(Reuters) ? Facebook Inc is looking to go public between April and June 2012 with a valuation of over $100 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
The social media giant is considering raising as much as $10 billion in its IPO, the report said.
Sources familiar with the matter said the company has not made any decision over which banks will be involved in the IPO.
Facebook's CFO David Ebersman is in talks with Silicon Valley bankers about an IPO, but founder CEO Mark Zuckerberg has not decided on any terms of the IPO, the Journal said.
(Reporting by Vidya L Nathan in Bangalore; editing by Andre Grenon)
MOSCOW (Reuters) ? Russian online shopping growth is being held back by poor infrastructure and slow delivery times, accountants PWC said on Wednesday, forcing retailers to spend more before they reap any benefit of rising Internet use.
Russia overtook Germany as Europe's biggest Internet market in September with about 60 million users, while a penetration rate of around 43 percent means e-commerce is still at an early stage of development.
A PwC survey of 2,000 Russian online users found 92 percent of them shop at least occasionally on the web, up from 80 percent in 2009, but only 12 percent do it every week compared to 28 percent in Britain.
"If we compare the pace of Internet penetration in the Russian provinces with that of online retail, we will see a very significant lag, and logistics is one of the main reasons," said Vardan Gasparyan, senior manager at PwC Russia.
As rail is by far the most common means of transporting goods, consumers often have to wait a week before they get their order, which makes online shopping a less attractive option than visiting a mall, said Vardanyan, who specializes in supply chain management.
Russian retailers often cite a lack of modern infrastructure as a major constraint to expansion in the provinces, where lower penetration of organized retail and rising disposable incomes underscore the potential for rapid sales growth.
Traditional retailers, such as food chain X5 and electronics specialist M.video, have the advantage of a physical presence in the provinces after developing their own logistics and warehouse infrastructure.
But pure-play online retailers will have to invest in their own infrastructure to catch up, said Vardanyan, who added a relatively low use of credit cards in Russia and a general mistrust of the Internet were two other constraints.
According to the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM), the Russian e-commerce market will reach 315 billion rubles ($10 billion) in 2011, an increase of nearly 30 percent from 2010.
In September, Russia's leading online retailer Ozon.ru secured funding of $100 million, the biggest private investment to date in Russia's e-commerce market, from a consortium including Japanese online retailer Rakuten.
And Russian online groups Yandex and Mail.Ru raised nearly $2.5 billion between them in the two biggest Russian IPOs of the last 12 months.
Most respondents to the PWC survey said they shop online for household appliances, books, mobile phones and computers, but online deals for clothes and footwear, video and audio products, online travel and entertainment bookings are showing the fastest growth.
($1=31.2327 rubles)
(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; Editing by John Bowker and Mike Nesbit)
LOS ANGELES ? Police in Los Angeles and Philadelphia stormed Occupy Wall Street encampments in both cities Wednesday, demanding protestors leave demonstration sites that had become two of the movement's largest after evictions upended others across the country.
Dozens of officers in riot gear flooded down the steps of Los Angeles City Hall just after midnight and started dismantling the two-month-old camp two days after a deadline passed for campers to leave the City Hall lawn. The raid had a military precision and officers in helmets and wielding batons moved in and began making arrests after several orders were given to leave the small park.
The raid in Los Angeles came after demonstrators with the movement in Philadelphia marched through the streets after being evicted from their site. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa raised public safety and health concerns in announcing plans for the eviction last week, while Philadelphia officials said protestors must clear their site to make room for a $50 million renovation project.
Defiant Los Angeles campers who were chanting slogans as the officers surrounded the park, booed when an unlawful assembly was declared, paving the way for officers to begin arresting those who didn't leave.
In the first moments of the raid, officers tore down a tent and tackled a tattooed man with a camera on City Hall steps and wrestled him to the ground. Someone yelled "police brutality."
Teams of four or five officers moved through the crowd making arrests one at a time, cuffing the hands of protesters with white plastic zip-ties. A circle of protesters sat with arms locked, many looking calm and smiling.
Opamago Cascini, 29, said the night had been a blast and he was willing to get arrested.
"It's easy to talk the talk, but you gotta walk the walk," Cascini said.
In Philadelphia, police began pulling down tents at about 1:20 a.m. EST after giving demonstrators three warnings that they would have to leave, which nearly all of the protestors followed. Dozens of demonstrators then began marched through the street and continued through the night.
Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said breaking up the camp in the early-morning hours helped minimize any disruption to businesses and traffic.
"We acknowledge the fact that we are going to have to leave this space .... but in another sense this has been our home for almost two months and no one wants to see their home taken away from them," Philadelphia protestor Bri Barton, 22, said before police began clearing out the camp.
"Whether or not we have this space or work in the city is nowhere near done," she said.
Six protesters were arrested after remaining on a street police that police tried to clear. The eviction overall appeared to have been carried out without any significant scuffles or violence.
Demonstrators and city officials in both Los Angeles and Philadelphia were hoping any confrontation would be nonviolent, unlike evictions at similar camps around the country that sometimes involved pepper spray and tear gas. The movement against economic disparity and perceived corporate greed began with Occupy Wall Street in Manhattan two months ago.
About 1,200 Los Angeles officers staged for hours outside Dodger Stadium before the raid. They were warned that demonstrators might throw everything from concrete and gravel to human feces at them.
"Please put your face masks down and watch each other's back," a supervisor told them. "Now go to work."
Before police arrived in large numbers, protesters were upbeat and the mood was almost festive. A protester in a Santa Claus hat danced in the street. A woman showed off the reindeer antlers she had mounted on her gas mask.
Fireworks exploded in the sky at one point. Later, as helicopters hovered above, someone blew "The Star Spangled Banner" on a horn.
As officers first surrounded the camp, hundreds of protesters chanted, "The people united will never be defeated."
Campers planning to defend the camp and hold their ground barricaded entrances to the park with trash cans.
The police operation was planned at night because downtown is mostly vacant, with offices closed, fewer pedestrians and less traffic, but a spokesman said it could make officers more vulnerable.
"It's more difficult for us to see things, to see booby traps," Lt. Andy Neiman, told pool reporters. "Operating in the dark is never an advantage."
Neiman said the force was prepared to deal with demonstrators holed up in the camp or those who had climbed up trees in the small park.
Gia Trimble, member of the Occupy LA media team, said a lot of people committed to the cause would stay and risk arrest.
"This is a monumental night for Los Angeles," Trimble said. "We're going to do what we can to protect the camp."
In their anticipation of an eviction, the Los Angeles protesters designated medics designated with red crosses taped on clothing. Some protesters had gas masks.
Organizers at the camp packed up computer and technical equipment from the media tent.
Two men who constructed an elaborate tree house lashed bamboo sticks together with twine to push away any ladder police might use to evict them.
Police said they would be able to remove the tree climbers.
Members of the National Lawyers guild had legal observers on hand for an eviction.
___
Matheson reported from Philadelphia. Associated Press writer Shaya Tayefe Mohajer also contributed to this report.
@ neontommy :
#Occupyla calls for rally tomorrow 4 pm at Pershing Sq. City Hall Park "closed" #ascj #ws #la
@ coconnell :
6 arrests now at #occupyphilly so far
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa issued a statement via e-mail early Wednesday morning about the closure of City Hall Park. In the statement, he called the raid "a measured approach," then announced the creation of a new place where citizens will be allowed to exercise their right of free speech and assembly.
During the park closure, a First Amendment area will remain open on the Spring Street City Hall steps. Once the park is cleared, it will be repaired and returned to all Angelenos to exercise their First Amendment rights."
Click here for the full statement on L.A. Observed.
@ OccupyLA :
Tents are being searched & destroyed. Hazmat people are bringing out a few people in cuffs- 12:57
@ neontommy :
Police have taken over most of tent camp and have moved crowd into streets where they are corralled #ascj #occupyla
@ anblanx :
#LAPD declares unlawful assembly as boos go up from #occupyLA camp.
Police entered the Occupy Los Angeles encampment at City Hall early Wednesday morning and began began arresting protesters, The Associated Press reported.
About half of some 500 tents in Los Angeles remained after the Monday morning deadline and the remaining protesters showed no sign of leaving.
The Los Angeles encampment is one of the largest still remaining in the country.
Click here for more.
@ PhillyPolice :
?@DPBell: #OccupyPhilly has a permit to relocate to Thomas Paine Plaza , no tents, @PhillyPolice encourages continued peaceful protest.
@ coconnell :
#occupyphilly crowd still marching. More barricades torn down
@ OccupyPhilly :
Mounted police charge on non violent protesters #occupyphilly
@ jennymedina :
Dozens of police are in #occupyla and tensions are extremely high. Batons out again
@ jennymedina :
Throng of officers at main and first where protesters are angrily saying they "don't have to do this" "that's what I call a thin blue line"
@ benjamin_max :
National Lawyers guild just spoke to LAPD. They say #Occupyla will have 10 mins to disperse after ordered to. #ascj #ola
The Los Angeles Police Department denied Patch editors direct access to the Occupy LA demonstrations on Monday night, HighlandPark-MountWashington Patch reported.
Patch editors were excluded from a media pool drafted by the Los Angeles Police Department on Monday evening, denying editors the ability to cover the Occupy Los Angeles demonstrations around City Hall themselves.
Instead, they must rely on coverage from other media organizations who were selected at a meeting Monday night from which they were excluded.
Click here for more.
@ CBSLA :
LAPD says they cannot talk about plans or timetables & hope things continue to go peacefully at #OccupyLA LIVE VIDEO: http://t.co/IoGVNHPc
@ PhillyPolice :
@PhillyPolice following examples set by @Michael_Nutter @RichNegrin, working to ensure peaceful and respectful protest with #occupyphilly.
@ lou_dubois :
"Unfortunately it came to having to clear the plaza, but fortunately there have been no arrests." Police Commissioner Ramsey, #OccupyPhilly
@ wilw :
The LAPD has allowed 12 reporters to cover the eviction of #OccupyLA. That a police force can "allow" media to cover anything disgusts me.
@ PhillyPolice :
@Phillypolice thanks #occupyphilly for their cooperation. We're here to protect constitutional rights and ensure public safety.
@ OccupyPhilly :
hundreds of police removing tents #occupyphilly chanting "who do you prot5ect? who do you serve?"
@ OccupyPhilly :
#occupyphilly sit-in currently at 18th and Locust in front of wall of cops preventing entry into Rittenhouse
Some activists used trash and recycling bings to block the main entrance to the law, L.A. Now reported.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said he decided that it was time to evict Occupy L.A. protesters from the City Hall lawn after learning that there were children staying there.
Given the smattering of assaults and other incidents reported at the camp, ?the chaos out there could produce something awful,? he said in an interview with The Times.
Trader Fred Demarco, left, and specilaist John O'Hara work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Monday, Nov. 28, 2011. Hopes for a more far-reaching solution to Europe's debt crisis and a strong start to the U.S. shopping season sent stocks sharply higher Monday. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Trader Fred Demarco, left, and specilaist John O'Hara work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Monday, Nov. 28, 2011. Hopes for a more far-reaching solution to Europe's debt crisis and a strong start to the U.S. shopping season sent stocks sharply higher Monday. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Monday, Nov. 28, 2011. Hopes for a more far-reaching solution to Europe's debt crisis and a strong start to the U.S. shopping season sent stocks sharply higher Monday. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Trader Benjamin Siony works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Monday, Nov. 28, 2011. Hopes for a more far-reaching solution to Europe's debt crisis and a strong start to the U.S. shopping season sent stocks sharply higher Monday. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Specialist Patrick Kenny, left, works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Monday, Nov. 28, 2011. Hopes for a more far-reaching solution to Europe's debt crisis and a strong start to the U.S. shopping season sent stocks sharply higher Monday. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
NEW YORK (AP) ? A strong start to the U.S. shopping season and fresh proposals for a far-reaching solution to Europe's debt crisis sent stocks sharply higher Monday. The Dow Jones industrial average soared 260 points in afternoon trading, making up nearly half of the ground it lost last week.
Initial reports show a record number of shoppers hit the mall or bought gifts online during the holiday weekend. Thanksgiving weekend is a make-or-break time for many retailers. For the past six years, Black Friday has been the biggest sales day of the year.
The retail numbers add to a growing set of indicators, including steady drops in the number of applications for unemployment, that suggest the U.S. is far from the second recession economists had begun to fear in August.
"This goes in stark contrast to the gloom and doom that had been over markets," said Rob Lutts, president of Salem, Ma.-based investment firm Cabot Money Management. "A lot of the stocks I follow have been more oversold than any time I can remember in the last few years."
Markets in Europe also rose sharply as leaders there discuss new approaches for containing the region's debt troubles. One plan calls for Europe's most stable economies jointly sell bonds to provide assistance to the region's most indebted members, like Greece and Portugal.
Investors are hoping that the recent signs of deterioration in the debt crisis will finally get Europe's leaders to agree on a package of measures that can ease market concerns over whether the euro currency itself can survive.
Stock indexes in Italy and Germany rose 4.6 percent while France's index rose 5.5 percent. The euro and commodities prices also rose.
The Dow jumped 264 points, or 2.4 percent, to 11,495 as of 3 p.m. Eastern. The index plunged 564 points last week on fear that Europe's debt crisis was spreading to large countries like Spain and even Germany. Alcoa Inc. jumped 5.7 percent, the most of the 30 stocks in the Dow.
The Standard & Poor's 500 rose 30, or 2.6 percent, to 1,189. The rally lifted stocks across the board. Only four stocks in the S&P 500 index fell.
The Nasdaq composite rose 76, or 3.1 percent, to 2,518.
Banks had some of the biggest gains as investors became less fearful of an imminent freeze-up in Europe's financial system. Morgan Stanley jumped 3.9 percent and JPMorgan Chase & Co. rose 2.4 percent. Retailers also rose sharply. Macy's Inc. rose 4.9 percent and Best Buy Co. rose 3.5 percent.
A record 226 million shoppers visited stores and websites during the four-day holiday weekend starting on Thanksgiving Day, up from 212 million last year, according to early estimates by The National Retail Federation released on Sunday. They spent more, too: The average holiday shopper spent $398.62 over the weekend, up from $365.34 a year ago.
It's still unclear whether retailers' will be able to hold shoppers' attention throughout the remainder of the season, which can account for 25 to 40 percent of a merchant's annual revenue.
Questions also remain about the situation in Europe.
Credit rating agency Moody's warned on Monday that the "rapid escalation" of Europe's financial crisis is threatening the creditworthiness of all euro zone governments, even the most highly rated. Only six of the euro zone's 17 countries have the top rating ? Germany, France, Austria, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Finland.
The crisis in Europe will likely be the focus as President Barack Obama hosts European leaders for a summit Monday.
CAIRO ? Two of three American students arrested during a protest in Cairo have left Egypt, according to an airport official and an attorney for one of the trio.
The three Americans were arrested on the roof of a university building near Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square last Sunday. Officials accused them of throwing firebombs at security forces fighting with protesters.
Luke Gates, 21, left Cairo early Saturday morning on a flight to Frankfurt, Germany, an airport official said in Cairo.
All three were expected to have departed on separate flights by later Saturday morning, the airport official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters.
An Egyptian court ordered the release of Gates, along with Derrik Sweeney and Gregory Porter, both 19, on Thursday. All were studying at the American University in Cairo.
Attorney Theodore Simon, who represents Porter, a student at Drexel University in Philadelphia, said police escorted the three students to the Cairo airport Friday, and confirmed his client was also en route.
"I am pleased and thankful to report that Gregory Porter is in the air. He has departed Egyptian airspace and is on his way home," Simon said later Friday.
Simon did not give an estimate of when Porter would be arriving in the U.S.
Simon said he and Porter's mother both spoke by phone with the student, who is from the Philadelphia suburb of Glenside.
"He clearly conveyed to me ... that he was OK," Simon told the AP.
Joy Sweeney told the AP her son, a 19-year-old Georgetown University student from Jefferson City, Missouri, would fly from Frankfurt to Washington, then on to St. Louis. She said family will meet him when he arrives late Saturday.
"I am ecstatic," Sweeney said Friday. "I can't wait for him to get home tomorrow night. I can't believe he's actually going to get on a plane. It is so wonderful."
The 21-year-old Gates is a student at Indiana University.
Sweeney said she had talked with her son Friday afternoon and "he seemed jubilant."
"He thought he was going to be able to go back to his dorm room and get his stuff," she said. "We said, `No, no, don't get your stuff, we just want you here.'"
She said American University will ship his belongings home.
Sweeney had earlier said she did not prepare a Thanksgiving celebration this week because the idea seemed "absolutely irrelevant" while her son still was being held.
"I'm getting ready to head out and buy turkey and stuffing and all the good fixings so that we can make a good Thanksgiving dinner," she said Friday.
___
Kozel reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia and Dana Fields in Kansas City, Mo., contributed to this report.
(This version CORRECTS Updates with two students departing Cairo; corrects that attorney confirmed Porter was en route.)
WASHINGTON ? Two months ago, Demetries Luckett left his job in Michigan, turned in his cable box, sent his daughter to live with her mother, and headed for Camp Shelby in Mississippi.
As a 1st lieutenant in Michigan's National Guard, he was being deployed to Afghanistan.
But just a month after he arrived for training, the Army decided Uncle Sam didn't need him after all.
Now Luckett's unemployed and back home in Harper Woods, Mich. ? a victim of the Obama administration's ongoing effort to pull at least 33,000 U.S. troops out of Afghanistan by next fall.
Unlike active-duty soldiers who are stationed at U.S. military bases across the country and can be sent on a moment's notice to a conflict anywhere in the world ? the nation's citizen soldiers have civilian jobs and lives they have to set aside when they get those deployment notices.
And unlike active-duty soldiers, Guard members may have little to go back to, if their country changes its mind.
Luckett is not alone.
In the last 60 days, as many as 8,900 Army National Guard soldiers were either sent home early from Iraq or Afghanistan, or were told that the Pentagon's plans to send them to war had either been shelved or changed. As a result, U.S. military and Guard leaders have been scrambling to find alternative missions for many of the soldiers ? particularly those who had put their lives and jobs on hold and were depending on the deployment for their livelihood.
"If you're a 25-year-old infantryman, and you're a student at Ohio State University, and you decide not to register for school in July because you were going to mobilize, and we say your services aren't needed anymore ? that becomes a significantly emotional event in that person's life," said Col. Ted Hildreth, chief of mobilization and readiness for the Army National Guard.
Guard members scheduled for deployment, he said, often quit or take extended leaves from their jobs, put college on hold, end or break their apartment leases, sell or rent their houses, and turn their medical or legal practices over to someone else. And in some cases, in this flagging economy, Guard members who may be unemployed or underemployed are relying on the year-long paycheck, which can include extra money for combat pay or tax-free benefits.
"These are commitments and contracts that have been signed, and so when these changes happen, they are not insignificant," he said. "So we work with the unit, the country team and the joint force headquarters to define who are no-kidding hardships and who we had to work to find other employments opportunities to fulfill the 400-day mobilization commitment that we made to that soldier."
In the coming weeks, as America works to extricate itself from two wars, the U.S. will pull the remaining 18,000 troops out of Iraq, and withdraw 10,000 forces from Afghanistan. Another 23,000 or more will come out of Afghanistan by next fall.
And while the political ramifications of the war drawdowns are hotly debated topics, there is often little said or known about the cascading effects such decisions have on the lives, jobs and schooling of the National Guard and Reserve troops.
Guard units are notified of their deployments as much as two years in advance, so they make long-term plans to meet the year-long military commitment.
But to meet the often-changing withdrawal timetables for Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon has had to abruptly shuffle units, and even individual soldiers, around. The major moves include shifting forces from Iraq to new missions in Kuwait or to Afghanistan.
During a hearing on Capitol Hill, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the military tries to do all it can to avoid changing deployment orders given to National Guard units once they are notified.
If a unit has been mobilized, he said, "we will find a place to use it," particularly if it is an aviation unit, since those are in high demand.
Usually, he said, officials try to identify soldiers who prefer not to deploy, since there often are some who are happy to stay home. Then the rest of the unit will, if possible, be sent to a different mission in the same country or to another location.
For example, the 37th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, made up of more than 2,300 soldiers from Ohio and Michigan, was initially scheduled to go to Afghanistan in early October to do combat and other operations.
But when Pentagon leaders decided many weren't needed, they scrounged for other missions so that the soldiers who really wanted or needed to deploy could do so.
Maj. Jeff Kinninger, executive officer for the 126th Cavalry Squadron, was another soldier who got to Camp Shelby, then was told not to deploy. But for Kinninger and his family, it was more of a welcome decision because he has a full-time job working for the National Guard in Grand Rapids.
"For me, this would have been three deployments in the last seven years, so I wasn't too disappointed," said Kinninger, 42, who had served in Iraq in 2005 and 2008. "I'm disappointed not to be there with my soldiers, but my family is happy I'm not going."
His squadron is part of the 37th IBCT. So, of the 430 squadron members who headed to Camp Shelby to prepare to deploy, more than 200 were told they weren't needed. After sorting out who wanted to go home, military officials were able to find assignments for all the rest, Kinninger said.
Two other brigades are going through similar struggles ? the 27th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, based in New York, and the 29th Combat Aviation Brigade, which includes soldiers from across the U.S.
New York ? Republicans have already squared off nearly a dozen times ? and they're only halfway through the debate season
With the Republican presidential candidates constantly slugging it out in a seemingly endless stream of televised showdowns, it seems likely that 2011 will be remembered as the "year of the debate," says Michael Calderone at The Huffington Post. The 11th major debate of the campaign season was held on Tuesday, Nov. 22, and there are nearly a dozen more GOP primary debates still to come. Plenty of people are watching, and the candidate forums appear to be having a major impact on the race. How? Here, four consequences of the "increasingly intolerable" glut of debates:
1. Gaffes are blown way out of proportion The media has been "lapping up every big 'viral' moment, making the most of the gaffes and stumbles and eternally questing for the next meltdown," says Jason Linkins at The Huffington Post. As a result, the slip-ups are overshadowing the substance of many of the debates, making them matter more than they should. "The early debates helped introduce the candidates to the Republican primary electorate," says Byron York in the Washington Examiner, and the later ones will help undecided voters make up their minds. But many in the middle served little purpose ? other than to provide another "occasion for a major gaffe or gotcha."
SEE MORE: The GOP's 'elimination round' debate: 4 key questions
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2. Serious candidates are taken less seriously "We are essentially witnessing Republican presidential politics morph into a kind of right-wing reality TV series," says Ryan Lizza at The New Yorker. This popular elimination format has been good news for "'politainment' conservatives like Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, and Newt Gingrich, and not so great for successful governors like Tim Pawlenty, Jon Huntsman, and Rick Perry." Some veteran Republicans worry this is the wrong image to project when picking a candidate for the job of leading the free world, says Michael D. Shear in The New York Times. The cumulative effect of all the embarrassing moments, they fear, may be the weakening of "the party brand, especially in foreign policy and national security, where Republicans have typically dominated Democrats."?
3."Retail" campaigning isn't what it used to be "Once, it was the vaunted campaign machine, or the bulging bank accounts, or the number of key endorsements that defined who was up and who was down," says Ken Rudin at NPR. But this year, those elements of "retail" campaigning aren't all that critical. It really just seems to be the debates that matter. "Never before in a campaign cycle has the story line ? the rise and fall of frontrunners, the fluctuations in the polls ? been almost exclusively about what comes out of the debates."
SEE MORE: The 'disgraceful' CBS debate: Did the network mess up?
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4. Candidates are getting tired This isn't easy for the Republicans, says Rupert Cornwell in Britain's Independent. Sure, they "get free exposure" from the nationally televised debates, but in each forum, they have to keep tacking to the right to win over conservative primary voters. As the debate season drags on, every appearance means another occasion to let something slip that will be "fodder for the Obama campaign" in the general election, when the challenge will be wooing moderates and independents. No wonder "some candidates have suggested they might skip a few, if only to conserve their energy."
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As we heard earlier today, Thanksgiving proved to be a lucrative day for online retailers. IBM reported online Thanksgiving 2011 sales were up 39 percent over Thanksgiving 2010, with mobile shopping on the rise. eBay and PayPal are seeing similar trends. PayPal Mobile just announced a 511 percent increase in global mobile payment volume when compared to Thanksgiving 2010. On Thanksgiving in the U.S., consumers shopped on mobile via PayPal most frequently between 6:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. PST. Around the world, consumers shopped on mobile most frequently between 1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. PST.
Now that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has called for an administrative hearing on AT&T's proposed buyout of T-Mobile, the two parties have decided to formally withdraw their application to the Commission. The confirmation came today, with an announcement from AT&T and Deutsche Telekom, which owns T-Mobile USA. In a statement, the two companies reiterated their commitment to the deal, adding that they're looking to receive final approval from the DoJ: "This formal step today is being undertaken by both companies to consolidate their strength and to focus their continuing efforts on obtaining antitrust clearance for the transaction from the Department of Justice." AT&T also reaffirmed that it would incur a $4 billion hit should the deal fall through, and that it expects to take out a pretax charge for that amount during the fourth quarter of this year. Of course, Genachowski's decision must still obtain approval from the full Commission, but it certainly looks like both parties are gearing up for a courtroom battle.
If you eat bread stuffing or grain-fed turkey this Thanksgiving, give thanks to the grasses ? a family of plants that includes wheat, oats, corn and rice. Some grasses, such as corn and sugar cane, have evolved a unique way of harvesting energy from the sun that's more efficient in hot, arid conditions. A new grass family tree reveals how this mode of photosynthesis came to be.
The results may one day help scientists develop more drought-tolerant grains, say scientists working at the U. S. National Evolutionary Synthesis Center.
From the grasslands of North America, to the pampas of South America, to the steppes of Eurasia and the savannas of the tropics, the grass family contains more than 10,000 species, including the world's three most important crops: wheat, rice and corn. We rely on grasses for sugar, liquor, bread, and livestock fodder.
Like all plants, grasses harvest energy from sunlight by means of photosynthesis. But grasses use two strategies that differ in how they take up carbon dioxide from the air and convert it into the starches and sugars vital to plant growth. The majority of grasses use a mode of photosynthesis called the C3 pathway, but many species ? especially those in hot, tropical climates ? use an alternate mode of photosynthesis known as C4. In hot, arid environments, C4 grasses such as maize, sugar cane, sorghum and millet have a leg up over C3 plants because they use water more efficiently.
An international team of researchers wanted to figure out how many times, and when, the C4 strategy came to be. To find out, they used DNA sequence data from three chloroplast genes to reconstruct the grass family tree. The resulting phylogeny represents 531 species, including 93 species for which DNA sequence data was previously unavailable.
"By working collaboratively across many labs, from the US to Argentina to Ireland to Switzerland ? with some people providing new plant material, and others doing the DNA sequencing ? we were able to get a lot done in a very short amount of time," said co-author Erika Edwards of Brown University.
The results suggest that the C4 pathway has evolved in the grasses more than 20 separate times within the last 30 or so million years, Edwards said.
What's most surprising, she added, is that C4 evolution seems to be a one-way street ? i.e., once the pathway evolves, there's no turning back. "We can't say whether it is evolutionarily 'impossible', or whether there simply hasn't been a good reason to do it, but it seems increasingly unlikely that any C4 grasses have ever reverted to the C3 condition," Edwards said.
"The new tree will be extremely useful for anyone who works on grasses," she added.
For example, scientists are currently trying to engineer the C4 photosynthetic pathway into C3 crops like rice to produce more stress-tolerant plants. By helping researchers identify pairs of closely related C3 and C4 species, the evolutionary relationships revealed in this study could help pinpoint the genetic changes necessary to do that.
"The next challenge is getting these species into cultivation and studying them closely, and ideally, sequencing their genomes," Edwards said.
The results will be published this week in the journal New Phytologist.
###
Grass Phylogeny Working Group II (2011). "New grass phylogeny resolves deep evolutionary relationships and discovers C4 origins."New Phytologist. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-8137.2011.03972.x
National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent): http://www.nescent.org
Thanks to National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) for this article.
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MADRID ? Spain's borrowing costs rose above those of Greece and Portugal Tuesday in an auction of short-term debt, suggesting investors remain cautious about this country's financial future despite a convincing electoral win this week by conservatives bent on deficit-cutting austerity.
The treasury sold euro2.98 billion ($4 billion) in 3- and 6-month bills, which was roughly the agency's target. But the average interest rate on the 3-month bills jumped to 5.1 percent from 2.3 percent in the last such auction in October, and to 5.2 percent on the 6-month bills, compared with 3.3 percent last time.
Demand was nevertheless good, with bids almost three times the amount offered for the 3-month bills, and nearly 5 for the 6-month bills.
Still, though the bonds are not strictly comparable because Greece and Portugal are receiving EU and International Monetary Fund bailouts that help keep rates down, the Spanish yields on the 3-month bonds compare to 4.1 percent for Greece and 4.9 percent for Portugal in auctions on Nov. 16.
Last week, Spain had to offer an average interest rate of nearly 7 percent on 10-year bonds at an auction, a euro-era record. An auction of 12- and 18-month bonds last week also went badly, with Spain also forced to offer significantly higher interest rates to investors.
The center-right Popular Party has had no time to savor its electoral victory over the Socialists, having to immediately address the grueling task of reassuring investors worried about Spain's grim prospects for economic growth and getting nearly 5 million unemployed ? 21.5 percent of the work force ? back to work.
Doubts that Spain will be able to make it are behind the rise in its borrowing rates. On the secondary market, where bonds are bought and sold after they are issued, the yield on Spanish benchmark 10-year bonds stood at 6.5 percent, roughly the same as the day after the election and not far from the 7 percent level that is considered unsustainable over the longer term.
The future prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, has said he will maintain the purchasing power of retirement pensions but other than that, any kind of government spending is liable for cuts. However, Rajoy has kept the country and the financial community largely in the dark over his specific plans. He will not be sworn in until mid-December.
Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said Monday it was maintaining its AA- rating with a negative outlook for Spain despite the conservative win.
Meanwhile, in a sign of the fragility of some of Spain's lenders, the central bank announced late Monday that it had seized a small bank, Banco de Valencia, because of problems with solvency and liquidity stemming from overexposure to the real estate bubble largely blamed for Spain's economic collapse. It is the fourth such seizure of a banking entity since 2009.
The Bank of Spain said it was injecting euro1 billion in capital into Banco de Valencia S.A. and opening up a euro2 billion credit line for it.
NEW DELHI (Reuters) ? India threw open its $450 billion retail market to global supermarket giants on Thursday, approving its biggest reform in years that may boost sorely needed investment in Asia's third-largest economy.
The world's largest retail group, Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N), and its rivals see India's retail sector as one of the last frontier markets, where a burgeoning middle-class still shops at local, family-owned merchants.
Allowing foreign retailers to take stakes of up to 51 percent in supermarkets would attract much-needed capital from abroad and ultimately help unclog supply bottlenecks that have kept inflation stubbornly close to a double-digit clip.
"I think it will have a very deep and long-lasting impact on the Indian landscape," Raj Jain, CEO of Wal-Mart India, told CNBC TV18. "I think it will redefine the way consumers shop in India, but more importantly the way supply chains in India run."
Under fire for a slow pace of reform, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's embattled government appears to be slowly shaking off a string of corruption scandals to focus on policy changes long desired by investors.
"This is a very bold move and the economic reforms process is back on track." Rajan Mittal, vice chairman of India's Bharti Enterprises, which is Wal-Mart's partner, told reporters.
Millions of small retail traders vigorously oppose competing with foreign giants, potentially providing a lightning rod for criticism of the ruling Congress party ahead of crucial state elections next year.
Food Minister K.V. Thomas said the government will allow foreign direct investment of up to 51 percent in multi-brand retail - as supermarkets are known in India. It will also raise the cap on foreign investment in single-brand retailing to 100 percent from 51 percent, he added.
The new rules may commit supermarkets to strict local sourcing requirements and minimum investment levels aimed at protecting jobs, according to local media.
A heavyweight member of Singh's coalition government warned on Thursday it totally opposed opening the sector.
The move is politically risky. Fears of potential job losses could heighten popular anger at the Congress party ahead of key state polls next year that will set the stage for the 2014 general election.
But slowing growth and investment in India, with the rupee currency around historical lows and government finances worsening, may have spurred the government into action.
"Manmohan Singh, after all the scams and the impression of government paralysis, has realized it's time to take some bold steps. This is a very bold step that will please the middle class," said political analyst Amulya Ganguli.
POLITICAL OPPOSITION
India previously allowed 51 percent foreign investment in single-brand retailers and 100 percent for wholesale operations, a policy Wal-Mart and rival Carrefour, among others, had long lobbied to free up further.
"For international retailers, it will open up a $1.6 trillion market growing at 8-9 percent so it's a big business opportunity for all of them," said Thomas Varghese, CEO of Aditya Birla Retail, an Indian supermarket chain.
Indian retailers have operated supermarket chains in India for years, but their expansion has been hampered by a lack of funding and expertise as well as poor infrastructure which makes the cold storage of food transported around the country practically impossible.
Political opponents of the proposal, with an eye to the ballot box, argue an influx of foreign players - which could include Carrefour (CARR.PA) and Tesco Plc (TSCO.L) - will throw millions of small traders out of work in a sector that is the largest source of employment in India after agriculture.
India's biggest listed company, Reliance Industries (RELI.NS), was forced to backtrack on plans in 2007 to open Western-style supermarkets in the state of Uttar Pradesh after huge protests from small traders and political parties.
The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) opposes opening up the retail sector, arguing that letting in "foreign players with deep pockets" would bring job losses in both the manufacturing and service sectors.
"Fragmented markets give larger options to the consumers. Consolidated markets make the consumer captive," the BJP's leaders of the upper and lower houses of parliament said in a statement before the decision. "International retail does not create additional markets, it merely displaces (the) existing market."
(Additional reporting by Nigam Prusty and Krittivas Mukherjee; Editing by John Chalmers)
CHICAGO ? Undeterred by costlier gas and airfare, millions of Americans set out Wednesday to see friends and family in what is expected to be the nation's busiest Thanksgiving weekend since the financial meltdown more than three years ago.
Many people economized rather than stay home.
"We wouldn't think of missing it," said Bill Curtis, a retiree from Los Angeles who was with his wife at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, Calif. "Family is important and we love the holiday. So we cut corners other places so we can afford to travel."
About 42.5 million people are expected to hit the road or take to the skies for Thanksgiving this year, according to travel tracker AAA. That's the highest number since the start of the recession at the end of 2007.
Heavy rain slowed down early travelers along the East Coast. Snow across parts of New England and upstate New York made for treacherous driving and thousands of power outages. And a mudslide covered train tracks in the Pacific Northwest. But most of the country is expected to have clear weather Thursday.
As afternoon traffic picked up, flight delays were reported in Boston, San Francisco, Newark, N.J., and New York.
The average round-trip airfare for the top 40 U.S. routes is $212, up 20 percent from last year. Tickets on most Amtrak one-way routes have climbed slightly, and drivers are paying an average $3.33 a gallon, or 16 percent more than last year, according to AAA.
Jake Pagel, a waiter from Denver, was flying to see his girlfriend's family in San Jose, Calif. He said he had to give up working during one of the restaurant industry's busiest and most profitable times.
"I think it's something you can't quantify in terms of monetary cost," he said. "I mean, being able to spend quality time with your family is fairly significant."
Most travelers ? about 90 percent, according to AAA ? are expected to hit the road.
John Mahoney acknowledged the economy has changed the way he travels, which is why he and his girlfriend slept in their car instead of getting a motel room when a heavy, wet snowstorm flared up along the New York State Thruway during their 20-hour drive from New Hampshire to St. Louis.
"Americans will still do what Americans do. We travel the roads," he said.
Some drivers who tried to get an early start along the Pennsylvania Turnpike found themselves stopped by ? or stuck in ? a gooey, tar-like mess after a tanker truck leaked driveway sealant along nearly 40 miles of highway. At least 150 vehicles were disabled Tuesday night.
Shun Tucker of suburban Chicago decided to spend the holiday with family in Memphis, Tenn., and booked a $49 bus ticket for a nine-hour trip south. "Yeah, I could go to the airport, but it's going to cost me $300," she said.
Lucretia Verner and her cousin set out on a drive from Tulsa, Okla., to Atlanta. They said they wouldn't stop to eat on the way, making do with the water, juice, lunch meat and bread they took with them. Colette Parr of Las Vegas took flights with connections and switched airlines to save almost $200 on her trip to Newark, N.J.
Investment manager Matt Rightmire and his family typically fly on Thanksgiving. This year, they are making the holiday pilgrimage by car from New Hampshire to his in-laws in Youngstown, Ohio. He figured he is saving $1,000.
"It's family," he said. "That's what the holidays are about: Spending time with family. I don't really think it's optional. You may try to find the least expensive way to get there, but you've got to see your family."
___
Associated Press writers Ben Dobbin in Victor, N.Y.; Ivan Moreno in Denver; Jeannie Nuss in North Little Rock, Ark.; David Porter in Newark, N.J.; Vicki Smith in Morgantown, W.Va.; Chris Weber in Burbank, Calif.; and Chris Williams in Bloomington, Minn., contributed to this report.
While a come-from-behind success for a non-dancer is just what ?Dancing? should be about, some fans might find it hard to cheer for his sudden surge to the top ? mainly because it wasn?t exactly warranted.
Since when does a baby shower include brawling house husbands? It looks like that's the way they do things in Atlanta, or at least on The Real Housewives of Atlanta.
"Shower the Baby" gave Kim a baby shower to rival most wedding receptions and we'll break down the drama in The Hollywood Gossip's weekly +/- review.
But first we have to sift through the boring stuff ...
Looks like Sheree's building herself a new McMansion but she's being practical. It will only have the necessities: a ballroom, a spa area, a space for the DJ and a theater. Just the basics. Plus 8 because she's planned ahead. There's enough room to expand later if 8,000 square feet becomes too cramped.
NeNe and estranged husband Gregg have a quick and awkward chat when he comes to pick up their son. NeNe wants to know if he's dating anyone. He says no but then she won't answer the same question. Minus 5. If you're going to ask the question, expect to have to answer it.
Once he's gone, NeNe admits she doesn't think she can sign the divorce papers. Minus 7. Well where does that leave them? They certainly don't seem happy so will they continue to live in limbo or head back to a miserable marriage?
Apollo's on edge these days and even adorable little Aiden can't seem to make it better. He got pulled over and roughed up by the cops. Sounds like it was all a case of mistaken identity and he was let go but that hasn't stopped the gossip from spreading all over town.
Unfortunately, his criminal record is something he's always going to have to deal with. What I can't handle are Phaedra's sweatpants: hot pink with HIS printed across the butt. Girl, that's just tacky. Minus 5.
Cynthia gets a visit from her daughter's daddy, Peter and Plus 10 for everyone getting along so well but I have to wonder how long it will last. Peter just doesn't seem the type who goes out of his way to get along with people.
Which brings us to Kim's baby shower. She says she wants to make the shower special for Kroy. Really? How many guys are that interested in baby showers?
Of course this was no ordinary shower. Wasn't Kim the one who said that Phaedra's shower was over the top. Pot ... meet kettle. Minus 8. With 130 guests this baby shower rivaled most wedding receptions.
But I've got to throw in a Plus 5. I loved that cake.
Prior to the shower we saw the entire family getting ready. How cute was Kroy doing the girls' nails. Plus 10. Just plain adorable.
Overall, the baby shower is quite an event. Minus a mildly embarrassing incident where Kim's father gives Phaedra a hard sell on his business (awkward), everything is gorgeous and classy. Plus 13. That is until Cynthia and Peter show up.
First off, they show up five hours late. Minus 11. What was the point of coming at all and without a gift, no less? Had to agree with Phaedra on this one. "Were they looking for refreshments? Were they out of snacks at their house?"
And it only gets worse from there. Turns out Peter trashed the ladies in a magazine interview. Minus 10. Honestly, what man talks about his wife's friends in an interview? One who knows that's the only way he can grab the spotlight and more than willing to stir up trouble.
Phaedra was the first to bring up the gorilla in the room and things went down hill from there. Peter walked in with a chip on his shoulder and Apollo looked like he was more than willing to knock it off. If Peter keeps poking that bear he might find it bites back and I don't think he can take on Apollo. After some loud words and male posturing, it looks like Apollo walks away first.
It may have been a lot of drama for a normal baby shower but the Housewives of Atlanta need to take a look at The Real Housewives of New Jersey if they want some real drama. Here, we had no cursing, table flipping, punches thrown, or children sent screaming from the room. Minus 15 because in comparison you can't really call this one a brawl. Atlanta needs to step up their game.
If you're running a political campaign, a charity, or any other group where keeping in touch with community members ??and/or delegating tasks to them ??is critical, then you'll probably be interested in a startup called NationBuilder. The service launched in April, closing a $500,000 seed funding round the following month that was led by Chris Hughes. Hughes is best known for?cofounding Facebook and leading President Obama's online campaign efforts in 2008 (in other words, he's exactly the sort of backer you'd want for this kind of startup). And this fall, it's started getting some strong traction. In September it had almost 200k unique visitors doing 1.2 million page views ??that jumped to 400k uniques the following month, with 2.5 million page views. The service now has 300 groups on board, with a total of some 1 million supporters signed up. One of the site's core features is fundraising, and groups have raised $3.3 million so far using the platform.
ScienceDaily (Nov. 21, 2011) ? Without the ability to swim to their targets in the stomach, ulcer-causing bacteria do not cause the inflammation of the stomach lining that leads to ulcers and stomach cancer, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Online Early Edition, week of Nov. 21-25), provide new clues about how the bacteria, called Helicobacter pylori, trigger harmful inflammation in some people. About half of all people worldwide are infected with H. pylori, but in most cases the infection does not cause any problems. Severe inflammation leading to ulcers or cancer occurs in only about ten percent of infections.
"If we can understand the pathways that cause the infection to go to this bad state of chronic inflammation, we may eventually be able to design treatments that would limit it," said Karen Ottemann, a professor of microbiology and environmental toxicology at UC Santa Cruz and senior author of the PNAS paper.
Ottemann has been studying H. pylori chemotaxis, which is the bacteria's ability to respond to specific chemicals in its environment by swimming toward or away from them. Her lab has developed a strain of the bacteria that is missing a single gene essential for chemotaxis. These defective bacteria cause much less inflammation than normal strains, even though they seem to have little trouble establishing infections in the stomach.
In the new study, the researchers looked at how the immune system responds to infections with normal and mutant strains of the bacteria. Their findings highlight the role of a particular type of white blood cell known as T-helper cell type 17 (Th17). Th17 cells promote chronic inflammation, but the researchers found that these cells were missing in the immune response to infection with the mutant strain.
The connection between chemotaxis and the immune response involves several steps. Previous work by other researchers has shown that Th17 cells respond to the combination of bacterial infection and dying host cells. Ottemann's group found that the mutant strain of H. pylori causes much less cell death than normal strains. The researchers hypothesize that without chemotaxis, the mutant strains are not able to get close enough to the cells lining the stomach to deliver the bacterial toxins that induce cell death. The toxins trigger a process called apoptosis, a suicide program built into all cells and triggered by certain types of cell damage.
"The bacteria use chemotaxis to get close to the host stomach cells, and then they deliver packages of nasty molecules that kill host cells," Ottemann said. "Previously, people thought the bacteria have to bind to the stomach cells. But it turns out they just have to be close enough to hit the cells with the cell-killing molecules. We think one reason they have the ability to swim is to hover close to their target cells."
The missing gene in the mutant strain, called CheY, provides a link between the bacteria's chemical sensors and their swimming mechanism, a whip-like flagellum that propels the spiral-shaped bacteria. The mutant bacteria can still swim, but they move aimlessly. "They've lost the connection between the sensory input and the behavior, so they just swim blindly," Ottemann said.
H. pylori infections can be cured by taking antibiotics, but some studies have indicated that the infection may actually have some beneficial effects, at least for people who don't get ulcers or stomach cancer. For example, H. pylori infection seems to reduce the chances of getting esophageal cancer. Some doctors have argued that controlling the negative effects of the infection may be preferable to eliminating it with antibiotics.
"The idea is that our bodies have adapted to it, and in 90 percent of people the bacteria act like a normal part of the body's flora," Ottemann said. "So the best thing might be to keep H. pylori in the stomach, but tame it so it wouldn't cause inflammation. It's possible we could tame it by targeting chemotaxis."
Annah Rolig, a graduate student in molecular, cell, and developmental biology at UC Santa Cruz, is the first author of the PNAS paper. Coauthor J. Elliot Carter is at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine. This work was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health.
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NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) ? Myanmar and the United Nations discussed strengthening cooperation on Saturday, Myanmar's foreign minister said, in another sign of the reclusive state's sudden engagement with the world after a half-century of isolation and oppressive rule.
"It was a very fruitful meeting," Myanmar Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin told Reuters after talks with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon during the East Asia Summit, a meeting of leaders from 18 countries, on the Indonesian island of Bali.
"We discussed about better cooperation between Myanmar and the United Nations," he added without elaborating on details of the cooperation.
Myanmar has embarked on a series of reforms since the army nominally handed power in March to civilians after the first elections in two decades, a process mocked at the time as a sham to seal authoritarian rule behind a democratic facade.
Its overtures have since included calls for peace with ethnic minority groups, some tolerance of criticism, an easing of media controls, the release of about 230 political prisoners and more communication with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who was freed last year from 15 years of house arrest.
U.S. President Barack Obama praised those reforms on Friday and dispatched Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the former British colony, also known as Burma, for a two-day visit next month to explore the possibility of new ties.
Washington has cautioned, however, that more needs to be done for the United States to end sanctions imposed in response to years of human rights abuses, including the killing of pro-democracy demonstrators and crackdowns on ethnic minorities.
"We'd like to see more political prisoners released. We would like to see a real political process and real elections. We'd like to see an end to the conflicts, particularly the terrible conflicts with ethnic minorities," Clinton said in an interview on Fox News on Friday.
"But we think there's an opportunity and we want to test it," she added.
She plans to meet with Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy (NLD) party said on Friday it would contest upcoming by-elections, the latest sign of political rapprochement under the new civilian government.
The NLD, Myanmar's biggest opposition force, won a 1990 election by a landslide but the country's military refused to cede power and, for the following two decades, suppressed the party's activities, putting many of its members in prison.
The party boycotted the next election, held on November 7 last year, because of strict laws that prevented many of its members from taking part. As a result, the authorities officially dissolved it but it has continued to function and enjoys strong support from the public.
INTERNATIONAL ENGAGEMENT
The timing of Myanmar's international engagement is crucial as Washington seeks to counter China's growing influence across Asia and with Myanmar in particular.
Myanmar, as big as France and Britain combined, sits strategically between booming India and China with ports on the Indian Ocean and Andaman Sea, all of which have made it a vital energy security asset for landlocked western China.
Backed by Chinese money, Myanmar is building a new, multi-billion-dollar port through which oil can reach a 790-km (490-mile) pipeline now under construction that will cut across Myanmar and link refineries in western China. Another parallel pipeline will pump Myanmar's offshore natural gas to China.
That, along with hydro-power dams and highway projects, underpins more than $14 billion of pledged Chinese investment in Myanmar's 2010/11 (April-March) fiscal year, causing total foreign direct investment promises to soar to $20 billion from just $300 million a year before, official data showed.
Myanmar's relations with global agencies such as the United Nations, World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are showing broad signs of improving after the IMF and World Bank cut ties to Myanmar years ago in response to rights abuses.
An IMF team is now visiting the country to study how to unify its official and unofficial exchange rates. But diplomats say more reforms -- economic and political -- are likely to be the price of their full support.
ScienceDaily (Nov. 18, 2011) ? Many experts believe that advanced biofuels made from cellulosic biomass are the most promising alternative to petroleum-based liquid fuels for a renewable, clean, green, domestic source of transportation energy. Nature, however, does not make it easy. Unlike the starch sugars in grains, the complex polysaccharides in the cellulose of plant cell walls are locked within a tough woody material called lignin. For advanced biofuels to be economically competitive, scientists must find inexpensive ways to release these polysaccharides from their bindings and reduce them to fermentable sugars that can be synthesized into fuels.
An important step towards achieving this goal has been taken by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), a DOE Bioenergy Research Center led by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).
A team of JBEI researchers, working with researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service (ARS), has demonstrated that introducing a maize (corn) gene into switchgrass, a highly touted potential feedstock for advanced biofuels, more than doubles (250 percent) the amount of starch in the plant's cell walls and makes it much easier to extract polysaccharides and convert them into fermentable sugars. The gene, a variant of the maize gene known as Corngrass1 (Cg1), holds the switchgrass in the juvenile phase of development, preventing it from advancing to the adult phase.
"We show that Cg1 switchgrass biomass is easier for enzymes to break down and also releases more glucose during saccharification," says Blake Simmons, a chemical engineer who heads JBEI's Deconstruction Division and was one of the principal investigators for this research. "Cg1 switchgrass contains decreased amounts of lignin and increased levels of glucose and other sugars compared with wild switchgrass, which enhances the plant's potential as a feedstock for advanced biofuels."
The results of this research are described in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) titled "Overexpression of the maize Corngrass1 microRNA prevents flowering, improves digestibility, and increases starch content of switchgrass."
Lignocellulosic biomass is the most abundant organic material on earth. Studies have consistently shown that biofuels derived from lignocellulosic biomass could be produced in the United States in a sustainable fashion and could replace today's gasoline, diesel and jet fuels on a gallon-for-gallon basis. Unlike ethanol made from grains, such fuels could be used in today's engines and infrastructures and would be carbon-neutral, meaning the use of these fuels would not exacerbate global climate change. Among potential crop feedstocks for advanced biofuels, switchgrass offers a number of advantages. As a perennial grass that is both salt- and drought-tolerant, switchgrass can flourish on marginal cropland, does not compete with food crops, and requires little fertilization. A key to its use in biofuels is making it more digestible to fermentation microbes.
"The original Cg1 was isolated in maize about 80 years ago. We cloned the gene in 2007 and engineered it into other plants, including switchgrass, so that these plants would replicate what was found in maize," says George Chuck, lead author of the PNAS paper and a plant molecular geneticist who holds joint appointments at the Plant Gene Expression Center with ARS and the University of California (UC) Berkeley. "The natural function of Cg1 is to hold pants in the juvenile phase of development for a short time to induce more branching. Our Cg1 variant is special because it is always turned on, which means the plants always think they are juveniles."
Chuck and his colleague Sarah Hake, another co-author of the PNAS paper and director of the Plant Gene Expression Center, proposed that since juvenile biomass is less lignified, it should be easier to break down into fermentable sugars. Also, since juvenile plants don't make seed, more starch should be available for making biofuels. To test this hypothesis, they collaborated with Simmons and his colleagues at JBEI to determine the impact of introducing the Cg1 gene into switchgrass.
In addition to reducing the lignin and boosting the amount of starch in the switchgrass, the introduction and overexpression of the maize Cg1 gene also prevented the switchgrass from flowering even after more than two years of growth, an unexpected but advantageous result.
"The lack of flowering limits the risk of the genetically modified switchgrass from spreading genes into the wild population," says Chuck.
The results of this research offer a promising new approach for the improvement of dedicated bioenergy crops, but there are questions to be answered. For example, the Cg1 switchgrass biomass still required a pre-treatment to efficiently liberate fermentable sugars.
"The alteration of the switchgrass does allow us to use less energy in our pre-treatments to achieve high sugar yields as compared to the energy required to convert the wild type plants," Simmons says. "The results of this research set the stage for an expanded suite of pretreatment and saccharification approaches at JBEI and elsewhere that will be used to generate hydrolysates for characterization and fuel production."
Another question to be answered pertains to the mechanism by which Cg1 is able to keep switchgrass and other plants in the juvenile phase.
"We know that Cg1 is controlling an entire family of transcription factor genes," Chuck says, "but we have no idea how these genes function in the context of plant aging. It will probably take a few years to figure this out."
Co-authoring the PNAS paper with Chuck and Simmons were Christian Tobias, Lan Sun, Florian Kraemer, Chenlin Li, Dean Dibble, Rohit Arora, Jennifer Bragg, John Vogel, Seema Singh, Markus Pauly and Sarah Hake.
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Journal Reference:
G. S. Chuck, C. Tobias, L. Sun, F. Kraemer, C. Li, D. Dibble, R. Arora, J. N. Bragg, J. P. Vogel, S. Singh, B. A. Simmons, M. Pauly, S. Hake. Overexpression of the maize Corngrass1 microRNA prevents flowering, improves digestibility, and increases starch content of switchgrass. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2011; 108 (42): 17550 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1113971108
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As we heard earlier today, Thanksgiving proved to be a lucrative day for online retailers. IBM 
If you're running a political campaign, a charity, or any other group where keeping in touch with community members ??and/or delegating tasks to them ??is critical, then you'll probably be interested in a startup called 