Scientists cheer Omnibus Bill

It’s always a good sign for R&D when scientists once again cheer actions from Washington. May the theocrats go hide away in caves and read their fairy tales by the light of candles and campfires.

The release:

APS applauds Senate passage of FY09 omnibus bill

Funding will enable scientists to continue transformational research, leading to innovation, job creation and economic prosperity for the nation

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The American Physical Society (APS) is elated that the Senate has approved the FYO9 Omnibus Bill, which will allow scientists to continue cutting-edge research that will lead to innovation, job creation and economic growth for the United States.

Specifically, APS lauds the bill’s support of research programs at the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Scientists, who receive funding from these agencies, can now further their research on developing solutions to some of the country’s most pressing challenges – developing clean, affordable energy, improving health care and strengthening science and math instruction in our schools.

“At a time when the nation is coping with a deep recession and striving for an economic recovery, federal investments in science and technology are more critical to America’s future than ever,” said Michael S. Lubell, APS director of public affairs. “Crises provide opportunities for creative outcomes. It is gratifying to see science high on Congress’ priority list.”

APS applauds the leadership of Congress and President Obama on the importance of funding science, the seed corn of new discoveries, job growth and economic prosperity for the nation. As policymakers seek solutions to the nation’s many challenges, funding in the FY09 Omnibus Bill, as well as predictable, sustainable increases in the future, will ensure that they can count on scientists to lead in developing those solutions.

 

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About APS: The American Physical Society is the world’s leading professional organization of physicists, representing more than 46,000 physicists in academia and industry in the U.S. and internationally. It has offices in College Park, Md., Ridge, N.Y., and Washington, D.C.

Stalking the Higgs boson

News from Fermilab:

Fermilab experiments constrain Higgs mass

CDF, DZero experiments exclude significant fraction of Higgs territory

Batavia, Ill.—The territory where the Higgs boson may be found continues to shrink. The latest analysis of data from the CDF and DZero collider experiments at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermilab now excludes a significant fraction of the allowed Higgs mass range established by earlier measurements. Those experiments predict that the Higgs particle should have a mass between 114 and 185 GeV/c². Now the CDF and DZero results carve out a section in the middle of this range and establish that it cannot have a mass in between 160 and 170 GeV/c².

“ The outstanding performance of the Tevatron and CDF and DZero together have produced this important result,” said Dennis Kovar, Associate Director of the Office of Science for High Energy Physics at the U.S. Department of Energy. “We’re looking forward to further Tevatron constraints on the Higgs mass.”

The Higgs particle is a keystone in the theoretical framework known as the Standard Model of particles and their interactions. According to the Standard Model, the Higgs boson explains why some elementary particles have mass and others do not.

So far, the Higgs particle has eluded direct detection. Searches at the Large Electron Positron collider at the European laboratory CERN established that the Higgs boson must weigh more than 114 GeV/c². Calculations of quantum effects involving the Higgs boson require its mass to be less than 185 GeV/c².

“A cornerstone of NSF’s support of particle physics is the search for the origin of mass, and this result takes us one step closer,” said Physics Division Director Joe Dehmer, of the National Science Foundation.

The observation of the Higgs particle is also one of the goals of the Large Hadron Collider experiments at CERN, which plans to record its first collision data before the end of this year.

The success of probing the Higgs territory at the Tevatron has been possible thanks to the excellent performance of the accelerator and the continuing improvements that the experimenters incorporate into the analysis of the collider data.

“Fermilab’s Tevatron collider typically produces about ten million collisions per second,” said DZero co-spokesperson Darien Wood, of Northeastern University. “The Standard Model predicts how many times a year we should expect to see the Higgs boson in our detector, and how often we should see particle signals that can mimic a Higgs. By refining our analysis techniques and by collecting more and more data, the true Higgs signal, if it exists, will sooner or later emerge.”

To increase their chances of finding the Higgs boson, the CDF and DZero scientists combine the results from their separate analyses, effectively doubling the data available.

“A particle collision at the Tevatron collider can produce a Higgs boson in many different ways, and the Higgs particle can then decay into various particles,” said CDF co-spokesperson Rob Roser, of Fermilab. “Each experiment examines more and more possibilities. Combining all of them, we hope to see a first hint of the Higgs particle.”

So far, CDF and DZero each have analyzed about three inverse femtobarns of collision data—the scientific unit that scientists use to count the number of collisions. Each experiment expects to receive a total of about 10 inverse femtobarns by the end of 2010, thanks to the superb performance of the Tevatron. The collider continues to set numerous performance records, increasing the number of proton-antiproton collisions it produces.

The Higgs search result is among approximately 70 results that the CDF and DZero collaborations presented at the annual conference on Electroweak Physics and Unified Theories known as the Rencontres de Moriond, held March 7-14. In the past year, the two experiments have produced nearly 100 publications and about 50 Ph.D.s that have advanced particle physics at the energy frontier.

Notes for editors:

Fermilab, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory located near Chicago, operates the Tevatron, the world’s highest-energy particle collider. The Fermi Research Alliance LLC operates Fermilab under a contract with DOE.

CDF is an international experiment of 602 physicists from 63 institutions in 15 countries. DZero is an international experiment conducted by 550 physicists from 90 institutions in 18 countries. Funding for the CDF and DZero experiments comes from DOE’s Office of Science, the National Science Foundation, and a number of international funding agencies.

CDF collaborating institutions are at http://www-cdf.fnal.gov/collaboration/index.html

DZero collaborating institutions are at http://www-d0.fnal.gov/ib/Institutions.html

Graphics, photos and videos are available at:
http://www.fnal.gov/pub/presspass/press_releases/Higgs-mass-constraints-20090313-images.html

Nanocups to improve optics

I’ve already bloggedon this nanotech breakthrough from Rice University before, and here’s the latest news straight from the source.

The release:

Nanocups brim with potential
Light-bending metamaterial could lead to superlenses, invisibility cloaks

Researchers at Rice University have created a metamaterial that could light the way toward high-powered optics, ultra-efficient solar cells and even cloaking devices.

Naomi Halas, an award-winning pioneer in nanophotonics, and graduate student Nikolay Mirin created a material that collects light from any direction and emits it in a single direction. The material uses very tiny, cup-shaped particles called nanocups.

In a paper in the February issue of the journal Nano Letters, co-authors Halas and Mirin explain how they isolated nanocups to create light-bending nanoparticles.

In earlier research, Mirin had been trying to make a thin gold film with nano-sized holes when it occurred to him the knocked-out bits were worth investigating. Previous work on gold nanocups gave researchers a sense of their properties, but until Mirin’s revelation, nobody had found a way to lock ensembles of isolated nanocups to preserve their matching orientation.

“The truth is a lot of exciting science actually does fall in your lap by accident,” said Halas, Rice’s Stanley C. Moore Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering and professor of chemistry and biomedical engineering. “The big breakthrough here was being able to lift the nanocups off of a structure and preserve their orientation. Then we could look specifically at the properties of these oriented nanostructures.”

Mirin’s solution involved thin layers of gold deposited from various angles onto polystyrene or latex nanoparticles that had been distributed randomly on a glass substrate. The cups that formed around the particles – and the dielectric particles themselves – were locked into an elastomer and lifted off of the substrate. “You end up with this transparent thing with structures all oriented the same way,” he said.

In other words, he had a metamaterial, a substance that gets its properties from its structure and not its composition. Halas and Mirin found their new material particularly adept at capturing light from any direction and focusing it in a single direction.

Redirecting scattered light means none of it bounces off the metamaterial back into the eye of an observer. That essentially makes the material invisible. “Ideally, one should see exactly what is behind an object,” said Mirin.

“The material should not only retransmit the color and brightness of what is behind, like squid or chameleons do, but also bend the light around, preserving the original phase information of the signal.”

Halas said the embedded nanocups are the first true three-dimensional nanoantennas, and their light-bending properties are made possible by plasmons. Electrons inside plasmonic nanoparticles resonate with input from an outside electromagnetic source in the same way a drop of water will make ripples in a pool. The particles act the same way radio antennas do, with the ability to absorb and emit electromagnetic waves that, in this case, includes visible wavelengths.

Because nanocup ensembles can focus light in a specific direction no matter where the incident light is coming, they make pretty good candidates for, say, thermal solar power. A solar panel that doesn’t have to track the sun yet focuses light into a beam that’s always on target would save a lot of money on machinery.

Solar-generated power of all kinds would benefit, said Halas. “In solar cells, about 80 percent of the light passes right through the device. And there’s a huge amount of interest in making cells as thin as possible for many reasons.”

Halas said the thinner a cell gets, the more transparent it becomes. “So ways in which you can divert light into the active region of the device can be very useful. That’s a direction that needs to be pursued,” she said.

Using nanocup metamaterial to transmit optical signals between computer chips has potential, she said, and enhanced spectroscopy and superlenses are also viable possibilities.

“We’d like to implement these into some sort of useful device,” said Halas of her team’s next steps. “We would also like to make several variations. We’re looking at the fundamental aspects of the geometry, how we can manipulate it, and how we can control it better.

“Probably the most interesting application is something we not only haven’t thought of yet, but might not be able to conceive for quite some time.”

The paper can be found at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl900208z?prevSearch=mirin&searchHistoryKey.

Twitter is booming

Check out these numbers! Yowza.

Find me at Twitter here — http://twitter.com/davidkonline

(Hat tip — KurzweilAINews)

Obama’s popularity numbers

Nate Silver at 538 takes on an od-ed from the Wall Street Journal today. Looks like the WSJ conclusion isn’t borne out by the actual numbers.

From the link:

This is the first paragraph of a commentary by Doug Schoen and Scott Rasmussen in today’s Wall Street Journal:

It is simply wrong for commentators to continue to focus on President Barack Obama’s high levels of popularity, and to conclude that these are indicative of high levels of public confidence in the work of his administration. Indeed, a detailed look at recent survey data shows that the opposite is most likely true. The American people are coming to express increasingly significant doubts about his initiatives, and most likely support a different agenda and different policies from those that the Obama administration has advanced.

Scott is an extremely fair-minded guy and someone whom we have partnered with in the past. I don’t know Doug Schoen, other than that he’s Mark Penn’s business partner. In any event, I think their lede is just wrong. Barack Obama’s Gallup approval ratings, as of this afternoon, are 62 percent approve and 27 percent disapprove. Those are pretty good scores. The average of all Gallup approval ratings taken for all Presidents, going all the way back to 1937, is 54.9 percent approve and 35.2 percent disapprove; Obama is about 8 points ahead of those numbers on either side. He is notably more popular than an American president usually is, and it would therefore stand to reason that he has proportionately more power than average to advance his agenda. It is not wrong for commentators to notate this fact.

A look at the future of neuroscience

Informative blog post at FutureTechie.com on the future of neuroscience.

From the link:

Before we come up with some kind of Evil Hollywood Science Fiction Artificial Intelligence that for some reason utilizes the horribly inefficient human body as a power source, we are stuck with brains.  We are already doing with brains what the machines do with humans in the classic film “The Matrix”.

Animal brains, that is.  Scientists at University of Reading have removed the neural cortex of a fetal rat, put it in a nutrient and neuron rich broth surrounding a circuit board, and waited.  Over 300,000 rat neurons eventually forged their own new and unique connections with the cortex and circuit board:

Also from the link:

Some say we will lose our unique individualism as we merge with machines, I predict the opposite.  Just as an uneducated, starved brain from the medieval dark ages or poverty-stricken Africa is limited in comparison to an educated healthy brain, in the future our minds will expand and become more varied in psychology, ideas, creativity, and perception as we voluntarily tinker with our intelligence, speed of thought, memory, and even how the basic components of our brains are organized.  Similar to how a prosthetic leg helps one walk again or a pacemaker allows one to live additional years brain-computer interfaces will be just another step.

Grabbing keystrokes …

… out of thin air?!? I’ve read about this type of tech before, but it never ceases to amaze me what is possible.

From KurzweilAI.net:

Researchers find ways to sniff keystrokes from thin air

IT World, Mar. 12, 2009 The electromagnetic radiation that is generated every time a computer keyboard is tapped is easy to capture and decode, two separate research teams, from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne and security consultancy Inverse Path, have found.   Read Original Article>>

Saving money with health insurance

Times are tough and pretty much everyone is looking to save money. One place to find savings can be health insurance.

It’s tempting to drop health insurance, particularly if you’re unemployed and no longer have insurance through your employer, but the long-term consequences are not worth going without basic medical care. And the immediate consequences of a medical emergency if you are uninsured are just frightening.

Here’s some tips on saving health insurance money for people who are in employer-based plans and for people who must find health insuarnce on their own.

From WeCompareInsurance.com:

 

Everyone likes to save money and your health insurance is a place where you can find savings. The easiest way to save money with health insurance is to only insure yourself for large, catastrophic medical problems or to increase your deductible in order to decrease your monthly premium. Both of these choices might not be the best health insurance option for everyone because each will increase your out-of-pocket medical expenses for everyday medical care and preventative examinations.

There are a number of tips to keep in mind beyond increasing your out-of-pocket expenses to minimize your health insurance costs while receiving the health insurance coverage you and your family needs.

Here are six things to consider for saving money through your health insurance:

1. If you are part of a health insurance plan such as a POS (point-of-service) or PPO (preferred provider organization), make sure you only use doctors and medical services that are in-network for your plan.
2. Take every tax deduction offered on health insurance. For the self-employed this means deducting all your health insurance premiums, and for participants in employer-based plans deducting the portion you pay of your health insurance premiums. And medical and dental expenses you incur that your insurance doesn’t cover that exceed 7.5 percent of your adjusted gross income (AGI) can be deducted as well.
3. When you are comparing health insurance quotes take a look at the long-term implications of your plan. Lower health insurance premiums and up-front costs will mean more out-of-pocket expenses and possibly much higher medical costs over the long run. Consider how you expect to use your health insurance and factor all the costs when comparing health insurance quotes.
4. Don’t make visits to the emergency room unless you are experiencing an actual medical emergency. The co-pay will likely be very much higher than for a regular office visit.
5. If possible participate in employer- or other organization-based group health insurance. The rates and qualification requirements are typically lower. If you are part of a employer-based group health insurance plan have your employer pay the premium on a pre-tax basis to lower your overall taxable gross pay. Another way to reduce your taxable income is to participate in your employer’s flexible spending plan to save money for out-of-pocket health insurance expenses such as co-pays, some medications and certain medical devices.
6. Save money on health insurance prescription medication by using online pharmacies. Traditional pharmacies will typically dispense only a 30-day supply of medicine while online pharmacies will allow for 90-day supplies for the same co-pay.

End the “war” on drugs …

… and save $77 billion.

Tips for startups

This is a tough economic climate to put a shingle out for a new business. Here’s a short, but sweet, article on three tips for startups.

From the link:

Though, among other challenges, startups are in the unique position of needing to get their brand name recognized by the public, while a larger organization has to maintain its brand image. To keep employees and customers engaged, even through challenges, is to get involved online.

Setting up a profile on a site such as Twitter or LinkedIn has value, for even the most established brand. A company blog, or at least a press release feed helps both current and potential customers keep up to date with company news, and perhaps even add insight into how the company can better serve them. In addition, companies are quickly able to interact with clients. People want to work with people, not a faceless corporate organization. While networking in person is great, using smart online networking techniques is now just as important and is more cost efficient.

Google Earth treats

This is just cool:

Native American Rock

Located in the badlands of southern Alberta, Canada, is a Native American listening to his iPod—or that’s what it looks like anyway. The rock formation is the product of weather and erosion working their magic on the rocks. The “face” measures about 837 feet across and 738 feet long. The earbud “cord” is really a road that leads up to a natural gas wellhead located where the “head’s” earhole would be.

Coordinates: 50 00’27.35″N, 110 07’08.07″W

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Weekly roundup from the Cato Institute

Another post fresh from the inbox. This week’s Cato Institute dispatch:

Head below the fold for the details.

Latest news on space shuttle Discovery

A release fresh from the inbox:

NASA Holds Briefing Friday on Status of Space Shuttle Discovery

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., March 12 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — NASA managers will hold a news conference at 10:30 a.m. EDT on Friday, March 13, to discuss the status of space shuttle Discovery’s launch to the International Space Station. Launch currently is targeted for no earlier than March 15 at 7:43 p.m. The briefing will air live on NASA Television and the agency Web site.

(Logo:  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO)

The shuttle launch was postponed Wednesday due to a leak associated with the gaseous hydrogen venting system outside the external fuel tank. The system is used to carry excess hydrogen safely away from the launch pad.

Discovery’s STS-119 flight will deliver the space station’s fourth and final set of solar array wings, completing the station’s truss, or backbone. The arrays will provide the electricity to fully power science experiments and support the station’s expanded crew of six in May. The flight also will replace a failed unit for a system that converts urine to potable water.

For information about NASA TV streaming video, downlink and schedule information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

  For information about the space station, visit:

  http://www.nasa.gov/station

  For the latest information about the STS-119 mission and its crew, visit:

  http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle

Photo:  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO
AP Archive:  http://photoarchive.ap.org/
PRN Photo Desk photodesk@prnewswire.com
Source: NASA
   

Web Site:  http://www.nasa.gov/

Nanoball batteries

Via KurzweilAI.net – Very interesting nanotech!

‘Nanoball’ batteries could recharge car in minutes

New Scientist Tech, Mar. 12, 2009 MIT scientists have designed an experimental battery that charges about 100 times as fast as normal lithium ion batteries. It contains a cathode made up of 50-nanometer-wide nanoballs of lithium iron phosphate. If cellphone batteries can be made using the material, they could charge in 10 seconds; bigger batteries for plug-in hybrid electric cars could charge in just 5 minutes, vs. 8 for existing batteries.   Read Original Article>>

Contrary to right wing noisemakers …

… the United States is not currently a “center right” body politic.

Wireless tasers

Via KurzweilAI.net — I’m not this latest in Taser tech is all that great an idea given the problems law enforcment already has with Taser usage and the occasional fatal outcome from tazings.

Wireless Tasers extend the long arm of the law

New Scientist Tech, Mar. 11, 2009 The new Taser XREP is an electrically charged dart that can be fired from up to 20 meters away with a 12-gauge shotgun. Upon impact, its barbed electrodes penetrate a victim’s skin, discharging a 20-second burst of electricity to “distract, disorient and entice the subject to grab the projectile,” which routes the shock through the hand, making it difficult to let go and spreading the pain further. U.S. police departments and the US military expected to be using the weapons by the end of 2009.   Read Original Article>>

Tax break hints from AICPA

Helpful tax hints curtesy of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

From the link:

AICPA to Taxpayers: Take Advantage of Tax Breaks to Help Offset Economic Hard Times

PR Newswire via NewsEdge : WASHINGTON, March 11 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants is reminding taxpayers to use the special provisions in the tax law that can help them save money and deal with the current difficult economic environment. “In these tough economic times, taxpayers need every advantage they can get,” said Tom Ochsenschlager, vice president of taxation for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. “Losing a home to foreclosure, losing money on investments, and/or losing a job are some of the most stressful events in people’s lives, and they need these breaks.” Taxpayers who lost their homes to foreclosure or had their mortgage restructured get a pass on paying taxes on the amount of debt the lender discharged under the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007. The exception applies only to principal residences, not to second homes or vacation homes. Married taxpayers can exclude up to $2 million and single taxpayers up to $1 million. The Mortgage Bankers Association’s National Delinquency Survey reported on March 5 that mortgage delinquencies are continuing to climb, making it increasingly important that taxpayers remember this tax break. According to the survey, the seasonally adjusted delinquency rate for one-to-four-unit residential properties rose to 7.88 percent of all outstanding loans at the end of 2008. The 2008 fourth-quarter increase was up 89 basis points from the third quarter of 2008. Individuals who sold investments at a loss in 2008 can use those losses to reduce their 2008 tax bill. First, they can use the losses to offset any profits made from selling stocks, bonds or property. Second, up to $3,000 of losses not used to offset capital gains can be deducted from other income. If losses exceed these amounts, the remaining losses can be applied in future years. “If you lost your job and moved to take a new one, remember that moving expenses you paid are deductible, but only if the new job is at least 50 miles from the previous job site and you stay for a certain period of time,” said Ochsenschlager. “If you did not have a full-time job before the move, then the new job has to be at least 50 miles from your old home. Also, be sure to keep good records of your moving expenses and note that meals are not a deductible moving expense.” Ochsenschlager also added some job search expenses, such as the cost of printing a resume or hiring a consultant to help with the job search, are deductible. It’s important that taxpayers not procrastinate. “Always file your tax return on time – even if you do not have the money to pay the entire amount,” said Ochsenschlager. “The IRS often allows taxpayers to pay their tax bill in installments. If you are getting a tax refund, file your tax return as soon as possible, so you can put the money to work for you rather than making an interest-free loan to Uncle Sam.” About the AICPA The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (www.aicpa.org) is the national, professional association of CPAs, with more than 350,000 CPA members in business and industry, public practice, government, education, student affiliates, and international associates. It sets ethical standards for the profession and U.S. auditing standards for audits of private companies, nonprofit organizations, federal, state and local governments. It develops and grades the Uniform CPA Examination. The AICPA maintains offices in New York, Washington, D.C., Durham, N.C., Ewing, N.J., and Lewisville, Tex. SOURCE American Institute of Certified Public Accountants

Bartering is booming

No surprise there.

From the link:

The Bartering Bounce
Across the country bartering requests—asking to swap goods and services for other goods and services without involving money—is penetrating the web. “People are looking to save any money they can,” says Greg Boesel, co-founder and CEO of Swaptree, a web site dedicated to trading books, music, DVDs and video games.

Craigslist has reportedly seen a 100% rise in bartering ads since January 2008. At Swaptree, Boesel says the site has doubled its listings every three to four months since launching in July 2007. There are now about 1.5 million items listed for trade. And John C. Moore, co-founder of four-year-old U-Exchange says page views on his free barter site have skyrocketed 172% in the last 30 days, compared to the 30 days before that.  “When gas prices were just sky high people were looking to get rid of their gas guzzlers in exchange for motorbikes,” says Moore.  “Now,  people are  looking for renovations and bartering for vacations.”

Pat Ruffini is stupid

Stumbling upon GOP stupidity right now is akin to shooting fish in a barrel, but I’m just sick of it all. Sick of the stupidity and very sick of being given such easy blog material by the loudest voices on the right on a daily basis.

This passes for right wing punditry  at the moment? I’ve blogged on the topic quite a bit, but every day I become more convinced the GOP may actually be slowly dying.

From the link:

The larger and more influential Rush’s audience, the more mobilized the base will be against Obama. This has nothing to do with Rush exerting policy leadership over the GOP — and everything to do with Rush as a popularizer of conservative principles and a rallying point for opposition. The best reaction to the Limbaugh “controversy” is for GOP politicians to avoid it entirely — while Rush’s audience grows and grows.

Er, Pat — the point isn’t the size of Rush’s (overinflated) audience. It’s the message and who it resonates with. Right now it resonates with out-of-touch cranks who are almost exclusively old, white and male and impervious to logic and reality. The Rush brouhaha is hurting the GOP, not helping. Anyone who doesn’t get this basic fact is either dissembling or is just stupid. (See the header for my opinion on this matter.)

I’d of never guessed I’d witness the death of a political party in my lifetime given how ossified the current landscape has been for decades, but it is actually happening right now. The Republican Party has no leadership and its base is somewhere south of 25 percent of the voting public. The three-legged stool is gone — not just broken, but gone — and whatever was left of the “big tent” has long been abandoned and used for toilet paper by the hobos who last used it for shelter.

Mark Sanford goes stupid

Zimbabwe? Really?

The GOP has just given up hasn’t it? No real arguments, no answers, no policies — instead we get chatty children, obstruction and just simple dumb-ass quotes. Nice.

From the first link:

The United States faces a Zimbabwe-style economic collapse if it keeps “spending a bunch of money we don’t have,” South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford said Wednesday.

South Carolina Mark Sanford says he does not want to spend money that his state doesn’t have.

Sanford, a Republican, has been an outspoken critic of the Obama administration’s $800 billion stimulus plan. He said he’ll turn down about a quarter of his state’s $2.8 billion share unless Washington lets him use that money to pay down debt.

“What you’re doing is buying into the notion that if we just print some more money that we don’t have and send it to different states, we’ll create jobs,” he said. “If that’s the case, why isn’t Zimbabwe a rich place?”

Space shuttle Discovery’s launch postponed

The release:

NASA Shuttle Launch Targeted for No Earlier Than March 15

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., March 11 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Space shuttle Discovery’s launch to the International Space Station now is targeted for no earlier than March 15. NASA managers postponed Wednesday’s planned liftoff due to a leak associated with the gaseous hydrogen venting system outside the external fuel tank. The system is used to carry excess hydrogen safely away from the launch pad.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO)

Liftoff on March 15 would be at 7:43 p.m. EDT. The exact launch date is dependent on the work necessary to repair the problem. Managers will meet Thursday at 4 p.m. to further assess the troubleshooting plan.

Discovery’s STS-119 flight is delivering the space station’s fourth and final set of solar array wings, completing the station’s truss, or backbone. The arrays will provide the electricity to fully power science experiments and support the station’s expanded crew of six in May. The 14-day mission will feature four spacewalks to help install the S6 truss segment to the starboard, or right, side of the station and the deployment of its solar arrays. The flight also will replace a failed unit for a system that converts urine to potable water.

Commander Lee Archambault is joined on STS-119 by Pilot Tony Antonelli and Mission Specialists Joseph Acaba, Steve Swanson, Richard Arnold, John Phillips and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata. Wakata will replace space station crew member Sandra Magnus, who has been aboard the station for more than four months. He will return to Earth during the next station shuttle mission, STS-127, targeted to launch in June 2009.

  For the latest information about the STS-119 mission and its crew, visit:
  http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle

  For information about the International Space Station, visit:
  http://www.nasa.gov/station

Photo:  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO
AP Archive:  http://photoarchive.ap.org/
PRN Photo Desk photodesk@prnewswire.com
Source: NASA
   

Web Site:  http://www.nasa.gov/

OPEC’s production cuts — working?

Maybe, maybe not. Oil was heading up, but took a hit today. I’m guessing OPEC has very little real teeth right now for whatever reason. If you believe some of the industry analysts, it looks like compliance within member nations of the cartel for the production cuts isn’t so great.

Here’s my latest post at EnerMax covering this very subject.

From the link:

One area of concern for OPEC, and of interest to petroleum sector analysts, is the level of compliance with the new, lower production quotas among OPEC nations. One analyst says, “OPEC is still having trouble meeting current quotas,” and that cheating remains a problem for OPEC. Qatar’s oil minister, Abdullah Bin Hamad al Attiyah, says he is satisfied with compliance describing the commitment among OPEC nations for the production cuts as, “very good.” This sentiment was echoed by Iran’s OPEC governor Mohammed Ali Khatibi who says, “Adherence is better than everybody expected, 80 percent, 90 percent.”

Khatibi adds, “Up to 2030, we have to build capacity for 45 million barrels a day, just for compensating the (natural) decline. In addition to that, we need to respond to future demand. The current price cannot encourage any investment, everybody expects a better price. The question is how we can achieve this.”

This confidence from OPEC members is not shared by petroleum industry analysts. One analyst says the rally in the price of oil and OPEC influence is “overdone.” The analyst continues, “OPEC is still having trouble meeting current quotas and cheating remains an issue.”

Whither the Fed goest?

Who really knows?

From the link:

The Fed has already used its main tool to the limit, having pushed its target interest rate, the federal-funds rate, to near zero. It already has ramped up lending and asset purchases. But it could decide to push harder by, for instance, purchasing long-term Treasury securities or increasing its purchases of debt issued or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It is unclear whether the Fed will decide to take new steps at its meetings on March 17 and 18.

Treasury purchases could help bring down long-term interest rates by pushing up the price of government bonds and thus pushing down their yields. That, in turn, could bring down other long-term rates because Treasury debt is a benchmark for many loans and securities.

Fed officials have wavered on taking such a step, but recently have been struck by the initial success the Bank of England appeared to have with such a move last week.

“The world is suffering through the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, a crisis that has precipitated a sharp downturn in the global economy,” Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said Tuesday in comments at the Council on Foreign Relations.

A recovery, he added, would be “out of reach” until officials stabilize the financial system, and even if that happens the recession will persist until “later this year.”

Adding a dose of humility to his assessment, Mr. Bernanke conceded, “My forecasting record on this recession is about the same as the win-loss record of the Washington Nationals.” The Major League Baseball team had 59 wins and 102 losses last year, the worst in baseball.

NASA’s Fermi Telescope and the gamma-ray sky

Cool and interesting release from NASA on its Fermi Telescope and mapping gamma rays.

The release from today:

NASA’s Fermi Telescope Reveals Best-Ever View of the Gamma-Ray Sky

GREENBELT, Md., March 11 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — A new map combining nearly three months of data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is giving astronomers an unprecedented look at the high-energy cosmos. To Fermi’s eyes, the universe is ablaze with gamma rays from sources ranging from within the solar system to galaxies billions of light-years away.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO)

“Fermi has given us a deeper and better-resolved view of the gamma-ray sky than any previous space mission,” said Peter Michelson, the lead scientist for the spacecraft’s Large Area Telescope (LAT) at Stanford University, Calif. “We’re watching flares from supermassive black holes in distant galaxies and seeing pulsars, high-mass binary systems, and even a globular cluster in our own.”

A paper describing the 205 brightest sources the LAT sees has been submitted to The Astrophysical Journal Supplement. “This is the mission’s first major science product, and it’s a big step toward producing our first source catalog later this year,” said David Thompson, a Fermi deputy project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The LAT scans the entire sky every three hours when operating in survey mode, which is occupying most of the telescope’s observing time during Fermi’s first year of operations. These snapshots let scientists monitor rapidly changing sources.

The all-sky image released today shows us how the cosmos would look if our eyes could detect radiation 150 million times more energetic than visible light. The view merges LAT observations spanning 87 days, from August 4 to October 30, 2008.

The map includes one object familiar to everyone: the sun. “Because the sun appears to move against the background sky, it produces a faint arc across the upper right of the map,” Michelson explained. During the next few years, as solar activity increases, scientists expect the sun to produce growing numbers of high-energy flares. “No other instrument will be able to observe solar flares in the LAT’s energy range,” he said.

To better show individual sources, the new map was processed to suppress emissions from gas in the plane of our galaxy, the Milky Way. As a way of underscoring the variety of the objects the LAT is seeing, the Fermi team created a “top ten” list comprising five sources within the Milky Way and five beyond our galaxy.

The top sources within our galaxy include the sun; a star system known as LSI +61 303, which pairs a massive normal star with a superdense neutron star; PSR J1836+5925, which is one of many new pulsars, a type of spinning neutron star that emits gamma-ray beams; and the globular cluster 47 Tucanae, a sphere of ancient stars 15,000 light-years away.

Top extragalactic sources include NGC 1275, a galaxy that lies 225 million light-years away and is known for intense radio emissions; the dramatically flaring active galaxies 3C 454.3 and PKS 1502+106, both more than 6 billion light-years away; and PKS 0727-115, which is thought to be a type of active galaxy called a quasar.

The Fermi top ten also includes two sources — one within the Milky Way plane and one beyond it — that researchers have yet to identify. More than 30 of the brightest gamma-ray sources have no obvious counterparts at other wavelengths. “That’s good news. It means we’re seeing new objects,” Michelson said. “It also means that we have lots of work to do.”

NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership mission, developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy and important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the U.S.

For images related to this release and the top ten LAT sources, please visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/news/gammaray_best.html

For more information about the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, please visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/fermi

Photo:  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO
AP Archive:  http://photoarchive.ap.org/
PRN Photo Desk photodesk@prnewswire.com
Source: NASA
   

Web Site:  http://www.nasa.gov/

HDNet to broadcast nighttime shuttle launch

If you get HDNet and have a kickin’ high-def setup, this press release is absolutely correct — this broadcast ought to be spectacular.

The release from today:

HDNet to Provide Live Coverage of Spectacular Nighttime Launch of Space Shuttle Discovery

Live coverage from the Kennedy Space Center begins at 9:00 p.m. ET tomorrow evening, Wednesday, March 11

DALLAS, March 10 /PRNewswire/ — WHAT:  As part of the network’s continuing partnership with NASA, HDNet correspondent Greg Dobbs will be on hand for a LIVE broadcast of the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery, STS-119.  STS-119 will be the 28th U.S. mission to the International Space Station. The flight will deliver the Starboard 6 truss segment, giving the station its fourth and final set of power-generating solar wings.  The S6 truss, with its set of large U.S.-constructed solar arrays, will complete the backbone of the station and provide one-fourth of the total power needed to support a crew of six.

WHEN:  Wednesday, March 11.  Coverage begins at 9:00 p.m. ET on HDNet with the launch planned for 9:20 p.m. ET.

About HDNet

HDNet (www.hd.net) is a network that is original, thinks independently and delivers unique content and provocative, authentic programming that appeals to men of all ages, delivered in true high definition.

HDNet is the exclusive, high definition home for popular, original programming, including television’s only HD news feature programs “HDNet World Report,” and the Emmy Award winning “Dan Rather Reports,” featuring legendary journalist Dan Rather.  Only HDNet goes beyond the headlines to deliver real news that is redefining the way we look at our world.  HDNet News is provocative, sometimes controversial and always relevant  – telling the important stories of our time in-depth, with attitude and with independence.

HDNet presents championship sports coverage featuring the best of Mixed Martial Arts through HDNet Fights.  HDNet Fights partners with leading MMA promoters including Affliction, DREAM, Sengoku, XFC, M1, K-1, K-1 Max, MFC, Adrenaline and more.  HDNet produces more live mixed martial arts events than any other network and HDNet’s “Inside MMA” is the hottest mixed martial arts program on television, giving MMA fans their weekly fix for everything MMA.

HDNet also delivers the world’s largest and most diverse concert line-up through the HDNet Concert Series.  The HDNet Concert Series features leading artists and bands including Coldplay, Gwen Stefani, John Mayer and more.  HDNet also features revealing lifestyle programming featuring “Art Mann Presents,” “Vegas Confessions,” “Deadline” and “Get Out!”  HDNet is also the exclusive high definition home to critically acclaimed and award winning documentaries as part of the InFocus series.  “NASA on HDNet” presents all live shuttle launches through 2010.

Only HDNet Movies delivers exclusive Sneak Previews of new movies before they hit theaters.  The HDNet Movies Sneak Preview series features top Hollywood stars in critically acclaimed performances including Gwyneth Paltrow, Joaquin Phoenix, Demi Moore, Michael Caine, Tom Hanks, Vera Farmiga, Parker Posey, Brian Cox, Matthew Broderick, Brittany Snow and Eric Bana.

Upcoming Sneak Previews include “The Great Buck Howard,” starring Colin Hanks, John Malkovich and Tom Hanks, and “Harlem Aria,” starring Damon Wayans.

In addition to being the exclusive home of Sneak Previews, HDNet Movies presents viewers with over one hundred films and an average of twenty-five  “HD Premieres” each month.  HDNet Movies viewers enjoy the best films from the classics of the 1950s-1970s, to favorite films from the 1980s and 1990s, to recently released theatrical films.

HDNet Movies offers subscribers a premium movie viewing experience in true HD, and more original movies shot entirely in HD than any other network.

Launched in 2001 by Mark Cuban and General Manager Philip Garvin, the HDNet networks are available on AT&T, Bright House Networks, Charter Communications, Comcast, DIRECTV, DISH Network, Insight, Mediacom, Time Warner Cable, Verizon and more than 40 NCTC cable affiliate companies.  For more information visit www.hd.net.

(Logo:  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080324/HDNETLOGO)

Photo:  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080324/HDNETLOGO
PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.com
Source: HDNet
 
Web Site:  http://www.hd.net/

Mortgage problems to increase in 2009

A confluence of issues is coming together to keep the mortgage issue front and center for this year.

I’ve heard similar noise regarding five-year notes and commercial properties. That idea is based on a lot of bad deals went down from 2006 through 2008. Look for that fall-out to begin in 2011 and worsen through 2013. Fun times ahead, indeed.

From the link:

Robert Manning, research professor and director of the Center for Consumer Financial Services at the Rochester Institute of Technology here, contends that three issues-poor loan modifications, adjustable rates resetting, and five-year interest-only and jumbo loans coming due-will combine to make the mortgage mess worse in 2009.

“That’s what Obama’s administration is trying to prepare for,” said Manning, whose analysis for the Filene Research Institute’s study on the foreclosure crisis in Michigan helped him draw that conclusion. “We are going to have such a disaster in the housing market this year because we have three very different waves of foreclosures coming together at once.”

Google’s Android on the desktop?

It may just end up there.

From the link:

It’s not news that Microsoft will get Windows 7 out as fast as possible this year. Vista has been a complete dog, so Microsoft will rush to deliver what is essentially a cleaned-up, lightweight version. What is news is that Google will have its own contender for desktop operating system king: Android.

Android, you ask? What would a Linux-based phone operating system be doing on the desktop? Running it, perhaps. You see, Matthäus Krzykowski and Daniel Hartmann, founders of start-up Mobile-facts, discovered late last year that Android has two product policies in its code. Product policies, they explained, are instructions in an operating system aimed at specific uses. Android’s two policies are phones and MIDs (mobile Internet devices). You probably know MIDs by their more popular name: netbooks.

The light begins to dawn, doesn’t it? But just because a program says it can do a job doesn’t mean it can actually deliver the goods. Recall, for example, just how well Vista ran on “Vista Capable” PCs.

So, Krzykowski and Hartmann decided to see if they could get Android to work on a netbook.

It took them about four hours to compile Android for an Asus’ Eee PC 1000H. Then, they reported on VentureBeat.com, “we got the netbook fully up and running on it, with nearly all of the necessary hardware you’d want — including graphics, sound and wireless card for Internet.” In other words, Android is already a desktop operating system.

We can only pray …

… for such an outcome.

We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.

Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the “Protestant” 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century.

This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good.

Millions of Evangelicals will quit. Thousands of ministries will end. Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Many Christian schools will go into rapid decline. I’m convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close.

Rethinking the war on drugs?

It’d be a great idea since the “war” on drugs is an abject failure, costing society in many ways and doing little more than propping up some third world thugs, perpetuating a criminal black market on U.S. soil and bankrolling elements of a police state in the “land of the free.”

It took the Great Depression to end Prohibition of alcohol. Will this economic downturn, certain recession and probable depression do the same for at least some of the current Class C chemicals and plants? There’s already some more than speculation talk about decriminalizing marijuana and reaping tax dollars while saving money on low-level enforcement.

Then you find studies like this that point out the efficacy of current Class C drugs that started out at therapeutic options. I know many psychotherapists were very disappointed when MDMA was completely criminalized in the mid-80s.

The release:

Ecstasy could help patients with post-traumatic stress disorder

New research published in Journal of Psychopharmacology

Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC (March 9th, 2009) – Ecstasy may help suffers of post-traumatic stress learn to deal with their memories more effectively by encouraging a feeling of safety, according to an article in the Journal of Psychopharmacology published today by SAGE.

Studies have shown that a type of psychological treatment called exposure therapy – where the patient repeatedly recalls the traumatic experience or is repeatedly exposed to situations that are safe but still trigger their traumatic feelings – can be effective in relieving stress responses in patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other anxious conditions. The therapy works by helping the patient to re-learn the appropriate response to the trigger situation, a process known as extinction learning.

But this approach can take some time, and 40% of patients continue to experience post-traumatic stress even after their treatment. To improve outcomes, scientists have been investigating the use of drug therapies to enhance the effect of exposure therapy, making the result of exposure to the fear trigger easier, faster, and more effective. MDMA (the pharmaceutical version of Ecstasy) is one such drug.

“A goal during exposure therapy for PTSD is to recall distressing experiences while at the same time remaining grounded in the present. Emotional avoidance is the most common obstacle in exposure therapy for PTSD, and high within-session emotional engagement predicts better outcome,” explain authors Pål-Ørjan Johansen and Teri Krebs, who are based at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and supported by the Research Council of Norway.

Psychiatrists that have administered MDMA to anxiety patients have noted that it promotes emotional engagement; strengthens the bond between the patient and doctor, known as the therapeutic alliance; decreases emotional avoidance; and improves tolerance for recall and processing of painful memories.

According to Johansen and Krebs, “MDMA [ecstasy] has a combination of pharmacological effects that…could provide a balance of activating emotions while feeling safe and in control.”

They suggest three possible biological reasons why ecstasy could help individuals with PSTD. First, ecstasy is known to increase the release of the hormone oxytocin, which is involved in trust, empathy, and social closeness.

Because people with PTSD often report feeling emotionally disconnected and unable to benefit from the supportive presence of family and friends or therapists – a situation that is likely to contribute to the development and maintenance of the disorder – use of ecstasy might also help ameliorate these symptoms, suggest the authors.

“By increasing oxytocin levels, MDMA may strengthen engagement in the therapeutic alliance and facilitate beneficial exposure to interpersonal closeness and mutual trust,” they write.

The second biological explanation for ecstasy’s useful effect is that it acts in two brain regions to inhibit the automatic fear response (mediated by the amygadala) and increase emotional control (mediated by the ventromedial prefrontal cortex) and therefore permits bearable revisiting of traumatic memories.

Thirdly, ecstasy increases the release of two other hormones, noradrenaline and cortisol, which are known to be essential to trigger emotional learning, including the process that leads to fear extinction, on which therapy for PTSD relies. But, caution the authors, while these compounds enhance extinction learning they may also temporarily increase anxiety in people with PTSD because the hormones are naturally released as part of the body’s response to stress.

Ecstasy combined with psychotherapy is a treatment already being tested in clinical trials to help patients with PTSD. All of these trials have a similar design in which ecstasy or placebo is administered to patients a few times during their therapy sessions as part of a short term course of psychological treatment. According to the Johansen and Krebs, recent preliminary results from two of these randomized controlled trials shows that the therapy might have promise.

“Reduction of avoidance behavior linked to emotions is a common treatment target for all anxiety disorders. MDMA [ecstasy] has a combination of pharmacological effects that, in a therapeutic setting, could provide a balance of activating emotions while feeling safe and in control, as has been described in case reports of MDMA augmented psychotherapy….Future clinical trials could combine MDMA with evidence-based treatment programs for disorders of emotional regulation, such as prolonged exposure therapy for PTSD,” conclude the authors.

 

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How could MDMA (ecstasy) help anxiety disorders? A neurobiological rationale by PØ Johansen and TS Krebs is published today (Monday 9th March 2009) in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. To receive an embargoed copy of the article contact mithu.mukherjee@sagepub.co.uk, t:+44(0)207 3242223. The paper will be free to access online for a limited period from http://jop.sagepub.com/

The Journal of Psychopharmacology is a fully peer-reviewed, international journal that publishes original research and review articles on preclinical and clinical aspects of psychopharmacology. The journal provides an essential forum for researchers and practising clinicians on the effects of drugs on animal and human behavior, and the mechanisms underlying these effects. The Journal of Psychopharmacology is published by SAGE, in Association with British Association for Psychopharmacology

SAGE is a leading international publisher of journals, books, and electronic media for academic, educational, and professional markets. Since 1965, SAGE has helped inform and educate a global community of scholars, practitioners, researchers, and students spanning a wide range of subject areas including business, humanities, social sciences, and science, technology and medicine. An independent company, SAGE has principal offices in Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC. www.sagepublications.com

Highest surface area ever

For a porous material, this particular is a nanoporous product.

The release:

New nanoporous material has highest surface area yet

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—University of Michigan researchers have developed a nanoporous material with a surface area significantly higher than that of any other porous material reported to date.

The work, by a team led by associate professor of chemistry Adam Matzger, is described in a paper published online March 6 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

“Surface area is an important, intrinsic property that can affect the behavior of materials in processes ranging from the activity of catalysts to water detoxification to purification of hydrocarbons,” Matzger said.

Until a few years ago, the upper limit for surface area of porous materials was thought to be around 3,000 square meters per gram. Then in 2004, a U-M team that included Matzger reported development of a material known as MOF-177 that set a new record. MOF-177 belonged to a new class of materials known as metal-organic frameworks—scaffold-like structures made up of metal hubs linked together with struts composed of organic compounds. Just one gram of MOF-177 has the surface area of a football field.

“Pushing beyond that point has been difficult,” Matzger said, but his group achieved the feat with the new material, UMCM-2 (University of Michigan Crystalline Material-2), which has a record-breaking surface area of more than 5,000 square meters per gram.

The researchers used a technique called coordination copolymerization to produce the new material. Previously, they used the same method to create a similar material, UMCM-1, which was made up of six, microporous cage-like structures surrounding a large, hexagonal channel. By using a slightly different combination of ingredients, Matzger’s group came up with UMCM-2, which is composed of fused cages of various sizes and does not have the channel found in UMCM-1.

“The new structure is a bit surprising and shows how the coordination copolymerization method has real potential for new materials discovery,” Matzger said.

In the quest for new materials capable of compactly storing large amounts of hydrogen, researchers have assumed that increasing the surface area of porous materials will result in greater storage capacity. Interestingly, the hydrogen-holding ability of UMCM-2, while high, is no greater than that of existing materials in the same family, suggesting that surface area alone is not the key to hydrogen uptake. Even so, UMCM-2 is useful for helping define future research directions, Matzger said. “I think we needed this compound to demonstrate that high surface area alone is not enough for hydrogen storage.”

 

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Matzger’s coauthors on the paper are postdoctoral researcher Kyoungmoo Koh and research scientist Antek Wong-Foy. The researchers received funding from the U.S. Department of Energy.

For more information: Adam Matzger: http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/public/experts/ExpDisplay.php?ExpID=1264

Journal of the American Chemical Society: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja809985t