In a stand beneath the main sports stadium in Kabul, young Afghan women have taken up boxing for the first time in the country's history. Despite the lack of any proper facilities, they're not just competing, but winning medals. Alex Thompson reports for Europe?s Channel Four.
Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/46194045/
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Source: http://www.falundafa-rochester.org/individual-medical-insurance-offers-personal-choices.htm
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PENSACOLA, Fla. ? Newt Gingrich's personal and political baggage is giving even the most hard-core Republicans pause in a conservative swath of the state.
"Not Gingrich" is how Annette Purvis says she plans to vote. "I've never liked Gingrich. Never. Never in the history of Gingrich."
She's turned off by what she calls his moral and ethical issues. He's been divorced twice, is an admitted adulterer and was the first House speaker to be reprimanded by his colleagues for ethical misconduct. All that has Purvis, a 49-year-old wife and mother from Laurel Hill near the Alabama border, looking elsewhere. "I'll probably do Romney," she adds, her hesitation apparent.
Marty Upfield, a 64-year-old retiree from Pensacola, seems equally uneasy with Gingrich. She, too, pointed to Gingrich's political record and personal background as a problem. She's considering voting for Mitt Romney, who she says isn't conservative enough, even though her political views are more in line with Gingrich's positions.
"But it is about trust," says Upfield. "I need to have a little more certainty that he's changed in some ways."
This deep reluctance to back Gingrich was voiced by many of the dozen and a half people interviewed last week in this city in the Florida Panhandle that borders the Gulf of Mexico to the south and west and Alabama to the north. Gingrich's past, it seemed, was heavily influencing decisions about who to back. Many said they were resigned to choosing Romney.
In one of the most conservative parts of the state, many of those interviewed said they see their political philosophy more in line with Gingrich ? who led the GOP revolution that took control of the House in 1994 ? than with Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who in the past has espoused more moderate positions on social issues. But many also said they're considering voting for Romney, or already did during the state's early voting period, because they fear that Gingrich's history ? both personally and professionally ? will hurt him in a general election match up against President Barack Obama.
"I really like him. He's one of the finest speakers. He's got fantastic memory and recall," said Tim Fuller of Gingrich.
But Fuller, 68, and wife Vicki, 67, didn't pick him.
"We voted for the more electable candidate," Fuller said, adding that they chose Romney ? "the lesser of two evils."
On the minds of many interviewed: Gingrich's ethics case while serving as House speaker, the $1.65 million his businesses made off Freddie Mac before he criticized the mortgage giant during his campaign, and his three marriages.
"I like him. I like his mannerisms. I just don't think I can vote for him. There's too much out there," said Bonnie Meenen, 64. Romney may get her vote because of that.
Some also were put off by Gingrich's personality.
"I think Newt's temper is too short," said David Nobles, 57, who voted for Romney. "It came down to Newt and Mitt, and Mitt just seems like more presidential material than Newt."
That Gingrich, who has emerged as the more conservative alternative to Romney, doesn't have a lock on this part of the state, regardless of his flaws, may not bode well for his prospects in other, more diverse parts of Florida ahead of Tuesday's pivotal primary. And the reluctance among some Republicans here to embrace Gingrich indicates that Romney's strategy to raise questions about Gingrich's character may be working.
Over the past week, Romney and his allies have castigated Gingrich on the campaign trail and in TV ads blanketing the state.
"While Florida families lost everything in the housing crisis, Newt Gingrich cashed in," says a Romney campaign ad airing in this state. The commercial says that Gingrich collected more than $1.6 million from "the scandal-ridden agency that helped create the crisis."
Romney's team has taken a more subtle approach in attacking Gingrich for his flawed personal life. He has been emphasizing his own 42-year marriage to the same woman, as well as his five sons and numerous grandchildren, as a way to contrast himself to Gingrich. And an outside group backing Romney has run ads mentioning Gingrich's "baggage."
A Quinnipiac University poll released Friday showed Romney leading Gingrich, 38 to 29 percent. Among voters who identify as conservative, Romney and Gingrich are in a virtual tie.
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DAKAR, Senegal ? Senegal's opposition called on the population Saturday to rise up against President Abdoulaye Wade's decision to run for a third term, a move that foreshadows more unrest after a night of clashes that saw a policeman stoned to death in the normally peaceful nation on Africa's west coast.
The streets of the capital were strewn with debris, sign of the riots that spread from a downtown square to the interior of the country late Friday after the country's constitutional court approved Wade's candidacy in next month's election.
The constitution was changed soon after the 85-year-old Wade took office in 2000 in order to impose a two-term limit. He argues that because the law was not in effect when he was elected, it should not apply to him.
In a statement Saturday, the M23 coalition representing all the major opposition candidates running in the election said the court had betrayed the people.
"A black page has been written in the history of our country by the decision to validate the candidacy of Abdoulaye Wade," the statement said. "We are inviting the population to organize and mobilize themselves to face Wade. The combat has started."
Opposition candidate Macky Sall, a former prime minister under Wade who is now running to unseat him, said they had given "the order" for people to take to the streets. He denied that future protests could turn violent.
Police spokesman Col. Alioune Ndiaye said an officer had been killed late Friday during the riots that followed the court's verdict. A graphic video posted on YouTube shows a body lying on the ground, a cinderblock lying near his head, as a group of young men hurl more rocks.
"I can confirm that one policeman was killed," Ndiaye said. "He was attacked and he was hit in the head by a brick. He was stoned to death," he said.
On Saturday, police detained Alioune Tine, a leading opposition figure who was the organizer of Friday's protest. The other members of the M23 coalition attempted to visit him at the Criminal Investigations Division ? including international pop star Youssou Ndour. The Grammy-award winning singer tussled with police after they barred him from entering by shoving him back.
Fourteen candidates were cleared by the court to run in the Feb. 26 election. Among those whose applications was not validated is Ndour, who according to the court did not turn in enough valid signatures on his petition. Ndour is appealing the decision, and after the fracas at the police station, he told reporters that the government is afraid of him.
"They are afraid of me because they know that Senegal was asleep, and I woke it up," he said. "Senegal is not a deed for a house belonging to Abdoulaye Wade."
Senegal finds itself at a crossroads before the Feb. 26 election. The dispute over the legality of Wade's candidacy is compounded by the worsening economic situation, including spiraling prices and grinding unemployment.
Wade has alienated many former allies as well as the population by giving an increasing share of power to his unpopular son. Corruption scandals have erupted at regular intervals, detracting from the government's achievements which include the building of numerous roads and bridges.
In 2008, an audit of the Ministry of the Family discovered that officials there had billed the government for coffee spoons costing $74 a piece. The entire cutlery set cost Senegal nearly $30,000.
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Maligned Teen Mom all-star Amber Portwood has copped a plea in her probation case and will not be sentenced to five years in prison ... at least not yet.
In jail since before Christmas awaiting trial for felony drug possession case, Ambs cut a deal Friday to avoid spending the foreseeable future behind bars.
Portwood pleaded not guilty to one count of possession of a controlled substance - a medication she had no prescription for - and one probation violation.
In return, she remains on probation and, if she hopes to remain free, must complete the Madison County (Ind.) Drug Court program. Or else.
Her next hearing is scheduled for February 6.
Amber Portwood is on probation following her domestic violence case involving baby daddy Gary Shirley. She missed a probation hearing last month, a big no-no.
When police showed up at her house to check on her, they found the pills in her bag ... and she was unable to produce a prescription. Even bigger no-no.
While she's been in jail and making officials worried that she will shiv someone, Portwood's now-former landlord had sued to have her evicted.
A judge said she is already in the process of moving out, so the lawsuit is not necessary. A separate hearing on that issue is set for March 14.
[Photo: Fame Pictures]
Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/01/amber-portwood-cops-plea-avoids-jail-in-probation-case/
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CHICAGO -- Dana White had to be smiling inside to see Chris Weidman make weight for his UFC on Fox 2 fight. Weidman, called just 11 days ago as a late replacement, had to drop from 217 pounds to make tomorrow's battle against Demian Maia an official middleweight fight.
It just two weeks ago that the promotion had to endure the embarrassment of watching Anthony Johnson missed weight badly at UFC 142.
Weidman was actually called with the offer while sitting at his dinner table. His wife was making some delicious Sloppy Joes. When Weidman committed to the fight, he had to go right to work.
"I just headed to the gym and ate a spoonful of peanut butter, and that was it," a glum Weidman told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
The former Hofstra wrestler is trying to make a big step up the middleweight ladder with a victory over Maia. We'll find out tomorrow if the severe weight cut will affect him on fight night.
Phil Davis went with the wrestling theme. Rashad Evans, a former Michigan State wrestler, tried to rip on Davis and his college wrestling career. It was a strange approach considering Davis was a four-time All-American and national champ in 2008. Davis, who's done a brilliant job of poking fun at Evans, pulled out his old Nittany Lions' garb for the fight today.
This from wrestling guru Maggie Hendricks:
So that singlet is Penn State's championship singlet, one that only gets broken out if a guy wrestles in the finals. Since Davis wrestled in the NCAA finals twice, he has at least one. Most schools have them, but PSU's is very recognizable because they don't have a ton of singlet options, like other schools. As a fellow Big 10er, Evans would know that. Wearing that one, and not Penn State's more traditional dark blue singlet, was a sly way of Davis saying, "Yes, I am the better wrestler."
A weigh-in wouldn't be complete with a dust up or some heat arising. Michael Bisping took care of that by angrily reacting to the booing crowd at the Chicago Theater. The Brit flipped off the fans.
UFC on Fox 2 weigh-in (Courtesy MMAjunkie):
MAIN CARD (FOX)
PRELIMINARY CARD (FUEL TV)
PRELIMINARY CARD (Facebook)
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'Touch' star Kiefer Sutherland says playing a father persevering against impossible odds appealed to him right away. A Q&A with Kiefer Sutherland.
Giving credence to the old idiom that you can?t keep a good man down, Kiefer Sutherland returned to television Wednesday night in Tim Kring?s 'Touch.' Cooler still, much like his most famous small screen ego that saw him defeat evildoers twenty-four-hours at a time, the artist formerly known as Jack Bauer will once be asked to save the world. Except this time, as widower Martin Bohm, he?ll be doing so through a [misdiagnosed] "autistic" son [David Mazouz] whose obsession with numbers may turns out to be a ... lot more than meets the eye.
Skip to next paragraph The TV AddictStarted in February of 2006 as an outlet for Daniel Malen (The TV Addict) to share his love of television with anyone who would listen, theTVaddict.com has quietly grown into one of the Internet?s premiere destinations for television news, interviews and opinion.
When an actor has had the type of success you had with such a groundbreaking series like 24, they rarely come back to television so quickly. What was it about 'Touch' that enticed you to return so soon?
Kiefer Sutherland: It was a combination of things. I had an unbelievable experience on 24, we shot 198 episodes and I was as excited about shooting the 198th as I was the first. And so that combined with this script, it wasn?t even really a choice anymore. It was something that I knew I had to do. I remember thinking about it really strongly when I was crossing the street in New York and the person who I work with Susan, I remember saying to her if we don?t do this, how are we going to feel in September watching it knowing all of its potential and how great we both think it can be. And that answered my question for me. I didn?t want to be sitting there watching this fantastic show in September if I had had the opportunity to be a part of it.
In terms of the script, at what point did you connect with this new character of Martin Bohm?
I identified with him out of the gate. There was something interesting because obviously this is very different than 24. Yet there is a real similar through line in the kind of character of the man. Jack Bauer would be faced with unbelievable circumstances in the course of a day and he would never win completely and this guy is never going to win either. He?s never going to have the quintessential relationship of a father and a son. Yet he perseveres and that?s a great kind of character statement and so I identified with him greatly on that and I think as a parent as well just the sense of responsibility combined with not knowing what to do all the time. Even though this is again a heightened experience, I think every parent feels that.
For audience members out there who are so used to associating you with Jack Bauer on 24, how do you convince them that this is going to be just as entertaining, just as interesting and intriguing as that series was?
I don?t know if there is convincing. I think that ultimately almost in the way that 24 started, people that are initially interested, whether they?re a fan of Tim Kring or a fan of mine or like the trailer, they?ll watch it and then if they feel strongly about it, they?ll tell friends and we have to rely on that. For me personally I feel that there is a great deal of suspense within the context of the show, even in the not knowing what the numbers are and the narrative where the audience actually knows more than the lead character. So I think that even though we?re not blowing things up, I think that there is enough excitement around the drama of this show, that people will not be that thrown by it who enjoyed 24. And we really do rely on you guys telling people about it and hopefully it will be something that grows.
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Cold, electrically charged particles have long been suspected to exist tens of thousands of miles above the Earth's surface, and now scientists have detected such ions there for the first time. And they are significantly more abundant at those heights than previously imagined.
Cold is, of course, a relative term. Although these low-energy ions are 1,000 times cooler than what researchers might consider hot plasma, these particles still have an energy that would correspond to about 1 million degrees Fahrenheit (500,000 degrees Celsius). But because the density of the "cold" ions in space is so low, satellites and spacecraft can orbit through them without getting destroyed.
Scientists had detected the ions at altitudes of about 60 miles (100 kilometers), but for decades, researchers wanted to look for them much higher, between 12,400 and 60,000 miles (20,000 and 100,000 km). Knowing how many cold ions dwell up there could help better understand how our planet interacts with storms of charged particles from the sun ? like the one that slammed into the planet yesterday (Jan 24) ? that create auroras, damage satellites and sometimes wreak havoc with power grids on Earth.
However, detecting cold plasma at those high altitudes has proven difficult. Spacecraft that far up accumulate an electrical charge, due to sunlight that makes them repel the cold ions.
The breakthrough came with one of the European Space Agency's four CLUSTER spacecraft. These are equipped with a detector composed of thin wire arms that measure the electric field between them as the satellite rotates.
"It is surprising we found the cold ions at all with our instrument," researcher Mats Andr?, a space scientist at the Swedish Institute of Space Physics in Uppsala, told OurAmazingPlanet. "It was not at all designed to do this. It was designed to observe electric fields."
'Ugly' electrical fields
Two mysterious trends appeared when the scientists analyzed data from these detectors ? strong electric fields turned up in unexpected regions of space, and as the spacecraft rotated, the measurements of the electrical fields did not fluctuate in the smoothly changing manner that investigators expected.
"To a scientist, it looked pretty ugly," Andr? said. "We tried to figure out what was wrong with the instrument. Then we realized there's nothing wrong with the instrument."
Their findings suggest that cold plasma was influencing electrical fields around the satellite. Once the scientists understood that, they could measure how much of the once-hidden ions there were.
"The more you look for low-energy ions, the more you find," Andr? said. "We didn't know how much was out there. It's more than even I thought."
Although the concentration of the previously hidden cold ions varies, about 50 to 70 percent of the time the researchers find they make up most of the mass of high-altitude zones. These previously elusive low-energy ions were detected even at altitudes of about 60,000 miles (100,000 km), about a third of the distance to the moon. Finding so many relatively cool ions in those regions is surprising, because the solar wind blasts Earth's high altitudes.
"It is surprising that there were so many cold ions," Andr? said. "There have been hints for a long time, and with previous spacecraft, but I do not think anyone, not me, thought this cold, hidden population could dominate so-large volumes, [for] so-large fractions of the time."
Losing ions
Space physicists have struggled to accurately determine how many low-energy ions are leaving the planet. The new findings suggest that about two lbs. (1 kilogram) of cold plasma escape from Earth's atmosphere every second.
Knowing that rate of loss for Earth might help scientists better figure out what became of the atmosphere of Mars, which is thought to once have been denser, and more similar to Earth's. The new cold plasma results might also help researchers explain atmospheric traits of other planets and moons, including alien worlds or exoplanets, Andr? said.
"If someone is living on an exoplanet, they probably want an atmosphere that is not blowing away," Andr? said.
Moreover, as scientists further map cold plasma around Earth, they could discover more about how it reacts during solar storms and other events, deepening our understanding of space weather. Andr? compared the swaths of low-energy ions to a low-pressure area in our familiar, down-to-Earth weather. "You may want to know where the low-pressure area is, to predict a storm," he said.
Andr? and his colleague Christopher Cully detailed their findings Dec. 23 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
This story was provided by OurAmazingPlanet, a sister site to SPACE.com. Follow OurAmazingPlanet for the latest in Earth science and exploration news on Twitter Facebook.
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COMMENTARY | According to RealClearPolitics, President Barack Obama and Ariz. Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, had a tense confrontation on the tarmac of the Phoenix airport. At issue was an account in Brewer's book about a previous meeting.
Obama did not appreciate the account, suggesting that it was not "cordial." Brewer described Obama as being "tense" and "thin-skinned."
According to the Weekly Standard, this was not the first time that Obama has had a public set to with a Republican governor. In the wake of the BP oil spill, Obama had a row with Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal over a letter the governor had sent to the Secretary of Agriculture regarding food stamps for some of the victims. Obama believed that the letter made him look bad.
The Houston Chronicle says Obama had a tense 34 second meeting with Texas Gov. Rick Perry at the Austin, Texas, airport over border security. Obama refused to take a letter on the issue Perry offered, instead motioning for an aid to take it for him.
How does one explain President Obama's going off so publically on Republican governors who displease him? He seems to have a personality quirk that does not tolerate opposition or contradiction very well. This has been a trait that has tainted his entire administration. A good quality in a leader is the ability to listen to one's critics. The theory is that one's political enemies are motivated to ferret out the flaws in ones programs, thus allowing a good leader to examine and fix them at will.
But Obama, by not being able to take criticism, has had a tendency to make proposals that are either unworkable, unpopular, or both. His two signature accomplishments, the stimulus package and health care reform, are not only fatally flawed but also wildly unpopular. Because of the shift in political power in Congress brought on by the 2010 election - caused by public discontent with Obama's programs - the president's ability to make policy has become extremely inhibited.
Besides, publicly fighting with other politicians is not very attractive. It makes one seem petty, never a good quality in a president, especially someone who is running for reelection.
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Consider two hypothetical restaurants: type one and type two.
Restaurant type one: Imagine yourself wandering the streets of a new city. You could be on Ocean Drive in South Beach, or Piazza Navona in Rome. You're thinking about dinner, and you come across a restaurant conveniently located on a busy stretch of street. Outside, it displays its panoply of meal choices in wax replica splendor, or "freshly cooked" under Saran wrap. On the sidewalk, an aspiring tan model flanks a manager-host, who wears a loud tie to go with the even louder voice he uses to solicit passersby. "Would you like to come in and eat 'world famous x'? Or maybe try the daily cocktail special?"
Restaurant type two: You want to have a couple of special dinners during your travels so you've done some careful research prior to your trip. You find out about a restaurant that's somewhat out-of-the-way, does not take reservations, has humble d?cor, and is only open for dinner five nights a week. None of that deters you. Your foodie friends recommended it -- "amazing artisanal, local dishes," they say. Pete Wells wrote something nice about it in The New York Times. Your favorite restaurant blogs concur.
Where would you rather eat? More to the point, if you have a business, which would you rather be?
Type one represents what marketers call "push." Type two is "pull." Push marketing uses advertising (billboards, spam, direct mailings, banners, cold calls, and similar techniques) to hunt for the customer. In contrast, pull marketing bets on product quality and its ability to create awareness and eventually a brand that will lure and keep customers.
One is a bullhorn, the other a magnet. Or, as I like to say, one is karate and one is judo. More on that in a sec.
You obviously need a mix of both push and pull marketing. But businesses and businesspeople tend to lean toward push. That may be fine, but it becomes a problem -- a big problem -- if all you have is hype that is driving customers to try a product that isn't good enough to inspire long-term loyalty. Such a situation is a treadmill of disaster, since eventually there won't be sufficient cash to lure enough new customers to replace all those who have left. As I have argued in a prior blog post, the best business models focus on recurring revenue.
In the venture and start-up world it is sometimes easy to confuse marketing, publicity, and "push" with progress and success. People begin looking at site visitors, PR impressions, or leads generated as key performance metrics rather than looking at these in conjunction with real performance metrics such as customers, product usage, and oh yeah, sales and profits.
This is the fallacy of "push" -- it yields results that sort of look like and feel like customers (e.g. visitors or member sign-ups), or like product acceptance (e.g. PR stories via expensive PR agencies), and that even feel like performance (e.g. leads or sales generated without profit). But none of this is enough to sustain a business. In contrast, if a product and its brand are strong enough to "pull," then metrics such as NPS (net promoter score), recurring profitable revenue rate (i.e. customer loyalty), product usage level (i.e. customer utility) begin to sing. These are examples of real pillars of a great business -- and you can't get there just by yelling louder than the next guy.
So how do you shift to more of a pull mindset? Simple: think more judo and less karate. The word judo translates to "gentle way," and this martial art focuses on using an opponent's strength and weight to one's advantage. Karate, in contrast, is characterized by punching and kicking. We need much more of a judo mindset in business. Not just in marketing, but in negotiations, product design, communications, and selling.
Here are the three possible outcomes of business karate:
a) It works because the product or deal really is that good. This is a best-case, but not common scenario; you have the right to push and shout.
b) It feels like it works short term, but creates long-term disappointment. There is an expectation gap that gets discovered over time, leading eventually to customer defection.
c) It triggers defensive mechanisms. As one investor in my VC firm has told me, "A yellow light always goes off in my head when someone is pitching hard. I don't want to be sold something."
That is the irony of it, and why business judo can be more effective -- especially when you have something authentic, good, or purposeful. People don't mind buying, but they don't want to be sold. In a similar fashion, regarding product design or presentation of information, people prefer intuitive self-discovery over complex how-to instruction.
This is the real judo counterweight to understand. We are by nature predisposed to want, to desire, to deal, to buy. Yet while we don't mind being gently guided there, we are wired for mostly for self-control. The key principle in the judo of business is to create and allow the conditions for people to make your goal their own conclusion. A colleague of mine says he sometimes will wait a few minutes in a meeting for everyone else to figure out something he knew at the beginning. It's that important for them to arrive at the answer themselves and sell themselves on it.
Such restraint does not always come easily. But focusing on the core of what matters for long-term business success -- real customers embracing authentic, purposeful, and compelling products -- is the stuff of really great companies and leaders. As in judo, if one masters it, it's possible to triumph over seemingly much more formidable competitors. It is also -- at a time of much cynicism towards business -- just a more pleasant way of doing things.
This article first appeared on Harvard Business Publishing on Jan. 24, 2012.
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-tjan/business-needs-more-judo-_b_1231244.html
LONDON (AP) ? Nearly 100 people have been arrested for selling fake tickets and bogus hotel rooms ahead of the London Olympics.
With some six months to go before Britain's largest-ever planned security operation, Home Secretary Theresa May said police had arrested 97 people in scams involving tickets, fake Olympic websites and nonexistent hotel rooms.
The demand for tickets and hotels in London during the July 27-Aug. 12 games has been huge ? some rooms are going for more than 600 pounds per night (nearly $1,000).
"Police are sending a very clear message that we're not going to tolerate intrusions by organized criminals into the Olympic Games," May said during a speech at the Royal United Services Institute in London, a British security think-tank.
London police said the tickets involved in the scam were phony.
But the threat most on the minds of organizers is terrorism ? Britain was the first western European country to be targeted by al-Qaida-inspired suicide bombers who launched attacks on London's transit system in 2005, killing 52 people the day after the city won the 2012 Olympics bid.
Security officials are also haunted by the attack at the 1972 Olympics in Munich that killed 11 Israeli athletes and coaches.
Intelligence officials say there is nothing to suggest a specific and credible terror threat to the London Games, yet the threat level will rise to "severe."
Britain's police, the domestic spy agency MI5, the foreign intelligence agency MI6, government communications surveillance units and the military will all help secure the Olympics against possible threats. In addition, international law enforcement and policing agencies like Interpol and the FBI will help British authorities. More than 20,000 security guards are also being hired for extra protection.
"Many of our resources will be dedicated to counterterrorism operations," said Commander Bob Broadhurst, in charge of operational planning for Scotland Yard, who said one concern is being able to patrol parallel or unplanned events around the Olympics, such as concerts and other celebrations.
Although Broadhurst said protests would be allowed during the games, May said protest camps around key sites would be prohibited.
Security teams have already started testing their preparedness.
Two weeks ago, it was disclosed that British police testing security protocols had earlier managed to smuggle a fake bomb into Olympic Park. Last week, a police officer reportedly left documents about security arrangements for the London Olympics on a train.
Officials said those documents were not sensitive and such test-runs are part of the training.
Training events around London have been visible for months ? last week, British police joined up with the military to practice boarding suspect vessels on the River Thames and to stop others by using equipment that entangles their propellers.
Some 13,500 military personnel will be on hand for the Games, according to Gen. Nick Parker, commander of land forces for the British Ministry of Defense, who said forces would be testing Typhoon fighter jets and helicopters later this week.
Two warships and bomb disposal experts will also be on guard for the Games.
But the real test will come closer to July, when teams will have to search athletes, diplomats, spectators and others.
A core component of the security operation will be Britain's vast network of CCTVs and high-tech security equipment. Thousands of extra closed-circuit cameras will be added to Olympic venues ? Britain already has some of the most extensive surveillance powers in the world and has become a leader in what critics call "Big Brother" techniques with its more than 4.3 million CCTV cameras.
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BOSTON ? Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown and his chief Democratic rival, Elizabeth Warren, have signed a pledge to curb political attack ads by outside groups in their Massachusetts Senate race.
Under the terms of the deal, each campaign would agree to donate half the cost of any third-party ad to charity if that ad either supports their candidacy or attacks their opponent by name.
At least one outside group that has targeted Warren immediately raised objections to the deal.
Brown first laid out the basic terms of the deal last week, but top-level staffers for both candidates were unable to reach a final deal on Friday.
Then early Monday morning, Warren responded, saying she was ready to sign off on the deal as long as it included a few final changes, such as adding Internet advertising to the deal and closing any other loopholes that could permit third parties to help one campaign or the other by running ads.
"With an agreement to try to stop third party advertising, we can set an historic example in Massachusetts and give the people we want to represent an opportunity to make a choice free from the kind of out-of-control, outsider advertising that has plagued so many recent elections," Warren wrote.
Brown quickly agreed, and signed what he described as the "People's Pledge."
"This is a great victory for the people of Massachusetts, and a bold statement that puts Super PACs and other third parties on notice that their interference in this race will not be tolerated," Brown said in a statement.
Both campaigns then quickly pointed out that each has already been the target of outside advertising.
Referring to Warren's background as a Harvard professor, Brown said "the extreme liberal groups who planned to pollute the airwaves with their false and misleading ads in support of Professor Warren can now pack their bags and find someplace else to do their dirty work."
Brown has come under fire from the League of Conservation Voters and the League of Women Voters, which have spent a total of about $3 million on separate ad campaigns criticizing him.
The League of Women Voters' ad rapped Brown for voting with other Senate Republicans to ban the Environmental Protection Agency from controlling gases blamed for global warming. They urged Brown to "protect the people and not the polluters." Another spot by the League of Conservation Voters slammed Brown for siding with "big oil."
Neither ad mentioned Warren, who pointed to outside ads that have targeted her campaign. Crossroads GPS, an affiliate of American Crossroads, a group with ties to GOP political operative Karl Rove, has already sponsored two ads.
"Karl Rove and his Crossroads GPS have pledged to spend millions of dollars in this campaign, and he has a long history of using every trick in the book. So I sign this agreement with both hope and vigilance, and I assume you do the same," Warren wrote.
One Crossroads ad used spliced images of Warren with rowdy Occupy Wall Street protesters to claim that she "sides with extreme left" protesters who "attack police, do drugs and trash public parks." A second ad by the group then painted Warren as being too cozy with Wall Street.
The president of American Crossroads, Steven Law, quickly criticized the deal saying it fails to cover union phone banks, direct mail, and get-out-the-vote drives, "all union core specialties."
The Crossroads GPS ads and the ads from the League of Women Voters and the League of Conservation Voters would all appear to come under the terms of the agreement.
Brown's campaign has also pointed to online ads from Rethink Brown ? a political action committee formed last year. Its mission, according to its website, is "to encourage Massachusetts voters to make up their own minds about U.S. Senator Scott Brown's actual record and potentially `rethink' their initial opinions about him."
A spokesman for Warren's campaign said joint letters signed by Warren and Brown will be going out to third-party groups ? including Rethink Brown and American Crossroads ? asking them to pull their ads.
The U.S. Supreme Court has paved the way for millions of dollars in spending by super PACs following a trio of decisions capped by the landmark Citizens United case in 2010, which eased restrictions on the use of corporate money in political campaigns.
The Senate campaign is expected to be one of the costliest in state history.
Warren has reported raising $5.7 million during the final three months of 2011, eclipsing Brown's $3.2 million for the same period. Brown still enjoys an overall money advantage with $12.8 million in cash on hand, compared to the more than $6 million Warren has in her account.
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By Jan Strupczewski
and Ingrid MelanderPosted 2012/01/22 at 6:02 pm EST
BRUSSELS/ATHENS, Jan. 22, 2012 (Reuters) ? Euro zone finance ministers will decide on Monday what terms of a Greek debt restructuring they are ready to accept as part of a second bailout package for Athens after negotiators for private creditors said they could not improve their offer.
Head of the Institute of International Finance (IIF) Charles Dallara enters the Greek Prime Minister's office in a car in Athens January 20, 2012. REUTERS/Yiorgos Karahalis
Resolving the issue of a Greek debt swap is key to putting Athens' debt on a sustainable path and avoiding a chaotic default that could threaten the whole currency bloc.
After several rounds of talks, Greece and its private creditors are converging on a deal in which private bondholders would take a real loss of 65 to 70 percent on their Greek bonds, officials close to the negotiations said.
But some details of the debt restructuring, which will involve swapping existing Greek bonds for new, longer-term bonds to bring Greek debt down to a more sustainable 120 percent of GDP in 2020 from 160 percent now, are unresolved.
"What I am confident of is that our offer, that was delivered to the prime minister, is the maximum offer consistent with a voluntary PSI deal," Institute of International Finance chief Charles Dallara, who is negotiating on behalf of banks and insurers holding Greek debt, told Antenna TV on Sunday.
"We are at a crossroads and I remain quite hopeful," said Dallara, who left Athens on Saturday without a deal in place.
"We will listen to the report on the negotiations, see how far they have gotten and have the ministers say what is acceptable and what is not in terms of outcome of the negotiations," one Eurogroup official said.
Once the guidance from the finance ministers, known as the Eurogroup, is clear, talks on the restructuring could be finalized later in the week.
Talks on the extent of Private Sector Involvement (PSI) in the Greek debt restructuring are a vital part of a second financing package for Athens that would keep it funded until 2014.
"We are working for a deal in time for the January 30 summit of EU leaders. The restructuring offer needs to be made in the course of February," the official said.
"Obviously there is a clear link between the PSI and the next programme and what we will be focusing on in the Eurogroup is making the next programme operational."
Without the second bailout from the euro zone and the International Monetary Fund, Greece will not be able to pay back 14.5 billion euros in maturing bonds in March, triggering a messy default that would hurt the whole euro zone economy.
There are doubts that even with a new bailout Greece's mountainous debt can be reduced to a still-painful 120 percent of GDP by 2020.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Sunday the crucial factor was that Athens should have a level of debt that was sustainable by then. "This goal must be achieved," he told German public broadcaster ARD.
STICKING POINT
Euro zone leaders agreed in October that the second bailout would total 130 billion euros, if private bondholders forgave half of what Greece owes them in nominal terms.
But Greek economic prospects have deteriorated since then, which means either euro zone governments or investors will have to contribute more than thought.
The main sticking point is coupon, or interest rate, the new Greek bonds would carry. Officials said the new bonds are likely to be 30 years in maturity and carry a progressively higher coupon, which would average out at around 4 percent.
"The euro zone ministers will examine the proposal and say whether we have a deal. If they say we don't, we're back to the negotiating table," a banking source close to the talks said.
Progress will be presented to euro zone ministers by Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos.
"We then expect a discussion about the coupon," a senior Greek banker close to the negotiations told Reuters.
"I believe that the private sector can accept a lower coupon than the 4 percent average, but the question then is: will the PSI still be on a voluntary basis?" he said.
The voluntary character of the debt restructuring is important to avoid triggering the pay-out of insurance against a Greek default.
While the sums of such insurance appear relatively small, euro zone officials said, such a "credit event" could trigger a chain reaction of events that would entail rapid and large scale contagion in euro zone debt markets, and is thus best avoided.
NEW RESCUE FUND
After dealing with Greece, euro zone ministers will choose a replacement for European Central Bank Board member Jose Manuel Gonzales Paramo, whose term ends in May.
The 17 ministers of the euro zone will then be joined by 10 ministers from the other European Union countries to finalise a treaty setting up the euro zone's permanent bailout fund - the 500 billion euro European Stability Mechanism (ESM). Its predecessor, the EFSF, is widely viewed as insufficient.
The ESM is another crucial element in the bloc's efforts to end the sovereign debt crisis that threatens to engulf Spain and Italy after claiming Greece, Ireland and Portugal.
The fund should boost market confidence in euro zone defences should Spain or Italy need emergency financing. Separately, the IMF has launched a proposal to boost its war chest by $600 billion.
IMF head Christine Lagarde is to discuss this during a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday. She will make a speech on Monday in which she is expected to urge euro zone leaders to act quickly while acknowledging it is not merely Europe's problem because "innocent bystanders" will also be hit by a worsening debt crisis.
The 27 EU finance ministers will also prepare the final draft of another treaty to sharply tighten fiscal discipline in the euro zone, called the fiscal compact, that is designed to ensure another sovereign debt crisis cannot happen in future.
EU leaders are to sign off on both treaties on January 30, allowing the ESM to become operational in July.
To prepare for the January 30 summit, Merkel will meet European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy on Monday evening.
(Additional reporting by Lefteris Papadimas and Ingrid Melander in Athens; Reporting By Jan Strupczewski, editing by Mike Peacock)
Number of stories in archives: 2,855
Source: http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre80l105-us-eurozone-ministers/
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ScienceDaily (Jan. 22, 2012) ? Analyzing all the genes of dozens of people suffering from a rare form of hypertension, Yale University researchers have discovered a new mechanism that regulates the blood pressure of all humans.
The findings by an international research team headed by Yale scientists, published online Jan. 22 in the journal Nature, may help explain what goes wrong in the one billion people who suffer from high blood pressure. The study also demonstrates the power of new DNA sequencing methods to find previously unknown disease-causing genes.
The team used a technique called whole exome sequencing -- an analysis of the makeup of all the genes -- to study a rare inherited form of hypertension characterized by excess levels of potassium in the blood. They found mutations in either of two genes that caused the disease in affected members of 41 families suffering from the condition.
The two genes interact with one another in a complex that targets other proteins for degradation, and they orchestrate the balance between salt reabsorption and potassium secretion in the kidney.
"These genes were not previously suspected to play a role in blood pressure regulation, but if they are lost, the kidney can't put the brakes on salt reabsorption, resulting in hypertension," said Richard Lifton, Sterling Professor and chair of the Department of Genetics at Yale and senior author of the paper.
The mutations had previously been difficult to find because there were very few affected members in each family, so traditional methods to map the genes' locations had been ineffective.
"The mutations in one gene were almost all new mutations found in affected patients but not their parents, while mutations in the other gene could be either dominant or recessive. The exome sequencing technology was ideally suited to cutting through these complexities," said Lynn Boyden of Yale, the first author of the paper.
The next step is to establish how these new components are involved in regulating sodium reabsorption in the kidney, in hopes of finding new ways intervene in hypertension, a major global health problem.
"We are finding all the individual parts to a complicated machine, and we need to understand how they are all put together to make the machine work," said Lifton, who is also an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Physicians from 10 countries and 17 states in the United States recruited patients and families with this rare disease and participated in the research.
The work was funded by the HHMI and Leducq Transatlantic Network for Hypertension and from National Institutes of Health grants from a O'Brien Center and the Yale Clinical and Translational Science Award grant through the National Center for Research Resources.
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Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120122152548.htm
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TV court shows like The People?s Court, The Judge Mathis Show and Judge Judy fill up the daytime television schedule. If you?ve never seen these shows?which is doubtful?you?re missing out on a parade of people trying to get their money back from someone else. Just a few hours of watching these cases can give you all you ever need to keep yourself out of these situations. For those of you who don?t watch, here are four truths that will keep you out of small claims court if you can remember them the next time you?re about to part with your money.
If someone has bad credit, you shouldn?t be letting them use yours. Now, this may seem harsh but it?s true. Bad credit comes from taking out accounts in their name and not paying the bills associated with them. What makes you think they?ll suddenly have enough money to pay the bills once it?s just your name on it? Putting someone?s car, phone or electricity bill in your name is usually a recipe for you to end up with bad credit, too.
Family, friends and money don?t mix. Do remember that time you borrowed your sister?s jeans and lost them? She does. And, she?ll never let you forget it. Now, if you two are still going at it over a piece of clothing, the odds that you two will get over a lost couple thousand dollars are slim. Relationships have been ruined over smaller amounts of money. If you must mix money with your loved ones, consider making it a gift instead of a loan for the sake of your relationship.
Nobody really pays you when they get their tax refunds. Ok there are definitely exceptions to this one but more often than not, it?s true. It?s so true that as soon as the plaintiff starts talking about how the defendant was just waiting for her tax refund, Judge Mathis starts laughing. That?s because there?s usually a long time between when you give her your money and when she gets her refund. And what if she doesn?t get a refund that year? Or something else comes up? You may find yourself chasing her all through tax season and the rest of the year, too.
If you?re going to do it anyway, you need a contract. It?s easy to say these things here but sometimes you find yourself breaking with conventional reasoning. If you do, don?t forget to get it in writing. It doesn?t have to be a formal, notarized document. Just get the details down on a piece of paper with your signatures. Don?t forget to date the contract and include the specific date you expect to be paid back. That way if you do end up in small claims court, you have something to show the judge when you get there.
Source: http://madamenoire.com/130805/four-personal-finance-truths-that-will-keep-you-off-judge-mathis/
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JAIPUR (Reuters) ? Salman Rushdie will not attend a literature festival in India after authorities warned the controversial author he was a potential target of assassins at the event, following threats of protests from Muslim groups at his planned appearance.
Opposition from some Indian Muslim groups erupted this month after Rushdie was invited to attend Asia's largest literature festival, and senior Muslim leaders called on the government to prevent the 65-year-old author from entering the country.
"I have now been informed by intelligence sources in Maharashtra and Rajasthan that paid assassins from the Mumbai underworld may be on their way to Jaipur to eliminate me," Rushdie said in a statement read out by the festival producer.
"While I have some doubts as to the accuracy of this intelligence, it would be irresponsible of me to come to the festival in such circumstances."
The British-Indian author, whose 1988 novel the Satantic Verses is banned in India, was due to speak on the first day of the five-day Jaipur Literature Festival but organizers removed his name from the schedule last week.
Rushdie would instead participate via a video-link, festival director William Dalrymple told Reuters Friday.
"This is the result of a tragic game of Chinese whispers. The reality of Rushdie's writings are completely different from the way they have been cartooned and caricatured," Dalrymple told reporters.
The festival's directors had previously asserted that the invitation to Rushdie still stood after rescheduling his planned appearance after Muslim leaders in Jaipur threatened to protest.
"The Muslims of Jaipur were planning a protest against Rushdie. Since he is not coming, we have cancelled it," Abdul Haq Shamshi, member of the Jaipur Jama Masjid committee told Reuters.
"If he is deceiving us, and if he comes, we will protest at a minute's notice," he said, adding that thousands of protesters would take to the streets if the author arrived in the city.
HEAVY POLICE PRESENCE
Earlier Friday, thousands of guests arrived for the first sessions of the festival, which aims to showcase the best of Indian, South Asian and international writing in one of the world's fastest-growing publishing markets.
Michael Ondaatje, author of The English Patient, was the main draw Friday morning, at a festival expected to draw around 70,000 visitors and world-famous names such as Oprah Winfrey, Tom Stoppard, Richard Dawkins and Ariel Dorfman.
Scores of police officers guarded the festival entrance on Friday morning, as visitors queued to pass through X-ray scanners, a new addition to the 2012 festival.
Some 560 officers were stationed in and around the festival site, Rajendra Jhala, Jaipur's deputy commissioner of police, told Reuters, adding that hundreds of others had been deployed at major road junctions and locations across the city.
"I guess this is what you get for inviting Salman Rushdie," remarked one delegate in the security queue.
The publication of Rushdie's Satanic Verses over 20 years ago sparked a wave of protests and death threats around the world after Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini claimed that the novel's portrayal of the prophet Mohammad insulted Islam.
The vice-chancellor of India's Darul Uloom Deoband seminary said last week that Rushdie should be banned from the country, accusing the author of the Booker Prize-winning Midnight's Children of offending Muslim sentiments.
"This festival at no point wants to offend any one religion, any one people. We stand by the freedom of expression," festival producer Sanjoy Roy told reporters.
(Editing by John Chalmers)
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ScienceDaily (Jan. 19, 2012) ? Shortly after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, mysterious honeycomb material was found floating in the Gulf of Mexico and along coastal beaches. Using state-of-the-art chemical forensics and a bit of old-fashioned detective work, a research team led by scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) confirmed that the flotsam were pieces of material used to maintain buoyancy of the pipe bringing up oil from the seafloor.
The researchers also affirmed that tracking debris from damaged offshore oil rigs could help forecast coastal pollution impacts in future oil spills and guide emergency response efforts -- much the way the Coast Guard has studied the speed and direction of various floating debris to guide search and rescue missions. The findings were published Jan. 19 in Environmental Research Letters.
On May 5, 2010, 15 days after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, oceanographer William Graham and marine technicians from the Dauphin Island Sea Lab were working from a boat about 32 miles south of Dauphin Island, Ala., when they saw a 6-mile-long, east-west line containing more than 50 pieces of white material interspersed with sargassum weed. The porous material was uniformly embedded with black spheres about a centimeter in diameter. No oil slick was in sight, but there was a halo of oil sheen around the honeycomb clumps.
Two days later, the researchers also collected similar samples about 25 miles south of Dauphin Island. Nobody knew what the material was, with some hypothesizing at first that it could be coral or other substance made by marine plants or animals. Graham sent samples to WHOI chemist Chris Reddy, whose lab confirmed that the material was not biological. But the material's source remained unconfirmed.
In January 2011, Reddy and WHOI researcher Catherine Carmichael, lead author of the new study, collected a piece of the same unknown material of Elmer's Beach, Grand Isle, La. In April, 2011, they found several large pieces, ranging from 3 to 10 feet, of the honeycomb debris on the Chandeleur Islands off Louisiana.
Oil on all these samples was analyzed at WHOI using comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography. The technique identifies the thousands of individual chemical compounds that comprise different oils from different reservoirs. The chemistry of the oil on the debris matched that of oil sampled directly from the broken pipe from the Macondo well above the Deepwater Horizon rig.
In addition, one piece of debris from the Chandeleur Islands retained a weathered red sticker that read "Cuming" with the numbers 75-1059 below it. Reddy found a company called Cuming Corporation in Avon, Mass., which manufactures syntactic foam flotation equipment for the oil and gas industry. He e-mailed photos of the specimen to the company, and within hours, a Cuming engineer confirmed from the serial number that the foam came from a buoyancy module from Deepwater Horizon.
"We realized that the foam and the oil were released into the environment at the same time," Reddy said. "So we had a unique tracer that was independent of the oil itself to chronicle how oil and debris drifted out from the spill site."
The scientists overlaid the locations where they found honeycomb debris on May 5 and 7 with daily forecasts produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the trajectory of the spreading oil slick. NOAA used a model that incorporated currents and wind speeds, along with data from planes and satellites. On both days, the debris was about 6.2 miles ahead of the spreading slick.
The explanation, the scientists said, is the principle of leeway, a measure of how fast wind or waves push materials. The leeway for fresh oil is 3 to 3.3 percent, but the scientists suspected that "the protruding profile of the buoyant material" acted acting like a sail, allowing wind to drive it faster than and ahead of the floating oil.
In this case, the flotsam served as a harbinger for the oncoming slick, but because different materials can have different leeways, oil spill models may not accurately forecast where oiled debris will head. "Even a small deviation in leeway can, over time, results in significant differences in surface tracks because of typical wind fields," the scientists wrote.
The Coast Guard has a long history of calculating the leeway of various materials, from life jackets to bodies of various sizes and weights, to improve forecasts of where the materials would drift if a ship sank or a plane crashed into the sea. But calculating leeways has not been standard practice in oil spills.
"We never had solid data to make the case until this study," said Merv Fingas, who tracked oil spills for more than 38 years for Environment Canada, which is equivalent to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
"These results," the study's authors wrote, "provide insights into the fate of debris fields deriving from damaged marine materials and should be incorporated into emergency response efforts and forecasting of coastal impacts during future offshore oil spills."
This research was funded by the National Science Foundation.
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Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120119153116.htm
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STANFORD, Calif. (AP) ? Andrew Luck's uncle will serve as the agent for the former Stanford quarterback and two-time Heisman Trophy runner-up.
The Wasserman Media Group announced Tuesday that Luck is the first and only NFL-bound player to sign with the agency. The company hired Luck's uncle, Will Wilson, as executive vice president of football to represent the quarterback.
Luck is expected to be the top pick in April's NFL draft after leading Stanford to consecutive BCS bowl games and shattering almost every major school passing record. The Indianapolis Colts hold the No. 1 pick.
Wilson spent the past four years as an executive for Major League Soccer and Soccer United Marketing. He also served in executive roles with the Arena Football League, Champ Car World Series and for 13 years with NFL International, including stops as managing director of NFL Mexico and general manager of the Scottish Claymores of NFL Europe.
"We are pleased to join forces with Will to maximize Andrew's potential in the sport of football," said Mike Watts, chief operations officer of Wasserman Media Group. "Will's more than 20 years of global sports business experience with some of the most successful leagues will also further our business strategies as we continue to expand internationally."
Luck declined comment through his father, Oliver, the West Virginia athletic director and former NFL quarterback, in a text message to The Associated Press on Tuesday. Wilson also will work with Wasserman's soccer division and its management team on international business development.
"Wasserman Media Group has an industry reputation second to none and a tremendous wealth of experience in athlete representation," Wilson said in a statement. "And as the agency's first, and only NFL player, Andrew will be receiving an outstanding service as he launches his career. I am also excited to help grow the agency's global business offerings."
After a record-setting season at Stanford, Luck is taking a break from football at the moment. He is on schedule to earn his degree in architectural design from Stanford in the spring and he will enter the draft as the most sough-after prospect since Peyton Manning in 1998.
Fittingly, Luck seems headed to Indianapolis.
He won the Maxwell Award as the college football player of the year and the Walter Camp Football Foundation Player of the Year. Despite so many pro scouts salivating over his potential, a three-turnover performance in a home loss to Oregon likely cost Luck the Heisman for the second straight season.
He finished as runner-up to Baylor's Robert Griffin III this season and to Auburn's Cam Newton a year earlier. While Griffin took home the bronze statue, Luck should take home the big bucks.
Luck leaves Stanford as the school's leader in touchdown passes (82), completion percentage (.670), passing efficiency (162.8) and total offense (10,411) ? among other marks ? despite playing only three seasons. A year after rolling past Virginia Tech 40-12 in the Orange Bowl, Luck didn't quite have the finish he had hoped. Stanford lost 41-38 in overtime to Oklahoma State in the Fiesta Bowl.
Stanford was ranked seventh in the final AP poll.
___
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Wikipedia plans to take its English-language site offline Wednesday (Jan. 18) to protest SOPA and PIPA, anti-piracy laws proposed by members of U.S. Congress that Wikipedia administrators say "would be devastating to the free and open web."
So, throughout the day tomorrow, where will you find answers to all your burning questions?
Fortunately, Google has cached versions of all Wikipedia pages, and those live on even when Wiki goes down. The cached pages won't be live, exactly; they're more like a time capsule of stored information, so you won't be able to edit the content as usual. But for the purpose of looking up, say, the number of fatal bear attacks in North America, these cached pages should work just fine. Here's how to access them:
1)????? Search for something in Google, asking only for Wikipedia pages. (In addition to your search terms, add this one: "site:en.wikipedia.org" ? the notation calls for sites with that phrase in the URL.)
2)????? When you find the relevant link among the search returns, hover your mouse pointer over the white space just to the right of it. A gray box with two "greater than" symbols will appear, and an image of the corresponding webpage will pop up next to it.
3)????? Click "Cached" to go to Google's copy of the page rather than the Wikipedia version.
And then, when you're finished reading, contemplate how awesome it is that the Web is "free and open" enough to enable this workaround.
Follow Life's Little Mysteries on Twitter @llmysteries, then join us on Facebook.
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This handout photo provided by Darryl Pitt of the Macovich Collection shows an external view of a Martian meteorite recovered in December 2011 near Foumzgit, Morocco following a meteorite shower believed to have occurred in July 2011. Scientists are confirming a recent and rare invasion from Mars _ meteorite chunks that fell from the red planet over Morocco last summer. Meteorites from Mars are more than 1 million times rarer than gold. And this is only the fifth time experts have chemically confirmed fresh Martian rocks fell to Earth. The last time was in 1962. Scientists believe this meteorite fell last July because there were sightings of it. (AP Photo/Darryl Pitt, Macovich Collection)
This handout photo provided by Darryl Pitt of the Macovich Collection shows an external view of a Martian meteorite recovered in December 2011 near Foumzgit, Morocco following a meteorite shower believed to have occurred in July 2011. Scientists are confirming a recent and rare invasion from Mars _ meteorite chunks that fell from the red planet over Morocco last summer. Meteorites from Mars are more than 1 million times rarer than gold. And this is only the fifth time experts have chemically confirmed fresh Martian rocks fell to Earth. The last time was in 1962. Scientists believe this meteorite fell last July because there were sightings of it. (AP Photo/Darryl Pitt, Macovich Collection)
This handout photo provided by Darryl Pitt of the Macovich Collection shows a view of the internal structure of the first Martian meteorite (specimens of the planet Mars) known to have struck Earth in 49 years. Recovered in December 2011 near Foumzgit, Morocco following a meteorite shower believed to have occurred in July 2011. Scientists are confirming a recent and rare invasion from Mars _ meteorite chunks that fell from the red planet over Morocco last summer. Meteorites from Mars are more than 1 million times rarer than gold. And this is only the fifth time experts have chemically confirmed fresh Martian rocks fell to Earth. The last time was in 1962. Scientists believe this meteorite fell last July because there were sightings of it. (AP Photo/Darryl Pitt of the Macovich Collection)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Scientists are confirming a recent and rare invasion from Mars: meteorite chunks from the red planet that fell in Morocco last July.
This is only the fifth time scientists have chemically confirmed Martian meteorites that people witnessed falling. The fireball was spotted in the sky six months ago, but the rocks weren't discovered on the ground in North Africa until the end of December.
This is an important and unique opportunity for scientists trying to learn about Mars' potential for life. So far, no NASA or Russian spacecraft has returned bits of Mars, so the only Martian samples scientists can examine are those that come here in a meteorite shower.
Scientists and collectors of meteorites are ecstatic, and already the rocks are fetching big bucks because they are among the rarest things on Earth ? rarer even than gold.
A special committee of meteorite experts, including some NASA scientists, confirmed the test results Tuesday. They certified that 15 pounds of meteorite recently collected came from Mars. The biggest rock weighs over 2 pounds.
Astronomers think millions of years ago something big smashed into Mars and sent rocks hurtling through the solar system. After a long journey through space, one of those rocks plunged through Earth's atmosphere, splitting into smaller pieces.
Most other Martian meteorite samples sat around on Earth for millions of years ? or at the very least decades ? before they were discovered, which makes them tainted with Earth materials and life. These new rocks, while still probably contaminated because they have been on Earth for months, are purer.
The last time a Martian meteorite fell and was found fresh was in 1962. All the known Martian rocks on Earth add up to less than 240 pounds.
The new samples were scooped up by dealers from those who found them. Even before the official certification, scientists at NASA, museums and universities scrambled to buy or trade these meteorites.
"It's a free sample from Mars. That's what these are, except you have to pay the dealers for it," said University of Alberta meteorite expert Chris Herd, who heads the committee that certified the discovery.
He has already bought a chunk of meteorite and said he was thrilled just to hold it, calling the rock "really spectacular."
One of the key decisions the scientists made Tuesday was to officially connect these rocks to the fiery plunge witnessed by people and captured on video last summer. The announcement and the naming of these meteorites ? called Tissint ? came from the International Society for Meteoritics and Planetary Science, which is the official group of 950 scientists that confirms and names meteorites.
Meteorite dealer Darryl Pitt, who sold a chunk to Herd, said he charges $11,000 to $22,500 an ounce and has sold most of his supply already. At that price, the new Martian rock costs about 10 times more than gold.
"It's scientifically invaluable," Herd said. "These are really beautiful specimens. It's a rare type, so fresh and aesthetically pleasing."
Several of the world's top experts in meteorites, including those who work for NASA, told The Associated Press that they were sure this was a piece of Mars. Tony Irving of the University of Washington is the scientist who did the scientific analysis on the rocks and said there is no doubt that they are from the red planet.
Scientists can tell when meteorites are from Mars because they know what the Martian atmosphere is made of, thanks to numerous probes sent there. The chemical signature of the rocks and the Martian air match, Irving said. Another clue is that because planets like Mars are more geologically active, its rocks tend to be much younger ? millions of years old instead of hundreds of millions or more ? than those from the moon or asteroids.
Most of the Martian rocks on Earth have been around for centuries or longer and have been found in Antarctica or the desert. They look so similar to dark Earth rocks that if they fell in other places, such as Maryland, they would blend right in and never be discovered, Irving said.
Jeff Grossman, a NASA scientist who is the Meteoritical Society's database editor, said there is a higher probability of finding "something interesting" from Mars on these rocks because they fell so recently. However, six months is a long time for Earthly contamination to take root, he said.
Herd said the first thing he would do with the rocks would be to rinse them with solvents to try to get rid of earthly contamination and see what carbon-based compounds are left.
A Martian meteorite that was buried in Antarctica made news in 1996. NASA scientists theorized that the rock, found in 1984, showed signs of traces of life from Mars, fossils of what seemed to be lifelong forms. Even the White House made an announcement about it as the first sign of life outside of Earth. Years of study since then have led much of the astronomy world to conclude that there was not enough evidence to support the claim.
Because known Martian meteorite falls happen only once every 50 years or so ? 1815 in France, 1865 in India, 1911 in Egypt and 1962 in Nigeria ? this is a once-in-a-career or even one-in-a-lifetime event.
"It's incredibly fresh. It's highly valuable for that reason," said Carl Agee, director of the Institute of Meteoritics and curator at the University of New Mexico. "For someone who knows their Martian, this is a beauty. It's gorgeous."
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Online:
The Meteoritical Society: http://bit.ly/xDh6zz
Tony Irving's list of Martian meteorites: http://bit.ly/yl7jBD
Associated Pressmatt leinart cyber monday 2011 cyber monday 2011 turkey pot pie turkey pot pie southern university regenesis
