WASHINGTON (AP) ? Unemployment rates fell in 22 U.S. states in February from January, a sign that hiring gains are benefiting many parts of the country.
The Labor Department said Friday that unemployment rates rose in 12 states and were unchanged in 16.
Nationally, the unemployment rate slid to a four-year low of 7.7 percent in February, down from 7.9 percent in January. Since November, employers across the country have added an average of 200,000 jobs a month, nearly double the average from last spring.
States hit hardest during the recession are showing improvement.
In Nevada, unemployment dropped to 9.6 percent last month, down from 11.8 percent a year ago. That's the biggest year-over-year decrease among states.
One reason for the big drop is that people have stopped applying for jobs. Nevada's work force ? those working or looking for work ? fell nearly 1 percent in the year through February. Only those looking for work are counted as unemployed. But hiring accelerated, too: Jobs in Nevada rose 2 percent over the past year.
Unemployment in California fell to 9.6 percent last month, down from 10.8 percent in February 2012.
California and Nevada are still tied with Mississippi for the nation's highest unemployment rate.
Florida's job market has also rebounded in the past year. The Sunshine State's unemployment rate fell to 7.7 percent in February, down from 9 percent a year earlier.
North Dakota once again held the nation's lowest unemployment rate, at 3.3 percent. The state is benefiting from a boom in oil and natural gas production. Nebraska had the second-lowest rate, at 3.8 percent.
Overall, 42 states added jobs in February from January, and just eight lost jobs. The biggest monthly job gains came in Texas (up nearly 81,000) and California (up more than 41,000).
In the 12 months up to February, Texas gained nearly 294,000 jobs, and California 128,000. On a percentage basis, North Dakota reported the fastest job growth over the past year, rising 5 percent.
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- It's the land where Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier, where the space shuttle fleet rolled off the assembly line and where the first private manned rocketship climbed to space.
Capitalizing on Southern California's aerospace fortunes, two rival groups want to add another laurel: drone test range.
They face crowded competition. In search of an economic boost, more than half the country is looking toward the sky ? expected to be buzzing in the near future with pilotless aircraft.
Before that can become reality, the Federal Aviation Administration last month put out a call to test fly drones at half a dozen to-be-determined sites before they can share the same space as commercial jetliners, small aircraft and helicopters.
Fifty teams from 37 states answered, vying to win bragging rights as a hub for unmanned aerial vehicles.
The military has long flown drones overseas to support troops, spy on enemies and fire missiles. There's a recent clamor to fly them domestically to track the health of crops, fight wildfires in remote terrain, conduct search and rescue after a disaster and perform other chores considered too "dirty, dull or dangerous" for pilots. The expanding use for drones comes amid concerns of a "Big Brother" society.
The untapped civilian market ? estimated to be worth billions ? has created a face-off, with states perfecting their pitch ? ample restricted airspace, industry connections, academic partners ? not unlike what you might read in a tourism brochure.
"It's the chance to get in on the ground floor of what may be the next big business," said Peter Singer, a robotics expert at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington. "The states competing hope it might make them the robotics equivalent of Detroit for automobiles in the 20th century or Silicon Valley for computers."
Winners will play key roles in helping the government seamlessly transition drones, which are controlled remotely by joystick, into the civilian airspace without crashing into other planes or injuring bystanders.
Supporters of a Southern California test site point to an existing drone presence. General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., based in the San Diego suburbs, makes the Predator that has circled over Iraq and Afghanistan. Just outside of downtown Los Angeles, AeroVironment introduced the world's first hummingbird spy plane and is developing other tiny drones inspired by biology.
"From start to finish, you can do your UAV work here," said John Rose of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, which co-sponsored a three-day drone conference this week in the Los Angeles area focused on civilian uses.
There are two competing California bids from airport agencies in Ventura County northwest of Los Angeles and Kern County in the Mojave Desert.
"If we are successful, it would be an economic stimulus for the region moving forward," said Bill Buratto of the Ventura County Economic Development Association, which is working with county airport officials on a plan to have drones fly from Point Mugu, the site of numerous Navy training exercises.
Their in-state competitor envisions test flights out of the high desert skies about 150 miles north of Los Angeles and touts its remoteness and access to military and civilian facilities currently doing drone research.
"You kind of want to be in the middle of nowhere. You don't want to risk being close to a populated area," said Eileen Shibley, who leads the effort for the Indian Wells Valley Airport District.
Other states have taken a different tact, putting on a united front or partnering with a neighboring state to pool resources.
Ohio ? the home state of Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong, Mercury astronaut John Glenn and the Wright brothers ? teamed with Indiana to increase both states' odds. Like California, there is budding drone activity in Ohio, most notably the Air Force's sensor research at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
Joseph Zeis of the Dayton Development Coalition doesn't see this as a competition.
"When the test site selection is over, we're all collaborating on a single goal" to safely merge drones into the national airspace, said Zeis, who's spearheading the Ohio-Indiana venture.
The FAA is expected to choose the six drone test sites by year's end.
The specter of thousands of unmanned eyes swarming the sky in the coming years has unnerved privacy advocates, who fear ordinary Americans would be overzealously monitored by law enforcement, considered one of the top users of the technology in the future. As part of the selection process, test site hopefuls must publish a privacy policy and follow existing privacy laws.
The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International does not have a favorite. But the voice for the domestic drone industry acknowledged that states hosting test sites would benefit economically.
In a report published earlier this month, the group said states with an already solid aerospace industry are predicted to gain drone business. But other factors, including location of test sites, will also drive job creation.
That's why California needs to act fast, said state assemblyman Jeff Gorell, who has been pushing for a test site in his district.
"This is a great opportunity for California," he said. "We might be able to recapture some of the golden era of aerospace."
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LONDON (AP) ? A record-breaking cyberattack targeting an anti-spam watchdog group has sent ripples of disruption coursing across the Web, experts said Wednesday.
Spamhaus, a site responsible for keeping ads for counterfeit Viagra and bogus weight-loss pills out of the world's inboxes, said it had been buffeted by the monster denial-of-service attack since mid-March, apparently from groups angry at being blacklisted by the Swiss-British group.
"It is a small miracle that we're still online," Spamhaus researcher Vincent Hanna said.
Denial-of-service attacks overwhelm a server with traffic ? like hundreds of letters being jammed through a mail slot at the same time. Security experts measure those attacks in bits of data per second. Recent cyberattacks ? like the ones that caused persistent outages at U.S. banking sites late last year ? have tended to peak at 100 billion bits per second.
But the furious assault on Spamhaus has shattered the charts, clocking in at 300 billion bits per second, according to San Francisco-based CloudFlare Inc., which Spamhaus has enlisted to help it weather the attack.
"It was likely quite a bit more, but at some point measurement systems can't keep up," CloudFlare chief executive Matthew Prince wrote in an email.
Patrick Gilmore of Akamai Technologies said that was no understatement.
"This attack is the largest that has been publicly disclosed ? ever ? in the history of the Internet," he said.
It's unclear who exactly was behind the attack, although a man who identified himself as Sven Olaf Kamphuis said he was in touch with the attackers and described them as mainly consisting of disgruntled Russian Internet service providers who had found themselves on Spamhaus' blacklists. There was no immediate way to verify his claim.
He accused the watchdog of arbitrarily blocking content that it did not like. Spamhaus has widely used and constantly updated blacklists of sites that send spam.
"They abuse their position not to stop spam but to exercise censorship without a court order," Kamphuis said.
Gilmore and Prince said the attack's perpetrators had taken advantage of weaknesses in the Internet's infrastructure to trick thousands of servers into routing a torrent of junk traffic to Spamhaus every second.
The trick, called "DNS reflection," works a little bit like mailing requests for information to thousands of different organizations with a target's return address written across the back of the envelopes. When all the organizations reply at once, they send a landslide of useless data to the unwitting addressee.
Both experts said the attack's sheer size has sent ripples of disruptions across the Internet as servers moved mountains of junk traffic back and forth across the Web.
"At a minimum there would have been slowness," Prince said, adding in a blog post that "if the Internet felt a bit more sluggish for you over the last few days in Europe, this may be part of the reason why."
At the London Internet Exchange, where service providers exchange traffic across the globe, spokesman Malcolm Hutty said his organization had seen "a minor degree of congestion in a small portion of the network."
But he said it was unlikely that any ordinary users had been affected by the attack.
Hanna said his site had so far managed to stay online, but warned that being knocked off the Internet could give spammers an opening to step up their mailings ? which may mean more fake lottery announcements and pitches for penny stocks heading to people's inboxes.
Hanna denied claims that his organization had behaved arbitrarily, noting that his group would lose its credibility if it started flagging benign content as spam.
"We have 1.7 billion people who watch over our shoulder," he said. "If we start blocking emails that they want, they will obviously stop using us."
Gilmore of Akamai was also dismissive of the claim that Spamhaus was biased.
PHOENIX (AP) ? Hundreds of pages of police reports in the investigation of the Tucson shooting rampage that wounded former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords are being released Wednesday, marking the public's first glimpse into documents that authorities have kept private since the attack more than two years ago.
The Pima County sheriff's department will release an estimated 2,700 pages of records from the January 2011 shooting at a meet-and-greet event outside a grocery store that killed six people and wounded Giffords and 11 others. The documents include transcribed interviews with witnesses, various police reports and other records, and could provide new insight into how the shooting occurred.
News organizations seeking the records were repeatedly denied the documents in the months after the shooting and the arrest of 24-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, who was sentenced in November to seven consecutive life sentences, plus 140 years, after he pleaded guilty to 19 federal charges.
U.S. District Judge Larry Burns had prevented the sheriff's department from releasing the records in response to a request from The Washington Post, ruling in March 2011 that Loughner's right to a fair trial outweighed whatever disclosures might be authorized under state law.
Last month, Burns cleared the way for the release of the records after Star Publishing Company, which publishes the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson, had sought their release. The judge said Loughner's fair-trial rights are no longer on the line now that his criminal case has resolved.
Loughner's guilty plea enabled him to avoid the death sentence. He is serving his sentence at a federal prison medical facility in Springfield, Mo., where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and forcibly given psychotropic drug treatments.
Arizona's chief federal judge and a 9-year-old girl were among those killed in the rampage. Giffords was left partially blind, with a paralyzed right arm and brain injury. She resigned from Congress last year and has since started, along with her husband, a gun control advocacy group.
The Star said it wanted the records because they contain information about how a mass shooting occurs, including how long it took Loughner to fire gunshots ? an issue raised by some advocates in the debate over high-capacity pistol magazines.
The Tucson newspaper argued that the records are critical in the national debate over whether such shootings could be prevented by armed resistance, whether a mass shooting occurs too quickly to be stopped and whether people with mental illnesses should be prohibited from getting guns.
Phoenix Newspapers Inc., which publishes The Arizona Republic, and KPNX-TV had joined Star Publishing in the latest effort to get the records released.
Pope Benedict's legacy may be a willingness to let liberal Catholics leave in favor of a more orthodox church in the US and Europe.
By Robert Marquand,?Staff writer / February 11, 2013
Pope Benedict XVI delivers his message during a meeting of Vatican cardinals, at the Vatican, Monday. Pope Benedict announced Monday that he would resign at the end of the month - the first pontiff to do so in nearly 600 years.
Courtesy of L'Osservatore Romano/AP
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Pope Benedict resigns later this month after arguably being the single most influential figure inside the Roman Catholic Church for three decades, dating to the early 1980s.
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A shy but brilliant scholar whose consistent vision has been to reinstitute the grand authority held by the Vatican in the Middle Ages, Benedict has, often single-handedly, redirected his church away from the liberal experiments and sometimes amateurish enthusiasms of the Vatican II period of the 1960s, which conservatives saw as a dangerous diversion. He has also, over years, instituted doctrines, individuals, and orders consistent with his theological view of the Catholic Church as the true and only authentic one.
While not as widely beloved as his predecessor John Paul II, the popular Polish pope who helped crack the Soviet hold on eastern Europe and attracted global crowds, Benedict arguably has had more influence inside the church ??even as he often irritated Protestants who he said were not "authentic" Christians, angered Muslims by put-downs of Islamic figures, or unsettled Jewish-Catholic relations by rehabilitating a fringe religious society with a bishop who denied the severity of the Nazi holocaust.
Benedict's chief occupation as pope has been, observers say, to purify his church.?
To do so, Benedict crushed the liberation theology movements of the?third world, put a slammer hold on efforts to ordain women and question celibacy, put earlier ecumenical impulses on the back burner, and, instead, has greatly empowered more hardcore orders like Opus Dei, Legions of Christ, and other orthodox wings, largely on the idea that the church must first cherish its most ardent believers.
Yet, while Benedict has won many battles inside the church, he is also widely seen as having lost many larger wars that he either instituted or took part in.
Benedict?s effort to reinstitute Christianity in its European context has largely failed to generate enthusiasm on a continent increasingly secular. While in pursuit of liberal priests and nuns who he implied were polluting the church with wrong doctrines, Benedict has appeared to many Europeans to be too inattentive to priests who sexually abused minors, of whom there are an estimated 8,000. The revelations of sexually abusive priests in Germany, Ireland, Belgium, and Austria two years ago brought a change to the story line that such problems were restricted to the United States.?
For fully believing Catholics, the Roman church is a divine, not a human institution; its leader, the pope, is the ?vicar of Christ,? the direct spiritual descendant of Jesus Christ and his disciple Peter. The kingdom of heaven on earth that Jesus asked his followers to pray for, must, in orthodox Catholic doctrine, come through the Catholic Church and the pope, also known as the Holy Father.
For many modern-thinking or non-literal Catholics, particularly after the long-running church self-examination known as Vatican II, those orthodox doctrines of the identity of the church and the pope were put in question and thrown open for new interpretation.
Vatican II lead, though often quite indirectly, to a massive re-evaluation of things like the operation of the spirit in the church, the possibility of women being ordained as priests, a faint questioning of the doctrine, only adopted in pre-medieval Europe, of celibacy, and of more "democracy"?or power by the laity or non-clergy members in matters of church governance.
For a rising college theology professor named Joseph Ratzinger, these new interpretations were viewed with increasing horror. They often lacked seriousness, were sloppy, and seemed chaotic and undignified.
As then-Cardinal Ratzinger, Benedict took office in 1982 as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the same office that earlier conducted or oversaw heresy trials. Yet while that office has a five-year term and most predecessors held it for 10 years at most, Ratzinger stayed 24 years, only leaving to become pope in 2005.
Now, as Catholics think through their future they will do so with a set of cardinals, bishops, priests, and church authorities that have largely been vetted through the orthodox filter set up by the Bavarian-born pontiff.
Indeed, a church hierarchy carefully pruned of liberal and ecumenical impulses may be one of Benedict?s enduring legacies, though it has brought the current pontiff into serious disagreements with powerful orders, like the Jesuits, that previously saw themselves as the main defenders of Rome.
Through new partnerships with top online and offline purchase data providers Datalogix, Epsilon, Acxiom, and BlueKai, Facebook is allowing advertisers to target hashed lists of existing and potential customers, and categories like role-playing gamers or soda drinkers. This expansion of Facebook's Custom Audiences program could rake in revenue and attract businesses by matching ads to real spenders
Rylstim Budget Lite is a free personal finance software which you can use in order to manage and keep track of your money. Every transaction that you make during each month can be easily planned and any unexpected expenditure recorded inside the monthly budget plan. That way you can both create monthly budgets and keep track of where exactly your money went during the month.
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Interface of this Rylstim Budget Lite can be seen on the image above. Calender with the help of which you?re gonna be creating monthly financial plans can be seen on the right. Accounts, monthly transaction charts and the account status can be seen in the left sidebar. Standard menu under which there?s a quick access toolbar can be seen in the top left corner of the screen. Key features of this free personal money management software are:
Free with a simple to use interface ? easy to understand work flow
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Shopping lists, calculator and search tool for finding transactions
Keeping personal finance in order isn?t an easy thing these days. There always seems to be some kind of unexpected expenses that are lurking behind the corner. Sometimes it?s our fault though, our inability to restrain ourself when we?re out with friends or when various different ?must have? items hit the shelves. Budgeting can somewhat help you manage your money, because you get to see how much you?ve spent, instead of just sliding your credit card and not knowing how much is left in the bank account. Here?s a few pointers to help you get started.
How to manage personal finance and keep track of expenses with Rylstim Budget Lite
Free version of this free personal money management software is limited to one bank account and one cash account, which is more than enough for personal use. First thing that you need to do is add the initial balance status.
Click on the New transaction button from the toolbar, the one with green plus and fill out the New transaction details. Set Type to Income and then category to Startup. Enter the amount, Origin account, where you received the money, and click OK.
Do this for every transactions, right click on calender dates, select New transaction. Write down every expense, for every day of the month and try to stick to the schedule. Write down every new expense that you had, and at the end of the month, select the View all transactions button to see on what you?ve spent you?re money, and where can you cut in order to get out of debt.
Conclusion
Rylstim Budget Lite is one of the best personal finance management utilities that we?ve tested. With the help of the built-in calender you can easily keep track of all the monthly transactions, have everything easily accessible and create helpful budget plans. Give it a try and see how it goes. Free download.
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School Year 2013-2014 in public elementary and high schools will start on June 3 and end on March 31, 2014, the Department of Education said over the ...
PAGASA Rain expected over parts of north Luzon Mindanao
GMA News - Saturday 23rd February, 2013
Rain is expected to fall over parts of Northern Luzon and Mindanao on Sunday as the northeast monsoon continues to affect Luzon, state weather forecasters ...
Heads will roll over escape of 3 Chinese drug suspects ? Palace
GMA News - Saturday 23rd February, 2013
Malaca?ang on Saturday vowed heads will roll after the "escape" of three Chinese facing drug charges in Cavite earlier this week, even as it admitted the incident was a ...
Aquino tells Norway CPP-NDF Time for peace talks to move forward
GMA News - Saturday 23rd February, 2013
President Benigno Aquino III has relayed to the Norwegian government, the mediator in peace talks with the National Democratic Front, that it is time to have peace efforts with communist rebels move ...
Palace New law seeks to make electoral voice of PWDs elderly heard loud and clear
GMA News - Saturday 23rd February, 2013
Deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said President Benigno Aquino III signed last week Republic Act 10366, which provides for accessible polling places for PWDs and the elderly. ...
Other Catholic dioceses not following Bacolod Team Patay voter education tack
GMA News - Saturday 23rd February, 2013
At least three Catholic dioceses have no current plans to follow the 'Team Patay-Team Buhay' tactic of the Diocese of Bacolod, according to officials of the Parish Pastoral Council for ...
Saludar Davao Del Norte rule Abap tilt
Inquirer Sports - Saturday 23rd February, 2013
MAASIN, Southern Leyte--Asian Games standout Victorio Saludar III moved on the threshold of regaining his Philippine team slot Friday night as he helped Davao del Norte rule the PLDT-Abap National ...
US federal court dismisses Filipino vets class action suit
Inquirer Global Nation - Saturday 23rd February, 2013
Edmundo voluntarily enlisted in 1945 in the Military Police of the 3rd Replacement Battalion, Philippine Army, under the United States Armed Forces in the Far East (USAFFE). In his claim for ...
Top Filipino banker says success secret is his wife
Inquirer Business - Saturday 23rd February, 2013
Renato de Guzman He runs a leading regional private banking institution with about $40 billion in assets out of Singapore and is deemed as one of Southeast Asia's most influential in his ...
CAAP passes ICAO audit?Abaya
Inquirer Global Nation - Saturday 23rd February, 2013
MANILA, Philippines--After more than five years, local airlines may soon be allowed once again to fly to Europe and expand operations in the United States after the government successfully passed a ...
The Dynamic of the Filipino Diaspora
Inquirer Global Nation - Saturday 23rd February, 2013
Organizers of the 2nd Global Summit of Filipinos in the Diaspora--set to convene February 25-27, 2013 at the Dusit Thani Hotel in Makati City--hope that the conference will "track the progress ...
New law for battered Pinoy husbands needed
GMA News - Saturday 23rd February, 2013
a Skype interview with Claire Delfin aired on GMA News TV?s "State of the Nation" last Thursday. "Halimbawa, na-late lang ako ng uwi. . .mumurahin ka, ipapahiya ka kahit nasa ...
Palace No need to send peacekeepers to Sabah
GMA News - Saturday 23rd February, 2013
There is no need to send peacekeepers to Sabah as all parties involved are "committed" to ensure a peaceful end to the standoff there, Malaca?ang said on ...
Malaysian exec Foreign ministry may decide on PHL request for deadline extension
GMA News - Saturday 23rd February, 2013
The Malaysian Foreign Ministry may decide on whether to accommodate the Philippines' request to extend until Tuesday the deadline Malaysia gave to a group of armed Filipinos to withdraw ...
Palace reminds LGUs about specific times for suspending classes during bad weather
GMA News - Saturday 23rd February, 2013
Malaca?ang on Saturday reminded local government units on the guidelines for issuing announcements for the suspension of classes during inclement ...
Palace contests reports CAAP flunked intl audit
GMA News - Saturday 23rd February, 2013
Malaca?ang on Saturday contested reports that Philippine aviation authorities flunked a new audit of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) conducted from Feb. 18 to ...
Reference beacons placed near crippled USS Guardian in Tubbataha Reef
GMA News - Saturday 23rd February, 2013
Salvage operations for the stranded US minesweeper USS Guardian in Tubbataha Reef have resumed once more as fair weather conditions finally enabled the crane ship tasked to help in the process ...
Malaysia adopts wait-and-see approach on Sabah standoff
GMA News - Friday 22nd February, 2013
Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said their government is aiming for a peaceful solution, adding that it was important to resolve the issue without bloodshed. Claiming to be ...
Philippines seeks 4 more days for Sulu armys deadline
Asia News Network - Friday 22nd February, 2013
The Philippines yesterday asked Malaysia to give the followers of the sultan of Sulu four more days to leave Sabah peacefully as the Filipino heirs to the resource-rich state began to review their ...
Aquino to sign Martial Law Compensation Act on EDSA anniversary
GMA News - Friday 22nd February, 2013
President Benigno Aquino III will sign into law a landmark legislation giving compensation to victims of human rights violations under Martial ...
Philippines asks Malaysia to extend standoff deadline
Asia News Network - Friday 22nd February, 2013
The Philippine government yesterday asked for an extension of the deadline for the Sulu armed group to leave Kampung Tanduo. Philippines Foreign Minister Albert del Rasario said that he had ...
DOLE 152 bus firms in 11 regions comply with labor standards
GMA News - Friday 22nd February, 2013
At least 152 bus firms in 11 regions are now complying with the two-tiered labor standard for bus drivers and conductors, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) ...
LONDON (Reuters) - Iran's Revolutionary Guards have brought down a foreign surveillance drone during a military exercise, the official Islamic Republic News Agency said on Saturday.
"We have managed to bring down a drone of the enemy. This has happened before in our country," the agency quoted war games spokesman General Hamid Sarkheli as saying in Kerman, southeast Iran, where the military exercise is taking place.
The agency gave no details on who the drone belonged to.
In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman said he had seen the reports. He noted that the Iranians did not specifically claim that the drone was American.
In the past, there have been incidents of Iran claiming to have seized U.S. drones.
In early January Iranian media said Iran had captured two miniature U.S.-made surveillance drones over the past 17 months.
Several drone incidents over the past year or so have highlighted tension in the Gulf as Iran and the United States flex their military capabilities in a standoff over Iran's disputed nuclear program.
Iran said in January that lightweight RQ11 Raven drones were brought down by Iranian air defense units in separate incidents in August 2011 and November 2012.
(Writing by Stephen Powell; Editing by Jon Hemming)
Most of us have been in a relationship that we know is not very healthy and celebrity couples aren’t immune to bad romances either. Let’s take a look at some Hollywood couples that have had their toxic relationships played out for the world to see. We’ll start with a current toxic couple, Rihanna and Chris ...
THE LONG AWAITED LP FROM PRINXMIKUL. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A BROOKLYN LYRICIST MEETS TWO OF SOUTH AFRICA'S HOTTEST PRODUCERS. PRODUCERS:ENVY "THE LOOPDIGGER" & VEZ "THESCENESTAR" ARTIST: PRINXMIKUL, PURPLE HAZE, DAT KAFA BASH, JADE RENEE, PARIS, AND NAIBY
NASA's Curiosity rover has successfully drilled into bedrock and scooped the sample ? a first for Mars exploration. It was the rover's last systems test, meaning the training wheels are off.
By Pete Spotts / February 20, 2013
NASA's Curiosity rover collects a sample after drilling into a Martian rock.
NASA/AP
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In drilling a small hole into bedrock on the floor of Gale Crater and tucking the sample into a scoop, NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has made space-exploration history and passed a significant mission milestone.
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It's the first time any rover has done more than scratch the surface of rocks on the red planet. And it's the first time a robotic craft has drilled on any planet other than Earth since the then-Soviet Union put two landers on the surface of Venus in 1981, each of which drilled into soils and returned data during their brief operation on the planet's harsh surface.
The test represented the final step in the rover's commissioning period, which began shortly after landing last August. As Curiosity slowly exercised its robotic arm and each of the other nine science packages it carries, researchers grew increasingly excited by the results ? not just as confirmation that the experiments and tools were working, but that the evidence these tests gathered pointed to a landing zone where water once flowed.
The drilling "is a real big turning point for us," says John Grotzinger, a planetary geologist at the California Institute of Technology and the mission's lead scientist.
Like a teenager eager to slip behind the wheel of her first car, the scientists received the figurative keys to the rover last week from controllers overseeing these initial months of systems tests. Unless problems arise, destinations will now be picked more for their scientific interest than their value as a spot to test hardware.
"We're excited because from here on out what we're going to do is a repeat of something we've done before," Dr. Grotzinger says. "With that comes more confidence, a chance for fewer surprises, and increased efficiency."
Yet even the tests were a bit like movie trailers, giving researchers hints of discoveries to come ? yielding evidence for an ancient stream bed and rock types paving parts of the crater floor that appear to have formed in the presence of water.
Geological models of the surface, based on data from Mars orbiters, pointed to Gale Crater's floor as a once-watery site.
"But we had no idea that we were going to find the rest of this stuff," he says, referring to the types of rocks and their flagstone-path-type layout at Curiosity's current location ? a zone on the crater floor the team has dubbed Yellowknife.
If Curiosity had "gone long" and landed on the flank of Mt. Sharp instead of its planned landing site, "and we would have found stuff like this, we could have considered it to be very much the stuff we chose the landing site to go find," Grotzinger says.
Mt. Sharp is a towering summit inside Gale Crater. Its strikingly layered slopes hold the promise of revealing much about the early history of Mars's climate and the geological forces that built the mountain. Near the base, Curiosity will be hunting for signs that the crater might have been a suitable place for life to emerge shortly after Mars formed and its climate ? it is believed ? was warmer and much wetter.
ANAHEIM, Calif. -- When Ronda Rousey was named the UFC women's bantamweight champion, critics said she didn't deserve the belt and that she should have to fight for it. It turns out she agrees with her critics.
"I don't deserve it. I won't even touch it until I win," Rousey said of the gold and leather belt in sitting in front of her on the table.
After the press conference, Rousey faced off with Liz Carmouche, her opponent at UFC 157 on Saturday. Traditionally, the champion holds the belt during these pictures, but Rousey held true to her word. Finally, UFC president Dana White draped the belt over her shoulder, much to Rousey's dismay.
Rousey's unwillingness to touch the belt isn't alone in sports. In the NHL, teams who win the Eastern and Western conferences usually won't touch the Prince of Wales Trophy or Clarence S. Campbell Bowl, respectively. With the ultimate goal of lifting the Stanley Cup, many players view picking up these trophies as bad luck. The Philadelphia Flyers touched the Wales trophy before ultimately losing to the Chicago Blackhawks in the Stanley Cup finals, proving that Rousey may be on to something.
MIAMI (Reuters) - A Florida man posted photos on Facebook showing himself hugging a baby manatee and was arrested on charges of harassing the endangered sea cow, wildlife officials said on Wednesday.
A tipster saw the photos and alerted the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which arrested Ryan William Waterman on a misdemeanor charge punishable by up to six months in jail and a $500 fine.
Waterman, 21, was released from the St. Lucie County Jail on Monday on $2,500 bond, jail records showed. He told television station WPEC that he meant no harm and did not know it was illegal to touch a manatee.
The Florida Manatee Sanctuary Act prohibits molesting, harassing or disturbing manatees, which are classified as endangered in Florida and are also protected by federal laws.
The photos were taken at Taylor Creek, near Fort Pierce in southeast Florida in January. One showed Waterman lifting the baby manatee part way out of the water and hugging it. Others showed his two young daughters petting the manatee, and one of them sitting on the animal.
Wildlife agents said that could have caused severe stress to the manatee calf, which was likely still dependent on its mother. The large, slow-moving animals gather in warm coastal waters and rivers during the winter.
"The calf also appeared to be experiencing manatee cold-stress syndrome, a condition that can lead to death in extreme cases," said Dr. Thomas Reinert, a manatee biologist with the wildlife commission. "Taking the calf out of the water may have worsened its situation."
A Florida woman was arrested on a similar charge in the St. Petersburg area in November, after she was photographed riding an endangered manatee.
Satellites are powerful tools. They beam our TV signals, phone calls and data around the planet. They help us spy, they track storms, they power the GPS signals in our cars and on our phones. But they also send back striking, totally disarming images of planet Earth.
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Richat Structure, Mauritania, 2001
The 31-mile-wide bull's-eye in the western Sahara is a landmark for astronauts. The structure formed when a volcanic dome hardened and gradually eroded, exposing the onion-like layers of rock. Desert sands appear white and pale yellow at the corners; less sandy, rocky areas are green; and volcanic rocks are blue.
NASA
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Bombetoka Bay, Madagascar, 2000
Islands and sandbars have formed where the Betsiboka River flows into the Mozambique Channel. The past few decades have seen a dramatic increase in the amount of sediment moved by the river and deposited in the estuary. Dense vegetation is deep green, and water is sapphire, tinged with pink where sediment is particularly thick.
NASA
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Great Salt Desert, Iran, 2003
A mix of salt marshes, mud flats, wadis, steppes and desert plateaus color the landscape of Iran'?s Great Salt Desert, Dasht-e Kavir. The region covers an area of more than 29,000 square miles. Dramatic daily temperature swings and violent storms are the norm, and extreme heat leaves the marshes and mud grounds with crusts of salt.
NASA
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Carnegie Lake, Australia, 1999
Carnegie Lake in Western Australia fills with water only during periods of significant rainfall. In dry years, it is reduced to a muddy marsh. Flooded areas appear dark blue or black, vegetation appears in shades of dark and light green, and sands, soils and minerals appear in a variety of colors.
NASA
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Ice Waves, Greenland, 2001
The undulating swirls shown here along the eastern coast of Greenland are slurries of sea ice, newly calved icebergs, and older weathered bergs. During the summer melting season, the southward-flowing East Greenland Current twirls these mixtures into stunning shapes. The exposed rock of mountain peaks are tinted red.
NASA
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Lena River Delta, Russia, 2000
The Delta extends 62 miles into the Laptev Sea and Arctic Ocean, and includes a protected wilderness area and wildlife refuge. The delta is frozen tundra for about seven months of the year, and spring transforms it into a lush wetland. Vegetation appears as shades of green, sandy areas as shades of red, and water as purples and blues.
NASA
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Nazca Lines, Peru, 2000
The ancient geoglyphs, located in southern Peru, are estimated to be created by the Nazca culture between 400 and 650 A.D. The Nazca Lines were made by removing reddish iron-oxide pebbles that cover the surface of the desert. When the gravel is removed, the lines contrast with the light color underneath.
NASA
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Meandering Mississippi, U.S., 2003
Graceful swirls and whorls of the Mississippi River encircle fields and pastures on the border between Arkansas and Mississippi. The Mississippi is the largest river system in North America and forms the second largest watershed in the world.
NASA
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Garden City, Kan., U.S., 2000
Garden City, Kan., has a semi-arid steppe climate with hot, dry summers and cold, dry winters. Center-pivot irrigation systems created the circular patterns. The red circles indicate irrigated crops of healthy vegetation, and the light-colored circles denote harvested crops.
NASA
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Mayn River, Russia, 2000
The Mayn River is a tributary of the larger Anadyr River, which flows through the far northeastern corner of Siberia. While these rivers are frozen for about eight to nine months in a year, they are home to chum and sockeye salmon during the summer months.
NASA
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Von K?rm?n Vortices, Southern Pacific Ocean, 1999
Swirling clouds line up in a formation known as a von K?rm?n street. They appear when wind-driven clouds encounter an obstacle, in this instance Alexander Selkirk Island in the southern Pacific Ocean.
NASA
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Terkezi Oasis, Chad, 2000
A series of rocky outcroppings emerge from the sand in the Sahara Desert near the Terkezi Oasis. Stretching across the immense desert are vast plains of sand and gravel; seas of sand dunes; and barren, rocky mountains. Only 10,000 years ago, grasses covered the region, and mammals such as lions and elephants roamed the land.
NASA
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Kalahari Desert, Southern Africa, 2000
The large stretch of semiarid, sandy savanna covers part of Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. The desert has vast areas covered by red sand without any permanent surface water. The red dot near the Nossob River in the center of this image represents a farm made possible by a center-pivot irrigation system.
NASA
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Himalayas, Central Asia, 2001
The soaring, snow-capped peaks and ridges of the eastern Himalaya Mountains create an irregular patchwork between major rivers in Tibet and southwestern China. Covered by snow and glaciers, the mountains here rise to altitudes of more than 16,000 feet. Vegetation at lower elevations is colored red.
NASA
This set of images is all about showing off the "beauty of the Earth," says Lawrence Friedl, the director of NASA's Applied Sciences Program and the editor of a project called Earth as Art. "We want people to look at these images and say, 'How did nature do that?' "
The project, which NASA has released in iPad and book form, spans the world, from cold peaks to desolate deserts to ocean islands. But these aren't your typical snapshots.
Look again. Deep reds outline Greenland's ice. Golds, oranges, greens and purples color a desert. Electric blues swirl against blacks.
Are these images real?
Friedl says NASA maintains a fleet of Earth-observing probes trained on our planet that constantly monitor the "Earth system" ? the oceans, the atmosphere, the land, the plants. These satellites ? 16 in all ? ship back loads of data and images.
Some of the instruments aboard the satellites collect data in different ranges of wavelengths of light. These "spectral bands" break up all the visible and invisible light into chunks: the reds, the blues, the greens and even infrared, a wavelength of light that humans can't see.
When researchers piece the image data back together, they can be selective about which "bands" of light are displayed in the final image. "The selection depends on the intent of the analysis," Friedl wrote in an email. "An analysis of vegetation would probably select the red, green and infrared bands ? vegetation is 'bright' in those bands and the analyst could differentiate between the types or health of vegetation."
Friedl says analysts generally don't go out of their way to make images look surreal, but this kind of spectral analysis can be used to great effect. "There are whole books written on what band combinations to use to bring out certain features," he told me. Like rocks: When studying the retreat of the glaciers of the Himalayas, Friedl says, you can train software to recognize the light signature of exposed rock. And instead of directly measuring the glaciers themselves, you can see where new rock is getting exposed year over year.
Friedl says the 75 images in the Earth as Art collection don't have an explicit scientific purpose: "These are for visual entertainment purposes," he says. "Part of it is to try to get images of the Earth in front of people who aren't scientists and researchers."
But beyond this collection, images like these can be really valuable to scientists, Friedl says. "We now have 40-plus years of data, and we can look at trends on the decadal scale, put that into a model and start doing predictions."
And what's hanging on his wall? A blown-up version of this phytoplankton bloom in the Baltic Sea.
Phytoplankton Bloom, Baltic Sea, 2005 Massive congregations of greenish phytoplankton swirl in the dark water around Gotland, a Swedish island in the Baltic Sea. Phytoplankton are microscopic marine plants that form the first link in nearly all ocean food chains. Blooms of phytoplankton, occur when deep currents bring nutrients up to sunlit surface waters.
NASA
Phytoplankton Bloom, Baltic Sea, 2005 Massive congregations of greenish phytoplankton swirl in the dark water around Gotland, a Swedish island in the Baltic Sea. Phytoplankton are microscopic marine plants that form the first link in nearly all ocean food chains. Blooms of phytoplankton, occur when deep currents bring nutrients up to sunlit surface waters.
NASA
"It's land. It's ocean. The patterns that are on it are so symmetrical ? it seems like they're almost rhyming," Friedl says.
NEW YORK (AP) ? Viral videos are hits on the Web, and now they can help propel a song to the top of the Billboard charts.
Billboard has announced that U.S. YouTube data is now one of the factors when ranking Hot 100 songs and songs on its other charts.
The new rule went into effect this week, with the viral-video hit "Harlem Shake" debuting at No. 1. Other factors include radio airplay, digital download sales, physical single sales, on-demand audio streaming and online radio streaming. Billboard's new rule incorporates all official videos on YouTube, including Vevo.
"Harlem Shake" by Brooklyn producer Baauer features few lyrics. The video has a heavy dance-flavored beat. It became a viral success thanks to hundreds of YouTube videos of people dancing to the song.
Contact: Dr. Hilary Glover hilary.glover@biomedcentral.com 44-020-319-22370 BioMed Central
Maternal nutrition is important to a developing embryo and to the health of the child later in life. Supplementing the diet with specific vitamins is known to increase health of the foetus for example folic acid (vitamin B9) reduces the risk of spina bifida. However not everything an adult might consume is beneficial to a developing baby. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Medicine shows that caffeine is linked to low birth weight babies and that caffeine from coffee in linked to increasing length of pregnancy.
Along with nutrients and oxygen, caffeine feely passes the placental barrier, but the developing embryo does not express the enzymes required to inactivate it efficiently. The WHO currently suggests a limit of 300mg per day during pregnancy but some countries recommend a limit of 200mg, which can be less than a single cup of coffee from some high street cafes.
To investigate the impact of maternal caffeine during pregnancy on babies, a research team from the Norwegian Institute for Public Health used information about mother's diet and birth details collected over ten years. After excluding women with medical and pregnancy-related conditions almost 60,000 pregnancies were included in the study. All sources of caffeine were monitored in the study: coffee, tea, fizzy drinks, as well as food including cocoa-containing cakes and deserts and chocolate.
Explaining their results, Dr Verena Sengpiel, from Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Sweden, who led the project said, "Although caffeine consumption is strongly correlated with smoking which is known to increase the risk for both preterm delivery and the baby being small for gestational age at birth (SGA). In this study we found no association between either total caffeine or coffee caffeine and preterm delivery but we did find an association between caffeine and SGA. This association remained even when we looked only at non-smoking mothers which implies that the caffeine itself is also having an effect on birth weight."
In fact they found that caffeine from all sources reduced birth weight. For a child of expected average weight (3.6kg) this equates to 21-28g lost per 100mg caffeine per day. But it was not just caffeine, but the source of caffeine, which affected pregnancy outcomes. Caffeine from all sources increased the length of the pregnancy by 5hr per 100mg caffeine per day, but caffeine intake from coffee was associated with an even longer gestational length - 8hr extra for every 100mg caffeine per day.
This association means that it is not just the caffeine in coffee which increases gestational length but either there must be a substance in coffee which is responsible for the extra time or there is a behaviour associated with coffee drinking not present in women who drink only tea (for example). SGA babies are at higher risk of both short term and lifelong health problems and it seems from these results that since even 200-300mg caffeine per day can increase the risk of SGA by almost a third these recommendations need to be re-evaluated.
1. Maternal caffeine intake during pregnancy is associated with birth weight but not with gestational length: results from a large prospective observational cohort study
Verena Sengpiel, Elisabeth Elind, Jonas Bacelis, Staffan Nilsson, Jakob Grove, Ronny Myhre, Margaretha Haugen, Helle M Meltzer, Jan Alexander, Bo Jacobsson and Anne-Lise Brantster
BMC Medicine 2013, 11:42
Please name the journal in any story you write. If you are writing for the web, please link to the article. All articles are available free of charge, according to BioMed Central's open access policy.
Article citation and URL available on request on the day of publication.
2. BMC Medicine is the flagship medical journal of the BMC series, publishing original research, commentaries and reviews that are either of significant interest to all areas of medicine and clinical practice, or provide key translational or clinical advances in a specific field. @BMCMedicine
3. BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com/) is an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher which has pioneered the open access publishing model. All peer-reviewed research articles published by BioMed Central are made immediately and freely accessible online, and are licensed to allow redistribution and reuse. BioMed Central is part of Springer Science+Business Media, a leading global publisher in the STM sector. @BioMedCentral
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Contact: Dr. Hilary Glover hilary.glover@biomedcentral.com 44-020-319-22370 BioMed Central
Maternal nutrition is important to a developing embryo and to the health of the child later in life. Supplementing the diet with specific vitamins is known to increase health of the foetus for example folic acid (vitamin B9) reduces the risk of spina bifida. However not everything an adult might consume is beneficial to a developing baby. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Medicine shows that caffeine is linked to low birth weight babies and that caffeine from coffee in linked to increasing length of pregnancy.
Along with nutrients and oxygen, caffeine feely passes the placental barrier, but the developing embryo does not express the enzymes required to inactivate it efficiently. The WHO currently suggests a limit of 300mg per day during pregnancy but some countries recommend a limit of 200mg, which can be less than a single cup of coffee from some high street cafes.
To investigate the impact of maternal caffeine during pregnancy on babies, a research team from the Norwegian Institute for Public Health used information about mother's diet and birth details collected over ten years. After excluding women with medical and pregnancy-related conditions almost 60,000 pregnancies were included in the study. All sources of caffeine were monitored in the study: coffee, tea, fizzy drinks, as well as food including cocoa-containing cakes and deserts and chocolate.
Explaining their results, Dr Verena Sengpiel, from Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Sweden, who led the project said, "Although caffeine consumption is strongly correlated with smoking which is known to increase the risk for both preterm delivery and the baby being small for gestational age at birth (SGA). In this study we found no association between either total caffeine or coffee caffeine and preterm delivery but we did find an association between caffeine and SGA. This association remained even when we looked only at non-smoking mothers which implies that the caffeine itself is also having an effect on birth weight."
In fact they found that caffeine from all sources reduced birth weight. For a child of expected average weight (3.6kg) this equates to 21-28g lost per 100mg caffeine per day. But it was not just caffeine, but the source of caffeine, which affected pregnancy outcomes. Caffeine from all sources increased the length of the pregnancy by 5hr per 100mg caffeine per day, but caffeine intake from coffee was associated with an even longer gestational length - 8hr extra for every 100mg caffeine per day.
This association means that it is not just the caffeine in coffee which increases gestational length but either there must be a substance in coffee which is responsible for the extra time or there is a behaviour associated with coffee drinking not present in women who drink only tea (for example). SGA babies are at higher risk of both short term and lifelong health problems and it seems from these results that since even 200-300mg caffeine per day can increase the risk of SGA by almost a third these recommendations need to be re-evaluated.
1. Maternal caffeine intake during pregnancy is associated with birth weight but not with gestational length: results from a large prospective observational cohort study
Verena Sengpiel, Elisabeth Elind, Jonas Bacelis, Staffan Nilsson, Jakob Grove, Ronny Myhre, Margaretha Haugen, Helle M Meltzer, Jan Alexander, Bo Jacobsson and Anne-Lise Brantster
BMC Medicine 2013, 11:42
Please name the journal in any story you write. If you are writing for the web, please link to the article. All articles are available free of charge, according to BioMed Central's open access policy.
Article citation and URL available on request on the day of publication.
2. BMC Medicine is the flagship medical journal of the BMC series, publishing original research, commentaries and reviews that are either of significant interest to all areas of medicine and clinical practice, or provide key translational or clinical advances in a specific field. @BMCMedicine
3. BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com/) is an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher which has pioneered the open access publishing model. All peer-reviewed research articles published by BioMed Central are made immediately and freely accessible online, and are licensed to allow redistribution and reuse. BioMed Central is part of Springer Science+Business Media, a leading global publisher in the STM sector. @BioMedCentral
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
After a disappointing campaign in 2012 the New York Giants find themselves in rare air with the 19th overall pick this April. In my mind the Giants need to hit the defensive side of the ball hard in this draft in order to make Eli Manning and company champions of the?NFL?yet again.
Last season the Giants went running back in the first round with David Wilson and didn?t select a defensive player until round three. Obviously the club is hoping for more out of Prince Amukamara who was selected 19th overall in 2011 and has played in just 20 games during his first two seasons.
Tom Coughlin can?t be happy with a Giants defense that ranked 25th in defended the run especially with the Washington Redskins and Robert Griffin III set to be running rampant in the NFC East for years to come. The pass defense was even worse ranking 28th in the league yielding over 254 passing yards per game and not being a factor versus some of the best quarterbacks in the league.
This past April the Giants selected just two defensive players, however I can expect the script to be flipped this year with a draft class of?predominately?defensive prospects. Chase Blackburn is also hitting the road this offseason and he will be dearly missed this year as he led the team in tackles last year with 93 and added three sacks also.
Early NFL mock drafts have the Giants taking Ezekiel Ansah a defensive end out of Brigham Young who has a 6-foot-5 frame thats?conducive?to success at the NFL level. Whether it be Ansah or someone else the Giants need to have a defensive heavy draft in 2013.
Through new partnerships with top online and offline purchase data providers Datalogix, Epsilon, Acxiom, and BlueKai, Facebook is allowing advertisers to target hashed lists of existing and potential customers, and categories like role-playing gamers or soda drinkers. This expansion of Facebook's Custom Audiences program could rake in revenue and attract businesses by matching ads to real spenders
Most of us have been in a relationship that we know is not very healthy and celebrity couples aren’t immune to bad romances either. Let’s take a look at some Hollywood couples that have had their toxic relationships played out for the world to see. We’ll start with a current toxic couple, Rihanna and Chris ...
ANAHEIM, Calif. -- When Ronda Rousey was named the UFC women's bantamweight champion, critics said she didn't deserve the belt and that she should have to fight for it. It turns out she agrees with her critics.![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 18-Feb-2013
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