Sailom's Philosophy

Philosophy of life: Being aware

2007-12-01T20:42:00.000Z

I feel like writing about philosophy again!
I think I have a different perspective from the one I used to have and I probably have a different approach as well.

A few concepts drive my own philosophy of life:
Every living being gets wiser by being aware of:
1. Limitations of a life time (time limits)
2. Limitations of a perspective (limited space perception).

1.1. Limitations of a lifetime may be an absolute one:
Awareness of aging, awareness of death translate into an "absolute" feeling that time is priceless and every lifetime is essentially unique

1.2. Limitations of a lifetime may be relative to the (known) history and expected future of the universe.
It may give a feeling of being "stuck" in a century. It may be a feeling of frustration of not understanding who were our ancestors. Were they racist bigots? Were they courageous hard-working people?
It may be a feeling of frustration of not knowing what the future will be for the children of our children... Would they have a tough life, experiencing natural disasters and nuclear wars? Would they have an amazing long life in a peaceful prosperous society, enjoying advanced technology and traveling around the solar system?

2.1. Limitations of perspective related to the size of the world
We are only seeing and hearing events that we are witnessing. Needless to say we cannot possibly witness all the events experienced by billions of people.

2.2. Limitations of perspective related to the size of the universe
We are only living in a small area on a tiny rock (called planet) located in a single solar system... located in a single galaxy... etc.

This awareness could be a cause of despair of being such an ignorant, insignificant, fragile living being.
However, here is the paradox:

We are able, as a person, to gain confidence with the thought that:
1. As time is priceless, we have no choice but using it properly by "leading a good life"
2. We have the free will to choose what it means to lead a good life
3. We may be insignificant yet we are extremely important to our partner, family, friends, colleagues. The things we do have an impact on them.

In other words, our time/space limitations should make us aware that we should make the best use of the present time to lead a good life with the few people for whom we matter.

This statement sounds like a "moral imperative" (what should we do?)
Yet I could equally ask:
Being aware of our time/space limitations, what can we know?

For the same reason, we are able to gain confidence with the thought that:
1. We can know ourself better than anyone else
2. Thanks to our own unique education background, experience and skills, we can specialize in what we do best. Our knowledge becomes useful to our colleagues, our community etc.

To summarize all these ideas, every living being becomes wiser by acknowledging space/time limitations. These limitations is not a reason for despair but a strong incentive to make sense of our lifetime because we have a significant role to play. We can improve our living condition. We also have an impact in the lives of those around us. We can know a few things better than others because of our unique background and perspective.

Yet these limitations are the reason why I don't see philosophy as ideas that work for anyone and will work for every generations!
i can only conclude that this is "my" philosophy of life.
For the same reasons, I also have deep skepticism for religions and political ideologies. It is very unlikely that any "thinker" or "guru" may overcome these space/time limitations and become someone able to advise anyone's lifestyle.

Sailom

US network uncovers 'suicide epidemic' among US veterans - AFP

2007-11-16T21:41:00.000Z

Hidden casualties of the war to be added to the official body count... with all the civilian casualties.
Should we mention again to Bush that there were no WMDs in Iraq?

Sailom

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jUtHzz80dkhT-nkIIbI4nsXXPGEw

NEW YORK (AFP) — The US military is experiencing a "suicide epidemic" with veterans killing themselves at the rate of 120 a week, according to an investigation by US television network CBS.

At least 6,256 US veterans committed suicide in 2005 -- an average of 17 a day -- the network reported, with veterans overall more than twice as likely to take their own lives as the rest of the general population.

While the suicide rate among the general population was 8.9 per 100,000, the level among veterans was between 18.7 and 20.8 per 100,000.

That figure rose to 22.9 to 31.9 suicides per 100,000 among veterans aged 20 to 24 -- almost four times the non-veteran average for the age group.

"Those numbers clearly show an epidemic of mental health problems," CBS quoted veterans' rights advocate Paul Sullivan as saying.

CBS quoted the father of a 23-year-old soldier who shot himself in 2005 as saying the military did not want the true scale of the problem to be known.

"Nobody wants to tally it up in the form of a government total," Mike Bowman said. "They don't want the true numbers of casualties to really be known."

There are 25 million veterans in the United States, 1.6 million of whom served in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to CBS.

"Not everyone comes home from the war wounded, but the bottom line is nobody comes home unchanged," Paul Rieckhoff, a former Marine and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans for America told the network.

CBS said it was the first time that a nationwide count of veteran suicides had been conducted. The tally was reached by collating suicide data from individual states for both veterans and the general population from 1995.

The Department of Veterans Affairs spends some three billion dollars a year on mental health services, according to CBS.

Why non-violence can be successful in Burma

2007-09-29T11:01:00.000Z

A couple of technological revolutions may potentially transform the seemingly hopeless struggle of peaceful monks vs the military into an efficient worldwide campaign for democracy.

Yet, the situation looks hopeless. By shutting down the internet, the country is effectively closed to the rest of the world.

If only Western, Russian and Chinese businesses could pull out of the country, the junta would eventually give more power to the people.

The Burmese government is more in trouble than it seems.

They will need to restore some basic internet services at some point. Just like anywhere in the world, the country's administration and businesses need the internet.

Beside, even a military government can't jail thousands of monks. Those monks are a central part of the Burmese society.

Sailom

Monks vs. military

2007-09-25T20:05:00.000Z

The situation is unprecedented. Burma is a traditional society where Buddhist monks are highly respected.

Sailom

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=23272343-cafd-4246-9907-b90f046747de&&Headline=Monks+vs+military

Hindustan Times

September 26, 2007

First Published: 00:52 IST(26/9/2007)

Last Updated: 00:58 IST(26/9/2007)

IM on Yahoo

Add to Del.icio.us

It is not easy for even the most ruthless of dictators to put down anti-government demonstrations when the protestors happen to be bare-footed monks armed with begging bowls. This is what’s happening in Myanmar as monks march across the country in a frontal challenge to the ruling military regime, which seems to be at its wit’s end to come up with an effective response. The pro-democracy protests began last month as the government abruptly hiked fuel prices, pushing up transport fares that triggered a sharp rise in the price of consumer goods. Although activists and members of the main opposition party initially led the protests, monks, nuns and the public soon joined them, denouncing the military rule.

Such public defiance has not been seen for nearly 20 years as the generals usually adopt a zero-tolerance policy towards the slightest criticism. This suggests that Myanmar’s military masters thought the protestors’ momentum would eventually die down. The protests, however, appear to be growing shriller by the day across the country and the big question is whether they will eventually fizzle out, or if this really marks the beginning of the end for khaki rule in Myanmar. The crisis could be coming to a head soon, going by the generals’ reported threat to act against the monks if they don’t end the protests. Painful memories of 1988 still linger, when a similar uprising for restoring democracy was crushed, killing nearly 3,000 people. Later, when Aung San Suu Kyi won the election (which the military expected her to lose), she was prevented from assuming the presidency and put under house arrest.

Her courage in confronting the military and choosing to remain in captivity since then may just have a happy ending if this time round, the sheer number of monks — who occupy a revered place in a profoundly devout society — deters junior ranks of the army from executing the junta’s orders. And since this coincides with the UNGA meeting in New York, it’s also possible that the threat of more international sanctions against the military regime could prove to be the tipping time for Myanmar.

Hungry bears plague US west after record drought - AFP

2007-09-16T08:56:00.000Z

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jjLRRc44WcREtFYHm07Fhzi4y4sg

15-sep-2007

DENVER, United States (AFP) — They hosed the black bear with water, threw things at it and yelled, but the stubborn animal refused to move from its perch in a tree above a quiet neighborhood in Boulder, Colorado.

Pushed from their homelands by a drought and pulled by the scent of human food, black bears across western US states are breaking into homes and tearing up garbage cans in a desperate search for nourishment ahead of hibernation.

Fires across the west also destroyed bear habitat, and the animals face the continuing peril of losing their living space to urban development.

The bear in the Boulder neighborhood finally came down from the tree and fled. The animal was lucky -- it wore an ear tag, meaning a previous run in with authorities.

Authorities would have killed the bear if they had caught it, said Tyler Baskfield, spokesman for the Colorado Division of Wildlife.

This year is on target for approaching the 2002 record of 404 bears killed or euthanized, Baskfield said. Colorado has a population of between 8,000 and 12,000 bears.

"We had a late freeze in June which killed the acorns and berry crop. We had a very dry mid-summer and grasses in the high country dried up. That pushed the bears down into the valleys where we have people," Baskfield said.

It is a similar story in much of the western United States.

"Just everybody is seeing bears everywhere. That's the unusual part of it -- in places where they haven't been seen before," said state of Idaho Fish and Game wildlife biologist Bret Stansberry.

"It's a fairly severe drought and that's essentially the root of the problem. There is very little natural food for them to eat. They're coming into orchards, getting into apple trees," Stansberry said.

Adult male black bears, which weigh between 68 and 160 kilos (150 and 350 pounds), usually eat for up to 20 hours a day just before hibernation in November.

State wildlife agencies are constantly urge residents to use bear-proof garbage cans and make sure no food is left outdoors, with mixed results.

Chris Healy, spokesman for the state of Nevada Department of Wildlife, said bears are posing increasing problems. "We had one up a tree today near the university," he said.

Any area that has trees and shrubs resembles a bear's natural habitat, and when the bear spots a human it usually flees up a tree, Healy said.

Nevada has a small population of black bears, mostly concentrated in the Lake Tahoe region near the California border.

"In Tahoe people are not taking care of their garbage. Once the bears start breaking into houses it's a danger to humans," Healy said.

Bear attacks on people are rare, although there was a fatal attack in July when a bear dragged an 11 year-old boy out of his tent during a camping trip in the state of Utah.

Bears are causing plenty of trouble in California, said the state's Department of Fish and Game wildlife biologist Jason Holley.

"They can blow the door off the hinges. This time of year we're having at least three break-ins a night around Lake Tahoe," Holley said.

Eating human food such as donuts, hamburgers, or ice cream fattens the bears up and allows them to have more cubs. "We're developing an alarming trend -- ten percent are not hibernating," Holley said.

Black bears in California have not faced competition from their natural rival, the larger grizzly bear, for nearly a century. The last known grizzly in California was shot dead in 1922. California however still has a grizzly bear on its state flag.

There are about 30,000 black bears in California today, up from 12,500 bears 12 years ago, Holley said.

In Montana, a non-profit group has come up with an original way to chase bears away from camping areas.

The Wind River Bear Institute trains Karelian dogs, a species from northern Europe, to use their scent to detect bears, program biologist Russ Talmo said. "The dogs are barking, we're yelling at the bears, we use noisemakers," Talmo said. The dogs, which resemble huskies, are nimble and can herd a bear away from the area, although the dogs are always close to humans.

Ice-free Arctic could be here in 23 years - The Guardian

2007-09-05T19:13:00.000Z

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/sep/05/climatechange.sciencenews

David Adam, environment correspondent

The Arctic ice cap has collapsed at an unprecedented rate this summer and levels of sea ice in the region now stand at a record low, scientists said last night. Experts said they were "stunned" by the loss of ice, with an area almost twice as big as Britain disappearing in the last week alone. So much ice has melted this summer that the north-west passage across the top of Canada is fully navigable, and observers say the north-east passage along Russia's Arctic coast could open later this month. If the increased rate of melting continues, the summertime Arctic could be totally free of ice by 2030.

Mark Serreze, an Arctic specialist at the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre at Colorado University in Denver which released the figures, said: "It's amazing. It's simply fallen off a cliff and we're still losing ice." The Arctic has now lost about a third of its ice since satellite measurements began 30 years ago, and the rate of loss has accelerated sharply since 2002.

Dr Serreze said: "If you asked me a couple of years ago when the Arctic could lose all of its ice, then I would have said 2100, or 2070 maybe. But now I think that 2030 is a reasonable estimate. It seems that the Arctic is going to be a very different place within our lifetimes, and certainly within our children's lifetimes."

The new figures show that sea ice extent is currently down to 4.4m square kilometres (1.7m square miles) and still falling. The previous record low was 5.3m square kilometres in September 2005. From 1979 to 2000 the average sea ice extent was 7.7m square kilometres. The minimum extent of sea ice usually occurs late in September each year, as the freezing Arctic winter begins to bite.

The sea ice usually then begins to freeze again over the winter. But Dr Serreze said that would be difficult this year. "This summer we've got all this open water and added heat going into the ocean. That is going to make it much harder for the ice to grow back. What we've seen this year sets us up for an even worse year next year." The winter ice has already failed to make up for increased losses in the summer in each of the last two years.

Changes in wind and ocean circulation patterns can help reduce sea ice extent, but Dr Serreze said the main culprit was man-made global warming. "The rules are starting to change and what's changing the rules is the input of greenhouse gases. This year puts the exclamation mark on a series of record lows that tell us something is happening."

The dramatic loss is further bad news for the region's wildlife which relies on the sea ice, such as polar bears. The animals use its coastal fringes to find food, and as the summer ice retreats to the north, they must swim further to hunt for seals. Some colonies of bears have already showed signs of malnutrition and biologists say there could be a severe drop in their population within a few decades, though they may not go extinct.

Yesterday's announcement will also increase political interest in the Arctic, with a number of countries currently jostling to exploit the oil and gas reserves believed to lie under the ocean, which could become more accessible as the icy cover retreats. Last month Russia claimed a huge area around the north pole, and Denmark and Canada are preparing similar claims, which rely on showing that a chain of underwater mountains that runs across the region are connected to their respective continental shelves.

Huge Hole Found in the Universe - space.com

2007-08-26T20:18:00.000Z

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070823_huge_hole.html

By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
posted: 23 August 200705:21 pm ET

The universe has a huge hole in it that dwarfs anything else of its kind. The discovery caught astronomers by surprise.

The hole is nearly a billion light-years across. It is not a black hole, which is a small sphere of densely packed matter. Rather, this one is mostly devoid of stars, gas and other normal matter, and it's also strangely empty of the mysterious "dark matter" that permeates the cosmos. Other space voids have been found before, but nothing on this scale.

Astronomers don't know why the hole is there.

"Not only has no one ever found a void this big, but we never even expected to find one this size," said researcher Lawrence Rudnick of the University of Minnesota.
Rudnick's colleague Liliya R. Williams also had not anticipated this finding.
"What we've found is not normal, based on either observational studies or on computer simulations of the large-scale evolution of the universe," said Williams, also of the University of Minnesota.

The finding will be detailed in the Astrophysical Journal.

The universe is populated with visible stars, gas and dust, but most of the matter in the universe is invisible. Scientists know something is there, because they can measure the gravitational effects of the so-called dark matter. Voids exist, but they are typically relatively small.

The gargantuan hole was found by examining observations made using the Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope, funded by the National Science Foundation.

There is a "remarkable drop in the number of galaxies" in a region of sky in the constellation Eridanus, Rudnick said.

The region had been previously been dubbed the "WMAP Cold Spot," because it stood out in a map of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation made by NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotopy Probe (WMAP) satellite. The CMB is an imprint of radiation left from the Big Bang, the theoretical beginning of the universe.

"Although our surprising results need independent confirmation, the slightly colder temperature of the CMB in this region appears to be caused by a huge hole devoid of nearly all matter roughly 6 to 10 billion light-years from Earth," Rudnick said.

Photons of the CMB gain a small amount of energy when they pass through normal regions of space with matter, the researchers explained. But when the CMB passes through a void, the photons lose energy, making the CMB from that part of the sky appear cooler.

Martian Dust Storms Engulf Planet - space.com

2007-07-21T09:29:00.000Z

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070720_mars_global_storm.html

By Dave Mosher
Staff Writer

posted: 20 July 2007
08:17 am ET
Updated at 12:03 pm Eastern
Editor's Note: In a newer story, NASA officials discuss the possibility of the end to the rover mission.

The surface of Mars is now obscured by a globe-engulfing veil of dust, posing a potentially longer-lasting threat to NASA's twin surface rovers.

Massive regional storms have been whipping up dust on the red planet since late June. Now, they've combined to create a "planet-encircling veil of dust," according to a statement from Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS), which operates a camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA.

"The dust raised by these individual storms has obscured most of the planet over the past few weeks," the release stated.

A series of images shows how the regional storms, which covered about 10 million square miles (25.9 million square kilometers) two weeks ago, have lifted enough dust to blot out the surface of the red planet.

Sun-obscured explorers

The Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity weathered the regional storms by cutting back their activity, but the global dust event may escalate danger to the rovers that depend on sunlight to survive the bone-chilling cold of the planet.

Steve Squyres of Cornell University, who is the lead scientist of the Mars Exploration Rover Project, said earlier this week that the dust levels are some of the worst the rover team has seen.

"To give you a sense of the 'thickness' of the dust, the brightness of the sun as viewed from the surface is now down to less than 5 percent of what it would be with a perfectly transparent atmosphere," Squyres told SPACE.com. "Of course, Mars never has a perfectly transparent atmosphere, but the sun is still very faint."

The saving grace for the rovers, however, is that the dust creates a glow of indirect sunlight. The effect is similar to Earth's cloudy weather, which blocks the sun but does not completely prevent light from reaching the ground.

"Even if it's cloudy enough that the sun is obscured completely, it's not pitch black out," Squyres said. "The sunlight gets scattered through the clouds. Same thing with the dust clouds on Mars."
Sleeping it out

Despite the trickle of sunlight, the thick haze of red dust is gobbling up most of the rovers' solar power, Squyres said. As of Monday Spirit and Opportunity were "both actively doing science" near their respective sites at Gusev Crater and Meridiani Planum, but are now in an energy-conserving "sleep" mode.

"Rather than doing science, we're focused right now on conserving power and waiting for conditions to improve," Squyres said. If the rovers expend too much energy, they may be unable to warm their electronics and prevent circuit-snapping temperatures.

"One side benefit of the high winds that have caused this dust storm is that they have done a wonderful job of removing dust from the solar arrays on both rovers," he said, going so far as to say that Opportunity's solar panels are cleaner than they were just months after landing in 2004.

Still, Squyres noted that energy collected by the rovers' solar panels is about one-third of the level the first generated, so their activity is limited-and may be limited for months.

Mars mission specialists have said the storms, first reported by SPACE.com, could become the worst since Mars was entirely enshrouded by dust in January of 2001. But the science of predicting martian weather is in its infancy, so uncertainty has been the only constant these past several weeks.

"As with previous large dust-raising events on Mars, once the active storms die down, many weeks to months will pass before the dust settles out and the atmosphere clears," the Malin scientists said in their latest assessment.

VIDEO: Mars Rover Team Ponders Mission's End
Future Mars Explorers Face Dusty Challenges
The Wildest Weather in the Galaxy

Nasa readies for asteroid mission - space.com

2007-07-01T08:04:00.000Z

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6247222.stm

The Dawn spacecraft is scheduled for launch in July

A Nasa spacecraft set for launch early next month will explore the two biggest asteroids in the Solar System.

Asteroids are believed to be the building blocks of planets - primordial relics left over from the formation of the Solar System 4.6 billion years ago.

The Dawn mission will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida on 7 July, on a mission to study the asteroids Ceres and Vesta.

Dawn will reach Vesta in 2011 before going on to visit Ceres in 2015.

We're going back in time to the early Solar System

Christopher Russell, UCLA

"Ceres and Vesta have been altered much less than other bodies," said Christopher Russell, the Dawn mission's chief scientist.

"The Earth is changing all the time; the Earth hides its history, but we believe that Ceres and Vesta, formed more than 4.6 billion years ago, have preserved their early record."

CERES

Biggest object in the asteroid belt

930km (580 miles) across

Discovered in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi

Icy layer beneath dusty surface

Ceres is almost spherical and is thought to harbour a layer of water ice some 60 to 120km (40 to 80 miles) thick beneath its rocky surface.

At a meeting of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) last year, Ceres was elevated in status from merely the biggest body in the asteroid belt, to a "dwarf planet" - the same designation now held by Pluto.

While Ceres is a "wet" object, Vesta is devoid of water and appears to have been resurfaced by ancient lava flows.

Dawn will travel to the asteroid belt to carry out a detailed study of their structure and composition, shedding light on their evolution and the conditions in which these objects formed.

The mission's objectives include:

study internal structure and density

determine size, composition, shape and mass

examine surface features and craters

understand the role of water in controlling asteroid evolution

Dawn's instruments include a gamma ray and neutron spectrometer that can detect the hydrogen from water.

Evidence of whether water still exists on Ceres could come from frost or vapour on the surface. There may even be liquid water under the surface.

The water is thought to have kept Ceres cool throughout its evolution. By contrast, Vesta was hot, melted internally and became volcanic early in its development.

Frozen in time

While Ceres remains closer to the ancient state, Vesta evolved further over its first few millions of years of existence.

Dawn is expected to send back high-resolution images of these worlds, including, perhaps, mountains, canyons, craters and ancient lava flows.

VESTA

525km (326 miles) across

Surface has distinctive light and dark areas

Discovered in 1807 by Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers

Pieces of Vesta have fallen to Earth as meteorites

The instruments will help identify minerals on the surface and the elements they contain.

"[Ceres and Vesta] are revealing information that was frozen into their ancient surfaces," said Professor Russell, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

"By looking at the surface and how it was modified by the bombardment of meteoroids, we will get an idea of what the early conditions of Ceres and Vesta were and how they changed.

"So Dawn is a history trip too. We're going back in time to the early Solar System."

Dawn is scheduled to fly past Mars by April 2009, and after more than four years of travel, the spacecraft will rendezvous with Vesta in 2011.

The spacecraft will orbit Vesta for about nine months, before setting off in 2012 for a three-year cruise to Ceres.

Dawn will rendezvous with its second target in 2015, to conduct studies for at least five months.

Boring Saturn Moons Lively After All - space.com

2007-06-16T09:08:00.000Z

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070615_plasma_moons.html


	Boring Saturn Moons Lively After All By Ker Than Staff Writer posted: 15 June 2007 06:18 am ET

Streams of hot gas swirling around Saturn have been traced to two icy moons previously thought to be geologically dead worlds.

The finding, detailed in the June 14 issue of the journal Nature, suggests Saturn's satellites Tethys and Dione might be volcanically active after all.

Known as plasma, the gas is composed of negatively charged electrons and positively charged ions, which are atoms with one or more electrons missing. After being ejected from the moons, the charged particles become trapped inside the magnetic field surrounding Saturn, called the magnetosphere.

A great escape

The particles remain trapped only temporarily, however, because Saturn spins so fast about its axis-a day there is only 10 hours and 46 minutes long-that it drags its magnetosphere and the trapped plasma inside it rapidly through space.

In 2004, NASA's Cassini spacecraft revealed Saturn's rapid rotation flattens the plasma into a disc, and that giant fingers of gas are being thrown out into space from the disc's outer edge. Scientists think cold, fast-spinning gas particles get hurled outwards, away from the center of rotation, by the same centrifugal force that pushes your body against a car door when the vehicle makes a sharp turn. Hotter, more tenuous plasma then rushes in to fill the gaps. The ejected plasma particles get swept away by the sun's own streaming particles, called the solar wind.

Studying the electron component of the plasma, Jim Burch, an astronomer at the Southwest Research Institute in Texas and a member of the Cassini Plasma Spectrometer team, and his colleagues traced the particles back to the orbits of Tethys and Dione.

"No matter where we looked, the source distance always mapped to the moons' orbits," Burch told SPACE.com.

"The implication is that there is a source of plasma on the two moons and that it created a 'donut' [of plasma] that goes around the planet," he added.

Active worlds?

Prior to the new discovery, the only Saturn moons known to be active were Titan and Enceladus.

"This new result seems to be a strong indication that there is activity on Tethys and Dione as well," said study team member Andrew Coates of the University of College London.

Some scientists had suspected Diones might be geologically active because NASA's Pioneer 10 probe detected plasma in the Saturn system in 1979. But those findings were cast into doubt when subsequent observations in the 1980s by the Voyager spacecraft didn't find any evidence of plasma in the moon's orbit.

"It was a controversy," Burch said.

The new finding suggests the plasma rings might be transient, Burch said, and that the charged particles don't last long enough for a plasma donut, or "torus," to completely encircle the planet.

A spacecraft might "go through the part where it's still there," Burch said, "or it may go through the part where the moon's almost come all the way around again and most of [the particles] are gone."

New 'super-Earth' found in space - BBC

2007-04-25T11:30:00.000Z

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6589157.stm

Last Updated: Wednesday, 25 April 2007, 01:00 GMT 02:00 UK

The new planet is not much bigger than the Earth

Astronomers have found the most Earth-like planet outside our Solar System to date, a world which could have water running on its surface.

The planet orbits the faint star Gliese 581, which is 20.5 light-years away in the constellation Libra.

Scientists made the discovery using the Eso 3.6m Telescope in Chile.

They say the benign temperatures on the planet mean any water there could exist in liquid form, and this raises the chances it could also harbour life.

"We have estimated that the mean temperature of this 'super-Earth' lies between 0 and 40 degrees Celsius, and water would thus be liquid," explained Stephane Udry of the Geneva Observatory, lead author of the scientific paper reporting the result.

Moreover, its radius should be only 1.5 times the Earth's radius, and models predict that the planet should be either rocky - like our Earth - or covered with oceans."

Xavier Delfosse, a member of the team from Grenoble University, added: "Liquid water is critical to life as we know it."

He believes the planet may now become a very important target for future space missions dedicated to the search for extra-terrestrial life.

These missions will put telescopes in space that can discern the tell-tale light "signatures" that might be associated with biological processes.

The observatories would seek to identify trace atmospheric gases such as methane, and even markers for chlorophyll, the pigment in Earth plants that plays a critical role in photosynthesis.

'Indirect' detection

The exoplanet - as astronomers call planets around a star other than the Sun - is the smallest yet found, and completes a full orbit of its parent star in just 13 days.
Indeed, it is 14 times closer to its star than the Earth is to our Sun.
However, given that the host star is smaller and colder than the Sun - and thus less luminous - the planet nevertheless lies in the "habitable zone", the region around a star where water could be liquid.

Gliese 581 is much cooler and dimmer than our own SunGliese 581 was identified at the European Southern Observatory (Eso) facility at La Silla in the Atacama Desert.

To make their discovery, researchers used a very sensitive instrument that can measure tiny changes in the velocity of a star as it experiences the gravitational tug of a nearby planet.
Astronomers are stuck with such indirect methods of detection because current telescope technology struggles to image very distant and faint objects - especially when they orbit close to the glare of a star.

The Gliese 581 system has now yielded three planets: the new super-Earth, a 15 Earth-mass planet orbiting even closer to the parent star, and an eight Earth-mass planet that lies further out.

Future observatories will study exoplanets for signs of biologyThe latest discovery has created tremendous excitement among scientists.

Of the more than 200 exoplanets so far discovered, a great many are Jupiter-like gas giants that experience blazing temperatures because they orbit close to hot stars.

The Gliese 581 super-Earth is in what scientists call the "Goldilocks Zone" where temperatures "are just right" for life to have a chance to exist.

Commenting on the discovery, Alison Boyle, the curator of astronomy at London's Science Museum, said: "Of all the planets we've found around other stars, this is the one that looks as though it might have the right ingredients for life.

"It's 20 light-years away and so we won't be going there anytime soon, but with new kinds of propulsion technology that could change in the future. And obviously we'll be training some powerful telescopes on it to see what we can see," she told BBC News.

"'Is there life anywhere else?' is a fundamental question we all ask."

$1bn 'don't have sex' campaign a flop as research shows teenagers ignore lessons - The Guardian

2007-04-16T18:52:00.000Z

http://education.guardian.co.uk/schoolsworldwide/story/0,,2058181,00.html

· Findings undermine Bush 'keep zipped up' stance
· Survey shows 23% given advice chose to ignore it

Ed Pilkington in New York
Monday April 16, 2007
The Guardian

It's been a central plank of George Bush's social policy: to stop teenagers having sex. More than $1bn of federal money has been spent on promoting abstinence since 1998 - posters printed, television adverts broadcast and entire education programmes devised for hundreds of thousands of girls and boys.

The trouble is, new research suggests that it hasn't worked. At all.

A survey of more than 2,000 teenagers carried out by a research company on behalf of Congress found that the half of the sample given abstinence-only education displayed exactly the same predilection for sex as those who had received conventional sex education in which contraception was discussed.

Mathematica Policy Research sampled teenagers with an average age of 16 from a cross-section of communities in Florida, Wisconsin, Mississippi and Virginia. Both control groups had the same breakdown of behaviour: 23% in both sets had had sex in the previous year and always used a condom, 17% had sex only sometimes using a condom; and 4% had sex never using one. About a quarter of each group had had sex with three or more partners.

Since his days as governor of Texas, George Bush has been a firm advocate of abstinence education programmes, which teach that keeping zipped up is the only certain way to avoid unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, and that to deviate from the norms of human sexual activity is to risk harmful psychological and physical effects. "Abstinence hasn't been given a very good chance, but it's worked when it's tried. That's for certain," he said.

But even in 1990s Texas, where Mr Bush spent $10m a year on abstinence education, the state had the fifth highest teen pregnancy rate in the US. Over the past six years he has stepped up the programme to more than $100m a year. He recently braved ridicule by extending it to adults aged 20-29, an age range in which 90% of people are sexually active.

In the Mathematica survey, which was released by sex education activists after the health department sat on it, the mean age at which the control group, that had been taught about contraception, lost their virginity was 14.9 years. That seems strikingly low, until you look at the mean age of first sexual experience for the abstinence control group - 14.9 years.

In the context of findings like this, health workers and statisticians conclude that it is far better that children have safe sex, with knowledge of and access to contraception, than that they are preached a message of abstinence only to ignore it.

Federal funding for abstinence education began as a small part of Mr Clinton's welfare reforms but was stepped up substantially by the Bush administration. Its supporters claim that the fact that though teenaged pregnancies have fallen in the US from a high of 62.1 per 1,000 women aged 15 to 19 in 1991 to 41.1 births per 1,000 in 2004 shows the campaign is working.

But the Mathematica findings, building on earlier research, cast that optimism in doubt. Anti-abstinence activists have long argued that the movement is dangerous because it leaves young people exposed to the risk of teen pregnancy and infection because the teaching shuns any mention of condoms or contraception. Of about 19m new STD infections in the US each year, almost half are recorded among people aged 15 to 24.

Monkey DNA Points to Common Human Ancestor - LiveScience

2007-04-13T16:16:00.000Z

http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/070412_rhesus_monkeys.html

By Charles Q. Choi
Special to LiveScience
posted: 12 April 2007
02:01 pm ET

The first primate to get rocketed into space and to be cloned, the rhesus monkey, has now had its genome sequenced, promising to improve research into health and yield insights into human evolution.

Analysis of the monkey's DNA sequence has also deepened a few mysteries in our understanding of the biology of primates when it comes to vital parts of our biology, such as the X chromosome.

Rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) are sandy-furred, pink-faced monkeys that live in the region ranging from Afghanistan to northern India, as well as southern China, and are traditionally held as sacred in Hinduism.

They have a long history as lab monkeys. For instance, the Rh factor in blood discovered in 1937, the presence or absence of which dubs a person's blood type either 'positive' or 'negative,' derives its name from rhesus monkeys. Even now, they are the animals of choice for research into drug addiction and HIV, and roughly two-thirds of all National Institutes of Health-funded primate-related studies use the monkeys. For example, the rhesus monkey Tetra, born in 2000, was the first cloned primate.

93 percent common DNA

The sequence of the rhesus macaque's genome will be a powerful tool for research with the monkeys aimed at understanding human biology, said consortium leader Richard Gibbs, director of the Baylor College of Medicine's Human Genome Sequencing Center in Houston.
"Right now if you perform an experiment on a person, there's no way that you would think that all people are the same, when it comes to a response to a drug or behavior or anything," Gibbs told LiveScience. Macaques have about the range of diversity when it comes to their genetics, "so being able to understand them on a genetic level will help explain variation in their responses and will allow for smarter experiments that make us more clever at deciphering results."

The new analysis of the rhesus monkey genome, conducted by an international consortium of more than 170 scientists, also reveals that humans and the macaques share about 93 percent of their DNA. By comparison, humans and chimpanzees share about 98 to 99 percent of their DNA.

The fact that rhesus monkeys are further away from humans in evolution will help illuminate what makes humans different from other apes in ways that chimps, which are so closely related to us, could not, Gibbs said. (Rhesus monkey ancestors diverged from those of humans roughly 25 million years ago, while chimpanzees diverged from our lineage 6 million years ago.)

In addition, the researchers identified roughly 200 genes that appear to be key players "in defining the shapes of species, in what makes the primates different from us and each other," Gibbs said. These include genes involved in hair formation, sperm-egg fusion, immune response and cell membrane proteins, findings detailed in the April 13 issue of the journal Science.

Unusual role of X chromosome

The research also raised a few surprises. For instance, the monkey's X chromosome showed an unexpectedly large number of times in which its parts got shuffled around. This is consistent with the same mysterious rearrangements seen in the human lineage's X chromosome following the branching off of the chimpanzee, and gives "us new evidence of the unusual role of this sex chromosome in primate evolution," said researcher Aleks Milosavljevic at the Baylor College of Medicine.

Another as yet unexplained phenomenon the sequencing revealed has to do with lumps of DNA known as centromeres, which hold together the two separate strands of DNA that make up a chromosome, acting somewhat like the center of an X. Strangely, nine of the 22 centromeres the monkeys have repositioned themselves on their chromosomes in the last 25 million years. As to why this happened, "no one knows," said researcher Mariano Rocchi at the University of Bari in Italy.

The rhesus monkey genome sequence should prove invaluable to biomedical research, said physician scientist Ajit Varki at the University of California at San Diego, who participated in the chimpanzee genome sequencing project. "And if we can get the genome sequences of one representative from each primate lineage, we could reconstitute the ancestral primate genome—what the genome of our common ancestor some 40 to 50 million years ago looked like," he told LiveScience. "That would be an amazing feat."

Top 10 Missing Links
When Humans and Chimps Split
X Chromosome Key to Differences Between Men and Women

Colorful Worlds: Plants on Other Planets Might Not Be Green - space.com

2007-04-12T10:49:00.000Z

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070411_nongreen_plants.html

By Ker Than
Staff Writer
posted: 11 April 2007
09:01 am ET

If trees grow on other planets, their leaves might be red, orange or yellow, and not only in autumn, scientists say.

Two new studies detailed in the March issue of the journal Astrobiology find that the color of a planet’s photosynthetic organisms depend on the type of star the world orbits and the makeup of its atmosphere.

“You have a particular spectrum which is affected by the star’s surface temperature, but once that light comes down through the atmosphere, the atmosphere filters that radiation,” said study team member Victoria Meadows of the Virtual Planet Laboratory (VPL) at Caltech.

For example, our Sun radiates most of its energy in the green part of the visible spectrum. But ozone molecules in the Earth’s atmosphere absorb much of this green light energy, allowing other colors, especially red, to filter through to the ground.

Why plants are green

This could explain why chlorophyll absorbs mostly red and blue light and reflects green light, the researchers say.

“Ozone filters out some of the blue-green radiation, so there’s less of that available at the surface of the planet,” Meadows told SPACE.com.

Alternative explanations have also been proposed for the greenness of plants. One idea, called the purple Earth hypothesis, states that chlorophyll doesn’t absorb green light because it appeared after another pigment, called retinal, was already present and it had to settle for the “leftover” wavelengths that were not being absorbed.

The researchers reached their conclusions after analyzing 12 different kinds of light-sensitive pigments, including chlorophyll, that organisms on Earth use to harness the Sun’s energy.
Plant biosignatures

The researchers want to use their findings to guide the search for plant life on other worlds. To that end, Meadows’ team at VPL entered the results of the pigment analysis study into a computer simulation that predicts what the light from a distant planet containing photosynthetic organisms will look like to space telescopes.

For example, in addition to reflecting back visible green light, organisms on Earth that use chlorophyll for photosynthesis also reflect near infrared light. This reflected light can be seen from space and is called the “red edge.”

The new findings suggest photosynthetic organisms on other planets might not produce a red edge, but some other biosignature instead. The researchers want to figure out what those alternative biosignatures might be.

“We’re coming up with rules so that we can say more confidently what is photosynthesis when looking at spectra from these planets,” said study leader Nancy Kiang, a biometeorologist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.

Search for life

Whether or not scientists find life on distant worlds could depend on these rules.
“When we look at these faraway planets, we’re not going to be able to spatially resolve them. We won’t be able to see continents and oceans,” Meadows said. “Everything we must learn about that planet will be in a single dot of light.”

Already, the researchers think they can already make certain generalizations about photosynthesis in the universe at large. It’s unlikely, for example, that plants on alien worlds will be blue.

“It appears that harvesting blue light is very common across the board for photosynthetic organisms” on Earth, Kiang said in a telephone interview. “I think it is unlikely that anything will be blue.”

Charles Simonyi - Wikipedia

2007-04-08T09:36:00.000Z

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Simonyi
Charles Simonyi (Hungarian: Simonyi Károly; born September 10, 1948) is a computer software executive who, as head of Microsoft's application software group, oversaw the creation of Microsoft's flagship office applications. He now heads his own company, Intentional Software, with the aim of developing and marketing his concept of Intentional Programming. In 2007, he became the fifth space tourist and the second Hungarian in space. His estimated net worth is $1 billion.[1]

Are men smarter than women?

2007-04-05T09:44:00.000Z

Marilyn vos Savant (born Marilyn Mach on 11 August 1946) is an American magazine columnist, author, lecturer, and playwright who rose to fame through her listing in the Guinness Book of World Records under "Highest IQ".

Wikipedia

http://www.parade.com/articles/editions/2005/edition_07-17-2005/featured_0

Does the disparity between men and women in the sciences say something about their relative intelligence? Marilyn weighs in on this controversial debate.

Are Men Smarter Than Women?

Published: July 17, 2005
By Marilyn vos Savant

Dear Marilyn: How do you view the idea that the gender disparity in the sciences might be due to differences in the inherent aptitudes of women? I’m curious to hear a thoughtful and objective opinion on this controversial subject.—Melissa Hardison, Tallahassee, Fla.

A gender gap exists in many occupations, but the disparity in the sciences hits close to one of the scariest marks of all, which is the reason a controversy erupted: Are men smarter than women?

The concern unfolds in two questions: 1) Are women handicapped by their upbringing, social pressures, discrimination from men, and more—not just in science but also in other areas? 2) Or are women less bright than men?
Some Answers
The answer to the first question is too obvious for argument: Yes, and in my opinion, upbringing is the No. 1 cause—not discrimination, conscious or not, from men. Just as significant is the fact (not the problem) that many women are far more interested in their families than outside work, and society clearly approves. Top positions do require time, energy and dedication to goals that may even be selfish.The second question is the hot spot. The average IQ of females is equal to the average IQ of males. But averages can be misleading. In the case of intelligence tests, many more males score at the top and the bottom of the intelligence scale. This could account for the greater number of men in the sciences and—on the other end—in the prison population. So: Does the gender disparity in science give credence to the idea that men are more intelligent than women? My answer is “no,” and these are my reasons:

•No evidence indicates that the sciences attract the brightest people. The unspoken assumption that science attracts the smartest people is the foundation upon which we have built the conclusion: “If the sciences are filled with men, men must be smarter, unless women have a good excuse for being absent.” I believe that science—like chess— attracts bright people, but only the ones with certain personality characteristics. Those traits might be more common in men. In the case of chess, the game was developed by males for intellectual sparring with other males. Maybe females simply don’t find the game as fascinating. And note that dictators—who aren’t any stronger than other men—are never women. Maybe females just don’t have whatever it takes to bulldoze their way to this dubious sort of “success.” No one thinks the paucity of women in the field of ruthless domination is because they aren’t smart enough! So why should anyone be shocked to find that most bright people—including women—would flee from the sight of a microscope?!To me, it is clear that the brightest people are spread over all sorts of other occupations. Motherhood is likely among them, and why not? I was a stay-at-home mom while my children were small, and I loved it.

•Even professionally administered IQ tests are primitive measures of intelligence. Intelligence tests are fine for practical purposes, but not for analytical ones. Too much unavoidable bias (not prejudice) is present: Any test-maker (not just IQ test-creators) must first develop standards upon which the test-takers will be judged. In other words, to test intelligence, the designer must formulate a definition of intelligence. Now, who could possibly do this?

Can Intelligence Be Defined?In my opinion, defining intelligence is much like defining beauty, and I don’t mean that it’s in the eye of the beholder. To illustrate, let’s say that you are the only beholder, and your word is final. Would you be able to choose the 1000 most beautiful women in the country? And if that sounds impossible, consider this: Say you’re now looking at your picks. Could you compare them to each other and say which one is more beautiful? For example, who is more beautiful— Katie Holmes or Angelina Jolie? How about Angelina Jolie or Catherine Zeta-Jones? I think intelligence is like this. So many factors are involved that attempts to measure it are useless. Not that IQ tests are useless. Far from it. Good tests work: They measure a variety of mental abilities, and the best tests do it well. But they don’t measure intelligence itself.Perhaps most convincing of all are these facts from other outposts in the animal kingdom:

•Female chimpanzees learn complex tasks as easily as males.

•Female gorillas can be taught sign language as well as males.•Female guide dogs are as capable at their work as males.

•Female dolphins perform practical jokes as often as males.•Female parrots are able to mime and talk as well as males.

•Female rats and mice run mazes just as efficiently as males.

Would you prefer to adopt a male puppy because you thought you could teach him more tricks? No, you know better. (And we don’t find more female moths in our light fixtures!) Why should anyone think that human females are an exception?!

Who's Smarter?When asked that question, PARADE columnist Marilyn vos Savant and her husband, Dr. Robert Jarvik, instinctively point to each other. Marilyn, of course, was in the Guinness Book for having the highest IQ ever recorded. But Dr. Jarvik—inventor of the Jarvik-7 and Jarvik-2000 artificial hearts, used to support patients with congestive heart failure—is no intellectual lightweight either. What do they talk about over dinner? “Medicine and world affairs are the main topics of discussion,” says Marilyn. “For entertainment, we love music, dance and going to movies.” Both are avid runners but don’t enjoy sports and never play games. Marilyn adds, “Rob is more competitive than I am—but, then again, everybody is!”

The infinite variety of our mindsJust a glance at these bright high-achievers—men and women who have made their mark in an array of fields—tells us that intelligence is complex and multi-dimensional. Comparing one to the other is like comparing apples and oranges.

Maya Lin Architect
Frank Gehry Architect
Annie Duke Poker champion
Albert Einstein Physicist
Annika Sorenstam Golfer
Quincy Jones Producer
Bette Davis Actress
Bill Gates Computer mogul
Katharine Graham Newspaper publisher
Mike Nichols Director
Toni Morrison Author
Johnny Carson Talk-show host
Marie Curie Chemist
Sergey Brin Google co-founder
Rosalyn Yalow Nobel laureate/medicine
Hayao Miyazaki Animator
Antonia Novello Physician
Edward Albee Playwright
Mary Matalin Political consultant
James Carville Political consultant
Martha Graham Choreographer
Yo-Yo Ma Cellist
Dr. Ruth (Westheimer) Sex therapist
Dr. Phil (McGraw) TV therapist
Allison Fisher Pool champion
George S. Patton Jr. Army general

Possible New Mars Caves Targets in Search for Life - space.com

2007-04-02T15:12:00.000Z

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070402_mm_mars_caves.html

By Ker Than
Staff Writer
posted: 02 April 2007
08:06 am ET

A Mars-orbiting satellite recently spotted seven dark spots near the planet's equator that scientists think could be entrances to underground caves.

The football-field sized holes were observed by Mars Odyssey's Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) and have been dubbed the seven sisters --Dena, Chloe, Wendy, Annie, Abbey, Nikki and Jeanne--after loved ones of the researchers who found them. The potential caves were spotted near a massive Martian volcano, Arisa Mons. Their openings range from about 330 to 820 feet (100 to 250 meters) wide, and one of them, Dena, is thought to extend nearly 430 feet (130 meters) beneath the planet's surface.

The researchers hope the discovery will lead to more focused spelunking on Mars.
"Caves on Mars could become habitats for future explorers or could be the only structures that preserve evidence of past or present microbial life ," said Glenn Cushing of Northern Arizona University, who first spotted the black areas in the photographs.

A project here on Earth aims to refine the visual and infrared techniques THEMIS used to find the Martian caves and to also develop robots that can one day enter the caverns and explore them.

Practicing on Earth

Called the Earth-Mars Cave Detection Program, the project is preparing to enter phase 2, during which scientists will test their approach in "Mars analogue" sites, terrestrial environments with similarities to Martian landscapes. These sites will include dry, blistering deserts, such as the Mojave in California and the Atacama in Chile, as well as frigid environments like Iceland and Antarctica.

During the first phase of the project, the researchers acquired the thermal signatures of a dozen caves in Arizona and New Mexico using an experimental infrared detector, called the Quantum Well Infrared Photodetector (QWIP), flown aboard an airplane.

Cave detection using QWIP works by spotting regions in the landscape where temperatures are different from the surroundings. Inside a cave, temperatures are nearly constant due to lack of sunlight. Outside, temperatures fluctuate with the rising and setting of the Sun. At a cave entrance, these two temperature regimes mix together to create a unique thermal signature that, depending on the time of day, can be either warmer or cooler than the surrounding environment.

"The caves show up as hotspots in a sea of cold, or as cold spots in a sea of warmth," said study team member Murzy Jhabvala, chief engineer of NASA's Instrument Systems and Technology Center.

The data, still being analyzed, look promising. In one series of images, the researchers snapped thermal images of Xenolith Cave in New Mexico over a 24-hour period. The cave opening can be seen clearly in some of the images.

"It jumps out at you," said Jut Wynne, a biospeleologist (cave biologist) with the U.S. Geological Survey and Northern Arizona University. "It lights up like a Christmas tree in the predawn and in the late-night shots. It's a bit more ephemeral during the day shots."
In Phase 2, the researchers will tweak their technique to figure out the best wavelengths to use and optimal times during the day for cave hunting. "In so doing, we're going to take these applications and then apply them to an orbiter platform for Mars," Wynne said.

Robotic cave explorers

The project team also aims to design robots that can explore caves on Mars after they have been spotted. Natalie Cabrol, a planetary geologist with NASA Ames and the SETI Institute, will be integral to this part of the project.

Cabrol is a Mars robot veteran. Before Spirit and Opportunity were sent to Mars, she helped engineers perfect their designs by field-testing the robotic rovers in the Atacama Desert in Chile.

The researchers may have to design more than one type of robotic cave explorer. "There are many types of caves," Cabrol said in a telephone interview. "It may be that we come up with one very versatile design ... or we might end up with several designs."

If the caves have a relatively simple structure--like lava tubes, which are caves carved by flowing magma and are relatively simple and straight--a rover-type robot might work, Cabrol said. "I would doubt that a rover, equipped as they are now, would do a good job in a cave" with a more complicated geometry, she said.

Open to ideas

The researchers are also considering other robotic design possibilities, including the deployment of several miniature robots together into a cave.

"You could throw out an array of microbots in a birdshot approach over an area where you think there is a cave," Wynne told SPACE.com . The microbots could then use sonar or some other method to confirm the presence of a cave and pinpoint its location.

Whatever form the team's robotic explorer ultimately takes, it will have to be agile, have some basic sense of self-awareness, sport excellent night vision and have the ability to communicate with one other in some innovative way, since conventional radio communication might not work well in caves, Cabrol said.

"We are very much on the starting line on this," she added. "This is very exciting. This is really the time when ideas are flitting all over the place."

Future 'Martians' Could Live in Caves
Microbot Madness: Hopping Toward Planetary Exploration
Spelunking on Mars: Caves are Hot Spots in Search for Life

Length of Saturn's Day Remains Unknown, But Now We Know Why We Don't Know - space.com

2007-03-24T06:20:00.000Z

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070322_saturn_moon.html

Length of Saturn's Day Remains Unknown, But Now We Know Why We Don't Know By Robert Roy BrittSenior Science Writerposted: 22 March 200709:54 pm ET
Strangely, astronomers don't know how long a day is on Saturn, because they can't get a firm footing on the problem given the giant planet's gaseous nature.
So they have long relied on radio measurements of the ringed planet's magnetic field to help estimate the length of the day. But that doesn't really work either, they realized, so estimates have remained loose. Now the scientists at least have a better handle on this aspect of the problem.
Geyser activity from Saturn's small moon Enceladus weighs down the big planet's magnetic field so much that the field rotates more slowly than Saturn itself, new observations reveal. The moon is a mere 310 miles (500 kilometers) wide.
Geysers on Saturn's little moon Enceladus are throwing off Saturn's internal clock, making it hard to measure the length of the Saturn day. Credit: NASA/JPL
Thought of the Day A day on Earth is determined by how long it takes the planet to spin once on its axis. That's pretty easy to measure, because Earth's surface is solid. Just sit there for about 24 hours, 3 minutes and 56.55 seconds, on average, and measure the time between two sunrises. (That works today, but eventually we will have more than 24 hours to get this job and others done. A lot more. In a few billion years, a day will last about a month!)—RRB
"No one could have predicted that the little moon Enceladus would have such an influence on the radio technique that has been used for years to determine the length of the Saturn day," said Don Gurnett of the University of Iowa.
Gurnett is the principal investigator on a radio and plasma wave science experiment on NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The idea has been to measure Saturn's rotation by taking its radio pulse. The technique works pretty well on the other giant planets.
But the new observations, reported online this week by the journal Science, show that the invisible magnetic field lines, which emanate from Saturn's poles and radiate out like a giant, skeletal pumpkin, slip in relation to the planet's rotation.
The slip owes to the collective weight of electrically charged particles that originate in Enceladus' remarkable geysers of water vapor and ice [video]. Particles in the geysers encircle Saturn and become electrically charged, forming a disk around the equator of hot gas called plasma.
Meanwhile, measurements revealed last year that Saturn's day has gotten about six or eight minutes longer—now roughly 10 hours and 47 minutes—since the 1980s when measured by the Voyager missions. Nobody suspects the trend to continue forever (meaning the days would just get longer and longer at such a rapid rate), but they also don't know what's going on.
Either the geysers on Enceladus are more active now than in the '80s, the astronomers figure, or perhaps there are seasonal variations as Saturn orbits the Sun, a year that takes more than 29 Earth-years to complete.
"One would predict that when the geysers are very active, the particles load down the magnetic field and increase the slippage of the plasma disk, thereby increasing the radio emission period even more," Gurnett said Thursday. "If the geysers are less active, there would be less of a load on the magnetic field, and therefore less slippage of the plasma disk, and a shorter period."
"The direct link between radio, magnetic field and deep planetary rotation has been taken for granted up to now," said Michele Dougherty, a researcher at Imperial College London and principal investigator on Cassini's magnetometer instrument. "Saturn is showing we need to think further."
What Causes Earth's Seasons?
Top 10 Strangest Things in Space
How Fast Does Earth Move?

Clouds, But No Water, Detected On Distant Planet - space.com

2007-02-22T09:05:00.000Z

http://space.com/scienceastronomy/070221_exoplanet_atmosphere.html

By Ker Than
Staff Writer
posted: 21 February 2007
01:01 pm ET

The most detailed analysis ever of light from the atmospheres of planets outside our solar system has turned up no evidence of water but possible hints of clouds, scientists said today.

“We’re getting our first sniffs of air from an alien world,” said David Charbonneau of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. “And what we found surprised us. Or more accurately, what we didn’t find surprised us.”

Using NASA’s infrared Spitzer space telescope, Charbonneau and his team studied a so-called hot Jupiter planet [image] called HD 189733b. Hot Jupiters are large gas giants like our own Jupiter, but they orbit so close to their parent stars that they are extremely hot. A year on HD 189733b is only 2.2 Earth days long and the planet is a broiling 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit. HD 189733b is located about 60 light years away in the constellation Vulpecula.

The technology to tease apart the light from a distant planet and star is not available yet, so scientists use a different trick [image].

“Instead of separating the [light from the planet and star] in space, we separate them in time,” Charbonneau explained. “We wait for the planet to pass out of view behind the star, and then we measure the brightness of the star very carefully. Then we gather data at any other time, when both the planet and star are in view. If you take their difference, then whatever’s left over has got to be the light from the planet.”

In 2001, Charbonneau’s team used the Hubble Space Telescope and a different technique to detect small amounts of sodium in the atmosphere of an exoplanet. The discovery marked the first time that astronomers had ever detected the atmosphere of a planet orbiting another star.

“Now we’re able to look over many different colors,” Charbonneau explained. “In the past, we had to target this one wavelength and this one feature due to this one atom. It was exciting at the time, but these data that we’re presenting now are much more informative.”

The study by Charbonneau's team is detailed online in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters .

No signs of water

After obtaining the light spectrum of HD 189733b, Charbonneau’s team scanned it for tell-tale “fingerprints” of specific molecules.

Theory predicts that hot Jupiters contain large amounts of water vapor and also methane. Planets form from the same material as their stars, and stars like the one HD 189733b orbits contain many different elements, including hydrogen, helium, carbon and oxygen. Therefore, these elements must also be present in the makeup of planets around the star.

On hot Jupiters, there is “so much hydrogen and oxygen that they will react and turn into a water molecule. At those pressures, it’s inevitable,” Charbonneau told SPACE.com.

Similarly, carbon and hydrogen are thought to combine on hot Jupiters to form methane.

However, to the researchers’ great surprise, no signs of either of these two molecules were detected.

“We expected that the planet would appear fainter, due to absorption by water molecules in the atmosphere,” Charbonneau said. “That was a very strong prediction and made by many different groups that had tried to predict what these atmospheres would be like.”

High Clouds and hidden water

Results obtained by another team suggest the water and methane are present, but hidden by thick clouds.

A team led by Jeremy Richardson of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center also used Spitzer to obtain the spectrum of HD 209458b, another hot Jupiter located about 150 light years away in the constellation Pegasus.

The spectrum Richardson’s team obtained also showed no signs of water or methane, but it did reveal hints of silicate—molecules containing silicon and oxygen. On Earth, silicates are a major component of rocks. On hot Jupiters, under scorching temperatures, silicates would exist as tiny dust grains that could coalesce to form clouds.

The study by Richardson's team is detailed in the Feb. 22 issue of the journal Nature.

“It might explain why we don’t see the water,” Charbonneau said. “If there is a high cloud deck, it would prevent us looking down into the atmosphere.”

Mark Swain, a researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the leader of another team which independently analyzed HD 209458b, agrees that there are probably clouds on the hot Jupiter but is not convinced the clouds are made of silicate.

“In our view, the silicate case is not proven,” Swain said. “We find [the spectrum] to be consistent with featureless thermal emissions from dust.”

“I think it’s certainly true that we don’t understand the details of what we see,” Richardson said. “The feature that we see is real. Is it possible that something else could cause that feature? Maybe. Maybe a different element. I think it’s probably silicates.”

Still exciting

Further studies of HD 189733b, HD 209458b and other hot Jupiters are planned to help clear up the mystery.

“Right now, it’s a puzzle,” Charbonneau said. “With a few more puzzle pieces, the picture should become clearer.”

Despite not finding evidence for water on the two hot Jupiters, the ability to do so is itself exciting, said Alan Boss, a planet-formation theorist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington who was not involved in any of the studies.

“This is the first time that we have been able to look for water in the atmosphere of a distant extrasolar planet,” Boss said in an email interview. “The NASA mantra for looking for life on Mars is ‘follow the water’ and the same holds true for extrasolar planets. Looking for water will be one of the main goals of the Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF), and this new result just whets our appetite for what is to come when TPF flies.”

"Gravity Tractor," Super Telescopes Enlisted to Battle Killer Asteroids - National Geographics

2007-02-19T10:36:00.000Z

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070217-asteroid-impact_2.html

Elizabeth Svoboda in San Francisco, California
for National Geographic News

February 17, 2007

A giant asteroid named Apophis could be on a trajectory to careen into Earth in 2036. That was the prediction NASA scientists made in 2004, suggesting a 1 in 37 chance that the space rock would hit our planet.

The danger has since receded—the revised likelihood that Apophis will hit Earth is 1 in 45,000. But the close call has galvanized efforts among scientists to predict and hopefully prevent a potentially apocalyptic impact.

A slate of new proposals for addressing the asteroid menace was presented today at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco.

The aim, researchers said, is to defend the planet from an asteroid strike such as the one that slammed into Mexico's Yucatán peninsula some 65 million years ago—a cataclysmic event that many scientists think caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.

"There are 127 near-Earth objects we know about that have some chance of hitting us," said Russell Schweickart, a former Apollo astronaut and founder of the Houston, Texas-based Association of Space Explorers.

"You have to act when it looks like things are going to happen. If you wait until you're certain, it's going to be too late."

"Gravity Tractor," Super Scopes

Edward Lu, an astronaut and physicist at NASA, has developed a novel way to nudge off course any asteroids that appear to be headed for Earth.

Lu's proposed "gravitational tractor" is a spacecraft so massive—up to 20 tons (18 metric tons)—that it could divert an asteroid's path just by thrusting its engines in a specific direction while in the asteroid's vicinity.

"You don't aim your engines at the asteroids, you aim them to the side," he said. "That enables you to tow the asteroid just by the force of gravity."

In order for the gravitational tractor to work effectively, Lu said, international authorities would have to decide to use it long before an anticipated impact.

"You want many years or even decades of notice," he said. "It's like billiards—when you make a slight change before the bank shot, it creates a big change [in where the ball goes]."

Lu thinks other proposed interventions, such as detonating a nuclear bomb near an asteroid, would create more danger for Earth than they would avert.

"There's a possibility of breaking chunks off, and even small chunks could cause tremendously bad effects," he said.

(See an interactive feature on asteroid impacts on Earth.)

Scientists also described two massive new survey-telescope projects to detect would-be killer asteroids.

One, dubbed Pan-STARRS, is slated to begin operation later this year. The project will use an array of four 6-foot-wide (1.8-meter-wide) telescopes in Hawaii to scan the skies.

The other program, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope in Chile, will use a giant 27.5-foot-wide (8.4-meter-wide) telescope to search for killer asteroids. This telescope is scheduled for completion sometime between 2010 and 2015.

(Related news: "Google Partners With High-Tech Telescope to Map Universe" [January 10, 2007].)

When both of these new telescope projects go online, they will be able to detect objects much fainter than anything today's scopes pick up, the scientists said.

David Morrison, an astronomer at NASA's Ames Research Center, said that "the rate of discoveries is going to ramp up. We're going to see discoveries being made at 50 to 100 times the current rate."

"You can expect asteroids like Apophis [to be found] every month."

International Plans

The influx of new discoveries will likely increase public anxieties about the asteroid threat, which makes a concrete scientific plan of action all the more necessary, the experts said.

In the wake of the Apophis incident, many lawmakers have become convinced of the importance of devoting more attention to asteroid searches.

In 2005 the U.S. Congress amended the Space Act to entrust NASA with the specific responsibility to "detect, track, catalog and characterize" asteroids and other near-Earth objects.

But to some scientists, these efforts aren't enough.

Schweickart, the former astronaut, thinks the United Nations needs to draft a treaty detailing standardized international measures that will be carried out in response to any asteroid threat.

His group, the Association of Space Explorers, has started building a team of scientists, risk specialists, and policymakers to draft such a treaty, which will be submitted to the UN for consideration in 2009.

Schweickart believes the uncertainty involved in predicting the path of an incoming asteroid makes a coordinated global response essential.

"When you look at where something like Apophis is going to hit, it's not going to be a single point, it's going to be a line of potential points," he said. "Therefore this is going to be inherently an international decision.

"We can't prevent a hurricane or a tornado," he continued. "But we can prevent an asteroid impact, and we can do it by slightly reshaping the solar system to enhance the survival of life on Earth.

"If we don't do that, we're not that far past the dinosaurs."

As death increases, compassion recedes - LiveScience

2007-02-17T09:39:00.000Z

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17186270

Study finds mass death fails to spur emotion the way one tragedy can

By Sara Goudarzi
Staff Writer
Updated: 11:56 a.m. ET Feb. 16, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO - While a person's accidental death reported on the evening news can bring viewers to tears, mass killings reported as statistics fail to tickle human emotions, a new study finds.

The Internet and other modern communications bring atrocities such as killings in Darfur, Sudan into homes and office cubicles. But knowledge of these events fails to motivate most to take action, said Paul Slovic, a University of Oregon researcher.

People typically react very strongly to one death but their emotions fade as the number of victims increase, Slovic reported here yesterday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

"We go all out to save a single identified victim, be it a person or an animal, but as the numbers increase, we level off," Slovic said. "We don't feel any different to say 88 people dying than we do to 87. This is a disturbing model, because it means that lives are not equal, and that as problems become bigger we become insensitive to the prospect of additional deaths."

Human insensitivity to large-scale human suffering has been observed in the past century with genocides in Armenia, the Ukraine, Nazi Germany and Rwanda, among others.

"We have to understand what it is in our makeup — psychologically, socially, politically and institutionally — that has allowed genocide to go unabated for a century," Slovic said. "If we don't answer that question and use the answer to change things, we will see another century of horrible atrocities around the world."

Slovic previously studied this phenomenon by presenting photographs to a group of subjects. In the first photograph eight children needed $300,000 to receive medical attention in order to save their lives. In the next photograph, one child needed $300,000 for medical bills.

Most subjects were willing to donate to the one and not the group of children.

Live Earth

2007-02-16T08:28:00.000Z

A major event yesterday was a press conference announcing the organization of a massive global warming awareness event called "Live Earth".

"Live Earth is a series of concerts planned for July 7, 2007 (7/7/07) to raise awareness of global climate change. An anouncement was made on February 15, 2007 by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and other activists as part of a campaign called Save Our Selves (SOS). The concert series is modeled after the 1985 Live Aid concerts and 2005's Live8." (Wikipedia)

Here is the announcement's video
http://liveearth.msn.com/?GT1=9033

Sailom

US claims against Iran: why now? - BBC News

2007-02-12T12:39:00.000Z

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6353489.stm

Analysis
By Paul Reynolds
World affairs correspondent, BBC news website

In October 2005, the then British ambassador to Iraq William Patey told reporters in London that Iran had been supplying technology used to kill British troops in Basra.

US photo of bomb damage from an EFP - explosively formed penetrator

He said he had complained to the Iranian ambassador in Baghdad about it.

The claim was that elements connected to the Shia militia in the south, the Mehdi army, had been using specially shaped charges, in which the force of the explosion is directed narrowly in one direction, thereby enabling it to penetrate armoured vehicles.

No evidence was produced, other than a suggestion that the Iranian-supported Lebanese group Hezbollah had also used such charges, so the common origin had to be Iran.

US officials have made similar claims over the last year. General George Casey, the then US commander in Iraq, said so in June 2006.

Evidence

In a briefing in Baghdad on Sunday, US military and intelligence officers finally laid out their evidence.

The question has to be asked as to why it has taken at least 14 months for this to happen.

So, why now?

If you take the claims at face value, the reason is that only now has the evidence become substantial enough to be made public. The number of attacks is said to have grown as well, so that is another explanation put forward for going public now.

But there are other possibilities as well.

Softening up?

For a start, the fear among some is that the US is softening up world opinion for an attack on Iran. Such an attack would be aimed at Iran's nuclear facilities.

At the moment, the US lacks a casus belli and by claiming that Iran is responsible for killing USA troops, it could be laying the groundwork for a 'self-defence' justification.

Iraq violence in figures

The new chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator John Rockefeller said recently: "To be quite honest, I'm a little concerned that it's Iraq again."

There is also the fact that the US is launching its 'surge' policy of moving extra troops into Baghdad. These claims are being made against Shia militias, including the Mehdi army, one of the main targets of the latest policy.

Blaming Shia Iran for supporting Iraqi Shia militias makes it easier for the US to sell that policy at home and abroad.

Blaming others

Then there is the old tactic of blaming someone else for your own problems.

Many people will not distinguish between the Shia militias that Iran is said to supply - and which have ties to the Iraqi government - and the Sunni insurgents who have been the cause of much of the violence.

The allegedly Iranian supplied bombs are said to have caused the deaths of 170 American soldiers, but overall 2497 soldiers have been killed in hostile incidents, most of them at hands of the Sunnis.

The claim serves the purpose of helping to lay the blame for the whole insurgency at Iran's door.

There are also other possible reasons for this timing.

Council deadline

The UN Security Council has laid down that Iran must suspend its enrichment of uranium by 21 February. If it does not, and if the International Atomic Energy Agency confirms this, the resolution says that further economic sanctions will be considered.

The officials said such an assertion [that Iran was the source of components for the explosive devises] was an inference based on general intelligence assessments

New York Times

The US is preparing to argue for tougher sanctions, so making claims against Iran over Iraq might help it in its arguments that Iran is a threat.

On the wider front, the Bush administration is engaged in a campaign against the Iranian government in order to isolate it and eventually maybe see its end under internal pressure from the Iranian people.

The latest claims against Iran could be a part of that campaign.

The claims

What of the claims themselves?

They are based on physical evidence, from bombs and their effects. The bombs now even have their own name and acronym - explosively formed penetrators or EFPs.

Previously they had been lumped in the generalised description of IEDs - improvised explosive devices.

The implication is that now they are less improvised and more planned.

They are said to be provided by Iran in kit form and to be smuggled across the often-open border.

However the officials who presented the evidence could not make a direct link to Iran.

"The officials said such an assertion was an inference based on general intelligence assessments," stated the New York Times.

They did make much of the detention in Irbil of five Iranians who were said to be members of the Quds force of the Iranian revolutionary Guards.

The Quds (the word means Jerusalem) force was said by the US officials to be controlled directly by the "highest levels of the Iranian government".

That last statement is significant in that the US is now making a charge against the Iranian government itself, not just against its agents.

Scepticism

Against the inference that this all comes from Iran is the concept that Iraqis themselves would be capable of copying a design and therefore do not need to get bombs from Iran.

And there have been a number of news reports over the last year expressing scepticism, even among military personnel, about the link to Iran.

The Washington Post reported last October that British troops in the south doubted the claim.

A year ago, the London Times said that British officers in Basra had stopped making any such claim, saying only that the technology matched bomb-making found elsewhere in the Middle East, including Lebanon and Syria.

Paul.Reynolds-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

Thai woman tells of 25-year detour after catching wrong bus - AFP

2007-02-08T20:56:00.000Z

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070208/od_afp/thailandmissingoffbeat

by Rapee Mama Thu Feb 8, 2:55 AM ET

DUSONGYO, Thailand (AFP) - A Thai mother who was lost for 25 years after catching the wrong bus home has spoken of her ordeal after being reunited with her family thanks to simple song.

The last time Jaeyaena Beuraheng saw her seven children was in 1982 when she left south Thailand on one of her regular shopping trips across the border to nearby Malaysia.

She never returned, and police later told her family that she had apparently been killed in a traffic accident.

In fact, Jaeyaena had simply taken the wrong bus home -- an error that would have been easy to fix except that she only speaks the local dialect of Malay known as Yawi, according to officials at the homeless shelter where the 76-year-old has lived for two decades.

"I didn't tell anybody where I was going on that day, because I went there quite often," she told AFP, crying as she spoke.

She was heading home from her shopping trip when she mistakenly hopped on a bus to Bangkok, some 1,150 kilometers (700 miles) north of her home in Narathiwat province.

In Bangkok, unable to read Thai and speaking a language few Thais can understand, she again took a wrong bus, this time to Chiang Mai, another 700 kilometers (430 miles) further north.

There she ended up as a beggar for five years, until she was sent to a homeless shelter in the central Thai province of Phitsanulok in 1987.

"I thought I would die in Phitsanulok. I thought about running away many times, but then I worried I would not be able to make it home. I really missed my children," Jaeyaena said.

Officials at the shelter told AFP that she was known as "Auntie Mon," because her speech sounded similar to the language of ethnic Mon living along the border with Myanmar.

But still no one could understand her, until last week when three health students from Narathiwat arrived on an exchange program to research the problem of homelessness at the shelter.

She sang a song for the visitors, one that the staff at the shelter had often heard but did not understand.

"She sang her same old song, one that nobody could understand until those three students from Narathiwat told us that she was sing in Yawi, a Malay dialect," the official said.

"So we asked them to talk to her and find out if she had relatives," official said.

Jaeyaena told the students that she had a Malaysian husband and seven children, recounting her entire story of the bus and how she had become lost in northern Thailand.

Her shocked family sent her youngest son and her eldest daughter to meet her and bring her home on Tuesday, the official said.

"She remembered all of her children's names. But at first she couldn't recognise her youngest son, but she recognised her eldest daughter," said the official, who was at their reunion.

Her children took her back to their family home in Dusongyo village, in a remote corner of Narathiwat, where her children and grandchildren were still hugging and kissing her two days after her return.

Couple still hugging 5,000 years on - MSNBC

2007-02-07T10:56:00.000Z

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17011786

Enrico Pajello / Reuters

A pair of human skeletons lie in an eternal embrace at an Neolithic archaeological dig site near Mantova, Italy. Archaeologists in northern Italy believe the couple was buried 5,000-6,000 years ago, their arms still wrapped around each other in an eternal embrace.

Mammoth Cloud Engulfs Titan’s North Pole - space.com

2007-02-03T11:16:00.000Z

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070202_titan_moon.html


	By Ker Than Staff Writer posted: 02 February 2007 10:43 am ET

A mammoth cloud half the size of the contiguous United States and spotted on Saturn’s moon Titan might be what’s filling up lakes discovered there last year, scientists say.

“This cloud system may be a key element in the global formation of organics and their interactions with the surface,” said study team member Christophe Sotin of the University of Nantes, France.

Imaged by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 29, 2006, the cloud [image] is about 1,500 miles (2,400 km) in diameter and engulfs Titan’s entire north pole. It only recently became visible, emerging from a shadow as winter turns to spring on the moon.

Unlike Earth’s clouds, which contain mostly water vapor, the Titan clouds are thought to consist of ethane, methane and other organics.

Scientists had predicted the existence of such a cloud system, but one had never been imaged in such detail before.

Cassini spotted partially filled lakes on Titan’s north pole last summer. Scientists speculated that methane rains down onto the moon’s surface to form lakes and then evaporates to form clouds, in what they called the “methane-ologic cycle.” The new finding supports this idea.

Ground-based observations show the Titan cloud system comes and goes with the seasons. A season on the Saturn moon is equivalent to about seven Earth years. Scientists speculate such cloud activity can last for as long as 25 Earth years before nearly vanishing for four to five years and then reappearing for another 25 years.

The same cloud system observed last December was still there two weeks later during a Jan. 13, 2007, flyby. Scientists expect the newly spotted cloud to linger for several years, possibly shifting down to Titan’s south pole as the seasons change.

“With 16 more flybys to come this year," said study team member Stephane Le Mouelic, also of the University of Nantes, "we should have the opportunity to monitor the evolution of this cloud system over time.”

U.N. panel says global warming man-made - Reuters

2007-02-02T13:29:00.000Z

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=L01604940&WTmodLoc=World-R5-Alertnet-2

By Gerard Wynn and Alister Doyle

PARIS (Reuters) - The U.N. climate panel issued its strongest warning yet on Friday that human activities are heating the planet, adding pressure on governments to do more to combat accelerating global warming.

The IPCC, the most authoritative group on warming grouping 2,500 scientists from more than 130 nations, predicted more severe rains, melting glaciers, droughts, heatwaves and rising sea levels, especially if Antarctica or Greenland thaw.

The final text said it was "very likely" -- or a probability of more than 90 percent -- that human activities led by burning fossil fuels explained most of the warming in the past 50 years.

That is a toughening from the last report, in 2001, when the IPCC said the link was "likely", or 66 percent probable. Signs of change range from drought in Australia to record high January temperatures in Europe.

"February 2, 2007 may be remembered as the day the question mark was removed from whether (people) are to blame for climate change," Achim Steiner, the head of the U.N. Environment Programme, told a news conference.

He urged governments to inject more momentum into stalled talks on long-term cuts in emissions. Greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere have not been higher in 650,000 years.

"We are in a sense doing things that have not happened in 650,000 years, based on the scientific evidence," Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the IPCC, told a news conference.

A 21-page summary of scientific findings for policy makers outlines wrenching change such as a possible melting of Arctic sea ice in summers by 2100 and says it is "more likely than not" that greenhouse gases have made tropical cyclones more intense.

The report predicts a "best estimate" that temperatures would rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 Celsius (3.2 and 7.8 Fahrenheit) in the 21st century, within a likely range from 1.1 to 6.4 Celsius.

Temperatures rose 0.7 degrees in the 20th century and the 10 hottest years since records began in the 1850s have been since 1994.

U.N. officials hope the report will prompt governments -- led by the United States, the top emitter -- and companies to do more to cut greenhouse gases, released mainly by burning fossil fuels in power plants, factories and cars.

CORAL ATOLLS

Many backers of the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol, a plan binding 35 industrial nations to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by 2012, want outsiders to get more involved. The United States and China are not bound by Kyoto targets.

The head of the U.S. delegation said that President George W. Bush's policies, braking the rise of emissions rather than cutting them, were working.

"The President has put in place a comprehensive set of policies to address what he has called the 'serious challenge' of climate change," Sharon Hays, Associate Director of the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy, told Reuters.

Bush pulled out of Kyoto in 2001, saying caps would harm the economy and that Kyoto unfairly omitted developing nations from a first period to 2012. He focuses instead on big investments in technologies such as hydrogen and biofuels.

The President of Kiribati, a group of 33 Pacific coral atolls threatened by rising seas, said time was running out.

"The question is, what can we do now? There's very little we can do about arresting the process," President Anote Tong said.

The report projects a rise in sea levels of between 18 and 59 centimetres (7 and 23 inches) in the 21st century -- and said that bigger gains could not be ruled out if ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland thaw.

Some leading scientists had criticised an earlier draft for cutting the range after the 2001 forecast a rise between 9 and 88 cms by 2100. Rising seas threaten countries such as Kiribati and cities from Shanghai to Buenos Aires.

Neptune May Have Thousands of Escorts - space.com

2007-02-01T17:22:00.000Z

http://by127fd.bay127.hotmail.msn.com/cgi-bin/getmsg?msg=C9308900-AB37-4AB1-BBBB-D0F604133557&start=0&len=10289&imgsafe=y&curmbox=00000000%2d0000%2d0000%2d0000%2d000000000001&a=7e0d96477eba89b16e22cc54e8d37e6ffa3b5268a5ed312dca29a9ac967f870a


	By David Powell Special to SPACE.com posted: 30 January 2007 06:01 am ET

Neptune may be escorted in its orbit by thousands of asteroid-like objects, perhaps more than exist in the entire asteroid belt.

So far, five of these enigmatic bodies, known as Trojans, have been found at one of Neptune’s Lagrange points. These are places where the gravity of a planet and that of the Sun interact to create an area of gravitationally stability.

Jupiter’s Lagrange regions are home to legions of Trojans, and around 2,000 cluster at these gravity graves along Jupiter's orbit 60 degrees ahead and 60 degrees behind the gas giant.

Lagrange points exist in any two-body system. Find out how they work.

The first Neptune Trojan was discovered in 2001 as part of the NASA funded Deep Ecliptic Survey at the Lagrange region 60 degrees and 3.1 billion miles (5 billion kilometers) ahead of Neptune.

A further three Neptune Trojans between 37 and 87 miles (60 and 140 kilometers) in diameter and shaded a pale red color have since been identified by Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution of Washington and Chadwick Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory in Hawaiiusing the 6.5-meter Magellan telescope in Chile.

Despite their diminutive size and brightness, the Neptune Trojans quickly betrayed their existence by their distinct motion against background stars. The most recent Trojan discovered by Sheppard and Trujillo is moving at an unusual inclination of 25 degrees relative to the plane of the solar system (the ecliptic).

”The sky we covered searching for Neptune Trojans was all within 1.5 degrees of the ecliptic,” Sheppard said. “High inclination objects will spend the majority of their time off the ecliptic. Thus detecting a high inclination Trojan in our survey suggests there is a large population of such objects. In fact, the high inclination objects appear to outnumber the low inclination objects by a ratio of four to one."

If so, there would be swarms of Trojans accompanying Neptune, perhaps up to twenty times more than at Jupiter. The sheer number of Trojans Neptune is thought to harbor reveal that these objects are an established part of Neptune’s entourage, dating back to shortly after the planet’s formation.

“Neptune cannot currently efficiently capture Trojans for long periods of time,” Sheppard said. “Just after the planet formation epoch Neptune's orbit was likely much more eccentric due to its interactions with the other planets. Neptune's interactions with the myriad small bodies around its orbit which included comets, Kuiper Belt objects and other debris which formed nearby would have slowly circularized Neptune's orbit.”

This process would have trapped many diverse objects at the Neptune Lagrange points irrespective of their inclination. This diversity is exciting as in 2014 we may get the opportunity to see a Trojan up close courtesy of the New Horizons spacecraft currently en-route to Pluto.

“If a Neptune Trojan could be found which the New Horizons spacecraft could image it would be one of the highlights of the mission," Sheppard said. "The Neptune Trojans are very faint and thus hard to observe from our location on Earth. Thus little is known about their surface properties or composition. The Neptune Trojans may be a unique type of solar system object of which no other stable reservoir currently exists."

At present this flyby of a Neptune Trojan is far from a certainty due to the fact that New Horizons will pass 60 degrees behind Neptune through the trailing Lagrange region known as “L5” where no Trojans have yet been identified.

”We are attempting to discover possible Neptune L5 Trojans, but because of the high background star confusion it will be a tough task for the next several years," Sheppard said. "The constraints on the New Horizons spacecraft are also severe since it will not be able to maneuver too far from its current trajectory. Thus, there is only a very low probability that a Neptune Trojan happens to be in a favorable location for the spacecraft to encounter."

HyperBike Has NASA Looking Twice - space.com

2007-01-24T17:12:00.000Z

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/070122_technov_nasa_bike.html

posted: 22 January 2007
04:47 pm ET
The Hyperbike is a working prototype created by inventor Curtis DeForest for a human-powered vehicle that will be faster than a traditional bicycle and much safer.
(HyperBike)

In creating the HyperBike, DeForest tried to remedy the flaws of the standard bicycle. For one thing, it has no seat; the rider stands upright. Also, the arms are used for additional power. DeForest describes pedaling the HyperBike as "swimming on dry land." Motor vehicle speeds of at least fifty miles per hour are easily attained.

The wheels are sixty-four inches apart at the road surface and only twenty-six inches apart at the top of their eight-foot diameter; racing wheelchairs also use heavily cambered wheels.

One of the most interesting differences lies in the greater stability of the HyperBike. A conventional bicycle has the center of gravity higher than the spinning axis of the wheels. The HyperBike positions the rider in such a way as to put the center of gravity below the wheel axis.

Apparently, it is the stability and balance of weight relative to spinning forces that has NASA interested. These factors would make the Hyperbike a good choice for low gravity environments. The NASA-funded Space Alliance Technology Outreach Program has invested some capital in the development of the next model.

Bicycles in low gravity? I think I've heard that one before - don't all the prospectors on the Moon have one?

The solitary [lunar] prospector, deprived of his traditional burro, found the bicycle an acceptable and reliable, if somewhat less congenial, substitute. A miner's bike would have looked odd in the streets of Stockholm; over-sized wheels, doughnut sand tires...
(Read more about lunocycles)

Lunocycles figure in Robert Heinlein's 1952 novel The Rolling Stones.

Check out these other futuristic one- and two-wheeled vehicles:

Eunicycle Single-Wheel Gyro-Stabilized Scooter
Dr. Trevor Blackwell has constructed a self-balancing, powered unicycle...
Hyanide Motorcycle Snowmobile Eyecandy
This great bike is a cross between a snowmobile and a motorcycle...
EMBRIO Embodies The Tumblebug
Super-cool design for this Heinlein favorite...

Via HyperBike: Hype or Hope?.

(This Science Fiction in the News story used with permission from Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction.)

The Harm Principle - Wikipedia

2007-01-20T15:57:00.000Z

Well, the harm principle is quite populare and well-known among liberal-minded people (in the old libertarian sense of the term) .
As long as the actions of someone don't cause any harm to someone else, the government should not be allowed to interfere with this person's sovereignty over his/her own body and mind.

John_Stuart_Mill actually argued that people's freedom was justified primarily on utilitarian grounds. Leaving someone free to act as he/she wishes does benefit society as a whole (on the ground that this person knows better about his/her own welfare than anybody else who - obviously - doesn't understand his body and mind the way she/he does.) Liberty is not an end in itself. Only their own perception of hapiness/suffering matters.

Interestingly, the French article on the Harm principle is giving a different perspective on the issue.
Should someone be held liable for causing harm to a third person ONLY because he/she acted in a way that brought some harm? Should someone be also held liable for causing harm INDIRECTLY because he/she didn't act when in a position to RESCUE a third person from getting into troubles.
For most of us, the answer would be "yes" I guess. If we ever see someone drowning, we should not let that person if we can swim right away!
However, in some cases, there could be some contradictions with the first definition of the harm principle: In case we misunderstand the situation by interfering with someone's freedom when he doesn't need help. The result would be an embarrassing "mind your own business"
Even more complex are the cases where people are obviously harming themselves without be aware of the consequences of their actions. That's the case for young children (who needs to be supervised by adults) and some elder-aged people (who also need to be supervised by adults once it is clear that their mental skills are failing them).
Taken to the extreme, these new interpretations can lead effectively to a "benovolent" dictatorship. Let us imagine that a very small minority of "elites" keep control of other people's life on the ground that they are not educated enough to understand that they may "harm" themselves!
We are back to the first definition of the "harm" principle.

Sailom

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harm_Principle

The harm principle is articulated in John Stuart Mill's On Liberty. Mill argues that the sole purpose of law should be to stop people from harming others and that should people want to participate in victimless crimes, crimes with no complaining witness, such as gambling, engaging in prostitution, then they should not be encroached in doing so.

Mill defines the harm principle in Chapter One as follows:

The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right... The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.

The harm principle is in part the basis for certain political stances of the United States Constitution and Libertarian Parties.

[edit] See also

Racism, ratings and reality TV: now Big Brother creates a diplomatic incident - The Guardian

2007-01-18T08:22:00.000Z

Here is a modern dilemma for TV broadcasters:

From their own perspective... The credibility of a TV reality show is based on showing entirely all the social interactions between a group of people without any censorship.
Now, noone pretends that these people are supposed to be role-models. They are just as good (or as bad) as the average guy (girl) in the society.
It cannot be a surprise then that such things as racist bullying take place when a person from an ethnical minority group is stuck in the same house with a group of other (low-educated?) people from the ethnical majority group.

From the perspective of the person who has been bullied (Shilpa Shetty)... She has been humiliated in public in front of millions of viewers.
From the perspective of the viewers from India: An Indian celebrity has been humiliated publicly. Are they going to enjoy the show?

That's the modern dilemma of anyone working in the media industry: The media is Power. The images that are shown may be taken as examples to follow by countless other viewers. Media professionals can't ignore it.

From the perspective of someone like me reading the news today, I have mixed feelings.
First feeling: This is disgusting and dangerous.
Second feeling: This is the real world and people have to be aware that racism does exist. After all, racism often starts with stupid jokes.

Sailom

http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,1992919,00.html

· Complaints over Channel 4 show hit record 22,000
· Police to investigate abuse of Bollywood film star

Owen Gibson, Vikram Dodd and Randeep Ramesh in Delhi
Thursday January 18, 2007
The Guardian

Protesters in Patna, India, shout slogans against the producers of Celebrity Big Brother. Photograph: Associated Press

Three days ago it was merely the below par fifth season of a faltering reality TV franchise. But as the storm over the alleged racism of its participants intensified, Celebrity Big Brother yesterday sparked demonstrations on Indian streets, consternation in Downing Street, condemnation from the chancellor on a state visit to Bangalore and a police investigation.

The Channel 4 show has always courted controversy but has never before been on the verge of sparking an international incident. Yet as the number of complaints from outraged viewers topped 22,000, the Indian government spoke out against the programme and Hertfordshire police confirmed it would investigate allegations that Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty had been subjected to racist abuse by three white fellow housemates.

The number of complaints looked sure to rise last night as Channel 4 broadcast a furious row between Shetty and Jade Goody. Speaking after the argument to another housemate, Cleo Rocos, Shetty said: "I'm representing my country. Is that what today's UK is? It's scary. It's quite a shame actually."

Rocos said: "I don't think there's anything racist in it." But Shetty replied: "It is, I'm telling you."

Later, glamour model Danielle Lloyd, talking to Goody, said that the Bollywood star should "fuck off home".

India's information and broadcasting minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi appealed to Shetty to appear before the Indian high commission in London when she came out of the house. "If there has been some racism shown against her in the show, it is not only an attack on women but also on the skin and the country," he said.

Media regulator Ofcom said last night it had received 19,300 complaints, more than double its previous record, while a further 3,000 were made to Channel 4 directly. A separate online petition launched by the newspaper Eastern Eye had last night attracted 20,000 signatures.

Hertfordshire police said it would formally investigate 30 complaints. A spokesman said: "Hertfordshire constabulary is investigating allegations of racist behaviour in the Big Brother house, and will be conducting an inquiry, including a review of tapes."

Channel 4 and Endemol executives met yesterday to discuss the row, but privately may be rubbing their hands. Tuesday night's show was watched by 4.5 million people, 1 million more than Monday's.

The furore was sparked by a series of incidents centred on a group of contestants led by Goody, who earned millions after finding fame on the non-celebrity version of the show, and including her boyfriend Jack Tweed, Lloyd and former S Club 7 singer Jo O'Meara. At one point Goody, after a row with Shetty, had said: "You need elocution lessons. You need a day in the slums. Go to those people who look up to you and be real. You fucking fake."

Ratings, and voting revenues, are likely to soar further after Goody and Shetty were last night pitted against one another when they received the most nominations to be evicted from the house on Friday.

Last night, Channel 4 released a statement insisting that there had been no overt racism, and claiming that the clashes were based on class and cultural differences.

But in India, the row has managed the rare feat of uniting all political parties. Communists, Hindu nationalists and the ruling Congress party have all demanded action be taken to preserve Shetty's dignity. "[Big Brother] is holding a mirror to British society. It is no aberration. We should thank Channel 4 for revealing the hidden biases of Britain," Mahesh Bhatt, a Bollywood director, told the Guardian.

Dozens of Shetty's fans took to the streets in Patna, eastern India, to protest against what they said was her humiliation, burning straw effigies of the show's producers. In Bangalore, Gordon Brown faced journalists questioning him on the merits of a reality show he claimed not to have seen. "I understand that in the UK there have already been 10,000 complaints from viewers about remarks which people see rightly as offensive," he said. "I want Britain to be seen as a country of fairness and tolerance. Anything that detracts from that I condemn."

Later Tony Blair's spokesman added: "What clearly is to be regretted and countered is any perception abroad that in any way we tolerate racism in this country."

In one exchange, Goody was heard saying of Shetty: "She makes me feel sick. She makes my skin crawl", while her now evicted mother Jackiey continually referred to her as "the Indian". Later Lloyd claimed that the Bollywood star "wants to be white" and called her a "dog".

After Shetty cooked a roast chicken dinner, Lloyd had said: "They eat with their hands in India, don't they. Or is that China?" She added: "You don't know where those hands have been."

The complaints were further fuelled when Tweed was reported as calling Shetty a "Paki". Channel 4 insists that in fact the word he used, which was bleeped out, was "cunt".

FAQ: The law

Are the alleged remarks covered by any law?

Chief superintendent Ali Dizaei, adviser to the Black Police Association, said section 22 of the Public Order Act 1986 could apply as it talks about broadcasting "involving threatening, abusive or insulting visual images or sounds". An offence would be committed if Channel 4 intended "to stir up racial hatred" or if "racial hatred is likely to be stirred up".

Could Channel 4 or staff on the programme face criminal investigation?

Yes. Section 22 says those who could be guilty of an offence would be "persons providing the programme service", the producer and director, and "any person by whom offending words or behaviour are used".

Mike Schwarz, a solicitor specialising in public order law, said: "Channel 4 and the three contestants making the remarks could be prosecuted under the 1986 Public Order Act or the 1997 Prevention of Harassment Act."

What are the police doing?

Hertfordshire police, which covers the Big Brother house, had 30 calls from the public "relating to alleged racist behaviour", and passed them to the broadcasting regulator Ofcom.

This seemed at odds with the definition of a racist incident in the 1999 Macpherson report which defined a race hate crime as "any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person".

Last night the force appeared to be reversing its position, saying it would be conducting an inquiry, "including a review of tapes", said a spokesman for Hertfordshire Police.

Vikram Dodd

NASA Finally Goes Metric - space.com

2007-01-10T09:17:00.000Z

http://www.space.com/news/070108_moon_metric.html


	By SPACE.com Staff posted: 08 January 2007 04:00 pm ET

When NASA returns astronauts to the Moon, the mission will be measured kilometers, not miles.

The agency has decided to use metric units for all operations on the lunar surface, according to a statement released today.

The change will standardize parts and tools. It means Russian wrenches could be used to fix an air leak in a U.S.-built habitat. It will also make communications easier, such as when determining how far to send a rover for a science project.

NASA has ostensibly used the metric system since about 1990, the statement said, but English units are still employed on some missions, and a few projects use both. NASA uses both English and metric aboard the International Space Station.

The dual strategy led to the loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter robotic probe in 1999; a contractor provided thruster firing data in English units while NASA was calculating in metric.

The decision comes after a series of meetings between NASA and 13 other space agencies around the world, where metric measurements rule.

"When we made the announcement at the meeting, the reps for the other space agencies all gave a little cheer," said Jeff Volosin, strategy development lead for NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate. "I think NASA has been seen as maybe a bit stubborn by other space agencies in the past, so this was important as a gesture of our willingness to be cooperative when it comes to the Moon."

Informally, the space agencies have also discussed using Internet protocols for lunar communications, the statement said.

"That way, if some smaller space agency or some private company wants to get involved in something we're doing on the Moon, they can say, 'Hey, we already know how to do internet communications,'" Volosin said. "It lowers the barrier to entry."

Top 10 Apollo Hoax Theories

Images: Walking on the Moon in 3D

NASA Unveils Strategy for Return to the Moon

Lunar Explorers Face Moon Dust Dilemma

All About the Moon

Saturn Moon Has Lakes, "Water" Cycle Like Earth's, Scientists Say - National Geographic News

2007-01-06T06:38:00.000Z

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/01/070105-saturn-titan.html

Richard A. Lovett
for National Geographic News

January 5, 2007

Saturn's giant moon has lakes and a "water" cycle remarkably similar to Earth's, new evidence suggests.

But Titan's lakes aren't made of water. Instead, they probably consist of liquid methane, which plays the role of water in Titan's superchilled climate, the researchers say.

Enlarge Photo

Email to a Friend

The lakes were discovered by radar mapping when the Cassini spacecraft, now orbiting Saturn, did a close flyby of northern Titan last July.

The flyby revealed dozens of large, dark patches resembling lakes, up to 40 miles (70 kilometers) in diameter. (See more Saturn photos from Cassini.)

When the lakes were first discovered, the scientists noticed riverlike drainage channels that probably conducted moisture from the surrounding highlands.

This indicates that the lakes were fed by methane rains falling at higher elevations, said Ellen Stofan, lead author of a study in yesterday's issue of the journal Nature.

But some lakes had no such inlet streams. That means that there must be methane aquifers—"methanofers," Stofan called them—not far below the surface.

"Just like on Earth, if you dig deep enough, the depression fills up with water," said Stofan, who shares her time between the Proxemy Research corporation in Virginia and University College London in England. "There's a subsurface methane table."

Some of Titan's lakes also appear to lie in calderas formed by "cryovolcanism," but this doesn't mean that the methane in these lakes came from the volcanoes.

"Just like at Crater Lake in Oregon, once you have a depression, it will fill up with liquid," Stofan says.

Just Like Earth

Like other Titan researchers, Stofan is amazed by how many similarities Titan has to Earth.

"It's amazing that so far away, with such exotic materials, there's this hydrological cycle that's occurring that we dont see anywhere else in the solar system but on Earth," she said.

"If you were standing on the shores of these lakes, in some ways they would look familiar," she added.

"The methane would be transparent, so you could see pebbles on the bottom. And the largest lake is 70 kilometers [43 miles] across, so there's probably enough [distance] for waves to form."

In fact, she said, some of the radar images appear to show that the lake surfaces are choppier near the shores, a possible indicator of wave action.

The next step, Stofan said, is to watch how the lakes change as Titan's 29-year-long seasonal cycle switches from winter to spring.

Learning more about Titan's methane cycle will help us understand our own planet better, added Christophe Sotin of the University of Nantes in France.

"Titan is the only other place in the solar system where liquid is present at the surface," Sotin said by email.

Liquids are believed to be necessary for life.

"On Titan we don't expect life at the surface, because the temperature is too small—minus 179 degrees Celsius [minus 290 degrees Fahrenheit]," Sotin said.

But, he added, the study of methane helps us understand the processes that allow the existence of any liquid, including water. For liquids to persist for billions of years, for example, there must be a long-term equilibrium between such forces as evaporation and rainfall.

"By studying Titan, we may better understand the evolution of any planet, including Earth," he said.

Cassini is slated to study Saturn and its moons until at least June 2008.

Conscientious Rejector? - Yahoo News

2007-01-03T15:51:00.000Z

http://hotzone.yahoo.com/b/hotzone/blogs19056

First Lieutenant Ehren Watada still refuses Iraq deployment orders, calling the war illegal. A six-year prison term could result. Preliminary hearings are set for Thursday.

By the Hot Zone Team, Tue Jan 2, 6:38 PM ET
Email Story IM Story

First Lt. Ehren Watada, a 28-year-old Hawaii native, is the first commissioned officer in the U.S. to publicly refuse deployment to Iraq. He announced last June his decision not to deploy on the grounds the war is illegal.
Lt. Watada was based at Fort Lewis, Washington, with the Army's 3rd (Stryker) Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division. He has remained on base, thus avoiding charges of desertion.
He does, however, face one count of "missing troop movement" and four counts of "conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman." If convicted, he faces up to six years in prison.

Watada's court martial is on February 5. A pre-trial hearing is set for January 4, with an added scope of controversy: the Army has ordered two freelance journalists, Sarah Olson and Dahr Jamail, to testify against Lt. Watada at the hearing. Both journalists are fighting the subpoenas.
Kevin Sites recently spoke with Lt. Watada about the reasoning behind his decision, the controversy the decision has caused and how he is dealing with the repercussions.
Lt. Watada spoke on the phone from his family's home in Hawaii. Click here to listen to the full audio version of the conversation. A transcript of the interview follows.

KEVIN SITES: Now, you joined the Army right after the US was invading Iraq and now you're refusing to go. Some critics might look at this as somewhat disingenuous. You've taken an oath, received training but now you won't fight. Can you explain your rationale behind this?

EHREN WATADA: Sure. I think that in March of 2003 when I joined up, I, like many Americans, believed the administration when they said the threat from Iraq was imminent — that there were weapons of mass destruction all throughout Iraq; that there were stockpiles of it; and because of Saddam Hussein' ties to al-Qaeda and the 9/11 terrorist acts, the threat was imminent and we needed to invade that country immediately in order to neutralize that threat.
Since then I think I, as many, many Americans are realizing, that those justifications were intentionally falsified in order to fit a policy established long before 9/11 of just toppling the Saddam Hussein regime and setting up an American presence in Iraq.

SITES: Tell me how those views evolved. How did you come to that conclusion?

WATADA: I think the facts are out there, they're not difficult to find, they just take a little bit of willingness and interest on behalf of anyone who is willing to seek out the truth and find the facts. All of it is in the mainstream media. But it is quickly buried and it is quickly hidden by other events that come and go. And all it takes is a little bit of logical reasoning. The Iraq Survey Group came out and said there were no weapons of mass destruction after 1991 and during 2003. The 9/11 Commission came out and said there were no ties with Iraq to 9/11 or al-Qaeda. The president himself came out and said that nobody in his administration ever suggested that there was a link.
And yet those ties to al-Qaeda and the weapons of mass destruction were strongly suggested. They said there was no doubt there were weapons of mass destruction all throughout 2002, 2003 and even 2004. So, they came out and they say this, and yet they say it was bad intelligence, not manipulated intelligence, that was the problem. And then you have veteran members of the CIA that come out and say, "No. It was manipulated intelligence. We told them there was no WMD. We told them there were no ties to al-Qaeda. And they said that that's not what they wanted to hear."

SITES: Do you think that you could have determined some of this information prior to joining the military — if a lot of it, as you say, was out there? There were questions going into the war whether WMD existed or not, and you seemingly accepted the administration's explanation for that. Why did you do that at that point?

WATADA: Certainly yeah, there was other information out there that I could have sought out. But I put my trust in our leaders in government.

SITES: Was there a turning point for you when you actually decided that this was definitely an illegal war?

WATADA: Certainly. I think that when we take an oath we, as soldiers and officers, swear to protect the constitution — with our lives as necessary — and those constitutional values and laws that make us free and make us a democracy. And when we have one branch of government that intentionally deceives another branch of government in order to authorize war, and intentionally deceives the people in order to gain that public support, that is a grave breach of our constitutional values, our laws, our checks and balances, and separation of power.

SITES: But Lieutenant, was there one specific incident that happened in Iraq or that the administration had said or done at a certain period that [made you say] "I have to examine this more closely"?

WATADA: No, I think that certainly as the war went on, and it was not going well, doubts came up in my mind, but at that point I still was willing to go. At one point I even volunteered to go to Iraq with any unit that was short of junior officers.

SITES: At what point was that?

WATADA: This was in September of 2005. But as soon as I found out, and as I began to read and research more and more that the administration had intentionally deceived the public and Congress over the reasons for going to Iraq, that's when I told myself "there's something wrong here."

SITES: Was there any kind of personal conviction as well, I mean in terms of exposure to returning soldiers or Marines — the kinds of wounds they suffered, the kinds of stories that they were bringing back with them — did that have any kind of influence or create any factors for you in coming to this decision?

WATADA: Sure, I felt, well, in a general sense I felt that when we put our trust in the government, when we put our lives in their hands, that is a huge responsibility. And we also say that "when we put our lives in your hands, we ask that you not abuse that trust; that you not take us to war over flimsy or false reasons; that you take us to war when it is absolutely necessary." Because we have so much to lose, you know — the soldiers, our lives, our limbs, our minds and our families — that the government and the people owe that to us.

SITES: Was there a fear that played into that? Did you see returning soldiers with lost limbs? Was there a concern for you that you might lose your life going to Iraq?

WATADA: No, that had nothing to do with the issue. The issue here is that we have thousands of soldiers returning. And what is their sacrifice for? For terrorism or establishing democracy or whatever the other reasons are. And I saw the pain and agony etched upon the faces of all these families of lost soldiers. And I told myself that this needs to stop. We cannot have people in power that are irresponsible and corrupt and that keep on going that way because they're not held accountable to the people.

SITES: You know on that note, Lieutenant, let me read you something from a speech that you gave in August to the Veterans for Peace. You had said at one point, "Many have said this about the World Trade Towers: never again. I agree, never again will we allow those who threaten our way of life to reign free. Be they terrorists or elected officials. The time to fight back is now, the time to stand up and be counted is today." Who were you speaking about when you said that?

WATADA: I was speaking about everybody. The American people. That we all have that duty, that obligation, that responsibility to do something when we see our government perpetrating a crime upon the world, or even upon us. And I think that the American people have lost that, that sense of duty. There is no self-interest in this war for the vast majority of the American people. And because of that the American soldiers have suffered.
There really is a detachment from this war, and many of the American people, because there is no draft, or for whatever reason, because taxes haven't been raised, they don't have anything personally to lose or gain with this war, and so they take little interest.

SITES: Do you think President Bush and his advisers are guilty of criminal conduct in the prosecution of this war?

WATADA: That's not something for me to determine. I think it's for the newly-elected congress to determine during the investigations that they should hold over this war, and pre-war intelligence.

SITES: But in some ways you have determined that. You're saying this is an illegal war, and an illegal act usually takes prosecution by someone with criminal intent. Is that correct?

WATADA: Right, and they have taken me to court with that, but they have refused — or it will be very unlikely that the prosecution in the military court will allow me to bring in evidence and witnesses to testify on my behalf that the war is illegal. So therefore it becomes the responsibility of Congress, since the military is refusing to do that. It becomes the responsibility of Congress to hold our elected leaders accountable.

SITES: Now this is the same Congress though that in a lot of ways voted for this war initially. Do you think that they're going to turn around and in some ways say that they were wrong? And hold hearings to determine exactly that, that they made a mistake as well? It seems like a long shot.

WATADA: Right, well I think some in Congress are willing to do that, and some aren't. And that's the struggle, and that's the fight that's going to occur over the next year.

SITES: Let me ask you why you decided to go to the press with this. In this particular case you're the first officer — there may have been other officers that have refused these orders, but you're the first one to really do this publicly. Why did you do that?

WATADA: Because I wanted to explain to the American people why I was taking the stand I was taking — that it wasn't for selfish reasons, it wasn't for cowardly reasons.
You know, I think the most important reason here is to raise awareness among the American people that hey — there's a war going on, and American soldiers are dying every day. Hundreds of Iraqis are dying every day. You need to take interest, and ask yourself where you stand, and what you're willing to do, to end this war, if you do believe that it's wrong — that it's illegal, and immoral. And I think I have accomplished that. Many, many people come up to me and say, "because of you, I have taken an active interest in what's going on over in Iraq."
And also, you know, [I want to] give a little hope and inspiration back to a lot of people. For a long time I was really without hope, thinking that there was nothing I could do about something that I saw, that was so wrong, and so tragic. And I think a lot of people who have been trying to end this war felt the same way — that there was just nothing that they could do. And I think by taking my stand publicly, and stating my beliefs and standing on those beliefs, a lot of people have taken encouragement from that.

SITES: You've said that you had a responsibility to your own conscience in this particular situation. Did you also have a responsibility to your unit as well? I just want to read you a quote from Veterans of Foreign Wars communications director Jerry Newbury. He said "[Lt. Watada] has an obligation to fulfill, and it's not up to the individual officer to decide when he's going to deploy or not deploy. Some other officer will have to go in his place. He needs to think about that." Can you react to that quote?

WATADA: You know, what I'm doing is for the soldiers. I'm trying to end something that is criminal, something that should not have been started in the first place and something that is making America less safe — and that is the Iraq war. By just going there and being willing to participate, and doing my job, or whatever I'm told to do — which actually exacerbates the situation and makes it worse — I would not be serving the best interest of this country, nor the soldiers that I'm serving with. What I'm trying to do is end something, as I said, that's illegal, and immoral, so that all the soldiers can come home and this tragedy can come to an end.
It seems like people and critics make this distinction between an order to deploy and any other order, as if the order to deploy is just something that's beyond any other order. Orders have to be determined on whether they're legal or not. And if the order to deploy to a war that is unlawful, if that is given, then that order itself is unlawful.

SITES: How did your peers and your fellow officers react to your decision?

WATADA: I know that there have been some people within the military who won't agree with my stance, and there have been a lot of members of the Army of all ranks who have agreed with what I've done. And I see it almost every other day, where someone in uniform, or a dependent, approaches me in person, or through correspondence, and thanks me for what I have done, and either supports or respects my stand.

SITES: You've remained on base, and that's been a situation that can't be too comfortable for you. Can you fill us in on what that's been like there?

WATADA: I think that for the most part, people that I interact with closely — I have been moved, I'm no longer in the 3rd Striker Brigade, I'm over in 1st Corps — treat me professionally, politely, but keep their distance. I don't think anybody wants to get involved with the position that I've taken, either way. People approach me in private and give me their support.

SITES: Tell me about the repercussions you face in this court martial.

WATADA: Well I think with the charges that have been applied to me and referred over to a general court martial, I'm facing six years maximum confinement, dishonorable discharge from the army, and loss of all pay and allowances.

STES: Are you ready to deal with all those consequences with this decision?

WATADA: Sure, and I think that's the decision that I made almost a year ago, in January, when I submitted my original letter of resignation. I knew that possibly some of the things that I stated in that letter, including my own beliefs, that there were repercussions from that. Yet I felt it was a sacrifice, and it was a necessary sacrifice, to make. And I feel the same today.
I think that there are many supporters out there who feel that I should not be made an example of, that I'm speaking out for what a lot of Americans are increasingly becoming aware of: that the war is illegal and immoral and it must be stopped. And that the military should not make an example or punish me severely for that.

SITES: Do you think that you made a mistake in joining the military? Your mother and father support you in this decision, and your father during the Vietnam War refused to go to Vietnam as well, but instead joined the Peace Corps. He went to his draft board and said, "let me join the Peace Corps and serve in Peru," which is what he did. Do you think in hindsight that that might have been a better decision for you as well?

WATADA: You know I think that John Murtha came out a few months ago in an interview and he was asked if, with all his experience, in Korea, and Vietnam, volunteering for those wars -- he was asked if he would join the military today. And he said absolutely not. And I think that with the knowledge that I have now, I agree. I would not join the military because I would be forced into a position where I would be ordered to do something that is wrong. It is illegal and immoral. And I would be put into a situation as a soldier to be abused and misused by those in power.

STIES: In your speech in front of the Veterans for Peace you said "the oath we take as soldiers swears allegiance not to one man but to a document of principles and laws designed to protect the people." Can you expand upon that a little bit — what did you mean when you said that?

WATADA: The constitution was established, and our laws are established, to protect human rights, to protect equal rights and constitutional civil liberties. And I think we have people in power who say that those laws, or those principles, do not apply to them — that they are above the law and can do whatever it takes to manipulate or create laws that enable them to do whatever they please. And that is a danger in our country, and I think the war in Iraq is just one symptom of this agenda. And I think as soldiers, as American people, we need to recognize this, and we need to put a stop to it before it's too late.

2006 Bangkok bombings - Wikipedia

2007-01-01T10:57:00.000Z

Chocking news...
For those concerned by this event: The Nation's website is the main source of information right now:
http://www.nationmultimedia.com

Sailom

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Bangkok_bombings

2006 Bangkok Bombings
Location	Bangkok, Thailand
Target(s)	8 locations (map) : • Bus stop (Victory Monument) • Police post (Saphan Khwai, Phaya Thai District) • Seacon Square shopping mall • Market (Khlong Toei district) • Khae Rai intersection (Nonthaburi Province) • Police post (Sukhumvit Soi 62) • Restaurant (Khlong Saen Saeb, Pratunam Pier, near CentralWorld) • Telephone booth (CentralWorld)
Date	31 December 2006–1 January 2007 18:00 PM – 00:05 AM (UTC+7)
Attack Type	Unknown
Fatalities	3
Injuries	~ 38

Bangkok Post frontpage, January 1, 2007

The 2006 Bangkok bombings occurred on December 31, 2006 and January 1, 2007, during New Year's Eve festivities in the Thai capital. Four explosions went off almost simultaneously in different parts of the city at around 6:00 p.m. local time (1100 GMT). There were at least seven small explosions taking place within 90 minutes of each other, in the capital and the surrounding metropolitan area. In total, eight explosions occurred during the night. As of January 1, 2007, three people were confirmed dead and more than 38 injured.^[1]

Authorities ordered all public New Year's Eve events cancelled, including the countdown at the CentralWorld shopping center and the alms-giving at Sanam Luang.^[2]

One man was arrested carrying an explosive device. Nobody claimed responsibility for the bombings, and both the Thai Rak Thai party and deposed Premier Thaksin Shinawatra denied involvement.^[3] The initials "IRK" were found written in marker in four places at three bomb sites. The IRK is a an Afghanistan-trained urban guerilla terrorism unit.^[4] However, Interior Minister Aree Wong-araya shrugged off suggestions that the culprits were Muslim terrorists.^[5] A meeting between Premier Surayud Chulanont and various security and intelligence agencies on the evening of December 31 failed to officially identify culprits for the attacks.^[6] However, on January 1, Surayud announced that the bombings had nothing to do with the southern insurgency, noting that, "I don't think they would come here as they could get lost in Bangkok."^[7] Surayud blamed the "old power clique" was behind the bombings. However, he noted that he was not referring only to the deposed government of Thaksin Shinawatra, but to all those who had lost political power due to the coup.^[8]

[hide]

[edit] Bombings

The Victory Monument, site of one of the bombs

Six explosives went off almost simultaneously in Bangkok, killing three and injuring at least 36 people, as revellers were about to start celebrating the New Year's Eve.

Victory Monument. Seventeen people were injured. Two Thais died at the hospital from injuries. The bomb was placed in a bus-stop shelter and went off at around 6:00 p.m. A second bomb went off nearby shortly after.^[9]^[10]^[11] One Hungarian was reported injured.^[12] The bomb ripped through the bus stops, shattered windows at the nearby restaurant and sent debris in all directions.
Khlong Toei, near the Na Ranong intersection. A bomb hidden in a trash can near a Chinese spirit shrine exploded and injured three people, including a 10-year-old girl. A 61-year-old man died at the hospital from injuries. The explosion caused a secondary explosion in a number of cooking gas cylinders that were situated nearby.^[9]
Saphan Khwai intersection, Phaya Thai District. Another bomb went off at a police box. Two people were injured. Witnesses saw a man dropping a grenade from a pedestrian bridge onto the police box, seriously injuring 1 person. Residue of C4 and TNT were found at the scene.^[9]
Seacon Square Shopping Mall, Prawet District. An unexploded bomb was found in a trash can near a gold shop on the first floor inside the mall. It was removed to the carpark where it exploded, creating panic but causing no injuries. Authorities ordered all shoppers to evacuate the mall, one of Bangkok's largest, and all shops to close.^[9]
Khae Rai intersection, Mueang district, Nonthaburi Province (13°51′31″N, 100°31′15″E). A police box was bombed but no injuries were reported.^[9]
Sukhumvit Soi 62. A police box at the entrance of the soi was bombed, but no injuries were reported.^[9]

New Year's celebrations at CentralWorld and Sanam Luang were cancelled.^[13]

However, two more bombs exploded almost immediately after midnight in the vicinity of CentralWorld. Three Serbs, two Englishmen, two Thais, and one Irishman were among those injured.

Best Sea Foods restaurant on Khlong Saen Saeb near Pratunam Pier and CentralWorld. Three foreigners and two Thais were injured. One of the foreigners' legs was blown off by the blast. The foreign tourists were having dinner at the restaurant.^[14]^[2]
A public telephone booth at the pedestrian flyover linking CentralWorld and Gaysorn Plaza. Several foreigners were injured.^[14]^[2]
Three additional unexploded bombs were found in the area.^{[citation needed]}

Khaosan Road, where a bomb was found undetonated

Police investigated several other incidents.

A suspected bomb was investigated at the Buddy Bar on Khaosan Road about half an hour after midnight. Tourists had earlier been ordered to leave the area.^[14] The bomb report later turned out to be false.^[15]
By 1 a.m., police disabled another bomb at the Suan Lum Night Bazaar before the bomb could explode.^[14]^[2]

[edit] Victims

The wave of bombings claimed three deaths, all of whom where Thai nationals: two individuals were killed at the moment of the explosion, while one died after being brought to the hospital. Songkran Kanchana, 36 and Ekkachai Ruangpoom, 26, were at the Victory Monument, while Suvichai Nak-iam, 61, was at Khlong Toei.

An additional 38 persons standing nearby the blast zones were also injured. Amongst the victims, eight foreigners were hurt: 2 British men, 3 Hungarians, 2 Serbs and 1 American.^[1].

Location	Deaths	Injuries
Victory Monument	2 Thai	15 (1 Hungarian, ?)
Khlong Toei	1 Thai	6
Saphan Khwai	0	2
Seacon Square Shopping Mall	0	0
Khae Rai Intersection (Thai: สี่แยกแคราย)	0	0
Sukhumvit Soi 62	0	0
CentralWorld (Best Sea Foods restaurant)	0	2 Thais 3 foreigners
CentralWorld (pedestrian flyover)	0	6 foreigners
Total	3	~38

[edit] Bombs

Police General Ajiravid Subarnbhesaj claimed that all eight bombs were placed in 3x5-inch boxes and detonated by digital alarm clock. Traces of M4 high explosive booster were found in all of the bombs.^[16] Other military ordinance sources claimed the bombs were all Ammonium Nitrate Fuel Oil (ANFO)/M4 bombs.^[17] This would make the bombs the same type as found in a car outside of Thaksin Shinawatra residence in August 2006 .

[edit] Responsibility

[edit] Forewarning of the bombings

Authorities had earlier warned of an escalation of the South Thailand insurgency during the New Year period.^[18]

Thai Military Intelligence and the Special Branch received intelligence that there would be bombs in up to 30 places in Bangkok and surrounding areas, particularly popular shopping malls like Siam Paragon, the Mall Bangkapi, and Seacon Square.^[19]

[edit] Identify of the bombers

Nobody claimed responsibility for the bombings, and both the Thai Rak Thai party and deposed Premier Thaksin Shinawatra denied involvement.^[3]

The initials "IRK" were found written in marker in four places at three bomb sites - a pillar near a bus stop at Victory Monument, a phone booth near Gaysorn Plaza, a phone booth near Pratunam Pier, and a phone booth near Big C Rajdamri. The IRK is a an Afghanistan-trained urban guerilla terrorism unit. However, Interior Minister Aree Wong-araya shrugged off suggestions that the culprits were Muslim militants.^[20] Senior junta leadership agreed that Muslim terrorists were not involved, and that the initials were meant to frame the IRK and muddy the waters.^[21]

The junta attributed the bombings to various groups. Government security sources blamed the "old power clique," a possible reference to members of the government of deposed Premier Thaksin Shinawatra.^[22] Other security sources said that the bombings might provide the junta with reason to seize Thaksin's sizable personal assets.^[23] The Thai Rak Thai party denied orchestrating the bombings and warned the junta not to point fingers without facts.^[24] "Based on the government's information and intelligence agencies, it was the work of people who lost power, but I cannot clearly say which group was behind it," he said.^[25]

Anti-Thaksin newspaper editor Sondhi Limthongkul said he believed the bombings were orchestrated by "undercurrents", supporters of the deposed government of Thaksin Shinawatra, who wanted to discredit the junta, but he cited no evidence.^[26]

A meeting between Premier Surayud Chulanont and various security and intelligence agencies on the evening of December 31 failed to officially identify culprits for the attacks.^[27]

However, on January 1, Surayud announced that the bombings had nothing to do with the southern insurgency, noting that, "I don't think they would come here as they could get lost in Bangkok."^[28] He claimed that the "old power clique" was the mastermind. He claimed that he was not referring only to the deposed government of Thaksin Shinawatra, but to all those who had lost political power due to the coup.^[29]

[edit] Aftermath

[edit] Further bombings

On January 1 2007, an explosion occurred inside a mosque in Chiang Mai, injuring four people. The mosque keeper claimed that a grenade had been lobbed in, but an army bomb expert claimed the blast was caused by the premature explosion of a bomb being built by the mosque keeper^[30].

[edit] Security measures and junta responses

Several foreign embassies issued travel warnings to their citizens in Bangkok warning that further attacks are possible.^[31]

The junta ordered the military to the streets of Bangkok to control the situation. 6,000 checkpoints were setup throughout Bangkok. Army Commanders for the North, Northeast, and the South are on placed on alert. Bangkok Governor Apirak Kosayothin ordered all 50 districts in Bangkok to collect all their rubbish bins.^[32]^[33]

Junta head Sonthi Boonratkalin cut short his hajj and flew back from Saudi Arabia to meet with the junta leadership in the afternoon of January 1, 2007^[34] Later on that same day, assistant police commissioner Jongrak Juthanon was assigned to lead an investigation into the deadly incidents.^[35]

[edit] References

^ ^a ^b BBCNews, Thai PM blames rivals for blasts, January 1, 2007
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d New Year's Eve bombs kill 2 in Bangkok, Associated Press, 31 December 2006.
^ ^a ^b The Nation, Ousted PM denies involvement in New Year's eve bomb attacks, January 1, 2007
^ Thai Rath, สุรยุทธ์-ประณาม แก๊งป่วน ผู้สูญเสียอํานาจ, 2 January 2007
^ The Nation, Militants not seen as likely culprits, 2 January 2007
^ The Nation, Meeting fails to establish culprits of Bangkok bomb attacks: spokesman, January 1, 2007
^ The Nation, Suspicion falls on Thaksin allies, 2 January 2007
^ The Nation, Surayud blames old power clique behind Bangkok bomb attacks, January 1, 2007
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f The Nation, String of blasts rock Bangkok, killing 2, January 1, 2007.
^ Festivities off as bombs disrupt Bangkok; two dead, 25 injured, MCOT, December 31, 2006.
^ The Nation, Bangkok bomb death toll rises to three, 1 January 2007
^ http://www.2bangkok.com/
^ The Nation, New Yew countdown cancelled after bombs, January 1, 2007
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d The Nation, Two more bombs explode at Central World, Pratunam, January 1, 2007
^ The Age, Two die in Bangkok blasts, January 1 2007.
^ The Nation, Who set the bombs? The mystery can only deepen, 2 January 2007
^ The Nation, Militants not seen as likely culprits, 2 January 2007
^ Sunday Herald, Authorities fear new year attacks from militants, December 31, 2006
^ Thai Rath, 1 January 2006
^ The Nation, Militants not seen as likely culprits, 2 January 2007
^ Thai Rath, สุรยุทธ์-ประณาม แก๊งป่วน ผู้สูญเสียอํานาจ, 2 January 2007
^ The Nation, Old power clique suspected of being behind Bangkok bomb attacks: source, January 1, 2007
^ The Nation, CNS may seize Thaksin's assets following bomb attacks: source, January 1, 2007
^ The Nation, TRT denies masterminding bombs, January 1, 2007
^ The Nation, Surayud suspects "power losers", January 1, 2007
^ Manager.com, “สนธิ”ฟันธงฝีมือคลื่นใต้น้ำบึ้มป่วนกรุง สั่งสอน คมช.-รัฐบาล, December 31, 2006
^ The Nation, Meeting fails to establish culprits of Bangkok bomb attacks: spokesman, January 1, 2007
^ The Nation, Suspicion falls on Thaksin allies, 2 January 2007
^ The Nation, Surayud blames old power clique behind Bangkok bomb attacks, January 1, 2007
^ The Nation, Grenade lobbed into Chiang Mai mosque, January 1, 2007
^ The Nation, Foreign embassies issue travel warning on Bangkok, January 1, 2007
^ Thai Rath, 1 January 2007
^ Matichon, 1 January 2007
^ The Nation, Sonthi to return to Bangkok this afternoon, January 1, 2007
^ Bangkok Post, Bomb type identified, chief investigator named, January 1, 2007

Laughter: it's catching - Nature

2006-12-14T09:13:00.000Z

http://www.nature.com/news/2006/061211/full/061211-7.html

Published online: 12 December 2006; | doi:10.1038/news061211-7

Happy sounds tickle the brain to prompt a smile.

Ned Stafford

The automatic trigger to laughter helps people to build strong bonds with each other.

Punchstock

Laughter is indeed infectious, according to a new study. Researchers have shown that the mere sound of giggles tickles the same area of the listener's brain that is activated when smiling. The brain's response helps to prepare the facial muscles for a good hearty laugh.

"It really seems to be true: 'Laugh and the whole world laughs with you'," says study co-author Sophie Scott, a neuroscientist at University College London in the United Kingdom.

The team of played pleasant sounds, such as laughter or cheering, and unpleasant sounds, such as screaming or retching, to volunteers. They then monitored their brains with functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). All the sounds triggered neural responses in the premotor cortex of the brain — an area known to prepare groups of facial muscles to respond accordingly. When a person in the study actually smiled or laughed, the neural activity moved to a primary motor cortical region.

The neural response in the premotor cortex was, on average, twice as big for pleasant sounds than for unpleasant sounds, the team reports. Since the pleasant sounds have a bigger impact on the bit of the brain that activates muscles to respond in kind, the findings suggests that pleasant sounds are more 'contagious' than unpleasant ones. The research is published this week in the Journal of Neuroscience¹.

Helpless mimicry

Scott says that these results are significant because they suggest that the laughter-triggering mechanism in the human brain is "very basic or automatic": that people are essentially helpless to control the impulse to smile or laugh when they hear pleasant sounds. A good example of this, she says, is when people in a boring meeting strenuously try to suppress the urge to giggle. As soon as one person finally emits a squeak, the whole meeting can erupt into a laugh-fest.

Humans are already known to mirror the habits or emotions of those around them, Scott says. Friends often start using the same words, assuming similar postures, and mimicking hand gestures. And the contagiousness of a good or bad mood is well known. Scott says the neural response in the brain, which automatically primes people who hear pleasant sounds to smile or laugh, is another form of mirroring behaviour that helps people to interact socially and to build strong bonds with each other.

"We usually encounter positive emotions, such as laughter or cheering, in group situations," she explains.

Forcing a smile

The work fits in with previous studies that have illustrated the link between simple stimuli and more complex emotions or feelings. Forcing a smile can actually lift a person's mood². And stimulating some bits of the brain has been shown to actually prompt laughter in at least one patient³.

As the mother of a 5-month-old baby boy, Scott says that she gets a lot of first-hand experience of this trigger mechanism. A grin from any one of her family tends to set all the others off, she says.

But while Scott's baby smiles back when smiled at, he doesn't yawn back after a tired yawn from mom, she says. Scott's team didn't include sounds or pictures of yawns in their study, but she would be interested to see how and why that action is contagious too.

Arctic clear for summer sailing by 2040 - Nature

2006-12-13T06:26:00.000Z

http://www.nature.com/news/2006/061211/full/061211-1.html

Published online: 11 December 2006; | doi:10.1038/news061211-1

Models predict rapid decline of sea ice.

Amanda Leigh Haag

September arctic ice-cover could be reduced from 6 million to 2 million square kilometres in just one decade.

Getty

New climate simulations offer a dire forecast for the disappearance of Arctic sea ice, predicting that by the year 2040, the Arctic Ocean will be almost free of ice during late summer.

Some projections from climate centres worldwide have suggested previously that Arctic sea ice could vanish in September, at the end of the summer melt, by as early as 2050. But the most recent calculations, performed on the Community Climate System Model at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, predict the most rapid and imminent decline yet.

Models differ in their assumptions of how sensitive Arctic ice is to warming air and water temperatures at different times of year. "We're in the more sensitive bracket among models, but we're not an outlier by any means," says Cecilia Bitz, an atmospheric scientists at the University of Washington and a co-author of the study.

The research team, led by Marika Holland, based at NCAR, modeled fluctuations in the sea ice since 1870 using seven distinct simulations. Their work, published this week in Geophysical Research Letters, indicates that in one scenario, September ice-cover could be reduced from 6 million to 2 million square kilometres in just one decade. About 20% of present-day ice cover would remain. But most of this ice would hug the coasts of Canada and Greenland, leaving the Arctic Ocean nearly free of ice at the end of summer.

Across all the seven simulations, which closely match scientists' observations of actual sea ice disappearance up to the present, the latest that the summer ice is expected to disappear is by 2055.

We're losing ice on both ends of the seasons.

Mark Serreze, National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Freeze and thaw

Sea ice waxes and wanes seasonally. The ice pack melts throughout the warm, summer months, usually reaching its minimum thickness and extent in the first two weeks of September. In autumn and winter, as the Arctic deep freeze sets in, the ice is replenished to an annual average of some 15 million square kilometers, blanketing the Arctic Ocean. The thickness and extent of sea ice at summer's end play an important role in the formation of ice the following winter.

For five straight years now, the ice cover has dipped well below average during the summer months, with 2005 setting a record minimum for September ice: Arctic sea ice dropped 20%, or 1.3 million square kilometres, below the 1979-2000 average. This loss equals roughly twice the size of the state of Texas. (September 2006 was expected to set another record in sea ice loss, but an unseasonably cool August stopped it from doing so.) The trend over the past five years translates to an 8% loss in sea ice each decade.

One of the reasons for this potentially dramatic decline in sea ice cover is what climate scientists refer to as a feedback in the climate system known as the 'albedo effect': ice reflects more sunlight than dark, open water and serves as an insulator to the warmer ocean below it. As the ice pack shrinks and thins in the summertime, the insulating effect is weakened and the dark waters below store more heat, further accelerating the ice melt.

Losses at both ends

The increased summer thaw is having an impact on the winter ice cover too. Over the past two winters, the area of sea ice has fallen by 6% per year, compared with an average of 1.5% per decade since 1979, according to NASA.

"The recovery in autumn is no longer what it once was," says Mark Serreze, a sea ice expert with the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder. "What we're starting to see now is that we're losing ice on both ends of the seasons."

All this should open passage for ships and submarines wishing to traverse the Arctic Ocean, at least in summer. It also means a loss of habitat for polar bears, as the winter ice becomes too thin to support their weight as they travel long distances. And plankton that thrive in icy conditions and provide the base of the food chain may not be suited to ice-free conditions.

Serreze notes that while climate model predictions vary on timescales for the disappearance of summer sea ice, "these climate models are in near universal agreement that as the climate warms in response to greenhouse gas loading, we're going to lose the Arctic sea ice cover."

Extrasolar planet - Wikipedia

2006-12-07T09:27:00.000Z

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extrasolar_planet

It's fun to notice the embarrassment of the author when mentioning the existence of "Planetary Mass Objects". The restrictive definition of a planet leads scientists to find weird words for simple things. If an "object" - that looks like a planet - is not orbiting a star, it is forbidden to call them "planets". Sorry for them.

Sailom

An extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, is a planet beyond the Solar System (i.e., orbits a star other than the Sun.) As of 11 November 2006, 209 extrasolar planets have been discovered (see list of stars with known extrasolar planets).^[1]

Known exoplanets are members of planetary systems that orbit a star. There have also been unconfirmed reports of free-floating planetary-mass objects ("rogue planets": that is, ones that do not orbit any star). Since such objects do not satisfy the working definition of "planet" adopted by the International Astronomical Union, and since their existence remains unconfirmed, they will not be discussed in this article.^[2] For more information, see interstellar planet.

Infrared image of 2M1207 (blue) and its planet 2M1207b, as viewed by the Very Large Telescope. As of September 2006 this is the only confirmed extrasolar planet to have been directly imaged.

Extrasolar planets became a subject of scientific investigation in the mid-19th century. Astronomers generally supposed that some existed, but it was a mystery how common they were and how similar they were to the planets of the Solar System. The first confirmed detections were finally made in the 1990s; since 2002, more than twenty have been discovered every year. It is now estimated that at least 10% of sunlike stars have planets, and the true proportion may be much higher.^[3] The discovery of extrasolar planets raises the question of whether some might support extraterrestrial life.^[4]

Changing Mars Gullies Hint at Recent Flowing Water - space.com

2006-12-06T21:05:00.000Z

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/061206_mars_gullies.html

By Tariq Malik
Staff Writer
posted: 6 December 2006
1:00 p.m. ET

The changing appearance of gullies on Mars within the last few years has prompted new hopes that liquid water may have flowed recently on the red planet.

"The water thing clearly is a surprise to us," Michael Malin, who led a study that found the gully changes, told SPACE.com. "The environment for Mars is not very conducive to water."

Malin and his colleagues used images from NASA's now silent Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) to revisit regions earlier this year where gullies, depression-like landforms on the red planet's surface, were found in 2000.

What they found were new, light-colored deposits that do not appear to have formed from martian landslides, but could be the work of frost, salt deposits or long-sought evidence that water flowed recently on Mars [images].

"Our level of certainty which we can address the question of whether the gully features that we're reporting on were formed by water is high, but not extremely high," said Malin, who has lightheartedly referred to the find as "the squirting gun."

"The evidence is mostly suggestive," he said.

Researchers have known of gullies on the Mars since 2000, when the MGS spacecraft's Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)—built by Malin's Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, California—first observed the eye-catching landforms. Found mostly on slopes or ridges, the gullies sparked long-running debates on whether they formed from groundwater seeping out of the martian surface or in dry landslides.

Malin's team also used the MOC instrument in their new study, which compared base images of two regions taken in 1999 and 2001 to more recent images captured in the years since.

In an area known as Terra Sirenum, new light-toned deposits coating gullies in April 2005 were not present in December 2001. Similar changes were seen in a crater etched into the Centauri Montes region of Mars, which apparently changed sometime between August 1999 and February 2004.

"Whether or not water was involved, it means that it is contemporary," Malin said of the findings, which will be detailed this week in the journal Science.

That liquid water once existed on Mars in some form has been known conclusively since 2004, when NASA's Opportunity rover found evidence that the wet stuff permeated rocks in the planet's ancient past.

Mars scientists have long associated the search for liquid water on red planet with the possibility of life, since the two are closely linked here on Earth. The existence of subsurface liquid water on Mars could also serve as a potential supply source for future red planet explorers.

But determining conclusively that the gully changes seen by MGS stem from liquid water is daunting, and will likely require an up-close visit—a challenge due to the risk of contaminating a gully site with Earth microbes or other material.

"Personally, I think you're going to have to go to one [and see]," Malin said, adding that the contaminate hurdle is daunting. "It's something that will not be trivially easy to go to, but something there's a lot of interest in."

Kenneth Edgett, a scientist at Malin Space Science Systems, told SPACE.com that the gully changes seen by MGS may be the first of many to be found by Mars-watching orbiters.

"More of these could happen if we just watch," Edgett said.

Gully Gazing: Scientists Search for Flowing Water on Mars

Mars Global Surveyor Remains Silent, Feared Lost

The June 2000 News of Mars Gullies

Mars Gullies Likely Formed By Underground Aquifers

Mars Gullies Could Harbor Martian Biology

Images: Visualizations of Mars

All About Mars

Pierre-Simon Laplace - Wikipedia

2006-12-06T18:26:00.000Z

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace


French mathematician & astronomer
Born	March 23, 1749 Beaumont-en-Auge, Normandy
Died	March 5, 1827

Pierre-Simon, Marquis de Laplace (March 23, 1749, Beaumont-en-Auge, Normandy – March 5, 1827, Paris) was a French mathematician and astronomer who put the final capstone on mathematical astronomy by summarizing and extending the work of his predecessors in his five volume Mécanique Céleste (Celestial Mechanics) (1799-1825). This masterpiece translated the geometrical study of mechanics used by Isaac Newton to one based on calculus, known as physical mechanics [1].

He is also the discoverer of Laplace's equation. Although the Laplace transform is named in honor of Laplace, who used the transform in his work on probability theory, the transform was discovered originally by Leonhard Euler, the prolific eighteenth-century Swiss mathematician. The Laplace transform appears in all branches of mathematical physics — a field he took a leading role in forming. The Laplacian differential operator, much relied-upon in applied mathematics, is likewise named after him.

He became count of the Empire in 1806 and was named a marquis in 1817 after the restoration of the Bourbons.

Quotes

What we know is not much. What we do not know is immense.
I have no need of that hypothesis. ("Je n'ai pas besoin de cette hypothèse", as a reply to Napoleon, who had asked why he hadn't mentioned God in his book on astronomy)
"It is therefore obvious that..." (frequently used in the Celestial Mechanics when he had proved something and mislaid the proof, or found it clumsy. Notorious as a signal for something true, but hard to prove.)
The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness. (known as the Principle of Laplace)

Moon Base Announced by NASA - National Geographic News

2006-12-05T14:01:00.000Z

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/12/061204-moon-base.html

Moon Base Announced by NASA

John Roach
for National Geographic News

December 4, 2006

NASA plans to construct a solar-powered outpost at one the moon's poles, officials with the U.S. space agency announced today.

The lunar base is expected to be permanently staffed by 2024.

Enlarge Photo

Email to a Friend

The outpost concept was chosen over a competing strategy similar to the 1960s and '70s Apollo program—a series of brief trips to the moon.

The moon base will allow for sustained human presence on the moon's surface and help the agency prepare for future missions to Mars and beyond, explained NASA Deputy Administrator Shana Dale.

"It also enables global partnerships, allows for maturation of in situ resource utilization, and results in a path that is much quicker in terms of future exploration," Dale said at a press conference.

The announcement was part of NASA's congressionally mandated strategy to meet U.S. President George W. Bush's "Vision for U.S. Space Exploration," a plan outlined in 2004.

(Related: "NASA Budget Diverts Funds From Science to Spaceships" [February 8, 2006].)

The Bush plan includes returning humans to the moon no later than 2020. The goal is to take advantage of the moon's resources and to establish a launching point for further explorations.

(Photo gallery: "NASA's New Mission to the Moon.")

Dale added that the space agency is looking to international partners in the private and public sectors to participate in the construction and use of the moon base.

Polar Base

Once Dale and more than a thousand experts from 14 countries had decided to build a base, the obvious question was where.

"What we're looking at is polar locations—both the north pole and south pole," she said.

The moon's poles are believed to be bathed in near constant sunlight, which should allow for solar power generation.

Enlarge Photo

Email to a Friend

In addition, polar temperatures are relatively moderate. Other lunar regions tend to fluctuate between extreme heat and cold.

Furthermore, the poles contain craters whose slopes may be permanently in the shadows—an indication that water ice and other potentially useful chemicals may be available.

"It's also interesting to note that we know very little about the poles on the moon. In fact, we know more about Mars," said Scott Horowitz, associate administrator for NASA's Exploration Systems Missions Directorate.

Doug Cooke, deputy associate administrator for the directorate, said one potential location is at the edge of Shackleton Crater. Located at the south pole, the crater is sunlit 75 to 80 percent of the time.

"And it is adjacent to a permanently dark region where there are potentially volatiles"—substances such as water ice, which would likely evaporate if exposed to much sunlight—"that we can extract and use," he said.

The potential site, he added, is about the size of the Washington Mall, which measures about 0.9 square mile (2.4 square kilometers).

Moon Lander

NASA envisions using an all-purpose lander that maximizes the amount of cargo that can be shipped to the moon in a single trip, Cooke said.

Horowitz likened the lander, which is in the preliminary design stages, to a pickup truck.

"You can put whatever you want in the bed. You take it to wherever you want, and so you can deliver cargo, crew [and] do it robotically [or] do it with humans onboard. These are the types of things we are looking for," he said.

"What you can put on the surface allows you to develop a capability much more quickly. The more you can land, the better it is."

The current plan envisions incremental base construction beginning in 2020 with four-person crews making seven-day visits to the moon until their basic necessities are in place.

"It will probably take several years—probably into the 2024 timeframe—before you see a fully functional base where you could have a continual presence with rotating crews like we have on the International Space Station today," Horowitz said.

Annan: Life for Iraqis worse than with Saddam - AP

2006-12-04T18:30:00.000Z

Let's talk about the media coverage of the Iraq war.
There are probably thousands of things to say. Yet, one thing struck me. It's been years we are reading that "Iraq is one the verge of civil war". As "being on the verge of something" implies that it won't take long before the worse comes to the worse, one wonders wether there actually is a bit of of subtle war communication strategy involved.
How many civilians have died in Iraq for the past 12 months? Given that - daily - dozens are reported to die in sectarian attacks, we can safely assume that hundreds are killed daily all over the country (most deadly attacks being overshadowed by the biggest car bombing of the day).
Well, if 100,000 people die annually in a given country with a small population of less than 30 million inhabitants, is the media allowed to talk about "civil war"?
That's my question.

Sailom

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16035086

‘They had a dictator who was brutal but they had their streets,’ he says

Updated: 10:00 a.m. ET Dec. 4, 2006

LONDON - The level of violence in Iraq is "much worse" than that of Lebanon's civil war, outgoing U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said in an interview aired Monday.

Speaking to the British Broadcasting Corp., Annan agreed that the average Iraqi's life is worse now than it was under Saddam Hussein and called the situation in the country "extremely dangerous."

"Given the level of violence, the level of killing and bitterness and the way that forces are arranged against each other, a few years ago, when we had the strife in Lebanon and other places, we called that a civil war; this is much worse," Annan said.

Pluto-bound Spacecraft Spots its Target - space.com

2006-11-30T17:52:00.000Z

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/061129_newhorizons_pluto.html

By Tariq Malik
Staff Writer
posted: 29 November 2006
2:15 p.m. ET

A NASA spacecraft hurtling away from Earth has caught the first glimpse of its distant destination: the dwarf planet Pluto.

The New Horizons probe, set to swing by Pluto and its moons in 2015, plucked the small planet from a star-filled image during a checkout period using the spacecraft’s long range camera [image].

“Finding Pluto in this dense star field really was like trying to find a needle in a haystack,” said New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, in a statement.

Stern said astronomers took a page from the book of the late skywatcher Clyde Tombaugh—who discovered Pluto in 1930—and switched between different images of the same area, taken days apart, to hunt for the planet.

But where Tombaugh used photographic plates, New Horizons researchers relied on digital images taken of Pluto’s expected location by their probe’s Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI). The small planet was easily identified as it moved against the background of stars.

"We won’t get useful science out of these first detections of Pluto," Stern said. "But during the next several years of approach, we'll use LORRI to study Pluto's brightness variation with our angle to the Sun to build a 'phase curve' we could never get from Earth or Earth orbit.”

That should yield new details of Pluto’s frigid surface well before New Horizons makes its flyby past the dwarf planet on July 14, 2015, he added.

In the meantime, New Horizons researchers are content to know that the probe’s long-distance camera is working well, and eagerly awaiting next year’s Feb. 28slingshot past Jupiter. The spacecraft was built for NASA by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, which is also managing the mission’s more than nine-year flight.

Travelogue to Pluto

Since its Jan.19 launch, New Horizons has snapped photos of the asteroid JF56—during a June 13 pass—as well as the star Messier 7 and the gas giant Jupiter on its way to Pluto.

The Pluto portrait was taken between Sept. 21-24, stored aboard New Horizons and only recently relayed back home to Earth. New Horizons was about 2.6 billion miles (4.2 billion kilometers) from its planetary target at the time of the LORRI image.

"Those of us who calibrated LORRI on the ground and in flight are not surprised to see what it can do, but we are mighty grateful that LORRI has survived launch and its first several months in space without any loss of performance," said LORRI principal investigator Andy Cheng, of the Applied Physics Laboratory, in a statement.

NASA has billed New Horizons’ journey as the U.S. space agency’s fastest mission to date despite its long travel time. Stern and his fellow mission scientists are hoping to send their spacecraft past Pluto to visit at least one other icy object in the distant Kuiper Belt, which stretches beyond the orbit of Neptune. [Click here for a graphic of the probe’s flight path.]

New Horizons is currently speeding through the solar system at about 20.8 kilometers per second with respect to the Sun. That’s about 46,528 miles per hour (74,880 kilometers per hour).

Why Planets Will Never Be Defined

Pluto Demoted: No Longer a Planet in Highly Controversial Definition

IMAGES: NASA’s New Horizons Mission

Reaching for the Edge: Complete Coverage of New Horizon’s Pluto-bound Mission

All About Pluto

Darfur conflict - Wikipedia

2006-11-30T09:00:00.000Z

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darfur_conflict

Irregular combatants in North Darfur. The Arabic text on the bumper says "The Sudan Liberation Army" (SLA).

The Darfur conflict is an ongoing armed conflict in the Darfur region of western Sudan, mainly between the Janjaweed, a militia group recruited from the tribes of the Abbala (camel-herding Arabs), and the non-Baggara people (mostly land-tilling tribes) of the region. The Sudanese government, while publicly denying that it supports the Janjaweed, has provided arms and assistance and has participated in joint attacks with the group, systematically targeting the Fur, Zaghawa, and Massaleit ethnic groups in Darfur. The conflict began in July 2003. Unlike in the Second Sudanese Civil War, which was fought between the primarily Muslim north and Christian and Animist south, in Darfur most of the residents are Muslim, as are the Janjaweed.^[1]

Estimated number of deaths in the conflict have ranged from 50,000 (World Health Organization, September 2004) to 450,000 (Dr. Eric Reeves, 28 April 2006). Most NGOs use 400,000, a figure from the Coalition for International Justice that has since been cited by the United Nations. As many as 2.5 million are thought to have been displaced.^[2] (See Counting deaths section, below)

The mass media have described the conflict as both "ethnic cleansing" and "genocide." The U.S. Government has described it as genocide, although the United Nations has declined to do so. (See List of declarations of genocide in Darfur)

After fighting worsened in July and August 2006, on August 31, 2006, the United Nations Security Council approved Resolution 1706 which called for a new 20,000-troop UN peacekeeping force to supplant or supplement a poorly funded, ill-equipped 7,000-troop African Union Mission in Sudan peacekeeping force. Sudan strongly objected to the resolution and said that it would see the UN forces in the region as foreign invaders. The next day, the Sudanese military launched a major offensive in the region. (See New proposed UN peacekeeping force)

Human Development Iindicators - UNDP

2006-11-29T12:56:00.000Z

http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/statistics/indicators/10.html

Earlier this month, the UNDP released Human Development estimates for the year 2004.
There are many ways to analyze the data. One way is to look at the "most developed" country (Norway... index=0.965) and then look at the "least developed" one (Niger... index=0.311). Then we may split the development gap in 5 parts. Here is the result with the 20 most populated countries in the world:
All big OECD countries have very high development level, all big East Asian countries already have relatively high development level. Big Sub-saharan African countries are either little or very little developped. South Asia and the Middle East... is in the middle.

The Human Development Indicators have three basic dimensions: Purchasing power per head, life expectancy and education level

Countries with a relatively very high development level:
Japan: 0.949
USA: 0.948
France: 0.942
Germany: 0.932

Countries with a relatively high development level
Mexico: 0.821
Russia: 0.797
Brazil: 0.792
Thailand: 0.784
China: 0.768
Philippines: 0.763
Turkey: 0.757
Iran: 0.746
Indonesia: 0.711
Vietnam: 0.709

Countries with a relatively median development level:
Egypt: 0.702
India: 0.611

Countries with a relatively low development level:
Pakistan: 0.539
Bengladesh: 0.530
Nigeria: 0.448

Country with a relatively very low development level:
Ethiopia: 0.371

Sailom

Cheeta's 74th birthday - Gamma / Frederic Neema

2006-11-28T13:20:00.000Z

http://www.gamma.fnphoto.com/stories/2330/pages/13-16-2330-0437.htm

Tarzan's chimpanzee star Cheeta with his owner and caretaker, Dan Westfall, receives in Palm Springs, CA, an award on behalf of the International Comedy Film Festival of Peniscola in Spain. This the only cinematographic award that Cheeta has ever received. Cheeta, famed for his appearances in the 1930's and 1940's Tarzan movies starring Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan, turned 74 years old today and remains the world's oldest living primate. He lives happily at the C.H.E.E.T.A Primate Foundation in Palm Springs, California, a home for primates who have retired from the movie industry and the show business.

13-16-2330-0437.jpg

Human genome more variable than previously thought - Nature

2006-11-24T16:23:00.000Z

http://www.nature.com/news/2006/061120/full/061120-9.html

News

Published online: 22 November 2006; | doi:10.1038/news061120-9

Surprisingly large segments of DNA found to differ from person to person.

Helen Pearson

How alike are you and me? About 99.5%

Getty

Nearly six years after the sequence of the human genome was sketched out, one might assume that researchers had worked out what all that DNA means. But a new investigation has left them wondering just how similar one person's genome is to another's.

Geneticists have generally assumed that your string of DNA 'letters' is 99.9% identical to that of your neighbour's, with differences in the odd individual letter. These differences make each person genetically unique — influencing everything from appearance and personality to susceptibility to disease.

But hold on, say the authors of a new study published in Nature¹. They have identified surprisingly large chunks of the genome that can differ dramatically from one person to the next. "Everyone has a unique pattern," says one of the lead authors, Matthew Hurles at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, UK.

The differences in question - made up of stretches of DNA that span tens to hundreds of thousands of chemical letters — are called 'copy-number variants', or CNVs. Within a given stretch of DNA, one person may carry one copy of a DNA segment, another may have two, three or more. The region might be completely absent from a third person's genome. And sometimes the segments are shuffled up in different ways.

These variable regions received short shrift for many years. When the human genome sequence was pieced together, they were largely glossed over, because researchers were focused on finding one overarching reference sequence — and because the repetitive nature of the segments makes them hard to sequence. "It was swept under the rug," says Michael Wigler who is also mapping CNVs at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York.

All change

The new study, led by Hurles and Stephen Scherer of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada, and their colleagues is the most detailed attempt to find how CNVs are scattered across the whole human genome. To do this, they compared genome chunks from 270 people of European, African or Asian ancestry.

Same but different

3,080 million 'letters' of DNA in the human genome

22,205 genes, by one recent estimate

10 million single-letter changes (SNPs) — that's only 0.3% of the genome

1,447 copy-number variants, covering a surprisingly large 12% of the genome

About 99.5% similarity between two random people's DNA

They found nearly 1,500 such regions, taking up some 12% of the human genome. That doesn't mean that your DNA is 12% different from mine (or 88% similar), because any two people's DNA will differ at only a handful of these spots.

According to the team's back-of-the-envelope calculations, one person's DNA is probably 99.5% similar to their neighbour's. Or a bit less. "I've tried to do the calculation and it's very complicated," says Hurles. "It all depends on how you do the accounting."

The answer is also unclear because researchers think that there are many more variable blocks of sequence that are 10,000 or 1,000 letters long and were excluded from the current study. Because of limits with their methods, the new map mainly identified variable chunks larger than 50,000 letters long.

Many of these CNVs are thought to be important in our biology. The team found that 10% of human genes are spanned by these regions, meaning that they might be doubled, deleted or otherwise jumbled in a way that could help to determine whether and when we develop diseases.

CNVs have already been linked with susceptibility to Alzheimer's disease, kidney disease and HIV, among others, and the new map will help researchers to make connections to other conditions. "There's a general expectation that these things are quite influential," Wigler says.

Maps upon maps

The new map adds to a whole library of genetic cartography that already points out other landmarks in the human genome. A lot of attention has focused on mapping the places where single letters vary between individuals (single-nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs). Other researchers are identifying hard-to-spot regions where a segment can be flipped around so it runs backwards.

But there is plenty more for geneticists to navigate and undoubtedly more maps to come. Some will reveal the smaller regions of variation excluded from Hurle's map. Other projects are attempting to mark every single sequence that does something biologically useful, such as making proteins or packaging up DNA into chromosomes.

The precise degree to which each person's DNA differs from another may not become clear until geneticists devise a way to read through the entire genome of many different people and compare them all in detail, something that is far too expensive and time consuming today but may become possible with the advent of faster, cheaper sequencing machines.

Scherer and his team have already lined up the only two complete human genome sequences produced by the publicly funded Human Genome Project and the private company Celera. They identified both single-letter changes and small and large regions of variation and report their results in Nature Genetics².

Visit our newsblog to read and post comments about this story.

Why Planets Will Never Be Defined - space.com

2006-11-22T08:49:00.000Z

This article has a point. The "planet" debate seemed laughauble to outsiders. There is at least 2 problems with the new definition.
1. It was obviously written to fit our own solar system i.e. keeping the number of planets as low as possible. When studying other solar systems, the definition becomes meaningless.
2. There is no coherence between the new planet definition and the definitions of stars and asteroids. No matter how and no matter what they are orbiting, stars or asteroids remain defined that way. Their definition is based on their geology. The orbit-based definition of planets are not coherent.

However, I disagree with the conclusion of the article. We can't communicate without a proper definition for the words we use. If someone talks about a planet, some would think about Ceres, some would think about the Earth, some would think about Jupiter. We do need an acceptable definition.

Sailom

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/061121_exoplanet_definition.html

By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
posted: 21 November 2006
06:07 am ET

Before the dust even settled after the Great Pluto War at the International Astronomical Union (IAU)'s General Assembly in Prague, one thing became clear: There will never be an accepted scientific definition for the term "planet."

Rather than crafting an acceptable definition, the IAU alienated members, put the group's authority in jeopardy and fueled schisms among astronomers on theoretical grounds and even nationality.

And the whole affair was scientifically pointless, many astronomers say.

The controversial planet-definition resolution, passed Aug. 24 in a vote of just 424 IAU members, will not stand as worded. Some 300 astronomers have pledged not to use it, and many others say it must be redone to eliminate contradictions. It will be reworked, at the least, and possibly overturned at the 2009 IAU General Assembly in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Meanwhile, the debate—which the IAU limited to defining round things in our solar system—was a neighborhood nomenclature brawl amid a universal war of words. Any terminology that might be relevant to our little solar system will be laughably inadequate if applied across the galaxy.

Shortly after the Prague vote, I posed a series of questions about the new definition's merits and shortcomings to several astronomers, among them Geoff Marcy at the University of California, Berkeley. Marcy and his colleagues have found more planets beyond our solar system than any other team.

"Your questions imply that a definition of the word 'planet' is useful scientifically. That is a view not shared by many professional planetary scientists," Marcy replied. "The astrophysics of planetary bodies is so rich and complex that defining 'planet' has never been an issue under discussion among professionals. So, some of your questions read to me like the old phrase 'When did you stop beating your wife?' The taxonomy of asteroids, comets, moons, planets and brown dwarfs is far too limited to capture the diversity of their origins and internal constitutions."

Diverse indeed. During 2006, the tally of known extrasolar planets surpassed 200, and the range of sizes and setups illustrates why a universal definition is impossible in light of the fact that scientists are sharply divided on what to call Pluto.

Arguing since 1990

The debate over what constitutes a planet flared up after the 1990 discovery of the first round objects orbiting another star. The three so-called pulsar planets are about the same size as Earth. They are often forgotten in discussions about exoplanets. Some astronomers don't see them as planets at all, because they orbit a fast-spinning, dead star that cannot support life.

Other worlds several times the mass of Jupiter float freely in space; they have no host star. Are they planets? Other oddities abound.

"It is a little-known fact that nearly 25 percent of the known extrasolar planets are in binary- or multiple-star systems," said Stephen Kortenkamp , a research associate at the University of Maryland. "That further complicates the notion of creating a universal definition of planet."

One day during what Kortenkamp calls the Great Pluto War, he browsed his dictionary. "I see lots of words that have multiple definitions, depending on the context in which they are used," he told me back then. "I don't see why the word 'planet' can't be treated the same way."

Kortenkamp figures "planet" means one thing in our solar system and something else around other stars, and also has varying meanings for geologists or planet-hunters or the public. "The IAU would have been better off with this approach rather than trying to dictate a single definition for what is really a cultural term that means different things to different groups of people," he said.

The known setups are a tiny sample of what's out there. There are perhaps 250 billion planets in our galaxy, says Gregory Laughlin, an exoplanet hunter and planetary system theorist at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Eventually, astronomers could find two Earth-size objects orbiting each other around a center of gravity in the space between them, Laughlin said. Other worlds might be accompanied by planet-size "Trojans" that move with them in a horseshoe-shaped pattern. The present IAU definition, requiring a planet to clear out the path of its orbit, is not set up to handle such offbeat configurations.

It's also possible two planet-mass objects could be found orbiting each other with no star involved.

Complicating the idea of planet-hood are the very massive objects that have been the easiest to find with current technology. There are dozens of them, each several times the heft of Jupiter, and many bump up against the mass range of brown dwarfs to create yet another fuzzy area of definition.

Brown dwarfs are big balls of gas that can be up to 70 times as massive as Jupiter but not massive enough to carry out the thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen that powers real stars. Generally, the lower cutoff is thought to be at 13 times the mass of Jupiter, a level that triggers the fusion of deuterium, which gives brown dwarfs a warm glow that Jupiter can't muster. Thing is, astronomers don't know how gas-giant planets are born nor what conditions create a planetary mass object versus a brown dwarf.

In many astronomers' minds, formation scenarios must play a role in any useful planet definition. The current IAU definition does not even address formation.

'Major rifts'

The Great Pluto War alienated many of the roughly 10,000 professional astronomers around the world who did not have a chance to cast a vote. It also created "two major rifts" among astronomers, said David Morrison, an astronomer at NASA's Ames Research Center who was among the few who did vote.

"Most important was a rift between astronomers who study physical properties of objects and those who study orbits (dynamics)," Morrison told me. "The dynamicists dominated at the IAU, and many of them would not accept any definition that was based solely on physical properties such as size."

"The second division was along national lines," Morrison explained. "Some astronomers seemed irritated by perceived American domination of the process. Some felt, with considerable justification in my opinion, that some Americans astronomers defended Pluto as a planet in large part because an American had discovered it. As in so many other international contexts, there can be reaction against perceived American arrogance."

In an interview with SPACE.com published in September, IAU president Catherine Cesarsky said there is no reason to question the governing body's authority. But when asked if that authority had been weakened, she also said: "It is too early to tell."

In the broadest terms, a planet could be thought of as anything from an 800-kilometer-wide (500-mile-wide) round rock orbiting a dead star to a colossal gas ball floating alone in space. No accepted definition will be possible unless the IAU democratizes the decision-making process by allowing all members to vote.

Even then, defining and categorizing all these different worlds is seen as impossible by some astronomers. Many think it is simply irrelevant, or, as Geoff Marcy puts it: "Categorizing them does not magically add insight."

This article appeared in the Winter issue of Ad Astra magazine.

Full Coverage: The Debate and the IAU Vote

Most recent stories at top

Blogs as the Controversy Unfolded

Defining Moments: The Saga's History

NASA Studies Manned Asteroid Mission - space.com

2006-11-16T18:07:00.000Z

http://www.space.com/news/061116_asteroid_nasa.html


	NASA Studies Manned Asteroid Mission By Leonard David Senior Space Writer posted: 16 November 2006 06:32 am ET

NASA is appraising a human mission to a near-Earth asteroid—gauging the scientific merit of the endeavor while testing out spacecraft gear, as well as mastering techniques that could prove useful if a space rock ever took aim for our planet.

Space agency teams are looking into use of Constellation hardware for a human Near-Earth Object (NEO) mission—an effort underway at NASA’s Ames Research. Another study is delving into use of Constellation components to support an automated Mars sample return mission. That study is led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

The Constellation Program encompasses NASA’s initial efforts to extend the human presence throughout the solar system.

Major pieces of the Constellation Program—such as the Orion crew vehicle—are meant to support transport of humans and cargo to the Moon and to the International Space Station, while future efforts would sustain missions to Mars and beyond.

Astronauts, engineers and scientists at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas have been looking into the capabilities of the Orion vehicle for a mission to a near-Earth asteroid.

Significant assets

“A human mission to a near Earth asteroid would be scientifically worthwhile,” said Chris McKay, deputy scientist in the Constellation science office at the NASA Johnson Space Center. “It could be part of an overall program of understanding these objects. Also, it would be useful, instrumentally, in terms of understanding the threat they pose to the Earth.”

Stationed at NASA’s Ames Research Center located in California’s Silicon Valley, McKay told SPACE.com that work is underway to evaluate the science enabled by sending crews to asteroids, and to judge how best to assure safe and efficient exploration.

Asteroids are relics from early solar system formation, McKay pointed out. “Then there’s the whole, what I call the ‘Bruce Willis factor’…the star in the movie Armageddon…and the ability to send significant assets to an asteroid.”

“There’s a lot of public resonance with this notion that NASA ought to be doing something about killer asteroids…to be able to send serious equipment to an asteroid,” McKay observed. “The public wants us to have mastered the problem of dealing with asteroids. So being able to have astronauts go out there and sort of poke one with a stick would be scientifically valuable as well as demonstrate human capabilities,” he said.

McKay emphasized that it’s premature to send off a piloted mission to an asteroid to do countermeasure activities. “There could be testing of various approaches. But we don’t know enough about asteroids right now to know the best strategy for mitigation,” he said.

Forward looking reasons

“It’s a terrific mission if we can do it…and if it programmatically makes sense,” said Former Apollo astronaut, Russell Schweickart, Chairman of the B612 Foundation, a group with the goal of significantly altering the orbit of an asteroid, in a controlled manner, by 2015.

Schweickart said that there are a number of “forward looking reasons” to put asteroids on NASA’s lofty Moon, Mars and beyond agenda.

The value of asteroids for on-the-spot resources, for one, was noted by Schweickart. Secondly, validating command and control skills in piloting up to an asteroid would be beneficial, he said.

Furthermore, a human venture to a space rock may well accelerate precursor robotic surveys of asteroids, Schweickart observed. “Early unmanned visits to asteroids...it’s the same pattern as we did with the Moon and we’re doing right now with Mars. It’s all pretty logical,” he told SPACE.com.

Public awareness regarding asteroids, via a human exploration initiative, would be helpful, Schweickart said. It’s an opportunity for the public to be educated in reality, not in terms of Hollywood’s version of asteroid-busting as seen in the movie, Armageddon.

Quick dash

Clearly, it will be first-things-first in testing the new Constellation architecture. And that means going to low-Earth orbital missions to wring out the systems and procedures. These are likely to be followed in rather quick succession by lunar orbital and landing missions.

“But a very natural, early extension of the exploration capabilities of this new vehicle architecture would be a ‘quick dash’ near-Earth asteroid rendezvous mission,” said Dan Durda, a senior research scientist in the Department of Space Studies at the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado.

“That kind of early demonstration mission might last no more than 60 or 90 days,” Durda said, “and take the crew no farther than a few lunar distances away from Earth.”

Durda said he could imagine that such a flight might be made before the first lunar landing even—perhaps after a lunar orbital mission or two—in order to try out spacecraft systems on an even longer-duration flight.

Primo science and samples

What would a space crew do once they’ve arrived at an asteroid?

There’s clearly engineering and program benefits, but also factoring in scientific investigations, the humans-to-an-asteroid idea becomes even more compelling, Durda suggested.

Still, as NASA’s NEAR-Shoemaker and Japan’s Hayabusa robotic efforts verified, good asteroid science can be done minus humans on the scene.

“But look at how having astronauts actually there on the Moon improved both the quantity and quality of the science return from Apollo,” Durda responded. “People have the judgment and creativity to select the best places to explore,” he said, and coupled with the dexterity offered by on-site, no-delay use of telerobotics in early missions, can gather primo science and samples.

Access to space resources

In general, a human mission to an asteroid offers an opportunity to take lunar-capable hardware and extend its reach to deep-space much sooner than would development of a full-up Mars-capable spacecraft, advised former astronaut, Tom Jones, a veteran of four shuttle flights.

Expeditionary treks to the asteroids enable NASA to grapple with many of the deep-space challenges in operations, communications, and life support without committing to a multi-year Mars mission profile, Jones told SPACE.com.

“And we should gain immediate scientific returns, potential access to space resources like water, and familiarity with complex operations around objects that present a potential hazard to Earth,” Jones added.

Can the infrastructure coming out of the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle work be utilized for asteroid journeys?

The Crew Exploration Vehicle could be the nucleus of an asteroid mission, Jones said, furnishing some of the propulsion, communication, and habitation space needed, as well as the obvious reentry capability.

“By using the low Earth orbit-rendezvous approach planned for lunar missions, a spacecraft using other Constellation or International Space Station components might be able to perform a multi-month mission to a near-Earth object in a favorable orbit,” Jones said.

Deep-space thoughts

A human mission to an asteroid could be viewed somewhat as a gap-filler.

“After a lunar visit, we face a long interval in Earth-Moon space while we build up experience and technology for a Mars mission,” Jones suggested. An asteroid mission “could take us immediately into deep-space, sustaining program momentum, adding public excitement, and reducing the risk of a later Mars mission,” he said.

“Near-Earth object exploration is especially important if the Moon turns out to be bereft of extractable resources,” Jones pointed out. “Astronauts could collect a rich array of samples from the most scientifically interesting sites on the near-Earth object—dating back to the earliest days of the solar system—set up a pilot resource extraction experiment, demonstrate technology necessary for a future near-Earth object deflection mission, and look back at Earth from millions of miles away. The view would be breathtaking,” he said.

A human journey to an asteroid stretches our deep-space legs, Jones said, “and challenges ourselves operationally even after we return to the Moon.”

The key to sustaining a long and spirited exploration program “is to keep new results coming in and our imaginations looking out…way out beyond the Moon,” Jones concluded.

IMAGES: Walking on the Moon in 3D

Solving Settlement Problems: Dealing with Moon Dust

Earth's Air Trapped in Moon Dirt, Scientist Speculates

Wanted: Fake Moon Dirt

All About the Moon

Neandertal DNA Partially Mapped, Studies Show - National Geographics

2006-11-16T08:18:00.000Z

Interesting results: This article reports that Neandertals would have had a DNA 99.5% similar to modern humans.
We already knew that there was a 99% similarity between any chimp and human DNA.
The figure is 99.9% for any unrelated humans.
The figure is 99.95% for brothers and sisters...

source: DK's Science e-encyclopedia
http://www.amazon.com/DK-Google-E-encyclopedia-Science-E-Encyclopedias/dp/0756602157/sr=1-1/qid=1163670562/ref=sr_1_1/103-0245854-4759860?ie=UTF8&s=books

Sailom

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/11/061115-neanderthal-dna.html

Kimberly Johnson

for National Geographic News

November 15, 2006

Modern humans' closest relatives, the Neandertals, broke off from the family tree about 500,000 years ago, according to one of two new studies that analyzed DNA from the extinct species Homo neandertalis.

Nuclear DNA from a 38,000-year-old Neandertal (often spelled Neanderthal) fossil leg bone from Croatia was sequenced and compared to DNA from modern humans and chimpanzees.

The findings, published today in the journal Nature, also suggest that the entire Neandertal population was derived from a relatively small ancestral group of 3,000 individuals.

The second study, released simultaneously by the journal Science, analyzed DNA from the same ancient Croatian bone, revealing for the first time that modern humans and Neandertals share 99.5 percent of their genetic makeup.

But their analysis didn't find evidence that modern human and Neandertal DNA mixed, seeming to counter recent conclusions that Neandertals interbred with humans to the point of total absorption, leading to their extinction.

Overall, the dual projects signal the dawn of Neandertal genomics, says Edward Rubin, director of the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute and co-author of the Science study.

"In many ways it will change some aspects of anthropology," Rubin said. "We're never going to bring [Neandertals] back to life, but we will be able to compare [the species' genetics] to the human genome."

Neandertal Library

The Nature study team used an advanced new machine to perform high-throughput nuclear DNA sequencing.

Using this method, the team, led by Richard Green of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, was able to isolate about one million DNA base pairs, creating the beginnings of a Neandertal genome "library."

Base pairs are the "letters" of the genetic alphabet that are combined in DNA as genes to code for everything from hair color to body shape (get an overview of human genetics).

"Neanderthals are the hominid group most closely related to currently living humans, so a Neanderthal nuclear genome sequence would be an invaluable resource for annotating the human genome," the Nature study authors wrote.

Using a different type of DNA analysis, the Science team has revealed that there are about three million base pair distinctions between modern humans and Neandertals, study co-author Rubin says. The genetic differences between humans and Neandertals is "a drop in the bucket" compared to the estimated 30 million to 50 million base pair differences between humans and chimpanzees, he said.

Learning to Read

Based on the latest findings, scientists say they are on their way to fully sequencing the Neandertal genome, possibly as soon as two years from now.

Some experts in the field, however, remain skeptical.

Putting together a complete Neandertal genetic library could take decades, according to archaeologist John Shea, who teaches at the State University of New York in Stony Brook.

And "accumulating a library is a first step," said Shea, who was not involved in the research released today.

"We need to know how to read the books, i.e., to know what differences in particular genes mean for growth and behavior."

But scientists are a long way from having a sufficient number of samples to conclusively test ancestry, he says.

DNA breaks down during fossilization, which also complicates analysis. What's more, Neandertal bones are typically soft and easily contaminated by fixatives or excessive handling once they are excavated.

"There are vastly more contaminated specimens" than pure ones, Shea said. "If you find that a Neandertal fossil has modern human DNA, is it mixed lineage or contamination?"

Anthropologist Erik Trinkaus, who was involved with last month's interbreeding study, says that today's DNA reports are consistent with findings based on non-DNA fossil analysis.

"All of this only says that the DNA analysis is probably close to correct, if not new in its conclusions," said the scientist, who is based at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

"In other words, their work so far is solely a test of whether they can do it, what we call a pilot study." Going further may be a challenge.

"They have one individual and are unlikely to get very many more, given the poor organic preservation of most Pleistocene [1.8 million years ago to 11,500 years ago] fossil humans," Trinkaus said.

"Since evolution consists of changing patterns of variation, they cannot address evolutionary questions."

Free Email News Updates
Best Online Newsletter, 2006 Codie Awards
Sign up for our Inside National Geographic newsletter. Every two weeks we'll send you our top stories and pictures (see sample).

Looking Saturn in the Eye - NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

2006-11-15T20:29:00.000Z

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/image-details.cfm?imageID=2354

November 9, 2006

Full-Res: PIA08332

+ View Movie

Cassini stares deep into the swirling hurricane-like vortex at Saturn's south pole, where the vertical structure of the clouds is highlighted by shadows. Such a storm, with a well-developed eye ringed by towering clouds, is a phenomenon never before seen on another planet.

This 14-frame movie shows a swirling cloud mass centered on the south pole, around which winds blow at 550 kilometers (350 miles) per hour. The frames have been aligned to make the planet appear stationary, while the sun appears to revolve about the pole in a counterclockwise direction. The clouds inside the dark, inner circle are lower than the surrounding clouds, which cast a shadow that follows the sun.

At the beginning of the movie, the sun illuminates directly from the top, and by the end it illuminates from the left. The width of the shadow and the height of the sun above the local horizon yield a crude estimate of the height of the surrounding clouds relative to the clouds in the center. The shadow-casting clouds tower 30 to 75 kilometers (20 to 45 miles) above those in the center. This is two to five times greater than the tallest terrestrial thunderstorms and two to five times the height of clouds surrounding the eye of a terrestrial hurricane. Such a height difference arises because Saturn's hydrogen-helium atmosphere is less dense at comparable pressures than Earth's atmosphere, and is therefore more distended in the vertical dimension.

The south polar storm, which displays two spiral arms of clouds extending from the central ring and spans the dark area inside a thick, brighter ring of clouds, is approximately 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) across, which is considerably larger than a terrestrial hurricane.

Eye-wall clouds are a distinguishing feature of hurricanes on Earth. They form where moist air flows inward across the ocean's surface, rising vertically and releasing a load of precipitation around an interior circular region of descending air, which is the eye itself.

Though it is uncertain whether moist convection is driving this storm, as is the case with Earthly hurricanes, the dark 'eye' at the pole, the eye-wall clouds and the spiral arms together indicate a hurricane-like system. The distinctive eye-wall clouds especially have not been seen on any planet beyond Earth. Even Jupiter's Great Red Spot, much larger than Saturn's polar storm, has no eye, no eye-wall, and is relatively calm at the center.

This giant Saturnian storm is apparently different from hurricanes on Earth because it is locked to the pole, does not drift around like terrestrial hurricanes and because it does not form over liquid water oceans.

The images were acquired over a period of three hours on Oct. 11, 2006, when Cassini was approximately 340,000 kilometers (210,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is about 17 kilometers (11 miles) per pixel. The images were taken with the wide-angle camera using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 752 nanometers. All frames have been contrast enhanced using digital image processing techniques. The unprocessed images show an oblique view toward the pole, and have been reprojected to show the planet from a perspective directly over the south pole.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org .

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Europeans Revel in US Republican Defeat - Deutsche Welle

2006-11-10T10:20:00.000Z

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2230691,00.html

Transatlantic Relations | 08.11.2006

Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: The US and EU flags may be cozy, but relations have become increasingly distant

The European reaction to Democrat wins in midterm US elections was overwhelmingly positive. Observers said they hoped the US and Europe could start healing widening trans-Atlantic rifts.

Political observers in Europe said they were hoping that a decisive advance by Democrats in the US election could usher in a new era in trans-Atlantic cooperation.

Many of those who saw US President George W. Bush get a bloody nose in these elections expect US lawmakers to take a good hard look at US policy in Iraq, first and foremost.

"Europeans would expect some change in policy and possibly also personnel," said Antonio Missiroli, Chief Political Analyst of the European Policy Centre in Brussels. "It is not to be ruled out that … (US Secretary of Defense Donald) Rumsfeld might go. And I suppose most Europeans might welcome a new face and a turning of the page on Iraq and the wider Middle East."

'End of a nightmare'

The Bush administration was widely seen to have alienated Europe and much of the rest of the world by its "with us or against us" approach to Iraq, alleged human rights abuses at Guantanamo Bay prison, and its stance on ecological issues – particularly its refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.

Anti-US sentiment is openly, and frequently, expressed in Europe

Now, it seems Bush's bill has come due, and Europeans are openly happy about it.

"There is less White House in America now and a little less America in the world," Dominique Moisi, special councillor at the French Institute of International Relations, told Reuters news service.

"The demise of (Bush's) America is good news for all those who love America," he added.

The Socialist Group in the European Parliament, the second-largest bloc following the conservative grouping, hailed the election result, saying Bush had been "seriously weakened."

"We are relieved that we now see the beginning of the end of a six-year nightmare for the world," said Martin Schulz, the president of the 201-strong Socialist Group.

Slow change is likely

Many analysts did not expect Democrats to change things too quickly in Iraq, however.

Britain's Tony Blair was one of few European leaders to stand behind Bush

"The Democrats will make life unpleasant for Bush, but they are not going to get much in his way because they don't want to be tarred by defeat in Iraq," Francois Heisbourg, a special councillor at the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris told Reuters.

Trade talks may sour

Observers also worried that trade negotiations currently underway between the US and the European Union could take a hit, post-election.

"The democratic Congress would probably be marginally more protectionist than the current one and this would not bode well for the current negotiations in the WTO framework, considering in particular that the 'fast track' mandate for the Bush administration for striking a deal expires in July 2007," the European Policy Center's Missiroli said.

Bush's "fast track" negotiating power allows him to authorize trade deals.

Even Britain is glad

But such policy concerns did not dampen broad satisfaction in many European capitals, amid continued growing unhappiness over U.S. leadership.

Even people in Washington's closest European ally, Britain, appeared glad to see Bush lose his majority in Congress.

"He's not the leader he was. He doesn't seem to be making the decisions, there seems to be no sense to what he is doing anymore," John Hayward, a logistics manager in London, told Reuters.

DW Staff (jen)

Send us an e-mail | Send | Print

Corruption Perception Index - Transparency International

2006-11-07T07:51:00.000Z

Here is an international comparison of corruption levels. I only selected the countries with the biggest economies + the least corrupt country and the most corrupt one.

As a whole, there are no suprises: poor coutries tend to be the most corrupt.
However, we can also notice the high level of corruption in Italy (a rich country).
The Indians are not that corrupt... given that they are much poorer than the Mexicans, the Russians or the Iranians.

After comparing this index with the 2005' one, I noticed that corruption got worse in Thailand, in the USA and in France.

Sailom

http://www.transparency.org/news_room/in_focus/cpi_2006/cpi_table

Finland ----------> 1 (least corrupt country in the world)
Australia --------> 9th least corrupt country...
United Kingdom -> 11
Canada ----------> 14
Germany --------> 16
Japan ------------> 17
France -----------> 18
USA -------------> 20
Spain ------------> 23
Taiwan ----------> 34
South Korea -----> 42
Italy ------------> 45
Turkey ---------> 60
Thailand --------> 63
Brazil ------------> 70
China ------------> 70
India ------------> 70
Mexico ----------> 70
Iran ------------->105
Russia ----------->121
Indonesia -------->130
Haiti ------------->163 (most corrupt country in the world)

Studies Highlight Top Sources of Pollution - Live Scince

2006-11-07T07:29:00.000Z

http://www.livescience.com/environment/061105_enviro_polluters.html

By Abigail W. Leonard
Special to LiveScience
posted: 05 November 2006
09:54 am ET

From melting ice caps to acid rain, most environmental damage is caused by a very short list of consumer products.

A new study finds that 70 to 80% of all environmental degradation comes from three major categories of goods: transportation, food and home energy use.

The finding is based on eleven studies in a special edition of the Yale Journal of Industrial Ecology, which looked at the environmental impact of major product groups. The studies varied in design and methodology, but their lists of culprits were similar.

The top three biggest polluters, according to the study:

Transportation, especially cars and planes
Food production, meat and dairy in particular--was another.
Energy production for heating, cooling and running household appliances

The idea of looking at products rather than risks reflects a new approach to environmental policy that seems to be gaining traction in Europe and may be on the horizon here.

"Rather than just regulating risks like pollution from a smokestack for example, people are asking whether we could get better leverage by also using products as a basis for environmental policies," said the journal's editor-in-chief, Reid Lifset.

This approach takes into account the entire lifecycle of a product, looking at its manufacture, use and disposal. It considers, for example, how a car is produced and from which materials, how much it pollutes during its lifetime, and, when it has finally guzzled its last tank of gas, how it is disposed.

Proponents of product-based policy say it allows consumers to make choices based on the environmental impact of a given product, and envision a labeling system that would denote the "green-ness" of goods.

Some experts question whether such measures could ever really take off, though. Thomas Kinneman, an associate professor of economics at Bucknell University who was not involved in the studies, said labeling is only effective if consumers are willing to pay the extra money that more environmentally friendly products cost. It's doubtful, he said, that product-based assessments will translate to legislative measures, at least in the next year, unless they are backed by financial incentives, such as imposing a tax for the disposal of environmentally damaging household items.

Whatever policy results, the report provides new insight into the environmental consequences of consumer habits. "The research findings reported in the special issue are important because they help pinpoint the most problematic types of consumption, which include activities that are now commonplace in our lives such as air transport," said Gus Speth, dean of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. "That should lead to clearer priorities and better decisions."

Sailom's Philosophy

Philosophy of life: Being aware

US network uncovers 'suicide epidemic' among US veterans - AFP

Why non-violence can be successful in Burma

Monks vs. military

Hungry bears plague US west after record drought - AFP

Ice-free Arctic could be here in 23 years - The Guardian

Huge Hole Found in the Universe - space.com

Martian Dust Storms Engulf Planet - space.com

Nasa readies for asteroid mission - space.com

Boring Saturn Moons Lively After All - space.com

New 'super-Earth' found in space - BBC

$1bn 'don't have sex' campaign a flop as research shows teenagers ignore lessons - The Guardian

Monkey DNA Points to Common Human Ancestor - LiveScience

Colorful Worlds: Plants on Other Planets Might Not Be Green - space.com

Charles Simonyi - Wikipedia

Are men smarter than women?

Possible New Mars Caves Targets in Search for Life - space.com

Length of Saturn's Day Remains Unknown, But Now We Know Why We Don't Know - space.com

Clouds, But No Water, Detected On Distant Planet - space.com

"Gravity Tractor," Super Telescopes Enlisted to Battle Killer Asteroids - National Geographics

As death increases, compassion recedes - LiveScience

Live Earth

US claims against Iran: why now? - BBC News

Thai woman tells of 25-year detour after catching wrong bus - AFP

Couple still hugging 5,000 years on - MSNBC

Mammoth Cloud Engulfs Titan’s North Pole - space.com

U.N. panel says global warming man-made - Reuters

Neptune May Have Thousands of Escorts - space.com

HyperBike Has NASA Looking Twice - space.com

The Harm Principle - Wikipedia

[edit] See also

Racism, ratings and reality TV: now Big Brother creates a diplomatic incident - The Guardian

NASA Finally Goes Metric - space.com

Saturn Moon Has Lakes, "Water" Cycle Like Earth's, Scientists Say - National Geographic News

Conscientious Rejector? - Yahoo News

2006 Bangkok bombings - Wikipedia

Contents

[edit] Bombings

[edit] Victims

[edit] Bombs

[edit] Responsibility

[edit] Forewarning of the bombings

[edit] Identify of the bombers

[edit] Aftermath

[edit] Further bombings

[edit] Security measures and junta responses

[edit] References

Laughter: it's catching - Nature

Happy sounds tickle the brain to prompt a smile.

Arctic clear for summer sailing by 2040 - Nature

Extrasolar planet - Wikipedia

Changing Mars Gullies Hint at Recent Flowing Water - space.com

Pierre-Simon Laplace - Wikipedia

Quotes

Moon Base Announced by NASA - National Geographic News

Moon Base Announced by NASA

Annan: Life for Iraqis worse than with Saddam - AP

Pluto-bound Spacecraft Spots its Target - space.com

Darfur conflict - Wikipedia

Human Development Iindicators - UNDP

Cheeta's 74th birthday - Gamma / Frederic Neema

Human genome more variable than previously thought - Nature

Why Planets Will Never Be Defined - space.com

NASA Studies Manned Asteroid Mission - space.com

Neandertal DNA Partially Mapped, Studies Show - National Geographics

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/11/061115-neanderthal-dna.html

Kimberly Johnson

Looking Saturn in the Eye - NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Europeans Revel in US Republican Defeat - Deutsche Welle

Transatlantic Relations | 08.11.2006

The European reaction to Democrat wins in midterm US elections was overwhelmingly positive. Observers said they hoped the US and Europe could start healing widening trans-Atlantic rifts.

Corruption Perception Index - Transparency International

Studies Highlight Top Sources of Pollution - Live Scince