Food Stuff

Kinh Doanh | columbia university summer school |

Syrup With a New York Accent

By FLORENCE FABRICANT

Published: April 3, 2012

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Robb and Lydia Turner, who own Crown Maple Farm in Dutchess County, N.Y., bought the 800-acre property in Dover Plains five years ago as a country retreat, then discovered that they also owned a forest of sugar maple trees. They have hired Nathan Wooden, a wine consultant who has worked at Per Se, as a "syrup sommelier" who oversees separation of the syrup into three styles: light amber, which is mild-tasting with a brown butter finish; medium amber, an earthier, spicier syrup hinting of roasted nuts and autumn leaves; and dark amber, which is rich and sweet and suggests chocolate and molasses — excellent for cooking and sauce-making.

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Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

Crown Maple Syrup is available in 12-ounce bottles, $19.95 for the light, $17.95 each for the medium and dark, $51.95 for a set of three; or in a sampler kit of three 1.7-ounce bottles for $19.95, from crownmaple.com . It is also sold at Dean & DeLuca stores, Murray's Cheese, Foragers Market in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and Gourmet Guild in Brooklyn.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: April 4, 2012

An earlier version of this article contained incorrect information about common methods for making maple syrup.

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Baseball Roundup

Kinh Doanh | columbia university summer school |

Heat on Guillen Rises After Castro Remarks

Larry W. Smith/European Pressphoto Agency

Rangers starter Yu Darvish made his debut against the Mariners, allowing four runs in five and a third innings.

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: April 9, 2012

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Five games into his tenure with the Miami Marlins , the outspoken manager Ozzie Guillen is facing withering criticism because of favorable comments he made about the former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro .

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C. J. Wilson, a much-coveted free agent in the off-season, won his season debut as the Angels beat the Twins in Minneapolis.

At least two local officials said Guillen should lose his job, Miami's mayor urged "decisive action," and the chairman of the Florida Hispanic Legislative Caucus called for "punitive measures" against him. Hoping to quell the tumult, Guillen planned to leave the Marlins — they began a three-game series with a 6-2 win Monday in Philadelphia — and fly to Miami to apologize Tuesday at Marlins Park. (The Marlins and the Phillies have Tuesday off.)

"I know I hurt a lot of people," Guillen said. "I want to get the thing over with."

Guillen, who is from Venezuela, told Time magazine that he loved Castro and respected him for having stayed in power so long. Guillen apologized after the comments were published, but Cuban-Americans remain upset. It has become a problem for the Marlins, who opened their new ballpark last week in the Little Havana section of Miami and are trying to rebuild their fan base with the help of South Florida's large Cuban-American population.

MARLINS 6, PHILLIES 2 Miami's Anibal Sanchez took a three-hitter into the seventh and combined with three relievers to help the Marlins spoil Philadelphia's home opener. The Marlins' first four batters — Jose Reyes, Emilio Bonifacio, Hanley Ramirez and Gaby Sanchez — finished 8 for 16 with three runs batted in and three runs. The Phillies, who are without the injured Chase Utley and Ryan Howard, have only four hitters with at least four hits so far.

ASTROS 8, BRAVES 3 Host Houston trailed by 3-0 before three errors in the third — two by third baseman Juan Francisco — led to three unearned runs. The Astros are 3-1 after finishing last season with baseball's worst record. The loss dropped Atlanta to 0-4 for the first time since 1988.

GIANTS 7, ROCKIES 0 Barry Zito threw a four-hitter for his first shutout in nine years, and Pablo Sandoval hit a two-run homer to help visiting San Francisco avoid its first 0-4 start since 1950. Zito (1-0) had not lost to Colorado since 2008, an unbeaten streak of nine starts. He allowed three singles and a double and did not walk anyone.

A woman celebrating her 69th birthday at the game sustained a concussion when she was struck on the head by a foul ball. She was treated at a local hospital and released, and issued a statement thanking fans and paramedics.

BREWERS 7, CUBS 5 Aramis Ramirez drove in two runs for Milwaukee in his return to Wrigley Field, and Ryan Braun was booed relentlessly. The Brewers were sailing along with a four-run lead going into the ninth, but the Cubs scored two runs and loaded the bases before John Axford struck out Starlin Castro to end the game.

CARDINALS 7, REDS 1 Matt Holliday, David Freese and Yadier Molina homered during visiting St. Louis's big first inning. The Cardinals (4-1) do not seem to miss the departed star Albert Pujols — they led by 4-0 just 20 pitches into the game against Cincinnati starter Homer Bailey.

RANGERS 11, MARINERS 5 Yu Darvish overcome a rocky start to win his major league debut for host Texas. After giving up four runs while throwing 42 pitches in the first inning, then allowing another run in the second, Darvish settled down and later retired 10 in a row.

The Rangers' offense more than bailed him out: Nelson Cruz and Ian Kinsler hit three-run homers, and Mitch Moreland and Josh Hamilton also homered.

WHITE SOX 4, INDIANS 2 Visiting Chicago's Chris Sale picked the right team to make his first career start against. Sale, a reliever who moved into the rotation to help replace the ace Mark Buehrle, limited Cleveland to a run in six and two-thirds innings. The Indians came in batting .153.

RED SOX 4, BLUE JAYS 2 Ryan Sweeney singled home the go-ahead run in the ninth to spoil Toronto's home opener and help Boston avoid the first back-to-back 0-4 starts in team history. Blue Jays closer Sergio Santos had his second blown save in three appearances.

ANGELS 5, TWINS 1 C. J. Wilson won his debut for visiting Los Angeles, giving up only one fly ball — a home run by Josh Willingham. Minnesota, which has been outscored by 20-6, fell to 0-4 for the first time since 1969.

ELBOW STILL BOTHERS STOREN Washington closer Drew Storen, who has discomfort in his pitching elbow, will be examined by Dr. James Andrews. ... Atlanta third baseman Chipper Jones, who had knee surgery March 26, is expected to come off the disabled list Tuesday.

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Amid Library-Wide Digitization, Books Keep Foothold

Toi tai gioi | columbia university summer school |

As libraries around the world transition from hardbound books to digital files, at California State University, Northridge, a massive infrastructure keeps things running.

Behind the scenes, 13,000 book bins are stacked 12 meters high in an automated system that can retrieve a book in seconds.

With more than one million books and a quarter-million periodical volumes housed at this suburban Los Angeles campus, catalogs are already digitized and students download readings for class. But the library is also home to thousands of rare books and documents.

"I would say that probably 90 percent of the journals that we subscribe to now come in electronic format," says Mark Stover, dean of the library, explaining that print treasures - such as an 18th-century travelogue - are here to stay. "With books and monographs on the other hand, it's a little bit different story."

Although their facility is changing, Northridge librarians say, their printed books should be around for a long time. In fact, most of the library's book holdings and new acquisitions are in paper form.

Some students like it that way.

"I like the computer as well, but I prefer book and paper," says biology major Lisa Ochoa.

The library's collection includes printed archive material, such as handwritten letters and old newspaper stories, but a major effort is under way to digitize the holdings to preserve them and widen their availability.

According to digital librarian Steve Kutay, encoding electronic files with descriptive "metadata" ensures they will remain accessible.

"They can be backed up and they can be stored off-site," he says. "They can be very well protected, but are not necessarily meaningful to us if we don't know - 10, 20 years from now - what is contained in those files."

Helen Heinrich, chief of technical services, oversees cataloging of new books and periodicals, and removing books that have already been converted to digital format. Many universities, she says, are cooperating to ensure hard copies remain in storage in case of an emergency.

"We are all becoming so dependent on the Internet," she says. "But what if there is a cyber-attack and it all goes down one day? there will be a copy of record."

Dean Stover says that although going digital gives libraries extra room and the opportunity to redesign their physical layout, it's not a complete conversion. For books, the process is gradual, and he says many digital files remain unavailable because the authors or their heirs retain copyrights and won't release them for electronic distribution.

"We are going to weed our collections. We are going to reshape them and use the space to repurpose into more learning places for our students," says Stover. "But I think that print books, especially because of copyright issues, are going to maintain their place for many years to come."

Fortunately, he adds, most students are comfortable with either format.

Theo www.voanews.com

Saigontourist Cuisine For Public Holidays

may tinh tien | columbia university summer school |

Many hotels and resorts, managed by Saigontourist Holding Company, launch special gastronomic events to welcome the upcoming public holidays, April 30 and May 1

Saigontourist Cuisine For Public Holidays

By Dat Tien

A buffet served at Grand Hotel Saigon

Many hotels and resorts, managed by Saigontourist Holding Company, launch special gastronomic events to welcome the upcoming public holidays, April 30 and May 1

Palace Hotel Saigon (56 Nguyen Hue Blvd., Dist. 1, HCMC. Tel: 08.38292860)

The hotel's Calibre Restaurant will serve special cuisine from April 28 to May 1. The set menu consists of a variety of dishes such as cow's tail soup, scallop and crab meat soup, salmon with butter and lemon sauce, and grilled Wayu beef with butter and lemon sauce.

Complimentary wine or a 10% discount will be offered to groups of at least five people. During the dinners, customers also enjoy a music show and children can play games at a separate corner for themselves.

Binh Quoi 2 Resort (at the end of Binh Quoi St., Binh Thanh Dist., HCMC. Tel: 08.35565470)

Special dinner buffets featuring typical seaside dishes and new grilled dishes will be served at Binh Quoi 2 Resort from April 28 until May 1. More than 60 dishes are available.

Diners are also entertained with a live music show from 6-8 p.m. Buffet tickets cost VND120,000 (US$5.7) for a child and VND210,000 for an adult. One ticket is given to customers if they buy 20 tickets.
Customers can also book a boat tour from Binh Quoi 2 Resort to see riverscapes along both sides of the Saigon River.

Saigon-Halong Hotel (Ha Long City, Quang Ninh Province. Tel: 033.3845845)

Buffets with grilled dishes will be served at Saigon-Halong Hotel on the nights of April 29 and April 30. The buffets are coupled with music shows.

Buffet tickets for the April 29 buffet are priced at VND400,000 and VND250,000, and for the April 30 buffet, at VND495,000 and VND300,000.

Grand Hotel Saigon (8 Dong Khoi St., Dist. 1, HCMC. Tel: 08.38294046)

• Grand Café serves barbecue buffets on its terrace every day from 6-10:30 p.m. Outstanding dishes include Australian beef, giant river prawn and lamb rib.

Ticket prices, VND890,000 for an adult and VND590,000 for a child, include wine, a soft drink and mineral water. During the happy hours, from 2-5 p.m. every day, Grand Café donates a cocktail for each cocktail bought.

• The newly opened Saigon Palace Restaurant, built with modern and classical French architecture, serves dinner buffets with European and Asian dishes every day from 6-10 p.m. The buffets are accompanied with live music shows, jazz music on Thursdays and Saturdays, and Flamenco music on Fridays and Sundays. Buffet ticket prices are VND729,000, including wine, a soft drink and mineral water. A 20% discount is given to customers until June 15.

• Eden Rock Bar serves exclusive cocktails along with entertainment games such as table tennis and darts. The bar offers a 20% discount until May 31.

Apart from special events of its restaurants, cafés and bars, Grand Hotel will also cut room rates by 10-20% for bookings conducted in May. Accordingly, the room charge will be from VND2,303,000+++/night, and this promotion lasts until July 31. The room rates include mineral water, tea, coffee, fresh fruits and wifi Internet.

Theo en.baomoi.com

Study Sheds Light on How Birds Navigate by Magnetic Field

webdataextractorpro | educator |

Birds are famously good navigators. Some migrate thousands of miles, flying day and night, even when the stars are obscured. And for decades, scientists have known that one navigational skill they employ is an ability to detect variations in the earth's magnetic field.

Nigel Roddis/Reuters

Two researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have identified cells in pigeons' brains that serve as a kind of biological compass.

By JAMES GORMAN

Published: April 26, 2012

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Pigeons are able to record detailed information on the earth's magnetic field, according to a new study.

How this magnetic sense works, however, has been frustratingly difficult to figure out.

Now, two researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, Le-Qing Wu and David Dickman, have solved a central part of that puzzle, identifying cells in a pigeon's brain that record detailed information on the earth's magnetic field, a kind of biological compass.

"It's a stunning piece of work," David Keays of the Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna wrote in an e-mail. "Wu and Dickman have found cells in the pigeon brain that are tuned to specific directions of the magnetic field."

Their report appeared online in Science Express on Thursday. Kenneth Lohmann at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who also studies magnetic sensing, said in an e-mail that the study was "very exciting and important."

Navigating by magnetism includes several steps. Birds have to have a way to detect a magnetic field, and some part of the brain has to register that information; it seems likely that another part of the brain then compares the incoming information to a stored map.

The Baylor researchers have offered a solution to the middle step. They identified a group of cells in the brainstem of pigeons that record both the direction and the strength of the magnetic field. And they have good, but not conclusive, evidence to suggest that the information these cells are recording is coming from the bird's inner ear. Dr. Dickman said this research "is still something we want to pursue."

They did not work on the third step, but Dr. Dickman said a good candidate for the location of that map was the hippocampus, the brain region involved in memory of locations in both birds and humans.

A well-known and often-mentioned study of London taxi drivers showed that experienced drivers with a mental map of London had a hippocampus larger in one area than people without their experience. In some birds that hide seeds and return later to their caches with astonishing accuracy, the hippocampus grows and shrinks seasonally, presumably as they map their hiding spots.

Efforts to understand the magnetic sense in birds have gone in several directions. Some researchers have offered evidence for chemical reactions in the eyes sensitive to magnetic signals, while others have looked at neurons in the beak that they thought contained minute amounts of magnetite, a mineral that is affected by magnetic fields.

Just a few weeks ago, Dr. Keays and colleagues reported in the journal Nature that the idea of neurons in the beak was a nonstarter.

The Baylor researchers did a kind of step-by-step tracking of what areas in pigeons' brains were responding to variations in an artificial magnetic field that they created. They focused on activity in the brainstem, one of the most primitive parts of the brain, partly because in earlier work they had shown that this area of the brain received signals from a part of the inner ear.

By looking at specific neurons in this part of the brain, the researchers found that the bird's orientation determined which neurons were active. Each neuron was tuned to respond to signals from one direction. The neurons also registered the strength of the magnetic field.

Other brain regions are also active in response to magnetic stimulation and may be involved in the magnetic sense, Dr. Dickman said. And although he does not provide an answer to how birds detect magnetism, the research clearly falls on one side of a debate over whether magnetite is involved, or whether chemical reactions in the eye may be the key.

Dr. Keays said the research gave strong support to the magnetite idea and the hypothesis that "a population of undiscovered magnetoreceptive cells reside in the pigeon's ear."

As Dr. Lohmann said, the discovery "will no doubt inspire much additional work in the future."

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: April 30, 2012

An article on Friday about a magnetic sense that helps birds navigate misidentified an iron-containing substance found in a recent analysis of beaks. It is ferrihydrite, not magnetite. (The study found that the cells containing the substance were not involved in navigation.)

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Flag raised to celebrate National Unification Day

Buyvip | educator |

(VOV) - A flag-raising ceremony was held at historic Hien Luong Bridge across the Ben Hai River on April 30 to mark the 40th anniversary of the liberation of Quang Tri province and the 37th anniversary of the Liberation of South Vietnam.

The national flag is a symbol of the nation's confidence, iron will, and strength, proclaiming "Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom."

The people rallied around the flag during the protracted resistance war against the US and overcome tremendous odds and extreme hardships to gain independence for Vietnam.

Tens of thousands of people from all parts of the country sacrificed their lives in their desire for peace, national independence and reunification and to see the national flag flying on Hien Luong Bridge and both banks of the Ben Hai River.

In his speech at the ceremony, Chairman of the Quang Tri provincial People's Committee, Nguyen Duc Cuong, recalled the tradition of heroism during the 20 years of resistance against the US for national salvation.

On the occasion, the Party Committee and people of Quang Tri were awarded two mementos of the Khue Van Cac pavilion, which symbolizes Hanoi, and Nha Rong Wharf in HCM City.

Theo en.baomoi.com

Art

may khu mui | educator |

Art and Fashion Rub Elbows

Cecilia Fiorenza/Maxxi Foundation

Work by Lucy and Jorge Orta at Maxxi, the contemporary art museum in Rome. The exhibition was commissioned by the luxury men's wear label Ermenegildo Zegna, which reaps visibility for the brand while providing the museum with needed funds.

By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO

Published: April 25, 2012

ROME — Fine arts and luxury brands have long crossed paths, creating a blend of culture, merchandising and branding.

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The most recent Italian example of this cross-cultural association comes via the Paris-based artists Lucy and Jorge Orta, who created an installation for Maxxi, the National Museum of the 21st Century Arts in Rome.

The artwork was commissioned by the Italian luxury men's wear label Ermenegildo Zegna in a win-win-win situation — the brand gets visibility, the artists get to work and the cash-strapped museum gets much-needed private financing.

At the presentation of the installation, Mr. Orta described the Zegna family as modern-day Medicis, citing the Florentine dynasty that commissioned work from Michelangelo and Bramante, the Renaissance archistar.

"Working with art makes a brand exciting," said Gildo Zegna, chief executive officer of the Zegna Group.

Mr. Zegna recently visited the art fair in Miami, where he was struck by the energy and the drive of the art world, and he hopes the association with art will help his label. "We're happy to do what we're doing, but there's business behind it all," he said.

Zegna's collaboration with Maxxi comes at a fortuitous time for the museum, which opened less than two years ago and faces an uncertain future because of funding problems. The Culture Ministry in Italy has initiated procedures to replace the board of directors of the foundation that manages the museum with a government-appointed administrator. The dispute centers on what the government says is the board's inability to attract more private sponsorship to pay for its activities.

Museum officials point out that ticket sales and collaborations with Zegna and other corporate sponsors like BMW helps Maxxi cover more than half of its operating costs: far more, the board says, than other contemporary art museums in Europe, where the state is the principal donor. But this is not enough, according to the culture ministry, which mandated when it set up the foundation that runs the museum that the state would be a minor financial contributor.

The tie between fashion and art is strong in the Orta piece. To create their piece, called "Fabulae Romanae," or Roman Fables, a microvillage of colorful tents and mannered mannequins, the artists visited Zegna's wool mill in the Piedmont region of northern Italy, where they were given access to Zegna silks, wools and other fabrics. The material was fashioned — along with French Army blankets, bundles of flea-market secondhand apparel and a multihued assortment of gloves and mitts — into the "dome dwellings" and "refuge wear" typical of the Ortas' work.

Maria Luisa Frisa, who curated the show, said the artists were the "perfect fit" for the project. Ms. Orta has a background in fashion, and the artists often use fabrics in their artworks. The installation has the support of the Center for Sustainable Fashion at the London College of Fashion. The Ortas have demonstrated a long "commitment to addressing the larger themes of contemporary society — ecology, extreme conditions and difficult territories," Ms. Frisa said, synching with the Zegna Group's own socially oriented interests that date back to when Ermenegildo Zegna took over the family wool mill in 1910 and built homes and public facilities for his employees.

Mr. Orta said the collaboration worked well "because we both speak the same language." But he was quick to point out that the fashion brand had not pushed its fabrics on the artists.

"They gave us carte blanche to use them or not, an ideal situation for the artist," he said. "It wasn't about business or promotion of their fabrics, but about exploration."

The collaboration with Zegna opens up new vistas "on the question of how artists can make art that is not just self-referential but in contact with realities like factories, or schools," said Giacinto di Pietrantonio, director of GAMeC, Bergamo's contemporary art museum. "It is a key point of contemporary research," that however also requires "enlightened managers" to be pursued.

Ms. Orta also teaches at the London College of Fashion.

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