Will Curiosity be NASA's last Mars rover? (+video)

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Budget cuts have forced NASA to drastically scale back its planetary science missions. But the space agency still has hopes for a future mission that will collect samples of Martian soil and bring them to Earth.

Despite NASA's tough budget situation, the 1-ton rover streaking toward an Aug. 5 landing on Mars is unlikely to be the space agency's last big, ambitious Red Planet mission.

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Funding cuts have forced NASA to shelve plans for future multibillion-dollar "flagship" planetary missions beyond the $2.5 billionCuriosity rover, which will investigate Mars' potential to host past or present microbial life after it touches down three weeks from now. For the time being, the space agency is looking for ways to explore the Red Planet on the cheap.

But over the long haul, NASA still has its sights set on a particularly alluring flagship a sample-return effort that would bring pieces ofMarsback to Earth for study.

"The scientific goal and for human exploration as well of a Mars sample-return is still the highest priority in the long term," John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science, said in April. [7 Biggest Mysteries of Mars]

President Barack Obama's federal budget request for 2013, which was unveiled in February, keeps NASA's overall budget flat, at $17.7 billion.

But the requestcuts NASA's planetary science fundingfrom $1.5 billion to $1.2 billion, with further reductions expected in coming years. The space agency's Mars program gets hit particularly hard, with funding dropping from $587 million this year to $360 million in 2013, then falling to just $189 million in 2015.

As a result, NASA is scaling back and reformulating its Red Planet exploration strategy. The space agency has put together a committee called the Mars Program Planning Group, which is assessing possiblefuture missions to Mars.

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Will Curiosity be NASA's last Mars rover? (+video)

NASA hires SpaceX for science satellite launch

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA hired Space Exploration Technologies to launch an ocean monitoring satellite, a key win for the start-up rocket company that also wants to break into the U.S. military's launch business, NASA officials said on Thursday. The $82 million contract covers launch, payload processing and other services for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's ...

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NASA hires SpaceX for science satellite launch

NASA probe spots bizarre lightning storm on Saturn

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NASA's Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn has spotted intense blue daytime lightning on the ringed planet. Previously lightning had only been detected on Saturn's night side.

A NASA spacecraft orbiting Saturn has captured an amazing view of lightning in broad daylight on the ringed planet.

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The Cassini orbiter captured the daytime lightning on Saturn as bright blue spots inside a giant storm that raged on the planet last year. NASA unveiled the new Saturn lightning photos Wednesday (July 18), adding that the images came as a big surprise.

"We didn't think we'd see lighting on Saturn's day side only its night side," said Ulyana Dyudina, a Cassini imaging team associate at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, in a statement. "The fact that Cassini was able to detect the lightning means that it was very intense."

Cassini spotted the daytime lightning while observing agiant Saturn storm on March 6, 2011. A blue filter on the spacecraft's main camera recorded the lightning flashes, and scientists then exaggerated the blue tint in order to pin down the lightning's location and size, researchers said. [More Photos of Saturn's Monster Storm]

The Saturn lightning in Cassini's new images apparently packs quite a wallop. An analysis of the new images revealed that the energy from the visible lightning flashes alone could have spiked up to 3 billion watts over one second. That makes the daytime Saturn lightning on par with some of the strongest lightning flashes on Earth.

Cassini mission scientists said the lightning on Saturn was spotted across a region 100 miles (160 kilometers) wide where it exited the cloud layer. In all, Cassini spotted eight daytime lightning flashes on Saturn, five in one part of the storm and three in an another, they added.

The lightning-spawning storm on Saturn was not a short-lived tempest. The storm wrapped completely around Saturn at its peak and is the longest-lived storm ever seen on the ringed planet. It began in December 2010 and lasted about 200 days, finally sputtering out in late June 2011.

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San Francisco Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine Students Share Successes

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Students of the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (ACTCM) in San Francisco share insight into the comprehensive training and experience they gained by working at the college’s community acupuncture program (CAP) sites across the Bay Area.San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) July 20, 2012 The American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (ACTCM) in San Francisco trains students at its ...

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San Francisco Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine Students Share Successes

Liberty University en Español Celebrates First Graduate, Boost in Enrollment

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Liberty University’s bilingual program Liberty University en Español, which launched in the fall of 2011, is celebrating its first graduate after a successful inaugural year, in which the program has tripled its enrollment.Lynchburg, Va. (PRWEB) July 18, 2012 Liberty University’s bilingual program Liberty University en Español, which launched in the fall of 2011, is celebrating its first ...

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Liberty Tire Recycling Donates Playground Safety Surfacing for New Playground Project at The Children's Inn at the …

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PITTSBURGH, July 19, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --Liberty Tire Recycling, the premier provider of tire recycling services in North America, has announced the company will donate its Pinnacle Rubber Mulch and SMARTE playground surface system to KaBOOM!, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to saving play for America's children. The donation, which includes 8,200 square feet of Pinnacle Rubber Mulch for landscaping and 4,400 square feet of SMARTE playground safety surfacing, will be used to help build a new playground at The Children's Inn at NIH (The National Institute of Health) on Monday, July 23, 2012.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20091210/NE24642LOGO )

"We're pleased to work with KaBOOM! to help create a safe and accessible playground for the children and families who stay at The Children's Inn at the National Institute of Health," said Brad Pittam, general manager of LTR Products, a subsidiary of Liberty Tire Recycling. "The SMARTE Surface System made with Pinnacle Rubber Mulch helps protect kids from playground falls and the Pinnacle Rubber Mulch used in landscaping around the playground will ensure the area remains low maintenance and great looking for years to come."

The Children's Inn at NIH is a nonprofit residence on the campus of the NIH where families stay free of charge while their children participate in groundbreaking biomedical research. Families travel from across the country and around the world to stay together with their children at The Inn. Some spend a few days, others months. While the NIH cares for a child's medical needs, The Inn cares for the family's heart, soul and spirit. More than 10,000 children have stayed since The Inn opened in 1990. About 1,500 families stay each year.

Pinnacle Rubber Mulch is a natural-looking mulch alternative that lasts for 12 years. As a playground safety surface, a six-inch layer of Pinnacle Rubber Mulch will cushion a child's fall from as high as 16 feet using half of the material compared to wood mulch. Additionally, rubber mulch is non-allergenic, non-toxic, and harmless to plants, pets and children. It is also clean, minimizes airborne dust and particles, and does not splinter like wood mulch. As an eco-friendly product, Pinnacle Rubber Mulch not only saves trees from the shredder, but also provides an outlet for the millions of scrap tires collected and processed annually.

The SMARTE System utilizes Pinnacle Rubber Mulch made from tires provided by Liberty Tire Recycling for the system's base and impact layer. An artificial turf is installed on top creating a playground surface that is wheelchair accessible, low-maintenance, durable and environmentally friendly.

For more information on Liberty Tire Recycling, visit http://www.libertytire.com. For more information on Pinnacle Rubber Mulch, visit http://www.pinnaclerubbermulch.com.

About Liberty Tire Recycling

Liberty Tire Recycling is the premier provider of tire recycling services in North America. By recycling more than 140 million tires annually, Liberty Tire reclaims about 1.5 billion pounds of rubber for innovative, eco-friendly products. The recycled rubber produced by Liberty Tire is used as crumb rubber and industrial feedstock for molded products; as tire-derived fuel for industrial kilns, mills and power plants; and as rubber mulch for landscaping and playgrounds. The company maintains a nationwide network of processing plants, and comprehensive door-to-door collection services. Liberty Tire Recycling is headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA. For more information, please visit http://www.libertytire.com.

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Liberty Tire Recycling Donates Playground Safety Surfacing for New Playground Project at The Children's Inn at the ...

Owners of islands in Japan-China feud shun PM Noda's bid

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TOKYO (Reuters) - Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's effort to nationalize a chain of disputed islands long a source of friction between Japan and China faced rough going after the isles' owners said on Friday they would keep negotiating their sale to Tokyo's governor. The stance by the Kurihara family, which owns four of the five uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, complicates Noda's ...

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Owners of islands in Japan-China feud shun PM Noda's bid

New health care groups look to cut costs and improve quality

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Across the country, doctors, hospitals and insurers are forming new health care entities to increase the efficiency and quality of health care, and lower the cost of it. Called accountable care organizations, these groups are gaining ground, even though critics consider them a repackaging of HMOs some of which have given managed care a bad name.

An ACO is a group of health care providers such as doctors, hospitals and others, including insurance companies, who agree to work together to provide overall care to their patients. Those providers are accountable for the quality and cost of that care. If they reduce costs while improving patient care, they share in the savings. If they dont deliver, they may risk losing money.

While the idea has many proponents, critics are concerned about the creation of large health care groups that could have too much influence over physician decisions. That could backfire and ultimately result in increased health care costs.

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Hospitals controlling and running ACOs that makes our members very nervous, said Francisco Silva, vice president and general counsel for the California Medical Association based in Sacramento.Its absolutely important that ACOs are physician led. The ACO model can be a very good thing, but it needs to be done carefully as a collaborative effort, he said. We learned from the HMO experience. There were a lot of stories of folks being denied care.

But there is increasing support for changing the way health care is delivered and making all parties in the system accountable for the cost.

Right now Id say there is a growing consensus that accountable care is the future of health care, said David Muhlestein, an analyst with Leavitt Partners, a Salt Lake City-based health care analyst firm.

But a clear definition an ACO has yet to be determined, he added.

Affordable care organizations are emerging both through Medicare and in the private sector. The Affordable Care Act required the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to develop an ACO program, which, as of July 9, has 154 ACOs serving 2.4 million Medicare patients, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. These ACOs must meet patient care standards based on 33 quality measures.

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New health care groups look to cut costs and improve quality

Opinion: Another look at Obamacare

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Allison Miller was among the nurses and doctors giving free care in July in the Los Angeles area.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Editor's note: Aaron E. Carroll is an associate professor and vice chairman of health policy and outcomes research in the Department of Pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine. He blogs about health policy at The Incidental Economist and tweets at @aaronecarroll.

(CNN) -- Unless you've been living under a rock, you know people are concerned about the deficit. Or at least they say they are. You'd also have to be willfully ignoring everything around you not to know that health care spending is a significant cause, if not the cause, of our long-term fiscal problems.

The narrative that seems to be going around Washington argues that there are two schools of thought about how to improve our financial outlook. One side wants to cut spending. The other side wants to increase taxes. Or, so it goes.

I was out to dinner on Saturday night with a friend who is rather pessimistic about compromise in our government. He believes that the chances for passing anything that might reduce spending on health care in the future are near zero. There's just one problem with his outlook. We've already passed a law that does a great deal to reduce future health care spending.

Aaron E. Carroll

I have argued many times that I don't think the Affordable Care Act does enough to contain costs. I still believe that's true. But let's not ignore the fact that it does a lot. More, in fact, than anything else passed by Congress and signed into law by a president in quite some time.

Right off the bat, we need to remember that the Affordable Care Act makes significant cuts to future Medicare spending. Reductions in overpayments for Medicare Advantage constitute almost $140 billion in savings over a decade. Changes in the fee-for-service reimbursement schedule add up to almost $200 billion. That's an enormous amount of money, so large that it scared many people into thinking that Medicare would be severely curtailed. Running against Medicare cuts helped sweep the Republicans into power in the House of Representatives in 2010. Often, such arguments came from the same people now decrying the Affordable Care Act for not cutting health care spending enough.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are lots of other payment reforms (PDF) that should "bend the curve" for Medicare in the next decade. Hospitals will be punished for re-admissions for certain conditions. This is expected to save $8.2 billion. Refusing payments for hospital-acquired conditions should save another $3.2 billion. Accountable care organizations, for better or for worse, are expected to save almost $5 billion in the first eight years as well.

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Opinion: Another look at Obamacare

Voters 'Worried' About Health Care After Ruling

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The Supreme Court decision upholding the 2010 health care law has left more American voters feeling "worried" than "reassured" about their personal health care situation. Meanwhile, majorities still want at least part of the health care law repealed.

The latest Fox News poll, released Thursday, shows 58 percent of voters think the Affordable Care Act needs to be changed and Congress should keep at it. Forty percent disagree: It's done and lawmakers should "move on."

Not surprisingly, most Republicans (84 percent) think lawmakers should keep working on the law. A 53-percent majority of independents agree -- as do 35 percent of Democrats.

Overall, a 57-percent majority of voters would like Congress to repeal at least part of the health care law: 29 percent want complete repeal and another 28 percent favor repealing parts of it.

That's down slightly from a high of 61 percent wanting to repeal at least part of the law in January 2011. Since 2010, when this question was first asked, a majority has favored repealing at least some of the law.

Of the four voters in ten who want Congress to keep or expand the law, 18 percent favor expanding it, while 22 percent say leave it as is. That's a new high for the number favoring keeping the law in its current form, up from the previous high of 16 percent (in both April 2011 and December 2010).

Almost all Republicans want Congress to repeal all (57 percent) or parts of the health care law (30 percent).

Two-thirds of Democrats want the law expanded (29 percent) or left as-is (36 percent). One in four Democrats favors repealing parts of the law (24 percent).

Among independents, a 57-percent majority thinks at least some of the law should be repealed, while 39 percent favor keeping or expanding the law.

The Supreme Court ruled most of the 2010 health care law constitutional on June 28.

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Voters 'Worried' About Health Care After Ruling

County has free health plan for poor

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By MARY SHEDDEN | The Tampa Tribune Published: July 20, 2012 Updated: July 20, 2012 - 12:00 AM

Florida's governor has no plans to expand health care for the state's poor, but Hillsborough County health advocates say they still plan to help struggling uninsured residents.

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states can decide whether to implement the federal Affordable Care Act's expansion of Medicaid for uninsured residents, many between the ages of 19 and 64.

Gov. Rick Scott, a staunch opponent of the Affordable Care Act, swiftly announced that Florida will not participate.

However, more than 10,000 county residents living at or below the federal poverty line already participate in a 20-year-old free local health care plan similar to what the expansion would offer.

Advisors to the Hillsborough County Health Care Plan said Thursday they are moving forward with plans to reach even more eligible participants.

"There are people who are clearly eligible for our plan and don't know about it," said Gene Earley, the county director of health care services.

Thursday's meeting provided the first clue about how many local adults are eligible but missing out on the free preventive and acute medical care and prescription drug assistance. Preliminary reviews of census and Medicaid rolls show that more than 40,000 eligible and uninsured residents are being missed.

Who they are, where they live and each person's specific medical needs will be identified within three months as part of an education and recruitment strategic plan, Earley said.

Since voters backed its creation in 1991, a half-cent county sales tax and trust fund now more than $94 million and $47.3 million, respectively have covered the plan's costs. In 2011, expenses totaled $72.5 million.

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County has free health plan for poor

Health care worries businesses

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COEUR d'ALENE - Business consultants have been facing "a lot of nervous business owners" following the upholding of the new health care reform, said Lance Fenton, CPA at Cooper Norman.

Speaking on a health care reform panel on Thursday morning at North Idaho College, Fenton said most companies worry how they'll be impacted financially.

"We're trying to put their minds at ease," Fenton said.

Thursday morning's forum on the Affordable Care Act, presented by PacificSource Health Plans, glossed over the law's requirements for businesses.

Companies with at least 50 employees will have to provide workers with health care coverage. Or, they can pay a $2,000 penalty per employee they don't insure, who will instead seek coverage through health insurance exchanges provided by the state or federal government.

Companies of any size must educate their employees about their insurance options.

The Congressional Budget Office has projected that under the new act, the number of uninsured will drop from 50 million today to 22 million by 2016.

Panelist Stephen Cilley, CEO of Ataraxis, Inc., said he didn't think many Idaho businesses would be dramatically affected by the new law.

"Most businesses in Idaho aren't over 50 people," said Cilley, whose Boise company handles employee services for businesses.

But panelist Shelli Stayner, with Mercer human resource consultant, said there is debate among small employers over whether to rely on a state insurance exchange, if one is created.

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Strategies to improve renewable energy feedstocks

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Public release date: 19-Jul-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Vicki Cohn vcohn@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 x2156 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, July 19, 2012To enable greater reliance on renewable biomass resources for power generation, combination approaches such as co-firing of high percentages of biomass with coal offer unique advantages, but also significant challenges. A comprehensive review of the strategies currently available and in development to improve the characteristics of biomass is presented in Industrial Biotechnology, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.. The article is available free online at the Industrial Biotechnology website.

"Comprehensive and precise characterization of biomass feedstock is important for the development of biotechnology approaches to bioenergy and bioproducts development," says Larry Walker, PhD, Co-Editor-in-Chief and Professor, Biological & Environmental Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.

Jaya ShankarTumuluru and colleagues, Idaho National Laboratory (Idaho Falls), describe and compare formulation, pretreatment, and densification options intended to overcome issues related to physical and chemical composition and storage of biomass and the logistics for successful co-firing of <40% mixtures with coal. The Review is entitled "Formulation, Pretreatment, and Densification Options to Improve Biomass Specifications for Co-Firing High Percentages with Coal."

The current issue of Industrial Biotechnology also features a Commentary by Rina Singh, PhD, Senior Policy Director in the Industrial Biotechnology section at the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) on "The National Bioeconomy Blueprint: Meeting Grand Challenges," followed by highlights of the Blueprint.

Gauri Dhavan, Irene Hudson, and J. Peter Fasse, attorneys at Fish & Richardson PC (Boston, MA and New York, NY) take an in-depth look at the impact for the industrial biotechnology community of the Supreme Court's recent decision on patent eligibility of method claims in the Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc. case in the article "Patent Eligibility of Method Claims: What Is the Impact of the Supreme Court's Prometheus Decision?"

A new feature in Industrial Biotechnology, entitled Catalyzing Innovation, in this issue focuses on the application of zinc finger nuclease technology in the aquaculture food industry. Xavier Lauth, John Buchanan, and Keith Hansen, Center for Aquaculture Technologies (San Diego, CA) and Sigma Life Science (St. Louis, MO), describe this innovative technology in the article "Efficient Targeted Genome Editing for Finfish Aquaculture and Other Industries."

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Strategies to improve renewable energy feedstocks

Forget the Olympics – Here come the Superhuman games for genetically enhanced humans

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GM athletes could get their own events Scientists say they could be treated 'like racing cars' Power running, swimming and climbing could be first disciplines

PUBLISHED: 13:01 EST, 19 July 2012 | UPDATED: 13:01 EST, 19 July 2012

Superhuman athletes created by gene therapy and biomechanical engineering will one day be competing at the Olympics - but will need their own events, predict scientists.

Performance-enhancing technologies will advance to a point where they will not only extend human limits - but demand a events all of their own, similar to the Formula One version of car racing.

Professor Hugh Herr of the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology said: 'For each one there will be a new sport - power running and power swimming and power climbing.

'Just like the invention of the bicycle led to the sport of cycling. What well see is the emergence of all kinds of new sports.'

Mechanical prosthetics will become much more proficient than the cheetah-style legs used by amputees including Oscar Pistorius from South Africa.

The first superhuman athlete? Oscar Pistorius trains at the track in South Africa.

The Paralympic gold medallist has now been approved to run in the London 2012 Olympics even though his prosthetics lack the stiffness of a human ankle and cant generate the same forces.

Prof Herrs lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is currently working on a bionic running leg.

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Forget the Olympics - Here come the Superhuman games for genetically enhanced humans

Oprah's Book Club Dives Into Social Media

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When Oprah Winfrey, then the brightest star on daytime TV, began her book club in 1996, inexpensive e-books and e-readers seemed more futurist rumor than everyday reality. Social media could have meant friendly reporters.

Now, as Winfrey, co-owner of a struggling cable network, launches Oprah's Book Club 2.0, she's seeking a literary home on a digital landscape. Comparing today's fragmented do-it-yourself media with the world of 1996 is like comparing Winfrey's 42-acre estate near Santa Barbara, Calif., with her birthplace amid the rural poverty of Kosciusko, Miss.

Publishers and booksellers cheer her club's revival, despite questions whether the new Winfrey, with a much smaller TV audience, carries the influence of the old Winfrey, who turned 70 books into best sellers.

On Sunday, Winfrey's interview with memoirist Cheryl Strayed, the first author chosen for the new book club, airs on OWN's Super Soul Sunday (11 a.m. ET/PT) and simultaneously stream on Oprah Radio and on OWN'S Facebook page. (OWN is short for Oprah Winfrey Network.)

Ratings show that the audience for Winfrey's weekly show Super Soul averaged only 114,000 viewers in the past month -- a sliver of her more than 5 million to 6 million viewers when her daily syndicated show ended its 25-year run last year. At its peak, The Oprah Winfrey Show averaged 12 million viewers.

What hasn't changed is how Winfrey, America's favorite reader, reacts when she loves a book.

This spring, she read Strayed's inspirational memoir, Wild, about the author's solo 1,100-mile hike on the Pacific Crest Trail after the death of her mother, the destruction of her marriage and experimentation with heroin.

Winfrey, who says she read Wild in part in hardcover and on her Kindle and iPad, writes in the July issue of O, the Oprah Magazine: "I love this book. I want to shout it from the mountaintop. I want to shout it from the Web I knew I had to reinvent my book club."

She still moves product

On June 1, Winfrey announced an interactive and multi-platform book club that uses Twitter, Facebook, Storify and GroupMe. Readers can post questions that Winfrey and Strayed answer in videos. The print editions of Wild carry a new version of the familiar "O" book club logo. The special e-book includes Winfrey's notes on her favorite passages.

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Oprah's Book Club Dives Into Social Media

Black Hat Marks 15th Anniversary By Bringing Back Experts Who Presented 15 Years Ag

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SAN FRANCISCO, July 19, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Next week, Black Hat, producer of the world's premier information security events, will celebrate its 15th anniversary in Las Vegas with more than 6,500 high-level security experts, bringing together a community of public and private sector security professionals, academics and researchers. Experts from around the globe will be revealing the newest cyber security research, from breaking vulnerabilities to important findings that impact everything from global cyber espionage to personal computing. Black Hat is commemorating its storied history by bringing back five of the original 1998 speakers: Jeff Moss, Bruce Schneier, Marcus Ranum, Adam Shostack and Jennifer Granick, who will share their vision of security for the next 15 years with their panel, "Smashing the Future for Fun and Profit" on Wednesday, July 25th. For more information and to register before the online registration deadline of July 20th, please visit http://www.blackhat.com.

Over the past 15 years, a unique and neutral forum has been created at Black Hat, where the security community can come together public, private and independent practitioners to exchange research, theories and experiences with the common goal of managing the ever-evolving threat landscape. The first Black Hat "futurist panel", being held on July 25th at 10:15am, brings together these industry veterans to discuss today's cutting edge research and emergent technologies, while reflecting back on where the security community has come from.

"No matter which incidents you examineor which ones your enterprise must respond toone thing is clear: security is not getting easier. The industry relies upon the Black Hat community to bring them timely security research and education," explained Black Hat General Manager, Trey Ford. "Bringing back these renowned experts is our way to celebrate the security community's past, present and future."

Online registration for Black Hat USA 2012 ends Friday, July 20th. Register now to save $400 on this year's show, featuring nine tracks and forty-nine live, onstage demonstrations presented by more than one hundred of the community's most respected security researchers.

Sponsors of this year's Black Hat include Diamond Sponsors: Qualys, Microsoft and Lookingglass Cyber Solutions; Platinum Sponsors: Accuvant LABS, Blue Coat Systems, Core Security, Cisco, IBM, Lieberman Software, LogRhythm, Mykonos Software, RSA, Symantec, Trustwave and Verizon.

To request media credentials to the event please see http://bit.ly/BHUSAmedia.

Follow Black Hat on Facebook; Black Hat on LinkedIn; #BlackHatEvents on Twitter; Black Hat Events on Flickr.

About Black Hat Black Hat provides briefings and training to leading corporations and government agencies around the world. Black Hat differentiates itself by working at many levels within the corporate, government, and underground communities. This unmatched informational reach enables Black Hat attendees to be continuously aware of the newest vulnerabilities, defense mechanisms, and industry trends. Black Hat Briefings and Trainings are held annually in Europe and Las Vegas. Black Hat is produced by UBM TechWeb. More information is available at http://www.blackhat.com.

About UBM TechWeb UBM TechWeb, the global leader in technology media and professional information, enables people and organizations to harness the transformative power of technology. Through its three core businesses media solutions, marketing services and paid content UBM TechWeb produces the most respected and consumed brands and media applications in the technology market. More than 14.5 million business and technology professionals (CIOs and IT managers, Web & Digital professionals, Software Developers, Government decision makers, and Telecom providers) actively engage in UBM TechWeb's communities and information resources monthly. UBM TechWeb brands include: global face-to-face events such as Interop, Black Hat and Enterprise Connect; award-winning online resources such as InformationWeek, Dark Reading, and Network Computing; and market-leading magazines InformationWeek, Wall Street & Technology, and Advanced Trading. UBM TechWeb is a UBM plc. company, a global provider of news distribution and specialist information services with a market capitalization of more than $2.5 billion.

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Freedom High’s “Mr. Won” wins another award

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By now, you’ve probably heard of “Mr. Won,” or Tesfa Wondemagegnehu, Freedom High School’s award-winning chorus teacher. Last week, during the state Teacher of the Year awards ceremony, Mr. Won racked up another win. At the Macy’s-sponsored event, Mr. Won was presented with the Magic of Teaching Award and a $1,000 Macy’s gift card. Macy’s Magic [...]

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Freedom High’s “Mr. Won” wins another award

Freedom freshman leaves indelible mark

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by Kyle Szymanski Thepress.Net

Freedom freshman Kelsey Almassey painted the press box in Freedom High Schools football stadium as part of her end-of-the year leadership project.

So when freshman Kelsey Almassey came to him and said she wanted to leave her mark on the school as part of her end-of-the year leadership project, he was hesitant. But when she showed him some of her old drawings, and a design to paint the press box in Freedoms football stadium, he was sold.

Here at Freedom, we try to enable the students to do the best they can, Amaro said. If all of a sudden we realize a project is going to take place that would benefit the entire campus, the best thing we can do is try to eliminate any obstacles.

After 15 hours of work, the press box now reads Freedom Falcons.

I just wanted to make my mark on Freedom, Almassey said. I thought: what better way to do it than to add some school spirit?

Now that the project is complete, and receiving rave reviews from the schools administration, Almassey isnt afraid to admit it was the first time she used outdoor latex paint. It was a lot of work, but it wasnt too awfully difficult, said the student who carries a 4.0 grade point average. After she convinced Amaro and later Principal Erik Faulkner to allow her to carry out the art project, the hard part was over.

To start the project, Almassey laid out the letters on her computer. After enlarging the letters to scale, she stenciled them onto the press box and painted them.

Im proud of her for wanting to add some school spirit to the school, said Nicole Almassey, Kelseys mother. I try to support anything that has to do with school.

Almasseys idea came to life while she visited other schools during her middle school track career. She noticed that most of the tracks press boxes were decorated.

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Freedom freshman leaves indelible mark