text:
Ways to Order
Call our ticket office:
503-228-1353 or 1-800-228-7343
Monday–Friday, 10 AM – 9 PM
Visit our downtown office:
923 SW Washington, Portland, Oregon
Monday–Friday, 10 AM – 6 PM
Order online:
For single tickets,
view the list of Upcoming Concerts to select a concert and purchase tickets. For subscriptions, view the Subscription Packages page and
fill out our secure order form.
Please note that tickets are mailed to the address provided when ordered one week before the concert or earlier. Tickets ordered within six days of a concert will be held for pick up at Will Call which opens two hours before the concert in the Box Office at the Broadway entrance of the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall (1037 SW Broadway, Portland), or visit our Ticket Office (923 SW Washington, Portland) during regular hours to secure your tickets.
Buy tickets at the hall, up to 2 hours prior to each concert:
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
1037 SW Broadway, Portland, Oregon
Send us an e-mail:
Visit the customer service table at an upcoming concert:
Our customer service representatives are stationed near the entrance of the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall and will be happy to assist you prior to the concerts and during intermission.
Out of State Ticket Policy
To protect our patrons from third party ticket brokers and scalpers, the Oregon Symphony will not mail tickets to purchasers outside Oregon and Washington. Any tickets purchased by patrons outside Oregon and Washington will be held for pickup at will call at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, starting 2 hours before the concert. The purchaser must present his/her photo ID and the credit card used to purchase the tickets.


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Best alcohol free toner
by Oindrila Ghoshal,There are few alcohol free toners available in the Indian market. After trying the Fabindia Tea Tree Face Wash, I was so delighted that I immediately bought this toner to complete my daily skin care regimen. As you know, cleansing, toning and moisturizing are a must for healthy, glowing skin. There are numerous benefits of tea tree oil and it is widely used in skincare products. According to Wikipedia:"Tea tree oil, or melaleuca oil, is a pale yellow color to nearly colorless and clear essential oil with a fresh camphoraceous odor." This oil is one of the main ingredients of this toner which is why it has been named so. Now let's get into more details about the Fabindia Tea Tree Skin Toner.
Price: Rs.150 for 200ml
Ingredients: Purified Water, Propylene Glycol, Phenoxyethanol, Polysorbate 20, Imid Urea, Tea Tree Oil, Salicylic Acid, Neem Extract, Turmeric Extract.
Product Claim: An alcohol free skin toner with Tea Tree oil that controls sebum and clears blemishes
Directions for use: After washing your face and neck, spray the skin toner onto a cotton swab and gently stoke in an upward direction. Avoid contact with eyes.
Shelf Life: 36 months from date of manufacture
My Experience with the product:
The toner on application does not sting my skin at all. In fact, it gives a cooling sensation. It soothes my skin. I have a feeling that it would suit sensitive skin as well. I use it as directed after pouring out some on a cotton ball. Most of the toners that I have used in the past were meant for oily skin but they badly stung my skin. This one is really gentle on the skin which is one of the positive things about it. It controls oil effectively for few hours at a stretch. It has really controlled my acne and ever since I am using this I did not get any new pimples. Touch wood! It keeps the pores reduced and tight which is what a toner should ideally do. The fragrance is a combination of tea tree oil and neem which I find quite soothing. The packaging is impressive with a flip open cap and a see-through bottle. The texture is just like water except that it comes out as a very light greenish liquid. It contains salicylic acid which is a known acne-fighting ingredient. In fact, those with acne-prone skin should always look for products that contain this ingredient. I have noticed a reduction in my blemishes too. This toner is inexpensive considering its effectiveness and quantity. This has become my HG product now and I am going to repurchase it again and again.
Pros of Fabindia Tea Tree Skin Toner:
1. Alcohol free
2. Contains the best acne-fighting ingredients
3. Does not sting the skin
4. Gentle and soothing; gives cooling sensation
5. Keeps skin oil free for many hours
6. Controls pore size
7. Helps with blemishes
8. Convenient packaging
9. Nice smell
10. Reasonably priced
Cons of Fabindia Tea Tree Skin Toner:
1. None at all
This is one of the best alcohol free toners in the market. Use it to see the difference!

subset: commoncrawl


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IT band test. (Kyle T. Webster)
The Test
Lie on a table or high bench and let half of your thighs extend off the edge. Dangle one foot and bend the other knee, pulling it toward your chest until your lower back touches the bench. Have a partner observe what happens.
If your dangling knee falls to the side rather than forming a straight line from the hip, your IT band, which runs along the thigh to the calves, is tight.
Why It Matters
The IT band stabilizes the knee. If it's tight, it can rub against the knee and become inflamed, an overuse injury known as IT band friction syndrome.
The Fix: Leg Roll
Lie on your side, your thigh resting on a foam roller. Ease your leg along the cylinder, using your weight to apply pressure to the tissue. Roll up and down the band for 60 seconds, then repeat on the other leg. Spend extra time on tender areas.


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Create, Play and Share song taps for all of the popular artists with your own music! Taps for Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Justin Beiber, Katy Perry, Coldplay, Bruno Mars, LMFAO, FUN., Metallica, Eminem, Owl City, Drake, Nicki Minaj, PSY and many many more!
With over 5 million downloads, Tap Studio is the most popular series of games for creating and sharing song taps on iOS!
Do you love Tap games? What if you could tap ANY song you own? What if you could make your own taps and share them with all your friends? What if you could access a Tap Vault of over 370,000 song taps for an amazing variety of songs, from todays hottest artists to some of the strangest music you can imagine, with more added every day? And all for free!
"I was a huge fan of tap tap revenge 2, the only bad part is the fact that they didn't have a wide selection of any music, let alone my genre (metal). I've had my iPhone for about 3 months now, and this is without a doubt my favorite app out of all of them. It must be otherwise I wouldn't have took the time to write this review. It's free, take advantage of it, I would GLADLY pay 2.99 up to 5.99 for this game <3″ – Josh
Tap Studio 3 features:
✔ Create and play and share taps for all the music on your iPod touch, iPhone or iPad
✔ Edit your taps until they are perfect
✔ Access the Tap Vault containing user submitted taps for nearly any song imaginable! See details such as high scores and ratings with comments!
✔ Tap Vault Library tab will automatically find highly rated song taps in the Tap Vault that match the music in your library
✔ Browse the Tap Vault by Featured, Most Popular, Highest Rated, Most Recent or perform an easy Search with suggestions as you type
✔ Game Center integration with achievements and global leader boards!
✔ Play with up to 3 of your friends with Multiplayer through Game Center!
✔ Full retina and iPhone 5 / 4″ iPod touch support
✔ Choose from a variety of play skins with different graphics in portrait or landscape orientations
✔ 3 and 4 rail recording and playback in all game play skins
✔ Album artwork is part of the game play background in some play skins
✔ Share your best taps with your friends and all the world
✔ Send and receive Tap Challenges. Beat your friends high scores
✔ Adjustable difficulty level setting that controls the playback speed
✔ Facebook and Twitter integration so you can share your high scores
Tap Studio 3 users rock! Keep the good ✭✭✭✭✭ reviews coming and we'll keep the updates coming!
Thank you so much for your support.
Visit us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/dropdstudios
Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/dropdstudios
■ PLEASE NOTE that we do not store songs on our database, nor do we facilitate the sharing of songs. Tap Studio PRO simply uploads and downloads the tap data. Each user is required to have their own copy of the matching song on their device.
■ Tap Studio 3 matches song taps to songs by an exact match of song name, album name, and album artist name. If there is not an exact match found on your device, you will be given the option to purchase the song from iTunes (if available), or to browse your library to manually match the song. Be sure to choose the correct song or your taps may not line up properly!


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College of Law › About the College of Law › News, Events, and Multimedia › News › TU Law Surpasses National Employment Placement Average
Monday, June 06, 2011
The University of Tulsa College of Law graduates are obtaining employment at a rate well above the national average. TU's job placement rate of 92.4 percent for all 2010 graduates is more than eight percent higher than the national average of 84.1 percent.
This is particularly impressive given the current state of the economy, what the Association for Legal Career Professionals (NALP) calls "the worst job market since 1996."
The 84.1 percent national figure is based on the NALP Employment Report and Salary Survey for all law graduates from the Class of 2010, which NALP recently released. The report measures the employment rate as of February 15, 2011, which is nine months after a typical May graduation. The report defines Class of 2010 law graduates as graduates from the classes of December 2009, May 2010, and August 2010.
Of the 132 TU law graduates from these three classes, 122 are employed. Of the 10 graduates not employed, three are enrolled in another full-time degree program, and one's status is unknown. Of the 122 graduates who are employed, 87.7 percent are in a position where a law degree is preferred or law license is required (69.7 percent law license required, 18 percent JD preferred).
"TU law graduates are demonstrating that though there are real challenges in the job market, there are also good opportunities for those who are prepared and who work to find them," said Janet Levit, Dean and Dean John Rogers Endowed Chair for the TU College of Law.
Contact:Scott firstname.lastname@example.com


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Here Lately
24 comments:
- Jessica @ Acting Adult said...
Oh my gosh how scary is the wasp nest?! I would have freaked the heck out.
- August 16, 2010 at 8:16 PM
- Blue-Eyed Bride said...
ummm i haven't looked at my google reader in weeks-- not since nina's wedding-- and i've missed lots of your posts! :(
such a bummer about the wasp nests.
also- do you think your honor society students know that west virginia is a state? just sayin'.... :)
the pictures at the balloon festival are amazing! you're a great photographer! - August 16, 2010 at 9:09 PM
- Kelley said...
you are too funny!
- August 17, 2010 at 5:53 AM
- Lauren said...
Oh, girl… love those hot air balloon pictures. I've always wanted to go on one!!!!!
- August 17, 2010 at 6:21 AM
- Brown Girl said...
I agree on the wearing of items more than once, why do we do that? I'm going to bust out some old things as well...well they aren't technically old..right? You looked great! ;)
- August 17, 2010 at 6:55 AM
- Lauren said...
Ok, you're not alone. I still call my parents' house home as well...I am constantly corrected by my husband!
And...love that dress! I've come to the realization that I can reuse those special occasion dresses as well! That yellow is so fn! - August 17, 2010 at 7:24 AM
- Lauren @ Dreams Take Flight said...
I'm so glad someone else has the problem of feeling like they have to buy new clothes for events. I was so proud of myself when I went to the beach with friends this weekend and didn't buy one new clothing item!
- August 17, 2010 at 7:30 AM
- Jess said...
Those balloon pictures are beautiful!!!
I hate wasps. - August 17, 2010 at 8:12 AM
- Sweet Simplicity said...
They need to take care of that wasp nest! I'm scared for you! :)
Love the yellow dress. - August 17, 2010 at 8:33 AM
- Rachel said...
I have always wanted to go on a hot air balloon! I am jealous! I've never seen one in real life. Maybe I need to visit OK...
Also, I do the same thing with my clothes. I am terrible at rewearing my nicer dresses. Why is that? I love them! - August 17, 2010 at 8:44 AM
- Naturally Caffeinated Family said...
aww, what a fun trip home :) I will not go on a hot air balloon either, eek! I love your dress, you look beautiful!! and yikes, those wasps are out of control! I'm not sure I would work in there until every trace of them was gone ;) Hope you're doing great, friend!
- August 17, 2010 at 9:52 AM
- Heather said...
Maxton is getting big!!! And as cute as ever!!! You are as cute as ever, too!!! :) And NOT squatty at all!!!!
- August 17, 2010 at 11:42 AM
- SouthernBelleJM said...
Love the dress!!!
- August 17, 2010 at 4:01 PM
- Becca said...
That wasps nest gives me the willies - yuck!
oh and i love the yellow dress :-) glad you wore it again! - August 17, 2010 at 5:33 PM
- Classy Fab Sarah said...
I totally want to go in a hot air balloon!
For one of my friend's engagements, he took her up in a hot air balloon. I was so jealous. For multiple reasons. - August 17, 2010 at 7:27 PM
- Tara Gibson said...
omg that wasp nest would freak me out! eek!
you look super cute in that yellow dress, very far from squatty missy! - August 18, 2010 at 8:46 AM
- Meredith - proud mom of THREE! said...
Glad you survived the week without Luke. After visiting Julie without her hubby for almost two weeks!!!, I give you both a pat on the back.
- August 18, 2010 at 1:57 PM
- ashley said...
that yellow dress is super cute! makes me wish i had cute "old" clothes like that in my closet. you rocked it! :)
- August 18, 2010 at 6:10 PM
- Alex and Jill said...
The look on Maxton's face is priceless!
And I would absolutely have a panic attack if that wasps nest was anywhere near me. I'm so allergic. They need to help an honor-society-sister out and get rid of that thing! - August 18, 2010 at 7:16 PM
- Kristina said...
I love that yellow dress- it's so cute! I also love Maxton's face at the balloon festival!
- August 18, 2010 at 8:57 PM
- Perfectly Imperfect said...
How do you look so cute in both pictures you posted today!?
I would not be able to go to your office with those wasps around. I am deathly afraid of them. You are a hero in my eyes. I can't believe you can kill them... - August 19, 2010 at 10:28 AM
- Tatum-LeTard said...
Balloon Festival looked amazing!!! I have been in a hot air balloon once, and with a huge fear of heights, not sure what the heck I was thinking because I almost passed out! What an experience, but I will never do it again! haha! Hope you're having a great week!
- August 19, 2010 at 1:13 PM
- Jenni said...
Hi Megan! Just found your blog and loved reading through some of your posts! You and I actually have a lot in common... it's always nice to find someone like yourself. :) Anyway, I really enjoy your writing and humor and will check back now and then. Cheers! Jenni
- August 19, 2010 at 5:42 PM
- shopgirl said...
What an incredible sight to see and such beautiful photos! Hot air ballooning is fun and relatively safe ...as long as you do it with a reputable and experienced person. I tried it many years ago in Australia at dawn. Quite an experience to see the desert at such heights.
p.s. I like your blog.
Rambles with Reese - August 28, 2010 at 7:40 AM


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Hi I have seen so many neat pancake cakes and I was hoping to make one for my sister as a surprise for her birthday. She loves frosting and would much prefer that to fondant. Can anyone walk me through this cake (I know it's not difficult, just feeling overwhelmed) and how to make it with butter cream? Thanks so much! You can respond here or pm me, whichever is easier.
No reviews yet.


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External Power Supply with PB8H SSR Backplane Causes LEDs to be Half-Lit When Computer is OffHardware: Signal Conditioning Other>>SSR Series
Problem: The PB8H (70RCK8) SSR backplane shows the current state of the DAQ board's digital lines. When the board is connected to the computer's 5 V line, the LEDs turn off when the computer turns off. But when an external power supply is connected, they are half-lit when the computer is off, and then work properly when it is powered on. Solution: This is correct behavior. When the board is off, the lines are in a high impedance state. The LEDs are accurately reflecting the state of the digital lines when the computer is off--their state is indeterminate. Related Links: Attachments:
Report Date: 12/17/1998 Last Updated: 10/15/2003 Document ID: 1GGEOELL |


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Favstar gets even better if you sign in.
"Dad! Dad! Did you see Gerrard slip a little there? Our songs are true! Our songs our true!"
Bryan Adams and Ryan Adams both have the same birthday (today) and still people don't believe there is a God.
Watched 'In Bruges' for the second time last night. Probably in my top 5 movies.
People say they want 'deep teaching' but they don't. They want to be told what they already believe in a way they've not heard before.
@dreegs or just having a subordinating conjunction as it's own finishing sentence. That.
How to deal with doubters, cynics & critics in the church? Constantly tell them to stop being so negative? Jesus let Thomas touch His wounds
Go and listen to Pop by U2 and tell me it's not their best album. It is. Shut up. Joshua Tree Shmoshua Tree.
@robbieat man you're stupid... that sign means don't wear headphones in a barbeque.
@lukehellebronth if a leadership conference is on, but no-one tweets about it, did it really happen?
Stats can't be shown as @davidgate has never signed in to Favstar.


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Advertisement for Cox Sure Flyers
Page 7 of the original story is omitted.
Various ads scattered in the Hulk story: Slim Jim snacks; Big Jim's P.A.C.K.; U.S. School of Music (just 1-page ads mentioned here)
Promo for the trade paperback Son of Origins (Marvel, 1975 series) and The Mighty Marvel Bicentennial Calendar 1976. Page is between pages of the Hulk story.
NOTE 1: First hint of Destiny, soon to be a major foe. NOTE 2: Pages 4 and 5 of the original story are omitted.
Various ads scattered in the Sub-Mariner story: The Zane Grey Library; North American School of Drafting; Grit Publishing CO; Joe Weider
Advertisement for Hostess Twinkies. Featured in January 1976 and February 1976 Marvel Comics.


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If you're looking to take your performance to the next level, a good place to start might be at The Success Sanctuary .For those looking to make a bigger commitment, Tony is trained to the highest level in the latest cutting-edge NLP techniques and is proud to have worked with some of the UK's individuals in many different walks of life. You might be interested in this if you are:
- someone who wants to be more productive, confident and motivated.
- a sportsman or women who wants to improve focus and results.
- a business leader who wants to raise your game to the next level.
- someone who's interested in using cutting-edge NLP coaching techniques for high performance and quick results, or someone interested in employing a life coach to take action now.
High Performance 3 Month Results Program
This is the premium program for you if you're serious about making changes. Tony Wrightons high performance coaching provides private, individual focus on your high performance
- We start with a Two Hour Intensive Breakthrough Skype Session.
- We have 3 one-hour skype sessions a month.
- Unlimited email access and daily support in between to ensure max focus
- Every private high performer gets the full value of all my products, 3 books, 14 audiobooks, and unlimited Diamond Club membership of The Success Sanctuary with more than 50 audio programs to listen to.
We start High Performance programs at three months as this is the best amount of time to start achieving best results. Everything is geared towards taking as much action as possible to gain serious results.
Please use the contact form below if you'd like to take part or for more details on pricing. NB – there's a max of 10 High Performers per year.
(Or email now – firstname.lastname@example.com. Tony reads every email and will get straight back to you as soon as possible.)


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Document Type Doctoral Thesis Author Anyaegbunam, Adaeze Christiana URN etd-10232010-171444 Document Title Geometric algebra via sheaf theory : a view towards symplectic geometry Degree PhD Department Mathematics and Applied Mathematics Supervisor
Advisor Name Title Dr P P Ntumba Supervisor Keywords
- geometric algebra
- sheaf theory
Date 2010-09-02 Availability unrestricted Abstract Please read the abstract in the section front of this document.© 2010 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria.
Please cite as follows:
Anyaegbunam, AC 2010, Geometric algebra via sheaf theory : A view towards symplectic geometry, PhD thesis, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd < http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-10232010-171444 / >
Filename Size Approximate Download Time (Hours:Minutes:Seconds)
28.8 Modem 56K Modem ISDN (64 Kb) ISDN (128 Kb) Higher-speed Access thesis.pdf 675.82 Kb 00:03:07 00:01:36 00:01:24 00:00:42 00:00:03


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How can I get an application for licensure?
To obtain a License Application Packet you must download the "Application Request Form" located in the Document Center on the Board website. After completing the form, mail the completed form directly to the Board with the $20.00 application fee. The $20.00 application fee must be a money order or cashiers check only. No cash, personal checks or credit cards will be accepted. Once the application request form with the $20 fee is received in the Board office you will be mailed an application packet. The official licensure application packet includes all required forms and an instructional handbook.
Who must be licensed?
All therapists in the State who fall under the scope of
practice definition in the Massage and Bodywork Therapy Practice
Act will be required to apply for a license. This is legally defined
as: Systems of activity applied to the soft tissues of the human
body for therapeutic, educational or relaxation purposes. This
includes anyone who is practicing massage and bodywork therapy for
compensation, whether you are working full-time or part-time,
self-employed or working for someone else. The only exceptions are
practitioners of certain energy-based and movement repatterning
techniques whose work meets specific criteria for exemption set
forth in the Rules and Regulations. (Refer to the FAQ Sheet for details.)
Once you receive the application package, follow the enclosed General Instructions and use the Application Checklist to ensure that you are sending in a complete application. You are required to:
Review Process and Timeline:
Once your Application is received at the Board Office, it will be
reviewed by Board staff for completeness. When all documentation is
complete, your Application will be approved by Board staff or
forwarded to the Board's License Standards Committee. This committee
makes recommendations to the Board. Final action on Applications
reviewed by the License Standards Committee is made at a regularly
scheduled Board meeting. On average, it will take sixty (60)
business days (business days do not include weekends and
holidays) for a license to be issued by the Board once the
Application is found to be complete. Applying for licensure by
endorsement takes three (3) to six (6) months. These
timeframes begin on the date the Board receives the Application, not
the date the Application is mailed. The timeframe for
processing an application is an approximate time and may require a
longer period of time to process. If the Board requests missing
documents or further information, the timeframe starts over when the
missing documents or information have been received in the Board
office. If the applicant has any criminal history, the process time
is longer as the timeframe will be based on the review of the
criminal history itself. The Board may request additional
information or interview an applicant before issuing a license.
Requirements for a Regular license
You are eligible to apply for a regular license to practice massage and bodywork therapy if you have completed and can document all of the following requirements:
a) You have graduated from a Board-approved school (click for list) or an exempted North Carolina College program, and that school sends the Board an official sealed transcript and a verification of official curriculum form;- OR -
b) If you graduated from an out-of-state school which has NOT been approved by the North Carolina Board of Massage and Bodywork Therapy, you must submit the following documentation (which you are responsible for obtaining) which may be reviewed on a case-by-case basis and approved at the Board's discretion:
(1) A photocopy of the school's current license to operate;- OR -
(2) A copy of the most recent school catalog;
(3) A copy of the program curriculum, indicating course descriptions
and the number of classroom hours of supervised instruction
in each course which the applicant attended;
(4) An official sealed transcript sent directly to the Board;
(5) A verification of official curriculum form;c) If you graduated from a school which is no longer in operation, or a school from which records are unavailable, then you may complete an Affidavit of Professional Training which attests to your course of study and date of graduation. Please submit any school documents you may have with the Affidavit of Professional Training Form. This affidavit may be reviewed on a case-by-case basis and approved at the Board's discretion.
Each application is date-stamped when received in the Board office. Applications are processed in the order in which they are received. Once an application is complete and correct, it will be processed and approved in approximately sixty (60) business days from the date the Board decides the application is complete. Applying for Licensure by Endorsement takes 3 to 6 months.
Applications must be complete and correct before they are processed. A checklist is provided in the application booklet to help you in submitting a complete application. You will be notified by the Board office by email of any missing, incomplete, or incorrect items. If you are required to submit additional or corrected documents, your processing period will restart when all documents are received and correct.
To ensure that all the required documents are received promptly, you may wish to send all the documents together with your application. By doing this, you will know when the documents are sent. If you must have a transcript, moral character form, or out of state verification form mailed to the Board separately from your application, that information will be filed with you application when it arrives. Processing will begin when all documentation has been received.
Please do not call the Board office to find out your license processing status during the 60 business days necessary for processing. The Board staff will not be able to confirm that your application has or has not been received. You may purchase delivery confirmation from the US Postal Service or tracking service from a commercial mailing company.
The Board staff updates the webpage weekly with the names of new licensees. If you have been issued a license number, it will be on the website, www.bmbt.org, under Online Verification. Once your license number appears on the website you should receive your certificate of licensure within ten to fifteen business days.


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Brian Mathers runs this Web Marketing Company based in Glenrothes Fife and Glasgow in the West of Scotland. A web marketing pioneer with a collaborative team of real world Internet web marketing specialists, who have grown up with the Internet and search engines.
There are peers in the Search Marketing Industry, who are the global leaders in the Field of SEO, Rand Fishkin of MOZ is one of the most respected peers, and here is what he has to say about Brian here at ICTADVISOR who is delivering websites that achieve OnlineXcellence.
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Our web design teams develop fit for purpose websites to meet with your needs. We ensure your website adheres to best practice coding standards and are search engine friendly. You have a choice of simply getting advice from our internet marketing consultants or tap into our website management mentoring and training services from SEO practitioners who have over 15 years experience in web marketing.
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The above has been delivered to our customers for over 15 years. And now, we are ready to help you - Get in Touch, you won't be disappointed.


text:
Our Lives | WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST Jul 19, 2013
Knocking on knickknacks
by Thomas Dillon
My grandma used to be the easiest of all my relatives to buy souvenirs for. That's because she was a collector and, like many a collector, what she collected most was . . . . . . junk. And Japan is full of junk. ...


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We are sure you have seen many of these 15 passenger vans cruising the back roads of Lancaster and Chester Counties. A good number of these vehicles are "Amish Taxi's". Our Amish Neighbors rely heavily on outside transportation to travel over distances that would take hours in a standard buggy. The Amish call these people who own these vans when transport is needed and pay them either in the form of cash, check, or by bartering for services or goods. For the most part, most taxi drivers are either retired, stay at home moms, or disabled members of society. Some also do it as a part-time gig to make a couple extra buck here and there, but what happens to the van or truck driver that is just being neighborly? They to get lumped in with all the rest of them.
Complaints in recent months have prompted the state Public Utility Commission to crack down on unlicensed "Amish taxis" operating here and elsewhere in the state. Officers have been staking out and confronting drivers who are believed to accept money for transporting Amish people. In the past year, the PUC also has issued 95 letters of warning in the three counties and is considering $1,000 fines for those who refuse to stop. The stepped-up enforcement has been the talk of Luthersburg and surrounding communities, creating tension between people who supplement their incomes by driving Amish people and those who support state efforts to bring drivers into compliance.
"To me, it's extortion. Pennsylvania does not realize what the Amish do for this state," said Bonnie Huzinec (A PA taxi driver), ticking off farms, lumber businesses, food stores and other Amish businesses in her community. "A lot of people are very rude, very ignorant about the Amish."
Ms. Kocher of the PAPUC said the PUC requires anyone who transports others for compensation to obtain a certificate of public convenience, which costs $350 and is renewed each year. Drivers with certificates are monitored to ensure they and their vehicles adhere to rules covering rates and territories, meet safety standards and maintain commercial insurance, Ms. Kocher said.
"It's different from something occasional, like taking a neighbor to a grocery store," she said. "We understand that people who are being looked at in one area think they are being picked on. But we are trying to protect the public interest and public safety."
The commission issues certificates for two categories of for-compensation vehicles: metered taxis, which must meet more stringent regulations; and paratransit carriers, which include passenger cars to 15-passenger vans, Ms. Kocher said. Commercial insurance fees vary for paratransit vehicles but can cost up to $6,000 annually, she said.
The paratransit category includes vehicles used to drive people "whose personal convictions prevent them from driving or operating a vehicle," including Amish people, Ms. Kocher said. Regulation is necessary to guarantee safety of drivers and paying passengers who, in the event of an accident, would not be covered by non-commercial insurance, she said.
Many in the Amish community feel that this is not the case and that there are to many grey areas of the law and the PAPUC code enforcement. Examples of this are running rampant and no explanations have been given on the matter. For example, If a neighbor gives an Amish family of 5 a ride to take their young child to the doctors, and happens to get into an accident, under PA State law everyone in the vehicle is covered by the owners insurance policy. Does the owner of the vans insurance policy become void if he gives his neighbors a ride? We don't think so. Does it become void if the Amish family gives the driver gas money and a little money for their time? Probably not. Then how is it that the PAPUC can enforce this when there are so many people just doing a neighborly thing? We understand that there are legitimate taxi's out there that are operating as a Amish taxi service and intentionally go a look for new clientele, but this number is small.
The Pennsylvania D.O.T. caused an uproar recently when Gordonville fire company had its annual mud sale. PA D.O.T. set up shop close to the sale and started pulling over every van and/or bus to make sure everyone had the correct paperwork and had a PAPUC number on their van/bus. The problem with this was that the Vans and buses were donated to shuttle people to and from the sale because there isn't a lot of parking around the sale. These drivers volunteered their time to help out the local fire company and were being nothing short of harassed for their efforts and charity. It is rumored that the PA D.O.T. put 2 of their vehicles out of commission causing some to have to walk back to where their cars were parked which could have been up to a mile away.
Another story is of a van full of Amish that were coming in from Indiana for a funeral of a lost family member. They were pulled over on 340 and because the van didn't have a PAPUC number, the van wasn't allowed to continue to the funeral. After much begging the D.O.T. finally let the van go a quarter-mile up the road to unload people at an Amish farm. A Strange Amish farm that none of the people in the van knew. Luckily the Amish are generous people and took the van full of passengers in. The Driver from Indiana refuse to come back into the Intercourse/White Horse area to pick them up to go home, so they had to call at least 25 different people to come get them to provide transport to the funeral and then to York county to meet their Indiana van driver to be taken home.
Is this extortion? Is this right? If not it definitely is discrimination according to the Pennsylvania ACLU. Witold Walczak, legal director for the ACLU of Pennsylvania, confirmed that his organization is looking at the issue. The ACLU recognizes the PUC's authority to regulate transportation for hire, but wants to determine if PUC officers first obtain evidence to justify stopping and questioning people suspected of "Driving while with Amish," Mr. Walczak said. "The fact that you've got an 'English' person giving rides to one or more Amish persons does not constitute probable cause that this is an illegal jitney service," he said. "If we acquired evidence that these stops are occurring routinely, we would strongly consider going into federal court. You wonder why is the government spending these kind of resources?"
It seems in a lot of these issues that Amish drivers have been unfairly singled out for enforcement because their passengers are more easily identified.
*Some content derived from Cindi Lash's article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette here: http://old.post-gazette.com/pg/07364/845400-85.stm


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Search more Faculty and Staff
Areas of Expertise
Management information systems,
Accounting information systems,
Data / information quality,
Information security,
System analysis and design,
Contributions: (published works or studies, conference presentations)
Referred journal articles / publications
Xu, H., April 2012, "Organization's Top Management and Other System Users' Perceptions towards Data Quality Performance and Expectations," Advances in Management, Vol. 5, No. 4, pp. 16-19.
Xu, H., Rondeau, P. & Mahenthiran, S., Winter 2011, "The Challenge of Implementing an ERP System in a Small and Medium Enterprise - A Teaching Case of ERP Project Management," The Journal of Information Systems Education, Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 291-296.
Xu, H., March 2011, "Students' Perceptions of University Education - USA vs. China," Research in Higher Education Journal, Vol. 10, pp. 150-162. Arling, P. & Xu, H., Spring 2010, "The Impact of Team Member Familiarity on Communication Media Use and Subsequent Project Performance," Communications of the ICISA, an International Journal, Vol. 11, No.1, pp. 57-80.
Florenthal, B., Yagi, N. & Xu, H., July 2009, "Marketing Feng Shui to Asia: A Case Study," Korean Journal of Marketing. (Special issue), Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 1-20. Xu, H., Summer 2009, "Information Security in Banking Industries - A Framework from users' Perspectives," Communications of the ICISA: an International Journal. Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 33-58.
Xu, H., April 2009, "Data Quality Issues for Accounting Information Systems' Implementation: Systems, Stakeholders, and Organizational Factors," Journal of Technology Research, Vol. 1, pp. 1-11.
Hwang, M. & Xu, H., Fall 2008, "A Structural Model of Data Warehousing Success", The Journal of Computer Information Systems, Vol. XLIX, No. 1, pp. 48-56.
Ebojoh, O. & Xu, H., 2007, "Effectiveness of Online Learning Program: A Case Study of A Higher Education Institution", Issues in Information Systems
Hwang, M. & Xu, H., 2007, "The Effect of Implementation Factors on Data Warehousing Success: An Exploratory Study", Journal of Information, Information Technology, and Organizations, Volume 2, pp. 1-16.
Xu, H., 2006, "The Importance of Data Quality for SAP Implementation in Medium-sized Organizations", Issues in Information Systems, Vol. VII, No. 2, pp. 88-91.
Zou, X., Wang, H. & Xu, H., 2006, "Consumers' attitudes of e-commerce in China", Issues in information Systems, Vol. VII, No. 2, pp. 202-207.
Hwang, M. & Xu, H., 2005 Fall, "A Survey of Data Warehousing Success Issues", Business Intelligence Journal, Vol. 10, No. 4, pp. 7-13.
Xu, H. & Bowrin, P., 2005, "Information Security in the Caribbean Banks", Issues in Information Systems, Vol. VI, No. 2, pp. 210-216.
Xu, H. & Koronios, A, Winter 2004-2005, "Understanding Information Quality in e-Business," The Journal of Computer Information Systems, XLV(2), pp 73-82.
Nord, D., Nord, J & Xu, H., 2005, "An Investigation of the Impact of Organization Size on Data Quality Issues," Journal of Database Management, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp58- 71.
Xu, H. & Al-Hakim, L, 2005, "On Criticality of Factors Affecting Data Quality in Accounting Information Systems: Do Firms act on Their Belief?" in Wang, R.Y, Madnick, S.E., Pierce, E. M. and Fisher, C. W. (eds.) Information Quality, Advances in Management Information Systems (series of Journal of Management Information System), Volume 1(Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharp), pp 197-214.
Xu, H., Nord, J, Nord, D & Lin, B. 2003, "Key Issues of Accounting Information Quality Management: Australian Case Studies," Industrial Management & Data Systems, Volume 103, Number 7, pp461-470.
Xu, H. & Lu, D., 2003, "The Critical Success Factors for Data Quality in Accounting Information Systems – Different Industries' Perspective," Issues in Information Systems, volume IV(2), p762
Kemm, M.E., Xu, H., Huang, Z. & Holmes, M., 2003, "An Analysis of Active Learning Outcomes in Large Management Information Systems (MIS) Courses," Issues in Information Systems, Volume IV(1), pp. 185-190.
Xu, H., Nord, J, Brown, N. & Nord, D, 2002, "Data Quality Issues in Implementing an ERP," Industrial Management & Data Systems, volume 102, number 1, pp47 –58. (This paper has been awarded for Highly Commended Award in the 2002 volume)
Nord, J.H., Nord, G.D., Xu, H. and Myrin, E.S, 2007, "Data Quality: An Assessment," Contemporary Issues in Database Design and Information Systems Development, Siau, K. (Ed.) IGI Publishing, Hershey New York, ISBN 978-1-59904-289-3.
Hakim, L. & Xu, H., 2004, "Do IT Professionals Think Differently?" Issues of Human Computer Interaction, Sarmento, A. (Ed.) Idea Group Publishing: Hershey, PA, USA, ISBN 1-59140-235-2
Xu, H., Koronios, A., & Brown, N., 2002, "Managing Data Quality in Accounting Information Systems," IT-Based Management: Challenges and Solutions, Joia, L. A. (Ed.) Idea Group Publishing: Hershey PA, ISBN 1-59140-033-3 (h/c), eISBN 1-59140-075-9
Xu, H., 2011, "Data quality alignment: stakeholders' perspective," Academic Business World International Conference 2011, May 24-27, Nashville, TN, USA.
Xu, H., 2011, "A research framework for ERP implementation success measures," Midwest Decision Sciences Institute 2011 Annual Meeting, May 12-14, Indianapolis, IN, USA.
Xu, H. & Yang, J. 2010, "Can using M-commerce improve business process?" International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems and Web Technologies (EISWT-10), July 12-14, Orlando, Florida, USA, pp. 151-155.
Xu, H. & Rutashobya, C. 2010, "A research framework for challenges of electronic-commerce implementation in small business," International Conference on Information Security and Privacy (ISP-10), July 12-14, Orlando, Florida, USA, pp.113-120.
Xu, H. 2009, "Information security - end users' perspective," 11th International Business Information Management Association Conference (IBIMA 2009), January 4-6, 2009, Cairo, Egypt.
Wu, J. & Xu, H. 2008, "Evaluation of data quality in practice: a large-sized university and a multinational manufacturer case study," International Association for Computer Information Systems (IACIS 2008), October 1-4, Savannah, Georgia, USA.
Hwang, M. & Xu, H. 2007, "Understanding the benefits of data warehousing," the 38th Annual Meeting of the Midwest Decision Science Institute, April 12-14, Chicago, IL, USA
Xu, H. 2006, "Data quality issues in decision making of ERP implementation ," Hawaii International Conference on Business, May 25-28, 2006, Hawaii, USA
Xu, H. & Hwang, M. 2006, "Critical Success Factors for Data Warehousing: Some Empirical Evidence," Midwest Decision Sciences 2006 Institute Annual Meeting, March 24-25, Indianapolis, IN, USA
Thanopoulos, J., Douglas, D. & Xu, H. 2005, "A comparative look at undergraduate business education Greece versus the United States," the 2005 annual meeting of the Association for Global Business, November 17-19, Miami, Florida, USA
Xu, H. & McGinnis, T. C. 2004, "A framework of consolidated metadata administration for data warehousing and data mining," the 3rd International Business Information Management Conference (3rd IBIMA), Cozumel, Mexico
Xu, H. 2003, "Would organization size matter for data quality," The 8th International Conference on Information Quality (ICIQ-03), MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA
Xu, H. & Al-Hakim, L. 2003, "Do IT Professionals Think Differently?"
Information Resources Management Association International Conference (IRMA'2003), Philadelphia PA, USA
Xu, H. & Al-Hakim, L. 2002, "Accounting Information Systems Data Quality: A Critical Success Factors Approach," Information Resources Management Association International Conference (IRMA'2002), Seattle WA, USA
Xu, H., Koronios, A. & Al-Hakim, L. 2002, "Critical success factors for financial information systems," Pacific Conference on Manufacturing (PCM'2002), Bangkok, Thailand
Xu, H., 2002, "The Survey of Factors Impacting Upon Accounting Information Quality", ACME International Conference on Pacific Rim Management, Los Angles, USA
Xu, H., Koronios, A., & Brown, N., 2001, " A model for data quality in accounting information systems," the invited session Data and Information Quality (DIQ), the 5th World Multiconference on Systemics, Cybernetics and informatics (SCI'2001), Orlando, USA
Xu, H., 2001, " Key Issues of Accounting Information Quality Management- An Australian Case Study," International Conferences on Info-tech & Info-net (ICII'2001), Beijing, China
Xu, H., 2001, "A Case Study on Factors Influencing Accounting Information Quality," Systems in Management 7th Annual ANZSYS Conference, Perth, Australia<
Xu, H., 2001, " Stakeholder Perspectives of Accounting Information Quality," The Annual Conference of CHISIG, the Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest Group of the Ergonomics Society of Australia (OZCHI'2001), Perth, Australia
Xu, H. & Koronios, A., 2000, " Critical success factors for accounting information systems data quality," the invited session Data and Information Quality (DIQ), the 4th World Multiconference on Systemics, Cybernetics and informatics (SCI'2000), Orlando, USA
Xu, H., 2000, "Managing accounting information quality- an Australian study," the 21st International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS'2000), Brisbane, Australia.
Xu, H. & Koronios, A., 2000, "Knowledge quality management in e-Business, " European Conference on Knowledge Management (ECKM'2000), Bled, Slovenia
PhD in Information Systems - University of Southern Queensland, Australia
Master of Commerce in Information Systems - University of Queensland, Australia
Bachelor of Economics in Financial Accounting - Renmin University of China


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In today's business world, non-secure personal file sharing solutions are unfortunately the ones most frequently used, making sensitive data easily accessible to hackers and others with evil intent.
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Hello, welcome…
I'm Adam. Nice to meet you.
My Twitter bio:
Metrics Lead at Mozilla Foundation. Previously at WWF. Test, tinker, and question the answers. -
With RSS or enter your email to keep up with my nonsense.
Week 4 at Mozilla
I gathered up the output from my many discussions with our teams so far, and I'm proposing a plan for shipping a Mozilla Foundation Contributors Dashboard as quickly as we realistically can. I'll be presenting this next week, and once I've had feedback on it, this can be turned into a proper plan of action and shared more widely. Next week I'm in Toronto with the Webmaker team for a work-week (a pretty focused gathering on getting things done), which I've been busily preparing for. You can see what we'll be up to here (I'm space-wrangling the Metrics track): https://wiki.mozilla.org/Webmaker/Workweek P.S. 'Space-wrangling' is official Mozilla terminology, and animated GIFs are our primary means of communication. Because we work in the open, you can follow live updates on how well we're shipping our planned output during the work-week: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Webmaker/Scrumboard Getting ready … Continue reading
My First #Mozfest
I have an hour free this morning, so wanted to quickly write up my thoughts on Mozfest before my memory fades too much. This will be a rough, but f*** it, ship it as they say at Mozfest. I bought a Mozfest ticket in July with next to no expectations and just a little hope that meeting some new people might trigger some new ideas. It's fair to say that this was a massive under-prediction on my part. A couple of months later, with about a month to go until Mozfest, my boss (@ade) mentioned some sessions that might be interesting for WWF and my work in fundraising. A couple of introductory emails and a Skype call later and I'd put my name down for a yet-to-be-confirmed session called 'Pass the App'. We were going to use a new tool … Continue reading
Available hours in a year for personal projects
While planning ahead to finish my Open University studies, I've been testing how well I can study in my available free time; and my recent study with Coursera has provided a pretty good simulation. It's important to be realistic with yourself about how much time you actually have to do these things, on a sustainable basis, for a significant period of time. Especially with the tuition fees being as expensive as they are and if you're making a commitment for a whole year of your free time. My thinking has gone like this… First I account for my time being a husband and dad, then my working hours, then sleep, then a few hours for getting/keeping fit and I'm left with around two hours per day, or 14 hours a week of 'free' time. For a couple of weeks at … Continue reading
On my next pet project and @Coursera
My most recent 'pet project', Done by When, grew up today. It's 3 months to the day since I announced a vague plan to test out an idea that had been floating around my head, and now it's out of beta, taking payments and I've just notice our Mandrill email reputation has crept up to 'Excellent'. Woohoo. I'm delighted with where it's going and all the helpful (positive and negative) feedback I've had from the first brave group of testers. I've added some screenshots to my portfolio on Behance, but the interface has progressed even further since then. Now that Done by When has a "business model" and all that, it will be given a serious amount of time and attention going forwards. But importantly, as it has an active user base I won't be using it as a playground … Continue reading
Announcing 'Done by When'
I promised to ship a new piece of software today but I haven't quite made it. Ironically it's a tool for managing expectations, and visualizing likely delivery times for a given piece of work. It would have been useful! I hate making excuses, but it's been a crazy month with lots of good interruptions (lovely clients with interesting projects) and bad interruptions (family emergencies and so on). So while it's not ready for you to use today, I'll have to settle with announcing the project title today, 'Done by When'. A version of the tool, whether it's 'finished' or not will ship by this time next week. Thought I didn't make the deadline this time, it's been very helpful for focussing the mind.
I've set myself a challenge
I've had an idea for a piece of software I think would be really useful. And rather than spend months thinking about and scoping it, I've set myself a deadline (deadlines are magic). The first version will ship by the end of this month. If I've not announced this new project on this blog by 31 Aug 2012, feel free to send me abuse. I'm also going to use this as a chance to learn some new skills. I think I may learn Python.
On the joy of (self-imposed) impossible deadlines – AKA Magic Deadlines
Last year I wrote a novel. Admittedly, a novel I haven't yet been able to bring myself to re-read for fear of what I may have written, but I wrote a novel all the same. And I managed to do it because of a deadline. It was an impossible deadline by all accounts of common sense, but impossible is a challenge worth living up to. The goal was to write a novel (50k+ words) in a month, without putting my life on hold or taking any time off work. I'm still not sure how, but I did it. And I wasn't the only one to do this, I shared this month of madness with 256,618 people around the world who signed up for the same challenge; and that was part of the fun. To give this some context, I co-founded … Continue reading


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Announcing: Slashdot Deals - Explore geek apps, games, gadgets and more. (what is this?)
We are sorry to see you leave - Beta is different and we value the time you took to try it out. Before you decide to go, please take a look at some value-adds for Beta and learn more about it. Thank you for reading Slashdot, and for making the site better!
An anonymous reader writes Ars Technica reports that for the first time in Bitcoin's five-year history, a single entity has repeatedly provided more than half of the total computational power required to mine new digital coins, in some cases for sustained periods of time. It's an event that, if it persists, signals the end of crypto currency's decentralized structure."
In a story that's sure to bring to the surface the long-debunked myth of an over-elaborate NASA quest to create a pen to operate in space, Wired reports that the coffee situation aboard the International Space Station is about to improve: the station will be getting a 20kg, custom designed Lavazza espresso machine, to be delivered along with Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti. Among other differences from terrestrial espresso machines: the resulting beverage must be pumped into a straw-friendly bag rather than a demitasse. I wonder if there could be some way to adapt a (much lighter) Aeropress for space purposes, as a backup.
A New York Times piece (as carried by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) outlines a fascinating project operating in unlikely circumstances for a quixotic goal. They want to control, and return to earth, the International Sun-Earth Explorer-3, launched in 1978 but which "appears to be in good working order." Engineer Dennis Wingo, along with like minded folks (of whom he says "We call ourselves techno-archaeologists") has established a business called Skycorp that "has its offices in the McDonald's that used to serve the Navy's Moffett air station, 15 minutes northwest of San Jose, Calif. After the base closed, NASA converted it to a research campus for small technology companies, academia and nonprofits. ... The race to revive the craft, ISEE-3, began in earnest in April. At the end of May, using the Arecibo Observatory radio telescope in Puerto Rico, the team succeeded in talking to the spacecraft, a moment Mr. Wingo described as "way cool." This made Skycorp the first private organization to command a spacecraft outside Earth orbit, he said. The most disheartening part: "No one has the full operating manual anymore, and the fragments are sometimes contradictory." The most exciting? "Despite the obstacles, progress has been steady, and Mr. Wingo said the team should be ready to fire the engines within weeks."
MarkWhittington (1084047) writes According to a Saturday story in the Los Angeles Times, the recent revival of tensions between the United States and Russia, not seen since the end of the Cold War, may provide a shot in the arm for the American rocket engine industry. Due in part in retaliation for economic sanctions that were enacted in response to Russian aggression in the Ukraine, Russia announced that it would no longer sell its own RD-180 rocket engines for American military launches. This has had American aerospace experts scrambling to find a replacement. The stakes for weaning American rockets off of dependency on Russian engines could not be starker, according to Space News. If the United States actually loses the RD-180, the Atlas V would be temporarily grounded, as many as 31 missions could be delayed, costing the United States as much as $5 billion. However SpaceX, whose Falcon family of launch vehicles has a made in the USA rocket engine, could benefit tremendously if the U.S. military switches its business from ULA while it refurbishes its own launch vehicles with new American made engines.
As reported by the San Jose Mercury News, the state of California is "in the throes of a whooping cough epidemic, state health department officials announced Friday. Dr. Ron Chapman, director of the California Department of Public Health, said 3,458 cases of whooping cough have been reported since Jan. 1 -- including 800 in the past two weeks. That total is more than all the cases reported in 2013." Public broadcaster KPBS notes that of the 621 people known to have come down with whooping cough in San Diego county, the vast majority (85 percent) were up to date on their immunizations.
On June 8th, with a radio source beamed at the asteroid designated 2014 HQ124 (less formally, "the beast") while two other telescopes tracked that beam's reflections, NASA was able to gather high-quality images of the object as it zipped by a mere 776,000 miles from Earth. (Some asteroids are closer, and a vast number of them could soon be better known, but none have allowed as good an opportunity for radar obvservation.) Astronomy Magazine's account adds a bit more detail: To obtain the new views, researchers paired the 230-foot (70m) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, California, with two other radio telescopes, one at a time. Using this technique, the Goldstone antenna beams a radar signal at an asteroid and the other antenna receives the reflections. The technique dramatically improves the amount of detail that can be seen in radar images. To image 2014 HQ124, the researchers first paired the large Goldstone antenna with the 1,000-foot (305m) Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico. They later paired the large Goldstone dish with a smaller companion, a 112-foot (34m) antenna, located about 20 miles (32km) away. ... The first five images in the new sequence — the top row in the collage — represent the data collected by Arecibo and are 30 times brighter than what Goldstone can produce observing on its own.
Dimetrodon (2714071) writes British consultancy Plextek has just announced the world's first immersive medical training system for the military using the Oculus Rift. The virtual reality technology will be used to simulate pre-hospital care on the battlefield, requiring trainees to "negotiate and prioritise" clinical needs while under virtual fire.
jones_supa (887896) writes Monthly Prescribing Reference reports that the "Eskimo diet" hypothesis, suggested as a factor in the alleged low incidence of coronary artery disease (CAD) in Greenland Eskimos, seems not to be supported in the literature, according to a metastudy published in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology (abstract). Researchers found that only one study directly assessed the prevalence of CAD or CAD risk factors, and that study showed that CAD morbidity was similar among Inuit and American and European populations. In most studies, the prevalence of CAD was similar for Greenland Eskimos and Canadian and Alaskan Inuit and for non-Eskimo populations. The original studies from the 1970s that formed the basis of the supposed cardioprotective effect of the Eskimo diet did not examine the prevalence of CAD. "The totality of reviewed evidence leads us to the conclusion that Eskimos have a similar prevalence of CAD as non-Eskimo populations," the authors write. "To date, more than 5,000 papers have been published studying the alleged beneficial properties of omega-3 fatty acids not to mention the billion dollar industry producing and selling fish oil capsules based on a hypothesis that was questionable from the beginning."
think_nix (1467471) writes The EU Parliament is paving the way for EU Nation States to decide on banning or allowing GMO foods within their respective territories. An further article at Der Spiegel (German) (Google translation) quotes the German Health Minister's claim that if countries cannot specifically, scientifically argue for a ban, this would allow GMO companies to initiate legal actions against the banning ruling states. Furthermore it was noted, given EU Parliaments current stance on not reintroducing border and customs controls between member states, this will make checks and controls of GMO foods between member states even more difficult.
Rambo Tribble (1273454) writes Adding to the well-known fish-killing effects deforestation has in increasing turbidity and temperature in streams, a study published in Nature Communications, (abstract, PDF access), demonstrates deforestation causes a depletion of nutrients in associated lake aquatic ecosystems and, as a consequence, impacted fish stocks. Lead author Andrew Tanentzap is quoted as saying, 'We found fish that had almost 70% of their biomass made from carbon that came from trees and leaves instead of aquatic food chain sources.' This has troubling implications, as 'It's estimated that freshwater fishes make up more than 6% of the world's annual animal protein supplies for humans ...' Additionally, this may have significance in regard to anadromous species, such as salmon, which help power ocean ecosystems. The BBC offers more approachable coverage.
mpicpp (3454017) writes "Google is planning to release a new product called Google Fit that will aggregate health data from various devices and apps, according to a report Thursday from Forbes. Fit will use available APIs to pull biometric information together into one place, but it's unclear whether it will be a standalone app or part of the Android OS. Reports of Fit come on the heels of Apple's announcement of HealthKit in iOS 8, a system that also interacts with apps and APIs to curate and present health data like steps walked, calories consumed, and heart rates logged. Fit also follows the announcement of Sami, Samsung's health platform for culling health-related info."
New submitter meghan elizabeth (3689911) writes Why stop at just mimicking biology when you can biomanufacture technologically improved humans? 3D-printed enhanced "superorgans"—or artificial ones that don't exist in nature—could be engineered to perform specific functions beyond what exists in nature, like treating disease. Already, a bioprinted artificial pancreas that can regulate glucose levels in diabetes patients is being developed. Bioprinting could also be used to create an enhanced organ that can generate electricity to power electronic implants, like pacemakers.
An anonymous reader writes An article published in Science (abstract) points to the possibility that dinosaurs were mesotherms more akin to modern Tuna. Their internal temperature would have been warmer than their surrounding environment, conferring on them the ability to move more quickly than any ectotherm ("cold blooded" animal), but wouldn't have been constant or as warm as any endoderm ("warm blooded" animal). Their energy use and thus their necessary food intake would have been greater than an ectotherm, but much less than an endotherm. In order to arrive at this possibility, bone growth rings in fossilized bone were used to establish growth rates and then compared to modern ectotherms and endotherms.
the_newsbeagle (2532562) writes "The equipment that neuroscientists use to record brain signals is plenty expensive, with a single system costing upward of $60,000. But it turns out that it's not too complicated to build your own, for the cost of about $3000. Two MIT grad students figured out how to do just that, and are distributing both manufactured systems and their designs through their website, Open Ephys. Their goal is to launch an open-source hardware movement in neuroscience, so researchers can spend less time worrying about the gear they need and more time doing experiments."
mrspoonsi (2955715) writes The EU's top court is considering a test case which could oblige employers to treat obesity as a disability. Denmark has asked the European Court of Justice to rule on the case of a male childminder who says he was sacked for being too fat. The court's final ruling will be binding across the EU. It is seen as especially significant because of rising obesity levels in Europe and elsewhere, including the US. If the judges decide it is a disability then employers could face new obligations. Employers might in future have a duty to create reserved car parking spaces for obese staff, or adjust the office furniture for them, she said.
techtech (2016646) writes Researchers from Northwestern University and the University of New Mexico report evidence for potentially oceans worth of water deep beneath the United States. Though not in the familiar liquid form—the ingredients for water are bound up in rock deep in the Earth's mantle—the discovery may represent the planet's largest water reservoir. This research was published in Science.
coondoggie (973519) writes NASA took the next step in forming a large-scale, $3 million competition to build advanced propulsion and communications technologies for small, inexpensive satellite systems known as cubesats. The Cubesat Lunar Challenge will be broken up into two areas: propulsion and communication while in orbit around the moon. In Request For Information published this week, NASA said the two challenges would provide competitive opportunities for a variety of competition teams to deploy cubesats on a NASA or third-party provided launch.
sciencehabit (1205606) writes Shutting down the research center at the heart of an unfolding scientific scandal may be necessary to prevent a recurrence of research misconduct, according to a report released at a press conference in Tokyo today. A committee reviewing conduct at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology (CDB) in Kobe, Japan, found lax oversight and a failure on the part of senior authors of two papers in Nature outlining a surprisingly simple way of reprogramming mature cells into stem cells. The committee surmised that a drive to produce groundbreaking results led to publishing results prematurely. "It seems that RIKEN CDB had a strong desire to produce major breakthrough results that would surpass iPS cell research," the report concludes, referring to another type of pluripotent stem cell. "One of our conclusions is that the CDB organization is part of the problem," said committee chair Teruo Kishi Kishi. He recommends a complete overhaul of CDB, including perhaps restructuring it into a new institute. "This has to be more than just changing the nameplate."
Zothecula (1870348) writes According to the World Health Organization, over 107 million blood donations are collected around the globe every year, most of which goes on to help save lives. However, while the need for blood is global, much of that which is donated is not accessible to many who need it, such as those in developing countries. And of the blood donated in industrialized countries, the amount often falls short of requirements. To help address this imbalance, scientists at the University of Essex are developing an artificial blood substitute. It would be able to be stored at room temperatures for up to two years, which would allow it to be distributed worldwide without the need for refrigeration and make it immediately accessible at the site of natural disasters.
First time accepted submitter sayhem (1842674) writes Various explanations for why we don't see aliens have been proposed—perhaps interstellar travel is impossible or maybe civilizations are always self-destructive. But with every new discovery of a potentially habitable planet, the Fermi Paradox becomes increasingly mysterious. There could be hundreds of millions of potentially habitable worlds in the Milky Way alone. This impression is only reinforced by the recent discovery of a "Mega-Earth," a rocky planet 17 times more massive than the Earth but with only a thin atmosphere. Previously, it was thought that worlds this large would hold onto an atmosphere so thick that their surfaces would experience uninhabitable temperatures and pressures. But if this isn't true, there is a whole new category of potentially habitable real estate in the cosmos.
Jason Koebler writes: For those of us without a green thumb, growing even the most hardy plants in perfect conditions can seem impossible. How about trying to grow plants on a meteorite? Well, at least one scientist is doing it, with moderate levels of success. "People have been talking about terraforming, but what I'm trying to do is give some concrete evidence that it's possible to do this, that it's possible to grow in extraterrestrial materials," Michael Mautner, one of the world's only "astroecologists" said. "What I've found is that a range of microorganisms—bacteria, fungi, and even asparagus and potato plants—can survive with the nutrients that are in extraterrestrial materials."
sciencehabit writes: Even though daytime temperatures in the tropics of Mars can be about –20C, a summer afternoon there might feel about the same as an average winter day in southern England or Minneapolis. That's because there's virtually no wind chill on the Red Planet, according to a new study — the first to give an accurate sense of what it might feel like to spend a day walking about on our celestial neighbor. "I hadn't really thought about this before, but I'm not surprised," says Maurice Bluestein, a biomedical engineer and wind chill expert recently retired from Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis. The new findings, he says, "will be useful, as people planning to colonize Mars need to know what they're getting themselves into."
bricko sends this news from The University of Texas at Austin: Thwaites Glacier, the large, rapidly changing outlet of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, is not only being eroded by the ocean, it's being melted from below by geothermal heat, researchers at the Institute for Geophysics at The University of Texas at Austin (UTIG) report in the current edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The findings significantly change the understanding of conditions beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, where accurate information has previously been unobtainable. The Thwaites Glacier has been the focus of considerable attention in recent weeks as other groups of researchers found the glacier is on the way to collapse, but more data and computer modeling are needed to determine when the collapse will begin in earnest and at what rate the sea level will increase as it proceeds. The new observations by UTIG will greatly inform these ice sheet modeling efforts.
Zothecula writes "A team of researchers working at Stockholm's KTH Royal Institute of Technology claim to have developed a way to make cellulose fibers stronger than steel on a strength-to-weight basis. In what is touted as a world first, the team from the institute's Wallenberg Wood Science Center claim that the new fiber could be used as a biodegradable replacement for many filament materials made today from imperishable substances such as fiberglass, plastic, and metal. And all this from a substance that requires only water, wood cellulose, and common table salt to create it. The full academic paper is available from Nature Communications."
bmahersciwriter writes: NASA administrators are strategizing a push to do more science on the International Space Station in the coming years. The pressure is on, given the rapidly cooling relations between the U.S. and Russia, whose deputy prime minister recently suggested that U.S. astronauts use a trampoline if they want to get into orbit. Aiding in the push for more research is the development of two-way cargo ships by SpaceX, which should allow for return of research materials (formerly a hurdle to doing useful experiments). NASA soon aims to send new earth-monitoring equipment to the station and expanded rodent facilities. And geneLAB will send a range of model organisms like fruit flies and nematodes into space for months at a time.
KentuckyFC (1144503) writes 'One curious feature on the Moon's surface are "lunar swirls", wisp-like regions that are whiter than surrounding areas and that, until recently, astronomers could not explain. But one team of physicists recently showed that these areas are protected by weak magnetic fields that deflect high energy particles from the Sun and so prevent the darkening effect this radiation has. The problem they had to solve was how a weak field could offer so much protection, when numerous studies of long duration spaceflight have shown that only very powerful fields can act like radiation shields. The team now says that these previous studies have failed to take into account an important factor: the low density plasma that exists in space. It turns out that this plasma is swept up by a weak magnetic field moving through space, creating a layer of higher density plasma. That's important because the separation of charge within this layer creates an electric field. And it is this field that deflects the high energy particles from the Sun. That explains the lunar swirls but it also suggests that the same effect could be exploited to protect astronauts on long duration missions to the moon, to nearby asteroids and beyond. This team has now produced the first study of such a shield and how it might work. Their shield would use superconducting coils to create a relatively weak field only when it is needed, during solar storms, for example. And it would create a plasma by pumping xenon into the vacuum around the vehicle, where it would be ionised by UV light. The entire device would weigh around 1.5 tonnes and use about 20 KW of power. That's probably more than mission planners could currently accommodate but it is significantly less than the science fiction-type power requirements of previous designs. And who knows what other tricks of plasma physics engineers might be able to exploit to refine this design. All of a sudden, long duration space flight looks a little more feasible.'
New submitter turning in circles (2882659) writes 'Carbon based fuel cells require carbon doped with other elements, normally platinum, for oxygen reduction reactions. Urine contains carbon with an exciting splash of nitrogen, sulfur, potassium, silicon, and so on, and you don't have to manufacture it: the stuff just comes out by itself. In an article published this week in an open journal, researchers from Korea reported a new nanomaterial for fuel cells, which they dub "Urine Carbon." Upon drying, and then heating at 1000C, and rinsing of salts, the resulting Urine Carbon porous nanostructures outperformed Carbon/platinum in electrodes.'
First time accepted submitter LordFlower (606949) writes "In a study, published today in Neuropsycopharmacology, exposure to general anesthesia in both human and rat infants was associated with long-term episodic memory deficits. Children aged 6 to 11 years exposed to general anesthesia during infancy had poorer episodic memory than age/gender matched controls. This deficit was replicated in rats using an analogous paradigm with full experimental control of pre-existing conditions could be exercised, suggesting a causal relation rather than correlational one. Prior research in rats suggests a mechanism of disrupted developmental synaptogenesis and apoptosis.
While a growing literature has demonstrated the presence of memory deficits and neurodegeneration in rats after general anesthesia exposure in infancy, this is the first to demonstrate a long-term deficit after exposure during human infancy. Given that each year 1.5 million infants undergo a surgery requiring general anesthesia, these findings are particularly alarming."
sciencehabit (1205606) writes "When hunter-gatherers in the Middle East began to settle down and cultivate crops about 10,500 years ago, they became the world's first farmers. But two new papers suggest that they were at home on both the land and the sea: Studies of ancient and modern human DNA, including the first reported ancient DNA from early Middle Eastern farmers, indicate that agriculture spread to Europe via a coastal route, probably by farmers using boats to island hop across the Aegean and Mediterranean seas."
Last month, at Maker Faire Bay Area 2014, Timothy Lord spotted a guy wearing a very large piece of headgear that included two crossed wrenches. The guy turned out to be Mike Szczys, Managing Editor of hackaday.com, which says, "The Hackaday Prize will send one person into space for building the next evolution of hardware." That's certainly of interest to the hardware hacker/maker crowd. How they're going to arrange the space flight (probably one of those "just above the atmosphere" hops) isn't specified, but even so the contest is an interesting idea, and the Hack A Day site seems to have some interest hacks and tutorials on it. So go ahead and enter the contest -- and don't forget to take your camera with you on your flight into space, because we'll want to see pictures! (Alternate Video Link)
First time accepted submitter Graculus (3653645) writes "NASA has named Gavin A. Schmidt to head the agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, a leading Earth climate research laboratory. Currently deputy director of the institute, Schmidt steps into the position left vacant after the retirement of long-time director James E. Hansen and becomes only the third person to hold the post."
First time accepted submitter Joe_NoOne (48818) writes "A new theory suggests that our male ancestors evolved beefy facial features as a defense against fist fights. The bones most commonly broken in human punch-ups also gained the most strength in early hominin evolution. They are also the bones that show most divergence between males and females. From the article: 'Fossil records show that the australopiths, immediate predecessors of the human genus Homo, had strikingly robust facial structures. For many years, this extra strength was seen as an adaptation to a tough diet including nuts, seeds and grasses. But more recent findings, examining the wear pattern and carbon isotopes in australopith teeth, have cast some doubt on this "feeding hypothesis". "In fact, [the australopith] boisei, the 'nutcracker man', was probably eating fruit," said Prof David Carrier, the new theory's lead author and an evolutionary biologist at the University of Utah. Instead of diet, Prof Carrier and his co-author, physician Dr Michael Morgan, propose that violent competition demanded the development of these facial fortifications: what they call the "protective buttressing hypothesis".'"
A while ago you had the chance to ask amateur scientist, and author of the Getting Started in Electronics and the Engineer's Mini-Notebook series, Forrest Mims, a number of questions about science, engineering, and a lifetime of educating and experimenting. Below you'll find his detailed answers to those questions.
sciencehabit (1205606) writes "Greenland's white snow is getting darker. Scientists have generally attributed that darkening to larger, slightly less white snow grains caused by warmer temperatures. But researchers have found a new source of darkening taking hold: impurities in the snow. The new darkening effect could easily add 2 centimeters to the projections of 20 cm sea level rise by 2100—and perhaps more if impurity levels grow with time."
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the University of Minnesota have discovered that rats in a decision making experiment showed three behaviors consistent with regret. David Redish and his graduate student Adam Steiner '...trained rats to do a task they call "restaurant row." The rat ran around a circle past a series of four spokes, each leading to a different flavor of food. As the rat came to the entrance of each spoke, a tone sounded that indicated how long it would have to wait to receive that specific flavor of food. The rat could choose whether to stay or go, depending on how much it liked that food and how long it would have to wait...The rats showed three behaviors consistent with regret. First, the rats only looked backwards in the regret conditions, and not in the disappointment conditions. Second, they were more likely to take a bad deal if they had just passed up a good deal. And third, instead of taking their time eating and then grooming themselves afterwards, the rats in the regret conditions wolfed down the food and immediately took off to the next restaurant.'"
Taco Cowboy (5327) writes "A few ancient ticks, some 15-million to 20-million years old, trapped inside a piece of amber were bought by a researcher some 25 years ago, in the Dominican Republic. Upon examination, he found ancient spirochetes bacterium, a group of rotini-shaped bacteria responsible for many human diseases, in one of the ticks. Although Lyme disease did not exist back then, the spirochetes in the fossil tick probably contributed to the genetic diversity of the 12 or more species of Borrelia that cause Lyme and similar diseases today, says George Poinar. 'Parasites represent at least half of all modern animal species, and that distribution probably held true millions of years ago, too. "In a sense, this [finding] is not surprising since virtually every species on the planet is parasitized," says Armand Kuris, a parasitologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who was not involved in the study. Evidence of those ancient parasite–host associations is difficult to come by, however. "In terms of finding any kind of physical documentation in the fossil record, that's really rare — especially for a microbial pathogen," Kuris says. "That's what makes this paper just plain interesting."'"
MarkWhittington (1084047) writes "It turns out that the recent FAA environmental impact statement that seemed to give a stamp of approval for the proposed SpaceX space port in south Texas is not the end of the regulatory process, but the end of the beginning. A story in the Brownsville Herald reminds us that the report has kicked off a 30 day review period after which the FAA can allow SpaceX to apply for a launch license to start work on the Brownsville area launch facility. And that in turn kicks off a 180 day process during which the FAA makes the decision whether or not to grant the required licensing and permits.
But even that is not the end of the regulatory hurdles that SpaceX must face before the first Falcon rocket roars into the skies over the Gulf of Mexico. The Longview News-Journal reports that a number of state and federal agencies must give their approval for various aspects of the space port before it becomes operational. For instance, the Texas Department of Transportation must give approval for the movement of utility lines. Environment Texas still opposes the space port since it is close to a wild life reserve and a state park. SpaceX has already agreed to enact measures to minimize the impact the space port would have on the environment, 'such as containing waste materials from the construction and enforcing a speed limit in the control center area.' Environment Texas is not impressed, however. Whether it is disposed to make trouble in the courts is an open question."
An anonymous reader writes "Miami scientists are scrambling to rescue a crop of coral at the bottom of one of the world's busiest shipping channels that they say could hold clues about climate change. 'The coral, which may hold clues about how sea life adapts to climate change, is growing in Government Cut. The channel, created more than a century ago, leads to PortMiami and is undergoing a $205 million dredging project — scheduled to begin Saturday — to deepen the sea floor by about 10 feet in time for a wave of new monster cargo ships cruising through an expanded Panama Canal starting in 2015. Endangered coral and larger coral have already been removed by a team hired by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is overseeing the dredging work. But the remaining coral, deemed "corals of opportunity" in Corps lingo, can be retrieved with a permit. The problem, scientists say, is they only had 12 days between when the permits were issued last month and the start of dredging, not nearly enough time to save the unusual colonies thriving in Government Cut.'"
An anonymous reader writes "NASA successfully beamed a high-definition video 260 miles from the International Space Station to Earth Thursday using a new laser communications instrument. Transmission of 'Hello, World!' as a video message was the first 175-megabit communication for the Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science (OPALS), a technology demonstration that allows NASA to test methods for communication with future spacecraft using higher bandwidth than radio waves." Last September, NASA's LADEE (Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer) showed that they could supply a lunar colony with broadband via lasers.
An anonymous reader writes "MakerBot, in collaboration with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), is hosting a competition for the design of a future Mars base. The competition is open to any Thingiverse account holder regardless of professional or educational background. Winners will be chosen by a subjective panel of JPL and MakerBot employees based on scientific feasibility, creativity, and printability. Contest ends June 12, and contestants have to be at least 13 years old. The first place winner will receive a MakerBot Replicator 2 Desktop 3D printer and three spools of MakerBot Filament. The second place winner will receive two spools, and the third place winner will receive one spool. All three will have their design featured on Thingiverse." You can also browse the entries so far.
Lucas123 writes: 'Scientists developing smart robotic prosthetics say the lines between robots and humans is beginning to blur and that someday soon people will be able to improve their body. For example, robotic prosthetics, using a built-in computer, 100 sensors, and 17 motors, can take natural cues from a user's residual limb, giving him or her the dexterity and grace to play a piano. Robotic exoskeletons have helped people suffering from paralysis walk again and the U.S. military is just weeks away from testing a new exoskeleton. And, more than six years ago, a University of Arizona researcher who had successfully connected a moth's brain to a robot predicted that by 2022 we'll be using "hybrid" computers that run a combination of technology and living organic tissue. "By utilizing technology, you're able to improve your body beyond anything you could do in the past," said Daniel Wilson, an engineer with degrees in machine learning and robotics from Carnegie Mellon University.'
garyebickford writes 'Space Finance Group (in which I'm a partner) has launched a Kickstarter to fund updating the "famous Integrated Space Plan", created by Ron Jones at Rockwell International in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and can be found on walls in the industry even today. The new Plan will be a poster, but also will provide the initial core data for a new website. The permanent link will be thespaceplan.com. As additional resources become available the website will be able to contain much more information, with (eventually) advanced data management (possibly including sources like Linked Data) and visualization tools to become a resource for education, research, entertainment, and business analytics. The group also hopes to support curated crowdsourcing of some data, and is talking to Space Development companies about providing data about themselves. They hope to be able to construct new timelines and show the relations between events and entities — companies, agencies, people, etc.'
KentuckyFC writes: 'In 1978, the American researcher Michael Hart published The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History, a book that became an international best seller. Since then, various others have published similar lists. But all suffer the same drawback: they are subjective list ultimately influenced by numerous cultural factors. Now data scientists have come up with a way to extract an objective list of the 100 most influential people in history using the network of links between biographical articles on Wikipedia and how they vary between 24 different language editions, including English, Chinese, Russian Arabic and so on. The researchers assume that people who are highly ranked in different language editions are influential across both language cultures and that the more appearances they make in different language editions, the more influential they are. But the actual ranking is done by PageRank-like algorithms that consider a biographical article important if it is pointed to by other important articles.
The resulting lists of the most influential men and women might surprise. The top PageRanked individual is Carl Linnaeus, the 18th century Swedish botanist who developed the modern naming scheme for plants and animals, followed by Jesus. The top PageRanked women are: Elizabeth II followed by Mary (mother of Jesus). For comparison, just under half of the top 100 most influential also appear in Hart's 1978 book. But this is just the beginning. By counting the individuals from one culture that influence other cultures, the team is able to work out which cultures have dominated others. And by looking only at people born before certain dates, they can see how the influence of different cultures has waxed and waned throughout 35 centuries of recorded history.'
schwit1 sends word of research showing that cycles of prolonged fasting can both protect the immune system from harm and also induce regeneration by causing stem cells to start renewing themselves. 'In both mice and a Phase 1 human clinical trial (abstract), long periods of not eating significantly lowered white blood cell counts. In mice, fasting cycles then "flipped a regenerative switch," changing the signaling pathways for hematopoietic stem cells, which are responsible for the generation of blood and immune systems, the research showed. "PKA is the key gene that needs to shut down in order for these stem cells to switch into regenerative mode. It gives the OK for stem cells to go ahead and begin proliferating and rebuild the entire system," explained [study author Valter Longo], noting the potential of clinical applications that mimic the effects of prolonged fasting to rejuvenate the immune system. "And the good news is that the body got rid of the parts of the system that might be damaged or old, the inefficient parts, during the fasting. Now, if you start with a system heavily damaged by chemotherapy or aging, fasting cycles can generate, literally, a new immune system."'
Taco Cowboy writes: "Using a spin cascade in a single-molecule magnet, scientists at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and their French partners have demonstrated that a single nuclear spin can be realized in a purely electric manner, rather than through the use of magnetic fields (abstract). For their experiments, the researchers used a nuclear spin-qubit transistor that consists of a single-molecule magnet connected to three electrodes (source, drain, and gate). The single-molecule magnet is a TbPc2 molecule — a single metal ion of terbium that is enclosed by organic phthalocyanine molecules of carbon, nitrogen, and hydrogen atoms. The gap between the electric field and the spin is bridged by the so-called hyperfine-Stark effect that transforms the electric field into a local magnetic field. This quantum mechanical process can be transferred to all nuclear spin systems and, hence, opens up entirely novel perspectives for integrating quantum effects in nuclear spins into electronic circuits"
KentuckyFC (1144503) writes 'Back in 2012, astronomers constructed an array of 256 radio antennas in the high deserts of New Mexico designed to listen for radio waves produced by gamma ray bursts, one of the most energetic phenomena in universe and thought to be associated with the collapse of a rapidly rotating stars to form neutron stars and black holes. The array generates all sky images of signals produced in the 25 MHz to 75 MHz region of the spectrum. But when researchers switched it on, they began to observe puzzling streaks across the sky that couldn't possibly be generated by gamma ray bursts. One source left a trail covering more than 90 degrees of the sky in less than 10 seconds. This trail then slowly receded to an endpoint which glowed for around 90 seconds. Now the first study of these transient radio signals has discovered that they are almost certainly produced by fireballs as they burn up after entering the Earth's atmosphere. The conclusion comes after the researchers were able to match several of the radio images with visible light images of fireballs gathered by NASA's All Sky Fireball Network. That solves the mystery but not without introducing another to keep astrophysicists busy in future. The question they're scratching their heads over now is how the plasma trails left by meteors can emit radio waves at this frequency.'
An anonymous reader writes 'Health officials say a patient in Texas has died of a rare brain disorder believed to be caused by consumption of beef products contaminated with mad cow disease. It is only the fourth known case of its kind in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement that recent laboratory tests confirmed a diagnosis of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in the patient.' From the article: 'The CDC says the Texas patient's history included extensive travel to Europe and the Middle East and that it is likely the infection occurred overseas. In each of the three previous U.S. deaths, the initial infection is believed to have taken place in other countries. ... The Texas Department of State Health Services says there are no state public health concerns or threats associated with the case. State and federal health officials continue to investigate and are trying to track the source of the infection.'
Gideon wants to be an astronaut. You could even describe him as "space-obsessed." He wants to be the first astronaut from Tanzania. The only African to make it into space so far is Mark Shuttleworth, who is from South Africa. Can Gideon talk Elon Musk into launching from Tanzania, which is directly on the equator? How about bringing in other space buffs and entrepreneurs? Don't think this is a silly idea. Gideon is only 14, but he's a straight-A student at the Florida Air Academy, and before that was one of the top students at Shepherds Junior School in Arusha, which Mama Lucy Kamptoni originally financed by raising and selling chickens. Gideon's scholarships to Shepherds and later to Florida Air Academy have been financed in part by EpicChange.org, which is also helping him spread the word about Star Day (tomorrow; June 7), the holiday Gideon created, which is being celebrated all over the world even in this, its first year of existence. You can celebrate it, too. All you have to do, weather permitting, is sleep outdoors under the stars, and maybe make a wish or two. After all, wishing (and a lot of studying and hard work) have helped Gideon get to where he is today, and may yet help him become Tanzania's first astronaut.
Rambo Tribble writes: 'A research team of Chinese and American scientists claim to have witnessed the mechanism by which sleep contributes to the formation of memories. Using advanced microscopy, the researchers witnessed synapses being formed in the brain of sleeping mice recently exposed to a learning task (abstract). They compared this to similarly tasked mice, that were subsequently sleep-deprived. The sleeping mice showed a marked increase in the formation of new synapses. As one researcher explained, "We thought sleep helped, but it could have been other causes, and we show it really helps to make connections and that in sleep the brain is not quiet, it is replaying what happened during the day and it seems quite important for making the connections.'''
CowboyRobot writes: 'In ACM's Queue, Thomas Wadlow argues that "Whom you trust, what you trust them with, and how much you trust them are at the center of the Internet today." He gives a checklist of what to look for when evaluating any system for trustworthiness, chock full of fascinating historical examples. These include NASA opting for a simpler, but more reliable chip; the Terry Childs case; and even an 18th century "semaphore telegraph" that was a very early example of steganographic cryptography. From the article: "Detecting an anomaly is one thing, but following up on what you've detected is at least as important. In the early days of the Internet, Cliff Stoll, then a graduate student at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories in California, noticed a 75-cent accounting error on some computer systems he was managing. Many would have ignored it, but it bothered him enough to track it down. That investigation led, step by step, to the discovery of an attacker named Markus Hess, who was arrested, tried, and convicted of espionage and selling information to the Soviet KGB."'