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May 2, 2009 6:14:29 GMT 4
Post by towhom on May 2, 2009 6:14:29 GMT 4
Rep. Frank sees banks TARP-free in a yearLeaks of stress-test results on largest banks are ‘not helpful,’ he warnsMSNBC updated 6:58 p.m. ET, Tues., April 28, 2009www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30463584/There are times that an article is so ridiculous that I can't bring myself to post it in its entirety. This is one of those times.
Someone needs to run "tests" on some of the Congressional members - you know, like, "drug tests". Dude, whatever you're on has to have disclosed possible "delusional" side effects...
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May 2, 2009 6:29:48 GMT 4
Post by towhom on May 2, 2009 6:29:48 GMT 4
World's most ancient race traced in DNA studyThe Independent Friday, 1 May 2009www.independent.co.uk/news/science/worlds-most-ancient-race-traced-in-dna-study-1677113.htmlThe San people of southern Africa, who have lived as hunter-gatherers for thousands of years, are likely to be the oldest population of humans on Earth, according to the biggest and most detailed analysis of African DNA. The San, also known as bushmen, are directly descended from the original population of early human ancestors who gave rise to all other groups of Africans and, eventually, to the people who left the continent to populate other parts of the world. A study of 121 distinct populations of modern-day Africans has found that they are all descended from 14 ancestral populations and that the differences and similarities of their genes closely follows the differences and similarities of their spoken languages. The scientists analysed the genetic variation within the DNA of more than 3,000 Africans and found that the San were among the most genetically diverse group, indicating that they are probably the oldest continuous population of humans on the continent – and on Earth. The study, published in the journal Science, took 10 years of research involving trips to some of the most remote and dangerous parts of Africa to collect blood samples. The project found modern Africans had the most diverse DNA of all racial groups in the world, confirming the idea that Africa is the birthplace of humanity, said Sarah Tishkoff of the University of Pennsylvania. The scientists also found genetic "markers" in the DNA of the present-day inhabitants of East Africa living near to the Red Sea, which indicated that they belonged to the same ancestral group who migrated out of Africa to populate Asia and the rest of the world. West Africans speaking the Niger-Kordofanian language were found to share many genetic traits with African-Americans, indicating they were the ancestors of most of the slaves sent to the New World. One of the main findings to emerge was the genetic similarity between groups who shared similar languages despite living many thousands of miles from one another. The Sandawe and Hadza of Tanzania shared common ancestors with the Khoisan speakers of southern Africa: all three groups speak "click" languages.
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May 2, 2009 22:26:22 GMT 4
Post by galaxygirl on May 2, 2009 22:26:22 GMT 4
How to Avoid Swine Flu:
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May 3, 2009 0:12:41 GMT 4
Post by satchmo on May 3, 2009 0:12:41 GMT 4
;D ;D ;D Galaxygirl.....Thank's for the laff. Here's...never before seen footage of a Goober meeting ;D satchmo
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May 3, 2009 0:36:45 GMT 4
Post by towhom on May 3, 2009 0:36:45 GMT 4
Hiya GG and satchmo!
ROTFLMAO
;D
And yes, satchmo, that was a goober meeting in progress.
Peace and Joy Always
Sally Anne
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May 3, 2009 2:47:32 GMT 4
Post by towhom on May 3, 2009 2:47:32 GMT 4
When Cells Reach Out and TouchJ-RNA Production Revs Up During Cell-to-Cell ContactJohn Hopkins Medicine May 1, 2009www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_01a_09.htmlMicroRNAs are single-stranded snippets that, not long ago, were given short shrift as genetic junk. Now that studies have shown they regulate genes involved in normal functioning as well as diseases such as cancer, everyone wants to know: What regulates microRNAs? Scientists at Johns Hopkins were surprised to find an elegantly simple answer: touch. In a new study, published online April 9 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers discovered that cell-to-cell contact revs up the manufacture of these small but mighty molecules. “This study documents one of the very few clear examples of a stimulus that directly influences the global efficiency of microRNA production,” says Josh Mendell, M.D., Ph.D., an assistant professor in the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “No one anticipated, including us, that the production of microRNAs is linked to how densely cells are packed together.”In what Mendell describes as an “accidental discovery,” the team was studying contact inhibition: a phenomenon in which non-cancerous cells growing in a dish stop multiplying when they touch each other. Cancer cells, on the other hand, lose contact inhibition and continue to proliferate even when they’re touching. The researchers suspected that microRNAs might play a role in contact inhibition because whenever they studied these enigmatic bits -- only about 20 or so genetic building blocks comprise a microRNA -- they always saw more in the tissues of animals, where cells are packed together, relative to the amount they found in isolated cells growing in culture.To investigate, the team grew cancer cells and non-cancer cells to increasing densities in culture and, using a tool developed in the Mendell laboratory, measured the abundance of hundreds of microRNAs simultaneously. This analysis revealed that the more densely the cells were packed together, the more microRNA was produced in each cell.The scientists then examined microRNA production in five additional commonly studied human and mouse cell lines, including human breast cancer cells, human colorectal cancer cells and human pancreatic cancer cells. They also tested fruit fly cells to determine whether or not the phenomenon is restricted to mammals. In all tested cell lines, including the fruit fly cells, scientists observed a dramatic increase in microRNA abundance with increasing cell density.“All evidence points to the fact that physical contact -- when cells actually touch each other -- is the critical factor that revs up the production of microRNAs,” Mendell says. “Through additional experiments, we were able to identify the specific molecular steps at which microRNA production is affected. We expect that this phenomenon will profoundly influence how cells behave in normal development and disease.”The team’s finding has practical importance for researchers who are investigating a range of biological processes that are most conveniently studied in cells growing in culture, Mendell says: “Little did we know the manufacture of microRNAs was so potently influenced simply by growing cells to different densities. We now recognize that this is a critical parameter that must be closely monitored when performing experiments with microRNAs in tissue culture.” A better understanding of how microRNA production is regulated is important because a reduction in the abundance of these molecules has been linked to the development of certain cancers. To date, one barrier to understanding how microRNAs are regulated in normal development and in disease states has been the lack of a simple system by which scientists could turn on and off a molecular pathway that controls microRNA production. Now, it seems, they may be able to toggle that pathway using cell-to-cell contact.“If we can identify the mechanisms through which microRNA production is regulated in normal settings, such as under conditions of extensive cell-cell contact, we can then ask whether the same mechanisms block microRNA manufacture in diseases such as cancer,” Mendell says. “This might allow the development of small molecules or other methods to turn microRNA production back on for therapeutic benefit.” The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the Sol Goldman Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research.
In addition to Mendell, authors on the paper are Hun-Way Hwang and Erik A. Wentzel, also of Johns Hopkins.On the Web:www.hopkinsmedicine.org/geneticmedicine/people/faculty/mendell.htmlwww.pnas.org/
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May 3, 2009 2:53:56 GMT 4
Post by towhom on May 3, 2009 2:53:56 GMT 4
ISU researcher identifies key function in protein, cell transcriptionIowa State University News Release: 05-01-09www.public.iastate.edu/~nscentral/news/2009/may/shogren.shtmlAmes, IA -- When cells decide to make proteins, key building blocks of all organisms, they need to know where to start reading the instructions for assembling them. An Iowa State University researcher has figured out a mechanism involved in marking where these instructions are located in a cell's DNA. In the current edition of The Journal of Biological Chemistry, Michael Shogren-Knaak, assistant professor in biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology, along with Shanshan Li, a graduate student in his lab, show how a protein, Gcn5, is involved in this process. When a portion of the Gcn5 protein recognizes chemically modified proteins associated with DNA, called histones, this recognition facilitates further chemical modification of the histones. This allows the information contained in that DNA, or genes, to be read more efficiently. "This is very important in normal cell development from single cell organisms to us (humans)," said Shogren-Knaak. Understanding how DNA is read should shed light on diseases where DNA is often inappropriately read. "This is very likely to be significant for diseases like cancer," said Shogren-Knaak. "Cancer is distinguished by containing a lots of genes that should be turned off but aren't, and by proteins that should be made but aren't," he said. "That leads to cells that grow in an uncontrolled and undesirable manner."
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May 3, 2009 3:00:55 GMT 4
Post by towhom on May 3, 2009 3:00:55 GMT 4
Glacial advancesGlaciers in the Southern Hemisphere are growing out of step with those in the NorthEurekAlert Public Release: 1-May-2009www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/nsf-ga050109.phpThe vast majority of the world's glaciers are retreating as the planet gets warmer. But a few, including glaciers south of the equator in South America and New Zealand, are inching forward. A paper in this week's issue of the journal Science puts this enigma in perspective; for the last 7,000 years, New Zealand's largest glaciers have often moved out of step with glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere, pointing to strong regional variations in climate. "This research should provide much more accurate reconstructions of glacial advances worldwide, allowing us in turn to make climate models more accurate," said Paul Filmer, program director in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Earth Sciences, which funded the research. Conventional wisdom holds that during the era of human civilization, climate has been relatively stable. The new study is the latest to challenge this view, by showing that New Zealand's glaciers have gone through rapid periods of growth and decline during the current interglacial period known as the Holocene. "New Zealand's mountain glaciers have fluctuated frequently over the last 7,000 years, and glacial advances have become slightly smaller through time," said Joerg Schaefer, lead author of the paper and a geochemist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory."This pattern differs in important ways from the northern hemisphere glaciers. The door is open now towards a global map of Holocene glacier fluctuations and how climate variations during this period impacted human civilizations."
Glaciers are extremely sensitive to changes in temperature and snowfall, which makes them well suited for studying past climate. This archive has been largely untapped, however, because of the difficulty in assigning precise ages to glacier fluctuations.
One way to measure glacial fluxes is by studying the moraines, or rock deposits that glaciers often leave behind at their maximum points of advance.
However, until now the methods of dating such moraines, including radiocarbon dating of organic matter, could be off by hundreds of years.
By refining the analysis of a method called cosmogenic dating, Schaefer and colleagues were able for the first time to assign precise ages to young Holocene moraines.
They accomplished this by measuring minute levels of the chemical isotope beryllium 10 in the rocks, which is produced when cosmic rays strike rock surfaces, and builds up over time.
The researchers were thus able to pinpoint exactly when glaciers in New Zealand's Southern Alps began to recede, exposing the rocks to the cosmic rays.
From the results, they constructed a glacial timeline for the past 7,000 years and compared it against historic records from the Swiss Alps and other places north of the equator.
They found that within that timeframe, the glaciers around Mount Cook, New Zealand's highest peak, reached their largest extent about 6,500 years ago, when the Swiss Alps and Scandinavia were relatively warm.
That's about 6,000 years before northern glaciers hit their Holocene peak during the Little Ice Age, between 1300 and 1860 AD.
That finding was a surprise to some scientists who assumed that the northern cold phase happened globally. The record in New Zealand shows other disparities that point to regional climate variations in both hemispheres.
The new chemical and analytical protocols are expected to allow scientists to accurately date glacier fluctuations throughout the Holocene, rounding out the climate picture on the continents.
"With this measure we can go to almost any mountain range on earth and date the moraines in front of the glaciers and produce a similar chronology," said co-author George Denton, a glaciologist at the University of Maine and an adjunct scientist at Lamont-Doherty.
Overall, glaciers around the world have been declining since about 1860, with the exception of a brief advance in Switzerland in the 1980s, New Zealand in the late 1970s through today, and a few other places.
Changes in wind and sea surface temperatures are thought to be causing these regional fluctuations.
Currently in a wet phase, New Zealand is expected to swing back to a warmer, drier phase in the next few years, causing the glaciers to retreat once again.
The study also received funding from the Comer Science and Education Foundation, and the New Zealand Foundation for Research, Science and Technology.
Other researchers involved in the study were: Michael Kaplan and Roseanne Schwartz, also of Lamont-Doherty; Aaron Putnam, University of Maine; Robert Finkel, CEREGE, France; David Barrell, GNS Science, New Zealand; Bjorn Anderson, University of Oslo; Andrew Mackintosh, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand; Trevor Chinn, Alpine and Polar Processes Consultancy, New Zealand; Christian Schluchter, University of Bern, Switzerland.
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May 3, 2009 3:14:53 GMT 4
Post by towhom on May 3, 2009 3:14:53 GMT 4
Shift in simulation superiorityNew report highlights strengths and weaknesses in US high-end computer simulations relative to international counterpartsEurekAlert Public Release: 1-May-2009www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/nsf-sis050109.phpScience and engineering are advancing rapidly in part due to ever more powerful computer simulations, yet the most advanced supercomputers require programming skills that all too few U.S. researchers possess. At the same time, affordable computers and committed national programs outside the U.S. are eroding American competitiveness in number of simulation-driven fields. These are some of the key findings in the International Assessment of Research and Development in Simulation-Based Engineering and Science, released on Apr. 22, 2009, by the World Technology Evaluation Center (WTEC). "The startling news was how quickly our assumptions have to change," said Phillip Westmoreland, program director for combustion, fire and plasma systems at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and one of the sponsors of the report. "Because computer chip speeds aren't increasing, hundreds and thousands of chips are being ganged together, each one with many processors. New ways of programming are necessary." Like other WTEC studies, this study was led by a team of leading researchers from a range of simulation science and engineering disciplines and involved site visits to research facilities around the world. The nearly 400-page, multi-agency report highlights several areas in which the U.S. still maintains a competitive edge, including the development of novel algorithms, but also highlights endeavors that are increasingly driven by efforts in Europe or Asia, such as the creation and simulation of new materials from first principles. "Some of the new high-powered computers are as common as gaming computers, so key breakthroughs and leadership could come from anywhere in the world," added Westmoreland. "Last week's research-directions workshop brought together engineers and scientists from around the country, developing ideas that would keep the U.S. at the vanguard as we face these changes." Sharon Glotzer of the University of Michigan chaired the panel of experts that executed the studies of the Asian, European and U.S. simulation research activities. Peter Cummings of both Vanderbilt University and Oak Ridge National Laboratory co-authored the report with Glotzer and seven other panelists, and the two co-chaired the Apr. 22-23, 2009, workshop with Glotzer that provided agencies initial guidance on strategic directions. "Progress in simulation-based engineering and science holds great promise for the pervasive advancement of knowledge and understanding through discovery," said Clark Cooper, program director for materials and surface engineering at NSF and also a sponsor of the report. "We expect future developments to continue to enhance prediction and decision making in the presence of uncertainty." The WTEC study was funded by the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Department of Energy For more information, read the full report and the University of Michigan press release. Given the funders, the "slant" of this article comes as no surprise.
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May 3, 2009 3:46:20 GMT 4
Post by towhom on May 3, 2009 3:46:20 GMT 4
Blurring the Line Between Magic and Science: Berkeley Researchers Create an “Invisibility Cloak”Never mind Harry Potter, researchers at Berkeley have made an invisibility cloak of their ownLawrence Berkeley National Laboratory May 01, 2009newscenter.lbl.gov/feature-stories/2009/05/01/invisibility-cloak/The great science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke famously noted the similarities between advanced technology and magic. This summer on the big screen, the young wizard Harry Potter will once again don his magic invisibility cloak and disappear. Meanwhile, researchers with Berkeley Lab and the University of California (UC) Berkeley will be studying an invisibility cloak of their own that also hides objects from view. A team led by Xiang Zhang, a principal investigator with Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division and director of UC Berkeley’s Nano-scale Science and Engineering Center, has created a “carpet cloak” from nanostructured silicon that conceals the presence of objects placed under it from optical detection. While the carpet itself can still be seen, the bulge of the object underneath it disappears from view. Shining a beam of light on the bulge shows a reflection identical to that of a beam reflected from a flat surface, meaning the object itself has essentially been rendered invisible. “We have come up with a new solution to the problem of invisibility based on the use of dielectric (nonconducting) materials,” says Zhang. “Our optical cloak not only suggests that true invisibility materials are within reach, it also represents a major step towards transformation optics, opening the door to manipulating light at will for the creation of powerful new microscopes and faster computers.” Zhang and his team have published a paper on this research in the journal Nature Materials entitled: An Optical Cloak Made of Dielectrics. Co-authoring the paper with Zhang were Jason Valentine, Jensen Li, Thomas Zentgraf and Guy Bartal, all members of Zhang’s research group. Previous work by Zhang and his group with invisibility devices involved complex metamaterials - composites of metals and dielectrics whose extraordinary optical properties arise from their unique structure rather than their composition. They constructed one material out of an elaborate fishnet of alternating layers of silver and magnesium fluoride, and another out of silver nanowires grown inside porous aluminum oxide. With these metallic metamaterials, Zhang and his group demonstrated that light can be bent backwards, a property unprecedented in nature. While metallic metamaterials have been successfully used to achieve invisibility cloaking at microwave frequencies, until now cloaking at optical frequencies, a key step towards achieving actual invisibility, has not been successful because the metal elements absorb too much light. Says Zhang, “Even with the advances that have been made in optical metamaterials, scaling sub-wavelength metallic elements and placing them in an arbitrarily designed spatial manner remains a challenge at optical frequencies.” The new cloak created by Zhang and his team is made exclusively from dielectric materials, which are often transparent at optical frequencies. The cloak was demonstrated in a rectangular slab of silicon (250 nanometers thick) that serves as an optical waveguide in which light is confined in the vertical dimension but free to propagate in the other two dimensions. A carefully designed pattern of holes - each 110 nanometers in diameter - perforates the silicon, transforming the slab into a metamaterial that forces light to bend like water flowing around a rock. In the experiments reported in Nature Materials, the cloak was used to cover an area that measured about 3.8 microns by 400 nanometers. It demonstrated invisibility at variable angles of light incident. Right now the cloak operates for light between 1,400 and 1,800 nanometers in wavelength, which is the near-infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, just slightly longer than light that can be seen with the human eye. However, because of its all dielectric composition and design, Zhang says the cloak is relatively easy to fabricate and should be upwardly scalable. He is also optimistic that with more precise fabrication this all dielectric approach to cloaking should yield a material that operates for visible light - in other words, true invisibility to the naked eye.“In this experiment, we have demonstrated a proof of concept for optical cloaking that works well in two dimensions” says Zhang. “Our next goal is to realize a cloak for all three dimensions, extending the transformation optics into potential applications.” This research was funded in part by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science through its Basic Energy Sciences program and by the U.S. Army Research Office. Berkeley Lab is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory located in Berkeley, California. It conducts unclassified scientific research and is managed by the University of California. Visit our website at www.lbl.gov. Images of device properties available here:newscenter.lbl.gov/wp-content/uploads/zhang-pic-32.jpgnewscenter.lbl.gov/wp-content/uploads/zhang-pic-32.jpgVideo of this cloaking device available here:newscenter.lbl.gov/wp-content/uploads/zhang-cloak_wog.wmv
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May 3, 2009 4:01:26 GMT 4
Post by nodstar on May 3, 2009 4:01:26 GMT 4
MESSAGE FROM Dr BURISCH[/SIZE][/B]
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May 3, 2009 4:06:36 GMT 4
Post by papat on May 3, 2009 4:06:36 GMT 4
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May 3, 2009 4:17:56 GMT 4
Post by towhom on May 3, 2009 4:17:56 GMT 4
Obama says financial sector to shrinkNewsDaily Posted 2009/05/02 at 6:28 pm EDTwww.newsdaily.com/stories/tre5412op-us-obama-finance/WASHINGTON, DC — The financial sector will make up a smaller part of the U.S. economy in the future as new regulations clamp down on "massive risk-taking," President Barack Obama said in an interview published on Saturday. Obama, whose young administration has spearheaded a raft of reforms in the banking sector as part of efforts to tackle the financial crisis, said the industry's role in the United States would look different at the end of the current recession. "What I think will change, what I think was an aberration, was a situation where corporate profits in the financial sector were such a heavy part of our overall profitability over the last decade," he said told the New York Times Magazine. "Part of that has to do with the effects of regulation that will inhibit some of the massive leveraging and the massive risk-taking that had become so common."Obama said some of the job-seekers who may normally have gone to the financial sector would shift to other areas of the economy, such as engineering. "Wall Street will remain a big, important part of our economy, just as it was in the '70s and the '80s. It just won't be half of our economy," he said. "We don't want every single college grad with mathematical aptitude to become a derivatives trader." The Obama administration in March proposed sweeping reforms to curb risk-taking on Wall Street and close regulatory gaps to prevent the kind of excesses that led to the worst financial crisis since the 1930s Great Depression.The president said in the interview that better regulation would help restore confidence in the U.S. financial system."A more vigorous regulatory regime, I think, will help restore confidence, and you're still going to see a lot of global capital wanting to park itself in the United States," he said. REGAINING TRUST AND CONFIDENCEObama expressed optimism that the market for securitized products would pick up, though he said that could take time. The Federal Reserve, with taxpayer capital from the U.S. Treasury, is supporting consumer and real estate lending markets through a loan facility that could reach $1 trillion. Holders of existing asset-backed and commercial mortgage-backed securities can get loans from the Fed by putting up their securities as collateral. The facility aims to unclog frozen credit markets and jumpstart securitization. "We're going to have to determine whether or not as a consequence of some of the steps that the Fed has been taking, the Treasury has been taking, that we see the market for securitized products restored," Obama said. "I'm optimistic that ultimately we're going to be able to get that part of the financial sector going again, but it could take some time to regain confidence and trust." Part of Obama's regulatory reforms include the creation of a new "systemic risk regulator" with broad powers to seize large non-bank financial firms, such as insurers, hedge funds or private equity companies, if they are deemed to threaten the stability of the financial system.Large, "systemically important" firms would be required to hold bigger capital cushions. Obama also said financial rules should be crafted according to what an institution actually does to avoid a regulatory gap in areas such as commercial and investment banking."Other countries that have not seen some of the problems in their financial markets that we have nevertheless don't separate between investment banks and commercial banks," he said, citing Canada as one example in that area. "The experience in a country like Canada would indicate that good, strong regulation that focuses less on the legal form of the institution and more on the functions that they're carrying out is probably the right approach to take."
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May 3, 2009 4:25:22 GMT 4
Post by towhom on May 3, 2009 4:25:22 GMT 4
FDA rejects Northfield's blood substituteFierce Biotech May 1, 2009 — 8:28am ETwww.fiercebiotech.com/story/fda-rejects-northfields-blood-substitute/2009-05-01Northfield's long and difficult quest to win approval for the blood substitute PolyHeme was dealt another blow today as the FDA rejected the company's drug. Risks of the blood product outweigh its benefits, said the agency, noting that a greater number of patients given PolyHeme died after 30 days than those giving regular blood. The FDA also said that the information in the company's BLA is "inadequate for final approval action," and the Phase III study "did not meet the pre-specified primary efficacy endpoint."The company has spent 20 years developing the blood substitute, including two years of frustrated attempts to gain approval of the drug. Northfield's future hinges on approval of PolyHeme, as it has no other drugs on the market. In a statement, all Northfield would say is that it is evaluating the FDA's response and considering the options for the company going forward. Read Northfield's release. Read TheStreet article.
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May 3, 2009 5:11:20 GMT 4
Post by towhom on May 3, 2009 5:11:20 GMT 4
Liddy Letter: AIG Plans To Award Bonuses Even If Taken Over By USHuffington Post 05/02/09 at 07:45PMwww.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/02/liddy-letter-aig-plans-to_n_195225.htmlEven if the U.S. government were to entirely take over American International Group, company executives would still be able to collect bonuses at taxpayer expense, according to a letter from AIG CEO Ed Liddy to employees disclosed in the company's recent SEC report. "As this special award is being made to a very select group of executives, I ask that you treat it as confidential," wrote Liddy. The letter is dated less than a week after the government first bailed the company out. The letter assured the select group that "in the event the AIG entity that is your employer (the Company') experiences a Change in Control (e.g., consummation of a merger, consolidation, statutory share exchange or similar form of corporate transaction involving the sale or other disposition of all or substantially all of the Company's assets to an entity that is not an affiliate of the Company), AIG guarantees the payment of the 2008 Special Cash Retention award on the dates and under the conditions specified above." The United States is roughly a 79 percent owner of AIG, having pumped in some 170 billion in taxpayer dollars. Elsewhere, the SEC filing reports that "AIG is working with the Department of the Treasury and NY Fed to establish a framework for further extending the period for earning retention awards and making them performance-based." (Now there's a crazy idea.) Some of those in line to get bonuses have family in the right places, according to the filing. The daughter of top executive Edmund Tse, Ada K.H. Tse, is president and CEO of AIG Global Investment Corp. (Asia) Ltd. In 2008, she pocketed $400,000 in "retention awards" and $250,000 in a year-end bonus. She will be "eligible to receive an additional amount that has not yet been approved. Ms. Tse also will be eligible for retention payments in 2009 in the amount of approximately $600,000," reads the report. Daniel Neuger is the son of another top executive, Win Neuger, and serves as "managing director of AIG Global Investment Corp. and AIG Global Asset Management Holdings Corp." He took in $75,000 in "retention awards" in 2008 and is on track for roughly $110,000 in 2009. Liddy promised there was more to come. "I fully recognize the devastating loss of personal wealth you've suffered, and pledge to you my personal commitment to provide an opportunity for substantial wealth creation through a combination of cash and equity awards in the coming months and years," he wrote in the letter to employees outlining the bonus policy. Liddy kept his word. Read the full message: Edward M. Liddy September 22, 2008
[Recipient Address]
Dear ,
I'm pleased to award you a Special Cash Retention award of $[•], payable in two installments of $[•] and $[•], on or about December 31, 2008 and December 31, 2009. Additional terms of the award are set forth at the end of this letter.
I fully recognize the devastating loss of personal wealth you've suffered, and pledge to you my personal commitment to provide an opportunity for substantial wealth creation through a combination of cash and equity awards in the coming months and years.
I'm convinced that we can turn around AIG and restore the value, confidence, and trust that have been eroded by recent events. I need your renewed commitment, leadership and teamwork to accomplish this challenging task. The rewards for achieving the objective of paying off the revolver line of credit from the Fed could be substantial, and I intend to handsomely remunerate those who step up to the challenge and take AIG proudly into the future. I'm counting on you to work with me and our other leaders to take back the company from the federal government and regain our rightful place as one of the best companies in the world. In return, just know that you can count on me.
As this special award is being made to a very select group of executives, I ask that you treat it as confidential. Thank you again for your hard work and the sacrifice that you and your family have made for AIG.
Very sincerely,
Edward M. Liddy
Terms Each installment is payable if you are employed with the company through the respective installment date. You also will receive these payments if your employment is terminated prior to December 31, 2009 for any reason other than Cause. (Cause is conduct involving fraud, intentional misconduct, gross negligence or material violation of AIG policy.)
Furthermore, in the event the AIG entity that is your employer (the "Company") experiences a Change in Control (e.g., consummation of a merger, consolidation, statutory share exchange or similar form of corporate transaction involving the sale or other disposition of all or substantially all of the Company's assets to an entity that is not an affiliate of the Company), AIG guarantees the payment of the 2008 Special Cash Retention award on the dates and under the conditions specified above.
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