Real Estate Weekly - 5/10/13 | Maryland Daily Record

Baltimore?s Chambers design firm acquires rival firm in Dallas

Chambers, a Baltimore-based planning, architecture and interior design firm specializing in private golf, country, city and yacht clubs, has acquired CCI Club Design, of Dallas, Texas, which performs similar work. Details of the acquisition were not disclosed. CCI will take the Chambers name and will continue to be based in Dallas. Chambers will remain headquartered in Baltimore. The acquisition will not result in job losses, both companies said. The combined firm will continue to provide strategic and master planning, operations consulting, architecture, interior design, food service design, purchasing and installation services to clubs nationwide.

D.C. regional open house event will spotlight housing affordability

The Communications Action Network, consisting of more than 160 businesses and organizations working to promote housing affordability, will hold open houses at various locations in Suburban Maryland, Northern Virginia and the District to illustrate the necessity of housing affordability for the health and vitality of the D.C. region?s economy. The open houses will take place on Saturday, May 18, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Nearly 20 affordable communities around the Washington metro area are taking part in the open house to show current examples of affordable housing. For information on the event, dubbed the ?Parade of Homes,? go to http://www.caninitiative.org/2013-parade-of-homes/.

Groundbreaking scheduled in Dundalk

for moderate-income apartments for seniors A groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for Tuesday, May 14, at the site of The Greens at Logan Field, an affordable rental housing development in Dundalk that will feature 102 apartments for low- and moderate-income seniors. When completed, the community will contain 84 one-bedroom and 18 two-bedroom apartments for seniors earning no more than 60 percent of the area median income. Enterprise Homes Inc., of Columbia, is the developer of the $15.2 million project, which is located on a three-acre site that was originally part of the first municipal airfield in Baltimore after World War I. The architectural firm of Grimm + Parker Architects Inc., of Calverton, designed the Greens at Logan Field, Baltimore-based Whiting-Turner Contracting Co. is the general contractor, and Habitat America of Annapolis will provide property management services.

Fire chiefs, insurance institute urge

congressional passage of building code act The International Association of Fire Chiefs and the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety are urging Congress to enact the Safe Building Code Incentive Act, which provides financial incentives for states to adopt and enforce strong building codes. The SBCIA was to be introduced in the House of Representatives and the Senate on Wednesday, May 8. Twelve states, including Maryland, currently would qualify for the additional disaster aid under SBCIA. Several other states could qualify with relatively minor changes to their building code systems. The bill would provide qualifying states with an additional 4 percent of funding for post-disaster assistance if they use nationally recognized model building codes. Specifically, states would need to adopt and enforce the International Residential Code from either of the two most recent updates (2012 or 2009).

Former Unilever ice cream plant in Hagerstown sold to joint venture

A joint venture of New Mill Capital LLC of Los Angeles and M Davis Group LLC of Pittsburgh said it purchased a former ice cream plant in Hagerstown from Unilever. The price paid for the 142,000-square-foot plant was not disclosed. The property was sold in its entirety, including equipment, after having ceased production in fall 2012. The NMC/MDG joint venture plans to remarket the facility to other ice cream manufacturers and alternative food users who can use the plant?s central East Coast location and abundant infrastructure to expand or augment their existing operations. Dan Hudak of Lutherville-based MacKenzie Commercial Real Estate Services brokered the transaction.

Federal Realty Investment Trust closes

$275M public offering of unsecured notes Federal Realty Investment Trust, of Rockville, a real estate investment trust focused on high-quality retail assets, announced the closing of its public offering of $275 million aggregate principal amount of 2.75 percent senior unsecured notes due June 1, 2023. The notes were offered at 98.749 percent of the principal amount with a yield to maturity of 2.894 percent. Interest on the notes will be payable on June 1 and Dec. 1 of each year, beginning this December. Federal Realty intends to use the net proceeds to redeem its outstanding 5.40 percent notes due 2013, to repay any outstanding indebtedness under its revolving credit facility and for general corporate purposes, which may include funding potential acquisition opportunities or funding its redevelopment pipeline.

DDG wins prestigious award for work on Guatemala City retail project

Baltimore-based DDG, a design architecture and graphics company, has won the 2013 International Council of Shopping Centers? Latin America Shopping Center Award for its work on the Portales retail project in Guatemala City. DDG was responsible for the architectural design, the brand identity and the environmental signage and graphics on the 132-store retail center. The ICSC awards are presented for outstanding achievement in marketing, design/development of retail properties, and retail store design.

COPT announces second-quarter dividend of 27.5 cents per common share

Corporate Office Properties Trust, of Columbia, an office real estate investment trust focused on serving the specialized requirements of U.S. government agencies and defense contractors, said its Board of Trustees declared a quarterly dividend of 27.5 cents per common share of beneficial interest for the second quarter of 2013, payable on July 15, 2013, to shareholders of record on June 28, 2013.

Host Hotels beats Wall Street forecast

Host Hotels & Resorts Inc. posted a strong first-quarter performance on a sustained increase in room rates. The Bethesda-based hotel REIT reported funds from operations of $218 million, or 29 cents per share. After adjusting for certain one-time items, FFO was $207 million, or 28 cents per share. The consensus of Wall Street analysts was for FFO of 23 cents per share, according to FactSet. FFO adds items such as amortization and depreciation back to net income, and is a key measure of a REIT?s financial performance. First-quarter revenue was $1.26 billion, up from $952 million in the prior-year period.

Hopkins Medicine opens 4th office in Howard County

Johns Hopkins Community Physicians, the community outreach arm of Johns Hopkins Medicine, announced it will open its newest practice on Monday, May 13, in Fulton, in the heart of the Maple Lawn Business District. Initially staffed by two physicians, the practice occupies 6,548 square feet of space at 8160 Maple Lawn Blvd., and has the capacity to add four more doctors to handle expected growth. The Fulton office is JHCP?s fourth in Howard County. There are more than 30 offices in Maryland, stretching from Charles County to Harford County, and from Queen Anne?s County to Washington County. There are also three offices in Washington, D.C.

Salisbury University gets major gift

Salisbury University has received an $8 million gift to be used to build a new complex that will include a library. The gift from the Guerrieri Family Foundation, of Ocean City, is one of the largest private donations for a capital project in the campus?s history. The facility is expected to cost $115.8 million to build and will occupy 234,000 square feet. It will be the largest construction project ever undertaken at Salisbury University. The Patricia R. Guerrieri Academic Commons is expected to open in 2016. The gift is made in memory of alumna Patricia R. Guerrieri, who passed away in 2010.

Howard Park supermarket starts construction

Baltimore and Maryland elected officials, led by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, joined business leaders, Northwest Baltimore community representatives and officials of Klein?s ShopRite of Maryland to break ground Tuesday for the long-awaited ShopRite of Howard Park supermarket. The 68,000-square-foot, full-service supermarket will include a pharmacy, a health suite staffed by a nurse practitioner, a bakery, an extensive seafood section and a separate halal meat section for Islamic practitioners. A wide selection of international foods, including produce, meat and grocery items, will also be available. The $20 million project with more than 200 parking spaces is expected to be completed by April 2014.

National Harbor apartments underway

The Bozzuto Group, of Greenbelt, and the Peterson Cos., of Fairfax, Va., announced the start of construction of The Esplanade, National Harbor?s first rental apartment development. The $70 million high-rise project will include 262 luxury apartments, 14,400 square feet of street-level retail, and a 420-space parking garage. Residences will be available in studio, one- and two-bedroom floor plans. Construction is expected to be completed in early 2015. National Harbor, developed by the Peterson Cos., opened in 2008. A 350-acre mixed-use community on the banks of the Potomac River in Prince George?s County, it now contains hotels, restaurants, retail stores, entertainment options and nearly 600 residential condominiums and townhouses.

Cordish plans new casino near Boston

(AP) Officials with the Baltimore-based Cordish Cos. announced Tuesday a plan to build a $200 million hotel and gambling facility on a 20-acre site just off Interstate 495 in Boxborough, about 25 miles northwest of Boston. The plan calls for Cordish to buy, renovate, and expand an existing hotel at the site as a boutique hotel and casino. The project would also include several restaurants, an entertainment area, meeting space, spa and fitness facilities. The plan would need the approval of the host community and state gambling officials. Cordish built the Maryland Live Casino near the Arundel Mills mall, and other gambling and hotel venues.

Largo apartment complex acquired by joint venture

Morgan Properties, a King of Prussia, Pa.-based real estate development, investment and management company, said it has formed a joint venture with DRA Advisors, a New York-based registered investment advisor specializing in real estate investment and management services, to acquire Northampton Apartments, a 620-unit garden apartment development in Largo. Jones Lang LaSalle represented the seller, Chicago-based Equity Residential, on the disposition of the property. The purchase price was not disclosed. Morgan Properties currently oversees a multifamily portfolio of 17 apartment communities with more than 7,000 units in the Maryland- D.C. corridor, 2,000 of them acquired in the past 12 months.

LEASES?

Merritt Properties LLC reported the following recently signed lease transactions:

* Harbor East Law LLC, a law firm, leased 2,632 square feet of office space at 729 East Pratt St. in Baltimore. Charles Feitel of Charles Feitel Co. LLC represented Harbor East Law, and Merritt Properties? in-house leasing team of Pat Franklin, Whit Levering, Lou Boeri and Ashley Combs represented the landlord.

* Bully! Commercial and Entertainment Media, LLC, an animation and game design studio, agreed to lease 6,623 square feet of office space at the Foundry on Fort Avenue, 921 Fort Ave., Suites 215-220, in Baltimore. The deal was handled by Pat Franklin, Whit Levering, Lou Boeri and Ashley Combs of Merritt Properties, who represented the landlord.

* M.R. Tech Inc., a fiber optic manufacturer, leased 3,300 square feet of office and warehouse space at 3741 Old Georgetown Road in Arbutus. D. Kaufman of AGM Commercial represented M.R. Tech. Merritt Properties was represented by its in-house leasing team of Jamie Campbell, Liz Tarran-Jones, Vince Bagli and Steve Shaw.

PERSONNEL?

The Baltimore Area Council, Boy Scouts of America honored Brian Gibbons, chairman and CEO of Greenberg Gibbons, as the 2013 recipient of the Henry A. Rosenberg, Sr., Distinguished Citizen Award at a fundraiser on Tuesday, May 7. The award was presented in recognition of Gibbons? extraordinary community leadership and outstanding contributions to improving the quality of life in metropolitan Baltimore. Previous honorees include Kenneth DeFontes, Freeman A. Hrabowski III, William Cardinal Keeler, Henry A. Rosenberg Jr., Christian H. Poindexter, Douglas L. Becker, Ed St. John, John Paterakis, Gerard Holthaus, Martin O?Malley, Alan D. Wilson, Louis Cestello and Barry Gossett, among others.

Baltimore law firm Ober|Kaler announced that Joseph C. Kovars, John Anthony Wolf and Barbara Werther of the firm?s Construction Group have been selected for inclusion in the 2013 edition of The International Who?s Who of Construction Lawyers. The reference guide, published by Law Business Research Ltd., identifies foremost practitioners of construction law, basing inclusion on comprehensive research. Kovars is a co-chair of the Construction Group in the firm?s Baltimore office. Wolf is chair of Ober|Kaler and a principal in the Construction Group in the Baltimore office. Werther is a principal in the Construction Group in the Washington, D.C., office.

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, D-Md., is the recipient of the 2013 Robert C. Weaver Housing Champion Award from the Affordable Housing Conference of Montgomery County. Cummings was scheduled to receive the award on Friday, May 10 from Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown and Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett. The Robert C. Weaver Housing Champion Award honors individuals who have had a significant impact on affordable housing. The award is named in honor of the first secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, who was also the first African-American to hold a cabinet position in a U.S. president?s administration. Weaver was named HUD secretary in 1966 by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Source: http://thedailyrecord.com/2013/05/10/real-estate-weekly-51013/

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Kids' Programming Tool Scratch Now Runs In The Browser

As a parent of three technically savvy kids I find it disturbing that we haven’t even “scratched” the surface of Scratch, an amazing, object-oriented programming language from the MIT Media Lab’sLifelong Kindergarten Group. That may change, however, as it’s much easier to get started in Scratch thanks to a new release of the platform that lives entirely in the browser. You can try the programming language here and the new version allows for webcam interaction with the on-screen sprites and you can now add vector-based graphics that will scale without losing resolution. You can also create your own programming “blocks” and add new logic to your programs or games. The new interface is similar to the old, desktop-based system except it’s a bit simpler and you can store your programs on your computer and then upload them anywhere. A “backpack” will hold objects from one project to the next so you can bring sprites and backgrounds with you to new games. Everything runs smoothly right in the browser. You can see a Scratch-generated tour of 2.0 here or you can just start playing. The platform is great for kids of all ages and it’s a far sight better than most early computer education which consists mostly of typing tutorials and Microsoft Office lessons. If you’re looking for a STEM star and not a cubicle drone, this is the platform for you.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/z65ZLEHNr5Q/

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Possible reason for cholesterol-drug side effects such as memory loss

May 10, 2013 ? The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and physicians continue to document that some patients experience fuzzy thinking and memory loss while taking statins, a class of global top-selling cholesterol-lowering drugs.

A University of Arizona research team has made a novel discovery in brain cells being treated with statin drugs: unusual swellings within neurons, which the team has termed the "beads-on-a-string" effect.

The team is not entirely sure why the beads form, said UA neuroscientist Linda L. Restifo, who leads the investigation. However, the team believes that further investigation of the beads will help inform why some people experience cognitive declines while taking statins.

"What we think we've found is a laboratory demonstration of a problem in the neuron that is a more severe version for what is happening in some peoples' brains when they take statins," said Restifo, a UA professor of neuroscience, neurology and cellular and molecular medicine, and principal investigator on the project.

Restifo and her team's co-authored study and findings recently were published in Disease Models & Mechanisms, a peer-reviewed journal. Robert Kraft, a former research associate in the department of neuroscience, is lead author on the article.

Restifo and Kraft cite clinical reports noting that statin users often are told by physicians that cognitive disturbances experienced while taking statins were likely due to aging or other effects. However, the UA team's research offers additional evidence that the cause for such declines in cognition is likely due to a negative response to statins.

The team also has found that removing statins results in a disappearance of the beads-on-a-string, and also a restoration of normal growth. With research continuing, the UA team intends to investigate how genetics may be involved in the bead formation and, thus, could cause hypersensitivity to the drugs in people. Team members believe that genetic differences could involve neurons directly, or the statin interaction with the blood-brain barrier.

"This is a great first step on the road toward more personalized medication and therapy," said David M. Labiner, who heads the UA department of neurology. "If we can figure out a way to identify patients who will have certain side effects, we can improve therapeutic outcomes."

For now, the UA team has multiple external grants pending, and researchers carry the hope that future research will greatly inform the medical community and patients.

"If we are able to do genetic studies, the goal will be to come up with a predictive test so that a patient with high cholesterol could be tested first to determine whether they have a sensitivity to statins," Restifo said.

Detecting, Understanding a Drugs' Side Effects

Restifo used the analogy of traffic to explain what she and her colleagues theorize.

The beads indicate a sort of traffic jam, she described. In the presence of statins, neurons undergo a "dramatic change in their morphology," said Restifo, also a BIO5 Institute member.

"Those very, very dramatic and obvious swellings are inside the neurons and act like a traffic pileup that is so bad that it disrupts the function of the neurons," she said.

It was Kraft's observations that led to team's novel discovery. Restifo, Kraft and their colleagues had long been investigating mutations in genes, largely for the benefit of advancing discoveries toward the improved treatment of autism and other cognitive disorders.

At the time, and using a blind-screened library of 1,040 drug compounds, the team ran tests on fruit fly neurons, investigating the reduction of defects caused by a mutation when neurons were exposed to different drugs. The team had shown that one mutation caused the neuron branches to be curly instead of straight, but certain drugs corrected this. The research findings were published in 2006 in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Then, something serendipitous occurred: Kraft observed that one compound, then another and then two more all created the same reaction -- "these bulges, which we called beads-on-a-string,'" Kraft said. "And they were the only drugs causing this effect."

At the end of the earlier investigation, the team decoded the library and found that the four compounds that resulted in the beads-on-a-string were, in fact, statins.

"The 'beads' effect of the statins was like a bonus prize from the earlier experiment," Restifo said. "It was so striking, we couldn't ignore it."

In addition to detecting the beads effect, the team came upon yet another major finding: when statins are removed, the beads-on-a-string effect disappears, offering great promise to those being treated with the drugs.

"For some patients, just as much as statins work to save their lives, they can cause impairments," said Monica Chaung, who has been part of the team and is a UA undergraduate researcher studying molecular and cellular biology and physiology.

"It's not a one drug fits all," said Chaung, a UA junior who is also in the Honors College. "We suspect different gene mutations alter how people respond to statins."

Having been trained by Kraft in techniques to investigate cultured neurons, Chuang was testing gene mutations and found variation in sensitivity to statins. It was through the work of Chuang and Kraft that the team would later determine that, after removing the statins, the cells were able to repair themselves; the neurotoxicity was not permanent, Restifo said.

"In the clinical literature, you can read reports on fuzzy thinking, which stops when a patient stops taking statins. So, that was a very important demonstration of a parallel between the clinical reports and the laboratory phenomena," Restifo said.

The finding led the team to further investigate the neurotoxicity of statins.

"There is no question that these are very important and very useful drugs," Restifo said. Statins have been shown to lower cholesterol and prevent heart attacks and strokes.

But too much remains unknown about how the drugs' effects may contribute to muscular, cognitive and behavioral changes.

"We don't know the implications of the beads, but we have a number of hypotheses to test," Restifo said, adding that further studies should reveal exactly what happens when the transportation system within neurons is disrupted.

Also, given the move toward prescribing statins to children, the need to have an expanded understanding of the effects of statins on cognitive development is critical, Kraft said.

"If statins have an effect on how the nervous system matures, that could be devastating," Kraft said. "Memory loss or any sort of disruption of your memory and cognition can have quite severe effects and negative consequences."

Restifo and her colleagues have multiple grants pending that would enable the team to continue investigating several facets related to the neurotoxicity of statins. Among the major questions is, to what extent does genetics contribute to a person's sensitivity to statins?

"We have no idea who is at risk. That makes us think that we can use this genetic laboratory assay to infer which of the genes make people susceptible," Restifo said.

"This dramatic change in the morphology of the neurons is something we can now use to ask questions and experiment in the laboratory," she said. "Our contribution is to find a way to ask about genetics and what the genetic vulnerability factors are."

The Possibility for Future Research, Advice

The team's findings and future research could have important implications for the medical field and for patients with regard to treatment, communication and improved personalized medicine.

"It's important to look into this to see if people may have some sort of predisposition to the beads effect, and that's where we want to go with this research," Kraft said. "There must be more research into what effects these drugs have other than just controlling a person's elevated cholesterol levels."

And even as additional research is ongoing, suggestions already exist for physicians, patients and families.

"Most physicians assume that if a patient doesn't report side effects, there are no side effects," Labiner said. "The paternalistic days of medication are hopefully behind us. They should be."

"We can treat lots of things, but the problem is if there are side effects that worsen the treatment, the patient is more likely to shy away from the medication. That's a bad outcome," he said. "There's got to be a give and take between the patient and physician."

Patients should feel empowered to ask questions, and deeper questions, about their health and treatment and physicians should be very attentive to any reports of cognitive decline for those patients on statins, she said.

For some, it starts early after starting statins; for others, it takes time. And the signs vary. People may begin losing track of dates, the time or their keys.

"These are not trivial things. This could have a significant impact on your daily life, your interpersonal relationships, your ability to hold a job," Restifo said.

"This is the part of the brain that allows us to think clearly, to plan, to hold onto memories," she said. "If people are concerned that they are having this problem, patients should ask their physicians."

Restifo said open and direct patient-physician communication is even more important for those on statins who have a family history of side effects from statins.

Also, physicians could work more closely with patients to investigate family history and determine a better dosage plan. Even placing additional questions on the family history questionnaire could be useful, she said.

"There is good clinical data that every-other-day dosing give you most of the benefits, and maybe even prevents some of the accumulation of things that result in side effects," Restifo said, suggesting that physicians should try and get a better longitudinal picture on how people react while on statins.

"Statins have been around now for long enough and are widely prescribed to so many people," she said. "But increased awareness could be very helpful."

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/0WwNXgG-XWA/130510150143.htm

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Iran president still a force even as his era ends

In this picture taken on Tuesday, May 6, 2013, an Iranian woman walks in an old district of the eastern city of Birjand, Iran. When struggling families in the eastern Iranian city of Birjand take measure of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency in its waning weeks, it's not about his browbeating oratory against the West or his battles with Iran's ruling clerics. Instead, it's the rows of simple two-story homes on the city's outskirts that sharply improved their lives. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

In this picture taken on Tuesday, May 6, 2013, an Iranian woman walks in an old district of the eastern city of Birjand, Iran. When struggling families in the eastern Iranian city of Birjand take measure of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency in its waning weeks, it's not about his browbeating oratory against the West or his battles with Iran's ruling clerics. Instead, it's the rows of simple two-story homes on the city's outskirts that sharply improved their lives. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

In this picture taken on Sunday, May 4, 2013, an Iranian shoe seller stands in his shop in the old bazaar of the eastern city of Birjand, Iran. When struggling families in the eastern Iranian city of Birjand take measure of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency in its waning weeks, it's not about his browbeating oratory against the West or his battles with Iran's ruling clerics. Instead, it's the rows of simple two-story homes on the city's outskirts that sharply improved their lives. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

In this picture taken on Tuesday, May 6, 2013, Iranian clerics gather at the Masoumieh seminary in the eastern city of Birjand, Iran. When struggling families in the eastern Iranian city of Birjand take measure of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency in its waning weeks, it's not about his browbeating oratory against the West or his battles with Iran's ruling clerics. Instead, it's the rows of simple two-story homes on the city's outskirts that sharply improved their lives. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

In this picture taken on Tuesday, May 6, 2013, two Iranian clerics, right, and two women walk in an alley of the eastern city of Birjand, Iran. When struggling families in the eastern Iranian city of Birjand take measure of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency in its waning weeks, it's not about his browbeating oratory against the West or his battles with Iran's ruling clerics. Instead, it's the rows of simple two-story homes on the city's outskirts that sharply improved their lives. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

In this picture taken on Sunday, May 4, 2013, people walk in an alley of the eastern city of Birjand, Iran. When struggling families in the eastern Iranian city of Birjand take measure of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency in its waning weeks, it's not about his browbeating oratory against the West or his battles with Iran's ruling clerics. Instead, it's the rows of simple two-story homes on the city's outskirts that sharply improved their lives. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

BIRJAND, Iran (AP) ? When many struggling families in this eastern Iranian city take stock of outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's legacy, it's not about the oratory full of bluster and menace or his tussles with Iran's ruling clerics that are known to much of the world.

What matters more here are the dusty rows of government-subsidized, two-story apartment buildings on the outskirts of the once-neglected outpost ? testament to an effective populist outreach that has won the president millions of loyal backers in the provinces.

That support could give him influence beyond next month's election to pick his successor, underscoring how public opinion is relevant in Iran despite the heavy hand of clerical rule.

At first glance, Ahmadinejad may appear as a mostly spent political force. Damaging internal battles with the Islamic establishment over power and policies have left him so politically toxic in ruling circles that the possible leading candidates to replace him have all joined to ridicule his presidency.

But counting Ahmadinejad out grossly underestimates his most critical asset: A deep well of grateful and loyal supporters in hardscrabble places such as Birjand, a city of nearly 300,000 in wind-swept hills near the border with Afghanistan.

"May God bless Ahmadinejad," said Birjand taxi driver Ali Reza Farsi. "He is my hero."

___

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the second story in an occasional series examining the June 14 Iranian election and the wider global and internal Iranian consequences at the end of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's era.

___

While Iran's theocracy holds many levers in the election, including vetting all candidates and deciding who appears on the final ballot, public opinion remains a legitimate force in Iran. It gave pro-reform President Mohammad Khatami a landslide re-election in 2001 and unleashed its fury after claims that vote fraud brought Ahmadinejad back for a second term four years ago.

Now, it's Ahmadinejad's backers who could rattle the system. No previous Iranian president has left office on such bad terms with the ruling clerics. A cozy landing for the 56-year-old leader in the inner circle or as an elder statesman is highly unlikely. This leaves Ahmadinejad with his big political ego and his still-significant political base.

"There is no doubt that an Ahmadinejad loyalist is a tough challenger no matter what," said prominent political analyst Saeed Leilaz. "Conservatives and reformists would have to fight an Ahmadinejad loyalist, who has strong supporters in small towns and rural areas."

His main goal has been to get his chief adviser, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, on the June 14 ballot. But the chances that his protege, whose daughter is married to Ahmadinejad's son, would be approved are sharply dimmed because of his messy power struggles with the clerics.

The relationship worsened in 2011 with a dispute over the choice of intelligence minister. The atmosphere became so divisive that Ahmadinejad boycotted government meetings for 11 days to protest being overruled by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in all critical affairs.

Even without Mashaei on the ballot, Ahmadinejad has clout in other ways stemming from his policies funneling money and public works to long-neglected areas.

He could suddenly be transformed from scorned to courted by the front-runners, including a former nuclear negotiator, a top adviser for Khamenei and the mayor of Tehran, if they decide an endorsement from Ahmadinejad could bring in a potential voter windfall in the provinces

Or he could break away and start his own political movement, which could quickly become a serious force. Ahmadinejad cannot run this year because of term limits, but a comeback bid is possible as early as 2017.

The five-day registration period for candidates closes Saturday. The election overseers, known as the Guardian Council, will announce the handful of candidates on the ballot later this month. The list is expected to be weighted heavily toward establishment-friendly hopefuls. Reformists and liberal-leaning groups have been widely crushed and left leaderless after massive street protests following Ahmadinejad's disputed 2009 victory.

Ahmadinejad was the surprise winner in 2005 by portraying himself as a champion of the poor. In many ways, he has remained true to this identity even as he morphed from loyal foot soldier for the theocracy to an agitator who broke taboos and challenged the authority of Khamenei.

Those failed battles left Ahmadinejad politically humbled and openly derided by the presumed front-runners in the June election. But Ahmadinejad has weathered the storms in the hinterlands. For eight years, his political roadshow traveled to small towns and villages across Iran where many people say even local authorities had never visited.

His government redirected oil revenue into development projects and cash handouts in impoverished areas. His critics called it demagoguery and evidence of gross fiscal mismanagement, which is blamed for soaring prices and worsening the blows from international sanctions over Iran's nuclear program. Yet it also earned Ahmadinejad the devotion of millions outside Tehran and other major cities.

In a rare message to his eventual successor, Ahmadinejad said last week that government "subsidies belong to the people" and they should continue despite the shrinking resources under sanctions.

Ahmadinejad has offered no clear signals on his next moves. Any kind of political future, though, would almost certainly tap into the support built in rural areas and small cities such as Birjand, which had some of the highest reported turnout for Ahmadinejad in the past two elections.

"My husband would have never been able to buy a place to live in his lifetime without Ahmadinejad's support. God may prolong his life," said Razieh Esmaeili, 41, whose husband works in a bakery. Last year, they received an apartment in Birjand's Mehr housing development, part of a nationwide low-income project initiated under Ahmadinejad.

"I'll vote only for the candidate Ahmadinejad supports," she added.

In 2005, Ahmadinejad, then mayor of Tehran, reportedly took 88 percent of the votes in Birjand, his highest percentage in the country. In his re-election, Ahmadinejad still took about 70 percent of the votes, according to official results that have been dismissed by opposition groups as tainted with fraud.

The low-income housing project, however, also is an example of the shortcuts taken by Ahmadinejad's government in its populist outreach.

The streets are still dusty. Electricity and natural gas have been hooked up gradually, but some of the houses still don't have water, which is supplied by a tanker truck. Some of the houses were given to residents half-complete.

Still, few in Birjand complain about the president ? a major contrast to Tehran where even Khamenei in February described Ahmadinejad's combative political style as "bad, wrong, inappropriate."

The taxi driver Farsi likes to recount a story about a 2005 letter he wrote to Ahmadinejad asking for help to expand his small house.

"Two months later," he said, "I got a call from the governor's office" offering a loan of about $3,400.

"My family and I will vote for anyone who will be supported by Ahmadinejad, no matter if is Mashaei or somebody else," said Farsi, who is also an active member of the Basij, a paramilitary force allied with the Revolutionary Guard in the South Khorasan province around Birjand.

But Abdollah Hadinia, conservative editor of Khorasan daily in Birjand, has dropped his support for Ahmadinejad after the feud with Khamenei.

"I was proud of Ahmadinejad's statements. But some of his decisions in the past two years have shamed us," he said. "He deviated from his path, and this has harmed has popularity."

Still, there is little sign of reformist activity in Birjand, which reflects the significant gulf between the pockets of liberal-leaning politics in some of Iran's urban areas and the deep traditionalism in the provinces. Voters in Birjand will likely look to Ahmadinejad for cues on how to vote.

"A pro-Ahmadinejad candidate will have a good number of votes. There are 2,000 villages in South Khorasan province and most people in those villages have benefited from Ahmadinejad's government," said Abolfazl Zahei, a pro-reform activist. "People here care about making their ends meet and welfare, not politics."

___

Murphy reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-05-09-Iran-Ahmadinejad%20Stronghold/id-23d735c8a27a45fe9c0da1a1d0d7630d

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Woman Found Dead In Union Square Park

A young woman was found dead in Union Square Park this morning. According to police, the 23-year-old woman was found by a passerby around 7:30 a.m. today in a grassy part of the park, opposite 10 Union Square East. They added that there appears to be no criminality, but are awaiting the medical examiner's report. The Post adds that cops are investigating whether she died of a drug overdose.

Source: http://feeds.gothamistllc.com/click.phdo?i=dfa794e1bb72e9fc4e02addac4496667

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Breastfeeding is an Environmental Issue! | Care2 Healthy Living

I?chose to exclusively breastfeed my two daughters during their first six months of life, as it was the most natural and obvious way to provide them with the nourishment they needed to thrive. I was also admittedly, lazy.?Mama?s milk is always at the right temperature, always nutritionally complete, never needs to be sterilized and always readily available.? It made no sense to me why any mother would want to get up in the middle of the night, go to the kitchen and prepare a bottle of infant formula when we are all endowed with our own lovely milky way cafes that merely require a half-awake strategic repositioning near our baby?s rooting rosebud mouths ? ?while still dreaming of Tahiti. Okay, I admit I was also addicted to oxytocin and prolactin, those yummy mommy hormones (released while breastfeeding) that make you all warm and fuzzy inside, but love hormones aside, breastfeeding just felt so right.

It wasn?t until my second daughter came along that I contemplated the environmental impact of this choice.? One balmy afternoon, while nursing my babe under a weeping?willow tree and reading Paul Hawkin?s book,?Natural Capital, it dawned on me that breastmilk is not only an invaluable renewable resource but it is also the most environmentally sound food source available and this is why: breastmilk is produced and delivered to the consumer (baby) with a nearly zero ecological and carbon footprint.

In sharp contrast, artificial baby formula production, distribution and consumption pollutes our land, air, and water and sucks up substantial natural resources ? and as a result has a HUGE ecological and carbon footprint. For example, every year in the US, over half a million women formula feed their babies from birth.? If just these mothers breastfed for a full year (with solids introduced after six months), these resources would be saved:

• 2.5 million pounds of paper
• 25 million pounds of metal
• 27 million gallons of milk, requiring 465 million pounds of dairy feed to produce
• 6 million gallons of oil for production, transportation and refrigeration
• 135 million pounds of carbon dioxide produced by the use of those 6 million gallons of oil

If those statistics are not eye-popping, try these:

• The 550 million containers of artificial baby formula sold each year to the U.S. alone, stacked end to end, would circle the earth one and a half times.

• If every child in America were bottle-fed, almost 86,000 tons of tin would be needed to produced 550 million cans wrapped in 1,230 tons of paper labels for just one year?s worth of formula.

• If every mother in the U.K. breastfed, 3,000 tons of paper would be saved in one year? ? and that would be just for the labels.

• Breastfeeding delays menstruation on average by 14 months. In Great Britain, this delay in menstruation translates to 3,000 tons of paper saved just from unused sanitary protection products!? In addition to saving trees, packaging materials and fuel would be saved, and less items sent to landfills.

• Landfills rise unnecessarily with every formula fed baby. Plastic feeding bottles, nipples, and pacifiers take 200 to 450 years to break down.

• Milk comes from cows or soybeans, both of which require vast amounts of land, water and fertilizers. Nitrate fertilizers used to grow feed for dairy cows contaminates rivers and ground water as does the cow dung itself; cows also produce more than their share of of methane thus adding to global warming.

• To substitute the breastmilk of all the women in India, 135 million lactating cows, requiring 43% of India?s landmass, would be needed.

?

Few mothers understand or even contemplate the environmental impact when breastmilk is substituted with formula. I know I didn?t with my first baby. The choice to breastfeed seemed an entirely personal decision. But, now in light of the huge environmental cost of not breastfeeding, I realize that my decision to breastfeed my babies was not just a personal decision, but also a planetary decision.

So, all you breastfeeding mamas rejoice knowing you are making one of the best ecological decisions as a parent ? even if no one gives you a gold star for your effort!

?-

Thank you to the following sources which were used to write this article:

Baumslag, N. and Michels, D.,?Milk, Money & Madness: The Culture and Politics of Breastfeeding. Bergin & Garvey, Westport, CT, 1995.
Correa, Wendy.? ?Eco-Mama,??Mothering Magazine. Issue no. 95, July/Aug. 1999.

http://www.ewg.org/reports/infantformula

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Related:
Why Breastfeeding in Public is Still Controversial
My 5 Favorite Breastfeeding Tips

Source: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/breastfeeding-is-an-environmental-issue.html

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Epigenomics of stem cells that mimic early human development charted

May 9, 2013 ? Scientists have long known that control mechanisms known collectively as "epigenetics" play a critical role in human development, but they did not know precisely how alterations in this extra layer of biochemical instructions in DNA contribute to development.

Now, in the first comprehensive analysis of epigenetic changes that occur during development, a multi-institutional group of scientists, including several from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, has discovered how modifications in key epigenetic markers influence human embryonic stem cells as they differentiate into specialized cells in the body. The findings were published May 9 in Cell.

"Our findings help us to understand processes that occur during early human development and the differentiation of a stem cell into specialized cells, which ultimately form tissues in the body," says co-lead author Joseph R. Ecker, a professor and director of Salk's Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory and holder of the Salk International Council Chair in Genetics.

Scientists have established that the gene expression program encoded in DNA is carried out by proteins that bind to regulatory genes and modulate gene expression in response to environmental cues. Growing evidence now shows that maintenance of this process depends on epigenetic marks such as DNA methylation and chromatin modifications, biochemical processes that alter gene expression as cells divide and differentiate from embryonic stem cells into specific tissues. Epigenetic modifications -- collectively known as the epigenome -- control which genes are turned on or off without changing the letters of the DNA alphabet (A-T-C-G), providing cells with an additional tool to fine-tune how genes control the cellular machinery.

In their study, the Salk researchers and their collaborators from several prominent research institutions across the United States examined the beginning state of cells, before and after they developed into specific cell types. Starting with a single cell type -- the H1 human embryonic stem cell, the most widely studied stem cell line to date -- the team followed the cells' epigenome from development to different cell states, looking at the dynamics in changes to epigenetic marks from one state to another. Were they methylated, an essential process for normal development, or unmethylated? What happened to the cells during development? What regulatory processes occurred in the cell lineage?

The scientists found sections of the DNA that activate regulatory genes, which in turn control the activity of other genes, tend to have different amounts of letters of the DNA alphabet, "C" and "G" specifically, depending on when these regulatory genes are turned on during development. Additionally, regulatory genes that control early development are often located on stretches of DNA called methylation valleys, or DMVs, that are generally CG rich and devoid of epigenetic chemical modifications known as methylation.

Consequently, these genes have to be regulated by another epigenetic mechanism, which the authors found were chemical changes called chromatin modifications. Chromatin is the mass of material -- DNA and proteins -- in a cell's nucleus that helps to control gene expression.

On the other hand, genes active in more mature cells whose tissue type is already determined tend to be CG poor and regulated by DNA methylation. The results suggest that distinct epigenetic mechanisms regulate early and late states of embryonic stem cell differentiation.

"Epigenomic studies of how stem cells differentiate into distinct cell types are a great way to understand early development of animals," says Ecker, who is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Investigator. "If we understand how these cells' lineages originate, we can understand if something goes right or wrong during differentiation. It's a very basic study, but there are implications for being able to produce good quality cell types for various therapies."

For example, says Matthew Schultz, a graduate student in Ecker's lab, "understanding how development plays out normally could give us clues about how to reverse the process and turn normal adult cells into stem cells to regenerate tissues."

One area where the findings may help is in the study of tumor development. In normal tissue, DMVs are unmethylated, but in cancer, especially breast, colon and lung cancer, they are hypermethylated, suggesting, says Ecker, that alterations in the DNA methylation machinery might be an important mechanism aiding tumor development. He says further investigation is required to develop a greater understanding of this process.

Other researchers on the study were Matthew D. Schultz, Ryan Lister, Joseph R. Nery, Mark A. Urich and Huaming Chen, from the Salk Institute; Wei Xie, Nisha Rajagopal, R. David Hawkins, Danny Leung, Ah Young Lee, Audrey Kim, Samantha Kuan, Chia-an Yen, Sarit Klugman, Lee E. Edsall, Ulrich Wagner, Yan Li, Zhen Ye and Bing Ren of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research; Zhonggang Hou, Shulan Tian, Scott A. Swanson, Jiuchun Zhang, Pengzhi Yu, Nicholas E. Propson, Jessica E. Antosiewicz-Bourget, Ron Stewart and James A. Thomson of the Morgridge Institute for Research; Pradipta Ray Ashwinikumar Kulkarni, Zhenyu Xuan, Wen-Yu Chung and Michael Q. Zhang of the University of Texas at Dallas; John W. Whitaker, Hongbo Yang, Tao Wang, Yun Zhu, Neil C. Chi, and Wei Wang of the University of California, San Diego; and Kran Suknuntha and Igor Sluvkin of the University of Wisconsin.

The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health Epigenome Roadmap Project, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, and the American Heart Association.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/health_medicine/genes/~3/E86AFfaqYI0/130509133155.htm

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