News Item: Computer models indicate our galaxy will be swallowedinto a black hole 3 billion times more massive than the sun in 1,000billion years. We remain at QTDEFCON4. Sarah Thompson, executivedirector of the Utah Gun Owners Alliance, on a compromise that wouldallow Utah gun owners to bring concealed guns to an appearance byVice President Dick Cheney but would require the guns to be checkedat the door: "We see this as being a huge victory for gun owners." Better strip-search them, just the same. The WisconsinInterscholastic Athletic Association has banned organizedcheerleaders at volleyball games because organized cheers might beperceived by the other team as "taunting," …
четверг, 15 марта 2012 г.
Italian Football Results
ROME (AP) — Results in the Serie A, the Italian first-division football league (home teams listed first):
| Saturday's Games |
|---|
Roma 3, Atalanta 1
Inter Milan 0, Napoli 3
| Sunday's Games |
|---|
Novara 3, Catania 3
Cesena 0, Chievo Verona 0
Fiorentina 1, Lazio 2
Lecce 0, Cagliari 2
Palermo 2, Siena 0
Parma 3, Genoa …
Unemployment applications jump by most in a month
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of people who applied for unemployment benefits last week rose by the most in a month, signaling growing weakness in the job market.
Applications rose by 9,000 to a seasonally adjusted 429,000 last week, the Labor Department said Thursday. It was the second increase in three weeks and the 11th straight week that applications have been above 400,000.
The four-week average for unemployment benefit applications, a less volatile measure, was unchanged at 426,250 last week.
Applications dipped below 400,000 in February and stayed under that threshold for seven of the following nine weeks. Applications fell as low as 375,000, a level that signals …
среда, 14 марта 2012 г.
Plays
Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864)
Alas, how soon the hours are over
Counted us out to play the lover!
And how much narrower is the stage
Allotted us to …
Sensational Hamilton Makes F1 History
MONTREAL - Lewis Hamilton's learning curve just got shorter - a lot shorter. The 22-year-old Englishman, the first black driver in Formula One history, added his first F1 victory to an already remarkable career start by winning the crash-filled Canadian Grand Prix on Sunday.
And he made it look easy.
Hamilton started from the pole, also for the first time. Apart from losing the lead for three laps when he made his first of two pit stops, he led all the way and was never challenged.
The slim, soft-spoken youngster has six consecutive top-three finishes in six starts, something no other first-year F1 driver has accomplished.
"This is history," Hamilton …
Afghan, Pakistani leaders praise new US strategy
The leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan on Saturday praised the new U.S. strategy for dealing with growing violence in their countries, with the Afghan president saying it was "better than we were expecting" and his Pakistani counterpart calling it a "positive change."
Afghan President Hamid Karzai lauded increased civil and military aid to his country and highlighted a plan for reconciliation with moderate elements of the Taliban as the new strategy's most important initiative. He also welcomed President Barack Obama's focus on countering militant sanctuaries in neighboring Pakistan in the plan, announced Friday.
"This is better …
Tom Jones finds `Kiss' of success with return to pop
The year was '68. The Copa. Tom Jones was perspiring, which hedoes a lot. One enterprising fan stood just in front of the stage,lifted her dress, peeled off her underwear and handed them to thesinger to wipe his feverish brow.
Columnist Earl Wilson, in the audience that evening, dutifullynoted the incident. And women have been tossing undies at Tom Jonesever since.
Of course, more than 20 years have passed. The singer's fans,having aged gracefully, no longer remove their underwear on sight,and their lacy and delicate unmentionables are just as likely to besupport garments. But it's still the feeling that counts. And forfans of Jones, who will appear Friday …
Austrian skier Hans Grugger woken from coma
INNSBRUCK, Austria (AP) — Austrian skier Hans Grugger awoke from an induced coma and was breathing on his own on Monday, 11 days after undergoing brain surgery following a near-fatal downhill training crash.
"Respiration has improved so well that we have been able to remove the breathing machine," University Hospital medical director Alexandra Kofler said. "The patient is now breathing unaided."
Kofler said that doctors will start neurological tests on Tuesday, which could give an indication of the skier's recovery.
Grugger was regaining consciousness and was showing reactions for the first …
Reports: Kurds clash with police in Turkey
News reports say Kurdish protesters threw stones and firebombs at police in Istanbul and southeast Turkey as tensions escalated over the arrest of dozens of Kurds on charges of links to rebels.
Dogan agency says police dispersed dozens of protesters in Istanbul's largely Kurdish Gazi district on Sunday. Police in the southeastern towns of Yuksekova and …
Weld to be Mexico ambassador
WASHINGTON Massachusetts Gov. William F. Weld said Saturday thathe has been offered the job as U.S. ambassador to Mexico and willtake it.
Weld said he was told Saturday by National Security AdviserSandy Berger that he would be nominated for the job.
The post would preclude him from participating in politics forat least the next few years, including the 2000 presidential race, hesaid."I don't think you can be an …
Country Hall of Famer Ferlin Husky hospitalized
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Country Music Hall of Fame member Ferlin Husky is hospitalized in critical condition.
Husky's daughter, Alana Jackson, tells The Associated Press through a family spokesman that the 85-year-old's condition improved Monday and his doctors at Hendersonville Medical Center may soon move him out of the critical care unit.
Tracy Pitcox, president of Husky's record label, Heart of Texas …
SEC enforcement operation under scrutiny
Lawmakers are examining the enforcement operation of the Securities and Exchange Commission and whether it is up to the task of policing the marketplace at a time of shattered investor confidence and financial upheaval.
The workings of the SEC's enforcement division have come under intense congressional scrutiny after revelations in December that the agency failed to detect the massive pyramid scheme run by money manager Bernard Madoff, despite red flags raised to its staff by outsiders over the course of a decade.
The Senate Banking subcommittee that oversees the SEC will hold a hearing Thursday afternoon on the agency's enforcement division. Among those …
Greece aims to beat deficit target with new budget
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Crisis-hit Greece on Monday vowed to slash next year's budget deficit beyond demands made by the European Union and International Monetary Fund, but braced for a surge in unemployment and another year of recession.
A draft austerity budget for 2011 sees the deficit trimmed to 7 percent of gross domestic product — bettering the 7.6 percent target set by the terms of an international rescue package that saved it from defaulting on its debts.
"This draft is another big step to tidy up our public finances — to lay the foundations for solid growth which will generate investment and new jobs," Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said.
Greece found itself one step away from being unable to service its debts in May, saved just in time by a three-year euro110 billion ($151 billion) package of rescue loans from the IMF and other EU countries using the euro as their currency.
Under the terms of the rescue, Greece has to cut its deficit from 13.6 percent of GDP at the end of 2009 — the second highest in the eurozone — to 8.1 percent this year and 7.6 percent by the end of 2011. It has already imposed a harsh austerity program which has cut civil servants' pay, trimmed pensions, increased taxes and imposed extra one-off tax sums on profitable businesses.
The measures have already led to a backlash from labor unions, which have carried out a series of strikes and protests across the country.
The 2011 budget promises no let-up in austerity, and according to the draft submitted to Parliament Monday, this will lead to the deficit narrowing to a projected 7.8 percent of GDP by the end of this year.
Greece will continue to be in recession next year, the document predicted, with the economy shrinking by 2.6 percent in 2011 after this year's 4 percent contraction. The country's economy will return to growth in 2012, it said.
Unemployment, however, is expected to rise significantly from this year's projected 11.6 percent, reaching 14.5 percent next year and hitting a high of 15 percent in 2012 before dropping slightly the following year to 14.6 percent.
According to the text of the draft, the measures to be taken until 2013 "have nearly all been recorded" in those announced earlier this year.
While it said no new austerity measures would be imposed, it did however leave a window open for existing ones to be amended.
"The measures for 2011 are not additional or new — for some there will be corrective alternative solutions," it said, adding that "some measures will be finalized in the final draft of the budget." Officials said the final document is to be submitted in mid-November.
The crisis broke out late last year after Prime Minister George Papandreou's Socialist government, elected a year ago Monday, dramatically revised the deficit upwards, eventually to four times the eurozone limit of 3 percent of GDP. It blamed the previous Conservative administration for manipulating statistics to make Greece's finances appear in better shape than they were.
The revision led to a loss of confidence in the country's ability to pay back its debts, and sent its borrowing costs skyrocketing, essentially locking Greece out of the international bond market.
Papaconstantinou has said he hopes the country will be able to return to the bond market sometime in 2011.
On Saturday, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao — who started a weeklong tour of European countries in Athens — vowed to buy Greek bonds when the country does return to international markets.
Wen also said China planned to double its annual trade volume with Greece to $8 billion (euro5.83 billion) by 2015 and said Beijing hoped to help other fragile economies in the EU.
____
Associated Press writer Derek Gatopoulos in Athens contributed to this report.
вторник, 13 марта 2012 г.
Fireman tells of his agony on drugs
He was rushed into service during the bitter 1980 Chicagofirefighters' strike, when there was no time for drug testing and nopublic pressure for it.
At age 22, he said, he was a cocaine addict and an alcoholicpushing drugs on the side to support his growing habit. His buddiescovered for him as he "sleepwalked" through the rigorous job offighting fires, he said.
"Once an hour, I would find a safe place in the firehouse tosnort a line of coke," said the man, whose first name is Tim. "Itcould be anywhere - a washroom stall, an empty locker room, a darkbasement, maybe my car. Then I would pray we weren't called to amajor fire.
"I was just lucky none of my buddies got killed because of myinability to perform. I was in such a daze, I could have walked offa rooftop.
"I wish we had drug testing then. It would have saved me a lotof agony."
The drug testing controversy erupted this week after FireCommissioner Louis T. Galante ordered surprise tests for 66 top aidesand prepared to step up screening for rank-and-file firefighters.
The American Civil Liberties Union branded the surprise testingof top brass illegal. Union leaders demanded that supervisors provework-related problems before testing an employee for drugs.
But for Tim, now a 28-year-old recovered addict, Galante'sprogram is not a threat.
Recognizing his drug problem, Tim entered the Fire Department'semployee assistance program voluntarily. Galante wants to make theprogram mandatory for firefighters who test positive for drugs.
Back on duty yesterday, Tim said it has been 2 1/2 years sincehe has had a drink or snorted cocaine. Drug testing, he said, wouldhelp him "stay clean."
The Fire Department's program "may save a few more lives, likeit did mine," Tim said.
By the time Tim was hired as a strike-breaker, the cocainedabbling he started at age 17 had become an ounce-a-week habit, hesaid. He would routinely spend his 48 off-duty hours partyingnonstop, he said. He often would arrive for work hours late, to thedisgust of colleagues and supervisors, he said.
"I'd come to the firehouse exhausted because I hadn't eaten orslept in two days," Tim said. "I had to increase my intake of cocaineto get enough energy to get through the day. I'm a solid 185 poundsnow. Then, I was down to 160."
By early 1984, Tim had suffered three drug-related seizures.His marriage was destroyed, and his 28-year-old brother, analcoholic, had drowned in a bathtub, he said. He was at rock bottomand ready for help.
He checked into the detoxification center at Martha WashingtonHospital and called the Fire Department's employee assistance programfor counseling, he said.
Tim and counselor Jim Hutchison have been in constant contactever since, he said.
"Never once was I punished for coming forward and saying, `I'man addict. I need help,' " Tim said. "After the hospital, I startedliving in a halfway house for addicts. The Fire Departmenttransferred me to a 9 to 5 administrative job to accommodate it.
"I feel lucky to be alive. I feel chosen. Hopefully, the nextguy won't have to go through the extremes that I did. Maybe helpwill reach him sooner."
Langhorn and Mary: A 19th Century American Love Story
Langhorn and Mary: A 19th Century American Love Story by Priscula Stone Sharp Ambrosia Books, January 2003 $25.95, ISBN 0-972-75190-4
In Langhorn and Mary, Priscilla Stone Sharp paints a memorable tapestry of love and survival against the riveting, vibrant canvas of prc-Civil War America. Sharp embarks on a genealogical journey, peeling back layers of family past and history to reveal a most unlikely, surprising tale in the midst of turbulence and heartache.
The novel tells the story of the author's German-American aunt, Mary Stone Wellings, and her 30-year marriage to a free African American named Langhorn H. Wellings at a time when Pennsylvania is the only state to recognize their union and interracial marriages are unheard of elsewhere.
A reader desiring only a love story may skim pages of ponderous research. The fastidious reader will be rewarded by the history.
-Claudia Sarden
Violence Mars G-8 Protest in Germany
ROSTOCK, Germany - Buses and trains from across Europe streamed into the northern port city of Rostock on Saturday, bringing thousands of protesters to the largest-yet demonstration over the upcoming G-8 meeting of industrialized powers.
A group of protesters attacked a hotel where an American delegation is supposed to stay during the G-8 summit this week, and some demonstrators also battered police cars with rocks, bottles and paint bombs, authorities said.
Although organizers on their Web site emphasized that they wanted a peaceful protest, they added: "This may be different with the actions following later in the week of protest."
Some 13,000 police were on hand, and authorities said about 30,000 protesters had come for the daylong demonstration under the motto "another world is possible."
Police helicopters hovered overhead as thousands of demonstrators marched behind a truck streaming out soap bubbles and carrying a rock band that played anti-globalization songs.
Some protesters covered their heads and faces with black hoods, sun glasses and scarves, while others chanted protest slogans through megaphones, blowing whistles and waving flags. Riot police videotaped the demonstration.
Rocks and broken beer bottles lay on the ground in front of a bank building were protesters smashed half a dozen windows.
Most stores along the route had nailed up there windows ahead of the protests - with the exception of sausage stands and other fast food restaurants.
Dozens of different groups, including communists, anarchists and environmentalists, were taking part and messages were mixed: Some urged action from the G-8 countries in the fight against HIV/AIDS, African poverty and climate change, while others questioned the legitimacy of the existence of the G-8 itself. Among the organizers were the anti-globalization group Attac, radical leftists, Christian groups, the Green Party and others.
"The world shaped by the dominance of the G-8 is a world of war, hunger, social divisions, environmental destruction and barriers against migrants and refugees," organizers said in leaflets handed out on the streets.
The protest comes ahead of the three-day summit that opens Wednesday in the nearby northern resort town of Heiligendamm, where German Chancellor Angela Merkel hosts the leaders of the other G-8 nations - Britain, France, Japan, Italy, Russia, Canada, and the United States.
Kay Stenzel woke at 3 a.m. to drive in from the eastern city of Bautzen with four friends to voice their discontent with the G-8 leaders.
"They want to impose their wills upon the poor nations," he said, waving a red flag emblazoned with a black cat - an animal he chose because it was "unruly."
35 Killed in Kabul Suicide Bomb Attack
KABUL, Afghanistan - The deadliest insurgent attack since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 destroyed a bus full of police instructors at Kabul's busiest transportation hub on Sunday, killing 35 people and wounding 52, officials said.
Meanwhile, U.S.-led coalition jets bombed a compound suspected of housing al-Qaida militants in eastern Afghanistan, killing seven children and several militants, a coalition statement said Monday.
The strike, which had the support of Afghan troops, was launched Sunday on a compound that also contained a mosque and a madrassa, or Islamic school, in the Zarghun Shah district of Paktika province, a coalition statement said.
"We are saddened by the innocent lives that were lost as a result of militants' cowardice," Maj. Chris Belcher, a coalition spokesman, said in a statement. "This is another example of al-Qaida using the protective status of a mosque, as well as innocent civilians, to shield themselves."
Sunday's enormous suicide blast, which raised the specter of an increase in Iraq-style bombings with heavy casualties, was at least the fourth attack against a bus carrying Afghan police or army soldiers in Kabul in the last year. The blast sheared off the bus' metal sidings and roof, leaving a charred frame.
"Never in my life have I heard such a sound," said Ali Jawad, a 48-year-old who was selling phone cards nearby. "A big fireball followed. I saw blood and a decapitated man thrown out of the bus."
The explosion was the fifth suicide attack in Afghanistan in three days, part of a sharp spike in violence around the country. In the south, in Kandahar province, a roadside bomb killed three members of the U.S.-led coalition and an Afghan interpreter. The soldiers' nationalities were not released, but most in the coalition are American.
Condemning the Kabul attack, President Hamid Karzai said the "enemies of Afghanistan" were trying to stop the development of Afghan security forces, a key component in the U.S.-NATO strategy of handing over security responsibilities to the Afghan government one day, allowing Western forces to leave.
A self-described Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said a Taliban suicide bomber named Mullah Asim Abdul Rahman caused the blast. Ahmadi called an Associated Press reporter from an undisclosed location. His claim could not be verified.
Zemeri Bashary, the spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said late Sunday that 35 were killed and 52 wounded in the blast. Karzai's office said 22 police instructors died, indicating that 13 of the dead were civilians.
At least one person survived the 8:10 a.m. bus blast. Nasir Ahmad, 22, a janitor at the police training academy, was sitting in the back of the bus when the bomb exploded. Speaking from a hospital bed where he was recovering from wounds to his face and hands, he said: "There were between 30 to 40 police instructors in the bus."
It was the only full sentence he managed to utter before stopping from exhaustion.
At the entrance to the hospital, a blue plastic trash can overflowed with the bloodied shoes and sandals of victims.
Interior Minister Zarar Ahmad Muqbal said initial indications were that a suicide bomber boarded the bus as it stopped to pick up police instructors at an open-air bus station in central Kabul. Such a suicide attack would represent a sizable jump in lethality compared to more typical Taliban suicide bombings, which often kill far fewer people.
Maj. John Thomas, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, said it was too early to tell if the attack was a sign of more lethal bombings to come, or heavier involvement by al-Qaida. NATO commanders have long predicted a rise in suicide attacks this year.
A civilian bus was driving just in front of the police vehicle and was damaged when the bomb went off. A police officer at the scene said the civilian bus' position likely prevented more civilian casualties.
Afghan government officials, police and army soldiers are commonly targeted by insurgents trying to bring down Karzai's U.S.-backed government, and buses carrying Afghan police and army soldiers are common targets.
In May, a remote-control bomb hit an Afghan army bus in Kabul, killing the driver and wounding 29 people. In October, a bomb on a bicycle exploded as a police bus went by in Kabul, wounding 11. Last July, a remote-controlled bomb blew up near an Afghan army bus in downtown Kabul, wounding 39 people on board.
Police seem to be taking notice, and one officer suggested Afghans are beginning to equate police with danger rather than safety.
"We are afraid now that the police are increasingly coming under attack," said Allah Bubani, a 22-year-old recent graduate of the police training academy who said he likely knew some of the instructors killed in the attack. "Nowadays the ordinary people are scared of the police, because they fear an attack on the force would also harm them."
At least 307 Afghan police, army or intelligence personnel have been killed in violence so far this year through June 15, according to an AP tally of figures from the U.S., U.N., NATO and Afghan authorities.
The European Union on Sunday took control from Germany of the Western mission to train Afghan police. The EU, which will have 200 police, law enforcement and justice experts at the Kabul training center, said the attack "does nothing to diminish our determination to maintain our support for the construction of the Afghan police force."
Sunday's death toll exceeded that of a September 2002 Kabul car bombing that killed 30 people and wounded 167.
Insurgency-related violence has killed more than 2,400 people in Afghanistan this year, mostly insurgents, according to an AP count based on figures from U.S., NATO, U.N. and Afghan officials.
Dr. Asadullah, a health worker at Jamhuriat hospital, said two Pakistanis, two Japanese and one Korean national were among those wounded Sunday.
At one point Sunday, the Interior Minister and a hospital director revised the initial death toll of 35 down to 24, but a government official in the Health Ministry speaking on condition he not be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter said the government may have been trying to downplay the severity of the attack.
---
Associated Press reporters Noor Khan in Kandahar and Fisnik Abrashi and Amir Shah in Kabul contributed to this report.
Mideast crisis may make natural gas more attractive
TULSA, Okla. The Persian Gulf crisis could stir interest incompressed natural gas and some in the industry say continued highgasoline prices would make it easier to sell businesses on thetechnology.
Companies that operate large fleets of cars or trucks are seenas the most likely consumers of compressed gas, but before they makea large investment in compatible vehicles, they'll have to beconvinced they'll save money.
"We have to show them the long-term economic benefit, not ashort-term benefit based on a disruption overseas," said Jack Rigg,spokesman for Amoco Oil Co.
The main attraction of compressed gas in recent years has beenpollution control, but the American Gas Association hopes the PersianGulf crisis will open up a new market for natural gas.
"We think the economic benefits will be there in the long run,as well as environmental benefits and now energy security," saidGeorge Lawrence, association president. Another part of theassociation's pitch for compressed gas is that 93 percent of theUnited States' gas supplies currently come from domestic sources.
There are already 30,000 vehicles in the United States runningon natural gas. Most of them are in company fleets where the gas iscompressed at the motor pool.
Amoco last week opened a compressed gas pump at one of itsstations in Denver, but access to the fuel remains the main obstacleto widespread use.
For now, the economic benefits of compressed gas are apparent.The equivalent of a gallon of gasoline costs about 70 cents, the gasassociation said. Unleaded self-serve regular gasoline averaged$1.237 a gallon Monday, according to the American AutomobileAssociation. The average price has risen 16.2 cents since Iraqinvaded Kuwait Aug. 2, the AAA said.
General Motors Corp. announced July 24 that it would beginproduction early next year of at least 1,000 light-duty trucks thatwould run on natural gas and be available for utility and privatefleet use in California and Texas.
"Any time you see gas prices go up, you start to look foralternatives. This is definitely an alternative," said ThomasKlipstine, a spokesman for GM's truck division.
A price for the vehicles hasn't been determined, but the companysays they will be competitively priced. Amoco says it costs about$2,000 to convert a vehicle to accept both compressed gas andgasoline.
Another of the drawbacks to compressed gas is its shorter range- about 150 miles per tank. The vehicles also carry heavier tanks,although energy companies are exploring remedies.
Small plane carrying 5 crashes in residential area south of London
A small plane carrying five people crashed into a residential area south of London on Sunday, police and rescue officials said.
Police said the five were unaccounted for and there were "minor injuries" among people on the ground.
Sky News earlier said that there were at least six people on board, but London police said the plane was carrying two pilots and three passengers.
The private plane crashed into a house in Broadwater Gardens in Farnborough, just south of London sometime after 2:30 p.m. (1330 GMT), officials said.
The neighborhood is a couple of kilometers (miles) north of Biggin Hill Airport, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) from central London. The small airport is often used by executive jets and helicopters.
Sky News television said the plane was a Cessna Citation Executive Jet and was headed to France. It did not cite a source for the information.
Smoke could be seen rising from the smoldering brick house on the edge of a woodland in images shown on Sky. Fire trucks surrounded the house, which appeared to have been half destroyed.
Residents told the broadcaster they heard a plane flying in very low before hearing an explosion.
A pilot, who gave his name only as John, told Sky he was about to land at Biggin Hill when a mayday call came over the radio from the plane that crashed.
The pilot from the stricken plane said the aircraft was experiencing severe engine vibrations and alarms could be heard going off in the cockpit, John said. The pilot said he had five people onboard and wanted to make an emergency landing, he added.
John said after he landed he turned back to see the stricken plane just before it came down.
"It nose dived out of the sky and the radio went dead," he said.
Karl Mills said the plane nearly hit his house.
"It was the loudest noise I ever heard. It was like a bolt of thunder," Mills told Sky News. "I looked out and saw a ball of fire."
He said the plane crashed into the roof of a neighboring house before bursting into flames.
Details emerge of bloodshed aboard Gaza-bound ship
At 4:30 a.m. from her perch on the bridge of a passenger ship in the Mediterranean Sea, Hanin Zoabi saw the first lights of fast-approaching Israeli gunships and helicopters. Norman Paech awoke to the sound of explosions.
Minutes later, an Israeli commando, sent to take over the ship in what was expected to be a quick and easy operation, found himself lying on a lower deck, beaten and pulling a knife out of his stomach.
A storm of YouTube videos, grainy army footage and interviews is beginning to provide a clearer picture of the clash at sea that left nine pro-Palestinian activists dead aboard the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara.
The accounts of Monday's events were sometimes conflicting and there was no way to independently confirm what happened.
Still, details emerging from the footage and interviews with Israeli commandos, defense officials and activists help explain how a voyage billed as an act of peaceful protest ended with a pre-dawn gunbattle _ and a wave of international criticism aimed at Israel.
Israel's decision to stop the protest boats by sending troops to commandeer them seems to have been based on the assumption _ based on past experience and the activists' own statements _ that none of the passengers would fight.
The soldiers practiced several scenarios, but none involved serious resistance, Israeli defense officials said.
The situation spiraled out of control when dozens of activists converged on the top deck and attacked the soldiers, clubbing them down as the troops rappelled from a helicopter onto the ship one by one.
On Sunday, six boats making up the protest flotilla began sailing from waters off Cyprus toward the sealed off Palestinian territory.
Free Gaza, a group made up mostly of Americans and Europeans, had sent ships before to try to bring attention to the 3-year-old Gaza blockade and the hardships of the territory's 1.5 million residents. Israel and Egypt imposed the blockade after the Islamic militant Hamas, which most Western countries consider a terrorist organization, seized power and stepped up rocket fire into Israel.
Israel allowed some earlier ships to reach Gaza and stopped others, boarding a boat in at least one case. But the activists practiced only passive resistance and there was never any bloodshed. Ahead of this week's mission, organizers again announced they would not offer violent resistance if confronted by Israeli forces.
But things were different this time. The largest flotilla by far, it was dominated not by Free Gaza, which sent only one small passenger boat, but by three ships sent by an Islamic aid group from Turkey, the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedom and Humanitarian Relief. The group, known by its Turkish acronym IHH, was banned by Israel in 2008 because of alleged ties to Hamas.
Around 600 of the flotilla's 700 passengers were aboard the Mavi Marmara. Most were from Turkey and Arab countries, but the group also included dozens of Americans and Europeans, including lawmakers and an Arab member of Israel's own parliament.
At the end of May, with the flotilla preparing to sail, Israel announced the boats would not be allowed to reach Gaza. The government offered to transfer any humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory, but the flotilla's organizers refused, saying their goal was to break a blockade they considered illegal.
Israel's top military brass met to discuss how to stop the boats, according to Israeli defense officials. They considered sabotaging the vessels but rejected that idea and decided to send troops to board them and escort them to an Israeli port.
Previous operations had gone off largely without incident _ even on two boats smuggling weapons _ and officials believed there was little risk. In what was probably meant as a deterrent, the army tipped its hand by declaring that commandos would be involved.
Israel built a makeshift detention center in a southern port to process the activists. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman called the flotilla a "provocation" and warned it would be stopped "at any cost."
Among the passengers was a baby, the 1-year-old son of Turkish activist Nilufer Cetin. "We were aware of the possible danger," she said. "But there are thousands of babies in Gaza. If we reached Gaza, we would have played with them and taken them food."
On May 26-27, teams of commandos from the navy's elite and secretive Flotilla 13 unit began rehearsing for the operation off Israel's coast, according to Israeli defense officials.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak gave final approval, and on Friday, three Israeli missile boats left port with the commandos on board.
After repeated delays, the Gaza-bound flotilla finally set sail Sunday.
That night, at 10:30 p.m., the Mavi Marmara received a radio transmission from an Israeli warship. Zoabi, an Israeli Arab lawmaker, was on the bridge. The Israeli sailors asked the captain for the ship's destination, she said, and the captain answered that he was headed for Gaza.
The Israelis ordered the flotilla to halt, but the ships pressed ahead. About 80 miles away, in the besieged Palestinian territory, the Hamas government had prepared a festive welcome, decking out the territory's ruined port with red Turkish flags.
By 1:30 a.m., Zoabi could make out lights on the horizon and identified eight ships. The Israelis trailed the flotilla for three more hours, keeping their distance, she said.
At 4:30 a.m., with the boats still in international waters, the Israeli commanders gave the order for the operation to begin, and Zoabi saw speedboats and helicopters moving swiftly toward the Marmara.
Five of the flotilla's six boats were swiftly commandeered by the Israelis.
On the Free Mediterranean, carrying mainly Greek and Swedish activists and a load of wheelchairs, building materials and medicine, Aris Papadokostopolous said he saw commandos come aboard.
"Some people were hit by clubs and electric shocks," he said, but no one was seriously hurt.
On the freighter Gazze 1, masked soldiers ordered everyone into one room and kept them there for nine hours, according to Turkish activist Mustafa Sancaktutan. There, too, no one was seriously hurt.
Aboard the Mavi Marmara, passengers were deafened by the roar of an Israeli Black Hawk helicopter. A rope dropped down, and the first of three 15-man teams began to descend.
According to commandos interviewed by The Associated Press, the troops were expecting little resistance and had exchanged their usual assault rifles for paintball guns.
"It was a civilian paintball gun that any 12-year-old can play with," one soldier said, speaking on condition of anonymity under military regulations. The soldiers said they had loaded pistols to use only in the event of an emergency.
Zoabi said she heard gunfire over the ship and saw blue flares. Other passengers also said the soldiers fired on the boat before boarding. Israel denies this. None of the passengers interviewed by AP have said lethal force was used by the Israelis before they boarded the ship.
Paech, a retired law professor from Hamburg, Germany, awoke to the sound of explosions. He went outside and saw soldiers. "They were wearing camouflage, had their faces masked, had night vision gear on their helmets and carried lots of weapons," he said.
Like Zoabi and Paech, most passengers had no intention of confronting the troops and were not on the top deck when the first soldiers rappelled down.
But a video released by the military showed a group of several dozen men waiting for the Israelis.
The edited footage showed soldiers descending from the Black Hawk into a crowd of men with sticks and clubs. Three or four activists overpowered each soldier as he landed, beating each one to the deck, where they were surrounded by more men with sticks. One soldier was tossed over the side onto a lower deck.
"When I landed on the other deck I felt that someone had stabbed me in the stomach. I pulled the knife out of my stomach," the soldier, identified only as Captain R., told Israeli Channel 10 TV from his hospital bed. One commando said several of his comrades jumped into the water to save themselves.
Paech could not see what was happening on the top deck.
"I don't deny that in the fighting some of them were using some of the weapons they've been showing on TV now, like the slingshot or the hatchets," he said. "But don't forget that the Israelis attacked us in international waters. According to international law, you're allowed to defend yourself when you get attacked."
With men down and believing their lives were in danger, the Israeli commandos say they requested permission to use live fire. This was granted about 4:50 a.m., 20 minutes after the operation began. The Israelis pulled out their pistols and began to shoot.
In the ensuing melee, two activists succeeded in wresting two pistols away from the troops and shot two soldiers, according to the Israeli military and hospital officials. Israel says both activists were shot dead.
But those on the ship had no chance against armed and highly trained troops, and by 5 a.m., the ship was under the commandos' control.
Nine activists were dead, most of them Turks, according to the Israeli military. Dozens were wounded, along with seven soldiers. Paech said casualties were brought into a makeshift field hospital on one of the lower decks; footage from the activists showed passengers in orange life jackets treating the wounded.
Israeli officers later displayed slingshots, knives and truncheons they said were found on the ship as evidence of organized resistance. Defense officials also say some activists had military-style gear such as bulletproof vests and night-vision goggles and carried large sums of cash.
From the activists' side, no one who was on the top deck at the time of the assault had come forward by Wednesday, possibly because the people involved are either dead, wounded or in Israeli custody.
Zoabi and others on board do not deny there was resistance but say it was not organized.
"The ... helicopters, the ships and gunfire created the atmosphere that people wanted to defend themselves," Zoabi said.
Inge Hoeger, a member of the German Left Party, said that after securing the ship soldiers searched the passengers, took their personal belongings and handcuffed them. "They were obviously looking for weapons. They raided and slashed all the suitcases of all passengers and everything was all over the place," she said.
Within an hour, Israeli air force helicopters were evacuating the wounded soldiers and passengers. Several hours later, Turkey had recalled its ambassador to Israel, Greece had canceled a joint military exercise and nearly every country in Europe had weighed in with a condemnation of Israel.
Paech was sent in a police car to Israel's international airport and put on a plane to Berlin.
"They did not give back any of our luggage or personal belongings. I arrived with only my T-shirt and my pants," he said.
___
Associated Press Writers Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin, Suzan Fraser in Ankara, and Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah contributed to this report.
Putin vows revenge for Moscow airport bombing
MOSCOW (AP) — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has vowed revenge for the suicide bombing that killed 35 people at a Moscow airport — a familiar tough-on-terrorism stance that has underpinned his power but also led to a rising number of deadly attacks in Russia.
Lax security also was blamed for Monday's explosion in the international arrivals area of Domodedovo Airport that also injured 180 people, with President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday criticizing police and managers at the airport, the largest of three that serve the capital.
NTV television showed a photograph of what it said was the detached head of the suspected bomber. Investigators have said that DNA testing will be necessary before the man, who appears to be in his 30s, can be identified.
A two-second video of the blast itself, broadcast on state television and said to be from a closed-circuit TV camera, showed a burst of flames and passengers falling and fleeing as smoke filled the hall.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but suspicion has fallen on Islamist separatists from Chechnya or elsewhere in the restive Caucasus region who have been battling Russian authority for over 15 years.
Chechen insurgents have claimed responsibility for an array of attacks, including a double suicide bombing on Moscow's subway system last year that killed 40 people. They also have used Domodedovo Airport before, with two suicide bombers slipping through its security in 2004 to kill 90 people aboard flights that took off from there.
Putin rose to power in 2000 on a now-famous vow that Chechen rebels would be hunted down and killed "in the outhouse." But despite a second devastating war that brought Chechnya back under Moscow's control and sanctioning the violent rule of his chosen Chechen leader, Putin has been unable to wipe out the Islamic insurgency that has spread across much of the Caucasus.
A brutal crackdown on the insurgency has produced a backlash that has led to almost daily attacks on police and security forces in the Caucasus and brought the terror to Moscow.
Muscovites have also seen a sharp rise in ethnic tensions between Slavic Russians and Muslims from the Caucasus, many of whom come to the capital in search of work.
In an effort to address the poverty and high unemployment that feed the insurgency, the government has made ambitious plans to promote economic development in the Caucasus, including the building of five ski resorts across the mountainous region.
Putin said last week the government would allocate 60 billion rubles ($2 billion) this year toward the construction, but the bulk of the $15 billion needed is to come from private investors.
Medvedev has been given the task of attracting badly needed foreign investment to Russia, a mission he will take Wednesday to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he is to be the main speaker at the opening session.
The airport bombing undermined his mission and delayed his departure for a day. Instead of schmoozing with CEOs of major global corporations, Medvedev on Tuesday gave a tough speech to officials at the Federal Security Service, the main KGB successor. He suggested that some of them could have been at fault and told them to do everything possible to find those responsible.
"The nest of these bandits, however they are called, should be eliminated," he said.
Medvedev also blamed the transport police, ordering the interior minister to identify officials who should be dismissed or face other sanctions. Airport officials also did not escape blame.
"What happened shows that obviously there were violations in guaranteeing security. And it should be answered for by those who make decisions there and by the management of the airport," he said.
Medvedev demanded robust checks of passengers and baggage at all major transportation hubs. "This will make it longer for passengers, but it's the only way," he said.
Putin was stern in addressing the Cabinet, vowing that "this crime will be solved and revenge is inevitable."
He did not elaborate and it was unclear what new actions he could take.
Following past major attacks, Putin has used the threat of terrorism as a pretext to consolidate his control and justify new curbs on democracy and civil rights.
After a group of Chechen-led militants seized a school in the southern city of Beslan in a 2004 siege that killed more than 330 people, half of them children, Putin pushed through changes to make regional governors appointed rather than elected.
In 2003, critical TV coverage of a special forces operation to storm a Moscow theater where Chechen militants held 800 hostages led to a Kremlin takeover of all national television networks. The storming resulted in the deaths of 129 hostages, mostly from effects of a narcotic gas that the special forces used to subdue the attackers.
During Putin's eight years as president, the government also pushed through anti-terrorism and anti-extremism legislation that bolstered the already sweeping powers of the police and security services, giving them extra tools to stifle opposition and put pressure on news outlets.
With the March 2012 presidential election approaching, the newly heightened importance of security may strengthen the position of Putin and the security forces that form an important part of his base. Putin and Medvedev, still submissive to his mentor, have said they will decide which one of them will run.
Both leaders took time out Tuesday to visit some of 117 people hospitalized with injuries from the attack.
President Barack Obama called Medvedev to express his condolences.
The Emergencies Ministry said the dead included one person each from Britain, Germany, Austria, Ukraine, Tajikistan. Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan; 16 were Russians and the remaining 12 had not been identified. Nine foreigners were hospitalized.
The attack called into question Russia's ability to safely host major international events like the 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2018 World Cup.
Still, the International Olympic Committee said it has "no doubt" that Russia will deliver a safe Winter Games in Sochi, even though the Black Sea resort is relatively close to the volatile Caucasus region.
Many athletes, officials and visitors traveling to Sochi will need to take connecting flights in Moscow.
Built in 1964, Domodedovo is located 26 miles (42 kilometers) southeast of Moscow and handled more than 22 million people last year.
___
Associated Press writers Jim Heintz and Vladimir Isachenkov contributed to this report.
понедельник, 12 марта 2012 г.
Characterization of photodamage to Escherichia coli in optical traps
ABSTRACT Optical tweezers (infrared laser-based optical traps) have emerged as a powerful tool in molecular and cell biology. However, their usefulness has been limited, particularly in vivo, by the potential for damage to specimens resulting from the trapping laser. Relatively little is known about the origin of this phenomenon. Here we employed a wavelengthtunable optical trap in which the microscope objective transmission was fully characterized throughout the near infrared, in conjunction with a sensitive, rotating bacterial cell assay. Single cells of Escherichia coli were tethered to a glass coverslip by means of a single flagellum: such cells rotate at rates proportional to their transmembrane proton potential (Manson et al., 1980. J. Mol. Biol. 138:541-561). Monitoring the rotation rates of cells subjected to laser illumination permits a rapid and quantitative measure of their metabolic state. Employing this assay, we characterized photodamage throughout the nearinfrared region favored for optical trapping (790-1064 nm). The action spectrum for photodamage exhibits minima at 830 and 970 nm, and maxima at 870 and 930 nm. Damage was reduced to background levels under anaerobic conditions, implicating oxygen in the photodamage pathway. The intensity dependence for photodamage was linear, supporting a single-photon process. These findings may help guide the selection of lasers and experimental protocols best suited for optical trapping work.
INTRODUCTION
"Optical tweezers," or optical traps, provide a unique means of manipulating and controlling biological objects (Svoboda and Block, 1994). Since the first demonstration of optical trapping by Ashkin (1978, 1986), a host of applications have arisen in biology, both in vivo and in vitro. A drawback of optical trapping has been the damage induced by the intense trapping light. In practice, such damage limits the exposure time for trapped specimens and has proved to be a significant problem for some optical trapping studies, particularly those in vivo. Indeed, Ashkin first encountered this problem and coined the colorful term "opticution" to describe the laser-induced death of specimens (Ashkin and Dziedzic, 1989). The potential for damage is readily appreciated by computing the light level at the diffraction-limited focus of a typical trapping laser: for a power of just 100 mW, the intensity is 10^sup 7^ W/cm^sup 2^, with an associated flux of 10^sup 26^ photons/s-cm^sup 2^ (traps used in cell biology are generally based on lasers producing from 25 mW to 2 W in the specimen plane). Proposed mechanisms for photodamage include transient local heating (Liu et al., 1996), two-photon absorption (Berns, 1976; Konig et al., 1995, 1996a; Liu et al., 1996), and photochemical processes leading to the creation of reactive chemical species (Calmettes and Berns, 1983; Block, 1990; Svoboda and Block, 1994; Liu et al., 1996).
Berns and co-workers pioneered investigations of photodamage in optical traps, using a variety of biological assays. Their work with temperature-sensitive fluorescent dye reporters in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells and liposomes confirmed the prediction that local heating of micron-sized specimens is negligible from a tightly focused CW laser source, thereby ruling out direct heating as a source of damage (Block, 1990; Liu et al., 1995a, 1996). Additional studies, based on assays of the rates of chromosome bridge formation in rat kangaroo cells (Vorobjev et al., 1993) or cloning efficiency in CHO cells (Liang et al., 1996), established rough action spectra for damage over portions of the near-infrared region. Following this work, additional studies, scoring either CHO cell-cloning efficiency or loss of viability in human spermatozoa, led to the suggestion that damage is generated by a two-photon process (Konig et al., 1995, 1996a,b; Liu et al., 1996). In addition, work with fluorescent probes demonstrated no changes in the intracellular pH of trapped cells and no detectable changes in DNA structure following CW laser illumination (as opposed to pulsed lasers, which do produce changes in acridine orange staining) (Liu et al., 1996).
While such experiments provide important clues to the photodamage process, the bioassays upon which they are based have certain intrinsic limitations. Chromosome bridge formation is largely qualitative and difficult to score. Cloning efficiency and sperm viability essentially provide a binary output (alive or dead), necessitating many measurements to gain adequate statistics. The assays are indirect, complex, and time consuming, requiring long incubation and/or growth periods, together with sensitive fluorescencemeasuring capabilities. Furthermore, they do not readily lend themselves to the continuous monitoring of photodamage during experimental exposure.
To address these limitations, we employed a rotating bacterial cell assay that provides a quantitative, real-time measure of the metabolic state of the cell. The assay is based on attaching Escherichia coli cells to a glass coverslip by a single flagellum (Block et al., 1982, 1989). When the tethered cell turns its flagellar motor, the cell body is driven into rotation about its point of attachment, typically ~0-15 Hz, depending upon the cell size (and therefore on the load posed by viscous rotational drag). Motors of tethered cells spin at rates proportional to the transmembrane proton potential (Manson et al., 1980).
Although based on a prokaryote, this assay has some advantages over the eukaryotic systems employed previously. E. coli are robust and well-characterized organisms, which can be grown either aerobically or anaerobically, permitting evaluation of the role of oxygen in photodamage. Moreover, an enormous variety of mutants is available.
Using this assay, in conjunction with a broadly tunable optical trapping system, we determined the action spectrum for photodamage from 790 to 1064 nm. This spectrum shows a roughly sevenfold variation in damage across this range, with two pronounced maxima at 870 and 930 nm. The least damaging wavelength was found to be 970 nm, followed closely by 830 nm. By growing and trapping cells in the absence of oxygen (or by removing oxygen after growth with a chemical scavenging system), we tested the effect of oxygen on the lifetime of cells. There was a significant increase in lifetime under anaerobic conditions: in fact, damage was reduced to nearly background levels. Determining photodamage as a function of laser power (at two different wavelengths, 870 and 1064 nm), we found that the sensitivity of cells (defined as the reciprocal of the lifetime) was linearly related to the intensity. These results suggest that photodamage in optical traps is mediated by oxygen, and that it involves a one-photon process.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Optics
The optical trap (schematic shown in Fig. 1) was based on three separate lasers: a Ti:sapphire ring laser tunable between 780 nm and 970 nm (model 899; Coherent, Santa Clara, CA), a MOPA diode laser at 991 nm (model 5762-A6; SDL, San Jose, CA), and a Nd:YAG laser at 1064 nm (model BL-106C; Spectra-Physics Lasers, Mountain View, CA). The Ti:sapphire laser was pumped with all lines from a large-frame argon ion laser (Innova 400; Coherent). To ensure true continuous-wave output from the Ti: sapphire laser, we incorporated an intercavity etalon (model 895: Coherent), which reduces the bandwidth and prevents temporal mode beating and partial modelocking (Konig et al., 1996a). The laser output was monitored in both temporal and frequency domains to check for pulses, which are indicative of temporal mode beating. Without the etalon, pulses were observed at a repetition rate of 186 MHz, corresponding to the round-trip time in the cavity. With the etalon in place, all mode beating ceased. The spatial mode of the Ti:sapphire laser and of the YAG laser was TEMP, while the mode from the MOPA was slightly elliptical (ellipticity = 1.3). The output from the laser was expanded to slightly overfill the back pupil of the microscope objective (63X/1.2 numerical aperture (NA) Plan NeoFluar, water/glycerol immersion, model 461832; Carl Zeiss, Oberkochen, Germany) and brought into an inverted microscope (Diaphot TMD: Nikon, Tokyo, Japan) via the epiillumination port. The optical path included a computer-driven shutter (model 845; Newport Corp., Irvine, CA) controlling the laser trap. A dichroic mirror (model 635DCSPX; Chroma Technology Corp., Brattleboro, VT) in the microscope directed the laser into the objective while permitting the visible light, imaged by the objective, to pass through. Blue light artifacts induced by the microscope illumination source (50-W, 12-V DC halogen bulb) were minimized by placing a green interference filter (Nikon) in the illumination pathway.
Rotating, tethered cells were imaged on a CCD camera (model V-1056SX CCD; Video Runner, Culver City, CA). A time code generator (model TRG-50; Horita Co., Mission Viejo, CA) added a time stamp to the video signal, which was displayed on a BIW monitor (model PVM-97; Sony Corp., Montvale, NJ) and recorded by VCR (model AG-1980; Panasonic Co., Secaucus, NJ). In most cases, rotation rates of cells were simultaneously analyzed using a custom-built video cursor box placed in the video chain, which delivered a TTL pulse to a computer whenever the position of a rotating cell crossed a user-defined cursor position (Block and Berg, 1984). The same cursor box could also be used off-line with videotaped records of cells.
Microscope objective transmission calibration
To determine accurately the power delivered to the specimen plane, the transmission of the microscope objective must be characterized. Because of the high NA and short working distance of objectives used for optical trapping work, transmission cannot be measured by simply passing a beam of Light through the lens and collecting it with an ordinary photodetector. Instead, the objective transmission as a function of wavelength was measured using a dual-objective technique (Misawa et al., 1991), as described by Svoboda and Block (1994). Measured transmission curves for several candidate objectives are displayed in Fig. 2.
Calibration of power in the specimen plane
Bacterial assay
We employed a tethered cell assay (Block et al.. 1982, 1989) based on a strain of E. coli that carries two useful mutations (KAF95, a gift of Karen Fahmer, Harvard University; Berg and Turner, 1993). The first mutation is a deletion of the cheY gene. CheY-P protein induces clockwise rotation of the flagellar motor; in its absence, cells rotate smoothly in the counterclockwise direction (Parkinson, 1978; Parkinson et al., 1983), facilitating measurements of rotation rates. The second mutation affects the flagellar protein flagellin. In KAF95, the fliC gene encoding flagellin has an internal deletion leading to a nonspecific binding interaction between flagella and the negative surface charge on the coverglass (Kuwajima, 1988). Cells carrying both of these mutations spontaneously tether themselves and rotate continuously in the counterclockwise direction.
Cells of E. coli strain KAF95 were grown as described by Block et al. (1982), except that cultures were grown in T-broth (10 mg ml^sup -1^ BactoTryptone, Difco Laboratories, Detroit, MI; 5 mg ml^sup -1^ NaCI, Sigma, St. Louis, MO), supplemented with 100 (mu)g ml^sup -1^ ampicillin (Sigma) at 30 deg C, and the motility medium was that described by Block et al. (1983). Cells were loaded into a flow cell consisting of a coverslip attached to a microscope slide by two pieces of double-sided tape. Cells were allowed to tether for 10-15 min, after which time the flow cell was washed with 900-1200 (mu)l of motility medium to remove untethered cells.
The experimental procedure was modified slightly to study cells under reduced oxygen tension. To ensure anaerobic conditions, mineral oil (Fisher Scientific, Pittsburgh, PA) was layered over the surface of the growth medium before incubation to prevent oxygen from entering the test tube (cells consume any residual oxygen during the early stages of growth). The entire shearing and tethering process was carried out under nitrogen inside a glove bag, and the flow cell was sealed all around with vacuum grease (Apiezon M; M&I Materials, Manchester, England) before exposure to air. In other experiments, anaerobic conditions were achieved by introducing an oxygen-scavenging system into the flow cell after tethering but before trapping (250 (mu)g ml^sup -1^ glucose oxidase, 30 jig ml-' catalase, 4.5 mg ml^sup -1^ glucose; Sigma). We estimate the time required to deplete the remaining oxygen in the flow cell under these conditions to be less than 1 s.
Tethered cells were held by the optical trap and periodically released to monitor their rotation rates (Fig. 3). In a typical experiment, once a suitably tethered cell was identified (initial frequency of 5-12 Hz), between 30 and 100 s of data was collected before the trap was turned on. Thereafter, during each successive 10-s interval, the cell was held for 8 s by the trap and then released for 2 s. The rotation rate was determined from the timing of pulses generated by the video cursor box corresponding to full rotations (above). Pulses were captured by a data acquisition board (model AT-MIO16E-10; National Instruments, Austin, TX), using a Labview program (Labview 4; National Instruments), which was also used to control data acquisition and analyze rotation rates. Rotational data were further analyzed with Igor software (Igor Pro; Wavemetrics, Lake Oswego, OR). The data were smoothed, the start time (corresponding to when the trap was first turned on) was established, and the LD^sub 50^ time, operationally defined as the time at which the rotation rate decreased to 50% of its initial value, was determined (see Fig. 4). Control data were obtained in a similar manner, but with cells exposed only to the microscope illumination. Experiments were performed at 25-27 deg C. A typical flow cell had one or two well-tethered cells per field of view (200 (mu)m^sup 2^). After data were acquired from a cell, the next cell was chosen at least 400 (mu)m away from the first. No more than two flow cells were made from a single culture. To mitigate the effect of systematic variation in cell behavior from day to day, data for each point were collected from a minimum of three preparations over 2 days, with each point representing the average of 6-23 individual LD^sub 50^ determinations. There was no correlation between initial rotation rate and LD^sub 50^ time (correlation coefficient r = 0.1). We defined sensitivity as the inverse of the LD^sub 50^ time. Data are presented as mean +/-SEM.
RESULTS
Microscope objective transmission calibration
Measured transmission data for seven high-NA microscope objectives from three manufacturers are presented in Fig. 2 and Table 1. Overall transmission for the group varied from 1% to 73%. All objectives showed acceptable transmission in the short-wavelength region of the infrared spectrum (~45-65%, ~790-830 nm). Beyond 850 nm, the transmission of most Plan Apo objectives fell dramatically, in certain cases to levels unacceptable for optical trapping work. However, objectives designed primarily for fluorescence work (Plan NeoFluar, Zeiss; Plan Fluor, Nikon) or explicitly for work in the near IR (931 10IR; Nikon) had improved transmission characteristics in the longer wavelength region.
Wavelength-dependent damage
Control cells exposed to light from the microscope lamp, but not from the trapping laser, had an average LD^sub 50^ time of 3300+/-400 s, with a corresponding sensitivity of 3.1 X 10^sup -4^ 0.4 x 10^sup -4^ s^sup -1^. The action spectrum (i.e., the wavelength-dependent sensitivity) for E. coli trapped at 100 mW of laser power (determined in the specimen plane) is presented in Fig. 5. There was a roughly sevenfold difference between the most damaging wavelength (930 nm) and the least (970 nm). A direct comparison between the photodamage spectrum measured for E. coli and that reported by Liang et al. (1996), based on cell cloning efficiency, is displayed in Fig. 6.
Oxygen-dependant damage
A comparison between cells trapped under either aerobic or anaerobic conditions at two different wavelengths is presented in Fig. 7. Anaerobic conditions were achieved either by growing and maintaining cells in an oxygen-free environment or by introducing an oxygen-scavenging system just before trapping. The experimental results were statistically identical in the two cases. The effect on photodamage of removing oxygen was dramatic, resulting in a three- to sixfold increase in LD^sub 50^. Notably, trapping lifetimes under anaerobic conditions were the same as for the controls.
Intensity dependence of photodamage
Clues to the photochemical process underlying optical damage can be gained from the study of its intensity dependence. A simplified model for photodamage takes the form S(P) = A + BP^sup n^, where S is the sensitivity, A is the control sensitivity, B is the wavelength-dependent sensitivity, and P is the power. For a single photon-based process, n should be 1, while for a two-photon process, n should be 2. A doublelogarithmic plot of the reduced sensitivity, S-A, as a function of power at 870 and 1064 nm is plotted in Fig. 8. Data sets for each wavelength were fit to lines. At 1064 nm, the slope was 1.14+/-0.03 (reduced X^sup 2^ = 4.2), while at 870 nm the slope was 0.91+/-0.06 (reduced X^sup 2^ = 2.5). Taken together, the average slope is 1.06+/-0.07, consistent with a linear, one-photon process.
Temporal dependence of photodamage
A distinct attribute of the rotating cell assay is an ability to obtain quantitative data from a single cell in real time (Fig. 4). Averaged single-cell curves for data taken at 870 nm with 100 mW are plotted in Fig. 9. To compute this average, individual curves were first normalized by their initial rotation rates, and then the time was normalized by the measured LD50. While there was considerable variation among individual curves, the average behavior displays an approximately linear decrease in rotation speed with time.
DISCUSSION
The prominent features exhibited by the photodamage action spectrum (Fig. 5) are not easily understood. For example, the spectrum does not bear any superficial resemblance to the absorption spectrum of suspensions of E. coli cells, to water absorption (Palmer and Williams, 1974), or to the absorption of molecular oxygen (Krupenie, 1972). The relatively sharp spectral features suggest that light is absorbed by one or more specific photopigments. However, our effort to match the observed spectrum with known chromophores was hampered by a dearth of spectral data for biological molecules in the near-infrared region (most published spectra do not extend beyond ~750 nm). One noteworthy characteristic is the rough similarity between the wavelength dependence of photodamage seen in E. coli and in CHO cells (Fig. 6). This may indicate a common basis for damage in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic systems, possibly involving a ubiquitous intracellular chromophore, and suggests that it may be possible to generalize the present results, with caveats, to other organisms.
The dramatic increase in LD^sub 50^ under anaerobic conditions (Fig. 7) implies a critical role for oxygen in the damage pathway. In its absence, trapped cells display a LD^sub 50^ comparable to that of control cells. Whether oxygen is directly responsible, through the formation of a reactive oxygen species (the primary candidate being singlet molecular oxygen), or simply mediates the process remains to be determined.
The nearly linear relationship between sensitivity and power strongly suggests that a single-photon mechanism leads to photodamage (Fig. 8). This implies a direct absorption by some molecule (or molecules) in the infrared region, as opposed to a two-photon excitation mechanism in the visible (or UV) by unidentified fluorophores. This conclusion is at variance with previous reports implying a role for a two-photon process (Konig et al., 1995, 1996a; Liu et al., 1996), which were based on the finding that photodamage depended on the peak intensity, and not the average intensity, when short-pulse laser irradiation was used (pulsed lasers are not normally used for optical trapping work). However, the clearest signature for a two-photon process is a quadratic dependence of damage on laser intensity, which was not explicitly established. One possible resolution of the discrepancy may be that there are two regimes for photodamage: at the extremely high peak intensities generated by mode-locked and Q-switched lasers (GW/cm2; Konig et al., 1996a), photodamage may be dominated by some two-photon process, while at the lower intensities encountered in CW optical traps (operating at MW/cm2), the single-photon mechanism prevails. An alternative explanation for the increased damage seen with pulsed lasers may be the onset of optoacoustic shock waves (Hu, 1969; Bushanam and Barnes, 1975; Patel and Tam, 1981), which are pressure waves generated from high-intensity light pulses focused into a liquid medium. The overpressures produced can amount to several atmospheres and may have deleterious effects. Optoacoustic damage has been studied in bulk tissues (Yashima et al., 1990, 1991; Lustmann et al., 1992) but not in single cells.
The ability to continuously monitor single cells in the optical trap reveals the progress of the damage process. The nearly linear decline in rotation rate displayed by Fig. 9 was found for all wavelengths and laser powers investigated. Photodamage therefore seems to be a gradual process, not a catastrophic one. A damage threshold did not appear to exist. Even at the lowest power investigated, the rotation rate started to decrease immediately after trapping began.
A source of photodamage consistent with our data is the production of excited-state (singlet) oxygen, mediated by a sensitizer molecule (Calmettes and Berns, 1983; Block, 1990; Svoboda and Block, 1994). Singlet oxygen is a longlived, highly reactive species with well-established toxicity (Pryor, 1986; Dahl et al., 1987). While it is possible to produce singlet oxygen directly with laser illumination (Rosenthal, 1985), transitions from the ground state of molecular oxygen to the low-lying excited states are forbidden (Krupenie, 1972). Moreover, the absorption spectrum for molecular oxygen does not resemble the action spectrum for E. coli. Singlet oxygen may also be produced indirectly by exciting the triplet state of some sensitizer molecule, which in turn excites oxygen (Foote, 1976). It is conceivable, therefore, that the action spectrum for E. coli matches the spectrum of an unidentified sensitizer. This conjecture is consistent with the observed reduction in damage when oxygen is removed from the sample, and by the relationship between intensity and damage. The lack of a damage threshold and its linear time course suggests that the toxic species may have a short lifetime (a longer-lived species that accumulated would be expected to produce damage at a rate that increased with time). Other possibilities exist. For example, the absorbing species could itself directly damage cells, independent of oxygen per se, but be present in concentrations that depended indirectly on the oxygen tension.
This work was motivated, in part, by a search for the most favorable wavelength for optical trapping in biological work. Based on these data, some general conclusions can be reached concerning the design of optical tweezers. Spectral transmission characteristics suggest that microscope objectives designed for fluorescence are better suited to optical trapping work than the (more costly) highly corrected objectives designed for general high NA use. The large variation in throughput across the near-infrared portion of the spectrum means that careful consideration should be given to transmission characteristics before any objective for trapping work is selected. We also note that our measurements of transmission for most of the objectives tested differed from the test data supplied by various manufacturers, with our figures invariably being lower by 10-30%. This difference may be attributable to their use of integrating spheres to measure transmission through high-NA objectives, rather than the dual-objective method employed here. Integrating spheres do not distinguish between scattered and refracted light and therefore count scattered rays, which do not contribute usefully to trapping.
The action spectrum (Figs. 5 and 6) suggests that the region between 870 and 910 nm is particularly damaging and should be avoided, especially for work in vivo. The least harmful wavelengths are 830 and 970 run, which are about a factor of 2 less destructive than the 1064 nm Nd:YAG wavelength in common use. Currently, singlemode diode lasers are available at all the favorable wavelengths, but only at relatively low power (typically, -501000 mW). Continuing developments in diode laser technology may improve this situation, but there has been little increase in peak powers over the last 4 years. The fact that 970 nm is near the wavelength favored for pumping erbium fiber lasers in the communications industry (980 nm) augurs well for the development of economical, hybrid diode-based designs that may eventually reach higher powers.
The dramatic increase in lifetime promoted by the removal of oxygen suggests that where possible, scavengers or other means should be employed to reduce the oxygen tension in trapping experiments. While this strategy works well for in vitro protein assays and anaerobic organisms, it is obviously untenable for work with most eukaryotes. For the latter, a useful approach may involve adding quenchers of singlet oxygen to media. These include simple amino acids (e.g., histidine, methionine, or tryptophan) and powerful antioxidant compounds such as beta-carotene, DABCO (diazabicyclo [2,2,2]octane), or a-tocopherol (vitamin E). The trapped-and-tethered cell assay presented here should provide a ready means for testing the protective potential of such compounds.
We thank Prof. Steven Lyon for generously providing lab space, equipment, and technical advice. We thank Prof. Howard Berg for the generous loan of the video cursor box, and Dr. Karen Fahrner for the generous gift of strain KAF95. We thank the Princeton University Department of Chemical Engineering teaching lab for the use of their incubator. We are indebted to Drs. Lisa Satterwhite, Koen Visscher, and Mark Schnitzer for helpful discussions, Jason Hsu for preliminary work on this project, Anja Brau for assistance with the anaerobic data collection, and Jeff Lehrman for assistance with LabView programming. We thank Neil Barlow of Micron Optics for the loan of Nikon microscope objectives and Geoff Daniels of Leica America for the loan of Leica objectives for transmission measurements.
KCN was supported by a training grant from the National Institutes of Health. SMB acknowledges support from grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the W. M. Keck Foundation.
[Reference]
REFERENCES
[Reference]
As A4 1974.Trappping of atoms by resonance radiation pressure. Appl Phys. Left. 49,283--282
[Reference]
Ashkin, A., J. M. Dziedzic, J. E. Bjorkholm, and S. Chu. 1986. Observation of a single beam gradient force optical trap for dielectric particles. Opt. Lett. 11:288-290.
Ashkin, A., and J. M. Dziedzic. 1989. Optical trapping and manipulation of single living cells using infra-red laser beams. Ber. Bunsenges. Phys. Chem. 93:254-260.
Ashkin, A., J. M. Dziedzic, and T. Yamane. 1987. Optical trapping and manipulation of single cells using infrared laser beams. Nature. 330: 769-771.
Berg, H. C., and L. Turner. 1993. Torque generated by the flagellar motor of Escherichia coli. Biophys. J. 65:2201-2216.
Berns, M. W. 1976. A possible two-photon effect in vitro using a focused laser beam. Biophys. J. 16:973-977.
[Reference]
Block, S. M. 1990. Optical tweezers: a new tool for biophysics. In Noninvasive Techniques in Cell Biology. Modem Review of Cell Biology, Vol. 9. J. K. Foskett and S. Grinstein, editors. Wiley-Liss, New York. 375-402.
Block, S. M., and H. C. Berg. 1984. Successive incorporation of forcegenerating units in the bacterial rotary motor. Nature. 309:470-472. Block, S. M., D. F. Blair, and H. C. Berg. 1989. Compliance of bacterial
flagella measured with optical tweezers. Nature. 338:514-518.
Block, S. M., J. E. Segall, and H. C. Berg. 1982. Impulse responses in bacterial chemotaxis. Cell. 31:215-226.
Block, S. M., J. E. Segall, and H. C. Berg. 1983. Adaptation kinetics in bacterial chemotaxis. J. Bacteriol. 154:312-323.
Bushanam, G. S., and F. S. Barnes. 1975. Laser-generated thermoelastic shock wave in liquids. J. Appl. Phys. 46:2074-2082.
[Reference]
Calmettes, P. P., and M. W. Berns. 1983. Laser induced multiphoton processes in living cells. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 80:7197-7199.
Dahl, T. A., R. A. Midden, and P. E. Hartman. 1987. Pure singlet oxygen cytotoxicity for bacteria. Photochem. Photobiol. 46:345-352.
Foote, C. S. 1976. Photosensitized oxidation and singlet oxygen: consequences in biological systems. In Free Radicals in Biology, Vol. II. W. A. Pryor, editor. Academic Press, New York. 85-133.
Hu, C. 1969. Spherical model of an acoustical wave generated by rapid laser heating in a liquid. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 46:728-735.
Konig, K., H. Liang, M. W. Berns, and B. J. Tromberg. 1995. Cell damage by near-IR microbeams. Nature. 377:20-21.
[Reference]
Konig, K., H. Liang, M. W. Berns, and B. J. Tromberg. 1996a. Cell damage in near-infrared multimode optical traps as a result of multiphoton absorption. Opt. Lett. 21:1090-1092.
Koenig, K., Y. Tadir, P. Patrizio, M. W. Berns, and B. J. Tromberg. 1996b. Effects of ultraviolet exposure and near infrared laser tweezers on human spermatozoa. Hum. Reprod. 11:2162-2164.
Krupenie, P. H. 1972. The spectrum of molecular oxygen. J. Phys. Chem. Ref. Data. 1:423-520.
Kuwajima, G. 1988. Construction of a minimum-size functional flagellin of Escherichia coli. J. BacterioL 170:3305-3309.
[Reference]
Liang, H., K. T. Vu, P. Krishnan, T. C. Trang, D. Shin, S. Kimel, and M. W. Berns. 1996. Wavelength dependence of cell cloning efficiency after optical trapping. Biophys. J. 70:1529-1533.
Liu, Y., D. K. Cheng, G. J. Sonek, M. W. Bems, C. F. Chapman, and B. J. Tromberg. 1995a. Evidence for localized cell heating induced by infrared optical tweezers. Biophys. J. 68:2137-2144.
Liu, Y., G. J. Sonek, M. W. Berns, K. Konig, and B. J. Tromberg. 1995b. Two-photon fluorescence excitation in continuous-wave infrared optical tweezers. Opt. Lett. 20:2246-2248.
Liu, Y., G. J. Sonek, M. W. Berns, and B. J. Tromberg. 1996. Physiological monitoring of optically trapped cells: assessing the effects of confinement by 1064-nm laser tweezers using microfluorometry. Biophys. J. 71:2158-2167.
[Reference]
Lustmann, J., M. Ulmansky, A. Fuxbrunner, and A. Lewis. 1992. Photoacoustic injury and bone healing following 193 nm excimer laser ablation. Lasers Surg. Med. 12:390-396.
Manson, M. D., P. M. Tedesco, and H. C. Berg. 1980. Energetics of flagellar rotation in bacteria. I MoL Biol. 138:541-561.
Misawa, H., M. Koshioka, K. Sasak, N. Kitamura, and H. Masuhara. 1991. Three dimensional optical trapping and laser ablation of a single polymer latex in water. J. Appl. Phys. 70:3829-3836.
Palmer, K. F., and D. Williams. 1974. Optical properties of water in the near infrared. J. Opt. Soc. Am. 64:1107-1110.
Parkinson, J. S. 1978. Complementation analysis and deletion mapping of Escherichia coli mutants defective in chemotaxis. J. Bacteriol. 135: 45-53.
[Reference]
Parkinson, J. S., S. R. Parker, P. B. Talbert, and S. E. Houts. 1983. Interactions between chemotaxis genes and flagellar genes in Escherichia coli. J. Bacteriol. 155:265-274.
Patel, C. K. N., and A. C. Tam. 1981. Pulsed optoacoustic spectroscopy of condensed matter. Rev. Mod. Phys. 53:517-550.
Pryor, W. A. 1986. Oxy-radicals and related species: their formation, lifetimes, and reactions. Annu. Rev. Physiol. 48:657-667.
Rosenthal, 1. 1985. Chemical and physical sources of singles oxygen. In Singlet 02, Vol. 1, Physical and Chemical Aspects. A. A. Frimer, editor. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL. 13-38.
Svoboda, K., and S. M. Block. 1994. Biological applications of optical forces. Annu. Rev. Biomol. Struct. 23:247-285.
[Reference]
Vorobjev, I. A., H. Liang, W. H. Wright, and M. W. Berns. 1993. Optical trapping for chromosome manipulation: a wavelength dependence of induced chromosome bridges. Biophys. J. 64:533-538.
Yashima, Y., D. J. McAuliffe, and T. J. Flotte. 1990. Cell selectivity laser induced photoacoustic injury of skin. Lasers Surg. Med. 10:280-283. Yashima, Y., D. J. McAuliffe, S. L. Jacques, and T. J. Flotte. 1991.
Laser-induced photoacoustic injury of skin: effect of inertial confinement. Lasers Surg. Med. 11:62-68.
[Author Affiliation]
Keir C. Neuman,*#|| Edmund H. Chadd,# Grace F. Liou,sec Keren Bergman,para|| and Steven M. Block*#||
Departments of *Physics, *Molecular Biology, sec Chemical Engineering, and para Electrical Engineering, and ||Princeton Materials Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544 USA
[Author Affiliation]
Received for publication 13 May 1999 and in final form 30 July 1999.
Address reprint requests to Dr. Steven M. Block, Department of Biological Sciences, Gilbert Building, Room 109, 371 Serra Mall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-5020. Tel.: 650-724-4046; fax: 650-723-6132;
E-mail: sblock@stanford.edu.
Mr. Neuman's and Dr. Block's present address is Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305.
Ms. Lion's present address is Department of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305.
Legislators in New Jersey vote to abolish death penalty; would be first state in 42 years
The New Jersey Assembly approved legislation Thursday to abolish the state's death penalty, making Gov. Jon S. Corzine's signature the only step left before the state becomes the first in four decades to ban executions.
Assembly members voted 44-36 to replace the death sentence with life in prison without parole. The state Senate approved the bill Monday.
Corzine, a Democrat, has said he will sign the bill within a week.
The measure would spare eight men on the state's death row, including the sex offender whose crimes sparked Megan's Law.
A special state commission found in January that the death penalty was a more expensive sentence than life in prison, has not deterred murder and risks killing an innocent person.
"It's time New Jersey got out of the execution business," Democratic Assemblyman Wilfredo Caraballo said. "Capital punishment is costly, discriminatory, immoral and barbaric. We're a better state than one that puts people to death."
Among the death row inmates who would be spared is Jesse Timmendequas, a sex offender convicted of murdering 7-year-old Megan Kanka in 1994. That case sparked a Megan's Law, which requires law enforcement agencies to notify the public about convicted sex offenders living in their communities.
Senate Republicans had sought to retain the death penalty for those who murder law enforcement officials, rape and murder children, and terrorists, but the Senate rejected the idea.
Democrats control the state Legislature.
The nation has executed 1,099 people since the U.S. Supreme Court reauthorized the death penalty in 1976. In 1999, 98 people were executed, the most since 1976; last year 53 people were executed, the lowest since 1996.
Iowa and West Virginia halted executions in 1965. Other states have considered abolishing the death penalty recently, but none has advanced as far as New Jersey. According to the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center, 37 states have the death penalty.
Bills to abolish the death penalty were recently approved by a Colorado House committee, the Montana Senate and the New Mexico House. But none of those bills has advanced.
The nation's last execution was Sept. 25 in Texas. Since then, executions have been delayed pending a U.S. Supreme Court decision on whether execution through lethal injection violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
___
On the Net:
Amnesty International USA: http://www.amnestyusa.org/
Death Penalty Information Center: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/






















