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Monday, November 28, 2011
IgNobel Prizes Salute The Silly In Science
Copyright ? 2011 National Public Radio?. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.
IRA FLATOW, HOST:
Fasten your seatbelt, it's going to be a bumpy ride. Well, actually, it's going to be a pretty smooth ride thanks to concrete, asphalt, macadam and tarmac. Those are the materials that transformed the muddy trails and paths that once crisscrossed the U.S., transformed them into our massive system of superhighways, a system that in many ways now defines what the U.S. is.
Where would California be without the 405 - they say the out there - or Washington with no Beltway? And New Jersey, what's your exit? The American highways are such a part of our life that probably most of us never stop and think about how the world's largest public works project came to be, and it is the world's largest public works project. It's really a fascinating story.
It's filled with mythology like this: You probably heard that it was President Eisenhower, right, who was responsible for the system; it's named after him. Well, he knew virtually nothing about it until he stumbled upon it by accident while in a traffic jam.
It's a really fascinating story, and it's told in the new book "The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Highways." Earl Swift is the author, and he is here. He joins us from HWRO in Norfolk, Virginia. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY.
EARL SWIFT: Ira, thanks for having me.
FLATOW: You know, that is a big myth, is it not? We all say it was Eisenhower who created the superhighways.
SWIFT: Oh, it's been - I mean, the fact that it is named after him certainly leaves one with that impression. And I know I grew up believing that it was as much a part of his era as the polio vaccine and, you know, Telstar.
FLATOW: Right. Well, I'm going to quote from a page in your book where you put that all to rest, and you say the Federal Highway Act of 1921, signed into law in November, was the foundation for modern highway-building in the U.S. It remains the single most important piece of legislation in the creation of a national network, far more so than the later Interstate Highway Bill, which would not have been possible or necessary without it. Wow.
SWIFT: True, yeah. 1921 is really when we got modern, the modern partnership between the federal government and the states that enabled the country to build the network of highways we have today.
FLATOW: You mean the states were building their own roads, and the government was not involved on the state level?
SWIFT: The government was involved, but it was not - there was no coordination built into the planning between states. So you had states and federal government sharing the expense of building highways, but you had no overall plan for how these things would link up into a network that made sense. There was no rational, you know, vision for the thing. The 1921 act changed that.
FLATOW: And you talked about some of the visionaries, about that when Eisenhower got into office, there was a plan that had been well thought out, and the whole highway system put on paper already, and he didn't even know about it.
SWIFT: This had already been authorized by Congress. We had an interstate highways system already approved, already on, you know, on the books. The only thing it lacked was money. And in fact it had already received a couple of years' worth of funding, although at a token amount at that point.
So it was a done deal in every important respect, in planning, conception, in routing. You know, where these highways would go had already been decided, what they'd look like, you know, how fast you'd be able to go on them and where you'd be able to go on them.
FLATOW: And you told a really interesting anecdote about how Eisenhower stumbled on the plan in a traffic - stuck in a traffic jam one day.
SWIFT: Well, that's one version of the story. He - of course when he got stuck in that traffic jam, that would have been in 1957 or '58. He was well aware of the system by that time. He had signed the act that had financed it. What he wasn't aware of when he ran into that traffic jam in suburban D.C. was that the interstate highway system that he conceived of, that he thought he was signing into law, was very different from the interstate highway system that had actually been planned back in the '30s and '40s and authorized by Congress.
He had no idea that that system would venture into the cities. In fact, he was very much against that.
FLATOW: You're listening to SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. We're talking about the creation of the superhighway system in the United States, talking with Earl Swift, author of "The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways."
And this book is so chock-full of little anecdotes and stories and stuff. It's hard to know where to begin. Let me begin or continue by asking you: Who would be considered then the great father of our superhighway system? Who would you credit? I know you talk a lot about Thomas McDonald(ph) as being...
SWIFT: Thomas McDonald would probably get my vote as the first among equals of the triumvirate of men (unintelligible). It was an evolution. You know, the interstates evolved from the numbered U.S. highway system that dates to the mid-'20s. Those evolved from a very primitive network of mostly dirt auto trails that we had throughout the teens and early '20s.
It really started, for my - for the purpose of coming up with a line that makes sense with a guy named Carl Fisher(ph), I think - he was an Indiana wild man and speed demon, a bicycle racer, auto dealer. He marketed the first practical automotive headlight, which made him a millionaire, and he built the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with his winnings and then singlehandedly, pretty much, built the city of Miami Beach and along the way convinced a bunch of his automotive buddies to finance a rock highway from New York to San Francisco, the Lincoln Highway, which they did in fact build.
And that effort inspired businessmen in other cities to get behind private-sector road building as well, and that's how we got this primitive network of auto trails that sprung up in the late teens.
McDonald came in as the head of the federal road-building effort in 1919, a job he kept for 34 years. He finally retired in 1953. And he turned that primitive network that Fisher and company had conceived into a rational numbered network, a real grid that made some sense, and then conducted, oversaw the research in the '20s and '30s that spawned the interstate system and rode herd on the proposal that became the rough blueprint for the interstate system.
And then his protege, a guy named Frank Turner, turned that vision into the concrete and steel that started to sprout around the country in the '60s and '70s. Those three.
FLATOW: Yeah. And then they had to come up with a numbering system. That's fascinating how you describe how they decided how to number the highway.
SWIFT: Well, they did, because back in the days of the auto trails, the long-distance roads in America all had names, like the Lee Highway, the Lincoln, the Arrowhead Trail. And they identified themselves - if you were a driver, you knew when you were on a - on the road you were on because it had a signature color scheme, and they painted that color scheme in rings on telephone poles.
And, you know, they literally blazed the trail that you followed. But after a while, it became so unwieldy because you had multiple trails overlapping - you had 250 trails around the country, 64 in Iowa alone - and you couldn't keep track of where you were. I mean, the telephone poles were painted from ground to 15 feet up, and trying to figure out one color scheme from the next became a dangerous distraction.
So the feds and the state stepped in and decided to take the private auto trails, the associations that promoted these trails, out of the road-building business. And they came up - they assigned a committee to come up with a numbering scheme.
And a guy named E.W. James probably deserves the most credit for coming up with the scheme they devised in 1926, which was that all north-south highways would be numbered with odd numbers. All east-west highways would have even numbers. And the lowest numbers of each would be in the far northeast corner of the country, up in Maine.
So numbers would increase as you went west and south, and it had the advantage not only of being expandable - you know, you could always add more numbers to the system as you built new highways - but it also allowed a motorist to figure out where he was based on an intersection between these, you know, two of these highways. He could roughly kind of pinpoint - you could triangulate your position in the lower 48.
The interstate system took that same idea and just used a mirror image of it ? again, odd numbers are north-south, even numbers east-west. But the lowest numbers are down in San Diego, and they increase in number as you go east and north.
FLATOW: And then you have the triple digits, which showed there was like a spur, like if you had 95, 195 led into that.
SWIFT: On a three-digit number, the first number, if it's an odd number, denotes a spur. It means that it connects with the main highway only in one point. An even number means that it's a loop and that it connects in two places.
FLATOW: And that gave rise to the Beltway.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
SWIFT: Yes, it did.
FLATOW: But you talk about an interesting character, architect Lewis Mumford, who was very influential in those days, who started out as a great proponent, defender of the highway system, until he saw the havoc it was wrecking(ph) as people wanted to move it into downtown urban areas. And then he turned around, changed his mind.
SWIFT: Mumford is a very interesting guy because he did a complete 180. He - in the summer of 1931, he co-authored a piece in Harper's with a friend of his named Benton MacKaye, in which they advocated what we would now consider a limited-access, high-speed expressway. There were none of them in the country at the time. So this was pretty theoretical stuff that they were advocating.
But they described in this piece, you know, the modern interstate experience, pretty much, with great separated intersections, with development and access to the highway only at certain points. And you know, he - the interesting thing here is that MacKaye, his co-author in this, was also the guy who proposed the Appalachian Trail a few years ago, or a few years before that.
Over the course of the next 25 years, after this story appears - and they were - there were a number of thinkers who were, you know, kind of dovetailing on this idea of limited access at the time, but over the next 25 years, Mumford completely shifted his thinking on highways.
And as you say, it was especially when he saw the collateral damage caused by trying to ramrod a, you know, 200, 300 foot road right-of-way through a densely settled older city, especially in the east...
FLATOW: And in the poorest neighborhoods he to try to get - and people...
SWIFT: Most often. But, you know, in the case of some road projects, weren't real picky about what kind of neighborhood they blasted through, and that caused Mumford a great deal of heartache, as did his realization over time that building more roads didn't alleviate traffic congestion, it just created more congestion on newer roads.
And he came to recognize, earlier than most people, I think, that highways are almost like mountains. They create their own weather. They fill up as quickly as you build them.
FLATOW: We're going to take a short break. We'll be right back to talk more with Earl Swift, author of "The Big Roads." Stay with us.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
FLATOW: You're listening to SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. We're talking about highways with Earl Swift, author of "The Big Roads." One of the most fascinating aspects of your book, because it interests me so personally, is concrete.
SWIFT: Well, you're the first person who's said to me, Ira, that that is the part of the book that most interested them. So I'm glad to hear it because I was fascinated by concrete. I really was, actually.
FLATOW: It never stops curing, I understand. But that's another story.
SWIFT: That's true, it just cooks along. I found out a lot more than I ever expected to know about concrete in the course of doing the book. And one of the things that really surprised me is that this is an ancient technology that we just kind of lost for hundreds of years. You know, this was something that the Romans were very adept at using, and yet we for the entire first millennium and right up until really the opening of the 20th century kind of just somehow misplaced that technology completely and didn't get it back in full until 1918.
An American engineer named Duff Abrams, in 1918, came up with the very simple recipe for modern concrete. There had been a lot of competing theory about what constitutes the correct mix for concrete's various components, and there are only three components.
There's cement, you know, Portland cement. There's water, and there's aggregate, which is sand or gravel or whatever it is that you mix to give it body. No one had been able to come up with a way to properly regulate the mixing of this so that you'd get a predictable result.
And Abrams was able to do that by just pointing out that after putting together 50,000-some-odd batches of concrete, he was able to say that the only thing that really determines the strength of concrete is that you use as little water as you possibly can in mixing it.
FLATOW: Just enough.
SWIFT: Just enough to make it plastic so that you can mix it. Anything more, and its strength just drops off a cliff.
FLATOW: And you talk about the early roads being made out of macadam.
SWIFT: Macadam is just, it's gravel of various types, various sizes. Usually you lay down big gravel, and then you lay down little gravel on top of it. You roll it, and voila, you have a macadam road. And it dates from the 1820s, 1830s and takes its name from a guy, John McAdam, who developed the process.
And really what American engineers brought to it was adding either tar or asphalt to the macadam to create bituminous macadam, and that's what we now know as blacktop.
FLATOW: Or tarmac, tar and macadam.
SWIFT: Tarmac would be the tar version. Yeah, tar is basically just a coal derivative. It's a fake asphalt.
FLATOW: See what you learn from this book. I mean - Susan(ph) in Alexandria, Virginia, hi Susan.
SUSAN: Hi, Ira. I always heard that Eisenhower, being of a military mind, required that there be these long, straight passages on the interstate system, say a mile long, that could be used as runways in case of some sort of national emergency, to be used in a military way. Is that true or urban myth?
FLATOW: Good question.
SWIFT: That is - Susan, that's sadly an urban myth. It's such a good story. It's a shame it is.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
SUSAN: Well, it's kind of a good idea.
FLATOW: Didn't he see in World War II the great autobahns the Germans had when he was over there and say I want some of that stuff?
SWIFT: Well, he sure did, knowing that, of course, we already had something on the books back here. But in fact the Air Force would have loved to have seen that, I think. And they approached the Bureau of Public Roads about having a look to see whether it was possible to incorporate an emergency runway system into the interstates.
And the federal highway folks just found that it could not be done...
FLATOW: In Europe - they have some in Europe, do they not, some of the highways?
SWIFT: Well, that was - of course you'd got to understand the autobahns were designed to be military roads. They were not designed to move people and commerce. I mean, they were - when they were opened, nobody in Germany had a car. The only people using them were trucks full of soldiers and tanks, and that was amply clear to all of the American highway officials who went over to take a look at them.
They admired their construction and design, but to a one, they came away concluding that something like that wouldn't have a lot of utility in the United States because, you know, it was designed to move the German army to the country's frontier so they could wage war on their neighbors and pretty clearly designed to do that.
FLATOW: You've seen a lot of highways and byways. Can you give us an idea of what the state of America's superhighways is today?
SWIFT: It's a bit troubling, really. Of course it varies from state to state. These are state highways. The U.S. interstate highways system is not owned by the federal government. You know, the system is now at or nearing its expected service life and will require a great infusion of capital in the coming years to stay useful, to stay in one piece.
We put a tremendous load on this thing. This - the 47,000-mile system constitutes 1.2 percent of our highway mileage, and it carries 25 percent of our traffic. So it's just an incalculable amount of wear that we subject these roads to, and we simply have not done a very good job in quite a few states at making sure that it's up to - will to continue to be up to the task.
What we'll see happen if isn't forthcoming to fix it is the bridges will be downgraded in what they can carry, and they'll become far less useful, and eventually you'll see stretches of the highway subjected to the same constraints.
FLATOW: They'll close them?
SWIFT: They will limit the amount of weight they can carry.
FLATOW: So trucks, heavy trucks won't be able to go on them.
SWIFT: Which is an awfully big piece of the reason they're useful.
FLATOW: And it's why the interstate highway was built in the first place.
SWIFT: It's a huge piece of the argument for them, you bet.
FLATOW: To go from big city to big city, as opposed to Eisenhower who thought they should be going to little towns. That's why he was so surprised.
SWIFT: Yeah, he envisioned kind of an autobahn system that avoided the cities. You might be able to get into a city off of the interstates system, on a spur, but the system itself would avoid the cities, and he was very surprised when he found that that wasn't the case. The concrete was already being poured when he found that wasn't the case.
FLATOW: Well, there are a lot of great, big surprises in your book, Earl, "The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways." With Earl Swift. We've only had a fraction of the time we need to cover this book.
And it's a great book, and it's all my geeky stuff in it, too, Earl, so...
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
SWIFT: Well, thank you.
FLATOW: Thanks for the details. The beauty is in the detail.
SWIFT: Thanks so much for having me.
FLATOW: One more time, Earl Swift, author of "The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways."
Copyright ? 2011 National Public Radio?. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.
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Source: http://www.npr.org/2011/11/25/142782869/ignobel-prizes-salute-the-silly-in-science?ft=1&f=1007
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Sunday, November 27, 2011
Poll: Germans strongly against eurobonds (AP)
BERLIN ? A newly released poll finds that Germans overwhelmingly oppose jointly guaranteed eurobonds while Chancellor Angela Merkel's hard-nosed management of the euro crisis is gaining rising approval.
A new drive this week by the European Commission for bonds guaranteed by all 17 eurozone countries was promptly stamped on by Merkel.
The ZDF television poll released Friday found that 79 percent of respondents opposed eurobonds and only 15 percent backed them.
It said 63 percent thought Merkel was doing a good job in the crisis and 29 percent disagreed. That figure has improved steadily since early October ? when 45 percent thought she was doing a good job and 46 percent disagreed.
The poll of 1,276 people was conducted Tuesday through Thursday and gave a margin of error of plus or minus three points.
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Mankato industrial building sold for $3.75 million - Finance ...
Mankato industrial building sold for $3.75 million?
Posted: 4:19 pm Fri, November 25, 2011
By Burl?Gilyard
Tags: Agristrand Mankato LLC, Dale Severson, Robert Bayer
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Source: http://finance-commerce.com/2011/11/mankato-industrial-building-sold-for-3-75-million/
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Health Tip: Protect Kids Who Have Food Allergies (HealthDay)
(HealthDay News) -- Depending on your child's sensitivity, a food allergy can range from very mild to life-threatening.
The American Dietetic Association offers these suggestions to help protect kids who have food allergies:
- Always check food labels for potential allergens.
- Make sure you inform all family members, teachers and caregivers about the severity of food allergies and symptoms to watch for.
- Make sure your child is fully informed, so he or she can be proactive in preventing an allergic reaction.
- Work with a registered dietitian to develop a healthy eating plan that excludes allergens.
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Kyobo eReader sports Qualcomm mirasol display (Digital Trends)
Like many other booksellers around the world, South Korea?s Kyobo Book Centre (Korean) is entering the ereader market with its new Kyobo eReader, and a 5.7-inch XGA display, battery life measured in weeks, Google?s Android under the hood, and (not surprising for the Korean market) an emphasis on Korean content. However, the Kyobo eReader has one feature that makes it absolutely unique on the planet: it uses a 5.7-inch XGA mirasol display from Qualcomm, a technology that combines the long battery possibilities of E Ink displays with a full color output and response times that let the display handle animated and video content. And, yes, it?s readable in full sunlight.
?The Kyobo e-Reader brings the user a true book reading experience,? said Kyobo Book Centre CEO Mr. Seong-Ryong Kim, in a statement. ?With our diverse content and leading edge technology from Qualcomm, Kyobo Book Centre will provide a premium reading experience to our customers.?
Mirasol displays operate using a principle similar to the phenomena that enables a peacock?s feathers to shift between colors in different light: basically, the display minutely controls the distance between a membrane and a reflective glass surface, and the distance between them either blocks light or amplifies particular frequencies, causing the membrane to appear transparent, black, or a particular colors. Qualcomm?s mirasol display layer three of these together to create a full color red, green, and blue display. The displays only consume power then they?re moving the membranes around, and they move them fast: they only have to move a few hundred nanometers to change color, enabling them to respond fast enough to handle video. The mirasol display actually gets brighter (rather than washed out) in bright light, and for use in dim places Qualcomm includes a front-light LED system that mimics sunlight.
The Kyobo eReader isn?t the first device with a mirasol display: they?re on a few Asian phones, a a handful of media devices have used small versions of the displays. However, the Kyobo eReader is the first ereader to adopt the technology?the 5.7-inch display has a native resolution of 1,024 by 768 pixels??and since it runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread, it may appeal to Android fans looking for a little something different. The mirasol display offers very long battery life compared to the LCDs in typical tablets?Kyobo says the device will run for ?weeks? with 30 minutes reading time a day and the front light set to 25 percent. The device also features a 1 GHz Qualcomm SnapDragon processor, multitouch touchscreen, and Wi-Fi connectivity?although users will need to turn Wi-Fi off to get maximum battery life. The Kyobo ereader will also feature English-language text-to-speech capabilities and the Diotek dictionary application.
The Kyobo eReader is available now in South Korea for a suggested retail price of KRW349,000?that?s about US$310, but Kyobo Platinum Book Club members can get the device for KRW299,000 (about US$265). There?s no word yet on whether Kyobo intends to market the device in countries outside Korea.
This article was originally posted on Digital Trends
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Saturday, November 26, 2011
Obama to be just at fan at this basketball game
President Barack Obama gives a thumbs-up as he leaves the athletic facility at Fort McNair in Washington Saturday, Nov. 26, 2011, after playing basketball. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
President Barack Obama gives a thumbs-up as he leaves the athletic facility at Fort McNair in Washington Saturday, Nov. 26, 2011, after playing basketball. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
President Barack Obama gives the thumbs-up as he leaves the athletic facility at Fort McNair in Washington Saturday, Nov. 26, 2011, after playing basketball in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
President Barack Obama waves as he leaves the athletic facility at Fort McNair in Washington Saturday, Nov. 26, 2011, after playing basketball. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama will be just a fan at this basketball game.
Obama, who plays in pick-up games as often as he can, is bringing his family to Towson University, just north of Baltimore, to watch Towson play Oregon State on Saturday afternoon.
The first lady's brother, Craig Robinson, is Oregon State's head coach.
Catching an Oregon State game has become a post-Thanksgiving tradition for the Obamas.
Last Thanksgiving, the Beavers came to Washington and beat Howard. The year before that, Oregon State made the trip east and defeated George Washington.
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NASA's biggest Mars rover poised for blastoff (AP)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. ? NASA is all set to launch the world's biggest extraterrestrial explorer.
A six-wheeled, one-armed Mars rover is due to blast off Saturday morning from Cape Canaveral. The unmanned Atlas V rocket will put the spacecraft on an 8 1/2-month trek to the red planet.
The rover, nicknamed Curiosity, is the size of a car. It's a mobile laboratory holding 10 science instruments that will sample Martian soil and rocks, and analyze them right there on the surface. There's a drill as well as a stone-zapping laser machine.
Curiosity will spend two years looking for evidence that Mars may once have been ? or still is ? suitable for microbial life.
The mission costs $2.5 billion.
Forecasters expect decent launching weather.
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Friday, November 25, 2011
Report: Iran lawmaker says 12 CIA agents arrested (AP)
TEHRAN, Iran ? Iran has arrested 12 agents of the American Central Intelligence Agency, the country's official IRNA news agency reported, quoting an influential lawmaker.
Parviz Sorouri, a member of the powerful parliamentary committee on foreign policy and national security, said the alleged agents were operating in coordination with Israel's Mossad and other regional agencies, targeting the country's military and its nuclear program.
"The U.S. and Zionist regime's espionage apparatuses were trying to damage Iran both from inside and outside with a heavy blow, using regional intelligence services," Sorouri was quoted as saying Wednesday.
"Fortunately, with swift reaction by the Iranian intelligence department, the actions failed to bear fruit," Sorouri said.
The United States and its allies suspect Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon program, a charge Iran denies.
The lawmaker did not give the nationality of the alleged agents nor when or where they were arrested.
The CIA declined to comment on the report.
Iran periodically announces the capture or execution of alleged U.S. or Israeli spies, and often no further information is released.
The latest claim follows the unraveling by Lebanon's Hezbollah of a CIA spy ring in that country. Hezbollah has close ties to Iran.
Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, boasted in June on television he had unmasked at least two CIA spies who had infiltrated the ranks of the organization. Though the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon denied that, American officials conceded that Nasrallah was not lying and that Hezbollah had subsequently methodically picked off CIA informants.
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Aruba set to free suspect in Md. woman's death
Closed captioning of: Aruban prosecutors fight to keep Giordano behind bars
>>> a new twist in the disappearance of american robyn gardner in aruba . the prime suspect in the case is behind bars , but that could change with a key hearing scheduled for today. jeff rossen has the latest. good morning to you.
>> it may be a holiday in the states, but in aruba it's just another business day . a hearing is scheduled later today for gary giordano . he's been locked up in aruba for 111 days still not charged with anything. prosecutors ask the judge for yet another extension as his lawyers fight to get him out. it is as mysterious as they can. robyn gardner on vacation seemingly happy with gary giordano . one minute enjoying a beachside restaurant in aruba , the next missing, never to be seen again. giordano maintains his innocence, but police won't let him go. today prosecutors will try to convince the judge to hold him behind bars yet another 30 days .
>> we have sufficient information to say that mr. giordano is not telling us the truth.
>> giordano sticks by hi his story that he and robyn were snorkeling in aruba . she was swept under by the current as he got out of the rough water. you can see giordano looking for help in the exclusive surveillance videos minutes after she vanished.
>> the greatest challenge for investigators is trying to show what happened to her. did she run away ? did she walk away ? was she murdered?
>> investigators search the water and the rough terrain surrounding the beach where robyn was last seen. they brought in cadaver dogs. they even staged an elaborate reenactment of the crime, and no sign of robyn . just this week the dutch royal navy searched the sea again.
>> we have the divers going into the water. we use robots to search the water for the body.
>> reporter: giordano 's lawyer says the case against him is thin.
>> on the proof that i've seen, everything up until now that i've seen clears gary giordano and confirms his version of the facts.
>> now with today's hearing experts say the heat is on.
>> i think the aruban government and investigators are under intense pressure to solve this case. we know what happened in the natalee holloway case. we know that there was no one charged in that. i think the aruban government is going to do everything they can to try to get this one right.
>> today's hearing is a big deal . if the judge agrees to keep giordano locked up, this is the final extension. in 30 days prosecutors either have to charge him or let him go. carl, he could face murder or manslaughter charges in aruba .
>> jeff rossen , thanks.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45436559/ns/world_news-americas/
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Stocks tumble amid fears over Europe
By msnbc.com news services
NEW YORK ? Stock indexes fell Tuesday after the U.S. government lowered its estimate of economic growth in the third quarter. Higher borrowing costs for Spain also renewed worries about Europe's debt crisis.
Hewlett-Packard Co. sank 2.8 percent, dragging down the Dow Jones industrial average. H-P lowered its earnings forecast for the 2012 fiscal year after the market closed Monday. The tech giant said it was being "cautious," citing Europe's debt crisis and weak consumer spending.
The Commerce Department said the U.S. economy grew at a 2 percent annual rate in the July-September period, down from its initial estimate of 2.5 percent. Economists had expected the figure to remain unchanged.
At the closing bell, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 53.51 points, or 0.46 percent, at 11,493.80. The Dow had been down as many as 113 points shortly before noon. After H-P, aluminum maker Bank of America Corp. had the biggest fall among the 30 stocks in the index, 2 percent.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index was down 4.93 points, or 0.41 percent, to 1,188.05. Both the Dow and S&P briefly turned slightly higher in early afternoon trading.
The S&P has lost 5.2 percent over the past week on worries that Spain could get dragged into Europe's debt crisis and as Congress neared a deadlock over cutting the U.S. budget deficit.
The Nasdaq composite dipped 1.86 points, or 0.07 percent, to 2,521.28.
The Dow plunged 249 points Monday as a congressional committee failed to reach a deal to cut budget deficits. The congressional impasse raised fears that rating agencies might lower the U.S. government's credit rating if Congress tries to circumvent the automatic spending cuts that are supposed to occur in the event of an impasse. Some Republicans have said they would try to block cuts to defense spending.
"Markets are looking for clarity, and you didn't get that from the super-committee," says Steven Ricchiuto, chief economist at Mizuho Securities. "There's no reason to believe the economy is going to get stronger."
Across the Atlantic, there were more signs of trouble in Europe's debt crisis. Spain was forced to pay sharply higher interest rates in an auction of short-term debt. The higher rates suggest that investors are still skeptical that the country will get its budget under control despite a new, center-right government coming to power this week.
Investors have been worried that Spain could become the next country to need financial support from its European neighbors if its borrowing rates climb to unsustainable levels. Greece was forced to seek relief from its lenders after its long-term borrowing rates rose above 7 percent on the bond market. The rate on Spain's own benchmark 10-year bond is dangerously close to that level, 6.58 percent.
In other trading, Netflix Inc. sank 3.6 percent. The online video rental company said it raised $400 million from selling debt and stock as it tries to recover from a consumer backlash following price hikes.
Campbell Soup Co. sank 5.5 percent after reporting a 5 percent drop in net income. The company said price increases were not enough to offset lower volume in its soup and beverage businesses.
Medtronic Inc. rose 4.8 percent. The world's largest medical device maker reported higher-than-expected earnings and reaffirmed its full-year earnings outlook.
Associated Press contributed to this report.?
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Thursday, November 24, 2011
Laser heating -- new light cast on electrons heated to several billion degrees
Monday, November 21, 2011
A new class of high power lasers can effectively accelerate particles like electrons and ions with very intense, short laser pulses. This has attracted the interest of researchers around the globe, working out the details of the acceleration process which occurs when a laser beam impinges on a thin foil to accelerate ions from the foil's rear surface to high energies. The electrons in the foil are heated by the laser pulse, thereby gaining energy. These electrons in turn give part of their energy to the ions, thereby converting laser pulse energy to ion energy. Physicists at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) have developed a new theoretical model for predicting the density and temperature of these hot electrons which surpasses existing models in accurately describing experimental results and simulations.
Particle acceleration by short, intense pulses of light is a modern technology which exhibits considerable advantages over conventional techniques: The distance needed for acceleration is much shorter and the costs for such systems are potentially much lower. The potentials of the new ion acceleration technology will be explored by a laser system which is currently under construction for use at the University Hospital in Dresden. It will be jointly used by the partners HZDR, the University Hospital, and TU Dresden for cancer research and therapy. For the first time ever, a prototype high performance laser will be used in addition to a conventional ion accelerator for radiation tumor therapy.
High power lasers like the DRACO laser at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf are about ten to a hundred times more intense than their predecessors for which theoretical estimates of electron temperature and density were more or less accurate. For the new generation of lasers, though, experimental findings considerably differ from predictions. Thomas Kluge, physicist in the Laser Particle Acceleration Division at the HZDR, together with his colleagues has developed a new theoretical model of laser electron interaction. Hot electrons serve as intermediaries in laser ion acceleration by transferring energy from the laser to the ions. Hence, precise information on the energy of hot electrons is vital for future laser-driven cancer therapy facilities.
Existing models have not been able to accurately predict the properties of hot electrons specifically at very high intensity ? like the electrons generated by the high power laser DRACO and the petawatt laser PENELOPE which is currently under construction at the HZDR. The Dresden researchers have developed an equation that allows precisely calculating the hot electron energy by taking into account the distribution of laser accelerated electrons as well as their dynamics according to the theory of special relativity.
"These new insights surpass models that have been around for decades; thus, permitting, on the one hand, an explanation of previous measurements while, on the other hand, allowing for predicting and optimizing future experiments with great precision," notes Michael Bussmann, Head of the HZDR's Junior Research Group "Computational Radiation Physics." The results were published in the scientific journal Physical Review Letters and are currently being applied to additional acceleration scenarios by the Dresden researchers in order to permit the future use of laser accelerators for medical use.
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Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres: http://www.helmholtz.de/en/index.html
Thanks to Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres for this article.
This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.
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Cops: Mom in love triangle kills 2 kids, self
GREENSBORO, N.C.?? A woman who killed her son and her niece ? and shot her ex-boyfriend, another son, a nephew and a teen girl before killing herself ? was bitter over an affair with the married man that ended with restraining orders filed, authorities said Monday.
Mary Ann Holder, 36, left behind two notes taking responsibility for the shootings Sunday morning and apologizing for the pain she caused, Guilford County Sheriff BJ Barnes said.
What the note didn't explain was why Holder decided to shoot five people under the age of 18 in the head along with the man she had an affair with.
"We may never know exactly what her thoughts were and why," Barnes said.
The shootings in three different locations south of Greensboro left Holder's 17-year-old son dead on Sunday. An 8-year-old niece died Monday.
Her 14-year-old son, 17-year-old nephew, and the older son's 15-year-old girlfriend were all in critical condition Monday morning. All were shot in the head.
Holder's ex-boyfriend, 40-year-old Randall Lamb, was in stable condition with a shoulder wound, Barnes said.
"We've got death. We've got drama. We've got a situation basically that no one could ever imagine would happen here," Barnes said.
The tragedy began to unfold shortly before 9 a.m. Sunday when Holder met Lamb in a parking lot. They spoke briefly before Holder shot him in the shoulder, investigators said.
Lamb called his wife and told her what happened, prompting deputies to begin looking for Holder. Officers were stationed outside her home, but a deputy spotted her car driving down the street about an hour later. The deputy said he saw a puff of smoke in the car and found Holder dead and her 14-year-old son, Zachary Smith, shot in the head, Barnes said.
The officers then went into Holder's home and found Holder's son, 17-year-old Robert Dylan Smith, dead. Smith's girlfriend, Makayla Woods was injured along with Holder's niece, Hannaleigh Suttles, and her nephew, Richard Suttles.
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Holder had custody of her nephew and niece after their mother died last spring, NBC affiliate WXII12 reported Barnes as saying.
Holder used Woods' cell phone after shooting Lamb to arrange to pick up her younger son at a friend's house where he had spent the night, the sheriff said.
Authorities said Monday they were still trying to determine when the victims in Holder's home were shot and whether it happened before or after she met with Lamb. They were also trying to determine exactly when she wrote the notes.
Investigators said the notes Holder left behind indicate she was angry about how her relationship with Lamb ended. Barnes said there were restraining orders filed, which had expired.
Lamb's wife filed a restraining order against Holder, the Raleigh News & Observer reported, alleging that Holder would call and text and even send nude photos of herself to Randall Lamb.
She also planned to file an alienation of affection claim, which in North Carolina, allows someone who is cheated on to sue the person their spouse had an affair with.
"This is probably one of the worst situations I've seen in my over 30 years in law enforcement," Barnes said.
Holder had no history of mental health issues and no criminal record.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45389913/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/
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Michael Moore will sing on Occupy Wall Street album
NEW YORK?? Occupy Wall Street has a benefit album planned with Jackson Browne, Third Eye Blind, Crosby & Nash, Devo, Lucinda Williams and even some of those drummers who kept an incessant beat at Manhattan's Zuccotti Park.
Participants in the protest movement said Wednesday that "Occupy This Album," which will be available sometime this winter, will also feature DJ Logic, Ladytron, Warren Haynes, Toots and the Maytals, Mike Limbaud, Aeroplane Pageant, Yo La Tengo and others.
Activist filmmaker Michael Moore is also planning to sing.
Jason Samel, a musician who is putting together the disc, said the goal is to raise between $1 million and $2 million to help fuel the movement that is protesting income disparity.
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"It's really going to be an amazing help for years to come," Samel said.
Money raised will go through the nonprofit Alliance for Global Justice. The initial plan is that half of the proceeds will go to the New York movement that was based in Zuccotti Park until being kicked out last week, and the other half to offshoots across the world who apply for specific projects, he said.
Consumer fasts, mall sit-ins urged
There's a long history of benefit albums, from George Harrison's "Concert for Bangla Desh" that raised millions for flood victims through Unicef in 1971, and the "We Are the World" single in the 1980s, which raised more than $60 million for famine relief in Africa.
Amnesty International also announced Wednesday that it will put on sale in January a 75-song set of Bob Dylan covers by various artists to benefit the human rights organization.
The Occupy Wall Street album will be available in digital form first, with plans for a physical CD still unclear.
The music will generally be a mixture of live cuts and new songs. Third Eye Blind, for example, has already posted its song, called "If There Ever Was a Time," which specifically addresses the protest movement.
To demand or not? That's 'Occupy' question
Haynes has offered a live version of "Rivers Gonna Rise," a song from his last disc.
Some little-known artists who have participated in the protest will also be included, such as Kaneska Carter and Matt Pless, who wrote "Something's Got to Give."
"The lyrics convey a universal feeling of compassion and a hope for a better existence that I believe are the common threads that wind through everyone," Pless said. "The positive spirit behind this song is a reflection of what birthed the movement and still exists at its core."
One song will feature the loosely-formed group of people that would beat on drums at the entrance to Zuccotti Park, much to the consternation of neighbors and even some demonstrators as they tried to get some sleep.
Musicians like Tom Morello, David Crosby and Graham Nash had impromptu concerts for some of the demonstrators.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45418892/ns/today-entertainment/
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Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Star Wars Ultimate FX Lightsaber
Arriving from a galaxy far, far away is the all-new Star Wars Ultimate FX Lightsaber by Hasbro ($34.99 list). It promises to provide one of the most authentic Jedi experiences ever for kids! The toy features a progressive light-up blade with vibrant LED lighting, allowing kids to experience the FORCE in a whole new way.
The Star Wars Ultimate FX Lightsaber measures 3 by 36.3 by 4 inches (HWD) and weighs about two pounds. It is available in either the Anakin Skywalker or Darth Vader version, and requires three AA batteries. This incredible lightsaber looks and feels just like the one used by Anakin Skywalker (blue) or Darth Vader (red). The glowing blade ignites with light and makes sounds when you power up, power down, and clash in battle! It's the ultimate weapon to make your Star Wars battles incredibly real!
This realistic lightsaber also features motion-sensor controlled sound effects, and battle-clash lights and sounds.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/kez7MSKFRys/0,2817,2396671,00.asp
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Survey suggests iPad users want more magazines on tablet (Appolicious)
Back when Apple first rolled out its subscription setup for publications in the iTunes App Store, there was quite a bit of initial enthusiasm. Despite some issues with the policy at first, it seemed like most publishers were seeing the iPad (and other tablets like it) as a big new revenue stream for an industry that had been struggling for years producing primarily in print and on the web.
It has been about six months since that subscription policy was enacted. Some publishers, such as Conde Naste, have embraced the iPad with many magazines and have seen a big boost in subscriptions, while others have kept things a little more calm and made only a few issues or publications available for Apple?s juggernaut mobile device. But according to a new survey from by the Association of Magazine Media, a publishing trade group, it seems people who read magazines and other publications on their iPads would like to be reading even more on their devices.
AllThingsD has the story, in which the survey finds that some two-thirds of people reading magazines, newspapers and similar publications on tablets and e-readers expect to be reading even more of those kinds of publications on their tablets in 2012. Of those, 63 percent say they want more publications available on their devices. The survey also found about 46 percent of users are consuming more publications in general, both in print and on tablets. The majority of magazines and other publications are consumed on the iPad, AllThingsD writes, though the survey was targeted at all tablets and e-readers.
The survey focused on 1,009 people who were ?pre-screened? for owning the right kinds of mobile devices ? tablets and e-readers ? and for using magazine apps on those tablets. As AllThingsD writes, the very fact that the survey has been conducted says something about the mobile industry in general and the mobile publishing industry in particular. Up until just recently, there weren?t enough people in both of those categories to accurately conduct a study, an Association of Magazine Media spokesman said.
The information gleaned from the survey paints a pretty rosy picture of the future of the magazine business, but it also shows that Apple?s bid to handle subscriptions on its mobile device has paid off pretty well. That the survey even exists shows, apparently, that lots of iPad customers are reading magazines on their tablets. And as the survey data demonstrates, many of them wish there was more to read.
Magazine and newspaper publishers have been struggling for years with the transition into a digital age. Print subscriptions are declining, while making strong revenues from the Internet has proven extremely difficult. It seems that at least part of the bridge between the two, and to keeping publications making money in the face of new technology, might consist of mobile devices like the iPad.
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Calif. teen faces 21 years after guilty plea (AP)
LOS ANGELES ? A Southern California teenager who shot a gay classmate to death during a computer lab class three years ago avoided a retrial by pleading guilty to second-degree murder, a deal that will send him to prison for 21 years.
Brandon McInerney, 17, pleaded guilty to the murder charge Monday, as well as one count each of voluntary manslaughter and use of a firearm, said Ventura County Chief Deputy District Attorney Mike Frawley. McInerney is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 19.
The case drew wide attention because of its shocking premise: McInerney, in a fit of homophobic rage, killed 15-year-old Larry King at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard because he was offended by King's dress and how the victim interacted with him.
Larry King's father, Greg King, told KABC-TV he understands why prosecutors agreed to the plea deal.
"I don't think that 21-year sentence is justice for my son, but I understand the reality that was facing the DA of trying to convict a defendant who was 14 ... when he committed the murder," Greg King said.
Comic Ellen DeGeneres, a lesbian, weighed in on her talk show shortly after the shooting and said gays shouldn't be treated as second-class citizens.
McInerney was only 14 at the time of the February 2008 shooting. Several jurors said after the teen's trial earlier this year that he should never have been tried as an adult.
A mistrial was declared in September when jurors couldn't reach a unanimous decision on the degree of guilt. The panel took a series of votes, the last one with seven jurors in favor of voluntary manslaughter and five supporting either first-degree or second-degree murder. The trial had been moved from Ventura County to Los Angeles because of pretrial publicity.
Frawley said prosecutors agreed to the plea deal because of uncertainty about what might result from a second trial.
"We took that into account and looked at what it would take to protect the community," Frawley said. "The total time in custody for 25 years will do that."
The murder conviction will be stayed, and the plea deal calls for McInerney to be given the harshest sentence under California law for voluntary manslaughter ? 11 years ? and use of a firearm ? 10 years, Frawley said. McInerney is ineligible for time served or good behavior because he pleaded guilty to murder.
After serving nearly four years since King's slaying, McInerney will be released just shy of his 39th birthday. Prosecutors had previously offered a plea deal that would have sent McInerney to prison for 25 years to life, but his attorneys passed.
A phone message left with defense attorney Robyn Bramson was not immediately returned.
Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, said in a statement the plea agreement ends a tragic chapter.
"Ventura County along with communities and school districts everywhere must come together to promote a culture of respect and nurture the true potential found in every individual regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression," Byard said.
King was shot twice in the back of the head in front of stunned classmates. Authorities maintained the shooting was premeditated and deserving of a murder conviction. During the trial, prosecutors noted at least six people heard McInerney make threats against King in the days before the shooting.
The victim's mother, Dawn King, revealed Monday that she had contacted school officials four days before the shooting, seeking their cooperation in toning down her son's behavior, the Los Angeles Times reported.
She said she was told that her son had a civil right to explore his sexual identity.
"I knew, gut instinct, that something serious was going to happen," she told the Times. "They should have contained him, contained his behavior."
Prosecutors also contended McInerney embraced a white supremacist philosophy that sees homosexuality as an abomination. Police found Nazi-inspired drawings and artifacts at his house, and a white supremacist expert testified at trial the hate-filled ideology was the reason for the killing.
Prosecutors, however, dropped a hate crime count against McInerney in preparing for a second trial.
Defense attorneys acknowledged McInerney was the shooter but explained he had reached an emotional breaking point after King made repeated, unwanted sexual advances. They also argued their client came from a violent upbringing and juvenile court would have been the best venue to try him.
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