Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/315146179?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Five years of stereo imaging for NASA's TWINS
June 24, 2013 ? Surrounding Earth is a dynamic region called the magnetosphere. The region is governed by magnetic and electric forces, incoming energy and material from the sun, and a vast zoo of waves and processes unlike what is normally experienced in Earth-bound physics. Nestled inside this constantly changing magnetic bubble lies a donut of charged particles generally aligned with Earth's equator. Known as the ring current, its waxing and waning is a crucial part of the space weather surrounding our planet, able to induce magnetic fluctuations on the ground as well as to transmit disruptive surface charges onto spacecraft.
On June 15, 2008, a new set of instruments began stereoscopic imaging of this mysterious region. Called Two Wide-angle Imaging Neutral-atom Spectrometers or TWINS, these satellites orbit in widely separated planes to provide the first and only stereo view of the ring current. TWINS maps the energetic neutral atoms that shoot away from the ring current when created by ion collisions.
In five years of operation, the TWINS maps have provided three-dimensional images and global characterization of this region. The observatories track how the magnetosphere responds to space weather storms, characterize global information such as temperature and shape of various structures within the magnetosphere, and improve models of the magnetosphere that can be used to simulate a vast array of events.
"With two satellites, with two sets of simultaneous images we can see things that are entirely new," said Mei-Ching Fok, the project scientist for TWINS at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "This is the first ever stereoscopic energetic neutral atom mission, and it's changed the way we understand the ring current."
Each spacecraft is in a highly elliptical orbit called a Molniya orbit, during which the spacecraft spend most of their time around 20,000 miles above Earth, where they get a great view of the magnetosphere. Initially launched for a two-year mission, TWINS was formally extended in 2010 for three more years, with another multi-year extension pending. Over that time, TWINS has worked hand in hand with other NASA missions that provide information about Earth's magnetosphere.
"We've done some fantastic new research in the last five years," said David McComas, the principal investigator for TWINS at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. "As a mission of opportunity, it is a very inexpensive mission and it continues to return incredible science."
TWINS science is based on two instruments that can track neutral atoms. The first is a neutral atom imager that records the atoms that naturally stream away when a neutral atom collides with an ion. This allows the instrument to map the original ions from far away -- as if it could see atoms the way we see light -- instead of only collecting data from the areas of space it passes through.
"Over the course of the last 20 years a completely new technique evolved so we can observe charged particles, such as those in the ring current, remotely," said McComas. "The charged particles sometimes collide with a slow-moving neutral particle, in this case from a population of neutrals from Earth's highly extended atmosphere, the geocorona."
When this happens, an electron hops from the slow neutral atom to the fast ion, so now the former becomes charged, and the latter neutral. That new neutral speeds off in a straight direction, unfazed by the magnetic field lines around Earth that guide and control the motion of charged particles. TWINS collects such fast neutral particles and from that data scientists can work backward to map out the location and movement of the original ions.
The other instrument on TWINS is a Lyman alpha detector, which can measure the density of hydrogen from afar, and in this case observes the hydrogen cloud around Earth, the geocorona.
Most importantly, these instruments exist on both of the TWINS spacecraft. Much of the successful research in the last five years relies on the ability to watch these neutrals from two viewpoints, allowing scientists to analyze not only speed and number of particles, but also to determine the angles at which the particles left their original collisions. The stereo vision contributed to the detailed perspectives on how the magnetosphere reacts to space weather storms: both those due to the impact of a coronal mass ejection that traveled from the sun toward Earth and due to an incoming twist in the solar wind known as a co-rotating interaction region. TWINS has also revealed that the pitch angle at which the ions travel around Earth is different on each side of the planet. Such information helps scientists determine whether the ions are more likely to escape from the ring current out into space or to ultimately funnel down toward Earth.
"TWINS is a stereo mission, providing the first observations of the neutral atoms from two vantage points, but two spacecraft give us another advantage," said Natalia Buzulukova, a magnetospheric scientist at Goddard who works with TWINS data. "Two spacecraft provide continuous coverage of the ring current, as one set of instruments always has a view."
Because the spacecraft orbits are not in sync they provide stereoscopic imaging for a few hours each day, but there is always at least one spacecraft keeping tabs on how events are unfolding. Prior to TWINS, a spacecraft might see a tantalizing process taking place in the ring current for only a short while before its orbit took it out of view. The event might well have finished before the spacecraft came back around for its second look.
Such continuity has proved useful to determine what governs whether particles in the ring current will precipitate downward toward Earth as well as to provide a global temperature map of the magnetic tail trailing behind Earth, the magnetotail. Such a map had only ever previously been inferred from models and statistical analysis, never from a comprehensive data set of what was actually observed.
The Lyman-alpha instrument has been used in two ways. For one thing, it quantifies the geocorona in order to better understand how it affects the collisions in the ring current. It also has taught us more about the geocorona itself. Previously, researchers believed it to be a fairly simple sphere around Earth. The two TWINS instruments have shown how asymmetric it is, changing with the solar cycle, seasons, and even the hours of the day.
A final important feature of this fire hose of TWINS data is how much it helps improve computer simulations of the ring current and the rest of the magnetosphere. With accurate computer models, scientists can better predict how the magnetosphere will react to any given space weather event.
"We get two really unique things with two spacecraft: stereo imaging and continuous coverage. Together the observations we get are fantastic," said McComas. "It's an incredibly powerful combination of tools."
TWINS is an Explorer Mission of Opportunity. Southwest Research Institute leads TWINS with teams of national and international partners. Goddard manages the Explorers Program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C.
For more information about TWINS science and mission, visit: http://science.nasa.gov/missions/twins/
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/space_time/astronomy/~3/Xky6buFd45M/130624141606.htm
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Travel Search Site Wego Closes $17M Series C
Travel search site, Wego, just closed its Series C round of $17 million. The round was led by Crescent Point, a fund manager with offices in Singapore and China that focuses on investments in Asia. Wego’s site provides a metasearch across about 600 airline carriers and 400,000 hotels, and charges business clients based on referrals to travelers coming in. Earlier this year, it teamed up with home rental marketplace Travelmob to include the latter’s 400,000 Airbnb-style listings in its search too. This round of funding brings the total so far to $36 million for the eight-year-old company, said Ross Veitch, Wego’s co-founder and CEO. Wego was founded by Veitch and Craig Hewett, two Australians living in Singapore, where its headquarters are. The company also has offices in Australia, Indonesia, India and most recently in Dubai. Veitch said the company plans to use the funding to hire more people for its headquarters and to push its expansion in the Middle East. About 50 people work in Wego’s Singapore offices, and he expects to add about 20 more marketing staff and a couple of data scientists to the headcount there. Additionally, about 12 country development managers will be hired as well in Singapore; each person will be responsible for a new country, and will accompany the spin out of a new office in his territory if business there reaches a tipping point. Globally, Wego has about 100 staff. The point on data scientists is indicative of Wego’s plans to make its user data more interesting for corporate clients. “We’ve been collecting data from users since day 1?every flight they’ve searched for and taken, brand preferences, favorable price points, destinations they like, business or economy flights, five or four star hotels,” said Veitch. This data mined from the audience segments can be used to augment display ads on Wego, as well as on its ad bidding exchange. Advertising contributes about a third of its revenue at the moment. The rest of it comes from referral clicks or successful transactions at the hotel or airline end, depending on the contract with Wego. Wego competes with sites like Zuji and Agoda, although Wego embeds the others’ search results in its own. The lead investor in this round, Crescent Point, has had previous investments in the travel space. According to its site, it was the second-largest shareholder in Malaysian airline, AirAsia before the company went publicSource: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/wL16wLTVQjg/
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Monday, June 24, 2013
91% Gimme The Loot
All Critics (57) | Top Critics (23) | Fresh (52) | Rotten (5)
'Gimme the Loot' is ... meandering and a little shallow. And even at 79 minutes it feels a little too long for what's essentially the film equivalent of a short story.
A thousand-watt jolt of mischief, a spunky, funky, ebullient indie that packs its 81 minutes with cinematic exhilaration.
It may be a slight movie, but it has its sunny charms.
A movie about teenage taggers in the Bronx should be fast and raw, scruffy and loose, and Adam Leon's Gimme the Loot is just that.
As it lopes along, the movie offers a warm but very sharp portrait of New York's have-nots and their uneasy relationship with the haves.
"Gimme the Loot" shouldn't be as appealing and exuberant as it is, it really shouldn't.
First-time feature director Adam Leon's shots are precise and full of detail.
The film's strong suit is its use of locations.
The film is episodic and determinedly offbeat, funny at its best, boring at its worst.
Shot on the streets of New York in a loose, freeform style, this lively comedy-drama feels somewhat underdeveloped, leaving us doubtful about its realism.
It's a great deal of fun, emotionally touching, and even surprisingly old-fashioned.
Some of the movie doesn't exactly convince, and some of the scenes have an actors-improv feel to them, but there's always plenty of humour and energy.
Endlessly entertaining, refreshingly light-hearted and bursting with summer soul, Gimme The Loot joins the pantheon of great New York movies.
It's a shaggy dog story with a certain amount of charm but not nearly enough drama.
The movie is unpolished, and it matters not a jot, because Leon has written super roles for these kids and invests their relationship with such sly feeling.
Hickson walks the line between bravado and vulnerability, while Washington has a charisma, spark and beauty that should ensure this won't be the last we see of her.
Bolstered by a low-key but assured aesthetic and a soundtrack of vintage soul and doo-wop, the film is infectiously enjoyable, with frequently amusing insights and an affable shagginess.
Out of nowhere, Adam Leon might just have delivered the first great New York film of the decade.
Charming and engaging low-budget indie with a witty script, likeable characters, a strong sense of time and place and a pair of terrific performances from its two young leads.
Funny and freewheeling, it's a joy.
A slim, low-budget coming-of-age tale whose richness lies entirely in its interstices. A keenly observed work that celebrates the unfettered joys of youth, and rewards by reminding of the power of a simple tale told well.
Simultaneously real and hopeful, "Loot" has almost no plot, but when the setting is so fresh and the characters feel so raw and alive, who needs one?
Ghetto laughs with a sophisticated point of view.
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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gimme_the_loot_2012/
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Sunday, June 23, 2013
Sharapova sends verbal shot Serena Williams' way
LONDON (AP) ? Maria Sharapova took quite a shot at Serena Williams ? and it was nowhere near a tennis court.
At her pre-Wimbledon news conference Saturday, Sharapova was asked about a recent Rolling Stone article where the author surmised that critical comments directed at an unnamed player by Williams were referring to Sharapova.
"At the end of the day, we have a tremendous amount of respect for what we do on the court. I just think she should be talking about her accomplishments, her achievements, rather than everything else that's just getting attention and controversy," Sharapova said.
"If she wants to talk about something personal, maybe she should talk about her relationship and her boyfriend that was married and is getting a divorce and has kids," Sharapova continued. "Talk about other things, but not draw attention to other things. She has so much in her life, many positives, and I think that's what it should be about."
Williams has been linked to coach Patrick Mouratoglou, but neither has confirmed their relationship extends beyond the court. When Mouratoglou was asked about the topic at the French Open this month, he smiled and replied: "Sorry. I don't understand the question."
According to the Rolling Stone story, posted online Tuesday, Williams spoke about what the reporter described as "a top-five player who is now in love."
Williams is quoted as saying: "She begins every interview with 'I'm so happy. I'm so lucky' ? it's so boring. She's still not going to be invited to the cool parties. And, hey, if she wants to be with the guy with a black heart, go for it."
That is followed by these words in parentheses from the author of the piece, Stephen Rodrick: "An educated guess is she's talking about Sharapova, who is now dating Grigor Dimitrov, one of Serena's rumored exes."
Sharapova beat Williams in the 2004 Wimbledon final. But Williams has won their past 13 matches in a row, including in the French Open final two weeks ago.
At Wimbledon, where play begins Monday, Williams is the defending champion and seeded No. 1. Sharapova is seeded No. 3. They only could face each other in the final.
Williams is scheduled to hold a pre-tournament news conference at Wimbledon on Sunday.
The Rolling Stone article, which was about 4,000 words, drew widespread attention mostly for a one-paragraph reference to the Steubenville rape case. Williams is quoted as saying the teenage victim "shouldn't have put herself in that position."
Two players from the Steubenville, Ohio, high school football team were convicted in March of raping a drunken 16-year-old girl; one of the boys was ordered to serve an additional year for photographing the girl naked. The case gained widespread attention in part because of the callousness with which other students used social media to gossip about it.
A day after the story was posted, Williams issued a statement in which she said she was "reaching out to the girl's family to let her know that I am deeply sorry for what was written."
Williams' statement continued: "What was written ? what I supposedly said ? is insensitive and hurtful, and I by no means would say or insinuate that she was at all to blame."
Said Sharapova on Saturday: "I was definitely sad to hear what she had to say about the whole case."
___
Follow Howard Fendrich on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HowardFendrich
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/sharapova-sends-verbal-shot-serena-williams-way-170739505.html
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Beagle-boxer-basset wins World's Ugliest Dog
PETALUMA, Calif. (AP) ? A huge-headed, duck-footed mix of beagle, boxer and basset hound was the upset winner Friday at the 25th annual World's Ugliest Dog Contest.
Walle (WAHL-ee), a 4-year-old mutt from Chico, Calif., who was entered at the last minute, was judged most unsightly of 30 dogs at the Northern California competition.
"This dog looked like he's been photo-shopped with pieces from various dogs and maybe a few other animals," judge Brian Sobel said.
Walle overcame the dominance in recent years by nearly hairless Chihuahuas, Chinese cresteds, or combinations of the two.
Owner Tammie Barbee got the dog when he was three months old.
"People come up to me and say that dog is not right," Barbee said, "but I love him."
Judges said they were especially impressed by Walle's bizarre waddle of a walk.
Walle wins $1,500 and will make several network TV appearances next week, including NBC's "Today" show and ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live."
The contest at the Sonoma-Marin Fairgrounds gets worldwide attention, with media from around the world traveling to Petaluma, about 40 miles north of San Francisco.
Organizers say the dogs are judged for their "natural ugliness in both pedigree and mutt classes."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/beagle-boxer-basset-wins-worlds-ugliest-dog-034143349.html
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Those We're the Best Day's of my Life
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A group of high school graduate's, living in the early 1960's are getting ready to move on to college and go their separate ways in life, and are enjoying one last summer together. But what will happen when they end up all going to the same college?
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Forum for completely Out of Character (OOC) discussion, based around whatever is happening In Character (IC). Discuss plans, storylines, and events; Recruit for your roleplaying game, or find a GM for your playergroup.First post: ? 1 post ? Page 1 of 1
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HP Elitebook Revolve 810
-
Pros
Rugged construction. Magnesium-alloy chassis. Gorilla-Glass-covered display. Laptop-class processor provides solid performance.
- Cons Only one USB port. No HDMI.
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Bottom Line
The HP Elitebook Revolve 810 combines industrial-strength construction with portability and convenience, making it a solid convertible laptop for the business user on the go.
Armed with a third-generation 1.9GHz Intel Core i5-3437U processor and 4GB of RAM, the Elitebook Revolve 810 is a full class ahead of Atom-based tablets like the Dell Latitude 10 Enhanced Security, and is on par with other business tablets and convertibles like the Microsoft Surface Windows 8 Pro and Lenovo ThinkPad Twist (3347-4HU). In PCMark 7 the Revolve 810 scored 4,510 points, ahead of the Lenovo ThinkPad Twist (2,749 points) and the Kupa UltraNote X15 Ultra (4,487 points) but behind the Microsoft Surface Pro (4,768 points). The same was true in Cinebench, where the Revolve 810 scored 2.68 points.
Multimedia tests suggest that real-world performance will be more than adequate, completing Handbrake in 1 minute 23 seconds and Photoshop CS6 in 5:43. The integrated Intel graphics aren't going to provide enough oomph for demanding graphics applications, like AutoCAD or gaming, but for most office applications and web browsing tasks, it will be more than adequate.
Due to an unexpected software issue we were unable to test the battery life using our normal battery rundown test, but HP estimates that the 6-cell, 44Wh battery will last "up to 8 hours and 15 minutes" and our own use of the machine?unplugged, online via Wi-Fi?supports this estimate.
If your business use demands the convenience and portability of a tablet, but can't afford to sacrifice durability and business features, the HP Elitebook Revolve 810 is a solid performer with rugged construction and a business-minded feature set. Whether it's as a tablet or a laptop, it provides a blend of productive capabilities and business-focused features that put it on par with the Editors' Choice Microsoft Surface Pro.
Other Hewlett-Packard Laptops & Notebooks
By Brian Westover Analyst, Hardware Brian Westover is an Analyst for the Hardware Team, reviewing laptops, desktops, and storage devices. As a child, Brian was frequently asked "What do you want to be when you grow up?" His answer alternated between...
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Health and Fitness Friday : I'm Injured and Clean Eating
It's Friday peeps!! Wooo!
Saturday : Rest
Sunday : 5k walk + abs
Monday : Rest
Tuesday : 30 day shred
Wednesday : Rest
Thursday : 30 day abs
Friday (today) : ???
There is way to many rest days on that list and It bugs me that I got no runs in. I need to get a system going. I need to find a way to work it around my kids. And I think the only way to get a run in is to get up early and hit the road when everyone else is in bed.
Health
Didn't do too good this week. Dinners were good. But my snacking. OH MY GOD!! Everything and anything I could get my hands on, I ate. Not good!! I'm putting it down to not have?worked?out much. When I work out every day. I don't seem to want to snack as much and when I do snack, ?I snack healthier. It's all connected.
?The other thing I've been looking into is clean eating/ Paleo diet. It seem to be very cut back clean eating which would be good for me. But I'm not sure if I could go all in. I found a great site?Paleo Cupboard?and the?recipes?on her?Pinterest boards?all look amazing. I might try a few this week and see how they go.Happy?Friday?!
Have a great weekend.
Source: http://mycountrygirlramblings.blogspot.com/2013/06/health-and-fitness-friday-im-injured.html
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Saturday, June 22, 2013
Beaming Internet to the Boondocks, Via Balloon
Copyright ? 2013 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.
IRA FLATOW, HOST:
This is SCIENCE FRIDAY, I'm Ira Flatow. If you have a smartphone, you might take the Internet for granted, right? It's always there. But around the world, some four and a half billion people still are not connected. Google, being in the Internet business, has a plan to expand its reach, bring Internet to all these people, but it's not by spooling out fiber-optic cable or building cell towers. It's using a technology that, well, sort of sounds like it belongs in another century: free-floating balloons. They call it Project Loon.
They've already launched a pilot system in New Zealand and plan to expand that to the entire 40th parallel south, a ring around the globe. Can it work? How loony is this idea? How do you ensure coverage with a network of thousands of balloons floating through the stratosphere? How do you control these things?
Mike Cassidy is the leader of Project Loon, based at Google X, that's Google's secret lab in Mountain View, California. He joins us by phone. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY, Dr. Cassidy.
MIKE CASSIDY: Thanks so much.
FLATOW: Balloons, whose idea was it to have balloons?
CASSIDY: Well, I mean, Larry Page has talked about using balloons for Internet for a while. It's an older technology, as you pointed out. Chinese used them quite a while ago to signal from high up. So it's been around for - the idea's been around for a while, actually.
FLATOW: Tell me about the pilot program that's running now in New Zealand? How many balloons have you launched? How does it work?
CASSIDY: We launched about 30 balloons down in New Zealand, and they're about 20 kilometers up, twice as high as commercial airplanes fly, and they can bring 3G signal from that height all the way down to the ground.
FLATOW: 3G signal from how many feet, 30,000?
CASSIDY: Twenty kilometers up, more like 70,000, 70,000 feet, yeah.
FLATOW: Seventy thousand, and you can get 3G signals down there. Wow.
CASSIDY: Yep.
FLATOW: And it's working?
CASSIDY: Yeah, it works great.
FLATOW: Are you expanding the program at all in a larger test?
CASSIDY: So, the one thing about balloons is they tend to move sort of west to east. So once we put balloons up there, they will float in a ring around the world, and they're - some of the balloons are right now on their way to Chile and Argentina. The goal of the project, once we roll it out further, is to have a continuous ring around the world at 40 degrees south latitude, and anyone under those - the path of the balloons would be able to use the trial service.
FLATOW: So it's like if I go up in a hot air balloon, I sort of - I go where the air current go. Is that the same thing here?
CASSIDY: And that's one of the cool things about the project. We can steer the balloons by increasing or decreasing the altitude of the balloon and finding a wind that's going the direction we want. So if we see we want to go a little bit further north, we perhaps drop down a half a kilometer, find a wind going that direction and then stop at that altitude, and that's the way we steer the balloons.
FLATOW: And how long can they stay up?
CASSIDY: We're hoping the balloons will stay up for 100 days. This design has lasted 58 days previously. So we need to make a few improvements to get to that 100-day duration.
FLATOW: Now we talked to Terry Hock, who is a senior engineer at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and he has a lot of experience launching these sort of balloons. And he said, and let me quote him: "It's very feasible to launch them and have them navigate the globe. In terms of trying to control them, steering the balloon by changing altitude is incredibly difficult to do. I wouldn't have a whole lot of faith in that part of it." Would you say that there are significant challenges in that?
CASSIDY: There's definitely challenges. It requires a pretty sophisticated computational algorithm to say, OK, balloon number one is now moving 10 miles an hour east over a certain spot; balloon number two, in order to take its place, it's moving slightly southeast. Balloon number three, which is going to take that one's place, is at 14 miles an hour moving a slightly different direction.
But that's one of the things that Google has experience with, building a sort of large simulation, large computational ability and be able to program these thousands of balloons to go to right place at the right time.
FLATOW: And where is that right place?
CASSIDY: Well, for the pilot test, for example, if we want to have a continuous ring, we don't actually have them uniformly distributed around the globe. For example we don't need the same density over the middle of the Pacific Ocean as we do over Christ Church itself. But by steering them and planning, you can have them appear in the right density in the sky over the places that need coverage.
FLATOW: And where - would those - those are under-covered places around the world. Where are the prime places for that?
CASSIDY: There's lots of places. In the Southern Hemisphere alone, two-thirds of the countries, the cost of Internet access is higher than the average monthly income for people in those countries. Even in China and India, there's over a billion people that don't have good Internet coverage. So I think there's lots of places around the world where there's sort of remote and rural areas that don't have coverage, or it's unaffordable.
FLATOW: So would you have to keep relaunching new balloons as these go down just to keep that ring going?
CASSIDY: Yes, every 100 days you'd have to put up another balloon to take the place of the one that came down.
FLATOW: Now at those altitudes, aren't we talking about extremely cold temperatures, like minus-70 below Fahrenheit up there?
CASSIDY: It's a tough environment. In the daytime it's typically minus-40 Celsius, and at night it's minus-60 Celsius. It's also very low atmospheric density, only about 2 or 3 percent of the density of the air up there that it is down here. So it's closer to a space environment. It's also a high-ultraviolet environment. The sun beats down really hard on our balloons. So it is a tough environment to live in.
FLATOW: Why is this better than just putting a satellite up and doing it that way?
CASSIDY: So we don't think our solution or anyone's solution is the only solution. We think there are different approaches. One of the interesting things about our approach is we can continuously update our service every 100 days. With communications satellites, and I actually, I'm an aerospace engineer, I used to build communications satellites, it often takes quite a while, a number of years, to build the satellites.
It can be quite expensive, hundreds of millions of dollars. And it's also on the order of a hundred million dollars to put the satellite up. And then the satellites sometimes will have a life of 10 years or so, and that's great except that also means the technology was - it's not easy to get the latest technology up into the satellite.
FLATOW: So you can - by launching a new balloon every 100 days, you can upgrade the hardware, too, by doing that.
CASSIDY: That's right. You get the latest state-of-the-art technology every 100 days.
FLATOW: And what is - give us an idea of the costs involved here. What does a balloon and its package cost to get up there?
CASSIDY: So this is very early in the stage of the sort of pilot test. We're building these things by hand now. But the exciting thing is the envelope for the balloon is made out of polyethylene, plastic, so it's not a very exotic plastic, and the electronical components are mostly off the shelf, I mean, an off-the-shelf-type battery, an electronics GPS module.
So we're hopeful that by using low-cost parts, off-the-shelf-type technology, we can make the system low cost and therefore very affordable for people when we roll out the service.
FLATOW: And when would that be rolled out?
CASSIDY: Well again, it's sort of early days. We've just launched last Saturday this sort of small pilot test. So it's really hard to predict how long it will take to expand, yet alone to other areas in New Zealand and other areas around the 40th degree latitude let alone sort of moving to other areas. But we hope soon.
FLATOW: And 40 degree latitude, would that be like where New Zealand is in the southern Pacific and head out there?
CASSIDY: That's right, that's right, and that was one of the reasons we thought it would be a good place to do our pilot test because it was an easy number of countries to do the test in, four countries: New Zealand, Australia, Chile and Argentina would be sort of flown over by the balloons. So it made it a more manageable size.
FLATOW: And I guess you write off the balloon when it comes down, right? No one's going to retrieve it. It might come down in the ocean.
CASSIDY: No, we plan to retrieve - we hope to retrieve all the balloons. We have a very high retention and recovery rate right now. We can control where the balloons come down. So as they become near the end of their life, we open up a little valve at the top and bring the balloon down to a recovery area.
We had a boat off the coast of New Zealand for some of the test balloons. When we were done with the test, we brought them down in the ocean and recovered them. But yes, we plan to recover almost all the balloons if we can.
FLATOW: And how many total number of balloons do you envision in the ring at any one time?
CASSIDY: For a ring around the 40th degree south latitude, we think it'll take about 300 balloons, spacing them out, depending on whether the coverage density is required. And obviously to expand beyond that ring of 40 degrees south latitude will take, you know, thousands of balloons to go more than that.
FLATOW: Sounds exciting. We wish you luck, Mike.
CASSIDY: Thanks so much for having us on today.
FLATOW: You're welcome. Mike Cassidy, leader of Project Loon. That's based at Google X. He was joining us by phone to talk about that.
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Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/06/21/194230814/beaming-internet-to-the-boondocks-via-balloon?ft=1&f=1007
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Friday, June 21, 2013
4 shot, 3 dead in Ky. condominium complex shooting
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) ? A domestic situation apparently prompted the midweek shooting at a condominium complex in an upscale Louisville neighborhood that claimed three lives and left a fourth person badly wounded, police said.
Louisville Metro Police spokesman Dwight Mitchell identified the dead from the shooting Wednesday afternoon as a girl, a 38-year-old woman and a 40-year-old man. He didn't release their names nor disclose a possible motive in the hours after the shooting.
He added that a woman in her 60s was hospitalized in critical condition after the shooting Wednesday afternoon.
The shooting at the Lakeview Condominum complex located near a neighborhood of upper middle class homes in Louisville is being investigated by a homicide unit, Mitchell said.
He said the suspect apparently was among the dead and police don't think anyone was "on the loose." He didn't identify the suspect but said police had gathered evidence and were interviewing witnesses.
The University of Louisville Hospital, contacted by The Associated Press early Thursday, said it could not release any information on the woman's condition until she was identified by name.
Mitchell said the shootings took place inside a residence but he declined to say whether there were other people inside at the time.
The Lakeview Condominiums complex lies in a neighborhood filled with upper-middle-class homes with manicured lawns.
About two hours after the shootings, a man and a woman who was crying went to the area cordoned off by police. They didn't speak to reporters but crossed the police tape and talked briefly to an officer before being escorted back to their vehicle to leave.
About a half-hour later, a different pair came and also spoke to police, the woman visibly shaken and weeping, before being walked back to their vehicle and driving off.
Molly Hoekstra said she has lived in the complex for nearly two years. She returned home Wednesday to find the building blocked off by police tape.
"It's always been really safe and neighborly," she said of the community, adding she was shaken up and would spend the night with relatives.
Alexa Hall, a resident, told The Courier-Journal newspaper ( http://cjky.it/104yWAC ) of Louisville that she was at the complex's pool when a man and a boy came running, shouting that shots had been fired. They urged someone to call police, according to the newspaper.
She described a scene of panic and confusion soon after the shooting.
"Nobody really knew what to do," she said, adding people stood by watching as police arrived.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/4-shot-3-dead-ky-condominium-complex-shooting-102516916.html
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Potential drug compound attacks Parkinson's on two fronts
June 20, 2013 ? Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found a compound that could counter Parkinson's disease in two ways at once.
In a new study published recently online ahead of print by the journal ACS Chemical Biology, the scientists describe a "dual inhibitor" -- two compounds in a single molecule -- that attacks a pair of proteins closely associated with development of Parkinson's disease.
"In general, these two enzymes amplify the effect of each other," said team leader Phil LoGrasso, a TSRI professor who has been a pioneer in the development of JNK inhibitors for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. "What we were looking for is a high-affinity, high-selectivity treatment that is additive or synergistic in its effect -- a one-two punch."
That could be what they found.
This new dual inhibitor attacks two enzymes -- the leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) and the c-jun-N-terminal kinase (JNK) -- pronounced "junk." Genetic testing of several thousand Parkinson's patients has shown that mutations in the LRRK2 gene increase the risk of Parkinson's disease, while JNK has been shown to play an important role in neuron (nerve cell) survival in a range of neurodegenerative diseases. As such, they have become highly viable targets for drugs to treat disorders such as Parkinson's disease.
A dual inhibitor ultimately would be preferred over separate individual JNK and LRRK2 inhibitors because a combination molecule would eliminate complications of drug-drug interactions and the need to optimize individual inhibitor doses for efficacy, the study noted.
Now the team's new dual inhibitor will need to be optimized for potency, high selectivity (which reduces off-target side effects) and bioavailability so it can be tested in animal models of Parkinson's disease.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/health_medicine/genes/~3/p7Umt7hwgkQ/130620111138.htm
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Vast British spy op revealed in documents
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's spy agency GCHQ has tapped fiber-optic cables that carry international phone and internet traffic and is sharing vast quantities of personal information with the U.S. National Security Agency, the Guardian newspaper said on Friday.
The paper, which has in recent weeks been publishing details of top-secret surveillance programs exposed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, said on its website that Snowden had shown it documents about a project codenamed "Tempora."
Tempora has been running for about 18 months and allows GCHQ, which stands for Government Communications Headquarters, to tap into and store huge volumes of data drawn from fiber-optic cables for up to 30 days, the paper said.
The Guardian said Snowden had provided it with access to documents about GCHQ's alleged cable-tapping operation as part of his effort to expose "the largest program of suspicionless surveillance in human history."
For decades, the NSA and GCHQ have worked as close partners, sharing intelligence under an arrangement known as the UKUSA agreement. They also collaborate with eavesdropping agencies in Canada, Australia and New Zealand under an arrangement known as the "Five Eyes" alliance.
The latest Guardian story will likely put more pressure on British Prime Minister David Cameron's government to reassure the public about how data about them is collected and used.
Earlier this month, in response to questions about the secret U.S. data-monitoring program Prism, British Foreign Secretary William Hague told Parliament that GCHQ always adhered to British law when processing data gained from eavesdropping.
He would not confirm or deny any details of UK-U.S. intelligence sharing, saying that to do so could help Britain's enemies.
"In line with long-standing practice we do not comment on intelligence matters," a GCHQ spokesman said on Friday.
NSA spokeswoman Judith Emmel rejected any suggestion the U.S. agency used the British to do things the NSA cannot do legally. Under U.S. law, the NSA must get authorization from a secret federal court to collect information either in bulk or on specific people.
"Any allegation that NSA relies on its foreign partners to circumvent U.S. law is absolutely false. NSA does not ask its foreign partners to undertake any intelligence activity that the U.S. government would be legally prohibited from undertaking itself," Emmel said.
INTERCEPT PROBES
The Tempora operation involves attaching intercept probes to transatlantic cables where they land on British shores from North America, the Guardian said.
That was done with the agreement of unnamed companies, which were forbidden from revealing warrants that compelled them to allow GCHQ access, it added.
Snowden made world headlines earlier this month when he provided details of NSA surveillance programs to the Guardian and the Washington Post.
In Washington, Snowden's disclosures have ignited a political storm over the balance between privacy rights and national security, but the NSA has defended the programs, saying they have disrupted possible attacks.
In the wake of Snowden's revelations, U.S. officials acknowledged that the NSA, with cooperation from internet and telephone companies, collected email on foreign intelligence suspects, including counterterrorism targets, as well as masses of raw data on calls made within the United States and overseas by subscribers to major telephone companies.
The content of messages of people in the United States - including U.S. citizens - sometimes are intercepted "incidentally," officials have said, but rules require such intercepts to be purged unless U.S. authorities get court authorization.
(Reporting by Rosalba O'Brien and Michael Holden in London and Mark Hosenball in Washington; Editing by Andrew Roche and Peter Cooney)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/british-spy-agency-taps-cables-shares-nsa-guardian-181011320.html
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