EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton, left, and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif share a light moment at the start of the two days of closed-door nuclear talks on Tuesday.
Fabrice Coffrini/AP
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton, left, and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif share a light moment at the start of the two days of closed-door nuclear talks on Tuesday.
Fabrice Coffrini/AP
Iran's proposal for easing the standoff over its nuclear program seems to be getting initial positive reviews at Tuesday's start of multiparty talks in Geneva.
A spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said the Iranian delegation had made a PowerPoint presentation outlining their plan at the beginning of the two-day session. The spokesman said the plan had been received with "cautious optimism" but gave no further details of the close-door meeting, describing the proceedings as "confidential."
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said there'd been a "good" first reaction to Tehran's proposals, according to Reuters.
"The discussions bring together Iran officials and representatives of the "P5+1 group", made up of Britain, China, France, Russia and the US plus Germany.
In a Facebook entry posted at the weekend, [Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad] Zarif said the talks were the 'start of a difficult and relatively time-consuming way forward.'"
The talks are the first since moderate President Hassan Rouhani was elected four months ago. Since then, Rouhani has ratcheted down the bombastic rhetoric of his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. As The Associated Press writes, the talks are seen as "a key test of Iran's overtures to the West."
Foreign Policy says: "While there is little optimism that this week's talks will resolve the matter of Iranian nuclear weapons development entirely, U.S. officials have hinted that progress made could result in immediate relief from U.S. imposed sanctions."
Update At 1:45 p.m. ET:
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney warned "despite positive signs" from the Geneva talks that "no one should expect a breakthrough overnight."
After nearly two years of seeming dormancy, Taylor Momsen and her band, The Pretty Reckless, just released the music video for their latest single, "Going to Hell."
“FINALLY our first video in over 2 years #goingtohellishere,” the 20-year-old songstress tweeted about the release the video to her fans today (October 16).
Currently on tour to promote the new single, The Pretty Reckless's new album is slated for release next year. The 20-year-old Momsen also tweeted today, saying, "#GoingtoHell tonight in Vancouver at Rio Theatre. Check out the new video."
Stay linked to GossipCenter for the latest news and updates about Taylor Momsen and The Pretty Reckless's continuing rise to fame!
Longtime 20th Century Fox domestic marketing president Tony Sella is on his way out.
Insiders say Sella is believed to have informed Fox CEO-chairman Jim Gianopulos Friday that he has decided to leave the movie studio following a dramatic restructuring announced last week that puts international presidents Paul Hanneman and TomasJegeus in charge of worldwide marketing and distribution over Sella.
Under the new structure, Sella reports to them, and not Gianopulos.
His exit is being negotiated and it wasn't immediately clear when he'll formally leave. Fox declined comment.
Sella -- who has sometimes been a polarizing figure within the studio -- ran Fox's domestic marketing department with Oren Aviv; Aviv was shown the door last week as part of the blueprint putting Hanneman and Jegeus.
Sella, who couldn't be reached for comment, has worked at Fox for more than two decades. In 2002, he and Pamela Levine were named co-presidents of domestic theatrical marketing. Levine left Fox nearly three years ago, with Aviv coming aboard.
Master P and his lovely wife Sonya Miller have been married for 24 years, but all of that is coming to an end!
The world assumed there was No Limit to what their love could endure, but the unhappily married couple is proving us all wrong and calling it quits!
Well, technically speaking, Master P isn't calling anything. It was his soon-to-be ex who filed the court paperwork!!
Aww!!! After 24-years we can't believe they're throwing in the towel. By comparison, River Phoenix didn't even live that long!
In addition to their famous adult child, Lil Romeo, Sonya has four underage children by Master P. She sought child support for them once in 2011 while they were separated, and will go after full custody and spousal support now.
In the new film adaptation of Twelve Years A Slave, Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Solomon Northup, a black man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841.
Jaap Buitendijk/Fox Searchlight Pictures
In the new film adaptation of Twelve Years A Slave, Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Solomon Northup, a black man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841.
Jaap Buitendijk/Fox Searchlight Pictures
There's a true American saga on screens this weekend.
Twelve Years a Slave tells the story of Solomon Northup. He was an African-American musician from New York — a free man, until he was kidnapped in Washington, D.C., and sold into slavery. After an unlikely rescue from a Louisiana cotton plantation, he returned home and wrote a memoir, first published 160 years ago.
But the end of Northup's story is an unsolved mystery that has confounded historians for years.
A Story Brought To Life
Northup was drugged, kidnapped and sold into slavery not far from the National Mall in 1841. What is now the Federal Aviation Administration headquarters was once the site of "a slave pen within the very shadow of the Capitol," as Northup described it in his book, which he dictated to writer David Wilson.
Carol Wilson, a history professor at Maryland's Washington College, has studied hundreds of documented kidnappings of African-Americans before the Civil War. She says Northup's story is unique.
"First of all, that he could spend over a decade in slavery and then still get out — but also that he wrote an account, and it's really one of the most valuable narratives of a slave that we have because he experienced slavery as a free person," she says.
This kind of documentation is rare, says John Ridley, who wrote and produced the new film adaptation of Twelve Years a Slave.
"Even though we think we've seen every slave narrative, the reality is that very few of these stories have really ever been told and brought to life," he says.
The film is a visceral portrayal of the brutality of slavery — so is the book.
"When he's being whipped, you feel it. When he triumphs over something, or pulls a fast one on his owner, you're there with him, too," says Clifford Brown, who teaches at Union College in New York and has co-authored the new biography Solomon Northup: The Complete Story of the Author of Twelve Years a Slave.
He says Northup's return home in 1853 made headlines. His memoir was published later that year.
His Final Request
After the book came out, Northup hit the lecture circuit, produced two unsuccessful stage plays about his experience and sued his kidnappers. There is also some evidence that he helped fugitive slaves escape through the Underground Railroad.
An illustration from the memoir Twelve Years A Slave shows Solomon Northup in his "plantation suit."
But by the end of the Civil War, Northup had disappeared from the public record.
"We know where his son is buried. We know where his father is buried. But we don't know where he's buried. It's a mystery," Brown says.
Brown and his co-authors, David Fiske and Rachel Seligman, have tried to solve that mystery for almost two decades. They've visited graveyards and combed through old death notices. They've even spoken with Northup's descendants, including Clayton Adams, Northup's great-great-great-grandson.
Adams shared a copy of Northup's book with his wife, India, when they were dating.
"I told her, 'I have this one book here that was very interesting and based on a true story,' " he says. After a few days, Adams' wife finished the book — and then learned that she was dating one of the author's descendants.
"I think I was just in awe that I knew someone that could actually have their history documented, which unfortunately, a lot of African-Americans don't have," India says.
Adams says he wishes he knew how the story of Northup ended. "It still is open. It's not closed," he says.
Adams describes reading the last words of Northup's book as heartbreaking; "I hope henceforward to lead an upright though lowly life, and rest at last in the church yard where my father sleeps," Northup wrote.
"So after all of that ordeal, his last request in his book, the last line is that he just wished when he dies he could lay right next to the grave of his father," Adams says.
He says the line still haunts him "every time I read it or think about it."
Increase seen in donor eggs for in vitro fertilization, with improved outcomes
Public release date: 17-Oct-2013 [
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Contact: Janet Christenbury Jmchris@emory.edu 404-727-8599 The JAMA Network Journals
Between 2000 and 2010 in the United States the number of donor eggs used for in vitro fertilization increased, and outcomes for births from those donor eggs improved, according to a study published by JAMA. The study is being released early online to coincide with its presentation at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine and the International Federation of Fertility Societies joint annual meeting.
During the past several decades, the number of live births to women in their early 40s in the United States has increased steadily. The prevalence of oocyte (egg) donation for in vitro fertilization (IVF) has increased in the United States, but little information is available regarding maternal or infant outcomes to improve counseling and clinical decision making, according to background information in the article.
Jennifer F. Kawwass, M.D., of the Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, and colleagues examined trends in use of donor oocytes in the United States and assessed perinatal outcomes. The study used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Surveillance System (NASS); fertility centers are mandated to report their data to the system, which includes data on more than 95 percent of all IVF cycles performed in the United States. Good perinatal outcome was defined as a single live-born infant delivered at 37 weeks or later weighing 5.5 lbs. or more.
The researchers found that at 443 clinics (93 percent of all U.S. fertility centers) the annual number of donor oocyte cycles performed in the United States increased from 10,801 in 2000 to 18,306 in 2010, as did the percentage of such cycles that involved frozen oocytes or embryos (vs. fresh) (26.7 percent to 40.3 percent) and that involved elective single-embryo transfer (vs. transfer of multiple embryos) (0.8 percent to 14.5 percent). Good perinatal outcomes increased from 18.5 percent to 24.4 percent. Average age remained stable at 28 years for donors and 41 years for recipients. Recipient age was not associated with likelihood of good perinatal outcome.
"Use of donor oocytes is an increasingly common treatment for infertile women with diminished ovarian reserve for whom the likelihood of good perinatal outcome appears to be independent of recipient age. To maximize the likelihood of a good perinatal outcome, the American Society of Reproductive Medicine recommendations suggesting transfer of a single embryo in women younger than 35 years should be considered. Additional studies evaluating the mechanisms by which race/ethnicity, infertility diagnosis, and day of embryo culture affect perinatal outcomes in both autologous [donor and recipient are the same person] and donor IVF pregnancies are warranted to develop preventive measures to increase the likelihood of obtaining a good perinatal outcome among ART users," the authors write.
(doi:10.1001/jama.2013.280924; Available pre-embargo to the media at http://media.jamanetwork.com)
Editor's Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.
Editorial: Outcomes of Donor Oocyte Cycles in Assisted Reproduction
Evan R. Myers, M.D., M.P.H., of Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, N.C., comments on the findings of this study in an accompanying editorial.
"Given the promising data presented by Kawwass et al on perinatal outcomes after use of donor oocytes, the use of oocyte donors is likely to at least remain constant and may even increase. More complete data on both short- and long-term outcomes of donation are needed so donors can make truly informed choices and, once those data are available, mechanisms can be put in place to ensure that the donor recruitment and consent process at clinics is conducted according to the highest ethical standards."
(doi:10.1001/jama.2013.280925; Available pre-embargo to the media at http://media.jamanetwork.com)
Editor's Note: Please see the article for additional information, including financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.
###
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Increase seen in donor eggs for in vitro fertilization, with improved outcomes
Public release date: 17-Oct-2013 [
| E-mail
| Share
]
Contact: Janet Christenbury Jmchris@emory.edu 404-727-8599 The JAMA Network Journals
Between 2000 and 2010 in the United States the number of donor eggs used for in vitro fertilization increased, and outcomes for births from those donor eggs improved, according to a study published by JAMA. The study is being released early online to coincide with its presentation at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine and the International Federation of Fertility Societies joint annual meeting.
During the past several decades, the number of live births to women in their early 40s in the United States has increased steadily. The prevalence of oocyte (egg) donation for in vitro fertilization (IVF) has increased in the United States, but little information is available regarding maternal or infant outcomes to improve counseling and clinical decision making, according to background information in the article.
Jennifer F. Kawwass, M.D., of the Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, and colleagues examined trends in use of donor oocytes in the United States and assessed perinatal outcomes. The study used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Surveillance System (NASS); fertility centers are mandated to report their data to the system, which includes data on more than 95 percent of all IVF cycles performed in the United States. Good perinatal outcome was defined as a single live-born infant delivered at 37 weeks or later weighing 5.5 lbs. or more.
The researchers found that at 443 clinics (93 percent of all U.S. fertility centers) the annual number of donor oocyte cycles performed in the United States increased from 10,801 in 2000 to 18,306 in 2010, as did the percentage of such cycles that involved frozen oocytes or embryos (vs. fresh) (26.7 percent to 40.3 percent) and that involved elective single-embryo transfer (vs. transfer of multiple embryos) (0.8 percent to 14.5 percent). Good perinatal outcomes increased from 18.5 percent to 24.4 percent. Average age remained stable at 28 years for donors and 41 years for recipients. Recipient age was not associated with likelihood of good perinatal outcome.
"Use of donor oocytes is an increasingly common treatment for infertile women with diminished ovarian reserve for whom the likelihood of good perinatal outcome appears to be independent of recipient age. To maximize the likelihood of a good perinatal outcome, the American Society of Reproductive Medicine recommendations suggesting transfer of a single embryo in women younger than 35 years should be considered. Additional studies evaluating the mechanisms by which race/ethnicity, infertility diagnosis, and day of embryo culture affect perinatal outcomes in both autologous [donor and recipient are the same person] and donor IVF pregnancies are warranted to develop preventive measures to increase the likelihood of obtaining a good perinatal outcome among ART users," the authors write.
(doi:10.1001/jama.2013.280924; Available pre-embargo to the media at http://media.jamanetwork.com)
Editor's Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.
Editorial: Outcomes of Donor Oocyte Cycles in Assisted Reproduction
Evan R. Myers, M.D., M.P.H., of Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, N.C., comments on the findings of this study in an accompanying editorial.
"Given the promising data presented by Kawwass et al on perinatal outcomes after use of donor oocytes, the use of oocyte donors is likely to at least remain constant and may even increase. More complete data on both short- and long-term outcomes of donation are needed so donors can make truly informed choices and, once those data are available, mechanisms can be put in place to ensure that the donor recruitment and consent process at clinics is conducted according to the highest ethical standards."
(doi:10.1001/jama.2013.280925; Available pre-embargo to the media at http://media.jamanetwork.com)
Editor's Note: Please see the article for additional information, including financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.
###
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]
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Twitter’s offices in San Francisco. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/WIRED
Nielsen recently released its first Twitter TV Ratings top 10 list, a new metric that measures not how many people watch a given television show — the basis for traditional TV ratings — but how rather how much activity they generate on Twitter. Just how different are the two metrics? Take look at the Breaking Bad finale: While it came in No. 1 on the list as the most tweeted about show in America, its traditional TV ratings didn’t even crack the top 10.
Nor did many of the most-watched shows make the same sort of splash on Twitter. The most-watched shows during the the week Breaking Bad topped the Twitter Ratings chart were Sunday Night Football, The Big Bang Theory, NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles, The Crazy Ones, two other NFL programs and The Voice. How many of them showed up on the Twitter TV top 10? Only The Voice.
It turns out the shows most seen on Twitter aren’t always the shows most seen on TV, and the discrepancy illustrates just how much more there is to learn about what a tweet about a TV show means. It also offers networks and advertisers a way to gauge the relationship between viewership and Twitter traffic, but knowing the volume of tweets is just the beginning, and there’s a lot of data in those tweets that’s still silent.
For example, were people tweeting so much about Breaking Bad simply because it was the finale? Do shows like Glee and Jimmy Kimmel Live do well because they have younger audiences that are more tuned-in to Twitter? Are people tweeting that they love The Voice or that they’re angry at who’s winning? That information is out there, but it doesn’t come out in numbers on the reach of a given tweet (Nielsen tracks the number of tweets, people tweeting about a show, and also how many people see those tweets)
“Social provides a lot of opportunity, but it’s difficult to relate what’s being said online – especially on Twitter – to what’s being done in the real world. People say one thing and they do another,” Brian Blau, a Gartner analyst who researches social analytics tools, told WIRED. “How do you help these businesses figure out what the differences are?”
In other words, we may know that a lot of people are tweeting about a show, but are they watching it? And, if so, are they enjoying it? Who these tweeters are and how they feel about, say, an episode of Scandal isn’t something you can determine from knowing that there are nearly 713,000 tweets about it.
One thing that has potential to change this, Blau noted, is Twitter’s new deal with Comcast, which was announced last Wednesday. The two companies are pairing up on a new feature called “See It,” which will essentially turn Twitter into a remote control. Launching in November, “See It” will create a Twitter card for any show mentioned in a tweet that will allow users to click to watch, On Demand stream, or DVR the show mentioned. That feature, Blau said, will give much more effective data on how often a tweet leads to someone tuning in. And that seems to be what Comcast, which has 24 million U.S. subscribers, is looking for. As the company’s chief business development officer Sam Schwartz told All Things D, “we want to make the conversation on Twitter lead to consumption.”
Nielsen has determined there is a two-way relationship between Twitter and ratings, even if no one is quite sure exactly how it works. Back in August, the media measurement company released a study that looked at 221 primetime episodes and found that the live ratings for a given episode had a “statistically significant” impact on tweets related to the show for nearly half of the episodes sampled and – conversely – the volume of tweets caused a significant change to the live ratings of 29 percent of the episodes. Translation: For nearly a third of the episodes sampled, the more tweets, the higher the ratings. Interesting, but even Nielsen is still a little unsure what it means.
“This round of causation research was only looking to see if there’s a ‘there there’ with respect to tweets influencing ratings,” a Nielsen rep told Variety when the report was released. “Now that we’ve seen statistically significant evidence of this, the next wave of research will be around understanding how/why.”
Granted, most of this information is generated in order to give networks and advertisers a better idea of the kind of traction TV shows are getting on social networks, but the metrics are likely going to be interesting to fans as well as ad buyers. Think about it. Joss Whedon’s cult favorite space cowboy show Firefly never got great Nielsen numbers, but if there had been Twitter TV Ratings back when it was on the air, fans could’ve pointed to the show’s presumably significant level of social engagement as a sign of its niche popularity.
So what’s next in terms of looking at engagement beyond the numbers? Nielsen’s SocialGuide, which the company acquired last year to work on its social TV measurements, is working to broaden its Twitter metrics to include demographic data like age and gender in 2014, according to a Nielsen spokesperson. There’s also a plan to include tweets in Spanish.
What Nielsen probably won’t track, simply because it doesn’t lend itself to straight-forward numbers, is the idea of sentiment — how people actually feel about the things they are discussing. Is someone tweeting about the Breaking Bad finale because they loved it or hated it? There no distinction in the current Twitter TV Ratings. And while several analytics firms – including Bluefin Labs, which Twitter acquired earlier this year – do monitor sentiment, it’s a notoriously difficult thing to measure. There’s no foolproof way for text-analyzing machines to understand sarcasm and slang, for example.
“The vendors that are experts at this claim 90 percent of the conversation that they measure, they have an accurate measure of sentiment or an accurate measure of the subject of the conversation,” Blau said. “Skeptics tell me that that’s very high – 90 percent is at the upper bound – but the realistic numbers are much lower, in the 50 to 70 percent [range]. Will it ever be 100 percent? The answer is no.”
Of course, the bigger question is: Does it matter? Some say “any press is good press,” and perhaps all tweets are good tweets. Even if everyone’s talking about how terrible or WTF a show is, if the volume is high enough it might cause people to tune in just to see what all the fuss is about. It’ll be especially interesting to see how this plays out in the new arrangement between Twitter and Comcast. Based on the screenshot examples released by the cable provider, it appears the Twitter cards will at least initially be attached to tweets from the official show Twitter feeds, but if/when the cards are attached to random users tweets, you might see an update that reads “Tonight’s #GreysAnatomy was the worst ever!” followed by a card asking if you’d like to watch it now.
In a blog post announcing the gambit, Comcast Cable’s head of business development Sam Schwartz used the example of seeing friends tweeting about Sharknado, which got a lot of tweets even if many of them were mocking (or at least ironic). “If I had only seen an ad about a sharks-meet-a-natural-disaster movie, frankly, there would be little chance that I would tune in,” Schwartz said. “However, all these tweets pique my curiosity, I click on the See It button in one of the tweets, and then use it to set a reminder to watch the movie later that night.” So maybe love it or hate it or love-hate it — it really doesn’t matter just so long as there are eyeballs.
Metrics like age, gender and sentiment are still only the beginning. There’s still a lot of other data — and combination of data — embedded in the world of Twitter for networks and advertisers to mine, even if analyzing it may prove the bigger challenge. “It’s complicated,” said Clark Fredricksen, vice president of research firm eMarketer told WIRED. “On the one hand, you have the internet, which is the most accountable, measurable media channel in history, compared to TV, which is arguably the most difficult channel to measure.” In other words, social media provides an embarrassment of riches that viewership numbers don’t. We just need to figure out how to read it.
“It’s probably fair to say we’re past version 1.0 of social analytics tools. Version 1.0 is giving people basic high-level statistics – counts, followers, and maybe the first order of statistics saying what does some of this data mean?” Blau added. “[Now] we’re into version 2.0 of social analytics, where they’ve realized how to get access to the data, they’ve had their first level, they’ve realized what their customers want now in terms of information and all those smart data scientists in the world are hopefully coming up with algorithms to give them that.”
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