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Facebook's Organ Donor Assist Likely to Play Well on the Street

The numbers reflecting the state of organ donation in the U.S. paint a mostly grim picture. There are 114,183 people waiting for an organ -- 18 of whom will die each day, according to DHHS. However, Facebook just added another number to the mix: 900 million -- its user base. In a new initiative, Facebook is encouraging its users to share their organ donor status.

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Lost Pet Parakeet Found Its Way Home By Telling the Police Its Home Address [Birds]

Squawk! Birdie's lost! Squawk! Take me home! In an amazing story of animal ingenuity, a lost pet parakeet found its way back to its owner by telling the police its full home address. The owner had trained the parakeet to squawk her address just in case the parakeet ever got lost. More »

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Tareq Salahi Re-Files Frivolous Lawsuit, Claims Neal Schon Cost Him $50 Million

Tareq Salahi's lawsuit against his estranged wife Michaele Salahi was recently dismissed, but he's instead turned his focus to her lover, Journey guitarist Neal Schon, the band’s personal recording label and their publicist.

Yep, he's re-filing a lawsuit against all of the above.

Tareq alleged that Michaele and Neal’s 2011 affair was a calculated attempt to re-launch the struggling rock band, ruining Tareq in the process.

The male Salahi says that when he was doing Michaele, Neal Schon was also screwing him out of a deal with Oprah Winfrey (!?), a $300,000 gig on Dancing With the Stars and a big-screen adaptation of their life. Mmm hmm.

The pair was to receive 40 percent of the sale, he claims ... so approximately $8.00 total gross, assuming the two of them even bought tickets.

Tareq also alleges the affair also cut off paid interviews and appearances, despite the fact that he got quite a lot of mileage out of whining about it.

He also modestly calls himself and Michaele “instant international celebrities” and “household names” after crashing a White House state dinner.

Their “gate-crashing” resulted in the Salahis "being offered regular paid appearances as 'The Salahis,’" he claims ... and they're no longer.

Tareq added: “The Salahis” became a “financially prosperous enterprise.” Sadly for him, that ship has sailed, along with any hope of winning this case.

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Tigers edge Red Sox in opener

New Detroit slugger has sac fly, Jackson gets game-winning hit in bottom of the 9th

Carlos Osorio / AP

The Detroit Tigers' Prince Fielder hits a single during the second inning.

By NOAH TRISTER

updated 6:13 p.m. ET April 5, 2012

DETROIT - Justin Verlander was brilliant on the mound and Prince Fielder drove in a key run with his bat. Still, after a rare slip by Jose Valverde, the Detroit Tigers were all tied with Boston in the bottom of the ninth.

Up stepped Austin Jackson - Detroit's strikeout-prone leadoff man - needing only a little poke through the infield to win the game.

Jackson delivered, hitting a sharp groundball past third with the bases loaded to give the Tigers a 3-2 win over the Red Sox in Thursday's opener.

It was Jackson's third hit of the game, and it enabled his team to leave the ballpark happy on a day Verlander once again looked impressive.

"I get the strikeout questions a lot, but it doesn't bother me. I understand," said Jackson, who fanned 351 times in his first two big league seasons. "I stayed with the approach as far as just putting the ball in play, and it worked out."

Verlander, last year's AL MVP and Cy Young winner, was dominant for eight innings and left with a 2-0 lead. But Valverde (1-0) blew a save for the first time in 52 chances, a streak that included 49 in a row last season.

Tigers manager Jim Leyland sounded almost relieved after Valverde's first blown save since 2010.

"When I say this, I mean it: In a way, I'm glad that streak's over," Leyland said. "It puts that behind us and we can just go forward."

Boston manager Bobby Valentine lost in his return to the major leagues after replacing Terry Francona following the team's 7-20 September slide that cost the Red Sox a playoff spot last year.

"There was a lot I saw that I liked. Lester was terrific. He did just what he needed to do," Valentine said. "Verlander was very good. A lot of pitches on the outside corner were perfect pitches. We knew he was good and he's still good if anyone is wondering."

Valentine brought in Mark Melancon (0-1) to start the Detroit ninth, and he allowed one-out singles to Jhonny Peralta and Alex Avila.

Alfredo Aceves entered and hit Ramon Santiago with a pitch, and Jackson came through with a single past diving third baseman Nick Punto to win it.

Fielder singled his first time up for the AL Central champions and added a sacrifice fly in the eighth after Jackson had tripled.

Verlander walked one and struck out seven. It was his fifth consecutive opening day start - and fourth no-decision. Verlander has had problems in April throughout his career.

"This was the best opening day I've had, and hopefully that goes toward all the hard work I've been putting in to get off to a better start," he said. "Long way to go, but it's good to get that first one under your belt and have it be a good one."

David Ortiz hit a sacrifice fly off Valverde, and Ryan Sweeney's two-out triple off the wall in the right-field corner tied it.

Boston's Jon Lester allowed a run and six hits in seven innings. He struck out four and walked three.

Detroit put a runner on base in every inning but didn't score until the seventh, when Peralta and Avila hit doubles with two outs.

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Strasburg, Verlander dominate

??Stephen Strasburg and Justin Verlander continue to impress, leading the Nationals and Tigers to victories in their first games of the season.

Flu strikes Kershaw, but Dodgers top Pads

SAN DIEGO (AP) - With Magic Johnson and Frank McCourt watching from next to the dugout, the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the San Diego Padres 5-3 Thursday even though reigning NL Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw left after three innings with the flu.

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What a full moon has to do with date of Easter

Friday brings us the first full moon of the new spring season.?

The official moment that the moon turns full is 19:19 UT, or 3:19 p.m. EDT.

Traditionally, the April full moon is known as "the Pink Moon," supposedly as a tribute to the grass pink or wild ground phlox, considered one of the earliest widespread flowers of the spring. Other monikers include the Full Sprouting Grass Moon, the Egg Moon and, among coastal Native American tribes, the Full Fish Moon, for when the shad came upstream to spawn.

(Traditional names for the full moons of the year are found in some publications, such as the Farmers' Almanac. We also published the complete list of full moon names here on Space.com. The origins of these names have been traced back to Native America, though they may also have evolved from old England or, as Guy Ottewell, editor of the annual publication Astronomical Calendar, suggests, "writer's fancy.")

The first full moon of spring is usually designated as the Paschal Full Moon or the Paschal Term.? Traditionally, Easter is observed on the Sunday after the Paschal Full Moon. If the Paschal Moon occurs on a Sunday, Easter is the following Sunday. [ Photos: Full Moon Captivates Skywatchers in February 2012 ]

Following these rules, we find that the date of Easter can fall as early as March 22 and as late as April 25. Pope Gregory XIII decreed this in 1582 as part of the Gregorian calendar. So according to the current ecclesiastical rules, Easter Sunday in 2012 is to be celebrated April 8.

Interestingly, these rules also state that the vernal equinox is fixed on March 21, despite the fact that from the years 2008 through 2101, at European longitudes it actually will occur no later than March 20.?

Adding additional confusion is that there is also an "ecclesiastical" full moon, determined from ecclesiastical tables, whose date does not necessarily coincide with the "astronomical" full moon, which is based solely on astronomical calculations. In 1981, for example, the full moon occurred on Sunday, April 19, so Easter should have occurred on the following Sunday, April 26. But based on the ecclesiastical full moon, it occurred on the same day of the astronomical full moon, April 19!

Hence, there can sometimes be discrepancies between the ecclesiastical and astronomical versions for dating Easter. In the year 2038, for instance, the equinox will fall on March 20, with a full moon the next day, so astronomically speaking, Easter should fall on March 28 of that year. In reality, however, as mandated by the rules of the church, Easter 2038 will be observed as late as it can possibly come, on April 25.

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So in practice, the date of Easter is determined not from astronomical computations but rather from other formulae such Golden Numbers.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, a proposal to change Easter to a fixed holiday rather than a movable one has been widely circulated, and in 1963 the Second Vatican Council said it would agree, provided a consensus could be reached among Christian churches. The second Sunday in April has been suggested as the most likely date. That, incidentally, works outs rather nicely this year.

Harvest moon effect, in reverse
The full moon occurring nearest to the autumnal equinox is traditionally called the Harvest Moon. What sets the Harvest Moon apart from the others is that instead of rising at its normal average of 50 minutes later each day, it seems to rise at nearly the same time for several nights.

In direct contrast to the Harvest Full Moon, the Paschal Full Moon appears to rise considerably later each night. Below we've provided some examples for 10 North American cities.

Although normally the moon rises about 50 minutes later each night, over this three-night interval for our relatively small sampling we can see that the rising of the moon comes, on the average, just over 76 minutes later each night. A quick study of the table shows that the night-to-night difference is greatest for the more northerly locations. (Edmonton, located at latitude 53.6? N, sees moonrise come an average of 88 minutes later.) Meanwhile, the difference is less at southerly locations. (In Miami, located at latitude 26? N, the average difference is about 67 minutes.)?

The reason for this seasonal circumstance is that the moon appears to move along the ecliptic (the path the sun takes across the sky), and at this time of year when rising, the ecliptic makes its largest angle with respect to the horizon for those living in the Northern Hemisphere.?

In contrast, for those living in the Southern Hemisphere, the ecliptic at this time of year appears to stand at a more oblique angle to the eastern horizon. As such, the difference for the time of moonrise is noticeably less than the average of 50 minutes per night. In Sydney, Australia, for instance, the night-to-night difference amounts to just 40 minutes.

Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for The New York Times and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for News 12 Westchester, N.Y.

More From Space.com

? 2012 Space.com. All rights reserved. More from Space.com.

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Cruise ship picks up 23 Cuban refugees

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By Dan Askin, CruiseCritic.com

The world's largest cruise ship picked up 23 Cuban refugees in the Caribbean Sea on Wednesday.

Royal Caribbean's 225,282-ton, 5,400-passenger Oasis of the Seas was sailing from Falmouth, Jamaica, to Cozumel, Mexico, when it spotted a small boat, said the line in a statement. Oasis approached the boat and picked up 23 refugees, including 19 men and four women. (Thanks to Cruise Critic member bajathree, who's onboard, for the tip.)?

Once onboard, the refugees received food, water and medical treatment, said the line. Royal Caribbean spokeswoman Cynthia Martinez told Cruise Critic that the new passengers were housed in Oasis' conference room with a few crewmembers until the ship arrived in Cozumel this morning.

According to Royal Caribbean, the U.S. Coast Guard was notified, as is the line's standard practice when dealing with distressed mariners. At the direction of the U.S.C.G, the 23 Cuban citizens were disembarked in Cozumel, where they were handed over to the Mexican authorities.?

Passenger and youtuber Spensaf1 posted a video of the refugees being handed life jackets and then transferred from their makeshift craft to a yellow boat. One of the onlookers can be heard saying, "it's lobster night tonight. Going to be eating pretty well tonight."

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Nicki Minaj Looking For Ultimate Hip-Hop/Pop Crossover

'I think she's taken it to the next level,' says Sirius/XM's Reggie Hawkins.
By Gil Kaufman

Nicki Minaj
Photo: Getty Images

It's one of the trickiest moves in music and even if it's done right it only goes in one direction. With her just-released second album, Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, Nicki Minaj has served notice that she aims to be that rarest of MCs: one that can appeal to the pop crowd and hard-core hip-hop heads at the same time.

It's virtually impossible (so far) to start out pop and then work up enough cred to get over with rap fans. But like Missy Elliott, Nelly, Eminem and Diddy before her, Minaj is hoping that she can stay relevant to the heads who fell in love with her three years ago on a series of buzzy mixtapes and still become the next Katy Perry.

"She can rap, flat out, she has proven it with some of best rappers in game and she will never lose that ability and because of that she will always remain a favorite in hip-hop," said XXL magazine executive editor Jayson Rodriguez. "It's the pop crowd that can be fickle ... She has the personality, the skill, the songs and charisma to inhabit that pop sphere. As long as she has skill level, there's no reason she can't top both charts."

Thanks to a string of knock-out features on hits by everyone from label boss Lil Wayne to DJ Khaled, Kanye West and Ludacris, Minaj, 29, has plenty of rap bona fides. But she's also reached for the pop brass ring by performing at the Super Bowl with Madonna, the Grammys
 and on "American Idol," indulging in the kind of outrageous fashion sense that makes headlines and earns cover stories from the mainstream press. She also launched the new album with a single in "Starships" that's like tooth-rotting candy to pop radio, and a far cry from the gritty mixtape songs that launched her career back in the day.

That might explain why Roman is almost pointedly split in two, with the first half presenting her rap side courtesy of a string of no-nonsense rhymes produced by the likes of Hitboy and Blackout, with features by Cam'ron, Weezy, Rick Ross and, on the hard-hitting potential break-out rap single "Beez in the Trap"
, 2 Chainz. Those songs are followed by a string of tunes on the second half produced by Lady Gaga collaborator RedOne, pop trackmaster Dr. Luke and J.R. Rotem.

For the most part, mainstream critics have not been kind
 about the cross-over dribble move, which has also left some fans with divided loyalties
.

"I honestly think that she saw the blueprint Kanye West made with his last album [My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy], and the way music is going where an artist can have a record playing on four different platforms [at satellite radio] and she personified it and maximized it," said Reggie Hawkins, program director for Sirius/XM's Hip Hop Nation. "She [isn't a rapper that] does pop records that suck. She does great pop records and songs like 'Pound the Alarm' are going to be played in clubs from here to Brazil. I think she's taken it to the next level."

Minaj recently told theLos Angeles Times that she took the disappointment of her rap fans hard when they complained about lightweight tunes like "Your Love" and "Moment 4 Life" from her best-selling debut, Pink Friday.

"I felt a lot of pressure to be inspirational and responsible [on that album]," Minaj said. "I like all kinds of music; when I was working at Red Lobster the soundtrack of my life there was Avril Lavigne. Hip-hop fans are my core, and I can never not be hip-hop. But why not showcase all sides of who you are?" Which is why, she said, she wanted Reloaded to indulge all of her many personalities, from the frantic verses of "Roman Holiday" to the mixtape-like "Stupid Hoe" and the Eminem feature "Roman's Revenge."

The way Hawkins reads it, Nicki doesn't seem to really care if hip-hop gives her the cold shoulder. "She's seen the light internationally and seen that there's a bigger world than just Queens, New York, or Bankhead, Atlanta," he said. "She's grown and when I sat down with her [I got the sense] that she doesn't care. She's going to Will Smith the game ... her next step is movies. It's not about hip-hop critics who want to box her in as a hip-hop artist. It's about her core fans, her Twitter followers and social media people, her Barbz. If they give her backlash it's a problem."

And when Nicki appeared on Sirius radio's "Sway in the Morning"
 on Shade 45 this week, she reacted to that potential backlash by explaining that she has to keep evolving. "You just gotta realize that I'm never gonna be one-dimensional," she said. "Even my core fans I think, at times, thought I was one-dimensional when I was doing mixtapes. However, even on the mixtapes, I was singing and I did a song called 'Can Anybody Hear Me' on one of my mixtapes where I was singing and talking about being a female rapper and trying to get signed."

Rodriguez said he totally understands Nicki's desire to grow artistically and predicted that the grumbling from the rap community would settle down eventually once she puts out some hot remixes.

"The thing with a half-and-half record is that you'll have detractors because it's never fully one thing or the other," he said, pointing to label mate Drake as someone who has managed to keep both sides of his audience happy with a more cohesive pair of albums that smoothly mix his pop and rap leanings. "As opposed to Missy or Diddy, who started out glossy and very pop hued ... Nicki came from the DVD/mixtape scene. Her base is hip-hop, which launched her to reach those pop heights and now they're looking at it like, 'wham, bam, thank you ma'm.'" Regardless of the grumbling, she's on track to show them all when Roman likely debuts at #1
 on the Billboard charts next week. What do you think of Roman Reloaded? Tell us on our Facebook page!

To celebrate the release of Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, we will be examining the "Evolution of Nicki Minaj" throughout the week. Check MTV News every day to see how the Southside Jamaica, Queens, Barbie went from a promising mixtape standout to rap's reigning queen.

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Personal Finance Daily: No one-size-fits all for retirement | Odd Onion

By MarketWatch

Don?t miss these top stories:

The 4% formula for drawing down retirement assets has long been a favorite for those planning for retirement and the people who advise them. But between changes in investment trends and longer life expectancies, that solution doesn?t fit everyone?s needs, Robert Powell writes today. He details alternatives and modifications to the formula, and examines how advisers help people factor in their wants and needs.

If you like sports and high drama, tradition and an international flavor, then double up with the Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Ga., and the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race in London this weekend. MarketWatch?s Shawn Langlois notes some ties that bind these iconic sporting events, including surreal settings, incomprehensible pomp and circumstance, and even sponsor controversy.

?
Anne Stanley
, Managing Editor, Personal Finance

You?re invited: MarketWatch ETF event

If you?re in the San Francisco Bay Area and you?re interested in exchange-traded funds, we?d like to invited you to a free live event in April. Join us for an evening of cocktails and conversation about the risks and opportunities of trading ETFs. Our guest panelists will be Tom Lydon, president of Global Trends Investments and editor of ETFtrends.com; John Nyaradi, publisher of Wall Street Sector Selector; and Jim Wiandt, publisher and chief executive of IndexUniverse.com, Exchange-Traded Funds Report and Journal of Indexes. The event will be on the evening of Tuesday, April 17, in downtown San Francisco. To get more details and RSVP, send an email to
MarketWatchevent@wsj.com
by April 10.

30-year fixed-rate mortgage falls to 3.98%

Mixed signals about the health of the economy caused mortgage rates to move little this week, Freddie Mac?s chief economist said on Thursday.

Read more: 30-year fixed-rate mortgage falls to 3.98%

4% solution for retirement doesn?t fit all

The 4% withdrawal strategy, a strategy used to produce income in retirement by many financial advisers and do-it-yourselfers, is, to put it bluntly, oversimplistic.

The 4% solution for retirement doesn?t fit all.

Doubling up with the Masters and Oxbridge

The Masters golf tournament will heat up on Saturday just a short time after a winner is crowned in the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race.

Read more: Doubling up with the Masters and Oxbridge.

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Internet promotion Online Press announcements for WEBSITE SEO ...

Posted on 04 April 2012. Tags: Nett Solutions, Nett Solutions Fraud, Nett Solutions scam

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It is the critical component in commencing an online marketing campaign. Using the studies which has been performed, it truly is time NettSolutions developing your web Marketing tactic. This implies that when ever someone even on a smart cell phone enters an unusual key phrase for instance coffee, they should get all of the coffee shops just a certain geographic area. Not sole that but they also definately will get directions to the next location people choose as well by ft or simply by driving.

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It usually is the most regularly asked challenge by anybody who? s interested in stepping into niche promoting. The online marketing strategies reviewed primarily target allowing you to increase proficiency when doing business online without having sacrificing helpfulness! To become successful an online marketing business must generate a web presence to have any audience to make sure you which it could actually promote. Despite that, some automotive dealers nonetheless dedicate only one fraction of the advertising funds to internet promotion.

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Make customized 3-D bots at a 'Robot Kinko's'

1 day

InnovationNewsDaily Staff

Daniela Rus imagines it as a "Robot Kinko's." Say you're going away for a weekend and you're worried Fluffy will be bored while you're gone, so you want an automated cat-entertaining machine. You could go to the Robot Kinko's, where you could play with a program that lets you enter in a rough shape for the machine and enter parameters such as how many legs the machine should have. You're no robotics expert, but the program's own expertise and database of robot shapes would help you create a feasible design. A few days later, you could come back to the store to pick up your 3-D-printed robot. Beyond cat toys, custom-made robots could help people with household tasks, teachers give cool science lessons and disaster responders print out the tools they need on the fly.?

That's the project Rus, a robotics researcher at MIT, and her research team officially started April 3, with the announcement that they've received $10 million from the National Science Foundation to develop their idea. These five-year grants are the single largest investment the foundation makes in computer science. The projects they fund are supposed to be difficult and far-reaching. That's true for this project, according to Rus. "This is a whole new way of thinking about manufacturing robots," she told InnovationNewsDaily.?

Among the things she and her collaborators, from Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania, need to invent are ways to let amateurs easily program new actions into their robot. The programming platform needs to have safeguards because an average user won't know if certain commands might break their robot, wasting the money they just spent printing it. The researchers will need to develop materials that can vary in stiffness or other qualities that people might want to control. They'll need a way to automatically and simultaneously design all the components of a robot: its electrical wiring, its computing capability, and its mechanical design.?

They've done little research yet, but they have created two small prototypes, one insect robot and one gripping pincer. As yet, there's no program for amateurs to design robots, so these were professionally designed. But once the researchers submitted their designs to a special printer they built, the designs took less than two hours to print, fold into 3-D shapes and assemble. Each robot cost less than $100 each, Rus said.?

She thought of the project because she wanted to be able to make robots faster. Her students often use robots to test their ideas, but there's no science catalog for robots the way there are catalogs for glass beakers and lab goggles. Instead, computer science students need to build robots on their own, during which time they aren't thinking about the bigger science questions, Rus said.?

Over the next five years, the research team hopes to have a working system where someone make requests such as "Map radon levels in my basement" or "Play with my cat," then get a robot at the push of a button, Rus said.?

Follow InnovationNewsDaily on Twitter @ News_Innovation, or on Facebook.

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