A new crew arrived at the International Space Station on Friday

A new crew arrived at the International Space Station on Friday, giving NASA for the first time four astronauts to boost US research projects aboard the orbiting laboratory.

A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying three spaceflight veterans slipped into a docking port aboard the station at 5:54 pm EDT (2154 GMT) as the $100 billion research outpost sailed about 250 miles (400 km) over Germany, a NASA TV broadcast showed.

Strapped inside the capsule, which blasted off aboard a Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan six hours earlier, were Randy Bresnik, with the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration; Sergey Ryazanskiy, with the Russian space agency Roscosmos; and Italy's Paolo Nespoli, with the European Space Agency.

The men will join two NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut already aboard the station, a project of 15 nations.

Their arrival means the US space agency now has four crew members instead of three available for medical experiments, technology demonstrations and other research aboard the station, the US space agency said.

The extra astronauts will effectively double the amount of time for research, program manager Kirk Shireman said at a station conference last week.

NASA does not oversee the Russian staff, which was reduced to two in April until a long-delayed research module joins the station next year.

Previously, Russia flew three cosmonauts, with the remaining three positions filled by a combination of European, Japanese, Canadian and US astronauts, who are trained and overseen by NASA.

By the end of next year, NASA intends to begin flying astronauts aboard space taxis under development by SpaceX and Boeing. Both spaceships have room for a fourth seat, bumping the station’s overall crew size to seven once Russia returns to full staffing.

NASA is using the station to prepare for human missions to the moon and Mars and to stimulate commercial space transportation, pharmaceutical research, manufacturing and other businesses.

The agency also conducts physics, astronomy and Earth science investigations aboard the outpost, which has been staffed by rotating crews of astronauts and cosmonauts since 2000.

Bresnik, 49, last flew on the space shuttle in 2009 during a space station assembly mission. Ryazanskiy, 42, spent five-and-a-half months aboard the station in 2013-2014. Nespoli, 60, is making his third space flight, having previously served on both space shuttle and space station crews.

The men are slated to return to Earth in December.

Researchers explore the science of gender identity,Born this way?

While President Donald Trump has thrust transgender people back into the conflict between conservative and liberal values in the United States, geneticists are quietly working on a major research effort to unlock the secrets of gender identity.

A consortium of five research institutions in Europe and the United States, including Vanderbilt University Medical Centre, George Washington University and Boston Children's Hospital, is looking to the genome, a person's complete set of DNA, for clues about whether transgender people are born that way.

Two decades of brain research have provided hints of a biological origin to being transgender, but no irrefutable conclusions.

Now scientists in the consortium have embarked on what they call the largest-ever study of its kind, searching for a genetic component to explain why people assigned one gender at birth so persistently identify as the other, often from very early childhood.

Researchers have extracted DNA from the blood samples of 10,000 people, 3,000 of them transgender and the rest non-transgender, or cisgender. The project is awaiting grant funding to begin the next phase: testing about 3 million markers, or variations, across the genome for all of the samples.

Knowing what variations transgender people have in common, and comparing those patterns to those of cisgender people in the study, may help investigators understand what role the genome plays in everyone's gender identity.

"If the trait is strongly genetic, then people who identify as trans will share more of their genome, not because they are related in nuclear families but because they are more anciently related," said Lea Davis, leader of the study and an assistant professor of medicine at the Vanderbilt Genetics Institute.

The search for the biological underpinnings is taking on new relevance as the battle for transgender rights plays out in the US political arena.

One of the first acts of the new Trump administration was to revoke Obama-era guidelines directing public schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms of their choice. Last week, the president announced on Twitter he intends to ban transgender people from serving in the military.

Texas lawmakers are debating a bathroom bill that would require people to use the bathroom of the sex listed on their birth certificate. North Carolina in March repealed a similar law after a national boycott cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars in lost business.

Currently, the only way to determine whether people are transgender is for them to self-identify as such. While civil rights activists contend that should be sufficient, scientists have taken their search to the lab.

That quest has made some transgender people nervous. If a "cause" is found it could posit a "cure," potentially opening the door to so-called reparative therapies similar to those that attempt to turn gay people straight, advocates say. Others raise concerns about the rights of those who may identify as trans but lack biological "proof."

Davis stressed that her study does not seek to produce a genetic test for being transgender, nor would it be able to. Instead, she said, she hopes the data will lead to better care for transgender people, who experience wide health disparities compared to the general population.

One-third of transgender people reported a negative healthcare experience in the previous year such as verbal harassment, refusal of treatment or the need to teach their doctors about transgender care, according to a landmark survey of nearly 28,000 people released last year by the National Centre for Transgender Equality.

Some 40 percent have attempted suicide, almost nine times the rate for the general population.

"We can use this information to help train doctors and nurses to provide better care to trans patients and to also develop amicus briefs to support equal rights legislation," said Davis, who is also director of research for Vanderbilt's gender health clinic.

The Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Tennessee has one of the world's largest DNA databanks. It also has emerged as a leader in transgender healthcare with initiatives such as the Trans Buddy Program, which pairs every transgender patient with a volunteer to help guide them through their healthcare visits.

The study has applied for a grant from the National Institutes of Health and is exploring other financial sources to provide the $1 million needed to complete the genotyping, expected to take a year to 18 months. Analysis of the data would take about another six months and require more funding, Davis said.

The other consortium members are Vrije University in Amsterdam and the FIMABIS institute in Malaga, Spain.

Probing the Brain

Until now, the bulk of research into the origins of being transgender has looked at the brain.

Neurologists have spotted clues in the brain structure and activity of transgender people that distinguish them from cisgender subjects.

A seminal 1995 study was led by Dutch neurobiologist Dick Swaab, who was also among the first scientists to discover structural differences between male and female brains. Looking at postmortem brain tissue of transgender subjects, he found that male-to-female transsexuals had clusters of cells, or nuclei, that more closely resembled those of a typical female brain, and vice versa.

Swaab's body of work on postmortem samples was based on just 12 transgender brains that he spent 25 years collecting. But it gave rise to a whole new field of inquiry that today is being explored with advanced brain scan technology on living transgender volunteers.

Among the leaders in brain scan research is Ivanka Savic, a professor of neurology with Sweden's Karolinska Institute and visiting professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Her studies suggest that transgender men have a weakened connection between the two areas of the brain that process the perception of self and one's own body. Savic said those connections seem to improve after the person receives cross-hormone treatment.

Her work has been published more than 100 times on various topics in peer-reviewed journals, but she still cannot conclude whether people are born transgender.

"I think that, but I have to prove that," Savic said.

A number of other researchers, including both geneticists and neurologists, presume a biological component that is also influenced by upbringing.

But Paul McHugh, a university professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, has emerged as the leading voice challenging the "born-this-way" hypothesis.

He encourages psychiatric therapy for transgender people, especially children, so that they accept the gender assigned to them at birth.

McHugh has gained a following among social conservatives, while incensing LGBT advocates with comments such as calling transgender people "counterfeit."

Last year he co-authored a review of the scientific literature published in The New Atlantis journal, asserting there was scant evidence to suggest sexual orientation and gender identity were biologically determined.

The article drew a rebuke from nearly 600 academics and clinicians who called it misleading.

McHugh told Reuters he was "unmoved" by his critics and says he doubts additional research will reveal a biological cause.

"If it were obvious," he said, "they would have found it long ago."

all modern apes may have looked like

The lemon-sized fossil skull of an infant ape nicknamed Alesi that inhabited a Kenyan forest about 13 million years ago is offering a peek at what the long-ago common ancestor of people and all modern apes may have looked like.

Scientists on Wednesday announced the discovery of the most complete extinct ape skull fossil ever found, allowing them to study such characteristics as its brain cavity, inner-ear structure and unerupted adult teeth beneath the roots of its baby teeth.

With its small snout, the skull resembles that of a gibbon, a small ape found in Asia. But the balance organ inside its inner ear differed from gibbons and suggested Alesi's species moved through trees more cautiously and had shorter arms than gibbons, which swing through trees with acrobatic ease.

The skull may answer a long-standing question about the origin of the lineage that led to people and modern apes such as chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and gibbons, indicating their common ancestor evolved in Africa, not Eurasia, the scientists said.Many fossils depict the evolution that has unfolded since the narrower lineage that led to people split from chimpanzees, our closest evolutionary cousins, 6 to 7 million years ago. Our species, Homo sapiens, appeared approximately 300,000 years ago in Africa.

Fossils more than 10 million years old that could illuminate the evolution of the common ancestors of people and modern apes are rare, often just scrappy teeth and jaw bones.

That is why this fossil, unearthed west of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya, is considered a revelation.

"I appreciate just how difficult it is to find something like this. So when we found this, I was over the moon. I still am over the moon," said paleontologist Isaiah Nengo of New York-based Stony Brook University's Turkana Basin Institute and California's De Anza College.

The name Alesi derives from "ales," meaning "ancestor" in the local Turkana language.

It belonged to a new species called Nyanzapithecus alesi that was closely related to the common ancestor of people and modern apes although that ancestor likely was even older, University College London paleontologist Fred Spoor said.

Alesi's teeth and fully developed bony ear tubes showed its kinship to modern apes. Growth lines on the adult teeth showed Alesi was one year and four months old at death. The researchers, who could not determine its sex, said Alesi may have perished in a volcanic eruption.

Hajj visa Deadline extended from Bangladesh

Saudi Arabia has extended the deadline for Hajj visa applications from Bangladesh. 

The time for filing the documents had ended on Thursday, but applications will still be accepted on Saturday, Hajj Office Director Md Saiful Islam told bdnews24.com.

Bangladesh authorities had sought an extension until Monday. "They told us they'll accept forms on Saturday."

"They didn’t say they will not accept applications on Sunday. So we are guessing they have accepted our request."

As per the kingdom's quota system, 127,198 pilgrims from Bangladesh can perform Hajj this year.

But complications in securing visa, increased rent and guide fees have led to cancellation of 29 flights from Bangladesh to Saudi Arabia.

Saudi authorities issued visas for 122,422 people during the official period and did not have any pending requests. Therefore, requests are yet to be filed for another 4,776 individuals.

So far, 73,045 Bangladeshis have travelled to Saudi Arabia for Hajj this year, which is expected to start on Aug 30, but may vary depending on the sighting of the moon.

Biman Bangladesh, the national flag carrier, will continue Hajj flights until Aug 26. Saudi Arabian Airlines has scheduled flights until Aug 27.  

The Boss Baby Official Trailer - Teaser (2017) - Alec Baldwin Movie 2017

More than two-dozen witnesses were interviewed by the prosecution team, this person said.

One of the more important pieces of evidence, this person said, was how city and state officials submitted documentation related to the federal lead and copper rule, which governs acceptable levels of those toxins in drinking water. The person familiar with the matter said that some officials who worked on and submitted these reports included information they knew to be incorrect.

Flint's water became contaminated with lead in April 2014 when the city, while under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager, switched its drinking water source from Lake Huron water treated by the Detroit water system to Flint River water treated at the Flint Water Treatment Plant. Michigan Department of Environmental Quality officials have acknowledged a disastrous mistake when they failed to require the city to add corrosion-control chemicals as part of the treatment process.

The corrosive water caused lead to leach from pipes, joints and fixtures. Although Flint reconnected to Detroit water in October, after state officials acknowledged the lead-poisoning problem after months of denials, the risk remains because of damage to the water infrastructure system.

Officials also are exploring possible links between the river water and the Legionnaires outbreak.

The state and city are now treating the pipes with higher levels of phosphates in an effort to build up a protective coating that will prevent lead from further leaching. Having more water flowing in the system would help that process, and that's one reason Snyder and other state officials want Flint residents to start using their taps again.

With a win in New York, Hillary Clinton has dealt a major blow to Bernie Sanders' campaign, making it much harder for him to grab the nomination.Video provided by Newsy Newslook 1698

NEW YORK — Hillary Clinton handily defeatedBernie Sanders in New York’s Tuesday primary, dealing him a blow that could cement her grip on the Democratic nomination as the campaign heads to other Northeastern and mid-Atlantic states later this month.

"Today you proved once again, there’s no place like home,” Clinton told supporters at a victory speech in a Manhattan hotel ballroom as she headed toward a double-digit victory in the state she represented in the Senate for eight years. While the campaign has notched victories across the country, "this one’s personal," said Clinton. She also called the race for the nomination “in the homestretch.”

Clinton seemed to make a direct appeal to Sanders' supporters as the race has taken an increasingly bitter tone in recent weeks. "There is much more that unites us than divides us." She took no direct shots at the Vermont senator who's given her an unexpectedly fierce challenge, keeping her focus on Republicans Donald Trump andTed Cruz.

The two are "pushing a vision for America that’s divisive and, frankly, dangerous,” she said, including a return to “trickle-down economics,” opposition to a minimum wage increase and hostility to immigrants, said Clinton. “We have a very different vision. It’s about lifting each other up, not tearing each other down.”

In a rally at Penn State University prior to polls closing in New York, Sanders emphasized his campaign's core themes.
“What we have shown, uniquely, is that we can run a winning national campaign without being dependent on the big money interests," he told supporters in Pennsylvania, which holds a primary on April 26 along with four other states.

“Secretary Clinton has chosen another approach,” he said, citing the role of super PACs in backing her campaign.

Later, speaking to reporters at Burlington's airport after returning to Vermont, Sanders congratulated Clinton on her New York win.

"We think we have a message that is resonating throughout this country. We have come a long, long way," Sanders added. “We have a very, very strong grass-roots movement. … Activism wins elections.”

Sanders also raised concerns about what he called “voting irregularities” in New York and said he believes independents should have been allowed to participate in the primary.

Clinton made eight stops around the Big Apple on Monday in a final hectic campaign push, including visiting with cafeteria workers in Yonkers, drinking Asian bubble tea in Queens and mingling at an Irish Americans for Hillary event in Manhattan.

With 247 pledged delegates at stake in New York's primary, Clinton —  who entered Tuesday's contest with more than 1,750 delegates when superdelegates were factored in —  stood to inch closer to the 2,383 needed to clinch the Democratic nomination.

Clinton had significant advantages in New York, including that it is a closed primary. Sanders has benefited from the support of independents in past contests.

Clinton was also buoyed by strong support among minorities, according to exit polls, while the two split the white vote.

Sanders, a Vermont senator who was born in Brooklyn, once predicted he could beat Clinton in New York and argued that a heavy turnout would favor him. Sanders has pledged to fight all the way to the convention in July.



Tensions heightened between the two campaigns in the days leading up to Tuesday’s vote. Sanders accused Clinton of violating campaign finance laws with a joint fundraising deal between the campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

“While the use of joint fundraising agreements has existed for some time — it is unprecedented for the DNC to allow a joint committee to be exploited to the benefit of one candidate in the midst of a contested nominating contest,” said Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ campaign manager.

Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, shot back in a statement the "false attacks" from the Vermont senator's campaign "have gotten out of hand."

“As Senator Sanders faces nearly insurmountable odds, he is resorting to baseless accusations of illegal actions and poisoning the well for Democratic candidates up and down the ticket," Mook said. "It is shameful that Senator Sanders has resorted to irresponsible and misleading attacks just to raise money for himself.”

swaggering 3-0 victory on Sunday

London - Harry Kane blew Bournemouth away as title-chasing Tottenham kept the pressure on Premier League leaders Leicester with a swaggering 3-0 victory on Sunday.

Kane took just 44 seconds to open the scoring at White Hart Lane and the Tottenham striker netted again 15 minutes later to effectively kill off Bournemouth before half-time.

Christian Eriksen added Tottenham's third goal after the interval to keep his side firmly in the hunt for a first English title since 1961.

Mauricio Pochettino's second-placed team are only five points behind Leicester and, with seven games remaining, they go into the international break as the most credible candidates to profit from any slips by the leaders in the closing weeks.

This was a high-class Tottenham display and Kane, who had scored twice to seal last weekend's victory at Aston Villa, looks almost unstoppable at present.

Keeping the England star fit and in-form is the key to Tottenham's bid for a first title since the glory days of Danny Blanchflower and Dave Mackay, and Pochettino seems well aware of that.

Leicester's win at Crystal Palace on Saturday had left Tottenham with no margin for error but, crucially, Pochettino had rested Kane, Eriksen, Mousa Dembele and Kyle Walker for Thursday's Europa League defeat against Borussia Dortmund.

The Argentine's gamble was vindicated when two of his refreshed stars combined to give Tottenham the lead before the sell-out crowd had even got comfortable in their seats.

After struggling in the opening weeks, Kane had kick-started his season with a hat-trick in Tottenham's 5-1 win at Bournemouth in October and he took less than a minute to feast on the Cherries' defence yet again.

Walker advanced unchecked down the right flank and whipped over a low cross that Kane met with a perfectly-timed run into the six-yard box, where he deftly guided the ball into the far corner.

It was Kane's 22nd goal in his last 30 club appearances and took him to 20 Premier League goals for a second consecutive season.

With their top-flight survival almost secured after three successive victories, Bournemouth had less motivation than their high-flying opponents and it showed as Tottenham tore through them again to double their advantage in the 16th minute.

Following a lengthy spell of probing possession, Dele Alli twisted the knife, playing a sumptuous pass to locate Kane's intelligent run and the England striker's predatory instincts did the rest as he fired a precise low drive past Artur Boruc from the edge of the penalty area.

Bournemouth's choice of a lurid pink away kit looked like being their only inspired move of the afternoon as it camouflaged their defenders' blushes after more sloppy play allowed Eriksen to time and space to shoot over when the Dane should have hit the target.

Pochettino's team, quicker in thought and deed, were running rings around the visitors and Alli thought he'd added a third when he crashed home from close-range, only to see the effort disallowed as Kane had been caught offside in the build-up.

Tottenham's relentless pressing must have had Eddie Howe's players wishing they could jet off for their planned warm-weather training camp in Dubai at half-time rather than next week.

There was no let-up from the hosts at the start of the second half and a rapid counter saw Kane tee up Walker for a powerful strike that fizzed wide.

A third goal looked inevitable and it duly arrived in the 52nd minute.

Kane unleashed a 25-yard drive that Boruc should have held, but the Bournemouth goalkeeper instead parried it straight to Eriksen, who had the simple task of slotting into the empty net.

Alli and Ryan Mason wasted good chances to make it four, but jubilant chants of "Leicester City, we're coming for you" were filling the north London air, and Tottenham fans have every reason to believe their team can do exactly that.

Super Rugby Week 4

1. High drama at Loftus

Friday night’s clash between the Bulls and Sharks at Loftus Versfeld ended in bizarre circumstances.

Bulls replacement flyhalf Tian Schoeman kicked a long-range penalty to level matters at 16-16 with less than a minute to play, only for Sharks flank Marcell Coetzee to win a last-gasp penalty on the ground in what should have won the game for the visitors.

However, Joe Pietersen missed an absolute sitter in front of the posts to see the game end in a stalemate.

The Sharks though learned a hard lesson that one should not overzealously celebrate before a game is actually won.

They celebrated wildly as the referee awarded the penalty, only to be left stunned when Pietersen botched his attempt.

In my view, the Bulls did enough to deserve a draw after many had written them off beforehand and a draw was perhaps a fair result.

2. Fleck outfoxes Larkham

It may not have been the case often during their playing days, but Stormers coach Robbie Fleck outfoxed his Brumbies counterpart Stephen Larkham in Saturday night’s clash at Newlands.

Fleck has expressed his desire to play running rugby and in the build-up to Saturday’s clash, more of the same was expected.

However, the Stormers kicked often in this game and in doing so turned the Brumbies’ big forwards and backs around.

It prevented the Brumbies from building momentum, forced them to play from deep and reduced the influence of their dangerous fetchers.

It was a masterstroke by Fleck.

3. Defensive Cheetahs frailties

Before their clash against the Lions in Johannesburg, Cheetahs coach Franco Smith insisted that they had worked hard on their defence.

He also insisted that they had the right defensive structures in place and that it was rather individuals slipping tackles at crucial times.

Whatever the reasons, the fact is that the Cheetahs are not showing enough commitment on defence. They have already slipped more than 100 tackles in the competition and missing 20 in the first half cost them the game against the Lions.

It simply has to be sorted out if the Cheetahs are to win games going forward in the competition.

The same can be said for the hapless Kings, who again conceded a half-century against the Crusaders in Christchurch on Saturday.

This week, they face Hurricanes in Wellington and I fear more of the same for the men from Port Elizabeth.

4. Lions rue lost bonus point

The Lions were the latest team in this year’s competition to learn a harsh lesson about the new try-scoring bonus point rule.

According to the new rules, a team must score three more tries than their opponents in order to gain a try-scoring bonus point.

When the Lions scored their fourth in the 41st minute for a 31-3 lead, five points appeared a certainty.

However, the Cheetahs came back roaring with three tries of their own to deny the Lions a try-scoring bonus-point.

In the end, the Lions scored five tries - but only two more than their opponents - so had to settle for four points from the game.

I’m still not sure I like the new rule though. Surely the Lions deserved a bonus point for scoring five tries…?

5. Marius Jonker in the spotlight AGAIN!

Television Match Official Marius Jonker was again in the spotlight during the Stormers v Brumbies game at Newlands. The previous week, he had handed the Sharks a controversial penalty try and this weekend he was again involved in a contentious call.

He was right to instruct the referee to give Brumbies replacement hooker Josh Mann-Rea a red card for throwing several punches at Stormers reserve prop Oli Kebble, but the jury still appears to be out on whether Dillyn Leyds’s try in the corner should have been awarded.

Leyds appeared to lose control of the ball, but the try was awarded as on replays it appeared that Leyds’s hand was still on the ball when it touched the ground.

Retired referee Jonathan Kaplan said on his Twitter account that the try should not have been awarded, while Nick Mallett afterwards said he felt the right call was made.

“The try Dillyn Leyds scored did look like a knock-on and in the old days it would’ve been a knock-on. But I do think it was a try, as you don't have to control the ball (while grounding it), just maintain contact with it. I don't think there was daylight between the ball and his hand. The Stormers didn’t get the rub of the green last week with that Siya Kolisi (penalty try) call, but they got it this week,” Mallett said in the SuperSport studio after the game.