King of clocks
King bong visited
As the UK Parliament prepares to celebrate the 150th anniversary of its world-famous clock, E&T examines the history of Big Ben.
With a few seconds to go to midday, I am told to put my fingers firmly in my ears. Even then, when the four quarters are struck, the noise is phenomenal, but nothing compared to the striking of the hour bell, Big Ben. The belfry reverberates with the sound which they say could be heard all over London when the 300kg clapper was first triggered on 11 July 1859.
Nowadays, of course, amid the roar of London's traffic, it is not so noticeable away from the immediate vicinity of the Palace of Westminster, but for many people all around the world its instantly recognisable sound is familiar from the radio and television, especially on New Year's Eve.
Though over time the clock tower has become known as Big Ben, it is in fact only the hour bell that has that nickname. The mechanism for powering the hands on the four dials and operating the quarter bells and the hour bell is correctly known as the Great Clock of Westminster.
Showing me around the tower are Paul Roberson and Ian Westworth, who are responsible (together with Huw Smith) for the maintenance of the Great Clock and the other 2,000 clocks in the Palace of Westminster, of which 450 are mechanical or antique. Roberson has been an horologist all his life, taking an apprenticeship in watch and clockmaking straight from school. An obvious clock enthusiast, he says: "It gets under your skin. I am interested in anything mechanical." Westworth worked as a turret clock restorer before becoming a Place of Westminster clockmaker four years ago. Both are proud of the Great Clock as, Westworth says, "it still does exactly what it was designed to do 150 years ago".
After the destruction of both houses of parliament by fire in 1834, it was decided that the new buildings should have a grand tower housing "a noble clock, indeed a king of clocks, the biggest the world has ever seen within sight and sound of the throbbing heart of London".
In his specification, the Astronomer Royal, George Airy, wrote: "The striking machinery is to be so arranged that the first blow for each hour shall be accurate to the second of time." No clockmaker thought it remotely possible to construct a mechanism of the required size that, in addition to sounding five bells and powering hands of four dials, would keep such accurate time. But an appeal by the Worshipful Company of Clock-makers for a less onerous specification was turned down and three horologists were invited to tender.
Edmund Becket Denison
If Edmund Becket Denison had not been invited to join George Airy as a second referee, it is unlikely that such an accurate clock would have been built. Though a barrister by profession, Denison was a gifted amateur horologist, the author of articles and the designer of some fine clocks. He favoured the submission of EJ Dent & Company, to whom he suggested many improvements that amounted to a redesign, and it was to that firm that the contract was awarded in 1852.
Within three years the clock was complete, but neither the bells nor the tower in which it would be installed had been finished. However, the delay was fortuitous as it gave Denison the time to design a mechanism that would ensure the clock's accuracy.
The problem with turret clocks had always been how to prevent the external forces on the hands being reflected back to the pendulum thus affecting the clock's accuracy. This is achieved with an escapement, a device that transfers the power of the descending weight to the hands by hitting (impulsing) the pendulum. It was Denison who came up with the double three-legged gravity escapement, an ingenious yet simple device, which, as Roberson says, was "a massive advancement, without which the clock would not be here now". It was successfully tried out in the harshest of conditions in a clock built by Dent for Fredericton Cathedral in New Brunswick, Canada and thereafter became widely used in turret clocks.
While Denison carried out further trials, the great bell had been completed at a foundry in Stockton-on-Tees in northern England and was transported by water arriving in London on 21 October 1856.
Trial and error
With the clocktower still incomplete, it was set up on a specially built gallows near the foot of the tower, where for almost a year it was struck regularly until, on 17 October 1857, a 1.2m crack appeared. The only solution was to break it up and, in April 1858, a new, lighter, bell, which would become Big Ben, was cast at the Whitechapel Foundry in London's East End.
In the meantime, the tower designed by Charles Barry, with the decoration and beautiful dials by Augustus Pugin, was completed. In the summer of 1858, the bells were hand-winched up the shaft, the hoisting of Big Ben taking teams of men working in relays some days to complete.
With the installation of the operating mechanism below the Belfry, all was ready by spring 1859. However, each time the minute hands approached the hour, they stopped. The construction of lighter minute hands of hollow copper and hour hands of copper-backed hollow gunmetal allowed it to operate successfully.
As far as is known, the clock started officially on 31 May 1859, with Big Ben first sounding the hour on 11 July and the quarter bells chiming from 7 September. The public appreciated the sound but, perhaps predictably, the Members of Parliament complained that it was too loud.
The trouble with the clock hands had brought Denison to near despair, so it is not difficult to imagine how he felt when told, less than a month later, that a 30cm-long crack had appeared in Big Ben. There were recriminations all round: Denison accused the Whitechapel Foundry of poor workmanship while the foundry put the damage down to Denison's continued use of a 300kg hammer. Two ensuing libel actions both found in favour of the foundry over Denison.
To dismantle the clock, lower the bell and recast it was not considered possible. So, as the crack was neither as deep nor as long as that in the first bell, a slot was cut out to prevent it spreading, a 200kg hammer installed, and the bell turned through about 90°, where it has remained ever since without further problems.
Of course, there have inevitably been a few problems with the clock mechanism, but normally these are discovered and put right before they become severe. Though it has been given a thorough overhaul for its 150th anniversary, Roberson says: "There isn't a servicing schedule like a car. We are up here three times a week and can see any fault developing."
With the last chime of Big Ben, we remove our fingers from our ears, but the resonance seems to go on and on - "for 30 seconds", I am told by Roberson. From the belfry we make our way down to see the dials. Now each illuminated by 28 long-life bulbs of 85W, they were originally lit by gas jets and looked after by a gas man who was required to stay in the tower all night.
As we make our way down the remainder of the 334 steps, it is clear that this is more than just a job for those who work with Big Ben. As Westworth says: "Working on the Great Clock of Westminster is one of the things most horologists want to do because it is probably the most prestigious clock in the world." Roberson adds: "I have been involved in clocks all my life but this is the most famous clock in the world and we are the ones responsible for looking after it."
Behind the scenes
The clock is divided into three sections or trains. In the centre is the going train, which has three functions. First, it is connected to a single shaft that transfers the motion of the pendulum through a nest of bevel gears to the hands on the four clock faces. Its second function is to trigger the chiming train to the right that, via a series of shafts rising up to a linkage room and from there to the belfry, operates the five hammers on the four quarter bells every 15 minutes. Finally, the going train also triggers the strike of the hour train situated on the left which, via a steel wire, raises the hammer on the hour bell (Big Ben).
The whole mechanism is powered by gravity, with the descending weight unwinding the wire wrapped round a large barrel on each train thus rotating it, so that it can operate the train via a series of gears. The escapement controls the rate of descent of the weight in the going train, while on the other two it is controlled by a fly fan or air break.
While the weight on the going train is wound up regularly by hand, those on the other two, which are much heavier, are wound up by an electric motor, though this is not automatic and has to be switched on.
To ensure that the pendulum is protected from vibration and other external forces, a large part of it swings in a 3m-deep pit, made of cast iron. The pendulum is made of a zinc rod in an iron tube to compensate for temperature changes.
The clock's accuracy is maintained by altering its mass. This is done extremely simply by adding or removing an old imperial penny or halfpenny from a shelf, specially constructed near the top of the pendulum. Adding one penny speeds up the clock by two-fifths of a second over 24 hours.
Bells still ringing in Whitechapel
It's a short walk from the City of London's glittering palaces of financial innovation to the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, where tradition, rather than innovation, holds sway. It's here, in listed premises just along from the site of St Mary's, the original 'white chapel', that skilled craftspeople still make bells in much the same way as they have for more than half a millennium.
Officially Britain's oldest manufacturing company, the foundry has been in business since 1570 producing some of the world's best-known bells. If you visit the foundry shop, you'll pass under a profile of Big Ben. The foundry also made the Liberty Bell for the Philadelphia State House in 1752, produced a Bicentennial Bell to go with it in 1976, and a replica of the Liberty Bell in 2001.
It has also made bells for Westminster Abbey, for Washington DC's National Cathedral in 1964 and for a host of more modest churches scattered across the furthest reaches of what was the Empire. In a nod to old-fashioned customer service, passers-by can sometimes see crates arriving from far-flung churches, bringing back bells that have been in use for decades to be repaired, retuned or even recast.
It's not all about the past though. Last year the foundry cast a new peal of 12 bells for the church of St Magnus the Martyr at London Bridge. It does a steady trade in sets of hand bells, tuned for change ringing. And, in a nod to the modern age, it has a website listing its products with prices and delivery. If you want a standard bell tuned to C, with a diameter at its lip of 60in and a weight of 2,032kg, it will cost £39,481 plus delivery. Since they're not in stock at the moment, you might even be able to watch it being cast...
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Forget the batteries for a second, thats just one of a thousand analogies you could use to describe voltage/current and the reason that no current flows has nothing to do with the electro-chemical properties of batteries, its far simpler.
The easiest way to think of it is this: Current will only ever flow in a loop, even in very complex circuits you can always break it down into loops of current, if there is no path for current to return to its source, there will be no current flow.
In your battery example, there is no return current path so no current will flow. There is obviously a more deep physics reason for why this works but as the question asked for a simple answer I'll skip the math, google Maxwell's Equations and how they are used in the derivation of Kirchhoff's voltage law.
Batteries do make a good example for this simply because they are current sources with completely isolated grounds. This example would be equally true of any other power source with a completely isolated "ground".
However, this is not an easy thing to find, for instance doing this with 2 bench supplies would likely make one of the bench supplies very unhappy, but thats not because the effect is different, the difference is that the bench supplies are likely both grounded to the electrical wiring in the building and as such there is a return path for current to flow through.
The water analogy for this also effective. Think of your battery example this way:
You have a water pump (battery A) connected to a pipe (the wire), and you have another water pump (battery B) connected to the same pipe (the wire) . Now in your example the there is no return path in the system so imagine that the pipe is full of water but capped off on both ends.
You hit the power switch on the pumps, what happens?
The answer is nothing, there is no where to move the water to, the pumps don't even spin. (ignore water turbulence like effects for this analogy).
Now if you were to connect the pipe in a loop and hit the switch the pumps would spin up (voltage) and water would flow (current).
If you used 2 difference speed pumps (different voltage batteries) and faced them toward each other one will over power and cause the other to spin in the wrong direction (burn out just like connecting a 9V and 6V battery in parallel).
If you connected both pumps pointing in the same direction you would get more water pressure (voltage) because the pumps are helping each other out (2 batteries in series).


|• Total||10.56 km2 (4.08 sq mi)|
|Elevation||396.4 m (1,300.5 ft)|
Lipica (Italian: Lipizza) is a village in the Municipality of Sežana in the Littoral region of Slovenia, close to the border with Italy. Lipica is one of the main tourist centers of Slovenia's Karst region and it is known for the Lipica Stud Farm.
The name of the settlement is derived from the Slovenian word lipa 'linden tree'. The species is common in the area and is a national symbol of Slovenia. The staff at the Lipica Stud Farm plant a new linden tree for every foal born.
From the 14th century until 1947, Lipica was part of the municipality of Trieste. When Charles II, Archduke of Inner Austria (son of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor) decided to establish a new stud farm in the 16th century, the Spanish horse was considered the ideal horse breed. Because the soil and climate in the Karst region is similar to that of Spain, Lipica was chosen as the perfect spot for the new farm. The Lipica stud farm was established in 1580 and the first horses were bought from Spain in 1581 (24 broodmares and 6 stallions). The farmers living in the area at the time were evicted and resettled in Laže.
A coal mine operated east of the settlement from 1778 to 1817. Coal mining was attempted at the site again in 1857 and at sporadic later dates, but was deemed uneconomical because it is deposited only in lenses. Coal from the mine was once used at the sugar refinery in Rijeka. In 1947, Lipica was annexed to Yugoslavia and incorporated into Slovenia as a constituent republic.
Mass grave
Lipica is the site of a mass grave associated with the Second World War. The Lipica Shaft Mass Grave (Slovene: Grobišče Lipiško brezno) is located about 500 m southwest of the tree-lined boulevard by the stud farm. It contains an undetermined number of human remains.
Lipica Stud Farm
Lipica is the origin of the Lipizzan horse. The Lipizzan breed as known today was fully developed in the time of Maria Theresa of Austria, whose husband was greatly interested in horse-breeding. During the Napoleonic wars, the stud farm was relocated to Székesfehérvár. In 1802, an earthquake struck Lipica, killing large numbers of horses. The stud farm was relocated to Đakovo in 1805, to Pecica (near Mezőhegyes) in 1809, to Laxenburg during the First World War, and then to Kladruby nad Labem. After the First World War, when Lipica was awarded to Italy, most of the horses were returned to Lipica. On 16 October 1943, the stud farm and 178 horses were relocated to Hostouň. After the Second World War, the farm had only 11 horses; all of the others had been confiscated by the Germans during the war. In the 1960s, Lipica was opened to tourists and new development began. In 1996, Lipica became a public institution that is owned by the Republic of Slovenia and has made significant progress since then. Queen Elizabeth II visited Lipica and its stud farm on 22 October 2008 and was presented with a Lipizzan horse as a gift from the Slovenian people. Today the Lipica Stud Farm is fully functional and breeds the finest horses for haute-école riding. The stud farm now also includes a hotel and leisure complex, a modern adjunct to a historical setting.
The Lipica Open
The Lipica Open is an international orienteering competition that is held every year at the beginning of March. It is the biggest orienteering competition in Slovenia and was held for the first time in 1992.
Other places of interest
Other places of interest in and near Lipica include:
- The Avgust Černigoj gallery
- The Škocjan Caves system (Škocjanske jame/Grotte di San Canziano), a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- Vilenica Cave, the oldest show cave in Europe (with guided tours since 1633)
- The Valley of Our Lady of Lourdes (Slovene: Dolina Lurške Matere Božje): an outdoor church and a local pilgrimage destination
Notable people
Notable people that were born or lived in Lipica include:
- Ivan Slavec (1859–1940), co-founder of the newspaper Primorski list and the last Slovene-speaking priest at the Trieste cathedral
- Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia
- Sežana Municipality site
- Snoj, Marko. 2009. Etimološki slovar slovenskih zemljepisnih imen. Ljubljana: Modrijan and Založba ZRC, pp. 234–235.
- Savnik, Roman, ed. 1968. Krajevni leksikon Slovenije, vol. 1. Ljubljana: Državna založba Slovenije, pp. 319–320.
- Lipica Shaft Mass Grave on Geopedia (Slovene)
- BBC News 22 October 2008
- Lipica Stud Farm site


|ARM Technical Support Knowledge Articles|
Applies to: ARM7TDMI
MAS[1:0] is used to indicate whether a word/half-word or byte access is to be performed, and is described in the ARM7TDMI Technical Reference Manual (1.8MB PDF).
The signal has the following states:
|Bit 1||Bit 0||Data Size|
The memory system must be able to handle word, half word and byte writes.
Memory systems supporting only word writes will have severe difficulties supporting C code because the compilers assume that the underlying access types of the ARM architecture are always available. Furthermore, it will not be possible to set software breakpoints in Thumb code using the EmbeddedICE Interface.
When in Thumb state, A is not driven, and will be held at whatever level it was last driven to, by a 'sticky latch'. Usually, this will be set following a BX instruction (with bit 0 of the register set), or a data transfer to/from an odd address. It would normally be cleared again following a data transfer to/from an even address.
The memory controller should ignore A for Thumb instruction fetches (nOPC=0 and MAS[1:0]=01), and A[1:0] for ARM instruction fetches (nOPC=0 and MAS[1:0]=10).
Article last edited on: 2008-09-09 15:47:35
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Cancer of the cervix (sir-vix) is one of the most common cancers in women. There seems to be a connection between cervical cancer and sexual activity at an early age, especially when multiple partners are involved. Cervical cancer grows without symptoms, that's why a yearly pap smear is so important. A pap smear can detect the presence of cancer cells at an early stage. When precancerous cells are found, usually called dysplasia (dis-PLAY-zha), they can be removed in the doctor's office using various procedures that burn or freeze the cells off the cervix. If the cancer has advanced, the recommended treatment usually includes a combination of chemotherapy, radiation and surgery, which will prevent a woman from bearing children. For more information about cervical cancer, contact your healthcare provider.


ARCHIVED: Expanding Role for Genetics Counselors
The completion of the human genome sequencing launches a new era in genetic medicine. With the decoding of the letters that make up the recipe of human life an opportunity now exists for scientists to discover new cures for cancer, heart disease, drug addiction, neurological disorders and mental illness. In this brave new world of medicine, the human genetics counselor will play an increasingly important role as patients and doctors struggle with the impact of these exciting new breakthroughs. The Human Genetics Program at Sarah Lawrence College the oldest and largest training program for genetic counselors in the United States, is well positioned to take on this challenge.
Many ethical dilemmas have surfaced. For example, should people be tested to determine whether they might later develop a disease if there is no cure for that disease? Should fetal genetic testing extend beyond the health of a baby to screen for desirable physical and mental traits?
A recent study conducted by the Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington published in Genetics in Medicine, found that 70 percent of health care practitioners surveyed had discussed genetics with their clients. Yet fewer than 10 percent of those people surveyed - including physical therapists, speech and hearing therapists and social workers - were confident in their training in these issues. According to Dr. E. Virginia Lapham, the lead author of the study, a need exists to expand genetic education programs for health professionals.
"As the field broadens, the need for more counselors and more thorough training will also increase," says Lauren Scheuer, a genetic counselor at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and a graduate of the Sarah Lawrence Program. "At the present time there are a finite number of genetic counselors in the field. As more and more complex medical information becomes available to patients and their families, there will be an increasing need for trained professionals to help sort out the all the issues and ramifications."
The two-year master's program at Sarah Lawrence began in 1969 and trains 25 counselors per class. Half of the nation's genetic counselors, including the directors of many other human genetics programs in the U.S. and Canada and in other parts of the world, are graduates of the SLC Program.
Genetic counselors work as members of a health-care team, providing information and support to families that have members who have birth defects or genetic disorders, or who may be at risk for a variety of inherited conditions, says Caroline Lieber, program director. "We identify families at risk, interpret information about the disorder, analyze inheritance patterns and risks of recurrence, discuss the risks, benefits, and limitations of genetic testing, review available options with families and provide supportive counseling," she added.
Human genetics counselors also serve as patient advocates, educators, administrators, researchers and resources for health-care professionals and the public. The importance of training in the field of human genetics counseling is demonstrated by the success of the Sarah Lawrence graduates. Genetics programs at major teaching hospitals, other colleges and universities, government agencies and corporations are staffed by Sarah Lawrence College graduates. These include the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York Presbyterian Hospital, Center for Disease Control, Glaxo Wellcome and Applied Genetics.
"This is a field with definite career opportunities and is well suited to individuals interested in being on the leading edge of medical research, and with an interest and commitment to helping others and making a difference." says Lieber.


Moore's Law Is Alive And Well, And Intel Will Prove It Today
Intel, the world’s biggest manufacturer of computer chips, and by far the one with the most advanced manufacturing capabilities, is holding a big event in San Francisco which it described in an invitation to reporters as its “most significant technology announcement of the year.” It provided no further details.
This appears to be the announcement that CEO Paul Otellini alluded to during Intel’s quarterly earnings conference call last month. Intel has kept a pretty tight lid on the details, but I’ve talked to enough people who say this is one of those times when Intel will “open the kimono” on what will be going on inside its chip factories–or fabs–later this year. The big news will revolve around Intel’s disclosure of its 22-nanometer manufacturing process. It’s the sort of thing that gets people who know chips kind of excited and leaves others kind of cold. But in fact, everyone should be kind of excited about this.
Perhaps you’ve heard of Moore’s Law. This was the observation in 1965 by the Intel co-founder Gordon Moore (pictured at the Intel Museum in 2005) that the number of transistors that could be crammed onto a chip doubles–and the size of those chips tended to shrink–as manufacturing technology improved on a fairly regular basis: About every 18 to 24 months. That shrinking meant two things. Chipmakers could make a chip with the same computing power as the previous generation more cheaply, or they could make a more powerful one with more transistors for about the same cost.
It all comes down to how many transistors you can cram onto a chip, and how many useful chips you can get from a single silicon wafer. In both cases, more is better. Moore’s observation–which was first published 46 years ago this month–has held up remarkably well and has proven one of the most important engines of growth in the technology industry. All the computing oomph you take for granted in your notebook, your smart phone, in the cloud, and all around you happens in part because the chips inside the hardware have gotten smaller and yet ever more powerful every two years or so.
So back to today’s announcement. As I mentioned, it’s going to revolve around its 22-nanometer manufacturing process. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter, and its current factory processors turn out chips with transistors that are somewhat bigger–32 nanometers. Intel executives often refer to a process they call “tick-tock.” Today constitutes a tick, when in odd-numbered years, a new manufacturing process comes online and the previous generation chips are shifted to being built with the smaller transistors. A “tock” occurs in even-numbered years when Intel engineers come up with new chip designs that really show what the new factory processes are capable of. The implication is that it’s so regular you can almost set your watch by it. Intel’s long-term strategy can be summed up like so: Tick, tock, repeat.
On top of that there are likely to be disclosures about some of the advances in physics that Intel has had to make in order to get chips with transistors so small to work properly. When you’re dealing with things that small, the individual electrons flowing on the chip sometimes don’t behave as they should. For example, in 2007 Intel had to add the element Hafnium to its chip-making process in order to stop individual transistors from wasting electricity. (It was more complicated than that, but that in a nutshell was the problem.) Billions upon billions of transistors in billions of computers around the world wasting electricity is a bad thing, both financially–power is expensive–and environmentally.
What’s funny is that for years people have been saying that Intel–and indeed the entire chip industry–can’t continue on the Moore’s Law trajectory. At some point things get so small that you’re dealing with individual atoms and you can’t get any smaller than that. However, every time people have predicted its end, something happens to keep it going. A lot of companies have come up with some important advances that have kept it going. In the 1990s and early 2000s, IBM came up with some important advances that kept Moore’s Law on track. But more often that not it has been Intel that has kicked down the door when the experts said it was locked. Today it will probably kick down another.
This older video was created around the time that Intel unveiled its 45-nanometer process with Hafnium–kicking down one of those earlier doors. Perhaps there will be another today. Check in later as I cover the announcement.


NEW YORK — Children of older fathers are known to be more at risk for diseases including schizophrenia and autism. Now, a new scientific look at the genes passed down within families may have pinpointed a reason why.
The study, reported Wednesday in the journal Nature, found that older fathers transmit more new DNA variations to their children than younger dads, with each added year of age resulting in an average of 2 extra new mutations. The genetic changes occur in men as they age because of environmental factors, such as radiation, or through mistakes that occur in cell division.
The research led by scientists at Reykjavik, Iceland-based deCode Genetics Inc., is the first to quantify the number of new, or de novo, mutations that fathers hand along by age to their children. The findings may suggest that dads-to-be should consider collecting their sperm at a young age and storing it for later use, according to Alexey Kondrashov, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
“If the paternal-age effect on the de novo mutation rate does lead to substantially impaired health in the children of older fathers, then collecting the sperm of young adult men and cold-storing it for later use could be a wise individual decision,” Kondrashov wrote in an accompanying editorial that called for further study on the issue.
Mental processes may be most affected, leading to illnesses such as schizophrenia, because more genes express themselves in the human brain than elsewhere.
The de novo findings suggest it may be “reasonable to assume that the ongoing increase in the incidence and prevalence of autism in many human populations could be due, at least in part, to the accumulation of mutations resulting from relaxed selection and a higher average paternal age — and not only to better recognition of cases,” Kondrashov said.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in March reported that one in 88 children in the U.S. had autism or a related disorder in 2008, the latest period for which data was available. That was a 23 percent rise from 2006, the agency’s researchers reported, saying it was unclear how much of the increase was due to increased awareness of the disease.
Genes are the blueprints for making all the proteins needed by the human body to grow, develop and work properly. DeCode Genetics’ group looked at the DNA shared by 78 groups of Icelandic mothers, fathers, and children.
A 20-year-old father transmits on average 25 new mutations to his child while a 40-year-old transmits 65, the study found. Mothers always transmit about 15 new mutations, regardless of their age, according to the accompanying editorial.
Men probably contribute more mutations because sperm have to divide many more times than eggs, which don’t actively split when women are of reproductive age, according to Kondashov.
“The only important thing when it came to explaining the mutations was the age of the father,” said study author Kari Stefansson, who is also the chief executive officer of deCode Genetics. “There’s very little else to be accounted for. That’s a stunning observation.”
Most de novo mutations are neutral, and all mutations in the genome were once de novo, Stefansson said by telephone. Once scientists determine the importance of de novo mutations relative to heredity mutations in autism, it will be easy to see how much contribution a father’s age has to the child’s health. That work hasn’t yet been done, he said.


Make your own D-net. The net is named for the "D" shape of its frame. It
is used to collect stream insects from the bottom of a stream. You can
make one at home (but make sure an adult is around to help!).
Materials you will need
x 14" piece of screen •
42" x 2" piece of canvas or heavy cloth
Thread and needle •
Wire coat hanger •
Drill with 1/8" and 1/4" bits
Wooden broom handle
Building a D-net
1. Fold the screen in half (21" x 14") and cut screen (as shown).
2. Sew the two pieces of screen together along the cut edge.
3. Fold the canvas in half along the open edge of the net.
4. Untwist the wire hanger and cut off the top (as shown).
5. Bend the smaller cut piece into a U-shape.
6. Drill a 1/4" hole in the flat end of the broom stick.
7. Drill two shallow 1/8" holes on the sides of the broomstick, positioned
so you can fit U-shaped wire over the flat end and into the holes.
8. Slip large wire into the folded canvas slot of the net and twist the
9. Cut the twisted wire to no longer than 2" in length and insert into
hole at flat end of the broomstick.
10. Secure the net to the pole using the U-shaped wire and duct tape (as
Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring
Non-profit Stream Monitoring
County Stream Monitoring Groups
Maryland DNR's Teaching Environmental Awareness in Maryland (TEAM) program
offers students a two-part stream investigation in a local freshwater
stream of their choice. At this streamside setting, trained volunteers
guide them as they learn about water quality, stream habitats and the
community of organisms that inhabit the stream. Using the information they
collect, the students will then formulate conclusions about the health of
the stream they have investigated. If you are interested in becoming a
TEAM volunteer and helping educate Marylanders about our natural
resources, visit our website at
www.dnr.maryland.gov/education/teamdnr and fill out an application.
It's a known fact kids are drawn to streams and waterways. Some visit them to
fish, hike, canoe and kayak or just enjoy nature; others want to learn more
about them and how people affect their overall health. Streams offer students a
unique outdoor field experience and a window to understanding their local
environment and the Chesapeake Bay.
Maryland's 8,800 miles of
streams form the life support system for the Chesapeake Bay watershed by
providing important habitats for many aquatic and terrestrial organisms. Each
stream plays a vital role in linking the Chesapeake Bay to its surrounding
Many kids think of a stream in terms of the trout they caught while
fishing or the crayfish they found while exploring its banks. These are some of
the more visible examples but they are only a fraction of the diversity
contained within Maryland's streams. Upon closer examination you can find fish,
amphibians and insects that are invisible to the casual observer. More
important, many of these organisms are biological indicators of stream health,
especially the insects or macroinvertebrates.
An Outdoor Classroom Realized
year thousands of students experience Maryland's streams through programs
offered by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) outdoor education centers,
and summer camps. However, students, parents or teachers can organize their own
stream investigations. Using a stream as an outdoor classroom offers kids an
incomparable hands-on learning experience that leads them to a greater
understanding and appreciation of their natural environment.
Getting to Know Macroinvertebrates
Prior to going out and doing an actual field investigation,
students should learn how to identify some of the basic types of stream insects
and stream habitats
they might encounter, either through classroom exercises or
home study. Stream insects are one of the most important indicators of the
long-term health of a stream. Many are long-lived and spend most of their lives
within the stream. Some, like stoneflies, are highly sensitive to pollution
while others such as blackfly larvae are very tolerant. During a field
investigation, many of these insects may be seen; however without some initial
preparation, students will not have the proper knowledge and skills to conduct a
meaningful investigation of a stream.
In the Field
After completing the
classroom or home study of stream insects and their habitats, it's time to
consider a field investigation. The best time to conduct one is typically in
spring or late fall when weather conditions are most favorable for being
outside. First and foremost, the stream must be accessible to the students.
Those on the school grounds are ideal but streams on other public lands are also
Prior to going out to the stream, students will also need to have
some sampling equipment. A net, preferably a D-net, is used to sample for macroinvertebrates. However you can also just use your hands and look under
rocks to get a sample. It's also helpful to have a bucket to put your sample in,
a magnifier, tweezers and a tray with a white background. The white background
provides good contrast for seeing the darker macroinvertebrates.
Once at the
stream, look for riffles or woody debris to sample. A stream riffle is a shallow
area where rocks break up the flow of water. This area is highly enriched in
oxygen and has lots of small spaces for macroinvertebrates to hide in. Woody
debris found in the water -- leaves, sticks and tree roots -- is another
important habitat as these materials provide an important food source for stream
In addition to looking at the macroinvertebrate community within the
stream, you may also decide to sample for dissolved oxygen levels, pH, depth,
water flow and turbidity. All provide important information on the physical and
biological conditions of the stream. You should end the investigation by making
some basic conclusions about the health of the stream.
By using streams as
outdoor classrooms, students are making an important and meaningful connection
to the Chesapeake Bay watershed; they learn monitoring techniques and problem-
solving skills that will benefit them for a lifetime.
Maryland DNR currently offers opportunities for middle school
students to conduct a stream investigation. Those interested in learning more
about DNR's student streams investigations should visit
or contact Matthew Chasse at 410-260-8828, or
our website for more information at
is an Education Specialist for DNR's Conservation Education Division, the TEAM
Program Coordinator, and serves on the Education Matrix Team.


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You may already know something about the benefits of plasma treatment, such as higher treatment (dyne) levels, extended life of treatment over time, the lack of surface morphology degradation, and the elimination of pinholing and backside treatment.
Until recently, low-pressure vacuum plasmas have been used to treat two- and three-dimensional plastic objects and polymer films. The recent introduction of high-density atmospheric plasma for film, foil, paper, foam, nonwoven and woven substrate applications has had a significant impact on the surfaces of these materials at considerably lower capitalization costs.
High-density atmospheric plasma represents a new generation of surface-treatment technology. It allows plasmas to be sustained at atmospheric pressure in a way that permits the surface treatment of polymers and other substrates. It can be configured to work with a variety of feeding systems, including continuous web.
How does Plasma Compare to Corona?Corona treatment is an electrical process that uses ionized air to increase the surface tension of non-porous substrates. Normally, corona-treating systems operate at an electrical voltage of approximately 10 kV.
Like corona, plasma is the electrical ionization of a gas. The plasma (glow) discharge creates a smooth, undifferentiated cloud of ionized gas with no visible electrical filaments. However, unlike corona, plasma is created at much lower voltage levels and temperatures.
Plasma Effects on Substrate SurfacesCorona converts the substrate surface from a non-polar state to a polar state. Oxygen molecules from the corona discharge area are then free to bond to the ends of the molecules in the substrate being treated, resulting in an increase in surface tension.
The same description holds true for atmospheric plasma, with a few exceptions. The rate at which electron bombardment occurs within a high-density atmospheric plasma is up to 100 times greater. This increased electron activity forces greater ion bombardment to the substrate surface. This results in increased etching, chain scission and crosslinking on the substrate's surface, which influences stronger bonding attributes across the surface of the web. Specifically, mechanical interlocking is enhanced, bonding materials together by allowing the adhesive or sealant to take advantage of the microscopic roughness etched to the surface by atmospheric plasma, locking them together. In addition, covalent chemical bonding is promoted, using mutually reactive chemical groups newly resident at the substrate surface (delivered by atmospheric plasma treatment) and the adhesive to form the strongest, most durable bond.
Summarizing the treatment process, high-density atmospheric plasma employs chemical gases that produce controlled chemical reactions on the surface. Chemistry molecules that are introduced are propelled to the material surface. Low-molecular-weight material is cleaned from the surface and specific gas molecules covalently bond to the surface. This is how adhesion can be boosted between the adhesive and the material surface.
Atmospheric plasma technology also eliminates the possibility of backside treatment. The high-speed photos capture the optical differences between corona and atmospheric plasma treatment. The corona image shows the expected "filaments," while the plasma treatment generates a smooth treat pattern.
Benefits of Atmospheric Plasma for Adhesive AdhesionPlasma treatment offers three key benefits that adhesive manufacturers can use to their advantage.
1. Longer life treatments. Substrates that have been atmospheric plasma-treated hold their treatment levels longer than corona-treated surfaces. Longer treatment life allows product converters to take advantage of economies of scale during production, increase inventory life and provide enhanced manufacturing flexibility.
2. Higher treat levels allow for treatment of difficult-to-treat surfaces. Atmospheric plasma treatment is a viable alternative for substrates for which corona treating is ineffective. For example, difficult-to-treat fluoropolymer-based materials like Teflon® do not respond to the corona process but do respond to atmospheric plasma treatment.
3. Treatment of thicker substrates. While substrates that are thicker than 0.125" usually do not respond well to the corona process, they can be treated by atmospheric plasma. Films, metallized films, foils, foams, wovens and nonwovens are all candidates for atmospheric plasma surface treatment.
An atmospheric plasma treatment system called Plasma3™ that can operate at low temperature to provide the advantages plasma technology has over existing surface-treatment technologies has been developed by Enercon Industries. The surface energies of materials treated by this system have been shown to increase substantially, thereby significantly enhancing the wettability, printability and adhesive/ink/coating adhesion properties of these materials.
Web-Based Atmospheric Plasma Market ApplicationsWater- and solventborne, alcohol-based, and cold-seal adhesives are used for a variety of laminating applications. They are used by contract laminators and consumer products companies to bond multiple combinations of film, fiberglass, foam, fabric, paper, nonwovens, and rubber. The laminates are used to produce a range of products, including the following.
- Packaging applications - sealing tapes, weather-strip, labels
- Automotive applications - seals, gaskets, headliners, trim
- Textile applications - protective apparel, outerwear
- Medical applications - medical drapes and garments, bandages, electrodes, labeling, lidding, covers
- Electronic applications
- Bonding/assembly and thermal management tapes
The system also has the flexibility to be operated with variable chemistries and without the generation of ozone, pin-holing, and backside treatment.
For more information, contact Rory Wolf at email@example.com .


A Box of Universe
Watch the cosmos evolve in a cube one billion light-years wide
Isaac Newton’s universe was a cozy, tidy place. Gathered around the sun were six planets, a handful of moons and the occasional comet, all moving against a backdrop of stationary stars. Newton provided us with the mathematical tools needed to compute the motions of these bodies. Given initial positions and velocities, we can calculate the forces acting on each object, using Newton’s law of universal gravitation. From the forces we can determine accelerations, and then update the positions and velocities for the next round of calculations. This scheme of computation is known as the n-body method. Perhaps Newton himself could have put it to work if he had had suitable computing machinery.
Today we have the computers. On the other hand, our universe is far larger and more intricate than Newton’s. Now the solar system is merely a speck in a spiral galaxy of several hundred billion stars. Our galaxy drifts among billions of others, which form clusters and superclusters and a whole hierarchy of structures extending as far as the eye (and the telescope) can see. Those objects are getting farther away all the time because the universe is expanding, and moreover the expansion is accelerating. Strangest of all, the luminous matter of the galaxies—everything we see shining in the night sky—makes up less than one-half of 1 percent of what’s out there. Most of the universe is unseen and unidentified stuff known only as “dark matter” and “dark energy.”
Given this profound change in the nature and the scale of the known universe, I find it remarkable that computer simulations of cosmic evolution can still rely on n-body algorithms rooted in the principles of Newtonian mechanics. The same techniques that predict planetary motions here at home in the solar system also describe the gravitational process that assembles thousands of galaxies into filaments a hundred million light-years long.
A major new series of cosmological simulations is now beginning to release its findings. The project, known as Bolshoi, is led by Anatoly Klypin of New Mexico State University and Joel Primack of the University of California, Santa Cruz. “Bolshoi” is Russian for “big” or “grand,” and the name is apt: This is a large-scale computational project, consuming six million CPU hours and producing a hundred terabytes of data. And yet, when you ponder the vast sweep of space and time being modeled, it seems a marvel that so much universe can be squeezed into such a small box.
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Welcome to our world of fun trivia quizzes and quiz games:
The Battle of Badr
"The Battle of Badr was a key battle in Islam's struggle for independence. Outnumbered greatly, the victory at Badr gave the army great hope and is mentioned in detail in the Quran."
15 Points Per Correct Answer - No time limit
Let's start out with the setting of Badr: The Muslims were fighting, but against who were they fighting?
There were only 300 Muslims fighting in the Battle of Badr. How many men did the Meccans have fighting?
During the heat of the Battle of Badr, the Prophet Muhammad was said to have done what?
Thrown sand into the air in the direction of the enemy
Killed those who fled
The Battle of Badr is a battle in Islamic history in which it is said that angels participated. One angel who revealed the Quran to the Prophet also commanded the thousands of angels at Badr. Who was this angel?
At the beginning of the Battle of Badr, three of the Meccans challenged three of the Muslims for a small skirmish between them. One of the future Caliphs (He was also one of the key issues of contreversy which resulted in the first major schism in Islam) was in the skirmish, along with two other soldiers. Who was this Caliph?
What else is God said to have done to the Meccan's the night before the Battle of Badr?
Heavy winds blew away their arrows
Comets raced through the night sky scaring the camels, making them useless for battle
Lightning killed the commanders
Heavy rain fell on the hill where they were camped
What key resource at Badr were the Muslims able to cut off from the enemy?
How many Muslims died in the Battle of Badr?
Two hundred and fifty
How many Meccans did the Muslims capture in the Battle of Badr?
What happened to the majority of the captured Meccans at the Battle of Badr?
They were let go
They were tortured
They were executed
They were sold into slavery
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Compiled Jun 28 12


There's No Such Thing as Ethical Oil (or Nuclear Power)
Canada is digging itself a dirty energy destiny in the Athabasca oil sands.
By Evan O'Neil | March 22, 2011
After the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and now the nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima reactors in Japan, it should be clear that oil and nuclear power are not benign forces in our world. Both are toxic, dirty, and insecure forms of energy. It is thus astonishing that the Canadian energy industry proposes combining the two.
The boreal forest of northern Alberta sits atop one of the largest fossil fuel deposits in the world: the Athabasca bituminous sands. Energy insiders call it oil sands, while environmentalists prefer tar sands—each side seeing what it wants. At room temperature, raw bitumen has the consistency of asphalt and won't flow through a pipeline without being diluted or upgraded into synthetic crude oil.
Underground, the bitumen exists in a mixture with sand and clay, and there are two techniques for extracting it. Surface mines have been the predominant method since commercial production began in the 1960s. At the Suncor Energy mine, for example, the native forests, topsoil, and muskeg bog were cleared, and 50 meters of "overburden" earth was removed to expose a tar sand deposit itself about 50 meters thick. The bitumen is mined 24 hours per day with massive electric shovels that fill dump trucks three stories tall.
The dump trucks haul the tar sands out of the mine to a separation unit where it is mixed with hot water. The bitumen floats to the top and is skimmed off, while the wastewater slurry—containing sand, clay, salts, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, arsenic, naphthenic acid, and other substances—is pumped into large, open-air tailings ponds where it is left to evaporate. The problem with tailings ponds has been that the finest clay particles take decades to settle into sediment. To accelerate reclamation of the land, some companies are now experimenting with adding polyacrylamide flocculant, in a process similar to municipal waste treatment, to help separate the solids from the water.
Mining for deeper deposits is uneconomical, so the industry also employs in situ drilling. In a typical setup, two horizontal wells are drilled, one above the other. The top well injects steam into the sands, melting out the bitumen, which is then pumped out through the lower well in a process called Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage, or SAGD. The well pads of these SAGD installations dot the remote boreal landscape in a network of roads, pipelines, and seismic cutlines.
Mining and in situ operations both consume a lot of energy. The advantage of in situ is that the land is much less disturbed, making it easier to return it to a natural state. SAGD also separates the sand and bitumen below the surface, requiring significantly less infrastructure. Of the total Athabasca deposit, 80 percent is thought to be recoverable through in situ and 20 percent through mining.
SAGD requires a lot of natural gas to make steam. The ratio of steam injected to oil extracted is what determines a project's carbon emissions as well as its profitability. Mining and SAGD together consume hundreds of billions of cubic feet of natural gas per year, a substantial fraction of Canada's entire demand.
That's where nuclear power enters the picture. As bitumen production in Alberta is slated to expand over the next several decades, gas production will be in decline. This means that eventually producers will have to either burn part of their bitumen, thus eating into their profits, or find new power sources to generate heat and electricity.
Nuclear power has been mooted to fill this gap. Japan, of course, turned to nuclear power during the 1970s oil shocks to offset its dependence on foreign oil. Now, in an ironic twist, Canada is considering nuclear power so that it can expand its oil exports. Most of the tar sands oil is sold south of the border through a pipeline network to meet American demand, while Canada still imports foreign oil to its eastern provinces.
One has to wonder why Canada would burn so much of its natural gas, a relatively clean fossil fuel, to extract an even dirtier energy. The answer is, of course, to make money. Most of the world's oil is controlled by national oil companies, making Canada one of the only remaining patches where the energy industry can really play in the sandbox.
And the Athabasca deposit is a big sandbox. The area is roughly the size of New York State. It contains an estimated 1.7 trillion barrels of bitumen, of which about 170 billion barrels are extractable with current technologies. Multiply by $100 per barrel and pretty soon we're talking real money.
But it is capital intensive to slurp these heavy, unconventional dregs of the global oil barrel. Hundreds of billions of dollars have already been invested in the Alberta tar sands, where it takes an oil price of $65 to 85 per barrel to recuperate costs. As recently as 2009, oil was back down in the $40 range, slowing or canceling many projects.
So is tar sands oil dirty oil? Of course it is. All oil is dirty. But is it dirtier than other sources? On average, yes. According to Cambridge Energy Research Associates, oil from Alberta tends to be about 5 to 15 percent more polluting than the average oil consumed in the United States when compared on a well-to-wheels basis. Twenty-five percent of oil's emissions occur during the production phase, while 75 percent comes from combustion in a vehicle.
Industry insiders often repeat the following argument: It's the consumer's fault, whether they mean car owners or America in general. "If you would stop driving so much, we would stop digging up all this oil and pumping it in your direction," goes the typical line. Then whenever the United States wavers in its affection for Canadian energy, the argument becomes a threat: "We'll just sell it to the Chinese instead."
This argument is nonsense on the individual level. American consumers aren't presented with a significant choice at the pump. They get to decide between three octane ratings with maybe a dash of dubiously efficient ethanol in the blend. The only real power a person has to reduce oil consumption is in deciding where to live. Ditching the car and moving to a dense, pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly community with access to mass transit is the most effective solution. For those who cannot or do not wish to move, the alternative is to work through the local political process to redesign your community.
Most families haven't made the carless choice yet. Instead the typical response is to buy a bigger car when gasoline is cheap and a more efficient one when the price goes back up. Without a price floor of some sort, America will never break its addiction to oil, foreign or domestic. A strong gasoline tax could serve as a de facto price floor if it were set high enough. Unfortunately the United States has chosen to set the bar very low: Gas tax is a pittance relative to the price of gasoline, and it isn't indexed to inflation, meaning the value has actually declined over the last several decades.
It is an abdication of political responsibility to argue that an unorganized and reactionary collective such as consumers is at fault for oil consumption. The essence of ethics is whether our political institutions can make choices that are in the interest of all affected stakeholders, local and global, regardless of the political cost.
Seen in this light, can the Canadian and Albertan governments be trusted not to morph into petrostates?
It is an abdication of political responsibility to argue that an unorganized and reactionary collective such as consumers is at fault for oil consumption.Sadly the outlook is bleak. The federal environment minister recently declared that Canadian oil is "ethical oil." This concept is drawn straight from the title of a book by conservative political activist Ezra Levant, in which he argues that Canada's oil is morally superior to oil from countries with poor human rights records. Even if Canada and the United States were to boycott imports from all countries they consider problematic, an option neither is willing to consider, oil would still remain a globally priced and traded commodity and the benefits of its consumption would continue to flow to unsavory dictators.
On the provincial level, the Alberta government is of the opinion that the tar sands "should" be developed further, despite the fact that a panel recently found that water and environmental monitoring program has been inadequate. Alberta's Energy Resources Conservation Board, its regulatory agency for energy development, has one of the more Orwellian names one can imagine.
Bullish development of the oil sands has also contributed to Canada's violation of its Kyoto Protocol commitments. The goal was to decrease emissions 6 percent below 1990 levels. Instead, Canadian emissions have increased by a whopping 24 percent, in great measure due to tar sands expansion. Tar sands emissions now account for about 5 percent of Canada's total.
Alberta did manage to enact one innovative policy that few other jurisdictions will even consider: a carbon tax of $15 per ton. This move should be applauded, but it is unfortunately accompanied by billion-dollar investments in the unproven technologies of carbon capture and sequestration—an expensive crutch to help the fossil fuel industry limp into the future—with minimal focus on renewable energy research, development, and deployment.
Another concern for Canada's energy future is that the royalty regime [PDF] for tar sands leases is too weak. The rate is set at 1 percent until a project becomes profitable, and then it jumps to 25 percent, which is still low compared to some countries. Alberta risks squandering an opportunity to build its Heritage sovereign wealth fund while the people's resources disappear into private pockets, leaving the province without financial means to transition to a cleaner economy.
Is America being a good neighbor in this transaction, or merely abetting a fellow oil junkie? The proposed Keystone XL extension of the pipeline network that carries Albertan oil to the United States is currently under consideration, and final approval falls to the U.S. Department of State because of the international border crossing. It was announced on March 15 that a supplemental environmental impact statement will be issued, followed by a new public comment period, to determine whether the project is "in the U.S. national interest."
Buying more energy from a friendly neighbor appears like a good idea on the surface. But while energy security has the ring of a robust and consistent concept, it is actually a relative one. It wears a false halo of military necessity even during peacetime. Supplier countries want security of demand, and consumer countries want security of supply. What the oil industry really worries about is running out of business. "Producers who seek to maximize long-term revenue will want to maintain oil prices stable at the highest price that does not induce substantial investment in substitutes," writes technology and innovation expert Philip Auerswald.
Should we be worried about today's high prices? Auerswald doesn't think so. High prices merely hasten the inevitable transition to a post-oil economy. Estimations vary on the timing of peak oil, but the finitude of the resource is undisputed and so is its eventual depletion to a level where the cost of extraction will equal the value of the product.
Saying that America should be open to more tar sands oil is basically just another version of the "drill here, drill now" argument for tapping the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve in Alaska. The Obama administration, it should be noted, has been a booster of domestic production, and production has gone up in the last five years. Canadian production has also increased significantly in the last decade, mostly from growth in the tar sands. But after two major oil price spikes during the same period, in 2008 and again now, it should be crystal clear that domestic and Canadian production growth doesn't control the global price, and that a much better strategy lies in finding replacement technologies and actively reducing demand.
But this is a tough sell when you think of things like how many Caterpillar 797B dump trucks are needed to mine the tar sands, and how the parts are manufactured all over the United States, by quite a few workers in quite a few Congressional districts. Add to that the public's resistance to raising gasoline taxes, and it becomes quite easy to see why it's politically difficult to enact bold and necessary energy policy. The hundreds of millions of lobbying dollars the oil industry spends certainly don't help our Senators see things clearly.
American politicians have been saying we need to get off foreign oil for half a century. Canadian energy executives and politicians bristle when they hear things like that. They feel that somehow Canadian oil shouldn't be considered foreign because it comes from North America. But the ethical thing is for both countries to pursue energy independence based on clean, renewable sources that don't pollute the environment, harm human health, and risk massive destabilization of the global climate.
As it stands, Canada has become a climate change ostrich with its head in the oil sands.
A version of this article first appeared in the Carnegie Ethics Online column.
Read More: Business, Conservation, Democracy, Development, Diplomacy, Economy, Energy, Environment, Ethics, Jobs, Security, Sustainability, Technology, Trade, Transportation, Canada, United States, Americas, Global, Middle Eastblog comments powered by Disqus


Oct. 6, 2010 Doppler weather radar will significantly improve forecasting models used to track monsoon systems influencing the monsoon in and around India, according to a research collaboration including Purdue University, the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi.
Dev Niyogi, a Purdue associate professor of agronomy and earth and atmospheric sciences, said modeling of a monsoon depression track can have a margin of error of about 200 kilometers for landfall, which can be significant for storms that produce as much as 20-25 inches of rain as well as inland floods and fatalities.
"When you run a forecast model, how you represent the initial state of the atmosphere is critical. Even if Doppler radar information may seem highly localized, we find that it enhances the regional atmospheric conditions, which, in turn, can significantly improve the dynamic prediction of how the monsoon depression will move as the storm makes landfall," Niyogi said. "It certainly looks like a wise investment made in Doppler radars can help in monsoon forecasting, particularly the heavy rain from monsoon processes."
Niyogi, U.C. Mohanty, a professor in the Centre for Atmospheric Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology, and Mohanty's doctoral student, Ashish Routray, collaborated with scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and gathered information such as radial velocity and reflectivity from six Doppler weather radars that were in place during storms. Using the Weather Research and Forecasting Model, they found that incorporating the Doppler radar-based information decreased the error of the monsoon depression's landfall path from 200 kilometers to 75 kilometers.
Monsoons account for 80 percent of the rain India receives each year. Mohanty said more accurate predictions could better prepare people for heavy rains that account for a number of deaths in a monsoon season.
"Once a monsoon depression passes through, it can cause catastrophic floods in the coastal areas of India," Mohanty said. "Doppler radar is a very useful tool to help assess these things."
The researchers modeled monsoon depressions and published their findings in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society. Future studies will incorporate more simulations and more advanced models to test the ability of Doppler radar to track monsoon processes. Niyogi said the techniques and tools being developed also could help predict landfall of tropical storm systems that affect the Caribbean and the United States.
The National Science Foundation CAREER program, U.S. Agency for International Development and the Ministry of Earth Sciences in India funded the study.
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
- A. Routray, U. C. Mohanty, S. R. H. Rizvi, Dev Niyogi, Krishna K. Osuri, D. Pradhan. Impact of Doppler weather radar data on numerical forecast of Indian monsoon depressions. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 2010; DOI: 10.1002/qj.678
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.


Tag writer: Michele Wick, Psychology
Imagine the texture of skirt fabric rubbing against tiny feet, the sweet smell of grass, or the delight of looking at a resplendent blue shirt. Sensory experiences are a vital part of who we are; they are building blocks of a growing brain. Countless occurrences, like the intimate play we see in Cassatt’s print, help shape the contours of pliant neural networks. The child may not remember this exact moment, the feel of the woman’s secure grasp, the pleasure of gazing in her eyes, or the sound of her breath. Nevertheless, they have left their imprint on a blossoming mind.
Image Information: Mary Cassatt, American (1844–1926). Under the Horse Chestnut Tree , 1895. Drypoint and aquatint printed in blue, green, yellow, brown and flesh on paper. Sheet: 18 13/16 x 14 3/8 in.; 47.7838 x 36.5125 cm; plate: 16 1/8 x 11 3/8 in.; 40.9575 x 28.8925 cm. Bequest of Helen Haase


Photo used with kind permission of Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation
Baby clings to dead mother
For millions of years, orangutans thrived in the once-vast forestlands of South
East Asia, possibly even existing as far North as Southern China. Today,
less than 1% of the species remains, and can now only be found in small,
secluded pockets of orangutan habitat on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra.
There are two sub-species of orangutan remaining, the endangered
Bornean, with approximately 30,000 individuals, and the critically endangered
Sumatran, with less than 6,000.
Orangutans are the most intelligent species on earth after humans. They
have the ability to undo bolts, knocks, pick locks and even communicate with
humans via sign language. They share many of the same emotions as us,
have their own culture and share 97% of our DNA!
Orangutans reproduce more slowly than any other primate, with the female
producing a baby on average once every 7-8 years. Infants are dependent on
their mothers for 5-8 years, learning about survival in the forest. Orangutans
live for around 45 years in the wild, and a female will usually have no more
than 3 offspring in her lifetime. This means that orangutan populations grow
very slowly, and take a long time to recover from habitat disturbance and
Poaching and the illegal animal trade are contributing factors to the genocide
of this species; however, the number one threat to the survival of the
orangutan in the wild is deforestation for the development of palm oil.
Every hour, rainforest land equivalent to 300 football fields in size is
destroyed, burnt and replaced with palm oil plantations. To put it into
perspective - in Sumatra alone there is now more than 4 times as much land
cultivated with oil palms as there is orangutan habitat remaining.
This results in the death of an orangutan every 2 hours. These gentle apes
are often killed in the most inhumane ways; run over, set on fire, hacked with
machetes, shot and decapitated. The “lucky” ones, often babies, have their
mothers shot and they are then taken to be kept as pets, sold, used in the
entertainment industry or even used as prostitutes in Indonesian brothels.
In some cases, palm oil farming provides employment to locals in South East
Asia, however it often involves gross human rights violations and involves
dangerous labour under risky conditions. But in many cases, palm oil does the
opposite to providing money. It often robs indigenous communities who still
depend on the natural landscape of their livelihood, when they are displaced
from their land to make way for palm oil development.
This one vegetable oil is found in over 50% of all supermarket products
in Australia. Palm oil can be found in everything from baked goods,
confectionery and ice-cream, to body products, cosmetics and cleaning
agents. It can even be used in toothpaste, paint, printer ink and car fuel!
Why is palm oil so popular and widely used?
- High yielding vegetable oil crop
- Large economic benefit to Indonesia & Malaysia
- Cheap cost
- Diverse in its uses
- Acts as a preservative in some foods
Palm oil is not only having devastating impacts on wildlife, the environment
and indigenous communities, but also your health. Palm oil is comprised of
50% saturated fat, meaning it has the ability to increase cholesterol levels and
promote heart disease.
To conclude, there is currently a massive amount of degraded land available
for planting oil palms in Sumatra and Borneo, but palm oil companies can
make a quick profit when they cut down rainforests and sell the timber, so the
relentless deforestation continues.
We do not advocate a boycott of products containing palm oil, or companies
using palm oil in their products. However, the international community must
demand that oil palm concessions are not granted in forested areas, and that
our local retailers and consumer goods manufacturers either source their
palm oil from non-destructive plantations, or switch to an alternative ingredient
that isn’t abusing wildlife, the environment and indigenous communities.
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
You can visit our Anti-Palm Oil Ambassador’s educational website on palm
oil, to learn about it’s impacts, what products do/don’t contain palm oil, how to
detect palm oil on labels and much more!


The unmanned Jules Verne ATV cargo ship breaks up in a spectacular display
during re-entry, as seen on Monday over the Pacific from an observation plane.
The European Space Agency's first cargo mission to the international space station ended in a spectacular fireworks show today, with the fiery re-entry of the unmanned Jules Verne ATV spaceship over the South Pacific.
"Jules Verne has now successfully completed its mission," ESA Director-General Jean-Jacques Dordain declared at the International Astronautical Congress in Glasgow, Scotland.
The end came at around 9:30 a.m. ET, when controllers back at Europe's mission control in Toulouse, France, directed the 17-ton craft into its final plunge. Jules Verne, the first of Europe's Automated Transfer Vehicles, was launched from the ESA spaceport in French Guiana early March 9. It linked up with the space station almost a month later, delivering tons of food, water and equipment.
During its stay, Jules Verne periodically boosted the space station's orbit, and in fact helped the station dodge a passing piece of Russian space junk last month.
But all good things must come to an end: Unlike the Italian-built space cargo modules that are carried back and forth inside NASA's space shuttle, the Euroean-built ATVs are not designed for return or reuse. Instead, each spent craft has to be disposed of safely, by directing it remotely on a plunge through the atmosphere. The wide-open South Pacific is the favorite dumping ground for such space junk, as we saw back in 2001 when Russia's Mir space station fell to its doom.
Jules Verne's re-entry was witnessed by an international team of scientists flying aboard a NASA DC-8 observation plane. Studying the spacecraft's controlled fall could lead to fresh insights about the chemical and radiation effects of falling meteors - as well as better computer models for predicting how objects fragment as the blast through the atmosphere.
The Jules Verne ATV cargo craft glows during its atmospheric re-entry, in a view
captured Monday from a DC-8 observation plane flying over the Pacific. A lens
diffraction flare can be seen in rainbow colors at lower right.
Today's first pictures from the DC-8, posted to ESA's ATV blog, revealed a spray of fireworks similar to those seen during Mir's fall. More tragically, they also recalled what witnesses saw during the shuttle Columbia's breakup five years ago.
Although experts still have to track all the bits of debris, it looks as if Jules Verne's plunge through the atmosphere provided a great light show, but no big impact. There were far more damaging plunges elsewhere on the planet today.


Story posted January 16, 2008
Brads, nails, and spikes take on the characteristics of line, mass and color in sculptures by artist and Lecturer in Art John Bisbee. Covering his more than 20-year career, Bright Common Spikes: The Sculpture of John Bisbee, features 20 large-scale abstract sculptures of nails that are welded and forged into various organic configurations. The exhibition will be on view at the Portland Museum of Art January 24, 2008, through March 23, 2008.
The January 20, 2008, edition of The Boston Globe features an in-depth profile of Bisbee and his art. Click here to read the article and watch a video slideshow.
Bisbee welds, cuts, hammers, forges, and bends his nails and spikes into a variety of forms for his sculptures. Since 1988, when he overturned a five gallon bucket of nails that had rusted and fused together, he has been creating small- to large-scale sculptures comprising mainly brads, nails and spikes.
Over the years, as Bisbee has gradually increased the size of his nails from brads to 10- and 12-inch spikes, the overall scale of his work has become more expansive. Bisbee began to explore the implications of monumentality in more serious ways with a series he calls "Tons." Each piece is made up of one ton of nails, and to date he has completed 11 "Tons." They vary in type of fabrication and assembly — groups of nails are welded together and piled in various configurations into corners, spread across the floor, or affixed to the wall.
Some "Tons" pieces vary with each new installation, and Bisbee does not determine the exact configuration until the moment a piece is installed. He arrives at the gallery with barrels filled with the component pieces and lets the spirit of the day and the idiosyncrasies of the site suggest the rest. Bisbee's intuitive working method comes closest to the surrealist process of automatic drawing, allowing the subconscious mind to direct the hand.
In addition to the "Tons" series, Bisbee has recently produced more intricately patterned pieces. These works share the decorative flair that characterizes a great deal of contemporary painting and sculpture. For his most recent sculptures, Bisbee uses a forge, press, and hand tools to flatten and bend his nails into even more elaborate shapes that resemble calligraphic lines. Some of these flattened nails are then welded together to form larger mandala-like shapes; others are piled freely on the floor.
Bisbee's solo museum exhibitions include the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, N.Y., and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Mo.
A recent recipient of a 2006 Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant, Bisbee has also received a Maine State Individual Artist Grant (2000) and The Rappaport Prize (2003), administered by the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park. He has also been awarded the Purchase Prize and the William E. Thon Jurors' Prize from the Portland Museum of Art's Biennial exhibition (1998, 2001). His work has been reviewed in Art in America, ARTnews, Sculpture Magazine, The New Yorker, The New York Times and The Boston Globe.
John Bisbee and his art were the focus of a Spring 2005 Bowdoin magazine feature. Read it here.


Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam (JBPHH)
Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam on the left, and HNL on the right share the Reef Runway.
Honolulu International Airport and Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam (JBPHH) have been neighbors and partners for many years. In 1956 the Air Force and the Hawaii Aeronautics Commission (predecessor to the State of Hawaii Department of Transportation) agreed to a single airport complex that would be operated under a Joint Use Agreement.
Today, JBPHH and HNL share runways, safety networks, and a partnership that is more than 50 years old.
Hickam Field, as it was then known, was completed and officially activated on September 15, 1938. It was the principal army airfield in Hawaii and the only one large enough to accommodate the B-17 bomber.
During World War II the base played a major role in pilot training and aircraft assembly work, in addition to service as a supply center for both air and ground troops. Hickam served as the hub of the Pacific aerial network, supporting transient aircraft ferrying troops and supplies to, and evacuating wounded from, the forward areas, not only during World War II but also during the Korean conflict and the Vietnam War.
During the Korean Conflict, 19 percent of HNL operations were military. During the Vietnam War that increased to 20-50%.
Today, military operations are five to six percent of total operations.


Kanthapura is the story of a village in South India named `Kanthapura` written by Raja Rao. He was an excellent writer and the simple story of a village life is depicted in an extra-ordinary way in this creation of his. The title of the story is kept by the name of the village only. So the title truly signifies the story.
Born on November 8 in the year of 1908 Raja Rao was a famous writer. The place was Hassan, in the state of Mysore in south India, into a well-known Brahman family. He post-graduated in France, and all his publications were in English. Rao was very much concerned with his language and consciousness. He studied in a Muslim school. After taking a degree from Madras University, he left India for Europe, where he remained for a decade. He studied at the universities of Montpellier and the Sorbonne, doing research in Christian theology and history. In 1931 he married Camille Mouly. She was a French academic. His first stories were published in French and English. His Kannada articles were also published in an influential journal `Jaya Karnataka`. He marriage with Camille Mouly didn`t work out and he got divorced in 1939. Rao returned to India and began his first period of residence in an ashram. In search of his spiritual heritage, he traveled widely in India. This happened during WW II. In 1942 he was active in an underground movement against colonial rule. He also edited the literary magazine `Tomorrow` for some days.
`Kanthapura` is the first major Indian novel in English by Raja Rao. The novel deals with the Civil disobedience movement of 1030`s. Mahatma Gandhi on the participation of a small village of South India in the National struggle calls for the story`s central concern. The villagers sacrifice all their material possessions in a triumph of the spirit. It shows how the people of country united at the time of movement and joined at the non-violence movement to bring independence from the British. `Kanthapura` was first published in English and then in France. Achakka narrates the whole story. She is an old village woman and the story revolves around in a village Kanthapura in South India. In this village there are clear discrimination between Brahman, Sudra and Pariah quarters still the mutual bonding between the villagers are very strong and they live happily with equal social and economical bonding. To maintain social harmony they live like one single family. Kanthapura may be isolated and deprived of modern civilization but it is compensated by an ever-enriching cycle of ceremonies, rituals and festivals. Rao depicts beautifully the partication of the villagers in different festivals like Dussera,
Sankara-jayanti, Kartik Purnima, Ganesh Jayanti, Styanarayana Puja, etc. the common picture of village has always come up in many of Rao`s story and that can be called as Raja Rao`s speciality.
`Kanthapura` by Raja Rao is a marvelous creation. He depicts very simple happenings of a village in a lively manner. In his writing a clear picture of villagers become prominent. In his village religion imparted through discourses and pujas keeps alive in the natives a sense of presence of God. In the whole story a serenity flows in a simple harmonic motion which makes the story worth reading.


Ancient galaxies newly discovered in southern sky
A concentrated effort by Australian telescopes and the Hubble Space Telescope on a tiny, dark patch of the southern sky has led to the discovery of thousands of previously unknown galaxies.
Preliminary resuts will be released today from the ten-day period of observation in October, when the Hubble and ground-based telescopes were focused simultaneously on a patch of sky called the Hubble Deep Field South.
The tiny piece of sky was carefully chosen for astronomers to learn more about distant galaxies. Like the Hubble Deep Field, another small patch in the northern sky which was observed in late 1995, it contains no bright stars to drown out the light from objects much further away. Unlike its northern counterpart, however, the Hubble Deep Field South was picked because it had a quasar -- the bright centre thought to be the central 'engine' of a distant galaxy.
Astronomers at the Anglo-Australian Observatory sifted through their photographic records of the whole southern sky until they found a likely quasar, 10 billion light-years away. "The quasar acts like a lighthouse in the distance," said the Observatory's Dr Chris Tinney. "It helps you see anything in its path."
While the high-resolution Hubble detected and photographed the galaxies in the path of the quasar's beam, the Anglo-Australian Observatory could analyse their spectra for more information about their shape and size.
From the results, astronomers hope to learn about the life cycles galaxies go through, from creation to old age.
"What you're seeing are the embryonic stages of very old galaxies," said Dr Tinney. "When you're looking at distant galaxies you're looking back in time -- right back to the first ten percent of the age of the Universe."


Discover the words hidden in the grid, written through one another in eight horizontal, vertical and diagonal directions. Select words by clicking on the first and last letters, in any order. If the selected letters match an item in the list, the letters are highlighted and the item is crossed out. Spaces, capitalization and diàçritîcš are ignored. Once the list is cleared you win. The letters remaining at the end, if any, may or may not spell a little Aesopean or other proverbial gem of wisdom. Recognizing those words in the gaps left between the stroked terms can help spot that last few stubborn hidden letters.
The grid can be resized, flipped and rotated in all directions. This may help to make some furtive words more readable. Also the spacing, boldness and capital case can be switched to make the letters stand out from their context. Optionally a handy hover-cross is shown, highlighting those letters that are in line with the letter that is currently under the mouse pointer. Especially the longer and diagonal words may benefit from this.
Click a word in the list for some hints about its whereabouts in the grid. Doubleclicking an item in the list will reveal its location in the soup of letters. This is known as cheating.
The available word search grids cover subjects ranging from animals and timbers via countries and capitals to Shakespeare and mythology.
All that is needed for your own word search game is a list of words, or short word groups as spaces and other non-alphabetic features are ignored. A mixture of a few longer items and some terms of 3 to 6 characters usually gives good results. Avoid words that overlap each other, with one being contained in the other, like ‘raw’ in ‘straw’ or ‘if’ in ‘life’, as they are bound to appear double in the playing field. The same applies to reverse contained words, like ‘art’ in ‘straw’ or ‘raw’ and ‘war’. Use the update function to automatically scan for overlaps, the numbers should update every time you click outside the word list.


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their math concepts. It also offers math games and puzzles.
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can select specific animals to review general facts. Printable
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Study Questions Antibiotics' Safety in Preterm Labor
There's important new information out today for pregnant women and their doctors: Giving antibiotics to some pregnant women who have gone into labor too early could be dangerous for the long-term development of their children, according to a major new study.
Now, it's important to make it clear right away that if a pregnant woman definitely has an infection she should take an antibiotic--an infection can be very dangerous to the mom and baby. But the new study says doctors should be very careful about giving a pregnant woman antibiotics if there is no clear evidence that she has an infection and her water hasn't broken.
This comes from a big international study involving more than 11,000 women known as the ORACLE study. British researchers started it to find out if antibiotics might help women who go into labor too soon. Infections can trigger premature labor without causing any other symptoms. So the idea was that antibiotics could help.
In 2001, the researchers reported that giving erythromycin to pregnant women whose water had broken prematurely reduced the risk their babies would develop infections, breathing problems and other short-term complications. But erythromycin didn't seem to help women in premature labor whose water had not broken.
The researchers then followed more than 6,000 of the children in the study who were born in England to see how they fared. In a pair of papers released yesterday by the journal The Lancet, the researchers reported that those whose mothers took erythromycin before their water broke were 18 percent more likely to have mild developmental problems. And, perhaps most disturbing, they were about three times as likely to have cerebral palsy.
The researchers do not know why antibiotics would cause those problems, but they speculate that perhaps keeping a fetus in the womb of a mother who has an infection may not be good for the child.
Now, it's important to note that current guidelines only recommend antibiotics for pregnant women whose water has broken or have clear signs of an infection, and the study shows that is the right thing to do.
But experts say it's important to get the word out in case some doctors are giving pregnant women who go into premature labor antibiotics even though their water has not broken and they have no obvious signs of infection.
The research also is a good reminder that just because something seems like a good idea you never know for sure until you do the research to find out. You could end up doing more harm than good.
September 18, 2008; 7:00 AM ET
Categories: Cancer , Motherhood
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Multiple sclerosis is a progressive disease for which no cure has yet been found. Researchers are working to identify new and better strategies to stop that progression.
People with primary-progressive MS (read more about courses of MS) experience a slow but nearly continuous worsening of their disease from the onset, with no distinct relapses or remissions. A more common type of progressive MS is secondary-progressive MS, which starts as relapsing-remitting MS and then transitions into a progressive course, with or without occasional relapses.
Some of the burning questions that are being addressed through research include:
- What factors influence the transition from a largely relapsing-remitting course with distinct immune attacks to a largely progressive (steadily worsening) course (secondary-progressive MS)?
- Can the disease-modifying therapies prevent, delay, or slow long-term MS progression?
- What causes primary-progressive MS, and is it the same (currently unknown) thing that causes more common forms of MS?
- What new therapies will help people with progressive MS?
- What causes degeneration of nerve fibers—thought to be the cause of long-term disability experienced by many with MS—and how can that be stopped or reversed?
Although many of the National MS Society’s research studies explore virtually every aspect of MS and more basic aspects of how the nervous system and immune system works, some studies focus specifically on progressive forms of MS. As part of its Strategic Response for 2011-2015, the National MS Society is increasing its focus on understanding mechanisms that drive MS progression and finding new therapies to treat it. Current projects involving people with progressive MS include:
- Four different teams at Harvard and State University of New York, Buffalo using different methods and approaches to identify possible risk factors that drive progression, some of which may be preventable. Ideally, they will find ways to more quickly identify progressive disease based on biological markers, rather than waiting for symptoms to worsen.
- A genetics study at Vanderbilt University looking at how variants in a person’s DNA may lead to progressive MS.
- An imaging study of people with primary-progressive MS at Massachusetts General Hospital aimed at revealing spinal cord damage that is difficult to detect.
- New York University researchers developing and applying a new way to assess cumulative disability over many functions to provide a tool to improve care and research.
- MS Tissue Banks that provide shared resources to empower investigations into disease mechanisms.
- Clinical trials at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, of novel rehabilitation strategies aimed at restoring mobility in people with progressive and advanced MS. A Cleveland Clinic study evaluating a new "hip flexion assist device" designed to improve walking ability.
- A Fast Forward alliance to accelerate the clinical application of adult stem cells for MS including progressive MS.
- Drexel University researchers examining driving ability at various stages of MS progression to improve safety and independence.
- A clinical trial at the University of California, Los Angeles testing the ability of aerobic exercise to improve cognitive function.
- A study at Buffalo General Hospital investigating changes in the brain (atrophy) that may lead to personality and behavior disorders in MS and the impact of those disorders on disease course and quality of life.
- Oregon Health & Science University pilot study evaluating the sensitivity of an electronic instrument to detect and measure gait and mobility changes in people with MS.
- In collaboration with the MS Society of Canada, the Society has funded seven research projects focusing on whether CCSVI (vein blockages) plays a role in the MS disease process.
- Shared DNA bank at the University of California, San Francisco, propelling studies aimed at identifying genes that make people susceptible to developing MS, and genes that may influence course and severity.


Oct 08 2008
The Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded this week to two French virologists, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc A. Montagnier, for discovering the AIDS causing virus, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). They will share half the prize of 1.4 million dollars, the other half going to three Dr. Harald zur Hausen for discovering the human papilloma virus and its relation to cervical cancer.
The prize comes 25 years after Barré-Sinoussi and Montagnier, working at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, published their paper identifying what was later called HIV. The last quarter of a century has proven their discovery to be a triumph of science-based medicine. The Nobel committee is correct, in my opinion, in waiting such long periods of time before granting such recognition. It reflects that fact that, even in a fast-paced arena of science such as medicine, it takes time for the meticulous process of science to work itself out. It takes decades to garner the perspective necessary to tell the difference between a crucial breakthrough and a false lead.