hertirejohn: September 2012

Sunday, 30 September 2012

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Military academy hopefuls get briefing at MacDill

By HOWARD ALTMAN | The Tampa Tribune
Published: September 29, 2012
Updated: September 29, 2012 - 2:56 PM

TAMPA --

More than most students milling about the hallway at the Davis Conference Center at MacDill Air Force Base, Caleb Allen knows the cost of war.

His father, retired Marine Cpl. Mike Jernigan, was blinded when his Humvee hit an improvised explosive device while on patrol in Iraq in 2004.

But that didn't stop Allen, 16, from joining about 200 other young men and women at the annual Academy Day held today at MacDill Air Force Base for those considering entering one of the five service academies.

Allen has no doubts about which academy he wants to attend.

His great-grandfather, grandfather and father were Marines.

"I want to go into the Naval Academy and become a Marine officer," said Allen, a junior at Berkeley Preparatory School. "I want to serve my country."

As Allen talks, Jernigan smiles with pride.

As a father who knows all too well the sacrifices troops make, he says his son is determined.

"It's in his soul," Jernigan says. "He will be a fourth-generation Marine."

* * * * *

Academy Day is a college fair for future military leaders, and competition is fierce.

"This gets people in the loop," said Rep. Kathy Castor, who convened this Academy Day ? her sixth.

In addition to offering "one-stop-shopping" for students and their parents to learn about entry requirements and expectations, Castor said the event offers a chance to get face-time with her, her advisory team and academy representatives.

Anyone wishing to enter an academy must jump over two hurdles. They have to gain admission, and they must be recommended either by their local representative or their senator. There also is a vice presidential nomination open to anyone, and a presidential nomination open only to children of those who served in the military.

The application cycle usually begins in the junior year of high school, but a candidate can express interest much earlier with academy-affiliated sports camps.

Having excellent grades isn't enough.

At West Point, 87 percent of entering students have earned a varsity sports letter, and among those, 75 percent were team captains, according to Capt. Charles H. Cook, the Army's military academy liaison officer for Castor's congressional district.

Air Force Col. Ted Mathews Jr., vice wing commander of the 927th Air Refueling Wing at MacDill, is one of Castor's advisers. Matthews said he looks for leadership qualities when assessing candidates.

"Be a leader on your sports team, be a leader on your club, or start one," he said.

Students who enter the service, either through an academy or by enlisting, face danger ? something highlighted by the presence at today's Academy Day of Jernigan and his guide dog, Brittani, who helps him navigate.

"As a parent, I tend to internalize that danger more than the child," said David Henry, 52, whose son hopes to attend the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo.

"I want to fly," said Tampa Jesuit High School student Michael Henry, 17, when asked about the risk that comes with service.

For more information about applying for a service academy, go to http://castor.house.gov/constituentservices/serviceacademynominations.htm

Source: http://www2.tbo.com/news/education-news/2012/sep/29/1/military-academy-hopefuls-get-briefing-at-macdill-ar-517191/

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Saturday, 29 September 2012

Financial Assistance Available for Baby Boomers, Seniors

Not only are the eldest of the baby boomer generation already age 65 and over, 10 million boomers age 50 and over are providing care for one or more of their aging parents.

Many of the baby boomers and seniors who've retired are living on fixed incomes; boomers who are also family caregivers may have to work part-time or endure the anxiety of losing their jobs due to the caregiving situation. In the 2010 census, 48 percent of the population was classified as poor or low income; it can become difficult to buy even life's essentials on fixed incomes, part-time wages, or poor or low income.

Fortunately, there are programs available to provide financial assistance to the eldest baby boomers, their seniors, and family caregivers providing care to older adults. Many times, finding such assistance is just a matter of knowing where to look.

Assistance Information from a Nonprofit Group

BenefitsCheckUp.org, provided by the National Council on Aging, is a one-stop shop for locating assistance in your state for Medicare Rx extra help, health care, prescription drugs, food, utilities and more. The site states that the information provided there has assisted nearly 3.3 million people find more than $11.9 billion in benefits.

After answering a few questions at the site that aid in determining programs for which you may qualify, the site then provides a personalized report for your particular situation and needs. Information you share is not personally identifying information and all inquiries are confidential.

Assistance Information from Federal Government

Medicare.gov has a section dedicated to helping you find your way through programs such as Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income, Medicare Savings Program and more.

Assistance Information for Prescription Drug Savings

NeedyMeds.org provides a free discount drug card that can save the user up to 80 percent of a medication's cost; it cannot be combined with a drug insurance card. The site is informational in nature, providing resource information to locate assistance with the costs of prescription drugs and much more such as diagnosis-based assistance and free and low cost clinics.

Tax Advantages

HuffingtonPost explains that people age 65 and over and some low income individuals should remember to take advantage of the tax advantages available to them. For those age 65 or blind, there is a higher standard deduction is available. IRS Publication 524 explains an additional tax deduction for lower income people who are disabled or over age 65 and file a 1040 or 1040A.

Bottom Line

These resources are a partial listing of what is available through federal, state or local sources. Take advantage of the lower cost prescription medications available at many pharmacies; ask for their list of discounted medications. Local churches and social service organizations such as the Salvation Army may be willing and able to provide assistance. Ask your doctor for any information she may have; talk with other people in similar situations and find out how they are making ends meet.

Find and make use of programs for which you, or the person you are caring for, are eligible. Don't cause yourself to choose between medications and food or utilities before you've exhausted all avenues.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/financial-assistance-available-baby-boomers-seniors-212000114--finance.html

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Plane going to Everest region crashes, killing 19

KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) ? A plane carrying trekkers to the Everest region crashed and burned just after takeoff Friday morning in Nepal's capital, killing the 19 Nepali, British and Chinese people on board, authorities said.

The pilot of the domestic Sita Air flight reported trouble two minutes after takeoff, and Katmandu airport official Ratish Chandra Suman said the pilot appeared to have been trying to turn back. The crash site is only 500 meters (547 yards) from the airport, and the wrecked plane was pointing toward the airport area.

Investigators were trying to determine the cause of the crash and identify the bodies, and Suman said he could not confirm if the plane was already on fire before it crashed. Cellphone video shot by locals showed the front section of the plane was on fire when it first hit the ground and appeared the pilot had attempted to land the plane on open ground beside a river.

The fire quickly spread to the rear, but the tail was still in one piece at the scene near the Manohara River on the southwest edge of Katmandu. Villagers were unable to approach the plane because of the fire and it took some time for firefighters to reach the area and bring the fire under control.

Soldiers and police shifted through the crash wreckage looking for bodies and documents to help identify the victims. Seven passengers were British and five were Chinese; the other four passengers and the three crew members were from Nepal, authorities said.

Large number of local people and security forces gathered at the crash site. The charred bodies were taken by vans to the hospital morgue.

The weather in Katmandu and surrounding areas was clear on Friday morning, and it was one of the first flights to take off from Katmandu's Tribhuwan International Airport. Other flights reported no problems, and the airport operated normally.

The plane was heading for Lukla, the gateway to Mount Everest. Thousands of Westerners make treks in the region around the world's highest peak each year. Autumn is considered the best time to trek the foothills of the Himalayan peaks.

The crash follows an avalanche on another Nepal peak Sunday that killed seven foreign climbers and a Nepali guide.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/plane-going-everest-region-crashes-killing-19-040304213.html

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Russian metals moguls settle RUSAL stake spat

LONDON/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian billionaires Oleg Deripaska and Michael Cherney reached an 11th-hour settlement in a dispute over a billion dollar slice of aluminum giant RUSAL , shortly before they were due to give evidence in a drawn-out London court case.

The case, which had been expected to run well into 2013, was due to dwell on allegations of broken promises, criminality and mob rule while shining a light on the murky carve-up of lucrative smelters in the 'wild east' of post-Soviet Siberia.

"Mr. Deripaska announces that Mr. Cherney's litigation in London against him has been terminated," a spokesperson for Deripaska said in a brief statement. "Neither party will be making any further comment in relation to the litigation or matters raised therein."

Cherney's team released a nearly identical statement.

Cherney, born in Ukraine, raised in Uzbekistan, Jewish by creed and living in Israel since leaving Russia in 1994, alleged that metals mogul Deripaska reneged on a deal to buy him out of their joint aluminum business, RUSAL.

Well-connected Deripaska, who controls RUSAL and is a survivor of President Vladimir Putin's crackdown on oligarchs who once wielded great political power, denied having had any such business relationship with Cherney. He alleged he was the victim of a protection racket Cherney helped orchestrate - an accusation Cherney denied.

Cherney, who in 2008 won the right to bring his case against Deripaska in London's respected courts - the venue of choice for the warring Russian wealthy - was due to be cross-examined next Tuesday via video-link from Israel. An outstanding arrest warrant relating to a separate money laundering investigation prevents him from travelling to London.

Lawyers were intrigued at the last-minute deal.

"The experience in most of these cases is that they do go to trial because no one is willing to back down," said Philippa Charles, a litigation partner at law firm Mayer Brown.

"So it's interesting that the level of publicity has perhaps focused the minds of both parties on whether or not it is actually worth having their dirty linen washed in public."

THE POWER OF METAL

The Russian aluminum industry, like much of Russia's raw materials sector, came under the control of a few powerful oligarchs during the huge selloff of state assets that followed the collapse of communism and of the Soviet Union in 1991. The brutality of the business rivalry over aluminum smelters gave birth to the term 'aluminum wars'.

Cherney's case against Deripaska had overtones of a recent battle between Russian oligarchs Boris Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich, which in August helped ensure the concept of "krysha", or roof, was established in English courts.

Berezovsky's claim for $6 billion was dismissed and Judge Elizabeth Gloster described him as an 'inherently unreliable witness'. Abramovich had said he had paid money to Berezovsky for 'krysha' services of political cover and protection,

A "krysha", in Russian gangster parlance, can be either a figure who genuinely protects, in return for payment, the interests of a business in a sometimes brutal business world or it can refer to a racketeer extorting money by intimidation. The boundary between the two can, of course, be blurred.

The case, which began in July when both sides published opening statements and lawyers laid out the details of their arguments in front of Judge Andrew Smith, hinged in part on what was agreed in a London hotel 11 year ago.

Cherney and Deripaska agreed they met at the Lanesborough Hotel on a March morning in 2001, that they signed one document and that Deripaska handed Cherney $250 million. Everything else, even exactly when they first met each other, was disputed.

Deripaska says he made the payment to terminate a krysha arrangement with Cherney, partly because his business was now powerful enough, and his security forces strong enough, to confront criminal gangs.

Cherney says he had orally agreed a 50/50 partnership with Deripaska in 1993, which lasted until March 2001. He alleges Deripaska then agreed at the Lanesborough meeting to pay him a preliminary $250 million for his aluminum interests held by Deripaska - and also agreed to buy him out of the remainder of his stake within a few years.

RUSAL, the product of a slew of takeovers and mergers mainly in Siberia, where the hydro-electric power needed to fuel hungry smelters comes cheap, has emerged as Russia's only aluminum producer. Cherney alleged a 13.2 percent stake belongs to him.

Deripaska, a former physics student who started investing in aluminum assets in 1991 who has entertained top British politicians on his 70 million pound ($114 million) yacht, says he was forced into a "krysha" after being threatened by some of the country's most powerful criminal gangs in the mid-1990s.

Stories abound about such "protection" mobs attacking the wives and relatives of those who failed to do their bidding, launching fictitious criminal proceedings, violent takeovers of businesses or simply liquidating rivals and critics.

($1 = 0.6164 British pounds)

(Writing by Kirstin Ridley, Additional reporting by Clara Ferreira-Marques; Editing by Ralph Boulton and Mark Potter)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/russian-metals-moguls-settle-rusal-stake-spat-023152951--finance.html

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Friday, 28 September 2012

Video: 2,588 pull-ups later, injury suspends record bid

>> to the scene of david goggins' guinness world record attempt.

>> the goal was the most pullups in a 24-hour period. the old mark 4,020. david was well on his way on thursday, as you see here, after just six and a half hours, will have reach the halfway point. tired just watching that.

>> david , good morning to you.

>> good morning.

>> tell us what happened.

>> well, about five and a half hours i felt something in my wrist snap. basically these pullup bars move and i'm used to working on stationary ones and these sway side to side. my forearm over a period of time so i was losing a lot of energy.

>> these are portable bars. you brought them, but this is not the one you normally used or practiced on.

>> as you see here. we had the hopes rear, and about hour eight, just going everywhere and like every hour it got worse and worse.

>> how long were you in pain?

>> pretty much -- i had 2011 mullups done in six hours and only got 2,500 so it was like six, seven hours.

>> and you wanted to keep going.

>> right.

>> kind of had to drag you out of here. what did it take to get you over to the x-ray?

>> got to the point where i couldn't grab the bar anymore and hung on to it. a torn muscle in my forearm.

>> all is not lost. doing this for a great cause. raised a bunch of money, raised $10,000.

>> right.

>> tell us about the cause.

>> special warrior foundation operation. and that was my mission, my mission is accomplished. it wasn't about breaking the record. it's about having america know more about this great cause, sending kids to college and raising awareness so, you know, i'm still here. i'll get back up and do it again. injuries happen, but i feel good.

>> we have a special gift basket for you.

>> yeah.

>> i see aleve, advil.

>> a little bengay.

>> a couple of five guys burgers would be pretty good.

>> thanks for having me.

>> a lot of women doing window shopping yesterday as you do your shirtless pullups.

>> exactly.

>> congratulations on a good cause.

>> thank you again. don't forget specialops.org.

>> you got it.

Source: http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/49209043/

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Farloe Warhawk to pass stern test in Henlow's Primus Telecom ...

Farloe Warhawk to pass stern test in Henlow?s Primus Telecom Derby - Heat 6

Wimbledon Puppy Derby hero, Farloe Warhawk, is well prepared to display a fascinating show in Henlow?s Primus Telecom Derby, getting started on Thursday, September 27, 2012. The superstar will be seen in the sixth heat, which is scheduled to begin at 21:48 GMT.

There are no holes in Farloe Warhawk?s recent performances. After showing his class at Monmore, the black dog continued the good work to grab a convincing triumph at Shelbourne Park early in the month. In a tough 525 yards race, B. Draper?s charge unleashed his best to secure the first rank with ease.

The dashing hound is in good rhythm, and should not find this journey any tough. The pressure and expectations will be huge, but Farloe Warhawk has performed well in such hard situations in the past.

Other contenders in the race are: Ballymac Denis, Gilbeyhall Ned, Sherrys Rebound, Cash Game and Millwards Alpha. Just like the other first-round heats, it carries a cash prize worth ?150.

Gilbeyhall Ned was a credible winner over four bends last time. But he was surely facing a lot of weaker opposition than this. Despite having the draw in favour, S. Cahill?s charge needs to be flawless in order to fancy some chances.

Ballymac Denis is a bold sort, and holds the ability to dictate matters. His recent form is also quite impressive. So, he can make it to the second round as well.

Cash Game is due to start from the fourth box, and may have his work cut out from this launch pad. Sherrys Rebound will have to call on her best early pace tonight. On the other hand, Millwards Alpha probably needs things to occur to trouble the big guns. Otherwise, his chances will be no more than zero.

According to our calculations, Farloe Warhawk and Ballymac Denis will storm to the next round of the championship. The former is most likely to finish on top of the table. He should use this mission to gain momentum, as he will find more heavy weights in the upcoming competitions. We wish the best of luck to all the hounds.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and do not reflect Bettor.com?s editorial policy.

Source: http://blogs.bettor.com/Farloe-Warhawk-to-pass-stern-test-in-Henlows-Primus-Telecom-Derby-Heat-6-a190727

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Thursday, 27 September 2012

Goodell apologizes to fans for replacement games

NEW YORK (AP) ? NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell apologized to the fans who fretted through three weeks of replacement officials calling their favorite teams' games.

"Obviously when you go through something like this it is painful for everybody," he said on a conference call Thursday, about 12 hours after the league reached a deal to bring back the regular officials. "Most importantly, it is painful for our fans.

"We are sorry to have to put our fans through that, but it is something that in the short term you sometimes have to do to make sure you get the right kind of deal for the long term and make sure you continue to grow the game."

Two days after a missed call on the final play cost the Green Bay Packers in their loss to the Seattle Seahawks, the NFL and the officials' union announced a tentative eight-year agreement to end a lockout that began in June.

Goodell insisted the timing of the deal was not a reaction to the outcry over "Monday Night Football." The two sides had been in "intensive negotiations" the last two weeks, he said, though he acknowledged that game "may have pushed the parties further along."

The commissioner was watching at home Monday night.

"You never want to see a game end like that," Goodell said.

But he wouldn't concede that the presence of replacement officials increased the chances an egregious mistake would occur. Goodell repeatedly reminded reporters that the regular officials have botched plenty of calls over the years.

The new agreement, he said, will improve officiating week in and week out, reducing similar mistakes in the future and making the strains of the last three weeks worthwhile.

"You're always worried about the short-term impact on your brand and the long-term impact on your brand," he said. "Obviously, this has gotten a lot of attention. It hasn't been positive, and it's something that you have to fight through and get to the long term. ... We always are going to have to work harder to make sure we get people's trust and confidence in us."

In the meantime, he asserted, players' health and safety were never jeopardized by the use of replacement officials.

"The folks on the field during the last three weeks were under unprecedented scrutiny," Goodell said. "Everything they did, every call, was magnified. They kept the game going. They worked hard. They trained hard. They were incredibly focused and dedicated."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/goodell-apologizes-fans-replacement-games-164358427--nfl.html

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Degradable devices vanish after use

Technique combines silicon, magnesium and silk for medical implants, transistors and digital cameras that can melt away

Web edition : 2:05 pm

Imagine your old phone dissolving away after you?ve traded up, or a pacemaker that?s absorbed by the body when it?s no longer needed. Such gadgetry may not be far off: Scientists have developed a technique for making electronic devices that disappear without a trace. Constructed of silicon, magnesium and silk, the transient electronics can be tuned to last for days, weeks or even a year ? and then disappear.

Scientists used the approach to make a bacteria-fighting medical implant that melts away after a few weeks, and a simple 64-pixel sensor array like those found in digital cameras, which was designed to last for about a day. The researchers also made temperature and strain sensors, solar cells, transistors, radio antennas and wireless power coils ? all of which degrade into nothing. The team describes the work in the Sept. 28 Science.

?This is a huge step. it is a pinnacle,? says materials engineer Mihai Irimia-Vladu of Johannes Kepler University in Austria. ?It?s a very elegant demonstration of making functional devices that are biodegradable.?

Superthin slices of semiconducting silicon and components made of magnesium perform the hardware and semiconducting tasks. The silk serves as scaffolding and packaging, which largely determines the lifetime of the device. So a unit might have a magnesium resistor, a silicon diode and a capacitor made out of magnesium and magnesium oxide. These delicate structures are then stamped onto a sheet of silkworm silk and then packaged in more silk.

By liquefying the silk beforehand and then manipulating the concentration of various silk proteins, the researchers can package the device so it lasts for just a few days or for up to a year or longer, says study coauthor John Rogers of the University of Illinois at Urbana?Champaign. Extensive calculations that incorporate chemical reaction rates, such as rates of solubility and diffusion, allow the researchers to predict and program the lifetime of a particular device.

In one demonstration, the scientists made a wireless-controlled implant that emits heat, killing bacteria. Three weeks after implanting it on a rat?s surgical wound, the device had nearly disappeared.

While there is still testing to be done before such implants are used in people, the ingredients have a good track record: Silk has been used as sutures for wounds for decades and is known to safely disintegrate. The quantity of magnesium used in the devices is far less than that in a daily vitamin. Silicon has also been under investigation for some time as a means of delivering drugs to a specific site in the body.

In the new study, the rat?s implant was designed break down after absorbing a certain amount of body fluid. But it?s possible that pH, temperature or other environmental cues might kick off the disappearing act.

In addition to implants that release drugs or heat at a wound site, the approach could be used for crafting other temporary implants, such as pacemakers needed for a short time following heart surgery. The environmental realm is another promising area: Say there?s an oil spill you want to monitor for a year. Instead of dropping sensors you have to collect later or that would drop to the bottom of the sea, they could just decompose. Eventually, such transient electronics might even make their way into consumer devices.

?Many electronics are built to last forever, and that?s fine, but think about smart phones today ? nobody wants to keep them after a couple of years,? says Rogers. ?In the longer term this is also about not contributing to an unmanageable waste stream.?
Found in: Body & Brain, Materials Science, Molecules and Technology

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/345428/title/Degradable_devices_vanish_after_use

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Why SSD Drives Destroy Court Evidence, and What Can Be Done ...

Solid State drives (SSD) introduced dramatic changes to the principles of computer forensics. Forensic acquisition of computers equipped with SSD storage is very different from how we used to acquire PCs using traditional magnetic media. Instead of predictable and highly possible recovery of information the suspect attempted to destroy, we are entering the muddy waters of stochastic forensics where nothing can be assumed as a given.

Stochastic Forensics
The way today?s SSD drives operate allows little space for positive assumptions. With SSD drives, the only thing we can assume is that an investigator can access existing information stored on the disk. Deleted files and data the suspect attempted to destroy (for example by formatting the disk?even in ?Quick Format? mode) may be lost forever in a matter of minutes.¹ And even if the computer is powered off immediately after a destructive command has been issued (e.g. a few minutes after the Quick Format), there is no easy way to prevent the disk from destroying the data once the power is back on. The situation is somewhat of a paradox, remeniscent of Schr?dinger's cat: one will never know if the cat is alive before opening the box.²

The golden age of forensics is going to end. ?Given the pace of development in SSD memory and controller technology, and the increasing proliferation of manufacturers, drives, and firmware versions, it will probably never be possible to remove or narrow this new grey area within the forensic and legal domain,? scientists from Australia's Murdoch University wrote. ?It seems possible that the golden age for forensic recovery and analysis of deleted data and deleted metadata may now be ending.?¹

Cannot Delete
The way SSD drives are constructed imposes several design limitations. Existing types of flash memory allow for a limited number of write operations before wearing off. Modern SSD drives employ smart wear leveling techniques³?that, instead of re-using existing blocks of memory, will write to a different block when data stored in a certain block is being modified. This in turn will leave blocks containing potentially sensitive information scattered all over the memory chip.

To further increase effective lifespan and improve wear leveling on SSD drives, many manufacturers install chips that can hold up to 25% more data than their advertised capacities.⁴ This extra capacity is not addressable by means of the operating system, or by any other reasonable means (e.g. without using custom hardware to access the flash chips directly). This also makes the content on SSD drives impossible to wipe as securely as required by some government and military standards via traditional means.

To mitigate this issue, some SSD manufacturers implemented an extension to the ATA ANSI specification to enable secure destruction of information stored on all flash chips.⁵?The ATA Secure Erase (SE) command, when implemented correctly,⁴wipes the entire contents of the drive at a hardware level.

Source: http://www.dfinews.com/article/why-ssd-drives-destroy-court-evidence-and-what-can-be-done-about-it-part-1

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Wednesday, 26 September 2012

Video: Slow-moving rocks better odds that life crashed to Earth from space

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Microorganisms that crashed to Earth embedded in the fragments of distant planets might have been the sprouts of life on this one, according to new research from Princeton University, the University of Arizona and the Centro de Astrobiolog?a (CAB) in Spain.

The researchers report in the journal Astrobiology that under certain conditions there is a high probability that life came to Earth ? or spread from Earth to other planets ? during the solar system's infancy when Earth and its planetary neighbors orbiting other stars would have been close enough to each other to exchange lots of solid material. The work will be presented at the 2012 European Planetary Science Congress on Sept. 25.

The findings provide the strongest support yet for "lithopanspermia," the idea that basic life forms are distributed throughout the universe via meteorite-like planetary fragments cast forth by disruptions such as volcanic eruptions and collisions with other matter. Eventually, another planetary system's gravity traps these roaming rocks, which can result in a mingling that transfers any living cargo.

[Images and video can be seen at http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S34/82/42M30. To obtain high-res images, contact Princeton science writer Morgan Kelly, (609) 258-5729, mgnkelly@princeton.edu]

Previous research on this possible phenomenon suggests that the speed with which solid matter hurtles through the cosmos makes the chances of being snagged by another object highly unlikely. But the Princeton, Arizona and CAB researchers reconsidered lithopanspermia under a low-velocity process called weak transfer wherein solid materials meander out of the orbit of one large object and happen into the orbit of another. In this case, the researchers factored in velocities 50 times slower than previous estimates, or about 100 meters per second.

Using the star cluster in which our sun was born as a model, the team conducted simulations showing that at these lower speeds the transfer of solid material from one star's planetary system to another could have been far more likely than previously thought, explained first author Edward Belbruno, a mathematician and visiting research collaborator in Princeton's Department of Astrophysical Sciences who developed the principles of weak transfer.

The researchers suggest that of all the boulders cast off from our solar system and its closest neighbor, five to 12 out of 10,000 could have been captured by the other. Earlier simulations had suggested chances as slim as one in a million.

"Our work says the opposite of most previous work," Belbruno said. "It says that lithopanspermia might have been very likely, and it may be the first paper to demonstrate that. If this mechanism is true, it has implications for life in the universe as a whole. This could have happened anywhere."

Co-authors Amaya Moro-Mart?n, an astronomer at CAB and a Princeton visiting research collaborator in astrophysical sciences, and Renu Malhotra, a professor of planetary sciences at Arizona, noted that low velocities offer very high probabilities for the exchange of solid material via weak transfer, and also found that the timing of such an exchange could be compatible with the actual development of the solar system, as well as with the earliest known emergence of life on Earth. Dmitry Savransky, a Princeton mechanical and aerospace engineering doctoral student, conducted the simulations.

The researchers report that the solar system and its nearest planetary-system neighbor could have swapped rocks at least 100 trillion times well before the sun struck out from its native star cluster. Furthermore, existing rock evidence shows that basic life forms could indeed date from the sun's birth cluster days ? and have been hardy enough to survive an interstellar journey and eventual impact.

"The conclusion from our work," Moro-Mart?n said, "is that the weak transfer mechanism makes lithopanspermia a viable hypothesis because it would have allowed large quantities of solid material to be exchanged between planetary systems, and involves timescales that could potentially allow the survival of microorganisms embedded in large boulders."

All about velocities

The Princeton-Arizona-CAB paper cites two previous studies that present the odds of solid matter from one planetary system being captured by another as being more or less dismal.

The first, a 2003 paper published in Astrobiology by Jay Melosh, a Purdue University earth and atmospheric sciences professor, questioned the probability that meteorites have ever escaped a terrestrial planet in Earth's solar system and wound up on a terrestrial planet in another system. The report concluded that the chances ? about one in 10,000, or 0.01 percent ? are "overwhelmingly unlikely" considering the speed a meteorite would need to travel (about six kilometers per second) and the roominess of space.

Belbruno and his co-authors calculated that under this scenario of high velocities and dispersed planetary systems, the probability of solid material from any planetary system striking another falls to as little as five in 100,000, or 0.005 percent.

Star birth clusters, which are tightly confined groups of stars and planetary systems, were introduced as a possible setting for lithopanspermia in a 2005 Astrobiology paper by David Spergel, Princeton's Charles A. Young Professor of Astronomy on the Class of 1897 Foundation and chair of astrophysical sciences, and University of Michigan physics professor Fred Adams.

Factoring in velocities of two to five kilometers per second, Spergel and Adams found that the chances of an exchange of life-bearing rocks between star systems clustered in groups of 30 to 1,000 could be as unlikely as one in a million to as good as one in 1,000, or 0.0001 to 0.1 percent, respectively. Spergel and Adams, however, limited their study to binary stars ? or planetary systems with two stars ? which might elevate star-to-star solid matter exchanges, Moro-Mart?n said.

Nonetheless, in clusters similar to those considered by Spergel and Adams, weak transfer involves relative velocities of no more than one kilometer per second, which substantially increases the probability of capture by other stars in the cluster. In other words, star clusters provide an ideal setting for weak transfer, Belbruno said.

Chaotic in nature, weak transfer happens when a slow moving object such as a meteorite wanders into the outer edge of the gravitational pull of a larger object with a low relative velocity, such as a star or massive Jupiter-like planet. The smaller object partially orbits the large object, but the larger object has only a loose grip on it. This means the smaller object can escape and be propelled into space, drifting until it is pulled in by another large object.

Belbruno first demonstrated weak transfer with the Japanese lunar probe Hiten in 1991. A mechanical malfunction left the probe with insufficient fuel to enter the moon's orbit the traditional way, which is to approach at a high speed then fire retrorockets to slow down. Instead, Belbruno designed a weak-transfer trajectory that got the probe into orbit around the moon using a minimal amount of fuel.

Adams, co-author of the 2005 paper with Spergel, said that the work by Belbruno and his co-authors succeeds at pulling together the various factors of earlier lithopanspermia models and adding a substantial new element ? chaos. Adams is familiar with the study but had no role in it.

"This paper takes the type of calculations that have been done before and makes an important generalization of previous work," Adams said. "Their work on chaos in this context also carries the subject forward. They make a careful assessment of a process that is dynamically quite complicated and chaotic in nature.

"They are breaking new ground from the viewpoint of dynamical astrophysics," Adams said. "Regarding the problem of lithopanspermia, this type of weak capture and weak escape is interesting because it allows for the ejection speeds to be small, and these slow speeds allow for higher probabilities of rock capture. To say it another way, chaos, in part, enhances the prospects for lithopanspermia."

To the simulator!

Star birth clusters satisfy two requirements for weak transfer, Moro-Mart?n said. First, the sending and receiving planetary systems must contain a massive planet that captures the passing solid matter in the weak-gravity boundary between itself and its parent star. Earth's solar system qualifies, and several other stars in the sun's birth cluster would too.

Second, both planetary systems must have low relative velocities. In the sun's stellar cluster, between 1,000 and 10,000 stars were gravitationally bound to one another for hundreds of millions of years, each with a velocity of no more than a sluggish one kilometer per second, Moro-Mart?n said.

The team simulated 5 million trajectories between single-star planetary systems ? in a cluster with 4,300 stars ? under three conditions: the solid matter's "source" and "target" stars were both the same mass as the sun; the target star was only half the sun's mass; or the source star was half the sun's mass.

The researchers explored the likelihood that our solar system exchanged solid matter with its closest planetary-system neighbor during the first hundreds of millions of years it existed. At that time, our sun belonged to a tight-knit star cluster filled with other planetary systems. The above simulation shows that two planetary systems (green and blue dots) -- about 3.26 light years apart -- orbit a common center of mass. Over a period of roughly 8.7 million years, various objects (black dots) are pulled in and repelled by the systems' gravity. Displaying weak transfer, one object (red dot) first wanders into the green system's gravity boundary and partially orbits it before being cast off. The red object then drifts before being pulled in by the blue planetary system. Credit: Video by Dmitry Savransky

The odds of a star capturing solid matter from another planetary system under these three scenarios are 15 (0.15 percent), five (0.05 percent) and 12 (0.12 percent) in 10,000, respectively, the researchers report ? probabilities that exceed those under the conditions proposed by Melosh by a factor of 1 billion.

To estimate the actual amount of solid matter that could have been exchanged between the sun and its nearest star neighbor, the researchers used data and models pertaining to the movement and formation of asteroids, the Kuiper Belt ? the solar system's massive outer ring of asteroids ? and the Oort Cloud, a hypothesized collection of comets, ice and other matter about one light year from Earth's sun widely believed to be a primary source of comets and meteorites.

The researchers used this data to conclude that during a period of 10 million to 90 million years, anywhere between 100 trillion to 30 quadrillion solid matter objects weighing more than 10 kilograms transferred between the sun and its nearest cluster neighbor. Of these, some 200 billion rocks from early Earth could have been whisked away via weak transfer.

For lithopanspermia to happen, however, microorganisms first have to survive the long, radiation-soaked journey through space.

Moro-Mart?n and Malhotra consulted a 2009 paper an international team published in the Astrophysical Journal that determined how long microorganisms could survive in space based on the size of the solid matter hosting them. That group's computer simulations showed that survival times ranged from 12 million years for a boulder up to 3 centimeters (roughly one inch) in diameter, to 500 million years for a solid objects 2.67 meters (nearly nine feet) across.

The researchers estimated that under weak transfer, solid matter that had escaped one planet would need tens of millions of years to finally collide with another one. This falls within the lifespan of the sun's birth cluster, but means that lithopanspermia by weak transfer would have been limited to planetary fragments at least one meter, or about three feet, in size.

Matching the theory with life

As for the actual transfer of life, the researchers suggest that roughly 300 million lithopanspermia events could have occurred between our solar system and the closest planetary system.

But even if microorganisms survived the trip to Earth, the planet had to be ready to receive them. The researchers reference rock-dating evidence suggesting that the Earth contained water when the solar system was only 288 million years old and that very early life might have emerged before the solar system was 718 million years old.

The sun's birth cluster ? assumed to be roughly the same age as the Earth's solar system ? slowly broke apart when the solar system was approximately 135 million to 535 million years old, Moro-Mart?n said. In addition, the sun could have been ripe for weak transfer up to 700 million years after the solar system formed.

So, if life arose on Earth shortly after surface water was available, there were possibly about 400 million years when life could have journeyed from the Earth to another habitable world, and vice versa, the researchers report. If life had an early start in other planetary systems and developed before the sun's birth cluster dispersed, life on Earth may have originated beyond our solar system.

The paper stops short of calculating the likelihood of extrasolar life taking root on a terrestrial planet such as Earth, but the higher probability the researchers determined for solid-matter transfer makes that a more worthwhile pursuit, Moro-Mart?n said.

"Our study stops when the solid matter is trapped by the second planetary system, but for lithopanspermia to be completed it actually needs to land on a terrestrial planet where life could flourish," Moro-Mart?n said. "The study of the probability of landing on a terrestrial planet is work that we now know is worth doing because large quantities of solid material originating from the first planetary system may be trapped by the second planetary system, waiting to land on a terrestrial planet.

"Our study does not prove lithopanspermia actually took place," Moro-Mart?n said, "but it indicates that it is an open possibility."

###

The paper, "Chaotic Exchange of Solid Material between Planetary Systems: Implications for Lithopanspermia," was published Sept. 12 by Astrobiology

Princeton University: http://www.princeton.edu

Thanks to Princeton University for this article.

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BB10 Adds So Many Features That So Few People Want [Video]

Click here to read BB10 Adds So Many Features That So Few People Want

RIM CEO and possible Bond villain Thorstein Heins gave the world its best look at BlackBerry 10 today; while previous demos had focused on the camera and keyboard, this morning focused on even more everyday features. It looks like it does some things very well—and that they're not the things you'd care about. More »

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Tuesday, 25 September 2012

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Source: http://www.articlesnatch.com/Article/Glance-At-The-Magnificence-Connected-With-Paris-By-Means-Of-Fishing-Boats/4176953

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Glacial youth therapy for the Scandinavian landscape

ScienceDaily (Sep. 24, 2012) ? The high elevation flat surfaces characteristic of the Norwegian landscape are in geologically terms young, according to a paper in Nature Geoscience.

In a paper recently published in Nature Geoscience, researchers from the University of Bergen (UiB) and ETH Zurich have demonstrated that ice sheets have extensively shaped the fjords of Norway for the last 2.8 million years.

"However, the massive sediment record deposited offshore Norway during this period tells us a more complex story," explains Postdoctoral Fellow Philippe Steer at UiB's Department of Earth Science and the first author of the paper. "Ice sliding during glacial periods also resulted in eroding the present-day flattish surfaces that form the high-elevation parts of the Scandinavian landscape."

Contradicting previous views

The conclusion of this new study by Steer and his collaborators in Bergen and Zurich contradicts previously accepted views for Scandinavian geodynamics, where high-elevation parts of the landscape were left almost untouched by the repeated ice sheets.

"The origin and fate of the western Scandinavian landscapes under the repeated ice sheets of the last 2.8 million years has been a highly debated scientific topic for a hundred years," says Professor Ritske S. Huismans, head of the research project and a co-author of the paper. "In our contribution we have, for the first time, managed to demonstrate that the glaciers and ice sheets have eroded away both the Scandinavian fjords and flat high-elevation surfaces during the past glacial times. This supports the idea that the mountain range in western Scandinavian as seen today is a remnant of the more than 400 million years old Caledonian mountain range and has been at high elevations ever since."

The researchers believe that this new conceptual model of topographic glacial imprint may also apply to other high-latitude landscapes, such as the one in Greenland.

"This discovery was made possible by linking two fields, onshore and offshore geology that are usually studied separately. Because onshore erosion results ultimately in offshore sediments, it is fundamental to understand the past sediment record to assess the history of Scandinavian landscapes," Huismans explains. "Our research indicates that erosion must also have occurred in the areas above the fjords, e.g. on top of the flat surfaces and demonstrates that these high elevation flat surfaces characteristic of the Norwegian landscape are in geologically terms young."

The study was made possible because of the large amount of data available for research -- such as seismic profiles and drill cores -- that was acquired offshore Norway by Statoil and other companies. This data offers a very precise image of the Scandinavian sediment history.

Reshaped by glacial erosion

By demonstrating that the entire topography was reshaped by glacial erosion, the study asks for a complete re-interpretation of the tectonic history of Scandinavia.

"This result has important consequences for oil and gas exploration offshore Norway as it aids in the reconstruction of topography in the past, and may also help to better understand past topographic and tectonic evolution of other less-well constrained glaciated areas, such as Greenland. In addition, this study offers a new insight into the landscapes and fjords of western Scandinavia, which are considered to be among the most scenically outstanding areas on the planet, the N?r?yfjord and Geirangerfjord being on the UNESCO world heritage list," Steer says.

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Journal Reference:

Philippe Steer, Ritske S. Huismans, Pierre G. Valla, S?bastien Gac, Fr?d?ric Herman. Bimodal Plio?Quaternary glacial erosion of fjords and low-relief surfaces in Scandinavia. Nature Geoscience, 2012; 5 (9): 635 DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1549

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/1aMeUArcjSM/120924080511.htm

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