New Year's Resolution: Get fit, make electricity

SportsArt Fitness

A new system of fitness machines turns the watts you generate while working out into electrticity to power the gym.

By John Roach

A new generation of workout machines that generate electricity as you work up a sweat are poised to invade fitness centers and help you keep your New Year's resolution to trim down your waistline.

The electricity generated by the machines is fed back into the grid, helping the gym save on its utility bills.

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The so-called Green System from Woodinville, Wash.,-based SportsArt Fitness, represents a novel way to harness "human power," Ken Carpenter, director of sales for the company, told me.

It joins a growing list of similar concepts, including PaveGen's pavers that generate electricity as people walk (and boogie) on them and devices such as shoes and a backpack that charge batteries as you go for a jog or hike in the woods.

Sweaty watts
The Green System consists of recumbent and upright bikes as well as elliptical trainers, each with a box that captures 75 percent of the watts you generate during a workout.?

Boxes in several machines are hooked together and routed through an inverter that can handle up to 2,000 watts. Assuming an average of 133 watts per person, a pod might have 15 machines on it, Carpenter said.

"Most facilities are going to be drawing so many watts and amperage, you'd have to have a lot of inverters to really reverse that meter, because of light bulbs, air conditioning, and all the other things being powered," he said.

Nevertheless, 2,000 watt hours are enough to power a clothes washer for 6 hours, a microwave oven for 2.5 hours, or a 27-inch flat screen TV for 17 hours, according to SportsArt Fitness.

This is enough electricity that the system will pay for itself in about three years, according to Carpenter. The company has an?online calculator where you can figure out your potential savings.

The system includes an inverter and the exercise machines. The inverter runs about $3,000, while the the machines could cost about $3,500 to $7,000.

Generating award points
The system is also hooked up with Victoria, Canada,-based EcoFit, which produces digital technology to calculate the number of watts an individual generates during a workout, put it on a graphical display and keep track of watts over time on a card.

In the future, the companies hope to turn these "eco-points" generated at the gym into currency accepted at coffee shops and other retail outlets.?

Back at the gym, the display technology also allows individuals to compete. For example, if you?see your buddy is generating 115 watts, you might ramp it up so you can generate 130 watts.

Right now, most people measure their performance at the gym in terms of workout time, or distance biked, or calories burned, but Carpenter said he thinks this paradigm will shift to watts "the more eco-conscious people get."

So, eat, drink, and be merry this weekend. But come the New Year, hit the gym and generate some watts.

More on harnessing human power:

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John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. To learn more about him, check out his website. For more of our Future of Technology series, watch the featured video below.

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Next-gen nuclear plants could provide carbon-free energy, but the painfully slow process of approving better, safer reactors ? not to mention real anxiety over meltdowns and waste ? threaten to derail projects before they can be built.

Source: http://futureoftech.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/30/9832247-new-years-resolution-get-fit-make-electricity

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Gene linked to increasing pancreatic cancer risk

WASHINGTON, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Mutations in the ATM gene may increase the hereditary risk for pancreatic cancer, according to data published Thursday in Cancer Discovery, the latest journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most morbid cancers, with less than five percent of those diagnosed with the disease surviving to five years. Approximately 10 percent of patients come from families with multiple cases of pancreatic cancer.

"There was significant reason to believe this clustering was due to genetics, but we had not, to this point, been able to find the causative genes that explained the cluster of pancreatic cancer for a majority of these families," said lead author Alison Klein, associate professor at Johns Hopkins University and director of the National Familial Pancreas Tumor Registry.

Klein and colleagues used next-generation sequencing, including whole genome and whole exome analyses, and identified ATM gene mutations in two kindreds with familial pancreatic cancer.

Klein said knowledge of the presence of the ATM gene could lead to better screening for pancreatic cancer, the fourth most common cause of cancer-related death.

Source: http://c.moreover.com/click/here.pl?r5678837595&f=378

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Arab League observers head to Syria's war-ravaged Homs

A day after reports of heavy fighting and dozens killed in Homs, Arab League observers are heading to the city as a part of an effort to end the fighting in Syria.

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A day after reports of dozens killed in the restive Syrian city of Homs, Arab League monitors are now headed there for the first time.

The monitors arrived in Syria on Monday as part of an Arab League deal to see if Syrian government forces are relenting in their crackdown on protesters, as promised. Since the uprising began in mid-March, the nation has remained virtually shut off from outsiders, with foreign press and international observers?obtaining only the most limited access to the country.

The Arab League monitors are a step towards shining more light on the uprising, but it remains unclear if they will have any practical impact. The observers say the Syrian government has so far proved "very cooperative," but it is uncertain if they will get a complete picture of the violence.

?I am going to Homs. (Until) now, they have been very cooperative,? Gen. Mohammed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi, the head of the Arab League monitoring mission, was quoted by Iran's Press TV as saying.

The mission, which will eventually number 200 observers, will be divided into groups of ten and sent around the country to verify that Syrian forces are complying with the agreement they made to stop violence, release detainees, and remove armed forces from urban areas, reports Xinhua. Gen. Dabi told reporters that his team has not faced any restrictions so far. In addition to Homs, the monitors are expected to visit Damascus, Hama, Idlib, and other cities.

Still, the BBC reports that while Syrian officials have appeared compliant, there are already allegations of a cover-up.

?In advance of the observers' arrival, activists accused the authorities of moving detainees onto military bases - where the observers are not allowed to go - and also of removing hundreds of bodies of killed protesters from the morgue at Homs,? said the BBC?s Jim Muir.

In the Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr, activists told reporters and human rights organizations that Syrian forces pulled 11 tanks from the area and hid others ahead of the Arab monitors? arrival, reports Reuters. Yesterday at least 34 people were reported killed there. The neighborhood reportedly took fire from tanks, mortars, and heavy machine guns.

Opposition leader Burhan Ghalioun, head of the Syrian National Council, said that while the Arab League monitors are allowed in Homs, authorities have placed limitations on where they are able to go, Al Jazeera reports. To truly enforce the Arab peace plan, he said the Arab League must receive the support and cooperation of the United Nations.

?The plan to defuse the crisis is a good plan, but I do not believe the Arab League really has the means [to enforce it],? he said. ?It is better if the UN Security Council takes this plan, adopts it and provides the means for its application.?

Since the uprising began in mid-March, the UN estimates that more than 5,000 people have died in the violence, Bloomberg reports. Violence intensified when soldiers began defecting from the Syrian army to side with protesters. The Syrian government has blamed the violence on foreign agents who?ve entered the country and are carrying out terrorist operations, reports Bloomberg.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/T9X_K6pzisI/Arab-League-observers-head-to-Syria-s-war-ravaged-Homs

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iPad 3 set to release on Jobs? birthday?

Rumour has it that Apple Inc. is planning to release the already famous iPad 3 on February 23, to commemorate its deceased founder Steve Jobs on his birthday.

Chinese dailies are buzzing with news that Apple is rushing production of its iPad 3 in the hopes of releasing it on February 23, just in time for Steve Jobs? birthday. Adding fuel to the fire is the fact that alleged iPad 3 home buttons have begun floating around in China town, which means that the final product is being slapped together as you read this.

Citing multiple inside sources, China?s Economic Daily News speculates that the big date has been set and the first shipment amount of the tablet will be 4 million units.

Local assemblers including Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, Cheng Uei Precision Industry Co, Genius Electronic Optical Co and several others will have shorter Spring Festival holidays, estimated at five days, in order to rush the work, the newspaper says.

Just to remind our readers, Apple unveiled the iPad on January 27, 2010 and the iPad2 on March 3, 2011. So perhaps early 2012 seems about the right time to launch the third version of the legendary iPad. Add a dead founder and his birthday, and the date should be correct. Or maybe not. Watch this space.

iPad 3: Some known facts (and rumours)

So you think you know what?s coming in the box labelled 'The legendary but new iPad 3'? Here?s what we know:

Retina display

A ?Retina? display has been predicted for the iPad 3 (it was also rumoured for iPad 2, but never materialized). What?s retina display? Good question. It?s something that the iPhone 4 and 4S sport ? it will double the current iPad?s resolution to 2048-by-1536. Do we really want it? Oh yes, please?

Tap and transfer

NFC, or Near Field Communications, is something that is kind of revolutionizing (well, almost) the ailing Nokia. It?s the technology (akin to Bluetooth) that allows transfer of data on the tap of two (willing and enabled) devices. So me thinks that the iPad 3 bundle could be hiding an NFC chip in its belly, just to hit Nokia under it, for the effect. Apple?s very interested in Near Field Communications, and one delicious gossip sez iPhone 5 (whenever, whatever) will use NFC to take over nearby Macs, enabling you to use your data and settings with a flick of the wrist (a la Rajnikant).

A6 Processor

Apple has debuted new processors with every version of the iPad (basically, two) so far ? and that has led people to believe that it will divorce the current A5 and upgrade to younger and more beautiful (technically speaking) A6. But whether the A6 is a dual-core processor like its previous partner A5, or comes with two additional cylinders (aka quad-core processor), we?ll need to wait and see.

Perhaps it?s a bit late for Apple Inc. to incorporate everything, but if you are?listening, here are some other things on our wish list for the iPad 3:

????????? A smaller dock connector, pretty puhleez

????????? More storage

????????? A Thunderbolt port (borrowed from its cousins, 2011 MacBook Pro and MacBook Air)

????????? An SD card slot

????????? A better camera

????????? Gesture controls (Sony?s done it, GMail?s doing it, why can?t you, Apple?)

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Source: http://c.moreover.com/click/here.pl?r5666574537

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Asian stocks inch lower, euro extends drop (Reuters)

SINGAPORE (Reuters) ? Asian stocks fell on Thursday, taking cues from weak U.S. and European shares, as players cut positions heading into the year end with an Italian debt auction later in the day keeping markets nervous.

The euro extended losses against the dollar to near a one-year low, and a 10-year low against the yen, while the sell-off in stocks and the firm U.S. currency helped crude oil snap a six-session rally and kept gold prices near a three-month low.

The Nikkei (.N225) fell as much as 1.1 percent, before recovering to be off 0.7 percent. The MSCI ex-Japan Asia Pacific index (.MIAPJ0000PUS) shed 0.6 percent, weighed down by energy and material stocks.

"Everyone is holding onto their cash and people are not willing to invest in risk assets. With this kind of market sentiment, there's nowhere for the cash to go," said Hajime Nakajima, a sales trader at Cosmo Securities.

Italy's sale of up to 8.5 billion euros ($11 billion) later Thursday is seen as the first test of banks' willingness to buy longer-term sovereign debt with the nearly 500 billion euros they borrowed last week from the European Central Bank.

While Rome's short-term funding costs halved at an auction Wednesday, market players are worried that thin volumes prevalent across markets near the end of the year could complicate its efforts to sell longer-dated bonds.

U.S. stock indexes fell more than 1 percent in thin trading as investors feared what many expect to be a tough start to the year. The broad S&P 500 index erased its 2011 gains after just turning positive in last week's rally.

Wall Street's decline weighed on European stocks, which erased early gains. The FTSEurofirst 300 (.FTEU3) index of top European shares fell 0.71 percent to end at 983.32, after rising as much as 0.63 percent earlier in the session.

EURO, OIL, GOLD SLIP

The euro nursed heavy losses in Asia, having suffered a sudden drop overnight as moves were amplified in poor year-end liquidity after stop-losses were triggered.

The single currency hit $1.2887, moving closer to its 2011 trough of $1.2860 marked on January 10, nearly a year ago. Against the yen, the euro skidded to a 10-year trough around 100.70, before steadying at 100.88.

Crude oil, which had gained for six sessions on heightened supply worries after Iran threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, eased as traders viewed the threat as rhetoric.

"A big increase in U.S. crude oil stocks and the falling euro against the dollar are the main pressure points for the market at the moment," said Ken Hasegawa, a derivatives manager with brokerage Newedge in Tokyo.

"We also had six consecutive days gaining in the oil market, so it is not strange to see some profit-taking from these sharp gains."

Brent eased three cents to $107.53 a barrel by 0207 GMT, adding to a loss of nearly $2 the day before.

Gold wallowed near a three-month low Thursday, remaining under pressure due to a firm dollar, while investors fretted over the Italian bond auction.

Spot gold edged down 0.3 percent to $1,550.90 an ounce by 0022 GMT, on course for an 11-percent decline in December. It hit a three-month low of $1,549.24 in the previous session.

(Additional reporting by Dominic Lau and Mari Saito in TOKYO, Randy Fabi in SINGAPORE; Editing by Richard Borsuk)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/stocks/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111229/bs_nm/us_markets_global

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Helicopter crash kills 3, puts transplant on hold

A Clay County Sheriff's deputy walks by smoldering brush on his way to wreckage from a helicopter crash in an area west of Green Cove Springs, Fla. Monday afternoon, Dec. 26, 2011. The helicopter was enroute to Gainesville from Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville to receive a heart for a transplant when it crashed. The three people who were in the helicopter died at the scene. (AP Photo/The Florida Times-Union, Kelly Jordan)

A Clay County Sheriff's deputy walks by smoldering brush on his way to wreckage from a helicopter crash in an area west of Green Cove Springs, Fla. Monday afternoon, Dec. 26, 2011. The helicopter was enroute to Gainesville from Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville to receive a heart for a transplant when it crashed. The three people who were in the helicopter died at the scene. (AP Photo/The Florida Times-Union, Kelly Jordan)

A Clay County fire official drives through smoldering brush on his way to wreckage from a helicopter crash in an area west of Green Cove Springs, Fla. Monday afternoon, Dec. 26, 2011. The helicopter was enroute to Gainesville from Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville to receive a heart for a transplant when it crashed. The three people who were in the helicopter died at the scene. (AP Photo/The Florida Times-Union, Kelly Jordan)

Clay County Sheriff's officials create a staging area about 150 yards from wreckage from a helicopter crash in an area west of Green Cove Springs, Fla. Monday afternoon, Dec. 26, 2011. The helicopter was enroute to Gainesville from Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville to receive a heart for a transplant when it crashed. The three people who were in the helicopter died at the scene. (AP Photo/The Florida Times-Union, Kelly Jordan)

Clay County Sheriff's deputies head deep into the woods on four wheelers in an attempt to locate wreckage from a helicopter crash in an area west of Green Cove Springs, Fla. Monday afternoon, Dec. 26, 2011. The helicopter was enroute to Gainesville from Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville to receive a heart for a transplant when it crashed. The three people who were in the helicopter died at the scene. (AP Photo/The Florida Times-Union, Kelly Jordan)

MIAMI (AP) ? Three people were killed when a helicopter on its way to retrieve a heart for transplant crashed in northern Florida, leaving the patient to wait for another organ to become available.

The helicopter crashed at 5:53 a.m. Monday, according to Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen.

Bergen said no flight plan was filed for the helicopter, which was headed to a Gainesville hospital, Shands at the University of Florida.

Clay County Sheriff's Office spokesman Russ Burke told The Florida Times-Union the helicopter originally left the St. Augustine airport.

The helicopter was carrying heart surgeon Dr. Luis Bonilla and procurement technician David Hines of the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville. Sheriff's officials say the name of the pilot has not been released.

Mayo Clinic spokesman Layne Smith said the heart they were to pick up could not be used in another transplant because its viability expired. The patient is back on the waiting list for a new organ.

Kathy Giery, a spokeswoman for Shands' LifeQuest Organ Recovery Service, told The Gainesville Sun that finding a new match for that heart would have taken longer than the roughly four-hour window between the harvest and transplant operations.

"In a last-minute situation like this one, there is no time, actually, to regroup and start over," Giery said.

Bergen said the helicopter went down about 12 miles northeast of Palatka, which is about 40 miles east of Gainesville.

The wreckage, which was in remote, densely forested area, was spotted around noon Monday by another helicopter, Burke said. Debris was scattered around the crash site, which was hidden from the road by rows of pine trees.

Officials with the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash.

The National Weather Service in Jacksonville reported there was light fog with overcast conditions in the area but no rain.

"As we mourn this tragic event, we will remember the selfless and intense dedication they brought to making a difference in the lives of our patients," John Noseworthy, Mayo Clinic president and chief executive officer, said in a statement. "We recognize the commitment transplant teams make every day in helping patients at Mayo Clinic and beyond. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families."

FAA records show the Bell 206 helicopter is operated by SK Jets. The St. Augustine company released a statement: "The focus of our efforts at this time is to attend to the needs of our passengers, crew and their families and work with the NTSB and local public safety officials to determine the cause and extent of the accident."

Gary Robb, a Kansas City aviation attorney specializing in helicopter safety, said SK Jets is known as a careful and safe operator in the industry. The small, lightweight craft has low weight and speed capabilities and is primarily used by traffic reporters or police departments, Robb said.

"It's not usually used in donor flights," he said.

"If you're on a mission where time is sensitive, why use an engine that is low performance?" Robb said, adding that the helicopter has a cramped cabin.

An NTSB investigator will scour the crash site for clues and look into the pilot's experience and any factors that might have impaired the pilot, any environmental factors such as birds or low visibility that may have contributed to the crash, and any mechanical problems with the helicopter, he said.

The Bell 206 usually has an older engine no longer installed in new models, Robb said.

"We've seen a number of instances where that engine simply failed," Robb said.

The crash and others like it illustrate the delicate nature of transporting organs.

In 1990, a surgeon and an assistant flying to pick up a donor heart for a patient were killed in a plane crash in New Mexico. And in 2007, a twin-engine plane carrying a team of surgeons and technicians ? along with a set of lungs on ice being brought to a patient already prepped for surgery ? crashed into the choppy waters of Lake Michigan. Six were killed.

Doctors ultimately got another set of donor lungs that were transplanted into the patient.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-12-27-Helicopter%20Crash-Florida/id-a40500f6e2094a729994906d6ba52887

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2011 in Review: Steve Jobs

Forget the millions of iPods, iPads and iPhones sold around the world the past few years. For a true measure of Steve Jobs? life and legacy, consider this:

In a time when billionaires, businessmen, bankers and anyone else considered part of the 1% seemingly rank right behind terrorists in the American psyche, Jobs? death had mourners from all walks and income levels turning Apple storefronts from San Francisco to Sydney to Shanghai into sidewalk shrines to honor a billionaire businessman who was as ruthless and competitive as he was brilliant and innovative.

Though the cause of death was decidedly different, the mass outpouring of appreciation and affection for Apple?s co-founder, who died at 56 of pancreatic cancer, was eerily reminiscent of when John Lennon was killed.

Which is only fitting, considering Jobs wasn?t just a visionary entrepreneur behind the cutting-edge computers, music players, smartphones and tablets that changed the way the world works, plays and communicates.

He was a rock star in his own right, whose corporate events to announce The Next Big iThing were the business-world equivalent of a raucous concert ? complete with a devoted cult of groupies and fanboys.

He wasn?t a great statesman or philanthropist, nor was he a beloved entertainer or gifted, once-in-a-lifetime athlete. Yet Jobs was arguably the most influential person of the fledgling 21st century.

Don?t believe it? Take a look around your subway car, the street you?re on, your workplace, even your home. Chances are good you?ll see more than a few folks using one of Jobs? creations ? or using something a rival created to compete in vain with his handiwork. (Zune, anybody?)

Chances are even better that those folks couldn?t imagine life without one of Steve Jobs? hi-tech toys.

Source: http://feeds.nydailynews.com/~r/nydnrss/tech_guide/~3/B2XCuuX2m8w/2011-review-apple-genius-steve-jobs-february-24-1955-october-5-2011-article-1.995919

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Afghanistan cabinet OKs oil deal with China's CNPC (Reuters)

KABUL (Reuters) ? Afghanistan's cabinet cleared the way for the war-torn state to sign a deal with China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) for the development of oil blocks in the Amu Darya basin, the Afghan president's office said on Monday.

The deal covering drilling and a refinery in the northern provinces of Sar-e Pul and Faryab will be the first international oil production agreement entered into by the Afghan government for several decades.

It marks the second major deal for China in Afghanistan after Metallurgical Corp of China signed a contract in 2008 to develop the huge Aynak copper mine south of Kabul, which is due to start producing by the end of 2014.

"The Afghan cabinet has ordered Mines Minister Wahidullah Shahrani to sign an oil exploration contract for Amu Darya with China National Petroleum Corporation," the statement said.

Jawad Omar, a spokesman for the mines ministry, said the contract would be signed on Wednesday.

State-owned CNPC and joint venture partner Watan Group -- a diversified Afghan company -- will explore for oil in three fields in the basin - Kashkari, Bazarkhami and Zamarudsay, which are estimated to hold around 87 million barrels of oil.

Under the contract, CNPC will agree to pay a 15 percent royalty on oil, a 20 percent corporate tax and give up to 70 percent of its profit from the project to the Afghan government.

The mines ministry said in October that the deal was likely to result in government revenues of $5 billion over the next 10 years.

Indian and Chinese bidders have been front-runners for deals to develop Afghanistan's vast mineral deposits, which are valued at $3 trillion, worrying Western firms that have hesitated to invest in the country due to security concerns.

Experts have warned that mining projects in Afghanistan are likely targets for insurgents, that production and transport costs will be high and that sovereign risk is a serious concern.

But China and India, where demand for energy and industrial inputs is booming, are willing to take risks to secure supplies.

(Writing by Agnieszka Flak; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani and Jane Baird)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111226/wl_nm/us_afghanistan_cnpc

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Video: Shearing triggers odd behavior in microscopic particles

Friday, December 23, 2011

Microscopic spheres form strings in surprising alignments when suspended in a viscous fluid and sheared between two plates ? a finding that will affect the way scientists think about the properties of such wide-ranging substances as shampoo and futuristic computer chips.

A team of scientists at Cornell University and the University of Chicago have imaged this behavior and have explained the forces causing it for the first time. Its findings appear in the Dec. 19-23 early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"The experimental breakthrough revealed that these string structures were perpendicular to the shear instead of parallel to it, contrary to what many in the field were expecting," said Aaron Dinner, associate professor in chemistry at UChicago and a study co-author.

The experiment was led by Itai Cohen, associate professor of physics at Cornell, who custom-built a device that would enable him simultaneously to exert shearing forces on suspended colloids (the spheres) and image the resulting motion at 100 frames per second with a confocal microscope. Imaging speed was critical to the experiment because the string-like structures appear only at certain shear rates.

"This issue of strings has been pretty controversial. I'm not sure that we've solved all the controversies associated with them, but at least we've made a step forward," Cohen said.

Shearing forces affect the dynamic behavior of paint, shampoo and other viscous household products, but an understanding of these and related phenomena at the microscopic level has largely eluded a detailed scientific understanding until the last decade, Dinner noted.

Futuristically speaking, these forces potentially could be harnessed to produce microscopic patterns on computer chips or biosensors via special paints that flow easily when layered in one direction, but becomes hard when layered in another direction.

Cohen's objective was more scientifically immediate: to devise an experiment that would overcome the technical difficulties associated with measuring the mechanical properties of the colloidal strings while also imaging their formation. "The holy grail is to be able to understand how the structure leads to the mechanical properties and then to be able to control the mechanical properties by influencing the structure," Cohen explained.

This 12-second video shows the formation of particle strings at angles perpendicular to the direction of shear flow. Many scientists had predicted that the strings would form parallel to the direction of shear flow. Experiments at Cornell and computer simulations at the University of Chicago show that the strings form perpendicular to the direction of shear. Credit: Xiang Cheng, Cornell University

Cohen, PhD'01, received his doctorate in physics at UChicago, as did lead author Xiang Cheng, PhD'09, a postdoctoral associate at Cornell who assembled the team; and co-author Xinliang Xu, PhD'07, a postdoctoral scholar at UChicago. The study co-authors also included Stuart Rice, the Frank P. Hixon Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in Chemistry at UChicago and a 1999 recipient of the National Medal of Science.

As members of UChicago's Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, Rice and Dinner are part of a larger effort to determine how materials behave under the influence of various dynamic forces. Some of their physics colleagues analyze forces operating on macroscopic scales, while chemists such as Rice and Dinner attempt to assess how those findings might apply to microscopic phenomena.

Rice and his UChicago co-authors used computer simulations to develop a precise explanation for the string-like colloidal structures that formed in the Cornell experiment. "The previous simulations all left out the consequences of the flow created in the supporting fluid as the particles move, the so-called hydrodynamic forces," Rice said.

"A very large fraction of the work in the field neglects hydrodynamic forces because it's hard. You try and get away with what you can," Rice noted with amusement. "But in this case it turns out that the inclusion of those forces is the crucial element."

The simulations allowed the UChicago team to control various experimental parameters to assess their relative importance. "You can play God," Rice said. "The important finding is the overwhelming role of the lubrication forces and the anti-intuitive result that they create."

The lubrication force comes into play when two colloids come together to behave much like macroscopic ball bearings soaking in a reservoir of goopy fluid.

"Pulling them apart would be working against the fluid and so it would be very hard," Dinner said. "So actually, when you get a collision in these colloidal systems, those lubrication forces hold them together much longer, and that actually allows for some of the unique dynamics that give rise to the structure. That was specifically what the simulations showed."

Xu, the UChicago postdoctoral scholar, adapted a mathematical formula developed by John Brady at the California Institute of Technology to simplify the simulations, which ran for days and weeks at a time. "Every time you rearrange the particles, the interactions are different," Rice said. "If you were to calculate that directly, it would be extremely tedious."

But Xu's adapation of Brady's formula enabled him to generate a table of hydrodynamic interactions that listed each particle configuration. Xu found that he could accurately simplify the simulation by focusing on just two of the experiment's seven layers of colloids.

The simulations and the experiment showed that even after three centuries of study, the field of hydrodynamics continues to yield surprising discoveries. "We are still discovering novel behavior that is fundamentally determined by the hydrodynamics," Rice noted.

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University of Chicago: http://www-news.uchicago.edu

Thanks to University of Chicago for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/116308/Video__Shearing_triggers_odd_behavior_in_microscopic_particles

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Day of violence in northern Nigeria kills at least 24 (Reuters)

KANO, Nigeria (Reuters) ? Clashes between a violent Islamist sect and security forces in Nigeria's northeastern city of Damaturu have killed at least 24 people in the past day, police said on Friday.

A sustained gun battle broke out between Nigerian security forces and suspected Islamist militants in Damaturu on Thursday, and several explosions were heard.

Then on Friday suspected sect members opened fire on a group of policemen shortly after Friday prayers in the city, killing four, local police officials said.

Police commissioner Lawan Tanko of Yobe state, of which Damaturu is the capital, told Reuters a dusk to dawn curfew had been imposed on the city.

"The situation is now calm. We lost seven security men and twelve members of the Boko Haram sect were killed in the shoot out last night," he said.

"Though you cannot predict members of the sect, our men and the military are combat ready. Only one civilian was killed (in the violence on Thursday)."

Confrontations between security forces and the Boko Haram sect have become increasingly frequent in the past couple of weeks, as the north's simmering conflict escalates, though the insurgency remains low level and sporadic.

Nigerian police arrested 14 suspected members of Boko Haram and seized explosives after a gun battle left four militants and three policemen dead in the city of Kano last weekend.

Lawan said the fighting in Damaturu broke out after his men raided a suspected Boko Haram hideout.

Damaturu was the scene of the most deadly Boko Haram assault to date, when 65 people were killed in a wave of shootings and bombings on November 5 that left churches, police stations and mosques reduced to smoldering rubble.

At least 11 people were killed in a separate shootout in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, Boko Haram's heartland, on Thursday, an official at the morgue said.

Morturary attendant Bab Aminu said he had received the bodies overnight.

Boko Haram, whose name roughly translates as "Western learning is forbidden" has been blamed for scores of shootings and bombings in the north, including a spate of attacks in the past few weeks across the region.

Despite many crackdowns, Nigerian security forces have so far been unable to contain Boko Haram violence. This year the group struck in the capital Abuja twice, including a suicide car bomb attack against the U.N. headquarters that killed 26 people.

(Additional reporting by Afolabi Sotunde; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Louise Ireland)

(This story was corrected to fix the name of town's police commissioner in par 4)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111223/wl_nm/us_nigeria_violence

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Lawyers for Rob Ford ask court to overturn audit of election expenses

Lawyers for Rob Ford will ask an Ontario court to nullify a request for a full forensic review of the mayor?s election campaign finances and to hold a new hearing overseen by a judge that would allow additional evidence.

Their motion, filed late Friday afternoon, will be heard in January.

According to the 13-page pleading prepared by Tom Barlow, Mr. Ford?s lawyer, city council?s three-person compliance audit committee in effect rushed to judgment last May when it ordered the investigation. At the time, Mr. Ford?s election organization officials had not yet closed the books on the campaign?s finances. They filed supplementary audited financial statements in the fall.

But while Mr. Barlow itemized several provincial and Supreme Court of Canada decisions to make a case for the request, he did not cite any decisions in which an Ontario court had set aside the decision of a compliance audit committee.

The case involves a request for the audit by two Toronto residents, Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler and Max Reed, submitted following an investigation by The Globe and Mail. They alleged that Mr. Ford, as a mayoral candidate, violated provincial election rules by turning to a Ford family-controlled company to pay several early election expenses. They also claim that Mr. Ford accepted in-kind corporate contributions, which are not permitted under City of Toronto rules.

Mr. Ford has consistently maintained that his campaign organization adhered to all relevant election rules, but his lawyers have fought the compliance audit order, appealing the decision to an Ontario court.

In Mr. Barlow?s submission, he argues that the compliance audit committee rules and procedures, which are laid out in the Municipal Elections Act, made it ?impossible? for Mr. Ford to adequately respond to the allegations, partly because of time restrictions on deputations by the participants in a compliance audit request.

He also said the compliance audit committee, whose members include two lawyers and a former City of Toronto returning officer, did not provide reasons for its decision to order a compliance audit, leaving the appeal judge little to work with.

?A de novo hearing will facilitate a more complete appreciation of the evidence, placing the court in the best position to interpret the provisions of the [Municipal Elections Act],? said the motion document.

In a statement, Mr. Chaleff-Freudenthaler said, ?the Compliance Audit Committee made a lawful decision based on the overwhelming evidence that was presented to it showing reasonable grounds for an audit of Rob Ford?s election campaign. At that time, Ford had a chance to present all the evidence he desired to rebut our allegations but chose not to. In our view, there is no reason for a court to undermine the Compliance Audit Committee.?

He also cited a December, 2011, Ontario Court of Justice decision which found that no new evidence should be allowed in the appeal of a compliance audit committee decision.

Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/lawyers-for-rob-ford-ask-court-to-overturn-audit-of-election-expenses/article2282733/?utm_medium=Feeds:%20RSS/Atom&utm_source=National&utm_content=2282733

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A look at economic developments around the globe (AP)

A look at economic developments and activity in major stock markets around the world Thursday:

___

BRUSSELS ? Talks between Greece and its private creditors on cutting the country's massive debt load have made some progress, but disagreements remain on key parts of the deal, a person close to the negotiations said.

___

LONDON ? Stock markets bounced back after upbeat U.S. jobs figures helped shore up sentiment, a day after investors were rattled by the European Central Bank's huge loans to bolster the continent's banks.

The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares closed up 1.3 percent while Germany's DAX rose 1.1 percent. The CAC-40 in France ended 1.4 percent higher.

___

TOKYO ? In Asia, Tokyo's main index declined 0.8 percent and China's benchmark lost 0.2 percent. South Korea's Kospi was down 0.1 percent.

___

FRANKFURT, Germany ? The European Central Bank warned that a draft law before Hungary's parliament would undermine the independence of its central bank.

___

TOKYO ? Japan's government lowered its economic growth forecasts as the country struggles with the yen's export-sapping strength and the fallout from Europe's debt crisis.

___

LONDON ? Britain's economy grew by a slightly better than anticipated 0.6 percent in the third quarter, after unexpectedly stalling in the previous three month period, official figures showed.

___

MADRID ? Spain's new Economy Minister Luis de Guindos said he was confident the country would emerge from its severe economic crisis, but failed to outline any new measures to help the ailing economy.

___

WARSAW, Poland ? State figures show that Poland's jobless rate rose to 12.1 percent at the end of November from 11.8 percent the previous month.

___

ROME ? Italian Premier Mario Monti has easily won a vote of confidence in the Senate, signaling parliamentary approval of the government's $39 billion package of tax hikes and pension changes.

___

BRASILIA, Brazil ? Brazil's government statistics agency says the unemployment rate in Latin America's biggest economy was 5.2 percent in November ? the lowest level since the government started keeping records in 2002.

___

CAIRO, Egypt ? Egypt's benchmark stock index dropped to its lowest level in over a year as a deepening political crisis in the Arab world's most populous nation clouded its political future and prompted Moody's Investors Service to push the government's bond rating deeper into junk status.

___

RIGA, Latvia ? Latvia's three-year $10 billion bailout program that helped the Baltic country avert bankruptcy has come to an end.

___

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111222/ap_on_bi_ge/us_economy_countries_glance

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Stress-Free Holidays for Pets | Care2 Healthy Living

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Whether you'll be hosting holiday get-togethers or traveling, know before you go how you are going to keep your pets calm and comfortable.

Source: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/stress-free-holidays-for-pets.html

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Cairo calmer as Egyptian election resumes (Reuters)

CAIRO (Reuters) ? Egypt is holding the latest round of its first democratic parliamentary election on Thursday in relative calm after five days of protests in Cairo that prompted a brutal response from security forces.

The latest confrontations, in which 15 people were killed, redoubled the determination of many pro-democracy protesters to see the military council that took over from ousted president Hosni Mubarak hand power to civilians immediately.

But the wider political landscape is changing away from Cairo's Tahrir Square, centre of the protests, as the long-banned moderate Islamist Muslim Brotherhood looks to extend its election lead on Thursday.

Polling finishes on January 11. Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, head of the military council, said the lower house of parliament would convene on January 23, two days before the first anniversary of the uprising that toppled Mubarak.

Tahrir and surrounding streets were quiet on Wednesday for the first time in a week, not least because the authorities had erected concrete walls to bar access from the square to roads leading to parliament, the cabinet office and the Interior Ministry, where violence has been the most fierce.

A night earlier, police and soldiers had used tear gas and batons to chase protesters out of the square.

Nine provinces, mostly outside the capital, held run-off votes on Wednesday and Thursday in the second round of an election that is being held in stages over six weeks.

The army council has said it will not let the transition be derailed and has pledged to hand power to an elected president by July.

Activists plan a million-man march to Tahrir Square on December 23 to protest against army rule and the latest violence.

A few hundred hardy protesters were still in and around the square on Wednesday, surrounded by streets strewn with rocks exchanged between them and security forces. Some protesters held up bullets and cartridge cases that they said had been used against them. Traffic passed through other parts of the square.

The clashes have driven a wedge between those determined to stay on the streets and other Egyptians desperate for a return to order after turmoil that has damaged the economy and scared off foreign tourists. Many still see the army as the only institution capable of achieving this.

"All demonstrations should stop to end this violence until we finish elections and elect a president, then all the demonstrators can voice their concerns through members of parliament," said Erian Saleeb, 64, who works in the floundering tourist industry.

But many have been shocked by images of police and soldiers hitting protesters with batons even after they fell to the ground and, in one case, dragging a prone woman by her black robe, exposing her bra, and then kicking her.

STRONG U.S. RESPONSE

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this week responded with some of the strongest U.S. criticism of Egypt's new rulers, citing cases of women protesters being sexually assaulted.

"This systematic degradation of Egyptian women dishonors the revolution, disgraces the state and its uniform and is not worthy of a great people," she said.

The United States, for which Egypt under Mubarak was a crucial ally, gives Cairo $1.3 billion a year in military aid.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr said on Wednesday that Egypt would not accept meddling in its affairs, and did not take comments such as Clinton's lightly.

In a statement, the army council apologized, saying it "respects and appreciates Egyptian women and their right to protest and fully participate in political life."

But other generals and their advisers have condemned the pro-democracy demonstrators, whom they accuse of wreaking havoc.

The credit rating agency Moody's downgraded Egypt's debt on Wednesday and said it might knock it down another notch because political uncertainty was undermining investor confidence - a fresh blow to an economy already reeling from months of unrest.

Moody's said that, without financial support, Egypt's central bank might find it difficult to maintain adequate liquidity in the months or year ahead.

One opposition group that has lowered its profile in the protests is the once-banned Muslim Brotherhood, whose Freedom and Justice Party now leads the election results after the first round, followed by ultra-conservative Salafi Islamists.

A large percentage of the individual - rather than party list - seats up for grabs in the run-offs were being contested between Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi candidates. Egypt's system involves a mixture of party lists and individual candidates.

Analysts say the Brotherhood has kept a low profile as it is determined to see the vote completed, putting it in a commanding position in the new assembly and securing its place in mainstream politics for the first time in its 83-year history.

(Additional reporting by Dina Zayed and Sherine El Madany; Writing by Edmund Blair and Kevin Liffey; Editing by Michael Roddy)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111222/wl_nm/us_egypt

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Russian oil rig sinking casts doubt on Arctic plan

(AP)? MOSCOW ? The sinking of a floating oil rig that left more than 50 crew dead or missing is intensifying fears that Russian companies searching for oil in remote areas are unprepared for emergencies ? and could cause a disastrous spill in the pristine waters of the Arctic.

Only four months ago, Russian energy giant Gazprom sent Russia's first oil platform to the environmentally sensitive region, and industry experts and environmentalists warned it is unfit for the harsh conditions and is too far from rescue crews to be reached quickly in case of an accident. They are demanding Russia put Arctic oil projects on hold.

Russia is the world's largest oil producer, but it extracts most of its oil onshore, with no more than 2 percent of its production coming from mature offshore fields in the warm Black and Caspian seas and relatively new fields just off Sakhalin Island in the far east.

As Russia's core oil fields in Eastern Siberia are depleted, companies are looking north. The government hopes that up to 80 million tons of oil will be produced annually in the Arctic by 2030.

Russia is trying to assert jurisdiction over parts of the Arctic, which is believed to hold up to a quarter of the Earth's undiscovered oil and gas. By speeding up the Arctic oil project, the government is strengthening its bid.

The Kolskaya floating oil rig that capsized and sank in the Sea of Okhotsk on Dec. 18 had done exploratory drilling for Gazprom Neft Shelf, a subsidiary of Gazprom. It was being towed back to an eastern Russian port in a fierce storm when a strong wave broke some of its equipment and portholes, and it capsized in the choppy water.

Gazprom is now pioneering the oil development of Russia's sector of the Arctic and was the first Russian company to dispatch a drilling rig to the Pechora Sea in northwest Russia.

Russian oil companies have never operated in weather conditions as harsh as those found in the ice-bound Arctic, where ice ridges are meters (yards) deep and storms are frequent. The Kolskaya accident has reinforced fears that they are unprepared to meet the challenges.

"This tragedy has once again reminded us of how high the risks of offshore accidents are," said Alexei Knizhnikov, an oil and gas policy officer with the World Wildlife Fund.

WWF, Greenpeace and five regional Russian environmental organizations signed a petition on Thursday calling for a parliamentary investigation and urging the government to suspend the oil projects for now.

The petition accuses government agencies of failing to enforce environmental and safety regulations and says that current laws are inadequate for dealing with the magnitude of risk in the Arctic.

Environmentalists first raised their concerns when Gazprom announced in August that it was sending its platform to the Arctic for exploratory drilling in the Pechora oil field, which holds some 6.6 million tons of oil.

The platform's underwater section was built in Russia in the 1990s, while its upper part comes from a platform built in Scotland in 1982 and decommissioned from the North Sea in 2002.

Gazprom insists the Prirazlomnaya platform, billed as the first to be ice resistant, is safe and contains no old equipment except for its frame.

"We've done our best to implement the latest technology and regulations to prevent any accidents," Vladimir Vovk, chief of Gazprom's department for the management of equipment and technologies in developing marine fields, said at a news conference in September.

Environmentalists question both the state of the equipment and the platform's design. Because the Prirazlomnaya is situated hundreds of kilometers (miles) offshore, it is designed to store huge quantities of oil until tankers can arrive to collect it. The platform's storage tanks can hold up to 120,000 tons (840,000 barrels).

Unlike the Kolskaya, which was carrying no oil when it sank, the Arctic platform could potentially cause a disastrous spill if it capsized in icy, rough seas.

The distance from shore would also complicate any rescue or cleanup mission. The nearest port of any size is in Murmansk, some 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) away.

Even in warmer, more hospitable waters, accidents at oil platforms have been disastrous.

A giant oil slick was approaching the coast of Nigeria on Friday after what Royal Dutch Shell said was a spill during the transfer of oil from its floating platform in the offshore field to a waiting tanker. The spill came less than a week after Shell received approval from the U.S. government to drill exploratory wells off Alaska's northwest coast, in the Chukchi Sea near Russian waters.

In the Gulf of Mexico, the 2010 explosion of the BP-operated Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 workers and led to more than 200 million gallons (4.8 million barrels) of oil spewing from a well deep beneath the sea.

Russia's parliament gave preliminary approval in September to a bill intended to tighten regulations on oil companies working in the Arctic.

Yekaterina Khmelyova, an environment law officer at the WWF, said the bill does not do enough to hold the oil companies publicly accountable or to guarantee a full assessment of the environmental risks. She said environmentalists and the business community are working on a new draft that among other things would provide for the creation of clean-up funds.

Oil industry experts also have expressed doubts about Gazprom's expertise in offshore drilling in the Arctic as well as the platform's design.

They have questioned the economic justifications for the project. The oil in the Pechora field is of low quality and the project will be loss-making without tax breaks, said Valery Nesterov, a senior analyst with the Moscow-based investment bank Troika Dialog. For state-controlled Gazprom, the Arctic project appears to be more of strategic importance than about any immediate economic benefits, he said.

"This is clearly a strategic task that the company is executing," Nesterov said. "It looks like Russia is not going to give up that strategy since the interests of ship yards, machinery producers and, possibly, the military are involved."

Four years ago, Russia staked its claim to supremacy in the Arctic by planting a titanium flag on the ocean floor and arguing that an underwater ridge connected the country directly to the North Pole. The United States does not recognize the Russian assertion and has its own claims, along with Denmark, Norway and Canada.

Russia, Canada and Denmark are planning to their respective file claims to the ridge to the United Nations.

In past years, Russian ship yards and machinery producers have been able to stay afloat largely thanks to large orders coming from state-owned plants and government-sponsored projects. A large-scale oil and gas development of the Arctic is likely to give a welcome boost to both industries.

Source: http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~r/CBSNewsGamecore/~3/zv34V4zLA6s/

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Red velvety terror (Unqualified Offerings)

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Could Robert F. Kennedy's Assassin Have Been 'Hypno-Programmed'? (LiveScience.com)

This past March, 42 years into his life prison sentence for assassinating Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, Sirhan Sirhan stood in front of a parole board and repeated the same thing he had been saying at parole hearings for decades: that he had no memory of the shooting or his subsequent trial and confession of guilt. For the 14th time, his application was denied. Two weeks ago, Sirhan's attorneys filed the latest in a series of appeals that aim to get Sirhan back in front of a judge to correct what they call "an egregious miscarriage of justice."

Sirhan, they argued, had been hypnotized to carry out the crime.

In addition to presenting expert audio analysis indicating that there were two guns fired from different directions and a claim that a bullet from Kennedy's neck was switched out to match Sirhan's gun, the filings bolster a long-repeated conspiracy theory asserting that Sirhan was a victim of hypnosis, an unwitting shill whose Arab name made him an easy scapegoat and drew attention from the true architects of the assassination. According to the new pleadings, "[Sirhan] was an involuntary participant in the crimes being committed because he was subjected to sophisticated hypno-programing and memory implantation techniques which rendered him unable to consciously control his thoughts and actions at the time the crimes were being committed." [Where Do Murderous Tendencies Come From?]

Anticipating the skeptical firewall that the phrase "hypno-programming" raises in many inquiring minds, the filings also maintain that, "The public has been shielded from the darker side of the practice. The average person is unaware that hypnosis can and is used to induct antisocial conduct in humans."

If nothing else, Sirhan's lawyers may be right about a general lack of public awareness on the true potential of hypnosis. According to Dr. Richard Kluft, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Temple University and the past-president of the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, the scenario that Sirhan's legal team advances is "certainly within the realm of plausibility."

To put the seemingly far-fetched theory into context, Kluft notes that it is undisputed and freely available information that U.S. government security agencies have extensively researched the possibility of creating so-called "hypnotic assassins" and "hypnotic couriers." (A hypnotic courier would theoretically memorize a classified message while under hypnosis and then only be able to retrieve that information if provided with the proper post-hypnotic cue by the message's intended recipient, thus eliminating the possibility that the agent could divulge the information if captured and tortured.) Information on whether and how covert organizations have put the findings of their hypnosis research ? such as that conducted in the CIA's allegedly discontinued human experimentation program MKULTRA ? to use, however, is harder to obtain.

According to Kluft, it is not possible to hypnotize someone to do something that obviously violates their beliefs or desires. In hypnosis, though, context is everything. Say, for example, an unethical hypnotist wanted to hypnotize a suggestible vegetarian to eat a steak. If the hypnotist simply put the vegetarian into a state of hypnosis and then presented him or her with a steak, identified it as a steak, and told the person to eat it, the hypnotized vegetarian would almost certainly refuse.

But if the hypnotist put a vegetarian into a state of hypnosis and then made repeated misleading suggestions that in a short period of time a waiter would deliver a mouth-watering, mock-meat, soy-based protein slab that would be both delicious and meat-free, and then proceeded to order genuine filet mignon, the vegetarian would probably be more amenable to taking a bite.

The very uncomfortable and very serious question, then, is whether an exceptionally suggestible human brain, manipulated in just the right way, might be seduced by its delusions into committing an act far beyond the violation of a dietary code ? namely, gunning down a gifted politician in the early stages of an auspicious bid for the American presidency. Could a hypno-programmed Sirhan Sirhan really have fired on Kennedy if he didn't actually want to?

There is not a simple answer. It is all but inconceivable that Sirhan could have been picked up off the street and then successfully hypnotized to kill against his will after one session with a master hypnotist, but if hypnosis is combined with brainwashing regimens and used to make persistent suggestions that a subject misperceive external circumstances and re-contextualize personal beliefs, its limits are not well defined, Kluft said.

"Post-hypnotic subjects can be induced to misunderstand their circumstances and, as a result of them misunderstanding their circumstances, do and say some things that are very likely to be potentially detrimental and injurious," said Kluft, careful to note that he cannot speculate on Sirhan's past or present mental state specifically, as he has not personally evaluated him. "In the most general sense, you can't make a person do something against their principles with hypnosis, but you can deceive them as to what's truly the case so that they may wind up doing something that they themselves regard as reprehensible but that they did under circumstances of not really getting the whole picture."

It would be very unlikely for an appeal be granted based solely on new evidence of hypnosis in a crime that occurred more than 40 years ago, said Stephen J. Morse, a professor of law and psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. But if Sirhan's attorneys do manage to win their client a re-trial based on any of their latest allegations, proof that he was in a state of hypnosis at the time of Kennedy's assassination would absolve him of responsibility. "All crimes require some prohibited act as one of the elements," Morse explained. "In most American jurisdictions, an act performed under hypnosis is not considered an 'act' and thus the defendant would simply be acquitted of the crime charged."

This story was provided by Life's Little Mysteries, a sister site to LiveScience. Follow Life's Little Mysteries on Twitter @llmysteries, then join us on?Facebook.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20111216/sc_livescience/couldrobertfkennedysassassinhavebeenhypnoprogrammed

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Peru judge grants Berenson NY holiday (AP)

LIMA, Peru ? A Peruvian court has ruled that paroled U.S. activist Lori Berenson and her toddler son can travel to New York for the holidays, she and her father confirmed on Friday.

A three-judge appeals court on Wednesday overturned a lower court judge's ruling denying Berenson permission to travel, said Guillermo Gonzalez, spokesman for Peru's judicial system. He said she could leave the country from Dec. 16 to Jan. 11.

"I'm very glad that Peru is respecting its laws and human rights," Berenson's father, Mark, told The Associated Press by phone from Manhattan. "As Lori says, if she doesn't come home, let Interpol arrest her."

"She is not trying to ever break the law again," he added.

If she doesn't return to Peru by Jan. 11, the country's government could seek her extradition and return her to prison for violating parole, Gonzalez said.

Lori Berenson was paroled last year after serving 15 years for aiding leftist rebels, but she cannot leave Peru permanently until her sentence ends in 2015.

Her father said he is "petrified" a negative local reaction to the New York visit could prevent the trip, including celebrating his 70th birthday Dec. 29.

"My worry is that there's going to be screaming to stop this," he said. Some Peruvians consider her a terrorist, opposed her parole and have publicly insulted her on the street.

He said that as far as he knew, his 42-year-old daughter was still trying to buy a ticket for herself and son Salvador, who is 2 1/2.

"It's not going to be easy," he said. Flights are heavily booked and prices high at this time of year.

Reached by the AP, Lori Berenson confirmed her court permission but added by text message: "I am not speaking to the press."

She has been repeatedly hounded and mobbed by Peruvian news media, which has occasionally frightened young Salvador. Last month, one TV channel obtained her new address and showed video of her home on television, her father said.

"It was very dangerous," he added. "The (U.S.) Embassy complained."

"It's just not fair to Salvador or to her," he said. "They used her like she's a celebrity and she just wants to be a low-profile person and get on with her life and be a good citizen."

He said he would appeal to President Ollanta Humala to send his daughter home.

Humala could by law commute her sentence but has not indicated whether he might do so. The AP sought to reach a presidential palace spokesman for comment but its calls were not immediately returned.

Lori Berenson is separated from Salvador's father, Anibal Apari, whom she met in prison and who serves as her lawyer. He told the AP he signed documents letting her travel with the child.

Mark Berenson said his daughter is looking forward to seeing relatives she hasn't met since her 20s, including his 96-year-old aunt, and that he wants his grandson, who loves trees, see the New York Botanical Garden's holiday display.

Since her initial parole in May 2010, Lori Berenson repeatedly regret for aiding the rebel Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement.

Arrested in 1995, the former MIT student was accused of helping the rebels plan an armed takeover of Congress, an attack that never happened.

A military court convicted her the following year and sentenced her to life in prison for sedition. But after intense U.S. government pressure, she was retried in civil courts in 2001 and sentenced to 20 years for terrorist collaboration.

Berenson was unrepentant at the time of her arrest, but softened during years of sometimes harsh prison conditions, eventually being praised as a model prisoner.

Yet she is viewed by many as a symbol of the 1980-2000 rebel conflict that claimed some 70,000 lives. The fanatical Maoist Shining Path movement did most of the killing, while Tupac Amaru was a lesser player.

Berenson has acknowledged helping the rebels rent a safe house, where authorities seized a cache of weapons. But she insists she didn't know guns were being stored there. She denies ever belonging to Tupac Amaru or engaging in violent acts.

In an interview with the AP last year, Berenson said she was deeply troubled at having become Peru's "face of terrorism."

Its most famous prisoner, she also became a politically convenient scapegoat, she said.

___

Associated Press writer Martin Villena contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/latam/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111216/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_peru_lori_berenson

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Republican presidential debate: Fact check (cbsnews)

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BP settles with maker of failed blowout preventer

FILE - In a Sept. 13, 2010 file photo, the bottom of the blowout preventer stack, from the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill, which is being examined as evidence for federal investigations, is seen at the NASA Michaud Assembly facility in New Orleans. BP PLC said Friday, Dec. 16, 2011, it will be paid $250 million by the maker of the blowout preventer that failed to halt oil spewing from BP's busted well in the Gulf of Mexico. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

FILE - In a Sept. 13, 2010 file photo, the bottom of the blowout preventer stack, from the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill, which is being examined as evidence for federal investigations, is seen at the NASA Michaud Assembly facility in New Orleans. BP PLC said Friday, Dec. 16, 2011, it will be paid $250 million by the maker of the blowout preventer that failed to halt oil spewing from BP's busted well in the Gulf of Mexico. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

NEW ORLEANS (AP) ? Cameron International, the maker of the Deepwater Horizon blowout preventer that failed to stop last year's massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, has agreed to pay $250 million to BP under a legal settlement, BP said Friday.

BP said it was "in their mutual best interests, and the agreement is not an admission of liability by either party." The companies are dropping all claims against one another, they said.

The settlement comes in advance of a federal trial over the catastrophic Gulf oil spill. The non-jury trial is scheduled to begin in February and determine fault in the April 20, 2010, explosion and subsequent oil spill off the Louisiana coast of more than 200 million gallons of oil.

The settlement with Cameron does not end the legal fighting over the blowout of the Macondo well, which was owned by London-based BP and two partners, MOEX and Anadarko. BP has already settled claims with those two companies and a third company, Weatherford, the maker of a part used in the well.

"Today's settlement allows BP and Cameron to put our legal issues behind us and move forward to improve safety in the drilling industry," said Bob Dudley, BP group chief executive.

"Unfortunately, other companies persist in refusing to accept responsibility for their roles in the accident and for contributing to restoration efforts," Dudley said in a swipe at Halliburton Corp. and Transocean Ltd. Halliburton supplied critical cement to seal the well and Transocean was the company drilling the well.

Probes of the Deepwater Horizon explosion by the federal government and independent scientists and engineers have found all three companies were at fault for a series of decisions and actions that led to the Macondo well blowout, the nation's largest offshore oil spill.

BP is engaged in an intense legal fight with Halliburton Corp. and Transocean. Earlier this month, BP went so far as to accuse Halliburton employees of covering up damaging evidence about a cement mixture Halliburton used in drilling the well.

BP said it would use the $250 million from Cameron to pay for the cost of cleaning up from the spill and paying individual damages claims by people, businesses and government entities hurt by the spill. BP said it has spent about $7.5 billion so far of those claims. But the British company faces billions of dollars in additional damages and fines.

Under the agreement, BP said Houston-based Cameron is no longer responsible for any additional cleanup costs related to the spill. But BP said the agreement does not cover civil, criminal and administrative fines and other penalties that might arise out of the court proceedings.

Jack Moore, the chairman and CEO Cameron, said the agreement with BP "removes uncertainty facing Cameron" as litigation intensifies over the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

"This eliminates all significant exposure to historical and future claims related to this incident," Moore said.

Moore said Cameron does not expect to have to pay much for possible court fines and penalties. "We do not consider these items to represent a significant risk to Cameron," he said.

Cameron said its insurers were expected to fund at least $170 million of the $250 million payment the company agreed to make to BP.

BP and Cameron also pledged to "improve safety in the drilling industry" and do more to improve blowout preventers.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2011-12-16-Gulf%20Oil%20Spill-Settlement/id-edd9ade58f0c44068f9402bbd6a9506a

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Daily App Deals: Get Camera ZOOM FX for Android for Only 10? in Today's App Deals [Deals]

The Daily App Deals post is a round-up of the best app discounts of the day, as well as some notable mentions for ones that are on sale.

The Best

Camera ZOOM FX (Android Market) Previously $4.99, now 10?. Camera ZOOM FX for Android is a powerful camera app with optical and digital zoom capability up to 6x. Features include the ability to take pictures through voice activation and post processing straight from your device with over 90 different effects. Get it for 10?.

Free

iOS

The Rest

Android

• Star Chart | Android Market | Previously $3.23, now 10?

Windows

Mac

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/wF1N_HmVLnA/daily-app-deals-get-camera-zoom-fx-for-android-for-only-10-in-todays-app-deals

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