Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/335789711?client_source=feed&format=rss
Category: kelly clarkson Hyon Song-wol us open tennis NSYNC VMA 2013 Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 11
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
TechCrunch TV Apple Event Wrap-Up: Software Free And Now, New iPads And Macs
The Apple event in San Francisco today was a big one, in terms of just how much stuff Apple trotted out between software updates, pricing bombshells and new hardware. The iPad underwent a makeover and lost some weight with the iPad Air, and the iPad mini stepped up to the big leagues with an uncompromising 64-bit A7 processor and Retina display. There were new Macs, too, and more details about the Mac Pro.
Apple also updated just about every piece of consumer software it makes, and all those updates were available today, and they were all free for existing users and anyone buying a new Mac or iOS device. That includes OS X Mavericks, the 10th and latest iteration of OS X, and the first major desktop OS update Apple has ever offered for free. Software pricing was probably the biggest surprise here, in terms of something that wasn’t leaked, but its a doozy in terms of throwing down a gauntlet for the competition.
Category: the voice GTA 5 Cheats meteor shower
Julia Roberts Gushes That Hubby Danny Moder Made Her Believe In Herself In "A Whole New Way!"
This Pretty Woman is still pretty in love…13 years later!
And at Monday night's Hollywood Film Awards, Julia Roberts couldn't stop gushing and blushing over hubby Danny Moder during her acceptence speech for supporting actress in August: Osage County!
The sweet-as-pie actress gave us a peek inside their picture perfect union, revealing:
"More than anything, the singular man who got me out of the house and on a plane to Oklahoma to do this [movie] – and it made me believe in myself in a whole brand new way – is my husband, who is here tonight … Danny Moder. I love you, babe."
A zillion AWWWWs heard round the world!
Is this uber supportive couple not the most adorbz thing you've ever seen?!
[Image via VENTURINI/BauerGriffinOnline.]
Tags: august: osage county, awardz, beverly hilton, danny moder, gushing, hollywood film awards, julia roberts, love line
Category: oarfish Lara Flynn Boyle scarlett johansson Ozymandias abigail breslin
Paris' Traffic-Cutting Gamble Charms Pedestrians, Irks Drivers
Parisians and tourists sit at a cafe along the Seine River. The mayor of Paris recently closed down a major highway along the river to open it up for pedestrians.
Christophe Morin /Landov
In a daring gamble, the mayor of Paris recently shut off a major vehicle thoroughfare through the city, the highway along the Seine River.
The move is part of his plan to reduce traffic in the city. The new space delighted Parisians and tourists this summer, but many wonder if it'll be such a hot idea during the cold winter months.
Away from the busy street, next to the Pont Alexandre III Bridge that spans the Seine River, a new recreation and leisure area called Les Berges, or the banks, is set up for pedestrians. The area was once filled with cars speeding by, but now it's a place to take a stroll, ride a bike or just sit and hang out.
And hanging out is exactly what people are doing down on the berges on a recent Indian summer day. The noise of the traffic on the streets above is now replaced with other sounds, like a speedboat cutting through the waters.
There are new sights as well, like close-up views of the ornate sculpture on the sides of the bridges. Children frolic on a new playground, where a wall has been fitted with ropes and footholds for rock climbing.
Farther on there are shuffleboard and chess, and wooden decks covered with plants and lounge chairs. There are even a couple of shipping containers with glass fronts that have been comfily furnished. You can rent a few hours in them to lounge around with your friends, undisturbed.
Xavier Janc, the head of the Berges project at Paris City Hall, says it's designed to give Parisians what they want: nature, culture and sport. "But most of all we wanted to get rid of this urban highway that marred the historic heart of the city," Janc says. "We wanted to give the river back to people who love Paris."
Everyone seems happy to be here, like Brigitte Loir, who was visiting the berges for the first time. She thinks the project is a very good idea. "I'm very happy because since a few years, there are less and less cars in Paris, and it's beautiful," Loir says.
Though kicked back in a chaise longue, sipping a drink at one of the new riverbank cafes, medical student Daniel Secnasie says he is less excited about the project. "Yeah, it's a good idea for two months a year," he says, "but the rest of the time, when it's cold and deserted, it's just forcing more traffic onto the streets above."
That's exactly the problem, says Jerome Dubus, with the French business organization Medef. The pleasant pedestrian walk has made it much harder to get through the city in a car, he says.
"It's very difficult now to have economic growth in Paris because of traffic," Dubus says. "It's more expensive for all people now, because we made more time, and time is money."
Dubus says the berges project will hurt delivery businesses and small services like plumbers and electricians and will increase overall congestion. The mile-and-a-half stretch of highway that's been closed off carried about 2,000 cars an hour during peak times. Dubus says now those cars will be forced up into the tiny streets of the Left Bank. He believes the mayor will have to cancel the project when he sees the results of a study his organization is carrying out with the Paris chamber of commerce.
Back at city hall, Janc says reversibility is one of the main pillars of the project, but he doesn't think it will be necessary. He says the traffic problems haven't been nearly as bad as anticipated.
Janc also says they have a few surprises up their sleeve for this winter to attract people to the river. Those cozy shipping containers will be heated for anyone who wants to hang out on the Seine, in the rain, in the middle of January.
Category: Jenna Jameson Austin Mahone bob newhart Grand Theft Auto 5 cheats Larry Shippers
Google to give parents more control with supervised user accounts in Chrome
Those unwilling to spend big bucks on a laptop for their kids might consider a low-cost Chromebook as an option, but could be a bit hesitant due to the OS's lack of parental controls. That could all change however, thanks to a new feature the Chrome team is rolling out this week to its beta channel. Simply add your child as a "supervised user" on Chrome, and you can see his or her browsing history and decide whether to allow or block certain sites. He or she can also request permission to view a blocked site if necessary. Interested parties can go ahead and try this out now by downloading the beta version of Chrome on Windows, Mac and Linux, though obviously this feature would be more useful for a machine with Chrome as its sole browser. Thankfully, that should be the case once this feature passes the beta phase.
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Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Amazon adds more MGM TV shows and movies to Prime Instant Video
Looking for more videos to feed that new Kindle Fire HDX? You'll be glad to hear that Amazon has just added a slew of them to Prime Instant Video through an expanded deal with MGM. The agreement gives subscribers access to the TV series Vikings as well as a handful of better-known movies, including ...Similar Articles: politico big bang theory brandon jacobs ellie goulding Nick Jonas
Jason Behr and KaDee Strickland Welcome Son Atticus
The rep tells PEOPLE, "The family is overjoyed, happy and in great health."
Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/QiOZAoQpI1w/
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Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/QiOZAoQpI1w/Similar Articles: mrsa Mary Lambert Jason Heyward Al Jazeera America Pga Leaderboard
Nicolas Cage Criticizes Hollywood's Lack of Opportunities for Male Asian Actors (Video)
Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images
Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage just wrapped up shooting on location in China for British director Nick Powell’s upcoming period drama Outcast, co-starring Hayden Christensen. But before Cage left the country, he gave an interview to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV, in which he reveals a few things about his role in the film, discusses his acting methods and speaks out against the dearth of lead roles offered to male Asian actors in Hollywood.
Answering a question about his experience working with the Chinese crew on Outcast, Cage took the opportunity to briefly turn the interview in a more serious direction.
PHOTOS: Inside Hollywood's Surprise Trip to 'China's Oscars'
After praising his female co-star Liu Yifei's performance and saying how much he enjoyed working with the Chinese industry, Cage added: “I hope that we will see more Chinese actors in American cinema too. We do see Gong Li, Zhang Ziyi and Chow Yun Fat, but it’s very rare to see the Chinese male actor in Hollywood movies, which is something I take great umbrage with. You know, my son is Asian. He may want to direct one day; he may want to be an actor like his father -- and I want that to be open to him. So I want to make some kind of effort to see more of that happen in Hollywood.”
Cage’s wife Alice Kim is Korean-American. He said their 8-year-old son, Kal-El (named after Superman's birth name on planet Krypton), came along with him to China.
“He was here with me for the first few weeks, but he had to go back to the States to go back to school," he said. "Selfishly, I wanted him to stay with me the whole time, but the teachers said he had to go back to school, so he went home."
Outcast is the first film Cage – whose filmography spans some 75 films – has shot in China. He described the experience as positive and noted that he has "no doubt" China will soon surpass North America to become the world's largest film market, as many analysts have forecasted.
The film is a co-production between China's Yunnan Film Group and U.S.-Australian outfit Arclight Films.
“I do want to come back, and I want to work with a Chinese director and Chinese actors,” Cage said. “If there’s something that makes sense for a white guy like me, I’d like to do that here in China.”
He said he views Tony Leung (In the Mood for Love, Lust, Caution) as one of the world’s great actors.
“I would like to make a movie with Tony, but I don’t know how to do it,” he said. “I want to do it.”
PHOTOS: Hollywood's Riches to Rags: 18 Stars Who Have Lost It All
Last month Cage attended China’s Huading Awards, an awards show that honors talent across all categories of the arts. At the time he told The Hollywood Reporter that he hopes to soon move to Hong Kong.
He reiterated that desire in the CCTV interview, saying, “One of my goals is to have a base near mainland China. I think Hong Kong would be a good match for me. I like being in Hong Kong.”
Cage also gave a few hints about his role in Outcast, describing his character as a "reformed crusader," adding that Powell, who is British, asked him to put on an English accent for the part.
“I'm working with a character who goes through a catharsis -- who transforms from a violent man, as a crusader, to someone who no longer wants that life -- and he leaves,” he said.
The hardworking actor also shared a few of his methods: “When I act, I hear it like music,” he said. “In my head, I hear the dialogue like music. And the movements, like dance…I do design my performances, and then when I get to the set, the part I can’t talk about -- the magic inside, the sacred part, the emotion -- I fill it with that. But I design it first like a performance.”
Near the end of the segment, CCTV’s anchor gently challenged Cage on his recent filmography, noting that some critics have questioned his choice of projects.
“You can’t make your choices based on what critics think. You have to make your choices based on what’s honest for you,” Cage replied.
He added: "I can’t let it bother me. I’m happy. I’m making movies I want to make. Something is working."
Watch the full interview below.
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Despicable Me
Photo by Teresa Castracane.
Emily Yoffe, aka Dear Prudence, is on Washingtonpost.com weekly to chat live with readers. An edited transcript of the chat is below. (Sign up here to get Dear Prudence delivered to your inbox each week. Read Prudie’s Slate columns here. Send questions to Prudence at prudence@slate.com.)
Q. Embarrassed by Co-workers: Having been single for a few months now, my colleagues have been trying to set me up with various guys. Recently at a company-sponsored dinner they suggested a guy in the office who I don't know, but is not really good looking. I assumed they were joking and laughed, declaring I would never sleep with someone who looked like him. I followed that up saying I could not imagine any woman sleeping with him. A woman at the end of the table who had been listening in gave me a strange look and got up and left. I didn't think anything until the next day someone told me that she was the wife of the man I was talking about. I am mortified and am thinking of a way to apologize. Should I call her? Call him? Send her a note saying, "You obviously DO sleep with him"? Please help me dig myself out of this.
A: So your colleagues suggested fixing you up with a married man whose wife was sitting at the table. You replied by saying of a co-worker, "Blech! Who would be desperate enough to sleep with him!" Probably sending a note to the wife saying, "I don't know how you do it, but I understand you are willing to sleep with Reginald even though I find him repulsive," will not ameliorate this situation. This whole thing is complicated by the fact that you don't know whether your co-worker knows of your insult. It's possible his wife told him. Or she might just have decided to shield him from the unpleasant remark. She also might not even know your name. If you were sure he'd heard, you could simply say to him, "I'm mortified at what a jerk I can be sometimes. I apologize." But if he doesn't know, that would be a mystifying and disturbing declaration. So I think this is one of those situations that you file under: Lesson Learned, Big Time.
Dear Prudence: Carpooler With Romantic Designs
Q. Toddler Stepson: My wife and I have custody of my 3-year-old stepson and have an 8-month-old. The 3-year-old is a typical 3-year-old ... too rough and too loud with the baby, beginning to talk back, question why on everything, being bossy, not listening, and he's definitely jealous of the baby. I try to make time to play with just him, but I'm also aware that the baby gets most of my attention, well, because he's a baby. Throw in discipline and my stepson thinks I'm "grumpy all the time" and "I don't like him." Any thoughts or advice?
A: Please get some parenting classes and read Your Three-Year-Old and Between Parent and Child. These books will help you get into the mind of your stepson and see what motivates his behavior and how you can shape yours to have a happier kid and better relationship. Sure, a 3-year-old needs guidance, but if most of it is in the form of discipline, there's something wrong. You sound as if you're trying to say you understand your stepson is only a toddler, but what comes across is that you don't like him very much. Think of things from his perspective. In three short years his father has disappeared (if he ever knew him) his mother has married someone else, and now he has a new sibling. That's a lot to absorb, and your job as his father is to help make him feel secure and loved, not let him know that you find him utterly exasperating.
Q. Stepmom Attempted to Run Dad Over With Car—Now What?: I am an adult and my parents were divorced more than 10 years ago because my father had an affair with another woman. He and this woman eventually married and their relationship has been fraught with blow-out fights, distrust, and dysfunction ever since. In the past, she has thrown things at him (without actually hitting him, luckily) and verbally abused him, but since I haven't actually witnessed these events I do not know whether she is the only one behaving badly or if my dad is also guilty of this abusive behavior. Most recently, I have learned thirdhand that my stepmother attempted to run my father over with a car, ostensibly because of a disagreement about what to do with the money from the sale of a property that they co-own. My father did not involve the police when this incident occured as he likely should have. This latest drama seems to cross a line where I no longer feel that we can just stand by and allow this to continue. But, at the same time, he is an adult of substantial means who could, if he chose to, leave the relationship at any time. How can I best help my dad?
A: You're right, we don't know if this is a mutual dance of violence, but men can be victims of domestic abuse and if he's being run over by a car driven by his wife, your father is one. I suggest you call the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Talk to the people there about how you might intervene. At the very least, you should get your father alone, say you've heard of the escalating violence, and you are concerned for his well-being. It's likely he will dismiss what you say, but sometimes the voice of a trusted person will make someone see their situation in a new light. But you also have to accept that he may be so deep into a destructive pattern, that he's more committed to playing it out than being healthy.
Q. Re: Toddler stepson: I recently started sitting my 3-year-old grandson. There were days when it seemed like we were clashing and he was ignoring me all day. Last week, it occurred to me that our clashes are because he is bored, much as a smart student who is not being challenged in class becomes bored and disruptive. After that thought, I worked hard at being less “NO,” and more letting him explore and learn with supervision. He and I have both been happier.
A: Lovely! I agree that the stepfather can do a lot to make his stepson happier, which will make the entire family happier.
Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/dear_prudence/2013/10/dear_prudence_i_accidentally_insulted_a_co_worker_oops.html
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CWRU makes nanodiamonds in ambient conditions
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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 21-Oct-2013
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Contact: Kevin Mayhood
kevin.mayhood@case.edu
216-534-7183
Case Western Reserve University
Opens door for flexible electronics, implants and more
CLEVELAND--Instead of having to use tons of crushing force and volcanic heat to forge diamonds, researchers at Case Western Reserve University have developed a way to cheaply make nanodiamonds on a lab bench at atmospheric pressure and near room temperature.
The nanodiamonds are formed directly from a gas and require no surface to grow on.
The discovery holds promise for many uses in technology and industry, such as coating plastics with ultrafine diamond powder and making flexible electronics, implants, drug-delivery devices and more products that take advantage of diamond's exceptional properties.
Their investigation is published today in the scientific journal Nature Communications. The findings build on a tradition of diamond research at Case Western Reserve.
Beyond its applications, the discovery may offer some insight into our universe: an explanation of how nanodiamonds seen in space and found in meteorites may be formed.
"This is not a complex process: ethanol vapor at room temperature and pressure is converted to diamond," said Mohan Sankaran, associate professor of chemical engineering at Case Western Reserve and leader of the project. "We flow the gas through a plasma, add hydrogen and out come diamond nanoparticles. We can put this together and make them in almost any lab."
The process for making these small "forever stones" won't melt plastic so it is well suited for certain high-tech applications. Diamond, renowned for being hard, has excellent optical properties and the highest velocity of sound and thermal conductivity of any material.
Unlike the other form of carbon, graphite, diamond is a semiconductor, similar to silicon, which is the dominant material in the electronics industry, and gallium arsenide, which is used in lasers and other optical devices.
While the process is simple, finding the right concentrations and flowswhat the researchers call the "sweet spot"took time.
The other researchers involved were postdoctoral researcher Ajay Kumar, PhD student Pin Ann Lin, and undergraduate student Albert Xue, of Case Western Reserve; and physics professor Yoke Khin Yap and graduate student Boyi Hao, of Michigan Technical University.
Sankaran and John Angus, professor emeritus of chemical engineering, came up with the idea of growing nanodiamonds with no heat or pressure about eight years ago. Angus' research in the 1960s and 1970s led him and others to devise a way to grow diamond films at low pressure and high temperature, a process known as chemical vapor deposition that is now used to make coatings on computer disks and razor blades. Sankaran's specialty, meanwhile, is making nanoparticles using cool microplasmas.
It usually requires high pressures and high temperatures to convert graphite to diamond or a combination of hydrogen gas and a heated substrate to grow diamond rather than graphite.
"But at the nanoscale, surface energy makes diamond more stable than graphite," Sankaran explained. "We thought if we could nucleate carbon clusters in the gas phase that were less than 5 nanometers, they would be diamond instead of graphite even at normal pressure and temperature."
After several ups and downs with the effort, the process came together when Kumar joined Sankaran's lab. The engineers produced diamond much like they'd produce carbon soot.
They first create a plasma, which is a state of matter similar to a gas but a portion is becoming charged, or ionized. A spark is an example of a plasma, but it's hot and uncontrollable.
To get to cooler and safer temperatures, they ionized argon gas as it was pumped out of a tube a hair-width in diameter, creating a microplasma. They pumped ethanolthe source of carbonthrough the microplasma, where, similar to burning a fuel, carbon breaks free from other molecules in the gas, and yields particles of 2 to 3 nanometers, small enough that they turn into diamond.
In less than a microsecond, they add hydrogen. The element removes carbon that hasn't turned to diamond while simultaneously stabilizing the diamond particle surface.
The diamond formed is not the large perfect crystals used to make jewelry, but is a powder of diamond particles. Sankaran and Kumar are now consistently making high-quality diamonds averaging 2 nanometers in diameter.
The researchers spent about a year of testing to verify they were producing diamonds and that the process could be replicated, Kumar said. The team did different tests themselves and brought in Yap's lab to analyze the nanoparticles by Raman spectroscopy.
Currently, nanodiamonds are made by detonating an explosive in a reactor vessel to provide heat and pressure. The diamond particles must then be removed and purified from contaminating elements massed around them. The process is quick and cheap but the nanodiamonds aggregate and are of varying size and purity.
The new research offers promising implications. Nanodiamonds, for instance, are being tested to carry drugs to tumors. Because diamond is not recognized as an invader by the immune system, it does not evoke resistance, the main reason why chemotherapy fails.
Sankaran said his nanodiamonds may offer an alternative to diamonds made by detonation methods because they are purer and smaller.
The group's process produces three kinds of diamonds: about half are cubic, the same structure as gem diamonds, a small percentage are a form suspected of having hydrogen trapped inside and about half are lonsdaleite, a hexagonal form found in interstellar dust but rarely found on Earth.
A recent paper in the journal Physical Review Letters suggests that when interstellar dust collides, such high pressure is involved that the graphitic carbon turns into londsdaleite nanodiamonds.
Sankaran and Kumar contend that an alternative with no high pressure requirement, such as their method, should be considered, too.
"Maybe we're making diamond in the way diamond is sometimes made in outer space," Sankaran proposed. "Ethanol and plasmas exist in outer space, and our nanodiamonds are similar in size and structure to those found in space."
The group is now investigating whether it can fine-tune the process to control which form of diamond is made, analyzing the structures and determining if each has different properties. Lonsdaleite, for instance, is harder than cubic diamond.
The researchers have made a kind of nanodiamond spray paint. "We can do this in a single step, by spraying the nanodiamonds as they are produced out of the plasma and purified with hydrogen, to coat a surface," Kumar said.
And they are working on scaling up the process for industrial use.
"Will they be able to scale up? That's always a crap shoot," Angus said. "But I think it can be done, and at very high rates and cheaply. Ultimately, it may take some years to get there, but there is no theoretical reason it can't be done."
If the scaled-up process is as simple and cheap as the lab process, industry will find many applications for the product, Sankaran said.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 21-Oct-2013
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Contact: Kevin Mayhood
kevin.mayhood@case.edu
216-534-7183
Case Western Reserve University
Opens door for flexible electronics, implants and more
CLEVELAND--Instead of having to use tons of crushing force and volcanic heat to forge diamonds, researchers at Case Western Reserve University have developed a way to cheaply make nanodiamonds on a lab bench at atmospheric pressure and near room temperature.
The nanodiamonds are formed directly from a gas and require no surface to grow on.
The discovery holds promise for many uses in technology and industry, such as coating plastics with ultrafine diamond powder and making flexible electronics, implants, drug-delivery devices and more products that take advantage of diamond's exceptional properties.
Their investigation is published today in the scientific journal Nature Communications. The findings build on a tradition of diamond research at Case Western Reserve.
Beyond its applications, the discovery may offer some insight into our universe: an explanation of how nanodiamonds seen in space and found in meteorites may be formed.
"This is not a complex process: ethanol vapor at room temperature and pressure is converted to diamond," said Mohan Sankaran, associate professor of chemical engineering at Case Western Reserve and leader of the project. "We flow the gas through a plasma, add hydrogen and out come diamond nanoparticles. We can put this together and make them in almost any lab."
The process for making these small "forever stones" won't melt plastic so it is well suited for certain high-tech applications. Diamond, renowned for being hard, has excellent optical properties and the highest velocity of sound and thermal conductivity of any material.
Unlike the other form of carbon, graphite, diamond is a semiconductor, similar to silicon, which is the dominant material in the electronics industry, and gallium arsenide, which is used in lasers and other optical devices.
While the process is simple, finding the right concentrations and flowswhat the researchers call the "sweet spot"took time.
The other researchers involved were postdoctoral researcher Ajay Kumar, PhD student Pin Ann Lin, and undergraduate student Albert Xue, of Case Western Reserve; and physics professor Yoke Khin Yap and graduate student Boyi Hao, of Michigan Technical University.
Sankaran and John Angus, professor emeritus of chemical engineering, came up with the idea of growing nanodiamonds with no heat or pressure about eight years ago. Angus' research in the 1960s and 1970s led him and others to devise a way to grow diamond films at low pressure and high temperature, a process known as chemical vapor deposition that is now used to make coatings on computer disks and razor blades. Sankaran's specialty, meanwhile, is making nanoparticles using cool microplasmas.
It usually requires high pressures and high temperatures to convert graphite to diamond or a combination of hydrogen gas and a heated substrate to grow diamond rather than graphite.
"But at the nanoscale, surface energy makes diamond more stable than graphite," Sankaran explained. "We thought if we could nucleate carbon clusters in the gas phase that were less than 5 nanometers, they would be diamond instead of graphite even at normal pressure and temperature."
After several ups and downs with the effort, the process came together when Kumar joined Sankaran's lab. The engineers produced diamond much like they'd produce carbon soot.
They first create a plasma, which is a state of matter similar to a gas but a portion is becoming charged, or ionized. A spark is an example of a plasma, but it's hot and uncontrollable.
To get to cooler and safer temperatures, they ionized argon gas as it was pumped out of a tube a hair-width in diameter, creating a microplasma. They pumped ethanolthe source of carbonthrough the microplasma, where, similar to burning a fuel, carbon breaks free from other molecules in the gas, and yields particles of 2 to 3 nanometers, small enough that they turn into diamond.
In less than a microsecond, they add hydrogen. The element removes carbon that hasn't turned to diamond while simultaneously stabilizing the diamond particle surface.
The diamond formed is not the large perfect crystals used to make jewelry, but is a powder of diamond particles. Sankaran and Kumar are now consistently making high-quality diamonds averaging 2 nanometers in diameter.
The researchers spent about a year of testing to verify they were producing diamonds and that the process could be replicated, Kumar said. The team did different tests themselves and brought in Yap's lab to analyze the nanoparticles by Raman spectroscopy.
Currently, nanodiamonds are made by detonating an explosive in a reactor vessel to provide heat and pressure. The diamond particles must then be removed and purified from contaminating elements massed around them. The process is quick and cheap but the nanodiamonds aggregate and are of varying size and purity.
The new research offers promising implications. Nanodiamonds, for instance, are being tested to carry drugs to tumors. Because diamond is not recognized as an invader by the immune system, it does not evoke resistance, the main reason why chemotherapy fails.
Sankaran said his nanodiamonds may offer an alternative to diamonds made by detonation methods because they are purer and smaller.
The group's process produces three kinds of diamonds: about half are cubic, the same structure as gem diamonds, a small percentage are a form suspected of having hydrogen trapped inside and about half are lonsdaleite, a hexagonal form found in interstellar dust but rarely found on Earth.
A recent paper in the journal Physical Review Letters suggests that when interstellar dust collides, such high pressure is involved that the graphitic carbon turns into londsdaleite nanodiamonds.
Sankaran and Kumar contend that an alternative with no high pressure requirement, such as their method, should be considered, too.
"Maybe we're making diamond in the way diamond is sometimes made in outer space," Sankaran proposed. "Ethanol and plasmas exist in outer space, and our nanodiamonds are similar in size and structure to those found in space."
The group is now investigating whether it can fine-tune the process to control which form of diamond is made, analyzing the structures and determining if each has different properties. Lonsdaleite, for instance, is harder than cubic diamond.
The researchers have made a kind of nanodiamond spray paint. "We can do this in a single step, by spraying the nanodiamonds as they are produced out of the plasma and purified with hydrogen, to coat a surface," Kumar said.
And they are working on scaling up the process for industrial use.
"Will they be able to scale up? That's always a crap shoot," Angus said. "But I think it can be done, and at very high rates and cheaply. Ultimately, it may take some years to get there, but there is no theoretical reason it can't be done."
If the scaled-up process is as simple and cheap as the lab process, industry will find many applications for the product, Sankaran said.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-10/cwru-cmn101813.php
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Getting Federal Benefits To Gay Couples: It's Complicated
A gay rights activist waves a rainbow flag in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in June, a day before the ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act.
Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images
A gay rights activist waves a rainbow flag in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in June, a day before the ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act.
Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images
It has been four months since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a law that defined marriage as between a man and a woman. The ruling paved the way for thousands of same-sex married couples to receive federal benefits, and a special group of government lawyers has been working to make that happen.
Their marching orders came from President Obama only hours after the high court threw out part of the Defense of Marriage Act. And the task was clear: review more than 1,000 rules and laws that cover all kinds of federal benefits to make sure gay and lesbian couples get their due.
"This is a civil rights matter," Attorney General Eric Holder says. "In many ways, I think it's akin to the struggle that African-Americans went through in the '50s and the '60s to demand equal treatment, to be allowed to enjoy all the benefits that flow to a person who is nothing more than an American citizen."
And many benefits are starting to flow. Federal employees in same-sex marriages can extend health and life insurance coverage to their spouses. Immigration authorities say they'll review petitions from people in same-sex relationships the same way they review requests from opposite-sex couples. And at the IRS, tax officials say legally married gay and lesbian couples can now file jointly.
"Obviously the decision generated a lot of excitement for a lot of people, but our job has been to make the promise of that decision, the words on the page in the Supreme Court's opinion, real for real people," says Assistant Attorney General Stuart Delery, who leads the effort to implement the Supreme Court ruling for the Justice Department.
Brian Moulton, legal director at the Human Rights Campaign, says the effort has moved swiftly, but there's still work to be done.
"The places where we still have big challenges and we really haven't heard a lot are from two big agencies: the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Social Security Administration, where we believe there are statutory problems in extending those benefits fully to married couples who live in states that don't themselves recognize those marriages," Moulton says.
That situation's complicated because the Supreme Court struck down the part of the law that defines marriage as between one man and one woman but it did not create a universal right to marry. So that leaves up in the air what happens to same-sex couples who live in states that don't recognize their marriages. And it has put the federal government in a tricky spot when it comes to Social Security and other laws that mention a place where a couple lives — or "domicile" — as a key factor in determining spousal benefits.
Associate Attorney General Tony West says many of the legal issues the Justice Department has faced were relatively straightforward. "And then," West adds, "there are harder questions. There are questions like, whether or not those benefits turn on whether the place of domicile or the place of celebration is at issue. What are you going to look to, to assess the validity of marriage in order to extend those federal benefits?"
Advocates are still anxiously waiting for answers on Social Security and the VA. Ultimately, Congress may need to weigh in to change the language in those laws. But even in cases where the Obama administration has spoken, there's been some pushback from states.
Moulton says same-sex couples in five states have been forced to travel to federal facilities, sometimes long drives away, to enroll in federal benefit programs for National Guard members.
"It does seem, you know, a little perplexing, particularly because these are federal benefits programs that are paid for with federal money and run by the federal government," he says. "It's really a question of enrollment and it's unfortunate to see that some of these states really seem to be politicking a little bit on this issue."
Moulton says he expects more friction with Medicaid enrollment, too. Even though federal health officials say same-sex couples should get those benefits, states administer the program jointly and could have a different view. And states where gay marriage is outlawed could make it harder for same-sex couples at tax time next year, too.
Justice Department officials say the Supreme Court has spoken, loudly and clearly.
"The American people, I think, have assimilated this decision, are comfortable with the decision, comfortable with what we are doing," Holder says. "I would hope their elected representatives could reflect the magnanimity of the American people."
History, he says, is on the side of same-sex couples.
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Review: Salt keeps server automation simple
October 17, 2013
Like Puppet, Chef, and Ansible, Salt is an open source server management and automation solution with commercial, officially supported options. Based on command-line-driven server and client services and utilities, Salt is primarily focused on Linux and Unix server management, though it offers significant Windows management capabilities as well. While Salt may look simple on its face, it's surprisingly powerful and extensible, and it has been designed to handle extremely large numbers of clients.
Salt uses a push method of communication with clients by default, though there's also a means to use SSH rather than locally installed clients. Using the default push method, the clients don't actively check in with a master server; rather, the master server reaches out to control or modify each client based on commands issued manually or through scheduling. But again, Salt can also operate in the other direction, with clients querying the master for updates. Salt functions asynchronously, and as such, it's very fast. It also incorporates an asynchronous file server for file deployments.
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Monday, October 21, 2013
Hulu Plus app for iPhone now supports Chromecast streaming
Chromecast owners got Hulu Plus app streaming on their Android devices and iPads at the start of the month. Today, it's the iPhone's turn: a newly updated Hulu Plus app lets those with smaller-screened iOS devices control TV shows playing through Google's media adapter. There aren't any new features ...Similar Articles: bob costas
'12 Years A Slave': Is Chiwetel Ejiofor Ready For Oscar Glory?
Ejiofor tells MTV News that 'whatever happens down the line happens,' but he's especially focused on bringing attention to the Steve McQueen film.
By Tami Katzoff
Source:
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1715892/12-years-slave-chiwetel-ejiofor-oscar.jhtml
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Google Goes After Reporters With New “Google Media Tools” Site
Google has now became the latest tech company to introduce a centralized resource containing tools aimed at courting journalists, with the launch of a new hub called Google Media Tools. The idea is to offer a one-stop shop where reporters can access and learn to use a number of Google services, from Google Search trends to Google Maps as well as get details on how to use Google to enhance their reporting on topics ranging from political elections to humanitarian disasters and more.
The suite of tools was first debuted at the Online News Association ‘13 (ONA) digital journalism conference last week, and was introduced to the broader public today through a post on Google’s official blog.
The Google Media Tools site is more than just a collection of links pointing to other properties under the Google umbrella. Instead, it has subdivided sections where reporters can dive into various topics they’re interested in, to better learn the details of how things like Google’s Transparency Report work, or to learn how to get started using the Google Maps API to build customized maps and better visualize data.
Other information on the new site includes how-to’s for reporters and news organizations aimed at helping them properly promote themselves on Google’s platform – there are instructions on how to get included in the Google News aggregator, for instance, and how to use Google+ Hangouts to reach your audience, though it misses a great opportunity to promote the resource as a way to do interviews (from personal experience, a growing request in terms of doing remote reporting via web chats).
Google’s launch of Media Tools comes at a time when competitors on search, news and social fronts, namely Facebook and Twitter, have already made big pushes of their own to get data from their services into reporters’ hands to aid with their reporting. Facebook this summer opened up the ability for anyone to embed public posts on external websites this summer, after it had already moved into other areas Twitter has been known for like trending topics, hashtags and verified profiles. The social network also recently announced the launch of the Public Feed API and Keyword Insights API, allowing select news organizations like CNN, Today Show, BSkyB and others access to programmatically search through Facebook’s public data for keywords and other trends.
Meanwhile, Twitter has for some time catered to the needs of media, with a dedicated site rich with materials for reporters in newsrooms with how-to guides and best practices and links to Twitter’s various resources for engaging an audience, getting support, understanding Twitter terminology and more.
For these companies, getting their tools and resources into the hands of the press, is not only good PR in a way, but it can help them to boost their bottom lines. Data is their product.
In the case of Twitter, it has also been an effort at getting the service into the hands of those who speak to a mainstream user base, which helped to increase awareness around what Twitter even is and how it’s used. Though Google is much better known, it, too, is still interested in growing its audience, especially as more emerging markets come online thanks to the growing adoption of smartphones and tablet computing.
Explains Daniel Sieberg, Head of Media Outreach at Google, the new site “showcases the power of the Internet overall in reaching new audiences and giving journalists more ways to make an impact.” Sieberg also notes that the site will be filled out better over time with more resources, including case studies, tutorials and expanded content, as well as support for more languages.
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Jason Collins: Out And Still Unemployed
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Jason Collins was non-descript center playing out the string of the end of a non-descript NBA career. That changed a few months ago when Collins became the first athlete from a major North American sports league to go public with his homosexuality. Now, just a couple of weeks before the start of a new NBA season, Collins remains unsigned. Sportswriter Stefan Fatsis talks to Robert Siegel to explore some of the reasons why.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NprProgramsATC/~3/Q6ucx7d4K5k/story.php
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Economists Fear 'Flying Blind' Without Government Data
The Federal Reserve headquarters in Washington, D.C., where the federal government shutdown left policymakers without key economic data.
J. David Ake/AP
The Federal Reserve headquarters in Washington, D.C., where the federal government shutdown left policymakers without key economic data.
J. David Ake/AP
Talk to economists about the government shutdown's impact on their forecasts and you'll hear this phrase again and again:
Flying blind.
For economists and investors, "at this moment, we are flying blind," said Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve and now president of Greenspan Associates LLC, a consulting firm.
Greenspan is not alone in feeling a little lost without the compass of government reports.
"We have not been collecting the data, so we are flying blind," said Diane Swonk, past president of the National Association for Business Economics and an economist for Mesirow Financial, a financial services firm.
Even though federal offices were reopened on Thursday morning, government economists have not yet been able to release their long-delayed reports. For example, the Labor Department's September employment report should have been released on Oct. 4. But when the government shut down on Oct. 1, it sent home the workers who should have been there releasing the statistics.
That employment report is very closely watched by investors. Its regular release — precisely at 8:30 a.m. — has the power to move markets.
But you can't see it yet. The Bureau of Labor Statistics website says the much-anticipated report will be released Tuesday.
At the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which issues reports on international trade, personal income and spending, the website read, "Please Note: BEA is currently assessing the impact of the shutdown and will post a revised release schedule as soon as possible."
The government data points — and their release times — are crucial for making decisions about investments. At BLS alone, this month's missing reports include those that measure wages, job creation, unemployment rates, import and export prices and consumer inflation.
Swonk said it's frustrating to wait for the release of data. "You feel like you're in a fog," she said. It's even more painful to think about the October data that may get skewed by delays.
She is especially worried about the monthly employment report because that one greatly influences Fed policymakers who set interest rates. If Fed officials don't have BLS data, then they have to make very consequential decisions in the dark.
And this week — just as BLS employees get back to their desks — is crunch time for October data collection.
According to the BLS, the government learns about Americans' job status when its "interviewers contact households by telephone and in person and ask questions regarding the labor market activity of household members during the previous calendar week which included the 12th day of the month—the reference week."
In other words, right now is when phone calls need to be completed about last week's jobs. "It's labor intensive to collect that information," Swonk noted.
But now BLS says the October report will be delayed by a week. Instead of being released on Nov. 1 as planned, it will be Nov. 8.
Greenspan said he was relieved that the shutdown did not go on longer. "If we went another four or five weeks without these data, it would leave a hole in our capacity to understand what's going on," he said. But the 16-day shutdown, while not trivial, probably won't distort data enough to have a major impact on the overall accuracy of 2013 economic readings, he said.
Robert Murphy, a Boston College professor and former senior economist for the Clinton Council of Economic Advisers, agreed that the shutdown ended in time to prevent long-term harm to economic forecasts.
He believes the BLS professionals will "scramble more" this month to round up the data as quickly as possible. But for now, "we'll be flying blind for a bit," he said.
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Betty White's 'Off Their Rockers' Revived at Lifetime (Exclusive)
Rick Floyd/NBC
"Off Their Rockers"
Lifetime is reviving Betty White's Off Their Rockers.
The female-skewing cable network has picked up 20 original half-hour episodes of the hidden-camera series, The Hollywood Reporter has learned exclusively.
White will return to host the third season of the series in 2014. A formal premiere date has not yet been determined.
STORY: NBC Cancels Betty White's 'Off Their Rockers'
The deal with producer Kinetic Content brings new episodes of the series to Lifetime, which has aired off-network repeats.
NBC aired the first two seasons of the series, which featured White overseeing the elderly playing pranks on younger folks in a hidden-camera fashion similar to Candid Camera. The show launched with a preview in April 2012 timed to an NBC special tribute for White's 90th birthday earning 12 million total viewers.
Following its 12-episode run from January to May 2012, NBC renewed the series for a second run of 14 installments, which started with back-to-back airings in January into February with its final four episodes airing March 19, June 25 and July 9.
PHOTOS: Behind-the-Scenes With Betty White and TV's Hilarious Comedy Actresses
Rockers' most recent in-season run -- which was used to help fill holes on the network and often held up well -- averaged a 1.5 rating with adults 18-49 and 5.3 million viewers. The series failed to really see an uptick when factoring in Live+Seven-Day numbers as the show didn't traditionally perform well with the DVR crowd.
Rockers marks the latest series to be spared the ax at Lifetime. The cable network revived America's Most Wanted for a 25th season after Fox dropped the John Walsh crime-fighting series after 24 runs. (Lifetime ultimately canceled the series in March.) The network also picked up ABC's Devious Maidsafter the network originally passed on the Marc Cherry drama. That series has already been renewed for a second season.
E-mail: Lesley.Goldberg@THR.com
Twitter: @Snoodit
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Google Hangouts for iOS now lets you make free phone calls to the US and Canada.
Google Hangouts for iOS now lets you make free phone calls to the US and Canada. If you use Google Voice, you can receive phone calls through the app too. [App Store]
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