There are waaay too many social networks out there already, but people keep making them so what the hell, why not add one more. Anchor is social media for your office and is an easy way to keep all your coworkers' contact information available in one place. It also allows chatting and has ample room for overshares in the "company lobby," like 'went to the bathroom brb guys.'
The first app from developer Tomfoolery, Anchor streamlines sharing of everything from links to photos (the app comes with filters), and has a well designed UI that's pretty fluid and easy to navigate. Coworkers can be grouped into departments or subcategories for easy access. The iOS app is out now and Android is coming in a few weeks. And it's free. Might not be worth switching if your office is already on a social network, but it could be an easy way to connect everyone if its not. [AppScout]
A Washington woman has become a surrogate 'swan mom' for a bevy of baby trumpeter swans. Each summer for 14 years she's raised hatchlings for 80 days and released them into the wild.
By Staff,?Associated Press / June 28, 2013
Five 13-day-old cygnet trumpeter swans gather around "mom", a decoy swan, in their human foster parent Martha Jordan's back yard earlier this week.
AP
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All Martha Jordan has to do to get her five baby swans to run across the back yard is pull their "mom" along on a rope ? a life-size, plastic swan decoy.
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The fuzzy cygnets, two weeks old, scurry to keep up in a scene that can only be described as impossibly cute.
For all intents and purposes, though, Ms. Jordan is really the baby birds' mom.
A wildlife biologist and authority on swans, Jordan agreed to raise the cygnets until they can be released into the wild.
The babies were hatched by a mating pair of swans at Northwest Trek, a wildlife park near Eatonville. In past years, some of the cygnets hatched there were lost to some of the other inhabitants of the park.
"They were becoming lunch for the bald eagles who live at the lake," Jordan said.
Jordan will raise the cygnets for about 80 days, after which they'll be released in Eastern Oregon. They become fully grown and ready to fly in just over 100 days, she said.
Though the cygnets' fledgling feathers are softer than silk, Jordan says petting them can condition the birds to human contact and make it harder for them to make it in the wild.
"I try not to handle them," she said.
Jordan has served as a foster?parent?for cygnets for 14 of the past 18 years, she said. Usually, she keeps them only for a few weeks and hands them off to another person who has room to house the cygnets as they get bigger.
An adult swan weighs from 25 to nearly 40 pounds and has a wingspan of 7? to 9 feet, according to Jordan.
The person who usually takes the swans from Jordan can't do it this year, so she is having a larger pen built in the back yard of her south Everett home.
Jordan is coordinator of the Washington Swan Stewards, a subsidiary of the Trumpeter Swan Society, a national non-profit organization. The local group provides education about swans and works on habitat conservation.
Trumpeter swans live only in North America and primarily in the Northwest. The other swan species native to the continent is the tundra swan, some of which also winter in the Northwest.
Trumpeter swans are migratory. Those that winter in Western Washington are among the 26,000 that breed in Alaska in the summer, Jordan said. They leave here in March and return in October.
Trumpeter swans are not endangered but their future is only as stable as that of the farmlands on which they depend for food in the winter, Jordan said.
Swans have historically wintered in local wetlands but as those have disappeared, the birds have adapted by landing at farms and eating the corn and other food put out for the livestock, she said. Farmers generally don't mind, Jordan said.
The Skagit Valley is the largest local wintering area, while the Stillaguamish and Snohomish valleys also attract many of the birds, she said.
Hunting Trumpeter swans in Washington state is illegal. Some of the lakes and fields where the swans land, however, are laden with lead buckshot leftover from decades ago or that's been fired at ducks or other waterfowl that may be legally hunted.
Swans ingest small pebbles as grit to help their digestion, and sometimes mistake the buckshot for pebbles, eat them and die from lead poisoning, she said.
Jordan gets paid for some of her work for the swan groups when grants are available. She goes on rescue missions in addition to banding and documenting the birds' whereabouts. But mostly she makes her living as a massage therapist, she said.
Still, she's recognized around the state as a leading authority on swans. She was asked to write the plan for minimizing the effect on swans from the demolition of the Elwha Dam, she said. Jordan confesses that she's sometimes referred to as the "swan lady."
She didn't set out to be a swan expert. Early in her career as a wildlife biologist working with other birds such as migratory geese, she frequently encountered swans and wound up studying them as part of her work.
In 1985, the state paid her to do a comprehensive swan survey.
"By that time, I was hooked on swans," she said.
It hasn't always been as much fun as watching the cygnets run across the lawn. Since 1999, more than 2,300 swans in the state have died from lead poisoning, according to the swan stewards website.
At the height of the die-off around 2003, "I was handling 4,000 pounds of dead swans," Jordan said.
Other times, she's been beaten up by swans when she got too close to a nest. Swans have claws on their webbed feet and hard edges to the front of their wings that they can swing like clubs.
They also have flexible, serrated bills. "They grab you and pinch and then twist and pull," she said.
Still, when she encounters a banded adult swan that she raised as a baby, or when people tell her stories of how swans have inspired them, it makes it all worthwhile, she said.
"You learn about humans and their connection to the land, and all that has come to me through the swan," she said.
JOHANNESBURG (AP) ? Inspired by Nelson Mandela's struggles in South Africa, a young Barack Obama joined campus protests in the U.S. against the racist rule that kept Mandela locked away in prison for nearly three decades.
Now a historic, barrier-breaking figure himself, President Obama arrived in South Africa Friday to find a country drastically transformed by Mandela's influence ? and grappling with the beloved 94-year-old's mortality.
It was unclear whether Mandela's deteriorating health would allow Obama to make a hospital visit. The former South African leader is battling a recurring lung infection and is said to be in critical condition at a hospital in the South African capital of Pretoria.
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One as he made his way to Johannesburg, Obama said he would gauge the situation after he arrived.
"I don't need a photo-op," he said. "And the last thing I want to do is to be in any way obtrusive at a time when the family is concerned about Nelson Mandela's condition."
Obama's visit to South Africa is seen as something of a tribute to the man who helped inspire his own political activism. The president will pay homage to Mandela at Robben Island, the prison where he spent 18 of his 27 years in prison. And with South Africa's ruling party, the African National Congress, facing questions about its effectiveness, Obama will urge the government and the South African people to live up to the democratic example set by their first black president.
"He's a personal hero, but I don't think I'm unique in that regard," Obama said during a news conference Thursday in Senegal, the first stop on his weeklong Africa trip. "I think he's a hero for the world. And if and when he passes from this place, one thing I think we'll all know is that his legacy is one that will linger on throughout the ages."
Obama and Mandela have met just once, a hastily arranged meeting in a Washington hotel room in 2005 when Obama was a U.S. senator. A photo of the meeting hangs in Obama's personal office at the White House, showing a smiling Mandela sitting on a chair, his legs outstretched, as the young senator reaches down to shake his hand. A copy of the photo also hangs in Mandela's office in Johannesburg.
Since then, the two have spoken occasionally by telephone, including after the 2008 election, when Mandela called Obama to congratulate him on his victory. The U.S. president called Mandela in 2010 after the South African leader's young granddaughter was killed in a car accident. Obama also wrote the introduction to Mandela's memoir, "Conversations With Myself."
Despite the two men's infrequent contact, people close to Obama say his one-on-one meeting with Mandela left a lasting impression.
"He is one of the few people who the president has respected and admired from afar who, when he met him, exceeded his expectations," said Valerie Jarrett, Obama's senior adviser and close friend.
Obama's own political rise has drawn inevitable comparisons to the South African leader. Both are Nobel Peace Prize winners and the first black men elected to lead their countries.
But their paths to power have been vastly different. While Mandela fought to end an oppressive government from the confines of a prison cell, Obama attended elite schools and rose through the U.S. political system before running for president.
"President Obama would believe that the challenges he has faced pale in comparison to those faced by President Mandela," Jarrett said.
Mandela had already shaped Obama's political beliefs well before their first encounter. As a student at Occidental College in Los Angeles, Obama joined protests against the school's investments during South Africa's apartheid era. In 1981, Obama focused his first public political speech on the topic.
"It's happening an ocean away," Obama said, according to a retelling of the story in his memoir "Dreams From My Father." ''But it's a struggle that touches each and every one of us. Whether we know it or not. Whether we want it or not."
More than 30 years later, as he traveled through the African continent, Obama recalled the influence Mandela had had on him during that period of his life.
"I think at that time I didn't necessarily imagine that Nelson Mandela might be released," Obama said Thursday. But the president said he had read Mandela's writings and speeches and understood him to be a man who believed in "treating people equally and was willing to sacrifice his life for that belief."
Following his release from prison, Mandela was elected president in 1994 during South Africa's first all-races elections. He served just one term, focusing in large part on racial reconciliation in the post-apartheid era, and retreated from public life several years ago.
The most recent images of him depict a frail man apparently approaching the end of his life. While South Africans have long been loath to talk about Mandela's inevitable death, there is now a growing sense in the country that the time is near. Well-wishers have delivered flowers and messages of support to the Pretoria hospital where he is being treated, and prayer sessions have been held around the country.
DAKAR (Reuters) - Senegalese President Macky Sall said on Friday he had asked U.S. President Barack Obama to provide more help to African nations fighting an Islamist threat in the Sahara, particularly in the sphere of military training, hardware and intelligence.
Sall, who held talks with Obama in Dakar on Thursday on the first leg of a three-nation African tour, said they had discussed the menace from al Qaeda-linked groups in the vast and lawless desert region, which runs east to west across Africa.
Senegal borders Mali, where armed Islamists seized control of the country's north last year. France launched a military campaign in January to oust the jihadists - warning that their enclave was a threat to the West - but groups of fighters have regathered in the deserts of south Libya and north Niger.
"We need in Africa, not just in Senegal but the whole of Africa, to have the military capacity to solve this problem but we need training, we need materials, we need intelligence," Sall told Reuters in an interview.
The United States, as well as the European Union and France, had a crucial role to play in helping African countries overcome a lack of military capacity and resources, Sall said. The Islamists had armed themselves with weapons looted from the stocks of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi after he was toppled in 2011.
"We need our friends to cooperate with us to help build those capacities and I think President Obama understands that terrorism since September 11 moves around the world," he said. "It is a global action and I think he's ready to work in that way."
The United States has already stationed surveillance drones and sent military trainers to Niger to prepare African troops which will form part of a 12,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali, due to start on July 1.
Washington had for many years conducted counter-terrorism training in Mali but military cooperation was halted by a March 2012 coup in Bamako, prompted by a northern uprising by Islamists and Tuareg separatists.
Sall said both he and Obama agreed it was essential for planned presidential elections in Mali to go ahead on July 28, despite reservations from some advocacy groups, in order to complete a transition back to democracy.
Some rights groups have said Mali will not be ready to hold the ballot and have called for it to be postponed, warning that a botched vote could jeopardize the legitimacy of a new government charged with ending ethnic and religious tensions.
"We think, and we discussed this, that on July 28 the Malians should hold presidential elections. I think we can really do it," said Sall, whose country has sent troops to take part in the U.N. mission.
TIME TO BUILD BETTER RELATIONS
Sall voiced confidence Obama intended to devote more attention to Africa after a first term spent dealing with the global financial crisis and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Many Africans have seen their initial enthusiasm over America's first black president turn to disappointment after he visited the continent only once during his first term: a one-day stopover in Ghana shortly after taking office in 2009.
"Today it's his second term and the time has come for him to build better the relation between the USA and Africa," Sall said.
"Africa is a place where you can invest and get back your investment very easily ... His visit to Africa will facilitate American investment in the continent."
Sall said U.S. companies were interested in investing in Senegal in the energy sector and infrastructure projects, like toll roads and railways. Senegal was seeking joint-ventures with U.S. firms to add value, particularly in agriculture where local companies needed help to meet U.S. sanitary standards.
(Reporting by Daniel Flynn; editing by Ralph Boulton)
A bill that would overhaul the nation's immigration system passed with bipartisan support in the Senate Thursday, but some of the top Republican leaders in the House say they haven?t bothered to find out what?s in it.
In an exclusive interview with Yahoo News Thursday evening, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said he?s not aware of the details in the Senate version of the immigration bill and reiterated that the House would move ahead with its own approach.
?I can?t tell you what?s in that big Senate bill, and the well over 1,000 or 1,500 pages that it may be, and that?s my concern,? Cantor told Yahoo News. ?I don?t know if you could ask a lot of the senators what?s in that bill. And that?s my concern.?
The Senate bill is comprehensive, combining mandates for border security and a pathway to legal status for immigrants living in the United States unlawfully. House Republican leaders have signaled that they will take a piecemeal approach to immigration reform instead, a move that could make it difficult for the chambers to reconcile the two versions.
In the interview, Cantor declined to say explicitly if he thought the House could pass a bill that includes a pathway to legality, but he did say ?there are a lot of discussions that still need to be had" about the issue. Cantor emphasized his support for a bill like the Dream Act, which provides a pathway to citizenship for children of immigrants with unlawful status.
Even though the Senate moved swiftly on immigration, Cantor suggested that the House would not hurry to pass its own version of an immigration bill.
?In the House, we?re going to be very deliberative about the approach, trying to address a very broken immigration system and to see what we can do to try and fix it,? Cantor said.
Yahoo News will air the rest of the wide-ranging interview with Cantor on Friday.
The second quarter of the year is coming to an end, so it's a good time to look back at the last three months. There weren't as many events in the last three months of 2013 as there were the first three, but there were still plenty of memorable performances. Who stood out? See the first quarter awards here.
Biggest upset: In "The Ultimate Fighter" finale, Cat Zingano pulled out a win over former Strikeforce bantamweight champion Miesha Tate. Stipe Miocic's opponent at UFC 161 changed late in the game, but he still came up with the win over Roy Nelson. Speaking of late replacements, James Krause wasn't even in the UFC until weeks before his fight -- and submission win -- Sam Stout at UFC 161. But the biggest upset was definitely in the final of TUF. Uriah Hall destroyed every opponent during his run on "The Ultimate Fighter." However, Kelvin Gastelum was the winner, coming up with a decision win over Hall at the TUF finale.
Best knockout: There were many fine candidates from this quarter for best knockout. You could go with Josh Thomson taking out the previously unknockout-able Nate Diaz at UFC on Fox 7, or from the same card, Yoel Romero's flying knee to Clifford Starks. Just last week, there was Muhammed "King Mo" Lawal's one punch knockout of Seth Petruzell in Bellator. The one that stood out the most, though, was Vitor Belfort's spinning heel hook to Luke Rockhold's face at UFC on FX 8.
Best submission: Glover Teixeira's submission of James Te Huna at UFC 160 was fast and fierce. Pat Curran's technical submission from a guillotine of Shabhulat Shamhalaev at Bellator stood out, too. But nothing was slicker and sweeter than Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza's arm triangle of Chris Camozzi at UFC on FX 8.
Best rising star: Teixeira's win over Te Huna, as well as his earlier win over Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, put him near the top of UFC light heavyweights. It's odd to think of someone who has been fighting for eight years as a rising star, but Matt Brown's dismantling of Jordan Mein did wonders for his standing among welterweights. The winner is Sara McMann, the Olympic silver medal winning wrestler has just seven pro bouts under her belt. Still, she made a huge debut in the UFC with a TKO of Sheila Gaff.
Best fight: The result was eventually overturned because of Healy's positive drug test, but that didn't take away the fun of Pat Healy's bout with Jim Miller at UFC 159. Krause and Stout's UFC 161 bout was fantastic before it ended in a submission with mere seconds left. The one that sticks out more than any other, though, is Junior dos Santos and Mark Hunt's bout at UFC 160. They both withstood ridiculously hard hits before JDS used a spinning hook kick to take Hunt out.
Valve's Half-Life 2 along with Episodes One and Two are out of beta and available for download on Steam for Linux, the company announced today. While we welcome any Half-Life news, it's hard to not get disappointed when the number three isn't involved. Gordon Freeman's last known appearance uses the new SteamPipe content delivery system and "numerous" community bug fixes have been implemented.
That's not all! Oculus Rift (and other virtual reality device) support has been added as well. We aren't aware of any other VR units besides the Rift, but in March Valve told us it's pursuing hardware itself. Speculating about other VR systems isn't far from speculating about Half-Life 3's existence -- we don't know anything at this point. However, Linux gaming site Phoronix says to expect more good Valve Linux news in July. We reached out to Valve for more info and will update if we hear anything back.
BY Zach Linder, Bobby Melok, Ryan Murphy, Kevin Powers & James Wortman
Page 1 of 51
June 27, 2013
June 27, 2002. Olympic gold medalist Kurt Angle throws down an open challenge to the SmackDown locker room. A young kid from West Newbury, Mass. steps up. He?s not yet great ? no one is their first time ? but he?s poised and fiery with a body like an action figure and more heart than a butcher shop. He surprises Angle, takes him off his feet, almost beats him. The fact that he doesn?t win is important ? it keeps him humble, keeps him wanting more.
More than a decade passes. That kid becomes a man. He wins 11 WWE Titles. Main events WrestleManias against Shawn Michaels, Triple H and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Stars in movies. Releases a rap album. Scuffles with Kevin Federline on live television. He becomes a brand, a polarizing figure loved and hated with equal ?lan. He carries WWE into an uncertain new age. He is John Cena. And these are the 50 matches that have defined him as the most important WWE Superstar of the past 10-plus years.
Jump ahead to:?40 |?30 |?20 | 10
Agree? Disagree? Let us hear about on the WWE Classics Facebook page.
BOSTON (AP) ? Boston Marathon suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev downloaded bomb-making instructions from an al-Qaida magazine, gathered online material on Islamic jihad and martyrdom and later scrawled anti-American messages inside the boat where he lay wounded, a federal indictment charged Thursday.
The 30-count indictment contains the bombing charges, punishable by the death penalty, that were brought in April against the 19-year-old Tsarnaev, including use of a weapon of mass destruction to kill.
It also contains many new charges covering the slaying of an MIT police officer and the carjacking of a motorist during the getaway attempt that left Tsarnaev's older brother, Tamerlan, dead.
"Tamerlan Tsarnaev's justice will be in the next world, but for his brother, accountability will begin right here in the district of Massachusetts," Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley, whose jurisdiction includes Boston, said at a news conference with federal prosecutors.
The indictment provides one of the most detailed public explanations to date of the brothers' alleged motive ? Islamic extremism ? and the role the Internet may have played in influencing them.
Three people were killed and more than 260 wounded by the two pressure-cooker bombs that went off near the finish line of the marathon on April 15.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured four days later, hiding in a boat parked in a backyard in Watertown, just west of Boston.
According to the indictment, he scrawled messages on the inside of the vessel that said, among other things, "The U.S. Government is killing our innocent civilians," ''I can't stand to see such evil go unpunished" and "We Muslims are one body, you hurt one you hurt us all."
The Tsarnaev brothers had roots in the turbulent Russian regions of Dagestan and Chechnya, which have become recruiting grounds for Muslim extremists. They had been living in the U.S. about a decade.
But the indictment made no mention of any larger conspiracy beyond the brothers and no reference to any direct overseas contacts with extremists. Instead, the indictment suggests the Internet played an important role in the suspects' radicalization.
Before the attack, according to the indictment, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev downloaded onto his computer the summer 2010 issue of Inspire, an online English-language magazine published by al-Qaida. The issue detailed how to make bombs from pressure cookers, explosive powder extracted from fireworks and lethal shrapnel.
He also downloaded extremist Muslim literature, including "Defense of the Muslim Lands, the First Obligation After Imam," which advocates "violence designed to terrorize the perceived enemies of Islam," the indictment said.
Another tract downloaded included a foreword by Anwar al-Awlaki, an American propagandist for al-Qaida who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2011.
U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz of Massachusetts said Attorney General Eric Holder will decide whether to pursue the death penalty against Tsarnaev, who will be arraigned on July 10. Some of Tsarnaev's relatives have insisted he's not guilty, and his mother has said the allegations against him and his brother are lies.
The indictment assembled and confirmed details of the case that have been widely reported over the past two months and added new pieces of information.
For example, it corroborated reports that Tamerlan Tsarnaev bought 48 mortar shells from a Seabrook, N.H., fireworks store. It also disclosed that he used the Internet to order electronic components that could be used in making bombs.
The papers detail how the brothers then allegedly placed knapsacks containing shrapnel-packed bombs near the finish line of the 26.2-mile race.
The court papers also corroborated reports by authorities that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev contributed to his brother's death by accidentally running him over with a stolen vehicle during a shootout and police chase.
The charges cover the slaying of Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier, who authorities said was shot in the head at close range in his cruiser by the Tsarnaevs, who tried to take his gun.
In addition, prosecutors said that during the carjacking, the Tsarnaevs forced the motorist to turn over his ATM card and his password and Dzhokhar withdrew $800 from the man's account.
At the same time the federal indictment was announced, Massachusetts authorities brought a 15-count state indictment against Dzhokhar over the MIT officer's slaying and the police shootout.
In this Thursday, June 20, 2013 photo, specialist Stephen Ruiz, left, and trader Michael Smyth work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Asian stock markets were mostly lower Tuesday June 25, 2013 as investors continued their flight from risky assets on the prospect of slower Chinese growth and the winding down of the U.S. Federal Reserve's monetary stimulus. European markets rebounded. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
In this Thursday, June 20, 2013 photo, specialist Stephen Ruiz, left, and trader Michael Smyth work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Asian stock markets were mostly lower Tuesday June 25, 2013 as investors continued their flight from risky assets on the prospect of slower Chinese growth and the winding down of the U.S. Federal Reserve's monetary stimulus. European markets rebounded. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
BANGKOK (AP) ? Global stock markets staged a modest recovery Wednesday, boosted by strong data releases that portray a U.S. economy on the upswing.
New home sales, bigger factory orders and rising consumer confidence helped allay fears about state of the U.S. economy, the world's biggest. The data came on the heels of comments by China's central bank that eased fears of a credit crunch in the world's No. 2 economy. Developments in both countries helped boost appetite for stocks, analysts said.
"The firmer data came alongside soothing comments from China's central bank about liquidity conditions in the banking sector," Mitul Kotecha at Credit Agricole CIB in Hong Kong said in a commentary.
China's central bank caused a global rout in markets on Monday after it moved to curb so-called shadow banking ? unregulated lending to companies starved of credit by traditional banks. Investors worried that would cause an increase in borrowing rates for companies, hurting business. On Tuesday, the central bank issued a statement saying it would act to keep credit markets functioning, if needed.
Britain's FTSE 100 advanced 0.8 percent to 6,147.89. Germany's DAX rose 1.2 percent to 7,902.70. France's CAC-40 gained 1.2 percent to 3,694.77.
Wall Street appeared set for gains. Dow Jones industrial futures rose 0.3 percent to 14,729. S&P 500 futures added 0.3 percent to 1,586.20.
Mainland Chinese shares were mixed after enduring sharp losses earlier this week. China allowed interbank lending rates to soar overnight Thursday, an attempt by Beijing to clamp down on massive credit flows in the informal lending industry. Small- and medium-sized businesses that have largely been denied access to formal lending channels from the country's major banks often turn to off-the-books lenders for needed cash. But that has provoked fears of potentially destabilizing credit bubble.
Francis Lun, chief economist at GE Oriental Financial Group in Hong Kong, said the crunch on cash reflects the thinking of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, who assumed his post in March.
"He is a market economist. I think he doesn't want the government to prop everything up," Lun said. "He is determined to bleed the air from the real estate bubble and the lending bubble. So he put a squeeze on the banks."
The Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.4 percent to 1,951.50. But the smaller Shenzhen Composite Index jumped 2.5 percent to 901.72. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng surged 2.4 percent to 20,338.55.
Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 1 percent to close at 12,834.01. South Korea's Kospi reversed early losses to rise 0.2 percent to 1,783.45. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 1.6 percent to 4,731.70.
Analysts said they had confidence that China, the world's No. 2 economy, would be able to continue growing, albeit at a slower pace.
"Overall, we believe that markets need not panic that China is about to experience a hard landing ... Beijing has enough time and resources to stimulate the economy and is unlikely to accept missing" its 7.5 percent growth forecast for 2013, Credit Agricole said.
Chinese banking stocks posted solid gains. The Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, the world's biggest bank by market value, rose 4.3 percent in Hong Kong. China Construction Bank advanced 3.9 percent.
Wall Street stocks closed higher after reports showed sales of durable goods rose 3.6 percent last month while house prices jumped 12.1 percent in April. A separate report showed sales of new homes accelerated in May to their fastest pace in five years, with sales rising 2.1 percent. Consumer confidence also increased.
The data underscores the message last week from the Federal Reserve, which plans to slow its bond-buying program this year and end it next year, if the economy continues to strengthen. The Fed's bond purchases have helped keep long-term interest rates low.
Benchmark oil for August delivery was down 43 cents to $94.95 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 14 cents to end at $95.32 a barrel on Tuesday.
In currencies, the euro fell to $1.3058 from $1.3090 late Tuesday in New York. The dollar rose to 97.53 yen from 97.75 yen.
NEW YORK (AP) ? New York City is becoming the most populous place in the United States to make businesses provide workers with paid sick time, after lawmakers overrode a mayoral veto early Thursday to pass a law expected to affect more than 1 million workers.
With the vote, the city joined Portland, Ore.; San Francisco; Seattle; Washington, D.C.; and the state of Connecticut in requiring the benefit for at least some workers. Similar measures have failed in some other places, including Milwaukee, Denver and Philadelphia.
Supporters see the New York measure as a pace-setter, although it has some significant limits and conditions, and they envision such laws becoming a national norm in coming years.
"The catalyst will have been the successful struggle we waged here in New York City," said Dan Cantor, the national executive director of the Working Families Party, which is among groups pushing the cause in Maryland, Oregon, Vermont and Washington states, among others.
Advocates say workers shouldn't have to choose between their physical and financial health. And customers and colleagues shouldn't have to be exposed to employees who come to work sick, supporters add.
Camilo Montes is diabetic and has felt ill at times during his six years working at a Queens car wash, but he has stuck it out instead of going home because he doesn't get paid sick days, he said.
Because he's supporting himself and his mother in Veracruz, Mexico, "I can't afford to lose a day's salary," Montes, 46, said through a Spanish interpreter after paid sick leave supporters rallied outside City Hall Wednesday.
But critics say that the government should leave sick day arrangements to workers and bosses and that the requirement will burden small businesses.
"Faced with this increase in costs, employers will seek to offset them in any number of ways, including reducing other benefits employees receive," entrepreneur-turned-politician Mayor Michael Bloomberg wrote in vetoing the measure earlier this month. "... It will harm the very people it seeks to help."
The huge financial information firm he founded, Bloomberg LP, does offer paid sick time, he has noted. But small companies can't afford it, he says.
Under the new law steered by Councilwoman Gale Brewer, employees of businesses with 20 or more workers would get up to five paid sick days a year beginning in April 2014; the benefit would kick in by October 2015 at enterprises with 15 to 19 workers. All others would have to provide five unpaid sick days per year, meaning that workers couldn't get fired for using those days.
The requirements could be postponed if the city's economy takes a major dive.
Employees could choose to work extra hours instead of taking sick time, a provision aimed at those who would rather swap shifts than stay home sick. That provision could be attractive to restaurant servers, for example, since the paid sick time wouldn't include tips.
Manufacturing companies would be exempt from the paid sick time requirement ? the rationale is that they're struggling, Council Speaker Christine Quinn has said ? though workers would still be protected from firing for taking unpaid sick days.
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Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz
Jessica McConnell, 26, of Silver Spring, Md., tries to identify halibut, red snapper and salmon at a dinner hosted by Oceana and the National Aquarium in Washington, D.C.
Heather Rousseau/NPR
Jessica McConnell, 26, of Silver Spring, Md., tries to identify halibut, red snapper and salmon at a dinner hosted by Oceana and the National Aquarium in Washington, D.C.
Heather Rousseau/NPR
In the world of seafood, looks can be very deceiving. And unfortunately for anyone who buys fish, it's easy for people above you in the supply chain to sell you something other than what you want.
Oceana, a conservation group, has been beating the drum about seafood mislabeling for a while. Back in February, the organization released a study that found that 33 percent of the seafood it sampled at retail outlets in 21 states was mislabeled. (Note: The sampling was not randomized, so the findings should be taken with a grain of salt.)
This month, Oceana hosted a dinner with the National Aquarium in Washington, D.C., to prove once again how easy it is to become a victim of seafood fraud.
"It's nearly impossible for anyone ? even experts ? to tell the difference between many species of fish," Beth Lowell, Oceana's campaign director, tells The Salt.
(From top) Oceana paired wild salmon, red snapper and halibut, all on the left, with other fish that look remarkably similar to demonstrate how easy it would be to mislabel them.
Heather Rousseau/NPR
(From top) Oceana paired wild salmon, red snapper and halibut, all on the left, with other fish that look remarkably similar to demonstrate how easy it would be to mislabel them.
Heather Rousseau/NPR
The event began with a raw fish guessing game. Kimberly Warner, Oceana's senior scientist, stood with a clipboard and pen by a large silver bowl filled with ice and six glistening fillets of fish. The objective? To correctly identify wild salmon, red snapper and halibut paired with almost doppelgangers beside them.
Many of the guests were flummoxed by the task. Listen to how some made up their minds:
Chef Xavier Deshayes of the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C., speaks to a crowd of diners during a fish taste test sponsored by the conservation group Oceana.
Heather Rousseau/NPR
Chef Xavier Deshayes of the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C., speaks to a crowd of diners during a fish taste test sponsored by the conservation group Oceana.
Heather Rousseau/NPR
The undecided included chef Xavier Deshayes of the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, who had prepared the meal we would soon eat. At first, Deschayes told me that he doesn't fall victim to mislabeling because he uses only purveyors that he trusts.
But as soon as he saw the two coral-colored fillets of salmon on the ice, he admitted that he didn't know which one was wild. "It's a lot easier to tell when you're looking at a whole fish instead of a fillet," he said.
Steve Vilnit, director of fisheries marketing for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, said he struggled with the snapper. "The sinew in the meat ... I'm thinking, but I don't know; that's a tough one."
After most guests had tried their hand at identifying the raw fillets, we sat down to a meal of some of the most commonly mislabeled fish species: grouper, salmon and red snapper. Each course featured two equally sized pieces of fish prepared in exactly the same way.
Diners' knowledge of frequently mislabeled fish was tested with an escabeche-style grouper, left, paired with an escabeche-style weakfish, right, and potatoes between them.
Heather Rousseau/NPR
Diners' knowledge of frequently mislabeled fish was tested with an escabeche-style grouper, left, paired with an escabeche-style weakfish, right, and potatoes between them.
Heather Rousseau/NPR
The first was grouper, cooked escabeche-style, and paired with potato salad. Its lookalike, Oceana's Lowell eventually told us, was a virtually indistinguishable piece of weakfish. In the February report, the group had found that 11 of the 44 samples of grouper, or 25 percent, were mislabeled.
Next up was the salmon course, with farm-raised salmon pitted against its wild counterpart. Listen to some of the guests' reactions:
Dehayes told me that farm-raised salmon has thicker layers of fat, and that the additional fat gives it a moister, more buttery texture. "I prefer farmed salmon to wild salmon, because wild salmon gets so dry when you cook it," he said. That turned out to be a helpful tip when it came time to taste the fish. The fish on the right felt apart in my mouth so easily, while the fish on the left, while delicious, was firmer and had a stronger, fishier taste. It was the wild salmon.
Wild Alaskan king salmon, at left, with farm-raised salmon, right, are served at a dinner at the National Aquarium in Washington, D.C.
Heather Rousseau/NPR
Wild Alaskan king salmon, at left, with farm-raised salmon, right, are served at a dinner at the National Aquarium in Washington, D.C.
Heather Rousseau/NPR
Lastly, we tasted red snapper, alongside a typical imposter: tilapia. Red snapper is the most commonly mislabeled fish, according to the Oceana report: Only seven of the 120 samples the group purchased and sampled were actually red snapper.
The prevalence of mislabeled red snapper gives consumers a distorted view of its availability, says Lowell. Another downside is that fishermen who are trying manage red snapper fisheries sustainably, like the ones in the Gulf Wild program who manage the catch in the Gulf of Mexico, have to compete against double-dealers who may have different priorities.
Fillets of chimichurri-crusted red snapper and tilapia, separated by fresh corn polenta.
Heather Rousseau/NPR
Fillets of chimichurri-crusted red snapper and tilapia, separated by fresh corn polenta.
Heather Rousseau/NPR
The snapper that Dehayes had prepared was covered in a chimichurri crust and served with fresh corn polenta. Although the snapper and tilapia had slightly different textures, strong spices made it tough to tell the two apart. It was easy to see why diners are so often tricked.
So who's to blame for all this mislabeling? According to Oceana, it's really hard to tell. It could be happening in the boat, during processing, at the wholesale level, at the retail counter or somewhere else along the way. But as Deshayes notes, if you're eating fraudulent fish at a restaurant, it may not be the fault of the chef.
Many chefs, especially those running large operations, buy fish that's already been filleted to save time. So that makes it harder for even the sharpest-eyed among them to spot imposters in the kitchen.
To stop mislabeling, Oceana would like to see an international traceability system to inform consumers where and when a fish was caught and what gear was used. But political support for such a system, which would be costly, has been tepid.
The seafood industry ? one of the least transparent in the food system ? has a long way to go before it can become more accountable to consumers. So in the meantime, ask chefs about which retail outlets they trust, and sharpen those senses.
GENEVA (AP) -- He was a wheeler-dealer pardoned by another consummate dealmaker, a working-class Jewish boy who left Belgium to escape the Nazis and rose to become the billionaire "King of Commodities."
Marc Rich's connections to the rich and powerful not only made him fabulously wealthy but when he was indicted for fraud, racketeering and tax evasion on a grand scale, they helped secure him a pardon from Bill Clinton, hours before the U.S. president left office.
That triggered a political firestorm from critics who alleged Rich bought his pardon through donations that his ex-wife had made to the Democratic Party.
Rich died Wednesday of a stroke at a hospital in Lucerne, near his home for decades. He was 78, and his Israel-based spokesman Avner Azulay said he would be buried Thursday in a kibbutz in Israel.
Throughout his storied career at the pinnacle of high finance, Rich was known as a man who could deliver the big deals thanks to personal relationships he had forged with powerful figures around the world.
In a rare 1992 interview with NBC, Rich said that in his business, "we're not political...That's just the philosophy of our company."
Yet Rich cultivated contacts with powerful politicians ? in the Middle East as well as the United States ? and used those ties to make billions, often when it seemed all doors were closed.
During the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s, Rich used his Middle East contacts to purchase crude oil from Iran and Iraq and made a fortune selling it to American companies.
In 1981, Rich and a partner bought 20th Century Fox and three years later he sold his interest to Rupert Murdoch for $250 million.
But in 1983, while he was in Switzerland, Rich was indicted by a U.S. federal grand jury on more than 50 counts of fraud, racketeering, trading with Iran during the U.S. Embassy hostage crisis and evading more than $48 million in income taxes.
At the time it was the largest tax evasion case in U.S. history and could have earned him more than 300 years in prison.
Although the Swiss refused to arrest or extradite Rich, he stayed on the FBI's Most Wanted List, narrowly escaping capture in Finland, Germany, Britain and Jamaica, until Clinton granted him a pardon on Jan. 20, 2001 ? the day he handed over the keys to the White House to George W. Bush.
Last-minute presidential pardons are not uncommon in the United States, but this one raised a furor. Critics believed the case showed that justice means one thing for ordinary people and another for powerful insiders.
Rich had other advocates, however.
For years influential Israelis, including ex-Prime Minister Ehud Barak and the former chief of the Mossad spy agency, Shabtai Shavit, had been urging Clinton to pardon Rich, who over two decades had contributed up to $80 million to Israeli hospitals, museums, symphonies and to the absorption of immigrants.
Moreover, Federal Election Commission records showed that Rich's ex-wife, songwriter Denise Rich, had donated $201,000 to the Democratic Party in 2000.
At the time, Rich's lawyers were urging the U.S. to drop the tax evasion case. When the Justice Department refused to negotiate, Rich's attorneys turned to Clinton.
Federal authorities investigated but found no evidence of wrongdoing. Election officials also dismissed a complaint accusing Denise Rich of donating campaign money and furniture to Hillary Clinton in exchange for the pardon.
Bill Clinton also denied any wrongdoing and said he acted on advice by prominent legal experts not connected to the trader.
Nevertheless, the current U.S. attorney general Eric Holder, who was deputy attorney general under Clinton, told a House committee weeks after the president's decree that if he had known all the facts of the case, "I would not have recommended to the president that he grant the pardon."
Rich was born in Antwerp, Belgium, on Dec. 18, 1934. His Jewish family fled from the Nazis to the United States, where he went to school and college in New York.
After dropping out of college, Rich went to work for the commodity traders Phillips Brothers, now called Phibro, in New York. He quickly got the knack of trading and in 1967 was sent by the company to work in Madrid, where he met Pincus "Pinky" Green, his future partner.
In 1973, Rich and Green left the company after arguing over the size of their bonuses. They set up Marc Rich and Co., based in the Swiss town of Zug, whose low taxes have made it one of the world's oil trading centers.
Business boomed. Rich specialized in acting as a middle man for purchases in global trouble spots ? such as Iran, apartheid-era South Africa or Cuba and Libya during U.S. trade embargoes.
Rich and Green were the first traders to use short-term purchases, now known as the spot market, to make big money, quickly. Buying large volumes when the price was low, they were able to control the market when prices rose.
With Rich in Switzerland, his companies pleaded guilty to the U.S. charges, paying fines of about $130 million.
"It's an unfortunate situation," Rich told NBC. "But the question is, was there crime? And I'm saying I don't think so."
He added that as Marc Rich and Co. was a Swiss company, it was legal for the firm to do business with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's Iran.
Rich worked on making himself popular by becoming a major philanthropist, giving money to the arts and charities in the hope of building good contacts and guarding against extradition. He renounced his U.S. citizenship and became a citizen both of Israel and Spain.
But he earned the hatred of U.S. labor unions during the 1990-92 Ravenswood Aluminum Corp. strike in West Virginia.
His company was a part-owner of Ravenswood Aluminum, whose workers accused Rich of locking 1,500 steelworkers out of the plant when their contract expired and hiring replacement workers without negotiating.
The union won the 20-month labor battle, but not before union members picketed outside Rich's Swiss offices.
In 1993, Rich sold his own company ? which was then renamed Glencore, now the world's largest commodity trader ? and set up a new firm, Marc Rich and Co. Holding, also based in Zug.
Although a Russian firm, Crown Resources, tried to buy its commodities unit in 2001, the buyout fell through and Rich remained active in the trading business.
After spending several years in Zug, Rich moved to "La Villa Rose" on the shores of Lake Lucerne in nearby Meggen. He also owned property in the swish ski resort of St. Moritz and in Marbella, on the south coast of Spain.
Rich married for a second time, to German-born Gisela Rossi, in 1998. They divorced in 2005. Rich had two daughters, Ilona Schachter-Rich and Danielle Kilstock Rich.
___
Reid reported from Berlin. Ian Deitch in Jerusalem and and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.
Professional wrestling has always been filled with hulking masses of humanity, doing battle to establish their supremacy over the competition. However, some titans towered over even the biggest Superstars.
Monster tag team photos?|?Watch the titans demolish the opposition
Sometimes, these giants of the squared circle teamed up, resulting in complete devastation. Like the beasts that rise from the ocean in Guillermo Del Toro?s thriller ?Pacific Rim,? these gargantuan grapplers left nothing but destruction in their paths. The carnage they caused seemed like something out of a monster movie, but for their opponents, it was very, very real and extremely painful.
Witness the ruin caused by 10 monstrous tag teams that left other duos crushed beneath their humongous boots.
NASA sounding rocket daytime dynamo launch postponedPublic release date: 24-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Keith Koehler keith.a.koehler@nasa.gov 757-824-1579 NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Launch Update: The launch of two sounding rockets from the Wallops Flight Facility was scrubbed on Monday, June 24 due to high cirrus clouds. The next attempt for these two rockets is currently scheduled for Tuesday, June 25, with a window of 9:30-11:30 a.m.
The two rockets, a Black Brant V and a Terrier-Improved Orion, will launch 15-seconds apart in support of the Daytime Dynamo experiment, which is a joint project between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA.
The project is designed to study a global electrical current called the dynamo, which sweeps through the ionosphere. The ionosphere stretches from about 30 to 600 miles above Earth and plays a crucial role in our day-to-day lives. For example, radio waves bounce off it as they travel from sender to receiver, and communications signals from satellites travel through it as well. A disruption in the ionosphere can disrupt these signals.
The first rocket scheduled for launch is a single-stage Black Brant V, which will collect data on the neutral and charged particles it travels through. The second rocket is a two-stage Terrier-Improved Orion. It will shoot out a long trail of lithium gas to track how the upper atmospheric wind varies with altitude. These winds are believed to be the drivers of the dynamo currents. Clear skies are required to view these trails using ground-based cameras.
The rockets will be visible to residents in the Wallops region. The NASA Visitor Center will open at 8 a.m. on launch day for viewing the launches. The Wallops USTREAM channel will broadcast the launch live beginning at 8:30 a.m. on launch day.
Swirling through Earth's upper atmosphere is a layer of charged particles called the ionosphere. Constantly on the move, currents through the ionosphere can be much more complicated than winds at lower altitudes, because the currents vary in concert with magnetic fields around Earth and solar activity. The ionosphere stretches from about 30 to 600 miles above Earth, and it plays a crucial role in our day-to-day lives because radio waves bounce off it as they travel from sender to receiver. Communications and navigation signals from satellites travel through it as well. A disrupted ionosphere equates to disrupted signals.
Scientists are gearing up to launch a sounding rocket from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va. for a five-minute trip to study a global, electrical current called the dynamo sweeping through the ionosphere. The sounding rocket is also called Dynamo. The window for launch is June 24 to July 8, 2013 (excepting June 26 and 27).
"The dynamo further south at the magnetic equator is particularly strong and is called the equatorial electrojet," said Robert Pfaff, the principle investigator for the Dynamo sounding rocket at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "The mid-latitude dynamo is less understood and is actually more complex, since here Earth's magnetic field is at an angle."
The Dynamo mission, a joint project between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, consists of two rockets that will launch 15 seconds apart during a window that lasts between 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 p.m. EDT. Each sounding rocket will go for a five-minute flight to some 100 miles up in the ionosphere. The larger rocket is a Black Brant V, which is 35 feet long, carrying a payload of 600 pounds. This rocket will collect information about the neutral and charged particles through which it travels. The second rocket is a Terrier-Improved Orion, and is 33 feet long. It will shoot out a long trail of lithium gas to track how the upper atmospheric wind varies with altitude. These winds are believed to be the drivers of the dynamo currents.
Studying the winds during the daytime is not easy because the wind tracer normally used by sounding rockets is only visible at night. As a result, scientists at JAXA and Clemson University in Clemson, S.C., have jointly developed technology that uses lithium trails as a tracer, which is visible during the day using cameras with special filters. The Dynamo experiment will use a NASA airplane to gather data above the haze and clouds in order to record how the lithium, and hence the wind, moves.
Understanding what influences the movement of both the neutral and charged particles in the upper atmosphere is crucial to understanding the dynamo, as both affect the currents.
"The simple picture of the dynamo involves two giant circles of current one in the northern hemisphere and one in the south," said Doug Rowland, a co-investigator for Dynamo at Goddard. "At its most basic, the electric current is caused simply because the sun heats the upper atmosphere during the day causing the gas to rise up, which in turn causes movement, a wind. The neutral wind pushes the heavier charged particles and that drives an electric current. So both the neutral and the charged material must be understood."
Such a simple picture is not a complete picture, of course, and sounding rockets such as Dynamo are needed to not only reveal how these fundamental currents are set up, but also how a host of other occurrences around Earth impact the dynamo. For example, activity on the sun can affect Earth's magnetic fields sometimes causing severe variation in the ionosphere. Additionally, the lower parts of the ionosphere contain different types of ions, which collide with the neutral gases in different ways, depending on their size.
Some of these effects have been studied before in the mid-latitudes, but in this region no one has studied the electromagnetic effects at the same time as they've studied the neutral winds.
Not only will understanding the dynamics of the ionosphere currents help to understand how -- and perhaps even predict when -- the ionosphere can disturb radio signals, it can shed light on similar processes believe to occur on other planets throughout the solar system.
"The manner in which neutral and ionized gases interact is a fundamental part of nature," said Pfaff. "There could very well be a dynamo on other planets. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are all huge planets with huge atmospheres and huge magnetic fields. They could be setting up dynamo currents galore."
While sounding rockets make short trips, they provide access to critical areas of the upper atmosphere that are too low for orbiting satellites. Wallops Flight Facility, which manages NASA's sounding rocket program, is where the payloads are designed, built and tested.
###
To find out more about NASA's sounding rocket missions, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sounding-rockets/
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
NASA sounding rocket daytime dynamo launch postponedPublic release date: 24-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Keith Koehler keith.a.koehler@nasa.gov 757-824-1579 NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Launch Update: The launch of two sounding rockets from the Wallops Flight Facility was scrubbed on Monday, June 24 due to high cirrus clouds. The next attempt for these two rockets is currently scheduled for Tuesday, June 25, with a window of 9:30-11:30 a.m.
The two rockets, a Black Brant V and a Terrier-Improved Orion, will launch 15-seconds apart in support of the Daytime Dynamo experiment, which is a joint project between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA.
The project is designed to study a global electrical current called the dynamo, which sweeps through the ionosphere. The ionosphere stretches from about 30 to 600 miles above Earth and plays a crucial role in our day-to-day lives. For example, radio waves bounce off it as they travel from sender to receiver, and communications signals from satellites travel through it as well. A disruption in the ionosphere can disrupt these signals.
The first rocket scheduled for launch is a single-stage Black Brant V, which will collect data on the neutral and charged particles it travels through. The second rocket is a two-stage Terrier-Improved Orion. It will shoot out a long trail of lithium gas to track how the upper atmospheric wind varies with altitude. These winds are believed to be the drivers of the dynamo currents. Clear skies are required to view these trails using ground-based cameras.
The rockets will be visible to residents in the Wallops region. The NASA Visitor Center will open at 8 a.m. on launch day for viewing the launches. The Wallops USTREAM channel will broadcast the launch live beginning at 8:30 a.m. on launch day.
Swirling through Earth's upper atmosphere is a layer of charged particles called the ionosphere. Constantly on the move, currents through the ionosphere can be much more complicated than winds at lower altitudes, because the currents vary in concert with magnetic fields around Earth and solar activity. The ionosphere stretches from about 30 to 600 miles above Earth, and it plays a crucial role in our day-to-day lives because radio waves bounce off it as they travel from sender to receiver. Communications and navigation signals from satellites travel through it as well. A disrupted ionosphere equates to disrupted signals.
Scientists are gearing up to launch a sounding rocket from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va. for a five-minute trip to study a global, electrical current called the dynamo sweeping through the ionosphere. The sounding rocket is also called Dynamo. The window for launch is June 24 to July 8, 2013 (excepting June 26 and 27).
"The dynamo further south at the magnetic equator is particularly strong and is called the equatorial electrojet," said Robert Pfaff, the principle investigator for the Dynamo sounding rocket at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "The mid-latitude dynamo is less understood and is actually more complex, since here Earth's magnetic field is at an angle."
The Dynamo mission, a joint project between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, consists of two rockets that will launch 15 seconds apart during a window that lasts between 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 p.m. EDT. Each sounding rocket will go for a five-minute flight to some 100 miles up in the ionosphere. The larger rocket is a Black Brant V, which is 35 feet long, carrying a payload of 600 pounds. This rocket will collect information about the neutral and charged particles through which it travels. The second rocket is a Terrier-Improved Orion, and is 33 feet long. It will shoot out a long trail of lithium gas to track how the upper atmospheric wind varies with altitude. These winds are believed to be the drivers of the dynamo currents.
Studying the winds during the daytime is not easy because the wind tracer normally used by sounding rockets is only visible at night. As a result, scientists at JAXA and Clemson University in Clemson, S.C., have jointly developed technology that uses lithium trails as a tracer, which is visible during the day using cameras with special filters. The Dynamo experiment will use a NASA airplane to gather data above the haze and clouds in order to record how the lithium, and hence the wind, moves.
Understanding what influences the movement of both the neutral and charged particles in the upper atmosphere is crucial to understanding the dynamo, as both affect the currents.
"The simple picture of the dynamo involves two giant circles of current one in the northern hemisphere and one in the south," said Doug Rowland, a co-investigator for Dynamo at Goddard. "At its most basic, the electric current is caused simply because the sun heats the upper atmosphere during the day causing the gas to rise up, which in turn causes movement, a wind. The neutral wind pushes the heavier charged particles and that drives an electric current. So both the neutral and the charged material must be understood."
Such a simple picture is not a complete picture, of course, and sounding rockets such as Dynamo are needed to not only reveal how these fundamental currents are set up, but also how a host of other occurrences around Earth impact the dynamo. For example, activity on the sun can affect Earth's magnetic fields sometimes causing severe variation in the ionosphere. Additionally, the lower parts of the ionosphere contain different types of ions, which collide with the neutral gases in different ways, depending on their size.
Some of these effects have been studied before in the mid-latitudes, but in this region no one has studied the electromagnetic effects at the same time as they've studied the neutral winds.
Not only will understanding the dynamics of the ionosphere currents help to understand how -- and perhaps even predict when -- the ionosphere can disturb radio signals, it can shed light on similar processes believe to occur on other planets throughout the solar system.
"The manner in which neutral and ionized gases interact is a fundamental part of nature," said Pfaff. "There could very well be a dynamo on other planets. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are all huge planets with huge atmospheres and huge magnetic fields. They could be setting up dynamo currents galore."
While sounding rockets make short trips, they provide access to critical areas of the upper atmosphere that are too low for orbiting satellites. Wallops Flight Facility, which manages NASA's sounding rocket program, is where the payloads are designed, built and tested.
###
To find out more about NASA's sounding rocket missions, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sounding-rockets/
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
June 17, 2013 ? A type of drug normally used to treat heart failure and high blood pressure helped prevent weight gain and other complications related to a high-fat diet in an animal study.
The results were presented today at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco.
Weight gain, especially around the waist, and high blood pressure, combine with other abnormalities to form a cluster of diseases known as metabolic syndrome, which increases the risk of heart disease, diabetes and other serious illnesses. With obesity rates climbing in developed countries throughout the world, medical researchers are trying to find new drugs to prevent metabolic syndrome from occurring.
One new and promising approach involves blocking the action of aldosterone and glucocorticoids, hormones synthesized in the adrenal cortex of mammals. These hormones are capable of activating the mineralocorticoid receptors (MRs). MRs are ligand-activated transcription factors that play a key role in many physiological and pathological processes occurring in several tissues and organs, including kidney, heart and adipose tissue.
Drugs that prevent MRs from reacting to their ligands are known as MR antagonists. In this study, investigators examined, in mice fed a high-fat diet, the effects of drospirenone and spironolactone, two MR antagonists currently used in clinical practice that have been previously shown to modulate adipocyte differentiation in vitro. They found that the drugs had several benefits, including helping to prevent weight gain and to increase the number of energy-burning fat cells. Animals that received MR antagonists combined with a high-fat diet exhibited more brown fat cells interspersed within white fat tissue, compared to untreated controls. The so-called good kind of fat, brown fat cells actually burn energy to help prevent weight gain, while white fat does the opposite, storing energy as more fat cells.
In order to evaluate the expansion of brown adipose tissue, the investigators also used special imaging tests to measure the percentage of water in fat cells which, at high levels, indicates the presence of brown fat.
In addition, these MR antagonists were effective in reducing the high levels of blood glucose related to impaired glucose tolerance, which can be a precursor to diabetes.
"These data open new unexpected applications of MR antagonists in the treatment of obesity and its metabolic complications, since their use in animal models reverses the metabolic dysfunction induced by a high-fat diet, promoting the activation of brown-like fat in classical white fat depots," said study lead author Andrea Armani, Ph.D., a post-doctoral fellow in obesity research. "Indeed, MR antagonism has promise as a novel approach to treat metabolic syndrome."
The study was coordinated by Massimiliano Caprio, MD, PhD, at the IRCCS San Raffaele Pisana Research Center in Rome, Italy. Previous research by Dr. Caprio's laboratory showed that blocking MR expression in human and animal precursor fat cells prevented them from developing further. These findings led the investigators to design the current study to examine the effects of MR antagonists on adipose tissue and glucose metabolism under obesogenic conditions.
The IRCCS San Raffaele Pisana (Ricerca Corrente); the University of Rome; and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs supported the study.
The second quarter of the year is coming to an end, so it's a good time to look back at the last three months. There weren't as many events in the last three months of 2013 as there were the first three, but there were still plenty of memorable performances. Who stood out? See the first 
Best rising star: Teixeira's win over Te Huna, as well as his earlier win over Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, put him near the top of UFC light heavyweights. It's odd to think of someone who has been fighting for eight years as a rising star, but Matt Brown's dismantling of Jordan Mein did wonders for his standing among welterweights. The winner is Sara McMann, the Olympic silver medal winning wrestler has just seven pro bouts under her belt. Still, she made a huge debut in the UFC with a TKO of Sheila Gaff.
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Public release date: 24-Jun-2013
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