Asian markets mostly higher on US fiscal hopes






HONG KONG: Asian markets mostly rose Tuesday, taking a lead from Wall Street as dealers grow confident US lawmakers will reach an agreement to avert the fiscal cliff.

Continued weakness of the yen helped send Japanese shares surging for a second straight session as Shinzo Abe prepares to take over as prime minister, vowing to press a more aggressive policy of monetary easing.

Tokyo rose 1.02 per cent, Sydney climbed 0.78 per cent, Hong Kong added 0.19 per cent, Seoul was up 0.17 per cent and Shanghai was flat.

Traders were reacting to news progress was finally being made in talks on a new deficit-cutting budget to replace the tax hikes and spending cuts due to come into effect at the start of January and which would likely tip the US economy into recession.

President Barack Obama hosted top Republican lawmaker John Boehner in the White House for 45 minutes Monday in the latest effort to avert going over the so-called fiscal cliff.

The meeting follows news that Boehner had changed his position on not allowing any more taxes, saying at the weekend that he would agree to some hikes for people earning more than $1 million.

Although Obama has said he would only agree to rises on people earning more than $250,000, analysts say the development shows the outline of a tentative deal is being formed.

Wall Street ended on a high, with the Dow closing up 0.76 per cent, the S&P 500 gaining 1.19 per cent and the Nasdaq adding 1.32 per cent.

Japanese shares continued to be supported by the falling yen, which helps the country's exporters, as dealers bet on fresh central bank moves to boost the economy.

The election of Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party on Sunday was widely expected and investors now expect the Band of Japan to unveil a further loosening of monetary policy at the end of its two-day meeting on Thursday.

In early Tokyo trade, the dollar bought 83.86 yen, compared with 83.88 yen in New York late Monday. The dollar has risen about 5 per cent against the yen since Abe made his vow to press for more BoJ measures last month.

The euro edged up to $1.3171 and 110.60 yen, compared with $1.3161 and 110.40 yen.

Oil prices rose, with New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in January rising 35 cents to $87.57 a barrel and Brent North Sea crude for February delivery advancing 51 cents to $108.15.

Gold was at $1,698.40 at 0200 GMT compared with $1,690.10 late Monday.

- AFP/ck



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More details about Newtown school gunman emerge

NEWTOWN, Conn. -- Like a lot of people who interacted with Lanza, Dot Stansy said he was "just quiet"


12\16: Obama visits Newtown, Conn., after shooting; Going back to school in Newtown, Conn.

Adam Lanza.


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AP Photo

"On one side, he did something unspeakable, but on the other, that's not how I remember him," Stansy said. "I remember him as the nice kid that, you know, I sat near to in class. We'd joked, he'd laugh, that kind of thing."

Investigators probe life of mass-murderer Adam Lanza
In divorce, mom had authority over Conn. shooter
Asperger's not likely to make people violent, experts emphasize
University: Newtown gunman took college courses at 16

"We were all hanging out outside of class afterwards one night, and he walked by and we were like, 'Hey, do you want to grab a drink with us?' And he said, 'No, I can't, I'm 17.'"

Lanza was also being home-schooled at the time.

He took seven college-level courses between the summers of 2008 and 2009, receiving several As in computer classes and also one in American history. His overall GPA was 3.26.

Dot Stasny remembers meeting Adam Lanza's mother.

"[She] introduced herself, said he was sick, asked where the classroom was, and when we walked in, she was getting his assignments from the teacher," Stansy said.

Nancy Lanza's friends, told CBS News' Scott Pelley on "60 Minutes" that she told them Adam had Asperger's syndrome and taking care of him was a full-time job.


Ryan Kraft

Ryan Kraft


/

CBS News

"I mean, I know he was on he was on medication and everything, but she home-schooled him at home cause he couldn't deal with the school classes sometimes," Louise said. "So she just home-schooled Adam at home. And that that was her life."

Ryan Kraft, who babysat for the Lanza's when Adam was just about 10 years old, got a glimpse of how difficult he could be.

"I received instructions from Nancy to always supervise Adam at all times and to never turn my back on him," Kraft said.

Adam Lanza's parent divorced in 2009. CBS News spoke to a mediator in that divorce, who said his parents seemed to love him and only wanted the best for him.

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Gunman's Computer Damaged, Drive Possibly Ruined













A computer at the Connecticut home where Newtown, Conn., school shooter Adam Lanza lived with his mother was badly damaged, perhaps smashed with a hammer, said police who hope the machine might still yield clues to the gunman's motive.


The computer's hard drive appeared to have been badly damaged with a hammer or screw driver, law enforcement authorities told ABC News, complicating efforts to exploit it for evidence.


Officials have "seized significant evidence at [Lanza's] residence," said Connecticut State Police spokesman Paul Vance, adding that the process of sifting through that much forensic evidence would be a lengthy and "painstaking process."


Authorities also told ABC News that the weapons used in Friday's rampage at Sandyhook Elementary School, which left dead 20 children and seven adults including Lanza's mother Nancy, were purchased by his mother between 2010 and 2012.


According to the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, Lanza visited shooting ranges several times in recent years, and went at least one time with his mother.


The first funeral for a child killed in the massacre was held today in Fairfield, Conn., where mourners gathered to remember the too-short life of first-grader Noah Pozner.


Authorities also revealed this morning that two adult women shot during the rampage survived and their accounts will likely be integral to the investigation.


"Investigators will, in fact, speak with them when it's medically appropriate and they will shed a great deal of light on the facts and circumstances of this tragic investigation," Connecticut State Police Lt. Paul Vance said at a news conference today.


Both survivors are women and are now home from the hospital after being shot, police said. Officials had previously mentioned just one adult survivor. The women have not been identified and police did not give details on their injuries.


READ MORE: School nurse hid from gunman.


Both adults, Vance said, were wounded in the "lower extremities," but did not indicate where in the building they were when they were injured.


Moving trucks were seen outside Sandy Hook Elementary School this morning, as school officials prepare to move furniture and supplies to a vacant school in neighboring Monroe.


Sandy Hook itself will remain a secure crime scene "indefinitely," said Vance.






Emily Friedman/ABC News, Handout











Calls for Gun Control Surge Following Newtown Shootings Watch Video









Newtown School Shooting: Social Media Reaction Watch Video









Newtown School Shooting: Talking to Kids About Tragedy Watch Video





CLICK HERE for complete coverage of the tragedy at Sandy Hook.


Police say Adam Lanza, 20, forced his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday, spraying bullets on students and faculty. Lanza killed 20 children and six adults before turning the gun on himself.


Lanza also killed his mother Nancy Lanza at the home they shared before going to school.


"There are many, many witnesses that need to be interviewed," Vance said. "We will not stop until we have interviewed every last one of them."


Vance said the investigation could take weeks or months to complete. "It's not something done in 60 minutes like you see on T.V."


Some of the other key witnesses will be children who survived the shooting spree by playing dead, hiding in closets and bathrooms and being rescued by dedicated teachers.


"Any interviews with any children will be done with professionals...as appropriate," Vance said. "We'll handle that extremely delicately when the time arises."


CLICK HERE for a tribute to the shooting victims.


The first funerals for victims of the shooting are today, beginning with 6-year-olds Noah Pozner and Jack Pinto.


Officials said today that the Sandy Hook Elementary School, where the shooting took place, will be closed "indefinitely."


Both the school and the home where shootings took place are being held by police as crime scenes and Vance predicted authorities would spend "months" investigating the elementary school.


All Newtown schools are closed today to give residents more time to cope. Every school except for Sandy Hook is expected to re-open Tuesday.


The town of Monroe has offered to open to Sandy Hook students the Chalk Hill School, a former middle school that currently houses the town's EMS and recreational departments.


Officials in Monroe, less than 10 miles from Newtown, say the building could be ready for students by the end of the week, but have not yet set a date to resume classes.


Nearly 100 volunteers are working to ensure the building complies with fire and security regulations and are working to retorfit the school with bathroom facilities for young children.


"We're working to make the school safe and secure for students," said Monroe Police Department spokesman Lt. Brian H. McCauley.


The neighboring community's school is expected to be ready to accommodate students in the next few days, though an exact schedule has not yet been published.


While the families grieve, federal and state authorities are working around the clock to answer the question on so many minds: "Why?"


ABC News has learned that investigators have seized computers belonging to Adam Lanza from the home he shared with his mother. Three weapons were found at the school scene and a fourth was recovered from Lanza's car. Lanza had hundreds of rounds and used multiple high-capacity magazines when he went on the rampage, according to Connecticut State Police.


Vance said that every single electronic device, weapon and round will be thoroughly examined and investigated as well as every aspect of Lanza's life going "back to the date of birth."


ABC News has learned that both the shooter and his mother spent time at an area gun range; however it was not yet known whether they had shot there.






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Zebrafish made to grow pre-hands instead of fins








































PERHAPS the little fish embryo shown here is dancing a jig because it has just discovered that it has legs instead of fins. Fossils show that limbs evolved from fins, but a new study shows how it may have happened, live in the lab.













Fernando Casares of the Spanish National Research Council and his colleagues injected zebrafish with the hoxd13 gene from a mouse. The protein that the gene codes for controls the development of autopods, a precursor to hands, feet and paws.












Zebrafish naturally carry hoxd13 but produce less of the protein than tetrapods - all four-limbed vertebrates and birds - do. Casares and his colleagues hoped that by injecting extra copies of the gene into the zebrafish embryos, some of their cells would make more of the protein.












One full day later, all of those fish whose cells had taken up the gene began to develop autopods instead of fins. They carried on growing for four days but then died (Cell, DOI: 10.1016/j.devcel.2012.10.015).












"Of course, we haven't been able to grow hands," says Casares. He speculates that hundreds of millions of years ago, the ancestors of tetrapods began expressing more hoxd13 for some reason and that this could have allowed them to evolve autopods.


















































If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.




































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Mind-controlled hand offers hope for the paralysed






PARIS: Pentagon-backed scientists on Monday announced they had created a robot hand that was the most advanced brain-controlled prosthetic limb ever made.

The mind-powered prosthesis is a breakthrough, the team of neurologists and bio-engineers reported in The Lancet.

With further development "individuals with long-term paralysis could recover the natural and intuitive command signals for hand placement, orientation and reaching, allowing them to perform activities of daily living," they said.

Researchers have long been interested in the brain-machine interface, whereby implants pick up electrical signals in parts of the brain associated with movement.

These signals are then transcribed into computer code, which orders the artificial limb to move.

The new work vastly improves the code, or algorithm, by which the first signal is transcribed into the second, the investigators said.

"One of the biggest challenges has always been how to translate brain signals that indicate limb movement into computer signals that can reliably and accurately control a robotic prosthesis," said Andrew Schwartz, a professor of neurobiology at the university.

"Most mind-controlled prosthetics have achieved this by an algorithm which involves working through a complex 'library' of computer-brain connections," he said.

"However, we've taken a completely different approach here, by using a model-based computer algorithm which closely mimics the way that an unimpaired brain controls limb movement. The result is a prosthetic hand which can be moved far more accurately and naturalistically than previous efforts."

The team, based at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, implanted two microelectrode arrays into the left motor cortex of a 52-year-old woman.

She had been left paralysed from the neck down, unable to move her arms and legs due to a condition called spinocerebellar degeneration.

Two weeks after the operation, the prosthesis was connected and the woman embarked on 14 weeks of training - but on only the second day, she was able to move the limb through mind power.

The training aimed at achieving skills in nine tasks, such as gripping and moving small objects, stacking cones and bumping a ball so that it rolled outside a loose coil of wire.

At the end, the volunteer completed the tasks with a success rate of up to 91.6%, and more than 30 seconds faster than at the start of the trial.

The researchers said they were sure this is a success as they used an exhaustive benchmark test designed to identify genuine changes and root out flukes or anecdotal evidence.

The next steps are likely to see a robot limb incorporate sensors to tell the patient whether a surface is hot or cold or rough or smooth, and to use Wi-Fi, rather than a wire, to connect the patient's skull and the prosthesis.

In October 2011, a team at Duke University in North Carolina reported that they had implanted brain electrodes in monkeys that enabled the animals to sense the texture of a virtual object.

One of the funders of the latest study is the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a branch of the US Department of Defence that looks into futuristic technology with a potential military use, including by wounded veterans.

-AFP/fl



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NFL Week 15: The best photos

The Jacksonville Jaguars take a moment of silence in honor of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting before their game against the Miami Dolphins at Sun Life Stadium on Sunday, December 16, in Miami Gardens, Florida. Check out the action from Week 15 of the NFL and then look back at the best photos from Week 14.
Read More..

Newtown church evacuated after phone threat

NEWTOWN, Conn. Police say there's no danger at a Connecticut church following a phoned-in threat days after 20 children and six adults were massacred at a school.



Deborah Metz, a Trumbull police officer on the scene, gave the all-clear after an hour in which armed police in SWAT gear searched the St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church and adjacent buildings.



The evacuation unnerved worshipers in the wake of the worst shooting of school-age children in U.S. history.





19 Photos


Victims of Conn. school shooting




Brian Wallace, director of communications for Diocese of Bridgeport, said people were asked to leave shortly after the call came in during the homily.



To interrupt people trying to heal, Wallace said, is a very "tragic and difficult thing."



The St. Rose school, church and rectory were all searched. The police said they feel "very comfortable" that everything is secure.



Since Friday's shooting, the church has been open 24 hours for people to come and pray. Police say the church will be on lockdown for the rest of the day.



Wallace said the church should reopen tomorrow.



Shooter Adam Lanza, his mother and eight of the child victims attended St. Rose of Lima. It is a Roman Catholic Church with an adjacent school, which Lanza attended briefly.


It will be the site of funerals for eight of the murdered children, and possibly one of the teachers, sources told CBS News.


Anna Wood, who was inside the church, described the scene as "surreal" to CBS News.



Wood said she was from Oxford, Conn., but came to St. Rose because of the shooting, and said the church was packed, including children.



She said no one seemed scared as they left the church, and that one boy who asked why people were asked to leave was told they were in recess.

Read More..

Obama Visits Families of Conn. Shooting Victims













President Obama has started visiting with families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, in which a gunman killed 20 young children and six adults in the school.


A White House official told ABC News that the president was meeting with the families devastated by this tragedy in classrooms at Newtown High School.


Assuming a consoling role that has become all too familiar for this presidency, Obama will also privately meet with some of the families affected by the tragic shooting, as well as local first responders.


The president has witnessed five mass shootings since assuming office in 2009, his reaction to this most recent tragedy in New England being his most publicly emotional. On Friday, tears collected in his eyes as he addressed the nation after the tragedy.


"The majority of those who died today were children, beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old," the president said, pausing to collect himself. "They had their entire lives ahead of them -- birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own."






Brendan Hoffman-Pool/Getty Images













Connecticut Shooting: Churches Services Honor Victims Watch Video









Pastor Explains How Girl Played Dead to Survive Watch Video





But the president has also been more directly political in the immediate aftermath of these killings, as national discussions simmer over how to move forward and what, if any, policy is needed to prevent future violence. The president said it was time for "meaningful action" to prevent such tragedies, "regardless of the politics."


"We have been through this too many times, whether it's an elementary school in Newtown or a shopping mall in Oregon or a temple in Wisconsin or a movie theater in Aurora or a street corner in Chicago," he said of the other mass shootings in the past year alone. "These neighborhoods are our neighborhoods, and these children are our children."


It is a subtle but noticeable shift for Obama, who has not actively pursued stricter gun control during his four years in office despite pledges to do so during his 2008 candidacy. Although the White House says it needs support from Congress to move forward with strong legislation, it is also known that many politicians shied away to such reforms during the 2012 campaign season out of fear of alienating potential voters.


In reality the Obama administration has loosened federal restrictions on Second Amendment rights in some areas, including possession in national parks and on Amtrak. But during the second presidential debate in October the president signaled that he is ready to take new action on gun control, including reintroduction of the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004.



Read More..

Zebrafish made to grow pre-hands instead of fins








































PERHAPS the little fish embryo shown here is dancing a jig because it has just discovered that it has legs instead of fins. Fossils show that limbs evolved from fins, but a new study shows how it may have happened, live in the lab.













Fernando Casares of the Spanish National Research Council and his colleagues injected zebrafish with the hoxd13 gene from a mouse. The protein that the gene codes for controls the development of autopods, a precursor to hands, feet and paws.












Zebrafish naturally carry hoxd13 but produce less of the protein than tetrapods - all four-limbed vertebrates and birds - do. Casares and his colleagues hoped that by injecting extra copies of the gene into the zebrafish embryos, some of their cells would make more of the protein.












One full day later, all of those fish whose cells had taken up the gene began to develop autopods instead of fins. They carried on growing for four days but then died (Cell, DOI: 10.1016/j.devcel.2012.10.015).












"Of course, we haven't been able to grow hands," says Casares. He speculates that hundreds of millions of years ago, the ancestors of tetrapods began expressing more hoxd13 for some reason and that this could have allowed them to evolve autopods.


















































If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.




































All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.


If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.








Read More..