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Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
Star Trek Door Chime Turns Every Room Into the Enterprise's Bridge [Star Trek]
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Essay: Depression Defies Rush to Find Evolutionary Upside
[unable to retrieve full-text content]There is a line to be drawn between any insights from sadness and the debility of a clinical condition.
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Sunday, January 15, 2012
Why Did So Much High-Profile Junk Fall from Space Last Year?
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Orbital debris hits Earth daily, but NASA says not to worry
?| January 13, 2012
Two well-publicized satellite falls a month apart got me wondering: Is this the new normal? After all, there is plenty of junk in orbit, and it can?t stay up there forever. And NASA, along with many other space agencies, now requires that satellites tumble back to Earth sooner rather than later once their useful lifetimes have ended so as to limit collisions in orbit. So how often are we going to be hearing about inbound satellites?and worrying about the ever so slim chance that they might kill us? A call to ?NASA?s top orbital debris scientist clarified the issue and reassured me that we are not now witnessing the leading edge of a debris storm.
But first a brief recap. In September, ?NASA?s defunct Upper Atmosphere Re-?search Satellite, or UARS, came streaking back into Earth?s atmosphere. UARS returned to Earth uncontrolled, meaning that NASA and the U.S. military could only guess where the pieces might land. Ulti?mately UARS did the world a favor and plunked itself down in the remote South Pacific, out of harm?s way. Just a month later Germany?s smaller ROSAT spacecraft followed suit, diving back to Earth over the Bay of Bengal. Again the fall proved benign.
Neither event, as it turns out, was all that rare. Pieces of space junk, whether derelict spacecraft, rocket bodies or other mission by-products, fall from orbit more or less daily.? UARS turned so many heads because it ?was the biggest NASA satellite to reenter uncon?trolled in over 30 years,? says Nicholas Johnson, NASA?s chief scientist for orbital debris at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. And ROSAT came with a relatively high debris risk because of its construction. ?
But UARS-size objects belonging to other space-faring agencies fall from orbit roughly once a year; ROSAT-size junk is even more common. Humankind has survived dec?ades of reentries without significant incident, thanks to the fact that most of Earth is ocean or sparsely populated land. ?Reentries are very, very routine,? Johnson says. And rules enacted since the launch of UARS are help?ing to ensure our safety. Engineers now ?de?sign for demise? when building space?craft, swapping out materials that survive reentry. ?
Johnson and his colleagues keep a list of all NASA objects in orbit, including an estimate of when those objects will make the fiery plunge into the atmosphere. Two huge ones on the books are the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Station. The plan with both is to use thrusters to drive the craft into the ocean when their time comes.?
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Adapted from the Observations blog at blogs.ScientificAmerican.com/observations
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Saturday, January 14, 2012
Analysts: S&P downgrades could have been worse
French finance minister Francois Baroin leaves the Elysee Palace Friday Jan. 13, 2012, following a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, in connection with the downgrading of France's credit rating by Standard & Poor's. (AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere)
French finance minister Francois Baroin leaves the Elysee Palace Friday Jan. 13, 2012, following a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, in connection with the downgrading of France's credit rating by Standard & Poor's. (AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere)
A trader watches a graph showing the fall of the Euro in Paris, Friday, Jan. 13, 2012. The euro fell to a 17-month low against the dollar on news reports that France's credit rating might be downgraded by Standard & Poor's. If France were downgraded it could hurt efforts to resolve Europe's debt crisis. (AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere)
French finance minister Francois Baroin leaves the Elysee Palace Friday Jan. 13, 2012, following a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, in connection with the downgrading of France's credit rating by Standard & Poor's. (AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere)
French President Nicolas Sarkozy walks in the lobby of the Elysee Palace Friday Jan. 13, 2012, following a meeting with his finance minister Francois Baroin, in connection with the downgrading of France's credit rating by Standard & Poor's.(AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The decision by Standard & Poor's to strip France of its prized AAA credit rating and downgrade eight other European countries slammed a continent struggling with a debt crisis and an economic slowdown.
But beleaguered Europeans can take some comfort: It could have been worse.
Investors had plenty of time to brace for the bad news. S&P put 15 countries, including Germany and France, on notice last month that they faced potential downgrades. The advance notice means the downgrades likely won't panic financial markets and drive up European governments' borrowing costs much higher than they already are.
"People knew it was coming, and it was only one rating agency," said Marc Chandler, head of global currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman. Moody's and Fitch Ratings have yet to follow S&P.
Stocks fell Friday as downgrade rumors reached the trading floors of Europe and the United States. But the declines were nothing like the wrenching swings of last summer and fall, when the debt crisis threw the markets into turmoil.
When the news came Friday, it wasn't as harsh as it might have been. S&P had threatened last month to knock France's credit rating down two notches. Instead, it settled for one, demoting France to AA+, just where it put the U.S. credit rating in an August downgrade.
S&P spared Europe's mightiest economy the indignity of a downgrade, leaving Germany with its AAA rating intact.
Austria lost its AAA status, while Italy and Spain fell by two notches and Portugal's debt was consigned to junk. S&P also cut ratings on Malta, Cyprus, Slovakia and Slovenia.
Analysts note that S&P's decision to downgrade long-term U.S. government debt in August did nothing to stop investors from continuing to buy U.S. Treasurys, though it did temporarily shake the U.S. stock market.
The downgrades in Europe are "going to create bad headlines for a day or two," said Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, research fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. But "there's no underlying new information ... This will be quickly forgotten."
The Dow Jones industrial average declined 0.5 percent Friday, while stocks sank 0.1 percent in France and 0.6 percent in Germany.
European countries, which borrowed heavily before the Great Recession, have struggled with high government debts after the weak economy depleted tax revenues and drove up spending on unemployment benefits and other social programs. Greece, Portugal and Ireland have already required bailouts.
And bigger countries like Italy and Spain are under financial pressure, partly because nervous investors are demanding higher interest rates to purchase their bonds.
The downgrade of France could have consequences. It will put pressure on the fund that Europe uses to bail out the weakest countries that use the euro. The fund, after all, is only as strong as the countries that contribute to it, and France is the second-biggest contributor after Germany. The bailout fund may have to pay higher interest rates to borrow ? and may have to charge higher rates to countries like Ireland that rely on it.
For now, the fund still has a rating of AAA. That means that it can borrow on the bond market at low rates.
The rating agency's verdict could also shake up French politics. If the loss of its top-notch credit rating means France has to pay higher interest rates, the government will find it harder to cut its budget deficit.
President Nicolas Sarkozy has staked his credibility ? and his re-election hopes ? on meeting a series of deficit-reduction targets and balancing France's budget by 2016. In order to stay on track, his government was forced twice last year to make extra cuts.
French Finance Minister Francois Baroin said the downgrade was "bad news" but not "a catastrophe."
"You have to be relative, you have to keep your cool," he said on France-2 television. "It's necessary not to frighten the French people about it."
Fred Cannon, chief equity strategist at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, shrugged off the news. "A lot of folks have not thought France was a AAA country for a long time," he said.
France hasn't balanced a budget in three decades, and its deficit hit 7.1 percent of its gross domestic product last year ? more than twice the legal limit of 3 percent for the 17 nations that use the euro. It also is paying a significant amount to help bail out other troubled eurozone members such as Greece, Portugal and Ireland.
Since S&P issued its downgrade threat in December, new European governments have taken "substantive actions" to bring debts under control, noted Jeff Kleintop, chief market strategist for LPL Financial.
Budget cuts in Italy and Spain have made investors more willing to buy their government bonds, pushing down the interest rates they have to pay.
Earlier Friday, Italy had capped a strong week for government bond auctions. Its borrowing costs dropped for the second straight day as it successfully raised as much as ?4.75 billion ($6.05 billion). Spain and Italy completed successful bond auctions on Thursday.
Italy's ?1.9 trillion in government debt and heavy borrowing needs this year have made it a focal point of the European debt crisis. Italy has passed austerity measures and is on a structural reform course that Premier Mario Monti claims should bring down Italy's high bond yields, which he says are no longer warranted.
The European Central Bank has relieved some of the pressure, too. It has provided banks with ?489 billion in cheap loans, some of which they have used to buy government bonds.
ECB President Mario Draghi noted "tentative signs of stabilization" in Europe.
Chandler at Brown Brothers Harriman warns that Europe still faces big problems. Italy and Spain together must refinance hundreds of billions of euros in debt this year. And the European economy is almost certain to slip into recession, if it hasn't already. A deteriorating economy across the continent could worsen the debt crisis by reducing tax collections and driving up social spending.
Europe's troubles are already having an impact in the United States. The Commerce Department reported Friday that exports to Europe fell 6 percent in November.
___
AP Business Writer Greg Keller in Paris contributed to this report.
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Video: Brokaw on the GOP presidential race
>>> we've got nbc special correspondent , tom brokaw , here to share his perspective on the presidential race . he's also the author of a new book called "the time of our lives." tom, good morning to you.
>> good morning, ann.
>> could gingrich in portraying essentially romney as part of the 1%, create a backlash that could hurt the republican chances of getting in the white house ?
>> we've looked at his financials, he got $1.8 million from the federal housing agencies, ran up a $5 million in bills in tiffanys. i think he's going to have a hard time portraying himself as just a man of main street . now having said all of that, this has had a kind of two-tiered effect. first of all, it's prompted a lot of people to come to mitt romney 's defense. notably, jim demint , a senator from south carolina , widely perceived to be the most powerful republican in that state, has not endorsed, but he said in the last 24 hours , george romney is going to win this primary in south carolina . and he criticized both rick perry and newt gingrich for lashing out at what he said was the exercise of a free enterprise system . he defended mitt romney . so it's worked against them as well as for them. democrats are pretty happy. they think they're doing the work that governor perry and newt gingrich are doing the work of the democrats come the fall campaign.
>> gingrich got some push-back at an event recently where a voter asked him, maybe you should be criticizing romney on another tack, not this one. and while gingrich 's comments may have been misinterpreted about in terms of whether or not he thought that was a mistake, he did, his campaign did release this statement. saying we will continue to examine what decisions he, being romney , made at bain. why he made those decisions, what was motivating him to make those decisions and the american people can decide whether or not they want an investment banker in chief as their commander-in-chief. so how ugly could this get in south carolina ? it looks like gingrich is doubling down.
>> it's the republican party equivalent of a g-out. they're going hard after george romney .
>> mitt romney .
>> they're going hard after governor romney , in part because they see that he has got a big head of steam at this point. he's very likely going to be the candidate if it continues as well as it has in the opening two phases of this campaign. but it's, the real danger for the republicans is it will deeply divide the party at a time when they want it to be united. because most republicans, as we've seen demonstrated in iowa and new hampshire, want somebody who they think is electable. who can run a strong race against president obama .
>> well the real question then becomes, is will it work? will this tactic work in terms of taking down romney ? because romney is saying look, it didn't work in iowa, it didn't work in new hampshire. why do you think it's going to work here on?
>> we saw the way it could go in south carolina . and a lot of things could happen, there's two debates between now and then. and that's always the test, about who makes the biggest mistake or the strongest impression. my guess is, it won't work. i've been talking to a lot of people in south carolina . i'm going down there next week. and the issue for them is the economy. they've got very high unemployment, almost 10% of the state. and they're looking for somebody who can solve the economy. and many of them have set aside their so-called social conservative issues. it's a very conservative state. it's a very religious state. but most people we're talking to are saying this time we've got to get somebody who can fix this economy. and romney , continues to run very strongly in all of the south carolina polls. so at this stage of the game, and a week away is a lifetime in primary politics. at this stage of the game, george romney seems to be holding his own and the momentum continues for him. especially because senator demint spoke up for him.
>> that's right, for mitt romney . thank you so much. tom brokaw , it's always great to have you here. great perspective, we'll see you back also tomorrow because we're going to have our big 60th anniversary celebration. have we mentioned that?
>> has anybody been talking about that? i hadn't known about that? is that true? we ought to say something about that on television. could we talk about a little more here on the "today show"?
>> all right. point well taken
Source: http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/45969742/
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Friday, January 13, 2012
Fresh calls for independent probe in Syria (AP)
BEIRUT ? The death of a French TV cameraman during a government-sponsored trip to Syria has renewed calls for an independent assessment of the violent conflict in the country, as the government and the opposition traded blame Thursday.
The French government, human rights groups and the opposition demanded an independent investigation into the killing of Gilles Jacquier while filming a pro-government rally in the restive city of Homs Wednesday.
Jacquier, who worked for France-2 Television, became the first Western journalist to be killed in the 10-month-old Syrian uprising.
He was among a group of 15 journalists on the government trip when they were hit by several grenades, and his death was likely to become a rallying cry for both sides.
The opposition called for protests in Jacquier's honor Thursday, and activists said hundreds of people held demonstrations across the country in cold and rainy weather, demanding the downfall of President Bashar Assad.
The government has said the attack shows the uprising is the work of terrorists, a narrative the government has maintained since the start of the revolt against Assad ten months ago. The opposition contends the regime is behind the bloodshed, to tarnish the uprising.
"The journalists were attacked in a heavily militarized regime stronghold ? it would be hugely difficult for any armed opposition to penetrate the area and launch such a deadly attack," said Wissam Tarif, a campaigner for online global activist group, Avaaz.
Nadim Houry, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, called for an independent, preferably international, investigation.
"Yesterday's case of the killing of the French journalist raises a number of questions, who launched the attacks, what was the purpose. The answer is we don't know," he said in an interview in Beirut Thursday. "So at this point, what's important is again to launch a credible investigation."
State-run news agency SANA said the government organized tour for journalists comes in the framework of the Syrian government's acceptance for the foreign media "to move freely" in Syria.
Syria has banned almost all foreign journalists from Syria since the start of the uprising in March, and only recently started issuing short term visas for a limited number of journalists, who are allowed to move only accompanied by government minders.
"It's up to Syrian authorities to ensure the security of international journalists on their territory," French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said Wednesday.
During the uprising, several Syrian journalists have been killed or tortured as they tried to cover the revolt, which has proven the most serious challenge to the Assad family's 40-year dynasty. With the U.N. estimate of more than 5,000 dead since March, it is among the bloodiest uprisings of the Arab Spring.
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