One of the most painful feelings in the entire world is when you accidentally step onto a Lego brick with your bare foot. AGH the shooting needle of plastic is a horrific reminder of how big a weakling your feet are. No worries though. For true Lego fanatics, they can turn to Lego brick house slippers.
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Clemson's Darius Robinson is one of six current players to be added to a potential landmark NCAA suit.
Photo courtesy of Clemson Sports Information
Clemson CB No. 21 is now plaintiff No. 19 in a landmark lawsuit against the NCAA.
Thursday, six current college football players added their names to a group of 16 former college football and basketball players who have joined to sue the NCAA, video game maker EA Sports and the Collegiate Licensing Company. One of those current players was Clemson senior cornerback Darius Robinson, who sees a striking resemblance between himself and a certain senior cornerback at Clemson in the NCAA Football 14 game recently released by EA Sports.
"That's me all the way," Robinson said in an interview Thursday night after attorneys filed an amended complaint to the case, which is being tried in federal court in the Northern District of California. It's Robinson all right -- for better and for worse. "It's as close as it gets," he said. "Size, ratings. I don't have the best hands as a corner, so I always drop interceptions on the video game." And does he occasionally drop interceptions in real life? "Sometimes," Robinson said with a laugh. "I'm not going to lie."(There is one slight difference. Robinson, who wore No. 21 for three years, recently switched to No. 8. His Twitter handle remains @21FearGod.)
Now Robinson will join five other current players -- two from the Pac-12, two from the Big Ten and one from the SEC -- in the fight against the NCAA's model of amateurism, which holds that no matter how much revenue their teams bring in or how much that revenue increases over a period of years, athletes are entitled only to tuition, room and board as payment for their services. Robinson isn't ungrateful. He's thrilled to have a scholarship, but he has spent three years inside the machine, and he has learned a little about how the sausage is made for your Saturday enjoyment. "This is definitely something that I would love to get involved in," Robinson said, "because I really do believe in it."
Robinson's inspiration to join the suit came a few months ago when he learned the same lesson former Minnesota wrestler Joel Bauman learned earlier this year. When you're an athlete at an NCAA institution, your name and your face do not belong to you. Robinson wanted to get a job to earn extra money, but he couldn't work regular hours because of his commitment to the football team. So he sought work with more flexible hours. He hit upon 5LINX, a multilevel marketing company with a business model similar to Amway. While such companies certainly have their drawbacks, 5LINX does offer direct sales. In Robinson's case, he intended to sell mobile phones and phone plans.
MANDEL: Movement, but no ruling in class action certification hearing
Someone in Clemson's compliance department noticed an uptick in business-related posts on Robinson's Facebook and Instagram accounts, and Robinson was called in to meet with compliance officials. "According to the NCAA, the rule is that a student-athlete can have his own business," Robinson said. "But they were saying that I couldn't have it because I couldn't detach my name from it. They were saying I couldn't promote it. ... I didn't see a reason for me having a business if I couldn't promote it." Basically, Robinson wasn't allowed to use his name or face in connection to his business. This rule exists so boosters can't shuttle extra money to players for bogus products or services, but it also stops athletes from earning legitimate income under their own names. (On the NCAA's own website, you can find the tale of a Northwestern swimmer forced to use a pseudonym before she could self-publish a book.)
Robinson was incredulous. He pointed out that if he had time, he could go to work at a retail store selling mobile phones -- using his real name -- and not run afoul of NCAA rules. Why couldn't he do the same thing independently? Compliance officials, who were just doing their jobs and protecting Robinson's eligibility, told him he shouldn't risk NCAA trouble. So he dropped his business plans.
The episode made Robinson more interested in the inner workings of college athletics. He had seen stories about the huge new television contracts signed by various conferences -- including the ACC, of which Clemson is a member -- but he hadn't paid much attention. Of course he and his teammates had noticed someone was making money off a video game featuring their likenesses, but he hadn't thought much about it. That all changed after Robinson's run-in with compliance. "We need to be more educated about the entire process," Robinson said. "We really just know nothing."
Robinson wanted to make one thing clear to Clemson fans, though. This quest will not harm the Tigers on the field. The College Park, Ga., native, who came back from a fractured ankle to rejoin the first-team defense this spring, said his participation in the suit will not distract him from his role with a Clemson team that should be very good this fall. "It's something that I really believe in," he said. "But at the same time, I'm still focused on this upcoming season."
Robinson got himself hooked up with the plaintiffs' attorneys, who are led by Washington-based Michael Hausfeld. Hausfeld's team also signed up Arizona linebacker Jake Fischer, Arizona kicker Jake Smith, Vanderbilt linebacker Chase Garnham, Minnesota tight end Moses Alipate and Minnesota linebacker Victor Keise. Patrick Vint of SBNation pointed out that while Fischer, Garnham, Smith and Robinson are readily identifiable in the NCAA Football 2014 video game, Alipate and Keise do not have avatars in the game. In the amended complaint, plaintiffs' attorneys point out Alipate and Keise signed "one or more release forms." So the inclusion of the two Minnesota players may serve to challenge the name and likeness release forms Big Ten athletes are required to sign. In an interview Thursday, Hausfeld declined to discuss specific strategies. "We wanted to show the diversity of commitment in the different conferences, the different schools," Hausfeld said. "This is an issue that has caught their attention."
It took guts for the players to stand up to the NCAA, just as it takes guts for anyone who stands up to the establishment and asks for a better deal. But the players have plenty of support. The plaintiffs have a huge legal team that has sunk millions into this case because the attorneys see the NCAA and the schools and conferences that run major college sports as a poor man's Big Tobacco. The players also have support on campus. Fischer and Smith, for example, discussed their participation at length with Arizona football coach Rich Rodriguez and Wildcats athletic director Greg Byrne. "While we do not support the lawsuit, we support their right to be involved and express their opinion," Byrne said in a statement. "They are two fine young men and we are glad they are part of our program and university."
When the names of the players were released Thursday, the reaction was predictable. Critics on Twitter suggested they didn't buy the NCAA Football video game to play as Arizona's kicker or Vanderbilt's middle linebacker. But whether they realize it or not, they bought the game for the realism. There is a reason EA Sports employees spend valuable hours trying to match the size and speed attributes of backup tight ends on mid-tier Big 12 teams to their real-life counterparts. This is a business decision, an investment based on market research. The game sells better when it is as realistic as possible.
Another prong of the suit is television money. The rights to the games in which these athletes will play are sold for massive amounts. The Pac-12 has a 12-year, $3 billion deal with Fox and ESPN for select football and men's basketball games. Other games are broadcast on the Pac-12 Networks, which are sold to cable providers for a per-subscriber fee. All that money is redistributed to the schools, which will make millions more than they did a few years ago without giving a raise to the performers people are paying to see. The same is true of the SEC, which is in the middle of ESPN and CBS deals that will pay about $3 billion over 15 years. That figure will rise when the league and ESPN team to launch the SEC Network in 2014. The Big Ten, the Big 12 and the ACC also have big-money deals that dwarf what they made even 15 years ago.
Athletic directors, who have had no cap placed on their earnings as revenues have mushroomed, will argue that if the court forces more to players in the revenue sports (football and men's basketball), it will leave less money to support non-revenue sports such as volleyball, soccer and swimming. This is true, and a victory for the plaintiffs or a settlement might force schools to cut sports. This may sound insensitive, but what direct responsibility does a football player have to fund a swimmer's scholarship? None.
The players who joined the lawsuit Thursday will likely be long finished with their athletic careers by the time this case gets resolved. They're all seniors and they'll exhaust their eligibility before the scheduled trial date in 2014. If the case goes to trial, expect any verdict to be appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. That will take years. The players probably won't get rich individually even if they win, and they'll have to turn the other cheek to criticism from people who think athletes should just shut up and play ball.
In June, when Hausfeld said the plaintiffs would add at least one current athlete, I wrote that whoever joined the suit could be remembered as the Curt Flood of college sports. Flood, if you'll recall, faced mostly scorn and never reaped a financial benefit from his decision to challenge Major League Baseball's reserve clause. But generations of future professional athletes benefited from Flood's willingness to fight for a more reasonable split of the revenue between management and the labor force. These players will face criticism as well. But they might be the ones who pave the way for future generations of college football and basketball players to receive a larger share of the bounty they help create.
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It took 69 years, but at last we've seen the pitch drop. One of the world's longest-running experiments climaxed last week, when a finger-sized bulb of pitch (bitumen) separated from its parent bulk and dropped into a beaker. For the first time ever, this fleeting event has been recorded on video.
The pitch drop experiment was set up at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, in 1944. The original version of the experiment, at the University of Queensland in Australia, has been running since 1930, but various glitches have prevented that team from actually seeing a drop separate.
"No one has ever seen a drop fall anywhere in the world," says Trinity's Shane Bergin, whose webcam recorded the event on 11 July. "It's one of the oldest experiments ? an oddity, a curiosity."
Pitch shatters if hit with a hammer at room temperature. Physicist Thomas Parnell set up the Queensland experiment to illustrate that, although it appears solid, pitch is actually an incredibly viscous liquid. (Recent experiments showed that the same is true for "Gorilla Glass", used in smartphones and tablet screens.)
In 1927 Parnell heated a blob of pitch and poured it into a glass funnel with a sealed stem. After letting the material settle for three years, Parnell cut the stem to allow the pitch to drip out and fall. Gravity has since drawn out a gloopy drop about once a decade, and a ninth is expected to fall sometime this year. The long-running experiment has since been added to the Guinness Book of World Records and won an IgNobel prize in 2005.
Parnell died having never seen a drop separate, and John Mainstone, the current custodian of the Queensland experiment, has had no luck capturing such an event on camera.
No one recalls who set up the Trinity experiment, which sat on a shelf largely unwatched for years. Bergin recently rekindled excitement in the project and set up a webcam last year so that anyone around the world could join the vigil. The video shows that the drop actually fell in two stages, says Bergin. "There was one heavy fall, and then there was a tiny thread left that was still connected. That broke while I was there."
His colleagues Denis Weaire and Stefan Hutzler immediately started analysing the drop footage, measuring its development over time to figure out that their pitch is two million times more viscous than honey, and two billion times more viscous than water. Weaire has suggested that Trinity hold an annual party on 11 July to commemorate the pitch drop, and to check in on the next drip.
"We have great plans for the next drop and a decade to put them into action," says Bergin. "Within ten years, God knows what kind of technology will be available. We'll be keeping up with that to capture the next one in all its stunning beauty."
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7/18: Wildfire forces camp evacuation; Baby helps Aurora shooting victim heal
Workers at Pine Ridge Ranch Camp had just 40 minutes to evacuate 179 people, most of them children as firefighters struggle to contain an early-season blaze; and, Caleb Medley was shot in the head in the Aurora, Colo., movie theater shooting and was in a coma when his son was born four days later. Caleb's wife Katie believes their son, Hugo, has helped her husband heal.
Source: http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~r/CBSNewsVideo/~3/YPAJnyHij9s/
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Public release date: 19-Jul-2013
Share ] Contact: Peter Reuell
preuell@fas.harvard.edu
617-496-8070
Harvard University
New research conducted by Harvard scientists is laying out a roadmap to one of the holy grails of modern medicine a cure for cancer.
As described paper recently published in eLife, Nowak, a professor of Mathematics and of Biology and director of the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, and co-author Ivana Bozic, a postdoctoral fellow in mathematics, show that, under certain conditions, using two drugs in a "targeted therapy" a treatment approach designed to interrupt cancer's ability to grow and spread nearly all cancers could be effectively cured.
Though not a cure for cancer, Nowak said the research does offer hope to researchers and patients alike by demonstrating that it may soon possibly sooner than many might think be beaten.
"In some sense this is like the mathematics that allows us to calculate how to send a rocket to the moon, but it doesn't tell you how to build a rocket that goes to the moon," Nowak said. "What we found is that if you have a single point mutation in the genome that can give rise to resistance to both drugs at the same time, the game is over. We need to have combinations such that there is zero overlap between the drugs."
Importantly, Nowak said, for the two-drug combination to work, both drugs must be given together an idea that runs counter to the way many clinicians treat cancer today.
"We actually have to work against the status quo somewhat," he said. "But we can show in our model that if you don't give the drugs simultaneously, it guarantees treatment failure."
In earlier studies, Nowak and colleagues showed the importance of using multiple drugs. Though temporarily effective, single-drug targeted therapy will always fail, they showed, because the disease eventually develops resistance to the treatment.
To determine if a two-drug combination would work, Nowak and Bozic turned to an expansive data set on how patients respond to single-drug therapy, supplied by clinicians at Memorial Sloan Kettering, to create computer models of how multi-drug treatments would work. Using that model, they then treated a series of "virtual patients," creating using data, collected by another contributor, on the number of cancer cells that had colonized recently-deceased patients.
"For a single-drug therapy, we know there are between 10 and 100 places in the genome that, if mutated, can give rise to resistance," Nowak explained. "So the first parameter we use when we make our calculations is that the first drug can be defeated by those possible mutations. The second drug can also be defeated by 10 to 100 mutations.
"If any of those mutations are the same, then it's a disaster," he continued. "If there's even a single mutation that can defeat both drugs, that is usually good enough for the cancer it will become resistant, and treatment will fail. What this means is we have to develop drugs such that the cancer needs to make two independent steps if we can do that we have a good chance to contain it."
How good a chance?
"You would expect to cure most patients with a two-drug combination," Bozic said. "In patients with a particularly large disease burden you might want to use a three-drug combination, but you would cure most with two drugs."
The trick now, Nowak and Bozic said, is to develop those drugs.
To avoid developing drugs that are not vulnerable to a single mutation, Bozic said, pharmaceutical companies have explored a number of strategies, including using different drugs to target different pathways in cancer's development.
"There are pharmaceutical companies here in Cambridge that are working to develop these drugs," Nowak said. "There may soon be as many as 100 therapies, which means there will be as many as 10,000 possible combinations, so we should have a good repertoire to choose from.
"I think we can be confident that, within 50 years, many cancer deaths will be prevented," Nowak added. "One hundred years ago, many people died from bacterial infections, and now they would be cured. Today, many people die from cancer, and we can't help them, but I think once we have these targeted therapies, we will be able to help many people maybe not everyone but many people."
###
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 19-Jul-2013 Share ] Contact: Peter Reuell
preuell@fas.harvard.edu
617-496-8070
Harvard University
New research conducted by Harvard scientists is laying out a roadmap to one of the holy grails of modern medicine a cure for cancer.
As described paper recently published in eLife, Nowak, a professor of Mathematics and of Biology and director of the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, and co-author Ivana Bozic, a postdoctoral fellow in mathematics, show that, under certain conditions, using two drugs in a "targeted therapy" a treatment approach designed to interrupt cancer's ability to grow and spread nearly all cancers could be effectively cured.
Though not a cure for cancer, Nowak said the research does offer hope to researchers and patients alike by demonstrating that it may soon possibly sooner than many might think be beaten.
"In some sense this is like the mathematics that allows us to calculate how to send a rocket to the moon, but it doesn't tell you how to build a rocket that goes to the moon," Nowak said. "What we found is that if you have a single point mutation in the genome that can give rise to resistance to both drugs at the same time, the game is over. We need to have combinations such that there is zero overlap between the drugs."
Importantly, Nowak said, for the two-drug combination to work, both drugs must be given together an idea that runs counter to the way many clinicians treat cancer today.
"We actually have to work against the status quo somewhat," he said. "But we can show in our model that if you don't give the drugs simultaneously, it guarantees treatment failure."
In earlier studies, Nowak and colleagues showed the importance of using multiple drugs. Though temporarily effective, single-drug targeted therapy will always fail, they showed, because the disease eventually develops resistance to the treatment.
To determine if a two-drug combination would work, Nowak and Bozic turned to an expansive data set on how patients respond to single-drug therapy, supplied by clinicians at Memorial Sloan Kettering, to create computer models of how multi-drug treatments would work. Using that model, they then treated a series of "virtual patients," creating using data, collected by another contributor, on the number of cancer cells that had colonized recently-deceased patients.
"For a single-drug therapy, we know there are between 10 and 100 places in the genome that, if mutated, can give rise to resistance," Nowak explained. "So the first parameter we use when we make our calculations is that the first drug can be defeated by those possible mutations. The second drug can also be defeated by 10 to 100 mutations.
"If any of those mutations are the same, then it's a disaster," he continued. "If there's even a single mutation that can defeat both drugs, that is usually good enough for the cancer it will become resistant, and treatment will fail. What this means is we have to develop drugs such that the cancer needs to make two independent steps if we can do that we have a good chance to contain it."
How good a chance?
"You would expect to cure most patients with a two-drug combination," Bozic said. "In patients with a particularly large disease burden you might want to use a three-drug combination, but you would cure most with two drugs."
The trick now, Nowak and Bozic said, is to develop those drugs.
To avoid developing drugs that are not vulnerable to a single mutation, Bozic said, pharmaceutical companies have explored a number of strategies, including using different drugs to target different pathways in cancer's development.
"There are pharmaceutical companies here in Cambridge that are working to develop these drugs," Nowak said. "There may soon be as many as 100 therapies, which means there will be as many as 10,000 possible combinations, so we should have a good repertoire to choose from.
"I think we can be confident that, within 50 years, many cancer deaths will be prevented," Nowak added. "One hundred years ago, many people died from bacterial infections, and now they would be cured. Today, many people die from cancer, and we can't help them, but I think once we have these targeted therapies, we will be able to help many people maybe not everyone but many people."
###
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-07/hu-npo071913.php
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Less well appreciated are the geopolitical benefits.?U.S. oil production has already paid foreign policy dividends in at least one vital area: It has paved the way for stronger sanctions on Iran by helping to keep the global oil market well-supplied and minimizing oil price volatility.
This development is timely and instructive.
By the first half of 2014, according to credible estimates, Iran is likely to be able to covertly produce enough highly enriched uranium for one nuclear device in as little as seven to 10 days ? before it could be detected by the international community. While it remains unclear how close Iran is to nuclear weapons capability, the consensus is that the window for preventing it from happening is closing.
The most effective?way to inflict economic pressure on Tehran, most analysts say, is to target the Iranian petroleum industry.?Crude oil exports account for between 60 percent and 70 percent of government revenue, more than $600 billion?over the past decade.?Yet for much of the history of the Iran sanctions program, simple steps that could have constricted or even eliminated this cash flow were not taken.
Across the globe, oil demand had been growing quickly, spare production capacity was low, and new supplies were harder to find. So the world market needed Iranian oil, and petroleum-dependent economies across the globe ? including the United States ? were afraid of the devastating price shocks that could have accompanied any effort to remove?barrels from the market.
This dynamic began changing dramatically?in 2012.?Most important, oil production surged in nations outside the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries ? particularly in the United States and Canada, where combined oil output grew by nearly 1.3 million barrels per day and outpaced global demand growth. Other factors were also key, notably Saudi Arabia?s decision not to cut crude production as Libyan output returned to the market following the fall of the Muammar Gaddafi regime in 2011.
At the same time, global oil demand growth had slowed substantially, with much of the euro zone facing an economic crisis and stagnant growth in the United States. By mid-2012, the market was facing the surprising prospect of a sizeable glut in oil supplies.
These developments were critical in allowing the United States to implement new, tougher?sanctions in early 2012 that drove year-over-year Iranian crude exports down by nearly 15 percent in the first quarter alone. A complete European embargo, effective July 1, 2012, had a more dramatic effect ? cutting Iranian crude exports by nearly 60 percent in the third quarter. All told, Iranian crude production in 2012 fell to its lowest level since 1989. For the first time, Western sanctions began to inflict real pain on Iran?s economy.
Despite the loss of up to a million barrels per day?of Iranian crude in 2012, global oil prices were not damagingly volatile. Over the last five months of 2012, when significant Iranian supplies were?coming off the market,?prices traded in a narrow band between $107 and $116 per barrel, and the average weekly price change was just 1.6 percent.
Even with production shortfalls due to instability in Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, and a handful of other key countries, the global oil market has remained balanced in 2013, and Iranian crude exports have continued to fall. The International Energy Agency now expects non-OPEC oil supplies to grow by 1.2 million barrels per day this year ? largely due to the United States. Meanwhile, global oil demand is expected to increase only by a relatively modest 930,000 barrels per day.
While it appears that negotiations with Iran regarding its nuclear program will recommence following the recent election of President Hassan Rohani, further economic pressure will likely be needed. If so, oil markets could manage it. Increased production in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States ? combined with the willingness to deploy U.S. and European strategic inventories if necessary ? would allow the market to absorb the loss of additional Iranian oil supplies, starving the regime of cash and crippling its economy.
Analysts disagree about how long oil markets can withstand the loss of Iranian oil supplies. Markets will inevitably tighten, perhaps as soon as mid-2014. Yet, time is running out on peaceful options to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.?Favorable oil market conditions, led by the surge in U.S. production, have opened a unique window to strengthen sanctions and maximize pressure on Tehran to abandon nuclear ambitions. Policymakers, who rightly seek to avoid being forced to choose between living with a nuclear Iran or going to war, should be prepared to seize this opportunity before it is too late.
PHOTO:?Roughneck Brian Waldner is covered in mud and oil while wrestling pipe on a True Company oil drilling rig outside Watford, North Dakota, October 20, 2012. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart?
Source: http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/07/19/the-oil-booms-foreign-policy-dividend/
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