PFT: Smith, Barkley highlight 333 Combine invitees

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Former Cowboys defensive lineman Tony Casillas says that when the team was winning Super Bowls in the 1990s, players frequently used a medication meant for horses.

Asked on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas about Ray Lewis?s alleged use of a banned substance contained in deer antler spray, Casillas said he doesn?t know about that ? but he does know about another substance that was prevalent in the Cowboys? locker room.

?When I heard about deer antler spray, when I heard that, I said, ?That?s nothing,?? Casillas said. ?We used to use this stuff called DMSO. That?s what veterinarians put on horses, on a muscle, so this is stuff that you can rub, and we used it in the locker room. We had a bottle and you?d take it. It goes straight to the bloodstream. And I?m not sure about this deer antler stuff, but, I mean, it was prevalent in our locker room. It?s called DMSO. You get it from the veterinarian and it goes right to the bloodstream. It?s an ointment that?s like anti-inflammatory. You put it on your skin and you put it on a muscle, and I guarantee you, in about 30 minutes you?d feel it. It wasn?t on the list. If you?re going to talk about the deer antler stuff, we used DMSO and people knew it. Everyone knew about it.?

DMSO is an abbreviation for dimethyl sulfoxide, and although it is rarely mentioned in performance-enhancing drug scandals these days, its use by athletes was the source of some controversies in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1981, then-Falcons quarterback June Jones said he and his teammates regularly used DMSO and argued that it should be legalized for human use. Although veterinarians prescribe DMSO for animals as an anti-inflammatory, the FDA has approved DMSO only for very limited use for people with a chronic bladder condition, and has warned that DMSO is often fraudulently marketed as a miracle drug for humans, and that it has significant side effects.

Casillas noted that ?it wasn?t on the list? of substances banned by the NFL, although he also seemed to acknowledge that it was improper for Cowboys players to obtain a prescription from a veterinarian and then use the substance on humans.

?Let?s put it this way: If you?ve got to get it from a veterinarian, it?s probably ? it?s kind of like getting Winstrol V, they?ve got to get it from a vet, but that?s a steroid,? he said.

Casillas made his comments in a radio appearance in which he promoted a health center that urges men to get their testosterone levels checked and to take prescription testosterone if their levels are low. But in that case, men are getting testosterone from a medical doctor, not a veterinarian.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/02/07/list-of-invitees-to-the-nfl-combine-announced/related/

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PayPal offers preview of much-needed site redesign, finally enters Web 2.0

While PayPal's recently revamped homepage looks fresh and modern, the actual account interface is still mired in the past, seemingly unchanged since the early aughts when the company first hit it big alongside Ugg boots and American Idol. As the online payment giant seeks to reinvent itself however, it's finally bringing the site design into the future. PayPal has offered a sneak peek at the new look, and it's certainly more in line with current design tropes, with a cleaner and clearer aesthetic and improved navigation to boot. The refreshed design also hints at the company's upcoming retail efforts like in-store checkouts and purchasing grace periods where you can buy the item at the store, bring it home and then decide where the funds should come from. We're still not sure when the redesign will roll out, but we're guessing it'll be around when those Discover Network cards come into play. For more screenshots of the new PayPal, take the design tour at the source.

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Via: The Next Web

Source: PayPal

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/08/paypal-site-redesign/

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Green Blog: The Sockeye's Secret Compass

Every summer, millions of sockeye salmon flood into the Fraser River in British Columbia, clogging its shivering waters with their brilliant blushing bodies.

Scientists and spectators alike have long been awed by the sockeye?s audacious struggle to swim upstream to spawn. And while it has been known for years that a salmon can smell its way up the river to find its natal stream, no one has been able to explain just how these beautiful and economically vital fish find their way back from the open ocean, 4,000 or 5,000 miles away, to the right river mouth.

Now, research from Oregon State University provides the first evidence that sockeye are guided home after two years at sea by a memory of the magnetic landscape of the river. The results of the study appear in the latest issue of Current Biology.

Many animals including seals, sea turtles and some migratory birds have all been shown to use magnetic fields to navigate. Just last summer, scientists discovered tiny iron crystals in the nose of rainbow trout, a close relative of the sockeye, that allow the fish to detect the changes in the earth?s magnetic field.

Nathan Putman, a postdoctoral researcher at Oregon State and the lead author on the study, took advantage of 56 years of fishery data and the unique geography of the coastline of British Columbia to show that sockeye recognize what home should look like, at least, magnetically speaking.

?When sockeye have gotten nice and fat out in the Pacific and start heading home to spawn, they have to decide which way to swim around Vancouver Island,? Dr. Putman said. ?There?s this 300-kilometer [185-mile] piece of land blocking their entry into the Fraser River from the ocean, and they either have to swim north by way of the Queen Charlotte Strait, or south through the Strait of Juan de Fuca.?

The fishery data Dr. Putman examined tracks whether salmon return by way of the southern waterway, which is shared by the United States and Canada, or the northern route, which is the exclusive economic property of Canada. Hidden in all the numbers collected by fishery officials for divvying up the catch, Dr. Putman discovered that when the magnetic field of the northern passageway was similar to what was experienced by the fish two years ago upon leaving the Fraser, more of the salmon chose the north route. When the magnetic field of the south was more similar, more went that way.

?When the sockeye? leave the Fraser as juveniles, that first encounter with saltwater is like a kick in the face,? Dr. Putman said. He said that it was as if to say: ?This is important You have to remember this magnetic map. And they do.?

?As the sockeye swim southward along the coast on their way back home, they are looking for a magnetic signal that is close in intensity to what they remember from years ago,? he said.

Other factors like food availability and especially water temperature can also affect the path taken by the sockeye, but Dr. Putman said he was surprised by the degree to which the magnetic fields seem to be controlling the route.

?I know it might seem fantastical to some people that fish have evolved compasses in their noses,? he said. ?But remember, a sockeye only gets to do this once. They have just one chance to spawn and pass on their genes so there is huge selective pressure for them to get it right.?

Source: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/the-sockeyes-secret-compass/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Twitter Hack Ratchets Up Security Jitters

Twitter has joined a rapidly growing list of U.S. companies to report a major cybersecurity incident. The social network admitted late last week that it was able to shut down a live attack, but not before hackers may have been able to access personal information on 250,000 users.

Source: http://ectnews.com.feedsportal.com/c/34520/f/632000/s/28408dec/l/0L0Stechnewsworld0N0Crsstory0C772280Bhtml/story01.htm

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10 Things to Know for Wednesday

Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about Wednesday:

1. UNLIKELY ALLIES ZERO IN ON IMMIGRATION

Business, union leaders are hoping to create a guest-worker program to ensure future immigrants come to the U.S. legally.

2. WHO'S LEADING AN ATTACK ON DRONES

Democrats in Congress want to limit Obama's use of the unmanned spacecraft to kill suspected terrorists.

3. MORSI ROLLS OUT WELCOME MAT FOR AHMADINEJAD

A visit to Egypt by an Iranian leader would have been unthinkable under Mubarak, who shared Washington's deep suspicion of Tehran.

4. SIX SPANISH TOURISTS RAPED IN MEXICAN RESORT

For years, Acapulco has been battered by drug gang killings ? but violence has rarely touched visitors.

5. WHAT WAS IN AN UNDERGROUND BUNKER IN ALABAMA

The FBI found two bombs, one inside and one in a pipe used to communicate, on the property where a 5-year-old had been held hostage.

6. WHY TURNAROUND TRY IS PERSONAL FOR DELL FOUNDER

A $24.4B stock buyout could give Michael Dell ? the Zuckerberg of his day ? a chance to prove himself again.

7. OBAMA TO MAKE FIRST VISIT TO ISRAEL AS PRESIDENT

The trip also includes Jordan and the West Bank as the U.S. seeks to invigorate peace talks.

8. HOW THE CAT INTERNET INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX IS GROWING

Furry online stars are making their meows heard offline, with book deals, film festivals and corporate sponsors.

9. BEST BET FOR THE GRAMMYS

AP Music Writers Mesfin Fekadu and Chris Talbott predict Frank Ocean will win Best New Artist on Sunday.

10. A PAINFUL END TO LINDSEY VONN'S SEASON

She tears two ligaments in her knee and breaks her lower leg on a hard landing.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/10-things-know-wednesday-103500895.html

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For Beckham in Paris, flashbulbs burn differently

A man looks at a soccer shirt on display with the name of British soccer player David Beckham, at the the Club's shop on the Champs Elysees, in Paris, Friday, Feb. 1, 2013. The jersey is on sale for euros 110 ($150). David Beckham lit up a subdued transfer deadline day in Europe by securing perhaps the final move of his globetrotting career, a surprise short-term deal with ambitious French club Paris Saint-Germain. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

A man looks at a soccer shirt on display with the name of British soccer player David Beckham, at the the Club's shop on the Champs Elysees, in Paris, Friday, Feb. 1, 2013. The jersey is on sale for euros 110 ($150). David Beckham lit up a subdued transfer deadline day in Europe by securing perhaps the final move of his globetrotting career, a surprise short-term deal with ambitious French club Paris Saint-Germain. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

PARIS (AP) ? In London, the paparazzi hunt in packs, as David Beckham and other celebrities know well. When Beckham moved to Los Angeles, high-speed road chases by photographers were the norm until a Hollywood star became governor and set a few ground rules. The Parisians ? soon to have the star in their midst, playing for soccer club Paris-Saint Germain ? catch their prey from a distance, equipped with long lenses all the better to see you with.

Three different cities, all feeding a public hungry for celebrities in their own ways.

As the Beckham phenomenon takes on the City of Light, the PSG store was selling jerseys already bearing his name and people were speculating about where he might live.

His wife Victoria, the former Spice Girl turned fashion designer, is staying behind in Britain but expected to pay frequent visits to the world capital for haute couture.

Games that were already sold out to a Parisian audience are likely to get more global recognition.

"Everybody knows David Beckham intimately. ... It's not Beckham, the flesh-and-blood Beckham, it's the Beckham in our own imagination. But then again that's what celebrities are, aren't they? Products of our own imaginations," said Ellis Cashmore, a sociologist at Britain's Staffordshire University who writes about celebrity, sports and media.

Beckham may have to reacquaint himself with the intrusions of European paparazzi, Cashmore said. In 2007, when Beckham joined the Los Angeles Galaxy and moved to California with his family, he said he once counted 47 cameras following him. It got so bad that when he was a guest on Jay Leno's show, Beckham apologized for the craziness in the neighborhood the two men shared.

Leno said he knew something was up when the photographers kept waving him along, hoping instead for a glimpse of Beckham. But the soccer player said Los Angeles wasn't nearly as bad as London.

"So far the paparazzi have actually been really kind to us," he told Leno at the time. "In England we've got a problem at the moment where 15- or 16-year-old children are given cameras and being told to get whatever shot they can."

Two years later under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who knew about the problem firsthand, California passed a law that targeted celebrity photographers and their reckless driving.

"Beckham has obviously lived in that environment and probably got used to living without paparazzi but he's going to have to get used to them all over again I imagine now because they will be following his every movement in Europe. But I'm guessing he's quite comfortable with that," said Cashmore, who wrote the book "Beckham."

But where British celebrity photographers are known for swarming a star on the street, the French tend to keep their distance and stay undercover.

"We function in a different way," said a French photographer who covered Beckham's arrival in Paris on Thursday and saw the difference firsthand. The photographer refused to be named, saying his job depended upon remaining incognito. "Discretion allows us to get images that are a little more interesting."

The 1997 death of Princess Diana, killed in a Paris car wreck as her driver raced away from pursuing photographers was a major turning point for some in the profession, especially in a shocked France.

And it was long-distance discretion in the south of France that snared the former Kate Middleton, who was snapped sunbathing topless in a villa the royal family had thought to be safely private for the Duchess of Cambridge and her husband Prince William, Diana's son.

The French photographer said the British paparazzi were perfectly able to manage in Paris nonetheless, especially with someone like Beckham who "plays the game."

"If there was a French player who went to London, we'd be a bit lost," he added.

Paris isn't Los Angeles, the mother lode for celebrity photographers. Or even London, which has the royal family and ? of course ? all the Beckhams but one.

Beckham won't be the only Angeleno transplanted to the banks of the Seine. It was announced last week that Natalie Portman and her husband, the French dancer Benjamin Millepied, will move to Paris in 2014 from Los Angeles.

___

Associated Press writer Sarah DiLorenzo in Paris contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-02-01-Beckham-Flashbulbs%20in%20Paris/id-9d263d11a1434e0fa9ae52afa9ca3f1f

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Fed officials see brighter global economic outlook

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two top Federal Reserve officials painted a picture of cautious optimism on Friday for the U.S. economy in 2013, helped by stronger global growth as the central bank aggressively prints money to curb the nation's lofty rate of unemployment.

The Fed this week decided to keep buying bonds at a $85 billion monthly pace, and hold interest rates near zero until the jobless rate falls to 6.5 percent, so long as inflation does not threaten to rise above a threshold of 2.5 percent.

U.S. unemployment edged up 0.1 percentage point to 7.9 percent in January, and the economy shrank slightly in the final quarter of 2012.

But New York Federal Reserve President William Dudley and St. Louis Fed chief James Bullard, who both voted in favor of the U.S. central bank's policy decision this week, saw reasons to be cheerful about the year ahead.

Their remarks are the first public comments by Fed policy-makers since the central bank issued a statement on Wednesday outlining its decision to keep in place an unprecedented level of monetary stimulus, which has tripled its balance sheet to almost $3 trillion since 2008.

"I think a lot of uncertainties that were around this economy in 2012 have come off the table," Bullard told Bloomberg Television in an interview.

"The (U.S.) election has come off. Some of the fiscal risk that was in the U.S. has come off. The European situation has settled down a lot. China looks like it will have a better year. Emerging markets generally...will have a better year," he said.

U.S. lawmakers on Thursday voted to allow the federal government to keep borrowing money until at least May 19, averting a potential collision with the U.S. debt limit that could have caused the nation to default on its debt obligations.

Politicians had already sidestepped potential tax hikes on all Americans at the start of 2013 by agreeing to raise taxes only on families who make more than $450,000 a year.

SLOWING BOND PURCHASES?

Bullard, who is viewed as a centrist on the Fed's 19-member policy committee, said that continued improvements in the labor market during the course of the year would put the Fed "in a position to slow down or stop the purchases."

A closely watched employment report released by the U.S. government earlier on Friday showed that 157,000 new jobs were created in January, while the previous two months' scale of employment creation was also revised higher. U.S. stocks rallied on the news.

"Things aren't perfect. But things are definitely improving, and that will actually be helpful for the U.S. outlook," Dudley told the New York Bankers Association in a speech that was mostly focused on revamping the wholesale funding market.

"If the rest of the world gets healthier, the demand for U.S. goods and services will increase and that will provide support to our own economy," he said.

With the Fed forecasting unemployment to decline only slowly over the next two years, economists do not expect it to begin raising interest rates until 2015 and see bond purchases continuing for the rest of this year and possibly into 2014.

However, minutes of the Fed's December 11-12 meeting, which were released with a three-week lag, showed that several policymakers wanted to slow or halt the buying well before the end of 2013.

Bullard, who had opposed the third round of bond purchases when it was announced in September, said he voted to back its continuation at the most recent meeting because it was a decision to keep policy steady.

"I felt that was probably the right thing to do at this meeting and so I was in agreement with the chairman and the majority in this case," he said.

However, he made clear that the central bank's policy committee continued to wrestle with quantitative easing.

Nor was there any consensus on providing markets with more clues on when the purchases will end, beyond current Fed guidance that it will look for a substantial improvement in the labor market outlook in weighing when to stop.

"I don't think we have any more agreement among members at this point," he said.

Some Fed officials favor adopting numerical economic thresholds to guide expectations of when buying will end. But Fed-watchers doubt the committee will be able to quickly come to a consensus over this matter, and it may prove impossible.

(Reporting By Alister Bull)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fed-officials-see-brighter-global-economic-outlook-184655413--business.html

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