TOP PICKS

NEW MELONES RESERVOIR - Big news was an 18.11-pound largemouth bass, a new lake record, caught by Kyle Gentry at a tournament on Saturday on a brown jig with trailer. The fish boosted Gentry and his partner to the top place in a tournament on the lake, and of course, caught him big fish money and honors. "We've had some great fishing," said Matt Summers at Glory Hole Sports. "Three of our lake records have been broken just recently, brown trout, spotted bass and now, largemouth bass." Trout fishing has been decent for trollers fishing 45 feet down. The shore bite has been slower.

SACRAMENTO RIVER, Sacramento - The big news is that the first of the spring striper run finally showed up here, smaller schoolie males that began picking up ghost shrimp, bloodworms and pileworms intended for sturgeon. The first fish were caught Thursday and Friday, right on schedule. Look for the main run to start the first part of April. Sturgeon action is farther upriver, but if you want catfish, try the Port of Sacramento.

LAKE BERRYESSA - The koke season has begun, and with some larger than usual fish, taken from 20 to 30 feet down, from Skier's Cove to the Big Island on the main lake. Many setups produced limits of kokes up to 17.5 inches (early for the season) but corn with herring or prawn scents from Pro-Cure and a speed of 1.5 to 1.7 on the GPS were common denominators. The salmon are also larger than usual for this early, measuring from 14 to 22 inches long. Bass are moving up with the nice warm weather, too. There are some smaller bucks running the banks that will eat rip baits like Lucky Craft Pointer 78s. To target the bigger females, work jigs and drop-shot gear 10-20 feet off main lake points. These are spawner females though, so put them back when you can.

COLLINS LAKE - The first of 12 pens of 3- to 4-pound rainbows was released this past week and the lake received another trophy plant. Trout action is wide open for trollers and shore anglers with fish 8 1/2 to 9 pounds weighed in recently. Trophy plants and pen releases will continue weekly until late April or May. Bass action is picking up as the water warms and the bass begin to move up to the banks to spawn. Special junior season turkey hunter, Robert McCrary of Fairfield, killed his bird in the Daugherty Hills Wldlife Area adjacent to the lake this past Saturday.

SILVER LAKE - Two Carson City regulars had a banner day this past week landing a 22 1/2-pound Mackinaw through 14 inches of ice. The big fish was photographed and released along with an 8 pounder and a 3 pounder. All the fish were caught on worms.

NORTH COAST RIVERS

CHETCO RIVER, Ore. - The curtain is dropping, and March marks the seasons end for the Chetco River and with it usually comes a good shot of bluebacks. Has not been a stellar season, according to some, although there have been good time periods. Most are now heading towards the Rogue for the spring king salmon run. The few anglers still fishing here are finding some downrunners and bluebacks.

EEL RIVER - Running a lot of water and high, but the color was actually coming into shape, according to guide Mark Nimitz of Pipe Creek Outfitters. He said the main will be holding a bigger number of fish, both fresh, downrunners and bluebacks. A few guys were even going to try it Monday.

EEL RIVER, South Fork - The river has been fishing all week long, and boaters are averaging three to five steelhead a boat, a mix of fresh bluebacks, downrunners and a very few fresh fish. Fishable from top to bottom, and the rain on Sunday wasn't expected to do much damage. Drifting roe is the way to go. Nimitz fished it Thursday from Myers Flat to the forks and they caught five steelies, seeing only three other boats, and they did well, too.

GARCIA, GUALALA rivers - Those with pontoon boats floating the top of the Gualala River were finding nice pockets of steelhead and doing well on them, but it's very tough access. Both rivers close March 31.

NAVARRO, NOYO rivers - Running low and clear and no reports on the fishing. Set to close on March 31.

ROGUE RIVER, Lower, Ore. - Spring king season is underway, but currently rated slow to fair, but improving each day. Look towards early April for it to become consistent. Some anchored up anglers are finding the occasional chromer.

ROGUE RIVER, Grant's Pass - Winter steelhead are still bending rods up here, but the river is low and continues to clear.

RUSSIAN RIVER - Steve Jackson, owner of Kings Sport and tackle, said the river was flowing at 3000 cfs at Guerneville on Friday and blown out, but by Sunday it had dropped to 1700 cfs and was fishable-a "nice green color", according to Jackson. Anglers were out, but no reports as of press time. The hatchery got 200 fresh new fish last week, so things are looking good for anglers this week. The use of bait ends on March 31, but the river remains open to fishing with artificial lures.

SMITH RIVER - Fishing on the Smith River has been fair, according to guide Phil Desautel of Phil's Smiling Salmon Guide Service. Everybody is gone and the river is void of fishermen. It is a downrunner here and a downrunner there. Desautel fished twice this past week, one day they got three and the next two, including a nice 13-pound hatchery buck. The water is low and clear and the fish are sitting in the one-shot slots. Last weekend was the Oakland Raider Derby which had pretty good results considering the horrible conditions. The Smith came up four feet and the Chetco came up five feet on the first day The winning teams were from Mondavi Winery and Willie Boats and they were fishing with Gary Early and John Klar. There were a total of 38 fish caught between 12 teams and every fish was released.

UMPQUA RIVER, North Fork, Ore. - Guide Curtis Palmer of River Secrets Guide Service said this river appears to be the most consistently productive in the state. The last of the winter steelhead are passing over the Winchester Dam at an average of a couple hundred fish a day. He expects the river to fish well into the second week of April. When the river becomes this full of fresh steelhead, just about any good offering will produce a fish. He said more fish are spawning, so well- cured roe and a Fish Pill or Puffball while sidedrifting is best.

UMPQUA RIVER, South Fork, Ore. - Darryl Grove and Larry Mercer of River Wolf boats fished most of the day Thursday after launching the boat in downtown Roseburg. They landed six of the seven steelhead they hooked up. Darryl said half of there fish were post-spawn.

VANDUZEN RIVER - No direct reports, but should have been in shape and fishing this past week.

NORTH SALTWATER

BENICIA - Tony Lopez at Benicia Bait reported much improved action with some big stripers caught at Middle Grounds on live bait and bullheads. The shoreline striper action has also increased for anglers using anchovies, although most of the bass are small keepers. Sturgeon also started showing near Middle Grounds in deeper water, and two keeper were weighed, one from the Glomar and one from the Mothball Fleet.

BERKELEY - Captain Jim Smith on the Happy Hooker has one more weekend in Martinez before heading here to start his spring/summer season targeting salmon, halibut and striped bass, and just about anything else that swims via live bait potluck trips.

BODEGA BAY - The harbor has been very quiet since squid left town. Not much on the horizon here until salmon opens.

CROCKETT - Captain Mike Shimel had a good couple of trips on the weekend on the Morning Star, finding a total of four keeper sturgeon, some keeper stripers, flounder and some shaker action as well. Most of the action came from the far northwest corner of San Pablo Bay on grass shrimp. One of the stripers went 12.5 pounds, and the biggest sturgeon measured 58 inches.

EMERYVILLE - The Tigerfish ran the landing's first halibut trolling trip, finding four keepers to 12 pounds. The boat started on the south side off of Oyster Point, then found most of the fish between Paradise and Southampton. "We'll be scheduling halibut trips regularly until salmon opens," said Craig Stone at the landing.

EUREKA - Ben Williams at the Pro Sport Center said the calm seas triggered a surfperch explosion for anglers fishing at the docks by the PG&E; station, at Elk River Beach and on the outside at Centerville Beach and the mouth of the Eel River. Small raw shrimp from the grocery store has been top bait. Night fish should be running also, but he hasn't had any reports yet.

FORT BRAGG - The landing has been very quiet since the squid evaporated, but Captain Randy Thornton on the Telstar is prepping for the April 1 abalone opener as well as the April 3 salmon opener.

HALF MOON BAY - Captain Tom Mattusch on the Huli Cat continued to run crab trips finding limits although the numbers have dropped off some.

MARTINEZ - Captain Steve Talmadge on Flash Fishing reported two days fishing with good action, and while Friday's trip didn't produce any keeper sturgeon, his anglers released four shakers, and boxed two quality bass to 12 pounds. On Saturday, anglers fishing on Flash during the Deaf Sturgeon Challenge found two keeper sturgeon to 53 inches. "My crew took some of the money, congratulations!" said Talmadge.

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO BAY - John Akina at Oyster Point Bait and Tackle reported good action on halibut with five fish weighed on Sunday, and six on Saturday. Most anglers used herring or anchovies, some with straight bait, some behind dodgers, at 25 feet. "We had three stripers from the pier last night, all keepers," said Akina. Also- rans on the pier were jacksmelt and perch.

TRINITY/KLAMATH RIVERS

KLAMATH RIVER, Klamath Glen - Hardly anyone is fishing down here despite good river conditions, but the few who are, find some pretty decent halfpounder fishing. Nothing fantastic, and no adults at all, but they are catching fish, according to guide Rich Mossholder of Rivers West Guide Service. Look for springer salmon to begin the end of April.

KLAMATH RIVER, upper - Scott Cauldwell of SC Guide Service said the river has been slow fishing. Flows are up and cold due to snowmelt and rain. Weather has been going from 30 to 70 degrees, sunny one day and windy and rainy the next.

TRINITY RIVER, Lewiston - Excellent weather earlier in the week, with some rain sweeping through over the weekend, and the afternoon hatch has been "the best part" according to guide Steve Huber. All their fish were taking topwater flies in the p.m., and they're getting one to three steelies per trip. Mostly downrunners. Huber will be switching gears and heading to the Sacramento River for trout and stripers soon.

MOTHER LODE

AMADOR LAKE - A couple 2-pound crappie caught by boaters is signaling the start of spring here, along with better bass action. Still plenty of big trout coming in thanks to the weekly plants. Shore anglers are using Power Bait or worms, and boaters are drifting Power Bait for the best trout action.

CAMANCHE LAKE - Big bass action is on here with one angler catching a pair weighing 7 and nearly 9 pounds on RoboWorms and topwater lures. A recent tournament with 23 boats produced many limits and a nearly 18-pound limit won, big fish went 5.77 pounds. The South Shore Trout Pond produced a lunker rainbow weighing 9.07 pound, a Kastmaster enticed the fish. Main lake trout fishing is solid for trollers, and Captain Steve Talmadge of Flash Fishing sampled the bite, reporting a slow bite, but big fish. The best action was before 10 a.m., and his group caught fish weighing up to 7 pounds, 10 ounces.

DON PEDRO RESERVOIR - WON staffer Bill Karr joined Monte Smith of Gold Country Sportfishing for some trolling action finding both kings and rainbows. The salmon were smallish, so the pair focused on the big holdover 'bows they found hit a fast trolled homemade spoon. Bass fishing is getting hot as the fish move shallow for the spring spawnfest. Most anglers are covering water early with ripbaits, crankbaits and spinnerbaits, then switch to plastic worms when the sun gets high.

LAKE McCLURE - Jim Nudo at the Barretts Cove Marina got in on the trout action, trolling up a three pounder that hit a Kastmaster while he and a friend fished from a pontoon boat. Once boated, the fish flipped and managed an escape. Bass fishing has been improving steadily, with even shore anglers catching fish around the marina, most using live minnows under a bobber for 2-pound class fish.

LAKE McSWAIN - Marilyn Kemper at the marina reported good action following Tuesday's plant by Calaveras Trout Farm. Several anglers caught fish, top bait bets marshmallows and worms for shore anglers, while boaters did well using Rapalas in brook trout, firetiger and rainbow trout.

LAKE PARDEE - Bank fishing was best at Blue Heron Point, the parking lot bank behind Tom Sawyer Island, and the launch ramp. Power Bait, nightcrawlers and Kastmasters topped the offerings. Trollers are finding the best bite up river from Columbia Gulch to Indian Rock. Some nice holdovers up to 6 pounds reported. Top bet are small spoons in pink or fluorescent orange fished behind dodgers or flashers, and tipped with a piece of nightcrawler.

NEW HOGAN RESERVOIR - Outdoor writer William Heinselman reported much improved black bass action for anglers fishing three to 25 feet with curly-tail grubs, creature baits, Senkos, worms and jigs. He said pre- spawn stage is close for this lake.

TULLOCH RESERVOIR - A good bet for trout trollers fishing from Green Creek's mouth upriver. Shad and small spoons imitating shad worked best for planters and some nice 2- to 3-pound holdovers. Bass action should fire up at this lake over the next few weeks, with Green Springs and Black Creek top spots for anglers casting plastic worms, jigs and tube baits.

NORTHERN FOOTHILLS

BULLARDS BAR - The lake is at 67-percent capacity. Brett Brady at Bare Bones Guide Service hit the lake this past week and landed 20 rainbows to 17 inches while trolling up in the North Fork arm. The fish were more active from 9 a.m. to noon with the surface temp running 48 to 50 degrees. Troll dodgers and nightcrawlers or lures 15 to 20 feet deep 100 feet behind the boat. There were some schools of small kokanee, 4 to 6 inches, seen on the meter and they were hitting the baits but not getting hooked due to their size. The bass bite is wide open as the spots move into shallow water more frequently to prepare for the spawn.

CAMP FAR WEST - The top teams in the North Shore Resort bass tournament this past weekend all weighed in around 11 pounds. The water is rising onto the grassy banks triggering a good spinnerbait bite. Big fish for the event was a 3.6 pounder.

ENGLEBRIGHT RESERVOIR - The lake is at 91-percent capacity. The water is getting clearer and trout action is picking up in the marina for trollers. One boat picked up five rainbows, 14 to 16 inches, in the marina on flasher/worm combos. Trollers are still working the upper lake from Buck's Beach to the inlets for a mix of browns and rainbows.

LAKE OROVILLE - The lake is up to 43-percent capacity. Bass and coho action is still steady as the lake rises and the water warms up. The bass are in the top 20 feet and hitting Senkos and other plastics. The spots are running 1 1/2 to 3 3/4 pounds. Coho, 13 to 14 inches, are hitting minnows, nightcrawlers and Sling Blade combos all over the lake.

ROLLINS LAKE - The DFG has been making regular plants the last few weeks and shore anglers and trollers are catching lots of rainbows.

SCOTT'S FLAT LAKE - This lake was planted last week by the DFG. The plant included mostly 12 to 14 inchers with some fish to 24 inches. Shore anglers are limiting out in short order with Power Bait, nightcrawlers, Panther Martin spinners and Kastmaster spoons. Trollers are using flasher/worm combos and Rapalas for their share of the planters near the marina and the dam.

SUGAR PINE RESERVOIR - The lake finally received its first plant by the DFG. The roads and lake accesses are clear due to all the warm weather seen this past week and it's finally time to plan a visit.

STUMPY MEADOWS RESERVOIR - The warm weather has cleared the road to the lake and into the parking area and boat ramp. Some anglers are catching some holdover trout and with DFG beginning to plant other lakes in the area, hopefully this place will be next on the list.

THERMOLITO AFTERBAY - Bass action has kicked into high gear with the high lake levels and warmer water temps. The fish are hitting jigs and Senkos along the tule banks in the backs of the coves.

SIERRA LAKES/RIVERS

BOCA LAKE - Ice fishing is DONE for the season. The lake is about half open and now anglers are just shore fishing off the dam and the inlet with salmon eggs and worms.

CAPLES LAKE - There's still one to four feet of snow to dig through to get to the ice. 50 anglers were on the lake this last weekend, and most of them were at the dam and spillway catching limits of pan- sized rainbows and browns on Power Bait and worms.

CARSON RIVER (East) - All reports coming into the Carson River Resort indicate that the water is too cold for decent fishing. The warm weather has started some snowmelt and the flows are up.

DAVIS LAKE - The lake is at 51-percent capacity. Ed Dillard and friends tried the area at the boat ramp at Honker and caught some 1 1/2 to 2 pounders on Power Bait through 18 inches of ice. The bite has been better earlier in the morning. Snowmobilers are getting more cautious about being out on the main body of the lake due to some soft spots.

DONNER LAKE - The lake is pretty much ice-free, but too low to launch a big boat. Boats under 16 feet can probably be launched without too much trouble but there's no dock. Shore anglers are doing pretty well on rainbows and a few smaller Macks off the west end beaches on Power Bait, worms and salmon eggs.

FRENCHMAN LAKE - The lake is up to 40-percent capacity. The ice is still thick with no apparent cracks. The only open water is at Spring Creek and only a very little at that. Fishing is still good at the dam where the access is very good. To get past the dam, 4- wheel drive is recommended. Rainbows are eating Power Bait and Crystal Bullet jigs.

ICE HOUSE RESERVOIR - This lake was finally planted by the DFG this last week. Shore anglers were fishing with inflated nightcrawlers at the dam and catching some browns up to 3 1/2 pounds this past Saturday, according to Ken Mathis at Ken's Custom Tackle and Guide Service. Dale Daneman was trolling brown Sep's grub here on a side planer and caught 26 rainbows, 12 to 16 inches, in 6 hours. The best bite was mid-day.

INDIAN CREEK RESERVOIR - The road from Hwy 89 is open so now the lake can be reached easily from either end. The trophy trout plant of a couple of weeks back paid off for one angler who caught an 8 1/2 pounder while fishing off the shore with Power Bait. The west end of the lake produced limits of 2 1/2 to 4 pounders for locals throwing small Rapalas, according to Dave Kirby at Woodfords Station.

JENKINSON LAKE (Sly Park) - The DFG planters are having the biggest impact on the anglers coming to the lake. The back side of the lake where the water is running in is the best area for shore fishermen using Power Bait. The rainbows are running 10 to 14 inches. A couple of 20-inch Mackinaws were checked in at Sly Park Resort this past week.

LAKE TAHOE - Fishing is still good on the north end from Tahoe City to Crystal Bay Point. Both Mickey Daniels and Chuck Self caught limits over the weekend working Sling Blades and minnows, spoons and plugs from 100 to 300 feet deep. The keepers are running 3 to 7 pounds with smaller fish being tagged and/or released. The morning bite is best.

PROSSER LAKE - Lots of open water here, so ice fishing is done for the season. Shore anglers are doing well at the dam on Power Bait Nightcrawlers and salmon eggs.

PYRAMID LAKE - Crosby's Lodge reports that fishing is best in March and April and two fish weighed in this past week seemed to confirm this. 13 3/4- and 11 3/4-pound cutthroats were weighed in by fly fishermen. The South Nets and Indian Head were mentioned as good places to try for the shallower fish. Trollers have been doing pretty well on Flatfish and Apex. Joe Mendes at Eagle Eye Charters caught 18 fish on Sunday with one over 24 inches. He was using a frog Flatfish.

RED LAKE - The ice is turning a little too blue for some fishermen and Dave Kirby at Woodfords Station warned that the ice may break this week if it stays warm and windy. Use extreme caution if contemplating a trip here.

STAMPEDE RESERVOIR - A snowmobiler towed a small aluminum boat to the lake this past week and caught a 23-pound Mackinaw. Lots of open water here but a snowmobile is the only way to get here for awhile.

TOPAZ LAKE - The spring-like weather brought out plenty of fishermen over this past weekend and some nice limits were checked in at Topaz Landing Marina. Carl Hendshot of Tracy picked up a limit topped by a 2 1/4 pounder trolling a No. 5 CD Rapala on two colors of leadcore. Shore anglers have been doing best on the east side and south end using Power Bait.

TRUCKEE RIVER - Fly fishermen are doing well on rainbows, 15 to 20 inches, and browns, 22 to 23 inches, on BWO's, small black stones, midges and streamers. Mid-day is best after the water has had a chance to warm up a bit.

UNION VALLEY RESERVOIR - This lake was finally planted by the DFG this past week. Ken Mathis at Ken's Custom Tackle was guiding here all this past week and client Jim Erskine of Pollack Pines landed a 17- pound Mackinaw. They were trolling 80 feet deep over the top of sandy ledges with his Double Flutter spoons mid-day, from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. Mathis said they lost another big fish that they couldn't turn that he estimated was over 20 pounds. Debris is floating on the surface so boaters need to use caution.

SACRAMENTO VALLEY

AMERICAN RIVER - Slow fishing for everything. Not much action on the steelhead, although dedicated anglers can still get one if they put in the time and work. Nothing on stripers until you get down to the mouth, where a few schoolie male stripers finally began showing in the Sacramento on Thursday of this past week.

FEATHER RIVER - Boaters are finding a few catch-and-release local stripers throwing plugs down near Bear River, but nothing big going on here, and no steelhead in the upper part of the river to speak of.

FOLSOM LAKE - Ongoing action on king salmon and rainbow trout, about a 50/50 split between the two, and guide Jerry Lampkin of T.N.G. Motorsports Guide Service put his clients onto 16 nice fish on Friday, caught at 20 feet on a rainbow Speedy Shiner and some on Rapalas. Troll at 3 mph, unless you use Sling Blades and hoochies, then slow to 1.5 mph. Boaters beware around the wind sock, there's a safety buoy about two feet under the surface. Dennis Pfanner of Sacramento Pro Tackle confirmed the report, adding that bassers should use minnows or crawdad, or shad-patterned jigs and spoon around drop-offs and point.

RANCHO SECO LAKE - A huge crowd was out there this past weekend working over the leftover trout, and those from a recent plant. "Some are catching them and some are not" was the report. Usually those in non- motorized floating devices are doing best, because they can cover more of the lake.

SACRAMENTO RIVER, Knights Landing - Dennis Pfanner of Sac. Pro Tackle said that sturgeon action remains good up here, from about here up to Meridian, including spots like El Dorado Bend, China Bend and Tisdale. Of course, pileworms, bloodworms, or ghost shrimp are the best bet. Bob Bradbury of Johnson's Bait and Tackle confirmed the report and said they weighed one in on Saturday and two on Sunday, from Meridian, Colusa and Tisdale Weir. No stripers here at all yet.

SACRAMENTO RIVER, Redding/Red Bluff - The rainbow trout bite here is "on fire" said Jeremiah Houle of The Fly Shop in Redding. "There's a lot of caddis starting", he said. Go for birdnest, olive fox pupae, zug bugs, poxy back pmds, micro may flies in brown or black and the "usual" cheesebrain egg. He said the regular angler would get half a dozen wild rainbows a day, while one guide put his two guys on 80 hookups in one boat! Most guides are getting 20 to 30 fish a day. Bigger fish coming from the Posse Grounds to Bonneview, bigger numbers and smaller fish from Benneview all the down to the Barge Hole. The river is flowing at 3250 and clarity is perfect.

SACRAMENTO RIVER, Upper - Night time temperatures haven't been freezing so there's snowmelt coming into the river, bringing it up and keeping it cold. Fishing has been "okay" but closer to "fair", but it's only seeing minimal fishing pressure.

YUBA RIVER - One report from guide Dave Barbieri, provided by Johnson's Bait & Tackle, was that the fly fishing action was great above the Park's Bar Bridge, where both rainbows and halfpounder steelies to two pounds were being caught on March browns in good numbers.

NORTH COAST LAKES

CLEAR LAKE - Most anglers were found at the north end fishing the tules with worms, jigs, ripbaits, swimbaits, and a few crankbaits. Overall, the fishing has still not hit its stride, but all that can change quickly now that the waters are getting warmer. When it does both the bass and anglers will spread out. Best colors for baits include green pumpkin and watermelon variations, purple and browns, and craw colors. Water color varies around the lake with some areas having a visibility of a foot or so to other areas having at least seven feet of clear water. The surface temperature is running about 57 to 58 degrees in the afternoon and 52 to 53 in the morning.

UPPER BLUE LAKE - The bass bite is starting to pick up along the Highway 20 shoreline now with warmer waters, but it is the trout most are targeting. The lake was stocked with trout last week and the fishing pressure has been very low.

INDIAN VALLEY RESERVIOR - Bass fishing as well as catfishing should be excellent here with all the recently added rainfall waters and the waters are clearing now. The dam area has always been a favorite area to target them both. A few holdover trout have also been taken.

LAKE SONOMA - The waters have cleared but the algae blooms have started. Robo Worms and Carolina-rigged worms have been producing.

DELTA, SACRAMENTO RIVER side - Get ready for some striper action as it appears the bite is starting up. Although still a little murky, Sandy Beach, the Old Dairy, Cache Slough and the mouth of the Deep Water Channel have been producing for both trollers and those tossing swim baits in the same general vicinity. The incoming tides were better in these areas, as well as on Mokelumne River as it cleared and brought fresher water in.

DELTA, SAN JOAQUIN RIVER side - Sturgeon fishing improved with the outgoing tides for sturgeon here, soaking baits off the bottom for stripers and sturgeon. Eel, grass shrimp, ghost shrimp and salmon roe all produces some fish but roe was preferred. Bass are getting fat bellies and ready to spawn. Staging and moving up found most of these fish close to the bank in around 9 feet of water but the bite was still tough. Broken pile, punching mats, you'll just have to move around and try different things until they settle. The waters are warming and that should get things going soon.

NORTHEASTERN AREA

LAKE ALMANOR - The fish have scattered and are no longer all by the dam but with waters improving, so is the fishing, although still not consistent. The fish are still feeding on the pond smelt but it's an early bite and can shut down once the sun hits the water. Add some fog or clouds and the bite will hold a little longer. Sunny days and light winds should keep the warming trend going. The mornings are still pretty chilly but the ramps and roads are dry and open.

BAUM LAKE - Woolly buggers, scuds, micro mayflies, copper Johns and pheasant tails were doing best for fly fishermen. Bait fishermen did well on nightcrawlers and garlic flavored marshmallows. Lure fishermen continue to do well with Trout Magnets and Kastmasters. Lots of browns in the 17-inch range are coming in now, with some fishermen finding limits in three hours.

BRITTON LAKE - Watch for crappie bite to start with warmer weather.

KESWICK RESERVOIR - This lake fishes the same all year unless the water is dirty from recent storms. The best way to fish it is from a jet boat, nymphing the seams and drop-offs, and stripping streamers on sinking lines. Depth is the key to success here, once you find where fish are feeding, success is likely.

IRON CANYON - You can work this lake one of two ways, with an indicator and nymphs or sinking lines and streamers. The midge hatches are usually strong and fishing a blood midge with a black midge pupa dropper is deadly. For those who want to cast and retrieve, flies, leech and bugger style flies work great. You can usually get some larger fish usually this method.

PIT RIVER - The pocket waters can provide some good dry fly action midday on warm days in caddis and March browns. This area is open to catch and release only, barbless hooks, and artificials only from Lake Britton dam downstream. With all of the PG&E; road closures though, it's hard to get here and few reports are coming in.

LAKE SHASTA - The McCloud arm was good for brown trout and salmon. Top lining and also fishing 5 to 25 feet down with the downriggers with UV shad patterned Cripplures, a shad patterned Glo Cripplure with UV Sling blades, a Matrix Kazi Mino in blue, as well as watermelon and silver/black Apex's. Salmon were marked from 90 to 150 feet, with the better bite on a Sling Blade Wiggle hoochie in white, or a shad patterned Cripplure at 120 feet. Bass fishing was solid finding spots on a mixed bag of drop-shot gear, jigs, Senko's and the occasional rip bait. The main lake body continues to be the best producer.

WHISKEYTOWN RESERVOIR - Although still early, a few kokes from 11 to 13.5 inches were taken by the 295 Bridge with pink Apex behind a UV Sling Blade or a UV pink Apex behind the UV Sling Blade. The good news was they were all clean, healthy and free of copepods.

- Western Outdoor News

www.wonews.com

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) announced today the results of a study on the current state-by-state surveillance system for foodborne illness detection.  The results reveal a very fractured system, with nearly half of the states in need of improvements in their surveillance and reporting systems.

“State and local health departments are our first line of defense when it comes to identifying the food that causes an outbreak,” said CSPI food safety director Caroline Smith DeWaal. “But some states may not have enough investigators or the money to train and equip their staff, which can lead to lower-quality investigations and lower rates of reporting.”

Oregon and Minnesota are well-recognized as having strong programs for foodborne outbreak surveillance, investigation, and reporting. Those states, which have excellent laboratory facilities and which quickly interview people who test positive for dangerous pathogens, each reported 10 outbreaks per million people in 2007. CSPI considered that a baseline for its analysis, and found that 7 states had even better reporting records, including Maine, Kansas, Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, Hawaii and North Dakota. Those states generated more reports and provided CDC with better information to prevent future outbreaks.

On the other end of the spectrum, twelve states reported just one outbreak of foodborne illness per million people, and 11 states had reporting rates almost as low. Because there is no reason to think that those states would have such low incidences of outbreaks, CSPI is concerned that this variability in reporting reflects a failure to identify, fully investigate, and report outbreaks. The 23 states with the lowest reporting rates in 2007 were Delaware, Georgia, Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts, each with three outbreaks per million; Missouri, New Jersey, Virginia, Alabama, West Virginia, and Kentucky, each with two outbreaks per million; and Texas, North Carolina, Indiana, Louisiana, Nebraska, Utah, Arkansas, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Mississippi, and Oklahoma, each reporting just one outbreak per million.

In September of 2007, 19-month-old Isabelle Reinert of Sauk Rapids, MN, became violently ill with unrelenting diarrhea and a 104-degree fever. Her diarrhea persisted for nearly six weeks, and her mother Amy Reinert told the Associated Press that it “was the worst thing I’ve ever experienced as a parent.” Epidemiologists working for the state of Minnesota were eventually able to identify the source of the Salmonella that sickened Isabelle and others that year: Banquet Turkey Pot Pies. That link between the outbreak and ConAgra’s pot pies led to a recall of over 3 million pot pies and new package cooking instructions, including advice that the pies should be cooked to 165 degrees F.

Legislation that passed the House of Representatives would help improve state reporting, according to CSPI. The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, now pending in the Senate, would require FDA to improve coordination between federal, state and local surveillance systems; develop a national network of laboratories; and improve epidemiological tools available to the states. The bill would also integrate foodborne illness surveillance with other bio-surveillance capabilities.

“State outbreak reporting is a vital piece of our national food safety system, and the information gathered in the course of outbreak investigations can reduce the impact of outbreaks and prevent future ones. Action on Senate bill would help strengthen both federal and state food safety programs,” DeWaal said.

According to recent research done by S.T.O.P.—Safe Tables Our Priority, a number of factors may also explain the variation in state investigations.

“States’ systematic differences in response to foodborne illness case reporting may also explain variations in rates,” said S.T.O.P’s public health specialist, Susan Vaughn Grooters. “Time differences in surveying cases of foodborne illness and lack of integrated data collection may also affect how well states accurately capture data.” DeWaal will present CSPI’s findings today at a food safety conference in Atlanta cosponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and NSF International.

The still unfolding Shigella outbreak from a Subway restaurant located in Lombard, Illinois highlights the importance of the local and state foodborne illness surveillance system.  Likely due to DuPage County Health Department's swift detection of the outbreak, many hundreds of people have been spared the horrific and painful symptoms of a Shigella infection.

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Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, dates back to 1870. Credit: Cedar Point

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WASHINGTON – Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to key administration posts:

President Obama said, “I am grateful that these exceptional individuals have chosen to dedicate their talents to serving the American people. I look forward to working with them in the months and years ahead.” 

President Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to key administration posts:

Rafael Moure-Eraso, Nominee for Chair, Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board
Rafael Moure-Eraso is currently serving as a Professor and Graduate Coordinator for the Department of Work Environment in the School of Health and Environment at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where he has been Chair of the department for the last five years. He has been a member of the faculty at the University of Massachusetts for twenty two years --12 as an Associate Professor (1988) and 10 as a full Professor since 2000.  From 1993-2000, Dr. Moure-Eraso was a Visiting Lecturer in Occupational Health at the Harvard School of Public Health.  In 1994-95, he held an Intergovernmental Personnel Assignment at the U.S. Department of Labor as a special senior advisor on the prevention of chemical exposures to the Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health (OSHA).   Prior to joining the University of Massachusetts Lowell, Dr. Moure-Eraso served for 15 years (1973-1988) as an Industrial Hygienist Engineer with the national offices of two international unions: the Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers (OCAW) and the United Automobile Workers (UAW).  His ten years as an Industrial Hygienist of the OCAW gave him substantial field experience in the Chemical and Petro-Chemical industry. Dr. Moure-Eraso has been a member of the National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health for OSHA and a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).  He also was a member of both the National Advisory Environmental Health Sciences Council and the Board of Scientific Counselors to the National Toxicological Program for the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences at the National Institute of Health (NIEHS). He holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Chemical Engineering (University of Pittsburgh ‘67, Bucknell University, ’70) and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Environment Health (Industrial Hygiene) (University of Cincinnati ’74, ’82). He has been a Certified Industrial Hygienist for Comprehensive Practice (CIH)since 1985. Dr. Moure-Eraso is a senior member of AIChE, AIHA, ACGIH and APHA where he had held national leadership positions.

Mark A. Griffon, Nominee for Member, Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board
Mark Griffon’s career has included work in academia, the public sector and the private sector.  He started his career in the private sector as a project manager for Chemical Waste Management and then worked in the Work Environment Department at the University of Massachusetts Lowell to develop and deliver Hazardous Waste Training, Radiation Worker Training, and Toxics Use Reduction planning curricula.  While working for the University’s Toxics Use Reduction Institute, he also headed an effort to conduct industry-specific planning workshops with metal working companies, electronics companies, chemical and plastics industries and paper and textile manufacturers.  In 1992, Mr. Griffon founded Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. to provide environmental and occupational health consulting including management and technical oversight of large remediation projects, waste site characterization, radiation surveys, health and safety and health physics audits and investigations, and exposure assessment research.  Mr. Griffon has served as a member of the Federal Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health from 2002 to the present.  In addition to being a member of the Board, Mr. Griffon chairs the subcommittee on dose reconstruction review and chairs several workgroups.  Mr. Griffon also served as a member of the Federal Advisory Committee on External Regulation of Department of Energy Nuclear Safety and as a member of the Advisory Board for the U.S. Transuranium and Uranium Registries. Mr. Griffon holds a B.S. in Chemistry from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an M.S. in Radiological Sciences from University of Massachusetts Lowell. 

Robert M. “Skipp” Orr, Nominee for United States Executive Director, Asian Development Bank, with the Rank of Ambassador
Robert “Skipp” Orr is currently Chairman of the Board of the Panasonic Foundation, a member of the Board of Trustees of J.F. Obirin University and a member of the Board of the East-West Center Foundation. From January 2002 until March 2007 Orr was President of Boeing Japan. He held this position during the development of the most successfully selling airplane in history, the 787 Dreamliner. Prior to joining Boeing, Orr was Vice President and Director of European Affairs for Motorola based in Brussels. And before that he held various senior level posts with Motorola in Japan culminating as Vice President of Government Relations. In that capacity he successfully led the negotiations that opened up the cellular phone market in Japan. He is also a former Vice President of the American Chamber of Commerce Japan. In addition to the corporate world, Orr also has spent many years in academia and the United States Government. Between 1985 and 1993 he was a professor of Political Science at Temple University Japan with two years off to run the Kyoto Center for Japanese Studies and the Stanford Center for Technology and Innovation at the Stanford Japan Center in Kyoto. His book, The Emergence of Japan’s Foreign Aid Power, published by Columbia University Press won the 1991 Ohira Prize for best book on the Asia Pacific. Orr’s career began in 1976 when he served for two years as Legislative Assistant to Congressman Paul G. Rogers (D-FL) a 12 term member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Between 1978 and 1981 he served on the House Foreign Affairs Asia Subcommittee staff seconded from the Select Committee on Narcotics. In 1981 he was appointed as Special Assistant to the Assistant Administrator of Asia in the U.S. Agency for International Development in the Department of State. Orr holds a B.A. in History, cum laude, from Florida Atlantic University, an M.A. in Government from Georgetown University and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Tokyo University. He speaks German and Japanese fluently and has intermediate French.

Carl Wieman, Nominee for Associate Director for Science, Office of Science and Technology Policy
Dr. Carl Wieman currently divides his time between the University of British Columbia and the University of Colorado.  At each institution, he serves as both the Director of Collaborative Science Education Initiatives aimed at achieving widespread improvement in undergraduate science education and as a Professor of Physics. From 1984 through 2006, he was a Distinguished Professor of Physics and Presidential Teaching Scholar at the University of Colorado. While at the University of Colorado, he was a Fellow of JILA (a joint federal-university institute for interdisciplinary research in the physical sciences) and he served as the Chair of JILA from 1993-95.  Dr. Wieman has conducted extensive research in atomic and laser physics.  His research has been recognized with numerous awards including sharing the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2001 for the creation of a new form of matter known as “Bose-Einstein condensation”. Dr. Wieman has also worked extensively on research and innovations for improving science education; he was the founding Chair of the National Academy of Sciences Board on Science Education. He has received numerous awards, including the National Science Foundation’s Distinguished Teaching Scholar Award (2001), the Carnegie Foundation’s U.S. University Professor of the Year Award (2004), and the American Association of Physics Teachers’ Oersted Medal (2007) for his work on science education.  Dr. Wieman received his B.S. in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1973 and his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1977.

The Biotechnology Study Center of NYU School of Medicine will hold its annual awards symposium on April 5, 2010, to honor three outstanding leaders in biomedical research. The Dart/NYU Biotechnology Achievement Awards recognize the role of pure science in the development of pharmaceuticals and honors those scientists whose work has led to major advances to improving care provided at the patient's bedside. Recipients of this year's awards include:

Martin Raff, MD, emeritus professor of biology and scientist in the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology, University College London, for discovering how cell surface molecules govern life, death and memory in the nervous and immune systems.

Paul Greengard, PhD, Vincent Astor Professor, Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience, The Rockefeller University, for translating Nobel Prize–winning discoveries of signal transduction in the nervous system from bench to bedside.

Leslie B. Vosshall, PhD, investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Chemers Family Associate Professor; head of the Laboratory of Neurogenetics and Behavior, The Rockefeller University, for discovering odor-sensing pathways in insects that may lead to the design of 21st-century insect repellants.

"We applaud the honorees of this year's distinguished awards for their innovative research in biotechnology and molecular biology," said Gerald Weissmann, MD, research professor of medicine in the Division of Rheumatology and director of the Biotechnology Study Center. "The discoveries of these extraordinary scientists have already had an impact on human health and promise even more for the future." Dr. Weissmann will chair the awards symposium, co-sponsored by the NYU School of Medicine's Honors Program and featuring presentations by each of the awardees.

This year marks the tenth anniversary of this awards symposium. Previous winners from both institutions include:

• Barry Coller, MD, David Rockefeller Professor, vice president for medical affairs and physician-in-chief, The Rockefeller University, recipient of the Dart/New York University School of Medicine 2003 Biotechnology Alumnus Award

• Emil C. Gotschlich, MD, R. Gwin Follis-Chevron Professor, The Rockefeller University, recipient of the Dart/New York University School of Medicine 2008 Biotechnology Alumnus Award

• Salvador Moncada, MD, PhD, director, Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research, University College London, recipient of the Dart/New York University School of Medicine 2007 Achievement Award in Applied Biotechnology

The Biotechnology Study Center is an academic center for the study of biotechnology with the end-goal of significantly impacting public health. The Dart/NYU Biotechnology Achievement Awards are supported by a generous grant from Dart Neuroscience LLC since 2004 and are awarded on behalf of the Fellows of the Center at The Biotechnology Center.

BACKGROUND on 2010 AWARD RECIPIENTS:

In Basic Biotechnology: Martin Raff, MD, emeritus professor of biology and scientist in the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology, University College London, defined cell-surface antigenic markers for mouse T and B lymphocytes and used them to study the distributions and functions of these cells. In cell biology, Dr. Raff discovered (with Stefanello dePetris and R.B. Taylor) patching, capping, and endocytosis of surface immunoglobulin on B lymphocytes, providing the first link between ligand-induced redistribution and endocytosis of cell-surface receptors and intracellular signaling; these findings also made an important contribution to the evolving concept of cell membranes as fluid structures. Dr. Raff also provided the first evidence that most mammalian cells require signals from other cells to avoid apoptosis, or programmed cell death. In neurobiology, he used cell-surface markers to distinguish and manipulate distinct populations of neural cells. He used this approach to identify and purify oligodendrocyte precursor cells and to study the intracellular programs and intercellular signals that regulate their development; he showed, for example, how a novel intracellular-timing mechanism helps control cell numbers by influencing when the precursor cells stop dividing and differentiate. Dr. Raff is a past president of the British Society of Cell Biology and was the first chairman of the UK Life Sciences Committee. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, the British Academy of Medical Sciences, and the Academia Europaea, a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences. He has received the Feldberg Prize and honorary degrees from McGill University and the Free University of Brussels. He is a co-author of two widely used cell biology textbooks, Molecular Biology of the Cell and Essential Cell Biology.

In Applied Biotechnology: Paul Greengard, PhD, Vincent Astor Professor, Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience, The Rockefeller University, was awarded the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his contributions to elucidating how neurotransmitters work in signal transduction in the nervous system. His recent work has elucidated the molecular defects responsible for various neurological and psychiatric disorders and determined the exact targets at which neuro- and psychoactive drugs exert their pharmacological actions. His lab has shown that errors in the biochemical steps that underlie this communication play a role in disorders as varied as Alzheimer's disease and depression. Recent research has also showed that a gene called p11 is closely related to serotonin transmission in the brain and may play a key role in determining susceptibility to depression. His newest work is also bringing products from the bench to the bedside. Intra-Cellular Therapies, Inc. (ITI) is located in New York City and is developing novel drugs for the treatment of neuropsychiatric and neurologic diseases and other disorders of the central nervous system. The company began by commercializing technologies developed in Dr. Greengard's lab at The Rockefeller University. The company's most advanced drug, called ITI-007, is currently in phase II clinical trials for the treatment of schizophrenia and sleep disorders associated with neuropsychiatric and neurological diseases. ITI recently completed a phase II clinical study demonstrating that ITI-007 improves sleep in patients with sleep maintenance insomnia. Other programs are focused on the development of therapeutics for the treatment of cognitive deficits in schizophrenia and other disorders, bipolar disorder, Parkinson's disease, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, depression and Alzheimer's disease.

Dr. Greengard has received numerous awards including the Metropolitan Life Foundation Award for Medical Research, the Charles A. Dana Award for Pioneering Achievements in Health, the Ralph W. Gerard Prize in Neuroscience from the Society for Neuroscience, The National Academy of Sciences Award in the Neurosciences, and the 3M Life Sciences Award of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. He is an honorary member of the National Academies of Science in Sweden, Norway and Serbia and has been the recipient of many honorary degrees. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.

NYU Biotechnology Alumnae Award: Leslie B. Vosshall, PhD, investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Chemers Family Associate Professor; head of the Laboratory of Neurogenetics and Behavior, The Rockefeller University, used the fly, Drosophila melanogaster, to elucidate the basic mechanisms of olfaction in insects. She discovered a specialized odorant receptor pair that permits insects to detect carbon dioxide, thereby enabling disease-bearing mosquitoes to seek their host. Sure enough, DEET—the universal insect repellent—works by blocking signaling via similar such co-receptors. Dr. Vosshall has recently expanded the focus of the group into mosquito biology in an effort to study which sensory cues guide human host-seeking behavior and what internal signals modulate blood-feeding. Her target-based approach is developing new candidate insect repellents that may provide solutions to public health problems caused by mosquitoes. After documenting that olfaction is crucial for the Darwinian survival of insects, she asked if there were genetic differences in human sensory perception. Unlike flies, humans can tell scientists what they smell. Using psychophysical experiments in an outpatient setting in The Rockefeller University Hospital, she was able to show that genetic variation in one human odorant receptor is a major determinant of how humans perceive androstenone, an odorous derivative of testosterone: Blanche DuBois meets Stanley Kowalski. One might also call this a device of nature to sniff out nurture.

Dr. Vosshall is an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a recipient of awards from the John Merck, Beckman, and McKnight Foundations. She received the 2002 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, a 2005 New York City Mayor's Young Investigator Award for Excellence in Science and Technology, a 2007 Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists, and the 2009 Lawrence C. Katz Prize from Duke University.

About the NYU School of Medicine Biotechnology Study Center
The NYU School of Medicine Biotechnology Study Center brings together an extraordinary group of biomedical scientists, social scientists, legal experts, and business leaders, who are among the top influencers in their fields. The Center was established in 2000 by Gerald Weissmann, MD, research professor of medicine at NYU School of Medicine and director of the Biotechnology Study Center, and Nobel laureates Sir John Vane of the William Harvey Research Institute, and Bengt Samuelsson of the Karolinska Institute, among others. The Biotechnology Center serves as an academic center for the study of biotechnology as a means of impacting public health. 

Media Inquiries:

Lisa Greiner

212-404-3532 | 646-592-3044 cell | lisa.greiner@nyumc.org  

      

What if I told you that just minutes from downtown Los Angeles, situated between USC and the LA Memorial Coliseum in historic Exposition Park, there exists a kelp forest, which is home to more than 1,500 fish and other marine animals?

Would you believe it?

Well, you should, because this "Rainforest of the Sea" is just one part of a brand new permanent exhibition wing at the California Science Center.

The California Science Center will unveil the new "Ecosystems" exhibit, at a ribbon-cutting ceremony this Thursday. The major expansion adds 45,000 square feet to the Center - nearly doubling the amount of exhibition space - and features more than 250 species of living plants and animals and hands-on science exhibits in 11 immersive environments - unique among science centers in the United States.

The California Science Center "aspire[s] to stimulate curiosity and inspire[s] science learning in everyone by creating fun, memorable experiences, because we value science as an indispensable tool for understanding our world, accessibility and inclusiveness, and enriching people's lives." From walking through a living kelp forest to experimenting on a polar ice wall, both children and adults will be awed and inspired while learning about some of the Earth's most fascinating ecosystems.

Here are some of the highlights from our recent visit:

Why do we let some animals into our home, but then try to keep other animals out? In the kitchen, a mouse is a pest and we call the exterminator. But in the bedroom, the mouse is a member of the family, complete with running wheel, toys, and food.

The Family Discovery Room helps the youngest visitors learn about the family home as an ecosystem. Visual and interactive exhibits showcase worms in a backyard garden compost pile and mice munching on crumbs in the kitchen.

Walk through a 24-foot long transparent acrylic tunnel and see the life that exists in our coastal Kelp Forests. “Rain Forests of the Sea,” the 188,000 gallon kelp habitat illustrates the incredible diversity existing in our sea forests. The exhibit demonstrates how kelp forests depend on four basic factors: a rocky substrate, sunlight, moving water and high nutrient levels. Horn sharks, swell sharks, giant sea bass, wolf eels, bat rays, and garibaldi (California's state fish) will be among the more than 1,500 fish seen in this habitat.

Visitors can learn about life in the most extreme ecosystems on Earth. See how live animals like tortoises, scorpions, and lizards are able to survive in the extreme heat of the desert.

Near the oceans' Deep Sea Vents, ambient temperatures can be up to 760 degrees Fahrenheit and sunlight is non-existent. Visitors will learn how organisms have adapted to this harsh climate by using the Earth’s own internal heat to replace sunlight, and other adaptations. Real preserved specimens collected from around real vents, including shrimp, tubeworms and crabs, are on display.

Life at the Poles can be tough, unless you're prepared to deal with the extreme cold. On a large cold ice wall, visitors get to try out different mittens simulating how animal fur and feathers provide insulation to keep warm.

The surface of the Kelp Forest in the place where ecosystems collide at the Rocky Shore. Here, at a touch tank with sea stars, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, snails and more, visitors can learn first-hand about how different organisms have adapted to this extreme environment.

At the Rocky Shore, visitors can also learn about waves and tides by watching the artificial wave machine, and can experience life as a barnacle in a game that demonstrates how hard it must be to find something to eat in the violent waters of the intertidal zone.

These represent only a tiny fraction of the things to see and do in Ecosystems. But one other exhibit is worth mentioning: the L.A. Zone.

Interactive exhibits invite guests to explore how cities function as ecosystems, but with unique challenges in the issues of energy, water, waste and wildlife. Use a multi-touch map (a table-sized iPhone!) to pan around the Los Angeles Basin and learn about weather patterns, wind currents, and the geologic make-up of Southern California. Find your house and other landmarks on a gigantic floor map spanning the gallery. Sit on a bicycle and see how much more energy it takes to light up a grid of standard incandescent lightbulbs than a grid of energy-efficient CFL bulbs (hint: it's like going to the gym!)

Ready to go check out Ecosystems?
Admission to Ecosystems exhibits is free; however, to provide a quality guest experience, entry will be regulated with a timed ticket which can be acquired online, by phone or in person at the Box Office. A service or convenience fee will apply. There will also be a “standby” line for those who do not wish to purchase an entry ticket. Priority entry to Ecosystems will be available with an IMAX ticket purchase or for Science Center members. For details, please visit the website at www.californiasciencecenter.org or phone (213) 744-2019.

The California Science Center and IMAX Theater are located in historic Exposition Park just west of the Harbor (110) Freeway at 700 Exposition Park Drive, Los Angeles. Open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. For recorded information, including IMAX show times, call 323.SCIENCE (323.724-3623).

IMAX ticket prices range from $5.00 to $8.25. For advance ticket purchases, group rates, or to make reservations for any visiting group of 15 or more (required), call 213.744-2019. Parking is available in the guest lot at Figueroa and 39th / Exposition Park Drive at $8 per car, $10 for school buses and $25 for commercial buses or oversize vehicles. Both the Science Center and IMAX Theater are wheelchair accessible. For further information, please visit the website at www.californiasciencecenter.org.

Diver photo courtesy California Science Center, Leroy Hamilton/Photographer. All other photos by Jason Goldman/LAist.

Rona Williams tells how she was swept along motorway for almost a minute before truck driver realised car was trapped

The driver of a car filmed being shunted sideways along a motorway under the front bumper of a tanker lorry at 60mph telephoned the emergency services and yelled: "I'm going to die", she has recalled.

The terrifying incident was filmed by a passenger in another car, and the footage has been watched by hundreds of thousands of people since it was uploaded on YouTube last week.

Rona Williams, a 31-year-old vet from York, said she had joined the A1(M) near Leeds when her Renault Clio was clipped by the lorry and spun around, ending up lodged beneath the bumper.

The truck driver, oblivious to what had happened, continued to drive at around 60mph.

"I just felt a knock and then I was travelling sideways, twisted 90 degrees clockwise," Williams told the Daily Mail.

She said she attempted to alert the driver by sounding her horn and flashing her hazard lights, but he appeared not to notice.

"I kept thinking: 'Nobody knows I'm here. Nobody has seen me,'" she said. "I tried everything.

"I was watching other cars, thinking: 'Help me, just help me,' but they didn't seem to be doing very much."

Williams then alerted the emergency services on her mobile phone. "I wasn't on hands-free, but I figured I wasn't really driving the car," she told the paper.

"I just screamed at the operator: 'I'm going to die, I'm going to die. Can you do something?'

"She tried to calm me down, but there wasn't really anything she could do at the end of the phone."

The ordeal lasted almost a minute before the lorry driver realised what had happened and stopped on the hard shoulder.

"He didn't seem overly concerned," she said. "He even asked if I thought he needed to hang around."

Williams said she was impressed that her "tough little car" had escaped with just a dented side panel and damaged tyres.

Arclid Transport, the owner of the lorry involved, and West Yorkshire police have both said they are looking into the incident.

Happy Sunday Bread Heads! This week we’re going to be making French Bread in the boule style. Also, since you all have been so good, there will be a recipe to turn your French Bread into French Toast!

French bread is really old school. It has four ingredients, flour, water, yeast and salt. That is it. But from those basic ingredients you can get one of the all time best breads, if you are willing to take the time to do it right.

This is one of the few recipes where for the very best results you should go and find some hard wheat bread flour. This flour has more gluten in it which is important for forming the large bubbles in the dough that give it the distinctive texture and flavor of French Bread. Because of this it will take extra time, so plan ahead!

The other important factor is the three risings as opposed the normal two of most breads. This combined with the high cooking temperature make this simple bread so distinctive.

So, away we go!

Ingredients:

6 cups bread flour (you can use all purpose if that is all you have on hand)
2 packages (4 ½ teaspoons) dry yeast
2 ½ cups hot water (120 to 130 degrees)
2 teaspoons each salt and warm water

Baking Pans – One sheet pan greased or covered in parchment paper.
Special needs – A very large bowl

Method:

In a large bowl combing 4 cups of flour and the hot water and yeast, if you are using a stand mixer, beat with either the paddle or the whisk attachment. Beat by machine or hand for 10 minutes (it is a good work-out by hand!).

Dissolve the salt in the two teaspoons of warm water and mix into the mixture for about 30 seconds.

If you are using the stand mixer, attach the dough hook. Add flour ¼ cup at a time, until the dough has formed under the hook and cleans the sides of the bowl. If it is sticky add sprinkles of flour until it is not. Once you have gotten it to this state, let it knead at medium speed for 10 minutes.

If you are doing this by hand, mix in the flour ½ cup at a time, until the dough is a shaggy but solid mass. Flour your hands and turn it out onto a well floured work surface. Begin kneading it with a strong and aggressive push-turn-fold motion. If the dough is sticky, sprinkle it with flour. When your arms get tired, break up the kneading by picking the dough up and slamming it down on the work surface a couple of times. This will really encourage the formation of gluten. Knead for 10 minutes (you will get a good enough work out that you won’t feel guilty about eating the bread!)

First Rising:
Place the dough in a large bowl that has been greased with vegetable oil. Turn the dough over so it has a thin coating of oil on the surface. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap. Let rise for 1 ½ to 2 hours or until it has tripled in volume. Below is a picture of the bowl I use. You can see how little the dough looks. In the second picture it is 1 ½ hours later and the dough has filled the bowl.

Punch the dough down and turn out onto a well floured work surface. Knead for 30 seconds or so. Return it to the bowl and let it rise again for about 1 to 1 ½ hours or until the dough has tripled in volume again.

Shaping:

By now the dough will be light and fluffy. Turn it out onto a well floured work surface and punch it down. For the round boule loaves divide the dough into two equal halves (don’t get all anal retentive about it, just eyeball the cut). Shape them into nice rounds by holding one in both hands and pushing the edges towards the middle of the bottom.

Place them on the sheet pan and cover with a towel. Leave them to rise for about 45 minutes to 1 hour or until they have doubled in volume.

Baking:

20 minutes before baking the loaves, set your lower rack at the lowest setting and place a broiler pan on it. Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees.

Five minute before baking, pour a cup of hot water into the broiler pan and shut the over. This will provide the steam that you need for your curst. Wear your oven mitts while doing this, it will protect you from the chance of getting burned by the steam (I have never been burned by the steam doing this, but why take any chances? ).

Right before slipping the loves into the oven, cut a tic-tac-toe patter in the top and brush them with a little water (this will make your curst even better!). Slip the loaves into the hot oven and bake for 25-30 minutes.

The loves should be golden brown when they are done. Test for doneness by lifting one of the loaves and thumping the bottom (use oven mitts for this, they are 450 degrees after all!) if it is hard and sounds hollow your loaves are done, if not put them back in for five more minutes.

Place your loaves on wire rack to cool completely.

There is your French bread. It is one of the easiest breads to make, but one of the most worthwhile. If you don’t want the French toast recipe, out of some healthy eating thing, stop here.

Now, for all those who could not resist lets talk French Toast. Most of the time French Toast at home frankly sucks. There are a lot of reasons for this, but the biggest two are that the bread is not right and the process is rushed. There is no rushing great French Toast, you have to start the night before.

Some folks will tell you that you should have a really eggy bread like Brioche or Challa to make great French Toast (which is not actually from France, but Belgium). I disagree; French bread is a great base for this dish.

The thing is you can not start with fresh bread of any kind. It has to be stale in order to soak up the custard mix properly. Otherwise you will get some soggy and frankly icky mess. Cut your bread in ½ to ¾ inch slices and lay it out the night before. See the picture below.

At the same time make the custard mix. This gives it time for all the flavors to meld.

Ingredients:

½ cup Whole Milk
½ cup Heavy Cream
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons honey (heat in microwave for about 20 seconds to make it thin enough to pour and mix easily)
½ teaspoon vanilla extract (do yourself and your family a favor, buy the real stuff!)
½ teaspoon almond extract (same deal as above)
¼ teaspoon salt.

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl or plastic container with a lid and whisk to mix and put in the refrigerator over night.

Method:

Pour the custard into a pie or cake pan. Dip each piece in the custard for 30 seconds and then let stand on a tray or place for 2 minutes. Don’t scrimp on this step! The custard will not soak into the bread in less time. If it does not get into the bread you will get a cracker with some custard cooked to the top. Take your time, I promise you it is worth it!

While the custard is soaking in, heat two table spoons of butter (real butter please, no margarine! After all at this point why scrimp?) until it is melted and bubbly. Heat your oven to 350 degrees (to stash the done toast in until the whole batch is done). Cook the bread pieces two or three at a time (depending on the size of your skillet) and then place them on a cookie sheet in the oven to stay warm.

Again, take your time, it will take about five minutes a side for the toast to cook. Go get a cup of coffee or something, don’t fiddle with them! When they are mostly golden brown on the bottom, flip them and walk away again, go!

When they come out of the pan (or oven) lightly sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and serve with real maple syrup (I told you this was not for the health conscious, didn’t I?) and butter.

The custard will make about 12 slices of French Toast, but you should not cut it down to make less, I am always disappointed when I do.

Yes, this all takes a little bit of time, but it is soooooo worth it! They will be crisp on the outside, tender on the inside, sweet with just a hint of almond, which plays off the maple syrup fabulously!

So, who is making French bread today and French toast next Saturday?

The flour is yours.

Tags: bread, Food Sunday, French Bread, French Toast, recipe, Teaching

A huge boom in natural gas production could now be coming in Australia, but in a different fashion from that in the U.S..

It's offshore, down under:

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(AP) - First gold, then coal and iron ore. Now, a new bonanza is about to be unleashed from beneath Down Under: Australia's got gas.

Projects being ramped up to tap huge undersea fields off the country's northwest could quadruple Australia's exports of liquefied natural gas in the next few years and turn it into what the country's resources minister has called an "energy superpower."

It will be the next stage of a long boom that has enriched Australia and made it a key supplier of the raw materials underpinning Asia's development—from the girders in city skyscrapers to the fuel burned to light them.

"We have what the world, and particularly the rapidly growing economies of Asia, want—iron ore, energy and minerals," said Colin Barnett, the premier of Western Australia state, which is at the heart of the new boom.

The mostly desert state has become known for a frontier atmosphere not unlike that of Australia's 19th century gold rush, the country's first mining boom that drew enough migrants to almost triple Australia's population within a decade.

As a major source of the materials driving Asia's economic surge, Australia has increasingly been drawn into the orbit of emerging giants China and India, spawning tensions and discord. There are also nagging worries over economic overheating and long-lasting environmental damage caused by its thriving resource industry.

Gas was discovered off Australia's remote northwest coast in the 1970s. But its exploitation has lagged behind iron ore and coal that have been easier to get and more in demand.

Now, gas is gaining popularity as a cleaner-burning alternative to coal in power generation, with a fraction of the greenhouse gas emissions.

The biggest boost in the sector came last September, when Chevron and joint venture partners ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell announced they would go ahead with the massive Gorgon project.

The venture will drill fields about 80 miles (130 kilometers) offshore to tap into an estimated 40 trillion cubic feet of gas, build pipelines and a liquefaction plant and port for about AU$43 billion ($41 billion)—roughly the size of Guatemala's gross national product.

If that sounds big, the numbers stack up. The decision to proceed came on the heels of news that ExxonMobil Corp. had signed a 20-year deal worth about AU$50 billion to supply PetroChina Co. with LNG from its share of Gorgon. Similar deals for Gorgon gas worth another AU$70 billion were struck with power companies in Japan, South Korea and India.

The Australian government says Gorgon could generate exports worth AU$300 billion during the next 20 years. And that's just one project. There are at least a half dozen other large gas plans in the works, including Australian company Woodside's $12 billion plan to tap the Browse fields holding an estimated 20 trillion cubic feet of gas.

Yet even as the projects pile up, Australia is trying to tamp down strains with China that have taken some of the gloss of its mineral and energy endowments.

On Monday an Australian executive of mining giant Rio Tinto will face court in China charged with stealing commercial secrets in a trial Australian lawmakers are concerned is linked to Beijing's unsuccessful campaign to get lower iron ore prices. The case has added to unease about close China relations after a string of deals for state-owned Chinese firms to buy into Australian resource projects.

Other problems are local but no less intractable.

Gorgon, Browse and some of the other big deposits lie off the Pilbara, a remote Outback region of Western Australia that is buffeted by a half-dozen cyclones a year and where temperatures can soar to 118 degrees (48 C).

Western Australia's few urban areas are already bursting at the seams because of the mining boom. A five-hour flight across nearly unbroken desert from Sydney, the state capital of Perth can't build hotels fast enough to keep up with demand, and cranes building office towers dot the skyline.

A severe worker shortage means companies compete for just about everyone from mine site managers to truck drivers—who can earn more than AU$120,000 a year in salary and a rest and recuperation flight to Perth every month.

One of the main supply towns is Karratha, a sweltering collection of houses and a few shops and pubs nestled between hills covered in spinifex and boulders of a deep-maroon color that belies the iron content within.

It's more than 1,000 miles (1,800 kilometers) from the nearest city, surrounded by some of Australia's harshest territory, and there's almost no one here but miners. A bungalow with a pool can set you back AU$2,000 a week in rent.

"It's gone bloomin' overboard," said Jim Holland, a driver and 40-year-veteran of mining in the region. "The house down the road from me sold the other week for $900,000, three bedrooms."

Holland is one of the lucky ones. Rio Tinto in the 1980s offered to sell some company-owned houses to longtime workers for around AU$45,000, and he took it up. Before too long he plans to sell up and retire in comfort to Thailand.

The federal government has appointed a task force to find ways to fill an expected shortfall of 70,000 construction workers in the resource sector in the next decade, with fast tracking of visas for skilled migrant workers—likely from Asia and the Middle East—a key consideration.

Gorgon alone is expected to create 10,000 jobs—including several thousand workers during construction on currently uninhabited Barrow Island.

Conservationists say the government should never have approved Barrow Island as a site for the liquefaction plant. The nature reserve is home to species such as the flatback turtle and the burrowing bettong, a rat-like kangaroo that no longer survives on the mainland.

"I don't see how you can have a safe operating environment for an industrial facility and also create the natural dark conditions that turtles need in order to not be disturbed from their natural nesting," said Gilly Llewellyn, the World Wildlife Fund's conservation manager.

Chevron says the plans for Gorgon avoid conservation sites and the project is environmentally friendly because it includes plans to inject polluting carbon dioxide gases into an underground trap. Chevron did not respond to requests for an interview.

Environmental concerns about the industry deepened last year after fire erupted on an oil and gas rig at a different field off the northwest coast and burned unchecked for more than two months, spilling thousands of barrels of oil into the sea.

On Barrow Island, the first signs of Gorgon are starting to show. Shipping containers—entirely shrink-wrapped to prevent mainland pests such as rats or cockroaches being introduced—are being unloaded and scrub cleared for an accommodation camp, said Anne Nolan, a state government official who visited this month.

Before long, it will be a bustling scene of more than 3,000 people working around the clock.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Obama Set To Hack $36.5 Billion In Oil And Gas Subsidies
• The Guy Who Crashed Amaranth Burned Again For Market Manipulation
• America's Massive Shale Gas Revolution Hits Canada Threatening LNG Glut

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The US finally seems to be losing patience now that Netanyahu's behaviour is endangering its troops

Talk about Israel to all but its most severe critics in America and whatever they say it's likely to be underpinned by an assumption that the US is the Jewish state's best friend. Doubts may emerge about Gaza and settlements but any criticism is invariably wrapped in the assumption that the US has Israel's interests, particularly its security, at heart. It's not surprising given that American politicians pledge their loyalty to the Jewish state over and over, and mean it.

They see things differently in Jerusalem. In a country permeated by fear and insecurity, Israelis define the rest of the world not by loyalties but by varying degrees of distrust. You can hear it among residents of Jewish settlements deep in the occupied territories and in the cafes of liberal Tel Aviv: angst over the perception of a new wave of antisemitism gripping Europe, the incomprehension over foreign condemnation of Israel's crimes in Gaza, the common agreement that the United Nations is a conspiracy against the Jewish state.

In all of this, the US emerges as the least distrusted country by far (Britain commands a much lower level of confidence). Israelis recognise that they have long counted on Washington to pay a good chunk of their military budget and provide diplomatic cover for the illegalities of occupation.But that is a far cry from trust, and what there was has been severely eroded since Barack Obama came to power as America catches up with the idea that Israeli government policies do not automatically equate with what is in Israel's interests or the promotion of peace.

That distinction has finally burst forth with the crisis over settlement building in East Jerusalem, exposing how far American political thinking has already shifted and the depth of Israel's prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu's failure to understand it. To the alarm of some Israeli leaders, what they regarded as a minor diplomatic blunder in announcing yet more ethnically exclusive housing in East Jerusalem has resulted not only in unusually forceful criticism from Washington, but the disturbing and unprecedented assertion by the White House that Israeli policies are jeopardising American interests and even endangering the lives of US soldier fighting in the Middle East. In days, the Israeli government has seen itself repositioned from valuable US ally in the war on terror to where it really belongs – as the primary obstacle to peace.

It was always striking to watch the smugness with which Israeli politicians sold Americans the idea that the only issue in considering the conflict with the Palestinians was what Ariel Sharon called, with deeply rolling Rs, the "tehrroar". The ever-expanding Jewish settlements, the annexing of land, expulsion of Palestinians, the killings of Arab children, the crimes of occupation, were discarded as an irrelevance. No one in George Bush's White House cared to challenge Sharon on that.

In Israel, ordinary people almost seemed programmed to repeat the wearying mantra that all the Jewish state ever wanted was peace but that all it ever got in return was blood and killing. That was a comfortable position for Israelis who, all too understandably at the height of the suicide bombings, found it difficult to reflect on why Palestinians might be blowing themselves up. But the myth of the relentless search for peace was important to the efforts of Sharon and Netanyahu to ensure that Americans did not call them on policies that deliberately or not – mostly deliberately – sabotaged its ever-diminishing prospects. Nowhere was this more clear than over the ever growing settlements.

Israel's apologists would have the world believe that the construction of homes solely for Jews in the occupied territories had no impact on the peace process and that the issue would be resolved in final status talks. But settlement construction is a litmus test of Israeli government intent because it is constantly changing the picture on the ground. The number of Jewish settlers in the West Bank has more doubled since the Oslo peace accords were signed in 1993. How is it possible to see that as anything but an attempt to preempt an agreement on Palestine's borders?

Watching Israel's barrier carve its way through Arab neighbourhoods of Jerusalem and the West Bank, its real intent was all too evident. The clues lay in the twists and turns that separated Palestinian villages from land then delivered up to Jewish settlers. As the barrier went up, there was barely a peep of protest from Washington.

But the ground has also shifted in America. The unconditional support for the Jewish state has been eroding in critical areas. Nowhere is that clearer than among American Jews, many of whom stayed quiet for so long out of loyalty to the country of Israel and Zionism, even as they grew increasingly disturbed at what was being done in their name by the militarists in Jerusalem.

In Washington, a group of Jews broke the taboo against criticising Israeli policy and launched J Street, an organisation that believes Israel's security lies in a just peace with the Palestinians. Founded by Jeremy Ben-Ami, a former domestic policy adviser to Bill Clinton with Israeli parents, it drew the backing of an array of community leaders, activists and academics. It reflects the doubts held by a significant proportion of American Jews about Jerusalem's militarist policies and, in particular, the deep-rooted obsession with settlements. Those doubts were heard and shared in the White House. The government in Jerusalem has been slow to grasp the significance of J Street because for so long many American Jews declined to voice their doubts out of loyalty. Buoyed by the certainty that it was irrelevant, Netanyahu dismissed the group as anti-Israeli and his foreign ministry snubbed a delegation of visiting members of the US congress sponsored by the Jewish organisation.

It was a mistake because it only confirmed in the minds of some in Congress and the administration that Israel will only move when pushed.

Recent events have confirmed that view as Netanyahu finally begins to understand the consequences of his mistake and climbs down, agreeing to a series of American demands aimed at kick-starting negotiations and putting the latest settlement plans on hold. It's a start, but Netanyahu is not a courageous leader nor an honest one. He pays lip service to a peace agreement but, like Sharon, spent the 1990s sabotaging attempts to reach agreements with the Palestinians and denouncing Israeli leaders who sought peace as traitors or worse. Netanyahu has still to commit himself to a genuinely independent Palestinian state. He will not do the right thing for the right reason.

Some in the US administration are straining at the leash to finally take him on and show him the way after continual humiliation of the US president. The question is whether Obama himself is now finally up for the fight.

Chris McGreal was the Guardian's Middle East correspondent for much of the last decade. He is now based in Washington.

With knowledge-intensive work growing ever more important, the government must rethink its stance on university cuts

Bristol University's BlueCrystal 2 was one of the fastest computers in the UK when it was installed a year ago. It can do 37 trillion computations a second and the university uses it for everything from climate-change forecasts to marshalling vast data sets in social science. It is a £7m investment that sustains the university's position in the top flight – but within a couple of years it will need to be upgraded just to keep up with the pace of computer development. The question is whether Bristol will have the funds – or more realistically, what it will have to sacrifice in an ice-cold financial climate to sustain its leadership.

Britain is famous for its world-leading Imperial College, Cambridge and Oxford universities – less well known is that it has 29 universities in the world top 200. Some of what goes on is mind-blowing. There is Durham University's Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology (IPPP), which drives the analysis behind the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva. York has a Neuroimaging Centre (YNiC) that is a world leader. So it goes on.

All of this is the result of a great build-up of investment over the past decade. New Labour may have constructed a bubble economy that has now popped, but it did have the wit to spend some of the proceeds on building up an astonishing depth in our universities. If you believe that knowledge-intensive work will become ever more important economically and socially – and the evidence is unambiguous – our universities are a major national asset. They are now at risk – and with them one of the few chances of raising our dismal long-term growth rate in a world that is going to be much tougher. Britain has had a comparatively easy 30 years, courtesy first of North Sea oil and latterly from an unsustainable credit boom. Now we will have to earn our living – and universities are an indispensable means to doing just that. But instead of fighting for them, the political parties are talking of ring-fencing spending on health and the police and aid development – implying even bigger cuts ahead for universities. It is insane.

The risk does not come from the £1bn mix of current and capital spending cuts that was announced last week. That implies that three-quarters of universities will have to cut spending in real terms, albeit by small amounts. University vice-chancellors know that they have had a good decade, that the largest ever peacetime public deficit has to be reduced and that universities have to take their share of the cuts. They can defer capital spending for a year or two and by lowering the ceiling for student support for families with incomes of £60,000 to, say, £30,000 can find most of the rest of the savings – in effect a surrogate way of raising taxation on middle-income families although nobody is going to fess up to it. The £1bn can be absorbed. It won't be painless, but it can be done.

It is the next billion that will start to cut deep, and a further billion would cause devastation – and this is almost inevitable given the extraordinary nature of the economic and political debate. This is the menace that has to be resisted to the last. There is too much over-the-top talk by economists signing letters to the Sunday Times that the risks of higher interest rates and further exchange rate weakness with such a large public deficit are so overwhelming that everything must be sacrificed to mitigate them. (Some of these economists are employed by universities who are in the front line for deficit cutting and who, I hope, will be volunteering for salary cuts or redundancy.) Of course there are risks. The issue is whether they are so overwhelming that other objectives, like sustaining the institutions that underpin the future economy, have to be abandoned. And whether deficit cutting can be more measured and less self-harming.

The government wanted to show its many critics that it meant business over cuts – and its plans had strength. As universities were the softest target, they were first in line. It is a false calculation. The much-derided knowledge economy is a reality. The fastest growing organisations in both the public and private sector are knowledge intensive. All western economies are spending an ever higher share of their national output on so-called intangibles – research, teaching, branding and marketing, design – in the struggle for competitive advantage. And it is graduates who do most of the heavy lifting in these areas. The Work Foundation, of which I am executive vice-chair, calculates that in 1970 around a fifth of the workforce were "knowledge" workers with degrees or their equivalent; today it is two-fifths. By 2020 it will be half; by 2040 60%.

Universities are the essential sinew of this new economy – both in their research and in their teaching. They are the principal institutions building the scientific and technological knowledge on which innovative ideas are built. They offer freedom to think and experiment – and have huge spillover effects on economy and society. For example, one study (by a team including one of George Osborne's economic advisers, Rupert Harrison, in a former incarnation) showed that chemistry departments rated 5 or 5* by the Research Assessment Exercise are likely to have attracted around twice as many local labs doing R&D; in pharmaceuticals and around three times as many foreign-owned pharmaceuticals R&D; labs. The government rightly wants more of this, ludicrously criticised by some liberal left academics as part of its "neo-liberal" agenda. They are wrong. This is part of a university's core purpose.

So is teaching – even of the vocational courses in the new universities that the media likes to mock. The intense focus on knowledge of everything from nursing to graphic design grows by the year. The criticism is not that Britain does too much of this; it is that it does too little. Instead of cuts and redundancies, the national debate should be how to grow our outstanding university sector.

The US spends more than 2% of GDP on its universities – the Nordic countries between 1.5 and 2%. We spend around 1%. If the chancellor and his shadow engage in a Dutch auction to lower the deficit while protecting "frontline" services, the percentage spent on universities could fall by a quarter over the next five years.

Alistair Darling has an opportunity in his budget on Wednesday to set out a different vision of Britain and the British economy. He should spell out his determination to reduce the deficit but in a measured way – and his no less equal determination to promote innovation within Britain's knowledge economy as the only way to grow economically. He should say that every part of the public sector must share in the pain. Our universities are one of our few centres of excellence. Let's recognise it – and fight for them.

Hello Mish,

Great article about High Tech research moving to China.

This, unfortunately, fits in with my personal observations.

Many of my daughter's friends who are graduating college this year plan on beginning their careers in other countries.

The schools they are graduating from include Harvard Business School, MIT, Colorado School of Mines, St. John's College and Stanford.

They will be starting their careers in New Zealand, France, South Africa, Canada, Brazil and England. Even my daughter's job choice will probably have her traveling to Italy and Germany on a regular basis.

It was startling to see that many bright young people so willing to leave this country. I don't know how many of those young men and women will actually retain their U.S. citizenship. Some really didn't seem to care one way or the other.

From my conversations with them, it is my understanding that they are very aware of what is happening in this country, as well as the world, and just wish to keep their options open.

This anecdotal observation, combined with conversations with other parents and articles that I've read, leads me to believe that the U.S. is about to encounter a "brain drain" of the next generation.

Very concerned about the ramifications of current U.S. policies and humbly yours,
Mark

In my science department 20 years ago the graduate students were 80% American, 20% foreign, mostly European and Japaneese. They all returned to their countries of origin. The INS was on their case 10 days after graduation. Today the ratio is 85% Chinese 15% Americans. None of the Chinese I've known ever return to China. All the support is ultimately coming from grants awarded to the Principal Investigator. These funds are all Federal.

This is Great Depression II papered over by programs created in Great Depression I so that the government's GDP figures hide the fact. Wake Up America! Silicon Valley's lust for indentured servants, H1-Bs, has morphed into the mechanism to transfer Silicon Valley to China and India.

The train has left the station and anyone paying on an $800,000.00 mortgage on a $1,000,000.00 Silicon Valley house will in as little as five years see themselves 50% underwater and their wages declining.

We need to immediately give a green card to every H1-B worker and end the H1-B program. If we need them, why should we ask them to leave? We either need them or we don't need them. As for foreign hard science Masters candidates, a green card, as for foreign hard science PhD candidates, a fast track to citizenship. But let us end this "indentured servitude" that harms the American worker and the H1-B worker. I don't want them to leave, I want them to be free to stay and not be exploited. This would take away the corporation's ability to cheat and game the system. Many of the successful start-ups in Silicon Valley were started by former (that is green card carrying) H1-Bs who latter became citizens.

The incentives today are for them to go "home" and start businesses there. We need to reverse that trend. For those of you not familiar with Applied Materials, they are the ones who make the secret sauce that transforms a silicon wafer into a product that drives technology. There are two firms that hold the keys to this kingdom: Applied Materials and KLA-Tencor. Now with Applied Materials moving to China, we have at most 5 years to fix things before it is "Game Over".

I'll offer a few observations that have provided some context for me during a 20 year career as an engineer and corporate executive.

1 - I'm an American-born/raised, formally trained engineer (Registered Professional Engineer in Mechanical Engineering [FL]), trained at a top 10 engineering college here in the US. Many of the graduate students at the school I attended (casual observation suggests a majority) were either Indian or Chinese nationals, who were:
* very bright
* hard working
* multilingual
* self-motivated
* willing to travel wherever in the world their services were required
* did not have any sort of entitlement attitude - they worked strictly in a meritocracy

2) In my career of more than 20 years, I have worked with a number of individuals who were outstanding engineers (mostly field engineers as opposed to research engineers) who had no "formal" college-level engineering training. They were simply people with high levels of intellectual curiosity, and innate mechanical aptitude.

3. At present I'm engaged in systems-oriented work, and am working here in the US with two gentlemen from India who speak 4 languages, have Master's Degrees in Computer Science, are willing to travel away from their families for months at a time, do outstanding work (nights/weekends included) and are eager for the opportunity to apply themselves. All this for $32/hr US, which is roughly $64K/yr US (excluding benefits).

My personal response to the changing landscape is to have learned a foreign language (Spanish in my case), and gravitated towards work in areas that are less susceptible to globalized wage equilibrium. Specifically, those areas that outsourcing can't easily overcome, as the competitive advantage is related to geographic proximity. Things like domestic transportation/distribution optimization and strategic inventory management. Even so, there are large regulatory headwinds in even these areas that are a competitive disadvantage (ever try managing hazmat and/or CARB related items in California?)...

The next few years will be very interesting to watch in terms of where production and technical talent migrate, and more telling, what portion of the flux is driven by regulatory and bureaucratic considerations.

Should make for good fun watching from the sidelines as an expat in Panama...

A line of hopeful job applicants snaked Friday through the parking lot of a grocery store that will open May 7 in Thousand Oaks. Throughout the morning, a steady stream of people kept arriving in the hope of finding work at Sprouts Farmers Market, which has taken over the former Circuit City location at Lynn Road and West Hillcrest Drive.

“I expect we’ll have about 1,000 to 1,200 applicants if it keeps up like this,” predicted Norv Rivera, who is overseeing the two-day job fair held all day Friday and again today from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Rivera, the California human resources manager for the Arizona-based Sprouts, said that in the current slow economy, applicants are coming from all walks of life, with only about 15 percent having any direct retail experience.

“We have folks coming from the construction industry. We had an actor come by, and there are a lot of folks coming in from non-retail backgrounds,” he said.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Again, looking at papers I personally find interesting....or bloggable. There are 18 new articles today and there were additional 16 articles yesterday in PLoS ONE. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Mendeley, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:

The Spread of Sleep Loss Influences Drug Use in Adolescent Social Networks:

Troubled sleep is a commonly cited consequence of adolescent drug use, but it has rarely been studied as a cause. Nor have there been any studies of the extent to which sleep behavior can spread in social networks from person to person to person. Here we map the social networks of 8,349 adolescents in order to study how sleep behavior spreads, how drug use behavior spreads, and how a friend's sleep behavior influences one's own drug use. We find clusters of poor sleep behavior and drug use that extend up to four degrees of separation (to one's friends' friends' friends' friends) in the social network. Prospective regression models show that being central in the network negatively influences future sleep outcomes, but not vice versa. Moreover, if a friend sleeps ≤7 hours, it increases the likelihood a person sleeps ≤7 hours by 11%. If a friend uses marijuana, it increases the likelihood of marijuana use by 110%. Finally, the likelihood that an individual uses drugs increases by 19% when a friend sleeps ≤7 hours, and a mediation analysis shows that 20% of this effect results from the spread of sleep behavior from one person to another. This is the first study to suggest that the spread of one behavior in social networks influences the spread of another. The results indicate that interventions should focus on healthy sleep to prevent drug use and targeting specific individuals may improve outcomes across the entire social network.

The Young, the Weak and the Sick: Evidence of Natural Selection by Predation:

It is assumed that predators mainly prey on substandard individuals, but even though some studies partially support this idea, evidence with large sample sizes, exhaustive analysis of prey and robust analysis is lacking. We gathered data from a culling program of yellow-legged gulls killed by two methods: by the use of raptors or by shooting at random. We compared both data sets to assess whether birds of prey killed randomly or by relying on specific individual features of the prey. We carried out a meticulous post-mortem examination of individuals, and analysing multiple prey characteristics simultaneously we show that raptors did not hunt randomly, but rather preferentially predate on juveniles, sick gulls, and individuals with poor muscle condition. Strikingly, gulls with an unusually good muscle condition were also predated more than expected, supporting the mass-dependent predation risk theory. This article provides a reliable example of how natural selection may operate in the wild and proves that predators mainly prey on substandard individuals.

Estimating the Potential for Adaptation of Corals to Climate Warming:

The persistence of tropical coral reefs is threatened by rapidly increasing climate warming, causing a functional breakdown of the obligate symbiosis between corals and their algal photosymbionts (Symbiodinium) through a process known as coral bleaching. Yet the potential of the coral-algal symbiosis to genetically adapt in an evolutionary sense to warming oceans is unknown. Using a quantitative genetics approach, we estimated the proportion of the variance in thermal tolerance traits that has a genetic basis (i.e. heritability) as a proxy for their adaptive potential in the widespread Indo-Pacific reef-building coral Acropora millepora. We chose two physiologically different populations that associate respectively with one thermo-tolerant (Symbiodinium clade D) and one less tolerant symbiont type (Symbiodinium C2). In both symbiont types, pulse amplitude modulated (PAM) fluorometry and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis revealed significant heritabilities for traits related to both photosynthesis and photoprotective pigment profile. However, quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) assays showed a lack of heritability in both coral host populations for their own expression of fundamental stress genes. Coral colony growth, contributed to by both symbiotic partners, displayed heritability. High heritabilities for functional key traits of algal symbionts, along with their short clonal generation time and high population sizes allow for their rapid thermal adaptation. However, the low overall heritability of coral host traits, along with the corals' long generation time, raise concern about the timely adaptation of the coral-algal symbiosis in the face of continued rapid climate warming.

Putting Culture Under the 'Spotlight' Reveals Universal Information Use for Face Recognition:

Eye movement strategies employed by humans to identify conspecifics are not universal. Westerners predominantly fixate the eyes during face recognition, whereas Easterners more the nose region, yet recognition accuracy is comparable. However, natural fixations do not unequivocally represent information extraction. So the question of whether humans universally use identical facial information to recognize faces remains unresolved. We monitored eye movements during face recognition of Western Caucasian (WC) and East Asian (EA) observers with a novel technique in face recognition that parametrically restricts information outside central vision. We used 'Spotlights' with Gaussian apertures of 2°, 5° or 8° dynamically centered on observers' fixations. Strikingly, in constrained Spotlight conditions (2° and 5°) observers of both cultures actively fixated the same facial information: the eyes and mouth. When information from both eyes and mouth was simultaneously available when fixating the nose (8°), as expected EA observers shifted their fixations towards this region. Social experience and cultural factors shape the strategies used to extract information from faces, but these results suggest that external forces do not modulate information use. Human beings rely on identical facial information to recognize conspecifics, a universal law that might be dictated by the evolutionary constraints of nature and not nurture.

Statistical Analysis of the Indus Script Using n-Grams:

The Indus script is one of the major undeciphered scripts of the ancient world. The small size of the corpus, the absence of bilingual texts, and the lack of definite knowledge of the underlying language has frustrated efforts at decipherment since the discovery of the remains of the Indus civilization. Building on previous statistical approaches, we apply the tools of statistical language processing, specifically n-gram Markov chains, to analyze the syntax of the Indus script. We find that unigrams follow a Zipf-Mandelbrot distribution. Text beginner and ender distributions are unequal, providing internal evidence for syntax. We see clear evidence of strong bigram correlations and extract significant pairs and triplets using a log-likelihood measure of association. Highly frequent pairs and triplets are not always highly significant. The model performance is evaluated using information-theoretic measures and cross-validation. The model can restore doubtfully read texts with an accuracy of about 75%. We find that a quadrigram Markov chain saturates information theoretic measures against a held-out corpus. Our work forms the basis for the development of a stochastic grammar which may be used to explore the syntax of the Indus script in greater detail.

Calculation of Disease Dynamics in a Population of Households:

Early mathematical representations of infectious disease dynamics assumed a single, large, homogeneously mixing population. Over the past decade there has been growing interest in models consisting of multiple smaller subpopulations (households, workplaces, schools, communities), with the natural assumption of strong homogeneous mixing within each subpopulation, and weaker transmission between subpopulations. Here we consider a model of SIRS (susceptible-infectious-recovered-suscep​tible) infection dynamics in a very large (assumed infinite) population of households, with the simplifying assumption that each household is of the same size (although all methods may be extended to a population with a heterogeneous distribution of household sizes). For this households model we present efficient methods for studying several quantities of epidemiological interest: (i) the threshold for invasion; (ii) the early growth rate; (iii) the household offspring distribution; (iv) the endemic prevalence of infection; and (v) the transient dynamics of the process. We utilize these methods to explore a wide region of parameter space appropriate for human infectious diseases. We then extend these results to consider the effects of more realistic gamma-distributed infectious periods. We discuss how all these results differ from standard homogeneous-mixing models and assess the implications for the invasion, transmission and persistence of infection. The computational efficiency of the methodology presented here will hopefully aid in the parameterisation of structured models and in the evaluation of appropriate responses for future disease outbreaks.

High Levels of Miticides and Agrochemicals in North American Apiaries: Implications for Honey Bee Health:

Recent declines in honey bees for crop pollination threaten fruit, nut, vegetable and seed production in the United States. A broad survey of pesticide residues was conducted on samples from migratory and other beekeepers across 23 states, one Canadian province and several agricultural cropping systems during the 2007-08 growing seasons. We have used LC/MS-MS and GC/MS to analyze bees and hive matrices for pesticide residues utilizing a modified QuEChERS method. We have found 121 different pesticides and metabolites within 887 wax, pollen, bee and associated hive samples. Almost 60% of the 259 wax and 350 pollen samples contained at least one systemic pesticide, and over 47% had both in-hive acaricides fluvalinate and coumaphos, and chlorothalonil, a widely-used fungicide. In bee pollen were found chlorothalonil at levels up to 99 ppm and the insecticides aldicarb, carbaryl, chlorpyrifos and imidacloprid, fungicides boscalid, captan and myclobutanil, and herbicide pendimethalin at 1 ppm levels. Almost all comb and foundation wax samples (98%) were contaminated with up to 204 and 94 ppm, respectively, of fluvalinate and coumaphos, and lower amounts of amitraz degradates and chlorothalonil, with an average of 6 pesticide detections per sample and a high of 39. There were fewer pesticides found in adults and brood except for those linked with bee kills by permethrin (20 ppm) and fipronil (3.1 ppm). The 98 pesticides and metabolites detected in mixtures up to 214 ppm in bee pollen alone represents a remarkably high level for toxicants in the brood and adult food of this primary pollinator. This represents over half of the maximum individual pesticide incidences ever reported for apiaries. While exposure to many of these neurotoxicants elicits acute and sublethal reductions in honey bee fitness, the effects of these materials in combinations and their direct association with CCD or declining bee health remains to be determined.

This week, Donna Simpson announced her plan to be the fattest woman in the world. But are 'gainers' who purposefully overeat risking their health or liberating themselves?

There isn't much that Emma Allen doesn't know about dieting. She once gave up solid food for four months. It didn't work out. She tried the weight-loss programme NutriSystem, but needless to say, they didn't help either. She was even one of the first generation of Atkins devotees who were required, among other things, to test their own urine.

Yet while she was publicly attempting to shed the pounds, secretly, Emma liked being overweight. As a child she had fantasies of taking a pill that would make her fatter and fatter until she eventually just floated away.

She never told anyone, but when she got pregnant 18 years ago, everything changed. "It was like a religious epiphany," Emma says. "I remember having this incredible feeling that I could think about what was good for me, instead of calories. The possibility of thinking about food differently was a big turning point."

Over the next 10 years, Emma immersed herself in the world of size politics. She paid closer attention to the size liberation movement: a political movement that started in the 1970s and made size an axis of oppression. Groups such as Fat Underground and Fat Activists Together (FAT) fought for anti-discrimination legislation on the grounds of weight. Then three years ago she finally took the decision to do something she had always wanted to do. "I'd had these fantasies all my life and had been restraining them all my life. There came a time when I wanted to explore," she says. "I wanted to know more about what they were about. How would I feel about actually gaining weight, would I enjoy it?" In spring 2007, she took the plunge and gained 33lb, to reach a total weight of 17.5st.

Emma is a 49-year-old professor at a university in the north-west of England. She is also a "gainer" – sometimes known as a "feedee" – who overeats in an active attempt to put on weight. Although there are no statistics on the number of people doing this, gaining is more common than one might think. "They are everybody: every age, every country, every size; I mean, tiny, skinny people wanting to gain . . . it really is a case of, look around you, somebody is having these fantasy scenarios," says Emma.

This week Donna Simpson, a 42-year-old mother from New Jersey who weighs 43st, made headlines by revealing that her ongoing weight gain was part of her plan to become the fattest woman on earth. Pictured with an enigmatic smile and a burger in her hand, the press coverage showed varying degrees of restraint in highlighting the £400-a-week food shops, fast-food binges and unrepentant bid to hit 73st.

Gaining is often linked to feederism; a topic that occasionally pops up as freakshow fodder in magazines, chat shows or documentaries such as Fat Girls and Feeders: a 2003 Channel 4 documentary. This focused on the relationships between men and the overweight, vulnerable women they chose to fatten to immobility and beyond. Yet many women actively seek to gain weight of their own volition.

There are many websites and groups dedicated to gaining but Fantasy Feeder (FF to its members) is perhaps the most comprehensive. There are forums, stories and photographs that show unbuttoned blouses revealing pot bellies, wobbly tummies and impressive mounds of flesh cascading over waistbands. Large bosoms escape the confines of their bras, and rolls ripple beneath over-stretched T-shirts. Before and after pictures show the usual weight transformation journey, but in reverse. The poses are proud, matter-of-fact and often sexual.

There are lots of men on the site, but it is the images of female gainers that catch the eye. In our present landscape of body blandness, they stand out as controversial, bold and visually political. Fat is still, most definitely, a feminist issue for some female gainers."I think being a feminist has affected my relationship to my body and gaining in several ways," says Emma. "I started, very young, bucking the trends of beauty norms, like bra-wearing and shaving and makeup. I always thought that these practices were ridiculous; so that made it easier to go against the norm. Gaining is very liberating."

Others say they like making a statement with their weight because it challenges our stereotypical notions of beauty. Some, like Helen Gibson, a 40-year-old nurse from the Midlands, gain weight simply to please themselves. "It is my right to be fat; nothing about making a point." Yet even she concedes putting on weight after her marriage made her feel free: "Those three months were the most liberating of my life; I could feel the fat going back on. My tummy returned to its former glory – fat, soft and flabby, just how it should be."

Helen's husband knows she is a gainer, as do friends, who are well aware of how much she "adores being fat"; understandably, though, being an NHS employee, she cannot come out of the gaining closet completely. At the latest estimate, 57% of women were classified as being overweight, including 25% who were obese. Overall, obesity and related health issues now account for 9% of the NHS budget. As a nurse, says Helen, she cannot be seen to publicly advocate being overweight. For others, anonymity is the result of not wanting anyone to know, which might explain the profusion of headless pictures on the FF website.

As any gainer will tell you, life outside the community can be harsh. There is still a huge amount of derision and discrimination towards the obese, so the decision to keep their gaining a secret isn't really a surprise. Lauren, a 20-year-old American gainer, says she does not want to offer more ammunition to people by explaining the predilection. "As a fat woman, I have experienced fat discrimination almost on a daily basis," she says. "It's usually not so glaring as an intolerant jerk screaming, 'Diet, fatty!' but smaller, more painful ways: going to parties and no one talks to me, being glared at while I'm eating in restaurants, the snickering in changing rooms in department stores."

For many non-gainers, the practice seems strange because of the health implications – both physical and psychological. Even organisations such as the US-based National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (Naafa) dismiss gaining on health grounds. Obesity experts say that being overweight can cause everything from heart problems and diabetes to high blood pressure and gall stones. The message is that fat and health don't mix. But Emma disagrees. She says that it would be more useful for people to consider the multimillion-pound diet industry and its "95% failure rate", and feels overweight people are instead blamed for all the world's ills. "I think people worry about health because it's the easiest place to hang fat hatred. The data actually suggests that it has to do with activity, and not size. People respond badly to anything that asks them to reconfigure their presumptions and preconceptions."

Psychologically, gaining is still a grey area. While one would assume purposefully overeating to gain weight is as much of a disorder as not eating, Susan Ringwood, chief executive of Beating Eating Disorders (Beat), says that isn't the case. "It isn't an eating disorder as such, because there is no morbid fear of fatness, or weight gain. In its extreme forms it is more likely to be a personality disorder that is organised around submission/domination and sexual fantasies."

Another theory, says psychotherapist Phillip Hodson, is that intentional weight gain for women could well be an avoidance tactic: they don't want to attract the unwanted attention of men, so they transform themselves into something deemed conventionally unattractive. Most women don't feel this way, but it could be true for a small minority. "I have come across cases where it's quite obvious that women deliberately become large, or remain large, for psychological reasons," he says. "These include trying to avoid attention and becoming sexually invisible. Some women use food to become so different from the stereotype and to avoid all that is involved in fitting that stereotype: from wolf whistles to being propositioned."

It's a thought, but it doesn't appear to mean anything to Emma or Helen who define weight gain in very sexual terms. Although Donna Simpson's press coverage glossed over the sexual aspect of gaining, for them, more fat means more sex appeal; the extra flesh that everyone else is attempting to shed fuels their desires.

Emma goes one step further to say that gaining is an intrinsic part of her sexual identity. She cannot gain at the moment because of MS and diabetes, but still calls herself a gainer.

For most of us, weight gain seems simple: a bit too much butter on your toast and one chocolate biscuit too many can mean the difference between zipping up your jeans or not. But the question of how to gain weight is quite a hot topic on Fantasy Feeder. There are "Eat Yourself Fat" tailormade diet plans to increase your weight, and the advice ranges from eating ice cream before bed to homemade milkshakes and lots more pasta.

While some favour junk food overload, others, like Emma, say that it is the very antithesis of what gaining is about. "For me, it's all about a kind of hedonism; it's about opening the doors and allowing in fleshy pleasures, whether it's food itself, or what happens to my body, or what happens to somebody else's body. I need a big variety, because what's appealing to me are contrasts of textures and tastes and aromas and colours . . . if I have to eat a big bowl of pasta, I'm not interested. I mean, I love pasta, but I'm not going to eat four servings of it."

Instead Emma maintains a healthy eating regime. "I know no one will believe this, but I eat lots of wholegrains, fruit and veg; probably a bit too much cheese, and chocolate – although I now only eat sugarfree candies. Fish, if it's fresh . . . of course. My diet isn't primarily McDonald's and KFC; in fact, it almost never is." Likewise, Helen's love of gaining is as much about the act of eating as the result. "It's the pleasure of food that is the biggest pleasure for me; followed by each extra roll of fat that comes with the amount that I eat," she says. "I adore how I look naked – and I have been known to spend far too much time admiring myself in the mirror."

The presence of online gaining communities has provided people with a support system. Many say it is like coming home. "This is our small part of the world where we are surrounded by people who say, 'You're not weird; it's perfectly fine to feel as you do, in fact, we think you're great because of it,'" says Lauren. "To virtually everyone, it is a liberating, wonderful feeling." Emma says that she is in the privileged position of "coming out" because she has little to lose: her partner will not leave her because of it, and she is unlikely to lose her job. Colleagues don't know, but she doesn't think they will be too surprised, given her outspoken views on fat issues.

As a moderator on the FF site, she comes across a lot of people who on the one hand are desperate to be fat, on the other, desperate to be thin. "Real desires need attention, not curing," she says. "Lots of people in the community want to understand why they have these fantasies and desires, and there's sometimes an undertone of; 'so that I can cure them'. Not always, but there are definitely people who feel that way."

Some, she says, are just as unhappy with their bodies as those trying to lose weight. "Most people who tell you that they're happy with their bodies are lying. There are people who are like, 'Yeah, I'm cool: fat is beautiful – I'm having weight loss surgery . . . certainly, there are women on FF who are dieting."

Being a gainer isn't as straightforward or easy as it might seem, she says. "One comes into contact with messages about weight loss, health and beauty, about, I don't know, 20 times a day. Every time you open your email, a magazine, every time you turn the television on . . . so any attempt to do anything different, takes incredible strength and courage – and we all fall down," including Emma. "Of course it gets me down! I often feel like all men – and women – believe that stereotype is beautiful, even though I know better," she says. "I hammer myself over not being that stereotype, but only when I'm having a bad time and am already vulnerable because of other things going on around me."

If we look around us, says Phillip Hodson, it is clear that regardless of increased pressures to be thin, we are getting fatter as a nation. "The natural figure of the hunter-gatherer has returned: good childbearing hips and a good abdomen," he says. "But I would be worried about people who are saying they want to get fat."

But Helen is not worried. At 16st she still only considers herself to be pleasantly plump. She has a picture in her head, she says, of what she will look like when she is fat. "I am a long way off that, although I am on my way," she says. "With each mouthful, calorie and year, I am on my way to achieving it."

Some names have been changed

Dolby have announced Dolby Surround 7.1, an 8-channel surround sound audio system that’s intended to better support both traditional 2D and newer 3D content.  Integral to the new system is the introduction of two new audio zones – Back Surround Left and Back Surround Right – which, in tandem with the existing front two zones, should make for more impressive 360-degree surround effects.

Unlike existing 7.1 systems, which use two rear speakers but each fed with the same channel, Dolby’s new setup will have two different channels for each.  For movie makers like Disney and Pixar, who Dolby have partnered with to demonstrate Dolby Surround 7.1, it means an increased ability to position sound in theatres.  Of course, we’ll have to wait for those theatres to actually roll it out first; no word on how expensive the upgrade might be, or what sort of timescale we’re looking at.

Press Release:

Dolby Unveils Dolby Surround 7.1 at ShoWest 2010

Dolby Works with Disney and Pixar to Create a New Audio Experience for Digital Cinema Audiences and Exhibitors

LAS VEGAS, Mar 16, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) — At ShoWest 2010, Dolby Laboratories, Inc. (NYSE:DLB), announced it is working with Walt Disney Pictures(R) and Pixar(R) Animation Studios to deliver a new audio format, Dolby(R) Surround 7.1. Disney(R) and Pixar have stated that Dolby Surround 7.1 will be launched in select theatres with the release of Toy Story(R) 3 in 3D this June.

“For 40 years Dolby has not only provided content creators with the tools to create a more realistic audio experience, but has also enabled the exhibitor to deliver audiences the ability to experience the content as the creator intended,” said Page Haun, Senior Director, Marketing, Cinema Market Segment, Dolby Laboratories. “The release of Toy Story 3 in a discrete 7.1 mix will raise the bar for movie theatre owners and their patrons.”

Dolby Surround 7.1 brings a more exciting sensory experience to audiences for 2D and gives content creators control over audio placement in a theatre when mixing 3D movies. The ability to compose audio with visual elements of 3D allows content creators to immerse the audience deeper into the movie with dramatic realism.

Dolby Surround 7.1 provides content creators four surround zones to better orchestrate audio channels in a movie theatre environment. The four surround zones incorporate the traditional Left Surround and Right Surround with new Back Surround Left and Back Surround Right zones. The addition of the two Back Surround zones enhances directionality in panning 360 degrees around the theatre.

Dolby Surround 7.1 format comprises 8 channels of audio and has the following channel layout: Left, Center, Right, Low-Frequency Effects (LFE), Left Surround, Right Surround, Back Surround Left (new), and Back Surround Right (new). In order for exhibitors to deliver the new format, Dolby will be providing Dolby Surround 7.1 playback capabilities in the Dolby CP650 and Dolby CP750 digital cinema audio processor lines.

At ShoWest, Dolby is demonstrating to exhibitors a discrete 7.1 mixed demo reel of past Pixar movies to showcase the advanced audio solution. After the show, exhibitors will be able to access the content to test and demonstrate in their theatres.

Exhibitors interested in learning more about Dolby Surround 7.1 should contact their nearest Dolby reseller or Dolby sales office.

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Prep time: 50 minutes

Cook time: 45 minutes

Makes 8 large puffs

Note: The filling is for 4 puffs – 2 each for a romantic dessert. You can also fill puffs with your favorite flavor of ice cream or custard. Extra cream puffs may be frozen in freezer bags, once completely cooled, for up to one month.

INGREDIENTS

1 cup water

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut in small pieces

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1/8 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup flour (preferably bread flour, but all-purpose will work)

4 eggs, divided use

Filling for 4 puffs

1 cup heavy cream

2 tablespoons powdered sugar, divided use

1/2 cup fresh raspberries

INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. If you have a baking or pizza stone, place it on lowest rack.

Warm eggs in a bowl of hot tap water. In medium saucepan, combine water, butter, salt and sugar, and bring to a full boil. Remove from heat, add vanilla, then add flour all at once, stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon to quickly form a ball.

Return the pan to medium heat and continue stirring, pressing the dough against the side of the pan and gathering it up into a ball. This dries out the dough so that it can better absorb the eggs. Stir constantly, not letting the dough scorch, for 1 to 2 minutes.

Place dough in bowl of stand mixer and set aside.

In small bowl, lightly beat three of the warmed eggs. Separate the fourth egg, placing the white in a small dish and beating lightly. Save or discard the yolk.

With mixer on low, gradually add the beaten eggs in three increments, waiting until each addition is absorbed before adding more. Increase mixer speed to medium until eggs are thoroughly incorporated.

Stop mixer and test the dough by placing a spoonful on a plate; it should be supple enough to hold its shape, but not pasty. If it's still stiff, beat in the egg white. If it looks very soft, proceed to shaping the puffs.

On a baking sheet covered with parchment paper or coated with cooking spray, place large spoonfuls of dough at least 2 inches apart. You should end up with about 8 dollops for large puffs.

Using a plant spritzer (a clean one!), lightly spray each puff once with water. This will keep them moist longer so they'll puff as much as possible before firming up.

Place the baking sheet directly on pizza stone or on bottom rack. Reduce oven temperature to 425 degrees. Bake 25 minutes. Do not open the oven door, or the puffs may collapse.

After 25 minutes, remove pan from oven and pierce each puff with a small knife to allow any steam to escape and to help the puffs bake dry. Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for another 15 minutes. Remove to a wire rack to cool.

To make the filling: Just before serving, whip cream with 1 tablespoon powdered sugar until it holds a soft peak. Reserving a few whole raspberries for garnish, lightly crush the rest with a fork, then fold into the whipped cream.

Cut puffs in half horizontally with a serrated knife, fill bottom half with cream and replace top. Sift with remaining powdered sugar and garnish with whole raspberries.

Per filled cream puff: 367 cal.; 6 g pro.; 19 g carb.; 30 g fat (18 sat., 9 monounsat., 2 polyunsat., 1 other); 177 mg chol.; 192 mg sod.; 1 g fiber; 5 g sugar; 73 percent calories from fat.

After the Cleveland Browns unceremoniously cut loose the last two starting quarterbacks and replaced them with an aging starter and a career backup, it is pretty obvious that the team will be selecting a quarterback in the upcoming draft.

In fact, as hinted during the Mike Holmgren/Eric Mangini press conference this week, it is entirely possible that they draft two quarterbacks to groom for the future—one close to NFL-ready and another as a project to stash on the practice roster.

That has been a staple of the “Holmgren Philosophy” for years.

Thus, it is time to break down the list of eligible quarterbacks who may soon call Cleveland home.

While I make no predictions as to which direction Mr. Holmgren is going to go—or in what round the team may pull the trigger—I do want to offer a crash course into the strengths and weaknesses of each.

1. Sam Bradford, Oklahoma

You can argue with me until you are blue in the face, but you will not ever get me to back off my opinion that Bradford is best quarterback in the 2010 draft.

That is, unless someone hands me his medical chart that indicates he will not recover from his shoulder surgery. Unfortunately, I do not work in the NFL offices where that information is readily available.

Assuming that the countless number of doctors working for NFL teams have given him the thumbs-up, Bradford has everything you are looking for in an NFL quarterback.

He has terrific size at 6’4” and 235 pounds. He also shows very good athletic ability for such a big kid.

While he doesn’t possess the rifle of a Jay Cutler, he has very good arm strength—strong enough to fit the ball in tight spaces and make all the intermediate-to-long throws.

Additionally, he has touch on short passes, as Oklahoma throws a lot of screen passes as part of its primary “run” offense. Those abilities make him an attractive candidate to run a West Coast-style system.

Bradford throws a tight spiral, hits receivers in their stride, and gets the ball out quickly in his release. These traits allow him to create open spaces because he is so adept at hitting receivers near the sidelines.

He is also a very cerebral quarterback (as evidenced by his 36 score on the Wonderlic Test—the highest score among the top quarterbacks in a landslide) and is smart enough to freeze safeties and linebackers by looking off his primary target.

Bradford possesses a quiet confidence and never seems to get rattled. Even in the national championship game against Florida two years ago, he maintained his composure in the face of unrelenting pressure from the Florida defense.

Had Bradford chosen to enter the draft in 2009, he would have been the No. 1 pick ahead of Matthew Stafford and Mark Sanchez. Instead, an injury because of a porous offensive line at Oklahoma has caused some to drop his stock.

Final Call: Ceiling: Peyton Manning, Floor: Eli.

Bradford is as close to Peyton Manning in intelligence, size, arm strength, and demeanor as there has been in quite a few drafts. He is the unquestioned leader in the 2010 quarterback class and has the potential to be an upper-tier NFL quarterback.

2. Jimmy Clausen, Notre Dame

Clausen may be getting unfairly labeled in Cleveland with comparisons to Brady Quinn because of his Notre Dame ties.

However, the two could not be more different in terms of personality.

Clausen has a much more fiery temperament—perhaps abrasive to some. But no one can question his toughness if you have watched even a few series of his college career.

He has adequate NFL size—6’2” or 6’3” depending upon whom you ask—and slightly above-average arm strength.

In fact, he has a tendency to try to throw the ball too hard on short to medium-range routes—which sometimes has an effect on his accuracy.

When he calmly delivers the ball in the pocket, he makes all the throws. If he winds up trying to throw the ball through a wall, his mechanics fail and his ball floats.

What intrigues scouts is his solid footwork, blazing fast release, and football intelligence.

The latter was born from having private quarterbacks coaches since he was a young boy—Browns quarterback Brian Sipe as his high school coach, and two older brothers who were Division I college quarterbacks. That was before tutoring from well-respected offensive mind Charlie Weis in college.

He does have a tendency to lock on his receivers—which may be because he his primary option at Notre Dame (Golden Tate) was such a remarkable athlete that he knew Tate could bail him out.

Some may question his ability to “win,” having played quarterback at a tradition-rich program with a very poor winning percentage during his tenure. Others would argue that his play kept his team in games against superior opponents.

Final Call: Philip Rivers attitude, Kyle Orton arm

Clausen has been well-schooled as a quarterback at every level and has just enough arm strength. Drafting him at No. 7 in this draft is probably too high, as he is not the kind of quarterback who will make players around him better. But with the right talent around him, he should turn in a solid NFL career as a starter. While Quinn was the better college player at Notre Dame, Clausen is a better pro prospect.

3. Colt McCoy, Texas

I am personally higher on McCoy than a lot of others for three big reasons:

1. McCoy is, pure and simple, a winner. His 45 wins and three Bowl victories at the University of Texas are Division I records. He also won a state title in high school and was 34-2 overall as a starter.

2. McCoy is a ridiculously accurate passer. His completion percentages were an off-the-charts 68.2 percent, 65.1 percent, 76.7 percent, and 70.6 percent in his four years as a starter.

3. McCoy is a super athlete. In addition to starring as a quarterback in high school, he was a four-year starter in basketball (All-State as a junior) and a three-time regional qualifier in track (110m hurdles and mile).

Aside from not winning a Heisman Trophy, this kid wins at virtually everything he does. What’s remarkable, despite all that he has accomplished thus far, is that his teammates would run through a wall for him.

The knock on him is that he is only 6’1”—although he does have a solid build—and he does not possess a rocket for an arm. While he throws with velocity on short to medium-range routes, he does not always throw tight spirals when throwing the ball down the field.

He hits receivers in their breaks, allowing them to run with the ball after the catch. But he does have a tendency to throw behind receivers on longer passes.

Even though he has the ability to tuck the ball and run, he will survey the field first before he makes a break for it. He also possesses very “quiet feet,” meaning he will stand tall in the pocket and not get rattled by a pass rush.

Final Call: The next Drew Brees.

I believe Colt McCoy has the ability to surprise a lot of people. His lack of size has dropped him to the second round, where he is a steal. McCoy won against every level of competition he has been up against, and he puts up consistently high numbers doing it.

4. Tony Pike, Cincinnati

Interest from scouts rose as Pike led an improbable University of Cincinnati run near the top of the national rankings. Interest from scouts started to wane when they saw the gangly 6’6” quarterback with his shirt off.

Clearly, Pike is going to have to pack a few pounds on to that wiry frame before he is ready to take the poundings delivered at the NFL level. However, as the old adage goes, “you can’t teach size.”

You also can’t teach toughness—and Pike has it. As a junior, he missed only two games after fracturing his left forearm and played with an arm held together by a plate and six screws.

Although not blessed with a Howitzer, Pike has better arm strength than he is given credit for.

He has a smooth, effortless throwing motion and shows above-average accuracy on short and intermediate routes. He also throws a nice, tight spiral on deep passes.

Although he has pretty good footwork in his drop, he can get rattled by pressure and leave the pocket too early.

He only had 19 starts as a college player. Because of that, the game has not yet “slowed down” for him in terms of reading defenses.

Because the NFL game is even faster, he will need time to develop.

Final Call: Chad Henne—in a couple of years.

Pike is a project who is not ready to start right away. There are those who believe that Pike’s numbers were bloated by the spread system he operated under Chip Kelly in college. Others believe he is a raw prospect with untapped potential. While Pike is by no means a sure thing, I believe he has the potential to be the second- or third-best quarterback in this draft.

5. Dan LeFevour, Central Michigan

With all due respect to Tim Tebow, Mr. LeFevour is the best dual-threat quarterback in this draft. He and Vince Young are the only college quarterbacks in NCAA history to throw for 3,000 yards and run for 1,000 yards in a single season.

LeFevour finished his career as arguably the most prolific passer in the history of the Mid-American Conference—a conference, I might add, that has had its share of successful NFL passers.

At 6’3” and 230 pounds, LeFevour has adequate NFL size. He has also put up monstrous statistics in college.

The question marks on him relate to the competition he has competed against, the strength of his arm, and whether or not he is just a system quarterback.

LeFevour acquitted himself quite well against better competition during Senior Bowl week. In fact, he was named the North squad’s MVP.

That performance increased his stock with NFL decision-makers, but the fact remains that LeFevour still does not possess a particularly strong arm outside of 15 yards. Specifically, LeFevour throws a lot of floaters on deep out routes—an alarm bell to me.

The other negative following him is a tendency to lock on to his primary receiver, and he will try to force balls in if his main target is not open.

Final Call: Not yet ready for prime time.

LeFevour can one day develop into a below-average starter or an above-average backup. But I am not as sold on him as a future franchise quarterback as others. To be fair, he has not had the same advantages in terms of being “coached up” as other players at big-time college programs. But his arm—or lack thereof—scares me.

6. Tim Tebow, Florida

Tebow is perhaps the biggest boom-or-bust quarterback prospect in this draft.

There is no doubt that he is in the discussion for one of the all-time great college football players. But the question is, can his skills translate to the NFL?

There is some talk that Tebow is the “perfect Wildcat quarterback,” but that is just not the case. He is not especially fast, and he will not be running over 250-pound linebackers with a license to kill like he ran over 210-pound linebackers just trying to get their college degrees.

His throwing mechanics and footwork are an absolute disaster. He ran an offense in college that never required him to make any reads, and he has a tendency to make wobbly throws.

Because he drops his arm and winds up to throw, defensive backs in the NFL can read and react, while pass rushers can strip him of the ball.

On the other hand, he does have a powerful arm, outstanding size and strength, and a rare will-to-win.

Despite his delivery, Tebow can make every throw—with zip.

It will be interesting to see how his “rah-rah” attitude plays with professional athletes, but it certainly worked at the college level.

Final Call: Buyer beware.

There is absolutely no one to compare him to—for better or worse. The only way he succeeds as a quarterback in the pros is if he finds the right coach with the right system. Whoever drafts him is going to have to be patient, as there is a lot of work to do.

Some believe that he is such a competitor that there is nothing he cannot do. Others believe that no coach can work out all those kinks. Until proven otherwise, I am in that latter category.

Sleepers

There are a number of college quarterbacks who will get looks as lower-round picks or undrafted free agents.

Some are pretenders who might serve as backups and collect a paycheck for a couple of years.

Others, while unheralded, have the physical tools necessary to play at the next level but may take some time to develop.

Below is a list of the latter category.

John Skelton, Fordham

Skelton entered college as a one-star recruit in a 6'5", 200-pound frame. He left college as a 6'6", 258-pound monster with a cannon for an arm.

Because he has not played against top-notch competition, no one truly knows how good he can be.

Some compare him to Joe Flacco, but others tag him with the dreaded “Derek Anderson clone.”

One thing we do know: He was smart enough to go to Fordham—and he has the physical tools for someone to take a flier on him.

Jevan Snead , Mississippi

Snead transferred out of Texas after losing the starting quarterback battle to Colt McCoy.

He possesses an All-Pro arm, but a suspect head. He has some flaws in his mechanics, which some scouts believe are correctable.

While there is potential here, the big question is whether anyone can get to it.

Mike Kafka, Northwestern

Kafka is a very intelligent kid with outstanding athleticism. He does, however, have questions about his arm.

He held his own playing against superior opponents with inferior teammates. He has limited upside, but he could turn into a great game manager for a team with top-flight skill position players.

Jonathon Crompton, Tennessee

Crompton is a real late bloomer who really had only one solid season at Tennessee.

He has a strong, albeit inaccurate arm, along with a quick release. Crompton might be worth the gamble late in the draft for a team willing to wait for his football IQ to catch up with his physical tools. 

Sean Canfield, Oregon State

Canfield suffered a torn Labrum that caused him to miss the 2008 season. He came back with a vengeance in 2009 and was the Pac-10 First-Team quarterback (over more hyped quarterbacks such as Jeremiah Masoli, Jake Locker, Matt Barkley, and Andrew Luck).

He possesses excellent size (6'4", 223 pounds), accuracy, and plenty of arm strength. Canfield is a traditional drop-back passer who has experience in a pro-style offense.

In 2009, he had a remarkable 18:0 touchdown-to-interception ratio in the red zone.

He struggled early in his college career and had some weight/maturity issues, but he seemed to put it all together in his senior year.