McIlroy leads with 67, Woods 3 back in Abu Dhabi (AP)

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates ? Rory McIlroy opened his season by outplaying Tiger Woods in the first round of the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship, shooting a 5-under 67 Thursday for a share of the lead.

Woods shot a 70 in a threesome with McIlroy and top-ranked Luke Donald, who finished with a 71. Robert Karlsson tied for the lead while Gareth Maybin, Richard Finch and Jean-Baptiste Gonnet were one stroke back.

Woods played bogey-free golf that produced few momentous shots and two birdies. He missed several birdie chances, including a 6-footer on his ninth, the 18th hole.

"It was a good ball-striking round," Woods said. "I had a hard time reading the greens out there. The greens were pretty grainy and I just had a hard time getting a feel for it. Toward the end I hit some pretty good putts, but overall I got fooled a lot on my reads."

McIlroy, the U.S. Open champion who has had three top-five finishes in Abu Dhabi, made three birdies on his first four holes but erratic driving led to two bogeys on the next four. He steadied himself with three birdies on his back nine, including a chip-in on No. 8 from just off the green.

"It's a nice way to start the competitive season, I suppose," McIlroy said. "I didn't feel like I played that good. I definitely didn't strike the ball as good as I have been the last couple of weeks. I think it's just because your first competitive round of the season, card in your hand, you can get a little bit tentative or a little apprehensive."

Woods also struggled with his approaches shots at the National Course at the Abu Dhabi Golf Club, which was playing much tougher than in the past with narrower fairways and thicker rough. That resulted in many 25- and 30-footers he couldn't sink.

Sergio Garcia (71) and Jose Manuel Lara (70) each had hole-in-one on the par-3 12th hole. KJ Choi, Colin Montgomerie and Padraig Harrington joined the group at 71. Second-ranked Lee Westwood (72) and defending champion Martin Kaymer (77) got off to poor starts and never challenged.

McIlroy calls Woods a friend and was chatting with his playing partner for much of the day. He said he didn't take much satisfaction from beating him in the first round.

"If it was the last day of the tournament and you're both going in there with a chance to win, I would take a lot of pride from that, obviously," said the 22-year-old Northern Irishman.

"But the first day of a tournament is a little different," he said. "You're just going out there and playing and seeing what you can do. But, hopefully, I can get myself into position where I do play with him on a Sunday and see how I get on."

After a seven-week layoff, Woods said he's fitter than he has been in years. He's coming off a victory at the Chevron World Challenge last month that ended a two-year title drought.

With the win, Woods moved to 25th in the world after briefly falling outside the top 50 last year. Before the victory, Woods finished third at the Australian Open and delivered the clinching point for the American team in the Presidents Cup.

"It felt the same as it had from Oz to the World Challenge to here," Woods said of his game. "I controlled my ball all day and just had a hard time getting a feel for these greens. They are grainy enough where I just didn't quite read them right, and I hit them good, and then the grain would take it, not take it. It was just difficult."

___

Follow Michael Casey on Twitter at https://twitter.com/mcasey1

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_on_sp_go_su/glf_abu_dhabi_championship

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Remarry Your Ex: Tweeters Weigh In

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Would you remarry your ex?

That's the question blogger Ed Housewright asked in his HuffPost blog post Thursday, weighing the pros and cons of re-tying the knot.

Housewright argued that under no circumstances would he re-marry his two exes, nor does he think they would remarry him. We posed the question to the Twitterverse, which almost universally agreed.

Here are some of our favorite responses:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/26/remarry-your-ex_n_1235265.html

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50 Cent: I'll Tweet Nude Pics if Giants Lose Super Bowl

If his team loses the Super Bowl, 50 Cent will have to grin and bare it! The rapper, who was born in Queens, has not only placed money on the New York Giants; he's agreed to go full-frontal on the Internet if they lose to the New England Patriots in the big game on Feb. 5.

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/50-cent-will-tweet-nude-photos-if-giants-lose-super-bowl/1-a-422411?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3A50-cent-will-tweet-nude-photos-if-giants-lose-super-bowl-422411

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Sevigny and Webber to star in Jarmusch film (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) ? Chloe Sevigny and Mark Webber have been attached to star in "Panarea," a drama about a young married couple with intimacy issues who vacation on an Italian island where their relationship is tested.

Adam Mansbach wrote the screenplay. Adam Bhala Lough is directing. Jim Jarmusch is executive producing.

Webber is especially in-demand lately. The actor, who played Stephen Stills in "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World," has three premieres at the Sundance Film Festival -- "The End of Love," "Save the Date" and "For a Good Time, Call ..."

In "Panarea," Webber plays Paul, an American who is married to Sevigny's character, the headstrong Swedish Linnea.

Mangusta Productions' Sol Tryon and Giancarlo Canavesio are producing with Mike S. Ryan.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120125/media_nm/us_chloesevigny

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A 10-Year-Old Kid Got Lost Inside a Computer&mdash;For Real [Computers]

TNW has a great little anecdote today: a 10-year-old kid got lost inside a computer in the 1950s. That was the time when computers less powerful than your current phone were bigger than most homes. This is his story: More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/Si-HUReuYJ0/10+year+old-kid-got-lost-inside-a-computer++for-real

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Obama admin says new forest rules stress science

FILE - This July 5, 2005 file photo shows pine trees in the White River National Forest near Frisco, Colo. The Obama administration says new rules to manage nearly 200 million acres of national forests will protect watersheds and wildlife while promoting uses ranging from recreation to logging. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski, File)

FILE - This July 5, 2005 file photo shows pine trees in the White River National Forest near Frisco, Colo. The Obama administration says new rules to manage nearly 200 million acres of national forests will protect watersheds and wildlife while promoting uses ranging from recreation to logging. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski, File)

FILE - In this Aug. 9, 2010 file photo, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack speaks in Concord, N.H. The Obama administration says new rules to manage nearly 200 million acres of national forests will protect watersheds and wildlife while promoting uses ranging from recreation to logging. (AP Photo/Jim Cole, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Obama administration says new rules to manage nearly 200 million acres of national forests will protect watersheds and wildlife while promoting uses ranging from recreation to logging.

The new rules, to replace guidelines thrown out by a federal court in 2009, are set to take effect in early March. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the rule change on Thursday.

Vilsack said in an interview that the rules reflect more than 300,000 comments received since a draft plan was released last year. The new rules strengthen a requirement that decisions be based on the best available science and recognize that forests are used for a variety of purposes, Vilsack said.

"I think it's a solid rule and done in a collaborative, open and transparent way," he said.

The guidelines, known as a forest planning rule, will encourage forest restoration and watershed protection while creating opportunities for the timber industry and those who use the forest for recreation, he said.

Vilsack, who has pledged to break through the logjam of political conflict over forest management, said the new regulation's emphasis on science and multiple uses should allow it to stand up to likely court challenges from environmental groups or the timber industry.

"I am hopeful and confident that it will stand scrutiny," he said.

Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell said the guidelines would allow land management plans for individual forests to be completed more quickly and at a lower cost than under current rules, which date to the Reagan administration.

Several attempts to revise the 1982 planning rule have been thrown out by federal courts in the past decade. Most recently a Bush administration plan was struck down in 2009. Environmentalists had fought the rule, saying it rolled back key forest protections.

The Obama administration did not appeal the ruling, electing to develop a new forest planning rule to protect water, climate and wildlife.

Under the new rule, forest plans could be developed within three to four years instead of taking up to seven years, as under current guidelines, Tidwell said.

"We really can protect the forest at lower cost with less time," he said.

The new regulation also should give forest managers more flexibility to address conditions on the ground, such as projects to thin the forest to reduce the risk of wildfire, Tidwell said.

"We'll be able to get more work done ? get more out of the forest and create more jobs," while at the same allowing greater recreational use, Tidwell said. Recreational use of the forest has grown exponentially in recent years.

Like Vilsack, Tidwell said he is optimistic the new plan will stand up to scrutiny from environmental groups and the timber industry, both of which have challenged previous planning rules in court.

"I'm optimistic that folks will want to give it a shot," Tidwell said.

The 155 national forests and grasslands managed by the Forest Service cover 193 million acres in 42 states and Puerto Rico. Balance between industry and conservation in those areas has been tough to find since the existing rules went into effect three decades ago.

At least three revisions of the rules have been struck down since 2000.

The planning rule designates certain animal species that must be protected to ensure ecosystems are healthy. However, the rule became the basis of numerous lawsuits that sharply cut back logging to protect habitat for fish and wildlife.

Meanwhile, the timber industry has continued to clamor for more logs, and conservation groups keep challenging timber sales, drilling and mining projects.

Tom Partin, president of the American Forest Resource Council, a timber industry group, said his members will review the final rule to see if it follows a federal rule to manage forests for a diversity of plants and animals ? not in a manner that places a single use or species above all else.

Jane Danowitz, U.S. public lands director for the Pew Environment Group, said national forests are the source of drinking water for one in three Americans, are home to fish and other wildlife and are an economic engine for local communities across the West.

"Faced with unprecedented threats from industrial development, these national forests need strong national protections," she said, adding that the new framework for forest management appears to reflect comments from scientists, the business community and conservation advocates.

"The plan now has stronger safeguards than what was originally proposed. That said, the true test of this plan will be how it's implemented on the ground," Danowitz said.

___

Matthew Daly can be followed on Twitter: (at)MatthewDalyWDC

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-01-26-Forest%20Rules/id-49e323e5076c4fd4b56755ef06dcd677

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Gene Mutations May Boost Ovarian Cancer Survival: Study (HealthDay)

TUESDAY, Jan. 24 (HealthDay News) -- Genetic mutations known as BRCA1 and BRCA2 raise the risk of getting ovarian cancer, but new research shows that those same mutations may boost a woman's odds of surviving the deadly disease.

Women with invasive epithelial ovarian cancer who carry the mutations have a better prognosis than women without the genetic variations, according to an analysis of 26 previous studies. The BRCA2 carriers, in particular, had a better five-year survival rate.

"Our paper provides definitive evidence that BRCA1 and BRCA2 carriers have improvement in survival [compared to ovarian cancer patients without the mutations]," said Kelly L. Bolton, lead author of the new analysis and a medical student at the University of California, Los Angeles, David Geffen School of Medicine.

The study, which confirms previous findings, is published Jan. 25 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Nearly 23,000 women will get a diagnosis of ovarian cancer this year in the United States, and about 15,500 will die of it, according to the American Cancer Society. Epithelial ovarian cancer, the type Bolton focused on, occurs in the cells on the surface of the ovary.

Germline BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations are found in up to 15 percent of women with this type of cancer. A germline mutation is a gene change in a reproductive cell that can be passed on to offspring.

Data from more than 1,213 ovarian cancer patients was included in the studies reviewed. Of these, 909 had BRCA1 mutations; 304 had BRCA2 variations.

The studies also included 2,666 women who did not have the genetic mutations.

At the five-year mark, 44 percent of the BRCA1 carriers and 52 percent of the BRCA2 carriers were alive, compared to 36 percent of those without the mutation.

Bolton said the survival differences remained after the researchers took into account such factors as the stage of the cancer and age, although it was less significant among women with a family history of ovarian and/or breast cancer.

Exactly how the mutations may improve survival is not known. However, Bolton and others speculate the BRCA1 or BRCA2 status may modify the response to platinum-based chemotherapy, a common treatment.

The new analysis will have important implications for future research and treatment of ovarian cancer, the authors said. Routine genetic screening of women with high-grade cancer might be warranted, they added.

Dr. Elizabeth Poynor, a gynecologic oncologist and pelvic surgeon at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, suggested the findings can help health care providers tailor treatment and more accurately counsel them regarding expected survival.

While not new, the information is valuable, Poynor said. "For a long time, we've known that individuals with BRCA1 or 2 actually have a better prognosis," she said. "This is not new information, it's expanded information. It's reinforcing what we already know."

More research is needed, the authors said, acknowledging some study limitations. For instance, the analysis lacked complete information on types of chemotherapy used, which might also have influenced survival.

Some co-authors reported consultancy fees from Complete Genomics Inc., a company engaged in gene sequencing, and from Merck Sharp & Dohme, Roche, Schering-Plough, Pfizer and other pharmaceutical firms.

More information

Learn how ovarian cancer is diagnosed at the American Cancer Society.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/cancer/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20120125/hl_hsn/genemutationsmayboostovariancancersurvivalstudy

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