AP PHOTOS: Easter celebrations around the world

Pope Francis delivers the Urbi et Orbi (to the city and to the world) blessing at the end of his first Easter Sunday Mass in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican Sunday, March 31, 2013. Pope Francis celebrated his first Easter Sunday Mass as pontiff in St. Peter's Square, packed by joyous pilgrims, tourists and Romans and bedecked by spring flowers. Wearing cream-colored vestments, Francis strode onto the esplanade in front of St. Peter's Basilica and took his place at an altar set up under a white canopy. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Pope Francis delivers the Urbi et Orbi (to the city and to the world) blessing at the end of his first Easter Sunday Mass in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican Sunday, March 31, 2013. Pope Francis celebrated his first Easter Sunday Mass as pontiff in St. Peter's Square, packed by joyous pilgrims, tourists and Romans and bedecked by spring flowers. Wearing cream-colored vestments, Francis strode onto the esplanade in front of St. Peter's Basilica and took his place at an altar set up under a white canopy. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Pope Francis leads the Easter mass in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sunday, March 31, 2013. Pope Francis is celebrating his first Easter Sunday Mass as pontiff in St. Peter's Square, which is packed by joyous pilgrims, tourists and Romans. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Francis arrives to lead a open-air easter Mass in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sunday, March 31, 2013. Pope Francis is celebrating his first Easter Sunday Mass as pontiff in St. Peter's Square, which is packed by joyous pilgrims, tourists and Romans. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Francis celebrates the Easter mass in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sunday, March 31, 2013. "Our daily problems and worries can wrap us up in ourselves, in sadness and bitterness, and that is where death is," he said. "Let the risen Jesus enter your life, welcome him as a friend, with trust: he is life!" said Pope Francis during the Easter vigil. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Pope Francis celebrates the Easter mass in St. Peter's Square at the the Vatican Sunday, March 31, 2013. "Our daily problems and worries can wrap us up in ourselves, in sadness and bitterness, and that is where death is," he said. "Let the risen Jesus enter your life, welcome him as a friend, with trust: he is life!" said Pope Francis during the Easter vigil. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

On Easter Sunday, the most holy day of the Christian calendar, believers attended religious services ? whether among the packed crowds before a new pope in St. Peter's Square, at sunrise services in India and Pakistan, or at churches flanked by blast walls and security cordons in Iraq.

Here are some scenes from Easter Sunday around the world.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-03-31-Easter-Photo-Gallery/id-35fb147f20584ae388a8b88a341fcee7

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The Weekly Roundup for 03.25.2013

You might say the week is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workweek, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Weekly Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past seven days -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/31/the-weekly-roundup-for-03-25-2013/

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Cell reprogramming during liver regeneration

Friday, March 29, 2013

During embryonic development, animals generate many different types of cells, each with a distinct function and identity.

"Although the identities of these cells remain stable under normal conditions, some cells can be persuaded to take on new identities, through reprogramming," says Ben Stanger, MD, PhD, assistant professor of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania.

Researchers have been able to reprogram cells experimentally, but few have shown that cells can change their identities under normal physiological conditions in the body, particularly in mammals.

In the cover article of this month's issue of Genes and Development, Stanger, PhD candidate Kilangsungla Yanger, Yiwei Zong, PhD, and their colleagues, did just that in the liver of a mouse. Stanger is also an investigator in the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute and the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology.

The adult liver contains two major cell types ? hepatocytes and biliary cells ? that differ dramatically in appearance and function. Hepatocytes are the main cell type in the liver, where they synthesize proteins and other macromolecules, and detoxify toxic substances. Biliary cells, on the other hand, line the bile ducts, which carry bile from the liver to the small intestine to help digest fats.

Using a sensitive method to tag and track how cells develop and differentiate, the researchers found that conditional expression of an activated Notch1 gene converted hepatocytes into biliary cells. Notch is an important receptor for relaying signals to tell cells how to develop.

What's more, after the researchers injured liver cells with a variety of toxins to stimulate wound healing, they found that over two to three weeks hepatocytes activated a biliary cell program on their own, acquiring the shape and function of biliary cells. These changes were dependent on the activation of endogenous Notch signaling.

"This is direct evidence that cells can be converted from one mature cell type to another in a live animal, as part of a normal response to injury," says Stanger. "We think that augmenting pre-existing cell reprogramming relationships may be another way to engineer cells for the treatment of diseases in which there are not enough bile ducts, such as cholestasis."

###

University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine: http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/news/

Thanks to University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127525/Cell_reprogramming_during_liver_regeneration

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BMW announces compatibility with four new iOS apps, removable in-car LTE router, we go hands-on

At this year's New York International Auto Show BMW is expanding its portfolio of connected apps -- by four. The company announced iOS integration for Audible, Glympse, Rhapsody and TuneIn Radio and we couldn't help but swing by to check them all out. This integration (which also will work on Connected Minis) entails an update to those existing iOS apps. In other words, you won't need a dedicated BMW app nor second versions of these individual apps. You can use the ones you already know and love.

Join us below for a little more information on how that works, and a look at the company's in-car LTE router that's also on display.

Gallery: BMW Connected apps hands-on

Filed under: Transportation, Software

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/5IleF3e4VBU/

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Experts debate the psychology of ?Star Trek? vs. ?Star Wars?

Wondercon 2013: The psychology of Star Trek vs. Star Wars (Eric Pfeiffer/Yahoo News)ANAHEIM, Calif.?At Friday?s opening day of Wondercon 2013, the swords were drawn early. Or, more specifically, the light sabers were drawn and the phasers were set to kill.

Four experts, including two psychologists, debated four specific topics as part of an epic breakdown analyzing the respective strengths and weaknesses of Star Wars and Star Trek.

To an outsider, the debate might seem trivial. But to fans of each series, the differences have long run deep, pitting the more cerebral science fiction of Star Trek against the emotional, fantasy driven stories of the Star Wars universe.

As the debate opened, it was clear a majority of the hundreds of Wondercon attendees who packed into the ballroom showed up in, er, Force, to support Star Wars.

Well, first of all, there are not as many Trekkies here because they are all at work today,? quipped NYU clinical psychologist Dr. Ali Mattu.

Round 1: Nature vs. Nurture

Thanks to the infamous Star Wars prequels we now know that the villainous Darth Vader was not always bad. But Star Trek?s greatest villain, Khan Noonan Singh was literally born bad ? a product of genetic engineering who believed himself superior lesser men. So, which is the better story?

?Vader is someone you can probably diagnose with borderline personality disorder,? Mattu said. ?In fact, the American Psychological Association hosted a talk on this very topic in 2007.. Whereas Khan is the most dangerous thing in social psychology, when you dehumanize people. You get things like the Eugenics Wars and the Nazis.?

?Khan had a later life transformation,? said Larry Nemecek, author of the Star Trek The Next Generation Companion Guide. ?When we first met him in the Stark Trek television series, he was a villain. But when he comes back in the second film (?Wrath of Kahn,?) his wife has been killed and his adopted planet ruined.?

For her part, Dr. Andrea Letamendi, a psychologist, said Vader?s story was more compelling because of its complexity.

?George Lucas really has an understanding of what makes evil.? she said. ?There is a sophistication of what makes risk, loss and antisocial behavior. We are reminded that humans are complex.?

For his part, Robot Chicken writer Hugh Sterbakov did see one common failing of the two diabolical leaders: ?They're both really bad at choosing assistants,? he said, noting that in the accompanying photos for the panel, both men are seen lifting men into the air by their throats.

Round 2: Strength and Resilience

But who in the two competing sagas over the most adversity? Was it the crew of the Enterprise overcoming the death of Spock? Or, Luke Skywalker seeing his murdered aunt and uncle and being forced into a completely new world?

Dr. Letamendi said both series have similarities in the way that their characters maintain their behavioral patterns even after trying situations. For example, in Star Trek 2, Spock is willing to accept death during an unwinnable computer simulation. Later in the film, he sacrifices his own life to save the crew of the Enterprise.

And in The Empire Strikes Back, Luke Skywalker in quick to anger during a test of character in the caves of Degobah. Later in the film, he succumbs to the same behavior, and suffers for it, when he is quick to confront Vader.

?The main point is not win or lose but how you went down,? Nemecek said.

Round 3: Artificial Intelligence

The panelists weren?t allowed to speculate on who would win in a fight between Captain Kirk and Han Solo. But they were free to debate who has the better robots.

?There's a spectrum of how they treat artificial intelligence in Star Trek,? said Nemecek. ?Even Data's creator was an outcast. It's a complex question in the Star Trek universe.?

Letamendi responded by saying that the Star Wars androids were more likeable because they are less human, citing the ?Uncanny Valley? concept, which states that humans are emotionally put off by artificial intelligence the more closely it resembles actual human behavior and appearance.

But Mattu disagreed, agreeing with Nemecek that the wide variety of artificial intelligence on display in the Star Trek universe was met with different responses from different cultures.

Round 4: The Test

The panelists then moved on to the final round to argue which saga showcases the greater journey for its characters. From there, it was left to the audience to decide who had won the debate.

?It's an inspirational, motivational story that goes to the core of what it means to experience self-actualization and self individualization,? Letamendi said of Star Wars. ?It's actually what psychologists consider to be the most advanced state of being. And they have badass costumes.?

Mattu offered the counterpoint, saying of his own experience:

?What happened to me when I saw Star Trek was that I could see myself there. It was a future we could see, a mirror into ourselves. How with empathy, science and knowledge we can grow, improve as a society and overcome.?

?Plus, only in Star Trek can you blow up a planet and create one simultaneously using science.?

Ultimately, the cheers were loud for both sides, though it appeared that the Star Trek argument came out slightly ahead, reversing what had seemed like an audience stacked in favor of Star Wars at the onset.

But to any attendees who felt disappointed with the results, Mattu offered some positive news.

?Here's how we all win: We all have J.J. Abrams now.?

Can these experts finally solve the Star Trek vs. Star Wars debate? (Eric Pfeiffer/Yahoo News

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/experts-debate-psychology-star-trek-vs-star-wars-222637187.html

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DSB2Go

Detect Safe Browsing to Go, known by the less wordy "DSB2Go," is a nifty USB device that offers users a locked-down personal Web browser to protect users' Web activity and accounts from malware designed to intercept login credentials and steal information. With DSB2Go, it doesn't matter if the computer has keyloggers or other types of malware installed, because all user activity and data are encrypted within the device's hardened browser. It is extremely easy to use, as the user just has to plug it in to the computer before logging into the site.

DSB2Go protects users from malware infections, phishing attempts, and pharming attacks. The device also foils man-in-the-middle and man-in-the-browser attacks. There is usually a trade off between security and convenience as the user gives up ease-of use to be secure, or being less secure in order to make it easy to use. DSB2Go balances the two successfully, as the only inconvenience is remembering to carry the USB device.

Many kinds of modern malware burrow deep into the user system in order to avoid being detected by antivirus and other security products. This means users may not even be aware their computers are infected with a banking Trojan or other data-stealing malware. When users access sensitive sites, such as online banking or business applications, from an infected computer, the malware intercepts login credentials and can take over the account. DSB2Go removes the uncertainty, since as long as the users are using the virtualized Web browser, all Web activity and data is encrypted and hidden from the malware. Even if the user is on a Zeus-infected computer, the malware can't penetrate the DSB2Go environment to access the data.

The device doesn't try to protect all Web activity but just those sites administrators identified beforehand in a whitelist on the management portal. Businesses can use DSB2Go as an extra layer of security to protect employees accessing certain business-critical applications, or roll out the service to customers accessing a specific online service. At $37.89 per device for an annual subscription, this can become a fairly expensive solution for large deployments, but Easy Solutions offers volume pricing and discounts.

Before making the plunge, businesses can also sign up for a 15-day free trial, during which they get three DSB2Go USB devices and the ability to whitelist up to three sites on the management portal.

Getting Started
Easy Solutions sent a USB device and created an account on the company's Detect Monitoring Service portal for this review. The company's IT administrator logs into the portal and navigates to the "DSB2Go" tab to activate devices, create groups, define "protected applications," and view usage activity. When I logged in, I saw the USB drive I had was already activated.

If I had additional devices, I could activate it using the serial numbers. I could? set a password for each device and assign a "group." Groups allow administrators to assign basic policies to the device, such as the types of applications the user could access and authentication requirements.

Groups, Devices, Sites
After creating a group, I can set the device's security level?entering the device password or a unique username/password combination before the hardened Web browser launches?or turn it off to use the device without any restrictions. Each device is then assigned to a group.

This way, I could ensure all the devices within a department had the same security level.

The interface was pretty sluggish, which may have been the fault of the test environment I was using. The pages took a while to load when switching tabs, and some windows didn't close right away.

The whitelist lives in the portal's "protected sites" section. I listed all the URLs to sites users are allowed to access using DSB2Go. This part can get tedious quickly for applications which redirects across several subdomains since administrators must specify each address separately. Gmail redirects users to accounts.google.com before displaying the inbox on mail.google.com, for example. For this review, I listed Gmail, Salesforce, TDBank, and Bank of America. I listed both onlinebanking.tdbank.com and www.tdbank.com?for TDBank. If the URL I am adding has SSL (uses HTTPS), then I have to upload the site's certificate.

I can do this manually (downloading the site certificate through the regular browser, or if it is an internal application, using the SSL certificate I have) or use the "scan for certificate" feature. This nifty trick checks the URL and grabs the valid SHA1 fingerprint. Saving the SSL certificate protects users from domain hijacking and other spoofing attacks where users are maliciously redirected to other sites.

I assigned at least one group to each URL. This way, I maintained a single whitelist for the entire organization but could specify a subset for each group. If the site's group didn't match the device's group, the user would not be able to go to that site.

While the list is easy to create, it can get long pretty quickly because of the individual sub-domains that need to be rested. There is no quick way to search or sort the URLs. I was able to filter the view to display URLs assigned to specific groups, but overall, the list is unweildy to work with after a certain length.

The end-user doesn't have any control over what sites the device allows. The entire user experience is managed by the administrator via the portal. This is a great way for adding basic access policies to certain business applications.

Simple for Users
From the user perspective, it's dead simple: plug in the drive into the USB port and open up the special Web browser. The Web browser displays icons for each site the device is authorized to use. After about four or five sites, this screen appears really cluttered and there doesn't seem to be a way to sort the order the icons appear in.

Users click on the icon to go to the permitted site. If there is a problem with the SSL certificate, the user will be blocked.

Other than the fact that the user cannot type in a URL at all in the address bar, this special browser acts just like any other browser. Users can hit the back button to go back in the browsing session and open multiple tabs.

If while browsing through the approved application, an internal link goes to a different subdomain that wasn't already approved (such as customerservice.tdbank.com in the above banking example), the user is? automatically blocked. It would have been nice if the configuration service supported wildcards, so I could just say accept all *.tdbank.com sites without having to list each one individually. On the other hand, this means administrators have granular control, being able to specify which services are allowed: users are allowed to use Gmail and Calendar, but not Groups and Drive, for example.

The fact that the end-user doesn't have to download or install software was a big plus, although I wondered how many people would lose the USB drive or forget to keep it within reach.

I was disappointed the service is currently limited to only Windows users. Mac OS X and Linux users are currently not protected. When I plugged the device in to a Linux laptop, it didn't even detect anything in the USB port.

Secure Browsing?Up To A Point
There are other virtual browser options for businesses, but many of them are out of the SMB's reach. DSB2Go addresses the fact that SMBs need this kind of browser technology, too.

Since all the settings are handled by the cloud service, DSB2Go is perfect for active business travelers who use different devices or access the Internet using open networks, or for customers who need to access a specific service or application. I am concerned about the fact that there is no way for administrator to verify that users are actually using DSB2Go. The user can easily skip the drive altogether and just use the regular Web browser.

Taking advantage of security provided by DSB2Go requires a significant behavior change, as the administrator has to convince the end-user that using this device is worth the extra effort. Other than that, though, DSB2Go is a nifty device that can really help businesses keep their customers and employees while accessing sensitive Web sites.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/lKK7qH0jOWc/0,2817,2417213,00.asp

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Final Fantasy V arrives on iOS, is unlikely to be the last

A touch iteration of the once SNES-bound Final Fantasy V has now appeared on the iTunes App Store, with a softer graphical lick, some new job classes (Gladiator, Cannoneer, Oracle and Necromancer) and an obligatory extra boss to test your leveling-up skills against. The price of four new costumes for your meteor-riding protagonists? Just shy of $16. Saving the world was never going to be cheap easy.

Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming, Tablets, Mobile

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Via: Destructoid

Source: Final Fantasy V (iTunes)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/28/final-fantasy-v-arrives-on-ios-is-unlikely-to-be-the-last/

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