söndag, juli 31, 2011
Om sommarvärmen besvärande
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| Kläder med inbyggd luftkonditionering finns. Tillverkare är den japanska firman Kuchofuku Co. Ltd |
Harry Reid's debt deal defeated
As expected, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's deal to raise the debt ceiling by $2.2 trillion was defeated in the Senate on Sunday afternoon.
But Senate leaders and the White House continued on Sunday to craft the outlines of a deal to avoid default on Aug. 2 that seemed to be gaining momentum.
But Senate leaders and the White House continued on Sunday to craft the outlines of a deal to avoid default on Aug. 2 that seemed to be gaining momentum.
Sharialagar i delar av London?
Anjem Choudary vill införa shariakontrollerade zoner i framför allt Londons stadsdelar. Här är en video från en presskonferensens där Choudary förklarar sig:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) says Congress, White House "very close" to deal
With the default deadline two days away, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Sunday morning that Congress and the White House were "very close" to a framework for a deal that he could recommend his members support.
The deal would contain $3 trillion in spending cuts and no tax increases.
"We'll avoid default," McConnell said. "We're not going to have default."
WASHINGTON POST
The deal would contain $3 trillion in spending cuts and no tax increases.
"We'll avoid default," McConnell said. "We're not going to have default."
WASHINGTON POST
Ferierende Reinfeldt får kraftig kritikk
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| NORGE |
Dro på ferie til Tyrkia to dager etter terrorangrepene mot Oslo og Utøya.
Lørdag etter angrepene 22. juli holdt den svenske statsministeren en tale der han fordømte terrorhandlingene, og samme dag snakket han med statsminister Jens Stoltenberg på telefon. Utover det skal ikke den svenske statsministeren ha foretatt seg mye.
Men i dag skriver svenske avisen Aftonbladet at Reinfeldt dro på ferie til Tyrkia forrige søndag. Hvor lenge han blir på ferie er foreløpig uklart.
Kun to dager etter terrorangrepene mot Norge satt Sveriges statsminister Fredrik Reinfeldt seg på flyet mot ferieparadiset, sammen med sin kone og sikkerhetsvakter, ifølge avisen.
Massiv kritikk
Reinfeldt har vært helt fraværende i offentligheten den siste uken, og tausheten hans er blitt møtt med kraftig kritikk i Sverige.
Reinfeldts informasjonsmedarbeider Markus Friberg ønsker ikke å kommentere hvor statsministeren befinner seg, og sier at statsministeren heller ikke ønsker å kommentere kritikken mot ham.
Sveriges største avis, Aftonbladet, spurte i en artikkel tidligere denne uken: «Hvor er du, Reinfeldt?», og sammenlikner blant annet med at Barack Obama kom til den norske ambassaden i Washington for å undertegne kondolanseprotokollen.
- Ikke tatt på alvor
AUFs svenske søsterorganisasjon, SSU, er blant dem som har kritisert Reinfeldt for å være fraværende.
SSU stiller spørsmål ved at statsministeren verken deltok på noen av minnegudstjenestene eller på fredagens minnemarkering i Stockholm, der tusenvis av mennesker tente lys.
- Han var velkommen, sa SSU-leder Jytte Guteland tidligere denn uken.
Statsviter Ulf Bjereld peker på at Reinfeldt burde lede sorgarbeidet i Sverige.
- Nå har han handlet på en måte som får mange til mene at han ikke fullt ut har tatt situasjonen på alvor, sier han til Svenska Dagbladet.
- I en slik situasjon kan ikke statsministeren trekke seg unna, skriver politisk redaktør Peter Wolodarski i Dagens Nyheter.
Mange brev til statsministeren
Avisen Dagens Nyheter har gått gjennom alle brev sendt til statsministeren den siste uken, og det er terrorangrepet i Norge som er det gjennomgående teamet. Blant 50 brev om terrorangrepet, er rundt halvparten kritiske til statsministeren.
- Det kjennes sørgerlig at Obama synes å bry seg mer om å våre naboer enn du, skriver en svensk kvinne i et brev til Reinfeldt.
- Jeg har aldri skrevet noe liknende, men denne gangen må jeg bare uttrykke hvor skuffet jeg er over hvordan du har håndtert tragedien i Norge, skriver en kvinne
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| VAKNA FÖR F-N! |
Amid New Talks, Some Optimism on Debt Crisis
The Senate delayed a crucial vote on the Democratic debt ceiling bill until 1 p.m. Sunday amid growing indications that a compromise is in the works that will avert a federal default on Tuesday.
NEW YORK TIMES
NEW YORK TIMES
FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending July 29, 2011
Washington, D.C.
July 29, 2011 FBI National Press Office
1. San Antonio: Naser Jason Abdo Charged Federally in Bomb Plot
Naser Jason Abdo, an absent without leave soldier from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, is charged with possession of an unregistered destructive device in connection with a bomb plot.
2. New York: Former Sky Capital CEO and Senior Broker Found Guilty of Committing Massive Investment Fraud and Stock Manipulation Scheme
A former chief executive officer and a senior broker of Sky Capital, LLC were found guilty on four counts in connection with their involvement in a scheme to defraud investors through two successive securities broker dealers.
3. Birmingham: Illegal Alien from Uzbekistan Indicted for Threatening to Kill the President and Possessing Machine Gun and Grenades
A federal grand jury indicted Ulugbek Kodirov, an Uzbek national, for threatening the life of President Barack Obama and illegally possessing weapons.
4. Houston: Indictment Charging Houston Police Department Officer Unsealed
A Houston Police officer was arrested following the return of an indictment by a Houston grand jury charging him with drug trafficking and corruption.
5. Sacramento: Drug Trafficker Sentenced to 25 Years in Ongoing Nuestra Familia Gang Prosecution
Gabriel Caracheo was sentenced to 25 years in prison, to be followed by 10 years of supervised release for conspiring to distribute methamphetamine.
6. Newark: Former Mortgage Broker Admits Role in Multi-Million-Dollar Fraud Scheme
Ara Mesropian, a former New Jersey mortgage broker, admitted that he participated in a mortgage fraud scheme which defrauded lenders and generated millions of dollars in fraudulent mortgage loans.
7. Minneapolis: Minnesota Mortgage Broker Charged in $20 Million Mortgage Fraud Scheme
Derrick Ivan Lance, an Edina mortgage broker, was charged in connection with his role in a $20 million mortgage fraud scheme that involved 57 properties.
8. Portland: Federal Indictment Returned Charging Warm Springs Man with Murder in Second Degree
Ted L. Barney appeared in court on a two-count indictment charging him with second-degree murder and use of a firearm during a crime of violence. Barney faces a maximum sentence of life in prison on the second-degree murder charge, and a consecutive sentence of 10 years in prison if convicted on the crime of use of a firearm during a crime of violence.
9. Philadelphia: Alabama Man Pleads Guilty in Multi-Million-Dollar Financial Fraud
John Wiley Spann pled guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and money laundering arising out of a sophisticated loan fraud scheme that caused losses of approximately $53 million at Equipment Finance, LLC.
10. New Haven: Investment Adviser, Race Team Owner Admits Operating $10 Million Fraud Scheme
Gregory Loles pled guilty to mail, wire, and securities fraud and money laundering offenses stemming from a scheme to defraud investors, including a Connecticut church, of millions of dollars.
VM U-20 i Colombia
Matcher igår:
Mali - Sydkorea 0-2
Colombia - Frankrike 4-1
Kameron - Nya Zealand 1-1
Portugal - Uruguay 0-0
Senate Vote on Debt Limit Postponed Until Sunday Afternoon
The Senate will delay a crucial vote on the Democratic debt ceiling bill until 1 p.m. tomorrow amid growing indications that a compromise is in the works that will avert a federal default on Tuesday.
The delay averts a 1 a.m. legislative showdown in the Senate and all-night wrangling that Democrats had threatened on Friday. And it suggests that the looming deadline is working to pressure both sides toward a last-minute agreement. /New York Times
Mer och mer spännande i USA.
The delay averts a 1 a.m. legislative showdown in the Senate and all-night wrangling that Democrats had threatened on Friday. And it suggests that the looming deadline is working to pressure both sides toward a last-minute agreement. /New York Times
Mer och mer spännande i USA.
Dagens svenska pang-pang
Skottlossning ska enligt flera vittnesmål ha brutit ut på Saturnusgatan i Kortedala under söndagsmorgonen.
- Det är ingen skadad där, men det är två bilar som ska ha skjutit mot varandra, säger Gunilla Gustafsson, biträdande vakthavande befäl på polisen i Västra Götaland. /SvD
Kortedala ... ja-ja
- Det är ingen skadad där, men det är två bilar som ska ha skjutit mot varandra, säger Gunilla Gustafsson, biträdande vakthavande befäl på polisen i Västra Götaland. /SvD
Kortedala ... ja-ja
Francia se cruzará en el camino de España para el Mundial
Mycket fint av FIFA att låta Ronaldo få äran delta i lottningen.
De Europeiska kvalgrupperna ingför fotbolls-VM i Brasilien 2014:
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| Grupp A: Kroatien, Serbien, Belgien, Skottland, Makedonien, Wales. Grupp B: Italien, Danmark, Tjeckien, Bulgarien, Armenien, Malta. Grupp C: Tyskland, Sverige, Irland, Österrike, Färöarna, Kazakstan. Grupp D: Holland, Turkiet, Ungern, Rumänien, Estland, Andorra. Grupp E: Norge, Slovenien, Schweiz, Albanien, Cypern, Island. Grupp F: Portugal, Ryssland, Israel, Nordirland, Azerbajdzjan, Luxemburg. Grupp G: Grekland, Slovakien, Bosnien-Hercegovina, Litauen, Lettland, Liechtenstein. Grupp H: England, Montenegro, Ukraina, Polen, Moldavien, San Marino. Grupp I: Spanien, Frankrike, Vitryssland, Georgien, Finland Gruppsegrarna går direkt till VM. De åtta bästa tvåorna ur de europeiska grupperna går till play off-spel. Sveriges chanser att gå till slutspelet i Brasilien må tyvärr anses vara små. I Spanien är man besviken över att Frankrike hamnade i samma grupp. I England är man nöjd, inte bara hos tidningen The Independent som bl.a. skriver: "Forty-five years to the day since they lifted the World Cup for the first and only time, England embarked on another hopeful crusade last night. At a glittering 2014 qualification draw in Rio de Janeiro, England got lucky – not for the first time – when they headed Group H and found themselves paired with Euro 2012 joint hosts Poland and Ukraine, current Euro 2012 qualifying adversaries Montenegro, Moldova and minnows San Marino who, as Graham Taylor will remember only too well, still hold the record for the quickest goal scored in World Cup qualifying.". Tyskland hade tur. Die Welt skriver: "Der deutschen Fußball-Nationalmannschaft bleibt das Losglück treu. Auf dem Weg zur WM-Endrunde 2014 in Brasilien muss sich die Mannschaft von Bundestrainer Joachim Löw in der Qualifikation mit Schweden, Irland, Österreich, den Färöern und Kasachstan auseinandersetzen.". I Danmark är man nog inte alldeles nöjd. Berlingste Tidene: "Nuværende ekspertkommentator på TV 2 Sport, Martin Laursens, mening ikke synderligt venlige mod det danske landshold. - Jeg synes ikke, det er en særlig god lodtrækning. Det kunne have været langt bedre, siger han.". |
Efforts to avoid federal default stall in Congress
Los Angeles Times
July 30, 2011
12:38 p.m.
Efforts to reach last-minute agreement to stave off a potentially disastrous federal default sagged today amid partisan discord and distrust, with the House taking a purely symbolic thumbs-down vote on a Democratic debt-ceiling plan and the Senate paralyzed in the face of the prospective filibuster.
The picture: House Speaker John Boehner walksthrough the Capitol on Saturday on
his way to a vote on a bill modeled after Sen. Harry Reid's
deficit-reductionplan. /L A Times
Read more >> http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-debt-impasse-20110730,0,166771.story.
July 30, 2011
12:38 p.m.
Efforts to reach last-minute agreement to stave off a potentially disastrous federal default sagged today amid partisan discord and distrust, with the House taking a purely symbolic thumbs-down vote on a Democratic debt-ceiling plan and the Senate paralyzed in the face of the prospective filibuster.
The picture: House Speaker John Boehner walksthrough the Capitol on Saturday on
his way to a vote on a bill modeled after Sen. Harry Reid's
deficit-reductionplan. /L A Times
Read more >> http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-debt-impasse-20110730,0,166771.story.
lördag, juli 30, 2011
Sea level rise less from Greenland, more from Antarctica, than expected during last interglacial
July 28, 2011 by Jill Sakai
During the last prolonged warm spell on Earth, the oceans were at least four meters — and possibly as much as 6.5 meters, or about 20 feet — higher than they are now. |
| Anders Carlson, a UW–Madison geologist, surveys an outlet glacier in southwest Greenland. Carlson and colleagues from UW–Madison and Oregon State University have shown that melting ice from Greenland may have raised ocean levels less than expected during the most-recent prolonged warm spell on Earth. The surprising patterns of ice melt found by new research suggest that Greenland’s ice sheet may be more stable — and Antarctica’s less stable — than previously thought. Photo: courtesy Robert Hatfield, Oregon State University |
But Carlson's new results, published July 29 in Science, are challenging that assertion, revealing surprising patterns of melting during the last interglacial period that suggest that Greenland's ice may be more stable — and Antarctica's less stable — than many thought.
"The Greenland Ice Sheet is melting faster and faster," says Carlson, who is also a member of the Center for Climatic Research in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. But despite clear observations of that fact, estimates of just how much the ice will melt and contribute to sea level rise by the end of this century are highly varied, ranging from a few centimeters to meters. "There's a clear need to understand how it has behaved in the past, and how it has responded to warmer-than-present summers in the past."
The ice-estimation business is rife with unknown variables and has few known physical constraints, Carlson explains, making ice sheet behavior — where they melt, how much, how quickly — the largest source of uncertainty in predicting sea level rises due to climate change. His research team sought a way to constrain where ice remained on Greenland during the last interglacial period, around 125,000 years ago, to better define past ice sheet behavior and improve future projections.
The researchers analyzed silt from an ocean-floor core taken from a region off the southern tip of Greenland that receives sediments carried by meltwater streams off the ice sheet. They used different patterns of radiogenic isotopes to identify sources of the sediment, tracing the silt back to one of three "terranes" or regions, each with a distinct geochemical signature. The patterns of sedimentation show which terranes were still glaciated at that time.
"If the land deglaciates, you lose that sediment," Carlson explains. But to their surprise, they found that all the terranes were still supplying sediment throughout the last interglacial period and thus still had some ice cover.
"The ice definitely retreated to smaller than present extent and definitely raised sea level to higher than present" and continued to melt throughout the warm period, he adds, but the sediment analysis indicates that "the ice sheet seems to be more stable than some of the greater retreat values that people have presented."
The team used their results to evaluate several existing models of Greenland ice sheet melting during the last interglacial period. The models consistent with the new findings indicate that melting Greenland ice was responsible for a sea level rise of 1.6 to 2.2 meters — at most, roughly half of the minimum four-meter total increase.
Even after accounting for other Arctic ice and the thermal expansion of warmer water, most of the difference must have come from a melting Antarctic ice sheet, Carlson says.
"The implication of our results is that West Antarctica likely was much smaller than it is today," and responsible for much more of the sea level rise than many scientists have thought, he says. "If West Antarctica collapsed, that means it's more unstable than we expected, which is quite scary."
Ultimately, Carlson says he hopes this line of research will improve the representation of ice sheet responses to a warming planet in future Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports. Temperatures during the last interglacial period were similar to those expected by the end of this century, and present-day temps have already reached a point that Greenland's glaciers are melting.
The Science paper was co-authored by UW-Madison colleagues Elizabeth Colville, Brian Beard, Alberto Reyes, and David Ullman and Oregon State University researchers Robert Hatfield and Joseph Stoner, and supported by UW-Madison and the National Science Foundation.
The University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW–Madison, Madison, or Wisconsin) is a public reserach universitylocated in Madison Wisconsin, United States.
Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the Univesity of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866. The 933-acre (3.78 km2) main campus includes four National Historic Landmarks.
House GOP rejects Reid debt-ceiling bill
Republicans in the House of Representatives have rejected a bill that mirrors a proposal by Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) to raise the debt ceiling through 2012, a symbolic gesture of disapproval as the Senate continues to debate Reid's measure and discuss a possible compromise.
WASHINGTON POST
WASHINGTON POST
Exakt på dagen för 81 år sedan
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| Uruguays världsmästarlag 1930. |
Largest recorded tundra fire yields scientific surprises
FAIRBANKS, Alaska -- In 2007, the largest recorded tundra fire in the Arctic released approximately as much carbon into the atmosphere as the tundra has stored in the previous 50 years.
A study of the Anaktuvuk River fire on Alaska’s North Slope revealed how rapidly a single tundra fire can offset or reverse a half-century worth of soil-stored carbon. The study’s results are published in the July 28 issue of the journal Nature.
Tundra soils store huge amounts of carbon hundreds to thousands of years old. Layers of organic soil insulate the permanently frozen ground, called permafrost, below and restrict fires to aboveground plants and plant litter leaving the carbon stored in soils relatively intact.
As arctic summers get warmer and dryer, so too do the soils, which are highly flammable and able to burn more deeply when dry. This allows fires to burn more deeply into the ground. When aboveground plant materials burn, that not only releases carbon into the atmosphere, it also speeds thawing of the permafrost below. The once-frozen organic material in the thawing permafrost then begins to decompose, releasing additional carbon and amplifying climate warming.
“Fire has been largely absent from tundra for the past 11,000 or so years, but the frequency of tundra fires is increasing, probably as a response to climate warming,” said co-author Syndonia “Donie” Bret-Harte, an ecosystem ecologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Institute of Arctic Biology. “If the frequency of these fires remains at long intervals, 80 to 150 years, then the tundra has time to recover. If these fires occur more frequently, say every 10 years or so, then the landscape cannot recover.”
The Anaktuvuk River fire burned 401 square miles, an area roughly the size of Cape Cod and visible from space, and released more than 2.3 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere. Radiocarbon dating of the soils revealed the maximum age of the soil carbon emitted from the fire was 50 years.
“The amount of carbon released into the atmosphere from this fire is equivalent to the amount of carbon stored by the global tundra biome,” said lead author Michelle Mack, a biologist from the University of Florida. “This was a boreal forest-sized fire.”
The Anaktuvuk River fire was started by a lightning strike in July 2007. “Normally we would expect the fire to go out in the moist soil, but this summer was so dry that the fire didn’t go out and strong winds in September caused it to burn a very large area,” said Bret-Harte. The wall of smoke from the fire was visible 15 miles south at the Toolik Field Station, where the scientists were working.
In addition to the direct release of carbon into the atmosphere, tundra fires are important because of the potential effects on global climate change. “These fires could be a radical and very rapid positive feedback to atmospheric carbon dioxide,” said Mack.
According to the authors, their observations of carbon loss from the Anaktuvuk River fire support the idea that tundra fires have the potential to release large amounts of carbon and decrease landscape carbon stocks, having an immediate impact on atmospheric carbon and climate.
ADDITIONAL CONTACTS: Syndonia “Donie” Bret-Harte, Institute of Arctic Biology, UAF, at 907-455-2582 (Toolik Field Station), 907-474-5434 (UAF) or msbretharte@alaska.edu. Michelle Mack, Department of Biology, University of Florida, 352-846-2510, mcmack@ufl.edu, Skype: michellecailinmack
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| Roman Bezjak, who was born in Slovenia but was raised in West Germany, set out to document the everyday qualities of communist buildings. Once the Ministry of Road Construction, this building in Tbilisi, Georgia, consists of five intersecting horizontal bars and resembles a Jenga game. It was designed to has as small a footprint on the ground as possible and to allow natural life to flourish. Now it houses the Bank of Georgia./ DER SPIEGEL |
Fotboll
* Eurosport med början kl 08.30 och Eurosport 2 med början kl 09.30 visar U20-VM i Colombia.
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| U-20-VM: Argentina slog i går Mexico med 1-0 På bilden omfamnas målskytten Lamela. |
Treating Depression With Exercise
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Regular exercise enhances emotional well-being. Medical studies have shown that people who engage in a steady program of physical activity report a more cheerful mood, higher self-esteem, improved sleep and less stress. People who remain active and physically fit are less likely to develop clinical depression. So it's no surprise that exercise can be useful in the treatment of depression.
Endast för kändis-kult-fantaster
Jag kollar dagens radioprogram och läser i rikstidningen rubriken till en artikel om programmet "Sommar i P1":
"Helena Bergström sommarpratar om sin okände halvbror".
Inget ont om Helena Bergström, men hennes radioprogram idag skippar jag.
"Sommarpratar om sin okände halvbror"... ja-ja.
Snart kommer det väl någon halvkändis (det vimlar av sådana) i programmet och pratar om sin trädgårdsintresserade grannes gamla mosters hjältedåd i morotslandet .
"Helena Bergström sommarpratar om sin okände halvbror".
Inget ont om Helena Bergström, men hennes radioprogram idag skippar jag.
"Sommarpratar om sin okände halvbror"... ja-ja.
Snart kommer det väl någon halvkändis (det vimlar av sådana) i programmet och pratar om sin trädgårdsintresserade grannes gamla mosters hjältedåd i morotslandet .
Senate Tables Boehner’s Debt Ceiling Bill
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| House Speaker John A. Boehner |
Less than two hours after House Speaker John A. Boehner pushed his bill through the House over the strenuous objections of nearly two dozen of his own Republican members, the Democratic leadership in the Senate followed through on their promise to kill his legislation.
But the move now sets up an uncertain 72 hours as the Congress moves ever closer to the Tuesday deadline when the Treasury Department says the country will default on its financial obligations without an increase in the debt ceiling.
NEW YORK TIMES
Read More:http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/senate-tables-boehner-bill/?emc=na
In Party Line Vote, House Passes Boehner’s Debt Plan, 218-210
The House of Representatives on Friday approved a plan for a short-term increase in the debt ceiling and cuts in spending, ending a week of intense fighting among Republicans and shifting the end game of the debate to the Senate.
The vote was 218-210, leaving House Speaker John A. Boehner with 22 Republicans who were unwilling to support his efforts to get a bill approved.
NEW YORK TIMES
Read More:http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/house-passes-short-term-debt-ceiling-increase/?emc=na
The vote was 218-210, leaving House Speaker John A. Boehner with 22 Republicans who were unwilling to support his efforts to get a bill approved.
NEW YORK TIMES
Read More:http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/house-passes-short-term-debt-ceiling-increase/?emc=na
fredag, juli 29, 2011
EM U19
Spanien och Tjeckien spelar på måndag final i U19-EM.
Spanien slog idag Irland med 6-0 och Tjeckien slog Serbien med 4-2.
Spanien slog idag Irland med 6-0 och Tjeckien slog Serbien med 4-2.
What Lies Inside Jupiter?
July 29, 2011: Jupiter's swirling clouds can be seen through any department store telescope. With no more effort than it takes to bend over an eyepiece, you can witness storm systems bigger than Earth navigating ruddy belts that stretch hundreds of thousands of kilometers around Jupiter's vast equator. It's fascinating.
It's also vexing. According to many researchers, the really interesting things--from the roots of monster storms to stores of exotic matter--are located at depth. The clouds themselves hide the greatest mysteries from view.
NASA's Juno probe, scheduled to launch on August 5th, could change all that. The goal of the mission is to answer the question, What lies inside Jupiter?
"Our knowledge of Jupiter is truly skin deep," says Juno's principal investigator, Scott Bolton of the SouthWest Research Institute in San Antonio, TX. "Even the Galileo probe, which dived into the clouds in 1995, penetrated no more than about 0.2% of Jupiter’s radius."
There are many basic things researchers would like to know—like how far down does the Great Red Spot go? How much water does Jupiter hold? And what is the exotic material near the planet's core?
Juno will lift the veil without actually diving through the clouds. Bolton explains how: "Swooping as low as 5000 km above the cloudtops, Juno will spend a full year orbiting nearer to Jupiter than any previous spacecraft. The probe's flight path will cover all latitudes and longitudes, allowing us to fully map Jupiter's gravitational field and thus figure out how the interior is layered."
Jupiter is made primarily of hydrogen, but only the outer layers may be in gaseous form. Deep inside Jupiter, researchers believe, high temperatures and crushing pressures transform the gas into an exotic form of matter known as liquid metallic hydrogen--a liquid form of hydrogen akin to the slippery mercury in an old-fashioned thermometer. Jupiter's powerful magnetic field almost certainly springs from dynamo action inside this vast realm of electrically conducting fluid.
"Juno's magnetometers will precisely map Jupiter's magnetic field," says Bolton. "This will tell us a great deal about the planet's inner magnetic dynamo [and the role liquid metallic hydrogen plays in it]."
uno will also probe Jupiter's atmosphere using a set of microwave radiometers.
"Our sensors can measure the temperature and water content at depths where the pressure is 50 times greater than what the Galileo probe experienced," says Bolton.
Jupiter's water content is of particular interest. There are two leading theories of Jupiter's origin: One holds that Jupiter formed more or less where it is today, while the other suggests Jupiter formed at greater distances from the sun, later migrating to its current location. (Imagine the havoc a giant planet migrating through the solar system could cause.) The two theories predict different amounts of water in Jupiter's interior, so Juno should be able to distinguish between them—or rule out both.
Finally, Juno will get a grand view of the most powerful Northern Lights in the Solar System.
"Juno's polar orbit is ideal for studying Jupiter's auroras," explains Bolton. "They are really strong, and we don't fully understand how they are created."
Unlike Earth, which lights up in response to solar activity, Jupiter makes its own auroras. The power source is the giant planet's own rotation. Although Jupiter is ten times wider than Earth, it manages to spin around 2.5 times as fast as our little planet. As any freshman engineering student knows, if you spin a magnet—and Jupiter is a very big magnet—you've got an electric generator. Induced electric fields accelerate particles toward Jupiter's poles where the aurora action takes place. Remarkably, many of the particles that rain down on Jupiter's poles appear to be ejecta from volcanoes on Io. How this complicated system actually works is a puzzle.
It's a puzzle that members of the public will witness at close range thanks to JunoCam—a public outreach instrument modeled on the descent camera for Mars rover Curiosity. When Juno swoops low over the cloudtops, JunoCam will go to work, snapping pictures better than the best Hubble images of Jupiter.
"JunoCam will show us what you would see if you were an astronaut orbiting Jupiter," says Bolton. "I am looking forward to that."
Juno is slated to reach Jupiter in 2016.
Author: Dr. Tony Phillips
Credit: Science@NASA
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| An artist's concept of Juno at Jupiter |
NASA's Juno probe, scheduled to launch on August 5th, could change all that. The goal of the mission is to answer the question, What lies inside Jupiter?
"Our knowledge of Jupiter is truly skin deep," says Juno's principal investigator, Scott Bolton of the SouthWest Research Institute in San Antonio, TX. "Even the Galileo probe, which dived into the clouds in 1995, penetrated no more than about 0.2% of Jupiter’s radius."
There are many basic things researchers would like to know—like how far down does the Great Red Spot go? How much water does Jupiter hold? And what is the exotic material near the planet's core?
Juno will lift the veil without actually diving through the clouds. Bolton explains how: "Swooping as low as 5000 km above the cloudtops, Juno will spend a full year orbiting nearer to Jupiter than any previous spacecraft. The probe's flight path will cover all latitudes and longitudes, allowing us to fully map Jupiter's gravitational field and thus figure out how the interior is layered."
Jupiter is made primarily of hydrogen, but only the outer layers may be in gaseous form. Deep inside Jupiter, researchers believe, high temperatures and crushing pressures transform the gas into an exotic form of matter known as liquid metallic hydrogen--a liquid form of hydrogen akin to the slippery mercury in an old-fashioned thermometer. Jupiter's powerful magnetic field almost certainly springs from dynamo action inside this vast realm of electrically conducting fluid.
"Juno's magnetometers will precisely map Jupiter's magnetic field," says Bolton. "This will tell us a great deal about the planet's inner magnetic dynamo [and the role liquid metallic hydrogen plays in it]."
uno will also probe Jupiter's atmosphere using a set of microwave radiometers.
"Our sensors can measure the temperature and water content at depths where the pressure is 50 times greater than what the Galileo probe experienced," says Bolton.
Jupiter's water content is of particular interest. There are two leading theories of Jupiter's origin: One holds that Jupiter formed more or less where it is today, while the other suggests Jupiter formed at greater distances from the sun, later migrating to its current location. (Imagine the havoc a giant planet migrating through the solar system could cause.) The two theories predict different amounts of water in Jupiter's interior, so Juno should be able to distinguish between them—or rule out both.
Finally, Juno will get a grand view of the most powerful Northern Lights in the Solar System.
"Juno's polar orbit is ideal for studying Jupiter's auroras," explains Bolton. "They are really strong, and we don't fully understand how they are created."
Unlike Earth, which lights up in response to solar activity, Jupiter makes its own auroras. The power source is the giant planet's own rotation. Although Jupiter is ten times wider than Earth, it manages to spin around 2.5 times as fast as our little planet. As any freshman engineering student knows, if you spin a magnet—and Jupiter is a very big magnet—you've got an electric generator. Induced electric fields accelerate particles toward Jupiter's poles where the aurora action takes place. Remarkably, many of the particles that rain down on Jupiter's poles appear to be ejecta from volcanoes on Io. How this complicated system actually works is a puzzle.
It's a puzzle that members of the public will witness at close range thanks to JunoCam—a public outreach instrument modeled on the descent camera for Mars rover Curiosity. When Juno swoops low over the cloudtops, JunoCam will go to work, snapping pictures better than the best Hubble images of Jupiter.
"JunoCam will show us what you would see if you were an astronaut orbiting Jupiter," says Bolton. "I am looking forward to that."
Juno is slated to reach Jupiter in 2016.
Author: Dr. Tony Phillips
Credit: Science@NASA
Klinsmann head coach of the U.S
The U.S. National Debt and How It Got So Big
(Updated June 20, 2011) The U.S. debt is over $14 trillion, and is the sum of all outstanding debt owed by the Federal Government. Nearly two-thirds is the public debt, which is owed to the people, businesses and foreign governments who bought Treasury bills, notes and bonds.
The Size of the U.S. Debt:
The U.S. debt is the largest in the world. How did it get so large? Purchasers of Treasury bills still reasonably expect the U.S. economy to recover enough to pay them back. For foreign investors like China and Japan, the U.S. is such a large customer it is allowed to run a huge tab so it will keep buying exports. (Source: CIA World Factbook)
Even before the economic crisis, the U.S. debt grew 50% between 2000-2007, ballooning from $6-$9 trillion. The $700 billion bailout helped the debt grow to $10.5 trillion by December 2008.
The U.S. Debt Level:
The debt level is the debt as a percent of the total country's production, or GDP, which was $14.7 trillion in 2010. The debt is 95% of GDP, up from 51% in 1988.
Interest on the debt was $414 billion in Fiscal Year 2010, higher than the $383 billion in FY 2009, but lower than its peak of $451 billion in FY 2008. That's because of lower interest rates. The interest on the debt is the fifth largest Federal budget item, after Defense and Security spending ($890 billion), Social Security ($730 billion) and Medicare ($490 billion). (Source: U.S. Treasury, Interest)
How Did the Debt Get So Large?:
Government debt is an accumulation of budget deficits. Year after year, the government cut taxes and increased spending. In the short run, the economy and voters benefited from deficit spending. Usually, however, holders of the debt want larger interest payments to compensate for what they perceive as an increasing risk that they won't be repaid. This added interest payment expense usually forces a government to keep debt within reasonable limits.
The most recent budget forecast from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) showed the FY 2011 budget deficit at $1.3 trillion, more than the $1.17 trillion deficit for FY 2010, but down from the $1.7 trillion deficit for FY 2009. This was a result of the economic stimulus package, the 2008 government bailout measures and the roughly $800 billion a year defense/security spending. The deficit is also caused by reduced income from the recession, as well as the EGTRRA and JGTRRA tax cuts and the Alternative Minimum Tax patch. (Source: OMB, Federal Budget Deficit)
The U.S., however, has been the beneficiary of two unusual factors. First, the Social Security Trust Fund took in more revenue through payroll taxes leveraged on Baby Boomers than it needed. Ideally, this money should have been invested to be available when the Boomers retire. In reality, the Fund was "loaned" to the government to finance increased deficit spending. This interest-free loan helped keep Treasury Bond interest rates low, allowing more debt financing. However, it's not really a loan, since it can only be repaid by increased taxes when the Boomers do retire.
Second, foreign countries increased their holdings of Treasury Bonds as a safe haven, also keeping interest rates low. These holdings went from 13% in 1988 to 31% in 2011. During the recession, countries like China and Japan increased their holdings of Treasuries to keep their currencies low relative to the dollar. Even though China warns the U.S. to lower its debt, it keeps buying more Treasuries. For more, see How China Affects the U.S. Economy.
Of the total foreign holdings ($4.49 trillion), China owns $1.1 trillion and Japan owns $900 billion. The U.K. owns $300 billion, while Brazil, the oil exporting countries, Hong Kong, Russia and Canada own between $100-$280 billion each. The Bureau of International Settlements suspects that much of the holdings by Belgium, Caribbean Banking Centers and Luxembourg are fronts for more oil-exporting countries, or hedge funds, that do not wish to be identified. (Source: Foreign Holding of U.S. Treasury Securities, April 2011; U.S. Treasury report ”Petrodollars and Global Imbalances”, February 2006)
How The U.S. Debt Affects the Economy:
Over the next 20 years, the Social Security funds must be paid back as the Baby Boomers retire. Since this money has been spent, resources need to be identified to repay this loan. That would mean higher taxes, since the high U.S. debt rules out further loans from other countries. Unfortunately, it's most likely that these benefits will be curtailed, either to retirees younger than 70, or to those who are high income and therefore theoretically don't need Social Security.
Second, many of the foreign holders of U.S. debt are investing more in their own economies. Over time, diminished demand for U.S. Treasuries could increase interest rates, thus slowing the economy. Furthermore, anticipation of this lower demand puts downward pressure on the dollar. That's because dollars, and dollar-denominated Treasury Securities, may become less desirable, so their value declines. As the dollar declines, foreign holders get paid back in currency that is worth less, which further decreases demand.
The bottom line is that the large Federal debt is like driving with the emergency brake on, further slowing the U.S. economy.
Oblique view of the lower mound in Mars' Gale Crater
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| Rock Layers in Gale Crater This oblique view of the lower mound in Gale Crater shows layers of rock that preserve a record of environments on Mars. Here, orbiting instruments have detected signatures of both clay minerals and sulfate salts, with more clay minerals apparent in the foreground of this image and fewer in higher layers. This change in mineralogy may reflect a change in the ancient environment in Gale Crater. Mars scientists have several important hypotheses about how these minerals may reflect changes in the amount of water on the surface of Mars. The Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, will use its full suite of instruments to study these minerals to provide insights into these ancient Martian environments. These rocks are also a prime target in the search for organic molecules since these past environments may have been habitable -- able to support microbial life. Scientists will study how organic molecules, if present, vary with mineralogical variations in the layers to understand how they formed and what influences their preservation. The smaller hills in this view may provide clues to the modern water cycle on Mars. They contain sulfate salts that have water in them, and as temperatures warm into summer, some of that water may be released to the atmosphere. As temperatures cool, they may absorb water from the atmosphere. The Mars Science Laboratory team will investigate how water is exchanged between these minerals and the atmosphere, helping us understand Mars' modern climate. The hills are particularly useful for this investigation because different parts of the hills are exposed to different amounts of sunlight and thus to different temperatures. Curiosity will be able to compare the water in these contrasting areas as part of its investigations. This three-dimensional perspective view was created using visible-light imaging by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the High Resolution Stereo Camera on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter. Three-dimensional information was derived by stereo analysis of image pairs. The vertical dimension is not exaggerated. Color information is derived from color imaging of portions of the scene by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera. The Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft is being prepared for launch on Nov. 25, 2011. In a prime mission lasting one Martian year -- nearly two Earth years -- after landing, researchers will use the rover's tools to study whether the landing region has had environmental conditions favorable for supporting microbial life and for preserving clues about whether life existed. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona |
Dissecting Dyslexia: Linking Reading to Voice Recognition
July 28, 2011
When people recognize voices, part of what helps make voice recognition accurate is noticing how people pronounce words differently. But individuals with dyslexia don't experience this familiar language advantage, say researchers.
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| The researchers' work is described in the July 29, 2011 issue of the journal Science. |
Tyler Perrachione with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology explains, "Even though all people who speak a language use the same words, they say those words just a little bit differently from one another--what is called 'phonetics' in linguistics."
Phonetics is concerned with the physical properties of speech. Listeners are sensitive to phonetic differences as part of what makes a person's voice unique. But individuals with dyslexia have trouble recognizing these phonetic differences, whether a person is speaking a familiar language or a foreign one, Perrachione says.
As a Ph.D. candidate in Neuroscience at MIT, Perrachione recently examined the impacts of phonological impairment through experiments funded by the National Science Foundation's Directorate for Education and Human Resources.
He and colleague Stephanie Del Tufo as well as Perrachione's MIT research advisor John Gabrieli hypothesized that if voice recognition by human listeners relies on phonological knowledge, then listeners with dyslexia would be impaired when identifying voices speaking their native language as compared to listeners without dyslexia.
They also theorized that listeners with dyslexia hearing a foreign language would be no more impaired in voice recognition than listeners without dyslexia, because both groups would lack specific familiarity with how the foreign language was supposed to sound.
The journal Science reports their findings online today in an article titled "Human voice recognition depends on language ability."
For their research study, the MIT scientists trained individuals with and without dyslexia to recognize the voices of people speaking either the listeners' native language of English or an unfamiliar foreign language, Mandarin Chinese. In each language, participants learned to associate five talkers' voices with unique cartoon avatars and were subsequently tested on their ability to correctly identify those voices.
The listeners were either typically-developing readers or individuals who experienced reading difficulties and dyslexia growing up.
The neuroscientists found individuals with dyslexia were significantly worse at being able to consistently recognize the voices of the English speakers. They were about the same as listeners without dyslexia at recognizing the Chinese voices; both groups were very poor at recognizing voices speaking an unfamiliar language.
"It is remarkable that individuals with dyslexia are no better able to identify voices speaking a familiar language than a foreign one," says Perrachione. "It is also very interesting that the reason for this is that they are less accurate at voice recognition than individuals who don't have dyslexia."
The result reaffirms the theory that the underlying deficit in dyslexia isn't about the act of reading per se, but instead involves difficulty with how sounds of spoken language are heard and processed in the dyslexic brain.
Contemporary theories of dyslexia often propose a "phonological deficit" as the reason some people struggle to translate written images into meaningful language. The idea is that individuals with dyslexia tend to do poorly on tests that ask them to decode words using conventional phonetic rules, thereby resulting in reading delays because of difficulties connecting language sounds to letters.
What theories of dyslexia have not been able to convincingly explain, say the researchers, is why there is no evident difficulty in the ability to perceive and produce speech among people with dyslexia. This is especially curious if the ability to recognize phonological sounds is impaired.
"Our results are the first to explicitly link impairment in reading ability to impairment in ecologically processing spoken language," says Perrachione. "The results suggest that the source of a phonological deficit might be in dyslexic individuals' difficulties learning the consistent properties of speech sounds as spoken by an individual talker."
Understanding these findings could help individuals with dyslexia in a variety of settings.
"Lots of research has shown that individuals with dyslexia have more trouble understanding speech when there is noise in the background," says Perrachione. "These results suggest that trouble following a specific voice might be part of the cause. Teachers and other educators can be sensitive to this during classroom instruction where noise from other classmates might make it disproportionately difficult for children with dyslexia to follow what is going on in a lesson."
Moreover, these findings suggest that individuals with dyslexia may find it difficult to notice consistent properties of speech sounds during learning. If further research verifies this trouble noticing consistency, it might suggest a specific direction for slowing or stopping early speech and language difficulties for young children at risk of dyslexia.
-NSF-
Obama On Debt Ceiling Negotiations (July 29, 2011)
Remarks by the President on the Status of Debt Ceiling Negotiations
Diplomatic Reception Room
10:36 A.M. ED
THE PRESIDENT:
Good morning, everybody. I want to speak about the ongoing and increasingly urgent efforts to avoid default and reduce our deficit.
Right now, the House of Representatives is still trying to pass a bill that a majority of Republicans and Democrats in the Senate have already said they won’t vote for. It’s a plan that would force us to re-live this crisis in just a few short months, holding our economy captive to Washington politics once again. In other words, it does not solve the problem, and it has no chance of becoming law.
What’s clear now is that any solution to avoid default must be bipartisan. It must have the support of both parties that were sent here to represent the American people -– not just one faction. It will have to have the support of both the House and the Senate. And there are multiple ways to resolve this problem. Senator Reid, a Democrat, has introduced a plan in the Senate that contains cuts agreed upon by both parties. Senator McConnell, a Republican, offered a solution that could get us through this. There are plenty of modifications we can make to either of these plans in order to get them passed through both the House and the Senate and would allow me to sign them into law. And today I urge Democrats and Republicans in the Senate to find common ground on a plan that can get support — that can get support from both parties in the House –- a plan that I can sign by Tuesday.
Now, keep in mind, this is not a situation where the two parties are miles apart. We’re in rough agreement about how much spending can be cut responsibly as a first step toward reducing our deficit. We agree on a process where the next step is a debate in the coming months on tax reform and entitlement reform –- and I’m ready and willing to have that debate. And if we need to put in place some kind of enforcement mechanism to hold us all accountable for making these reforms, I’ll support that too if it’s done in a smart and balanced way.
So there are plenty of ways out of this mess. But we are almost out of time. We need to reach a compromise by Tuesday so that our country will have the ability to pay its bills on time, as we always have — bills that include monthly Social Security checks, veterans’ benefits and the government contracts we’ve signed with thousands of businesses. Keep in mind, if we don’t do that, if we don’t come to an agreement, we could lose our country’s AAA credit rating, not because we didn’t have the capacity to pay our bills — we do — but because we didn’t have a AAA political system to match our AAA credit rating.
And make no mistake -– for those who say they oppose tax increases on anyone, a lower credit rating would result potentially in a tax increase on everyone in the form of higher interest rates on their mortgages, their car loans, their credit cards. And that’s inexcusable.
There are a lot of crises in the world that we can’t always predict or avoid -– hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, terrorist attacks. This isn’t one of those crises. The power to solve this is in our hands. And on a day when we’ve been reminded how fragile the economy already is, this is one burden we can lift ourselves. We can end it with a simple vote –- a vote that Democrats and Republicans have been taking for decades, a vote that the leaders in Congress have taken for decades.
It’s not a vote that allows Congress to spend more money. Raising the debt ceiling simply gives our country the ability to pay the bills that Congress has already racked up. I want to emphasize that. The debt ceiling does not determine how much more money we can spend, it simply authorizes us to pay the bills we already have racked up. It gives the United States of America the ability to keep its word.
Now, on Monday night, I asked the American people to make their voice heard in this debate, and the response was overwhelming. So please, to all the American people, keep it up. If you want to see a bipartisan compromise -– a bill that can pass both houses of Congress and that I can sign — let your members of Congress know. Make a phone call. Send an email. Tweet. Keep the pressure on Washington, and we can get past this.
And for my part, our administration will be continuing to work with Democrats and Republicans all weekend long until we find a solution. The time for putting party first is over. The time for compromise on behalf of the American people is now. And I am confident that we can solve this problem. I’m confident that we will solve this problem. For all the intrigue and all the drama that’s taking place on Capitol Hill right now, I’m confident that common sense and cooler heads will prevail.
But as I said earlier, we are now running out of time. It’s important for everybody to step up and show the leadership that the American people expect.
Thank you.
END
10:42 A.M. EDT
Source: White House
President Obama to make statement on debt talks /WASHINGTON POST
With just four days left until the United States faces a potentially disastrous default, President Obama will deliver a statement at 10:20 a.m. from the Diplomatic Reception Room, the White House announced Friday morning.
WASHINGTON POST
Watch live video of Obama's address here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/live/video-1
WASHINGTON POST
Watch live video of Obama's address here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/live/video-1
Study Reveals How Bats Stay on Target Even in Dark, Cluttered Environment
Insights could lead to the development of more precise sonar-led vehicles
A bat emits sounds, and thereby creates orienting echoes.
July 28, 2011
View a video of how sonar enables bats to navigate and hone in on targets in dark, cluttered environments
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_videos.jsp?cntn_id=121223&media_id=70913&org=NSF&preview=Y
In a paper published in the July 29 issue of Science, James Simmons and Mary Bates of Brown University, along with researchers from the Republic of Georgia, reveal how bats expertly use echolocation to hone in on specific targets, such as prey organisms, without being distracted or set off course by background objects in their environments.
It has long been known that bats emit high frequency sonar blasts, and then construct a three dimensional picture of their environment based on returning echoes. But the new research, which was partially funded by the National Science Foundation, shows how bats interpret the cacophony of returning echoes to distinguish their priority target from background clutter.
Simmons explains that when a bat chirps, it waits for the corresponding echo; it makes a mental fingerprint of the emitted sound and its echo. If the broadcast/echo fingerprints match up precisely, then the bat "will process it and produce an image," Simmons said. In many cases, that image would be the bat's target object. But when the second harmonic is weaker in the echo fingerprint, the response from the bat's neurons' is delayed by as few as 3 microseconds. That momentary delay, while undetectable to humans, is enough to tell the bat that the object is present, but it is not its primary interest.
"The bat takes clutter and defocuses it, like a camera would, so the target remains highly defined and in focus," Simmons said.
For more information about this research, see the accompanying video and Brown University's press release.
-NSF-
U.S. Economy Worse Than Expected in Second Quarter; G.D.P. Grew at 1.3% Pace/ N Y TIMES
U.S. Economy Worse Than Expected in Second Quarter; G.D.P. Grew at 1.3% Pace
The United States economy has slowed considerably this year from a year ago, according to a report from the Commerce Department released on Friday.
The country’s gross domestic product, a broad measure of the goods and services produced across the economy, grew at an annual rate of 1.3 percent in the second quarter, after having grown at an annual rate of 0.4 percent in the first quarter. Data revisions going back to 2003 also showed that the 2007-2009 recession was deeper, and the recovery to date weaker, than originally estimated.
The news comes as Congress is debating how to put the nation on a more sustainable fiscal path, with measures that some economists worry could further slow the recovery and even throw the economy back into recession.
NEW YORK TIMES
The United States economy has slowed considerably this year from a year ago, according to a report from the Commerce Department released on Friday.
The country’s gross domestic product, a broad measure of the goods and services produced across the economy, grew at an annual rate of 1.3 percent in the second quarter, after having grown at an annual rate of 0.4 percent in the first quarter. Data revisions going back to 2003 also showed that the 2007-2009 recession was deeper, and the recovery to date weaker, than originally estimated.
The news comes as Congress is debating how to put the nation on a more sustainable fiscal path, with measures that some economists worry could further slow the recovery and even throw the economy back into recession.
NEW YORK TIMES
Largest-Ever Map of Interactions of Plant Proteins Produced
New map of protein interactions in model plant may help scientists improve plant species used in agriculture and pharmaceuticals
____________________________________________________________
Interactions between previously sequenced Arabidopsis proteins are described in a new network map.
July 28, 2011
View a video about sequencing the Arabidopsis genome:
An international consortium of scientists has produced the first systematic network map of interactions that occur between proteins in the plant Arabidopsis thaliana ['backtrav' in Swedish]. (Arabidopsis is a mustard plant that has 27,000 proteins and serves as a popular model organism for biological studies of plants, analogous to lab rats that serve as popular model organisms for biological studies of animals.)
Known as an "interactome," the new Arabidopsis network map defines 6,205 protein-to-protein Arabidopsis interactions involving 2,774 individual proteins. By itself, this map doubles the volume of data on protein interactions in plants that is currently available.
The new network map is covered in the July 29th issue of Science. It was produced with partial funding from the National Science Foundation by the so-called "Arabidopsis Interactome Mapping Consortium." The Consortium has an international membership and is composed of many institutions and researchers.
The Consortium's new network map of Arabidopsis has already provided the foundation for new discoveries involving plant growth and disease resistance. For example, the July 29 issue of Science features a companion study that--built on the new map-- identifies proteins that help Arabidopsis fight various pathogens. Such findings may help advance efforts to improve crop plants.
The production of the Arabidopsis network map was made possible, in part, by the previous production of the genome sequence of Arabidopsis; this sequence is a veritable "parts list" of the plant's genetic components. But more revealing than the genome sequence, the network map provides insights on the functions of proteins, the compositions of protein communities, and the evolutionary changes of proteins through time, among other things. (See illustration.)
"This starts to give us a big, systems-level picture of how Arabidopsis works, and much of that systems-level picture is going to be relevant to--and guide further research on--other plant species, including those used in human agriculture and even pharmaceuticals," says Salk Institute biologist Joseph Ecker, a senior member of the Consortium.
Nevertheless, because of the vast complexity of Arabidopsis's biology, the 6,205 Arabidopsis protein-to-protein interactions identified in the plant's new network map represents only about two percent of Arabidopsis protein interactions. Larger and more sensitive maps that identify more of these interactions are expected to be developed in the future.
-NSF-
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering. In fiscal year (FY) 2011, its budget is about $6.9 billion. NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 2,000 universities and institutions. Each year, NSF receives over 45,000 competitive requests for funding, and makes over 11,500 new funding awards. NSF also awards over $400 million in professional and service contracts yearly.
/Swedish:/ 'Backtrav' se http://linnaeus.nrm.se/flora/di/brassica/arabs/arabtha.html
Lacking Votes, House Won’t Vote on Boehner Debt Plan Tonight
Republican leaders in the House have announced that there will be no vote on the debt ceiling bill Thursday night, an indication that House Speaker John A. Boehner remains short of the votes necessary to pass his legislation.
Mr. Boehner and his top lieutenants called it a night after more than five hours of furious arm-twisting of freshman Republicans, many of whom emerged from the closed-door sessions appearing to be firmer in their opposition.
There was little indication of what else had transpired during an evening that was supposed to have been a victory for Mr. Boehner as he passed a second debt-limit bill over to the Democratic Senate.
Instead, the evening highlighted the tensions within his conference and the sway that the Tea Party backed members hold within Mr. Boehner’s party.
There was no indication of whether a vote might still come on Friday.
NEW YORK TIMES
Mr. Boehner and his top lieutenants called it a night after more than five hours of furious arm-twisting of freshman Republicans, many of whom emerged from the closed-door sessions appearing to be firmer in their opposition.
There was little indication of what else had transpired during an evening that was supposed to have been a victory for Mr. Boehner as he passed a second debt-limit bill over to the Democratic Senate.
Instead, the evening highlighted the tensions within his conference and the sway that the Tea Party backed members hold within Mr. Boehner’s party.
There was no indication of whether a vote might still come on Friday.
NEW YORK TIMES
Lottning i morgon inför kvalet till världens största idrottsfest
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| Svenska VM-laget 1934 |
VM-historiens första kval-match stod mellan Sverige och Estland den 11 juni 1933 påminner oss FIFA.
Matchen slutade med Sverigevinst: 6-2, och efter vinst även över Litauen gick
Sverige till slutspelet i Italien året därpå. Där väntade dock tyvärr Tyskland; matchen slutade med svensk förlust 2-1. Innan Tysklandsmatchen hade Sverige dock besegrat stornationen i fotboll, Maradonas Argentina med 3-2. Tyskland besegrades i semifinalen av Tjeckoslovakien, men vann dock bronsmatchen mot Österike.
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| Giuseppe Meazza, Italiens bäste spelare någonsin? |
En svensk fanns på planen under finalen: domaren Ivan Eklind.
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| Musse |
Sverige deltog ju inte i fotbollshistoriens första VM (i Uruguay). Det gjorde inte heller Tyskland, då man liksom svenskarna tyckte att båtresan var alldeles för lång.