Time to podcast up! Who's with us? For starters, we're going to have Myriam, Brad, Joseph and -- making his mobcast debut -- our very own Andrew Munchbach! So join us at the normal time, chat it up in our Ustream chat below, and we'll have a grand 'ol time talking all about phones and stuff.
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My line of thinking about yard work had always been to keep it simple and ?let nature take care of it.? Pushing mowers, raking leaves and pulling weeds was not my idea of weekend fun. I was fine letting the elements take care of my yard. Unfortunately, the elements were beginning to take over?and it showed.
My wife?s complaining about it did nothing to change my point of view
The kids begging me to trim a little so they could play out back made me laugh
The fact that the dog refused to go in the grass didn?t faze me in the least
But what changed my mind about yard work was a picture. A picture left on the kitchen counter. One my wife took in our backyard.
That's MY backyard?!
That?s where I saw it ? my inspiration ? tucked away beyond the growing weeds, branches and tall grass, she had somehow found a little oasis that looked so beautiful, I had to ask her where she was when she took it.
When she told me it was our backyard ? at first I didn?t believe her ? then I had to go see for myself. And I began to see my yard in a different light and took great reverence in what I had and began to care for it like my neighbors did with pulsing mowers and humming leaf blowers.
And alas, my spring cleaning ritual started and has remained every year since seeing that picture. If you?re like me and are trying to return to yard work after a bit of a hiatus, here are my recommendations for getting back into it:
Go bagless Find a place where yard waste can go back into nature and not into a bag. Choose a corner of your yard or a stretch of woods to dump it to make clean up much faster.
Grass was made for mulching Get a mulching blade for your lawnmower and don?t even think about collecting grass in a bag.
OCD and spring cleaning don?t mix Every leaf and branch does not have to be picked up for your yard or garden to look great. Do your best to get what you can quickly and easily, but don?t obsess.
Define boundaries You might have trouble figuring out where a garden is, was or should be, but figure that out first if you?re planning on having one.
Celebrate your yard Enjoy your yard and hard work with a picnic table, a simple and great way to enjoy it. You may even want to define an outdoor picnic area if your yard allows for it.
I?d love to know how all of you celebrate your yards. Post in the comments and let me know how your spring cleaning is going and what your plans for your yard are.
?
Steve is a Writer in the Creative department at House Party. He considers everybody at House Party family, but we have recently been informed that Steve has another home in Woodbury, NY where he lives with his other family. He is a coffee and beer snob ? the type that brings his own coffee to work and his own beer to parties. Don?t believe him? Just send him a party invite and see for yourself. He always RSVPs and brings enough to share.
Ben Affleck is returning to politics -- and comedy -- with the upcoming Warner Bros. film "Nathan Decker."
The actor will star as a politician who returns to his hometown after his extra-marital affair is made public. Interestingly, Affleck played a cheating congressman in 2009's "State of Play," although "Decker"?will presumably be more light-hearted.
The film, written by Dan Fogelman ("Crazy, Stupid, Love," the upcoming "Guilt Trip"), first attracted Tom Cruise, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Cruise eventually passed, instead focusing on a number of other upcoming projects.
Affleck won't be directing "Nathan," and Warner Bros. is on the lookout for someone to helm the film.
Meanwhile, Affleck's next film as a director is "Argo," a thriller about the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis in in which he's starring alongside Bryan Cranston and Clea DuVall. It hits theaters this fall. Affleck previously helmed "Gone Baby Gone"?and 'The Town."?
As an actor, Affleck will appear in Terrence Malick's? untitled drama co-starring Rachel McAdams and Javier Bardem. He'll also reunite with buddy Matt Damon for a gangster film about Whitey Bulger.
Mitt Romney's comment has astounded Russians, who acknowledge mixed relations with the US but point to Russia's integration with the international community as proof that they are not foe No. 1.
Memo to Mitt Romney from Russia: Didn't the cold war end more than two decades ago?
Skip to next paragraph
That pretty much sums up the reaction from many Russians today, where Mr. Romney's "enemy No. 1" jab at Moscow has been played over and over by official media, amid mounting public outrage, since he uttered it in response to President Obama's inadvertently overheard blunt political chat with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on the sidelines of a security conference in Seoul.
Mr. Obama was seen making nice with Mr. Medvedev?and, apparently unaware that microphones were on, asking the Russians to dial back their objections to US missile defense plans until after he's reelected in November, when "I'll have more flexibility."
Romney pounced, not merely at the appearance of secret diplomacy by Obama, but seemingly at Russia itself.
"This is, without question, our No. 1 geopolitical foe. They ? they fight every cause for the world's worst actors. The idea that he has some more flexibility in mind for Russia is very, very troubling indeed," Romney said in an interview with CNN. "The idea that our president is planning on doing something with them that he's not willing to tell the American people before the election is something I find very, very alarming."
While the suggestion of electoral connivance between Obama and Medvedev has made little impression in Russia, which has just been through its own carefully orchestrated presidential campaign,?Romney's comments hit like a bomb.
"It came as a shock. You just don't expect to hear that from someone who's running for US president," says Masha Lipman, editor of the Moscow Carnegie Center's Pro et Contra journal. "I thought an enemy was a country or force that seeks to kill Americans or destroy the US, not a country like Russia that has some civilized differences, which it expresses in forums like the [United Nations] Security Council."
Attitudes toward the US have fluctuated among Russians since the USSR collapsed more than 20 years ago. During the 1990s, the Kremlin sought to align itself with Western policies, but over the past decade, under now president-elect Vladimir Putin, it has carved out a more independent stance, often irritating Washington with uncooperative acts, such as two UN Security Council vetoes?of resolutions aimed at international intervention in Syria's crisis.
But most Russian experts point out that occasional quarrels over big issues like NATO expansion and missile defense ? which often have a distinct cold war ring to them ? are more than compensated for by many examples of Russia's progressive integration into the world community over recent years. Russia is a member of the G8, it sits on the Council of Europe, and late last year it finally joined the World Trade Organization. The military confrontation that once divided Europe into armed camps has dissipated, most former Soviet allies are now members of NATO, and this month Russia even offered its former enemy the use of an advanced Russian airbase in the Volga region of Ulyanovsk?to help ease the strain of resupplying embattled NATO forces in Afghanistan.
FILE - This undated and unlocated frame grab provided Wednesday, March 21, 2012, by French TV station France 2 shows the suspect in the killing of 3 paratroopers, 3 children and a rabbi in recent days, Mohamed Merah. Mohamed Merah grew up in one of the toughest housing projects of Toulouse, with his mother, two brothers and two sisters. At age five, his parents split up _ and he took that hard. He turned to a life of petty crime, landing in prison twice. How the young man described by one top official as a "little failure" went on to carry out France's biggest terror spree since the mid-1990s is provoking anguished questions in one of the West's most-seasoned terrorism-fighting nations.(AP Photo/France 2, File)
FILE - This undated and unlocated frame grab provided Wednesday, March 21, 2012, by French TV station France 2 shows the suspect in the killing of 3 paratroopers, 3 children and a rabbi in recent days, Mohamed Merah. Mohamed Merah grew up in one of the toughest housing projects of Toulouse, with his mother, two brothers and two sisters. At age five, his parents split up _ and he took that hard. He turned to a life of petty crime, landing in prison twice. How the young man described by one top official as a "little failure" went on to carry out France's biggest terror spree since the mid-1990s is provoking anguished questions in one of the West's most-seasoned terrorism-fighting nations.(AP Photo/France 2, File)
This photo dated Tuesday, March, 27, 2012, and made available Wednesday, shows Mohamed Benallal Merah, the father of Mohamed Merah, in Algiers. Mohamed Merah, a 23-year-old Muslim extremist who says he trained in Afghanistan, claimed responsibility for killing paratroopers, Jewish children and a rabbi in a weeklong shooting rampage in the French city of Toulouse. Police shot him dead last week after a 32-hour standoff. Merah's father, who was estranged from his son and lives in Algeria, has reportedly said he wants to file a complaint for Mohamed's death. (AP Photo)
This photo dated Tuesday, March, 27, 2012, and made available Wednesday, shows Mohamed Benallal Merah, the father of Mohamed Merah, in Algiers. Mohamed Merah, a 23-year-old Muslim extremist who says he trained in Afghanistan, claimed responsibility for killing paratroopers, Jewish children and a rabbi in a weeklong shooting rampage in the French city of Toulouse. Police shot him dead last week after a 32-hour standoff. Merah's father, who was estranged from his son and lives in Algeria, has reportedly said he wants to file a complaint for Mohamed's death. (AP Photo)
TOULOUSE, France (AP) ? The 23-year-old man who claimed responsibility for a killing spree in southern France had separated from his wife days before the attacks and was suffering "psychological difficulties," his lawyer said.
In an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press, attorney Christian Etelin sought to portray his now-slain client as a "lone wolf" with no organized crime or terrorist connections and as "an abandoned child" angry at a long-absent father.
Police say Mohamed Merah filmed himself killing three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi and three paratroopers earlier this month and that he claimed he had links to al-Qaida. Merah was killed in a gunfight with police last week.
While French politicians have described Merah as an isolated killer, police are searching for potential accomplices.
Merah's brother is in custody, suspected of helping prepare the attacks. Questions about a possible "third man" intensified after officials said Merah was not the one who mailed a USB key with video of his killings to the Al-Jazeera news network.
Merah's body will be sent Thursday from the southwest city of Toulouse to Algeria for burial, said Abdellatif Mellouki, regional leader for France's main Muslim organization, known as the CFCM. Merah was born in France and grew up in Toulouse, but his family is of Algerian origin and his father, who lives in Algeria, wants his body buried there.
Etelin was taken aback when Merah was identified last week in a nationwide manhunt as suspect No. 1 in France's worst terrorist killings since the 1990s. The lawyer appeared to still be learning things about Merah, whom he had represented before and who had numerous convictions for delinquency. Etelin last saw Merah on Feb. 24, about two weeks before the first killings March 11.
"I maintain that it is a case of a lone wolf," Etelin said. "It's in the context of the contradictions he wrapped himself in, the psychological difficulties that he had to cope with, that everything happened. ... There was no infrastructure or organization that he would have been the soldier for."
Etelin said Merah got married in an Islamic ceremony in December, but the couple separated less than a week before the first attack. They had had no civil ceremony, which is required for the marriage to be recognized under French law.
"He had a failure inside of him, a suffering of the abandoned child. This situation of abandon that he suffered again after the separation with his wife," Etelin said.
"Something happened in him that was very personal," he said. He said his client had "a certain duplicity" that he couldn't keep under control.
French intelligence officials have suggested that Merah had a double life or even split personality, allowing him to party in nightclubs and drink alcohol days before the killings with acquaintances who had no idea he was building up an arsenal of weapons, visiting Afghanistan and Pakistan and methodically plotting malicious attacks.
As the investigation continues, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been holding daily meetings with his top security officials.
"All our services ... are totally mobilized so that all possible light can be shed both on the responsibility of Mohamed Merah but also on any complicity he might have benefited from," government spokeswoman Valerie Pecresse said after Wednesday's meeting.
Merah's father has criticized French authorities for killing his son instead of capturing him alive.
Mohamed Benalel Merah was quoted by Algeria's El-Khabar newspaper Wednesday as saying he wants his son buried at a family cemetery near Medea, about 90 kilometers (55 miles) south of Algiers.
In another interview, with Algerian daily Echourouk, the father said his son visited Algeria regularly, had spent time at a Quranic school in Mouzaia, south of Algiers, and had tried to enter a Muslim religious order but decided against it because of security issues it could raise.
Etelin said he had no information about such a stage in Merah's life. The lawyer also was critical of the father, who served time in French prison a decade ago for a drug conviction.
"Since his divorce in 1993 from Mohamed's mother, when his son was 5 years old, this man remained very distant," Etelin said. "The father is now exhibiting a certain authority and arrogance ... He is acting like a father now that his son is dead, even though he never took care of him in a serious way when he was alive."
___
Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed to this report.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Jon Hamm insists he is nothing like Don Draper, the cool and mysterious advertising genius at the center of TV's "Mad Men". But Hamm, 41, who struggled for years to make it in Hollywood, says playing the character on the critically-acclaimed show has been a dream job, and Sunday's second episode of the long-delayed fifth season of "Mad Men" marks a milestone for the actor. It is his debut as a director. ...
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Rick Santorum's convincing win in Saturday's Louisiana Republican presidential primary was fueled by the same groups that have supported his candidacy in other contests -- but the state's more conservative and more religious GOP electorate also allowed Santorum to defeat Mitt Romney among the constituencies that have?gone for Romney in the past.
Exit polls show Santorum continuing to run well among the most conservative, less educated, lower- and middle-income voters that have propelled him to wins in other Southern and Midwestern states. His inroads into?some traditional Romney constituencies included first-time wins?among non-evangelical voters and voters who make more than $100,000 a year.
Santorum's campaign called his "bayou blowout"?a game-changer, asserting that?"this two-man race is just beginning." But Romney's delegate lead and the nature of the electorates in upcoming primaries make that unlikely.
Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, ran up huge margins among lower- and middle-income voters in Louisiana. He bested former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, 56 percent to 19 percent, among those voters making less than $50,000 a year, who made up slightly more than a quarter of the electorate. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, struggled among this group, finishing third, with 16 percent. Romney has only won low-income voters in a handful of states, including Illinois last week.
Among voters making between $50,000 and $100,000 a year, Santorum again won big, capturing 51 percent of the voters, to Romney's 26 percent. The winner of this bloc has captured most of the primaries thus far, though Santorum won this group in Ohio and Michigan, despite losing narrowly in both states to Romney.
But Santorum also won among those voters making more than $100,000 a year -- the first time in this nominating process that he has won among the more managerial wing of the party in states where entrance or exit polls were conducted. He took 42 percent of this group, compared to 34 percent for Romney, who had won higher-income voters in every state except South Carolina and Georgia, where Gingrich won handily.
Santorum continued to excel -- and Romney continued to struggle -- among the most conservative and most religious voters. Nearly half of voters on Saturday identified as "very conservative," and Santorum won 53 percent of them, to 23 percent for Romney and 18 percent for Gingrich. The only states in which Romney has won the most conservative voters are hardly GOP bastions: New Hampshire, Nevada, Arizona, Massachusetts and Virginia (where only Romney and Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, were on the ballot).
Santorum also won a majority of white evangelical or born-again Christians, beating Romney by 35 points among this group. But the two candidates also ran neck-and-neck among non-evangelical voters: Santorum won those who did not identify as white evangelicals by three percentage points, while Romney won by one among all non-evangelicals. Romney had won the non-evangelical vote in every state except Georgia, where Gingrich won in a landslide in his home state.
Louisiana Catholics, who accounted for more than a third of voters on Saturday, preferred Santorum over Romney, 46 percent to 30 percent. It was only the second time this cycle that Santorum, who is Catholic, has won among voters who say they share his faith -- though in other Southern states, Catholics made up such a small percentage of the electorate that exit poll results were not considered significant.
But Santorum continues to run stronger among Protestants -- particularly those who attend church more frequently -- than among Catholics. He defeated Romney, who is Mormon, by 28 points among Protestants on Saturday, and by 37 points among Protestants who attend services on a weekly basis.
Romney continues to enjoy an advantage in electability, but Santorum gained slightly on that question in Louisiana. A plurality of voters -- 38 percent -- said the most important candidate quality was the ability to defeat President Obama in the general election, and Romney won half of them, compared to just 30 percent for Santorum. Romney has won these voters in every state except South Carolina and Georgia, where Gingrich won them.
Asked which candidate was most likely to defeat Obama, voters were less decisive: 42 percent chose Romney, while 34 percent selected Santorum. That represents a slight drop for Romney. In Illinois last week, 60 percent of voters thought he was the most likely candidate to beat Obama, and Romney also performed better on this question on March 13 in Alabama (46 percent) and Mississippi (49 percent). In each of the March 13 Southern states, despite Santorum's wins there, voters thought Gingrich was just as likely as Santorum to defeat Obama.
Santorum's stronger performance in Louisiana is unlikely to alter the race significantly. Romney remains well ahead in the delegate race, and on April 3, when the next slate of primaries will be held, it will be outside the South in?Maryland, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia. In Maryland and Wisconsin this week, automated-telephone polls -- which do not meet National Journal's standards for publication -- showed Romney well ahead of Santorum. Santorum is not even on the ballot in the District.
Edison Research conducted the Louisiana exit poll Saturday at polling places across the state for the National Election Pool, a consortium of news organizations. The Louisiana exit poll consists of interviews with 1,499 voters.
Mobile phones are actually undergoing explosive improvement. It?s possible to practically experience anything which includes world wide web, banking, charge card operations and eCommerce, today via mobile phones. New cell phones take pride in their advanced mobile operating-system software. Handyortung ohne Anmeldung
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Gone are the days when individuals used letters, post cards and so on. as the major mode of emailing the folks living far distances apart. Now, using the advancement in technology, cell phones have become necessity for each and every individual. Some people have turn into addicted to their mobile phones, but it is a necessity as of late. The amount of mobile telephone users is increasing day-by-day and to meet-up their requirements, the phone makers and network providers continue inventing technology and attractive styles for the comfort of you considering their benefit and requirements too. Cell phones have created the communication mobile. Now, you can talk to your loved ones or friend miles apart even while you might be travelling and that too within a click of a second. Therefore, cell phones have made the life span of people much easier.
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Different types of electrical equipments are used in our homes daily. With the advance in science and technology, various new electronic products are introduced into the markets every new day. Today human beings are dependent on different types of electrical appliances such as televisions, DVD players, air conditioners, vacuum cleaners, bread toasters, grinders, refrigerators and so forth.
Common Types of Electrical Equipments
It is quite impossible to live without the use of electrical appliances. Different types of appliances are used at homes and in offices to ease work. All these equipments help to make life more convenient and easy. Some of the most important types of electrical equipments include the following.
Room heater: There are different types of heaters available in many of the online and offline stores today. With the huge variation in climatic conditions, heaters of different varieties are available at reasonable prices. Portable heaters are more often used in places where there are no central heating systems. These heaters are used to heat a single room. Different sized rooms require different types of heaters.
The various types of room heaters include the ceramic heaters, radiant heaters, oil-filled heaters, fan heaters and gas heaters. The ceramic heaters are the most effective heaters used to heat large rooms as these heaters have fans. As the ceramic heaters have advanced features which include cut-off fans and thermostats, it is considered to be safer than the other types of heaters.
The oil filled heaters are more economical. It uses the energy to heat the oil and the heated oil is used to heat the entire room. These heaters require some time to heat the entire room. The radiant heaters use a certain type of reflector to heat a certain area. It is ideally used to heat small surfaces rather than an entire room.
Electric cooker: Various types of electrical cookers are available today. Slow cookers, rice cookers, milk cookers, ovens, hot plates and toasters. Rice cookers are mainly used to cook rice. These cookers are available in different prices and sizes. It is quite easy and convenient to cook rice using rice cookers.
Toasters ovens can be used for various cooking purposes. It can be used to bake a pie or toast a chicken quite quickly and easily. Today there are a huge variety of toaster ovens with different features available in many of the stores quite easily.
Emergency light: Most of the commercial buildings and homes have emergency lighting sources installed to meet power outrages. Today this back up lighting device is available in different varieties. There are small lighting devices installed in buildings to meet urgent situations. These devices can also be bought from online stores at affordable price rates.
Exhaust fans: Electrical home appliances also include different types of electrical fans. Exhaust fans are one of the most important kitchen appliances used in most of the homes today. It helps to vent out odor, dust, smoke and other particles in the interior environment. These fans are also available in different varieties.
Author has wide knowledge of B2B Marketplace and Business industries. For latest business updates for industrial and daily use electrical appliances like electric cooker and emergency light, visit online products directory Catalogs.IndiaMART.com
Hi! I'm Vaiv, a marketing professional from India. Over the past couple of years South Asia has slowly emerged as the heart of the new international economic order. With India being one of the economic front-runners of the region, I believe that it has a lot to offer to the world's business community. Through this blog, it will be my endeavor to provide useful information to anyone and everyone that wants to source products and services from India, and help them realize their business potential.
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Serbia isn?t exactly the most LGBT-friendly country in Europe?attempts to throw Pride parades have been met with suppression and violence?but a new gay-themed movie there isn?t just rockin? the box office, it?s challenging long-held cultural and anti-gay prejudices.
Winner of the audience-favorite award at the prestigious Berlin Film Festival, Serbian filmmaker Srdjan Dragojevic?s The Parade is a black comedy about a gay couple from Belgrade who hire a war vet to protect their upcoming Pride march. He, in turn, hires a rag-tag bunch of fighters from Bosnia, Albania and Croatia to provide some extra muscle.
Call it The Fabulous Seven?or maybe The LGB-Team. (Okay, we?ll stop.)
Released in October, The Parade is the biggest blockbuster in the region in ages?drawing more than a half-million viewers?and is equally popular across the former Yugoslavia?s various republics. (No mean feat given the brutal wars and ethnic cleansing there in the 1990s.)
?The whole region is united for the first time in liking this film,? Dragojevic tells the AP. Given the suffering and devastation the Balkans have seen, he says ?it is very important for people to recognize? that it is irrelevant what nationality you are, how you pray or who you go to bed with.?
I have a vivid memory of riding in a car with my friend Meghan when I was about eight weeks pregnant with my first son.? We drove through the frozen woods of Maine in January, up and down the winding road that led us to our creative writing workshops.? ?I?ll never be one of those parents who??? I started out.
?One of those parents who??? The phrase that every non-parent has spoken before actually having children, right?? One of those parents who does that thing that I am far above/beyond/too good for.? A statement that never ends with ??tries as hard as she can to do her best by her kids.?? Nope, I was never going to be one of those parents who ??let their lives revolve around their kids.?
I don?t remember the details of what happened next in the conversation.? More blathering on about how I would continue to travel because it?s not unhealthy for kids to stay home with grandparents for a few days. ?Or I would take them with me to exotic places, where they would behave and gain global awareness while playing quietly on a beach so I could sunbathe.? I would not lose myself in my children and would continue to build up my creative, wordsmith side, too.? I would be writer first, all-consumed mother second.
And I believed it.? With all my heart, I believed it.? The words weren?t merely said to fit in with my close-knit group of brilliant writers all advancing their writing careers between the lines of teaching and bartending and college admin.? I would be a writer with kids rather than a mother who snuck in a tiny bit of time to write if she could keep her eyes open.? I would prioritize the stories that needed to speak through me.
Meghan, I?m sure, agreed.? Neither of us could really imagine a life like those parents we both knew who turned their lives inside out for their babies and then readjusted to make the new perspective permanent.? Those poor, poor people.? We knew better.
And then, as with so many other myths I sold my self before having kids, I found this one to be a victim of post-baby reality.? At first, I didn?t care.? Completely enamored with my firstborn, I eagerly gave up my time, my writing, my aspirations of exotic travel.? I could not imagine even wanting to leave N behind while I experienced new things!?? I was Mother, and adored the new perspective on my life.? Having a child was the purpose I?d simply been waiting to discover.? The second N was in my arms, I became ?one of those parents.?? I pitied my former self for being so blind to the love I would feel for my child.
I wish I could claim the process of self denial ended there, in blissful ignorance of what I might have done.? But slowly I found ? find ? myself suffocating under the weight of things I?m denying.? The words never set free on paper because I?m too tired of being needed all day.? The vacation tickets never purchased because I?m too tapped out paying for preschool and educational toys. ??The meditation I don?t take time out for because I?m too busy, too nervous, too angry after days of discipline attempts failing against the manipulation of a three-year-old.
So, I find myself searching for ways to rotate my live a few degrees back to that woman who didn?t want to give it all up for her kids.? How to find my way back to the winding Maine road in the quiet winter of creative space.? How to love my kids while loving myself in the ways I still need to be loved.? A stay at home mom whose identity doesn?t end there, and who is able to be fully present for each day with her kids because there are no gaping holes in the membrane of her own desires.? This hope can?t be just another myth I?m selling, can it?
A shiny new tool for imaging biomoleculesPublic release date: 23-Mar-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Lynn Yarris lcyarris@lbl.gov 510-486-5375 DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Berkeley Lab researchers embed artificial membranes with billions of nanoantennas for enhanced optical studies
At the heart of the immune system that protects our bodies from disease and foreign invaders is a vast and complex communications network involving millions of cells, sending and receiving chemical signals that can mean life or death. At the heart of this vast cellular signaling network are interactions between billions of proteins and other biomolecules. These interactions, in turn, are greatly influenced by the spatial patterning of signaling and receptor molecules. The ability to observe signaling spatial patterns in the immune and other cellular systems as they evolve, and to study the impact on molecular interactions and, ultimately, cellular communication, would be a critical tool in the fight against immunological and other disorders that lead to a broad range of health problems including cancer. Such a tool is now at hand.
Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley, have developed the first practical application of optical nanoantennas in cell membrane biology. A scientific team led by chemist Jay Groves has developed a technique for lacing artificial lipid membranes with billions of gold "bowtie" nanoantennas. Through the
phenomenon known as "plasmonics," these nanoantennas can boost the intensity of a fluorescent or Raman optical signal from a protein passing through a plasmonic "hot-spot" tens of thousands of times without the protein ever being touched.
"Our technique is minimally invasive since enhancement of optical signals is achieved without requiring the molecules to directly interact with the nanoantenna," Groves says. "This is an important improvement over methods that rely on adsorption of molecules directly onto antennas where their structure, orientation, and behavior can all be altered."
Groves holds joint appointments with Berkeley Lab's Physical Biosciences Division and UC Berkeley's Chemistry Department, and is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. He is the corresponding author of a paper that reports these results in the journal NanoLetters. The paper is titled "Single Molecule Tracking on Supported Membranes with Arrays of Optical Nanoantennas." Co-authoring the paper were Theo Lohmuller, Lars Iversen, Mark Schmidt, Christopher Rhodes, Hsiung-Lin Tu and Wan-Chen Lin.
Fluorescent emissions, in which biomolecules of interest are tagged with dyes that fluoresce when stimulated by light, and
Raman spectroscopy, in which the scattering of light by molecular vibrations is used to identify and locate biomolecules, are work-horse optical imaging techniques whose value has been further enhanced by the emergence of plasmonics. In plasmonics, light waves are squeezed into areas with dimensions smaller than half-the-wavelength of the incident photons, making it possible to apply optical imaging techniques to nanoscale objects such as biomolecules. Nano-sized gold particles in the
shape of triangles that are paired in a tip-to-tip formation, like a bow-tie, can serve as optical antennas, capturing and concentrating light waves into well-defined hot spots, where the plasmonic effect is greatly amplified. Although the concept is well-established, applying it to biomolecular studies has been a challenge because gold particle arrays must be fabricated with well-defined nanometer spacing, and molecules of interest must be delivered to plasmonic hot-spots.
"We're able to fabricate billions of gold nanoantennas in an artificial membrane through a combination of colloid lithography and plasma processing," Groves says. "Controlled spacing of the nanoantenna gaps is achieved by taking advantage of the fact that polystyrene particles melt together at their contact point during plasma processing. The result is well-defined spacing between each pair of gold triangles in the final array with a tip-to-tip distance between neighboring gold nanotriangles measuring in the 5-to-100 nanometer range."
Until now, Groves says, it has not been possible to decouple the size of the gold nanotriangles, which determines their surface plasmon resonance frequency, from the tip-to-tip distance between the individual nanoparticle features, which is responsible for enhancing the plasmonic effect. With their colloidal lithography approach, a self-assembling hexagonal monolayer of polymer spheres is used to shadow mask a substrate for subsequent deposition of the gold nanoparticles. When the colloidal mask is removed, what remains are large arrays of gold nanoparticles and triangles over which the artificial membrane can be formed.
The unique artificial membranes, which Groves and his research group developed earlier, are another key to the success of this latest achievement. Made from a fluid bilayer of lipid molecules, these membranes are the first biological platforms that can combine fixed nanopatterning with the mobility of fluid bilayers. They provide an unprecedented capability for the study of how the spatial patterns of chemical and physical properties on membrane surfaces influence the behavior of cells.
"When we embed our artificial membranes with gold nanoantennas we can trace the trajectories of freely diffusing individual proteins as they sequentially pass through and are enhanced by the multiple gaps between the triangles," Groves says. "This allows us to study a realistic system, like a cell, which can involve billions of molecules, without the static entrapment of the molecules."
As molecules in living cells are generally in a state of perpetual motion, it is often their movement and interactions with other molecules rather than static positions that determine their functions within the cell. Groves says that any technique requiring direct adsorption of a molecule of interest onto a nanoantenna intrinsically removes that molecule from the functioning ensemble that is the essence of its natural behavior. The technique he and his co-authors have developed allows them to look at individual biomolecules but within the context of their surrounding community.
"The idea that optical nanoantennas can produce the kinds of enhanced signals we are observing has been known for years but this is the first time that nanoantennas have been fabricated into a fluid membrane so that we can observe every molecule in the system as it passes through the antenna array," Groves says. "This is more than a proof-of-concept we've shown that we now have a useful new tool to add to our repertoire."
###
This research was primarily supported by the DOE Office of Science.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory addresses the world's most urgent scientific challenges by advancing sustainable energy, protecting human health, creating new materials, and revealing the origin and fate of the universe. Founded in 1931, Berkeley Lab's scientific expertise has been recognized with 13 Nobel prizes. The University of California manages Berkeley Lab for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. For more, visit www.lbl.gov.
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A shiny new tool for imaging biomoleculesPublic release date: 23-Mar-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Lynn Yarris lcyarris@lbl.gov 510-486-5375 DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Berkeley Lab researchers embed artificial membranes with billions of nanoantennas for enhanced optical studies
At the heart of the immune system that protects our bodies from disease and foreign invaders is a vast and complex communications network involving millions of cells, sending and receiving chemical signals that can mean life or death. At the heart of this vast cellular signaling network are interactions between billions of proteins and other biomolecules. These interactions, in turn, are greatly influenced by the spatial patterning of signaling and receptor molecules. The ability to observe signaling spatial patterns in the immune and other cellular systems as they evolve, and to study the impact on molecular interactions and, ultimately, cellular communication, would be a critical tool in the fight against immunological and other disorders that lead to a broad range of health problems including cancer. Such a tool is now at hand.
Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley, have developed the first practical application of optical nanoantennas in cell membrane biology. A scientific team led by chemist Jay Groves has developed a technique for lacing artificial lipid membranes with billions of gold "bowtie" nanoantennas. Through the
phenomenon known as "plasmonics," these nanoantennas can boost the intensity of a fluorescent or Raman optical signal from a protein passing through a plasmonic "hot-spot" tens of thousands of times without the protein ever being touched.
"Our technique is minimally invasive since enhancement of optical signals is achieved without requiring the molecules to directly interact with the nanoantenna," Groves says. "This is an important improvement over methods that rely on adsorption of molecules directly onto antennas where their structure, orientation, and behavior can all be altered."
Groves holds joint appointments with Berkeley Lab's Physical Biosciences Division and UC Berkeley's Chemistry Department, and is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. He is the corresponding author of a paper that reports these results in the journal NanoLetters. The paper is titled "Single Molecule Tracking on Supported Membranes with Arrays of Optical Nanoantennas." Co-authoring the paper were Theo Lohmuller, Lars Iversen, Mark Schmidt, Christopher Rhodes, Hsiung-Lin Tu and Wan-Chen Lin.
Fluorescent emissions, in which biomolecules of interest are tagged with dyes that fluoresce when stimulated by light, and
Raman spectroscopy, in which the scattering of light by molecular vibrations is used to identify and locate biomolecules, are work-horse optical imaging techniques whose value has been further enhanced by the emergence of plasmonics. In plasmonics, light waves are squeezed into areas with dimensions smaller than half-the-wavelength of the incident photons, making it possible to apply optical imaging techniques to nanoscale objects such as biomolecules. Nano-sized gold particles in the
shape of triangles that are paired in a tip-to-tip formation, like a bow-tie, can serve as optical antennas, capturing and concentrating light waves into well-defined hot spots, where the plasmonic effect is greatly amplified. Although the concept is well-established, applying it to biomolecular studies has been a challenge because gold particle arrays must be fabricated with well-defined nanometer spacing, and molecules of interest must be delivered to plasmonic hot-spots.
"We're able to fabricate billions of gold nanoantennas in an artificial membrane through a combination of colloid lithography and plasma processing," Groves says. "Controlled spacing of the nanoantenna gaps is achieved by taking advantage of the fact that polystyrene particles melt together at their contact point during plasma processing. The result is well-defined spacing between each pair of gold triangles in the final array with a tip-to-tip distance between neighboring gold nanotriangles measuring in the 5-to-100 nanometer range."
Until now, Groves says, it has not been possible to decouple the size of the gold nanotriangles, which determines their surface plasmon resonance frequency, from the tip-to-tip distance between the individual nanoparticle features, which is responsible for enhancing the plasmonic effect. With their colloidal lithography approach, a self-assembling hexagonal monolayer of polymer spheres is used to shadow mask a substrate for subsequent deposition of the gold nanoparticles. When the colloidal mask is removed, what remains are large arrays of gold nanoparticles and triangles over which the artificial membrane can be formed.
The unique artificial membranes, which Groves and his research group developed earlier, are another key to the success of this latest achievement. Made from a fluid bilayer of lipid molecules, these membranes are the first biological platforms that can combine fixed nanopatterning with the mobility of fluid bilayers. They provide an unprecedented capability for the study of how the spatial patterns of chemical and physical properties on membrane surfaces influence the behavior of cells.
"When we embed our artificial membranes with gold nanoantennas we can trace the trajectories of freely diffusing individual proteins as they sequentially pass through and are enhanced by the multiple gaps between the triangles," Groves says. "This allows us to study a realistic system, like a cell, which can involve billions of molecules, without the static entrapment of the molecules."
As molecules in living cells are generally in a state of perpetual motion, it is often their movement and interactions with other molecules rather than static positions that determine their functions within the cell. Groves says that any technique requiring direct adsorption of a molecule of interest onto a nanoantenna intrinsically removes that molecule from the functioning ensemble that is the essence of its natural behavior. The technique he and his co-authors have developed allows them to look at individual biomolecules but within the context of their surrounding community.
"The idea that optical nanoantennas can produce the kinds of enhanced signals we are observing has been known for years but this is the first time that nanoantennas have been fabricated into a fluid membrane so that we can observe every molecule in the system as it passes through the antenna array," Groves says. "This is more than a proof-of-concept we've shown that we now have a useful new tool to add to our repertoire."
###
This research was primarily supported by the DOE Office of Science.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory addresses the world's most urgent scientific challenges by advancing sustainable energy, protecting human health, creating new materials, and revealing the origin and fate of the universe. Founded in 1931, Berkeley Lab's scientific expertise has been recognized with 13 Nobel prizes. The University of California manages Berkeley Lab for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. For more, visit www.lbl.gov.
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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.
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Public release date: 23-Mar-2012
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