As with most things, getting your home business going is easier when you start with the right knowledge. The following paragraphs will help you begin your business. Keep Your Home Business Alive With These Vital Tips Financial leniency can be a tempting way to build relationships when starting a business, but your bottom-line may be adversely affected. Make sure you have strict rules about payments and late fees from the start, or people may take advantage of you.
Keep your home business on as tight of a budget as you can. By working from home, you will save funds by not needing to rent a location for your business. Do not make any other purchases unless you absolutely must. Keeping your budget under control allows you to offer your products at a reasonable price.
Always deposit as soon as you get the money. Don't wait weeks or months to deposit payments; do it at least every few days. If you have checks just sitting around waiting to be deposited, there is a greater chance that these will get lost. Whenever convenient or possible, do your deposits through a human teller, instead of a machine. This helps money go into your accounts without issues.
A good home business tip is to look as professional as you can. An unprofessional looking website will stave customers away fast. When you are looking to make a website, find out what other websites look like.
Home Business Information That Is Very Valuable Be on the lookout for websites where home business owners gather. You can find many useful resources by doing a simple Google search. There also a variety of blogs that you can consult for more advice.
Support groups are beneficial if you are a home business owner. It helps to build a network with other peers. These people might not work in a similar industry, but they possess the drive and motivation to achieve a successful home business.
Use the internet to your advantage, and as a marketing tool. You can create your own website, or have someone design an easy to use site for you. It is important to offer your customers excellent site content with the ability to make purchases online where practical. Providing an avenue for them to remain in touch with you is also an important consideration. Here are tips on how to make a website that will work for your business.
Make More Money With Your Home Business Meticulously plan every aspect of your home business. You can change this plan if you need to. A business plan acts as your mission statement, outlining how you would like to see your business develop. Keep your business plan frequently updated.
As you can see, it will require a little bit of work and dedication to make the jump. If you can manage to pull through and stick to the plan, you will be able to accurately represent your dream in the company's image and create something that is long-lasting and profitable over the years.
TOKYO - World finance leaders on Saturday endorsed a checklist of policy reforms aimed at pressuring Europe and the United States to tackle debt troubles that threaten to choke off global growth.
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To hold each others' feet to the fire, the nations -- meeting under the aegis of the International Monetary Fund -- agreed to review progress in six months.
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Their 10-page agenda, however, largely summarized previously planned steps, such as deploying a new European Central Bank bond-buying programme and avoiding the U.S. "fiscal cliff" of spending cuts and tax hikes set to take hold early next year.
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The checklist and checkup were an acknowledgement of frustration within the IMF and among many emerging market economies over a sluggish and piecemeal policy response to the major risks facing the world economy.
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IMF chief Christine Lagarde said nations had narrowed their differences over how to implement policy, seeking to downplay disagreements between the Fund and Germany over how quickly debt-laden countries such as Greece should cut budgets.
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"There was no objection to the recommendation that we gave to the membership, which was A-C-T," Lagarde said, spelling out the word letter by letter.
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"We might not always agree on everything, but I think there is a general consensus that collective action is going to produce results," she told reporters.
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In a communique released after two days of talks, IMF members warned that global economic growth was decelerating and that substantial uncertainties and risks remained.
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But the IMF's governing panel, representing the 188 member countries, praised steps that had already been taken, particularly in Europe, to make the world financial system safer, even if they had not yet gone far enough.
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"Members all agreed that we are in a better position today than we were six months ago," said Singapore Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, the chairman of the committee.
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Spain's economy minister, Luis de Guindos, said he felt the mood toward his country lifting too. Spain is under pressure to seek a bailout as it struggles to cope with high government debt and the cost of recapitalising its banks.
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"The atmosphere, from International Monetary Fund policymakers or from the private sector, is much more positive than it was before the summer," de Guindos said.
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Euro zone sources said they expected Spain to seek financial aid from the euro zone in November.
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"Were moving, we're taking steps, we're preparing it," said a senior official who is directly involved in talks about potential Spanish aid. "Things will crystallise in November."
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Still, finance leaders leave Tokyo with little concrete evidence fresh progress was being made in the world's debt trouble spots, hamstrung by political considerations.
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U.S. presidential elections and a once-a-decade leadership change in China are just weeks away. The euro area has to navigate decisions through several national governments, which Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov likened to manoeuvring a supertanker with 17 captains at the helm.
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"If you decide to turn it in one direction, it happens very slowly," he said.
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EMERGING STRAINS
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Reports from the IMF this week downgraded global economic growth forecasts for the second time since April and warned of the need for action in advanced economies to treat a debt hangover that stems in part from earlier efforts to quell the global financial crisis.
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To replenish its crisis-fighting war chest, the IMF has taken in $461 billion in contributions from member countries, with Algeria and Brunei the newest members of the donor group, Lagarde said. The United States is among the notable absences from the list of contributors.
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Frustration over what many nations see as plodding progress in Europe and in Washington spilled into public view during the meetings.
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"Asia alone can't carry the global economy," said Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan. "It is time for the other players to get off the benches and start to pull their weight on global economic growth again."
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Emerging markets, which have been caught in the downdraft created by weak economies in Europe and the United States, were disappointed that the IMF missed its target for enacting voting reforms that would make China the third most influential country within the lending institution.
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Lagarde said there were "one or two countries" that had not finalized the reforms, which were agreed in 2010, a thinly veiled reference to the United States. The Obama administration does not want to seek congressional approval for more IMF funding before the November presidential election.
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European leaders argued this week they had taken big strides toward building a stronger fiscal and banking union, and they earned at least some recognition from the rest of the world.
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"This broad framework offers a more promising strategy for addressing the crisis," U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said. "However, what is important is how it will be applied."
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German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble pointed out that euro zone decision-making does take time given the number of national governments involved.
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"If we are not fast enough for markets, sorry, but markets have to wait," he said.
With the highest rating of 5 stars,?Carolina Comfort, Inc. has won the prestigious CMUS Talk of the Town?customer satisfaction award?for 2012 in the Contractors ? Heating & Air Conditioning category.
The?Talk of the Town Awards, presented by Talk of the Town News, Customer Care News magazine and Celebration Media U.S. (CMUS), honor companies and professionals that provide excellent customer service as reported by their customers through no-cost, user-review websites, blogs, social networks, business rating services, and other honors and accolades. This data is analyzed by a team of researchers who calculate a company?s CMUS Power Rating?. Only those that receive a 4-star to 5-star rating receive the CMUS Talk of the Town Customer Satisfaction Award.
Carolina Comfort, Inc. serves residential and commercial?heating and air conditioning?needs in Columbia, S.C., and surrounding areas from its new 17,000-square-foot office and warehouse facility located at 5636 Old Bush River Road in Columbia, which includes a full sheet metal fabrication shop.
President and CEO Rich Mitchell established the company in 1992 and then brought on longtime friend and service technician Steven Faust. Together, the two hired additional staff members from the best in South Carolina, and also set up an in-house training program. Today, the company employs nearly 40 people who have more than 200 years of combined experience. The office staff members have been with Mitchell for close to a decade and know their customers on a first-name basis.
Carolina Comfort?s technicians are highly trained on the latest technologies and product lines. On commercial projects, the team installs a variety of ductwork types including spiral duct, rectangular sheet metal, hard pipe systems and duct board. Some of the company?s recent jobs have been at the Vista Lofts, Moe?s on Devine, Smashburger, Hand & Stone at Cross Hills, Wild Wings and Old Navy at The Village at Sandhill, just to name a few.
In addition to new installations, Carolina Comfort, Inc. handles both commercial and residential service calls. ?Our service technicians are 100 percent customer focused and provide the highest levels of service on all brands of heating and air conditioning equipment,? says Mitchell.
Winning the Talk of the Town Award is a source of pride for Mitchell and the team at Carolina Comfort, Inc. ?Our top priority has always been customer satisfaction,? he says. ?We pride ourselves in knowing we can get the job done right every time and that our clients will be provided with only the best products and customer service available through Carolina Comfort, Inc.?
The company?s motto, ?If you put the right things first in life and take care of those who have taken care of you, the outcome will always be better,? shows its commitment to providing excellent customer service. ?We treat each and every customer like they are our only one, treating them like we would treat our mother or father or members of our own family,? says Mitchell. ?We believe in treating our customers with trust, honesty, integrity and good quality service. It starts with our very first customer and ends with every employee. At Carolina Comfort, Inc. we want you to be a customer for life.?
Carolina Comfort, Inc. is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, the Air Conditioning Contractors of America (ACCA), the South Carolina Heating and Air Conditioning Contractors Association, the Home Builders Association of South Carolina, and Mitchell serves on the Board of Directors of the Better Business Bureau (BBB), with whom the company carries its highest A+ standing.
The company is located at 5636 Old Bush River Road in Columbia, S.C. For more information, call 803-794-5526 or go online to?www.carolinacomfortsc.com.
About the Award and Sponsors:?
This is the fourth year CMUS, Talk of the Town News and Customer Care News have honored companies for achieving high levels of customer satisfaction with the Talk of the Town Awards. Businesses eligible to receive the award include, but are not limited to, beauty salons, spas, restaurants, bakeries, dentists, auto repair facilities, veterinarians, home repair and improvement contractors, florists, hospitals, and physicians.
For more information about the award or its sponsors, please contact CMUS and Talk of the Town News at 877-498-6405 or go online to?www.talkofthetownnews.com.
About Celebration Media U.S.: Celebration Media provides companies with valuable information on improving customer care through its publishing division, which produces Customer Care News, and its research department, which provides businesses with information on customer service best practices. This commitment has led to the creation of the Talk of the Town Awards program, which is dedicated to identifying companies that are excelling in high-rated customer service feedback and offering them valuable marketing opportunities to leverage their award, while also giving consumers a tool to find the top consumer-rated businesses in the United States and Canada.
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By Shannon Larratt ? Oct 13th, 2012 ? Category: ModBlog
As many of you know, I?m a voracious reader of comics and have talked before on ModBlog about creating some sort of database of bodymod and body art in the illustrated world. Today I read last year?s graphic novel BleedOut, which tells the story of a world devolved into a sort of criminal feudal dystopia after worldwide oil supplies mysteriously run out in a matter of weeks ? ?civilization devolved 200 years in less than one?. The comic actually exists as a vessel to explain the post-apocalyptic 3rd-person-shooter criminal simulation MMO CrimeCraft (crimecraft.com), ?believably? letting players know how the world devolved into gang-moderated hell so quickly. I?m actually glad I didn?t find out this was the purpose of the comic until afterwards because videogame tie-in comics are usually so terrible that I might not have read it at all.
Anyway, the comic is broken up chapters, each drawn by a different artist ? with some great names like Nathan Fox, Zach Howard, Sanford Greene, David Williams, Gary Erskine, Howard Chaykin, Glenn Fabry, Vince Proce, and Trevor Hairsine. The book as a whole tells a story about this awful world, and most chapters are a sort of vignette on a different crime lord. The chapter that caught my eye for ModBlog was ?Youth Bulge?, drawn by Ben Templesmith (you may know him from 30 Days of Night), which is about Arkady Kavchenko, who runs adult entertainment in the city where the story takes place ? pornography and porn, with a taste for kink, the farther out the better. He?s also been infected with a genetic virus of sorts that gives him Wolverine-like healing. Before selling people a vice, he always tried it first, and this taste for kink would have killed a normal person ?twenty times over?, but somehow he?s survived it. The apex of his dangerous perversion pyramid? I was amused to see that it was suspension!
Click to see the whole page, or better yet, pick up the comic. It?s not in any way body modification themed as a whole ? there are a myriad of tattooed characters (they are criminals after all!) but it?s completely incidental ? but suspension is rare enough in pop fiction that I thought it was worth a mention.
Tagged as: Comic Book Tattoos, Suspension
Shannon Larratt is the founder of BME (1994) and its former editor and publisher. After a four year hiatus between 2008 and 2012, Shannon is back adding his commentary to ModBlog. It should be noted that any comments in these entries are the opinion of Shannon Larratt and may or may not be shared by BMEzine.com LLC or the other staff or members of BME. Entry text Copyright ? Shannon Larratt. Reproduced under license by BMEzine.com LLC. Pictures may be copyright to their respective owners. You can also find Shannon at Zentastic or on Facebook. Email this author | All posts by Shannon Larratt
EDUCATION - Earlier this week, Fight For Children announced a new, $10 million initiative called ?Joe?s Champs? that aims to improve early childhood education in the District. The program, which is named after the organization?s late founder, Joe Robert, plans to expand to 40 traditional public and charter schools within five years.?(WaPo, 10/10; FFC, 10/10)
- DCPS names teacher, principal of the year (WaPo, 10/11)
POVERTY | D.C. Hunger Solutions organized the week-long ?Food Stamp Challenge? to raise awareness of the challenges facing people who rely on food stamps. The staff of the Washington Area Women?s Foundation are participating and have reflected on their experiences and what they have learned throughout this week on their blog. (WAWF, 10/9 ? 12)
COMMUNITY |?The Nonprofit Rountable celebrated its 10th anniversary on Wednesday, with a number of speakers, including the Meyer Foundation?s Julie Rogers and Venture Philanthropy Partners??Mario Marino reflecting on the past decade, and gearing up for the next. The Catalogue of Philanthropy wrote up?the event on their blog, noting that (GoodWorks, 10/11):
The strength of the nonprofit community lies primarily within the strength of our leaders. Support for innovative nonprofit leadership is crucial. Collaboration within the nonprofit and public sector is paramount to address the vast needs and social issues that we face today.
WORKFORCE |The Community Foundation for the National Capital Region?s Greater Washington Workforce Development Collaborative has a round-up of recent news articles highlighting a number of its projects in the region, including the MedStar Montgomery Medical Center, SOME Center for Employee Training, and the Invest2Compete project. (Giving It Some Thought, 10/11) Thanks, CFNCR, for making my news round-up job a bit easier today.
REGION | The D.C. area ranks third in the country for the worst traffic. (Examiner, 10/12) I guess we can?t be number one at everything.
I think bored high school English students everywhere would be amused by this: the terrible reviews classic novels received when they were first published. One critic?s take on Madame Bovary: ?Monsieur Flaubert is not a writer.?
If you enjoyed yesterday?s bad lipreading video of the first presidential debate, you might enjoy this video as well.
-Rebekah
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This entry was posted on Friday, October 12th, 2012 at 11:40 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
A little new thing I want to start is on Friday?s giving a little shout out to fellow bloggers out there who like myself are a little bit under ground and maybe not recognized as much as some of the biggies out their like Robb Wolf, Mark Sisson or Diane Sanfillipo but still have awesome things to say about health and fitness and ultimately who live the fit! I think together through support of one another us little people can make a lot of change as well!
This brings me to a blog that caught my eye a while ago when I first launched LIVEtheFIT on WordPress back in July. Paleo in PDX is run by Alisa who is a dedicated health, fitness, nutrition, yoga lover! I?ve had the pleasure of communicating a few times with Alisa via of e-mail bouncing ideas off of one another and what-have-you and was so impressed by how far her blog has come in such a short period of time. This just goes to show how her hard work, great recipes and intriguing posts are all bringing us just that much closer to forefront.?
You can check out Paleo in PDX at paleoinpdx.com?right now! You can also check her out on Facebook at facebook.com/paleoinpdx! And of course don?t forget to check out our new Facebook page while you?re at it at facebook.com/livethefit!
As news about the fungal meningitis outbreak continues to dribble out, some might assume that we know what we need to know to evaluate commence and evaluate lawsuits against those responsible for causing the break.
We do not.
The fact of the matter is there is still much to be known about the fungal meningitis nightmare before these cases can be fully evaluated. ?Why? ?Because facts essential to understanding the liability issues in this case are in possession of people and corporations who have not yet been forced to share that information. ?Sure, various governmental agencies have got some information from these folks, and some of that information has found its way to the press, but there is lots of information yet to be fully brought to the public eye or confirmed.?
For example:
1. ?How did these steroid injections come to be contaminated? ?The steroid involved is methylprednisolone acetate. ?The current understanding is the product came from New England Compounding Center (NECC). ?But where did NECC get the product or its components from and was the product, or any portion of it, contaminated before it came into NECC"s control or after?
2. ?What processes did NECC have in place to determine whether the methylprednisolone acetate (or its component parts) were free from contaminants? ? Is there any documentation that those processes were followed?
3. ?To the extent the methylprednisolone acetate (or its components) were supplied by others, what documentation is there that the substances were free from contaminants when they left the control of the supplier?
4. ?Did NECC comply with the law when it supplied the steroids to the sellers? ?There is some suggestion that individual prescriptions were required for each dose and that NECC did not follow such a rule, but more information is necessary.
5. ?What did the sellers of the steroids know, and what should they have known, about NECC and its business practices before it chose to buy steroids from them?
6. ?Did NECC work with any other compounding pharmacy to supply this amount of epidural steroid injections and, if so, what role, if any, did any other pharmacy play in this tragedy?
7. ?Does NECC have sufficient liability insurance to compensate those injured and killed by this product? ?If not, under Tennessee law, this may impose financial liability on the seller of the product ?( the clinic or surgical center where the steroid injection was given) even if the seller of the product did nothing wrong. ?(Clink on link to read a post I wrote on this over a week ago called "Who Has Legal Liability Arising From the Fungal Meningitis Outbreak?" ?This post also discusses Tennessee's limited liability for product sellers such as the clinics and surgical centers where the injections were given.
8. ?When did any seller of the steroid product first become aware of a possible contamination of the product and how quickly did they react to it?
9. ?Do the acts of NECC (and anyone else) rise to the level of recklessness or fraud so as to justify the imposition of punitive damages under Tennessee law? ?(To read more about the law of Tennessee concerning damages in these cases, click on link to read my post "Fungal Meningitis, Tort Reform, and Damages in Tennessee Personal Injury and Wrongful Death Cases."
10. ?Is there going to be a claim that any shipper or seller mishandled the steroid and thus caused or contributed to the outbreak?
11. ?Will NECC or any other defendant argue that ?fungal meningitis found in a given victim ?was caused by an exposure to fungus other than that may have been in the steroid?
These eleven questions are just a good start. ? Some of these questions will be answered during the investigations being conducted by federal and state governments, but many will be answered only during the litigation process. ?For those who have not been involved in complicated litigation before, the issues in this case seem straight-forward - we have a bad product, with people dead or injured, and thus only the amount of damages is left to evaluate. ?Those of us who have been involved in complicated litigation before know that there are many, many unanswered questions of fact and law that will impact the ability of the victims of this tragedy to obtain the justice they deserve.
John Day and the other lawyers in his firm represent people who have been injured or lost a loved one due to the negligence of another person or company. John has been listed in?Best Lawyers?for 20 years, and has the highest legal rating a lawyer can earn by the legal rating services?Martindale?and?AVVO.
An author of three books on personal injury and wrongful death law and over 50 articles for legal publications, John has given approximately 300 speeches to lawyers in over 15 states on personal injury, wrongful death, and related subjects. He represents people across Tennessee in personal injury, wrongful death, medical malpractice, products liability and other civil cases. To read what John's clients have said about him and his law firm, click?here.
If you believe that you or a loved one have contracted fungal meningitis from an epidural steroid injection, John will consult with you at no cost or obligation. ?Call him at 615.742.4880 or tollf-ree at 866.812.8787. You may also fill out our Contact Form and we will call you.
Your chioce of college major can have major financial implications.
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By Allison Linn, TODAY
Think carefully about your college major: A bad decision could cost you $1 million.
A new Census Bureau report finds that engineering majors can make over $1 million more in the course of a lifetime than those who major in fields like psychology and education.
The median, or midpoint, of earnings for engineering majors who work full-time, year-round, was $91,611 per year, the report found. Education majors had the lowest median earnings among the degree categories included in the survey, at $50,902 per year.
Business majors fell somewhere in the middle, with median full-time earnings of $66,605.
Men had higher earnings than women in every degree category. Those who worked in the private sector also tended to make more than those who work in government. Many education majors work for the government as public school teachers.
The report is based on 2011 American Community Survey, an annual sample of more than 3 million American households, and looked at people ages 25 and over with a bachelor?s degree or higher.
It comes as many Americans are heading to college ? or back to college ? in the hopes of improving their job prospects amid a tight job market.
In general, experts say that?s a smart move: A college degree usually puts you on the path to higher earnings and more job security over the course of a lifetime.
Still, in recent years it?s also left many Americans burdened with debt. That?s why experts say it?s more important than ever to make sure you choose a field of study that is likely to lead to a good job.
Of course, not everyone has a passion for, or ability to do, work in the more lucrative fields of science and engineering.
For those with a passion for education, there may be a silver lining. A separate report released this year by Georgetown University?s Center on Education and the Workforce found that education majors enjoyed among the strongest job prospects because the unemployment rate is low in the teaching profession.
Jacquie Ross is the Family Makeover Maven. Jacquie is a Certified Life and Family Coach, Professional Organizer and award winning owner of CastAway the Clutter! A busy mom expert, Jacquie works with moms and families to develop strategies to reach their goals, identify any road blocks, and find more meaning in their lives. Learn more about Jacquie?s life coaching and parent/youth/family coaching here at the Family Makeover Maven, and for organizing services, visit CastAway the Clutter! Jacquie can also be found on Facebook
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Cancer spectrum in DNA mismatch repair gene mutation carriers: results from a hospital based Lynch syndrome registry
Fam Cancer?
The spectrum of cancers seen in a hospital based Lynch syndrome registry of mismatch repair gene mutation carriers was examined to determine the distribution of cancers and examine excess cancer risk. Overall there were 504 cancers recorded in 368 mutation carriers from 176 families. These included 236 (46.8?%) colorectal and 268 (53.2?%) extracolonic cancers. MLH1 mutation carriers had a higher frequency of colorectal cancers whereas MSH2, MSH6 and PMS2 mutation carriers had more extracolonic cancers although these differences were not statistically significant. Men had fewer extracolonic cancers than colorectal (45.3 vs. 54.7?%), whereas women had more extracolonic than colorectal cancers (59.0 vs. 41.0?%). The mean age at diagnosis overall for extracolonic cancers was older than for colorectal, 49.1 versus 44.8?years (P???0.001). As expected, the index cancer was colorectal in 58.1?% of patients and among the extracolonic index cancers, endometrial was the most common (13.8?%). A significant number of non-Lynch syndrome index cancers were recorded including breast (n?=?5) prostate (n?=?3), thyroid (n?=?3), cervix (n?=?3), melanoma (n?=?3), and 1 case each of thymoma, sinus cavity, and adenocarcinoma of the lung. However, standardized incidence ratios calculated to assess excess cancer risk showed that only those cancers known to be associated with Lynch syndrome were significant in our sample. We found that Lynch syndrome patients can often present with cancers that are not considered part of Lynch syndrome. This has clinical relevance both for diagnosis of Lynch syndrome and surveillance for cancers of different sites during follow-up of these patients.?
Legal Shield is an MLM company that does not only provide high-quality and affordable legal services, but also provides you with a business opportunity. If you decide to become a member of Legal Shield, you get the protection you need for your family, and you profit at the same time by selling membership plans. Could Legal Shield be the business opportunity for you.
A Safe Legal Shied Review
We don?t want to get involved with legal issues, whether they are about finances, family, marriage, health, traffic and driving issues, or real estate. However, these are inevitable. While these issues are very hard to understand and getting legal services from law firms tend to be expensive, we turn to some legal protection that would give us high quality, affordable legal services. That?s where Legal Shield comes in.
Legal Shield promises high-quality, affordable, 24-hour legal protection and service to all its clients. And more than that, Legal Shield also offers a business opportunity. Perhaps it?s quite hard to believe that legal services also operate in the multi-level marketing system. Let?s learn more about Legal Shield and the services it offers.
Legal Shield?The company
Legal Shield started as Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc, in 1972. It has the purpose of giving specialized legal services to people in the United States and Canada on multiple categories. As of now, Legal Shield has 50 independent law firms that provide legal services to all its members. Its legal products are provided following the multi-level marketing scheme, thus, the Legal Shield business opportunity.
Becoming a member of Legal Shield by paying a small amount would give you access to a responsive, high-quality law firm in your area that would provide you with the legal services you need.
Legal Shield?The products
As a member of Legal Shield, you are entitled to legal services for the following categories: real estate, consumer finance, family law, estate planning and traffic issues. More than that, the Legal Shield plan could give you 24-hour emergency assistance and advice if there is a need for you to ask about any legal issues no matter how small, legal document review, audit services, motor vehicle services or even standard will preparation.
It is also nice to know that not only the member benefits from this plan. It also includes the member?s spouse, dependent children under 21 who are never married, dependent children under 18, full-time college students up to 23 years old who are never married and are dependent children and physically or mentally challenged children living at home.
Legal Shield makes sure you and your family are protected. With the expanded Legal Shield plan, you would have extended and additional benefits as well. Legal Shield also gives identity theft shield and safeguard for minor services.
Legal Shield?The business opportunity
So how does someone make a business opportunity out of legal services? As a member of Legal Shield who enjoys the protection that the company gives, you can profit from it by selling Legal Shield membership plans. Multi-level marketing allows you to build a team of down lines to gain more income and commission from your personal sales or members? sales.
Legal Shield?The compensation plan
Legal Shield members profit through personal membership sales. And depending on the number of sales you make and the sales your down line makes, you move to a higher level in the business plan and you get a higher commission. Personal advances, override bonuses and lifetime residual bonuses are also given.
Legal Shield?Conclusion
With these facts all laid out to you, you could probably say that Legal Shield would not only provide you with legal services, it could also give you the best business opportunity. Remember that understanding the company, its services, its products and compensation plan is always the best way to know if the opportunity is right for you. Legal Shield could be that company. I hope that this Legal Shield review helped you understand the enterprise.
Learn more about those network marketing strategies and be the best in the industry.
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It would be nice to succeed all the time, wouldn?t it? What if absolutely everything you did turned into gold and everyone loved you all the time. Even if you did something really dumb your fans would follow you to your next big thing. What a life, Charlie Sheen!
What a dream, more like. Obviously succeeding all the time is impossible. Even Pixar, the studio behind movies like Toy Story and Cars, found this out when Cars 2 was panned by critics as their first big failure (of course, it still made a bunch of money). No matter what you do or what industry you?re in, you?re bound to hit a snag once in a while.
And thank goodness! Without failures, we would have no opportunity to learn. Whatever troubles you encounter create an opportunity to fix something and make your company stronger.
Holes in the Armor
Until you encounter your first big failure, you really don?t know where the holes in your company?s armor are. It?s natural to assume when you first start out that everything is great and nothing will go wrong. Sure, you may have found some little things wrong when you first launched, but you fixed them in no time, so everything?s perfect now, right?
Not so, and only when everything falls apart do you see where the real issues are. It?s usually in an area where you weren?t expecting, too; for instance, you might think the reason you?ve sold nothing in your first three months of being open is due to your product, but then you find out it?s because your website is a mess.
The good thing about finding out what to fix here is it may just take a little tweaking. Adjusting your website usually isn?t a huge undertaking, so it shouldn?t take you six months of setbacks to get it up to speed. Then you can start looking out for your next big goof.
What You?re Just Flat Out Missing
Sometimes it?s not just a little thing that?s gone wrong ? once in a while in your haste to get your store running, you flat out forget an important piece of the business puzzle! When this happens you might have some more work cut out for you, though it?s nothing you can?t eventually amend.
New business owners, especially ones with a unique product, get so excited about starting a business that they forget little things like ?customer service? or ?marketing.? Then somewhere down the line they realize they have a great product that?s literally going nowhere.
This may take a little more work to fix, as things like dealing with customers are issues they should have considered before they opened up shop. However, they could still use what they?ve learned thus far to make an even better customer service or marketing plan than they would have before they started.
For example, before they opened up shop, they may not have realized their product is shippable in a very small box. This way they can afford to offer deals on shipping without suffering a huge loss. Or, you may have targeted your skinny jeans to Tweens, only to find that it?s their target audience?s mothers who buy the product in droves. Uh oh ? time to change the PR and marketing strategies!
What major (or minor) failure have you learned the most from?
This article is written by Mickie Kennedy, founder of eReleases (http://www.ereleases.com), the online leader in affordable press release distribution. Download your free copy of 7 Cheap PR Tactics for Success in Any Economy here: http://www.ereleases.com/7cheaptactics.html
Tags: armor, cars, charlie sheen, gold, goof, money, pixar, tweaking
ScienceDaily (Oct. 11, 2012) ? The Universe is filled with mysterious objects. Many of them are as strange as they are beautiful. Among these, planetary nebulae are probably one of the most fascinating objects to behold in the night sky. No other type of object has such a large variety of shapes and structures. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has provided a striking image of Hen 3-1475, a planetary nebula in the making.
Planetary nebulae -- the name arises because most of these objects resembled a planet when they were first discovered through early telescopes -- are expanding, glowing shells of gas coming from sun-like stars at the ends of their lives. They glow brightly because of the radiation that comes from a hot, compact core, which remains after the outer envelope is ejected, and is powerful enough to make these gossamer shells shine.
Each planetary nebula is complex and unique. Hen 3-1475 is a great example of a planetary nebula in the making, a phase which is known to astronomers as a protoplanetary or preplanetary nebula.
Since the central star has not yet blown away its complete shell, the star is not hot enough to ionize the shell of gas and so the nebula does not shine. Rather, we see the expelled gas thanks to light reflected off it. When the star's envelope is fully ejected, it will begin to glow and become a planetary nebula.
Hen 3-1475 is located in the constellation of Sagittarius around 18,000 light-years away from us. The central star is more than 12,000 times as luminous as our sun. Its most characteristic feature is a thick ring of dust around the central star and two S-shaped jets that are emerging from the pole regions of the central star. These jets are long outflows of fast-moving gas travelling at hundreds of kilometers per second.
The formation of these bipolar jets has puzzled astronomers for a long time. How can a spherical star form these complex structures? Recent studies suggest that the object's characteristic shape and the large velocity outflow is created by a central source that ejects streams of gas in opposite directions and precesses once every thousand years. Precession means a change in the orientation of the rotational axis of a rotating body. It is like an enormous, slowly rotating garden sprinkler in the middle of the sky. No wonder astronomers also have nicknamed this object the "Garden-sprinkler Nebula."
This picture was taken with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3, which provides significantly higher resolution than previous observations made with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by NASA.
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Offering teleseminars can pay off handsomely: You can use teleseminars to attract individuals to join your e mail list. You can supply them as a benefit of your members-only web web site. You can use them to pitch your goods or people of a joint venture partner. You can sell admission to them. You can use the audio recordings in a selection of products.
Right here are the measures you can take to provide a teleseminar.
Determine when to hold the teleseminar, what information to give, what item or service, if any, to pitch to the attendees.
Prepare your purchasing cart service to handle sales of any product you are pitching.
Set up an automobile responder list to handle the sign-ups. An autoresponder automates your email lists. The attendees need to be positioned on their very own e-mail list.
Generate all the internet pages the attendee sees: the sign-up (?squeeze?) page and the sales (?pitch?) page for your provide.
The squeeze page is to get the names and emails of the attendees. It really should promote the benefits of attending. The pitch page is to sell the product. It ought to advertise the benefits of the product, the bonuses becoming presented and the lowered cost. It really should emphasize the restricted time the supply will be offered.
Develop the e mail messages that an attendee sees: announcements to your (or your joint venture partner?s) email list, reminders when and how to attend, notification of wherever they can listen to the recording, reminders of when your specific provide is due to expire. You require to send announcements to your lists, since the easiest people to attract are those who previously have a relationship with you. Once individuals have signed up, you require to keep reminding them when and how to attend.
Individuals expect to be reminded.
Routine all your emails except for the announcement of in which the recording is. You won?t know when it is obtainable right up until you have edited it and place it up online.
Prepare all the other announcements, ads, and promotional material. Submit them according to your routine.
Prepare the presentation and rehearse it. Logically, this ought to come initial, and following you?ve presented the teleseminar once, you will have it currently accomplished. But most of us won?t get it completed at first without having time stress.
Place up an HTML edition of your slides (if any) for attendees to view online. In Open Workplace Impress, search beneath File>Export to come across where to create the HTML.
Present the teleseminar. Use a checklist to be sure you bear in mind to start the recording, mute the attendees, and so on.
Download the audio recording of the seminar, edit it, place it up on your web site. You will want to chop off some irrelevant material and periods of silence and to modify the volume. When you have the recording and have put it up at your internet site, you want to announce its availability. Marketing that a recording will be obtainable will let you collect sigh-ups from men and women who have scheduling conflicts for when the teleseminar will be presented.
If you are generating a specific offer to those who signed up, you want to keep reminding them when it is due to expire. You require to develop a sense of urgency and scarcity, or most people will put off acquiring until finally they forget.
Make a video slide show by combining the recording with images of your slides. It is basic to place them collectively making use of a video editing system this kind of as Windows Film Maker. It provides you a item to sell or use for promotional purposes.
Get a transcript of the recording. You can get one particular cheaply at elance.com. The transcript can be employed for books, ebooks, ezine articles, and a broad range of other purposes.
Maintain in speak to with the individuals who signed up for the teleseminar: offer you them much more teleseminars and other freebies and pitch other offers to them. Don?t forget: the list is far more essential than instant sales.
John Q. Ruschmeyer II is a writer about a wide variety of subjects. This author also sells products such as hair products online & australian genealogy
>>>and there is nothing he can't do, apparently, bocelli, one of the greatest
opera singer
alive, but apparently the blind tenner can
roller blade
too. with a little help from his wife on a bike, he just keeps rolling along.
>>>and it is now 7:13, back to savannah, matt, and al. he's also ridden a bicycle, as well with some help.
ScienceDaily (Oct. 2, 2012) ? Amidst the extraordinarily dense network of pathways in a mammal lung is a common destination. There, any road leads to a cul-de-sac of sorts called the pulmonary acinus. This place looks like a bunch of grapes attached to a stem (acinus means "berry" in Latin).
Scientists have struggled to understand more specifically what happens in this microscopic, labyrinthine intersection of alleys and dead ends. To find out, a research team led by the University of Iowa created the most detailed, three-dimensional rendering of the pulmonary acinus. The computerized model, derived from mice, faithfully mimics each twist and turn in this region, including the length, direction and angles of the respiratory branches that lead to the all-important air sacs called alveoli.
"The imaging and image analysis methods described here provide for branch morphometry at the acinar level that has not been available previously," the researchers write in the paper, published this week in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The model is important, because it can help scientists understand where and how lung diseases emerge as well as the role the pulmonary acinus plays in the delivery of drugs, such as those commonly administered with inhalers.
"These methods allow us to understand where in the lung periphery disease begins and how it progresses," says Eric Hoffman, professor in the departments of radiology, medicine, and biomedical engineering at the UI and corresponding author on the paper. "How do gases and inhaled substances get there and do they accumulate in one or another acinus? How do they swirl around and clear out? We just don't have a complete understanding how that happens."
As an example, Hoffman said the model could be used to determine how smoking-induced emphysema originates. "It has been hypothesized recently that it begins with the loss of peripheral airways rather than the lung air sacs," he says, citing ongoing research by James Hogg at the University of British Columbia, who was not involved in this study. It also could shed light and lead to more effective treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which causes irreversible damage to the lung, says Dragos Vasilescu, first author on the paper who based his thesis on the research while a graduate student at the UI.
For years, the best that lung anatomy pioneers such as study co-corresponding author Ewald Weibel, professor emeritus of anatomy at the University of Bern, could do to study specific areas of a lung was to make measurements in two dimensions or create 3D casts of a lung's air spaces. The techniques, while giving the earliest insights into a lungs's makeup and functioning, had their limitations. For one, they did not directly replicate a lung's structure in real life, and they could not convey how various parts act together as a whole. Yet advances in imaging and computation have enabled researchers to more fully explore how gases and other inhaled substances act in the lung's furthest recesses.
In this study, the team worked with 22 pulmonary acini culled from young and old mice. They then set to "reconstruct" the acini based on micro computed tomography imaging of scanned lungs in mice and extracted from them. The extracted lungs were preserved in a way that kept the anatomy intact -- including the tiny air spaces required for successful imaging. From that, the researchers were able to measure an acinus, estimate the number of acini for each mouse lung and even count the alveoli and measure their surface area. The mouse lung, in its structure and function, is remarkably similar to the human lung. That means researchers can alter the genetics of a mouse and see how those changes affect the peripheral structure of the lung and its performance.
Already, the researchers found in the current study that mouse alveoli increase in number long past the two weeks that at least one previous study had indicated. Hoffman adds that a separate study is needed to determine whether humans, too, increase the number of air sacs past a certain, predetermined age.
The researchers next aim to use the model to more fully understand how gases interact with the bloodstream within the acini and the alveoli.
"Our imaging and image-analysis methodologies enable new ways to investigate the lung's structure and can now be used to further investigate the normal healthy-lung anatomy in humans and be used to visualize and assess the pathological changes in animal models of specific structural diseases," says Vasilescu, who is a postdoctoral researchfellow at the University of British Columbia.
Contributing authors include Zhiyun Gao, post-doctoral researcher in the department of electrical engineering at the UI; Punam Saha, associate professor in the department of electrical engineering at the UI; Leilei Yin, at the University of Illinois; Ge Wang, former radiology professor at the UI and now at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; Beatrice Haefeli-Bleuer, of the University of Bern; and Matthias Ochs, of Hannover Medical School in Germany.
The National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the Swiss National Science Foundation funded the research.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Iowa. The original article was written by Richard C. Lewis.
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D. M. Vasilescu, Z. Gao, P. K. Saha, L. Yin, G. Wang, B. Haefeli-Bleuer, M. Ochs, E. R. Weibel, E. A. Hoffman. Assessment of morphometry of pulmonary acini in mouse lungs by nondestructive imaging using multiscale microcomputed tomography. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1215112109
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New data from mobile ad network Mojiva out this morning paints a picture of the state of mobile advertising, highlighting trends across its network from February to June of this year. Some high-level conclusions: rich media ads dominate, the mobile web shouldn't be discounted, the majority of mobile ad requests came from Wi-Fi connections, and RIM is still a major player. (Well, in Europe, that is).
Theme parks offer frightfully good fun for Halloween
Halloween is still a month away, but it seems the bloodsuckers and flesh munchers are already on the prowl. For now, though, they?re not showing up on people?s doorsteps, but rather, in theme parks from Orlando to Anaheim.
Contact: Mari N. Jensen mnjensen@email.arizona.edu 520-626-9635 University of Arizona
Trees face rising drought stress and mortality as climate warms
Combine the tree-ring growth record with historical information, climate records, and computer-model projections of future climate trends, and you get a grim picture for the future of trees in the southwestern United States. That's the word from a team of scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory, the U.S. Geological Survey, the University of Arizona, and other partner organizations.
If the Southwest is warmer and drier in the near future, widespread tree death is likely and would cause substantial changes in the distribution of forests and of species, the researchers report this week in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Southwestern forests grow best when total winter precipitation is high combined with a summer and fall that aren't too hot and dry.
The team developed a Forest Drought-Stress Index that combines the amount of winter precipitation, late summer and fall temperatures, and late summer and fall precipitation into one number.
"The new 'Forest Drought-Stress Index' that Williams devised from seasonal precipitation and temperature-related variables matches the records of changing forest conditions in the Southwest remarkably well," said co-author Thomas W. Swetnam, director of the UA Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research.
"Among all climate variables affecting trees and forests that have ever been studied, this new drought index has the strongest correlation with combined tree growth, tree death from drought and insects, and area burned by forest fires that I have ever seen."
A. Park Williams of Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico is the lead author of the paper, "Temperature as a potent driver of regional forest drought stress and tree mortality." Six of the paper's 15 authors are at the UA. A complete list of authors is at the bottom of this release.
To figure out which climate variables affect forests, the researchers aligned some 13,000 tree core samples with known temperature and moisture data. The team also blended in events known from tree-ring, archaeological and other paleorecords, such as the late 1200s megadrought that drove the ancient Pueblo Indians out of longtime settlements such as those at Mesa Verde, Colo.
By comparing the tree-ring record to climate data collected in the Southwest since the late 1800s, the scientists identified two climate variables that estimate annual southwestern tree-growth variability with exceptional accuracy: total winter precipitation and average summer-fall atmospheric evaporative demand, a measure of the overall dryness of the environment.
Williams said, "Atmospheric evaporative demand is primarily driven by temperature. When air is warmer, it can hold more water vapor, thus increasing the pace at which soil and plants dry out. The air literally sucks the moisture out of the soil and plants."
Finding that summer-fall atmospheric evaporative demand is just as important as winter precipitation has critical implications for the future of southwestern forests, he said.
These trends, the researchers noted, are already occurring in the Southwest, where temperatures generally have been increasing for the past century and are expected to continue to do so because of accumulating greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
There still will be wet winters, but increased frequency of warmer summers will put more stress on trees and limit their growth after wet winters, the study reports.
"We can use the past to learn about the future," Williams said. "For example, satellite fire data from the past 30 years show that there has been a strong and exponential relationship between the regional tree-ring drought-stress record and the area of southwestern forests killed by wildfire each year. This suggests that if drought intensifies, we can expect forests not only to grow more slowly, but also to die more quickly."
The study points out that very large and severe wildfires, bark-beetle outbreaks and a doubling of the proportion of dead trees in response to early 21st-century warmth and drought conditions are evidence that a transition of southwestern forest landscapes toward more open and drought-tolerant ecosystems may already be underway.
And while 2000s drought conditions have been severe, the regional tree-ring record indicates there have been substantially stronger megadrought events during the past 1,000 years.
The strongest megadrought occurred during the second half of the 1200s and is believed to have played an important role in the abandonment of ancient Puebloan cultural centers throughout the Southwest. The most recent megadrought occurred in the late 1500s and appears to have been strong enough to kill many trees in the Southwest.
"When we look at our tree-ring record, we see this huge dip in the 1580s when all the tree rings are really tiny," Williams said. "Following the 1500s megadrought, tree rings get wider, and there was a major boom in new trees. Nearly all trees we see in the Southwest today were established after the late-1500s drought, even though the species we evaluated can easily live longer than 400 years. So that event is a benchmark for us today. If forest drought stress exceeds late 1500 levels, we expect that a lot of trees are going to be dying."
Will future forest drought-stress levels reach or exceed those of the megadroughts of the 1200s and 1500s?
Using climate-model projections, the team projected that such megadrought-type forest drought-stress conditions will be exceeded regularly by the 2050s. If climate-model projections are correct, forest drought-stress levels during even the wettest and coolest years of the late 21st century will be more severe than the driest, warmest years of the previous megadroughts.
The study forecasts that during the second half of this century, about 80 percent of years will exceed megadrought levels.
The current drought, which began in 2000, is a natural case study about what to expect from projected climate scenarios. While average winter precipitation totals in the Southwest have not been exceptionally low, average summer-fall evaporative demand is the highest on record.
And trees, Williams says, are paying the price. The team concluded forest drought stress during more than 30 percent of the past 13 years, including 2011 and 2012, matched or exceeded the megadrought-type levels of the 1200s and 1500s. The only other 13-year periods when megadrought-type conditions were reached with such frequencies in the past 1,000 years were during the megadroughts themselves.
UA co-author Daniel Griffin said, "This research is distinctly different from work done in a similar vein in two ways: One, it puts these projections for the future in a concrete historical context, and two, it shows that the impacts on the forests will not be restricted to one species or one site at low elevation, but in fact will take place at forests across the landscape."
Griffin is a doctoral candidate in the UA School of Geography and Development.
Co-author Craig D. Allen, a research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said, "Consistent with many other recent studies, these findings provide compelling additional evidence of emerging global risks of amplified drought-induced tree mortality and extensive forest die-off as the planet warms."
The article, "Temperature as a potent driver of regional forest drought stress and tree mortality," is written by A. Park Williams (Los Alamos National Laboratory), Craig D. Allen (U.S. Geological Survey), Alison K. Macalady (University of Arizona), Daniel Griffin (UA), Connie A. Woodhouse (UA), David M. Meko (UA), Thomas W. Swetnam (UA), Sara A. Rauscher (LANL), Richard Seager (Columbia Univ.), Henri D. Grissino-Mayer (Univ. of Tennessee), Jeffrey S. Dean (UA), Edward R. Cook (Columbia Univ.), Chandana Gangodagamage (LANL), Michael Cai (LANL) and Nate G. McDowell (LANL).
Los Alamos National Laboratory, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the National Science Foundation funded the research.
Daniel Stolte, UA 520-626-4402, stolte@email.arizona.edu
Mari N. Jensen, 520-626-9635, mnjensen@email.arizona.edu
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Contact: Mari N. Jensen mnjensen@email.arizona.edu 520-626-9635 University of Arizona
Trees face rising drought stress and mortality as climate warms
Combine the tree-ring growth record with historical information, climate records, and computer-model projections of future climate trends, and you get a grim picture for the future of trees in the southwestern United States. That's the word from a team of scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory, the U.S. Geological Survey, the University of Arizona, and other partner organizations.
If the Southwest is warmer and drier in the near future, widespread tree death is likely and would cause substantial changes in the distribution of forests and of species, the researchers report this week in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Southwestern forests grow best when total winter precipitation is high combined with a summer and fall that aren't too hot and dry.
The team developed a Forest Drought-Stress Index that combines the amount of winter precipitation, late summer and fall temperatures, and late summer and fall precipitation into one number.
"The new 'Forest Drought-Stress Index' that Williams devised from seasonal precipitation and temperature-related variables matches the records of changing forest conditions in the Southwest remarkably well," said co-author Thomas W. Swetnam, director of the UA Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research.
"Among all climate variables affecting trees and forests that have ever been studied, this new drought index has the strongest correlation with combined tree growth, tree death from drought and insects, and area burned by forest fires that I have ever seen."
A. Park Williams of Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico is the lead author of the paper, "Temperature as a potent driver of regional forest drought stress and tree mortality." Six of the paper's 15 authors are at the UA. A complete list of authors is at the bottom of this release.
To figure out which climate variables affect forests, the researchers aligned some 13,000 tree core samples with known temperature and moisture data. The team also blended in events known from tree-ring, archaeological and other paleorecords, such as the late 1200s megadrought that drove the ancient Pueblo Indians out of longtime settlements such as those at Mesa Verde, Colo.
By comparing the tree-ring record to climate data collected in the Southwest since the late 1800s, the scientists identified two climate variables that estimate annual southwestern tree-growth variability with exceptional accuracy: total winter precipitation and average summer-fall atmospheric evaporative demand, a measure of the overall dryness of the environment.
Williams said, "Atmospheric evaporative demand is primarily driven by temperature. When air is warmer, it can hold more water vapor, thus increasing the pace at which soil and plants dry out. The air literally sucks the moisture out of the soil and plants."
Finding that summer-fall atmospheric evaporative demand is just as important as winter precipitation has critical implications for the future of southwestern forests, he said.
These trends, the researchers noted, are already occurring in the Southwest, where temperatures generally have been increasing for the past century and are expected to continue to do so because of accumulating greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
There still will be wet winters, but increased frequency of warmer summers will put more stress on trees and limit their growth after wet winters, the study reports.
"We can use the past to learn about the future," Williams said. "For example, satellite fire data from the past 30 years show that there has been a strong and exponential relationship between the regional tree-ring drought-stress record and the area of southwestern forests killed by wildfire each year. This suggests that if drought intensifies, we can expect forests not only to grow more slowly, but also to die more quickly."
The study points out that very large and severe wildfires, bark-beetle outbreaks and a doubling of the proportion of dead trees in response to early 21st-century warmth and drought conditions are evidence that a transition of southwestern forest landscapes toward more open and drought-tolerant ecosystems may already be underway.
And while 2000s drought conditions have been severe, the regional tree-ring record indicates there have been substantially stronger megadrought events during the past 1,000 years.
The strongest megadrought occurred during the second half of the 1200s and is believed to have played an important role in the abandonment of ancient Puebloan cultural centers throughout the Southwest. The most recent megadrought occurred in the late 1500s and appears to have been strong enough to kill many trees in the Southwest.
"When we look at our tree-ring record, we see this huge dip in the 1580s when all the tree rings are really tiny," Williams said. "Following the 1500s megadrought, tree rings get wider, and there was a major boom in new trees. Nearly all trees we see in the Southwest today were established after the late-1500s drought, even though the species we evaluated can easily live longer than 400 years. So that event is a benchmark for us today. If forest drought stress exceeds late 1500 levels, we expect that a lot of trees are going to be dying."
Will future forest drought-stress levels reach or exceed those of the megadroughts of the 1200s and 1500s?
Using climate-model projections, the team projected that such megadrought-type forest drought-stress conditions will be exceeded regularly by the 2050s. If climate-model projections are correct, forest drought-stress levels during even the wettest and coolest years of the late 21st century will be more severe than the driest, warmest years of the previous megadroughts.
The study forecasts that during the second half of this century, about 80 percent of years will exceed megadrought levels.
The current drought, which began in 2000, is a natural case study about what to expect from projected climate scenarios. While average winter precipitation totals in the Southwest have not been exceptionally low, average summer-fall evaporative demand is the highest on record.
And trees, Williams says, are paying the price. The team concluded forest drought stress during more than 30 percent of the past 13 years, including 2011 and 2012, matched or exceeded the megadrought-type levels of the 1200s and 1500s. The only other 13-year periods when megadrought-type conditions were reached with such frequencies in the past 1,000 years were during the megadroughts themselves.
UA co-author Daniel Griffin said, "This research is distinctly different from work done in a similar vein in two ways: One, it puts these projections for the future in a concrete historical context, and two, it shows that the impacts on the forests will not be restricted to one species or one site at low elevation, but in fact will take place at forests across the landscape."
Griffin is a doctoral candidate in the UA School of Geography and Development.
Co-author Craig D. Allen, a research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said, "Consistent with many other recent studies, these findings provide compelling additional evidence of emerging global risks of amplified drought-induced tree mortality and extensive forest die-off as the planet warms."
The article, "Temperature as a potent driver of regional forest drought stress and tree mortality," is written by A. Park Williams (Los Alamos National Laboratory), Craig D. Allen (U.S. Geological Survey), Alison K. Macalady (University of Arizona), Daniel Griffin (UA), Connie A. Woodhouse (UA), David M. Meko (UA), Thomas W. Swetnam (UA), Sara A. Rauscher (LANL), Richard Seager (Columbia Univ.), Henri D. Grissino-Mayer (Univ. of Tennessee), Jeffrey S. Dean (UA), Edward R. Cook (Columbia Univ.), Chandana Gangodagamage (LANL), Michael Cai (LANL) and Nate G. McDowell (LANL).
Los Alamos National Laboratory, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the National Science Foundation funded the research.
Daniel Stolte, UA 520-626-4402, stolte@email.arizona.edu
Mari N. Jensen, 520-626-9635, mnjensen@email.arizona.edu
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.