Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/193982115?client_source=feed&format=rss
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মঙ্গলবার, ৩১ জানুয়ারি, ২০১২
Neil Young: Steve Jobs listened to vinyl (AP)
DANA POINT, Calif. ? Legendary rocker Neil Young took his campaign for higher-fidelity digital sound to the stage of a technology conference Tuesday, saying a giant of the industry was on his side: the late Steve Jobs.
Young said the Apple co-founder was such a fan of music that he didn't use his iPod and its digitally compressed files at home. Instead, he used a physical format well-known to have better sound.
"Steve Jobs was a pioneer of digital music. His legacy is tremendous," Young said. "But when he went home, he listened to vinyl (albums)."
Young told the "D: Dive Into Media" conference Tuesday that he spoke with Jobs about creating a format that has 20 times the fidelity of files in the most current digital formats, including MP3.
Such a format, he said, would contain 100 percent of the data of music as it is created in a studio, as opposed to 5 percent in compressed formats including Apple's AAC. Each song would be huge, and a new storage and playback device might only hold 30 albums. Each song would take about 30 minutes to download, which is fine if you leave your device on overnight, he said.
"Sleep well. Wake up in the morning. Play some real music and listen to the joy of 100 percent of the sound of music," he said.
Although Young didn't have a practical plan for developing such a format ? saying it's for "rich people" to decide ? he said Jobs was on board with the idea before he died from cancer at age 56 in October.
"I talked to Steve about it. We were working on it," Young said. "You've got to believe if he lived long enough he would eventually try to do what I'm trying to do."
Young's opinion of Jobs was confirmed by interviewer Walt Mossberg, a journalist with News Corp.'s All Things D website, which has hosted Jobs at its conferences before.
Mossberg said Jobs in the past expressed surprise that "people traded quality, to the extent they had, for convenience or price."
Young, a 66-year-old singer and songwriter, was full of other surprising opinions, including his defense of recording labels such as his own Reprise Records, a unit of Warner Music Group Corp., as being a nurturer of artists, even as he said recording companies had botched the transition to digital music.
Young also said that "piracy is the new radio," suggesting that illegally copying low-quality songs was an acceptable way for fans to sample music before buying higher-quality versions.
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Angelina Jolie Downplays Brad Pitt Marriage Talk
Are Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie really headed down the altar soon?
That's what could be expected, given Pitt's recent comments about the pressure to - and his desire to - propose, but according to Jolie, that's premature.
"I think anything said tends to be blown out of proportion," Jolie told People Sunday night at the SAG Awards, when asked about "a lot of ring-talk lately."
"Yeah, that was my fault," Pitt admitted with a smile.
Guess we know who wears the pants in that house.
The speculation about wedding bells in the near future for the famous couple stem from Pitt's remark that Brangelina is "getting a lot of pressure from the kids."
"It means something to them," he continued, adding that he would like to marry Angelina, and that "We will [get married] someday, we will. It's a great idea."
"'Please, get mommy a ring.' 'OK, I will, I will.' "
"It seems to mean more and more to our kids," he said. "I don't think we'll be able to hold out … it means something to me, to make that kind of commitment."
Probably not until Angelina demands it, however.
[Photo: WENN.com]
Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/01/angelina-jolie-downplays-brad-pitt-marriage-comment/
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Japanese carrier 'blames Android app' for recent downtime
Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo has reportedly identified "Android app traffic" as the cause of a recent network outage which affected some 2.5 million of its customers. According to Japanese newspaper Nikkei, DoCoMo did not identify the app, aside from saying that it offered "free voice services."
The application apparently caused DoCoMo's network to buckle by sending out "control signals" rather than VOIP data. These are small amounts of data which are periodically exchanged between a smartphone app and a remote server, in order to check that the app is still running, and/or communicate any status changes.
DoCoMo intends to ask Google to limit the frequency at which Android sends these control signals, in order to reduce the strain on its network. However, the solution may not be quite so simple. The nature of Android means that an OS-level "fix" for DoCoMo's complaint would take months to roll out, if it were even possible. And if the app in question is a third-party offering from the Android Market, there's nothing Google can do to fiddle with its internal workings besides blocking DoCoMo customers' access to the app.
However, Google has shown a willingness to selectively block Android Market access to apps with which carriers have issue, notably tethering apps in the U.S. And then there was last year's strikingly similar case of YouMail and T-Mobile, which saw the app unceremoniously pulled from the Market at the request of the U.S. carrier. Whatever happens, we'll be watching with interest to see how Google deals with DoCoMo's complaint.
Source: Mobile World Live, Reuters
 |  |
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/XxvDW_FGuQk/story01.htm
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সোমবার, ৩০ জানুয়ারি, ২০১২
SAG Awards Fashion Face-Off: Lea Michele vs. Dianna Agron
Let's send either Lea Michele or Dianna Agron home a winner, shall we?
Neither of these Glee stars picked up any SAG Awards last night, and their show as also shut-out, but that doesn't mean both actresses didn't look beautiful and that one of them can't come out on top in this Fashion Face-Off.
Consider Michele and her major leg below, while comparing it with Agron's traditional purple gown and answer this simple question: Who looked best on the red carpet?
Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/01/sag-awards-fashion-face-off-lea-michele-vs-dianna-agron/
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Addicts' cravings have different roots in men and women
ScienceDaily (Jan. 30, 2012) ? When it comes to addiction, sex matters. A new brain imaging study by Yale School of Medicine researchers suggests stress robustly activates areas of the brain associated with craving in cocaine-dependent women, while drug cues activate similar brain regions in cocaine-dependent men.? The study, expected to be published online Jan. 31 in the American Journal of Psychiatry, suggests men and women with cocaine dependence might benefit more from different treatment options.
"There are differences in treatment outcomes for people with addictions who experience stress-induced drug cravings and those whose cravings are induced by drug cues," said Marc Potenza, professor of psychiatry, child study, and neurobiology and first author of the study. "It is important to understand the biologic mechanisms that underlie these cravings."
The researchers conducted functional magnetic resonance imaging scans of 30 cocaine-dependent individuals and 36 control subjects who were recreational drinkers. While undergoing brain scans, researchers then presented subjects with personalized cues (situations or events) the participants had indicated were personally stressful and other cues involving cocaine or alcohol.
As expected, cocaine-dependent individuals showed greater activation in broad regions of the brain linked to addiction and motivation than the control subjects. Patterns of activation between the groups, however, differed markedly in men and women when presented with stress or drug cues.
Potenza said the findings suggest that women with cocaine dependence might benefit from stress-reduction therapies that specifically target these cravings. Men, on the other hand, might derive more benefit from elements of cognitive behavioral therapy or 12-step programs based on the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous.
The senior author of the paper is Rajita Sinha of Yale. Other Yale authors are Kwang-ik Adam Hong, Cheryl M. Lacadie, Robert K. Fulbright, and Keri L. Tuit.
The study was supported by the Yale Stress Center, Women's Health Research at Yale, the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, and grants from the National Institutes of Health and its Office of Research on Women's Health.
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Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120130131511.htm
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91% Beauty and the Beast (In 3D)
All Critics (81) | Top Critics (23) | Fresh (82) | Rotten (7) | DVD (36)
The greatest animated film ever made and one of the screen's great musicals hardly needs this (3D) sort of sprucing up.
What you gain in an extra, faked dimension you lose in lively, genuine beauty.
The 3-D pops out to enhance the drama or energy of scenes in which settings are large and integral to the action.
Some youthful memories are better not revisited, but this definitely isn't one of them. Sometimes you can go home again.
It is a surprise, in a time of sequels and retreads, that the new film is so fresh and altogether triumphant in its own right.
Despite some excessive narrative streamlining, this 1991 release was the best Disney animated feature in years, full of charm and humor.
Disney's gorgeous 1991 animated version of the classic fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast" gets the same 3D treatment that was recently given to "The Lion King."
Watching this in a theater definitely makes it feel less like a "cartoon" and more like a significant film. Cogsworth poking Le Fou in the butt with a sword aside.
One of the brightest jewels in Disney's crown, Beauty and the Beast's 3D reissue takes nothing away and makes the film's brilliance even easier to appreciate; the movie is more beautiful and timeless than it ever was.
Beauty and the Beast is just as enchanting 20 years after its initial release.
The apex of an art form, a justly celebrated classic, and the best animated movie of any sort ever put on screen at any time.
The lines have begun to show in Belle's tale, which remains enjoyable but feels more like a quaint artifact than the masterpiece it once was declared to be.
Both TANGLED EVER AFTER and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST are sure to enthrall audiences everywhere, even if the 3D doesn't really add much of anything to this animated classic.
A serviceable version of a classic fairy tale minus that crucial touch of magic.
And it is a joy to revisit the timeless pleasures of traditional Disney storytelling, with no attempts to add sizzle from celebrity voice talent or radio-friendly pop songs.
3D doesn't downplay the inherent artistry of the effort, but it doesn't enhance anything outside of ticket prices.
Beauty and the Beast looks beautiful and is sure to entertain, but this experience is superfluous at best-it was already a three-dimensional story long before these new technics.
Better remembered than seen, Beauty and the Beast has been treated unkindly not just by the years that have passed since it was released to enormous acclaim in 1991, but by a faddish 3D conversion.
The 3D is unnecessary - but it doesn't spoil the fun of Beauty and the Beast.
The ultimate makeover story has strong, positive messages.
...an above average (yet far-from-flawless) animated endeavor.
More Critic ReviewsSource: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/beauty_and_the_beast_1991/
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'Fear Factory' Donkey Semen Controversy: NBC Pulls Episode (Report)
Though "Fear Factor" has seen its fair share of controversy, NBC finally deemed a stunt un-airable.
TMZ reported that what would have been the Jan. 30 episode, entitled "Hee Haw! Hee Haw!," featured contestants being asked to drink a glass of donkey semen and a glass of donkey urine. The stunt was allegedly so extreme that NBC executives decided to pull it from the schedule just the day before it was scheduled to hit living rooms nationwide, according to TMZ.
"Fear Factor" host Joe Rogan hinted at the stunt months ago in an interview with The Huffington Post when asked why he said the reality show was going to be "bigger and crazier" this season:
The biggest example, I can't tell you unfortunately because they haven't even decided whether or not they're gonna air it. It's really that crazy. I got there and they told me what we were gonna do, and I just started laughing like, 'There's no way. That's not really gonna happen. Wait, is that really gonna happen?' [Laughs] I wish I could tell you. NBC's still looking at the footage going, 'Uhhhh, can we do that?' There's gonna be a lot of people that are going to be upset -- it really is ridiculous.
According to TMZ, instead of the donkey-inspired episode in question, NBC will re-air the Jan. 2 episode of "Fear Factor."
Related on HuffPost:
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Australia reviews timetable for buying 12 F-35s (AP)
CANBERRA, Australia ? Australia is reviewing its timetable for buying 12 of the troubled F-35 Joint Strike Fighters between 2015 and 2017 after the Unites States announced a rethink of its own purchase schedule for the futuristic warplanes.
Australia is a funding partner in developing the JSF, which the U.S. Defense Department describes as the largest fighter aircraft program in history.
Australian Defense Minister Stephen Smith said Monday that Australia is only contractually obligated to take delivery of two of the warplanes. They will be based in the United States and be available from 2014 for training Australian pilots.
Smith says Australia is reconsidering its schedule of buying another 12 during the following three years.
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রবিবার, ২৯ জানুয়ারি, ২০১২
Tony Hawk Interviews Odd Future Crew At Big Day Out Festival (VIDEO)
Tony Hawk should probably never be in the interviewer seat, but here he is, tempting fate, with probably one of the most unruly groups out there. At the Big Day Out music festival in Australia, the salt-and-peppery-haired skater stayed standing (technically not in the interviewer seat, but equally if not more awkward) to ask questions of a half-seated Tyler the Creator and the rest of his Odd Future crew on a stairwell. The hip hop collective is into skating, so there's your tenuous link -- aside from that, we're just as lost as you are as to why this is happening. The Odd Future boys put up a shop for the week of the festival to sell merchandise, and Hawk begins his line of questioning where they can find common ground -- t-shirts. The camera zooms in on a t-shirt of two gay cats, and Hawk vaguely asks where they get their inspiration from.
"Really I get inspiration from meth, and I like cats a lot, and I'm not playin'," Tyler said.
We're glad this interview happened.
WATCH:
"; 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/2012/01/28/tony-hawk-odd-future-interview_n_1239176.html
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In Northeast Greenhouse Gas Group, Many Unsold Allowances
[unable to retrieve full-text content]The Greenhouse Gas Initiative involving Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states has cut the number of allowances power companies can use to offset emissions.
Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=28048d0ff43c2ad66b7435333f22fc0a
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শনিবার, ২৮ জানুয়ারি, ২০১২
Wall Street lower at open after GDP data (Reuters)
NEW YORK (Reuters) ? U.S. stocks fell on Friday after data showed the U.S. economy grew less than expected in the fourth quarter, while weak earnings from Ford and continued caution over Europe's debt crisis also weighed on the market.
U.S. gross domestic product expanded at its fastest pace in 1-1/2 years in the fourth quarter of 2011, the Commerce Department said, but missed forecasts. A strong rebuilding of inventories and weak spending on capital goods hinted at slower growth this year.
"Today's GDP numbers while positive indicate that the economy is not really doing all that well and (Federal Reserve) Chairman Bernanke's extreme policy may be in fact what's needed," said Michael Sheldon, chief market strategist at RDM Financial, Westport, Connecticut.
"I wouldn't be surprised to see some profit-taking at any time, given the recent rally we've had."
Ford Motor Co (F.N) shares fell 5.5 percent to $12.04 after the carmaker reported a lower-than-expected fourth-quarter profit on higher commodity costs and losses in Europe and Asia.
The Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) was down 37.31 points, or 0.29 percent, at 12,697.32. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index (.SPX) slipped 1.47 points, or 0.11 percent, at 1,316.96. The Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC) was up 3.55 points, or 0.13 percent, at 2,808.83.
Euro zone finance officials voiced optimism a deal to avert a disorderly Greek default was imminent and key building blocks to resolve Europe's sovereign debt crisis were gradually fitting into place. Renewed concern about the crisis has troubled markets this week.
Procter & Gamble Co (PG.N) shares fell 0.1 percent to $64.82 after its quarterly profit plunged 49 percent as it wrote down the value of its appliance and salon professional products businesses. It also said this year's profit would come in lower than previously expected due to the strong dollar.
Chevron Corp (CVX.N) reported lower earnings as increased spending on oil and gas projects and losses at its refinery business offset gains from higher crude oil prices. The shares fell 2.4 percent to $104.01.
Juniper Networks Inc (JNPR.N) and Riverbed Technologies Inc (RVBD.O) offered gloomy first-quarter outlooks late Thursday that were below expectations. Juniper was down 8.1 percent to $20.55.
According to Thomson Reuters data, 59 percent of 152 S&P 500 companies reporting earnings as of Thursday morning beat analysts' estimates. In recent quarters, the beat rate has been 70 percent at this stage of the earnings season.
A rally from late last year that has pushed the S&P 500 up 23 percent from lows in October has left the index facing tough resistance at around the 1,330 level, which marks a four-year downtrend line from its all-time highs in 2007.
Oliver Pursche, president at Gary Goldberg Financial Services in Suffern, New York, cautioned against reading too much into recent market strength.
He cited a "volatile environment," in which "there are plenty of global issues that can derail the global economy."
Eastman Chemical Co (EMN.N) offered to buy specialty chemical maker Solutia Inc (SOA.N) for about $3.38 billion in cash and stock to extend its reach in emerging markets, particularly the Asia-Pacific region. Solutia shares rose 41 percent to $27.59.
(Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)
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Researchers shed light on magnetic mystery of graphite
Friday, January 27, 2012
The physical property of magnetism has historically been associated with metals such as iron, nickel and cobalt; however, graphite ? an organic mineral made up of stacks of individual carbon sheets ? has baffled researchers in recent years by showing weak signs of magnetism.
The hunt for an explanation has not been without controversy, with several research groups proposing different theories. The most recent suggestion, published today, 27 January, in the journal EPL (Europhysics Letters), has been put forward by a research group from the University of Manchester that includes Nobel prize-winning scientist Professor Sir Andre Geim.
The research group, led by Dr Irina Grigorieva, found that magnetism in many commercially available graphite crystals is down to micron-sized clusters of predominantly iron that would usually be difficult to find unless the right instruments were used in a particular way.
Finding the way to make graphite magnetic could be the first step to utilising it as a bio-compatible magnet for use in medicine and biology as effective biosensors.
To arrive at their conclusions, the researchers firstly cut up a piece of commercially-available graphite into four sections and measured the magnetisation of each piece. Surprisingly, they found significant variations in the magnetism of each sample. It was reasonable for them to conclude that the magnetic response had to be caused by external factors, such as small impurities of another material.
To check this hypothesis, the researchers peered deep into the structure of the samples using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) ? a very powerful microscope that images samples by scanning it with a beam of electrons ? and found that there were unusually heavy particles positioned deep under the surface.
The majority of these particles were confirmed to be iron and titanium, using a technique known as X-ray microanalysis. As oxygen was also present, the particles were likely to be either magnetite or titanomagnetite, both of which are magnetic.
The researchers were also able to deduce how many magnetic particles would be needed, and how far apart they would need to be spaced in order to create the originally observed magnetism. The observations from their experiments agreed with their estimations, meaning the visualised magnetic particles could account for the whole magnetic signal in the sample.
Dr Grigorieva, said: "The excitement around the findings of ferromagnetism in graphite, i.e. pure carbon, is due to the fact that magnetism is not normally found in organic matter. If we can learn to create and control magnetism in carbon-based materials, especially graphene, this will be an important development for sensors and spintronics."
###
The paper can be downloaded from http://iopscience.iop.org/0295-5075/97/4/47001
Institute of Physics: http://www.iop.org
Thanks to Institute of Physics for this article.
This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.
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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/117149/Researchers_shed_light_on_magnetic_mystery_of_graphite
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শুক্রবার, ২৭ জানুয়ারি, ২০১২
Exploring how a parent's education can affect the mental health of their offspring
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Public release date: 26-Jan-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Allison Flynn
allison.j.flynn@mcgill.ca
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McGill University
New research sheds light on cycle of low socioeconomic status and depression
This release is available in French.
Could depression in adulthood be tied to a parent's level of education? A new study led by Amlie Quesnel-Valle, a medical sociologist from McGill University, suggests this is the case.
Drawing from 29 years of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79), Quesnel-Valle and co-author Miles Taylor, an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at Florida State University, looked at pathways between a parent's education level and their children's education level, household income and depressive symptoms.
The team found that higher levels of parental education meant fewer mental health issues for their adult children. "However, we also found much of that association may be due to the fact that parents with more education tend to have children with more education and better paying jobs themselves," explained Quesnel-Valle. "What this means is that the whole process of climbing up the social ladder that is rooted in a parent's education is a crucial pathway for the mental health of adult children."
These findings suggest that policies aimed at increasing educational opportunities for all, regardless of social background, may help break the intergenerational cycle of low socioeconomic status and poor mental health. "Children don't get to choose where they come from. I think we have a responsibility to address health inequalities borne out of the conditions of early childhood," said Quesnel-Valle.
The paper "Socioeconomic Pathways to Depressive Symptoms in Adulthood: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979" was recently published in the Journal Social Science & Medicine.
###
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Public release date: 26-Jan-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Allison Flynn
allison.j.flynn@mcgill.ca
514-398-7698
McGill University
New research sheds light on cycle of low socioeconomic status and depression
This release is available in French.
Could depression in adulthood be tied to a parent's level of education? A new study led by Amlie Quesnel-Valle, a medical sociologist from McGill University, suggests this is the case.
Drawing from 29 years of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79), Quesnel-Valle and co-author Miles Taylor, an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at Florida State University, looked at pathways between a parent's education level and their children's education level, household income and depressive symptoms.
The team found that higher levels of parental education meant fewer mental health issues for their adult children. "However, we also found much of that association may be due to the fact that parents with more education tend to have children with more education and better paying jobs themselves," explained Quesnel-Valle. "What this means is that the whole process of climbing up the social ladder that is rooted in a parent's education is a crucial pathway for the mental health of adult children."
These findings suggest that policies aimed at increasing educational opportunities for all, regardless of social background, may help break the intergenerational cycle of low socioeconomic status and poor mental health. "Children don't get to choose where they come from. I think we have a responsibility to address health inequalities borne out of the conditions of early childhood," said Quesnel-Valle.
The paper "Socioeconomic Pathways to Depressive Symptoms in Adulthood: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979" was recently published in the Journal Social Science & Medicine.
###
[ | 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/mu-eha012612.php
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NASA's NuSTAR ships to Vandenberg for March 14 launch
ScienceDaily (Jan. 25, 2012) ? NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, shipped to Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., on Tuesday, to be mated to its Pegasus launch vehicle. The observatory will detect X-rays from objects ranging from our sun to giant black holes billions of light-years away. It is scheduled to launch March 14 from an aircraft operating out of Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
"The NuSTAR mission is unique because it will be the first NASA mission to focus X-rays in the high-energy range, creating the most detailed images ever taken in this slice of the electromagnetic spectrum," said Fiona Harrison, the mission's principal investigator at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif.
The observatory shipped from Orbital Sciences Corporation in Dulles, Va., where the spacecraft and science instrument were integrated. It is scheduled to arrive at Vandenberg on Jan. 27, where it will be mated to the Pegasus, also built by Orbital, on Feb. 17.
The mission will be launched from the L-1011 "Stargazer" aircraft, which will take off near the equator from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific. NuSTAR and its Pegasus will fly from Vandenberg to Kwajalein attached to the underside of the L-1011, and are scheduled to arrive on March 7.
On launch day, after the airplane arrives at the planned drop site over the ocean, the Pegaus will drop from the L-1011 and carry NuSTAR to an orbit around Earth.
"NuSTAR is an engineering achievement, incorporating state-of-the-art high-energy X-ray mirrors and detectors that will enable years of astronomical discovery," said Yunjin Kim, the mission's project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
NuSTAR's advanced telescope consists of two sets of 133 concentric shells of mirrors, which were shaped from flexible glass similar to that found in laptop screens. Because X-rays require large focusing distances, or focal lengths, the telescope has a lengthy 33-foot (10-meter) mast, which will unfold a week after launch.
These and other advances in technology will enable NuSTAR to explore the cosmic world of high-energy X-rays with much improved sensitivity and resolution over previous missions. During its two-year primary mission, NuSTAR will map the celestial sky in X-rays, surveying black holes, mapping supernova remnants, and studying particle jets travelling away from black holes near the speed of light.
NuSTAR also will probe the sun, looking for microflares theorized to be on the surface that could explain how the sun's million-degree corona, or atmosphere, is heated. It will even test a theory of dark matter, the mysterious substance making up about one-quarter of our universe, by searching the sun for evidence of a hypothesized dark matter particle.
"NuSTAR will provide an unprecedented capability to discover and study some of the most exotic objects in the universe, from the corpses of exploded stars in the Milky Way to supermassive black holes residing in the hearts of distant galaxies," said Lou Kaluzienski, NuSTAR program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
NuSTAR is a small-explorer mission managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The spacecraft was built by Orbital Sciences Corporation. Its instrument was built by a consortium including Caltech, JPL, Columbia University, New York, N.Y., NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., the Danish Technical University in Denmark, the University of California, Berkeley, and ATK-Goleta. NuSTAR will be operated by U.C. Berkeley, with the Italian Space Agency providing its equatorial ground station located at Malindi, Kenya. NASA's Explorer Program is managed by Goddard. JPL is managed by Caltech for NASA.
For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/nustar and http://www.nustar.caltech.edu/ .
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Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120125160405.htm
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School lunches to have more veggies, whole grains (AP)
ALEXANDRIA, Va. ? The first major nutritional overhaul of school meals in more than 15 years means most offerings ? including the always popular pizza ? will come with less sodium, more whole grains and a wider selection of fruits and vegetables on the side.
First lady Michelle Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the new guidelines during a visit Wednesday with elementary students. Mrs. Obama, also joined by celebrity chef Rachael Ray, said youngsters will learn better if they don't have growling stomachs at school.
"As parents, we try to prepare decent meals, limit how much junk food our kids eat, and ensure they have a reasonably balanced diet," Mrs. Obama said. "And when we're putting in all that effort the last thing we want is for our hard work to be undone each day in the school cafeteria."
After the announcement, the three went through the line with students and ate turkey tacos with brown rice, black bean and corn salad and fruit ? all Ray's recipes ? with the children in the Parklawn Elementary lunchroom.
Under the new rules, pizza won't disappear from lunch lines, but will be made with healthier ingredients. Entire meals will have calorie caps for the first time and most trans fats will be banned. Sodium will gradually decrease over a 10 year period. Milk will have to be low in fat and flavored milks will have to be nonfat.
Despite the improvements, the new rules aren't as aggressive as the Obama administration had hoped. Congress last year blocked the Agriculture Department from making some of the desired changes, including limiting french fries and pizzas.
A bill passed in November would require the department to allow tomato paste on pizzas to be counted as a vegetable, as it is now. The initial draft of the department's guidelines, released a year ago, would have prevented that. Congress also blocked the department from limiting servings of potatoes to two servings a week. The final rules have incorporated those directions from Congress.
Among those who had sought the changes were potato growers and food companies that produce frozen pizzas for schools. Conservatives in Congress called the guidelines an overreach and said the government shouldn't tell children what to eat. School districts also objected to some of the requirements, saying they go too far and would cost too much.
The guidelines apply to lunches subsidized by the federal government. A child nutrition bill signed by President Barack Obama in 2010 will help school districts pay for some of the increased costs. Some of the changes will take place as soon as this September; others will be phased in over time.
While many schools are improving meals already, others still serve children meals high in fat, salt and calories. The guidelines are designed to combat childhood obesity and are based on 2009 recommendations by the Institute of Medicine, the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences.
Vilsack said food companies are reformulating many of the foods they sell to schools in anticipation of the changes.
"The food industry is already responding," he said. "This is a movement that has started, it's gaining momentum."
Diane Pratt-Heavner of the School Nutrition Association, which represents school lunch workers, said that many schools won't count pizza as a vegetable even though they can. Students qualifying for subsidized meals must have a certain number of vegetables and other nutritious foods on their lunch trays.
"Most schools are serving fruit or vegetables next to their pizza and some schools are even allowing unlimited servings of fruit or vegetables," Pratt-Heavner said.
Celebrity chef Ray said she thinks too much has been made of the availability of pizza and French fries. The new rules will make kids' lunch plates much more nutrient dense, she said.
"The overall picture is really good," she said. "This is a big deal."
The subsidized meals that would fall under the guidelines are served as free and low-cost meals to low-income children and long have been subject to government nutrition standards. The 2010 law will extend, for the first time, nutrition standards to other foods sold in schools that aren't subsidized by the federal government. That includes "a la carte" foods on the lunch line and snacks in vending machines.
Those standards, while expected to be similar, will be written separately and have not yet been proposed by the department.
___
Online:
USDA school lunch rules: http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/Governance/Legislation/nutritionstandards.htm
___
Find Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick
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Nobel laureate: Free 3 Iranian leaders (AP)
CAIRO ? A Nobel Peace laureate is demanding that Iran release three opposition leaders who have been confined to house arrest for nearly a year.
Shirin Ebadi calls on "all freedom-loving people across the globe" to work for release of the three ? Zahra Rahnavard, Mir Hossein Mousavi, and Mehdi Karroubi. Rahnavard is Mousavi's wife.
The three were arrested in February 2011 after they came out in support of the popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. They opposed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a disputed presidential election in 2009.
Ebadi's call was released in a statement Thursday by the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.
In 2003, she became the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. After the 2009 election, she decided not to return home to Iran.
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German business confidence up more than expected (AP)
FRANKFURT, Germany ? Germany's much watched Ifo index of business optimism rose for the third month in a row in a positive sign for the largest economy in the eurozone.
The January reading of 108.3 was up from 107.2 in December and exceeded market expectations for around 107.5.
It's a positive sign for the largest economy in the eurozone. Economists say Germany may show a slight dip in output for the last months of the year and then resume moderate growth later in 2012.
The government expects 0.7 percent growth for the year.
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Obama urges taxing rich, aiding housing in State of the Union (Reuters)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? President Barack Obama called on Tuesday for higher taxes on the rich and new remedies for the U.S. mortgage crisis in a starkly populist State of the Union address aimed at convincing voters to give him a second term.
Speaking to Congress and beyond them to the broader electorate, Obama proposed sweeping changes in the tax code -- most notably, a minimum 30 percent effective rate on millionaires -- to eliminate inequalities that allow the wealthy to pay lower rates than the middle class.
While the biggest proposals in Obama's election-year speech are considered unlikely to gain traction in a divided Congress, the White House believes the president can tap into voters' resentment over Wall Street excesses and Washington's dysfunction.
Obama's message could resonate in the 2012 campaign following the release of tax records by Mitt Romney, a potential Republican rival and one of the wealthiest men to ever run for the White House. He pays a lower effective tax rate than many top wage-earners.
A new proposal outlined by Obama to ease the way for more American homeowners to get mortgage relief -- and to pay for the plan with a fee on banks blamed for helping create the housing crisis -- also struck a strong note of populism.
"Millions of Americans who work hard and play by the rules every day deserve a government and a financial system that does the same," Obama told a joint session of Congress. "It's time to apply the same rules from top to bottom."
Taxes are the most divisive issue at the heart of this year's presidential campaign when Obama is seeking re-election despite a slow economic recovery and a high jobless rate.
Democrats have hammered Republicans in Congress for supporting tax breaks that favor the wealthy while Republicans staunchly oppose tax hikes, even on the richest Americans, arguing they would hurt a fragile economic recovery.
House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, the top congressional Republican, accused Obama beforehand of promoting the "politics of envy" and insisted the election would be a referendum on the president's "failed" policies.
The U.S. unemployment rate was 8.5 percent in December. No president in the modern era has won re-election with the rate that high.
Obama used the speech to revive his call to rewrite the tax code to adopt the so-called "Buffett rule," named after the billionaire Warren Buffett, who says it is unfair that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.
Those making more than $1 million a year would pay a minimum effective tax rate of at least 30 percent and their tax deductions would be eliminated under Obama's plan.
To underscore Obama's point about tax inequality, Buffett's secretary, Debbie Bosanek, was to be seated in the first lady's box in the House of Representatives for Obama's annual address.
CHINA, PEACE DIVIDEND, HOUSING
Seeking to capitalize on a high-profile platform to draw contrasts with his Republican challengers, Obama also rolled out proposed corporate tax reforms, including a minimum rate on companies' overseas profits and a tax credit for moving jobs back home.
Taking aim at China -- an election-year target of Republicans and Democrats alike over its currency and trade practices -- Obama proposed creation of a new trade enforcement unit within the federal government.
Promising what amounts to a peace dividend, Obama also proposed using half of the "savings" from ending the war in Iraq and winding down in Afghanistan to pay down U.S. debt, with the other half going to fixing decaying infrastructure like roads and railways.
According to Congressional Budget Office estimates, savings from the wars would result in "about $440 billion less" in spending in 2012-2021.
On the housing front, Obama said he would send to Congress a proposal to allow more Americans take out new and cheaper mortgages as long as they are current on their payments, savings that would amount to $3,000 per household each year.
Blaming banks for helping to cause the housing crisis in the first place, Obama told Congress that financial institutions would be asked to cover the cost of the plan via a proposed bank fee.
Record-low interest rates have already spurred many U.S. homeowners to refinance their mortgages, but the housing crisis continues to drag on the U.S. economic recovery.
While these initiatives do not offer a quick fix for high unemployment that threatens Obama's re-election prospects, his speech was a chance to take control of the campaign narrative amid saturation coverage of the volatile Republican race.
Although Obama is fully aware of the legislative obstacles, his aides see this approach scoring political points by turning up the heat on Republicans he accuses of obstructing economic recovery.
"We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by," Obama said. "Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share."
Voters learned on Tuesday that Romney, a former private equity firm chief, and his wife paid an effective tax rate of 13.9 percent in 2010 and expect to pay a 15.4 percent for 2011 - tax rates that are far below the top rate of 35 percent on ordinary wages.
(Editing by Ross Colvin and David Storey)
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Video: Which vision will America choose?
Broken heart may become a diagnosis
??NYT: In a bitter skirmish over the definition of depression, a new report contends that a proposed change to the diagnosis would characterize grieving as a disorder and greatly increase the number of people treated for it.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/46122369#46122369
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Stop What You're Doing and Explore Mars Right Now [Nasa]
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Rising wealth of Asians straining world fish stock (AP)
MANILA, Philippines ? Rising wealth in Asia and fishing subsidies are among factors driving overexploitation of the world's fish resources, while fish habitat is being destroyed by pollution and climate change, U.N. marine experts said Tuesday.
Up to 32 percent of the world's fish stocks are overexploited, depleted or recovering, they warned. Up to half of the world's mangrove forests and a fifth of coral reefs that are fish spawning grounds have been destroyed.
The U.N. Environment Programme says less-destructive ways of fishing that use more labor and less energy are needed to help restore the health of the world's oceans and coasts.
The agency is leading a five-day conference in Manila of experts and officials from 70 governments.
Jacqueline Alder, head of UNEP's marine, coastal and freshwater office, said the increasing ranks of rich Asians are driving demand for better quality fish that are often not abundant, adding pressure to their supply.
"People don't want to eat the little anchovies anymore when they can eat a nice snapper or grouper ? much nicer fish, shows much more of your wealth," she told reporters.
Alder said booming population, more awareness of health benefits from eating fish, fuel and boat-building subsidies in industrial fisheries, weak management and limited understanding of ecosystems' values are also driving fish overexploitation.
She said subidies should be reduced or eliminated, fishing gears should be less destructive, and the number of boats and fishers reduced. Habitat management should also be strengthened and marine protected areas established.
Fish is the main source of protein for up to 20 percent of the of world's population and some 180 million people are directly or indirectly employed by the fishing industry, she added.
Vincent Sweeney, UNEP's coordinator for the Global Program of Action to prevent marine environment degradation from land-based pollutants, said up to 90 percent of sewage in developing countries is discharged untreated into rivers, lakes and oceans, posing one of the most serious threats to water resources.
Other pollutants from land including nitrogen and phosphorous from fertilizers and detergents result in hypoxia or "dead zones" where too many nutrients cause an undesirable growth of plants that compete with coral reef and other marine life for oxygen.
Jerker Tamelander, head of UNEP's coral reef unit, said healthy coral reefs can produce up to 35 tons of fish per square kilometer each year while there is a catch reduction of 67 tons for every square kilometer of clear-cut mangrove forest.
The global market value of marine and coastal resources and industries is estimated at $3 trillion per year or about 5 percent of the global economy, he said. Non-market value such as climate, water, nutrients and carbon regulation is estimated at $22 trillion a year.
"We've lost a fifth of the world's coral reefs and 60 percent are under direct and immediate threat and climate change plays an additional role in driving reef loss," he said.
Tamelander said the decline in coastal ecosystems' health and productivity can be reversed by shifting to greener and more sustainable strategies, addressing threats and better management that involves all stakeholders.
"The sooner we act, the easier it will be and the longer we wait the harder it will be," he warned.
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Warrant needed for GPS tracking, high court says (AP)
WASHINGTON ? In a rare defeat for law enforcement, the Supreme Court unanimously agreed on Monday to bar police from installing GPS technology to track suspects without first getting a judge's approval. The justices made clear it wouldn't be their final word on increasingly advanced high-tech surveillance of Americans.
Indicating they will be monitoring the growing use of such technology, five justices said they could see constitutional and privacy problems with police using many kinds of electronic surveillance for long-term tracking of citizens' movements without warrants.
While the justices differed on legal rationales, their unanimous outcome was an unusual setback for government and police agencies grown accustomed to being given leeway in investigations in post-Sept. 11 America, including by the Supreme Court. The views of at least the five justices raised the possibility of new hurdles down the road for police who want to use high-tech surveillance of suspects, including various types of GPS technology.
"The Supreme Court's decision is an important one because it sends a message that technological advances cannot outpace the American Constitution," said Donald Tibbs, a professor at the Earle Mack School of Law at Drexel University. "The people will retain certain rights even when technology changes how the police are able to conduct their investigations."
A GPS device installed by police on Washington, D.C., nightclub owner Antoine Jones' Jeep and tracked for four weeks helped link him to a suburban house used to stash money and drugs. He was sentenced to life in prison before an appeals court overturned his conviction.
It's not clear how much difficulty police agencies would have with warrant requirements in this area; historically they are rarely denied warrants they request. But the Obama administration argued that getting one could be cumbersome, perhaps impossible in the early stages of an investigation. In the Jones case, police got a warrant but did not install the GPS device until after the warrant had expired and then in a jurisdiction that wasn't covered by the document.
Justice Antonin Scalia said the government's installation of the device, and its use of the GPS to monitor the vehicle's movements, constituted a search, meaning a warrant was required. "Officers encroached on a protected area," Scalia wrote.
Relying on a centuries-old legal principle, he concluded that the police action without a warrant was a trespass and therefore an illegal search. He was joined in his opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor.
All nine justices agreed that the GPS monitoring on the Jeep violated the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable search and seizure, a decision the American Civil Liberties Union said was an "important victory for privacy."
But there was a major division between Scalia, the court's conservative leader, and Justice Samuel Alito, a former federal prosecutor and usually a Scalia ally, over how much further the court should go beyond just saying that police can't put a GPS device on something used by a suspect without a warrant.
Alito wrote, in a concurring opinion, that the trespass was not as important as the suspect's expectation of privacy and the duration of the surveillance.
"The use of longer-term GPS monitoring in investigations of most offenses impinges on expectations of privacy," Alito wrote in an opinion joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan. Sotomayor in her concurring opinion specifically said she agreed with Alito on this conclusion.
No justice embraced the government's argument that the surveillance of Jones was acceptable because he had no expectation of privacy for the Jeep's location on public roads.
Alito added, "We need not identify with precision the point at which the tracking of this vehicle became a search, for the line was surely crossed before the four-week mark."
Regarding the issue of duration, Scalia wrote that "we may have to grapple" with those issues in the future, "but there is no reason for rushing forward to resolve them here."
Sotomayor, in her separate opinion, wrote that it may be time to rethink all police use of tracking technology, not just long-term GPS.
"GPS monitoring generates a precise, comprehensive record of a person's public movement that reflects a wealth of detail about her familial, political, religious and sexual associations," Sotomayor said. "The government can store such records and efficiently mine them for information for years to come."
Alito also said the court and Congress should address how expectations of privacy affect whether warrants are required for remote surveillance using electronic methods that do not require the police to install equipment, such as GPS tracking of mobile telephones. Alito noted, for example, that more than 322 million cellphones have installed equipment that allows wireless carriers to track the phones' locations.
"If long-term monitoring can be accomplished without committing a technical trespass ? suppose for example, that the federal government required or persuaded auto manufacturers to include a GPS tracking device in every car ? the court's theory would provide no protection," Alito said.
Sotomayor agreed. "It may be necessary to reconsider the premise that an individual has no reasonable expectation of privacy in information voluntarily disclosed to their parties," she said.
Washington lawyer Andy Pincus called the decision "a landmark ruling in applying the Fourth Amendment's protections to advances in surveillance technology." Pincus has argued 22 cases before the Supreme Court and filed a brief in the current case on behalf of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a civil liberties group with expertise in law, technology and policy.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said the court's decision was "a victory for privacy rights and for civil liberties in the digital age." He said the ruling highlighted many new privacy threats posed by new technologies. Leahy has introduced legislation to update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, a 1986 law that specifies standards for government monitoring of cellphone conversations and Internet communications.
The lower appellate court that threw out Jones' conviction also objected to the duration of the surveillance.
The case is U.S. v. Jones, 10-1259.
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Aretha Franklin calls off wedding plans (Reuters)
(Reuters) ? "Queen of Soul" Aretha Franklin on Monday called off plans to marry in the summer, saying she and her fianc? William 'Willie' Wilkerson had decided they had gone too far, too soon.
"Will and I have decided we were moving a little too fast, and there were a number of things that had not been thought through thoroughly. There will be no wedding at this time," the couple said in a joint statement.
"We will not comment on it any further because of the very personal and sensitive nature of it. We appreciate all of the many well wishes from friends. Aretha & Will."
Franklin, 69, announced her engagement three weeks ago, saying she and her longtime friend planned to marry in June or July on Miami beach, followed by a party on a yacht.
The announcement came about a year after the "Respect" singer was sidelined by a mystery illness requiring surgery. She returned to performing and released a new album in May after dropping about 85 pounds in weight.
(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
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Europe ministers get tough on Greek debt deal (AP)
BRUSSELS ? Europe and private investors were gearing up for hard negotiations on how to cut Greece's massive debt Tuesday, after the region's finance ministers adopted a tough stance on how much rescue money they would pump into the Greek economy.
On the front line of Europe's sovereign debt crisis, Athens is trying to get its private creditors ? banks and other investment firms ? to swap their Greek government bonds for new ones with half their face value, thereby slicing some euro100 billion ($130 billion) off its debt. The new bonds would also push the repayment deadlines 20 to 30 years into the future.
However, the main stumbling block over the past few weeks to securing this deal has been the interest rate these new bonds would carry. A high interest rate could buffer losses for investors, but would also require the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund to put up more than the euro130 billion ($169 billion) in rescue loans they promised in October.
In the early hours of Tuesday, politicians representing the 17 countries that use the euro drew a firm line on the Greek debt restructuring.
Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg prime minister who chaired a meeting of finance ministers on efforts to fight the crisis, said the average interest rate over the lifetime of the new Greek bonds must be "clearly below 4 percent," with an average rate of less than 3.5 percent for the period until 2020. That is far below the 4 percent demanded by the Institute of International Finance, which has been leading negotiations for the private bondholders.
Charles Dallara, head of the IIF, warned that a deal was required soon if European leaders wanted to avoid more financial turmoil.
"European stability is at stake," he told reporters at a press conference in Zurich.
He said he was confident there would be "large-scale" participation if a voluntary deal between Greece and its private creditors is agreed.
But reaching a deal would require one of the sides to back down from its demands.
The European ministers' tough stance on the interest rates underlines how the eurozone and the IMF are unwilling to increase new rescue loans above the promised euro130 billion, even though Greece's economic situation has deteriorated. After already granting Greece a euro110 billion bailout in May 2010, the eurozone and the IMF are threatening to withhold further funding for the country, which has repeatedly failed to hit budget and reform targets required in return for the financial aid.
The interest rate caps will also seriously test the willingness of private bondholders to agree to a debt deal voluntarily. IIF head Charles Dallara over the weekend had characterized the bondholders' most recent offer as the best possible, adding that lower interest rates would not be acceptable for private bondholders.
But German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble dismissed Dallara's statements as a normal part of difficult negotiations. "We continue the negotiations (with investors) as happily, but also as little susceptible to blackmail as possible," he told reporters. "That exists in every bazaar ? a final offer ? one shouldn't let oneself be overly impressed by that."
The alternative to a voluntary deal would be to force losses on to investors ? a move that the eurozone has so far been unwilling to make. Some officials fear that a forced default could trigger panic on financial markets and hurt bigger countries like Italy, Spain or even France.
But several ministers indicated that they might be willing to accept a forced default if it puts Athens in a position where it can eventually repay its remaining debt ? including the rescue loans from the eurozone and the IMF. The eurozone has said that Greece's debt is sustainable if it falls to some 120 percent of gross domestic product by 2020. Without a restructuring it would reach close to 200 percent by the end of the year.
Even Olli Rehn, the EU's Monetary Affairs Commissioner, said that forcing some holdouts to accept a restructuring that has the support of the majority of bondholders would be acceptable.
"That is possible within the framework of achieving a voluntary agreement on private sector involvement," Rehn said, referring to so-called collective action clauses that Greece could write into its old bond contracts to allow majority decision making. The Commission has so far always been opposed to any forced losses for investors.
But ministers also put the pressure on Greece to reach a manageable debt level by bolstering its reform and austerity measures.
"Greece and the banks have to do more in order to reach a sustainable debt level," Dutch Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager told reporters as he arrived for a second day of meetings with his European counterparts. "We have to await the discussions about that because a sustainable debt level is absolutely a precondition for the next (rescue) program."
Schaeuble also insisted that firm support for new austerity measures from all major Greek parties ? including after elections expected in April ? was a precondition for a new bailout.
Greek stocks dropped Tuesday, shedding 3 percent one day after optimism on the debt writedown deal sparked a 5 percent rally.
Meanwhile, updated budget execution figures from the Greek Finance Ministry showed that despite massive spending cuts, the fiscal deficit for 2011 was actually higher than in 2010 ? at euro21.72 billion ($28.27 billion), up euro270 million ($350 million).
Revenues were euro910 million ($1.18 billion) below target, but the ministry said this was offset by higher-than-anticipated spending cuts of euro896 million ($1.16 billion).
These figures are on a cash basis, and exclude some categories of spending taken into account in calculating the final budget deficit for 2011 ? which Greece has pledged to cut to about euro20 billion ($26 billion).
__
Pan Pylas in Zurich and Nicholas Paphitis in Athens, Greece, contributed to this story.
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