Jamtronica titans The Disco Biscuits have added three new dates to their calendar, scheduling a three-night run at The Fillmore Philadelphia from February 2nd through the 4th. The group has been on fire of late, as limiting their performances to isolated multi-night runs has allowed the group to dive deeper into their catalog and explore new improvisational outlets.The run will be the Biscuits’ first shows of 2017, though the group isn’t done with 2016 just yet! Their annual Dominican Holidaze event is coming up at the beginning of December, as well as three nights at the Tabernacle in Atlanta for New Year’s. The hometown shows at the new Philly venue are sure to bring some heat during the coldest part of the year.Three day passes will go on sale via BiscoTix Today tomorrow, November 15th, at Noon ET. The full ticket on sale will take place this Friday, November 18th at Noon ET as well. You can find more information here, and see the artwork for the shows posted below.
4SHARESShareShareSharePrintMailGooglePinterestDiggRedditStumbleuponDeliciousBufferTumblr by: Brian O’ConnellDoes free checking matter to you when you choose a bank? Because increasingly, big banks just aren’t offering free checking accounts. Credit unions offer them at twice the rate — that is, 72% of U.S. credit unions offer free checking accounts, compared with 38% of big banks, Bankrate.com says.Additionally, 26% of credit unions (for a total of 98%) offer free checking if certain account benchmarks are met.It’s not all about free checking. Bankrate says most credit unions don’t have a minimum opening deposit requirement, and the average overdraft fee at smaller financial institutions is about $6 less than at large banks.“When evaluating checking accounts, consumers should definitely include credit unions in their search,” says Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate. “They have competitive offerings and many participate in large ATM networks that extend the credit union’s reach.”The biggest difference between a bank and credit union is the business objective, says Casey Bond, editorial director at GoBankingRates.com. “Banks are, in fact, businesses. Their main objective is to generate revenue and grow profits. Credit unions, on the other hand, exist to serve the financial needs of a particular group of people and are not-for-profit cooperatives,” Bond says. “Credit unions also need to turn a profit to keep operating, but the key difference is that money is returned back to members rather than executives and shareholders.” continue reading »
In 2004 Acambis temporarily halted one of its phase 3 trials comparing ACAM2000 with Dryvax, the currently licensed smallpox vaccine that is no longer produced, after myopericarditis developed in at least three of the research subjects. The HHS, in an Apr 20 release of its plan for developing and buying medical countermeasures against a range of biological, chemical, and other threats, said it was planning to stockpile a weaker version of the smallpox vaccinemodified vaccinia Ankara (MVA)for certain groups, such as pregnant women and immuncompromised people, who can’t receive the conventional smallpox vaccine. The agency “is well advanced in the pre-award stage” of a program to buy an MVA vaccine. Two companies have developed MVA vaccines: Acambis and Copenhagen-based Bavarian Nordic. Acambis has a contract with the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to make 209 million doses of smallpox vaccine for the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) to use in the event of a terrorist release of smallpox virus. Marc Wolfson, a spokesman for the HHS Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness in Washington, told CIDRAP News in an e-mail that the company has delivered 192.5 million doses of ACAM2000 so far and has been paid $573,650,000. May 18, 2007 (CIDRAP News) A US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel yesterday recommended that the agency approve a smallpox vaccine made by British biotechnology company Acambis plc that is currently being stockpiled for the US government. “This vaccine should not be used lightly,” said Pamela McInnes, a panelist who directs the Center for Integrative Biology and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. See also: Panel members said if the FDA approves the vaccine it should require the company to continue clinical trials and other measures, Reuters reported. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Acambis are discussing an arrangement for Acambis to provide long-term production of the vaccine using a US-based supply chain and production (ie, warm-base manufacturing), Acambis said in its press release. Having an FDA-licensed product is a prerequisite to finalizing a warm-base manufacturing contract with the CDC, Garland said. HHS countermeasures implementation planhttp://www.hhs.gov/aspr/ophemc/enterprise/strategy/strategy.html Panelists said they had to weigh the risks of heart inflammation, which would be unacceptable for routine vaccination, against the threat that US military personnel and others in high-risk settings face regarding smallpox exposure, Reuters reported. Ian Garland, Acambis’ chief executive officer, said in a company press release that the FDA panel’s recommendation reinforces the company’s confidence that ACAM2000 will be licensed. The FDA told Acambis its target date for an approval decision is Aug 31, 2007. The panel unanimously voted 11 to 0 that ACAM2000 is both safe and effective, Karen Reilly, an FDA spokesperson, told CIDRAP News in an e-mail after the meeting. The FDA is not bound by the advisory panel recommendations but usually follows them. The positive recommendation came despite some concerns panel members raised about the side effects of the vaccine. Some outside experts who spoke at the meeting said the risk of heart inflammation in people who had been vaccinated warranted further review, according to a Reuters report yesterday. May 17 Acambis news releasehttp://www.acambis.com/default.asp?id=1893 ACAM2000 uses vaccinia virus, a close relative of smallpox, and is grown in cell culture. It is derived from Dryvax, a first-generation vaccine that was used in global smallpox eradication programs. The newer vaccine is grown in cell culture rather than on the skin of calves, which is thought to produce a purer and safer vaccine that has less risk of rare but serious complications.
Published on March 15, 2018 at 10:11 pm Contact Tomer: [email protected] | @tomer_langer Fortnite was officially released on Sept. 26 for PC, XBOX and PlayStation. It’s a 100 Player vs. Player battle-royale style game that mimics the storyline of “The Hunger Games.” All 100 players get dropped into the same map with nothing but a pickaxe. They then search for weapons and building supplies, such as wood or bricks, all while a deadly storm shrinks the playable map and forces spread-out players to come closer together. The last player alive wins. There are three game modes: Solo, duos and squads, which allow teams of up to four.Bridget Slomian | Senior Design EditorThe casual sports fan might have just heard of Fortnite for the first time when late Wednesday night turned to early Thursday morning, right after the Orange beat Arizona State in a play-in game. Music stars Drake and Travis Scott, along with Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster, teamed up to play the game with “Ninja,” a former eSport athlete who now streams himself playing video games on a platform called Twitch.The stream garnered over 600,000 concurrent viewers, smashing the Twitch record. The story of the unexpected team gained traction from major outlets, including ESPN and CNN, and was shared often on social media. Many of the players, including Washington and Syracuse forward Matt Moyer, watched parts of the stream when they heard about it.“It was cool to see that it’s not just us playing Fortnite,” Moyer said. “A lot of other people are.”Washington, sophomore Tyus Battle and walk-on forward Patrick Herlihy were the first to discover the game, each finding out about it through outside friends at some point in mid-October.Battle said he downloaded the game at first, but didn’t play it much. Then the game started gaining popularity and Syracuse players started spreading the word — Howard introduced Brissett, Battle showed Moyer — and it quickly became one of the team’s favorite activity.“That’s probably number one, honestly,” Battle said when asked where Fortnite ranks in the team’s off-court activities. “Because we’re usually too lazy to go out, bowling and whatever else. Everyone loves playing video games.”Herlihy said that he, Battle, Brissett, Moyer, Washington and Paschal Chukwu are the ones who regularly play the most. Generally, they’ll play together in four-person squads with whoever is available at the time. The players will sometimes post Instagram stories of themselves playing, including whenever they pull off the difficult feat of winning the game.The team had different answers when asked who the best player was. Washington chose himself, Battle and Brissett. Moyer said that it was Battle, and then added it that it could have been Herlihy. Brissett said that Battle and Washington are, but that he was a close third. Battle said outright that he was the best player on the team. That prompted junior guard Shaun Belbey, who was sitting next to Battle, to shake his head.Chukwu, who said he recently got into the game during the ACC Tournament, didn’t include himself in the list of best players. He said his main focus right now is to hone his building abilities.Bridget Slomian | Senior Design EditorFortnite released a new limited-time edition of the game that features five 20-person squads playing against each other. Chukwu said the goal is for the entire team to compete in that mode at some point when everyone is back on campus.Nearly every SU player who plays Fortnite agreed with Battle in saying that it’s the team’s number one off-the-court activity.“If it’s not basketball,” Brissett said, “we are definitely at home playing Fortnite.”CORRECTION: In a previous version of this post, Shaun Belbey was misnamed. The Daily Orange regrets this error. Comments UPDATED: March 15, 2018 at 10:52 p.m.DETROIT — Oshae Brissett had seen the video game a few times. Howard Washington, his roommate, kept playing it despite Brissett thinking it was boring.Then Washington brought his Playstation 4 down for the game at Miami in mid-February. Washington told Brissett that he just needed to try it again.“I started to get into it playing on his PS4,” Brissett said. “And then, once we got home I downloaded it and got hooked.”That video game is called Fortnite Battle Royale, and it’s not just Brissett who’s been hooked. Fortnite, a free download, was released in late September and by early-February, it set a record with 3.4 million concurrent players. Many of No. 11 Syracuse’s (21-13, 8-10 Atlantic Coast) players have been caught up in the Fortnite craze as well, as it’s become the most popular team activity off the court.AdvertisementThis is placeholder text“It’s like a team-bonding kind of thing we do to have fun,” Washington said. “Come to practice and talk about it. We watch videos on our phones, like we’re watching film for basketball.”MORE COVERAGE: Syracuse men’s basketball opponent preview: What to know about No. 6 seed TCU10 fun facts you need to know about TCU3 things TCU head coach Jamie Dixon said at his pre-Round of 64 press conference Facebook Twitter Google+