Leave it to the Fighting Irish to take a stab at solving the world's energy woes. Notre Dame researchers have successfully developed solar cells that can be easily painted on to any conductive surface. Imagine, for a moment, applying this solution to your home rather than attaching solar panels to the roof. The paint mixture incorporates quantum dots of titanium dioxide, which is then coated with either cadmium sulfide or cadmium selenide, and is then suspended in mixture of water and alcohol to create a spreadable compound that's capable of generating electricity. While its efficiency isn't currently much to crow home about -- which hovers around one-percent -- scientists are now actively pursuing ways to improve this aspect while making a more stable compound. Most importantly, the paint can be made cheaply and in large quantities, which suggests that even if efficiency remains in the doldrums, it may be a very worthwhile pursuit. Touchdown Jesus is already watching the video after the break.
Dec 26 2011 --- Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. announced that its Board of Directors has named Robert L. Holladay, Jr. as Vice President and General Counsel of Cal-Maine Foods, Inc.
Prior to joining Cal-Maine, Holladay most recently advised the Company as an outside attorney with YoungWilliams, P.A. in Jackson, Mississippi, where he concentrated his practice in corporate, securities and general business law. He has significant experience advising companies of all sizes in a broad range of areas and industries and has been awarded the "AV" rating by Martindale-Hubbell, which is the highest possible rating for legal ability and ethical standards. Mr. Holladay was also named a ?Rising Star? in the 2010 and 2011 editions of Super Lawyers magazine.
Mr. Holladay attended the University of Mississippi and holds a Bachelor of Accountancy, cum laude, 1998, and a Master of Taxation, 1999. He holds a J.D., cum laude, 2002, from the University of Mississippi School of Law. He is a member of the American Bar Association, the Mississippi Bar Association, and the Capitol Area Bar Association.
?We are very pleased to have Rob Holladay join Cal-Maine as our new general counsel,? said Dolph Baker, president and chief executive officer of Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. ?Rob is already very familiar with all aspects of our business and he brings a strong background in corporate and business law to our management team. We look forward to his advice and counsel as we execute our growth strategy.?
NBA regular season finally arrives with five games on Christmas Day. But TV and technology are changing league revenues and how America will see the NBA regular season.
The NBA regular season finally begins Christmas Day with a slate of five games: Oklahoma City vs. Orlando, the Golden State Warriors vs. the Los Angeles Clippers, the Boston Celtics vs. the New York Knicks, the Chicago Bulls vs. the Los Angeles Lakers, and, in a rematch of last year?s finals, the Miami Heat will meet up with the Dallas Mavericks.?
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So all is back to normal in professional basketball? Not quite. And it's just not the lockout-shortened season will feature 66 games instead of the usual 80-plus.
TV and TV technology are changing the league's revenue streams. And the NBA will have to catch up, if it wants to capitalize on its potential.
Start with the least obvious: Fans are less inclined to go to an actual game.
Oh, they still show up.?Over the past decade, the top attracting team (which changes from year to year) has averaged between 20,000 and 22,000 attendees per game. But except for the top-tier seats, they're less willing to pay for the experience, because it's better watching games at home.
?The gate revenues have been flat and falling since 2006,? says?Kenneth Wilbur, a marketing professor at Duke University?s Fuqua School of Business. So??teams are altering their mix of ticket prices.... Court seat prices are rising just as fast as they ever have. But in the second or third tier of seats in the arena, you get a better view at home. Those prices have been falling in a lot of NBA cities.?
If teams are seeing smaller gate revenues, their TV profits?continue to grow. The NBA has a $485 million annual contract with ABC/ESPN, as well as a $445 million deal with TNT. That works out to about $31 million for each of the league's 30 teams, a deal that wasn?t affected by the games lost during the lockout. Both contracts go through the 2015/16 season.
That's a healthy development, for the most part. The NBA is coming off a strong ratings performance to cap last season. The league finals between the Miami Heat and the Dallas Mavericks netted an average 17.3 million viewers per game. Game 6, in which the Mavericks bested LeBron James and company to win the title, was seen by nearly 24 million people. It was the most watched Game 6 since 2000, and it led to ABC having its best summer week in over a decade.
AT&T has dropped its bid to take over T-Mobile USA for $39 billion in the wake of opposition from government regulators who say the deal would violate antitrust laws.
The move by AT&T -- announced Monday afternoon -- was a stunning outcome for the telecom giant that had sought to buy Bellevue-based T-Mobile USA -- an American subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom. AT&T had underestimated the opposition it would face from government regulators and from competitors who feared what would become of the highly competitive wireless industry if the merger went through. The deal would have created the nation's largest carrier.
AT&T's decision to scrap its merger plan leaves T-Mobile in limbo. T-Mobile USA?s parent, Deutsche Telekom, is getting $3 billion in cash by the end of the year. And T-Mobile USA will get what Deutsche Telekom calls a ?large package of advanced wireless solutions spectrum? and a seven-year national roaming agreement that will allow T-Mobile to bring faster service to Seattle and other big cities.
The deal gives T-Mobile more time to figure out its future, including upgrading its network and finding a new partner.
Microsoft says that Novell Inc. has insufficient evidence to reasonably support its antitrust lawsuit against the Redmond software giant now that a jury has failed to reach a verdict in the case.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has used the annual Consumer Electronics Show as a platform for CEO Steve Ballmer to showcase his company?s latest hardware and software offerings.
But times are changing, and apparently Ballmer and Microsoft no longer need the exposure from the big tech trade show that it has dominated in the past with presentations and exhibits. Microsoft will make the upcoming 2012 CES show its last because it is relying more heavily on its own marketing campaigns and retail stores to reach its customers.
Here are a few things I am catching up on this week:
The Seattle Mariners are valued at $641 million, according to a Seattle divorce trial judge handling the case of Mariners minority owner Chris Larson, who made his fortune as a programmer at Microsoft
The Seattle Times reports that based on the $593 million sale of the Texas Rangers and $610 million sale of the Houston Astros this year, King Count Superior Court Judge William Downing estimated the Mariners were worth $641 million, considerably higher than the $449 million estimate by Forbes earlier this year.
Amazon?s Lovefilm division and Sony Pictures Television inked a content arrangement giving Lovefilm members in the UK exclusive streaming access to new and upcoming Sony Pictures titles like "The Social Network? and ?Salt.?
The deal between Lovefilm and Sony is the latest in a series of content deals in the UK. Others involve Warner Bros., Entertainment One, STUDIOCANAL, Disney, Momentum and Lionsgate.
Twitter / benhuh: We will move our 1,000 dom ...We will move our 1,000 domains off @ unless you drop support of SOPA. We love you guys, but -is-cancer to the Free Web.Il y a environ 13 heuresvia web
Parents, do you ever get the feeling you've created a monster? Our TODAY Moms/Parenting.com survey shows that most parents fear their kids are spoiled. Psychotherapist Dr. Robi Ludwig shares tips for raising grateful children.
DOE researchers achieve important genetic breakthroughs to help develop cheaper biofuels Public release date: 22-Dec-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jeff Sherwood jeff.sherwood@doe.gov 202-586-4940 DOE/US Department of Energy
Innovations in RNA manipulation could lead to advances in many products
Washington D.C. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) announced today a major breakthrough in engineering systems of RNA molecules through computer-assisted design, which could lead to important improvements across a range of industries, including the development of cheaper advanced biofuels. Scientists will use these new "RNA machines", to adjust genetic expression in the cells of microorganisms. This will enable scientists to develop new strains of Escherichia coli (E. coli) that are better able to digest switchgrass biomass and convert released sugars to form three types of transportation fuels gasoline, diesel and jet fuels.
"This is a perfect example of how our investments in basic science innovations can pave the way for future industries and solutions to our nation's most important challenges," said Energy Secretary Steven Chu. "This breakthrough at the Joint BioEnergy Institute holds enormous potential for the sustainable production of advanced biofuels and countless other valuable goods."
A breakthrough with E. coli could make it cheaper to produce fuel from switchgrass or other non-food biomass plants to create advanced biofuels with the potential to replace gasoline. While the work at JBEI remains focused on the development of advanced biofuels, JBEI's researchers believe that their concepts may help other researchers to develop many other desired products, including biodegradable plastics and therapeutic drugs. For example, some researchers have already started a project to investigate how to use the "RNA machines" to increase the safety and efficacy of medicine therapies to treat diseases, including diabetes and Parkinson's.
Biological systems are incredibly complex, which makes it difficult to engineer systems of microorganisms that will produce desired products in predictable amounts. JBEI's work, which will be featured in the December 23rd issue of Science magazine, is the first of its kind to set up and adjust a RNA system in a predictable way.
Specifically, researchers focused their design-driven approach on RNA sequences that can fold into complicated three dimensional shapes, called ribozymes and aptazymes. By using JBEI-developed computer-assisted models and simulations, researchers then created complex RNA-based control systems that are able to program a large number of genes. In microorganisms, "commands" that are sent into the cell will be processed by the RNA-based control systems, enabling them to help develop desired products.
One of the major goals of synthetic biology is to produce valuable chemical products from simple, inexpensive and renewable starting materials in a sustainable manner. Computer-assisted models and simulations like the one JBEI developed are essential for doing so. Up to this point, such tools for biology have been very limited and JBEI's breakthrough in applying computer assisted design marks an important technical and conceptual achievement for this field.
###
To view additional details about this research, visit http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2011/12/22/cad-for-rna/.
JBEI, led by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is one of three Bioenergy Research Centers established by the DOE's Office of Science in 2007. For more information, visit www.jbei.org.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
DOE researchers achieve important genetic breakthroughs to help develop cheaper biofuels Public release date: 22-Dec-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jeff Sherwood jeff.sherwood@doe.gov 202-586-4940 DOE/US Department of Energy
Innovations in RNA manipulation could lead to advances in many products
Washington D.C. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) announced today a major breakthrough in engineering systems of RNA molecules through computer-assisted design, which could lead to important improvements across a range of industries, including the development of cheaper advanced biofuels. Scientists will use these new "RNA machines", to adjust genetic expression in the cells of microorganisms. This will enable scientists to develop new strains of Escherichia coli (E. coli) that are better able to digest switchgrass biomass and convert released sugars to form three types of transportation fuels gasoline, diesel and jet fuels.
"This is a perfect example of how our investments in basic science innovations can pave the way for future industries and solutions to our nation's most important challenges," said Energy Secretary Steven Chu. "This breakthrough at the Joint BioEnergy Institute holds enormous potential for the sustainable production of advanced biofuels and countless other valuable goods."
A breakthrough with E. coli could make it cheaper to produce fuel from switchgrass or other non-food biomass plants to create advanced biofuels with the potential to replace gasoline. While the work at JBEI remains focused on the development of advanced biofuels, JBEI's researchers believe that their concepts may help other researchers to develop many other desired products, including biodegradable plastics and therapeutic drugs. For example, some researchers have already started a project to investigate how to use the "RNA machines" to increase the safety and efficacy of medicine therapies to treat diseases, including diabetes and Parkinson's.
Biological systems are incredibly complex, which makes it difficult to engineer systems of microorganisms that will produce desired products in predictable amounts. JBEI's work, which will be featured in the December 23rd issue of Science magazine, is the first of its kind to set up and adjust a RNA system in a predictable way.
Specifically, researchers focused their design-driven approach on RNA sequences that can fold into complicated three dimensional shapes, called ribozymes and aptazymes. By using JBEI-developed computer-assisted models and simulations, researchers then created complex RNA-based control systems that are able to program a large number of genes. In microorganisms, "commands" that are sent into the cell will be processed by the RNA-based control systems, enabling them to help develop desired products.
One of the major goals of synthetic biology is to produce valuable chemical products from simple, inexpensive and renewable starting materials in a sustainable manner. Computer-assisted models and simulations like the one JBEI developed are essential for doing so. Up to this point, such tools for biology have been very limited and JBEI's breakthrough in applying computer assisted design marks an important technical and conceptual achievement for this field.
###
To view additional details about this research, visit http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2011/12/22/cad-for-rna/.
JBEI, led by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is one of three Bioenergy Research Centers established by the DOE's Office of Science in 2007. For more information, visit www.jbei.org.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Leave it to the Fighting Irish to take a stab at solving the world's energy woes. Notre Dame researchers have successfully developed solar cells that can be easily painted on to any conductive surface. Imagine, for a moment, applying this solution to your home rather than attaching solar panels to the roof. The paint mixture incorporates quantum dots of titanium dioxide, which is then coated with either cadmium sulfide or cadmium selenide, and is then suspended in mixture of water and alcohol to create a spreadable compound that's capable of generating electricity. While its efficiency isn't currently much to crow home about -- which hovers around one-percent -- scientists are now actively pursuing ways to improve this aspect while making a more stable compound. Most importantly, the paint can be made cheaply and in large quantities, which suggests that even if efficiency remains in the doldrums, it may be a very worthwhile pursuit. Touchdown Jesus is already watching the video after the break.
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