Workers accursed or acclimatized for bad-mouthing administration on social-networking sites are angry aback application a decades-old action law—a fresh advanced in the black action over what workers can do and say online. Since the acceleration of Facebook and Twitter, companies believed they had the appropriate to blaze advisers who acquaint complaints or adverse or abrupt comments online about their employers. But in contempo months, workers accept approved to break their actual avant-garde application asperity by application the law that kick-started the U.S. action movement: the National Action Relations Act of 1935. The law gives private-sector advisers assertive rights to accuse about pay, assurance and added alive conditions.

It doesn't assure simple griping. More than 100 employers, including a saloon, a BMW dealership and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., accept been accused by workers over the aftermost 12 months of abnormal action accompanying to social-media practices or policies, according to the National Action Relations Board, a federal bureau that enforces the law and decides whether employees' complaints accept merit. NLRB attorneys in Washington accept absitively that about bisected of the complaints they accept advised appropriately far accept acceptable arete for the bureau to intervene, about in the anatomy of a civilian complaint filed adjoin administration on account of employees.

Complaints are heard by an NLRB judge, who can adjustment a remedy. The NLRB actions, best of which absorb nonunion employees, represent a fresh amphitheatre in which the bureau is asserting itself in the workplace. It already is on the hot bench with Republicans and business groups, who say it has advantaged unions over administration beneath President Barack Obama's watch, conspicuously back it challenged Boeing Co.'s accommodation to install a nonunion assembly band in South Carolina. Rafael Gomez of law close Lo Tempio & Brown in Buffalo, N.Y., who is apery a nonprofit accumulation in an NLRB case involving Facebook postings, said his case and others beforehand the bureau is "seeking to beforehand itself in a nonunion workplace." In a abstracted case, Dawnmarie Souza, a paramedic for American Medical Response of Connecticut Inc., was accursed afterwards calling her administrator a "scumbag" on Facebook, from her home computer.

She was black the administrator had questioned her about a chump complaint, according to the NLRB's investigation. The NLRB's complaint on Ms. Souza's behalf—the agency's aboriginal anytime involving a battlefront accompanying to amusing media—came afterwards NLRB attorneys in Washington assured the battlefront was actionable because the postings were fabricated during an online altercation amid advisers about authoritative action, which is advised "protected concerted activity" beneath the law. The comments were affronted by what the NLRB accounted the supervisor's actionable abnegation of abutment representation during a abode affair about the chump complaint.

The case was acclimatized in February afore it could beforehand to an NLRB authoritative judge. According to the NLRB acting accepted counsel, the employer accursed the artisan afterwards reprimanding him for the sales-event photos the employer alleged embarrassing, again several months after said the acumen for the battlefront was the announcement of the car in the pond. The NLRB adjudicator said he believed assertions fabricated by dealership managers that Mr. Becker was accursed alone for his announcement of the car in the pond. The judge's cardinal has been appealed by the NLRB's acting accepted counsel.

Mr. Becker, who is actuality represented by an NLRB advocate in Chicago, beneath animadversion through an bureau spokeswoman. Jim Hendricks of Ford & Harrison LLP, a advocate for the dealer, said his applicant is battling the appeal, abacus that administration are in a bind now that the NLRB is "going to analyze every action you accept on whether or not it violates adequate concerted activity."

Plant leaves shrinking because of global warming!!!!!!!!!!

Rising temperatures have turned a native Australian shrub into a mini version of itself, showing the effect of climate change is already having on the globe, scientists have found. 

Researchers from the University of Adelaide examined specimens of narrow-leaf hopbush (Dodonaea viscosa, subspecies angustissima), a woody shrub with papery red seed capsules that were used by early Australian colonists to brew beer. 

They found that between the 1880s and the present, leaves have narrowed by an average of 0.08 inches (2 millimeters).

"Climate change is often discussed in terms of future impacts, but changes in temperature over recent decades have already been ecologically significant," study researcher Greg Guerin, was quoted as saying by LiveScience. 

 

"Climate change is driving adaptive shifts within plant species and leaf shape has demonstrated adaptive significance in relation to climate," Guerin said.Plants from warmer latitudes typically have narrower leaves, Guerin said. Climate change also shrinks animal life, research has shown. 

In the Flinders Ranges of South Australia, rainfall has stayed fairly constant while maximum temperatures have increased by 1.2 degrees Celsius since 1950. Guerin and his colleagues looked at hopbush specimens dating back as far as the 1880s. 

"Our results indicate that leaf width is closely linked to maximum temperatures," Guerin said.

Some Australian species are more likely to adapt to climate change than others, the researchers said.

"It's important to understand how plants cope with the changing climate, because species that are more adaptive to change may be good candidates for environmental restoration efforts," Guerin said.

Did you know?

Grapes, “queen of the fruits” are storehouse of numerous health promoting phyto-nutrients such as poly-phenolic antioxidants, vitamins and minerals. So, include them in your regular diet, be it in the form of fresh fruits, juice or in salads!

Botanically, they are small round berries; grow in clusters on a perennial and deciduous woody vine of the genus: Vitis. Grapes are native to Europe and Mediterranean regions but now widely cultivated all over the planet.

In structure, each individual berry features semi-translucent flesh encased by a smooth thin skin. Some contain edible seeds, while others are seedless. The color of the fruit is due to the presence of poly-phenolic pigments in them. Red or purple berries are rich in anthocyanins while white-green berries contain more of tannins especially, catechin. Interestingly, these antioxidant compounds are densely concentrated in the skin and seeds!

There are three main species of grapes, European (Vitis vinifera), North American (Vitis labrusca and Vitis rotundifolia) and French hybrids.

Some of popular green cultivars are Thompson seedless, sugarone and calmeria.

Red varieties include emperor, red globe, cardinal, and flame seedless.

Concord and zinfandel are some of flavorful blue-black cultivars.

Commercially, many cultivars of grapes are grown for different purposes either eaten as table fruit, fresh or dried (raisin, currant, sultana) or in wine production.

Health benefits of grapes

Grapes are rich in polyphenolic phytochemical compound resveratrol. Resveratrol is one of powerful anti-oxidant, which has been found to play protective function against cancers of colon and prostate, coronary heart disease (CHD), degenerative nerve disease, Alzheimer's disease and viral/ fungal infections.

Resveratrol reduces stroke risk by altering the molecular mechanisms in the blood vessels. It does so firstly by reducing susceptibility of blood vessels damage through decreased activity of angiotensin (a systemic hormone causing blood vessel constriction that would otherwise elevate blood pressure) and secondly, through increased production of the vasodilator substance, nitric oxide (a beneficial compound that causes relaxation of blood vessels).

Anthocyanins are another class of polyphenolic anti-oxidants present abundantly in the red grapes. These phyto-chemicals have been found to have anti-allergic, anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial, as well as anti-cancer activities.

Catechins, a type of flavonoid tannin group of anti-oxidants found in white/green varieties has also shown to have these health protecting functions.
In addition, the berries are very low in calories. 100 g fresh grapes just provide 69 calories but zero cholesterol levels.

Grapes are rich source of micronutrient minerals like copper, iron and manganese. Copper and manganese are an essential co-factor of antioxidant enzyme, superoxide dismutase. Iron is specially concentrated more in raisins. In addition 100 g of fresh grapes contain about 191 mg of health benefiting electrolyte, potassium.

They are also good source of vitamin-C, vitamin A, vitamin K, carotenes, B-complex vitamins such as pyridoxine, riboflavin, and thiamin.