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Jessica Fournier has a job that makes poor use of her talents. She spends her days stocking sneakers at a warehouse outside Grand Rapids, Michigan. A decade ago she was an astrophysics student at Michigan State University, where she coauthored a paper on RR Lyrae, a low-mass star that pulsates light. But having failed to secure long-term employment in her arcane field, today she pays her bills by cataloging shoe sizes.
She may have given up astrophysics, but Fournier still has a deep love of science. As soon as she gets home from work each night, she boots up her Asus laptop and begins what she calls "my second job": designing molecules of ribonucleic acid—RNA—that have the power to build proteins or regulate genes. It is a job that she happens to perform better than almost anyone else on earth.
Under the fitting nickname "starryjess," Fournier is the world's second-ranked player of EteRNA, an online game with more than 38,000 registered users. Featuring an array of clickable candy-colored pieces, EteRNA looks a little like the popular game Bejeweled. But instead of combining jewel shapes in Tetris-like levels, EteRNA players manipulate nucleotides, the fundamental building blocks of RNA, to coax molecules into shapes specified by the game. Those shapes, which typically look like haphazardly mowed crop circles or jumbled chain-link necklaces, represent how RNA appears in nature while it goes about its work as one of life's most essential ingredients. No self-sustaining organism gets made without the involvement of RNA.
Tweaking molecular models in this fashion is surprisingly fun—and, it turns out, useful. EteRNA was developed by scientists at Stanford and Carnegie Mellon universities, who use the designs created by players to decipher how real RNA works. The game is a direct descendant of Foldit—another science crowdsourcing tool disguised as entertainment—which gets players to help figure out the folding structures of proteins. EteRNA, though, goes much further than its predecessor.
The game's elite players compete for a unique and wondrous prize: the chance to have RNA designs of their own making brought to life. Every two weeks, four to 16 player-designed molecules are picked to be synthesized in an RNA lab at Stanford. "It's pretty incredible to imagine that somewhere there's a piece of RNA that I designed that never existed anywhere in nature before," says Robert Rogoyski, a New York City patent attorney who has had 14 of his EteRNA designs selected for synthesis. "It could encode a protein that no one has ever seen, something that's important in the discovery of the next blockbuster glaucoma or cancer drug. Or it could be the cause of the zombie apocalypse."
The chance to win this reward has proven highly motivating for EteRNA's players. They carefully study the data that the lab provides on how the synthesized molecules behave when ushered into existence, then use their observations to refine their next designs. In doing so, they—like their Foldit-playing peers—have helped scientists take advantage of the human brain's unparalleled talent for recognizing patterns and solving puzzles. But EteRNA players have also done something much more profound: By scrutinizing their creations, learning from their triumphs and mistakes, and using their accumulated wisdom to develop new hypotheses, they aren't just building better RNA molecules; they're discovering fundamental aspects of biochemistry that no one—not even the world's top RNA researchers—knew before. And in doing so, they are blurring the line that separates gamer from scientist.
Video: Alexa Inkeles
At the heart of EteRNA is a small rivalry, the sort that often forms in competitive academic environments—in this case, inside the lab of David Baker, a renowned biochemist at the University of Washington. Baker has dedicated his career to figuring out and manipulating the byzantine shapes of proteins, the compounds that help form cells and make them function. Proteins consist of long chains of amino acids that fold into ornate spirals and loops as their constituent atoms push and pull on one another. Since a protein's shape is vital to its function, researchers are constantly striving to grasp the rules that govern these contortions.
Adrien Treuille first came to Baker's lab in January 2007 as a postdoc, having just completed a PhD in computer science. Treuille was drawn to the lab by Baker's use of Rosetta@home, a free screensaver that doubles as a contribution to science. When a computer installed with Rosetta @home falls idle, the program can access the machine's processing power to crunch data on protein shapes. By the time Treuille joined the lab, the screensaver had been downloaded more than 75,000 times.
There was just one problem with Rosetta@home: From the perspective of the person who installed it, it was totally inert. The screensaver did nothing but show an image of a folding protein. Treuille and a colleague named Seth Cooper were enlisted by their academic mentor, Zoran Popovíc, to add an interactive element to the program.
Within a few months, Treuille and the team had created a demo that allowed Rosetta@home users to earn points by manipulating a three-dimensional protein model into a specific shape. This interactive Rosetta was hopelessly buggy, prone to crashing twice an hour. But Treuille noticed that his testers were saving their shapes every minute—they were so absorbed in the quest for points that they didn't want to lose their progress when the program inevitably conked out.
However, one postdoc in Baker's lab, Rhiju Das, was a vocal critic of the game. "Rhiju was sort of this rock star, just this really smart guy," recalls Treuille, a wiry 33-year-old New York City native who favors sagging jeans and hoodies. Das, the lab's RNA expert, found the game pitiful. Because Das was held in such high esteem in Baker's lab, Treuille was stung by his negative take on the new interactive elements of Rosetta. "Rhiju was a scathing critic," Treuille says. "He basically wrote this email to the whole Baker lab where he was like, 'I'm not sure how competent these computer science guys are, because this is a giant, steaming piece of crap.'"
But slowly the bugs were worked out, and Das was won over by the final version of the game, which was renamed Foldit prior to its release in May 2008. Tens of thousands of players flocked to Foldit that summer, drawn by the Rubik's Cube-like challenge of twisting proteins until their most stable shape was achieved. By swapping tips, the best players quickly learned to beat the game's most demanding challenges. Impressed, Baker urged these Foldit buffs to enter an international protein-folding competition (covered by Wired in our May 2009 issue), in which competitors—until that year always professional scientists—vie to accurately predict a protein's shape based only on its amino acid sequence. By using the game to test the validity of their entries, a team of Foldit players outperformed many of the scientists—and scored first place in one category. Today the game continues to produce valuable data: In 2011, University of Washington researchers used insights gleaned from Foldit to crack the structure of a protein involved in the maturing of retroviruses like HIV.
In the fall of 2008, Treuille and Das went their separate ways: Treuille joined the computer science faculty at Carnegie Mellon, while Das founded his own RNA lab at Stanford. Despite their early quarrel over Foldit, the two young professors kept in touch; they would talk every few weeks to commiserate about the ups and downs of academic life. During one of these conversations, Treuille mentioned that one of his graduate students, Jeehyung Lee, was working on a Foldit hack that allowed players to manipulate RNA.
Computers don't have flashes of insight. But the human brain can use intuition to feel its way around problems.
RNA was once dismissed as a sort of biological middleman, responsible only for carrying DNA's instructions to the cellular machinery that synthesizes proteins. But now it's clear that scientists had vastly underestimated the importance of RNA. Aside from the ferry-service type, there is also something called noncoding RNA, which among other things controls the expression of genes, amplifying or quieting their signals. Learning how this noncoding RNA works its magic will be a key to treating diseases caused by defective genes, as well as to understanding how life evolved.
Like proteins, noncoding RNA consists of long strands that warp into elaborate shapes which define the molecule's function. Yet because RNA was considered relatively unimportant until recently, precious little is known about how these shapes form—far less than is known about the folding of proteins. This lack of knowledge is a major obstacle for researchers, particularly those working in drug development; if they can't predict how a given strand of RNA will warp, they can't synthesize novel molecules that will work as intended. There are some algorithms for predicting RNA shapes, but they are all flawed—no surprise, given that their human authors understand only a handful of the biochemical rules that govern the molecule.
Having witnessed all the good that had come from Foldit, Das hoped that Lee's RNA game might help in the prediction of RNA shapes. In August 2009 he and Treuille traveled to a biocomputation conference in central Washington, where Lee gave a talk on his mod of Foldit. Afterward the three men gathered in a cabin on the edge of the Wenatchee National Forest to discuss the RNA version, which looked great but seemed too unwieldy to attract a mass following. Das wanted something slicker.
The trio brainstormed into the night, coming up with a slew of ideas for gamifying RNA. One proposal they kicked around was to have snippets of RNA fight each other to the death, in the style of a Japanese combat game called Senshuken; another was to create a first-person experience in which players navigated the world as RNA molecules of their own design.
The ideas were starting to get truly bizarre when something occurred to Das: Perhaps the solution wasn't to mess with the Foldit formula too much but rather to alter the game's incentives. "I said, 'Let's have it so players design something that we can make right now,'" Das says. "I wasn't willing to move forward with this unless we could do synthesis."
This was not an outlandish proposition. Unlike proteins, RNA molecules are easy to synthesize in a lab. The procedure begins with the creation of a made-to-order piece of DNA, which is then replicated millions of times using the technique called polymerase chain reaction. The resulting clip of DNA is then treated with an enzyme known as T7 RNA polymerase, which transcribes it into RNA. Das estimates that the whole process costs his lab around $100 per sample.
The game that Treuille and Lee designed, which they christened EteRNA for its January 2011 debut, has two tiers. The first is a series of "challenge puzzles," in which players earn points by creating known RNA molecules. When the puzzle starts out, the RNA model is just a string of yellow disks that represent adenine—one of the four nucleotides that comprise RNA. A player must flip a certain number of those A disks to uracil (or U, colored blue), guanine (G, red), or cytosine (C, green) so that the structure morphs into the target shape—a two-dimensional form full of circular loops connected by straight "stem" sections, made from pairs of nucleotides. The task requires a working knowledge of how nucleotides attract and repel one another. The more nucleotides a puzzle has, or the more labyrinthine the shape the player is trying to mimic, the higher its point value.
Once players exceed 10,000 points—a milestone reached by about 7 percent of the game's users—they are granted access to the lab section of the game. Here players are asked to mimic an all-new RNA shape—one that researchers would very much like to learn to make. Each player's attempt has a shot at being synthesized at Stanford. The selection process is democratic, and each lab-qualified player is able to cast eight votes per week. Designers jockey for support by giving their creations snappy names (Strange Bird, Crimes Scene, Ends Justify Means) and writing descriptions of their trademark moves ("Added guanine boost to the tetraloop," "This design includes a GU closing pair at 55-79"). Ultimately though, the voting players try to judge whether a given sequence is likely to form properly in the real world.
After the winners are synthesized, Das analyzes how well their structures mirror the game's target shape. Then he grades each one on a scale from zero to 100. The highest-scoring molecules are posted in EteRNA's equivalent of the Hall of Fame, where they are scrutinized by scores of jealous also-rans. This is how the game's newbies learn the secrets of RNA design and how its veterans reach epiphanies so profound they stun even EteRNA's creators.
To better understand EteRNA, I decide to give the game a try. After working my way through the tutorial, during which I pick the screen name Genghis Jones, I embark on a challenge puzzle—in this case the game shows me a type of noncoding RNA that is overexpressed in tumors. I am then given a straight chain of 90 nucleotides, each colored yellow to represent adenine, and instructed to change the nucleotides until they form the target shape—which in this case resembles a tadpole with a goiter on its tail.
The game marks my victory with animated bubbles—positive reinforcement that game designers call "juiciness." It's pretty addictive.
The basics are pretty simple: Adenine bonds to uracil, uracil also bonds to guanine, and guanine also bonds to cytosine, with a GC pairing being by far the strongest. So I start to flip every other yellow to a blue, hoping to create adenine-uracil pairs that will form the structure's long, rowlike stems. Once I have converted a dozen or so As to Us, the RNA begins to take form: I suddenly have a big loop that constitutes the head of the tadpole. But the nucleotide stems that are supposed to come together to form the tail remain separate. After some trial and error, I manage to seal those strings together by placing a powerful guanine-cytosine pair at the tip of the tail. Once I do that, EteRNA celebrates my victory with animated bubbles meant to represent the gurgling inside a test tube. It is my first taste of what is known in game parlance as juiciness, a moment of positive reinforcement that encourages the player.
It is a heady feeling, one that instantly reveals how this Flash-based game could be as addictive as the most beloved iPhone time wasters. "I don't get a lot of sleep," confesses Craig Lollin, a high school biology teacher in Piscataway, New Jersey, who ranks in EteRNA's top 20. "My girlfriend says that EteRNA is my other girlfriend—Renè9e, she calls it."
Yet no player's dedication can match that of Eli Fisker, the game's top-ranked player and the unofficial mayor of the EteRNA community. A 35-year-old who lives in Aalborg, Denmark, Fisker has been fixating on patterns for as long as he can remember—"I fell in love with the patterns on my father's shirts when I was a kid," he says. After school, Fisker trained to become a librarian. But like Jessica Fournier, his chosen career never panned out, partly because he has what he describes as "something similar to Asperger's." He was sent instead into early retirement, a uniquely Scandinavian sort of luxury.
When Fisker first read about EteRNA on an Australian science blog, he thought it sounded like the kind of diversion he might enjoy, given his affinity for games involving rows and stacks of colored objects; he had recently purchased an iPod touch solely to play Bejeweled while on the go. Fisker wasn't too familiar with RNA—his college biology class had barely mentioned the stuff—but the game doesn't penalize scientific ignorance.
Within a week, Fisker had solved enough puzzles to cross the 10,000-point threshold. Then one of his very first submissions to the design competition was selected for synthesis at Stanford. But like most early winners, the molecule was a failure—it didn't come close to folding into the right shape. "In the first rounds, the players were much worse than the existing algorithms," Treuille says. When he synthesizes the players' proposed sequences, Das also makes designs suggested by Vienna RNA or Nupack, two top algorithms for predicting RNA shapes. The software soundly trounced the humans in the early months of 2011, generating molecules that folded into reasonably accurate approximations of EteRNA's targets.
But the balance of power between man and machine shifted quickly. Fisker and the other EteRNA pioneers pored over the data generated by the Das lab's experiments, which includes the total energy of a molecule and diagrams displaying exactly where a sample folded incorrectly. The players took note of which base pairs didn't stick in the real world and which clung together so tightly that they distorted the structure. They discussed their theories in EteRNA's chat room and wrote up lengthy strategy guides. And as the weeks went by, their results steadily improved. By May 2011, even humans with middling scores were regularly destroying the algorithms.
Given what they had learned from Foldit, Treuille and Das were not surprised that EteRNA's players were coming out on top. Computers are excellent at tasks like chess, in which all the parameters are known—64 spaces on the board, pieces with finite moves (albeit a lot of them). But they flail at endeavors for which the majority of rules remain a mystery and a bit of guessing must take place. (As Treuille puts it, "Computers don't have flashes of insight.") The human brain, by contrast, can use intuition to feel its way around problems through trial and error.
What did catch EteRNA's creators off guard, though, was the players' knack for identifying and defining the rules of RNA behavior. It is one thing for amateurs to help solve a tricky puzzle; quite another for them to discern important laws of nature—the kind of thing that could conceivably earn a student a PhD—then share their discoveries with the world.
After several weeks of studying EteRNA's winning designs, for example, Fisker noticed that the most successful molecules were those that placed guanine-cytosine pairs at the junctions where multiple straight stems of nucleotides feed into massive loops. But simply aping this strategy in his designs didn't always work as he envisioned. Fisker was missing something.
And then it dawned on him: Orientation meant everything. Unless the guanine- cytosine pairs all faced in the same direction, so that red always alternated with green as you looked around the loop, the molecule wouldn't form correctly when synthesized. This breakthrough soon turned Fisker's designs into world-beaters—and, more important, enhanced biochemistry's grasp of RNA. It was a fundamental rule that no scientist had ever discovered before.
Several other EteRNA champions have also uncovered major properties of RNA. Jessica Fournier, for example, was among a handful of players to discover the importance of variation in a certain type of molecule. "If the design has a lot of arms that are the same length, try not to make them too alike, or they could mispair," she explains. This is because nucleotides continue to attract and repel one another even when they are separated by relatively large distances. Making sure those rows have little in common—that the nucleotide sequence of each is distinct—minimizes the risk of having a base pair pulled out of alignment.
Das didn't anticipate this kind of discovery. "The pattern recognition stuff, OK, I knew people were going to be good at that from the experience we had with Foldit," he says. "What I didn't know was how they were going to interpret and use the data. But if you look at what they're doing, it's much better work than some of the best graduate-level scientists. What they're doing, it's really beautiful."
Did I mention that EteRNA is addictive? After playing the game for a while, I found that I wanted to do little else with my spare time. I started to play for an hour every night after putting my son to bed, choosing to fiddle with Chlamydomonas reinhardtii RNA rather than have a beer with my wife. Then one night I stayed up far too late agonizing over recalcitrant loops in Arabidopsis thaliana RNA. I started charting my progress on Post-its affixed to my office wall, keeping track of all my little eureka moments&mdash"Eliminate more sticky GC pairs," or "G one space over from neck, stabilize loop." Genghis Jones shot up the global leaderboard.
I earned my 10,000th point during a Sunday-night session fueled by Jim Beam and peanuts. My wife caught me doing a pitiful version of the Dougie to celebrate.
With this I began to build never before seen molecules that would have a shot of being synthesized at Stanford. My initial efforts were embarrassments. One player derided my second attempt as a "Christmas tree," EteRNA slang for molecules that feature too many guanine-cytosine pairs and are thus predominantly red and green. The teasing hurt, but it also taught me to keep an even distribution of pair types.
Finally, after weeks of failure and frustration, I received the news: One of my molecules, entitled "The Revolution of the Mobile Archer," had taken seventh place in the latest round of voting. Das' lab was going to synthesize my design.
It was a thrilling moment, but there is a downside to consider: Every such triumph stands to make the game much, much harder. That's because EteRNA isn't just a game; it's also a distributed wetware-computing operation. The data from every synthesized design is collected by EteRNA's servers and will eventually be incorporated into new shape-predicting algorithms. Humans aren't just competing against the machine—they also serve it as intelligence-gathering slaves.
Already, an inkling of that automated future can be glimpsed in an algorithm that Jeehyung Lee devised from a very elementary form of EteRNA data: the strategy guides that players write to keep track of their discoveries. Lee centralized and mined these guides for the best tricks, including Fisker's stratagem for placing guanine-cytosine pairs at the intersections of stems and loops. Lee then coded those tricks into an algorithm called EteRNAbot. This formula has proven more accurate than either Vienna RNA or Nupack, suggesting designs that fold nearly as well as—and sometimes better than—those generated by the game's most accomplished players. "I feel like our days are numbered," says Robert Rogoyski, the patent attorney from New York. "There's a complex sort of pattern-recognition process that you develop after playing 15 or 20 times, and it's hard to reduce that into words. But I think we can reduce it into words. And if we can reduce it into words, we can make it math."
The only question, then, is how long it will take EteRNA to produce what Rogoyski dubs "the Terminator algorithm"—a program better than any human. The answer depends on how quickly the game can amass data from synthesized designs. If EteRNA were to maintain its current pace, with Das making about 32 molecules a month, it would likely take decades to compile the requisite intelligence. But the game's experimental tempo is about to pick up.
In the earliest days of EteRNA, after growing frustrated at missing out on Stanford a few too many times, several players began to discuss the possibility of synthesizing designs themselves. One of this group's more technically inclined members even priced the necessary equipment, such as a thermocycler to carry out polymerase chain reactions. The cost proved prohibitive, but home-brewing molecules is quickly becoming a realistic option.
Sequencing a genome costs less than 1 percent of what it did in 2002, a plunge that reflects the astonishing affordability of tools and technologies that barely existed a decade ago. Sooner or later, industrious EteRNA players are bound to invest the time and money to make Das superfluous, by building improvised labs where they can make molecules as they please. Instead of competing for slots at Stanford, they will use the game as a simulator to determine which of their designs are promising enough to synthesize in the garage.
Far from dreading his impending marginalization, Das is invigorated by the prospect of EteRNA players running their own experiments. "Any way we can get them more resources to test their hypotheses is going to be really revolutionary for this field and for science in general," he says.
In the meantime, Das is trying to provide some of those experimental resources himself. He is planning to scale up the number of player molecules he can synthesize at a time, from eight to 20,000. Using part of the $1.7 million in funding that EteRNA recently received from Google and the W. M. Keck Foundation, Das plans to purchase DNA printed onto glass slides, which will let him analyze tens of thousands of RNA molecules at a time in parallel.
But Das also points out that garage labs aren't the only way for players to make molecules—he envisions them eventually enlisting the services of satellite labs. "You could give EteRNA users remote access to a workstation. It doesn't have to be at Stanford—it could be in Siberia," Das says. "And they press a button that's like, 'I want to make this piece of RNA,' and it gets uploaded to the biochemical cloud and synthesized."
By synthesizing molecules of their own design, EteRNA players will be doing work that was once the sole domain of scientists. With all this coming together, Treuille and Das figure, why not also implement the final piece of the scientific process: publishing. Das is in talks with the Public Library of Science to create a way for players to contribute papers to the online journal PLoS Currents using the data generated by the RNA synthesis. "Imagine on the website you start typing in the intro paragraph, and then the other paragraphs, and then you hit Create and Submit Paper," says Treuille, who is now in the midst of a yearlong sabbatical at Google's advanced-projects lab, Google X. "And it assembles the whole thing—puts in your data collected from EteRNA. And then it goes to the journal, and they know the data is true because they know that EteRNA is true."
Once that happens, biochemistry will face a dilemma that other, far less technically demanding fields have been grappling with for years: Who exactly are the professionals? The line between computer-game player and scientist will be nearly gone. If someone can form a hypothesis, test it herself, and then publish her groundbreaking results in a respected journal, she is a scientist—even if she makes her living stocking shoes.
My molecule, "The Revolution of the Mobile Archer," fared much better than I had hoped. Das scored it a 91 out of 100—higher than entries from such elite players as Eli Fisker and Jessica Fournier, not to mention those suggested by the Vienna RNA and Nupack algorithms. I came in five points behind the winning design—one suggested not by a human but rather by the EteRNAbot algorithm, which registered a rare victory in the competition.
When the diagram of my molecule in real life was posted on EteRNA, however, my joy turned to disappointment. The target shape resembled a two-headed stick figure lying on its side. But the lab diagram showing what I had actually produced looked more like the cartoon character Ziggy doing the splits.
I stared at the molecule's most problematic region—the 16-nucleotide loop that formed Ziggy's torso. A guanine adjacent to the loop was attracting a uracil from quite a distance, thereby creating a kink of nucleotides that shouldn't exist. I wondered if I could prevent that from happening by changing that guanine to an adenine. Or maybe I just needed to flip the direction the guanine was facing, keeping in mind Fisker's axiom about orientation.
The more I focused on that clump of nucleotides, the more I fantasized about a future in science. So what if I had struggled to dissect a fetal pig in high school biology class? I was on the verge of making an important discovery about the placement of guanines in RNA molecules, based on data from a real-world experiment. Who's to say I'm not a biochemist?
This piece was originally published on June 22, 2012.
Brendan I. Koerner (brendan_koerner @wired.com) wrote about counterfeit slot machines in issue 19.08.


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Updated 5:16 p.m.
• Apple Q1 2012: $46.33 Billion In Revenue, 37.04 Million iPhones, 15.43 Million iPads, And 5.2 Million Macs Sold – Apple posts its best quarter ever, driven largely by huge sales of iPhones and iPads. The company had higher sales in this one quarter than in all of 2009.
• Google's New Terms Of Service & Privacy Policy: Anything You Do May Be Used To Target You? and Updating our privacy policies and terms of service – Google will have new privacy policy and terms of service documents starting March 1, attempting to streamline the current 70 documents it currently has. What you in one Google service could be used for targeting ads at you in another.
Updated 1:54 p.m.
• Sundance 2012: MPAA's Chris Dodd Calls Piracy Defeat a 'Watershed Event' but Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales: MPAA chairman Christopher Dodd should be fired – Wales wants Dodd fired for his threats against members of Congress who withdrew support for SOPA/PIPA, while Dodd acknowledges that the Net-based opposition is a seminal moment.
• Facebook Timeline Now Pushed To Everyone, Users Get A Week To Clean Up Profiles – Soon, the Timeline will be the standard profile view. If there's anything you don't want people to see, now's the time to clean things up.
• Apple Has Become Biggest Buyer of Semiconductors, Gartner Says – Apple bought $17.3 billion worth of semiconductors in 2011, ahead of both Samsung and HP.
• RIM's roadmap for 2012/Q1 2013: Two BlackBerry 10 phones, two Curves, HSPA+ PlayBook
Original post
• Judge: Americans can be forced to decrypt their laptops – A federal judge in Colorado rules that 5th Amendment protections against self-incrimination don't apply to encrypted data on a computer.
• Why the Jones Supreme Court Ruling on GPS Tracking Is Worse Than It Sounds – The justices ruled against physically attaching a GPS tracker to a vehicle without a warrant, but left undecided whether GPS tracking in general violates 4th Amendment protections.
• How Apple is sabotaging an open standard for digital books and Some standards are more open than others – Ed Bott says Apple's new format for books produced using iBooks Author takes the standard ePub format and adds proprietary extensions, similar to Microsoft's "embrace, extend, extinguish" strategy. John Gruber responds: I'ma Set It Straight, This Watergate
• 64GB iPhone 4S takes 21% of sales, 36% of iPhone buyers come from another platform
• Steve Jobs looked to reinvent Apple's iPhone photography with instant capture system, advanced light-field sensors – Could the technology in the revolutionary Lytro camera show up in a future iPhone?
• "Don't Be Evil" Tool — Backed By Facebook & Twitter — Gets Them Into Google's "Search Plus Your World" – A new bookmarklet adds other social networks into Google's new "Search Plus Your World" results that previously had only included its own Google+ content.
• Toward a more inclusive naming policy for Google+ – Google now allows nicknames, but you still can't have a pseudonym on Google+.
• With New Ad Roll-Outs to Come, Twitter Acquires Anti-Malware Start-up – Twitter's about to let you roll your own ads, and now has the ability to protest users from malware that evildoers might include in them.
• Twitter Bots Create Surprising New Social Connections – The presence of smart scripts that retweet what users say can impact behavior among real people on Twitter.
• Sheryl Sandberg – Facebook's grown-up face – The San Francisco Chronicle profiles Facebook's CEO.
• Microsoft says botnet kingpin worked for antivirus vendor – Prior to creating the Kelihos botnet, its mastermind worked for a company that made security software. However, Microsoft doesn't name the company.
• Exclusive: Microsoft to discontinue its virtual currency system Microsoft Points – Microsoft will switch to real money for transactions in the Zune, Xbox and Windows Phone environments.
• Silicon Valley's Average Tech Salary Surpasses $100,000 – Competition for engineering talent is driving paychecks higher.
• Evi arrives in town to go toe-to-toe with Siri – While it can't set up appointments for you or connect with other iOS apps, Evi comes close to what Siri was when it was a standalone app. It's available for both iOS and Android.
• T-Mobile, AT&T File For FCC Approval Of Spectrum Transfer – AT&T and T-Mobile won't merge, but T-Mobile will get some of AT&T's spectrum licenses.

subset: commoncrawl


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ayurvedic medicine for sex
what is the best medicine for sex ?
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Natural Shilajit For Low Sex Drive and Sexual Weakness
Natural Shilajit is called as herbal mineral as it oozes out of the rocks in Altai Mountains, rich in minerals and nutrients to work as all in 1 natural herb for men health. Shilajit is boon for good overall health and in the process it also works well in treating sexual weaknesses and low sex drive. If man posses good health, physical and mental, he will enjoy his sex life too for longer period in life.Shilajit is a rejuvenating herb which contains 85 minerals in ionic form and humic acid and fulvic acid to work as all in 1 natural herb for men health. The consumption of this herb enhances the body to fight with stress and ageing, and have magical properties to treat impotence, sterility, mental disease and improves concentration and memory.
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Shilajit is a natural aphrodisiac and popularly known an Indian Viagra, it enhances sexual functions of the body to treat low sex drive and other male weaknesses like erectile dysfunctions and low sperm count. The anti-oxidant property of Shilajit makes it powerful natural medicine to improve blood flow to all the parts of the body including male genitals to give stronger and longer erections to counter erectile dysfunction or impotency. Shilajit is famous for its stress buster property too and works for better mental health, these properties can cure the problem of low sex drive with in no time as it helps in relaxing the muscles and improving mental clarity.
Low sex drive and sexual weaknesses also occur due to malfunctioning of urinary and renal organs of the body. Swelling or enlargement of prostrate gland gives rise to painful urination or incontinence in urination which leads to low sex drive or insufficient erections. Shilajit alleviates and treats urinary and renal problems; it also helps in improving functioning of kidneys for better health.
Apart from working magically to cure low sex drive and male weaknesses there are many other curative properties of Shilajit. It is good for treating cough and respiratory problems, it also helps in improving oxygen supply to the blood which eventually flows to all parts of the body for better functioning of internal organs. It is rich source of trace minerals and iron to cure problem of anemia, it gives bio-availability of iron which is easy to absorb by the body for quick alleviation. Shilajit also works wonderfully well for arthritic conditions and used as a medicine for rheumatoid, gout and osteoarthritis. It is also used for other joint related problems caused due to ageing. Shilajit amplifies the effect of other herbal medicines as it makes the body prone to absorb the supplements provided by the herbs which work well for good health.
So get ready to discover a new world full of power, energy and stamina with Extra Strong Shilajit ES. Surprise your partner with a new height of love and gratification in your relationship.
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There are number of herbs and species known in ayurveda for curing sexual disorders such as Withania Somnifera, Musli and much more.
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There is a lots of medicine available to cure the sex health issues.
- Join Date
- Dec 2016
- Posts
- 52
Sexual dysfunction encompasses a variety of disorders that affect sex drive (libido), the ability to achieve or maintain an erection (erectile dysfunction, or impotence), ejaculation, and the ability to achieve orgasm.
In market, there are many herbal formulations for sexual disorder which combines herbs like Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera), Kapikachchhu (Mucuna pruriens), Safed Musali (Chlorophytum) and Gokhshur (Tribulus terrestris) to enhance performance. The herbs combined effect as nervine tonic and antioxidant promotes wellness and functions of reproductive organs. Their anxiolytic property helps to combat stress and anxiety improving the bodys ability to respond to stress. Gokhshur (Tribulus terrestris) and Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera) aid the relaxation of blood vessels of genital organs and are responsible for facilitating sexual functions. Salep (Orchid latifolia), Safed musli (Chlorophytum arundinaceum), Erandmula (Ricinus communis) are the natural aphrodisiac.
Some DO'S & DONT'S:
1. Thirty minutes of exercise every day running, walking, swimming, etc.helps you to stay active.
2. Consume a healthy diet rich in proteins, antioxidants, omega fatty acids and fruits.
3. Strengthen your relationship to enjoy your life to the fullest extent.
4. For serious health issues visit your healthcare advisor.
5. Quit smoking or cut down on your drinking.
6. Avoid saline, sour and pungent food intake.
7. Avoid extra calories to maintain a healthy weight.
8. Avoid mental and physical stress and strain.
Last edited by shavitandon; 07-18-2017 at 05:46 AM.
- Join Date
- Nov 2017
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- 1
There is no pill in the world that helps you get better results in the world. But yes, there is medications that give you short time results if you take according to the prescription. Consult with your doctor if you are still facing the issue and know about side effects of medications used for sex.
- Join Date
- May 2018
- Location
- Texas
- Posts
- 2
There are many medicine in market nowadays like Kamagra, Kamagra oral jelly, Generic Viagra etc. These contains Sildenafil in an appropriate amount and increases the libido.
- Join Date
- Apr 2019
- Posts
- 2
The problem is, is soon as a natural remedy is studied it becomes main stream and is no longer alternative- hence this article would argue against its use... Seems like circular logic to me.
One thing that has been studied and works very very well is indeed shilajit, https://purblack.com/mineral-pitch-r...onal-medicine/. Great stuff.
Many of the medicines we have start out as plant based and drug companies for better or worse decide to purify them or change to be able patent certain portions of the plants. I wouldn't necessarily scoff at how a certain plant medicine was given- I don't know if it was appropriate- or given by a knowledgible plant medicine practitioner. Looked to me like they just gave the herbal treatment to the patient with no understanding of what it entails. Are the herbs fresh? etc. Seemed like studies desgned to make herbal treatments look bad what sillyness and a waste of time.
07-03-2019, 05:56 AM #9UnregisteredGuest
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- Jun 2019
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- Address: 1st Floor, 206, Dalamal House, J.B. Marg Nariman Point, Mumbai 4000021
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Hi Thaver,
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Birla Ayurveda has over 15 therapy centers in India, which are a combination of wellness Ayurveda, day care treatment centers, stay facilities, Ayurveda medicines and Ayurveda doctor consultation.
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Email ID: [email protected]Birla Ayurveda has over 15 therapy centers in India, which are a combination of wellness Ayurveda, day care treatment centers, stay facilities, Ayurveda medicines and Ayurveda doctor consultation.
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quote:Originally posted by GrumpySteen: 4:37 PM, April 12th, 2013And identity theft is pretty profitable. Don't be so quick to rule it out.
quote:Originally posted by Xanthine: I've had my best results in the love department when I was most emphatically not looking. I think it's because when you're not looking, you've accepted your status and you've moved on and you've given yourself a measure of self-confidence that you lacked when you were looking. And self-confidence is attractive. Also, since the rules of attraction are badly codified and barely existent, when you're looking for a partner, you're running a serious and huge risk of over-intellectualizing a fundamentally irrational process. There's nothing rational about romance. It can not be found by seeking. It just happens.
quote:Originally posted by Xanthine: That said, you strike me as pretty independent. Some men find that unnerving.
quote:Originally posted by Stereo:I had thought that men would like to be loved for who they are rather what they can give me.
quote: When is it time to give up?
quote:Originally posted by CW Smith: During my second year in college, I had two relationships and two nasty breakups. Needless to say, it was emotionally draining and socially frustrating. (...)
quote:Originally posted by GrumpySteen:and those who have never had a romantic relationship
quote:Originally posted by TheMoMan: ____ Me thinks he is using you as a fire escape when it gets too hot with her and just before he commits, he steps out onto the fire escape, you. ____ Lock the escape door, or just leave the building you deserve better than a goto.


text:
With clear political allusions, Leow makes many cultural references in this work that clearly adheres to China, and the artist;s views on its peopel, culture, and political and military affairs. Playing upon the state of a soldier as a human being more than a pawn, he lays open the various interpretations of the relations between both subjects and the composition of each.
Vincent Leow (b. 1961) is one of Singapore's leading contemporary artists. Celebrated as a l'enfant terrible of the Singapore art community, Vincent Leow is a pivotal figure in the alternative art scene in Singapore. His practice parallels the development of contemporary art in Singapore and as a painter, he is regarded as a remarkable creative who has dipped into an astonishing range of influences from popular culture, literature, cinema, politics and the mass media. Leow stands as a central figure in the history of the 'art collective' in Singapore. One of the early members of The Artists Village (TAV), founded in 1988 by the iconic Tang Dawu (b 1943), Leow subsequently helmed other artist-run spaces. Engaging with a range of media that has resulted in performances, installations, sculptures, digital and mixed-media works, Leow's practice has maintained an element of anarchy and rebellion so critical to alternative practices. He acquired public notoriety with his 1992 performance in which he drank his own urine. The characteristics of Leow's art include a taste for kitsch and a constant, highly individual visual vocabulary - prompting art writers to describe his practice as epitomizing 'post-modern' visual strategies. Read More
"Andy's pranks and Swimming Lessons",
Xin Beijing Gallery, Beijing, China
"Mock Ducks and Manicured Poodles" Jendela Gallery@Esplande, Singapore
"A Big Fat Belly Hen", Plastique Kinetic Worms, Singapore
"FOUR EYES, CLOUDY SKIES", Atelier Frank & Lee, Singapore
"FOUR EYES, CLOUDY SKIES", TADU Art Space, Bangkok, Thailand
"Caged Feet ", LIP, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
"Mountian Cow Milk Factory", Installation Telok Kurau Studios Gallery, Singapore
1997 - 1998
"Mountian Cow Milk Factory", various venues, Singapore
"Falling Bones, Hungry Chillies", Substation Gallery, Singapore
"CHOP SUEY" Substation Gallery, Singapore
"Donkeys, Elephants & The Three Legged Toad", Shenns Gallery, Singapore
"Vincent Leow : Recent Paintings", School 33 Art Centre, Baltimore, MD, USA
We ship using DHL.
Estimated delivery time to United States is up to 4 weeks. Please be advised that taxes may be imposed at the country of destination. More info


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Weekly Toastmasters MeetingName: Weekly Toastmasters MeetingDate: June 13, 2019Time: 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM PDTWebsite: Toastmasters of Laguna BeachEvent Description:
Ten Reasons to Attend our Meeting:
- Overcome fears and self imposed limitations so you can emerge with confidence!
- Broaden your mind and expand your depth of knowledge on a variety of subjects and disciplines.
- Educate and enliven others by sharing edifying speeches on important topics.
- Gain valuable feedback from experienced club members who are leveraging the proven system offered by Toastmasters International.
- Learn to leverage natural abilities and expand upon critical speaking and presentation skills.
- Network, make new friends, build relationships and bond with other like-minded professionals.
- Balance and enhance your career.
- Compete at varying degrees of difficulty for trophies, awards and recognition.
- Develop and expand upon key leadership skills and disciplines that will benefit you in all areas of your life.
- You will be able to do all this and more and you will enjoy every step of the process because you will have fun!
The Members of Laguna Beach Toastmasters Club look forward to meeting you and to helping you achieve your goals!


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Please read description carefully.
Do not base your order on the picture presented.
Description of the Morrison Medical Product Folding Cardboard Splint 12in, 25/cs
For use in limb immobilization. Morrison Medical Corrugated Cardboard Folding Splints are available in a variety of sizes and foam options. Splints feature 5/8" holes for tie downs. Corrugated board exterior is white. 24" and 34" lengths offer an extra center crease for firm support of thin limbs. The Locking Leg Splint features sturdy double locking tabs, measures 4.5" x 14" x 34", and stores flat. Foam options provide increased patient comfort and include center foam, 3-piece foam, full foam, or without foam (plain). Foam measure 3/8" thick. FDA registered.
Medex SKU: MMP-1500-25


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Adopt LUKE
Male Senior Anatolian Shepherd / Mastiff
Austin Animal Center
About LUKE
Hi! My name is Luke and I am approximately 7 years old. I appear to be an Anatolian Shepherd and Kangal. I am a very easy-going fella that makes for an ideal houseguest. Luke`s previous owner had him since he was 6 months old, but could no longer care for him due to their health condition. Although he was raised with other dogs, he has decided that he would like to be the only pet during his twilight years with a fenced yard.Weighing in at 126 lbs and 36 inches high, Luke sometimes can be mistaken as a small horse ;) Even though he`s a very big and strong boy, he has a low energy level. Luke enjoys the simple things in life: give him a neck rub and a short walk, and he`s one happy camper. He LOVES being brushed and hanging out outside, especially on cold mornings.His previous owner said that he loved meeting new people and being pet. They described him as a very confident boy with very little fears.With his giant head and sweet look in his eyes, Luke makes for a very endearing companion, a fluffy teddy bear who doesn`t ask for much other than a slower-paced home to spend his retirement in. If that sounds like yours, please email firstname.lastname@example.com to find out more!
Not what you were looking for? You can adopt a different pet in Austin by using our search feature and adjusting the radius. Thank you for helping our animal shelters and rescue groups with pet adoption!
Shelter Information
Austin Animal Center is the largest open-intake animal shelter in central Texas and we work very hard to try to save 90% or more of the thousands of animals we shelter every year. We always need volunteers and both monetary and in-kind donations to help us in our sheltering and prevention activities. Visit our website to find out how you can help!
Areas Served
Austin and unincorporated Travis County, but will happily adopt to qualified folks from other communities.
Adoption Instructions
Our standard Adoption fee for healthy, younger pets is $75. Pets over 7 years old have no adoption fee. Adoption includes a microchip and collar & tags, all the vaccinations a pet is old enough to receive, and spay or neuter surgery. Adopters must be at least 18 yrs old with a current photo ID. Pets already in the home should have a current rabies vaccination and we may need to confirm permission for adoption from the owner of the property where an adopter lives.
*ALASTORAmerican Staffordshire Terrier
Alastor a.k.a `Al Pastor` is not the biggest fan of this shelter business and we can`t say we blame him! He would much prefer to go on w...
Alastor a.k.a `Al Pastor` is not the biggest fan of this shelter business and we can`t say we blame him! He would much prefer to go on walks, sniff all the smells, and get massages. We think he would make a great running partner so let us know if you`d like to hit the trails with this cutie pie!Email firstname.lastname@example.com to learn more about fostering or adopting Alastor!
*ALFALFALabrador Retriever
This very good boy was initially shy and a bit scared when he first arrived but he`s come out of his shell so much! Alfalfa is now confi...
This very good boy was initially shy and a bit scared when he first arrived but he`s come out of his shell so much! Alfalfa is now confident and goofy and he LOVES adventure! Whether it be going on a hike at McKinney Falls State Park, or going swimming, or even just hopping in the car for some sightseeing â Alfalfa is your guy!Alfafa is not only curious and adventurous, he is also a smarty pants! He knows several commands (sit, down, and shake), and we`re pretty sure he`d love to learn a few more. Oh, and he is somewhat of a diva⦠thatâs right, Alfafa loves it when you brush his hair. Heâll thank you by wagging his bushy tail and maybe even giving you a kiss or two!As a larger, black dog, Alfafa is often overlooked here. When you walk past his kennel, he`ll bark and jump, but all he`s trying to say is `pick me!`. And he doesn`t understand why nobody ever does pick him :( Alfalfa just needs someone to give him a chance, which is why we`re hoping to find him a foster home, so they can see the amazing dog he is without all the stress of being at the shelter. As a member of the Orange Dot Crew, Alfafa will go home with everything you need, including a crate, harness, goodie bag, a training voucher, and all the support you need. Please email them for more info, or to set up a time to meet him: email@example.com Orange Dot Crew on Facebook and Instagram!
*ALFIEGerman Shepherd Dog
Oh, Alfie! His name is actually Alfred but we only call him that when he`s being naughty. Alfie is young and frustrated and smart... tha...
Oh, Alfie! His name is actually Alfred but we only call him that when he`s being naughty. Alfie is young and frustrated and smart... that is a recipe for naughty dog when you are living in the shelter! Alfie also isn`t the most confident doggo. But no worries, Alfie has a big circle of shelter friends and they are helping show him that people are good and the world isn`t so scary!Alfie enjoys taking his time on strolls, leaving no smell un-smelled. He also likes treats and puzzle toys. The car still makes him a little nervous so we`re taking baby steps with car rides but Alfie is getting braver and braver each time.Alfie takes direction nicely and would do well with a patient, savvy foster. He has shown friendly interest in other dogs, but he would definitely need some decompression time and then slow intros.Alfie is a bit handshy and while we don`t like to think of why that is, we do keep it in mind and make sure to go slowly and move very deliberately around him. This cute little shepherd mix is fairly out-of-sorts at the shelter and we`d love to get him into foster so he can catch up on his zzz`s and be the best doggie he can be. In addition to all the regular goodies, Alfie goes home with a couple of bottles of spray cheese - his FAVORITE thank you very much!Reach out to email@example.com to learn more! http://petharbor.com/pet.asp?uaid=ASTN.A802396
*AMELIALabrador Retriever
Amelia is a permanent puppy whose goals are snuggling, making you laugh, and eating hot dogs. She`s a champion cuddler who`s house train...
Amelia is a permanent puppy whose goals are snuggling, making you laugh, and eating hot dogs. She`s a champion cuddler who`s house trained and happy to `hold it` so you can stay in bed longer to pet her. She loves belly rubs, and adores squeaky toys- and will happily share them for a game of tug or fetch. She`s polite when you`re eating, and crate trained. She has bouts of occasional naughtiness when she`s bored- and will deliberately steal the one sock you left out juuuuuust so she can toss it around gleefully and make you laugh (and pay attention to her). She always checks on you in the shower to see what you`re doing, and will tolerate baths just fine. Amelia is very fearful of strangers and unknown dogs, which has made her reactive and anxious on walks. She`s doing some training with her foster mom to get more comfortable, but would LOVE to find a home in a quiet neighborhood (especially if she can have a yard) to make potty breaks less scary and stressful for her. We hope she`ll learn over time that new humans bring fun stuff, but right now we`d recommend a low-traffic home without too many new people coming over. Once she`s your friend- she`s your absolutely BFF.Amelia is a SUPER fun, wiggly, silly girl that will keep you giggling at her antics (like throwing a green bean around the room while she figures out if it`s edible) and prefers to have a small circle of friends. If you`re interested in fostering or adopting Amelia, you`ll get lots of support from her current foster mom (who`s a professional dog trainer), and a group of staff and volunteers who adore this girl and will help with anything you need. Email email@example.com to find out how to adopt Amelia (A812415) from foster care!
APRICOTLabrador Retriever
Apricot shines best as a personal human companion for adults and older children. There`s a soft side to Apricot and she loves to show it...
Apricot shines best as a personal human companion for adults and older children. There`s a soft side to Apricot and she loves to show it. She has great home manners and prefers a home with human companionship where she won`t be left for long, long hours daily but she is indeed crate trained for those shorter stretches when her people are away. Email her advocates at email@example.com for more information.Apricot is part of the Classic Canines nonprofit advocacy program at AAC. Find Classic Canines on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.
*ARCHIEAmerican Pit Bull Terrier
I am a 3-year old lab pit mix and I`m looking for my furever home. I love snuggles with hoomans and sprawling out on the couch with them...
I am a 3-year old lab pit mix and I`m looking for my furever home. I love snuggles with hoomans and sprawling out on the couch with them. I get really excited when I hear the word `walk.` That`s when I get to go outside and walk my foster mom. I love to look for squirrels on the walk! I love other dogs too, I have a foster brother and we love to play chase in the yard. I`d do great in a home with other dogs! Cats freak me out a little bit, I would not like to have a feline sibling. I know how to sit, wait and shake. Foster mom says I`m such a smart boy. Do you want to be my pawrents? I promise to love you forever and always snuggle with you at night. My ID at Austin Animal Center is A815199, and don`t forget I`m Archie!


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Providing the ultimate in Ni-MH technology, Dynamite® Speedpack™ sport packs are an extremely affordable choice for everyone from RC hobbyists to sport-level racers. They feature capacity ratings ranging from 1800mAh to 5100mAh, making it easier than ever to choose the right Ni-MH battery for your vehicle.
Traxxas® TRX® High Current Connectors US Patent Nos. 7,374,460, 7,530,855, D573,536 and D576,557; Traxxas and TRX are registered trademarks of Traxxas, L.P.
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Copyright © Horizon Hobby


text:
What did you name your Commander Shepard? Wait. Let me guess. Your Shepard—assuming you went with something other than the default name—has one of the names in the image above, right?
Statistically speaking, those are the most popular names for Commander Shepard in Mass Effect 3 according to BioWare. Well, they're the most frequent names aside from "John" and "Jane," the default names that Shepard comes with—which also, incidentally, are kind of boring names (sorry, John and Janes of the world!)
But yeah. Most of you guys didn't really give Shepard very interesting names at all, judging from this infographic BioWare made:
My guess is that if Mass Effect 3 had been released in 2014, we'd have a hell of a lot of Khaleesi, Katniss or Arya Shepards.
I've named my Shepard "Ash," for what it's worth. Not a popular name, but since he's a paragon soldier bro-Shepard, he's still awfully generic. :(


text: In today's world, digital transformation is a critical choice for growth, for companies and countries alike. Countries need to open the data floodgates to irrigate slowing economies. Companies must take a tight grip on the opportunities of the digital age, and mine them for profit. In the midst of digital transformation, everyone is searching for ways to use new technologies, to pull ahead, to be a part of the Intelligent World, and to share in the digital dividend. Read More >Download the full PDF


text:
Subscribe to our e-newsletter mailing list to keep up with NCCCO news and industry headlines.
August 2013 -- A day-long training course to prepare candidates for the new CCO certification exams for Service Truck Crane (STC) operators will be offered at ICUEE by Venturo Training Services. Attendees will receive in-depth instruction on the knowledge and skills tested on the CCO exams.
The course will cover both technical and best practice information and will also include hands-on instruction and operating time on the equipment. Among the topics to be covered are: Site conditions and equipment setup of service truck cranes; general operating practice and lifting principles; technical knowledge of national industry standards/regulations; understanding and interpreting manufacturer's load charts; and crane operation controls and techniques
To register for the course, email firstname.lastname@example.com or call 513-772-8448, ext. 109.
Copyright, 1995-2019. All rights reserved.


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|Stained Glass • Fusing • Mosaics • Jewelry Supplies
Free Glass Patterns from Stained Glass News
Create this simple, yet charming, stained glass panel lamp. This free pattern is courtesy of our friends at Stained Glass News. Visit their website www.stainedglassnews.com for more information about their full-color, project-packed newspaper, back issues, and subscription information.
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Viewing this file requires the use of the Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you do not have Adobe on your system, you may download Adobe Reader free from their website. Download Free Adobe Reader.


text:
Please note: this is an updated version of the guide for restoring the volume button in Ubuntu 10.04/Gnome 2, and is specifically for those using the Gnome 3 "Classic" (Fallback) desktop (though may be applicable for Gnome-Shell and Unity).
If you've just upgraded to 12.04 "Precise Pangolin" and found that the volume icon/button is missing from the system tray (at the far-right of the top Gnome panel), you can choose between adding the newer indicator applet, or running the old stand-alone volume button like back in Gnome 2. With the indicator applet, it will load automatically with each boot, but it doesn't take much to get the legacy volume button to do the same.
Volume Button:
Note: Those who've had to do this before in Ubuntu 10.04 through to 11.10 will have noted the package gnome-volume-control-applet no longer exists, but since it has just been renamed, all you need to do is change the command to gnome-sound-applet.
To run it for the current session, hit Alt+F2 to open the Run Application app, paste gnome-sound-applet into the text field, and click the Run button (you can also enter the command into a terminal, but the button will disappear if you close the terminal).
To get it to start automatically from the next reboot, click the cog in the top-right (in Unity) and open Startup Applications and add it as a new entry with a name like "Volume Button". If you're using Gnome Classic, your user menu in the top-right won't include Startup Applications, so just run gnome-session-properties via Alt+F2 or in a terminal.
If for some reason the volume app is missing on your system, run sudo apt-get install gnome-sound-applet in the terminal.
Indicator Applet:
Alt+Right-click an empty area of the panel (if you have Compiz effects enabled, then you will need to hold Alt+Super/Windows while right-clicking), choose Add to Panel, then drag Indicator Applet Complete to next to the clock in the system tray, or wherever you want to put it instead. The volume button will be restored, but as part of the Indicator Applet which also has a mail/message notifier for Evolution and messaging apps, as well as showing when other apps like Rhythmbox music player are open.
Did this information make your day? Did it rescue you from hours of headache? Then please consider making a donation via PayPal, to buy me a donut, beer, or some fish'n'chips for my time and effort! Many thanks!


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Reading the piece, it appears that light might be linked to an increase in breast cancer. The trouble is that "could" and "might" are what I call "posineg" words, you could add a "not" after them and barely change the sense of what is being said. Light might be linked, but equally, it might not. In which case, where is the story?
The difficulty with such stories is that they can cause considerable harm and distress. Imagine that you are a night worker who reads that "compelling evidence exists for an association between night work and breast-cancer risk." Do you give up night work and take a pay cut?
It is usually easy to do a reality check on such spook stories. In this case, all you do is ask how long people have been enjoying light at night, or ask what the difference is between night light and daylight. You soon conclude that, even if there is a link, the risk of harm is very small, or women would be dropping like flies in the streets every day – and they are not.
Even the blurb – "Some researchers fear it could be linked to an increase in breast cancer in developing nations" – gives a clue to the falsity of this story. Why in developing nations, not developed ones? Have women in developed nations built up a resistance? Or is this yet another example of eco-paternalism: "Don't use light at night like we do – it could cause harm!"
The same people deny Africa the right to resolve malaria by the responsible use of insecticides. Irresponsible use caused environmental damage but fixed the malaria epidemic. We are not allowed to be responsible and a million die annually from a preventable disease.
Please be more careful about publishing these "might-could" claims. – Professor Philip Lloyd, Energy Institute, Cape Peninsula University of Technology


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PROSF7 - Pro-Series Heavy Duty Industrial Single Sided Fibreglass Step Ladder has a height of 2.1 meters, weight of 11 kg, and load rating of 150 kg. Its side rails is mainly made from UV inhibited fibreglass material.
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Safe Use of Your Ladder
· Always inspect your ladder prior to using it.
· Do not use a damaged ladder.
· Always ensure it is on solid ground and cannot move.
· If you have to leave your ladder for any period of time recheck it before use.
· Face the ladder when climbing and working.
· Wear non slip footwear.
· Be aware at all times of other people when using the ladder.
· Using the ladder near a doorway is hazardous, always lock, remove or block open the door.
· Only use non conductive ladders where an electrical hazard exists.
· Ladder Safety Video
Care for Your Ladder
· Do not over tighten when tying your ladder down.
· Do not push your ladder around.
· Do not drop your ladder.
· Store your ladder in a covered location (especially important for fibreglass)


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NBC's new drama starring Draco Malfoy's Dad, Jason Isaacs, is finally getting a start date! The show revolves around a detective (Isaacs) who wakes up from a terrible car accident in split worlds. In one world his wife survived the crash (but his son didn't), and in the other, only his son survived. Torn between two very sad worlds, Isaacs tries to avoid upsetting the balance in his mind so he can continue living with both his wife and his son.
The premiere date for this series? March 1st at 10PM on NBC. We can't wait.


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Egg production and quality problems: What's wrong with my birds?
Good, stable egg production and good quality are of utmost importance. Bad management practices, feed and environment-related issues and diseases are some of the factors which may negatively impact egg production and egg quality.
Also animal-related factors, such as age and strain of layer birds, must not be disregarded. Older birds and birds after molting are known to produce bigger eggs with thinner shells and indigenous strains cannot quite compete with commercial layers in terms of number of eggs produced.
Several management issues (see table) may lead to nervous birds and/or traumatic lesions in the ovary which cause poor egg quality (fragile shell/bloodspots/meat spots). Nutrition-wise, improper balance of calcium, phosphorus and vitamin D may lead to thin egg shells. Also large amounts of Lucerne/alfalfa meal in diet can lead to blood spots caused by vitamin K antagonists in this feed ingredient. Interestingly, the use of the drug sulphaquinoxaline may have the same effect as mineral imbalance. In terms of pathogens, Infectious Bronchitis (IB) causes respiratory disease and kidney damage in growers and oviduct infection in adult hens which can cause wrinkled egg shells as well as a reduction in eggs laid.
Due to the liver and kidney toxicity mycotoxins may negatively impact egg and shell formation, leading to poor egg and shell quality (pale eggs/small, fragile shell/bloodspots/meat spots). For mycotoxin-related problems, prevention can be undertaken through the use of a proper mycotoxin risk management tool which adsorbs and/or biotransforms mycotoxins, thus eliminating their toxic effects for the animals, while guaranteeing liver and immune protection. The Mycofix® product line from BIOMIN combines the three strategies – adsorption, biotransformation and bioprotection – which work together to prevent the hazardous effects of mycotoxins in poultry flocks.


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Over 400 manatees in Florida have already died this year -- and some of those are due to human activity such as collisions with boats, according to a report by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released Thursday.
More than 400 manatees in Florida have already died this year — and some of those are due to human activity such as collisions with boats, according to a report by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released Thursday.
"It's a wake-up call," said Jacki Lopez, a staff attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity in St. Petersburg. "We've been on this path of indiscriminate activity .... not much has changed in the last few years."
In the past few months, boat collisions caused 14 of the 409 manatee deaths. Six of those were in Lee County, and the rest spread throughout the state. Lopez suspects these are from boats going over the speed limit.
"Manatees need a certain amount of time to get out of the way. If you aren't going slow enough, they can't do that," Lopez said. "For many of the manatees, the ultimate death blow is from a collision with boats. It will die of internal injuries."
To amend these "largely unintentional deaths," Lopez said boater education and enforcement of laws regulating speed need to improve.
"Enforcement of laws is very low," Lopez said. "In Florida, you buy a boat, you register it. There is no analog to having a driver's license for a car."
Furthermore, many of the state's estimated 1 million registered boaters are from out of state and seasonal users of Florida's waters, so an extra effort needs to be made to educate them, Lopez continued.
"We have this animal that we've collectively decided is important to our cultural heritage," Lopez said. "We should require a course ... beef up enforcement — make sure that the speed signs adequately reflect conditions of the local environment and are visible to boaters."
On average, human activity — namely boating collisions — cause about 94 manatee deaths per year, which is more than six times the average of 14 needed to maintain the optimal sustainable population level, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Manatees have been classified as an endangered species since the enactment of the Endangered Species Act in 1973.
According to Dr. Robert Bonde, a biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Gainesville and an expert on manatees, enforcing laws around manatee sanctuaries throughout the entire state — especially southwest Florida — would help control unnecessary manatee deaths.
"If we are going to cohabitate with manatees, unfortunately they suffer the consequences of having to deal with our boats," Bonde said. "We need to be stringent and concerned enough ... we often interfere with their existence."
Bonde added that red tide, also known as algal bloom, is causing a record-high number of manatee deaths. Although the Fish and Wildlife Service didn't designate a separate category for red tide deaths, they fall under its "natural" causes of death category, which number 192 of the 409 deaths so far this year — the highest number for any cause of death.
Red tide is mostly a problem on the western and southwestern shores of the state, and it releases a neurotoxin that's lethal to manatees.
"If you're a dog sniffing it, you wake up with a hangover the next day. If you ingest it and you're a manatee in the water, you end up drowning," Bonde said.
He added that even as early detection and prognosis of red tide exposure in manatees improves, red tide will likely persist because it is suspected to be a byproduct of climate change and global warming.
"On the brighter side, there appear to be a lot of manatees around," Bonde said, adding that the statewide guesstimate is at least 5,000.
Bonde added that the species does not have a lot of genetic diversity, however. So in the event of some sort of disease outbreak, its population would have a limited ability to survive.
Contact Kristine Crane at 338-3119, or firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Richmond Hill, Ontario
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Central administration in Nigeria, 1914-1960: the problem of polarity, Volume 1
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They Went That-a-Way - Part 8
From Novac, your next destination is a location to the northeast known as Boulder City. You can follow a highway in a northerly direction for most of your journey. When you see a gas station in the distance (which is a proper location known as El Dorado Gas & Service), expect to be assaulted by a trio of Viper Gunslingers, which will likely bring you off of the highway and on a more direct route towards Boulder City. These guys are actually fairly formidable, so be careful while taking care of them, and scour their bodies for goods when all is said and done. When you head northward from there towards the aforementioned gas station, you could always teleport back to Novac to sleep before teleporting back to the gas station to continue your northward journey.
Eventually, you'll come to a ridge that drops off to a sea level area below. Ahead of you will be the destroyed town called Boulder City. However, Radscorpions and their lesser friends, Small Radscorpions, will likely occupy this ridge in great numbers. These guys are actually pretty formidable early in the game. If you have a flamethrower, like we have, you may want to consider using it to light these guys up quickly. Remember -- when an enemy is on fire, residual damage will be done to those enemies for as long as they remain afire. After taking out those enemies however you'd like, you're then free to enter the town itself, where you can get down to business once and for all.
You'll find Boulder City to be fairly vacant. Most of its buildings are in complete disrepair, and you won't be able to do much interior exploration here. But that's okay, because what you're really seeking out is the NCR encampment near the center of town. When you approach the guard at the entrance to the encampment, you'll automatically be stopped. This man is Lieutenant Monroe. Speak with him extensively about the situation in Boulder City. It appears that he is having some problems of his own with the Khans. Some of his men were attacked while traveling from Novac to Boulder City, and now a couple of them are being held hostage. For offering to help him, you'll receive the Side Quest known as Boulder City Showdown . No worries though, because it generally folds right in with what we're already doing.
The ruins at the center of Boulder City are the key. You can access the ruins through the door to the right of Monroe. Once inside, you'll find NCR soldiers taking a knee in the rubble, waiting for you to act one way or another. As is the case with a lot in Fallout: New Vegas, you have some options here as far as how you intend on proceeding. There's the violent route, and then there's the peaceful route. Both will be an option for you as long as you had no violent interactions with the Khans before this. The Khans won't attack you here, and in fact, you can walk right into the building where the two NCR soldiers are being held. This is where you must make a decision. Will you try to talk to Jessup, their leader? Or will you outright free them?