Chris Tack made seven unloading trips to Goodwill before moving into the tiny home he and his wife Malissa designed and built. Constructed on a trailer bed and parked in Snohomish, Washington, the house is more than enough space for them, the couple says. And one advantage of an abode on wheels is that you can always move, says Malissa.
Jon Stewart is in the Middle East working on his first directorial project, but the host of "The Daily Show" took a few minutes to check in on his program via Skype Thursday.
Temporary host John Oliver told Stewart that not much had changed on the show since the now-director started his 12-week leave of absence.
"The only key things are we play softball against the Mets on Monday, and Bruce Springsteen comes to play every Tuesday night," Oliver jested. "We didn't think they'd be things you'd enjoy."
Turns out they are things Stewart would enjoy.
"What?! That's my favorite musician! What?! I wanna come hoooome!" Stewart jokingly cried.
Earlier, a newly bearded Stewart told Oliver that he was "doing a phenomenal job" holding down the fort, but that he wasn't tuning in every night.
"I don't watch it all the time because it's too weird," Stewart said. "It's like watching someone have sex with your wife's desk."
The comedian said he missed his staff "like crazy cakes." Though he's enjoying his work on "Rosewater," an adaptation of Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari's best-selling memoir "Then They Came For Me," he called the experience "weird as hell."
The film and memoir tell the tale of Bahari's arrest by the Iranian government in 2009 while he was there covering the election results. He was tortured for 118 days. After his October release, Bahari appeared on "The Daily Show" in late November to share details of his captivity.
A model in Tokyo poses in an LED dress designed by Swarovski and Hussein Chalayan. One day soon, electronic clothing like this will even be connected to the Internet.
Doors that magically unlock as you approach. Clothes that advise you when they're out of style, then tell your car how to get to the nearest sale. Cough medicine that tells you when it's time to go to the doctor. This magical, futuristic world now called the "Internet of Things" is coming straight from science fiction into your home. Like "the cloud," the "Internet of Things" is largely a marketing term designed to create buzz around a series of not-yet-ready-for-prime time technologies, and also like the cloud, you won't be able to avoid hearing about it soon.
But this time, the stakes are much higher. It?s a full-on cage match between George Jetson and George Orwell.
Maybe it's a miracle to think about high-tech insulin pumps that patients never need to touch, while doctors control them from thousands of miles away. But what happens when a hacker hijacks that insulin pump ? or simply threatens to hijack it, and messages the patient that he'd better pay a ransom to keep it functioning properly? Those runaway gadgets from "The Jetsons" cartoon might not be such a laughing matter in real life.
We already have an Internet of Things ? your PC, laptop, tablet, everything already connected to the Internet. What the "IoT" crowd means by "things" is "everything." They want to attach tiny computers and sensors to just about every object in the world, and make them all talk to each other.
"We have everyday objects we've been interacting with for years, and many of these objects are now gaining intelligence and connectivity," said Jason Johnson, leader of the IoT consortium. "We will create this fabric of connected devices."
The back story The idea of putting little connected computers everywhere, even floating in the air around us, isn't new. You'll find popular references to "ubiquitous computing" nearly 20 years ago. Since then, there has been one failed effort after another to bring James Bond-like automation to our lives. Take the hobbyist X-10 technology, which let users turn off household lights via remote control ? X-10 gadgets had trouble competing with The Clapper, much less "The Jetsons."
Today, continually shrinking sensors and processors put us on the threshold of the Internet of Things. In fact, some of this futuristic wizardry already has a devoted following. Members of the burgeoning Quantified Self movement use iPhones and wearable sensors like Fitbit to measure their heart rate, blood pressure and sleep patterns, upload that data into spreadsheets, sometimes even share it automatically via Twitter and Facebook. They use the data to find the optimal temperature to go for a run, or the best humidity conditions in which to sleep.
Fitbit
The Fitbit system combines wireless trackers, a Wi-Fi smart scale, smartphone apps and cloud-based information management to help people keep in shape.
Advanced medicine also already employs many of these technologies. For instance, probes with cameras work their way through our circulatory systems into our hearts, sending back detailed pictures to doctors who can make repairs in minutes in situations that would previously proved fatal.
When that kind of technology inevitably gets cheap ? when our pens, cars, toilets and everything else can see and hear us ? many exciting notions become possible. You might never run out of toilet paper, for example. At the same time, you might share uncomfortably up-to-date health information with your doctor.
What could go wrong? But anyone who's every suffered a dropped phone call, gotten bad directions from a GPS, or even had a printer jam will realize that technology lets us down as often as it lifts us up. So aren't we setting ourselves up for gadget failure hell?
No, says Johnson, for two reasons. First, stepping on the shoulders of other futuristic failures, Internet of Things entrepreneurs know they have to prioritize substance over glitz. And second, the gadgets they sell must have an old-fashioned backup system.
"You must solve a real problem for people," he said. "We have to make sure our products and services aren't just gizmos that will shortly outgrow the gee-whiz factor. We have to have a positive impact on people's lives, making them simpler and more relaxed."
One such gadget, Johnson hopes, is the August Smart Lock ? making it is his day job. The front door lock recognizes who is approaching your home and lets you open the door on command. No need to give the dog walker a spare key; Smart Lock users can grant access to certain people at certain times, even during emergencies.
"It lets you rethink what it means to give access to your home," he said.
Smart Lock has a second important feature: If the power goes out, the homeowner can use an old-fashioned key to get in. For the Internet of Things to work, there must be a plan B when it doesn't work, Johnson says. Anyone stuck in a car with a dead battery and electric windows can appreciate that.
August
The August Smart Lock, which installs over a standard deadbolt, lets you unlock your door over the Internet.
Big Brother Potentially comical failures ? what if your toilet paper sensor battery goes dead? ? are not the biggest potential obstacle for the Internet of Things, however.
The NSA is.
If you are even the slightest bit worried about the federal government reading your email, how concerned will you be that it could create a database of every bowel movement? Far fetched? Imagine what the National Institute of Health could do with such data.
Every one of these computer things will collect data that could end up in the hands of law enforcement, marketing companies, or even hackers, and at the moment, there is little to stop that. This worries Kevin Mahaffey, who runs mobile security company Lookout Inc.
"There are two possible ways this works. A world where everything you do is surveilled, and everything is potentially hacked by someone,? Mahaffey said. "But the alternative way is a world where you as an individual can control this data. And that's a pretty exciting world, a world where you can have the benefit of the technology, but not some Orwellian dystopia, where even in your own home you aren?t safe from the Internet-connected pen."
One privacy nightmare ? the reselling of bathroom data to drug companies, an insulin pump hacker attack, or a law enforcement incident involving home automation or monitoring ? could derail the Internet of Things for years, Mahaffey warns.
Johnson acknowledges this, but he believes companies in his space can rise to the challenge of balancing convenience with privacy.
?All the Internet of Things companies, we're capturing a lot of data about users,? Johnson said. Government regulations and industry policies should restrict usage of the data, but communication with consumers will also be key. ?We need to be very cognizant of the sensitivity of that data and how we make users aware of how this data can be used ? It's important they understand what?s going on.?
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Public WiFi projects don't normally involve antique restoration and historical crowd sourcing, but that's exactly what's going on in Leeds. Local telecoms company aql is renovating Giles Gilbert Scott's iconic red telephone boxes in the area, adding solar panels, networking equipment and giving them a blue paint-job. While the boxes will be locked to keep the wireless gear secure, the company has added touch screens to the outside, letting locals make emergency calls and leave messages that share their memories about the area -- a better fate for the hardware than inspiring this portable monstrosity.
At at time when the authorities and the Patriots have taken stunning and decisive action against Aaron Hernandez, the National Football League has done nothing.
The NFL will continue to do nothing, until it has a reason to do something.
?NFL clubs were advised today that if Aaron Hernandez enters into a player contract prior to the resolution of the charges pending against him, the contract will not be approved or take effect until Commissioner Roger Goodell holds a hearing,? the league said in a statement forwarded to PFT by NFL spokesman Greg Aiello.? ?The purpose of the hearing would be to determine whether Hernandez should be suspended or face other action prior to the charges being resolved.?
The league?s position makes sense.? Why suspend a guy who is unemployed, and currently unemployable?? The league?s stance makes teams even less likely to be interested in Hernandez, since it makes clear that, if anyone tries to give the guy a job, they?ll first have to deal with persuading Goodell to let them employ Hernandez.
As a result, Hernandez?s status won?t be relevant unless and until he is cleared on murder charges.? And things could get interesting if he?s acquitted in an O.J. Simpson-style outcome, where half of the country or more believes that, even though he was found not guilty, he still did it.
"Glee" star Matthew Morrison is engaged to his girlfriend Renee Puente, a fact he confirmed with a simple tweet, saying he was going to "marry my best friend!"
The news initially came out during Elton John's White Tie and Tierra Ball on Thursday, an event the couple often attend. Coldplay singer Chris Martin dedicated John's "Your Song" to the couple, according to The Hollywood Reporter, and then sang the tune with John himself.
The proposal appears to have been done earlier; E! Online reported that the couple arrived at the event with her already wearing a "huge sparkler" in the appropriate left-hand finger.
Morrison tweeted the news Thursday morning.
They reportedly began dating in 2011, and this will be a first marriage for both.
While his headlines don?t always draw me in, I do appreciate print marketing expert Denny Hatch?s opinions and observations. This time, it was a commentary on print-ad headlines that broke all the rules in a bad way and how expensive that can be. It got me to thinking about headlines in general, how important they are, and how often they?re overlooked or thrown in as an after-thought.
For those of you who have taken my blogging and social media classes, this should be a familiar phrase, ?Your title is the most important part of your post. If it?s poor, it may be the only thing anyone ever sees. Treat it like a headline.? Ring any bells?
From blog post titles to ads to emails to tweets and social media posts, those few opening characters have to pull a dis-proportionate amount of weight. A headline has to be:
engaging,
relevant, and
concise.
It has to inspire a person to perform a desired action: click to find out more. If that click doesn?t happen, the headline failed.
Mobile email marketing even makes you do it twice. First with the subject line and then with the first 100 characters or so of your emailing. Many mobile email programs display this first line of text so make sure it?s something more engaging than, ?If you have trouble reading this?? or ?White-list us to make sure you receive all our important SPAM?er valuable content.?
Take some time to get to know your market?s interests, emotional triggers, and frame of mind so you can tailor your headlines accordingly. Practice. Yes, practice. You practiced sentence structure, grammar, and spelling. You practiced in your area of expertise enough to become an expert with a message worth listening to. So practice crafting stellar headlines so that people will click to see what you have to offer.
HJ:?Wealth and prosperity are like flowers in a garden ? they only grow under the right conditions. Those conditions are created through looking inward and seeing where we may still be blocking ourselves from experiencing them in our lives. ?Most people make the mistake of focusing outwardly on external factors in their lives ? but they do not realize that these external manifestations are only a reflection of their internal state. ?Therefore, anyone looking to increase the wealth, prosperity and ?success? in their life, would be wise to ignore the impulse to try to change superficial factors in their life and focus on doing the inner work which truly produces lasting, profound change.
- Truth
By Sri Sri Ravi Shankar | Ravi Shankar
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Everyone wants to be successful in life, but without knowing what success is. Success is an attitude, not a phenomenon. Tough situations come in every business and every organisation, and you need skills to handle them. These skills come from our inner space, what I call the Spiritual Space. There are five things that are needed for success.
A congenial atmosphere
Peace and prosperity are interlinked. Prosperity cannot flourish in a disturbed atmosphere. While working with others, you need to function as a team. Have a sense of respect for all team-members, and do not indulge in blame games. Team leaders need to create an atmosphere of celebration, trust, cooperation and a sense of belonging. Nothing can last if the focus is only on productivity and net result. Creating inspiration from within in people is the only effective tool.
Skill in action
The whole essence of the Bhagwad Gita is to act without being attached to the fruit of the action. If you can manage your mind in a war-like scenario, then you can manage any situation. This skill in action is called yoga. It is this wisdom of yoga that transforms one?s attitude from arrogance to self-confidence, from meekness to humility, from the burden of dependence to the realisation of interdependence, from a limited ownership to oneness with the whole. When performing action, if the attention is only on the end result, then you can?t perform. Just give yourself fully to the task with 100 per cent sincerity and commitment.
Being a lion
There is a saying in Sanskrit that, ?Great wealth comes to one who has the courage of a lion and who puts in all his efforts.? Passion and dispassion are complementary like the in-breath and out-breath. You breathe in but you cannot hold the breath too long; you have to breathe out. Similarly, you need to have passion to make things work but also the dispassion to let go. When you don?t crave for abundance, it comes to you.
An atom of luck
If all that is needed for prosperity is one?s own effort, then why are there so many people who put effort but don?t become prosperous? This unknown factor or luck is enhanced by spirituality. The whole material world is run by a world of vibrations which is subtler than all that we see. Spirituality enhances intelligence and intuition. Intuition comes to you when you balance your passion with dispassion, profit with service, and tone down your aggressiveness to get things with compassion to give back to society. Intuition is the right thought at the right time, and is an important component for success in business.
Meditation
The greater responsibilities and ambitions you have, the greater is the need for you to meditate. In ancient times, meditation was used as a way to find the Self, for enlightenment and to overcome misery and problems. Today?s stress and tension in society also calls for meditation. Stress is too much to do, in too little a time, and with no energy. You obviously can?t reduce your work load, or increase the time, but you can increase your energy level. Meditation not only relieves you of stress and strain, it also enhances your abilities, strengthens your nervous system and mind, releases toxins from the body and enhances you in every way. We are made up of both matter and spirit. The body has some material needs and our spirit is nourished by spirituality.
Over the years I have heard so many horror stories about Canadians travelling abroad without adequate travel insurance. The one that sticks out in my mind as the most difficult involved a couple who were honeymooning in South Florida. With so many things to organize for the wedding the couple forgot to get travel insurance, but they were young and healthy and didn't think too much about it. Day two of the honeymoon, the groom broke his ankle jogging on the beach and it was a pretty good (or bad) break as far as ankles go, it required surgery and a pin to keep the ankle set. The bill for the two day hospital visit with surgery was just over $25,000. Not a great start to married life.
The reality is that travel insurance is a MUST for Canadians. I tell anyone who will listen to drop everything and go get an annual plan that is set to renew without you having to remember.
Tip number two is to opt for the best coverage. For most of us, the difference in cost is less than $40 or $50, to put it in perspective, our annual family plan which allows for 16 days a year of full coverage out of country is $150. Thankfully, I have never had to use it (insert the sound of me knocking on wood) but it sure gives me piece of mind when we leave Canada.
It always surprises me, especially living less an hour from the US border how most people don't think of a day trip to go shopping, or play golf, or watch an NFL game as a "trip". I spoke to friends last week whose child plays hockey with my daughter and her Grandmother was visiting from Edmonton and taking the family to Buffalo to go shopping. They hadn't even thought of travel health insurance. It seems if you aren't flying or staying over in a hotel than you are not really travelling an in turn don't need insurance.
There are lots of options for coverage, I have had positive experiences with RBC, Blue Cross and Sun Life Financial and taking an hour on the phone to review what coverage you have and what coverage you need could save you thousands down the road.
I have read letters from past clients who had serious medical situations occur without coverage that resulted in medical bills that exceed one hundred thousand dollars, I recall a letter from a couple who were forced to re-mortgage their home less than a year after finally having fully paid it off.
I know this is not my normal tone and optimistic theme, but I hope I can convince you to buy the insurance. I have no affiliation or relationship with travel insurance companies and most of the time I am pretty disturbed by banks and insurance but in this case, it's just too risky to avoid. Now what are you waiting for, go get your coverage. Do you feel you have adequate coverage today?
BAGHDAD (AP) ? Demonstrators in an ethnically disputed northern city and a minibus carrying Shiite pilgrims to the holy city of Karbala were among the latest targets of Iraqi militants in a string of bombings that killed 16 people, authorities said Tuesday.
Iraq is weathering its deadliest outburst of violence since 2008, with more than 2,000 people killed since the start of April. The bloodshed appears to be largely the work of resurgent Sunni militants such as al-Qaida, feeding off Sunni discontent with the Shiite-led government.
In Tuesday's deadliest attack, at least one suicide bomber blew himself up near a group of Turkomen protesters who had set up tents in the city of Tuz Khormato, according to Ali Abdul-Rahman, a spokesman for the Salahuddin provincial governor. He said the protesters were demanding tighter security for the community following a deadly car bombing Sunday.
The attack killed at least seven people and wounded 52, according to head of the provincial health department, Raed Ibrahim.
Among those killed were two Turkmen leaders, Ahmed Abdel-Wahed and Ali Hashem Mukhtar Oglou, according to the United Nations mission to Iraq.
"Such attacks aim to heighten tensions in this particularly sensitive region of Tuz Khurmatu," U.N. envoy Martin Kobler said in a statement.
Tuz Khormato sits in a band of territory contested by Arabs, Kurds and Turkomen about 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of Baghdad.
In another attack, five Shiite pilgrims were killed after their bus was struck about 55 kilometers (35 miles) south of Baghdad while it was traveling between the towns of Musayyib and Iskandariyah, according to police and hospital officials.
Tens of thousands of Shiites are gathering in the holy city of Karbala, 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Baghdad, for the annual festival of Shabaniyah marking the anniversary of the birth of the ninth-century Shiite leader known as the Hidden Imam.
Earlier Tuesday, gunmen in a speeding car fired on a church in Baghdad's southeastern al-Amin neighborhood, wounding three guards, police officers and a health official said.
Police and hospital officials also said Tuesday that a bomb struck a teashop late the previous night in the restive northern city of Mosul, killing four people and wounding 15. Al-Qaida in Iraq and other militant groups have been gathering strength in and around Mosul, some 360 kilometers (220 miles) northwest of Baghdad.
The officials provided details of the attacks on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information to journalists.
Tuesday's attacks struck as Iraqis were still cleaning up from a wave of evening bombings that targeted markets in and around Baghdad. Those attacks, which mainly hit Shiite or religiously mixed areas, and other blasts north of the capital Monday killed at least 42 people and wounded dozens of others.
The United States and Britain condemned the previous day's bombings in statements Tuesday. The U.S. Embassy called attacks during the Shiite festival of Shabaniyah "particularly reprehensible."
"We call upon the leaders and people of Iraq to work together to combat terrorism, and we are committed to assisting in these efforts to bring the attackers to justice," the U.S. Embassy said.
There has been no claim of responsibility for the latest attacks. Al-Qaida's Iraq branch, which has been gaining strength in recent months, frequently targets Shiites, security forces and civil servants in an effort to undermine the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.
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Associated Press writers Adam Schreck, Sinan Salaheddin and Sameer N. Yacoub contributed reporting.
Sony's unveiled its latest addition to its Xperia Z series, a new smartphone that blurs the line between smartphone and tablet once more -- the appropriately-named Xperia Z Ultra. Packing a 6.4-inch display that runs at 1080p resolution, it bests other similarly giganticsuperphones that all currently hover around 720p. This new screen is paired with Qualcomm's latest and greatest mobile processor, the impressively potent 2.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800, throwing in 4G LTE connectivity too.
It all weighs in at 212 grams (over 50 grams more than the Xperia Z) but the body has been slimmed down to a mere 6.5mm uniform thickness, jostling with the barely-announced Ascend P6 for title of thinnest phone despite those high-end specifications (and screen dimensions). There's 16GB of built-in storage, 11GB of which is user-accessible, while a microSD slot will add an additional 64GB if needed. To power that screen, Sony has also cranked the battery pack up to 3,000mAh and we're hoping that will be enough for all those high-end components it'll be powering. There's no specifics on LTE bands just yet, but the phone also packs a pentaband HSPA radio, ensuring the global model will play nice on AT&T's 3G service, at least, when it launches later this year. We've got more details (especially on that display) after the break.
June 25, 2013 ? Hungry people are often difficult to deal with. A good meal can affect more than our mood, it can also influence our willingness to take risks. This phenomenon is also apparent across a very diverse range of species in the animal kingdom. Experiments conducted on the fruit fly, Drosophila, by scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried have shown that hunger not only modifies behaviour, but also changes pathways in the brain.
Animal behaviour is radically affected by the availability and amount of food. Studies prove that the willingness of many animals to take risks increases or declines depending on whether the animal is hungry or full. For example, a predator only hunts more dangerous prey when it is close to starvation. This behaviour has also been documented in humans in recent years: one study showed that hungry subjects took significantly more financial risks than their sated colleagues.
Also the fruit fly, Drosophila, changes its behaviour depending on its nutritional state. The animals usually perceive even low quantities of carbon dioxide to be a sign of danger and opt to take flight. However, rotting fruit and plants -- the flies' main sources of food -- also release carbon dioxide. Neurobiologists in Martinsried have now discovered how the brain deals with this constant conflict in deciding between a hazardous substance and a potential food source taking advantage of the fly as a great genetic model organism for circuit neuroscience.
In various experiments, the scientists presented the flies with environments containing carbon dioxide or a mix of carbon dioxide and the smell of food. It emerged that hungry flies overcame their aversion to carbon dioxide significantly faster than fed flies -- if there was a smell of food in the environment at the same time. Facing the prospect of food, hungry animals are therefore significantly more willing to take risks than sated flies. But how does the brain manage to decide between these options?
Avoiding carbon dioxide is an innate behaviour and should therefore be generated outside the mushroom body in the fly's brain: previously, the nerve cells in the mushroom body were linked only with learning and behaviour patterns that are based on learned associations. However, when the scientists temporarily disabled these nerve cells, hungry flies no longer showed any reaction whatsoever to carbon dioxide. The behaviour of fed flies, on the other hand, remained the same: they avoided the carbon dioxide.
In further studies, the researchers identified a projection neuron which transports the carbon dioxide information to the mushroom body. This nerve cell is crucial in triggering a flight response in hungry, but not in fed animals. "In fed flies, nerve cells outside the mushroom body are enough for flies to flee from the carbon dioxide. In hungry animals, however, the nerve cells are in the mushroom body and the projection neuron, which carries the carbon dioxide information there, is essential for the flight response. If mushroom body or projection neuron activity is blocked, only hungry flies are no longer concerned about the carbon dioxide," explains Ilona Grunwald-Kadow, who headed the study.
The results show that the innate flight response to carbon dioxide in fruit flies is controlled by two parallel neural circuits, depending on how satiated the animals are. "If the fly is hungry, it will no longer rely on the 'direct line' but will use brain centres to gauge internal and external signals and reach a balanced decision," explains Grunwald-Kadow. "It is fascinating to see the extent to which metabolic processes and hunger affect the processing systems in the brain," she adds.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sees his rival Hasan Rowhani elected as president of Iran. Is the political career of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over?
By Ali Akbar Dareini and Brian Murphy,?Associated Press / June 15, 2013
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaks during an annual rally commemorating the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Tehran, Iran, Sunday.
Vahid Salemi/AP
Enlarge
Just weeks after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election victory in 2005, Iran's top nuclear negotiator Hasan Rowhani stepped down from the post after quarrelsome meetings with the new president.
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The decision cemented Rowhani's reputation as a moderate who rejected Ahmadinejad's combative approach in world affairs in favor of the more nuanced philosophy of Ahmadinejad's leading political foe, former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Rafsanjani was rejected by Iran's election guardians from Friday's presidential ballot. But for many reformists and liberals in Iran, the 64-year-old Rowhani is somewhat of a mirror image of the elder Rafsanjani by reflecting his outlook that Iran can maintain its nuclear program and ease tensions with the West at the same time.
Rowhani won a resounding first-round victory on Saturday.
"Rafsanjani was really the only choice to re-energize reformists," said Rasool Nafisi, an Iranian affairs analyst at Strayer University in Virginia. "Rowhani only got their support because he is seen as Rafsanjani's man and a vote for Rowhani was a vote for Rafsanjani."
This deep connection between the two men could give a Rowhani presidency a dual nature: Rowhani as the public face and Rafsanjani behind the scenes as its powerful godfather and protector.
Although all key policies such the nuclear program are directed by the ruling clerics, the alliance with Rafsanjani may give Rowhani more latitude to put his stamp on Iran's negotiation tactics with world powers after four rounds of talks since last year have failed to make any significant headway.
At campaign rallies, Rowhani has pledged to seek "constructive interaction with the world" that includes efforts to ease Western concerns about Iran's program and lift punishing international sanctions that have pummeled the economy. The West and its allies fear Iran could be moving toward development of a nuclear weapon. Iranian officials, including Rowhani, insist that the country only seeks nuclear reactors for energy and medical applications.
"We won't let the past eight years be continued," Rowhani told a cheering crowd last week in a clear reference to Ahmadinejad's back-to-back terms. "They brought sanctions for the country. Yet, they are proud of it. I'll pursue a policy of reconciliation and peace. We will also reconcile with the world."
Rowhani ? the only cleric in the six-candidate presidential field ? started religious studies at a teenager. He soon established himself as an outspoken opponent of the Western-backed shah, traveling frequently for anti-monarchy speeches and sermons that caught the attention of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the eventual leader of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Contact: Susan Martonik smartonik@snmmi.org 703-652-6773 Society of Nuclear Medicine
Study reveals new hybrid molecular imaging system is as good as PET/CT gold standard for restaging patients with metastatic prostate cancer
Vancouver, British Columbia When prostate cancer makes a comeback, it becomes increasingly important to have exceptional imaging available to find all possible regions where cancer has spread to other parts of the body, or metastasized, in order to plan the best possible treatment. A relatively new imaging system that simultaneously combines positron emission tomography and magnetic resonance (PET/MR) demonstrates a higher capacity for mapping recurrent prostate cancer than the already high standard of integrated PET and computed tomography (PET/CT), say researchers presenting a study at the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging's 2013 Annual Meeting.
PET/MR provides superb soft tissue contrast with its MR component, compared to PET/CT, which focuses more on structure and density imaging with CT. This study ushers PET/MR into the ring of clinical practice by exhibiting clear benefits for prostate cancer patients with metastatic tumors.
In this comparative study recurrent prostate cancer is imaged both with PET/MR and PET/CT with the molecular imaging agent C-11 choline, which was approved for this use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last year. Choline is a naturally occurring B vitamin complex that is avidly bound by prostate cells upon injection, even those that have traveled through the bloodstream and taken up residence to develop metastatic tumors elsewhere, which is especially likely in the lymph nodes and in bone.
"The combination of PET, here with C-11 choline, and functional MRI provides complementary information that increases diagnostic certainty with higher detection rates, especially for more precise localization of recurrence. This could help to better tailor specific therapy, e.g., radiation of the pelvis versus antihormonal therapy, for patients with metastatic prostate cancer," said Matthias Eiber, MD, lead scientist for the study from TU Muenchen in Munich, Germany.
Methodology included a study population of 31 patients who had both PET/CT and PET/MR performed for restaging of recurrent prostate cancer with single injection of the imaging agent C-11 choline. PET/CT scans occurred about five minutes after injection, and PET/MR scans occurred about 51 minutes after injection. Scans were interpreted separately and all detected lesions were categorized according to suspected metastases as definitely, probably or indeterminately metastatic. Researchers discovered that PET/MR found more areas of metastases17 in 12 different patientswhen compared to PET/CT, which found 12 areas of metastases in eight subjects. PET/MR also found more lymph node metastases, 42 versus 39 areas of interest with PET/CT. The same held true for bone metastases, which were detected in 17 areas for five patients with PET/MR and 14 areas for four patients with PET/CT.
Simultaneous PET/MR is comparable toif not more powerful thanPET/CT for recurrent prostate cancer. The only obvious challenge was a longer scan time than PET/CT, but it was found to be tolerable by patients undergoing PET/MR. PET/MR additionally offers considerably lower radiation exposure compared to PET/CT. As many of these patients often get a series of examinations in the course of their disease, despite their high average age, radiation protection could be another argument for the promotion of PET/MR. This molecular imaging technique can now be considered a conceivable alternative to PET/CT for restaging prostate metastases, especially when small local tumor recurrences are involved.
"In principle, whole-body integrated PET/MR is a technique that is officially commercially available; however, so far only a limited number of these scanners have been installed worldwide," said Eiber. "Showing a concrete example of how combining PET and functional MR imaging benefits patients with metastatic prostate cancer could potentially motivate continued PET/MR research in this field."
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Scientific Paper 343: Matthias Eiber, Michael Souvatzoglou, Tobias Maurer, Sibylle Ziegler, Ernst Rummeny, Markus Schwaiger, Ambros Beer, Radiology, TU Muenchen, Munich, Germany; Nuclear Medicine, TU Muenchen, Munich, Germany; Urology, TU Muenchen, Munich, Germany, "Initial experience in restaging of patients with recurrent prostate cancer: Comparison of 11C-Choline-PET/MR and 11C-Choline-PET/CT," SNMMI's 60th Annual Meeting, June 8, 2013, Vancouver, British Columbia.
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Contact: Susan Martonik smartonik@snmmi.org 703-652-6773 Society of Nuclear Medicine
Study reveals new hybrid molecular imaging system is as good as PET/CT gold standard for restaging patients with metastatic prostate cancer
Vancouver, British Columbia When prostate cancer makes a comeback, it becomes increasingly important to have exceptional imaging available to find all possible regions where cancer has spread to other parts of the body, or metastasized, in order to plan the best possible treatment. A relatively new imaging system that simultaneously combines positron emission tomography and magnetic resonance (PET/MR) demonstrates a higher capacity for mapping recurrent prostate cancer than the already high standard of integrated PET and computed tomography (PET/CT), say researchers presenting a study at the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging's 2013 Annual Meeting.
PET/MR provides superb soft tissue contrast with its MR component, compared to PET/CT, which focuses more on structure and density imaging with CT. This study ushers PET/MR into the ring of clinical practice by exhibiting clear benefits for prostate cancer patients with metastatic tumors.
In this comparative study recurrent prostate cancer is imaged both with PET/MR and PET/CT with the molecular imaging agent C-11 choline, which was approved for this use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last year. Choline is a naturally occurring B vitamin complex that is avidly bound by prostate cells upon injection, even those that have traveled through the bloodstream and taken up residence to develop metastatic tumors elsewhere, which is especially likely in the lymph nodes and in bone.
"The combination of PET, here with C-11 choline, and functional MRI provides complementary information that increases diagnostic certainty with higher detection rates, especially for more precise localization of recurrence. This could help to better tailor specific therapy, e.g., radiation of the pelvis versus antihormonal therapy, for patients with metastatic prostate cancer," said Matthias Eiber, MD, lead scientist for the study from TU Muenchen in Munich, Germany.
Methodology included a study population of 31 patients who had both PET/CT and PET/MR performed for restaging of recurrent prostate cancer with single injection of the imaging agent C-11 choline. PET/CT scans occurred about five minutes after injection, and PET/MR scans occurred about 51 minutes after injection. Scans were interpreted separately and all detected lesions were categorized according to suspected metastases as definitely, probably or indeterminately metastatic. Researchers discovered that PET/MR found more areas of metastases17 in 12 different patientswhen compared to PET/CT, which found 12 areas of metastases in eight subjects. PET/MR also found more lymph node metastases, 42 versus 39 areas of interest with PET/CT. The same held true for bone metastases, which were detected in 17 areas for five patients with PET/MR and 14 areas for four patients with PET/CT.
Simultaneous PET/MR is comparable toif not more powerful thanPET/CT for recurrent prostate cancer. The only obvious challenge was a longer scan time than PET/CT, but it was found to be tolerable by patients undergoing PET/MR. PET/MR additionally offers considerably lower radiation exposure compared to PET/CT. As many of these patients often get a series of examinations in the course of their disease, despite their high average age, radiation protection could be another argument for the promotion of PET/MR. This molecular imaging technique can now be considered a conceivable alternative to PET/CT for restaging prostate metastases, especially when small local tumor recurrences are involved.
"In principle, whole-body integrated PET/MR is a technique that is officially commercially available; however, so far only a limited number of these scanners have been installed worldwide," said Eiber. "Showing a concrete example of how combining PET and functional MR imaging benefits patients with metastatic prostate cancer could potentially motivate continued PET/MR research in this field."
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Scientific Paper 343: Matthias Eiber, Michael Souvatzoglou, Tobias Maurer, Sibylle Ziegler, Ernst Rummeny, Markus Schwaiger, Ambros Beer, Radiology, TU Muenchen, Munich, Germany; Nuclear Medicine, TU Muenchen, Munich, Germany; Urology, TU Muenchen, Munich, Germany, "Initial experience in restaging of patients with recurrent prostate cancer: Comparison of 11C-Choline-PET/MR and 11C-Choline-PET/CT," SNMMI's 60th Annual Meeting, June 8, 2013, Vancouver, British Columbia.
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Public release date: 10-Jun-2013
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