SciTimes Update : Science News From Around the Web

Wednesday in Science, we’re reading about killer penguins, texting moms, asteroid mining, designing a more pleasurable condom and a maple leaf controversy in Canada. Check out these and other science headlines from around the Web.

The Last 925,000 Pounds Are Always the Hardest: Boston’s citywide challenge to lose one million pounds in a year appears to have fallen about 925,000 pounds short, The Wall Street Journal reports. With just a few months left to go, the city’s collective weight loss has reached only about 75,000 pounds. Why did the city diet fail? Maybe it was the “Scooper Bowl” all-you-can-eat ice cream festival.

Andy Isaacson for The New York Times

An Adélie penguin colony in Cape Royds, Antarctica.

No Escape from a Hungry Penguin: Hungry penguins with tiny video cameras strapped to their backs have given scientists a rare glimpse of their killer feeding habits, reports The Guardian. In more than 14 hours of filming using cameras strapped to 11 Adélie penguins, not once did a bird fail to capture its prey. Penguins are such efficient killers, most of their victims have no time to hide, while others try in vain to flee. Watch it all on Penguin-cam.

The Condom Gets a Makeover: Most condoms are made of latex. Los Angeles design company Strata has developed a new silicone condom it claims not only does a better job blocking viruses and bacteria, but also scores more points in the pleasure department. You can learn more about the “Origami” condom and watch a video at New Scientist (registration required).

Mathieu Belanger/Reuters

New Canadian money seems to depict a species of maple leaf that is not Canadian in origin.

Canada Turns Over a New Leaf: Canada’s new $20, $50 and $100 bills appear to have the wrong maple leaf on them, reports BBC Canada. Botanists say the bills feature a Norwegian maple leaf, with five lobes, rather than the Canadian sugar maple leaf, which has just three lobes. Bank of Canada officials say the image is a “stylized blend” of maple leaves created with the help of a botanist and designed to avoid regional bias.

Universal Art: Scientists use thin sections of meteorites to study the history of the universe. But to the rest of us, they are just really pretty. Scientific American offers a slide show revealing the stained-glass beauty in ancient meteorites.

Erin Siegal/Reuters

An employee at Google resting in a nap pod, which blocks out light and sound.

Businesses Invest in Sleep: Tired office workers cost businesses billions in productivity and it’s estimated that one in three workers doesn’t get enough rest. As a result, some companies are now offering sleep talks and special lighting to promote better sleep among the staff, reports The Wall Street Journal. Google offers its workers a sleep pod for midday power naps.

Men More Likely to Cheat at Science: Men are more likely than women to commit scientific fraud, reports Science Daily. A new study in the journal mBio found that in 215 cases of scientific fraud in the records of the United States Office of Research Integrity, 65 percent were blamed on men.

Anti-Bacterial Soap Ingredient Found in Lakes: Triclosan, the common ingredient found in antibacterial soaps and toothpastes, is showing up in increasing amounts in Minnesota lakes, Science360 reports.

Mining Asteroids: A team of entrepreneurs and engineers announced plans for a space mining company that would turn asteroids into rocket fuel, solar panels and components for spacecraft orbiting the earth, reports The Christian Science Monitor. In theory, mining asteroids should be cheaper than hauling materials from earth. Watch a video discussion on CBS This Morning. National Geographic also reports on the perils and promise of mining asteroids.

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

Alcohol Hinders Sleep: While many people think a nightcap might help them sleep, drinking alcohol before bedtime actually reduces sleep quality, reports WebMD. The review of 27 studies found that while alcohol does allow healthy people to fall asleep quicker and sleep more deeply for a while, it also reduces rapid eye movement (REM) sleep.

Moms Text Behind the Wheel: Having a baby on board does not curb a new mother’s texting and cellphone use, reports USA Today. A new survey shows that 78 percent of mothers with children under age 2 acknowledge talking on the phone while driving with their babies. Meanwhile, 26 percent say they text or check their e-mail – behavior that rivals that of teenage drivers. Nearly two-thirds of them said that they have turned around to deal with their baby in the back seat while driving.

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DealBook: At Davos, Financial Leaders Debate Reform and Monetary Policy

DAVOS, Switzerland — Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, apologized again for the bank’s recent $6 billion trading loss, this time in front of an audience that included the elite of the financial world. But in keeping with his confident demeanor, it was a diet portion of humble pie.

“If you’re a shareholder of mine, I apologize,” Mr. Dimon said at the World Economic Forum annual meeting here. But he quickly added, “We did have record profits. Life goes on.”

During an often contentious panel discussion in Davos that included several other bank executives, Mr. Dimon clashed with a top official of the International Monetary Fund about whether the banking system was still too dangerous.

Zhu Min, deputy director of the I.M.F., said the financial industry was too large in proportion to the economy. More than four years after the financial crisis, Mr. Min noted that banks still operated on too much borrowed money and still traded in overly complicated derivatives that were impossible for outsiders to understand.

“The whole financial sector is too big,” Mr. Min said.

Mr. Dimon responded that JPMorgan was fulfilling its duty to lend to businesses and governments. He said JPMorgan and other banks no longer dealt with subprime mortgages and some of the other complex financial concoctions that led to the crisis. He also said JPMorgan had not abandoned Spain or Italy despite the risks in those highly indebted countries.

“Everyone I know is trying to do a good job for their clients,” Mr. Dimon said during a debate moderated by Maria Bartiromo of the cable channel CNBC on the opening day of the meeting.

During the same discussion, Axel Weber, the chairman of UBS and former president of the Bundesbank, harshly criticized the European Central Bank and other central banks for keeping interest rates at record lows.

Mr. Weber said it was wrong to combat a crisis caused by excessive borrowing by encouraging even more borrowing. Record low official interest rates and other extraordinary measures to pump cash into the economy would eventually backfire, he said.

“We are trying to solve the crisis with more leveraging,” he said. “We are having a better life at the expense of future generations.”

Mr. Weber was once the front-runner to become president of the European Central Bank. But he resigned as head of the German central bank in 2011 after clashing with other members of the E.C.B. governing council over its purchases of euro zone government bonds.

Mario Draghi, who became president of the European Central Bank instead, has since calmed financial markets with a promise to buy government bonds in whatever amounts needed to contain borrowing costs for countries like Spain.

“I haven’t changed my views too much” on bond purchases, said Mr. Weber, who did not mention Mr. Draghi by name.

Mr. Weber has since presided over attempts by UBS to deal with the aftermath of the financial crisis and wrongdoing by some bank employees. UBS, based in Zurich, agreed to pay a $1.5 billion fine as part of a settlement last month over the manipulation of crucial benchmarks used to set mortgage and other interest rates.

“There have been excesses,” Mr. Weber said on Wednesday. “We need to fix them and move forward.”

Participants in the panel agreed that new bank regulations had fallen far short of what was needed to prevent problems at individual lenders from causing wider economic and financial crises, though they disagreed on what could be done better.

“We just experienced the worst financial crisis since the 1930s,” Mr. Min of the I.M.F. said. “We’re not safer yet.”

Mr. Dimon said conditions for economic growth were good “if we do all the right things.”

“If not,” he added, “we could be experiencing crises for another 10 years.”

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Dodgers, Time Warner Cable have a deal

Adrian Gonzalez and the Dodgers will be on Time Warner Cable after next season. (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times / January 22, 2013)

By Bill Shaikin and Joe Flint

January 22, 2013, 9:29 a.m.

The Dodgers have agreed with Time Warner Cable on a new television contract that will provide the team with a channel of its own, according to two people familiar with the deal but not authorized to discuss it.

Time Warner Cable now has secured the television rights to the two most popular teams in Los Angeles — the Dodgers and the Lakers — within two years.

The Dodgers’ deal is expected to be finalized and announced Thursday. The team has not yet submitted the deal to Major League Baseball for approval, but the control of the channel is expected to rest with the Dodgers’ owners rather than with Time Warner.

The Dodgers had no comment.

The Dodgers’ current contract with Fox Sports expires after the 2013 season. The team had discussed a new deal with Fox last fall, worth at least $6 billion over 25 years. However, as MLB and the Dodgers debated how much of that money would have to be contributed to baseball’s revenue-sharing program, the Fox exclusive negotiating window expired, enabling Time Warner to initiate negotiations with the team.

Fox was believed to be willing to restructure its offer but was not believed to be willing to significantly raise the amount.

Fox Sports launched a second local cable channel — now called Prime Ticket — to carry the Dodgers in 1997. Fox Sports previously lost rights to Lakers games to Time Warner Cable, and the departure of the Dodgers would leave Fox with the Angels, Clippers, Ducks and Kings as the anchor teams for two channels.

Bloomberg News first reported an agreement had been reached.

ALSO:

Dodgers' annual community caravan starts Monday

Dodgers leaning toward TV deal with Time Warner Cable

Dodgers' Matt Kemp aims for opening day, not opening of camp

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Pay Anyone With Cash — Even When They're Miles Away

Square changed the game for small businesses by letting anyone easily take credit cards. Now PayNearMe founder and CEO Danny Shader says he’s doing the same for cash. Wait, what?

The whole point of cash is that it’s the raw unit of legal tender. There’s no mediating, no processing. Cash would seem the form of payment least in need of technological intervention. Cash in hand equals money in your pocket.

Yet in a 21st-century U.S. economy driven by digital transactions, relying on cash alone cuts you out of the mainstream. According to a federal survey released last fall, more than 8 percent of U.S. households qualify as unbanked. That means 17 million adults without checking or savings accounts. For them, the cash economy is the economy. Another 24 million households qualified as underbanked, meaning someone in the house had a bank account but within the past year had also used non-bank “alternative financial services” such as payday loans or check-cashing services.

But cash doesn’t work well for many kinds of payments, Shader says. Rent. Loan payments. Online purchases. Basically money destined for anyone you can’t just walk down the street and hand it to. Shader says his company bridges that physical divide by making paying anyone with cash as easy as going to 7-Eleven.

Here’s how it works: Say you’re a tenant in an apartment complex run by a property management company based in another city or another state. Handing over a wad of bills isn’t an option. If that property manager is signed up, you can go to the PayNearMe website, find yourself in the tenant database, and get a barcode (printed on paper or sent to your smartphone). Take that barcode to 7-Eleven, get it scanned and pay the cashier your rent in cash. You’re done.

“The transaction runs at the speed of buying a Slurpee,” Shader says.

A veteran tech entrepreneur who has sold companies to Amazon and Motorola, Shader started working on PayNearMe just under four years ago. Until now, PayNearMe has worked directly with larger businesses, including Greyhound and Amazon. (In California, you can also apparently use PayNearMe to fund your account with Xpressbet, a site that lets you wager on horse-racing online.)

Starting today, small and medium-sized businesses can set up an account directly through the PayNearMe website to start taking remote cash payments themselves. The account costs $199, and consumers pay $3.99 per payment.

PayNearMe’s backers clearly see the cash economy as a moneymaking opportunity. The company just booked $10 million in its latest round of financing, led by August Capital. Shader pitches the service as a boon to the unbanked and underbanked, a major chunk of the U.S. population on the financial margins. But he also says the ability to take cash without the headaches of physically handling it has advantages for those on the receiving end: “Cash,” Shader says, “doesn’t bounce.”

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Rolling Stones nominated for four NME music awards

LONDON (Reuters) – Veteran British rockers The Rolling Stones, who celebrated their 50th anniversary last year, were nominated for four NME music awards on Monday.

The Stones, back in the limelight after a photo book, greatest hits album, documentary film and mini tour to mark their 2012 golden jubilee, were shortlisted for best live band, best book, music moment of the year and best music film.

They were one of four acts with four nominations each. The others were LA sisters Haim, an up-and-coming band tipped for the top by several industry polls, Australian rock band Tame Impala and British alternative hip hop artist M.I.A.

Music magazine NME’s nominations were decided by fans voting online, and the winners will be announced at The Troxy in east London on February 27.

“When I first heard it was four things, I thought, ‘Ooh, blimey! That’s very nice!’” Stones lead singer Mick Jagger said.

“It’s funny, because when we were rehearsing at Wembley Arena last year, it was where we used to do the NME Pollwinners,” he said, referring to concerts the magazine staged in the 1960s featuring acts voted on by NME readers.

“We remembered, it was the first time we ever played ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’, at one of those Pollwinners concerts!”

Nominated three times was another comeback king David Bowie, who took the music world by surprise earlier this month by releasing his first new music in a decade and promising a studio album in March.

“All the early plaudits will go to Haim, Tame Impala, M.I.A. and the legendary Rolling Stones … but it’s testament to the exquisite taste of the NME audience that artists as wide ranged as Frank Ocean, Jake Bugg, Pussy Riot and David Bowie are recognized too,” said NME editor Mike Williams.

Russian punk band Pussy Riot were shortlisted in the music moment of the year category for a protest against President Vladimir Putin in Moscow’s main cathedral that landed some of them in jail.

Rounding out the category was Bowie’s comeback, the Olympic Games opening ceremony, The Stone Roses reuniting to play Heaton Park in Manchester and Green Day’s secret set at the Reading Festival.

Following are the NME Awards 2013 nominees in the main categories:

BEST BRITISH BAND:

- Arctic Monkeys; Kasabian; The Vaccines; Biffy Clyro; The Maccabees; The Cribs

BEST ALBUM:

- Channel Orange/Frank Ocean; Jake Bugg/Jake Bugg; Given To The Wild/The Maccabees; An Awesome Wave/Alt-J; Come Of Age/The Vaccines; Lonerism/Tame Impala

BEST INTERNATIONAL BAND

- The Killers; Tame Impala; The Black Keys; Odd Future; Crystal Castles; Foo Fighters

BEST TRACK

- R U Mine?/Arctic Monkeys; Don’t Save Me/Haim; Bad Girls/M.I.A.; Inhaler/Foals; Best Of Friends/Palma Violets; Elephant/Tame Impala

BEST MUSIC FILM:

- Searching For Sugar Man; LCD Soundsystem: “Shut Up And Play The Hits”; Hit So Hard : The Life & Near Death Story of Patty Schemel; Marley; The Rolling Stones: “Crossfire Hurricane”; Led Zeppelin: “Celebration Day”

BEST SOLO ARTIST:

- Jake Bugg; Noel Gallagher; Florence Welch; Miles Kane; Grimes; Paul Weller

BEST NEW BAND:

- Alt-J; Peace; Palma Violets; Django Django; Alabama Shakes; Haim

BEST MUSIC VIDEO:

Oblivion/Grimes; Bad Girls/M.I.A.; Where Are We Now?/David Bowie; R U Mine?/Arctic Monkeys; Don’t Save Me/Haim; Feels Like We Only Go Backwards/Tame Impala

BEST LIVE BAND:

- The Maccabees; The Cribs; Blur; Biffy Clyro; Foals; The Rolling Stones

BEST DANCEFLOOR ANTHEM:

What You Came For/Mosca featuring Katy B; Sweet Nothing/Calvin Harris featuring Florence Welch; Gangnam Style/Psy; Bad Girls/M.I.A.; In Paris/Kanye West and Jay-Z; Losing You/Solange

MUSIC MOMENT OF THE YEAR:

- David Bowie returns; The Stone Roses play Heaton Park; Olympics opening ceremony; The Rolling Stones play London’s O2 Arena; Green Day’s secret set at Reading Festival; Pussy Riot’s punk prayer

HERO OF THE YEAR:

- David Bowie; Bradley Wiggins; Pussy Riot; Barack Obama; Frank Ocean; Dave Grohl

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Well Pets: Holly the Cat's Incredible Journey

Nobody knows how it happened: an indoor house cat who got lost on a family excursion managing, after two months and about 200 miles, to return to her hometown.

Even scientists are baffled by how Holly, a 4-year-old tortoiseshell who in early November became separated from Jacob and Bonnie Richter at an R.V. rally in Daytona Beach, Fla., appeared on New Year’s Eve — staggering, weak and emaciated — in a backyard about a mile from the Richters’ house in West Palm Beach.

“Are you sure it’s the same cat?” wondered John Bradshaw, director of the University of Bristol’s Anthrozoology Institute. In other cases, he has suspected, “the cats are just strays, and the people have got kind of a mental justification for expecting it to be the same cat.”

But Holly not only had distinctive black-and-brown harlequin patterns on her fur, but also an implanted microchip to identify her.

“I really believe these stories, but they’re just hard to explain,” said Marc Bekoff, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Colorado. “Maybe being street-smart, maybe reading animal cues, maybe being able to read cars, maybe being a good hunter. I have no data for this.”

There is, in fact, little scientific dogma on cat navigation. Migratory animals like birds, turtles and insects have been studied more closely, and use magnetic fields, olfactory cues, or orientation by the sun.

Scientists say it is more common, although still rare, to hear of dogs returning home, perhaps suggesting, Dr. Bradshaw said, that they have inherited wolves’ ability to navigate using magnetic clues. But it’s also possible that dogs get taken on more family trips, and that lost dogs are more easily noticed or helped by people along the way.

Cats navigate well around familiar landscapes, memorizing locations by sight and smell, and easily figuring out shortcuts, Dr. Bradshaw said.

Strange, faraway locations would seem problematic, although he and Patrick Bateson, a behavioral biologist at Cambridge University, say that cats can sense smells across long distances. “Let’s say they associate the smell of pine with wind coming from the north, so they move in a southerly direction,” Dr. Bateson said.

Peter Borchelt, a New York animal behaviorist, wondered if Holly followed the Florida coast by sight or sound, tracking Interstate 95 and deciding to “keep that to the right and keep the ocean to the left.”

But, he said, “nobody’s going to do an experiment and take a bunch of cats in different directions and see which ones get home.”

The closest, said Roger Tabor, a British cat biologist, may have been a 1954 study in Germany in which cats placed in a covered circular maze with exits every 15 degrees most often exited in the direction of their homes, but more reliably if their homes were less than five kilometers away.

New research by the National Geographic and University of Georgia’s Kitty Cams Project, using video footage from 55 pet cats wearing video cameras on their collars, suggests cat behavior is exceedingly complex.

For example, the Kitty Cams study found that four of the cats were two-timing their owners, visiting other homes for food and affection. Not every cat, it seems, shares Holly’s loyalty.

KittyCams also showed most of the cats engaging in risky behavior, including crossing roads and “eating and drinking substances away from home,” risks Holly undoubtedly experienced and seems lucky to have survived.

But there have been other cats who made unexpected comebacks.

“It’s actually happened to me,” said Jackson Galaxy, a cat behaviorist who hosts “My Cat From Hell” on Animal Planet. While living in Boulder, Colo., he moved across town, whereupon his indoor cat, Rabbi, fled and appeared 10 days later at the previous house, “walking five miles through an area he had never been before,” Mr. Galaxy said.

Professor Tabor cited longer-distance reports he considered credible: Murka, a tortoiseshell in Russia, traveling about 325 miles home to Moscow from her owner’s mother’s house in Voronezh in 1989; Ninja, who returned to Farmington, Utah, in 1997, a year after her family moved from there to Mill Creek, Wash.; and Howie, an indoor Persian cat in Australia who in 1978 ran away from relatives his vacationing family left him with and eventually traveled 1,000 miles to his family’s home.

Professor Tabor also said a Siamese in the English village of Black Notley repeatedly hopped a train, disembarked at White Notley, and walked several miles back to Black Notley.

Still, explaining such journeys is not black and white.

In the Florida case, one glimpse through the factual fog comes on the little cat’s feet. While Dr. Bradshaw speculated Holly might have gotten a lift, perhaps sneaking under the hood of a truck heading down I-95, her paws suggest she was not driven all the way, nor did Holly go lightly.

“Her pads on her feet were bleeding,” Ms. Richter said. “Her claws are worn weird. The front ones are really sharp, the back ones worn down to nothing.”

Scientists say that is consistent with a long walk, since back feet provide propulsion, while front claws engage in activities like tearing. The Richters also said Holly had gone from 13.5 to 7 pounds.

Holly hardly seemed an adventurous wanderer, though her background might have given her a genetic advantage. Her mother was a feral cat roaming the Richters’ mobile home park, and Holly was born inside somebody’s air-conditioner, Ms. Richter said. When, at about six weeks old, Holly padded into their carport and jumped into the lap of Mr. Richter’s mother, there were “scars on her belly from when the air conditioner was turned on,” Ms. Richter said.

Scientists say that such early experience was too brief to explain how Holly might have been comfortable in the wild — after all, she spent most of her life as an indoor cat, except for occasionally running outside to chase lizards. But it might imply innate personality traits like nimbleness or toughness.

“You’ve got these real variations in temperament,” Dr. Bekoff said. “Fish can be shy or bold; there seem to be shy and bold spiders. This cat, it could be she has the personality of a survivor.”

He said being an indoor cat would not extinguish survivalist behaviors, like hunting mice or being aware of the sun’s orientation.

The Richters — Bonnie, 63, a retired nurse, and Jacob, 70, a retired airline mechanics’ supervisor and accomplished bowler — began traveling with Holly only last year, and she easily tolerated a hotel, a cabin or the R.V.

But during the Good Sam R.V. Rally in Daytona, when they were camping near the speedway with 3,000 other motor homes, Holly bolted when Ms. Richter’s mother opened the door one night. Fireworks the next day may have further spooked her, and, after searching for days, alerting animal agencies and posting fliers, the Richters returned home catless.

Two weeks later, an animal rescue worker called the Richters to say a cat resembling Holly had been spotted eating behind the Daytona franchise of Hooters, where employees put out food for feral cats.

Then, on New Year’s Eve, Barb Mazzola, a 52-year-old university executive assistant, noticed a cat “barely standing” in her backyard in West Palm Beach, struggling even to meow. Over six days, Ms. Mazzola and her children cared for the cat, putting out food, including special milk for cats, and eventually the cat came inside.

They named her Cosette after the orphan in Les Misérables, and took her to a veterinarian, Dr. Sara Beg at Paws2Help. Dr. Beg said the cat was underweight and dehydrated, had “back claws and nail beds worn down, probably from all that walking on pavement,” but was “bright and alert” and had no parasites, heartworm or viruses. “She was hesitant and scared around people she didn’t know, so I don’t think she went up to people and got a lift,” Dr. Beg said. “I think she made the journey on her own.”

At Paws2Help, Ms. Mazzola said, “I almost didn’t want to ask, because I wanted to keep her, but I said, ‘Just check and make sure she doesn’t have a microchip.’” When told the cat did, “I just cried.”

The Richters cried, too upon seeing Holly, who instantly relaxed when placed on Mr. Richter’s shoulder. Re-entry is proceeding well, but the mystery persists.

“We haven’t the slightest idea how they do this,” Mr. Galaxy said. “Anybody who says they do is lying, and, if you find it, please God, tell me what it is.”

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J.&J. Study Suggested Hip Device Could Fail in Thousands More

An internal analysis conducted by Johnson & Johnson in 2011 after it recalled a troubled hip implant projected that the all-metal device could fail within five years in nearly 40 percent of patients who received it, newly disclosed court records show.

The analysis, which the company has never released, suggests that thousands of additional patients may have to undergo painful procedures over the next few years to replace the implant, known as the Articular Surface Replacement, or A.S.R. It also indicates that the episode’s cost to Johnson & Johnson will continue to grow.

The analysis was part of a small set of records unsealed Friday by a judge in Los Angeles Superior Court as part of pretrial proceedings in a lawsuit brought by a patient against the DePuy Orthopaedics unit of Johnson & Johnson.

Over 10,000 lawsuits have been filed against DePuy by patients who got an A.S.R. If the California case, which involves a man named Loren Kransky, goes forward this week as scheduled, it would be first of those cases to go to trial.

The records released Friday by Superior Court Judge J. Stephen Czuleger represent a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of internal DePuy documents that the plaintiff’s lawyers say they have reviewed in connection with the California lawsuit. As a result, it is difficult to assess the strength of the case against the implant maker based on them.

Asked for comment, a spokeswoman for DePuy, Mindy Tinsley, said in a statement that the company’s internal analysis “was based on a small, limited set of data that could not be used to generalize” the overall replacement rate for the A.S.R.  She added that any documents or partial testimony released before the trial “may not be able to be fully understood without proper context.”

For years, executives of DePuy insisted that the A.S.R. was performing on a par with other types of artificial hips, and said they moved to recall the device in mid-2010 when new data from an orthopedic registry in England showed it was failing more frequently.

But documents in the Los Angeles case and other lawsuits nationwide against DePuy are expected to reveal what actions company officials took – or did not take – before the A.S.R.’s recall and when they became aware of the implant’s problems.

Traditional hip implants, which are made out of plastic and metal, typically last 15 years or more before wearing out and requiring replacement. But the A.S.R., which had a cup and ball made of metal, began to fail in large numbers of patients soon after implant.

About 93,000 patients worldwide received an A.S.R., about one-third of them in the United States. Patients here received a version of the A.S.R. that was a traditional hip implant. Those outside the United States were outfitted with either the traditional version or a modified version used in an alternative joint replacement procedure known as resurfacing.

Both versions of the A.S.R., however, shared a central component, a metal hip cup that can shed tiny particles of metal debris as its moves. That debris has caused severe tissue and bone damage in hundreds of patients, crippling some of them.

One DePuy engineer acknowledged in court papers released Friday that company officials were aware in 2008 from reports by an English surgeon that the resurfacing version of the A.S.R. was releasing high levels of metallic ions, particularly in women.

In other pretrial testimony released Friday, Paul Voorhorst, DePuy’s director of biostatistics and data management, said that the company performed several reviews of A.S.R. failures in patients in the fall of 2011, a year after it recalled the model.

Based on the number of patients who had already undergone device replacement at the time, DePuy estimated that about 37 percent of patients who got an A.S.R. may need to get it replaced within five years of receiving it.

Last year, The New York Times reported that DePuy executives decided in 2009 to phase out the A.S.R. and sell off its inventories just weeks after the Food and Drug Administration asked the company in a letter for added safety data about the implant.

The F.D.A. also told the company at that time that it was rejecting its efforts to sell the resurfacing version of the device in country because of concerns about “high concentration of metal ions” in the blood of patients who received it.

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President Obama opens second term

WASHINGTON – After Barack Obama publicly took the oath of office for his second term on Monday, he strongly defended the ideology of his party as he urged Americans to accept compromise as a path toward solving the nation’s problems.

“Progress does not compel us to settle centuries-long debates about the role of government for all time – but it does require us to act in our time,” Obama said shortly after taking the oath from Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.  “Decisions are upon us, and we cannot afford delay.  We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate.”

Just over 18 minutes -- relatively short by historical standards -- the address hit several major policy priorities that Obama hopes to pursue.

PHOTOS: President Obama’s second inauguration

For the first time ever, an inaugural address mentioned the rights of gay Americans, as Obama declared that America’s “journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.”

The president also insisted on the need to “respond to the threat of climate change” – a subject he largely avoided after a stinging loss in Congress early in his first term.

“Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms,” he said.  “The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult.  But America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it.

“That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God.”

Obama wove those specific policy pledges, along with brief reminders of his proposals for gun control and immigration reform, into a text that, overall, amounted to a strong reaffirmation of the core of liberal, Democratic politics and its belief in the positive role that government can play in the nation’s life.

In a nod to those who do not share that outlook, he noted that Americans “have never relinquished our skepticism of central authority, nor have we succumbed to the fiction that all society’s ills can be cured through government alone.”

But, he said, “preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.”

“We do not believe that in this country, freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few,” he said. “The commitments we make to each other – through Medicare, and Medicaid, and Social Security – these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us.  They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great.

PHOTOS: Past presidential inaugurations

“We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else, because she is an American, she is free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own,” he declared.

At the conclusion, Obama walked back into the Capitol building, then turned for a moment to look out at the national Mall, filled with hundreds of thousands of flag-waving Americans. “I want to see this again,” he could be heard saying.

Shortly afterward, he signed the Capitol’s guest book, then, with the bipartisan congressional leadership looking on, signed the formal paperwork to submit the nominations of his choices for several Cabinet posts, the secretaries of State, Defense and Treasury and the head of the CIA.

The speech culminated a ceremony heavily laced with references to the country’s long struggle toward equality for its African American citizens.

From an invocation by the widow of a slain leader of the civil rights movement that opened the formal proceedings to the two Bibles on which Obama took the oath, one of which belonged to Abraham Lincoln and the other to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the symbols of the nation’s 57^th inaugural ceremony traced the historic arc that led toward the nation’s first black president.

GALLERY: Inauguration gowns through the years

Four years ago, Obama took office with the country in the midst of two wars and the worst economic crisis in more than half a century. His second inauguration arrives with one war over, the other winding down and the economy recovering, but with Washington dominated by a bitter political stalemate that reflects a deep partisan divide in the nation.

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A 'Courage Board' for All Conditions

Rating: 9/10 Nearly flawless; buy it now

It’s easy to guess what The Hovercraft was built for just by looking at it: The short swallowtail and the big blunted nose all scream “powder hound.”

I did my first series of tests in early December up in Lake Tahoe, and there was a lot more crust, ice and grooms than powder, so I took it out without expecting much. I got waaay more than I figured I would: The board held its edge just fine in the groomers, but there was no surprise there. The shock came when I crossed over to the shaded side of the mountain, when the soft groomers turned into icy crud. I was fully expecting the Jones to sketch out and leave me butt-checking all over the place, but The Hovercraft’s edge sliced right into the ice and held it as well as it did the soft stuff. No transition, no adjustments — the board just went from soft snow to ice without skipping a beat.

It was so odd that it took me most of the morning before I really trusted it. But by lunchtime, I was flying down the mountain at speeds I wouldn’t dare with any of the other boards we tested. The board’s great bite is thanks to the Jones’ underfoot camber and so-called Magne-Traction edges, which essentially act like a serrated blade to bite into hard snow. These features combine to give the board a huge amount of precision and control in hard snow.

A few weeks later, I was finally able to take it out on Mt. Shasta’s backcountry to hit some deep stuff. It excelled there as well (entirely as expected) thanks to the rockered and blunted nose, which let the board float on top of the soft stuff, while the short, stiff tail made it easy to kick back and keep the nose up.

Bottom line: I’ve never seen a board perform so well in such a wide range of snow conditions. During my multi-mountain testing session of The Hovercraft snowboard, I let one of my friends ride it. He echoed my own thoughts with one simple statement: “This thing just does whatever you ask it to do.”

WIRED Simply some of the best all-mountain performance I’ve seen. Great float on powder, plus a locked-in grip on ice and crud. Seamlessly transitions from soft to hard snow. Shockingly lightweight construction.

TIRED Blunt nose and swallowtail design means you’re not gonna be riding a lot of switch.

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“Les Miserables” soundtrack tops UK albums chart

LONDON (Reuters) – The soundtrack of the Oscar-nominated movie “Les Miserables” climbed to the top spot in the UK albums chart, the first film cast recording to do so since Madonna’s “Evita” in 1997, the Official Charts Company said on Sunday.

A film version of a hugely successful stage musical based on a novel by 19th century French writer Victor Hugo, “Les Miserables” has already picked up a Golden Globe award for best movie musical, and is nominated for a best picture Oscar.

The recording of songs performed by the actors in the movie, including Anne Hathaway, Russell Crowe and Hugh Jackman, had entered the UK albums chart in fifth position a week ago. It knocked Emeli Sande‘s “Our Version Of Events” off the top spot.

Hathaway, who plays a character called Fantine, also had the 22nd spot in the singles chart with her performance of “I Dreamed A Dream”, one of the most popular songs from the musical.

At the very top of the singles chart, U.S. producer will.i.am’s collaboration with Britney Spears, “Scream & Shout”, held onto the number one ranking, fending off stiff competition from new entrants 50 Cent and Justin Timberlake.

U.S. rapper 50 Cent’s new release, “My Life”, featuring Eminem and Maroon 5′s Adam Levine, came in at number two while Timberlake, the former ‘N Sync star, nabbed the number three spot with his “Suit and Tie” featuring Jay-Z.

(Reporting By Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Sophie Hares)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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