When Bangstyle, the image-based site devoted to hair styling, came onto the scene in 2011, it hoped to fill a hole in online platforms for professionals and styling enthusiasts. As the company releases the third iteration of its app next week, it marks two years of working to solidify itself as an industry mainstay, a pursuit in which it has in many ways succeeded. Everyday users know Bangstyle for its wealth of imagery of cuts and updos, and it has been touted as a replacement for the tradition of bringing a torn-out magazine photo to the hair salon. At its core, though, Bangstyle was designed to solve an industry-wide visibility problem by giving professionals a much-needed portfolio platform from which to publicize their work. Founder Geoff Nelson said he was seeing great work from stylists prior to creating Bangstyle, but they weren’t uploading it because they either didn’t have websites or did have ones that were difficult for them to manage technically. Bangstyle does that and then projects stylists’ work to potential clients nationwide. Next week’s app updates include more search filters, new photo editing capabilities, curated hair collections updated daily, and a “Stalk” function, the equivalent of “following” on any other social media site. Nothing groundbreaking, but necessary improvements if Bangstyle wants to remain #1 in the online hair universe. The app is intended for hair artists on every level, from editorial stylists to those working in salons. It found a key user base in beauty schools, because students are simultaneously looking for work to emulate and need an avenue to find jobs while self-promoting. In professional salons, stylists pull up their Bangstyle profiles so clients can pick a look from their range of work. The people who are most active are, of course, those who take themselves seriously as a personal brand. Bangstyle is currently seeing 400-500K monthly actives, with mobile composing 70% of total user interactions. Nelson estimated that professionals make up about 60% of the user base and are averaging between 20 and 30 uploads each. Nelson has worked hard to make Bangstyle a community destination by feeding into the culture of hairdressing. Because he views hair stylists as artists in essence, rather than trade workers, Bangstyle includes the kind of lifestyle content that would inspire their work. Pin-worthy subjects like food, fashion, photography, and architecture play prominently on the site in articles and images. Bangstyle
The price of oil advanced past $98 a barrel Tuesday, underpinned by political unrest in Egypt that raised fears of disruption to global crude supplies.
By early afternoon in Europe, benchmark crude for August delivery was up 37 cents to $98.36 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract jumped $1.43 to close at $97.99 on Monday.
After massive weekend protests in Egypt that continued Monday, the country's military issued an ultimatum to President Mohammed Morsi that gives him 48 hours to meet the demands of the millions who have taken to the streets seeking his ouster.
The ultimatum, rebuffed by Morsi, raised worries on both sides the military could outright take over, as it did after the 2011 ouster of autocrat Hosni Mubarak. It also raised the risk of a backlash from Morsi's Islamist backers, including his powerful Muslim Brotherhood and hard-liners, some of whom once belonged to armed militant groups.
Traders were concerned that the protests in Egypt and the civil war in Syria could affect the production and transport of oil supplies in the Middle East and North Africa.
"It is above all the risks to supply that are lending support to oil prices," said a report from Commerzbank in Frankfurt. "The situation in Egypt is threatening to escalate further. Although Egypt is not an oil exporter, the Suez Canal and a number of pipelines do make it an important transit route for oil from North Africa and the Gulf region."
Falling oil production in Libya and Nigeria was also seen supporting prices.
Later in the day, investors will be monitoring fresh information on U.S. stockpiles of crude and refined products.
Data for the week ending June 28 is expected to show a draw of 3 million barrels in crude oil stocks and a build of 1 million barrels in gasoline stocks, according to a survey of analysts by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.
The American Petroleum Institute will release its report on oil stocks later Tuesday, while the report from the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration ? the market benchmark ? will be out on Wednesday.
In London, Brent crude was up 26 cents at $103.26 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
In other energy futures trading on Nymex:
? Natural gas gained 5.2 cents to $3.629 per 1,000 cubic feet.
? Heating oil added 0.81 cent to $2.8817 per gallon.
? Wholesale gasoline rose 2.35 cents to $2.7614 per gallon.
HP and phones? It's not over, apparently. The company's Senior Director of Consumer PCs and Tablets for Asia-Pacific, Yam Su Yin, has told The Indian Express that HP isn't done with smartphones and is already working on a new device. While its focus (for now) remains on tablets, laptops and its all-in-ones, it's wisely decided not to ignore the ever-increasing influence of smartphones, despite that wholemessyPalmsaga. When asked about a chances of a future HP smartphone, she said: "The answer is yes but I cannot give a timetable. It would be silly if we say no. HP has to be in the game."
"Being late you have to create a different set of proposition[s]. There are still things that can be done. It's not late. When HP has a smartphone, it will give a differentiated experience." We'd put money on an Android device being in the works, given several of HP's recent productlaunches, but to compete an the increasingly two-horse smartphone race, HP will have to ensure that its "differentiated experience" offers something pretty pervasive to win over customers.
Vitamin C helps control gene activity in stem cellsPublic release date: 1-Jul-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jeffrey Norris jeff.norris@ucsf.edu 415-502-6397 University of California - San Francisco
UCSF-led research finding relevant to cancer, in vitro fertilization
Vitamin C affects whether genes are switched on or off inside mouse stem cells, and may thereby play a previously unknown and fundamental role in helping to guide normal development in mice, humans and other animals, a scientific team led by UC San Francisco researchers has discovered.
The researchers found that vitamin C assists enzymes that play a crucial role in releasing the brakes that keep certain genes from becoming activated in the embryo soon after fertilization, when egg and sperm fuse.
The discovery might eventually lead to the use of vitamin C to improve results of in vitro fertilization, in which early embryos now are typically grown without the vitamin, and also to treat cancer, in which tumor cells abnormally engage or release these brakes on gene activation, the researchers concluded in a study published June 30, 2013 in the journal Nature.
In the near term, stem-cell scientists may begin incorporating vitamin C more systematically into their procedures for growing the most healthy and useful stem cells, according to UCSF stem-cell scientist Miguel Ramalho-Santos, PhD, who led the study. In fact, the unanticipated discovery emerged from an effort to compare different formulations of the growth medium, a kind of nutrient broth used to grow mouse embryonic stem cells in the lab.
Rather than building on any previous body of scientific work, the identification of the link between vitamin C and the activation of genes that should be turned on in early development was serendipitous, Ramalho-Santos said. We bumped into this result, he said.
Working in Ramalho-Santos lab, graduate student Kathryn Blaschke and postdoctoral fellow Kevin Ebata, PhD, were comparing different commercial growth media for mouse stem cells. The researchers began exploring how certain ingredients altered gene activity within the stem cells. Eventually they discovered that adding vitamin C led to increased activity of key enzymes that release the brakes that can prevent activation of an array of genes.
The brakes on gene activation that vitamin C helps release are molecules called methyl groups. These methyl groups are added to DNA at specific points along the genome to prevent specific genes from getting turned on.
During the development of multicellular organisms, humans among them, different patterns of methylation arise in different cells as methyl groups are biochemically attached to DNA at specific points along the genome during successive cell divisions. Normally this gradual methylation, a key part of the developmental program, is not reversible.
But after fertilization and during early development, a class of enzymes called Tet acts on a wide array of the methyl groups on the DNA to remove these brakes, so that genes can be activated as needed.
The UCSF researchers demonstrated that Tet enzymes require vitamin C for optimal activity as they act to remove the methyl groups from the DNA and to stimulate gene activity that more faithfully mimics in cultured stem cells what occurs at early stages of development in the mouse embryo.
Potential roles for vitamin C in the clinic including in embryo culture media used during in vitro fertilization, which currently do not contain vitamin C, and in cancers driven by aberrant DNA methylation deserve exploration, Ramalho-Santos, said.
In addition, scientists previously have found that many adult tissues also have stem cells, which can generate a variety of cell types found within a specific tissue. This raises the possibility that vitamin C might help maintain healthy stem cell populations in the adult, according to Ramalho-Santos.
Although we did not in this paper address the function of Vitamin C in adult tissues, given the roles that Tet enzymes are now known to play in adult tissues, we anticipate that Vitamin C might also regulate Tet function in the adult, Ramalho-Santos said. This remains to be determined.
Vitamin C already has become a popular supplement in recent decades, and potential health benefits of vitamin C supplementation continue to be investigated in clinical trials. It has been more than 80 years since vitamin C was first recognized as vital to prevent scurvy, a now rare connective-tissue disease caused by the failure of another enzyme that also relies on vitamin C.
The function of vitamin C as an antioxidant to prevent chemical damage is the likely reason why some commercial suppliers of growth media have included it in their products, Ramalho-Santos said, but other antioxidant molecules cannot replace Vitamin C in the enhancement of the activity of Tet enzymes.
Despite its importance, humans, unlike most animals and plants, cannot synthesize their own Vitamin C and must obtain it through their diet. The mouse makes vitamin C, but that fact does not diminish the expectation that the new findings will also apply to human development, according to Ramalho-Santos. Only adult liver cells in the mouse make vitamin C, he said.
Ramalho-Santos now aims to explore the newly discovered phenomenon in the living mouse. The next step is to study vitamin C and gene expression in vivo, he said.
###
The UCSF group led a team effort that included researchers from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, and the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology, California. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care.
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Vitamin C helps control gene activity in stem cellsPublic release date: 1-Jul-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jeffrey Norris jeff.norris@ucsf.edu 415-502-6397 University of California - San Francisco
UCSF-led research finding relevant to cancer, in vitro fertilization
Vitamin C affects whether genes are switched on or off inside mouse stem cells, and may thereby play a previously unknown and fundamental role in helping to guide normal development in mice, humans and other animals, a scientific team led by UC San Francisco researchers has discovered.
The researchers found that vitamin C assists enzymes that play a crucial role in releasing the brakes that keep certain genes from becoming activated in the embryo soon after fertilization, when egg and sperm fuse.
The discovery might eventually lead to the use of vitamin C to improve results of in vitro fertilization, in which early embryos now are typically grown without the vitamin, and also to treat cancer, in which tumor cells abnormally engage or release these brakes on gene activation, the researchers concluded in a study published June 30, 2013 in the journal Nature.
In the near term, stem-cell scientists may begin incorporating vitamin C more systematically into their procedures for growing the most healthy and useful stem cells, according to UCSF stem-cell scientist Miguel Ramalho-Santos, PhD, who led the study. In fact, the unanticipated discovery emerged from an effort to compare different formulations of the growth medium, a kind of nutrient broth used to grow mouse embryonic stem cells in the lab.
Rather than building on any previous body of scientific work, the identification of the link between vitamin C and the activation of genes that should be turned on in early development was serendipitous, Ramalho-Santos said. We bumped into this result, he said.
Working in Ramalho-Santos lab, graduate student Kathryn Blaschke and postdoctoral fellow Kevin Ebata, PhD, were comparing different commercial growth media for mouse stem cells. The researchers began exploring how certain ingredients altered gene activity within the stem cells. Eventually they discovered that adding vitamin C led to increased activity of key enzymes that release the brakes that can prevent activation of an array of genes.
The brakes on gene activation that vitamin C helps release are molecules called methyl groups. These methyl groups are added to DNA at specific points along the genome to prevent specific genes from getting turned on.
During the development of multicellular organisms, humans among them, different patterns of methylation arise in different cells as methyl groups are biochemically attached to DNA at specific points along the genome during successive cell divisions. Normally this gradual methylation, a key part of the developmental program, is not reversible.
But after fertilization and during early development, a class of enzymes called Tet acts on a wide array of the methyl groups on the DNA to remove these brakes, so that genes can be activated as needed.
The UCSF researchers demonstrated that Tet enzymes require vitamin C for optimal activity as they act to remove the methyl groups from the DNA and to stimulate gene activity that more faithfully mimics in cultured stem cells what occurs at early stages of development in the mouse embryo.
Potential roles for vitamin C in the clinic including in embryo culture media used during in vitro fertilization, which currently do not contain vitamin C, and in cancers driven by aberrant DNA methylation deserve exploration, Ramalho-Santos, said.
In addition, scientists previously have found that many adult tissues also have stem cells, which can generate a variety of cell types found within a specific tissue. This raises the possibility that vitamin C might help maintain healthy stem cell populations in the adult, according to Ramalho-Santos.
Although we did not in this paper address the function of Vitamin C in adult tissues, given the roles that Tet enzymes are now known to play in adult tissues, we anticipate that Vitamin C might also regulate Tet function in the adult, Ramalho-Santos said. This remains to be determined.
Vitamin C already has become a popular supplement in recent decades, and potential health benefits of vitamin C supplementation continue to be investigated in clinical trials. It has been more than 80 years since vitamin C was first recognized as vital to prevent scurvy, a now rare connective-tissue disease caused by the failure of another enzyme that also relies on vitamin C.
The function of vitamin C as an antioxidant to prevent chemical damage is the likely reason why some commercial suppliers of growth media have included it in their products, Ramalho-Santos said, but other antioxidant molecules cannot replace Vitamin C in the enhancement of the activity of Tet enzymes.
Despite its importance, humans, unlike most animals and plants, cannot synthesize their own Vitamin C and must obtain it through their diet. The mouse makes vitamin C, but that fact does not diminish the expectation that the new findings will also apply to human development, according to Ramalho-Santos. Only adult liver cells in the mouse make vitamin C, he said.
Ramalho-Santos now aims to explore the newly discovered phenomenon in the living mouse. The next step is to study vitamin C and gene expression in vivo, he said.
###
The UCSF group led a team effort that included researchers from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, and the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology, California. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care.
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrives for a press conference at the ASEAN meeting in the International Conference Center in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, Monday, July 1, 2013. Kerry swapped his Mideast peace portfolio for issues in emerging Southeast Asia and road bumps in U.S. relations with Russia and China when he landed Monday in Brunei for a regional security conference. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrives for a press conference at the ASEAN meeting in the International Conference Center in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, Monday, July 1, 2013. Kerry swapped his Mideast peace portfolio for issues in emerging Southeast Asia and road bumps in U.S. relations with Russia and China when he landed Monday in Brunei for a regional security conference. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)
BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Brunei (AP) ? U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says the U.S. thinks China could have "made a difference" in the case of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden if it had returned him to America to face charges.
But Kerry says the U.S.-China relationship is bigger than one incident and that the two countries cooperate on numerous issues, including North Korea.
Kerry spoke Monday at a Southeast Asia conference in Brunei.
Snowden's efforts to evade U.S. authorities ? taking him from a hotel hideout in Hong Kong to an airport transit zone in Moscow ? have undercut U.S. efforts to strengthen ties with China and threaten to worsen tension with Russia just as President Barack Obama seeks Moscow's cooperation on Syria. Kerry is to meet Tuesday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - A California judge refused on Monday to block the teaching of yoga as part of a public school's physical fitness program, rejecting parents' claims that the classes were an unconstitutional promotion of Eastern religions.
Judge John Meyer acknowledged that yoga "at its roots is religious" but added that the modern practice of yoga, despite its origins in Hindu philosophy, is deeply engrained in secular U.S. society and "is a distinctly American cultural phenomenon."
He also said the Encinitas Unified School District had developed its own version of yoga that was not religious but distinct and separate from Ashtanga yoga.
"A reasonable student would not objectively perceive that Encinitas School District yoga does advance or promote religion," he said.
While school district officials were pleased by the ruling, the lawyer for the parents said they probably will appeal.
"If yoga is a religion and has religious aspects, it doesn't belong in the public schools," said Dean Broyles, who represents Stephen and Jennifer Sedlock, whose two children opted out of yoga for physical education. "There is a consistent anti-Christian bias in these cases and a pro-Eastern or strange religion bias."
Encinitas, about 20 miles north of San Diego, began a pilot yoga program in one of its nine elementary schools in 2011. About 40 to 45 students - out of the 5,500 in the district - were taken out of the classes by their parents.
The Sedlocks filed suit against the district in February, arguing that yoga is inherently religious and asking teaching of the classes be banned. The parents claimed that children who opted out of the program faced bullying and teasing.
Their suit expressed concern that the school district had implemented the program with a $500,000 grant from the Jois Foundation, which promotes Ashtanga yoga.
The case was the latest twist in a broader national clash over the separation of religion from public education that has seen spirited debate on issues ranging from the permissibility of student-led prayer to whether science instructors can teach alternatives to evolution.
The plaintiffs objected to eight-limbed tree posters with Sanskrit characters that they said were derived from Hindu beliefs, as well as to the use of the Namaste greeting in class and several yoga poses said to represent worship of Hindu deities.
But by the start of the 2012-2013 school year, the Sanskrit and Namaste had been eliminated from the program, and poses had been renamed with "kid-friendly" descriptions, poses now called gorilla, turtle, peacock, big toe, telephone and other terms, according to testimony. The lotus pose, for example, is called criss cross apple sauce in Encinitas schools.
However, the plaintiffs' expert, professor of religious studies Candy Gunther Brown, testified that yoga practice indoctrinates Hindu religious practices whether the individual knows it or not.
Brown cited research suggesting yoga practice changes the user's brain and thoughts, a sort of gateway drug to the occult, Meyer said.
The judge did not agree with her, saying, "Dr. Brown has an obvious bias and can almost be called being on a mission against yoga."
School district Superintendent Timothy Baird applauded the ruling, and pointed out that the district had been represented for free by lawyers provided by parents whose kids take yoga in the district.
"We always want our parents to be happy and we try to work with our parents on everything we do," Baird said.
When Bangstyle, the image-based site devoted to hair styling, came onto the scene in 2011, it hoped to fill a hole in online platforms for professionals and styling enthusiasts. As the company releases the third iteration of its app next week, it marks two years of working to solidify itself as an industry mainstay, a pursuit in which it has in many ways succeeded. Everyday users know Bangstyle for its wealth of imagery of cuts and updos, and it has been touted as a replacement for the tradition of bringing a torn-out magazine photo to the hair salon. At its core, though, Bangstyle was designed to solve an industry-wide visibility problem by giving professionals a much-needed portfolio platform from which to publicize their work. Founder Geoff Nelson said he was seeing great work from stylists prior to creating Bangstyle, but they weren’t uploading it because they either didn’t have websites or did have ones that were difficult for them to manage technically. Bangstyle does that and then projects stylists’ work to potential clients nationwide. Next week’s app updates include more search filters, new photo editing capabilities, curated hair collections updated daily, and a “Stalk” function, the equivalent of “following” on any other social media site. Nothing groundbreaking, but necessary improvements if Bangstyle wants to remain #1 in the online hair universe. The app is intended for hair artists on every level, from editorial stylists to those working in salons. It found a key user base in beauty schools, because students are simultaneously looking for work to emulate and need an avenue to find jobs while self-promoting. In professional salons, stylists pull up their Bangstyle profiles so clients can pick a look from their range of work. The people who are most active are, of course, those who take themselves seriously as a personal brand. Bangstyle is currently seeing 400-500K monthly actives, with mobile composing 70% of total user interactions. Nelson estimated that professionals make up about 60% of the user base and are averaging between 20 and 30 uploads each. Nelson has worked hard to make Bangstyle a community destination by feeding into the culture of hairdressing. Because he views hair stylists as artists in essence, rather than trade workers, Bangstyle includes the kind of lifestyle content that would inspire their work. Pin-worthy subjects like food, fashion, photography, and architecture play prominently on the site in articles and images. Bangstyle
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