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November 10. 2012 11:52PM
BAE wary as fighter jet project hits turbulence
By DAVE SOLOMON
New Hampshire Union Leader
An F-35 Lightning II, the Joint Strike Fighter, takes off for its first flight as part of system development testing Dec. 15, 2006, in Fort Worth, Texas. Three variants of the aircraft are being developed for the Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy. (Lockheed Martin photo/Tom Harvey)
F-35 jet project has pumped millions into New Hampshire's economy
NASHUA - Gina McLaughlin, floor manager at one of the manufacturing labs at BAE Systems on Spit Brook Road in Nashua, is all business as she prepares to take a reporter into an inner sanctum of a high-security production area.
"No pencils, no cell phones, no cameras," she says as we don smocks and walk across a sticky floor surface designed to remove particles from the soles of our shoes. The security doors open near a row of workers focused on parts that will eventually find their way into the newest generation of fighter aircraft being built for the U.S. military and its allies as part of the biggest Pentagon project in history.
A product of the Joint Strike Fighter task force, the Lockheed-Martin F-35 Lightning II is intended to replace an aging fleet of fighter jets for the Air Force, Navy and Marines and the armed forces of at least eight other allied nations.
The goal is to create a fighter jet fleet with a common supply chain and communication systems for the U.S. services and America's allies, enhancing what is known as "interoperability," the ability of diverse systems and organizations to work together.
The stakes are high for New Hampshire's economy as the F-35 begins to move from research and testing into full-scale production. Since 2002, the program has brought $1 billion in development contracts to BAE in Nashua and Merrimack for electronic warfare systems, with initial, low-rate production just getting under way.
"From 2002 to today, we were focused on development. We expect to complete the majority of the development contract next year," said Deb Norton, program director for the F-35 at BAE offices on Spit Brook Road in Nashua. "We are working on delivering low-rate, initial production. But until you hit a milestone decision, you cannot transition to full-rate production."
It's not clear when that "milestone decision" will be reached, as Lockheed-Martin is under fire from the Pentagon for delays and cost overruns. Pentagon officials recently slammed the company and said they would "not bail out the program again if problems with the plane's cutting-edge pilot helmet and software were not resolved," according to a Sept. 17 report by Reuters news service.
As the prime contractor, Lockheed-Martin handles the final assembly and provides many major components. Its key partners are Northrop Grumman for communication systems, Pratt & Whitney for the main engine, and BAE for electronic warfare, flight control and fuel systems.
Withholding $46.5 million
The Pentagon announced on Oct. 25 that it is withholding $46.5 million from Lockheed, citing flaws in the business system used to track costs and schedules, and it has invited other companies to participate in a two-day forum on Nov. 14 and 15 to discuss possible opportunities to compete for work on the aircraft.
BAE management, employees and subcontractors in New Hampshire are watching carefully, hoping that the program stays on track and delivers on its economic promise.
"We will be attending the industry day on Nov. 14-15, but at this point, the artifacts being discussed at the event will not venture into the current work forecasted for BAE Systems in Nashua," said Kristin L. Gossel, director of external engagement at BAE Systems U.S. headquarters in Arlington, Va.
While BAE officials say they have been on time and on budget with their pieces of the puzzle, the same cannot be said for the project overall.
Pentagon officials and lawmakers are concerned about test-performance failures, delays and the project's ballooning cost.
The current estimates of $395.7 billion for eventual production of 2,443 planes for the United States represents a cost increase of 70 percent, adjusted for inflation, from the $233 billion projected when Lockheed-Martin won the program from Boeing in late 2001, according to Bloomberg News.
The extent to which the F-35 program will be a cash bonanza for the New Hampshire economy depends largely on how many of the aircraft are eventually ordered. If the program goes into full-rate production as planned, the effect on BAE in Nashua alone would be $1 billion in salaries in the next 20 years, from 2012 to 2032.
But cost concerns could lead to reduced orders for the aircraft, which would increase pricing for the remaining jets to be produced, putting even more pressure on volume, in what analysts call a "death spiral."
It's no surprise that such a massive program has been controversial from the start, Norton said. "It's the largest program in the Department of Defense," she said. "Large programs tend to get a lot of visibility, not just from the DOD but from congressional elements. All of our New Hampshire senators and representatives have supported the F-35 program, and we appreciate their efforts."
Favorable position
BAE, the largest supplier of electronic warfare systems in the world, is in a comfortable position no matter how the current tensions between Lockheed-Martin and the Pentagon are resolved. When Lockheed-Martin and Boeing were bidding for the project, both companies identified BAE as the chief partner for electronic attack, protection and support components on the aircraft.
The two key technical concerns raised by the Pentagon are not within BAE's jurisdiction - the helmet and the logistics and information system.
BAE subcontractors in the area say they are doing their best to ensure the project's success. At Technical Research and Manufacturing in Bedford, where work on the F-35 has brought in as much as 47 percent of the company's revenue in a year (see related story), Chief Operating Officer Mark Schappler is focused on cost controls for the radar system components TRM provides.
"We've been working with BAE to redesign the product to reduce the cost and make it more manufacturable in volume. We've been designing an improved version in anticipation of a full production ramp-up," he said. "We have our part of it, but as you know, there are lots of suppliers to the program. If everyone can focus on their own areas and take costs down, there's potential to gain more support for the program in Congress."
That support will be essential for the "ramp up" that Schappler and many others are waiting for. "We've taken everything we've learned over the years to make these improvements," he said. "For now, it's out of our control. All we can do is keep our fingers crossed."
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Dave Solomon may be reached at


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Go ahead — get aggravated at the price of cotton. You have a right, with December futures hovering below 40 cents and the A Index floundering in the mid 40s.
Kick the tractor tire (not the dog). Slam the pickup door. Go ahead, stand in your best cotton field and yell a couple of expletives. The neighbors probably won't hear you.
However, whatever you do, don't make bad business decisions on how you market your crop. Take the current price being offered. Don't dump it in the 51.92 government loan just for spite. It likely will cost you more to do that than taking the current price, according to Dr. Mark Lange, National Cotton Council economist.
The council's vice president did not break his string of Dr. Doom economic outlooks for cotton when he told the American Cotton Producers meeting in California recently that the picture is not getting rosier. It's getting worse — so much so that the next time Lange brings his chart to an economic presentation, he may have to get a new price axis if that lists goes lower than 40 cents.
"It's an understatement to say that our domestic textile industry is under very serious economic stress."
Lange predicts the A Index will float in the 44 cent range during harvest, with a 20 million-bale domestic crop in the forecast. Right now the Loan Deficiency Payment (LDP) is about 22 cents, and he does not expect the LDP to fall during harvest like it did last year.
Cost more long-term
Dumping cotton in to the loan could cost more in the long run via warehouse charges than current prices (including LDP) of a few pennies above loan, Lange said.
And Lange's predictions are on the optimistic side. Some are predicting cotton prices in the mid-20s if this year's record crop comes in as projected on the second largest cotton acreage since 1962.
The United States cannot sell its way out of a surplus that will likely leave U.S. cotton stocks equal to one year's domestic mill use. The reason is the high value of the American dollar is strangling domestic cotton producers and textile mills.
NCC chairman James Echols told ACP members that domestic mill consumption today would be 12.3 million bales instead of the projected 8 million, a 4.3-million-bale domestic swing if the dollar value had not risen 30 percent from its 1995 relationship to other currencies.
That, he said, would make a big difference in today's price and offtake dilemma. Since Jan. 1, 45 U.S. textile mills have closed with a loss of 15,000 jobs.
It's actually worse than that. Lange said only three million bales of U.S. cotton currently goes from "dirt to shirt" in the United States, and a million bales of that is in jeopardy due to increasingly more textile imports into the U.S.
Almost 9 million bales of U.S. cotton were consumed by domestic mills in 1994.
Textile magnet
The United States has become a magnet for cotton textile imports, especially from Asia, said Echols, and cotton farmers abroad have experienced a much better cost/price situation than American farmers.
Salvaging the U.S. cotton industry is high on the priority list for NCC, but it will require tough decisions, Echols noted.
He said eliminating the 1.25 cent Step 2 threshold is a start. Another way of mitigating the strong dollar's impact on domestic mills is with exchange rate adjustments. These two steps will cost money, and it might have to come from cotton's share of the $73.5 billion remaining in the new federal farm bill.
"It's an understatement to say that our domestic textile industry is under very serious economic stress," he said.
"We all have a stake in trying to salvage that industry. If we don't find a way to deliver some significant assistance, we will almost certainly see many more bankruptcies and a corresponding sharp reduction in demand for U.S. cotton."

subset: commoncrawl


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Recipe Roundup: Delectable Ice Cream Treats
Call us crazy, but we have a serious craving for some delicious and delectable ice cream &mdash we're thinking it has something to do with the two feet of snow that has collected outside of our house. It has us dreaming of perfectly and easily prepared ice cream that will whisk us away to a warmer place.
Besides hoping the ice cream will transport us to warmer climates, we're thankful for one ingredient ice cream recipes. We're all about the no-fuss, minimal ingredients since we are practically snowed in to our house. Last minute runs to the grocery store aren't feasible at the moment, so we're hoping we have everything we need on hand for these awesome recipes.
Here are some of our favorite delectable ice cream recipes:
&bull Autumn Recipe: Brown Butter Ice Cream
&bull Quick Treat: How To Make a Perfect Ice Cream Sandwich
&bull Step-by-Step Instructions for One Ingredient Ice Cream
&bull How To Make Creamy Ice Cream with Just One Ingredient
&bull Easy Recipe: Extra-Quick No-Cook Meyer Lemon Ice Cream
Related: How To Make Ice Cream Like an Artisan: Splendid Recipes from Jeni's Ice Creams in Columbus, Ohio
(See linked posts for full image credits.)


text: McCafferty Hyundai of Langhorne maintains a comprehensive lineup of used cars, trucks and SUVs from auto manufacturers. Located at 1106 E. Lincoln Hwy. in Langhorne, PA, McCafferty Hyundai of Langhorne strives to maintain the best and most comprehensive inventory of Pre-Owned vehicles. Remember to browse the Pre-Owned Specials for up-to-date promotions, or check out McCafferty Hyundai of Langhorne's Featured Vehicles, highlighting both used and


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BC DT says Eskimos played dirty
After a 33-24 win against the Eskimos on Friday, BC Lions' Aaron Hunt is taking aim at Edmonton's offensive linemen, claiming that the Eskimos intentionally play dirty. Hunt says the O-line is instructed by coaches to go for face masks and family jewels, claiming to have heard this from Edmonton ex-players and witnessed it clearly on the field Friday night in Vancouver.
With 50,213 fans roaring over the retractable roof and impressive plays and touchdowns by Andrew Harris, you'd think no one else in BC Place noticed anything other than a heated fight for a playoff spot.
It wasn't until the fourth quarter that Eskimos running back Jerome Messam was sent to the showers after getting in some Lions' faces.
Messam knocked defensive back Tad Kornegay in the head, angered by a hit in the end zone from Lions linebacker Dante Marsh.
The Lions football club is apparently in agreement with Hunt's accusations against the Eskimos, submitting a game tape to the Canadian Football League for review.
Eskimos head coach Kavis Reed thinks Aaron Hunt should have kept his mouth shut, summing up his feelings on the allegations in an interview with the Edmonton Journal – "Just shut up and play football. Period."
Since I wasn't at the game to judge how dirty the Eskimos get down, my opinions aren't really educated.
But I will say that having grown up playing rugby, this kind of comment probably won't get Hunt anywhere.
You can complain about conduct on the field as much as you want – but when it comes down to it, whether someone ripped your hair out, stomped your face in or kicked you in the junk, intentionally or not, it doesn't really matter unless the ref saw it and called it. Once the game is over, so is your chance to be heard.
Stay tuned for what the CFL has to say, if anything, in response to the Lions' game tape submission.
The Lions are currently tied for first place in the West Division at 7-6 with the Eskimos and Calgary Stampeders.


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Cumberland Log Cabin Kit from $16,348
So, While many people around the world are looking for a more sustainable form of building houses, there is a way that has been around for centuries that we can still use today! Take this gorgeous log cabin for example, this log home would be the perfect home for the whole family. The wonderful thing about log homes is that they have so many benefits over conventional dry wall homes. Log homes and cabins are very sustainable, as they are made from renewable materials that come from the Earth. Most of the logs used to build these log homes and cabins come from sustainable tree plantations, where the trees are used for their wood, and then more are planted in their place to grow into more trees for more logs. This is a better way of going about this process, rather than just chopping down any tree, so that we can keep the ancient growth forests alive, with their habitats thriving.
Amish Cabin Company, is a log cabin kit building company that provides log cabin kits. The company works with their customers to provide a size and style of cabin that will suit the customer's needs and desires, and they have a phone line that you can call, so you can speak to someone directly on the phone. They provide all of the materials needed to build the log cabin that you purchase, and will be happy to help you with anything else you may need assistance with too. They also have a great and informative Frequently Asked Questions section that you can look at any time to answer any questions you may have.
This particular home, The Cumberland Log Cabin, is a cozy and simple, log home. It features multiple bedrooms or office and a bedroom, and bathrooms. There is also potential for a beautiful deck to be built at the front of the home. It is perfect for a couple or a single family, or to use as a recreation property. You can also check out the other larger floor plans on their website. It could also be used as a rental unit on your property.
Log homes are not only a great and sustainable home to buy, they are one of the most sturdy houses you can build. They are also very energy efficient, since the thermal mass of the logs is so high and they make wonderful insulators. The logs also act as air filters, filtering out some of the bad toxins in the air, which conventional homes don't do. Over all log homes are amazing and a wonderful choice of building that will last a lifetime!
Learn MORE at Amish Cabin Company
Check out some additional photos here: View photo gallery.


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Public Library with Museum
Ellenville (NY) Public Library and Museum
Greensboro Libraries – Hemphill Branch - See the February 2007 American Libraries article, Karen Favreau's "A Library and an Art Center" (pages 38-40), which is about the Hemphill Branch of the Greensboro (N.C.) Public Library, a partnership with the Green Hill Center for North Carolina Art
Southington (Conn.) Library and Museum
Winthrop (Mass.) Public Library and Museum
Google Search of "Public Library and Museum" - https://www.google.com/#q=%22Public+Library+and+Museum%22
(Representative listing, not comprehensive)
Readings on joint library/museum partnerships
Susan Hildreth wrote an article, "Partnerships for Free Choice Learning," which appeared in the July/August 2006 issue of PLA's journal, Public Libraries (PDF). Access the actual report online, Partnerships for Free Choice Learning: Public Libraries, Museums, and Public Broadcasters Working Together (PDF) by Chris Walker and Carlos A. Manjarrez.
The 2008 report, Public Libraries, Archives and Museums: Trends in Collaboration and Cooperation, by Alexandra Yarrow, Barbara Clubb and Jennifer-Lynn Draper for the Public Libraries Section Standing Committee of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), lists several library/museum partnerships in the section, Joint-use/Integrated Facilities, which starts on page 25 of the 51-page PDF file.


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Rumors are intensifying about Marco Melandri's possible switch to World Superbike next season, as BMW Team Manager Davide Tardozzi told Italian news site GPone, "we don't have the signature, and that is the most important part, but I received a very positive impression from Melandri."
As is the case with many riders leaving MotoGP for WSBK, money seems to be less of an issue, than returning to a racing format where non-alien riders can be competitive again. Continuing in his statement, Tardozzi said, "We never talked about money, only about how competitive we would be. Marco wants to win and show that he is still a top rider, and I think this is the right philosophy for Superbike."


text: We recommend Super Bright White LED Pond Lights to replace old pond lighting with newer more energy-efficient technology. These multipurpose LED lighting for ponds and water gardens emits super-bright light while using just a few watts of electricity. Illuminate dark or hidden areas in or out of water to add dramatic flair to pond and garden features.


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Meet thousands of Tolstoi singles through one of the best Tolstoi online dating sites. Matchmaker.com has great instant messenger and live video Tolstoi chat service for our members. Tolstoi dating has never been easier with our show interest feature that will allow you to break the ice with attractive local singles.
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Favorite Face Base
On a recent photo shoot, one of the editors of WhoWhatWearDaily fell in love with the Laura Mercier Silk Creme Foundation the makeup artist used (www.sephora.com, $40). The product launched in the beginning of the year, is long wearing, and oil-free. We've been fans who isn't?of Mercier's popular tinted moisturizer forever, but this product gives a little more coverage making it perfect for fall. Apply with a foundation brush like the Chanel one above (www.chanel.com, $38) or a sponge. The Silk Creme Foundation gives you a healthy sheen and works so well that powder isn' t necessary. You'll be ready for your close up immediately!


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6:00 pm
PBS NewsHour NULL
7:00 pm
Nature "Victoria Falls" The largest waterfall in the world bridges the countries of Zambia and Zimbabwe, dividing two natural worlds - the meandering river above the cascade and the gorge below. Large animals thrive around the shallow upper river. The gorge attracts 35 different raptor species that raise their young on a glut of fish.G
8:00 pm
NOVA "Power Surge" NOVA focuses on some of the latest innovations among emerging technologies to help lower the temperature on global warming. These include artificial trees, cleaner coal, nuclear energy and schemes to re-engineer the entire climate system.G
9:00 pm
Decade of Discovery Within the last decade, scientists and explorers have discovered a quarter of a million new species. This program showcases the most extraordinary. These creatures that no one had dreamed existed, have scientists in a spin and are causing textbooks to be rewritten. They include the world's longest insect, one of the rarest mammals on Earth, and a carnivorous pitcher plant big enough for a human fist to fit inside.G
10:00 pm
Life In Cold Blood "Armoured Giants" In the concluding episode of this series, Sir David Attenborough examines the intimate lives of crocodiles, turtles and tortoises - all covered in thick scales that have turned into armor. Yet, despite their tough exteriors, these animals are capable of astonishing behavior and warm-hearted interaction. Cameras observe their life on land and in water, from the Galapagos Islands to Australia. Part 5 of 5G
11:00 pm
Charlie Rose NULL


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BOSTON (AP) — Justices of Massachusetts' highest court heard arguments Thursday on whether special magistrates who are trying to unburden trial courts of a flood of drug cases tainted by a state laboratory scandal may release convicts on bail before they're granted new trials.
Special "drug lab" court sessions began after authorities shut down Hinton state lab in Boston last summer following allegations that former chemist Annie Dookhan faked test results and tampered with evidence in narcotics cases.
Dookhan, 35, of Franklin, has pleaded not guilty to perjury, obstruction of justice and other charges following a 27-count grand jury indictment stemming from cases in six counties. Authorities have said Dookhan tested more than 60,000 drug samples involving 34,000 defendants during her nine years at the lab.
Since then, dozens of defendants whose cases involved evidence that Dookhan handled have been freed while their new trial motions are pending.
But Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett is challenging whether the special magistrates, all retired Superior Court judges, may put sentences on hold and release drug convicts on bail before decisions on whether they'll get new trials.
Typically, a judge first decides whether a defendant should get a new trial and then considers whether that person should be free in the meantime.
Blodgett's office also is asking the high court to decide whether a special magistrate has the authority to reconsider a decision by a judge to deny a motion to put a sentence on hold and release a defendant on bail. And the district attorney wants the court to clarify whether a guilty plea by a so-called Dookhan defendant is valid if the process involves a judge and a special magistrate.
"The rules of criminal procedure are not being followed," Essex Assistant District Attorney Ron DeRosa told the seven judges of the Supreme Judicial Court.
But lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts and the state's public defender agency, Committee for Public Counsel Services, argued that the thousands of defendants whose cases are caught up in the crisis deserve immediate relief.
"Defendants lost their liberty on account of this fraud," CPCS attorney Beth Eisenberg told the justices.
The agencies made their legal arguments on behalf of two drug convicts from Essex County cases who are seeking release from custody.
ACLU lawyer Matthew Segal asked the justices to affirm the authority of the special magistrates, saying defendants are bearing a burden caused by misconduct at the lab.
In a third related case, Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Miller argued on behalf of the Massachusetts Superior Court system, saying use of special magistrates is an effort by the court "to address these cases in a timely way and in an unchaotic way."
She said the lab scandal set up an unprecedented problem in the criminal justice system, and that inmates need a mechanism to come forward and ask for release.
A court spokeswoman said the justices will issue a ruling within 130 days.


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Linked by lemur2 on Wed 22nd Jun 2011 22:30 UTC
The Calligra Office Suite has announced its second snapshot release. The project, which is a fork of KOffice, is building a suite of productivity and creativity applications and is working towards its first formal end-user release due in October. The project is seeking feedback from end users particularly in the area of usability of the GUI. With this snapshot Calligra Office Words is claiming better compatibility with .docx than LibreOffice, and also claims to be approaching the best compatibility with legacy .doc formats.


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ForumsNewsFile attachment improvements and bug fixes
File attachment improvements and bug fixes
Toodledo Founder
We have just released some nice enhancements to the file attachment feature enjoyed by our Pro Plus Subscribers.
1) When viewing the Files page in the Organize section, you can now see how many tasks are associated with each file.
2) From this File Organization page, you can click a link adjacent to each file to quickly find any task that has that attachment.
3) From the Advanced Search page in the task section, you can now make a search that looks for tasks that have or dont have a file attachment
We have also fixed a few general bugs:
1) Quicksearch will now find the & and < characters correctly
2) If you have more than 6 collaborators, you can now reassign a task to the last person in the list without the popup disappearing before you are done.
3) The advanced search page could sometimes get confused about what you were looking at the last time you were there, and display all of your tasks by accident (which could cause the browser to get slow if you have thousands of tasks). This is fixed.
4) In the Notebook section, typing ? will bring up a list of the available keyboard shortcuts.
5) In the Notebook section, if you did a search with dividers closed and then opened the dividers, sometimes it didn't show the matching note. This is fixed.
6) When collaborators had not given you permission to view their "no folder" pseudo folder, it was still displayed on the left side of the page even though clicking on it did nothing. It is now not displayed.
7) The "Hide future tasks" filter was never applied on the calendar view, because it doesnt make sense in that context. Instead of showing a useless checkbox, we now hide it.
This message was edited Feb 09, 2012.
Thank God, at least one of these enhancements, #4, doesn't work. I tried typing "?" in a notebook note, and it just put in a ?, no list of shortcuts. This is a bad idea, since I often put questions in my notes, and want to be able to continue to do so! When you fix it, can you find a better way to see shortcuts, like "Ctrl?" or "Win?"?
It doesn't work if you are editing a note.
It works when you are not editing, in the same way that it works in the Tasks section.
Toodledo Founder
We are smart enough to know when you are typing a ? into a note and when you are pressing a ? to see the list of shortcuts and we do the right thing in both situations.
Posted by Toodledo:
We are smart enough to know when you are typing a ? into a note and when you are pressing a ? to see the list of shortcuts and we do the right thing in both situations.
Whew! that's good to know.
Ok, so shortcuts have to be enabled to have this feature work.
Posted: Feb 10, 2012
Great and usefull but...
I found several files on the list that has no files atached (0) but link returns one or more tasks on the other hand i found some cases with atached files where links doesn't return any related tasks. Is this normal or you need to fix it?
Toodledo Founder
Can you please create a support ticket and indicate which files these are happening to so that we can investigate?
Posted: Feb 11, 2012
Now works perfect !
Thank you !
Hi Jake, Michael Linenberger here.
Just a quick reminder of a previous feature change request I submitted some time ago for your file attachments feature. Right now, as you note at the bottom of the File section, if you add a file that has the same name as an existing one it just overwrites the old file without warning. This is especially an issue when converting emails to tasks and the emails have attachments. One example why: It's common in voice mail systems to send a recording of the voice mail as an attachment in an email, and these systems often use the same filename each time. If you convert these to tasks for later action, the new converted tasks wipe out the files in all the other converted tasks making the attached recording useless. Lot's of other examples. A simple solution would be a feature that, say, appends a 1, 2, 3 etc to duplicate file names before saving. And that could be a configurable feature in case some uses really want to overwrite old files. Sucks to lose files without realizing it! Thanks for considering this fix again,
I just subscribed to the Pro and Plus of ToodleDo with a very high expectiation of attachment management with task. But to my disappointment, when you click on the icon for attachment, it cannot be previewable, you need to download the whole file in you application in order to see the contents of the file. That really slow down your task management. I am also using the iPhone and iPad versions which cannot integrated with attachment at all. It seems not much better than just linked your file with those free cloud storage apps, like Dropbox or Google Doc.
I wonder any improvement on this.
Toodledo Founder
It is essentially the same as Dropbox. It would be a tremendous effort to allow documents to be previewed without downloading them, and it would only support certain document types. It's on our to-do list.
Posted by Toodledo:
It is essentially the same as Dropbox.Except that with Dropbox you can:
1. Update files automatically, instead of having to manually upload any changes.
2. Automatically save multiple versions of a file.
3. Not worry about overwriting a file on the website.
4. Use subfolders.
5. Share files with other users.
6. Access files from an iOS or Android device.
Toodledo Founder
Thats why I said "essentially" not "exactly"
Box.net has one key feature that I do not believe dropbox has and it is assignment of a unique http address to each file. This allows files to open instead of just going into dropbox. If anyone knows this to be incorrect about Dropbox please let us know.
Martys To Do
Posted: May 17, 2012
I would like to also emphasize the importance of trying to prevent over-riding files with the same name. Much of what I find useful is that I can email tasks with attachments from my phone. However, I usually do not have control over the filename, particularly if it is a photo-- and these are all named the same by the software on the phone and then will over-write the prior imported attachment.
Please fix this feature.
Thank you.
This message was edited May 17, 2012.
Posted: May 30, 2012
Can we also please have a feature to link or categorize an attachment to a folder.
Toodledo Founder
Yes, this is on our todo list.
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Metallica's Orion Music + More Festival Adds Infectious Grooves Reunion, Dead Sara + More
Metallica's Orion Music + More festival just got a little more awesome with the reveal of several new acts that have been added to the bill. Highlighting the new additions is the reunion of Robert Trujillo's onetime project Infectious Grooves.
The all-star outfit came together back in the '90s and enjoyed some success while opening for Ozzy Osbourne. Now, years later, most of the original members will be part of the Orion reunion. Trujillo will be joined by Suicidal Tendencies singer Mike Muir and Dean Pleasants, Jane's Addiction's Stephen Perkins and Faith No More's Jim Martin filling in for original guitarist Adam Siegel. The bassist reveals that after having Muir bring Suicidal Tendencies to Orion last year, the seeds of an Infectious Grooves reunion were planted and now they're ready to sprout.
He says in a video interview (posted below), "To reunite with those guys after 22 years is going to be really special for me. Orion is the perfect place for that to happen … I'm looking forward to it."
In addition to Infectious Grooves, new Orion additions include Dead Sara, the reunited Rocket From the Crypt, the former Kyuss Lives lineup now known as Vista Chino, and local Detroit favorites Matt Clarke and Calico. They join a bill that already included Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rise Against, Deftones, Dropkick Murphys, Dillinger Escape Plan and many more.
Metallica have also revealed that Vans will return to Orion with a full vert ramp backed by Trujillo featuring pro skating demos and a showcase of Metallica's own Vans footwear line. That will join James Hetfield's custom car and motorcycle show, Kirk Hammett's horror memorabilia crypt and Lars Ulrich's 'Hit the Lights' film tent as some of the non-musical attractions.
The event takes place June 8 and 9 at Belle Isle in Detroit. For ticketing information, click here.
Watch Robert Trujillo Discuss the Infectious Grooves Reunion at the Orion Fest


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CLoX: Common Lisp Objects for XEmacs
Last modification: Tue, 15 Jun 2010 07:15:35 GMT
CLoX is an ongoing attempt to provide a full Emacs Lisp implementation of the Common Lisp Object System, including its underlying meta-object protocol, for XEmacs. This paper describes the early devel...
Maintaining Portable Lisp Programs - It's a bug, not a feature
Last modification: Sun, 21 Feb 2010 15:01:23 GMT
Paper by Christophe Rhodes, 5 February 2004. It examines "the use of read-time feature conditionals, with particular emphasis on writing portable Common Lisp code which aspires to both forwards- and b...
Revisiting the Visitor: the "Just Do It" Pattern.
Last modification: Tue, 28 Apr 2009 08:07:14 GMT
A software design pattern is a three-part rule which expresses a relation between a certain context, a problem, and a solution. The well-known "GoF Book" describes 23 software design patterns. Its inf...
Binary Methods Programming: the CLOS Perspective.
Last modification: Tue, 28 Apr 2009 08:00:19 GMT
Implementing binary methods in traditional object-oriented languages is difficult: numerous problems arise regarding the relationship between types and classes in the context of inheritance, or the ne...
CLOS Efficiency: Instantiation -- On the Behavior and Performance of Lisp, Part 2.1
Last modification: Tue, 28 Apr 2009 07:54:14 GMT
This article reports the results of an ongoing experimental research on the behavior and performance of CLOS, the Common Lisp Object System. Our purpose is to evaluate the behavior and performance of ...
Beating C in Scientific Computing Applications -- On the Behavior and Performance of Lisp, Part I.
Last modification: Tue, 28 Apr 2009 07:38:23 GMT
This paper presents an ongoing research on the behavior and performance of LISP with respect to C in the context of scientific numerical computing. Several simple image processing algorithms are used ...
The Long, Painful History of Time
Last modification: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 15:54:41 GMT
A paper by Erik Naggum published in the Proceedings of the Lisp User Group Meeting, October 1999. "This paper discusses some of the problems inherent in processing time suitable to humans and describe...
Portable Utilities for Common Lisp - User Guide and Implementation Notes
Last modification: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 15:11:34 GMT
School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University technical report CMU-CS-91-143 by Mark Kantrowitz, May 1991. The autor describes the design, implementation and usage of a set of portable Common...
CLISP's memory management
Last modification: Tue, 07 Nov 2006 08:01:38 GMT
A paper by Bruno Haible, published on 19 February 1995, summarizing the memory management system of the CLISP Common Lisp implementation. It describes the generational garbage collection algorithm and...
User-Level Language Crafting: Introducing the CLOS Metaobject Protocol
Last modification: Sun, 22 Oct 2006 21:27:12 GMT
Paper by Andreas Paepcke published in the book "Object-Oriented Programming: the CLOS perspective", MIT Press, 1993. It discusses how CLOS carries the idea of open and modular systems to the realm of ...
Calendrical Calculations, II: Three Historical Calendars
Last modification: Wed, 18 Oct 2006 13:36:04 GMT
Paper by Edward M. Reingold, Nachum Dershowitz, and Stewart M. Clamen published in "Software-Practice and Experience", 23 (1993), pagg. 383-404. It provides algorithmic presentations of three calendar...
Calendrical Calculations
Last modification: Tue, 17 Oct 2006 13:58:40 GMT
Paper by Nachum Dershowitz and Edward M. Reingold published in "Software-Practice and Experience", 20 (1990), pagg. 899-928. It provides a unified algorithmic presentation of major calendars, and incl...
DNS Message Decoding - A Case Study Comparing Java and Common Lisp
Last modification: Sun, 24 Sep 2006 08:29:43 GMT
A study that compares two implementations of a DNS resolver library, one written in Common Lisp and the other in Java. 30 May 2004.
The common Lisp object system metaobject kernel: a status report
Last modification: Thu, 21 Sep 2006 06:05:18 GMT
Paper published in the "Proceedings of the 1988 ACM conference on LISP and functional programming". A status report on the design of the CLOS Metaobject Protocol (MOP). The paper "is organized around ...
The Nature of Lisp
Last modification: Mon, 03 Jul 2006 10:50:49 GMT
An article that is an "attempt to explain Lisp in familiar, intuitive concepts". The author tells how he found and approached Lisp, and introduces the main concepts and features of Common Lisp.
The Idiot's Guide to Common Lisp Packages
Last modification: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 07:24:13 GMT
A tutorial by Ron Garret on Common Lisp packages. It covers symbols, values and the REPL loop, interning, home packages, exporting symbols and using packages, shadowing, and DEFPACKAGE.
The Idiot's Guide to Special Variables and Lexical Closures
Last modification: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 12:15:00 GMT
A tutorial by Ron Garret on Common Lisp special variables. It covers variables and bindings, lexical and dynamic scope, DEFVAR, and lexical closures.
Last modification: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 11:04:39 GMT
A web site with information and links to papers and resources on Lisp performance issues and profiling, particularly Common Lisp.
Kent Pitman's Publications
Last modification: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 10:38:02 GMT
A collection of research papers, journal articles, essays and other Lisp writings by Kent Pitman. Covered topics include Common Lisp design and standardization, Artificial Intelligence, software engi...
LISP Deserves a Fresh Look
Last modification: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 15:32:17 GMT
Article by Peter Coffee published on the February 7, 2006 issue of eWeek. It discusses the potential of Lisp, particularly Common Lisp, for developing web applications "using fewer lines of code, and ...
A Guided Tour of the Common Lisp Interface Manager
Last modification: Fri, 24 Feb 2006 18:33:25 GMT
Paper by Ramana Rao, William York and Dennis Doughty published in 1990(?) by Lisp Pointers. It provides an overview of CLIM's facilities and presents a series of examples. Although the sample code is ...
Language Constructs for Context-oriented Programming
Last modification: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 21:06:52 GMT
ContextL is an extension to the Common Lisp Object System that allows for Context-oriented Programming. It provides means to associate partial class and method definitions with layers and to activate ...
Interview with Samantha Kleinberg on CL-GODB, Common Lisp & Bioinformatics
Last modification: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 13:40:53 GMT
An article in which Emre Sevinc interviews Samantha Kleinberg, one of the 2005 Google Summer of Code developers. Her project, CL-GODB, is a bioinformatics system written in Common Lisp.
Knee-jerk Anti-LOOPism and other E-mail Phenomena
Last modification: Sun, 05 Feb 2006 10:05:25 GMT
"Knee-jerk Anti-LOOPism and other E-mail Phenomena: Oral, Written, and Electronic Patterns in Computer-Mediated Communication" is a paper by JoAnne Yates and Wanda J. Orlikowski. MIT Sloan School Work...
Using a waiting protocol to separate concerns in the mutual exclusion problem
Last modification: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 17:37:52 GMT
Paper by Frode V. Fjeld, Department of Computer Science, University of Tromso (Norway) Technical Report 2003-46, 21 November 2003. It proposes a separation of concerns in concurrent systems between mu...
Henry Baker's Archive of Research Papers
Last modification: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 17:10:57 GMT
Collection of papers on programming languages research, including some on Common Lisp implementation issues and CLOS.
"A Survey of Current CLOS MOP Implementations"
Last modification: Sun, 15 Jan 2006 23:46:02 GMT
This paper surveys implementations of the CLOS MOP in some of the more popular implementations of Common Lisp. First a brief overview of the CLOS MOP is given. A number of Common Lisp implementations ...
CLOS in Context: The Shape of the Design Space
Last modification: Sun, 15 Jan 2006 17:07:36 GMT
Chapter written by Daniel G. Bobrow, Richard P. Gabriel and Jon L. White for the book "Object-Oriented Programming: The CLOS Perspective" (edited by Andreas Paepcke, MIT Press, 1992). It examines the ...
CLOS: Integrating Object-Oriented and Functional Programming
Last modification: Sun, 15 Jan 2006 16:58:36 GMT
Paper by Richard P. Gabriel, Jon L. White and Daniel G. Bobrow published in the Sep. 1991 issue of CACM. It discusses how CLOS combines previous programming traditions and ideas.
The Common Lisp Object System: An Overview
Last modification: Sun, 15 Jan 2006 16:45:11 GMT
Paper by Richard P. Gabriel and Linda DeMichiel published at ECOOP 1987. It introduces the major ideas of CLOS: generic functions, classes and inheritance, method combination and the meta-object proto...
Infornography - Gene Michael Stover's web site
Last modification: Sun, 15 Jan 2006 12:57:43 GMT
Large collection of computing articles by Gene Michael Stover, many of which about learning and using Common Lisp.
Guide to good Lisp style
Last modification: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 12:31:32 GMT
The Evolution of Lisp
Last modification: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 17:23:34 GMT
A paper by Guy Steele jr. and Richard P. Gabriel describing the different lisp dialects between and including McCarthy's Lisp 1.5 from 1960 and Common Lisp of today. It shows in 109 pages how the desi...
Gsharp - The Extensible, Interactive Score Editor
Last modification: Sat, 07 Jan 2006 16:36:41 GMT
Paper by Robert Strandh, September 2003. It explains how to install and run the Gsharp musical score editor and perform basic operations. It also includes a reference manual, and discusses the program...
PCLOS Reference Manual
Last modification: Sat, 07 Jan 2006 15:31:11 GMT
Hewlett-Packard HPL-91-182 technical report by Andreas Paepcke, 5 December 1991. The document combines the manuals of versions 2.0, 2.1 and 3.0 of the CLOS-based PCLOS persistent object store. The fir...
On using Common Lisp for Scientific Computing
Last modification: Sat, 07 Jan 2006 15:18:11 GMT
Paper by Nicholas Neuss. Proceedings of the CISC Conference 2002, LNCSE, Springer-Verlag, 2003. It supports the use of Lisp for scientific applications by comparing the performance of C and Lisp imple...
Using Common Lisp to Build Web Applications
Last modification: Fri, 06 Jan 2006 22:30:14 GMT
"Using Common Lisp to Build Web Applications - Can a 40 year old Computer Language do Web Applications?". Paper by Nicky Peeters, 20 June 2003. After a short introduction to Lisp, the document discuss...
Rebel With A Cause
Last modification: Fri, 06 Jan 2006 22:23:34 GMT
"Rebel With A Cause - Building Web Applications with Common Lisp - Deploying on an Apple Xserve running Mac OS X Server". Article by Sven Van Caekenberghe, October 2003, First Revision. The document "...
Fast Floating-Point Processing in Common Lisp
Last modification: Fri, 06 Jan 2006 22:11:49 GMT
Paper by R.J. Fateman, K.A. Broughan, D.K. Willcock and D. Rettig published in ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software (TOMS), Volume 21, Issue 1 (March 1995), pages 26-62. The paper explores the b...
Common Lisp B-level course
Last modification: Fri, 06 Jan 2006 22:04:19 GMT
Notes from the lectures, spring of 1997, Mid-Sweden University - Sundsvall. Teacher and instructor for the labworks J.E. Spragg. These notes provide an introductory coverage of the Common Lisp languag...
Some Useful Lisp Algorithms: Part 2
Last modification: Fri, 06 Jan 2006 21:51:04 GMT
Collection of 3 technical papers written during 1992 and 1993 by Richard "Dick" Waters and submitted to the ACM Lisp Pointers journal. The first paper, titled "Using the New Common Lisp Pretty Printer...
Some Useful Lisp Algorithms: Part 1
Last modification: Fri, 06 Jan 2006 21:38:55 GMT
Collection of 3 technical papers written during 1991 by Richard "Dick" Waters and submitted to the ACM Lisp Pointers journal. The first paper, titled "Supporting the Regression Testing of Lisp Program...


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Foundations of GTK+ Development
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Create custom dialogs and use built-in dialogs for file, font, and color selection. The book also covers GtkAssistant, which was introduced in GTK+ 2.10.
Use many features provided by GLib including data structures, dynamic modules, memory management, the main loop, and pipes.
Develop with advanced widgets like GtkTreeView and GtkTextView.
Dynamically load menus with GtkUIManager, and user interfaces with Libglade.
Create your own custom widgets, objects, and interfaces.
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Using GLib's GKeyFile Parser
Key files in GLib are much like .ini files used on Microsoft Windows machines. Data is split into groups, where the name appears between square bracket characters, and comments are started by the pound character. Key files, parsed by GKeyFile, keep track of strings, localized strings, Boolean values, integers, doubles, and lists of each of these data types. [
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SMBE is now calling for proposals for workshops/satellite meetings to be held between Fall 2016 and Fall 2017. Funds will be awarded on a competitive basis to members of the molecular evolution research community to run workshops/satellite meetings on an important, focused, and timely topic of their choice. The deadline for submission of proposals is May 15, 2016.
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The Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution is now accepting abstracts for the 2016 annual meeting, taking place on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, July 3-7, 2016.
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AbstractEvolutionary genetic studies have shown a positive correlation between levels of nucleotide diversity and either rates of recombination or genetic distance to genes. Both positive-directional and purifying selection have been offered as the source of these correlations via genetic hitchhiking and background selection, respectively. Phylogenetically conserved elements (CEs) are short (∼100 bp), widely distributed (comprising ∼5% of genome), sequences that are often found far from genes. While the function of many CEs is unknown, CEs also are associated with reduced diversity at linked sites. Using high coverage (>80×) whole genome data from two human populations, the Yoruba and the CEU, we perform fine scale evaluations of diversity, rates of recombination, and linkage to genes. We find that the local rate of recombination has a stronger effect on levels of diversity than linkage to genes, and that these effects of recombination persist even in regions far from genes. Our whole genome modeling demonstrates that, rather than recombination or GC-biased gene conversion, selection on sites within or linked to CEs better explains the observed genomic diversity patterns. A major implication is that very few sites in the human genome are predicted to be free of the effects of selection. These sites, which we refer to as the human "neutralome," comprise only 1.2% of the autosomes and 5.1% of the X chromosome. Demographic analysis of the neutralome reveals larger population sizes and lower rates of growth for ancestral human populations than inferred by previous analyses.
Ana Catalán, Aide Macias-Muñoz, and Adriana D. Briscoe
AbstractThermal tolerance is a key determinant of species distribution. Despite much study, the genetic basis of adaptive evolution of thermal tolerance, including the relative contributions of transcriptional regulation versus protein evolution, remains unclear. Populations of the intertidal copepod Tigriopus californicus are adapted to local thermal regimes across their broad geographic range. Upon thermal stress, adults from a heat tolerant southern population, San Diego (SD), upregulate several heat shock proteins (HSPs) to higher levels than those from a less tolerant northern population, Santa Cruz (SC). Suppression of a specific HSP, HSPB1, significantly reduces T. californicus survival following acute heat stress. Sequencing of HSPB1 revealed population specific nucleotide substitutions in both promoter and coding regions of the gene. HSPB1 promoters from heat tolerant populations contain two canonical heat shock elements (HSEs), the binding sites for heat shock transcription factor (HSF), whereas less tolerant populations have mutations in these conserved motifs. Allele specific expression of HSPB1 in F1 hybrids between tolerant and less tolerant populations showed significantly biased expression favoring alleles from tolerant populations and supporting the adaptive divergence in these cis-regulatory variants. The functional impact of population-specific nonsynonymous substitutions in HSPB1 coding sequences was tested by assessing the thermal stabilization properties of SD versus SC HSPB1 protein variants. Recombinant HSPB1 from the southern SD population showed greater capacity for protecting protein structure under elevated temperature. Our results indicate that both regulatory and protein coding sequence evolution within a single gene appear to contribute to thermal tolerance phenotypes and local adaptation among conspecific populations.
AbstractIn the history of life, some phenotypes have been acquired several times independently, through convergent evolution. Recently, lots of genome-scale studies have been devoted to identify nucleotides or amino acids that changed in a convergent manner when the convergent phenotypes evolved. These efforts have had mixed results, probably because of differences in the detection methods, and because of conceptual differences about the definition of a convergent substitution. Some methods contend that substitutions are convergent only if they occur on all branches where the phenotype changed toward the exact same state at a given nucleotide or amino acid position. Others are much looser in their requirements and define a convergent substitution as one that leads the site at which they occur to prefer a phylogeny in which species with the convergent phenotype group together. Here, we suggest to look for convergent shifts in amino acid preferences instead of convergent substitutions to the exact same amino acid. We define as convergent shifts substitutions that occur on all branches where the phenotype changed and such that they correspond to a change in the type of amino acid preferred at this position. We implement the corresponding model into a method named PCOC. We show on simulations that PCOC better recovers convergent shifts than existing methods in terms of sensitivity and specificity. We test it on a plant protein alignment where convergent evolution has been studied in detail and find that our method recovers several previously identified convergent substitutions and proposes credible new candidates.
AbstractHuman skin color diversity is considered an adaptation to environmental conditions such as UV radiation. Investigations into the genetic bases of such adaptation have identified a group of pigmentation genes contributing to skin color diversity in African and non-African populations. Here, we present a population analysis of the pigmentation gene KITLG with previously reported signal of Darwinian positive selection in both European and East Asian populations. We demonstrated that there had been recurrent selective events in the upstream and the downstream regions of KITLG in Eurasian populations. More importantly, besides the expected selection on the KITLG variants favoring light skin in coping with the weak UV radiation at high latitude, we observed a KITLG variant showing adaptation to winter temperature. In particular, compared with UV radiation, winter temperature showed a much stronger correlation with the prevalence of the presumably adaptive KITLG allele in Asian populations. This observation was further supported by the in vitro functional test at low temperature. Consequently, the pleiotropic effects of KITLG, that is, pigmentation and thermogenesis were both targeted by natural selection that acted on different KITLG sequence variants, contributing to the adaptation of Eurasians to both UV radiation and winter temperature at high latitude areas.
AbstractThe main outcome of molecular dating, the timetree, provides crucial information for understanding the evolutionary history of lineages and is a requirement of several evolutionary analyses. Although essential, the estimation of divergence times from molecular data is frequently regarded as a complicated task. However, establishing biological timescales can be performed in a straightforward manner, even with large, genome-wide data sets. This protocol presents all the necessary steps to estimate a timetree in the program MEGA X. It also illustrates how the TimeTree resource can be a useful tool to obtain chronological information based on previous studies, therefore yielding calibration boundaries.
AbstractAdmixture between populations provides opportunity to study biological adaptation and phenotypic variation. Admixture studies rely on local ancestry inference for admixed individuals, which consists of computing at each locus the number of copies that originate from ancestral source populations. Existing software packages for local ancestry inference are tuned to provide accurate results on human data and recent admixture events. Here, we introduce Loter, an open-source software package that does not require any biological parameter besides haplotype data in order to make local ancestry inference available for a wide range of species. Using simulations, we compare the performance of Loter to HAPMIX, LAMP-LD, and RFMix. HAPMIX is the only software severely impacted by imperfect haplotype reconstruction. Loter is the less impacted software by increasing admixture time when considering simulated and admixed human genotypes. For simulations of admixed Populus genotypes, Loter and LAMP-LD are robust to increasing admixture times by contrast to RFMix. When comparing length of reconstructed and true ancestry tracts, Loter and LAMP-LD provide results whose accuracy is again more robust than RFMix to increasing admixture times. We apply Loter to individuals resulting from admixture between Populus trichocarpa and Populus balsamifera and lengths of ancestry tracts indicate that admixture took place ∼100 generations ago. We expect that providing a rapid and parameter-free software for local ancestry inference will make more accessible genomic studies about admixture processes.
AbstractThe mechanisms by which organisms adapt to variable environments are a fundamental question in evolutionary biology and are important to protect important species in response to a changing climate. An interesting candidate to study this question is the honey bee Apis cerana, a keystone pollinator with a wide distribution throughout a large variety of climates, that exhibits rapid dispersal. Here, we resequenced the genome of 180 A. cerana individuals from 18 populations throughout China. Using a population genomics approach, we observed considerable genetic variation in A. cerana. Patterns of genetic differentiation indicate high divergence at the subspecies level, and physical barriers rather than distance are the driving force for population divergence. Estimations of divergence time suggested that the main branches diverged between 300 and 500 Ka. Analyses of the population history revealed a substantial influence of the Earth's climate on the effective population size of A. cerana, as increased population sizes were observed during warmer periods. Further analyses identified candidate genes under natural selection that are potentially related to honey bee cognition, temperature adaptation, and olfactory. Based on our results, A. cerana may have great potential in response to climate change. Our study provides fundamental knowledge of the evolution and adaptation of A. cerana.
AbstractThe relative evolutionary rates at individual sites in proteins are informative measures of conservation or adaptation. Often used as evolutionarily aware conservation scores, relative rates reveal key functional or strongly selected residues. Estimating rates in a phylogenetic context requires specifying a protein substitution model, which is typically a phenomenological model trained on a large empirical data set. A strong emphasis has traditionally been placed on selecting the "best-fit" model, with the implicit understanding that suboptimal or otherwise ill-fitting models might bias inferences. However, the pervasiveness and degree of such bias has not been systematically examined. We investigated how model choice impacts site-wise relative rates in a large set of empirical protein alignments. We compared models designed for use on any general protein, models designed for specific domains of life, and the simple equal-rates Jukes Cantor-style model (JC). As expected, information theoretic measures showed overwhelming evidence that some models fit the data decidedly better than others. By contrast, estimates of site-specific evolutionary rates were impressively insensitive to the substitution model used, revealing an unexpected degree of robustness to potential model misspecification. A deeper examination of the fewer than 5% of sites for which model inferences differed in a meaningful way showed that the JC model could uniquely identify rapidly evolving sites that models with empirically derived exchangeabilities failed to detect. We conclude that relative protein rates appear robust to the applied substitution model, and any sensible model of protein evolution, regardless of its fit to the data, should produce broadly consistent evolutionary rates.
AbstractEndosymbiosis has been common all along eukaryotic evolution, providing opportunities for genomic and organellar innovation. Plastids are a prominent example. After the primary endosymbiosis of the cyanobacterial plastid ancestor, photosynthesis spread in many eukaryotic lineages via secondary endosymbioses involving red or green algal endosymbionts and diverse heterotrophic hosts. However, the number of secondary endosymbioses and how they occurred remain poorly understood. In particular, contrasting patterns of endosymbiotic gene transfer have been detected and subjected to various interpretations. In this context, accurate detection of endosymbiotic gene transfers is essential to avoid wrong evolutionary conclusions. We have assembled a strictly selected set of markers that provides robust phylogenomic evidence suggesting that nuclear genes involved in the function and maintenance of green secondary plastids in chlorarachniophytes and euglenids have unexpected mixed red and green algal origins. This mixed ancestry contrasts with the clear red algal origin of most nuclear genes carrying similar functions in secondary algae with red plastids.
AbstractThe hypothesis that eusociality originated once in Vespidae has shaped interpretation of social evolution for decades and has driven the supposition that preimaginal morphophysiological differences between castes were absent at the outset of eusociality. Many researchers also consider casteless nest-sharing an antecedent to eusociality. Together, these ideas endorse a stepwise progression of social evolution in wasps (solitary → casteless nest-sharing → eusociality with rudimentary behavioral castes → eusociality with preimaginal caste-biasing (PCB) → morphologically differentiated castes). Here, we infer the phylogeny of Vespidae using sequence data generated via anchored hybrid enrichment from 378 loci across 136 vespid species and perform ancestral state reconstructions to test whether rudimentary and monomorphic castes characterized the initial stages of eusocial evolution. Our results reject the single origin of eusociality hypothesis, contest the supposition that eusociality emerged from a casteless nest-sharing ancestor, and suggest that eusociality in Polistinae + Vespinae began with castes having morphological differences. An abrupt appearance of castes with ontogenetically established morphophysiological differences conflicts with the current conception of stepwise social evolution and suggests that the climb up the ladder of sociality does not occur through sequential mutation. Phenotypic plasticity and standing genetic variation could explain how cooperative brood care evolved in concert with nest-sharing and how morphologically dissimilar castes arose without a rudimentary intermediate. Furthermore, PCB at the outset of eusociality implicates a subsocial route to eusociality in Polistinae + Vespinae, emphasizing the role of mother–daughter interactions and subfertility (i.e. the cost component of kin selection) in the origin of workers.
AbstractHomeobox genes are key toolkit genes that regulate the development of metazoans and changes in their regulation and copy number have contributed to the evolution of phenotypic diversity. We recently identified a whole genome duplication (WGD) event that occurred in an ancestor of spiders and scorpions (Arachnopulmonata), and that many homeobox genes, including two Hox clusters, appear to have been retained in arachnopulmonates. To better understand the consequences of this ancient WGD and the evolution of arachnid homeobox genes, we have characterized and compared the homeobox repertoires in a range of arachnids. We found that many families and clusters of these genes are duplicated in all studied arachnopulmonates (Parasteatoda tepidariorum, Pholcus phalangioides, Centruroides sculpturatus, and Mesobuthus martensii) compared with nonarachnopulmonate arachnids (Phalangium opilio, Neobisium carcinoides, Hesperochernes sp., and Ixodes scapularis). To assess divergence in the roles of homeobox ohnologs, we analyzed the expression of P. tepidariorum homeobox genes during embryogenesis and found pervasive changes in the level and timing of their expression. Furthermore, we compared the spatial expression of a subset of P. tepidariorum ohnologs with their single copy orthologs in P. opilio embryos. We found evidence for likely subfunctionlization and neofunctionalization of these genes in the spider. Overall our results show a high level of retention of homeobox genes in spiders and scorpions post-WGD, which is likely to have made a major contribution to their developmental evolution and diversification through pervasive subfunctionlization and neofunctionalization, and paralleling the outcomes of WGD in vertebrates.
AbstractThe origin of hepadnaviruses (Hepadnaviridae), a group of reverse-transcribing DNA viruses that infect vertebrates, remains mysterious. All the known retrotransposons are only distantly related to hepadnaviruses. Here, we report the discovery of two novel lineages of retroelements, which we designate hepadnavirus-like retroelement (HEART1 and HEART2), within the insect genomes through screening 1, 095 eukaryotic genomes. Both phylogenetic and similarity analyses suggest that the HEART retroelements represent the closest nonviral relatives of hepadnaviruses so far. The discovery of HEART retroelements narrows down the evolutionary gap between hepadnaviruses and retrotransposons and might thus provide unique insights into the origin and evolution of hepadnaviruses.
AbstractDifferences in behavior and life history traits between females and males are the basis of divergent selective pressures between sexes. It has been suggested that a way for the two sexes to deal with different life history requirements is through sex-biased gene expression. In this study, we performed a comparative sex-biased gene expression analysis of the combined eye and brain transcriptome from five Heliconius species, H. charithonia, H. sara, H. erato, H. melpomene and H. doris, representing five of the main clades from the Heliconius phylogeny. We found that the degree of sexual dimorphism in gene expression is not conserved across Heliconius. Most of the sex-biased genes identified in each species are not sex-biased in any other, suggesting that sexual selection might have driven sexually dimorphic gene expression. Only three genes shared sex-biased expression across multiple species: ultraviolet opsin UVRh1 and orthologs of Drosophila Krüppel-homolog 1 and CG9492. We also observed that in some species female-biased genes have higher evolutionary rates, but in others, male-biased genes show the fastest rates when compared with unbiased genes, suggesting that selective forces driving sex-biased gene evolution in Heliconius act in a sex- and species-specific manner. Furthermore, we found dosage compensation in all the Heliconius tested, providing additional evidence for the conservation of dosage compensation across Lepidoptera. Finally, sex-biased genes are significantly enriched on the Z, a pattern that could be a result of sexually antagonistic selection.
AbstractZic family genes encode C2H2-type zinc finger proteins that act as critical toolkit proteins in the metazoan body plan establishment. In this study, we searched evolutionarily conserved domains (CDs) among 121 Zic protein sequences from 22 animal phyla and 40 classes, and addressed their evolutionary significance. The collected sequences included those from poriferans and orthonectids. We discovered seven new CDs, CD0–CD6, (in order from the N- to C-terminus) using the most conserved Zic protein sequences from Deuterostomia (Hemichordata and Cephalochordata), Lophotrochozoa (Cephalopoda and Brachiopoda), and Ecdysozoa (Chelicerata and Priapulida). Subsequently, we analyzed the evolutionary history of Zic CDs including the known CDs (ZOC, ZFD, ZFNC, and ZFCC). All Zic CDs are predicted to have existed in a bilaterian ancestor. During evolution, they have degenerated in a taxa-selective manner with significant correlations among CDs. The N terminal CD (CD0) was largely lost, but was observed in Brachiopoda, Priapulida, Hemichordata, Echinodermata, and Cephalochordata, and the C terminal CD (CD6) was highly conserved in conserved-type-Zic possessing taxa, but was truncated in vertebrate Zic gene paralogues (Zic1/2/3), generating a vertebrate-specific C-terminus critical for transcriptional regulation. ZOC was preferentially conserved in insects and in an anthozoan paralogue, and it was bound to the homeodomain transcription factor Msx in a phylogenetically conserved manner. Accordingly, the extent of divergence of Msx and Zic CDs from their respective bilaterian ancestors is strongly correlated. These results suggest that coordinated divergence among the toolkit CDs and among toolkit proteins is involved in the divergence of metazoan body plans.
AbstractIsoprenoids and their derivatives represent the largest group of organic compounds in nature and are distributed universally in the three domains of life. Isoprenoids are biosynthesized from isoprenyl diphosphate units, generated by two distinctive biosynthetic pathways: mevalonate pathway and methylerthritol 4-phosphate pathway. Archaea and eukaryotes exclusively have the former pathway, while most bacteria have the latter. Some bacteria, however, are known to possess the mevalonate pathway genes. Understanding the evolutionary history of these two isoprenoid biosynthesis pathways in each domain of life is critical since isoprenoids are so interweaved in the architecture of life that they would have had indispensable roles in the early evolution of life. Our study provides a detailed phylogenetic analysis of enzymes involved in the mevalonate pathway and sheds new light on its evolutionary history. The results suggest that a potential mevalonate pathway is present in the recently discovered superphylum Candidate Phyla Radiation (CPR), and further suggest a strong evolutionary relationship exists between archaea and CPR. Interestingly, CPR harbors the characteristics of both the bacterial-type and archaeal-type mevalonate pathways and may retain signatures regarding the ancestral isoprenoid biosynthesis pathway in the last universal common ancestor. Our study supports the ancient origin of the mevalonate pathway in the three domains of life as previously inferred, but concludes that the evolution of the mevalonate pathway was more complex.
AbstractSelf-transmissible mobile genetic elements drive horizontal gene transfer between prokaryotes. Some of these elements integrate in the chromosome, whereas others replicate autonomously as plasmids. Recent works showed the existence of few differences, and occasional interconversion, between the two types of elements. Here, we enquired on why evolutionary processes have maintained the two types of mobile genetic elements by comparing integrative and conjugative elements (ICE) with extrachromosomal ones (conjugative plasmids) of the highly abundant MPFT conjugative type. We observed that plasmids encode more replicases, partition systems, and antibiotic resistance genes, whereas ICEs encode more integrases and metabolism-associated genes. ICEs and plasmids have similar average sizes, but plasmids are much more variable, have more DNA repeats, and exchange genes more frequently. On the other hand, we found that ICEs are more frequently transferred between distant taxa. We propose a model where the different genetic plasticity and amplitude of host range between elements explain the co-occurrence of integrative and extrachromosomal elements in microbial populations. In particular, the conversion from ICE to plasmid allows ICE to be more plastic, while the conversion from plasmid to ICE allows the expansion of the element's host range.
AbstractToll-like receptors (TLRs) are key sensor molecules in vertebrates triggering initial phases of immune responses to pathogens. The avian TLR family typically consists of ten receptors, each adapted to distinct ligands. To understand the complex evolutionary history of each avian TLR, we analyzed all members of the TLR family in the whole genome assemblies and target sequence data of 63 bird species covering all major avian clades. Our results indicate that gene duplication events most probably occurred in TLR1 before synapsids diversified from sauropsids. Unlike mammals, ssRNA-recognizing TLR7 has duplicated independently in several avian taxa, while flagellin-sensing TLR5 has pseudogenized multiple times in bird phylogeny. Our analysis revealed stronger positive, diversifying selection acting in TLR5 and the three-domain TLRs (TLR10 [TLR1A], TLR1 [TLR1B], TLR2A, TLR2B, TLR4) that face the extracellular space and bind complex ligands than in single-domain TLR15 and endosomal TLRs (TLR3, TLR7, TLR21). In total, 84 out of 306 positively selected sites were predicted to harbor substitutions dramatically changing the amino acid physicochemical properties. Furthermore, 105 positively selected sites were located in the known functionally relevant TLR regions. We found evidence for convergent evolution acting between birds and mammals at 54 of these sites. Our comparative study provides a comprehensive insight into the evolution of avian TLR genetic variability. Besides describing the history of avian TLR gene gain and gene loss, we also identified candidate positions in the receptors that have been likely shaped by direct molecular host–pathogen coevolutionary interactions and most probably play key functional roles in birds.
AbstractThe highly polymorphic genes of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) play a key role in adaptive immunity. Divergent allele advantage, a mechanism of balancing selection, is proposed to contribute to their exceptional polymorphism. It assumes that MHC genotypes with more divergent alleles allow for broader antigen-presentation to immune effector cells, by that increasing immunocompetence. However, the direct correlation between pairwise sequence divergence and the corresponding repertoire of bound peptides has not been studied systematically across different MHC genes. Here, we investigated this relationship for five key classical human MHC genes (human leukocyte antigen; HLA-A, -B, -C, -DRB1, and -DQB1), using allele-specific computational binding prediction to 118,097 peptides derived from a broad range of human pathogens. For all five human MHC genes, the genetic distance between two alleles of a heterozygous genotype was positively correlated with the total number of peptides bound by these two alleles. In accordance with the major antigen-presentation pathway of MHC class I molecules, HLA-B and HLA-C alleles showed particularly strong correlations for peptides derived from intracellular pathogens. Intriguingly, this bias coincides with distinct protein compositions between intra- and extracellular pathogens, possibly suggesting adaptation of MHC I molecules to present specifically intracellular peptides. Eventually, we observed significant positive correlations between an allele's average divergence and its population frequency. Overall, our results support the divergent allele advantage as a meaningful quantitative mechanism through which pathogen-mediated selection leads to the evolution of MHC diversity.
AbstractMost phylogenetic tree-generating programs produce a fully dichotomous phylogenetic tree. However, as different markers may produce distinct topologies for the same set of organisms, topological tests are used to estimate the statistical reliability of the clades. In this protocol, we provide step-by-step instructions on how to perform the widely used bootstrap test using MEGA. However, a single unstable lineage, also known as a rogue lineage, may decrease the bootstrap proportions in many branches of the tree. This occurs because rogue taxa tend to bounce between clades from one pseudo-replicate to the next, lowering bootstrap proportions for many correct clades. Thus, it is important to identify and exclude rogue taxa before initiating a final phylogenetic analysis; here, we provide this protocol using the RogueNaRok platform.
AbstractThe predictability of evolution, or whether lineages repeatedly follow the same evolutionary trajectories during phenotypic convergence remains an open question of evolutionary biology. In this study, we investigate evolutionary convergence at the biochemical pathway level and test the predictability of evolution using floral anthocyanin pigmentation, a trait with a well-understood genetic and regulatory basis. We reconstructed the evolution of floral anthocyanin content across 28 species of the Andean clade Iochrominae (Solanaceae) and investigated how shifts in pigmentation are related to changes in expression of seven key anthocyanin pathway genes. We used phylogenetic multivariate analysis of gene expression to test for phenotypic and developmental convergence at a macroevolutionary scale. Our results show that the four independent losses of the ancestral pigment delphinidin involved convergent losses of expression of the three late pathway genes (F3′5′h, Dfr, and Ans). Transitions between pigment types affecting floral hue (e.g., blue to red) involve changes to the expression of branching genes F3′h and F3′5′h, while the expression levels of early steps of the pathway are strongly conserved in all species. These patterns support the idea that the macroevolution of floral pigmentation follows predictable evolutionary trajectories to reach convergent phenotype space, repeatedly involving regulatory changes. This is likely driven by constraints at the pathway level, such as pleiotropy and regulatory structure.
AbstractGenetic diversity plays a central role in tumor progression, metastasis, and resistance to treatment. Experiments are shedding light on this diversity at ever finer scales, but interpretation is challenging. Using recent progress in numerical models, we simulate macroscopic tumors to investigate the interplay between growth dynamics, microscopic composition, and circulating tumor cell cluster diversity. We find that modest differences in growth parameters can profoundly change microscopic diversity. Simple outwards expansion leads to spatially segregated clones and low diversity, as expected. However, a modest cell turnover can result in an increased number of divisions and mixing among clones resulting in increased microscopic diversity in the tumor core. Using simulations to estimate power to detect such spatial trends, we find that multi-region sequencing data from contemporary studies is marginally powered to detect the predicted effects. Slightly larger samples, improved detection of rare variants, or sequencing of smaller biopsies or circulating tumor cell clusters would allow one to distinguish between leading models of tumor evolution. The genetic composition of circulating tumor cell clusters, which can be obtained from noninvasive blood draws, is therefore informative about tumor evolution and its metastatic potential.
Hiromu C. Suzuki, Katsuhisa Ozaki, Takashi Makino, Hironobu Uchiyama, Shunsuke Yajima, and Masakado Kawata
AbstractThe giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) is popular around the world and is widely recognized as a symbol of nature conservation. A draft genome of the giant panda is now available, but its Y chromosome has not been sequenced. Y chromosome data are necessary for study of sex chromosome evolution, male development, and spermatogenesis. Thus, in the present study, we sequenced two parts of the giant panda Y chromosome utilizing a male giant panda fosmid library. The sequencing data were assembled into two contigs, each ∼100 kb in length with no gaps, providing high-quality resources for studying the giant panda Y chromosome. Annotation and transposable element comparison indicates varied evolutionary pressure in different regions of the Y chromosome. Two genes, zinc finger protein, Y-linked (ZFY) and lysine demethylase 5D (KDM5D), were annotated and gene conversion was observed for ZFY exon 7. Phylogenetic analysis also revealed that this gene conversion event happened independently in multiple mammalian lineages, indicating a putative mechanism to maintain the function of this particular gene on the Y chromosome. Furthermore, a transposition event, discovered through comparative alignment with the giant panda X chromosome sequence, may be involved in the process of gaining new genes on the Y chromosome. Thus, these newly obtained Y chromosome sequences provide valuable insights into the genomic patterns of the giant panda.
AbstractGenome reduction is pervasive among maternally inherited bacterial endosymbionts. This genome reduction can eventually lead to serious deterioration of essential metabolic pathways, thus rendering an obligate endosymbiont unable to provide essential nutrients to its host. This loss of essential pathways can lead to either symbiont complementation (sharing of the nutrient production with a novel co-obligate symbiont) or symbiont replacement (complete takeover of nutrient production by the novel symbiont). However, the process by which these two evolutionary events happen remains somewhat enigmatic by the lack of examples of intermediate stages of this process. Cinara aphids (Hemiptera: Aphididae) typically harbor two obligate bacterial symbionts: Buchnera and Serratia symbiotica. However, the latter has been replaced by different bacterial taxa in specific lineages, and thus species within this aphid lineage could provide important clues into the process of symbiont replacement. In the present study, using 16S rRNA high-throughput amplicon sequencing, we determined that the aphid Cinara strobi harbors not two, but three fixed bacterial symbionts: Buchnera aphidicola, a Sodalis sp., and S. symbiotica. Through genome assembly and genome-based metabolic inference, we have found that only the first two symbionts (Buchnera and Sodalis) actually contribute to the hosts' supply of essential nutrients while S. symbiotica has become unable to contribute towards this task. We found that S. symbiotica has a rather large and highly eroded genome which codes only for a few proteins and displays extensive pseudogenization. Thus, we propose an ongoing symbiont replacement within C. strobi, in which a once "competent" S. symbiotica does no longer contribute towards the beneficial association. These results suggest that in dual symbiotic systems, when a substitute cosymbiont is available, genome deterioration can precede genome reduction and a symbiont can be maintained despite the apparent lack of benefit to its host.
AbstractAppreciation is growing for how chromosomes are organized in three-dimensional space at interphase. Microscopic and high throughput sequence-based studies have established that the mammalian inactive X chromosome (Xi) adopts an alternate conformation relative to the active X chromosome. The Xi is organized into several multi-megabase chromatin loops called superloops. At the base of these loops are superloop anchors, and in humans three of these anchors are composed of large tandem repeat DNA that include DXZ4, Functional Intergenic Repeating RNA Element, and Inactive-X CTCF-binding Contact Element (ICCE). Each repeat contains a high density of binding sites for the architectural organization protein CCCTC-binding factor (CTCF) which exclusively associates with the Xi allele in normal cells. Removal of DXZ4 from the Xi compromises proper folding of the chromosome. In this study, we report the characterization of the ICCE tandem repeat, for which very little is known. ICCE is embedded within an intron of the Nobody (NBDY) gene locus at Xp11.21. We find that primary DNA sequence conservation of ICCE is only retained in higher primates, but that ICCE orthologs exist beyond the primate lineage. Like DXZ4, what is conserved is organization of the underlying DNA into a large tandem repeat, physical location within the NBDY locus and conservation of short DNA sequences corresponding to specific CTCF and Yin Yang 1 binding motifs that correlate with female-specific DNA hypomethylation. Unlike DXZ4, ICCE is not common to all eutherian mammals. Analysis of certain ICCE CTCF motifs reveal striking similarity with the DXZ4 motif and support an evolutionary relationship between DXZ4 and ICCE.
AbstractHomeodomain transcription factors are involved in many developmental processes across animals and have been linked to body plan evolution. Detailed classifications of these proteins identified 11 distinct classes of homeodomain proteins in animal genomes, each harboring specific sequence composition and protein domains. Although humans contain the full set of classes, Drosophila melanogaster and Caenorhabditis elegans each lack one specific class. Furthermore, representative previous analyses in sponges, ctenophores, and cnidarians could not identify several classes in those nonbilaterian metazoan taxa. Consequently, it is currently unknown when certain homeodomain protein classes first evolved during animal evolution. Here, we investigate representatives of the sister group to all remaining bilaterians, the Xenacoelomorpha. We analyzed three acoel, one nemertodermatid, and one Xenoturbella transcriptomes and identified their expressed homeodomain protein content. We report the identification of representatives of all 11 classes of animal homeodomain transcription factors in Xenacoelomorpha and we describe and classify their homeobox genes relative to the established animal homeodomain protein families. Our findings suggest that the genome of the last common ancestor of bilateria contained the full set of these gene classes, supporting the subsequent diversification of bilaterians.
AbstractThe diversity of mechanisms and capacity for regeneration across the Metazoa present an intriguing challenge in evolutionary biology, impacting on the burgeoning field of regenerative medicine. Broad taxonomic sampling is essential to improve our understanding of regeneration, and studies outside of the traditional model organisms have proved extremely informative. Within the historically understudied Spiralia, the Annelida have an impressive variety of tractable regenerative systems. The biomeralizing, blastema-less regeneration of the head appendage (operculum) of the serpulid polychaete keelworm Spirobranchus (formerly Pomatoceros) lamarcki is one such system. To profile potential regulatory mechanisms, we classified the homeobox gene content of opercular regeneration transcriptomes. As a result of retrieving several difficult-to-classify homeobox sequences, we performed an extensive search and phylogenetic analysis of the TALE and PRD-class homeobox gene content of a broad selection of lophotrochozoan genomes. These analyses contribute to our increasing understanding of the diversity, taxonomic extent, rapid evolution, and radical flexibility of these recently discovered homeobox gene radiations. Our expansion and integration of previous nomenclature systems helps to clarify their cryptic orthology. We also describe an unusual divergent S. lamarcki Antp gene, a previously unclassified lophotrochozoan orphan gene family (Lopx), and a number of novel Nk class orphan genes. The expression and potential involvement of many of these lineage- and clade-restricted homeobox genes in S. lamarcki operculum regeneration provides an example of diversity in regenerative mechanisms, as well as significantly improving our understanding of homeobox gene evolution.
AbstractMitochondrial genomes of animals have long been considered to evolve under the action of purifying selection. Nevertheless, there is increasing evidence that they can also undergo episodes of positive selection in response to shifts in physiological or environmental demands. Vampire bats experienced such a shift, as they are the only mammals feeding exclusively on blood and possessing anatomical adaptations to deal with the associated physiological requirements (e.g., ingestion of high amounts of liquid water and iron). We sequenced eight new chiropteran mitogenomes including two species of vampire bats, five representatives of other lineages of phyllostomids and one close outgroup. Conducting detailed comparative mitogenomic analyses, we found evidence for accelerated evolutionary rates at the nucleotide and amino acid levels in vampires. Moreover, the mitogenomes of vampire bats are characterized by an increased cytosine (C) content mirrored by a decrease in thymine (T) compared with other chiropterans. Proteins encoded by the vampire bat mitogenomes also exhibit a significant increase in threonine (Thr) and slight reductions in frequency of the hydrophobic residues isoleucine (Ile), valine (Val), methionine (Met), and phenylalanine (Phe). We show that these peculiar substitution patterns can be explained by the co-occurrence of both neutral (mutational bias) and adaptive (positive selection) processes. We propose that vampire bat mitogenomes may have been impacted by selection on mitochondrial proteins to accommodate the metabolism and nutritional qualities of blood meals.


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On Monday, August 21, all of America will experience a solar eclipse. Some areas will witness a total eclipse (when the moon entirely covers the sun); other regions will witness a partial eclipse. Southern California will experience a 62% eclipse, with the moon beginning to cover the sun at 9:05 am, reaching maximum coverage at 10:21 am, and then moving away from the sun at 11:45 am.
This is the first total solar eclipse visible in the US in 38 years. While this is an exciting learning opportunity, according to the American Astronomical Society<https://eclipse.aas.org/>* and the American Academy of Ophthalmology, looking at the sun during an eclipse without adequate eye protection can cause permanent damage to the retina.
The only safe way to look directly at the uneclipsed or partially eclipsed sun is through special solar eclipse glasses. Ordinary sunglasses, even very dark ones, are not safe for looking at the sun. If you choose to purchase eclipse glasses for your child, go to this NASA website<https://eclipse.aas.org/eye-safety/iso-certification>, for a list of reputable vendors and to make sure your eclipse glasses are safe.
Please also talk with your children and make sure they understand that looking at the sun during the eclipse without adequate eye protection can cause permanent damage to their eyes. Teachers and administrators will also be reinforcing this with students over the course of the next two days, and on Monday.
As a precautionary measure, all TVUSD schools will be on an inclement weather schedule/rainy day schedule, keeping students inside, on Monday, August 21 during the eclipse period. Schools may allow students to view the eclipse online, either in classrooms or the MPR. Some teachers may have students go outside and watch the eclipse using pinhole eclipse viewers. If you have questions about what your child's school or teacher has planned, please feel free to contact the school office or your child's teacher.
For Elementary Students: Elementary schools will be on an inclement weather schedule/rainy day schedule, keeping students inside, on Monday, August 21 from 9:05 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. At 11:30 a.m., students will be escorted to their lunch areas for their regularly scheduled lunch. Elementary students eat lunch for the first 20 minutes of their lunch period and play afterward. They will be supervised and under cover for the last 15 minutes of the eclipse, which concludes at 11:45 a.m.
For Secondary Students: Secondary schools will be on an inclement weather schedule/rainy day schedule, keeping students inside, on Monday, August 21 from 9:05 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. The MPR and other indoor spaces on campus will be open for students to access during their break and lunch periods that fall within the eclipse time frame. Some teachers also typically open their classrooms for students to stay in during their break and lunch. Students will still have access to move about the campus for passing periods and to access indoor spaces for their break and lunch period.
For more information, see the attached eye safety guidelines or go to the following websites:
§ NASA: Eclipse 2017<http://links.schoolloop.com/link/rd?href=736c5f6c696e6b666630316363306562326668747470733a2f2f65636c69707365323031372e6e6173612e676f762f>
§ American Astronomical Society: Solar Eclipse Across America<http://links.schoolloop.com/link/rd?href=736c5f6c696e6b666630316363306562326668747470733a2f2f65636c697073652e6161732e6f72672f>
§ American Astronomical Society: Eye Safety<https://eclipse.aas.org/eye-safety>
§ American Academy of Ophthalmology: Eye Safety<https://www.aao.org/eye-health/tips-prevention/solar-eclipse-eye-safety>
* PBS Learning Media: Solar Eclipses<http://links.schoolloop.com/link/rd?href=736c5f6c696e6b666630316363306562326668747470733a2f2f63612e7062736c6561726e696e676d656469612e6f72672f7265736f757263652f65737330352e7363692e6573732e6569752e65636c697073652f736f6c61722d65636c69707365732f232e5759795a445533664f556b>
* CIT Jet Propulsion Laboratory: "How to Make a Pinhole Camera<http://links.schoolloop.com/link/rd?href=736c5f6c696e6b666630316363306562326668747470733a2f2f7777772e6a706c2e6e6173612e676f762f6564752f6c6561726e2f70726f6a6563742f686f772d746f2d6d616b652d612d70696e686f6c652d63616d6572612f>"
* TIME will stream the eclipse starting at 12 p.m. EDT on Aug. 21 on Time.com<http://www.time.com/>, along with its Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/time> and YouTube<https://www.youtube.com/user/TimeMagazine> pages.


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WESTCHESTER COUNTY, N.Y. – United Way is looking for volunteers to help take calls from those devastated by Hurricane Sandy.
The charitable non-profit organization opened a 2-1-1 telephone line the day before Sandy struck the tri-state area and volunteers have answered more than 10,000 calls since.
"Honestly, we could not have done it without the help of volunteers who are working side-by-side with our trained staff," said Shannon Cobb, senior vice president of marketing and communications for United Way in Westchester and Putnam counties. "But we need more help."
The volunteers would answer the 2-1-1 storm-related calls and "input the calls into the system" so that United Way can "give reports to elected officials about the changing needs in the community."
Shifts run from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., 1 p.m. to 6 p.m., and 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. To sign up, email email@example.com or call her cell at 917-797-9468.
Click here to sign up for Daily Voice's free daily emails and news alerts.


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Hello there,
Hope you're all well.
Just wondering if someone can help me with a (self-inflicted) problem.
I just bought off eBay a SCSI CD ROM drive to use with my trusty old Emu ESi32. But (like a tit) I forgot to make sure it was an external drive. Of course when it arrived it was an internal one.
Does anyone know if it's possible to buy some kind of adaptor which will allow me to make the relevant power and SCSI connections. Is there any such thing? Am I dreaming? Should I just write it off as a loss and buy another one, this time checking carefully that I have bought and external drive?
Thanks for any pointers.