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The fire started around 6 p.m. at a parking garage on Biscayne Boulevard.
The garage uses a lift mechanism to park cars. A white Acura TL somehow fell from the lift into an elevator shaft and caught fire.
The car's owner, Matt Olechnowicz, said he had just let work when he asked one of the valets to get his car.
"When I called for the car all of the sudden I thought I heard my car alarm going off and I hear a big bang," Olechnowicz said. "I turn around and the car had fallen down the elevator shaft."
He had spent years upgrading the car with custom parts.
"I saw it burn up. That's the hard part. The car was almost like a kid to me," Olechnowicz said. He thinks the valet left the manual car in gear when he put it on the lift.
"I believe they left it in gear and somehow the car started and it fell down nine floors," he said.
Olechnowicz said the parking garage company promised to cover the costs of a replacement. It will certainly be an interesting insurance claim.
There are more immune cells in the intestine than anywhere else in the human body. Their job is to identify and destroy invaders such as viruses, bacteria or parasites that could make us ill; however, unlike in other parts of the body, where any unfamiliar cell is likely to be potentially harmful, our guts play host to hundreds of species of bacteria.
Most of these bacteria are harmless or even help us – by aiding digestion, for example. The intestinal immune system, therefore, has to be more discriminating in its response to foreign bodies, which might explain why it needs so many immune cells.
When the immune system detects an invader, its response usually involves inflammation. This is caused by an influx of specialist cells and molecules that are equipped to deal with an intruder by neutralising, killing or consuming it – sometimes all three.
Inflammation can damage the body, but usually the short-term pain and swelling are worth it to snuff out the danger of serious disease. However, if the immune system triggers inappropriate inflammation in the gut, this can drive chronic, often devastating conditions called inflammatory bowel diseases, which include ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease.
Controlling the body’s response to the harmless bacteria in the gut while keeping it alert to dangerous microbes is a difficult balancing trick. In most of us, our immune systems pull it off, so what makes some people’s immune systems overreact? That question is at the heart of research led by Professor Fiona Powrie, a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator at the University of Oxford.
Fiona probes the workings of the intestinal immune system and the inflammatory response, teasing out the molecular signalling pathways that determine how our bodies respond to the bacteria in our gut. We often talk about the immune system as if it were the same throughout the body, a consistent defence mechanism against invasion. Fiona explains that this is not quite true.
The immune system’s cells and signals do different things according to where they are. The immune system in a specific tissue – such as the gut – does not behave in the same way as it does in the blood, which is where it has most commonly been studied.
Escherichia coli on the surface of intestinal cells. E. coli are part of the normal environment of the gut; however, some strains are pathogenic and produce toxins that can cause toxins, so E. coli is often associated with food poisoning. Credit: Dr Paul Dean, Newcastle University, Wellcome Images.
Fiona has been studying the intestinal immune system since her days as a postgraduate student in Oxford, when she made her first discovery about how the balance between our immune system and bacteria is maintained in the gut. Even in healthy people, there is a constant low level of intestinal inflammation that is kept in check by a group of immune cells called ‘regulatory T cells’. Fiona and her mentor Don Mason were among the first to describe the role of regulatory T cells in suppressing inflammation.
“I did my PhD in Don Mason’s lab in the William Dunn School of Pathology,” says Fiona. “There were only four of us in the team – you wouldn’t find many labs like that now.” The discovery that regulatory T cells had a suppressive role ran against the tide of thought in immunology at the time.
It meant that, rather than being switched off until it was needed, the immune response was always ticking over in a carefully controlled way. This might make it quicker to respond when genuine threats arise, at which point the regulatory T cells take off the shackles until the inflammatory response has removed the danger.
Fiona left Oxford to do more work on regulatory T cells with Bob Coffman at the DNAX Research Institute in California. There, she found that modifying regulatory T cells in mice led to intestinal inflammation similar to that seen in human inflammatory bowel diseases. Mice with these specific modifications could be used as research models to understand the human disease better.
Her research focus set, Fiona returned to Oxford with a succession of Wellcome Trust Senior Fellowships from 1996 to 2009. Then, she accepted the inaugural Sidney Truelove chair in Gastroenterology along with roles as Head of both the Experimental Medicine Division and a new Translational Gastroenterology Unit at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital.
The Translational Gastroenterology Unit is the ideal place for this research. Basic researchers work alongside clinical researchers, who are also doctors in the hospital treating the patients suffering from inflammatory bowel diseases.
Fiona says such collaboration brings much added value: “How we think about the animal models is influenced by thinking about patients and talking with clinicians about the challenges they face.
The aim is to apply that scientific understanding and develop new treatments for inflammatory bowel diseases. There are some promising candidates in development, and Fiona and her team have been working with pharmaceutical companies to run proof-of-principle trials in their patients.
It is equally important to develop better ways of diagnosing inflammatory diseases. As well as knowing which specific condition a patient has, their care could be improved if doctors knew accurately how far the disease had progressed and even how likely the patient was to respond to a particular treatment. Eventually, it may be possible to categorise groups of patients by their genes – genetics undoubtedly has an important role in determining our likelihood of getting inflammatory bowel disease.
Top image: Professor Fiona Powrie. Credit: Wellcome Library, London.
I AM RESPONDING to Dr. Myron Smith’s guest editorial (Dec. 27) in which there was some criticism of my earlier article (Nov. 30). To question my article shows that people are thinking about the issues and that is good.
However, I would like to clear up some misunderstandings. Yes, I am a Christian, without apology, but I am not anti-environment. I believe very strongly that the human race is a steward of God’s creation and that we should do all we can to preserve and care for the beauty of our world. I oppose the greedy exploitation of our environment.
I used the term “atheistic evolution” because I am very aware of theistic evolution, and I was not discussing that. However, the evolution theory that is held by most evolutionists is atheistic. Theistic evolution is only held by a minority of Christians and scientists. Atheistic evolution is what is taught in our public schools and universities. Any concept of God is excluded.
There is no universal consensus among scientists about evolution. Increasingly, scientists are questioning Darwin’s theory on scientific grounds. Intelligent design is stamped everywhere upon creation. Dr. Flew of the U.K. has been called the world’s leading atheist. He recently became a theist, compelled by the design and complexity of creation to change his views.
I would never accuse the evolutionist of being without faith. He has tremendous faith. He believes that all of the beauty and design found in creation is the result of a mindless force operating by chance over eons of time. The result is this amazing universe and our planet, especially designed to support life with its myriad forms. To me, that requires great faith. Evolution is a philosophy, not a scientific fact.
To my knowledge no scientist is willing to claim that evolution is a law of nature, such as gravity. It cannot be observed taking place today. Through selective breeding, we have various kinds of dogs today but this is not evolution. All dogs are still dogs and can interbreed. Let us not allow our philosophy of life to warp the facts that we observe.
File under great schadenfreude material for all Burning Man haters: Some kind of as-yet-unidentified green insect (any help from you entomologists would be much appreciated!) has appeared by the hundreds of thousands on the playa in the weeks leading up to Burning Man, and the Burning Man twitterers and blogs have been, ahem, abuzz about it. The crews already out there building things and setting up have had these creepy crawly things all over them, biting them, leaving welts, and generally horrifying everyone concerned. Is this some weird ecological side effect of the drought? It's confusing everyone who's used to dust, dust storms, and heat being the central problems of playa living.
You may have seen the bug rumors on the internet. We are here to tell you that they are all true. Well maybe not all of the rumors, but the bugs are real. They’re everywhere. They bite. They crawl all over you. They get up and in you.
There's reports of them crawling up into women's bras, biting peoples' backs, and crawling into goggles and "nestl[ing] around [the] eyes."
What’s going on? We don’t know. We don’t know how the little critters survive in the heat and the sun. All we know is that if you pick up some wood, you’re likely to uncover hundreds or thousands of the things.
Yeah there's nothing like a plague of biting insects to seriously ruin a hallucinogen experience or to scare off some tech bro virgins so they never come back!
You think being dusty and dirty and sunburnt is bad? Add some mysterious bug bites to that and maybe this thing will finally stop selling out and shrink back down to an appropriate size again.
Below, some more Twitter evidence.
Those look like stink bugs, maybe babies because of the pale color. They hatch & grow on tumble mustard, but when those plants dry up in drought conditions, the bugs go off looking for other places. They're attracted to light, so Burning Man will be infested with them.
Update 2: Gizmodo claims to have a positive ID from a specialist.
These are most likely Nysius, or seed bugs. [Entomologist Karl] Magnacca thinks there are actually two other species here along with Nysius, one of which is probably in the family Miridae too. These guys also release a terrible smell, and they like to poke their probiscises into people’s skin. Which hurts. But they’re actually not biting or attacking a probiscis is more like a long, hollow tongue. These are desert bugs, and they look for water everywhere, including in your skin.
Several species of Nysius seed bugs range into the Sonoran Desert and are very catholic in their choice of seeds to feed upon. Weeds and grasses of many kinds with their often abundant seed crops can result in huge populations of these small, ca. 3mm, bugs. As bugs, they feed exclusively on liquid food through piercing-sucking mouthparts. When disturbed the bugs can release a noxious odor.
A FRIENDLY atmosphere, great pub grub and an open fire made my visit to The James Figg in Thame a very happy one.
The pub is nestled in the High Street of the pretty town of Thame and we arrived on a busy Sunday afternoon.
It has an old fashioned feel with a modern twist- there are bright colours dotted around with red walls at the back, blue seats at the front and colourful photo frames filled with sports pictures and happy slogans.
We sat next to the open fire which was smouldering away in comfy, high back leather chairs.
A trio of enthusiastic, if not slightly sloshed, punters sat next to us raved about the pub saying it was the best in town- praising the food and staff.
The menu is kept pretty simple, which is what bosses want. They offer a range of bar snacks and sandwiches- including a hot roast bap of the day- as well as pizzas, burgers and classics such as roast and pies.
They also have a simple wine list and a selection of ales, as well as the usual drinks.
There are no starters here- so it was straight into the main event. I went for the Famous James Figg Burger (£7.50), with a topping of bacon and onion rings (both 50p each extra). It was quite possibly one of the best burgers I have ever tried- the beef was well seasoned, great quality and had that flame grilled taste.
It was served with a moreish burger sauce, fresh salad leaves and tomatoes in a sesame seed bun.
The bacon was crispy- which I was delighted by- and the onion rings were huge and covered in a crispy batter. The onions could have been cooked slightly longer as they were a bit crisp. The chips had their skins on and were served in a paper bag- they tasted like chip shop chips but not too greasy. They were delicious. It was all served on an enamel tin plate, which I thought was a nice touch.
My boyfriend, Tom, went for the Roast chicken, rocket and chilli pizza (£8).
It was so nice to see the roasted variety on a pizza instead of the processed chicken you can sometimes see, which meant the meat was tender and flavoursome. The rocket was spread liberally on top and the chilli added a good amount of heat for Tom, who loves spicy food.
There was a healthy layer of tomato and cheese on a crispy base, which made for a great pizza.
With a little room left for pudding there was a choice of two- sticky toffee pudding and chocolate brownie sundae.
The sundae was divine- with gooey warm chocolate brownie at the bottom, topped with creamy chocolate and vanilla ice cream and lavished with cream.
The brownie was so well done- it was sweet and gooey- and was a lovely treat.
Tom had the sticky toffee pudding, which was a rectangle of moist sponge and a lovely toffee sauce with Baileys cream. He polished it off in moments.
I really like the ethos of the pub- it is kept quite simple but the food they do, they do very well. It is a great place to while away the afternoon in a relaxed, pub atmosphere topped off with delicious, home made food. Go to www.thejamesfiggthame.co.uk for more details.
The question that sellers always ask around this time of year is “Should I list or keep selling my home during the Holidays? Many people would say NO you should wait until after the Holiday Season because everyone is too busy thinking about Christmas and not about buying homes or property. This may be true for some BUT here are 10 reasons why you should list and keep selling your home during the Holidays. I know that many sellers are very frustrated with our soft market but remember it only takes one buyer to make a deal and your deal might be just around the corner. Wouldn’t that be the BEST Christmas present this year? Over the years we have sold many homes during the Holidays and this year could be your turn !
Here are the Top 10 Reasons a Seller Should List During the Holidays!
1. People who look for homes during the Holidays are more serious buyers!
2. Serious buyers have fewer houses to choose from during the Holidays and less competition means more money for you!
3. Since the supply of listings will dramatically increase in January, there will be less demand for your particular home! Less demand means less money for you!
4. Houses show better during the Holidays!
5. Buyers are more emotional during the Holidays, so they are more likely to pay your price!
6. Buyers have more time to look for a home during the holidays than they do during a working week!
7. Some people must buy before the end of the year for Foreign tax reasons.
8. January is traditionally the month for people to begin new jobs. Since new people cannot wait to buy, you need to be on the market during the Holidays to capture that market!
9. Even though your house will be on the market, you still have the option to restrict a showing during a time that is really inconvenient. You can always schedule around your Holiday schedule.
10. You can sell now and close in the new year which is a win win for a both parties. You can Secure the sale of a buyer not ready to close until early next year but happy that they found their dream home this year.
A novel transistor controlled by the chemical that provides the energy for our cells’ metabolism could be a big step towards making prosthetic devices that can be wired directly into the nervous system.
Transistors are the fundamental building blocks of electronic gadgets, so finding ways to control them with biological signals could provide a route towards integrating electronics with the body.
Aleksandr Noy at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and colleagues chose to control their transistor with adenosine triphosphate (ATP) – the molecular fuel found in nearly all living cells.
The new transistor is made up of a carbon nanotube, which behaves as a semiconductor, bridging the gap between two metal electrodes and coated with an insulating polymer layer that leaves the middle section of the nanotube exposed. The entire device is then coated again, this time with a lipid bi-layer similar to those that form the membranes surrounding our body’s cells.
The team then applied a voltage across the transistor’s electrodes and poured a solution containing ATP and potassium and sodium ions onto the device. This caused a current to flow through the electrodes – and the higher the concentration of ATP was, the more strongly current flowed.
The device responds in this way because the lipid bi-layer incorporates a protein that, when exposed to ATP, acts as an ion pump, shuttling sodium and potassium ions across the membrane.
“The ion pump protein is an absolutely critical element of this device,” says Noy. “Each cycle, it hydrolyses an ATP molecule and moves three sodium ions in one direction and two potassium ions in the opposite direction.” This results in the net pumping of one charge across the membrane to the nanotube.
The build-up of ions creates an electric field around the exposed portion of the semiconducting nanotube, increasing its conductivity in proportion to the strength of the field. When the supply of ATP is reduced, ions leak back across the membrane and the flow of current through the transistor falls.
Itamar Willner at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel thinks the technology is full of promise. “The beauty of the system is reflected by the fact that mechanical energy at the nanoscale [from the movement of ions] is transformed into electricity.” He suggests it could be used to develop sensors to monitor intracellular metabolism.
The looming shutdown of the federal government -- because elected officials cannot agree on immigration policy -- would almost certainly do further damage to Americans' already negative view of the government.
Only one in five Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, and President Donald Trump's job approval is historically low for presidents at this point in their administrations. The government is so troubling to some that 25% of Americans mention it when asked to name the most important problem facing the country, more than any other issue or concern. The inability to reach agreement on how to fund the government would confirm these low opinions -- and most likely make them even worse.
It's important to note that government is more likely than immigration to be perceived as the nation's top problem today. In other words, Congress' inability to fix a problem of lesser importance to most Americans (immigration) will potentially exacerbate a problem viewed as of greater importance (government).
The record of the public opinion damage done by the last government shutdown in October 2013 is pretty grim. Americans' confidence in the U.S. economy sank dramatically as a result of the shutdown, job approval of Congress reached its all-time low of 9% the month after the shutdown, and ratings of most of the government leaders involved fell significantly. Satisfaction with the way the nation was being governed in October 2013 dropped to 18%, which stands to this day as the lowest in Gallup's history of asking the question.
Additionally, the percentage of Americans who said that dysfunctional government was the top problem facing the nation reached 33% in October 2013, which also continues to stand as the highest such percentage in Gallup's history of asking the most important problem question.
All of our research over the years shows that the people want their elected representatives to compromise rather than stick to principle and get nothing done. More specifically, in the midst of the 2013 crisis, Americans by a 2-to-1 margin said that they wanted the people in government who represented their views on the budget shutdown situation to agree to a compromise plan -- even if it was a plan "you disagree with" -- rather than hold out for the basic plan they wanted.
In line with these underlying sentiments, just before the 2013 shutdown and during the 1995 shutdown that preceded it, Americans were more likely to say the shutdown was an attempt by both sides to gain political advantage than to say it was an important battle over principles and the future direction of the government. Given Americans' low opinions of Congress and the executive branch now, I have no reason to expect these types of cynical views of the reasons for a shutdown wouldn't be the same (or even more cynical).
Shutdowns usually devolve into a "blame game." Trump, in the current situation, is already blaming Democrats for being intransigent, as are Democrats blaming Republican leaders. In the two most recent shutdowns, the government was divided across the two legislative houses and the executive branch, but our data still showed that the image of the Republican Party took more of a hit than the image of the Democratic Party. This year, Republicans control both houses of Congress and the presidency, so it is likely the Republican Party image will again take more of a hit -- although the exact way the situation plays out will obviously affect that.
The longer-term impact of a shutdown, should it occur, remains to be seen. A Gallup review of the 1995 shutdown showed that then-President Bill Clinton's job approval rating improved in the months after the shutdown. In addition, his favorable rating improved, Congress approval edged up, U.S. satisfaction recovered, views of the economy improved, and views of the deficit and government as the top problem dropped back down again.
Since the 2013 shutdown, Congress' image has remained quite negative, despite improved views of the economy. Similarly, although satisfaction with the way things are going in the U.S. is up from the 16% recorded in October 2013, it's still low (29% in January) on an absolute basis -- again, despite the highly improved views of the economy. Some of this could be the lingering aftermath of the shutdown.
A government shutdown is, in some ways, analogous to a corporation suspending operations because its management team can't agree on how to make decisions and run the company. That would not be an optimal outcome for employees or for customers or shareholders. In this situation, the inability of the nation's elected representatives to agree on how to make decisions and run the country would be similarly less than optimal.
Gallup's Job Creation Index was down three points in early October, to +18, during the government shutdown. It had been steady at +21 or +22 from May through September after being lower earlier this year.
Less than 24 hours after an extremely heated exchange with Republican Congressman Mark Meadows during former Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s testimony to the House Oversight Committee, Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib appeared on CNN’s New Day Thursday; where co-host Alisyn Camerota asked her if she regretted apologizing to Congressman Meadows for effectively smearing him as racist.
Tlaib discussed what transpired on Capitol Hill the previous day, where she criticized Meadows’s decision to bring in longtime Trump associate, Lynne Patton, as a character witness for President Trump to refute Cohen’s characterization of the President as a racist. Tlaib referred to the African-American Patton as a “prop,” arguing that the decision to bring her before the committee was a racist act.
Tlaib didn’t really answer the question, instead choosing to speak about how important it was for her to “speak truth to power.” Tlaib also talked about how she wanted to “discuss race in this country in a way that can be really thoughtful and constructive, not in a way that’s very dramatic.” Accusing Meadows of bringing in Patton as a racist “prop” definitely comes across as quite dramatic.
A transcript of the relevant portion of Thursday’s edition of New Day is below. Click “expand” to read more.
ALISYN CAMEROTA: And so, Congresswoman, you were also at the center of this rather prolonged emotional exchange between you and Congressman Mark Meadows and Chairman Elijah Cummings after Mark Meadows had held up this woman who has worked for Donald Trump as what I believe you said was a prop…she didn’t speak. And you felt that it was a racist act. So let me just play this moment.
REP. MARK MEADOWS: Mr. Chairman, I ask that her words be taken down.

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