Farrah Abraham will spend the next 10 days in a Florida rehab center.
"Teen Mom" star Farrah Abraham checked into a Florida rehab center late Sunday night, but not before video-blogging her car ride to the airport on her Keek site.
Abraham, who in the video said she was "sad" to leave her daughter, Sophia, will be spending the next nine days at The Lukens Institute, a luxury rehab facility in Palm Beach, Fla., recommended to Abraham's manager by Michael Lohan.
?(Farrah's manager) contacted me regarding Farrah and the treatment program The Lukens Institute offers," Lohan told TODAY.com. "It?s very individualized core issue and trauma therapy."
In a statement, Abraham said that completing an intensive outpatient program was required to satisfy the terms of her probation stemming from her March DWI arrest.
"I must complete in order to get off of probation, due to my DWI received in March earlier this year," Abraham said. "At this time in my life I need to stay focused on the positive to get through all of these negatives that this DWI has caused in my life. I?m 22 and I want to make better choices and insure I can recognize when I?m putting myself in a bad situation next time."
According to a document obtained by Radar Online, Phyllis Moczygemba, the executive director of the Austin Drug & Alcohol Abuse Program, recommended that Abraham complete a 60-hour intensive outpatient program. In the state-mandated evaluation, Moczygemba reported that Abraham had difficulty making eye contact, and that she was standoffish and "sarcastic when answering the questions asked of her."
Abraham's sister, Ashley Danielson, thinks entering the program is a positive start. "She?s going to rehab to avoid jail, but I?m happy she?s finally taking responsibility for her own actions,? Danielson told TODAY.com.
The reality personality won't exactly be roughing it during her rehab stay. "At The Lukens Institute, your room is like living in a suite at the Ritz Carlton," Lohan said.
This has been quite the year for Abraham. Following her March DWI arrest, she starred in a porn movie with adult film star James Deen, and has been making appearances at strip clubs and erotica conventions across the country to promote the film. Her stay in rehab will not conflict with any of her scheduled appearances.
?Our accelerated program is designed for motivated, high-functioning individuals with demanding careers and busy schedules who want private, individualized care, as well as a high degree of personal freedom," The Lukens Institute said in a statement.
Abraham won't have much time to reflect on her rehab experience. Three days after she is scheduled to check out of the facility, she will be making an appearance at the EXXXOTICA Chicago convention, followed by an appearance at Vivid's Gentlemen's Club in Charlotte, N.C.
FURNACE CREEK, Calif. (AP) ? Associated Press photographer Chris Carlson is no stranger to heat. He grew up just outside Palm Springs, Calif. On Friday, he returned to his desert roots, leaving his home near Los Angeles and driving to the hottest place on earth on one of the hottest days of the year. Below, he describes what it is like to be in triple digit heat in Death Valley:
___
By 9 a.m., the two bags of ice I loaded in the cooler are gone and the floor of my rental car looks like a storage bin at a recycling plant. Hydration is essential.
I know what to expect in Death Valley: Unrelenting heat so bad it makes my eyes hurt, as if someone is blowing a hair dryer in my face. I don't leave CDs or electronics in the car because they could melt or warp. I always carry bottles of water.
But I still make mistakes. I forgot my oven mitts, the desert driving trick I learned as a teenager after burning my hands too many times on the steering wheel. And my rental car is black, adding several degrees to the outside temperature of 127. When the digital thermometer at the Furnace Creek visitor center ticks up to 128, a few people jump out of their cars to take a picture. The record temperature for the region ? and the world ? is 134 degrees, reached a century ago.
I try to work in flip-flops, but the sun sears the tops of my feet, and I am forced to put shoes on. My cellphone, pulled from my shirt pocket, is so hot that it burns my ear when I try to take a call from my wife.
One of my first stops is at the Furnace Creek Golf Course, a place I've played in the past. The guy in the pro shop tells me they've only had two players all morning. Both were employees.
I don't stay long. The camera around my neck gets so hot it stops working. An error message flashes a warning at me.
I'm surprised to find out that hotels are packed with visitors. This is Death Valley's busy time of year. Tourists, mostly from Europe, come to experience extreme heat, or they just didn't know what they were getting into. Death Valley is between the Grand Canyon and Yosemite, and many people add it to their itinerary.
Tourists are out today, but they rarely emerge from their cars. They drive through the brown, cracked landscape, peering out at the vast desert and occasionally rolling down the windows, but only briefly.
Those who do attempt to get out of their cars park in sparse shade, sprint to local landmarks, snap a few photos, and then jump back in their cars. Most were out at daybreak. By midday, few people can be seen.
Penn psychologists show that quality matters more than quantity for word learningPublic release date: 24-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Evan Lerner elerner@upenn.edu 215-573-6604 University of Pennsylvania
Several studies have shown that how much parents say to their children when they are very young is a good predictor of children's vocabulary at the point when they begin school. In turn, a child's vocabulary size at school entry strongly predicts level of success throughout schooling even into high school and college.
A new study by psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania now shows that early vocabulary improvement is likely to have more to do with the "quality" of the interactions in which the words are used rather than the sheer quantity of speech directed at young children. Moreover, the study shows that, unlike quantity, the quality of these interactions is not related to the parents' socioeconomic status.
The study was conducted by professors John Trueswell and Lila Gleitman, both of the Department of Psychology in Penn's School of Arts and Sciences, as well as by Erica Cartmill and Susan Goldin-Meadow of the University of Chicago. Also contributing to the study were Benjamin Armstrong III of Penn and Tamara Medina of Drexel University.
It was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy and Sciences.
Knowing how critical early-language acquisition is to a person's future success, Trueswell and Gleitman have long investigated the mechanisms involved in how children learn their first words. One of their previous studies suggests that children learn these words in what might be described as a "eureka" moment that is, only after "highly informative" examples of speech that clearly connect the word to the thing it refers to.
The researchers suspected these highly informative examples would matter much more than the sheer amount of talk in the home when it came to which children learned more words. To determine if this was the case, they set out to track the long-term effects of these examples, seeing if children who had been exposed to them more often did better on a vocabulary test three years later. However, to begin this study, the researchers first had to determine what constituted highly informative speech.
To quantify this phenomenon, the researchers visited more than 50 families from various backgrounds in their homes and videotaped parents interacting with their children. They made these visits when the children were 14 months old and then again four months later.
The researchers edited these taped interactions down to 40-second segments, each centered on one instance of a parent saying a common, concrete noun, such as "book," "ball" or "dog." The researchers showed these segments to adult volunteers but muted the video until the parent reached the target word, which was replaced by a beep. The volunteers were asked to guess the word the parent was saying in each instance.
"We purposely chose videos of parents interacting with their children in the home because of the complexity there," Trueswell said. "Our intuitions are a little misleading; we think it's going to be a simple environment, but there's all sorts of things happening at once and changing on a second-by-second basis. Identifying a particular word's referent, especially when you don't know any words to begin with, is not a simple task."
By taking out the verbal context, the volunteers experience the taped situations in the way the children experience it, as they don't yet understand any of the words and must rely on environmental clues to first learn them. The researchers also discarded any examples where the child might already know the word in question. In those cases, volunteers might be able to pick up clues from the child rather than the parent, and the parent might be less conscientious about connecting the meaning of a word to its referent.
"We see that the more an environment maximizes the 'here and nowness' of speech, such as when a parent is gesturing or looking at the object in question, the more likely it is that an interaction will be highly informative," Gleitman said. "And it turns out this is surprisingly hard to do; only 7 percent of the examples were able to be guessed correctly by more than half of the adults we showed them to."
If more than half the adults could guess an example's target word correctly, that suggested the interaction was highly informative. The researchers used this approach to determine approximately how frequently each child in the study heard these highly informative examples. They found a surprising amount of variability: the parents who provided the highest rate of highly informative examples did so 38 percent of the time, while those who provided the lowest rate did so only 4 percent of the time.
"This means that some parents are providing 10 times as much highly informative learning instances as others," Gleitman said.
The effect of this discrepancy was clear when the researchers tracked how well each of the children did on a standard vocabulary test three years later. The more frequently a child heard highly informative examples of speech, the better he or she did on these tests.
Increasing the quantity of speech was also beneficial but only because it increased the number of chances parents had to provide highly informative examples.
"Fortunately, low-informative instances seem to be ignored," Trueswell said. "By talking to children more, it's not as if you're giving them bad data, you're only increasing the opportunity to find those nuggets."
Critically, the rate at which a parent gave highly informative examples to their children wasn't correlated to the amount they spoke to them in total. This is potentially hopeful news, given the studies that link low socioeconomic status, or SES, to low speech quantity and thus to poor scholastic performance.
"There are a variety of reasons why low-SES parents are speaking less to their children," Trueswell said, "but, when they do speak to them, their natural predispositions about talking about the 'here and now' don't seem to be correlated to their SES."
And while the exact mechanisms that lead to a particular bit of speech being highly informative will need to be determined in future research, the Penn team's study shows how these quality examples can have an overriding and lasting effect on an important stage of a child's development.
"You can see this effect even with all the variations in their lives and personalities," Gleitman said. "Through all of that noise, the signal of a linear relationship between these highly informative examples and their children's performance on that vocabulary test three years later shines through."
###
The research was supported through the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
[ | 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.
Penn psychologists show that quality matters more than quantity for word learningPublic release date: 24-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Evan Lerner elerner@upenn.edu 215-573-6604 University of Pennsylvania
Several studies have shown that how much parents say to their children when they are very young is a good predictor of children's vocabulary at the point when they begin school. In turn, a child's vocabulary size at school entry strongly predicts level of success throughout schooling even into high school and college.
A new study by psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania now shows that early vocabulary improvement is likely to have more to do with the "quality" of the interactions in which the words are used rather than the sheer quantity of speech directed at young children. Moreover, the study shows that, unlike quantity, the quality of these interactions is not related to the parents' socioeconomic status.
The study was conducted by professors John Trueswell and Lila Gleitman, both of the Department of Psychology in Penn's School of Arts and Sciences, as well as by Erica Cartmill and Susan Goldin-Meadow of the University of Chicago. Also contributing to the study were Benjamin Armstrong III of Penn and Tamara Medina of Drexel University.
It was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy and Sciences.
Knowing how critical early-language acquisition is to a person's future success, Trueswell and Gleitman have long investigated the mechanisms involved in how children learn their first words. One of their previous studies suggests that children learn these words in what might be described as a "eureka" moment that is, only after "highly informative" examples of speech that clearly connect the word to the thing it refers to.
The researchers suspected these highly informative examples would matter much more than the sheer amount of talk in the home when it came to which children learned more words. To determine if this was the case, they set out to track the long-term effects of these examples, seeing if children who had been exposed to them more often did better on a vocabulary test three years later. However, to begin this study, the researchers first had to determine what constituted highly informative speech.
To quantify this phenomenon, the researchers visited more than 50 families from various backgrounds in their homes and videotaped parents interacting with their children. They made these visits when the children were 14 months old and then again four months later.
The researchers edited these taped interactions down to 40-second segments, each centered on one instance of a parent saying a common, concrete noun, such as "book," "ball" or "dog." The researchers showed these segments to adult volunteers but muted the video until the parent reached the target word, which was replaced by a beep. The volunteers were asked to guess the word the parent was saying in each instance.
"We purposely chose videos of parents interacting with their children in the home because of the complexity there," Trueswell said. "Our intuitions are a little misleading; we think it's going to be a simple environment, but there's all sorts of things happening at once and changing on a second-by-second basis. Identifying a particular word's referent, especially when you don't know any words to begin with, is not a simple task."
By taking out the verbal context, the volunteers experience the taped situations in the way the children experience it, as they don't yet understand any of the words and must rely on environmental clues to first learn them. The researchers also discarded any examples where the child might already know the word in question. In those cases, volunteers might be able to pick up clues from the child rather than the parent, and the parent might be less conscientious about connecting the meaning of a word to its referent.
"We see that the more an environment maximizes the 'here and nowness' of speech, such as when a parent is gesturing or looking at the object in question, the more likely it is that an interaction will be highly informative," Gleitman said. "And it turns out this is surprisingly hard to do; only 7 percent of the examples were able to be guessed correctly by more than half of the adults we showed them to."
If more than half the adults could guess an example's target word correctly, that suggested the interaction was highly informative. The researchers used this approach to determine approximately how frequently each child in the study heard these highly informative examples. They found a surprising amount of variability: the parents who provided the highest rate of highly informative examples did so 38 percent of the time, while those who provided the lowest rate did so only 4 percent of the time.
"This means that some parents are providing 10 times as much highly informative learning instances as others," Gleitman said.
The effect of this discrepancy was clear when the researchers tracked how well each of the children did on a standard vocabulary test three years later. The more frequently a child heard highly informative examples of speech, the better he or she did on these tests.
Increasing the quantity of speech was also beneficial but only because it increased the number of chances parents had to provide highly informative examples.
"Fortunately, low-informative instances seem to be ignored," Trueswell said. "By talking to children more, it's not as if you're giving them bad data, you're only increasing the opportunity to find those nuggets."
Critically, the rate at which a parent gave highly informative examples to their children wasn't correlated to the amount they spoke to them in total. This is potentially hopeful news, given the studies that link low socioeconomic status, or SES, to low speech quantity and thus to poor scholastic performance.
"There are a variety of reasons why low-SES parents are speaking less to their children," Trueswell said, "but, when they do speak to them, their natural predispositions about talking about the 'here and now' don't seem to be correlated to their SES."
And while the exact mechanisms that lead to a particular bit of speech being highly informative will need to be determined in future research, the Penn team's study shows how these quality examples can have an overriding and lasting effect on an important stage of a child's development.
"You can see this effect even with all the variations in their lives and personalities," Gleitman said. "Through all of that noise, the signal of a linear relationship between these highly informative examples and their children's performance on that vocabulary test three years later shines through."
###
The research was supported through the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
[ | 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.
Once the decision to have a new swimming pool installed has been made there is often a lot of excitement surrounding the project itself as well as the end result. Before homeowners can begin enjoying their pool however they must first undertake one of the most daunting aspects of the new swimming pool. Swimming pool design often drives homeowners mad due to the number of existing designs and the possibilities that are limited only by their own minds and their budget.
In addition to the actual design or architecture of a swimming pool, homeowners must also decide whether their new swimming pool will be of the in ground or above ground variety. Both design have their pros and cons, things that homeowners will need to consider heavily and maybe even consult with the contractor on to ensure they get the pool they want. While many homeowners will immediately begin gravitating towards above ground pool simply because they are far more inexpensive than in ground pools there are some reasons that cause homeowners to change their minds.
When dealing with in ground pools homeowners will have a pool that's made from concrete, vinyl, or even fiberglass. All of these materials have advantages and disadvantages though they're all very strong and make for great swimming pools. In an in ground pool made of concrete homeowners will get peace of mind knowing that they have the most versatile and durable material available for a swimming pool. This means far less hassle and even less repair. While vinyl in ground pools are nearly as versatile as concrete they require greater care when a homeowner wants to avoid tearing or puncturing there liners. As far as fiberglass is concerned in an in ground pool, it is the cheapest and easiest to install however is far less versatile than both concrete and vinyl. Regardless of the type of material a homeowner selects for their new in ground pool they're going to be getting a pool that is of the highest quality.
Many times the need for repairs, limited design choices, the lack of versatility, and dealing with the hassles of an above ground pool aren't enough to dissuade someone from purchasing one. Another reason homeowners may elect an above ground pool as opposed to an in ground pool is cost. Generally speaking and with only a few exceptions, above ground pools are far less expensive than their in ground cousins. Many homeowners also select an above ground pool because they don't want to wait months to begin utilizing their new swimming pool. Additionally a great deal of above ground pools require no contractor for installation. Though they can still be hired to do so most homeowners will be savvy enough to handle installation themselves.
It behooves any homeowner that has decided to have a new swimming pool installed to first consult with a contractor to determine the reality of such a project. Things like placement, cost, design, and above ground versus in ground are things that will need to be sorted out long before any decision to have one installed is made.
Millennium Construction specializes in Orange County swimming pools, Corona Del Mar landscaping ,and pools.
Melbourne Zoo?s newest primate baby, a three week-old Colobus monkey, is held in the arms of her mother Clover, in Melbourne on June 29, 2011. Keepers have not been able to determine the sex of the newborn monkey which is pure white and won?t display any black markings until it?s several months old. Black and White Colobus Monkeys, native to Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania and Kenya, have seen their populations suffer from the fur trade during colonial times, but now the greatest threats to their survival are the loss of their habitat and the bushmeat trade, the large-scale hunting to supply meat to towns and cities. (WILLIAM WEST/AFP/Getty Images)
A lynx born on June 10, 2011, is pictured with its mother on June 30, 2011, at the Amneville's zoo, eastern France. (CHRISTOPHE VERHAEGEN/AFP/Getty Images)
An unnamed baby baboon is seen in his mothers arms at the Hagenbeck Zoo on April 18, 2012 in Hamburg, Germany. (Photo by Joern Pollex/Getty Images)
A Siberian tiger (Panthere tiger altaica) mother Niva carries one of her newborns at the Budapest Zoo and Botanic Garden in the Hungarian capital on July 4, 2011. Three eight-week-old Siberian tigers, Virgil, Thrax and Manu, were presented to the press for the first time with their health checkups and ID chips implanted by the chief doctor of the zoo. (ATTILA KISBENEDEK/AFP/Getty Images)
An eight-day old black-capped capuchin offspring holds on to its mother in an enclosure at the Serengeti animal park in Hodenhagen, western Germany, on May 14, 2012. (HOLGER HOLLEMANN/AFP/GettyImages)
Lion mother Princess licks one of her white lion babies on July 17, 2012 in Kempten, southern Germany. Lion mother Princess gave birth to six white lion cubs on July 11, 2012 at the Circus Krone. (OBIAS KLEINSCHMIDT/AFP/GettyImages)
Sydney Wildlife World's new baby joey koala 'Boonda', clings to its mother 'Elle' on June 28, 2011. Koalas are under threat due to a shortage of suitable habitat from mass land clearance, with Sydney Wildlife World launching KOALA HQ in July, to help raise much needed awareness regarding the importance of conserving one of Australia's most iconic and adored marsupials. (GREG WOOD/AFP/Getty Images)
Sydney Wildlife World's new baby joey koala 'Boonda' (C), clings to its mother 'Elle' on June 28, 2011. Koalas are under threat due to a shortage of suitable habitat from mass land clearance, with Sydney Wildlife World launching KOALA HQ in July, to help raise much needed awareness regarding the importance of conserving one of Australia's most iconic and adored marsupials. (GREG WOOD/AFP/Getty Images)
Baby 'Kipenzi' sits in her mother 'Kriba's' arms at the Taronga Zoo on January 25, 2011 in Sydney, Australia. The baby western lowland Gorilla, 'Kipenzi' was born to mother 'Kriba' and father 'Kibabu' on January 15th. Western lowland Gorillas are on the critically endangered list. (Photo by Brendon Thorne/Getty Images)
A wild macaque baby monkey suckles milk from its mother (L) in the suburbs of Kuala Lumpur on September 2, 2012. The long-tailed macaques can be found in the suburbs of Kuala Lumpur. (MOHD RASFAN/AFP/GettyImages)
Newly born twin baby orangutans cling to their mother at an enclosure at the Foundation for Sustainable Ecosystem in Medan, North Sumatra province on January 27, 2011. Orangutans are far more genetically diverse thatn thought, a finding that could help their survival, say scientists delivering their full DNA analysis of the critically endangered ape. The study, published January 27 in the science journal Nature, also reveals that the orangutan -- 'the man of the forest' -- has hardly evolved over the past 15 million years, in sharp contrast to Homo sapiens and his closest cousin, the chimpanzee. (AFP/AFP/Getty Images)
A black-and-white ruffed lemur (Varecia variegata) born in captivity a month ago, hangs on the back of its mother at the zoo in Cali, Valle del Cauca, Colombia, on March 7, 2011. It is the second time there is a birth of this species in captivity in Colombia. (LUIS ROBAYO/AFP/Getty Images)
A Titi Pigmeo (Cebuella Pygmaea) born in captivity ten days ago, hangs from the back of its mother at the Santa Fe zoo in Medellin, Antioquia department, Colombia on May 13, 2011. (RAUL ARBOLEDA/AFP/Getty Images)
A mother polar bear plays with one of her three cubs born in last November, at the Moscow Zoo, on March 22, 2012. (ANDREY SMIRNOV/AFP/Getty Images)
A one-month-old baby lion-tailed macaque clings to its mother at Berlin's Zoologischer Garten Zoo August 23, 2011. The lion-tailed macaque (Macaca silenus) is an Old World monkey that is endemic to the Western Ghats of south India, it ranks among the rarest and most threatened primates. Some 3000-3500 of these animals live scattered over several areas in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. (JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP/Getty Images)
Johti, 44-years old Asiatic Elephant (Elephas Maximus), plays with her newborn female baby at Ostrava's Zoo on May 31, 2011. The baby elephant was born on April 15. (JOE KLAMAR/AFP/Getty Images)
A three-month-old Crowned lemur (Eulemur coronatus) sits next to its mother in their enclosure on July 8, 2011 at the zoo in Mulhouse, northeastern France. Every year there are about 250 to 350 births at the Mulhouse zoo. Some young animals, once weaned, can be introduced in protected zones of their original region. If not, they go to other zoos to make up other families. Genetic mixing is necessary for the animals' health and the survival of the species. (SEBASTIEN BOZON/AFP/Getty Images)
A three-month-old Pied tamarin (Saguinus Bicolor) is pictured with its mother in their enclosure on July 8, 2011 at the zoo in Mulhouse, northeastern France. Every year there are about 250 to 350 births at the Mulhouse zoo. Some young animals, once weaned, can be introduced in protected zones of their original region. If not, they go to other zoos to make up other families. Genetic mixing is necessary for the animals' health and the survival of the species. (SEBASTIEN BOZON/AFP/Getty Images)
A three-month-old Crowned lemur (Eulemur coronatus) sits next to its mother in their enclosure on July 8, 2011 at the zoo in Mulhouse, northeastern France. Every year there are about 250 to 350 births at the Mulhouse zoo. Some young animals, once weaned, can be introduced in protected zones of their original region. If not, they go to other zoos to make up other families. Genetic mixing is necessary for the animals' health and the survival of the species. (SEBASTIEN BOZON/AFP/Getty Images)
A baby Pygmy hippopotamus stands next to her mother in an enclosure at Tokyo's Ueno Zoo on July 24, 2011. The baby hippo was born on June 22 at the zoo. (KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP/Getty Images)
A baby baboon only a few days old clings to its mother in an enclosure at the 'ZOOM' Zoo in Gelsenkirchen, western Germany on March 12, 2012. (PATRIK STOLLARZ/AFP/Getty Images)
A Danta (Tapitus terrestris) born in captivity ten days ago, stands by its mother at the Santa Fe zoo in Medellin, Antioquia department, Colombia on May 13, 2011. (RAUL ARBOLEDA/AFP/Getty Images)
'Luk Chai' (L) and his mother 'Thong Dee' (R) arrive for Luk Chai's second birthday celebrations at Taronga Zoo in Sydney on July 4, 2011. The 830kg infant was the first Asian elephant to be born in Australia and is considered to be a milestone in the zoo's Asian Elephant Conservation Program. (TORSTEN BLACKWOOD/AFP/Getty Images)
This photo taken on December 2, 2011 shows a lamb feeding on her mother as a flock of sheep graze along a road in the outskirts of Beijing. Agricultural authorities in China have recently begun testing sheep after media reports claimed the livestock had been fed an illegal additive meant to make their meat leaner, claiming that clenbuterol, commonly known as 'lean meat powder' in China, was detected in live sheep in Lijin county, a major sheep meat production base in Shandong province. (GOH CHAI HIN/AFP/Getty Images)
A white tiger cub is pictured beside its mother Lisa on December 5, 2011 at the zoological park of Cerza in Hermival-les-Vaux, northern France. The three-year-old Lisa gave birth on October 8, 2011 to two white tigers belonging to a relatively rare species. (KENZO TRIBOUILLARD/AFP/Getty Images)
Two Pumas cubs and their mother called ''Xochitl'' remain at the National Zoo in Masaya department, Nicaragua on January 25, 2012. (ELMER MARTINEZ/AFP/Getty Images)
A merino lamb lies next to its mother moments after its birth at the Educational and Reserach Station for Animal Breeding (Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt fuer Tierzucht und Tierhaltung, or LVAT) in Brandenburg state on January 27, 2012 in Gross Kreutz, Germany. Hundreds of lambs have been born at the LVAT in recent weeks in the midst of the station's lambing season. Many of the lambs will be sold just before Easter, when they will have grown to a weight of over 40kg, as lamb is the traditional German Easter meal. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
Eighteen-day-old pygmy hippopotamus (Choeropsis liberiensis or Hexaprotodon liberiensis) makes his first public appearance with its 29-year-old mother Dina at the Bratislava zoo on May 24, 2011. The father is four-year-old Paul brought from the Berlin at the age of one. (JOE KLAMAR/AFP/Getty Images)
A two week-old Eastern Bongo calf stands beside her mother at Sydney's Taronga Zoo on April 13, 2012. Eastern (or Highlands) Bongos are critically endangered with as few as 75 remaining in small groups of 6 to 12 animals in their Kenyan upland range. Bongo are one of the largest species of antelope in the world and are recognised by their striking russet colour and large antlers which extend over their backs. (WILLIAM WEST/AFP/Getty Images)
A baby giraffe calf named Mugambi explores alongside his mother Etosha the compound at the Hagenbeck Zoo on April 18, 2012 in Hamburg, Germany. The male calf was born on March 13 with a weight of 55 kilos. (Photo by Joern Pollex/Getty Images)
Baby polar bear Anori is accompanied by her mother Vilma as she explores her enclosure at the zoo in Wuppertal, western Germany, on April 19, 2012. Anori was born on January 4, 2012. Anori has the same father as world famous polar bear Knut, who died in 2011. (PATRIK STOLLARZ/AFP/Getty Images)
Bristol Zoo's baby gorilla Kukena holds onto his mother's arm as he ventures out of his enclosure at Bristol Zoo's Gorilla Island on May 4, 2012 in Bristol, England. The seven-month-old western lowland gorilla is starting to find his feet as he learns to walk having been born at the zoo in September. Kukena joins a family of gorillas at the zoo that are part of an international conservation breeding programme for the western lowland gorilla, which is a critically endangered species. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)
A ring-tailed lemur baby is carried by its mother through their enclosure at the Serengeti animal park in Hodenhagen, western Germany, on May 14, 2012. In the wild, the monkeys live in South America. (HOLGER HOLLEMANN/AFP/GettyImages)
One-day-old giraffe Bashu is groomed by its mother Iwana at the Artis Zoo in Amsterdam, on 20 June 2012. (ED OUDENAARDEN/AFP/GettyImages)
A baby beluga whale swims close to her 11 year old mother called Parara, at the Hakkeijima Sea Paradise aquarium in Yokohama in suburban Tokyo on June 30, 2012. The one a half meters in length baby beluga was born at the aquarium on June 28. (YOSHIKAZU TSUNO/AFP/GettyImages)
Jumaane, a 4-month old male African baby white rhinos stays close to his mother, Shova in its enclosure at the Singapore Zoo on July 17, 2012. Singapore Zoo currently has eight of these majestic creatures in its collection, and with the most number of white rhinos bred in a single zoo in Southeast Asia. So far 13 baby white rhinos have been born here, with some have been sent to Indonesia, Australia, Thailand and South Korea as part of the Zoo?s ex-situ conservation efforts through its worldwide exchange programme .White rhinos are considered near threatened in the wild on the IUCN?s Red List of Threatened species. (ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP/GettyImages)
Baby capuchin monkey Bonita sits on her mother and bites in a piece of paper at the zoo in Cologne, western Germany, on August 2, 2012. In the wild, capuchins live in Central and South America. (OLIVER BERG/AFP/GettyImages)
Baby capuchin monkey Bonita sits on her mother at the zoo in Cologne, western Germany, on August 2, 2012. In the wild, capuchins live in Central and South America. (OLIVER BERG/AFP/GettyImages)
Young leopards from Sri Lanka, born in the bioparc of Doue-la-Fontaine, play with their mother Iris on September 2, 2012. The Sri Lanka leopard is the largest feline in the island country that shares its name. Rare in captivity, it is threatened by the destruction of its habitat. Three young panthera live in the Zoo of Doue-La-Fontaine, Ciuttai, Cingha and Lanka are the children of Iris (6 years) and Bonhomme (12 years). (FRANK PERRY/AFP/GettyImages)
A new born male dolphin and its mother Roxane swim on September 4, 2012, the day after the birth, at the Brugge Seapark. (KURT DESPLENTER/AFP/GettyImages)
A five months of old male baby golden brushtail possum named Cooper (R) eats his meal next to his mother named Cascade at the Wild Life zoo in Sydney's central district on September 14, 2012. Joey's birth in April is the fourth succesful captive breeding program by Wild Life on the rare golden brushtail possum whose unique color is due to low levels of melanin in their skin and makes them highly visible to predators in the Australian wilds. (ROMEO GACAD/AFP/GettyImages)
One month-old baby mandrill Aron clings to his mother Sandra in their cage at Berlin's Zoologischer Garten zoo on September 28, 2012. The mandrill (Mandrillus sphinx) is a primate of the Old World monkey (Cercopithecidae) family,closely related to the baboons and even more closely to the drill. (JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP/GettyImages)
One month-old baby mandrill Aron clings to his mother Sandra in their cage at Berlin's Zoologischer Garten zoo on September 28, 2012. The mandrill (Mandrillus sphinx) is a primate of the Old World monkey (Cercopithecidae) family,closely related to the baboons and even more closely to the drill. (JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP/GettyImages)
Goliath (L), a baby rhinoceros born on September 18, looks on in his pen next to his mother on October 4, 2012, in the zoological park of Peaugres, central France. Goliath is the first rhino to be born in a French zoo this year and the third in Europe. (PHILIPPE DESMAZES/AFP/GettyImages)
A mother toque macaque, which is a kind of monkey from Ceylon, holds her male baby at Zoo Berlin on October 23, 2012 in Berlin, Germany. The baby monkey was born on August 23. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
A mother toque macaque, which is a kind of monkey from Ceylon, holds her male baby at Zoo Berlin on October 23, 2012 in Berlin, Germany. The baby monkey was born on August 23. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
A baby hippopotamus born November 23 swims with its mother at Zoo Berlin on December 7, 2012 in Berlin, Germany. The baby hippo is a boy and has two sisters. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
A baby anteater (Myemecophaga tridactyla), born in captivity last December 6, is pictured next to its mother at Amneville Zoo, on December 20, 2012 in Amneville, eastern France. (JEAN-CHRISTOPHE VERHAEGEN/AFP/Getty Images)
Four-week-old Jamil (R) a greater one horned rhinoceros stands beside his mother, Behan, at an enclosure at Whipsnade Zoo on January 8, 2013. The rhino, one of Whipsnade's newest arrivals weighed in a 59 Kg at birth. The young rhino made its first pubic appearance, stepping out from his paddock for the first time ready to be counted in the annual zoo stocktake. (ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP/Getty Images)
A White-Cheeked Gibbon mother sits and her baby (R) look on at the Beijing Zoo on January 21, 2013. The zoo grounds were originally a Ming Dynasty imperial palace and finally opened to the public in 1908. The zoo's history states that during the WWII, most of the zoo's animals died of starvation with only 13 monkeys and one old emu surviving the war. (MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images)
A drill monkey mother Kaduna holds her one week young Drill baby in the primate enclosure in the zoo of Munich Hellabrunn, southern Germany, on January 31, 2013. The Drill monkey baby was born in the zoo on January 24, 2013. The Drill's are in danger of extinction in Africa. (CHRISTOF STACHE/AFP/Getty Images)
ZocDoc, the company that makes a web-centric platform for booking health appointments, has closed on $53 million as part of a new $55 million round of convertible debt. In a phone call this afternoon, ZocDoc CEO Cyrus Massoumi said that the funding is in a convertible debt note with a “handful of folks.” He declined to provide further details on the entities involved. “We made the decision a little while ago to open up a convertible debt note on incredibly company-favorable terms… and I don’t believe that companies should ever raise money when they ‘need it’,” Massoumi said. “We don’t need the money, we don’t plan to use it, it’s basically sitting in the bank collecting dust.” Indeed, it doesn’t seem like ZocDoc should be desperate for new funds at the moment. Since it was founded five years ago, ZocDoc has taken on some $95 million in venture capital from investors including Khosla Ventures, Goldman Sachs, DST Global, and others. The new debt note comes at a solid point in ZocDoc’s growth, Massoumi said. ZocDoc has now passed 1,000 procedure types on the service. This is a nice bit of news for the company, which when it launched way back in 2007 at the TechCrunch 40 conference (the earliest iteration of what is now known as Disrupt) was criticized for being something that people would book minor appointments on, but not major things like heart surgeries. “Now, we have people booking appointments for heart surgeries and butt rashes,” Massoumi joked. The new infusion of funding will be a nice thing to have set away as ZocDoc continues to angle for more growth. Massoumi says that ZocDoc recently expanded its New York headquarters, and now has more than 400 employees on its payroll. Its platform is live in more than 1800 cities, and the “vast majority” of the regions in which it operates are profitable for the company, he said.
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Public release date: 24-Jun-2013
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ZocDoc, the company that makes a web-centric platform for booking health appointments, has closed on $53 million as part of a new $55 million round of convertible debt. In a phone call this afternoon, ZocDoc CEO Cyrus Massoumi said that the funding is in a convertible debt note with a “handful of folks.” He declined to provide further details on the entities involved. “We made the decision a little while ago to open up a convertible debt note on incredibly company-favorable terms… and I don’t believe that companies should ever raise money when they ‘need it’,” Massoumi said. “We don’t need the money, we don’t plan to use it, it’s basically sitting in the bank collecting dust.” Indeed, it doesn’t seem like ZocDoc should be desperate for new funds at the moment. Since it was founded five years ago, ZocDoc has taken on some $95 million in venture capital from investors including Khosla Ventures, Goldman Sachs, DST Global, and others. The new debt note comes at a solid point in ZocDoc’s growth, Massoumi said. ZocDoc has now passed 1,000 procedure types on the service. This is a nice bit of news for the company, which when it launched way back in 2007 at the TechCrunch 40 conference (the earliest iteration of what is now known as Disrupt) was criticized for being something that people would book minor appointments on, but not major things like heart surgeries. “Now, we have people booking appointments for heart surgeries and butt rashes,” Massoumi joked. The new infusion of funding will be a nice thing to have set away as ZocDoc continues to angle for more growth. Massoumi says that ZocDoc recently expanded its New York headquarters, and now has more than 400 employees on its payroll. Its platform is live in more than 1800 cities, and the “vast majority” of the regions in which it operates are profitable for the company, he said.
