Child's Play Communications Appoints Jennifer Krosche as Vice ...

Child?s Play Communications Appoints Jennifer Krosche as Vice President

NEW YORK, Dec. 15, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ ?
Child?s Play Communications, the first public relations agency to specialize exclusively in reaching moms, announced today that Jennifer Krosche has joined the agency as Vice President.

?We are thrilled to have Jennifer as a member of the Child?s Play team,? said Stephanie Azzarone, president. ?As a seasoned public relations professional and a mom herself, she brings the industry experience and the parent perspective that will serve our clients well.?

For more than 20 years, Child?s Play has focused on connecting companies with moms, and currently does so through traditional public relations, social media and word-of-mouth communications. Clients have included Warner Bros. Consumer Products, Hewlett Packard, Sylvan Learning Center, Music Together, Parents magazine, Spin Master, MEGA Brands and MAM, among other companies targeting the influential mom market.

Prior to joining Child?s Play, Jennifer was president of her own company, JYK Public Relations, where she specialized in online parenting and women?s media and mom blogger/influencer initiatives. She had worked or consulted for agencies including Marina Maher Communications, 5W Public Relations, Pollock Communications and others, as well as for American Media, Inc.

Jennifer has represented a broad array of clients from infant and juvenile products to beauty, wellness and food, including BornFree, Summer Infant, Children?s Advil, Clairol, CoverGirl, Thomas?, First Juice, Oneida, JOON, The Tea Council USA and more.

A pro at both traditional and social media relations, Jennifer?s placements have appeared in leading traditional media, including top consumer and business publications and programs such as The New York Times, USA Today, The Today Show, Good Morning America, The Wall Street Journal, Parents, Parenting, Family Circle, People, CNN, MSNBC, Bloomberg, FOX, The Daily News, Crain?s New York, Woman?s Day, Associated Press, Good Housekeeping, E! News, Extra and EntertainmentTonight. In addition, she has secured regular coverage on top online/social media sites such as AOL Parent Dish, She Knows, People.com, Modern Mom, iVillage, Examiner.com and hundreds of mom blogger sites.

Leaders in Marketing to Moms
In her new position, Jennifer will oversee many of the agency?s programs and services, including celebrity seeding and talent acquisition, expert-spokesperson development and mom-blogger initiatives. Child?s Play is particularly well recognized for its mom-blogger expertise, having won the 2010 Bulldog Reporter Social Media Innovator of the Year Award, among other accolades. It is perhaps best known for Team Mom(TM), its well established and proprietary network of mom review-bloggers, and also offers services that include social media crisis communications plans, the Parkbench Panel mom-blogger focus group, the Bloggers Brunch event series, social media ambassador programs and online-marketing blogger referral services. Child?s Play recently expanded its client programs to include Social Savvy, an online research panel of mom bloggers nationwide.

In addition, the agency?s Child?s Play Party! grassroots brand-immersion events staged in moms? homes have successfully driven word-of-mouth about participating brands. Other recent staff hires have added sophisticated analytic capabilities and affiliate marketing management to the company?s extensive list of services.

Child?s Play CommunicationsChild?s Play Communications specializes exclusively in public relations, social media and word-of-mouth communications for products and services targeted to moms. Based in New York City, the agency has launched an exciting array of proprietary services to engage this influential market through traditional media, online and in-person, including the award-winning Team Mom(TM), the agency?s own network of mom review-bloggers. Recent company awards have included Bulldog?s PR Innovation of the Year and Social Media Innovator of the Year. For additional information, please visit our Web site, our blog, like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.

SOURCE Child?s Play Communications

[ Satellite Spotlight's Homepage ]

Article source: http://satellite.tmcnet.com/news/2011/12/15/5998280.htm

Source: http://www.childrenhealthwizard.com/childs-play-communications-appoints-jennifer-krosche-as-vice-president

topamax lexapro trazodone voting sharon bialek call of duty elite dragonfly

Modern humans have a better sense of smell than Neanderthals

ScienceDaily (Dec. 14, 2011) ? Compared to Neanderthals, modern humans have a better sense of smell. Differences in the temporal lobes and olfactory bulbs also suggest a combined use of brain functions related to cognition and olfaction.

The increase of brain size is intimately linked to the evolution of humanity. Two different human species, Neanderthals and modern humans, have independently evolved brains of roughly the same size but with differing shapes. This could indicate a difference in the underlying brain organization.

In a study published this week by Nature Communications, led by Markus Bastir and Antonio Rosas, of the Spanish Natural Science Museum (CSIC), high-tech medical imaging techniques were used to access internal structures of fossil human skulls. The researchers used sophisticated 3D methods to quantify the shape of the basal brain as reflected in the morphology of the skeletal cranial base. Their findings reveal that the human temporal lobes, involved in language, memory and social functions as well as the olfactory bulbs are relatively larger in Homo sapiens than in Neanderthals. "The structures which receive olfactory input are approximately 12% larger in modern humans than in Neanderthals," the authors explain.

These findings may have important implications for olfactory capacity and human behaviour. In modern humans the size of the olfactory bulbs is related to the capacity of detection and discrimination of different smells. Olfaction is among the oldest sense in vertebrates. "Also, it is the only one that establishes a direct connection between the brain and its environment," says Markus Bastir, the lead author of the study. While other senses must pass through different cortical filters, olfaction goes from the environment right into the highest centres of the brain. What is more, "olfaction never sleeps," adds Antonio Rosas, "because we always breathe and perceive smells." The neuronal circuitry of olfaction coincides with that of memory and emotion (the limbic system), "which explains the enormous memory retention and vital intensity of olfaction-mediated life events."

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, who also contributed to the current publication, could recently show differences in the patterns of brain development between modern humans and Neanderthals during a critical phase for cognitive development. "In the first year of life the brains of Neanderthals and modern humans develop differently," says Philipp Gunz from the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig. "Modern humans have smaller faces and smaller noses than their Neanderthal cousins. However, the part of the brain that processes smells, is bigger in modern humans than in Neanderthals." "Evidence is accumulating that Neanderthals and modern humans independently evolved large brains and that their brains might have worked differently. Our new study offers a glimpse into the functional significance of these developmental differences," adds Jean-Jacques Hublin, who heads the Department of Human Evolution at the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig.

Olfactory information projects to brain regions directly responsible for processing of emotion, motivation, fear, memory, pleasure and also attraction. Neuroscientists have coined the term "higher olfactory functions" to describe those brain functions which combine cognition (memory, intuition, perception, judgment) and olfaction. The greater olfactory bulbs and relatively larger temporal lobes in H. sapiens compared to any other human species may point towards improved and different olfactory sense possibly related to the evolution of behavioural aspects and social functions.

Recommend this story on Facebook, Twitter,
and Google +1:

Other bookmarking and sharing tools:

---

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Max-Planck-Gesellschaft.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Markus Bastir, Antonio Rosas, Philipp Gunz, Angel Pe?a-Melian, Giorgio Manzi, Katerina Harvati, Robert Kruszynski, Chris Stringer, Jean-Jacques Hublin. Evolution of the base of the brain in highly encephalized human species. Nature Communications, 2011; 2: 588 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1593

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111214130001.htm

miami hurricanes vlad the impaler steven tyler michael lohan fiddler on the roof rally squirrel rally squirrel

Microsoft Kinectimals Appears On The iPhone, As Cute As Can Be

Microsoft has ported Kinectimals, the Xbox 360 game that involves the care and feeding of dangerous animals in the wild, to the iPhone, suggesting that (at least in the short term) even Microsoft sees the value of releasing on iOS first. The $2.99 game recreates the Xbox version fairly faithfully but without the Kinect motion controls. Interestingly, the app also allows you to "unlock" new cubs on the Xbox, proving that paid DLC can hide in multiple guises.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/jL_-boK-uK4/

michael turner tim tebow richard hamilton richard hamilton yu darvish moonshine paris jackson

Russian editor fired after Putin cursed in photo (Reuters)

MOSCOW (Reuters) ? The editor of a prominent Russian news magazine said he had been fired after the weekly printed a photograph featuring an obscene message addressed to Vladimir Putin as part of extensive reports on alleged fraud in a December 4 parliamentary election.

Maxim Kovalsky said on Tuesday he had been dismissed as editor of Kommersant-Vlast over the magazine's Monday edition, which included several articles examining alleged electoral violations favoring Prime Minister Putin's United Russia party.

The dismissal appeared to serve notice that Putin still holds vast influence over the Russian media, despite mass protests against him and a decline in his ruling party's support at the election.

"The reason is the issue about the election," Kovalsky told Reuters. He believed the Kremlin had put pressure on Kommersant Publishing House owner Alisher Usmanov, a billionaire metals tycoon, and that he had no regrets about the publication.

"I acted absolutely consciously and believe I did the right thing," he said.

A spokeswoman for Metalloinvest, a company owned by Usmanov, confirmed that Kovalsky and the head of the magazine's parent company Kommersant-Holding, Andrei Galiyev, had been fired.

Asked for comment, the spokeswoman sent a report on gazeta.ru, a news site also linked to Usmanov, that cited Usmanov as saying unspecified material that appeared in recent issues of Kommersant-Vlast had violated journalistic ethics.

"These materials border on petty hooliganism," the news site quoted Usmanov, a billionaire who is part-owner of the London soccer club Arsenal, as saying.

Kommersant Publishing House director Demyan Kudryavtsev told Reuters he had tendered his resignation to Usmanov over the photograph, which he said he had not been aware of before publication. He said he expects a decision later his month.

The shakeup at Kommersant, whose publications include a leading daily by the same name, followed protests by tens of thousands of Russians over alleged election fraud in the biggest opposition rallies of Putin's 12-year-old rule.

Tens of thousands of Russians protested on Saturday over the parliamentary election they said was rigged in favour of United Russia, calling for the annulment of the official results and a new election.

Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev have made clear that is out of the question.

Meeting with leaders of the four parties that won seats in the State Duma lower house, Medvedev said that all official complaints will be heard but that the Duma will hold its first session on December 22 -- two days before new protests are planned.

Voters sharply reduced the ruling party's parliamentary majority but opponents say the official results were inflated. Allegations of fraud have spread on the Internet and in some newspapers, while they are largely ignored by state media.

Monday's issue of Kommersant-Vlast had a large section on the election, including articles on alleged violations.

ALLEGED FRAUD

The cover featured a photograph of Putin and a headline with a play on United Russia's name that suggested ballot-stuffing, adding: "How the elections were falsified: eyewitness accounts."

A photograph on page 29 showed a ballot paper marked for the liberal Yabloko party and scrawled with the comment: "Putin, fuck off!."

The photo caption read: "A ballot filled out correctly, deemed invalid."

Kommersant-Vlast deputy editor Veronika Kutsyllo said the magazine published the photograph because it was a document that she believed suggested irregularities. She said she planned to resign.

Kutsyllo said the ballot was cast in London, where Russian citizens were able to vote, and that it was a valid ballot because it was marked for one party.

Putin, president from 2000-2008 and now prime minister, will run for a new six-year term as president in a March 4 vote.

Opinion polls show he remains Russia's most popular politician and is likely to win the presidency, but his ratings have fallen and he was booed at a martial arts event last month.

He alienated many Russians in September by announcing he planned to swap jobs with Medvedev after the March presidential election, leaving many worried he could now rule until 2024.

Putin has long kept a tight grip on the traditional media, although state television showed footage of tens of thousands of people protesting in Moscow on Saturday against the alleged electoral fraud, without showing calls for him to step down.

Two other presidential candidates took steps to formalize their bids on Tuesday, but both are dismissed by the protest leaders as figures who do not present a threat to Putin.

Flamboyant nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky was nominated at a congress of his LDPR party that was given prominent coverage on state television.

Sergei Mironov, leader of the Just Russia party, filed his candidacy papers. Mironov, 58, ran for president in 2004 but supported Putin. He has become more critical after being ousted as speaker of the upper house of parliament this year by United Russia.

(Additional reporting by Timothy Heritage; Writing by Steve Gutterman, Editing by Douglas Busvine)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111213/wl_nm/us_russia

west virginia football west virginia football black friday violence black friday violence il postino il postino online black friday deals

Shipping cash may help fund climate: draft (Reuters)

DURBAN, South Africa (Reuters) ? Cash raised by the shipping industry's efforts to cut carbon emissions might be directed to developing countries to help them tackle climate change, a draft document seen by Reuters showed at United Nations climate talks on Tuesday.

The text proposes that money raised by "specific actions" to reduce emissions from maritime bunker fuels, which may be designed and implemented by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), could be distributed to developing countries and used to finance climate adaptation through a Green Climate Fund.

Negotiators will discuss the proposal later on Tuesday.

Several delegates at a U.N. climate summit in Durban doubted there would be agreement on the proposal. They said any final deal at the end of the week would be worded vaguely.

"I don't expect any clear outcome but if something stays in the text, it would be a big step in a small way," said Bas Eickhout, European Member of Parliament.

"Everything boils down to where is the money? I think that the entire financial decision is going to be a big deal in Rio," he added, referring to a U.N. conference on sustainable development in June next year.

Nearly 200 countries are meeting in Durban until December 9 at a United Nations summit to try to hammer out a new global climate treaty.

The United Nations hopes delegates attending the global climate talks will agree on the design of the Green Climate Fund, which aims to channel up to $100 billion a year by 2020 to countries most at risk from the effects of climate change, such as rising sea levels and temperatures and crop failure.

Concrete progress on funding would help revive the flagging talks, hampered by rifts between countries on the form of a new global pact.

VAGUE

This is the first time a concrete source of funding has been raised in a U.N. text, but Tuesday's draft did not define whether revenues would be raised by a levy.

Last month, campaign groups Oxfam and WWF urged a carbon price of $25 per metric ton should be applied to shipping fuel (known as bunker fuel) to help cut emissions and generate $25 billion a year by 2020.

They suggested the revenues raised should be used to compensate developing countries for slightly higher import costs resulting from a carbon price, and to provide more than $10 billion per year for the Green Climate Fund.

"The text is vague on the details of implementation .. If it's a levy, it could be collected directly from ships, or it could be collected from bunker fuel suppliers," said Tim Gore, policy advisor at Oxfam.

"If it's an emissions trading scheme, there could be a common auctioning platform, or each country could auction (carbon) allowances. All such details would be resolved subsequently in the IMO, if this text were agreed," he added.

International shipping accounts for around 3.3 percent of the world's man-made carbon dioxide emissions and could grow by 150 to 250 percent by 2050 if regulation is not in place.

The IMO has made little progress in implementing market-based mechanisms to control the sector's emissions, even though the EU Commission has threatened to include it in its carbon market.

In July, the IMO managed to agree on energy efficiency design standards for new ships to cut emissions, but developing countries can delay implementation by using a waiver.

(Additional reporting by Andrew Allan, Barbara Lewis and Michael Szabo; Editing by William Hardy)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111206/wl_nm/us_climate_maritime

anne hathaway news channel 5 nathan hale ohio state football kohls coupons joe kapp joe kapp

US-Obama Approval: 47% Approve, 48% Disapprove (DailyKos/SEIU/PPP 12/1-4)

Daily Kos / SEIU / PPP (D)
12/1-4/11; 1,000 registered voters, 3.1% margin of error
Mode: Automated phone
Daily Kos release

National

Favorable / Unfavorable
Barack Obama: 49 / 46 (chart)

Obama Job Approval
47% Approve, 48% Disapprove (chart)

2012 President
50% Obama (D), 42% Gingrich (R)

'; var coords = [-5, -72]; // display fb-bubble FloatingPrompt.embed(this, html, undefined, 'top', {fp_intersects:1, timeout_remove:2000,ignore_arrow: true, width:236, add_xy:coords, class_name: 'clear-overlay'}); });

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/06/us-obama-approval-47-appr_n_1132085.html

lana peters jennifer nettles jennifer nettles giants vs saints suh suh school closings

Exit polls show less support for Putin's party

MOSCOW?? Exit polls cited by Russian state television are showing Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's party tallying less than 50 percent of the vote in Russia's parliamentary election.

The results represent a significant drop in support for United Russia compared to the previous election four years ago when it won over 64 percent of the vote nationwide.

The early returns from Sunday's vote signal it may lose its current two-third majority that allowed it to change the constitution unchallenged.

The drop reflects a sense of disenchantment with Putin's authoritarian course, rampant corruption and the gap between ordinary Russians and the super-rich.

United Russia is followed by the Communist Party with nearly 20 percent of the vote, according to two separate exit polls cited by Channel One and Rossiya television.

Putin remains by far the most popular politician in the country, but there are some signs Russians may be wearying of his cultivated strong man image.

The 59-year-old ex-spy looked stern and said only that he hoped for good results for his United Russia party as he walked past supporters to vote in Moscow.

Some voters expressed disgust with a poll they thought likely to be rigged.

A number of pro-democracy protesters were arrested at an unsanctioned rally held by the Left Front opposition group in downtown Moscow Sunday. One man held up a banner reading "I didn't vote."

Mikhail Kasyanov, a former prime minister when Putin was president, said he and other opposition activists who voted Sunday were under no illusion that their votes will be counted fairly.

"It is absolutely clear there will be no real count," he said. "The authorities created an imitation of a very important institution whose name is free election, that is not free and is not elections."

1. Only on msnbc.com

   1. Inside the drug tunnels
   2. 84-year-old woman: I was strip searched at JFK
   3. Gingrich accepts Trump debate invitation
   4. A jazzy life
   5. Holiday calendar: Santa's shrinking domain
   6. Next 'Occupy' targets: foreclosed homes, vacant lots
   7. Top beefs against credit card issuers listed

Others said they backed the party of Putin, who has continued to exert influence as Prime Minister since yielding the presidency to Dmitry Medvedev in 2008 under a constitution forbidding more than two consecutive terms.

"I will vote for Putin. Everything he gets involved in, he manages well," Father Vasily, 61, a bespectacled and white-bearded monk from a nearby monastery said.

"It's too early for a new generation. They will be in charge another 20 years. We are Russians, we are Asians, we need a strong leadership," he added.

Time for a change?
Some said they would vote for Just Russia, which calls itself "new socialist," or the Communists, who retain support largely among poorer citizens two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the advent of a free market system.

Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, voting at a cultural center decked with Soviet-style hammer and sickle flags, said there were election violations in several of Russia's 93 regions spanning 5,600 miles.

Polls show Putin's party is likely to win a majority but less than the 315 seats it currently has in the 450-seat lower house of parliament, known as the Duma.

"It is time for something to change so I am going to vote for the (nationalist party) LDPR. So far this seems the only party that can resist United Russia," 24-year-old event manager Yekaterina Makarova said in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg.

If Putin's party gets less than two-thirds of seats, it would be stripped of its so called constitutional majority which allows it to change the constitution and even approve the impeachment of the president.

Supporters say Putin saved Russia during his 2000-2008 presidency, restoring Kremlin control over sprawling regions and reviving an economy mired in post-Soviet chaos.

His use of military force to crush a rebellion in the southern Muslim region of Chechnya also won him broad support.

Hackers attack radio station
Opposition parties say the election is unfair because the authorities support United Russia with cash and television air time. The independent Ekho Moskvy radio station said its website had been shut down by hackers early on Sunday morning.

"It is obvious that the election day attack on the site is part of an attempt to prevent publishing information about violations," the station's editor-in-chief Alexei Venediktov wrote on the radio's Twitter account.

Story: Russia media claim cyber attack after election

Independent election watchdog Golos said it was excluded from several polling booths in the Siberian Tomsk region, according to Interfax news agency. Moscow prosecutors launched an investigation last week into Golos' activities after lawmakers objected to its Western financing.

Russian customs officers held the director of an independent election watchdog for 12 hours at a Moscow airport on Saturday. The United States said it was concerned by "a pattern of harassment" against the watchdog.

The group has compiled some 5,300 complaints of election-law violations ahead of the vote. Most are linked to United Russia. Roughly a third of the complainants ? mostly government employees and students ? say employers and professors are pressuring them to vote for the party.

Putin has no serious personal rivals as Russia's leader. He remains the ultimate arbiter between the clans which control the world's biggest energy producer.

'Swindlers and thieves'
But his party has had to fight against opponents who have branded it a collection of "swindlers and thieves" and combat a growing sense of unease among voters at Putin's grip on power.

"I shall not vote. I shall cross out all the parties on the list and write: 'Down with the party of swindlers and thieves,'" said Nikolai Markovtsev, an independent deputy in the Vladivostok city legislature on the Pacific seaboard.

"These are not elections: This is sacrilege," he said, adding that the biggest liberal opposition bloc had been barred from the vote by the authorities.

Opponents say Putin has crafted a brittle political system which excludes independent voices and that Russians are growing tired of Putin's swaggering image.

Sports fans booed and whistled at Putin at a recent Moscow martial arts fight ? an exceptional event in a country inclined to show respect and restraint towards leaders.

Putin is almost certain to win the March 4 presidential election but signs of disenchantment are extremely worrying for the Kremlin's political managers.

In an attempt to reinvigorate his party, which President Medvedev is leading into the election as part of a job swap announced in September, Putin has sent his closest allies to lead United Russia in some of Russia's 83 regions.

Russians in the Far East region braved temperatures as low as minus 41 degrees Celsius (minus 42 Fahrenheit) to vote eight hours before polls opened in Moscow.

Chukchi reindeer herders living across the Bering Sea from Alaska voted in late November as did some oil workers on rigs pumping the lifeblood of Russia's $1.9 trillion economy, with their ballots taken out by helicopter to be counted.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45541182/ns/world_news-europe/

college football scores arkansas razorbacks arkansas football maggie daley black friday online deals black friday news gamestop