Twitter vs. Instagram in a knock-down, drag out filters fight

With one bold step Monday, Twitter took the photo filtering fight directly to Instagram.

Until yesterday, Instagram was the undisputed leader when it comes to mobile photo filtering and sharing. But with its release of a new version of its mobile app that enables filters, Twitter has launched a very credible challenge to the crown.

To be sure, Instagram has a massive lead, and a very passionate community. But Twitter has a nine-figure user base, and now that it is offering filters -- albeit just eight, while Instagram has 18 free filters -- it can begin to chip away at its competitor's lead.

There's only one way to decide whose filters are best, though, and that's to compare them side by side. With that in mind, CNET took a single photograph and applied each of Twitter's and Instagram's free filters. Only you can decide which is best.

Which filter do you think is best? Please leave your thoughts in the comments section.

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U.K. Dash for Shale Gas a Test for Global Fracking

Thomas K. Grose in London

The starting gun has sounded for the United Kingdom's "dash for gas," as the media here have dubbed it.

As early as this week, a moratorium on shale gas production is expected to be lifted. And plans to streamline and speed the regulatory process through a new Office for Unconventional Gas and Oil were unveiled last week in the annual autumn budget statement by the chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne.

In the U.K., where all underground mineral rights concerning fossil fuels belong to the crown, hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, could unlock a new stream of government revenue as well as fuel. But it also means that there is no natural constituency of fracking supporters as there is in the United States, birthplace of the technology. In the U.S., concerns over land and water impact have held back fracking in some places, like New York, but production has advanced rapidly in shale basins from Texas to Pennsylvania, with support of private landowners who earn royalties from leasing to gas companies. (Related: "Natural Gas Stirs Hope and Fear in Pennsylvania")

A taste of the fight ahead in the U.K. came ahead of Osborne's speech last weekend, when several hundred protesters gathered outside of Parliament with a mock 23-foot (7-meter) drilling rig. In a letter they delivered to Prime Minister David Cameron, they called fracking "an unpredictable, unregulatable process" that was potentially toxic to the environment.

Giving shale gas a green light "would be a costly mistake," said Andy Atkins, executive director of the U.K.'s Friends of the Earth, in a statement. "People up and down the U.K. will be rightly alarmed about being guinea pigs in Osborne's fracking experiment. It's unnecessary, unwanted and unsafe."

The government has countered that natural gas-fired power plants would produce half the carbon dioxide emissions of the coal plants that still provide about 30 percent of the U.K.'s electricity. London Mayor Boris Johnson, viewed as a potential future prime minister, weighed in Monday with a blistering cry for Britain to "get fracking" to boost cleaner, cheaper energy and jobs. "In their mad denunciations of fracking, the Greens and the eco-warriors betray the mindset of people who cannot bear a piece of unadulterated good news," he wrote in the Daily Telegraph. (Related Quiz: "What You Don't Know About Natural Gas")

Energy Secretary Edward Davey, who is expected this week to lift the U.K.'s year-and-a-half-old moratorium on shale gas exploration, said gas "will ensure we can keep the lights on as increasing amounts of wind and nuclear come online through the 2020s."

A Big Role for Gas

If the fracking plan advances, it will not be the first "dash for gas" in the U.K. In the 1980s, while Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher battled with mining unions, she undercut their clout by moving the nation toward generating a greater share of its electricity from natural gas and less from coal. So natural gas already is the largest electricity fuel in Britain, providing 40 percent of electricity. (Related Interactive: "World Electricity Mix")

The United Kingdom gets about 10 percent of its electricity from renewable energy, and has plans to expand its role. But Davey has stressed the usefulness of gas-fired plants long-term as a flexible backup source to the intermittent electricity generated from wind and solar power. Johnson, on the other hand, offered an acerbic critique of renewables, including the "satanic white mills" he said were popping up on Britain's landscape. "Wave power, solar power, biomass—their collective oomph wouldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding," he wrote.

As recently as 2000, Great Britain was self-sufficient in natural gas because of conventional gas production in the North Sea. But that source is quickly drying up. North Sea production peaked in 2000 at 1,260 terawatt-hours (TWH); last year it totaled just 526 TWh.

Because of the North Sea, the U.K. is still one of the world's top 20 producers of gas, accounting for 1.5 percent of total global production. But Britain has been a net importer of gas since 2004. Last year, gas imports—mainly from Norway, Belgium, and the Netherlands—accounted for more than 40 percent of domestic demand.

The government hopes to revive domestic natural gas production with the technology that has transformed the energy picture in the United States—horizontal drilling into deep underground shale, and high-pressure injection of water, sand, and chemicals to create fissures in the rock to release the gas. (Related Interactive: "Breaking Fuel From the Rock")

A Tougher Road

But for a number of reasons, the political landscape is far different in the United Kingdom. Britain made a foray into shale gas early last year, with a will drilled near Blackpool in northwest England. The operator, Cuadrilla, said that that area alone could contain 200 trillion cubic feet of gas, which is more than the known reserves of Iraq. But the project was halted after drilling, by the company's own admission, caused two small earthquakes. (Related: "Tracing Links Between Fracking and Earthquakes" and "Report Links Energy Activities To Higher Quake Risk") The April 2011 incident triggered the moratorium that government now appears to be ready to lift. Cuadrilla has argued that modifications to its procedures would mitigate the seismic risk, including lower injection rates and lesser fluid and sand volumes. The company said it will abandon the U.K. unless the moratorium is soon lifted.

A few days ahead of Osborne's speech, the Independent newspaper reported that maps created for Britain's Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) showed that 32,000 square miles, or 64 percent of the U.K. countryside, could hold shale gas reserves and thus be open for exploration. But a DECC spokeswoman said "things are not quite what it [the Independent story] suggests." Theoretically, she said, those gas deposits do exist, but "it is too soon to predict the scale of exploration here." She said many other issues, ranging from local planning permission to environmental impact, would mean that some tracts would be off limits, no matter how much reserve they held. DECC has commissioned the British Geological Survey to map the extent of Britain's reserves.

Professor Paul Stevens, a fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, said the U.K. is clearly interested in trying to replicate America's shale gas revolution. "That's an important part of the story," he said, but trying to use the American playbook won't be easy. "It's a totally different ballgame." In addition to the fact that mineral rights belong to the crown, large expanses of private land that are commonplace in America don't exist in England. Just as important, there is no oil- and gas-service industry in place in Britain to quickly begin shale gas operations here. "We don't have the infrastructure set up," said Richard Davies, director of the Durham Energy Institute at Durham University, adding that it would take years to build it.

Shale gas production would also likely ignite bigger and louder protests in the U.K. and Europe. "It's much more of a big deal in Europe," Stevens said. "There are more green [nongovernmental organizations] opposed to it, and a lot more local opposition."

In any case, the U.K. government plans to move ahead. Osborne said he'll soon begin consultations on possible tax breaks for the shale gas industry. He also announced that Britain would build up to 30 new natural gas-fired power plants with 26 gigawatts (GW) of capacity. The new gas plants would largely replace decommissioned coal and nuclear power plants, though they would ultimately add 5GW of additional power to the U.K. grid. The coalition government's plan, however, leaves open the possibility of increasing the amount of gas-generated electricity to 37GW, or around half of total U.K. demand.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that Europe may have as much as 600 trillion cubic feet of shale gas that could be recovered. But Stevens said no European country is ready to emulate the United States in producing massive amounts of unconventional gas. They all lack the necessary service industry, he said, and geological differences will require different technologies. And governments aren't funding the research and development needed to develop them.

Globally, the track record for efforts to produce shale gas is mixed:

• In France, the EIA's estimate is that shale gas reserves total 5 trillion cubic meters, or enough to fuel the country for 90 years. But in September, President Francois Hollande pledged to continue a ban on fracking imposed last year by his predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy.
• Poland was also thought to have rich shale gas resources, but initial explorations have determined that original estimates of the country's reserves were overstated by 80 percent to 90 percent. After drilling two exploratory wells there, Exxon Mobil stopped operations. But because of its dependence on Russian gas, Poland is still keen to begin shale gas production.
• South Africa removed a ban on fracking earlier this year. Developers are eyeing large shale gas reserves believed to underlie the semidesert Karoo between Johannesburg and Cape Town.
• Canada's Quebec Province has had a moratorium on shale gas exploration and production, but a U.S. drilling company last month filed a notice of intent to sue to overturn the ban as a violation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
• Germany's Environment Ministry has backed a call to ban fracking near drinking water reservoirs.
• China drilled its initial shale gas wells this year; by 2020, the nation's goal is for shale gas to provide 6 percent of its massive energy needs. The U.S. government's preliminary assessment is that China has the world's largest "technically recoverable" shale resources, about 50 percent larger than stores in the United States. (Related: "China Drills Into Shale Gas, Targeting Huge Reserves")

This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.

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Closing Tax Loopholes Not Enough to Avert 'Cliff'?

Closing "corporate tax loopholes" sure sounds good to the average, non-corporate American -- so good, in fact, that politicians talk about it all the time.

House Speaker John Boehner's fiscal-cliff proposal purports to raise $1.6 trillion in revenue by "clos[ing] special-interest loopholes and deductions while lowering rates."

The White House, meanwhile, has complained that Boehner hasn't offered specific loopholes to cut.

On the other side of the aisle, House Democrats have repeatedly offered up "closing overseas tax loopholes" as a means to pay for spending bills -- a plan Republicans routinely reject. In the last two and a half years, President Obama has often been heard griping about writeoffs for corporate jets.

For both Republicans and Democrats, "corporate tax loopholes" are an old saw. But, like most things in politics, raising revenue from "loopholes" gets a bit stickier when the specifics are hashed out.

A misconception about tax "loopholes," some experts say, is that they're loopholes -- gaps in the tax law that corporations have exploited against the law's intent.

Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo; Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo

Fiscal Cliff Battle: President Obama vs. Speaker John Boehner Watch Video

"Most of these proposals were not 'loopholes,' these were incentives," said Eric Toder, co-director of the left-leaning Tax Policy Center.

For example, take the research-and-development tax credit. During the campaign, both Obama and Mitt Romney suggested making it permanent.

"One wouldn't call the research credit a loophole," Toder said.

Cashing in by closing the biggest "loopholes" could be a politically fraught endeavor. To generate meaningful revenue, House Republicans would have to sign off on measures that raised it from taxing the overseas profits of multinational corporations, from ending immediate writeoffs of equipment purchases, or from ending a credit for domestic manufacturing.

When the Joint Committee on Taxation scored some of these provisions, as part of a tax-reform bill pushed by Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden and then-GOP-senator Judd Gregg, it found the government could save significantly:

Savings Over 10 Years: 2011-2021

Taxing Overseas Profits of Multinational Corps: $582.7 billion. In other words, the "overseas tax loophole" Democrats are fond of trashing. While most countries with large economies tax only profits made at home, the U.S. code taxes all income everywhere. To offset the different, U.S. multinational corporations receive credits to prevent double taxing. They also can defer paying any tax on foreign income, until they transfer the money back to the United States.

Taxing that profit could generate significant revenue. But this could be controversial, and large corporations would fight it. A senior aide to one business lobbying group said ending foreign-income deferral would amount to double-taxing U.S. companies and put them at a disadvantage to foreign competitors; one supporter of ending deferral suggested U.S. companies have been able to hide profits overseas, avoiding taxes altogether.

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MoMath: Manhattan's Museum of Mathematics

Lisa Grossman, physical sciences and space reporter

MATHEMATICS is awesome, full stop. That's the philosophy behind a new museum opening next week in New York City.

The founders of the Museum of Mathematics (MoMath) know they have a fight on their hands, given the pervasive idea that the subject is boring, hard and scary. But they are determined to give mathematics a makeover, with exhibits that express an unselfconscious, giddy joy in exploring the world of numbers and forms.

"We want to show a different side of mathematics," says museum co-founder Cindy Lawrence. "Our goal is to get kids excited, and show them the math they're doing in school is just one tree in a whole huge forest."

To this end, mathematics pervades every aspect of the design, sometimes in surprising places. Take the museum's Enigma Café. At first glance, it looks like any other trendy, modern Manhattan cafe. But instead of coffee, puzzles will be served. And a careful look reveals that the floor is a 6-by-6 grid, the walls are made of Tetris-like puzzle shapes called pentominoes, and the tables are arranged as a knight would progress across a chessboard.

"We try to hide math everywhere," says Lawrence.

The inspiration for MoMath came shortly after a beloved but dated museum on Long Island closed down in 2006. MoMath co-founder Glen Whitney, a former hedge fund analyst specialising in algorithms, got a group together to fill the void, but for months all they did was talk - until they were offered a booth at the 2009 World Science Festival in New York.

"There was a bit of a debate amongst the group about whether we should accept that offer because, in fact, we didn't really have anything to put in a booth," Lawrence says.

But accept it they did, and the deluge of ideas they had for the booth overflowed into a travelling exhibit called the Math Midway. The Midway in its turn laid the groundwork for the full-scale museum, scheduled to open on 15 December in Madison Square Park.

MoMath exhibits take abstract concepts like number theory and topology and let you put your hands and even feet all over them. Take Coaster Rollers: the exhibit is a cart sitting atop a tray full of rubber shapes that look like other-worldly acorns.

These forms are all "surfaces of constant width" - a shape whose highest point is always the same height above a table, no matter which way you turn it. Spheres are the most famous example, but it turns out there are an infinite variety of shapes with the same property. My cart flies over the alien acorns as smoothly as if it were running on ball bearings. I've learned something new about topology, but more than that, I climb off the cart grinning and full of adrenalin. The idea is cemented: mathematics is kinetic. It's active.

It is also creative. The museum has a design studio called the Mathenaeum that lets visitors design geometric figures that may have never been dreamed of before. Designs created one day will be 3D printed the next, and put on display the day after that.

The space is often beautiful. The museum's main staircase spirals around a two-storey paraboloid - a parabola that has been spun around a central pole to make a 3D sculpture. The shape is laced with ropes of lights that run between points on the paraboloid where the radius is a whole number. The design, shot through with mathematics, is mesmerising.

Each exhibit has been designed to feel like a different place with a different style: a Renaissance pavilion, a Gothic cathedral, a military site, a cafe. "They're places you can occupy," says chief of design Tim Nissen. "The idea is that math is actually out there in the world, and we brought it in here," he says, not that mathematics is something you can only find in a museum.

The MoMath team has big hopes for a broader impact. It's widely acknowledged that children in the US are falling behind in the subject. A member of the US National Security Agency, which employs more mathematicians than any other organisation in the country but only hires US citizens, once told Lawrence that in his view, the biggest threat to national security is the lack of US-born mathematicians. But politicians and teachers rarely agree on the best way to address the shortage.

Lawrence has no doubts: the problem is in rote learning in school. "It's like teaching kids to read music, and never even telling them that instruments exist," she says. "You don't fix that by more testing. You do it with a cultural institution that can change the norms and perceptions about math - we want to be that place."

Museum of Mathematics (MoMath) opens 15 December in New York

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Low-interest environment driving investors to seek higher yields

SINGAPORE: The low-interest environment is driving investors to seek higher returns as global economic conditions improve.

Flushed with liquidity from major central banks' monetary easing, most analysts agreed that there is little upside left on safe assets like sovereign government debts.

Instead, analysts are seeing more investors investing in high yield bonds often classified as distressed that offer returns of over 6 percent per annum.

With the US Presidential election and China's leadership change out of the way, Asian investors are working up an appetite for riskier assets.

But this time, they are putting their money in fixed income products instead of Asian equities, which offer far better returns than bonds.

Thailand and Philippines stock indices have showed a over 30 percent return so far this year, while, bigger market like Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index gained some over 20 percent.

Schroder Investment Management's head of Asian Fixed Income, Rajeev De Mello, said: "Interest rates are going to remain close to zero. So for a lot of investors who need returns, they don't have too much choice -- it is either they buy bonds or buy equities.

"But for many types of investors, equities may be just too riskier and they may need a more predictable revenue stream."

In recent months, Asia has seen a growing number of corporate debt issues, which are oversubscribed.

Some investors are even drawn to beaten-down corporate bonds.

CreditSights' senior credit analyst, Sandra Chow, said: "In the past couple of weeks, we've seen a big shift into the high yield sector. A lot of bonds which was previously traded at double-digit yield are now coming to single-digit or even lower yields."

The credit quality of corporate bonds may not be improving, but analysts said bond funds face growing pressure from clients to deliver better-than-market returns of 9 to 10 percent.

Apart from market liquidity, French bank, Credit Agricole says wealthy individuals in Asia are also on the lookout for steady returns for their growing wealth.

Based on an estimated rate of growth 8 percent a year, China alone is expected to generate some US$560 billion of net new wealth every year.

- CNA/lp

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Five lies your TV salesperson will tell you

Using the time-honored tactics of obfuscation, misdirection, and a little bit of fear, the people who try to sell you TVs can hit you with some heavy-duty lies.

Now this isn't to say that all TV sales people are bad, nor that any necessarily do this out of malice (there's plenty of misinformation out there confused as truth). But when it's your dollar on the line, being prepared with some facts can only be a good thing.

For a primer on all the jargon, check out "TV tech explainer: Every HDTV technology decoded."

'This TV has a million-to-one contrast ratio.'
No, it doesn't. Every TV manufacturer lies about contrast ratio. Not a single one is remotely accurate. So it's impossible to prescribe an exact number to any TV given only the manufacturers data. The fact is, plasmas have better native contrast ratios than LCDs (LED or otherwise). There are three local-dimming LED LCDs on the market this year (Elite by Sharp, Sony HX950, and LG LM9600), and they're all extremely expensive. These offer similar contrast ratios than the best plasmas, though not exactly. For more info, check out "Contrast ratio (or how every TV manufacturer lies to you)."

'This TV has better sound.'
You know what, let's say they're right. Let's say TV A has better sound than TV B. The fact is, no TV sounds good. So all they're really saying is, "This TV sounds less bad than this other TV."

The thinness that we all love in flat-panel TVs means the speaker drivers by their very nature have to be very small. Small drivers can't do much to create sound waves.

The wiser salespeople will direct you towards a sound bar or other home audio system. This is definitely where you should spend a few dollars. Pretty much every sound bar will sound better than the TV speakers, and the better sound bars actually sound pretty good.

Check out CNET's page on the best home audio and best sound bars.

'TVs break all the time. You need an extended warranty.'
Another example of this is "I see TVs come in for repair all the time." From a rhetorical standpoint, this is a rather brilliant argument. This person works at the store. They see lots of TVs coming in for repair. So as an "authority," this seems a valid point.

Except, it isn't.

What the salesperson isn't seeing, is all the TVs that don't come in for repair. Which is most of them. Flat-panel TVs are very reliable, so an extended warranty is a largely a waste of money.

'LED TVs have the best picture quality.'
Nope. First of all, there's no such thing as an "LED TV." Every
LED TV is just a standard LCD TV that uses LEDs to create light instead of the "old-fashioned" cold-cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFL). LCDs have their positives, like light output and lower energy consumption, but when it comes to a direct picture quality comparison, plasmas have better black levels, better contrast ratios, and better viewing angles (for those not sitting directly in front of the TV). For example, four of the five TVs CNET picked for best picture quality are plasmas (the one LED LCD is also the most expensive TV you can buy per-screen-inch).

There's more to it than that, as I lay out in "Why LED does not mean a better picture" and "LED LCD vs. plasma vs. LCD."

'If you want the best picture and sound, you need the best HDMI cable.'
This is the one that annoys me the most, and I've written four articles about it for CNET alone. This is the one that eliminates any guilt I have impugning the good name of some hard-working salespeople. There is no picture or sound quality difference between any HDMI cable. None. At all. So if you spend $3 or $300, the image and sound will be 100 percent exactly the same.

I could talk about this forever, and indeed I have. Check out "Why all HDMI cables are the same,"
"Why all HDMI cables are the same, Part 2,"
"Still more reasons why all HDMI cable are the same," and the "HDMI cable buying guide."

Bottom line

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it! -- Upton Sinclair

A commenter on one of the HDMI articles posted the above quote, and it's perfect. But look, be polite. Don't waste someone's time. This goes for both sides. They're just trying to make a living, you're just trying to keep as much of your living as possible. When I sold electronics at Circuit City, I was given all sorts of information, presented as truth, to tell customers. Much of which I know now to be false, or at least "truth adjacent." But as an 18-year-old, long haired (yep, believe it), wannabe guitar god, I didn't know any better. So give the poor guy or gal the benefit of the doubt that they're not knowingly lying to you.

Except for that HDMI cable stuff; man that bugs me.

How about you? Been told any doozys?

---

Got a question for Geoff? Send him an e-mail! If it's witty, amusing, and/or a good question, you may just see it in a post just like this one. No, he won't tell you which TV to buy. Yes, he'll probably truncate and/or clean up your e-mail. You can also send him a message on Twitter: @TechWriterGeoff.

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Plants Grow Fine Without Gravity

When researchers sent plants to the International Space Station in 2010, the flora wasn't meant to be decorative. Instead, the seeds of these small, white flowers—called Arabidopsis thaliana—were the subject of an experiment to study how plant roots developed in a weightless environment.

Gravity is an important influence on root growth, but the scientists found that their space plants didn't need it to flourish. The research team from the University of Florida in Gainesville thinks this ability is related to a plant's inherent ability to orient itself as it grows. Seeds germinated on the International Space Station sprouted roots that behaved like they would on Earth—growing away from the seed to seek nutrients and water in exactly the same pattern observed with gravity. (Related: "Beyond Gravity.")

Since the flowers were orbiting some 220 miles (350 kilometers) above the Earth at the time, the NASA-funded experiment suggests that plants still retain an earthy instinct when they don't have gravity as a guide.

"The role of gravity in plant growth and development in terrestrial environments is well understood," said plant geneticist and study co-author Anna-Lisa Paul, with the University of Florida in Gainesville. "What is less well understood is how plants respond when you remove gravity." (See a video about plant growth.)

The new study revealed that "features of plant growth we thought were a result of gravity acting on plant cells and organs do not actually require gravity," she added.

Paul and her collaborator Robert Ferl, a plant biologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville, monitored their plants from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida using images sent from the space station every six hours.

Root Growth

Grown on a nutrient-rich gel in clear petri plates, the space flowers showed familiar root growth patterns such as "skewing," where roots slant progressively as they branch out.

"When we saw the first pictures come back from orbit and saw that we had most of the skewing phenomenon we were quite surprised," Paul said.

Researchers have always thought that skewing was the result of gravity's effects on how the root tip interacts with the surfaces it encounters as it grows, she added. But Paul and Ferl suspect that in the absence of gravity, other cues take over that enable the plant to direct its roots away from the seed and light-seeking shoot. Those cues could include moisture, nutrients, and light avoidance.

"Bottom line is that although plants 'know' that they are in a novel environment, they ultimately do just fine," Paul said.

The finding further boosts the prospect of cultivating food plants in space and, eventually, on other planets.

"There's really no impediment to growing plants in microgravity, such as on a long-term mission to Mars, or in reduced-gravity environments such as in specialized greenhouses on Mars or the moon," Paul said. (Related: "Alien Trees Would Bloom Black on Worlds With Double Stars.")

The study findings appear in the latest issue of the journal BMC Plant Biology.

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Mexican-American Star Dead in Plane Crash: Father

UPDATED: Multiple reports, including one from Gerardo Ruiz Esparza, Mexico's Secretary of Communications and Transports, confirm that the remains of the private jet carrying Jenni Rivera have been found, with no survivors. Rivera, 43, was one of seven passengers.

Rivera's father, Pedro, confirmed the news of his daughter's passing to reporters stationed outside of his home in Lakewood, Calif., where several family members are gathered, including Rivera's mother Rosa and her eldest daughter Chiquis, who has still not made any statements. Rivera's father reportedly received the news via telephone from his son, singer Lupillo Rivera, who was in Mexico at the time of the jet's disappearance. "This is the first tragedy of this kind that we suffer as a family," Rivera's father told reporters on Sunday evening. "I hope people remember her as she was - someone who was straight with the world."

Celebrity reactions on Twitter have poured in since news of the disappearance of Rivera's jet, including Paulina Rubio (who was set to co-host the Mexican edition of The Voice with Rivera) William Levy, Joan Sebastian, Ricky Martin, and others.

See also: Jenni Rivera Immortalized in new Track 'La Misma Gran Señora

AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, file

Andy Williams Dead: 'Moon River' Singer Remembered Watch Video

Mexican officials have confirmed the disappearance of a private jet carrying regional Mexican music superstar Jenni Rivera that took off from the northern Mexican city of Monterrey at 3:15 a.m. local time on Sunday and fell off the radar 10 minutes (or 62 miles) after take-off.

The Learjet 25 jet, which dates back to 1969, is believed to have been carrying seven people – five passengers and two pilots. It was headed for Toluca International Aiport, located outside of Mexico City, where it was meant to arrive at 4:40 a.m. An official search for the jet was initiated at sunrise.

Rivera's publicist Arturo Rivera and her make-up artist Jacob Yebale are believed to have been on that flight. Their most recent tweets are of photos from Rivera's concert in Monterrey on Saturday night.

The Mexican American singer's most recent tweet is a re-tweet of what appears to be a fan's message.

Rivera was due in Toluca this evening for the taping of a Mexican TV show, La Voz. Televisa has canceled tonight's show given Rivera's disappearance.

Known as La Diva de la Banda and beloved by fans on both sides of the border, Rivera, 43, has had a groundbreaking career in regional Mexican music, selling some 15 million records. Among her many feats in a male-dominated genre, she made history in September 2011 when she sold out the Staples Center in Los Angeles, the first female regional Mexican artist to do so. Her reality show on mun2, I Love Jenni, is one of the network's highest rated shows. Rivera made her film debut at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival in the indie family drama Filly Brown, due in theaters in January 2013.

See Also: 'Filly Brown Gives Jenni Rivera a Chance to Grow and Gina Rodriguez a Chance to Shine

The Long Beach, Calif.-born singer's personal life has often called for as much attention as her career. A mother of five, Rivera had filed for divorce from baseball player Esteban Loaiza in October after two years of marriage, citing "irreconcilable differences." Soon after, rumors of an affair between Loaiza and Rivera's own daughter Chiquis surfaced, which Chiquis addressed on Twitter in October by saying, "I would NEVER do that, Ever! That's a horrible accusation."

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Sweet scent doubles as repellent for flower eaters

A FLOWER'S delicate fragrance is not just a come-hither call to insect pollinators. Some scent molecules act as deterrents to drive away blossom-munching predators.

Ian Baldwin of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, and colleagues genetically modified petunia plants to silence genes responsible for producing specific scent molecules. They then tested how these altered plants fared in the presence of flower-eating beetles and crickets.

When the production of the scent molecules benzyl benzoate or isoeugenol was blocked, the insects ate several times more of the flowers than they did when they were presented with petunias that hadn't been genetically altered.

To confirm whether it was indeed the scent putting off the insects, the researchers placed vials of isoeugenol or benzyl benzoate next to the genetically modified petunias. Sure enough, the presence of the chemical was enough to deter the insects (Ecology Letters, doi.org/jv7).

The study is the first to demonstrate that scent chemicals are used by flowers to discourage and attract insects. The complex scents of other flower species probably also include repellent as well as attractive chemical signals, says team member Thomas Colquhoun of the University of Florida in Gainsville.

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Chavez admits cancer relapse, designates heir apparent

CARACAS: Leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez admitted a relapse of his cancer late Saturday and designated vice president Nicolas Maduro as his heir apparent in case "something happened" to him.

Speaking on national television, an emotional Chavez said a return of cancer cells was detected during his most recent visit to Cuba for a medical examination, and he will return to the communist-ruled island as early as Sunday for another round of surgery.

"During this thorough examination, they again detected some malignant cells in the same area as before," Chavez said.

He did not offer details, but his cancer was first detected in the pelvic area. Neither the Venezuelan leader, nor his Cuban doctors have ever disclosed what kind of cancer that was.

He admitted he was suffering "somewhat strong" pain and was taking tranquilizers as part of preparation for his upcoming surgery.

Chavez acknowledged that his Cuban medical team had conveyed to him a sense of urgency about the operation, which he said was now "absolutely necessary."

"The doctor recommended that I undergo surgery yesterday (Friday) at the latest, or this weekend," he noted. "But I did not agree and came back home."

Chavez returned from Havana on Friday after a 10-day stay in Cuba. He had not been seen in public for three weeks.

The Venezuelan leader also said that in the event "something happened" and he were incapacitated, vice president Nicolas Maduro would step in and assume control of the government for the rest of the 2013-2019 term, as required by the constitution.

But in what appeared like a presentation of his final will, the president also indicated he would like Maduro to take over the reins of power in a post-Chavez period, urging Venezuelans to vote for him in the next presidential elections.

"You choose Maduro as president of the republic," said Chavez told the nation. "I am asking you this from all my heart."

Maduro, who has been serving as Venezuela's foreign minister for the past six years, was appointed vice president in the wake of the October presidential elections. He has held both portfolios since.

Firebrand leader Chavez made his latest announcement despite frequent assurances on the campaign trail before his re-election in October that he had been cured of cancer.

Recurring bouts of the disease have dogged Chavez's presidency for the past couple of years, requiring him to spend weeks at a time being treated in Cuba.

He had a cancerous tumor removed from near his pelvic area last year.

The Venezuelan leader, 58, has repeatedly claimed to have beaten the cancer that was diagnosed in 2011 and shrugged off his illness to see off a unified opposition and secure another six-year term on October 7.

In Cuba last week, the official newspaper Granma explained that Chavez's treatment consisted of oxygenation.

The American Cancer Society says there is no evidence that this oxygen treatment -- in which a patient gets inside a pressurized chamber and breathes pure oxygen for an hour -- works against cancer.

But the society says it can serve as treatment for ailments stemming from radiation treatment.

Chavez, who has been in power since 1999 and gained global prominence as an anti-American firebrand, appeared weak and subdued during the presidential campaign, but still managed to win another term that extends to 2019.

Prior to Saturday's surprise announcement, he had last been seen in public on November 15, and two weeks later he went to Cuba for treatment.

Over the past year and a half, Chavez has missed practically every regional meeting he was to have attended, such as the Summit of the Americas in Colombia, the Mercosur summit in Brazil and last month's Ibero-American summit in Cadiz, Spain.

- AFP/xq

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