Saturday, December 29, 2012
Use Military Retirement Calculator To Anticipate ... - Home and Family
During the first few years of service, retirement income may not be high on everybody's list of concerns. Nonetheless as their career in the army advances, figuring out retirement income with an army retirement calculator can help someone plan for the future. Retirement income for retired army is similar to civilian calculations, and they should include the same variables.
When you?re having a look at your pension plan, begin with your age, and the age at which you plan to retire. In the military, you can consider the quantity of years of service and know what % of your pay you'll receive upon retirement after an established period of years. Using these numbers in a military retirement calculator you can figure if you are going to have to find another job, or can stay home and unwind. Most calculators do not include the final year you?re employed when computing income. For example, if you intend to retire at age 65, the last year of earnings you must consider is for year 64.
When you consider income, don't forget to take into consideration your spouse?s revenue in the household totals and any amounts your married spouse has in their own retirement savings account. Individual retirement accounts should also be included in the military retirement calculator when working out the present pension savings amount.
Future Earnings Estimates Are Questionable
The earnings you realize from your current investments are questionable, at best and depending on where your savings are being held will play a significant role in its growth. A military retirement calculator can work with known numbers, but the variables in interest rates and potential for losses in market investments can make your savings plan unstable. While high-interest accounts are typically safe and consistent, their returns are also a lot lower that investments. Securities dealing however, can be rewarding, financially, they can also take a big slice of your original investment in a down market.
For post-retirement expenses, it is often worked out that 90 percent of your last year?s income will be what you may spend on living costs. When using your military retirement calculator by understanding what your total savings should be upon retirement, and working out how many years you can live on the balance, should help you determine how much more you need to save in order to survive. Knowing the amount of money you need to save can help you calculate the amount each month you've got to put away, figuring in your expected rate of growth.
This work is thanks to advisor hub. Before taking any early pension lump sum or considering a pension release, it could be prudent to order a meeting with a professional consultant as this will impact on your allowance in retirement.
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Spend It or Save It?Explores the policy question of whether allowing people access to their pension money when they change jobs enhances or diminishes their eventual reti... Read More >Tags: pension lump sum, Pension plan, pension release
Road trip on tap for NASA's Mars rover in new year
FILE - This Dec. 12, 2012 file image provided by NASA shows the Mars rover Curiosity at a pit stop, a shallow depression called "Yellowknife Bay." It took the image on the 125th Martian day, or sol, of the mission (Dec. 12, 2012), just after finishing that sol's drive. The Sol 125 drive entered Yellowknife Bay and covered about 86 feet (26.1 meters). The descent into the basin crossed a step about 2 feet (half a meter) high, visible in the upper half of this image. Curiosity will now head for Mount Sharp in mid-February after it drills into its first rock. (AP Photo/NASA/JPL-Caltech, File)
FILE - This Dec. 12, 2012 file image provided by NASA shows the Mars rover Curiosity at a pit stop, a shallow depression called "Yellowknife Bay." It took the image on the 125th Martian day, or sol, of the mission (Dec. 12, 2012), just after finishing that sol's drive. The Sol 125 drive entered Yellowknife Bay and covered about 86 feet (26.1 meters). The descent into the basin crossed a step about 2 feet (half a meter) high, visible in the upper half of this image. Curiosity will now head for Mount Sharp in mid-February after it drills into its first rock. (AP Photo/NASA/JPL-Caltech, File)
FILE - This file image provided by NASA shows the base of Mount Sharp on Mars. The Curiosity rover is set to drive toward the mountain in mid-February after drilling into a rock. The image was taken by Curiosity's 100-millimeter Mast Camera on Aug. 23, 2012. Scientists enhanced the color in one version to show the Martian scene under the lighting conditions we have on Earth, which helps in analyzing the terrain. (AP Photo/NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS, File)
FILE - This file image provided by NASA shows a color self-portrait of the Mars rover Curiosity. It is set to drive toward a Martian mountain in mid-February after drilling into a rock. On the 84th and 85th Martian days of the NASA Mars rover Curiosity's mission on Mars (Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, 2012), NASA's Curiosity rover used the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) to capture dozens of high-resolution images to be combined into self-portrait images of the rover. (AP Photo/NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS, File)
PASADENA, Calif. (AP) ? Since captivating the world with its acrobatic landing, the Mars rover Curiosity has fallen into a rhythm: Drive, snap pictures, zap at boulders, scoop up dirt. Repeat.
Topping its to-do list in the new year: Set off toward a Martian mountain ? a trek that will take up a good chunk of the year.
The original itinerary called for starting the drive before the Times Square ball drop, but Curiosity lingered longer than planned at a pit stop, delaying the trip.
Curiosity will now head for Mount Sharp in mid-February after it drills into its first rock.
"We'll probably be ready to hit the pedal to the metal and give the keys back to the rover drivers," mission chief scientist John Grotzinger said in a recent interview at his office on the sprawling NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory campus 15 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.
The road trip comes amid great expectations. After all, it's the reason the $2.5 billion mission targeted Gale Crater near the Martian equator. Soaring from the center of the ancient crater is a 3-mile-high peak with intriguing layers of rocks.
Curiosity's job is to figure out whether the landing site ever had the right environmental conditions to support microbes. Scientists already know water flowed in the past thanks to the rover's discovery of an old streambed. Besides water, life as we know it also needs energy, the sun.
What's missing are the chemical building blocks of life: complex carbon-based molecules. If they're preserved on Mars, scientists figure the best place to hunt for them is at the base of Mount Sharp where images from space reveal hints of interesting geology.
It's a six-month journey if Curiosity drives nonstop. But since scientists will want to command the six-wheel rover to rest and examine rocky outcrops along the way, it'll turn into a nine-month odyssey.
Before Curiosity can tackle a mountain, there's unfinished business to tend to. After spending the holiday taking measurements of the Martian atmosphere, Curiosity gears up for the first task of the new year: Finding the perfect rock to bore into.
The exercise ? from picking a rock to drilling to deciphering its chemical makeup ? is expected to last more than a month.
"We have promised everybody that we're going to go slowly," said Grotzinger, a geologist at the California Institute of Technology.
Curiosity's low-key adventures thus far are in contrast to the drama-filled touchdown that entranced the world in August. Since the car-size rover was too heavy to land using a parachute and airbags, engineers invented a daring new way that involved lowering it to the surface by cables. The risky arrival proved so successful and popular that NASA is planning an encore in 2020.
Curiosity joined another NASA rover, Opportunity, which has been exploring the Martian southern hemisphere since 2004. Opportunity's twin, Spirit, stopped communicating in 2010.
After nailing the landing, Curiosity fell into a routine. The first month was dominated by health checkups ? a tedious but essential prerequisite before driving. A chemistry laboratory on wheels, it's the most high-tech spacecraft to land on another planet so extra care was taken to ensure its tools, including its rock-zapping laser and robotic arm, worked.
Once it got the green light, it trundled to a waypoint that's home to three unique types of terrain to perform science experiments. Every time Curiosity roves, it leaves Morse code tracks in the soil, providing a visual signal between drives. The message spells out JPL, short for Jet Propulsion Lab, which built the rover.
So far, its odometer has logged less than a mile. Despite the slow going, scientists have been smitten with the postcards it beamed home, including a stylish self-portrait and tantalizing glimpses of Mount Sharp.
Huge expectations weigh on the mission with NASA balancing the need to feed the public's appetite while pursuing discoveries at its own pace. Last month, the space agency quashed Internet speculation that Curiosity had detected complex carbon compounds in a pinch of Martian soil by issuing a statement ahead of a science meeting where the team was due to present the latest findings.
American University space policy professor Howard McCurdy said Curiosity is currently in a transition, caught between the viral landing and the scientific payoff expected at Mount Sharp.
"It is interesting, but slow," he said in an email. "I expect public interest will rise as the rover gets closer to its destination."
Curiosity's prime mission lasts two years, but NASA expects the plutonium-powered rover to live far longer. A priority for its human handlers is to learn to operate it more efficiently so that it becomes second nature. Before heading to Mount Sharp, engineers plan a software update to Curiosity's computers to fix remaining bugs.
"We'll need to be pretty careful," project manager Richard Cook said of the upcoming drive. "We may find terrain that we're not comfortable driving in and we'll have to spend time driving around stuff."
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Associated PressTop 25 Best PS3 Games of 2012 - Video Games Blogger
The Top 25 best PS3 games of 2012 have been revealed! Is your favorite PS3 game part of the list of the greatest the PlayStation 3 console had to offer in 2012? The year is almost over, so we?ve compiled this list of the top-quality AAA must-own titles of the year!
Is there a game that didn?t make the list, that you think deserves a spot? Leave a comment and let us know your own list!
Runners-Up:
Hitman: Absolution, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Skullgirls, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, Pro Evolution Soccer 2013, Closure, LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes, SSX, and SoulCalibur V.
#25 ? Dyad (PS3 Exclusive)
#24 ? Sleeping Dogs
#23 ? Madden NFL 13
#22 ? LEGO The Lord of the Rings
#21 ? NHL 13
#20 ? Sound Shapes (PlayStation Exclusive)
#19 ? Darksiders II
#18 ? Need for Speed: Most Wanted
#17 ? Street Fighter X Tekken
#16 ? Assassin?s Creed III
#15 ? ZEN Pinball 2
#14 ? Sine Mora
#13 ? UFC Undisputed 3
#12 ? Persona 4 Arena
#11 ? MLB 12: The Show (PlayStation Exclusive)
#10 ? Max Payne 3
#9 ? FIFA Soccer 13
#8 ? The Walking Dead: The Game
#7 ? Dishonored
#6 ? XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Find out which PS3 game is #1 in 2012 as our countdown continues on the next page?
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Source: http://www.videogamesblogger.com/2012/12/27/top-25-best-ps3-games-of-2012.htm
ELF5: Transcription factor that could determine future breast cancer ...
Australian scientists have shown how a 'transcription factor' causes breast cancer to develop an aggressive subtype that lacks sensitivity to oestrogen and does not respond to anti-oestrogen therapies such as Tamoxifen and aromatase inhibitors.
Transcription factors are molecules that switch genes on or off. In this case, the transcription factor known as 'ELF5' inhibits sensitivity to oestrogen very early in the life of a breast cancer cell.
In 2008, Associate Professor Chris Ormandy from Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research showed that ELF5 was responsible for the development of the oestrogen-receptor-negative cells in the breast during pregnancy that produce milk.
In the current study Ormandy, in collaboration with Drs Maria Kalyga and David Gallego-Ortega, has shown that the same molecular decision occurs in breast cancer and that ELF5 has the ability to change an existing tumour to an oestrogen-insensitive type.
The team has also described the genetic mechanisms by which ELF5 opposes the action of oestrogen, and has shown that it is possible to alter the subtype of breast cancer by manipulating ELF5 levels. The findings are published in the highly prestigious journal PLoS Biology, now online.
"This work tells us that cancers which become refractory to anti-oestrogen treatment often do so by elevating their levels of ELF5 and becoming functionally oestrogen receptor negative," said Ormandy.
"This raises the therapeutic option of manipulating ELF5 levels to treat breast cancer."
"As ELF5 is intracellular, this could possibly be done with small molecule therapies that target protein-to-protein interactions, or with small inhibitory RNAs."
"There is also the possibility of testing ELF5 levels in tumours to predict response to treatment and therefore guide treatment decisions."
"Our key discovery here is that by simply manipulating one transcription factor we can change the subtype of breast cancer."
Source: http://www.sciencecodex.com/the_factor_that_could_determine_future_breast_cancer_treatment-104457
NHL makes new offer to players
FILE -In this Sept. 25, 2012 file photo, an empty locker room is shown during the NHL labor lockout at the First Niagara Center, home of the Buffalo Sabres hockey team, in Buffalo, N.Y. The NHL lockout that's already wiped out the first three months of the season is taking its toll on Buffalo businesses. And it's no different in many of the NHL's 29 other markets. (AP Photo/David Duprey, File)
FILE -In this Sept. 25, 2012 file photo, an empty locker room is shown during the NHL labor lockout at the First Niagara Center, home of the Buffalo Sabres hockey team, in Buffalo, N.Y. The NHL lockout that's already wiped out the first three months of the season is taking its toll on Buffalo businesses. And it's no different in many of the NHL's 29 other markets. (AP Photo/David Duprey, File)
FILE - In this Sept. 25, 2012 file photo, a nearly empty hockey stick rack in the locker room of the Buffalo Sabres hockey team is shown during the NHL labor lockout in Buffalo, N.Y. The NHL lockout that's already wiped out the first three months of the season is taking its toll on Buffalo businesses. And it's no different in many of the NHL's 29 other markets. (AP Photo/David Duprey, File)
NEW YORK (AP) ? The NHL says it has made a new contract offer to the players in an attempt to end the lockout and save the season.
Deputy commissioner Bill Daly says in a statement Friday that a "comprehensive" proposal was made a day earlier, although he would not discuss details.
He adds that the league is "hopeful" that once the union and its negotiating committee review the proposal "they will share it with the players. We want to be back on the ice as soon as possible."
The lockout is in its 104th day. The NHL says it doesn't want a season of less than 48 games. To make that possible, a deal likely must be reached by mid-January. The sides haven't met face to face since talks with a federal mediator broke down Dec. 13.
Associated PressDo You Make New Year's Resolutions?
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We've talked about the science behind New Year's resolutions and how it can help you achieve your goals. We've also shown you several ways to better your chances of making successful resolutions, including giving them a 30-day trial, outsourcing them to make them stick, and using a three-step approach to ensure success.
But now, we'd like to know:
Photo by cristovao (Shutterstock).
Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/orEtuNNUy8Y/do-you-make-new-years-resolutions