Thursday, April 12, 2012

Duck-billed dinosaurs endured long, dark polar winters

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Duck-billed dinosaurs that lived within Arctic latitudes approximately 70 million years ago likely endured long, dark polar winters instead of migrating to more southern latitudes, a recent study by researchers from the University of Cape Town, Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas and Temple University has found.

The researchers published their findings, "Hadrosaurs Were Perennial Polar Residents," in the April issue of the journal The Anatomical Record: Advances in Integrative Anatomy and Evolutionary Biology. The study was funded through a grant from the National Science Foundation.

Anthony Fiorillo, a paleontologist at the Museum of Nature and Science, excavated Cretaceous Period fossils along Alaska's North Slope. Most of the bones belonged to Edmontosaurus, a duck-billed herbivore, but some others such as the horned dinosaur Pachyrhinosaurus were also found.

Fiorillo hypothesized that the microscopic structures of the dinosaurs' bones could show how they lived in polar regions. He enlisted the help of Allison Tumarkin-Deratzian, an assistant professor of earth and environmental science, who had both expertise and the facilities to create and analyze thin layers of the dinosaurs' bone microstructure.

Another researcher, Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan, a professor of zoology at the University of Cape Town, was independently pursuing the same analysis of Alaskan Edmontosaurus fossils. When the research groups discovered the similarities of their studies, they decided to collaborate and combine their data sets to provide a larger sampling. Half of the samples were tested and analyzed at Temple; the rest were done in South Africa.

"The bone microstructure of these dinosaurs is actually a record of how these animals were growing throughout their lives," said Tumarkin-Deratzian. "It is almost similar to looking at tree rings."

What the researchers found was bands of fast growth and slower growth that seemed to indicate a pattern.

"What we found was that periodically, throughout their life, these dinosaurs were switching how fast they were growing," said Tumarkin-Deratzian. "We interpreted this as potentially a seasonal pattern because we know in modern animals these types of shifts can be induced by changes in nutrition. But that shift is often driven by changes in seasonality."

The researchers questioned what was causing the dinosaurs to be under stress at certain times during the year: staying up in the polar region and dealing with reduced nutrition during the winter or migrating to and from lower latitudes during the winter.

They did bone microstructure analysis on similar duck-billed dinosaur fossils found in southern Alberta, Canada, but didn't see similar stress patterns, implying that those dinosaurs did not experience regular periodic seasonal stresses. "We had two sets of animals that were growing differently," said Tumarkin-Deratzian.

Since the Alaska fossils had all been preserved in the same sedimentary horizon, Fiorillo examined the geology of the bonebeds in Alaska where the samples were excavated and discovered that these dinosaurs had been preserved in flood deposits.

"They are very similar to modern flood deposits that happen in Alaska in the spring when you get spring melt water coming off the Brooks Mountain Range," said Fiorillo. "The rivers flood down the Northern Slope and animals get caught in these floods, particularly younger animals, which appear to be what happened to these dinosaurs.

"So we know they were there at the end of the dark winter period, because if they were migrating up from the lower latitudes, they wouldn't have been there during these floods," he said.

"It is fascinating to realize how much of information is locked in the bone microstructure of fossil bones," said Chinsamy-Turan. "It's incredible to realize that we can also tell from these 70 million-year-old bones that the majority of the polar hadrosaurs died just after the winter season."

###

Temple University: http://www.temple.edu

Thanks to Temple University for this article.

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Arkansas judge to decide penalty in J&J trial

(AP) ? A judge will decide how much a Johnson & Johnson and a subsidiary must pay the state of Arkansas, after a jury found the company downplayed and hid risks associated with an antipsychotics drug.

Jurors returned a quick verdict Tuesday in favor of the state, which had argued that Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. lied about potentially life-threatening side effects of Risperdal.

Circuit Judge Tim Fox told lawyers he will read briefs and relevant cases they sent him before a hearing Wednesday to decide how much Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary must pay.

The state is asking for at least $1.2 billion ? or $480 for each of the 250,000 Risperdal prescriptions the state's Medicaid program paid for over 3? years. Previous verdicts against J&J include a $327 million civil penalty in South Carolina that a judge upheld in December. Texas, meanwhile, reached a $158 million settlement with Janssen in January in which the company did not admit fault.

Jurors in Arkansas were not told about the financial stakes during 10 days of testimony, beyond that Janssen could have seen a $200 million swing in its revenues if it issued alarming warnings that the drug could cause weight gain, diabetes and other health effects. The award that Fox will decide would go toward the state's Medicaid fund, which is facing a projected $400 million deficit next year.

Risperdal, introduced in 1994, is a "second-generation" antipsychotic drug that earned Johnson & Johnson billions of dollars in sales before generic versions became available several years ago. It is used to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and irritability in autism patients. Risperdal and similar antipsychotic drugs have been linked to increased risk of strokes and death in elderly dementia patients, seizures, weight gain and diabetes.

The 12-person jury deliberated for three hours, just as long as the lawyers took to make closing arguments Tuesday morning.

Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel said he pursued the case to protect consumers from "fraud and deceptive trade practices."

Janssen continued to maintain after the verdict that it did not break the law, pointing out that the package insert included with the medication was approved the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The company can appeal to the Arkansas Supreme Court, though that decision would come after Fox rules on the money.

"Janssen firmly believes it did not violate the Arkansas Medicaid Fraud False Claims Act or the Arkansas consumer fraud statute," the company said.

Fletch Trammell, a Houston lawyer hired by McDaniel's office to handle the suit, told jurors during closing arguments that Janssen lied to doctors, saying the drug didn't cause weight gain, diabetes and other adverse health effects. He explained that the FDA ordered Janssen to issue a letter to doctors correcting an earlier letter saying the drug didn't increase the risk of developing diabetes.

Janssen attorney James Simpson argued that neither McDaniel's office nor the state Medicaid office issued any warning to doctors that Risperdal carried greater risks than believed. He also said that even after the lawsuit was filed, the state continued to pay for Risperdal prescriptions.

"That doesn't make any sense," Simpson said. "They never restricted a single ... Risperdal prescription."

Trammell said any action the state did or did not take regarding Risperdal wasn't a concern for the jury. He said it is up to drug companies to notify doctors of any problems with a medication and that companies are obligated to act before the FDA gets involved.

"You have to ring the bell. You have to tell the public," Trammell said.

Trammell said the rural nature of Arkansas makes it more important for drug companies to keep doctors informed. People outside of cities often rely on primary care doctors rather than specialists, he said, and nonspecialists in mental health were prescribing the drug without knowing the full range of side effects.

Jurors had a set of 10 questions to decide ? five regarding Janssen and five for its Johnson & Johnson parent company. The jury ruled in favor of the state on all 10 questions. Only nine votes were needed to reach a decision on any question. Several of the decisions were split 11-1 or 10-2.

Associated Press

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Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Support NC Real Estate Agents: 67% of Home Sellers More Likely to ...

Many Realtors may be fortunate to be with a large brand that provides mobile apps as part of their marketing package.? But what if you are an independent agent or work with a very small brand or local agency?? Are you missing out on the world of mobile apps thinking it is cost prohibitive?
According to a recent study of potential home sellers conducted by Philadelphia based research firm Devine and Powers,
49% of respondents said they would be more likely to use an agent who offered a mobile solution as part of their marketing
plan, while 67% said it would be a major deciding factor in choosing a Realtor.?

We scoured the internet and have found several resources for affordable realtor mobile apps and mobile sites.? Here's our list, and i am sure there are more. If you know of a good one that we didn't list - please post in the comment field and share with us!

1. FLIKMO Real Estate Mobile Apps and Mobile Sites
http://realestate.flikmo.com/index.php
Benefits: Easy to use, quick set up with each prooperty taking less than one minute to set up and risk free - month to month no long term contracts.?

Carriers Supported: AT&T, T-Mobile?, Sprint, Alltel, Verizon Wireless, Virgin Mobile, Dobson, US Cellular, Nextel

About: Mobile programs are one of the most effective marketing solutions real estate agents and companies. There's no better way to get listing information to a potential buyer than allowing those individuals to text in an address or keyword when driving by a 'for sale' property.? Other effective real estate tools include:

  • Keep your client list updated on new listings
  • Send new listing updates in the form of virtual video tours and slideshows
  • Include Text-to info on your promotional and marketing materials
  • Property location / Drive-by solutions

2.? REALTOR.com? (this is a listing access app - not a personal app for your site or listings)
http://www.realtor.com/mobile?source=web
About: The REALTOR.com app is a real estate app for your smart phone and tablet. Whether you prefer Apple, Android or Windows, the same real estate listings from REALTOR.com are available at your fingertips and on the go for over?3 million homes for sale, rentals,?and millions more property records and other types of real estate. The REALTOR.com real estate app is also free so that you are free to find the real estate information you need whenever and wherever you need it.?

3.? The Murray Group offers marketing support for our realtor partners.
Yes, we are a mortgage brokerage first - but we know the value of offering our agents more support to help them grow their business.? Drop Chris Murray an email today to learn about our mobile marketing, text messaging with call capture, HD galleries, property widgets, single property websites, social networking and other great marketing support.

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Web-based tool produces fast, accurate autism diagnosis

Web-based tool produces fast, accurate autism diagnosis [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 10-Apr-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: David Cameron
david_cameron@hms.harvard.edu
617-432-0441
Harvard Medical School

Researchers at Harvard Medical School have significantly reduced from hours to minutes the time it takes to accurately detect autism in young children.

The process of diagnosing autism is complex, subjective, and often limited to only a segment of the population in need. With the recent rise in incidence to 1 in 88 children, the need for accurate and widely deployable methods for screening and diagnosis is substantial. Dennis Wall, associate professor of pathology and director of computational biology initiative at the Center for Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School, has been working to address this problem and has discovered a highly accurate strategy that could significantly reduce the complexity and time of the diagnostic process.

Wall has been developing algorithms and associated deployment mechanisms to detect autism rapidly and with high accuracy. The algorithms are designed to work within a mobile architecture, combining a small set of questions and a short home video of the subject, to enable rapid online assessments. This procedure could reduce the time for autism diagnosis by nearly 95 percent, from hours to minutes, and could be easily integrated into routine child screening practices to enable a dramatic increase in reach to the population at risk.

"We believe this approach will make it possible for more children to be accurately diagnosed during the early critical period when behavioral therapies are most effective," said Wall.

This research will be published April 10 online in Nature Translational Psychiatry.

Autism is diagnosed through a careful analysis of an individual's behavior. When children are evaluated for autism, they typically take the Autism Diagnostic Interview, Revised, known as the ADI-R, a 93-question questionnaire, and/or the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, known as the ADOS exam, which measures several behaviors in children. Together these evaluations can take up to three hours to complete and must be administered by a trained clinician. Often, there is a delay of more than a year between initial warning signs and diagnosis because of the waiting times to see a clinical professional who can administer the tests and deliver the formal diagnosis, Wall said.

Using machine learning techniques, an artificial intelligence method where machines are trained to make decisions, Wall and his team studied results of the ADI-R from the Autism Genetic Research Exchange for more than 800 individuals diagnosed with autism to find redundancies across the exam. They found that only seven questions were sufficient to diagnose autism with nearly 100 percent accuracy, equivalent to the full 93-question exam. They validated the accuracy of the seven question survey against answer sets from more than 1,600 individuals from the Simons Foundation and more than 300 individuals from the Boston Autism Consortium.

Wall applied similar techniques to the ADOS exam, this time classifying more than 1,050 individuals with near perfect sensitivity and slightly less than 95 percent specificity. The outcome of this work was not only a shortened mechanism for evaluating a child (8 out of 29 steps), but also a roadmap for evaluating short home video clips. Together these results have tremendous potential to move a substantial percentage of the effort into a mobilized electronic health framework with broad reach and applications.

"This approach is the first attempt to retrospectively analyze large data repositories to derive a highly accurate, but significantly abbreviated classification tool," said Wall, who is also associate professor of pathology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. "This kind of rapid assessment should provide valuable contributions to the diagnostic process moving forward and help lead to faster screening and earlier treatment," he said.

The traditional diagnostic surveys for autism can be prohibitive for families and caregivers because they are lengthy and have to be administered by a licensed clinician, often in an environment that is unfamiliar to the child, which can be a tremendous burden for families in remote areas, said Wall. "With this mobilized approach, the parent or caregiver will be able to take the crucial first steps to diagnosis and treatment from the comfort of their own home, and in just a few minutes."

Currently, Wall has made a survey and video site available to the public for free to continue evaluating the effectiveness of the shortened approaches and is working on ways to mobilize the overall approach to enable wide reach across the entire population in need. His team has also launched a Facebook page to spread the word and to share the survey more broadly. To date, 2,500 people have taken the Autworks survey.

###

--Katie DuBoff

Citation:

"Use of machine learning to shorten observation-based screening and diagnosis of autism" by Wall et al

Nature Translational Psychiatry, online publication, April 10, 2012

Harvard Medical School has more than 7,500 full-time faculty working in 11 academic departments located at the School's Boston campus or in one of 47 hospital-based clinical departments at 17 Harvard-affiliated teaching hospitals and research institutes. Those affiliates include Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Cambridge Health Alliance, Children's Hospital Boston, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Forsyth Institute, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Hebrew SeniorLife, Joslin Diabetes Center, Judge Baker Children's Center, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Massachusetts General Hospital, McLean Hospital, Mount Auburn Hospital, Schepens Eye Research Institute, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, and VA Boston Healthcare System.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share 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.


Web-based tool produces fast, accurate autism diagnosis [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 10-Apr-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: David Cameron
david_cameron@hms.harvard.edu
617-432-0441
Harvard Medical School

Researchers at Harvard Medical School have significantly reduced from hours to minutes the time it takes to accurately detect autism in young children.

The process of diagnosing autism is complex, subjective, and often limited to only a segment of the population in need. With the recent rise in incidence to 1 in 88 children, the need for accurate and widely deployable methods for screening and diagnosis is substantial. Dennis Wall, associate professor of pathology and director of computational biology initiative at the Center for Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School, has been working to address this problem and has discovered a highly accurate strategy that could significantly reduce the complexity and time of the diagnostic process.

Wall has been developing algorithms and associated deployment mechanisms to detect autism rapidly and with high accuracy. The algorithms are designed to work within a mobile architecture, combining a small set of questions and a short home video of the subject, to enable rapid online assessments. This procedure could reduce the time for autism diagnosis by nearly 95 percent, from hours to minutes, and could be easily integrated into routine child screening practices to enable a dramatic increase in reach to the population at risk.

"We believe this approach will make it possible for more children to be accurately diagnosed during the early critical period when behavioral therapies are most effective," said Wall.

This research will be published April 10 online in Nature Translational Psychiatry.

Autism is diagnosed through a careful analysis of an individual's behavior. When children are evaluated for autism, they typically take the Autism Diagnostic Interview, Revised, known as the ADI-R, a 93-question questionnaire, and/or the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, known as the ADOS exam, which measures several behaviors in children. Together these evaluations can take up to three hours to complete and must be administered by a trained clinician. Often, there is a delay of more than a year between initial warning signs and diagnosis because of the waiting times to see a clinical professional who can administer the tests and deliver the formal diagnosis, Wall said.

Using machine learning techniques, an artificial intelligence method where machines are trained to make decisions, Wall and his team studied results of the ADI-R from the Autism Genetic Research Exchange for more than 800 individuals diagnosed with autism to find redundancies across the exam. They found that only seven questions were sufficient to diagnose autism with nearly 100 percent accuracy, equivalent to the full 93-question exam. They validated the accuracy of the seven question survey against answer sets from more than 1,600 individuals from the Simons Foundation and more than 300 individuals from the Boston Autism Consortium.

Wall applied similar techniques to the ADOS exam, this time classifying more than 1,050 individuals with near perfect sensitivity and slightly less than 95 percent specificity. The outcome of this work was not only a shortened mechanism for evaluating a child (8 out of 29 steps), but also a roadmap for evaluating short home video clips. Together these results have tremendous potential to move a substantial percentage of the effort into a mobilized electronic health framework with broad reach and applications.

"This approach is the first attempt to retrospectively analyze large data repositories to derive a highly accurate, but significantly abbreviated classification tool," said Wall, who is also associate professor of pathology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. "This kind of rapid assessment should provide valuable contributions to the diagnostic process moving forward and help lead to faster screening and earlier treatment," he said.

The traditional diagnostic surveys for autism can be prohibitive for families and caregivers because they are lengthy and have to be administered by a licensed clinician, often in an environment that is unfamiliar to the child, which can be a tremendous burden for families in remote areas, said Wall. "With this mobilized approach, the parent or caregiver will be able to take the crucial first steps to diagnosis and treatment from the comfort of their own home, and in just a few minutes."

Currently, Wall has made a survey and video site available to the public for free to continue evaluating the effectiveness of the shortened approaches and is working on ways to mobilize the overall approach to enable wide reach across the entire population in need. His team has also launched a Facebook page to spread the word and to share the survey more broadly. To date, 2,500 people have taken the Autworks survey.

###

--Katie DuBoff

Citation:

"Use of machine learning to shorten observation-based screening and diagnosis of autism" by Wall et al

Nature Translational Psychiatry, online publication, April 10, 2012

Harvard Medical School has more than 7,500 full-time faculty working in 11 academic departments located at the School's Boston campus or in one of 47 hospital-based clinical departments at 17 Harvard-affiliated teaching hospitals and research institutes. Those affiliates include Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Cambridge Health Alliance, Children's Hospital Boston, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Forsyth Institute, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Hebrew SeniorLife, Joslin Diabetes Center, Judge Baker Children's Center, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Massachusetts General Hospital, McLean Hospital, Mount Auburn Hospital, Schepens Eye Research Institute, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, and VA Boston Healthcare System.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share 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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Verizon Wireless to charge for phone upgrades

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How to grow and serve kumquats

A gardener and a chef team up with advice on growing and serving kumquats.

By Anne K. Moore and Linda Weiss / April 9, 2012

This past December, I (Anne Moore, a gardener) harvested my first fruit from a seed-grown tree. It's a very unattractive tree. It is somewhat leafy at the bottom on the original growth. This past summer it decided to shoot up a trunk with leaves and one little fruit at the top of its four feet. Somehow, I missed the flowering phase.

Skip to next paragraph

The tree (and I use the term loosely) is at least 10 years old. It grows in part shade in a very infertile area. It has been evergreen its whole life and maybe if I paid more attention to it, it would be an attractive little tree. It has developed very long, wicked thorns all along its trunk. The fruit is very small, all seeds, with a smooth citrus-flavored sweet skin, just like a kumquat with no pulp.

Grow indoors or outside

Kumquats, even though they appear to be citrus, were moved to the genus Fortunella in 1915, according to Purdue University. If you purchase a young grafted tree, you won?t have to wait ten years or more for it to bear fruit and the fruit will be edible.

If you live in USDA Zones 8-9 (sheltered spot in zone 7), you can plant it outdoors in a sunny spot. Otherwise, grow it in a sunny window indoors and full sun outdoors during the summer months. The roots should never dry out but they also cannot be in standing water. Use a slow-release fertilizer.

To raise the humidity indoors, mist it daily or raise it up on pebbles in a saucer of water. You can enjoy these little "oranges" as decorations or in recipes, like the one from Linda, next.

Kumquats, a childhood favorite

As a small child, I (Linda Weiss, a chef) loved kumquats. My grandmother could never understand why I liked the citrusy, sweet rind, that held bitter flesh, and I can hear her saying, just like yesterday, ?of all things,? as I picked up a kumquat and took two bites to finish it.

Fast forward to almost 60 years later, and I still like them -- except that I eat them a couple of different ways now, but mostly preserved. The preserving of kumquats is easy, and you will be surprised at what a fresh flavor this tiny little orange fruit can bring to so many different foods, such as herb-roasted chicken, a simple piece of toast, or just a few tablespoons added to the side of a vegetable plate.

Kumquat Preserves

?2 pounds kumquats

4 cups sugar

2 lemon slices (about ? -inch thick)

4 cups water

Wash the kumquats thoroughly. Prick each one with a fork. Put them in a pan large enough to cover them with boiling water, and simmer them for 25 to 30 minutes or until they are tender. Drain.

Combine the sugar, lemon slices, and the 4 cups of water in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil and boil for 5 minutes. Add the kumquats and boil gently for 25 minutes. Remove from the heat and allow to stand, covered loosely, overnight (or all day if you start in the morning), so that the fruit will plump.

Take out the lemon slices and discard. Place the kumquat mixture back on the stove and bring to a boil.

Skim the kumquats from the syrup with a slotted spoon, and put them in hot sterilized half-pint jars. Continue to boil the syrup until it reaches 220 degrees F on a candy thermometer. This may take 8 to 10 minutes. Pour the boiling syrup over the kumquats, covering them to 1/4-inch from the top of each jar. Clean rims, and seal at once. Refrigerate or freeze. If freezing, leave one-inch space between the fruit and the top of the jar. Cool before freezing. Makes 2 to 3 pints, depending on the size of the fruit.

Editor's Note: To read more of Anne and Linda's "how to grow and prepare" series, click here.

-----

Linda Weiss is a personal chef. She attended Le Cordon Bleu of Paris? catering program and is a professional member of The James Beard Foundation and the Southern Foodways Alliance. Her cookbook, "Memories From Home, Cooking with Family and Friends" is available at Amazon.

Anne Moore is an award-winning freelance writer. She is the horticulture editor, gardening consultant, and e-newsletter editor for GardenSmart.tv. She is a member of the Garden Writers Association. Follow Linda and Anne as they blog at www.thegardenerandthechef.com

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Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Sahara states at odds over Mali rebels

NOUAKCHOTT (Reuters) - Sahara Desert states differed on Sunday over whether to crush or talk to the rebels who have seized northern Mali - a mix of Tuareg separatists and Islamists with links to al Qaeda.

At a meeting of regional countries in Mauritania, Niger said the rebels' gains should be reversed before any talks, but Algeria warned that military intervention risked further complicating the situation.

The rebels, bolstered by guns and fighters from Libya's war last year, routed Malian troops, in disarray after a March 22 coup, to carve out a zone the size of France and declare an independent state of "Azawad".

Mali's government had long had a weak hold over its northern zone, but its neighbors now fear a void that will exacerbate regional instability, terrorism and smuggling.

Mauritania, Algeria, Niger and Mali had set up a joint military command headquarters before the lightning rebel push, although it had struggled to coordinate efforts against what they see as an Islamist threat in the Sahara.

Niger, which has suffered its own sporadic Tuareg rebellions, said there could be discussion of some of the demands of the separatist National Movement for the Liberation of Azwad (MNLA).

But Foreign Minister Mohamed Bazoum echoed international rejection of the group's claim for independence as "absurd and unacceptable".

"We need to work to redress the balance of forces on the ground before we can talk about negotiations," Bazoum said at the opening of the meeting in Mauritania's capital, Nouakchott.

"We need to organize a confrontation with the terrorist groups ... Mali's north must be cleared of terrorism and it seems to me we have the ideal opportunity," he said.

West Africa's ECOWAS group had been mulling an intervention to prevent any further rebel push until the coup meant restoring civilian rule became the regional bloc's priority.

The junta pledged on Saturday to leave power within days, paving the way for the possibility for an intervention but it remains unclear when boots could be put on the ground.

Bazoum said Niger, Mauritania and Algeria, as Mali's closest partners in the north, should engage in diplomacy but be ready to intervene militarily, if needed.

Algeria, the region's biggest power, took a different tack, saying talks were the only way out. France, colonial ruler over all the states at the table, has also pushed for dialogue with the separatist rebel movement.

"The solution can only be a political one. It cannot be the result of a military effort which could instead worsen an already complex and precarious situation," Abdelkader Messahel, Algeria's delegate minister for African affairs, said.

Algeria's position in Mali has been further complicated by the kidnapping last week of its consul and six other staff from its mission in Gao, one of the northern towns seized by rebels.

Algeria's El Watan newspaper reported on its website on Sunday that the diplomats had been freed, but Algerian officials in Nouakchott were unable to confirm that.

Nearly a week after Malian government forces were completely routed across the north, it remains unclear which groups really control main towns or swathes of territory.

The MNLA separatists, which are more prominent in Gao than the Islamists, denied any involvement in the kidnapping.

Ahead of the El Watan report that the diplomats had been freed, French RFI radio said MUJWA, a splinter group from al Qaeda's North Africa wing, AQIM, had claimed the kidnapping.

(This version of the story corrects the first name of Algerian minister in 14th paragraph)

(Writing and additional reporting by David Lewis; Editing by Matthew Tostevin/Ruth Pitchford)

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