PBS explores the world of people who get paid to play video games

From LAN parties to MLG, the history of competitive gaming has been a fascinating one. Following up on similarly themed episodes, like the one back in October that explored the indie gaming community, PBS's Off Book is tackling the world of competition, cramming as much info as it can into a seven and a half minute piece, including the move from entertainment into an industry, including the growing pains associated with its push into the pop-culture. It's an interesting look, with plenty of input from MIT sociologist T.L. Taylor. And it offers up a good glimpse for those of us who don't possess the chops to get handed one of of those giant novelty checks in front of a room full of excited spectators. Live vicariously through the video after the break.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/WdlcmPXJYh0/

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Drill-for-dollars underground dentist jailed

Jose Delao during a jailhouse interview with Yahoo News this week. (Jason Sickles)

PLANO, Texas?Inside the unassuming ranch-style house, investigators discovered things like an x-ray machine, grinders, syringes, surgical instruments and anesthetics.

Police say the homeowner, 63-year-old Jose Santiago Delao, had been running an underground dental clinic in the aging suburban Dallas neighborhood for years: pulling teeth and filling cavities, among other procedures.

As shocking as this sounds, Delao's case is not that unusual. And it offers insight into a world of backyard dentistry that caters to those in the country illegally, the uninsured and others who can?t find affordable dental care.

Delao admits he skirted the law, but isn?t remorseful. ?Jesus Christ didn?t need or didn?t have a license,? Jose Delao told Yahoo News during a jailhouse interview. ?People hurt and they needed it. People didn?t have enough money to visit the regular dentist.?

Delao, who says he is a trained dental lab technician, says he couldn?t turn his back.

?It broke my heart,? he said, tapping his chest, ?because I have the experience.?

But authorities say Delao, a native of Costa Rica, has never been a licensed dentist in Texas. If convicted, he could get two to 10 years in prison.

?This guy was doing some pretty intense work in some cases,? said Plano police Officer David Tilley.

Delao's secret unraveled in mid-January when a woman complained to police about a $75 molar repair that had left her unable to open her mouth and caused a clicking sound in her ear for several days.

The woman, who had gone to Delao on the recommendation of a church friend, also told officers the man kept her from leaving his makeshift clinic once she arrived.

?Jose S. Delao refused to let her leave after he had her in the dental chair,? a detective wrote in a police warrant. "She raised her hand to indicate she was feeling pain and Jose Delao pushed her hand back down and told her to stop complaining."

Any possible assault-related charges are still under investigation. Delao denied the accusations in an interview with Yahoo News.

A survey of published news reports shows that as many as eight such underground dental clinics have been shut down in the U.S. since last summer.

?I would clearly classify it as a problem,? said Dr. Frank Catalanotto, chair of the Department of Community Dentistry at the University of Florida. ?It is potentially a big problem.?

Indeed, recent headlines from across the country, chronicle similar operations:

In September, Miami police arrested an 81-year-old illegal dentist whose shoddy work at his home left a 14-year-old girl?s mouth permanently disfigured. Her mother, who had no dental insurance, hoped the man could fix a chipped tooth for cheap. Instead, police said, he filed four of the teen?s front teeth to the gums and left her with a serious infection.

?It just looked awful,? said Catalanotto, whose students and faculty cared for the girl after the incident.

An official with the American Dental Association says it doesn?t track the number of rogue practices, but acknowledged the association has heard stories of patients being treated in vans, warehouses and apartment bathrooms.

?People have extremely serious and unmet needs for oral health care,? said Julia Paradise, an associate director at the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured.

The Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit think tank focused on major medical issues, reports that the number of adults without dental coverage is three times as large as the number of adults without health insurance coverage and that 30 percent of children with private health insurance are uninsured for dental care. More than 1 in 5 low-income adults reported that they had not had a dental visit in five years or more, or had never had a visit, the foundation wrote in a 2012 study.

Kaiser doesn?t keep stats on unlicensed dentists, but Paradise said it?s troubling to know it?s a choice some patients make.

?The solution is to provide the kind of care and access to care that people need so that there isn?t a space or the need for people to seek care that isn?t safe,? she said.

House where Delao practiced dentistry (Jason Sickles)

From behind bars, Delao maintained he was operating safely. ?I can pull a tooth,? he told Yahoo. ?I have the experience.?

When asked if he ever applied to be a dentist in the U.S. Delao replied, ?Not really." But he said he had a four-year degree in dental lab technology from Costa Rica and 27 years of working as a technician in the U.S. Yahoo News could not immediately verify his education or employment history.

Catalanotto said that even should it be true, making molds and dentures as a lab tech doesn?t qualify someone to diagnose patients.

?You?re doing something potentially very dangerous to your health,? Catalanotto said. ?You would probably have concerns about infection control issues and catching a communicable disease from unclean instruments. There?s a variety of concerns.?

At least one acquaintance, however, vouched for Delao's character.

?He?s a friendly guy,? said Rubia Albarenga, a travel agent who has known Delao for 10 years. ?He has always been honest to us and is a great customer. He was always very respectful. We feel sorry for him.?

Investigators believe that Delao, who lived alone, had been treating people inside his modest 1,500-square-foot home for four years.

He said his cash only, no-questions-asked operation drew one to two patients a day. ?I helped undocumented people, single mothers and uninsured people,? he said.

Delao said he charged $50 for what might cost $250 elsewhere. ?Only enough to pay my bills,? he said.

Business usually came word of mouth, but news of Delao?s arrest didn?t travel fast enough to stop people from showing up after he was jailed. His neighbor posted a sign on her door, ?Aqui No Vive Dentista? (dentist doesn?t live here).

?I have a problem with people banging on the door morning, noon and night,? Francisca Ramos said this week.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/underground-dentist-not-remorseful-illegal-practice-133957201.html

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Arizona lawmakers struggle to stay on priorities (The Arizona Republic)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/281787725?client_source=feed&format=rss

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A positive family climate in adolescence is linked to marriage quality in adulthood

Jan. 31, 2013 ? Experiencing a positive family climate as a teenager may be connected to your relationships later in life, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

While research has demonstrated long-term effects of aggression and divorce across generations, the impact of a positive family climate has received less attention. Psychological scientist Robert Ackerman of the University of Texas at Dallas and colleagues wanted to examine whether positive interpersonal behaviors in families might also have long-lasting associations with future relationships.

The researchers examined longitudinal data from individuals participating in the Iowa Youth and Families Project. Family interactions were assessed when the participants were in 7th grade. The interactions were coded for five indicators of positive engagement: listener responsiveness, assertiveness, prosocial behavior, effective communication, and warmth-support.

Participants who showed and experienced more positive engagement in their families showed more positive engagement in their marriages 17 years later. Interestingly, their spouses also showed more positive engagement. Participants who came from families that expressed more positive engagement also expressed less hostility toward their spouses, and their spouses displayed less hostile behavior toward them.

Greater levels of positive engagement at the family level in adolescence also predicted more relationship satisfaction for both partners.

At a basic level, the findings suggest a link between the family climate in adolescence and marriage quality later in life. The fact that these effects seemed to extend to participants' spouses was especially interesting.

"Perhaps one of the most striking results from this work was that the quality of one marital partner's family climate during adolescence was associated with marital outcomes for the other partner," the researchers observe.

Family dynamics could foster a supportive style of interacting that elicits similar behavior from a spouse down the road; but it could also be that individuals who grew up in families with a positive and warm climate actively seek out partners who provide a similar relationship environment. The researchers speculate that both mechanisms may be at work.

Ultimately, these results are consistent with the Development of Early Adult Romantic Relationships (DEARR) model, suggesting that early family experiences are linked to the development of a person's relationship style into adulthood.

Co-authors on the study include Deborah A. Kashy and M. Brent Donnellan of Michigan State University, Tricia Neppl and Fredrick O. Lorenz of Iowa State University, and Rand D. Conger of the University of California, Davis.

The analyses reported here were supported by Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Grant HD064687.

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Journal Reference:

1. R. A. Ackerman, D. A. Kashy, M. B. Donnellan, T. Neppl, F. O. Lorenz, R. D. Conger. The Interpersonal Legacy of a Positive Family Climate in Adolescence. Psychological Science, 2013; DOI: 10.1177/0956797612447818

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

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/EXlw3ZKXKOw/130131120910.htm

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An atom sheds light on neutron stars

Measurements of heavy form of zinc allow astronomers to model the crust of dead stars

Measurements of heavy form of zinc allow astronomers to model the crust of dead stars

By Andrew Grant

Web edition: January 31, 2013

Enlarge

Neutron star recipe

A newly formed neutron star (small white dot) sits in the center of the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A, about 11,000 light-years away, in this image from NASA?s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Measurements of a form of zinc on Earth have given researchers new clues to the composition of neutron stars.

Credit: NASA, CXC, UNAM, Ioffe, D. Page, P. Shternin et al

The precise measurement of an exotic atom in the laboratory has refined scientists? understanding of neutron stars, which are among the universe?s most extreme objects. The study, published January 22 in Physical Review Letters, could help scientists determine whether the crusts of neutron stars serve as the source of dozens of heavy elements such as zinc, silver and gold.

?One of the universe?s overriding mysteries is where heavy elements originate,? says James Lattimer, an astrophysicist at Stony Brook University in New York who was not involved in the study. ?These mass measurements allow us to tune our equations so we can work toward settling the debate.?

Neutron stars are not actually stars at all. After a massive star explodes in a supernova, the remnant is a hot, dense ball about 20 kilometers across. It is made up of protons, electrons and lots of neutrons. That sphere packs in a mass larger than that of the sun, with a surface that one study estimates is 10 billion times as strong as steel. Under these extreme conditions, nuclei of atoms that are normally unstable can subsist in the neutron star?s outer layers.

Neutron stars are too far away to study their composition, and scientists cannot re-create the enormous pressures in the lab. But they can plug the measured properties of various neutron-rich atoms into computer simulations that predict neutron star composition. Physicist Robert Wolf of the University of Greifswald in Germany and an international team were particularly interested in determining the mass of zinc-82, which some models predict should occur in the crust of neutron stars. Zinc-82 has a nucleus consisting of 30 protons and 52 neutrons ? many more than the 34 neutrons in the most common form of zinc. The challenge was isolating and measuring the rare isotope, most of which would decay in less than a second.

At CERN in Switzerland, Wolf?s team used the On-Line Isotope Mass Separator facility, which consists of a high-energy proton beam that strikes a thick block of uranium carbide. The protons shatter the nuclei in the target, creating a plethora of exotic isotopes that quickly decay into more-stable atoms. The researchers then exposed the atoms to electric and magnetic fields that separated them by mass. Within several tenths of a second, they measured the mass of a pure sample of zinc-82.

The researchers compared this mass with predictions in various computer models and determined that zinc-82 is probably absent from neutron stars. That?s in line with the most well-supported prediction of neutron star composition. Lattimer believes this aspect of the study is not its greatest contribution; previous experiments had already shown that the leading model was more accurate than others. Instead, he is most impressed by the technique?s potential to pin down the characteristics of other exotic nuclei that may exist in neutron stars.

Scientists want to create this compositional profile because neutron stars may be the source of many of the universe?s heavy elements. Fusion reactions in the cores of regular stars produce carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and other elements essential for life. But the heaviest element that fusion can construct is iron. Astrophysicists have long looked for another astronomical process with enough energy to forge heavier elements from protons and neutrons.

One explanation is that these elements form in the midst of the extreme heat and energy of supernovas ? no neutron stars required. But simulations show that these explosions have an insufficient quantity of neutrons. That need for neutrons leads to a competing idea: that heavy elements form when two neutron stars collide and some of their crustal material escapes into space.

To evaluate this possibility, theorists need to improve the models of neutron star composition. Mass measurements of heavy atoms like zinc-82, Wolf says, will help them do that. Then astronomers can survey the abundances of heavy elements in various stars and compare them to predictions of what would be produced in neutron star collisions.

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/347969/title/An_atom_sheds_light_on_neutron_stars

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Investing Based on Economic News

A reader writes in, asking:

?I am a recent retiree looking to balance protection and income in my investment portfolio in this difficult economy. Given the recent troubles in the eurozone and the news that the UK might leave the EU, do you think US investors should be moving away from european stocks??

Generally speaking, I do not think it makes sense to adjust one?s allocation to a given stock, industry, or country based on economic news.

The reason I don?t think it makes sense to make such changes is that new information about a stock (or a group of stocks, such as a country or region) is typically reflected very quickly in the stock?s price. (This is what people mean when they say the market is ?efficient.?)

As a result, investing based on economic news is an ?early bird gets the worm? sort of thing. And, if you found out about the news in question by reading it on CNN, Google News, or some other website with many thousands of readers, you are?not?the early bird.

In fact, you wouldn?t even be the early bird if you were the journalist writing the story. If you were the source the journalist called to get?information?about the story, then you?might?be the early bird. (Or rather, you might have been the early bird, if you had acted on the information several days or weeks ago.)

In other words, you can reasonably expect to earn extra returns by reacting to economic news only if you have reason to think that the rest of the market:

1. Doesn?t know about the news (though you would then want to be careful of insider trading rules), or
2. Is interpreting the news incorrectly (and therefore pricing the stock or group of stocks incorrectly).

And given how many analysts there are paying attention to every corner of the market, such situations don?t arise terribly often for most investors.

I think Vanguard Chief Economist Joe Davis gave excellent advice in a 2012 interview for Vanguard?s client?newsletter:

?I encourage our clients to try to minimize the attention they pay to economic news, because I think that can actually lead to the pitfall of wanting to react.?

"A wonderful book that tells its readers, with simple logical explanations, our Boglehead Philosophy for successful investing." - Taylor Larimore, author of

Source: http://www.obliviousinvestor.com/investing-based-on-economic-news/

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Video: Senator?s private plane trips prompt ethics probe

>> federal agents are culling through dozens of boxes from a from nent florida eye doctor and now scrutiny falling on a top ranking democratic senator. justice correspondent pete williams has the story. good morning.

>> good morning. federal officials are declining to say exactly what's behind the search but the doctor is well-known is south florida . he's been an active political contributor and friend of senator robert menendez , the subject of an ethics complaint.

>> reporter: in florida , federal agents hauled away boxes of material tuesday night and witnessed from the office of a west palm beach eye doctor . he and members of his family are big political contributors. records show they've given more than $33,000 in the past 15 years to u.s. senator robert men menendez .

>> this hearing of the senate foreign relations committee --

>> reporter: he just took over as chairman of the senate florida relations committee. they appeared at a gala chaired by milgen. the senate ethics committee has received a complaint from a new jersey republican official who complained menendez got rides on a private plane to the dominican republic and elsewhere without disclosing them.

>> senator went on flights to dominican republic and flights to puerto rico , et cetera from this doctor down in florida on his private jet , which he had failed to report.

>> reporter: in a statement, saturday menendez called the doctor a friend and political supporter many years and took three trips on that plane but paid for and reported them properly. but his staff said he wrote a check two weeks ago three weeks after the ethics complaint was made to reimburse the doctor $58,000 for two trips in 2010 and the senator refers to a series of claims made on conservative websites saying he met with prostitutes while in the dominican republic . those allegations, they say are manufactured, politically motivated and false, based on a series of anonymous e-mails that first surfaced last april sent to a political watchdog group in washington called crew. but when the tipster repeatedly declined to talk on the phone or agree to a meeting, the group turned the messages to the fbi.

>> it turns out he has no real interest coming forward and making sure this matter can be investigated as a law enforcement issue. it seems he's much more interested seeing it brought to light as a big scandal.

>> reporter: as for the search in florida , federal officials say agents from the department of human services were involved meaning they may be looking into allegations of health care fraud.

Source: http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/50650805/

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