Researchers from the Australian National University and the British Antarctic Survey found data taken from an ice core also shows the summer ice melt has been 10 times more intense over the past 50 years compared with 600 years ago.

"It's definitely evidence that the climate and the environment is changing in this part of Antarctica," lead researcher Nerilie Abram said.

Abram and her team drilled a 364-metre (400-yard) deep ice core on James Ross Island, near the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, to measure historical temperatures and compare them with summer ice melt levels in the area.

They found that, while the temperatures have gradually increased by 1.6 degrees Celsius (2.9 degrees Fahrenheit) over 600 years, the rate of ice melting has been most intense over the past 50 years.

That shows the ice melt can increase dramatically in climate terms once temperatures hit a tipping point.

"Once your climate is at that level where it is starting to go above zero degrees, the amount of melt that will happen is very sensitive to any further increase in temperature you may have," Abram said.

Robert Mulvaney, from the British Antarctic Survey, said the stronger ice melts are likely responsible for faster glacier ice loss and some of the dramatic collapses from the Antarctic ice shelf over the past 50 years.

Their research was published in the Nature Geoscience journal. (Reporting by James Grubel; Editing by Paul Tait)

The announcement was made Tuesday. Villaume is only the third person named to the position in the company's 56-year history.

Villaume's career has included engagements with New York's Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden and Washington's National Opera.

After opening the Dallas Opera's 2013-2014 season by conducting "Carmen," he'll return to the Royal Opera House for performances.

Villaume also will maintain a schedule of symphonic performances, including concerts with the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra and the Slovenian Philharmonic.

Dallas Opera General Director Keith Cerny says he believes Villaume "will prove an excellent ambassador for the company while attending to his many national and international conducting engagements."

[More from BGR: ]

. Four months later, Draw Something dropped out of the top-50 chart. Now its sequel seems destined for an even faster burn-out.

[More from BGR: ]

This is a sharp reminder of how difficult it is to value mobile game properties and how tricky sequels can be in this industry.

While Zynga was attempting to desperately revive the original Draw Something and prepping the sequel, wave after wave of other popular word games washed over the mobile app market. Most notably 4 Pics 1 Word, Whats the Movie? and Whats the Word? These challengers were designed to be sticky and theys smart-looking, yet theyre marketed as free downloads.The demand for premium price word games has collapsed.

And here comes Zynga with the $3 sequel to its $200 million game franchise and it lasted precisely six days on the top-10 iPhone app chart.

Zyngas reputation as an astonishingly slow and tone-deaf game developer is starting to edge into legendary territory. This is the first notable mobile app developer ever to be listed in the U.S. stock market. Yet the company seems to miss every twist and turn in the rapidly evolving app market.

In some ways Zynga resembles the appallingly badly managed British car vendors such as Wolseley, Humber and Sunbeam industry pioneers that squandered the early advantages they possessed around 1900-1905.

This article was

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian Defence Minister Peter MacKay admitted on Tuesday his department has failed for years to combat the risk of security leaks from contract workers who are not being screened properly.

The admission could lead to further embarrassment for the military after it emerged last year that a Canadian navy officer had passed secrets to Russia for years before he was caught.

MacKay made his comments after Parliament's official watchdog, the auditor general, rapped the Defence Department for failing to ensure that all private contractors receive security clearance for sensitive jobs. The auditor general first flagged the problem in 2007.

"I agree with the auditor general that the Department of National Defence is not acting expeditiously to address key security concerns. They must do better," MacKay said at a news conference held to address the report's findings.

MacKay said a special security team was looking into his ministry's practices. He said he wanted to see an interim report by this autumn.

The defense ministry, national police and two intelligence agencies use private contractors to carry out many sensitive tasks, and must seek security clearance for these workers.

But Auditor General Michael Ferguson said that did not always happen and complained the government had not done enough to address problems outlined in the 2007 auditor general's report. Guidelines on who needs clearance are inconsistent and not always applied properly, he said.

"Although the government has made a number of improvements ... in our opinion significant weaknesses remain," he wrote. "Contracts are sometimes awarded to those who lack the appropriate security clearance."

The government amended policies after the 2007 report, but Ferguson said the changes did not clarify whether firms with access to protected and classified information were required to hold a security clearance.

"This is an important gap that could result in inconsistent application of the policy and thus introduce additional security risk," he said.

In the 2011-12 fiscal year, about 27,000 security clearance requests were filed, of which 1,400 had been in the system for almost eight months, well beyond the supposed maximum 75 days.

A further 1,100 requests remained from previous years.

Ferguson said defense ministry and police employees, frustrated by the amount of time needed to gain security permits, would sometimes allow a person with no clearance to work in a classified area as long as they had an escort.

In other cases, all classified material in a particular area would be removed before the contractor started work.

"This practice fails to address identified security requirements and may result in inadequate security for projects," he said.

Canada's security standards came under scrutiny last year after the arrest of navy Sub-Lieutenant Jeffrey Delisle on charges of spying for Russia. He was jailed for 20 years in February this year.

Officials told a sentencing hearing that allies had threatened to withhold intelligence from Canada unless it tightened security procedures. Along with the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand, Canada belongs to the so-called "Five Eyes" group of nations that share intelligence.

MacKay said the Delisle case "puts further focus on the need for screening".

The defense ministry said it agreed with all of Ferguson's comments and would take action.

Ferguson also found that some contract employees at the top-secret Communications Security Establishment Canada, which gathers electronic intelligence, had been allowed to start work before gaining security clearance.

He reported no serious problems at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service agency.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Janet Guttsman, Sofina Mirza-Reid and Peter Galloway)

Yet, off the runway, Donna's heart belongs to Haiti. After an earthquake devastated the country in 2010, Karan has been working through her Urban Zen foundation to help rebuild the country. "I quickly realized that the solution to rebuilding the country could be found in the inherent creativity of the people," reveals Karan to Healthy Hollywood.

Karan's latest fundraising project is "Fashion for Haiti: One Million Hearts," which brings together 150 designers, including Tory Burch, Oscar de la Renta, and Diane von Furstenberg together to auction off customized papier-mch hearts on eBay in an effort to raise social consciousness and funds for the Haitian Artisan project. "I am so touched and so inspired by the 150 designers who have put their personal touch on these locally-crafted Haitian papier-mch hearts...I was absolutely blown away by their creativity and soulful expression," adds Karan to Healthy Hollywood.

The designer hearts will be auctioned off on eBay until May 2nd. Net proceeds from the eBay auction will benefit Urban Zen's Artisan program, which is dedicated to creating jobs, vocational education and highlighting the creativity of Haiti's artisans.

C'mon Healthy Hollywooders, have a little heart and bid at

-- Terri MacLeod

Copyright 2013 by . All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Four in ten new parents start feeding their babies solid foods before their four-month birthday, according to a new study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Physician groups including the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) currently recommend against parents introducing solid foods until infants are about six months old.

In part, that's because early solids have been tied to obesity and other chronic conditions and because public health experts agree it's best if mothers can breastfeed exclusively for six months.

"Introducing solid foods early means that the baby gets less breast milk over the course of their infancy, and that decreases the ability to get optimal benefits, like protection against infection," said Dr. Alice Kuo, from the UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities.

Kuo, who wasn't involved in the new study, told Reuters Health there's been less research on when babies are developmentally ready to chew and swallow solid foods without choking - another important consideration.

"Infants should be able to sit up (and) take food off the spoon," said the CDC's Kelley Scanlon, who worked on the research.

"Sometimes if they're not ready, if they get presented with the food, they might not open their mouth or they might spit it back up."

Her team's research included 1,334 new moms who filled out questionnaires each month about what their baby had eaten in the past week. The surveys were conducted between 2005 and 2007, when AAP recommendations called for starting solid foods no earlier than four months of age.

Just over 40 percent of parents reported their babies were eating solids, such as cereals and purees, before that point.

Those parents said they thought their babies were old enough to eat solid foods, infants seemed hungry or - in the case of more than half of early solid feeders - doctors or nurses had recommended they start introducing those foods.

"There's not clear communication of the recommendations or the potential health impacts of early introduction," Scanlon told Reuters Health.

Nine percent of early introducers gave their baby solid food before one month, according to findings published Monday in Pediatrics.

Women who reported exclusive breastfeeding during their baby's first couple of months were less likely to introduce solid foods earlier than recommended compared to formula-feeding mothers, the CDC researchers found.

Kuo said the new findings are further evidence that pediatricians should tailor their messages about breastfeeding and solid foods to each particular parent and child - rather than always giving "the same spiel" about introducing solids at the four-month visit.

"The decision to start solid foods in babies has to be a compromise between what makes sense for the baby and what makes sense for the mom, who most likely is working," she said.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/YzHFtC Pediatrics, online March 25, 2013.

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Male actors dressed as women and scenes were projected on a white sheet for a gamble that almost bankrupted one Indian photographer, whose obsession with creating a "moving picture" sowed the seeds for the world's largest film industry.

On Friday, Indian cinema marks 100 years since Dhundiraj Govind Phalke's black-and-white silent film "Raja Harishchandra" (King Harishchandra) held audiences spellbound at its first public screening on May 3, 1913, in Mumbai.

Phalke's 40-minute film, about a righteous Indian king who never told a lie, was shot mostly at his house with a motley group of actors including his young son.

"He wasn't an ambitious man, but he was gripped by the immense possibilities of the movies and what they could do," said film-maker Paresh Mokashi, who chronicled the making of India's first feature film in a 2009 Marathi-language movie.

"He saw that if done properly, this art would prosper in India."

Prosper it did. Indian cinema, with its subset of Bollywood for Hindi-language films, is now a billion-dollar industry that makes more than a thousand films a year in several languages.

It is worth 112.4 billion rupees (over $2 billion) and leads the world in terms of films produced and tickets sold.

Phalke, who had been a photographer and worked at a printing press before movie fever gripped him, battled numerous hurdles to make "Raja Harishchandra" barely two decades after the first film commercial exhibitions began in New York using the kinetoscope.

Inspired by the screening in Mumbai of a film on the life of Jesus Christ, Phalke determined to make a movie about Indian heroes, according to Mokashi's film. He traveled to London to buy a camera, selling much of what he owned to make the trip.

But awaiting him at home were many hurdles, the least of which was convincing an actor to shave off his moustache to portray a woman because the idea of using female actors was unthinkable at the time.

Phalke's wife Saraswati cooked single-handedly for the 40-odd film unit, holding up white sheets as a screen for hours while her husband filmed "trick scenes", and stoically bore the sale of their belongings to fund the movie.

While Phalke subsequently went on to make 95 full-length movies and 26 short films in a career that spanned 19 years, the advent of the talkies meant he died in penury since he was unable to adapt to the new technology.

"He never looked at films from the commercial aspect, perhaps that's why later on in life he was disillusioned," Phalke's granddaughter Usha Patankar told Reuters, describing her grandfather as a dapper man who dressed in his best even to just stroll around the neighborhood.

"He only wanted to make films because they fascinated him".

Phalke died in 1944 at the age of 73 but his name lives on in the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, instituted in his honor by the government in 1969 and which remains the highest and most coveted award in Indian cinema.

Besides Bollywood, which has global appeal, India also has a vibrant regional-language film industry, especially in southern states where film stars are often worshipped in temples specially built for them.

Several events have been planned to mark the centenary of Indian cinema on Friday. The Cannes Film Festival later this month is also celebrating with special India screenings.

But his family feels that Phalke, the man who began it all, didn't get his due.

"We really felt that he should be given India's highest civilian honor... but that hasn't happened," said Patankar.

"I think he would have been immensely proud to know what he started, if he were alive today".

(Editing By Tony Tharakan and Elaine Lies)

He had Lou Gehrig's disease, and the governing body of men's tennis said in a statement he died at his home in Sydney.

Drewett was a top-40 singles and top-20 doubles player before he retired in 1990. He was hired in 2006 to lead operations in the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific regions. He led the ATP since January 2012.

"Our thoughts are with Brad's family on this extremely sad day for them, the ATP and the entire international tennis community," the ATP said in a statement. "He will be sorely missed by all."

International Tennis Federation President Francesco Ricci Bitti called Drewett "a valued friend and colleague."

"We were very happy to support him during his various roles at the ATP, most recently as chairman," he said. "His knowledge, experience and enthusiasm will be a great loss to the whole sport."

Players Rafael Nadal and Mardy Fish were among those expressing condolences.

"A very sad day for the world of sports and tennis in particular," Nadal, an 11-time major champion, wrote on Facebook. "Our president Brad has passed away. Rest in peace."

A moment of silence was observed Friday at the draw ceremony for the Mutua Madrid Open. The Portugal Open will hold a one-minute silence Saturday on center court before the first men's semifinal.

Drewett announced in January he had motor neurone disease or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The disease affects voluntary muscle activity, including speaking, walking, breathing and swallowing. It usually causes progressive disability.

Drewett's speech was noticeably slurred when he attended a news conference on the opening day of the Australian Open to announce a new sponsor. He had planned to step down once a successor was found.

Drewett also developed and managed a number of successful businesses in the sport and fitness industry. He had worked as a commentator for two Australian television broadcasters.

"The tennis world lost a strong leader, true gentleman and a great friend," U.S. Tennis Association Chairman and President David Haggerty said.

Collins became the first active player from any of the four major U.S. men's professional sports leagues to come out about his homosexuality.

Other prominent Americans in politics, sports and entertainment also have publicly revealed that they were gay. Here are some of them:

* Martina Navratilova, 56, revealed that she was a lesbian in 1981 shortly after becoming a U.S. citizen. Since then the retired Czech-born tennis star has actively promoted gay and lesbian rights, including fighting a 1992 Colorado initiative to deny gays and lesbians legal protection from discrimination.

* Former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey, 55, revealed that he was gay in a 2004 news conference in which he also announced that he was stepping down as governor. McGreevey, who was married to his second wife at the time of his announcement, subsequently divorced and published a memoir in which he spoke of the difficulty of coming out as a gay public official.

* Actress Jodie Foster, 50, revealed her homosexuality during the 2013 Golden Globe Awards, when she told the audience that she had done her "coming-out" with friends, family and co-workers long ago. She also thanked her ex-girlfriend Cydney Bernard in the speech, calling her "my heroic co-parent, my ex-partner in love but righteous soul sister in life."

* Former U.S. Representative Barney Frank, 73, came out as gay in 1987, prompted in part by increased media interest in his private life. The Massachusetts Democrat married his longtime male partner, James Ready, in July 2012 and retired from Congress early this year.

* Ken Mehlman, 46, who managed President George W. Bush's 2004 re-election campaign and served for two years as chairman of the Republican National Committee, initially denied that he was gay but came out in a 2010 interview with the New York Times. He later lobbied Republicans in the New York state legislature in support of legalizing same-sex marriage.

* Anderson Cooper, the 45-year-old CNN broadcast journalist, avoided discussing his private life or sexuality for years. But in a 2012 email to writer and journalist Andrew Sullivan, which he agreed to have made public, Cooper said: "The fact is, I'm gay, always have been, always will be, and I couldn't be any more happy, comfortable with myself and proud."

* Actress and comedian Ellen DeGeneres, 55, came out as a lesbian during a 1997 appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," spurring media interest in her private life and criticism from religious conservatives. DeGeneres married her girlfriend Portia de Rossi in 2008.

* Greg Louganis, a 53-year-old diver who won gold medals at the 1984 and 1988 Olympics, came out as an HIV-positive gay man in his 1996 book, "Breaking the Surface." He spoke publicly about his sexuality for the first time in a 1995 interview with Oprah Winfrey. He has actively promoted the civil liberties of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people as well as those with AIDS/HIV. (Editing by Paul Simao and Eric Beech)

The Austrian parachutist known as "Fearless Felix" reached 843.6 mph, according to official numbers released Monday. That's equivalent to Mach 1.25, or 1.25 times the speed of sound.

His top speed initially was estimated at 10 mph slower at 834 mph, or Mach 1.24.

Either way, he became the first human to break the sound barrier with only his body. He wore a pressurized suit and hopped from a capsule hoisted by a giant helium balloon over New Mexico.

Baumgartner was supersonic for a half-minute "quite remarkable," according to Brian Utley, the record-keeping official who was present for the Oct. 14 feat.

The 43-year-old's heart rate remained below 185 beats a minute, and his breathing was fairly steady.

The leap was from an altitude of 127,852 feet. That's 248 feet lower than original estimates, but still stratospheric.

"He jumped from a little bit lower, but he actually went a little bit faster, which was pretty exciting," said Art Thompson, technical project director for the Red Bull-sponsored project.

"It's fun for us to see reaching Mach speeds and proving out a lot of the safety systems," Thompson said in a phone interview from his aerospace company in Lancaster, Calif.

Thompson said everything pretty much unfolded as anticipated, with no big surprises in the final report. The updated records were provided by Utley, official observer for the National Aeronautic Association's contest and records board. Utley was in Roswell, N.M., for Baumgartner's grand finale following two test jumps.

Based on all the data collected from sensors on Baumgartner's suit, Utley determined that Baumgartner was 34 seconds into his jump when he reached Mach 1. The speed for breaking the sound barrier depends on the temperature at a given altitude; for Baumgartner, that came together just shy of 110,000 feet.

He reached peak speed by the time he was at 91,300 feet, 50 seconds into the jump, and was back to subsonic by 75,300 feet, give or take, 64 seconds into his free fall.

His entire free fall lasted four minutes, 20 seconds. He used a parachute to cover the final 5,000 feet, landing on his feet in the desert outside Roswell.

Not everything went well.

Baumgartner went into a dreaded flat spin while still supersonic. He spun for 13 seconds at approximately 60 revolutions per minute, making 14 to 16 spins before using his body to regain control, Thompson said. The skydiver was well within safety limits the entire time, he noted. Baumgartner's brain remained under 2G, or two times the force of gravity, during the spin.

If the flat spin had lasted longer and been more severe exceeding six continuous seconds at 3.5 G Baumgartner's drogue, or stabilizing, parachute would have deployed automatically. Doctors worried about him blacking out and suffering a stroke or, in the case of a suit tear, his blood boiling at such an extreme altitude. The outside temperature registered as low as minus 96 Fahrenheit.

In the foreword of the 71-page report, Baumgartner said he never imagined how many people would share in his dream to make a supersonic free fall from so high.

Some 52 million people watched YouTube's live stream of the exploit.

The scientific and engineering experts who helped bring him back alive "broke boundaries in their own fields just as surely as I broke the sound barrier," Baumgartner wrote.

Baumgartner shattered the previous record set by Joe Kittinger, an Air Force officer, in 1960. Kittinger did not quite reach supersonic speed during his jump from 19.5 miles up.

Kittinger noted in the Red Bull Stratos report (Stratos for stratosphere) that future work is needed to test a stabilizing parachute for use at extreme altitudes.

The private project was aimed, from the start, at helping future space crews whether NASA or commercial survive high-altitude accidents.

If a highly trained jumper like Baumgartner with 2,500 jumps couldn't prevent a flat spin, "an astronaut, pilot or space tourist could not overcome this spinning probability," Kittinger wrote.

Thompson agreed, noting that given the right safety gear and the right conditions, there's "a remote possibility" a space crew could survive even under such harsh circumstances as were faced by the space shuttle Columbia astronauts.

All seven astronauts perished as Columbia returned to Earth on Feb. 1, 2003. One of the crew, Laurel Clark, was married to the former NASA flight surgeon who led Baumgartner's medical team, Dr. Jonathan Clark.

"You never know what the possibilities are ... that's the direction we need to look at," Thompson said.

___

Online:

http://www.redbullstratos.com/