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New UBC research suggests stronger connection between addiction and genetics – CBC.ca

Thursday February 16, 2017

As Canada's national opioid crisis continues, scientists at the University of British Columbia are trying to figure out why some people may be more susceptible to addiction at a genetic level.

"There have been a number of researchers who have taken patients or people who have drug abuse issues and compared their genes to people who do not have drug abuse issues," says Shernaz Bamji, a professor in the department of cellular and physiological sciences.

"And they have identified a number of mutations in many genes that actually help the brain communicate or cells within the brain communicate with one another. "

Her new research, published this week in thejournal Nature Neuroscience,suggests a stronger connection between genetics, biology andaddictionand may provide more clues on how to treat addiction in the future.

"The study adds to a growing body of work that suggests that addiction ... is not just a matter of being weak-willed,but really isa matter of genetics, biology and circumstances," says Bamji.

The UBC research involved injecting cocaine into genetically-modified mice to see if differences in their brains made them more susceptible to addictive behaviour than ordinary mice. The results surprised the whole team. (Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press)

Bamjitells The Current's guest host Laura Lynchhow this study could help with treating and even preventing addiction.

"[This study] explains to us differences in how we learn and different parts of the brain. And this has got impact down the line ... for humans because that might point to avenues of therapy," Bamji says

"Once we really, fully establish exactly how learning and synaptic plasticity in the area of the brain that's involved in addiction is different from learning in other areas of the brain."

As part of the research Bamji injected cocaine into genetically-modified mice to see if differences in their brains made them more susceptible to addictive behaviour than ordinary mice.

Bamji says the results were the exact opposite of what the team expected.

"Well it was, you know, completely counter-intuitive to what we thought was going to happen," says Bamji explaining that unlike the normal mice, the genetically-modified mice displayed less addictive behaviour even after multiple doses of cocaine over days.

According to Bamji, this reaction suggests that addiction may be more connected to genetics and biology than previously thought.

Bamji is excited about the potential practical uses of this research, but says clinical trials involving this research is years away.

"You have to be very cautious when you're only interpreting genetic data. You have to go back and do the experiments that we are doing to validate that these particular genes are indeed involved in whatever disease that you're talking about."

Listen to the full conversation at the top of this web post.

This segment was produced by The Current's Liz Hoath.

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New UBC research suggests stronger connection between addiction and genetics - CBC.ca

Honey bee genetics sheds light on bee origins – Phys.Org

February 16, 2017 by Andy Fell Honey bees provide 'pollination services' worth billions of dollars to US agriculture. Understanding honey bee populations requires understanding their origins in the Middle East and Africa. New work from UC Davis and UC Berkeley clears up some of the confusion around honey bee origins. Image: Honey bees collecting pollen Credit: Kathy Keatley Garvey

Where do honey bees come from? A new study from researchers at the University of California, Davis and UC Berkeley clears some of the fog around honey bee origins. The work could be useful in breeding bees resistant to disease or pesticides.

UC Davis postdoctoral researcher Julie Cridland is working with Santiago Ramirez, assistant professor of evolution and ecology at UC Davis, and Neil Tsutsui, professor of environmental science, policy and management at UC Berkeley, to understand the population structure of honey bees (Apis mellifera) in California. Pollination by honey bees is essential to major California crops, such as almonds. Across the U.S., the value of "pollination services" from bees has been estimated as high as $14 billion.

"We're trying to understand how California honey bee populations have changed over time, which of course has implications for agriculture," Ramirez said.

To understand California bees, the researchers realized that they first needed to better understand honey bee populations in their native range in the Old World.

"We kind of fell into this project a little bit by accident," Cridland said. "Initially we were looking at the data as a preliminary to other analyses, and we noticed some patterns that weren't previously in the literature."

The new study combines two large existing databases to provide the most comprehensive sampling yet of honey bees in Africa, the Middle East and Europe.

Unrelated Bee Lineages in Close Proximity

Previously, researchers had assumed an origin for honey bees in north-east Africa or the Middle East. But the situation turns out to be more complicated than that, Cridland said.

"You might think that bees that are geographically close are also genetically related, but we found a number of divergent lineages across north-east Africa and the Middle East," she said.

There are two major lineages of honey bees in Europe - C, "Central European," including Italy and Austria and M, including Western European populations from Spain to Norway - which give rise to most of the honey bees used in apiculture worldwide. But although C and M lineage bees exist side by side in Europe and can easily hybridize, they are genetically distinct and arrived in different parts of the world at different times.

M lineage bees were the first to be brought to north America, in 1622. The more docile C lineage bees came later, and today many California bees are from the C lineage, but there is still a huge amount of genetic diversity, Ramirez said.

"You can't understand the relationships among bee populations in California without understanding the populations they come from," Cridland said.

In the Middle East, the O lineage hails from Turkey and Jordan, and Y from Saudia Arabia and Yemen. The main African lineage is designated A.

At this point, the researchers cannot identify a single point of origin for honey bees, but the new work does clear up some confusion from earlier studies, they said. In some cases, diverged lineages that happen to be close to each other have mixed again. Previous, more limited studies have sampled those secondarily mixed populations, giving confusing results.

"We're not making any strong claim about knowing the precise origin," Cridland said. "What we're trying to do is talk about a scientific problem, disentangling these relationships between lineages, the genetic relationships from the geography."

The study is published online in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution.

Explore further: Bee rescue mounted after hospital breaks out in hives

More information: Julie M. Cridland et al, The complex demographic history and evolutionary origin of the western honey bee, Apis mellifera, Genome Biology and Evolution (2017). DOI: 10.1093/gbe/evx009

It was a sticky situation.

Agricultural demand for pollination is growing more quickly than the supply of honey bees, the dominant species managed for crop pollination. Increasing the efficiency of pollination represents a way of increasing crop yield ...

In a new study published in the Journal of Apicultural Research, scientists have compared the ability of two strains of honey bees to defend themselves against the parasitic mite varroa by grooming the mites from their bodies.

Scientists from The University of Western Australia's Centre for Integrative Bee Research (CIBER) tagged 200 honey bee workers to find out how a highly-contagious fungal parasite (Nosema apis) impacts their ability to pollinate ...

A study conducted by biologists at UC San Diego has found that the Africanized honey beean aggressive hybrid of the European honey beeis continuing to expand its range northward since its introduction into Southern ...

For the last 30 years, Drummond, professor of insect ecology at the University of Maine, has studied the biology, ecology, disease susceptibility and pesticide exposure of Maine's 275 native species of bees, as well as the ...

Facial recognition is a biometricsystem that identifies or verifies a person from a digital image. It's used to find criminals, identify passport and driver's license fraud, and catch shoplifters. But can it be used to ...

A smart trap for mosquitoes? A new high-tech version is promising to catch the bloodsuckers while letting friendlier insects escapeand even record the exact weather conditions when different species emerge to bite.

Where do honey bees come from? A new study from researchers at the University of California, Davis and UC Berkeley clears some of the fog around honey bee origins. The work could be useful in breeding bees resistant to disease ...

Timothy Blake, a postdoctoral fellow in the Waymouth lab, was hard at work on a fantastical interdisciplinary experiment. He and his fellow researchers were refining compounds that would carry instructions for assembling ...

A new WCS study in India shows that three carnivorestigers, leopards, and dholes (Asian wild dog)seemingly in direct competition with one other, are living side by side with surprisingly little conflict. Usually, big ...

A University of Michigan biologist combined the techniques of "resurrection ecology" with the study of dated lake sediments to examine evolutionary responses to heavy-metal contamination over the past 75 years.

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Honey bee genetics sheds light on bee origins - Phys.Org

Extend Fertility Debuts State-of-the-Art Egg Freezing Lab – Satellite PR News (press release)

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NEW YORK, Feb. 16, 2017 Extend Fertility, a one-of-a-kind, specialty egg freezing practice, today announces that its state-of-the-art egg-freezing laboratory is fully operational. The lab at Extend Fertility oversees and executes the process of vitrification utilizing a process that is considered to be the most advanced and successful.

The Cryotec method employed by Extend Fertility was created by Dr. Masashige Kuwayama, long considered the foremost authority on vitrification, and is considered the most advanced method of egg freezing available for cryopreserving eggs currently in practice. This process, combined with the labs state-of-the-art technology and uniquely clean environment, enables Extend Fertility to ensure a near 100 percent survival rate of oocytes.

The Cryotec process is superior to its slower predecessors, which introduced more opportunities for errors that can destroy the viability of stored eggs by damaging their cellular structure, said Embryology Laboratory Assistant Director Dr. Leslie Ramirez, PhD, who studied in Japan with Dr. Kuwayama to perfect her technique. Extend Fertility is Dr. Kuwayamas east coast representative Cryotec laboratory. Before any other cryogenic lab is permitted to use his method, their embryologists must train with Dr. Ramirez.

Vitrification is so named because during the process the eggs transition to a vitreous, or glass-like, state. A combination of cryoprotectantsand faster cooling (compared to the slow freezing method)reduce the opportunity for damaging intercellular ice crystals to form during the process, ensuring a near 100 percent survival rate of oocytes.

To maintain this uniquely advanced lab, Extend Fertility takes a number of steps to produce the cleanest, safest possible environment for egg freezing:

World-class physicians and embryologists provide patients at Extend Fertility with the highest quality care in a state-of-the-art facility, purpose built for egg freezing. The lab is led by chief embryologist Dr. Leslie Ramirez, who obtained her masters and Ph.D. in biotechnology of human assisted reproduction at the University of Valencia in Spain, studying under Dr. Carlos Simn at the Instituto Valenciano de Infertilidad (Valencia Infertility Institute). She then studied with Dr. Masashige Kuwayama in Japan. Dr. Ramirez is supported in the lab by Alexis Adler, Extend Fertilitys Senior Embryologist. Ms. Adler has more than 20 years embryology experience, having previously worked as the Senior Embryologist at Weill Cornell and as the Supervisor of the Embryology Lab at NYU Fertility Center.

To learn more or schedule a fertility assessment, potential patients can visit Extend Fertilitys website at http://www.extendfertility.com or call 212-810-2828.

Contact: Rachel Dobin 646 747 7153 rdobin@kwittken.com

SOURCE Extend Fertility

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Extend Fertility Debuts State-of-the-Art Egg Freezing Lab - Satellite PR News (press release)

Parents of transgender woman share their emotional journey – Catholic Leader

Teresa and Bill: That there wasnt anything they could say or do I might disagree with them, which I still do but it doesnt stop you loving them. Photo: Emilie Ng

CATHOLIC parents Teresa and Bill* discovered the unconditional love they had for their children when their son told them 17 years ago he could no longer live as a man.

Six months earlier, Bill, a retired GP and Billings natural family planning practitioner, had taken a course on medical ethics and bioethics with health ethicist Fr Kevin McGovern.

One of the issues discussed was transgender therapies and sex reassignment surgery.

I was reading it from a medical point of view, reading the different viewpoints about things and reassignment surgery, and I thought it was going a bit far, Bill said.

And my son at the time came down on that particular day and I was talking to him about it.

He didnt say anything very much, as I was sort of going on a bit.

It was a seemingly normal day when that same son dropped by to visit his Catholic parents at their Queensland home.

I was sitting where you are, and he was sitting in the middle and made us sit down, said he had some important news, Bill said.

Teresa mentally prepared for a cancer scare.

Instead, their son apprehensively handed over a short article with the headline: Boys will be girls.

And he said, Ive decided I want to live as a woman, Teresa said.

Bill stood up from the couch, looked his son in the eye, and wrapped his arms tightly around him.

Research has found that transgender people experience a condition known as gender dysphoria.

Gender dysphoria is understood to be a psychological condition where a person experiences distress because of incongruence between their biological gender and their expressed gender.

According to Western Australian bioethicist Fr Joseph Parkinson only about one in 10,000 adults are transgender, or 0.01 per cent.

While the recommended treatment of gender dysphoria is counselling and a supportive environment, surgery is becoming an increasingly popular option, although not all transgender people undergo sex reassignment operations.

After 18 months of intense counselling and a psychiatric assessment, Bill and Teresas son was confirmed to have a genuine case of gender dysphoria and underwent sex reassignment surgery to remove his genitalia and acquire female sexual organs.

He was 32 at the time, and re-emerged to the family as Grace.

Grace, because she was looking for the grace to become a woman, Bill said.

On every form of Australian identification, Grace is a woman even the sex on her birth certificate was changed to female.

Teresa said she was totally unaware that it was possible to change from male to female, to live as a transgender person.

According to her, there were no externally obvious signs that their son was ever distressed about his real and perceived gender.

He did everything children do in their childhood played with toys, fought with his siblings, and he even played dress-ups with his sisters.

He attended an all-boys Queensland Catholic school, proved to be talented at gymnastics and rugby, and ended up a faithful employee at a global technology company, made up primarily of male workers.

He even considered entering religious life at one stage.

Bill noted in retrospect that Grace, as a boy, was sensitive to others, especially to those in trouble.

She said she first thought of being a girl when she was at primary school and she had to play the part of a girl in some play they were putting on, Bill said.

She decided then that she liked the idea.

While the Catholic Church does not have an official, authoritative teaching on transgender identity and gender dysphoria, it recognises the condition as a psychological disorder.

The Church also deems gender reassignment surgery as deliberate mutilation of the body that removes healthy organs, but again, there is no official statement.

With Grace now, because she didnt find any sympathy or understanding within the Church, shes found she can manage without it, Teresa said.

I doubt she will come back to the Church.

Teresa said she struggled to reconcile the Churchs position on gender dysphoria with her own Catholic faith, though it has not made her less faithful.

I get very upset about their ignorance, that they dont seem to listen to all the new psychology information that has come out about gender dysphoria, and most still seem to see that people who want to change their gender are mentally unstable, she said.

I really wanted to do something about it and shake them and say, Listen to them dont you understand that your position is so antiquated?

Bills more patient, saying it might take 50 years. I want it to happen now.

Bill also disagrees with the Churchs understanding of gender dysphoria as a psychological condition, and prefers to draw on embryology for answers.

The bottom line of all of this, is people with no knowledge of embryology say were either male or female from conception but, no, the embryo differentiates into male or female during development, with gender identity another issue, he said.

On the other hand, Bill and Teresa caution against cultural influences that believe gender is a choice.

Mind you, I think there can be a tendency to say what gender you are is a choice, but its not, Bill said.

Its almost giving the idea that this overall is common (but) its still not common.

Sometimes I see that there are people with an issue trying too hard the other way.

I even heard the Pope say its not a matter of choice; I also say its not a matter of choice its just a fact.

For a transgender person, its not saying I choose to be this, or I choose to be that, but I am, I am a woman but I have been given an XY chromosome but that is semantics.

They also warned against young people deciding too early that they have gender dysphoria, reiterating that it took their daughter 32 years and another 18 months of therapy to confirm her decision.

They said parents who had teenage children wanting to change their gender, either through hormonal treatment or therapy, should talk to their child about the underlining reasons for their unhappiness.

We are very worried that it is becoming too popular a notion and agree that for most people psychological counselling is the way to go, Teresa said.

Grace will celebrate her 50th birthday this year and both Bill and Teresa will be there to count their blessings.

I see this as a blessing because, to me, that particular day, when that news came, I just know that I did not have to think about it (giving his son a hug), Bill said.

I knew it was love in me that made me do it.

It said to me that even though I may not always show it, I actually do love my children unconditionally as any parent should that there wasnt anything they could say or do I might disagree with them, which I still do but it doesnt stop you loving them.

* Names have been changed to keep the couples identity anonymous.

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Parents of transgender woman share their emotional journey - Catholic Leader

Vitamins and aminoacids regulate stem cell biology – Phys.Org

February 16, 2017 Credit: National Research Council of Italy

An International Reserach Team coordinated by Igb-Cnr has discovered a key role of vitamins and amino acids in pluripotent stem cells. The research is published in Stem Cell Reports, and may provide new insights in cancer biology and regenerative medicine

Vitamins and amino acids play a key role in the regulation of epigenetic modifications involved in the progression of diseases such as cancer. The research may have future implications in cancer biology. The study was published in Stem Cell Reports.

"We found that two metabolites, vitamin C and the amino acid L-Proline, are important players in the control of stem cell behaviour. This study shows that pluripotent embryonic stem cells present in the earliest phases of development are pushed toward a more immature 'naive' state by vitamin C, while they are forced to acquire a 'primed' state in the presence of L-Proline. Thus, vitamin C and L-Proline exert opposite effects on embryonic stem cells, and this correlates with their ability to modify DNA (DNA methylation) without altering the sequence, but instead, the regulation of gene expression," explained researcher Gabriella Minchiotti.

Stem cells possess the unique ability to self-renew and differentiate into other cell types, which makes them extremely interesting in medical and biological research. "Embryonic stem cells are the most 'potent' (defined as pluripotent), meaning that they can give rise to all cell types of an organism, such as cardiomyocytes, neurons, bones, etc. Like normal stem cells, cancer stem cells can also self-renew and differentiate, and are believed to be responsible for tumor growth and therapy resistance."

This study provides an important contribution to the understanding of how metabolites regulate pluripotency and shape the epigenome in embryonic stem cells, which have been largely unexplored and recently gained great interest. This knowledge not only enhances our understanding of the biology of normal stem cells but may offer novel insights into cancer stem cell biology, identifying novel potential therapeutic targets.

Explore further: Gene "bookmarking" regulates the fate of stem cells

More information: Stem Cell Reports, dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.stemcr.2016.11.011

Facial recognition is a biometricsystem that identifies or verifies a person from a digital image. It's used to find criminals, identify passport and driver's license fraud, and catch shoplifters. But can it be used to ...

A smart trap for mosquitoes? A new high-tech version is promising to catch the bloodsuckers while letting friendlier insects escapeand even record the exact weather conditions when different species emerge to bite.

Where do honey bees come from? A new study from researchers at the University of California, Davis and UC Berkeley clears some of the fog around honey bee origins. The work could be useful in breeding bees resistant to disease ...

Timothy Blake, a postdoctoral fellow in the Waymouth lab, was hard at work on a fantastical interdisciplinary experiment. He and his fellow researchers were refining compounds that would carry instructions for assembling ...

A new WCS study in India shows that three carnivorestigers, leopards, and dholes (Asian wild dog)seemingly in direct competition with one other, are living side by side with surprisingly little conflict. Usually, big ...

A University of Michigan biologist combined the techniques of "resurrection ecology" with the study of dated lake sediments to examine evolutionary responses to heavy-metal contamination over the past 75 years.

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Vitamins and aminoacids regulate stem cell biology - Phys.Org

Rowan staff and students mourn loss of chemistry professor Timothy Sheehan – The Whit Online

Adjunct and three-quarter time Rowan professor Timothy Sheehan diedon Feb. 13, according to a Rowan Announcer Extra Edition email sent to facultyTuesdayevening.

Sheehan was a professorin the chemistry and biochemistry department and worked at Rowan since spring 2009, according toGregory Caputo, chemistry and biochemistry department chair.

According to Caputo,Sheehan taught two general chemistry courses as well as an advanced college chemistry series.

One thing that always stood out about Tim was that he was always really positive and really upbeat and energetic and really brought that into the classroom, Caputo said in a phone interview. [His passing] came as a real shock to all of us.

According to his obituary from legacy.com, Sheehan was a father, husband and grandfather from Mt. Laurel, New Jersey. He died age 66 from natural causes.

Assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry Tim Vaden was similarly shocked and saddened by the news of Sheehans death.

Up until last week, he seemed healthy and normal, Vaden said. He was very positive and never complained about anything at all.

Vaden admiresSheehan for his reliability, saying, Whether it was 8 a.m. or evening classes, he was always open to whatever we needed him to do, with a smile on his face.

Along with the faculty, Rowan students shared positive remembrances about Sheehan as an individual.

Sophomore biology major Jenn Hopkins, who had Sheehan for Chemistry 2, appreciated his frequent anecdotes.

He shared a lot of stories and experiences about his work in chemistry throughout the class, which made it really interesting to learn from him, she said.

Freshman biochemistry major Justin Roldan respected Sheehans affability and clarity.

He was always friendly, like a grandpa figure to the class, Roldan said. Even if the lessons would get confusing, professor Sheehan would take time to make the lessons more relatable and talk about his past experiences in pharmaceutical companies.

Roldan added that two grieving counselors were available for his class during lecture period.

Freshman biochemistry major Edward Taggart, paralleled the comments expressed by others, touching on Sheehans helpful nature, extensive experience and the feelings of grief that have come as a result of hisdeath.

He was a kind man with a lot of personality, and it came as a great shock to me and the entire class the morning after he passed. Im just more at a loss for words, and hoping the rest of the semester proceeds as he would have wanted, he said.

Additional reporting by Justin Decker.

For comments/questions about this story, email news@thewhitonline.com or tweet @thewhitonline.

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Rowan staff and students mourn loss of chemistry professor Timothy Sheehan - The Whit Online

Grey’s Anatomy’s Civil War Just Took on Collateral Damage & Eliza Will Never Be the Same – E! Online

ABC

If Grey's Anatomy fans didn't like Eliza Minnick before tonight, they probably hate her now.

The brash doctor (played by Marika Dominczyk) brought in to overhaul Grey-Sloan Memorial's teaching program went full throttle with her plans by placing particular surgeries in the unprepared hands of attendings, leaving the residents to simply observe and guide. Because this is Shondaland, the results were calamitous, resulting in Edwards (Jerrika Hinton) accidentally killing one of Arizona's (Jessica Capshaw) pediatric patients when she misses the fact that the kid's bleeding internally. Making matters even worse, when a distraught Edwards looked to her budding mentor for guidance, Eliza just abandoned her in the hallway to go have a meltdown of her own.

In short, it was not her finest moment.

But it just might be the thing needed to change her aloof and abrasive ways, Dominczyk told E! News."It was such a big event for her to reflect on herself and think about, you know, maybe her approach isn't the best," she admitted. "And I think it makes her take a moment to reflect on who she is, what she really wants, the good that she wants to do and how to do that without making things bad. It knocks her down. It definitely knocks her down a lot of pegs and she has to build herself up again and push through it and, in a way, still be confident and not let it ruin her. Because it's such a huge thing that happened that she didn't foreshadow. She didn't see it coming at all."

Another thing she didn't see coming? Just how much her failure to react properly would push Edwardsone of Minnick's biggest supporters among the attendings up until that momentback into Webber's (James Pickens Jr.) arms (literally) as she was looking for guidance.

"I think that after Eliza deals with how it makes her feel as a doctor and how it affects her, so she can get over that huge hurdle, then she can look around at the damage that it's caused around. And I think that sheit's not like she was building momentum in a good way, anyway," Dominczyk added. "It's kind of like maybe starting from ground zero and doing it over, but maybe with kinder hands, maybe gentler. Being more socially aware of how she comes off when she does stuff like that, you know? I think that initially when she blows off Edwards, it doesn't have anything to do with Edwards, which is the main mistake, right? She's supposed to be the teacher and help, but she's so consumed with what happened that she can't even see. She can't even see it yet. I think it hits her when Richard gives her that look. It crushes her because she looks up to Richard and she respects him so much and she wants to be accepted, but still hold her ground and come off as strong. So, it's a balancing act."

ABC

So, could a kinder, gentler Minnick be just the thing to stop this civil war before it consumes the hospital? It couldn't hurt, Dominczyk admitted, but don't expect a miracle."I would say that it makes people take a long hard look at what they're doing and the repercussions of certain actions," she said about how Grey-Sloan moves forward from here. "To slow down a bit and try to do what's best for everybody and not just best for one person. Because at the end of the day, they all want the same thing. They all want the hospital to be the best hospital it could be, and they all want all the attendings to learn everything the proper way and be good doctors. So, it might bring everything together, but not like a 'Kumbaya, we all love Minnick now.' That definitely, unfortunately, doesn't happennot overnight. But it's a step in the right direction."

Despite the disaster of a day, Minnick did find herself in the arms of a sympathetic Arizona out in the parking lot, who reinforces the notion that Eliza could make things easier on herself with everyone if only she'd try. Is romance on the horizon for these two? And how will the other docs respond to Arizona's flirting with the enemy?I think they are drawn to each other and they are cautious, for the right reasons, with how much they let people know because I don't think they know themselves where this is going or what's going to happen," Dominczyk teased."You're just going to have to watch and see this cautious circling. They're only human, so people do slip up sometimes."

This being Grey's Anatomy, expect the slip up sooner rather than later.

Where do you stand on Minnick after her big screw-up? Let us know in the comments below.

Grey's Anatomy airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on ABC.

E! Online - Your source for entertainment news, celebrities, celeb news, and celebrity gossip. Check out the hottest fashion, photos, movies and TV shows!

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Grey's Anatomy's Civil War Just Took on Collateral Damage & Eliza Will Never Be the Same - E! Online

Anatomy of a sell out: why Isis targets scholars for working with the government – The Guardian

Islamic State (Isis) has ordered its followers to kill three Sydney imams: the Grand Mufti of Australia, Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohammed (pictured); Sheikh Shady Alsuleiman; and Sheikh Ahmed Abdo. Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP

Ive been called many things in my time working for the Muslim community in Sydney, but there is a recurring name that has stuck: sell out. Although often associated with musical acts that move from indie niche to mainstream success, abandoning their fans and values in the meantime, it has come to mean something slightly different to Muslims.

To Muslims, selling out refers to making a compromise on your beliefs and is often associated with engagement with power structures. On the surface, this logic is based on the idea that engagement with these structures, especially in the west, can never be genuine and can never be on Muslim terms.

It is upon this logic that Islamic State (Isis) has ordered its followers to kill three Sydney imams: the Grand Mufti of Australia, Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohammed; Sheikh Shady Alsuleiman; and Sheikh Ahmed Abdo. All three are known for their work in engaging different communities and working with government, policing agencies or with other faith groups.

By trying to excommunicate these sheikhs and essentially branding them as sell outs, Isis is seeking to justify its call to violence against them. The use of such inflammatory rhetoric, as a form of propaganda, is neither new nor exclusive to Isis, and has been used time and again by groups from across the political spectrum. However, it is vital to note that what lies beneath the rhetoric from all sides is an important point on engagement.

Its important to state (although it has been said in a variety of ways, ad infinitum), that the violence of Isis is abhorrent and unacceptable. The best way to thumb our collective nose at their desire to be part of a discussion about faith and engagement would be to have that conversation without their input or presence.

The term sell out is used as a counter to a power imbalance, as a means of expressing distrust in the avenues for engagement between Muslim communities and state power structures. And it is here where the conversation must begin when discussing the reasons for branding such individuals in this way.

Engagement in and of itself must be underscored by a power balance between the participating parties. Without this balance, what will result is a skewed conversation, one that is almost theatre in the way it follows a pre-determined script. What is not to be spoken about is ignored, what is focused upon is the symbolism and platitudes that are used to maintain the status quo.

By taking part in these so-called conversations without the ability to frame the discussion or the ability to have it on our terms, Muslims become complicit in our own silence. Moreover, we are also complicit in the injustices eked out under that silence, having been unable to break the cycle of violence and enforced obliviousness.

The wounds and trauma of the Syrian civil war, the Iraq war, the invasion of Afghanistan, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the Lebanese civil war, and the current violence in Yemen all of these conflicts are partly the result of the interference of western powers, both recent and long-standing. Colonisation continues to deeply affect communities, with the trauma lasting generations as the entire region seeks to reconcile its history with its present, and its people with the interests of foreign powers.

These scars, fresh or deep, are at the forefront of any conversation on power and politics, no matter the level or relevance. Conversations at all levels must be framed by these injustices, by a global, historical, political context that would seek to be guided by a need to recognise and right those injustices.

So, when the Muslim community is in conversation with government agencies or police, on any particular issue, whether it be criminality, socio-economic challenges, obstacles to education and so on, the coordinates of that conversation need to be reset.

Unfortunately, when discussing something apparently irrelevant to international politics or history, respectability politics plays a huge role, with nobody wanting to appear rude or inconsiderate. However, it is essential we shelve such considerations in the face of a growing need to reshape the way we think about engagement with government and police.

And its here where the notion of the sell out remerges, because without its global or historical context these conversations will continue to exclude and alienate any group or party seeking to have their scars recognised and healed.

Without it, genuine progress will be hampered by the notion of the sell out, both in conversations with institutions of power, and with a community continuously sidelined and dismissed.

At the end of the day, its not that I dont want people to call me a sell out, its that I want to see the roots of that notion no longer dismissed as just a rhetorical tool used by fringe groups. There are genuine problems with the way we, as a community and as a nation, see engagement, and until we fix that, the issues we face will never be addressed.

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Anatomy of a sell out: why Isis targets scholars for working with the government - The Guardian

Anatomy of a Cheese Recall – The Atlantic

These are chaotic times for Americans. The nationwide cheese recall, I mean. (What did you think I was talking about?)

Several well-known cheese brandsincluding Sargento, Meijer, Santino, Amish Classics, Country Fresh, and Guggisberghave issued recalls of Colby, pepper jack, shredded taco, and cheddar cheeses among concerns about listeria contamination at a cheese factory in Indiana. No illnesses have yet been reported.

Listeriosis, the foodborne illness that the Listeria monocytogenes bacteria causes, is a particular danger for those with weakened immune systems. In pregnant women, listeria can cause premature labor, miscarriages, and stillbirth. Listeria is an especially resilient bacteriaunlike many other germs, it can keep growing in a cool fridge.

The danger of an infection is part of why cheese sellers have voluntarily recalled their products in this case. But, as is often the case, the recalls have trickled out over the course of the past week. The timing raises questions about how food safety is handled and discussed among manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, and regulatorsand further questions still about how long it takes for consumers to be notified of possible contamination.

For cheese eaters, the questions are straightforward: Where did the contaminated cheese come from? And how do I know if the cheese I have in my refrigerator is safe to eat?

The answers arent always easy to find.

This recall began with Deutsch Kase Haus, a cheesemaker in Indiana that sells cheese to various companies which then package the cheese under different brand names. Deutsch Kase Haus issued a voluntary recall for products made at its factory between September 1, 2016 and January 27, 2017.

But we are a business-to-business provider, so we do not label anything under our brand, Mark Hubbard, a spokesman for Deutsch Kase Haus told me, which means we have a number of customers that fall under that productand each of those customers are the ones that actually initiate their own recalls that are put up on the FDA website.

In other words, its up to Deutsch Kase to notify its customers, like Sargento, of the possible contaminationthen its up to those brands to communicate next steps to the the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the public. ( The FDA is inspecting the plant as part of a coordinated effort with the Indiana Board of Animal Health on the investigation, Peter Cassell, a spokesman for the FDA, told me.)

In some cases, brand-name companies will expand the recall to other products of theirs, in case the contamination spreads from, say, compromised cheese, to other products processed or packaged in the same facility. Once a food recall is issued, each company that's been affected has to then look at how contamination may have spread through its own plant. So more and more products may be pulled into the recall over time. And since each company has its own protocols to follow, they end up issuing their recalls on different timelines. Thats why its important for consumers to periodically check back to the FDA website to see how recalls change in scope, Hubbard told me.

All of this becomes more complicated still as supply chains grow longer and longer, and as agriculture and food companies consolidate. The globalization of food supply chains makes widespread outbreaks more likely, and in some ways more difficult to track. Already there are nearly 50 million foodborne infections in the United States each yearand they cause about 250,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths, according to a 2012 paper published by the Institute of Medicine. Changes in the globalization of the food trade have important implications for food safety, the papers authors wrote. Mitigating the increased risks associated with a longer, globalized supply-chain will require robust capacity for public-health surveillance.

Such surveillance could involve cheap sensors, smart labels, real-time database sharing, temperature-reading packaging, and other tools to change the way people are notified of spoiled or recalled food.

The current cheese recall was initiated, Hubbard told me, out of an abundance of caution. Its still possible, officials hope, that no illnesses will occur as a result. For now, operations at Deutsch Kase are suspended entirely, while the FDA investigates, Hubbard said.

You have to be very careful, and you have to go beyond what you think could be happening, Hubbard said. Its good that word is getting out. We want people to be cautious.

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Anatomy of a Cheese Recall - The Atlantic

Business rates: the anatomy of a tax controversy – Reaction

Even the Daily Mail is splashing business rates on its front page. What has this most unglamorous of taxes done to deserve that?

For many businesses, rates are a bigger headache than corporation tax. After all, they only have to pay the latter if they are profitable. There is no such escape from rates. The trouble is the way they are levied. To figure out how much it owes, a business first needs to know the theoretical amount that someone would pay to rent the premises it occupies. This rateable value is determined during a periodic exercise by the valuation office agency. The business has to pay roughly half of the rateable value as a tax each year. It doesnt matter if the business is doing well or seriously struggling, it still has to cough up.

At the best of times, the tax is unfair in the way that it hits some kinds of trade harder than others. A bookshop in the High Street of a pretty country town might not make much money. But it has to pay business rates that reflect the gentrified area in which it is located. Conversely, a small office in an out-of-town development might contain a few highly paid executives for whom the business rates are not a significant cost.

In short, business rates are oppressive for a retailer which has to locate close to its customers. One result is that charity shops, that get an automatic 80% rebate, have colonised high streets where regular stores are priced out. The Government periodically promises a review of business rates but the chance of serious reform founders on the need to raise the same amount of money after any changes. Nonetheless, there are plenty of exemptions and reliefs, such as those for village shops and pubs, which mean everyone else has to pay even more.

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The current hullabaloo, reflected in the Daily Mail and other papers, is simply the regular revaluation exercise intended to keep rates fair. Although the total amount to be raised isnt increasing much, there are, inevitably, winners and losers. The winners, which allegedly include Amazons warehouses, are quietly satisfied. The losers, comprising popular brands and small shops, are outraged. Numerically, it also looks like the losers may outnumber the winners, further increasing the volume of their complaints. The Government itself has made matters worse. The revaluation was supposed to happen in 2015 but, since it did not want the resulting controversy to hit just before a general election, it postponed the changes until this year. As a result, many ratepayers are seeing much bigger revaluations than they would have done had the exercise taken place two years ago as scheduled.

In some ways, business rates are the commercial equivalent of council tax. Like with council tax, the revenue raised goes to fund local government. A total of 26 billion a year is collected and, through a complicated formula, it is redistributed to local authorities. Unlike council tax, business rates are not automatically spent in the same area in which they are collected. My local authority of Tunbridge Wells, being quite a wealthy borough, keeps a tiny proportion of the rates it collects. Councils dont even get much say on what the level of rates should be. Since the 1980s that has be set by central government. Going forward, local authorities will get to keep increases in the money raised from business rates in their patch, but conversely they are on the hook if they do not manage to collect enough.

The Government will be very keen to face down the current resistance. Assuaging those seeing increases in their rates will cost money that it does not have. David Gauke, Financial Secretary to the Treasury and a politician who radiates seriousness, has been dispatched to calm things down. Number 10 will be hopeful that when Article 50 is debated by the House of Lords next week, public attention will be distracted from business rates (that most people know nothing about) and the Daily Mail will come back onside.

However, all this could merely be a dress rehearsal for what would happen if there was ever a council tax revaluation. Council tax is calculated from the value of our homes in 1991, which is now hopelessly out of date. But given the regular angst caused by business rates changes, it is no surprise that ministers have repeatedly refused to countenance a revamp of residential property taxes. That would just be asking for trouble.

James Hannam is the author of What Everyone Needs to Know about Tax, to be published by Wiley on Budget day.

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Business rates: the anatomy of a tax controversy - Reaction