The official Twitter for iOS app has just been updated to version 5.7 and brings with it some visual enhancements, particularly for the iPhone version. Most notably, tweet previews before you submit them and wider timelines throughout the entire app.
Twitter has been focusing a lot on user interface when it comes to the native app lately and that isn't a bad thing. The iPhone app got a bulk of the updates this time around featuring wider timelines and a preview in the tweet composer so you can see exactly what your tweet will look like before you send it. Other updates including the ability to receive notifications before sending a tweet.
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi submitted to parliament on Wednesday a controversial bill regulating NGOs and human rights groups but said it did not impose restrictions on their activities.
An earlier draft had drawn criticism from activists, Western governments and the United Nations human rights chief, who said it was more stifling than regulations under the deposed President Hosni Mubarak.
A presidential adviser said on Monday the new draft should ease Western and opposition concerns that the Mursi administration is moving Egypt away from the democratic ideals behind the 2011 uprising that ousted the autocratic Mubarak.
Restrictions on civil society have remained a source of friction with Western states that help to finance non-government organizations working on human rights and economic, social and political development.
Mursi said in a speech that the new bill drafted by his administration did not signify a crackdown.
"It enables civil society to be assured that the state will not...restrict civil society organizations that work in service of the sons of the nation," Mursi said.
The new draft does away with controversial language that considers NGO funds as public money. A presidential adviser said it also ensures that security officials cannot serve on a steering committee, though they can still be consulted.
Activists who have seen the new draft say it is similar to earlier proposals backed by the Freedom and Justice Party, the political arm of Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood.
"This law remains restrictive because it allows the government to control NGOs access to funding, both foreign and domestically and it allows for government interference in NGO activities," said Heba Morayef, Egypt director for Human Rights Watch.
The new draft stipulates that a steering committee supervising NGO activities "may seek assistance" from whoever it wants, including security officials.
"This is a way to control the activities of NGOs," said Mohamed Zaree of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, who called the law "very repressive".
Hr said he feared the steering committee would block funding to groups working on politically sensitive issues like abuses by security forces.
Egypt is polarized between supporters of Mursi's Brotherhood and secular liberals who accuse him of attempting to stifle dissent.
(Additional reporting By Tom Perry, Omar Fahmy and Asma Alsharif; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
LECTURE halls can seat only so many students, but it's easy enough to broadcast lectures online to tens of thousands. Ventures such as EdX, a non-profit consortium involving a dozen universities, and Coursera, a for-profit business, are now focused on making courses taught by outstanding instructors available to millions of students. Some universities are using these so-called MOOCs, short for "massively open online courses", to supplement their standard curriculum, and the possibility that these offerings may in time replace flesh and blood university professors has become a source of distress among academics.
The philosophy faculty of San Jose State University (SJSU) recently broke with university administrators by refusing to offer a "blended" course, which would combine outsourced online lectures with classroom discussion, based on Michael Sandel's famous Harvard lecture series on justice. In an open letter to Mr Sandel, the philosophers of SJSU worry about the effectiveness of prepackaged, one-size-fits-all courses, the hazards of a homogenised curriculum dominated by a handful of superstar professors, and air a number of other sensible concerns. When they get right down to it, though, they admit they're protecting their turf.?
Arguing that the university's move toward online and blended courses is "financially driven and involves a compromise of quality", the SJSU philosophy department cited a comment from Gavin Newsom, the lieutenant governor of California, at the announcement of the state's deal with EdX. "The old education financing model, frankly, is no longer sustainable", Mr Newsom said. "This is the crux of the problem", the philosophers submit. "With prepackaged MOOCs and blended courses, faculty are ultimately not needed".
They are not wrong to see trouble on the horizon. California legislators are considering a new law that would require state universities to offer college credit for approved online courses. However, the threat is rather more general. John Hechinger and Michael McDonald of Bloomberg report:
Faculty are rightly concerned because the Internet is likely to reduce the number of professors and colleges over time, said Michael Horn, executive director of education for the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, a San Mateo, California-based nonprofit research organization.
Christensen, a Harvard business school professor, has predicted that in 15 years, half of all universities will be out of business because higher education, with its skyrocketing costs, is ripe for technological upheaval.
Scary stuff for the professoriate! However, before we rush, for thrift's sake,?to technologically upheave, it's worth asking why?costs are "skyrocketing". It's not because classrooms and professors have become so much more expensive. Rather, it's the metastatic growth of university administration. As the Wall Street Journal reported in December:
Across U.S. higher education, nonclassroom costs have ballooned, administrative payrolls being a prime example. The number of employees hired by colleges and universities to manage or administer people, programs and regulations increased 50% faster than the number of instructors between 2001 and 2011, the U.S. Department of Education says. It's part of the reason that tuition, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, has risen even faster than health-care costs.
That is to say, students have faced rapidly rising tuition costs not due to large increases in the cost of instruction, but mostly due to the dramatic, rapid growth of the university bureaucratic class, which offers nothing of obvious worth to the education of their universities' increasingly cash-strapped and indebted students.?
According to a 2010 study on administrative bloat from the libertarian Goldwater Institute,?tuition tripled from 1993 to 2007 at my own school, the University of Houston. Over that period, instructional spending per student changed not at all, while administrative spending per pupil nearly doubled. This is fairly representative of the national pattern. This seems to me to suggest that state university systems might first seek savings in leaner management before outsourcing instruction to glorified versions of YouTube. Public-university systems might take a page from Sweden, a paradisaical Scandinavian social democracy, which outsources to private companies the management of some of its public hospitals,?as Schumpeter discusses, and recommends. In any case, it's outrageous that students should be made to pay ever more to support assistants to assistant deans, in exchange for the right to earn a degree filling in worksheets and ignoring videotapes from home.?
Of course, it's hard to imagine fat and happy university bureaucracies falling on their swords. It will be up to others to start carving the cruft out of university administration. Why not the soon-to-be "disrupted" professoriate? Because, I'm afraid, the instructional class just loves big government too much, and is therefore disinclined to see unnecessary and/or overpaid public employees as a real problem, even when it's about to get them replaced by a screen. That's why the philosophy department at San Jose State is bitching to Michael Sandel when it ought to be baying for the blood of California deans.
LONDON (Reuters) - British house prices will rise at their fastest pace in four years in 2013 with London prices storming ahead, a Reuters poll found on Monday, also showing that the gains would not match inflation this year.
Low interest rates and government lending incentives to stimulate growth in the housing market mean prices remain overvalued, analysts said.
The poll of 23 market watchers, taken in the past week, predicted UK house prices would rise 2.0 percent this year, far more upbeat than the flat outlook envisaged in a February poll. Forecasts ranged from a 2.0 percent fall to a 5 percent rise.
In 2014 they will gather momentum to 2.4 percent - still only in line with consumer price inflation which is expected to average 2.4 percent next year.
"Stronger than expected first quarter GDP data will provide an important bolster to household confidence. At the same time, borrowing costs are coming down and banks are expected to approve more mortgage applications," said Melanie Bowler at Moody's Analytics.
Britain's economy basically flatlined for most of the last two years but is expected to grow 0.8 percent this year and 1.5 percent in 2014.
The price of London homes, long the magnet for rich overseas investors, are expected to soar 5.0 percent this year and next as demand in the capital continues to outrun supply.
During a decade-long boom to 2007, house prices tripled but sank at the start of the financial crisis Most respondents do not see them reaching pre-crash prices for several years.
BUILDING SUPPORT
The average house price in Britain stood at 165,586 pounds in April, according to mortgage lender Nationwide, over six times last year's average salary of 26,500 pounds.
Most respondents said that average price was still too high, with the poll giving a consensus rating of six on a 10-point scale, where one is very undervalued and 10 is very overvalued.
The Bank of England slashed interest rates to a record low 0.5 percent over four years ago, making borrowing cheap for those who managed to get a mortgage, and is not expected to raise them until 2015 at the earliest.
The Bank extended its Funding for Lending scheme (FLS) last month for another year, offering banks cheap finance if they in turn lend on to households and businesses.
Mortgage approvals, used as a guide to future housing market activity, rose to 53,504 in March and are expected to average 57,000 per month in six month's time and 64,000 in a year.
Britain's government launched incentives to help struggling home buyers in March as it looks to support growth in a real estate market it sees as key to reviving the country's ailing economy.
(Polling by Rahul Karunakar and Shaloo Shrivastava; editing by Ron Askew)
Global capital, in the form of multinational corporations as well as very wealthy individuals, is gaining enormous bargaining power over nation states, Reich writes.?One way for nations to regain some bargaining leverage over global capital would be to stop racing against one another and join together to set terms for access to their markets.
By Robert Reich,?Guest blogger / May 27, 2013
Umbrellas are seen in front of the Apple store on 5th Avenue in New York. Why should Apple have access to US consumers, Reich asks, if Apple refuses to pay its fair share of taxes to finance the infrastructure and education that Americans need to improve their living standards?
Eric Thayer/Reuters/File
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A Senate report criticises?Apple?for shifting billions of dollars in profits?into Irish affiliates where its tax rate is less than 2%, yet a growing chorus of senators and representatives call for lower corporate taxes in order to make the US more competitive. The American public wants to close tax loopholes and shelters used by the wealthy to avoid paying taxes, yet the loopholes and shelters remain in place.
Skip to next paragraph Robert Reich
Robert is chancellor?s professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Clinton. Time Magazine?named him one of the 10 most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written 13 books, including ?The Work of Nations,? his latest best-seller ?Aftershock: The Next Economy and America?s Future," and a new?e-book, ?Beyond Outrage.??He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.
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The same disconnect is breaking out all over the world. The chairman of a British parliamentary committee investigating Google for?tax avoidance?calls the firm??devious, calculating, and unethical,??yet British officials court the firm?s CEO as if he were royalty.
Prime Minister David Cameron urges tax havens to mend their ways and vows to crack down on tax cheats, yet argues taxes must be low in the UK because ?we?ve got to encourage investment, we?ve got to encourage jobs and I want Britain to be a winner in the global race?.
These apparent contradictions are rooted in the same reality: global capital, in the form of multinational corporations as well as very wealthy individuals, is gaining enormous bargaining power over nation states.?
Nicole Mar, Staff Writer May 26, 2013 Filed under Arts and Society
Animations, comic books, and Friday movie days at school? Any Seaking can experience all of that in one art class: Digital Animation. With an ?easy, relaxing environment,? Mrs. Jimenez teaches students how ?to tell stories through pictures, to draw a story and to learn to put both drawing skills together with writing skills.? And the best part is that you don?t even need to be talented at drawing; all you need is the drive to learn about it.
Animation is completely based on organization and design, but it can be taken in many directions. Because it centralizes around organization and design, little talent regarding art is needed. In Digital Animation, students learn the basics of animation, and with each year, they learn how to continue refining their skills. Students can create anything that suits their interests, whether that is a comic, a film or a clip.
This is really a class for everyone. Jared Schwartz, a senior who has been interested in digital animation since a young age, actually draws his own animations, which are ?incredibly difficult?to make convincing.? Although difficult, his hand-drawn products are definitely the most satisfying. Schwartz enjoys, ?[being] creative and [throwing] ideas around? which he is allowed to do in digital animation. However, even if you aren?t an artist like, Schwartz, don?t be alarmed.
Senior Peter Kim has been interested in digital animation since the age of seven, but he wasn?t serious about it until he took Digital Animation as a freshman. He ?wanted to go to the next level with [digital animation] to manipulate characters better.? This class inspired an interest in Kim, which slowly began to evolve into a career path. ?I like manipulating it any way I want?you don?t have to be good at art, you just need to think of something in your head and make it,? Kim explains, ?Digital Animation is a way for someone who isn?t necessarily the most talented artist to express himself[/herself] through art.?
Because there is no need to be a prodigy artist for this class, it appeals to many students. ?I?m not very good at art and I think Digital Animation sounds like a very interesting class,? sophomore Stephanie Hauschildt exclaims, ?I think it would be fun, especially because I think I want to be an engineer.? This art class especially intrigues aspiring engineers, designers, and architects because the 3-D modeling and animation applies to these career paths.
Even people who aren?t interested in making a career out of it can still have fun. Sophomore Monica Merha exclaims, ?I love animated movies and because I haven?t fulfilled my art credit yet, I am definitely interested in the class.? With this class you can learn how animations are created.
Mrs. Jimenez?s Digital Animation class has a great, easy-going environment where you are ?able to be goofy.? She?s been teaching the class for about twelve years, and with her knowledge and expertise, anyone can develop the skills capable to begin a career in digital animation. This art class, along with animated movie Fridays, gives one an experience with art that not many people get.
CONCORD, N.C. (AP) ? Charlotte Motor Speedway said 10 fans were injured Sunday at the Coca-Cola 600 and three were taken to the hospital after a nylon rope supporting a FOX Sports overhead television camera fell from the grandstands and landed on the track surface.
It's unclear the extent of the injuries of the three people taken to the hospital.
Seven people were treated with "minor cuts and scrapes" on site and released, according to a statement released by CMS.
Fox Sports sportscaster Chris Myers apologized to fans and drivers on air on behalf of the network during the race.
The incident occurred on lap 121 of the 400-lap NASCAR Sprint Cup race.
The race was delayed for 27 minutes while crews repaired damage to their cars.
Kyle Busch, going for a sweep at Charlotte Motor Speedway after winning the Nationwide and Truck series races, was leading when he incurred damage to the right front wheel well of his No. 18 Toyota.
Marcos Ambrose and Mark Martin also reported damage.
No drivers were injured.
The cars were initially brought along pit row as workers cleared the ropes from the track.
At first, NASCAR called threw a caution flag before two red flags came out. NASCAR eventually allowed the cars to come into the pits, giving crews 15 minutes to work on their cars.
During the break, Busch's crew frantically worked to repair a number of problems to the right front wheel well. After completing repairs to the car, the crew slapped high-fives after getting the car back on the track.
Busch remained competitive and was running in the top five at the midpoint of the race. He has never won a Sprint Cup race at Charlotte Motor Speedway and has suffered his share of bad luck at the track.
But this one was unique.
The nylon rope that caused the damage was a guide for network television CamCat overhead camera system, CMS said in the statement.
After the incident the camera and the main wires that support it located on the front stretch of the track remained intact. But the remaining nylon ropes were removed.
Prior to the restart, Ambrose was made to run five laps on his own to make up for the laps missed when he pulled into pit row and the rest of the field was under caution.
Trader Donato Cuttone works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange near the close of trading, Thursday, May 23, 2013. Stocks are ended the day slightly lower after recouping a big loss early on. U.S. markets fell immediately after the opening bell following a global slump prompted in part by an unexpectedly weak report on manufacturing in China.(AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Trader Donato Cuttone works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange near the close of trading, Thursday, May 23, 2013. Stocks are ended the day slightly lower after recouping a big loss early on. U.S. markets fell immediately after the opening bell following a global slump prompted in part by an unexpectedly weak report on manufacturing in China.(AP Photo/Richard Drew)
NEW YORK (AP) ? Major stock indexes closed out their first weekly loss in a month in quiet trading Friday.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index dropped 0.91 of a point to close at 1,649.60. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 8.60 points to 15,303, a gain of 0.1 percent. Procter & Gamble supported the Dow with an increase of 4 percent.
Both indexes had their first weekly losses since the week ending April 19. A disappointing manufacturing report out of China and a sharp fall in Japan's stock market rattled investors' nerves this week. But anxiety over the Federal Reserve's bond-buying program was the main culprit. Some investors interpreted comments from Fed officials to mean that the bank may start pulling its support for the economy sooner than they expected.
The S&P 500, widely used by mutual funds as a proxy for the stock market, lost 1.1 percent for the week. It's still up 15.7 percent for the year.
Marty Leclerc, the managing partner of Barrack Yard Advisors, an investment firm in Bryn Mawr, Pa., said the weekly drop wasn't cause for concern. Even market rallies have to take the occasional break, he said.
"It's up like a rocket blast this year," Leclerc said of the stock market. "For there to be a little bit of a pullback is perfectly understandable."
The market headed lower at the start of trading on Friday, then spent the rest of the day slowly recovering ground. By the closing bell, market indexes were roughly back to where they started.
Procter & Gamble announced late Thursday that it's bringing back its former CEO, A.G. Lafley, to run the company. The world's largest consumer-products maker, whose brands include Tide and Crest, is trying to increase sales in the face of tough competition. P&G rose $3.18 to $81.88.
Sears plunged 14 percent after the department-store chain reported a steep quarterly loss and slumping sales after the market closed Thursday. Sears lost $7.92 to $50.25.
The Nasdaq composite slipped 0.27 of a point to 3,459.14.
Eight of the 10 industry groups in the S&P 500 fell. Only financial stocks and consumer staples makers rose.
The stock market slipped Friday despite an encouraging report on U.S. manufacturing. The government said orders for long-lasting goods rebounded in April, helped by demand for aircraft and stronger business spending. The report suggests economic growth may hold steady this spring.
Until this week, signs of slow but steady economic growth and record profits for big companies had propelled stock-market indexes to all-time highs.
All but 11 companies in the S&P 500 have posted their first-quarter earnings, and the results have turned out much better than expected. Nearly seven of 10 have reported higher earnings than analysts had estimated. Overall profits in the first quarter are on track to climb 5 percent over the year before.
In the market for U.S. government bonds, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note dipped to 2.01 percent from 2.02 percent late Thursday.
The price of crude oil slipped 10 cents to settle at $94.15 a barrel, ending with a drop of $1.87 for the week. Gold lost $5.20 to $1,386.60 an ounce.
Trading was light ahead of the long weekend. U.S. financial markets will be closed Monday for Memorial Day.
Among other stocks in the news Friday:
? Intuitive Surgical gained 5 percent after a jury decided in favor of the maker of robotic medical equipment in the first of many lawsuits filed against the company. The plaintiffs argued that Intuitive was negligent in training doctors to use its equipment. Intuitive's stock rose $23.07 to $501.53.
? Titan Machinery plunged 9 percent. The company, which deals in agricultural and construction equipment, said late Thursday that weaker revenue will lead it to a wider quarterly loss than it had expected. Titan's stock lost $2.10 to $20.40.
'We were kinda like two of the same... just trying to get somewhere better,' Cap 1 tells Mixtape Daily of his beginnings with 2 Chainz. By Rob Markman, with reporting by FLX
FORT WORTH: Ryan Palmer fired a bogey-free eight-under par 62 on Thursday to take a one-stroke lead over fellow American John Rollins after the first round of the US PGA Crowne Plaza Invitational.
Palmer, a member at the host Colonial Country Club, used his knowledge to full advantage in the opening 18 holes of the US$6.4 million event to edge Rollins for the lead.
"This golf course, I know where to hit it," Palmer said. "I hit driver all day. I was able to attack it and it paid off."
Canada's Graham DeLaet and David Hearn and Americans Morgan Hoffmann and John Peterson shared third on 64.
After starting on the 10th tee, Palmer charged to the top with a run of four birdies in a row from the par-4 14th through par-4 17th, then began his second nine with a birdie at the first hole.
Palmer closed strong with birdies on three of the last four holes.
"That was a lot of fun," Palmer said. "I just got into my round halfway through. My front nine I just hit some good shots close. I had a lot of six and seven footers for birdie."
Palmer finished fifth at Phoenix and shared fifth earlier this month at the Players Championship despite the death of a friend in an auto accident earlier that week in San Antonio, Texas.
Palmer seeks his fourth PGA title, his first since the 2010 Sony Open in Hawaii. His other tour triumphs came in 2004 at Disney World and 2008 at the now-defunct Ginn sur Mer Classic.
Rollins opened with back-to-back birdies and added another at the par-4 sixth. He began the back side with two birdies as well before taking his lone bogey at the par-4 12th.
Rollins answered with birdies at the par-3 13th and par-4 15th and closed with another to stay within reach of Palmer as he chases his fourth PGA title after wins at the 2002 Canadian Open, 2006 B.C. Open and 2009 Reno-Tahoe Open.
Hoffman had a bogey-free round with birdies on the par-5 first and 11th and the par-3 eighth as well as 12, 14 and 17.
Hearn opened with a birdie and birdied four of the last five holes on the front nine. He answered a bogey at the 14th with a birdie at 15 and closed with another.
DeLaet birdied three of the first four holes, added back-to-back birdies at seven and eight and another at the 12th in a bogey-free round.
Peterson, who began off the 10th tee, took a bogey at 11 but birdied the next two holes, began his second nine with a birdie at the first, ran off three birdies in a row starting at the par-3 fourth and then closed with a birdie.
Tesla $465 million loan is no more. As the Department of Energy gets back its Tesla $465 million loan, the new Energy secretary will have to decide whether to make more such controversial clean-energy loans.?
By David J. Unger,?Correspondent / May 23, 2013
A Tesla Motors car is shown in Fremont, Calif. The Tesla $465 million loan has been repaid nine years early, scoring points for the Department of Energy and its controversial clean-energy loan program.
Jeff Chiu/AP/File
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The Tesla $465 million loan may be a thing of the past, but the future of the controversial federal program that funded it is back in the spotlight.
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Given the success of Tesla, will new Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz use the program's remaining funds to help other private companies? Or have the high-profile failures of other federally backed clean-energy ventures dampened the administration's enthusiasm for direct investments in the private sector?
By paying back its hefty federal loan nine years ahead of schedule, electric carmaker Tesla Motors certainly scores points for the Department of Energy (DOE). Tesla's string of recent highs has helped silence critics who pointed to the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars lost to Solyndra and other?bankrupt companies. And the department's Loan Program Office points to a variety of quieter successes.
To date, the program's?losses account for about 2 percent of the $34 billion loan portfolio, according to the Energy Department. That's less than 10 percent of the $10 billion Congress set aside to cover expected losses.
The news is well-timed for an agency turning over a new leaf. Just two days ago, Mr. Moniz was sworn in as the 13th secretary of the Department of Energy. The nuclear physicist has dropped few hints about what role the Loan Program Office will play during his tenure, but he praised the program in response to Tesla's repayment.?
LOME, Togo (AP) ? Police fired tear gas to disperse protesters in the latest confrontation between the ruling party and Togo's increasingly active opposition. Demonstrators were gathering to protest the death of an opposition member, who died in jail.
The demonstration was the second this week, following a women's march on Tuesday in which thousands of women showed up wearing the color red, normally worn to funerals here. Some bared their breasts, a traditional gesture indicating they were placing a curse.
The government banned the march planned for Thursday, setting the stage for a showdown.
As youths burned tires, blocked traffic, police fired tear gas and engaged in running street battles with demonstrators.
Togo has been ruled by the same family for 46 years. Protests against the ruling party have been steadily increasing.
Though deep drilling on reefs finally confirmed Darwin's model in 1953, the reality of reef-building may be more complex.?
By Becky Oskin,?OurAmazingPlanet Staff Writer / May 16, 2013
A satellite image of Maupiti, one of the Society Islands, which is on its way to becoming an atoll. Submerged reef appears in pale blue.
NASA Earth Observatory
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Charles Darwin sparked more than one controversy over the natural progression of life. One such case involved the evolution of coral atolls, the ring-shaped coral reefs that surround submerged tropical islands.
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Coral reefs are actually huge colonies of tiny animals that need sunlight to grow. After seeing a reef encircling Moorea, near Tahiti, Darwin came up with his theory that?coral atolls?grow as reefs stretch toward sunlight while ocean islands slowly sink beneath the sea surface. (Cooling ocean crust, combined with the weight of massive islands, causes the islands to sink.)
A century-long controversy ensued after Darwin published his theory in 1842, because some scientists thought the atolls were simply a thin veneer of coral, not many thousands of feet thick as Darwin proposed. Deep drilling on reefs finally confirmed Darwin's model in 1953.
But reef-building is more complex than?Darwin?thought, according to a new study published May 9 in the journal Geology. Although subsidence does play a role, a computer model found seesawing sea levels, which rise and fall with glacial cycles, are the primary driving force behind the striking patterns seen at islands today.
"Darwin actually got it mostly right, which is pretty amazing," said Taylor Perron, the study?s co-author and a geologist at MIT. However, there?s one part Darwin missed. "He didn't know about these glacially induced sea-level cycles," Perron told OurAmazingPlanet.
What happens when sea-level shifts get thrown into the mix? Consider?Hawaii?as an example. Coral grows slowly there, because the ocean is colder than waters closer to the equator. When sea level is at its lowest, the Big Island builds up a nice little reef terrace, like a fringe of hair on a balding pate. But the volcano ? one of the tallest mountains in the world, if measured from the seafloor ? is also quickly sinking. Add the speedy sea-level rise when glaciers melt, and Hawaii's corals just can't keep up. The reefs drown each time sea level rises.
The computer model accounts for the wide array of?coral reefs?seen at islands around the world ? a variety Darwin's model can't explain, the researchers said.
"You can explain a lot of the variety you see just by combining these various processes ? the sinking of islands, the growth of reefs, and the last few million years of sea level going up and down rather dramatically," Perron told OurAmazingPlanet.
For nearly 4 million years, Earth has cycled through global chills, when big glaciers suck up water from the oceans, and swings to sweltering temperatures that melt the ice, quickly raising sea level. This?cyclic growth of ice sheets?takes about 100,000 years.
The researchers also found that one of the few places in the world where sinking islands and sea-level rise create perfect atolls is the Society Islands, where Darwin made his historic observations.
Email?Becky Oskin?or follow her?@beckyoskin. Follow us?@OAPlanet,?Facebook?&?Google+.?Original article on LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.
Contact: Jade Boyd jadeboyd@rice.edu 713-348-6778 Rice University
Arranging nanoparticles in geometric patterns allows for control of light with light
HOUSTON -- (May 21, 2013) -- Rice University scientists have unveiled a robust new method for arranging metal nanoparticles in geometric patterns that can act as optical processors that transform incoming light signals into output of a different color. The breakthrough by a team of theoretical and applied physicists and engineers at Rice's Laboratory for Nanophotonics (LANP) is described this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Rice's team used the method to create an optical device in which incoming light could be directly controlled with light via a process known as "four-wave mixing." Four-wave mixing has been widely studied, but Rice's disc-patterning method is the first that can produce materials that are tailored to perform four-wave mixing with a wide range of colored inputs and outputs.
"Versatility is one of the advantages of this process," said study co-author Naomi Halas, director of LANP and Rice's Stanley C. Moore Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering and a professor of biomedical engineering, chemistry, physics and astronomy. "It allows us to mix colors in a very general way. That means not only can we send in beams of two different colors and get out a third color, but we can fine-tune the arrangements to create devices that are tailored to accept or produce a broad spectrum of colors."
The information processing that takes place inside today's computers, smartphones and tablets is electronic. Each of the billions of transistors in a computer chip uses electrical inputs to act upon and modify the electrical signals passing through it. Processing information with light instead of electricity could allow for computers that are both faster and more energy-efficient, but building an optical computer is complicated by the quantum rules that light obeys.
"In most circumstances, one beam of light won't interact with another," said LANP theoretical physicist Peter Nordlander, a co-author of the new study. "For instance, if you shine a flashlight at a wall and you cross that beam with the beam from a second flashlight, it won't matter. The light that comes out of the first flashlight will pass through, independent of the light from the second.
"This changes if the light is traveling in a 'nonlinear medium,'" he said. "The electromagnetic properties of a nonlinear medium are such that the light from one beam will interact with another. So, if you shine the two flashlights through a nonlinear medium, the intensity of the beam from the first flashlight will be reduced proportionally to the intensity of the second beam."
The patterns of metal discs LANP scientists created for the PNAS study are a type of nonlinear media. The team used electron-beam lithography to etch puck-shaped gold discs that were placed on a transparent surface for optical testing. The diameter of each disc was about one-thousandth the width of a human hair. Each was designed to harvest the energy from a particular frequency of light; by arranging a dozen of the discs in a closely spaced pattern, the team was able to enhance the nonlinear properties of the system by creating intense electrical fields.
"Our system exploits a particular plasmonic effect called a Fano resonance to boost the efficiency of the relatively weak nonlinear effect that underlies four-wave mixing," Nordlander said. "The result is a boost in the intensity of the third color of light that the device produces."
Graduate student and co-author Yu-Rong Zhen calculated the precise arrangement of 12 discs that would be required to produce two coherent Fano resonances in a single device, and graduate student and lead co-author Yu Zhang created the device that produced the four-wave mixing -- the first such material ever created.
"The device Zhang created for four-wave mixing is the most efficient yet produced for that purpose, but the value of this research goes beyond the design for this particular device," said Halas, who was recently named a member of the National Academy of Sciences for her pioneering research in nanophotonics. "The methods used to create this device can be applied to the production of a wide range of nonlinear media, each with tailored optical properties."
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CAPTION: Physicists and engineers from Rice's Laboratory for Nanophotonics have unveiled a robust new method for arranging metal nanoparticles in geometric patterns that can act as optical processors that transform incoming light signals into output of a different color.
CAPTION: By arranging optically tuned gold discs in a closely spaced pattern, Rice University scientists created intense electrical fields and enhanced the nonlinear optical properties of the system. Here a computer model displays the plasmonic interactions that give rise to the intense fields.
CAPTION: Gold discs tuned to capture the energy from two incoming beams of light can produce output of a third color. Here a computer animation shows how the electromagnetic wave (red=positive, blue=negative) from the incoming light propagates through the system as a series of plasmonic waves.
CREDIT: Yu-Rong Zhen/Rice University
A copy of the PNAS paper is available at:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1220304110
This release can be found online at:
http://news.rice.edu/2013/05/21/rice-unveils-method-for-tailoring-optical-processors/
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Contact: Jade Boyd jadeboyd@rice.edu 713-348-6778 Rice University
Arranging nanoparticles in geometric patterns allows for control of light with light
HOUSTON -- (May 21, 2013) -- Rice University scientists have unveiled a robust new method for arranging metal nanoparticles in geometric patterns that can act as optical processors that transform incoming light signals into output of a different color. The breakthrough by a team of theoretical and applied physicists and engineers at Rice's Laboratory for Nanophotonics (LANP) is described this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Rice's team used the method to create an optical device in which incoming light could be directly controlled with light via a process known as "four-wave mixing." Four-wave mixing has been widely studied, but Rice's disc-patterning method is the first that can produce materials that are tailored to perform four-wave mixing with a wide range of colored inputs and outputs.
"Versatility is one of the advantages of this process," said study co-author Naomi Halas, director of LANP and Rice's Stanley C. Moore Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering and a professor of biomedical engineering, chemistry, physics and astronomy. "It allows us to mix colors in a very general way. That means not only can we send in beams of two different colors and get out a third color, but we can fine-tune the arrangements to create devices that are tailored to accept or produce a broad spectrum of colors."
The information processing that takes place inside today's computers, smartphones and tablets is electronic. Each of the billions of transistors in a computer chip uses electrical inputs to act upon and modify the electrical signals passing through it. Processing information with light instead of electricity could allow for computers that are both faster and more energy-efficient, but building an optical computer is complicated by the quantum rules that light obeys.
"In most circumstances, one beam of light won't interact with another," said LANP theoretical physicist Peter Nordlander, a co-author of the new study. "For instance, if you shine a flashlight at a wall and you cross that beam with the beam from a second flashlight, it won't matter. The light that comes out of the first flashlight will pass through, independent of the light from the second.
"This changes if the light is traveling in a 'nonlinear medium,'" he said. "The electromagnetic properties of a nonlinear medium are such that the light from one beam will interact with another. So, if you shine the two flashlights through a nonlinear medium, the intensity of the beam from the first flashlight will be reduced proportionally to the intensity of the second beam."
The patterns of metal discs LANP scientists created for the PNAS study are a type of nonlinear media. The team used electron-beam lithography to etch puck-shaped gold discs that were placed on a transparent surface for optical testing. The diameter of each disc was about one-thousandth the width of a human hair. Each was designed to harvest the energy from a particular frequency of light; by arranging a dozen of the discs in a closely spaced pattern, the team was able to enhance the nonlinear properties of the system by creating intense electrical fields.
"Our system exploits a particular plasmonic effect called a Fano resonance to boost the efficiency of the relatively weak nonlinear effect that underlies four-wave mixing," Nordlander said. "The result is a boost in the intensity of the third color of light that the device produces."
Graduate student and co-author Yu-Rong Zhen calculated the precise arrangement of 12 discs that would be required to produce two coherent Fano resonances in a single device, and graduate student and lead co-author Yu Zhang created the device that produced the four-wave mixing -- the first such material ever created.
"The device Zhang created for four-wave mixing is the most efficient yet produced for that purpose, but the value of this research goes beyond the design for this particular device," said Halas, who was recently named a member of the National Academy of Sciences for her pioneering research in nanophotonics. "The methods used to create this device can be applied to the production of a wide range of nonlinear media, each with tailored optical properties."
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High-resolution IMAGES are available for download at:
http://news.rice.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/0520-FANO-Mix-lg.jpg
CAPTION: Physicists and engineers from Rice's Laboratory for Nanophotonics have unveiled a robust new method for arranging metal nanoparticles in geometric patterns that can act as optical processors that transform incoming light signals into output of a different color.
CAPTION: By arranging optically tuned gold discs in a closely spaced pattern, Rice University scientists created intense electrical fields and enhanced the nonlinear optical properties of the system. Here a computer model displays the plasmonic interactions that give rise to the intense fields.
CAPTION: Gold discs tuned to capture the energy from two incoming beams of light can produce output of a third color. Here a computer animation shows how the electromagnetic wave (red=positive, blue=negative) from the incoming light propagates through the system as a series of plasmonic waves.
CREDIT: Yu-Rong Zhen/Rice University
A copy of the PNAS paper is available at:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1220304110
This release can be found online at:
http://news.rice.edu/2013/05/21/rice-unveils-method-for-tailoring-optical-processors/
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
CANNES, France (AP) ? The magic and glamour of Cannes can be hard to spot on a day when rain is lashing the palm trees, roiling the gray Mediterranean and pooling in puddles along the Croisette.
But the world's leading film festival can transform careers ? something no one knows that better than actors Berenice Bejo and Tahir Rahim, stars of director Asghar Farhadi's festival entry "The Past."
Bejo shimmered on-screen in Cannes two years ago in "The Artist," her director husband Michel Hazanavicius' vivacious silent homage to Hollywood's Golden Age. It went on to win five Academy Awards, including best picture.
Rahim was the breakout star of the 2009 festival in Jacques Audiard's poetic and brutal prison drama "A Prophet," as a youth growing to manhood behind bars.
Cannes exposure helped boost both performers onto the international stage. While once most European actors could choose between stay at home and playing Hollywood villains, their paths suggest a more globalized movie world.
"It was quite a miracle for me," Bejo said Saturday, as rain drummed remorselessly on a Cannes rooftop lounge. "Two years ago my life changed a little bit in Cannes.
"I don't think Asghar Farhadi would have cast me in this movie if I hadn't done 'The Artist.'"
It's hard to think of two movie styles further apart than the flamboyant artifice of "The Artist" and the anatomically detailed domestic drama of "The Past"
Bejo plays Marie, a harried Frenchwoman with two children, a new boyfriend with a young son, and an Iranian ex who has returned after four years to finalize their divorce. Rahim is her boyfriend Samir, a man with complex family ties of his own.
All the characters are trying to move on ? but the past keeps dragging them back.
Bejo said she did a screen test for Farhadi, then didn't hear from him for a month, so initially thought she hadn't got the part.
"He said to me, I was looking into your face if I could see the doubt," she said. "I guess because he saw me in movies where I was quite positive, quite sunny, quite glamorous. He needed to see if I could show another part of myself ? and I guess he found it."
For Bejo, as for Rahim, working with the Iran director was a dream come true. "The Past" is the first film Farhadi has shot outside his homeland, and the actors say they loved his working methods ? two months of rehearsal to delve into character, break down barriers and forge bonds, followed by a four-month shoot.
With its Iranian director and largely French cast, it's one of several border-hopping movies at Cannes this year. French director Arnaud Desplechin's made-in-America "Jimmy P.: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian" stars France's Mathieu Amalric and Puerto Rican actor Benicio Del Toro. Another French filmmaker, Guillaume Canet, has a multinational cast including Clive Owen, Billy Crudup and Marion Cotillard in his New York crime drama "Blood Ties."
It's a trend Bejo is happy to embrace.
"In America you have Christoph Waltz, you have Marion Cotillard," she said. "In France we have Italian and Spanish actors. ... I think it's great. We are used to strangers and foreign accents, and it's great that we can see that in our movies now."
Both she and Rahim have been busy since their Cannes breakthroughs. Bejo recently made French heist movie "The Last Diamond" and soon starts filming Hazanavicius' next project, a war movie set in Chechnya.
Rahim's projects include the English-language Roman-era adventure "The Eagle" and another movie appearing at Cannes this year, the nuclear power plant romance "Grand Central."
Coming up, he plays a cop in the French movie "The Informant," and is currently shooting a globe-spanning 1920s-set drama with Turkish-German director Fatih Akin, another pillar of culture-crossing cinema.
Despite the busy international career ? and post-"Prophet" expressions of interest from the United States ? Rahim says Hollywood remains a hard nut to crack for non-Anglophone actors.
"It's not what you expect at first," Rahim said. "You'd like to be with Michael Mann or (directors) like this, but you don't have those parts that easily. Because first you have to speak English, you have to erase your accent."
For now, he's just happy to be back in Cannes, an experience that is easier the second time around.
"The difference is that now I'm not afraid when I come here," he said. "I'm (saying) 'OK I'm going to take every good vibe and keep it.'"
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Jill Lawless can be reached at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless
Small business is big business in Utah. Our state is home to more than 58,000 small employers with 500 employees or fewer.
Salt Lake Community College, the governor?s office and regional business-service providers are working together through the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses initiative to bolster Utah?s economy and provide business resources for the creation, growth and recruitment of companies to Utah.
Gov. Gary Herbert has taken on the tremendous task of creating 100,000 jobs in 1,000 days. As the education partner for the Goldman Sachs program, Salt Lake Community College plays a lead role in that vital effort.
This national education program provides training for business owners who have survived the start-up phase and are poised for growth. Participants receive a full scholarship, which includes comprehensive business management education, a suite of customized support services, opportunities for peer-to-peer counseling and networking and access to capital.
Salt Lake Community College?s first class consists of 33 Utah business owners, who represent a broad range of industries, including retail, manufacturing, construction, medical, transportation, information technology, media, and human service areas.
Goldman Sachs chose Salt Lake Community College because of our commitment to advance economic and workforce development. Business partnership programs are offered and supported at each of our 13 sites, with our Miller Campus having the unique distinction as a one-stop shop for business services.
The college?s first cohort of 33 companies has already created more than 80 new jobs ? a remarkable accomplishment with just months of training.
Goldman Sachs plans to invest $15 million in Utah over the next five years for this program. Through this collaboration, Salt Lake Community College will potentially serve more than 350 regional businesses. Our state?s leadership is strong, our business community is growing and our business-support providers are exceptional at encouraging the entrepreneurial spirit.
Together, through the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses initiative, Salt Lake Community College and our partners will create sustainable outcomes and more vibrant communities for Utah.
story continues below
Cynthia A. Bioteau is president and CEO of Salt Lake Community College.
Copyright 2013 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
LONDON (Reuters) - A retired British politician sued the wife of the House of Commons Speaker for defamation on Thursday, accusing her of implying in a tweet that he was a pedophile guilty of sexually abusing boys living in a care home.
Alistair McAlpine, an associate of the late former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, is seeking damages from Sally Bercow in Britain's most high-profile Twitter defamation case to date.
Bercow tweeted "Why is Lord McAlpine trending? *Innocent face*" on November 4 last year, two days after a BBC report accused an unnamed "leading Conservative politician from the Thatcher years" of sexually abusing boys in the 1970s and 80s.
McAlpine was widely named on the Internet as the subject of the report, which the BBC later admitted was wrong. It paid 185,000 pounds ($281,700) in damages to McAlpine, who also received damages from others who had reported the story.
A trial at London's High Court to determine whether Bercow's tweet was defamatory began on Thursday morning. The judge is expected to reserve judgment to a later date.
If he rules that the tweet was defamatory, there will be a separate trial in July to determine the amount of damages Bercow should pay.
McAlpine's lawyer Edward Garnier, also a Conservative member of parliament, told the court Bercow's tweet was defamatory because many of her nearly 60,000 Twitter followers would have been aware of the media frenzy sparked by the BBC report.
"There was a prominent and salacious story in the media, and what was missing was the name of the abuser at its centre," Garnier said in a written argument.
"(Bercow's) tweet, by asking why he was 'trending' on Twitter combined with the coy sign-off of *innocent face*, identified (McAlpine) as the unnamed leading Conservative politician from the Thatcher years," Garnier said.
After it emerged that the BBC story was wrong and McAlpine was publicly vindicated, Bercow tweeted again on November 9: "Final on McAlpine: am VERY sorry for inadvertently fanning the flames. But I tweet as me, forgetting that to some of u I am Mrs bloody Speaker".
Bercow's husband John, as Speaker of the lower house of parliament, adjudicates the often noisy and fractious debates between Britain's rival parties who face each other across the floor of the House of Commons.
Sally Bercow's lawyer argued the tweet was not defamatory because it merely posed a question and made no statement of fact.
Bercow has frequently made the front pages of the British press. She took part in the reality TV program "Celebrity Big Brother" in 2011 and was widely criticized that year for posing wearing nothing but a bedsheet, with the House of Commons in the background, for a magazine interview.
CHICAGO (AP) ? As the guitarist strums and softly sings a lullaby in Spanish, tiny Augustin Morales stops squirming in his hospital crib and closes his eyes.
This is therapy in a newborn intensive care unit, and research suggests that music may help those born way too soon adapt to life outside the womb.
Some tiny preemies are too small and fragile to be held and comforted by human touch, and many are often fussy and show other signs of stress. Other common complications include immature lungs, eye disease, problems with sucking, and sleeping and alertness difficulties.
Recent studies and anecdotal reports suggest the vibrations and soothing rhythms of music, especially performed live in the hospital, might benefit preemies and other sick babies.
Many insurers won't pay for music therapy because of doubts that it results in any lasting medical improvement. Some doctors say the music works best at relieving babies' stress and helping parents bond with infants too sick to go home.
But amid beeping monitors, IV poles and plastic breathing tubes in infants' rooms at Chicago's Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital, music therapist Elizabeth Klinger provides a soothing contrast that even the tiniest babies seem to notice
"What music therapy can uniquely provide is that passive listening experience that just encourages relaxation for the patient, encourages participation by the family," Klinger said after a recent session in Augustin's hospital room.
The baby's parents, Lucy Morales and Alejandro Moran, stood at the crib and whispered lovingly to their son as Klinger played traditional lullabies, singing in Spanish and English.
"The music relaxes him, it makes him feel more calm" and helps him sleep better too, Lucy Morales said. "Sometimes it makes us cry."
Some families request rock music or other high-tempo songs, but Klinger always slows the beat to make it easier on tender ears.
"A lot of times families become afraid of interacting with their children because they are so sick and so frail, and music provides them something that they can still do," Klinger said, who works full time as a music therapist but her services are provided for free.
Music therapists say live performances in hospitals are better than recorded music because patients can feel the music vibrations and also benefit from seeing the musicians.
More than two dozen U.S. hospitals offer music therapy in their newborn intensive care units and its popularity is growing, said Joanne Loewy, a music therapist who directs a music and medicine program at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York.
Preemies' music therapy was even featured on a recent episode of the hit TV show "American Idol," when show finalist Kree Harrison watched a therapist working with a tiny baby at Children's Hospital Los Angeles.
"Music is such a huge part of our lives and to do something like this, make it a sort of healing process, is a cool thing," Harrison said on the April 25 episode.
Dr. Natalia Henner, a newborn specialist at Lurie hospital, said studies in nursing journals show music therapy for preemies "does help with promoting growth. And there's some good literature ... saying that the time to discharge is a little bit shorter in babies who've been exposed to more music therapy."
She said it "definitely facilitates bonding" between parents of preemies and other babies too sick to go home.
Loewy led a study published last month in the journal Pediatrics, involving 11 U.S. hospitals. Therapists in the study played special small drums to mimic womb sounds and timed the rhythm to match the infants' heartbeats. The music appeared to slow the infants' heartbeats, calm their breathing, and improve sucking and sleeping, Loewy said.
Soozie Cotter-Schaufele, a music therapist at Advocate Children's Hospital-Park Ridge near Chicago, says soothing rhythmic sounds of music can mimic womb sounds and provide a comforting environment for preemies. She sings and plays a small harp or guitar, and says the sounds help calm tiny babies while they're undergoing painful medical procedures.
Cotter-Schaufele said she recently heard from a woman whose daughter was born prematurely at her hospital six years ago. She had played the 1960s folk song "Today" for the infant.
The mother reported her daughter "'still loves that song," She said 'She didn't learn that song from me, she learned it from you,'" Cotter-Schaufele said.
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Online:
American Music Therapy Association: http://www.musictherapy.org
Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org
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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner
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Public release date: 21-May-2013
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