Larry Felser, a longtime pro football reporter and columnist for the Buffalo News, passed away?on Wednesday at age 80, the publication reported.
Felser covered the Bills from 1960, when they were one of the charter members of the American Football League, through 2001, the News said. He also was sports editor of the News.
In a statement issued by the Bills, owner Ralph Wilson Jr. praised Felser?s work.
?Larry was there at the beginning of the American Football League and along with fellow reporters such as Will McDonough and others, played an important role in the growth of our league,? Wilson said. ?He was the consummate professional ? tough, but fair, and never one to shy away from clearly stating his opinion.
?I had tremendous respect for Larry and we developed a deep friendship that lasted throughout our lifetimes. We shared some great laughs over the years and that?s what I am remembering most today about Larry. I will truly miss him. My deepest sympathies and condolences go out to his lovely wife, Beverly, and their family.?
In 1984, Felser earned the Dick McCann Award, an honor voted upon by the Pro Football Writers of America and awarded by the Pro Football Hall of Fame for?meritorious reporting on the sport.
For those wishing to read an example of Felser?s work, the Buffalo News recently republished a column he wrote after the Bills? remarkable comeback against the Oilers in January 1993.
LONDON (AP) ? Remember when tweeting was for the birds?
The BBC is hoping to revive that simpler time with "Tweet of the Day" ? an early-morning radio program dedicated to British birdsong.
Veteran naturalist David Attenborough will host the 90-second show, which will feature the song of a different bird each weekday, along with background on the species' behavior and habits.
The show on the BBC's main speech station, Radio 4, may be best appreciated by those who rise with the birds. "Tweet of the Day" will be broadcast at 5:58 a.m.
The BBC said Wednesday that 265 different birds will be featured during the year-long series, which begins next month with a recording of the cuckoo. Attenborough will host for the first month, and be followed by other BBC presenters.
Way back in March of 2010, Swype launched a super private Beta of its then totally mind-blowing swipe-to-type Android keyboard. While they've since shipped it out-of-the-box on dozens of handsets, opened the Beta to pretty much anyone, and sold for $100M, they've never gotten around to ditching that Beta tag ? until today. This morning, Swype will hit the Google Play store for the first time.
A Shakespearean play through the lens of Joss Whedon will alway have our support, but the first U.S. trailer for the indie production didn't quite give us our fill on the Bard's dialogue spoken by "Buffy" alums. So leave it to the British to give us the Shakespeare that we so crave with their edition [...]
(Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc said on Monday that members of its board's audit committee were paid more for the latest year because of extra work they had to take on to handle an ongoing investigation into alleged foreign bribery.
The world's largest retailer also said in its annual proxy statement that the cash incentives for its top executives in 2014 would be partly based on meeting certain compliance objectives.
While incentives for senior executives will still be based on financial and growth targets, there will be compliance goals that executives will have to meet as part of the new plan. Executives who do not meet these goals could see their annual cash incentives reduced or eliminated, according to the regulatory filing.
Back in November 2011, Wal-Mart began its own probe into matters including alleged violations of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and whether such matters were appropriately handled by the company.
The issue was brought into the public spotlight one year ago, when the New York Times published a report that described how Wal-Mart had intentionally stifled an early internal probe into allegations that Wal-Mart de Mexico officials had paid bribes to help build stores in Mexico.
Wal-Mart said on Monday that it was "implementing enhancements to how we report and investigate allegations of wrongdoing worldwide."
During fiscal 2013, which ended in January, the audit committee met 15 times while other committees met five times or seven times, and the full board met six times, Wal-Mart said.
Members of the audit committee were paid an additional $60,000 fee, while the committee's chairman, Christopher Williams, received an $85,000 fee, the company said.
Wal-Mart said that because of the audit committee's extra work, it decided to double the cash portion of the annual retainer for audit committee members, and doubled the chair fee for the chair of the audit committee.
Williams earned $189,000 in fees for fiscal 2013, the most of any of the 15 board members who are not part of Wal-Mart's management team. Williams, who is chairman and CEO of investment bank Williams Capital Group, has been on Wal-Mart's board since 2004. In last year's board elections, when some shareholders voted against certain board members due to the foreign bribery allegation issue, 13.3 percent of votes were cast against him.
Wal-Mart spent $157 million last year on its probe of alleged bribery allegations in Mexico, Brazil, China and India, and on improvements to its compliance programs.
SORENSON, OTHERS LEAVING BOARD
Separately, three board members will not stand for re-election at the company's June 7 annual meeting. In addition, Chief Executive Mike Duke and some other executives were paid more last year as sales and profit grew.
The company said that James Breyer, the board's presiding director, and M. Michele Burns are each leaving the board after more than 10 years of service. Meanwhile, Arne Sorenson has decided to focus on his role as chief executive of Marriott International Inc . Sorenson is one of the members of the audit committee.
Duke earned $20.7 million last year, up from $18.1 million a year earlier, as the retailer continued to grow despite a sluggish U.S. economy and concerns over the alleged international bribery. Wal-Mart noted that Duke will earn a significant majority of his overall compensation only if the company meets certain performance goals.
Wal-Mart's total sales rose 5 percent to $466.11 billion in the fiscal year that ended in January, while earnings per share rose 10.6 percent to $5.02 per share. Sales at Walmart U.S., the company's largest unit, rose 3.9 percent to $264.19 billion.
Meanwhile, groups that often complain about Wal-Mart's business practices on Monday asked for the removal of Duke and Chairman Rob Walton, a son of deceased founder Sam Walton, from the board. The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and its OUR Walmart subsidiary said that letters were sent to Wal-Mart's global ethics office calling for Wal-Mart's board to remove Duke and Rob Walton "for their failure in leadership in preventing the alleged bribery, trying to cover it up" and not taking meaningful action to fix internal problems.
The letters were dated April 22, which coincided with the anniversary of the publication of the New York Times report. The story was published online on April 21, 2012, and appeared in the April 22, 2012, print edition of the newspaper.
Shares of Wal-Mart slipped 0.4 percent to $77.97 on Monday. They had reached an all-time high of $79.28 one week ago.
(Reporting by Jessica Wohl in Chicago; Additional reporting by Liana B. Baker in New York; Editing by Gary Hill, Matthew Lewis and Chris Gallagher)
In an effort to quash any fears of a patterned outbreak, Los Angeles County health officials said a fatal case of meningitis found this month is not connected to any others across the country.
"Public Health has not identified any other cases of meningococcal disease associated with this patient, nor identified any linkage between this patient and cases being reported in other areas of the country," according to a news release from the Department of Public Health.
Officials hope the report puts to rest questions about whether the death of a 33-year-old lawyer from West Hollywood, diagnosed with meningitis this month, was connected to a strain of the disease found over the last couple of years in New York City.
The outbreak of a particular strain in New York, primarily among gay men, has infected nearly two dozen people and killed seven. And the death of West Hollywood resident Brett Shaad this year and other cases last year prompted concern among some health advocates that a possible outbreak could have started in L.A. County.
While some called those reports alarmist, West Hollywood City Councilman John Duran and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation pursued the issue aggressively. The organization started offering free meningitis vaccines and called on the county to do the same. Health officials eventually did so for low-income and uninsured residents.
Duran said Monday that although the county's results show there is no current outbreak, he wishes officials would be more proactive about the issue. He wants them to focus on prevention and continue offering free vaccines.
"Someone will die of meningitis in the next three months and it won't be one of the 3,000" who were recently vaccinated, Duran said.
The L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center also issued a statement Monday, saying that it was "relieved" the county had "determined the most recent case of meningitis is unrelated to earlier cases among gay men in New York and Los Angeles and that there is no outbreak among gay/bi men here."
"We're also pleased that DPH is on high alert and will advise us of any new cases so we can keep the community informed," spokesman Jim Key said.
The county health department describes meningitis as "a rare infection of the lining of the brain and the spinal cord" that is "spread by very close exposure to sneezing and coughing or direct contact with" saliva or nasal mucus. The disease is generally rare and harder to catch than the common cold but can be deadly.
L.A. County averages about 25 cases of meningitis annually, health officials said. In the news release, they said that "even with prompt treatment, the mortality rate is 10% to 15%."
Symptoms may include a stiff neck, fever, severe headaches, an altered mental state and low blood pressure.
County officials also described how they came to their findings and said they first compared the strain of bacteria from the case in April to others in the county.
Though they found that some of the recent cases in L.A. County were all part of a sub grouping that included some similar cases of men who had a history of sexual contact with other men, officials ultimately determined that "a preliminary reading of the genetic fingerprints ? shows it is not highly related to other cases in Los Angeles County, Southern California, or New York City."
Study finds that residential lawns efflux more carbon dioxide than corn fieldsPublic release date: 23-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David Bowne bowned@etown.edu American Society of Agronomy
More carbon dioxide is released from residential lawns than corn fields according to a new study. And much of the difference can likely be attributed to soil temperature. The data, from researchers at Elizabethtown College, suggest that urban heat islands may be working at smaller scales than previously thought.
These findings provide a better understanding of the changes that occur when agricultural lands undergo development and urbanization to support growing urban populations.
David Bowne, assistant professor of biology, led the study to look at the amount of carbon dioxide being released from residential lawns versus corn fields in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. His co-author, Erin Johnson, was an undergraduate at the time of the study and did the work as part of her senior honors thesis. Their findings were published online today in Soil Science Society of America Journal.
For Bowne, the study allowed him to look beyond the obvious impact of losing agricultural fields to development the loss of food that was once produced on the land.
"That is a legitimate concern, but I wanted to look more at how this change could potentially impact the carbon cycle with the understanding that the carbon cycle has implications for global climate change," explains Bowne.
To begin to understand how the carbon cycle was changing, Bowne and Johnson measured carbon dioxide efflux, soil temperature, and soil moisture under the two different land uses. They found that both carbon dioxide efflux and soil temperature were higher in residential lawns than in corn fields. Additionally, temperature had the most influence on the levels of carbon dioxide efflux, followed by the type of land use.
Higher temperatures leading to increased carbon dioxide efflux was not a surprise for Bowne and Johnson as this relationship has been documented before. "As you increase temperature," Bowne explains, "you increase biological activity be it microbial, plant, fungal, or animal." That increased activity, then, leads to more respiration and higher levels of carbon dioxide leaving the soils.
What was unexpected, however, was that the higher temperatures found in residential lawns suggested urban heat islands working at small scales. Urban heat islands are well documented phenomena in which development leads to large areas of dark-colored surfaces such as roofs, buildings, and parking lots. The dark color means more heat is absorbed leading to an increase in temperature in the neighboring areas. Urban areas, then, are warmer than the surrounding countryside.
The interesting part of Bowne's study is that the urban heat islands in the areas he was looking seem to operate on much smaller scales than he previously thought. While heat islands are usually studied on large scales such as comparing a large city and its surrounding rural areas fewer studies have been done to work out how development may affect temperatures on small scales.
"Within a developed area, within a city or town, you could have local increases in soil temperature because of the amount of development within a really small area," says Bowne.
His research suggests that temperatures may vary even across short distances due to the influence of development. One source cited in his paper says that development within even 175 meters of a location can cause an increase in temperature. Bowne is planning further experiments to test soil temperatures over a range of development setups and sizes.
The other factor that Bowne will test in the future is the sequestration of carbon. Along with the carbon dioxide efflux data in the current study, information about carbon sequestration would give a bigger picture of carbon cycling. That picture could then help researchers determine how various land uses as well as management practices such as no-till agriculture or leaving grass clippings on lawns can change the carbon cycling.
"If we go from one land use to another land use, how does that impact carbon cycling which in turn can affect climate change? Our current study touches on one component of that cycle, and more research is needed to address this huge topic," says Bowne.
###
The full article is available for no charge for 30 days following the date of this summary. View the abstract at https://dl.sciencesocieties.org/publications/sssaj/abstracts/0/0/sssaj2012.0346N.
Soil Science Society of America Journal, http://www.soils.org/publications/sssaj, is a peer-reviewed international journal published six times a year by the Soil Science Society of America. Its contents focus on research relating to physics; chemistry; biology and biochemistry; fertility and plant nutrition; genesis, morphology, and classification; water management and conservation; forest, range, and wildland soils; nutrient management and soil and plant analysis; mineralogy; and wetland soils.
The Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) is a progressive, international scientific society that fosters the transfer of knowledge and practices to sustain global soils. Based in Madison, WI, SSSA is the professional home for 6,000+ members dedicated to advancing the field of soil science. It provides information about soils in relation to crop production, environmental quality, ecosystem sustainability, bioremediation, waste management, recycling, and wise land use.
SSSA supports its members by providing quality research-based publications, educational programs, certifications, and science policy initiatives via a Washington, DC, office. Founded in 1936, SSSA proudly celebrated its 75th Anniversary in 2011. For more information, visit http://www.soils.org or follow @SSSA_soils on Twitter.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Study finds that residential lawns efflux more carbon dioxide than corn fieldsPublic release date: 23-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David Bowne bowned@etown.edu American Society of Agronomy
More carbon dioxide is released from residential lawns than corn fields according to a new study. And much of the difference can likely be attributed to soil temperature. The data, from researchers at Elizabethtown College, suggest that urban heat islands may be working at smaller scales than previously thought.
These findings provide a better understanding of the changes that occur when agricultural lands undergo development and urbanization to support growing urban populations.
David Bowne, assistant professor of biology, led the study to look at the amount of carbon dioxide being released from residential lawns versus corn fields in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. His co-author, Erin Johnson, was an undergraduate at the time of the study and did the work as part of her senior honors thesis. Their findings were published online today in Soil Science Society of America Journal.
For Bowne, the study allowed him to look beyond the obvious impact of losing agricultural fields to development the loss of food that was once produced on the land.
"That is a legitimate concern, but I wanted to look more at how this change could potentially impact the carbon cycle with the understanding that the carbon cycle has implications for global climate change," explains Bowne.
To begin to understand how the carbon cycle was changing, Bowne and Johnson measured carbon dioxide efflux, soil temperature, and soil moisture under the two different land uses. They found that both carbon dioxide efflux and soil temperature were higher in residential lawns than in corn fields. Additionally, temperature had the most influence on the levels of carbon dioxide efflux, followed by the type of land use.
Higher temperatures leading to increased carbon dioxide efflux was not a surprise for Bowne and Johnson as this relationship has been documented before. "As you increase temperature," Bowne explains, "you increase biological activity be it microbial, plant, fungal, or animal." That increased activity, then, leads to more respiration and higher levels of carbon dioxide leaving the soils.
What was unexpected, however, was that the higher temperatures found in residential lawns suggested urban heat islands working at small scales. Urban heat islands are well documented phenomena in which development leads to large areas of dark-colored surfaces such as roofs, buildings, and parking lots. The dark color means more heat is absorbed leading to an increase in temperature in the neighboring areas. Urban areas, then, are warmer than the surrounding countryside.
The interesting part of Bowne's study is that the urban heat islands in the areas he was looking seem to operate on much smaller scales than he previously thought. While heat islands are usually studied on large scales such as comparing a large city and its surrounding rural areas fewer studies have been done to work out how development may affect temperatures on small scales.
"Within a developed area, within a city or town, you could have local increases in soil temperature because of the amount of development within a really small area," says Bowne.
His research suggests that temperatures may vary even across short distances due to the influence of development. One source cited in his paper says that development within even 175 meters of a location can cause an increase in temperature. Bowne is planning further experiments to test soil temperatures over a range of development setups and sizes.
The other factor that Bowne will test in the future is the sequestration of carbon. Along with the carbon dioxide efflux data in the current study, information about carbon sequestration would give a bigger picture of carbon cycling. That picture could then help researchers determine how various land uses as well as management practices such as no-till agriculture or leaving grass clippings on lawns can change the carbon cycling.
"If we go from one land use to another land use, how does that impact carbon cycling which in turn can affect climate change? Our current study touches on one component of that cycle, and more research is needed to address this huge topic," says Bowne.
###
The full article is available for no charge for 30 days following the date of this summary. View the abstract at https://dl.sciencesocieties.org/publications/sssaj/abstracts/0/0/sssaj2012.0346N.
Soil Science Society of America Journal, http://www.soils.org/publications/sssaj, is a peer-reviewed international journal published six times a year by the Soil Science Society of America. Its contents focus on research relating to physics; chemistry; biology and biochemistry; fertility and plant nutrition; genesis, morphology, and classification; water management and conservation; forest, range, and wildland soils; nutrient management and soil and plant analysis; mineralogy; and wetland soils.
The Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) is a progressive, international scientific society that fosters the transfer of knowledge and practices to sustain global soils. Based in Madison, WI, SSSA is the professional home for 6,000+ members dedicated to advancing the field of soil science. It provides information about soils in relation to crop production, environmental quality, ecosystem sustainability, bioremediation, waste management, recycling, and wise land use.
SSSA supports its members by providing quality research-based publications, educational programs, certifications, and science policy initiatives via a Washington, DC, office. Founded in 1936, SSSA proudly celebrated its 75th Anniversary in 2011. For more information, visit http://www.soils.org or follow @SSSA_soils on Twitter.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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Way back in March of 2010, Swype launched a super private Beta of its then totally mind-blowing swipe-to-type Android keyboard. While they've since shipped it out-of-the-box on dozens of handsets, opened the Beta to pretty much anyone, and sold for $100M, they've never gotten around to ditching that Beta tag ? until today. This morning, Swype will hit the Google Play store for the first time.![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tPbQ8GsMlBxDMT8NvaFMKkRB2dH2VEf-ESvYGTSif6I5_tUx4SnDBlByYAn31_vDjY6acpmqadbinSO580S1yEWJVEGIh6VsZbeOGrFe0=s0-d){kind=small}
Public release date: 23-Apr-2013
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