As states in the Mid-Atlantic lined up for the jobs and tax revenue that would come with drilling deep into the shale to release gas, Maryland held back.
Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) and other state officials said no thanks, wary that poisonous chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing could contaminate groundwater in rural areas where it matters most.
BEIJING: China's inflation rate accelerated slightly to 2.0 percent in November, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Sunday.
It is the first increase in the consumer price index since August. Inflation stood at 1.7 percent in October.
The result compares with a median 2.1 percent forecast for November in a survey of 12 economists by Dow Jones Newswires.
Producer prices -- which measure the cost of goods as they leave factories -- declined 2.2 percent year-on-year, falling for the ninth straight month, the data showed. Producer prices fell 2.8 percent in October.
China's economy grew 7.4 percent in the third quarter until the end of September, its weakest performance in more than three years and the seventh straight quarter of slowing expansion.
But recent numbers, including manufacturing, trade and industrial output, have led to optimism among economists that the world's second biggest economy is rebounding.
China is scheduled to announce industrial production, retail sales and fixed asset investment figures for October later on Sunday.
Inflation rose 2.0 percent year-on-year in August, but fell to 1.9 per cent in September.
- AFP/ir
"China has existed in our imaginations," observed Sunil Khilnani, professor of politics and author of The Idea Of India. "There's been very little sustained engagement with the reality of China and very little of our own produced knowledge about China." It was after the events of 1962 ('war' in the popular imagination, 'skirmish' to the scholars participating in the discussion), explained Khilnani, that a miffed India "withdrew". It's the 50th anniversary of that exchange this year, and "what we haven't been able to do is learn from the defeat", observed Khilnani. Both could have benefited from greater engagement. "China has had a very clear focus on primary education and achieved high levels of literacy before its economic rise. It has also addressed the issue of land reform," said Khilnani. Guha added that China could learn from the "religious, cultural and linguistic pluralism" in India.
But China and India weren't always so out of sync with each other. Srinath Raghavan, a scholar of military history, got both Guha and Khilnani to talk about pre-1962 relations between the two when the picture was rosier. Tagore was interested in China and so was Gandhi. Both were very large countries with large populations and shared what Guha calls a "lack of cultural inferiority". "They were both," he continued, "also heavily dependent on peasant communities." Nehru was appreciative of China's will to modernize and industrialize and its adoption of technology to achieve those ends. In turn, Chinese politicians argued for Indian independence.
Things soured more, feel both Khilnani and Guha, after the Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959. "He was welcomed here as a spiritual leader but the intensification of the conflict dates to the Dalai Lama's flight," said Guha. Both Guha and Khilnani argued that Nehru's decision to not react aggressively to China's occupation of Tibet was, in the long run, the right one and prevented further "militarization" of the region. An audience member wondered if that didn't make India "China's puppet". Guha disagreed. "If there's a Tibetan culture alive today," he said, "it's not because of Richard Gere. Don't believe in the hypocrisy of the Western countries. Will they give them land, employment, dignified refuge? The Tibetans is one of the few cases in which our record is honorable."
But the difference in levels of development and the lopsided trade relations between the two countries have only fuelled the suspicions many Indians seem to harbour about China. People were worried, said Guha, even about cricket balls made in China. Audience questions reflected those worries. A member asked about China's "strategy to conquer the world" and its likely impact on India. Guha cautioned against stereotypes; Khilnani explained, "History is littered with the debris of states that have tried to dominate the world. What we're doing may be more long-lasting."
When researchers sent plants to the International Space Station in 2010, the flora wasn't meant to be decorative. Instead, the seeds of these small, white flowers—called Arabidopsis thaliana—were the subject of an experiment to study how plant roots developed in a weightless environment.
Gravity is an important influence on root growth, but the scientists found that their space plants didn't need it to flourish. The research team from the University of Florida in Gainesville thinks this ability is related to a plant's inherent ability to orient itself as it grows. Seeds germinated on the International Space Station sprouted roots that behaved like they would on Earth—growing away from the seed to seek nutrients and water in exactly the same pattern observed with gravity. (Related: "Beyond Gravity.")
Since the flowers were orbiting some 220 miles (350 kilometers) above the Earth at the time, the NASA-funded experiment suggests that plants still retain an earthy instinct when they don't have gravity as a guide.
"The role of gravity in plant growth and development in terrestrial environments is well understood," said plant geneticist and study co-author Anna-Lisa Paul, with the University of Florida in Gainesville. "What is less well understood is how plants respond when you remove gravity." (See a video about plant growth.)
The new study revealed that "features of plant growth we thought were a result of gravity acting on plant cells and organs do not actually require gravity," she added.
Paul and her collaborator Robert Ferl, a plant biologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville, monitored their plants from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida using images sent from the space station every six hours.
Root Growth
Grown on a nutrient-rich gel in clear petri plates, the space flowers showed familiar root growth patterns such as "skewing," where roots slant progressively as they branch out.
"When we saw the first pictures come back from orbit and saw that we had most of the skewing phenomenon we were quite surprised," Paul said.
Researchers have always thought that skewing was the result of gravity's effects on how the root tip interacts with the surfaces it encounters as it grows, she added. But Paul and Ferl suspect that in the absence of gravity, other cues take over that enable the plant to direct its roots away from the seed and light-seeking shoot. Those cues could include moisture, nutrients, and light avoidance.
"Bottom line is that although plants 'know' that they are in a novel environment, they ultimately do just fine," Paul said.
The finding further boosts the prospect of cultivating food plants in space and, eventually, on other planets.
"There's really no impediment to growing plants in microgravity, such as on a long-term mission to Mars, or in reduced-gravity environments such as in specialized greenhouses on Mars or the moon," Paul said. (Related: "Alien Trees Would Bloom Black on Worlds With Double Stars.")
The study findings appear in the latest issue of the journal BMC Plant Biology.
The Supreme Court's announcement that it would hear two cases challenging laws prohibiting same-sex marriage has reinvigorated one of the most hotly contentious social debates in American history, a debate that has been fueled by a dramatic change in attitudes.
With some states taking significant steps towards legalizing gay marriage, the hearings come at a critical moment.
This week in Washington State, hundreds of same-sex couples lined up to collect marriage licenses after Gov. Christine Gregoire announced the passing of a voter-approved law legalizing gay marriage.
"For the past 20 years we've been saying just one more step. Just one more fight. Just one more law. But now we can stop saying 'Just one more.' This is it. We are here. We did it," Gregoire told a group of Referendum 74 supporters during the law's certification.
Washington is just the most recent of several states to pass legislation legalizing same-sex marriage, signifying a significant departure from previous thinking on the controversial subject.
READ: Court to Take Up Same-Sex Marriage
A study by the Pew Research Center on changing attitudes on gay marriage showed that in 2001 57 percent of Americans opposed same-sex marriage, while 35 percent of Americans supported it.
The same poll shows that today opinions have greatly shifted to reflect slightly more support for same-sex marriage than opposition -- with 48 percent of Americans in favor and 43 percent opposed.
In fact, just two years ago, 48 percent of Americans opposed same-sex marriage while only 42 percent supported it -- indicating that opinions have changed dramatically in the last couple of years alone.
David Paul Morris/Getty Images
Check Out Same-Sex Marriage Status in the U.S. State By State
It's hard to imagine that only 16 years ago, the fervent gay marriage debate led to the conception of the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as a union solely held between a man and a woman.
While debating the Defense of Marriage Act in September 1996, former Sen. Robert Byrd said: "If same-sex marriage is accepted, then the announcement will be official: America will have said that children do not need a mother and a father. Two mothers or two fathers will be OK. It'll be just as good. This would be a catastrophe."
Even a few short years ago a newly-elected President Obama did not support the legalization of gay marriage. It wasn't until earlier this year, at the end of hiss first term and with the impending election in sight, that the president told ABC's Robin Roberts the he'd "been going through an evolution on this issue."
Obama went on to attribute his shift in stance to the influence of his daughters.
"You know, Malia and Sasha, they've got friends whose parents are same-sex couples. It wouldn't dawn on them that somehow their friends' parents would be treated differently," he said. "That's the kind of thing that prompts -- a change in perspective."
Obama isn't the only one to experience an evolution in thinking on the matter of gay marriage. Attitudes towards same-sex marriage have shifted dramatically over the past decade across the board, particularly in the past few years.
Gone are the days when a majority of people opposed same-sex marriage; the days when gay politicians and supporters of same-sex marriage could not get elected.
Get more pure politics at ABCNews.com/Politics and a lighter take on the news at OTUSNews.com
Today, nine states and the District of Columbia allow same-sex unions -- a number likely considered inconceivable just a few short years ago. And yet, the same-sex marriage debate still begs for the answering of a question: Will this newfound public opinion, largely driven by young people, women and Democrats, have an effect on the Supreme Court's ultimate decision on the matter?
"I think (gay marriage is) just not a big deal for a lot of young people," Elizabeth Wydra of the Constitutional Accountability Center says. "The justices are human beings so they're not completely immune to public opinion. ... I think the real question for them is going to be do they want to be on the wrong side of history?"
Republicans in Michigan are acting swiftly to adopt broad limits on the ability to organize workers, as the war over organized labor moves into the state that gave rise to modern industrial unions.
Unbowed by their party’s thumping at the polls nationally in last month, Republicans who control Michigan’s legislature approved measures in the lame-duck session this week that would make Michigan a “right to work” state, effectively banning unions there from requiring workers to pay labor dues.
KUALA LUMPUR: Thailand have impressively swept into the AFF Suzuki Cup semi-finals but the "War Elephants" face a stern test against Malaysia as they bid to end a 10-year Southeast Asian title drought.
The three-time champions, twice losing finalists since last lifting the trophy in 2002, edged the Philippines 2-1, thumped qualifiers Myanmar 4-0 and then dismissed Vietnam 3-1 during their Group A games in Bangkok.
Next up is a difficult, two-legged clash against fellow co-hosts Malaysia, who recovered from an opening 3-0 loss against Singapore to beat Laos 4-1 and Indonesia 2-0 to reach the last four as Group B runners-up.
Singapore, twice winners of the biennial Asean Football Federation (AFF) championship, face the rapidly improving Philippines -- featuring ex-Chelsea poster boys Phil and James Younghusband -- in the other home-and-away semi.
Thailand start as favourites against Malaysia after beating them 2-0 in a friendly last month, but they will be wary of the Tigers, who host the first leg at Kuala Lumpur's cacophonous Bukit Jalil stadium on Sunday.
"They're dangerous, especially at home where passionate fans normally pack the stadium to the rafters. Such strong support really helps them as the players feel more motivated," said Thailand's coach Winfried Schaefer.
"We beat them 2-0 recently but we cannot read much into that result because both of us used many reserves in that game. The win was no doubt a boost to our morale, but we cannot underestimate them.
"They pass the ball well and their teamwork is good since they have been together for a while."
After resting players against Vietnam, Thailand are expected to be at full strength including striker Teersil Dangda and midfielder Datsakorn Thonglao, who went off with a groin problem against the Philippines.
The same cannot be said of Malaysia, who have five players on the injury list including winger Wan Zack Haikal Wan Nor and midfielder Shakir Shaari.
"This puts us in a difficult situation ahead of our match against Thailand," said coach K. Rajagobal. "We still have few more days to prepare for the match. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for the best for Shakir and Zack."
In Manila the Philippines, denied the chance to host a semi-final leg two years ago due to the lack of a suitable venue, will finally play in front of their home fans at the renovated Rizal Memorial Stadium on Saturday.
"Now that we are here, we are hoping the home fans can help get us through," said team manager Dan Palami.
The encounter will be emotional for the "Azkals" (street dogs) after hundreds of people died and 300,000 were made homeless when a typhoon hit the south of the country this week.
Singapore topped Group B but they will be missing midfielder Hariss Harun, out for the rest of the tournament with a shin fracture, and winger Shi Jiayi, who has travelled to Shanghai for a family emergency.
- AFP/ck
"China has existed in our imaginations," observed Sunil Khilnani, professor of politics and author of The Idea Of India. "There's been very little sustained engagement with the reality of China and very little of our own produced knowledge about China." It was after the events of 1962 ('war' in the popular imagination, 'skirmish' to the scholars participating in the discussion), explained Khilnani, that a miffed India "withdrew". It's the 50th anniversary of that exchange this year, and "what we haven't been able to do is learn from the defeat", observed Khilnani. Both could have benefited from greater engagement. "China has had a very clear focus on primary education and achieved high levels of literacy before its economic rise. It has also addressed the issue of land reform," said Khilnani. Guha added that China could learn from the "religious, cultural and linguistic pluralism" in India.
But China and India weren't always so out of sync with each other. Srinath Raghavan, a scholar of military history, got both Guha and Khilnani to talk about pre-1962 relations between the two when the picture was rosier. Tagore was interested in China and so was Gandhi. Both were very large countries with large populations and shared what Guha calls a "lack of cultural inferiority". "They were both," he continued, "also heavily dependent on peasant communities." Nehru was appreciative of China's will to modernize and industrialize and its adoption of technology to achieve those ends. In turn, Chinese politicians argued for Indian independence.
Things soured more, feel both Khilnani and Guha, after the Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959. "He was welcomed here as a spiritual leader but the intensification of the conflict dates to the Dalai Lama's flight," said Guha. Both Guha and Khilnani argued that Nehru's decision to not react aggressively to China's occupation of Tibet was, in the long run, the right one and prevented further "militarization" of the region. An audience member wondered if that didn't make India "China's puppet". Guha disagreed. "If there's a Tibetan culture alive today," he said, "it's not because of Richard Gere. Don't believe in the hypocrisy of the Western countries. Will they give them land, employment, dignified refuge? The Tibetans is one of the few cases in which our record is honorable."
But the difference in levels of development and the lopsided trade relations between the two countries have only fuelled the suspicions many Indians seem to harbour about China. People were worried, said Guha, even about cricket balls made in China. Audience questions reflected those worries. A member asked about China's "strategy to conquer the world" and its likely impact on India. Guha cautioned against stereotypes; Khilnani explained, "History is littered with the debris of states that have tried to dominate the world. What we're doing may be more long-lasting."
When researchers sent plants to the International Space Station in 2010, the flora wasn't meant to be decorative. Instead, the seeds of these small, white flowers—called Arabidopsis thaliana—were the subject of an experiment to study how plant roots developed in a weightless environment.
Gravity is an important influence on root growth, but the scientists found that their space plants didn't need it to flourish. The research team from the University of Florida in Gainesville thinks this ability is related to a plant's inherent ability to orient itself as it grows. Seeds germinated on the International Space Station sprouted roots that behaved like they would on Earth—growing away from the seed to seek nutrients and water in exactly the same pattern observed with gravity. (Related: "Beyond Gravity.")
Since the flowers were orbiting some 220 miles (350 kilometers) above the Earth at the time, the NASA-funded experiment suggests that plants still retain an earthy instinct when they don't have gravity as a guide.
"The role of gravity in plant growth and development in terrestrial environments is well understood," said plant geneticist and study co-author Anna-Lisa Paul, with the University of Florida in Gainesville. "What is less well understood is how plants respond when you remove gravity." (See a video about plant growth.)
The new study revealed that "features of plant growth we thought were a result of gravity acting on plant cells and organs do not actually require gravity," she added.
Paul and her collaborator Robert Ferl, a plant biologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville, monitored their plants from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida using images sent from the space station every six hours.
Root Growth
Grown on a nutrient-rich gel in clear petri plates, the space flowers showed familiar root growth patterns such as "skewing," where roots slant progressively as they branch out.
"When we saw the first pictures come back from orbit and saw that we had most of the skewing phenomenon we were quite surprised," Paul said.
Researchers have always thought that skewing was the result of gravity's effects on how the root tip interacts with the surfaces it encounters as it grows, she added. But Paul and Ferl suspect that in the absence of gravity, other cues take over that enable the plant to direct its roots away from the seed and light-seeking shoot. Those cues could include moisture, nutrients, and light avoidance.
"Bottom line is that although plants 'know' that they are in a novel environment, they ultimately do just fine," Paul said.
The finding further boosts the prospect of cultivating food plants in space and, eventually, on other planets.
"There's really no impediment to growing plants in microgravity, such as on a long-term mission to Mars, or in reduced-gravity environments such as in specialized greenhouses on Mars or the moon," Paul said. (Related: "Alien Trees Would Bloom Black on Worlds With Double Stars.")
The study findings appear in the latest issue of the journal BMC Plant Biology.
Elizabeth Johnson -- who at one point admitted to killing her son, the missing infant Gabriel Johnson, before saying she gave him away -- told a judge she "deserved the maximum" sentence, before receiving a prison term of 5.25 years, half of the max.
In October, Johnson, 26, was found guilty of custodial interference and unlawful imprisonment stemming from the disappearance of her 8-month-old son, last seen on Dec. 24, 2009. The baby's whereabouts remain unknown.
"I am brokenhearted over my son still being missing," said Johnson, wearing a striped prison jumpsuit. "I'm at a loss because I do deserve the max. What I have done is unconscionable. I would convict myself.
"I do deserve the maximum, I do," she said through tears. "[But it] wasn't how [the prosecution] made it out to be. It wasn't like that. That's all I have to say."
Judge Paul McMurdie said he wished he could design a sentence that would compel Johnson to disclose Gabriel's whereabouts, but could only "sentence her for the offenses [for which] she's been convicted."
Johnson, 26, will serve 5.25 years in an Arizona state prison, followed by four years of probation.
At today's sentencing hearing, prosecutor Angela Andrews called Johnson' actions "despicable," but said the state would drop its request to see Johnson serve out a maximum sentence if she would tell authorities where her son could be found.
Johnson, who has been in jail for the past three years, faced a maximum of 9.5 years in prison on the two convictions. In October, the jury did not reach a verdict on a third charge of kidnapping.
Before Gabriel's disappearance, Johnson had been embroiled in a custody battle with the baby's biological father, Logan McQueary. The couple differed on putting their infant son up for adoption. Johnson had wanted to, McQueary did not.
"I think Elizabeth should be held accountable for her actions, for making my son disappear," Johnson told the court. "She should stay in jail until Gabriel is found or be given the maximum sentence as possible."
While she was fighting with McQueary over custody of their son, Johnson left Tempe, Ariz., with Gabriel and traveled to San Antonio, Texas, on Dec. 18, 2009. Johnson failed to bring Gabriel back to visit with McQueary two days later, violating a court custody order.
Gabriel was last seen with his mother on Dec. 26, 2009. The following day, Johnson sent text messages to McQueary saying she had killed him. Johnson was recorded telling McQueary that she suffocated their son with a towel until he turned blue. She said she then put his body in a diaper bag and put the bag in the trash.
Later, Johnson told authorities she gave Gabriel to a couple she met in a park in San Antonio, though she has never named who she gave the child to.
ABC News' Alexis Shaw contributed to this report.
The U.S. attorney in New Orleans, who built a reputation for prosecuting public officials, resigned Thursday in the midst of a federal investigation into two top deputies who used the Internet to anonymously attack people their office was investigating.
Jim Letten, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana, was appointed by George W. Bush in 2001 and is the longest-serving U.S. attorney in the country.
SYDNEY: Australian police Friday said they had seized cocaine shipped from Chile worth up to A$77 million (US$81 million), the third global drug syndicate busted in as many weeks.
The 135-kilogram (298-pound) seizure followed a three-month Australian Federal Police investigation and led to the arrest of five men -- three Australians, one Italian and one Mexican.
"The Australian Federal Police has seized almost 700 kilograms of illicit drugs in the past several weeks as a result of three separate investigations," Commander Jennifer Hurst said.
"These results should send a clear and lasting message to criminals that police will not rest in the fight against organised crime."
Last month, police seized 350 kilograms of cocaine and methamphetamine with a combined estimated street value of up to A$237 million, arresting an American and two Canadians.
A further 200 kilograms of cocaine, along with a badly decomposed body, were found onboard a shipwrecked vessel in Tonga last month as part of an investigation by police from Australia, Tonga, the Cook Islands and the US.
The latest operation began in September, when customs officers inspected a shipment from Chile in Sydney and found significant quantities of cocaine.
Two Australian men, aged 49 and 55, were charged with attempting to possess a commercial quantity of cocaine and a 41-year-old Australian was charged with conspiracy to import a commercial quantity of the drug.
The Italian, aged 49, has also been charged with conspiracy to import cocaine while a 45-year-old Mexican was charged with conspiracy to import and attempt to possess a commercial amount of the drug.
The maximum penalty for these offences is life imprisonment.
- AFP/ck
Liquor is an important part of tribal customs and social get together are incomplete if alcohol and mutton are not served to guests. Since ages, tribals in Kinnaur are brewing liquor locally known as "angoori" while in Lahaul-Spiti they make it from wheat. But with the coming of wealth locally brewed liquor was replaced by whisky and beer resulting into social inequality widening the gap between rich and poor.
Noted social activist of Kinnaur and chairperson of Kinnaur Mahila Kalyan Parishad Ratan Manjari said over the years serving English liquor and beer during marriages and other social functions had become a show of wealth and those not having money too were serving it and get burdened with debt. "Trend was wrong which needed to be stopped and now we have done it in many villages of Kinnaur," she said. Kinnaur Mahila Kalyan Parishad has 200 mahila mandals as its members.
Ratan Manjari said for 5-6 years, they have mobilized support of women in Kinnaur district to tell them how use of English liquor and beer during marriages is resulting in waste of money besides creating divide among rich and poor. "Today, we have succeeded in banning English liquor in social functions, especially in Kalpa, Sangla, Lippa and other areas of district," she said.
To ensure that people obey the decision, a provision of imposing fine has been made by women amicably. "We have decided to impose penalty of Rs 5,000 on people serving the English liquor and those consuming it," Manjari said. She said still a lot more is required to be done.
In Lahaul-Spiti district, Udaipur village is setting an example for others by observing complete ban on English liquor and beer during social gathering for last three years. "During marriages and other functions only locally made liquor is served. Those defying ban are punished by mahila mandal members," said Hemvati, Mahila Mandal member of Udaipur.
Hemvati said if a family in the village found serving English liquor and Beer despite ban, then Rs 10,000 fine is imposed, but if same offence is committed second time then the family is boycotted socially.
"Such decisions are in larger interest of society as seeing rich people serving liquor even poor were following the trend after borrowing money. In one wedding, people were usually spending Rs 50,000 to 1 lakh only on liquor, but now with ban enforced in many villages show of wealth has been curbed in the interest of poor," said Rigzin Samphel Hayerpa, Zila Parishad member from Kolang in Lahaul-Spiti.
Image courtesy T.A. Rector, UAA/WIYN/NOAO/NSF
A new camera called the One Degree Imager, located at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, is responsible for this enticingly crisp image of the Bubble Nebula. Released on December 4, this closeup highlights the sphere of gas blown out by the nebula's central star, which is 45 times larger than our own sun.
Located in the constellation Cassiopeia, the Bubble Nebula is ten light-years across. Intense radiation from the massive star causes the otherworldly glow that lights up what looks like a celestial soap bubble.
(Related: "Amazing Hubble Images.")
Published December 6, 2012
Photograph by Frank Olsen, My Shot
Delicate green auroras light up the water at Buksnesfjord, Norway, in a picture taken just after midnight on December 4.
(See pictures of auroras sparked by a massive solar flare.)
Published December 6, 2012
Image courtesy SDO/NASA
Sheets of plasma—or superheated gas—break off from the surface of the sun in this image taken in extreme ultraviolet light. Before floating free, the plasma rose up and danced along pathways determined by magnetic fields. These unseen forces pushed and pulled the gas into contorted shapes.
(Learn about the sun.)
Published December 6, 2012
Image courtesy NASA
What looks like a jawbreaker is actually a gravity map of the moon. Red areas indicate places with higher gravity fields while blue areas indicate lower gravity fields.
(Learn about lunar exploration.)
Twin probes circling the moon—part of NASA's GRAIL mission—since 2011 have been recording changes in gravity as they fly over peaks and valleys on the lunar surface. As one probe flies over an area with a greater gravity field, the washing-machine-size instrument speeds up slightly, increasing the distance between it and its sister probe. These minute changes in position have enabled scientists to construct this very detailed view of local changes in the moon's gravity.
(How well do you know your moon myths? Take our quiz.)
Published December 6, 2012
Illustration courtesy L. Calçada, ESO/NAOJ/NRAO
In this artist's conception of fine-grained particles around a brown dwarf—or a failed star—bits of debris are on their way to becoming a rocky planet.
Current thinking on Earthlike, rocky planet formation says that random collisions between tiny debris occur in the disc of material surrounding newborn stars. But the recent discovery of such a disc surrounding a brown dwarf has some astronomers rethinking that hypothesis. If planets can form from the debris around these failed stars, then rocky planets may be much more common than previously thought.
(Related: "Coldest Star Found-No Hotter Than Fresh Coffee.")
Published December 6, 2012
Image courtesy Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, Suomi NPP/NASA
The Suomi NPP satellite captured this nighttime image of the aurora australis over the Antarctic coast south of South Africa. Despite the winter darkness and a waning crescent moon, the auroras produced enough light for sensors on board the new NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite to capture the boundary between the ice shelf and what some scientists call the Southern, or Antarctic, Ocean (dark line across the bright center swirl).
Launched last year, Suomi NPP enables scientists to capture nighttime images of the Earth's atmosphere and surface. The new sensor is so sensitive, it can capture the lights from one ship at sea.
(Learn about Antarctica.)
Published December 6, 2012
Image courtesy Michael Taylor, Landsat/NASA
In NASA's Landsat 5 satellite image, the Mergui Archipelago shows off the vibrant greens of its rain forests and the brilliant blues of the surrounding tropical ocean. Located along the southern border of Myanmar (Burma), next to Thailand, the area is known for valuable pearl oysters (Pinctada maxima) and a highly diverse concentration of plants and animals.
(See photos of Myanmar.)
Published December 6, 2012
Illustration courtesy AOES Medialab/ESO
The Venusian atmosphere is made mostly of carbon dioxide, along with periodic spikes in sulfur. Recent research has found that volcanoes on the planet's surface, seen here in an artist's conception, are likely injecting that sulfur into the upper atmosphere. Direct confirmation is difficult, however, since Venus's thick atmosphere precludes a peek at its peaks.
Published December 6, 2012
Image courtesy SSI/ISA/ESA/NASA
Published December 6, 2012
Robert Clark, the operational attorney for U.S. Cyber Command, stood in a grand ballroom with gold flaked ceilings and sparkling chandeliers to address an audience that included men in flowing white robes and veiled women and tried to hammer home a single point: cyber warfare is not the "Wild West."
Clark, who emphasized that he was speaking only in a personal capacity and not on behalf of the U.S. government, wanted to assure the relatively small gathering in the United Arab Emirates that in an age where a new "revolutionary" cyber weapon like Stuxnet is discovered every few months -- usually on computers in Iran, just across the Arabian Gulf -- legal considerations are taken into account before cyber attacks are launched.
"Articles that talk about cyber warfare and [say] that rules of engagement aren't evolving as fast as [the cyber attacks], it's just not true," Clark said. "We have the law of armed conflict applying to any type conflict and it applies to cyberspace operations also... It's just not the Wild West out there."
For most of his presentation, Clark spoke in generalities about the legal aspects of American cyber capabilities because despite the months-old admission from his boss, U.S. Cyber Command chief Gen. Keith Alexander, that the military is developing a "pro-active, agile cyber force," and the oft-cited New York Times report on America's role in developing Stuxnet, the devastating cyber weapon that hit an Iranian nuclear facility in late 2009, no current American officials have gone on record claiming responsibility for an offensive cyber attack.
However, emboldened by a government colleague's praise of Stuxnet earlier this year, Clark couldn't resist using it as a hypothetical example.
He said that before a weapon like Stuxnet would be launched, the same legal criteria would be considered as if it were a physical military attack. Is there an imminent threat from the target? Does it absolutely have to be taken out? Will the attack cause casualties or collateral damage that could and should be avoided?
Answering his own question about casualties, Clark echoed comments from colleague Air Force Col. Gary Brown when he noted the impressive restraint of the worm. Though Stuxnet was discovered on thousands of computers around the world in 2010, cyber researchers quickly realized that it was something of a smart bomb. It would spread harmlessly from computer to computer until it found itself on the exact system configuration -- a control system at an Iranian nuclear facility -- it was meant to target.
"Stuxnet," Clark said, "was a very discriminant weapon."
After Stuxnet was discovered and analyzed, Richard Clarke, a former White House counter-terrorism adviser and current ABC News consultant, said he thought that Stuxnet showed such care to limit collateral damage that it must have been developed with healthy input from anxious lawyers.
Robert Clark's presentation Wednesday was one of the first talks at the Black Hat security conference held at the opulent Emirate Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi and though most of the presentations were highly technical, Clark wasn't the first and or the last to talk about the cyber struggle over Iran.
Two high-profile Republican members of Congress who stand at the forefront of the effort to rebuild the party after a stinging presidential defeat delivered speeches Tuesday night aimed at turning the page with a fresh emphasis on inclusion and a renewed focus on growing the middle class.
“Nothing represents how special America is more than our middle class. And our challenge and our opportunity now is to create the conditions that allow it not just to survive, but to grow,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), the Leadership Award recipient at a dinner hosted by the Jack Kemp Foundation, a charitable nonprofit organization named for the late congressman and Housing and Urban Development secretary.
WASHINGTON: The United States offered disaster relief and sent condolences Wednesday to the Philippines and Palau in the wake of Typhoon Bopha, which left hundreds dead.
At least 325 people were killed and hundreds remain missing in the Philippines following the deadliest typhoon to hit the country this year, the Philippines civil defence chief said in Manila.
"The United States offers condolences for the destruction and loss of life in the southern Philippines and the widespread damage to populated areas in Palau caused by Typhoon Bopha," deputy State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement.
"Our embassies in Manila and Koror have offered immediate disaster relief assistance, and we are working closely with authorities in both countries to offer additional assistance as needed. Our thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by this tragedy."
Philippines civil defence chief Benito Ramos warned that the toll was expected to rise because hundreds of people are still missing.
- AFP/ck
NASA is so delighted with Curiosity's Mars mission that the agency wants to do it all again in 2020, with the possibility of identifying and storing some rocks for a future sample return to Earth.
The formal announcement, made at the American Geophysical Union's annual fall meeting, represents a triumph for the NASA Mars program, which had fallen on hard times due to steep budget cuts. But NASA associate administrator for science John Grunsfeld said that the agency has the funds to build and operate a second Curiosity-style rover, largely because it has a lot of spare parts and an engineering and science team that knows how to develop a follow-on expedition.
"The new science rover builds off the tremendous success from Curiosity and will have new instruments," Grunsfeld said. Curiosity II is projected to cost $1.5 billion—compared with the $2.5 billion price tag for the rover now on Mars—and will require congressional approval.
While the 2020 rover will have the same one-ton chassis as Curiosity—and could use the same sky crane technology involved in the "seven minutes of terror"—it will have different instruments and, many hope, the capacity to cache a Mars rock for later pickup and delivery to researchers on Earth. Curiosity and the other Mars rovers, satellites, and probes have garnered substantial knowledge about the Red Planet in recent decades, but planetary scientists say no Mars-based investigations can be nearly as instructive as studying a sample in person here on Earth.
(Video: Mars Rover's "Seven Minutes of Terror.")
Return to Sender
That's why "sample return" has topped several comprehensive reviews of what NASA should focus on for the next decade regarding Mars.
"There is absolutely no doubt that this rover has the capability to collect and cache a suite of magnificent samples," said astronomer Steven Squyres, with Cornell University in New York, who led a "decadal survey" of what scientists want to see happen in the field of planetary science in the years ahead. "We have a proven system now for landing a substantial payload on Mars, and that's what we need to enable sample return."
The decision about whether the second rover will be able to collect and "cache" a sample will be up to a "science definition team" that will meet in the years ahead to weigh the pros and cons of focusing the rover's activity on that task.
As currently imagined, bringing a rock sample back to Earth would require three missions: one to select, pick up, and store the sample; a second to pick it up and fly it into a Mars orbit; and a third to take it from Mars back to Earth.
"A sample return would rely on all the Mars missions before it," said Scott Hubbard, formerly NASA's "Mars Czar," who is now at Stanford University. "Finding the right rocks from the right areas, and then being able to get there, involves science and technology we've learned over the decades."
Renewed Interest
Clearly, Curiosity's success has changed the thinking about Mars exploration, said Hubbard. He was a vocal critic of the Obama Administration's decision earlier this year to cut back on the Mars program as part of agency belt-tightening but now is "delighted" by this renewed initiative.
(Explore an interactive time line of Mars exploration in National Geographic magazine.)
More than 50 million people watched NASA coverage of Curiosity's landing and cheered the rover's success, Hubbard said. If things had turned out differently with Curiosity, "we'd be having a very different conversation about the Mars program now."
(See "Curiosity Landing on Mars Greeted With Whoops and Tears of Jubilation.")
If Congress gives the green light, the 2020 rover would be the only $1 billion-plus "flagship" mission—NASA's largest and most expensive class of projects—in the agency's planetary division in the next decade. There are many other less ambitious projects to other planets, asteroids, moons, and comets in the works, but none are flagships. That has left some planetary scientists not involved with Mars unhappy with NASA's heavy Martian focus.
Future Plans
While the announcement of the 2020 rover mission set the Mars community abuzz, NASA also outlined a series of smaller missions that will precede it. The MAVEN spacecraft, set to launch next year, will study the Martian atmosphere in unprecedented detail; a lander planned for 2018 will study the Red Planet's crust and interior; and NASA will renew its promise to participate in a European life-detection mission in 2018. NASA had signed an agreement in 2009 to partner with the European Space Agency on that mission but had to back out earlier this year because of budget constraints.
NASA said that a request for proposals would go out soon, soliciting ideas about science instruments that might be on the rover. And as for a sample return system, at this stage all that's required is the ability to identify good samples, collect them, and then store them inside the rover.
"They can wait there on Mars for some time as we figure out how to pick them up," Squyres said. "After all, they're rocks."
Dec 5, 2012 4:49pm
National polls show that Republicans would take the brunt of the blame for a dive over the so-called fiscal cliff. A Washington Post/Pew Research Survey released this week found that a majority of the public (53 percent) would point the finger at Republicans if Congress fails to reach a deal on taxes and government spending. Just 27 percent would blame President Obama.
But are national polls really the right tools with which to understand the political consequences of this latest legislative limbo? After all, the Romney and the Obama campaign both eschewed national polling during the campaign, focusing instead on the battleground states that would deliver the Electoral College.
And, when it comes to the House, a national sample isn’t particularly predictive either. There are very few Democrats or Republicans who sit in “swing districts.” Just 81 members of the House — less than 20 percent — won their seats with less than 55 percent of the vote.
In other words, what the general public thinks is not necessarily indicative of what the voters in the individual districts think. In fact, most Republicans are much more worried about a challenge from their right in a primary than a challenge from a Democrat.
“National polls in a Presidential race are useless for sure, and they are useless to members of Congress trying to make decisions about their own personal politics,” says Democratic pollster Jefrey Pollock. “But that doesn’t make them totally worthless. Just because the congressional folks are reelected by large margins, it’s still important to take temperatures of national sentiment. It’s very interesting/important to note what people nationally think about who should be blamed because that drives media coverage and the narrative.”
Republican strategist Jon Lerner agrees that national polling drives the national discussion, which in turn drives the national mood.
“National polls are necessarily broad, and they are therefore informative in a broad sense about the political environment and about national policy questions,” says Lerner. “If national polls say the Iraq war, or Obamacare, are broadly unpopular, it says something about the direction the national political discussion will take on those issues and on others that might have less energy behind them.”
Democratic pollster Geoff Garin says that you can actually use national data in “situations like now, when there is a national policy debate going on,” to gauge voter sentiment in individual districts.
“If you believe, as I do, that the high ground in politics is being able to capture the high ground in the center, national polls tell you a lot about where the center is,” Garin told me. “And if your sample is large enough so you can understand responses by partisanship, geography (region of country, type of area), race, other demographics, etc., you can take a pretty good guess about the driving forces and what they would look like in a particular state or CD. And it is just a lot more cost efficient to do a large sample national survey than a bunch of state surveys.”
But, while national polls can be of some value in understanding the mood of the country going into the fiscal cliff debate, what they can’t predict is the response of voters if we indeed fall off that cliff. How voters assess blame today may be very, very different from who they hold responsible in the aftermath of a crisis.
Former House majority leader and consummate insider Richard K. Armey always seemed like an odd fit as the titular head of FreedomWorks, the Washington-based political group that fashioned itself as part of the tea party revolution against the Republican establishment.
Now Armey, who served in Congress from 1985 to 2003, is parting ways with FreedomWorks, with a reported $8 million payout.
MANILA - The death toll from a powerful typhoon that ravaged the southern Philippines rose to 82 Wednesday, as rescuers battled to reach areas cut off in flash floods and mudslides.
Typhoon Bopha churned across the island of Mindanao, toppling trees and blowing away homes on Tuesday before weakening overnight as it headed towards the South China Sea.
It was however expected to dump more rain as it passes over the western island of Palawan on Wednesday morning, with the potential to wreak further destruction, officials said.
Interior Minister Mar Roxas said after an inspection visit to the storm-hit south that the confirmed death toll had risen from 52 to 82, with another 21 people missing.
There were 49 fatalities in a mudslide in the mountainous town of New Bataan alone, and another 33 died in rural settlements elsewhere in Mindanao.
Among the fatalities was a soldier who was part of a troop deployment sent to New Bataan in anticipation of the storm.
"It is quite sad and tragic. They were actually there to be ready to help our countrymen who may be in trouble," Roxas said.
The military was scrambling helicopters and heavy equipment Wednesday to New Bataan, where rainwater had gushed down from nearby slopes, creating a deadly swirl of rainwater, logs and rocks that crushed everything in its path.
The narrow mountain pass leading to the town was littered with fallen trees and boulders, virtually cutting it off from traffic, said Major General Ariel Bernardo, commander of the 10th Infantry Division which covers Mindanao.
"We are hoping to fly our helicopters to conduct reconnaissance and search and recovery," he said.
Parts of Mindanao remained without power and communications, with food and clean water in limited supply after Bopha carved a path of destruction.
"Three of our coastal municipalities remain isolated," said Governor Corazon Malanyaon of Davao Oriental province on the eastern coast of the island where the storm made landfall.
"Roads to these towns remain impassable. There are many fallen trees and debris and the bridge going there had collapsed."
She said rescuers were slowly trying to reach the stricken areas, using everything from heavy equipment to their bare hands and chain saws to clear the roads.
"It's like we're running an obstacle course," she said on local radio.
Malanyaon said initial reports said that nearly every building in the agricultural town of Cateel, one of the three towns isolated in Davao Oriental, had been damaged.
"About 95 per cent of the town centre's structures including hospitals, private homes, private buildings had their roofs blown away," she said.
Bernardo said the military was dispatching two companies to help in the search and rescue operations, but that it was also "a victim of the storm" after an army patrol base and a rescue truck were washed away in New Bataan.
"In one of our headquarters, no bunkers were left standing and all our communication equipment has been destroyed,' he said.
Bopha made landfall on the eastern coast of Mindanao early Tuesday, bringing driving rain and strong winds that forced more than 56,000 to seek refuge in emergency shelters.
It was the sixteenth storm this year to ravage the Philippines, which is hit with about 20 cyclones annually.
In December last year Mindanao was pummelled by tropical storm Washi which killed more than 1,200 and left hundreds of thousands homeless.
- AFP/ck
This came at the 10th joint working group on defence cooperation here, co-chaired by defence secretary Shashikant Sharma and Israeli defence ministry director-general Major-General Ehud Shani.
While the regional and global security situation, including the recent Israel-Hamas ceasefire, figured in the talks, the focus was on bilateral defence training programmes, exchanges, R&D projects and armament deals.
Israel is India's second largest defence supplier, second only to Russia, but the expansive ties are largely kept under wraps due to political sensitivities. Tel Aviv records military sales worth around $1 billion to New Delhi every year, ranging from Heron and Searcher UAVs, Harpy and Harop 'killer' drones to Barak anti-missile defence systems and Green Pine radars, Python and Derby air-to-air missiles.
Sources said India expressed "concern'' at the "two-year delay'' in completion of the long-range SAM (LR-SAM) project, sanctioned in December 2005 at a cost of Rs 2,606 crore to arm Indian warships.
There are "minor hitches'' even in the bigger Rs 10,076 crore medium-range SAM (MR-SAM) project, sanctioned in February 2009 for air defence squadrons of IAF.
Both the SAM systems, being developed by Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) in collaboration with DRDO, have the same missile with an interception range of 70-km. They are to be produced in bulk by defence PSU Bharat Dynamics (BDL) to plug the existing holes in India's air defence cover.
"While the multi-function surveillance and threat radars, weapon control systems with data links and the like of the LR-SAM have all been tested, there has been delay in the missiles being developed by IAI,'' said a source.
"But the Israelis said everything was sorted out now and they will try to make up for the delay. DRDO has already finished its work on the propulsion and other systems,'' he added. Incidentally, the LR-SAM project was to be completed by May this year.
Another major missile project, worth around $1 billion, that Israel could bag is the one to supply third-generation anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) to the 1.13-million strong Indian Army. The Army has already trial-evaluated the Israeli 'Spike' ATGM after the US offer of its 'Javelin' missiles was shelved due to Washington's reluctance to undertake "transfer of technology'' to ensure BDL can make them in large numbers, as reported by TOI earlier.
India is also in commercial negotiations for another two advanced Israeli Phalcon AWACS (airborne warning and control systems), capable of detecting hostile aircraft, cruise missiles and other incoming aerial threats far before ground-based radars, at a cost of over $800 million. The first three Phalcon AWACS were inducted by IAF in 2009-2010 under the $1.1 billion tripartite agreement between India, Israel and Russia.
Jane J. Lee
The spotlight is shining once again on the deepest ecosystems in the ocean—Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench (map) and the New Britain Trench near Papua New Guinea. At a presentation today at the American Geophysical Union's conference in San Francisco, attendees got a glimpse into these mysterious ecosystems nearly 7 miles (11 kilometers) down, the former visited by filmmaker James Cameron during a historic dive earlier this year.
Microbiologist Douglas Bartlett with the University of California, San Diego described crustaceans called amphipods—oceanic cousins to pill bugs—that were collected from the New Britain Trench and grow to enormous sizes five miles (eight kilometers) down. Normally less than an inch (one to two centimeters) long in other deep-sea areas, the amphipods collected on the expedition measured 7 inches (17 centimeters). (Related: "Deep-Sea, Shrimp-like Creatures Survive by Eating Wood.")
Bartlett also noted that sea cucumbers, some of which may be new species, dominated many of the areas the team sampled in the New Britain Trench. The expedition visited this area before the dive to Challenger Deep.
Marine geologist Patricia Fryer with the University of Hawaii described some of the deepest seeps yet discovered. These seeps, where water heated by chemical reactions in the rocks percolates up through the seafloor and into the ocean, could offer hints of how life originated on Earth.
And astrobiologist Kevin Hand with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, spoke about how life in these stygian ecosystems, powered by chemical reactions, could parallel the evolution of life on other planets.
Deep in the rain forests of Panama, in a secret location behind padlocked gates, barbed-wire fences and over a rickety wooden bridge, grows what could be the most debated food product of our time.
It may look like the 1993 hit movie "Jurassic Park," but at this real-life freshwater farm scientists are altering the genes not of dinosaurs -- but of fish.
They are growing a new DNA-altered saltwater fish in the mountains, far from the sea -- a salmon that could be the first genetically altered animal protein approved for the world to eat. If it is approved, this would be a landmark change for human food.
But it is one critics call "Frankenfish."
"The idea of changing an animal form, I think, is really creepy," said Gary Hirshberg, founder of Stonyfield Farm, an organic dairy farm. "When you move the DNA from a species into another species ... you create a new life form that's so new and so unique that you can get a patent for it."
And until now, AquaBounty, the multinational biotech company that for 20 years has been developing this giant fish, has kept it under close wraps.
The press has never been invited to its Prince Edward Island laboratory on the Canadian maritime coast, and its fish farm location in Panama has been kept secret out of fear of sabotage.
The Food and Drug Administration has seen it, but few from the outside. In fact, the last public tour of any kind was four years ago.
AquaBounty Creates 'Fort Knox for Fish'
ABC News was given exclusive access to see the facilities up close and an opportunity to taste this mysterious fish that FDA scientists say "is as safe as food from conventional Atlantic salmon," although have yet to officially approve it for public sale.
Ron Stotish, the president and CEO of AquaBounty Technologies, the company that created and hopes to market the eggs of this salmon to independent fish farms around the world, told ABC News it has employed bio-security measures, creating a "Fort Knox for fish," to ensure safety for the fish and prevent cross-contamination with the wild.
Entry to both facilities begins with body suits and iodine baths for shoes, which serves to keep the fish safe from germs.
Inside these protected tanks, America gets the first up-close look at the final product, the fish that has the food police up in arms.
"These are very healthy, beautiful Atlantic salmon," Stotish said.
With one big difference -- the growth rate of a regular salmon compared to that of an AquaBounty genetically modified fish.
While the AquaBounty fish do not grow to a size larger than normal salmon, they get to full size much faster, cutting costs for producers.
A normal-size 1-year-old Atlantic salmon averages 10 inches long, while the genetically modified fish at the same age is more than two times larger, coming in at 24 inches.
Salmon is the second most popular seafood in America. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the average size of an Atlantic salmon is 28 inches to 30 inches and 8 pounds to 12 pounds after two years at sea.
How do they accomplish the accelerated growth?
"They differ by a single gene," Stotish said.
But, it's that single gene change that makes the DNA-altered salmon grow much faster than a normal Atlantic salmon, because it's really three fish in one.
AquaBounty scientists have taken a growth gene from the Chinook salmon and inserted it into the DNA of the Atlantic salmon because Chinooks grow fast from birth, while Atlantics do not.
"Salmon in their first two years of life grow very slowly," Stotish said.
The Republican plan to avoid a year-end fiscal cliff of budget cuts and tax increases is like an old, out-of-tune song to federal workers, at least the stanza that mentions them.
They’ve heard it repeatedly and didn’t like it the first time.
LONDON: Britain's press on Tuesday celebrated the "delightful" news that Prince William and his wife Catherine are to have a baby, but the expectant mother's bout of morning sickness tempered spirits.
The couple announced on Monday they are expecting their first child, ending fevered speculation about a baby destined to become Britain's monarch whether it is a boy or a girl.
But the former Kate Middleton, 30, is in hospital suffering from severe morning sickness, St James's Palace announced in a statement.
Popular tabloid The Sun ran with "Kate Expectations" as its front-page headline,
The Daily Telegraph said the news of Catherine's pregnancy was cause for national celebration.
"Who would not be delighted at the prospect of a mother's first child, especially a mother who has won affection with her natural beauty and straightforward character?" said its editorial.
The palace said Catherine was admitted on Monday afternoon to the King Edward VII Hospital in central London with "hyperemesis gravidarum", which it defined as "very acute morning sickness", which requires extra hydration and nutrients.
The Telegraph's headline asked "Could it be twins for the Duchess?" pointing out that the condition is more often experienced by women expecting twins.
The Sun called the sudden announcement "fantastic news".
"As William and Kate embark on this new journey, the nation wishes the nervous Royal couple well," said its editorial.
"But as well as being an immensely happy period in any couple's life, pregnancy is also a nerve-wracking experience... so it's worrying that Kate has been diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum.
"We can be sure, however, that she'll be given the best possible care in the months ahead," it added.
The Times splashed "We're Expecting" above its front-page story, but warned that the couple were facing a new level of press scrutiny.
"If the Duke and Duchess, who have always been protective of their privacy, felt that they lived their lives in a goldfish bowl beforehand, that is as nothing to what will happen to them now," wrote columnist Valentine Low.
"For the Duke and Duchess... the rather rushed announcement on a dull Monday afternoon represents a pivotal moment in their lives.
"Their emotions are just the same as any young parents-to-be: happiness, excitement, apprehension. Just with the added factor that their baby will one day be King or Queen," he added.
The Daily Mail summed up the mood with its headline, "A nation's joy, a husband's nerves" while tabloid the Daily Mirror speculated on its front page that the Duchess could be hospitalised "for days".
- AFP/ck
Talking to TOI over phone from Karachi, Burney said that it was a case of blasphemy and government of Pakistan should deal with iron hand against the persons responsible for demolition of the temple.
Karachi based President of Pak Hindu Seva Trust, Sanjesh S Dhanja said that there was great disappointment among Hindus of Pakistan following demolition of temple. "I wonder that despite stay orders, how could anyone demolish the temple?," he questioned, adding that Hindus of Pakistan believed in police and judiciary of the country.
Delhi Minorities Commission has also condemned demolition of the temple and has demanded from Pakistan government to reconstruct the temple to restore confidence among the minority Hindu community in Pakistan. Chairman, Delhi Minorities Commission, Safdar H Khan said that razing of a religious place of any community was the most deplorable act. Khan, who is also vice-president of India Islamic Cultural Center said that he would write to Pakistan high commission to express his resentment and would also demand reconstruction of the temple by Pakistan government.
NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has detected several simple carbon-based organic compounds on Mars, but it remains unclear whether they were formed via Earthly contamination or whether they contain only elements indigenous to the planet.
Speaking at the American Geophysical Union annual meeting in San Francisco, Curiosity mission leaders also said that the compound perchlorate—identified previously in polar Mars—appeared to also be present in Gale Crater, the site of Curiosity's exploration.
The possible discovery of organics—or carbon-based compounds bonded to hydrogen, also called hydrocarbons—could have major implications for the mission's search for more complex organic material.
It would not necessarily mean that life exists now or ever existed on Mars, but it makes the possibility of Martian life—especially long ago when the planet was wetter and warmer—somewhat greater, since available carbon is considered to be so important to all known biology.
(See "Mars Curiosity Rover Finds Proof of Flowing Water—A First.")
The announcements came after several weeks of frenzied speculation about a "major discovery" by Curiosity on Mars. But project scientist John Grotzinger said that it remains too early to know whether Martian organics have been definitely discovered or if they're byproducts of contamination brought from Earth.
"When this data first came in, and then was confirmed in a second sample, we did have a hooting and hollering moment," he said.
"The enthusiasm we had was perhaps misunderstood. We're doing science at the pace of science, but news travels at a different speed."
Organics Detected Before on Mars
The organic compounds discovered—different combinations of carbon, hydrogen, and chlorine—are the same or similar to chlorinated organics detected in the mid-1970s by the Viking landers.
(Related: "Life on Mars Found by NASA's Viking Mission?")
At the time, the substances were written off as contamination brought from Earth, but now scientists know more about how the compounds could be formed on Mars. The big question remains whether the carbon found in the compounds is of Martian or Earthly origin.
Paul Mahaffy, the principal investigator of the instrument that may have found the simple organics—the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM)—said that while the findings were not "definitive," they were significant and would require a great deal of further study.
Mahaffy also said the discovery came as a surprise, since the soil sample involved was hardly a prime target in the organics search. In fact, the soil was scooped primarily to clean out the rover's mobile laboratory and soil-delivery systems.
Called Rocknest, the site is a collection of rocks with rippled sand around them—an environment not considered particularly promising for discovery. The Curiosity team has always thought it had a much better chance of finding the organics in clays and sulfate minerals known to be present at the base of Mount Sharp, located in the Gale Crater, where the rover will head early next year.
(See the Mars rover Curiosity's first color pictures.)
The rover has been at Rocknest for a month and has scooped sand and soil five times. It was the first site where virtually all the instruments on Curiosity were used, Grotzinger said, and all of them proved to be working well.
They also worked well in unison—with one instrument giving the surprising signal that the minerals in the soil were not all crystalline, which led to the intensive examination of the non-crystalline portion to see if it contained any organics.
Rover Team "Very Confident"
The simple organics detected by SAM were in the chloromethane family, which contains compounds that are sometimes used to clean electronic equipment. Because it was plausible that Viking could have brought the compounds to Mars as contamination, that conclusion was broadly accepted.
But in 2010, Chris McKay of NASA's Ames Research Center and Rafael Navarro-Gonzalez of the National Autonomous University of Mexico published an influential paper describing how dichloromethane can be a byproduct of the heating of other organic material in the presence of the compound perchlorate.
They conducted the experiment because NASA's Phoenix mission had discovered large amounts of perchlorate in the northern polar soil of Mars, and it seems plausible that it would exist elsewhere on the planet.
"In terms of the SAM results, there are two important conclusions," said McKay, a scientist on the SAM team.
"The first is confirming the perchlorate story—that it's most likely there and seems to react at high temperatures with organic material to form the dichloromethane and other simple organics."
"The second is that we'll have to either find organics without perchlorates nearby, or find a way to get around that perchlorate wall that keeps us from identifying organics," he said.
Another SAM researcher, Danny Glavin of Goddard, said his team is "very confident" about the reported detection of the hydrocarbons, and that they were produced in the rover's ovens. He said it is clear that the chlorine in the compounds is from Mars, but less clear about the carbon.
"We will figure out what's going on here," he said. "We have the instruments and we have the people. And whatever the final conclusions, we will have learned important things about Mars that we can use in the months ahead."
Author of the National Geographic e-book Mars Landing 2012, Marc Kaufman has been a journalist for more than 35 years, including the past 12 as a science and space writer, foreign correspondent, and editor for the Washington Post. He is also author of First Contact: Scientific Breakthroughs in the Hunt for Life Beyond Earth, published in 2011, and has spoken extensively to crowds across the United States and abroad about astrobiology. He lives outside Washington, D.C., with his wife, Lynn Litterine.
A man charged in the death of a teenage barista in Alaska told police that he traveled the country with the sole purpose to kill strangers because he "liked to do it," prosecutors said today.
Vermont and federal prosecutors detailed the meticulous and cold-blooded murder of Bill and Lorraine Currier in Essex, Vt., last year and said the information came from Israel Keyes before he killed himself in an Alaska jail cell Sunday. Keyes provided details that only the perpetrator would know, police said.
Keyes, 34, the owner of an Anchorage construction company, was in jail charged with the February murder of Samantha Koenig, 18. While in jail he had been confessing to at least seven other killings in Washington, New York and Vermont.
Now that he is dead, investigators are wondering how many more killings Keyes might be responsible for and why he committed the crimes.
"He provided some motivation, but I don't think it's really [possible] to pigeonhole why he did this," Tristram Coffin, U.S. Attorney in Vermont, said at a news conference today. "He described to investigators that this was a volitional act of his. He wasn't compelled by some uncontrollable force, but it was something that he could control and he liked to do it. Why someone likes to act like that, nobody knows."
Authorities described the murders of the Curriers in great detail, offering insight into how the twisted killer traveled to murder, his criteria for choosing random victims and his careful planning of of the murders.
"When [Keyes] left Alaska, he left with the specific purpose of kidnapping and murdering someone," Chittenden County State Attorney T. J. Donovan said at the press conference. "He was specifically looking for a house that had an attached garage, no car in the driveway, no children, no dog."
The Curriers, unfortunately, fit all of Keyes' criteria. He spent three days in Vermont before striking. He even took out a three-day fishing license and fished before the slayings.
In June 2011, Keyes went to their house and cut a phone line from outside and made sure they did not have a security system that would alert police. He donned a head lamp and broke into their house with a gun and silencer that he had brought with him.
Keyes found the couple in bed and tied them up with zip ties. He took Lorraine Currier's purse and wallet as well as Bill Currier's gun. He left the man's wallet.
He put the couple in their own car and drove them to an abandoned farmhouse that he had previously scoped out. Keyes tied Bill Currier to a stool in the basement and went back to the car for Lorraine Currier.
"Keyes saw that Lorraine had broken free from the zip ties and observed that she was running towards Main Street," Donovan said. "He tackled her to regain control of her."
Keyes took Lorraine Currier to the second floor of the farmhouse and tied her up. He rushed to the basement when he heard commotion and found that Bill Currier's stool had broken and he was partially free.
A group of senior retired generals and admirals are calling for Congress to amend a recent law that they say “dangerously interferes” with the ability of commanders to battle the epidemic of suicides among members of the military.
Legislation added to the 2011 defense authorization bill at the urging of gun-rights advocates prohibits commanders from collecting any information about weapons privately owned by troops.
SINGAPORE: A SMRT bus driver from China has pleaded guilty to starting an illegal strike on 26 November.
Bao Feng Shan, 38, admitted that he committed the offence, shortly after he was charged on Monday with starting the strike between 6am and 7am on 26 November at Woodlands Dormitory.
He also apologised to SMRT, the government of Singapore and his family.
He is the first of five SMRT drivers who have been charged to plead guilty.
If convicted, Bao faces up to a year's jail or a fine of up to S$2,000, or both.
Four other drivers were charged last Thursday with instigating the drivers to take part in the strike.
They are He Jun Ling (32), Gao Yue Qiang (32), Liu Xiangying (33) and Wang Xianjie (33).
One of them, He, faces an additional charge of making an online post about the strike.
The four are currently remanded at the Central Police Station.
SMRT said 171 bus drivers did not report for work on 26 November and 88 of them continued to stay away from work on 27 November.
Twenty-nine of them were sent back to China on Sunday. In addition, about 150 drivers will be let off with police warning letters.
- CNA/xq
ANI Dec 1, 2012, 03.28PM IST
NEW DELHI: India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today said retail reform is a step taken by the Congress led-federal government to safeguard the interests of the international market mafias at the cost of national interest.
BJP vice president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said on Saturday that voting inside the parliament would decide as to who is in favour of national interest and who is working for international interests.
"The government feels that their responsibility is to safeguard the interest of international market mafias instead of national interest and for saving the interest of international market mafias, the government is ready to compromise with national interests. Now, the parliament will decide as to who is in support of international market mafias and who are supporting national interests," said Naqvi.
The government's decision to allow foreign supermarket chains such as Wal-Mart had triggered protest not only from opposition parties but also from some of its allies.
BJP had sought debate on the issue of allowing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the retail sector, under the rule that entails voting after discussions.
Meanwhile, Minister in the Prime Minister Office (PMO), V Narayanaswamy said the government would answer all the queries raised by the opposition parties in the parliament and will explain the benefits of allowing FDI in retail sector.
The lower house of parliament has set December 04 and 05 as the date to vote and debate on FDI. The dates for the upper house are yet to be decided.
Narayanaswamy said the government is confident of becoming victorious in the debate.
Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
A spectacular natural phenomenon was on display early this week as lava from a vent in Hawaii's Kilauea volcano flowed into the ocean, sending up plumes of steam as it made contact with the waves.
Though lava can still be viewed from Kalapana near the Big Island's Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, ocean entry is no longer occurring, according to the National Park Service.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
The lava traveled 7 miles (11 kilometers) from Kilauea’s Pu'u O'o vent to the ocean. When lava reaches the water, it cools and hardens, forming a lava delta that can be dangerous to nearby onlookers, according to Reuters.
The news service reported that no communities on the Big Island were threatened by the lava flow.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
A burst of volcanic activity erupts from Kilauea’s crater in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park on November 27.
The volcano has been erupting continuously for nearly 30 years. No major damage has been suffered by a town since 1986, according to Reuters.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
“Ocean entries are beautiful but dangerous,” said Janet Babb, spokeswoman for the U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, in a statement reported by Reuters. She warned that the steam could be more hazardous than it appears.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Matt Northam, My Shot
A plume of smoke billows where lava from Kilauea meets the sea in this aerial photo taken November 27.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Peter Vancoillie, Your Shot
Published November 30, 2012
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