Stocks end lower as investors fret about 'fiscal cliff'

4 hrs.

JeeYeon Park , CNBC

Stocks ended in negative territory in a quiet, shortened trading session Monday, extending declines from the previous session, amid ongoing worries over the looming "fiscal cliff."?

Markets will be closed on Tuesday for Christmas day.?

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended lower, led by Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard.?

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq also finished in the red. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), widely considered the best gauge of fear in the market, traded above 18.

Among key S&P sectors, energy and utilities closed lower, while materials finished higher.?

"I think it's amazing how well the market's held up," said Hank Smith, chief investment officer at the Haverford Trust. "Use any type of correction of pullback as an opportunity to buy because this is not about fundamentals?this is strictly about politics and political ineptitude and it will be very passing and it will not have long-term implications." (Read More: Hunting for Yield? Here's One Place You Can Look)

With just four more trading days left in 2012, ongoing worries over the "fiscal cliff"?$600 billion in tax hikes and automatic spending cuts that kick in on January 1?kept investors on edge. With the House of Representatives and the Senate on their Christmas break and President Obama celebrating the Christmas holiday in Hawaii, talks will likely only resume after December 25.

"With no Plan B and the gulf between the parties as wide as ever, there is little to cheer this holiday season. The optimism that had seen the market rally strongly over the last few weeks is diminishing rapidly amid signs that a deal is as far away as ever," said Rebecca O'Keeffe, head of investment at Interactive Investor. (Read More: Lawmakers: We're Likely to Go Over the 'Fiscal Cliff')

Still, the S&P 500 is on track for its best yearly performance since 2009 with a gain of 13.7 percent year-to-date.

Microsoft slipped after the New York Times reported that sales of the tech giant's new Windows 8 operating system had disappointed PC makers as well as analysts.

JCPenney rose after Oppenheimer said the retailer's promotions are showing evidence of success. The brokerage has an "outperform" rating on the stock and a $30 price target. Still, shares of the company is down more than 40 percent year to date.?

Facebook gained after Needham raised its price target on the social-networking giant to $33 from $25.?

Research In Motion declined after Exane BNP Paribas cut its target price on the BlackBerry maker to $5.50 from $8.30.?

Herbalife fell for the ninth-straight session after the company said it expects to exceed its previously-announced buyback authorization guidance.?

European shares were range-bound with light volumes in a truncated day of trading. Major markets such as Germany, Switzerland and Italy were closed.?

Coming Up This Week:

• MONDAY: Market closes at 1?p.m.?ET
• TUESDAY: Markets closed for Christmas
  
• WEDNESDAY: Case-Shiller homeprice index
  
• THURSDAY: Jobless claims, new home sales, consumer confidence
  
• FRIDAY: ?Pending home sales
  

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/stocks-end-lower-shortened-session-cliff-woes-weigh-1C7657753

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Push for Cheaper Credit Hits Wall (WSJ)

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iPhone Cases, J.Crew Catalogs And More Instagrams Of The Week (PHOTOS)

This week at HuffPost Style, we were busy running around trying to get ready for Christmas. Between our annual office holiday party, seasonal nail art and candy canes galore, there was never a dull moment.

In this post, we've collected a few of our favorite Instagrams of the week (just in case last-minute holiday shopping had you missing out). Click through the slideshow below for a peek at the latest J.Crew catalog and the iPhone case we hope Santa will bring us this Christmas.

• Checking our lipgloss and Twitter feed just got easier with this iFrogz iPhone 5 case. No more side-eye when using our camera as a mirror.

• Loving the matchy-matchy coral lipstick and eyeglasses on @jcrew holiday 2012 catalog cover

• We'll take this @rebeccaminkoff bag for Christmas, please!

• Thank you, @karliekloss!

• Spotted on @briedyas' desk: the Bible.

• How adorable is @jessicamisener's new Equipment blouse?

• Today our associate editor Rebecca is rocking an Anthropologie scrunchie. Discuss.

• Hooch made from a Depression-era recipe sold in a milk bottle.

• Behind-the-scenes of our latest Style Swap shoot... stay tuned!

• It's really just one of those days.

• We cannot for the life of us remember what "photo shoot" means. Are we in one? Shooting one? We're stumped.

• We're way too excited to break into this enormous hunk of cheese. Seriously.

• Ice skating at the AOL/HuffPost holiday party!

• 15 blue candy canes, hanging in a row...

• Morning sugar rush!!!!

• Coveting senior editor @briedyas' statement ring from Francesca's -- an affordable version of the Cartier panther.

• Searching for NYE nail inspiration? We love

• Looks like we won't be playing any weird family games this Christmas...

• Gorgeous greeting card from @cndworld #nailart #nails

• It's Manicure Monday! Upload a shot of your nails and the nail polish color with the hash tag #showofhands and we'll feature on The Beauty Page. Here's @chelseaqueen's candy cane mani.

• On the menu tonight: Kale. Keeps our hair, skin and nails healthy and shiny!

Want more? Be sure to check out HuffPost Style on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest and Instagram at @HuffPostStyle.
--
Do you have a style story idea or tip? Email us at stylesubmissions@huffingtonpost.com. (PR pitches sent to this address will be ignored.)

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/23/iphone-cases-instagram-photos_n_2346357.html

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23 scientists and innovators win medals

NSF

The National Medal of Science honors researchers.

By Alan Boyle

President Barack Obama has named 12 researchers and 11 inventors as recipients of the federal government's highest honors in their fields: the National Medal of Science, and the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.

The newly named recipients will receive their awards at a White House ceremony next year.

"I am proud to honor these inspiring American innovators,"?Obama said today in a White House statement. ?"They represent the ingenuity and imagination that has long made this nation great ? and they remind us of the enormous impact a few good ideas can have when these creative qualities are unleashed in an entrepreneurial environment."

The National Medal of Science was established in 1959 and is administered for the White House by the National Science Foundation. The National Medal of Technology and Innovation was created in 1980, under the auspices of the Commerce Department's Patent and Trademark Office. Committees select nominees for each of the medals?? the science medal for contributions to research, and the technology medal for contributions to American competitiveness and quality of life.

National Medal of Science recipients include:

• Allen Bard, chemist focusing on artificial photosynthesis, University of Texas at Austin
• Sallie Chisholm, biologist focusing on marine organisms, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Sidney Drell, physicist and arms control expert, Stanford University
• Sandra Faber, astronomer focusing on evolution of galaxies and cosmic structure, University of California at Santa Cruz
• Sylvester James Gates, physicist focusing on supersymmetry and string theory, University of Maryland
• Solomon Golomb, mathematician and the inventor of polyominoes, University of Southern California
• John Goodenough, physicist credited for development of lithium-ion rechargeable batteries, University of Texas at Austin
• M. Frederick Hawthorne, chemist focusing on boron hydrides, University of Missouri
• Leroy Hood, biologist focusing on DNA medicine, Institute for Systems Biology
• Barry Mazur, mathematician focusing on geometry and number theory, Harvard University
• Lucy Shapiro, biologist focusing on developmental biology, Stanford University School of Medicine
• Anne Treisman, psychologist focusing on visual attention, perception and memory, Princeton University

NIST

The National Medal of Technology and Innovation goes to inventors and engineers.

National Medal of Technology and Innovation:

• Frances Arnold, engineer focusing on directed evolution, California Institute of Technology
• George Carruthers, inventor, physicist and space scientist, U.S. Naval Research Lab
• Robert Langer, engineer focusing on biotechnology and medical technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Norman McCombs, engineer focusing on oxygen therapy, AirSep Corp.
• Gholam Peyman, retina surgeon credited with invention of Lasik eye surgery procedure, Arizona Retinal Specialists
• Art Rosenfeld, physicist focusing on energy efficiency technologies, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
• Jan Vilcek, microbiologist focusing on the immune system, NYU Langone Medical Center
• IBM:?Samuel Blum,?Rangaswamy Srinivasan and?James Wynne, co-inventors of the ultraviolet excimer laser
• Raytheon BBN Technologies, R&D company focusing on military as well as civilian applications, represented by CEO Edward Campbell

The White House says the affiliations are the awardees' most recently identified employers. Some of the awardees are now retired.

More about science at the White House:

---

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's?Facebook page, following?@b0yle on Twitter?and adding the?Cosmic Log page?to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out?"The Case for Pluto,"?my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Source: http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/21/16075058-obama-names-23-scientists-and-innovators-as-medal-winners?lite

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Yemen army shells tribesmen for blocking pipeline repairs

SANAA (Reuters) - The Yemeni army launched an assault on Sunday using tanks and rockets on tribesmen blocking repairs to the country's main oil export pipeline, tribal sources said.

Earlier this month, the military launched a major offensive against tribesmen suspected of repeatedly blowing up the Maarib pipeline and attacking power lines. At least 17 soldiers were killed in an ambush by suspected al Qaeda militants.

"Armed tribesmen prevented repair teams from fixing the oil pipeline and army forces shelled the areas where the gunmen are based using tanks and Katyusha rockets," a tribal source told Reuters. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Local authorities reached a deal last week with tribal leaders under which the military will cease air strikes and the tribesmen will chase those responsible for killing the soldiers. The U.S.-allied Yemeni government depends heavily on tribesmen in its fight against Islamist militancy.

Yemen's oil and gas pipelines have repeatedly been sabotaged by insurgents or disgruntled tribesmen since anti-government protests created a power vacuum in 2011, causing fuel shortages and slashing export earnings for the impoverished country.

Yemen's stability is a priority for the United States and its Gulf Arab allies because of its strategic position next to top oil exporter Saudi Arabia and shipping lanes, and because it is home to one of the most active wings of al Qaeda.

A U.S.-backed military offensive has driven the militants out of areas they seized in the south last year but has not prevented them from launching attacks that have dealt damaging blows to the army and security apparatus.

Before the attacks, the Maarib pipeline had typically carried 110,000 barrels per day (bpd) of light crude to the Ras Isa export terminal on the Red Sea coast.

A long closure of the pipeline last year forced the country's largest refinery at Aden to shut, leaving the small producer dependent on imports and fuel donations from Saudi Arabia.

(Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari; Writing by Rania El Gamal; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/yemen-army-shells-tribesmen-blocking-pipeline-repairs-095546959.html

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Researchers uncover major source of evolutionary differences among species

Friday, December 21, 2012

University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine researchers have uncovered a genetic basis for fundamental differences between humans and other vertebrates that could also help explain why humans are susceptible to diseases not found in other species.

Scientists have wondered why vertebrate species, which look and behave very differently from one another, nevertheless share very similar repertoires of genes. For example, despite obvious physical differences, humans and chimpanzees share a nearly identical set of genes.

The team sequenced and compared the composition of hundreds of thousands of genetic messages in equivalent organs, such as brain, heart and liver, from 10 different vertebrate species, ranging from human to frog. They found that alternative splicing ? a process by which a single gene can give rise to multiple proteins ? has dramatically changed the structure and complexity of genetic messages during vertebrate evolution.

The results suggest that differences in the ways genetic messages are spliced have played a major role in the evolution of fundamental characteristics of species. However, the same process that makes species look different from one another could also account for differences in their disease susceptibility.

"The same genetic mechanisms responsible for a species' identity could help scientists understand why humans are prone to certain diseases such as Alzheimer's and particular types of cancer that are not found in other species," says Nuno Barbosa-Morais, the study's lead author and a computational biologist in U of T Faculty of Medicine's Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research. "Our research may lead to the design of improved approaches to study and treat human diseases."

One of the team's major findings is that the alternative splicing process is more complex in humans and other primates compared to species such as mouse, chicken and frog.

"Our observations provide new insight into the genetic basis of complexity of organs such as the human brain," says Benjamin Blencowe, Professor in U of T's Banting and Best Department of Research and the Department of Molecular Genetics, and the study's senior author.

"The fact that alternative splicing is very different even between closely related vertebrate species could ultimately help explain how we are unique."

###

The study, "The Evolutionary Landscape of Alternative Splicing in Vertebrate Species", is published in the December 21 issue of Science.

University of Toronto: http://www.utoronto.ca

Thanks to University of Toronto for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/126059/Researchers_uncover_major_source_of_evolutionary_differences_among_species

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Recipe: Cherry Quinoa Salad with Lamb | FOOD & DRINK | Refinery ...

Posted on December 19, 2012 by Bree Moore

You know Christmas isn?t far away when you start seeing cherries in the supermarket; the sight and smell of them can take you back to the dinner table for a big Christmas feast. Cherries are in season from early November to February, with supply peaking in December and January and this year?s growing conditions have ensured there will be plenty of luscious local cherries to enjoy throughout this short but sweet cherry season.

This sweet fruit is a great source of vitamin C and high in potassium; they are low in kilojoules; and contain dietry fibre and antioxidants. President of Cherry Growers Australia Andrew Smith says, ?Consumers should look for plump glossy cherries with relatively smooth, unblemished skin. Bright green stems in good condition are also indicative of healthy fruit.? Store fresh cherries in the fridge for up to 4 to 5 days either in a colander on the lowest shelf in the fridge or in the crisper inside a vegetable storage bag. To celebrate the arrival of cherry season and impending Christmas days, we share a lovely cherry salad with you - Cherry Quinoa Salad with Lamb.

Ingredients

1 cup tri-colour or white quinoa, rinsed and drained
1/3 cup (80ml) olive oil
6 lamb tenderloin fillets
1/4 cup (60ml) lemon juice
1? cups pitted fresh cherries, halved
3 spring onions, thinly sliced
? cup finely chopped parsley
? cup finely chopped mint
1/2 cup toasted pistachios, coarsely chopped
200g Greek feta
3 cups water

Method

1. Combine water and quinoa in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to a simmer, cover and cook for 15 minutes or until grains are tender. Drain, then transfer to a large bowl and set aside to cool.
2. Lightly coat the lamb fillets in 2 tablespoons oil; season well with salt and freshly ground pepper.
3. Heat chargrill pan over high heat then cook lamb for 6 minutes turning or until cooked to your liking. Transfer to a plate and cover loosely with foil. Set aside to rest for 5 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, whisk remaining oil and lemon juice until combined, then add to the quinoa and toss to coat.
5. Add remaining ingredients to bowl and toss well to combine.

To Serve

Slice lamb and serve on top of salad.

*For a vegetarian option, omit lamb and replace with zucchini.

Source: http://refinerymagazine.com.au/food-drink/cherry-growers-australia-recipe-cherry-quinoa-salad-with-lamb/

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