Friday, August 31, 2012

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Lawyer: Ex-SEAL did seek advice about bin Laden book

A retired Navy SEAL could face legal action for his upcoming book about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The Pentagon is threatening to file criminal charges against the man who wrote the book, "No Easy Day," under a pseudonym. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reports.

By Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube, NBC News

Updated at 2 p.m. ET --?The lawyer for "Mark Owen" -- the pen name of the former Navy SEAL who wrote "No Easy Day," a book describing the Osama bin Laden raid -- on Friday said that Owen did, indeed, seek legal advice before publishing the book and he disputed other claims made by Pentagon.

"Mr. Owen sought legal advice about his responsibilities before agreeing to publish his book and scrupulously reviewed the work to ensure that it did not disclose any material that would breach his agreements or put his former comrades at risk," Robert Luskin wrote in a letter addressed to Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson. "He remains confident that he has faithfully fulfilled his duty."

Furthermore, Luskin said a non-disclosure agreement Owen signed -- which the Pentagon claimed he was "in material breach" of -- doesn't require Owen to submit his book for review. "As you are well aware, the Classified Information Non-Disclosure Agreement, which you attached in your letter, invites, but by no means requires Mr. Owen to submit materials for pre-publication review," the letter said.


A Pentagon spokesperson on Friday said it is unclear if the book actually contains damaging classified information. "I'm not going to say whether the book has classified information in it," spokesperson George Little told reporters.

On Thursday, Johnson?said in a letter?that?Owen is in violation of the non-disclosure agreement.?

Related:?Ex-Navy SEAL: Book about 9/11, not politics

The letter,?sent via the attorney at Penguin Putnam publishing, explained that Owen signed two separate non-disclosure agreements on Jan. 24, 2007, and that he has an obligation to "never divulge" classified information.

"This commitment remains in force even after you left the active duty Navy," Johnson wrote.

Pentagon's top lawyers reminded the ex-Navy SEAL who authored the tell-all on the bin Laden raid that they are considering legal action against him for publishing "classified" information. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reports.

He also signed a "Sensitive Compartmented Information Debriefing Memorandum" when he left the Navy around April 20, 2012, according to the letter.

"The Department of Defense has obtained and reviewed an advanced copy of the book ... In the judgment of the Department of Defense, you are in material breach and violation of the non-disclosure agreements you signed," the letter said.?"Further public dissemination of your book will aggravate your breach and violation of your agreements.

"The Department is considering pursuing against you, and all those acting in concert with you, all remedies legally available to us in light of this situation."

A senior Defense official on Thursday said, "There has to be consequences" for someone who violates the non-disclosure agreements prohibiting the release of classified information.

The official also suggested that by revealing "tactics, techniques and procedures" employed by the Navy SEALs during the raid, "it could put other operators at risk and future operations in jeopardy."

"No Easy Day," written by a former Navy SEAL who helped take down Osama bin Laden, claims the al-Qaida leader did not defend himself during the raid. The book will become available on Sept. 4, earlier than the anticipated Sept. 11 release date. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reports.

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Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/30/13576488-pentagon-threatens-ex-navy-seal-over-book-on-bin-laden-raid?lite

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Doctor Who Food and Drink Recipes

 Doctor Who Food and Drink Recipes

We?re just hours away from the premiere of the seventh series of Doctor Who. For anyone thinking about throwing a party on the big night, or would just like to make some food for their own benefit, here are some delicious Doctor Who themed food and drink recipes you might enjoy.

 Doctor Who Food and Drink Recipes

Tardis Blue Blueberry and Passion Fruit Pavlova (via Crunchy Tiger)

 Doctor Who Food and Drink Recipes

Tardis Cocktail (via eatingthescreen.com)

 Doctor Who Food and Drink Recipes

Custard with Fish Finger Cookies (via Bakingdom.com)

 Doctor Who Food and Drink Recipes

Doctor Who Tribute Cocktail (via The Nerdista)

DoctorWho Recipes TinyTardisPies1 Doctor Who Food and Drink Recipes

Tiny Tardis Pies (via BBC America)

 Doctor Who Food and Drink Recipes

Dalek Chocolate Cake (via Chocablog.com)

DoctorWho Recipes SonicScrewdrivers Doctor Who Food and Drink Recipes

Sonic Screwdriver Juice (via BBC America)

 Doctor Who Food and Drink Recipes

Sonic Screwdriver Cocktail (via thedrunkenmoogle.com)

DoctorWho Recipes ChocolateDalekCake Doctor Who Food and Drink Recipes

Mini Chocolate Dalek Cakes (via BBC America)

 Doctor Who Food and Drink Recipes

Sonic Screwdriver (10th Edition) Cocktail (via knucklesalad.com)

Share and Enjoy

You Might Like These

Source: http://www.buzzpatrol.com/doctor-who-recipes/

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Thursday, August 30, 2012

Sony Pumps Up Mobile Lineup With New Xperia T, V, And J Smartphones

6_sony_logo_wAfter a bit of on-stage patter in Berlin, Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai officially pulled back the curtains on a slew of new Xperia handsets -- the Xperias T, V, and J. The Xperia T (previously known as the Mint) is the clear standout in this crowd with its 4.6 inch display, which also takes advantage of the company's Mobile Bravia Engine to produce to eye-popping (some would say "lurid") visuals. As previously reported, the flagship Xperia T also packs NFC and a 13-megapixel camera, which Hirai says can quickly go from sleep mode to snapping shots.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/iFgDk3mU5Pk/

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Robin Roberts exits 'GMA' with a promise to return

NEW YORK (AP) ? Robin Roberts said goodbye Thursday to her "Good Morning America" co-workers and audience. But only for a while.

"See you later. See you soon. I'll get back as soon as I can," she promised at the close of her emotional send-off from the show.

The "GMA" anchor was making her final appearance before starting medical leave for a bone marrow transplant. Her departure had originally been set for Friday, but in a last-minute change of plans she chose to exit a day early to visit her ailing mother in Mississippi, she told viewers.

During her absence, a number of famous faces will be subbing for her, including previously announced fellow ABC News colleagues Katie Couric, Barbara Walters, Diane Sawyer and Elizabeth Vargas.

In addition, Roberts announced that Oprah Winfrey, Chris Rock and Rob Lowe will be among the stand-ins, as well as the cast of the ABC comedy "Modern Family."

In June, Roberts had first disclosed that she has MDS, a blood and bone marrow disease. She will be hospitalized next week to prepare for the transplant. The donor will be her older sister, Sally-Ann Roberts, who was on hand for Thursday's broadcast.

But two of Roberts' on-air colleagues couldn't be there, thanks to the demands of breaking news.

From New Orleans, weather anchor Sam Champion voiced warm wishes, as did co-anchor George Stephanopoulos from the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. He had left behind a gift for Roberts: a tap bell.

"Whatever you need, whenever you need it, ring that bell," he said.

With her and news anchor Josh Elliott in the studio, lifestyle anchor Lara Spencer presented Roberts with monogrammed matching pajamas for her and her sister.

"We're not crying tears of sadness," she told Roberts. "We're crying because we wish we could take this on for you."

One of Roberts' doctors, Dr. Gail Roboz, discussed the medical procedures that lie ahead.

"We're hoping the first 30 (days) is when we're going to see a lot of the recovery happening," said Roboz.

But Roberts replied, "I'm not even going to ask you when I can come back, because you have said, don't put a timetable on it."

Roberts, who has put a brave and usually smiling face on the challenges that await her, shared with viewers an inspirational quote: "Life provides losses and heartbreak for all of us. But the greatest tragedy is to have the experience, and miss the meaning."

Said Roberts, "I am determined not to miss that meaning."

As the program neared its end, the entire "GMA" crew gathered around the anchors' couch, displaying bracelets of support and bearing signs that promoted the "teamrobin" Twitter account.

Then Roberts' friend, country star Martina McBride, performed her Grammy-nominated song "I'm Gonna Love You Through It," an inspirational song about battling breast cancer. Looking on, Roberts mouthed the lyrics as her eyes welled with tears.

During the morning, the word "journey" had been mentioned repeatedly and "goodbye" was said in many ways.

"I take you with me in my heart," said Roberts at one point, addressing the full "GMA" staff. But wanting there to be no mistake, she added: "I WILL be back, just so you know."

___

Online:

http://www.abc.com

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/robin-roberts-exits-gma-promise-return-140023851.html

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Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Can I Service My Car?

For most drivers, knowing at least one good mechanic or BMW service shop is essential. Auto repair shops can handle repairs that are too complex for the shade-tree mechanic, but some people prefer to do the heavy lifting themselves. For those with a high degree of mechanical knowledge, DIY auto repair is easy. For those without, the benefits have to be weighed against the risks. Here are some factors to consider when deciding whether to repair your own car.

Cost: In most cases, you can save quite a bit of money by taking care of simpler repairs yourself. When you take your car to a shop, the biggest portion of the repair bill is the labor cost. At-home repairs may take longer, which means that it will only save you money in the longer term- and if you?ve never fixed your car before, you?ll need to invest in some supplies and tools first.

Time:If you handle your own automotive repairs, it can take a large portion of your time. Taking your car to a repair shop means that you can spend more of your time doing other things; if you have a busy work schedule or family commitments, hiring a mechanic may be the only viable option.

Satisfaction: Many drivers get a degree of self-satisfaction from doing their own auto repairs. Fixing it yourself can help you become more familiar with your car, and it can be a fun weekend or family bonding project. For true car enthusiasts, enjoyment is one of the main reasons behind the decision to do DIY car repair.

Greater Reliability:When you have a shop repair your car, you do so with a certain degree of reassurance that the job will be done correctly. If for some reason the repair fails, you can return to the shop and ask them to fix the problem. Most areas have strict requirements for auto shops that state they must correct any issues that arise from faulty repairs. Doing the repair work yourself may save you money, but if it goes wrong, you have no legal recourse.

Assumption of Liability:If improper repairs result in unsafe conditions that lead to an auto accident, a repair shop can be held totally liable for the damages to both vehicles. If you choose to do your own repairs, you also assume all liability for damages. Today?s modern cars have electronic engine control systems that are very difficult to repair on your own; any mistake there could lead to engine failure (which could be dangerous on a busy road). If at any time you doubt your ability to finish the job correctly and safely, you should call in a professional.

If you are confident in your abilities and you have the tools and knowledge to do the job correctly, repairing your own car can save you money and give you a great deal of personal satisfaction. You should also be aware of the risks involved; hopefully, this article has given you some of the information you need in order to make an informed decision.

This article was written by Crispin Jones on behalf of Main Dealer Discount, BMW service experts. Click this link to visit their site and see how they could save you money on your next BMW service.

Source: http://carcarecoach.net/2012/08/can-i-service-my-car/

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Magnetic vortex reveals key to spintronic speed limit

ScienceDaily (Aug. 28, 2012) ? he evolution of digital electronics is a story of miniaturization -- each generation of circuitry requires less space and energy to perform the same tasks. But even as high-speed processors move into handheld smart phones, current data storage technology has a functional limit: magnetically stored digital information becomes unstable when too tightly packed. The answer to maintaining the breath-taking pace of our ongoing computer revolution may be the denser, faster, and smarter technology of spintronics.

Spintronic devices use electron spin, a subtle quantum characteristic, to write and read information. But to mobilize this emerging technology, scientists must understand exactly how to manipulate spin as a reliable carrier of computer code. Now, scientists at the Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have precisely measured a key parameter of electron interactions called non-adiabatic spin torque that is essential to the future development of spintronic devices. Not only does this unprecedented precision -- the findings to be published in the journal Nature Communications on August 28 -- guide the reading and writing of digital information, but it defines the upper limit on processing speed that may underlie a spintronic revolution.

"In the past, no one was able to measure the spin torque accurately enough for detailed comparisons of experiment and mathematical models," said Brookhaven Lab physicist Yimei Zhu. "By precisely imaging the spin orbits with a dedicated transmission electron microscope at Brookhaven, we advanced a truly fundamental understanding that has immediate implications for electronic devices. So this is quite exciting."

Speed Limits

Most prevailing technology fails to take full advantage of the electron, which features intrinsic quantum variables beyond the charge and flow driving electricity. One of these, a parameter known as spin direction, can be strategically manipulated to function as a high-density medium to store and transmit information in spintronics. But as any computer scientist can attest, dense data can mean very little without enough speed to process it efficiently.

"One of the big reasons that people want to understand this non-adiabatic spin torque term, which describes the ability to transfer spin via electrical currents, is that it basically determines how fast spintronic devices can be," said Shawn Pollard, a physics Ph.D. student at Brookhaven Lab and Stony Brook University and the lead author of the paper. "The read and write speed for data is dictated by the size of this number we measured, called beta, which is actually very, very big. That means the technology is potentially very, very fast."

Building a Vortex

Consider the behavior of coffee stirred rapidly in a mug: the motion of a spoon causes the liquid to spin, rising along the edges and spiraling low in the center. Because the coffee can't escape through the mug's porcelain walls, the trapped energy generates the cone-like vortex in the center. A similar phenomenon can be produced on magnetic materials to reveal fundamental quantum measurements.

This color graphic, seen here above an actual image of the vortex core captured by the transmission electron microscope, shows the trapped spins moving around the permalloy sample, which then generate the conical vortex core rising out of the center.

The Brookhaven physicists applied a range of high-frequency electric currents to a patterned film called permalloy, useful for its high magnetic permeability. This material, 50 nanometers (billionths of a meter) thick and composed of nickel and iron, was designed to strictly contain any generated magnetic field. Unable to escape, trapped electron spins combine and spiral within the permalloy, building into an observable and testable phenomenon called a magnetic vortex core.

"The vortex core motion is actually the cumulative effect of three distinct energies: the magnetic field induced by the current, and the adiabatic and non-adiabatic spin torques generated by electrons," Zhu said. "By capturing images of this micrometer (millionth of a meter) effect, we can deduce the precise value of the non-adiabatic torque's contribution to the vortex, which plays out on the nanoscale. Other measurements had very high error, but our technique offered the spatial resolution necessary to move past the wide range of previous results."

Disk Density

The high-speed, high-density hard drives in today's computers write information into spinning disks of magnetic materials, using electricity to toggle between magnetic polarity states that correspond to the "1" or "0" of binary computer code. But a number of intrinsic problems emerge with this method of data storage, notably limits to speed because of the spinning disk, which is made less reliable by moving parts, significant heat generation, and the considerable energy needed to write and read information.

Beyond that, magnetic storage suffers from a profound scaling issue. The magnetic fields in these devices exert influence on surrounding space, a so-called fringing field. Without appropriate space between magnetic data bits, this field can corrupt neighboring bits of digital information by inadvertently flipping "1" into "0." This translates to an ultimate limit on scalability, as these data bits need too much room to allow endless increases in data density.

Nanowire Racetracks

One pioneering spintronic prototype is IBM's Racetrack memory, which uses spin-coherent electric current to move magnetic domains, or discrete data bits, along a permalloy wire about 200 nanometers across and 100 nanometers thick. The spin of these magnetic domains is altered as they pass over a read/write head, forming new data patterns that travel back and forth along the nanowire racetrack. This process not only yields the prized stability of flash memory devices, but also offers speed and capacity exceeding disk drives.

"It takes less energy to manipulate spin torque parameters than magnetic fields," said Pollard. "There's less crosstalk between databits, and less heat is generated as information is written and read in spin-based storage devices. We measured a major component critical to unlocking the potential of spintronic technology, and I hope our work offers deeper insight into the fundamental origin of this non-adiabatic term."

The new measurement pins down a fundamental limit on data manipulation speeds, but the task of translating this work into practical limits on processor speed and hard drive space will fall to the scientists and engineers building the next generation of digital devices.

Zhu and Pollard collaborated with two physicists specializing in nanomagnetism, Kristen Buchanan of Colorado State University and Dario Arena of Brookhaven's National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS), to push the precision capabilities of the transmission electron microscope. This research was conducted at Brookhaven Lab's Department of Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science, and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by DOE/Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.


Journal Reference:

  1. S.D. Pollard, L. Huang, K.S. Buchanan, D.A. Arena, Y. Zhu. Direct dynamic imaging of non-adiabatic spin torque effects. Nature Communications, 2012; 3: 1028 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms2025

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/electronics/~3/RIKC-GFYsqE/120828163034.htm

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MTN Satellite Communications... Maritime Multi-Channel Is Even ...

Satnews Daily August 28, 2012

MTN Satellite Communications... Maritime Multi-Channel Is Even More Ship Shape (SATCOM)

[SatNews] MTN Satellite Communications (MTN) has announced that MTN Worldwide TV is now available to...

...commercial shipping, ferry, oil & gas and yacht customers that want access to licensed content including news, entertainment and sports for their crew, guests and owners. MTN Worldwide TV is the first fully-digital, multi-channel television service for the maritime industry. Leveraging MTN?s global infrastructure, the service utilizes overlapping satellite beams that integrate seamlessly with a vessel?s existing Television Receive-Only (TVRO) antenna and onboard video distribution system. MTN ensures viewers at sea receive reliable, uninterrupted service?regardless of location?by managing the satellite network and content. In addition, MTN Worldwide TV is available in all ocean regions and is a great core TV service to supplement any existing programming that might be lost when the vessel is at sea.

MTN Worldwide TV has delivered premium content to the cruise industry for the past four years and currently supports 78 vessels across 20 cruise lines. MTN has built the most comprehensive solution for broadcast television and continually exceeds the needs of customers. MTN Worldwide TV delivers programming from eight major U.S. and international television networks including BBC World News, CNBC, Fox News, MSNBC, Sky News, Sky Sports News, Sport 24 and E! Entertainment Television and has included special event programming such as the Olympics, Premier League Soccer and onboard events like private broadcasts, training, and so on.




Source: http://www.satnews.com/cgi-bin/story.cgi?number=55384757

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Tuesday, August 28, 2012

The trick for GOP: Being heard above Isaac's gales

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Tropical Storm Isaac forced the Republicans to do what the Democrats had already done voluntarily: shorten their national convention from four days to three. But the show, as they say, must go on. Political conventions are calibrated theater, after all, and as with any big show, random elements can cause chaos.

As the GOP convenes in Tampa for a convention delayed by a major storm and clouded by the fraught, Katrina-scarred politics of major storms in general, what are audiences looking for from this gathering? What are the mechanics involved in making the big show resonate for its audience? The answer, say some who either craft or assess image-making, is twofold: to acknowledge the storm without appearing to be making political hay out of it, and to keep things simple and, when possible, nonconfrontational.

"The American public is just about at wits' end with everything being partisan," says Richard S. Olson, who studies the politics of disaster at Florida International University in Miami.

"One of the problems with these scripted conventions is that, when something happens literally during convention time, the scripts make the speakers look out of touch," he says. "And if the RNC wants to connect to the broad American public, one of the ways to do that would be to talk about it, talk about disasters as transcending normal everyday politics and make it a true national concern."

Political conventions in general have been losing viewership for years. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the presumptive GOP nominee, bemoaned announcements by some news outlets that they didn't plan to carry his wife's address live. But do people ? those involved in politics and regular voters alike ? expect too much from these gatherings?

"I'm not sure it's fundamentally an exercise of winning independent voters or bridging the credibility gap that a challenger has against an incumbent," says Terry Holt, who served as a senior adviser for the RNC and as senior communication strategist on both of George W. Bush's successful campaigns. "I don't look at the convention as the be all and the end all. It's the opening act of the general election campaign. It's important that it go well and that it showcase the high points of Romney's agenda. It's the gun going off and not the whole race."

Howard Bragman's counsel would be relatively straightforward. Bragman, who gave PR advice to former Bill Clinton intern and paramour Monica Lewinsky and her family "after you know what," says he would parade across the convention stage the following people: Ann Romney, all five of the couple's sons and as many of their 18 grandkids as the family could muster.

"Whoever could humanize this guy and start to build a dimensional character as opposed to a cardboard cutout who looks presidential," says Bragman, vice chairman of reputation.com.

To that end, the RNC spent a reported $2.5 million building a stage for Romney's acceptance speech that, in the words of one NPR commentator, evokes the feeling of a living room ? a uniting, humanizing image. That approach makes sense to Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, who says Romney can do this year what Ronald Reagan did in 1980: Focus his audience on the things that unite the party and avoid the rest.

"They have to stay away from the social and cultural issues," says Zelizer, author of the book "Governing America." ''They really need to stick on taxes and budgets, regulation. They have to make that the broader theme."

That sounds right to Kevin Homel, 57, who owns a small mail-order business near Pittsburgh. He was a registered Democrat until about 20 years ago, when he switched to the GOP. The message he wants from Tampa: that his party "is heading in the direction of fiscal responsibility by balancing the budget, repealing 'Obamacare' and reducing the size of government which, overall, is in line with the Tea Party."

Ray Davis, 47, a woodworker from Little Rock, Ark., has seen his business take a hit along with the housing market. He's not planning to watch the convention for the same reason he's decided he won't be voting for Obama. "Actions speak louder than words," he says. "They sit up there and talk a good game, but it's how they carry it out that matters."

With Missouri U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin's comments on rape and abortion, and Romney's joke about Obama's birth certificate, "August has been a month of distractions," Holt says. So how to prevent Isaac from becoming another one? Leverage it ? carefully.

In keeping with the GOP message of people not relying too heavily on government, Republicans could "highlight people who are in some ways being entrepreneurial heroes ... people who are just, on their own volition, going out and helping people, protecting property and otherwise mitigating the storm damage," says Seth Masket, a political scientist at the University of Denver.

While some might see that as taking advantage of a bad situation, Masket says the danger is minimal because "the issue already comes politicized."

"It's a hurricane during a national convention," he says. "And the last time one of these hit New Orleans, it was a major political issue for the Republicans. It's going to affect them politically, whether they want it or not."

It might seem disingenuous, but Syracuse University professor Robert Thompson says Tampa organizers need to intersperse the speeches with prayers for Gulf Coast residents and moments of silence and, generally, "not make it look like you're clueless as to what's going on."

"A lot of people have grown cynical to that kind that of thing, but you have to do it," says Thompson, director of the school's Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture. "Maybe you could not plan your convention in a vulnerable city during hurricane season. But it's too late for that. They've rented the rooms and hired the catering."

The trick, he says, will be getting heard above Isaac's winds.

___

Associated Press writer Pauline Arrillaga in Phoenix, Joe Mandak in Pittsburgh and Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Ark., also contributed to this report. Allen G. Breed is based in Raleigh, N.C. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/AllenGBreed

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/trick-gop-being-heard-above-isaacs-gales-235445975.html

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polecat news and views: NASA's James Hansen's big cherry pick

From NASA: Research Links Extreme Summer Heat Events to Global Warming

A new statistical analysis by NASA scientists has found that Earth?s land areas have become much more likely to experience an extreme summer heat wave than they were in the middle of the 20th century. The research was published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Earth?s Northern Hemisphere over the past 30 years has seen more ?hot? (orange), ?very hot? (red) and ?extremely hot? (brown) summers, compared to a base period defined in this study from 1951 to 1980. This visualization shows how the area experiencing ?extremely hot? summers grows from nearly nonexistent during the base period to cover 12 percent of land in the Northern Hemisphere by 2011. Watch for the 2010 heat waves in Texas, Oklahoma and Mexico, or the 2011 heat waves the Middle East, Western Asia and Eastern Europe. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio
? Download hi-res visualization
Anthony comments on the NASA animation by Dr. James Hansen of surface temperature trends from 1955-1999:?

There are many issues with this presentation. It seems to be a big Cherry Picking exercise.

1. Note all of the missing southern hemisphere data. There are operating weather stations during his time, but they are excluded from the analysis. Why?

2. The period chosen, 1955-1999 (in the bell curve animation) leaves out the warmer 1930?s and the cooler 2000?s. Why?

3. The period from 2000-present has no statistically significant warming. Leaving that period out (of the bell curve animation) biases the presentation.

4. The period chosen exhibits significant postwar growth, urbanization is not considered.

5. As for severe weather, Hansen ignores the fact that neither tornadoes nor hurricanes have shown any increase recently. Only smaller tornadoes show an increase, due to reporting bias thanks to easily affordable and accessible technology. NOAA?s SPC reports that July 2012 seems to be at a record low for tornadoes.

6. My latest results in Watts et al 2012 suggest surface station data may be biased warmer over the last 30 years.

The statistics show that the recent bouts of extremely warm summers, including the intense heat wave afflicting the U.S. Midwest this year, very likely are the consequence of global warming, according to lead author James Hansen of NASA?s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York.

?This summer people are seeing extreme heat and agricultural impacts,? Hansen says. ?We?re asserting that this is causally connected to global warming, and in this paper we present the scientific evidence for that.?

Hansen and colleagues analyzed mean summer temperatures since 1951 and showed that the odds have increased in recent decades for what they define as ?hot,? ?very hot? and ?extremely hot? summers.

The researchers detailed how ?extremely hot? summers are becoming far more routine. ?Extremely hot? is defined as a mean summer temperature experienced by less than one percent of Earth?s land area between 1951 and 1980, the base period for this study. But since 2006, about 10 percent of land area across the Northern Hemisphere has experienced these temperatures each summer.


James Hansen and colleagues use the bell curve to show the growing frequency of extreme summer temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere, compared to the 1951 to 1980 base period. The mean temperature for the base period is centered at the top of the green curve, while hotter than normal temperatures (red) are plotted to theright and colder than normal (blue) to the left. By 1981, the curve begins to shift noticeably to the right, showing how hotter summers are the new normal. The curve also widens, due to more frequent hot events. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio
? Download hi-res visualization
Comments from Anthony:

This bell curve proves nothing, as it has the same problems with data as the surface temperature visualization above: cherry picking period, missing data, and contradictory severe weather statistics. This is nothing but a political ploy from a man who has abandoned any pretext of professionally done science in favor of activism. However, in spite of this, it will be used as ?proof? by non-thinking individuals like Bill McKibben to promote a political end. Prepare for a barrage of such stories trying to link any observed weather aberration to climate. They?ll use the same level of fact checking like we saw with the melting street lamps last week.

In 1988, Hansen first asserted that global warming would reach a point in the coming decades when the connection to extreme events would become more apparent. While some warming should coincide with a noticeable boost in extreme events, the natural variability in climate and weather can be so large as to disguise the trend.

To distinguish the trend from natural variability, Hansen and colleagues turned to statistics. In this study, the GISS team including Makiko Sato and Reto Ruedy did not focus on the causes of temperature change. Instead the researchers analyzed surface temperature data to establish the growing frequency of extreme heat events in the past 30 years, a period in which the temperature data show an overall warming trend.

NASA climatologists have long collected data on global temperature anomalies, which describe how much warming or cooling regions of the world have experienced when compared with the 1951 to 1980 base period. In this study, the researchers employ a bell curve to illustrate how those anomalies are changing.

A bell curve is a tool frequently used by statisticians and society. School teachers who grade ?on the curve? use a bell curve to designate the mean score as a C, the top of the bell. The curve falls off equally to both sides, showing that fewer students receive B and D grades and even fewer receive A and F grades.

Hansen and colleagues found that a bell curve was a good fit to summertime temperature anomalies for the base period of relatively stable climate from 1951 to 1980. Mean temperature is centered at the top of the bell curve. Decreasing in frequency to the left of center are ?cold,? ?very cold? and ?extremely cold? events. Decreasing in frequency to the right of center are ?hot,? ?very hot? and ?extremely hot? events.

Plotting bell curves for the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, the team noticed the entire curve shifted to the right, meaning that more hot events are the new normal. The curve also flattened and widened, indicating a wider range of variability. Specifically, an average of 75 percent of land area across Earth experienced summers in the ?hot? category during the past decade, compared to only 33 percent during the 1951 to 1980 base period. Widening of the curve also led to the designation of the new category of outlier events labeled ?extremely hot,? which were almost nonexistent in the base period.

Hansen says this summer is shaping up to fall into the new extreme category. ?Such anomalies were infrequent in the climate prior to the warming of the past 30 years, so statistics let us say with a high degree of confidence that we would not have had such an extreme anomaly this summer in the absence of global warming,? he says.

Other regions around the world also have felt the heat of global warming, according to the study. Global maps of temperature anomalies show that heat waves in Texas, Oklahoma and Mexico in 2011, and in the Middle East, Western Asia and Eastern Europe in 2010 fall into the new ?extremely hot? category.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/06/nasas-james-hansens-big-cherry-pick/#more-68722

Source: http://donpolson.blogspot.com/2012/08/nasas-james-hansens-big-cherry-pick.html

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Climate landmark as Arctic ice melts to record low

The sea ice in the Arctic Ocean has melted to its smallest point ever in a milestone that may show that worst-case forecasts on climate change are coming true, US scientists said.

The extent of ice observed on Sunday broke a record set in 2007 and will likely melt further with several weeks of summer still to come, according to data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center and the NASA space agency.

The government-backed ice center, based at the University of Colorado at Boulder, said in a statement that the decline in summer Arctic sea ice "is considered a strong signal of long-term climate warming."

The sea ice fell to 4.10 million square kilometers (1.58 million square miles), some 70,000 square kilometers (27,000 square miles) less than the earlier record charted on September 18, 2007, the center said.

Scientists said the record was all the more striking as 2007 had near perfect climate patterns for melting ice, but that the weather this year was unremarkable other than a storm in early August.

Michael E. Mann, a lead author of a major UN report in 2001 on climate change, said the latest data reflected that scientists who were criticized as alarmists may have shown "perhaps too great a degree of reticence."

"I think, unfortunately, this is an example that points more to the worst-case scenario side of things," said Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University.

"There are a number of areas where in fact climate change seems to be proceeding faster and with a greater magnitude than what the models predicted," Mann told AFP.

"The sea ice decline is perhaps the most profound of those cautionary tales because the models have basically predicted that we shouldn't see what we're seeing now for several decades," he added.

Arctic ice is considered vital for the planet as it reflects heat from the sun back into space, helping keep down the planet's temperatures.

The Arctic region is now losing about 155,000 square kilometers (60,000 square miles) of ice annually, the equivalent of a US state every two years, said Walt Meier, a scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

"It used to be the Arctic ice cover was a kind of big block of ice. It would melt a little bit from the edges but it was pretty solid," Meier told reporters on a conference call.

"Now it's like crushed ice," he said. "At least parts of the Arctic have become like a giant slushie, and that's a lot easier to melt and melt more quickly."

The planet has charted a slew of record temperatures in recent years, with 13 of the warmest years ever taking place in the past decade and a half, along with extreme weather ranging from severe wildfires in North America to major flooding in Asia.

Researchers have also reported a dramatic melt this summer on the ice sheet in Greenland, which could have major consequences for the planet by raising sea levels.

Scientists believe that climate change is caused by human emissions of carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions.

But efforts to regulate emissions have faced strong political resistance in several nations including the United States, where industry groups have said that regulations would be too costly for the economy.

Kumi Naidoo, the executive director of Greenpeace who on Monday intercepted a Russian ship in the Arctic, said the ice melt showed that the planet was "warming up at a rate that puts billions of people's future in jeopardy."

"These figures are not the result of some freak of nature but the effects of man-made global warming caused by our reliance on dirty fossil fuels," he said in a statement.

Shaye Wolf of the Center for Biological Diversity pressure group called the record ice melt "a profound -- and profoundly depressing -- moment in the history of our planet."

The melt has rapidly changed the politics and economics of the Arctic region, with shipping companies increasingly eager to save time by sailing through the once-forbidding waters.

Data released Monday by the Washington-based Center for Global Development found that nations including China, India and the United States were reducing the intensity of their carbon emissions but that the effort was overwhelmed by the surge in power consumption in developing nations.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/arctic-ice-melts-record-low-us-researchers-171243395.html

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Monday, August 27, 2012

Monleek Town looks strong for Carling Sprint Trophy | bettor.com

Monleek Town looks strong for Carling Sprint Trophy

The two consecutive triumphs during the first half of the this month infused immense confidence in the David Pruhs trained black dog, Monleek Town, who poses ?to be the strongest candidate for the high-profile race of the Carling Sprint Trophy that will take place at Nottingham racecourse on Monday night, August 27.

The open race over 305 meters offers ?150 for the winner. After breaking from the red box, the two-year-old young hound will fight hard to complete his maiden hat-trick. He possesses a decent track record at this venue.

The talented son of Kinloch Brae out of Miss Lee started his career on March 22, 2012, breaking his maiden with the title of the Betfred Maiden Sprint Trophy that took place on April 30. He moved on to finish first again in the very next start named as The Romford Stadium Sprint.

The dashing dog nicely gained to runner-up ranks in a row during the month of June. He grabbed a grand victory in the Pepsi 235 Sprint For Dogs Only ? Dup, held at Peterborough on August 4.

The best thing about the enthusiastic hound is that he had been the hot favourite candidate for each of his last four starts. Monleek Town has made some glittering marks in OR format of the game.

Thus, it is anticipated that the maverick sprinter will have all the chances to thrive. The only rival he needs to wary of is Ballymac Denis who has been winning with regular intervals since the dawn of the calendar year.

The S. Buckland trained brindle dog?s last OR victory came in Stadium Bookmakers Standard that was held at Oxford on May 10. He was the 7-4 favourite for that race.

The son of Ballymac Maeve out of Ballymac Peg went on to win a T3 and a T2 race in the month of August. He too has impressive record in this format.

In this situation, a fierce duel is expected between Ballymac Denis and Monleek Town. This will amuse the sport fans a lot. Let us move to the venue to enjoy the charged action. Good luck to all the six hounds.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and do not reflect Bettor.Com?s editorial policy.

Source: http://blogs.bettor.com/Monleek-Town-looks-strong-for-Carling-Sprint-Trophy-a182814

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Is More Fed Action the Answer? All Eyes on Bernanke's Jackson ...

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By Friday mid-morning the financial markets will have turned their attention away from the Republican national convention to focus on Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. That's when he'll be speaking at the Kansas City Fed's annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, as he does every year.

The title of this year's speech: "Monetary Policy Since the Crisis."

Financial markets will be looking for any sign of a change in Fed policy, specifically whether the Fed will embark on another round of quantitiative easing. That's when the Fed buys government debt in order to lower interest rates and increase the money supply, which can ultimately boost economic activity.

The Fed has already commenced two programs of quantitative easing (a.k.a. QE), extended "Operation Twist" until the end of the year and depressed short-term interest rates to near zero until at least 2014.

Although there are signs that the economy is recovering from the Great Recession ? including data indicating the house market has finally bottomed ? minutes from the previous Fed meeting released last week suggest the U.S. central bank is getting ready for another round of QE.

But More Fed easing is not necessarily what the market desires. CNNMoney is reports Monday that 93 percent of strategists it surveyed said they don't support more Fed easing, and 77 percent of economists surveyed agreed.

"Most people think the [economy] is good enough that the Fed doesn't need to do anything big," says The Daily Ticker's Henry Blodget "Interest rates are already extraordinarily low. What will another QE 3 really going to do?" The 10-year Treasury note is trading at 1.66 percent Monday.

The Daily Ticker's Aaron Task says, "It's not clear what additional quantitative easing would do to help the real economy [but] it might help the financial markets."

The Fed will get a clearer view of the real economy when the government releases its latest monthly unemployment report on Friday, Sept. 7. Fed policymakers meet on September 12 and 13.

Tell us what you think!

Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/fed-jackson-confab-more-fed-action-answer-142019411.html

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Sunday, August 26, 2012

iPhone 4S Discount At Radio Shack - Business Insider

RadioShack is slashing $75 off the price of a 16 GB iPhone 4S starting tomorrow, reports The Verge.

You'll be able to scoop up a new phone for just $125, a major discount off of the usual $200 price tag.

Keep in mind that this is all in light of the new iPhone launching next month -- buying a new phone now would lock you into a contract for a while and you'd just be a spectator for the iPhone 5 launch.

But if you don't care about being on the cutting edge, you can't do much better than this.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-4s-discount-at-radio-shack-2012-8

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Texas Tech breaks ground for autism center | Amarillo Globe-News

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Source: http://amarillo.com/news/local-news/2012-08-25/texas-tech-breaks-ground-autism-center

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Saturday, August 25, 2012

Evernote introduces Evernote Business, updates iOS application to ...

Evernote introduces Evernote Business, updates iOS application to version 44

Having already conquered the general consumer market on multiple platforms, Evernote's now taking its handy software tools to a more biz-oriented audience. Earlier today, the company proudly introduced Evernote Business, which, according to CEO Phil Libin, is "the same Evernote that's great for individuals, except now it's optimized so that you can use it in your small and medium-sized business environment." The newfangled Evernote Business will be launching later this December, with the note-taking outfit accepting early applicants on its website as we speak. That's not all the news, however, since Evernote's also updated its iOS application for the second time during August; bringing page and multi-shot camera features to the mix, while faster download times and improved PDF support on iPads can also be found inside the fresh 4.4 version. You'll find both the sign-up and download links gravitating below.


Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/24/evernote-introduces-evernote-business-ios-app-update/

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breconcottages: I posted 5 photos on Facebook in the album "Look Here Impulsive Bank Holiday Shoppers...!" http://t.co/AHa9FifD

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Source: http://twitter.com/breconcottages/statuses/238968215089340417

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Jordan: RSC International Caseworker (Twelve Positions) (source ...

| By Eldis Jobs

Organisation: International Organization for Migration Country: Jordan Closing date: 06 Sep 2012 OPEN TO INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL CANDIDATES Classification : Official, Grade Equiv. P1 Type of Appointment : Special, six months with possibility of extension Estimated Start Date : As soon as possible Reference Code : SVN2012/73(O)-EXT Established in 1951, IOM is the leading inter-governmental organization in the field of migration and works closely with governmental, intergovernmental and non-governmental partners. IOM is dedicated to promoting humane and orderly migration for the benefit of all. It does so by providing services and advice to governments and migrants.

Read the rest here:
Jordan: RSC International Caseworker (Twelve Positions) (source: Relief?

Related posts:

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  3. Job: CHF International ? Chief of Party, Social Service Delivery, Jordan
  4. Job: CHF International ? Chief of Party, Social Service Delivery, Jordan
  5. FAO Honors Small Farmers in Jordan
Posted by Eldis Jobs on Aug 24 2012. Filed under #GHDjob. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Source: http://www.globalhealthhub.org/2012/08/24/jordan-rsc-international-caseworker-twelve-positions-source-relief/

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Friday, August 24, 2012

Get A Fit Body With These Weight Loss Ideas

Obesity is a well being issue that may negatively impact your mental and physical situation. In the event you occur to become somebody who?s struggling with reducing weight, you need to create it a priority to change that. The following paragraphs include nuggets of advice that will get you began in your?weight reduction?journey.

It has been shown that green tea will assist to speed up the metabolism, and which will be an enormous assist with regards to?weight reduction. Attempt drinking it with honey or perhaps a all-natural sweetener to liven it up. Black tea is fantastic, too. This kind of tea is filled with antioxidants that will work to clear the body of harmful toxins in addition to enhance the immune method.

When on a?weight reduction?program, record your?daily calorie?intake inside a journal. You will make?healthier food?choices after reviewing this info, and also the record-keeping process will encourage your to eat much less, also. Physical exercise is very essential, but a?nutritious diet?is essential when you want to shed pounds and preserve a healthy weight.

An excellent?way to lose weight?is to head outdoors and go to get a hike. It is a calorie burner and nature stroll all in 1! The more strenuous and difficult the hike is, the greater number of calories you?ll burn.

When beginning to watch your diet, attempt planning your meals around 2,000 calories per day. Your meals should consist of as numerous vitamins as well as other nutrients as you possibly can. If you realize that these meals are depriving you of those vitamins and nutrients, you may want to think of switching up your?diet plan?or adding a?multivitamin?to your routine.

To ease the transition to healthier eating, make some simple substitutions. There are many methods to decrease the fat and calories of one?s preferred recipes and give them a nutrition boost. Use vegetable oil spread rather of butter. You are able to substitute plain yogurt for sour cream. You should not have lose your favorite foods completely, just make changes to them.

Look to building friendships with individuals who are physically fit and healthy overall. They can serve as an inspiration to you. Wholesome individuals may also share with you how they remain fit.

As you strive to shed pounds, you?ll need to help keep close tabs on what you eat. Research have shown that people who diet and maintain a journal of everything they consume are more most likely to continue to shed weight. The truth is that they?re likely to drop twice as numerous pounds as those that fail to preserve a food journal.

It is necessary to control the size portion of food that you eat. It is typical for individuals to always clean their plates, so when consuming at house, it is best to steadily reduce your portion sizes. You are able to nonetheless clean your plate whilst consuming fewer calories.

Stick with low-calorie food items which are comparable to what you like to assist you to shed undesirable pounds. A lot of people fail at their?dieting?since they feel hungry and have cravings for particular foods. You can appreciate your favorite foods in lower-caloric versions and shed weight at the exact same time.

Eat low?calorie foods?which will assist you to feel full. Start your meal with soup, salad, raw veggies or antipasto to assist satisfy your appetite before the primary dish arrives. Be sure to drink unsweetened beverages such as coffee, iced tea or water prior to and during meals to really feel more happy.

Often occasions we mistake other emotions for hunger. How often you may eat when you are not even hungry may be surprising.

An physical?exercise program?targeted at losing fat ought to be primarily composed of cardiovascular workouts. Cardio exercises are good for overall health. They elevate your heart rate as well as burn much more calories than resistance coaching. You are able to figure out if an physical exercise is really a cardiovascular physical exercise easily by identifying whether or not it increases your heart rate. Find cardiovascular exercises which you appreciate doing, and incorporate them into your regular workouts.

Getting a glass of milk prior to every meal can help you to shed weight. Drinking milk prior to eating a meal will fill you up and, as a result, you will consume less food. Milk is high in calcium and will keep your bones powerful as well as develop muscle mass.

It?s important to exercise, as well as?diet plan, to shed weight. Therefore, it?s essential to join a fitness center or sign up for an physical exercise class. Physical exercise must be combined into your diet strategy. This may allow you to burn more calories than you consume.

Avoid fatty foods and make an work to reduce down your consumption of sugary beverages and snacks. Skip the typical fare provided by fast food restaurants as most popular menu products contain much more fat than even a really indulgent home-made meal. Reduce the amount of sodas you drink.

Stay away from consuming before you visit bed. You need to aim for stopping all meals about three hours before your regular sleep time. In the event you don?t believe you?ll have the ability to sleep with out a snack, stick to water along with a couple of vegetable snacks. There is plenty of times when you can?t adhere to this rule, but you should attempt your best. Whenever your body is resting, any excess calories are stored as fat.

By hooking up with other individuals who?re attempting get in shape, you can have a assistance method to help push you when you are down. Having a good support system is a crucial part of your?weight reduction?journey.

Because you now understand how to become effective in?losing weight, it?s now as much as you to have willpower and apply these suggestions. Don?t allow your opportunity to be wasted. Make use of all you?ve learned, and maintain going until you have accomplished your perfect weight.

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Source: http://redsynapse.com/get-a-fit-body-with-these-weight-loss-ideas.htm

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Video-gaming fish play out the advantages of groups

ScienceDaily (Aug. 23, 2012) ? A video game designed for predatory fish might have unraveled some lingering evolutionary questions about group formation and movement in animals, according to new research that took a unique approach to observing interactions between real and simulated animals.

Princeton University researchers report in the journal Science some of the strongest direct evidence that collective motion in animal groups such as schools of fish can evolve as a finely tuned defense against attack from predators. This dynamic has been suggested by other research, but the many variables that can drive group movement have made it difficult to observe a direct link to self-defense, explained senior researcher Iain Couzin, an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton who studies collective animal behavior.

Couzin and his colleagues developed an evolvable simulation of small prey that allowed the researchers to observe how group formation and movement alone protect against predatory attack. Couzin developed and conducted the study at Princeton with two former postdoctoral researchers from his lab, first author Christos Ioannou, now a research fellow at the University of Bristol, and Vishwesha Guttal, now an assistant professor of ecological sciences at the Indian Institute of Science.

The researchers projected the simulated prey -- which appeared as small reddish dots -- onto one side of a tank containing the famously ravenous bluegill sunfish. The prey interacted spontaneously with one another based on encoded behavior traits, and the researchers documented in the prey the resulting individual behaviors and group formations. In the end, the bluegills were most likely to avoid attacking simulated prey that had formed coordinated and mobile groups.

These results show that group formation itself can dissuade a predator, even if the prey -- as in the simulation -- are completely unaware of the danger, the researchers report. This suggests that the specific configuration of animal groups is an evolved defense in its own right, Couzin explained. The ideal configurations exhibited by the simulated prey mirror those of many animal groups, wherein individuals follow cues from their near-neighbors to coordinate collective movement.

"This sort of hybrid virtual approach has given us a way of tapping into these long-lasting questions that have really evaded standard analysis for decades," Couzin said.

"To conduct this type of study is very intensive in terms of statistics and creating control models of what predators would have done, given the prey that were available to them in that particular situation at that time and compare that to the behavior of the real behavior," Couzin said. "And that's one of the reasons why these studies have been so difficult in the past using classic experimental means."

An important aspect of the simulation is that it let the researchers control the behavior of individual prey, Couzin said. In nature, animals can respond to a predator in different and unpredictable ways -- animals might react as the predator approaches or after the initial attack. In addition, group cohesion depends on the number of animals assembled and environmental factors such as terrain.

For the Princeton study, the researchers encoded each individual prey with various strengths of three traits -- a tendency to be attracted to, swim in the same direction as, or ignore nearby individuals. Thus, individual prey would either swim alone, group together, or follow other prey, or exhibit a combination of traits.

Julia Parrish, a University of Washington professor of aquatic and fishery sciences, said that the level of control Couzin and his colleagues had over prey behavior, and testing the predator's reaction to that behavior, sets their experiment apart from others based on real and simulated animal interactions. Parrish is familiar with the Princeton study, but had no role in it.

"The beauty of this experiment is that the researchers systematically vary the rules that the individual simulated prey play by, which dictates the structure of the resulting group," Parrish said. "They're like the little man behind the curtain moving three dials up and down -- attraction, repulsion and alignment. Then they say, 'Okay, bluegills, give it your best shot. How good are you at attacking prey based on how we set the rules?'"

This approach resulted in a "significant first step" toward a metric that can quantify how individual behaviors influence the safety of the group during a predator attack, Parrish said.

"This experiment makes some very specific predictions about what's a good configuration and what's not a good configuration, and gives some insight into what the rules of aggregation might be," she said.

"We don't know the rules prey use," Parrish said. "We can watch them, we can track them and infer what the rules are, but we don't actually know what they are. What this study did is bypass that messiness and make up the prey then see what a real predator does. That simplification is the innovation."

Once the simulation began the individual prey would swim and form groups spontaneously. Each trial consisted of 16 prey and one bluegill predator. Only the first attack by each bluegill was recorded. A new bluegill was put in the tank after the researchers restarted the simulation and the prey began moving and interacting with each other.

"Effectively, the bluegills were playing an immersive video game in which they hunted," Couzin said.

"By evolving the prey groupings, the game becomes harder and harder for the predators, as when a video game adapts to the strategy employed by the players," he said. "In a similar way, our prey 'evolved' to the mode of hunting that the bluegills exhibited, adapting better strategies that allowed them to evade hunting more effectively."

Naturally, the researchers found that simulated prey that formed groups "survived" better than those that swam alone. But individuals in groups also needed to strike a balance of closeness and coordinated movement to keep the bluegills at bay, the researchers reported.

Large groups that did not move much eventually fell victim to attacks in "high-risk" areas of the projected space in which bluegills preferentially attacked. Yet when groups of prey moved with coordination, they passed through these high-risk areas too quickly for each individual bluegill to make its attack.

Although the project used bluegills, Parrish said, the catalog of formation possibilities the researchers developed leave room to understand how individual behavior and movement influences other predators such as tuna, which target large groups.

"We could systematically go through all the combinations this study presents and see what a predator actually responds to," Parrish said.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Princeton University. The original article was written by Morgan Kelly.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.


Journal Reference:

  1. C. C. Ioannou, V. Guttal, I. D. Couzin. Predatory Fish Select for Coordinated Collective Motion in Virtual Prey. Science, 2012; DOI: 10.1126/science.1218919

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/strange_science/~3/AW91NRmHzmQ/120823152415.htm

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U.S. Anti-Doping Agency strips Armstrong of titles for cheating

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Lance Armstrong was stripped of his record seven Tour de France wins and handed a lifetime ban by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) on Friday, but he remained defiant as supporters rallied around the American cyclist.

Saying, "enough is enough", Armstrong sent out a statement late on Thursday indicating that he would not challenge USADA's charges he had doped throughout his career, though he continued to deny he ever used performance-enhancing drugs.

While the USADA can remove Armstrong's titles, such a decision could ultimately rest with the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland, should the International Cycling Union (UCI) challenge the USADA's ruling.

But weary from years of denial, legal battles, skirmishes with former-team mates and anti-doping chiefs, it is a fight Armstrong says he no longer has the stomach for.

"Today I will turn the page," Armstrong said. "I will no longer address this issue regardless of the circumstances."

Armstrong may have turned the page but the story is far from over.

One of the sporting world's most polarizing figures, Armstrong remains a hero to millions of cancer survivors for beating the disease and coming back to win the Tour de France a record seven times. To others, he is a drug cheat and fraud.

World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) chief John Fahey said that Armstrong's decision not to contest the allegations adds up to nothing more than an admission of guilt.

"He had the right to rip up those charges, but he elected not to. Therefore the only interpretation in these circumstances is that there was substance in those charges," Fahey told Reuters in a telephone interview on Friday.

The debate over Armstrong's guilt will now rage, with some heavy hitters like longtime sponsor Nike, the world's biggest sportswear maker, lining up alongside the disgraced cyclist, while anti-doping crusaders proudly claim victory.

Since 2004, Nike has helped Livestrong, Armstrong's organization to help cancer survivors, raise over $100 million for cancer research and created the Livestrong yellow wristbands that became a global phenomenon with over 84 million bands distributed.

CONTROVERSIAL CYCLIST

"Lance has stated his innocence and has been unwavering on this position. Nike plans to continue to support Lance and the Lance Armstrong Foundation, a foundation that Lance created to serve cancer survivors," Nike said in a statement.

Armstrong, 40, has been one of the most successful and controversial cyclists of all time, returning to the sport after beating cancer to win the Tour de France seven straight times, from 1999 to 2005.

Livestrong takes its inspiration from his achievements and recovery from testicular cancer that also made him a hero to many and boosted the sport's popularity in the United States.

The cyclist also made many enemies throughout his career, with several of his former teammates and colleagues allegedly ready to testify he doped.

Former teammate and deposed Tour de France winner Floyd Landis accused Armstrong in 2010 of using performance-enhancing drugs and teaching others how to avoid being caught.

But Armstrong also has his loyalists, outside and inside the sport, such as Jim Ochowicz, director of the BMC cycling team and a long-time friend who helped him when he was an amateur rider and young professional.

"As a friend of Lance's, I support his decision to call it an end," said Ochowicz. "He has done so much for our sport over the years, and I am sad at what has transpired.

"I love him. I know he still has a big fight ahead of him and his battle of trying to find a cure for cancer and help survivors and carry on with the Lance Armstrong foundation.

"I think he has earned every victory he's had," he said.

The USADA, however, believes it has enough compelling evidence to prove Armstrong did not claim his victories fairly.

A quasi-governmental agency created by the U.S. Congress in 2000, the USADA formally charged Armstrong in June with doping and taking part in a conspiracy with members of his championship teams.

EVIDENCE AGAINST ARMSTRONG IN HAND

The agency said in a letter to Armstrong that it has blood samples from 2009 and 2010 that are "fully consistent" with doping.

Michael McCann, an expert in sports law at Vermont Law School, said that Armstrong's decision to not contest the USADA charges in arbitration might have been the cyclist's best option in the face of mounting circumstantial evidence.

"This gives his supporters reason to support him," McCann told Reuters. "Whereas if he had gone to arbitration and lost - which I think almost definitely would have happened - from a public relations standpoint, that would have been much more harmful."

In losing his titles, Armstrong joins Canadian Ben Johnson and American Marion Jones as the highest-profile athletes to lose championships as a result of doping sanctions.

Johnson was stripped of the 1988 Seoul Olympics 100 meters title after testing positive for a steroid, while Jones lost her 2000 Sydney Olympics 100, 200 and 4x400 meters relay gold medals when she confessed she had been taking drugs at the time.

Armstrong may not be able to simply turn his back on the saga and walk away with his head held high.

There is the possibility he could face legal action from promoters and race organizers looking to recover prize money.

"My sense is they're not going to sue (him) for the money because it would be an expensive piece of litigation," said Brian Getz, a criminal defense attorney who represented an American sprinter against doping allegations. "It may not be worth it to the organization trying to recover the funds."

It also remains to be seen what impact the USADA's action will have on Armstrong's endorsement potential and ability to continue to raise funds for his foundation.

Despite having his reputation tarnished, Armstrong's triumph over cancer and fundraising efforts make him a valuable pitchman, say marketing experts.

While Nike was quick to stand by Armstrong, his other sponsors, including RadioShack; exercise bike maker Johnson Health Tech; sunglass maker Oakley, owned by Italy's Luxottica; and Michelob, made by Anheuser-Busch InBev, have not leapt to his defense.

Robert Boland, professor of sports management at New York University, said Armstrong's extensive work on cancer will help blunt the impact of the lost titles.

"His story has not been diminished. Here's a guy who essentially was at death's door with cancer and came back. That example still makes him very compelling," he said.

Still, Boland said it would be difficult for Armstrong to continue to endorse bicycles or bicycle equipment, since he is now banned from competitions.

"If he can't show up at certain events, how do you use him?"

With the possibility that each of his seven Tour de France crowns could go to other riders, Armstrong maintained that no matter what the USADA has ruled, those he competed with and against will always know he was the true winner.

Spain's Fernando Escartin, who will rise from third to second in the 1999 Tour de France following the USADA's decision, said the American would always be the champion.

"For me, Lance Armstrong remains the 1999 Tour winner, second Zulle and third, me," the now-retired Escartin told Reuters at the Vuelta a Espana race on Friday.

"It's 13 years now since this all happened. It seems completely illogical and unreal. I don't want to even think about it."

(Additional reporting by Ian Ransom in Melbourne, Brian Homewood in Berne, Catherine Bremer in Paris, Steve Keating in Toronto and Steve Ginsburg in Washington; editing by Philip Barbara)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/lance-armstrong-says-wont-fight-anti-doping-agency-024147317--spt.html

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