The World's Most Powerful Women 2013

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In Pictures: The World's Most Powerful Women

Our annual snapshot of the 100 women with the most impact are top politicians and CEOs, activist billionaires and celebrities who matter. In roughly equal measure you'll find next gen entrepreneurs and media mavens, technologists and leaders in philanthropy ? all ranked by dollars, media momentum and impact (see full methodology here).

We've selected women that go beyond the traditional taxonomy of the power elite (political and economic might). These change-agents are actually shifting our very idea of clout and authority and, in the process, transforming the world in fresh and exhilarating ways.

This year the list features nine heads of state who run nations with a combined GDP of $11.8 trillion -- including the No. 1 Power Woman, German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The 24 corporate CEOs control $893 billion in revenues and 16 of the women here founded their own companies, including two of the three new billionaires to the list, Tory Burch and Spanx's Sara Blakely. Speaking of, this year's class has 14 billionaires valued at more than $82 billion.

Here, a quick peek at Power Women 2013:

Newcomers: Among the 15 newcomers on this year?s list are South Korean President Park Guen-hye (No. 11); Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson (No. 34); CEO Tory Burch (No. 69); ?Spanx founder Sara Blakely (No. 90) and Baidu CFO Jennifer Li (No. 98).

Old friends: At this 10th edition, attention must be paid to the 15 who appeared on the inaugural list in 2004 and are still here today:? Oprah Winfrey (No. 13), of course. Ditto for Hillary Clinton (No. 5). But there's also? Christine Lagarde (No. 7),? Sonia Gandhi (No. 9), Indra Nooyi (No. 10), Helen Clark (No. 21), Nancy Pelosi (No. 22), Anne Sweeney (No. 24), Amy Pascal (No. 36), Queen Elizabeth II (No. 40), Abigail Johnson (No. 60),? Ho Ching (No. 64), Diane Sawyer (No. 73), J.K. Rowling (No. 93) and Greta Van Susteren (No. 97).

She's No. 1: Chancellor Merkel has made the list eight times out of the past ten years -- seven times as No. 1.

She's the first: Forty percent? of the women on the list are "female firsts," such as African head of state (Liberia's Ellen Johnson Sirleaf), billionaire to sign The Giving Pledge (Sara Blakeley), and CEO at IBM (Ginni Rometty). Even more impressive are a the women who are multiple "firsts," such as Judith Rodin, first president of an Ivy League and of the Rockefeller Foundation. And Hillary Clinton, of course.

Hillary Stays On: Clinton's CV is chock full of firsts: The only first lady to become a U.S. senator turned viable presidential candidate turned secretary of state. Now a private citizen, she continues to be one of the most watched and listened-to women on the planet. All bets on that she will be the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate and the free world's presumptive next leader. She's done little to quiet the chatter, including hitting the speaking circuit last month at an estimated $200,000 fee per event and inking a reported $14 million book deal.

Where are the women in tech? Right here. Tech takes a second turn as a category on the Power Women list. Five tech women made the top 25 this year, including Facebook?s Sheryl Sandberg (No. 6), Rometty (No. 12) and HP's Meg Whitman (No. 15). There are 16 tech women in total, including also Susan Wojcicki, SVP of ads at Google (No. 30) and Sun Yafang, chair of Huawei Technologies (No. 77).

The rising tide of female entrepreneurs: A remarkable number of women are founders or owners of their own enterprises, not a few of whose eponymous companies are synonymous with high fashion. Consider Miuccia Prada (No. 58), Zara founder Rosalia Mera (No. 66), Tory Burch (No. 69) and Diane von Furstenberg (No. 74). Other self-made self-starters include Oprah Winfrey (No. 13),? Arianna Huffington (No. 56), Chinese real estate tycoon Zhang Xin (No. 50), and Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, India?s first biotech entrepreneur (No. 85).

The New Celebrity Role Models: Sure, they?re famous but they deserve special attention for their outside work, be it ambassadors for meaningful causes or as business owners. Oprah founded both Harpo Productions and The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa. Joining the efforts of the U.N. are Angelina Jolie (No. 37), Shakira (No. 52), and Gisele Bundchen (No. 95). Beyonce (No. 17) rules the House of Dereon and Sofia Vergara (No. 38) co-owns LatinWE.

Businesswomen are booming in Asia: The whole region makes a strong showing, from China and Singapore to New Zealand and Thailand. Entrepreneurship is on the rise: see Zhang Xin (No. 50) , Sun Yafang (No. 77) and Solina Chau (No. 80). And Asian region women are showing their political might, from newcomer Park Geun-hye, the South Korean president (No. 11) and Burmese dissident and parliamentarian Aung San Suu Kyi (No. 29) to Australian PM Julia Gillard (No. 28) and Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra (No. 31).

Healing, feeding and educating the world: If they?re not topping corporations or state, the women on our list are heads of major nonprofits and NGOs and they wield as large budgets and impact millions, from Melinda Gates (No. 3) and IMF chief Christine Lagarde (No. 7) to Director-General of World Health Organization Margaret Chan (No. 33), World Food Programme Executive Director Ertharin Cousin (No. 49) and Harvard University?s Drew Gilpin Faust (No. 43).

See Full Coverage of the World?s 100 Most Powerful Women

The World?s Most Powerful WomenThe 100 top politicians and CEOs, activist billionaires and celebrities, next gen entrepreneurs and philanthropists who matter most.Power Circuits The colleges and companies behind the world?s power women.In Pictures: The 100 Most Powerful Women

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/worlds-most-powerful-women-2013-075207724.html

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Alteryx Raises $12M For Data Analytics Platform That Shapes Data Into Apps

Alteryx has raised $12 million for its business intelligence service designed for data analysts to build tools out of their own internal data and that from third parties. The investment comes from SAP Ventures and Toba Capital, a new firm founded by former Quest Founder and CEO Vinny Smith.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/N601gY7vBFE/

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Resistance to last-line antibiotic makes bacteria resistant to immune system

May 21, 2013 ? Bacteria resistant to the antibiotic colistin are also commonly resistant to antimicrobial substances made by the human body, according to a study in mBio?, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology. Cross-resistance to colistin and host antimicrobials LL-37 and lysozyme, which help defend the body against bacterial attack, could mean that patients with life-threatening multi-drug resistant infections are also saddled with a crippled immune response. Colistin is a last-line drug for treating several kinds of drug-resistant infections, but colistin resistance and the drug's newfound impacts on bacterial resistance to immune attack underscore the need for newer, better antibiotics.

Corresponding author David Weiss of Emory University says the results show that colistin therapy can fail patients in two ways. "The way that the bacteria become resistant [to colistin] allows them to also become resistant to the antimicrobials made by our immune system. That is definitely not what doctors want to do when they're treating patients with this last line antibiotic," says Weiss.

Although it was developed fifty years ago, colistin remains in use today not so much because it's particularly safe or effective, but because the choices for treating multi-drug resistant Acinetobacter baumannii and other resistant infections are few and dwindling. Colistin is used when all or almost all other drugs have failed, often representing a patient's last hope for survival.

Weiss says he and his colleagues noted that colistin works by disrupting the inner and outer membranes that hold Gram-negative bacterial cells together, much the same way two antimicrobials of the human immune system, LL-37 and lysozyme, do. LL-37 is a protein found at sites of inflammation, whereas lysozyme is found in numerous different immune cells and within secretions like tears, breast milk, and mucus, and both are important defenses against invading bacteria. Weiss and his collaborators from Emory, the CDC, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, and Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta set out to find whether resistance to colistin could engender resistance to attack by LL-37 or lysozyme.

Looking at A. baumannii isolates from patients around the country, they noted that all the colistin-resistant strains harbored mutations in pmrB, a regulatory gene that leads to the modification of polysaccharides on the outside of the cell in response to antibiotic exposure. Tests showed a tight correlation between the ability of individual isolates to resist high concentrations of colistin and the ability to resist attacks by LL-37 or lysozyme.

This was very convincing, write the authors, that mutations in the pmrB gene were responsible for cross-resistance to LL-37 and lysozyme, but to get closer to a causative link between treatment and cross-resistance, they studied two pairs of A. baumannii isolates taken from two different patients before and after they were treated for three or six weeks with colistin. The results helped confirm the cross-resistance link: neither strain taken before treatment was resistant to colistin, LL-37, or lysozyme, but the strains taken after treatment showed significant resistance to colistin and lysozyme. (One post-colistin isolate was no more or less resistant to LL-37 than its paired pre-colistin isolate.) Like the resistant strains tested earlier, both post-colistin isolates harbored crucial mutations in the pmrB gene that apparently bestow the ability to resist treatment.

The authors point out that the apparent link between resistance to colistin and cross-resistance to antimicrobial agents of the immune system could well extend to other pathogens that are treated with colistin, including Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Klebsiella pneumoniae. Weiss says he plans to follow up with studies to determine whether this bears out.

For Weiss, the problems with colistin are symptomatic of a much larger trio of problems: increasing levels of drug resistance, cuts in federal funding for antibiotic research, and lack of incentives for pharmaceutical companies to invest in antibiotic R&D. "We don't have enough antibiotics, and it's really important for the research community and the public to support increases in funding for research to develop new antibiotics," says Weiss.

"We got complacent for a while and the bugs are becoming resistant. This is something we can reverse -- or make a lot better -- if we have the resources."

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/GvkR-4TrerQ/130521011230.htm

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Join the Engadget HD Podcast live on Ustream at 8:30PM ET

It's Monday, and you know what that means; another Engadget HD Podcast. We hope you will join us live when the Engadget HD podcast starts recording at 8:30PM. If you'll be joining us, be sure to go ahead and get ready by reviewing the list of topics after the break, then you'll be ready to participate in the live chat.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/lRcpY6ovC0k/

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Bill Hader steals the show in starry 'SNL' sendoff

TV

Aaron Couch The Hollywood Reporter

16 hours ago

Ben Affleck joined the five-timers club as host, but departing castmember Bill Hader stole the show on "Saturday Night Live?s" season 38 finale.

Hader gave a cinematic sendoff to Stefon, that perennially irritating scenester kid. During Weekend Update, he faced his usual dressing down from Seth Meyers. Stefon had finally had enough, and announced he?d met someone else and was leaving Meyers. Meyers -- who was joined at the Update desk by former co-anchor Amy Poehler -- ran after Stefon and found him in a church. What came next was a fantastic (and surprisingly emotional) Graduate-themed segment featuring surprise guest Anderson Cooper as Stefon?s fiancee.

VIDEO: "Saturday Night Live": Watch Bill Hader's finest sketches

In the show?s final sketch, Hader, Fred Armisen, Jason Sudeikis and Taran Killam played a British rock band saying goodbyes on the last night of a tour.

?It?s the last night here,? Armisen said.

?But we?re going to keep playing together,? Hader said.

The band began playing a song, and were eventually joined on stage by Armisen?s Portlandia costar Carrie Brownstein, Sonic Youth?s Kim Gordon, the Sex Pistols? Steve Jones, singer-songwriter Aimee Mann, and Dinosaur Jr.?s J Mascis.

Earlier in the week, a report emerged that Armisen and Sudeikis would be leaving the show, and while NBC has not commented on the report, it's worth nothing that Armisen played the leader of the band. The focus was actually more on Armisen than Hader. Based solely on the sketch, signs point to an Armisen exit in addition to Hader's.

But lest we forget the host, it's time to circle back to Affleck. During his opening monologue, the actor-director addressed his odd "Argo" Oscars speech, in which he thanked wife Jennifer Garner but went on to talk about how marriage takes a lot of work. On "SNL," Affleck brought Garner out to discuss what he really meant. What followed was a marital game of ping-pong, with Garner saying she would have described their marriage as ?a gift,? not work, and Affleck fumbling for a better explanation.

PHOTOS: From live TV to the big screen: 12 "SNL" sketches made into movies

Affleck finally found his footing:

"I want to tell you how I wish I had ended that speech: I couldn?t do any of the things I do without you, without your support. You?re my angel, my wife, my world.?

The moment was shattered when Garner pointed out that he was reading the speech off of a cue card.

"SNL" moved on to imagine what would happen if Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Armisen) were to make a movie about Affleck directing "Argo." The result was spectacular. "Bengo F--- Yourself" saw Ahmadinejad wearing a Red Sox cap, doing a Boston accent and pitching his idea for a totally false CIA story. Affleck himself had a role in the movie as a sound technician.

?Why would I appear in this movie? Well, to be honest I?ve long been looking to appear in a movie worse than 'Gigli,'? Affleck said.

VIDEO: "SNL" recap: Zach Galifianakis plays "Game of Game of Thrones"

Affleck sported a mustache and a paunch to play a member of a family of emotionally repressed police officers attempting to toast the engagement of a young female relative. In a less-than-successful sketch, he portrayed a counselor at a camp designed to turn gay kids straight.

"SNL" was on a gay sketch kick, apparently, with a prerecorded segment advertising anti-anxiety medication for people feeling worried about attending perfect gay weddings over the summer. One man (Hader) feared that he was an inadequate dancer at gay weddings, where he said guests knew choreographed Beyonce dances. Another (Moynihan) never had clothes that were good enough, and a third noted that President Barack Obama had called to congratulate his gay friends at their wedding, while at his wedding, his grandmother had called Obama the N-word. Not quite as classy of an event.

Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/bill-hader-steals-show-star-packed-saturday-night-live-sendoff-1C9984549

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Bonk the Day Away With a Floating, 4-in-1 Fisherman's Best Friend

For the fisherman with space constraints, cramming every little piece of gear you'll need into one little tackle box can be just as frustrating as it is disorganized. Fortunately?at least for the smaller bits?the Kombo Fish Tool will keep you from fumbling around by wrapping four serious fishing necessities into one handy package.

Read more...

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/1TkjV2M526I/bonk-the-day-away-with-a-floating-4-in-1-fishermans-b-508899713

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Dog Awakens to Adele, Sings Along

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You Can Start Over At Any Age - The Self Improvement Blog

By Tony Fahkry ?

Are you convinced that you can start over at any age, despite your current circumstances? Have you ever wished you could go back to a certain age and start all over? Have you thought, ?Wow, I wish I could go back to 18 and know what I know now. I would do things so different!? I?m sure many of us have and while we can?t physically go back to 18 and start over, you can start over in various ways not matter what your age is.

I?ve heard of businessmen who had a highly successful business, lost it, and then started over and rebuilt another successful business. How? They knew what principles to use and weren?t afraid to start over. They didn?t necessarily perceive their loss to be a failure. They moved forward despite fear, ridicule, anger, regret, etc.

Clean your slate

No matter where you are in life, you can adopt the attitude that you can clean your slate and start over if you?re not happy in an area. Are you not happy with your current career? Why can?t you start over and choose a career that you?d love? The answer is that you can. People go through career changes all the time and the reason they?re successful is because they set their goal, create a plan to achieve that goal, and actually take action.

Many people get caught up in the uncertainty and what ifs and never get farther than the dream of something new. You?re last relationship hit you hard? You wish you could just start over without any bitterness, hurt, or fear? You can. You can make a decision to give yourself a brand new start today.

When you were 18 you probably didn?t have a bunch of goals and plans. You most likely didn?t have a bunch of wisdom either because that tends to come as we age. No matter what you?ve been through, no matter how young or old you are, you can do some things different and start over.

Make a plan

I encourage you to take some time to do a life reality check. Answer some of these questions:

Am I really happy in life?

Do I like my career?

Am I happy in my relationship?

What would I do differently if I could really start over?

Am I really living the life I want?

Am I willing to do what it takes to create a life I love?

Will I continue to let the past, obstacles, fear, shame, etc. to hold me back?

Why can?t I dream new dreams?

Answer these questions and then make a plan for your life from this day forward. Create goals and some sort of plan to achieve those goals. For example, if you?re not happy with your current job, you?ve got to make a decision as to what job you would like and then sit down and write out how you can make it happen. Don?t worry if you don?t know all the details right now, how the money for school will come, or how you?ll be able to fit it all into your schedule. Just do the footwork and begin taking little steps. I think you?ll be surprised at how things start coming together. It?s the faith and action toward your goal that propels you and creates momentum to actually make progress.

Let the past go

It?s important that you bid adieu to the past; the mistakes, the losses, the regret, shame, and so on. All you have is the present and the future. Enjoy your present and look forward to a bright future. Make it what you want it to be. If you need help, by all means ask for help. There are professional Life Coaches that would love to come alongside you and give you some guidance and accountability. You?re certainly worth the investment.

You have my permission to start over no matter what your past has been, no matter what your present looks like, and no matter what age you are. Adopt a ?can do? attitude and watch great things unfold right before your eyes. Go ahead and create a life you love.

Tony Fahkry is an expert in integrating the mind-body connection with health & healing and personal growth to achieve greater human potential.

Discover more Articles and Videos to assist you reach your highest health and well-being potential. Visit http://www.tonyfahkry.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tony_Fahkry
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Source: http://theselfimprovementblog.com/self-improvement/self-improvement-tips/you-can-start-over-at-any-age/

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Last-minute fortune seekers buy Powerball tickets

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) ? It's all about the odds.

With the majority of possible combinations of Powerball numbers in play, someone is almost sure to win the game's highest jackpot during Saturday night's drawing, a windfall of hundreds of millions of dollars ? and that's after taxes.

The problem, of course, is those same odds just about guarantee the lucky person won't be you.

The chances of winning the estimated $600 million prize remain astronomically low: 1 in 175.2 million. That's how many different ways you can combine the numbers when you play. But lottery officials estimate about 80 percent of those possible combinations have been purchased, so now's the time to buy.

"This would be the roll to get in on," said Iowa Lottery CEO Terry Rich. "Of course there's no guarantee, and that's the randomness of it, and the fun of it."

That hasn't deterred people across Powerball-playing states ? 43 plus Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands ? from lining up at gas stations and convenience stores Saturday for their chance at striking it filthy rich.

At a mini market in the heart of Los Angeles' Chinatown, employees broke the steady stream of customers into two lines: One for Powerball ticket buyers and one for everybody else. Some people appeared to be looking for a little karma.

"We've had two winners over $10 million here over the years, so people in the neighborhood think this is the lucky store," employee Gordon Chan said as he replenished a stack of lottery tickets on a counter.

Workers at one suburban Columbia, S.C., convenience store were so busy with ticket buyers that they hadn't updated their sign with the current jackpot figure, which was released Friday. Customer Armous Peterson was reluctant to share his system for playing the Powerball. The 56-year-old was well aware of the long odds, but he also knows the mantra of just about every person buying tickets.

"Somebody is going to win," he said. "Lots of people are going to lose, too. But if you buy a ticket, that winner might be you."

The latest jackpot is the world's second largest overall, just behind a $656 million Mega Millions jackpot in March 2012. The $600 million jackpot, which could grow before the numbers are drawn at 10:59 EDT Saturday, currently includes a $376.9 million cash option.

Charles Hill of Dallas says he buys lottery tickets every day. And he knows exactly what he'd do if he wins.

"What would I do with my money? I'd run and hide," he said. "I wouldn't want none of my kinfolks to find me."

Clyde Barrow, a public policy professor at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, specializes in the gaming industry. He said one of the key factors behind the ticket-buying frenzy is the size of the jackpot ? people are interested in the easy investment.

"Even though the odds are very low, the investment is very small," he said. "Two dollars gets you a chance."

That may be why Ed McCuen has a Powerball habit that's as regular as clockwork. The 57-year-old electrical contractor from Savannah, Ga., buys one ticket a week, regardless of the possible loot. It's a habit he didn't alter Saturday.

"You've got one shot in a gazillion or whatever," McCuen said, tucking his ticket in his pocket as he left a local convenience store. "You can't win unless you buy a ticket. But whether you buy one or 10 or 20, it's insignificant."

Seema Sharma doesn't seem to think so. The newsstand employee in Manhattan's Penn Station has purchased $80 worth of tickets for herself. She also was selling tickets all morning at a steady pace, instructing buyers where to stand if they wanted machine-picked tickets or to choose their own numbers.

"I work very hard ? too hard ? and I want to get the money so I can finally relax," she said. "You never know."

Officials will conduct the drawing live Saturday night from Tallahassee, Fla.

___

Associated Press writers Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, S.C., Betsy Blaney in Lubbock, Texas, Russ Bynum in Savannah, Ga., John Rogers in Los Angeles and Verena Dobnick in New York contributed to this report.

___

Follow Barbara Rodriguez at http://twitter.com/bcrodriguez .

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/last-minute-fortune-seekers-buy-powerball-tickets-185535895.html

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YouTube Turns Eight Today

The youtube.com domain name was activated on February 14, 2005, and the first public preview of the site went live eight years ago today. So...birthday!

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Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/kEHTZJIUeOU/youtube-turns-eight-today-508737205

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Cops investigate after NY college student killed

UNIONDALE, N.Y. (AP) ? A funeral has been scheduled for Wednesday for a 21-year-old Hofstra University student who was gunned down during a break-in at her apartment near the school's Long Island campus.

Nassau County police said Andrea Rebello, who was with her twin sister Jessica and several other students inside an off-campus house, was shot and killed Friday during an early morning home invasion that also left the armed intruder dead.

Rebello was a popular junior studying public relations. The shooting, which took place just steps from campus, cast a pall over the university community as it geared up for commencement on Sunday.

"Today is the last day of finals and this should be a happy day on campus; but it's not," said Hofstra freshman Scott Aharoni of Great Neck, as he passed through the area rife with yellow crime-scene tape Friday. "It's really sad."

Police are still investigating.

It wasn't clear who fired the fatal shots or how many rounds were fired, but authorities said police were involved in the shooting, which happened at about 2:30 a.m. A weapon was found inside the house, police said. The gunman has not yet been identified.

Rebello's father, Fernando, was too distraught to discuss the incident in detail outside the family's Tarrytown, N.Y., home Friday.

"It's my daughter, my baby daughter," he told the Journal News through tears. "She was so beautiful. I'm so confused.

"I don't know what to do," he said.

The Journal News reported that Wednesday's funeral Mass for Rebello at Teresa of Avila Church in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., will be in Portuguese.

Hofstra's commencement ceremonies will go on as planned on Sunday despite the tragedy. Hofstra spokeswoman Karla Schuster said she expects school President Stuart Rabinowitz to acknowledge the shooting in his remarks.

The two sisters, another woman and another man were inside the two-story rental house when the gunman, wearing a ski mask, forced his way in, according to Nassau County Inspector Kenneth Lack. The intruder allowed the third unidentified woman to leave, and she called 911. Police provided no other details on the man who was in the house at the time of the break-in, except to say he was not injured.

A law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation told The Associated Press the woman called 911 from near an ATM. The official was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

Victoria Dehel, who lives four houses away, said she heard what sounded like fighting. At first she ignored it, figuring it was from rowdy students coming home from a bar.

Suddenly, "This girl was shrieking," followed by loud bangs just seconds later.

"It didn't sound good at all," Dehel said. "I turned to my boyfriend and I said, 'I think someone just got murdered.' It was awful."

Andrea Rebello and her sister were 2010 graduates of Sleepy Hollow High School, according to principal Carol Conklin-Spillane.

"They were smart happy beautiful young women," Conklin-Spillane said. "I speak about them together because they were very much a matched pair. They were best friends by choice."

Andrea Rebello quoted Benjamin Franklin and Bob Marley in a yearbook photo from the school.

"Believe some of what you hear and only half of what you see" was attributed to the founding father and "Love the life you live, live the life you love" was the citation for the reggae legend.

A police car was parked Friday in front of the Rebello house in Tarrytown, a well-kept ranch home.

Neighbor Jane Phelan said the twins' mother recently told her the sisters had moved out of a dormitory and into an off-campus house.

"It must be very hard on the parents and particularly on the surviving twin," her husband, Jack Phelan said.

___

Associated Press writer Jim Fitzgerald in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cops-investigating-ny-college-student-killed-064122353.html

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Rights groups: Syria holds thousands incommunicado

This citizen journalism image provided by Edlib News Network, ENN, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows anti-Syrian regime protesters holding a placard with a caricature of Syrian President Bashar Assad during a demonstration in Kafr Nabil, in Idlib province, northern Syria, Friday, May 17, 2013. Rights activists have found torture devices and other evidence of abuse in government prisons in the first Syrian city to fall to the rebels, Human Rights Watch said in a report Friday. (AP Photo/Edlib News Network ENN)

This citizen journalism image provided by Edlib News Network, ENN, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows anti-Syrian regime protesters holding a placard with a caricature of Syrian President Bashar Assad during a demonstration in Kafr Nabil, in Idlib province, northern Syria, Friday, May 17, 2013. Rights activists have found torture devices and other evidence of abuse in government prisons in the first Syrian city to fall to the rebels, Human Rights Watch said in a report Friday. (AP Photo/Edlib News Network ENN)

This citizen journalism image provided by Edlib News Network, ENN, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows anti-Syrian regime protesters carrying a banner during a demonstration in Kafr Nabil in Idlib province, northern Syria, Friday, May 17, 2013. Rights activists have found torture devices and other evidence of abuse in government prisons in the first Syrian city to fall to the rebels, Human Rights Watch said in a report Friday. (AP Photo/Edlib News Network ENN)

BEIRUT (AP) ? About 30 security agents showed up just after midnight, breaking down the door to an apartment in the town of Daraya near the Syrian capital of Damascus. They grabbed a 24-year-old university student and drove off.

That was a year ago. The young man, who had been providing aid to Syrians displaced by the country's civil war, was never heard from again. His family was told by former prisoners that he ended up in one of the torture dungeons of President Bashar Assad's regime. They don't know if he's dead or alive.

More than two years into the conflict, such accounts have become chillingly familiar to Syrians. Intelligence agents have been seizing people from homes, offices and checkpoints, and human rights activists say the targets often are peaceful regime opponents, including defense lawyers, doctors and aid workers.

Syrian human rights monitors say the number of those disappeared without a trace is now in the thousands. By comparison, the official figure of those who disappeared in Argentina's "dirty war" of the 1970s and 1980s is about 13,000, though rights activists say the actual figure is more than twice that.

In such "enforced disappearances," governments refuse to acknowledge detentions or provide information about those taken. The point traditionally is to get rid of opponents and scare the rest of the population into submission ? a rationale laid out in Adolf Hitler's "Nacht und Nebel (Night and Fog)" decree of 1941.

In Syria, the goal is to "terrorize the society and dry up the revolution," said Anwar al-Bounni, a veteran defense lawyer and human rights campaigner in Damascus. "The regime focuses on arresting peaceful activists to turn it purely into an armed conflict."

However, numbers remain sketchy.

Four Syrian human rights monitors offered separate estimates ranging from about 10,000 to as many as 120,000 disappeared. The two lower estimates are based on information from families and released prisoners, while the higher figures are based on extrapolation from partial data.

Two international groups, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, said they believe a majority of detainees in Syria are held under conditions amounting to enforced disappearance. Amnesty said it estimates that tens of thousands of Syrians are in detention but does not have exact figures.

The wide range of numbers also reflects the difficulty of collecting information at a time of chaos, on a practice the regime doesn't acknowledge.

A U.N. panel said in a 2013 report that when it asked about allegations of thousands of enforced disappearances in Syria, the Assad government responded that "there were no such cases in Syria" and that all arrests were being carried out legally.

The accounts by rights groups and those given to The Associated Press by relatives and friends of five of the missing tell a different story ? of arbitrary arrests, of detainees languishing incommunicado in underground cells that are so crowded they have to sleep standing up and of torture to the point of death.

A relative of the university student said that when security forces barged into her family's apartment in Daraya on May 19, 2012, they initially asked for a man who didn't live there.

They searched the apartment, and left, apparently to consult with an informer, said the woman who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of further regime reprisals. A different group returned a few minutes later and asked for the family member who was studying for a master's degree. The young man stepped forward and was taken, she said.

Three months later, a released prisoner told her that her relative was being tortured at a large detention center run by air force intelligence at Mezzeh Airport near Damascus.

Six months after the arrest, another released detainee told her he had fed her relative because he had lost use of his hands. A third former prisoner told her that her relative was taken to a prison hospital in very bad condition about five months ago, never returned and most likely had died.

Uncertainty weighs heavily on the families. "It is psychological torture for everyone in the family," she said in a phone interview from exile. "No news. One says he is dead, the other says he is not."

In the town of Banias on Syria's Mediterranean coast, the Sahyouni family has been living in limbo for two years.

In May 2011, three months after the start of what was then still a largely peaceful uprising, brothers Ghassan, Bashar and Mohammed Sahyouni reported to the local office of the military intelligence. They had joined the protests, but hoped to take advantage of an amnesty promised by Assad at the time.

Instead of being briefly questioned and released, they disappeared. Since then, the family has appealed to foreign observers for help and unsuccessfully tried to bribe officials to give them information.

Worry about the brothers grew exponentially when a 39-year-old member of the extended family was snatched from a coffee shop in October and his body was returned nine days later with signs of severe mistreatment, a relative of the brothers said on condition of anonymity, for fear of regime reprisals.

"When we got his body, he had blue legs, a deep wound in the head and cigarette burns on his chest," she said.

In Damascus, al-Bounni, the defense lawyer, said he personally knew of hundreds who had disappeared, some for weeks or months and others whose fate remains unknown.

Security forces seized fellow human rights activist Khalil Maatouk from his law office in Damascus on Oct. 2, al-Bounni said. Maatouk, who suffers from lung disease, has been missing since then.

"We asked through the Red Cross and the attorney general in Damascus, but received no answer about his place of detention and his health," al-Bounni wrote in an emailed response to questions, adding that Syrian law requires a detainee to be released or presented to a judge within 60 days.

The Syrian government has not said how many people it has arrested since March 2011. Those held incommunicado are even more vulnerable to torture than detainees acknowledged by the state, said Lama Fakih, the Syria researcher for Human Rights Watch.

Last year, the group provided details on 27 torture centers run by the four intelligence services across Syria, but said there are likely many more such facilities. Torture methods described by former detainees and regime defectors included beating victims with cables and sticks, pulling out their fingernails, tying them to boards in painful positions or hanging them from the ceiling by their wrists so their toes barely touch the ground.

The Violations Documentation Center in Syria, one of the rights monitors, said nearly 2,400 detainees have been killed in custody since March 2011, including 1,375 by torture.

Even after such deaths, families are often kept in the dark.

Rights activist Mohammed Alsaqqal was taken Oct. 9, but his wife was told only a month ago that he and his brother Iyad had died, al-Bounni said. "They delivered the IDs and personal belongings to the family, but they didn't deliver the bodies and didn't tell them about the place of burial," he said.

Rebel abuses have also increased in frequency and scale in recent months. International rights groups have accused the fighters of capturing and sometimes killing soldiers and suspected regime informers, although abuses by the Assad regime remain far more deadly, systematic and widespread.

The full scale of the disappearances in Syria may never be known. In some countries, the numbers are under dispute decades after conflicts end.

The U.N. Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, which is pressing governments to provide information, still has nearly 43,000 open cases from 84 countries, more than one-third from Iraq.

But that's likely just a slice of the actual number of missing, said panel chairman Olivier de Frouville, a Paris-based international law professor. The working group has stringent criteria for cases it agrees to pursue, while relatives of the missing might be afraid to press for information or don't know the option exists, he said.

From Syria, the group has so far received only 72 cases, but the numbers are rising. "It is probably a very incomplete reflection of the phenomenon in the field," he said.

___

Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue and Zeina Karam in Beirut, Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank and Michael Warren in Buenos Aires, Argentina, contributed reporting.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-05-17-Syria-Without%20A%20Trace/id-1eedd46564884405a81b0a8cd19f9fef

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Deal of the Day: Seidio Innocell 3500mAh Extended Battery for Galaxy S3

The May 17 ShopAndroid.com Deal of the Day is the Seidio Innocell 3500mAh Extended Battery for Samsung Galaxy S3. When you can’t get to an outlet, this extended battery will keep you moving forward. It utilizes a premium Japanese cell to ensure the highest level of safety and performance, offering up to 60% more battery life than your stock battery. Includes replacement door and does not support NFC.

The Seidio Innocell 3500mAh Extended Battery is available for just $50.00, 29% off today only. Grab yours while supplies last!

Deal also available in the Canada store

Never miss a deal. Sign up for Daily Deal alerts

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/46hERtiiEfs/story01.htm

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Earth's Atmosphere Is Slowly Escaping Into Space

Take a deep breath. You're lucky to be able to. Without a handy blanket of atmosphere gases to swaddle us all, we'd be no more than a twinkle in evolution's eye. But that wonderful blanket of gas is slowly escaping, molecule by molecule, and there's not much we can do about it.

As MinuteEarth explains, the process is very slow, and chances are we'll be long gone before its ever complete. But someday, our blue-green wonderland will probably be just another barren rock like its neighbor, Mars. So enjoy this whole life thing while it lasts. Happy Friday! [MinuteEarth]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/earths-atmosphere-is-slowly-escaping-into-space-508283240

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How to Frame an Abortionist (VIDEO)

As Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell went on trial for murder in late April, Live Action, a pro-life group, began releasing hidden-camera videos recorded inside other abortion clinics. The videos were shot by pregnant ?investigators? who lured clinic personnel into sham doctor-patient conversations orchestrated to embarrass doctors and their clinics. Live Action edited the hours of raw video?(available here,?here, and here) into selective highlights, lasting from 30 seconds to several minutes (shown here, here, here, here, and here), which were then heavily promoted and aired on TV news and commentary programs.

Slate went through the raw footage to see what the video editors took out. Above is a highlight reel of what Live Action didn?t want you to see.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=c78c6a3af25fd45add83cab0fb020a16

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Anish Kapoor Berlin Exhibit: Artist Brings Smoke, Mirrors And Gore To Martin-Gropius-Bau (PHOTOS)

BERLIN ? Conveyor belts hum quietly, towering over piles of dark red wax. A giant mauve object that looks like a deflating balloon sprawls and sags its way across three rooms. A dark pigment circle creates the illusion of a black hole opening up in the floor. And there are lots of mirrors: convex, concave, twisting and a painted "blood mirror."

British-based artist Anish Kapoor on Friday presented his world of impressions, illusions and color in Berlin, where he has created a show for the city's Martin-Gropius-Bau museum that combines works of art dating back as far as 1988 with new pieces.

Kapoor has filled a floor of the 19th-century building with some 70 works grand and small. At the center, dominating its glass-topped atrium, stands the new "Symphony for a Beloved Sun," in which four conveyor belts protrude from the floor and walls, dumping red wax on the floor in front of a huge red disk.

Kapoor, a winner of the prestigious Turner Prize and one of the creators of the twisting red Orbit Tower that overlooks London's Olympic Stadium, was wary of giving specific meaning to his work. "I've nothing to say," he said, insisting that he has "never made a work which directly points at an overt content."

"Abstract art does have this ability ... to allow content to arise rather than to say, `this is what it means,'" he told reporters ahead of the show's opening. "It's an interplay between the viewer and the material, the stuff, the object."

Color is a key interest to Kapoor in his work, particularly dark red ? a blood-like shade that the artist said has "a visceral reality."

Throughout the show, which opens to the public Saturday and runs through Nov. 24, Kapoor's conveyor belts will drop new blobs of wax and oil paint ? changing the exhibit as it goes along, museum director Gereon Sievernich said. The cannon at the center of another major work, "Shooting into the Corner," will continue to spatter one of the building's rooms with balls of red wax.

A sprawling, sagging PVC installation titled "The Death of Leviathan" picks up where the artist left off with "Leviathan," a gigantic balloon that filled Paris' Grand Palais in 2011.

Kapoor said that the melancholy, deflating piece "speaks about, inevitably, the death of the state or the decline of the state" being experienced in Europe and beyond.

___

Online: http://tinyurl.com/8zflo3w

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/17/anish-kapoor-exhibit-arti_n_3292170.html

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When green means danger: A stunning new species of palm-pitviper from Honduras

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

A new species of green palm-pitviper of the genus Bothriechis is described from a seriously threatened cloud forest reserve in northern Honduras. Because of similarity in color pattern and scalation, the new species (Bothriechis guifarroi) was previously confused with other Honduran palm pitvipers. Genetic analysis revealed that the closest relatives of the new species are actually found over 600 km to the south, in the mountains of Costa Rica. The study was published in the open access journal Zookeys.

The gorgeous new species was discovered by scientists during two expeditions in 2010 aimed at studying the fauna of Texiguat Wildlife Refuge, one of the most endemism-rich and diverse highland forests in Mesoamerica. This beautiful, but highly toxic, snake represents the 15th endemic species occurring in the region. Texiguat Wildlife Refuge was created in 1987 to protect populations of wildlife such as the famous but elusive jaguar and Central America tapir, as well as howler and white-faced monkeys, sloths, and a variety of endemic amphibians, reptiles, and plants.

To draw attention to the dedication and sacrifice of many grassroots conservationists in Honduras and Central America, the new species was named in honor of Mario Guifarro of Olancho. Guifarro was a former hunter and gold miner who became an outspoken conservationist when he saw the vast rainforests of eastern Honduras being destroyed and converted to cattle ranches. After years of threats and multiple attempts on his life, Guifarro was ambushed and murdered on 15 September 2007 while on a mission to delimit a biosphere reserve for the indigenous Tawahka.

The lead author of the study Dr Josiah Townsend, Department of Biology, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, comments on the importance of the discovery and conservation status of the new species: "The description of Bothriechis guifarroi has important implications for Central American biogeography as well as conservation. We recommend that B. guifarroi be immediately classified as Critically Endangered due to its limited known area of occurrence and the potential for anthropogenic damage to its habitat. We also consider that this species warrants immediate consideration for protection under CITES, given its striking appearance and high potential for exploitation in the pet trade."

###

Townsend JH, Medina-Flores M, Wilson LD, Jadin RC, Austin JD (2013) A relict lineage and new species of green palm-pitviper (Squamata, Viperidae, Bothriechis) from the Chort?s Highlands of Mesoamerica. ZooKeys 298: 77, doi: 10.3897/zookeys.298.4834

Pensoft Publishers: http://www.pensoft.net

Thanks to Pensoft Publishers for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 75 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/128272/When_green_means_danger__A_stunning_new_species_of_palm_pitviper_from_Honduras

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Human disease leptospirosis identified in new species, the banded mongoose, in Africa

Human disease leptospirosis identified in new species, the banded mongoose, in Africa

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

The newest public health threat in Africa, scientists have found, is coming from a previously unknown source: the banded mongoose.

Leptospirosis, the disease is called. And the banded mongoose carries it.

Leptospirosis is the world's most common illness transmitted to humans by animals. It's a two-phase disease that begins with flu-like symptoms. If untreated, it can cause meningitis, liver damage, pulmonary hemorrhage, renal failure and death.

"The problem in Botswana and much of Africa is that leptospirosis may remain unidentified in animal populations but contribute to human disease, possibly misdiagnosed as other diseases such as malaria," said disease ecologist Kathleen Alexander of Virginia Tech.

With a grant from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Coupled Natural and Human Systems Program, Alexander and colleagues found that the banded mongoose in Botswana is infected with Leptospira interrogans, the pathogen that causes leptospirosis.

Coupled Natural and Human Systems is part of NSF's Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability investment and is supported by NSF's Directorates for Biological Sciences; Geosciences; and Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences.

"The transmission of infectious diseases from wildlife to humans represents a serious and growing public health risk due to increasing contact between humans and animals," said Alan Tessier, program director in NSF's Division of Environmental Biology. "This study identified an important new avenue for the spread of leptospirosis."

The results are published today in a paper in the journal Zoonoses and Public Health. The paper was co-authored by Alexander, Sarah Jobbins and Claire Sanderson of Virginia Tech.

The banded mongoose, although wild, lives in close proximity to humans, sharing scarce water resources and scavenging in human waste.

The disease-causing pathogen it carries can pass to humans through soil or water contaminated with infected urine.

Mongoose and other species are consumed as bushmeat, which may also contribute to leptospirosis exposure and infection in humans.

"I was convinced that we were going to find Leptospira interrogans in some species in the ecosystem," said Alexander.

"The pathogen had not been reported previously in Botswana, with the exception of one cow more than a quarter of a century ago.

"We looked at public health records dating back to 1974 and there were no records of any human cases of leptospirosis. Doctors said they were not expecting to see the disease in patients. They were not aware that the pathogen occurred in the country."

Alexander conducted a long-term study of human, wildlife and environmental health in the Chobe District of Northern Botswana, an area that includes the Chobe National Park, forest reserves and surrounding villages.

"This pathogen can infect many animals, both wild and domestic, including dogs," said Jobbins. "Banded mongoose is likely not the only species infected."

The researchers worked to understand how people, animals and the environment are connected, including the potential for diseases to move between humans and wildlife.

"Diseases such as leptospirosis that have been around for a very long time are often overlooked amid the hunt for the next newly emerging disease," Alexander said.

Leptospirosis was first described in 1886, said Jobbins, "but we still know little about its occurrence in Africa."

With the new identification of leptospirosis in Botswana, Alexander is concerned about the public health threat it may pose to the immunocompromised population there. Some 25 percent of 15- to 49-year-olds are HIV positive.

"In much of Africa, people die without a cause being determined," she said.

"Leptospirosis is likely affecting human populations in this region. But without knowledge that the organism is present in the environment, overburdened public health officials are unlikely to identify clinical cases in humans, particularly if the supporting diagnostics are not easily accessible."

The researchers looked for Leptospira interrogans in archived kidneys collected from banded mongoose that had been found dead from a variety of causes. Of the sampled mongoose, 43 percent tested positive for the pathogen.

"Given this high prevalence in the mongoose, we believe that Botswana possesses an as-yet-unidentified burden of human leptospirosis," said Jobbins.

"There is an urgent need to look for this disease in people who have clinical signs consistent with infection."

Because banded mongoose have an extended range across sub-Saharan Africa, the results have important implications for public health beyond Botswana.

"Investigating exposure in other wildlife, and assessing what species act as carriers, is essential for improving our understanding of human, wildlife, and domestic animal risk of leptospirosis in this ecosystem," the scientists write in their paper.

The paper also cites predictions that the region will become more arid, concentrating humans and animals around limited water supplies and increasing the potential for disease transmission.

"Infectious diseases, particularly those that can be transmitted from animals, often occur where people are more vulnerable to environmental change and have less access to public health services," said Alexander.

"That's particularly true in Africa. While we're concerned about emerging diseases that might threaten public health--the next new pandemic--we need to be careful that we don't drop the ball and stop pursuing important diseases like leptospirosis."

Alexander is working to identify immediate research and management actions--in particular, alerting frontline medical practitioners and public health officials to the potential for leptospirosis in humans.

###

National Science Foundation: http://www.nsf.gov

Thanks to National Science Foundation for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 71 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/128271/Human_disease_leptospirosis_identified_in_new_species__the_banded_mongoose__in_Africa

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7 Egyptian security personnel abducted in Sinai

CAIRO (AP) ? Suspected militants in Egypt's Sinai abducted seven security personnel as they headed to Cairo for holidays early Thursday, security officials said. It was the first such kidnapping of security forces in the lawless peninsula.

The officials said masked gunmen ambushed two taxis at gunpoint outside the city of el-Arish, the capital of North Sinai governorate, fleeing with five policemen and one border guard captive. None of those abducted were in uniform, officials said.

Four of the policemen work in the Rafah border terminal leading to the Gaza Strip, and one was in a riot police unit deployed in Sinai. The border guard was a member of the military. The taxi drivers reported that a seventh member of the security forces was also kidnapped, but authorities said they are still trying to identify him.

Security in the Sinai has deteriorated sharply in the two years since the overthrow of longtime authoritarian ruler Hosni Mubarak, as it has elsewhere across the country. A surge in crime as well as clashes between Islamist backers of President Mohammed Morsi and his opponents have combined with economic woes to feed the sense of insecurity.

A new poll released by the Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Projects said only 30 percent of Egyptians polled see the country on the right track, compared to 53 percent surveyed in 2012, and 65 percent in 2011.

"Today's level of satisfaction is comparable to the level observed in spring 2010," almost a year before the uprising, the Center's report said.

In the poll, 44 percent of Egyptians surveyed say law and order in the country was getting worse. Conducted in March, the poll describes a divided nation, with 53 percent viewing Islamist President Mohammed Morsi favorably, and only 46 percent expressing confidence that upcoming elections would be fair.

Morsi's opponents are planning rallies Friday in which they demand that he step down and that early presidential elections be held.

The poll surveyed 1,000 Egyptians with a 4.3 percent margin of error.

The abduction in the Sinai is the latest incident to highlight the rise of Islamist militant groups there. Along with Bedouin tribal gangs involved in smuggling and other criminal activity, they have taken advantage of the security vacuum there to step up attacks on police stations, security convoys and other targets.

Security officials say Thursday's kidnapping was carried out by militant groups known to the authorities who are hiding in North Sinai's rugged mountains. Two officials said the kidnapping came after the mother of an imprisoned militant claimed that her son was tortured in detention, causing his eyesight to fail. The imprisoned militant is sentenced to death for attacking a police station in the early days after Mubarak's ouster.

The officials said authorities were sending the family to visit their son in prison again and provide him with necessary medical attention in a bid to defuse anger over his treatment, and secure the safety of the captive security personnel.

They said contact was established with the kidnappers, adding that representatives of the presidency and the military are reaching out to militants and mediators to secure the hostages' release. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the new instructions with the media.

Egypt's state news agency MENA reported that negotiations with the kidnappers were underway through mediators, but also didn't elaborate. It reported that Morsi held an emergency meeting with the defense and interior ministers to discuss the kidnapping. In a statement, his office said the presidency was closely following the developments in the case.

The security officials said forces in the Sinai were on high alert, particularly along the border with the Gaza Strip. Movement was restricted for the multinational forces stationed in Sinai since the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel was signed in 1979, the officials added.

Egypt's military has carried out sweeps in the peninsula since a militant attack against its troops that left 16 soldiers killed in August 2012. It was the most brazen militant assault on Egyptian troops in modern history. Still, the attackers have not been apprehended or publicly identified.

The volatile northern Sinai borders Hamas-ruled Gaza as well as Israel. Weapons flowed into the peninsula from Libya to the area, adding to the security challenge.

Complicating the situation is a longtime resentment by local tribes toward the central government, which they accuse of discrimination, neglect, and police brutality. Tribal Bedouins have briefly kidnapped foreigners to use them as bargaining chips with authorities, urging them to release imprisoned relatives. Drugs, immigrants and arms are smuggled through the mountainous terrain.

Morsi had pledged to restore security to the peninsula. Officials from the presidency at one point negotiated with locals to ease off on the crackdown and the pursuit of fugitives. In exchange, locals were to refrain from attacks on authorities or cross-border raids on Israel.

The U.S. has repeatedly discussed the situation in Sinai with Egyptian authorities and offered security and border control advice.

________

Associated Press Writer Ashraf Sweilam contributed to this report from southern Sinai.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/7-egyptian-security-personnel-abducted-sinai-142304724.html

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What Do You Want Google to Announce Later Today?

Google's I/O event kicks off today, and with it will come a slew of announcements about new products and services. But what are you most excited about?

A shiny new version of Android? Updated web services like Maps? A unified chat system to end them all? A Spotify-like streaming service? New hardware? Or something else unexpected and exciting?

Source: http://gizmodo.com/what-do-you-want-google-to-announce-later-today-506501702

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Black hole powered jets plow into galaxy

May 15, 2013 ? This composite image of a galaxy illustrates how the intense gravity of a supermassive black hole can be tapped to generate immense power. The image contains X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue), optical light obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope (gold) and radio waves from the NSF's Very Large Array (pink).

This multi-wavelength view shows 4C+29.30, a galaxy located some 850 million light years from Earth. The radio emission comes from two jets of particles that are speeding at millions of miles per hour away from a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy. The estimated mass of the black hole is about 100 million times the mass of our Sun. The ends of the jets show larger areas of radio emission located outside the galaxy.

The X-ray data show a different aspect of this galaxy, tracing the location of hot gas. The bright X-rays in the center of the image mark a pool of million-degree gas around the black hole. Some of this material may eventually be consumed by the black hole, and the magnetized, whirlpool of gas near the black hole could in turn, trigger more output to the radio jet.

Most of the low-energy X-rays from the vicinity of the black hole are absorbed by dust and gas, probably in the shape of a giant doughnut around the black hole. This doughnut, or torus blocks all the optical light produced near the black hole, so astronomers refer to this type of source as a hidden or buried black hole. The optical light seen in the image is from the stars in the galaxy.

The bright spots in X-ray and radio emission on the outer edges of the galaxy, near the ends of the jets, are caused by extremely high energy electrons following curved paths around magnetic field lines. They show where a jet generated by the black hole has plowed into clumps of material in the galaxy (mouse over the image for the location of these bright spots). Much of the energy of the jet goes into heating the gas in these clumps, and some of it goes into dragging cool gas along the direction of the jet. Both the heating and the dragging can limit the fuel supply for the supermassive black hole, leading to temporary starvation and stopping its growth. This feedback process is thought to cause the observed correlation between the mass of the supermassive black hole and the combined mass of the stars in the central region or bulge or a galaxy.

These results were reported in two different papers. The first, which concentrated on the effects of the jets on the galaxy, is available online and was published in the May 10, 2012 issue of The Astrophysical Journal. It is led by Aneta Siemiginowska from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) in Cambridge, MA and the co-authors are ?ukasz Stawarz, from the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science in Yoshinodai, Japan; Teddy Cheung from the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC; Thomas Aldcroft from CfA; Jill Bechtold from University of Arizona in Tucson, AZ; Douglas Burke from CfA; Daniel Evans from CfA; Joanna Holt from Leiden University in Leiden, The Netherlands; Marek Jamrozy from Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland; and Giulia Migliori from CfA. The second, which concentrated on the supermassive black hole, is available online and was published in the October 20, 2012 issue of The Astrophysical Journal. It is led by Malgorzata Sobolewska from CfA, and the co-authors are Aneta Siemiginowska, Giulia Migliori, ?ukasz Stawarz, Marek Jamrozy, Daniel Evans, and Teddy Cheung.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/5prUHaNU_s0/130515151433.htm

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