NIH Human Microbiome Project defines normal bacterial makeup of the body

Public release date: 13-Jun-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Raymond MacDougall
macdougallr@mail.nih.gov
301-402-0911
NIH/National Human Genome Research Institute

Genome sequencing creates first reference data for microbes living with healthy adults

Microbes inhabit just about every part of the human body, living on the skin, in the gut, and up the nose. Sometimes they cause sickness, but most of the time, microorganisms live in harmony with their human hosts, providing vital functions essential for human survival. For the first time, a consortium of researchers organized by the National Institutes of Health has mapped the normal microbial make-up of healthy humans, producing numerous insights and even a few surprises.

Researchers found, for example, that nearly everyone routinely carries pathogens, microorganisms known to cause illnesses. In healthy individuals, however, pathogens cause no disease; they simply coexist with their host and the rest of the human microbiome, the collection of all microorganisms living in the human body. Researchers must now figure out why some pathogens turn deadly and under what conditions, likely revising current concepts of how microorganisms cause disease.

In a series of coordinated scientific reports published on June 14, 2012, in Nature and several journals in the Public Library of Science (PLoS), some 200 members of the Human Microbiome Project (HMP) Consortium from nearly 80 universities and scientific institutions report on five years of research. HMP has received $153 million since its launch in fiscal year 2007 from the NIH Common Fund, which invests in high-impact, innovative, trans-NIH research. Individual NIH institutes and centers have provided an additional $20 million in co-funding for HMP consortium research.

"Like 15th century explorers describing the outline of a new continent, HMP researchers employed a new technological strategy to define, for the first time, the normal microbial makeup of the human body," said NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D. "HMP created a remarkable reference database by using genome sequencing techniques to detect microbes in healthy volunteers. This lays the foundation for accelerating infectious disease research previously impossible without this community resource."

METHODS AND RESULTS

The human body contains trillions of microorganismsoutnumbering human cells by 10 to 1. Because of their small size, however, microorganisms make up only about 1 to 3 percent of the body's mass (in a 200-pound adult, that's 2 to 6 pounds of bacteria), but play a vital role in human health.

To define the normal human microbiome, HMP researchers sampled 242 healthy U.S. volunteers (129 male, 113 female), collecting tissues from 15 body sites in men and 18 body sites in women. Researchers collected up to three samples from each volunteer at sites such as the mouth, nose, skin (two behind each ear and each inner elbow), and lower intestine (stool), and three vaginal sites in women; each body site can be inhabited by organisms as different as those in the Amazon Rainforest and the Sahara Desert.

Historically, doctors studied microorganisms in their patients by isolating pathogens and growing them in culture. This painstaking process typically identifies only a few microbial species, as they are hard to grow in the laboratory. In HMP, researchers purified all human and microbial DNA in each of more than 5,000 samples and analyzed them with DNA sequencing machines. Using computers, researchers sorted through the 3.5 terabases of genome sequence data to identify specific genetic signals found only in bacteria the variable genes of bacterial ribosomal RNA called 16S rRNA. Bacterial ribosomal RNA helps form the cellular structures that manufacture protein and can identify the presence of different microbial species.

Focusing on this microbial signature allowed HMP researchers to ignore the human genome sequences and analyze only the bacterial DNA. In addition, metagenomic sequencing, or sequencing all of the DNA in a microbial community, allowed the researchers to study the metabolic capabilities encoded in the genes of these microbial communities.

"Recently developed genome sequencing methods now provide a powerful lens for looking at the human microbiome," said Eric D. Green, M.D., Ph.D., director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, which managed HMP for NIH. "The astonishing drop in the cost of sequencing DNA has made possible the kind of large survey performed by the Human Microbiome Project."

Where doctors had previously isolated only a few hundred bacterial species from the body, HMP researchers now calculate that more than 10,000 microbial species occupy the human ecosystem. Moreover, researchers calculate that they have identified between 81 and 99 percent of all microorganismal genera in healthy adults.

"We have defined the boundaries of normal microbial variation in humans," said James M. Anderson, M.D., Ph.D., director of the NIH Division of Program Coordination, Planning and Strategic Initiatives, which includes the NIH Common Fund. "We now have a very good idea of what is normal for a healthy Western population and are beginning to learn how changes in the microbiome correlate with physiology and disease."

HMP researchers also reported that this plethora of microbes contribute more genes responsible for human survival than humans contribute. Where the human genome carries some 22,000 protein-coding genes, researchers estimate that the human microbiome contributes some 8 million unique protein-coding genes or 360 times more bacterial genes than human genes.

This bacterial genomic contribution is critical for human survival. Genes carried by bacteria in the gastro-intestinal tract, for example, allow humans to digest foods and absorb nutrients that otherwise would be unavailable.

"Humans don't have all the enzymes we need to digest our own diet," said Lita Proctor, Ph.D., NHGRI's HMP program manager. "Microbes in the gut break down many of the proteins, lipids and carbohydrates in our diet into nutrients that we can then absorb. Moreover, the microbes produce beneficial compounds, like vitamins and anti-inflammatories that our genome cannot produce." Anti-inflammatories are compounds that regulate some of the immune system's response to disease, such as swelling.

Researchers were surprised to discover that the distribution of microbial metabolic activities matters more than the species of microbes providing them. In the healthy gut, for example, there will always be a population of bacteria needed to help digest fats, but it may not always be the same bacterial species carrying out this job.

"It appears that bacteria can pinch hit for each other," said Curtis Huttenhower, Ph.D., of Harvard School of Public Health and lead co-author for one of the HMP papers in Nature. "It matters whether the metabolic function is present, not which microbial species provides it."

Moreover, the components of the human microbiome clearly change over time. When a patient is sick or takes antibiotics, the species that makeup of the microbiome may shift substantially as one bacterial species or another is affected. Eventually, however, the microbiome returns to a state of equilibrium, even if the previous composition of bacterial types does not.

CLINICAL APPLICATIONS

As a part of HMP, NIH funded a number of studies to look for associations of the microbiome with diseases and several PLoS papers include medical results. For example, researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston compared changes in the vaginal microbiome of 24 pregnant women with 60 women who were not pregnant and found that the vaginal microbiome undergoes a dramatic shift in bacterial species in preparation for birth, principally characterized by decreased species diversity. A newborn is a bacterial sponge as it populates its own microbiome after leaving the sterile womb; passage through the birth canal gives the baby its first dose of microbes, so it may not be surprising that the vaginal microbiome evolved to make it a healthy passage.

Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis examined the nasal microbiome of children with unexplained fevers, a common problem in children under 3 years of age. Nasal samples from the feverish children contained up to five-fold more viral DNA than children without fever, and the viral DNA was from a wider range of species. Previous studies show that viruses have ideal temperature ranges in which to reproduce. Fevers are part of the body's defense against pathogenic viruses, so rapid tests for viral load may help children avoid inappropriate treatment with antibiotics that do not kill the viruses but may harm the child's healthy microbiome.

These are among the earliest clinical studies using microbiome data to study its role in specific illnesses. NIH has funded many more medical studies using HMP data and techniques, including the role of the gut microbiome in Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis and esophageal cancer; skin microbiome in psoriasis, atopic dermatitis and immunodeficiency; urogenital microbiome in reproductive and sexual history and circumcision; and a number of childhood disorders, including pediatric abdominal pain, intestinal inflammation, and a severe condition in premature infants in which the intestine actually dies.

"Enabling disease-specific studies is the whole point of the Human Microbiome Project," said Barbara Meth, Ph.D., of the J. Craig Venter Institute, Rockville, MD, and lead co-author of the Nature paper on the framework for current and future human microbiome research. "Now that we understand what the normal human microbiome looks like, we should be able to understand how changes in the microbiome are associated with, or even cause, illnesses."

The NIH Common Fund also invested in a series of studies to evaluate the ethical, legal and social implications of microbiome research. While the results of these studies are yet to be published, a number of important issues already have been identified, ranging from how products designed to manipulate the microbiome -- such as probiotic concoctions that include live microorganism believed to benefit the body -- might be regulated, to whether individuals should begin to consider storing their microbiome while healthy.

###

After NIH launched HMP in December 2007, the International Human Microbiome Consortium formed in 2008 to represent funding organizations, including NIH, and scientists from around the world interested in studying the human microbiome. The consortium has coordinated research to avoid duplication of effort and insured rapid release of molecular and clinical data sets. It also has developed common data quality standards and tools to share research results.

As with other large-scale collaborative efforts, NIH ensured that the research community could freely access HMP data through public databases, such as the National Center for Biotechnology Information (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genomeprj/43021?report=HMP), part of the National Library of Medicine, and at the HMP Data Analysis and Coordinating Center (http://www.hmpdacc.org/).

The Human Microbiome Project is managed by National Human Genome Research Institute, in partnership with the NIH Office of the Director, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, and National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, all part of NIH.

More information about HMP can be found at http://commonfund.nih.gov/hmp/index.aspx. An illustration showing the body sites that were sampled as part of the Human Microbiome Project healthy cohort study is available at: www.genome.gov/pressDisplay.cfm?photoID=20163.

A high-resolution image of the bacterium, Enterococcus faecalis, one of many commensal microbes that live in the human gut, is available in color at www.genome.gov/pressDisplay.cfm?photoID=20023, or in black and white at www.genome.gov/pressDisplay.cfm?photoID=20024.

NHGRI is one of the 27 institutes and centers at the NIH, an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. The NHGRI Division of Extramural Research supports grants for research and training and career development at sites nationwide. Additional information about NHGRI can be found at its website, www.genome.gov.

The NIH Common Fund supports a series of exceptionally high impact research programs that are broadly relevant to health and disease. Common Fund programs are designed to overcome major research barriers and pursue emerging opportunities for the benefit of the biomedical research community at large. The research products of Common Fund programs are expected to catalyze disease-specific research supported by the NIH Institutes and Centers. Additional information about the NIH Common Fund can be found at http://commonfund.nih.gov.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 institutes and centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

For more information, contact

Raymond MacDougall, NHGRI
301-402-0911
macdougallr@mail.nih.gov

Trish Reynolds, NIAMS
301-496-8190
Reynoldsp2@mail.nih.gov

Bob Kuska, NIDCR
301-594-7560
kuskar@nidcr.nih.gov

Leslie Curtis, NIDDK
301-496-3583
niddkmedia@mail.nih.gov

NIAID News Office
301-402-1663
niaidnews@niaid.nih.gov

NIH Office of Strategic Coordination/DPCPSI
301-435-5840
weis@mail.nih.gov

NIH Office of Communications
301-496-5787
nihnmb@mail.nih.gov

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 13-Jun-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Raymond MacDougall
macdougallr@mail.nih.gov
301-402-0911
NIH/National Human Genome Research Institute

Genome sequencing creates first reference data for microbes living with healthy adults

Microbes inhabit just about every part of the human body, living on the skin, in the gut, and up the nose. Sometimes they cause sickness, but most of the time, microorganisms live in harmony with their human hosts, providing vital functions essential for human survival. For the first time, a consortium of researchers organized by the National Institutes of Health has mapped the normal microbial make-up of healthy humans, producing numerous insights and even a few surprises.

Researchers found, for example, that nearly everyone routinely carries pathogens, microorganisms known to cause illnesses. In healthy individuals, however, pathogens cause no disease; they simply coexist with their host and the rest of the human microbiome, the collection of all microorganisms living in the human body. Researchers must now figure out why some pathogens turn deadly and under what conditions, likely revising current concepts of how microorganisms cause disease.

In a series of coordinated scientific reports published on June 14, 2012, in Nature and several journals in the Public Library of Science (PLoS), some 200 members of the Human Microbiome Project (HMP) Consortium from nearly 80 universities and scientific institutions report on five years of research. HMP has received $153 million since its launch in fiscal year 2007 from the NIH Common Fund, which invests in high-impact, innovative, trans-NIH research. Individual NIH institutes and centers have provided an additional $20 million in co-funding for HMP consortium research.

"Like 15th century explorers describing the outline of a new continent, HMP researchers employed a new technological strategy to define, for the first time, the normal microbial makeup of the human body," said NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D. "HMP created a remarkable reference database by using genome sequencing techniques to detect microbes in healthy volunteers. This lays the foundation for accelerating infectious disease research previously impossible without this community resource."

METHODS AND RESULTS

The human body contains trillions of microorganismsoutnumbering human cells by 10 to 1. Because of their small size, however, microorganisms make up only about 1 to 3 percent of the body's mass (in a 200-pound adult, that's 2 to 6 pounds of bacteria), but play a vital role in human health.

To define the normal human microbiome, HMP researchers sampled 242 healthy U.S. volunteers (129 male, 113 female), collecting tissues from 15 body sites in men and 18 body sites in women. Researchers collected up to three samples from each volunteer at sites such as the mouth, nose, skin (two behind each ear and each inner elbow), and lower intestine (stool), and three vaginal sites in women; each body site can be inhabited by organisms as different as those in the Amazon Rainforest and the Sahara Desert.

Historically, doctors studied microorganisms in their patients by isolating pathogens and growing them in culture. This painstaking process typically identifies only a few microbial species, as they are hard to grow in the laboratory. In HMP, researchers purified all human and microbial DNA in each of more than 5,000 samples and analyzed them with DNA sequencing machines. Using computers, researchers sorted through the 3.5 terabases of genome sequence data to identify specific genetic signals found only in bacteria the variable genes of bacterial ribosomal RNA called 16S rRNA. Bacterial ribosomal RNA helps form the cellular structures that manufacture protein and can identify the presence of different microbial species.

Focusing on this microbial signature allowed HMP researchers to ignore the human genome sequences and analyze only the bacterial DNA. In addition, metagenomic sequencing, or sequencing all of the DNA in a microbial community, allowed the researchers to study the metabolic capabilities encoded in the genes of these microbial communities.

"Recently developed genome sequencing methods now provide a powerful lens for looking at the human microbiome," said Eric D. Green, M.D., Ph.D., director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, which managed HMP for NIH. "The astonishing drop in the cost of sequencing DNA has made possible the kind of large survey performed by the Human Microbiome Project."

Where doctors had previously isolated only a few hundred bacterial species from the body, HMP researchers now calculate that more than 10,000 microbial species occupy the human ecosystem. Moreover, researchers calculate that they have identified between 81 and 99 percent of all microorganismal genera in healthy adults.

"We have defined the boundaries of normal microbial variation in humans," said James M. Anderson, M.D., Ph.D., director of the NIH Division of Program Coordination, Planning and Strategic Initiatives, which includes the NIH Common Fund. "We now have a very good idea of what is normal for a healthy Western population and are beginning to learn how changes in the microbiome correlate with physiology and disease."

HMP researchers also reported that this plethora of microbes contribute more genes responsible for human survival than humans contribute. Where the human genome carries some 22,000 protein-coding genes, researchers estimate that the human microbiome contributes some 8 million unique protein-coding genes or 360 times more bacterial genes than human genes.

This bacterial genomic contribution is critical for human survival. Genes carried by bacteria in the gastro-intestinal tract, for example, allow humans to digest foods and absorb nutrients that otherwise would be unavailable.

"Humans don't have all the enzymes we need to digest our own diet," said Lita Proctor, Ph.D., NHGRI's HMP program manager. "Microbes in the gut break down many of the proteins, lipids and carbohydrates in our diet into nutrients that we can then absorb. Moreover, the microbes produce beneficial compounds, like vitamins and anti-inflammatories that our genome cannot produce." Anti-inflammatories are compounds that regulate some of the immune system's response to disease, such as swelling.

Researchers were surprised to discover that the distribution of microbial metabolic activities matters more than the species of microbes providing them. In the healthy gut, for example, there will always be a population of bacteria needed to help digest fats, but it may not always be the same bacterial species carrying out this job.

"It appears that bacteria can pinch hit for each other," said Curtis Huttenhower, Ph.D., of Harvard School of Public Health and lead co-author for one of the HMP papers in Nature. "It matters whether the metabolic function is present, not which microbial species provides it."

Moreover, the components of the human microbiome clearly change over time. When a patient is sick or takes antibiotics, the species that makeup of the microbiome may shift substantially as one bacterial species or another is affected. Eventually, however, the microbiome returns to a state of equilibrium, even if the previous composition of bacterial types does not.

CLINICAL APPLICATIONS

As a part of HMP, NIH funded a number of studies to look for associations of the microbiome with diseases and several PLoS papers include medical results. For example, researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston compared changes in the vaginal microbiome of 24 pregnant women with 60 women who were not pregnant and found that the vaginal microbiome undergoes a dramatic shift in bacterial species in preparation for birth, principally characterized by decreased species diversity. A newborn is a bacterial sponge as it populates its own microbiome after leaving the sterile womb; passage through the birth canal gives the baby its first dose of microbes, so it may not be surprising that the vaginal microbiome evolved to make it a healthy passage.

Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis examined the nasal microbiome of children with unexplained fevers, a common problem in children under 3 years of age. Nasal samples from the feverish children contained up to five-fold more viral DNA than children without fever, and the viral DNA was from a wider range of species. Previous studies show that viruses have ideal temperature ranges in which to reproduce. Fevers are part of the body's defense against pathogenic viruses, so rapid tests for viral load may help children avoid inappropriate treatment with antibiotics that do not kill the viruses but may harm the child's healthy microbiome.

These are among the earliest clinical studies using microbiome data to study its role in specific illnesses. NIH has funded many more medical studies using HMP data and techniques, including the role of the gut microbiome in Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis and esophageal cancer; skin microbiome in psoriasis, atopic dermatitis and immunodeficiency; urogenital microbiome in reproductive and sexual history and circumcision; and a number of childhood disorders, including pediatric abdominal pain, intestinal inflammation, and a severe condition in premature infants in which the intestine actually dies.

"Enabling disease-specific studies is the whole point of the Human Microbiome Project," said Barbara Meth, Ph.D., of the J. Craig Venter Institute, Rockville, MD, and lead co-author of the Nature paper on the framework for current and future human microbiome research. "Now that we understand what the normal human microbiome looks like, we should be able to understand how changes in the microbiome are associated with, or even cause, illnesses."

The NIH Common Fund also invested in a series of studies to evaluate the ethical, legal and social implications of microbiome research. While the results of these studies are yet to be published, a number of important issues already have been identified, ranging from how products designed to manipulate the microbiome -- such as probiotic concoctions that include live microorganism believed to benefit the body -- might be regulated, to whether individuals should begin to consider storing their microbiome while healthy.

###

After NIH launched HMP in December 2007, the International Human Microbiome Consortium formed in 2008 to represent funding organizations, including NIH, and scientists from around the world interested in studying the human microbiome. The consortium has coordinated research to avoid duplication of effort and insured rapid release of molecular and clinical data sets. It also has developed common data quality standards and tools to share research results.

As with other large-scale collaborative efforts, NIH ensured that the research community could freely access HMP data through public databases, such as the National Center for Biotechnology Information (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genomeprj/43021?report=HMP), part of the National Library of Medicine, and at the HMP Data Analysis and Coordinating Center (http://www.hmpdacc.org/).

The Human Microbiome Project is managed by National Human Genome Research Institute, in partnership with the NIH Office of the Director, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, and National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, all part of NIH.

More information about HMP can be found at http://commonfund.nih.gov/hmp/index.aspx. An illustration showing the body sites that were sampled as part of the Human Microbiome Project healthy cohort study is available at: www.genome.gov/pressDisplay.cfm?photoID=20163.

A high-resolution image of the bacterium, Enterococcus faecalis, one of many commensal microbes that live in the human gut, is available in color at www.genome.gov/pressDisplay.cfm?photoID=20023, or in black and white at www.genome.gov/pressDisplay.cfm?photoID=20024.

NHGRI is one of the 27 institutes and centers at the NIH, an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. The NHGRI Division of Extramural Research supports grants for research and training and career development at sites nationwide. Additional information about NHGRI can be found at its website, www.genome.gov.

The NIH Common Fund supports a series of exceptionally high impact research programs that are broadly relevant to health and disease. Common Fund programs are designed to overcome major research barriers and pursue emerging opportunities for the benefit of the biomedical research community at large. The research products of Common Fund programs are expected to catalyze disease-specific research supported by the NIH Institutes and Centers. Additional information about the NIH Common Fund can be found at http://commonfund.nih.gov.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 institutes and centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

For more information, contact

Raymond MacDougall, NHGRI
301-402-0911
macdougallr@mail.nih.gov

Trish Reynolds, NIAMS
301-496-8190
Reynoldsp2@mail.nih.gov

Bob Kuska, NIDCR
301-594-7560
kuskar@nidcr.nih.gov

Leslie Curtis, NIDDK
301-496-3583
niddkmedia@mail.nih.gov

NIAID News Office
301-402-1663
niaidnews@niaid.nih.gov

NIH Office of Strategic Coordination/DPCPSI
301-435-5840
weis@mail.nih.gov

NIH Office of Communications
301-496-5787
nihnmb@mail.nih.gov

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

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Any.DO (for Chrome)

To-do list fanatics, such as me, drool over good apps that sync seamlessly across multiple devices. Any.DO (free), which has apps for Android and iPhone, puts your daily tasks on more screens with a browser plug-in for Chrome. The extension syncs without a hitch and looks clean, but lacks any special features. Tasks themselves support reminders, additional notes, and a red label for high priority items, but settings and customization are nil.

For to-do list apps on iPhone, I've become a huge fan of Awesome Note ($3.99, 4 stars), which does not have a desktop app or browser plug-in at all. I wish it did, but I can live without it primarily because Awesome Note can sync both to and from Evernote , our Editors' Choice for note syncing, which has apps for practically any device? you can name. That alternative solution is pretty good, though I'd still love to see Awesome Note on my desktop monitor. Some might say Microsoft OneNote accomplishes the task, but it operates more like Evernote in that it's more set up for notes than to-do lists.

Any.DO serves basic to-do list needs reasonably well, but just doesn't have anything special that might entice list makers to use it. In some ways Any.DO for Chrome reminds me of the iPhone app Clear (free, 2 stars), another to-do list that looks pretty and functions fine, but doesn't meet the needs of its users.

Any.DO Features
Install the free Chrome extension for Any.DO, and it will appear in the upper right corner of your browser as a tiny icon: a blue label with check mark. To make syncing possible, Any.DO requires either a uniquely made account or Facebook authentication. And that's the set up in its entirety.

You can create to-do list items, with annoying suggested autocompletes dropping down as you type, as well as folders to house them. The app comes readymade with a few samples of each to help guide you through the main capabilities and features. Beneath the icon hides a succinct display: options for showing your to-do list by time or by folder, a "clear completed tasks" button, a settings icon, and a button for popping out the app to its own window.

The settings icon contains nothing but a log-out option. The pop-out key does its job, but you can't resize the new Window it creates. Any.DO's developers have left themselves room on the menu pane, and it wouldn't surprise me if they rounded it out with more options in the coming months. As-is, however, it looks dreadfully incomplete.

Better options start showing up within the tasks you create. To any task, you can add notes either as a block of text or line by line. You can also change the priority of the item, although you're limited here to a red label or none at all, with no gradations. Reminders, when added to a task, pop up on the lower right corner of the screen, where you'd expect them. Reminders do sync across to your mobile device, so if you set an alarm in Chrome, it will buzz on your iPhone or Android phone as well? as long as the phone app has a chance to sync, that is.

Needs Work
Any.DO for Chrome barely covers the bases, and doesn't add anything to its browser presence to entice a to-do list maker to use it. The concept?syncing via a browser rather than a desktop app?is sound, but more work is needed in terms of understanding users.

More Productivity App Reviews:
??? Any.DO (for iPhone)
??? Any.DO (for Chrome)
??? RescueTime Solo Pro
??? Slife (Premium)
??? Google Drive
?? more

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Samsung SCX-5639FR

Aimed squarely at a micro- to mid-size office, and potentially useful in a busy home office with heavy duty needs, the Samsung SCX-5639FR ($550 street) offers at least one feature that most mono laser MFPs don't: a duplexing automatic document feeder (ADF) that lets you scan both sides of a page. If you have to scan or copy two-sided documents very often, that alone goes a long way towards making it a highly attractive choice.

Not too surprisingly, the SCX-5639FR ?is similar to, but a step up from the Samsung SCX-4835FR ($450, 2.5 stars) that I recently reviewed. It offers a slightly faster engine rating, at 37, rather than 33, pages per minute (ppm), but it's really a variation on a theme, suitable for slightly more heavy duty use.

Like the SCX-4835FR , the SCX-5639FR is too big to share a desk with comfortably, at 17.6 by 18.5 by 17.2 (HWD) inches, and it may be a little hard to find room for in a home office. However it's small enough to fit easily in most micro or small offices, and it's easy to share on a network, thanks to the Ethernet connection.

Basic MFP features for the SCX-5639FR include the ability to print from, fax from, and scan to a PC, even over a network, as well as work as a standalone copier and fax machine. It can also both print from and scan to a USB memory key. As with most MFPs, it offers a letter-size flatbed, with the 50-page ADF letting you scan up to legal size pages. Note, however, that although the duplexing ADF will let you copy both single and double sided originals to your choice of single or double sided copies, sending faxes is limited to single sided scans only.

Paper capacity is suitable for most micro and small offices, with a 250-sheet paper tray, a 50-sheet multipurpose tray for easy printing on different types of paper, and a built-in duplexer (for printing on both sides of the page). For those who need more, Samsung sells an optional 520-sheet tray ($200 street) for a total capacity of 820 sheets.

Setup, Speed, and Output Quality
Setting up the SCX-5639FR was absolutely standard. For my tests, I connected it directly to a network and installed the driver and software on a Windows Vista system. On our business applications suite (timed with QualityLogic's hardware and software), it came in at an effective 9.7 ppm, which is a reasonable, but not impressive, speed for the 37 ppm engine rating. In comparison, the Editors' Choice Brother MFC-8480DN ($400 street, 4 stars), rated at 32 ppm, managed a 10.6 ppm effective speed.

Output quality is just a touch below par overall for a monochrome laser MFP, but only because graphics quality and photo quality are both at the bottom of a tight range where the vast majority of mono laser MFPs fall.

Text quality in my tests was easily good enough for any business need short of serious desktop publishing applications. Graphics, similarly, were good enough for any internal business need. Depending on how much of a perfectionist you are, you may or may not consider them good enough for PowerPoint handouts or other material going to potential clients or customers. Photo quality was more than good enough to print recognizable photos from Web pages. Here again, depending on your level of perfectionism, you may or may not consider the photos good enough for a client newsletter or the like.

The best argument for this printer is that it scores reasonably well in all the areas that are most important for mono laser MFPs, with a well-balanced mix of text quality, print speed, paper handling, and MFP functions. It even claims a reasonable running cost, at 2.0 cents per page. The combination adds up to making the Samsung SCX-5639FR a capable MFP and a more than reasonable choice. If you can take good advantage of the duplexing ADF, it can even be an attractive choice.

More Multi-function Printer Reviews:
??? Samsung SCX-5639FR
??? HP Officejet 4620 e-All-in-One
??? Epson WorkForce Pro WP-4533
??? Epson WorkForce Pro WP-4590
??? HP Officejet 6600 e-All-in-One
?? more

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Safety Fears at CDC Bioterror Lab

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the federal agency charged with preventing the spread of infectious diseases has come under attack today for "serious" airflow problems in an Atlanta building that houses anthrax, SARS and monkeypox.

Documents and emails obtained by USA Today suggest that a poorly engineered airflow system in the CDC's Building 18 could expose unprotected staff and visitors to dangerous airborne pathogens.

"As the door closed a very noticeable puff of air could be felt coming through the slit in the window out into the 'clean' corridor," CDC safety inspector Eddie Jackson wrote in a Feb. 16 email to a top safety official after feeling air flow out of a potentially contaminated lab and into a communal hallway. "Don't know whether this was a fluke or the norm, and the reason I'm commenting is one of the visitors seemed concerned and has been talking about it since we've come back."

The documents suggest a breach in biosafety regulations, imposed nationwide by the CDC itself, that dictate labs housing the most dangerous inhalable infectious agents must be maintained under "negative pressure."

"This means that the pressure inside the room is less than the pressure outside the room, so that all air will flow in; none will flow out," said ABC News' chief health and medical editor Dr. Richard Besser.

Besser, who is the former head of the CDC's Coordinating Office for Terrorism Preparedness and Emergency Response, said airflow systems serve as a final safeguard, keeping dangerous germs confined to labs where workers are properly protected by gear that may include gloves, laboratory clothing and respirators.

No one was infected during the Feb. 16 incident, USA Today reported. But the scare is the latest in a string of safety problems plaguing Building 18, the agency's seven-year-old, $214 million Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory.

In 2007, backup generators failed to keep airflow systems working during a power outage. And in 2008, the door to a lab housing Coxiella Burnetii was found to be sealed with duct tape after a ventilation system malfunction. Nine workers were tested for the bacterium, which causes Q fever, but none were infected.

"This is yet another incident that calls into question the CDC's self-inspection policy," Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., told Congress at the time, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "I highly doubt that the CDC would accept duct-taped doors on the privately owned bio labs it inspects."

Besser agreed the airflow problem, and the apparent failure of CDC officials to respond quickly and effectively to staff concerns, highlights the problem of self-inspection.

"Laboratory safety is not an area where you want to have this much self-policing," he said. "There is clearly an appearance of conflict of interest in having the inspection program at CDC given the number of laboratories housed within the agency."

In an April 9 email to top CDC officials, including director Thomas Frieden, Kismet Scarborough, a high-containment lab manager for the CDC's Animal Resources Branch, wrote the CDC "will do anything ? to hide the fact that we have serious problems with the airflow and containment in this whole building," USA Today reported.

Minutes from a February 2010 meeting suggest the agency knew it would fail its own inspection.

"Bottom line is we can't continue to operate the building the way it is," said CDC safety manager William Howard, according to minutes obtained by USA Today. "If (a lab inspector) finds out air is moving this direction they will shut this place down."

The CDC did not immediately respond to ABC News requests for comment.

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Mexico City's main plaza jammed for Bieber concert

MEXICO CITY (AP) ? Thousands of "tween" girls jammed a vast square with their parents and screamed in unison throughout teen superstar Justin Bieber's free concert Monday night, an event that was expected to draw 200,000 people to the historic center of Mexico's capital.

Bieber opened with his hit song "Baby," while his adoring fans filling the city's main plaza sang along or shouted "Justin! Justin! Justin!"

"Mexico City, there is a lot of people today!" Bieber told the crowd. "Every one of you is my biggest fan."

Dressed in white jeans and a gray sweatshirt that he took off to reveal a white T-shirt, the singer wore neon yellow tennis shoes and was accompanied by five dancers in neon colors. Four giant screens showed parts of his music videos to the crowd of mainly girls and their parents, who braved a light, intermittent rain during the concert.

The crowd went wild when Bieber asked a fan onto the stage, gave her a bouquet of flowers and sang "One Less Lonely Girl" into her ear. The girl didn't stop crying.

The gray and reddish stones of the plaza were covered in a sea of purple as the mainly 10- to 14-year-old crowd paid homage to what is reported to be Bieber's favorite color.

After singing a couple of songs while playing an acoustic guitar, Bieber changed into an all- black outfit and sang some of his more energetic songs, including "Somebody To Love."

At a news conference before the concert, the teen star said there is no artist he would spend days in line waiting for.

"There is no one I admire so much to do something crazy, but if Michael Jackson were here, I would do it for him. So, I do understand the emotion that the girls feel and that makes me feel very honored," Bieber said.

Hundreds at the Zocalo, which was filled to capacity, had to cover themselves in plastic rain capes sold by vendors who came prepared for a rainy evening.

Mariana Villanueva, 12, traveled from the western city of Guadalajara for her idol's concert. She was near the stage, where she said she almost fainted because people kept squeezing her.

"It was worth it!" Villanueva said. "I have no words; it was magnificent!"

The concert closed with fireworks and confetti spewing from the stage.

Earlier, girls shuffled through security checkpoints with hats and umbrellas, staking claim to some of the roughly 80,000 spots allocated in the plaza itself. An additional 120,000 or more fans were expected to watch on giant TV screens erected on nearby streets.

Fernanda Gutierrez Aparicio, a 13-year-old seventh grader at a local middle school, said she spent a week camping out with her mother on a nearby street in hopes of being among the first to enter. She said they returned home only to bathe and look after Fernanda's 15-year-old sister, who recently had surgery.

But her mother, Adriana Martinez, 41, gave up on trying to get her daughter into the front rows because of the press of other fans.

"I was really disappointed. When we got up front, people were crushing you, not letting you breathe," Martinez said. Even hours before the concert, "People were jostling each other and it got to the point that you couldn't move."

To Fernanda, it was all worth it ? even missing the week of classes leading up to the two-hour concert that was to open with "3BallMTY" and Canadian singer Carly Rae Jepsen.

"I told my teacher that I wasn't going to school and not to expect me in class for a few days, because I was going to be out supporting my idol," Fernanda said.

Fernanda most wanted to hear Bieber sing "That Should Be Me," which pretty much reflects her feelings about the Canadian singer.

"I want to be Selena Gomez, to be with him," she cooed, referring to Bieber's girlfriend.

Authorities said they would have more than 5,000 police on hand, partly to prevent the sort of crush that injured 40 Bieber fans at a free concert in Oslo, Norway, in late May.

"Most of the fans will be between 10 and 17 years old. There will be a lot of girls," said Hector Antunano, a city official. "We are being very careful that the majority of the police are women and we are taking precautions so that there is no rush toward the stage."

Karina Gutierrez, a 13-year-old who uses a wheelchair, was disappointed with the spot authorities assigned to youngsters with disabilities.

She was the first fan to arrive in the special area that was set aside in one of the corners of the plaza, far from the stage.

"Visibility is not very clear from here," Gutierrez said.

She missed school and her parents didn't go to work so the whole family could attend the concert. Gutierrez arrived to the capital Monday morning with her parents and two brothers from the city of Toluca, about 45 miles (70 kilometers) from the capital.

"They wanted to see him from up close," said Gutierrez's father, Juan Manuel Salinas. "It's not fair that they are so far back."

The Zocalo is ringed by some of the most historic structures in the hemisphere: Mexico's Metropolitan Cathedral, the National Palace and the partially excavated remains of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan.

The plaza was created by the Aztecs in 1325 and was redrawn after the Spanish conquest of 1521. Bieber's performance emptied the sprawling square of its normal population, heavy on tourists, street vendors and political protesters, some of whom agreed grudgingly to clear space for the concert by abandoning an encampment there after negotiations with the city government.

A similar concert in the Zocalo last month by former Beatle Paul McCartney drew an estimated 230,000 people, including President Felipe Calderon. There was no word on whether the president would take his children to see Bieber.

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The Key To Successful Home Improvement Projects Is Paying ...

Not all home improvement tasks need to be huge. Smaller jobs can make a huge improvement your homes appearance. If the idea of making home improvements doesnt sound appealing to you, you should know you arent alone. Some common larger jobs may include ripping out walls, building a new porch, texturing walls, etc. One thing to remember is even the smallest of home improvement jobs will make a difference in the way your home looks. Keep this in mind whenever you have some free time. Many larger home improvement jobs are being put off my home owners due to the current economy. So we will discuss a few small home improvement jobs that you can still do, and no matter how small it is it will help.

You must always maintain your tools in a proper manner to keep them running. People like to buy high ticket tools for their workshop. But if you fail to take proper care of them you are often asking for trouble. Many injuries that occur when using power tools occur because of poor maintenance. If you have power saws, then you may already know what using a dull and old blade is like. The blade may break after using it for too long which is a safety hazard.. Not servicing your tools on a regular basis can lead to safety threats that you do not want to have. To make sure you are operating at secure levels all the time, always maintenance your tools.

Taking care of rags that you may have lying around on your floor or work area may not be very safe unless stored correctly.

Fire loading is an important fact you need to be aware of. Basically, if you have an excess amount of flammable materials in a single area, there is a higher probability of a fire. You need to remember to always store material soaked in flammable solvents so that it has little chance of becoming a danger. Finding something to store this material in, that is devoid of air, is your best choice.

Painting a room, such as the kitchen, bedroom, or living room, is one of the cheapest makeovers you can give a room. Painting is a job which needs to be done, so just get it over with. Paint fume protection is something to consider before starting a painting home improvement job. Inexpensive painters masks are always a good idea when working indoors. For anyone sensitive to fumes or with respiratory issues, get a better mask such as a filtering mask. A mask like this will have replaceable cartridges. Even the neatest of painters arent immune from paint splatter. Consider protecting your eyes. Safety goggles are inexpensive and the perfect way to protect your eyes. Shop for safety goggles at your favorite hardware supply. If you are not accustomed to thinking about safety at your regular job, then it is easy to simply not think about it. Yet, safety really should be at the top of your list. While taking extra safety precautions make cost you a few extra seconds of time, ultimately arent you worth it?

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Home Security ? Important Data to Help Protect Your Home and ...

Thankfully there are many different home security systems which is good because people will always need them. Throughout rough economic periods crime has been seen to rise, especially crime against homes. You can, however, improve the security of your home even if you?re on a tight budget. You can purchase complex and costly systems as well as smaller individual alarms, sensors and cameras. It really just depends on your needs and your budget. You can pay security companies to come and do all of the work for you. We?ll take a look at a few different solutions to ensure you get started properly.

Different people have different needs and preferences according to those needs. If you are taking a more hands-off attitude, buying a security unit for your dwelling might be the perfect response. In general, a complete security system that includes monitoring is cheaper in the long run. Still, the primary investment will be a lot more expensive and there is also installation costs as well. The advantages involve a superior selection of systems and consultations with professionals. Finding a security business who desires to give you inexpensive units and bad service is highly doubtful. Additionally, you can sign a monthly contract for being watched and use business that are local for responses that are immediate.

A number of people choose these option when doing everything by themselves. When you assemble your custom home security system you can choose what you want and also save some money. If you do decide to go alone on this you have to increase your knowledge of home security. You may decide on getting a security camera or two, and if you do you?ll have to choose what?s best for your property. The market is full of cameras suited for nearly all situations and price ranges. You will also need to become familiar with technology, too. You can buy lots of different types of cameras, like black and white, infra red and also color.

Protection is outstanding now that the advances in security have become partners with the World Wide Web. Although it depends on each house situation, a person can view the home by the way of a camera. Affirmative, there are places that also use the internet and you can then enter into your account to see the videotape from the camera. Certainly, this isn?t a total solution. However, if there are people at home, for example, you can quickly check on your premises from anywhere in the world, all you need is an internet connection.

If you are considering your first home security system, then find out all you can if you want to be involved. Otherwise, you can hire a security consultant business or other business that provides suggestions plus solutions.

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