On video: SAfrican police drag man, who later dies

In this still frame from TV and courtesy of South African Daily Sun newspaper, showing a South African man with his hands tethered to the back of a police vehicle being dragged behind as police hold his legs up and the vehicle apparently drives off, east of Johannesburg Tuesday Feb. 26, 2013. The man died of his injuries. In video filmed on a mobile phone, uniformed police are seen trying to subdue the man, then tethering him to the back of a police vehicle which drives off, watched by a large crowd. Moses Dlamini of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate said early Thursday Feb. 28 2013 on ENCA TV network that his service has opened a murder probe. (AP Photo/The Daily Sun) TV OUT

In this still frame from TV and courtesy of South African Daily Sun newspaper, showing a South African man with his hands tethered to the back of a police vehicle being dragged behind as police hold his legs up and the vehicle apparently drives off, east of Johannesburg Tuesday Feb. 26, 2013. The man died of his injuries. In video filmed on a mobile phone, uniformed police are seen trying to subdue the man, then tethering him to the back of a police vehicle which drives off, watched by a large crowd. Moses Dlamini of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate said early Thursday Feb. 28 2013 on ENCA TV network that his service has opened a murder probe. (AP Photo/The Daily Sun) TV OUT

In this still frame from TV and courtesy of South African Daily Sun newspaper, showing a South African man with his hands tethered behind a police vehicle and being dragged behind as police hold his legs up and the vehicle apparently drives off, east of Johannesburg Tuesday Feb. 26, 2013. The man died of his injuries. In video filmed on a mobile phone, uniformed police are seen trying to subdue the man, then tethering him to the back of a police vehicle which drives off, watched by a large crowd. Moses Dlamini of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate said early Thursday Feb. 28 2013 on ENCA TV network that his service has opened a murder probe. (AP Photo/The Daily Sun) TV OUT

In this still frame from TV and courtesy of South African Daily Sun newspaper, showing a South African man as he refuses to get into a police vehicle and seems to be tethered to the back of the vehicle before being dragged behind as police hold his legs up and the vehicle apparently drives off, east of Johannesburg Tuesday Feb. 26, 2013. The man died of his injuries. In video filmed on a mobile phone, uniformed police are seen trying to subdue the man, then tethering him to the back of a police vehicle which drives off, watched by a large crowd. Moses Dlamini of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate said early Thursday Feb. 28 2013 on ENCA TV network that his service has opened a murder probe. (AP Photo/The Daily Sun) TV OUT

JOHANNESBURG (AP) ? They bound his hands to the rear of a van, and then sped off, dragging the slender taxi driver along the pavement as a crowd of onlookers shouted in dismay. The man was later found dead.

A gut-wrenching video of the scene is all the more disturbing because the men who abused the Mozambican immigrant were uniformed South African police officers and the van was a marked police vehicle.

The graphic scenes of the victim struggling for his life shocked a nation long accustomed to reports of police violence.

The Daily Sun, a South African newspaper, posted video the footage Thursday and it was quickly picked up by other South African news outlets and carried on the Internet. It sparked immediate outrage.

"They are there for safety, but we as a people fear them more," said Johannesburg resident Alfonso Adams. "You don't know who to trust anymore."

Some of those in the crowd who watched the scene unfold in the Daveyton township east of Johannesburg shouted at the police and warned that it was being videotaped. The police did not seem at all concerned by all the witnesses and the presence of cameras as they tied Mido Macia, a 27-year-old from neighboring Mozambique, to the back of a police vehicle, his hands behind his head. At least three policemen participated in the incident. Macia was found dead in a Daveyton police cell late Tuesday.

"We are going to film this," several onlookers shouted in Zulu as the police tormented Macia. One bystander can be heard on the videotape shouting in Zulu: "What has this guy done?"

A murder probe is underway on the evidence that Macia suffered head and upper abdomen injuries, including internal bleeding, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate, the police watchdog agency, said Thursday. The injuries could be from the dragging and he could also have been beaten later in police custody.

"The allegations are that he was dragged behind a vehicle and his head was bent on the police vehicle. There are also allegations of assault," said the investigative unit's spokesman Moses Dlamini.

The video evidence of the abuse renewed concerns about brutality, corruption and other misconduct by a national police force whose reputation has suffered in recent years amid reports that many officers lack training. Some have been charged with committing the crimes they are supposed to prevent, including rape and murder.

"As horrific as it is, it is not exceptional. Hardly a week goes by without such stories of brutality," said Jacob van Garderen, national director of Lawyers for Human Rights.

At first, Macia, dressed in jeans and a red T-shirt, is dragged along the road by the vehicle at slow speed, the footage shows. He awkwardly tries to keep step even though he is almost horizontal above the ground. Then the van stops, two policemen pick up the legs of the taxi driver and drop them to the ground as the van picks up speed and drives off, beyond the view of the camera.

The police watchdog agency said the incident started just before 7 p.m. on Tuesday when the cab driver was allegedly obstructing traffic with his vehicle. Then Macia allegedly assaulted a constable and took his weapon before he was overpowered, the police investigative unit said.

Macia was found dead in a cell over two hours later by another policeman, according to the watchdog agency.

National Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega "strongly condemned" what happened. South Africans are "urged to remain vigilant and continue to report all acts of crime irrespective of who is involved," said Phiyega in a statement.

Phiyega has tried to upgrade the reputation of the South African police since her appointment last year. Last month, Phiyega told a group of police officials the standing of the force "has been severely but not irreparably tarnished over the past several years."

The problems, though, are immense for a police force that has expanded from some 120,000 to almost 200,000 over the last decade, "often failing to match the increase in quantity with sufficient quality," said Johan Burger, who served for 36 years on the force before becoming a senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies.

Several experts contacted by The Associated Press also said that in recent years there has been an increasing willingness to use a shoot-to-kill approach to the crime and violence.

An average of 860 people a year died in police custody or as a result of police action between 2009 and 2010, up from 695 a year from 2003 to 2008, according to Burger of the security studies institute.

Further staining the reputation of the police is the Marikana shootings when, on Aug. 16, 2012, a line of South African police opened fire on a crowd of striking miners, killing 34 at a platinum mine northwest of Johannesburg. A judicial commission is investigating allegations that many were killed in a rocky hill, near the much-filmed initial scene of the attack, shot in the back as they tried to escape.

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Associated Press Writer Michelle Faul contributed to this story.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-02-28-South%20Africa-Man%20Dragged/id-94079c0bb5c445c1bf7a959d6655d41b

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Senate Dems' bill light on deficit cuts in 2013

WASHINGTON (AP) ? White House-backed legislation in the Senate to replace $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts would result in very modest deficit savings through the end of the budget year, officials said Wednesday, most if not of all of them through higher taxes on millionaires.

Instead, the bill drafted by Senate Democrats would spread one year's worth of anticipated savings over a decade, a move sponsors say is designed to prevent damage to a shaky economic recovery.

The Democrats' approach to the latest episode of budget brinkmanship comes as the two political parties vie for public support in advance of across-the-board cuts due to kick in on Friday.

The replacement measure, which has yet to be distributed publicly, proposes cuts in defense spending and elimination of a program of payments to certain farmers as well as a tax on millionaires as the main elements of an alternative.

Yet it also specifies that no defense reductions would take place for 18 months, and officials added that the elimination of the farm program would have virtually no impact on the deficit until a new budget year begins on Oct. 1.

The tax on millionaires would raise government revenues through the end of the budget year by an estimated $1 billion ? a figure that pales in comparison to the $85 billion in spending cuts due to take effect. White House spokesman Jay Carney recently told reporters at the White House the administration supports the measure.

The Senate is expected to vote on Thursday on rival Democratic and Republican plans to replace the spending cuts, known in Washington-speak as a sequester. Both bills are expected to fail.

In an indication that across-the-board cuts are inevitable, President Barack Obama has set a meeting with congressional leaders for the day they take effect. While the administration has warned of severe cuts in government services as a result of the reductions, few, if any, are likely to be felt for several weeks.

That could give the administration and lawmakers breathing room to negotiate a replacement, although Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said during the day there were limits to what could be negotiated.

"We can either secure those reductions more intelligently, or we can do it the president's way with across-the board cuts. But one thing Americans simply will not accept is another tax increase to replace spending reductions we already agreed to," he said.

Democrats said their proposal to replace across-the-board cuts was designed with the economy in mind.

It "seeks the same amount of savings in a more responsible way" as the $85 billion in cuts that will otherwise take effect, said Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

"The impact on the economy is much better. Sequestration as constituted would hurt economic growth and destroy jobs," he added.

Over a decade, the bill would cut deficits by an estimated $110 billion, half from higher taxes and half from the defense and farm program cuts.

That is in keeping with Obama's call for a balanced approach that combines selected spending cuts with closing tax loopholes.

Senate Democrats have been reluctant to spell out the details of their measure, although it is not clear if that results from its relatively small impact on the deficits through the end of the current budget year.

Across the Capitol, though, the party's leaders have talked openly of their desire to spread the cuts in their replacement measure over a longer period.

"It is entirely intentional," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and the party's senior member on the House Budget Committee. "The whole idea is to achieve the equivalent deficit reduction without hurting jobs and having disruption in the economy. You do that by having targeted cuts and eliminating tax loopholes over a longer period of time," he added.

He said the Democrats' approach is the same as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's recommendation, which is to help the recovery gain strength before beginning to make cuts.

In the Senate, Republicans have yet to disclose their own sequester replacement measure. Most of the rank and file favors an alternative that lets Obama adjust the cuts to minimize any impact on the public, but that approach has its critics among lawmakers who fear giving the White House that much authority.

____

Eds: AP White House Correspondent Julie Pace contributed to this story

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-02-27-US-Budget-Democrats/id-7552ced2b6f945e4811ebadc8bcb2b14

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LG eyes smartphone growth as Samsung targets tablets

Apple (AAPL) shares got a boost Tuesday afternoon on rumors that the company may announce a split on Wednesday during its annual shareholder meeting. The rumor comes from former money manager and current TheStreet.com contributor?Douglas Kass, who did not disclose his source. ?High above the Alps my Gnome is hearing a rumor that Apple will announce a stock split at tomorrow?s shareholder meeting,? Kass wrote in a post on Twitter, providing no further details. Apple shares rose more than 1.4% on the rumor after nearing a new closing low.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/lg-eyes-smartphone-growth-samsung-targets-tablets-125545593.html

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Bowie, Swinton a perfect match in music video

By Randee Dawn, NBC News contributor

There are some pairings that seem inevitable, and David Bowie's inclusion of Oscar-winning actress Tilda Swinton in his newest music video, "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)" is just such a one. The actress, who made an early career splash as the gender-shifting title character in 1989's "Orlando" seems just the right kind of otherworldly face to appear in a video by the Thin White Duke, who for much of his career has affected an androgynous look.

That said, here's the surprise: Initially, Swinton's done up in true girly-girl fashion as Bowie's wife, seen in a fluffy blonde wig and neck-scarf, sidling up behind him in a convenience store and offering a peck on the cheek. But as the video progresses and the pair are haunted by younger lookalikes, a transformation occurs.?

Check out the video and see what you think!

Related content:

Source: http://entertainment.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/26/17101775-david-bowie-tilda-swinton-team-up-in-new-music-video?lite

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The Psychology of Flossing | World of Psychology

Why is it so tough to remember to floss?

I rarely run into patients who can?t remember to brush their teeth twice a day, but even the most conscientious among us come to their hygiene appointment anxious and awaiting the hygienist?s lecture about flossing.

Flossing can be icky and awkward ? no one likes feeling like they?re shoving their entire fist into their mouth. But the reason why we don?t make flossing a habit is a bit more complicated and has its roots in psychology.

During the early 1900s, right around World War I, dental hygiene was so bad, it was said to be a national security risk. Why? People weren?t brushing their teeth, of course, and the 1900s marks the period when Americans first began to consume sugary, ready-to-eat processed foods, such as crackers, breads, and potato chips.

America?s brushing habits were forever changed at this point by a toothpaste campaign that told people, ?Just run your tongue across your teeth. You?ll feel a film ? that?s what makes your teeth look ?off color? and invites decay. Why would you keep a dingy film on your teeth? Our toothpaste removes the film!?

As Charles Duhigg explains in his book, The Power of Habit, the success of this campaign was in its ability to create a craving in people, which is at the heart of all habits.

In order to make a habit, Duhigg asserts, you need the following:

1. A simple and obvious cue
2. A clearly defined reward

When people ran their tongue across their teeth as the campaign instructed, that became a simple and obvious cue for them to brush their teeth. The reward? Removing the ?dingy film? on their teeth. The ad people had created a craving. If people forgot to brush, they missed that ?tingling clean feeling.?

Now, back to flossing. The problem with flossing is there is no instant gratification, no clearly defined reward. People don?t think it?s working.

Unfortunately, our brains are not wired to develop habits that will do good things for our health 10 or 20 years later.

Flossing is going to prevent decay, keep your teeth and smile looking young as you age, prevent your teeth from falling out, prevent gum recession, expensive dental bills, and pain ? so trick your brain into making it an effortless routine that you perform on autopilot.

Start with giving yourself a simple and obvious cue (you might decide to floss every night before bed) and a clearly defined reward, like a favorite flavor of floss. For children, a sticker for every day on a flossing calendar in the bathroom is a great way to cement the habit.

• Create a cue. I tell my patients to take a blank Post-it and stick it on your mirror. That?s a cue. Don?t write things like ?floss? on it ? that sounds too authoritarian and disciplinary. Every time you see that Post-it, you?ll know deep down that means to floss. I did this to get into the habit myself.
• Make it easy. Keep floss stashed everywhere. The samples of floss you get from the dentist are great for this. Keep one in your desk drawer at work, your gym bag, in the car, in your laptop bag, and your travel toiletry case. We might not think of flossing late at night before bed because we?re tired, but the thought (or craving) could hit you during the day.
• Invest in a flossing stick, which is basically like the handle of a toothbrush, but with floss on the top. These are fantastic, I use one myself. They turn flossing into a one-handed operation and are awesome for multi-taskers ? you can flip through your phone with one hand while flossing with the other.
• Take the pressure off. Don?t do what the hygienist tells you, which is to floss every day. This can be too much of a jump and too much to expect right off the bat. It?s easy to get frustrated when trying to get in the habit of flossing, especially since so much coordination is involved with it.

  What I tell my patients is, floss once a week. What ends up happening is they floss once, and a few days later, begin to crave the feeling again. When you floss once, you get the sensation of the separation of the teeth, stimulation of the gums ? it?s a distinct feeling, almost like a massage. Which is why you?ll crave it again. This can be a much better way to break into the habit of flossing daily.

You can think of flossing like kicking over an anthill each day. You can kick the anthill to destroy it, but each day, the ants come back and build a new one. Flossing one week before your appointment with the hygienist isn?t going to prevent gum disease, tooth decay, and gum recession ? but keeping up with that ?anthill? and flossing daily, will.

Dr. Mark Burhenne, DDS is dedicated to empowering the world with his groundbreaking approach to dental and oral health. He is a family and cosmetic dentist and founder of Ask the Dentist . Through his private practice, education and volunteer efforts, writing, research, and advocacy, he empowers the world to understand that the health of the mouth is critical to the health of the whole body and ultimately helping people to establish the habits that halt disease and the aging process and keep the body healthy for the rest of their lives.

Like this author?
Catch up on other posts by Mark Burhenne, DDS (or subscribe to their feed).

????Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 25 Feb 2013
????Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved.

APA Reference
Burhenne, M. (2013). The Psychology of Flossing. Psych Central. Retrieved on February 26, 2013, from http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2013/02/25/the-psychology-of-flossing/

?

Source: http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2013/02/25/the-psychology-of-flossing/

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Link Building Strategy ? The Right Way To Do It.

Website promotion is essential to pimp your e-business. Building an internet site isn't enough for carrying on a successful online business. You've got to adopt right link building method to push your website in a search engine compliant demeanour. Search sites consider link acclaim as an important factor to determine the ranks of the websites.

An internet site with top quality links is probably going to list among the first ten results of the search websites. The link acceptance for each search engine isn't the same as the other. You will find out the link acclaim by typing Link: domain name of the website in the search engine. The compete details of the sites linking to your website will be in front of you.

You can create an effective link building system to raise the link popularity of your website. You can incorporate three types of links for this reason internal, external and reciprocal links.

The very best way to have a good linking plan for your website is to develop a site map. A site map is the plan of the whole internet site that contains whole links on an internet site. The links are specified in the opinion of the specific details of a topic. They're most often given in a hierarchical manner. The links must be text links containing the keywords related to your site. This makes the search of the search website for links quite straightforward.

You can have a top notch internal links and can get the pages of your website linked internally. The internet site is rated as a top quality web site, if it has correctly placed internal links. The link building strategy also tensions up on the outgoing links. They make your website user friendly.

Connecting to the right websites makes your internet site to access great content. If the content of the sites related to your internet site is not good or useless, the search sites will not consider such links as handy. The message is clear that you must stress on the standard of the links instead of the quantity.

The inbound links are the most significant for link building technique. It is possible to get other internet sites to provide a link to your website by developing good content. According to the specialists, content of an internet site is the primary decisive allow for link building. Others will be interested to link to your internet site, if and only if, you've got a good content on it.

The expert link building strategy is also to build reciprocal links with the competition. This is favourable to both the parties of linking. Both will supply carefully targeted traffic to each other. This link building technique is the final mantra for getting top quality links and gain good link popularity as the data on both the links will be related to one another.

The accurate link building method pushes ahead your target of link recognition, leading to high search website ranks.

WP-backlink-Prois 1 back-link 1 tool can offer you the solution. Stop wasting your time and economize on your link building

Source: http://10minutesqueezepages.com/news/link-building-strategy-the-right-way-to-do-it/

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Laser mastery narrows down sources of superconductivity

Feb. 24, 2013 ? Identifying the mysterious mechanism underlying high-temperature superconductivity (HTS) remains one of the most important and tantalizing puzzles in physics. This remarkable phenomenon allows electric current to pass with perfect efficiency through materials chilled to subzero temperatures, and it may play an essential role in revolutionizing the entire electricity chain, from generation to transmission and grid-scale storage. Pinning down one of the possible explanations for HTS -- fleeting fluctuations called charge-density waves (CDWs) -- could help solve the mystery and pave the way for rapid technological advances.

Now, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have combined two state-of-the-art experimental techniques to study those electron waves with unprecedented precision in two-dimensional, custom-grown materials. The surprising results, published online February 24, 2013, in the journal Nature Materials, reveal that CDWs cannot be the root cause of the unparalleled power conveyance in HTS materials. In fact, CDW formation is an independent and likely competing instability.

"It has been difficult to determine whether or not dynamic or fluctuating CDWs even exist in HTS materials, much less identify their role," said Brookhaven Lab physicist and study coauthor Ivan Bozovic. "Do they compete with the HTS state, or are they perhaps the very essence of the phenomenon? That question has now been answered by targeted experimentation."

Custom-grown Superconductors

Electricity travels imperfectly through traditional metallic conductors, losing energy as heat due to a kind of atomic-scale friction. Impurities in these materials also cause electrons to scatter and stumble, but superconductors can overcome this hurdle -- assuming the synthesis process is precise.

For this experiment, Bozovic used a custom-built molecular beam epitaxy system at Brookhaven Lab to grow thin films of LaSrCuO, an HTS cuprate (copper-oxide) compound. The metallic cuprates, assembled one atomic layer at a time, are separated by insulating planes of lanthanum and strontium oxides, resulting in what's called a quasi-two-dimensional conductor. When cooled down to a low enough temperature -- less than 100 degrees Kelvin -- strange electron waves began to ripple through that 2D matrix. At even lower temperatures, these films became superconducting.

Electron Sea

"In quasi-two-dimensional metals, low temperatures frequently bring about interesting collective states called charge-density waves," Bozovic said. "They resemble waves rolling across the surface of a lake under a breeze, except that instead of water, here we actually have a sea of mobile electrons."

Once a CDW forms, the electron density loses uniformity as the ripples rise and fall. These waves can be described by familiar parameters: amplitude (height of the waves), wavelength (distance between waves), and phase (the wave's position on the material). Detecting CDWs typically requires high-intensity x-rays, such as those provided by synchrotron light sources like Brookhaven's NSLS and, soon, NSLS-II. And even then, the technique only works if the waves are essentially frozen upon formation. However, if CDWs actually fluctuate rapidly, they may escape detection by x-ray diffraction, which typically requires a long exposure time that blurs fast motion.

Measuring Rolling Waves

To catch CDWs in action, a research group at MIT led by physicist Nuh Gedik used an advanced ultrafast spectroscopy technique. Intense laser pulses called "pumps" cause excitations in the superconducting films, which are then probed by measuring the film reflectance with a second light pulse -- this is called a pump-probe process. The second pulse is delayed by precise time intervals, and the series of measurements allow the lifetime of the excitation to be determined.

In a more sophisticated variant of the technique, largely pioneered by Gedik, the standard single pump beam is replaced by two beams hitting the surface from different sides simultaneously. This generates a standing wave of controlled wavelength in the film, but it disappears rapidly as the electrons relax back into their original state.

This technique was applied to the atomically perfect LaSrCuO films synthesized at Brookhaven Lab. In films with a critical temperature of 26 degrees Kelvin (the threshold beyond which the superconductivity breaks down), the researchers discovered two new short-lived excitations -- both caused by fluctuating CDWs.

Gedik's technique even allowed the researchers to record the lifetime of CDW fluctuations -- just 2 picoseconds (a millionth of a millionth of a second) under the coldest conditions and becoming briefer as the temperatures rose. These waves then vanished entirely at about 100 Kelvin, actually surviving at much higher temperatures than superconductivity.

Ruling out a Suspect

The researchers then hunted for those same signatures in cuprate films with slightly different chemical compositions and a greater density of mobile electrons. The results were both unexpected and significant for the future of HTS research.

"Interestingly, the superconducting sample with the highest critical temperature, about 39 Kelvin, showed no CDW signatures at all," Gedik said.

The consistent emergence of CDWs would have bolstered the conjecture that they play an essential role in high-temperature superconductivity. Instead, the new technique's successful detection of such electron waves in one sample but not in another (with even higher critical temperature) indicates that another mechanism must be driving the emergence of HTS.

"Results like this bring us closer to understanding the mystery of HTS, considered by many to be one of the greatest problems in physics today," Bozovic said. "The source of this extraordinary phenomenon is slowly but surely running out of places to hide."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by DOE/Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/R3e5kmat5ag/130224142911.htm

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Cruz Defends Government Overthrow Lie (talking-points-memo)

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Microsoft preparing Windows Blue public preview with significant search improvements

Microsoft is working towards a public preview version of Windows Blue. Sources familiar with Microsoft's plans have revealed that the software giant is aggressively targeting a summer launch date for Windows Blue, ensuring its development cycle is short. Microsoft recently passed Milestone 1 for Windows Blue, but the company is now readying a Milestone Preview which will form the basis for a public preview

The public preview, first reported by win8china, will launch within the next few months, allowing existing Windows 8 users to test and provide feedback before Microsoft readies the final version of Windows Blue. We understand that Microsoft is aiming to only have one preview release for Blue. Features are still being prepared for Blue, but one of the biggest changes is an improvement to the search charm functionality.

Bing will play a big part in Windows Blue

We're told that the Bing team is working closely on Windows Blue to improve search in a significant way. A number of scenarios are being targeted, including the ability for users to search for a movie and have apps surface that content and provide a quick way to play it. The current implementation of search in Windows 8 supports deep search within apps, but users currently have to select those apps to search within them. Blue will expand on that, providing apps are updated to support it, by extending the search abilities of the OS.

Blue is expected to be made available to existing Windows 8 users by the end of the summer, with support for new 7- and 8-inch devices and Internet Explorer 11 built-in. Microsoft is also preparing a Blue update to its Windows Phone operating system and other services as a project to further integrate all of its software offerings.

Source: http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/24/4023724/windows-blue-public-preview-search-improvements

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Florida's Dendy sets SEC record at indoor event; top-ranked Arkansas men take overall lead

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Alabama's Alexis Paine makes an attempt in the pole vault competition at the SEC Track and Field Indoor Championships in Fayetteville, Ark., on Saturday, Feb. 23, 2013. Paine won the competition with a height of 4.18 meters. (AP Photo/Beth Hall)

Florida's David Triassi makes a throw during the weight throw competition at the Southeastern Conference Track and Field Indoor Championships in Fayetteville, Ark., on Saturday, Feb. 23, 2013. Triassi won the competition with a throw of 21.59 meters. (AP Photo/Beth Hall)

FAYETTEVILLE, Arkansas ? Marquis Dendy wasn't about to complain about setting a meet record with a long jump of 27 feet, ? inches at the Southeastern Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships on Saturday.

The Florida sophomore, however, would have preferred to jump just a bit farther ? even after setting the mark for the longest jump in the world this year.

Dendy leaped a personal best, but he was just a bit short of the 27-5 mark he needed to earn the new car his father had promised him.

"I've got to talk to the delegation," Dendy said. "My dad's here, so I've got tell him, 'Two inches, can't you just give me two inches or whatever?' I'm going to talk to him about that. Surely, right after these interviews, I'm definitely going to talk to him about that."

New car or not, Dendy's win gave the defending national champion Gators a much-needed 10 points in their effort against top-ranked Arkansas. The Razorbacks, who won the SEC meet last year and have won six of the last seven, held a 52-34 team lead after Saturday.

Dendy will be back at work inside the Randal Tyson Track Center on Sunday, hoping to earn more points in the triple jump on final day of the three-day meet.

For the time being, however, he reveled in repeating as the long jump champion ? besting his previous best of 26-5½. The record jump came on his second attempt, following a foul on his first, and it topped the previous SEC best of 27-0 was set by Alabama's Miguel Pate in 2002.

Dendy held off LSU's Damar Forbes, who was second with a jump of 26-5¾ inches, and it gave him plenty of confidence approaching the national meet ? which also will be held in Fayetteville in two weeks.

"This is just basically a pre-meet of nationals," Dendy said. "So, I definitely can go out there and just jump farther at nationals. I've got a second try."

The Razorbacks actually rested a few of their top performers in the meet, including Kevin Lazas, who entered the weekend as the conference's top performer in the heptathlon. Lazas will compete in the pole vault on Sunday, and Arkansas coach Chris Bucknam said his focus is on entering the nationals rested and with momentum.

Even without Lazas, the Razorbacks appear poised to do both.

"It's like in any sport, it's all about momentum," Bucknam said. "It's all about feeling good. It's all about, again, that body language and coming off a good performance leads to the next one.

"So, we don't want to take a step back. We always want to step forward, and I was pleased with how things went."

With Lazas not competing, Georgia's Garrett Scantling won the heptathlon with 5,889 points. The sophomore set personal bests in all three events on Saturday, including the 60-meter hurdles (8.15 seconds), pole vault (16-¾) and 1,000 (2 minutes, 50.41 seconds).

"The 1,000 meter was just all guts, but it feels great and it feels awesome," Scantling said. "I have never been that nervous before a race before, but it felt great. I pushed it to the end and got what I wanted."

Also, Mississippi's Ricky Robertson won his fourth straight high jump championship at the event by clearing 7-5, becoming just the second person in SEC history to accomplish the feat.

The Arkansas women also took the lead entering the final day of the event, leading 37-28 over second-place Georgia. Top-ranked LSU is fifth with 13.5 points.

The Razorbacks received 10 points on Friday when senior Makeba Alcide won the pentathlon with a college-record 4,569 points.

Source: http://www.dailyjournal.net/view/story/25d4aa631a194a3b9bf69b8397eb42ab/ATH--SEC-Championships/

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Ride along as deep-sea Odyssey crew uncover a record 48 tons of silver

The Odyssey heads out on one of its voyages. (Discovery Channel)In July 2012, the crew of the deep-sea recovery team Odyssey Marine Expedition (OME) unearthed a record-setting 48 tons of silver from a sunken World War II-era British naval vessel, the SS Gairsoppa.

A camera crew was along for the ride, documenting the trip three miles below the surface. This Sunday, Discovery Channel viewers will have the chance to ride along with the crew of the OME to see firsthand what a deep-sea treasure hunt looks like during the broadcast of ?Silver Rush.?

OME?s Senior Project Manager Andrew Craig and CEO Mark Gordon spoke with Yahoo News about the voyage and what viewers can expect.

?The big thing with this expedition is we went looking for a wreck in such deep water. The Gairsoppa was sunk in water nearly a mile deeper than the Titanic,? Craig said. ?We knew the silver payload was on the manifest, but as far as where we could find it when we got there, we really didn?t know when we started this sort of adventure.?

?The challenge we had was how to surgically open up a shipwreck in 15,000 feet in water,? added Gordon. ?It was a little like looking for a needle in a haystack.?

In fact, when the OME recovered the 48 tons of precious metal, the discovery temporarily sent the world silver market prices reeling.

?I don?t think anything will ever again carry that huge amount of silver,? Craig said. ?These were just such uncommon times during World War II. The British government had to get this back to the U.K. for the war effort."

The story of the Gairsoppa is fascinating. It was a tram steamer enlisted to aid the war effort, along with many other nonmilitary vessels. During the trip from India back to the U.K., the ship ran low on fuel and became separated from its convoy of 26 vessels.

As it drifted astray, the Gairsoppa was tracked down and torpedoed by a German U-boat. Thirty-six members of the 86-man crew made it into lifeboats, about 400 miles from the shore.

?These merchant seaman, it was almost another army of people that nobody really knows about,? Craig said. ?They were on boats that just didn?t have any protection. They were at the luck of the gods as to whether they even made it back or not.?

After weeks adrift at sea, only three men made it to shore alive. And by the time British medical personnel made it to the lifeboat, only one man, Richard Ayres, remained alive.

?Richard Ayers was in the water for 17 days before he eventually ended up on the south coast of England,? Craig said. ?Despite going through that tragedy, he went on to have a fulfilling life, went back to work on the sea and lived to be 90 years old before passing away in 1990.?

Hosted by Mike Rowe, the "Silver Rush" series will also follow the OME crew as they explore two other vessels with cargoes worth a collective $1 billion or more: The SS Mantola, an ocean liner that sank in 1917 off the Irish coast, and HMS Victory, the former flagship of the Royal British Navy which was lost in 1744 while housing what may now be worth upward of $1 billion in gold.

Gordon says the OME uncovered far more than the record-setting 1,023 bars of silver from the Gairsoppa, including 1,700 tons of tea, burlap bags ?full of God knows what,? the captain?s personal silver service set and other ?really interesting artifacts.?

?We?re not done. We?re going back this summer,? Gordon said. ?We?ve only recovered 42 percent of the registered, insured cargo.?

Some of the record-breaking 1,023 bars of silver discovered by the Odyssey (Discovery Channel)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/ride-along-odyssey-expedition-uncover-record-breaking-48-224611946.html

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'Fairy tale': Team slays giants, wins over Dalai Lama

Clive Brunskill / Getty Images, file

Gary Jones, left, and James "Big Jim" Hanson of Bradford City FC celebrate following their team's victory over English Premier League club Arsenal on Dec. 11, 2012. Only three years ago, Hanson was stacking shelves at a local supermarket. On Sunday, he'll play in front of 90,000 people at London's iconic Wembley Stadium.

By Ian Johnston, Staff Writer, NBC News

BRADFORD, England --?It is the sort of "fairy tale" story that sounds made for Hollywood.?

Led by the unlikeliest of heroes, a passionate team of underdogs emerges from the shadow of near-bankruptcy to go an improbable winning streak, eliminating a series of big-name (and huge-budgeted) rivals and bringing hope to their poverty-stricken hometown.

But the real-life story of Bradford City Football Club might be too unbelievable for even the most cliche-loving studio exec who's watched "Hoosiers" and ?"The Bad News Bears" one too many times.

Assembled for just $10,000, the team's extraordinary exploits?have spirits soaring in the Yorkshire city and far beyond.

Currently?lying in 79th place out of the 92 top clubs in England, Bradford City?will on Sunday contest a national cup final after a succession of thrilling, giant-killing triumphs over teams including Arsenal, the London-based club?valued at $1.5 billion last year.

One of Bradford's biggest stars was stacking shelves in a local supermarket not long ago. Now James "Big Jim" Hanson will find himself playing in front of 90,000 fans at London's iconic Wembley Stadium and a television audience of millions.

A representative of the Dalai Lama even wrote a letter to say the exiled Tibetan religious leader wished Bradford City's fans "every success in the big match."?

Courtesy Friends of Bradford City / Yorkshire International Business Center

The Dalai Lama was presented with a Bradford City FC jersey during a recent visit to Yorkshire.

Lying in wait for "The Bantams" will be?Swansea City, currently eighth in the top English league, and its star striker, Miguel Michu.

Michu is third in the Premier League in goals this season and Swansea's manager has warned rivals it would take $47 million in compensation for the club to let him leave. By contrast, Bradford are currently 11th in the fourth level of English professional soccer.

Mark Lawn, Bradford City's co-chairman, can hardly believe the transformation in fortunes that has seen Bradford reach the?Capital One Cup?final -- a competition traditionally known as the League Cup.

The self-made businessman put money into the 110-year-old club to help it survive after debts of about $55 million saw it threatened with bankruptcy at least twice. It has been "a labor of love" that at times prompted him to question his own sanity.

'We've created history'
Lawn, 52, recalled vomiting on the team bus on the way back from a defeat at Morecambe amid fears the club was on the verge of financial collapse. After another loss, his car was attacked by angry Bradford City fans.

"It's not really sunk in," Lawn said. "We are the only fourth-tier team to get to Wembley ever. We've created history. The town is buzzing. It's amazing ? it's just lifting the town."

"It's nearly got me believing in God again. I lost faith in God or religion in general when I lost my mother and father," he added. "I thought if we win then there's got to be summat ('something' in the Yorkshire dialect). I've said if we did do it, I will look at finding religion again."

Sitting in the club's 1911 room --?named for the year the club last won a major trophy?-- Lawn played down his team's chances.

"I just hope Swansea are easy with us ? They are a great side," he said. "I think they'll beat us, being realistic. But it's not about that for Bradford fans and Bradford City."

Once a thriving industrial city, Bradford is now?one of the most deprived places in the U.K.?Nearly a?quarter of all households are jobless, long-term?youth unemployment rates are soaring, local government spending?is being cut dramatically.

Lawn grew up in Bradford's rundown Thorpe Edge area, where many houses are owned by the local government and rented out cheaply, and recalled as a child sneaking in to watch the team play without paying.

Thorpe Edge is a place with few reasons to celebrate. Annice Brearley, an outreach worker at?Thorpe Edge Community Project, runs a program for children in which they wash cars and pack bags in local stores to raise money for trips to parts of England they would otherwise be unable to visit.

The neighborhood, she said, was "not a wealthy place ? there's a lot of people who don't have much."

But Brearley, 46, said that the team's soccer success has "nobody thinking about stuff like that."?She spent 11-and-a-half hours in line to buy a ticket for the final.?

"It's something like 102 years since anything good like this [the 1911 cup win] happened in Bradford," she said. "Nobody thinks Bradford City is going to lose. We're all really positive. It will be a brilliant day."

Not far from Thorpe Edge is the small Co-operative supermarket where hometown hero Hanson stacked shelves for two years before joining the club in 2009.?

"He used to work at the Co-op" has become a chant among supporters.

Ian Johnston / NBC News

Staff at the Co-op supermarket in Idle Village, Bradford -- Elisa Taylor, 24, her mother Ruth Taylor, and Jeanette McDonald -- will be cheering for former colleague James Hanson in Sunday's Capital One Cup final.

Former colleague Ruth Taylor said Hanson was "really lovely, a really gentle, nice lad."

"He always talked about his football," she recalled. "He loved it. We knew he were going to make it."

She insisted the 25-year-old striker would not choke after stepping into the national spotlight. "He takes it all in his stride, he's quite a laidback chap is James."

"I think he'll be really excited. It's like a big dream come true for him. He deserves it so much." she added. "They haven't had a lot to celebrate recently have Bradford. This would be a great morale booster, especially for this area. It would just go crazy."

Hannah Postles, 27, a journalist with Bradford's?Telegraph & Argus newspaper, has been covering the growing excitement in the city in articles and?a live blog.

'Big, burly men crying'
She recounted going to a bar to report on people watching the second of two semi-final games against top-tier Aston Villa on television.

"In the last four minutes, I swear I didn't breathe. It was so close, and you could see Villa firing on all cylinders," Postles said. After the final whistle, the emotion came. "Big, burly Bradford men crying is not something you see very often."

"It's hard not to find yourself getting swept up in it," she said. "It's been a massive inspiration to everyone in Bradford."

Her blog for the paper has been filled with reports of fans traveling from all over the world to attend Sunday's game.?

One, Mike Hitch, a ship's captain originally from Bradford, said he was planning to spend more than 21 hours in the air to fly halfway around the world from Tahiti to watch the game.?

"This will never happen again in my lifetime," the 46-year-old said Thursday by phone from the Pacific island. "If anything goes wrong, then I'll be looking for a sports bar in an airport."

Jon Super / AP, file

Bradford City supporters take to the stands before their fourth-tier team's win against English giants Arsenal on Dec. 11.

Bradford City beat six teams to get to the final, reaching the quarter-finals by triumphing over Premier League team Wigan on penalties after a 0-0 draw. They then drew 1-1 against Arsenal but were victorious in the penalty shootout.

The semi-final against Aston Villa consisted of two games, ending in a 4-3 aggregate victory for Bradford.

Bradford City FC manager Phil Parkinson said that although his players earned "peanuts" compared to counterparts on the Premier League teams they had knocked out of the competition, they possessed "incredible desire."

"Bradford has had some tough times over the last few years -- and not just the football club but the city," he added. "People are now walking around with a spring in their step."

The unlikely success has left many Bradford fans confident of another victory on Sunday.

"We haven?t come this far not to win it,"??said Mark Neale, a member of fundraising group?Friends of Bradford City?who has supported the team for 50 years.?

But he said that "the mere fact they've got to Wembley means this team of players will always be legends in Bradford."

"There's not a lot of pride in Bradford, but the pride in Bradford City (soccer club) is immense and it's rubbing off on people who are not normally interested in football," said Neale, 59.

Alan Carling, of?Bradford City Supporters' Trust, said they had beaten three Premier League clubs "so we?are not phased by a fourth. Bring it on."

"Everyone has been going round Bradford with a big grin on their face.?City's achievements have caught the imagination of the world, and lifted the image of Bradford, which is often subject to condescension?from southern England," he added.

But people with little connection to the area have also been attracted by success of a true underdog.?

Carling said he was interviewed by a Japanese television crew on Wednesday, while Neale received the letter from the Dalai Lama ahead of the game.?

Neale's supporters' group had previously presented the Buddhist spiritual leader with a Bradford jersey while he was in the area, after noticing the similarity between the team's colors and his robes.

In a telephone interview, Tenzin Taklha, one of the Dalai Lama?s secretaries in Dharamsala, India, said while His Holiness was "not really" a soccer fan, Bradford's success was "a fairy tale."?

"Everyone likes these stories and likes to follow that,? he said. "May the best team win ? we?ll keep our fingers crossed."

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Source: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/23/17054312-fairy-tale-soccer-team-assembled-for-10000-slays-english-giants-wins-over-dalai-lama?lite

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Radioactive waste leaking from six tanks at Washington state nuclear site

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Six underground storage tanks at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation along the Columbia River in Washington state were recently found to be leaking radioactive waste, but there is no immediate risk to human health, state and federal officials said on Friday.

The seeping waste adds to decades of soil contamination caused by leaking storage tanks at Hanford in the past and threatens to further taint groundwater below the site but poses no near-term danger of polluting the Columbia River, officials said.

The newly discovered leaks were revealed by Governor Jay Inslee a week after the U.S. Energy Department disclosed that radioactive waste was found to be escaping from one tank at Hanford.

Inslee said he was informed on Friday by outgoing U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu that a total of six of the aging, single-walled tanks were leaking radioactive waste.

"There is no immediate or near-term health risk associated with these newly discovered leaks, which are more than 5 miles from the Columbia River," Inslee said in a statement released by his office. "But nonetheless this is disturbing news for all Washingtonians."

The governor said Chu told him that his department initially missed the other five leaking tanks because staff there did not adequately analyze data.

"This certainly raises serious questions about the integrity of all 149 single-shell tanks with radioactive liquid and sludge at Hanford," he said.

The Energy Department issued a brief statement acknowledging that six waste tanks were found to be leaking and adding that there was "no immediate public health risk."

Four of the tanks in question, including the two biggest of the group, are known to have leaked waste in the past as well, Suzanne Dahl, the tank waste treatment manager for the state Department of Ecology, told Reuters.

"It points to the age of the tanks and how there's going to be an increased probability of this happening in the future," she said. "When waste is in the tanks, it's manageable. Once it's out of the tanks and in the soil, it's much harder to manage it, remove it, and down the road you're adding to contamination in the groundwater that already exists."

DECLINING LIQUID LEVELS

The Energy Department said a week ago that declining liquid levels in one tank at Hanford showed it was leaking at a rate of 150 to 300 gallons (568 to 1,136 liters) per year.

It subsequently informed state officials that a second, larger tank was leaking at about the same rate, while the four smaller tanks were leaking at a rate of about 15 gallons per year, Dahl said.

The Department of Energy said last week that monitoring wells have identified no significant changes in concentrations of chemicals or radionuclides in the soil.

The two biggest tanks at issue have capacities of about 750,000 gallons and 500,000 gallons, while the four others are designed to hold up to 55,000 gallons, Dahl said. All were constructed many decades ago.

The 586-square-mile (1,518-square-km) Hanford Nuclear Reservation was established near the town of Hanford in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project, the U.S. government program that developed the first atomic bombs.

Production of plutonium materials at the site continued through the Cold War and ended there in 1989 as work shifted to cleanup of nuclear and chemical waste at Hanford, considered one of the largest and most complex such projects in the country.

Weapons production at the site resulted in more than 43 million cubic yards of radioactive waste and 130 million cubic yards of contaminated soil and debris, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which says that approximately 475 billion gallons of contaminated water have been discharged into the soil.

As part of the cleanup, as much remaining liquid waste as possible was pumped out of the older single-shell tanks into sturdier double-walled tanks in a process completed in 2005, Dahl said.

But sludge, mud-like waste and pockets of liquid remained behind in the older tanks, and it is that material that was found to be seeping in the soil again from six tanks, she said. According to the DOE, one of those tanks currently holds about 447,000 gallons of radioactive sludge.

Under the multibillion-dollar cleanup plan, the waste from the storage tanks will eventually be processed in a special treatment plant that will immobilize the waste in a glass-like material that can be safely disposed of underground in stainless steel canisters.

But Dahl said construction of the waste treatment plant was still years away.

(Reporting by Eric Johnson, Steve Gorman and Dan Whitcomb; Writing by Dan Whitcomb and Steve Gorman; Editing by Paul Thomasch, Cynthia Johnston, Andre Grenon, Lisa Shumaker and Paul Simao)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/six-washington-state-nuclear-tanks-leaking-governors-office-001058166.html

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It's the week to watch waxing gibbous moon

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Starry Night Software

Some sights to look for on the gibbous moon, which dominates the evening sky this week.

By Geoff Gaherty
Space.com

Full moons tend to get most of the stargazing attention, but there's plenty to see now on Earth's nearest neighbor in its "waxing gibbous" phase.

The sun's shifting light will throw different parts of?the moon?into relief over the next few days, yielding interesting views of lunar craters and other landforms.?

Here's a brief guide of what to look for, after a bit of background on moon phases.

A moon phase primer
In its monthly trip around the Earth, the moon?passes four very distinct landmarks or phases: new moon, first quarter, full moon and third (or last quarter), before returning to new moon again. These mark 0 degrees, 90 degrees, 180 degrees and 270 degrees, respectively, as measured from the position of the sun.?[The Moon's Phases and Cycle (Infographic)]

All four phases are exact instants in a particular month. This cycle, they fall on the following days: new moon, Feb. 10; first quarter, Feb. 17, full moon, Feb. 25; and last quarter, March 4.

In between these four instantaneous phases, the moon is said to be in four transitional phases, which each last slightly more than a week. "Waxing crescent" comes after new moon, "waxing gibbous" follows first quarter, "waning gibbous" comes after full moon and waning crescent follows last quarter.

A "waxing" moon is getting larger while a "waning" moon is shrinking. Most people are familiar with a "crescent" shape, but the word "gibbous" is not normally in most people's vocabulary. It is from a Middle English word for "hump-backed" but can also refer to a pregnant belly.

Of course, the moon doesn't really change shape. The moon's phases are caused by the changing angle from which the sun illuminates it as the moon makes its way around the Earth.

What to look for
The current phase of the moon is waxing gibbous. The sun is shining at an angle from behind the Earth. We are past first quarter so more than half the moon is in sunlight, but the sun's light doesn't quite reach the far left of the moon. As always, the most interesting area to observe is close to the "terminator" ? the dividing line between day and night on the moon.

Depending on which night you look at the moon, different areas will be shown in high relief by the light of the rising sun.

On the northern half of the moon, look for the curving arc of the Mare Crisium, along with the smaller arc of the Sinus Iridum. These features were named in the 17th century, before astronomers knew that the moon was a dry and airless world. The names translate from the Latin as the "Sea of Crises" and "Bay of Rainbows," respectively.

Just north of the Mare Crisiumis the distinctive oval crater Plato, whose smooth dark floor is broken only by a few tiny craterlets. This crater is 68 miles (109 kilometers) in diameter, and is a perfect example of a crater whose floor filled withlava shortly after impact. Since then, a handful of impacts have created small pits in the smooth floor, visible only in fairly large telescopes under perfectly steady viewing conditions, an excellent test for the optical quality of a telescope. [Telescopes for Beginners: A Buyer's Guide]

Toward the southwest limb of the moon, look for the large crater Gassendi, named for 17th century French astronomer Pierre Gassendi. Sixty miles (101 km) in diameter, Gassendi's floor is full of many interesting features: a slightly off-center mountain, several large craters, a system of rilles (shallow grooves) and a strange cluster of conjoined domes (gentle swellings).

Near the lunar south pole is one of the youngest craters on the moon, named for Tycho Brahe, the famous Danish observer of the 16th century, whose observations were used by Johannes Kepler to determine the laws that govern the motion of the planets.

Tycho is 63 miles (102 km) in diameter. Its young age is betrayed by the bright ground it exposed and then sent out in long circumlunar rays in all directions.

Another bright young crater is Aristarchus in the northwest quadrant. Aristarchus lived in the 3rd century BCE and had ideas way ahead of his time, notably that the Earth revolved around the sun rather than the other way around. Although fairly small, at 25 miles (40 km) in diameter, Aristarchus' brightness makes it an easy crater to spot.

The names we use today for craters on the moon were mainly applied by Giovanni Riccioli in the 17th century.

Riccioli used names from ancient Greece, Rome and medieval Europe near the center of the moon and placed the modern (for his day) astronomers around the limb of the moon. Nowadays, modern scientists, all deceased, are placed anywhere on the moon. The only craters named for living people are a handful that bear the monikers of Apollo astronauts.

This article was provided to Space.com by Starry Night Education, the leader in space science curriculum solutions. Follow Starry Night on Twitter @StarryNightEdu.?Follow Space.com on Twitter?@Spacedotcom. We're also on?Facebook? and?Google+.?

Copyright 2013 Space.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://science.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/21/17048140-its-the-week-to-watch-the-waxing-gibbous-moon?lite

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Around the Galaxy: Rumors, Rings and Rad Toys!

Hey TORWarrios and fans of all things Star Wars, it?s time for another issue of Around the Galaxy! For the uninitiated AtG is where we widen our focus from Star Wars: The Old Republic and talk about some of the other awesome stuff that?s out there in the realm of Star Wars. As always there?s a lot to talk about so let?s get right to it.

Rumor Roundup

Wrangling rumors, it?s a dirty job but someone?s got to do it!

As usual there?s no shortage of speculation and rumors coming from unnamed sources this week. We started off with a story from Latino Review. They?re reporting that Harrison Ford has signed on for Episode VII. Latino Review states that this is confirmed however this has been neither confirmed or denied by Disney as is typical when these types of things break. You can catch the Latino Review announcement in the video here, it?s at about 7:05.

It?s interesting to note that back in November there were some reports that Harrison Ford was open to the idea of doing more Star Wars films which was a pretty big reversal since it?s been widely reported in the past that Ford had no interest in revisiting his role as Han Solo. No other details were provided so it?s tough to say whether he?d be returning for a cameo or a meatier role. Personally I?d like to see him come back as a mentor for a new generation of heroes which brings us to the next interesting tidbit that broke as I was putting the finishing touches on this article.

ET Online is reporting that Mark Hamill has confirmed that he and several of the original cast members are currently in talks with Disney/Lucasfilm to reprise their roles in the new trilogy!

Via ET Online:

They?re talking to us.?George Lucas?wanted to know whether we?d be interested. He did say that if we didn?t want to do it, they wouldn?t cast another actor in our parts, they would write us out?I can tell you right away that we haven?t signed any contracts. We?re in the stage where they want us to go in and meet with?Michael Arndt, who is the writer, and?Kathleen Kennedy, who is going to run Lucasfilm. Both have had meetings set that were postponed on their end, not mine. They?re more busy than I am.

Another thing I?d want to make sure of is are we going to have the whole gang back? Is?Carrie Fisher?and?Harrison Ford?and?Billy Dee Williams?and?Anthony Daniels, everybody that?s around from the original [returning]? I want to make sure that everybody?s on board here, rather than just one.?

Mark Hamill then had some remarks about what the new trilogy might be about:

?I?m assuming, because I haven?t talked to the writers, that these movies would be about our offspring?Like my character would be sort of in the Obi-Wan range [as] an influential character.?

There?s a bit of speculation by Hamill there but the takeaway here seems to be that yes, they are all talking about revisiting their roles in the new trilogy but aren?t really sure if that?s going to happen and what exactly those roles are going to entail. As I?ve stated previously I?d really like the story to advance to the next generation of characters and have our old friends from the original trilogy there along for the ride. I think everybody wins that way and it?s a fan friendly way to move the story forward. You can catch the entire ET Online article with some more comments from Hamill here.

Ring Around the?Death Star?

Now you too can show off your devotion in Star Wars style!

Sometimes you see some pretty cool and unique stuff related to Star Wars that isn?t action figures or video games. This is definitely one of those times. Check out the Star Wars themed jewelry over at Swank Metalsmithing on Etsy. They?ve got a unique selection of really great looking rings in sterling silver and other metals for the devoted Star Wars fan. Shown in the photo above is the his and hers ring set themed with the classic ?I love you?, ?I know? scene between Han and Leia.

The Swank Metalsmithing site states that these items are made to order and can be customized as well. Note that the lead time for these is about six weeks. You can find all of the details on that ring set and some other nifty Star Wars themed jewelry here.

Some Things Were Just Made To Go Together

Peanut butter and chocolate. Beer and pretzels. LEGO and Star Wars. These are all things that seem like they were made for each other. This week I was linked to a video from LEGO about the new Red Five X-Wing Starfighter. This is a completely revamped set that?s billed as the most highly detailed LEGO X-Wing ever produced. Coming in at 1558 pieces, it features operating wings, a detailed cockpit and a special stand. Just what every discerning Star Wars and LEGO fan wants! This set will be available for sale directly from LEGO beginning in May 2013.

Around the Galaxy is a regular feature where we make a slight detour from?Star Wars: The Old Republic?and offer up news and opinion about all things?Star Wars. In addition to news about development of official?Star Wars?projects we curate related news and items of interest from the community. I?m always looking for interesting things to share with the community so if you see something that you?d like me to share here don?t hesitate to contact me via TORWars or on Twitter @HolyCrapItsLate.

As always we love hearing from you! Please leave constructive comments and feedback below.

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Tribes: Ascend Review | Video Game Blog, Video Games Reviews ...

(The game was reviewed using Version 1.0.1185.0)

Tribes: Ascend is the latest successor to the long-running Tribes series, whose relative obscurity means that most people (including myself) will not be even remotely familiar with it. Nonetheless, this free-to-play game, and the radical innovations which differentiate it from its competition in the conventional multiplayer shooter market, will absolutely make you sit up and take notice of what it?s doing and the fascinating precedent its daring deviation may set.

The most inventive aspect of Tribe: Ascend?s gameplay is, without question, its uniquely novel methodology of player movement -? amazingly, an idea sourced from the then much lauded first entry in the game?s series, 1998?s Starsiege: Tribes ? and this mechanic is very appropriately known as ?skiing?. The technique behind the act of in-game ?skiing? is actually remarkably simple: it utilizes the player?s complementary abilities to become frictionless and to jetpack, and so involves gliding down declines in the landscape and then hovering up inclines in order to quickly build and conserve considerable momentum. When ?skiing? the impression of controlled flight is conveyed so admirably well, from the (thankfully unobtrusive) peripheral motion blur to the engrossing sound effects of whooshing air passing your ears; this element of gameplay is clearly built around portraying movement in a very viscerally exhilarating way, and this effect persists throughout as extremely engaging.

Comprehending this concept is key to understanding the game.

I began by undergoing the brief tutorial on ?skiing?, which is so deceptively short and easy that it makes the mechanic seem reassuringly simple and intuitive. Beforehand, the idea behind ?skiing? seemed to portend the daunting necessities of exactness in your movements and a constant understanding of your momentum relative to the topography of the land you?re traversing. After blazing through the tutorial though, it seemed that the mechanic was perhaps a tad overly simplistic, and, though wowed by its novelty, I even arrogantly worried that this might render its implementation into the game?s combat rather disappointing. So, confidently complacent as to the level of complexity involved in using this newly acquired skill to full effect, I dove right into playing actual multiplayer games, and was confronted by a rude awakening! I was repeatedly confounded over and over and over again by the crucial additional layer of difficulty inherent in trying to simultaneously ?ski? and shoot (with any semblance of accuracy anyway). During this lengthy and tumultuous learning period ? or rather trial by fire ? I was getting completely dominated by the other experienced players, racking up death after death. Still, I, increasingly frustrated and wanting to give up, soldiered on, largely fruitlessly trying to grapple with the steep learning curve. This sort of disheartening disparity in skill is of course a very frustrating way to be introduced to a multiplayer game. That being said, I knew it wasn?t the game?s fault that I was entering its online arena almost a year into its lifespan and so being greeted by its resident veterans whose discouragingly intimidating mastery of the game?s key mechanic meant my constant and merciless annihilation as I got to grips with things.

The way that combat and ?skiing? combine together is what threw me for a loop most. ?Skiing? about whilst tracking and shooting enemy players who are sliding all around you requires considerable mental coordination from the player. In fact, it felt like I needed to to rewire my brain in order to fundamentally change the way I think and go about playing a competitive FPS. Furthermore, an additional dimension of strategic complexity exists when using explosive projectiles because it then becomes necessary to predict enemy movements in order to effectively time and position the splash damage of your shots. All in all, the system of ?skiing? is tantalizingly easy to learn the basics of but it has such considerable depth when used during combat that it presents a truly formidable challenge to truly master.

After a long period of practice you will finally feel thoroughly comfortable and perhaps even somewhat confident with your skill in using the ?skiing? mechanic, and you?ll be able to exercise both exact precision and deft nimbleness in your prancing and hopping about. When you reach this point of journeymanship, the game begins to shine, and the capacity for fun to be had during gameplay becomes remarkably copious. When you?re able to effortlessly pull off a sensational drive-by glide-by on someone ? whipping past them at breakneck speed whilst peppering them with a swarm of projectiles and then zooming away just as fast until you?re quickly out of range of their retaliation ? it?s hard to describe just how much satisfaction is to be gleaned from the sense of control and power inherent in such a feat. Similarly, the ?skiing? mechanic alters the player?s capabilities in the objective orientated gametypes in a number of a unique and interesting ways, and the most obvious being the way which flags are uniformly captured in this game?s CTF matches: players soar towards the flag and angle their flight as to pass through the flagstand, thus snatching the flag, and then continue onwards ? all in one dramatic unbroken motion of flight.

Peculiarly, combat gameplay quickly reveals itself to often resolve around the fact that if you?re too awkwardly slow in your acrobatics or if you remain on the ground too long, you will be punitively taught that you ought to avoid such things by having an opponent facilitate you revisiting the respawn screen rather abruptly. It definitely quickly becomes obvious that you are immensely vulnerable, and almost certainly going to be dispatched within moments, if you, God forbid, linger on the ground for too long; so, despite what countless FPS games may have instilled into you, instinctively planting your feet or strafing in order to take better aim at passing players is generally a terrible tactic. You absolutely need to be skyward bound as much as feasibly possible. However, even ?skiing? around at rapid speed doesn?t fully preclude any moments of particular vulnerability: you glide majestically above the ground, but at some point your jetpack?s limited power and the game?s gravity will dictate that you must return to the surface, if only momentarily, and it is in that moment when you?re actually back on the ground that you?re vulnerable to the splash damage devastation of the many explosive weapons. So you soon learn that you need to time and position your frequent returns to solid ground with great care, lest you be greeted by an eruption of explosions which unceremoniously fling your limp ragdoll skyhigh.

Something which never grew old was witnessing whole teams (which can be up to sixteen players each) of opposing players leaping and gliding around in unspoken concord and expert concert, all simultaneously confronting one another in mid-air exchanges; these frantic large-scale firefights are genuinely marvelous spectacles and remain astounding to behold throughout. Regardless of the composition of the havoc and carnage though, there is likely to be glorious aerial pandemonium exhibited throughout the map, as small-scale battles chaotically pit a few players against one another or individual encounters play out in a secluded corner ? these graceful dances often bespeak gruellingly intense duels between equally determined competitors. Basically, with a full player count the map?s landscape is nonetheless always littered with pockets of explosions and gunfire which convey a compelling sense that a war, sometimes entirely removed from your own exploits, is taking place throughout it, and this makes you feel like you?re taking part in something bigger than yourself rather than merely operating alone amongst others who are doing the same ? of course, this is not quite on the same grand scale as something like Planetside 2, but the psychological effect persists even so.

The various classes are distinguished well, and offer an interesting spectrum of ways to play the game. However, the variety in weapons often seems rather superficial as you?re generally either getting shot at by bullets or differingly explosive projectiles regardless of which gun they originate from.

Overall, I really didn?t care all that much for the element of vehicle play (which can only be found in certain gametypes and maps). The three types of vehicles, comprised of variations on a motorbike, a tank and a light aircraft, are all balanced remarkably well whilst stilling possessing potent offensive capabilities. Unfortunately, controlling these vehicles is often a clumsy and unwieldy experience. On the other hand, like any game where you and your opponents primarily play as foot soldiers and you?re occasionally able to commandeer a vehicle which greatly enhances your mobility and destructive capabilities, utilizing the vehicles to great effect provides a sizable measure of satisfying enjoyment. Despite this, I just couldn?t shake the feeling that they seemed poorly implemented, and, ultimately, like largely unnecessary additions to the overarching structure of the gameplay.

In terms of the six available game modes, I have to say that the classic, unsophisticated allure of Team Deathmatch makes it firmly my favorite, and I believe that Tribe: Ascend?s winning charm shines through best in this gametype?s fast-paced large team combat, shirking of vehicle play, and its entirely pleasant addition of a point-boosting flag carrier mechanic which often directs the action into a frenzied chase of its current owner or a heated standoff over regaining possession of it. CTF undoubtedly offers speedy flag capturing fun too though, and the defensive base upgrading is a great supplemental strategic element. The control points esque Capture and Hold game mode works well because it preserves the trademark fast-paced action by imbuing the capturing of territories with the same instantaneous blink-and-you?ll-miss-it speediness as CTF.?Besides these commonplace staples, it?s hard to see any of the other gametypes warranting more than a limited allure as occasional distractions. I really did not like the focus on smaller maps, quicker gamers and lessened mobility of the Arena game mode as it more clearly reveals the relative mediocrity of the game?s shooting mechanics when they become the biggest factor in play. The Blitz CTF mode is really only a fairly negligible variant of its base namesake. The Rabbit game mode was literally impossible to play as very few servers even host it and they were all empty every time I checked; this absolute unpopularity is a shame because it sounds like a potentially fun gametype, combining simplified CTF gameplay with an element of racing.

Tribe: Ascend?s graphics can sometimes be really quite nice, but also blatantly possesses that clearly very scalable look which so many free-to-play games exhibit. Some of the maps are very visually impressive whereas others are sparse and uninspired. A few of the maps have remarkably pretty skyboxes or other graphical quirks which make them especially visually appealing. When I was first playing the game, most of the maps initially struck me as essentially largely homogeneous in their actual design philosophy (e.g. varyingly bumpy terrain coupled with buildings or architectural elements to mix things up a bit) but I soon came to realize that they generally have unique aspects in their design which help to distinguish them well during gameplay. They landscapes you?ll battle it out in also largely succeed in providing a grandiose sense of scale. However, the bigger maps can sometimes feel a tad too large if vehicles aren?t in play at the time, as you sometimes have to ?ski? for around thirty seconds or so just in order to engage the enemies on their side of the map. I played the game on a middling gaming PC with decent specs, and I could easily crank up the graphical options to their absolute maximum, and even so the game ran enormously smoothly and never displayed any framerate stuttering ? of course, nobody would expect this game to be overly or even especially graphically intensive.

You almost forget this game?s intrinsic free-to-play nature until you?re repeatedly given cause to consider its pretty extensive and more than a little egregious freemium duality. In terms of value, I couldn?t help but scan the game?s store of virtual wares and its offers to hasten certain in-game processes and instinctively scoff at how exorbitantly expensive most things end up being in real world currency. I think that the value proposition to be found in terms of the paid content is going to vary wildly depending on your tolerance for this necessary evil of free-to-play games and your particular inclination towards paying for such items. I can definitely understand why these high prices and this extensively integrated element of paid content needs to exist, but that doesn?t make it any less bitter of a pill to choke down. If you don?t want to pony up at all, like I didn?t, it can certainly feel like you?re the poor kid with his nose up against the glass as the other kids play with their fancy toys. The problem of course is that these toys can be, and often are, unashamedly utilizable for a decisive advantage in gameplay. Getting killed by someone with little actual demonstrative skill but whose effectiveness in combat has been greatened purely because they have purchased extensive upgrades for their character is very nearly unspeakable infuriating. In point of fact, being beaten in a multiplayer game for ANY other reason than having been outplayed by the opposing team is always going to be very frustrating and disheartening, but when the unfair advantage at stake here is so decidedly, unmistakably artificial and the exact nature of that advantage is so often quickly identifiable, this discouraging effect is amplified tremendously. The game is certainly not even close to pay-to-win, which would represent an enormously reprehensible cardinal sin, but it is still pay-to-be-better, which is irritating nonetheless.

To this end, leveling up and earning XP in order to unlock things is excessively, excruciatingly slow. The amount of financially unaided playtime required to level up even enough to purchase new weapons is pretty absurd. Cynically, it seems pretty blatant that the developers have severely hobbled player upgrade progression in order to encourage the use of the various paid resources frequently. I?m sure that most, if not all, of the items which can be bought can also be earned via bewilderingly large investments of time from the player, but this feels like a incredibly miserly ploy to coerce players into paying for them. Of course, on the flip side, if you really fall in love with this game, and still remain steadfastly opposed to spending a single penny, the horribly slow trickle of unlocks could keep you busy for a long time indeed.

The way that Tribes: Ascend revolutionizes the idea of player mobility and map traversal is exceptionally admirable and it makes for a refreshing multiplayer FPS experience. How long this novelty can persist will thoroughly depend on how greatly you appreciate the ?skiing? mechanic. Regardless, what the game does is exactly the sort of bold creative innovation that the multiplayer FPS market desperately needs. In all honesty, beside the ?skiing? mechanic, the game doesn?t really do much else especially new, but it doesn?t really need to as these other aspects, like its underlying shooting mechanic, are mostly solid and gratifying. There is definitely a lot of enormously satisfying fun to be had in this game, it just requires a fair amount of patient practice to unlock, which may be too steep a cost for some gamers with expectations of speedily earned accessibility. Tribe: Ascend sets new standards in terms of FPS multiplayer games, but unfortunately only sustains detractions in terms of some of its free-to-play design choices. If you can appreciate the game solely for its excellent core gameplay, it undoubtedly has a whole lot of enjoyment to offer you.

Pros:

• The ?skiing? gameplay is extremely satisfying when you get the hang of it, has enough depth to encourage the pursuit of its mastery, and changes how you must approach the game?s FPS combat in awesome ways
• Graphically, the game has a few moments of noteworthy prettiness
• Large-scale battles are a sight to behold, and very exciting to take part in
• The core gametypes are very fun, and their refinements are extremely welcome enhancements

Cons:

• The learning curve is undoubtedly steep and the unrelenting punishment doled out as you tackle it could deter even the most intrepid novice
• As a player unwilling to cough up for paid items, you can feel at a definitive disadvantage
• The more redundant and superfluous gametypes are largely unworthy distractions which dilute the gameplay?s charm

Rating:??

7.5/10

Article from Gamersyndrome.com

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Source: http://gamersyndrome.com/2013/video-games/tribes-ascend-review/

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