Android Phones Pass 700,000 Activations Per Day, Approaching 250 Million Total

Android just keeps ramping up higher and higher. Andy Rubin tweeted yesterday that there are now more than 700,000 Android phones activated every single day, which is up from 500,000 activations per day last June. You can see how steep the ramp has been over the past three years by looking at the chart up top, which comes from Horace Dediu at Asymco. Dediu estimates that the total cumulative number of Android devices activated so far is between 224 million and 253 million. To put this in perspective, last October, Apple announced a cumulative total of 250 million iOS devices sold. But that number includes iPods and iPads.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/p4ED07o3V1w/

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Three Kings may have to go without frankincense

LONDON?? Trees that produce frankincense, a fragrant resin used in incense and perfumes and a central part of the Christmas story, are declining so fast that production could be halved over the next 15 years, scientists said on Wednesday.

In a study published in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology, ecologists from the Netherlands and Ethiopia looked at large-scale field studies and predicted that tree numbers could decline by 90 percent in the next 50 years.

If fire, grazing and insect attack, the most likely causes of decline, remain unchecked, then frankincense production could be doomed altogether, they warned.

Frankincense, best known in religious teachings as one of the gifts laid before the newborn Messiah, is obtained by tapping various species of Boswellia, a small, deciduous tree that grows across Africa from northern Nigeria to the highlands of Ethiopia and Eritrea.

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Cutting the Boswellia's bark produces the frankincense resin, a white substance with a strong, sweet smell. The resin is burnt in churches, mosques and at ceremonies, as well as being used by the perfume industry and in herbal medicines.

Despite its economic importance, incense has been traded internationally for thousands of years, little is known about how tapping affects Boswellia populations.

Working in an isolated part of northwest Ethiopia near the source of the Blue Nile, a research team led by Frans Bongers of Wageningen University in the Netherlands studied 13 two-hectare plots, some where trees were tapped for frankincense and some where they were untapped.

Over two years, they monitored survival, growth and seed production of more than 6,000 Boswellia trees and used the data to build mathematical models to predict the fate of Boswellia populations in coming years. The forecasts suggest Boswellia populations are declining so dramatically that frankincense production could be halved in the next 15 years.

"Current management of Boswellia populations is clearly unsustainable," Bongers said in a statement. "Our models show that within 50 years, populations of Boswellia will be decimated, and the declining populations mean frankincense production is doomed."

The researchers found that all the Boswellia populations they studied are declining, not only those from tapped trees, a finding that suggests factors other than tapping are at the root of the problem.

Bongers said the main causes of the trees' decline are likely to be burning, grazing and attack by the long-horn beetle, which lays its eggs under the Boswellia's bark.

The scientists urged local authorities to introduce better management incentives to ensure farmers work harder to protect Boswellia trees. In the short-term this meant preventing fires and beetle attack, Bongers said, but in the longer term, large areas should be set aside and protected for five to 10 years to allow Boswellia saplings to become established.

(Matthew's account of the Nativity mentions two other gifts that were brought to Jesus' birthplace by the Three Kings, who are also known as the Three Wise Men or the Magi. Myrrh is another aromatic resin that is produced almost exclusively in East Africa. The third gift of the Magi was gold.)

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45744432/ns/technology_and_science-science/

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Leader denies use of violence as Cairo crackdown continues (San Jose Mercury News)

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The Iraq War and the Steep Price of American Bravado (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | President Obama marked the end of the war in Iraq on Wednesday, December 14, but his salute of returning troops was no declaration of victory. Obama's low-key wrap-up of the war contrasts starkly with President George W. Bush's infamous "mission accomplished" celebration. That celebration, which marked the end of major combat operations, was full of the self-assured bravado that led us into the Iraq War.

Where is that bravado now?

Now, a decade past the "shock and awe" bombardment meant to lead to the Iraqi forces' quick collapse, it's fair to ask whether America's achievements were worth their steep cost.

The Iraq War did produce some desired results. America might not have found the weapons of mass destruction it insisted justified invasion, but it did -- along with its allies -- depose a ruthless dictator whose unpredictability destabilized the Persian Gulf. Connections between Al-Qaeda and Iraq now appear to have been largely puffery, manufactured to justify military action to the ordinary Americans who bore the cost, both economic and human, of the war and occupation. But America made clear to the world the lengths to which it would go to protect its security interests.

But do those achievements justify the 4,500 lost and 32,000 wounded Americans? Perhaps. The better question might be, do they justify the loss of 100,000 Iraqi lives and the possibly irreparable damage to America's status as global beacon for freedom and justice?

I recall sharing dinner with a friend shortly after the war's start. "This war will be the first crack in America's foundation," my friend told me. "One day we'll look back and see [the Iraq War] as the beginning of America's end."

Those comments still strike me as overstatements. But it's true that, due in large part to the Iraq War, America's reality has shifted. We fought a war we couldn't really afford, for a people whose allegiances we misjudged, based on tragically mistaken justifications, with an ill-formed exit strategy. Our actions at Abu Ghraib revealed to the world that Americans, too, are capable of cruelty. The deaths of 100,000 Iraqis will stain our political relations in the Gulf for generations to come.

The chief consequence of the war for Americans is that we have been forced to confront the reality that America is fallible, our security depends on international cooperation, and until we tend to our own democracy's blemishes, we have no business defining democracy for others.

I can't imagine that the destruction of so many lives was unavoidable. But if these are the tough lessons we've learned, I'm glad such painful losses won us something.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111215/pl_ac/10685165_the_iraq_war_and_the_steep_price_of_american_bravado

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How the poll on Obama and the economy was conducted (Star Tribune)

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Palm-sized baby, 2nd smallest in US, is growing (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? At birth, Melinda Star Guido was so tiny she could fit into the palm of her doctor's hand. Weighing just 9 1/2 ounces ? less than a can of soda ? she is among the smallest babies ever born in the world. Most infants her size don't survive, but doctors are preparing to send her home by New Year's.

Melinda was born premature at 24 weeks over the summer and spent the early months cocooned in an incubator in the neonatal intensive care unit in Southern California. Almost every day, her 22-year-old mother sits at her bedside and stays overnight whenever she can.

The day before her Thursday due date, Haydee Ibarra visited Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center where her daughter has been since her birth in late August. Melinda is believed to be the second smallest baby to survive in the U.S. and third in the world.

Ibarra caressed Melinda through the portholes of the incubator where nurses pinned up a homemade sign bearing her name. Now weighing four pounds, Melinda gripped Ibarra's pinky finger and yawned.

"Melinda, Melinda," she cooed at her daughter dressed in a polka dot onesie. "You're awake today."

During her pregnancy, Ibarra suffered from high blood pressure, which can be dangerous for both mother and fetus. She was transferred from a hospital near her San Fernando Valley home to the county's flagship hospital, which was better equipped to handle high-risk pregnancies.

There was a problem with the placenta, the organ that nourishes the developing fetus. The fetus, however, was not getting proper nutrition, blood and oxygen. Doctors knew Melinda would weigh less than a pound, but they were surprised at how small and fragile she was.

"The first few weeks, it was touch and go. None of us thought the baby was going to make it," said Dr. Rangasamy Ramanathan, who oversees premature infants.

Even if she survived, doctors told Ibarra and her husband Yovani Guido, children born this extremely premature can have developmental delays and impairments such as blindness, deafness or cerebral palsy.

Ibarra, who previously had a stillborn, told doctors to do whatever necessary to help her baby.

"They said, `We'll take the chance. Please try.' So we said. `OK we'll try,'" Ramanathan recalled.

Melinda was delivered by cesarean section at 24 weeks and was immediately transferred to the NICU where a team of doctors and nurses kept watch around the clock. Infants born before 37 weeks are considered premature.

Melinda was kept insulated in an incubator and was hooked up to a machine to aid her breathing. She got nutrition through a feeding tube. Her mother said her skin felt like plastic because it was so thin.

"It takes a lot of good care and a lot of good luck. Most of them don't survive," said pediatrician Dr. Edward Bell of the University of Iowa who keeps an online database of the world's smallest surviving babies who were less than a pound at birth.

The list currently contains 126 babies dating back to 1936. Since submission is voluntary, it does not represent all survivors.

Ten babies weighing less than a pound were born last year and survived. Melinda joins three other tiny survivors delivered this year in Berkeley; Seoul, South Korea; and Iowa City, Iowa. All are bigger than Melinda, who is not eligible to be listed until she gets discharged.

Most tiny babies who survive tend to be female. That's because female fetuses mature faster than males of the same gestational age. Having more developed lungs and other vital organs increases odds of survival.

Bell published a study last year that found many survivors struggle with health and learning problems. For those for whom growth data are available, many are short and underweight for their age.

There are some success stories.

The smallest surviving baby born weighing 9.2 ounces is now a healthy 7-year-old and another who weighed 9.9 ounces at birth is an honors college student studying psychology. Their progress was detailed in a study published this week in the journal Pediatrics by doctors at Loyola University Medical Center in Illinois where the girls were born.

In the past three years, Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center treated two other babies with extremely low birth weight who survived, but Melinda holds the record at the hospital.

A month after she was born, she was treated for an eye disorder that's common in premature babies. She faced her biggest test last month when she underwent surgery to close an artery that usually seals after birth.

Ybarra held Melinda for the first time after the surgery. Before that, she could only touch her through the incubator. The next challenge is learning to bottle feed before discharge. Ramanathan predicted at least another two-week stay, dashing her parents' hopes of taking her home by Christmas.

Ramanathan said it's too early to know how Melinda will fare when she grows up. Since she did not have major complications such as bleeding in the brain, he held out hope.

Melinda can breathe by herself, but still uses an oxygen tube as a precaution. On Wednesday, an ophthalmologist checked out her eyes and said everything looked good.

After the checkup, Ibarra lifted Melinda out of the incubator and sat in a rocking chair, cradling her.

___

Online:

Tiniest Babies Registry: http://www.healthcare.uiowa.edu/tiniestbabies/index.htm

___

Follow Alicia Chang's coverage at http://www.twitter.com/SciWriAlicia

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111215/ap_on_he_me/us_med_tiny_baby

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RARE INTERVIEW WITH DORIS DAY IN PARADE

The December 25 issue of PARADE features a rare interview with legendary singer and actress Doris Day, who recently released a new album, My Heart. Here are some highlights: ON GOING SOLO… The first time I ever worked alone, I had two shows a night at the Little Club on East 55th St. in New [...]

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