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D - 17 and counting*
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"It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institution of private property. It is both immoral and unfair." --Oscar Wilde
Montreal. Manifestation, August 22: "Most journalists on twitter were conservatively estimating around 25,000, with gusts up to 50,000, while CUTV estimated 80,000 and CLASSE's official estimate was 100,000. In my opinion, the crowd was over 100,000. A tightly packed crowd which takes between forty-five minutes and an hour to pass a given point, and stretches like a giant snake around most of downtown, is to me clearly in excess of 100,000. [I]t was an overwhelmingly large crowd which occupied much of the downtown core for several hours and sent a crystal clear message to politicians and voters alike. The movement is very much alive" (photo, though not of crowd).
RNCon. Hurricane watch: "12:15pm UPDATE: Scott has indicated that, at this point, he doesn't anticipate that the convention will be canceled. Local, state, federal and RNC officials are meeting regularly to decide what to do." Hurricane watch, Weather Underground: "I put the odds of an evacuation occurring during the convention in the current situation at 3%." ... Teebee: "ABC, CBS and NBC are planning to air only one hour of coverage from Tampa during each of the final three nights of the R convention. Problem is: The GOP convention runs four nights, beginning Monday and featuring Ann Romney's speech." ... Teebee: "[Political coverage this year] can drive viewers away, as ABC learned when it looked at the minute-by-minute ratings of "Good Morning America" and saw that people sometimes tuned out when political news was shown." .... Police state: "About 60 agencies will convene at this secret [sekrit] location during the RNCon Convention, working side-by-side to improve communication. Each agency, including the FBI, will have a separate command center for its decision-making. So far, the FBI has not gathered information of planned terrorist attacks during the convention, [FBI's Steven Ibison] said. 'At this point, it's just the [which? Sovereign citizens? Putzes] anarchists' criminal activity.'" All this for something the networks won't give more than an hour to. ... Police state: ""FBI and (Homeland Security) assess with high confidence anarchist extremists will target similar infrastructure in Tampa and Charlotte, with potentially significant impacts on public safety and transportation," according to the law enforcement alert." As opposed to non-anarchist extremists, I suppose.
AK. Fracking: "[Great Bear's President Ed Duncan told a committee of the Alaska State Senate] that the key to continued production in a fracturing operation is a labor intensive continuation of drilling new wells to replace rapidly declining previous wells." ... Extractive economy: "Measure 2 on the August 28th primary ballot would reestablish the Alaska Coastal Management Program. The federal Coastal Zone Management Act allows states that adopt an approved coastal management program to have greater input into development decisions along their coastlines."
AZ. Water: "Gilbert has put two top administrators on leave and launched an internal investigation after officials discovered fluoride has been withheld from part of the town's water supply for at least 13 months. Gilbert voters approved fluoridation 12 years ago after a heated debate on the controversial issue, and the task of adding the cavity-fighting chemical fell to Public Works Director Lonnie Frost [now on leave], whose wife Shelley had led the opposition against fluoride. Fluoride apparently had been withheld from the North Water plant beginning around the same time three new Town Council members were elected and sworn in; at least two have direct ties to the conservative 'tea party' movement." Make up your own jokes!
CA. Rentcropping: "A campaign that calls itself "Home Is Where the Vote Is" [here; here] will launch an eight-state crusade to mobilize the folks who are underwater on their mortgage - they owe more than their home is worth."
FL. Discouraged workers: "In a speech last month, [Scott] bragged, 'The number of people on unemployment has gone from 568,000 to 320,000 people.' Of course, 250,000 of those people had been tossed off the rolls because they had exhausted their benefits. " ... Police state: Palm Beach buys a 9-ton armored personnel carrier, calls it a rescue/emergency/communications vehicle.
IA. Fundraising appeals: "You want loyal Rs to 'defend liberty' by supporting the IA GOP's efforts to get [ME]'s Ron Paul delegates into Tampa? I can't imagine the IA Ds asking me for money to make sure delegates elected halfway across the country were able to wave the flag at the 2008 DNCon." There's your problem...
MI. ObamaCare: Gov. Snyder is abandoning setting up a state-run health insurance exchange system after repeatedly failing to convince fellow Rs to authorize [it]. Instead, the governor will pursue a joint partnership with the federal government to create an online portal for customers to shop for health insurance."
MO. Akin: "To withdraw at the later date, Akin would need to obtain a court order. He also would be required to pay 'any printing or reprinting costs' of ballots." ... Akin: "[H]igh-profile R leaders conveyed that Akin was an unacceptable choice. It seems unlikely that many of [Rs] will vote for Ms. McCaskill. But if 20 percent of Rs vote Libertarian instead, or just skip the race, she'll be a heavy favorite." .... Akin: "[Akin] flew to Tampa to meet with members of the Council for National Policy, a secretive coalition of powerful conservative and evangelical leaders, activists, and donors."
NY. Fracking: "The viability of shale gas production in New York may hinge on a critical policy question: Will chemicals regulated as hazardous material when shipped to well sites and injected into the ground be regulated as hazardous waste when they flow back out?" ... Fracking: "The biggest mystery surrounding the opening day of the New York State Fair [was] where the formal opening ceremony would take place. The presence of large numbers of anti-fracking protesters saw the Governor bypassing the normal gathering near the front gate and the speeches. Instead, a brief ribbon cutting followed by a quick fairgrounds tour, with protesters in tow." ....Public records: "Franklin County legislators approved a plan that will give south-end county residents easier access to records from the clerk's office, for a fee. She proposed in the letter that customers [citizens] pay $300 quarterly for the service." A subscription service for public records?! ... Austerity: "Schenectady could become the next hot spot in the municipal finance crisis sweeping across upstate New York."
OH. Voting: "Issue 2 would establish a 12-member commission to draw the state's legislative and congressional districts, a process now controlled by elected officials. Voters First [filed suit, claiming] the approved [Issue 2] ballot language is incomplete. The wording, for example, omits any references to requirements that the commission draw fair districts that reflect the political preferences of Ohio voters." ... Fracking: "Niles joined Weathersfield Township trustees on Wednesday, passing a resolution to ban all injection wells in the city and township. That includes the proposed site off state Route 169 next to Niles Commerce Park. [I]ltimately it's up to ODNR to approve or reject the permits. [Resident: ] 'ODNR has never denied a permit in their history. If they deny this permit, it'll be the first.'"
OR. C'est normal: "[Kevin Cameron,] the OR House R leader who abruptly stepped down last month says he did so in part because of concerns that the public would find out that he and a handful of other R lawmakers had visited a topless bar." Suggesting where some Tampa streamers should set up shop...
TN. Gaffe: "[The email:] 'I don't give a rat's ass what the black caucus thinks. [State Sen] Jim Summerville.' In the subject line: 'Please share this response with your colleagues.'" And they did, they did! ... Coal: "The TVA is liable for damages caused when one of its containment dikes failed, dumping 1 billion gallons of coal ash sludge onto the community of Watts Bar Lake, TN, a federal judge ruled." The dike's "slimes layer" failed, a great metaphor.
TX. Handmaid's Tale: "A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that TX did not act unconstitutionally when it moved to expel Planned Parenthood from a health and contraceptive care program for low-income women." ... Pipelines: "Lamar County Court-at-Law Judge Bill Harris ruled TransCanada could be considered a 'common carrier' and use eminent domain to condemn a section of [Julia Trigg Crawford's] land for the Keystone XL pipeline." ... Legacy parties: "Chuck McDonald, whose public relations firm has R mega-donor Harold Simmons and his low-level nuclear waste dump as one of its biggest clients, is spinning off time and effort for D U.S. Senate nominee Paul Sadler [against Ted Cruz]." Nice to see McDonald "has some place to go."
VA. Corruption: "Since cost overruns with a jail expansion and new animal shelter came to light, many [Chesapeake] residents say they have lost trust in how elected officials are spending their tax dollars. City Council members, in turn, say they have lost trust in the city staff for not being upfront about the problems."
WI. Corruption: "Farley pretended to represent a Chicago firm seeking a long-stalled county financial contract and said the firm wanted to know, 'What can we do to put it on the agenda?'" ... Handmaid's Tale: "A lineup of prominent state and national pro-life speakers, including Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, had their 'Abortion is not health care' message shouted down in Madison Tuesday, with exchanges between opposing sides at one point nearly coming to blows." .... Shelters: "'If you have things spread all over the city, it's hard to get things done,' [Daniel Callahan] says. 'Especially when you've got backpacks and bags you're carrying around with you.'" Contrary to conventional wisdom, it's hard work to be poor.
Robama vs. Obomney watch. Legacy parties: "The FBI and Miami-Dade police have opened separate criminal investigations into the campaign of a D congressional candidate who, vendors say, was aided by GOP Rep. David Rivera." And D McCaskill gives $2 million to R Akin. Quite a year.
Outside baseball. What it Takes (99¢ Kindle): "Realized this week that "What It Takes" is the movie "SAW" for politics.... The process slaughters these guys." ... Civic engagement: "Your interests may be predator control or music in schools or traffic calming on your street. It doesn't matter. Just identify the biggest problem in your community -- however you define that community -- and start trying to fix it." ... Words matter: "Please get it straight: the concern is about 'polling place Photo ID restrictions' not 'Voter ID'." .... Charters, the awesome Diane Ravitch: "When vouchers are celebrated [e.g.], the subject of test scores is irrelevant. When public schools are condemned, the subject is always test scores. Wonder why." ... Versailles: "In the first year, Orenstein said, [the Disney] princesses brought in $300 million. A decade later, the princesses were a $4-billion-a-year industry, with more than 26,000 princess-related products on the market."
Grand Bargain™-brand Catfood Watch. Medicare: "10 percent said they would support major reductions in Medicare to reduce the deficit and nearly 50 percent would go along with minor reductions." Not one penny!
The trail. Carville: "Shorter 2010: Rs, energized by the Tea Party and stoked by fear, turned out their base. Ds, absurdly disappointed that simply electing Barack Obama didn't solve all our problems, stayed home in droves to 'send a message.'" No more absurd than insulting your base. ... Medicare, swing states, polls: "After more than a week of frenzied campaigning on the issue, Medicare ranks as the third-most crucial issue to likely voters in Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin -- behind the economy and health care, according to new Quinnipiac University/New York Times/CBS News polls of the three swing states."
Romney. Ryan: "It's a nation in debt, in doubt, and decline. We want to get back to the American idea that opportunity society with a safety net, a society of growth, of opportunity, of upper mobility." Nice declension, but it's upward mobility. You're gonna have to study them, you're gonna have to know them. .... Teebee: "A Romney campaign ad accusing Obama of underhanded tactics is the first to change undecided voters' views, a U.S. university study indicates."
Obama. Fault lines: "Here are six campaign fault lines: 1. The Insiders vs. The Outsiders; 2. Washington vs. Chicago;3. Obamaland vs. Joe's World; 4. Obama vs. other Democrats; 5. Obama '08 vs. Obama '12; 6. Family vs. Politics." Interesting tropes, at least. "Obama candidly told those gathered, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), to reorient their priorities -- from them to him." Emphasis mine. ... Less cowbell, Charles Pierce: "[No] matter how correct the president is about the destructively goofy ideas coming from the other side, it doesn't hide the fact that, for too many people, many of [Obama's] policies seem to be happening somewhere else to somebody else. I'd like to hear him give one speech on the current economic crisis in which he doesn't mention The Deficit at all." ... Big Dog to hit the trail: "Obviously, President Clinton has extraordinary credibility on these issues of how you build a strong economy," the official said." I thought Clinton was a racist. Did I not get the memo?
* 17 days until the Democratic National Convention ends with Boston cream pie for everyone on the floor of the Bank of America Panther Stadium, Charlotte, NC. 1 2 3 4....
* * *
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WENATCHEE, Wash. — Overexposure to pesticides caused nine orders for temporary work removal of pesticide applicators in Washington in 2013, according to the state Department of Labor & Industries.
That's the most since 18 were temporarily removed in 2007. There were five in 2012, none in 2011 and 2010, seven in 2009 and one in 2008. There were seven in 2006, 10 in 2005 and a record 22 in 2004, the first year of monitoring.
Those temporarily removed in 2013 were all applicators employed by six separate tree fruit growers in Central Washington, says an L&I report. All nine handled toxic organophosphate and n-methyl carbamate pesticides, including Lorsban 4E, Guthion and Sevin 4F.
Guthion, used to control codling moth in apples and pears and also used in cherries, was banned by the EPA in September 2012. However, growers were allowed to use up existing supplies through September 2013.
The 2014 results should be interesting with Guthion gone, said Richard Fenske, director of the Pacific Northwest Agricultural Safety and Health Center at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Fenske and Kirk Mayer, manager of the Washington Growers Clearing House Association in Wenatchee, were involved in the start of the monitoring program when it was done by the state Department of Health.
The program checks workers for levels of cholinesterase, a blood enzyme needed for nervous system health. A number of compounds, including caffeine, medications and chemicals found in pesticides, can depress cholinesterase levels.
Mayer noted there's never been a reported pesticide illness by anyone monitored by the program. He said he's surprised the number of temporary work removals is up this year and that he gives little credence to the 22 in 2004 because there were procedural problems in the first year.
"When we have a (cholinesterase) depression among pesticide workers it's a fairly high possibility that it's pesticide related, but there's also a smaller possibility it could be caused by other things like diet, drugs and alcohol," Mayer said.
"I've considered it to be a success story because the cholinesterase measurement catches depression before it gets too severe. Workplace removal occurs usually before there's any symptoms," Fenske said.
L&I work site field evaluations of action-level depressions of cholinesterase identified multiple Pesticide Worker Protection Standard violations that may have contributed to over exposure including training, respiratory protection and personal protective equipment requirements, the report states.
"One concern consistently noted during work site evaluations was often finding employer-provided handler training to be of limited quality," the report states.
Early on the program revealed potential exposure from baseball caps and sweatshirt hoods that didn't get cleaned and weren't fully covered by protective clothing, Mayer said.
"A value in the program has been increased cooperation and communication" among L&I and the departments of Agriculture and Health that has led to them working more closely to address potential causes, he said.
The state Department of Agriculture has a good hands-on pesticide applicator training program designed for Spanish-speaking people, Fenske said. The Clearing House Association and other groups sponsors some of the training, the program could use more funding and be expanded, Mayer said.
Temporary worker removal is triggered by a 30-percent depression in red blood cell cholinesterase or a 40-percent decline in serum cholinesterase while a 20-percent depression requires employer review of pesticide handling practices.
There were four cases in the 20 percent range in 2013. A total of 328 growing operations and 1,994 pesticide handlers participated in baseline cholinesterase testing. Of the 1,994, 226 were tested at least once more during the application season.
Use of certain products triggers voluntary baseline testing and the amount of usage triggers second and third testing, Fenske said.
Depression of cholinesterase in the blood and can lead to nerves being over stimulated to the point of exhaustion, blurred vision, diarrhea, tremors, seizures, loss of consciousness and death, L&I has said.
Farm organizations say pesticides are safe if administered properly, but environmentalists have been working for years to ban some of them as too dangerous.

subset: commoncrawl


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Committee Opinion Number 624, February 2015
Reaffirmed 2017
ABSTRACT: Cytology-based cervical cancer screening programs require a number of elements to be successful. Certain low-resource settings, like the U.S. Affiliated Pacific Islands, lack these elements. Implementing alternative cervical cancer screening strategies in low-resource settings can provide consistent, accessible screening opportunities.
Committee Opinion Number 466, September 2010
(Reaffirmed 2016)
ABSTRACT: International humanitarian medical efforts provide essential services to patients who would not otherwise have access to specific health care services. The Committees on Ethics and Global Women's Health of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists encourage College Fellows and other health care professionals to participate in international humanitarian medical efforts for this reason. However, such programs present Fellows with a unique set of practical and ethical challenges. It is important for health care providers to consider these challenges before participating i...
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
409 12th Street SW, Washington, DC 20024-2188 | Mailing Address: PO Box 70620, Washington, DC 20024-9998


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Kwang Jeon received his Ph.D. in cell physiology at King's College, University of London, UK, in 1964 and taught at SUNY Buffalo and University of Tennessee. His research was concerned with the biogenesis and function of cell components in two major areas: Integration of intracellular symbionts into host cells leading to the acquisition of new cell components and cell variation; Membrane-protein recycling during endo- and exocytosis.
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Lake Weir got off on the right foot in Friday night's season opener against Lake Minneola.
CANDLER — Lake Weir got off on the right foot in Friday night's season opener against Lake Minneola.
Malik Lyew-Gregory intercepted Lake Minneola quarterback Jesse Fiske on the third play of the game.
Then, on the next possession for the visitors, the Hurricanes' Will Jackson hit Fiske deep in the Lake Minneola end zone for a safety.
That was as good as it got for Lake Weir. The Hurricanes' 2-0 lead would not only be their only lead of the game; it was the only points they scored in a 34-2 loss.
Lake Minneola scored 34 unanswered points, 14 of them off two Lake Weir turnovers inside the last two minutes of the first half.
"The problem was not (Lake Minneola); the problem was us," Lake Weir head coach Jason Robinson said. "We turned the ball over. We didn't execute properly. Our defense had to carry us tonight. They were on the field a lot tonight."
Even after a Desmond Johnson 59-yard touchdown run for Lake Minneola with just more than three minutes left in the first half, the Hurricanes trailed by only one score, 10-2.
But Lake Weir punter Brian Venezuela mishandled a snap and Lake Minneola set up shop on the Hurricanes 23 with 1:42 left in the half.
Rickie Mortlock connected on a 37-yard field goal extending Lake Minneola's led to 13-2.
After the ensuing kickoff, Lake Weir attempted a hook-and-ladder from its own 20 on first down and then fumbled the pitch. It took only two plays for Johnson to find the end zone for a second time; this time from 15 yards out. That gave the Hawks an 18-point cushion going into the locker room, 20-2.
Lake Minneola used two different style quarterbacks and it caught Lake Weir's defense on its heels.
Fiske ran a spread attack. Then, when Austin Hunt was under center, the Hawks' offense ran quarterback keepers and option plays.
Lake Weir also went with dual quarterbacks, Tyler Rotstein and Culter Blackburn. Both struggled moving the Hurricane offense throughout the night.
Lake Minneola outgained Lake Weir on the ground 237-97.
Lake Weir (0-1) takes on Belleview (1-1) next week.


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Big 12 Campus Correspondent
This time a year ago, John Heard was mopping the floors, grabbing towels and filling up water bottles for the Baylor men's basketball team. Being just a year removed from telling his father he was going to earn a roster spot with the Bears, John was in the early stages of seeing his dream become a reality.
"The whole thing started off when I was a senior in high school," Heard said. "I went to the Elite Eight with my dad when Baylor played Xavier and I pointed to the end of the bench and I told him, 'Hey you see that guy at the end of the bench? I am going to earn that spot right there.'"
After the 2011 spring semester, Heard enrolled in summer classes at Baylor. During that summer, he approached Baylor head coach Scott Drew and asked him what it would take to become a walk-on for the Bears. With no remaining roster spots, the best Drew could offer was a position as a manager for the team through the next season.
"I was a little discouraged at first," Heard said. "But I always try to look at the positives and I thought it would be a good thing to get a little bit bigger and work on my game. Every day I would go to practice and do whatever I could for the team. I would wipe up the floor and watch practice, but then after I would stay and shoot for hours."
John continued to work hard with no promises from the coaching staff. Late at night, Heard would head up to the Ferrell Center to work on his game.
"At a certain time the whole place shuts down," Heard said. "I knew exactly how long it took for me to get from my dorm to here and I would show up two minutes before the whole place locked down. I was just putting in work by myself sometimes until two in the morning on this court. Sometimes I would dream about what it would be like to play in a game and I would put up shots like I was in a game."
John's hard work was rewarded on the first day of official team practice for the 2013-14 season. He walked into the locker room to find a jersey with his name printed across the back.
"Every coach loves to see players get rewarded," head coach Scott Drew said. "To see his excitement and joy, that is part of coaching. We do it because we like to see young people reach their goals and see their hard work pay off. It was really rewarding for us coaches as well."
"I can't put that feeling into words," said Heard. "I thought it was the craziest thing ever. I can't explain the feeling of setting a goal this big for yourself and day after day working towards it, pushing yourself for that one moment and then achieving it."
But John didn't let the feeling hang around long. He knew that he now had a responsibility to the team and had to continue to put in work to make the people around him better. John embraced his new role and immediately went to work on Baylor's guards in practice.
"He has guarded me in practices before," point guard Gary Franklin said. "Coaches let the scout team foul a little bit, so we can get used to taking fouls. He has roughed me up a little bit, but I try to knock some shots down and maybe talk some mess to him. It is a lot of fun having him on the team."
Heard finally heard his name called in Baylor's third game of the season against Louisiana-Lafayette. The long road of hard work to make the team finally culminated in minutes."I think you can always see the excitement from the players," Scott Drew said. "You can see their true respect and appreciation for guys like John when they are in there at the end. They get more fired up and cheer more than maybe any part of the game. I know we enjoyed seeing him get into the games."


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A New Castle County small grains meeting is scheduled for Monday, June 13 from 5:30 to 8:30 with refreshments thereafter. The meeting will feature information on the small grain trials with a yield guessing contest for the brave at heart with a prize of 50 bushels of the top yielding variety at Middletown for you to plant this fall.
New Castle County Small Grains Meeting
June 13, 2011
Middletown UD Coop. Ext. Demonstration Site
Marl Pit Road, approx. 1 mile East of Rt. 301/71
Middletown, DE
5:30 pm Sign-in
6:00 to 6:45 pm Tour Small Grain Variety Trial plots with Bob Uniatowski
6:45 to 7:00 pm Small Grain Disease Update with Bob Mulrooney
7:00 to 7:30 pm Insect Management Update for 2011, Joanne Whalen
7:30 to 8:00 pm Weed Control Issues to Consider, Dr. Mark VanGessel
8:00 to 8:15 pm Market Update, Carl German
8:15 to 8:30 pm Fertility Issues and Reminders, Dr. Richard Taylor
8:30 Refreshments and General Discussion
Special Note: Bob Uniatowski will again be conducting the "Guess the Top Yielding Wheat" contest this year for NCC. The winner will receive 50 bushels of the wheat variety that comes out tops in the Middletown Wheat Variety Trials in 2011.
For more information contact Richard Taylor at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Tiramisu number 2 with frill
Added Jun 1, 2013
Perth, Australia
My second Tiramisu by Cake Patterns. This time I shortened the skirt and added a frill. The third picture shows the understitching I did to make the frill hem sit flat at the skirt edge.
Material Notes
Rayon/Polyester mix, frays like billyo and a total pain to sew with, the sewing room looked like it was covered in ash by the time I'd finished this!
2 Comments Sign in to add a post
Jun 1, 2013, 11.31 PMby schnui
This is a very pretty Tiramisu Jenny. I bet you look lovely in this as I think the colour of the fabric would really suit you. I have made 2 Tiramisus and I love wearing them. They are so comfortable to wear.
1 Reply
Jun 2, 2013, 01.03 AMby jennyrecorder
It's a great little pattern isn't it? I thought it would be perfect for work dresses. My Mum likes it so much that my next project will be one for her, she just needs to choose the fabric…
Jun 1, 2013, 06.07 PMby ndimi
Oooh, ruffles are SO in here in South Africa at the moment, you'd be tres chic wearing that here! Looks like that pattern has taken your fancy. It is a lovely design, and the fabric is gorgeous.
And I am jealous of your dressmaker's dummy! Can't wait until I get one. :)
1 Reply
Jun 2, 2013, 01.00 AMby jennyrecorder
Thankyou Ladies :) As far as the fabric goes however, I was just desperate to make the dress and couldn't find anything that was a bit different. On holiday with my Mum in South Australia, I found the material in a little shop in Victor Harbor at $10 a metre, so I bought enough to make two dresses, I prefer the blue one myself. The dummy was $90 secondhand from a guy who deals in deceased estates, her name is Sylvia and all the stuff I make looks better on her than me!
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NADA has announced the gallery list for the 2018 edition of its Miami fair, which will now serve as the central fair of the organization's yearly programming after its 2019 New York fair was cancelled. Read More »
The Met is looking into plans to lease its space at the Breuer Building to the Frick Collection as the museum undergoes renovation in 2020. The plan would save the museum $45 million. "Our objective in expanding our programming to The Met Breuer was to present the modern collection and other strengths of our encyclopedic holdings, and to enable our curators to organize cutting-edge exhibitions. We are extremely pleased with the visitor response and critical acclaim for these programs and look forward to building on what we have learned in the years ahead at The Met Fifth Avenue," says President Daniel Weiss. Read More »
Jeffrey Deitch has an interview in the LA Times this week, as he tours the newspaper around his new space in Hollywood. "For people coming from different parts of America, coming from different countries," he says, "this is a really L.A. space. And that's what I wanted — an only-in-L.A. space." Read More »
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2013 Hot New Restaurants
The old Richard's Bistro spot is revived once again with the efforts of Executive Chef Jeff Dudley and his able sidekick Chef Joseph Drift of Saffron Bistro fame (pictured below at left). Fine food here is prepared simply and thoughtfully with just a bit of a twist and a nod to Italian cuisine. Think zucchini frites with curry, meatballs with a basil cream sauce or cumin-spiced duck. Fortunately, Richard's renown for a great bread continues here, with extraordinary house-baked breads, even buns for the BLT hamburger.
Hours: Open for dinner Tuesday though Saturday 4 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Not to Miss: The grilled beef tenderloin ($30) is tender and flavorful.
Where: 11Eleven Bistro, 36 Lowell St., Manchester
Contact: (603) 218-3353, 11elevenbistro.com
Quick links to 2013's Hot New Restaurant reviews
Mixteca in Durham | bluAqua Restaurant & Bar in Amherst | Eagle Mountain House in Jackson | N'awlins Grille in Manchester | Graze in New London | High Street Farmhouse in Goffstown | Red Sauce Ristorante in Manchester | PINE at the Hanover Inn | Moonbeam Café in Lancaster | 11Eleven in Manchester | Salt at the Wentworth by the Sea Marriott Hotel & Spa in New Castle | Vida Cantina in Portsmouth | Roam Café in Wilton | More Restaurant News


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FirstNews Briefs: Univision Communications, T-Mobile, Globecomm, Nordic Semiconductor, INSIDE Secure
Univision Communications and T-Mobile US Thurday announced they are joining forces to launch Univision Mobile, a wireless service created specifically for Hispanic Americans. The new service combines the insights and programming content of Univision, a media company serving Hispanic America, with T-Mobile's wireless network. The new service will be available nationwide beginning May 19.
Globecomm, a leading global communications solutions provider, announced today that customers, Adams NetWorks, Inc. and Chariton Valley have commercially launched 4G LTE services to their customers leveraging Globecomm's Hosted LTE solutions.
Ultra low power (ULP) RF specialist Nordic Semiconductor ASA (OSE: NOD) today announces that French multi-die system-in-package (SiP) design specialist, Insight SiP, has developed a miniaturized Nordic nRF51822 System-on-Chip-based Bluetooth Smart module that requires no specialist RF engineering experience to employ and targets highly space-constrained smartphone and tablet appcessories, and computer accessories, such as body-worn health and wellness sensors and key fob proximity detectors.
INSIDE Secure, provider of embedded security solutions for mobile and connected devices, today announced at CARTES America the launch of a white-label Android application for Host Card Emulation (HCE) based payments. The new MatrixHCE product enables mobile payment application providers to accelerate time to market by using the pre-validated HCE payment functionality. It includes the highest level of software security to defend against any attacks in the hostile mobile environment.


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Soybeans reached a six-week low in Chicago after government reports showed improving prospects for U.S. yields and bigger-than-expected inventories. Corn fell to the lowest since 2010, while wheat rose.
Fifty-three percent of soybeans were in good or excellent condition as of Sept. 29, up from 50 percent a week earlier, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said yesterday. Harvesting is about 11 percent complete. Domestic inventories totaled 141 million bushels on Sept. 1, more than the 125 million bushels projected on Sept. 12, the USDA said in a separate report yesterday.
"Farmers continue to harvest better soybean and corn yields than they expected, signaling bigger crops than the USDA has forecast," Jason Ward, a market analyst for Northstar Commodity Investment Co. in Minneapolis, said in a telephone interview. "Supplies are getting bigger, and prices are adjusting lower."
Soybean futures for delivery in November dropped 1.1 percent to close at $12.68 a bushel at 1:15 p.m. on the Chicago Board of Trade. The oilseed touched $12.635, the lowest for a most-active contract since Aug. 16. Prices have tumbled 10 percent this year on the expectation that U.S. production would recover from drought in 2012 and Brazil and Argentina will combined for a record crop.
Corn futures for delivery in December declined 0.6 percent to $4.39 a bushel in Chicago, after touching $4.3525, the lowest since Aug. 31, 2010. The grain has retreated 37 percent this year.
Stockpiles in the U.S., the world's top grower, were 824 million bushels on Sept. 1, 25 percent more than the 661 million estimated Sept. 12, the USDA said. Analysts in a Bloomberg survey expected 694 million bushels, on average.
The data will probably push corn and soybeans lower and widen wheat's premium to corn, Damien Courvalin, a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analyst, said in a report dated yesterday.
Wheat futures for delivery in December rose 0.4 percent to $6.8125 a bushel on the CBOT, after rising 3.2 percent in the third quarter on shrinking U.S. inventories.
Copyright 2014 Bloomberg. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.


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Fact of the matter was that his teammates should have flattened any Coiler within 3 ft of the puck - there should not have been 4 straight shots on Luongo before the goal. This one was on them, not Luongo.
On another matter, the 3rd line looked good after an iffy 1st period. If Malhotra, Hansen and Higgins can get some more chemistry it'll be 'Raffi who?" The 4th line looked like a 4th line should - human torpedoes who create enough havoc to keep the opposition on their heels for the most part. Nice to see Vic O skating and hitting like a freight train. Volpatti made a couple good tattoos as well.
I think if it was anybody but one of their golden 1st overall picks, it may not have drawn the same reaction. That said, it is getting bad. Maybe coincidental roughing penalties will cut down on that kind of nonsense. If a player wants to stick up for himself after getting hit, or if people want to react to a dirty hit that's one thing - what's happening now is garbage.Cornuck wrote:Yeah - it's getting worse each year - and from what I've seen this season, it's at an all time high. Sure, stick up for your teammates after cheap, illegal hit - but after every fucking hard hit?? Grow a pair and wait for revenge. Quit slowing the game down with meaningless shoving and face washes.
As for Hodgson, the kid was due for a game like this. He's been trying and just getting stymied for almost all the pre-season. He's looked good so far, and I hope this gives him the confidence to get a couple more before Kes comes back. The question Ron and the boys were asking though, is - if Hodgson really proves he belongs in the top 6, what do they do when Kes and Raymond come back? Nice problem for Gillis to have, but fodder for a discussion in another thread.


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One year later, Lac-Megantic families struggle to carry on
It's been a year since Lac-Megantic, Que., burned while the world watched.
A crude-oil train was supposed to have been parked for the night, 12 km down the tracks from the Quebec border town, but instead began rolling towards the community just before 1 a.m. last July 6.
As in many places across Canada, the freight tracks run right through the centre of town.
Locals in Lac-Megantic were accustomed to seeing the night trains come through at low speed, so patrons at the packed Musi-Cafe bar, metres from the tracks, knew something was wrong when the locomotive and 72 cars barrelled towards them at highway velocity.
The train rolled off the tracks, crushing the bar and nearby homes before exploding into bright orange fireballs.
Anyone in the area who wasn't immediately crushed to death or incinerated was singed by superheated air as the aging, mislabelled tanker cars exploded, one at a time.
The tourist town resembled a war zone by sunrise. In all, 47 people had been killed in Canada's deadliest railway explosion.
Some families lost more than one member — extended heartache for those left behind.
Here are four stories of children who lost their mothers in the blast.
'I'm no longer at rock bottom': Estel Blanchet
Natachat Gaudreau used to cook all the time for her 17-year-old daughter Estel Blanchet. Estel says her heart now breaks whenever she sees kids eating homemade food at school.
The death her mom plunged Estel into what felt like a bottomless pit of despair.
In the weeks following the deadly explosion, Estel made a promise not to let her sadness interfere with her studies. Natachat was a single mom who raised her and her brother and was proud of Estel's education.
With a heavy heart, Estel left Lac-Megantic, Que., and went to college in thew province's Beauce region. From the start she noticed that the parents of many students "took a lot of care of them," doing simple things like bringing them food.
"Seeing people eat food that their mom made was very difficult," she said. "It made me really miss my mom."
Estel Blanchet, pictured, lost her mother Natachat Gaudreau in the Lac-Megantic disaster. (Sarah Belisle/QMI Agency)
Even tougher was seeing the notes from "mom" that would accompany the thoughtful packages.
Despite her promise to herself, Estel struggled at college. She took difficult science classes, which required a lot of studying.
"I was too sad and my head was not in it," she said.
Her grades were not good, which discouraged her even more. Estel quit school, but swore she would return.
Natachat Gaudreau was at the Musi-Cafe listening to music when the train exploded. The majority of the people who died in the explosions that night were there.
"(The explosions) made me grow up a lot faster than I ever expected," Estel told QMI Agency. "I really wasn't ready."
In January, she returned to college, got herself into a routine and found her spirits improving — along with her grades.
"I think of my mom every day," she said, "but I don't spend my days sobbing. I'm no longer at rock bottom."
Hockey and family saved Tristan Lecours
In the year since Tristan Lecours lost his mom Marie-Noelle Faucher in the tragedy at Lac-Megantic, Que., he has gone through a range of emotions.
The only time the 16-year-old said he feels at peace now is when he's playing hockey.
Marie-Noelle Faucher was at the Musi-Cafe the night the runaway train exploded. The morning after, when Lecours heard that his mom didn't come home, he was inconsolable and furious.
"I wondered, why me?" Lecours said. "I already only had a mom, why couldn't this happen to someone else?"
His father, who died six months before the explosion, had never played a role in his life.
Lecours very quickly immersed himself into the one thing that would help him forget — hours playing hockey for his Lac-Megantic team.
Tristan Lecours, centre, is pictured with his aunt, Maude Faucher, left, and grandmother, Germaine Faucher. (Sarah Belisle/QMI Agency)
The team won its league championship this season. Lecours said was because "my teammates wanted to win it for me."
A few weeks after his mom's death, Lecours returned to school, going into Grade 10. He said it was an anxious time, but his friends and teachers were there to support him.
Lecours had to adjust to a new family dynamic. He moved about 20 km away to a home with his aunt and uncle and their three kids.
"We were always a close family," Lecours said.
Lecours' aunt, Maude Faucher, told QMI Agency that the past year has been "one of adapting.
"Adapting to a new life that will never be the same without my sister, adapting to having a new son … and a new reality."
In April, Lecours celebrated his 16th birthday, his first without his mom. He said he was focused on the provincial hockey championships, which were underway at the time.
"I didn't let myself cry in front of people," Lecours said.
Sad birthdays for young Nathan and Loic
Months before his birthday, Nathan Proteau's mom bought him the iPod he wanted when he turned nine years old. Sadly, she wasn't around to give it to him in August.
It was Nathan's grandparents who gave him the iPod, one month after his mother Karine Champagne was killed in the Lac-Megantic, Que., explosion.
There were no smiles at the birthday celebration.
"There was such sadness in his eyes," said Danielle Champagne, the boy's grandmother.
"Now, he has his iPod and he plays with it a lot. He knows it was the last present he'll ever get from his mom."
Karine Champagne, centre, is pictured in a photo with her sons Nathan and Loic Proteau. (Sarah Belisle/QMI Agency)
The last year has been a difficult one for Nathan and his older brother Loic, 11. There were perhaps no more difficult days than their late mom's birthday, when they visited her grave to place flowers and balloons.
"Tears were shed. We cried a lake of tears that day," Champagne said.
Since the explosion, the boys have been staying with their dad, who separated from their mom a few years ago. They also spend a lot of time with their late mom's parents. In fact, they each have a bedroom at their grandparents' house.
On Mother's Day, Champagne and her grandkids decided to celebrate Karine, and Karine only. Danielle made lunch, including a chocolate tart Karine loved so much.
They had a picnic at the cemetery and placed Karine's urn nearby so that she could be with them.
"We had a lovely day. We told stories, and even laughed," Champagne said.
The grandparents said they make a point of talking to the kids about Karine as much as possible. They say they will continue to remind the boys where they came from. "If they do something that reminds us of Karine," Champagne said, "we'll tell them, Mom used to be exactly like that!"
Little Millianna is taken care of
The walls are painted the same colours and adorned with the same decorations. On the bed, there are even the same teddy bears. Millianna's grandparents have recreated her old bedroom, which was destroyed in the explosions at Lac-Megantic, Que.
"It's important that she feels at home," grandmother Solange Belanger said.
Now, 2 1/2, Millianna was just a year old when both her parents were killed in the Lac-Megantic disaster. For most of the last year, she has bounced back and forth between the families of her late mother and father. She now lives full time with her dad's mom, Belanger, and her partner Claude Chouinard.
The grandparents said the first couple of months were hard on the girl. She would wake up crying in the middle of the night, looking for her mom and dad.
Millianna, centre, lives with her grandparents Solange Belanger and Claude Chouinard. Millianna's parents were killed in the Lac-Megantic disaster. (Valerie Gonthier/QMI Agency)
Belanger and Chouinard have done all they can to give Millianna a normal life. She still attends the same daycare and still plays with the same friends.
Millianna still has trouble sleeping. "She spends most nights in our room, sleeping between the two of us."
The presence of Millianna in their lives has helped to dull the pain of the tragedy that killed 47 people in Lac-Megantic.
"We cried so much," she said, "But because of the little one, we had to make sure that life goes on."
It almost didn't for Millianna. Her grandparent's picked her up for a sleepover just hours before the explosions. Belanger and Chouinard invited Millianna's parents as well, but they wanted to have a romantic evening to themselves.
The couple, both in their 50s, say that their greatest wish is to stay healthy long enough to watch her grow up. She may have lost a son, but Belanger gained a daughter.


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This is the automated brewing system used in professional microbreweries, scaled for the home brewmeister. Available exclusively from Hammacher Schlemmer, this Heat Exchange Recycling Mash (HERM) system creates a refreshing lager, a spirited Hefe-weizen, or a full-bodied stout by simply entering a recipe via an integrated touch screen computer. A 15-gallon hot liquor tank with a built-in heat exchange raises strike/sparging water to the ideal brewing temperature and automatically circulates it to a 15-gallon mash/lauter tun that extracts sugar from the ground grain, or mash. When the extraction is complete, the liquid is pumped to a 20-gallon boil kettle where the mash is converted into the final wort. During the boil, the system reminds users to pitch hops according to the recipe entered. After the boil has finished, the wort is cooled as it is pumped from the boil kettle to a free-standing 14-gallon stainless steel fermentation tank, and the unit signals when it is time to add yeast. Electric level sensors, gauges, and temperature detectors relay information back to the computer, providing accurate, real-time monitoring of the brewing process. All receptacles as well as the 30" H x 96" L x 28" D mobile worktable are made from industrial-grade 304 stainless steel. Includes 15-lb. grain mill, eight reusable 5-liter mini kegs, two 2-liter growlers, six 19-oz. dimpled beer steins, and mash tun mixing paddle. Special conditions and guarantee limitations apply.
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|A married architect and his equally married neighbor begin an affair. Their lives become a series of deceptions. Lavish but uninvolving soaper. Written by Evan Hunter and based on his novel.
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Congratulations to Rajesh Bhaskaran for being a recipient of the 2016-2017 Excellence in Teaching Award
Congratulations to Rajesh Bhaskaran for being a recipient of the 2016-2017 Excellence in Teaching Award. Bhaskaran was honored with the Dennis G. Shepherd Memorial Teaching Prize.
Rajesh Bhaskaran is a Sr. Lecturer and Swanson Director of Engineering Simulation in the Sibley School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering at Cornell University.
Dr. Bhaskaran's work seeks to promote the "democratization of simulation" through effective integration of simulation tools into engineering education. He directs the Swanson lab and has helped introduce industry-standard simulation tools into Cornell courses covering fluid mechanics, heat transfer, solid mechanics and numerical analysis. He has led the development of simcafe.org as an online portal for learning and teaching finite-element and CFD simulations. SimCafe is used worldwide in courses as well as for self-paced learning by students and industry professionals. He has developed a unified methodology for using simulation in disparate lecture-based and lab courses. This methodology helps students learn to approach simulations like an expert would rather than just pushing buttons and accepting results at face value. Dr. Bhaskaran's professional interests include: Engineering applications of simulation technology, reliable deployment of advanced simulation by generalist engineers and conceptual change in learners using simulations. He has organized two international workshops on simulation in engineering curricula.


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Thirteen St. Bonaventure University students were inducted into the Theta Rho chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the English international honor society, on April 29.
The English majors, minors, and graduate students who were honored are Lea Battaglia, Jack Boechel, Stephanie Boeher, Tamalyn Brown-Penders, Erin Dempsey, Kelsey Donnelly, Marcus Jones, Brett Keegan, Michelle Robertson, Angelia Roggie, Kelcie Rombach, Jessica Thompson, and Brianna Wilson.
Faculty moderators for the chapter are Lauren Matz and Tracy Schrems.
Application forms, procedures and additional information
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Choose your pet's breed from over 500 figurines.
For your beloved Schnauzer, this stunning urn is available in:
Because this pet urn offers you purebred dog figurines attached to our beautiful wood urn bases, it creates a lasting memorial.
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WATERVILLE, Maine (AP) — Colby College has set the opening date for a new pavilion at its art museum.
The Waterville college says the July 13, 2013, opening of the 26,000-square-foot Alfond-Lunder Family Pavilion will make the Colby College Museum of Art the largest art museum in Maine. The $15-million pavilion creates a light-filled gateway to the existing museum and provides an additional 10,000 square feet of exhibition space.
The inaugural exhibitions at the expanded museum will focus on a collection donated by Peter and Paula Lunder, valued at more than $100 million and including works from renowned American artists such as Mary Cassatt, Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper and Georgia O'Keeffe, among others.
With the expansion, the museum will have over 8,000 works of art and more than 35,000 square feet of exhibition space.


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This special issue of the Hudson Reporter newspaper replaces your regular weekly issues in Hoboken, Guttenberg, North Bergen, Secaucus, Jersey City, West New York, Weehawken, and Union City.
This issue is a "2009 Year in Review" issue, and the upcoming Jan. 3, 2010 issue will be a "2010 Preview" issue. The regular editions will resume on Jan. 10, 2010.


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If you were going to write a book, the chances are you'd sit yourself in front of a full-size keyboard connected to a full-size computer screen before you embarked on your full-size project. Not so Brit Georgina Campbell.
She bashed out a 55,600-word book on, of all things, her BlackBerry smartphone. The 41-year-old Londoner said the idea to put thumb to keyboard came about after watching the 2011 sci-fi movie Attack the Block. While daughter Lorra loved it, Georgina thought it was abysmal and so bet Lorra she could write something better. It was then she grabbed her writing tool of choice and started work on her novel.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, Georgina said it took four months to complete the gritty tale of a group of girls growing up in inner-city London, writing it entirely on the phone's native MemoPad app.
"When I started writing the book I would normally do it after a 12-hour shift at work and it would be a breeze – I loved it and wrote through the night," she told the Mail. "It was almost like a holiday – I'd just sit down and start typing the book out on my BlackBerry using my two thumbs."
Georgina said the phone was the ideal writing tool simply because it was with her all the time. "I was writing on the train, on breaks at work, waiting for a bus, having a bath, when I was walking around – anywhere. It completely took over my life – all I thought about morning to night was writing the book." Four months after tapping out the first word, The Kickdown Girls made it to Amazon.
Possibly the most remarkable part of the story, however, is that despite her round-the-clock commitment, her thumbs are still fully operational instead of finishing up as mere worn-down stumps; she didn't even develop BlackBerry thumb, the repetitive strain injury linked to excessive use of the physical keyboard so beloved by BlackBerry users.
Whether Georgina's work is better than the script of Attack the Block is something for readers to decide, though at the time of writing the publication is languishing at 257,164 in Amazon's book chart and has no reader reviews.


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Women with BRCA1/2 mutations have a significantly higher lifetime risk of developing breast or ovarian cancer. We suggest that female mutation carriers may have improved fitness owing to enhanced fertility relative to non-carriers. Here we show that women who are carriers of BRCA1/2 mutations living in natural fertility conditions have excess fertility as well as excess post-reproductive mortality in relation to controls. Individuals who tested positive for BRCA1/2 mutations who linked into multi-generational pedigrees within the Utah Population Database were used to identify putative obligate carriers. We find that women born before 1930 who are mutation carriers have significantly more children than controls and have excess post-reproductive mortality risks. They also have shorter birth intervals and end child-bearing later than controls. For contemporary women tested directly for BRCA1/2 mutations, an era when modern contraceptives are available, differences in fertility and mortality persist but are attenuated. Our findings suggest the need to re-examine the wider role played by BRCA1/2 mutations. Elevated fertility of female mutation carriers indicates that they are more fecund despite their elevated post-reproductive mortality risks.
1. Introduction
Women with BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations have an estimated 40 to 85 per cent lifetime risk of developing breast cancer and 16 to 64 per cent risk of ovarian cancer [1–3]. These mutations are relatively prevalent, raising the possibility that these mutations may have beneficial effects despite the significant excess cancer risk. Could women with these mutations, whose breast and ovarian cancers arise typically after menopause, bear more children and have a longer reproductive interval? No studies have been conducted that focus exclusively on whether fertility as well as survival differences exist between female BRCA1/2 mutation carriers and non-carriers under natural fertility conditions, and whether these differences persist when modern contraception is available (see the studies of Moslehi et al. [4] and Mai et al. [5] that share some important features of this analysis).
The purpose of this study is to address two fundamental issues. First, what mechanisms may explain why BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations persist in human populations given their adverse health consequences? Genetic variants have been shown to have pleiotropic functions, with beneficial effects possibly outweighing their adverse effects [6]. Excess mortality (due primarily to breast and ovarian cancer) risks that occur among mutation carriers could be adequate to result in strong negative selection [7]. We hypothesize that while BRCA1/2 gene mutations increase cancer incidence and mortality in middle and later adulthood, mutation carriers may have enhanced reproductive fitness because of elevated fertility rates, which may compensate for their excess levels of post-menopausal mortality. Second, we also hypothesize that the fertility effects of being a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation carrier are different in periods when no modern contraception available compared with periods where individuals may be making family planning decisions based on predictive genetic risk information heretofore unavailable. We hypothesize that family cancer history and the advent of genetic testing, along with the availability of effective family planning methods, lead to lower levels of fertility for female BRCA1/2 mutation carriers in relation to non-carriers. These hypotheses are tested using a unique resource, the Utah Population Database (UPDB), which identifies putative obligate carriers of BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations whose descendants were tested directly for these mutations.
2. Study design
BRCA1/2 mutation carriers were identified from two longitudinal studies. The first was a large, prospective study that analysed the fertility behaviours and attitudes of BRCA1 mutation carriers. Participants of this study were members of a large Utah multi-generational pedigree or kindred (K2082) with an identified mutation at the BRCA1 locus. To increase our sample size and include carriers of deleterious mutations in both BRCA1 and BRCA2, participants from the High-Risk Breast Cancer Clinic (HRBCC) at the University of Utah's Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) were also selected. The HRBCC is a research resource for individuals with a family history of breast and ovarian cancer. A detailed description of methods, eligibility criteria and protocols for both studies has been described elsewhere [1,8]. There were 133 female mutation carriers from 49 kindreds (each with a unique founder) selected for this study based on the availability of their genetic test results from these two sources. Genetic testing for individuals in K2082 and the HRBCC were performed by Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act-approved laboratories. Tests for a few initial enrollees were done by the University of Utah's DNA Diagnostic Laboratory, but nearly all the remainder were conducted by Myriad Genetics [1,9,10] after these individuals were provided with extensive genetic counselling and gave their informed consent. Subjects were then classified as a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation carrier. Both studies were approved by the University of Utah's Institutional Review Board and the Resource for Genetic and Epidemiologic Research.
Information about each carrier's relatives was obtained from the UPDB. UPDB is a population-based resource used for biomedical research. UPDB holds data on approximately seven million individuals derived from genealogical, demographic and medical records spanning the past two centuries [11,12]. Linked genealogical and birth certificate records are contained within the UPDB and permit the identification of multi-generational pedigrees that range from 2 to 11 generations. Data from the Utah Cancer Registry, Idaho Cancer Registry and Utah death certificates are linked to the family history (genealogical) records to construct an extensive biodemographic research database.
Pedigree information of carriers was used to identify ancestors who are putative mutation carriers. Mutation status of ancestors in the UPDB was derived based on pedigree position and relationship to multiple tested carriers. Families with multiple tested mutation carriers were reviewed to identify the transmission of the mutation through the pedigree. This was done by first identifying two or more individuals who were directly tested and found to be carriers of the same BRCA1/2 mutation. The closest common ancestor (i.e. founder) between the two (or more) tested individuals was then identified based on the UPDB. All individuals that connect the founder and the tested individuals were identified as putative obligate mutation carriers.
Several selection criteria were used to identify the sample from the UPDB. Each individual was required to have complete information on birth dates, fertility history and age at last birth. The UPDB contains comprehensive birth history information, but no data exist for pregnancies and stillbirths. The few individuals who were members of a polygamous relationship were excluded. To focus the assessment of fertility on monogamous unions, only individuals who were married once are included. Individuals who never married or had incomplete spouse information were excluded. All offspring were required to have complete birthdates and to have been born in Utah or Idaho. The birth years before 1930 were used to approximate an era when women would have limited access to modern birth control (e.g. oral contraceptives) until their mid-30s at the earliest. Tested carriers born after 1975 were also not selected as a result of their severely censored fertility experience.
The first step in selecting controls from the UPDB was to identify founders for the 49 HRBCC/K2082 kindreds with a known mutation. Any descendants of these 49 founders were excluded from consideration as a control. Controls were selected by matching birth year of the mutation carriers. We restricted the analysis to parous individuals. This specification was used because the study design requires that all putative obligate carriers had at least one child survive to reproductive age. In other words, since there needs to be an unbroken chain of descendants connecting the founders to tested individuals among the obligate carriers, it was necessary to impose the same pedigree structure on the controls. Controls, like the carriers, were also required to have one spouse and complete fertility information.
The final sample of 181 carriers comprised carriers born before 1930 (obligate n = 48, directly tested n = 11) and tested female carriers (n = 122) born between 1930 and 1975, and 15 : 1 matched controls (n = 885 controls for the pre-1930 carriers and n = 1830 controls for the post-1930 women). Drawing on the UPDB, the potential pool of population-based controls (as well as mutation carriers) were those who were born before 1975, had no ancestors or descendants who were carriers, and, like the carriers, were once married with complete spouse information, had at least one child where the mother's age at first birth was known and gave birth to all children in Utah or Idaho. A control is unlikely to be a carrier given that none of their tested descendants are carriers and they themselves were not descendants of obligate carriers. If a carrier was incorrectly counted as a control, this misclassification would create a conservative bias. This protocol resulted in a pool of 101 023 potential controls that excluded 5536 descendants of the BRCA1 or BRCA2 founders. Women were restricted to survive to at least age 45 in order to observe completed (or nearly completed) fertility. We also report post-reproductive mortality risks associated with the BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations. This survival restriction excludes 12 per cent of carriers and 5 per cent of controls, a difference that might again yield conservative results.
Two supporting complementary analyses were also conducted. The first, and the most historical, examined female fertility of the BRCA1/2 mutation founders (n = 49) with 15 : 1 matched (by birth year) controls (n = 733). This analysis (hereafter the 'founder' analysis) was conducted to assess fertility at the earliest possible point where natural fertility conditions prevailed. The second, and the most contemporary, considered women who enrolled at the HRBCC and completed questionnaires that asked about their reproductive history. They are from high-risk breast cancer families who enrolled at the HRBCC between 1994 and 2006, all of whom were tested for BRCA1/2 mutations. Given that contemporary women have substantially lower fertility, it is more informative to assess whether these women differed in their ability to conceive according to their mutation status, information obtained from the HRBCC questionnaire and unavailable for the larger sample of carriers in the UPDB.
(a) Statistical methods
We examined several measures of fertility. The first indicator is the number of children ever born (CEB). To examine the relationship between CEB and mutation status we used ordinary least squares (OLS) as well as Poisson regression (results were very similar; accordingly, we show here the OLS regressions results; Poisson results are given in the electronic supplementary material). This was done for both the full sample and the founder analysis. The availability of effective birth control methods was considered by performing separate regressions for carriers born before 1930 and born during 1930–1974. The year 1930 was selected because women born after that date would be fecund at the time modern family planning methods, notably exogenous hormones, became available. Mutation status was represented by a dummy variable, carrier (=1) versus control (=0). The other covariates used in all fertility models were birth year, age at first birth, and, when appropriate, age at marriage and the number of offspring who died as children. A dummy variable that describes whether a woman was an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS, or Mormon) status was used in the pre-1930 models. A second fertility model was estimated to assess whether there was effect modification due to historical time. This was done by introducing a two-way interaction between mutation status and birth year (or whether born before or after 1930).
The effect of the subjects' parental fertility patterns on CEB was also considered, since a subject's parents' fertility might be associated with both the subject's mutation status and fertility. The number of siblings was therefore included in the regressions. The addition of parental fertility patterns did not alter the effect of mutation status and was therefore excluded from the models shown.
We investigated whether carriers were more likely to exceed the average number of children for their cohort. The association between fertility and mutation status was estimated by multiple logistic regression. The mean number of children for the sample was 3.73, so subjects with four or more children were classified as having 'more' children. The dependent variable was coded 1 if the subjects had four or more children; all other subjects were coded 0.
Additional measures of reproductive behaviours are examined that reflect underlying fecundity (particularly for those born during the pre-1930 era), as well as efforts to limit fertility through family planning (primarily for those born in 1930 or later). Moreover, we sought to avoid any artefacts that might produce an association between fertility and mutation status. In particular, it is possible that contemporary individuals chose to be tested genetically (with some testing positive) because they come from large families where the consequences of the test results could be particularly significant. If seeking genetic testing is linked to family size, then pedigrees containing mutation-positive persons may also contain putative obligate carriers with greater fertility. Accordingly, we have expanded the measures of fertility that are less sensitive to this potential limitation: age at first birth, first birth interval, average birth interval (mean length of time between all consecutive births with adjustments for twinning) and age at last birth. While all of these measures are related to CEB, they do provide additional assessments of fecundity, particularly for those bearing children before the advent of modern contraception. An examination of these characteristics also provides an opportunity to isolate the specific demographic components of fertility through which BRCA1/2 mutations may be operating. These additional outcomes are all continuous variables and are analysed using OLS regression.
To assess HRBCC women with respect to the effects of BRCA1/2 on difficulties becoming pregnant, we estimated logistic regressions for the dependent variable (1 = yes, 0 = no) based on the following question: 'Did you ever try for one straight year or more to become pregnant and, during that time, not become pregnant?' We analysed all HRBCC participants between ages 18 and 64 (n = 419) who answered this question. Covariates included in the model are age at interview, birth control usage, total live births at time of interview and marital status.
Mortality differences between BRCA1/2 carriers and controls for survival past age 45 are presented as shown in figure 1d (see electronic supplementary material, table S1), based on Cox proportional hazard regression analyses for persons born before 1930. They show significant excess mortality risks associated with being a carrier of a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation.
3. Results
Descriptive statistics are displayed in table 1 and show that mutation carriers had approximately two more children (CEB) than controls. For example, controls born before 1930 had a mean CEB of 4.19 while carriers from the same era had 6.22.
Figure 1a and electronic supplementary material, table S2 report the results of OLS regressions showing the effects of mutation status on CEB. There is a significant association between mutation status and CEB for pre-1930 carriers who have an average of 1.91 more children than controls. Excess and significant levels of CEB are also detected for post-1930 carriers, though the increase is attenuated to 0.61 CEB. The decline in the fertility effect of carrier status before and after 1930 is statistically significant (p < 0.001), a result that is largely attributable to the effects of BRCA1 carriers specifically. The significant fertility-enhancing effects of BRCA1/2 mutations are also detected based on the founder sample (electronic supplementary material, table S3): carriers have 1.17 more children than controls (p < 0.01) and are 2.67 times more likely to have four or more children (95% CI: 1.26–5.68).
To address the possibility that these fertility influences are attributable to unique mutations found among specific founders [10], we identified 23 distinct mutations for those born prior to 1930 and 37 for the more recent cohort (the two birth cohorts share 20 mutations; see electronic supplementary material, table S4). The most frequent mutation, c.3937C>T [13,14], is associated with K2082, with the remaining mutations comprising very small percentages; the next most frequent mutations comprised approximately 10 per cent of their respective cohorts (c.213-11T>G for the pre-1930 cohort, c.2035A>T for the later cohort). To address the possibility that members of K2082 may be dominating the results, we excluded their members and re-estimated our models. For pre-1930 carriers (42 carriers and 630 controls), the effects were again significant (1.76 more CEB, p < 0.001); a significant (albeit attenuated) effect was also detected for tested women (0.51 more CEB, p < 0.005; electronic supplementary material, table S2).
Logistic regressions were also estimated where the dependent variable measures whether an individual had four or more children. In relation to controls, pre-1930 carriers were approximately 3.6 times (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.85–7.15) more likely to have four or more children, whereas tested carriers born after 1930 were approximately 2.04 times more likely (95% CI: 1.37–3.02; see electronic supplementary material, table S5).
The impact of carrier status on the timing and pacing of child-bearing is shown in figure 1b,c (electronic supplementary material, table S6). For pre-1930 carriers, their fertility is marked by significantly shorter first and average birth intervals, as well as later ages at last birth. No influence of mutation status was detected for an early age at first birth. Post-1930 carriers show an earlier age at first birth; average and first birth intervals are shorter and age at last birth later; but all are insignificant.
For contemporary high-risk women under age 65 seen at the HRBCC, we compared BRCA1/2 mutation carriers with non-carriers with respect to their difficulty getting pregnant when intending to do so, according to the HRBCC questionnaire. No differences were detected between these two groups (OR = 0.904, 95% CI 0.52–1.58), and this null result did not vary by BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation status (BRCA1: OR = 1.03, 95% CI: 0.55–1.93; OR = 0.74, 95% CI: 0.35–1.54; electronic supplementary material, table S7). These results suggest that comparisons of contemporary women's fertility by mutation status may be difficult when women's reproductive plans are strongly affected by choice.
4. Discussion
Our findings indicate that female mutation carriers bear more children, have shorter birth intervals and reproduce later in life than matched controls, a difference that is large initially when effective contraception is absent. Mutation carriers also have excess mortality after age 45 in relation to controls. This finding is probably owing to mortality from breast and ovarian cancer in BRCA1 mutation carriers, and cancers of the breast, ovary, pancreas and melanoma in BRCA2 mutation carriers. For those with death certificates in the pre-1930 cohort, carriers (n = 33) had 18 per cent who died from breast cancer and 27 per cent from ovarian cancer. Among controls (n = 621), the figures were 3 per cent and 1 per cent, respectively, estimates very close to those for the general population (www.cancer.org). Mai et al. [5] suggest that other causes of death are also elevated among mutation carriers.
What are the mechanisms that connect BRCA1 mutations to female fertility? Recent studies suggested that BRCA1/2 mutations limit embryogenesis [15–18], suggesting impaired reproductive fitness. Murine models have shown that homozygous deletions of BRCA1/2 result in embryonic lethality [16], while heterozygous mice developed normally and were fertile. Homozygous BRCA1/2 human embryos have been shown to spontaneously abort [3]. Pal et al. [19] argued that numerous mechanisms alter the process of cell cycle and division and DNA repair, and given that many are affected by BRCA proteins, BRCA1/2 mutations may limit rather than promote reproduction.
These predictions have not, however, been supported by the human data. Indeed, three recent investigations examining this association show that mutation status has no effect on female fertility. Pal et al. [19] asked whether female fertility was affected among carriers of BRCA1/2 mutations in relation to family controls, all in a contemporary population. They found that parity was the same between carriers and non-carriers. Friedman et al. [3] found no differences between carriers and non-carriers in terms of spontaneous abortions. Moslehi et al. [4] compared the fertility of mutation carriers and non-carriers with ovarian cancer and controls based on a largely contemporary sample of Ashkenazi Jewish women (born after 1930). They concluded that there was no evidence that BRCA mutations affected female fertility.
What mechanisms may be involved in a positive association between BRCA1/2 mutations and fertility? We suggest that an association between telomeres and BRCA mutations are consistent with the findings reported here (see also [19]). This proposed mechanism relies on (at least) two linkages: one between BRCA mutations and telomere length, and another between telomere length and fertility. With respect to the former, French et al. [20] reported that the disruption of BRCA1 may result in telomere lengthening (see also [21]). They also confirmed that the overexpression of BRCA1 limits telomerase activity and reduces telomere length. Their results suggest a possible role of BRCA1 mutations in protecting telomeres. Ballal et al. [22] also found that BRCA1 overexpression is associated with telomere shortening (for an exception, see [23]).
While previous studies have shown that longer telomeres are associated with increases in longevity [24] as well as reductions in the risk of major causes of death (except cancer), early evidence suggests that longer telomeres play a role in enhancing reproduction. Keefe et al. [25,26] note that telomerase, the enzyme that maintains telomere length, is not active in oocytes (but is during the blastocyst stage) so oocytes have their full telomere length at the earliest point of development. They argue that the lengthy period between foetal life and ovulation in mid-life would expose oocytes to the effects of reactive oxygen that would shorten telomeres. Accordingly, telomeres in oocytes would probably shorten with increasing age owing to the combined effects of late ovulation and the prolonged interval before ovulation. Keefe et al. examined these mechanisms by shortening telomeres in mice, which produced a phenotype comparable with age-related oocyte dysfunction in women. They also examined eggs donated by women aged 25–42 undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF). Telomere lengths were longer in eggs from women who conceived than in those from women who did not after IVF. No women conceived with a mean telomere length from spare eggs shorter than 6.3 kb. They concluded that shorter telomere lengths in eggs predicted conception rates in women undergoing IVF. Earlier, Aydos et al. [27] studied telomere lengths of 37 females aged 50, and found a positive association between reproductive lifespan and telomere length.
The association between telomere length and reproductive ageing was also analysed by Hanna et al. [28], who compared women with recurrent miscarriages (RMs), premature ovarian failure (POF) and two control groups. RM women had significantly shorter age-adjusted average telomeres than controls [28]. Women with POF had longer age-adjusted mean telomeres for one of the two control groups, an inconsistency probably owing to the very small number of POF subjects, as the authors point out. The telomere length differences between RM and control women (who had viable pregnancies later in life) are consistent with the hypothesis that telomere length affects the rate of reproductive ageing in women. Our results on shorter first and average birth intervals are consistent with Hanna et al.'s finding.
Previous evidence indicates that fertility may be elevated among mutation carriers. A study investigating the effect of parity on breast cancer risk found that women with a BRCA2 mutation had elevated CEB (mean CEB: carrier = 3.3, negative = 3.0, control = 3.2), though statistical testing was not done [29]. Jernstrom et al. [30] examined the association between parity and cancer risk in mutation carriers and found a significantly higher mean number of births for carriers (1.6) versus controls (1.4).
In these studies, subjects had access to modern contraception, making it difficult to assess endogenous differences in fecundity between carriers and non-carriers. Knowledge of genetic testing status has been shown previously to affect family planning as our present findings suggest. Carriers, and those who chose not to be tested or did not know their genetic testing status, were less likely to want additional children than non-carriers [31]. Therefore, once effective contraception is accessible, BRCA mutation carriers may avail themselves of these family planning methods, allowing them to reduce fertility and in turn reduce the potential risk of burdening their children with cancer. Recent fertility differences may also be the result of women following recommended preventive guidelines for mutation carriers. In a study of behavioural differences 2 years after genetic testing, 46 per cent of carriers had obtained bilateral oophorectomies [32]. A family history of cancer has also been found to influence the decision for prophylactic surgery independent of genetic testing [31]. These findings are consistent with the idea that fertility of tested carriers (i.e. among contemporary women) may be reduced as a result of family history of breast/ovarian cancer.
Finally, Pavard & Metcalf [7] examined evolutionary selection of BRCA1 mutations and concluded that BRCA1 alleles may have experienced negative selection throughout human history. Although breast and ovarian cancer typically arise after menopause, sufficient numbers of incident cases occur before that age. They consider (but do not dismiss) whether antagonistic pleiotropy may be an explanation for the persistent (though rare) allele frequencies for deleterious BRCA1 mutations, though citing some empirical support for it [7]. They 'show that BRCA1 mutations are subject to strong negative selection. BRCA1 is therefore not a good candidate for mutation accumulation'. (p. 7 of [7]). They indicate that for antagonistic pleiotropy to be plausible, positive selection on alleles leading to improved survival or fertility at younger ages must be substantial enough to offset the negative selection on survival at later ages. The specific role of fertility as part of this argument was not directly addressed in their study since their analysis explicitly assumes that BRCA mutation carriers and non-carriers do not differ with respect to fertility, and that fertility does not affect the risk of cancer for those with the mutation (p. 4 of [7]). Our results would suggest that the former assumption is not supported. With respect to the latter assumption, there is evidence that increasing fertility may mitigate the cancer risk of BRCA mutations [33,34]. This may explain the relatively lower levels of cancer incidence among mutation carriers in the more distant past [22,25]. Accordingly, some susceptibility alleles may have faced lower levels of negative selection in earlier environments and allowed them to have higher allele frequencies in the population. It is worth noting that a number of mutations identified in the sample (e.g. c.4065_4068delTCAA, c.1175_1214del40, c.5266dupC, c.6275_6276delTT, c.6486_6489delACAA, c.3937C>T) have been characterized as having been present 8–170 generations earlier [13,14]. Additional work remains to establish how ancient all the mutations are in this sample.
The higher number of CEB and higher mortality rate of BRCA1/2 mutation carriers may reflect the antagonistic pleiotropic features of these mutations. This raises a number of clinical issues in that the very individuals who carry these mutations are most likely to transmit them, given their larger family sizes. The fertility that may be elevated among mutation carriers may also offer some protection for mothers from subsequent cancer risk.
This work was supported by National Institutes of Health grant AG022095 (The Utah Study of Fertility, Longevity and Ageing). We wish to thank the Huntsman Cancer Foundation for database support provided to the Pedigree and Population Resource of the HCI, University of Utah. We also thank Dr Richard Cawthon, Dr David Goldgar and Vickie Venne for their comments, and Dr Jeffrey Botkin at the University of Utah School of Medicine and Alison Fraser, Diana Lane Reed, and Deb Ma at the HCI for valuable assistance in managing the data. Partial support for all datasets within the UPDB was provided by the University of Utah HCI and the HCI Cancer Centre Support Grant, P30 CA42014 from National Cancer Institute.
- Received August 12, 2011.
- Accepted September 20, 2011.
- This journal is © 2011 The Royal Society


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The first flowers of the season are now bravely emerging - primrose, coltsfoot, wild daffodil and sweet violet - a welcome sign of spring and a reward for the hours spent raking plane tree leaves! These plants would have been submerged below thick piles of plane tree leaf litter, had we not removed the plane leaves last autumn - one of the tasks described by Nicky in the second part of her year in the life of a Wildlife Garden volunteer:
Wild daffodil, Narcissus pseudonarcissus, on 22nd February
Image © Jonathan Jackson
Sweet violet, Viola odorata, on 22nd February
Image © Jonathan Jackson
"As autumn arrives, the Wildlife Garden closes in October to the public to enable vital maintenance work to take place. The sheep are here grazing the meadow, and people are often surprised to see them in central London. With waders on I help to clear the pond of overgrown plants, hoping I won't fall in.
The Garden is surrounded by plane trees which are non-native and protected but, as the leaves start to fall, the huge job of raking and recycling the leaves begins. The light levels are low now, the air crisp and us happy band of volunteers set to work.
A thick layer of plane tree litter in December!
Image © Derek Adams
As I rake carefully around the plants and gather up the leaves, the soil is exposed and I notice a little robin is watching me, pleased that an unlucky worm or two is to be had. I see something else move and go in to investigate, and find a frog that probably isn't too pleased about being disturbed.
A robin, Erithacus rubecula
Image © Phil Hurst
"Excuse me but could you tell me if the huge department store is this way?" Startled, I look up at the railings on the street, "Yes just keep walking and it's on your right, you can't miss it". For a moment I had forgotten that I was in the centre of a major city. There is a constant hum of cars and sirens and chatter of people outside the fence around the Garden, yet I hardly notice it as there are too many other things to grab my attention.
The autumnal colours are wonderful, the bright yellow cherry tree leaves and the red and green spindle leaves with cerise coloured berries are magnificent. Is that a fox in the trees who's been watching me? In a second he's gone.
Autumn colours
Image © Derek Adams
As the light starts to fade I look up at the Museum and it takes on a whole new look. I must confess the glass front of the Darwin Centre next to us gives some fantastic views and if I find the time I like to ride up and down in the lift just to take in that of the Wildlife Garden. I'm sure that wasn't on any list of attractions!
The Wildlife Garden as viewed through the windows of the Darwin Centre in December last year
Image © Sue Snell
When it's almost dark in the Garden, it's time to go; the arrival of the Museum's Ice Rink and its accompanying carousel that light up the other side of the lawn is a sure sign Christmas is approaching. One last look before I head for home, I smile to myself and think what an amazing place."
We look forward to another year working with Nicky.


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How do you know if a product is quality or not? Why should quality be considered when purchasing? Quality is defined as the state of being free from defects, or deficiencies. Quality is often correlated with price; however, this doesn't have to be the case. If an inexpensive item meets your needs and expectations then it has passed your test for quality.
I have been in the scale industry for 23 years. I have been called in many times to help a customer determine the proper scale for their application. In order to quote the correct product, I have had to dig deep into the weeds to find what the customer really needed. This process often identified areas of concern that the customer wasn't aware of.
A while back, I had a food manufacturer ask me to quote them some scales for checking the pre-packaged weight of their product. After a site visit, and talking to production and quality control, I made several determinations:
1. The maximum product weight was 1.5kg and minimum was 500g.
2. The minimum required tolerance was +/- 0.5g.
3. The scales needed to be easy to clean.
4. The scales were subject to intermittent water spray.
5. The customer wasn't connected to a data collection system, but wanted the ability to connect at a later date.
I quoted a 3kg wash down, stainless steel bench scale that read by 0.1g. After presenting the quote, I was contacted by the customer and told that my quoted price was too high. The purchasing manager had found the same scales on-line, for a third of the price I had quoted, and purchased them. I asked the purchasing manager where he was getting them from since he was paying 40% less than my cost for them. He wouldn't tell me but he did have me install them.
Guess what? They weren't the same scales I had quoted. The only thing that matched was the capacity and resolution. I had quoted an entire stainless steel wash down scale and these were plastic with a small stainless pan. They weren't waterproof, or even water resistant, and they couldn't connect to a data collection system.
This customer purchased eight scales. By the end of the year they had replaced all of them at least once and several twice. Since water damage wasn't covered under the manufacturer's warranty, and most of the damage was water related, they had to pay for them. Then at the beginning of the new fiscal year the quality control department installed the new data collection software. All eight scales had to be replaced with the scales I had quoted originally.
I had quoted quality scales that matched the customer's needs. After a year in use the customer was convinced that the scales they had purchased were junk. Honestly, there was nothing wrong with the quality of the scales purchased, except that they were in the wrong environment. In the long run, the customer spent more money on trouble calls, repairs, and replacements than they would have if they had purchased the equipment I had originally quoted.
If you don't know what you need, and you bring in an expert to help define your needs and requirements, trust the expert. If you aren't sure that the expert is correct, question them, and determine how and where they got their data. Most scale companies won't charge you for this expert advice, but they do expect to have a strong chance of getting the order. Sometimes quality can be a low cost import, but it has to meet your needs and requirements.
After-sale service is also important when helping define quality. If I had quoted the wrong scale in the example above and sold the customer the same scale they purchased. I would have honored the implied warranty. Not every scale company will do this, so know whom you are purchasing from and their warranty policies.
Take the time and effort necessary to find out your current as well as future needs. Bring in experts, and listen to them. Quality in a product is determined by you and your specific needs and expectations.
Lucian Stacy started working in the scale industry as an automation technician for CCI Scales, 23 years ago. He then became the operations manager of his own company, Left Coast Scales LLC. Stacy currently holds the position of technical support specialist for Sartorius Industrial Weighing.
For related articles, equipment reviews, and news, visit our Weighing Systems & Scales Equipment Zone
How Do You Define Quality?
How do you know if a product is quality or not? Why should quality be considered when purchasing? Quality is defined as the state of being free from defects, or deficiencies. Quality is often correlated with price; however, this doesn't have to be the case. If an inexpensive item meets your needs and expectations then it has passed your test for quality.


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Kaila Yu and Nylon Pink to appear in Hollywood
Our readers will remember the beautiful Kaila Yu who we featured in a lingerie shoot in 2008. Kaila is in a band called Nylon Pink with other lovely ladies, and they will be playing at an event on Thursday night in Hollywood, California hosted by RAW:natural born artists.
RAW is "an independent arts organization that hand-selects and spotlights independent creatives in visual art, film, fashion, music, hair & makeup artistry, photography, models and performing art." As you can see from the photos above, the girls in Nylon Pink love beautiful photography.
The event takes place this Thursday, March 3rd at 7:30PM at the Playhouse on Hollywood Blvd. It's a 21+ event with cocktail attire and tickets are $10 via presale.
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