Life Is Short; Enjoy Every Sandwich

In a former life, I sometimes counseled small business owners who were going through a difficult time in their business. The circumstances would be so desperate and the prognosis so dire that the person on whom this business’s buck stopped would be close to being unable to function.

Having been there myself and calling upon what I had learned about what really matters, I would begin a visit with, “How are your children?”

When I asked the same question again, they would invariably respond, “They’re fine. I’m about to lose my business. Why are you asking me about my family?”

To which I would respond, “Does anything else REALLY matter?”

The late 20th century rock star and malcontent, Warren Zevon, succumbed to lung cancer at 52. If poets were punctuation, Zevon was a great, big, bold, in-your-face exclamation point in a world with too many pedestrian periods.

One Life to Live Names New Showrunner

One Life to Live is one step closer to coming back.

The daytime soap's former coordinating producer Jennifer Pepperman has named the new showrunner, Soap Opera Digest reports.

Check out the sexiest soap opera stars

Pepperman worked on One Life to Live as a coordinating producer from 1998 to 2000, and as an associate director in 2010. She directed episodes of both One Life to Live and As the World Turns, the latter for which she won an Emmy in 2007.

She also worked as a production coordinator on Guiding Light.

After talks fell through for production studio Prospect Park to bring back canceled soaps One Life to Live and All My Children online in late 2011, Prospect Park signed deals with the actors and directors guilds to begin production on both shows in the first quarter of 2013.

Study finds spiritual care still rare at end of life

Physicians and nurses at four Boston medical centers cited a lack of training to explain why they rarely provide spiritual care for terminally ill cancer patients - although most considered it an important part of treatment at the end of life.

"I was quite surprised that it was really just lack of training that dominated the reasons why," senior author Dr. Tracy Balboni, a radiation oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, told Reuters Health.

Current U.S. palliative care guidelines encourage medical practitioners to pay close attention to religious and spiritual needs that may arise during a patient's end-of-life care.

However, the 204 physicians who participated in the study reported providing spiritual care to just 24 percent of their patients. Among 118 nurses, the figure was 31 percent.

The 69 patients with advanced cancers who took the survey reported even lower rates, saying 14 percent of nurses and six percent of physicians had provided them some sort of spiritual care.

Past research has shown that spiritual care for seriously ill patients improves their quality of life, increases their overall satisfaction with hospital care and decreases aggressive medical treatment, which may in turn result in lower overall health spending.

"There was a time when nurses and physicians may have said, 'That's not my job,' but I think the tides are changing," said palliative care researcher Betty Ferrell of City of Hope, a cancer research and treatment hospital in Duarte, California.

"I think we are realizing we can no longer ignore this aspect of care," said Ferrell, a professor of nursing who was not involved in the new study.

Yet the reasons why spiritual care is rarely incorporated into patient treatment and dialogue have been poorly understood.

To gain more insight, Balboni and her colleagues designed a survey - the first of its kind, to their knowledge - to compare attitudes toward spiritual care across randomly chosen patients, nurses and doctors in oncology departments at four hospitals.

The questions were geared toward identifying barriers preventing healthcare professionals from delivering spiritual care, beginning with whether anyone felt it was inappropriate for them to be doing so.

The participants' answers indicated that, on the contrary, a majority of providers and patients supported the appropriateness of eight specific examples of spiritual care, such as a doctor or nurse praying with a patient at his or her request or referring the patient to a hospital chaplain.

Next, the researchers asked participants to rate previous spiritual care experiences. Again, most ranked these as having a positive impact on care. A fourth possibility offered to nurses and doctors was lack of time.

"Indeed we found that on average 73 percent reported time to be a significant barrier to spiritual care provision to patients," Balboni told Reuters Health in an email.

But those who noted insufficient time as a problem provided spiritual care just as often as those who reported having enough time. That suggested time was not an issue after all, she added.

In fact, a lack of training stood out as the biggest barrier to providing spiritual care in this small study.

Only 13 percent of doctors and nurses reported having ever received spiritual care training.

But those who had training were seven to 11 times more likely to provide spiritual care to their patients than those who hadn't been trained.

A lack of "models" for training healthcare professionals to tend to patients' spiritual needs seems to be the underlying problem, Balboni told Reuters Health.

"There are some basic models, but a rigorously developed spiritual care training model has not been established," she said.

Ferrell, who leads End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium workshops, said such small-scale organized training opportunities are drops in the bucket of a huge unmet training need.

"We can't practice what we don't know," she said. "Physicians and nurses have never been taught to access and respond to spiritual need."

In addition to training, the field of spiritual care needs a clear definition, said Dr. Christina Puchalski, director of the George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health in Washington, D.C.

"There is quite a bit of controversy about asking only about religion," Puchalski said. "But previous studies have shown that it's not a patient's particular religious denomination that matters, but what gives meaning and purpose in peoples' lives -things such as family, arts, work, nature, yoga and other values."

Puchalski, who invented a basic spiritual assessment questionnaire that is in wide use, added that the study could have benefitted by asking patients if nurses and doctors acted compassionately toward them, which is another example of spiritual care.

In a country full of diverse cultures, spiritual care may be intimidating to medical workers, but training can help with that, Ferrell said.

"For example, if we have a patient who says, 'I'm very devout in my faith and I never make decisions without consulting my rabbi,' then we immediately take that into account - perhaps by giving the patient extra time between procedures," she noted.

"Patients are telling us spiritual care has to be done with greater intention," Ferrell said.

Avant rose from gang life to a man of Christ

Jason Avant raises his hands to the sky after every reception in celebration for much more than catching a ball.

Playing football for the Philadelphia Eagles doesn't define Avant. After everything he's endured, the 29-year-old wide receiver is not your ordinary professional athlete.

Avant was 12 when he started selling drugs. He went to elementary school drunk and high. As a teenager, he belonged to one of Chicago's notorious gangs called the ''Gangsters Disciples.'' Dodging bullets and running from the police were common for him.

Yet somehow Avant escaped that life and avoided ending up dead or in jail like some of his friends. Now he's one of the most respected players in the NFL.

''When I lift my hands up, it's me saying 'Lord, I know where I could be and I thank you for where I am,''' Avant recalled last week. ''There were times when I was growing up when I didn't have enough to scrounge up a quarter to get an ICEE. I remember the times our house was shot up. I remember when I didn't have any avenues, when I sold drugs. So I lift my hands up and thank the Lord for all He has done for me.''

Avant grew up on the South Side of Chicago in a neighborhood riddled with gangs, drugs and violence. He was abandoned by his mother as a kid and was raised by his grandmother because his father was in and out of jail.

It's no wonder Avant got caught up with the wrong crowd. He lived in the same house with 12 to 14 relatives and was influenced by his cousins.

But his grandmother Lillie wanted a better life for young Jason and she refused to give up on him. She used the power of prayer to steer him in the right direction.

''She was a great woman, a saved woman,'' Avant said with a big smile as he talked about ''Granny.''
''She would pray for me every night. 'Lord, let him be different. Let his life change.' I was her favorite and everybody knew it. We didn't have much money, so I would sleep in the same room as my grandmother. She would lay her hands on me for an hour at night and just pray for me.''

Avant would go to church with his grandmother on Sundays and return to the streets to sell drugs with his gang friends. However, words from the service would be ringing in his ears the whole time.

''I was the worst drug dealer in the world,'' he said. ''I had too much of a conscience from going to church, and sitting there hearing the songs would always make me cry because I knew I was selling drugs. But God had a different plan for me.''

Avant's grandmother eventually sold her house after it was raided twice by police. A third raid would've meant the state would seize the house and evict the family. So the cousins scattered and Avant ended up moving in with his Aunt Shirley. Like Granny, she encouraged Avant to go to church and stay in school.
''I quit selling drugs because I was away from my cousins and I got into basketball,'' Avant said. ''Wherever I was going, my grandmother's prayers stayed with me.''

Avant's dad, Jerry, took him in whenever he was released from prison, only to have to send him back after getting arrested again. Three times, Avant moved to Decatur, Ill., with his father, then went back to Chicago. He had no stability in his life and struggled terribly with his grades.

Avant had a tough time finding a high school to start his sophomore year. He ended up at Carver, which was in the middle of the projects.

''There were dead bodies, metal detectors, drugs in lockers, all that type of stuff,'' Avant said. ''A teacher got killed and her body was found in a dumpster all cut up. A guy I played basketball with got shot.''

Sports and prayer helped Avant stay free from harm. Avant was a talented basketball player. His coach, Willie Simpson, also coached the football team and told him he had to play both sports or neither.
Avant's first day at football practice didn't go so well. They put him at linebacker and ran a fullback straight at him. Avant, only 175 pounds at the time, got flattened.

''He wanted to see if I was tough enough, so I quit,'' Avant said. ''But my grandma and dad talked me into going back.''

Avant was switched to fullback, where he got more carries than the starting running back. He moved to wide receiver his junior year and quickly became the top-ranked prep player in Illinois and one of the highest-rated players in the country.

Scholarships poured in from several high-profile universities. Avant chose Michigan.

Still, there were obstacles. The NCAA questioned his eligibility because of his grades. Some of his school records got lost in all the shuffling. Avant feared he'd lose his scholarship. He prayed with his grandmother for a solution, and it was resolved with him only having to sit out one game.

When Avant got to Ann Arbor, his roommate, running back Alijah Bradley, was a pastor's son. Avant and Bradley were typical college freshmen on a big campus, living it up and having fun.

But when Bradley got hurt during the spring before sophomore year, he decided he needed to go to church. Avant went with him. For two months, they would go each week.

On May 4, 2003, Avant's life changed forever. He was listening to Pastor Lovell Cannon's sermon at True Worship Church in Detroit when images from his life started flashing in his mind.

''The Lord began to replay all the times my was house was shot up when I was selling drugs. The bullet hole right where my grandmother sits and she wasn't in the chair. All the times the bullets just missed me or the shooters didn't see me,'' Avant said. ''I was in places where I had 15 guys running after my car with bats, weapons and all this stuff. God is replaying this through my mind and the last thing he says:

'I made a way for you to go to school. After all I have done for you, Jason, you can't surrender your life to me?' It was a miracle for me to go to school. I needed everything to go right. So I surrendered my life to him.''

Avant stopped drinking, partying, and even waited to get married before having sex again. Avant began studying the Bible as if it were his playbook.

Nowadays, he walks around the locker room singing gospel music and always carries the Bible. He leads teammates in Bible study on Thursdays and mentors young players and veterans. He quotes scripture the way movie buffs recite lines to their favorite film.

''The enemy can place thoughts in your mind through television, commercials and other forms of temptations,'' Avant said, ''so you have to have something to combat him, and studying scriptures and learning the word can combat him. The word gives you something to fight him.''

In an era of self-promotion and diva receivers, Avant is perhaps the most humble player in pro sports. He's in his seventh season with the Eagles and the third year of a five-year, $15 million contract extension signed in 2010. But Avant and his wife and two daughters live a modest lifestyle.

''God has blessed me with so much,'' he said. ''I think a Bentley looks fine. But what's that going to lead to? It's not necessary. What that is going to lead to is more distractions. ...

''You are a steward over what you have and if you let it get to your head, it can get stripped away.''

Great-West Life close to buying state-rescued insurer Irish Life: source

Canada Life, a unit of Canadian life insurer Great-West Lifeco , is close to a deal for state-rescued insurer Irish Life, a source familiar with the negotiations said on Sunday.

"It's at an advanced stage," the source said, requesting anonymity because he is not authorized to speak about the talks.

A spokesman for Irish Life declined to comment.

Irish Life, formerly the life insurance arm of bailed out Irish Life & Permanent, was taken over by the state after a planned sale of the unit was suspended last year. A source at that time told Reuters that Canada Life was the lead candidate to buy the group.

The Sunday Times newspaper reported that a deal would be agreed in the first quarter of next year.

Executives at Irish Life said in September that the company would need a period of sustained calm in the euro zone before the sale process would resume.

Ireland's government, which had already poured 2.7 billion euros ($3.6 billion) into IL&P to recapitalize its banking division, forked out 1.3 billion euros for Irish Life after a real estate and credit bubble burst, undermining the country's banking system and eventually forcing the government to seek a bailout.

Great-West Life close to buying state-rescued Irish Life-source

Canada Life, a unit of Canadian life insurer Great-West Lifeco, is close to a deal for state-rescued insurer Irish Life, a source familiar with the negotiations said on Sunday.

"It's at an advanced stage," the source said, requesting anonymity because he is not authorised to speak about the talks.

A spokesman for Irish Life declined to comment.

Irish Life, formerly the life insurance arm of bailed out Irish Life & Permanent, was taken over by the state after a planned sale of the unit was suspended last year. A source at that time told Reuters that Canada Life was the lead candidate to buy the group.

The Sunday Times newspaper reported that a deal would be agreed in the first quarter of next year.

Executives at Irish Life said in September that the company would need a period of sustained calm in the euro zone before the sale process would resume.

Ireland (OTC BB: IRLD - news) 's government, which had already poured 2.7 billion euros ($3.6 billion) into IL&P to recapitalise its banking division, forked out 1.3 billion euros for Irish Life after a real estate and credit bubble burst, undermining the country's banking system and eventually forcing the government to seek a bailout.

Life sentences in deaths of 2 Detroit-area women

The judge has ordered life sentences for three people convicted in the deaths of two Detroit-area women who were abducted, killed and buried in a park.

Wayne County Judge Vonda Evans called one man a "merciless mercenary" and another an "architect of death." Reginald Brown, cousin Jeremy Brown and Brandon Cain face mandatory life in prison without parole.
Brian Lee proclaimed his innocence before he was sentenced Friday to at least 45 years in prison for second-degree murder.

Hamtramck residents Abreeya Brown and Ashley Conaway were stuffed in a car trunk at gunpoint before they were killed in February. Police believe they were targeted for informing authorities about an earlier shooting.

A fifth defendant was sentenced last week to at least 20 years in prison.

BioSpace Spotlights Massachusetts' Life Science Community

Today BioSpace, the leading life sciences employment and news website, launched the 2012-2013 Genetown™ Hotbed Campaign, marking the campaign's fourteenth edition.

The Genetown Hotbed campaign launches each December, highlighting the top life science companies in Massachusetts. The state continues to be one of the leading biotech and pharmaceutical regions with more than 17 percent of all jobs on BioSpace.com out of Massachusetts. More than 130 Boston-area employers posted jobs to the site this year, demonstrating hiring health in the area.

"Life sciences job seekers regularly use the map as a tool to investigate the area's leading employers," said Chanille Hewett, life sciences product manager at onTargetjobs, the parent company of BioSpace. "In today's competitive recruiting environment map participation gives companies an advantage in reaching job seekers; last year employers received more than 16,000 applications from Massachusetts candidates through BioSpace."

Campaign participants include Bristol-Myers Squibb, Genzyme Corporation, Idenix Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Pfizer, Inc., and Sanofi Pasteur.

Genetown serves as part of a series of Hotbed campaigns, each hosted on its own BioSpace Web page.

Life Technologies 400 base-pair Sequencing Kit for Ion PGM Sequencer delivers reads 60 percent longer than comparable high-throughput benchtop sequencers

Life Technologies Corporation (LIFE) announced today a new 400 base-pair sequencing kit for the Ion PGM™ Sequencer. The kit produces reads 60 percent longer than comparable high-throughput benchtop sequencers, generating more complete bacterial de novo assemblies with longer contiguous sequences. To see a video about the 400 bp kit and other new products, click here.

"Ion Torrent's long, accurate 400 base pair reads enable excellent bacterial de novo assembly," said Professor Dag Harmsen, Head of Research, Department of Periodontology, University of Muenster, who used the Ion PGM™ Sequencer to help crack the E. coli outbreak in Germany in 2011. "Paired-end sequencing is not required to get the best results."

The Ion PGM™ sequencing 400 kit is ideal for applications that require capturing all the genetic variation in a long exon on a single read. For instance, long reads are critical for researchers trying to interpret genetic data from human leukocyte antigen (HLA) genes or 16S ribosomal genes.

"Sequencing the V1-V2 region of the bacterial 16s rRNA gene would not be possible on the Ion PGM™ without the longer 400 base pair reads," said Dr. George Watts, Research Assistant Professor and Co-Director, Genomic Shared Service, University of Arizona Cancer Center. "Using 400 base pair reads allows us to increase the information density of the amplicons and better define the constituents of complex microbial populations."

Ion Torrent continues to see rapid increases in accuracy on its Ion PGM™ and Ion Proton™ Sequencers as a result of consistent improvements in its algorithms. The new Torrent Suite v3.4 incorporates algorithmic improvements in both raw accuracy and consensus variant calling. These improvements enable both the Ion PGM™ and Ion Proton™ semiconductor sequencing platforms to routinely achieve greater than 99.996 percent consensus accuracy.

Life Technologies is also introducing two additional products, capping a year of extraordinary innovation that made the Ion PGM™ Sequencer the fastest-selling sequencer in the world:
 
The Ion Total RNA-Seq Kit for AB Library Builder™, which is designed to make cDNA library preparation for the semiconductor sequencing simple, fast and flexible. The Ion Total RNA-Seq Library Kit for AB Library Builder™ System enables the construction of cDNA libraries from both whole transcriptome and purified small RNA (miRNA) populations, allowing researchers to analyze all types of RNA molecules.

The Thermo Scientific® MuSeek™ Library Preparation Kit, provides a fast and simple transposon-based method for preparing high-quality genomic DNA libraries for the Ion PGM™ Sequencer. The kit utilizes MuA transposase enzyme for fragmentation and simultaneous tagging of the target DNA, eliminating the need for separate shearing and adaptor ligation steps. Life Technologies is excited to offer this new kit, which enables library construction in as little as 90 minutes, resulting in significant savings in time and cost.

The Ion Torrent products discussed in this press release are for Research Use Only, not for use in diagnostic procedures.

Life Sciences Industry Footprint Driven By R&D Productivity, Emerging Markets Sales

The areas where life sciences companies locate their facilities, commonly called industry clusters, are shifting worldwide as these companies respond to rising demand for new drugs in Asia and Latin America, significant patent expirations and the need for increased R&D productivity and innovation.  According to Jones Lang LaSalle's second annual Global Life Sciences Cluster Report, which will be broadly distributed in January 2013, life sciences companies are choosing cities where they can capture market opportunities for sales, drive R&D productivity and optimize operations.

With downward pricing pressure and the need to control facility costs, life sciences companies are making calculated and strategic decisions for their facilities investments. The historical dynamic of mature-market R&D discovery vs. offshoring lower-value operations is slowly evolving as emerging markets increasingly drive consumer demand.

"Major life sciences companies are optimizing their real estate and location strategies to be prepared for patent expirations – as well as to capture market opportunity in the Asia Pacific and Latin American regions," said Bill Barrett, Executive Managing Director, Life Sciences at Jones Lang LaSalle.  "Strategic facilities investments have become critical to keeping a tight rein on costs while continuing to find success through R&D investment and new drug discovery.'" 

While every regional cluster is unique, the interplay at a global level reveals clear trends separating mature versus emerging markets. Established life sciences clusters in mature markets are being driven by R&D success and proven innovation, while the potential for significant sales growth continues to push expansion in Asia Pacific and Latin America.

Evolving Consumer Demand Drivers Focus on Emerging Markets
Rising demand in emerging markets is driving more than sales offices; manufacturing and drug development operations are thriving as well, as clusters in emerging economies strive to move up the value chain while capturing local consumer demand, particularly in the Asia Pacific and Latin American regions.

By 2016, China is expected to leapfrog ahead of Japan and become second only to the United States as the world's largest pharmaceuticals market. Healthcare expenditure is growing rapidly as a percentage of GDP not only in China, but also in India and Indonesia—countries in which increased spending on public healthcare is widening the prospective patient pool and increasing consumer demand. Four of the largest pharmaceutical companies already earn a third of their revenues outside their traditional markets of the United States, Western Europe and Japan.

Emerging clusters in Asia Pacific and Latin America have long been destinations for clinical trials, manufacturing and distribution by multinational companies, which continue to make significant facilities investments in these regions. Despite increased affluence, for example, India continues to shine as a location for cost-effective clinical trials.

Despite the erosion of its cost advantage by rising wages and other factors, China also remains a very cost-effective site for R&D. In Beijing, for example, a global pharmaceutical company has launched a five-year $1.5 billion project to build a new facility to house 600 researchers focused on drug discovery and translational research, taking advantage of nearby major universities and hospitals along with lower facilities costs than would be found in more mature markets.

Some emerging clusters are aiming higher up the value chain as R&D support destinations. Clusters in Asia Pacific and Latin America are aggressively increasing their competitiveness and life sciences capabilities through economic incentives, public funding, education policies and stronger intellectual property protection and international cooperation. India, China and Singapore have been seeking to increase their presence in the industry beyond manufacturing, dedicating resources to fund intellectual capital, business parks and incubator centers while retaining a competitive cost environment for attract foreign direct investment in R&D.

"We are seeing even greater bifurcation of location strategies in response to industry stressors," said Barrett. "Multinationals are aggressively outsourcing operations to the most cost-effective locations, while focusing resources on increasing R&D productivity, either in mature clusters or in low-cost clinical trials locations."

India, China, Brazil and Singapore are also launching initiatives to ramp up the potential of domestic start-ups and intellectual property, while promoting the return of Western-trained scientists to help spark life sciences-related multinational and domestic economic development. The Chinese government reportedly is providing $1.6 billion in funding to stimulate domestic R&D drug research programs, along with stronger intellectual property protection, to seed future domestic life sciences innovation. These efforts are in early stages, although some have led to acquisition opportunities for multinationals.

R&D, Innovation Driving Mature Markets
Even as life sciences companies respond to the European sovereign debt crisis and related economic challenges, innovation centers like San Diego are gaining market share, with multiple middle market companies expanding into former laboratories vacated by multinational company mergers.

The pressure is on to capture growth opportunities in biologics and biosimilars, and to otherwise diversify product lines—whether through mergers, acquisitions or licensing—to compensate for the traditional long and costly biologics development lifecycle. According to Deloitte's 2012 "The Future of the Life Sciences" study, 90 percent of life sciences executives expect biotech companies to become the primary source of innovation in developed markets by 2015. These trends create new facilities portfolio challenges as companies strive to consolidate their holdings and determine the most effective locations for different aspects of their operations.  The Deloitte study also notes that more than half of life sciences executives expect to see further consolidation in the industry, with implications for facilities footprints.

Mature cluster bright spots include Greater Boston and Zurich, where world-class research facilities, deep intellectual capital and private-sector institutions continue to drive R&D facilities development activity.

"R&D productivity and operational efficiency are paramount," said Barrett. "Major life sciences companies continue to pay a premium for proximity to the intellectual capital and infrastructure that characterizes the mature clusters, while offshoring the more commodity-like functions to more affordable clusters."
Jones Lang LaSalle has a team of real estate and facility management experts dedicated to helping life sciences companies optimize and manage their real estate portfolios.  The firm provides a comprehensive range of facilities management services to the life sciences community covering 70 million square feet of research, manufacturing and commercial space. Jones Lang LaSalle's industry leading full-service platform includes: integrated facilities management, engineering and operations, energy and sustainability, transaction advisory services, lease administration, project management and a new platform for integrating laboratory services, Labwell.

A leader in the real estate outsourcing field, Jones Lang LaSalle's Corporate Solutions business helps corporations improve productivity in the cost, efficiency and performance of their national, regional or global real estate portfolios by creating outsourcing partnerships to manage and execute a range of corporate real estate services. This service delivery capability helps corporations improve business performance, particularly as companies turn to the outsourcing of their real estate activity as a way to manage expenses and enhance profitability.

Empire Life Powers Customer Centricity with Informatica

The Empire Life Insurance Company (Empire Life), one of the leading life insurance companies in Canada, is standardizing on the Informatica Platform to power customer centricity and maximize return on data enterprise-wide.

Informatica Corporation (INFA), the world's number one independent provider of data integration software, today announced that Empire Life is creating an unified data environment, dubbed the "customer experience framework," using integrated Informatica Platform components including Master Data Management, Enterprise Data Integration and Data Quality.

By providing effective management of customer information, Empire Life is better positioned to deliver on its focus to become a customer-centric organization that is able to work with its distribution partners to deliver value-added products and services to customers throughout their life stages.

The various components of the Informatica Platform will enable Empire Life to increase the value of its data by ensuring that the information available to its hundreds of business users is:

Holistic and timely - Informatica PowerCenter Advanced Edition for enterprise data integration is being implemented to integrate data across Empire Life back-office systems, CRM systems, call center technologies and collaborative applications. PowerCenter also delivers data at virtually any speed, from real-time to batch, to drive knowledge-based product and marketing decisions and customer interactions.
Authoritative - Informatica MDM (Master Data Management) for multi-domain master data management is underpinning a master data hub to feed authoritative master data to consuming applications, business users and customer-facing personnel. The initial implementation for managing customer master data will be extended in a later phase to also manage product master data on the same MDM platform.

Trustworthy - Informatica Data Explorer will enable data to be profiled for hidden risks and structural issues and stop quality problems from spreading in Empire Life data. Informatica Data Quality will enable Empire Life to address and proactively manage data quality across its information environment.

Informatica will also help reduce the cost of data at Empire Life by reducing overall data management expense and effort, simplifying the IT infrastructure and reducing the costs of key customer-facing operations.

Empire Life is collaborating with Informatica partner Adastra and with Informatica Professional Services to optimize its customer-centricity project and Informatica deployment.

"The Informatica Platform will have a transformative effect on how we function as a business and align ourselves to meet the needs of our customers," said Kevin Arbour, vice president, Enterprise Services and Technologies, Empire Life. "We selected Informatica for the strength of its products, which we felt fit very well with our objectives, and for its strong partner ecosystem in Canada. The expertise and professionalism we've experienced from Informatica has been exemplary and we have a large pool of resources upon which to draw as we proceed on our customer-centricity journey. It's been a great journey so far and we expect that to continue."

"Customer profiles and expectations are changing radically around the world, and not just for financial services firms like Empire Life, but across all industries," said Ron Reed, general manager, Canada, Informatica. "Organizations need to be able maximize their return on data in order to efficiently and fully meet those expectations. The Informatica Platform empowers companies to access, integrate, trust and manage their information assets in their drive toward increased competitiveness."

A sculptor known for dream-fantasy ceramics

At 86, MaryLou Higgins was still creating art every single day from the studio in her Pittsboro home. She was still working clay with her hands until the day before she died last month.


Had she not suffered a stroke during breakfast that November morning, she would surely have been creating art later that day as well.

Art was always just there for Higgins. She was born into it, modeling for her artist mother as a child. But she allowed it to consume her throughout the rest of her life – as she said, “24 hours a day, seven days a week” – as she became nationally recognized for artwork ranging from textiles to clay, furniture to jewelry.

She would become most known for her sculptures depicting her signature dream fantasies, said Joe Rowand, who has been selling pieces by Higgins as the director of Somerhill Gallery in Chapel Hill since she moved to the area in the early 1980s.

But she was never one to stray far from the human form.

“She didn’t draw flowers or landscapes, she loved the human figure,” said Woody Higgins, her high school sweetheart and husband of 66 years.

MaryLou Higgins’ career was defined by her artistic talents, whether she was working for the military, or alone in her studio.

It started during World War II, when she was hired by the U.S. Army to do drawings in her native Milwaukee – of what, we’ll never know.

“It was so secret, she never told me,” Woody said with a chuckle.

The two were married when they were 20 years old, and they started a stereo photography business called Stereo by Higgins, taking 3-D pictures of things like the insides of freezers or other appliances, capturing the entire line of such things on slides.

When asked if they went to school to learn this craft, Woody said softly, “Oh no, we were just smart.”

But they knew they wanted to teach, and for that degrees in art and education were required. They both went to the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, starting their family along the way. All three of their children went on to be artists in their own right as well.

The couple spent the next few decades teaching art, first high schoolers, later college students, before retiring as associate professors. MaryLou would hold teaching positions at five universities or colleges throughout her career.

It was a career that evolved over time, first starting in weaving and textiles, later focusing on clay as her medium.

“She created soft sculpture, baskets, wearable art and extraordinary inventive fiber crafts,” Rowand said.

While living in Pennsylvania teaching art history, MaryLou Higgins combined her love of drawing with that of ceramics. She used underglaze pencils while collaborating with her husband on early ceramic pieces.

When she moved her focus from fiber to clay, she began with black-and-white drawings and stoneware, eventually adding color and using 22-karat gold glazes.

Though some of her early work is functional, including a series of cups and plates that were sold in galleries in New York and Maine, she eventually ditched the wheel and began working on built-up sculptured slabs that often had a “ceremonial attitude in their inventive shapes,” Rowand said. The work was “seemingly functional, but in reality were the icon of the form it represented in her imagination.”

When asked to issue a statement about her work for Somerhill Gallery, the artist had this to say: “Images of sculptural objects haunt me late at night and at dawn. I’m compelled to create my art works before a peace can settle within me for a short time.”

She continued, “In my mind, faces and designs and figures dance around striving to be drawn. Where they come from, so strong and compelling, I can only feel that they are what I am. All the previous souls that have come together to make me are stretching out to be part of my universe.

“Each sculpture feeds upon itself, dictating what the next one should be. Sometimes ideas leapfrog ahead so fast that I can’t keep up, thus I wake up each morning driven to create in an attempt to keep up with the ideas that float through my head.”

As deep and complex as art could be for her, Higgins was also eloquently simple about what she appreciated about its impact. “I love when people say they have a piece of mine and it makes them feel good,” she wrote.

“She was the most talented, giving person you’d ever want. We loved each other for 66 years,” Woody Higgins said, choking up. “We had a good life.”

Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada announcement

Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada ("Sun Life") and Sun Life Financial Trust Inc. ("Sun Life Trust") are issuing this announcement under the early warning system in respect of their holdings in Canadian Tire Corporation (the "Corporation") under the Corporation's deferred profit sharing plan (the "Plan").

Effective November 23, 2007 , Sun Life was engaged to make available to the Plan a group annuity policy and was directed to create and continues to make available a segregated fund with Sun Life consisting of Common Shares and Class A Non-Voting Shares of the Corporation (the "CTC Share Fund"). In connection with the CTC Share Fund, Sun Life holds as legal and beneficial owner, and Sun Life Trust, which effective the date hereof became the trustee of the Plan, holds as trustee and group annuity policyholder, 419,280 Common Shares of the Corporation representing approximately 12.2% of the issued and outstanding Common Shares, and 1,005,855 Class A Non-Voting Shares of the Corporation, representing 1.29% of the issued and outstanding Class A Non-Voting Shares.

Neither Sun Life nor Sun Life Trust has any economic interest in those Common Shares or Class A Non-Voting Shares, as they are held in the CTC Share Fund for the sole benefit of the Plan and its participants. Further, each has agreed since the inception of their involvement with the Plan not to independently exercise any rights of control or direction over those shares, and to act solely upon direction with respect to voting rights and solely in response to participant directions in connection with purchases and sales of such shares. In addition to the Common Shares and Class A Non-Voting Shares of the Corporation held in the CTC Share Fund, Sun Life holds an 1,420,608 Class A Non-Voting Shares of the Corporation for the benefit of another Sun Life segregated fund for which it also takes investment directions from plan participants, such that its combined holdings represent 3.11% of the Class A Non-Voting Shares of the Corporation in the aggregate.

Sun Life (with a head office address of 150 King Street West , Toronto , Ontario, M5H 1J9) and Sun Life Trust (with a head office address of 227 King Street South , Waterloo, Ontario, N2J 4C5) are each an "eligible institutional investor" as defined in National Instrument 61-103 The Early Warning System and Related Take-Over Bid and Insider Reporting Issues, and each intends to file the alternative monthly reports contemplated by Part 4 of that Instrument. There are no joint actors involved with Sun Life and Sun Life Trust in connection with their roles in relation to the Plan.

How "Life of Pi" animators visualized Ang Lee's blank slate

"Life of Pi" is a movie that has the proverbial cast of thousands... of animals, that is. In one shot set on the ocean, there are 40,000 flying fish. In another one set on a floating island, there are 60,000 meerkats. And not one of them was living and breathing, of course.

"No real meerkats were used," senior animation supervisor Erik-Jan De Boer told the audience at an effects-themed Q&A following TheWrap's screening of the movie at the Landmark Theatre on Monday night. "Except of course we went to meerkat sanctuaries and zoos to shoot a lot of reference footage..."
"And the two of us watched every episode of 'Meerkat Manor,'" interrupted visual effects supervisor Bill Westenhofer. "We were gonna watch one, but it gets addictive."

That was about all the time these two had to indulge in reality TV during the long gestation and post-production of Pi, which establishes a new benchmark for awe-inspiring digital trickery - particularly in 3D, or "stereo," as Westenhofer and De Boer refer to the effects-complicating process.

"In total," De Boer told TheWrap's editor-in-chief Sharon Waxman, "we animated 580 animals in about 290 shots for the movie, which includes a giraffe, a fox, a fish, and of course the hyena and orangutan." Not to mention the little matter of the tiger, "Richard Parker," whose appearances as one of the movie's co-leads are 15 percent real, 85 percent digital.

That's not including the aforementioned meerkat and flying fish extras, brought to life via a software program appropriately titled Massive. (If only it had been around in Cecil B. DeMille's day.)

"The flying fish sequence is where we start to take some artistic liberties, since Pi's telling you a tale," said Westenhofer. "Maybe there were a thousand flying fish in reality, or even a hundred, but you're seeing his mind's eye, which saw this multitude, so we have 40,000 in one particular spot. The Massive software is almost artificial intelligence, where you write a little program that's the brain for each individual fish, and it decides if it's going to hop out of the water, and how long it's going to fly; if it sees someone in its path, it does avoidance."

But before any of that was animated, there was the live-action filming that took place on a 70 meter-by-30 meter wave tank that director Ang Lee had specially built for the film. And there, said Westenhofer, "you had (star) Suraj Sharma on a boat with two guys in rubber rafts just chucking rubber fish at him as hard as they possibly can. It's a good mixture of the low-tech and the high-tech."

Of course, it wasn't fish but previous experience with big cats that got Rhythm & Hues the assignment from Lee to go from lions to tigers and Pi. "He knew we had done the lion in the first Narnia movie. He asked, ‘Does a digital character look more or less real in 3D?' We looked at each other and thought that was a pretty good question."

As well as a leading one, since Lee had already made the decision at that point, in 2009, to shoot in 3D. "We took one of the shots and rendered it in stereo and said ‘Yeah, it gives it a little more presence and makes it more real.'" Good answer! "That was the start of our relationship with him."

Although "Life of Pi" doesn't exactly go for documentary-style realism, every effort was made to keep the tiger's actions and reactions to what experts and trainers told them a creature would really do in those situations. Not having him spout any Aslan-style aphorisms was a nice start on that de-anthropomorphizing.
"We always strive for photorealism," said De Boer - even when they're working on a Narnia or Cats and Dogs. "Motion-wise we strive for perfect physicality and try to get that animal to behave as characteristically as possible - and then we always have to make them talk or dance or do something really weird, and the realism goes out the window and everybody knows that we were there. For me what was really cool about this movie is not only do we stick with the real animal but we also have to intercut it with a live-action animal, so that made the challenge for us that much bigger."

Added Westenhofer, "We told the crew we wanted to work ourselves out of any recognition by making it look as real as possible."

It was at least as big of a challenge, as far as Westenhofer was concerned, to make the digital waves match or amplify the real tank waves - and to create the film's skies completely from scratch. "There's not many films where we spend this much time on the water. I think 'Old Man and the Sea' harkens back! But even with 'Titanic,' you'll see the water and then go inside." For much of "Life of Pi," "inside" amounts to a few furtive peeks under a tarp.

Hence what, on a project like this, becomes a fine line where digital effects providers are also, to some extent, taking over the role of cinematography and art direction. Going to work on filling up these blue-screen shots, the Rhythm & Hues people might well have been humming Bruce Springsteen's "Empty Sky" to themselves.

"What I'm absolutely most proud of is with these visual effects is that we were given a blank slate for a lot of these shots," Westenhofer told the audience. "We were given a boat in front of a blue screen, and it was the visual effects team who really were a lot of the creative innovators on the movie. Certainly it was Ang's vision we were creating. But we'd start a shot, and though Ang absolutely knows what he wants, his communication is sometimes not as specific as you want. Instead of saying ‘I want a three-quarters cloudy sky with yellow over here and some blue,' he'd say ‘I want a pensive sky.'

Or, ‘I want it to be operatic.' So it would be our job to go translate that, and the team did a great job of supplying that.

"And Claudio Miranda did an awesome, awesome job on the cinematography, but a lot of the cinematography on the ocean is digital effects."

Origin of Life Needs a Rethink, Scientists Argue

Scientists trying to unravel the mystery of life's origins have been looking at it the wrong way, a new study argues.

Instead of trying to recreate the chemical building blocks that gave rise to life 3.7 billion years ago, scientists should use key differences in the way that living creatures store and process information, suggests new research detailed today (Dec. 11) in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

"In trying to explain how life came to exist, people have been fixated on a problem of chemistry, that bringing life into being is like baking a cake, that we have a set of ingredients and instructions to follow," said study co-author Paul Davies, a theoretical physicist and astrobiologist at Arizona State University. "That approach is failing to capture the essence of what life is about."

Living systems are uniquely characterized by two-way flows of information, both from the bottom up and the top down in terms of complexity, the scientists write in the article. For instance, bottom up would move from molecules to cells to whole creatures, while top down would flow the opposite way. The new perspective on life may reframe the way that scientists try to uncover the origin of life and hunt for strange new life forms on other planets.

"Right now, we're focusing on searching for life that's identical to us, with the same molecules," said Chris McKay, an astrobiologist at the NASA Ames Research Center who was not involved in the study. "Their approach potentially lays down a framework that allows us to consider other classes of organic molecules that could be the basis of life."

Chemical approach
For decades, scientists have tried to recreate the primordial events that gave rise to life on the planet. In the famous Miller-Urey experiments reported in 1953, scientists electrically charged a primordial soup of chemicals that mimicked the chemical makeup of the planet's early oceans and found that several simple amino acids, the most primitive building blocks of life, formed as a result.

But since then, scientists aren't much further along in understanding how simple amino acids could have eventually morphed into simple, and then complex, living beings.

Part of the problem is that there isn't really a good definition of what life is, said Sara Walker, study co-author and an astrobiologist at Arizona State University.

"Usually the way we identify life on Earth is always by having DNA present in the organism," Walker told LiveScience. "We don't have a rigorous mathematical way of identifying it."

Using a chemical definition of life — for instance, requiring DNA — may limit the hunt for extraterrestrial life, and it also may wrongly include nonliving systems, for instance, a petri dish full of self-replicating DNA, she said.

Information processing
Walker's team created a simple mathematical model to capture the transition from a nonliving to a living-breathing being. According to the researchers, all living things have one property that inanimate objects don't: Information flows in two directions.

For instance, when a person touches a hot stove, the molecules in his hand sense heat, transmit that information to the brain, and the brain then tells the molecules of the hand to move. Such two-way information flow governs the behavior of simple and complex life forms alike, from the tiniest bacteria to the giant humpback whale. By contrast, if you put a cookie on the stove, the heat may burn the cookie, but the treat won't do anything to respond.

Another hallmark of living beings is that they have different physical locations for storing and reading information. For instance, the alphabet of letters in DNA carries the instructions for life, but another part of the cell, called the ribosome, must translate those instructions into actions inside the cell, Davies told LiveScience.

(By this definition, computers, which store data on a hard drive and read it off using a central processing unit, would have the hallmarks of life, although that doesn't mean they are alive per se, Walker said.)

The new model is still in its infancy and doesn't yet point to new molecules that could have spawned life on other planets. But it lays out the behavior needed for a system needs to be considered living, Walker said.

"This is a manifesto," said Davies. "It's a call to arms and a way to say we've got to reorient and redefine the subject and look at it in a different way."

New York Life Announces Executive Promotions in the Agency Department

New York Life announced today that John O’Gara and Richard Simonetti have each been elected senior vice president in the company’s Agency Department, reporting to Executive Vice President and Head of Agency Mark Pfaff.

Mr. O’Gara is responsible for New York Life’s wholesaling operations across all product lines within the Agency distribution channel including life insurance, annuities, investments and long-term care insurance. He also oversees New York Life’s Dallas-based Advanced Planning Group, a team of experienced attorneys, certified public accountants and other professionals with whom New York Life agents can exclusively work when serving affluent clients.

Mr. O’Gara joined New York Life in 1984 and has held sales and marketing positions across various business operations. Mr. O’Gara is a graduate of Iona College with a major in business and finance. He resides in New Fairfield, Connecticut with his wife and three children.

Mr. Simonetti is responsible for agent and manager recruitment, training and development. This includes growing the company’s field force and sales among New York Life’s key markets, including women, cultural markets, the LGBT community and young professionals.

Mr. Simonetti joined New York Life as an agent in the Long Island General Office in July 1996. Since then, he has held several positions with increasing managerial responsibility, including serving as sales manager in that office from 1998 to 2002, managing partner of New York Life’s Vermont office from 2002 to 2005, and managing partner of the Greater Detroit office from 2005 to 2008. Mr. Simonetti earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He is an active member of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (NAIFA), the Association of Advanced Life Underwriting (AALU) and the General Agents and Managers Association (GAMA). Mr. Simonetti lives in Westchester, New York with his wife and their three children.

New York Life Insurance Company, a Fortune 100 company founded in 1845, is the largest mutual life insurance company in the United States* and one of the largest life insurers in the world. New York Life has the highest financial strength ratings currently awarded to any life insurer by all four of the major credit rating agencies.** Headquartered in New York City, New York Life’s family of companies offers life insurance, retirement income, investments and long-term care insurance. New York Life Investments*** provides institutional asset management and retirement plan services.

Life insurance: Not such a weird gift idea

Life insurance policies under the Christmas tree may not leave eyes all aglow in quite the same way as a shiny new bicycle or the latest electronic gadget.

But unlike most presents, life insurance never will go out of fashion, says Kevin Lynch, assistant professor of insurance at The American College in Bryn Mawr, Pa.

"There are all kinds of ways it can be a very practical gift," Lynch says. "Will it have the punch or pizzazz of an iPad? No. But when you are a 25-year-old college graduate who can't find a job and you find out your grandparent funded a life insurance policy that has $35,000 in cash value, you may rethink the value of this gift."

As long as you keep up the premiums, a life insurance policy can provide financial security for decades to come, says Lynch. The most common ways to give a gift of life insurance are to make someone the beneficiary of your own policy -- so that they're protected in case something happens to you -- or to take out a permanent policy on the recipient's life and include a cash value component, similar to a savings account.

Taking the shine off Christmas?
There are risks with giving such a serious gift, however, warns Elizabeth Lombardo, a psychologist in Wexford, Pa. Some may find life insurance to be a disturbing reminder of their own mortality. In most people's minds "it has to do with death," she explains.

Brian Ashe, the treasurer of the nonprofit Life and Health Insurance Foundation for Education, or LIFE, says your gift might be misunderstood, particularly if you're taking out a policy on the life of a loved one. Your wife "might take a couple of minutes to sniff the rum cake you are giving her at the Christmas celebration," Ashe says.

Insurance companies won't let you take out a policy on just anyone's life, he adds. Generally, it has to be someone in whom you have an insurable interest, such as a relative, a business associate or a domestic partner.

Term or permanent?
You'll need to choose between term and permanent life insurance when you select your gift.
Term life provides coverage for a certain number of years. Note that if you take out term life on yourself as a thoughtful gift to your family, you could outlive the term of your policy, meaning your loved ones would receive no benefits upon your death.

Term life insurance policy premiums are based on a variety of factors, including the age, health and lifestyle of the insured. The premium for a 10-year $500,000 policy for a 40-year-old man in good health who doesn't smoke could vary from $27 to $90 per month, depending on the insurer, says Douglas Grills, an independent insurance broker in the San Diego area.

A permanent policy provides coverage for a person's entire life, as long as the premiums are paid. It can build up a cash value gradually, and the policy eventually can be surrendered for that amount, or you can borrow against it. The downside is that costs are higher than for term life.
Appropriate gift for a kid?

Some experts question the idea of buying life insurance policies for children. It's wiser for parents and grandparents to make sure their own lives are adequately insured, says Jack Hungelmann, Bankrate's Insurance Adviser and the author of "Insurance for Dummies."

But Lynch insists that buying a permanent life policy for a healthy child makes good economic sense. The cost, which is based on the risk of death, usually is very low.

You could set up a trust, the proceeds of which could pay the policy indefinitely, Lynch says. "When the child reaches age 25 or 35, the policy can vest into the name of the child and they become the owner. All of the cash value now becomes available to the child."

A typical permanent, $250,000 cash-value policy on the life of a 1-year-old grandchild would cost in the neighborhood of $3 to $4 per $1,000 of coverage, says Ashe. "So if I had a $250,000 permanent life policy and the rate was approximately $4 for each $1,000 of coverage, the (annual) premium would be $1,000."
How to gift life insurance

You can go online to buy a life insurance policy for a grandchild or other young family member, but Ashe recommends doing it the old-fashioned way: by talking to an agent. With personal contact "you have the added value of the agent's experience on the type of policy, what the taxation issues are and the proper beneficiary designations."

When you take out life insurance on someone else, or name someone as a beneficiary on a policy for yourself, the application will require that person's name, date of birth, information on how you're related, and often a Social Security number, says Ashe. You also will need to provide health information on the insured, even children.

"There is a nonmedical questionnaire where they ask, 'How tall is the child? What does the child weigh?'" Ashe explains. "For people who are older, medical examinations can be required, based on their age and the amount of the policy."

There may be a few hoops, but just keep in mind that a life insurance policy is the only financial product that guarantees a certain sum of money will be paid on a date that's uncertain, says Lynch. "That is why it is such a good gift."

Kenzo Takada: "I don't plan to return to the world of fashion"

Relaxnews: Aside from fashion, you are known for exploring various fields such as painting and decoration. Do you plan to continue to do so?

Kenzo Takada: I didn't do much painting this year, but next year my goal is to start afresh, to really focus on it. I don't yet have a proper studio in my apartment, although I did set up a little space for painting, and someone from the Beaux Arts is giving me lessons, so that's marvelous.

R: Does Japan still inspire you?
KT: Of course. I like to play up the Japanese influence.

R: Do you ever stop working?
KT: Never. When I stopped [being the lead designer for the Kenzo namesake label] in 2000, I thought I'd spend the rest of my days traveling and relaxing, doing nothing. Ultimately I realized that I needed to do something. Even small things. If I do nothing, I'm stressed. In the world of fashion, working as part of a team is more comforting. These days, with painting, I tend to work alone. With Vianney, the jewelry collaboration was done as real teamwork. [When working alone] sometimes uncertainty overtakes me...

R: Do you prefer teamwork then?
KT: I do. Even with painting, when someone gives their feedback or teaches me something, I find it comforting. It's nice.

R: What's your opinion of fashion of the moment?
KT: Fashion changes a lot, just like the way people work. It's becoming a domain that is increasingly important for young people. It's incredible how intensely people are interested in fashion these days. It still attracts legions of women, but nowadays, with the new channels of communication, everyone can have an interest in fashion. It used to be very different. You could only buy dedicated magazines, while nowadays every magazine contains fashion pages. What I find a bit disappointing is that all the ready-to-wear and couture houses do more or less the same thing. Some designers are able to catch my attention, but they are few and far between. Everything is so globalized nowadays.

R: What do you think of the young duo who took the reins at Kenzo?
KT: [What they're doing is] great, it's marvelous. The Kenzo designers have really breathed new life into the brand, adding a youthful, dynamic touch.

R: Some say they are your worthy successors?
KT: Notably with their work on the runway shows and advertisements. They really add a very positive, open-minded, dynamic, young, joyful touch. I think they're marvelous. I met them once: they're very friendly and spend a lot of time looking at the archives, so that's great. I'm happy.

R: What do you think of the changes taking place at Dior and Yves Saint Laurent?
KT: It's a good thing. I really like Dior, but I've only seen some promotional photos from Yves Saint Laurent. I think it's good, but one has to see what the future holds. It's marvelous to see young designers bring in change, something new, something fresh. And this year, particularly, with Dior and Saint Laurent, a lot of things happened. And let's not forget Jil Sander, and also brands such as Balenciaga and Lanvin, which have maintained their impeccable quality.

R: Are you still in touch with some designers?
KT: Yes, of course, to a certain extent. I love people from the world of fashion; they always bring something new, they're open-minded, very curious and cultivated.

R: Do you think you could come back to the world of fashion?
KT: I don't plan to make a return to fashion, not now, especially with all these young designers, it's better to let them do their thing. But I still love fashion.

Are There Planets Better at Supporting Life Than Earth?

There is, in this crazy world, one thing we know for sure: Our world is the world. Our planet is the planet -- for creating life, for supporting life, for letting us humans and our fellow species become what we are. And so, as we take our first tentative steps from a warm, watery Earth out into the universe, we set our sights toward the worlds that look like the one we know -- toward planets that are, in their way, "Earth-like."

But: What if there are planets that are better at being Earth-like than Earth itself? What if there are worlds that are more homey than home? What if other planets are better at supporting life than our own?
It's a possibility, actually, according to new work coming out of Ohio State -- and just a little bit of cosmic conjecture. A team of astronomers and geologists at the university, using data gathered by the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher spectrometer at the European Southern Observatory in Chile, made a study of eight stars that are "solar twins" to our sun -- similar in factors like size, age, and composition -- and measured the amounts of radioactive elements those stars contain. Combining those analyses with theories about the conditions that made Earth hospitable to life, the team has made an exciting, if preliminary, finding: that the terrestrial planets orbiting those stars could be hotter and more dynamic than Earth. Which might make them, according to the theory, more hospitable to life than Earth.

What the team was looking for, in particular, were elements like thorium and uranium, which along with potassium, warm Earth's interior. This heat affects its plate tectonics and, according to the scientists, the way it retains its water. Though the functions of that heat-to-plate-to-liquid interaction aren't fully understood -- it's "one of the great mysteries in the geosciences," the study's advisor, Wendy Panero, put it -- scientists have speculated that the forces of heat convection in the mantle, the ones that move Earth's crust, have some kind of role in regulating the amount of water in the oceans. "It seems that if a planet is to retain an ocean over geologic timescales, it needs some kind of crust 'recycling system,' and for us that's mantle convection," Unterborn said.

Which means, in turn, that plate tectonics could also be a key indicator of a planet's hospitality to life. Particularly for microbial life -- since microbial life on Earth, the study's authors point out, benefits from subsurface heat. (Take the single-celled microbe archaea, some of which live not off the energy of the sun, but rather off the heat rising from inside the Earth.) And that indicator, the team reasoned, can be approximated by analyzing a given exoplanet's sun: the more thorium in the star, say, the more likely a terrestrial planet formed around that star would be to support life.  Since it would stand to reason that the planets that orbit around those suns contain more thorium, as well, that would suggest that the interiors of those exoplanets are warmer than ours -- and also that those planets are more geologically active than Earth. And that would mean that they are more likely than Earth to retain the liquid water that supports life.

And: Of the eight solar twins the team studied, seven of them seemed to contain more thorium than our own star.

One star in the team's survey, for example, contained 2.5 times more thorium than our sun. And per the study's measurements, terrestrial planets that formed around that star likely generate 25 percent more internal heat than Earth does -- with all that that implies. So there could be at least one planet that is potentially more life-affirming than Earth. But there could also be, the study suggests, more where that came from: exoplanets that are more earthly than Earth -- planets nourished and made hospitable by the warmth of other sons.

Now that the hunt for exoplanets has moved from science fiction to science, that finding -- preliminary and tentative as it is -- could have implications for humans' ability to find signs of life elsewhere in the universe. As study co-author Cayman Unterborn summed it up: "If it turns out that these planets are warmer than we previously thought, then we can effectively increase the size of the habitable zone around these stars by pushing the habitable zone farther from the host star, and consider more of those planets hospitable to microbial life."

Of course, though, like most any study whose subject matter is solar systems so far away from our own, nothing here is conclusive. "At this point, all we can say for sure is that there is some natural variation in the amount of radioactive elements inside stars like ours," Unterborn noted. The team studied nine stars, including our own sun -- which is, of course, not a huge sample size. But the team, in its analysis, also took for granted something that most of us tend to, implicitly: that "life" is Earthly life -- and that the conditions most hospitable to that life will be necessarily Earth-like. That is the common assumption, but it is, ultimately, an assumption. Life on Earth is a contingency, so much so that it may well be an anomaly. But life can also take many, many forms; and that means that the environments that host life may be even more varied than we humans -- we animals evolved on and in and for the Earth -- can currently imagine.

World Financial Group Reviews Life Insurance Basics

Life insurance is not necessarily a pleasant topic to think about. In fact, many individuals are resistant to consider life insurance because it means one must think about his or her ultimate demise, whether it is through illness or accident. Unpleasant though it may be, it is ultimately prudent and responsible for individuals to weigh all of the available life insurance options. A recent statement from InsuranceHotline.com affirms the importance of choosing a life insurance plan carefully, and World Financial Group (WFG) agrees.

World Financial Group offers financial services to families across North America through its affiliated companies. WFG strongly believes that the key to purchasing life insurance and other financial services products is to understand fundamental financial basics as well as all of the options that are available.
According to WFG, life insurance may not be the most comfortable topic in the world, but preparing for unplanned circumstances needs to be proactive rather than reactive. Indeed, the statement from InsuranceHotline.com encourages individuals to be proactive in weighing their options and assessing their life insurance needs. The first tip offered by InsuranceHotline.com is for individuals to calculate how much life insurance coverage they actually need -- and also to remember that coverage needs may vary in accordance with major life events, such as marriage or the birth of a child.

InsuranceHotline.com continues by encouraging individuals to do some research and discover what is entailed by the different kinds of life insurance policy, including both term and permanent.
Finally, individuals are advised to keep up with their life insurance premiums. Factoring these payments into the monthly budget is typically the best way to go, as missing payments can cause the policy to become ineffective.

WFG agents provide insight and information about life insurance to their clients throughout North America. The company does not advocate for any particular product, policy type or company, but rather emphasizes the importance of individuals and families exploring all of the choices available.

LIFE WITH MARLON BRANDO: EARLY PHOTOS

The year was 1949, and 25-year-old Marlon Brando — “the brilliant brat,” as LIFE magazine called him following his astonishing work on Broadway in A Streetcar Named Desire — had finally answered the call of Hollywood. He was preparing to film his movie debut in The Men, the wrenching story of a World War II vet coping with rage and insecurity after he’s paralyzed in combat. And while it’s true that L.A. was used to next-big-thing newcomers, it was (and still is) exceedingly rare to chronicle the earliest days in the career of a movie actor of Brando’s intensity, quirkiness and electrifying talent.

Photographer Ed Clark captured Brando’s explosive arrival in California, chronicling the actor as he submerged himself in “The Method” — e.g., taking to a wheelchair and struggling with leg braces while he lived among paraplegics at a VA hospital in Van Nuys, California. But Clark also came away with surprising, engaging glimpses into the more personal, private Brando.

Here, LIFE.com presents a number of Clark’s photos — most of which were not published in LIFE magazine — at a time when the young Marlon Brando was just beginning to forge his own Hollywood legend.

Accompanying Ed Clark’s images in LIFE’s archives were meticulous notes about Brando written by Theodore Strauss, who would ultimately write the magazine’s 1950 profile that coincided with the release of The Men. Strauss details every quirk of the actor: what he wore, how he ate, what he read, how he shunned any sort of red carpet that might have been laid out for him when he came to town.

“Stanley Kramer, producer of The Men, had intended on putting Brando in a good hotel, but Brando would have none of it,” Strauss wrote. “First of all he insisted on living with the paraplegics in Birmingham Veterans Hospital during the four weeks before production began. This, he felt, was necessary to giving a completely knowledgeable and valid performance in his role. At the hospital he was given a bed in a 32-bed ward, where he was treated almost like any other patient.”

The actor’s reputation as a bad boy had preceded him, stories of his nose-picking, shabby dress, foul language and grumbling interviews having traveled all the way from New York to Los Angeles. But, LIFE wrote, “however infantile or irresponsible Brando may be in his personal life, he is a totally conscientious artist in his work. Unlike some of Hollywood’s pretty people, he was never late on the set, never indulged in a tantrum, never required endless retakes.”

He was also far more of an introvert, in some ways, than his reputation suggested. Brando, wrote Strauss, “reads everything, absolutely omnivorous — from Krishnamurti to recent novels.” For the actor, it was all about the craft — nothing else, even life’s essentials, seemed to matter. From LIFE’s profile: “His salary, for the soundest of reasons, has been sent to his father, Marlon Brando Sr., who invests the money in cattle on a Midwestern ranch called Penny Poke. Each week Brando receives a living allowance of $150. Because he rarely looks at money and sometimes pays for a package of cigarets with a $20 bill, he usually is penniless by the second day.”

Of his relationship with the real paraplegics and quadriplegics from whom he was learning for his role, Strauss noted that “Brando’s orientation and adjustment as a paraplegic was so complete that he participated in their sometimes gruesome horseplay with complete freedom — one of the reasons why he was so completely accepted. [Pranks] include pillow fights and using hypodermic syringes for water pistols.”

“Unless a conference or interview was scheduled at the hospital, Brando slept until noon each day,” Strauss reported in his LIFE piece. “Ordinarily Brando would be rudely awakened when another late-sleeping patient in the next bed slapped his face with a pillow. If Brando woke first, he returned the courtesy.”

From Strauss’ notes about Hollywood’s reaction to Brando: “Thus far no one has accused him of posing; everyone to whom we’ve spoken has a sort of confused respect for a man who, up to now, has managed to live as he feels, without caring a hoot what anyone thinks.”

In his personal style, meanwhile, the actor was unfussy and unpretentious, almost to a fault: “When Brando first arrived in Hollywood his only luggage was a battered, imitation-leather suitcase the size of a woman’s overnight bag,” Strauss observed. “He was wearing a blue worsted suit which had seen much wear and weather — there were holes and tears in the jacket, and a part of Brando was visible through the seat of the pants.”

Once official production on The Men began, Brando moved out of the veterans hospital and into a small bungalow owned by his aunt, Betty Lindemeyer, in Eagle Rock, Calif. During this period Brando’s maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Myers, was also a house guest.

“She [his grandmother] was quite abashed because Ed Clark took pictures of Marlon in a bathrobe, which happens to be hers,” reported a production assistant in notes found in LIFE’s archives. Grandma Myers was also apologetic about the barbaric way her gandson ate: “Bud doesn’t bring the food to his face,” she told LIFE, using Brando’s nickname. “He brings his face to the food.”

“I do hope that Bud comes through all this without too much scandal,” she confided to LIFE at one point. “I love him more than anything on this earth, but I never know when I’m going to hear from him in San Quentin.”

While the movie he was working on in 1949 would not be a commercial hit, The Men established that Brando was as powerful a presence on film as he was on stage, and silenced those who might have doubted his talent — and his star power — merely because of his eccentricities. (In 1947 he had starred on Broadway, as a virtual unknown 23-year-old, playing Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. In the 65 years since the December 3, 1947, premiere of the play, anyone who has stepped into that role has had to contend with being compared to Brando, both on the stage and in his incendiary performance in Elia Kazan’s 1951 film adaptation.)

So while it was still early in his career in 1950, when the LIFE profile appeared, the magazine was nevertheless aware that a formidable new force was in play in Hollywood, in the form of this 25-year-old Nebraska native: “Even behind his indistinct mutterings of lines, audiences and critics have sensed in Brando a combustible, highly charged spirit, a quicksilver of restlessness of the sort that can command with equal power the empty spaces of a stage or the slick surface of a screen.”

Ireland reopens sale talks on state-owned Irish Life - report

Ireland has re-opened talks on the sale of state-owned insurance firm Irish Life to Canada Life, a unit of Canadian life insurer Great-West Lifeco , the Sunday Business Post reported.

Irish Life, formerly the life insurance arm of bailed out Irish Life & Permanent (IL&P), was taken over by the state this year after a ramping up of the euro zone debt crisis forced the suspension of its sale a year ago.

Canada Life had previously been the lead candidate to buy the business, a source told Reuters last year, and the Sunday Business Post said the company was engaged again in discussion with Ireland's finance department, although no fresh proposal had been made.

A spokesman for the department of finance said the department had not received a formal proposal for the sale of Irish Life. A spokesman for Irish Life said the company would not comment on the report.
Executives at Irish Life said in September that the company would need a period of sustained calm in the euro zone before the sale process would resume.

Ireland's government, which had already poured 2.7 billion euros into IL&P to recapitalize its banking division, forked out 1.3 billion euros ($1.7 billion) for Irish Life. ($1 = 0.7689 euros)