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Smoke rises above the Villaggio Mall, in Doha's west end, as a fire took hold of the upscale mall in the Qatari capital of Doha Monday May 28, 2012. Qatar's Interior Ministry said 13 children were among 19 people killed in a fire that broke out at one of the Gulf state's fanciest shopping mall on Monday. The Villaggio opened in 2006 and is one of Qatar's most popular shopping and amusement destinations. It includes an ice skating rink and indoor Venice-style gondola rides. (AP Photo/Osama Faisal)
Smoke rises above the Villaggio Mall, in Doha's west end, as a fire took hold of the upscale mall in the Qatari capital of Doha Monday May 28, 2012. Qatar's Interior Ministry said 13 children were among 19 people killed in a fire that broke out at one of the Gulf state's fanciest shopping mall on Monday. The Villaggio opened in 2006 and is one of Qatar's most popular shopping and amusement destinations. It includes an ice skating rink and indoor Venice-style gondola rides. (AP Photo/Osama Faisal)
The father of a child killed after a fire took hold of the Villaggio Mall, in Doha's west end is comforted in the Qatari capital of Doha Monday May 28, 2012. Qatar's Interior Ministry said 13 children were among 19 people killed in a fire that broke out at one of the Gulf state's fanciest shopping mall on Monday. The Villaggio opened in 2006 and is one of Qatar's most popular shopping and amusement destinations. It includes an ice skating rink and indoor Venice-style gondola rides. (AP Photo/Osama Faisal)
Smoke rises above the Villaggio Mall, in Doha's west end, as a fire took hold of the upscale mall in the Qatari capital of Doha Monday May 28, 2012. Qatar's Interior Ministry said 13 children were among 19 people killed in a fire that broke out at one of the Gulf state's fanciest shopping mall on Monday. The Villaggio opened in 2006 and is one of Qatar's most popular shopping and amusement destinations. It includes an ice skating rink and indoor Venice-style gondola rides. (AP Photo/Osama Faisal)
Family members of victims of a fire react in grief after a fire took hold of the Villaggio Mall, in Doha's west end, in the Qatari capital of Doha Monday May 28, 2012. Qatar's Interior Ministry said 13 children were among 19 people killed in a fire that broke out at one of the Gulf state's fanciest shopping mall on Monday. The Villaggio opened in 2006 and is one of Qatar's most popular shopping and amusement destinations. It includes an ice skating rink and indoor Venice-style gondola rides. (AP Photo/Osama Faisal)
A survivor of a fire receives medical attention after a fire took hold of the Villaggio Mall, in Doha's west end, in the Qatari capital of Doha Monday May 28, 2012. Qatar's Interior Ministry said 13 children were among 19 people killed in a fire that broke out at one of the Gulf state's fanciest shopping mall on Monday. The Villaggio opened in 2006 and is one of Qatar's most popular shopping and amusement destinations. It includes an ice skating rink and indoor Venice-style gondola rides. (AP Photo/Osama Faisal)
DOHA, Qatar (AP) ? Qatar's Interior Ministry said 13 children were among 19 people killed in a fire that broke out in one of the country's fanciest shopping malls late Monday morning, raising questions about building safety in the booming Gulf state.
At least some of the victims died as rescuers struggled to reach a child care center at the Villaggio mall in the capital Doha, according to Qatar's Minister of State for Interior Affairs, Sheik Abdullah bin Nasser Al Thani.
Four of the children killed were Spanish citizens living in the small Arab emirate, the Spanish Foreign Ministry said. It did not identify the children, citing Spanish privacy regulations.
Also, a 3-year-old French child was among the victims, the deputy minister for overseas French citizens, Yamina Benguigui, said in a statement.
"We tried our best, but when we got there, the children were trapped inside. We are very sorry for what happened. We tried as much as we could to save these people," Sheik Abdullah told reporters in Doha.
Four teachers and two civil defense officials were among the dead, the Qatari ministry said on its official Twitter page.
Another 17 people were injured, including four children, according to authorities. Most of those hurt were rescuers responding to the blaze.
Witnesses earlier reported thick black smoke pouring from the ritzy mall around midday. Amateur photos and videos posted online showed firefighters rescuing victims by climbing on the roof.
The Interior Ministry said the fire was extinguished hours later.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Thick smoke and heat hindered rescue efforts, as did a lack of floor plans and malfunctioning sprinkler systems, the ministry said on Twitter.
Sheik Abdullah said all buildings in the country abide by safety requirements, but a special committee will nonetheless be set up to monitor building safety standards.
The Villaggio opened in 2006 and is one of Qatar's most popular shopping and amusement destinations. Retailers include many well-known Western brands, such as Foot Locker, Pizza Hut, Starbucks and British department store Marks & Spencer, according to the mall's website.
Malls throughout the oil-rich Arab Gulf are popular with families looking for entertainment destinations that provide relief from soaring summer temperatures. The Villaggio includes an ice skating rink, theme park, movie theater and indoor Venice-style gondola rides.
New construction projects such as the Villaggio have transformed the face of once-sleepy Doha in recent years, as the country benefits from a hydrocarbon boom. The OPEC member state is the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas.
Qatar won the right to host soccer's 2022 World Cup a year and a half ago.
___
Associated Press writers Adam Schreck in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Jorge Sainz in Madrid contributed reporting.
For nearly 20 minutes on the morning of Facebook Inc's trading debut last Friday, the line Nasdaq had opened up to keep traders informed about the social media company's $16 billion IPO had been mute. Well after the stock was supposed to have opened at 11 a.m. New York time, no one from Nasdaq was talking - and there was still no sign of trading.
Finally, at 11:28 a.m., an unidentified person announced that the shares would open in about 2 minutes. Nasdaq also said orders and cancellations were still being processed, according to several sources listening to the call.
Those crucial 20 minutes created confusion that turned into chaos over the next few hours as market makers - the brokers who quote bid and offer prices - struggled to figure out what was happening. They were rebuffed in their attempts to get Nasdaq to halt trading and sort out a growing number of problems.
A lack of communication and, some say, misinformation from Nasdaq may have been central to the failed debut of Facebook's shares. Market makers - crucial to the smooth operation of stock trading - were unsure about their exposure for hours. Investors were in the dark as to whether their trades had gone through, in some cases for days afterwards.
The turmoil caused the four big market-makers for Facebook's stock, Knight Capital Group, Citigroup's Automated Trading Desk, Citadel Securities, and UBS AG to lose around $115 million between them.
"There was very little if any communication from Nasdaq throughout the entire process," said Mark Turner, head of trading at Instinet, another market-maker based in New York. "As a matter of fact, we feel there was miscommunication."
Instinet said it also suffered a loss, though it wasn't specific other than to say it was significantly less than the $30-35 million reported by Knight.
The precise actions taken by Nasdaq officials last Friday are still unclear. Spokespeople for Nasdaq declined numerous requests for comment, referring Reuters to a status alert issued on Monday that outlined some of the problems encountered and some of the steps it took in an attempt to resolve them.
FIST-PUMPING
The Nasdaq call, led by Nasdaq Vice President Todd Golub, according to sources, was scheduled to last 2 hours from 10:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. to make sure that the exchange was keeping in close touch with the market. It is a normal event for a big IPO.
However, this call stretched into the late afternoon, as the most anticipated new U.S. stock offering in years turned into one of the ugliest.
The fallout from the events last Friday has become a continuing nightmare for Nasdaq OMX Group, which wooed the social media network for months and openly prides itself on its technology.
The result is another black eye for an exchange industry already suffering because investors not only lost confidence in the financial crisis but through the "flash crash" in May 2010 when $1 trillion in shareholder equity was temporarily wiped out in a matter of minutes.
Nasdaq CEO Bob Greifeld pumped his fist at the symbolic opening bell ceremony at Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, California next to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg an hour-and-a-half before the company's stock was due to start trading. There were no outward signs then of the problems that were about to unfold back on Wall Street.
At 10:58 a.m., Nasdaq issued a notice that the Facebook opening would be delayed until 11:05 a.m. IPO delays of that nature are not unusual, especially with a massive launch like Facebook.
But then the revised start time passed without an opening trade on the stock. Minutes passed as traders waited. Nasdaq's next communication came at 11:13 a.m., when it noted in a terse emailed message to people who subscribe to the exchange's alerts that Nasdaq is "experiencing a delay in delivering the opening print in Facebook," with no other details.
Meanwhile, market-makers were receiving messages about their orders that later proved to be inaccurate. They say they were told during the period between 11:05 and 11:30 a.m., when the stock finally opened, that orders were still being taken for the opening price.
"Nasdaq representatives were stating right up until 11:29 that they were still accepting orders in Facebook for the open," said Turner of Instinet.
But that wasn't the case. Later, Turner said he was told that orders submitted up to 25 minutes before the opening were either canceled or not submitted into the marketplace until about 1:50 p.m. - more than two hours later. Other market makers received similar messages.
Behind the scenes, the massive order volume was overwhelming Nasdaq's systems.
Orders that were supposed to be processed in 3 milliseconds were taking 5 milliseconds, said one person familiar with exchange operations. This proved to be a major problem: In the extra two milliseconds new orders flooded in, thwarting the system's ability to establish an opening price for the stock and leading to a backup in unprocessed orders.
"This is starting to get bizarre," Wayne Kaufman, an equity market strategist at brokerage John Thomas Financial, said from the firm's trading floor on Wall Street, around 11:15 a.m.
Finally, the decision was made to put through a fix to the systems problem and get the stock trading. That move to a secondary matching engine used the order book as it appeared at 11:11 a.m. - but this meant new orders and changes in orders that came in later did not show up in the opening price. A matching engine is a computer that pairs bids and offers to complete trades.
Eric Noll, Nasdaq's head of transaction services, said in a statement earlier this week that the fix instead led to 2-1/2 hours of uncertainty during which brokers were unable to see the results of their trades.
TRADING HALT?
The stock opened at 11:30:09 a.m. at $42.05 a share. An investor looking at a quote screen might have thought the trouble had ended there. In reality, the problems were about to worsen.
After initially heading to a high of $45, the stock soon began to plunge towards its issue price at $38. Lead underwriter Morgan Stanley stepped in to defend the stock while some others - unsure whether their orders had been processed or not - backed away from trading or decided to sell.
If confidence is undermined at the open, people "pull back because their orders are essentially going into a black hole," said former Nasdaq Vice Chairman David Weild.
Clients were telling their brokers they had not received confirmation of orders - which normally come through in seconds.
"Multiple market makers called Nasdaq and asked them to halt the stock and said, 'You have a problem and it's getting worse,' and their response was, 'The stock is trading normally,'" said an executive at one market-maker.
It is unclear who would have the authority to halt the stock. Nasdaq would not comment on whether it considered such a move.
For market-makers, the chaos was particularly problematic because they didn't know what they and their clients owned, and at what price.
"Should I be selling stock, should I be buying? And what's my price point?" said another official at a market-making firm. "You just don't know, so you wer
Opposing teams have found a foolproof way in recent weeks to stop Cal softball slugger Valerie Arioto. They walk her.
Conference rival Washington decided to pitch to the Pac-12 Player of the Year in the NCAA super regionals on Saturday night, and Arioto blasted a two-run homer in the first inning that propelled the Bears to a 5-0 victory before a capacity crowd of 1,117 at Levine-Fricke Field.
"I'm glad they pitched to her," Cal coach Diane Ninemire said. "If you're going to pitch to her and she gets the pitch, you'll get what you saw tonight."
The top-seeded Bears (55-5) are now one victory away from their 12th trip to the College World Series. Cal and UW (39-18) meet Sunday at 4 p.m., with a third game, if necessary, at 6:30 p.m. The Huskies must win twice to earn the bid to the CWS, which starts Thursday in Oklahoma City.
The Huskies battled Cal in three tight games here early in the Pac-12 season, losing by a combined margin of five runs. This one wasn't close.
Senior Jolene Henderson (35-2) struck out 11 and allowed just four hits while posting her 16th shutout of the season. She escaped her only real jam by starting an inning-ending double play with the bases loaded in the fifth.
Arioto, who has set a Cal single-season record for home runs, had not gone deep in seven previous games, including five Berkeley regional contests last weekend. The drought is mostly the result of pitchers avoiding her. Over the previous 14
games, she had just two homers, but 27 walks.
The 16th-seeded Huskies, who won three times via shutout at the Seattle regional, got brave in the first inning and paid for it.
"I was just hoping they'd pitch to me so I could produce for my team," said Arioto, who walked 13 times in the Berkeley regional.
Britt Vonk reached first on a perfectly placed bunt with one out and the Huskies decided to have Kaitlin Inglesby pitch to Arioto.
"We don't worry about what other teams do," UW coach Heather Tarr said.
Big mistake. The senior from Pleasanton launched a high home run beyond the center field bleachers, giving the Bears a 2-0 lead. It was her 23rd homer of the season and the 54th of her career -- one shy of Veronica Nelson's nine-year-old school record.
Actually, Tarr called Inglesby's delivery a mistake. "She capitalized on a pitch we hung," the coach said.
"She did what she's supposed to do on that pitch," Inglesby confirmed.
Two batters later, senior Jace Williams made it 3-0 with another home run to center, her seventh of the season.
Henderson had the lead she needed and the Huskies rarely pressed her. "I thought we really came out ready to play," Ninemire said. "Jolene threw a tremendous game, really kept the hitters off balance."
The Pac-12 Pitcher of the Year, Henderson said she felt "awesome" throwing the ball.
The Bears nearly registered their third homer of the game in the second inning, but UW centerfielder Jerrin Fa'asua reached above the fence the pull back Danielle Henderson's drive.
sunday's games at berkeley Cal vs. Washington, 4 p.m. Cal vs. Washington, 6:30 p.m., if necessary
Bristol Palin apologized and corrected earlier statements she made about fetuses that are aborted because they have been diagnosed with Down Syndrome in a blog post on Friday.
"I?m sorry to say I think I unknowingly passed on incorrect information," Palin wrote.
Palin's initial blog post claimed "ninety-two percent of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted before they get a chance to take a breath." In her newest post, Palin cites author Amy Julia Becker, who explains that out of all babies conceived with DS, about 50% are actually born:
Overall, it seems that about 70% of babies prenatally diagnosed with DS are aborted, and that the abortion rates vary greatly from region to region across the US. Moreover, lots of women don?t seek prenatal diagnosis, whether out of ignorance or because they don?t want to risk an amnio or because they don?t think the information is necessary. So out of all babies conceived with DS, 50% are actually born. Still a terrible reality that 50% are aborted, but a much better situation than the 8% number implies.
Sarah Palin -- Bristol's mother and the 2008 Republican Vice Presidential nominee -- gave birth to her fifth child, Trig, in April 2008. The Palins released a statement after Trig's birth indicating that they knew the child would have Down Syndrome because of prenatal testing.
Despite her mistake, Palin seems to be faring better than her ex, Levi Johnston. Us Weekly recently reported Johnston -- who is expecting his second child with current girlfriend Sunny Oglesby -- is broke and living with his mother after spending "more than $1 million" on "guns, boats and four-wheelers."
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JOHN DANKOSKY, HOST:
This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm John Dankosky. What if I told you I was going to cook up a pasta sauce using bananas, honey, roses, apples, melon rinds, vanilla, berries, sweaty cheese, peaches, chocolate, lawn clippings, lemongrass and a little dash of wasabi for good measure? Sounds pretty disgusting, right? Well, believe it or not, all those flavors I've just mentioned are components of a taste you probably already love: tomatoes. The taste of a tomato is really that complicated.
My next guest is on a mission to bring us better supermarket tomatoes that actually taste like tomatoes, and to do it, he's studying and cataloging the chemical constituents of great-tasting heirloom tomatoes. He published this work, this week, in the journal Current Biology. Let me introduce Harry Klee. He's a professor in the Department of Horticultural Sciences at the University of Florida in Gainesville. He joins us by phone today. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY, Dr. Klee.
DR. HARRY KLEE: Thank you.
DANKOSKY: So why are supermarket tomatoes just so bad today?
KLEE: Well, there are a couple of problems. First of all, as you alluded to, the flavor is so complicated and so many ingredients all have to come together that, basically, breeding has been extremely difficult, if not impossible. But equally important, I think, is the fact that growers are simply not paid to produce good - great-tasting tomatoes. They're paid for how many pounds of red objects they put in a box, and there's a disconnect, I think, between the consumer and the grower, and there's no financial incentive for them.
DANKOSKY: If you want to talk tomatoes with us, 1-800-989-TALK. That's 1-800-989-8255. You can tweet us, @scifri. When did this start? When did they stop making tomatoes that actually tasted good?
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
KLEE: Well, I think, you know, you can trace it back to probably about the time of World War II when the breeders really focused on intensive breeding of tomatoes, and the focus was really on yield and shelf life and appearance. And again, because flavor is such a complicated trait, it's not like you can just go out and there's a single gene that makes a tomato taste good. So really, I think the focus on productivity has been the real key, and that's been the last 60 to 70 years.
DANKOSKY: Do you love tomatoes yourself? I mean, you're in Florida. They grow all the tomatoes there. You must love them.
KLEE: Oh, you've got that wrong.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
KLEE: Actually, I really do like tomatoes, but we've tasted so many tomatoes over the last few years that I'm pretty sick of biting into a fresh tomato. I really like tomatoes in things, and I really like tomato sauce and paste, and all the things you can do with the tomato. But a plain tomato, I'm pretty tired of.
DANKOSKY: Actually, I have to tell you we brought in a variety of these supermarket tomatoes here - these things that all look beautiful to a certain extent, but they're hard, and they seemed as though they could travel just miles, and miles and miles. This is something - Butter Valley Harvest, all these tomatoes that seems, though, they're better made to travel than they really are to taste.
KLEE: Yeah. And I think that that's the case, and I think this relates to the changes in agriculture over the last 50 years, or so, where people demand a tomato year-round. And the reality is it's extremely difficult to produce a tomato in, say, for example, New York in January. Consumers really want them year-round. And so Florida produces them, and they have to be shipped great distances and last a while. And what you're seeing is the consequence of that.
DANKOSKY: So tell us about your recipe for a great-tasting tomato. How are you working on this?
KLEE: Well - so we started out going way back, preceding that period of intensive breeding, to what are commonly referred to as heirloom tomatoes. And they have an incredible diversity of flavors. Contrary to popular belief, not all heirlooms taste good, but a lot of them really do. And so what we did was we took as wide a range of heirlooms as we could get our hands on, gave them to a fairly large consumer panel and basically said, number one: how much do you like it? And number two: what's in it? And then using statistical approaches, you basically go back and say, OK, what was in the ones that tasted good versus the ones that tasted bad?
DANKOSKY: When you look at these different flavor components, are there certain key ingredients, certain key components that always make for a better-tasting tomato?
KLEE: Yeah. There are few. I mean, unfortunately, by far, the biggest one is sweetness. You know, people just like sweet. And so sugar is an important component, probably the major component. But beyond that, there are a smaller number of volatile chemicals, the things that we smell that give foods their real incredible diversity of flavors. And the nice thing is that we can zero in, now, on the most important of those compounds.
DANKOSKY: Well, why are tomatoes so complex? I can imagine that certain foods are just going to have one or two very key components, but as we started with, the tomatoes have all these different things about them. Why so complicated?
KLEE: I don't think I can answer question.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
KLEE: It's very clear that if you look at something like a banana, there's one compound that really is the predominant odor that gives it that banana flavor. That's just not the case with tomatoes. They're much more complicated. You almost have, essentially orchestra that has to come together and all play together in order to make that tomato flavor. Why that's happened evolutionarily? I don't think anybody could answer that question, but it's the reality, and that's what makes the flavor of tomatoes so complicated.
DANKOSKY: If you have questions about tomatoes for our tomato expert, Harry Klee, who's trying to get a better-tasting supermarket tomato for us, you can call us at 1-800-989-8255, 1-800-989-TALK. Doug is in Brookfield, Massachusetts. Hey there, Doug. Go ahead.
DOUG: Yes. Hey, I'm enjoying your show because I'm a big fan of tomatoes.
DANKOSKY: OK.
DOUG: I grow my own. I either grow them from seeds out of a seed packet, or I get transplants from the local nursery store. So what I'm wondering is, have my tomatoes been bred to be less flavorful, or is this something that's unique to supermarkets because of all of the problems with handling them up and shipping them great distances?
KLEE: You could certainly buy seeds that are really excellent tomatoes, and there's no question that you can get a really great tomato if you're willing to grow it yourself. So, really, I think the problem that we face today is the supermarket tomato. It's the one that's been bred for a long, long shelf life and being able to travel. So you're still fine, if you can grow your own, for the two or three months that you can produce them.
DANKOSKY: You talk about a long shelf life and, of course, the tomatoes that we get in the supermarket, they have to travel well. We have to be able to grow them in abundance. Hopefully, they'll taste good, but they'll also have to look good. How much does the look of the tomato influence how the tomato is going to taste?
KLEE: That's an excellent question. The reality is it does influence it. We integrate all of our senses in terms of what we like in a tomato. So, you know, when we look at a tomato that's less than fully ripe, you look at that, you perceive that and that will actually impact how your perception of how that tomato tastes. If you think it's less ripe, you're going to taste the tomato that doesn't taste as good. So certainly, the growers have focused on that to produce something that really looks excellent. It's a small part of it, but it does play a role.
DANKOSKY: But, of course, a lot of these heirloom tomatoes, they just look ugly. They don't look good at all. But then you bite into them, and you think, now that's a tomato.
KLEE: Yeah. That - you know, and I think a large of that is, you know, companies are now starting to play upon that tomato that doesn't look perfectly round. Now, there's an expectation that it'll actually taste good. You know, the reality is that the round tomatoes that are produced commercially just don't have very flavor even though they look great.
DANKOSKY: The sugars that you talked about, it seems that that's the most complicated piece. How do you get the sweetness component, the part that everyone seems to crave out of the tomato in there. It's what is lacking in almost all of these bullet-shaped, very hard tomatoes that I get in the supermarket.
KLEE: Yeah, and I think, basically, the breeders have focused mostly on sugar because it's easy to assay, and I think it's basically been maxed out. You know, basically, if you think about the way that a plant grows, what the growers, or the breeders rather, have done is they've really maximized the potential of the plant to produce fruit. And commercial tomatoes produce very large amounts of fruit at the same time, and the plant can't keep up with that. It can only fix so much light and turn it into sugar. And you basically - what you do is you dilute out the flavor. The heirlooms, in contrast, you know, you'll get a great-tasting fruit, but you might get two or three fruit at a time, if that. And, you know, I think part of the secret as to why the tomatoes have degraded over time is the emphasis on really high yields that have really maxed out the ability of the plant to produce nutrients.
DANKOSKY: Now that you've identified a lot of these chemical components, what's the next step for you in building this perfect tomato? How long is it going to take?
KLEE: Well, we have some really nice stuff right now that's probably not at the level where a commercial grower could grow it, but we've made some high breeds between modern varieties have this good disease resistance and some of these really old heirlooms, and you get a high breed that actually produces pretty good fruit. And I think we could potentially put some of those out for people in the not-too distant future, I mean, within the next year or so.
I think it's going to be much more difficult to engineer in that flavor using traditional breeding methods into the commercial tomato because the commercial grower is not going to touch it. Again, this comes back to they're not paid to produce a really good flavor. So we have to put it in there in the context of this high-yielding, great ship-ability varieties that are disease-resistant and that's going to take several years. But the goal, once we know now which chemicals to focus on, is to identify the genes that will improve the concentrations of those compounds and, through traditional breeding, get them back into those commercial varieties. So I would say less than a year for something that potentially a home gardener could grow or a small person who's not so focused on high yields, but several years more for the commercial Florida tomato.
DANKOSKY: Now, I have to say, when you say, engineering, that's going to scare a lot of people. Are you using genetic engineering to make these better tomatoes or traditional breeding?
KLEE: No.
DANKOSKY: How's it working?
KLEE: Unfortunately, you know, if we could use genetic engineering, we could probably do this in less than half the time, but it's, you know, the atmosphere today with GMOs is kind of poisonous. And the reality is that a university, a public institution probably could never afford to go through all of the work that - and the paperwork and the testing that's required for a GMO. So that's not our intention. It's going to add several years, but we would - definitely, we won't do that.
DANKOSKY: I'm John Dankosky and this is SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR. Let's go to our phones. Joe(ph) is in Charleston, South Carolina. Hi there, Joe. Oh, let's move on. You know, let's go to Tom(ph) in Gainesville, Florida. Hi, Tom. Go ahead.
TOM: Yeah, hey. Interested in how hydroponics will affect the tomato's sweetness or cost or just any comparison to the conventional growing.
DANKOSKY: Thanks, Tom.
KLEE: Good question. I - you know, in general, how you grow the tomatoes, you know, the wine growers, wine grape growers had figured this out centuries ago. How you grow it and where you grow it is really important, and I personally think that hydroponic tomatoes are probably not going to be as flavorful as something that's grown in a rich soil. And, you know, that's what a lot of the greenhouse growers now are doing. They're growing them with an artificial media with, basically, just water and nutrients, and I don't think you'll get as good a tomato that way.
DANKOSKY: But why not?
KLEE: You know, the reality is that, again, much like wine grapes, stress is good. Stress puts pressure on the plant. It makes - it grows differently. It just, I think, produces a tomato that tastes better.
DANKOSKY: Isn't that really then part of the problem with the way we're approaching getting tomatoes to Americans year round is we're not really creating much stress on the plants. We're just trying to grow as many tomatoes as possible. Is that part of the solution, just put these plants under a little bit more of the type of conditions that grow great tomatoes in Italy and places like that?
KLEE: If you took the modern, commercial tomato and grew it in your backyard and let the fruit fully ripen, it wouldn't be a great tomato, but it would be a good tomato and so, yes. I mean, I think that, again, it keeps coming back to the focus on high yields and just pumping out as many tomatoes as you can is really a detriment to flavor and - but, you know, that's the economic reality. Until we have a system where the grower - you know, if you could make the grower get paid more for producing a great tomato, the grower would do that, and you'd get a great tomato, but it's just not the current situation.
DANKOSKY: Rodney(ph) is on the line from Pensacola, Florida. Hi there, Rodney.
RODNEY: Hi. How are you today?
DANKOSKY: Doing good.
RODNEY: I've got a brown tomato that I'm growing up. I got about 20 plants in the garden right now. It's - I picked up the seeds from a tomato that I saved out of the supermarket, and it's brown in color where it ripens, approaching black perhaps. And now I haven't had one since last year. But if I remember the reason for saving it, it was because it has great taste and I imagine it's a trade tomato like called the kumato or something like that. But that's the first brown or black one I've ever seen.
DANKOSKY: Yeah, I've actually - I've got a kumato sitting here in front of me. It's not kind of black. It's the sort of greenish weird color, but...
RODNEY: Really?
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
DANKOSKY: Yeah. It's what one of this supermarket kumatos that you can get here in New York. Harry Klee?
KLEE: Yes.
DANKOSKY: Now, I'm wondering if - can you comment on his brown tomato? I mean, red isn't the only good color here.
KLEE: Yeah. There are lots of colors. And so what - the reason that they're brown is because the chlorophyll that normally is in a green tomato doesn't break down. And then the carotenoids, which give it color, start to accumulate, and you basically are getting red and green together to give you brown. I have never tasted one of them. People say that they taste quite good. We don't have them in our supermarkets in Gainesville, but I've heard that they're - they taste good. They're certainly interesting and different from what's out there in the standard red tomato.
DANKOSKY: Well, we've just about run out of time. I want to thank you, Harry Klee, and thank you for trying to grow a better tomato. We're going to be anxiously awaiting this in our supermarkets here.
KLEE: So am I.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
KLEE: Thank you for having me.
DANKOSKY: Thanks for all your work. Harry Klee is a professor in the Department of Horticultural Sciences at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
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Click image to see more photos. Etan Patz disappeared on May 25, 1979 (AP Photo/Stanley K. Patz)
In today's social-media world, it's hard to imagine: But in 1979, there was no coordinated effort of state or national law enforcement when a child went missing. Etan Patz, who disappeared 33 years ago on May 25, changed the way searches were conducted ever after.
The 6-year-old made national headlines when he disappeared on his way to the school bus, a two-block walk in New York City's Soho neighborhood. Patz's father, a professional photographer, made copies of Etan's picture and distributed them far and wide, raising the profile of the missing-person case.
In 1983, Ronald Reagan declared May 25, the day Etan Patz disappeared, as National Missing Children's Day. But in the 1980s, many kids spent their mornings slurping their cereal while staring at the faces of missing kids on the sides of milk cartons. Etan Patz was in the first group of photos sent out by the National Child Safety Council. The organization got the idea from a local dairy, Anderson Erickson, which had first published a photo of a missing Iowa child on its milk cartons.
[Related: Three abandoned children found in Portland]
That idea, said Gaylord Walker, vice president and board member of the National Child Safety Council (NCSC), was great, but not effective, since "90 times out of 100, the child is going to be removed from the area where they were abducted." He, along with NCSC founder H.R. Wilkinson and researcher Barbara Huggett, hammered out a deal with the five companies that manufacture milk cartons in the U.S. to supply them with the pictures of missing kids that the dairies had the options to use.
In December 1984, the first wave of 55 pictures went out. Etan Patz's picture was in that first group. Walker remembered, "It got off the ground in the month. I've never seen people so willing to help." The dairies gave up valuable advertising space for the public service announcements. Walker added that although the campaign helped to recover some children, more importantly, "It definitely raised awareness about the program."
[Related: How Etan's disappearance changed a generation]
By 1985, 700 dairies out of 1,800 around the country participated. These days, photos of missing children can be found in USA Today, on Walmart bulletin boards and on TruTV's "In Session"; features of missing children are on every newscast, every day on WABC-TV in New York, and the Lexis Nexis database.
While statistics of missing and recovered children are difficult to come by, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children estimates that some 800,000 children go missing every year. That breaks down to 2,185 children reported missing each day.
The organization's website asserts that the pictures of the missing do make a difference: These posters reach millions and prompt individuals across the country to call NCMEC's missing children's hotline and provide vital leads and information, many of which lead to the recovery of missing children."
[ [ [['Connery is an experienced stuntman', 2]], 'http://yhoo.it/KeQd0p', '[Slideshow: See photos taken on the way down]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['Connery is an experienced stuntman', 7]], ' http://yhoo.it/KpUoHO', '[Slideshow: Death-defying daredevils]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['know that we have confidence in', 3]], 'http://yhoo.it/LqYjAX ', '[Related: The Secret Service guide to Cartagena]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['We picked up this other dog and', 5]], 'http://yhoo.it/JUSxvi', '[Related: 8 common dog fears, how to calm them]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['accused of running a fake hepatitis B', 5]], 'http://bit.ly/JnoJYN', '[Related: Did WH share raid details with filmmakers?]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['accused of running a fake hepatitis B', 3]], 'http://bit.ly/KoKiqJ', '[Factbox: AQAP, al-Qaeda in Yemen]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['have my contacts on or glasses', 3]], 'http://abcn.ws/KTE5AZ', '[Related: Should the murder charge be dropped?]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['have made this nation great as Sarah Palin', 5]], 'http://yhoo.it/JD7nlD', '[Related: Bristol Palin reality show debuts June 19]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['have made this nation great as Sarah Palin', 1]], 'http://bit.ly/JRPFRO', '[Related: McCain adviser who vetted Palin weighs in on VP race]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['A JetBlue flight from New York to Las Vegas', 3]], 'http://yhoo.it/GV9zpj', '[Related: View photos of the JetBlue plane in Amarillo]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['the 28-year-old neighborhood watchman who shot and killed', 15]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/white-house-stays-out-of-teen-s-killing-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/cv/ip/ap/default/120411/martinzimmermen.jpg', '630', ' ', 'AP', ], [ [['Titanic', 7]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/titanic-anniversary/', ' ', 'http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/b/4e/b4e5ad9f00b5dfeeec2226d53e173569.jpeg', '550', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['He was in shock and still strapped to his seat', 6]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/navy-jet-crashes-in-virginia-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/cv/ip/ap/default/120406/jet_ap.jpg', '630', ' ', 'AP', ], [ [['xxxxxxxxxxxx', 11]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/russian-grannies-win-bid-to-sing-at-eurovision-1331223625-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/1/56/156d92f2760dcd3e75bcd649a8b85fcf.jpeg', '500', ' ', 'AP', ] ]
[ [ [['did not go as far his colleague', 8]], '29438204', '0' ], [ [[' the 28-year-old neighborhood watchman who shot and killed', 4]], '28924649', '0' ], [ [['because I know God protects me', 14], ['Brian Snow was at a nearby credit union', 5]], '28811216', '0' ], [ [['The state news agency RIA-Novosti quoted Rosaviatsiya', 6]], '28805461', '0' ], [ [['measure all but certain to fail in the face of bipartisan', 4]], '28771014', '0' ], [ [['matter what you do in this case', 5]], '28759848', '0' ], [ [['presume laws are constitutional', 7]], '28747556', '0' ], [ [['has destroyed 15 to 25 houses', 7]], '28744868', '0' ], [ [['short answer is yes', 7]], '28746030', '0' ], [ [['opportunity to tell the real story', 7]], '28731764', '0' ], [ [['entirely respectable way to put off the searing constitutional controversy', 7]], '28723797', '0' ], [ [['point of my campaign is that big ideas matter', 9]], '28712293', '0' ], [ [['As the standoff dragged into a second day', 7]], '28687424', '0' ], [ [['French police stepped up the search', 17]], '28667224', '0' ], [ [['Seeking to elevate his candidacy back to a general', 8]], '28660934', '0' ], [ [['The tragic story of Trayvon Martin', 4]], '28647343', '0' ], [ [['Karzai will get a chance soon to express', 8]], '28630306', '0' ], [ [['powerful storms stretching', 8]], '28493546', '0' ], [ [['basic norm that death is private', 6]], '28413590', '0' ], [ [['songwriter also saw a surge in sales for her debut album', 6]], '28413590', '1', 'Watch music videos from Whitney Houston ', 'on Yahoo! Music', 'http://music.yahoo.com' ], [ [['keyword', 99999999999999999999999]], 'videoID', '1', 'overwrite-pre-description', 'overwrite-link-string', 'overwrite-link-url' ] ]
Funding will establish platform technology for emerging synthetic biology fieldPublic release date: 24-May-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Hilda Kalap hilda.kalap@epsrc.ac.uk Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) will help the UK's world-leading researchers in synthetic biology to establish platform technology in the emerging field with a new grant of almost 5 million. Platform technology is the crucial next step necessary for applications to be produced and commercialised.
Announcing the grant later today in a major speech at the University of East Anglia, Minister for Universities and Science David Willetts will say: "Synthetic biology could provide solutions to many of humanity's most pressing issues and at the same time presents significant growth opportunities. This investment will lay the groundwork for the commercialisation of research, ensuring academics and industry can realise the full potential of this exciting area of science."
The Flowers Consortium of five universities, Imperial College London, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Newcastle and King's College London, carries out research into synthetic biology in the UK. The Consortium builds on earlier EPSRC investments such as the 4.5 million for the Centre for Synthetic Biology and Innovation (CsynBI) at Imperial which is co-directed by Professor Richard Kitney and Professor Paul Freemont.
Synthetic biology aims to design and engineer novel biologically based parts, devices and systems, and redesign existing natural biological systems for useful purposes. It is seen as affecting a wide range of industrial sectors including chemicals, materials, biosensors, biofuels and healthcare.
The platform technology will be based on an information system SynBIS which uses a web-based environment. SynBIS is currently in Beta trials and is expected to be available by the end of June. SynBIS will host BioCAD and modelling tools for the field. This opens up the possibility of undertaking high level software design of bioparts and devices which can be assembled using laboratory robots and other automatic methods.
The grant will also be used to establish a professional registry of biological parts and devices using a robotic data-collection pipeline for characterisation. The richer data that can be obtained will lead to improved mathematical modelling and in turn more predictable and reliable design and construction of the parts.
Professor Kitney said: "The new grant will build on the work of CsynBI and the other universities in the Flowers Consortium to create important new resources for the academic and industrial community in synthetic biology."
Professor Freemont said: "The establishment of the Flowers Consortium now provides a critical mass of researchers who are developing innovative open access technology platforms to accelerate the growth of synthetic biology research in the UK."
Another goal of the Consortium is to use funding to create a UK infrastructure for synthetic biology which will be widely available via a project web server that can be shared by universities throughout the UK and beyond, further enhancing UK and international collaborations such as the one with Stanford University.
Drew Endy of Stanford's Bioengineering department says: "I am grateful to be working with the EPSRC Centre of Science and Innovation in Synthetic Biology at Imperial College in partnership with other leading UK universities. This strategic UK investment in synthetic biology will strengthen key UK-US partnerships and also global research networks in ways that benefit all people and the planet."
The Consortium is currently working on a number of applications and is engaging with industry to commercialise potential products.
Two of these are biosensors for testing arsenic in water and for the earlier detection of urinary tract infections.
Dr Kedar Pandya, EPSRC Engineering Theme Leader, said: "Engineering research and leadership is critical to the further development of the UK's synthetic biology sector. Engineering technology provides the necessary product standardisation, robustness and design. We will continue to grow the investment we make in this area so that the UK's research base continues to be world-leading."
The emerging technology has the potential to make a major contribution to the government's growth agenda, creating wealth and employment. In tandem with other fields of science, synthetic biology can play a significant part in addressing some of the key challenges that the world faces in the areas of energy, health and the environment.
###
Contact details: EPSRC Press Office on 01793 444404 or pressoffice@epsrc.ac.uk
Notes to editors:
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is the UK's main agency for funding research in engineering and the physical sciences. EPSRC invests around 800 million a year in research and postgraduate training, to help the nation handle the next generation of technological change. The areas covered range from information technology to structural engineering, and mathematics to materials science. This research forms the basis for future economic development in the UK and improvements for everyone's health, lifestyle and culture.
EPSRC works alongside other Research Councils with responsibility for other areas of research. The Research Councils work collectively on issues of common concern via Research Councils UK. www.epsrc.ac.uk
The Centre for Synthetic Biology and Innovation (CSynBI) was established in 2009 in partnership with the BIOS Centre through an EPSRC Science and Innovation award that aims to build new activity in areas of national strategic importance, with a particular focus on supporting new research leaders.
The Centre is part of Imperial College London's Institute for Systems and Synthetic Biology - a multidisciplinary, multi faculty institute focused on developing novel approaches to research in biology, medicine and engineering. The Centre is based in the Faculty of Engineering and works closely with the Departments of Bioengineering and Life Sciences in the emerging field of synthetic biology.
A major strategic aim of the Centre is to establish a robust engineering framework for the design and optimisation of new synthetic biology parts, devices and systems and to integrate this research with emerging ethical legal and societal issues.
Researchers from the BIOS Centre at King's College London form an integral part of CSynBI and are exploring the social, political, economic and ethical dimensions of synthetic biology. They are also addressing issues of public engagement and trust, as well as engaging with the central concerns of policy and regulation in this novel and rapidly developing area.
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/syntheticbiology/people an appropriate regulatory and policy regime.
SynthSys is a Centre for Synthetic and Systems Biology at the University of Edinburgh. The centre's focus is to pioneer genetic and chemical tools to manipulate the cell, technologies to quantify responses at the single-cell level, and mathematical models to both predict and control cellular behaviour.
SynthSys's experimental and theoretical researchers seek to deliver world-leading research in Synthetic and Systems Biology by combining theory and informatics with molecular biology to understand and re-design biochemical systems.
The centre integrates researchers from Innogen, the ESRC Centre for Social and Economic Research on Innovation in Genomics, to embed the principles of responsible innovation in translating our research into impact.
SynthSys, formerly the Centre for Systems Biology Edinburgh, was established as a Centre for Integrative Systems Biology in 2007 with an investment of 9M from the BBSRC and EPSRC.
Newcastle University is a centre of excellence for interdisciplinary computing science and bacterial cell biology, and has been active in systems and synthetic biology for more than a decade. The University's synthetic biology focus closely integrates expertise from across a wide variety of disciplines including computing science, engineering, mathematics and molecular biosciences.
A major strength is the inclusion of The Centre for Bacterial Cell Biology (CBCB), the world's first major research centre with a focus on fundamental bacterial cell processes.
Newcastle will play a key role in the project, leading the computational design and the development of industrially relevant bacterial strains.
Cambridge Synthetic Biology at the University of Cambridge, is an interdisciplinary consortium of laboratories established in 2005 with the aim to engage biologists, engineers, computer scientists, social scientists educators and artists to participate in the emerging world of Biological Design.
The Haseloff, Micklem and Ajioka labs leading Cambridge Synthetic Biology, are currently engaged in projects that include seminal work in developing synthetic biology standards and tools for plants and microbes, computational approaches for designing genetic circuits and practical solutions to healthcare.
Jim Haseloff's lab in the Dept. of Plant Sciences with support from the EPSRC, is focused on the engineering of plant morphogenesis, using microscopy, molecular genetic, computational and synthetic biology techniques. Advanced imaging techniques allow the visualisation of plant microachitecture, and the cellular interactions that underly plant morphogenesis. The lab is exploring new genetic circuits that will allow reprogramming of the distribution of natural cell types to remodel tissues or organs with specialised biosynthetic or storage functions. Plants, with their indeterminate and modular body plans, wide spectrum of biosynthetic activities, ease of genetically manipulation, and wide use as crop systems will underpin future sustainable technologies.
Gos Micklem, head of the Cambridge Computational Biology Institute, leads international projects funded by the NIH and the Wellcome Trust on data integration, where data from all the major model organisms can be "mined" through the InterMine platform. The Micklem computational group is now expanding this technology into synthetic biology with the development of SynBioMine. The power of generating collated and annotated data for specified biological functions will help realise the potential for incorporating natural biological diversity into engineered biological systems.
Jim Ajioka's lab based in the Dept. of Pathology with support from the Wellcome Trust, is directing synthetic biology into practical solutions for healthcare in impoverished regions with little infrastructure. Vast areas of South and Southeast Asia suffer from arsenic contaminated groundwater, where the distribution and contamination level of individual wells is unknown.
In collaboration with the Edinburgh group, the lab is taking research from previous projects, notably coloured pigment producing "E. chromi", and applying it to the construction of a whole-cell arsenic biosensor for use in the field.
Since 2005, Cambridge Synthetic Biology has established and maintained collaborations with leading synthetic biology laboratories, computer scientists, artists and designers including the Endy lab at Stanford, the Voigt lab at MIT, the Phillips group at Microsoft Research and Daisy Ginsberg and James King, whose rendition of "E. chromi" has been displayed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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Funding will establish platform technology for emerging synthetic biology fieldPublic release date: 24-May-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Hilda Kalap hilda.kalap@epsrc.ac.uk Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) will help the UK's world-leading researchers in synthetic biology to establish platform technology in the emerging field with a new grant of almost 5 million. Platform technology is the crucial next step necessary for applications to be produced and commercialised.
Announcing the grant later today in a major speech at the University of East Anglia, Minister for Universities and Science David Willetts will say: "Synthetic biology could provide solutions to many of humanity's most pressing issues and at the same time presents significant growth opportunities. This investment will lay the groundwork for the commercialisation of research, ensuring academics and industry can realise the full potential of this exciting area of science."
The Flowers Consortium of five universities, Imperial College London, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Newcastle and King's College London, carries out research into synthetic biology in the UK. The Consortium builds on earlier EPSRC investments such as the 4.5 million for the Centre for Synthetic Biology and Innovation (CsynBI) at Imperial which is co-directed by Professor Richard Kitney and Professor Paul Freemont.
Synthetic biology aims to design and engineer novel biologically based parts, devices and systems, and redesign existing natural biological systems for useful purposes. It is seen as affecting a wide range of industrial sectors including chemicals, materials, biosensors, biofuels and healthcare.
The platform technology will be based on an information system SynBIS which uses a web-based environment. SynBIS is currently in Beta trials and is expected to be available by the end of June. SynBIS will host BioCAD and modelling tools for the field. This opens up the possibility of undertaking high level software design of bioparts and devices which can be assembled using laboratory robots and other automatic methods.
The grant will also be used to establish a professional registry of biological parts and devices using a robotic data-collection pipeline for characterisation. The richer data that can be obtained will lead to improved mathematical modelling and in turn more predictable and reliable design and construction of the parts.
Professor Kitney said: "The new grant will build on the work of CsynBI and the other universities in the Flowers Consortium to create important new resources for the academic and industrial community in synthetic biology."
Professor Freemont said: "The establishment of the Flowers Consortium now provides a critical mass of researchers who are developing innovative open access technology platforms to accelerate the growth of synthetic biology research in the UK."
Another goal of the Consortium is to use funding to create a UK infrastructure for synthetic biology which will be widely available via a project web server that can be shared by universities throughout the UK and beyond, further enhancing UK and international collaborations such as the one with Stanford University.
Drew Endy of Stanford's Bioengineering department says: "I am grateful to be working with the EPSRC Centre of Science and Innovation in Synthetic Biology at Imperial College in partnership with other leading UK universities. This strategic UK investment in synthetic biology will strengthen key UK-US partnerships and also global research networks in ways that benefit all people and the planet."
The Consortium is currently working on a number of applications and is engaging with industry to commercialise potential products.
Two of these are biosensors for testing arsenic in water and for the earlier detection of urinary tract infections.
Dr Kedar Pandya, EPSRC Engineering Theme Leader, said: "Engineering research and leadership is critical to the further development of the UK's synthetic biology sector. Engineering technology provides the necessary product standardisation, robustness and design. We will continue to grow the investment we make in this area so that the UK's research base continues to be world-leading."
The emerging technology has the potential to make a major contribution to the government's growth agenda, creating wealth and employment. In tandem with other fields of science, synthetic biology can play a significant part in addressing some of the key challenges that the world faces in the areas of energy, health and the environment.
###
Contact details: EPSRC Press Office on 01793 444404 or pressoffice@epsrc.ac.uk
Notes to editors:
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is the UK's main agency for funding research in engineering and the physical sciences. EPSRC invests around 800 million a year in research and postgraduate training, to help the nation handle the next generation of technological change. The areas covered range from information technology to structural engineering, and mathematics to materials science. This research forms the basis for future economic development in the UK and improvements for everyone's health, lifestyle and culture.
EPSRC works alongside other Research Councils with responsibility for other areas of research. The Research Councils work collectively on issues of common concern via Research Councils UK. www.epsrc.ac.uk
The Centre for Synthetic Biology and Innovation (CSynBI) was established in 2009 in partnership with the BIOS Centre through an EPSRC Science and Innovation award that aims to build new activity in areas of national strategic importance, with a particular focus on supporting new research leaders.
The Centre is part of Imperial College London's Institute for Systems and Synthetic Biology - a multidisciplinary, multi faculty institute focused on developing novel approaches to research in biology, medicine and engineering. The Centre is based in the Faculty of Engineering and works closely with the Departments of Bioengineering and Life Sciences in the emerging field of synthetic biology.
A major strategic aim of the Centre is to establish a robust engineering framework for the design and optimisation of new synthetic biology parts, devices and systems and to integrate this research with emerging ethical legal and societal issues.
Researchers from the BIOS Centre at King's College London form an integral part of CSynBI and are exploring the social, political, economic and ethical dimensions of synthetic biology. They are also addressing issues of public engagement and trust, as well as engaging with the central concerns of policy and regulation in this novel and rapidly developing area.
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/syntheticbiology/people an appropriate regulatory and policy regime.
SynthSys is a Centre for Synthetic and Systems Biology at the University of Edinburgh. The centre's focus is to pioneer genetic and chemical tools to manipulate the cell, technologies to quantify responses at the single-cell level, and mathematical models to both predict and control cellular behaviour.
SynthSys's experimental and theoretical researchers seek to deliver world-leading research in Synthetic and Systems Biology by combining theory and informatics with molecular biology to understand and re-design biochemical systems.
The centre integrates researchers from Innogen, the ESRC Centre for Social and Economic Research on Innovation in Genomics, to embed the principles of responsible innovation in translating our research into impact.
SynthSys, formerly the Centre for Systems Biology Edinburgh, was established as a Centre for Integrative Systems Biology in 2007 with an investment of 9M from the BBSRC and EPSRC.
Newcastle University is a centre of excellence for interdisciplinary computing science and bacterial cell biology, and has been active in systems and synthetic biology for more than a decade. The University's synthetic biology focus closely integrates expertise from across a wide variety of disciplines including computing science, engineering, mathematics and molecular biosciences.
A major strength is the inclusion of The Centre for Bacterial Cell Biology (CBCB), the world's first major research centre with a focus on fundamental bacterial cell processes.
Newcastle will play a key role in the project, leading the computational design and the development of industrially relevant bacterial strains.
Cambridge Synthetic Biology at the University of Cambridge, is an interdisciplinary consortium of laboratories established in 2005 with the aim to engage biologists, engineers, computer scientists, social scientists educators and artists to participate in the emerging world of Biological Design.
The Haseloff, Micklem and Ajioka labs leading Cambridge Synthetic Biology, are currently engaged in projects that include seminal work in developing synthetic biology standards and tools for plants and microbes, computational approaches for designing genetic circuits and practical solutions to healthcare.
Jim Haseloff's lab in the Dept. of Plant Sciences with support from the EPSRC, is focused on the engineering of plant morphogenesis, using microscopy, molecular genetic, computational and synthetic biology techniques. Advanced imaging techniques allow the visualisation of plant microachitecture, and the cellular interactions that underly plant morphogenesis. The lab is exploring new genetic circuits that will allow reprogramming of the distribution of natural cell types to remodel tissues or organs with specialised biosynthetic or storage functions. Plants, with their indeterminate and modular body plans, wide spectrum of biosynthetic activities, ease of genetically manipulation, and wide use as crop systems will underpin future sustainable technologies.
Gos Micklem, head of the Cambridge Computational Biology Institute, leads international projects funded by the NIH and the Wellcome Trust on data integration, where data from all the major model organisms can be "mined" through the InterMine platform. The Micklem computational group is now expanding this technology into synthetic biology with the development of SynBioMine. The power of generating collated and annotated data for specified biological functions will help realise the potential for incorporating natural biological diversity into engineered biological systems.
Jim Ajioka's lab based in the Dept. of Pathology with support from the Wellcome Trust, is directing synthetic biology into practical solutions for healthcare in impoverished regions with little infrastructure. Vast areas of South and Southeast Asia suffer from arsenic contaminated groundwater, where the distribution and contamination level of individual wells is unknown.
In collaboration with the Edinburgh group, the lab is taking research from previous projects, notably coloured pigment producing "E. chromi", and applying it to the construction of a whole-cell arsenic biosensor for use in the field.
Since 2005, Cambridge Synthetic Biology has established and maintained collaborations with leading synthetic biology laboratories, computer scientists, artists and designers including the Endy lab at Stanford, the Voigt lab at MIT, the Phillips group at Microsoft Research and Daisy Ginsberg and James King, whose rendition of "E. chromi" has been displayed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The fallout from Facebook Inc's messy initial public offering widened on Wednesday as shareholders sued the social network and its bankers while a trading firm revealed a massive loss on the shares and threatened to seek "remedies."
The Nasdaq stock exchange also came under further pressure as a source close to the situation told Reuters that NYSE Euronext had opened discussions with Facebook about a potential stock listing there. Nasdaq also faces litigation from angry investors.
Facebook's listing, envisioned as a crowning moment for an eight-year-old company that has become a business and cultural phenomenon, has instead turned into a legal and public relations fiasco for the company and its lead underwriter, Morgan Stanley.
Serious trading glitches interfered with the stock's opening on Friday, and subsequent revelations by Reuters that analysts had quietly reduced their revenue forecasts prior to the IPO have led to accusations of selective disclosure of material information. The shares closed at $32 on Wednesday, 15 percent below the IPO price.
A lawsuit filed on Wednesday seeking class-action status alleged that defendants -- including Facebook, its Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Group Inc and JPMorgan Chase & Co -- concealed "a severe and pronounced reduction" in revenue growth forecasts resulting from greater use of Facebook's app or website through mobile devices.
It also accused Facebook of telling its bank underwriters to "materially lower" their forecasts for the company. The lawsuit said the underwriters disclosed the lowered forecasts to "preferred" investors only.
"The main underwriters in the middle of the roadshow reduced their estimates and didn't tell everyone," said Samuel Rudman, a partner at Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd, which brought the lawsuit. The firm is among the leading securities class actions firms in the country.
"I don't think any investor in Facebook wouldn't have wanted to know that information."
Andrew Noyes, a Facebook spokesman, said: "We believe the lawsuit is without merit and will defend ourselves vigorously."
Morgan Stanley had no comment. It said on Tuesday that Facebook IPO procedures complied with all applicable regulations and were the same as in any initial offering.
Also on Wednesday, Knight Capital Group Inc said its second-quarter results will be hurt by losses related to numerous issues during the listing. The firm, which provides electronic trading services to brokers and retail clients, foresees a pre-tax loss of $30 million to $35 million related to the IPO.
The company has submitted claims for financial compensation from Nasdaq OMX and is considering all legal remedies available, Knight Capital said in a regulatory filing.
Knight Capital's announcement may be a sign of things to come as other traders and investors tally up losses from the trading problems.
Nasdaq OMX was also sued on Tuesday by an investor who claimed the exchange operator was negligent in handling orders for Facebook shares. Morgan Stanley said it is reviewing Facebook trades and would adjust prices for some retail customers who overpaid.
A source familiar with the situation told Reuters that NYSE Euronext had opened discussions with Facebook about a potential stock listing there, and that the social networking giant was considering its options.
The largest U.S. exchange later denied it was discussing a full listing transfer with the company, which became the first U.S. company to debut with a market value of over $100 billion.
IPO INVESTIGATIONS
Wednesday's lawsuit, one of several that have been filed around the country, was brought in New York on behalf of Dennis Palkon and Brian Roffe, who said they respectively bought 1,800 and 200 Facebook shares at the IPO price, and Jacob Salzmann, who said he paid more than $123,000 on May 18 for 2,961 shares at an average $41.77 each.
Research analysts at several underwriters lowered their forecasts for Facebook after the Menlo Park, California-based company in a May 9 prospectus cautioned investors about the possible impact of users shifting to mobile platforms. Facebook currently makes little revenue from mobile ads.
Citing people with direct knowledge of the matter, Reuters reported this week that, during its IPO road show, Facebook advised analysts for its underwriters to reduce their profit and revenue forecasts.
The lawsuit named underwriters Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Bank of America Corp as having cut their forecasts after the May 9 prospectus was filed, but that these cuts were not publicly revealed before the IPO. [ID:nL4E8GM8SK][ID:nL1E8GN0FT]
The plaintiff-shareholders called the disclosures of Facebook's business risks inadequate, saying that analysts knew more about these risks and cut their business outlooks accordingly -- for the benefit of only some investors, not all.
"If Facebook told analysts to materially lower their forecasts, it should have told the entire market," said Antony Page, a professor at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. "We need to know what exactly was said to the analysts, and determine how different Facebook's public story was from its private story."
Regulators including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, and Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin are now looking into how the IPO was handled. The U.S. Senate Banking Committee is also reviewing the matter.
"If Facebook faced a known and particularly salient risk, boilerplate language would be insufficient," said Elizabeth Nowicki, an associate professor at Tulane University Law School and a former SEC lawyer.
Bank of America and Barclays Plc are also defendants in the New York case, as are Facebook Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman and several Facebook directors.
Bank of America spokesman Bill Halldin, Barclays spokesman Mark Lane and Goldman spokesman Michael DuVally declined to comment. JPMorgan did not respond to requests for a comment.
The case is Brian Roffe Profit Sharing Plan et al v. Facebook Inc et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 12-04081.
(Additional reporting by Alistair Barr in San Francisco, and Nadia Damouni and Olivia Oran in New York and Sarah N. Lynch in Washington, D.C.; Editing by Jonathan Weber, Edwin Chan, Martha Graybow and Steve Orlofsky)
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Public release date: 24-May-2012
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