Working on the moon with lunar soil and grit could prove easier, more efficient and less costly than using earthly materials
By Sid Perkins
Web edition: May 22, 2013
Working on the moon with lunar soil and grit could prove easier, more efficient and less costly than using earthly materials
By Sid Perkins
Web edition: May 22, 2013
Enlarge
Lunar concrete
Findings by this teenage engineer from Hoschton, Ga., suggest that construction on the moon could be less costly than previously thought.
Credit: Patrick Thornton, SSP
Astronauts will likely colonize the moon one day. Because it costs thousands of dollars to lift a pound of material off of Earth and into orbit, it should prove cheaper to build moon structures from materials already there. And new research by a Georgia teen suggests that concrete made from moon rocks and soil would be stronger than ordinary concrete.
Visit the new Science News for Kids website and read the full story: Building with moon rocks.
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio (AP) ? The state Highway Patrol says up to 30 people have been injured in a crash between a commercial bus and a car on Interstate 75 in northwest Ohio.
A state police spokeswoman tells The Associated Press that 1-75 south of Bowling Green was closed for a couple hours following Tuesday night's crash, but has since been reopened. Initial reports indicated that the passengers of the two vehicles were taken to local hospitals but were not badly hurt.
Toledo News Now reports that a Toyota Camry was rear-ended by a bus transporting employees of the Consolidated Biscuit Company in McComb. It says among those injured were two infants who were in the car.
Zach Sobiech, 18, the teen that wrote and posted a farewell song to his loved ones after realizing his cancer was terminal, has passed away at his home on May 19. Zach, who had battled bone cancer since his diagnosis at age 14, was told in June 2012 that he had only a year to ...
"Why did we have four couples in the finals for the first time?" asked host Tom Bergeron as Monday's episode of Dancing With the Stars began to wind down. "I think they're proving why."
Your living space continually influences you as you go about daily life. It affects your mood and outlook. Your home is intended to be a place where you can be comfortable, entertain and enjoy some rest and relaxation. When you decorate your home in a way that expresses your personality, you will be happier spending your time there. This article has tips that will help you make your home a more relaxed and comfortable place to spend time.
When considering home improvements, keep your own comfort in mind. Even though everyone?s house has some flaws, you should make sure to fix anything causing you major discomfort. Small changes can make your life more pleasurable. You can replace your kitchen chairs and table or maybe buy a nice sofa.
Enlarge your storage area. Running out of room is common and when it happens to you, you may want to think of expanding. Even just a few feet of extra space can reduce clutter and stress.
Turn your home into a place that you enjoy being. Installing a pool, hot tub or sauna can make your time at home enjoyable. You can also opt for more affordable options, such as a basketball net, home gym, or other recreational project.
It is easy to overlook the tremendous difference high-quality lighting can make in the appearance of the home. If you replace the lighting in a home, it can make it very different and cause less strain on your eyesight.
Start being a gardener. Look around your yard, and select a bright, sunny spot that would be ideal for your garden. Or, consider landscaping the entire yard to make it an enjoyable haven. If you do not have the leisure time or the talent to maintain your own garden, you can still reap the benefits by hiring a professional lawn care person. Adding any type of garden area to your home will also help in cleaning the surrounding air of pollutants, as greenery is a natural filter. Additionally, depending on what you choose to grow, freshly picked fruit or vegetables can grace your dinner table every night. Your meals can be enhanced with fresh herbs, while your decor is perked up with a bunch of your own flowers.
Alter the outside of your home. Changes like a new roof or a paint job can make your home look so much better. Whenever you make it home from a hard day, you will pull up to a nice place you love to call your home.
Since you spend so much time at home, you are much happier overall if you are happy with your house. Home improvements are great for increasing your home?s value and improving your well-being.
Leuven Centre for Global Governance studies leads FP7 project on EU human rights policyPublic release date: 21-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jan Wouters jan.wouters@ggs.kuleuven.be 32-163-28733 KU Leuven
The Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies (GGS) is coordinating a major, four-year, FP7-funded project on the European Union's internal and external human rights policies. The consortium comprises more than 100 researchers from 17 countries. It will study the factors, actors and policies involved in the EU's human rights promotion efforts and ultimately seek to formulate practical recommendations and tools to enhance the coherence and effectiveness of EU human rights policy.
The project, which carries the acronym FRAME (Fostering Human Rights Among European (External and Internal) Policies), is the largest FP7-funded project in the humanities and social sciences ever coordinated by KU Leuven. 'FP7' refers to the Seventh Framework Programme, the European Commission's highly competitive fund for research and technological development.
The project will be articulated around four clusters of research: factors, actors, policies, and tools. Those clusters group together the different types of issues that condition the impact of the EU's internal and external human rights promotion efforts.
'Factors' include diverging cultural views on human rights and the increasing challenging of the EU's universal conception of human rights; and the difficulties in human rights promotion caused by the different levels (global, regional, national and local) of competence on human rights.
'Actors' include those entities whose activities positively or negatively impact the promotion of human rights worldwide, such as international organizations (regional or universal, specialized or general), non-state actors (e.g. NGOs or revolutionary movements) or multinational corporations.
'Policies' are the different EU internal and external policies that play a role in the promotion of international human rights. This potentially includes the whole EU action, but will focus on anti-terrorism, migration and border control policies, action relative to domestic and international conflicts, development and trade policies, and the EU's dedicated 'Human Rights and Democratisation policy.'
'Tools' are policy innovations put forward by FRAME to help the EU enhance its positive impact on international human rights. To that end the project will develop indicators to measure such impact and formulate a 'policy toolbox' operationalizing best human rights practices in the EU context.
On top of coordination duties, GGS Director and Jean Monnet Chair Jan Wouters and his team will also be involved in research. They will notably lead a work package on how the EU's trade and development partnerships can be used as 'smart incentives' to alleviate the erosion of basic rights such as access to food, health, water and clean air in at-risk countries. This study will be supported by a number of case studies.
FRAME members will regularly communicate their progress during open workshops and through policy briefs and academic publications. The consortium will deliver its recommendations and tools in a report to the European Commission at the end the project. An international conference and five outreach events on four continents are also planned.
The FRAME consortium consists of 19 leading European and international institutions from 17 countries.
###
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Jan Wouters, Jean Monnet Chair and Director, Leuven Centre for Global Governance, tel. +32 16 32 87 33, e-mail: jan.wouters@ggs.kuleuven.be
More information available soon at http://www.fp7-frame.eu.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Leuven Centre for Global Governance studies leads FP7 project on EU human rights policyPublic release date: 21-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jan Wouters jan.wouters@ggs.kuleuven.be 32-163-28733 KU Leuven
The Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies (GGS) is coordinating a major, four-year, FP7-funded project on the European Union's internal and external human rights policies. The consortium comprises more than 100 researchers from 17 countries. It will study the factors, actors and policies involved in the EU's human rights promotion efforts and ultimately seek to formulate practical recommendations and tools to enhance the coherence and effectiveness of EU human rights policy.
The project, which carries the acronym FRAME (Fostering Human Rights Among European (External and Internal) Policies), is the largest FP7-funded project in the humanities and social sciences ever coordinated by KU Leuven. 'FP7' refers to the Seventh Framework Programme, the European Commission's highly competitive fund for research and technological development.
The project will be articulated around four clusters of research: factors, actors, policies, and tools. Those clusters group together the different types of issues that condition the impact of the EU's internal and external human rights promotion efforts.
'Factors' include diverging cultural views on human rights and the increasing challenging of the EU's universal conception of human rights; and the difficulties in human rights promotion caused by the different levels (global, regional, national and local) of competence on human rights.
'Actors' include those entities whose activities positively or negatively impact the promotion of human rights worldwide, such as international organizations (regional or universal, specialized or general), non-state actors (e.g. NGOs or revolutionary movements) or multinational corporations.
'Policies' are the different EU internal and external policies that play a role in the promotion of international human rights. This potentially includes the whole EU action, but will focus on anti-terrorism, migration and border control policies, action relative to domestic and international conflicts, development and trade policies, and the EU's dedicated 'Human Rights and Democratisation policy.'
'Tools' are policy innovations put forward by FRAME to help the EU enhance its positive impact on international human rights. To that end the project will develop indicators to measure such impact and formulate a 'policy toolbox' operationalizing best human rights practices in the EU context.
On top of coordination duties, GGS Director and Jean Monnet Chair Jan Wouters and his team will also be involved in research. They will notably lead a work package on how the EU's trade and development partnerships can be used as 'smart incentives' to alleviate the erosion of basic rights such as access to food, health, water and clean air in at-risk countries. This study will be supported by a number of case studies.
FRAME members will regularly communicate their progress during open workshops and through policy briefs and academic publications. The consortium will deliver its recommendations and tools in a report to the European Commission at the end the project. An international conference and five outreach events on four continents are also planned.
The FRAME consortium consists of 19 leading European and international institutions from 17 countries.
###
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Jan Wouters, Jean Monnet Chair and Director, Leuven Centre for Global Governance, tel. +32 16 32 87 33, e-mail: jan.wouters@ggs.kuleuven.be
More information available soon at http://www.fp7-frame.eu.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
May 20, 2013 ? Enough Northwest wind energy to power about 85,000 homes each month could be stored in porous rocks deep underground for later use, according to a new, comprehensive study. Researchers at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Bonneville Power Administration identified two unique methods for this energy storage approach and two eastern Washington locations to put them into practice.
Compressed air energy storage plants could help save the region's abundant wind power -- which is often produced at night when winds are strong and energy demand is low -- for later, when demand is high and power supplies are more strained. These plants can also switch between energy storage and power generation within minutes, providing flexibility to balance the region's highly variable wind energy generation throughout the day.
"With Renewable Portfolio Standards requiring states to have as much as 20 or 30 percent of their electricity come from variable sources such as wind and the sun, compressed air energy storage plants can play a valuable role in helping manage and integrate renewable power onto the Northwest's electric grid," said Steve Knudsen, who managed the study for the BPA.
Geologic energy savings accounts
All compressed air energy storage plants work under the same basic premise. When power is abundant, it's drawn from the electric grid and used to power a large air compressor, which pushes pressurized air into an underground geologic storage structure. Later, when power demand is high, the stored air is released back up to the surface, where it is heated and rushes through turbines to generate electricity. Compressed air energy storage plants can re-generate as much as 80 percent of the electricity they take in.
The world's two existing compressed air energy storage plants -- one in Alabama, the other in Germany -- use human-made salt caverns to store excess electricity. The PNNL-BPA study examined a different approach: using natural, porous rock reservoirs that are deep underground to store renewable energy.
Interest in the technology has increased greatly in the past decade as utilities and others seek better ways to integrate renewable energy onto the power grid. About 13 percent, or nearly 8,600 megawatts, of the Northwest's power supply comes from of wind. This prompted BPA and PNNL to investigate whether the technology could be used in the Northwest.
To find potential sites, the research team reviewed the Columbia Plateau Province, a thick layer of volcanic basalt rock that covers much of the region. The team looked for underground basalt reservoirs that were at least 1,500 feet deep, 30 feet thick and close to high-voltage transmission lines, among other criteria.
They then examined public data from wells drilled for gas exploration or research at the Hanford Site in southeastern Washington. Well data was plugged into PNNL's STOMP computer model, which simulates the movement of fluids below ground, to determine how much air the various sites under consideration could reliably hold and return to the surface.
Two different, complementary designs
Analysis identified two particularly promising locations in eastern Washington. One location, dubbed the Columbia Hills Site, is just north of Boardman, Ore., on the Washington side of the Columbia River. The second, called the Yakima Minerals Site, is about 10 miles north of Selah, Wash., in an area called the Yakima Canyon.
But the research team determined the two sites are suitable for two very different kinds of compressed air energy storage facilities. The Columbia Hills Site could access a nearby natural gas pipeline, making it a good fit for a conventional compressed air energy facility. Such a conventional facility would burn a small amount of natural gas to heat compressed air that's released from underground storage. The heated air would then generate more than twice the power than a typical natural gas power plant.
The Yakima Minerals Site, however, doesn't have easy access to natural gas. So the research team devised a different kind of compressed air energy storage facility: one that uses geothermal energy. This hybrid facility would extract geothermal heat from deep underground to power a chiller that would cool the facility's air compressors, making them more efficient. Geothermal energy would also re-heat the air as it returns to the surface.
"Combining geothermal energy with compressed air energy storage is a creative concept that was developed to tackle engineering issues at the Yakima Minerals Site," said PNNL Laboratory Fellow and project leader Pete McGrail. "Our hybrid facility concept significantly expands geothermal energy beyond its traditional use as a renewable baseload power generation technology."
The study indicates both facilities could provide energy storage during extended periods of time. This could especially help the Northwest during the spring, when sometimes there is more wind and hydroelectric power than the region can absorb. The combination of heavy runoff from melting snow and a large amount of wind, which often blows at night when demand for electricity is low, can spike power production in the region. Power system managers have a few options to keep the regional power grid stable in such a situation, including reducing power generation or storing the excess power supply. Energy storage technologies such as compressed air energy storage can help the region make the most of its excess clean energy production.
Working with the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, BPA will now use the performance and economic data from the study to perform an in-depth analysis of the net benefits compressed air energy storage could bring to the Pacific Northwest. The results could be used by one or more regional utilities to develop a commercial compressed air energy storage demonstration project.
The $790,000 joint feasibility study was funded by BPA's Technology Innovation Office, PNNL and several project partners: Seattle City Light, Washington State University Tri-Cities, GreenFire Energy, Snohomish County Public Utility District, Dresser-Rand, Puget Sound Energy, Ramgen Power Systems, NW Natural, Magnum Energy and Portland General Electric.
REFRENCE: BP McGrail, JE Cabe, CL Davidson, FS Knudsen, DH Bacon, MD Bearden, MA Chamness, JA Horner, SP Reidel, HT Schaef, FA Spane, PD Thorne, "Techno-economic Performance Evaluation of Compressed Air Energy Storage in the Pacific Northwest," February 2013, http://caes.pnnl.gov/pdf/PNNL-22235.pdf.
COMPRESSED AIR ENERGY STORAGE SITES
Columbia Hills Site
? Location: north of Boardman, Ore., on Washington side of Columbia River
? Plant type: Conventional, which pairs compressed air storage with a natural gas power plant.
? Power generation capacity: 207 megawatts
? Energy storage capacity: 231 megawatts
? Estimated levelized power cost: as low as 6.4 cents per kilowatt-hour
? Would work well for frequent energy storage
? Continuous storage for up to 40 days
Yakima Minerals Site
? Location: 10 miles north of Selah, Wash.
? Plant type: Hybrid, which pairs geothermal heat with compressed air storage
? Power generation capacity: 83 megawatts
? Energy storage capacity: 150 megawatts
? Estimated levelized power cost: as low as 11.8 cents per kilowatt-hour
Contact: Andy Fell ahfell@ucdavis.edu 530-752-4533 University of California - Davis
Fifteen years of research at the University of California, Davis, is being turned into commercial products by Dysonics, a startup company based in San Francisco. Since becoming the first "graduate" from the Engineering Translational Technology Center, a technology incubator at the UC Davis College of Engineering, Dysonics has launched an iPhone app and is developing a broad product range for future launch. The company currently has 10 employees.
Dysonics aims to reproduce a natural sound experience with sound delivered through headphones. The Rondo iPhone app can change the apparent size of the room, and adds directionality. Add the RondoMotion sensor clipped to your headphones, and sounds will appear to change location as you move your head.
The Rondo app and RondoMotion work with existing audio files. The company is also working on generating its own content by recording live events on specialized media. The technology has promise not just for listening to recorded music in a new and richer way, but for a more realistic, "virtual reality" audio experience for teleconferencing and video games.
"There are multiple applications with market potential," said David McGee, executive director of InnovationAccess, the unit within the UC Davis Office of Research responsible for intellectual property management and licensing. "Dysonics is a great example of a faculty-led startup with cool technology and very active support from the college and university."
UC Davis played a crucial role in getting Dysonics started, said co-founder and President Ralph Algazi, professor emeritus of electrical and computer engineering at UC Davis. The company is based on research conducted at UC Davis by Algazi and co-founders Richard Duda, a research scientist at UC Davis, Robert Dalton Jr., a former undergraduate and graduate student in Algazi's lab, and colleagues at the university over several years.
Algazi is interested in how sound waves arriving at our ears carry information, for example, about the size and shape of the room or the direction of the sound source. For example, a piece of music sounds different played in a concert hall or on home theater system than it does played in a small room, or over ear buds. If we turn our heads toward a sound source, our experience changes.
Starting about 10 years ago, the team developed software and equipment that allows motion tracking with headphones, so that when you move your head the sound source appears to stay in the same place.
Algazi was one of the first inventors that McGee met with when he arrived on campus in 2004.
"Ralph gave me a demonstration of the technology, and I was just blown away," McGee said. "This was an entirely different and richer audio experience from what I was used to."
InnovationAccess worked with Algazi and licensed the technology to an existing company. But changing business priorities took that company in a different direction, and UC Davis took the license back so as to ensure that this promising technology would not languish.
By the end of the decade several trends were converging that would lead to the formation of Dysonics.
Motion-sensing technology has become much cheaper and more mobile. At the same time, the boom in mobile devices means people want to be able to listen to music wherever they are, setting off explosive growth in the market for headphones.
"When Ralph told me that he had decided to move the technology forward himself, I was very pleased and we worked very closely with him to make it happen," McGee said. "Empowering an entrepreneurial campus researcher to turn their research into societal impact is what technology transfer is all about."
Algazi talked to Bruce White, then dean of engineering, and ETTC director Jim Olson, a former undergraduate student of Algazi's. The company was founded in March 2011, and just over a year later had secured sufficient funding from angel investors to leave the incubator and strike out on its own.
"ETTC was invaluable for us in securing funding and legal work," Dalton said. "We had a heavy engineering focus and we needed business knowledge."
One unique feature of the ETTC incubator is that philanthropic donations to the College of Engineering enable it to reduce initial patent costs for startup companies. Filing patents costs the university money. Usually, when a company licenses a patent from UC Davis, it agrees to reimburse these out-of-pocket costs as well as support future ongoing costs of maintaining the licensed patents.
"ETTC is able to directly reimburse the university for up to $15,000 in patent costs. The ETTC startup is not charged for those costs. This is enormously beneficial to startups at a stage when they have very little cash," McGee said.
It also permits the startup to secure its foundational intellectual property, a very important consideration for investors. UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi recently approved the use of income from licensing intellectual property to maintain ETTC's ability to cover these costs.
The young company also worked with InnovationAccess to license the patents held by UC Davis.
The company recently (April 24) launched a "kickstarter" campaign to raise funds for its next product, a wireless motion sensor for audio headphones that works with the company's Rondo iPhone app. The company aims to raise $60,000 from the fundraising drive to complete the product.
More than 45 startup companies have been spun off from UC Davis since 2005. The campus currently holds a portfolio of 838 foreign and U.S. patents, and earned income of $13.6 million in fiscal year 2011-12.
###
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Contact: Andy Fell ahfell@ucdavis.edu 530-752-4533 University of California - Davis
Fifteen years of research at the University of California, Davis, is being turned into commercial products by Dysonics, a startup company based in San Francisco. Since becoming the first "graduate" from the Engineering Translational Technology Center, a technology incubator at the UC Davis College of Engineering, Dysonics has launched an iPhone app and is developing a broad product range for future launch. The company currently has 10 employees.
Dysonics aims to reproduce a natural sound experience with sound delivered through headphones. The Rondo iPhone app can change the apparent size of the room, and adds directionality. Add the RondoMotion sensor clipped to your headphones, and sounds will appear to change location as you move your head.
The Rondo app and RondoMotion work with existing audio files. The company is also working on generating its own content by recording live events on specialized media. The technology has promise not just for listening to recorded music in a new and richer way, but for a more realistic, "virtual reality" audio experience for teleconferencing and video games.
"There are multiple applications with market potential," said David McGee, executive director of InnovationAccess, the unit within the UC Davis Office of Research responsible for intellectual property management and licensing. "Dysonics is a great example of a faculty-led startup with cool technology and very active support from the college and university."
UC Davis played a crucial role in getting Dysonics started, said co-founder and President Ralph Algazi, professor emeritus of electrical and computer engineering at UC Davis. The company is based on research conducted at UC Davis by Algazi and co-founders Richard Duda, a research scientist at UC Davis, Robert Dalton Jr., a former undergraduate and graduate student in Algazi's lab, and colleagues at the university over several years.
Algazi is interested in how sound waves arriving at our ears carry information, for example, about the size and shape of the room or the direction of the sound source. For example, a piece of music sounds different played in a concert hall or on home theater system than it does played in a small room, or over ear buds. If we turn our heads toward a sound source, our experience changes.
Starting about 10 years ago, the team developed software and equipment that allows motion tracking with headphones, so that when you move your head the sound source appears to stay in the same place.
Algazi was one of the first inventors that McGee met with when he arrived on campus in 2004.
"Ralph gave me a demonstration of the technology, and I was just blown away," McGee said. "This was an entirely different and richer audio experience from what I was used to."
InnovationAccess worked with Algazi and licensed the technology to an existing company. But changing business priorities took that company in a different direction, and UC Davis took the license back so as to ensure that this promising technology would not languish.
By the end of the decade several trends were converging that would lead to the formation of Dysonics.
Motion-sensing technology has become much cheaper and more mobile. At the same time, the boom in mobile devices means people want to be able to listen to music wherever they are, setting off explosive growth in the market for headphones.
"When Ralph told me that he had decided to move the technology forward himself, I was very pleased and we worked very closely with him to make it happen," McGee said. "Empowering an entrepreneurial campus researcher to turn their research into societal impact is what technology transfer is all about."
Algazi talked to Bruce White, then dean of engineering, and ETTC director Jim Olson, a former undergraduate student of Algazi's. The company was founded in March 2011, and just over a year later had secured sufficient funding from angel investors to leave the incubator and strike out on its own.
"ETTC was invaluable for us in securing funding and legal work," Dalton said. "We had a heavy engineering focus and we needed business knowledge."
One unique feature of the ETTC incubator is that philanthropic donations to the College of Engineering enable it to reduce initial patent costs for startup companies. Filing patents costs the university money. Usually, when a company licenses a patent from UC Davis, it agrees to reimburse these out-of-pocket costs as well as support future ongoing costs of maintaining the licensed patents.
"ETTC is able to directly reimburse the university for up to $15,000 in patent costs. The ETTC startup is not charged for those costs. This is enormously beneficial to startups at a stage when they have very little cash," McGee said.
It also permits the startup to secure its foundational intellectual property, a very important consideration for investors. UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi recently approved the use of income from licensing intellectual property to maintain ETTC's ability to cover these costs.
The young company also worked with InnovationAccess to license the patents held by UC Davis.
The company recently (April 24) launched a "kickstarter" campaign to raise funds for its next product, a wireless motion sensor for audio headphones that works with the company's Rondo iPhone app. The company aims to raise $60,000 from the fundraising drive to complete the product.
More than 45 startup companies have been spun off from UC Davis since 2005. The campus currently holds a portfolio of 838 foreign and U.S. patents, and earned income of $13.6 million in fiscal year 2011-12.
###
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
YouLike describes itself as?an interest-based social network and dating site that takes into account a user's?dislikes, as much as what they do like, when helping to find likeminded people to friend or date.
Who has time to watch a whole movie anymore? It's summer! So in the spirit of phoning in everything once the temperature rises above 70-ish, here's Ridley Scott's Aliens in 60 seconds of adorable animation. Brought to you, of course, by the fine folks who did Star Wars Episode IV, Back to the Future, and The Matrix. Not bad for a human. [YouTube]
Set in New York, the playground of the wealthy living a crazy existence. OOC- If you wish to join you must create 2 characters, one of each gender.
Isabelle Marlow
age- 25
Description: A recent law school graduate from Yale, Isabelle has hardly been back to the city since she started college. Most of her friends have moved away and her parents have moved to Chicago, leaving her their Penthouse on Central Park West. She's returned to the city having been offered a job at Goldman and Banks law firm and is looking to get back into the swing of things in the new york social scene.
Drake Bennetton
age- 24
Description- As a young journalist working at the one of the city's leading newspapers, Drake is living the dream he's had since he started working on his high school paper back in Chicago. Except he's working as a social scene columnist in New York, not his ideal job. He's keen to meet people and make a splash in New York's writing world.
In this photo copied from the 2010 Sleepy Hollow High School yearbook, high school student Andrea Rubello is shown. Police said Rubello, a junior at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., was shot and killed Friday, May 17, 2013, during a break-in near the college campus. (AP Photo/Sleepy Hollow High School)
In this photo copied from the 2010 Sleepy Hollow High School yearbook, high school student Andrea Rubello is shown. Police said Rubello, a junior at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., was shot and killed Friday, May 17, 2013, during a break-in near the college campus. (AP Photo/Sleepy Hollow High School)
This undated photo provided by the Nassau County Police Department shows Dalton Smith of Hempstead, N.Y. On Saturday, May 18, 2013, police identified Smith the alleged home invader involved in the fatal slaying of a New York college student early Friday morning. Police say that Smith, who was currently on parole for robbery in the first degree, was the person attempting to rob the off-campus home where Andrea Rebello was shot and killed. (AP Photo/Nassau County Police Department)
The Tarrytown, N.Y., home of the family of Hofstra University student Andrea Rubello is seen on Friday, May 17, 2013. Police say Rubello was shot and killed Friday, May 17, 2013, during a break-in near the college campus in Uniondale, N.Y. (AP Photo/Jim Fitzgerald)
Hofstra University students gather near the house where another student and an armed intruder were killed during an overnight house break-in next to the campus, Friday, May 17, 2013, in Uniondale, N.Y. (AP Photo/ Louis Lanzano)
Officers continue working the scene at the house, left, where a Hofstra University student and an armed intruder were killed during an overnight break-in next to the campus, Friday, May 17, 2013, in Uniondale, N.Y. (AP Photo/ Louis Lanzano)
NEW YORK (AP) ? The police officer who accidentally killed a Long Island college student along with an armed intruder faced perhaps the most harrowing decision in law enforcement: choosing the split-second moment when the risk is so high that you must pull the trigger.
That's the moment authorities say a Nassau County police officer experienced early Friday morning when a masked man holding 21-year-old Andrea Rebello in a headlock pointed a loaded handgun at him.
"The big question is, how do you know, when someone's pointing a gun at you, whether you should keep talking to them, or shoot?" said Michele Galietta, a professor of psychology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice who helps train police officers. "That's what makes the job of an officer amazingly difficult."
She spoke Sunday as Hofstra University students honored Rebello, a popular public relations major, by wearing white ribbons at their graduation ceremony.
On Saturday evening, flags on the Hempstead campus were at half-staff and students held a silent outdoor vigil in front of a photo of the young woman. Surrounded by candles and flowers, they sang "Ave Maria."
Rebello's funeral is scheduled for Wednesday in Sleepy Hollow, in Westchester County, north of New York City.
Her life ended in the seconds that forced the veteran police officer to make a fatal decision, but the questions surrounding the student's death are just beginning, along with an internal investigation by the Nassau County Police Department.
The bare facts are simple. Rebello and the intruder, Dalton Smith, died early Friday when the officer fired eight shots, hitting him seven times, with one bullet striking Rebello once in the head, according to county homicide squad Lt. John Azzata.
With a gun pointed at her, Smith "kept saying, 'I'm going to kill her,' and then he pointed the gun at the police officer," according to Azzata.
The officer acted quickly, saying later that he believed his and Rebello's life were in danger, according to authorities.
No doubt, he was acting to try to save lives ? his own and that of the young woman, Galietta said.
But the fallout was tragic.
"What we're asking the cop to anticipate is, 'What is going on in the suspect's mind at the moment?'" she said. "We're always trying to de-escalate, to contain a situation, but the issue of safety comes in first, and that's the evaluation the officer has to make."
In collaboration with the New York City Police Department, Galietta is part of a John Jay program that prepares young officers to react to life-threatening situations. Actors are used to replicate scenarios reflecting reality.
Police tactical manuals are meant to assist officers in making the best decision possible, but in the end, "they're not 100 percent foolproof," Galietta said. "In a situation like that, you can follow procedure, and it doesn't mean it comes out perfectly."
The officer who fired the shots is an eight-year NYPD veteran and has been with Nassau County police for 12 years.
He is now out on sick leave, Azzata said.
___
Associated Press writer Frank Eltman in Mineola, N.Y., contributed to this report.
Vladislav Surkov was once one of the president's most influential and deft advisers. His forced resignation suggests the Kremlin may be pursuing blunter ways of manipulating the political landscape.
By Fred Weir,?Correspondent / May 8, 2013
Kremlin aide Vladislav Surkov speaks before the state of the nation address at the Kremlin in Moscow in this 2011 photo. Surkov, who was once Russian President Vladimir Putin's chief political strategist and dubbed the Kremlin's puppet master, resigned on May 8.
Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters
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Vladislav Surkov, the former theater arts major who took on the job of stage-managing Russian democracy on behalf of Vladimir Putin, was abruptly shown the Kremlin door Wednesday.?Most analysts see the move as a sign that an increasingly heavy-handed Mr. Putin has no further use for Mr. Surkov's elaborate and relatively gentle methods of manipulating the political landscape.
Skip to next paragraph Fred Weir
Correspondent
Fred Weir has been the Monitor's Moscow correspondent, covering Russia and the former Soviet Union, since 1998.?
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Surkov, an influential Putin advisor who helped sculpt Russia's so-called "sovereign democracy" system, told the Moscow daily Kommersant that he had tendered his resignation on April 26, but will only discuss the reasons for his departure "when it is appropriate."
Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, suggested to the Kommersant FM radio station that he had been pushed out the door due to poor job performance.?
"[His resignation] is related to the high-priority task of implementing presidential decrees," Mr. Peskov said.
Often referred to as the "grey cardinal" of the Kremlin, Surkov's star had been falling since a massive protest movement hit Moscow streets in December 2011. It had been triggered by the near-universal allegations of electoral fraud committed by Surkov's own brainchild ? the pro-Kremlin United Russia party ? in parliamentary polls.
He was subsequently eased out of his role as Putin's deputy chief of staff and given the thankless-by-definition job of deputy prime minister in charge of modernizing Russia's economy.
"His resignation testifies to the fact that there is a real political crisis in the country. Different bureaucratic structures are at war with each other, and Russia is becoming increasingly ungovernable," says Boris Kagarlitsky, director of the independent Institute of Globalization and Social Movement Studies in Moscow. ?
"Surkov had his own vision. He tried to control the process, to reconcile different structures, and he lost," he adds.
Surkov had been a Kremlin fixture since Putin's first presidential term and is widely regarded as the chief architect of the Putin-era system of "sovereign democracy," whose basic idea is that the political system headed by Putin is the direct outgrowth of Russia's own history and public dynamics ? not an import from anywhere else ? and is therefore democracy.
Critics, and even many independent analysts, quickly substituted the more descriptive term "managed democracy."?The phrase evoked the Kremlin's aggressive role in landscaping Russia's political garden ??weeding out pesky opposition parties and independent politicians, concentrating official resources and state media attention behind the ruling United Russia party, and generally altering rules of the game to favor pro-Kremlin outcomes.?
In addition to fathering United Russia, Surkov created a bouquet of pro-Kremlin public organizations, such as the youth movement Nashi and a state-supported assembly of tame civil society groups called the Public Chamber.
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Classical X-ray radiographs provide information about internal, absorptive structures of organisms such as bones. Alternatively, X-rays can also image soft tissues throughout early embryonic development of vertebrates. Related to this, a new X-ray method was presented recently in a Nature article published by a German-American-Russian research team led by KIT. For periods of about two hours, time-lapse sequences of cellular resolution were obtained of three dimensional reconstructions showing developing embryos of the African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis). Instead of the absorption of X-rays, the method is based on their diffraction (DOI: 10.1038/nature12116).
"X-ray diffraction enables high-resolution imaging of soft tissues," explains Ralf Hofmann, one author of the study and physicist at KIT. "In our work, we did not only manage to resolve individual cells and parts of their structure, but we could also analyze single cell migration as well as the movement of cellular networks."
Using X-ray diffraction, similar tissues can be distinguished by minute variations of their refractive index. However, in contrast to classical absorption imaging, this does not require any contrast agent, and X-ray dose is profoundly reduced. The method is of particular advantage when probing sensitive tissues in living organisms, such as frog embryos. In their study, the researchers concentrated on the motion and shape changes of tissues, cavities, and single cells during the developmental milestone of gastrulation.
During gastrulation, germ layers are formed and organized in their proper locations. Thereby, an initially simple spherical ball of a few hundred cells turns into a complex, multilayered organism with differentiated tissues eventually turning into the nervous system, muscles, and internal organs. Quoting the renowned developmental biologist Lewis Wolpert: "it is not birth, marriage, or death, but gastrulation that is the most important event in your life."
"Employing X-rays, we were able to watch joint and individual cell movements during gastrulation," zoologist Jubin Kashef points out who is a co-author and head of a young investigator group at KIT. For the first time, it was appreciated how cells interact with each other in a living embryo and how regions void of cells form and disappear. "It is like the migration of peoples. Stimulated by the migration of individual cell groups, other cells join in. They form functional cellular networks, which adjust to their changing environment. During migration, cells specialize to form progenitor tissues of future organs, e.g. the brain or skin."
"It is fascinating to have digital capabilities to observe and analyze these processes in an individual living frog embryo," Hofmann and Kashef emphasize. "In this way, fundamental results are obtained." The new method not only reveals morphological and dynamic aspects of embryonic development but also provides insights into their underlying molecular biology obtained by comparing the development of wildtype embryos and morphant phenotypes. The African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis) is one of the most important model systems of developmental biology whose study is of relevance in understanding human embryogenesis and diseases. In future research, morphant phenotypes will be correlated with the targeted switch-offs of key proteins. For this purpose, the novel technique -- combining latest X-ray measurement technology with advanced image analysis and developmental biology -- will be established at the synchrotron radiation facilities ANKA in Karlsruhe and APS in Chicago for routine use by a broad community of scientific users.
In their study, KIT researchers, which were supported by biologists from Northwestern University, used coherent X-rays from the Advanced Photon Source of Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago. Prior to this investigation, the method had been developed at ANKA. During measurement, a coherent bundle of X-rays passes the nearly spherical 1-mm frog embryo, which rotates half way around its axis within 18 seconds. By variation of the irradiation direction, information on the three-dimensional (3D) structure is acquired. As X-rays pass through different types of tissues at variable speeds, diffraction occurs. In turn, this generates a characteristic intensity distribution by interference a certain distance behind the embryo. Within the 18 s of tomographic scan time, about 1200 images were recorded. Similar to digital photography, every image consists of several million pixels. From this vast amount of data, the three-dimensional structure and the development of the embryo over time is inferred at micrometer resolution. If this process is repeated at intervals of several minutes, the resulting sequence of 3D images reveals all gastrulation movements occurring inside the embryo. Image reconstruction and analysis algorithms for the here-employed X-ray phase-contrast microtomography were developed at ANKA.
Immediate results of this research are the discovery of new morphological structures and the clarification of fluid redistribution processes. Moreover, the locations of centers driving the migration of tissues and cells during gastrulation were determined by differential flow analysis.
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Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres: http://www.helmholtz.de/en/index.html
Thanks to Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres for this article.
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(Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc posted weaker-than-expected quarterly earnings on Thursday due to poor U.S. sales and said its profit for this quarter might also miss Wall Street's forecast.
Everything from pressure on shoppers to a cool start to spring led to an unexpected 1.4 percent drop in sales at Walmart U.S. stores open at least a year. (Graphic on Wal-Mart earnings http://link.reuters.com/qan28t)
Consumers with lower incomes have been especially squeezed by higher payroll taxes, consistently elevated gas prices and a shaky employment recovery.
Shares of the world's largest retailer were down 2.1 percent, or $1.72, at $78.14 after falling as much as 3.2 percent earlier in the session. The stock had hit a new high of $79.96 on Wednesday.
"We hadn't seen the business turn around particularly in April," said ITG analyst John Tomlinson. "That was a concern because at that point you would think tax refunds and lower gas prices would have started to help the business."
Earlier this year, Wal-Mart said that delays in tax refund checks from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service would crimp shoppers' spending on discretionary items. But the effects went beyond that, and the drop in refunds pressured shoppers and, in turn, sales at the company's U.S. stores.
"We do know that the lack of IRS refund checks did hurt our consumers," Wal-Mart Chief Financial Officer Charles Holley told reporters. "In fact, the IRS, I think, has said that they've estimated that there were about $9 billion less in refund checks, and we certainly cashed less of those checks."
The company forecast earnings of $1.22 to $1.27 per share for its second quarter, which began on May 1. Analysts had been expecting $1.29, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. The year-earlier profit was $1.18 per share.
WEATHER, TAXES HIT SALES
First-quarter same-store sales at Walmart U.S., by far the company's largest unit with about 59 percent of sales last year, fell 1.4 percent. Wal-Mart and analysts had expected such sales to be about flat with those of a year earlier.
Walmart U.S. Chief Executive Officer Bill Simon said the delay in income tax refund checks, a 2 percent increase in payroll taxes and "some of the most unfavorable spring weather we've seen in recent years across much of the country" hurt business in his stores.
Sales of warm-weather items, from outdoor furniture and sporting goods to fans and spring clothes, were challenged, particularly from mid-March to mid-April, Simon said. At the same time, price increases in grocery items were lower than expected, "and in fact, we had some deflation in areas like dry grocery," he said on a recorded call.
Weakness during the quarter was not limited to Wal-Mart. Target Corp , for example, said in April that its same-store sales were likely to come in lower than expected because of soft demand for spring merchandise and weather-sensitive items. It reports results next week.
Holley said Wal-Mart was seeing "very healthy, positive" same-store sales so far in the second quarter at Walmart U.S. and feels good about sales at its Sam's Club warehouse chain, which caters to clients such as small-business owners.
Meanwhile, Sam's Club raised some of its annual membership fees by $5 and $10, bringing them to $45. Sam's Club's highest fee remains at $100, which is $10 below that of rival Costco Wholesale Corp .
BRIBERY PROBE COSTS
In 2011, Wal-Mart began a probe into alleged violations of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and whether the company had handled such matters appropriately. The situation drew public attention in April 2012, when the New York Times reported that management at Wal-Mart de Mexico orchestrated bribes of $24 million to help it grow quickly in the last decade and that the U.S. parent's top brass tried to cover it up.
Wal-Mart spent $73 million on FCPA work in the first quarter, rather than the $40 million to $45 million it had anticipated. It expects to spend another $60 million to $65 million in the second quarter and does not yet know when its own investigation or government probes might end.
About $44 million of the first-quarter FCPA costs stemmed from ongoing inquiries and investigations, while the other $29 million was for a global compliance review, program enhancements and organizational changes, Wal-Mart said.
In the first quarter, profit fell in Wal-Mart's international division, with operating costs growing faster than sales. The company said it was spending more in areas such as international e-commerce and is also stepping up compliance efforts across 14 areas from ethical sourcing to licenses and permits.
MISSING EXPECTATIONS
Wal-Mart earned $3.78 billion, or $1.14 per share, in the first quarter that ended on April 30, up from $3.74 billion, or $1.09 per share, a year earlier.
The analysts' average estimate was $1.15 per share. Wal-Mart had forecast a profit of $1.11 to $1.16 per share.
First-quarter revenue rose 1 percent to $114.19 billion. Analysts expected $116.29 billion.
The company said it expected second-quarter same-store sales, excluding those of fuel, to be flat to up 2 percent at Walmart U.S. and up 1 percent to 3 percent at Sam's Club.
Wal-Mart spent about 2 cents per share on e-commerce investments in the first quarter and expects to spend about the same amount in the second quarter as part of its plan for total spending of 9 cents per share for the year.
(Reporting by Jessica Wohl in Chicago, additional reporting by Phil Wahba in New York; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Maureen Bavdek)
This Tuesday, May 14, 2013 citizen journalism image provided by Aleppo Media Center AMC which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows the mother of a Syrian rebel cleaning a rifle, in Aleppo, Syria. Activists say Syrian rebels have detonated two car bombs outside the main prison in the northern city of Aleppo and are trying to storm the facility, where hundreds of regime opponents are believed to be held. (AP Photo/Aleppo Media Center AMC)
This Tuesday, May 14, 2013 citizen journalism image provided by Aleppo Media Center AMC which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows the mother of a Syrian rebel cleaning a rifle, in Aleppo, Syria. Activists say Syrian rebels have detonated two car bombs outside the main prison in the northern city of Aleppo and are trying to storm the facility, where hundreds of regime opponents are believed to be held. (AP Photo/Aleppo Media Center AMC)
BEIRUT (AP) ? Syrian government troops on Thursday flushed out rebels who had stormed a prison compound in the northern city of Aleppo in a bid to free hundreds of political prisoners inside.
The forced retreat was the latest setback for fighters seeking to topple President Bashar Assad, whose forces have been gaining ground in the country's civil war.
In Washington, President Barack Obama and the Turkish prime minister projected a united front on Syria, despite sharp differences about how much the U.S. should intervene.
"There's no magic formula for dealing with an extraordinarily violent and difficult situation like Syria," Obama said at a joint news conference with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in which he pledged that the U.S. and Turkey would ramp up pressure to oust Assad from power.
Forces loyal to Assad have recently made advances in strategically important locations across the country, including in areas around the capital, Damascus, and in the country's south, near the border with Jordan.
The troops have been bolstered by the world's reluctance to take forceful action to intervene in the fighting, as well as the continued support from key allies, including Russia, Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
Assad has also benefited from the rapid rise of al-Qaida-linked extremists among the rebels, which has raised alarm in the West. Militant groups, including Jabhat al-Nusra, which is designated a terrorist group by the United States, have emerged as one of the most potent fighting forces in the uprising against Assad.
A video emerged Thursday showing a Nusra Front commander killing 11 regime soldiers execution-style for alleged crimes they committed against the Syrian people.
Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, whose group distributed the video, confirmed the killings took place late last year in eastern Deir el-Zour province and identified the Nusra commander as a Saudi known by the name Qusoura al-Jazrawi. He said the man was killed in March in battles with local gunmen in the tribal area.
The video shows the soldiers, blindfolded and kneeling in a row, as the masked commander shoots each one in the back of the head with what appears to be a pistol as other fighters shout "Allahu Akbar," or "''God is great."
"The Shariah court of Jabhat al-Nusra ... has sentenced to death these apostate soldiers that committed massacres against our brothers and families in Syria," the executioner says before firing at the men.
The video appeared authentic and consistent with AP reporting on the incident.
Thaer al-Deiri, an activist working with the Sham News Network in Deir el-Zour, said the execution-style killings occurred five months ago in a remote area in the western part of the province. It was not clear why the video only appeared Thursday, but al-Deiri said the Nusra Front apparently had released it.
Videos of executions and torture have become increasingly common in Syria's conflict, in which more than 70,000 people have been killed. Thursday's video follows a number of others purporting to show execution-style killings by rebels that have emerged in recent days in a war that largely plays out online due to the restrictions placed on journalists in Syria.
International rights groups have accused the rebels of routinely capturing and sometimes killing soldiers and suspected regime informers
Rebel abuses have increased in frequency and scale in recent months, according to a report by Amnesty International in March, which said the most common abuses on the rebel side are summary executions of those rebels suspected of being government soldiers.
The abuses by the Assad regime remain far more deadly, systematic and widespread, particularly attacks on civilians with imprecise battlefield weapons, including widely banned cluster bombs, rights group say.
On Thursday, the Obama administration added Jabhat al-Nusra leader Muhammad al-Jawlani to the U.S. terrorist backlist, along with four Syrian government ministers. Assets they have in the U.S. are blocked and Americans are prohibited from doing business with them.
Meanwhile, activists said the rebels were forced to retreat from the prison in Aleppo a day after they broke into the sprawling facility by setting off two simultaneous car bombs before dawn. By nightfall, the rebels had not dislodged regime forces or freed some 4,000 prisoners held inside.
The Observatory said Syrian warplanes bombarded areas around the prison causing casualties among rebels. State news agency SANA denied opposition fighters entered the prison compound, saying regime troops had repelled the attack.
But activists said fighting near the prison continued with rebels firing locally-made rockets at regime forces inside the facility late Thursday.
Also Thursday, four people were killed and 25 others wounded by mortar shells that struck residential areas in the town of Jaramana near Damascus, the state-run news agency said.
In Washington, Erdogan was looking for stepped-up action on Syria as he met with Obama just days after a twin car bombing killed 51 people on the Turkish side of the two countries' common border. Turkey blamed Syrian intelligence for the attacks.
The bombings Sunday in the border town of Reyhanli were the biggest incident of cross-border violence since the start of Syria's bloody civil war, raising fears of Turkey being pulled deeper into a conflict that threatens to destabilize the region.
But the Obama administration remains reluctant to take the kind of action Turkey would like to see, including establishing a no-fly zone in Syria.
The only way to resolve the crisis is for Assad to hand over power to a transitional government, Obama said.
"We both agree that Assad needs to go," the U.S. president said.
____
Associated Press writer Desmond Butler in Washington contributed to this report.
Zach Sobiech, 18, the teen that wrote and posted a farewell song to his loved ones after realizing his cancer was terminal, has passed away at his home on May 19. Zach, who had battled bone cancer since his diagnosis at age 14, was told in June 2012 that he had only a year to ...![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 21-May-2013
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