Married country stars Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood are sharing the love by handing out wedding gifts to fans.

Jude and Jamie Blanchard attended Brooks’ show in Lafayette, Louisiana, last month with a sign that read: “Best Week Ever. Garth this Friday, our wedding next Friday.” Brooks took notice and serenaded them with “To Make You Feel My Love.” He also asked if they wanted anything off their wedding registry, and Jamie passed along a wedding invitation to the stage.

The Lafayette Daily Advertiser reports a pair of lounge chairs, a KitchenAid mixer and other items from the stars showed up at the Blanchards’ door.

This month, Brooks and Yearwood offered to pay for a Hawaiian honeymoon for a couple who got engaged at an Oklahoma City show.
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From: MeNeedIt

Scientists have developed an experimental surgical glue inspired by the mucus secreted by slugs that could offer an alternative to sutures and staples for closing wounds.

While some medical glues already exist, they often adhere weakly, are not particularly flexible and frequently cannot be used in very wet conditions.

To get around those problems, a group of scientists from Harvard and other research centers decided to learn from slugs, which — as well as making slime to glide on — can produce extremely adhesive mucus as a defense mechanism.

The slugs’ trick is to generate a substance that not only forms strong bonds on wet surfaces but also has a matrix that dissipates energy at the point of adhesion, making it highly flexible.

Strong, nontoxic

The man-made version of this tough adhesive is based on the same principles and in a series of experiments reported in the journal Science on Thursday it was shown to adhere strongly to pig skin, cartilage, tissue and organs. It also proved nontoxic to human cells.

In one test, the new glue was used to close a wound in a blood-covered pig’s heart and successfully maintained a leak-free seal after the heart was inflated and deflated tens of thousands of times.

In another case it was applied to a laceration in a rat’s liver and performed just as well as a hemostat, a surgical tool often used in operations to control bleeding.

“There are a variety of potential uses and in some settings this could replace sutures and staples, which can cause damage and be difficult to place in certain situations,” said researcher David Mooney, professor of bioengineering at Harvard.

Mussel-inspired glue

Mooney and colleagues envisage the new adhesive will be made in sheets and cut to size, although they have also developed an injected version for closing deep wounds. The injection would be hardened using ultraviolet light, like dental fillings.

It is not the first time that scientists have taken inspiration from nature to devise a better medical adhesive.

Four years ago, another research group developed a glue inspired by the underwater sticking properties of mussels, but Mooney thinks slugs win hands-down in terms of stickiness and flexibility.

The scientists are applying for patents, although it will require a commercial company to then license the technology and take it into the next phase of human clinical trials.
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From: MeNeedIt

Projected increases in rain from global warming could further choke U.S. waterways with fertilizer runoff that trigger dead zones and massive algae blooms, a new study said.

If greenhouse gas emissions keep rising, more and heavier rain will increase nitrogen flowing into lakes, rivers and bays by about 19 percent by the end of the century, according to a study in Thursday’s journal Science.

While that may not sound like much, many coastal areas are already heavily loaded with nitrogen. Researchers calculated that an extra 860,000 tons of nitrogen yearly will wash into American waterways by century’s end.

The nutrients create low-oxygen dead zones and harmful blooms of algae in the Gulf of Mexico, Great Lakes, Pacific Northwest and Atlantic coast.

“Many of these coastal areas are already suffering year-in, year-out from these dead zones and algal blooms,” said one of the researchers, Anna Michalak, an ecologist at the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford University. “And climate change will make it all worse.”

When waterways are overloaded with nutrients, algae growth can run amok, creating dead zones. Algae can also choke waterways with “green mats of goop on top of the water” that are giant floating blooms, Michalak said.

The blooms often have toxins that can pollute drinking water. In 2014, a bloom on Lake Erie fouled tap water for half a million people in Toledo, Ohio, for more than two days.

The study, which is based on computer simulations, found the Northeast and Midwest will be hit hardest by the increase in nitrogen runoff. Most of the excess nitrogen from fertilizer use and the burning of coal, oil and gas would flow into the Mississippi River system and into the Gulf of Mexico, one of the largest dead zones on Earth, researchers said.

“The results are incredibly interesting and compelling,” said Samantha Joye, a University of Georgia marine sciences professor who wasn’t part of the team.
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From: MeNeedIt

U.S. lawmakers said on Thursday that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told them he will defer to President Donald Trump on the timing of a decision on new steel import curbs, likely meaning further delays and deliberations on the issue.

Members of the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee attending a briefing with Ross said he did not specify a timetable for releasing a long-awaited report that will lay out options for shielding the steel industry from imports on national security grounds.

Ross had originally hoped to release the steel “Section 232” report at the end of June but the timing has slipped amid disagreements among White House aides over the merits of restricting imports that could hurt steel consuming industries.

A House Democratic aide who attended the briefing said Ross repeated President Donald Trump’s comments in a Wall Street Journal interview this week that the decision on potential steel tariffs would take more time and could come after congressional debates on health care, tax reform and infrastructure spending.

“I can only follow my leader,” the aide said Ross told the briefing.

The Commerce secretary also told lawmakers the issue had a lot of complexities and that he was considering the interests of both steel makers and steel users and concerned about potential trade retaliation against U.S. agricultural products. The lawmakers said Ross told them he was taking a similar approach to a parallel national security probe into aluminum imports.

“I think it’s a good sign that they’re actually slowing down and taking a long look, not trying to mix this in with these other issues that have to be lifted,” said Republican Representative Jackie Walorski.

“I think that Secretary Ross is committed to making sure that we’re doing no harm, that we’re getting this right. I need it to be right when it comes to aluminum,” Walorski said, adding that the recreational vehicle industry in her northern Indiana district does not want to higher aluminum prices due tariffs.

Representative Judy Chu, a California Democrat, said Ross told the lawmakers that the Trump administration also wanted to pursue negotiations with other steel-producing countries to address the problem of excess capacity that was causing a flood of dumped imports.

But Ross and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin last week failed to secure commitments from their Chinese counterparts to make specific commitments to cut steel production capacity.

China, which produces half the world’s steel, is widely viewed as the source of much of the metal’s excess production.
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From: MeNeedIt

A construction permit should be granted for a giant telescope planned for a Hawaii mountain summit that some consider sacred, a hearings officer recommended Wednesday.

Retired judge Riki May Amano, who is overseeing contested-case hearings for the Thirty Meter Telescope, had been weighing facts in the case since June, after hearing oftentimes emotional testimony that spanned 44 days.

The $1.4 billion project has divided those who believe the telescope will desecrate land atop Mauna Kea held sacred by some Native Hawaiians and those who believe it will provide Hawaii with economic and educational opportunities.

Many more hurdles

This isn’t the final say on whether the embattled project will proceed.

Now that Amano has issued her proposed decision and order, the state land board will set a deadline for telescope opponents and permit applicants to file arguments against her recommendations. The board will later hold a hearing and then make the final decision on the project’s conservation district use permit.

Gov. David Ige said his office was reviewing the conditions Amano put on her recommendation, including that employees attend mandatory cultural and natural resources training and that employment opportunities be filled locally “to the greatest extent possible.”

“Regardless of the (land board’s) ultimate decision, I support the co-existence of astronomy and culture on Mauna Kea along with better management of the mountain,” Ige said in a statement.

This second round of contested-case hearings was necessary after the state Supreme Court invalidated an earlier permit issued by the board.

The telescope’s board of directors held public meetings before selecting Mauna Kea as the preferred site in 2009. In 2011, opponents requested so-called contested-case hearings before the state land board approved a permit to build on conservation land. The hearings were held, and the permit was upheld. Opponents then sued. In December 2015, the state Supreme Court revoked the permit, ruling the land board’s approval process was flawed. That meant the application process needed to be redone, requiring a new hearing.

‘Far from done’

Telescope officials didn’t immediately comment on Amano’s recommendation. They have said they plan to build it in the Canary Islands if they can’t build in Hawaii.

Kealoha Pisciotta, one of the leaders fighting against the telescope, said she’s disappointed but not surprised.

“They’re far from done,” she said. “They still have to go before the board. We still have the right of appeal — before anyone can even begin to contemplate any action or earth-moving on Mauna Kea.”
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From: MeNeedIt

We know that staying active and involved with family and friends can help keep our brains healthy as we get older. A new study in Portland, Oregon, combines those activities to gauge their effectiveness in warding off dementia. Faith Lapidus reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

Every second, millions of tons of various gases rise from the surface of the earth into the atmosphere. Many of them are man-made and harmful, contributing massively to pollution and consequently to global warming. The European Space Agency, ESA, is slowly building a network of satellites that will help scientists create a real-time global map of the health of our planet. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

A decade-long battle by luxury brands to defend their image neared an end on Wednesday when an adviser to Europe’s top court said Coty can block a German retailer from selling its beauty products via online marketplaces.

“A supplier of luxury goods may prohibit its authorized retailers from selling its products on third-party platforms such as Amazon or eBay,” Advocate General Nils Wahl at the European Union’s Court of Justice said in a non-binding opinion.

Wahl’s view relates to a dispute between the German business of Coty, whose brands include Marc Jacobs, Calvin Klein and Chloe, and German retailer Parfumerie Akzente, which sells Coty’s goods on sites including Amazon against its wishes.

Luxury brands say they should have the right to choose who sells their products to protect their image and exclusivity.

Judges at Europe’s highest court, who follow their advisers’ opinions in four out of five cases, will rule on the case “Coty Germany GmbH v Parfumerie Akzente GmbH” in the coming months.

Coty did not respond to a request for comment.

Denis Waelbroeck, a lawyer at Ashurst, said there is a rationale to the luxury brands’ arguments against so-called free riders, companies who may benefit from others’ marketing efforts without paying the costs.

“I don’t think free riding deserves a particular reward. Competition rules do not allow free riding on heavy investments made by luxury goods companies,” he said.

EU antitrust regulators crafted rules in 2010 which allow brand owners with less than a 30 percent market share to block online retailers without a bricks-and-mortar shop from distributing their products.
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From: MeNeedIt

Twitter Inc heads toward its quarterly earnings report on Thursday with a stock that has risen more than 40 percent since April when much of Wall Street was ready to write off the tech company.

The company’s share price popped after its most recent earnings report in April, when Twitter disclosed better-than-expected user growth.

The number of people on Twitter will be in sharp focus on Thursday, when investors and analysts will see if it has kept up the 6 percent year-over-year growth in monthly active users it reported in April. Twitter said then that it had 328 million users.

“For a company that people thought six months ago was knocking on death’s door and going the way of Myspace and AOL, the double-digit rebound and the continued acceleration in users has really surprised investors,” BTIG Research analyst Richard Greenfield said.

Twitter shares closed on Tuesday at $19.97, nearly flat on the day but up 41.4 percent since its stock hit an intraday low of $14.12 on April 17.

The S&P 500 information technology index is up 10.6 percent since its April 17 closing price.

The surge of interest is a morale boost for Twitter, which has limped through past earnings announcements, struggled to keep a stable management and suffered unfavorable comparisons to its bigger and more profitable competitor Facebook Inc.

This month, Twitter had a streak of 12 days when its shares closed up.

The business is expected to report quarterly revenue of $536.6 million, according to a Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S forecast average. That would be a drop of 10.9 percent from $602 million a year earlier.

What has investors upbeat, though, is the number of people on the service, which public figures including U.S. President Donald Trump use to blast out 140-character messages.

“People are willing to give them the benefit of the doubt if they start to grow again,” Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter said.

Other positive signs cited by analysts include co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey purchasing additional shares and co-founder Biz Stone announcing in May his return to Twitter. Ex-banker Ned Segal starts next month as Twitter’s next chief financial officer.

Meanwhile, advertisers and investors have gotten used to Twitter existing as a niche platform, Pivotal Research analyst Brian Wieser said. “There’s nothing wrong with that,” he said.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

Tests on deceased former professional American football players showed nearly all of them had a chronic traumatic brain disease, according to scientific research published Tuesday in the JAMA medical journal.

The disease, called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), is believed to be caused by repeated head trauma and has been known to cause memory loss, disorientation, depression and impaired judgement, among other symptoms.

Of the 202 total deceased former players studied for the report, which included high school, college and professional players, 177 were diagnosed with CTE. National Football League players seemed particularly prone to CTE, with 110 of the 111 former NFL players examined in the study being diagnosed with the disease.

“There’s no question that there’s a problem in football. That people who play football are at risk for this disease,” study author and director of Boston University’s CTE Center Dr. Ann McKee said. “And we urgently need to find answers for not just football players, but veterans and other individuals exposed to head trauma.”

The study marks the most recent research published linking head trauma sustained while playing football to chronic brain injuries, though it is by no means conclusive.

As pointed out in the study, the brains examined for the research were donated by family members of football players who may have exhibited symptoms of chronic brain injury prior to death. This creates a selective sample that may not be representative of all football players.

The NFL released a statement praising the study for its role in advancing the science related to chronic head injuries and said it is working with “a wide range of experts to improve the health of current and former NFL athletes.”

“There are still many unanswered questions relating to the cause, incidence and prevalence of long-term effects of head trauma such as CTE,” the statement read.

Last year, the NFL acknowledged for the first time publicly a link between head blows sustained on the football field and brain disease and agreed to a $1 billion settlement to compensate former players who suffer from head trauma-related injuries.
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From: MeNeedIt

Backstreet Boys got their first hit country song this year on a collaboration with country duo Florida Georgia and now the two powerhouse acts are teaming up for a “CMT Crossroads” episode airing Aug. 30.

The cross-genre television show will feature all-star group performances of each other’s biggest singles, including “I Want It That Way,” “As Long As You Love Me,” “Cruise” and “H.O.L.Y.” as well as their partnership on the platinum hit “God, Your Momma, and Me.”

The two groups are popping up together a lot this year. They performed together on the Academy of Country Music Awards this year and are playing a series of baseball stadium tour dates this summer.

Longtime fans

FGL’s Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley are longtime fans of the ’90s boy band icons, who are on an upswing after a successful Las Vegas residency this year. Hubbard said in an email interview with The Associated Press that he’s most looking forward to singing their classic, “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back).”

“It’s crazy to think how we grew up listening to this song and now are on stage performing it together,” Hubbard said. “It still gets me every time!”

With the two groups hitting Boston, Minneapolis and Chicago stadiums, Hubbard said watching the Backstreet Boys performances has been a learning experience.

“These guys are master entertainers, no doubt,” Hubbard said. “But, I gotta say that BK and I have learned to really step up our game all the way around.”

Big hit in Las Vegas

Their performance at the ACMs in Las Vegas in April got everyone from Nicole Kidman to Tim McGraw on their feet to dance along. But the country duo acknowledges that it’s pretty complicated to get all seven singers up on stage together to dance.

“The dance moves are still a new thing for us but we love it, so much so that we even added dancers to our stadium shows,” Kelley said.

Debuting in 2002, “CMT Crossroads” has featured musical mashups between Def Leppard and Taylor Swift, Steven Tyler and Carrie Underwood, and John Mayer and Keith Urban. The one-hour show will air at 10 p.m. Eastern/Pacific on Aug. 30.
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From: MeNeedIt

Eight siblings who grew up in southwestern Indiana have amassed nearly 450 years of combined marriage.

Bruce Clinkenbeard of Freelandville, Indiana, and his wife Sally have been married for 53 years, but that’s just the tip of the Clinkenbeard family’s matrimonial iceberg.

Bruce and his seven siblings have together racked up a combined 448 years of marriage, and counting. Seven of the eight siblings either have been or were married for more than a half-century. That includes a sister who died in 2013 after 63 years of matrimony.

Bill Clinkenbeard has been married 59 years, but he and his wife Karen have always worked out any differences they’ve had. He tells the Vincennes Sun-Commercial their marriage is “a lot of give and take – and a lot of love.”
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From: MeNeedIt