>>is calling this the worst water event in his state's history. nbc's katy tur is in stonington,
connecticut
this morning. what's the scene there.
>> reporter: thousands trapped but could have been so much worse without the mandatory evacuations. luckily a number of people did get out. we do have to report two deaths for you this morning. one was a woman in mansfield. a tree fell on her house. we're told that she was electrocuted when
power lines
came down with it. also a couple of injuries in that house, but they were not life-threatening, as well as a fifthner eaton,
connecticut
, who was driving when a tree fell on his car. right now the weather has certainly calmed down here. there's not so many reports about what's coming out of this state right now, because there are so many people here without power. 635,000 customers without power right now. that's because of flooding. that's because of
high winds
. it's also because of massive trees like the one you're seeing behind me. if we come back out here live, can you see this tree is huge. it's fallen on to this house. this is just one of many trees across the stonington area and across the state that are bringing down
power lines
. they are blocking roads and making things very dangerous this morning. we are in the east part of
connecticut
. we're told it got much worse over in the west part of concorporation and i'm sure you'll be able to ask governor malloy more about that as you talk to him right now. guys.
Contact: Lynn Yarris lcyarris@lbl.gov 510-486-5375 DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Berkeley Lab finding that protein folding funnels also apply to self-assembly should benefit biomimicry and nanosynthesis
Proteins are able to self-assemble into a wide range of highly ordered structures that feature a diverse array of properties. Through biomimicry - technological innovation inspired by nature humans hope to emulate proteins and produce our own version of self-assembling molecules. A key to accomplishing this is understanding how protein-folding a process critical to the form and function of a protein is extended from individual proteins to complex assemblies.
Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have now shown that a concept widely accepted as describing the folding of a single individual protein is also applicable to the self-assembly of multiple proteins. Their findings provide important guidelines for future biomimicry efforts, particularly for device fabrication and nanoscale synthesis.
"We've made the first direct observations that the concept of a folding funnel with kinetic energy traps for individual proteins can be equally applied to the assembly of ordered protein structures," says Jim DeYoreo, a scientist with the Molecular Foundry, a DOE nanoscience center at Berkeley Lab, who led this research along with Berkeley Lab chemist Carolyn Bertozzi. "Our results tell us that efforts to discover and codify the design rules for the self-assembly of complex molecular systems will have to take into account the impact of kinetic traps associated with conformational transformations."
DeYoreo and Bertozzi are the corresponding authors of a paper published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that reported this research. The paper is titled "Direct observation of kinetic traps associated with structural transformations leading to multiple pathways of S-layer assembly." Co-authoring the paper were Seong-Ho Shin, Sungwook Chung, Babak Sanii and Luis Comolli.
Proteins are essentially biomolecular nanomachines capable of performing numerous tasks because of their ability to fold themselves into a multitude of shapes and forms. When individual proteins self-assemble into ordered structures the resulting ensemble often adopts conformations that are quite distinct from those of the individual components.
"For example, collagen matrices, which constitute the organic scaffolds of bones and teeth, are constructed from triple helices of individual collagen monomers," DeYoreo says. "These helices will further assemble into highly organized twisted fibrils that exhibit a pseudohexagonal symmetry."
The folding funnel concept explains individual protein folding on the basis of conformational changes to reach a state of minimal free energy. An unfolded protein starts out in a state of high free energy that makes its conformation unstable. Initially, there are a number of possible three-dimensional conformations that would reduce this free energy. However, as the protein starts to fold, the free energy begins to drop and the number of possible conformations begins to decrease like the shrinking width of a funnel. The bottom of the funnel is reached when free energy is minimized and there is only one available conformation. As the free energy drops, however, there may be kinetic traps along the way that can stop the folding process and hold the protein in partially folded conformations, known as molten globules and folding intermediates, for extended periods of time. Eventually these trapped conformational states will be transformed into a stable conformation but the shape and form of that final conformation is influenced by the kinetic traps.
"In a protein folding funnel, the funnel walls are presumed not to be smooth and the resulting bumps and valleys define kinetic traps," DeYoreo says. "This physical picture of folding has been explored in some detail at the single molecule level, but has not been considered for protein self-assembly into extended architectures even though conformational transformations are part and parcel of the self-assembly process."
DeYoreo, Bertozzi and their colleagues took steps to correct this knowledge deficit by studying the surface-layer (S-layer) proteins that self-assemble into a crystalline membrane around the single cells of bacteria and Archaea. This outer membrane
serves as the first point of contact between the microbe and its environment and is key to the microbe's ability to survive. Using in situ Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), the researchers imaged in real time and at the molecular level kinetic trapping during the 2D self-assembly of S-layer protein structures on mica surfaces.
"We observed that self-assembly of S-layer proteins tracks along two different pathways, one leading directly to the low-energy final, ordered state, and the other leading to a kinetic trap occupied by a long-lived transient state that is more disordered," DeYoreo says. "Although either state is easily accessible during crystal nucleation, if the system falls into the high-energy state, escape to the final, low-energy state is strongly impeded at room temperature. This demonstrates the importance of kinetic traps in determining the pathway of S-layer crystallization and suggests that the concept of folding funnels is equally valid for self-assembly of extended protein structures."
###
This research was supported by the DOE Office of Science.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory addresses the world's most urgent scientific challenges by advancing sustainable energy, protecting human health, creating new materials, and revealing the origin and fate of the universe. Founded in 1931, Berkeley Lab's scientific expertise has been recognized with 13 Nobel prizes. The University of California manages Berkeley Lab for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. For more, visit www.lbl.gov.
The Molecular Foundry is one of five DOE Nanoscale Science Research Centers (NSRCs), national user facilities for interdisciplinary research at the nanoscale, supported by the DOE Office of Science. Together the NSRCs comprise a suite of complementary facilities that provide researchers with state-of-the-art capabilities to fabricate, process, characterize, and model nanoscale materials, and constitute the largest infrastructure investment of the National Nanotechnology Initiative. The NSRCs are located at DOE's Argonne, Brookhaven, Lawrence Berkeley, Oak Ridge and Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories. For more information about the DOE NSRCs, please visit http://science.energy.gov/bes/suf/user-facilities/nanoscale-science-research-centers/.
DOE's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit the Office of Science website at science.energy.gov/.
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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.
Contact: Lynn Yarris lcyarris@lbl.gov 510-486-5375 DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Berkeley Lab finding that protein folding funnels also apply to self-assembly should benefit biomimicry and nanosynthesis
Proteins are able to self-assemble into a wide range of highly ordered structures that feature a diverse array of properties. Through biomimicry - technological innovation inspired by nature humans hope to emulate proteins and produce our own version of self-assembling molecules. A key to accomplishing this is understanding how protein-folding a process critical to the form and function of a protein is extended from individual proteins to complex assemblies.
Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have now shown that a concept widely accepted as describing the folding of a single individual protein is also applicable to the self-assembly of multiple proteins. Their findings provide important guidelines for future biomimicry efforts, particularly for device fabrication and nanoscale synthesis.
"We've made the first direct observations that the concept of a folding funnel with kinetic energy traps for individual proteins can be equally applied to the assembly of ordered protein structures," says Jim DeYoreo, a scientist with the Molecular Foundry, a DOE nanoscience center at Berkeley Lab, who led this research along with Berkeley Lab chemist Carolyn Bertozzi. "Our results tell us that efforts to discover and codify the design rules for the self-assembly of complex molecular systems will have to take into account the impact of kinetic traps associated with conformational transformations."
DeYoreo and Bertozzi are the corresponding authors of a paper published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that reported this research. The paper is titled "Direct observation of kinetic traps associated with structural transformations leading to multiple pathways of S-layer assembly." Co-authoring the paper were Seong-Ho Shin, Sungwook Chung, Babak Sanii and Luis Comolli.
Proteins are essentially biomolecular nanomachines capable of performing numerous tasks because of their ability to fold themselves into a multitude of shapes and forms. When individual proteins self-assemble into ordered structures the resulting ensemble often adopts conformations that are quite distinct from those of the individual components.
"For example, collagen matrices, which constitute the organic scaffolds of bones and teeth, are constructed from triple helices of individual collagen monomers," DeYoreo says. "These helices will further assemble into highly organized twisted fibrils that exhibit a pseudohexagonal symmetry."
The folding funnel concept explains individual protein folding on the basis of conformational changes to reach a state of minimal free energy. An unfolded protein starts out in a state of high free energy that makes its conformation unstable. Initially, there are a number of possible three-dimensional conformations that would reduce this free energy. However, as the protein starts to fold, the free energy begins to drop and the number of possible conformations begins to decrease like the shrinking width of a funnel. The bottom of the funnel is reached when free energy is minimized and there is only one available conformation. As the free energy drops, however, there may be kinetic traps along the way that can stop the folding process and hold the protein in partially folded conformations, known as molten globules and folding intermediates, for extended periods of time. Eventually these trapped conformational states will be transformed into a stable conformation but the shape and form of that final conformation is influenced by the kinetic traps.
"In a protein folding funnel, the funnel walls are presumed not to be smooth and the resulting bumps and valleys define kinetic traps," DeYoreo says. "This physical picture of folding has been explored in some detail at the single molecule level, but has not been considered for protein self-assembly into extended architectures even though conformational transformations are part and parcel of the self-assembly process."
DeYoreo, Bertozzi and their colleagues took steps to correct this knowledge deficit by studying the surface-layer (S-layer) proteins that self-assemble into a crystalline membrane around the single cells of bacteria and Archaea. This outer membrane
serves as the first point of contact between the microbe and its environment and is key to the microbe's ability to survive. Using in situ Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), the researchers imaged in real time and at the molecular level kinetic trapping during the 2D self-assembly of S-layer protein structures on mica surfaces.
"We observed that self-assembly of S-layer proteins tracks along two different pathways, one leading directly to the low-energy final, ordered state, and the other leading to a kinetic trap occupied by a long-lived transient state that is more disordered," DeYoreo says. "Although either state is easily accessible during crystal nucleation, if the system falls into the high-energy state, escape to the final, low-energy state is strongly impeded at room temperature. This demonstrates the importance of kinetic traps in determining the pathway of S-layer crystallization and suggests that the concept of folding funnels is equally valid for self-assembly of extended protein structures."
###
This research was supported by the DOE Office of Science.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory addresses the world's most urgent scientific challenges by advancing sustainable energy, protecting human health, creating new materials, and revealing the origin and fate of the universe. Founded in 1931, Berkeley Lab's scientific expertise has been recognized with 13 Nobel prizes. The University of California manages Berkeley Lab for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. For more, visit www.lbl.gov.
The Molecular Foundry is one of five DOE Nanoscale Science Research Centers (NSRCs), national user facilities for interdisciplinary research at the nanoscale, supported by the DOE Office of Science. Together the NSRCs comprise a suite of complementary facilities that provide researchers with state-of-the-art capabilities to fabricate, process, characterize, and model nanoscale materials, and constitute the largest infrastructure investment of the National Nanotechnology Initiative. The NSRCs are located at DOE's Argonne, Brookhaven, Lawrence Berkeley, Oak Ridge and Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories. For more information about the DOE NSRCs, please visit http://science.energy.gov/bes/suf/user-facilities/nanoscale-science-research-centers/.
DOE's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit the Office of Science website at science.energy.gov/.
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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.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Climate scientistMichael Oppenheimer stood along the Hudson River and watched his research come to life as Hurricane Sandy blew through New York.
Just eight months earlier, the Princeton University professor reported that what used to be once-in-a-century devastating floods in New York City would soon happen every three to 20 years. He blamed global warming for pushing up sea levels and changing hurricane patterns.
New York "is now highly vulnerable to extreme hurricane-surge flooding," he wrote.
For more than a dozen years, Oppenheimer and other climate scientists have been warning about the risk for big storms and serious flooding in New York. A 2000 federal report about global warming's effect on the United States warned specifically of that possibility.
Still, they say it's unfair to blame climate change for Sandy and the destruction it left behind. They cautioned that they cannot yet conclusively link a single storm to global warming, and any connection is not as clear and simple as environmental activists might contend.
"The ingredients of this storm seem a little bit cooked by climate change, but the overall storm is difficult to attribute to global warming," Canada's University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver said.
Some individual parts of Sandy and its wrath seem to be influenced by climate change, several climate scientists said.
First, there's sea level rise. Water levels around New York are a nearly a foot higher than they were 100 years ago, said Penn State University climate scientist Michael Mann.
Add to that the temperature of the Atlantic Ocean, which is about 2 degrees warmer on average than a century ago, said Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University. Warm water fuels hurricanes.
And Sandy zipped north along a warmer-than-normal Gulf Stream that travels from the Caribbean to Ireland, said Jeff Masters, meteorology director for the private service Weather Underground.
Meteorologists are also noticing more hurricanes late in the season and even after the season. A 2008 study said the Atlantic hurricane season seems to be starting earlier and lasting longer but found no explicit link to global warming. Normally there are 11 named Atlantic storms. The past two years have seen 19 and 18 named storms. This year, with one month to go, there are 19.
After years of disagreement, climate scientists and hurricane experts have concluded that as the climate warms, there will be fewer total hurricanes. But those storms that do develop will be stronger and wetter.
Sandy took an unprecedented sharp left turn into New Jersey. Usually storms keep heading north and turn east harmlessly out to sea. But a strong ridge of high pressure centered over Greenland blocked Sandy from going north or east, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University, an expert in how a warming Arctic affects extreme weather patterns, said recent warming in the Arctic may have played a role in enlarging or prolonging that high pressure area. But she cautioned it's not clear whether the warming really had that influence on Sandy.
While components of Sandy seem connected to global warming, "mostly it's natural, I'd say it's 80, 90 percent natural," said Gerald North, a climate professor at Texas A&M University. "These things do happen, like the drought. It's a natural thing."
On Tuesday, both New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. Andrew Cuomo said they couldn't help but notice that extreme events like Sandy are causing them more and more trouble.
"What is clear is that the storms that we've experienced in the last year or so, around this country and around the world, are much more severe than before," Bloomberg said. "Whether that's global warming or what, I don't know. But we'll have to address those issues."
Cuomo called the changes "a new reality."
"Anyone who says that there's not a dramatic change in weather patterns I think is denying reality," Cuomo said. "I told the president the other day: 'We have a 100-year flood every two years now.'"
For his published research, Oppenheimer looked at New York City's record flood of 1821. Sandy flooded even higher. This week's damage was augmented by the past century's sea level rise, which was higher than the world average because of unusual coastal geography and ocean currents. Oppenheimer walked from his Manhattan home to the river Monday evening to watch the storm.
"We sort of knew it could happen, but you know that's different from actually standing there and watching it happen," Oppenheimer said from a cell phone. "You don't really imagine what this looks like until you see it."
___
Associated Press writers Jennifer Peltz and Malcolm Ritter in New York and Michael Gormley in Albany contributed to this report.
___
Seth Borenstein can be followed at http://twitter.com/borenbears .
Social factors trump genetic forces in forging friendships, CU-led study finds Public release date: 31-Oct-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jason Boardman boardman@colorado.edu University of Colorado at Boulder
"Nature teaches beasts to know their friends," wrote Shakespeare. In humans, nature may be less than half of the story, a team led by University of Colorado Boulder researchers has found.
In the first study of its kind, the team found that genetic similarities may help to explain why human birds of a feather flock together, but the full story of why people become friends "is contingent upon the social environment in which individuals interact with one another," the researchers write.
People are more likely to befriend genetically similar people when their environment is stratified, when disparate groups are discouraged from interacting, the study found. When environments were more egalitarian, friends were less likely to share certain genes.
Scientists debate the extent to which genetics or environmental factors -- "nature" or "nurture" -- predict certain behaviors, said Jason Boardman, associate professor of sociology and faculty research associate with the Population Program in CU-Boulder's Institute of Behavioral Science. "For all the social demographic outcomes we care about, whether it's fertility, marriage, migration, health, it's never nature or nurture.
"It's always nature and nurture," he said. "And most of the time it has a lot more to do with nurture."
Boardman's team included Benjamin Domingue, research associate in the Population Program at IBS; and Jason Fletcher, associate professor of health policy at the Yale School of Public Health. Their research was recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Early last year, PNAS published a study reporting evidence that certain shared genes might determine peoples' choice of friends. Time magazine dubbed this "friends with (genetic) benefits."
Boardman is a sociologist who spent five years studying genetics at CU-Boulder's Institute for Behavioral Genetics to bring insights of the social sciences to the natural sciences. He observed: "You can't understand the spread of health behaviors -- why people smoke, why they drink, why they may or may not be obese -- unless you understand their genetic liability and also place them in the right social context."
The research team used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Boardman's team focused on 1,503 pairs of friends in seventh through 12th grade in 41 schools. As with the earlier study, Boardman's group found that some pairs of friends shared certain genetic characteristics.
The team tested the evidence, arguing that if genes were the driving friendship factor, genetically based friendship should emerge most often and easily in schools with the least amount of social friction. "But we found the exact opposite," he said.
In the most socially equal environments, genetic homophily (or love of the same) was "pretty weak," meaning that friends were less likely to share genetic traits. He added, "It was in the most unequal social environments that we saw the highest level of genetic homophily."
In a socially stratified school, "Students from different populations within the school may be effectively 'off limits' for friendships," the team wrote.
While applauding the revolutionary advances in genetics in recent years, Boardman said "we have to have social scientists at the table, because we're the ones with the data, methods and theories to characterize the multidimensional and multilevel nature of the social environment."
Scientists cannot fully understand heritable changes in gene expression unless they understand "what kind of schools people go to, what neighborhoods they live in" and other social factors, Boardman said.
"To me, to say whether genes predict friendships without understanding the context within which these friendships may or may not occur just doesn't tell the whole story."
###
The team's research was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research at the National Institutes of Health. Fletcher is also supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholars Program.
Boardman and Fletcher host an annual conference called Integrating Genetics and the Social Sciences.
-CU-
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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.
Social factors trump genetic forces in forging friendships, CU-led study finds Public release date: 31-Oct-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jason Boardman boardman@colorado.edu University of Colorado at Boulder
"Nature teaches beasts to know their friends," wrote Shakespeare. In humans, nature may be less than half of the story, a team led by University of Colorado Boulder researchers has found.
In the first study of its kind, the team found that genetic similarities may help to explain why human birds of a feather flock together, but the full story of why people become friends "is contingent upon the social environment in which individuals interact with one another," the researchers write.
People are more likely to befriend genetically similar people when their environment is stratified, when disparate groups are discouraged from interacting, the study found. When environments were more egalitarian, friends were less likely to share certain genes.
Scientists debate the extent to which genetics or environmental factors -- "nature" or "nurture" -- predict certain behaviors, said Jason Boardman, associate professor of sociology and faculty research associate with the Population Program in CU-Boulder's Institute of Behavioral Science. "For all the social demographic outcomes we care about, whether it's fertility, marriage, migration, health, it's never nature or nurture.
"It's always nature and nurture," he said. "And most of the time it has a lot more to do with nurture."
Boardman's team included Benjamin Domingue, research associate in the Population Program at IBS; and Jason Fletcher, associate professor of health policy at the Yale School of Public Health. Their research was recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Early last year, PNAS published a study reporting evidence that certain shared genes might determine peoples' choice of friends. Time magazine dubbed this "friends with (genetic) benefits."
Boardman is a sociologist who spent five years studying genetics at CU-Boulder's Institute for Behavioral Genetics to bring insights of the social sciences to the natural sciences. He observed: "You can't understand the spread of health behaviors -- why people smoke, why they drink, why they may or may not be obese -- unless you understand their genetic liability and also place them in the right social context."
The research team used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Boardman's team focused on 1,503 pairs of friends in seventh through 12th grade in 41 schools. As with the earlier study, Boardman's group found that some pairs of friends shared certain genetic characteristics.
The team tested the evidence, arguing that if genes were the driving friendship factor, genetically based friendship should emerge most often and easily in schools with the least amount of social friction. "But we found the exact opposite," he said.
In the most socially equal environments, genetic homophily (or love of the same) was "pretty weak," meaning that friends were less likely to share genetic traits. He added, "It was in the most unequal social environments that we saw the highest level of genetic homophily."
In a socially stratified school, "Students from different populations within the school may be effectively 'off limits' for friendships," the team wrote.
While applauding the revolutionary advances in genetics in recent years, Boardman said "we have to have social scientists at the table, because we're the ones with the data, methods and theories to characterize the multidimensional and multilevel nature of the social environment."
Scientists cannot fully understand heritable changes in gene expression unless they understand "what kind of schools people go to, what neighborhoods they live in" and other social factors, Boardman said.
"To me, to say whether genes predict friendships without understanding the context within which these friendships may or may not occur just doesn't tell the whole story."
###
The team's research was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research at the National Institutes of Health. Fletcher is also supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholars Program.
Boardman and Fletcher host an annual conference called Integrating Genetics and the Social Sciences.
-CU-
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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.
NASSAU, Bahamas?? Hurricane Sandy pounded the Bahamas with battering winds and rain on Friday after killing 21 people across the Caribbean, and was posing a menacing threat to the U.S. East Coast.
U.S. meteorologists expect a natural horror show of high wind, heavy rain, extreme tides and maybe snow to the west beginning early Sunday, peaking with the arrival of Hurricane Sandy on Tuesday and lingering past Halloween on Wednesday.
Experts predict at least $1 billion in damage in the United States.
"It's looking like a very serious storm that could be historic," said Jeff Masters, meteorology director of the forecasting service Weather Underground. "Mother Nature is not saying, 'Trick or treat.' It's just going to give tricks."
Weather trackers say the hardest-hit areas could span anywhere from the coastal Carolinas up to Maine, with New York City and the Boston area potentially in harm's way.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forecaster Jim Cisco said: "We don't have many modern precedents for what the models are suggesting."
Video: Carolinas, East Coast on watch for Hurricane Sandy (on this page)
Although Sandy is not forecast to be as strong as other recent storms to hit the Northeast, such as Hurricane Irene in August 2011, it holds the potential to cause significant damage because it will be moving slowly, forecasters said.
U.S. government forecasters said there is a 90 percent chance ? up from 60 percent two days earlier ? that the East Coast will get pounded.
"If you live on the U.S. East Coast, keep an eye on this storm," FEMA director Craig Fugate wrote on Twitter.
21 fatalities so far
The number of deaths blamed on Sandy's torrential rains and heavy winds jumped to 21 on Thursday: 11 in Cuba, nine in Haiti and one in Jamaica.
The fatalities in Cuba included a 4-month-old baby, NBC News' Mary Murray reported. Most were killed by falling trees or in building collapses in Santiago de Cuba province and neighboring Guantanamo province, the government said.
Video: Wide area of Northeast threatened
Late Thursday, Sandy weakened to a Category 1 storm as it tore through sparsely populated low-lying southeastern islands in the Bahamas, knocking out power and blowing off rooftops of some homes.
Early Friday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said Sandy was about 15 miles southeast of Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas and was packing maximum sustained winds of 80 miles per hour.
South Florida feels effects
Winds and rains generated by Sandy were also being felt in south Florida.
A Tropical Storm Warning was in effect on Florida's East Coast from Ocean Reef to Flagler Beach and around Lake Okeechobee, the National Hurricane Center said. A Tropical Storm Watch was in effect for the Florida coast from Flagler Beach to Fernandina Beach, the Florida Upper Keys from Ocean Reef to Craig Key and Florida Bay, it said.
Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport reported Thursday night that 24 arrival flights and 23 departures were canceled for the day, according to NBCMiami.com. Sandy led to the cancellation of 23 arrivals and 21 departures at Miami International Airport, it said.
The hurricane part of the storm is likely to come ashore somewhere in New Jersey on Tuesday morning, the NOAA's Cisco said.
"It's almost a weeklong, five-day, six-day event," he added. "It's going to be a widespread serious storm."
It is also likely to hit during a full moon when tides are near their highest, increasing coastal flooding potential.
Slideshow: Sandy barrels through the Caribbean (on this page)
'A Nor'easter on steroids'?
With some trees still leafy and the potential for snow, power outages could last to Election Day, some meteorologists fear.
"It could be a Nor'easter on steroids," NWS meteorologist Robert Thompson told NBC station WHDH-TV in Boston. "It's got the potential to rival the great Nor'easters of the past depending upon the eventual track it takes."
Interactive: Wild Nor?easters explained (on this page)
Nor'easters are powerful storms that come up along the East Coast from the south and then increase in volatility with winds from the northeast. In this case, another storm is expected to move into the Northeast from the Ohio Valley around the same time, adding to the weather mix.
"Residents from New England to New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia should remain vigilant and be prepared to take action in the next few days," weather.com advised.
Sandy will likely be around for the 21st anniversary of the infamous "Perfect Storm" of Oct. 30, 1991, that killed six fishermen, WHDH noted.
Sandy was expected to move past the Bahamas by Friday evening and head north off the U.S. coast.
Related: PhotoBlog looks at Cuba, Haiti damage
Related: Northeast utilities gear up for storm Related: Damage could be worse than Irene, experts say Related: New England fears repeat of 2011 Halloween storm
Sandy is forecast to remain a Category 1 hurricane as it continues to move over the Bahamas on Friday, sending swirling rains and winds across several hundred miles.
The Bahamas Electricity Corp., which supplies power to most of the Bahamas, said Sandy had caused power outages on several islands.
NBC News' Marry Murray, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Chimpanzee innovations may be low tech by human standards, but they get the job done and are gradually improving and spreading, a new study co-authored by famed primatologist Jane Goodall suggests.
The study, published in the latest issue of Current Anthropology, presents the first documented case of successful transmission of a novel cultural behavior ? ant fishing ? between wild chimpanzee communities.
"Ant fishing in this case is using twigs, leaf midribs or grass probes to extract carpenter ants from their nests in living trees or dead wood," lead author Robert O'Malley, an assistant professor of anthropology at Kenyon College, told Discovery News.
Chimps trim their twig tools at the end, with side twigs and excess bark often removed, he added.
NEWS: Ape 'Genius' Smarter Than the Average Chimp
A clever and popular female chimp named Trezia somehow figured out this technique. Trezia, from the Mitumba chimp community of Gombe National Park, was transferred to the park's Kasekela chimpanzee community, where ant fishing is now all the rage among females around her age.
"Trezia ascended the Kasekela hierarchy more quickly than most immigrants, who often remain a bit peripheral in the community after emigrating, and she was not skittish around other chimpanzees," O'Malley said. "All this suggests she would have been a viable model for younger cohorts."
The Kasekela chimps had a win-win because, in addition to gaining smart Trezia, they also had the perfect classroom to learn from her: a relaxing spot called Hilltop.
"Kasekela chimpanzees tend to take a siesta at Hilltop for a few minutes or a few hours when they pass through the area, so it provides a relaxed social context and perhaps a good learning environment," explained O'Malley.
"There is very little undergrowth so visibility is very good," he said. "Most importantly, there are multiple fishing sites in visual proximity, including at least one Camponotus (type of ant) nest in a particular place at Hilltop."
NEWS: Smart Chimp Gets Speech Like a Human
Females tend to be the chimp versions of Bill Gates or the late Steve Jobs when it comes to innovations, however low-tech. That's just because "in chimpanzees, females are the sex that will typically disperse from their natal group at sexual maturity, so any cultural transmission between communities is most likely to occur through female transfer."
Science news from NBCNews.com
Scientists?pay tribute to?Lady Gaga with ferns
Science editor Alan Boyle's blog: Lady Gaga is already a huge name in the music world, but now she's a scientific name as well ? thanks to fans who named an entire genus of ferns after the pop star.
Meet the rookies in the Robot Hall of Fame
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Trezia is only the latest chimp to gain fame and food fortune among her own kind. A proficient nut-cracking female chimp in Liberia might have spread her know-how to others.
Then there is Imo, a Japanese macaque who learned to wash sweet potatoes.
"Imo also learned to throw scattered rice grains into the sea to separate them from sand, and a few other tricks as well," O'Malley said, adding that others within her own group observed her success and soon copied her methods.
Males also come up with their own useful techniques that appear to spread within their groups. A dramatic example concerns a male chimp living in Bossou, Guinea. He learned to deactivate snares, rescuing other chimps and setting off others before they harmed animals.
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Vernon Reynolds, a primate expert who serves as an adviser at the Budongo Forest Research Project, told Discovery News that while the Bossou findings are "exceptional ... our chimps at Budongo make alarm calls at snares and also, on one occasion at least, our alpha male removed a snare from an adult female."
While chimpanzees in protected parks are better able to spread their knowledge, humans are sadly hurting the overall ability of these fellow primates to improve their lot in life through shared innovations.
"The many chimpanzee communities across Africa that have already disappeared have taken any unique cultural patterns of behavior with them," O'Malley said. "As the remaining populations become more isolated, there will be fewer opportunities for individuals to transfer between communities, which limits opportunities for both gene flow and for cultural diffusion."
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Public release date: 31-Oct-2012
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