রবিবার, ৩০ সেপ্টেম্বর, ২০১২

'Looper' takes audiences on a thrill ride

Sony Pictures

Joseph Gordon-Levitt in "Looper."

By Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter

REVIEW: "Looper" is a clever, entertaining science fiction thriller that neatly blurs the line between suicide and murder. An existential conundrum wrapped in a narrowly conceived yarn about victims sent back in time to be bumped off by assassins called loopers, Rian Johnson's third and most ambitious feature keeps the action popping while sustaining interest in the long arc of a story about a man assigned to kill the 30 years-older version of himself.

A lively, high-profile choice to open this year's Toronto International Film Festival, this Sony release co-starring Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the same role should chalk up sizable returns in the wake of its Sept. 28 theatrical bow.

VIDEO: "Looper" star Joseph Gordon-Levitt on getting kicked in the head by Bruce Willis

Probably the shakiest aspect of Johnson's original screenplay is what it asks the viewer to buy about the future: A mere 62 years from now, in 2074, time travel has become possible, but such a momentous breakthrough is limited to serving as a body-disposal system. Under the prevailing authority, time jumping is strictly outlawed because of its potential for messing with history. A large criminal mob, run by an overlord called The Rainmaker, defiantly uses it but only as a vehicle for assassination, with ?loopers? -- disreputable gunmen living in 2044 -- laying in wait for people to execute so no bodies or other evidence can be found in the future.

Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt chat about playing a younger and older version of the same character in "Looper."

But the premise is established in nifty fashion; the doomed, hooded with hands bound behind them, suddenly materialize in an empty field, and the looper immediately blows him away with his blunderbuss. One such executioner is Joe (Gordon-Levitt), a retro-looking hipster who drives a very old red Miata and wears ties, ?a 20th century affectation? that offends his crankily genial boss, Abe (Jeff Daniels). If he can get out of this racket, he says he'd like to go to France, which earns him further scorn from the older man; ?I'm from the future, you should go to China,? he scolds.

PHOTOS: Movies with different actors in the same role

Backed by a cynically confessional voice-over track from Joe that is not as self-consciously hardboiled as the commentary Gordon-Levitt read for Johnson in "Brick" seven years ago, Looper?mostly is set in a seedy metropolis that doesn't look all that different from sketchy neighborhoods in some big cities today; there are derelicts, bombed-out buildings, ruined cars and enough other signs of urban ills to suggest that, in Johnson's view, things will just gradually decline over the next three decades.

Joe hangs out in clubs, sees a sexy woman (Piper Perabo) who works in one of them and tries to help a friend and fellow looper, Seth (Paul Dano), who's imminently endangered by a new development that's come down from on high: They're ?closing all the loops,? meaning they're sending the ?future selves? of all the loopers back to be killed.

Almost immediately, Joe is in the same jam. When, a half-hour into the film, he goes to the field to do his next job, the guy who pops up to be shot is not hooded. Joe's hesitation allows the older man to escape, and it's clear who he is: It's Joe as his older self. And, for his failure to kill him, young Joe is in a pile of trouble with Abe and his ?gats,? first-class hired guns.

STORY: "Looper" interactive trailer reveals new interviews, behind-the-scenes footage?

When the two Joes finally sit down -- across from each other in a diner in the middle of nowhere -- there's no doubt they're working at cross purposes: Young Joe is determined to kill his older self, while old Joe is dead set on tracking down and taking out The Rainmaker, who would be a little kid in 2044, so his late wife won't die at his hands after all.

The biggest problem facing the makers of "Looper" is how to make the audience believe that the trim, long-faced Gordon-Levitt could somehow change so much in 30 years that he would look like the thicker-built and shorter-nosed Willis. The solution lay in altering the younger actor's appearance, imperceptibly at first, but gradually to morph his dark eyes into Willis' gray-green and to reshape his nose and eyebrows, either with makeup or digitally or perhaps both. At first, the effect is a bit odd, and you can't quite put your finger on what's off; then it feels downright weird to be looking at a version of Gordon-Levitt who is no longer the actor you've known for a few years now.

This is especially noticeable during the film's second half, much of which takes place at young Joe's place of refuge, the isolated home of feisty young farmer and single mom Sara (Emily Blunt), who has an unusually gifted son, Cid (Pierce Gagnon). Even as the temperature is kept at a low simmer, the film's pace deliberately is slowed here to develop some intimacy between these two isolated people and give some screen time to the kid, who pretty obviously will provide the reason for old Joe to eventually head for the farm. The eventual ending is great, the resolution to the tricky time maneuvering very impressively worked out.

VIDEO: "Looper" trailer puts Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a tough spot: Killing Bruce Willis

Shot mostly in Louisiana, with a bit done in Shanghai, the film looks tightly made on a budget but sacrifices nothing for that; the world depicted looks dirty, dangerous and ramshackle, with a few high-tech touches here and there.

Their physical disparity notwithstanding, Gordon-Levitt and Willis both come across strongly, while Blunt effectively reveals Sara's tough and vulnerable sides. Daniels is particularly amusing as the garrulous old enforcer holding down the future's outpost in the past.

Related content:

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Source: http://entertainment.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/28/14138464-looper-takes-audiences-out-for-a-thrill-and-a-twirl?lite

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শনিবার, ২৯ সেপ্টেম্বর, ২০১২

Ice Age Co-Stars: Horses, Camels And Cheetahs

Copyright ? 2012 National Public Radio. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. We're broadcasting live from Boise, Idaho. And Idaho, you may not know, is not only famous for its potatoes. Just a couple of hours from here are the Hagerman Fossil Beds, where the skulls and skeletons of hundreds of early horses have been dug up. These fossils are the earliest known examples of the equus genus, relatives of today's zebras and horses and donkeys.

And that's right - horses evolved here in the grasslands of North America before going extinct here also. But they weren't alone. There were a lot of unusual creatures roaming around North America during the Ice Age, ones you don't hear much about, as much as the mammoths and the saber-toothed cats.

Did you know that camels lived here too, alongside supersized bison, American lions that are bigger than the African lions, and cheetahs. And this is safari-quality stuff. But you'd have to be a caveman to have gone on safari in those days because many of those large beasts disappeared around 10,000 years ago, just as humans were entering upon the scene.

Were they hunted to extinction? Where did they go? Killed off by disease? Or could the culprit have been then climate change also? And why did most of the large mammals die out where the small ones lived on to modern-day time? Just a few of the mysteries about our North American fauna, and that's what we'll be talking about for the rest of the hour.

We won't be taking calls today, but if you're here in the audience, I invite you to step up to the mic and ask a question. You can also tweet us @scifri at S-C-I-F-R-I, and go to our website at sciencefriday.com, where you'll find links to the topic, and you can leave a message also.

Let me introduce my guests. Matthew Kohn is a distinguished professor in the Department of Geosciences here at Boise State University. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY.

MATTHEW KOHN: Thanks Ira, pleasure to be here.

FLATOW: You're welcome. Christopher Hill is associate dean of the Graduate College at Boise State University. He's also associate professor of anthropology here. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY.

CHRISTOPHER HILL: Thank you, Ira.

FLATOW: You know, this is - this I think is certainly knew. When we were talking about topics we were going to talk about when we came to Boise, is talking about the menagerie of animals, Christopher, that were here at one point. You always hear about the mammoths and the saber-toothed cats, but there's a whole lot of other stuff like camels here.

HILL: Sure, there were both plant-eaters like camels and bison. Down in Idaho we had musk ox and caribou. So there were a lot of plant-eaters, and then there were meat-eaters like saber-tooth cats.

FLATOW: So you mean the camel was here before it was out there in the desert in another continent in the Middle East?

HILL: Sure, the camel evolved in North America. It started off as something about the size of a rabbit about 20, 40 million years ago, and over time the population's changed, and it became even larger than the kinds of camels we see today. So there were gigantic camels for a while.

And then around 11,000 years ago camels disappeared in North America.

FLATOW: Did they go someplace?

(LAUGHTER)

FLATOW: I mean...

HILL: They became fossils.

FLATOW: They became fossils, and you have found those fossils of the camels.

HILL: Yes, so we found examples of camels in Southern Idaho and in Montana, and they're connected with all these other animals you were talking about.

FLATOW: Did they evolve into the camels that you see in other parts of the world?

HILL: Sure, so they spread across probably from Alaska to Siberia and into Asia and then became the different types of camels we see all over the world.

FLATOW: Wow. Matthew Kohn, you've studied the horses from the Hagerman Fossil Beds. Tell about that. It must be very exciting. You found a lot of stuff in that bed.

KOHN: Well, one of the things I do, my specialty is really in stable isotope geochemistry.

FLATOW: What?

KOHN: Stable isotope geochemistry. And so what we do is we analyze the ratio of stable isotopes of oxygen and carbon to learn something about the ecosystems and the plants that were living in the area at the time. So what we analyze are scraps of tooth enamel, and they're tooth enamel from these different animals that lived here.

Some of them are from Hagerman horse. There were also some camels, mastodon. We've analyzed some beavers as well.

FLATOW: And these are all found in this one spot? What makes that spot so special that all of these fossils were found?

KOHN: Well it's one of the more fossiliferous localities in the...

FLATOW: We keep doing these F-things, I'm going to run out of...

(LAUGHTER)

FLATOW: Why would they be all there in that one spot?

KOHN: Well, those particular kinds of sediments turn out to be quite fossiliferous. Hagerman has an extremely well-exposed sequence of sedimentary rocks. They're all about three to four million years old. And there is one particular locality, the Hagerman Horse Quarry, where hundreds of horses were discovered, their fossils were discovered back in the late 1920s, early 1930s.

FLATOW: And how does the Hagerman Horse fit in with the modern horses and zebras of today?

KOHN: Yeah, it is the earliest representative of the genus equus. So you have to think about horses. There used to be many, many different genera of horses across North America. There are individual localities in - from about 14 or 15 million years ago, where there will be seven or eight different genera of horses, not just species, but these are the actual genera, whereas today we only have one genus, the genus equus.

So these genera evolve, and over time the genus equus evolved. Hagerman is the earliest representative, as far as I know, of the genus equus, and from that genus then spread out all of the different species of equus.

FLATOW: So the big mystery, we had the horses, we had lions that were bigger than lions in Africa, Christopher?

HILL: That's right.

FLATOW: Giant lions, how big?

HILL: About 20 percent bigger than the African lion. And there were other kinds of large cats.

FLATOW: Such as?

HILL: There was a saber-toothed cat.

FLATOW: We call it the saber-toothed tiger, right? Is that a...

HILL: Please don't say that.

(LAUGHTER)

FLATOW: I won't say that.

HILL: So there's another saber-toothed cat called homotherium, and we've found examples of that. And besides the American lion, there's also a puma, but it looks sort of like a cheetah, so it's sometimes called the American cheetah.

FLATOW: And they all disappeared about 10,000 years ago, and that's the big mystery of where they went - they became fossils - and what happened to them. And your theory is about what happened.

HILL: Well, it's an important experiment we have in the natural history to look at these examples of animals that went extinct and to try to figure out what might have been the reasons why they went extinct. And the two big reasons, usually, that are discussed are either changes in the environment, like global warming events or global cooling events, or also predation, like..

FLATOW: Hunters.

HILL: Hunters. And one example of that would be over-hunting by humans.

FLATOW: These were the Clovis people?

HILL: In North America, the old Stone Age people that lived right at the end of the Ice Age are called the Clovis people, based on an archaeological site in Clovis, New Mexico, where the first spear point was found with mammoth, mammoth bones.

FLATOW: Would it be that they suddenly learned how to be better hunters?

HILL: Well, so one argument is that there was a human population, a small human population here, maybe before 11 or 12 thousand years ago, but they didn't know how to use spear points to hunt these large animals, and then around 11,000 years ago that population learned how to use spear points, these large spear points, to hunt the animals.

FLATOW: Matthew, you were shaking your head about all of this.

KOHN: Oh, absolutely, yeah. Those are the two hypotheses: rapid climate change, changes in the environment or ecosystems, and then over-hunting by humans. I should say not all of the large animals went extinct, right? We still have deer, we still have moose, we still have antelopes, and they lived back in the same time period that all of these - you know, we consider them exotic animals - were living here too.

FLATOW: The bison were living back then, right? Why didn't they get hunted for extinction if they were hunting?

KOHN: Well, we almost did, didn't we?

(LAUGHTER)

FLATOW: Well, that was just 100 years or so ago, right?

KOHN: Well, that's true.

FLATOW: But they were a little heartier, maybe, Christopher?

HILL: There are some examples, or many examples, of bison kills connected with a time right after Clovis, called the Folsom Period, around 10,500. And that was - most of those sites connected with Folsom are connected with bison, whereas Clovis sites are connected with mammoths.

But the bison is an example of an animal that probably came to North America between two and one hundred thousand years ago and then survived in different versions until about 11,000 years ago. So it went through different climate change episodes, and then right around 11,000 years ago, apparently there was a bottleneck, a decrease in the population. The numbers of bison and all the bison that live in North America now are from a group that was a fairly small group that almost went extinct around 11,000 years ago.

FLATOW: Quick question before the break, yes.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Ira, I think you're wonderful, first of all. Thanks for coming to Boise. Can families take their children to Hagerman to see the fossils that you have explored?

HILL: You can certainly go to Hagerman Fossil Beds, and you know, it's a public area. You can walk around. But in general, the fossil localities themselves are not open to the public. And in general, all federal lands are prohibited from vertebrate fossil collection. Private lands, of course you talk to a landowner, but federal lands are generally protected.

FLATOW: We have a tweet coming in from Jado(ph), who says: Don't forget about the giant ground sloth, the short-faced bear and the giant armadillo. Those are - we're not forgetting now.

HILL: We've analyzed them.

(LAUGHTER)

FLATOW: How big were these animals? Were they bigger than the kind we have today, or are they...

HILL: Ground sloths are, what, seven feet tall?

KOHN: Yeah, there was a ground sloth called Megalocnus that was found at Hagerman, and it was probably seven or eight feet tall, and it was probably one of the smaller of the ground sloths. And a version of that ground sloth also went extinct around 11,00 years ago.

An interesting thing about the ground sloths is that their - we were talking earlier in the previous hour about what is native and non-native, what would be an exotic animal. This is an example of an animal that would - originated in South America and migrated into North America.

And there are other examples of that also. A living example would be a porcupine. It's an example of - the ancestors of porcupines came from South America. On the other hand, we were talking about bison, and they are also an exotic animal if you look at geologic time scales.

They came to North America between two and one hundred thousand years ago.

FLATOW: Wow. All interesting stuff. We're going to take a break and come back more - and talk more with Matthew Kohn and Christopher Hill, and questions from the audience, talking about the lions and tigers and - no tigers. No more saber-toothed tigers. We're not going to call them that anymore. So we'll be right back after this break. Stay with us. I say, we'll be right back. Don't go away.

(APPLAUSE)

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

FLATOW: This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. We're talking this hour about the beasts of the Pleistocene, like mammoths and camels and early horses and why they suddenly disappeared about 10,000 years ago. My guests are Matthew Kohn, distinguished professor at the Department of Geosciences; Christopher Hill, associate dean of the Graduate School, all here at Boise State University.

Our number is 1-800 - but we're not going to take calls today. We're going to take calls - hopefully - people stepping up to the mic here. Let me ask you, Matthew, as we begin: This must have happened - if there was a climate change, this must have happened over a really short period of time, did it not? What would be the estimate on that?

KOHN: Well, it's interesting because when we talk about climate change on the Earth, there are different parts of the Earth that respond more or less rapidly. So when we look at places at high latitudes, they respond very quickly to climate change. We see that today, that the arctic is responding very quickly to global warming.

When people have looked at the Greenland ice cores, they have found evidence for climate change that is very rapid, this is the transition from the Glacial Period into the warm period of the Holocene, on timescales of decades or even less than decades.

Now, once that occurs, there's a huge ice cap over North America, it takes thousands of years for that ice cap to disappear. So there's some parts of the climate system that respond more slowly, but there are other parts that are very sensitive, and they respond very quickly.

FLATOW: Yeah, we're watching the Arctic respond very quickly these days.

KOHN: Exactly.

FLATOW: Let's go to the - let's go to the audience here.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: To the question earlier, we took our children to the Hagerman National Fossil Beds Visitor Center, which was really interesting for them. They became junior rangers. But a ranger that was there explained to us that the majority of the fossils they found of the Hagerman horse all died at the same time. And so I had questions if you had theories as to how they died.

KOHN: Yeah, so the Hagerman horse fossils, I mean we're talking about a single quarry that - where over 200 individuals were excavated, mostly as skulls or jaws but also some complete skeletons. In general, these deposits are called bone beds, and they're really two different kinds of generations of bone beds.

One is a gradual accumulation - for example, a watering hole that might have animals that accumulate every year until finally you have a lot, or you can have a catastrophic event. And the theory, the prevailing theory for Hagerman horse, those horse fossils, is that it was a catastrophic event - for example, a flash flood that could've taken out a herd of horses.

Or they could've been killed upstream and washed downstream and deposited in that location. But it is viewed by most people as a catastrophic accumulation.

FLATOW: Thanks. We have a tweet poured in from MichaelDeGraff(ph), who says: To the lady who wanted to show your kids the fossils, please take your kids to the National Park Service Visitor's Center at Hagerman, so you can get - I'll go here and I'll come back here. Yes, ma'am.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Going back to the Pleistocene overkill versus climate change hypothesis, Matt and Chris, it seems - I'm not a hunter, but it would seem pretty to take out a seven-foot sloth, but maybe not so easy to take out a giant cat. So did the cats go extinct because they lost their prey, or were people actually maybe hunting them?

HILL: You know, there aren't any examples that I know of where we have evidence of people hunting the carnivores, like the saber-toothed cats. But there is an example where one of the saber-tooth cats, homotherium, we found a den that contained lots of examples of baby mammoth teeth in that den. So it's an example where the homotherium, that ancient cat, probably went extinct not because of over-hunting but because its prey went extinct, and that's one example that we have of that.

FLATOW: Was it a scary time to be a person? We've got these - all these big animals that might be coming after you...

KOHN: Ira, maybe it was a delicious time.

(LAUGHTER)

FLATOW: No beer. No...

(LAUGHTER)

FLATOW: Yes, ma'am.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: With the advancement of technology, can you evaluate multiple evidences at the same time and create a probability of one theory versus another theory more easily than maybe 10 or 20 years ago?

FLATOW: Christopher?

HILL: Well, there are lots of different ways we could kind of try to answer the questions about over-hunting or climate change. And some of them are - we find bones that we can't identify based on what they look like. And it might be that we could use techniques like DNA to test those bones to see if they're actually extinct animals or animals that still persist today.

Another big question when we're looking at the different models, the different ideas connected with extinction, is the timing. Do we have people there before or after the extinction event? And today we have much better precision in terms of being able to estimate, measure and estimate the timing for extinctions.

FLATOW: Would there be enough people around at that point to wipe out all these animals?

HILL: Well, that's a good question. I think there were very low numbers of people at that time. So one idea would be that overkill was a contributing factor but not the only factor that combined to lead to the extinctions at the end of the Ice Age.

FLATOW: OK, let's go here, and then I'll come back here, yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: So I'm curious what it takes to identify a new species from the fossil record. It seems like in the past, you know, somebody will find a fragment of a skull and declare it a new species. I'm wondering what's the threshold. Do you need an entire skeleton? Do fragments count? How does that work?

KOHN: Most species - genera and species are identified based on tooth morphology, and that's largely because - well, for a couple reasons. One is it's distinctive, and so different species have different crenulations to their tooth enamel and so on. But the other thing about teeth is they're incredibly well-preserved.

So they're very resistant to physical abrasion and to chemical decay, and so that's one of the best materials that we have. It's not the only thing that is used to identify different species, and so the morphology of the skull and the shape of the limb bones is also used, although the limb bones and body bones, generally called post-cranial material, is generally less well-preserved than the skull material.

FLATOW: Before - you want to follow up?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Well, I just was going to say I'm a dentist, I just happen to be a dentist, and I see tons of different morphology in teeth in humans. I don't know if that's different from other species, but it's just a coincidence.

FLATOW: They could use you over there at the dig.

(LAUGHTER)

KOHN: But it's also true, there is internal variability to any tooth morphology that one might be willing to assign to a particular species. So it has to be a morphological feature that exceeds some threshold that is identified by looking at populations of teeth.

FLATOW: OK. Yes, sir.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Hi. I was glad to hear you say that hunting was a contributing factor because I'm a retired science teacher, and I remember before plate tectonics came in, I was starting to teach. And then plate tectonics came in, and it started to explain things. And they had that theory about everybody running across the land bridge, slaughtering animals and populating North America.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: And then they figured out that you'd have to have tribes of people every few years picking up and moving down to make that happen. And so my question is: You know, as we find more and more evidence, like Kennewick Man or like other spear points, not just in Clovis, New Mexico, but on the Eastern Seaboard, maybe near New York, and they find these things around, how does that register for you as a teacher, professor and a scientist, in changing how we view the theories that we once purported as being the best theory, and now we've got to move on because it's obvious there's new evidence.

So how do you guys address that? That's my question.

HILL: Well, the great thing is we're getting more and more information. We're getting larger samples and samples that we can study in a lot more detail. So you're right. I think if we were in a radio show 20 years ago, we would talk about Clovis, and Clovis would be the first real good example of people in North America.

And today, with more discoveries, there are some possibilities of older things, older than Clovis. And that would then connect with the question of extinction. If there are already human groups in North American prior to Clovis, why didn't they cause the extinction? So there are all these new discoveries that then lead - help us test our explanations, test our hypotheses.

FLATOW: We were a radio show 20 years ago and did talk about Clovis.

(LAUGHTER)

FLATOW: Apologies to the audience. We've run out of time for this segment. We're going to thank you both for taking time to be with us today, and it was very interesting, talking about all the species that have become extinct. And thanks again.

HILL: Thank you.

KOHN: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

FLATOW: Matthew Kohn, Christopher Hill from Boise State University.

Copyright ? 2012 National Public Radio. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2012/09/28/161955793/ice-age-co-stars-horses-camels-and-cheetahs?ft=1&f=1007

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FDA warns about risks of online pharmacies

By Linda A. Johnson, The Associated Press

The Food and Drug Administration is warning U.S. consumers that the vast majority of Internet pharmacies are fraudulent and likely are selling counterfeit drugs that could harm them.

The agency on Friday launched a national campaign, called BeSafeRx, to alert the public to the danger, amid evidence that more people are shopping for their medicine online, looking for savings and convenience.

Instead, they're likely to get fake drugs that are contaminated, are past their expiration date or contain no active ingredient, the wrong amount of active ingredient or even toxic substances such as arsenic and rat poison. They could sicken or kill people, cause them to develop a resistance to their real medicine, cause new side effects or trigger harmful interactions with other medications being taken.

"Our goal is to increase awareness," FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg told The Associated Press, "not to scare people away from online pharmacies. We want them to use appropriate pharmacies."

That means pharmacies that are located in the U.S., are licensed by the pharmacy board in the patient's state and have a licensed pharmacist available to answer questions. In addition, the pharmacy must require a valid doctor's prescription for the medicine. Online drugstores that claim none is needed, or that the site's doctor can write a prescription after the customer answers some questions, are breaking the law.

Research by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, which represents the state pharmacy boards, found that of thousands of online pharmacies it reviewed, only about 3 percent follow state and federal laws. In fact, the group's website lists only a few dozen Internet pharmacies that it has verified are legitimate and following the rules.

Most consumers don't know that. An Internet survey, conducted by the FDA in May, questioned 6,090 adults. It found that nearly one in four Internet shoppers has bought prescription drugs online, and nearly three in 10 said they weren't confident they could do so safely.

The campaign comes after some high-profile cases of counterfeit drugs reaching American patients earlier this year.

In February and again in April, the FDA warned doctors and cancer clinics around the country that it had determined they had bought fake Avastin, a pricey injectable cancer medicine, from a "gray market" wholesaler. The fake Avastin vials originated in Asia or Eastern Europe and were transferred through a network of shady wholesalers before being sold to clinics by a wholesaler claiming to be in Montana.

In another case, the FDA issued a warning in May after learning consumers shopping on the Internet had bought fake versions of generic Adderall, a popular medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

No deaths or serious injuries have been linked to those fakes, but Hamburg notes that when drugs don't help patients get better, doctors usually blame the disease or assume a different medicine is needed. That means most fakes aren't detected.

So the FDA, which has put increasing focus on the counterfeiting problem, on Friday launched a website, www.FDA.gov/BeSafeRx , that shows consumers how to determine if an online pharmacy is safe.

"Buying prescription medicine from a fake online pharmacy can be dangerous, or even deadly," the site warns.

It includes tips on how to spot illegal pharmacies, links to state databases of licensed pharmacies and explanations of all the dangers of rogue pharmacies. Besides likely getting fake drugs, that includes the risk that they will infect your computer with viruses, sell your personal and financial information to other rogue websites and Internet scammers, or charge you for products you never ordered or received.

Many rogue pharmacies claim to be in Canada ? because Americans know medicines are cheaper there and assume that's why they're getting a deal. Many fraudulent sites even put the word Canada in their name, or display the Canadian flag prominently on the site. Their web storefronts are slick and look professional. And they all offer prices that are unbelievably low.

"If the low prices seem too good to be true, they probably are,' Hamburg said.

The FDA is collaborating with several other federal agencies and departments and even Interpol in the campaign, Hamburg said, and it has asked medical and pharmaceutical industry groups to join in.

It's also reaching out to doctors, pharmacists and medical facilities to spread the word. They'll get access to materials they can download, from patient fact sheets and discussion guides to sample blog items and web banners for a practice's own website. There's also a list of tips to help doctors determine if a patient may be buying medicine online.

The agency will do a follow-up survey to see if the campaign's message is reaching the public.

"What's truly important to us is that consumers know how to look for an online pharmacy that's legitimate and safe," Hamburg said.

Related stories:?

Congressional investigators claim "fake pharmacies" are popping up around the country that purchase drugs in short supply, and then turn around and sell them at higher prices. NBC's senior investigative correspondent Lisa Myers reports.

Source: http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/28/14140712-fda-warns-of-rising-risks-of-online-pharmacies?lite

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Outsourcing is the Best Way to Stay Flexible, Even Elastic! | SPK and ...

The technology industry loves buzzwords. The decade of the ?80s was all about synergy and paradigm shifts. In the ?90s, it was the web and the Internet. The turn of the century brought talk about virtualization and social media. Today it?s all about the cloud.

Of course, each of these buzzwords reflects an actual trend in the IT business. The Internet did spring up in the ?90s and changed the way we do almost everything. Virtualization has revolutionized software development and testing as must as it has deployment. And the combination of the Internet and virtualization has given us the cloud.

This nebulous entity brings huge resources into the reach of normal people and, of course, businesses. One star of the cloud era is Amazon with its huge online virtual stores and its web hosting/web storage offerings.

Amazon?s EC2 service (Elastic Cloud) allows businesses to expand and contract their online resources according to their current needs. It?s flexible and yet simultaneously cost effective, especially when compared to the costs of permanently buying servers, managed services and/or entering into co-location contracts.

Outsourcing is the elastic cloud for the IT needs of your company. From engineering management to build-and-release management, from IT services management to data server operations,?a professional IT outsourcing company allows your business to remain flexible and utilize resources only when you need them.

Long term staffing commitments can place pressure on your business in terms of taxes, employee benefits, healthcare packages, pension schemes, physical resources (like office space) and hardware resources (like desktop computers, phones, mobile devices, etc.).

However using the ?elastic? approach of outsourcing IT tasks means that your long-term commitments are reduced but yet the manpower, skill sets and expertise needed to move your business forward remain available.

Outsourcing makes it possible to gain the competitive edge by tapping into expertise that?s not available internally within your business. Any new activity that your business starts needs the right skills to carry it through to a successful completion. If your business lacks these skills you either need to find permanent employees with the right skills, train your existing staff or use an outside resource.

Using outsourcing, rather than finding new staff, allows your business to remain flexible and it brings fresh, outside expertise to help you ramp up your next project quickly. In the meantime your existing staff can continue to innovate and drive your business forward.

Top

Source: http://www.spkaa.com/outsourcing-is-the-best-way-to-stay-flexible-even-elastic

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Burn victim identified by maggots on body

WHEN Mexican police found a body in the woods it was burned beyond recognition, its DNA too damaged to be used for identification. Luckily, investigators were able to extract DNA from elsewhere - the digestive systems of maggots that had been feeding on the body. This is the first time that human DNA from a maggot gut has been analysed in this way to successfully identify a victim in a legal case.

Police suspected that the body was that of a woman who had been abducted 10 weeks earlier because they found her high-school graduation ring near the crime scene. But when forensic investigators failed to obtain a decent DNA sample from any of the body's tissues, they turned to a team of pathologists at the Autonomous University of Nuevo Le?n in San Nicol?s, Mexico.

Mar?a de Lourdes Ch?vez-Briones, Marta Ortega-Mart?nez and their colleagues dissected three maggot larvae collected from the body and extracted the contents of their gastrointestinal tracts. The human DNA they isolated allowed them to determine that the body was female. They then performed a paternity test between this DNA and that of the abducted woman's father. It revealed a 99.7 per cent chance that she was his daughter (Journal of Forensic Science, doi.org/jdv).

Although it is rare for a body to be so damaged that investigators would have to resort to this technique, there are other instances in which the process could be useful, says Jeffrey Wells of Florida International University in Miami. For instance, a maggot found in a car could be used as evidence that the vehicle had been used to transport a particular corpse.

The past decade has seen a lot of research on isolating human DNA from insects, says Martin Hall of the Natural History Museum in London, but it has only rarely been used in courts. Last year, DNA from the guts of maggots found on a headless corpse and on a head discovered nearby were used as evidence in a Chinese court that the body parts were from the same person (Tropical Biomedicine, vol 28, p 333).

Insects at crime scenes are too often ignored, says Hall. He hopes that the new paper will alert police and pathologists to their potential as crime-fighters.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

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Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/23e90a8b/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Carticle0Cmg215288430B40A0A0Eburn0Evictim0Eidentified0Eby0Emaggots0Eon0Ebody0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

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শুক্রবার, ২৮ সেপ্টেম্বর, ২০১২

Dan Hardy vs. Rory Markham is your knockout of the week

Dan Hardy usually fights well in his home country of England. For example, check out what he did to Rory Markham at UFC 95 in London.

On Saturday, he will fight Amir Sadollah in his hometown of Nottingham. He's gone 1-4 in his last five fights, but recaptured that knockout ability against Duane Ludwig in May. Will Hardy come up with another fine performance for the people of Nottingham? Speak up in the comments, on Facebook or Twitter.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/dan-hardy-vs-rory-markham-knockout-week-131950070--mma.html

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বৃহস্পতিবার, ২৭ সেপ্টেম্বর, ২০১২

Soldier's death shines light on Afghan insider killings

In the weeks before his death, 21-year-old Mabry Anders had grown increasingly worried that he might not come home from Afghanistan. The Army specialist was battling insomnia and would send brief, worried messages back to his family.

"He talked to me in the day, which would be in the middle of his night," his father, Dan Anders, said. "He didn't sleep. He was just worried."

There were good reasons for concern. During his six-month tour, the Taliban staged a major attack at his base, a suicide bomber had killed one of his brigade's most revered leaders, and an Afghan villager threw a fire-bomb at a vehicle he was traveling in.

But what Anders may not have expected is that his killer would be an Afghan army soldier, one of those the U.S. military is supposed to be training to take over security of the country ahead of the withdrawal of most U.S. troops by the end of 2014.

A surge in insider attacks (also known as "green on blue" attacks) has prompted NATO to temporarily curtail some joint operations. The move casts doubt on what exactly international forces can accomplish in those places where they cannot work alongside their Afghan allies.

Analysis: What's leading Afghan troops to turn on coalition forces?

Interviews in Afghanistan and the United States have uncovered new details about the attack on August 27, which also took the life of another U.S. soldier, Sergeant Christopher Birdwell. These include Taliban claims that the insurgents prepared the Afghan soldier for the killings.

"After the shooting incident a group of Taliban came to my house and said that Welayat Khan was their man," said Nazar Khan, the brother of the Afghan soldier who was killed by U.S. forces after he opened fire on the Americans.

"'We have trained him for this mission and you must be proud of his martyrdom,'" the brother quoted a local Taliban commander as saying.

Interviews with Afghan officials suggest that Welayat Khan was not properly vetted. He was admitted to the force seven months before the attack, despite presenting a fake birth certificate and having gotten a flimsy recommendation from a commander who vouched for him simply because the two men were ethnic Pashtuns, according to Afghan sources speaking on condition of anonymity.

Insider attacks now account for one in every five combat deaths suffered by NATO-led forces in Afghanistan, and 16 percent of all American combat casualties, according to 2012 data. The rising death toll has alarmed Americans and raised new, troubling questions about the unpopular war's direction.

The Pentagon is promising better vetting of Afghan recruits like Welayat Khan, and NATO last week announced it was scaling back cooperation with Afghans to reduce risk to Western troops. That includes Anders' unit, stationed at Combat Outpost Xio Haq in Laghman province, in eastern Afghanistan, which, for the moment, has halted joint operations.

Last of 33,000 surge troops leave Afghanistan

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But it's unclear whether the United States or NATO or the Afghan government forces they're training will be able to stop the next Welayat Khan before he strikes.

Khan was raised in a deeply religious family in the mountain village of Shor Khil, a collection of about 100 mud-built houses near the Tora Bora mountains not far from the Pakistan border.

'Very upset and angry'
Relatives said they were taken by surprise when he joined the Afghan army. His cousin Rahman recounted that Welayat had lambasted Western military forces.

"Welayat had a small radio and liked to listen to news about Afghanistan. He became very upset and angry when there were reports about civilians being killed by airstrikes," Rahman said. "'May Allah save us from the hands of these infidels,'" he quoted Welayat as saying.

According to family members, Welayat had shown signs of mental instability since an accident at work when he slipped on a mountain while breaking rocks for construction. Nazar Khan, Welayat's older brother, said he would suffer mental breakdowns and "get angry at minor things."

In Welayat's pictures, provided by his brother Nazar Khan, he appears clean-shaven, young, stern looking, with a mass of thick black hair. He has a long face and slender build. In one picture he is gently holding his green beret in his right hand, with his left hand resting on the barrel of a machine gun.

Work with the Afghan army meant steady paychecks of about $240 a month, helping his 15-member family. Still, his relatives asked him to quit out of fear of reprisals by the Taliban, who have warned villagers not to join the Afghan security forces.

Slideshow: Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads (on this page)

"We have all warned him to leave the army and find another job," Rahman said.

Reprisals from the Taliban, it turns out, wouldn't be a problem.

In cold blood
Although the Taliban claim to have trained Khan for his mission, there is nothing to suggest at this point that he knew where, when or even if he would strike on the morning of August 27. By all accounts, he did not know the two U.S. soldiers he shot.

Anders, an Army mechanic from a small town in Oregon, and Birdwell, from Windsor, Colorado, were part of an early morning clearance mission near the Afghan town of Kalagush when the lead vehicle in their convoy hit a bomb.

Improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, are hardly a novelty and, after 11 years of war, troops know how to respond. Soldiers in the convoy quickly secured the area and Anders went to help load the damaged vehicle for transport.

Hundreds of Afghan soldiers detained, fired over 'links with insurgents'

The American patrol had the road blocked to ensure security. But the Afghan soldiers approaching in another convoy were not seen as a potential threat, and were allowed to pass. On board that convoy was Welayat Khan.

"They are trained to trust the Afghan soldiers," Anders' mother, Genevieve Woydziak, said.

Welayat Khan was sitting at the gun turret mounted on a vehicle in the Afghan convoy. At 8:10 in the morning, as his vehicle passed Anders and Birdwell, Welayat Khan took aim at the Americans and fired.

"The rest of the Afghan soldiers at that point laid their weapons down" to avoid being shot, Woydziak said.

Welayat Khan then jumped out of the Afghan vehicle and started to run. But he didn't get very far.

An American helicopter arrived in minutes and shot Khan dead less than a kilometer away, according to a U.S. Army spokesman.

Khan's older brother said the body was so riddled with bullets that it was unrecognizable.

Video: Marines dive for cover in Afghanistan firefight (on this page)

"The coffin was sealed," Nazar said, adding that the government declined to provide any money for the funeral because of Khan's links to the Taliban.

In hunting for an explanation, Reuters learned of an alternative narrative. Khan's brother heard from Afghan forces and an Afghan eyewitness that there was a dispute at the American roadblock, involving a pregnant women who needed to pass. In this scenario, an American at the scene told her to wait and Khan retaliated.

"My brother is a martyr and the whole family is proud of his martyrdom but we blame the Americans for inciting him to shoot," Nazar Khan said.

But a U.S. Army spokesman said there was no indication so far that Khan had any interaction with the American soldiers he killed, or with any of the other American forces, for that matter. The Army investigation is ongoing.

Video: Deadline looms as US troops leave Afghanistan (on this page)

The Taliban appears to be claiming they were in on the attack from the start, before Welayat Khan even joined the army.

"Mullah Abdul Samad and his men came to my house a day after I buried my brother and they were saying that Welayat joined them before enrolling in the army," Nazar Khan said, referring to the village Taliban commander.

It's unclear what, beyond perhaps Welayat Khan's fake birth certificate, NATO might have caught with its newly enhanced steps to weed out dangerous Afghan soldiers, announced in the weeks after the shooting.

Many of the attacks are chalked up to personal grudges, in a country where disputes are frequently settled at gunpoint and where asking after a wife's health could be seen as offensive.

Donkeys and dust as day breaks in Afghanistan

Brigadier General Roger Noble of Australia, deputy chief of staff of operations in Afghanistan, said NATO was working on creating "shooter profiles" from past cases to see if it is possible to identify worrying traits or characteristics.

Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan until July, warned that "the Taliban have found a niche."

"I think they're finding that ... relatively easy to do," he said at an event hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "And our own vetting in the U.S. military is not that great, let's face it."

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, speaking by phone from an undisclosed location, told Reuters that "a large number" of fighters have infiltrated the Afghan security forces.

'A hero comes home'
Anders' mother was at her office on August 27 when she got a call from workers at her house in Baker City, Oregon. They told her that two Army soldiers had arrived at her doorstep.

"I served in the Army myself. We knew why they were there," she said.

It was a long, 15-mile drive back to her home, where she would learn with certainty about her son Mabry's death earlier that day on the other side of the world. She has learned more details about it since then.

The parents are still wrestling with agonizing questions.

Video: General Allen: ?We?re working hard to eliminate threat? to coalition forces (on this page)

Dan Anders, Mabry's father, who lives in Wyoming, is concerned about the U.S. rules of engagement - saying, for example, that he had learned the helicopter that shot Welayat Khan as he attempted to flee had to request authorization to fire, even though Khan had just killed his son and Birdwell.

His mother is deeply concerned about the insider threat itself, saying that her son's Army friends in Afghanistan are afraid of some of the Afghans they serve with.

"They're training with these Afghan people and they're doing their thing and they know it's wrong," she said. "They know who they can trust. They know who they can't trust. They are in fear. Every day."

More Afghanistan coverage from NBC News

Some analysts see NATO's decision last week to scale back some joint operations as a worrying sign.

Nora Bensahel at the Center for a New American Security think tank said it raised serious questions about the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. "This will create a vicious cycle, where an emboldened Taliban increases its threats against any future joint patrols in order to make this temporary suspension permanent," Bensahel wrote.

Other critics of the war, including in Congress, have seized upon the insider attacks as an additional reason to accelerate the American withdrawal from the country.

Still, the Afghan conflict is not a top issue in the U.S. presidential election campaign and the insider attacks have not yet sparked widespread national outrage.

Video: How the war has changed (on this page)

Mabry Anders' home town of Baker City, Oregon appears to have been largely untouched by the war until his death. His hometown newspaper noted in an editorial that Anders' killing had "erased our collective complacency" about the 11-year-old Afghan war.

The newspaper, the Baker City Herald, estimated that some 2,000 people turned out on the streets for Anders' funeral procession. Hundreds held tiny flags.

Anders was just 10 years old at the time of the September 11, 2001 attacks, and he enlisted in the Army shortly after graduating from high school. He posted lots of photos on Facebook - many showing his sense of humor, even in Afghanistan.

More international stories from NBC News

On the day of his service, the Herald wrote a touching article called "A Hero Comes Home," noting the different ways people in the community paid tribute to Anders. Among them was a story about a man who went to a bar after the procession and bought a shot for Anders. He left it untouched, along with a handwritten note.

"It said: 'Mabry Anders, thank you, all gave some and some gave all,'" bartender Sarah Heiner told Reuters. She kept the shot until it evaporated, days later.

More world stories from NBC News:

Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Check for restrictions at: http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49190766/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/

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Chael Sonnen didn?t show at Anderson Silva?s barbecue

Remember how before Anderson Silva beat Chael Sonnen at UFC 148, Sonnen said he wanted Silva's wife to make him a steak, and then after the fight, Silva invited Sonnen to a a barbecue? Well, the barbecue happened, but Sonnen didn't show.

Silva says it wasn't just some hamburgers on the grill affair, but a true Brazilian gaucho barbecue. Sonnen now has his sights on UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones, and he's forgotten all about his pal Andy.

Thanks, Fightlinker.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/chael-sonnen-didn-t-show-anderson-silva-barbecue-175039572--mma.html

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Lottery luck strikes 3x for one Norwegian family

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বুধবার, ২৬ সেপ্টেম্বর, ২০১২

Humanities with Ms. Lloyd ? Happy (almost) October Break

Hey all you grade 6 KIDDOS?

Our first break is already here! It seems almost impossible that in six and a half weeks we have come so far and know each other so well. I hope all of you take this time to relax with your families and enjoy the sights and sounds of this great city we call home. For those of you traveling to far off lands, please come back with many stories of your wild adventures!

Over the break we would like you to begin thinking about your family?s culture. And what better way to capture the culture of your family then by taking some snapshots and digging out old pictures. We would like to see pictures of?

  • Traditional clothing (A picture of you, new or old, dressed in clothing that represents your culture)
  • Family values (What is most important to your family)
  • Food (Maybe a dish or style of cooking that is specific to your family)
  • Family traditions (What do you always do together?)
  • Fine arts (Dance, music, entertainment, artwork)

The pictures can be in electronic form, printed or scanned. Try to find anywhere from 1-5 pictures for each category.

When we return from break, you will be putting together a keynote using the pictures you found over the break. This will kick off our study of culture and provide the foundation as we extend our learning to other civilizations and cultures.

Take at look at some of my personal examples as you complete this task?

(more to come)

Traditional clothing for a Canadian Ballerina

Traditional clothing for a Canadian Ballerina

Source: http://teachers.saschina.org/blloyd/2012/09/26/happy-almost-october-break/

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Piece With regards to Simplicity Inside Web development | EzinePR

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Today, nearly all small and massive promoting organizations get their individual individual web pages which regularly really encourages and thrives this business. Rather, experiencing a position interior web marketing environment. Ofcourse a fresh staff members of experienced coupled with accomplished companies are often running the prosperity of in which complex development.Exactly what are the required technical specs for the capable just who is put inside Internet business Web design?Simply making an online site regarding making this company business is just not an incredible adequate method required in a designer.You have to devote ordinary knowing make certain that the site is protected as well as operating the right way. The web page has to be stunning as well as crystal clear with a sturdy reports. The cutting edge intent would be to create a fashionable plus purchaser appealing website marketing site.A good web-site must be the brains behind can adjust visitors perfect into a buyer.

Many businesses account to supply the very first firm earlier and your recommendations around the recognized web-sites turning it into easier for that customers to select.When one particular tactics a company regarding net building, there are many of things to help usually remain under consideration.Studying using the premium quality involving generating provided through the business is normally relating to leading magnitude. Looking at its further than data might execute a great deal of help in possessing a primary online marketing website development.Going on regardless of the sort involving mistakes or maybe challenges within the items in your site can potentially conversely possibly be risky.Generally going on on the weaknesses by looked upon world wide web making companies are incredibly extraordinary.Last yet not minimal, an additional most important factor that number while in the tyoe of online commerce web development might be the asking price. At this time there a new a number of companies that give world-wide-web developing in less costly costs.

But it unquestionably need to be commonly kept in mind which will basically preserving a few amounts can impact not able to tag heuer business fairly very. Essentially the most could awareness on the bit more substantial complete, but it really will definitely settle next week. Virtually no puts at risk ought to be won due to the expertise of the eb website as it could certainly include unwanted influences around the collaboration in connection with the firm which is consumers. Now there defintely won?t be a lot less odds that you will get has been unfaithful inside the distinguish involving top quality developing on increased prices. The one review simple along with prosperous is to buy present-day along with the current modifications as well as changes transpiring inside commercial community. Walking through your organization thoughts and opinions, it isn?t continually the internet gain which would depend, a have faith in from your company and also prospective customers definitely beefs up the actual romance that will make organization to contemporary elevation.

If you want more information, you can check out web designers to find more details.For all those who wish to find out more than what we?re able to go over here, you may see it on web design company in depth.

Source: http://ezinepr.com/business/piece-with-regards-to-simplicity-inside-web-development/

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মঙ্গলবার, ২৫ সেপ্টেম্বর, ২০১২

Premier League ref of Liverpool-United game reports Twitter abuse of cancer fight to police

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Nine prominent politicians who played college football

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You Can Have A Successful Mobile Marketing Campaign With This ...

Mobile marketing can become a steady source of income. These ideas will help you understand mobile marketing and be successful with your future endeavors.

Here are some things you should bear in mind when you add SMS to your strategies in mobile marketing: Remember to add a way for your visitors to opt-in for your text list and be realistic regarding how many texts you plan to send monthly. SMS can work against you because it is tied to mobile device notifications. It can feel like it?s invading peoples? privacy. Make your customers aware that they can opt-in to receive your SMS and be responsible for the maximum number of messages you will transmit each month. Honesty can make your brand more trustworthy.

The best thing you can do to be successful with your mobile marketing is to always know as much as you can about the devices your customers use. This allows you to create easy-to-use and relevant sites and apps for customer use and advertising. Being familiar with a wide variety of devices will help you see things from the perspective of your customers.

TIP! You should put your mobile marketing business in with similar media available to you on the web. Have marketing material that matches what you have on your mobile site?s landing page, and make sure that it?s designed to keep them on your website.

Always remember to implement a marketing strategy that is user friendly and simple. Keep in mind that the customers who are viewing and responding to mobile marketing messages are looking at a much smaller device than a PC, and having to work with limited navigational tools. Giving them long forms to fill out is not appropriate. Simplify your opt-in process to make it easier for your customers.

Consider implement many marketing pieces at a time as a means to maximize your mobile marketing strategy. For example, use a direct mail campaign to inform customers of an upcoming sale. Send the email at least a week in advance, followed by text reminders just prior to the sale.

For your mobile site?s landing page, try using A/B testing. User convenience and functionality testing is as crucial for mobile pages as for sites viewed online via desktops. Make two distinct versions labeled A and B of your landing page, then test extensively to see which of the two lands you the most sales. Use the more successful page.

TIP! You need to give some in order to get a lot. You need to offer incentives in your mobile marketing campaign.

Send mobile marketing messages during normal business hours. Even your very best customer will be irritated by receiving a text message in the early morning or late at night, no matter what the message says.

Use MMS messages to offer deals and promotions. This can attract new customers or reward your existing customers in some way. You can include promo codes with the coupons. Using special tracking codes, you can link these coupons to your website. Both new and old customers respond well to coupons.

Simplicity and clarity are key. You can minimize your process by reducing your clicks. It can be frustrating to type on a smaller keypad, keep this in mind when you are creating content. Be sure to keep it sweet and simple.

TIP! Every printed ad you publish should include a QR code for those with smartphones. Anyone who has a smart phone can use the QR code to access your site or coupons.

Cross-promote your mobile marketing campaign through whatever other marketing channels you are operating. You can advertise on social media websites, on your business website and even at your physical location. Exposure equals more sign ups.

Do not bombard your customers with offers. The highest results come from messages that are sent a few times a month. Your audience should feel like they are missing on a great deal if they don?t go to your store right away. If they believe another offer is imminent, they are not as likely to be swayed by the current offer to take action.

Use a short code that is dedicated. You will pay more for this service, but it will assist you in protecting your brand. It also gives you some legal coverage.

TIP! Gather information on your audience. Don?t assume anything about the people you will be marketing to, or their preferences.

Mobile Platform

You should always establish a home base for your mobile platform. All of your mobile marketing should be designed to drive people back to your home base. It is a terrible idea to base your business around your mobile platform solely.

Remember who you are talking to if you are going to make phone calls, they are people whose lives you are interrupting. Act accordingly.

TIP! Remember that while there are only a few web browsers that are popular, there are many different phone platforms. Be sure your messages display well on all platforms: Android devices, Blackberry, and iPhone.

To get customers to your brick-and-mortar store, include a detailed map somewhere on your site that is accessible by mobile devices. Mobile maps make it easy for local customers to search for businesses on their phone and to locate those business easily.

Mobile Marketing

You should have clear objectives before you launch a mobile marketing effort. Get some feedback from your customers to find out how you can reach out to them. Do you want to use mobile marketing to increase your revenue or to reconnect with lost customers?

TIP! When you consider what to include on your mobile page, remember that it?s important to say as much as you can with as little copy as possible. Using lengthy landing and product pages, with keyword-stuffed text that goes on and on, will not work well.

Initiate a feedback mechanism on your ads, so your mobile marketing customers can indicate their level of satisfaction with your services. It will also make you aware of particular issues that you may be having across the board with your mobile ads. Use this information to increase your viability.

Remember, people can access the Internet from more than just their home computer now, so be sure to make your site compatible with other devices. You have to think of many different mobile devices when making a mobile campaign. Make sure the scripts you use will work across different platforms.

Although texting with abbreviations is commonplace nowadays, most people haven?t got a clue what they mean. If someone cannot understand your advertisement, they will not look at it and you will lose a potential customer.

TIP! When you link your mobile marketing ads back to your website, it?s important to supply links that work for both older mobile phone browsers and the newer smart phone and tablet browsers. If your regular website has flash, you should link exclusively to the mobile version of your website.

Look into designing a mobile app yourself. Apps are easy for customers to download and use, and they allow you to advertise promotions or specials. It can build up your brand name?s recognition, and it will drive more traffic to your site. Enlist a professional to develop the application for you, since apps can vary wildly in scope and price, ultimately.

It should be apparent that mobile marketing is pretty complex. Hard work and patience will help you better promote your business. By using the advice listed above, you will surely be able to make more sales

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