The Espro Press aims to fix at least one [...]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GearFactor/~3/QcIaS7SvOYY/
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Monday, December 19, 2011
Espro Press, a French Press That Works
Some people, including Gizmodo’s OCD coffee nerd Matt Buchanan, say you should never make coffee in a French press (or cafeti?re, as it is known in most of the world). The reasons? Under-extraction, and too many muddy grounds making it through the filter and into your cup.
The Espro Press aims to fix at least one [...]
The Espro Press aims to fix at least one [...]
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Judge gives Bonds house arrest, then delays it
Former baseball player Barry Bonds arrives at federal court for sentencing on Friday, Dec. 16, 2011, in San Francisco. Bonds, convicted in April of obstructing a government investigation into steroid use among athletes, faces up to 21 months in prison. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
Former baseball player Barry Bonds arrives at federal court for sentencing on Friday, Dec. 16, 2011, in San Francisco. Bonds, convicted in April of obstructing a government investigation into steroid use among athletes, faces up to 21 months in prison. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
Former baseball player Barry Bonds arrives at federal court for sentencing on Friday, Dec. 16, 2011, in San Francisco. Bonds, convicted in April of obstructing a government investigation into steroid use among athletes, faces up to 21 months in prison. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
Ted Cassman, right, one of Barry Bonds' attorneys, approaches a federal courthouse Friday, Dec. 16, 2011, in San Francisco. Bonds, convicted in April of obstructing a government investigation into steroid use among athletes, faces up to 21 months in prison. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
Former baseball player Barry Bonds arrives at federal court for sentencing on Friday, Dec. 16, 2011, in San Francisco. Bonds, convicted in April of obstructing a government investigation into steroid use among athletes, faces up to 21 months in prison. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
Former baseball player Barry Bonds, left, enters federal court Friday, Dec. 16, 2011, in San Francisco. Bonds, convicted in April of obstructing a government investigation into steroid use among athletes, faces up to 21 months in prison. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Former baseball superstar Barry Bonds will remain free while he appeals his conviction for giving misleading testimony before a grand jury.
A federal judge handed Bonds a sentence of 30 days of house arrest, two years of probation and 250 hours of community service on Friday ? then delayed the sentence pending an appeal likely to take a year or more.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston also put on hold a $4,000 fine against Bonds, Major League Baseball's career leader with 762 home runs, for his obstruction of justice conviction arising from a grand jury appearance eight years ago.
Prosecutors wanted him to spend 15 months in prison. Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Parrella argued that home confinement wasn't punishment enough, "for a man with a 15,000 square foot house with all the advantages." Bonds lives on an estate in Beverly Hills.
Well-wishers hugged the 47-year-old Bonds in the hallway outside the courtroom after the hearing was over. He declined to speak in court.
A jury convicted Bonds in April of purposely answering questions about steroids with rambling non sequiturs in an attempt to mislead a grand jury investigating sports doping in December 2003. Bonds' trial jury failed to reach a verdict on three other charges accusing Bonds of lying when he denied taking performance-enhancing drugs and when he denied receiving injections from someone other than his doctor.
Prosecutors in September dropped those deadlocked charges, giving up on another trial.
Bonds now has 14 days to file his intention to appeal his conviction.
Bonds is the highest-profile defendant, and the last, to come out of the government's investigation of the steroids distribution ring built around the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, founded by Victor Conte.
Besides the former National League MVP, 10 people were convicted of various charges. Six of them, including track star Marion Jones, were ensnared for lying to grand jurors, federal investigators or the court. Others, including Bonds' personal trainer Greg Anderson, pleaded guilty to steroid distribution charges.
Bonds was one of two former baseball superstars to stand trial in doping-related cases this year. The trial of pitcher Roger Clemens was halted after just two days in July because prosecutors used inadmissible evidence. U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton has set a new trial for April 17.
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So I'm crafting a world for a fantasy RP...
No seriously. Who's down for a fantasy role-play? I'm thinking a grim, somewhat dark atmosphere, wherein I hope to truly immerse the players in the world, maybe even learn a thing or two. I'm going over both place and plots at the same time, and I'm pretty flexible on both still. I'm personally most inclined to stick to a basic premise for a plot, and expand it much further from there-- to give an example, my most prominent idea involves taking a party of humans from our plain old Earth and putting them in the fantasy world, after this, the plot would center around them trying to get back home.
Maybe we could do the mercenary band bit; have two warring countries fighting for a mystic thingamajig; fulfill a prophecy; make a sandbox out of the world (that is, have every member of the party following their own goal); I don't know. I've got a nice world in the making, and will use my horrible drawing/paint skills to give it life once we pick a plot. Does it sound trite? Maybe, but I believe the immersion and interest will come more so from the players involved. That said, I'm not looking for someone with an English major: hell, it's not even my first language. I am looking for somebody interested in writing for a fantasy RP, that's willing to spell-check his part, write enough to convey his ideas (maybe sometimes a paragraph or two will be enough, maybe sometimes it'll take you a thousand words! I'm not snooty in that aspect, and hopefully other players won't be either)... Most importantly, I'm looking for players that want to have fun!
I'll repeat my question again: who's down for a fantasy role-play? What kind of plot do you propose?
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/FReqqOSpL4s/viewtopic.php
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Saturday, December 17, 2011
Global markets cautious over economic gloom (AP)
LONDON ? Signs of a global economic slowdown and stresses in Europe's financial system kept investors cautious on Thursday, causing losses in Asian markets, limiting gains in Europe and keeping the euro near 11-month lows.
Surveys showed Japanese business confidence and Chinese manufacturing had both slipped, while European industrial and services sectors continued to contract, though less than expected.
Concerns over Europe's debt crisis are squeezing credit conditions for banks in the region. The fear that a bank might not be able to withstand losses on its holding of shaky government bonds makes the banks less inclined to lend to each other, as they normally do to fund their hugely expensive daily operations.
Many banks are relying on cheap credit from the European Central Bank for that money, but in the meantime they are cutting down on lending to businesses and households.
As a result, the real economy in Europe is sliding toward recession.
The purchasing managers' index published by financial data company Markit showed eurozone manufacturing and services output contracting for a fourth month in December, although not as much as economists were expecting. The combined index for the two sectors stood at 47.9 in December, up from 47.0 in November. A figure below 50 indicates contraction.
"The likelihood remains that eurozone GDP will contract in the fourth quarter, even if the decline may not be as has been feared," said Howard Archer of IHS Global Insight in a report.
A day after suffering sharp losses, European stocks rose slightly. Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.5 percent to 5,395.37. Germany's DAX gained 0.9 percent to 5,727.67 and France's CAC-40 added 0.6 percent to 2,993.30.
Wall Street was likewise headed for modest gains, with Dow Jones industrial futures up 0.2 percent to 11,784 and S&P 500 futures gaining 0.5 percent to 1,211.80.
The euro was steady at 1.2993, near its lowest levels so far this year.
Since European leaders reached an agreement to rein in future government budget deficits last week, investors and credit rating agencies have criticized the deal for failing to address current problems.
Italy had to pay higher interest rates in its last bond auction of the year on Wednesday. The longer the country's borrowing rates remain high, the bigger the financial burden will be. The higher rates reflect rising doubts that the country will be able to repay its debts.
The Italian government will hold a confidence vote on its euro30 billion ($39 billion) package of tax hikes and spending cuts that have been hotly contested by lawmakers and unions.
Stocks faced stronger headwinds earlier in Asia. Japan's Nikkei 225 index shed 1.7 percent to close at 8,377.37, a three-week low. South Korea's Kospi lost 2.1 percent to 1,819.11 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng tumbled 1.8 percent to 18,026.84.
Mainland Chinese shares lost ground for a sixth straight trading day, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index falling 2.1 percent to 2,180.90, while the Shenzhen Composite Index lost 2.3 percent to 886.01.
In Japan, confidence at major manufacturers fell over the last quarter. The Bank of Japan's "tankan" survey of business sentiment fell to minus 4.
The figure represents the percentage of companies saying business conditions are good minus those saying conditions are unfavorable, with 100 representing the best mood and minus 100 the worst.
Japan's strong yen has hit multiple historic highs this year against the dollar, making business conditions difficult for Japan's export-reliant economy.
Meanwhile, preliminary manufacturing figures showed that Chinese factory output contracted, but at a slower rate, in December. HSBC's purchasing manager's index for December stood at 49.0, up from 47.7 in November. Any number below 50 indicates a contraction in manufacturing activity.
But the figure didn't raise hopes that China might ease its monetary policy anytime soon.
"I don't think there will be an interest rate cut in the short-term," said Dickie Wong, executive director of research at Kingston Securities Ltd. in Hong Kong. "Sentiment is really bad in China."
The dollar slipped to 77.91 yen from 78.07 yen late Wednesday in New York.
Oil prices, which plunged more than $5 on Wednesday, drove down energy-related shares and steadied on Thursday.
Benchmark oil for January delivery was up 81 cents at $95.72 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract declined $5.19 to finish at $94.95 per barrel on the Nymex.
___
Pamela Sampson in Bangkok contributed to this report.
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Scientists find microbes in lava tube living in conditions like those on Mars
ScienceDaily (Dec. 15, 2011) ? A team of scientists from Oregon has collected microbes from ice within a lava tube in the Cascade Mountains and found that they thrive in cold, Mars-like conditions.
The microbes tolerate temperatures near freezing and low levels of oxygen, and they can grow in the absence of organic food. Under these conditions their metabolism is driven by the oxidation of iron from olivine, a common volcanic mineral found in the rocks of the lava tube. These factors make the microbes capable of living in the subsurface of Mars and other planetary bodies, the scientists say.
The findings, supported by a grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), are detailed in the journal Astrobiology.
"This microbe is from one of the most common genera of bacteria on Earth," said Amy Smith, a doctoral student at Oregon State University and one of the authors of the study. "You can find its cousins in caves, on your skin, at the bottom of the ocean and just about anywhere. What is different, in this case, is its unique qualities that allow it to grow in Mars-like conditions."
In a laboratory setting at room temperature and with normal oxygen levels, the scientists demonstrated that the microbes can consume organic material (sugar). But when the researchers removed the organic material, reduced the temperature to near-freezing, and lowered the oxygen levels, the microbes began to use the iron within olivine -- a common silicate material found in volcanic rocks on Earth and on Mars -- as its energy source.
"This reaction involving a common mineral from volcanic rocks just hasn't been documented before," said Martin Fisk, a professor in OSU's College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences and an author on the study. "In volcanic rocks directly exposed to air and at warmer temperatures, the oxygen in the atmosphere oxidizes the iron before the microbes can use it. But in the lava tube, where the bacteria are covered in ice and thus sheltered from the atmosphere, they out-compete the oxygen for the iron.
"By mimicking those conditions, we got the microbes to repeat that behavior in the laboratory," Fisk added.
The microbes were collected from a lava tube near Newberry Crater in Oregon's Cascades Mountains, at an elevation of about 5,000 feet. They were within the ice on rocks some 100 feet inside the lava tube, in a low-oxygen, near-freezing environment. Scientists, including Fisk, have said that the subsurface of Mars could have similar conditions and harbor bacteria.
In fact, Fisk has examined a meteorite originating from Mars that contained tracks -- which could indicate consumption by microbes -- though no living material was discovered. Similar tracks were found on the rocks from the Newberry Crater lava tube, he said.
"Conditions in the lava tube are not as harsh as on Mars," Fisk said. "On Mars, temperatures rarely get to the freezing point, oxygen levels are lower and at the surface, liquid water is not present. But water is hypothesized to be present in the warmer subsurface of Mars. Although this study does not exactly duplicate what you would find on Mars, it does show that bacteria can live in similar conditions.
"We know from direct examination, as well as satellite imagery, that olivine is in Martian rocks," Fisk added. "And now we know that olivine can sustain microbial life."
The idea for exploring the lava tube came from Radu Popa, an assistant professor at Portland State University and lead author on the paper. Popa used to explore caves in his native Romania and was familiar with the environmental conditions. Because lava tubes are a sheltered environment and exist on both Earth and Mars, Popa proposed the idea of studying microbes from them to see if life may exist -- or could have existed -- on the Red Planet.
"When temperatures and atmospheric pressure on Mars are higher, as they have been in the past, ecosystems based on this type of bacteria could flourish," Popa said. "The fingerprints left by such bacteria on mineral surfaces can be used by scientists as tools to analyze whether life ever existed on Mars."
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Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Oregon State University.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Radu Popa, Amy R. Smith, Rodica Popa, Jane Boone, Martin Fisk. Olivine-Respiring Bacteria Isolated from the Rock-Ice Interface in a Lava-Tube Cave, a Mars Analog Environment. Astrobiology, 2011; 111214063927003 DOI: 10.1089/ast.2011.0639
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111215135929.htm
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Friday, December 16, 2011
N.R.C. Leader Gregory Jaczko Hears Litany of Complaints
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Gregory B. Jaczko, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, was questioned about his management style.
Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=a3a8b6663610dcdfe52527b9d8fc2615
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Endangered orangutans offer a new evolutionary model for early humans
ScienceDaily (Dec. 13, 2011) ? Starving orangutans in Borneo may be teaching us new lessons about human evolution.
Nathaniel Dominy, associate professor of anthropology, has been studying the dietary habits of these apes: what food they eat and how they digest it. "We are interested in how orangutans cope with food-limited environments because it may give us a glimpse into what early human ancestors were facing," Dominy explains. He and his colleagues report on a study of orangutans under dietary stress in Borneo in the December 14 online issue of Biology Letters, a journal of The Royal Society.
The apes that gave rise to the earliest human ancestors had teeth that are much like orangutan teeth. The resemblances are particularly strong between the teeth of the pre-human apes and those of the stressed animals living on Borneo. Dominy suggests that the orangutans' diet may have exerted a selective pressure on their molar teeth. If we understand the physical properties of their food, then we may have some idea of why humans evolved the teeth that we have.
The Borneo environment is stressful. The soil is not very fertile and plants crop unpredictably, only producing quantities of fruit every four or five years. When they do bear fruit, the whole forest produces at once. The animals gorge themselves, put on fat, and then live off these reserves for the next three to four years. Unchecked logging that is reducing orangutan habitat worsens this already inhospitable situation.
Orangutans prefer ripe, soft, juicy fruits but during the "off-years" on Borneo when nothing else is available, the orangs resort to eating very hard and tough foods. Dominy describes how they rip bark off trees and eat the starchy tissues behind the bark. They will also eat very hard seeds. This far less nutritious diet seems to supply just enough protein to survive.
The five-year study described in the Biology Letters paper documents the adaptive metabolism of these apes in these protein-deficient hard times. Orangutan urine was collected on Borneo and analyzed for dietary markers, such as ketones, which increase when the body breaks down fat for energy. When fruit abundance was lowest, the ketones surged, demonstrating that the animals were burning their fat reserves -- using more energy than they were taking in. As long as the fat holds out, the situation is tolerable.
When body fat is depleted, the next stage is cannibalizing muscle tissue. Elevated nitrogen isotopes in the urine of some individuals indicate that muscle wasting was indeed a source of the protein that kept the animals alive.
Professor Dominy considers the lean years for orangutans on Borneo to be a selective pressure that led to evolutionary adaptations since the population became isolated 400,000 years ago. He argues that the larger molars and more robust jaws among the Borneo orangutans developed in response to the hard, tough foods they consumed during the periods between fruit availability -- an enduring adaptation to an occasional situation.
Recent studies of wear patterns on the huge molars of early hominids suggest that they only ate a more physically challenging diet some of the time. These hominids may be displaying an adaptation that helped them to get through evolutionary pinch points, similar to what the orangs encounter.
Our ancestors experienced selective pressure favoring adaptations to hard objects, but it's possible that they didn't eat hard objects consistently.
"Perhaps the hard objects were things they ate only very occasionally under ecological duress," Dominy muses. "It is not what they ate regularly that matters. It is what they were eating during crunch times. Because they routinely go through these dire times, orangutans may be a good model for what happened to human ancestors in deep time."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Dartmouth College. The original article was written by Joseph Blumberg.
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Journal Reference:
- E. R. Vogel, C. D. Knott, B. E. Crowley, M. D. Blakely, M. D. Larsen, N. J. Dominy. Bornean orangutans on the brink of protein bankruptcy. Biology Letters, 2011; DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2011.1040
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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111213203319.htm
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