Storm cancels Halloween for many

This weekend, Mother Nature showed she has the power to do something that no goblin or ghoul, no witches? spell or hockey mask-wearing axe murderer can do ? cancel Halloween.

Story: Snow-downed trees could trip up NYC Marathon

Trick-or-treating and other Halloween activities have been postponed in communities from Maine to New Jersey after this weekend?s nor?easter created dangerous conditions. Mother Nature tricked those who didn?t think it snowed in October and treated them to a storm that left a mess of downed power lines, fallen trees and heavy snow across the Northeast. Twelve deaths were also reported as a result of the storm, which also caused more power outages than Hurricane Irene in some places.

Video: Northeast recovering from freak snowstorm (on this page)

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States of emergency have been declared in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Connecticut and parts of New York, and many Northeast towns have postponed trick-or-treating to Thursday or Friday. In the case of Charlton, Mass., Halloween will be celebrated on Nov. 8, just 16 days before Thanksgiving.

Other Massachusetts towns like Auburn, Worcester and Leicester have also postponed Halloween, citing power outages, inaccessible and downed trees as hazards that could make trick-or-treating unsafe for families. Plainfield, Mass., was hit with 27 inches of snow, and Windsor piled up 26 inches.

?We need time to clean up and enjoy the trick or treating and all of the festivities knowing that we will be safe,? Worcester City Manager Michael V. O'Brien told the Worcester Telegram and Gazette. ?We don't want families and children maneuvering around piles of snow and downed trees.?

Video: Creepy crafts: Kid-friendly Halloween projects

In Summit, N.J., trick-or-treating has been postponed to Friday, thanks to power outages, live electrical wires and downed trees that have made it difficult and dangerous to maneuver around town. Summit mayor Jordon Glatt issued a statement asking residents to stay inside for their own safety. Temperatures are expected to be in the 60s this week to melt the snowfall and make it safer for trick-or-treaters by the end of the week.

The last time New Jersey recorded any snowfall in October was 1952, and it was less than an inch, according to the National Weather Service. Parts of the state were hit with more than a foot on Saturday, including 19 inches in West Milford. The storm resulted in 102 school districts either being closed on Monday or having delayed openings, so Halloween costumes across the state sat unworn.

Video: Meet TODAY?s littlest trick-or-treaters

"You had this storm, you had Hurricane Irene, you had the flooding last spring and you had the nasty storms last winter," Hamilton Township, N.J., resident Tom Jacobsen told the Associated Press. "I'm starting to think we really ticked off Mother Nature somehow because we've been getting spanked by her for about a year now."

Paranoid parents x-ray Halloween candy

More than three million homes lost power as a result of the rare and historic October snowstorm, which set records for snowfall in October in numerous areas. In Connecticut, 750,000 customers were still without power Monday, according to The Hartford Courant. In Brookfield, Conn., trick-or-treating has been postponed to Saturday, and Democratic State Representative Tim Larson has proposed legislation that would designate the final Saturday in October as the day to celebrate Halloween across Connecticut.

In South Windsor, Conn., police and the town manager were recommending against trick-or-treating, but parents in neighborhoods that still had power were welcome to take their children out, said Vanessa Perry, assistant to the town manager.

One mother, Cyndi Stoddard, said she was frustrated the town did not propose another date for Halloween. She had to break the news to her 4-year-old daughter, who was planning to dress as a snow princess.

"My youngest is upset. She doesn't understand," Stoddard said. "I feel bad for the kids. It's minor in the scheme of things but it's a big thing for kids."

Twelve-year-old McKenzie Gallasso was deciding between dressing as a witch or a werewolf when the phone rang Monday with the bad news.

"I was upset because I really wanted to go trick-and-treating and get candy," said McKenzie, who added her mother did not want her to go out anyway because of the snow. "This year I'll have to eat candy from my mom."

In Concord, N.H., the state?s capitol was walloped with 22.5 inches of snow, the third-biggest snowfall in the state?s history. Trick-or-treating was postponed until next weekend in several New Hampshire towns, including Manchester, which traditionally had its festivities on the Sunday night before the holiday but now will celebrate Halloween on Nov. 6.

Slideshow: TODAY's royal Halloween 2011 (on this page)

Costumed youngsters as far north as Maine had to wait a little longer to put their costumes on because of the storm. A planned celebration and parade in South Berwick, Me., was moved from Sunday to Monday night because of the weather. The storm also hit communities to the west, as Halloween parades in the Pennsylvania communities of Allentown, Bethlehem and Hamburg were all postponed.

Some parents however were finding ways to take their kids trick-or-treating, even if it was canceled in their hometown.

Doreen Kelley, of Foxborough, Mass., said that when she heard the town had called off trick-or-treating, she decided to take her son to her friend's neighborhood in Bellingham, about 20 minutes away.

"My son was disappointed, but I just called my friend and we are going there so he's fine now," Kelley said.

? TODAY.com contributor Scott Stump and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

? 2011 MSNBC Interactive

Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45105507/ns/today-weather/

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MF Global seeks sale, hires restructuring advisers (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) ? MF Global Holdings Ltd was in talks on Sunday with possible buyers with the goal "squarely" of doing a deal, though all options remained on the table as the firm hired restructuring and bankruptcy advisers, sources familiar with the situation said.

Sullivan & Cromwell's restructuring and mergers teams have joined the long roster of those advising MF Global, one source familiar with the situation said.

The securities company also has hired firms Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and Weil, Gotshal & Manges to prepare potential restructuring options, the Wall Street Journal reported in its electronic edition.

Weil would focus on MF Global's U.K. subsidiary if it needed to pursue a formal restructuring overseas, the newspaper said.

The law firms could not be immediately reached for comment.

A number of interested parties were considering several possible deals, including buying all or parts of the troubled U.S. futures brokerage run by former Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Jon Corzine, said the source, who requested anonymity.

"The goal is squarely for some sort of M&A transaction," the source said, adding the situation was "fluid."

MF Global declined to comment.

QUARTERLY LOSS

The pressure is on the company after a week in which it posted a quarterly loss, its shares fell by two-thirds and its credit ratings were cut to junk.

Corzine, who became CEO in March last year after a term as New Jersey's governor, has been trying to transform MF Global from a brokerage that mainly places customers' trades on exchanges into an investment bank that bets with its own capital.

MF Global is now suffering because of low interest rates and bets it made on European sovereign debt, and it is emerging as one of the hardest-hit U.S. financial firms in the fallout from Europe's economic crisis.

The plunge last week in MF Global's corporate bonds to distressed levels, and in its shares to below $1 at one point on Friday, makes it all the more urgent for the company to come up with some sort of solution before markets open on Monday.

It was unclear how close the company was to a possible deal as discussions stretched through the weekend, and there could be hurdles in the way of such hasty dealmaking.

LIMITED INFORMATION

MF Global has given potential buyers limited information about its financials and has not set up a data room for bidders to conduct due diligence, a buyside source said.

The source, who is looking into deals both for the whole company and for its parts, said he was skeptical about the possibility of MF Global striking a deal over this weekend.

The company's positions are big and hard to value, especially the firm's sovereign risk exposure, the source said.

"How do you put a price on that? How do you get a deal done when the right side of the balance sheet keeps moving so dramatically?" the source said.

The company hired boutique investment bank Evercore Partners Inc to help find a buyer, separate sources said this past week.

It reached out to banks including Barclays Plc, Citigroup Inc, Deutsche Bank, Jefferies Group Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Macquarie Group Ltd, State Street Corp and Wells Fargo, a source familiar with the situation said on Friday.

Macquarie has shown interest in MF Global, but a source with knowledge of the development said he would be surprised if Macquarie did a deal immediately. The source was not authorized to speak to the media and thus declined to be named.

A Macquarie spokeswoman declined comment.

Private equity firm J.C. Flowers, which has a stake in MF Global, is also in talks about possibly taking it private, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

The investment is the latest to go sour for the financial services-focused buyout shop, founded by ex-Goldman banker J. Christopher Flowers. Earlier this year, the firm was among investors who failed to block the nationalization of German mortgage bank Hypo Real Estate.

MF Global, which runs a Futures Commission Merchant and a broker-dealer, was scrambling last week to reassure customers about its stability as signs grew that some of them were withdrawing money.

A drop in a broker's credit rating to junk erodes confidence in its creditworthiness and can then restrict its ability to borrow -- the bedrock of any financial institution -- and fund day-to-day operations.

(Additional reporting by Jessica Hall in Philadelphia and Narayanan Somasundaram in Sydney; Editing by Dale Hudson and Muralikumar Anantharaman)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111031/bs_nm/us_mfglobal

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Online Hackers Threaten To Expose Cartel's Secrets

Houston Chronicle:

An international group of online hackers is warning a Mexican drug cartel to release one of its members, kidnapped from a street protest, or it will publish the identities and addresses of the syndicate's associates, from corrupt police to taxi drivers, as well as reveal the syndicates' businesses.

Read the whole story: Houston Chronicle

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/29/anonymous-drug-cartel_n_1065243.html

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Novel strategy stymies SARS et al.

Novel strategy stymies SARS et al.

Friday, October 28, 2011

Broad-spectrum antibiotics, which are active against a whole range of bacterial pathogens, have been on the market for a long time. Comparably versatile drugs to treat viral diseases, on the other hand, have remained elusive. Using a new approach, research teams led by Dr. Albrecht von Brunn of LMU Munich and Professor Christian Drosten from the University of Bonn have identified a compound that inhibits the replication of several different viruses, including the highly aggressive SARS virus that is responsible for severe acute respiratory syndrome.

The new method exploits the fact that interactions between certain host proteins and specific viral proteins are essential for viral replication. One of these host proteins is part of a signaling relay in the cell. The broad-spectrum antiviral compound used by the researchers blocks this signal pathway without having a deleterious effect on the host. "We have shown in this study that a broadly based search for new cellular targets can uncover new functional principles that have a demonstrable impact on virus replication," says von Brunn. "We have confirmed that the approach works in cell culture. We now hope that these laboratory results can be translated into clinically effective therapies. At the very least, our high-throughput procedure can be utilized to systematically screen various protein-virus interactions as potential targets for inhibitory compounds." The new study was carried out under the auspices of the SARS Research Network, which is supported by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF). (PloS Pathogens, 27. October 2011)

Broad-spectrum antibiotics that inhibit the growth of various species of bacterial pathogens are well known. Virologists, unfortunately, have no comparably versatile weapons in their armory. Individual drugs that are active against different types of viral pathogens are simply not available. "All of the antiviral agents we have are directed specifically at the virus itself," explains Professor Christian Drosten, Director of the Institute of Virology at Bonn University Hospital. "And since viral pathogens are highly diverse, each of these agents can attack only certain viruses." Moreover, viruses are also highly mutable, making the weaponry they can deploy against us even more powerful. What works against one viral strain may be essentially useless against another.

The SARS virus, a previously unknown pathogen which threatened to cause a worldwide pandemic in 2003, has spurred on the search for new antiviral substances. Only recently, it was shown that not only Chinese, but also European, bats carry the SARS virus. "But in contrast to the situation with bird influenza, one cannot simply kill these free-living animals in order to eradicate the pathogen," says Drosten. "That would have catastrophic ecological consequences and, apart from that, bats are retiring and secretive in their habits." If one wishes to develop drugs against viruses that can "hide" in animal species, one must explore other alternatives.

The research teams assembled by von Brunn and Drosten have now discovered a way to prevent the replication of a whole family of viruses by depriving them of an essential host factor. They first identified host proteins with which SARS viral proteins interact. This strategy led to the finding that a cellular signaling pathway is essential for the replication not only of the SARS virus, but also of a whole set of related viruses that are pathogenic to humans and animals.

"This signal pathway is normally involved in regulating the immune system," says Drosten. "We used a substance that inhibits the function of one of the proteins in the pathway, and found that it suppresses viral replication." In other words, drugs that block this pathway inhibit the replication of many different viruses, and therefore act as broad-spectrum antivirals. This opens a route to the treatment of conditions caused by the SARS virus, but also a whole variety of human coronaviruses, and pathogens that infect the internal organs of chickens, pigs and cats. Inhibition of this pathway does not damage the host, because parallel pathways can compensate for its normal role in the cell.

The successful inhibition of virus replication was not a result of serendipity. The researchers in Munich have developed a technique that allows them to systematically probe different proteins for the ability to interact with defined targets. "In order to replicate in the body of its host, a virus must first gain entry to a suitable cell type by binding to a specific receptor protein on its surface," says von Brunn, who works in the Max von Pettenkofer Institute at LMU Munich. "We have used an automated, high-throughput process to systematically test various protein-virus combinations as potential targets for possible inhibitors. The success of this strategy proves that a broadly based search for cellular targets can uncover new functional principles that have a demonstrable impact on virus replication," says von Brunn.

The investigators have shown in cell cultures that their approach actually works. "However, it will be years before we know whether or not these results can be translated into effective treatments," Drosten says. The study also underlines the importance of research collaborations. Drosten is convinced that "neither group could have done this on its own". The SARS Research Network, which is coordinated by Drosten, brings together virological expertise from six university institutes, two veterinary and four medical, located in Hannover, Gie?en, Marburg, Bonn, Munich and St. Gallen (Switzerland). (University of Bonn)

###

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit?t M?nchen: http://www.uni-muenchen.de

Thanks to Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit?t M?nchen 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.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/114733/Novel_strategy_stymies_SARS_et_al_

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NASA launches satellite from Vandenberg at night

By W.J. Hennigan Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

October 28, 2011, 10:20 a.m.

In the predawn hours, NASA launched a 13-story rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base that lighted the night sky for miles around.

Check out the blast off on YouTube.

The Delta II rocket launched at 2:48 a.m. PDT on Friday from Space Launch Complex-2 at the base, located northwest of Santa Barbara. It was carrying a $1.5-billion weather satellite that's armed with new state-of-the-art sensors that will observe the ozone, atmospheric temperatures, snow and vegetation coverage.

According to NASA, the satellite, known as the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System, or NPOESS Preparatory Project, is a crucial first step in building the next-generation weather system.

"NPP is critical to our understanding of Earth's processes and changes," NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver said in a statement. "Its impact will be global and builds on 40 years of work to understand our complex planet from space."

The satellite was built by Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp., with components made by Raytheon Co. in their El Segundo facilities.

United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co., manufactured the Delta II rocket with a Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne RS-27A engine, which is made in Canoga Park.

The satellite is slated to provide weather information for military and civil users.

Mary Glackin, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Assn.'s deputy undersecretary for Oceans and Atmosphere, said it will "make America a more weather-ready nation."

Source: http://feeds.latimes.com/~r/latimes/news/science/~3/3goVcdzoM5s/la-fi-nasa-launch-vandenberg-m,0,6291893.story

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Election worries give momentum to deficit talks (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? The congressional "super committee" charged with slashing the U.S. deficit have heard from legions of lobbyists and lawmakers bent on influencing the outcome. Now members are getting an earful from Republican and Democratic leaders who want them to reach a deal and help restore voters' faith in Congress before the 2012 elections.

The panel's six Republicans and six Democrats are under pressure to avoid a deadlock that could further anger voters fed up with the partisan gridlock that has plagued major legislation since President Barack Obama took office in January 2009, according to aides, analysts, lawmakers and lobbyists.

House Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican, and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell want a deal, figuring it would be smart politically as well as vital to the country's fiscal well-being, aides said.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi make the same point.

"Knowing how important this agreement is, the message that it will send to the world, to the markets, to the American people (and) the confidence it will be build -- it will be a missed opportunity if we do not do this," Pelosi told reporters. "It behooves all of us to be open as possible."

The committee faces a November 23 deadline to come up with a package to reduce the deficit by at least $1.2 trillion over 10 years. A deadlock would trigger automatic cuts spread evenly between defense and domestic programs.

Recent opinion polls show public approval of Congress as low as 9 percent, with data suggesting that Republicans and Democrats are equally disillusioned with the inability of lawmakers to work together.

"The super committee absolutely is in the cross-hairs. The public would be very upset if the super committee couldn't reach agreement. It would be another example that government cannot function," said Frank Newport, editor-in-chief at the Gallup Organization.

Yet, for all the cheerleading from the top brass of both parties, the two sides are still far apart.

Some Democrats have questioned the sincerity of Republicans because of their refusal to consider tax hikes as part of any sweeping deficit-reduction agreement. Republicans say tax increases would undermine job growth.

FAILURE WRIT LARGE

Analysts say deadlock in the committee would likely further disillusion Americans, already frustrated by Washington's inability to agree on even the most simple issues. That could contribute to voter apathy in 2012 and hit both parties hard.

Lobbyists say McConnell has been at the forefront of behind-the-scenes efforts to reach a consensus, partly because of his hopes of capturing the Senate in the 2012 elections.

"Republican leadership wants this process to work," said a lobbyist. "They're starting to flex a little more muscle in terms of trying to herd them toward some sort of consensus."

The possibility of a "grand bargain" on taxes and spending on popular social programs came up at a meeting last week among McConnell, Boehner and Reid, a congressional aide said.

"But it was Reid's sense that the Republicans still weren't ready to move on (tax) revenues," the aide said. "Reid feels it's impossible to have a deal without serious movement on revenues."

House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer contends all sides must try harder.

"I'm not optimistic. I am hopeful. I hope because I think it is absolutely essential that we succeed in producing a product, producing a product that is a big deal," Hoyer said.

(Editing by Ross Colvin and Eric Walsh)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/uscongress/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111028/pl_nm/us_usa_debt_supercommittee_leaders

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U.S. drone "kills five Taliban commanders" in Pakistan (Reuters)

PESHAWAR, Pakistan ? A U.S. drone strike on Thursday killed five commanders of a powerful Pakistani Taliban faction that attacks Western forces in Afghanistan, one of the group's leaders told Reuters.

The Obama administration has stepped up drone strikes against al Qaeda and Taliban militants in Pakistan's tribal border areas in an effort to stabilize Afghanistan before the end of 2014, when all NATO combat troops are due to leave.

The commanders killed in the strike belonged to the Maulvi Nazir faction of Pakistan's Taliban, which carries out cross-border attacks from its strongholds in South Waziristan.

The group threatened in June to escalate attacks on U.S. troops in the NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan in response to intensified drone strikes on its territory.

Four of the commanders killed by the remotely piloted drone were identified as Hazrat Omar, Nazir's younger brother, Khan Mohammad, Miraj Wazir and Ashfaq Wazir. The group did not name the fifth.

Local intelligence officials said three Nazir commanders were among six people killed in the strike. The reports could not be verified independently.

"They are a very important group because, while they are based in Pakistan, they are very active in Afghanistan," said Mansur Khan Mehsud of the FATA Research Center think-tank.

"If you look at drone strikes, they are one of the most heavily targeted groups," he said.

Hours later, a U.S. drone fired four missiles at a house in the Mir Ali town of the neighboring North Waziristan region, killing at least four militants, local officials said.

U.S. drones have killed high-profile al Qaeda and Taliban leaders in Pakistan's restive tribal regions, where militants such as al Qaeda, the Taliban and Arab fighters train and plan attacks.

The New America Foundation think-tank estimates at least 325 militants have been killed in U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan this year.

Pakistani leaders say drone strikes inflame widespread anti-American sentiment in Pakistan and play into the hands of militants.

But analysts say high-profile militants can't be spotted without help from Pakistani intelligence.

The latest attack comes nearly a week after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Islamabad accompanied by high-level U.S. military and intelligence officials.

Clinton again urged Pakistan to eliminate what Washington says are safe havens along its porous border with Afghanistan.

Nazir's group of around 1,200 fighters is among the militants not opposed to the Pakistani state. Pakistan struck a deal with the faction in 2007 under which they would not harbor anti-government militants.

In exchange, the group would not be targeted by the military when offensives began against the Pakistani Taliban.

(Additional reporting by Hafiz Wazir in Wana, Saud Mehsud in Dera Ismail Khan and Haji Mujtaba in Miranshah; Writing by Qasim Nauman; Editing by Michael Georgy and Paul Tait)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111027/wl_nm/us_pakistan_drone

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Kristen Stewart Hates on Jocks, Laughs at Robert Pattinson

We are very sorry, athletic men hoping to win over Kristen Stewart. You stand no chance.

In the latest issue of Glamour UK, the Twilight Saga star is asked if she prefers American jocks or British lads and replies: "Well, I'm kind of repulsed by jocks from anywhere, so I have to go with the lads."

Ouch. Guess that confirms she isn't on Team Jacob.

Stewart added that there's something "a little vain" about working out everyday, really sticking it to Taylor Lautner (just kidding, he did so for a movie role, and she also labels him one of the "greatest guys), while laughing over her boyfriend.

What's it like to be dating the Sexiest Man Alive? It's a riot!

"The first time Rob was named sexiest man in the world it was the biggest joke in the world," says Kristen, who has clearly seen many sides to her co-star: goofy, whining, generous, naked.

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2011/10/kristen-stewart-hates-on-jocks-laughs-at-robert-pattinson/

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Marie Osmond rushed to hospital

Marie Osmond had a scare Wednesday night, and not of the Halloween variety.

The singer was rushed to the hospital following her and brother Donny Osmond's variety show at the Flamingo Las Vegas, her rep confirmed to E! News.

Marie knew something was up when her voice started to give out during the musical revue, in which she and her brother both sing together and trade solos.

But Osmond is going to be OK, right?

Indeed!

She's already back home, having only spent a few hours getting checked out.

Marie's rep, Greg Sperry, told the Las Vegas Sun that, after a series of X-rays and tests at St. Rose Dominican Hospital Sienna Campus Emergency Room, the veteran performer was diagnosed with a bad case of bronchitis and given the go-ahead to return to the stage. No performances have been canceled at this time, Sperry says, though a few numbers might be cut or shortened to give Marie a chance to rest her voice.

GALLERY: Vegas Party Pics

Sure enough, tickets for Donny & Marie's Thursday night show are still available via the Flamingo website.

? 2011 E! Entertainment Television, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45066747/ns/today-entertainment/

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UK scientists grow super broccoli

LONDON (AP) ? Popeye might want to consider switching to broccoli. British scientists unveiled a new breed of the vegetable that experts say packs a big nutritional punch.

The new broccoli was specially grown to contain two to three times the normal amount of glucoraphanin, a nutrient believed to help ward off heart disease.

"Vegetables are a medicine cabinet already," said Richard Mithen, who led the team of scientists at the Institute for Food Research in Norwich, England, that developed the new broccoli. "When you eat this broccoli ... you get a reduction in cholesterol in your blood stream," he told Associated Press Television.

An AP reporter who tasted the new broccoli found it was the same as the regular broccoli. Scientists, however, said it should taste slightly sweeter because it contains less sulphur.

Glucoraphanin works by breaking fat down in the body, preventing it from clogging the arteries. It is only found in broccoli in significant amounts.

To create the vegetable, sold as "super broccoli," Mithen and colleagues cross-bred a traditional British broccoli with a wild, bitter Sicilian variety that has no flowery head, and a big dose of glucoraphanin. After 14 years, the enhanced hybrid was produced, which has been granted a patent by European authorities. No genetic modification was used.

It's been on sale as Beneforte in select stores in California and Texas for the last year, and hit British shelves this month. Later this fall, the broccoli will be rolled out across the U.S.

The super vegetable is part of an increasing tendency among producers to inject extra nutrients into foods, ranging from calcium-enriched orange juice to fortified sugary cereals and milk with added omega 3 fatty acids. In Britain, the new broccoli is sold as part of a line of vegetables that includes mushrooms with extra vitamin D, and tomatoes and potatoes with added selenium.

Not enough data exists to know if anyone could overdose on glucoraphanin, but vitamin D and selenium in very high quantities can be toxic.

Mithen and colleagues are conducting human trials comparing the heart health of people eating the super broccoli to those who eat regular broccoli or no broccoli. They plan to submit the data to the European Food Safety Agency next year so they can claim in advertisements the broccoli has proven health benefits.

"There's a lot of circumstantial evidence that points to (glucoraphanin and related compounds) as the most important preventive agents for (heart attacks) and certain cancers, so it's a reasonable thing to do," said Lars Ove Dragsted, a professor in the department of human nutrition at the University of Copenhagen. He previously sat on panels at the International Agency for Research on Cancer examining the link between vegetables and cancer.

Dragsted said glucoraphanin is a mildly toxic compound used by plants to fight insects. In humans, glucoraphanin may stimulate our bodies' natural chemical defenses, potentially making the body stronger at removing dangerous compounds.

Other experts said eating foods packed with extra nutrients would probably only have a minimal impact compared with other lifestyle choices, like not smoking and exercising.

"Eating this new broccoli is not going to counteract your bad habits," said Glenys Jones, a nutritionist at Britain's Medical Research Council. She doubted whether adding the nutrients in broccoli to more popular foods would work to improve people's overall health.

"If you added this to a burger, people might think it's then a healthy food and eat more burgers, whereas this is not something they should be eating more of," Jones said. She also thought the super broccoli's U.K. price ? it costs about a third more than regular broccoli ? might discourage penny-pinching customers.

But that wasn't enough to deter Suzanne Johnson, a 43-year-old mother of two young children in London.

"I'm very concerned about the food they eat and would happily pay a bit more to buy something that has an added benefit," Johnson said.

But for her children, taste is ultimately more important than any nutritional value. "Broccoli is one of the vegetables they actually like, so I'm glad it's the one (scientists) have been working on," she said. "This wouldn't work if it had been mushrooms or asparagus."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2011-10-26-EU-MED-Food-and-Farm-Super-Broccoli/id-a7237f4270fd497b96dd78ee0e434902

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UN condemns US embargo of Cuba _ again (Providence Journal)

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Top cable programs for Oct. 17-23 (AP)

Rankings for the top 15 programs on cable networks as compiled by Nielsen for the week of Oct. 17-23. Day and start time (EDT) are in parentheses:

1. NFL Football: Miami at N.Y. Jets (Monday, 8:30 p.m.), 8.95 million homes, 12.06 million viewers.

2. "Jersey Shore" (Thursday, 10 p.m.), MTV, 4.8 million homes, 6.83 million viewers.

3. "Walking Dead" (Sunday, 9 p.m.), AMC, 4.1 million homes, 6.7 million viewers.

4. "Western Republican Debate" (Tuesday, 8 p.m.), CNN, 3.91 million homes, 5.49 million viewers.

5. "Jersey Shore Season 4 Reunion" (Thursday, 11 p.m.), MTV, 3.68 million homes, 5.03 million viewers.

6. "Anderson Cooper 360" (Tuesday, 9:52 p.m.), CNN, 3.6 million homes, 5.08 million viewers.

7. Movie: "Fred 2: The Movie" (Saturday, 8 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.53 million homes, 5.73 million viewers.

8. College Football: Tennessee at Alabama (Saturday, 7:15 p.m.), ESPN2, 3.24 million homes, 4.99 million viewers.

9. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 10 p.m.), USA, 3.17 million homes, 4.63 million viewers.

10. "NCIS" (Wednesday, 8 p.m.), USA, 3.03 million homes, 3.84 million viewers.

11. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 9 p.m.), USA, 3.02 million homes, 4.31 million viewers.

12. "Storage Wars" (Wednesday, 9:30 p.m.), A&E, 2.988 million homes, 4.25 million viewers.

13. Movie: "Fred 2: The Movie" (Sunday, 11 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.980 million homes, 3.99 million viewers.

14. "NCIS" (Sunday, 8 p.m.), USA, 2.91 million homes, 3.86 million viewers.

15. Auto Racing: NASCAR Sprint Cup (Sunday, 2 p.m.), ESPN, 2.83 million homes, 4.07 million viewers.

___

USA is owned by Comcast's NBCUniversal. CNN is owned by Time Warner Inc. ESPN and ESPN2 are owned by the Walt Disney Co. MTV and Nickelodeon are owned by Viacom. AMC is owned by Cablevision Systems Corp. A&E is owned by the A&E Television Networks.

___

Online:

http://www.nielsen.com/

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tv/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111027/ap_en_tv/us_cable_nielsens

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High-quality white light produced by four-color laser source

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

The human eye is as comfortable with white light generated by diode lasers as with that produced by increasingly popular light-emitting diodes (LEDs), according to tests conceived at Sandia National Laboratories.

Both technologies pass electrical current through material to generate light, but the simpler LED emits lights only through spontaneous emission. Diode lasers bounce light back and forth internally before releasing it.

The finding is important because LEDs -- widely accepted as more efficient and hardier replacements for century-old tungsten incandescent bulb technology -- lose efficiency at electrical currents above 0.5 amps. However, the efficiency of a sister technology -- the diode laser -- improves at higher currents, providing even more light than LEDs at higher amperages.

"What we showed is that diode lasers are a worthy path to pursue for lighting," said Sandia researcher Jeff Tsao, who proposed the comparative experiment. "Before these tests, our research in this direction was stopped before it could get started. The typical response was, 'Are you kidding? The color rendering quality of white light produced by diode lasers would be terrible.' So finally it seemed like, in order to go further, one really had to answer this very basic question first."

Little research had been done on diode lasers for lighting because of a widespread assumption that human eyes would find laser-based white light unpleasant. It would comprise four extremely narrow-band wavelengths -- blue, red, green, and yellow -- and would be very different from sunlight, for example, which blends a wide spectrum of wavelengths with no gaps in between. Diode laser light is also ten times narrower than that emitted by LEDs.

The tests -- a kind of high-tech market research -- took place at the University of New Mexico's Center for High Technology Materials. Forty volunteers were seated, one by one, before two near-identical scenes of fruit in bowls, housed in adjacent chambers. Each bowl was randomly illuminated by warm, cool, or neutral white LEDs, by a tungsten-filament incandescent light bulb, or by a combination of four lasers (blue, red, green, yellow) tuned so their combination produced a white light.

The experiment proceeded like an optometrist's exam: the subjects were asked: Do you prefer the left picture, or the right? All right, how about now?

The viewers were not told which source provided the illumination. They were instructed merely to choose the lit scene with which they felt most comfortable. The pairs were presented in random order to ensure that neither sequence nor tester preconceptions played roles in subject choices, but only the lighting itself. The computer program was written, and the set created, by Alexander Neumann, a UNM doctoral student of CHTM director Steve Brueck.

Each participant, selected from a variety of age groups, was asked to choose 80 times between the two changing alternatives, a procedure that took ten to twenty minutes, said Sandia scientist Jonathan Wierer, who helped plan, calibrate and execute the experiments. Five results were excluded when the participants proved to be color-blind. The result was that there was a statistically significant preference for the diode-laser-based white light over the warm and cool LED-based white light, Wierer said, but no statistically significant preference between the diode-laser-based and either the neutral LED-based or incandescent white light.

The results probably won't start a California gold rush of lighting fabricators into diode lasers, said Tsao, but they may open a formerly ignored line of research. Diode lasers are slightly more expensive to fabricate than LEDs because their substrates must have fewer defects than those used for LEDs. Still, he said, such substrates are likely to become more available in the future because they improve LED performance as well.

Also, while blue diode lasers have good enough performance that the automaker BMW is planning their use in its vehicles' next-generation white headlights, performance of red diode lasers is not as good, and yellow and green have a ways to go before they are efficient enough for commercial lighting opportunities.

Still, says Tsao, a competition wouldn't have to be all or nothing. Instead, he said, a cooperative approach might use blue and red diode lasers with yellow and green LEDs. Or blue diode lasers could be used to illuminate phosphors -- the technique currently used by fluorescent lights and the current generation of LED-based white light -- to create desirable shades of light.

The result makes possible still further efficiencies for the multibillion dollar lighting industry. The so-called ''smart beams'' can be adjusted on site for personalized color renderings for health reasons and, because they are directional, also can provide illumination precisely where it's wanted.

###

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories: http://www.sandia.gov

Thanks to DOE/Sandia National Laboratories 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.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/114650/High_quality_white_light_produced_by_four_color_laser_source

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Can Slingshot Marbles Kill You? [Video]

First of all, yes, okay, pretty much anything can kill you under the right circumstances. But what about marbles, and what about the specific circumstance of pretty little glass marbles, shot by a stainless steel slingshot into ballistic gelatin, by an amusingly t-shirted Eastern European madman? In super-slow motion? More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/vITs7x-nOoI/can-slingshot-marbles-kill-you

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Ice Cream Sandwich supports USB game controllers and HDMI, turns your phone into full game console

Take that, Xperia Play. USB gamepads are already supported in Honeycomb, so we had plenty of hope that Android 4.0 -- also lovingly referred to as Ice Cream Sandwich -- would offer the same functionality. We finally have the answer, and it's a resounding yes, courtesy of Google framework engineer Romain Guy's Twitter account. The cool part, though, is that HDMI's playing nice as well. In short, you could hook up an external gamepad to a USB-to-microUSB adapter on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, connect it to your TV and transform your handset into a fancy portable gaming console. It's definitely something we can see developers flock towards, and we'll expect some cool stuff to come out of it. Just in case you thought the Nexus wouldn't let you get anything else done around the house already, this pretty much seals the deal. Move below the break to see a screenshot from the SDK.

Continue reading Ice Cream Sandwich supports USB game controllers and HDMI, turns your phone into full game console

Ice Cream Sandwich supports USB game controllers and HDMI, turns your phone into full game console originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Oct 2011 06:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/24/ice-cream-sandwich-supports-usb-game-controllers-and-hdmi-turns/

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Tearful nurse testifies about warning to Jackson (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? A sometimes tearful nurse testified Tuesday that her efforts to save Michael Jackson from the drug he craved for sleep were rebuffed by the star who insisted he needed the powerful anesthetic that eventually killed him.

Cherilyn Lee, a nurse practitioner who tried to shift Jackson to holistic sleep aids in the months before he died, said the singer told her Dipravan, a brand name for propofol, was the only thing that would knock him out and induce the sleep he needed.

He told Lee he had experienced the drug once during surgery.

Lee almost didn't testify. She sat down in the witness box then said she felt dizzy before starting to cry.

"This is just very sensitive for me," she explained.

Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor had her taken to another room to rest, and she returned 20 minute later saying she felt better. She became tearful again while testifying that she had warned Jackson not to take the drug.

The day was also marked by poignant testimony from the head of AEG, the concert giant that planned Jackson's ill-fated "This Is It" shows in London.

Randy Phillips, the company president and chief executive officer who first proposed the concert to Jackson, said the star was excited and committed to restarting his career in London, where he could settle down with his children on a country estate "so they wouldn't be living as vagabonds."

"It was emotional," said Phillips. "I cried."

"Did he cry?" asked defense attorney Ed Chernoff.

"Yes," Phillips said softly.

Lee told of coming into Jackson's life at the beginning of 2009 and leaving just before Dr. Conrad Murray arrived. Murray has pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter and is accused of giving Jackson a fatal dose of the drug Lee would not give him.

Lee recalled a meeting with the superstar at his rented mansion two months before his death.

"He was sitting very close to me," she said. "He looked at me and said, 'I have a lot of difficulty sleeping. I've tried a lot of things and I need something that will make me fall asleep right away. I need Dipravan."

Lee had never heard of the drug but did research and later told Jackson it was too dangerous to use in a home.

At one point she asked: "What if you didn't wake up?"

Jackson, however, was unswayed and adamant the drug would be safe if he had a doctor who could monitor him while he slept.

Prosecutors claim Murray abandoned Jackson after administering the fatal dose of propofol and failed to have proper life-saving and monitoring equipment on hand.

Lee was called to the stand by Murray's defense, but the impact of her testimony was mixed.

While she supported a defense theory that Jackson was doctor shopping in a desperate search for someone to give him propofol, a prosecutor seized on her warning to show Murray should have known the dangers too and refused the request by Jackson.

Under cross-examination by prosecutor David Walgren, Lee acknowledged a conversation with Jackson in which she told him: "No one who cared or had your best interest at heart would give you this."

She said her final refusal to provide the drug came on April 19, 2009, and she never saw Jackson again.

Another medical witness, Dr. Allan Metzger, testified Monday that Jackson also implored him to provide the anesthetic. Metzger also refused and instead gave the singer sleeping pills that had proven effective in the past.

Metzger saw Jackson just one day before Lee refused the request for drugs by the singer.

Attorneys for Murray, a Houston-based cardiologist, are trying to show that Jackson was a strong-willed celebrity who became the architect of his own demise when he insisted on getting the intravenous drug. They also alleged he gave himself the fatal dose after Murray left his bedroom.

Lee said she had treated Jackson for nutrition and energy issues as he prepared for his planned series of "This Is It" comeback concerts.

Lee was followed to the witness stand by Phillips, who said Jackson saw the series of appearances at the 02 Arena in London as a new beginning.

He said Jackson agreed to the plan with a few caveats: He wanted his own doctor to travel with him and a lavish country home for him and his children, complete with streams and horses.

However, in June, 2009, only weeks before they were to leave for London, Phillips said "This Is It" director Kenny Ortega became concerned about Jackson's absence from some rehearsals and there was a meeting of Jackson, Murray and the organizers. He said Murray spoke for Jackson at the meeting and said he was in good health and would be fine for the concert tour.

Phillips also said Jackson refused to be dissuaded from bringing his own doctor to London despite the expense, and Phillips agreed to hire Murray.

Judge Pastor blocked Murray's attorneys from asking Phillips about Jackson's contract.

Defense attorneys had wanted to introduce Jackson's contract to show he would have owed $40 million to the promoter if the concerts were canceled. The lawyers said Jackson would be desperate to make sure the shows continued and needed sleep to get through his rehearsals.

Pastor said there was no evidence Jackson was concerned about the money and allowing testimony about the contract might confuse jurors.

"This is not a contractual dispute. This is a homicide case," Pastor said.

___

AP Entertainment Writer Anthony McCartney contributed to this report.

___

McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/celebrity/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111025/ap_en_mu/us_michael_jackson_doctor

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Oil hovers above $93 as traders await EU debt plan

Oil prices hovered above $93 a barrel as traders waited for European leaders to announce a plan later Wednesday on how they plan to solve the region's debt crisis.

By early afternoon in Europe, benchmark crude for December delivery was up 32 cents at $93.49 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $1.90, or 2.1 percent, to settle at $93.17 in New York on Tuesday.

In London, Brent crude was down 26 cents at $110.66 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

Crude has soared 24 percent from $75 three weeks ago on expectations Europe will be able to contain its sovereign debt crisis. Investors will be closely watching a summit of European leaders later Wednesday for details of a comprehensive plan to limit damage from a possible Greek debt default.

The cancellation of a meeting of EU finance ministers raised doubts about the effectiveness of the summit.

"EU finance chiefs will now meet at some undetermined date after the leaders meet to work on technical details of an as-of-yet unratified agreement," said Edward Meir at MF Global in New York. "The fact that the leadership meeting will proceed without this critical work being done strikes us as odd and suggests that we very well may get an inconclusive result on Wednesday."

Signs that U.S. crude demand remains sluggish weighed on oil prices.

The American Petroleum Institute said late Tuesday that crude inventories rose 2.7 million barrels last week while analysts surveyed by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos., had predicted an increase of 200,000 barrels.

Inventories of gasoline added 153,000 barrels last week while distillates dropped 1.8 million barrels, the API said.

The Energy Department's Energy Information Administration reports its weekly supply data ? the market benchmark ? later Wednesday.

Growing investor optimism the U.S. economy will avoid a recession this year has helped crude surge this month. However, the Conference Board said Tuesday that consumer confidence plunged in October to the lowest level since March 2009.

"The consumer's psyche is at its lowest point since the depths of the Great Recession" of 2008-2009, energy trader and consultant The Schork Group said in a report. "Given that consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic growth, that is worrisome."

In other Nymex trading, heating oil rose 0.88 cent to $3.06 per gallon and gasoline futures lost 1.51 cents at $2.6596 per gallon. Natural gas advanced 1.7 cents at $3.675 per 1,000 cubic feet.

___

Alex Kennedy in Singapore contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2011-10-26-Oil%20Prices/id-4a71799637e14169a217fc398f30e53a

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College prices up again as states slash budgets

Chart shows average college tuition and fees for four-year public colleges from 1981-2011.

Chart shows average college tuition and fees for four-year public colleges from 1981-2011.

As President Obama prepared to announce new measures Wednesday to help ease the burden of student loan debt, new figures painted a demoralizing picture of college costs for students and parents: Average in-state tuition and fees at four-year public colleges rose an additional $631 this fall, or 8.3 percent, compared with a year ago.

Nationally, the cost of a full credit load has passed $8,000, an all-time high. Throw in room and board, and the average list price for a state school now runs more than $17,000 a year, according to the twin annual reports on college costs and student aid published Wednesday by the College Board.

The large increase in federal grants and tax credits for students, on top of stimulus dollars that prevented greater state cuts, helped keep the average tuition-and-fees that families actually pay much lower: about $2,490, or just $170 more than five years ago. But the days of states and families relying on budget relief from Washington appear numbered. And some argue that while Washington's largesse may have helped some students, it did little to hold down prices.

"The states cut budgets, the price goes up, and the (federal) money goes to that," said Patrick Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. "For 25 years we've been putting more and more money into financial aid, and tuition keeps going up. We're on a national treadmill."

Nonetheless, President Obama planned to announce a series of steps to help with one of the consequences of rising college prices: student debt. This year total outstanding student loan debt has passed $1 trillion, now exceeding credit card debt. And concerns about student loan debt have been front and center with many of the Occupy Wall Street protesters.

Obama will use executive authority for two loan-relief measures. First, he will move up the start date ? from 2014 to 2012 ? of a plan Congress already passed that reduces the maximum repayment on federal student loans from 15 percent of discretionary incomes to 10 percent. The White House says about 1.6 million borrowers could be affected, and that remaining debt would be forgiven after 20 years, instead of 25.

The administration also will allow 5.8 million borrowers with outstanding loans from two federal programs ? direct lending the Family Education Loan Program ? to consolidate into a direct loan, potentially saving some borrowers hundreds of dollars per month.

Those changes may not help new borrowers much, but they could put cash in the pockets of millions still paying back their loans. They also could encourage more borrowers to take advantage of the income repayment options that are already in place, but not widely known. Finally, by consolidating into direct lending, more could qualify for that program's public service loan forgiveness, which can forgive debts after just 10 years of repayments for people working in nonprofit or public service jobs.

In the College Board's latest price report, some of the increase was driven by huge increases at public universities in California, which enrolls 10 percent of public four-year college students and whose 21 percent tuition increase this year was the largest of any state.

But even without California, prices would have increased 7 percent on average nationally ? an exceptional burden at a time of high unemployment and stagnant family incomes.

Terry Hartle, senior vice president at the American Council on Education, which represents colleges in Washington, said the cause of the price increases for the 80 percent of college students who attend public institutions is clear. State appropriations to higher education declined 18 percent per student over the last three years, the College Board found, the sharpest fall on record.

"To see increases of 20 percent, as we saw in California, to see gains of 15 percent in other states, is simply unprecedented," Hartle said. "Tuition is simply being used as a revenue substitute in many states."

The College Board reports roughly 56 percent of 2009-2010 bachelor's degree recipients at public four-years graduated with debt, averaging about $22,000. At private nonprofit universities, the figures were higher ? 65 percent and around $28,000. Those figures are likely to rise, though private borrowing ? usually more dangerous than government loans ? has been falling.

"Psychologically, practically, it's a big number, and it will inform important choices, like when and whether you buy a home, start a family, save for retirement or take the risk of starting a new business," said Lauren Asher, president of The Institute for College Access and Success, who also applauded the Obama announcement.

And Asher and other experts emphasize that the types of loans students take out can be as important as the amount. In general, a college degree remains a good investment.

Other slivers of what passes for good news: While several states had double-digit percentage increases, there were wide variations, and Connecticut and South Carolina held under 3 percent. Roughly half of students are enrolled in nonprofit colleges attend institutions charging under $10,000, and fewer than 1 in 10 attend institutions listing prices over $36,000.

Meanwhile, both community colleges and private four-year colleges reported lower tuition inflation than public universities.

At nonprofit private four-year colleges, tuition and fees were up 4.5 percent to $28,500. Factoring in aid, the average total net cost, including room and board, was about $22,970 ? lower than five years ago. At community colleges, where list prices rose 8.7 percent nationally to just under $3,000, net costs also are lower than five years ago, and aid generally covers the whole price.

Still, while net costs are important to note, they don't tell the whole story. They don't cover living costs, which for many students are a higher obstacle than tuition, especially if they can't work as much while enrolled.

And the aid dollars that help lower the average net price don't always go to the neediest students.

Colleges award merit scholarships. Federal Pell Grants do support the neediest, and spending on them has nearly doubled in the last two years to around $35 billion (9.1 million students got grants averaging $3,828).

But the latest College Board figures highlight a rapid recent increase in indirect government support through tuition and other tax credits, which have reached almost $15 billion. Around 12 million people are now taking advantage of tax benefits averaging more than $1,200. And while recent changes make low-income families better able to take advantage of those credits, a growing proportion of the benefit goes to families earning more than $100,000.

The tax credit program, dramatically expanded in 2009, "really changes the story of how the federal government subsidizes students," said Sandy Baum, the economist who directs the College Board's reports. The credit is "not so much a middle-income benefit as we're used to thinking about it."

Some states are not only cutting their appropriations but not even paying what they've promised. Illinois is late on payments worth $500 million to nine campuses this year.

The percentage increases in California, once widely considered to have the best-value public universities in the world, are so high in part because the base prices of past years were low. Prices there still aren't high by national standards, but this year for the first time, California's tuition and fee rates were above the national average. That in 2011 California's public universities would be cost more than the national average would have been unimaginable to most experts a decade ago.

Hartle and others say this year's sharp increases came despite the last chunks of stimulus dollars from Washington used to plug holes in education spending. Looking forward, state budgets remain broken and there's little indication Washington will come riding to the rescue.

"I'm not exactly sure where higher education in the United States is going," he said. "But I have a feeling California is going to get there first."

Also, on Tuesday, an Education Department official testified to a House subcommittee that personal details of as many as 5,000 college students were temporarily visible to other students on the departments' direct loan web site earlier this month.

The episode lasted six or seven minutes on Oct. 12 and happened during a reconfiguration of data on 11.5 million borrowers to improve website performance times, said James Runcie, the Education Department's federal student aid chief operating officer. Students who logged on during that window saw other students' personal details. Those who were exposed were notified and offered credit monitoring services. The department said it had no reason to believe any students' information was misused.

___

On the Net:

www.collegeboard.org

___

Justin Pope covers higher education for The Associated Press. You can reach him at twitter.com/jnn_pope9. AP Education Writer Kimberly Hefling contributed to this report from Washington, D.C.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-10-26-College%20Costs/id-ea573937c1184b14845a5705a08920b1

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Using Fuel Depots Instead of Giant Rockets

Here here!

The ENTIRE APOLLO PROGRAM cost 160 billion in ADJUSTED 2005 Dollars!!

That's all missions over the entire program, all support technologies that had to be invented for it, -- everything, the whole enchilada.

So, _every year_ we spend about 6 _APOLLO PROGRAMS_ blowing up people that don't even matter to us. We borrow 9 APOLLO PROGRAMS every _year_.

I recommend 1 "Apollo Program" as the new unit of measure of government stupidity. All things the federal government does should be measured in terms of Apollo programs and then the question should be asked, "was that as awesome as how many apollo programs it just cost us? No? then get rid of it"

I'm one of these irritating libertarian/anarchist types that hates government, but damn if I don't have a soft spot for the space program. If we're going to have a huge federal monster it might as well do things that pay dividends (unlike bombing foreign brown people -- or giving domestic brown people "free" iphones)

I don't know much about the modern difficultues within NASA. I'm sure that it is surrounded by a bunch of flagellate "private" corporations who bilk NASA and uncle sam for every penny they can and do substandard work. And I suspect it is filled internally with fiefdoms and micro-politicians who care much more about maintaing clout than working towards some overarching shared goal.

I want to understand what NASA was doing right in the 60s and re-institute that culture, environment, and most importantly, operational excellence. And I want to utilize the exiciting private work that has finally started happening in space exploration.

I don't care how it gets done, I want more American boots on foreign worlds instead of foreign battlefieds. If we need to call it the militarization of space to make it strictly constitutional, so be it. There was a different article about what to do with old satellites. Hell, blow them up. Develop our anti-satellite missile systems and space-based lasers to the point that we can safely dispose of satellites whenever cleanup would be most convenient. We can bill foreign entities to dispose of their stuff for them (at discount rates, since we're doing it to perfect our capabilities).

The point is, its embarassing that our national priorities seem to focus entirely on blowing up poor people abroad and creating a cycle of dependant poor people domestically.

Let's instead focus on growing the small fraction of people who still look towards the infinite skies and dream of what the human race can acheive.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/r-ntlPbUQcc/using-fuel-depots-instead-of-giant-rockets

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