Amazing Video: First Camera Trap Footage of Critically Endangered Cross River Gorillas

Very few people have ever seen a Cross River gorilla (Gorilla gorilla diehli), the rarest and most endangered of the world?s four gorilla subspecies. Only about 250 to 300 of these animals exist in the world, and they have almost never been photographed in the wild.

Well, you?re in for a treat. The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) this week released the first camera trap video footage of Cross River gorillas. The footage, shot in Cameroon?s Kagwene Gorilla Sanctuary, shows eight different gorillas?representing about 3 percent of the entire species?casually walking through the forest. About halfway through the two-minute video, a male silverback charges toward the camera, beating his massive chest:

?Spectacular footage such as this, which we?ve never had before for Cross River gorillas, is absolutely vital to inspire local people, the governments of Nigeria and Cameroon, and the global community to care about and to save this unique subspecies,? James Deutsch, executive director for WCS?s Africa Program, said in a prepared release. ?Continued research of this kind will help fine-tune management plans to protect this rarest of apes.?

The video does contain a disturbing element if you look closely enough: one of the gorillas is missing a hand. The WCS theorizes that this could be an injury, now healed, caused by a snare left by hunters. Wildlife poaching used to be more prevalent in the region, but the sanctuary has been protected by antipoaching patrols since it was established in 2008. It is less than 20 square kilometers in size and is estimated to hold approximately 20 to 30 gorillas.

?Cross River gorillas occur in very low densities across their entire range, so the appearance of a possible snare injury is a reminder that continued law enforcement efforts are needed to prevent further injuries to gorillas in the sanctuary,? said Liz Macfie, gorilla coordinator for WCS?s Species Program.

Cross River gorillas only live in remote, mountainous regions along the Nigeria?Cameroon border, where they exist in extremely fragmented subpopulations spread out over 12,000 kilometers. The major threats to their survival are habitat loss and poaching. Most of the gorillas live outside of protected sites.

Previously in Extinction Countdown: Critically Endangered Cross River Gorillas May Have More Room to Grow

Video and still courtesy of the Wildlife Conservation Society

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Looking for Earths by looking for Jupiters

ScienceDaily (May 7, 2012) ? In the search for Earth-like planets, it is helpful to look for clues and patterns that can help scientist narrow down the types of systems where potentially habitable planets are likely to be discovered. New research from a team including Carnegie's Alan Boss narrows down the search for Earth-like planets near Jupiter-like planets. Their work indicates that the early post-formation movements of hot-Jupiter planets probably disrupt the formation of Earth-like planets.

Their work is published the week of May 7 by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The team, led by Jason Steffen of the Fermilab Center for particle Astrophysics, used data from NASA's Kepler mission to look at so-called "hot Jupiter" planets -- those roughly Jupiter-sized planets with orbital periods of about three days. If a Jupiter-like planet has been discovered by a slight dimming of brightness in the star it orbits as it passes between the star and Earth, it is then possible -- within certain parameters -- to determine whether the hot-Jupiter has any companion planets.

Of the 63 candidate hot Jupiter systems identified by Kepler, the research team did not find any evidence for nearby companion planets. There are several possible explanations. One is that there are no companion planets for any of these hot Jupiters. Another is that the companions are too small in either size or mass to be detected using these methods. Lastly it is possible that there are companion planets, but that the configuration of their orbits makes them undetectable using these methods.

However, when expanding the search to include systems with either Neptune-like planets (known as "hot Neptunes"), or "warm Jupiters" (Jupiter-sized planets with slightly larger orbits than hot Jupiters), the team found some potential companions. Of the 222 hot Neptunes, there were two with possible companions, and of the 31 warm Jupiters, there were three with possible companions.

"The implications of these findings are that systems with Earth-like planets formed differently than systems with hot Jupiters," Boss said. "Since we believe that hot Jupiters formed farther out, and then migrated inward toward their stars, the inward migration disrupted the formation of Earth-like planets. If our sun had a hot Jupiter, we would not be here."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Carnegie Institution.

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Journal Reference:

1. Jason H. Steffen, Darin Ragozzine, Daniel C. Fabrycky, Joshua A. Carter, Eric B. Ford, Matthew J. Holman, Jason F. Rowe, William F. Welsh, William J. Borucki, Alan P. Boss, David R. Ciardi, Samuel N. Quinn. Kepler constraints on planets near hot Jupiters. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1120970109

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.

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The First Aid Methods of Eye Injury

When there is the occurrence of ocular trauma, the injured person himself must first identify the site, nature and extent of injury, and then given the appropriate treatment depending on the situation.

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Face by blunt hit, only cause of orbital soft tissue swelling without break orbit, around the eye has rich vascular distribution, bleeding under the skin is often swollen, so after the injury must not be rubbing or hot compress, avoid not increasing subcutaneous hematoma. Ice pack or cold towel should immediately local cooling, in order to relieve swelling and pain. After 24 hours, we can change heat or to promote the absorption of local bleeding.

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Those who only eye external skin rupture and eye lossless injured, you must keep the wound clean, non-rub cover the wound with dirty hands or dirty cloth, so as not to cause an infection involving the eye and affect vision.

You should be taken to hospital as soon as possible with a clean dressing ophthalmology debridement, reducing the opportunity to shed large scar in the future.

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If the eyeball gets by blunt impact or abrasion, there may be intraocular foreign body sensation, photophobia, tearing for the wounded, if damages the cornea, and it will appear pain. At this point, if there is chloramphenicol eye drops, it can be used to wash the eye to prevent infection. Then cover the eye with clean gauze or a handkerchief to the hospital for treatment.

?

If the eye injuries, and there are foreign body piercing or across the eye, resulting in eyeball rupture, the wounded themselves feel having an ?tears? pouring, then blurred vision associated with pain.

This time, rescuers should let the wounded immediately lie down, and never use water to flush the injured eye, or apply any medication, just stamp on the injured eye with a clean dressing, and the wound can be gently with a bandage, but it is strictly prohibited pressure. The purpose of dressing only is to limit the damage aggravated by eye movements and friction, and reduce the light stimulation of the injured eye. All ocular trauma need to be bandaged, in order to avoid eye activities led to injury to the eye rotation caused by friction, so that the injury aggravated. And then quickly send the wounded to hospital, and may not delay a moment, though sometimes only one, if not get the timely treatment, the other eye will be affected and blindness.

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Facebook expands its second foray into local deals

By Martha C. White

Facebook is expanding Offers, a free, DIY-coupon generator for local businesses that bears more than a passing resemblance to Deals, which was widely touted as a potential "Groupon-killer" when it launched last year. Offering local deals isn't easy: Facebook scrapped Deals after four months.?

"Local and daily deals in general are very labor intensive, and contrast sharply with Facebook's business model of being engineering-heavy," Sam Hamadeh, CEO of PrivCo LLC, said via email.?Making Offers free and self-serve isn't the solution, though, according to experts in the business of monetizing data.

Facebook needs to stop emulating daily deal strategies and instead take a page from the playbook of credit card companies, which are slicing and dicing the reams of customer information at their disposal to connect businesses only with the people who are likely to become customers ? or who already shop at their competitors.

Offers was announced back in February along with other changes to Facebook's advertising platform. It's still in beta, but was made available to?most local businesses in the United States last week.?"Offers are a free new way for businesses to share discounts and promotions directly from a Facebook Page," the company said in a statement when it launched.?

This is a tool intended for the mom-and-pop small business with tiny marketing budgets.?While deals can either be posted on a business's news feed or made into a "sponsored story" ? Facebook-speak for ad ? the video tutorial on Facebook's site focuses on the free aspect and includes a short Marketing 101 lesson on structuring a coupon.?

Once it's created, the offer goes onto the business's timeline, which means people who have liked the business page will see it on their news feeds, and anyone who views the business's timeline will be able to see the offer. This is likely to be too scattershot an approach to deliver much businesses to the local restaurants, retailers and service providers Facebook is targeting.

"You can't drop this stuff like they're leaflets from airplanes," said Brian Riley, senior research director at CEB TowerGroup.

Sites like Groupon and its rivals probably don't have to start worrying just yet, since Offers has to develop a traction it never managed to achieve with Deals. "Groupon has a huge presence in local,"?Ken Sena, an analyst at Evercore Partners, said via email. "Therefore, it could be disruptive longer term but I think initially they will be somewhat separated."

But if Facebook takes a more data-driven, targeted approach to offers, daily deal sites might have to contend with much stiffer competition.?"A lot of the information on Facebook is so general, you've got to be able to drive that down... and really turn it from data into information," Riley said.?

Banks that issue credit and debit cards are doing this using a model the industry calls "merchant funded rewards." The issuer or a third-party middleman slices and dices anonymized spending and demographic data and uses that to present offers to customers.?Merchants pay the cost of the discount plus a cut to the bank or third-party firm only for offers actually redeemed.?

For instance, imagine a chain coffee shop wants to reach females under the age of 35 who earn more than $50,000 a year and who make purchases at a competing coffee chain. They create an offer ? say, for a half-price blended coffee drink ? that goes out only to consumers who match those specs. This way, the coffee chain avoids giving offers to customers who would have made a purchase there anyway, or to deal-hunters who will take the discount and never return.

"What I'm noticing what's happening with those types of programs is they're generally incorporating a variety of anonymized data," said?Beth Robertson, director of payments research at Javelin Strategy & Research, and that data is what makes users more likely to only receive offers to which they'll respond.

PrivCo's Hamadeh said it's promising that Facebook is letting businesses combine an offer with a targeted ad, but Robertson said Facebook needs to exploit the information it has at its disposal more aggressively.

"Facebook?could do those things but theres no indication it's offering that right now," she said. Although Facebook doesn't have information about users' spending patterns ? with the exception of the brisk sale of game-related virtual goods ? it has plenty of demographic information along with information about what businesses users like, and this is what could eventually give it an edge over deal sites.

"Making it more sophisticated draws it out of the daily deal sort of generic offering and would add value to the merchant," Robertson said.?

CNBC's Becky Quick discusses her conversation with Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett regarding his perspective on Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. It's too difficult to value, he says.

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A Weekly Roundup of Small-Business News - NYTimes.com

Dashboard

A weekly roundup of small-business developments.

What?s affecting me, my clients and other small-business owners this week.

The Big Story: Optimism Up, Hiring Down

Gallup reports that the optimism of small-business owners has risen to its highest since 2008. Optimism is also up among chief financial officers. Small-business revenues are recovering from their recessionary depths. The latest jobs report is a disappointment, and ADP says there?s a slowdown in hiring. Weekly unemployment claims fall slightly. Meanwhile, small-business net employment growth is outpacing the national average. But small-business hiring took a step back in April, and Joyce M. Rosenberg explains why. The number of new companies continues to slide.

The Economy: Heading to the Cliff

Federal Reserve policy makers are sounding the alarm over a ?fiscal cliff? at the end of this year, when ?scheduled U.S. tax hikes and spending cuts could pose a big threat to the fragile economic recovery.? Two Pauls debate whose economic policies are more outdated. Lawmakers,?according to the Treasury Department, will not have to refight their epic battle over the debt ceiling until after the November elections. Alan Greenspan says stocks are ?very cheap,? while Martin Feldstein says we have a Fed-fueled stock bubble. Lance Roberts says monetary and fiscal policies have little effect on when recessions occur.

The Data: Restaurants Perform

Personal income and expenditures increased. The Restaurant Performance Index (pdf) matches its post-recession high. Construction spending (pdf) rises slightly. The I.S.M. manufacturing index indicates faster expansion but the nonmanufacturing index shows slower growth. General Motors lifts its outlook. Steel consumption is expected to be strong. Factory orders fell in March by the most in three years.

Management: Ridiculously Simple

David Butcher shares six tips to motivate employees, including: ?Be specific in praise.? Uzi Shmilovici says the earlier you start collecting and analyzing data, the better your decisions. Terrence Russell explains how to be in the office without being in the office. An entrepreneur who started 11 companies over a 20-year period documents his stumbles in a book. Joe Brancatelli explains why United Airlines is the worst ever (again). The Jetman demonstrates a better way to travel. Here is a ridiculously simple way to get more revenue and build your audience. Tara Hornor explains what every female business owner needs to know. Mike Michalowicz says this management method is a better way to handle stressful situations. Lynn Greiner says that business-process management will help clear the bottlenecks that can hinder a business. There were 13 occupational fatalities a day in 2010.

Marketing: A Two-Second Pitch

Virgin Airlines lets you use Richard Branson?s head to cool your drinks. Yahoo introduces an online marketing dashboard for small businesses. Jeff Bullas offers five ways to turn Twitter into your most powerful social media tool. Diana Maria says there are three things you need to know about keywords. Tuesday is the best day for auto brands to publish Facebook content (but Sunday is the most engaging day for telecom and consumer goods). Kevin Casey gives five tips for handling complaints on social media, including: ?Don?t forget you?re still dealing with people.? Here?s a surprise: social-media-savvy consumers will spend more when they get good service and drop companies when they don?t. Tracey Lawton says there is a five-step checklist for sending out e-mail broadcasts. Social media marketing is nice, but TV ads still rule. Here?s a two-second business pitch that worked. Can you guess which age group sends the most text messages? Franny Oxford gives advice for speaking to strangers at professional events. Ashton Kutcher looks for a date (and gets in trouble). Anna Farmery says that this new cultural business model will emerge over the next few years.

Start-Up: Go to Delaware, Young Man

Some say start-up chief executives crave venture capital, not crowdsourcing. A tech start-up raises the profile of small businesses ? and $4 million. Peter Thiel has three rules for starting a business, including, ?Be a Delaware C-corp.?: ?This separates your business and personal affairs, offers flexibility when it comes to issuing stock, and makes it possible to exit the business by going public.? A ?Pinterest for commerce? start-up is growing 20 to 30 percent month-over-month. Here are six ways to lure talented engineers to your start-up.

Around the Country: Philadelphia?

Philadelphia sets its sights on becoming America?s next big tech town. A new TV show features a skilled pair of entrepreneurs who trade up from low-value items to get what they want. Street Fight plans a ?Summit West? on local marketing strategies. A new report explains why companies relocate. These are the 10 most expensive ballparks. Chief Executive magazine lists its best and worst states to do business. A student has 13 years of perfect attendance.

Around the World: Luxembourg?

Michael T. Snyder offers 22 signs that the Spanish economy is heading into a great depression. Unemployment reaches a record high in the Euro zone. Darcie Connell suggests five reasons entrepreneurs flee America, including a desire to escape from suburbia: many expats ?grew tired of suburban sprawl.? America presses China over its currency. Here are 42 things you will see only in China. TripAdvisor users say London is the best place to visit, and this flyover shows why. Canadians dominate the world?s 10 strongest banks. And in case you didn?t know, Luxembourg is the fifth-largest holder of American securities, debt and equity.

Finance: Selling Out

One study finds small-business owners are finding it less difficult to obtain credit; another shows there was less lending to small businesses in March as companies lost confidence in the economy. TD Bank kicks off a campaign to discuss the borrowing needs of 30,000 small businesses. John Adams reports that banks are finally putting together the right mix of payments and banking technology to satisfy small-business clients. Sales of small businesses rise as prices decline. The Small Business Administration needs investors for its new early stage capital program. Citibank rolls out a rewards program for small businesses.

Red Tape: Imports Week

Contractors are preparing for new rules. John Arensmeyer says small businesses want the government to invest in clean energy. Apple avoids paying a lot of taxes. Sandra Block reports that most student loans would be unaffected by the coming interest rate increase. Scott Lincicome reports on a new Web site and an ?imports week? sponsored by several trade associations that rely on imports to remain competitive. Joe Smith explains how to use a paper towel. The Small Business Administration adds a business matchmaking event to its National Small Business Week schedule. A lion tries to consume a baby.

Technology: Blackberry 10

The geek world likes the new Blackberry 10 and a college geek automates his dorm room. The Android phone is failing to get into businesses. Greenpeace is after some companies for their ?dirty cloud? computing. Barnes & Noble has a partnership with Microsoft. Intuit grabs for a bigger chunk of the small-business, software-as-a-service market. New wearable devices can track people through a wireless network. Marc Andreessen says there is no tech bubble (and the smartphone is still underhyped). Google introduces automatic translation in Gmail. Dave Mosher explains a future of automatic pilots and robotic farmers. A study says the cloud saves the government more than $5 billion a year. Facebook is now helping organ donors. Evernote is worth $1 billion. Symantec reports that small-company security problems can threaten large corporate nets. M.I.T.?s Technology Review identifies 10 technologies set to transform the world. A computer glitch summons 1,200 residents to jury duty and causes a huge traffic jam.

The Week?s Bests

Prerna Gupta explains why entrepreneurs become disillusioned: ?There is no such thing as success. It is a moving target. A mirage. By the time you attain what you thought was your wildest dream, reality has moved on and left your dreams in the dust. And the desire for success grows stronger still.?

David Lavenda says that great ideas often come in pairs: ?Ideas do have their unique time in history. When there is a profound interest in solving a problem, more than one person will work on it, and each will have access to the same assortment of knowledge and underlying technology. What develops is a race to make the discovery or create the invention. And in some cases, a race?s ?photo finish? produces a duplicate invention.?

Gabriel Aidra thinks team building is a waste of time: ?I?m not saying that relationships and communication and cooperation aren?t important, they most certainly are, but going to a team-building workshop ? that?s like explaining the concept of friendship to two strangers and then expecting them to be friends. ? It just makes no sense.?

This Week?s Question: Are you disillusioned?

Gene Marks owns the Marks Group, a Bala Cynwyd, Pa., consulting firm that helps clients with customer relationship management. You can follow him on Twitter.

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Anthropologist finds explanation for hominin brain evolution in famous fossils

ScienceDaily (May 7, 2012) ? One of the world's most important fossils has a story to tell about the brain evolution of modern humans and their ancestors, according to Florida State University evolutionary anthropologist Dean Falk.

The Taung fossil -- the first australopithecine ever discovered -- has two significant features that were analyzed by Falk and a group of anthropological researchers. Their findings, which suggest brain evolution was a result of a complex set of interrelated dynamics in childbirth among new bipeds, were published May 7 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"These findings are significant because they provide a highly plausible explanation as to why the hominin brain might grow larger and more complex," Falk said.

The first feature is a "persistent metopic suture," or unfused seam, in the frontal bone, which allows a baby's skull to be pliable during childbirth as it squeezes through the birth canal. In great apes -- gorillas, orangutans and chimpanzees -- the metopic suture closes shortly after birth. In humans, it does not fuse until around 2 years of age to accommodate rapid brain growth.

The second feature is the fossil's endocast, or imprint of the outside surface of the brain transferred to the inside of the skull. The endocast allows researchers to examine the brain's form and structure.

After examining the Taung fossil, as well as huge numbers of skulls belonging to apes and humans, as well as corresponding 3-D CT (three-dimensional computed tomographic) scans, and taking into account the fossil record for the past 3 million years, Falk and her colleagues noted three important findings: The persistent metopic suture is an adaptation for giving birth to babies with larger brains; is related to the shift to a rapidly growing brain after birth; and may be related to expansion in the frontal lobes.

"The persistent metopic suture, an advanced trait, probably occurred in conjunction with refining the ability to walk on two legs," Falk said. "The ability to walk upright caused an obstretric dilemma. Childbirth became more difficult because the shape of the birth canal became constricted while the size of the brain increased. The persistent metopic suture contributes to an evolutionary solution to this dilemma."

The later fusion of the metopic suture is most likely an adaptation of hominins who walked upright to be able to more easily give birth to babies with relatively large brains. The unfused seam is also related to the shift to rapidly growing brains after birth, an advanced human-like feature as compared to apes.

"The later fusion was also associated with evolutionary expansion of the frontal lobes, which is evident from the endocasts of australopithecines such as Taung," Falk said.

The Taung fossil, which is estimated to be around 2? million years old, was discovered in 1924 in Taung, South Africa. It became the "type specimen," or main model, of the genus Australopithecus africanus when it was announced in 1925.

An australopithecine is any species of the extinct genera Australopithecus or Paranthropus that lived in Africa, walked on two legs and had relatively small brains.

Falk conducted the research with Marcia S. Ponce de Leon, Christoph P.E. Zollikofer and Naoki Morimoto of the Anthropological Institute and Museum at the University of Zurich in Switzerland.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Florida State University, via Newswise. The original article was written by Jeffery Seay.

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

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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.

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#Campaign: How Twitter is playing politics

Political Punch

Twitter -- the next (digital) battleground state. The social media wars are already underway, just check out Twitter foes David Axelrod, of the Obama campaign, and Eric Fehrnstrom, with the Romney campaign. Axelrod tweeted this photo, saying "How loving owners transport their dogs" -- a shot at Mitt Romney, who in the 1980s transported his dog Seamus in a carrier strapped to the roof. Fehrnstrom shot back after someone realized that in his memoir Obama wrote about eating dog as a boy. Fehrnstrom re-tweeted Axelrod's photo with the message: "In hindsight, a chilling photo." It was a debate hashed out -- or hashtagged out -- entirely on Twitter.

Campaigns can use Twitter to get a message out quickly, bypassing television ads or media interviews. And the social media tool is becoming a good predictor of which way the wind is blowing in the election.

"The momentum that shows up in polls two or three days [later] is showing up in a matter of hours on Twitter," said Adam Sharp, Twitter's senior manager for government, news, and social innovation. "In the run up to the Arizona and Michigan primaries, where the polls were neck in neck, the day before you saw a little bit of a flattening in Rick Santorum's follower growth, and a surge in Mitt Romney's follower growth -- and he went on to win both primaries."

Twitter has exploded on Capitol Hill and state legislatures; more than 90 percent of senators, representatives, and governors are on Twitter.? Internationally, one in five world leaders has an account.

"You could today send a tweet to President Paul Kagame of Rwanda and get an answer," said Sharp.

On election day 2008, about 1.8 million tweets were sent -- on all topics not just politics. That is just eight minutes' worth of tweets at today's rate of 340 million per day.

Check out this week's Political Punch to see how Twitter is affecting the 2012 election, working its way onto Capitol Hill, and at times, tripping up on its own algorithms.

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You Can Get an Xbox/Kinect for $99 Now [Dealzmodo]

We heard about a crazy $99 Xbox/Kinect bundle last week, but we weren't sure what the catch would be. Now we do: You need to sign up for a two-year $15 per month Xbox Live Gold contract. Not bad! More »

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Twitter plays outsize role in 2012 campaign

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama return to the White House, Saturday, May 5, 2012, in Washington. President Obama made campaign visits to Columbus, Ohio and Richmond, Va. during his first official day of campaigning for a second term. (AP Photo/Richard Lipski)

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama return to the White House, Saturday, May 5, 2012, in Washington. President Obama made campaign visits to Columbus, Ohio and Richmond, Va. during his first official day of campaigning for a second term. (AP Photo/Richard Lipski)

Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney holds a towel next to his, wife Ann, before an NBA first-round playoff series basketball game between the Boston Celtics and the Atlanta Hawks in Boston, Sunday, May 6, 2012. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

NEW YORK (AP) ? (at)BarackObama is on Twitter. So is (at)MittRomney. And so are all the voters following the 2012 presidential contest, whether they know it or not.

Candidates, strategists, journalists and political junkies have flocked to Twitter, the social networking hub where information from the mundane to the momentous is shared through 140-character microbursts known as tweets.

While relatively few voters are on Twitter ? a study by the Pew Research Center found that about 13 percent of American adults have joined the site ? it's become an essential tool for campaigns to test-drive themes and make news with a group of politically wired "influencers" who process and share those messages with the broader world.

Put simply: When a voter is exposed to any information related to the presidential contest, chances are it's been through the Twitter filter first.

"The subset of people on Twitter may be relatively small, but it's a politically engaged audience whose influence extends both online and off," said Heather LaMarre, a University of Minnesota communications professor who studies social media. "It's not the direct message that has the biggest influence on people ? it's the indirect message."

No one believes the campaign will be won or lost on Twitter; it's just one slice of an enormous communication effort the presidential campaigns are waging in cyberspace. But with a well-timed 140-character blast, candidates influence coverage, respond to charges or reinforce talking points.

This, of course, is not the first time technology has changed the way campaigns are conducted. Radio, TV and the Internet all prompted campaigns to adapt, giving both more avenues to reach voters and more control of their message. But radio and television are top-down mediums at heart ? from the broadcaster to the public. Never before has a grassroots technology like Twitter given both voice and power to millions, and given candidates a real-time way to monitor the effects of their messages and recalibrate on the fly.

And that means an ever-changing campaign narrative for 2012.

Four years ago, Twitter was in relative infancy and just 1.8 million tweets were sent on Election Day 2008. Now, Twitter gets that many approximately every eight minutes.

Obama's 2012 State of the Union address drew 800,000 tweets, Twitter said. And tweets mentioning Rick Santorum jumped from 10-20 per minute to more than 2,500 tweets per minute when news broke that he was suspending his bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

Both the Obama and Romney campaigns have actively embraced Twitter, using it to communicate directly with supporters and, more importantly, drive the political conversation in a way that reaches far beyond the site. They're also mindful of the hazards of Twitter, designating war room staffers to monitor the site for problems to address or gaffes from their rivals to exploit.

"Our team understands that the most important issues in this campaign are jobs and the economy, not the Twitter controversy of the day," Romney spokesman Ryan Williams said. "But we need to be on top of everything and monitor every aspect of this race. Twitter helps us keep our finger on the pulse of the fast moving pace of new media."

Twitter's impact was on vivid display last week.

Obama, warning a college audience that interest rates on their federal student loans could double if Congress doesn't act soon, urged students to make their voices heard on Twitter.

"Tweet them! Teach your parents how to tweet!" Obama said, asking them to add the hash tag (hash)dontdoublemyrate.

The Obama campaign's introduction of a campaign tool named Julia also showcased what both parties will do to get the last word on Twitter.

Obama's team unveiled an interactive slideshow on its website showing how a hypothetical woman named Julia would benefit from the president's policies throughout her life.

"Follow Julia from age 3 to 67," the Obama campaign tweeted with a link to the tool ? all but guaranteeing a level of buzz among Twitter users that then spilled into other social media and into reporters' stories.

Republicans, for their part, moved quickly on Twitter to respond ? tying Julia to the persistent weak economy.

"Did u tell (hash)Julia how much debt you left her?" Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer tweeted.

"Based on today's bad unemployment report, it appears that Julia has given up looking for work," former George W. Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer tweeted after Friday's unemployment figures showed tepid job growth.

Twitter's warp speed presents both an opportunity and a challenge to campaigns ever vigilant about maintaining message discipline.

The Romney campaign sought to seize advantage after Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen remarked that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's wife, Ann, a stay at home mother of five sons, had "never worked a day in her life." Polls show Romney lagging badly among women voters, and his advisers have sought ways to close the gender gap.

After Rosen's comments on CNN quickly exploded ? on Twitter ? the Romney campaign launched a Twitter feed from the candidate's wife.

"I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was hard work," (at)AnnDRomney said in her first-ever tweet. "All moms are entitled to choose their path," came her second.

Ann Romney's engagement on Twitter quickly earned her several thousand followers on the site. But it also scored news headlines and helped cast Democrats as unsympathetic to women who stay home with children ? a score for the Romney campaign that went far beyond the Twitter audience.

Twitter has also caused both campaigns plenty of headaches.

The Obama team was forced onto defense during the Rosen controversy, even though she has no connection to the president's re-election effort. The campaign deployed Michelle Obama to push back on Rosen.

"Every mother works hard and every woman deserves to be respected," the first lady tweeted.

In February, Romney delivered an economic speech at Ford Field in Detroit ? a must-win primary state for the Michigan native as he battled rival Santorum for the GOP nomination.

But hours earlier, reporters began tweeting photos of the nearly empty football arena and the small section of it reserved for Romney's event. By the time the former Massachusetts governor delivered the address, the ill-chosen venue had become the story instead.

Twitter also contributed to the resignation of a Romney foreign policy spokesman last week. Richard Grenell stepped down in part because of caustic tweets he had sent about a host of public figures including MSNBC host Rachel Maddow and Newt and Callista Gingrich.

Indeed, Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, said the snark factor is one of Twitter's biggest pitfalls.

"You're more likely to be embarrassed by what's said on Twitter than to be praised," Rosenstiel said. "The things that go viral tend to be jokes and tend to be mocking."

But, he added, "Twitter has this quality of being an alert system that elevates it above the number of people using it."

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Follow Beth Fouhy on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/bfouhy

Associated Press

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Federal agent says Clemens wasn't targeted

Former Major League Baseball pitcher Roger Clemens leaves the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Court House as his retrial continues on charges that Clemens committed perjury when he told Congress in 2008 that he had never taken steroids or human growth hormone, Thursday, May 3, 2012, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Former Major League Baseball pitcher Roger Clemens leaves the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Court House as his retrial continues on charges that Clemens committed perjury when he told Congress in 2008 that he had never taken steroids or human growth hormone, Thursday, May 3, 2012, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Federal agent Jeff Novitzky testified Monday that Roger Clemens was not a target when Novitzky began questioning Clemens' former strength coach, Brian McNamee, about performance-enhancing drugs.

Meanwhile behind the scenes Clemens' lawyers sought to strike the testimony of former teammate Andy Pettitte.

Under government re-direct questioning, Novitzky said that Clemens wasn't the only athlete Novitzky asked McNamee about. Novitzky, now an agent with the Food and Drug Administration, said that McNamee talked to him about a dozen professional athletes using performance-enhancing drugs.

Was Clemens ever a target, asked prosecutor Steven Durham.

"No, he was never," Novitzky responded. "We never targeted the end user of these drugs."

Last week, under cross-examination, Clemens' lawyer asked Novitzky if it was his intent to have someone file charges against the pitcher. Novitzky, who had been an agent with the Internal Revenue Service when he met with McNamee in 2007 and 2008, said no.

Clemens, a seven-time Cy Young Award winner, is accused of lying to Congress in 2008 when he denied using human growth hormone and steroids.

McNamee cooperated with former Sen. George Mitchell, who was investigating performance-enhancing drugs in baseball, and Mitchell eventually identified Clemens as a user in his report to Major League Baseball. Asked why he encouraged McNamee's cooperation, Novitzky said, "we saw there was issue with performance-enhancing drugs in major league baseball" and that kids were starting to emulate the players.

"We thought it was a good idea for Brian McNamee to cooperate with Mitchell," he said, adding he didn't know what was going to be in the report, including whether Mitchell would name names.

Last week, Novitzky described the physical evidence he had collected from McNamee. Prosecutors will try to prove the evidence shows the former baseball pitcher used steroids and HGH. Clemens' lawyers have said they will contend that the evidence has been tainted and contaminated.

Also last week, Pettitte had testified that Clemens told him he had tried HGH, only to say under cross-examination that he might have misunderstood Clemens. As expected, Clemens' lawyers filed a motion asking that the jury not be allowed to consider the conversation between the two pitchers.

Pettitte said that it was "fair" to say that there was a 50 percent chance he misunderstood Clemens, his friend and one-time mentor.

"The court should not allow the jury to consider an alleged 'admission' that has all the weight of a coin flip," Clemens' lawyers wrote in a filing Monday morning, before the resumption of the trial.

McNamee is expected to testify this week, perhaps as early as Tuesday.

Prosecutors got off to a rough start Monday, when U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton told them they could not play a clip of a 2008 Clemens' "60 Minutes" interview for the jury. In the clip, Clemens says he was advised by counsel not to talk to former Sen. Mitchell.

After the interview aired, Clemens testified to Congress that he didn't know that Mitchell wanted to talk to him. Prosecutors wanted to show the "60 Minutes" clip in an attempt to show Clemens was obstructing Congress, arguing the two statements were contradictory. But Walton said the clip could not be played without interfering with the attorney-client privilege. He also said it was possible Clemens was told generally by lawyers not to talk to Mitchell, without actually informing the pitcher that Mitchell wanted to talk to him.

___

AP Sports Writer Joseph White contributed to this report.

___

Follow Fred Frommer at http://twitter.com/ffrommer

Follow Joseph White at http://twitter.com/JGWhiteAP

Associated Press

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Long: Your Hidden Pets ? Northwest Science Writers Association

By Chris Tachibana, on Sunday, May 6, 2012

Priscilla Long reminds us what we might have forgotten about spiders from basic biology class or Charlotte?s Web. They aren?t insects, they inspired Greek and Roman myths, and they motivate us (or at least Priscilla) to do housecleaning. For more, see Pricilla?s weekly column ?Science Frictions? in The American Scholar.

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Putin inauguration: World view of a Russian feeling dissed

As the second presidential inauguration of Vladimir Putin approaches, a former correspondent who once worked for him looks at the world view of the Russian iron man. His theory: The president is feeling dissed by the West and believes it conspires to "destroy" Russia.

My first memory of Vladimir Putin ? if you can call it a memory ? goes back to late 1991, just a month before the collapse of the Soviet Union, when I caught sight of him, without knowing who he was, of course, in St. Petersburg. I was making a series of reports for the BBC in the city, which had just been given its original name back, after 67 years as "Leningrad." As we filmed a meeting between the mayor, Anatoly Sobchak, and a visiting British politician, a small, fair-haired man flitted anonymously in the background.

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Rewatching the footage 20 years later, I recognize the features: soft, thin hair parted to one side; glassy eyes; and protruding lips. He walks with his head pressed forward and an aggressive gait, rolling slightly from side to side. This is Mr. Putin at 39, recently returned from a five-year posting as a spy in East Germany and now head of the city's "external relations committee." He is unobtrusive and slightly nervous, just as you would expect from a man used to living in the shadows. He fingers his chin self-consciously, knowing a Western TV camera is pointed at him ? possibly for the first time in his life.

Putin's job was to attract foreign investors to the city. He would later succeed in bringing in giants such as The Coca-Cola Company. But in 1991 his immediate priority was to solve the city's food crisis ? a colossal task, as I saw for myself when I toured the St. Petersburg "food depot."

In the communist system, all agricultural produce was brought to an enormous central area, to be sorted and transported to the city's shops. Don't imagine a Western-style fruit distribution center, where apples and oranges are individually wrapped in tissue and packed into shock-resistant boxes, then whisked out to retail stores. In a system devoid of incentives, almost all the produce went to waste. Workers were fishing through crates of potatoes that had already turned into a stinking black mush, picking out the few that could be salvaged and tossing them into another crate. Eventually a few of them might have reached a shop, and some might even have been sold and eaten.

Putin's task was to arrange emergency food supplies from the West. It was a job that, I think, had two profound effects on the future Russian leader and may still shape who he is today as he's about to assume the presidency for another six years as one of the country's most enduring, enigmatic, and controversial rulers in modern history.

First, it placed him at the center of the most humiliating moment Russia had endured for perhaps half a century. His country was on the brink of starvation. The Soviet planning system had collapsed, and the half-baked reforms introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev had merely introduced an element of chaos. Long lines of angry customers were forming outside empty food stores. Russia was forced to beg for humanitarian aid, like some third-world country. A fellow correspondent in Moscow once coined the phrase "Upper Volta with rockets." That was really how the decaying Soviet Union looked, and Putin knew it. When he came to power nine years later, he vowed never to let that happen again.

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Activists: Chen case does not mean controls easing

A woman protester who claims she wants to see blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng, recounts her grievances as a Chinese police officer questions her outside the hospital where Chen is recuperating in Beijing, Saturday, May 5, 2012. While it appears China will likely make a rare concession and allow activist Chen Guangcheng to leave China with his family, dissidents say the deal is not a sign of a broader easing of controls. Authorities might even tighten the screws on other prominent critics to prevent them from seeking similar offers ahead of a leadership handover during which stability is paramount. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

A woman protester who claims she wants to see blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng, recounts her grievances as a Chinese police officer questions her outside the hospital where Chen is recuperating in Beijing, Saturday, May 5, 2012. While it appears China will likely make a rare concession and allow activist Chen Guangcheng to leave China with his family, dissidents say the deal is not a sign of a broader easing of controls. Authorities might even tighten the screws on other prominent critics to prevent them from seeking similar offers ahead of a leadership handover during which stability is paramount. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

An image featuring blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng is shown by a protester during a rally in front of the Chinese central government's liaison in Hong Kong Friday, May 4, 2012. Chen at the center of a diplomatic standoff between the United States and China said Friday his situation is "dangerous," and that American officials have been blocked from seeing him for two days and friends who have tried to visit have been beaten up. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)

In this photo released by the US Embassy Beijing Press Office, blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng, left, chats with U.S. ambassador to China, Gary Locke as they leave the U.S. embassy for a hospital in Beijing, Wednesday, May 2, 2012. (AP Photo/U.S. Embassy Beijing Press Office, HO)

Chinese police officers question a woman and another videotape a woman protester who claims she wants to see blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng outside the hospital where Chen is recuperating in Beijing, China, Saturday, May 5, 2012. While it appears China will likely make a rare concession and allow activist Chen Guangcheng to leave China with his family, dissidents say the deal is not a sign of a broader easing of controls. Authorities might even tighten the screws on other prominent critics to prevent them from seeking similar offers ahead of a leadership handover during which stability is paramount. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

Chinese petitioners protest about their own grievances near a cordon for journalists gathered outside the hospital where blind activist lawyer Chen Guangcheng is recuperating in Beijing, Saturday, May 5, 2012. While it appears China will likely make a rare concession and allow activist Chen Guangcheng to leave China with his family, dissidents say the deal is not a sign of a broader easing of controls. Authorities might even tighten the screws on other prominent critics to prevent them from seeking similar offers ahead of a leadership handover during which stability is paramount. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

BEIJING (AP) ? Even if China makes a rare concession and allows legal activist Chen Guangcheng to leave the country with his family, other dissidents say they don't expect a broader easing of controls. Authorities might even tighten the screws on prominent critics to prevent them from taking encouragement from Chen's case to challenge the leadership.

The blind activist's escape from house arrest and flight to safety in the U.S. Embassy has provided a much-needed morale boost for a dissident community that over the last year has been debilitated by a massive government security crackdown aimed at preventing an Arab-style democratic uprising. Dozens of activists, rights lawyers, intellectuals and others have been detained, questioned and in some cases, even tortured.

Chen, a symbol in China's civil rights movement, may be able to leave to study in the United States under still-evolving arrangements announced Friday by Washington and Beijing to end a weeklong diplomatic standoff over his case.

On Saturday, Chen was still in a hospital where he was taken to receive medical care, joined by his wife and two children. U.S. Embassy officials met with his wife, although Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in Beijing this past week for annual talks, left Beijing without visiting him.

The Foreign Ministry said Friday that Chen could submit an application to go abroad. His wife told Hong Kong broadcaster TVB on Saturday that applications for travel documents had not yet been started and no date has been set for them to leave.

The turn of events for Chen, while welcomed by most activists and dissidents, is seen as an individual victory that is not likely to pave the way for improvements in the government's attitude toward its critics.

"I think that after the Chen Guangcheng incident, the situation for us will just become worse and worse, because in today's society government power has no limits," said Liu Yi, an artist and Chen supporter who was assaulted Thursday by men he thinks were plainclothes police while he attempted to visit Chen in the hospital.

Liu Feiyue, a veteran activist who runs a rights monitoring network in the central province of Hubei, noted the importance of U.S. involvement in Chen's case. "This is only an individual case. Because it turned into a China-U.S. incident, the U.S. put a lot of pressure on China, which is why the authorities made a concession to allow Chen Guangcheng to study overseas," he said.

"Not all dissident cases can become international issues," Liu Feiyue said.

Chen, a self-taught legal activist, is best known for exposing forced abortions and sterilizations in his community in a scandal that prompted the central government to punish some local officials. His activism earned him the wrath of local authorities, who punished him with nearly seven years of prison and house arrest.

He made an improbable escape from his farmhouse in eastern China two weeks ago and sought refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. After negotiations between U.S. and Chinese officials, Chen left the embassy under arrangements to stay in China that were supposed to guarantee his and his family's safety. But he then changed his mind, prompting more talks that resulted in Friday's tentative deal that would let him travel to the U.S. with his family for a university fellowship.

All this played out as Clinton, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and a slew of senior U.S. officials arrived for meetings on trade tensions and global economic and political trouble spots. It also occurred as Chinese President Hu Jintao and most of his senior leadership prepare to step aside for a younger generation of leaders ? a time the Communist Party is acutely wary of challenges to its authority and usually reins-in critics.

Activists said that while Chen, his wife and children are likely to find sanctuary in the United States, it is unclear what will happen to his other relatives. Authorities have already detained Chen's elder brother, and his nephew is on the run after attacking local officials who raided his house apparently in search of Chen after his escape. Chen's mother, who lived with the couple, has been under constant surveillance.

If Chen leaves, the officials who mistreated him and his family will likely not be held accountable ? something Chen asked for in a video statement he made while in hiding in Beijing before entering the U.S. Embassy.

"Chen's story is not a triumph for China's human rights, unfortunately," said Wang Songlian, a Hong Kong-based researcher with Chinese Human Rights Defenders. "Although Chen and his immediate family might gain freedom, his extended family is likely to be retaliated against. ... None of those whose violence Chen exposed, or those who beat and detained Chen and his family, have been punished."

There are concerns China will exact retribution on Chen's supporters who aided his escape, as well as friends who later tried to get the message out about his fears for his safety or publicly urged him to flee to the United States. Two supporters who helped him escape were detained, then released, but placed under gag orders and close monitoring.

Others like Chen's friend Zeng Jinyan, who ? at great risk to herself ? publicized Chen's worries about leaving the embassy Wednesday, have since been barred from speaking to the media and placed under house arrest. Also under similar restrictions is Teng Biao, a rights lawyer who repeatedly called Chen imploring him to flee the country, then published a transcript of their phone conversations online.

"They (the authorities) will certainly settle scores with them later," Teng told Chen, referring to the two supporters who aided Chen's escape.

Some activists say local officials who have been watching dissidents in their own jurisdictions might beef up monitoring and restrictions on them to prevent them from attempting copycat escapes into diplomatic compounds.

"One guess is that they will learn a lesson from this experience and be stricter in guarding and monitoring similar key figures and take even harder measures against them," said Mo Zhixu, a liberal-minded author and Chen supporter.

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Follow Gillian Wong on Twitter at http://twitter.com/gillianwong

Associated Press

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