We Need More Science: 12/01/14

Restrooms: Not as unhealthy as you might think

Microbial succession in a sterilized restroom begins with bacteria from the gut and the vagina, and is followed shortly by microbes from the skin. Restrooms are dominated by a stable community structure of skin and outdoor associated bacteria, with few pathogenic bacteria making them similar to other built environments such as your home.

The research is published ahead of print in Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

In the study, the investigators characterized the structure, function, and abundance of the microbial community, on floors, toilet seats, and soap dispensers, following decontamination of each surface. They analyzed the surfaces hourly at first, and then daily, for up to eight weeks. "We hypothesized that while enteric bacteria would be dispersed rapidly due to toilet flushing, they would not survive long, as most are not good competitors in cold, dry, oxygen-rich environments," says corresponding author Jack A. Gilbert of San Diego State University. "As such, we expected the skin microbes to take over--which is exactly what we found."

"Reproduceable successional ecology is remarkable," says Gilbert, who has conducted similar studies of the home, and the hospital. "Most systems have the potential to have multiple outcomes. The restroom surfaces, though, were remarkably stable, always ending up at the same endpoint."

Indeed, the communities associated with each surface became more similar in species and abundance within five hours following initial sterilization, and the resulting late-successional surface community structure remained stable for the remainder of the 8 weeks' sampling. Floor communities showed a rapid reduction in abundance of Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes, while the relative abundance of Proteobacteria, Cyanobacteria, and Actinobacteria declined over the course of a day. Cyanobacteria are likely derived from dietary plant biomass or from plant material tracked in from outdoors.

Toilet seat samples, alone, clustered according to restroom gender, with Lactobacillus and Anaerococcus--vaginal flora--dominating ladies' room toilet seats, while the gut-associated Roseburia and Blautia, were more copious on toilet seats in men's rooms.

Ultimately, skin and outdoor-associated taxa comprised 68-98 percent of cultured communities, with fecal taxa representing just 0-15 percent of these. And out-door-associated taxa predominated in restrooms prior to sterilization, as well as in long-term post-sterilization communities, suggesting that over the long term, human-associated bacteria need to be dispersed in restrooms in order to be maintained there.

Overall, the research suggests that the restroom is no more healthy or unhealthy than your home, says Gilbert."A key criterion of of healthy or unhealthy might be the presence or relative abundance of pathogens. While we found cassettes associated with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) the predominant Staph organisms didn't harbor those genes, so MRSA may be there but it is very rare." Restrooms, he says, are not necessarily unhealthy, but classifying them as healthy would not necessarily be accurate.

The research, he says, is very important for understanding the environmental ecology of the built environment, and will likely help in building restrooms and buildings generally that are healthier for humans.

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by American Society for Microbiology . Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Revolutionizing genome engineering

Genome engineering with the RNA-guided CRISPR-Cas9 system in animals and plants is changing biology. It is easier to use and more efficient than other genetic engineering tools, thus it is already being applied in laboratories all over the world just a few years after its discovery. This rapid adoption and the history of the system are the core topics of a review published in the journal Science. The review was written by the discoverers of the system Prof. Emmanuelle Charpentier, who works at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) and is also affiliated to the Hannover Medical School and Umeå University, and Prof. Jennifer Doudna from the University of California, Berkeley, USA.

Many diseases result from a change of an individual's DNA -- the letter code that genes consist of. The defined order of the letters within a gene usually codes for a protein. Proteins are the workforce of our body and responsible for almost all processes needed to keep us running. When a gene is altered, its protein product may lose its normal function and disorders can result. "Making site-specific changes to the genome therefore is an interesting approach to preventing or treating those diseases," says Prof Emmanuelle Charpentier, head of the HZI research department "Regulation in Infection Biology." Due to this, ever since the discovery of the DNA structure, researchers have been looking for a way to alternate the genetic code.

First techniques like zinc finger nucleases and synthetic nucleases called TALENs were a starting point but turned out to be expensive and difficult to handle for a beginner. "The existing technologies are dependent on proteins as address labels and customizing new proteins for any new change to introduce in the DNA is a cumbersome process," says Charpentier. In 2012, while working at Umeå University, she described what is now revolutionising genetic engineering: the CRISPR-Cas9 system.

It is based on the immune system of bacteria and archaea but is also of value in the laboratory. CRISPR is short for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Palindromic Repeats, whereas Cas simply stands for the CRISPR-associated protein. "Initially we identified a novel RNA, namely tracrRNA, associated to the CRISPR-Cas9 system, which we published in 2011 in Nature. We were excited when Krzysztof Chylinski from my laboratory subsequently confirmed a long term thinking: Cas9 is an enzyme that functions with two RNAs," says Charpentier.

Together the system has the ability to detect specific sequences of letters within the genetic code and to cut DNA at a specific point. In this process the Cas9 protein functions as the scissors and an RNA snippet as the address label ensuring that the cut happens in the right place. In collaboration with Martin Jinek and Jennifer Doudna, the system could be simplified to use it as a universal technology. Now the user would just have to replace the sequence of this RNA to target virtually any sequence in the genome.

After describing the general abilities of CRISPR-Cas9 in 2012 it was shown in early 2013 that it works as efficiently in human cells as it does in bacteria. Ever since, there has been a real hype around the topic and researchers from all over the world have suggested new areas in which the new tool can be used. The possible applications extend from developing new therapies for genetic disorders caused by gene mutations to changing the pace and course of agricultural research in the future all the way to a possible new method for fighting the AIDS virus HIV.

"The CRISPR-Cas9 system has already breached boundaries and made genetic engineering much more versatile, efficient and easy," Charpentier says. "There really does not seem to be a limit in the applications."

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research . Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Unravelling the complexity of proteins

Knowledge of the three-dimensional structures of proteins is essential for understanding biological processes.

Structures help to explain molecular and biochemical functions, visualize details of macromolecular interactions, facilitate understanding of underlying biochemical mechanisms and define biological concepts.

The human genome and follow-up sequencing projects have revolutionized biology and medicine; structural genomic programmes have developed and applied structure-determination pipelines to a wide range of protein targets, facilitating the visualization of macromolecular interactions and the understanding of their molecular and biochemical functions.

A paper recently published by Mizianty et al. seeks to address the fundamental question of whether the three-dimensional structures of all proteins and all functional annotations can be determined using X-ray crystallography.

The researchers set out to perform the first large scale analysis of its kind covering all known complete proteomes (the sets of proteins thought to be expressed by an organism whose genome has been completely sequenced, as defined by the UniProt Consortium in 2012) and all functional and localization annotations available in the Gene Ontology for the corresponding proteins.

The Canadian and US team show that current X-ray crystallographic knowhow combined with homology modeling can provide structures for 25% of modelling families (protein clusters for which structural models can be obtained through homology modelling), with at least one structural model produced for each Gene Ontology functional annotation. The coverage varies between super-kingdoms, with 19% for eukaryotes, 35% for bacteria and 49% for archaea, and with those of viruses following the coverage values of their hosts. It is shown that the crystallization propensities of proteomes from the taxonomic super kingdoms are distinct. The use of knowledge-based target selection is shown to substantially increase the ability to produce X-ray structures.

Talking to the IUCr Mizianty commented "We believe our method has helped to advance our understanding of the coverage by X-ray structures of proteins and complete proteomes on a global scale."

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by International Union of Crystallography . Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

A Comprehensive Gchat Recap of This Week’s The Newsroom

HBO

We’re exhausted from Thanksgiving festivities, but not so exhausted that we couldn’t watch—and recap, in 21st-century new-media Gchat format—our beloved Newsroom. In fact, if anything can cure a post-holiday slump, it’s TV’s most exquisite hour, and this week didn’t disappoint. Last week’s episode was fine; this week’s was outstanding. In a meta move for the ages, show creator Aaron Sorkin has parlayed his cancellation into a metaphor for the death of the news industry generally—all while retaining the show’s characteristic idealism, here embodied in a touching, too-brief wedding between The Newsroom’s central lovers. We’ll say it: We cried. Multiple times. And if you’re any kind of feeling human, you did too.

Jason Kehe: I’m so tired after the break.

I thought sinks were called pinks this morning.

Jordan Crucchiola: That’s quite the switch!

Kehe: I have no idea what’s happening.

Where I am.

Who I am.

Let’s watch.

Crucchiola: Yes.

Crucchiola: I have to fast-forward through this Looking promo.

Which is … awful?

Kehe: Terrible.

Crucchiola: It’s like Queer as Folk: The Remix.

Kehe: I was trying SO HARD to like it.

Like, is this edgy?

Cool?

Tantalizing?

Nope.

Crucchiola: No, it’s trite.

GAYS AND HOUSE BEATS.

Kehe: Can we put this in the recap?

The people need to know.

Crucchiola: We might as well

Angela [our editor, hiii!!] can snip it out if she thinks it’s dumb. [Eds. note: Angela didn't.]

Kehe: OK, PLAY!

Crucchiola: Commence requisite pulse racing!

Kehe: Why do the women’s names come after the men’s in the opening credits?

Crucchiola: Do they?

Kehe: In every coupling.

Jeff Daniels, then Emily Mortimer.

Crucchiola: Is it not just alphabetical?

Kehe: John Gallagher, Jr., then Alison Pill.

Thomas Sadoski, then Olivia Munn.

Crucchiola: Wow.

Sharp eyes.

OK, Episode 4: “Contempt”

Oh man. That name is going to be so appropriate.

Kehe: Third-to-last teleplay by Aaron Sorkin.

Crucchiola: I can’t process that yet.

Kehe: Becca (Marcia Gay Harden) is explaining the legal process vis-a-vis the subpoena.

Crucchiola: Giving everyone the rundown about how Will (Daniels) is going to face the grand jury.

“I didn’t think they’d have the sack to subpoena you,” says Mac (Emily Mortimer) about Will being served.

Uh-oh, the media has picked up on Will’s angry comments about the Correspondents’ Dinner.

Kehe: A site called Carnivore (good name).

Which I think we all know is Hallie’s (Grace Gummer) new media job.

Crucchiola: Oh yeah it is!

Kehe: BuzzFeed reporter asking for comment.

Crucchiola: There is going to be a major Jim (Gallagher)/Hallie fight.

[Poolside at the Correspondents' Dinner.]

Kehe: Maggie (Pill) and ethics prof. poolside.

Crucchiola: “Why do they have names like that? Carnivore? Beast? Gawker?”

… asks Aaron Sorkin.

Kehe: They’re cute together.

But it’s not meant to be.

Maggie wants to travel back to NY (read: rekindle the fire) with Jim.

Crucchiola: I hate that you’re talking about Jim and Maggie’s future.

Kehe: It’s called inevitability.

Crucchiola: Do you really think that’s what’s going to happen?

Am I so blinded by my hatred?

Kehe: Yes, ESPECIALLY in light of ethics prof’s major faux pas just now—he’s recapping Maggie’s story about Jim and Hallie to…Jim and Hallie, because he didn’t realize it’s them? C’mon.

Crucchiola: Cue Hallie-Jim fight.

Crucchiola: Hallie to Jim: “WHY DON’T YOU BELIEVE IN ME?”

Kehe: Jim: “How did Carnivore get that story about Will?”

Crucchiola: He trusts her 0 percent.

Kehe: BUT, she wasn’t aware of that story until Jim leaked it?

Jim: “You had nothing to do with it?”

PREGNANT PAUSE

Crucchiola: Oh come ON, Hallie!

Kehe: Yikes.

Crucchiola: She TOLD Carnivore what to look for?!

Kehe: Are we supposed to turn on Hallie? To make their inevitable breakup more palatable?

Crucchiola: Gross, Hallie.

GROSS, Sorkin.

Kehe: Maybe they’re perfect for each other.

Crucchiola: Yeah.

Kehe: Both pretty slimy.

Unless she’s rebelling against his sliminess by meeting—and exceeding—it.

Crucchiola: She can keep doing questionable things and Jim can keep fueling his ego with disapproval.

At least Don and Sloan showed up to be cooler than both of them.

[In another location at the Correspondents' Dinner.]

Crucchiola: Oh no. Pruit (B.J. Novak).

“Books are like the new art: We don’t need them anymore, but they look nice.”

Kehe: Spewing inanities.

OMG.

Crucchiola: Pruit demanded to meet the ACN principals at a party just to prove a POINT.

This is The Sork putting The Valley on a pike!

Kehe: Charlie (Sam Waterston) hates him with the burning passion of a thousand real journalists.

Will is being rational.

Crucchiola: Pruit is questioning Mac’s accent?!

Kehe: She does look suspicious—she keeps glancing around (for the source, as if she’ll just show up).

Crucchiola: Pruitt: “Our users become the audience and the audience becomes contributors.”

Kehe: Charlie is giving him a talking-to, which of course we agree with, because he’s the walking embodiment of why we’re journalists.

Crucchiola: Pruit to Charlie: “The air up on that pedestal must be pretty thin, because you are delusional, sir.”

He could not be more obnoxious.

Kehe: Charlie to Pruit: “We have a problem, you and me.”

Crucchiola: Jim isn’t even that obnoxious.

Kehe: Not even close

Crucchiola: OK, so The Sork just aired his night terrors about the digital age/the critics who’ve toppled him.

[Grand jury hearing room.]

Kehe: Will being interrogated by Azog/Barry Lasenthal (Brian Howe).

He won’t reveal the source (duh).

Crucchiola: Ah yes, the A&M Aggie.

Kehe: Will’s perfected saying “no sir” this season.

It’s very satisfying every time.

Crucchiola: Every time.

[ACN conference room.]

Crucchiola: Back in the ACN war room.

Kehe: People are HIGHLIGHTING DOCUMENTS. Which we know means serious journalism is happening.

Crucchiola: Maggie is probably over-highlighting.

Because everything is crucial.

Kehe: Maggie is crucial.

Crucchiola: Ugh. HR Rep Wyatt is back.

Kehe: HA. He wants to know why Don (Sadoski) hasn’t accepted his Instagram friend request.

Don accepts, sends secret note to Sloan (Munn).

[Sloan's office.]

Crucchiola: Awwwwww!

“Sabbith” is Don’s Insta password.

OTP!

Kehe: And she just accessed his account to delete their adorable couple pics.

Crucchiola: I love them.

Kehe: Charlie is asking Sloan if there’s another/better buyer.

Crucchiola: Sloan is … omniscient?

She can contact Elon Musk, Michael Bloomberg, and Larry Ellison.

Kehe: These are our people, and we can’t even do that.

Crucchiola: Like, really easily.

Kehe: Sloan is our person.

Crucchiola: Classic Sloan tangent.

This one’s about Working Girl.

She IS our person.

Kehe: Antoinette Dodd MIGHT be a potential buyer.

And Sloan apparently has her on speed dial.

Crucchiola: Sloan: “Nobody has $4 billion. But yes she has $4 billion.”

Charlie admits fearing Pruit.

“I can’t fight these fights with this guy. I WON’T win!”

Kehe: Aw. “I’m tired, I don’t want to expand the definition of the news, I want to narrow it.” Preach.

Sloan says she and Charlie should meet with this Dodd.

Crucchiola: Sloan and Charlie together are so lovable.

I’d watch that spinoff too.

Kehe: Sloan and anyone.

Crucchiola: YEP!

(Except Jim.)

[Return to the war room.]

Kehe: Back in newsroom.

Crucchiola: More problems stopping them from running the story on the leak.

Kehe: Mac is demanding the story air Wednesday—per the source’s demands.

BUT the guy who wrote the PR story in Kundu is still in Kundu so if the story airs he’s in danger of being executed. Or, he MIGHT still be in Kundu.

[Jim's apartment.]

Crucchiola: Now onto Hallie and Jim at home.

Kehe: He’s making a sandwich. She’s typing.

Crucchiola: Hallie says she doesn’t want to fight and Jim says he doesn’t want to either.

And he’s so obviously lying.

Kehe: They’re fighting by not fighting.

He wants to know what she’s working on.

Crucchiola: Hallie’s editor wants her to write more personally.

DUN DUN DUUUNNNN

Kehe: The one pitch her eds liked was her “experience with the Plan B pill.”

This means Jim and Hallie are having sex.

Crucchiola: Jim: “Cool”

“It’s my role to support you. It’s a role I’m grateful to have, and I want to do it well.”

ARE YOU SERIOUS, JIM?

…

Kehe: Jim, don’t say anything don’t say anything don’t say anything.

He said something.

Crucchiola: “Does your piece begin ‘Dear Penthouse, I’ve never written anything like this before…?'”

HBO

[Judge's office.]

Crucchiola: Thank God Becca is here to save us.

From Jim’s Ivory Tower monarchy. [Eds. note: I think you mean "misogyny."]

Kehe: She’s in the judge’s chambers, along with Will and Azog.

Marcia Gay is so convincing I want her to represent me/WIRED/newsrooms everywhere in First Amendment matters, and life.

Crucchiola: Is Marcia Gay Harden actually a lawyer in real life?

Because she should be.

In my deep understanding of the law, she would be an amazing litigator.

Kehe: She litigates my heart.

Crucchiola: The judge presided over a case Will argued in the past!

I think he really likes him.

Kehe: Does this mean he’ll be lenient?

Crucchiola: Hmm…

Kehe: Nope. He just granted the government’s request.

Crucchiola: Good for him.

Be impartial.

Kehe: (a court order to name the source)

Crucchiola: Will nods stoically.

[Back in the ACN conference room.]

Crucchiola: Sloan and Don are having a couple fight in the war room.

Kehe: Sloan: “Your logic is consistent though horrifying.”

Crucchiola: Don wants to know why the story needs to run Wednesday.

Mac adjusts her posture…then bails out!

Kehe: She says she’ll be gone for four hours.

[A sushi restaurant.]

Crucchiola: Uncle Charlie and Sloan are at lunch with the potential alternate buyer, Toni Dodd.

Kehe: She seems promising.

Crucchiola: Sloan is the ACN MVP.

Kehe: They’re exchanging financial jargon.

Crucchiola: It CAN’T be this easy! The buyer wants the network!

Kehe: Charlie to Sloan: “You were on fire in there!”

Crucchiola: Sloan is beaming.

She’s not given enough opportunities to shine like this.

Kehe: Charlie is a TAD suspicious.

Because Toni didn’t eat her sushi. That is suspicious.

Crucchiola: Sloan thinks he’s overthinking.

She should be proud of herself.

She’s possibly single-handedly rescuing ACN from the evil twins.

Kehe: Who are where, BTW? Maybe nobody cares.

Mac arrives at a secret meeting in what appears to be an anonymous rest stop.

It’s raining.

To emphase SECRET.

Crucchiola: POURING.

It’s a meeting with the source, who’s outside because her car may be tapped.

Mac’s begging for more time.

The source has zero respect for the job the journalists have to do!

Kehe: She’s extremely self-righteous.

Crucchiola: Oh YEAH.

And Mac rightly asks her why she won’t just willingly trade places with Neal and ship herself off to South America and go on the lam.

She’s having her cake and eating it too.

Kehe: I’m sure Edward Snowden was much easier to deal with.

Crucchiola: “Dump the documents and I’ll quit my job, walk to the FBI, and give them your name.”

YES, Mac.

Kehe: Emily Mortimer: so effective at a righteous takedown.

Crucchiola: So effective.

[Inside a bar.]

Kehe: Now Maggie and the ethics prof are playing pool.

Why can’t Maggie shoot.

She stinks.

Crucchiola: Hahaha.

She’s reading Hallie’s latest column out loud to Professor Ethics (Jimmi Simpson).

Kehe: It’s titled “Old Media Guy and New Media Girl: An Analog Romance,”

in which Hallie refers to Jim as “Tim.”

Maggie’s defending her.

Hallie: “My boyfriend loves me but he doesn’t like me.”

Crucchiola: Professor is being a liiiiiiittle presumptuous.

Kehe: Annnd he’s calling his shots, which is making him uglier by the second.

Crucchiola: Maggie: “I’m always grateful when a man can tell me why I’m thinking what I’m thinking.”

Uh-ohhhhhh…

Kehe: Professor Ethics is accusing Maggie of defending Hallie because she’s secretly in love with Jim.

Crucchiola: Prof: “Any man in your life is going to be the runner-up.”

Kehe: It’s true, but how would he know that?

Maybe he watched Seasons 1 and 2.

Crucchiola: LOL. Yeah he really had some inside narrative info there.

Kehe: Yeah, two dates in and he’s preternaturally aware of her hidden desires?

Crucchiola: I hate that you seem to be right about Maggie and Jim being brought back together.

Sick.

[ACN office.]

Crucchiola: Cut to Hallie and Jim in the ACN office.

Kehe: OK, now they’re on the roof.

This feels like the end.

Crucchiola: … Hallie is blaming her computer for hanging their dirty laundry in public?

Hallie.

Kehe: I know.

Crucchiola: Stop.

Kehe: Her star is rapidly dimming (but not Grace Gummer/Meryl Streep Jr., who’s doing a very fine job).

Crucchiola: And Jim’s smug face is getting MORE cemented on his face.

Kehe: The most Sorkinest of fights: loud, fast, impossibly articulate, possibly meaningless.

Crucchiola: Jim: “I hereby declare the amateurs are awesome and professionals are so 20 years ago.”

The Sork hates THE INTERNET!

Jim is The Sork!

Kehe: When you say “The Sork” I recoil.

Crucchiola: Hahahaha—so does he!

Oh.

OH.

There it is!

Jim: “Tell me you know I’m right. Please.”

“I have spent time with hardcore drug movers, and they don’t pretend they’re selling medicine!”

He just compared digital media to DRUG DEALING.

Kehe: Hallie slumps down next to Jim.

Crucchiola: Jim doesn’t give a damn about Hallie. Like, at all.

Nothing is as important to Jim as being right.

Kehe: I think he wants her to dump him.

Which she’s doing.

Jim: “I’m gonna miss you”

Crucchiola: Every single fight is about him being right.

“You’re gonna miss a lot of things, Jim.”

Kehe: Good one, Hallie. That barely even makes sense.

Crucchiola: I feel like Jim is who Sorkin is, Hallie is the world, and Will is who he wishes he was.

[Will and Mac's apartment.]

Kehe: Will and Mac in bed.

Wait, why are they in this, like, unfurnished apartment with no electricity?

Their bed doesn’t even have a frame.

Crucchiola: Well they are renovating.

Kehe: …in every way: personally, professionally…

Crucchiola: Hahaha—Mac calls out his irritating Irish stoicism.

[Back at ACN.]

Kehe: With the help of the state department, ACN got that writer’s family out of Kundu.

Crucchiola: Back in the war room. Mac: “Jenna [intern], your future is limitless!”

I love Happy Mac.

Crucchiola: Reese looks like he’s going to cry in front of Mac.

Says they can’t run the leak story at all!

BECAUSE OF PRUIT.

Kehe: Apparently Pruit likes that Will is going to jail.

Crucchiola: Pruit is a sociopath.

Kehe: Reese is so beaten down.

Mac: “THIS IS HORSESHIT.”

Crucchiola: Poor Reese.

I do feel bad for him.

Kehe: So bad.

Crucchiola: “Do we EVER get to win one?” asks Mac.

Not this one, Sorkin.

Kehe: Give Emily Mortimer the awards.

Reese says Will is doing this for Mac.

Crucchiola: He does everything for Mac.

Kehe: Her wordless reaction is beautiful and touching and heartbreaking.

Crucchiola: And her delicate frame crumples.

APPLAUSE, EMILY!

Kehe: Don arrives to comfort her.

Crucchiola: I’m comforted.

Mac says they need it pack everything and label it and ship it off.

And is asking Don who the most responsible journalist he knows is…

“Someone who needs a break.”

Kehe: His old J-school professor.

Who’s 70 now.

Crucchiola: AWWWWW SLOAN CALLED DON BUBBA!

Kehe: Sloan just called Don bubba.

Crucchiola: Shit.

HR Rep saw them hug.

Kehe: He has a document signed by Sloan declaring they’re a couple.

Crucchiola: Um…Sloan?

Kehe: She didn’t think he’d read it?

Sloan: “Eventually is a wonderful time of day.”

Crucchiola: “Don and I like to make decisions about lying on a case-by-case basis.”

Kehe: Don just gave an impassioned speech about how much he loves Sloan and doesn’t want either of them transferred.

Crucchiola: WHAT WHAT?

Kehe: Wait.

Crucchiola: The HR guy was screwing with them for kicks because he’s bored?!

Kehe: …

Crucchiola: It really WAS that useless?!?!

I love it. I think I love it.

Kehe: I don’t know if I do. Maybe a little bit.

Crucchiola: Aaron Sorkin you SCAMP!

It’s just so IDGAF.

Kehe: Sloan is checking her Bloomberg terminal.

She sees something.

“Shit”

“This can’t be happening!”

Nooo.

Crucchiola: NO!

Toni the potential alternate buyer wasn’t serious about ACN!

Kehe: So there was a reason she didn’t eat her sushi.

Crucchiola: She’s buying ANOTHER MEDIA COMPANY.

Kehe: But Charlie still thinks she’s buying ACN and is storming into the boardroom to say so.

Where Pruit is signing docs.

Crucchiola: Pruit to Reese: “Dude I told you in college one day I was going to buy a company out from under you. I gave you like 15 years warning.”

Kehe: Charlie to Pruit: “you fiber-optic YACK.”

Crucchiola: What?! LOL.

Kehe: Pruit already knows Toni isn’t buying ACN.

How?

Who cares.

Crucchiola: Pruit: “I’m going to take you into the 21st century. Right after I drag you through the 19th and 20th.”

Kehe: Charlie: “We’re sworn enemies now, he and I.”

Crucchiola: We are supposed to hate Pruit.

Kehe: We do.

Crucchiola: And I do, so much.

It’s worked.

Sorkin has dragged ME back into the 18th century.

[Will and Mac's apartment.]

Crucchiola: Mac to Will: “Don’t you know that anything that can be proven by courage and character you’ve proven a long time ago.”

I’m getting weepy!

Kehe: Will saw Charlie cleaning his gun with bourbon muttering “Kill the wabbit.”

Crucchiola: WAIT.

Kehe: Mac reveals she’s spoken to the source twice.

Crucchiola: Will keeps calling the source “he.”

But it’s a “she”!

Kehe: So … DOES he know her identity?!

Crucchiola: Does he know he doesn’t or does know?

Who knows?!

[Courthouse.]

Kehe: Well, Becca knows: now she’s invoking reporter’s privilege in her courtroom speech.

Crucchiola: Finally in court.

Crucchiola: Becca owns that power suit.

She IS a power suit.

Azog blah blah blah.

The judge wants to know what the harm in running this story is.

The judge wants ACN to persevere.

Kehe: Azog says our security is at risk.

Judge asks Will what he should do.

Crucchiola: Of course he does.

Kehe: Will admits he’s sympathetic to Azog’s position.

Crucchiola: Classic pragmatic conservative Will.

I respect that.

Will: “I appreciate the defense my attorney mounted. But my heart is with the prosecution.”

“But I can’t give you the name of my source. I’m just not allowed to.”

Kehe: Also classic idealist principled Will.

Crucchiola: How do you spell Will McAvoy?? I-N-T-E-G-R-I-T-Y.

Kehe: Judge orders Will to surrender himself to US marshals at 5 that night.

Azog walks out.

Everybody stares.

Except Maggie, who has the guts to say, “Hey you know this is bullshit.”

Crucchiola: Damn straight.

Kehe: HEART AND SOUL

Crucchiola: THROUGH AND THROUGH

Kehe: Mac is telling Will she wants to get married now.

Crucchiola: Yes yes YES!

“We have 300 people coming to a wedding you’ve been planning for 25 years!”

Kehe: Despite that, she just sent out a shotgun invitation to her listserv.

Crucchiola: She invites the staff via email and everyone is so happy.

Kehe: CUE MONTAGE

Crucchiola: Will: “For that little stunt I’m gonna marry your ass!”

Kehe: Docs are being shipping to Don’s ex-prof.

Crucchiola: Is this the old reporter?

Kehe: Aw, yes.

Crucchiola: Is she getting the docs?!

Kehe: Someone is singing “Ave Maria” in the background.

Crucchiola: She’s going to do the right thing.

Kehe: Well look at her: She’s incapable of doing the wrong thing.

Mac is picking out a dress.

Don and Jim are buying the ring.

Crucchiola: Jim and Don are getting wedding bands!

Sloan is on cake duty and Maggie is doing the florist job!

Jason this is all so adorable!

Also they have NO other friends besides their ACN family.

Kehe: It truly is.

Makes me wanna plan my boss’s wedding.

Crucchiola: Hahahaha!

Kehe: Charlie is scouting for musicians.

Crucchiola: At Juilliard, yes?

Kehe: He sees woman singing “Ave Maria”—which accounts for the song in the background.

Crucchiola: Charlie’s heart looks like it’s breaking over and over for so many reasons.

Kehe: The song is ACTUALLY being sung—nice.

Crucchiola: Mac is a devout Catholic?

Kehe: Just go with it.

Crucchiola: Right.

Kehe: It gives this scene religious/emotional resonance.

Will is asking his priest to do their wedding.

Father: “Will, wanna pray with me?”

Crucchiola: He respects her faith.

Kehe: For some reason that makes me weepy.

Crucchiola: Me too.

Kehe: Remember Beyonce’s “Ave Maria”?

Crucchiola: I remember falling apart, so yes.

Kehe: We are reporting LIVE FROM THE WEDDING.

We’ve been waiting three seasons for this.

Crucchiola: Maggie telling Jim at the impromptu wedding that he needs to make a “canyon grand”-sized apology to Hallie.

We have!

Jason!

IT’S HAPPENING!

Kehe: As Azog is leading marshals to arrest Will in cross cuts.

Crucchiola: The DoJ marches up the steps of City Hall to snatch Will up fresh from his wedding.

Kehe: It’s a beautiful wedding.

Crucchiola: Intimate.

Perfect.

Sloan is Maid of Honor!

OBVIOUSLY.

Kehe: Why is this Godtalk making me so emotional.

Mac says I do.

So does Will.

We all do.

There’s precious hand-holding.

Crucchiola: I forget that they are the great love of each other’s lives for YEARS at this point.

Kehe: Becca sees them in the hall, notably does NOT say congrats/anything.

He’s being arrested.

Crucchiola: Mac only barely lets go of him!

JASON I’M LOSING IT.

Kehe: Mac kisses him passionately.

What IS this show?!

Crucchiola: But they aren’t dramatic about it.

Just strong.

Steadfast.

NO CREDITS NOT NOW!

Kehe: No, I need to wipe my eyes.

Somewhere, Dan Rather is WAILING.

Crucchiola: I hope he’s with loved ones.

This must have pushed him too far.

Kehe: He is, Jordan.

These are his loved ones.

Crucchiola: You’re so right.

You’ve never been more right.

I feel the same.

Kehe: OK, let’s compose ourselves and discuss.

Crucchiola: I’m so glad I watched my friends just get married.

Kehe: We were at that wedding.

Crucchiola: Do you think we will ever see Neal again?

Maybe in like the last 4 minutes of the show?

Kehe: I briefly considered that.

Crucchiola: He’s stopped being a person and become a symbol.

Kehe: Then decided I don’t care.

Crucchiola: Right.

Me neither.

Kehe: I mean, he can’t come back.

Unless he wants to be tranquilized by US justice.

Crucchiola: I think Sorkin declared full native status in this episode.

Kehe: (by which Jordan means: a complete rejection of technology)

Crucchiola: He basically called new media slingers and all social platforms tantamount to drug dealers. And pornographers.

Yes. Complete rejection.

Kehe: Which is OK.

This show is about the death of tradition.

Glory.

Romance.

Crucchiola: Yes.

And he seems to submit to that death.

Kehe: As it itself is ending.

Crucchiola: Like, he feels its inevitability.

Kehe: The demise of the show parallels the death of old media.

Crucchiola: Sorkin knows better, but the age of Sorkin is at an end.

Kehe: It’s incredibly self-aggrandizing and kinda incredible.

Crucchiola: It’s like the elves knowing that their time is done, and that the time of Man is upon us.

Kehe: Exactly.

Crucchiola: (who will no doubt ruin everything but OH WELL it’s time)

Sorkin is getting on his ship to go to the Undying Lands.

Kehe: And we’re getting all 11 endings.

Crucchiola: Hahahaha!

Kehe: This season is one long goodbye.

To Sorkin.

To news.

Crucchiola: To Tradition, as you say.

Kehe: And to cable TV, in the Sorkinverse.

Crucchiola: Oh yeah.

And family values.

Kehe: JESUS CHRIST SORKIN.

Crucchiola: Seriously!

Kehe: I can’t resist you.

Crucchiola: If this show was on for 23 hours a day I would sleep for one hour.

Kehe: Who but Sorkin is capable of this?!

Crucchiola: No one else is so self-righteous that they could pull this off.

Kehe: His show about the news is being canceled, so he turns it into a death poem for the industry.

Crucchiola: You magnificent bastard, Aaron.

Canceling him = canceling a way of life.

Kehe: Amen.

The Hype Cycle: What’s Next for Google Glass?

dakine kane/Flickr

Few gadgets have been as celebrated and derided as Google Glass. Introduced with fanfare and photographed on the mugs of more than a few celebrities and tech-pundit-luminaries, Glass has acquired its unfair share of zealots and naysayers.

Let me be clear on one thing: Glass is cool. It is one of the few tech gadgets to approach the first iPhone in sheer audacity and inherent playfulness. You may not want to own Google Glass, but given the opportunity, you’d sure as shoot try it out. And everyone and their brother has shared their unique vision for how Glass will change society.

Gartner has a great term for this phase in the adoption of any new technology. They call it the “Peak of Inflated Expectations.”

In Gartner parlance, that peak is almost inevitably followed by “The Trough of Disillusionment.” (Decide for yourself whether Gartner’s terminology influenced place names in Game of Thrones.) What does the trough look like? It looks like the recent coverage of Glass in Reuters or Vanity Fair. It becomes de rigueur to proclaim and predict the demise of the gadget. Of 16 app vendors contacted by Reuters, fully nine of them had abandoned their efforts. Reuters also found that many of the key people behind the product have left Google, and Google Glasses are selling on eBay at less than half of the $1,500 list price.

The reality of Glass in day-to-day life is that it is pretty invasive. Who really wants to feel like they’re being watched and investigated by every stranger on the street, or in a bar, or wherever? Glass can interrupt social interaction, and that’s generally not a positive attribute for new gadgets.

So what’s next for Glass? If Gartner’s model holds, and I think it will, Glass will enter the “Slope of Enlightenment” with practical application. One of the first places Glass will show its impact may be the last place people think of for emerging technologies: the plant floor.

A key hurdle for consumer adoption is the nerd factor. Shvetank Shah, a Washington, DC-based consultant, told Reuters, “I’m a card carrying nerd, but this was one card too many.” But in factories, protective eyewear is required, and keeping your hands free to work is fundamental.

Smart safety glasses that offer hands-free information have huge potential.

In a manufacturing environment, Google Glass becomes another component in the Internet of making things (IoMT): the fabric of sensors, equipment, people and materials that run contemporary factories. Today’s shop floor includes robots, autonomous vehicles, networked metal stamping machines, IP-enabled machines and tools, hand-held scanners and thousands of other connected devices. Google Glass, when attached to OSHA-spec eye protection, fits right in.

And in just the past year, new sensors and low-power Bluetooth devices add even more flexibility to the networked shop floor. We envision a near future where these technologies enable new levels of safety, change the way employees interact with products and tools, and unlock greater insights into products long after they have left the plant.

Many of the facilities I visit require that employees wear orange safety vests to make them visible to forklift drivers. Imagine embedding a Bluetooth device in those vests and equipping drivers with Google Glass; together these technologies can alert the driver of nearby co-workers before they come into view. As a component of the IoMT, Google Glass can provide simple, yet significant opportunity to improve plant safety – according to Compliance and Safety, one of six workplace deaths are related to forklifts, and 80% of forklift accidents involve pedestrians.

Google Glass could also serve as an early alert system for plant managers, providing notifications regarding broken machinery, required maintenance or low materials supply. We’re just scratching the surface for possible applications and benefits. A little enlightenment and a plateau of productivity.

That’s what’s next for Google Glass.

Jason Prater is Vice President of Development for Plex Systems.

The White House Wants to Spend Millions Putting Body Cameras on Cops

Washington DC Police Officer Debra Domino models a body camera at City Hall September 24, 2014 in Washington, DC. Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images

The Obama administration wants to set aside $263 million to improve law enforcement training and fund the purchase of 50,000 cameras that police officers can wear on their bodies.

The White House proposed the move in a review of local-law-enforcement funding, released on Monday. It arrives one week after a Grand Jury decided not to indict Ferguson, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson in the killing of teenager Michael Brown, a decision that has sparked widespread upheaval across the country.

Some of the feelings of hopelessness and frustration surrounding the decision arise from discrepancies between Officer Wilson’s testimony and what other eye witnesses say happened on that August day when Brown was fatally shot. And without documentation, it’s a tragic tale of he-said-she-said, which many believe could have been lessened, if not completely avoided, had Officer Wilson been wearing a body camera at the time.

The proposal arrives one week after a Grand Jury decided not to indict Ferguson, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson in the killing of teenager Michael Brown.

No one believes that more than the Brown family. In the wake of the Grand Jury verdict, Brown’s parents even released a statement, encouraging the public to join their campaign “to ensure that every police officer working the streets in this country wears a body camera.”

Now, the Obama administration is answering the call. About $75 million of its $263 million budget would fund the purchase of body-worn cameras, and the new Body Worn Camera Partnership Program would provide a 50 percent match to states who buy their own body-worn cameras. This funding, of course, will only be enough to outfit a small fraction of police officers with cameras, and yet, it’s a major vote of confidence from the federal government in a new method of police surveillance that is already proving to be incredibly effective.

Where It Works

In Rialto, California, where police began wearing body cameras back in 2012, citizen complaints against officers fell 88 percent in the first year, and use of force by officers declined 60 percent. That’s an indication that cameras don’t only document the events as they unfold, they actually change the way everyone involved behaves. As Rialto police chief told The New York Times: “When you put a camera on a police officer, they tend to behave a little better, follow the rules a little better. And if a citizen knows the officer is wearing a camera, chances are the citizen will behave a little better.”

And in Washington D.C., where a $1 million, 6-month body camera pilot program is underway, officials expect to see complaints against officers fall by 80 percent. “This gives us that independent, unbiased witness…This will make our officers safer,” police chief Cathy Lanier told The Washington Post . “It will make our department more transparent. It will reduce the amount of time supervisors have to spend investigating allegations.”

Video Still Open to Interpretation

Some criminologists, however, say that videos aren’t always as unbiased as they seem. In an article on Slate, Arizona State University researchers Justin Ready and Jacob Young write that even video is open to individual interpretation. “People interpret what they see on video through the filter of their own experiences. An officer may interpret what he sees on a video differently than a civil rights lawyer or a young person from an urban area,” they write, citing their own research on the subject as evidence. “The technology doesn’t provide this context—being human does.”

They also note that even body worn cameras have blind spots, events and occurrences that they miss or don’t catch. Holding the video as truth, then, can be just as dangerous as not having a record of the police interaction at all.

And of course, there are questions about who gets access to video footage as well. In Washington State, for instance, public records law requires government agencies to release almost all records in a timely fashion, or face a fine. With thousands of hours of video, which must be blurred and muted to protect people’s privacy, that could become a serious logistical burden for police departments.

Police That ‘Think More Carefully’

Still, despite the obvious challenges, Ready and Young note there are some clear-cut benefits to body worn cameras. In one study, they strapped cameras on 50 police officers for one year and compared their behavior to officers without cameras. They found that the officers wearing cameras conducted fewer stop and frisks and arrested fewer people. That suggests, they write, “that the presence of a camera may have led officers to think more carefully about what constitutes reasonable suspicion in stop-and-frisk situations and probable cause during arrests.”

The funding proposed by the White House still needs to undergo congressional approval. Meanwhile, President Obama has also created a Task Force on 21st Century Policing, which has been asked to come up with ways “to promote effective crime reduction while building public trust,” and prepare a report within 90 days. The hope is that better training and increased transparency can play a small role in mending the parts of our law enforcement system that this summer has proven to be fundamentally broken.

Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig Get Silly in The Skeleton Twins Gag Reel

For those who watched Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader’s indie dramedy The Skeleton Twins and thought Man, this is sad, but I bet they had a lot of fun making it!, we can now offer definitive proof that filming a movie with two Saturday Night Live all-stars is as hilarious as you think it would be—no matter how dark the subject matter.

In the gag reel for the film (above) we get a glimpse of just how often the pair cracked each other (and everyone else) up while filming Twins, from Hader’s failed attempts at speaking Spanish to Wiig’s porta-potty jokes.

For those who haven’t seen it—and, really, you should—The Skeleton Twins is a dark comedy about two estranged siblings who reunite after brother Milo (Hader) attempts suicide. He’s gay; his sister Maggie (Wiig) is in a kinda-boring marriage to a guy named Lance (Luke Wilson); and through a series of unfortunate events, the pair realize they might need each other more than they think. Stefon-meets-Target-Lady it’s not. It’s darker than anything Wiig or Hader have ever done before, and it’s also fantastic—even if it doesn’t have sketch comedy routines.

Check out the lighter moments from The Skeleton Twins above. The movie hits Digital HD tomorrow and Blu-ray/DVD on Dec. 16.

Microsoft Acquires Email Startup Acompli to Give Outlook a Mobile Advantage

Illustration: WIRED

Microsoft has acquired the mobile email startup Acompli, the tech giant announced today on its website.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the tech news site Re/code reports that Microsoft paid over $200 million.

Acompli makes an email client for Android and iOS designed to make common but sometimes complex tasks—such sorting messages, sending typical responses, and finding attachments—much easier to accomplish on mobile devices. But even though it runs on devices from competing companies—Google and Apple—the app seems like a good fit for Microsoft. The product has long been focused on selling software to large companies—Microsoft’s bread and butter—and it already plugs into Microsoft’s primary email server software, Exchange.

Even as companies such as Asana and Slack do their best to make email irrelevant, a growing others are trying to bring email into the 21st century by making it more mobile friendly and helping users automatically sort through the deluge of messages that hit our inboxes every day. This includes not only startups such as Acompli, Baydin, and Dropbox, but also some of the internet’s biggest names.

Google overhauled Gmail with its new tabs interface last year, and it released the even more radical Inbox app in October. IBM is experimenting with new ways to present and organize email. And Acompli gives Microsoft an app that help it compete with these new products, possibly bringing this new email paradigm to the legions of office workers who use Microsoft Outlook.

It’s not clear yet whether Acompli will continue as a stand-alone app or be integrated in Microsoft Outlook, but founder Javier Soltero wrote in a blog post that the app will continue to be available on multiple operating systems. Microsoft has been working hard to bring its products to other mobile operating systems in recent months. In March—shortly after Satya Nadella stepped into the CEO role—the company unveiled Office for iPad, and just last month, it announced a deal to bring Dropbox file sharing to the Office product line.

A Comprehensive Gchat Recap of This Week’s The Newsroom

HBO

[Poolside at the Correspondents' Dinner.]

[In another location at the Correspondents' Dinner.]

[Grand jury hearing room.]

[ACN conference room.]

[Sloan's office.]

[Return to the war room.]

[Jim's apartment.]

HBO

[Judge's office.]

[Back in the ACN conference room.]

[A sushi restaurant.]

[Inside a bar.]

[ACN office.]

[Will and Mac's apartment.]

[Back at ACN.]

[Will and Mac's apartment.]

[Courthouse.]