epitaxial ulrike

Monday, December 26, 2011

Brady leads comeback, Patriots top Dolphins 27-24

New England Patriots wide receiver Deion Branch (84) celebrates in the end zone after his touchdown against the Miami Dolphins during the third quarter of an NFL football game at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. Saturday, Dec. 24, 2011. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia)

Miami Dolphins quarterback Matt Moore (8) is sacked by New England Patriots defensive end Brandon Deaderick (71) during the third quarter of an NFL football game at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. Saturday, Dec. 24, 2011. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia)

Miami Dolphins wide receiver Brandon Marshall (19) hauls in a pass as New England Patriots cornerback Devin McCourty (32) defends during the first quarter of an NFL football game at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. Saturday, Dec. 24, 2011. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia)

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady sits on the turf after being knocked down on an incomplete pass play late in the second quarter of an NFL football game against the Miami Dolphins, in Foxborough, Mass., Saturday afternoon, Dec. 24, 2011. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia)

Miami Dolphins wide receiver Brandon Marshall (19) hauls in a touchdown pass against the defense of New England Patriots defensive back Kyle Arrington, behind, during the second quarter of an NFL football game at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., Saturday, Dec. 24, 2011. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) ? The New England Patriots emphasize playing well for 60 minutes every game. On Saturday, 30 was enough ? barely.

Rallying from their worst half of the season, the Patriots scored on their next five possessions and clinched a playoff bye with a 27-24 win over the Miami Dolphins on Saturday.

"You don't want to, certainly, make a habit of this," said Tom Brady, who scored on two 1-yard sneaks and threw for a 1-yard touchdown. "We showed some resiliency."

New England (12-3) won its seventh straight game. After the Houston Texans lost to the Indianapolis Colts on Thursday night, the Patriots needed a win or a tie to lock up one of the top two spots in the AFC.

"It's good to clinch," said Deion Branch, who caught the touchdown pass from Brady, "but not by the way we played. It's not the way you want to do it."

Miami (5-10) lost for the third time in eight games after opening at 0-7 and is 1-1 under Todd Bowles, who took over when Tony Sparano was fired.

"First half we came out and played our tempo and our ballgame," Bowles said. "The second half they made us play theirs."

The AFC East champions trailed 17-0 at halftime but made the necessary adjustments and went to their no-huddle offense more, keeping the Dolphins from making defensive substitutions. And Brady was on target after a first half in which heavy defensive pressure against a makeshift offensive line affected his accuracy. He completed just 7 of 19 passes for 87 yards and was sacked three times in the half.

But in the second half, he completed 20 of 27 passes for 217 yards, finishing at 27 for 46 for 304 yards and leading one scoring drive after another ? a 45-yard field goal by Stephen Gostkowski, the scoring pass to Branch, his own sneak that tied the game, Gostkowski's 42-yard go-ahead kick after Devin McCourty's first interception of the year, and the other sneak with 2:56 to go, making it 27-17.

The Dolphins made it closer on Matt Moore's 15-yard scoring pass to Davone Bess with 1:48 to play. They had three timeouts left, but their hopes faded when Brady hit Wes Welker for a 6-yard gain and a first down.

"We had (Brady's) number in the first half, but in the second half he came out and made a lot of plays," Miami linebacker Karlos Dansby said. "He is a coach on the field."

The Dolphins seemed headed for a victory and got a break even before the game started when Patriots left tackle Matt Light hurt his ankle in warmups and didn't play. Left guard Logan Mankins took his spot, but he left with a knee injury suffered on New England's second series.

"There's always things that are going to go wrong in a football game and things aren't going to work out the way you want them to all the time," said Welker, who finished with 12 catches for 138 yards after managing just two for 20 in the first half. "The main thing is just playing a full 60 minutes and never giving in and understanding that one drive and one score (can) get things going."

The Patriots punted on their first six series of the first half then missed a field goal on the other. The Dolphins struggled in the second half when Moore fumbled the snap at his 38-yard line and Vince Wilfork recovered, starting the drive capped by Branch's touchdown.

"They committed penalties in the first half," Dolphins guard Richie Incognito said. "We turned the ball over and committed penalties in the second half. That is never a good recipe."

Reggie Bush had another outstanding game for Miami with his fourth straight rushing day of at least 100 yards. He finished with 113 on 22 carries one week after gaining a career-high 203 yards.

His latest performance gave him 1,086 yards rushing for the season, the first time in his six years, the first five with the New Orleans Saints, that he passed 1,000.

"It really doesn't mean anything right now," he said. "This one's pretty tough."

The Dolphins had taken a 3-0 lead on Dan Carpenter's 47-yard field goal 4:01 into the game and made it 10-0 with 1:15 gone in the second quarter on Moore's 19-yard pass to Brandon Marshall.

They stretched that to 17-0, the Patriots biggest deficit of the season, on a 1-yard touchdown pass from Moore to Charles Clay. The 89-yard drive was helped by two defensive pass interference penalties on third down.

But the Patriots remained calm in the locker room at intermission.

"There wasn't a bunch of yelling," Wilfork said. "We just came in and said we've got to play better, we've got to make more plays."

They did. The Dolphins didn't.

"Our guys fought," Bowles said, "but we didn't finish."

Notes: Welker set a franchise record for one season with 1,518 yards receiving. He broke the mark of 1,493 set by Randy Moss in 2007. ... Bush was checked my medical personnel on the sideline late in the game "Something in my leg just didn't feel right," he said. "I'm walking. If it was serious, I wouldn't be walking." ... Moore completed 17 of 33 passes for 294 yards, his highest total as a Dolphin. He threw for more than that with the Carolina Panthers once in 2009 and once in 2010. ... The victory was the largest comeback by the Patriots from a second-half deficit since Nov. 10, 2002 when they beat the Chicago Bears 33-30 after trailing 27-6 in the third quarter.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2011-12-24-FBN-Dolphins-Patriots/id-2bc948b644364882a1bcbf2180dda55f

matt forte dr conrad murray verdict take care childish gambino camp drake take care tracklist drake take care tracklist dr murray trial

Watch Out Yammer And Jive, Google Is About To Enter The Social Enterprise Space

The social enterprise has been growing as more and more companies look to incorporate Facebook-like communications among workers. Jive (which just debuted on the Nasdaq), Yammer, and Salesforce are all betting on the social as an integral part of productivity and business processes in the future. And it looks like Google will be entering the space soon. Google's Vice President of Enterprise Amit Singh tells us that Google will soon bring a more in-depth Google+ social experience to businesses and institutions using Google Apps. In October, Google announced that Google Apps users could sign up for Google+, allowing businesses and educational institutions to share posts directly to other users within their workgroups and/or universities.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/01sv1-OE0Ac/

cowboys cowboys slim dunkin slim dunkin will rogers ohio university ohio university

'Person of interest' in custody in Washington Park killing

WASHINGTON PARK -- A "person of interest" remains in custody in connection with the shooting death of a 35-year-old Washington Park man early Saturday.

Meanwhile, Illinois State Police continue to seek a suspect in the homicide of Edward Austin, whose body was discovered at his residence at 2124 N. 49th St.

Washington Park Police Chief Dave Clark said police received a call early Saturday about a burglary in the 2100 block of North 49th Street. Officers arrived at a home at 2125 N. 49th St. and found a great deal of blood on the premises, but no body.

A neighbor informed the officers of a broken window at the victim's residence across the street at 2124 N. 49th St., where they found Austin's body.

A suspect was seen fleeing from the crime scene, but a detailed description was not available, according to police.

Illinois State Police have taken over the investigation.

Anyone with information about Austin's death is urged to call Illinois State Police Special Agent Jamie Brunnworth at 346-3759 or the CrimeStoppers tip line at 866-371-8477. This is an anonymous tip line that pays up to $1,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction.

Source: http://www.bnd.com/2011/12/25/1992206/washington-park-man-found-slain.html

kristin chenoweth country music awards new earth light year light year michelle rounds michelle rounds

Sunday, December 25, 2011

CapitalFM_kenya: Air Zimbabwe plane flies home after debt paid: official http://t.co/qjjYj6ob

Passer la navigation
Twitter sur votre mobile ? Cliquez ici m.twitter.com!
Passer cette ?tape
Connexion

Air Zimbabwe plane flies home after debt paid: official goo.gl/fb/EIjKv Il y a environ 2 heures via Google Retweeted by 1 person

CapitalFM_kenya

Capital FM Kenya

Pied de page

Source: http://twitter.com/CapitalFM_kenya/statuses/150903786469199872

icam patrice o neal. joran van der sloot osteopathy osteopathy diphtheria diphtheria

#LesserKnownReindeer: Twitter Meme Names Santa's Other Helpers

#LesserKnownReindeer: Twitter Meme Names Santa's Other Helpers '; var coords = [-5, -78]; if( HPConfig.current_vertical_name == 'homepage' ) { coords = [-5, -70]; } else if( HPConfig.current_vertical_name == 'mapquest' ) { coords = [-5, -68]; } FloatingPrompt.embed(this, html, undefined, 'top', {fp_intersects:1, timeout_remove:2000,ignore_arrow: true, width:236, add_xy:coords, class_name: 'clear-overlay'}); });
Lesserknownreindeer

Maybe this guy will be pulling Santa's sleigh.

T'was the night before Christmas and all over the internet, Twitter users were stirring. This time it's users tweeting new names for some of Santa's unsung reindeer with the trending hashtag #LesserKnownReindeer.

Yes, everyone loves Rudolph and that shiny nose of his. And it's easy to remember Dasher and Dancer, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen, but what happens if Dasher pulls a hamstring? Or Blitzen has a bad hangover? Maybe one of these reindeer will step in?

See our roundup of #LesserKnownReindeer tweets.

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Koch scandal alters gambling odds (Star Tribune)

Share With Friends:

| Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/178869259?client_source=feed&format=rss

pumpkin carving texas tech football bridge school miami dolphins charlie and the chocolate factory ou football ryan torain

Myth Busting: The Truth About Animals And Tools

Ben Cranke/Getty Images

A tufted capuchin uses a stone hammer to crack open a nut in Brazil's Parnaiba Headwaters National Park.

A wasp uses a pebble as a hammer. An octopus carries around a coconut shell to hide in. A shrike impales its prey on a sharp thorn.

Those are just a few examples of animal tool use that appear in the new book Animal Tool Behavior by Robert W. Shumaker, Kristina R. Walkup and Benjamin B. Beck. The book updates an edition published in 1980 by Beck. And in the new version, the authors try to dispel a number of persistent myths about animals and tools.

Shumaker tells me about some of those myths during a walk around The Indianapolis Zoo, where he is vice president of life sciences. (He is also a member of the adjunct faculty at Indiana University.)

As we approach a female polar bear named Tundra, Shumaker says one myth he hopes to deflate is that tool use is limited to monkeys and apes. Polar bears offer a powerful rebuttal of that idea, he says. In zoos, they often throw objects with great force and accuracy. It's less clear whether this sort of tool use occurs in the wild. But there are anecdotal reports from early Arctic explorers of polar bears using projectiles to hunt.

"One of the stories we have is polar bears getting up on a cliff and hurling great chunks of ice down on something like a walrus to kill it," Shumaker says.

Another common misconception: Tool use requires fingers, or at least hands, Shumaker says. Apparently, no one bothered to tell dolphins. "They have nothing to hold tools with except their mouth," he says, "and yet they are still innovative and creative."

Dolphins play with just about any object they find, Shumaker says. In some cases, the objects are merely toys ? but they become tools when used to manipulate another object or creature for a specific purpose. And dolphins do that kind of manipulating a lot, says Jodie Baker, who is in charge of marine mammals at the zoo. As we speak over the din of dolphin splashes and chatter, Baker sees a dolphin named Kimo preparing to manipulate us with a tool ? in this case, a buoy.

"If you walk by the pool and there's a dolphin playing with a toy, they'll typically throw it in your direction to get your attention," she says.

That's a form of tool use known as baiting or enticing. But scientists have collected lots of examples of dolphins doing other things with tools, Shumaker says.

"One is a dolphin that found a piece of tile and took it down to the bottom of their pool and used it to scrape algae off the bottom of their pool and then they ate the algae," he says.

And wild dolphins in Australia sometimes flush out their prey with a sponge, he says. "They hold the sponge on their rostrum, and then they use that as they disturb the sandy bottom to get fish like flounder that are down in the sand."

Genetics Or Intelligence?

One of the most widespread myths about tool use is that it is a sign of intelligence. Of course, some really smart animals do use tools. But so do creatures like the bolas spider, which is named after the throwing weapon used by South American gauchos. The spider's version of the bolas is a ball made from the same silk it uses to spin a web, Shumaker says.

"When an insect flies by, they throw it and it attaches to the insect because it's sticky and they reel them in," he says. "It's very complex. Very impressive. Very dramatic. But all available information tells us that it's completely controlled from this animal's genetic history." In other words, it's programmed behavior, not something the spider figured out. Genetic programming is also the reason hermit crabs carry around another creature's shell and ant-lions throw sand at their prey.

When intelligent animals do use tools, though, they often do so in very creative ways, Shumaker says.

At the zoo's spacious elephant enclosure, Tim Littig, a senior animal trainer, points toward a baby elephant named Kalina, who is standing next to her mother, Kubwa. Kalina has been able to nurse without any help, Littig says. But things were trickier with Kubwa's previous baby, he says.

"Her last calf was a little smaller than this one and required a step stool to be able to reach her mammary glands to nurse," Littig explains. "Kubwa would move the stool around so the calf could stand up on the stool to nurse."

Technically, that made her baby the tool user. But it was Kubwa who figured out how to use the tool. And that sort of problem-solving is a sign of intelligence, Shumaker says.

So is figuring out how to make a tool ? a skill many scientists once thought of as uniquely human. Shumaker says those scientists must not have spent much time around orangutans. Then he takes me to the orangutan enclosure for a demonstration.

I'm holding a large microphone, which Shumaker reminds me not to point at the orangutans, lest they think it's a weapon. But the animals aren't frightened. Several orangutans reach through the steel mesh and make it clear to Shumaker that they want to have the microphone. Shumaker tells a female named Knobi that she can touch it, which she does several times. When I move it out of reach, though, Knobi walks off and comes back with a small tree branch.

"She's making a reaching tool to try and get your microphone," Shumaker explains as Knobi breaks off one forking branch so the limb will fit through the steel mesh.

But this reaching tool isn't long enough, so Knobi fetches a branch that's 5 or 6 feet long. I stay where I am as Knobi prods at the microphone with the tool.

"She's doing her best to draw the mic in," Shumaker says to me. Then to Knobi he says: "I'm sorry; you cannot have it. Good job with your tool."

As we walk away, we can see Knobi grabbing an even larger branch.

Using Symbols As Tools

Just 10 or 15 years ago, scientists were still debating whether orangutans in the wild also made tools, Shumaker says. Now it's clear they do, and there are several examples in Animal Tool Behavior. The book also offers scientific documentation of other species making tools in the wild. New Caledonian crows make hooks out of twigs to catch prey. Wild chimpanzees make wooden spears for hunting.

Perhaps the most surprising and controversial findings in the new book involve what scientists refer to as symbolic tool use. "These are examples where we see tools being used to represent something else or to provide a change in psychological state," Shumaker says

Symbolic tool use is something people do every time they pay for an item with paper bills or coins. And some monkeys and apes in captivity have learned to use tokens that they trade for various foods.

But Shumaker is more intrigued by the sort of symbolic tools that can affect emotions. There are lots of examples of this in people. Children often have a special stuffed animal or blanket that is much more than a toy. The object represents comfort or security to them, and they use it to feel better.

It's one more behavior that scientists once considered uniquely human. But Shumaker says there is more and more evidence that some animals use symbolic tools in much the same way.

"We would see great apes in times of great stress or sadness, like a female who had an infant that died," Shumaker says. "That female would create something that researchers called a doll and then [she] treated it exactly as she had treated her infant that had recently died."

Shumaker says scientists are still debating the significance of examples like this. But he says the fact that such a debate is even taking place shows how much things have changed since the 1960s, when scientists first realized that humans weren't the only ones using tools.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2011/12/23/143833929/myth-busting-the-truth-about-animals-and-tools?ft=1&f=1007

unthink julianne hough chris cook nest williams syndrome jay leno machine gun kelly