Digital Multiplex: Lincoln, Being There, and Kung Fu Hustle

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The newest and best movies available for streaming and download.

This week in streaming, we've got an Oscar winner, an acclaimed foreign period drama, and Brad Pitt's latest collaboration with director Andrew Dominik. But we've also got some classics that are newly available to watch, including a much loved Peter Sellers comedy, a Stephen Chow martial arts comedy, and a Bogie/Bacall tale of intrigue. Read on to find out what's available to watch right now.

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Swish Navigates SFTP Connections in Windows Explorer

Windows: Opening up a dedicated FTP client just to find a file or two is a pain. Swish integrates your SFTP connections directly into Windows Explorer to save you the trouble.

Swish will install as a Windows Explorer extension and show up as a mounted drive on your system. Within this drive, you can add SFTP connections, and navigate them within Explorer. You'll need to put in your password the first time you connect, but it will save it thereafter to make navigation even faster.

Unfortunately, Swish only works with SFTP connections, not FTP, WebDAV, or cloud storage services like most FTP clients support. If that's all you need though, this will essentially replace any need you have for a standalone client.

Swish (Free) via MakeUseOf

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Consumer watchdog unveils list of top lending gripes

By Bob Sullivan, Columnist, NBC News

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) made its database of complaints against mortgage issuers, student loan firms, credit bureaus and other kinds of lenders available to the public for the first time on Thursday.?

The database covers 90,000 complaints with more than 1 million data points covering 450 companies.

The CFPB spreadsheet allows consumers to find the most complained-about banks in highly specific categories. For example, Capital One received the most complaints about credit cards, and Bank of America received the most complaints about traditional adjustable-rate mortgages.

It's important to note that the data isn't normalized and that banks with more customers receive more complaints.

Data can be sorted at the bureau's website by state or company. It can also be downloaded for free and used in privately developed applications.?

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The agency's complaint database was released on a limited scale last year, and included only 19,000 credit card-related complaints. Thursday's announcement represents a large expansion of publicly available data.?

The bureau hopes consumers can use the information to make more informed choices about banks they do business with.?"By sharing these complaints with the public, we are creating greater transparency in consumer financial products and services,? said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. ?The database is good for consumers and it is also good for honest businesses."

Complaints are listed in the CFPB database only after the company responds to the complaint or after they have had the complaint for 15 days. Records include the type of complaint, the consumer's ZIP code, the company, and the resolution. Consumers' names and other personal information are not shared.

Among student loans and mortgages, about two-thirds of the complaints involve consumers who are having trouble repaying their loans, according to an analysis provided by the CFPB?of complaints filed through February. Many of the mortgage complaints reflect consumers' paperwork-related frustrations when attempting loan modifications.?

Nearly three-quarters of the 6,700 complaints filed against credit bureaus involve inaccurate information. Credit card complaints are more scattered, with billing disputes making up 15 percent. A common gripe, the bureau says: Consumers don't realize they have to dispute a suspicious item on their credit card bills within 60 days.

In a blog post that accompanied?the release of the data, CFPB official Scott Pluta said he hoped consumers would be creative and find new ways to examine and use the data.

"From infographics to iPhone apps, we?ve seen people do amazing things with the credit card complaint data that was available before today," Pluta said. "We encourage the public, including consumers, analysts, data scientists, civic hackers and companies that serve consumers, to analyze, augment, and build on the information in the database to develop ways for consumers to use the complaint data or mash it up with other public data sets to reveal potential trends."

The bureau plans to expand the data to other complaint categories in the future, he added.

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Gay marriage at high court: How a case can fizzle

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Late in the oral argument over same-sex marriage in California, Justice Anthony Kennedy made a startling comment, given the months of buildup and mountain of legal briefs that have descended on the justices.

"You might address why you think we should take and decide this case," Kennedy said to lawyer Charles Cooper, representing opponents of same-sex marriage.

One might have thought the court had already crossed that bridge.

But now the justices were openly discussing essentially walking away from the case over California's Proposition 8, a voter-approved ban on gay marriage, without deciding anything at all about such unions.

Indeed, this case offers a rare glimpse at the court's opaque internal workings, in which justices make cold political calculations about what to do and Kennedy's often-decisive vote can never be far from his colleagues' minds.

The court on Wednesday concluded two days of arguments involving gay marriage. In the second case, a constitutional challenge to a portion of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, a majority of the court appeared likely to rule that legally married gay couples should be able to receive a range of benefits that the law currently reserves for straight married couples.

The decision to hear the DOMA case was easy. The Supreme Court almost always has the final word when lower courts strike down a federal law, as they did in this case.

Proposition 8's route to the Supreme Court was not as obvious. The appeals court ruling under review by the justices seems to have been written to discourage the high court from ever taking up the case because it applies only to California and limited a much broader opinion that had emerged earlier from the trial court.

And yet in December, the court decided it would hear the case. It takes a majority of five to decide a case a particular way, but just four justices can vote to add a case to the calendar. And the court does not disclose how the justices vote at this stage.

It seems apparent after the argument, though, that it was the conservative justices who opted to hear Proposition 8. It also seems that one factor in their decision was that this could be their last, best opportunity to slow the nation's march toward recognition of gay marriage at a time when only nine states and the District of Columbia allow gays and lesbians to marry ? despite a rapid swing in public opinion in favor of gay marriage.

From their comments and questions Tuesday, Justices Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia indicated they preferred what they called the cautious approach: allowing the debate over gay marriage to play out in the states and not overturning by judicial fiat the will of California voters who approved Proposition 8 in 2008. Justice Clarence Thomas, as is his custom, said nothing during the argument, but he and Scalia were dissenters in the court's earlier two gay rights cases in 1996 and 2003.

Chief Justice John Roberts also had tough questions for lawyers for the same-sex couples who sued for the right to marry, and for the Obama administration.

Scalia sought to counter Kennedy's comment, and a similar one from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, that maybe the court should get rid of the case.

"It's too late for that, too late for that now, isn't it? I mean, we granted cert," Scalia said, using the legal shorthand for the court's decision to hear a case. "We have crossed that river, I think."

Once or twice a term, occasionally more often, the justices do dismiss cases after they have been argued, without rendering opinions and establishing a rule for the whole nation. The language they use is the wonderfully vague "dismissed as improvidently granted." Roughly translated, it means "sorry for wasting everyone's time."

That is one potential outcome, discussed publicly by Kennedy and Sotomayor.

Another possibility would be a decision limited to the technical legal question of whether the Proposition 8 supporters have the right to defend the measure in court. If they don't, the court can't reach the broader issues in the case.

On this point, Roberts' view seemed more in line with questions from some of the liberal justices.

So why would a justice who appeared favorably inclined to California's ban on gay marriage want to rule that the case should not even be in front of the court?

The answer is that Roberts might want to dispose of the case in this narrow way if he saw a decision in support of gay marriage emerging and wanted to block it. Or, he might choose this route if the justices appeared unable to reach a decisive ruling of any kind.

Narrowly based decisions sometimes seem more attractive to the justices than fractured rulings.

One example is the court's 2009 decision in a voting rights case in which eight of the justices agreed to sidestep the looming and major constitutional issue in the case after an argument in which the court appeared sharply split along ideological lines.

___

Follow Mark Sherman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/shermancourt

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gay-marriage-high-court-case-fizzle-065952825--politics.html

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Obama takes jobs pitch to Miami

President Barack Obama will promote a plan to create jobs by attracting private investment in highways and other public works during a visit Friday to a Miami port, the White House said.

The president will flesh out details of his proposals in a speech at the port, which is undergoing $2 billion in upgrades paid for with government and private money. Obama, in the quick trip to South Florida, will try to show that the economy remains his top priority in the midst of high-profile campaigns on immigration reform and gun control.

Among the proposals Obama will call for:

?Higher caps on "private activity bonds" to encourage more private spending on highways and other infrastructure projects. State and local governments use the bonds to attract investment.

?Giving foreign pension funds tax-exempt status when selling U.S. infrastructure, property or real estate assets. U.S. pension funds are generally tax exempt in those circumstances. The administration says some international pension funds cite the tax burden as a reason for not investing in American infrastructure.

?$4 billion in new spending on two infrastructure programs that award loans and grants.

?A renewed call for a $10 billion national "infrastructure bank" ? a proposal from his first term that gained little traction.

The president made private-sector infrastructure investment a key part of the economic agenda he rolled out in his State of the Union address last month. He also called in his address for a "Fix-It-First" program that would spend $40 billion in taxpayer funds on urgent repairs.

Obama's focus on generating more private sector investment underscores the tough road new spending faces on Capitol Hill, where Republican lawmakers often threaten to block additional spending unless it is paid for by tax cuts or other measures.

Any increased spending associated with the proposals Obama was outlining Friday would not add to the deficit, a senior administration official said. The official was not authorized to discuss the plan in advance of Obama's announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The official did not detail how the costs would be paid for, saying only that more information would be included in the president's budget.

Obama will release his budget April 10.

???

Follow Josh Lederman on Twitter: http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP

Follow Julie Pace on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jpaceDC

Also Read

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-pitch-more-jobs-public-142807078.html

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Record Wall Street boosts sentiment, U.S. holds key in Q2

By Chikako Mogi

TOKYO (Reuters) - Whether the world's largest economy can sustain momentum will be a primary focus for investors for the next three months after a general recovery trend in the United States helped risk sentiment for broad markets in the first quarter of 2013.

Asian shares edged higher and the euro steadied on Friday after banks in Cyprus reopened to relative calm. Overall trade was subdued, with many Asian markets, including Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong, closed on Friday for Easter holidays.

European and U.S. markets will also shut for Easter Friday.

The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> was up 0.2 percent for a quarterly 1.5 pct gain, the worst performance in three quarters. The pan-Asian index touched a 1-1/2-year high in February.

The first quarter was marked by growing optimism about global growth, particularly with data pointing to a recovery in the U.S. economy that fed speculation the U.S. Federal Reserve might scale back its aggressive stimulus earlier than planned.

Such views spurred strong rallies in U.S. equities while underpinning the dollar, breaking the usual negative correlation between U.S. equities and the dollar.

The U.S. economy shows a seasonal tendency to weaken in the second quarter and effects of fiscal tightening may compound the bearish trend, with property regulations clouding China's growth prospects also providing potential risk.

The euro zone's financial crisis re-emerging in one form or another from time to time remains another downside risk. Worries over Chinese growth and the euro zone were not as severe as in past years, due to the brightening global growth outlook and safety nets being placed in Europe, along with the extremely accommodative monetary policy stance of major central banks.

"The basic scenario for the second quarter will be for the U.S. to maintain its economic recovery trend, which is key to sustaining hopes for improvement in global growth," said Junya Tanase, chief FX strategist at JPMorgan Chase Bank in Tokyo.

The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> ended on Thursday at a record high 1,569.19, finishing the first quarter up 10 percent, slightly below a 12 percent rise at the end of the first quarter a year ago.

The fairly orderly reopening for banks in Cyprus on Thursday after the island nation received a controversial 10 billion euro bailout reduced safe-haven demand for U.S. Treasuries and gold and weighed broadly on the dollar.

The dollar measured against a basket of key currencies <.dxy> fell 0.4 percent to 82.921 in Asia on Friday, moving away from Wednesday's 7-1/2 month peak of 83.302. The dollar index was set for a quarterly gain of nearly 4 percent, its best quarter since end-September 2011.

Demand for the dollar, backed by hopes on rising yields, might wane because the U.S. recovery is not yet strong enough to prompt the Fed to end its aggressive easing stance.

"The dollar remains firm basically, but its outperformance is likely to wane from the very strong showing in the first quarter," Tanase said.

JAPAN IN FOCUS

The Nikkei stock average <.n225> was up 0.6 percent, set for a quarterly increase of 19 percent, after touching a 4-1/2-year peak of 12,650.26 last week. <.t/>

Daiwa Securities senior strategist Eiji Kinouchi said in a research note that, given the past pattern of cyclically sensitive industrial names lagging interest rate-sensitive names in New York Dow components, funds may be allocated to stocks that are sensitive to economic fundamentals. That should also be positive for Japanese stocks, he said.

Japanese equities have largely benefited from the yen's steady decline on expectations the Bank of Japan would take bold reflationary steps under its new leaders, who will hold their first policy meeting next week.

The dollar steadied around 94.06 yen, having risen about 8.4 percent for the quarter after touching a 3-1/2-year peak of 96.71 earlier in March.

The latest available data from EPFR Global released on March 22 showed Japan Equity Funds had extended their recent run to mid-March and were on track for the biggest quarterly inflow since the fourth quarter of 2005.

In contrast, China Equity Funds posted outflows for the fourth week in a row, reflecting concerns about China's property tightening and uncertainty over the economy.

Stocks in the Philippines <.psi> and Indonesia <.jkse> hit a record high, while Thai stocks <.seti> this month scaled their highest point in 19 years.

The Thomson Reuters South East Asia Index <.trxfldanpu>, an indicator of stocks listed in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, was set for a 5.7 percent gain for the first quarter, down from a 14.8 percent jump a year earlier.

"Southeast Asia is in overbought territory and may be vulnerable temporarily to the downside in cases of receding risk appetite, but money is expected to continue flowing into Asia over the longer term," said Hirokazu Yuihama, a senior strategist at Daiwa Securities in Tokyo.

The euro was at $1.2822, hovering near a four-month low of $1.2750 touched on Wednesday, and was set for a quarterly loss of 2.8 percent.

Crude futures markets will be shut on Friday.

Brent's slide of near 1 percent in the quarter and U.S. crude's robust 5.9 percent rise reflected the difference in sentiment between a gloomy outlook for Europe and a U.S. economy showing signs of improving growth.

Spot gold was down 0.1 percent to $1,595.19 an ounce, set to end the first quarter down nearly 5 percent.

(Editing by Paul Tait)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/record-wall-street-boosts-sentiment-activity-subdued-022012999--finance.html

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Opposites attract: How cells and cell fragments move in electric fields

Mar. 28, 2013 ? Like tiny, crawling compass needles, whole living cells and cell fragments orient and move in response to electric fields -- but in opposite directions, scientists at the University of California, Davis, have found. Their results, published April 8 in the journal Current Biology, could ultimately lead to new ways to heal wounds and deliver stem cell therapies.

When cells crawl into wounded flesh to heal it, they follow an electric field. In healthy tissue there's a flux of charged particles between layers. Damage to tissue sets up a "short circuit," changing the flux direction and creating an electrical field that leads cells into the wound. But exactly how and why does this happen? That's unclear.

"We know that cells can respond to a weak electrical field, but we don't know how they sense it," said Min Zhao, professor of dermatology and ophthalmology and a researcher at UC Davis' stem cell center, the Institute for Regenerative Cures. "If we can understand the process better, we can make wound healing and tissue regeneration more effective."

The researchers worked with cells that form fish scales, called keratocytes. These fish cells are commonly used to study cell motion, and they also readily shed cell fragments, wrapped in a cell membrane but lacking a nucleus, major organelles, DNA or much else in the way of other structures.

In a surprise discovery, whole cells and cell fragments moved in opposite directions in the same electric field, said Alex Mogilner, professor of mathematics and of neurobiology, physiology and behavior at UC Davis and co-senior author of the paper.

It's the first time that such basic cell fragments have been shown to orient and move in an electric field, Mogilner said. That allowed the researchers to discover that the cells and cell fragments are oriented by a "tug of war" between two competing processes.

Think of a cell as a blob of fluid and protein gel wrapped in a membrane. Cells crawl along surfaces by sliding and ratcheting protein fibers inside the cell past each other, advancing the leading edge of the cell while withdrawing the trailing edge.

Assistant project scientist Yaohui Sun found that when whole cells were exposed to an electric field, actin protein fibers collected and grew on the side of the cell facing the negative electrode (cathode), while a mix of contracting actin and myosin fibers formed toward the positive electrode (anode). Both actin alone, and actin with myosin, can create motors that drive the cell forward.

The polarizing effect set up a tug-of-war between the two mechanisms. In whole cells, the actin mechanism won, and the cell crawled toward the cathode. But in cell fragments, the actin/myosin motor came out on top, got the rear of the cell oriented toward the cathode, and the cell fragment crawled in the opposite direction.

The results show that there are at least two distinct pathways through which cells respond to electric fields, Mogilner said. At least one of the pathways -- leading to organized actin/myosin fibers -- can work without a cell nucleus or any of the other organelles found in cells, beyond the cell membrane and proteins that make up the cytoskeleton.

Upstream of those two pathways is some kind of sensor that detects the electric field. In a separate paper to be published in the same journal issue, Mogilner and Stanford University researchers Greg Allen and Julie Theriot narrow down the possible mechanisms. The most likely explanation, they conclude, is that the electric field causes certain electrically charged proteins in the cell membrane to concentrate at the membrane edge, triggering a response.

The team also included Hao Do, Jing Gao and Ren Zhao, all at the Institute for Regenerative Cures and the UC Davis departments of Ophthalmology and Dermatology. Sun is co-advised by Mogilner and Zhao; Gao is now working at Yunnan Normal University, Kunming, China, and Ren Zhao is at the Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China.

The work was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and the National Science Foundation.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - Davis.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Yaohui Sun, Hao Do, Jing Gao, Ren Zhao, Min Zhao, Alex Mogilner. Keratocyte Fragments and Cells Utilize Competing Pathways to Move in Opposite Directions in an Electric Field. Current Biology, 2013; DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2013.02.026

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_technology/~3/lasFFKFuUus/130328125100.htm

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Chris Cuomo and Kate Bolduan to co-host CNN Morning Show

By Brent Lang

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - CNN has tapped Chris Cuomo and Kate Bolduan to co-host the cable news network's new morning show, which will premiere this spring.

In addition, the network said that Michaela Pereira will join CNN from KTLA Morning News in Los Angeles, as the program's news anchor. The network did not give a name for the new program, when it announced its morning roster on Thursday.

The Bolduan move is a surprise given that speculation had centered on "OutFront's" Erin Burnett joining Cuomo as co-host in the mornings.

It's also an indication of how important CNN and its newly minted chief Jeff Zucker sees Cuomo, who was lured away from ABC in January, to its long-term plans to revive the network.

Since he took the reins at the ratings-challenged CNN, Zucker has swept away the network's morning programming. Last month, CNN announced that Soledad O'Brien would leave as host of its morning show "Starting Point" and will instead enter into a production deal with the network.

Fixing the way CNN kicks off its day is a priority for Zucker, who brings his decade-plus experience as producer of "Today" to his new gig. In both ratings and buzz, the network's morning programming has lagged behind its more partisan competitors like Fox News' "Fox and Friends" and MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

In a statement, Zucker said he believed the new hosts will give CNN an opportunity to offer news in the morning "with a fresh, new voice."

"Chris, Kate and Michaela are a dynamic team that will give our viewers in America a new way to start their day," he said. "We were floored with excitement when we saw Chris and Kate together on screen, and by adding Michaela to the mix we feel we have something very special."

In an interview with the New York Times, Zucker gave some indication of what form this "fresh" approach would take, saying the program will be "more energetic, more conversational and more interesting," while not dwelling on social issues or politics as much as its cable news rivals.

At ABC, Cuomo served as "20/20" co-anchor, ABC News chief law and justice correspondent and "Good Morning America" news anchor. Bolduan joined CNN in 2007, and is co-anchor of "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer." She also serves as one of the network's Congressional correspondents.

News executive Jim Murphy will oversee the program as senior executive producer, and Matt Frucci will serve as executive producer. The show will be broadcast from CNN's New York City studios.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/chris-cuomo-kate-bolduan-co-host-cnn-morning-234628476.html

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Operational F-35B fighter jet's first vertical landing was years, billions in the making (video)

Lockheed Martin's F-35 program has been a political whipping boy seemingly forever, but a production VTOL 'B'-variant of the pricey supersonic jet finally did what it was made for: a vertical landing. That happened nearly three years to the day after the estimated $304 million (each!) jet's first mid-air hover test, at which point the Pentagon pegged the cost at $83 million. Inflation aside, the US Marine's variant seemed to make a fine, if solid three point landing and Lockheed Martin says it's made considerable strides in the flight testing program over the last couple of years, despite all the overruns and delays. Hopefully that means the US Marines, Britain's Royal Air Force et. al. will be able to deploy that capability on their F-35B's soon -- ie, before they're already obsolete. Check the video after the break.

Update: As commenter daveschroeder pointed out, this is the first vertical landing of a production version of the F-35B. Test copies of the fighter (with test pilots aboard) have been performing the feat since late 2011, so we've tweaked the article to make that point clear.

Filed under: Misc

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Via: Megazone (Google+)

Source: Lockheed Martin (YouTube)

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/EYnkIxIt0vg/

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Scientists identify brain's 'molecular memory switch'

Public release date: 28-Mar-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Caroline Clancy
caroline.clancy@bristol.ac.uk
44-011-792-88086
University of Bristol

Common fruit fly key to discovery as to how memories are written into brain cells

Scientists have identified a key molecule responsible for triggering the chemical processes in our brain linked to our formation of memories. The findings, published in the journal Frontiers in Neural Circuits, reveal a new target for therapeutic interventions to reverse the devastating effects of memory loss.

The BBSRC-funded research, led by scientists at the University of Bristol, aimed to better understand the mechanisms that enable us to form memories by studying the molecular changes in the hippocampus the part of the brain involved in learning.

Previous studies have shown that our ability to learn and form memories is due to an increase in synaptic communication called Long Term Potentiation [LTP]. This communication is initiated through a chemical process triggered by calcium entering brain cells and activating a key enzyme called 'Ca2+ responsive kinase' [CaMKII]. Once this protein is activated by calcium it triggers a switch in its own activity enabling it to remain active even after the calcium has gone. This special ability of CaMKII to maintain its own activity has been termed 'the molecular memory switch'.

Until now, the question still remained as to what triggers this chemical process in our brain that allows us to learn and form long-term memories. The research team, comprising scientists from the University's School of Physiology and Pharmacology, conducted experiments using the common fruit fly [Drosophila] to analyse and identify the molecular mechanisms behind this switch. Using advanced molecular genetic techniques that allowed them to temporarily inhibit the flies' memory the team were able to identify a gene called CASK as the synaptic molecule regulating this 'memory switch'.

Dr James Hodge, the study's lead author, said: "Fruit flies are remarkably compatible for this type of study as they possess similar neuronal function and neural responses to humans. Although small they are very smart, for instance, they can land on the ceiling and detect that the fruit in your fruit bowl has gone off before you can."

"In experiments whereby we tested the flies' learning and memory ability, involving two odours presented to the flies with one associated with a mild shock, we found that around 90 per cent were able to learn the correct choice remembering to avoid the odour associated with the shock. Five lessons of the odour with punishment made the fly remember to avoid that odour for between 24 hours and a week, which is a long time for an insect that only lives a couple of months."

By localising the function of the key molecules CASK and CaMKII to the flies' equivalent brain area to the human hippocampus, the team found that the flies lacking these genes showed disrupted memory formation. In repeat memory tests those lacking these key genes were shown to have no ability to remember at three hours (mid-term memory) and 24 hours (long-term memory) although their initial learning or short-term memory wasn't affected.

Finally, the team introduced a copy of the human CASK gene it is 80 per cent identical to the fly CASK gene into the genome of a fly that completely lacked its own CASK gene and was therefore not usually able to remember. The researchers found that flies which had a copy of the human CASK gene could remember like a normal wildtype fly.

Dr Hodge, from the University's School of Physiology and Pharmacology, said: "Research into memory is particularly important as it gives us our sense of identity, and deficits in learning and memory occur in many diseases, injuries and during aging".

"CASK's control of CaMKII 'molecular memory switch' is clearly a critical step in how memories are written into neurons in the brain. These findings not only pave the way for to developing new therapies which reverse the effects of memory loss but also prove the compatibility of Drosophila to model these diseases in the lab and screen for new drugs to treat these diseases. Furthermore, this work provides an important insight into how brains have evolved their huge capacity to acquire and store information."

These findings clearly demonstrate that neuronal function of CASK is conserved between flies and human, validating the use of Drosophila to understand CASK function in both the healthy and diseased brain. Mutations in human CASK gene have been associated with neurological and cognitive defects including severe learning difficulties.

###

The BBSRC-funded study, entitled 'CASK and CaMKII function in the mushroom body a'/' neurons during Drosophila memory formation' by Bilal Rashid Malik, John Michael Gillespie, James John Llewellyn Hodge was published on Wednesday 27 March 2013 in the Frontiers in Neural Circuits Journal.

---

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 28-Mar-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Caroline Clancy
caroline.clancy@bristol.ac.uk
44-011-792-88086
University of Bristol

Common fruit fly key to discovery as to how memories are written into brain cells

Scientists have identified a key molecule responsible for triggering the chemical processes in our brain linked to our formation of memories. The findings, published in the journal Frontiers in Neural Circuits, reveal a new target for therapeutic interventions to reverse the devastating effects of memory loss.

The BBSRC-funded research, led by scientists at the University of Bristol, aimed to better understand the mechanisms that enable us to form memories by studying the molecular changes in the hippocampus the part of the brain involved in learning.

Previous studies have shown that our ability to learn and form memories is due to an increase in synaptic communication called Long Term Potentiation [LTP]. This communication is initiated through a chemical process triggered by calcium entering brain cells and activating a key enzyme called 'Ca2+ responsive kinase' [CaMKII]. Once this protein is activated by calcium it triggers a switch in its own activity enabling it to remain active even after the calcium has gone. This special ability of CaMKII to maintain its own activity has been termed 'the molecular memory switch'.

Until now, the question still remained as to what triggers this chemical process in our brain that allows us to learn and form long-term memories. The research team, comprising scientists from the University's School of Physiology and Pharmacology, conducted experiments using the common fruit fly [Drosophila] to analyse and identify the molecular mechanisms behind this switch. Using advanced molecular genetic techniques that allowed them to temporarily inhibit the flies' memory the team were able to identify a gene called CASK as the synaptic molecule regulating this 'memory switch'.

Dr James Hodge, the study's lead author, said: "Fruit flies are remarkably compatible for this type of study as they possess similar neuronal function and neural responses to humans. Although small they are very smart, for instance, they can land on the ceiling and detect that the fruit in your fruit bowl has gone off before you can."

"In experiments whereby we tested the flies' learning and memory ability, involving two odours presented to the flies with one associated with a mild shock, we found that around 90 per cent were able to learn the correct choice remembering to avoid the odour associated with the shock. Five lessons of the odour with punishment made the fly remember to avoid that odour for between 24 hours and a week, which is a long time for an insect that only lives a couple of months."

By localising the function of the key molecules CASK and CaMKII to the flies' equivalent brain area to the human hippocampus, the team found that the flies lacking these genes showed disrupted memory formation. In repeat memory tests those lacking these key genes were shown to have no ability to remember at three hours (mid-term memory) and 24 hours (long-term memory) although their initial learning or short-term memory wasn't affected.

Finally, the team introduced a copy of the human CASK gene it is 80 per cent identical to the fly CASK gene into the genome of a fly that completely lacked its own CASK gene and was therefore not usually able to remember. The researchers found that flies which had a copy of the human CASK gene could remember like a normal wildtype fly.

Dr Hodge, from the University's School of Physiology and Pharmacology, said: "Research into memory is particularly important as it gives us our sense of identity, and deficits in learning and memory occur in many diseases, injuries and during aging".

"CASK's control of CaMKII 'molecular memory switch' is clearly a critical step in how memories are written into neurons in the brain. These findings not only pave the way for to developing new therapies which reverse the effects of memory loss but also prove the compatibility of Drosophila to model these diseases in the lab and screen for new drugs to treat these diseases. Furthermore, this work provides an important insight into how brains have evolved their huge capacity to acquire and store information."

These findings clearly demonstrate that neuronal function of CASK is conserved between flies and human, validating the use of Drosophila to understand CASK function in both the healthy and diseased brain. Mutations in human CASK gene have been associated with neurological and cognitive defects including severe learning difficulties.

###

The BBSRC-funded study, entitled 'CASK and CaMKII function in the mushroom body a'/' neurons during Drosophila memory formation' by Bilal Rashid Malik, John Michael Gillespie, James John Llewellyn Hodge was published on Wednesday 27 March 2013 in the Frontiers in Neural Circuits Journal.

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Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/uob-sib032813.php

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NASA provides a super-speed look at Webb Telescope progress

Mar. 27, 2013 ? NASA released a new sped-up, 32-second video that shows engineers working on some of the James Webb Space Telescope's flight components to integrate them together to ensure they will work perfectly together in space.

The "NASA Webb Clean Room at Super-speed" video was filmed in the giant clean room at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and produced at Goddard. The video is available on a NASA website in HD at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?11220 . Testing of the two flight instruments that have been delivered to Goddard has been ongoing in the past several months.

? Larger image Engineers and scientists at Goddard have begun assembling the four science instruments together. In a recently released video from NASA clean room personnel are shown installing the Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS) instrument into a larger structure called the Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM) structure. The ISIM structure is the larger skeletal structure in the video, and the FGS is the object on the end of a balance beam being moved by a crane.

"This is the integration of the FGS/NIRISS instrument onto the ISIM structure," said Scott Lambros, Webb Instrument systems manager at Goddard. "This is the first of the four instruments to be integrated on the structure and is a very exciting time. It clearly shows we are moving into a new phase, from development, into the integration and then testing phase."

The FGS is actually one half of a combination instrument with the Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) science instrument. The FGS will enable the telescope to accurately and precisely point at the correct, intended objects for it to observe.

"The Webb telescope fine guidance sensor which provides pointing stability, or image stabilizer control, has been installed and being readied for testing together with other instruments in the ISIM," said Ray Lundquist, ISIM systems engineer at Goddard.

The FGS is packaged together as a single unit with the NIRISS science instrument and is developed and provided by the Canadian Space Agency and its prime contractor, COM DEV.

The ISIM is the whole integrated system of instruments on the Webb. It's one of four major elements that comprise the Webb Observatory flight system. It contains the four science instruments that will detect light from distant stars and galaxies, and planets orbiting other stars. The ISIM itself provides electrical, computational and heat management services for the science instruments.

"The MIRI instrument will be the next to be integrated onto the structure within the next month, with the NIRCam and NIRSpec instruments to follow later this year," Lambros said.

Another video was released last year produced by the Space Science Telescope Institute of Baltimore, Md., in the "Behind the Webb" series. That video, called "Canada's Dynamic Duo," took viewers behind the scenes where the instruments were created, and is on-line.

The most powerful space telescope ever built, Webb is the successor to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Webb's four instruments will reveal how the universe evolved from the big bang to the formation of our solar system. Webb is a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

To download the "NASA Webb Cleanroom at Super-speed" HD video, visit: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?11220

To see a related "Behind the Webb" video on FGS and NIRISS, visit: http://webbtelescope.org/webb_telescope/behind_the_webb/16

To learn more about the ISIM, visit: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/webb/instruments/ISIM.html

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/NTWSp1TkuZ4/130327113937.htm

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Egypt: Divers caught while cutting Internet cable

CAIRO (AP) ? Egypt's naval forces captured three scuba divers who were trying to cut an undersea Internet cable in the Mediterranean on Wednesday, a military spokesman said. Telecommunications executives meanwhile blamed a weeklong Internet slowdown on damage caused to another cable by a ship.

Col. Ahmed Mohammed Ali said in a statement on his official Facebook page that divers were arrested while "cutting the undersea cable" of the country's main communications company, Telecom Egypt. The statement said they were caught on a speeding fishing boat just off the port city of Alexandria.

The statement was accompanied by a photo showing three young men, apparently Egyptian, staring up at the camera in what looks like an inflatable launch. It did not further have details on who they were or why they would have wanted to cut a cable.

Egypt's Internet services have been disrupted since March 22. Telecom Egypt executive manager Mohammed el-Nawawi told the private TV network CBC that the damage was caused by a ship, and there would be a full recovery on Thursday.

There was preliminary evidence of slow Internet connections as far away as Pakistan and India, said Jim Cowie, chief technology officer and co-founder of Renesys, a network security firm based in Manchester, N.H., that studies Internet traffic.

A cable cut can cause data to become congested and flow the long way around the world, he said.

It's not the first time cable cuts have affected the Mideast in recent years. Errant ships' anchors are often blamed. Serious undersea cable cuts caused widespread Internet outages and disruptions across the Middle East on two separate occasions in 2008.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-divers-caught-while-cutting-internet-cable-213029317.html

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Loppersum Journal: More Earthquakes in Loppersum, the Netherlands

[unable to retrieve full-text content]In Loppersum, the Netherlands, residents fear an increase in earthquakes from drilling for natural gas.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/world/europe/more-earthquakes-in-loppersum-the-netherlands.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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College student loan interest rates set to double

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Incoming college freshmen could end up paying $5,000 more for the same student loans their older siblings have if Congress doesn't stop interest rates from doubling.

Sound familiar? The same warnings came last year. But now the presidential election is over and mandatory budget cuts are taking place, making a deal to avert a doubling of interest rates much more elusive before a July 1 deadline.

"What is definitely clear, this time around, there doesn't seem to be as much outcry," said Justin Draeger, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. "We're advising our members to tell students that the interest rates are going to double on new student loans, to 6.8 percent."

That rate hike only hits students taking out new subsidized loans. Students with outstanding subsidized loans are not expected to see their loan rates increase unless they take out a new subsidized Stafford loan. Students' non-subsidized loans are not expected to change, nor are loans taken from commercial lenders.

The difference between 3.4 percent and 6.8 percent interest rates is a $6 billion tab for taxpayers ? set against a backdrop of budget negotiations that have pitted the two parties in a standoff. President Barack Obama is expected to release his budget proposal in the coming weeks, adding another perspective to the debate.

Last year, with the presidential and congressional elections looming, students got a one-year reprieve on the doubling of interest rates. That expires July 1.

Neither party's budget proposal in Congress has money specifically set aside to keep student loans at their current rate. House Republicans' budget would double the interest rates on newly issued subsidized loans to help balance the federal budget in a decade. Senate Democrats say they want to keep the interest rates at their current levels but the budget they passed last week does not set aside money to keep the rates low.

In any event, neither side is likely to get what it wants. And that could lead to confusion for students as they receive their college admission letters and financial aid packages.

House Republicans, led by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, have outlined a spending plan that would shift the interest rates back to their pre-2008 levels. Congress in 2007 lowered the rate to 6 percent for new loans started during the 2008 academic year, then down to 5.6 percent in 2009, down to 4.5 percent in 2010 and then to the current 3.4 percent a year later.

Some two-thirds of students are graduating with loans exceeding $25,000; one in 10 borrowers owes more than $54,000 in loans. And student loan debt now tops $1 trillion. For those students, the rates make significant differences in how much they have to pay back each month.

For some, the rates seem arbitrary and have little to do with interest rates available for other purchases such as homes or cars.

"Burdening students with 6.8 percent loans when interest rates in the economy are at historic lows makes no sense," said Lauren Asher, president of the Institute for College Access and Success, a nonprofit organization.

Both House Education Committee Chairman John Kline of Minnesota and his Democratic counterpart, Rep. George Miller of California, prefer to keep rates at their current levels but have not outlined how they might accomplish that goal.

Rep. Karen Bass, a California Democrat, last week introduced a proposal that would permanently cap the interest rate at 3.4 percent.

Senate Democrats say their budget proposal would permanently keep the student rates low. But their budget document doesn't explicitly cover the $6 billion annual cost. Instead, its committee report included a window for the Senate Health Education and Pension Committee to pass a student loan rate fix down the road.

But so far, the money isn't there. And if the committee wants to keep the rates where they are, they will have to find a way to pay for them, either through cuts to programs in the budget or by adding new taxes.

"Spending is measured in numbers, not words," said Jason Delisle, a former Republican staffer on the Senate Budget Committee and now director of the New America Foundation's Federal Budget Project. "The Murray budget does not include funding for any changes to student loans."

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that of the almost $113 billion in new student loans the government made this year, more than $38 billion will be lost to defaults, even after Washington collects what it can through wage garnishments.

The net cost to taxpayers after most students pay back their loans with interest is $5.7 billion. If the rate increases, Washington will be collecting more interest from new students' loans.

But those who lobbied lawmakers a year ago said they were pessimistic before Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney both came out in support of keeping the rates low.

"We were at this point and we knew this issue was looming. But it wasn't anything we had any real traction with," said Tobin Van Ostern, deputy director of Campus Progress at the liberal Center for American Progress. "At this point, I didn't think we'd prevent them from doubling."

This time, he's looking at the July 1 deadline with the same concern.

"Having a deadline does help. It's much easier to deal with one specific date," Van Ostern said. "But if Congress can't come together ... interest rates are going to double. There tends to be a tendency for inaction."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/neither-party-cash-student-loan-rate-fix-185759359--politics.html

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Measuring the magnetism of antimatter

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

In a breakthrough that could one day yield important clues about the nature of matter itself, a team of Harvard scientists have succeeding in measuring the magnetic charge of single particles of matter and antimatter more accurately than ever before.

As described in a March 25 paper in Physical Review Letters, the ATRAP team, led by Gerald Gabrielse, the George Vasmer Leverett Professor of Physics, and including post-doctoral fellows Stephan Ettenauer and Eric Tardiff and graduate students Jack DiSciacca, Mason Marshall, Kathryn Marable and Rita Kalra was able to capture individual protons and antiprotons in a "trap" created by electric and magnetic fields. By precisely measuring the oscillations of each particle, the team was able to measure the magnetism of a proton more than 1,000 times more accurately than an antiproton had been measured before. Similar tests with antiprotons produced a 680-fold increase in accuracy in the size of the magnet in an antiproton.

"That is a spectacular jump in precision for any fundamental quality," Gabrielse said, of the antiproton measurements. "That's a leap that we don't often see in physics, at least not in a single step."

Such measurements, Gabrielse said, could one day help scientists answer a question that seems more suited for the philosophy classroom than the physics lab ? why are we here?

"One of the great mysteries in physics is why our universe is made of matter," he said. "According to our theories, the same amount of matter and antimatter was produced during the Big Bang. When matter and antimatter meet, they are annihilated. As the universe cools down, the big mystery is: Why didn't all the matter find the antimatter and annihilate all of both? There's a lot of matter and no antimatter left, and we don't know why."

Making precise measurements of protons and antiprotons, Gabrielse explained, could begin to answer those questions by potentially shedding new light on whether the CPT (Charge conjugation, Parity transformation, Time reversal) theorem is correct. An outgrowth of the standard model of particle physics, CPT states that the protons and antiprotons should be virtually identical ? with the same magnitude of charge and mass ? yet should have opposite charges.

Though earlier experiments, which measured the charge-to-mass ratio of protons and antiprotons, verified the predictions of CPT, Gabrielse said further investigation is needed because the standard model does not account for all forces, such as gravity, in the universe.

"What we wanted to do with these experiments was to say, 'Let's take a simple system ? a single proton and a single antiproton ? and let's compare their predicted relationships, and see if our predictions are correct," Gabrielse said. "Ultimately, whatever we learn might give us some insight into how to explain this mystery."

While researchers were able to capture and measure protons with relative ease, antiprotons are only produced by high-energy collisions that take place at the extensive tunnels of the CERN laboratory in Geneva, Gabrielse said, leaving researchers facing a difficult choice.

"Last year, we published a report showing that we could measure a proton much more accurately than ever before," Gabrielese said. "Once we had done that, however, we had to make a decision ? did we want to take the risk of moving our people and our entire apparatus ? crates and crates of electronics and a very delicate trap apparatus ? to CERN and try to do the same thing with antiprotons? Antiprotons would only be available till mid-December and then not again for a year and a half.

"We decided to give it a shot, and by George, we pulled it off," he continued. "Ultimately, we argued that we should attempt it, because even if we failed, that failure would teach us something." In what Gabrielse described as a "gutsy" choice, graduate student Jack DiSciacca agreed to use this attempt to conclude his thesis research, and new graduate students Marshall and Marable signed on to help.

Though their results still fit within the predictions made by the standard model, Gabrielse said being able to more accurately measure the characteristics of both matter and antimatter may yet help shed new light on how the universe works.

"What's also very exciting about this breakthrough is that it now prepares us to continue down this road," he said. "I'm confident that, given this start, we're going to be able to increase the accuracy of these measurements by another factor of 1,000, or even 10,000."

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Harvard University: http://www.harvard.edu

Thanks to Harvard University for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127457/Measuring_the_magnetism_of_antimatter

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Consumer confidence falls in March

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Americans are less confident in the economy than they were last month as massive government spending cuts have stoked economic uncertainty.

It's just the latest swing in the way Americans feel about the economy. Their views have fluctuated between optimism and angst over the months as they've weighed an advancing stock market and housing recovery against new economic challenges.

"From my standpoint, we're still in a stalled recovery," says Skip Tamke, a central New Jersey project manager for a computer storage company who lost a job last May that paid twice what he's earning now.

The Conference Board, a New York-based private research group, said Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index fell in March to 59.7 from a revised reading of 68 in February and the 68.7 that analysts polled by research firm FactSet expected. Confidence is still far off from the 90 reading that indicates a healthy economy.

The index is closely watched by economists because it makes a monthly gauge of how Americans are feeling about their jobs, incomes and other bread-and-butter issues. That's important because consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of U.S. economic activity.

Anxiety about $85 billion in across-the-board government spending cuts that took effect March 1 caused the decline in the index, the group said. The spending reductions, which were triggered after Congress and the White House failed to resolve a budget impasse, have "created uncertainty regarding the economic outlook," Lynn Franco, the Conference Board's director of economic indicators, said in a statement

Congress and the Obama administration reached a deal on Jan. 1 to prevent income taxes from rising on most Americans. But they allowed a temporary cut in Social Security taxes to expire. For a worker earning $50,000 a year, take-home pay will shrink by about $1,000.

That has a more direct impact on most Americans than the government spending reductions, noted Scott Brown, chief economist at investment firm Raymond James.

The March drop in the confidence index "likely reflects the impact of higher gasoline prices as well as the higher payroll tax," Brown said. Although the payroll tax increase kicked in three months ago, its effect may just now be sinking in for some people, he says.

The Conference Board's survey was conducted from March 1 through March 14. The sharp decline in the March index was caused mainly by a drop in expectations for the economy, though consumers also were more pessimistic regarding current economic conditions, the group said. The number of people anticipating more jobs in the months ahead fell to 12.3 percent from 16.1 percent, while those expecting their incomes to increase slipped to 13.7 percent from 15.8 percent.

Consumers also are again pessimistic about the short-term outlook for the economy, the group said. The proportion of people expecting business conditions to improve over the next six months fell to 14.4 percent from 18 percent a month earlier, while those expecting conditions to worsen rose to 18.3 percent from 16.6 percent.

Chris Christopher, director of consumer economics at IHS Global Insight, said he expects consumer confidence to recover as the "shock value" of the mandated spending cuts wanes. However, "smaller paychecks, depressed consumer mood, and rising (gasoline) prices are not very favorable for elevated levels of discretionary spending," Christopher wrote in a research note.

The decline in consumer confidence comes as Americans are seeing some signs of an improving economy.

Stock prices have roughly doubled since June 2009. And the job market, while still tough, is rebounding. Employers added 236,000 jobs in February, driving the unemployment rate down to 7.7 percent, its lowest level in more than four years. The gains signaled that companies are confident enough in the economy to intensify hiring even in the face of tax increases and government spending cuts.

Americans spent more at retailers in February despite the smaller paychecks, according to a Commerce Department report issued on March 13. Much of the increase in retail sales compared with January reflected higher gasoline prices. But even excluding the volatile categories of gas, autos and building supply stores, so-called core retail sales rose strongly.

The healthier-than-expected numbers prompted some experts to revise their estimates of U.S. economic growth for the January-March quarter. And the Conference Board's measure of the U.S. economy's health over the next six months, reported on Thursday, increased in February from January.

But that says little about the current financial reality for Americans like Tamke, the central New Jersey resident. He says he was out of work for over eight months before he found his current position.

"I know I'm not pumping anything into the economy," he says. "I am barely able to pay my bills."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/consumer-confidence-falls-march-142231567--finance.html

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Sen. Hagan to announce small business initiative in Greensboro ...

Kay Hagan (Credit: Hagan.senate.gov)

GREENSBORO, N.C. ? U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan on Monday will announce a new small business initiative in Greensboro.

Sen. Hagan is expected to make the announcement around 10:30 a.m. at The Nussbaum Center for Entrepreneurship, where she will visit with small businesses that utilize the resources provided by the Center.

The Center is located at 1451 South Elm-Eugene St.

A spokesperson with Sen. Hagan?s office says Oscar Wong, CEO of Highland Brewery, and Paul Wetenhall, President of Ventureprise, are among the visiting business leaders.

No other information about the announcement was provided.

Source: http://myfox8.com/2013/03/25/sen-hagan-to-announce-small-business-initiative-in-greensboro/

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Woods back on top in golf

Tiger Woods, left, and Arnold Palmer share a laugh during the trophy presentation after Woods won the Arnold Palmer Invitational golf tournament in Orlando, Fla., Monday, March 25, 2013. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)

Tiger Woods, left, and Arnold Palmer share a laugh during the trophy presentation after Woods won the Arnold Palmer Invitational golf tournament in Orlando, Fla., Monday, March 25, 2013. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)

Tiger Woods holds the championship trophy after winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational golf tournament in Orlando, Fla., Monday, March 25, 2013. Woods finished 13-under-par. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)

Tiger Woods waves to fans as he walks off the 18th hole after winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational golf tournament, Monday, March 25, 2013, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

Tiger Woods hits a shot from the third tee during the final round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational golf tournament, Monday, March 25, 2013, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)

Tiger Woods hits a shot from the fourth fairway during the final round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational golf tournament, Monday, March 25, 2013, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) ? The moment was vintage Tiger Woods, and so was his reaction.

Seconds after Rickie Fowler made a 40-foot birdie putt on the 12th hole to pull within two shots of the lead, Woods posed over his 25-foot birdie putt until he swept the putter upward in his left hand and marched toward the cup as it dropped for a birdie.

Fowler, standing on the edge of the green, turned with a slight smile as if to say, "What else can I do?"

Woods won the Arnold Palmer Invitational on Monday and returned to No. 1 in the world for the first time since October 2010, the longest spell of his career. After all that time, after so much turmoil with his personal life and his health, Woods looks as good as ever.

Maybe better.

"It's a byproduct of hard work, patience and getting back to winning golf tournaments," Woods said.

He essentially wrapped up his eighth title at Bay Hill with an 8-iron out of a fairway bunker on the par-5 16th that easily cleared the water and landed safely on the green for a two-putt birdie. Woods dangled his tongue out of his mouth as the ball was in the air, another sign of his swagger.

Just like his other two wins this year, Woods never let anyone get closer than two shots in the final round. With a conservative bogey he could afford on the final hole, he closed with a 2-under 70 for a two-shot win over Justin Rose.

Woods walked off the 18th green waving his putter over his head ? truly a magic wand at Bay Hill ? to acknowledge the fans who have seen this act before. His eighth win in the Arnold Palmer Invitational tied a PGA Tour record that had not been touched in 48 years.

This win had extra significance. He's back to No. 1.

"If I get healthy, I know I can play this game at a high level," Woods said. "I know I can be where I'm contending in every event, contending in major championships and being consistent day in and day out ? if I got healthy. That was the first step in the process. Once I got there, then my game turned."

A year ago, he came to Bay Hill without having won in more than 2? years. He left this year having won six times in his last 20 starts on the PGA Tour.

Next up is the Masters, where Woods will try to end his five-year drought in the majors.

"I'm really excited about the rest of this year," Woods said.

Woods fell as low as No. 58 in the world as he coped with the collapse of his marriage, a loss of sponsors and injuries to his left leg. One week after he announced he was dating Olympic ski champion Lindsey Vonn, Woods returned to the top of golf.

"Number 1 !!!!!!!!!!!!!" Vonn tweeted moments after his win.

Asked if there was any correlation to his winning right after going public with his relationship, Woods smiled and said, "You're reading way too much into this."

Like so many other victories, this one was never really close.

Fowler pulled to within two shots with a 25-foot birdie putt on the 14th hole, but after he and Woods made bogey on the 15th, Fowler went at the flag on the par-5 16th and came up a few yards short and into the water. Fowler put another ball into the water and made triple bogey.

"I was swinging it well. I made a few putts, and trying to put a little pressure on them, let them know I was there," Fowler said. "Just would like to have that 7-iron back on 16. Just kind of a touch heavy."

Woods played it safe on the 18th, and nearly holed a 75-foot par putt that even drew a big smile from the tournament host.

Woods tied the tour record of eight wins in a single tournament. Sam Snead won the Greater Greensboro Open eight times from 1938 to 1965 at two golf courses. Woods tied his record for most wins at a single golf course, having also won eight times at Torrey Pines, including a U.S. Open.

"I don't really see anybody touching it for a long time," Palmer said while Woods made his way up the 18th fairway. "I had the opportunity to win a tournament five times, and I knew how difficult that was."

Rose, who played the first two rounds with Woods, closed with a 70 to finish alone in second.

He pulled to within two shots of Woods with a birdie on the 16th. Woods was in the group behind him in the fairway bunker on the par 5, and hit 8-iron over the water and onto the middle of the green for a two-putt birdie to restore his margin.

"He plays every shot like he plays them on Sunday," Rose said. "His intensity is the same on Thursday often as it is on Sunday, and that makes Sunday a lot less different for him. He plays in that kind of atmosphere far more regularly than a lot of guys do, and it's an adjustment for most of us. It's a known for him."

Fowler had to settle for a 73 and a tie for third with Mark Wilson (71), Keegan Bradley (71) and Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano (72).

Rory McIlroy had been No. 1 since he won the PGA Championship last August. He can reclaim the No. 1 ranking by winning the Houston Open this week. Woods heads home to south Florida for two weeks before the Masters.

Asked the last time he felt this good going to Augusta National, Woods replied, "It's been a few years."

This was the fourth time in his career that he already had three PGA Tour wins before the Masters ? he didn't win a green jacket in any of the previous years (2000, 2003 and 2008). More telling, perhaps, is that Woods has won back-to-back starts for the first time since the Buick Open and Bridgestone Invitational in August 2009.

"I think it shows that my game is consistent," he said. "It's at a high level."

Woods finished at 13-under 275 and won for the 77th time on the PGA Tour, moving to within five of Snead's record.

Fowler, his first time playing with Woods in the final group, opened with eight pars when he needed to be making up ground. And when he finally had a few openings on the back nine, Woods refused to let him through.

Woods salvaged a two-putt par with a 7-footer on the 11th hole to keep a three-shot lead. On the next hole, Fowler looked to gain some momentum when he made a 40-foot birdie putt only for Woods to match him with that 25-foot birdie.

Woods produced some absurd statistics with the putter this week, making 19 of 28 putts from between 7 feet and 20 feet.

He walked off the green to share a handshake with Palmer, along with a big smile and some words that Woods said were best kept private. He left the course in that familiar blue blazer that goes to the winner.

And he left as the No. 1 player in the world.

It's the 11th time that Woods has gone back to No. 1, tied with Greg Norman since the ranking began in 1986. Still to be determined is how long Woods stays there this time.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-03-25-GLF-Bay-Hill/id-e359dba6becc492692f9f482c0dab8a7

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