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other big-business groups, they complained that this proposed law would have created additional government regulations. Indeed, the Chamber of Commerce states that they "vigorously oppose" the law while claiming that they have "no tolerance for discrimination." This only makes sense in the bizzaro world; how can you oppose discrimination and then oppose a law that would eliminate that very thing?!

The legislation at issue was entitled the Paycheck Fairness Act and was introduced by Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski. The proposed law simply sought to update the original 1963 Equal Pay Act, which first addressed this issue. While the gender pay gap has closed a bit since then, this law would have closed loopholes to further reduce, and hopefully eliminate, unfair pay practices.

Had it been enacted, the law would have provided, among other things, increased penalties against employers for violations, including providing a statutory right for women to seek punitive damages. It also would have clarified the acceptable defenses for employers and prohibited employers from retaliating against employees who revealed their income level.

President Obama was vocally in favor of this law. So what about the presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney? This bastion of "leadership" took no position on this legislation. Instead, he ducked the issue the best he could. This truly speaks volumes about the man who says he is the best candidate to be leader of the free world but refuses to stand up for the women of America.

I propose that every senator who opposed this legislation be paid only 77 cents for each dollar paid to their Congressional counterparts who supported the law. I know that this reduction in pay will not have a real impact on their lives, given that the estimated median net worth of a U.S. senator is $2.56 million, but it could be a teaching moment. Perhaps if these senators understood the feeling of frustration and powerlessness caused by discrimination, they would fight to eliminate it.

The Republicans in the Senate -- and Mitt Romney -- need to make it clear that they unequivocally oppose income discrimination based on gender and make clear whether they stand with big business or our nation's women.

?

Follow Dean Obeidallah on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Deanofcomedy

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New brain target for appetite control identified

Friday, June 8, 2012

Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) have identified a brain receptor that appears to play a central role in regulating appetite. The findings, published today in the online edition of Cell, could lead to new drugs for preventing or treating obesity.

"We've identified a receptor that is intimately involved in regulating food intake," said study leader Domenico Accili, MD, professor of Medicine at CUMC. "What is especially encouraging is that this receptor is belongs to a class of receptors that turn out to be good targets for drug development, making it a highly 'druggable' target. In fact, several existing medications already seem to interact with this receptor. So, it's possible that we could have new drugs for obesity sooner rather than later."

In their search for new targets for obesity therapies, scientists have focused on the hypothalamus, a tiny brain structure that regulates appetite. Numerous studies suggest that the regulatory mechanism is concentrated in neurons that express a neuropeptide, or brain modulator, called AgRP. But the specific factors that influence AgRP expression are not known.

The CUMC researchers found new clues to appetite control by tracing the actions of insulin and leptin. Both hormones are involved in maintaining the body's energy balance, and both are known to inhibit AgRP. "Surprisingly, blocking either the insulin or leptin signaling pathway has little effect on appetite," says Dr. Accili. "We hypothesized that both pathways have to be blocked simultaneously in order to influence feeding behavior."

To test their hypothesis, the researchers created a strain of mice whose AgRP neurons lack a protein that is integral to both insulin and leptin signaling. As the researchers hypothesized, removing this protein ? Fox01 ? had a profound effect on the animals' appetite. "Mice that lack Fox01 ate less and were leaner than normal mice," said lead author Hongxia Ren, PhD, associate research scientist in Medicine. "In addition, the Fox01-deficient mice had better glucose balance and leptin and insulin sensitivity ? all signs of a healthier metabolism."

Since Fox01 is a poor drug target, the researchers searched for other ways to inhibit the action of this protein. Using gene-expression profiling, they found a gene that is highly expressed in mice with normal AgRP neurons but is effectively silenced in mice with Fox01-deficient neurons. That gene is Gpr17 (for G-protein coupled receptor 17), which produces a cell-surface receptor called Gpr17.

To confirm that the receptor is involved in appetite control, the researchers injected a Gpr17 activator into normal mice, and their appetite increased. Conversely, when the mice were given a Gpr17 inhibitor, their appetite decreased. Similar injections had no effect on Fox01-deficient mice.

According to Dr. Accili, there are several reasons why Gpr17, which is also found in humans, would be a good target for anti-obesity medications. Since Grp17 is part of the so-called G-protein-coupled receptor family, it is highly druggable. About a third of all existing drugs work through G-protein-coupled receptors. In addition, the receptor is abundant in AgRP neurons but not in other neurons, which should limit unwanted drug side effects.

###

Columbia University Medical Center: http://www.cumc.columbia.edu

Thanks to Columbia University Medical Center for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Video: The wild ride with Clinton at your side

Foursquare now suggests your next check-in

Foursquare is getting a snazzy redesign. On Thursday, brand-new versions of the location-based social networking service's apps are being released. What's changing? Well ... a lot. The app's basically been torn apart and rebuilt from the ground up. It no longer simply helps you share your location, but now actually guides you to new places.

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Fiancee: Vet gave show errant photo by 'mistake'

In this photo provided by NBCUniversal, Timothy Michael Poe appears on "America's Got Talent," on the episode that aired Monday, June 4, 2012. Poe, who claimed he was injured during a grenade blast in Afghanistan, has no military record of his purported combat injuries, the Minnesota National Guard said Tuesday, June 5, 2012. (AP Photo/NBC, Virginia Sherwood)

In this photo provided by NBCUniversal, Timothy Michael Poe appears on "America's Got Talent," on the episode that aired Monday, June 4, 2012. Poe, who claimed he was injured during a grenade blast in Afghanistan, has no military record of his purported combat injuries, the Minnesota National Guard said Tuesday, June 5, 2012. (AP Photo/NBC, Virginia Sherwood)

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) ? An "America's Got Talent" contestant scrutinized for claims about being injured in Afghanistan made a mistake when he gave the show a photograph of another soldier and passed it off as himself, the man's fianc?e said Thursday.

The NBC series this week and WFAA-TV of Dallas last month used the picture with segments on Timothy Michael Poe, a former Minnesota Army National Guard member who said he suffered a broken back and brain injury in a grenade attack in Afghanistan in 2009. The Guard says military records don't substantiate his claims.

The caption of the original picture on the official military website Defense.gov shows Staff Sgt. Norman Bone serving in Afghanistan in 2006.

Poe has declined multiple requests for comment from The Associated Press this week. But his fiancee, Carrie Morris, said Thursday that Poe accidentally submitted the photo to NBC and the station because he was hurrying and didn't take the time to look at which picture he was sending. She said he probably thought it was the right picture when he sent it to "America's Got Talent" because he already had sent it to WFAA.

Morris said she didn't know where Poe got the picture of Bone but that "he downloads military stuff all the time" and that other people send them pictures as well.

"But I know that it was a mistake on his part. It was an accident. It was a complete accident," Morris said.

Bone declined to comment to The Associated Press when reached on his cellphone Thursday, saying he wanted to consult with legal counsel because he's still on active duty.

NBC referred a call for comment to the show's producer, FremantleMedia North America. In a statement emailed to the AP, FreMantle Media spokesman Neil Schubert apologized to Bone for the photo's misuse. He said it has been removed and won't be used again.

"It was supplied to us by Tim and used on the show in good faith," Schubert said.

WFAA assistant news director Chris Berg also confirmed Poe sent them the picture.

"Today they told our reporter they made a mistake and sent the wrong picture," Berg said by email. "Fiancee told us 'Tim forgets things.'"

Poe, 35, of San Antonio, Texas, told WFAA that he also wounded was while serving in Iraq when his truck got hit by an IED in 2005 ? something the Guard also disputes.

Minnesota Army National Guard spokesman Lt. Col Kevin Olson reiterated Thursday that there were no official records showing Poe ever deployed to Iraq or was injured there. He said Poe reported to Camp Shelby in Mississippi "for pre-mobilization training on Sept. 21, 2005, but ultimately did not deploy."

Military records show Poe served with the Guard from December 2002 through May 2011, as a supply specialist. He was deployed in Kosovo from October 2007 to July 2008, and then served in Afghanistan for about a month in 2009. He was honorably discharged in 2011, because of a physical disability.

Olson said none of the military records that Morris provided to reporters Wednesday backed up Poe's claims of combat injuries. He said other documents indicate Poe suffered the injury that led to his medical retirement while training at Indiana's Camp Atterbury in July 2009, before he deployed to Afghanistan.

"If Mr. Poe has additional information to support his claims, we welcome it, and we will also continue to investigate and if appropriate, pursue a correction to his medical records and status," Olson wrote.

In the "America's Got Talent" episode that aired Monday, Poe told the celebrity judges that he spent 14 years in the military and was injured in Afghanistan.

"I had volunteered for a team to go out and clear buildings and help out with the wounded," Poe said during a taped interview on the show. "There was a guy who comes up with a rocket-propelled grenade. I saw it coming down, and by the time I turned and went to jump on top of my guys, I yelled 'grenade' and the blast had hit me."

It's unclear whether Poe could face any legal action since he is no longer in the military. While a federal law called the Stolen Valor Act allows prosecution of people who make false claims about receiving medals, Poe didn't say anything about medals in the NBC or WFAA segments.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule within a few weeks on whether the law is constitutional.

Associated Press

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