'Chainsaw 3-D' carves out No. 1 debut with $23M

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? It took Leatherface and his chainsaw to chase tiny hobbit Bilbo Baggins out of the top spot at the box office.

Lionsgate's horror sequel "Texas Chainsaw 3-D" debuted at No. 1 with $23 million, according to studio estimates Sunday. The movie picks up where 1974's "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" left off, with masked killer Leatherface on the loose again.

Quentin Tarantino's revenge saga "Django Unchained" held on at No. 2 for a second-straight weekend with $20.1 million. The Weinstein Co. release raised its domestic total to $106.4 million.

After three weekends at No. 1, part one of Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit" trilogy slipped to third with $17.5 million. That lifts the domestic haul to $263.8 million for "The Hobbit," the Warner Bros. blockbuster that also has topped $500 million overseas to raise its worldwide total to about $800 million.

Also passing the $100 million mark over the weekend was Universal's musical "Les Miserables," which finished at No. 4 with $16.1 million, pushing its domestic total to $103.6 million.

Like other horror franchises, "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" has had several other remakes or sequels, but the idea always seems ripe for a new wave of fright-flick fans. Nearly two-thirds of the audience was under 25, too young ? or not even born ? when earlier "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" movies came out.

"It's one of those that survives each generation. It's something that continues to come back and entertain its audience," said Richie Fay, head of distribution for Lionsgate.

"Texas Chainsaw" drew a hefty 84 percent of its business from 3-D screenings. Many movies now draw 50 percent or less of their revenue from 3-D screenings, but horror fans tend to prefer paying extra to see blood and guts fly with an added dimension.

In narrower release, Matt Damon's natural-gas fracking drama "Promised Land" had a slow start in its nationwide debut, coming in at No. 10 with $4.3 million after opening in limited release a week earlier.

Released by Focus Features, "Promised Land" stars Damon as a salesman pitching rural residents on fracking technology to drill for natural gas. The film widened to 1,676 theaters, averaging a slim $2,573 a cinema, compared with $8,666 in 2,654 theaters for "Texas Chainsaw."

Hollywood began the year where it left in 2012, when business surged during the holidays to carry the industry to a record $10.8 billion at the domestic box office.

Overall business this weekend came in at $149 million, up 7 percent from the same period last year, when "The Devil Inside" led with $33.7 million, according to box-office tracker Hollywood.com. But with strong business on New Year's Day last week, Hollywood already has raked in $254.2 million, 33 percent ahead of last year.

Box-office results ebb and flow quickly, so that lead could vanish almost overnight. But with a steady lineup of potential hits right through December, studios have a chance at another revenue record this year.

"The month that we had at the end of last year that led us to a record year continued right through New Year's and on now to the first official weekend of 2013," said Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian. "We're looking for an even stronger year this year. That's in the realm of possibility. But we have 51 weekends to go."

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. "Texas Chainsaw 3-D," $23 million.

2. "Django Unchained," $20.1 million.

3. "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," $17.5 million.

4. "Les Miserables," $16.1 million ($14.5 million international).

5. "Parental Guidance," $10.1 million.

6. "Jack Reacher," $9.3 million ($22.3 million international).

7. "This Is 40," $8.6 million.

8. "Lincoln," $5.3 million.

9. "The Guilt Trip," $4.5 million.

10. "Promised Land," $4.3 million.

___

Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

http://www.rentrak.com

___

Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/chainsaw-3-d-carves-no-1-debut-23m-164336088--finance.html

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Iris Care Lets You Know When Your Parents Have Fallen and Can't Get Up

The Iris home security and energy monitor system from Lowes now does more than just track your water and electricity usage. The company has just rolled out its newest service aimed at America's aging population, Iris Care. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/Cbrn6TBs_hs/iris-care-lets-you-know-when-your-parents-have-fallen-and-cant-get-up

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The Nerve-Growth Factor: A New Tool for Manipulating Neurons

This protein plays a key role in the formation of the nervous system. It has also been employed as an "Ariadne's thread" to explore mechanisms of nerve-cell growth and differentiation

By Rita Levi-Montalcini and Pietro Calissano

HALO OF NERVE FIBERS radiates from a sympathetic-nerve ganglion that was removed from a chick embryo and then incubated for 12 hours in a semisolid medium containing the nerve-growth factor (NGF). The factor was originally isolated from a mouse tumor designated sarcoma 180 but has subsequently been found to be secreted in trace amounts by a variety of normal and neoplastic (cancer) cells. In 1953 one of the authors (Levi-Montalcini) and Hertha Meyer found that NGF could induce the outgrowth of nerve fibers from an isolated sympathetic ganglion in tissue culture. This discovery led ultimately to the isolation of NGF and determination of its chemical structure. Micrograph, which magnifies ganglion 135 diameters, was made by J. S. Chen at Laboratory of Cell Biology in Rome. Image: Scientific American, June 1979

Editor's Note: Neurobiologist Rita Levi-Montalcini, a Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine in 1986, died December 30 at the age of 103. We are making this article co-authored by her free online for the next 30 days. This story was originally published in June 1979 issue of?Scientific American.

The human nervous system is a vast network of several billion neurons, or nerve cells, endowed with the remarkable ability to receive, store and transmit information. In order to communicate with one another and with non-neuronal cells the neurons rely on the long extensions called axons, which are somewhat analogous to electrically conducting wires. Unlike wires, however, the axons are fluid-filled cylindrical structures that not only transmit electrical signals but also ferry nutrients and other essential substances to and from the cell body. Many basic questions remain to be answered about the mechanisms governing the formation of this intricate cellular network. How do the nerve cells differentiate into thousands of different types? How do their axons establish specific connections (synapses) with other neurons and non-neuronal cells? And what is the nature of the chemical messages neurons send and receive once the synaptic connections are made?

This article will describe some major characteristics and effects of a protein called the nerve-growth factor (NGF), which has made it possible to induce and analyze under highly favorable conditions some crucial steps in the differentiation of neurons, such as the growth and maturation of axons and the synthesis and release of neurotransmitters: the bearers of the chemical messages. The discovery of NGF has also promoted an intensive search for other specific growth factors, leading to the isolation and characterization of a number of proteins with the ability to enhance the growth of different cell lines.

The peripheral nervous system of vertebrate animals includes three kinds of nerve cells: sensory neurons, which transmit impulses from sensory receptor structures to the brain; motor neurons, which innervate the striated, or skeletal, muscles, and autonomic neurons, which regulate the functional activity of the circulatory system, the organs, the glands and the smooth muscles (such as those of the intestine). Autonomic neurons are of two kinds: sympathetic and parasympathetic. The sensory neurons and some of the sympathetic neurons are situated in chains of ganglia flanking the length of the spinal cord. Because these neurons are uniquely accessible to experimental manipulation much of the research on the development of the nervous system at the cellular level has focused on how the nerve fibers projecting from the sensory and sympathetic ganglia make connections with their corresponding target organs.

In the first half of this century the new science of experimental embryology seemed to offer the best way to study the intimate bond that interlocks the growth of the peripheral neurons and their target organs. Ross G. Harrison of Yale University challenged the nervous system of the larva of amphibians to solve problems it would ordinarily never confront, such as providing nerves for limbs and organs grafted from other species. He wanted to see how sensory and sympathetic ganglia, sending out their nerve fibers to these peripheral "fields of innervation," would adjust to the different dimensions and configurations of the foreign organs.

Harrison's results demonstrated that the developing amphibian nervous system is remarkably flexible in adapting to such novel situations, even to the point of accelerating the growth of nerve fibers in a host species to keep pace with the faster-growing limb of a smaller donor species. He concluded that the embryonic nervous system is highly receptive to influences exerted by the peripheral field. Such influences are not species-specific, however, since they can be evoked by organs or rudimentary limbs that have been transplanted from one species to another.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=6b7f93a55f2e404d663a63eb19ac6e26

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December Challenger Job Cuts - Business Insider

NOTE: Earlier, we reported that jobs cuts were at the lowest level since 1997.? To clarify, "the year ends with the lowest 12-month job-cut total since 1997," reports Challenger.

Announced job cuts totaled 32,556 in December, reports Challenger Gray & Christmas.?

This is down 22 percent from a the same period a year ago, and down 43 percent from November.

It's worth noting that this report tends to be volatile.? For example, last month's number spiked in the wake of the Hostess bankruptcy.

From the release:

CHICAGO, January 3, 2013 ? After three consecutive months of increased layoff activity, the number of planned job cuts announced in December plunged to 32,556, the second lowest monthly total of 2012. Overall, the year ends with the lowest 12-month job-cut total since 1997, according to the latest report from global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.

The 32,556 planned job cuts announced last month were 43 percent fewer than the 57,081 November cuts. The December total was 22 percent lower than a year ago, when employers announced 41,785 in the final month of the year. The only month in 2012 to see fewer job cuts than December was August, when job cuts totaled 32,239.

Despite the December decline, planned layoffs in the fourth quarter were up 33 percent from the previous quarter. Employers announced 137,361 job cuts in the final three months of year, compared to 102,910 in the third quarter. The third-quarter total was the lowest quarterly total since 81,568 job cuts were announced in the second quarter of 2000.

Due in large part to the slow pace of downsizing in the third quarter, annual job cuts totaled 523,362, which is the lowest year-end total since 1997, when employers announced 434,350 job cuts during the year. The 2012 total was 14 percent lower than the 606,082 job cuts announced in 2011.

?We saw a few spikes in monthly job cuts in 2012 and there were some significant mass layoffs that definitely reminded us that not every industry is enjoying the fruits of recovery. However, the overall pace of downsizing was at its slowest since the end of the recession. In fact, we have not seen this level of job cutting since before the dot.com collapse and subsequent 2001 recession,? said John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

One of these significant mass layoffs occurred in December, when banking giant Citigroup announced 11,000 job cuts early in the month. The Citigroup announcement accounted for the majority of the 11,355 job cuts announced last month in the financial sector, which was the top job-cutting sector in December. The transportation sector was a distant second with 4,844 job cuts.

The leading job-cut sector for the year was the computer industry, with a total of 46,164 announced layoffs since January. That marks a 215 percent increase from 2011, when these firms announced 14,677 job cuts. It is worth noting that nearly 60 percent of the computer cuts in 2012 were the result of the May job-cut announcement from Hewlett-Packard impacting 27,000 workers.

The transportation sector, which was the second leading job-cut sector in December, was also the second largest job cutter for the year. The 42,107 job cuts announced by these firms in 2012 were up 189 percent from 14,584 planned cuts in 2011.

While a handful of industries experienced increased downsizing in 2012, several sectors, including construction, retail, financial services, and aerospace and defense saw decreased job-cut activity. Perhaps the most dramatic decline occurred in the government sector, where job cuts plunged 90 percent from an industry-leading 183,064 in 2011 to just 19,128 in 2012.

?The fact that the top job-cutting industry in 2011 shed nearly 190,000 workers while the top job cutter this year did not even crack 50,000 reveals a lot about where we are in this recovery. Despite the uncertainty related to the fiscal cliff, which has now been averted thanks to a last-minute deal, employers held steady in the final months of the year and avoided a surge in mass layoffs,? said Challenger.

?Of course, we are hardly out of the woods. The deal struck on Tuesday will do little to impact the nation?s soaring debt and new battles over the debt limit and broader government spending cuts still lie ahead. As a result, the country?s employers may still lack the confidence to move forward with more aggressive hiring plans in 2013,? he added.

According to the latest available data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, private-sector payrolls achieved net gains averaging 154,000 new workers each month through November 2012. Overall, private-sector employment increased by 1,697,000 new workers from January through November. That remains well off the pre-recession peak, which in 2005, saw private-sector payrolls increase by an average of 193,000 new workers per month for an annual total of 2,312,000 new jobs.

?Friday?s report on December employment could show a hiring boost from construction and other new jobs related to post-hurricane clean-up efforts on the East Coast. Late holiday season hiring may also show up in retail employment numbers. However, with one report indicating that holiday retail sales were weaker than expected, we could see a purging of retail workers in future employment reports,? said Challenger.

?This seasonal house-cleaning in the retail sector is unlikely to show up in our job-cut tracking, since most of the jobs were temporary in nature and the cuts go unannounced. However, we could see plenty of early-year job cuts announced in other sectors. Historically, January is, on average, the biggest job-cut month of the year, and several sectors, including computer, financial services, consumer products, transportation and aerospace and defense are at risk due to a high potential for reduced spending by consumers, businesses and government in 2013,? Challenger noted.

In 20 full years of tracking since 1993, January has been the top job-cut month of the year nine times. The next closest month is December, which has been the top job-cut month just three times. Since 1993, job cuts have averaged 101,084 in January. The second largest monthly average over the same period is 80,321 job cuts in October.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/december-challenger-job-cuts-2013-1

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Today on New Scientist: 2 January 2013

The world to burn as much coal as oil by 2017

Capturing the emissions of the most polluting fossil fuel is the only hope of reducing climate change

Humble coin toss thrust to heart of multiverse debate

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Simulators prepare newbie pilots for flying car era

Flying cars of the future will need safe software at the helm and a simulator is showing what that code needs to do

Ice sheets of West Antarctica are warming fast

The vulnerable ice sheets are warming as fast as anywhere else on Earth, threatening massive sea-level rises

NASA mulls plan to drag asteroid into moon's orbit

Robot spacecraft could snag a space rock and drag it back to the moon for astronauts to explore and study

Earthworms roped into making quantum dots

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LHC to stir up hot particle soup before 2013 shut down

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Shell oil rig runs aground in Arctic

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Tricksy type: how fonts can mess with your mind

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Stone-Age cinema: Cave art conceals first animations

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'Insane' Antarctic winter crossing like space flight

Medic Mike Stroud will monitor expedition members in the coldest season of the coldest place on Earth - and explains just how many things could go wrong

Skidology: Winter research that lets things slide

Getting kids on crutches to fall over inside a giant ice cube sounds like cruelty, but it could lead to better cold-weather gear for everyone

2013 Smart Guide: Arctic melt will spark weird weather

Melting, rather than warming, will be the big climate issue of 2013 as we head to the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment

In-depth 2012: The best long reads of the year

Dig deeper, look closer and think harder - these articles are perfect for curling up with a glowing tablet for a good long read

2012 review: The year in health science

Revisit the year's top health stories, including the first non-hormonal male pill, and the link between Tutankhamun's death and the origin of monotheism

Marvellous mistletoe: Giving forests the kiss of life

Forget its reputation as a parasitic tree killer, mistletoe is an unsung hero of the woods, says Stephanie Pain

2012 review: The year in the physical sciences

The Higgs boson showed up but that's not all - 2012 saw good news for Schr?dinger's cat, a ruling on pi's copyrightability and much more

Getting sloshed: It's the way you walk

Can we beat the unholy alliance between human gait and the physics of drinks containers and kill our spills, asks Bob Holmes

2013 Smart Guide: Curiosity to reach Mars mother lode

Around September Curiosity will arrive at the base of a mountain that offers the best chances of finding signs of habitability on the Red Planet

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Familiar face to welcome Sandy Hook students back to school

When the students at Sandy Hook Elementary School arrive at their new building Thursday, a familiar face will be there to greet them ? their "new old principal."

Donna Page (pronounced Pa-jhay), the school's former principal, is leading the new school as interim principal, telling parents it was her "calling" to return after the tragedy. Parents have dubbed her the "new old principal" because Page was the school's leader for 14 years before retiring in 2010.

The school's principal Dawn Hochsprung was among the first victims of Adam Lanza's Dec. 14 rampage that left 20 children and six school staffers dead.

Once the Sandy Hook school had established that they would be able to use the former Chalk Hill Middle School building in nearby Monroe, Conn., parents knew that next biggest obstacle would be finding someone to lead the school through such a traumatic time.

"The next piece of the puzzle was, okay who is going to take the reins here? Who could possibly come in and fill Dawn Hochsprung's shoes?" parent Karen Dryer told ABCNews.com. "She was a truly amazing leader and friend. I worked very closely with her."

Dryer is a classroom volunteer in her 5-year-old son's kindergarten class at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and she has been helping the school prepare for Opening Day, as they call it, at the new building.

"We didn't think it was possible until we got a voicemail from Donna reintroducing herself and saying that when she heard [about the shooting] she knew it was the calling that she needed to come out of retirement and take the position of head of school," Dryer said.

"I started crying when I heard the message. It's still emotional," Dryer said and she cried again remembering the moment. "It was such a blessing and such an amazing relief because it was like, 'Oh my, now we can breathe. They're going to be okay.'"

Dryer's daughter, now a high school sophomore, was a student at the school when Page was principal and she knows her well.

"She's amazing. She's an extremely strong woman," Dryer said. "She is the perfect person to come in and take control and lead this school and staff forward."

"She could be a tough one, but she does everything completely out of love. That's why she stepped forward and came out of retirement. She loves the school, she loves the staff. The staff all know her and respect her and she knows a lot of the kids because she only just retired a couple of years ago."

Page has quickly stepped into her old position, taking charge by helming the round-the-clock effort to prepare the new building.

"I want parents and families enduring the loss of their precious children to know their loved ones are foremost in our hearts and minds as we move forward," Page wrote in a letter to the school community about the first day back to school. "We recognize your needs are paramount in our preparations and planning. Your strength and compassion has been, and will continue to be an inspiration to me and countless others as we work to honor the memory of your precious children and our beloved staff."

Students, families and teachers are participating in an open house today to visit the new school. Classes resume on Thursday.

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Source: http://gma.yahoo.com/sandy-hooks-old-principal-171745190--abc-news-topstories.html

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Moody's says more steps needed to save U.S. credit rating

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States must do more than the recently passed "fiscal cliff" measures if the country is to rescue its Aaa debt rating from its current negative outlook, rating agency Moody's Investors Service said on Wednesday.

Standard & Poor's said the deal does not affect its negative view of the U.S. credit outlook, and said more work remains ahead for policymakers.

The last minute deal passed on Tuesday to avert potentially devastating tax hikes and spending cuts clarifies the medium-term deficit and debt trajectory of the federal government, Moody's said in a statement.

However, it does not provide a basis for meaningful improvement in the government's debt ratios over the medium-term, Moody's said.

"Our ratings stance is to wait and see what the outcome of all of this is in the next few months, before we make any decision on the rating outlook or the rating itself," Steven Hess, lead U.S. sovereign credit analyst at Moody's told Reuters.

"It is an important step, but it is the first step," he said.

Lowering the U.S. budget deficits and setting them on a long-term, downward trajectory is needed in order to return the U.S. sovereign credit outlook to stable from negative.

"On the other hand, lack of further deficit reduction measures could affect the rating negatively," Moody's said.

Moody's placed the U.S. credit rating on a negative outlook August 3, 2011 when the Congress and the White House wrestled over a relatively routine measure of raising the debt ceiling to the point where the United States was on the brink of default before hammering out a deal.

That political impasse and near financial calamity prompted rival rating agency Standard & Poor's to take the unprecedented move of cutting the U.S. credit rating to AA-plus from AAA.

This week's budget compromise "doesn't affect our view of the country's credit outlook, given that we believe yesterday's agreement does little to place the U.S.'s medium-term public finances on a more sustainable footing," S&P said in a statement on Wednesday.

While the budget deal does reduce the risk of a recession in the world's biggest economy, the agency said, sticking points remain, including the so-called sequestration, a sweeping package of potential budget cuts.

"Republicans have indicated they will demand more spending cuts, while the White House has hinted at a harder line than it took in 2011, when political brinksmanship nudged the country toward default on its debt," the rating agency said.

S&P has a negative outlook on the U.S. credit rating while Fitch Ratings, much like Moody's, maintains the country's AAA with a negative outlook.

Moody's says it expects the debt ceiling limit, which was reached on December 31 and now has the U.S. Treasury employing extraordinary measures to meet its financial commitments, to be raised.

It believes the risk of default on Treasury bonds is "extremely low", but it does note that agreeing on an increase in the debt ceiling, which allows the U.S. to borrow more money to pay its obligations, will occur at the same time as debate on spending takes place.

"We will watch the process as it unfolds. The experience in 2011 shows that the debt ceiling can in fact become a negotiating tool. We're not sure what will happen in that regard," Hess said.

President Barack Obama has said he will not debate the debt ceiling this time around.

"I think this whole process has accelerated our ability to foresee the medium-term outlook in the sense that in February or March there will be significant actions on the expenditure side or not. We'll have a lot more information earlier in the year than we had expected," said Hess.

(Reporting by Caryn Trokie, Luciana Lopez and Daniel Bases; Editing by Chizu Nomiyam, Leslie Gevirtz and Tim Dobbyn)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/moodys-says-more-budget-measures-needed-save-u-200747119--finance.html

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