J.D. Salinger, the famously reclusive author whose 1951 novel, “The Catcher in the Rye,” became a touchstone for generations of readers, has died. He was 91.
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President Barack Obama laid out his jobs plan in his State of the Union, but finding money for fresh programs could be tough amid rising concern over deficits.
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Within hours of Apple CEO Steve Jobs’s breathless iPad presentation — he called the device “extraordinary,” “unbelievable” and “a dream” — the independent reviews from techie types began rolling in.
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Citing a “deficit of trust” in government by the American people, President Obama’s first State of the Union address urged Congress to erode the influence of special interests and work together to confront the nation’s most pressing problems.
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The political furor escalated over President Obama’s high-profile rebuke of a recent Supreme Court ruling on campaign advertising Thursday, as Democrats pounded the high court decision.
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Jay Leno said he was “devastated” when NBC executives first told him in 2004 that they were giving The Tonight Show to Conan O’Brien.
Oprah Winfrey to Interview Jay Leno; Possibly Conan O’Brien
Leno appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show Thursday to tell his side of the story of the recent late-night war that erupted when NBC decided to cancel Leno’s prime-time show and bump O’Brien’s Tonight Show to 12:05.
Although Leno reacted fairly positively to stepping aside for Conan in 2004, he said it was a tough pill to swallow. “It broke my heart. It really did; I was devastated,” he told Winfrey, according to The Chicago Tribune. “This was the job that I had always wanted and this was the only job that ever mattered in show business — to me. It’s the job every comic aspires to. It was just like, why?”
Leno said he…
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The man in the House chamber openly disagreeing with President Barack Obama as he spoke to Congress wasn’t an over-the-top Republican or a seething Democrat. He was a Supreme Court justice, Samuel Alito.
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AP – J.D. Salinger, the legendary author, youth hero and fugitive from fame whose “The Catcher in the Rye” shocked and inspired a world he increasingly shunned, has died. He was 91.
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An anti-abortion activist charged with gunning down a Wichita, Kansas, doctor took the stand in his own defense Thursday.
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AP – This year’s Grammy Awards seem to be shaping up as the battle of the blonde divas.
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It was the most vivid, and unexpected, confrontation of Wednesday’s State of the Union address.
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If you’re looking for someone to blame for NBC’s late-night horror show, take aim at the network, Jay Leno told Oprah Winfrey on Thursday in an exclusive interview.
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Ron Howard is back in business with Fox: The network has ordered a pilot for the former Arrested Development producer’s new IRS comedy, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Ron Howard: Catholics will enjoy Angels & Demons
Written by The Office’s Brent Forrester, the as-yet-untitled half-hour show is a …
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Democrats Pass Legislation Just Before Republican Scott Brown Takes Office; Measure Allows Debt to Increase $1.9 Trillion
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The World Health Organization estimates that around one sixth of the world lacks access to clean drinking water. Since those billion people are also the poorest people in the world, water purification techniques need to be cheap to help those most in need. Since it activates under plain visible light, this new water-purifying photocatalyst may help bring purer water to the world’s neediest people.
The water-purifying chemical consists of nitrogen-doped titanium oxide enhanced with palladium nanoparticles. When exposed to visible light, the titanium oxide produces bacteria-killing free radicals, while the palladium nanoparticles absorb electrons that would shut that reaction down. Once activated, the material reduces the bacteria levels from 40 million cells per gallon to just one cell per 2,500 gallons.
Even more impressive, the palladium nanoparticles perpetuate the reaction so efficiently that the titanium oxide continues to purify the water even after the light is shut off. For countries with limited lighting infrastructure, or places prone to blackout, that greatly extends the purification power of the material.
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Afghanistan will have control of security in some of its provinces by the end of 2010, a summit on the country’s future has pledged.
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New cell transformation technique skips stem-cell intermediary stage
For the first time ever, scientists have induced skin cells to transform directly into neurons. Previously, for mature cells to change type, scientists had to first transform the skin cells back into stem cells, and then grow the stem cells into a different adult cell type. By cutting out the middle step and speeding up the process, this new technique drastically increases the feasibility of using cell reprogramming to treat diseases like Alzheimer’s disease and ALS.
Writing in the journal Nature, Stanford University researchers described how they induced the change by inserting only three genes into cultured skin cells. Once those three genes activated, the skin cells converted into fully functioning nerve cells that even formed synapse connections with the other converted nerve cells.
By speeding up the creation of nerve cells, this advance circumvents the controversy and difficulty of experimenting on harvest stem cells. Rather than using embryo-derived stem cells, scientists can now just create any cell type they want from whatever cells they have on hand.
This discovery also alters how scientists think of stem cells. Before, scientists thought of stem cells as fundamentally different, and far more plastic, than fully mature cells. By showing that a mature cell can convert into another type of adult cell with only a few gene changes, scientists may have to re-conceptualize stem cells as just another cell type.
But while this development is certainly impressive, it does not solve any of the problems associated with utilizing cell transformation as an actual therapy. It lowers the complexity and challenge of creating new cells, but scientists and doctors still haven’t solved the riddle of how to deploy these newly crafted cells in a manner that actually cures a disease.
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Tehran’s Revolutionary Court sentenced 11 people to death after convicting them of participating in post-election riots — especially during the recent Ashura holy day, state media reported Thursday.
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A 17-year-old girl pulled from the rubble in a stunning rescue 15 days after the earthquake was in stable condition, to the surprise of doctors, who said her survival was inexplicable.
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A doctor who first suggested a link between the MMR jab and autism acted unethically, the official medical regulator finds.
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Angry demonstrations took place Thursday outside a U.S. military base on the outskirts of Kabul after NATO-led forces fatally shot an Afghan religious leader.
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The family of Nancy Kerrigan’s father held a wake Wednesday. Mourners assembled in a line a block long.
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AP – The funeral for figure skater Nancy Kerrigan’s father is under way in Massachusetts.
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AP – When Al Melquist voted for Barack Obama in 2008, the unemployed software engineer was drawn to the politician’s charisma and promise of solutions for the nation’s economic woes and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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