| Project Budburst: Looking To Spring Flowers For Climate Change Clues
ScienceDaily (Feb. 13, 2008) A nationwide initiative starting this month will enable volunteers to track climate change by observing the timing of flowers and foliage. Project BudBurst, operated by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) and a team of partners, allows students, gardeners, and other citizen scientists in every state to enter their observations into an online database that will give researchers a detailed picture of our warming climate. .
Once-Starving Dog Well Enough To Leave Hospital
AURORA, Colo. -- There's good news about Neeko, a dog found five months ago in Aurora on the verge of dying from dehydration and malnutrition. Neeko is now healthy enough to leave the hospital and is being placed in a foster home. The VCA Alameda East Veterinary Hospital said his departure is bittersweet. .
Managing your business in a downturn
How Merck Healed Itself"). Another area to build on is personnel. It may seem counter-intuitive to pay bonuses when profits are falling, but sometimes it's the right thing to do, particularly if a specific unit is creaming the competition. Rewarding excellence - through new challenges, public recognition, and, yes, money - in bad times as well as good builds loyalty. In fact, a downturn can be an excellent time to poach; people who might have stuck with a company because of vested options or other monetary incentives may be more willing to consider joining your company when those vanish. In general, I am against cutting salaries as a first resort. If that has to happen, though, top management absolutely must suffer a cut too. For boards, a downturn is an excellent time to take a hard look at CEO pay and ensure it is structured in a way that rewards genuine performance and does not simply piggyback on a rising market.
Pay reforms said to need scrutiny, care-taking
New agency pay-for-performance initiatives are highly vulnerable to bias and need extra evaluation and money to succeed, several witnesses told a House subcommittee on Tuesday. Human capital experts and union representatives pointed to pay systems at the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Internal Revenue Service to make their case before the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce. In September 2007, an arbitrator ruled that SEC's new pay system held vague and subjective performance requirements and discriminated against African Americans and employees age 40 and over. Meanwhile, employees have demonstrated little buy-in for pay reforms at the IRS. "The implementation of these systems must be evaluated with the same intensity that the Bush administration, and other pay-for-performance proponents, advocated that these systems be implemented," said subcommittee Chairman Danny Davis, D-Ill.
January 2006 Archives
Make a good movie so that you can support the little woman. Top movie of the weekend? Big Momma's House 2. And to think that I didn't even see Big Momma's House 1... Your boyfriend/husband/significant other/male cubemate/guy BFF thinks that Jessica Alba is hot. So are Sienna Miller and Hayden Christensen really dating? Well, she's been wearing his sweater. Whatever that means exactly, I'm not completely sure. .
Australia condemns bloody killing of whale and calf by Japanese fleet
Pictures of a whale and her calf bleeding from harpoon wounds and slung lifeless in the slipway of a Japanese whaling vessel have provoked outrage in Australia and inflamed diplomatic tensions. Recent video and photographs taken from the decks of an Australian Customs vessel and released yesterday show the whales being pursued and then shot with explosive-tipped harpoons. They are seen thrashing about in bloodied Southern Ocean waters before being winched aboard the Yushin Maru 2 whaler. Peter Garrett, the Australian Environment Minister, said that the pictures of the slaughter had made him feel sick. He seized on the images in an effort to galvanise opinion against the annual hunt and to build a consensus within the International Whaling Commission to close the legal loophole that allows scientific whaling.
Edison parade: Stories from parade route
They came out early and were plenty. Hours before the start of the Edison Festival of Light Parade Saturday, downtown Fort Myers streets were filled with spectators awaiting its start.
While many reserved their spots weeks to months in advance with yellow tape or lawn chairs, others, such as Judy Barr, didnt have to worry.
This is a great spot, its away from the crowd but its right in the middle of it all, Barr said.
Barr set up shop with her grand-daughter Jaime Crawford and her great- grand-daughter Taylor Hernandez on a 4- to 5-foot wall on the corner of Main Street and Monroe Street next to the Lee County Justice Center.
This has been our spot for years, she said. The view isnt blocked, which is great for the grand-children, now the great-grandchildren.
Savor your hot cocoa without counting calories
Soy proteins have been found to reduce blood cholesterol levels and risk of heart disease. But they also contain phytonutrients called isoflavones that weakly mimic the female hormone estrogen, which some researchers worry might lead to increased risk of breast cancer. "If the science behind the health benefits of soy foods is not particularly compelling, neither is the science suggesting that there is harm in eating reasonable amounts of them," Nestle writes. What's the smart consumer to do? Remember that a healthy diet is a series of tradeoffs, and moderation just makes sense. Shopping tip: Soy milk in a variety of flavors is available in the health food section of the supermarket. Our testers used Light Silk Soy Milk (silksoymilk.com), which contains organic evaporated cane juice for 120 calories per 1-cup serving and just 1.5 grams of fat (0 grams saturated).
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