Spirituality is key for O’Hara grads (With Video)

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By TIMOTHY LOGUE tlogue@delcotimes.com @timothylogue

Cardinal O'Hara's Jessie West is all smiles during commencement exercises Wednesday afternoon at Villanova University. ERIC HARTLINE / Times Staff

RADNOR With a drum roll and turn of the tassel, Cardinal OHara High School launched 329 graduates into the world at commencement exercises Wednesday afternoon at Villanova University.

I feel relieved. Its finally over, said Daniel Gouck, an elated member of the Class of 2012. Its a great school. I love the community.

Before the conferring of degrees, OHara Principal Marie Rogai commended her pupils for negotiating an unusual year with ups and downs, one that included a teachers strike at the outset.

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Spirituality is key for O’Hara grads (With Video)

The yoga death – and the 'wall of meditative silence' that met police

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Police in rural Arizona are investigating the mysterious death of a yoga student who spent two months living in a desert cave after being expelled from a nearby Buddhist retreat, where he had agreed to meditate silently for more than three years.

The body of Ian Thorson, 38, was discovered by rescuers in late April, 7,000ft up a mountain outside the remote town of Bowie, roughly 60 miles east of Tucson. His wife, Christie McNally, 39, was lying nearby, dehydrated and in a critical condition.

They'd ventured into the wilderness after being forced to leave the nearby Diamond Mountain University, a New Age facility where residents forego conversation for three years, three months, and three days in pursuit of spiritual enlightenment.

Like most "courses" at the so-called "university", which has no traditional academic accreditation, Mr Thorson and Ms McNally's silent retreat was run by the institution's leader, a charismatic self-styled "Geshe", or monk, called Michael Roach, who has written several yoga manuals.

It had begun at the start of 2011. But relations between the university-educated couple and fellow students appear to have started to seriously deteriorate this year. Efforts to establish what occurred are being hampered by the refusal of the 36 remaining individuals on the silent retreat to talk. According to written notes and statements posted on the internet, Mr Thorson and Ms McNally were expelled after a domestic confrontation in which he was stabbed with a samurai sword.

The intrigue has been heightened by revelations that Ms McNally was previously married to Mr Roach. Their relationship was kept secret from students at the University and ended by divorce in September 2010, a month before her wedding to Mr Thorson.

Mr Roach, a former diamond dealer who advocates yoga and meditation as a path to financial prosperity, has uploaded a lengthy statement to Diamond Mountain's website alleging that couple were expelled for "serious incidents of mutual spousal abuse".

He said: "Lama Christie [McNally] described what sounded like repeated physical abuse of herself by her husband, and also an incident in which she had stabbed Ian [Thorson] with a knife, under what she described as a spiritual influence."

Mr Roach did not acknowledge his previous marriage to Ms McNally in the statement. Although they had shared a yurt at the 960-acre retreat in previous years, he had insisted to students that their relationship was platonic and she was his "spiritual partner."

The New York Times yesterday detailed "bizarre initiation ceremonies" at the retreat. An alumnus called Sid Johnson alleged that one ritual involved "kissing and genital touching". Another former student, Ekan Thomason, recalled having blood drawn from her finger by a samurai sword.

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NASA | SDO’s Ultra-high Definition View of 2012 Venus Transit – Video

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06-06-2012 03:30 Launched on Feb. 11, 2010, the Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, is the most advanced spacecraft ever designed to study the sun. During its five-year mission, it will examine the sun's atmosphere, magnetic field and also provide a better understanding of the role the sun plays in Earth's atmospheric chemistry and climate. SDO provides images with resolution 8 times better than high-definition television and returns more than a terabyte of data each day. On June 5 2012, SDO collected images of the rarest predictable solar event--the transit of Venus across the face of the sun. This event happens in pairs eight years apart that are separated from each other by 105 or 121 years. The last transit was in 2004 and the next will not happen until 2117. The videos and images displayed here are constructed from several wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light and a portion of the visible spectrum. The red colored sun is the 304 angstrom ultraviolet, the golden colored sun is 171 angstrom, the magenta sun is 1700 angstrom, and the orange sun is filtered visible light. 304 and 171 show the atmosphere of the sun, which does not appear in the visible part of the spectrum. This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: Like our videos? Subscribe to NASA's Goddard Shorts HD podcast: Or find NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on Facebook: Or find us on Twitter: Follow the conversation online with #VenusTransit

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Space shuttle Enterprise docks at New York museum home

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - The space shuttle Enterprise - named after the spaceship in Star Trek - achieved lift-off on Wednesday when it was hoisted by a crane onto a floating museum in New York's Hudson River. Cheers and thunderous applause erupted from the crowd of New Yorkers and tourists who turned out to see the retired spacecraft moved to its new home atop the flight deck of repurposed World ...

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Space shuttle Enterprise docks at New York museum home

NASA Ames 2012 Fellow – Dr Louis. J. Allamandola – Video

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05-06-2012 13:25 The rank of Fellow is the highest recognition that the NASA Ames Research Center can bestow upon one of its own for a lifetime of intellectual accomplishments. The Fellows are an elite group of Ames people who have built a global reputation for excellence in their scientific and engineering research. The 2012 Ames Fellow Inductees include Dr. Louis J. Allamandola, Dr. Wayne R. Johnson, Dr. Baruch S. Blumberg and Dr. Hans Mark. Dr. Louis Allamandola is an internationally acclaimed scientist whose work revolutionized human understanding of materials in the universe. He has stood on the forefront as our understanding of the universe evolved from a hydrogen-dominated physicists' view in the early 1970s to the chemically rich and diverse molecular universe we know today. For more information about NASA Ames, please visit

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NASA's Commercial Crew gains support in Congress

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It appears that SpaceX's success with the Dragon spacecraft has won some much-needed space in the US House of Representatives. Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA) announced Tuesday that his office reached a truce with NASA regarding the Commercial Crew program. Under the agreement, Wolf will lower his opposition to Commercial Crew and hopefully help NASA gain better funding.

Wolf chairs the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies, which controls NASA's budget. His subcommittee has consistently hit the Commercial Crew Development program (CCDev) with heavy cuts. NASA Administrator Bolden has stated that the cuts have delayed access to the Space Station by American vehicles by at least a year, with this year's cuts expected to delay American access again. In hearings, some of Wolf's subcommittee members have seemed intent on using the coming Space Launch System (SLS) to ferry astronauts to the Space Station, even though this service would come at a price that's about ten times higher.

In April, Wolf included language in the 2013 spending bill's accompanying report that stopped just short of requiring NASA to drop its Commercial Crew competition. Wolf wanted NASA to immediately downsize the program from the current four competitors to either a single "competitor" or a well-funded leader and a weakly funded follower. Commercial space backers have worried that the language would succeed in essentially discontinuing CCDev, given that similar tactics have been used in the Senate.

One fear was that new commercial space companies would be swept away and the job of ferrying astronauts would be given to Boeing, one of the two traditional contractors. The other usual contractor, Lockheed-Martin, is already signed on for NASA's Orion spacecraft. Because the US government is still the only major customer for ferrying humans to orbit, development of a more competitive space industry could be severely curtailed.

On the other hand, support for the newcomers in the commercial space industry has been growing. The topsy-turvy situation, in which Democrats support a new private space industry and Republicans fiercely oppose it, has been questioned on the Republican side, and the recent berthing of the first commercial space capsule with the International Space Station appears to have finally turned the tide. Several members of Wolf's subcommittee who were recalcitrant before the Dragon mission have since made positive announcements. With more tests and launches coming later in the year, Wolf appears to have cut a deal before sentiments shifted again.

Wolf's announcement suggests a compromise agreement wherein Wolf will basically back off of his report's language in return for NASA agreeing to chop CCDev down to two-and-a-half funded competitors (two full awards and one partial award) rather than four. Wolf would back a NASA budget that more closely matched the current Senate funding level, which is slightly more than what his committee recommended on the House side. More importantly, he would not push for language in the new law to require the downselect to a single launch provider.

Other requirements of the agreement, laid out in a letter from Wolf to Bolden, include the following:

All of this language is somewhat strange because NASA is already doing most of this. Because Congress chopped its 2013 budget request for CCDev again this year, it seemed likely that NASA would not be able to sustain four competitors anyway. The agency had also announced that it would be transitioning to FARS for general acquisitions, and it already collects financial information on the four competitors. And export controls already prevent shipping of any kind of rocket technology overseas. Accordingly, it doesn't seem like Wolf is really getting anything new.

Wolf's office also provided a link to a letter Administrator Bolden wrote in reply, thanking him for his trust. In the letter, Bolden stipulates that if Wolf wants American vehicles taking astronauts to the International Space Station sooner, the funding Wolf's committee cut from NASA's budget request needs to be restored.

That could actually happen. It's entirely possible that NASA's budget bill will be punted to next year because of the elections, and Congress will pass a continuing resolution instead. In a longshot scenario, additional money would be added to that bill if enough support is present in Congress to get it done. Whether or not the funding is restored, it does seem that SpaceX's victory is yielding some tangible political payoffs for NASA as well.

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NASA's Commercial Crew gains support in Congress

NASA GRC Solicitation: Seeking Partners for Science Investigations and Research Activities

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Synopsis - Jun 06, 2012

General Information

Solicitation Number: NNC12ZRB025L Posted Date: Jun 06, 2012 FedBizOpps Posted Date: Jun 06, 2012 Recovery and Reinvestment Act Action: No Original Response Date: Jul 20, 2012 Current Response Date: Jul 20, 2012 Classification Code: A -- Research and Development NAICS Code: 541711

Contracting Office Address

NASA/Glenn Research Center, 21000 Brookpark Road, Cleveland, OH 44135

Description

This notice is issued by the NASA/GRC to post a request for partners via the internet, and solicit responses from interested parties. This document is for information and planning purposes and to allow industry the opportunity to verify reasonableness and feasibility of the requirement, as well as promote competition.

This presolicitation synopsis is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government, nor will the Government pay for the information submitted in response. Respondents will not be notified of the results.

NASA Clause 1852.215-84, Ombudsman, is applicable. The Center Ombudsman for this acquisition can be found at http://prod.nais.nasa.gov/pub/pub_library/Omb.html .

The solicitation and any documents related to this procurement will be available over the Internet. These documents will reside on a World Wide Web (WWW) server, which may be accessed using a WWW browser application. The Internet site, or URL, for the NASA/GRC Business Opportunities home page is http://prod.nais.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/eps/bizops.cgi?gr=D&pin=22 It is the offeror's responsibility to monitor the Internet cite for the release of the solicitation and amendments (if any). Potential offerors will be responsible for downloading their own copy of the solicitation and amendments, if any.

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NASA GRC Solicitation: Seeking Partners for Science Investigations and Research Activities

NASA, Congressman Agree On Future Of The Commercial Crew Program

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Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) (pictured, left), chairman of the House Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations subcommittee, said Tuesday he had reached an agreement with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden (pictured, right) regarding the future of the commercial crew program.

Wolf said the country needs an exceptional program to return American astronauts to the moon, and ultimately beyond. Space, he said, is the ultimate high ground for a nation and will play an increasingly critical role in our national security and economic growth in the 21st Century.

"Given recent advances in space capabilities by foreign competitors, it is essential that the U.S. move quickly to restore its domestic crew access to the International Space Station (ISS) and focus on the successful completion of our unique exploration systems, including the Space Launch System and Orion crew vehicle," Wolf said in a statement. "During this current gap in U.S. access to both low earth orbit and beyond, it is imperative that NASA focus its limited resources on these critical human spaceflight missions.

"For these reasons, I have had serious concerns about NASAs management of the commercial crew program over the last two years. That is why I included language in the report accompanying the fiscal year 2013 Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations bill, H.R. 5326, to address these concerns and direct a new management paradigm for the program. I remain convinced that the approach outlined in the committees report is the most appropriate way forward for the program.

"However, in an effort to prevent any disruption in the development of crew vehicles to return U.S. astronauts to ISS as quickly as possible, I have reached an understanding with NASA Administrator Bolden in an exchange of letters that will allow the upcoming Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCAP) phase to proceed under a revised, more limited management roadmap and with an fiscal year 2013 funding level at or near the Senate Appropriations Committee-approved amount. As part of this understanding, NASA and the committee have affirmed that the primary objective of the commercial crew program is achieving the fastest, safest and most cost-effective means of domestic access to the ISS, not the creation of a commercial crew industry." Wolf said NASA agreed to reduce the number of awards anticipated to be made this summer from the 4 awards made under commercial crew development round 2 to not more than 2.5 (two full and one partial) CCiCAP awards. He said the change would reduce taxpayer exposure by "concentrating funds on those participants who are most likely to be chosen to eventually provide service to ISS."

NASA also has stated that, after the CCiCAP phase, future program funding will only come in the form of FAR-based certification and service contracts. Further, to help prevent a problematic logistical choke point at the beginning of the certification phase, NASA will also produce an important new procurement strategy for awarding these FAR-based contracts, which will be substantively complete prior to the awarding of CCiCAP funds. The Congressman said NASA assured him that it will carefully examine commercial crew participants financial health and viability before providing CCiCAP funds, and ensure the government's first right of refusal to acquire property developed under or acquired as part of the commercial crew program at a price that reflects the taxpayers existing investment in its development.

"Should any of NASAs plans and intentions change from what was agreed to in the exchange of letters, I will reevaluate the situation," Wolf said. "I will continue to follow up with NASA to monitor the implementation of these understandings in fiscal year 2012 both through committee actions and through appropriate outside oversight and to ensure that these principles are reflected in any final appropriations legislation for fiscal year 2013."

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (pictured), the senior Republican on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation and Ranking Member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science, praised the announcement made by Representative Wolf. I had previously called for NASA to down-select from four potential commercial providers to the top two firms. Todays announcement follows that prescription and is welcome news. This is an important turning point that should keep development of commercial crew capability on schedule and on budget, and assure that NASA will also have the financial and human resources it needs to move forward with developing heavy launch capabilities for deep space exploration. We should have two goals: To ensure full manned access to the space station that utilizes the investment made in that unique microgravity laboratory and to reach our nations next horizon in space exploration beyond low earth orbit. Both of these goals can be achieved if we invest taxpayer dollars wisely and take advantage of the years of invaluable experience developed within NASA."

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NASA Sets Media Opportunities For NEEMO Undersea Mission

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HOUSTON -- NASA astronaut and commander for the 16th NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO), Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, will be available for live satellite interviews while performing a simulated spacewalk under water. The interviews will take place between 8:45 and 9:45 a.m. EDT June 15. NASA will also host a media day June 21 in Key Largo, Fla.

NEEMO sends groups of NASA employees and contractors to live for 12 days, 63 feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Aquarius lab. The laboratory is located in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary in Key Largo. For NASA, Aquarius provides a convincing analog to space exploration, and NEEMO crew members experience some of the same tasks and challenges under water as they would in space.

This year's NEEMO expedition begins June 11 and will simulate a mission to an asteroid. The mission will focus on three areas -- communication delays, restraint and translation techniques and optimum crew size. Metcalf-Lindenburger will be joined by European Space Agency astronaut Timothy Peake; Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Kimiya Yui; and Steven W. Squyres, Goldwin Smith professor of astronomy at Cornell University and chairman of the NASA Advisory Council. Squyres also was a member of NEEMO 15.

Journalists are invited to a media day where they will have the opportunity to tour the Mobile Mission Control Center, interview scientists and engineers involved in the mission and take part in a remote news conference with the NEEMO crew members who will be aboard Aquarius. The NASA Live Interview Media Service (LIMS) satellite will be used for the underwater interviews. The NASA producer will provide confirmed clients with LIMS satellite parameters.

The interviews also will be simulcast on NASA Television, which can be viewed by those not participating.

To request a slot in the underwater interviews with Metcalf-Lindenburger or to participate in the media day activities, reporters must contact Brandi Dean at brandi.k.dean@nasa.gov by 5 p.m. CDT (6 p.m. EDT) on Wednesday, June 13.

The NEEMO mission is sponsored by NASA's Advanced Exploration Systems Program.

For more information about NEEMO and the crew, and links to follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/neemo

For NASA TV downlink, schedule and streaming video information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.

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NASA Sets Media Opportunities For NEEMO Undersea Mission

NASA gets two Hubble-class telescopes from the military

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NASA’s collection of space telescopes just got a bit bigger thanks to an extraordinary gift from America's National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) intelligence agency. The space agency announced on Monday that the NRO has given it two surplus spy satellites that are more advanced than the Hubble Space Telescope. If the money can be found for a mission for the spy “birds” then NASA will not only ...

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NASA gets two Hubble-class telescopes from the military

BC Technical, Inc. Acquires Xpert

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SALT LAKE CITY, June 6, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- In May 2012, BC Technical, Inc. acquired Xpert, a Molecular Imaging service company focused on systems, parts and customized service solutions out of Redmond, WA. This acquisition will expand Utah-based BC Technical's customer base and service presence in the Northwest.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120510/LA04560LOGO)

Former Xpert CEOs Nick Cecil and Dave Baxter have over 65 years of nuclear medicine imaging experience. Both worked for Siemens before starting Xpert 18 years ago. They brought that expertise to Xpert, primarily servicing Siemens products.

Baxter comments, "[Cecil and I] are excited to bring our experience in Siemens service and sales to strengthen BC Technical's Siemens position in the three-state area (Oregan, Idaho, and Washington). We are excited to join BC Technical, and are looking forward to the new chapter in our lives."

BC Technical's President and CEO Mark Alvarez comments, "As we focus on multi-hospital systems and integrated health networks, adding the Xpert team will complement our existing field service engineers in the three-state area, grow our expertise in Siemens nuclear medicine and PET, and will clearly add value. Xpert has an impeccable track record and reputation, and we are so pleased and excited for the Xpert team to join the BC Technical family. With the combination of the two teams, all customers in the three-state area now have a no-compromise option for all their molecular imaging needs."

BC Technical is headquartered in Salt Lake City, UT. Founded in 1995, BC Technical is the leading non-OEM Molecular Imaging Solution Provider of service, support, refurbished systems and parts for the Nuclear Medicine, PET, PET/CT, SPECT, and SPECT/CT market.

ABOUT BC TECHNICALBC Technical is in a category by itselfthey have the resources, quality and experience expected of the OEMs with the value, flexibility and responsiveness expected of a smaller independent company. BC Technical's ISO 13485 certification ensures quality and consistency with their refurbished systems, service and parts. Customer service and technical support are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days a year. BC Technical was established in 1995, and has been backed by one of the country's premier private equity firms since 2009. BC Technical focuses on providing premium Molecular Imaging solutions. For more information or to learn more about BC Technical, please call 888-BCTECH1 (228.3241) or visit us online at http://www.bctechnical.com.

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BC Technical, Inc. Acquires Xpert

Pokémon Red Version: Super Nuzlocke Challenge Edition: ROUND 1 — VS. Brock – Video

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05-06-2012 20:19 PREEMPTIVE NOTE: Just like the video, this description is a tl;dr one, so restrain yourself from stating the obvious. If you want a condensed "my brain is a flies nest" version, then scroll down, otherwise sit down, wait until the video loads and read up for an explanation of how I came about doing this. Thanks to all of you who still bother to read these. — The Nuzlocke Challenge has become quite a popular way of playing the Pokémon games over the past few years of its creation. The basic premise is to challenge yourself by hindering your gameplay experience with various rules that are already part of the challenge, as well as those imposed by you. The Nuzlocke challenge is considered by many to be the ultimate gameplay experience when it comes to the Pokémon games, and it's even considered by many the next step the actual franchise itself should be headed to. With that in mind, the intrigue of doing a Nuzlocke run was always glued in my mind as I learned and watched others attempt it. Alas, I always was tied with other things and seemingly forgot or simply felt uninterested. As time went by, I noticed people often did their Nuzlocke runs on the newer games (Gen. I remakes, RSE, DPPt, HGSS, even GSC), but I would rarely, if at all, come across someone that did for RBY (or for Green). My first thought was initially to do a Nuzlocke run on the Red version, given it was my first Pokémon game, but I felt conflicted because, while being the masterpieces they are, the Gen. I ...

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Pokémon Red Version: Super Nuzlocke Challenge Edition: ROUND 1 — VS. Brock - Video

Engaging communities by putting context up front

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June 06, 2012

By Amy Gahran

Journalism isnt really about articles; its about empowering people by informing and engaging them. The article (or its audio or video equivalent) is a powerful formatbut its mostly a one-size-fits-all artifact of non-interactive, space-limited print media. And it doesnt always meet a communitys true needs for engagement.

Recently author and journalism educator Jeff Jarvis pondered how news audiences might be better served if news outlets started deconstructing the article format. This gave me an idea that might be especially well suited to community media outlets

The problem with inverted pyramid news articles is that too often they are presented as the story, rather than one of several possible stories that can be spun from the same raw material.

Plus, news stories about the same topic often are presented mostly in isolation from each other. This can lead to a blind man and the elephant problem, making it hard for people in your community to grasp the big picture enough to care.

Yet most news outlets keep delivering most or all of their content via traditional inverted pyramid news storieswhere background and context only come after the latest developments.

To be effective, news must engage as well as inform. This means spelling out who should care, and why, front and center. If you really want people to care, dont expect them to read between the lines.

In his May 26 post, News articles as assets and paths, Jarvis observed:

A story can be made up of many assets. Once separated, the storyteller has the opportunity to presentand the reader to takemany paths through them. The expert in a story can go straight to whats new and then leave The novice can start with the background, then read whats new, then delve into the characters and timelines, then explore examples and arguments. The article becomes sets of assets and paths.

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Engaging communities by putting context up front

Inside Medicine: Pros and cons of foreign-trained doctors

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Somewhere around 25 percent of doctors practicing in this country have been trained at medical schools outside the United States (a good percentage are from India, the Philippines, Mexico, Pakistan and the Dominican Republic).

Some of these foreign-trained doctors grew up in foreign countries. Others are American citizens who were not able to find a spot in a U.S. medical school and decided to go abroad for medical training.

Collectively, these foreign-trained doctors are far more likely to practice in less desirable specialties like internal medicine, psychiatry and family medicine, and they are far more likely to practice in physician-short areas like the inner city or rural America.

They are more likely to care for poor patients, charge less money for a visit and work longer hours than American-trained physicians. There are studies suggesting that the quality of care these foreign-trained doctors provide is at least as good as that provided by the average American doctor.

Bottom line is that without these foreign-trained doctors, we as a nation would be in big trouble providing our citizens with health care.

Yet, too often foreign-trained doctors are ostracized and treated as second class citizens both by American-trained doctors and by patients. Foreign-trained doctors may speak with an accent, and some may be difficult to understand.

It is not uncommon to hear a patient tell the hospital clerk that they only want to see an "American doctor" and sometimes the language they use is even uglier when they make this request. I understand that people have prejudices, they have fears, and when they go to the doctor they are sick but these assumptions can be counterproductive.

A foreign accent does not mean poor medical training. Some of the very best doctors I've worked with have been trained outside of North America. Admittedly, medical schools outside the U.S. vary considerably, and there are some absolutely rotten schools. But there are many foreign schools that provide the same excellent level of training that is provided by American schools. Unfortunately, our American medical schools also train some poor doctors. After all, someone has to graduate at the bottom of the class, right?

In many areas, such as in the ability to do a comprehensive physical examination or to understanding the underlying science behind medicine, foreign-trained students surpass American students. However, there is one common area where foreign medical schools fall short and that is in the area of preparing doctors for the culture, communication and ethics required to practice in the United States.

As patients, Americans expect their doctors to listen to them and explain their condition so that they as consumers can participate in making medical decisions. Americans expect doctors to be honest with them and tell them the truth even when the news is bad news. In many countries, such approaches to medical care are not routine and are not taught. But foreign-trained doctors are smart men and women, and they learn Americanisms quickly.

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Inside Medicine: Pros and cons of foreign-trained doctors