Twitter and Apple prepare to launch music services

Apple and Twitter are both expected to make significant incursions into the music space in the near future in moves that could challenge Spotify, Pandora and other independent music services.

Apple is understood to be preparing a music streaming service that would challenge existing ones such as Spotify and Pandora in the US, after reports said that it was close to securing licensing deals with Universal Music and Warner Music, two of the three major music labels. Negotiations with the third, Sony Music, are said to be “less advanced”, while there is no indication of independent labels’ willingness to sign.

But industry gossip points to a launch of the service, perhaps called “iRadio”, later this year. That would cement Apple’s position in the digital music space, where its iTunes Music Store â€" which is ten years old this month â€" already makes it the biggest music retailer in the world.

Music streaming is a fast-growing space, where the number of subscribers grew 44% in 2012 to 20m.

Twitter meanwhile is expected to launch a dedicated product optimised for music, being readied by Twitter for launch at this weekend’s Coachella music festival, where artists including Blur will be playing.

Twitter Music, which is being teased with a holding page, is thought to offer users a version of Twitter optimised for music, including enhanced player tools supporting Soundcloud and iTunes, rich follower tools for favourite bands, suggestions and trends, and a recommendation service between friends.

The service has been built by the We Are Hunted team, an Australian music discovery and sharing tool quietly acquired by Twitter this year. The deal was only announced yesterday with a statement on the a href=”"We Are Hunted/a site which said: “While we are shutting down wearehunted.com, we will continue to create services that will delight you, as part of the Twitter team.

“There’s no question that Twitter and music go well together. Artists turn to Twitter first to connect with fans, and people share and discover new songs and albums every day. We can’t wait to share what we’ve been working on at Twitter … you will hear more from us.”

Apple’s negotiations with labels were reported by a href=”"The Verge/a, noting that talks with Sony were less advanced. Apple hopes that iRadio, as the planned new service had been dubbed, will help push download sales by helping users discover new music â€" implying that its Genius recommendation tool and Ping network have not done the job.

Negotiations have not run smoothly; Apple had initially been pushing for a royalty rate of around 6c per 100 streamed songs â€" roughly half what rival service Pandora currently pays. Current negotiations have doubled that rate. There has been speculation that the basic iRadio service would be free and ad-supported, and launch at Apple’s next developer conference in summer.

Music analyst Alice Enders said that Twitter Music was unlikely to present any challenge to the mainstream commercial music space. “It is not a game changer â€" it’s niche, a recommendation-based service for people that aren’t representative of the billions of people that consume music,” she said. A commission-based system for sales on a third-party site would be an unlikely revenue stream, she said, because it would drive users off the Twitter platform, so further promotional advertising products are the most likely revenue streams for the service.

But Apple’s service was most likely to present a challenge to Pandora, the online radio service that now claims to be used by as much as one third of the US online audience, she said.

“The real question is Apple going to attract users away from Pandora,” said Enders. “It’s a big decision for the recorded music industry whether Apple should become a subscription service, noting that the all-you-can-eat service seems to be the nirvana for the music industry even though there is the potential to cannibalise download sales.”

She added that though successful in the US, the Pandora model has not achieved that scale in other markets which would limit the potential for an Apple product based on that model.

Soundcloud declined to comment on Twitter Music, and Twitter said it could not comment beyond the statement on We Are Hunted‘s site.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment. Universal Music made no comment.

Psy Is No 'Gentleman' In New Music Video

Evidenced by Psy’s music video for “Gentleman,” the follow-up to his zeitgeist-busting hit “Gangnam Style,” the Korean pop star has pretty clearly let mega-success go to his head.

In the four-minute clip for his new single, which debuted Saturday (April 13), Psy parades through a series of chic restaurants and shops, playing pranks on female companions eager to join his entourage.

The song’s throbbing electro beat immediately recalls the irresistible catchiness of “Gangnam Style,” but Psy’s performance only showcases how much sillier he’s become in the wake of his emergence as a worldwide phenomenon. Evidently he’s so rich now he can afford to get his tongue surgically embedded in his cheek. Although he expands upon the garish lifestyle he chronicled in the YouTube-record-breaking clip for its predecessor, “Gentleman” effectively parodies a rich heel, subjecting ladies within his celebrity orbit to “Billy Madison”-style gags like pulling chairs out from beneath them and speeding up treadmills until they fall off.

Although stink-palming a girl in a library ranks among the video’s best moments, his “performance” of an (admittedly unclear) English language lyric is the one we love best: As he says either “Wet Psy!” or “West Side” (and we hope it’s the former), Psy and two bikini-clad women are catapulted into a swimming pool. Meanwhile, he gleefully terrorizes a kids’ soccer game and holds up an unfortunate elevator passenger who desperately needs to pee before meeting his match â€" a buxom gym rat who gives him a taste of his own medicine.

One-hit wonder or not, Psy is clearly savvy enough to take advantage of his 15 minutes of fame, even if he doesn’t seem to take it too seriously. Even before the video cuts to behind-the-scenes footage of Psy laughing his way through its goofiest moments, he simultaneously satirizes superstardom and attempts to enhance his own, aiming to re-create “Gangnam Style” magic with a new dance routine. Will it work? I guess we’ll know when Matt Lauer starts doing it on the “Today” show.

Tune in to the 2013 MTV Movie Awards Sunday at 9 p.m. when host Rebel Wilson takes the stage at the Sony Pictures Studios lot in Culver City, California. But first, don’t miss our live red-carpet pre-show at 8:30 p.m., and be sure to watch our All Access Live streaming cameras all night long.

Jay-Z's Obama Lyrics On 'Open Letter' Provoke White House Response

By Sowmya Krishnamurthy

Yesterday, Jay-Z released the new track “Open Letter,” in which he shouts out his friend President Barack Obama, and it’s actually provoked a response from the White House.

Hov fired back at critics who blasted his recent trip to Cuba with wife Beyonce and spoke of a conversation with Obama about getting the POTUS impeached. “Obama said, Chill, you gonna get me impeached/ You don’t need this shit anyway/Chill with me on the beach,’” Hov raps.

The White House is going on the record, denying that Obama spoke to Jay-Z about his Cuba trip. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told White House reporters “the only reason Jay-Z implicated Obama in his new song is because it’s hard to find something that rhymes with treasury,” per TMZ.

TMZ shares that Carney claims Barack had no contact with Jay-Z about the Cuba trip and it was handled by the Treasury Dept.

MTV News reported that Jay and Beyonce had proper papers for their recent Cuban excursion and that the cultural trip was fully licensed by the Treasury, according to an unnamed source familiar with the pair’s itinerary.

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Icy clouds over Titan's south pole hint that fall has come

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has beamed back some very interesting images of Saturn’s largest moon Titan. The images were sent back by the Cassini spacecraft and show that an icy cloud is beginning to grow over the south pole of the moon. NASA says that that icy cloud indicates that fall has begun on Titan’s southern hemisphere.

Scientists and researchers don’t know what the cloud is made up of, but a similar cloud has been dissipating over Titan’s north pole where springtime has begun. The NASA researchers associate the cloud forming over the southern pole of the moon with winter weather. NASA says that the interesting thing about the cloud forming over the south pole is that this is the first time this sort of cloud has been detected anywhere other than the north pole of the moon.

Titan is very interesting to astronomers and scientists, it is the second largest moon in the entire solar system. Titan is also the only moon that has clouds and a dense atmosphere similar to a planet. Observations made by the Cassini spacecraft have noted that warmer air from the southern hemisphere of the moon rises into the atmosphere and then gets dumped on the moon’s North pole.

As that air descends from high in the atmosphere to the North pole of Titan it cools and forms the icy cloud. While here on earth we get several seasons in a single calendar year, Titan has a much longer seasonal pattern. The north pole of Titan begin transitioning from winter to spring in August of 2009. However, the first signs of the ice cloud in the southern hemisphere weren’t spotted until July of 2012. While scientists don’t know what the clouds on Titan are made from, they do know a few things the cloud cover isn’t made from. Scientists have ruled out chemicals such as methane, ethane, and hydrogen cyanide.

[via Space.com]

Half-Human, Half Ape Ancestor Walked Pigeon-Toed

Two million years ago in South Africa, part-human and part-ape-like individuals existed — and now we know what they looked like and how they behaved: They had a primitive, pigeon-toed gait, human-like front teeth, ate mostly veggies and spent a lot of time swinging in the trees.

The species, Australopithecus sediba, is a striking example of human evolution, conclude six papers published in the journal Science. Taken together, the papers describe how Au. sediba looked, walked, chewed and moved.

“Sediba shows a strange mix of primitive australopithecine traits and derived Homo traits — face and anterior dentition like Homo, shape of the cranium like Homo, other parts of the face and size of the cranium like an australopithecine, arms like an australopithecine, pelvis and lower limbs like Homo and feet and ankles like an australopithecine,” project leader Lee Berger told Discovery News.

PHOTOS: Faces of Our Ancestors

“It does look like a good ‘transitional’ fossil, doesn’t it?” added Berger, who is a researcher in the Wits Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand. He named the species, which was found at a site called Malapa, near Johannesburg.

The tooth study found that Au. sediba was closely related to Au. africanus, which lived until about 2.1 million years ago. These species, in turn, shared numerous dental similarities with Homo erectus, an early human species.

“All of the research so far shows that sediba had a mosaic of primitive traits and newer traits that suggest it was a bridge between earlier australopiths and the first humans,” said Debbie Guatelli-Steinberg, co-author of one of the studies and a professor of anthropology at Ohio State University.

NEWS: ‘Ardi,’ Oldest Human Ancestor, Unveiled

Prior research determined what Au. sediba ate.

Peter Schmid of the University of Zurich, who also analyzed this species’ remains, shared that the early probable ancestor was not a carnivore.

“Microscopic elements of plants were found in the tartar of the teeth of Au. sediba,” Schmid told Discovery News. “It was largely a vegetarian and shows a rather human-like chewing apparatus.”

In terms of how it walked, Schmid and the other researchers explained that Au. sediba had a small heel resembling that of a chimp. It walked rather awkwardly — with an inward rotation of the knee and hip, with its feet slightly twisted. The scientists conclude that this pigeon-toed way of walking on two limbs might have been an evolutionary compromise between walking upright and tree climbing.

Such a detailed understanding of these movements is possible because remains for a female Au. sediba preserve her heel, ankle, knee, hip and lower back. In contrast, the famous “Lucy” skeleton, representative of the species Au. afarensis, only preserves a hip and ankle.

Yet another new study analyzed Au. sediba’s upper limbs. They were “primitive,” meaning more like those of an ape, suggesting that these individuals still spent some time swinging and climbing in trees.

This again makes Au. sediba a good candidate as a transitional species, because it appears to have spent most of its time on the ground, but it hadn’t entirely left the trees yet.

“The terrestrial adaptation was much more evolved, but there are indications that it had still a large part of climbing in its locomotor spectrum,” Schmid explained.

All in all, the papers make a strong case that early human evolution took place in South Africa following an expected sequential manner, from more ape-like to more human-associated characteristics.

The case isn’t closed yet, however, as still other researchers believe that additional australopithecines, such as Lucy, gave rise to our ancestors. Lucy’s species has only been found in northern Africa so far.

Africa was clearly a hotbed of early human evolution, but further research is needed to pinpoint exactly where our lineage began.

DE Jadeveon Clowney catches TD

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The most watched player at South Carolina got just one play at Saturday’s spring game.

And Jadeveon Clowney scored a touchdown.

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Gamecocks coach Steve Spurrier had the All-American defensive end run the coach’s annual pass-to-someone-coming-off-the-sideline play. Clowney, wearing sneakers, shorts and no pads, caught the pass from freshman Connor Mitch, but awkwardly slipped as he turned for the end zone. However, the referee “missed” him hitting the ground, and Clowney threw the ball in the stands after the 54-yard touchdown.

Spurrier has always taken a breezy attitude to spring practice and his spring game. There are no real rosters — tight end Jerell Adams briefly led both the Black and the Garnett teams in receiving in the first half. Spurrier boosts scoring by having bonus kicks with just a snapper and holder after each quarter and the defenses can’t blitz and are limited to basic coverages.

“Spring practice is important for the younger guys. I guess one reason I don’t get all fired up for spring practice is I only went through one of them in my three years of them at Florida. I got hurt the other two — nothing serious,” Spurrier said of his days at quarterback with the Gators in the mid-1960s.

The Gamecocks are coming off back-to-back 11-win seasons and Spurrier thinks they have the talent to contend for the Southeastern Conference title again as long as hard work follows.

“I think we do have the chance to have a good team,” Spurrier said. “But it could go anywhere to winning season to big winning season to losing season.”

Plenty of eyes will be on Clowney, who is one of the most hyped defensive player in the country. Clowney sitting out Saturday wasn’t a surprise. Defensive coordinator Lorenzo Ward said before drills even started that Clowney wouldn’t be scrimmaging much, keeping with Spurrier’s spring practice philosophy of giving most of the work to younger players. Then the junior’s neck got stiff after a hit just before the last week of practice and the coaches decided he didn’t need to do anything else before the fall.

“Spring is really about learning the playbook,” Clowney said.

Plus, Clowney’s brand of havoc doesn’t transfer well when he is going against his own team. He hopes to make a Heisman Trophy push this year, helped by plays like the one hee made on Michigan’s Vincent Smith in the Outback Bowl. Clowney knocked Smith’s helmet, and the ball loose. The picture of the play is on the cover of the Gamecocks’ spring notebook.

“A guy that made the hit that keeps on hitting,” Spurrier said to the crowd as he led the halftime awards ceremony, which included Clowney getting the Ted Hendricks Award as the nation’s best defensive end from Hendricks himself.

Quarterback Connor Shaw also sat out the spring game as he recovers from foot surgery. Shaw, a senior is expected to share snaps with Dylan Thompson, a junior. Thompson played only one of the 12-minute quarters Saturday, going 6-for-10 for 96 yards and an interception with a 6-yard touchdown pass to Shaq Roland.

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Spurrier “told me to expect to play a lot. Whatever that means, it means,” Thompson said. “But I think he has confidence in both myself and Connor that we aren’t going to look at it as a selfish thing. Obviously I know Connor is here, and he knows I am here.”

Elsewhere on offense, the Gamecocks have questions. Spurrier needs receivers to step up to replace Ace Sanders, who left early for the NFL. The Gamecocks also have to replace running back Marcus Lattimore, who also left early after missing half of last season with a knee injury.

Spurrier will likely use sophomores Mike Davis and Brandon Wilds regularly in fall. Davis carried the ball twice, including a 25-yard TD run. Wilds had seven carries for 31 yards.

The tight ends are solid, with Spurrier happy that even fourth string Jeff Homad caught a TD pass. The rest of the offensive line has more questions, leading to the best Spurrier quote of the spring at a practice earlier this month.

“Offensive line has got to learn how to block. They’re pretty good at everything except blocking. Unfortunately, that’s all we ask them to do,” Spurrier said.

Even with Clowney prowling up front, there are questions on defense. The Gamecocks lost all their starting linebackers. It is much tougher to judge any progress the defense makes in spring because Spurrier keeps a leash on the hitting. Freshman free safety Chaz Elder did have two of the defense’s three interceptions, and freshman strong safety Kyle Fleetwood returned a fumble seven yards for a touchdown.

But Spurrier, who suffered through a 14-7 spring game right after he arrived at South Carolina nine years ago, wants to see plenty of offense in his scrimmages. For what it is worth, the Black beat the Garnet 44-30 this year.

“Coach Spurrier says, if you have all the fans out here like we had today, they want to see points on the board,” said Ward, who just goes along with Spurrier’s show. “Me, as a defensive coordinator, I hate to see points on the board. Hopefully you saw as many points on that board today as you are going to see all season.”

Copyright 2013 by The Associated Press

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Brains as Clear as Jell-O for Scientists to Explore

Scientists at Stanford University reported on Wednesday that they have made a whole mouse brain, and part of a human brain, transparent so that networks of neurons that receive and send information can be highlighted in stunning color and viewed in all their three-dimensional complexity without slicing up the organ.

Even more important, experts say, is that unlike earlier methods for making the tissue of brains and other organs transparent, the new process, called Clarity by its inventors, preserves the biochemistry of the brain so well that researchers can test it over and over again with chemicals that highlight specific structures and provide clues to past activity. The researchers say this process may help uncover the physical underpinnings of devastating mental disorders like schizophrenia, autism, post-traumatic stress disorder and others.

The work, reported on Wednesday in the journal Nature, is not part of the Obama administration’s recently announced initiative to probe the secrets of the brain, although the senior author on the paper, Dr. Karl Deisseroth at Stanford, was one of those involved in creating the initiative and is involved in planning its future.

Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, which provided some of the financing for the research, described the new work as helping to build an anatomical “foundation” for the Obama initiative, which is meant to look at activity in the brain.

Dr. Insel added that the technique works in a human brain that has been in formalin, a preservative, for years, which means that long-saved human brains may be studied. “Frankly,” he said, “that is spectacular.”

Kwanghun Chung, the primary author on the paper, and Dr. Deisseroth worked with a team at Stanford for years to get the technique right. Dr. Deisseroth, known for developing another powerful technique, called optogenetics, that allows the use of light to switch specific brain activity on and off, said Clarity could have a broader impact than optogenetics. “It’s really one of the most exciting things we’ve done,” he said, with potential applications in neuroscience and beyond.

“I think it’s great,” said Dr. Clay Reid, a senior investigator at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, who was not involved in the work. “One of the very difficult challenges has been making the brain, which is opaque, clear enough so that you can see deep into it.” This technique, he said, makes brains “extremely clear” and preserves most of the brain chemistry. “It has it all,” he said.

In the mid-2000s, a team led by Dr. Jeff Lichtman at Harvard developed a process called Brainbow to breed mice that are genetically altered to make their brain neurons fluoresce in many different colors. The new technique would allow whole brains of those mice with their rainbow neurons to be preserved and studied.

“I’m quite excited to try this,” Dr. Lichtman said.

There are several ways to make tissue transparent. The key to the new technique is a substance called a hydrogel, a material that is mostly water held together by larger molecules to give it some solidity.

Dr. Chung said the hydrogel forms a kind of mesh that permeates the brain and connects to most of the molecules, but not to the lipids, which include fats and some other substances. The brain is then put in a soapy solution and an electric current is applied, which drives the solution through the brain, washing out the lipids. Once they are out, the brain is transparent, and its biochemistry is intact, so it may be infused with chemicals, like antibody molecules that also have a dye attached, that show fine details of its structure and previous activity.

Techniques like this, said Dr. Insel, “should give us a much more precise picture of what is happening in the brains of people who have schizophrenia, autism, post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder and depression.”

The tricky part was getting the right combination of temperature, electricity and solution. And it was very tricky indeed, said Dr. Chung. Over the course of years spent trying to make it work, he said, “I burned and melted more than a hundred brains.”

But with the paper’s publication, the recipe is now available to anyone who wants to use it, and, he said, “I think it will be relatively easy.”

The technique has its limits, of course. Dr. Chung said more work needed to be done before it could be applied to a whole human brain, because a human’s brain is so much larger than a mouse’s, and has more lipids.

Dr. Chung said he planned to start his own lab soon and to work on refining the technology. But he pointed out that it is already known that it works on all tissue, not just brains, and can be used to look for structures other than nerve cells. On his laboratory bench, he said, “I have a transparent liver, lungs and heart.”

Dr. Reid agreed that Clarity had applications in many fields. “It could permeate biology,” he said.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: April 10, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated Dr. Clay Reid’s work with Dr. Jeff Lichtman of Harvard. Dr. Reid was involved in Dr. Lichtman’s Connectome Project, not on the Brainbow team.

'Glee' Enlists Patty Duke, Meredith Baxter as Blaine Preps Proposal

Fox's musical dramedy jumped 20 percent among adults 18-49 for an episode that dealt with a shooting at the school. Glee delivered 6.8 million viewers and a 2.4 rating in the demo, climbing from its last original episode three weeks ago. Lead-in

E! News confirms that veteran actresses Patty Duke and Meredith Baxter will guest star as a lesbian couple that has been together for 25 years, first appearing on the Glee Season 4 finale and then recurring on Glee Season 5… assuming there IS a Glee

E! News confirms that veteran actresses Patty Duke and Meredith Baxter will guest star as a lesbian couple that has been together for 25 years, first appearing on the Glee Season 4 finale and then recurring on Glee Season 5… assuming there IS a Glee

E! News confirms that veteran actresses Patty Duke and Meredith Baxter will guest star as a lesbian couple that has been together for 25 years, first appearing on the Glee Season 4 finale and then recurring on Glee Season 5… assuming there IS a Glee

New Glee castmembers appearing in the finale reveal some SERIOUS spoilers about a prospective wedding coming in season five!

Two new bills aim to strengthen mental health help

An Indiana lawmaker has introduced two bills aimed at improving mental health coverage for service members.

Rep. Andre Carson, a Democrat who had two military mental health bills signed into law in 2011, now proposes improved mental health assessments for service members returning from contingency operations and better notice of what mental health services are available.

The goal, he said, is to reduce suicides by improving access to mental health services and providing notice throughout a military career that mental health services are available and that there is nothing wrong with seeking help.

Both bills were introduced Wednesday.

The Military Suicide Reduction Act, HR 1463, would improve the mental health assessments already provided to troops when they return from deployments on contingency operations. Better screening might help identify people who need counseling, Carson said.

“We are quick to diagnose and treat service members who are injured in combat, with medics rushing to those who are struck by enemy IEDs or gunfire,” he said. “When it comes to the mental health challenges placed on our service members, we abandon them through months of deployment to deal with post traumatic stress disorder, depression and suicidal thoughts.”

The Military Mental Health Empowerment Act, HR 1464, tries to encourage more people to seek mental health counseling if they need it by providing notice, beginning in the first days of military training, about the availability of help and by attempting to eliminate the perceived stigma associated with seeking help by strengthening privacy policies.

“Seeking help shouldn’t be something our service members have to second guess,” Carson said. “They shouldn’t have to fear drawing unwanted attention to themselves or derailing their careers.”

MTV star Farrah Abraham's porn video 'a new low of lows,' experts say

LOS ANGELES â€"  There’s low, and then there’s low.

Former MTV reality star Farrah Abraham, 21, who shot to fame as a subject of the network’s “16 and Pregnant” in 2009 and its spinoff “Teen Mom,” admitted this week that she had sex on camera with professional porn star James Deen. It was then widely assumed the idea was that the video was to then be “leaked” as a celebrity sex tape.

While sex tapes are nothing new in the scandal drenched Hollywood community, some argue that hiring a “pro” to orchestrate a fake sex tape is evidence of a whole new level of desperation.

“Staging an event like this is really a desperate cry for fame. As the old adage goes, fame is fleeting and only lasts fifteen minutes. But today’s stars, and reality stars in particular, are looking for ways to make their fame last as long as possible,” sociologist popular culture expert Dr. Hilary Levey Friedman told FOX411’s Pop Tarts column. “The way to keep building fame is to be talked about, and in our crowded media space it takes something quite controversial to get so much ink.”

Life and career strategist Suzannah Galland says Abraham’s stunt says a lot about our culture.

“Hollywood’s impact has misguided youth yet again. This is a new low of lows where the latest self-creative hype is shaped around being crude and in your face,” she said. “It’s very clear that being an exhibitionist is in demand, and will encourage other aspiring fame seekers to crave the same kind of attention.”

Even though it worked for the likes of Kim Kardashian, who several years ago shot to international fame and spawned a reality television empire after her sex tape with rapper Ray-J surfaced, some industry experts are not convinced that celebrity sex tapes in today’s media climate have the same fame and fortune-wielding impact. 

In other words, Abraham may very well have taken her clothes off for nothing.

“The power of sex tapes to boost a would-be celebrity’s career is very difficult to predict. I don’t know whether it will revive, boost or prolong Farah’s career, but it has limited her options,” said Quentin Boyer, public relations director for adult entertainment site Pink Visual. “Reality TV evidently doesn’t mind if its assorted personalities have a ‘porn past,’ but a whole lot of other industries and markets do.”

However, Joanna Angel, the co-founder of the Burning Angel porn company,  says the press surrounding Abraham’s video is proof it was a good idea.

“The fact of the matter is a few weeks ago this girl was just some girl on a past season of a reality TV show. She was actually one of the more responsible moms on the show â€" yes I watch it â€" which should be a good thing, but unfortunately it made her yesterday’s news really quickly,” Angel said. “The more messed up moms on the show, like Amber and Janelle, are in gossip magazines all the times because they are constantly in and out of rehab or jail or whatever. In any case, everyone is talking about her now. And what is she going to do, get a ‘real job?’ It’s hard to go from being on TV to being a manager at Best Buy.”

Getting down and dirty for the cameras isn’t Abraham’s only attempt to stay relevant since her MTV series wrapped in August of last year. Immediately after the show’s conclusion, she released a song and a music video featuring her young daughter, Sophia, wrote a book entitled “My Teenage Dream Ended,” marketed her own pasta sauce, and completed some sexy bikini modeling shoots.

But it seems Abraham isn’t quite ready to admit she made her video for the cash and attention. Instead she is claiming that she is a “great woman, mother and entrepreneur” and that she simply wanted her own personal video made and photos taken for her own personal viewing pleasure when she is older, so that she will have her “best year to look back on.”

“Society has taught this young woman and many others that ‘shock and awe’ gets attention and that being a sex on our object is highly valued by our culture. We reward immature and trashy behavior and glaze over and ignore those who are making a positive difference in our world,” concluded media activist and director of the “Cover Girl Culture” documentary, Nicole Clark. “It is a sad reflection that many girls have learned from our society, over which Hollywood has a huge influence, that they need to be remembered as sex objects in order to feel worthy and successful.”

Dinosaur embryos FOUND: Resurrection 'out of the question'* - boffin

Dinosaur embryos wiggled around in their eggs just like the embryos of modern birds, scientists have found. The boffins made the discovery after a cache of fossilised dino bones and eggs were dug up in southwest China.

The scientists are hoping to find out more about the Jurassic-era creatures by analysing remnants of complex proteins found in some of the 190-million-year-old fossils.

The researchers studying the oldest dino-embryo fossils ever found have hypothesised that they moved within the egg to exercise muscles and encourage their bones to grow.

More than 200 fossilised bones were dug out of a site near Lufeng in Yunnan, south west China. All the specimens come from the genus called Lufengosaurus, a long-necked, herbivorous beast which weighed more than a tonne and grew up to nine metres long.

Normally scientists find eggs within nests, meaning that they are all at similar points of development. But the huge Lufeng sample featured dinos which were in several different growth stages.

Robert Reisz, a palaeontologist from the University of Toronto Mississauga, in Canada, said: “We are looking at various stages in the embryonic life of this animal, and we can put this together to get a growth trajectory of the embryo itself – something that has never been done before.”

Researchers analysed the femurs of the specimens and found that the bone appeared to be growing extremely quickly within the egg, which indicates that eggs may have been incubated for just a short period.

They also found that the bones were pulled around by muscles inside the eggs, bending them into shape.

“This suggests that dinosaurs, like modern birds, moved around inside their eggs,” said Reisz. “It represents the first evidence of such movement in a dinosaur.”

DInosaur embryos are incredibly rare, generally found only in strata traced back to the Upper Cretaceous, and difficult to study, for the obvious reason that they are found within eggs which scientists are often loathe to crack.

So there was great excitement when three years ago, palaeontologists found the remains of 20 Lufengosaurus embryos among a pile of fossilised bones which dated back to the Jurassic period and are 190 to 197 million years old.

Prof Reisz added: “The nests were inundated by water and basically smothered, and the embryos inside the eggs died and then decayed. “And then more water activity moved the bones and concentrated them into a very small area. We only excavated 1m² of the ‘bone bed’ and we got more than 200 bones.

He suggested the team’s finding proved that dinosaurs emerged from their eggs in a relatively developed state, ready to face the perils of the Jurassic era.

The research was published in Nature. ®

*DNA’s half-life is about 500 years, though fragments of incomplete degrading DNA remain as the proteins slowly dissolve over hundreds of thousands of years. These remains are 190 million years old. Nevertheless, one of the scientists found it necessary to explain, here, that “resurrecting a dinosaur is out of the question.”

Brad Paisley and LL Cool J's New Song "Live for You" Isn't Accidentally Racist

Jerod Harris/ACMA2013/Getty Images

Brad Paisley and LL Cool J‘s “Accidental Racist” follow-up doesn’t raise any red (white and blue Confederate) flags.

On Wednesday, the bromantic duo released “Live for You,” a rap-country mix focusing on loving a lady rather than fixing a racial divide. (Listen for yourself on LL’s SoundCloud page.)

NEWS: More from Brad on why “Accidental Racist” is important to him

The track, which is featured on LL’s upcoming album Authentic, is upbeat and completely non-divisive. LL raps positive verse after verse (such as “Hearts wide open and free / Love is the key”) while a slightly auto-tuned Brad promises endless love in the chorus (“No matter how you feel, where you are / Just know that I love you girl”).

“Live for You” isn’t likely to have the same backlash as “Accidental Racist,” which has come under fire since its release earlier this week. Both LL and Brad, however, have stood by the ditty. The country star said he “wouldn’t change a thing” about the track, while LL told CNN he’s “really proud” of the song and its message.

Much love, y’all.

PHOTOS: Check out more country stars at the 2013 ACM Awards

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Remembering Annette Funicello, America's Mouseketeer

Lance Bass, who was in the boy band 'N Sync with former Mouseketeers Justin Timberlake and JC Chasez, shared these thoughts: "Now it's time… to say goodbye" to Annette Funicello â€" my favorite Mouseketeer ( After JC and Justin of course) Trading in the

LOS ANGELES â€" When she traded in her Mousketeer ears for a surfboard and a modest one-piece bathing suit, Annette Funicello helped create a world as fanciful as Walt Disney's Magic Kingdom. It was the land of perfect waves and sparkling sand, in a

Los Angeles (CNN) — Annette Funicello, one of the best-known members of the original 1950s "Mickey Mouse Club" and a star of numerous 1960s "beach party" films, died Monday at a California hospital, the Walt Disney Co. said. Funicello, who was 70,

Annette Funicello — the undisputed queen of the "Mickey Mouse Club" — has died, according to Disney's official fan club Twitter. She was 70. Funicello…

Handpicked by Walt Disney to be one of the original Mouseketeers, Annette Funicello was America's girl next door. She spoke to Fresh Air in 1994 about Mickey Mouse ears and why she went public with her multiple sclerosis diagnosis. She died Monday at

Fallon Fox Called 'Disgusting Freak' by UFC Fighter Matt Mitrione, Who Is ...

August 18, 2012; San Diego, CA, USA; Ronda Rousey (black shirt) celebrates after she defeated Sarah Kaufman (not pitcured) during their Strikeforce MMA wo.

This Fallon Fox situation is difficult for any number of reasons, not least of which that Saturday's finale for 'The Ultimate Fighter' 17 is being completely overshadowed. It's also difficult because it's so new, novel and offers no easy answers. There

UFC president Dana White was less than thrilled with the comments Matt Mitrione made Monday on “The MMA Hour” regarding Fallon Fox (pictured). The controversial transgender fighter has finally responded to the UFC heavyweight, and to the surprise of

This Fallon Fox situation is difficult for any number of reasons, not least of which that Saturday's finale for 'The Ultimate Fighter' 17 is being completely overshadowed. It's also difficult because it's so new, novel and offers no easy answers. There

A UFC fighter was suspended after making transphobic remarks about transgender fighter Fallon Fox on a webcast of The MMA Hour. Matt Mitrione had just won a match versus Phillip De Fries with a 19-second knockout. On the show two days later, he called

UK lawmakers pay tribute to former PM Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher was a character so singular that it wasâ€"and still isâ€"hard to conjure up the feeling of wanting to grow up to be her. That is a triumph, if one as cold as it is dazzling.

Morrissey BLASTS Margaret Thatcher after her death!

As Bruce Bartlett points out, the Margaret Thatcher American conservatives admire bears little resemblance to the British Prime Minister of the same name. In particular, she did hardly anything to scale down the British welfare state (although she did

London (CNN) — Margaret Thatcher was "an extraordinary leader and an extraordinary woman," British Prime Minister David Cameron said in a special session of Parliament Wednesday. He led tributes to Britain's only female prime minister two days after

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the “Iron Lady” who led a conservative resurgence in her home country and forged a legendary partnership with President Ronald Reagan, died Monday following a stroke.

Video Rewind: Louisville and One Shining Moments from the past

Sometimes, inspiration comes from Larry Bird highlights.

In 1986, the day after he watched Bird highlights in a bar, David Barrett wrote the lyrics to “One Shining Moment.”

It would prove to be the apotheosis of Barrett’s song writing career.

A Luther Vandross recording of the song was used from 2003 until 2009. In 2010, Jennifer Hudson recorded a version for CBS but the network decided to switch back to the Vandross version the next year.

Here’s a blast back in time with One Shining Moment videos celebrating the previous10 NCAA tournaments and their champions.

2012: The Kentucky Wildcats, one of the youngest teams to win the national championship, started three freshmen and two sophomores in the championship game against Kansas. Six players (Anthony Davis, Terrence Jones, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Doron Lamb, Marquis Teague and Darius Miller) were drafted, setting a record for most players picked from one school in the NBA draft.

***

2011: The Connecticut Huskies headed into the Big East Tournament as the No. 9 seed. After winning five games in as many days, the team was awarded an automatic berth to the NCAA tournament. Kemba Walker, who was named the NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player, scored 141 points in six games for the Huskies.

***

2010: The Duke-Butler championship game was nearly decided by Gordon Hayward’s heave from half-court. The shot missed, the Blue Devils prevailed and coach Mike Krzyzewski won his fourth championship at Duke.

***

2009: North Carolina coach Roy Williams notched the fifth NCAA championship title in school history with a veteran squad. Senior Tyler Hansbrough and junior Ty Lawson led the team to a 34-4 record, while junior Wayne Ellington was named the NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player.

***

2008: A Derrick Rose missed free throw gave Kansas guard Mario Chalmers the chance to tie the championship game. Chalmers’ three-pointer sent it into overtime and the Jayhawks defeated Memphis, 75-68.

***

2007: Billy Donovan and the Florida Gators accomplished a feat no team had since 1992: they defended their title. Joakim Noah, Corey Brewer and Al Horford’s decisions to return for their junior seasons to try to win back-to-back titles proved successful.

***

2006: Florida won its first national championship in school history. A trio of sophomores, Joakim Noah, Corey Brewer and Al Horford, helped power the Gators to a 73-57 win over UCLA in the title game.

***

2005: The Tar Heels won it all with a talented team that included four of the top 14 selections in the 2005 NBA draft. Marvin Williams, Raymond Felton, Sean May, who was named the NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player, and Rashad McCants were all first-round picks.

***

2004: It was a good year for UConn basketball. The men’s and women’s teams won national championships, the first time in history that a single university claimed both titles.

***

2003: Jim Boeheim won the first national championship in Syracuse University history with a little help from one star freshman: Carmelo Anthony. Anthony was named the NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player.

Russ Smith to declare for 2013 NBA Draft, father confirms

Russ Smith’s father left no doubt that the junior guard won’t be returning to Louisville, telling Michael Rosenberg of Sports Illustrated in no uncertain terms that the speedy scorer will declare for the NBA draft after his Cardinals won the national championship Monday night.

Smith himself still hasn’t said anything, but his dad, Russ Smith Sr., was pretty adamant about his son’s future:

“When you go out, you want to go out with a national championship,” Smith Sr. said. “He’s got five rings: back-to-back Big East, back-to-back Final Four, national championship. What other way to go out?”

So that’s it?

“That’s it.”

He’s gone?

“He’s gone.”

It’s not a bad idea to go out on top with a ring, although the junior isn’t the greatest draft prospect. For all his explosion as a scorer — he averaged 18.7 points on the season, repeatedly showing his ability to finish at absurd angles in transition — he’s an undersized player at 6’0 without a great jump shot who isn’t interested in passing much. And although he was arguably the best defender in college basketball, there are concerns his size won’t translate to the pros. And he disappeared Monday night — after averaging 25 points per game through the first few rounds of the NCAA Tournament, he went 3-for-16 in the championship. The superstar season should outweigh the one bad outing, but it wasn’t good to face up against a lottery pick in Trey Burke and seem the lesser player.

He should be good for an early second-round or late first-round pick, and could hang around the league for a long time if his defense stays up to par and he learns to distribute or how to consistently knock down open threes. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, and there might not be much left to prove at Louisville — especially after winning a title.

For what it’s worth, his coach is all for it:

“I want to encourage all my guys to put their name in the draft for the experience,” Pitino says, clearly not understanding the new rules.

â€" Dan Wolken (@DanWolken) April 9, 2013

More in College Basketball:

• 10 things we learned in Monday’s title game

• Kevin Ware cuts down the nets

• Make it 3: Cardinals bring home title

• SB Nation presents One Whining Moment

• Luke Hancock wins Most Outstanding Player

• GIFs: Trey Burke’s awesome block (which was called a foul)

                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Mouseketeer, Movie Star Annette Funicello Dies at 70

Matt Damon, Michael Douglas Take on Film Deemed ‘Too Gay’

Many Hospital Deaths Caused by Staff's "Alarm Fatigue"

Anyone who has spent any time in a hospital knows that the rooms are filled with a variety of noises – the whirring of machines, the occasional cough from a patient and a near-incessant barrage of beeping. While the flood of noises may be annoying to a visitor or even a patient staying in hospitals, the effect can be dangerous for the people who work there. According to a recent report by the Joint Commission, “alarm fatigue” may cause hospital staff to miss signs that a patient is in distress, leading to patient injuries and even death.

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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) asserts that there have been over 560 deaths related to alarms. The Joint Commission says that there have been 80 deaths and 13 injuries related to alarms. Because the hospitals report the incidents themselves, the Joint Commission acknowledges that the number may be much higher. The commission, which is responsible for giving and maintaining hospitals coveted accreditation, also notes that ignoring the beeps may set off a chain reaction. That may, in turn, lead to a death or injury, but it is more difficult to attribute the beginning of the chain reaction to beeping alarms.

The Associated Press notes that devices may beep for any number of reasons: they may not be working or there may be an emergency. Since there is a lack of standardization and an abundance of technology, there is very little way for staff members to differentiate among the beeps, leading to a significant portion of the problem.

“Alarm fatigue and management of alarms are important safety issues that we must confront,” Dr. Ana McKee, the executive vice president and chief medical officer of The Joint Commission, said in a statement. “The recommendations in this Alert offer hospitals a framework on which to assess their individual circumstances and develop a systematic, coordinated approach to alarms. By making alarm safety a priority, lives can be saved.”

The organization suggests a number of steps: hospitals should issue guidelines for alarm settings, staff should check, inspect and maintain medical devices equipped with alarms; and that the hospitals should have a system in place for monitoring beeping alarms, among others.

TagsJoint Commission, alarm fatigue, hospital, process, patient death, patient injury

Lip-smacking link between monkeys, humans

The lip-smacking vocalizations gelada monkeys make are surprisingly similar to human speech, a new study finds.

Many nonhuman primates demonstrate lip-smacking behavior, but geladas are the only ones known to make undulating sounds, known as “wobbles,” at the same time. (The wobbling sounds a little like a human hum would sound if the volume were being turned on and off rapidly.) The findings show that lip-smacking could have been an important step in the evolution of human speech, researchers say.

‘It shows that this evolutionary pathway is at least plausible.’

- Thore Bergman of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor

“Our finding provides support for the lip-smacking origins of speech because it shows that this evolutionary pathway is at least plausible,” Thore Bergman of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and author of the study published Monday, April 8, in the journal Current Biology, said in a statement. “It demonstrates that nonhuman primates can vocalize while lip-smacking to produce speechlike sounds.”

Lip-smacking â€" rapidly opening and closing the mouth and lips â€" shares some of the features of human speech, such as rapid fluctuations in pitch and volume. [See Video of Gelada Lip-Smacking]

Bergman first noticed the similarity while studying geladas in the remote mountains of Ethiopia. He would often hear vocalizations that sounded like human voices, but the vocalizations were actually coming from the geladas, he said. He had never come across other primates who made these sounds. But then he read a study on macaques from 2012 revealing how facial movements during lip-smacking were very speechlike, hinting that lip-smacking might be an initial step toward human speech.

To investigate this scenario himself, Bergman analyzed recordings of the geladas’ wobbles. He found that the rhythm of these wobbles closely resembled that of human speech. Specifically, the wobble resulted from a male making a “moan” (something geladas produce by vocalizing while inhaling and exhaling) and lip-smacking. The lip-smacking movements corresponded to the mouth movements made during human speech.

An example of a call involving complex facial movements is the “girney” vocalization in macaques. These are thought to be produced by lip movements and teeth chattering, but evidence suggests the movements and sound don’t occur at the same time. By contrast, the gelada lip-smacking and vocalizing seem to happen concurrently.

The findings suggest lip-smacking represents a possible pathway in the evolution of speech, though not the only one, Bergman said. In addition, lip-smacking may also serve a purely social function, just like human conversations.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Brad Paisley's going to be on LL Cool J's album, too

The country singer/guitarist is one of many guests on the rapper’s new ‘Authentic’ album, due later this month.

LL Cool J gets down with it at the SXSW Festival on March 14.(Photo: Michael Buckner, Getty Images, for SXSW)

Accidental Racist is getting the headlines today, but it’s not the only collaboration between rapper LL Cool J and country singer Brad Paisley.

Paisley guests on Live for You, a track from LL Cool J’s forthcoming album Authentic, set for an April 30 release.

Live for You is a very different kind of song from Accidental Racist, which appears on Paisley’s Wheelhouse album, out today. More a love song than a topical number, it features Paisley singing a falsetto hook and playing guitar.

Paisley on ‘Accidental Racist’: Art should ‘promote discussion’

“I basically brought Brad into my world,” says LL Cool J, who met the singer last September at the iHeart Radio Festival in Las Vegas. “It’s not gimmicky; it’s not some kind of song that isn’t true to who I am as an artist. It’s very current and fresh, in terms of who I am. But it’s not gimmicky.

“He can feel proud of it wherever he goes, and I can feel proud of it wherever I go. It’s very truthful.”

Authentic will feature a broad range of other guests, as well, including Eddie Van Halen, Bootsy Collins, Chuck D of Public Enemy, Charlie Wilson, Monica, Snoop Dogg, Seal, Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and Earth, Wind Fire.

“I went after something that was important to me as a musician and as an artist,” LL Cool J says. “I didn’t try to make a stereotypical rap album. I also was not interested in joining this trend of veteran rappers joining forces with, quite frankly, every younger rapper they could find, in order to use them as some sort of crutch to stay relevant.

“I wanted to do something that made sense for me as a human being and make a body of work that people could listen to and enjoy. I wanted to stay away from anything trendy.”

Taylor Swift, Tim McGraw, & Keith Urban - ACM Awards Performance 2013

Taylor Swift takes the stage with Tim McGraw and Keith Urban at the 2013 Academy of Country Music Awards held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on Sunday (April 7) in Las Vegas, Nev.

The country trio sang the Tim‘s song “Highway Don’t Care” during the big country music award show!

PHOTOS: Check out the latest pics of Taylor Swift

“Backstage…wish us luck!!! #ACMS” Tim tweeted before he, Taylor, and Keith took the stage for the performance.

In case you missed it, check out Taylor‘s red carpet look earlier in the evening â€" as well as Keith‘s look and Tim‘s look from earlier in the night as well!

FYI: Taylor is wearing a Naeem Khan dress, Anna Kern shoes, and Lorraine Schwartz jewelry.

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Practical tips may help parents address kids' obesity

New research studies in this week’s ‘Pediatrics’ address the challenges of helping kids and teens achieve and maintain a healthy weight.

Studies suggest ways to prevent childhood obesity.(Photo: John Moore, Getty Images)

Here’s some practical advice to parents who are concerned about their children’s weight: Serve them meals on smaller plates, pay attention to what they watch on TV, and make sure they get adequate sleep at night.

These suggestions are based on three new studies in April’s Pediatrics, released online today.

Nationally, about a third of kids and adolescents ages 2 to 19 are obese or overweight, government statistics show. Children are classified as overweight or obese based on where they fall on body mass index (BMI) charts, a measure based on height and weight.

In a study of 41 first-graders, researchers found that when given large, adult-size dinner plates and bowls, students served themselves larger portions of food and consumed almost 50% of the extra calories they put on their plates.

On average, 80% of the kids served themselves 90 calories more at lunch when using adult-sized dinner plates than when using child-sized plates (roughly the size of an adult salad plate). And when the kids said they liked the meal, they served themselves an average of 104.2 calories more.

STORY: Most restaurant kids’ meals packed with calories

Although the kids served themselves more of the fruit side dish, they did not take a larger portion of the vegetable side dish.

“We know large portions have a pretty consistent effect in making kids eat more than they would if the portion sizes were smaller, says study co-author Jennifer Orlet Fisher, an associate professor of public health at Temple University in Philadelphia.

“It really seems that offering kids smaller plates could actually be potentially helpful in keeping portion size in check and maybe appetite in check,” she says.

In a paper examining the relationship between different types of “screen” media and increased BMI among young adolescents, researchers find that not all devices have the same effect and that television use appears more problematic.

They compared data collected from 91 teens, ages 13 to 15, about TV viewing, computer use and video game playing, including the amount of time and the level of attention given to the devices and compared it with BMI scores.

Data about the teens’ screen media habits came from time-use diaries in which they recorded their activities, and personal digital assistants that randomly pinged them during non-school hours requesting details about their media use.

According to the analysis, there was a clear association between teens who paid primary attention to television and having a higher BMI, says study co-author, Michael Rich, director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Boston Children’s Hospital. That association was was not true for computer use or video-game playing, nor was increased BMI associated with the overall amount of time spent watching TV, he says.

“It’s those kids who told us, ‘My primary attention was paid to television,’ even if they say it was done while doing homework or texting,” says Rich, a pediatrician. “They were the ones that had the most robust relationship with increased BMI.”

As has been suggested in other studies, the potential culprit may be the attention paid to TV commercials, Rich says. “TV, unlike the other screen media, is supported by advertising, and much of it is for high-calorie, nutritionally questionable snack foods. Advertising works best when you pay attention to it,” he adds.

The new sleep study is the latest in a growing body of research to suggest that insufficient sleep may contribute to the rise in adolescent obesity. It has been proposed that sleep deprivation is related to increased BMI because it increases levels of a hunger hormone and decreases levels of a fullness hormone, which could lead to overeating and weight gain.

Using data collected every six months over four years from 1,390 high school students (grades 9 through 12), the study is one of the longest yet based on repeated measures of a high school population, says lead study author Jonathan Mitchell, a postdoctoral fellow in biostatistics and epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Based on the study’s results, researchers predict that increasing sleep from 7.5 hours per day (the average in the study) to the medically recommended 10 hours per day could reduce the proportion of teens with a BMI at or above 25 (classified as overweight) by 3% at age 14 and by 4% to 6% at age 18.

“It’s a prediction, not conclusive data, but the findings point to the potential public health benefits that increasing sleep duration could have for overweight and obese adolescents in the U.S.,” says Mitchell.

John Cena Clinches WrestleMania 29 Win, Diddy Performs Bad Boy Hits

By Maurice Bobb

WWE’s WrestleMania 29, which took place Sunday night (April 7), was all about the Benjamins, baby. Not only did Diddy perform for the sold-out crowd, but the WWE’s annual “Super Bowl” was the highest-grossing live WWE event ever in MetLife Stadium history, pulling in a whopping $12.3 million.

Some 80,000 people showed up to see John Cena take on The Rock for the WWE Championship belt, but they were also treated to the Bad Boy CEO’s swaggering performance of some of his biggest hits, including, “Mo Money, Mo Problems,” “It’s All About the Benjamins” and “Coming Home” with Skylar Grey.

As for the wrestling action, Triple H disposed of Brock Lesnar, Fandango made his WWE debut by beating Chris Jericho to a pulp and The Undertaker, in fitting tribute to his legendary manager Paul Bearer, who passed away last month, defeated fan favorite CM Punk to remain undefeated (21-0) at WrestleMania.

For the main event, which pit Cena against Rock one year after their “Once in a Lifetime” match, Cena reclaimed the WWE title by pinning Rock with his patented “Attitude Adjustment” finisher move. The Rock’s disappointment in losing the title may be short lived, though, because the hulking Samoan is set to begin filming Brett Ratner’s “Hercules: The Thracian Wars” in the coming weeks.

Tags wrestlemania

Cleveland Browns and NFL AM Links: Best free agents still available; Joe Flacco ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Cleveland Browns made a splash during the early part of free agency by signing Paul Kruger and Desmond Bryant.

Unless the team’s work is done, the Browns could still find some help among the best of the rest when it comes to players still looking for work.

Dan Pompei writes on the National Football Post about the top free agents remaining and how some of these players can still help an NFL team.

Some big names still looking for work include Charles Woodson, Michael Turner and Dwight Freeney. And among the others:

Offensive tackle â€" Eric Winston: You wouldn’t think a
player who has been cut in consecutive years would have much value, but
Winston could in the right situation. According to front-office men I
respect, Winston could be a very effective right tackle in a
zone-blocking scheme. He is one of the more athletic right tackles in
the league, but isn’t very powerful. Recently released Tyson Clabo is a
similar player. Several personnel men I spoke with find Andre Smith
highly overrated.

Guard â€" Brandon Moore: At 32, he’s more of a stopgap
than long-term solution, but Moore is a physical blocker who can help a
run game. One front-office man said he thought Moore was “overhyped,”
but there aren’t many quality guards still on the market.

Center â€" Dan Koppen: With Matt Birk, Jeff Saturday and
Todd McClure retiring, there aren’t many centers left to choose from.
In relief of J.D. Walton in Denver last year, Koppen showed he still has
game at the age of 33.

 
More Browns and NFL news

Mary Kay Cabot answers questions about the Browns (Cleveland.com).

Joe Flacco will play Johnny Unitas in a movie, and Unitas’ grandson doesn’t like it (USA Today).

Ozzie Newsome is among the big winners when it comes to GM moves (CBSSports.com).

Minnesota Vikings coach Leslie Frazier hopes former OSU cornerback Antoine Winfield will return (NFL.com).

There are few changes in this mock draft (The News-Herald).

Cordarrelle Patterson could be the next big thing (Ohio.com).

Is Jasper Collins the next Mount Union star headed to the NFL (CantonRep.com)?

The Pittsburgh Steelers don’t have to rush to get a running back (Tribune-Review).

Bryan Hall is excited about switch from defensive end to linebacker (Baltimore Sun).

Former Browns QB Seneca Wallace to visit Raiders (Silver and Black).

Another mock draft has the Browns selecting Dee Milliner (ESPNCleveland.com).

Are the Bengals Andre Smith’s last option (Cincinnati.com)?

Americans' Concerns About Global Warming on the Rise

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NASA selects MIT-led TESS project for 2017 mission

Following a three-year competition, NASA has selected the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) project at MIT for a planned launch in 2017. The space agency announced the mission â€" to be funded by a $200 million grant to the MIT-led team â€" this afternoon.

TESS team partners include the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research (MKI) and MIT Lincoln Laboratory; NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center; Orbital Sciences Corporation; NASA’s Ames Research Center; the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; The Aerospace Corporation; and the Space Telescope Science Institute.

The project, led by principal investigator George Ricker, a senior research scientist at MKI, will use an array of wide-field cameras to perform an all-sky survey to discover transiting exoplanets, ranging from Earth-sized planets to gas giants, in orbit around the brightest stars in the sun’s neighborhood.

An exoplanet is a planet orbiting a star other than the sun; a transiting exoplanet is one that periodically eclipses its host star.

“TESS will carry out the first space-borne all-sky transit survey, covering 400 times as much sky as any previous mission,” Ricker says. “It will identify thousands of new planets in the solar neighborhood, with a special focus on planets comparable in size to the Earth.”

TESS relies upon a number of innovations developed by the MIT team over the past seven years. “For TESS, we were able to devise a special new ‘Goldilocks’ orbit for the spacecraft â€" one which is not too close, and not too far, from both the Earth and the moon,” Ricker says.

As a result, every two weeks TESS approaches close enough to the Earth for high data-downlink rates, while remaining above the planet’s harmful radiation belts. This special orbit will remain stable for decades, keeping TESS’s sensitive cameras in a very stable temperature range.

With TESS, it will be possible to study the masses, sizes, densities, orbits and atmospheres of a large cohort of small planets, including a sample of rocky worlds in the habitable zones of their host stars. TESS will provide prime targets for further characterization by the James Webb Space Telescope, as well as other large ground-based and space-based telescopes of the future.

TESS project members include Ricker; Josh Winn, an associate professor of physics at MIT; and Sara Seager, a professor of planetary science and physics at MIT.

“We’re very excited about TESS because it’s the natural next step in exoplanetary science,” Winn says.  

“The selection of TESS has just accelerated our chances of finding life on another planet within the next decade,” Seager adds.  

MKI research scientists Roland Vanderspek and Joel Villasenor will serve as deputy principal investigator and payload scientist, respectively. Principal research scientist Alan Levine serves as a co-investigator. Tony Smith of Lincoln Lab will manage the TESS payload effort, Lincoln Lab will develop the optical cameras and custom charge-coupled devices required by the mission.

“NASA’s Explorer Program gives us a wonderful opportunity to carry out forefront space science with a relatively small university-based group and on a time scale well-matched to the rapidly evolving field of extrasolar planets,” says Jackie Hewitt, a professor of physics and director of the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. “At MIT, TESS has the involvement of faculty and research staff of the Kavli Institute, the Department of Physics, and the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, so we will be actively engaging students in this exciting work.”

Previous sky surveys with ground-based telescopes have mainly picked out giant exoplanets. NASA’s Kepler spacecraft has recently uncovered the existence of many smaller exoplanets, but the stars Kepler examines are faint and difficult to study. In contrast, TESS will examine a large number of small planets around the very brightest stars in the sky.

“The TESS legacy will be a catalog of the nearest and brightest main-sequence stars hosting transiting exoplanets, which will forever be the most favorable targets for detailed investigations,” Ricker said.

The other mission selected today by NASA is the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER). It will be mounted on the International Space Station and measure the variability of cosmic X-ray sources, a process called X-ray timing, to explore the exotic states of matter within neutron stars and reveal their interior and surface compositions. NICER’s principal investigator is Keith Gendreau of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The MKI group, lead by Ricker, is also a partner in the NICER mission.

“The Explorer Program has a long and stellar history of deploying truly innovative missions to study some of the most exciting questions in space science,” John Grunsfeld, NASA’s associate administrator for science, said in the space agency’s statement today. “With these missions we will learn about the most extreme states of matter by studying neutron stars and we will identify many nearby star systems with rocky planets in the habitable zone for further study by telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope.”

The Explorer Program is NASA’s oldest continuous program and has launched more than 90 missions. It began in 1958 with the Explorer 1, which discovered the Earth’s radiation belts. Another Explorer mission, the Cosmic Background Explorer, led to a Nobel Prize. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center manages the program for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.