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Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Welcome to Space Camp [Video]
Monday, January 30, 2012
Dragon Dictation (for iPhone)
iPhone 3G, 3GS, and 4 owners coping with Siri envy can find several good apps in Apple's App Store that replicate some?but not all?of Siri's functions. Bing's iPhone app offers excellent voice-controlled Web searches, for example, while Dragon Go! listens to the commands you speak for other Web functions, like using specific online sites and services such as OpenTable, Wolfram Alpha, and Yelp. From the same maker of Dragon Go!, Nuance Communication, comes another voice-controlled app designed to increase productivity and take the stress off your typing fingers: Dragon Dictation for iPhone (free). As a simple dictation app, Dragon transcribes whatever you speak. End of story. The app does have some shortcut buttons to push the transcribed text through to Facebook, a new email message, and a few other places, but Dragon Dictate doesn't actually store any notes in the app itself.
As far as free apps go, Dragon Dictation for iPhone does a good job in its core mission: transcribing what you say aloud. But it doesn't go much beyond that.
What Dragon Dictation Can Do
Dragon Dictation is relatively accurate and fast, although users should have reasonable expectations for what that means in a lightweight app. When you press the button that tells Dragon to start listening to your speech, a "Recording" screen appears, with moving indicator bars to show that it can hear you. When you finish speaking, Dragon can (if you enable this setting) automatically detect the end of your speech, but you can press the "Done" button instead if you prefer. The app then needs a moment or two, depending on how much you just said, to process the language before spitting out typed text. When the text appears on screen, you can select any word to delete or revise. If Dragon has a second guess at what the word or words are supposed to say, it will suggest the alternate, which you can pick without having to key it in.
Check out The Best iPhone Apps
At the bottom of the screen are two selections, one to pop open the keyboard and one that offers you these options: copy, email, send via SMS text message, post to Twitter, post to Facebook, and settings.
If you stop after speaking a few lines, check the transcription, and then start up again, the Dragon iPhone app will pick up where you left off, so long as you haven't moved the cursor.
In terms of accuracy, the app isn?t as clever as the full desktop dictation software, like Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5 Premium for Windows ($199.99, 4.5 stars), but it's pretty good. And it works even better if you turn on a setting Recognize Names, which uses names from your Contacts list to inform Dragon on spelling.
It also handles homonyms fairly well because it looks for clues in which other words are commonly used nearby; in testing, the most common errors I saw were with similar-sounding words rather than homonyms per se. Some examples are: "we'll" and "well"; "in a" and "and a"; "endure" and "indoor."
What Dragon Dictation Cannot Do
A few of the app's limitations really bothered me. In particular I was frustrated by the inability to shake to undo, a standard feature in iOS that I use often because I am forever accidentally deleting large swathes of text. You also can't train this little app to learn special words, like proper names of places and people that might not be in your Contacts list.
Dragon Dictation is a dictation app, and not a note-taking app, so you can't save notes inside the app. I really wish the next update would add this feature, because having it would make it so much more valuable. As it is, you can copy your transcriptions and paste them into another note app, but that's clunky. I want to save the notes I make quickly and in the app where I created them. Or, better, I'd love to see a partnership with a note-taking app so that all Dragon notes I make are automatically saved to a service such as Evernote or Awesome Note (+ToDo).
Another clumsy feature in the otherwise simple and clean Dragon Dictation iPhone app rears its ugly head when you try to scroll through a long note. Six sentences into the "Gettysburg Address," it became very difficult for me to get to the bottom of the note. Every time I touched the app to scroll, words would highlight for correction. Getting the cursor where I needed it became a painstaking task.
Dragon for Dictation
In sampling speech-recognition and voice-command software, I've had overwhelmingly positive experiences with Nuance's Dragon family of products. For accuracy and speed, the Dragon Dictation iPhone app meets the standards of the brand. The usability could be improved, however, and it wouldn't take too much heavy-lifting to elevate it from being a "very good app for some" to "very good app, even if you don't think you need it." Dictation is a time-saver over typing, but Dragon Dictation needs to make it easier for users to put their words to work, adding an ability to save notes in the app or automatically save them to a third-party app, as well as cut out some of the tapping needed to send a message to email, text, Facebook, and Twitter, with a few simple voice commands.
More iPhone App Reviews:
??? Dragon Dictation (for iPhone)
??? AntiCrop (for iPhone)
??? Adobe Photoshop Express 2.0 (for iPhone)
??? CameraBag 1.93 (for iPhone)
??? Camera+ 2.4VS (for iPhone)
?? more
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Nook Tablet gets easy root shortcut via SD card (video)
Continue reading Nook Tablet gets easy root shortcut via SD card (video)
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Sunday, January 29, 2012
No crowing from Donovan after win against Dempsey
updated 9:38 a.m. ET Jan. 28, 2012
LIVERPOOL, England - There was no crowing from Landon Donovan after he led his Everton side to victory over Clint Dempsey's Fulham in England's FA Cup.
After all, the U.S. teammates will be on the same side again soon enough.
Donovan set up both Everton goals in Friday night's 2-1 win but says Dempsey is still the American success story in this season's Premier League.
The former New England Revolution forward has scored 15 goals for Fulham since August and Donovan says "in my opinion, he's been one of the players of the season in the Premier League."
United States international Tim Howard was in goal for Everton and Donovan says the match was "a little bit of an American invasion."
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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More newsArsenal advances in FA Cup
??Roundup: Arsenal kept its bid to end a seven-year trophy drought on track Sunday, scoring three times in eight second-half minutes to beat Aston Villa 3-2 and reach the fifth round of the FA Cup.
Bragging rights
Abby Wambach and Christine Sinclair have spent the last two weeks chasing each other, chasing history and chasing a place in the London Olympics.
Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/46173803/ns/sports-soccer/
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Selig to decide Epstein compensation
updated 8:12 p.m. ET Jan. 27, 2012
CHICAGO - Commissioner Bud Selig will decide what compensation the Boston Red Sox will receive for Theo Epstein's move to the Chicago Cubs.
Epstein left as Boston's general manager with a year left on his contract to become president of baseball operations for the Cubs.
Epstein got a five-year, $18.5 million deal in late October. But the two teams have not been able to agree on compensation and now it's up to Selig.
Selig said Friday night he'd like to have it done as quickly as possible. He said he gave the clubs more latitude in hopes they'd reach an agreement, but they couldn't. Selig said now it's his decision and that's OK, all part of the job.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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More newsGetty ImagesNot quite ready for spring
DeMarco: Just because Prince? Fielder finally signed, that doesn't mean the offseason is out of storylines. Here's what has to be sorted out before spring training starts in three weeks.
Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/46170556/ns/sports-baseball/
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Saturday, January 28, 2012
Tiger Woods Live Scores From Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship Round 2
Golfweek:
While many on the East Coast will be fast asleep, those on the West Coast will get a midnight treat tonight, as Tiger Woods plays in the second round of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.
He'll tee off with Rory McIlroy and Luke Donald at 3:05 a.m. EST
Read the whole story: Golfweek
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FACT CHECK: Debate over 'ghetto language' ad
Republican presidential candidates, from left, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, look toward moderator Wolf Blitzer of CNN as they participate in the Republican presidential candidates debate in Jacksonville, Fla., Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Republican presidential candidates, from left, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, look toward moderator Wolf Blitzer of CNN as they participate in the Republican presidential candidates debate in Jacksonville, Fla., Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Republican presidential candidates, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney talk during a commercial break at the Republican presidential candidates debate in Jacksonville, Fla., Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Republican presidential candidate former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum participates in the Republican presidential candidates debate in Jacksonville, Fla., Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Mitt Romney accuses Newt Gingrich of calling Spanish a "ghetto language." Close, but not quite.
Gingrich denies doing so and said he merely promoted the use of English, "period." That's even more of a stretch.
The last Republican presidential debate before the GOP Florida primary Thursday brought viewers a blitz of charges and countercharges over immigration, the financial lives of the candidates and more. Here are how some of the claims compare with the facts:
GINGRICH: "It's taken totally out of context.... I did not say it about Spanish. I said in general about all languages. We are better for children to learn English in general, period."
THE FACTS: At issue is Romney's Spanish-language radio ad running in Florida that says Gingrich branded Spanish a ghetto language in a 2007 speech. In the contentious remarks in question, much more came after Gingrich's "period."
In his speech to the National Federation of Republican Women, Gingrich advocated making English the official language, a position he still holds, and added: "We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto."
He did not explicitly call Spanish a ghetto language. But at the time, the remark was widely taken to mean Spanish, overwhelmingly the main foreign language spoken in the United States and the primary language of many immigrants.
Gingrich recognized as much when, in response to a Hispanic backlash against his remark, he made an online video days after the speech in which he more or less apologized for his choice of words and for producing "a bad feeling within the Latino community."
___
ROMNEY on the same topic: "I doubt that's my ad, but we'll take a look and find out."
THE FACTS: It's his ad.
___
RICK SANTORUM: "You had a president of the United States that held (up) a Colombian free trade agreement. Colombia, who's out there on the front lines working with us against the narco-terrorists, standing up to Chavez in South America ? and what did we do? ... The president of the United States sided with organized labor and the environmental groups and held Colombia hanging out to dry for three years."
THE FACTS: When President Barack Obama took office, he actually tried to revive a free-trade deal with Colombia that had been negotiated by his Republican predecessor but left to languish without congressional approval, just as he tried to make similar progress with South Korean and Panamanian free-trade pacts. He bucked considerable opposition from organized labor and fellow Democrats in doing so.
Obama did hold off on submitting the three deals to Congress as his administration tried to negotiate more palatable terms to Democrats. He finally submitted them in 2011 and Congress approved them in the fall ? with substantial GOP support and a fair amount of Democratic opposition.
___
ROMNEY: Fannie and Freddie are "offering mortgages again to people who can't possibly repay them. We're creating another housing bubble, which will hurt the American people."
THE FACTS: If there is another housing bubble forming, most homebuilders, mortgage lenders and real estate agents would like to find it. Instead, the housing market remains depressed, with sales low and home prices falling.
Fannie and Freddie don't sell or offer any mortgages. Their function has always been to support the housing market by purchasing mortgages from banks, packaging them into bonds and guaranteeing the bonds against default. This proved costly when the housing bubble burst: The two entities were formally taken over by the government in 2008 and have since cost taxpayers $150 billion.
The two mortgage giants are still functioning under government receivership, and now own or guarantee nearly all new mortgages, because banks are reluctant to make loans without the agencies' support. But banks have significantly toughened their credit standards since the housing bubble and are requiring higher credit scores and bigger down payments. That is causing an increasing number of home sales contracts to fall through as would-be buyers are unable to get mortgage loans.
___
SANTORUM: Criticized the Obama administration for its "abysmal treatment" of allies in Latin America, and said Obama has a "consistent policy of siding with the leftists, siding with the Marxists, siding with those who don't support democracy."
THE FACTS: Obama has not sided with the leading leftists, such as those ruling Cuba and Venezuela, and instead has roundly criticized them.
It's true that Latin America has been on the back burner for much of Obama's tenure, as he concentrated on other parts of the world, including the Middle East. But Obama visited three countries in Latin America last year, and the Panamanian and Colombian trade agreements were part of the biggest round of trade liberalization since the North American Free Trade Agreement and other pacts of that era.
___
ROMNEY: "My investments are not made by me. My investments for the last 10 years have been in a blind trust, managed by a trustee."
THE FACTS: Not all of his investments have been in a blind trust. Romney's personal financial disclosure forms show he owned between $250,001 and $500,000 in the Federated Government Obligation Fund, which contained mutual-fund notes of politically sensitive Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. An addendum to Romney' disclosure forms says that certain assets ? including the federated fund ? were outside the scope of his blind trust.
The investment was not on Romney's 2007 financial form, making it a relatively new one ? just as the housing and financial crises were hitting Americans full force.
___
RON PAUL: Obama "promises to end the wars, but the wars expand."
THE FACTS: By the most obvious measures, the wars are shrinking. Last month, the U.S. pulled its last troops out of Iraq, fulfilling a pledge by Obama to end the war there.
Obama did escalate America's fight in Afghanistan, announcing in December 2009 that he was sending an additional 33,000 troops.
The U.S. and its NATO partners in late 2010 agreed to end the combat mission in Afghanistan by the end of 2014. As part of that plan, Obama fulfilled his promise to bring 10,000 troops home from Afghanistan by the end of last year, and is moving ahead with plans to pull an additional 23,000 out by this fall. There are now about 90,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
___
Associated Press writers Tom Raum, Lolita C. Baldor, Jim Drinkard, Christopher S. Rugaber and Jack Gillum contributed to this report.
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Friday, January 27, 2012
Japan making progress on U.S. trade concerns: USTR (Reuters)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? The United States said on Friday that Japan has improved market access for a broad range of U.S. goods and services, as Washington continues to consider Tokyo's application to join a proposed free trade pact in the Asia Pacific.
"I welcome the progress we have made," U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in a statement. "Addressing issues of concern and working closely together to advance new areas of cooperation will further deepen our relationship with Japan - a strong ally and our fourth largest export market."
Japan over the past year has agreed to address U.S. concerns in areas that include intellectual property protection, automobiles, information and communication technology services and products, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, agricultural products, and distribution services, Kirk said.
Specifically, USTR said Japan has:
- Eased the way for imported cars that incorporate new, advanced technologies and features not covered by existing regulation.
- Introduced new legal protections that boost the ability of intellectual property right holders to defend their products and services from unauthorized use.
- Shortened the decision-making process for approval of advanced pharmaceuticals and medical devices by several months.
- Improved the business environment for imported cosmetics.
- Committed to introducing a new auction system for commercial spectrum within the next three years that will increase opportunities for telecommunications companies.
- Revised rules to increase the speed, transparency, and predictability of anti-monopoly merger reviews, bringing Japan's process into closer alignment with global best practices.
In November, Japan formally asked to join negotiations with the United States and eight other countries on the Trans-Pacific Partnership pact, a proposed regional free trade agreement.
The current TPP partners -- which also include Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Chile, Peru and Brunei -- are expected to decide early this year on Japan's request and two other applications from Canada and Mexico.
(Reporting By Doug Palmer; Editing by Sandra Maler)
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Group 1 Automotive Acquires Hilton Head BMW Dealership | Benzinga
Group 1 Automotive, Inc. (NYSE: GPI) today announced the acquisition of Hilton Head BMW in Blufton, S.C., that is expected to generate $45.0 million in estimated annual revenues.
(c) 2011 Benzinga.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published in its entirety or redistributed without the approval of Benzinga.
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Source: http://www.benzinga.com/news/12/01/2291719/group-1-automotive-acquires-hilton-head-bmw-dealership
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Thursday, January 26, 2012
Notre Dame researchers publish new findings on aging pediatric bruises
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 26-Jan-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Mark Alber
malber@nd.edu
574-631-8371
University of Notre Dame
A multi-university research group which includes several University of Notre Dame faculty and graduate students, has recently published a paper detailing new work on the analysis and dating of human bruises. The research, which is funded by the Gerber Foundation, will have particular application to pediatric medicine, as bruise age is often key evidence in child abuse cases.
Using a combination of modeling and spectroscopy measurements, the researchers have advanced our understanding of the changing composition of aging bruises and developed new tools for detailed biomedical studies of human skin tissue.
Spectroscopic measurement determines the chemical composition of tissue by measuring the extent to which it absorbs and reflects light of different wave lengths. In this case, the researchers examined accidental bruises to determine their concentrations of bilirubin, blood volume fraction, and blood oxygenation, which peak at various periods after contusion occurs.
The data were combined with modeling via Monte Carlo methods, which are often used to simulate highly complex systemslike the propagation of electromagnetic waves in healthy and contused skin involving many interacting degrees of freedom. The result was a multilayered model in which each layer is characterized by a number of parameters, including thickness of layer, absorption and scattering properties, refractive index, and scattering anisotropy factors. Previous research had produced models simulating only one to three layers of skin; this one simulates seven, allowing for a much clearer spectroscopic picture of a bruise's composition and age.
###
The paper, titled "Reflectance spectrometry of normal and bruised human skins: experiments and modeling" is published in the current issue of Physiological Measurement. The authors are Oleg Kim (Notre Dame), John McMurdy (Brown University), Collin Lines (Notre Dame), Susan Duffy (Hasbro Children's Hospital), Gregory Crawford (Notre Dame) and Mark Alber (Notre Dame).
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
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.
Public release date: 26-Jan-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Mark Alber
malber@nd.edu
574-631-8371
University of Notre Dame
A multi-university research group which includes several University of Notre Dame faculty and graduate students, has recently published a paper detailing new work on the analysis and dating of human bruises. The research, which is funded by the Gerber Foundation, will have particular application to pediatric medicine, as bruise age is often key evidence in child abuse cases.
Using a combination of modeling and spectroscopy measurements, the researchers have advanced our understanding of the changing composition of aging bruises and developed new tools for detailed biomedical studies of human skin tissue.
Spectroscopic measurement determines the chemical composition of tissue by measuring the extent to which it absorbs and reflects light of different wave lengths. In this case, the researchers examined accidental bruises to determine their concentrations of bilirubin, blood volume fraction, and blood oxygenation, which peak at various periods after contusion occurs.
The data were combined with modeling via Monte Carlo methods, which are often used to simulate highly complex systemslike the propagation of electromagnetic waves in healthy and contused skin involving many interacting degrees of freedom. The result was a multilayered model in which each layer is characterized by a number of parameters, including thickness of layer, absorption and scattering properties, refractive index, and scattering anisotropy factors. Previous research had produced models simulating only one to three layers of skin; this one simulates seven, allowing for a much clearer spectroscopic picture of a bruise's composition and age.
###
The paper, titled "Reflectance spectrometry of normal and bruised human skins: experiments and modeling" is published in the current issue of Physiological Measurement. The authors are Oleg Kim (Notre Dame), John McMurdy (Brown University), Collin Lines (Notre Dame), Susan Duffy (Hasbro Children's Hospital), Gregory Crawford (Notre Dame) and Mark Alber (Notre Dame).
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
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.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/uond-ndr012612.php
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'Amazing' Mars Rover Opportunity Begins Year 9 on Red Planet (SPACE.com)
A NASA rover celebrates eight years on the Martian surface today (Jan. 24), and the long-lived robot is still going strong.
The Opportunity rover landed on the Red Planet at 9:05 p.m. PST Jan. 24, 2004 (12:05 a.m. EST Jan. 25), three weeks after its twin, Spirit, touched down. While NASA declared Spirit dead last year, Opportunity continues to gather data in its dotage, helping scientists understand more and more about Mars' wetter, warmer past.
"It is amazing. I have to remind myself ? my God, this thing is still going!" said John Callas, Opportunity's project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "But more importantly, it is still very productive on the surface."
Following the water
Spirit and Opportunity were originally supposed to spend 90 days searching for signs of past water activity on Mars. The solar-powered robots found plenty of such evidence at their disparate landing sites, dramatically reshaping scientists' understanding of the Red Planet and its history. [Mars Photos by Spirit and Opportunity]
Spirit, for example, found strong evidence of an ancient hydrothermal system. The discovery showed that at least some areas on Mars once had two key ingredients necessary to support life as we know it ? liquid water and an energy source.?
Opportunity, for its part, recently found clues that warm water may also have flowed or percolated on the rim of Mars' huge Endeavour Crater long ago.
The golf-cart-size rovers just kept chugging along, continuing to make observations years after their warranties expired.
Spirit got mired in soft sand in May 2009, after a bad wheel compromised the rover's mobility. The robot failed to maneuver into a position that would have slanted its solar panels toward the sun over the course of the 2009-2010 Martian winter, and it stopped communicating with Earth in March 2010.
NASA declared Spirit dead in May 2011, identifying hypothermia as the likely cause. But Opportunity remains an active and alert planetary explorer.
Studying Endeavour Crater
After a three-year trek, Opportunity arrived at the 14-mile-wide (22-kilometer) Endeavour Crater in August 2011. The rover spent the next few months poking along Endeavour's rim, where it recently uncovered what researchers say is the best evidence yet for liquid water on ancient Mars.
In December, Opportunity found a good spot to wait out the looming Martian winter ? a rocky outcrop informally named Greeley Haven. The location allows the rover to tilt its solar panels northward at about 15 degrees, maximizing the power it can draw from the sun to stay warm, active and healthy, researchers said.
Opportunity isn't sleeping the winter away. It will stay awake though relatively stationary, investigating the rocks at Greeley Haven and taking panoramic pictures of its surroundings. And, most importantly, it will beam radio signals home to Earth.
Mission scientists will track those signals, using Opportunity's motion relative to Earth as a proxy for the rotation of Mars, Callas said. Scientists should thus be able to get very precise measurements of the planet's spin.
They'll use that information to draw inferences about Mars' mysterious interior structure ? how big the planet's core is, for example, and whether that core is liquid or solid.
'A whole new landing site'
The winter solstice at Opportunity's location comes in late March; a few months after that, Callas said, solar energy should be strong enough to allow the rover to get moving again. [Mars Explored: Landers and Rovers Since 1971 (Infographic)]
At that point, the plan is to send the robot south along Endeavour's rim, toward a place about 1.8 miles (3 km) away called Cape Tribulation. Mars-orbiting spacecraft have detected clay minerals ? which form in water ? at Cape Tribulation, so the team wants Opportunity to investigate the area.
"It speaks a lot to the biopotential and habitability of Mars in the ancient past," Callas told SPACE.com. "We want to go there. It's on some challenging slopes, some 30-degree slopes, and we'll have to do some Martian mountaineering. So it'll be a spectacular adventure with the rover to get to these locations."
Mission scientists are eager to explore large swaths of the huge crater, which offers a wealth of possible new discoveries.
"Endeavour is like a whole new landing site, and we've really only just scratched the surface so far," rover principal investigator Steve Squyres, of Cornell University, told SPACE.com in an email.
Chasing down a record
Despite an arthritic joint in Opportunity's robotic arm, the rover is in good health overall, Callas said. Still, the mission team isn't taking the aging robot's continued performance for granted.
"Every day is like a gift," Callas said. "We just keep charging ahead as if every day is our last day, and we want to maximize the science we can do with this vehicle."
While science remains the team's top priority, Callas said he'd like Opportunity to tick off one big exploration milestone as well.
The Soviet Union's Lunokhod 2 robot currently holds the record for the greatest distance traveled on the surface of another world. The unmanned rover covered 23 miles (37 km) on the moon in 1973.
Opportunity's odometer currently reads 21.35 miles (34.4 km).
"I want to beat that record," Callas said. "After the winter, I hope to knock that record off and claim the mantle of the longest distance traversed by another vehicle beyond the Earth."
You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter: @michaeldwall. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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Wednesday, January 25, 2012
State Of The Union Address: President Obama's Pivot Into Campaign Mode
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama will deliver a State of the Union address on Tuesday night built on the message that everyone deserves a fair shot at economic success and everyone must be held accountable for what they do. The next day, he'll begin using that same message as the thrust for his re-election campaign for the next 10 months.
Obama's third State of the Union address, which airs on all major networks at 9 p.m. EST, will map out a vision for boosting the economy and strengthening the middle class, based on four pillars, White House press secretary Jay Carney said in a Monday briefing. Those pillars are American manufacturing, American energy, skills for American workers, and American values. The president also will adopt a tone that ran through a speech he gave in Kansas last month -- one that many are equating with a historic speech that Teddy Roosevelt gave in 1910 -- that carries a strong message about social and economic equality.
On the policy front, job creation and the economy will dominate the speech. Housing and college affordability will be central themes, again tied into the overall message of fairness, according to sources familiar with the speech.. National security, as is always the case with the State of the Union, will also be key.
Expect Obama to break out issues that he and Congress can work on together; Carney signaled Monday that those areas could include comprehensive immigration reform and tax reform. The president will also point to areas where he can take action without Congress, a practice the White House has said to get used to in the coming months given the partisan gridlock that has come to define Congress.
The president won't waste time selling his message once the speech is over. Less than 24 hours after the address, he'll kick off an intense, three-day tour of five states, all of which are key battleground states for his re-election: Iowa, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Michigan. The move is a convenient overlapping point for Obama to connect his governing to his campaigning, which has already gotten off the ground but isn't in full force yet.
Carney dismissed the idea that Obama is using the State of the Union as a springboard for his re-election effort. He called this week's trips "official visits" that the president is taking to further explain the details of his speech to the country.
"This is a State of the Union address that the president is giving," Carney said. "The themes of this speech that I just discussed reflect ... in many ways the principles that President Obama has brought to public service since he began his career in public service. So it wouldn't take much to understand where he's coming from and where he believes the country will go."
Carney added, "I'm sure that the campaign is focused on those same ideas, because they are working to get the president reelected."
But politics are clearly driving this year's State of the Union, because it comes in the midst of a presidential campaign. Obama will be looking to draw sharp contrasts between himself and his Republican challengers, and more broadly, between Democrats and Republicans. And Congressional Republican leaders will be poised to criticize Obama's proposals -- and give a shout-out to his GOP challengers.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is already taking shots at the president ahead of his address. During an appearance on "Fox News Sunday," Boehner criticized Obama for planning what he said sounds to be "the same old policies" of more spending, taxes and regulations that Republicans claim have hurt the economy.
If Obama plans to reiterate the same ideas he's backed in the past few years, then "I think it's pathetic," Boehner said.
"; var coords = [-5, -72]; // display fb-bubble FloatingPrompt.embed(this, html, undefined, 'top', {fp_intersects:1, timeout_remove:2000,ignore_arrow: true, width:236, add_xy:coords, class_name: 'clear-overlay'}); });Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/24/state-of-the-union-address_n_1225013.html
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Yemeni president departs, en route to US
SANAA, Yemen?? Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh left his battered nation Sunday on his way to the U.S. for medical treatment after passing power to his deputy and asking for forgiveness for any "shortcomings" during his 33-year rein.
But in a sign that Saleh's role as Yemen's top power broker is likely far from over, he said he would return to Yemen before the official power transfer next month to serve as the head of his ruling party.
Saleh's departure marks a small achievement in the months of diplomatic efforts by the U.S. and Yemen's powerful Gulf neighbors to ease the nearly year-old political crisis in the Arab world's poorest country. An active al-Qaida branch there has taken advantage of the turmoil, stepping up operations and seizing territory.
After months of diplomatic pressure and mass protests calling for his ouster, Saleh signed a deal in November to transfer authority to his vice president in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Still, Saleh continued to exercise power behind the scenes, sparking accusations he sought to scuttle the deal and cling to power.
His departure could help the deal go forward.
Presidential spokesman Ahmed al-Soufi told The Associated Press that Saleh left Yemen's capital Sanaa late Sunday on a plane headed for the Gulf sultanate of Oman. He did not say how long Saleh would remain there, but added that he would make "another stop before heading to the United States of America."
A senior administration official said Ali Abdullah Saleh would travel to New York this week, and probably stay in the U.S. until no later than the end of February. U.S. officials believe Saleh's exit from Yemen could lower the risk of disruptions in the lead-up to presidential elections planned there on Feb. 21.
The Obama administration faced a dilemma in deciding whether to let Saleh enter the U.S. after he requested a visa last month. It has long seen getting Saleh out of Yemen as an important step in ensuring the power transfer goes forward.
But some in the administration worried that welcoming Saleh would spark charges from the Arab world that the U.S. was harboring an autocrat responsible for deadly crackdowns on protesters.
To protect against this, the administration has sought assurances that Saleh will not seek to remain in the U.S.
An official close to Saleh said Sunday the president would undergo medical exams in Oman before heading to the U.S. The U.S. has forbidden him from any political activity in the U.S., the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorize to disclose diplomatic talks.
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Saleh is likely seeking treatment for injuries sustained in a blast in his palace mosque last June 3 that left him badly burned. After the attack, Saleh traveled to Saudi Arabia for treatment, leaving many to suspect his power was waning. A few months later, however, he made a surprise return to Yemen and resumed his post.
Under the power transfer deal signed in November, Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi is to be rubber-stamped as the country's new leader in presidential elections. The political parties that signed the deal agreed not to nominate any other candidates.
In a farewell speech Friday reported by Yemeni state media, Saleh said he was passing his powers to Hadi, whom he promoted to the rank of marshal.
Saleh portrayed himself as a patriot who "gave his life in the service of the nation," called for reconciliation and apologized for any mistakes.
"I ask for forgiveness from all sons of the nation, women and men, for any shortcomings during my 33 years in office," Saleh said according to Yemen's state news agency.
He also called on Yemen's youth, who have spearheaded the mass protests calling for his ouster and often faced deadly crackdowns by Saleh's security forces, to go home.
"I feel for you and call on you to return to your homes and turn a new page with a new leadership," he said.
Yemen expert Gregory Johnsen of Princeton University said Saleh's departure could help the power transfer deal progress, though it will do little to address protesters' demands for a fundamental change of how politics in Yemen works.
Throughout his rule, Saleh has put close members of his family and tribe in charge of key state institutions and security forces, Johnsen said. Leaving that network intact could allow Saleh to continue to shape events in Yemen, even without the title of president.
"I don't think we have seen the last of President Saleh," Johnsen said.
Inspired by popular uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world, Yemenis took to the streets nearly a year ago to demand Saleh's ouster and call for democratic reforms. Saleh's security forces have met them with often deadly crackdowns, killing more than 200 protesters. Many others have been killed in violent clashes between armed groups that support the protesters and security forces.
Al-Qaida's active Yemeni branch has also taken advantage of the security collapse to seize territory in the country's south, even taking control of a town 100 miles from the capital Sanaa earlier this month.
The protests have continued despite the power transfer deal, which many say falls far short of their demands. They also reject the immunity clause, saying they want to see Saleh tried for his alleged role in the protester deaths.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46091792/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/
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Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Science to help rice growers affected by Japan's tsunami
Public release date: 22-Jan-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Zoe Dunford
zoe.dunford@nbi.ac.uk
44-016-032-51490
Norwich BioScience Institutes
Under a year since a huge tsunami inundated paddy fields in Japan with salty sludge, scientists are near to developing locally-adapted, salt-tolerant rice.
Following a Japan-UK research collaboration, a new method for marker assisted breeding is being used to slash the time it takes to isolate new traits such as salt tolerance. Details of the new method, called MutMap, will be published in Nature Biotechnology on Sunday so they can be used by scientists and breeders worldwide to dramatically accelerate crop breeding.
"The beauty of the new method is its simplicity," said Professor Sophien Kamoun, co-author on the paper and Head of The Sainsbury Laboratory on Norwich Research Park.
"By working with cultivars favoured by farmers and already adapted to local conditions, the MutMap method will enable plant scientists and breeders to develop new crop varieties in nearer a year rather than five to ten years."
The new technique also takes advantage of the speed at which sequencing can now be done to screen plant mutants for valuable traits.
"Until now, plant breeding has not been able to take advantage of the genomics revolution," said lead author Professor Ryohei Terauchi from Japan's Iwate Biotechnology Research Centre.
"MutMap overcomes one of the greatest limitations, which has been the time it takes to identify genetic markers for desirable traits."
Important traits such as drought and salt tolerance, semidwarfism, plant height and yield are often controlled by many genes each having a subtle effect. It is therefore difficult to identify the complete genetic basis for them.
Such traits are often bred in from wild relatives and without genetic engineering many years of back-crossing are required to breed out all the characteristics of the wild plant except the quality desired.
In the new method, scientists work with an elite rice cultivar and create mutants that harbour different traits. One mutant is identified with the desired trait and this is crossed with the original cultivar and grown in the field. The difference between the progeny of this cross and the elite cultivar can then be identified.
"The differences can be unequivocally observed even if they are small," said Professor Kamoun.
The changes detected are called single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPS) and insertion-deletions (indels) tiny genetic improvements that can be observed using genome sequencing.
In the study to be published on Sunday, the scientists focused on plant height because of its crucial role in yield. The introduction of this trait fuelled the Green Revolution in wheat, rice and other cereals from the 1960s, but has not been thoroughly exploited. The gene for semidwarfism was first identified in the model plant Arabidopsis at the John Innes Centre, and only discovered in rice in 2002.
For the current study, they also measured six other traits of agricultural importance. Terauchi and his team have since established a mutant collection for salt tolerance which they are screening for markers. Once these have been identified, they will be used to develop rice cultivars that can be grown in paddy fields flooded by the tsunami last March.
The method will not work for all important traits, and further research is needed to establish how it can be applied to crops with larger genomes such as wheat, barley and maize.
###
The research collaboration grew out of the TSL approach to train biologists in bioinformatics, enabling them to take full advantage of it as an experimental science. Dr Kentaro Yoshida from Terauchi's group was funded by a Daiwa Adrian prize to receive training at The Sainsbury Laboratory in 2010.
Further funding was provided by research agencies in Japan and TSL's core funding from the Gatsby Charitable Foundation.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
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.
Public release date: 22-Jan-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Zoe Dunford
zoe.dunford@nbi.ac.uk
44-016-032-51490
Norwich BioScience Institutes
Under a year since a huge tsunami inundated paddy fields in Japan with salty sludge, scientists are near to developing locally-adapted, salt-tolerant rice.
Following a Japan-UK research collaboration, a new method for marker assisted breeding is being used to slash the time it takes to isolate new traits such as salt tolerance. Details of the new method, called MutMap, will be published in Nature Biotechnology on Sunday so they can be used by scientists and breeders worldwide to dramatically accelerate crop breeding.
"The beauty of the new method is its simplicity," said Professor Sophien Kamoun, co-author on the paper and Head of The Sainsbury Laboratory on Norwich Research Park.
"By working with cultivars favoured by farmers and already adapted to local conditions, the MutMap method will enable plant scientists and breeders to develop new crop varieties in nearer a year rather than five to ten years."
The new technique also takes advantage of the speed at which sequencing can now be done to screen plant mutants for valuable traits.
"Until now, plant breeding has not been able to take advantage of the genomics revolution," said lead author Professor Ryohei Terauchi from Japan's Iwate Biotechnology Research Centre.
"MutMap overcomes one of the greatest limitations, which has been the time it takes to identify genetic markers for desirable traits."
Important traits such as drought and salt tolerance, semidwarfism, plant height and yield are often controlled by many genes each having a subtle effect. It is therefore difficult to identify the complete genetic basis for them.
Such traits are often bred in from wild relatives and without genetic engineering many years of back-crossing are required to breed out all the characteristics of the wild plant except the quality desired.
In the new method, scientists work with an elite rice cultivar and create mutants that harbour different traits. One mutant is identified with the desired trait and this is crossed with the original cultivar and grown in the field. The difference between the progeny of this cross and the elite cultivar can then be identified.
"The differences can be unequivocally observed even if they are small," said Professor Kamoun.
The changes detected are called single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPS) and insertion-deletions (indels) tiny genetic improvements that can be observed using genome sequencing.
In the study to be published on Sunday, the scientists focused on plant height because of its crucial role in yield. The introduction of this trait fuelled the Green Revolution in wheat, rice and other cereals from the 1960s, but has not been thoroughly exploited. The gene for semidwarfism was first identified in the model plant Arabidopsis at the John Innes Centre, and only discovered in rice in 2002.
For the current study, they also measured six other traits of agricultural importance. Terauchi and his team have since established a mutant collection for salt tolerance which they are screening for markers. Once these have been identified, they will be used to develop rice cultivars that can be grown in paddy fields flooded by the tsunami last March.
The method will not work for all important traits, and further research is needed to establish how it can be applied to crops with larger genomes such as wheat, barley and maize.
###
The research collaboration grew out of the TSL approach to train biologists in bioinformatics, enabling them to take full advantage of it as an experimental science. Dr Kentaro Yoshida from Terauchi's group was funded by a Daiwa Adrian prize to receive training at The Sainsbury Laboratory in 2010.
Further funding was provided by research agencies in Japan and TSL's core funding from the Gatsby Charitable Foundation.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
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.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/nbi-sth011812.php
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Monday, January 23, 2012
Russia Mulling Joint Lunar Base with NASA, Europe (ContributorNetwork)
A report in Space.com and a number of other media outlets that Russia's Federal Space Agency, or Roscosmos, is consulting with NASA and the European Space Agency about a joint lunar base is causing some comment in aerospace circles.
What are the discussions about a lunar base?
There has been no official confirmation, as of this writing, from the United States or the European Union. Some sources suggest that the Russian report refers to the Global Exploration Roadmap, which is being discussed by representatives of a number of national space agencies. Two roadmaps are under discussion.
The first is "Moon First," which points to a manned lunar landing as the first step in solar system operation. This would be followed by a lunar base, likely close to one of the lunar poles where ice has been found in the permanently shadowed craters.
The second is "asteroid first" which would involve visiting an Earth approaching asteroid as the first space exploration goal. As per President Barack Obama's speech of April 15, 2010, this approach is currently official NASA policy.
Both roadmaps are designed to lead to Mars, sometime in the 2030s.
Why is Russia interested in a lunar base?
Russia has found some success in revitalizing its manned space program in its role of partner in the International Space Station program. It has provided a number of modules for the space station. With the end of the space shuttle program, it is the sole provider of space flights for astronauts to the ISS. Russia's participation has garnered it a great deal of prestige and quite a bit of cash from the United States is payment for rides to the ISS.
Russia is also reeling from a number of high profile space failures, most notably that of the Phobos-Grunt that was designed to conduct a sample return mission to Mars' moon Phobos. Instead the probe recently fell into the Pacific ocean, making a failure of Russia's planetary science program.
The Sticking Point is Money
Aside from the fact that a joint effort to settle the moon would require a revision of Obama space policy -- or the election of a new president -- the factor standing in the way is a lack of money. Both the United States and the European Union are experiencing a debt crisis that would tend to argue against taking on an expensive, new space project, no matter what the long term benefit would be. However cost sharing between NASA, the ESA, Russia, and perhaps other partners such as Canada, Japan, India, and Brazil might prove sufficient to get the thing off the ground. But the project would have to be sustained over many years, a hard proposition at best if history is any guide.
Mark R. Whittington is the author of Children of Apollo and The Last Moonwalker. He has written on space subjects for a variety of periodicals, including The Houston Chronicle, The Washington Post, USA Today, the L.A. Times, and The Weekly Standard.
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Sunday, January 22, 2012
PFT: 'Hit me in the head,' Jacobs tells 49ers
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PFT: Giants RB Brandon Jacobs says he?s hoping the 49ers hit him in the head Sunday, because it?s a lot harder to take him down high than low.
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Saturday, January 21, 2012
Planking! 'Family Matters'! 'Idol' auditions get odd
By Craig Berman
?
Rick Mckee / Fox
"American Idol" went to Pittsburgh in search of its season 11 champ on the second night of the premiere.
RECAP
?American Idol? went to Pittsburgh for Thursday?s audition episode, and as host Ryan Seacrest noted excitedly, ?They call this place ?City of Champions!? ? Of course, it doesn?t really count if it?s a nickname you give yourself, but at least we got to see the Terrible Towels waving once more this season now that the Steelers have been eliminated from the NFL playoffs.
It was a strange group of 38 that made it through from here, heavy on the quirk and light on the powerful vocals. But by the end of the hour, a couple of legitimate contenders emerged from the pity selections and the random eccentrics who have no chance of winning.
Eben Franckewitz is this season?s attempt to capture the Justin Bieber vibe. With a look as wholesome as Beaver Cleaver and a mom who says things like, ?I?m really, really proud of you, no matter what happens,? what?s not to like about this 15-year-old? Odds are somewhere around 110 percent?that you?ll be seeing a lot of him in Hollywood.
The same goes for Hallie Day, who closed the show. She?s pretty much the exact opposite of the Franckewitz backstory, having dropped out of school, gone to New York for a failed experiment with a?rock band, slinked back to Baltimore and tried to overdose on pills. Now she?s married, back in the game and is someone Jennifer Lopez thinks can win. Unlike ?Survivor,? ?Idol? doesn?t need a Redemption Island to provide second chances.
Speaking of second chances, Travis Orlando is back. The 17-year-old who told his story in last year?s auditions has fared only worse since missing his chance a year ago. He dropped out of high school, his mom walked out on the family, he got evicted and moved into a shelter with his dad and his twin brother. Other than that, it?s been an awesome 12 months. He?s all-in on music now, and he said he?s scared.
?Scared is good. Scared makes you do things you wouldn?t normally do,? J.Lo told him.
Others to watch include Reed Grimm, who broke new ground by auditioning to the theme from ?Family Matters.? If ?Idol? doesn?t work out, he should try Nick at Nite.
Mobile DJ and wedding singer Erika Van Pelt also got universal praise, though wedding singers always walk a fine line between engaging the audience and being a cornball, and she?s really close to falling on the wrong side of that divide.
Also watch Creighton Fraker, who wrote a song on the nine-hour bus ride from New York. (And from his stage persona, it looked like he might have inhaled some carbon monoxide fumes along the way.) He won the award for the most over-the-top praise of the night.
?
??A million percent yes,? Randy Jackson said.
?
?Two million percent yes,? J.Lo added.
?
Steven Tyler topped them all. ?Three gazillion percent yes. This is why I joined Idol?... to say to you you?re going to Hollywood.?
?
Uh?... OK.
Others got tickets for reasons that are impossible to fathom. Like Heejun Han, who impressed the judges by singing much better than he spoke. ?I am really impressed and shocked,? Randy said. Not as shocked as Han was when he learned he?s going to Hollywood. Or as shocked as I?ll be if he makes it past the first day there.?
Also unlikely to win is Samantha Novacek, who was memorable only because her sister Patricia came with her and planked on the audition stage. ?She sings better when I plank,? Patricia said. Uh?... if you say so. But how great would it be if Samantha made it to the group night and her fellow singers had to work their choreography around the planking? It was worth the ticket for that alone.
One of the few who were sent packing was coal miner Shane Bruce. ?What made you want to be a coal miner?? J.Lo asked him. Uh, Ms. One Percent, have you checked the unemployment numbers lately? The answer probably is that he?s in a coal-mining family and needs the work. Not everyone can hang out in New York until they hit the big time.
At any rate, it?s always a bad sign when someone introduces their song by referring to it as ?that Hallelujah song in 'Shrek.' ? Though all three judges were encouraging, he didn?t advance and was disappointed in himself. ?Just got nervous. Didn?t do as good as I know I can,? he said.
There?s always next year. As we learned again on Thursday, ?Idol?s? very sympathetic to those seeking a second chance.
Which singers do you think should not have gotten a ticket to Hollywood? Share your thoughts on our Facebook page!
Want more "Idol" during "Idol"? Follow @CraigBerman as he live tweets each show!
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