Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/302436864?client_source=feed&format=rss
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মঙ্গলবার, ৩০ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
Italy's new government wins 1st confidence vote
ROME (AP) ? Italy's new government easily passed its first confirmation vote Monday in Parliament after Premier Enrico Letta made concessions to his uneasy coalition allies, promising to ease part of a slate of austerity measures that have weighed on Italians impatient at the slow pace of economic recovery.
While pledging the country will do what the eurozone wants to improve its public finances and debt problem, the center-left leader has to placate his tense two-day-old coalition, including former premier Silvio Berlusconi's conservatives, whose support he needs for confirmation.
The lower house of Parliament, the Chamber of Deputies, approved his fledgling government by a vote of 453 to 153. The government faces the second mandatory confidence vote of confirmation in the Senate on Tuesday afternoon.
Bending in part to a key Berlusconi campaign promise, Letta said his government will immediately suspend an unpopular tax on primary residences due in June and make it fairer to less affluent taxpayers. He also pledged not to raise the sales tax and to reduce some payroll taxes.
"Reducing taxes is a priority," Letta said, promising he would "pinpoint a strategy to revive growth without interfering with the process to heal finances."
The European Union has insisted on rigorous austerity to heal Italy's finances, but the public's patience has been tried by spending cuts and higher taxes. Voters across the continent have been rebelling against governments that have imposed such measures.
While Letta stressed the urgency of reducing the tax burden on homeowners, consumers and businesses, he didn't say how he planned to make up for the reduced revenues. He might have to resort to more spending cuts, which could ultimately sharpen an already harsh part of the austerity agendas.
Markets appeared pleased over Letta's brand new government. Italy's stock market was trading up some 2.2 percent at the market's close, while the country's borrowing costs on its 10-year bonds dropped below 4 percent for the first time since 2010.
The failure of Letta's party to win both chambers in the February election left the nation in political paralysis until he agreed to a deal on Saturday with Berlusconi.
Berlusconi had demanded that the new government honor his No. 1 campaign promise to voters ? abolishing the property tax on primary residences and refunding what Italians paid in the tax last year. Letta didn't say if last year's property tax payments would be refunded, but a top Berlusconi aide immediately shouted victory and insisted it would be.
"If Letta wants the PDL votes, this is the condition posed in a coalition government," an exultant Brunetta told state TV, referring to the initials of Berlusconi's party.
Standard & Poor's rating services said that it wasn't clear yet whether the government can put growth reforms in place, but said Letta's initial comments "suggest an intention to slow, but not to reverse" the pace of austerity.
Intent on reassuring eurozone governments and European Union officials that despite his demanding coalition partners, Italy's would stay the course of economic reform, Letta will soon visit major European capitals. He begins in Berlin on Tuesday, assuming his government wins the Senate confidence vote.
He'll also visit Paris and Brussels to give, as he put it, a "sign that this is a European and a pro-Europe government."
He vowed to keep the sales tax from rising to 22 percent from 21 percent in July, as predecessor Mario Monti's government had planned. Italy's business sector is worried the higher tax would discourage consumers from buying everything from washing machines to new clothing.
The new premier also pledged to reduce payroll taxes for businesses hiring the young or those currently on temporary work contracts.
Italy's central bank said Monday that Italian companies were suffering ever more as loans dry up, with banks reluctant to make risky deals.
Italians are impatient after 18 months of austerity budget, pension reform and new taxes under Monti to see jobs return and the small and medium firms that power the economy bounce back. Letta denounced the "anger and conflict" that the five-year economic slump has triggered.
On Sunday, an unemployed man shot and wounded two police officers Sunday in a crowded square outside the prime minister's office at the same time the government was being sworn in elsewhere in the capital.
The premier indicated his impatience with the political class' failure to enact reforms. He indicated that he would give this legislature 18 months to make serious inroads or he might throw in the towel. However, virtually nobody expects the new government to last anywhere near Parliament's five-year term.
___
Barry reported from Milan.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/italys-government-wins-1st-confidence-vote-195954946.html
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সোমবার, ২৯ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
StoryKid, Created By Literature PhDs Students, Is An App That Helps Young Ones Tell Stories (And Their Parents, Too)
Children are known for how much they love to play make-believe, and StoryKid, an app introduced today during the Disrupt Hackathon in New York, takes this and gives it a new twist by offering a series of pictures as visual cues for a child to tell a story based around them. StoryKid is aimed at children aged 2 to 5 who are already talking but may either be too young or are just starting to write. Created by two comparative literature PhD students from Columbia University, the idea is that this will help bring children into the world of story telling and literature. And as co-founder Tianjiao Yu tells me, it can also be used by parents when they've run out of inspiration for their own made-up bedtime stories.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/yJpW9EaiKgg/
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Samsung Galaxy Mega hits FCC (again), this time with LTE
Better start working on those powerball exercises. At least if Samsung's Galaxy Mega was the thing you thought your life was missing, as it's just landed at the FCC. Yeah, we know this isn't the first time, but on second time around it's the LTE-sporting AT&T-friendly GT-i9205 model. The usual lab tests show little that we didn't know already -- unless you didn't know it had LTE Band 5, dual band WiFi, NFC or GSM 850 / 1900. As the 5.8-inch isn't 4G-enabled, this means we're looking at the bigger 6.3-inch version, but still no word on if, when or how this might land on US shores. Still no harm in limbering up though, is there?
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung
Source: FCC
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Thunder Edge Rockets 104-101 In Game 3: Kevin Durant, OKC Take 3-0 Series Lead (VIDEO)
HOUSTON ? Kevin Durant was in uncharted territory on Saturday night, playing in his first game without friend and teammate Russell Westbrook.
Durant knew it would be different, but vowed to do whatever he could to carry his team through this difficult period.
He delivered on that promise by scoring 41 points and helping Oklahoma City fight off Houston's late rally to beat the Rockets 104-101 for a 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven playoff series.
"I didn't feel the same," Durant said. "And I knew I just had to give my all from here on out ... every game is for him."
Durant checked his phone moments after leaving the court and smiled recalling the text messages he received from Westbrook.
"He texted me at halftime and right after the game," Durant said. "Just said congrats and that he loved me."
Durant scored 27 points in the first half, and the Thunder led by 26 points before a big third-quarter rally by the Rockets put them within striking distance.
Houston regained the lead with about 4 minutes left, and was up with less than a minute remaining. But Durant hit a 3-pointer, which bounced off the rim before falling in, to put Oklahoma City on top 100-99.
"We didn't want to give up any 3s," Houston's James Harden said. "He just made a lucky shot. It was good defense. It just went in and took some of the energy out of us."
A turnover by Harden gave the Thunder the ball back and Derek Fisher made two free throws to push the lead to three. Harden made a layup, but Reggie Jackson hit two more free throws after that.
Houston had a last chance, but Carlos Delfino's 3-pointer fell short.
Thunder coach Scott Brooks was impressed that his team was able to win despite losing its All-Star point guard.
"It's been an emotional time the last 48 hours," Brooks said. "We all love what Russell (Westbrook) is about. He's got probably the biggest heart I've ever been around."
Fisher said it was difficult getting through these last couple of days, but the 16-year veteran said he was there to help the younger guys deal with the loss of Westbrook.
"We're still grieving, so to speak, as a team," Fisher said. "But that's why I'm here, and that's why this is a team. Injuries and bad things happen in sports, but we still have to figure out a way to get things done."
Harden scored 30 points for the Rockets in the first playoff game in Houston since 2009. The Rockets will be at home again for Game 4 on Monday night.
Westbrook was injured in Game 2 and had season-ending right knee surgery Saturday. It was the first time Durant had played a pro game without Westbrook, who hadn't missed a game in his career before Saturday.
Durant's 41 points equaled a playoff career high, and he also had 14 rebounds, four assists, two steals and a block. He sat down for just 44 seconds on Saturday.
"Kevin has done a great job of being a playmaker all season long," Brooks said. "He's an amazing scorer, and he sets up a lot of guys to get easy buckets."
Jackson made his first career start in place of Westbrook and had 14 points, and Serge Ibaka added 17 points and 11 rebounds.
Chandler Parsons had a tying 3-pointer for Houston with 5:46 left, and Delfino put the Rockets in front for the first time since early in the first quarter when he connected from long range to make it 94-93 about 2 minutes later.
Ibaka made four straight points after that, ending with a reverse layup, to make it 97-94 with about a minute and a half left.
Harden hit a pair of free throws. Then Francisco Garcia's 3-pointer put them up 99-97 with 45 seconds left, before the clutch shot by Durant.
The Rockets rallied from a 15-point deficit to take a lead in the fourth quarter in Game 2. But they weren't able to hold on and Oklahoma City got the 105-102 win.
It was much the same this time, as Houston went up late only to fall again.
"We've got to find a way to win those games," Houston coach Kevin McHale said.
Harden complained that he and his teammates were sluggish and lacked energy early. He knows that won't cut it if they expect to win on Monday.
"We have to have that energy from the beginning of the game to the end of the game," he said. "We can't have droughts. You have to play a solid game for 48 minutes."
Westbrook's absence didn't seem to bother Oklahoma City early, as Durant had the big first half and the Thunder looked to be in complete control.
Things changed in the third quarter when Durant was limited offensively and Houston outscored the Thunder 27-14 in the period.
Houston point guard Jeremy Lin, who bruised a chest muscle in Game 2, started but scored only two points in about 18 minutes.
Parsons scored 21 points, and Garcia had 18.
After a big run got Houston within eight in the third quarter, Garcia and Harden made 3-pointers around a dunk by Durant to whittle the lead to 80-76 entering the last quarter.
Durant was scoreless in the third until his dunk with 27 seconds remaining in the quarter.
The Thunder led by 19 points when the Rockets used a 16-5 surge to get to 78-70 with 2 1/2 minutes left in the third. The Rockets harassed Oklahoma City into three turnovers in that stretch, and Durant went cold as he missed four shots.
NOTES: Garcia and McHale received technical fouls in the first quarter. ... Pitching great Roger Clemens and Houston Texans star receiver Andre Johnson attended the game.
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/28/thunder-rockets-game-3-playoffs_n_3172264.html
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রবিবার, ২৮ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
President Obama Zings CNN, MSNBC During Correspondents? Speech ? Watch the Whole Thing Here
ObamaPresident Barack Obama talks with Ed Henry, President of the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) during the organization's annual dinner on April 27, 2013 in Washington, DC. (Photo: Getty Images)
President Barack Obama had several pages of cohesive one-liners during his White House Correspondents' Dinner Speech Saturday night.? He took aim at Rush Limbaugh and Republicans, as is his habit, but he (and many others) also singled out CNN and MSNBC.
Swaggering up to the podium to the sound of rap music, he began: "Rush Limbaugh warned you about this -- second term baby, we're changing things around here a little bit..."
He touched on how the second term, though, is somewhat more tiring.? "I'm not the strapping young Muslim socialist that I used to be..." he joked.
The president said at one point he was so desperate to quell the never-ending controversy he decided to use one of "Michelle's tricks."? At that point, a number of images of President Obama flashed on the screen, all with prominent bangs PhotoShopped onto the forehead.
Switching gears, Obama turned to the media.? Of CNN, he said: "I admire their commitment to cover all sides of the story -- just in case one of them happens to be accurate!"
He continued: "David Axelrod now works for MSNBC, which is a nice change of pace since MSNBC used to work for David Axelrod.? The History channel is not here, I guess they were embarrassed about that whole, 'Obama is a devil thing,' of course that didn't keep Fox News from showing up..."
After joking about how Buzzfeed used to be "something I did in college around 2 a.m," Obama recognized the press' preference for him over his competitors.
"My job is to be president, your job is to keep me humble -- frankly I think I'm doing my job better," he said.
After joking about the election and how Sheldon Adelson would've been better off offering him $100 million to drop out than spending it on attack ads, the president said he's already planning his legacy.
In lieu of a library, he's going to build another "edifice" next to the George W. Bush presidential library.? A giant billboard pointing to it saying, "His Fault."
President Obama closed on a more somber note, saying "these have been some very hard days for too many of our citizens...[but] even when the days seem darkest, we have seen humanity shine at its brightest.? We have seen first respondents and national guardsmen who dashed into danger, law enforcement officers who served their oath to serve and protect, Americans opening their homes and their hearts to perfect strangers..."
He urged everyone in the room to do more for "all those folks who are counting on us."
Watch the entire speech via the Washington Post, below:
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/president-obama-zings-cnn-msnbc-during-correspondents-speech-042426745.html
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New drug stimulates immune system to kill infected cells in animal model of hepatitis B infection
Apr. 26, 2013 ? A novel drug developed by Gilead Sciences and tested in an animal model at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute in San Antonio suppresses hepatitis B virus infection by stimulating the immune system and inducing loss of infected cells.
In a study conducted at Texas Biomed's Southwest National Primate Research Center, researchers found that the immune modulator GS-9620, which targets a receptor on immune cells, reduced both the virus levels and the number of infected liver cells in chimpanzees chronically infected with hepatitis B virus (HBV). Chimpanzees are the only species other than humans that can be infected by HBV. Therefore, the results from this study were critical in moving the drug forward to human clinical trials which are now in progress.
The new report, co-authored by scientists from Texas Biomed and Gilead Sciences, appears in the May issue of Gastroenterology. Gilead researchers had previously demonstrated that the same therapy could induce a cure of hepatitis infection in woodchucks that were chronically infected with a virus similar to human HBV.
"This is an important proof-of-concept study demonstrating that the therapy stimulates the immune system to suppress the virus and eliminate infected liver cells," said co-author Robert E. Lanford, Ph.D., of Texas Biomed. "One of the key observations was that the therapy continued to suppress virus levels for months after therapy was stopped.
The current therapy for HBV infection targets the virus and works very well at suppressing viral replication and delaying progression of liver disease, but it is a lifelong therapy that does not provide a cure.
"This GS-9620 therapy represents the first conceptually new treatment for HBV in more than a decade, and combining it with the existing antiviral therapy could be transformative in dealing with this disease," stated Lanford.
The Gilead drug binds a receptor called Toll-Like Receptor 7 that is present in immune cells. The receptor normally recognizes invading viruses and triggers the immune system to suppress viral replication by the innate immune response and kill infected cells by the adaptive immune response, thus orchestrating both arms of the immune system.
HBV damages the liver, leading to cirrhosis and liver cancer. Liver cancer is the fifth most common cancer worldwide and the third most common cause of cancer death. According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), up to 1.4 million Americans are chronically infected with HBV.
The World Health Organization estimates that two billion people have been infected with the hepatitis B virus, resulting in more than 240 million people with chronic infections and 620,000 deaths every year.
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Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Texas Biomedical Research Institute, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Robert E. Lanford, Bernadette Guerra, Deborah Chavez, Luis Giavedoni, Vida L. Hodara, Kathleen M. Brasky, Abigail Fosdick, Christian R. Frey, Jim Zheng, Grushenka Wolfgang, Randall L. Halcomb, Daniel B. Tumas. GS-9620, an Oral Agonist of Toll-Like Receptor-7, Induces Prolonged Suppression of Hepatitis B Virus in Chronically Infected Chimpanzees. Gastroenterology, 2013; DOI: 10.1053/j.gastro.2013.02.003
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/ww9ov1VhtEA/130426152556.htm
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NATO: 4 service members killed in plane crash
Afghan men surround a burned bus after it collided with the wreckage of a truck that was attacked by Taliban insurgents in Maiwand district, on the highway between Kandahar and Helmand, Afghanistan, Friday, April 26, 2013. Scores of people aboard the bus were killed in the fiery crash, officials said. (AP Photo/Abdul Khaliq Kandahari)
Afghan men surround a burned bus after it collided with the wreckage of a truck that was attacked by Taliban insurgents in Maiwand district, on the highway between Kandahar and Helmand, Afghanistan, Friday, April 26, 2013. Scores of people aboard the bus were killed in the fiery crash, officials said. (AP Photo/Abdul Khaliq Kandahari)
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) ? A plane crashed in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, killing four international service members, NATO said.
Initial reporting indicated there was no enemy activity in the area at the time, but coalition personnel secured the site and the cause of the crash was being investigated, NATO said.
The brief statement did not identify the nationalities of the victims, or say where the plane went down.
However, Mohammad Jan Rasoulyar, deputy governor of the southern province of Zabul, said an aircraft belonging to foreign forces crashed Saturday afternoon in Shah Joy district. He said the site had been surrounded by international forces.
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শনিবার, ২৭ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
Tsarnaev questioned for 16 hours before he was read Miranda rights
(Adds later picks) NEW YORK, April 25 (Reuters) - Selections in the first roundof the 2013 NFL Draft at Radio City Music Hall on Thursday (picknumber, NFL team, player, position, college): 1-Kansas City, Eric Fisher, offensive tackle, Central Michigan 2-Jacksonville, Luke Joeckel, offensive tackle, Texas A&M 3-Miami (from Oakland), Dion Jordan, defensive tackle, Oregon 4-Philadelphia, Lane Johnson, offensive tackle, Oklahoma 5-Detroit, Ezekiel Ansah, defensive end, Brigham Young 6-Cleveland, Barkevious Mingo, linebacker, LSU 7-Arizona, Jonathan Cooper, guard, North Carolina 8-St. ...
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/tsarnaev-questioned-16-hours-read-miranda-rights-135531333.html
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Satechi BT Lite Bluetooth headphones review
Sometimes you really don’t want to be tethered by wire to your phone or MP3 player, and these days Bluetooth speakers and headphones are commonplace. Satechi?was good enough to send us a pair of the BT Lite Headphones to review. ?Now I’m used to being “Wired for Sound”, and I figured surely being wireless has [...]
Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2013/04/26/satechi-bt-lite-bluetooth-headphones-review/
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শুক্রবার, ২৬ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
Drinking one 12-ounce sugar-sweetened soft drink a day can increase the risk of type 2 diabetes by 22 percent, study suggests
Apr. 24, 2013 ? Drinking one (or one extra)* 12oz serving size of sugar-sweetened soft drink a day can be enough to increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 22%, a new study suggests. The research is published in Diabetologia (the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes) and comes from data in the InterAct consortium**.
The research is by Dr Dora Romaguera, Dr Petra Wark and Dr Teresa Norat, Imperial College London, UK, and colleagues.
Since most research in this area has been conducted in North American populations, the authors wanted to establish if a link between sweet beverage consumption and type 2 diabetes existed in Europe. They used data on consumption of juices and nectars, sugar-sweetened soft drinks and artificially sweetened soft drinks collected across eight European cohorts participating in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC study; UK, Germany, Denmark, Italy, Spain, Sweden, France, Italy, Netherlands)***, covering some 350,000 participants.
As part of the InterAct project, the researchers did a study which included 12,403 type 2 diabetes cases and a random sub-cohort of 16,154 identified within EPIC. The researchers found that, after adjusting for confounding factors, consumption of one 12oz (336ml) serving size of sugar-sweetened soft drink per day increased the risk of type 2 diabetes by 22%. This increased risk fell slightly to 18% when total energy intake and body-mass index (BMI) were accounted for**** (both factors that are thought to mediate the association between sugar-sweetened soft drink consumption and diabetes incidence). This could indicate that the effect of sugar-sweetened soft drink on diabetes goes beyond its effect on body weight.
The authors also observed a statistically significant increase in type 2 diabetes incidence related to artificially sweetened soft drink consumption, however this significant association disappeared after taking into account the BMI of participants; this probably indicates that the association was not causal but driven by the weight of participants (i.e. participants with a higher body weight tend to report higher consumption of artificially sweetened drinks, and are also more likely to develop diabetes). Pure fruit juice and nectar***** consumption was not significantly associated with diabetes incidence, however it was not possible using the data available to study separately the effect of 100% pure juices from those with added sugars.
The authors say the increased risk of diabetes among sugar-sweetened soft drink consumers in Europe is similar to that found in a meta-analysis of previous studies conducted mostly in North America (that found a 25% increased risk of type 2 diabetes associated with one 12 oz daily increment of sugar-sweetened beverage consumption).
Dr Romaguera concludes: "Given the increase in sweet beverage consumption in Europe, clear messages on the unhealthy effect of these drinks should be given to the population."
Notes
*The increased risk of 22% is for each extra 12oz sugar sweetened drink, so would apply to someone who had 1 drink versus someone who had 0, or someone who had 2 drinks versus someone who had 1, etc.
**The InterACT consortium is investigating, among other things, nutritional factors and physical activity to study the association of nutritional, dietary and physical activity behaviours with incident diabetes in the nested case-cohort study and to contribute to the analysis of gene-lifestyle interaction. It is a sub-division of the EPIC study, which was designed to investigate the relationships between diet, nutritional status, lifestyle and environmental factors and the incidence of cancer and other chronic diseases.
***The centres involved were France, Italy, Spain, Denmark, UK (Oxford, Cambridge), Netherlands (Bilthoven, Utrecht), Germany (Heidelberg, Potsdam), Sweden (Umea, Malmo)
****Extra info from Dr Romaguera: The 22% figure is used as the top line because it is widely accepted by the scientific community that these models should not be adjusted for BMI. In the meta-analysis comparison with other studies from the USA, the risk is those studies is NOT adjusted by BMI. That makes it possible to compare the two sets of results (25% increased risk in North American studies versus 22% in Europe).
*****nectars (UK and USA definition) are fruit juices that have been diluted to some extent and may contain additives (sugar or sweeteners)
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Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Diabetologia, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- The InterAct consortium. Consumption of sweet beverages and type 2 diabetes incidence in European adults: results from EPIC-InterAct. Diabetologia, 2013 (in press) DOI: 10.1007/s00125-013-2899-8
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/living_well/~3/3I2YnuZPQ6w/130424185205.htm
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Conviction politics is back, they say. But will the politicians keep it up ...
If you believe that there is such a thing as truth, then you have to tell those who disagree with you, voters or not, that they are just wrong
Now that Lady Thatcher?s funeral is safely over (and turned out, or so it seemed to me, to have been far more warmly supported, in the event, by public opinion than it had been supposed it would be) it looks as though the Thatcher phenomenon is not yet fading from public attention as I supposed that by now it would be. The explanation, of course, is the publication of multiple serial extracts from the first volume of Charles Moore?s biography and the impending publication of the door-stopper volume itself (I look forward with keen anticipation to its weightless arrival tomorrow on my Kindle).
So my subject today will certainly be as current for the next day or so as, according to Janet Daly, it has been since the funeral. The ?magic word of the week?, she says, was ?conviction?: ?there was no longer any question, apparently, about whether ?conviction politics? was a good or a bad thing, or whether it was an optional extra for political leaders. (How did that notion ever get off the ground, anyway? After all, what is the alternative: lack-of-conviction politics?) Convictions are simply strongly held, principled beliefs. What business would you have pursuing power if you had no strong principled beliefs about what was right for the country??
But as she points out, the trouble with that is that until ?about 20 minutes ago, it was fashionable to imply that there was something faintly demonic about being a conviction-led leader: that it was tantamount to demagoguery or just implacable bloody-mindedness?. And as she rightly points out, no one has been more guilty of spreading this notion than Cameron?s generation of Tories (she could have added, however, that there are at least two exceptions to that in the cabinet, ie Michael Gove and Iain Duncan Smith, though both to my sorrow are voting the wrong way over same-sex ?marriage?).
?Something like real politics is back?, or so she thinks. ?Even if nobody is absolutely sure what it might consist of, we have a pretty clear idea of what it should look like. It is fairly crucial that the people who espouse it sound as if they believe in something?. Ah, ?sound as if?. There?s the rub. We are used by now to politicians being good at sounding as if they believe this, that or the other. But, as she says, it?s a start.
More than anything, thinks Mrs Daley, what people want ? as the nostalgia of last week made undeniably clear ? is ?a sense of moral mission. Government should be about something. So the present lot of Conservative leaders now realise that they must transform themselves from looking like managers who may be trusted to take common-sense decisions, into the bearers of a sacred duty on which they will never renege.?
But will they be able to keep it up: which is another way of asking ?do they really believe it?? In the end, I strongly suspect, they think that convictions passionately held are what they call ?divisive?. Admirable Mrs Thatcher may have been in many ways, courageous and far-sighted and all that, but she was also ?divisive?: and what that means, they think, is people not voting for you (they think this despite the fact that Mrs Thatcher won three General Elections and they have won none). And being divisive is also uncomfortable. Much better to be tolerant, all things to all men, live and let live?. Mrs Thatcher, after all, was a Christian. Christians bring people together, don?t they? Well, no, actually, not necessarily:
Luke 12:51. Think ye, that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, no; but separation.
12:52. For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three.
12:53. The father shall be divided against the son and the son against his father: the mother against the daughter and the daughter against her mother: the mother-in-law against the daughter-in-law and the daughter- in-law law against her mother-in-law. (Douai-Challenor)
The truth is undoubtedly divisive: so much is obvious. Unless, that is, like all those whose idea of society is built on the need for consensus in all things, harmful or not, you are someone who doesn?t really believe in truth, someone who thinks that ?truth? is a kind of joke: and what does that remind you of? The famous opening sentence of Francis Bacon?s essay ?Of Truth? is all most people remember of it: ?What is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer?; but the whole essay is worth reading. Its last sentence is less memorable but more powerful than the first: ?Surely the wickedness of falsehood, and breach of faith, cannot possibly be so highly expressed, as in that it shall be the last peal, to call the judgments of God upon the generations of men; it being foretold, that when Christ cometh, he shall not find faith upon the earth.? Scary.
Thinking of that contradiction between truth and consensus, I remembered, first, Francis Bacon on ?jesting Pilate?, and then Mgr Ronald Knox, in The Creed in Slow Motion, on the same subject. He has been talking of Our Lady?s title ?Mother of God? as the touchstone of Christian Orthodoxy. Then he speaks of the only other named non-divine human person in the Creed: ?Pilate wasn?t the touchstone of anything; certainly not of truth?he didn?t even believe in truth?. The trouble about him, I suppose, was that he was so anxious to please everybody. He wanted to please Caiphas, he wanted to please the Jewish mob, he wanted to please his wife, he wanted to please Herod, he wanted to please our Lord, he wanted to please St Joseph of Arimathea; and like most people who want to please everybody, he pleased nobody?.
?Pilate didn?t dislike Our Lord at all? And yet it was Pilate who crucified him. It was the world of worldly people, with its dislike of a scene, its dislike of a fuss, its doctrine of ?live and let live? that put Jesus Christ to death.?
In the end, it was Pilate?s horror of ?divisiveness? that led him to do the most terrible thing a human being has ever done. Let us hope, then, that the current fashion for politicians who believe something, who have principles, disruptive or not, lasts a little longer than I fear it may. Let us hope for a durable access of courage to be divisive.
Source: http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2013/04/24/politicians-should-not-fear-conviction/
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Scientists detect 'dark lightning' energy burst linked to visible lightning
Apr. 24, 2013 ? Researchers have identified a burst of high-energy radiation known as 'dark lightning" immediately preceding a flash of ordinary lightning. The new finding provides observational evidence that the two phenomena are connected, although the exact nature of the relationship between ordinary bright lightning and the dark variety is still unclear, the scientists said.
"Our results indicate that both these phenomena, dark and bright lightning, are intrinsic processes in the discharge of lightning," said Nikolai ?stgaard, who is a space scientist at the University of Bergen in Norway and led the research team.
He and his collaborators describe their findings in an article recently accepted in Geophysical Research Letters -- a journal of the American Geophysical Union.
Dark lightning is a burst of gamma rays produced during thunderstorms by extremely fast moving electrons colliding with air molecules. Researchers refer to such a burst as a terrestrial gamma ray flash.
Dark lightning is the most energetic radiation produced naturally on Earth, but was unknown before 1991. While scientists now know that dark lightning naturally occurs in thunderstorms, they do not know how frequently these flashes take place or whether visible lightning always accompanies them.
In 2006, two independent satellites -- one equipped with an optical detector and the other carrying a gamma ray detector -- coincidentally flew within 300 kilometers (186 miles) of a Venezuelan storm as a powerful lightning bolt exploded within a thundercloud. Scientists were unaware then that a weak flash of dark lightning had preceded the bright lightning.
But last year, ?stgaard and his colleagues discovered the previously unknown gamma ray burst while reprocessing the satellite data. "We developed a new, improved search algorithm?and identified more than twice as many terrestrial gamma flashes than originally reported," said ?stgaard. He and his team detected the gamma ray flash and a discharge of radio waves immediately preceding the visible lightning.
"This observation was really lucky," ?stgaard said. "It was fortuitous that two independent satellites -- which are traveling at 7 kilometers per second (4.3 miles per second) -- passed right above the same thunderstorm right as the pulse occurred." A radio receiver located 3,000 kilometers (1864 miles) away at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina detected the radio discharge.
The satellites' observations combined with radio-wave data provided the information that ?stgaard and his team used to reconstruct this ethereal electrical event, which lasted 300 milliseconds.
?stgaard and his team suspect that the flash of dark lightning was triggered by the strong electric field that developed immediately before the visible lightning. This strong field created a cascade of electrons moving at close to the speed of light. When those relativistic electrons collided with air molecules, they generated gamma rays and lower energy electrons that were the main electric current carrier that produced the strong radio pulse before the visible lightning.
Dark and bright lightning may be intrinsic processes in the discharge of lightning, ?stgaard said, but he stressed that more research needs to be done to elucidate the link.
The European Space Agency is planning on launching the Atmospheric Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM) within the next three years, which will be able to better detect both dark and visible lightning from space, said ?stgaard, who is part of the team that is building the ASIM gamma-ray detector.
Dark lightning has remained a perplexing phenomenon due to scientific limitations and a dearth of measurements, ?stgaard explained.
"Dark lightning might be a natural process of lightning that we were completely unaware of before 1991," he noted. "But it is right above our heads, which makes it very fascinating."
A grant from the European Research Council and the Research Council of Norway funded this research.
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Journal Reference:
- N. ?stgaard, T. Gjesteland, B. E. Carlson, A. B. Collier, S. Cummer, G. Lu, H. J. Christian. Simultaneous observations of optical lightning and terrestrial gamma ray flash from space. Geophysical Research Letters, 2013; DOI: 10.1002/grl.50466
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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/xhX8u93o0HY/130424210319.htm
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Feds delay policy to allow small knives on planes
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Airline passengers will have to leave their knives at home after all. And their bats and golf clubs.
A policy change scheduled to go into effect this week that would have allowed passengers to carry small knives, bats and other sports equipment onto airliners will be delayed, federal officials said Monday.
The delay is necessary to accommodate feedback from an advisory committee made up of aviation industry, consumer, and law enforcement officials, the Transportation Security Administration said in a brief statement. The statement said the delay is temporary, but gave no indication how long it might be.
TSA Administrator John Pistole proposed the policy change last month, saying it would free up the agency to concentrate on protecting against greater threats. TSA screeners confiscate about 2,000 small folding knives from passengers every day.
The proposal immediately drew fierce opposition from flight attendant unions and federal air marshals, who said the knives can be dangerous in the hands of the wrong passengers. Some airlines and members of Congress also urged TSA to reconsider its position.
The delay announced by TSA doesn't go far enough, a coalition of unions representing 90,000 flight attendants nationwide said Monday.
"All knives should be banned from planes permanently," the group said in a statement.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who opposed the policy, said TSA's decision is an admission "that permitting knives on planes is a bad idea." He also called for a permanent ban.
Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., another opponent, said he will continue to push TSA to drop the proposal entirely.
"People with radical ideas can use everyday objects to cause great harm," Markey said. "If there is an opportunity to decrease risks to Americans, we have a duty to protect our citizens and disallow knives from being taken onto planes."
The proposed policy would have permitted folding knives with blades that are 2.36 inches (6 centimeters) or less in length and are less than 1/2-inch (1-centimeter) wide. The policy was aimed at allowing passengers to carry pen knives, corkscrews with small blades and other small knives.
Passengers also would have been be allowed to bring onboard as part of their carry-on luggage novelty-sized baseball bats less than 24 inches long, toy plastic bats, billiard cues, ski poles, hockey sticks, lacrosse sticks and two golf clubs, the agency said.
Security standards adopted by the International Civil Aviation Organization, a U.N. agency, already call for passengers to be able to carry those items. Those standards are non-binding, but many countries follow them.
The proposal didn't affect box cutters, razor blades and knives that don't fold or that have molded grip handles, which are prohibited.
Passengers were prohibited from carrying the small knives onboard planes after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Some of the terrorists in those attacks used box cutters to intimidate passengers and airline crew members.
It's unlikely in these days of hardened cockpit doors and other preventative measures that the small folding knives could be used by terrorists to take over a plane, Pistole told Congress last month.
There has been a gradual easing of some of the security measures applied to passengers after the 9/11 attacks. In 2005, the TSA changed its policies to allow passengers to carry on airplanes small scissors, knitting needles, tweezers, nail clippers and up to four books of matches. The move came as the agency turned its focus toward keeping explosives off planes, because intelligence officials believed that was the greatest threat to commercial aviation.
And in September 2011, the TSA no longer required children 12 years old and under to remove their shoes at airport checkpoints. The agency recently issued new guidelines for travelers 75 and older so they can avoid removing shoes and light jackets when they go through airport security checkpoints.
___
Follow Joan Lowy on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AP_Joan_Lowy
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/feds-delay-policy-allow-small-knives-planes-000334255.html
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Did brotherly bond play role in Boston bombings?
This Monday, April 15, 2013 photo provided by Bob Leonard shows bombing suspects Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, center right in black hat, and his brother, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, center left in white hat, approximately 10-20 minutes before the blasts that struck the Boston Marathon. It's a vexing puzzle about the Boston Marathon bombings: The younger of the two accused brothers hardly seemed headed for a monumental act of violence. How could he team up with his older brother to do this? Nobody knows for sure, but some experts in sibling research say the powerful bonds that can develop between brothers may have played a role. (AP Photo/Bob Leonard)
This Monday, April 15, 2013 photo provided by Bob Leonard shows bombing suspects Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, center right in black hat, and his brother, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, center left in white hat, approximately 10-20 minutes before the blasts that struck the Boston Marathon. It's a vexing puzzle about the Boston Marathon bombings: The younger of the two accused brothers hardly seemed headed for a monumental act of violence. How could he team up with his older brother to do this? Nobody knows for sure, but some experts in sibling research say the powerful bonds that can develop between brothers may have played a role. (AP Photo/Bob Leonard)
NEW YORK (AP) ? It's a vexing puzzle about the Boston Marathon bombings: The younger of the two accused brothers hardly seemed headed for a monumental act of violence. How could he team up with his older brother to do this?
Nobody knows for sure, but some experts in sibling research say the powerful bonds that can develop between brothers may have played a role.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died last week at age 26 in a shootout with police, and his 19-year-old sibling Dzhokhar are hardly the first brothers involved in criminal acts. Three pairs of brothers were among the 9/11 terrorists, for example, and three brothers were convicted in 2008 for planning to attack soldiers at Fort Dix in New Jersey.
"There are a lot of criminal enterprises where you have brothers involved," said James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston. "It is almost always the older brother who is the leader. ... Typically the younger brother looks up to the older brother in many ways."
Friends and relatives paint markedly different pictures of the Tsarnaev pair. Tamerlan could be argumentative and sullen, saying at one point he hadn't made a single American friend since immigrating years earlier, and he was arrested in 2009 for assault and battery on a girlfriend before those charges were dismissed. Dzhokhar appears to have been well-adjusted and well-liked in both high school and college.
Tamerlan seemed to be the dominant sibling in the family.
"He was the eldest one and he, in many ways, was the role model for his sisters and his brother," said Elmirza Khozhugov, 26, the ex-husband of Tamerlan's sister, Ailina. "You could always hear his younger brother and sisters say, 'Tamerlan said this,' and 'Tamerlan said that.' Dzhokhar loved him. He would do whatever Tamerlan would say."
Federal officials say their initial questioning of Dzhokhar suggests both brothers were motivated by a radical brand of Islam without apparent connections to terrorist groups. Their uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, has blamed their alleged bombing partnership on Tamerlan, saying Dzhokhar has been "absolutely wasted by his older brother ... He used him ... for what we see they've done."
Research shows that older brothers can have a direct influence on younger ones, says Katherine Conger, an associate professor of human development and family studies at the University of California-Davis.
"Sometimes it's through having a high quality relationship. So they spend time together, they enjoy doing things together and kind of hang out," she said. But other times, she said, it's through coercion and threats.
Studies show that children and adolescents can be influenced toward theft, vandalism and alcohol use by their older siblings. The influence is even more pronounced when parenting is harsh, inconsistent or absent, and when the two siblings share the same friends, experts said.
So how might that apply to the Tsarnaev brothers? There are several reasons to be wary about extrapolating the research to this case: So little is known about the brothers' family lives and other details. And most sibling research examines more ordinary infractions occurring in Western cultures ? not the extreme behavior believed carried out by the Tsarnaevs, who shared both an American culture and an ethnic Chechen background.
Still, from the sketchy details in press reports, some experts said it makes sense that Tamerlan could have had a major influence on his younger brother. That may have been through a close relationship or coercion, Conger said. "It's really hard to know."
Lew Bank of Portland State University in Oregon said Dzhokhar may have looked up to his older brother and wanted to please him. "It was very likely exciting for the younger brother to be so intensively at work with his big brother at something that seemed so important to them both," Bank said.
The relationship may have intensified when both parents left the country within the past year or so, leaving Tamerlan as Dzhokhar's dominant family member, he said. Tamerlan may have taken on a father-like role, said Avidan Milevsky of Kutztown University of Pennsylvania.
But for Laurie Kramer of the University of Illinois, a key question remains. Why couldn't Dzhokhar tell his older brother, "This isn't right, this isn't acceptable?" she asked. "This seems to be a case where a little bit more sibling conflict might have been useful."
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Sharon Osbourne says she's not divorcing Ozzy
NEW YORK (AP) ? Sharon Osbourne says she and husband Ozzy aren't splitting.
Osbourne addressed recent rumors of their family problems on Tuesday's edition of "The Talk," the CBS chat show she co-hosts.
She told viewers she had not been aware of her husband's year-and-a-half-long relapse into prescription drug and alcohol abuse, which he made public in an apologetic Facebook post last week.
She says she is "devastated" by their struggles, but she added that the couple has dealt with worse before.
The TV personality and music manager blinked back tears as she said, "This, too, shall pass."
Ozzy Osbourne was a founding member of heavy-metal pioneers Black Sabbath, but he left the group in 1979. The 64-year-old has since rejoined, and the band's new studio album is out in June.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/sharon-osbourne-says-shes-not-divorcing-ozzy-194843119.html
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Rescue me: New study finds animals do recover from neglect
Apr. 23, 2013 ? Animal sanctuaries can play an important role in rehabilitating goats and other animals that have suffered from neglect, according to scientists at Queen Mary, University of London.
In this first scientific study of rescued animals, the researchers examined moods in 18 goats, nine of which had endured poor welfare, such as inappropriate diet, and lack of space or shelter before arriving at a sanctuary. They created a spatial awareness test, which involved giving the animals an opportunity to look for food, to understand the link between poor welfare and the goats' mental health, by comparing the behaviour of the mistreated goats with that of the goats that had been generally well treated.
The scientists observed whether some goats were faster to explore specific areas that resulted in the reward of food and others that did not. They assessed how the goats judged previously unknown locations, described as ambiguous because they were situated between spaces known to contain food and areas without food.
"Mood can have a huge influence on how the brain processes information. In humans, for example, it's well known that people in positive moods have an optimistic outlook on life, which means they are more resilient to stress. In the same way, measures of optimism and pessimism can provide indicators for an understanding of animal welfare," explains co-author Dr Elodie Briefer from Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences.
It was thought that the goats from the poor welfare group would be more 'pessimistic' and slower than the well-treated goats to explore ambiguous locations for food, where the promise of reward was not guaranteed. However, a surprising result of the study was that female goats that had been mistreated in the past were more optimistic than the other well-treated female goats.
Dr Briefer adds: "In this case, we found that female goats that had been previously neglected were the most optimistic of all the tested animals. They were more optimistic than well-treated females, but also the poorly treated males. This suggests that females may be better at recovering from neglect when released from stress, and might have implications for animal sanctuaries in how they tailor the care they provide for the different sexes."
Dr Alan McElligott, also from Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, said: "The study shows that animal rescue centres, such as Buttercups Sanctuary for Goats, where we collected our data, can provide a vital role in reversing long-term neglect once the animals receive excellent care."
The study was published in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science April 23, 2013.
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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/fKOXdjptgg0/130423091115.htm
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No suspicious letters found at U.S. military base after ricin alert
SYDNEY, April 24 (Reuters) - Australia named the following squad for the Ashes test series against England in July and August. Squad: Michael Clarke (captain), Brad Haddin (vice captain), Ed Cowan, David Warner, Phillip Hughes, Shane Watson, Usman Khawaja, Chris Rogers, Matthew Wade, Nathan Lyon, James Faulkner, Peter Siddle, Ryan Harris, James Pattinson, Mitchell Starc, Jackson Bird (Compiled by Greg Stutchbury; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ricin-cited-u-military-checks-letter-biological-toxins-202255627.html
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Josh Thomson and Yoel Romero score Knockout of the Night bonuses for UFC on Fox 7
UFC on Fox 7 was one of the best cards of the year. Of the 12 fights on the card, eight ended with a knockout or technical knockout. This made the decision for Knockout of the Night bonuses even more difficult for the UFC.
Since there were no submissions, they gave out two $50,000 knockout bonuses. One went Josh Thomson, who delivered the first knockout against Nate Diaz. It was Thomson's first fight in the UFC since 2004. He fought in Strikeforce for several years, and returned to the promotion after the parent company who owns the UFC bought and then folded Strikeforce.
The other $50,000 bonus went to Yoel Romero, who was making his UFC debut after fights in Strikeforce and a long career as an Olympic-level wrestler. In the first fight on the card, Romero knocked out Clifford Starks with a flying knee.
Fight of the Night bonuses of $50,000 each went to Matt Brown and Jordan Mein. Though their fight lasted just six minutes, every second of the bout was memorable. Brown started strong as he aggressively put Mein on his heels, but Mein appeared to wobble Brown with body shots. One minute into the second round, Brown notched the TKO win.
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Jonas Brothers Go 'Live From MTV': Watch Now!
Nick, Joe and Kevin will sit down for an exclusive 30-minute interview in a live stream airing at 5 p.m. ET on MTV.com.
By MTV News Staff
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Photo: @JonasBrothers via Twitter
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1705867/jonas-brothers-live-from-mtv.jhtml
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Dying supergiant stars implicated in hours-long gamma-ray bursts
Apr. 16, 2013 ? Three unusually long-lasting stellar explosions discovered by NASA's Swift satellite represent a previously unrecognized class of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Two international teams of astronomers studying these events conclude that they likely arose from the catastrophic death of supergiant stars hundreds of times larger than the sun.
The astronomers discussed their findings Tuesday at the 2013 Huntsville Gamma-ray Burst Symposium in Nashville, Tenn., a meeting sponsored in part by the University of Alabama at Huntsville and NASA's Swift and Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope missions.
GRBs are the most luminous and mysterious explosions in the universe. The blasts emit surges of gamma rays -- the most powerful form of light -- as well as X-rays, and they produce afterglows that can be observed at optical and radio energies. Swift, Fermi and other spacecraft detect an average of about one GRB each day.
"We have seen thousands of gamma-ray bursts over the past four decades, but only now are we seeing a clear picture of just how extreme these extraordinary events can be," said Bruce Gendre, a researcher now associated with the French National Center for Scientific Research who led this study while at the Italian Space Agency's Science Data Center in Frascati, Italy.
Prior to Swift's launch in 2004, satellite instruments were much less sensitive to gamma-ray bursts that unfolded over comparatively long time scales.
Traditionally, astronomers have recognized two GRB types, short and long, based on the duration of the gamma-ray signal. Short bursts last two seconds or less and are thought to represent a merger of compact objects in a binary system, with the most likely suspects being neutron stars and black holes. Long GRBs may last anywhere from several seconds to several minutes, with typical durations falling between 20 and 50 seconds. These events are thought to be associated with the collapse of a star many times the sun's mass and the resulting birth of a new black hole.
Both scenarios give rise to powerful jets that propel matter at nearly the speed of light in opposite directions. As they interact with matter in and around the star, the jets produce a spike of high-energy light.
Gendre and his colleagues made a detailed study of GRB 111209A, which erupted on Dec. 9, 2011, using gamma-ray data from the Konus instrument on NASA's Wind spacecraft, X-ray observations from Swift and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton satellite, and optical data from the TAROT robotic observatory in La Silla, Chile. The burst continued to produce high-energy emission for an astonishing seven hours, making it by far the longest-duration GRB ever recorded. The team's findings appear in the March 20 edition of The Astrophysical Journal.
Another event, GRB 101225A, exploded on Christmas Day in 2010 and produced high-energy emission for at least two hours. Subsequently nicknamed the "Christmas burst," the event's distance was unknown, which led two teams to arrive at radically different physical interpretations. One group concluded the blast was caused by an asteroid or comet falling onto a neutron star within our own galaxy. Another team determined that the burst was the outcome of a merger event in an exotic binary system located some 3.5 billion light-years away.
"We now know that the Christmas burst occurred much farther off, more than halfway across the observable universe, and was consequently far more powerful than these researchers imagined," said Andrew Levan, an astronomer at the University of Warwick in Coventry, England.
Using the Gemini North Telescope in Hawaii, Levan and his team obtained a spectrum of the faint galaxy that hosted the Christmas burst. This enabled the scientists to identify emission lines of oxygen and hydrogen and determine how much these lines were displaced to lower energies compared to their appearance in a laboratory. This difference, known to astronomers as a redshift, places the burst some 7 billion light-years away.
As a part of this study, which is described in a paper submitted to The Astrophysical Journal, Levan's team also examined 111209A and the more recent burst 121027A, which exploded on Oct. 27, 2012. All show similar X-ray, ultraviolet and optical emission and all arose from the central regions of compact galaxies that were actively forming stars. The astronomers conclude that all three GRBs constitute a hitherto unrecognized group of "ultra-long" bursts.
? Larger image The number, duration and burst class for GRBs observed by Swift are shown in this plot. Colors link each GRB class to illustrations above the plot, which show the estimated sizes of the source stars. For comparison, the width of the yellow circle represents a star about 20 percent larger than the sun. Credit: Andrew Levan, Univ. of Warwick
? Larger image ? High res image Astronomers suggest that blue supergiant stars may be the most likely sources of ultra-long GRBs. These stars hold about 20 times the sun's mass and may reach sizes 1,000 times larger than the sun, making them nearly wide enough to span Jupiter's orbit. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/S. Wiessinger To account for the normal class of long GRBs, astronomers envision a star similar to the sun's size but with many times its mass. The mass must be high enough for the star to undergo an energy crisis, with its core ultimately running out of fuel and collapsing under its own weight to form a black hole. Some of the matter falling onto the nascent black hole becomes redirected into powerful jets that drill through the star, creating the gamma-ray spike, but because this burst is short-lived, the star must be comparatively small.
"Wolf-Rayet stars fit these requirements," explained Levan. "They are born with more than 25 times the sun's mass, but they burn so hot that they drive away their deep, outermost layer of hydrogen as an outflow we call a stellar wind." Stripping away the star's atmosphere leaves an object massive enough to form a black hole but small enough for the particle jets to drill all the way through in times typical of long GRBs.
Because ultra-long GRBs persist for periods up to 100 times greater than long GRBs, they require a stellar source of correspondingly greater physical size. Both groups suggest that the likely candidate is a supergiant, a star with about 20 times the sun's mass that still retains its deep hydrogen atmosphere, making it hundreds of times the sun's diameter.
Gendre's team goes further, suggesting that GRB 111209A marked the death of a blue supergiant containing relatively modest amounts of elements heavier than helium, which astronomers call metals.
"The metal content of a massive star controls the strength of its stellar wind, which determines how much of the hydrogen atmosphere it retains as it grows older," Gendre notes. The star's deep hydrogen envelope would take hours to complete its fall into the black hole, which would provide a long-lived fuel source to power an ultra-long GRB jet.
Metal content also plays a strong role in the development of long GRBs, according to a detailed study presented by John Graham and Andrew Fruchter, both astronomers at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.
Stars make heavy elements throughout their energy-producing lives and during supernova explosions, and each generation of stars enriches interstellar gas with a greater proportion of them. While astronomers have noted that long GRBs occur much more frequently in metal-poor galaxies, a few of them have suggested that this pattern is not intrinsic to the stars and their environments.
To examine this possibility, Graham and Fruchter developed a novel method that allowed them to compare galaxies by their underlying rates of star formation. They then examined galaxies that served as hosts for long GRBs and various types of supernovae as well as a control sample of 20,000 typical galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.
The astronomers found that 75 percent of long GRBs occurred among the 10 percent of star formation with the lowest metal content. While the study found a few long GRBs in environments with high-metal content, like our own galaxy, these occur at only about 4 percent the rate seen in low-metal environments per unit of underlying star formation.
"Most stars form in metal-rich environments, and this has a side effect of decreasing the prevalence of long GRBs as the universe grows older," Graham explained. "And while a nearby long GRB would be catastrophic to life on Earth, our study shows that galaxies like our own are much less likely to produce them."
The astronomers suspect this pattern reflects a difference in how well a massive star manages to retain its rotation speed. Rising metal content means stronger stellar winds. As these winds push material off the star's surface, the star's rotation gradually decreases in much the same way as a spinning ice skater slows when she extends her arms. Stars with more rapid rotation may be more likely to produce a long GRB.
Graham and Fruchter hypothesize that the few long GRBs found in high-metal environments received an assist from the presence of a nearby companion star. By feeding mass -- and with it, rotational energy -- onto the star that explodes, a companion serves as the physical equivalent of someone pushing a slowly spinning ice skater back up to a higher rotational speed.
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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/space_time/nasa/~3/kS2K1Stvv2c/130416180032.htm
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