Developers, makers, and hobbyists looking for a beefier alternative to Gizmag favorite the Raspberry Pi will be delighted to learn that BeagleBoard.org has taken the wraps off a 1 GHz ARM-based board named the BeagleBone Black. Though it may look like a slightly more expensive outlay, its manufacturer says that by providing everything needed for display, keyboard and network connectivity right out of the box, the Black provides "a lower total cost of ownership than the nearest competitor."
So what do you get for US$45? The 3.4 x 2.1 in (8.6 x 5.3 cm) BeagleBone Black open-source Linux computer comes pre-loaded with the ?ngstr?m distro (which is reported to boot in under 10 seconds) and Cloud9 IDE, freeing up the microSD slot for additional storage. It's based on the 1 GHz Sitara 1 GHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor from Texas Instruments, including a 3D graphics accelerator. There's 2 GB of integrated eMMC flash storage and 512 MB of DDR3 RAM.
The 46-pin expansion headers sat at two of the unit's edges are currently compatible with over 30 so-called capes, which are plug-in boards that allow the Black to be integrated with 3D printers, a Geiger counter, LCD touchscreens, and a telerobotic submarine, to name but a few of the numerous possibilities. USB (host/client), Ethernet and micro HDMI interfaces also feature, though the reported resolution for the latter maxes out at 1280 x 1024 (compared to the RasPi's 1920 x 1200).
The credit-card-sized computer comes supplied with a USB cable for power, but can also be connected to an external 5-volt DC supply. BeagleBoard.org says that right out of the box, you'll be ready to rock 'n' roll in just over three minutes. There's support from an active online community, and free access to documentation, sample code and kernel support for the likes of Ubuntu, Android and Fedora.
Initial quantities are limited, but BeagleBoard expects volume shipping to begin by the end of May.
Have a look at the video below to see the BBB turning a phone dock into a "laptop" computer.
Like musicians in an orchestra who have the same musical score but start and finish playing at different intervals, cells with the same genes start and finish transcribing them at different points in the genome. For the first time, researchers at EMBL have described the striking diversity of messenger RNAs (mRNAs) that such start and end variation produces, even from the simple genome of yeast cells. Their findings, published today in Nature, shed new light on the importance of mRNA boundaries in determining the functional potential of genes.
Hundreds of thousands of unique mRNA transcripts are generated from a genome of only about 8000 genes, even with the same genome sequence and environmental condition. "We knew that transcription could lead to a certain amount of diversity, but we were not expecting it to be so vast," explains Lars Steinmetz, who led the project. "Based on this diversity, we would expect that no yeast cell has the same set of messenger RNA molecules as its neighbour."
The traditional understanding of transcription was that mRNA boundaries were relatively fixed. While it has long been known that certain parts of mRNAs can be selectively 'spliced' out, this phenomenon is very rare in baker's yeast, meaning that the textbook one gene - one mRNA transcript relationship should hold. Recent studies have suggested that things aren't quite that simple, inspiring the EMBL scientists to create a new technique to capture both the start and end points of single mRNA molecules. They now discovered that each gene could be transcribed into dozens or even hundreds of unique mRNA molecules, each with different boundaries.
This suggests that not only transcript abundance, but also transcript boundaries should be considered when assessing gene function. Altering the boundaries of mRNA molecules can affect how long they stay intact, cause them to produce different proteins, or direct them or their protein products to different locations, which can have a profound biological impact. Diversifying mRNA transcript boundaries within a group of cells, therefore, could equip them to adapt to different external challenges.
The researchers expect that such an extent of boundary variation will also be found in more complex organisms, including humans, where some examples are already known to affect key biological functions. The technology to measure these variations across the entire genome as well as a catalogue of boundaries in a well-studied organism are a good starting point for further research. "Now that we are aware of how much diversity there is, we can start to figure out what factors control it," points out Vicent Pelechano, who performed the study with Wu Wei. Wei adds: "Our technique also exposed new mRNAs that other techniques could not distinguish. It will be exciting to investigate how these and general variation in transcript boundaries actually extend the functional capacity of a genome."
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European Molecular Biology Laboratory: http://www.embl.org
Thanks to European Molecular Biology Laboratory for this article.
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Apr. 15, 2013 ? OLEDs can be made more efficiently and at lower cost by a better understanding of the electronic processed.
OLEDs -- thin, light-emitting surfaces -- are regarded as the light sources of the future. White OLEDs consist of stacked, ultra-thin layers, each emitting its own light color, all together resulting in white light. Up to now it has been impossible to predict the exact light color produced by a white OLED; manufacturers had to rely on trial and error. Researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology, Philips Research, Dresden University of Technology and other institutes have now developed a method that allows the color of light produced by a specific OLED design to be calculated with high precision. They did this by modeling the complex processes in OLEDs on a molecular scale. This technique will allow manufacturers to greatly improve their OLED design processes and reduce the cost. At the same time the energy efficiency and lifetime of OLEDs can be increased.
The results were published online on Sunday 14 April 2013 in the journal Nature Materials.
Revolution
It looks as though OLEDs -- organic light emitting diodes -- will cause a revolution in the world of lighting. OLEDs are light-emitting surfaces, which means they are visually more attractive than point light sources such as conventional or LED lamps. They can also be flexible and transparent, which opens up all kinds of new opportunities. Plus -- and unlike normal LEDs -- OLEDs are made of very low-cost materials, of which only very thin layers are needed. As a result, the prices of OLEDs are expected to be low once mass production starts. This clip gives an impression of what's possible with OLEDs.
To predict what kind of light an OLED design will produce, the researchers made computer models of the electronic processes in the OLED at the deepest level. These showed for example the injection of electrical charge, the creation and distribution of the 'excitons' -- pairs of positively charged electrons and holes in a bound state -- and the creation from these of individual photons, the light that is emitted. "At first we thought it would never be possible," says researcher Peter Bobbert of Eindhoven University of Technology. The main difficulty was that each change in the electrical charge also influences all the other charges, which makes the simulation extremely complex. But they succeeded by using Monte Carlo simulations with nanosecond steps. The results proved to correspond very well to measurements carried out at Philips on real OLEDs made at Dresden University of Technology.
Factor of three
One of the results is that the researchers can now predict where light is produced and lost in the ultra-thin layers. That makes it possible to optimize OLEDs so they produce the same amount of light using much less electric power. The researchers expect that the efficiency can still be increased by a factor of three. Manufacturers can also use this new knowledge to design OLEDs with specific colors. They can calculate in advance exactly how thick the different layers need to be, and how much pigment has to be added to the layers. The much shorter and less costly design process will allow the overall development costs to be reduced, leading to lower prices of the final products. "This has already been possible for a long time in the field of micro-electronics, with the ability to precisely predict the behavior of integrated circuits," says Bobbert. "Now we can do the same thing with OLEDs."
The research was made possible by financial support from the European Union (FP7 project AEVIOM), the Dutch Polymer Institute, NanoNextNL and NanoNed.
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Swapping wires and switching inputs on your TV to use different game systems is a pain. Ben Heck was sick of it, so he hacked-together a custom system that combines a PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii U in one box.
Ben walks you through the process over the course of three episodes of his eponymous Revision3 show. With new generations of the Playstation and Xbox on the way this year, this could be a fun use for your old systems. If you want to try it yourself, you'll need a fully-stocked workshop and a surplus of courage, but the finished product is a modern marvel of gaming. Even if you don't want to try it yourself, the episodes are worth watching, if only to marvel at the creativity.
If you don't have a Wii U handy, we previously featured a similar build that only combined an Xbox and Playstation, so give that a look for some more ideas.
Episode 71: Ben's Ultimate Combo Gaming System Episode Part 1 | Element14
Episode 72: Ben's Ultimate Combo Gaming System Episode Part 2 | Element14
Episode 73: Ben's Ultimate Combo Gaming System Episode Part 3 | Element14
The beam from the intruder's flashlight pierced the blackness of the bedroom at 4:45 a.m., sweeping across the down comforter and into Eric Martin's eyes. Outside, the streets of his Utah subdivision lay still and silent.
But as Martin rolled to the floor, reached into the nightstand drawer and drew out his 9 mm pistol, the 46-year-old executive's mind raced with calculation: Would this man harm Martin's fiancee or her son? Was an accomplice outside waiting? What if he pulled the trigger and hit the sleeping 8-year-old across the hall?
In the weeks since the Connecticut school massacre, some of the most intense debate has swirled around how to keep guns from criminals without infringing on the ability of lawful gun owners, like Martin, to protect themselves and their families.
Indeed, protection is now the top reason gun owners cite for having a firearm, a new survey shows, a figure that has nearly doubled since 1999.
But even after years of study, there is little clarity on how, exactly, Americans use guns to protect themselves in moments of jeopardy ? or how often. Researchers known for sharp disagreement on the self-defense riddle say the answers may be shifting dramatically because of a steep drop in crime, an increase in guns and state laws giving owners more leeway to wield them.
Determining the absolute value of guns for self-defense is clouded by that complex dynamic of policy, judgment and circumstance. Still, both advocates of gun rights and of gun control understand the issue's importance in shaping the debate.
"When there's a threat outside your door, the police aren't going to be there ... the guys trained to save lives aren't going to be there," said Dom Raso, a commentator for the National Rifle Association's online news channel, in a video posted recently by the gun rights group.
And even while calling for new gun laws, President Barack Obama, too, acknowledged the legitimacy of self-defense in an April 8 speech in Hartford, Conn., when he recounted a conversation with his wife, Michelle, after campaigning in rural Iowa.
"Sometimes it would be miles between farms, let alone towns," Obama said. "And she said, 'You know, coming back, I can understand why somebody would want a gun for protection. If somebody drove up into the driveway and, Barack, you weren't home, the sheriff lived miles away, I might want that security.'"
With Americans split over whether guns more often save lives or jeopardize them, researchers have long parsed surveys of crime victims done in the 1990s, arguing over what the numbers mean.
But since then, crime has plummeted in the U.S. The rate of violent crimes including murder and assault fell by nearly half from 1992 to 2011, while the rate of reported property crime dropped 41 percent, data compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation show.
That drop has researchers considering the possibility, even the likelihood, that many fewer Americans are drawing firearms to protect themselves.
"I'm pretty confident that whatever the number is, it did go down ... because overall crime went down," said Gary Kleck, a Florida State University criminologist whose 1990s research, widely cited by gun rights activists, concluded that Americans drew their firearms in self-defense up to 2.5 million times a year. That translates to about 3 percent of all gun owners during the course of a single year.
But the drop in crime means there are far fewer occasions now for Americans to use guns for self-protection, Kleck said, making it likely that the number of annual self-defense usages of guns "should be about half as big now as they were back then, 20 years ago."
Even if such a drop were documented, it would still leave a scenario of relatively widespread use of guns for self-defense suggested by Kleck far at odds with research done by his critics.
The most outspoken has long been David Hemenway, director of the Harvard University Injury Control Research Center. He contends Kleck's survey vastly overinflates the number of times people use guns to defend themselves ? for example, by estimating thousands during the course of break-ins, though many of those homeowners either didn't own guns or remained asleep during the crime. Kleck, in turn, says Hemenway and others depend on surveys that significantly undercount self-defense gun use.
Hemenway, also relying on 1990s surveys, concluded Americans were then wielding guns for self-defense about 200,000 times annually.
Others researchers, analyzing the federal government's National Crime Victimization Survey, say the number of times guns were drawn for self-defense was even lower, about 80,000 times a year.
But Hemenway, too, is rethinking his estimate. If declining crime was the only change, he said, it would be reasonable to expect a parallel decrease in the number of times Americans use guns to defend themselves.
"You certainly have less opportunities to use a gun in self-defense appropriately," he said. "The problem is, over long periods of time, so many other things may be changing."
Since the 1990s, 18 states have passed stand-your-ground laws. At the same time, many more states eased the ability of gun owners to legally carry concealed weapons. The number of guns Americans own has also jumped to about 300 million, although researchers say the percentage of households with guns has declined.
Today, more gun owners than ever ? 48 percent according to a March poll by the Pew Research Center ? cite self-protection as their primary reason for having a firearm. That has nearly doubled since 1999, and now far surpasses the declining number of gun owners who say they own a firearm primarily for hunting.
The figure confirms personal security as a major concern for most Americans, reflected in attitudes about guns, said Michael Dimock, director of Pew's political polling unit.
"On both sides of this, the safety issue is front and center," he said. "For most people, this is not a casual choice. There's a sense of safety that gun owners associate with having that gun and there's a clear sense of risk that non-gun owners associate with guns."
Demands for gun control have led many gun owners to point to the value firearms play in allowing Americans to protect themselves, a position Martin, the Utah homeowner, agrees with based on firsthand experience.
When a robber broke into his home in St. George before dawn in late March, he and fiancee Rachel Cieslewicz were in bed. Her son, Canyon, was asleep in a room across from their doorway.
Martin says he trained to use a gun when he was in his early 20s and has long kept one for protection. Before the break-in, he had thought carefully many times about how, precisely, he would react in such a situation.
But in the dark, gun in hand, judgment and action were instantaneous. Even with the intruder directly in front of him, Martin says he realized he could not fire because of the chance the bullet might pierce the wall and hit the sleeping 8-year-old.
"I knew I needed to protect Rachel. I knew I needed to protect Canyon," he says.
When Martin pulled back on the gun's slide to load a bullet into the chamber, the man in the doorway bolted and Martin gave chase. Seconds later they were outside, but as the robber tried to escape, he tripped and fell. Martin, taking position behind a wall, trained his gun on him and ordered him to stay down, threatening to shoot when the man moved. That's where they were when police cruisers arrived.
In the days since, scores of people, including police, have commended Martin for his cool-headed reaction. Martin and Cieslewicz say they have no doubt about the gun's self-defense value. But he acknowledges the complexity of the calculus.
"What would have happened if the guy hadn't fallen, tripped over the stuff he was stealing, and I hadn't gotten him pinned down?" he said. "Or if he'd run down the street 50 feet in front of me," and Martin had opened fire?
"Is that self-defense or is that me just trying to let off a little bit of steam at that point? That changes the whole dynamic of everything."
Multiplying that uncertainty by the many confrontations involving a gun where the roles of the players are less clear helps explain researchers' disagreement about the use of gun play in self-defense.
Kleck, of Florida State, said that when people are surveyed correctly, the vast majority only disclose clear-cut incidents where they were in the right and guns were used correctly to protect their own and their families' lives.
But Hemenway, the Harvard researcher, says many of the incidents people characterize as self-defense are dubious.
"We expected pretty brave and wonderful things," he says, about a 1990s survey of gun owners. "But most of the things that were presented (as self-defense) were little more than escalating arguments. It wasn't like this is a good guy and this is a bad guy. It's two people who got into an argument and somebody drew a gun."
One much-debated self-defense claim is in the February 2012 death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old killed in a Florida subdivision by a neighborhood watch captain.
But many other incidents, highlighting the role of a gun and quick thinking in protecting lives, don't get the attention they deserve, said Daniel Terrill, an editor of Guns.com. The Winnetka, Ill.-based website regularly publishes accounts of self-defense.
Then there are reports of gun usage in which people seem either to have used questionable judgment or sought out a dispute ? cases that elicit fierce discussion among gun owners on the site.
"It's a debate piece for them and ... they will go over that ad nauseum, saying it was justified or it wasn't justified. So you find a lot of these stories, actually, are kind of morally gray," Terrill said. The uncertainty reflects both the complexity of decision-making involved in gun use, as well the many unknown circumstances that led to a confrontation in the first place, he said.
The increased focus by gun owners on self-defense while the threat of crime decreases reflects a long-standing disconnect in public perceptions of violent crime, said Mark Warr, a University of Texas criminologist.
"Americans don't know that the crime rate has been going down," said Warr, noting that public perception is shaped by television crime dramas and news reports focusing on the most violent offenses. "What happens is that people watch this dangerous image of the world and they buy into the idea that the world is a really, really dangerous place."
Public fears spiked in the 1960s in response to a substantial increase in crime, reflected in increased purchases of guns, homes in gated subdivisions and security systems, he said, and concern about crime has never eased to pre-1960s levels, even though crime has steadily declined.
But trying to figure out how those safety concerns, attitudes regarding gun ownership, changes in law and other factors are affecting the use of guns for self-defense remains difficult.
David McDowall, a professor in the school of criminal justice at the University at Albany, State University of New York, said that given all the changes in law and gun ownership, it is quite possible that a greater proportion of people now draw firearms in self-defense.
"I think that's really the interesting question," he said.
And gun owners point out that the decision to draw a weapon in self-defense when confronted by an intruder makes the abstracts studied by researchers and policymakers all too real. To Cieslewicz, it comes down to recalling her fears for her son's life as a stranger loomed in her bedroom doorway.
"It was," she said, "an absolute moment of terror."
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Adam Geller can be reached at features(at)ap.org. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/AdGeller
CAIRO (AP) ? An upbeat and alert-looking Hosni Mubarak was wheeled into a Cairo courtroom on Saturday for his retrial for alleged complicity in the killing of demonstrators during the 2011 revolt that ousted him, but the session quickly ended when the judge recused himself.
The 84-year-old ousted Egyptian president, wearing brown-tinted glasses, waved from his wheelchair inside the courtroom cage. He was airlifted to the court from a Cairo hospital. His two sons Alaa and Gamal and his former interior minister Habib al-Adly, currently held in prison for separate cases, were also in the courtroom cage.
Mubarak had not been seen in public since his initial conviction in June 2012. Unconfirmed reports have emerged several times in the past year suggesting that he was on the brink of death.
Judge Mostafa Hassan recused himself and referred the new case to an appeals court to select a new judge to oversee the trial. He did not specify the conflict of interest behind this decision.
Hassan caused an uproar in October among Egyptian political activists when he ordered the acquittals of 25 Mubarak loyalists who had been accused of organizing an attack in which assailants on horses and camels stormed Tahrir Square during the 18-day revolt.
Mubarak's retrial was granted by an appeals court that overturned his life sentence in January, citing shoddy procedures. He has remained in custody since, spending some time in a prison hospital before being transferred to a military one.
If convicted again, the life sentence passed against Mubarak and el-Adly would be upheld. They could also have their sentence reduced or even be acquitted. It is considered unlikely that they would draw a heavier sentence, like the death penalty,
Also standing trial are six police generals. Five face the same charges as Mubarak while the sixth is accused of gross negligence. All six were acquitted in the first trial, but are being tried again.
The presiding judge of that first trial said the prosecution's case lacked concrete evidence and failed to prove the protesters were killed by the police, indirectly giving credence to the testimony of top Mubarak-era officials that "foreigners" were behind the slayings between Jan. 25 and Feb. 1, 2011.
The Uriah Hall hype train came to a halt on Saturday night as Kelvin Gastelum managed a tight, split-decision win over the heavily favored Uriah Hall in the final of "The Ultimate Fighter" on Saturday night. The judges saw it 29-28, 28-29, 29-28 for Gastelum. With the win, Gastelum won the UFC's reality show tournament, a new motorcycle and a six-figure UFC contract.
Hall got to the final by knocking out three straight opponents in spectacular fashion. Gastelum, his teammate on the show, neutralized Hall with several takedowns throughout the bout. Early in the fight, he added in nasty ground and pound with elbows. Hall answered with a big slam in the second round and some takedowns and strikes of his own, but the overwhelming power he used to get to the final was not there.
Gastelum was the last fighter picked by Chael Sonnen during the first episode of the show, but he got to the final with three straight upsets. He continued with the upset win over Hall, and has now guaranteed his spot in the UFC. He still has plenty to prove in the UFC's middleweight division as he looked gassed late in the bout, but being the guy who stopped Hall is a good way to enter the division. At just 21, he has plenty of time to develop into an even better middleweight.
Hall's loss was shocking because the three straight wins he rattled off to get to the final were so overwhelming. His knockout of Adam Cella in the first round was one of the most memorable in TUF history, and earned him a $25,000 bonus as the fans voted it the best of the season. Sonnen, who coached Hall during the show, said that Hall was well on his way to being a UFC champion.
He has been such a popular fighter this season that it's highly likely that Hall will still get another shot in the UFC. But the buzz around him will drop off considerably, and his rise to the top of the MMA world will not be as fast as everyone expected.
TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares retreated on Friday after recent gains, with investor confidence underpinned by Wall Street's record-high close overnight, while the yen hovered near four-year lows against the dollar.
European markets were likely to ease also, with financial spreadbetters predicting London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> to open down as much as 0.5 percent. <.l><.eu/>
U.S. stock futures were also down 0.1 percent, pointing to a weak Wall Street open after the Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> both set new closing records on Thursday.
"A little caution seems to have crept into sentiment overnight as a few possible negative cues circle the markets," said Jonathan Sudaria, a dealer at Capital Spreads in London, in a note to clients.
The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> fell 0.3 percent, led by a 1.1 percent drop in South Korean shares <.ks11> and a 0.2 percent fall in Shanghai shares <.ssec>.
Other regional bourses were higher.
The pan-Asian index was set for a weekly gain of 1.9 percent, its biggest rise in three months, as the week began at a four-month low after disappointing U.S. jobs data fuelled concern about the American economy.
"Asian equities are overall becoming a bit top-heavy, with lingering worries about tightening measures on property sectors in China and their economic impact, as well as uncertainty over the developments in North Korea," said Hirokazu Yuihama, a senior strategist at Daiwa Securities in Tokyo.
A Pentagon spy agency concluded for the first time that North Korea likely has the ability to launch nuclear-armed missiles, illustrating the high stakes surrounding the escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula.
But the Pentagon said on Thursday it would be inaccurate to suggest that North Korea has proven it has the ability to launch a nuclear-armed missile.
Seoul shares, already battered by the tensions on the peninsula, declined on expectations of weak earnings by South Korean firms and the impact of a weaker yen on exporters.
"Overall, auto earnings are expected to miss forecasts for the January to March period, because of the stronger South Korean won. The yen's slide is also hurting sentiment," said Cho Soo-hong, an analyst at Woori Investment & Securities.
Australian shares <.axjo> edged up 0.2 percent as a drop in mining stocks offset strength among financials and defensive stocks.
Ric Spooner, market strategist at CMC Markets, noted the Australian market had put in some weak performances despite a strong lead on Wall Street recently.
"We had quite a strong run in our market, and our market is probably more generously valued than the U.S. market," he said.
RISK SENTIMENT
Risk sentiment remained intact overall, supported by the Bank of Japan's aggressive stimulus campaign. The BOJ last week pledged to inject about $1.4 trillion into the economy to end a long phase of deflation and achieve its target of 2 percent inflation.
Having gained nearly 10 percent over the past week to reach its highest level since July 2008 earlier this session, the Nikkei stock average <.n225> fell 0.8 percent as investors booked profits.
"Unless there are strong catalysts to drive the market higher such as the yen further weakening to 100 yen against the dollar, profit-taking is natural given the steep rises," said Yutaka Miura, a senior technical analyst at Mizuho Securities.
The dollar has gained about 6 percent against the yen over the past week, and on Thursday it hit a four-year high of 99.95 yen.
The euro climbed as far as 131.10 yen, its highest since January 2010, and the Aussie dollar soared to 105.43 yen, the highest since November 2007.
On Friday, the U.S. dollar was at 99.52 yen and the euro at 130.55 yen.
Spot gold was barely changed but was on track for a third straight weekly drop as strong stock markets lured investors seeking better returns while outflows from exchange-traded funds reflected the precious metal's shaky outlook.
U.S. crude futures eased 0.3 percent to $93.20 a barrel while Brent steadied around $104.20.
(Additional reporting by Ayai Tomisawa in Tokyo, Hyunjoo Jin and Seong-won Chang; in Seoul, and Thuy Ong in Sydney; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
Allie was live in Woodland Hills to give us a preview of the 5th annual Shredfest, where kids battle cancer with a battle of the bands. The festival will hold an auction to benefit children?s cancer research with items such as signed guitars by the Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney and records signed by Michael Jackson and other musicians.
Shredfest 5 will be on Saturday April 13th?from 12pm-3pm at The House of Blues, Sunset Strip. Shredfest is a Battle of the kid bands with celebrity judges, silent auction and celebrity guest performers raising money for pediatric cancer research.? Kids will be participating in the event either as band members performing on stage, helping with the silent auction, selling merchandise, speaking on stage, and/or organizing the event.
For more information, visit the official website here.
It may sound like sci-fi, but lasers are definitely the future of war. As are drones. So what could be better than to see them go up against each other in a blaze of explosive glory? Looks like in the rock-paper-scissors game of modern combat, laser beats drone. More »
Italy's president on Friday pardoned a U.S. Air Force officer convicted of kidnapping an Egyptian Muslim cleric who was taken away for interrogation on a CIA "rendition" flight.
Such covert flights were among the tactics used to wage the "War on Terror" under the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush, after the 9/11 attacks. They have been condemned by human rights groups as a violation of international agreements.
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano said he had pardoned Colonel Joseph L. Romano, who was the only person not a member of the CIA among 23 Americans sentenced for the kidnapping of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr in Milan in 2003.
Romano's lawyer had requested the pardon. The clemency was granted because the United States and Italy are close allies that "share the common goals of promoting democracy and security" around the world, a statement from the president said.
The Egyptian cleric, also known as Abu Omar, was secretly flown to Egypt for interrogation, where he says he was tortured for seven months. He was a resident in Italy at the time of the abduction.
Italy was the first country to convict American nationals for their involvement in a rendition.
Romano and 21 others received seven-year jail terms for kidnapping, while the former CIA Milan station chief Robert Seldon Lady was sentenced to nine years in jail.
All were tried in absentia and the Italian government has so far shown little indication it will ask for them to be extradited to serve the terms. No reason was given for why Romano was awarded clemency while the 22 CIA members were not.
U.S. President Barack Obama has tried to distance himself from heavy-handed intelligence tactics employed by the Bush administration, and ordered the CIA to close its long-term prisons in 2009.
Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
?Following on from the launch of Facebook's new software overlay for Android smartphones, a Microsoft exec wrote that he felt that the presentation was remarkably similar to the Windows Phone announcement, back in 2011.
Microsoft's Corporate Vice President of Corporate Communications, Frank X. Shaw wrote on the company blog that the Facebook service appears to share a lot of the thinking that went into its own Windows Phone OS.
The key differentiator between WP and Android/iPhone is the use of Live Tiles so that content can be displayed on the home page instead of a collection of icons.
Teasingly, he wrote that they can "understand why Facebook would want to find a way to bring similar functionality to a platform that is sadly lacking it."
That comment could be the most insightful as Microsoft could be looking at the Facebook Home service as a serious challenger to its own smartphone OS as it -- in their opinion -- is much closer to their own innovations in Live Tiles.
Would a customer offered a facsimile of the Live Tiles function on an Android phone then migrate to a Windows Phone based handset? Of course, the Microsoft OS also includes connectivity to Facebook as a Live Tile.
But he noted that in his opinion, the Android OS is "complicated enough without adding another skin built around another metaphor, on top of what is already a custom variant of the OS."
"So, while we applaud Facebook for working to give some Android owners a taste of what a "people-centric" phone can be like, we'd humbly like to suggest that you get the real thing, and simply upgrade to a Windows Phone." he added.
Two cases were argued before the U.S. Supreme Court last week addressing the issue of same-sex marriage. This is not an issue of rights, as proponents maintain, nor is it an issue of Biblical marriage, as opponents contend. It is, rather, based in natural law, and is an issue of seismic significance to our culture, our society, and our civilization, and cannot be cavalierly ?redefined.?
Dr. Patrick Fagan, a sociologist and psychologist has said, ?The family is the fundamental building block of society and predates the state and even the societies it builds?At the heart of the family is the mother and father who bring their children into existence.? This is a self-evident truth, regardless of who said it, and anthropologists, biologists, sociologists, and politicians have reiterated that very sentiment. The family is the building block of society and civilization, and the cornerstone to that foundation, or the genesis of it, is a mother and a father.
Foundations must be strong, and built to withstand the elements, corrosion, and the test of time. Otherwise, the structure built thereon will inevitably crumble. If a foundation is made with unmixed cement or just water, as same-sex marriage tries to do, the foundation is weak, and the structure (our civilization) built thereon will crumble. When we tamper with, and attempt to socially-engineer the foundational elements and institutions to civilization and our society, the results will be destructive.
Redefining marriage based on who one purportedly loves, is a spurious dilution of our societal foundation. Rarely in human history, has marriage been based on who one loves, but has always been about perpetuating the species, and forming familial units that construct the foundation to civilization. Sometimes it?s included multiple spouses of one sex or another, but always it has been based on propagational properties, whether age or fertility exceptions apply or not. Any semantic change to the definition is only that, semantic, and does not change the biological or anthropological verities etymologically embedded in the term. Such a change to accommodate same-sex ?marriage? would therefore be nothing more than creating a verbal counterfeit to the real thing. Simply calling my Tahoe a Hummer is a lie, and does not change the fact that it?s still not a Hummer.
Nor is there a ?right? to marry whomsoever or whatsoever we please, or profess love for. Such a right is as most other ?rights? claimed by those in our society who feel somehow shortchanged, slighted, or disadvantaged. The ?right? is not codified in any legal document, much less our founding documents, just like the ?right? to health care, or the ?right? to a good job. Heterosexual marriage, however, is codified in natural law, as attested by biological and anthropological fact. The test is simple: try building a civilization or a society from scratch with anything other than natural law, heterosexual marriage.
Marriage, historically, has always represented the legal, moral, and cultural recognition of the binding relationship of opposite sexes. Merely definitionally reducing marriage to nothing more than a state legitimized relationship between ?people that love each other? is antithetical to the factual basis to our existence as a civilization. The fact is, marriage has always been about protecting society, at least in part, through the possibility of propagation, protection and the creation of family units.
The law of unintended consequences has certainly been manifest elsewhere as natural law, social mores, and societal conventions and institutions like marriage have been redefined and engineered to accommodate exceptions.
Scandinavian countries that have redefined marriage are experiencing a meltdown of traditional marriage. British demographer David Coleman and senior Dutch demographer Joop Garssen have written that ?marriage is becoming a minority status? in Scandinavia. In Denmark, a slight majority of all children are still born within marriage. Yet citing the 60 percent out-of-wedlock birthrate for firstborn children, Danish demographers Wehner, Kambskard, and Abrahamson argue that marriage has ceased to be the normative setting for Danish family life and poses a significant risk to the future stability of Danish society.
There are undoubtedly exogenous contributory factors for the Scandinavian states. But the eradication of natural law and social mores in favor of a politically correct or supposedly amoral redefinition of basic social conventions indisputably are the incipient causes to the unraveling of the family unit.
Mark Regnerus, a sociologist at the University of Texas at Austin, recently said,??I think you can have social stability without many intact families, but it?s going to be really expensive and it?s going to look very ?Huxley-Brave New World-ish.? So [the intact family is] not only the optimal scenario ? but it?s the cheapest. How often in life do you get the best and the cheapest in the same package??
Pastor Rick Warren made a fundamentally true and valid observation in this regard. He said, ?Our culture has accepted two huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone?s lifestyle, you must fear them or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don?t have to compromise convictions to be compassionate.? Many are the arguments against same-sex marriage, and none of them frankly have anything to do with discrimination or homophobia.
Doug Mainwaring, an avowed homosexual, proves Warren?s assertion. ?Two men or two women together is, in truth, nothing like a man and a woman creating a life and a family together?Marriage is not an elastic term. It is immutable. It offers the very best for children and society. We should not adulterate nor mutilate its definition, thereby denying its riches to current and future generations.?
Words have meaning, and marriage, as the cornerstone to civilization, is copiously imbued with it. I have yet to hear a logical or cogent explanation as to why a binding homosexual relationship must be a marriage as opposed to a civil union or legal partnership. Rather than weakening and diluting the foundation to our society, we should be strengthening and encouraging it. After all, our future, and stability, as a society is dependent on it.
AP award winning columnist Richard Larsen is President of Larsen Financial, a brokerage and financial planning firm in Pocatello, Idaho, and is a graduate of Idaho State University with degrees in Political Science and History and former member of the Idaho State Journal Editorial Board.? He can be reached at [email?protected].
AERA announces 2013 award winners in education researchPublic release date: 5-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Tony Pals tpals@aera.net 202-238-3235 American Educational Research Association
WASHINGTON, D.C.The American Educational Research Association (AERA) today announced the winners of its 2013 awards for excellence in education research. AERA will honor the recipients for their outstanding scholarship and service at an awards ceremony luncheon on April 29 at the AERA Annual Meeting in San Francisco.
"We are proud to honor the outstanding commitment and accomplishments of this year's award winners," said AERA Executive Director Felice J. Levine. "Through their scholarship and service to the field, they stand as exemplars to AERA's 25,000 members and to all who are committed to the study and practice of education in the United States and elsewhere."
AERA announced 15 award winners in 14 association-wide categories.
Distinguished Contributions to Research in Education Award
Recipient: Alan H. Schoenfeld, University of California, Berkeley
The Distinguished Contributions to Research in Education award is the premier acknowledgment of outstanding achievement and success in education research. It is designed to publicize, motivate, encourage, and suggest models for education research at its best.
Palmer O. Johnson Memorial Award
Recipients: Andrew Ho, Harvard Graduate School of Education, and Sean F. Reardon, Stanford University, "Estimating Achievement Gaps From Test Scores Reported in Ordinal Proficiency Categories," Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, August 2012
The Palmer O. Johnson Memorial Award is presented annually to recognize the highest quality of academic scholarship published in one of the following AERA publications: American Educational Research Journal, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Educational Researcher, or Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics.
Review of Research Award
Recipient: Odis Johnson Jr., University of Maryland, "Relocation Programs, Opportunities to Learn, and the Complications of Conversion," Review of Educational Research, June 2012
The Review of Research Award recognizes an outstanding review of research article published in one of the following AERA publications: Review of Educational Research or Review of Research in Education.
Relating Research to Practice Award
Established to recognize outstanding contributions that individuals have made toward increasing the understanding and proliferation of links between education research and enhanced education practice, this award is granted for excellence in each of two categories:
Interpretive Scholarship
Recipient: Elfrieda (Freddy) H. Hiebert, University of California, Santa Cruz
This category recognizes an individual's achievements in published works that appear in sources other than peer-reviewed journals or books.
Professional Service
Recipient: Margery B. Ginsberg, University of Washington
This category recognizes an individual who has effectively established a strong, beneficial relationship between education research and practice through direct involvement with the education community.
E. F. Lindquist Award
Recipient: Eva Baker, University of California, Los Angeles
This annual award is presented jointly by AERA and ACT in recognition of outstanding applied or theoretical research in the field of testing and measurement. The award is meant to acknowledge a body of research of an empirical, theoretical, or integrative nature rather than a single study.
Early Career Award
Recipient: Michael N. Bastedo, University of Michigan
Established to honor an individual in the early stages of his or her career no later than 10 years after receipt of the doctoral degree, this award can be granted for study in any field of educational inquiry.
Outstanding Book Award
Recipient: Christopher P. Loss, Vanderbilt University, Between Citizens and the State: The Politics of American Higher Education in the 20th Century (Princeton University Press), 2012
The Outstanding Book Award was established to acknowledge and honor the year's best book-length publication in education research and development.
Social Justice in Education Award
Recipient: Jeannie Oakes, Ford Foundation
Established in 2004, the Social Justice in Education Award honors an individual who has advanced social justice through education research and exemplified the goal of linking education research to social justice.
Distinguished Public Service Award
Recipient: Freeman A. Hrabowski III, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
This award is granted annually in recognition of an individual who has worked to enact or implement policies that are well grounded in education research, or who has been at the forefront of efforts to increase recognition and support for education research.
Committee on Scholars of Color in Education Awards
The AERA Committee on Scholars of Color in Education awards are intended to recognize (a) scholars at different stages in their careers who have made significant contributions to the understanding of issues that disproportionately affect minority populations, and (b) minority scholars who have made a significant contribution to education research and development.
Scholars of Color Distinguished Career Contribution Award
Recipient: Jo-ann Archibald, University of British Columbia
Presented to a senior-level scholar, usually 20 years or more after his or her receipt of the doctoral degree.
Scholars of Color Distinguished Scholar Award
Recipient: Sharon Nelson-Barber, Pacific Resources for Education and Learning
Presented to a scholar in midcareer who is beyond the first level of professional appointment and for whom 10 or more years have passed since receipt of the doctoral degree.
Scholars of Color Early Career Contribution Award
Recipient: Vichet Chhuon, University of Minnesota
Presented to a scholar who is within the first decade of his or her career after receipt of the doctoral degree.
Distinguished Contributions to Gender Equity in Education Research Award
Recipient: Geraldine J. Clifford, University of California, Berkeley
Established in 2006, the Distinguished Contributions to Gender Equity in Education Research Award recognizes individuals within AERA for distinguished research, professional practice, and activities that advance public understanding of gender and/or sexuality at any level in the education community.
###
Media Contact: Tony Pals, tpals@aera.net, office: (202) 238-3235, cell: (202) 288-9333
About AERA
The American Educational Research Association (AERA) is the national interdisciplinary research association for more than 25,000 scholars who undertake research in education. Founded in 1916, AERA aims to advance knowledge about education, to encourage scholarly inquiry related to education, and to promote the use of research to improve education and serve the public good.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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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.
AERA announces 2013 award winners in education researchPublic release date: 5-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Tony Pals tpals@aera.net 202-238-3235 American Educational Research Association
WASHINGTON, D.C.The American Educational Research Association (AERA) today announced the winners of its 2013 awards for excellence in education research. AERA will honor the recipients for their outstanding scholarship and service at an awards ceremony luncheon on April 29 at the AERA Annual Meeting in San Francisco.
"We are proud to honor the outstanding commitment and accomplishments of this year's award winners," said AERA Executive Director Felice J. Levine. "Through their scholarship and service to the field, they stand as exemplars to AERA's 25,000 members and to all who are committed to the study and practice of education in the United States and elsewhere."
AERA announced 15 award winners in 14 association-wide categories.
Distinguished Contributions to Research in Education Award
Recipient: Alan H. Schoenfeld, University of California, Berkeley
The Distinguished Contributions to Research in Education award is the premier acknowledgment of outstanding achievement and success in education research. It is designed to publicize, motivate, encourage, and suggest models for education research at its best.
Palmer O. Johnson Memorial Award
Recipients: Andrew Ho, Harvard Graduate School of Education, and Sean F. Reardon, Stanford University, "Estimating Achievement Gaps From Test Scores Reported in Ordinal Proficiency Categories," Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, August 2012
The Palmer O. Johnson Memorial Award is presented annually to recognize the highest quality of academic scholarship published in one of the following AERA publications: American Educational Research Journal, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Educational Researcher, or Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics.
Review of Research Award
Recipient: Odis Johnson Jr., University of Maryland, "Relocation Programs, Opportunities to Learn, and the Complications of Conversion," Review of Educational Research, June 2012
The Review of Research Award recognizes an outstanding review of research article published in one of the following AERA publications: Review of Educational Research or Review of Research in Education.
Relating Research to Practice Award
Established to recognize outstanding contributions that individuals have made toward increasing the understanding and proliferation of links between education research and enhanced education practice, this award is granted for excellence in each of two categories:
Interpretive Scholarship
Recipient: Elfrieda (Freddy) H. Hiebert, University of California, Santa Cruz
This category recognizes an individual's achievements in published works that appear in sources other than peer-reviewed journals or books.
Professional Service
Recipient: Margery B. Ginsberg, University of Washington
This category recognizes an individual who has effectively established a strong, beneficial relationship between education research and practice through direct involvement with the education community.
E. F. Lindquist Award
Recipient: Eva Baker, University of California, Los Angeles
This annual award is presented jointly by AERA and ACT in recognition of outstanding applied or theoretical research in the field of testing and measurement. The award is meant to acknowledge a body of research of an empirical, theoretical, or integrative nature rather than a single study.
Early Career Award
Recipient: Michael N. Bastedo, University of Michigan
Established to honor an individual in the early stages of his or her career no later than 10 years after receipt of the doctoral degree, this award can be granted for study in any field of educational inquiry.
Outstanding Book Award
Recipient: Christopher P. Loss, Vanderbilt University, Between Citizens and the State: The Politics of American Higher Education in the 20th Century (Princeton University Press), 2012
The Outstanding Book Award was established to acknowledge and honor the year's best book-length publication in education research and development.
Social Justice in Education Award
Recipient: Jeannie Oakes, Ford Foundation
Established in 2004, the Social Justice in Education Award honors an individual who has advanced social justice through education research and exemplified the goal of linking education research to social justice.
Distinguished Public Service Award
Recipient: Freeman A. Hrabowski III, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
This award is granted annually in recognition of an individual who has worked to enact or implement policies that are well grounded in education research, or who has been at the forefront of efforts to increase recognition and support for education research.
Committee on Scholars of Color in Education Awards
The AERA Committee on Scholars of Color in Education awards are intended to recognize (a) scholars at different stages in their careers who have made significant contributions to the understanding of issues that disproportionately affect minority populations, and (b) minority scholars who have made a significant contribution to education research and development.
Scholars of Color Distinguished Career Contribution Award
Recipient: Jo-ann Archibald, University of British Columbia
Presented to a senior-level scholar, usually 20 years or more after his or her receipt of the doctoral degree.
Scholars of Color Distinguished Scholar Award
Recipient: Sharon Nelson-Barber, Pacific Resources for Education and Learning
Presented to a scholar in midcareer who is beyond the first level of professional appointment and for whom 10 or more years have passed since receipt of the doctoral degree.
Scholars of Color Early Career Contribution Award
Recipient: Vichet Chhuon, University of Minnesota
Presented to a scholar who is within the first decade of his or her career after receipt of the doctoral degree.
Distinguished Contributions to Gender Equity in Education Research Award
Recipient: Geraldine J. Clifford, University of California, Berkeley
Established in 2006, the Distinguished Contributions to Gender Equity in Education Research Award recognizes individuals within AERA for distinguished research, professional practice, and activities that advance public understanding of gender and/or sexuality at any level in the education community.
###
Media Contact: Tony Pals, tpals@aera.net, office: (202) 238-3235, cell: (202) 288-9333
About AERA
The American Educational Research Association (AERA) is the national interdisciplinary research association for more than 25,000 scholars who undertake research in education. Founded in 1916, AERA aims to advance knowledge about education, to encourage scholarly inquiry related to education, and to promote the use of research to improve education and serve the public good.
[ | 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.
>>>they have asked all folks with free time to help out in a big effort to fill millions of sandbags to head off what they fear is coming. that's a devastating flood. nbc's
kevin
tibbles is with us from
fargo
tonight.
kevin
, good evening.
>> reporter: brian, it's become a
rite of spring
albeit an unwelcome one as folks in
fargo
are once again bracing for the
red river
to overflow its banks. they simply call it sandbag central.
>>this is a part of life in
fargo
.
>> reporter: here every spring hundreds of school kids and volunteers spend countless back-breaking hours.
>>you have fun making the sandbags because you can talk to your friends.
>>to help out the community is good.
>> reporter: this contraption is the spider. it doubles and redoubles the number of sandbags that can be filled. this year's goal, one million. they have to work fast. while winter has stuck around, a lot of snow and ice has to melt.
fargo
fully expects to endure another year of
high water
on the
red river
. many worry it could rival
2009
's record of almost 41 feet that cost the city some $50 million in damages.
>>the water is coming faster, higher and obviously more frequent now we have had including this year four and five years and that's a lot.
>> reporter: debate is heated over whether a water diversion should be built to take the overflow around and away from the city. in canada a diversion built in the '60s prevents the red from flooding the
city of winnipeg
. for
fargo
, this $2 billion project is still years away. for the foreseeable future they will continue to come together each spring, something that makes mayor wallaker proud.
>>it almost brings tears to your eyes to see the kids out there laughing. they've got a great feeling of being involved in the community.
>> reporter: stephen grassall from dear river is visiting
fargo
but decided to roll up his sleeves.
>>i think it is an american thing. volunteerism is not dead, they say. here is a good example.
>> reporter: most estimates suggest the red will reach
flood stage
in about ten days. while people here will come together and will try to hold it back, a lot of folks tonight are saying, brian, they are getting tired of it all.
>>kevin
tibbles updating us on the situation in
fargo
,
north dakota
, tonight.
kevin
, thanks.
The Uriah Hall hype train came to a halt on Saturday night as Kelvin Gastelum managed a tight, split-decision win over the heavily favored Uriah Hall in the final of "The Ultimate Fighter" on Saturday night. The judges saw it 29-28, 28-29, 29-28 for Gastelum. With the win, Gastelum won the UFC's reality show tournament, a new motorcycle and a six-figure UFC contract.
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