When T.J. Grant knocked out two-time title challenger Gray Maynard last May for his fifth straight win at lightweight – where he’s undefeated – the Canadian earned a shot at then-champion Benson Henderson. Unfortunately for him, Grant suffered a concussion in his training camp for Henderson and was forced to pull out.
Anthony Pettis would then step in for Grant and win the belt from Henderson this past August at UFC 164. Grant’s recovery from his concussion has been deliberate and justifiably long but he could at least conceivably comfort himself knowing that when he was ready, he’d get that coveted shot at the lightweight title he’d worked so hard for.
Turns out that Grant’s streak of bad luck is continuing. After Gilbert Melendez’s impressive win over Diego Sanchez this past weekend at UFC 166, promotion president Dana White said that “El Nino” very well could have bumped Grant back in the title contender’s line.
"T.J. Grant's in one of those unfortunate situations where he had the title shot and he had to pull out twice," White said, also calling Melendez’ win a “huge setback for T.J. Grant."
"He's in limbo. He might come back and have to fight another fight. We've got to keep this thing rolling."
Prior to beating Sanchez at UFC 166, Melendez lost a controversial decision to Henderson for the title in the former Strikeforce champ’s promotional debut. Melendez’s back to back impressive fights against Henderson and Sanchez, as well as a new champion in Pettis and Grant’s continuing recovery, may mean that Gilbert will get the first crack at the new champion in the near future.
What do you think? Is it fair for Grant to have to come back and fight someone else in order to get a title shot, and would you rather see Melendez fight Pettis first?
"Facebook users are reporting trouble logging in and posting updates Monday morning.
"Some users are seeing a 'temporary disruption of service' warning.
" 'Servers are down,' one user posted on Twitter.
" 'So, it's not just me,' posted another."
The site "Downrightnow" said, indeed (as of 10:40 a.m. ET) that Facebook was having some problems.
And here's an example of the sort of reaction trending on the rival Twitter under the hashtags #GetWellSoonFacebook and #RIPFacebook:
The Two-Way has reached out to Facebook for comment, but we haven't heard back yet.
Update At 11:50 a.m. ET. Facebook: 'Now Back To 100%'
"Earlier this morning, while performing some network maintenance, we experienced an issue that prevented some users from posting to Facebook for a brief period of time," a Facebook spokesman says in an email to NPR. "We resolved the issue quickly, and we are now back to 100%. We're sorry for any inconvenience we may have caused."
A spendy accessory aimed at corporate users on the go
Logitech is hoping to capitalize on the increasingly mobile workforce's needs for quality speakerphone audio with its latest Bluetooth speaker, the P710e. Built to be used with any phone or tablet over Bluetooth as well as your laptop over USB, the P710e brings enterprise-level speakerphone quality to any device that you connect it to.
On the mobile side, the P710e offers Bluetooth pairing over NFC, as well as a device dock in the top of the speaker for making video calls. When working wirelessly, Logitech is quoting 15 hours of battery life for the device, which should get you through even the longest conference calls with ease.
Logitech pegs the price of the P710e at a cool $169.99, but there isn't any easy way to buy one just yet — being that this is a enterprise-focused device we may be waiting a little while before anyone can buy them directly. This certainly isn't your average consumer-focused Bluetooth speaker.
Contact: Rachel Steinhardt rsteinhardt@licr.org 212-450-1582 Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research
A study of how cancer cells get energy and raw materials for growth from glucose opens doors to new therapies
October 21, 2013, New York, NY Ludwig researchers have elucidated a key mechanism by which cancer cells change how they metabolize glucose to generate the energy and raw materials required to sustain runaway growth.
Published online in Cell Metabolism, the Ludwig Cancer Research study also reveals how the aggressive brain cancer glioblastoma harnesses the mechanism to resist targeted therapies that should disrupt this capabilityknown as the Warburg effectand suggests how such resistance might be overcome. In detailing the molecular circuitry of the phenomenon, the researchers uncover several possible targets for new drugs that might disrupt cancer cell metabolism to destroy tumors.
"Cancer and other fast-growing cells extract energy from glucose using a process that ordinarily kicks in only when oxygen is in short supply," explains Ludwig scientist Paul Mischel, MD, who is based at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine. "This allows them to thread the needle: they get the energy they need from glucose but also retain the carbon-based building blocks for molecules like lipids, proteins and DNA, which dividing cells need in large quantities."
Until recently, relatively little was known about the biochemical circuits that induce this vital metabolic shift in cancer cells. Earlier this year, however, Mischel and his colleagues published a study describing how an aberrant growth signal found in many glioblastomas is channeled to induce the Warburg effect. That signaling cascade, which involves the key proteins PI3 kinase (PI3K), Akt and mTORC1, culminates in the activation of a transcription factora controller of gene expressionnamed c-Myc. "In many cancer cells," says Mischel, "c-Myc seems to be a lever that links growth signaling pathways with the machinery that controls the uptake and use of nutrients."
In the current study, Mischel, who did the research in collaboration with Ludwig researchers Kenta Masui, MD, PhD and Web Cavenee, PhD, both also at UC San Diego, identifies a second interacting biochemical cascade that is independent of the PI3K-Akt-mTORC1 signal and uses distinct biochemical circuits and an unusual mechanism to turn on c-Myc. This pathway, Mischel and his colleagues report, depends on signals from a protein complex named mTORC2. The researchers show that when mTORC2 is switched on, it silences two other transcription factors, FoxO1 and FoxO3, which would otherwise suppress the activation of c-Myc in the nucleus of the cell. Further, they learned that the silencing of the FoxOs occurs through a chemical modificationknown as acetylationa process that has not been well understood.
The study has significant implications for cancer therapy. "Many drugs have recently been devised to block PI3K-Akt-mTORC1 signaling," explains Mischel. "What we show is that when you use those drugs, you will probably drive the acetylation of the FoxOs through mTORC2, and inadvertently fuel the Warburg effect. In other words, this new pathway is likely to be responsible for resistance to those drugs. Our data suggest that to disrupt the Warburg effect and kill cancer cells, you have to develop therapies that target both signaling pathways. That's the main clinical ramification of this finding."
Mischel and his colleagues find that glioblastomas that rely predominantly on the mTORC2-mediated pathway tend to have the worse prognosis. Further, their studies suggest that lung cancer cells, too, use this pathway to induce the Warburg effect.
"Increasingly," says Mischel, "we're using glioblastoma as a system to understand a variety of other cancers and, in fact, this finding has broader relevance because the signaling pathways identified here are conserved across cancer types." Different cancers, he explains, are fueled by different types of mutations to growth factor receptors, but the signals these mutated receptors transmit tend to converge on a subset of signaling proteins.
"Our identification of the key moleculesand novel signaling mechanismsinvolved in this pathway, has opened up a landscape rich in possible targets for novel cancer drugs," says Mischel. His laboratory, he says, is now working with other Ludwig researchers to identify small drug-like molecules that might disrupt key steps of the mTORC2-mediated pathway.
###
About Ludwig Cancer Research
Ludwig Cancer Research is an international collaborative network of acclaimed scientists with a 40-year legacy of pioneering cancer discoveries. Ludwig combines basic research with the ability to translate its discoveries and conduct clinical trials to accelerate the development of new cancer diagnostics and therapies. Since 1971, Ludwig has invested more than $1.6 billion in life-changing cancer research through the not-for-profit Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and the six U.S.-based Ludwig Centers. http://www.ludwigcancerresearch.org
Paul Mischel is a member of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and is based at the University of California, San Diego. Lead author Kenta Masui is a post-doctoral fellow in the Mischel lab. Web Cavenee is the director of Ludwig San Diego.
For further information please contact Rachel Steinhardt, rsteinhardt@licr.org or +1-212-450-1582.
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Targeting cancer's sweet tooth
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
21-Oct-2013
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Contact: Rachel Steinhardt rsteinhardt@licr.org 212-450-1582 Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research
A study of how cancer cells get energy and raw materials for growth from glucose opens doors to new therapies
October 21, 2013, New York, NY Ludwig researchers have elucidated a key mechanism by which cancer cells change how they metabolize glucose to generate the energy and raw materials required to sustain runaway growth.
Published online in Cell Metabolism, the Ludwig Cancer Research study also reveals how the aggressive brain cancer glioblastoma harnesses the mechanism to resist targeted therapies that should disrupt this capabilityknown as the Warburg effectand suggests how such resistance might be overcome. In detailing the molecular circuitry of the phenomenon, the researchers uncover several possible targets for new drugs that might disrupt cancer cell metabolism to destroy tumors.
"Cancer and other fast-growing cells extract energy from glucose using a process that ordinarily kicks in only when oxygen is in short supply," explains Ludwig scientist Paul Mischel, MD, who is based at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine. "This allows them to thread the needle: they get the energy they need from glucose but also retain the carbon-based building blocks for molecules like lipids, proteins and DNA, which dividing cells need in large quantities."
Until recently, relatively little was known about the biochemical circuits that induce this vital metabolic shift in cancer cells. Earlier this year, however, Mischel and his colleagues published a study describing how an aberrant growth signal found in many glioblastomas is channeled to induce the Warburg effect. That signaling cascade, which involves the key proteins PI3 kinase (PI3K), Akt and mTORC1, culminates in the activation of a transcription factora controller of gene expressionnamed c-Myc. "In many cancer cells," says Mischel, "c-Myc seems to be a lever that links growth signaling pathways with the machinery that controls the uptake and use of nutrients."
In the current study, Mischel, who did the research in collaboration with Ludwig researchers Kenta Masui, MD, PhD and Web Cavenee, PhD, both also at UC San Diego, identifies a second interacting biochemical cascade that is independent of the PI3K-Akt-mTORC1 signal and uses distinct biochemical circuits and an unusual mechanism to turn on c-Myc. This pathway, Mischel and his colleagues report, depends on signals from a protein complex named mTORC2. The researchers show that when mTORC2 is switched on, it silences two other transcription factors, FoxO1 and FoxO3, which would otherwise suppress the activation of c-Myc in the nucleus of the cell. Further, they learned that the silencing of the FoxOs occurs through a chemical modificationknown as acetylationa process that has not been well understood.
The study has significant implications for cancer therapy. "Many drugs have recently been devised to block PI3K-Akt-mTORC1 signaling," explains Mischel. "What we show is that when you use those drugs, you will probably drive the acetylation of the FoxOs through mTORC2, and inadvertently fuel the Warburg effect. In other words, this new pathway is likely to be responsible for resistance to those drugs. Our data suggest that to disrupt the Warburg effect and kill cancer cells, you have to develop therapies that target both signaling pathways. That's the main clinical ramification of this finding."
Mischel and his colleagues find that glioblastomas that rely predominantly on the mTORC2-mediated pathway tend to have the worse prognosis. Further, their studies suggest that lung cancer cells, too, use this pathway to induce the Warburg effect.
"Increasingly," says Mischel, "we're using glioblastoma as a system to understand a variety of other cancers and, in fact, this finding has broader relevance because the signaling pathways identified here are conserved across cancer types." Different cancers, he explains, are fueled by different types of mutations to growth factor receptors, but the signals these mutated receptors transmit tend to converge on a subset of signaling proteins.
"Our identification of the key moleculesand novel signaling mechanismsinvolved in this pathway, has opened up a landscape rich in possible targets for novel cancer drugs," says Mischel. His laboratory, he says, is now working with other Ludwig researchers to identify small drug-like molecules that might disrupt key steps of the mTORC2-mediated pathway.
###
About Ludwig Cancer Research
Ludwig Cancer Research is an international collaborative network of acclaimed scientists with a 40-year legacy of pioneering cancer discoveries. Ludwig combines basic research with the ability to translate its discoveries and conduct clinical trials to accelerate the development of new cancer diagnostics and therapies. Since 1971, Ludwig has invested more than $1.6 billion in life-changing cancer research through the not-for-profit Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and the six U.S.-based Ludwig Centers. http://www.ludwigcancerresearch.org
Paul Mischel is a member of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and is based at the University of California, San Diego. Lead author Kenta Masui is a post-doctoral fellow in the Mischel lab. Web Cavenee is the director of Ludwig San Diego.
For further information please contact Rachel Steinhardt, rsteinhardt@licr.org or +1-212-450-1582.
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| E-mail
| Share
]
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
In case you missed it, late Friday afternoon Microsoft pulled the Windows RT 8.1 update. Enough customers complained about BSODs and completely bricked machines -- including, notably, Microsoft Surface RT machines -- after applying the RT-to-RT 8.1 upgrade, that the update was yanked entirely.
There's also been a steady stream of complaints about the Win8-to-Win8.1 update, including an inability to connect with Remote Access Website connections. Here's an overview of what we know so far has happened, and how you may be able to recover.
Microsoft released the Windows 8.1 upgrade early in the morning (U.S. time) on Oct. 17. For consumers and others who don't have Volume License agreements with Microsoft, the update was directly accessible through the Microsoft Store. Volume Licensees had access through the VLSC. And, of course, MSDN and TechNet members have had access to the Windows 8.1 Enterprise (but not the Windows RT 8.1) bits for a month.
Windows RT customers (those with retail copies of Windows RT, not volume licensees) encountered unresolved Blue Screen 0xc000000d errors with notification that "Your PC needs to be repaired / The Boot Configuration Data file is missing some required information / File: \BCD". On Oct. 19 -- two days after the update was released -- Microsoft MVP Wesley_P posted on the Answers Forum: "Why isn't the Windows RT 8.1 upgrade available in the Microsoft store?"
Apparently it took Microsoft about 48 hours to pull the upgrade. In a post without a time stamp, on a rather obscure site , Microsoft issued this advisory:
Microsoft is investigating a situation affecting a limited number of users updating their Windows RT devices to Windows RT 8.1. As a result, we have temporarily removed the Windows RT 8.1 update from the Windows Store. We are working to resolve the situation as quickly as possible and apologize for any inconvenience. We will provide updates as they become available.
I have seen no further comment from Microsoft, no acknowledgment or description of the problem, and certainly no fix.
Ozzie Scott Williams, on his technical blog kickthatcomputer ("Annoying stuff I figured out / I really hate computers"), has come up with an ingenious workaround. Big problem: the method requires a USB recovery drive for your Windows RT computer, and few people have one sitting around.
However, following the steps he outlines, if you trust him (disclaimer: I don't know Williams), you can create a Windows RT recovery USB drive. Using the recovery USB drive, there's a way to bring up an old-fashioned command prompt, and type in a one-line command to rebuild the trashed BCD. Once the BCD is fixed, apparently Windows RT 8.1 will boot.
Score one for the DOS command line. Hard to believe it would bring a borked Surface RT back to life.
The other major, solvable Windows 8.1 bug I've seen makes it impossible to connect Internet Explorer to a Remote Web Access website running on a Small Business Server 2011 server. Poster Yves describes it on the TechNet forum:
We still haven't heard anything official about Google's next Nexus phone, but tonight some people are already seeing the Nexus 5 as an option in the Play Store. Just among our editors, some see the outgoing Nexus 4 while others get the result shown after the break, with a 16GB (from the link in the ...
China's media watchdog has cut back the number of foreign TV formats allowed to be broadcast in the country, with satellite broadcasters restricted to airing one per year beginning in 2014. The new guideline is part of a campaign aimed at "building morality" and boosting educational programming.
The rules are bad news for Hollywood and overseas TV companies seeking a foothold in China. They step up a raft of regulations introduced in February, which capped the broadcast of foreign television series to 50 episodes, and will result in fewer foreign series being aired in China.
This is expected to result in more TV viewers abandoning the traditional TV format and watching on other platforms, such as computers, tablets and mobile devices.
Chinese audiences have warmly embraced overseas formats like "China’s Got Talent" and "The Voice," but now the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television says satellite broadcasters will be allowed to buy only one format per year.
The Chinese government regularly bemoans what it sees as the rising level of vulgarity in domestic TV programming, while trying to keep overseas shows to a minimum.
Overseas formats cannot be aired during prime time from 7:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. within the year they are imported. And only one domestic musical talent show will be approved every three months by the administration to be aired during prime time.
The new order is aimed at pushing domestically-produced and "morality-building programs," the People's Daily reported. The vacated slots will have to be filled with news, education programs and service shows, according to the state directive.
The government watchdog has ordered broadcasters to air at least 30 minutes of domestically made documentaries between 6 a.m. to 1 a.m., and 30 minutes of children’s programs or cartoons between 8 a.m. and 9:30 p.m. every day.
"It is really a headache on how we can make up for the seven and a half hours of time. Many TV stations are used to airing TV dramas, shows and films," one TV station staffer told China's Southern Metropolis Daily.
The People's Daily quoted Liu Yuan, deputy director of the chief editing office with Jiangsu Satellite TV, as admitting that the new regulations would make it tougher for them, while Wu Chaoyang, publicity director of Shanghai’s Dragon TV, told the newspaper the television station has always tried to localize overseas programs and already has four and a half hours of news programs daily.
South Park was unable to meet its deadline for the first time in its 240+ episode history because of a power outage. That's 17 straight seasons of somehow making things work on a short deadline until now. What a bummer!
This portrait looking down on Saturn and its rings was created from images obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Oct. 10, 2013. It was made by amateur image processor and Cassini fan Gordan Ugarkovic. This image has not been geometrically corrected for shifts in the spacecraft perspective and still has some camera artifacts.The mosaic was created from 12 image footprints with red, blue and green filters from Cassini's imaging science subsystem. Ugarkovic used full color sets for 11 of the footprints and red and blue images for one footprint.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.
A gypsy woman holding her child poses for photos at a gypsy camp near the town of Farsala, some 280 km ( 173 miles) north of Athens, Greece, on Sunday, Oct. 20 , 2013. Greek authorities on Friday, Oct. 18, 2013 have requested international assistance to identify the four-year-old girl found living in a Gypsy camp with a couple arrested and charged with abducting her from her birth parents. A police statement says the child was located Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2013 near the town of Farsala, central Greece, during a nationwide crackdown on illegal activities in Gypsy camps. (AP Photo/Nikolas Giakoumidis)
A gypsy woman holding her child poses for photos at a gypsy camp near the town of Farsala, some 280 km ( 173 miles) north of Athens, Greece, on Sunday, Oct. 20 , 2013. Greek authorities on Friday, Oct. 18, 2013 have requested international assistance to identify the four-year-old girl found living in a Gypsy camp with a couple arrested and charged with abducting her from her birth parents. A police statement says the child was located Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2013 near the town of Farsala, central Greece, during a nationwide crackdown on illegal activities in Gypsy camps. (AP Photo/Nikolas Giakoumidis)
Gypsy children pose for photos at a gypsy camp near the town of Farsala, some 280 km ( 173 miles) north of Athens, Greece, on Sunday, Oct. 20 , 2013. Greek authorities on Friday, Oct. 18, 2013 have requested international assistance to identify the four-year-old girl found living in a Gypsy camp with a couple arrested and charged with abducting her from her birth parents. A police statement says the child was located Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2013 near the town of Farsala, central Greece, during a nationwide crackdown on illegal activities in Gypsy camps. (AP Photo/Nikolas Giakoumidis)
A gypsy child plays with his bicycle , at a gypsy camp near the town of Farsala, some 280 km ( 173 miles) north of Athens, Greece, on Sunday, Oct. 20 , 2013. Greek authorities on Friday, Oct. 18, 2013 have requested international assistance to identify the four-year-old girl found living in a Gypsy camp with a couple arrested and charged with abducting her from her birth parents. A police statement says the child was located Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2013 near the town of Farsala, central Greece, during a nationwide crackdown on illegal activities in Gypsy camps.(AP Photo/Nikolas Giakoumidis)
Gypsy children pose for photos at a gypsy camp near the town of Farsala, some 280 km ( 173 miles) north of Athens, Greece, on Sunday, Oct. 20 , 2013. Greek authorities on Friday, Oct. 18, 2013 have requested international assistance to identify the four-year-old girl found living in a Gypsy camp with a couple arrested and charged with abducting her from her birth parents. A police statement says the child was located Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2013 near the town of Farsala, central Greece, during a nationwide crackdown on illegal activities in Gypsy camps. (AP Photo/Nikolas Giakoumidis)
Gypsy children pose for photos at a gypsy camp near the town of Farsala, some 280 km ( 173 miles) north of Athens, Greece, on Sunday, Oct. 20 , 2013. Greek authorities on Friday, Oct. 18, 2013 have requested international assistance to identify the four-year-old girl found living in a Gypsy camp with a couple arrested and charged with abducting her from her birth parents. A police statement says the child was located Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2013 near the town of Farsala, central Greece, during a nationwide crackdown on illegal activities in Gypsy camps. (AP Photo/Nikolas Giakoumidis)
FARSALA, Greece (AP) — Gypsies stroll about prefabricated homes in their camp, many of them smiling and seemingly carefree. But there is worry and resentment here.
Their community is at the center of a child abduction case, with a Gypsy, or Roma, couple accused of abducting a blonde, blue-eyed girl who is thought to be about 4 years old.
The Roma, a poor people in a country devastated by an economic crisis, try to make a living in the camp on the outskirts of the central town of Farsala by selling fruits, carpets, blankets, baskets and shoes at local markets. They say they are already considered by some to be social outcasts, thieves and beggars.
Now, they fear they will be stigmatized as child traffickers. The president of the local Roma community, Babis Dimitriou, hopes there is no backlash against the 2,000 Roma living in the community.
The case "doesn't reflect on all of us," he told The Associated Press on Sunday.
A 40-year-old woman and 39-year-old man have been charged with abducting a minor after police raided the camp Wednesday looking for drugs and weapons. A suspicious prosecutor who accompanied police on the raid thought it was odd that the girl looked nothing like her parents.
DNA tests proved the couple isn't the girl's biological parents. The man and woman will appear in a court Monday. Police have launched an international appeal to find the biological parents of the girl, who is known as Maria in the camp. She is being cared for in Athens by a charity.
Many Gypsies are wary of media attention and resentful of what they say is neglect by the state. The only thing authorities have provided, they say, is the prefab houses that replaced the tents they were living in eight years ago.
What the local Roma seem keen to convey is that their community is not involved in either child abductions or trafficking.
But regional police chief Lt. Gen. Vassilis Halatsis said authorities have found "dozens" of child trafficking cases involving Bulgarian Roma in Greece.
"We know these cases exist, but they involve Bulgarians, not Greeks like us. There are no transactions involving children here," Dimitriou insists, adding that the 40-year-old woman, who had registered Maria as her own child, "cared for her even better than for her own children."
Another resident of the community, who lives with the Roma but is not one of them, takes their side.
"There is no buying and selling of children here ... The other Roma are not to blame. These are family people. After this event, the police have been searching everyone. Isn't this racist?" 42-year-old Christos Lioupis said.
But Halatsis said people take advantage of a flawed birth registration system to declare multiple children to receive state handouts.
The couple accused of abducting the girl had used multiple identities to register 14 children in three different cities, of whom only four have been identified, Halatsis said. An examination of the birthdates of the children shows that the woman, at one point, was giving birth every four months, he said. Overall, the couple received 2,500 euros ($3,420) per month in state assistance.
"We are dealing with a very unusual case. Usually, parents report a child's disappearance and we look for the children. In this case, we have the child and we are looking for its (her) parents," Halatsis said. "So far, we have had calls from France, Poland, even the United States. We are looking at each case, to see if the ages match, and if there are similar features. DNA testing will follow."
"At this point, we can't say there is a child trafficking network involved, but we are looking at this possibility," the police chief said. He added that there have been documented cases of Greek childless couples buying children of Bulgarian Roma for up to 15,000 euros (about $20,500).
Making public the names of the couple that harbored Maria would give a boost to the search for her parents, Halatsis said. But that is up to the judicial authorities.
When you become a parent, you suddenly realize everyone has an opinion on how that job should be done, from well-meaning in-laws to strangers who walk up to you in the mall and lecture you about the health benefits of breastfeeding. (True story.) It can be a bit overwhelming. A new startup called MommyCoach wants to help parents and, as the name implies, specifically mothers, learn from experts on a range of topics related to their new lives, sharing not only tested parenting advice, but also information on subjects like food and nutrition, health and fitness, life and work, and more.
The company was founded by CEO Christophe Garnier in partnership with children’s class and activity facility Kidville, which has an equity stake in the company. Garnier is a serial entrepreneur who previously co-founded a kid-focused flash-sales site called Totsy (assets acquired by Modnique after investors turned down a $100 million acquisition offer in 2012, Garnier says), and a digital marketing agency called mSmart before that.
He explains that the idea to build yet another service targeting moms came directly from the time he spent at Totsy. “I was in constant communication with the mother’s audience [at Totsy],” says Garnier. “We were getting a lot of feedback and questions from moms, and a lot of the questions we were getting were not really related to what we were doing, which was retail. It was odd.”
After Totsy’s shutdown, he began researching the “mom’s Q&A” market, so to speak, and found that the majority of the big-name sites like BabyCenter or CafeMom, for example, were relatively static. These sites and those similar to them largely consisted of articles for parents to read, and if they were interactive, it often involved a forum where moms talked to other moms for advice and support.
“There is no way to talk to a qualified expert or professional about a very specific problem and get a very specific answer,” Garnier says. “That’s the goal of MommyCoach.”
At launch, MommyCoach offers a database of a couple of hundred “coaches” who are vetted ahead of their approval by a panel of four moms: licensed therapist Tammy Gold, nutritionist Keri Glassman, personal trainer Lindsay Brin, and life and work expert Lara Galloway. These coaches can then offer online video chat sessions of 30 or 60 minutes in length to interested moms on a variety of topics, from the pre-parenting days during pregnancy to life/work balance or stress reduction techniques – which we all know is what comes after.
Coaches price their own sessions, starting at $20 per session and up. In the near future, group classes will also be made available, allowing for more affordable rates.
In addition, to encourage user engagement on the site, MommyCoach gives out rewards from a selection of 25 brands, like 1800Flowers, Bulu Box, Bluum, Sproutkin, ThredUp, and other online businesses. Moms earn the points by completing sessions, inviting friends, writing reviews of their sessions, and other activities.
The idea of expert marketplaces is not new. There are those focused on education, teaming up developers, learning new skills, getting legal help, self-improvement, and more. But it’s fair to say that there’s not a market leader in the “parenting coach” video chat space at this time. There’s also some question as to whether there ever will be – after all, the thing about parenting is that it’s a major time suck when done well – setting aside an extra 30 minutes to an hour could be tough for moms, and especially working moms. And getting them to pay for sessions on a web filled with free advice for the googling is another challenge for a startup like this to overcome.
The site today is also skewed toward topics of the self-help variety, with only one of the top four overall categories (parenting and education, health and fitness, diet and nutrition, life and work) truly focused on the business of parenting, the developmental stages, and the problems that arise therein. While health, fitness, diet and “empowerment” matters are also important to moms (or anyone, really), they probably account for too much of the site’s content at present.
Meanwhile, MommyCoach is short in coverage on those more serious subjects that parents spend hours researching online regarding the behavioral and medical sides of childcare. For instance, there are only five “child behavior” specialists listed right now, and these experts are at best licensed therapists, which can still be a hit-or-miss experience. The site is also lacking the medical opinion provided by doctors who contribute to competitors’ sites, or are well-known enough to establishbrandsoftheirown.
So while the service will be useful for a broad range of topics, it’s not yet comprehensive. But Garnier says that MommyCoach will broaden its reach as early as next year to address some of these holes – the site is only launching in beta for now.
New York-based MommyCoach is backed by angel investors including Rob Keve (Fizzback), Allen Morgan (Klout, Fab), Mark Kingdon (Twitter, Refinery29) and White Star Capital (Summly, DollarShaveClub), as well as Spark Labs and its founder.
MommyCoach is creating the first Live Video SaaS platform allowing independant coaches & experts to take their practice to the digital world, therefore boosting their business and giving them access 100,000’s of new potential clients nationwide. Through our consumer site mommycoach.com, we are building a marketplace of coaches & certified experts that will allow all mothers to access them at an affordable price and using a high quality live video experience. Based in New York City, MommyCoach is funded...
In an odd turn of events, director Michael Bay was attacked on the set of "Transformers: Age of Extinction" on Thursday (October 17).
According to police, two brothers who own a business in the area where the motion picture is filming approached Mr. Bay and demanded money for the loss or revenue their shop was suffering as a result of the shoot.
When the threat got them nowhere, the men then assaulted the super-director, leaving him with injuries to the right side of his face.
Bay did not seek treatment, and the perpetrators were arrested and charged with suspicion of blackmail and assault.
Mark Gurman of 9to5Mac joins Peter Cohen, Richard Devine, and me to talk about Apple's October 22 event, their new, and fashionable, head of retail, and more! Join us!
NEW YORK (AP) — Her body weak, her voice rich and strong, Maya Angelou sang, lectured and reminisced as she accepted a lifetime achievement award Thursday night from the Norman Mailer Center.
The 85-year-old author, poet, dancer and actress was honored during a benefit gala at the New York Public Library, the annual gathering organized by the Mailer Center and writers colony . Seated in a wheelchair, she was a vivid presence in dark glasses and a sparkling black dress as she marveled that a girl from a segregated Arkansas village could grow up to become a literary star.
"Imagine it," she said, "a town so prejudiced black people couldn't even eat vanilla ice cream."
Angelou was introduced by her former editor at Random House, Robert Loomis, and she praised him for talking her into writing her breakthrough memoir, the million-selling "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." The key was suggesting to her that the book might be too hard to write.
The people who knew her best, she explained, understood that "if you want to get Maya Angelou to do so something, tell her she can't."
Angelou, a longtime resident of North Carolina, will be back in Manhattan next month to collect an honorary National Book Award medal.
Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Junot Diaz and the late author-journalist Michael Hastings also received prizes Thursday. Hastings' widow, Elise, teared up as she accepted a journalism award on behalf of her husband, who died in a car accident last summer at age 33.
She recalled that Hastings, best known for a Rolling Stone story about the U.S. war in Afghanistan that led to the resignation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, felt a kinship with for the brilliant and troublesome Mailer. When the couple fought, she said, he would point out that in "comparison to Mailer he was a great husband," a reference to a notorious incident in which Mailer stabbed his wife.
Hastings was a "dissident, a cynical idealist and a breathtaking writer," she said.
The dinner event was the fifth gala for the Mailer center, named for the celebrated author who died in 2007 and dedicated to helping writers "across all genres who seek artful ways to express themselves and provoke meaningful discussion about our society."
Previous honorees include Toni Morrison, Keith Richards and Robert Caro.
Here we have 24 GoPros recording at high speed, strategically arranged around a fire-breathing daredevil. When the footage is slowed down and spliced together, you get a sweet bullet-time effect—without using a bunch of crazy professional cameras.
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