DETROIT (AP) — The way Renisha Marie McBride's young life ended Nov. 2 is not in dispute: A homeowner in suburban Detroit fatally shot the 19-year-old in the face as she stood on his porch before the sun came up.
Almost every other aspect of the case is not as clear-cut.
Did race play a role in the shooting? What exactly happened on that doorstep? Did the homeowner reasonably believe he was acting in self-defense?
Police and prosecutors say Theodore Paul Wafer fired once with a 12-gauge shotgun through his screen door at McBride.
The 54-year-old airport maintenance employee, who faces murder and manslaughter charges, is free on bail awaiting a Dec. 18 hearing that will determine if the case should go to trial.
Ron Bretz, a Cooley Law School professor and former criminal defense attorney, says the case may boil down to a single word.
"It's got to be reasonable," he said. "The question is: What would a reasonable person do in these circumstances?"
That may be the key question in determining Wafer's guilt or innocence, but much else is left unknown about a case that features legal and societal implications.
SELF-DEFENSE
View gallery."
Theodore P. Wafer, 54, of Dearborn Heights, appears at his arraignment in 20th District Court in Dea …
Under a 2006 Michigan self-defense law, a homeowner has the right to use force during a break-in. Otherwise, a person must show that his or her life was in danger.
Defense lawyers are expected to argue that Wafer feared for his life when a drunken McBride — toxicology reports put her blood-alcohol content at well above the legal limit for driving — came to his door in the middle of the night hours after crashing her car blocks away in Detroit. Those factors contribute to Wafer's "very strong defense," said his lawyer, Mack Carpenter.
Prosecutors and McBride's family, meanwhile, see no justification for the slaying of the recent high school graduate. She was unarmed, they note. Plus, the screen door Wafer fired through was locked.
"Where's his reasonable belief that his life was in jeopardy or that he was in jeopardy of great bodily harm?" said lawyer Gerald Thurswell, who represents McBride's family.
It all comes down to what a jury thinks, Bretz said.
"You've got a gun. There's an unarmed young woman on your front porch," he said. "Is it reasonable to think that she's a threat to you? That's going to be a toughie.
"Is it fair to feel scared when a stranger is pounding on your door at 4 or 5 in the morning? Hell, yeah. ... Don't answer the door," Bretz said.
RACE
View gallery."
In this undated file photo is the cover of a funeral program showing 19-year-old Renisha McBride fro …
The shooting has drawn attention from civil rights groups who called for an investigation and believe race was a factor — McBride was black; Wafer is white.
Some drew comparisons with the case of Trayvon Martin, the black teen fatally shot last year in Florida. In that case, Neighborhood Watch volunteer George Zimmerman was acquitted of second-degree murder.
Bretz said both sides would be wise to stick to a "race-neutral" strategy. "Don't go there. Keep it on the facts," he said.
"Who wants to bring race into it? Everybody else. ... The defense doesn't want that. And the prosecution doesn't want to bring it in. I don't think they need to."
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy didn't appear to completely rule it out Friday.
"In this case, the charging decision has nothing whatever to do with the race of the parties," she said. "Whether it becomes relevant later on in the case, I don't know. I'm not clairvoyant."
THE MISSING HOURS
McBride crashed her 2004 Ford Taurus into a parked car in Detroit, blocks away from Wafer's home, around 1:30 a.m., according to the Dearborn Heights police report.
View gallery."
In this Nov. 12, 2013 photo is the Dearborn Heights, Mich., home where 19-year-old Renisha McBride w …
What isn't known is how McBride spent the time between the crash and the shooting. Wafer called 911 at 4:42 a.m., but it's not clear when he fired the fatal shot.
"We assume she was looking for help," said Thurswell, who also put forward a theory from one of McBride's two sisters, who said a drunken and disoriented McBride may have believed she was knocking on the door of her family's home since both that residence and Wafer's are corner lots.
Bretz said a potential defense argument is that McBride's extreme drunkenness posed a threat.
"Was she acting crazy? If so ... this gave (Wafer) a greater right to be afraid," Bretz said.
The toxicology report also indicated McBride's blood tested positive for the active ingredients in marijuana.
McBride's family said it doesn't matter, but Bretz said he could see the defense focusing attention on McBride's behavior.
"It makes her out not to be an angel. She got drunk and stoned and drove and crashed her car. But that's not a death-penalty offense," he said.
WAFER AND MCBRIDE
McBride's father, Walter Ray Simmons, referred to the defendant as "Mr. Wafer" when he talked to reporters Friday.
He then stopped: "I don't even know why I'm saying 'Mr. Wafer.' This monster who killed my daughter."
Earlier Friday, at his arraignment, Wafer stood in a Dearborn Heights courtroom and listened as Carpenter argued for a lesser bail amount.
Carpenter described Wafer as a steadily employed high school graduate who spent a year at Northern Michigan University and whose only run-ins with the law involved a couple of decades-old drunken driving cases. Wafer cares for his 81-year-old mother, Carpenter said.
Fellow defense lawyer Cheryl Carpenter said her client has been affected by the case.
"You could see it is weighing on him, and he realizes the extent of what happened that night," she said outside of court.
"This is part of the problem with this case. There's been so much prejudgment and so much speculation," Cheryl Carpenter said. "Until we get all the facts out, and we don't even have all of the facts yet."
McBride's parents are left to wonder what could have been.
Simmons said his daughter, a 2012 Southfield High School graduate who loved cheerleading and soccer, was going back to school and had dreams of becoming a nurse, or possibly pursuing a career in the automotive field.
"She deserves to be right here today with her family," said McBride's mother, Monica McBride, who wore a pin that read: "R.I.P. Nene."
Uncle Sam will spend $2.6 trillion on ObamaCare over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. What’s remarkable is how few people this will leave better off.
The middle class is a clear loser: It gets squeezed, since these people earn too much to qualify for adequate subsidies, but too little to afford the needlessly pricey exchange coverage.
We've been pretty sure that this was coming, but seeing this Moto Maker page on Verizon's website seals the deal. Listed as temporarily out of stock, the custom-designed Moto X will soon no longer be an AT&T exclusive.
Supposedly, see Moto Maker open for all, with rumors of it being available for the rest of the big four (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon) and some compelling evidence that it happens for both Verizon and T-Mobile on November 11.
Will the Moto Maker program and the price drop revive interest in one of 2013's best phones? We think so. Hit the comments to share your thoughts.
Source: Verizon. Thanks everyone who sent this in!
Allen Institute for Brain Science partners with imec for development of next-generation tools
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
7-Nov-2013
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Contact: Steven Cooper press@alleninstitute.org 646-358-2765 Edelman Public Relations
Leading research institutes and charitable foundations align to fund the development of innovative neural probe technology
SEATTLE, Wash.November 7, 2013The Allen Institute for Brain Science announced today that it contracted with imec, a nanoelectronics research center, to develop and manufacture a state-of-the-art sensor array for recording neural activity in animal brains. The Allen Institute for Brain Science in partnership with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and University College London (UCL), have committed $5.5 million in R&D for the revolutionary neuroscience research tools.
The proposed sensor array will advance current neural probe technology used to detect extracellular electrical activity in the brain. The innovative solution will incorporate recording electrodes at a much higher density and provide an order of magnitude better performance than existing technology, allowing researchers to record brain activity with unprecedented combination of resolution and ability to record from a very large number of sites. The sensor arrays under development have the potential to enable transformational neurobiology experiments and contribute to a fundamentally improved understanding of how neurons in the brain work together to process information and control behavior. We expect these devices, two years in the planning, will have a direct impact in advancing brain research across a broad front, including the BRAIN Initiative, as advocated by U.S. President Barack Obama in his speech on April 2, 2013. These new probes will address the basic understanding of brain function, such as how sensory information, visual images in the eye or whisker touches, flows into and between brain regions, and is processed by the cortex.
"The advanced microelectronics built and tested by our consortium will enable any neuroscientist to pick up with ease, using a single piece of machined silicon, the electrical signals generated by hundreds of individual nerve cells. With this advanced tool we can listen to their chattering, bringing us closer to the day when we will fully decipher their meaning and thereby understand the language of the brain," said Christof Koch, Ph.D., chief scientific officer of the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Engineers at imec will work closely with scientists at HHMI, the Allen Institute and UCL (with grant funding from Gatsby and Wellcome) to design, develop and test the new probes. Over the course of the 38-month project, imec will leverage its state-of-the-art silicon design and processing capabilities to develop and test the new tool, and produce a version that can be manufactured and made available to the scientific research community.
"We continually strive to bring value to HHMI and the other leading institutes by customizing state-of-the-art semiconductor technology through our dedicated and experienced semiconductor development teams," stated Peter Peumans, director bionanoelectronics at imec. "This research partnership will enable imec to provide the most advanced neural probe technology to academia and research institutes, enabling the acquisition of signals from whole brain regions rather than small samples of those regions."
"We're launching this project because current methods for studying brain activity are inadequate," said Tim Harris, director of the Applied Physics and Instrumentation Group at HHMI's Janelia Farm Research Campus in Ashburn, Virginia. "We are committed to creating better tools that will enable us to collect better quality data and reduce the number of animals that are needed for this essential research."
###
The Allen Institute for Brain Science is an independent nonprofit medical research organization. Launched in 2003 with a seed contribution from founder and philanthropist Paul G. Allen, the Allen Institute takes on large-scale initiatives designed to push brain research forward, enabling the global scientific community to more efficiently make discoveries that bring real-world utility.
Imec performs world-leading research in nanoelectronics. Imec leverages its scientific knowledge with the innovative power of its global partnerships in ICT, healthcare and energy. Imec delivers industryrelevant technology solutions. In a unique high-tech environment, its international top talent is committed to providing the building blocks for a better life in a sustainable society. Imec is headquartered in Leuven, Belgium, and has offices in Belgium, the Netherlands, Taiwan, US, China, India and Japan. Its staff of more than 2,000 people includes more than 650 industrial residents and guest researchers. In 2012, imec's revenue (P&L) totaled 320 million euro. Further information on imec can be found at http://www.imec.be.
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute is a science philanthropy whose mission is to advance biomedical research and science education for the benefit of humanity. We empower exceptional scientists and students to pursue fundamental questions about living systems. Headquartered in Chevy Chase, MD, HHMI employs more than 3,000 individuals across the United States. In fiscal year 2012, HHMI invested $695 million in U.S. research and provided $78 million in grant and other support for science education.
The Gatsby Charitable Foundation was set up by David Sainsbury to realise his charitable objectives. We focus our support on a limited number of areas:
Plant science research
Neuroscience research
Science and engineering education
Economic development in Africa
Public policy research and advice
The arts
We are proactive in devising projects to achieve our aims. We are enthusiastic about supporting innovation. We are analytical as we believe it is important to understand the opportunities and problems we tackle. We take a long-term view as we do not think much can be achieved by short, one-off projects. We are always eager to form partnerships with organisations who share our goals.
The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. It supports the brightest minds in biomedical research and the medical humanities. The Trust's breadth of support includes public engagement, education and the application of research to improve health. It is independent of both political and commercial interests.
University College London was established in 1826 and has a reputation for academic excellence in both teaching and research. It has major strengths in Biomedical research including the largest grouping of neuroscience laboratories in the UK.
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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.
Allen Institute for Brain Science partners with imec for development of next-generation tools
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
7-Nov-2013
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Contact: Steven Cooper press@alleninstitute.org 646-358-2765 Edelman Public Relations
Leading research institutes and charitable foundations align to fund the development of innovative neural probe technology
SEATTLE, Wash.November 7, 2013The Allen Institute for Brain Science announced today that it contracted with imec, a nanoelectronics research center, to develop and manufacture a state-of-the-art sensor array for recording neural activity in animal brains. The Allen Institute for Brain Science in partnership with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and University College London (UCL), have committed $5.5 million in R&D for the revolutionary neuroscience research tools.
The proposed sensor array will advance current neural probe technology used to detect extracellular electrical activity in the brain. The innovative solution will incorporate recording electrodes at a much higher density and provide an order of magnitude better performance than existing technology, allowing researchers to record brain activity with unprecedented combination of resolution and ability to record from a very large number of sites. The sensor arrays under development have the potential to enable transformational neurobiology experiments and contribute to a fundamentally improved understanding of how neurons in the brain work together to process information and control behavior. We expect these devices, two years in the planning, will have a direct impact in advancing brain research across a broad front, including the BRAIN Initiative, as advocated by U.S. President Barack Obama in his speech on April 2, 2013. These new probes will address the basic understanding of brain function, such as how sensory information, visual images in the eye or whisker touches, flows into and between brain regions, and is processed by the cortex.
"The advanced microelectronics built and tested by our consortium will enable any neuroscientist to pick up with ease, using a single piece of machined silicon, the electrical signals generated by hundreds of individual nerve cells. With this advanced tool we can listen to their chattering, bringing us closer to the day when we will fully decipher their meaning and thereby understand the language of the brain," said Christof Koch, Ph.D., chief scientific officer of the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Engineers at imec will work closely with scientists at HHMI, the Allen Institute and UCL (with grant funding from Gatsby and Wellcome) to design, develop and test the new probes. Over the course of the 38-month project, imec will leverage its state-of-the-art silicon design and processing capabilities to develop and test the new tool, and produce a version that can be manufactured and made available to the scientific research community.
"We continually strive to bring value to HHMI and the other leading institutes by customizing state-of-the-art semiconductor technology through our dedicated and experienced semiconductor development teams," stated Peter Peumans, director bionanoelectronics at imec. "This research partnership will enable imec to provide the most advanced neural probe technology to academia and research institutes, enabling the acquisition of signals from whole brain regions rather than small samples of those regions."
"We're launching this project because current methods for studying brain activity are inadequate," said Tim Harris, director of the Applied Physics and Instrumentation Group at HHMI's Janelia Farm Research Campus in Ashburn, Virginia. "We are committed to creating better tools that will enable us to collect better quality data and reduce the number of animals that are needed for this essential research."
###
The Allen Institute for Brain Science is an independent nonprofit medical research organization. Launched in 2003 with a seed contribution from founder and philanthropist Paul G. Allen, the Allen Institute takes on large-scale initiatives designed to push brain research forward, enabling the global scientific community to more efficiently make discoveries that bring real-world utility.
Imec performs world-leading research in nanoelectronics. Imec leverages its scientific knowledge with the innovative power of its global partnerships in ICT, healthcare and energy. Imec delivers industryrelevant technology solutions. In a unique high-tech environment, its international top talent is committed to providing the building blocks for a better life in a sustainable society. Imec is headquartered in Leuven, Belgium, and has offices in Belgium, the Netherlands, Taiwan, US, China, India and Japan. Its staff of more than 2,000 people includes more than 650 industrial residents and guest researchers. In 2012, imec's revenue (P&L) totaled 320 million euro. Further information on imec can be found at http://www.imec.be.
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute is a science philanthropy whose mission is to advance biomedical research and science education for the benefit of humanity. We empower exceptional scientists and students to pursue fundamental questions about living systems. Headquartered in Chevy Chase, MD, HHMI employs more than 3,000 individuals across the United States. In fiscal year 2012, HHMI invested $695 million in U.S. research and provided $78 million in grant and other support for science education.
The Gatsby Charitable Foundation was set up by David Sainsbury to realise his charitable objectives. We focus our support on a limited number of areas:
Plant science research
Neuroscience research
Science and engineering education
Economic development in Africa
Public policy research and advice
The arts
We are proactive in devising projects to achieve our aims. We are enthusiastic about supporting innovation. We are analytical as we believe it is important to understand the opportunities and problems we tackle. We take a long-term view as we do not think much can be achieved by short, one-off projects. We are always eager to form partnerships with organisations who share our goals.
The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. It supports the brightest minds in biomedical research and the medical humanities. The Trust's breadth of support includes public engagement, education and the application of research to improve health. It is independent of both political and commercial interests.
University College London was established in 1826 and has a reputation for academic excellence in both teaching and research. It has major strengths in Biomedical research including the largest grouping of neuroscience laboratories in the UK.
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Share
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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.
The following is excerpted from Jon Katz’sThe Second-Chance Dog: A Love Story which is being published next week by Ballantine Books.
I heard the barking as soon as I pulled into the gravel driveway of the sprawling old farmhouse on a country road about five miles from my farm. The noise was coming not from the house but from a barn behind it.
It was the deep-throated, door-rattling roar of the guard dog, and there was something undeniably frightening about it. A dog with a voice like that had to be huge and powerful. I had never heard a roar quite like it. None of my dogs ever barked in such a furious, almost panicked way. It was a bark to be taken seriously, very seriously, and I was reminded of the raptor in Jurassic Park busting out of its prison.
I was not looking for trouble from a dog. My life, at this point, was in upheaval. I was spectacularly disconnected from the world and attempting to stave off a crack-up. I tried to soothe my internal turmoil by focusing on fixing up my collapsing Civil War–era farm and barns, at least three of which were about to topple over into the road. Barns were collapsing and being torn down all over Washington County, N.Y., where I lived, but I was determined that my four would be saved. This project was horrifically expensive and complicated, but I couldn’t bear to see these beautiful old structures disintegrate.
I wanted some old windows to put in one side of my big dairy barn so that the grand old red silo housed inside the barn (an unusual feature) could be seen from outside. No real farmer would consider such an insane thing. But at the time, I was not sane. An HBO film crew had just finished making a movie of my trek upstate, and the very air was suffused with unreality.
So, I had come to this place because I’d been told that the couple restoring this farmhouse had some old windows. A thin, wiry woman with short brown hair, wearing tattered jeans, a paint-splattered shirt, and sandals, came out of the door and approached me. As we stood in the drive, she began urging the dog to calm down. “Ssssssh, Frieda, quiet,” she said. Her voice was so soft and tentative I knew she didn’t really mean it, and the dog surely knew she didn’t. She was concerned that I might be frightened, but I can tell when somebody means to change a dog’s behavior and when they don’t.
“We can’t have many people over.” She smiled, tilting her head back toward the frenzied roaring and charging coming from the small barn.
Frieda
Photo courtesy Jon Katz/Ballantine Books
There was something melancholy about this woman. She was so quiet and reserved. She shyly explained that she and her husband were living in a small barn while they fixed up the farmhouse close by. “Who is that?” I asked, gesturing toward the barn, whose door was still rattling from the force of the dog inside throwing herself against it.
“That’s Frieda,” she said, surprising me with a radiant smile.
“Nice to meet you,” I said. “I’m Jon.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m Maria. I have to confess,” she continued, “I haven’t read any of your books.” She was small, frail, almost elfin. But I knew I saw some humor in her eyes, attitude, pride. She was restoring houses with her husband, she said, adding almost under her breath that she was also an artist.
“That’s OK, most people haven’t. Anyway, I can give you one,” I said, reaching into the car. I had brought a paperback with me.
I don’t know why I’d brought a copy of that book—it was The Dogs of Bedlam Farm—for Maria. She looked at it and laughed, and would soon put it aside.
Maria invited me into the barn, into the small room she was living in while working on the farmhouse. I hesitated.
A psychiatric hospital worker stands outside a shuttered shop with posters that read in Greek "No to the hospital closure " and '' Fire (prime minister) Samaras not the workers" during a protest outside the health ministry in central Athens, on Friday, Nov. 1, 2013. About a hundred state health workers took part in the rally to protest planned mandatory public sector employee transfers and suspensions as part of the government's harsh austerity drive. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
A psychiatric hospital worker stands outside a shuttered shop with posters that read in Greek "No to the hospital closure " and '' Fire (prime minister) Samaras not the workers" during a protest outside the health ministry in central Athens, on Friday, Nov. 1, 2013. About a hundred state health workers took part in the rally to protest planned mandatory public sector employee transfers and suspensions as part of the government's harsh austerity drive. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — On top of high unemployment and sluggish growth, the European Central Bank has a new headache: an unexpected drop in inflation.
Most people think lower inflation is good news because it makes things easier to buy — and usually it is. But the current slide is just another sign of how weak the economic recovery is in the 17 countries that use the euro.
An official report this week showed a surprise drop in the inflation rate to 0.7 percent in September from 1.1 percent the month before. That's well below the ECB's stated goal of close to but below 2 percent that it considers ideal for the economy.
But the monetary authority for the eurozone may be running short of tools to deal with the problem.
TELL-TALE SIGN
The drop in inflation shows demand is weak: people aren't able or willing to risk spending or borrowing. Sellers can't raise prices as much.
That remains the case in the eurozone, where unemployment is at a record of 12.2 percent and the economy only just emerged from a long recession with anemic growth of 0.3 percent in the second quarter. The worst outcome would be outright deflation. That's an economic death spiral, when a chronic fall in prices leads people to hold off spending because they know goods will become cheaper. Europe is still some distance from that.
TIME TO CUT?
The ECB has already used up most of its traditional medicine: lower interest rates. Its benchmark rate — what it charges to loan to banks — is at 0.5 percent, the lowest since the euro was introduced in 1999.
Yet a top ECB council member, Luc Coene of Belgium, has said an unexpected drop in inflation would demand a response.
A few analysts say the ECB might trim the benchmark rate again next week. Howard Archer at IHS Global Insight said the inflation figure had "moved the goal posts" and that a cut was "very much on the agenda." The euro has fallen in the past day, a sign some investors expect the ECB to act.
Others say the ECB is unlikely to be prodded into action by one month's worth of data, since its own inflation forecast isn't due until December.
NEGATIVE RATES
Besides trimming its benchmark refinancing rate, the ECB could bring its deposit rate — what it pays banks on money they keep with the ECB — below its current level of zero.
That would in theory push banks to stop stashing money at the ECB. But it could also backfire. Banks might simply pass on the cost to customers in the form of higher interest rates. And a negative rate could hurt bank profits at a time when regulators are trying to strengthen banks' finances.
CHEAP LOANS
The ECB could also make another long-term offer of cheap credit to banks. Two earlier such offers of just over 1 trillion euros helped stabilize the banking system during the debt crisis.
Yet the banks might simply use the money to buy government bonds instead of lending and stimulating the economy. That would make banks and governments more dependent on each other's finances, a link that helped fuel the financial crisis in the first place.
NO DEPOSIT, NO RETURN
The ECB could leave more cash in the financial system by not taking weekly interest-bearing deposits from banks. The ECB began taking such deposits when it started buying bonds of indebted countries like Italy and Greece to lower their borrowing costs. The deposits kept the purchases from increasing the supply of money in the economy, and have been allowed to dwindle as the bonds mature. Now that the purchases have stopped, the ECB might stop taking deposits, too.
KEEP TALKING
ECB President Mario Draghi could emphasize the bank's willingness to take more action, such as cut rates. That could cause market interest rates and the euro to drop, which could help keep borrowing cheap and make exports more competitive.
It's uncertain, however, how long markets would respond to all talk and no action.
Contact: David Gilbert degilbert@lbl.gov 925-296-5643 DOE/Joint Genome Institute
DOE JGI 2014 Community Science Program portfolio announced
From the depths of ocean dead zones, to wide swaths of forests, and rising up to the troposphere, where most weather changes occur, the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) 2014 Community Science Program portfolio seeks to parse functional information extracted from complex ecosystems to address urgent energy and environmental challenges. These massive, data-intensive undertakings require interdisciplinary approaches, many leveraging additional expertise through a new inter-DOE-Facility partnership.
Reflecting its vision of serving the scientific community as a next-generation genome science user facility, the DOE JGI has joined forces with the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to provide complementary scientific resources to significantly expand genomic understanding to cellular function. The inaugural round of eight accepted proposals showcases the synergy between these two DOE user facilities.
Five of the eight new DOE JGI-EMSL proposals going forward will focus on carbon cycling and three relate to improvements in biofuels production. Each of these projects will tap the capabilities at both facilities to further the research in ways that would not otherwise be possible, and all are targeted for completion within an 18-month time window.
Two of the carbon cycling projects focus on soil microbial communities. Mary Firestone from the University of California, Berkeley will study the plant-soil-microbial interactions of an annual grass Avena fatua with soil from a California grassland, a model ecosystem for further exploration of the rhizosphere, the soil and microbial community around plant roots. By combining DNA sequencing with the study of unique chemical traces that the cells produce (metabolomics) and the large-scale study of their protein structures and functions (proteomics), this project will lend insights into how changing climate conditions might influence carbon cycling and carbon sequestration in terrestrial ecosystems. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, grasslands and rangelands account for approximately 50 percent of such areas and provide forage for livestock and native herbivores, habitat for native flora and fauna, watersheds for rural and urban uses, ecosystem goods and services, areas for recreation, and potentially for renewable and nonrenewable energy sources as well.
Kirsten Hofmockel from Iowa State University will combine the DOE JGI's high-throughput sequencing capabilities and EMSL's cell sorting technologies to conduct a large-scale comparative analysis of soil microbial communities. With an eye toward linking microbial community dynamics to ecosystem-scale biogeochemical models, the samples come from a study comparing four bioenergy cropping systems being conducted at Iowa State University's South Reynoldson Farm. Among the goals of this project is to develop novel labeling and cell sorting approaches to shed light on the structure and function of carbon cycling microbial communities within soil and to identify key soil carbon cycling organisms and their relationship with other community members and soil characteristics.
Another CSP 14 project, led by Marc Libault of the University of Oklahoma explores a single cell type model, the root hair cell, to advance our understanding of the response of soybean and sorghum plants to various environmental stresses.
Two other carbon cycling projects involve the study of cyanobacteria. Matthias Hess at Washington State University-Tri Cities will build off the DOE JGI's pioneering work in filling in gaps in the tree of life through the Genomic Encyclopedia of Bacteria and Archaea (GEBA) pilot project and a recent spin-off focused specifically on cyanobacteria. The GEBA-Cyano project has doubled the amount and diversity of cyanobacterial genome sequence data in the public databases. Hess' project will develop a Functional Encyclopedia of Cyanobacteria with the help of samples provided by the Culture Collection of Microorganisms from Extreme Environments, to better understand photosynthetic microbial communities and their central role in carbon and nitrogen cycling. Another project comes from the J. Craig Venter Institute's Philip Weyman, who will study the interactions between the Pleurocarpous feathery moss and cyanobacteria found in boreal forests. Since these ecosystems are enormous carbon sinks, their health and productivity is of vital importance to monitoring and moderating future increases in CO2.
Another carbon cycling project involves a family of wood-degrading fungi known as Ascomycetes, which include molds and mildews. Colleen Hansel at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute will focus on these organisms, which take leading roles in breaking down lignocellulose in contaminated sites. The initial focus will be on sequencing samples that are isolated from contaminated freshwater lake sediments and coal mine drainage treatment systems, and then by using the metabolomic and proteomic analyses capabilities at EMSL she seeks to identify the metabolic pathways that are involved in breaking down carbon in these organisms.
Three projects focus on biofuels and the role of fungi improving production of them. Steve Harris from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln will build upon previous DOE JGI sequencing of the industrially important filamentous fungi Aspergillus niger and Trichoderma reesei. A strain of A. niger is critical to the large-scale production of citric acid while other strains provide enzymes that can break down plant cell walls to free up sugars that can then be fermented and distilled into biofuel. T. reesei is the workhorse organism for a number of industrial enzyme companies for the production of cellulases that can be used to break down plant biomass. The Harris team plans to harness genomic, proteomic, and microscopy data in order to facilitate the breeding of improved production strains for both fungi.
The proposal from Michelle O'Malley from the University of California, Santa Barbara also builds from a previous DOE JGI project, one that characterized the microbial communities in the cow rumen. In this new proposal, however, the researchers will target anaerobic fungi in communities isolated from large herbivores (elephant, giraffe, goat, horse, and sheep) that are involved in breaking down plant biomass. Novel isolates that possess desirable enzymatic properties will be used for the construction of metabolic models to drive improvements in bioprocessing strategies.
Finally, Harold Kistler from the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service will focus on compounds known as terpenoids that are produced by plants and filamentous fungi including Fusarium graminearum. The goal is to determine a way to efficiently and abundantly produce terpenoids in filamentous fungi, so that they can be evaluated as renewable biofuels that have higher energy content than ethanol and could be more compatible with existing fuel infrastructure. Aside from using the DOE JGI's RNA sequencing, the work will be enabled by EMSL's flow cytometry and mass spectrometry capabilities.
The remaining 29 accepted projects, more traditional DOE-JGI sequencing projects, were chosen for their relevance to other goals of the CSP 2014 call, and will be carried out entirely at DOE JGI. Farren Isaacs from Yale University is leading a DNA synthesis project that will identify and synthesize metagenome-derived enzymes that can be introduced into microbes to address challenges in bioremediation, global carbon cycling and development of alternative energy strategies. "Recent advances in synthetic biology increase the prospect of using engineered microorganisms for a myriad of these challenges," he noted in his proposal. "Developing genome engineering technologies to drive high-throughput genetic modifications across genomes of diverse microorganisms, would vastly expand our ability to utilize microorganisms for DOE mission objectives."
Another selected project will explore airborne microbial communities and their influences on the Earth's biogeochemical cycles. Kostas Konstantinidis from Georgia Tech and his colleagues are concentrating on airborne microbes in the upper trophosphere, a region that contains almost all the water vapor of the atmosphere. In particular, they are seeking to characterize the conditions enabling the survival of microbes in this layer and their roles in cloud formation and the water cycle. This linkage of microbial processes and climate change processes is a bold new direction for DOE JGI.
The DOE JGI Plant Flagship Genomes initiative is another area of emphasis for the 2014 CSP call. These are plants sequenced for their potential as feedstock crops for biofuel production or else as comparators that will assist in the interpretation of feedstock crop genomes and potentially lead to their improvement for purposes of biofuel development. Many of the six selected projects focus on the poplar (black cottonwood) treethe first tree ever sequencedand published by the DOE JGI in the journal Science back in 2006. For example, Jay Chen from Oak Ridge National Laboratory will investigate gene expression in poplar populations. The goal is to use the information to identify genetic elements and transcriptional networks involved in plant cell wall development to improve the development of poplar as a feedstock for cost-effective, sustainable biomass production and conversion into biofuels. Another project, from Jonathan Shaw of Duke University, will leverage the first moss genome sequenced Physcomitrella patens - and expand the moss/bryophyte knowledgebase by sequencing peat moss (Sphagnum magellanicum) to learn more about its role on the global carbon budget.
Another area of interest in this year's CSP call is microbial diversity and function. Among the approved projects is one from Michael Wagner from Austria's University of Vienna, who will test a novel method for identifying ammonia-oxidizing bacteria and nitrite-oxidizing bacteria in wastewater sludge. These bacteria are key drivers of the nitrogen cycle and essential in wastewater treatment plants for the removal of nitrogen from sewage.
A total of eight fungal projects were approved from this year's call. One is led by Istvan Molnar from the University of Arizona and focuses on gene clusters from sequences in the DOE JGI's fungal portal MycoCosm. The researchers will identify genes involved in producing compounds that play a role in plant-microbial interactions, plant stress tolerance or plant/fungal symbioses.
A third area of emphasis this year was microbial emission and capture of greenhouse gases in terrestrial systems. These projects focus on carbon capture, nitrogen processing and methane reduction. From the 10 prokaryotic projects approved out of the CSP 2014 call, many of them focus on understanding the roles of soil microbial communities on the carbon cycle in a number of environments. For example, Erik Lilleskov from the USDA Forest Service will study microbial communities involved in carbon cycle in peatland ecosystems. Peatlands, his proposal noted, represent up to five percent of the land surface but sequester as much as one third of the soil organic carbon.
The final area of emphasis for the call focused on the DOE JGI's DNA synthesis capabilities, and many of the six projects approved, including the one from Isaacs described earlier, primarily focus on exploring pathways that could lead to bioenergy and environmental applications. For example, the proposal from UC Berkeley's Ming Hammond will build and characterize a modular system for multi-gene regulation in plants. One application of this system is improving the cost-effective production of lignocellulosic biofuels as they focus on modifying gene expression to increase biomass density while reducing ligninan integral part of the secondary plant cell wall, but a bottleneck to biofuels production.
All 37 projects selected by an external review panel out of 123 full proposals reflect the emphasis on collaboration between researchers and the potential of further expanding research communities working on these topics. Additionally, the projects selected combine sequence data generation with large-scale experimental and computational capabilities and the total allocation for the CSP 2014 portfolio is expected to be more than 30 trillion bases (terabases or Tb).
Together, all of these projects are the first selected under a new aegis as the DOE JGI's primary user program changes names from the Community Sequencing Program to the Community Science Program, a title that more accurately reflects the work being done by and at the DOE JGI. "The DOE JGI offers access to high throughput DNA sequencing, analysis of DNA sequence, and, recently, DNA synthesis for investigators who have questions of relevance to DOE mission areas," said Deputy Director of Programs Jim Bristow. The change, he added, aligns with the Institute's 10-year Strategic Vision to transition from a sequencing facility to a fully-fledged genomic analysis resource offering researchers the opportunity to submit a DNA sample of their organisms of interest and receive not just raw DNA sequence but detailed functional annotations that can be parlayed into a foundation for collaborative science.
###
The full list of projects that make up the CSP 2014 portfolio, supported by the DOE Office of Science, may be found at http://bit.ly/CSP14-list. The DOE JGI Community Science Program also accepts proposals for smaller-scale microbial and resequencing projects and reviews them twice a year. For more information about both CSP calls for proposals, go to http://www.jgi.doe.gov/CSP/index.html
The U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, supported by the DOE Office of Science, is committed to advancing genomics in support of DOE missions related to clean energy generation and environmental characterization and cleanup. DOE JGI, headquartered in Walnut Creek, Calif., provides integrated high-throughput sequencing and computational analysis that enable systems-based scientific approaches to these challenges. Follow @doe_jgi on Twitter.
DOE's Office of Science is the largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.
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Expanding research communities and collaborations
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
29-Oct-2013
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Contact: David Gilbert degilbert@lbl.gov 925-296-5643 DOE/Joint Genome Institute
DOE JGI 2014 Community Science Program portfolio announced
From the depths of ocean dead zones, to wide swaths of forests, and rising up to the troposphere, where most weather changes occur, the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) 2014 Community Science Program portfolio seeks to parse functional information extracted from complex ecosystems to address urgent energy and environmental challenges. These massive, data-intensive undertakings require interdisciplinary approaches, many leveraging additional expertise through a new inter-DOE-Facility partnership.
Reflecting its vision of serving the scientific community as a next-generation genome science user facility, the DOE JGI has joined forces with the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to provide complementary scientific resources to significantly expand genomic understanding to cellular function. The inaugural round of eight accepted proposals showcases the synergy between these two DOE user facilities.
Five of the eight new DOE JGI-EMSL proposals going forward will focus on carbon cycling and three relate to improvements in biofuels production. Each of these projects will tap the capabilities at both facilities to further the research in ways that would not otherwise be possible, and all are targeted for completion within an 18-month time window.
Two of the carbon cycling projects focus on soil microbial communities. Mary Firestone from the University of California, Berkeley will study the plant-soil-microbial interactions of an annual grass Avena fatua with soil from a California grassland, a model ecosystem for further exploration of the rhizosphere, the soil and microbial community around plant roots. By combining DNA sequencing with the study of unique chemical traces that the cells produce (metabolomics) and the large-scale study of their protein structures and functions (proteomics), this project will lend insights into how changing climate conditions might influence carbon cycling and carbon sequestration in terrestrial ecosystems. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, grasslands and rangelands account for approximately 50 percent of such areas and provide forage for livestock and native herbivores, habitat for native flora and fauna, watersheds for rural and urban uses, ecosystem goods and services, areas for recreation, and potentially for renewable and nonrenewable energy sources as well.
Kirsten Hofmockel from Iowa State University will combine the DOE JGI's high-throughput sequencing capabilities and EMSL's cell sorting technologies to conduct a large-scale comparative analysis of soil microbial communities. With an eye toward linking microbial community dynamics to ecosystem-scale biogeochemical models, the samples come from a study comparing four bioenergy cropping systems being conducted at Iowa State University's South Reynoldson Farm. Among the goals of this project is to develop novel labeling and cell sorting approaches to shed light on the structure and function of carbon cycling microbial communities within soil and to identify key soil carbon cycling organisms and their relationship with other community members and soil characteristics.
Another CSP 14 project, led by Marc Libault of the University of Oklahoma explores a single cell type model, the root hair cell, to advance our understanding of the response of soybean and sorghum plants to various environmental stresses.
Two other carbon cycling projects involve the study of cyanobacteria. Matthias Hess at Washington State University-Tri Cities will build off the DOE JGI's pioneering work in filling in gaps in the tree of life through the Genomic Encyclopedia of Bacteria and Archaea (GEBA) pilot project and a recent spin-off focused specifically on cyanobacteria. The GEBA-Cyano project has doubled the amount and diversity of cyanobacterial genome sequence data in the public databases. Hess' project will develop a Functional Encyclopedia of Cyanobacteria with the help of samples provided by the Culture Collection of Microorganisms from Extreme Environments, to better understand photosynthetic microbial communities and their central role in carbon and nitrogen cycling. Another project comes from the J. Craig Venter Institute's Philip Weyman, who will study the interactions between the Pleurocarpous feathery moss and cyanobacteria found in boreal forests. Since these ecosystems are enormous carbon sinks, their health and productivity is of vital importance to monitoring and moderating future increases in CO2.
Another carbon cycling project involves a family of wood-degrading fungi known as Ascomycetes, which include molds and mildews. Colleen Hansel at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute will focus on these organisms, which take leading roles in breaking down lignocellulose in contaminated sites. The initial focus will be on sequencing samples that are isolated from contaminated freshwater lake sediments and coal mine drainage treatment systems, and then by using the metabolomic and proteomic analyses capabilities at EMSL she seeks to identify the metabolic pathways that are involved in breaking down carbon in these organisms.
Three projects focus on biofuels and the role of fungi improving production of them. Steve Harris from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln will build upon previous DOE JGI sequencing of the industrially important filamentous fungi Aspergillus niger and Trichoderma reesei. A strain of A. niger is critical to the large-scale production of citric acid while other strains provide enzymes that can break down plant cell walls to free up sugars that can then be fermented and distilled into biofuel. T. reesei is the workhorse organism for a number of industrial enzyme companies for the production of cellulases that can be used to break down plant biomass. The Harris team plans to harness genomic, proteomic, and microscopy data in order to facilitate the breeding of improved production strains for both fungi.
The proposal from Michelle O'Malley from the University of California, Santa Barbara also builds from a previous DOE JGI project, one that characterized the microbial communities in the cow rumen. In this new proposal, however, the researchers will target anaerobic fungi in communities isolated from large herbivores (elephant, giraffe, goat, horse, and sheep) that are involved in breaking down plant biomass. Novel isolates that possess desirable enzymatic properties will be used for the construction of metabolic models to drive improvements in bioprocessing strategies.
Finally, Harold Kistler from the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service will focus on compounds known as terpenoids that are produced by plants and filamentous fungi including Fusarium graminearum. The goal is to determine a way to efficiently and abundantly produce terpenoids in filamentous fungi, so that they can be evaluated as renewable biofuels that have higher energy content than ethanol and could be more compatible with existing fuel infrastructure. Aside from using the DOE JGI's RNA sequencing, the work will be enabled by EMSL's flow cytometry and mass spectrometry capabilities.
The remaining 29 accepted projects, more traditional DOE-JGI sequencing projects, were chosen for their relevance to other goals of the CSP 2014 call, and will be carried out entirely at DOE JGI. Farren Isaacs from Yale University is leading a DNA synthesis project that will identify and synthesize metagenome-derived enzymes that can be introduced into microbes to address challenges in bioremediation, global carbon cycling and development of alternative energy strategies. "Recent advances in synthetic biology increase the prospect of using engineered microorganisms for a myriad of these challenges," he noted in his proposal. "Developing genome engineering technologies to drive high-throughput genetic modifications across genomes of diverse microorganisms, would vastly expand our ability to utilize microorganisms for DOE mission objectives."
Another selected project will explore airborne microbial communities and their influences on the Earth's biogeochemical cycles. Kostas Konstantinidis from Georgia Tech and his colleagues are concentrating on airborne microbes in the upper trophosphere, a region that contains almost all the water vapor of the atmosphere. In particular, they are seeking to characterize the conditions enabling the survival of microbes in this layer and their roles in cloud formation and the water cycle. This linkage of microbial processes and climate change processes is a bold new direction for DOE JGI.
The DOE JGI Plant Flagship Genomes initiative is another area of emphasis for the 2014 CSP call. These are plants sequenced for their potential as feedstock crops for biofuel production or else as comparators that will assist in the interpretation of feedstock crop genomes and potentially lead to their improvement for purposes of biofuel development. Many of the six selected projects focus on the poplar (black cottonwood) treethe first tree ever sequencedand published by the DOE JGI in the journal Science back in 2006. For example, Jay Chen from Oak Ridge National Laboratory will investigate gene expression in poplar populations. The goal is to use the information to identify genetic elements and transcriptional networks involved in plant cell wall development to improve the development of poplar as a feedstock for cost-effective, sustainable biomass production and conversion into biofuels. Another project, from Jonathan Shaw of Duke University, will leverage the first moss genome sequenced Physcomitrella patens - and expand the moss/bryophyte knowledgebase by sequencing peat moss (Sphagnum magellanicum) to learn more about its role on the global carbon budget.
Another area of interest in this year's CSP call is microbial diversity and function. Among the approved projects is one from Michael Wagner from Austria's University of Vienna, who will test a novel method for identifying ammonia-oxidizing bacteria and nitrite-oxidizing bacteria in wastewater sludge. These bacteria are key drivers of the nitrogen cycle and essential in wastewater treatment plants for the removal of nitrogen from sewage.
A total of eight fungal projects were approved from this year's call. One is led by Istvan Molnar from the University of Arizona and focuses on gene clusters from sequences in the DOE JGI's fungal portal MycoCosm. The researchers will identify genes involved in producing compounds that play a role in plant-microbial interactions, plant stress tolerance or plant/fungal symbioses.
A third area of emphasis this year was microbial emission and capture of greenhouse gases in terrestrial systems. These projects focus on carbon capture, nitrogen processing and methane reduction. From the 10 prokaryotic projects approved out of the CSP 2014 call, many of them focus on understanding the roles of soil microbial communities on the carbon cycle in a number of environments. For example, Erik Lilleskov from the USDA Forest Service will study microbial communities involved in carbon cycle in peatland ecosystems. Peatlands, his proposal noted, represent up to five percent of the land surface but sequester as much as one third of the soil organic carbon.
The final area of emphasis for the call focused on the DOE JGI's DNA synthesis capabilities, and many of the six projects approved, including the one from Isaacs described earlier, primarily focus on exploring pathways that could lead to bioenergy and environmental applications. For example, the proposal from UC Berkeley's Ming Hammond will build and characterize a modular system for multi-gene regulation in plants. One application of this system is improving the cost-effective production of lignocellulosic biofuels as they focus on modifying gene expression to increase biomass density while reducing ligninan integral part of the secondary plant cell wall, but a bottleneck to biofuels production.
All 37 projects selected by an external review panel out of 123 full proposals reflect the emphasis on collaboration between researchers and the potential of further expanding research communities working on these topics. Additionally, the projects selected combine sequence data generation with large-scale experimental and computational capabilities and the total allocation for the CSP 2014 portfolio is expected to be more than 30 trillion bases (terabases or Tb).
Together, all of these projects are the first selected under a new aegis as the DOE JGI's primary user program changes names from the Community Sequencing Program to the Community Science Program, a title that more accurately reflects the work being done by and at the DOE JGI. "The DOE JGI offers access to high throughput DNA sequencing, analysis of DNA sequence, and, recently, DNA synthesis for investigators who have questions of relevance to DOE mission areas," said Deputy Director of Programs Jim Bristow. The change, he added, aligns with the Institute's 10-year Strategic Vision to transition from a sequencing facility to a fully-fledged genomic analysis resource offering researchers the opportunity to submit a DNA sample of their organisms of interest and receive not just raw DNA sequence but detailed functional annotations that can be parlayed into a foundation for collaborative science.
###
The full list of projects that make up the CSP 2014 portfolio, supported by the DOE Office of Science, may be found at http://bit.ly/CSP14-list. The DOE JGI Community Science Program also accepts proposals for smaller-scale microbial and resequencing projects and reviews them twice a year. For more information about both CSP calls for proposals, go to http://www.jgi.doe.gov/CSP/index.html
The U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, supported by the DOE Office of Science, is committed to advancing genomics in support of DOE missions related to clean energy generation and environmental characterization and cleanup. DOE JGI, headquartered in Walnut Creek, Calif., provides integrated high-throughput sequencing and computational analysis that enable systems-based scientific approaches to these challenges. Follow @doe_jgi on Twitter.
DOE's Office of Science is the largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.
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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.
This undated photo provided by Chandra Landsberry shows Sharon and Michael Landsberry. Police said Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013, the student who wounded two classmates and killed Michael Landsberry and then himself on a Nevada middle school campus in Sparks, Nev., was 12 years old. Police also lauded the actions of Landsberry, a 45-year-old math teacher and former Marine, who they say tried to stop the rampage before he was fatally shot in the chest. (AP Photo/Courtesy of Chandra Landsberry via The Reno Gazette-Journal) NO SALES; NEVADA APPEAL OUT; SOUTH RENO WEEKLY OUT
This undated photo provided by Chandra Landsberry shows Sharon and Michael Landsberry. Police said Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013, the student who wounded two classmates and killed Michael Landsberry and then himself on a Nevada middle school campus in Sparks, Nev., was 12 years old. Police also lauded the actions of Landsberry, a 45-year-old math teacher and former Marine, who they say tried to stop the rampage before he was fatally shot in the chest. (AP Photo/Courtesy of Chandra Landsberry via The Reno Gazette-Journal) NO SALES; NEVADA APPEAL OUT; SOUTH RENO WEEKLY OUT
This undated photo released by the Nevada Air National Guard shows Sparks Middle school math teacher and former Marine Michael Landsberry, 45. Authorities say the student who opened fire on a the Nevada middle school campus, wounding two students and killing Landsberry, got the weapon from his home. Washoe County School District Police said they are still working to trace where the gun was bought. Police said a Sparks Middle School student was the lone shooter and turned the weapon on himself. (AP Photo/Nevada Air National Guard)
Community members gather to pay their respects to Michael Landsberry, a 45-year-old eighth-grade math teacher, soccer coach and former Marine who was killed by an eighth-grader at Sparks Middle School on Monday, Oct. 21, 2013 in Sparks, Nev. The 12-year-old student who opened fire on the middle school campus, wounding two classmates and killing Landsberry, before he turned the gun on himself, got the weapon from his home, authorities said Tuesday. School District police said they are still working to determine how the boy obtained the 9mm semi-automatic Ruger handgun used in the Monday morning spree at Sparks Middle School. The boy's parents are cooperating with authorities and could face charges in the case, police said. (AP Photo/The Sacramento Bee, Hector Amezcua) MAGS OUT; LOCAL TV OUT (KCRA3, KXTV10, KOVR13, KUVS19, KMAZ31, KTXL40); MANDATORY CREDIT
Children and a parents take a photo of a memorial with candles at Sparks Middle School on Monday, Oct. 21, 2013 in Sparks, Nev. The 12-year-old student who opened fire on the middle school campus, wounding two classmates and killing a teacher before he turned the gun on himself, got the weapon from his home, authorities said Tuesday. School District police said they are still working to determine how the boy obtained the 9mm semi-automatic Ruger handgun used in the Monday morning spree at Sparks Middle School. The boy's parents are cooperating with authorities and could face charges in the case, police said. (AP Photo/The Sacramento Bee, Hector Amezcua) MAGS OUT; LOCAL TV OUT (KCRA3, KXTV10, KOVR13, KUVS19, KMAZ31, KTXL40); MANDATORY CREDIT
Sparks Mayor Geno Martini addresses reporters during a news briefing Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013, at Sparks police headquarters with the latest information about a Sparks Middle School 7th grader who shot two students and killed a teacher before shooting himself in the head the day before with a semi-automatic handgun police believe he obtained from his residence. (AP Photo/Scott Sonner)
SPARKS, Nev. (AP) — Students cowered in fear and pleaded for their lives as a 12-year-old Nevada boy went on a schoolyard rampage with a handgun he brought from home, waving the weapon at frightened classmates and shooting a math teacher in the chest on a basketball court.
The boy opened fire Monday morning on the Sparks Middle School campus, wounding two boys and killing the teacher before he turned the gun on himself.
Washoe County School District police revealed Tuesday that the seventh-grader brought the 9mm semi-automatic Ruger handgun from his home, but authorities were still working to determine how he obtained it. The student's parents were cooperating with authorities and could face charges in the case, police said.
Eighth-grader Angelo Ferro recalled burying his face in his hands and pleading for his life as the boy waved the gun and threatened to shoot. Another seventh grader and Ferro's math teacher, Michael Landsberry, lay gunned down nearby.
"The whole time I was hoping Mr. L was OK, we'd all get through it, it was a bad dream," Ferro told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Ferro, 13, was in the schoolyard with friends when the violence started.
He heard a pop about 15 minutes before the morning bell rang but didn't think much of it. Then he saw an injured boy clutching his wounded arm, and he watched Landsberry walk toward the gunman and take a bullet to the chest.
Unable to get inside the locked-down school, Ferro and others crouched against the building for safety but soon came face-to-face with the armed student.
Ferro didn't know the boy but said he and other frightened classmates tried to talk him out of firing. But something distracted the boy, and he didn't shoot.
"You could hear the panic," Ferro said. "He left, thank God."
A series of 911 calls made from the school also reflected the terror of the situation, including an ominous report of "teacher down."
"Can you send please send police out here," a panicked student told a 911 dispatcher. "There's a kid with a gun."
Authorities provided no motive for the shooting but said they've interviewed 20 or 30 witnesses and are looking into any prior connections between the victims and the shooter.
"Everybody wants to know why — that's the big question," Sparks Deputy Police Chief Tom Miller said. "The answer is, we don't know right now."
Also Tuesday, law enforcement and school officials again lauded the actions of Landsberry, a 45-year-old former Marine who tried to stop the rampage before he was killed.
"I cannot express enough appreciation for Mr. Landsberry," Washoe County School District Superintendent Pedro Martinez said at a news conference. "He truly is a hero."
Students said they saw Landsberry walk calmly toward the shooter and ask him to hand over his weapon before he was killed. Washoe County School District Police Chief Mike Mieras said Landsberry's actions gave some students enough time to run to safety.
Police said they believe the shooter at one point tried to enter the school but couldn't open the door because of emergency lockdown procedures.
After killing Landsberry, the boy fired at a second student, hitting him in the abdomen. He then shot himself in the head.
The two 12-year-old boys who were wounded are in stable condition and recovering.
Students from the middle school and neighboring elementary school were evacuated to a high school after the shooting, and all classes were canceled. The middle school will remain closed for the week, while an adjacent elementary school is set to reopen Wednesday.
Sparks, just east of Reno, has a population of roughly 90,000.
Landsberry coached several youth sports. He also served two tours in Afghanistan with the Nevada National Guard and was well-known in the school community, Sparks Mayor Geno Martini said. Landsberry served in the Marine Corps from 1986 to 1990 and was stationed in Camp Lejeune, N.C., and Okinawa, Japan, according to military records.
Senior Master Sgt. Robert Garrett attended middle school with Landsberry in Reno before serving as his supervisor in recent years at the Nevada Air National Guard.
"Every one of the people I have talked to just knew that Mike was in there," Garrett said. "He was the guy that would have jumped in there to stop the bullets from hitting other kids. And sure enough, it was."
___
Rindels reported from Las Vegas. Associated Press news researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York City contributed to this report.
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Patients with poor nutrition before bladder cancer operation have higher risk of complicationsPublic release date: 16-Oct-2013 [
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Contact: Katy Jones katy_jones@unc.edu 919-962-3405 University of North Carolina Health Care
Patients with bladder cancer are two times more likely to have complications after a radical cystectomy procedure if they have a biomarker for poor nutritional status before the operation, according to study findings presented last week at the 2013 Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons. Surgeons from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine and UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center identified a potentially modifiable risk factor for such postsurgical problems: a low preoperative level of albumin, a marker of the protein level in the blood.
David C. Johnson, MD, MPH, lead author of the study and a senior urology resident at UNC School of Medicine, and colleagues evaluated the impact that patients' nutritional status before radical cystectomy had on the rate of complications within 30 days after the operation. Radical cystectomy is a procedure that involves surgical removal of the bladder and lymph nodes.
Researchers mined the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP) database to analyze postoperative complications data from 1,085 patients who underwent radical cystectomy at 315 medical centers across the United States from 2005 to 2011. ACS NSQIP is the leading nationally validated, risk-adjusted, outcomes-based program to measure and improve the quality of care in private sector hospitals.
"Poor nutrition is a known risk factor for adverse results after radical cystectomy," Dr. Johnson explained. "The prevalence of nutritional deficiency is very high in patients with bladder cancer, partly because of their disease and partly because of their advanced age 73 years on average."
Bladder cancer will be newly diagnosed in more than 72,500 people this year, the American Cancer Society estimates, and about one-third of all cases involve cancer that has spread into the muscular wall of the bladder, which permits spread to other organs. For these patients, radical cystectomy is the standard treatment, but the complication rate after the operation remains high, particularly for infections and poor wound healing, explained study authors.
"Nutrition is clearly an important issue among post-cystectomy bladder cancer patients, and our study highlights this on a large scale through use of the American College of Surgeons' NSQIP database. As UNC is a Bladder Cancer Center of Excellence, we are making strides to use this information to benefit our patients," said Angela Smith, MD, assistant professor of urology, UNC Lineberger member, and senior author and lead investigator on the study.
"We are currently implementing a nutritional protocol in which all cystectomy patients will receive a preoperative nutritional assessment by a certified clinical nutritionist to address and optimize nutritional deficiencies. Furthermore, a nutritionist will be involved in postoperative care, both on an inpatient and outpatient basis. We hope that proactive emphasis on nutrition will lead to improved outcomes in this vulnerable population."
Among study patients who experienced complications within the first month after the surgical procedure, the authors looked for the presence of any of three known preoperative nutritional factors that could affect surgical results. These factors were a low albumin level (less than 3 grams per deciliter, or g/dL), weight loss greater than 10 percent of body weight six months before the operation, and obesity, defined as a body mass index (BMI) of 30 kilograms per square meter or higher.
Study results showed that 575 patients (53 percent) experienced complications within the first month after the surgical procedure. Of these patients, 32 (6 percent) had a low preoperative albumin level, 28 (5 percent) had major weight loss within the six months before the operation, and 182 (32 percent) were obese at cystectomy.
The investigators found that only low albumin level was a significant predictor of experiencing a postoperative complication, after controlling in the statistical analysis for patient age, involvement of a trainee surgeon in the operation, the year the operation took place, and a history of a prior operation. Patients with low albumin levels before the surgical procedure had 2.1 times the risk of having a complication within 30 days after the operation compared with those whose albumin level was in a normal range or above (3 g/dL and higher), the authors reported.
It is unclear from this study whether preoperative correction of low albumin levels, such as from nutritional supplementation, will translate to fewer problems after radical cystectomy. However, based on their findings, Dr. Johnson still recommends that patients whose albumin levels are low before a scheduled radical cystectomy see a nutritionist to learn whether they need to make dietary changes before their operations.
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Dr. Johnson's other coauthors for the study were: E. Will Kirby, MD; Jed E. Ferguson, MD, PhD; Jonathan Matthews, MPH; Michael E. Woods, MD, FACS; Matthew E. Nielsen, MD, MS, FACS; Mathew C. Raynor, MD; Raj S. Pruthi, MD, FACS; and Eric M. Wallen, MD, FACS.
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Patients with poor nutrition before bladder cancer operation have higher risk of complicationsPublic release date: 16-Oct-2013 [
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Contact: Katy Jones katy_jones@unc.edu 919-962-3405 University of North Carolina Health Care
Patients with bladder cancer are two times more likely to have complications after a radical cystectomy procedure if they have a biomarker for poor nutritional status before the operation, according to study findings presented last week at the 2013 Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons. Surgeons from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine and UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center identified a potentially modifiable risk factor for such postsurgical problems: a low preoperative level of albumin, a marker of the protein level in the blood.
David C. Johnson, MD, MPH, lead author of the study and a senior urology resident at UNC School of Medicine, and colleagues evaluated the impact that patients' nutritional status before radical cystectomy had on the rate of complications within 30 days after the operation. Radical cystectomy is a procedure that involves surgical removal of the bladder and lymph nodes.
Researchers mined the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP) database to analyze postoperative complications data from 1,085 patients who underwent radical cystectomy at 315 medical centers across the United States from 2005 to 2011. ACS NSQIP is the leading nationally validated, risk-adjusted, outcomes-based program to measure and improve the quality of care in private sector hospitals.
"Poor nutrition is a known risk factor for adverse results after radical cystectomy," Dr. Johnson explained. "The prevalence of nutritional deficiency is very high in patients with bladder cancer, partly because of their disease and partly because of their advanced age 73 years on average."
Bladder cancer will be newly diagnosed in more than 72,500 people this year, the American Cancer Society estimates, and about one-third of all cases involve cancer that has spread into the muscular wall of the bladder, which permits spread to other organs. For these patients, radical cystectomy is the standard treatment, but the complication rate after the operation remains high, particularly for infections and poor wound healing, explained study authors.
"Nutrition is clearly an important issue among post-cystectomy bladder cancer patients, and our study highlights this on a large scale through use of the American College of Surgeons' NSQIP database. As UNC is a Bladder Cancer Center of Excellence, we are making strides to use this information to benefit our patients," said Angela Smith, MD, assistant professor of urology, UNC Lineberger member, and senior author and lead investigator on the study.
"We are currently implementing a nutritional protocol in which all cystectomy patients will receive a preoperative nutritional assessment by a certified clinical nutritionist to address and optimize nutritional deficiencies. Furthermore, a nutritionist will be involved in postoperative care, both on an inpatient and outpatient basis. We hope that proactive emphasis on nutrition will lead to improved outcomes in this vulnerable population."
Among study patients who experienced complications within the first month after the surgical procedure, the authors looked for the presence of any of three known preoperative nutritional factors that could affect surgical results. These factors were a low albumin level (less than 3 grams per deciliter, or g/dL), weight loss greater than 10 percent of body weight six months before the operation, and obesity, defined as a body mass index (BMI) of 30 kilograms per square meter or higher.
Study results showed that 575 patients (53 percent) experienced complications within the first month after the surgical procedure. Of these patients, 32 (6 percent) had a low preoperative albumin level, 28 (5 percent) had major weight loss within the six months before the operation, and 182 (32 percent) were obese at cystectomy.
The investigators found that only low albumin level was a significant predictor of experiencing a postoperative complication, after controlling in the statistical analysis for patient age, involvement of a trainee surgeon in the operation, the year the operation took place, and a history of a prior operation. Patients with low albumin levels before the surgical procedure had 2.1 times the risk of having a complication within 30 days after the operation compared with those whose albumin level was in a normal range or above (3 g/dL and higher), the authors reported.
It is unclear from this study whether preoperative correction of low albumin levels, such as from nutritional supplementation, will translate to fewer problems after radical cystectomy. However, based on their findings, Dr. Johnson still recommends that patients whose albumin levels are low before a scheduled radical cystectomy see a nutritionist to learn whether they need to make dietary changes before their operations.
###
Dr. Johnson's other coauthors for the study were: E. Will Kirby, MD; Jed E. Ferguson, MD, PhD; Jonathan Matthews, MPH; Michael E. Woods, MD, FACS; Matthew E. Nielsen, MD, MS, FACS; Mathew C. Raynor, MD; Raj S. Pruthi, MD, FACS; and Eric M. Wallen, MD, FACS.
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