Atlanta airport wins most top rankings in business travel survey

The busiest airport in the world, serving nearly 2,500 landings and departures a day, has been ranked as the best airport for business travelers to make a connection and get good food and helpful amenities.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport won most of the top rankings in a survey of 930 travel agents, managers and others who book travel for Travel Leaders Group, one of the nation's largest travel companies.

Los Angeles International Airport was ranked eighth among best airports for business traveler services.

Airport features business travelers look for include good wireless Internet access, ample places to recharge a phone or laptop battery, on-site conference rooms, comfortable lounges and plenty of food choices, said Kathy Gerhardt, a spokeswoman for the Minneapolis travel company.

The Atlanta airport has all of those features, and then some, said Louis E. Miller, general manager of aviation at the airport.

For example, the 130-acre terminal has 125 eateries, plus about 90 retail outlets, a pet bathroom area and a business that rents travelers small rooms with daybed sofas for a quick nap. "It's like a city here," Miller said.

On an average day, about 250,000 travelers shuffle in and out of the airport, and 95% of them are simply making a connection to another destination.

But Gerhardt said the sheer size of the airport may explain why Atlanta came in third in a separate survey question asking business travelers to rank the worst airports to make a connection. Chicago's O'Hare International and New York's John F. Kennedy International airports were first and second, respectively.

"Even I still get nervous making connections in Atlanta despite being through there a million times," she said.

Moscow hotels ranked priciest

For the ninth consecutive year, Moscow hotels ranked as the most expensive in the world for business travelers, followed by Lagos, Nigeria, and New York City.

The ranking, based on an annual survey by Hogg Robinson Group, a travel, expense and data management firm in Britain, concluded that hotel rates around the globe grew an average of 1.4% last year, compared with a 1% increase in 2011.

(In the U.S., hotel rates jumped 4.2% in 2012, to an average of $106 a night, according to STR, formerly known as Smith Travel Research.)

But business travelers on a tight budget might want to stay clear of Moscow, where a room last year cost a whopping average of $414 a night, according to Hogg Robinson Group. A hotel stay last year cost $361 a night in Lagos and $350 a night in New York, according to the survey.

The cheapest hotel rates among major business centers were in Hyderabad, in southeast India, where rates dropped to about $140 last year from about $162 in 2011, according to Hogg Robinson Group.

American Airlines to get new look

The future of American Airlines is still unclear. Will it merge with U.S. Airways of Tempe, Ariz., or try to go it alone when it exits bankruptcy in the next few weeks?

But whatever happens in Bankruptcy Court, the Fort Worth carrier will definitely have a new look.

This month, American unveiled a new logo and livery, featuring a silver mica color for its planes and red, white and blue stripes on the tails.

The airline also announced recently that new uniforms worn by its crews will be created by the same designers who made dresses for celebrities such as Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Halle Berry and Jennifer Aniston.

American has hired designers Ken Kaufman and Isaac Franco to make the newest uniforms for the airline in more than 20 years. The new outfits will be rolled out in 18 to 24 months.

The uniforms probably won't be as flashy or expensive as the KaufmanFranco gowns worn by Eva Longoria or Christina Aguilera, but the airline's flight attendants are still excited about the prospects.

"We've been in the same uniforms for a long, long time, and having met with the design team, I am convinced that they will bring us up to date with a stunning and practical look," said Laura Glading, president of the Assn. of Professional Flight Attendants, which represents 17,000 flight attendants at American Airlines.

hugo.martin@latimes.com

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Son of Nick Van Exel sentenced to 60 years on murder conviction

Nick Van Exel was taken 37th overall by the Lakers in the 1993 draft. (Vince Compagnone / Los Angeles Times / February 2, 2013)

By Eric Pincus

February 2, 2013, 7:06 a.m.

Sad news for a former Lakers All-Star. Nickey Maxwell Van Exel, the son of Nick Van Exel, was sentenced to 60 years in prison for murder in Texas on Friday.

The 22-year-old was found guilty Thursday of shooting Bradley Bassey Eyo in 2010.

Nick Van Exel was selected by the Lakers with the 37th overall pick in the 1993 NBA draft.

Before the arrival of Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant in 1996, Van Exel was the team's leader and go-to player.

Van Exel played with the Lakers until 1998, then was traded after an All-Star season for Tony Battie and the draft rights to Tyronn Lue.

He is currently on staff with the Atlanta Hawks in player development.

ALSO:

Lakers top Minnesota for first road win of 2013

Dwight Howard flying home for nonsurgical PRP procedure

Short list of players who fit within Lakers disabled player exception

Email Eric Pincus at eric.pincus@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @EricPincus.

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Meet the Man Who Designed BlackBerry’s New Phones

When BlackBerry set out to design the phones that would take the company into the next decade, it faced a big challenge. The flagship device of the new BlackBerry 10 platform needed to simultaneously satisfy what today’s customers want in a smartphone while at the same time stay true to the essence of BlackBerry — which, if the company’s market over the last few years is any indication, customers didn’t want.

The man tasked with redesigning BlackBerry phones was Todd Wood, the company’s senior vice president of design. Leading industrial design at BlackBerry since 2006, Wood is a veteran of industrial design, previously doing design work for Nokia and, before that, Nortel. Mashable sat down with Wood this week while he was in town for the BlackBerry 10 launch.

[More from Mashable: Here’s a Mysterious Image From BlackBerry’s Super Bowl Ad]

Wood speaks with the same thoughtfulness of other design leaders, such as Apple’s Jony Ive, but with none of the showiness. He’s been with BlackBerry (formerly Research In Motion) for long enough to see its fortunes rise and fall. As he describes the Z10, you feel that he’s heard enough praise and criticism about BlackBerry’s products that it all just bounces off.

[More from Mashable: Don’t Hold Your Breath for More BlackBerry Tablets]

When I bring up the BlackBerry Storm — the company’s previous (failed) attempt to create a touchscreen phone — Wood doesn’t bristle or even acknowledge the disaster it was. He simply describes certain design elements that a similar to the BlackBerry Z10, BlackBerry’s new flagship phone. And he makes them sound kind of cool.

“There’s still the ‘waterfall’ that was pronounced on Storm — these flowing surfaces,” Wood says as he points to the top and bottom of the Z10, which are ever-so-slightly sloped. “We’ve brought that with the margins [on the Z10], but it’s very subtle. There are some principles that we carry forward, but nothing’s been cut and pasted.”

As CEO Thorsten Heins described at the launch, BlackBerry faced a decision three years ago: adopt someone else’s mobile OS or go it alone. It opted for the latter, acquiring QNX software in 2010 and adapting it to build first the PlayBook, then BlackBerry 10.

Completely switching mobile platforms was risky and extremely challenging, but it was also a huge design opportunity, says Wood.

“We were starting the platform from scratch. We wanted to build on the design DNA [BlackBerry] had, and we wanted to keep certain attributes — the fit to face, fit to hand — the general comfort of the device, the build quality of the device.”

No Home Button

Key decisions about the device itself depended on how the software worked. There’s no home button on the Z10, for example — a user controls basic functions (like switching between apps) via gestures, such as swiping up from the edge of the screen.

Much of the design was influenced by the need for easy, one-handed operation.

“How can you design a system where you could multitask more elegantly?” Wood asks, rhetorically. “It’s not unlike shuffling cards. And we started to realize you can really do that with one hand and one thumb.

“Almost every phone has a UI paradigm of ‘You go home to go somewhere else.’ Here you can flow from app to app.”

Soft Touch Backside

The phone has a semi-rubberized back, a material that BlackBerry refers to as “soft touch.” The company has used it before — in the trim of the latest Bold smartphone, for example. But in the Z10, Wood’s team added a perforated pattern.

“Soft touch is a special coating that we use,” he explains. “It provides grip, and it’s very silky. What we did was add some microtexture to it, which is something that you don’t notice until you pick the phone up and run your hand across it. It’s a nice subtlety.”

Button Shapes

If you’ve ever thought the physical buttons on Samsung’s phones felt cheap, or the iPhone’s too bland, you’ll appreciate RIM’s contoured buttons for volume and media playback. The volume buttons have a slight notch on one side, and the play/pause button has a small upraised piece — all detectable by touch.

“We wanted to keep them really precise and clean,” says Wood. “We sculpted the keys so it’s always really apparent without looking, almost like braille, exactly where you are.”

Font

Wood also played a role in choosing the system font for BlackBerry 10, which is called Slate. Designed by Canadian Rod McDonald (who also designed the font for Maclean’s, one of Canada’s top national news magazines), BlackBerry chose Slate for its legibility, Wood says.

“Slate really works for screen and print, so we decided to adopt it. When you have such a high-res display, you get really accurate letterforms. When you have a really great font design, that improves productivity. You’re not squinting, and letters are not misinterpreted.”

The Q10

Of course, Wood also led the team that designed the Q10, the BlackBerry 10 phone with a physical QWERTY keyboard, coming about a month after the Z10 debuts. Although the Q10 borrows more design DNA from the BlackBerry of old, BB10 afforded some big departures as well.

For starters, the Q10′s keyboard is straight whereas most previous BlackBerry phone keyboards had a curve to them — which even led to the company calling one of its product lines the Curve.

“That is a big change,” Wood says of straightening out the keyboard for the Q10. “It was very logical, but also it signals ‘This is different.’ And there’s no performance tradeoff with it being straight — we’ve measured it.”

Besides being straight, the keyboard is larger than the ones on previous BlackBerry phones.

“What allows us to get that extra size is we’ve replaced the home key, the back key and the send/end keys, since everything in BB10 is controlled by gestures and direct manipulation of the data. Without the curve, each key is the same size, and they’re 3% larger.”

The Red LED

No BlackBerry phone would be complete without the trademark — and at times notorious — blinking red LED that indicates a message is waiting. Wood says the attribute is hard-wired into BlackBerry design at this point and at no point did the company consider ditching it.

“That’s probably the strongest, most iconic element of the DNA we carry forward,” he says. “It’s origins were ‘Let’s save on battery life,’ and it continues today. For us, we call it the spark, or the splat. It’s a hallmark of BlackBerry it makes some people excited, and it makes some people neurotic, but it’s up to end users to manage that.”

How do you like the design of BlackBerry’s new phones? Let us know in the comments.

BONUS: BlackBerry Z10 Review

Click here to view the gallery: BlackBerry Z10 Review

Lead image by Nina Frazier, Mashable

Images by Nina Frazier, Christina Warren and Pete Pachal, Mashable

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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'Girls,' 'Sugar Man' earn Directors Guild honors

LOS ANGELES (AP) — "Girls" star Lena Dunham has won the TV comedy directing prize from the Directors Guild of America, while the musical portrait "Searching for Sugar Man" earned the documentary award.

Dunham won Saturday for directing the pilot of the show, which focuses on the lives of a group of girls in their 20s.

"It is such an unbelievable honor to be in the company of the people in this room, who have made me want to do this with my life," Dunham said.

Malik Bendjelloul won the documentary award for "Sugar Man," his study of the fate of critically acclaimed but obscure 1970s singer-songwriter Rodriquez. The film also is nominated for best documentary at the Feb. 24 Academy Awards.

Among other early TV winners:

— Musical variety: Glenn Weiss, "The 66th Annual Tony Awards."

— Daytime serial: Jill Mitwell, "One Life to Live."

— Children's program: Paul Hoen, "Let It Shine."

The Directors Guild honors continued Hollywood's strange awards season, which could culminate with a big Oscar win for Ben Affleck's "Argo." The guild's prize for best director typically is a final blessing for the film that goes on to win best-picture and director at the Academy Awards.

Affleck can go only one-for-two at the Oscars, though. He's up for the film honor at the Directors Guild, and "Argo" is looking like the best-picture favorite at the Oscars. But the director's branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences overlooked him and several other key filmmakers for an Oscar directing slot.

The guild and Oscar directing lineups usually match up closely, but they have little in common this season, with only Steven Spielberg for "Lincoln" and Ang Lee for "Life of Pi" nominated at both shows.

Along with them and Affleck, the guild nominated Kathryn Bigelow for "Zero Dark Thirty" and Tom Hooper for "Les Miserables." At the Oscars, Spielberg and Lee are joined in the directing category by Michael Haneke for "Amour," David O. Russell for "Silver Linings Playbook" and Benh Zeitlin for "Beasts of the Southern Wild."

Director Norman Jewison, the guild's 2010 lifetime-achievement prize winner, presented Bigelow with her nomination plaque and noted the incongruity of the Oscar best-picture field, which has nine nominees, while there are only five directing slots.

"So apparently, there were four films that were directed by themselves," Jewison said.

With 12 Oscar nominations, Spielberg's Civil War saga initially looked like the Oscar favorite over such other potential favorites as "Argo," ''Les Miserables" and "Zero Dark Thirty," since films generally have little chance of winning best picture if they are not nominated for best director. Only three films have done it in 84 years, most recently 1989's best-picture champ "Driving Miss Daisy," which failed to earn a directing nomination for Bruce Beresford.

But Affleck's "Argo," in which he also stars as a CIA operative who hatches a bold plan to rescue six Americans during the hostage crisis in Iran, has swept up all the major awards since the Oscar nominations. "Argo" won best drama and director at the Golden Globes and top film honors from the Screen Actors Guild and the Producers Guild of America.

Many of the same film professionals who vote in guild awards also cast ballots for the Oscars. If Affleck wins at the Directors Guild awards, it will be a strong sign that "Argo" has the inside track for the best-picture Oscar.

Affleck may have a bit of newcomer's edge at the guild, where he's the only first-time nominee. Spielberg has won the guild prize a record three times, for "The Color Purple," ''Schindler's List" and "Saving Private Ryan." Lee has won twice, for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Brokeback Mountain," while Bigelow won three years ago for "The Hurt Locker" and Hooper won two years ago for "The King's Speech."

A win for Affleck would nick the guild's record as a strong forecast for the eventual directing recipient at the Oscars. Only six times in the 64-year history of the guild awards has the winner there failed to follow up with an Oscar. It would be No. 7 if Affleck wins Saturday, since he's not up for best director at the Oscars.

Peer loyalty might play in Affleck's favor at the Oscars. The acting branch in particular, the largest block of the academy's 5,900 members, might really throw its weight behind "Argo" because of Affleck's directing snub. Actors love it when one of their own moves into a successful directing career, and Affleck — who's rarely earned raves for his dramatic chops — also delivers one of his best performances in "Argo."

Affleck has had no traction in acting honors this season, and he's joked that no one considered it a snub when he wasn't nominated for best actor. So a best-picture vote for "Argo" might be viewed as making right his omission from the directing lineup and acknowledging what a double-threat talent he's become in front of and behind the camera.

A best-picture prize also would send Affleck home with an Oscar. The award would go to the producers of "Argo": George Clooney, Grant Heslov and Affleck.

But it's not as though Affleck has never gotten his due at Hollywood awards before. He and Matt Damon jump-started their careers with 1997's "Good Will Hunting," for which they shared a screenplay Oscar.

___

AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen contributed to this report.

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Concerns About A.D.H.D. Practices and Amphetamine Addiction

Before his addiction, Richard Fee was a popular college class president and aspiring medical student. "You keep giving Adderall to my son, you're going to kill him," said Rick Fee, Richard's father, to one of his son's doctors.

VIRGINIA BEACH — Every morning on her way to work, Kathy Fee holds her breath as she drives past the squat brick building that houses Dominion Psychiatric Associates.

Andrea Mohin/The New York Times

MENTAL HEALTH CLINIC Dominion Psychiatric Associates in Virginia Beach, where Richard Fee was treated by Dr. Waldo M. Ellison. After observing Richard and hearing his complaints about concentration, Dr. Ellison diagnosed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and prescribed the stimulant Adderall.

It was there that her son, Richard, visited a doctor and received prescriptions for Adderall, an amphetamine-based medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It was in the parking lot that she insisted to Richard that he did not have A.D.H.D., not as a child and not now as a 24-year-old college graduate, and that he was getting dangerously addicted to the medication. It was inside the building that her husband, Rick, implored Richard’s doctor to stop prescribing him Adderall, warning, “You’re going to kill him.”

It was where, after becoming violently delusional and spending a week in a psychiatric hospital in 2011, Richard met with his doctor and received prescriptions for 90 more days of Adderall. He hanged himself in his bedroom closet two weeks after they expired.

The story of Richard Fee, an athletic, personable college class president and aspiring medical student, highlights widespread failings in the system through which five million Americans take medication for A.D.H.D., doctors and other experts said.

Medications like Adderall can markedly improve the lives of children and others with the disorder. But the tunnel-like focus the medicines provide has led growing numbers of teenagers and young adults to fake symptoms to obtain steady prescriptions for highly addictive medications that carry serious psychological dangers. These efforts are facilitated by a segment of doctors who skip established diagnostic procedures, renew prescriptions reflexively and spend too little time with patients to accurately monitor side effects.

Richard Fee’s experience included it all. Conversations with friends and family members and a review of detailed medical records depict an intelligent and articulate young man lying to doctor after doctor, physicians issuing hasty diagnoses, and psychiatrists continuing to prescribe medication — even increasing dosages — despite evidence of his growing addiction and psychiatric breakdown.

Very few people who misuse stimulants devolve into psychotic or suicidal addicts. But even one of Richard’s own physicians, Dr. Charles Parker, characterized his case as a virtual textbook for ways that A.D.H.D. practices can fail patients, particularly young adults. “We have a significant travesty being done in this country with how the diagnosis is being made and the meds are being administered,” said Dr. Parker, a psychiatrist in Virginia Beach. “I think it’s an abnegation of trust. The public needs to say this is totally unacceptable and walk out.”

Young adults are by far the fastest-growing segment of people taking A.D.H.D medications. Nearly 14 million monthly prescriptions for the condition were written for Americans ages 20 to 39 in 2011, two and a half times the 5.6 million just four years before, according to the data company I.M.S. Health. While this rise is generally attributed to the maturing of adolescents who have A.D.H.D. into young adults — combined with a greater recognition of adult A.D.H.D. in general — many experts caution that savvy college graduates, freed of parental oversight, can legally and easily obtain stimulant prescriptions from obliging doctors.

“Any step along the way, someone could have helped him — they were just handing out drugs,” said Richard’s father. Emphasizing that he had no intention of bringing legal action against any of the doctors involved, Mr. Fee said: “People have to know that kids are out there getting these drugs and getting addicted to them. And doctors are helping them do it.”

“...when he was in elementary school he fidgeted, daydreamed and got A’s. he has been an A-B student until mid college when he became scattered and he wandered while reading He never had to study. Presently without medication, his mind thinks most of the time, he procrastinated, he multitasks not finishing in a timely manner.”

Dr. Waldo M. Ellison

Richard Fee initial evaluation

Feb. 5, 2010

Richard began acting strangely soon after moving back home in late 2009, his parents said. He stayed up for days at a time, went from gregarious to grumpy and back, and scrawled compulsively in notebooks. His father, while trying to add Richard to his health insurance policy, learned that he was taking Vyvanse for A.D.H.D.

Richard explained to him that he had been having trouble concentrating while studying for medical school entrance exams the previous year and that he had seen a doctor and received a diagnosis. His father reacted with surprise. Richard had never shown any A.D.H.D. symptoms his entire life, from nursery school through high school, when he was awarded a full academic scholarship to Greensboro College in North Carolina. Mr. Fee also expressed concerns about the safety of his son’s taking daily amphetamines for a condition he might not have.

“The doctor wouldn’t give me anything that’s bad for me,” Mr. Fee recalled his son saying that day. “I’m not buying it on the street corner.”

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Deering Banjo in a groove

It all started with the Kingston Trio.

One day in 1963, a San Diego kid and his friends got their hands on an album by the popular folk group. Greg Deering, 12 at the time, recalls studying the musicians on the cover and thinking, "I've got to get a banjo" — not out of love for the twangy instrument but mainly because his pal already had a guitar.

Fifty years later, Greg, his wife, Janet, and daughter Jamie preside over the bestselling banjo-making business in the U.S.

From a small Spring Valley factory, the Deering Banjo Co. is having its best year ever, defying the U.S. skills gap and California's manufacturing doldrums. It has expanded and trained its own workforce and expects to top $4 million in sales for the year ending June 30.

Greg Deering, 62, is the creative force behind the banjo design and the machinery used to build them. Janet Deering, 58, handles operations. Daughter Jamie Deering, 34, might have the most fun job: liaison with the company's big-name roster of professional musician customers.

Over the company's 38-year history, it has developed a loyal following from the likes of Taylor Swift, Keith Urban, the Dixie Chicks, Steve Martin and Mumford & Sons. Artists who play Deering banjos rolled up 13 Grammy nominations this year.

Two of Deering's fans illustrate how the company has managed to ride the banjo's renaissance as an instrument that crosses several musical genres as varied as country, reggae and indie rock.

"It's great working with a family company, an American company that really cares about the artist and making top-quality banjos," said Jeff DaRosa, singer, bassist and banjo player for the Dropkick Murphys, the Boston-based Celtic punk band.

Scotty Morris, lead vocalist of the contemporary swing revival band Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, called Deering Banjo "the quintessential American instrument builder."

"When I call Deering, I talk to a Deering, and I like that almost as much as I love the instruments they build," Morris said.

That kind of reputation combined with specially crafted manufacturing tools and a skilled, veteran workforce has helped the company weather the recession and cheap competition from China. Deering has been able to expand its workforce in a way that other companies have not, growing to 42 workers from 30 a year ago.

Although the nation as a whole has been adding manufacturing jobs, all California has done is reduce the rate of decline, said John Husing, principal of Redlands-based Economics and Politics Inc.

The most recent statistics available show that California ended 2012 with 1.23 million manufacturing jobs, down sharply from nearly 1.9 million in 2000 and marginally below the nearly 1.24 million in December 2011.

If you ask the Deerings what their greatest challenge has been, the answer has been running the business in California, particularly during a run-up in workers' compensation insurance premiums that began under Gov. Gray Davis.

"That nearly put us out of business. We're still paying off some of those debts," Greg Deering said, adding that the company has remained in California mostly because the family considers it home.

"And because we are stubborn. We are so stubborn," Janet Deering said.

Greg Deering credits his father, who worked in the Southern California aerospace industry, for developing his eye for design.

"He started me out on model airplanes when I was 2," Deering said. "He turned me loose on my own, making models when I was 5. At age 7, he bought me my first set of drafting tools."

But it wasn't until he was a student at San Diego State that he realized just what his father had done for him. There was an assignment to cut a board of certain dimensions from a rough block of wood. He was done with the assignment quickly and began working on a banjo. Weeks later, he realized the other students were still working on the block of wood.

"That was when it clicked for me," he said, later adding, "my father was a very intense mentor for me. He was teaching me how to be a craftsman."

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Marmot researchers raise a toast for Groundhog Day

For most Americans, Groundhog Day is a quaint oddity or a movie starring Bill Murray. For Punxsutawney Phil Sowerby, the Pennsylvania critter who'll be dragged out of his burrow Saturday by men in top hats to look for his shadow, the day must be a supreme annoyance.

But for UCLA biologist Dan Blumstein, today's midwinter observance has become a reason to throw a party in honor of a creature that scientists have studied for decades.

Groundhogs are marmots — and through marmots, scientists hope to gain insight into the social behavior of animals, how they communicate and how their interactions influence the size of their population.

And so on Friday afternoon, Blumstein and a group of 30 or so fellow "marmotophiles" gathered in a spare hallway in the university's Life Sciences building and toasted groundhogs with cans of soda as a jazz mix played in the background.

"This is really the only holiday about animal behavior," Blumstein said.

Cat-sized, sharp-toothed groundhogs have a large range — from the Southeast up into the East Coast and Midwest, across Canada and even as far north as Alaska. Also known as woodchucks, they're the largest of the 14 or 15 marmot species (scientists are still debating the precise number).

Marmots are great animals for scientists to study, Blumstein said, because they're awake during the day and they "have an address," living in burrows that researchers can stake out over time. Blumstein, who has also studied the behavior of kangaroos, wallabies, hermit crabs, sea anemones, lizards, birds and people, has spent more than 13 years observing the colonies of yellow-bellied marmots who live at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Crested Butte, Colo.

During summers in the field, he and colleagues have trapped marmots live using horse chow as bait, tagged them with "earrings," taken samples of their blood, and recorded the size of colonies as they waxed and waned. During winter, Blumstein has held a hibernating marmot in a lab, its body temperature just a couple of degrees above freezing. "It's like a hairy rock," he said.

A groundhog roused from hibernation that appears to be "looking for his shadow" is probably displaying a typical pattern, Blumstein said. Marmots rouse periodically during the winter to urinate, and near the end of the season they start to emerge from their burrows and scope out their territory for potential mates. Males typically wake before females.

Over the years, the scientists' observations have helped them understand how certain behaviors translate into success, or failure, for the colonies. Lately, they've focused on how the higher temperatures brought on by climate change might improve, or hinder, the marmots' reproductive success.

As recently as 2010, earlier springs seemed to be helping the marmots in Colorado by increasing the length of time they could eat. But then a longer-than-usual winter caused the population to crash.

Blumstein and his team are curious to see how the marmots will fare this spring after a winter that produced less early-season snow. That snow acts as a blanket for the animals; without it, their burrows may not have maintained the right temperature for healthy hibernation.

"We want to understand the limits of their flexibility," Blumstein said. "At some point, there may be too little snow to keep them warm over the winter."

One of Blumstein's students said she was studying gene expression in the Colorado marmots. Another student, from South America, was studying how marmots react to climate. They don't have marmots — or Groundhog Day — in South America, she noted.

Matthew Petelle, a graduate student, said he was interested in "marmot personality." Some are bold and others are shy, he said, and he's trying to figure out why the shy ones survive and thrive.

"We're the enthusiasts," he said of the partygoers at the science building, admitting that he'd probably be talking about marmots even in the absence of Groundhog Day.

Behind Petelle glowered Two-Buck Chuck, a groundhog Blumstein spied near a Kansas road more than 15 years ago.

"I was trying to study it and I was thinking it was alive," he said. "Then I realized, it's really not moving."

The animal had been hit by a car and had crawled off the road to die. Blumstein brought the body back to his lab and stuffed it, with help from his wife.

Other examples of groundhog kitsch were on display as well. There was a photograph of an obese yellow-bellied marmot eating Lay's potato chips in a Utah woman's kitchen and a page from the News of the World tabloid headlined "ATTACK OF THE 100 FT MARMOT."

"We made that into T-shirts," Blumstein said.

The jovial professor said he got the idea for the annual shindigs from his mentor, Kenneth Armitage, a University of Kansas behavioral ecologist who led the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory marmot project for 41 years.

Armitage, now retired, said he always promised his guests he'd serve groundhog at the parties.

As in "ground hog," or sausage.

"They'd kind of look at you funny, at first," he said of his grad students. "Then you'd see this big flash of relief."

eryn.brown@latimes.com

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BlackBerry 10 installed base to reach 20 million in 2013, Windows Phone to reach 45 million

Despite showing clear promise and being a tremendous upgrade compared to earlier BlackBerry software, BlackBerry 10 didn’t receive the warmest welcome when it was unveiled earlier this week. At least one leading market research firm thinks BlackBerry (RIMM) has done enough to gain some good traction in 2013, however. ABI Research released new estimates this week projecting that the BlackBerry 10 installed base will reach 20 million by the end of 2013. The firm also says Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows Phone platform, which struggled to garner interest in its early days, will see its installed base climb to 45 million by the end of the year.

[More from BGR: BlackBerry doesn’t need to catch up with Android and iOS overnight, it needs to live to fight another day]

“2013 should be seen as relative success for both Microsoft and BlackBerry,” ABI analyst Aapo Markkanen said. ”For the end of the year, we expect there to be 45 million Windows Phone handsets in use, with BlackBerry 10 holding an installed base of close to 20 million. Microsoft will also have 5.5 million Windows-powered tablets to show for it.”

[More from BGR: GS: Ignore the chatter, BlackBerry rebound is coming]

According to ABI, these figures will be “enough to keep developers interested” as the two companies battle for the No.3 spot in the smartphone war.

“The greatest fear for both Microsoft and BlackBerry is that the initial sales of their smartphones will disappoint and thereby kill off the developer interest, which then would effectively close the window of opportunity on further sales success. Our view is that the installed bases of this scale would be large enough to keep these two in the game,” Markkanen noted. ”It will definitely also help that both firms have actively kept the developers’ interest in mind while designing and rolling out their platforms.”

This article was originally published on BGR.com

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Washington wins 3 trophies at NAACP Image Awards

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kerry Washington was a triple threat at the NAACP Image Awards.

The star of ABC's "Scandal" picked up a trio of trophies at the 44th annual ceremony: outstanding actress in a drama series for "Scandal," supporting actress in a motion picture for "Django Unchained" and the President's Award, which is given in recognition of special achievement and exceptional public service.

"This award does not belong to me," said Washington, who plays a slave separated from her husband in "Django Unchained," as she picked up her first trophy of the evening for her role in the film directed by Quentin Tarantino. "It belongs to our ancestors. We shot this film on a slave plantation, and they were with us along every step of the way."

Washington, who plays crisis management consultant Olivia Pope on "Scandal," serves on President Barack Obama's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.

Don Cheedle was awarded the outstanding actor in a comedy series trophy for his role as a slick management consultant in Showtime's "House of Lies."

"This doesn't belong just to me, but I am taking it home tonight," joked Cheedle.

A few winners weren't present at the Shrine Auditorium to pick up their trophies, including Denzel Washington for outstanding actor in a motion picture for "Flight," Viola Davis for outstanding actress in a motion picture for "Won't Back Down" and Omar Epps for supporting actor in a drama series for Fox's "House."

"Red Tails," the drama about the Tuskegee Airmen, was honored as outstanding motion picture.

"Look! I beat Quentin Tarantino," beamed "Red Tails" executive producer George Lucas as he accepted the award.

LL Cool J, who was honored as outstanding actor in a drama series for CBS' "NCIS: Los Angeles," dedicated his trophy to fellow nominee Michael Clarke Duncan, "The Green Mile" and "The Finder" actor who died last year.

"I wish his family well," said LL. "Let's give it up for him."

Gladys Knight sang during the in memoriam segment, but the beginning of her performance wasn't heard on the live NBC broadcast because of a technical glitch.

Sidney Poitier presented Harry Belafonte with the Spingarn Award, which honors outstanding achievement by an African American. His honor was followed by a serenade from Wyclef Jean and Common.

Other winners at the ceremony hosted by talk show host Steve Harvey included Loretta Devine as supporting actress in a drama series for "Grey's Anatomy," Cassi Davis as outstanding actress in a comedy series and Lance Gross as outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series for TBS' "Tyler Perry's House of Payne."

The Image Awards are presented annually by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the group's members select the winners.

___

Online:

http://www.naacpimageawards.net

___

Follow AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang

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Ferrol Sams, Doctor Turned Novelist, Dies at 90

Ferrol Sams, a country doctor who started writing fiction in his late 50s and went on to win critical praise and a devoted readership for his humorous and perceptive novels and stories that drew on his medical practice and his rural Southern roots, died on Tuesday at his home in Lafayette, Ga. He was 90.

The cause, said his son Ferrol Sams III, also a doctor, was that he was “slap wore out.”

“He lived a full life,” his son said. “He didn’t leave anything in the tank.”

Dr. Sams grew up on a farm in the rural Piedmont area of Georgia, seven mud-road miles from the nearest town. He was a boy during the Depression; books meant escape and discovery. He read “Robinson Crusoe,” then Mark Twain and Charles Dickens. One of his English professors at Mercer University, in Macon, suggested he consider a career in writing, but he chose another route to examining the human condition: medical school.

When he was 58 — after he had served in World War II, started a medical practice with his wife, raised his four children and stopped devoting so much of his mornings to preparing lessons for Sunday school at the Methodist church — he began writing “Run With the Horsemen,” a novel based on his youth. It was published in 1982.

“In the beginning was the land,” the book begins. “Shortly thereafter was the father.”

In The New York Times Book Review, the novelist Robert Miner wrote, “Mr. Sams’s approach to his hero’s experiences is nicely signaled in these two opening sentences.”

He added: “I couldn’t help associating the gentility, good-humored common sense and pace of this novel with my image of a country doctor spinning yarns. The writing is elegant, reflective and amused. Mr. Sams is a storyteller sure of his audience, in no particular hurry, and gifted with perfect timing.”

Dr. Sams modeled the lead character in “Run With the Horsemen,” Porter Osborne Jr., on himself, and featured him in two more novels, “The Whisper of the River” and “When All the World Was Young,” which followed him into World War II.

Dr. Sams also wrote thinly disguised stories about his life as a physician. In “Epiphany,” he captures the friendship that develops between a literary-minded doctor frustrated by bureaucracy and a patient angry over past racism and injustice.

Ferrol Sams Jr. was born Sept. 26, 1922, in Woolsey, Ga. He received a bachelor’s degree from Mercer in 1942 and his medical degree from Emory University in 1949. In his addition to his namesake, survivors include his wife, Dr. Helen Fletcher Sams; his sons Jim and Fletcher; a daughter, Ellen Nichol; eight grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren.

Some critics tired of what they called the “folksiness” in Dr. Sams’s books. But he did not write for the critics, he said. In an interview with the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, Dr. Sams was asked what audience he wrote for. Himself, he said.

“If you lose your sense of awe, or if you lose your sense of the ridiculous, you’ve fallen into a terrible pit,” he added. “The only thing that’s worse is never to have had either.”

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