CHARLESTON, South Carolina (Reuters) - Descendants of Civil War hero Robert Smalls are celebrating the ex-slave who 150 years ago this weekend commandeered a Confederate steamship and evaded batteries overlooking Charleston harbor to reach a Union blockade and freedom. Calling themselves the "family of cousins" and ranging in age from 3 months to 94 years old, Smalls' descendants came to the ...
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Credit: James Lynch Jr. | The News Herald
Lauren Hasson slips a glance towards the Freedom dugout as she rounds second base to see her teammates celebrating her two-run home run Friday versus Hibriten.
By: KEVIN CARVER | Morganton News Herald Published: May 12, 2012 Updated: May 12, 2012 - 3:53 PM
Lauren Hasson made the Freedom softball teams first-round playoff vision a reality, and Lindsey Auton completed the job as the Lady Patriots erased an early deficit to beat Hibriten at home, 8-4, on Friday.
Both Hasson and Auton posted key home runs in a victory that was Freedoms first in postseason play since the 2008 group did so in the 4A playoffs.
Freedom (13-9), who spotted Hibriten (9-16) two runs each in the top of the first and third innings, turned things around in the bottom of the third.
Kayla Poteat earned a one-out walk before Hasson took a turn at bat. On a 1-1 count, Hasson (2 for 3, three RBIs) torched a two-run homer that tailed just inside the left-field foul pole. After a walk to Paula Davis, Auton punished a shot into the centerfield gap for a double to cross Davis, cutting the deficit to 4-3.
Filling in for Cassie Saunders (illness) at second base was Poteat, who in turn became the silent hero. She lined a single to center in the fourth and Hasson followed by turning on the first pitch she saw for a double to left. The hit tied the game 4-4, and all the momentum appeared to go to Freedom.
In the next frame, Auton made sure it stayed that way. Megan Kirksey and Cassidy Smith connected on back-to-back base hits to lead off the bottom of the fifth, forcing Hibriten starting pitcher Bailey Land out of the circle.
The Panther pitching change backfired, as Auton (3 for 4, four RBIs) clobbered a 1-1 offering for a massive three-run home run to dead centerfield, giving Freedom the lead for good. Auton finished up just a triple shy of hitting for the cycle.
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One World Trade Center, the so-called Freedom Tower currently under construction in Lower Manhattan, technically became New York City's tallest building on Monday, as workers erected steel columns on the 100th floor, 1,271 feet above the street, to make it stand 21 feet higher than the Empire State Building's observation deck. The Freedom Tower, which [...]
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One World Trade Center, the ‘Freedom Tower,’ becomes New York’s tallest building
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Oscar-winner Michael Caine Saturday received the freedom of the London borough of Southwark, where the veteran British actor grew up.
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NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
On Monday, Evan Wolfson, Founder and President of Freedom to Marry, will share the stage with President Barack Obama at the graduation ceremony for Barnard College, a women's college in New York City. Following his historic comments supporting same-sex couples freedom to marry, President Obama will deliver a commencement address to the Class of 2012, and then receive the college's highest honor, the Barnard Medal of Distinction, alongside Wolfson who has been credited with helping President Obama through his widely publicized evolution, ultimately resulting in his full support of same-sex couples freedom to marry.
Wolfson has been leading the charge on efforts to win the freedom to marry since writing his law school dissertation, which laid out a clear path to victory, nearly thirty years ago. He is available to discuss his personal experience of standing with the President after this historic week as well as the next steps in the fight to win the freedom to marry nationwide.
About Evan Wolfson
Wolfson, dubbed the Godfather of Gay Marriage by Newsweek, is the Founder and President of Freedom to Marry, the campaign to win marriage nationwide, and author of Why Marriage Matters: America, Equality, and Gay Peoples Right to Marry. After getting a BA in History from Yale, Wolfson served in the Peace Corps in West Africa and then earned his JD from Harvard Law School. In 2004, TIME magazine named Wolfson one of the "100 most influential people in the world."
Prior to founding Freedom to Marry in 2003, Wolfson launched the ongoing global marriage movement as co-counsel in the landmark Hawaii marriage case, Baehr v. Miike. He also contributed to the legal teams in the Vermont case that led to the creation of "civil unions" and Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, which led to marriage in Massachusetts. In 1976, he was a Senate intern for Vice President Joe Biden, who this past Sunday came out in support of the freedom to marry. Wolfson argued before the Supreme Court in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale and has taught as an adjunct professor at Columbia Law School. Wolfson married his longtime partner, Dr. Cheng He, this past October after winning the freedom to marry in New York.
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009 Re:Cyborg's Extended "International Version" Trailer Posted
3D adaptation of Cyborg 009 manga to open in Japan on October 27
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It will cost $20 this season to park at Cahoon Hollow and White Crest beaches, the selectmen agreed Tuesday, after hearing Suzanne Grout Thomas, beach administrator, explain that the rates at these two beaches have not changed in 19 years.
In 1993 the board of selectmen raised the fee from $10 to $15 a day. The parking fees at the other beaches already have been raised. Nauset and Barnstable for two years have charged $20 per weekend without any griping.
The proposed fee increase would help her staff, she said, because we wont have to have $500 in fives every weekend to make change.
The town took in $153,825 in revenue between the two beaches from 10,255 vehicle passes. If they have the same number of vehicles this year, it will mean $51,275 in anticipated new revenue, she said. Since the town needs revenue, she recommended the increase, and the board readily agreed.
The board took no action on beach fire regulations Tuesday, agreeing to wait until it gets a report back from Thomas and the ad-hoc committee created to come up with new rules and regulations for beach fires.
That means beach fires will be allowed, as they traditionally have been on four ocean beaches, with four permits issued daily for each beach.
I recommend we leave things as they are for the summer, Thomas said.
The committee came up with 20 recommendations, only one of which Thomas said she did not agree with. That was a regulation that those receiving a fire permit be given flags and a bucket when they pick up their permit.
I dont have funding for that, Thomas said. I cant imagine how many buckets and flags will walk out of here as souvenirs. Im not sure that part will not work.
But most of the committee recommendations could be put in place, she said, and she will report back to them, as the summer progresses, on the beach fire situation. One of the committee recommendations was that 10 fire permits be issued, but she was not sure if that meant 10 permits for each of the four beaches, or 10 permits to be divided between the four beaches.
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JEFFERSON CITY Several Missouri State Park beaches, including two in St. Francois County, opened Friday for the 2012 recreational season.
Monsanto and Pim beaches at St. Joe Park opened along with Cuivre River State Park in Lincoln County, Lake Wappapello State Park in Wayne County, Long Branch State Park in Macon County, Pomme de Terre State Parks Hermitage and Pittsburg beaches in Hickory County and Stockton State Park in Dade County.
Additional state park designated swimming beaches are scheduled to open for the recreational season later this month.
Visitors to Missouri State Parks are able to sign up to receive electronic notices about the status of state park beaches. For the past two years, visitors have been able to check the status of beaches at a glance on the Missouri Department of Natural Resources website at http://bit.ly/MoStateParksBeachStatus as well as http://mostateparks.com.
In addition to checking the website, visitors can sign up to receive free alerts and advisories through e-mail or text messages at http://bit.ly/HlSnaG. The department will notify subscribers when the beach status website is updated with the latest postings and will provide a link to view an interactive map of all state park beaches.
The departments map will display flags at each beachs location, with a green flag denoting an open beach and a red flag denoting a beach that has been closed. If a beach is closed, the flags will denote the reason, which could include high bacteria, flooding or high water levels, or storm debris.
When a beach is closed, signs will be posted at the beach and on bulletin boards at the park office to notify the public. Beaches will be closed for high bacteria when a single E. coli sample exceeds 235 cfu/100ml or when the geometric mean a 30-day rolling average exceeds 126 cfu/100 ml.
The department samples the water at all designated beaches in the state park system weekly during the recreational season to determine suitability for swimming. The department will post the information about the beach status on the website at http://bit.ly/MoStateParksBeachStatus as well as http://mostateparks.com. The sample test results indicate a snap shot of the water quality taken at the beaches at a specific time; however, a single sample does not provide an overall sense of the water quality in the lake where the beach is located.
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About 2,000 birds were found dead on beaches in central Chile, a natural history museum director said Friday, accusing fishermen of snagging them in their nets and letting them drown.
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BEACH LEVEL RISE: A recent powerful earthquake reversed years worth of coastal erosion at beaches in Chile. Image: Wikimedia Commons/Maximiliano Reichenbauer
In 2010, a massive, magnitude-8.8 earthquake struck the south central coast of Chile, rupturing beaches and launching a tsunami that rode inland with devastating effect. In an instant, whole sections of the coastline were transformed, with large swaths of sand and rock lifted from beneath the waves.
For Chile, it was a disaster of sobering proportions. But for Eduardo Jaramillo and Jenifer Dugan -- researchers who have spent years studying the effects of coastal erosion on beach ecology -- it was also a rare opportunity to see one of climate change's more immediate effects put in reverse.
"It was like setting the clock backward," said Dugan, a researcher at the Marine Science Institute of the University of California, Santa Barbara. "The whole coast went up in places. Beaches that had been much lower elevation relative to sea level came up a couple of meters. They regained a lot of lost ground."
Before the quake, that "lost ground" had been steadily eaten away by a combination of natural and human influences.
As thermal expansion and glacial melt -- both products of global climate change -- push sea levels steadily higher, coastlines are shifting inland. Yet in many places, that shift has been arrested by man-made sea walls, vast projects meant to protect the trillions of dollars of infrastructure that perch on the edge of the world's oceans.
Sea walls are often constructed at high-tide lines, and although they may protect the infrastructure behind them, they actually exacerbate the erosion of the beach in front of them, said Jaramillo, of Universidad Austral de Chile.
How sea walls accelerate erosion "When you build a sea wall close to high tide, the water actually hits it and bounces off with more force" than if the tide had been allowed to go out naturally, he said. Beaches lose more sand to erosion when they have sea walls than when they're allowed to move naturally, he added.
For the plants and animals that inhabit beaches, that means a precipitous loss of habitat. Along much of the Chilean coast, species have abandoned beaches hemmed in by closing walls of water and concrete. But in those places where the quake lifted new ground, life quickly returned.
"Dune plants are coming back in places there haven't been plants, as far as we know, for a very long time," Dugan said. "The earthquake created sandy beach habitat where it had been lost." Invertebrate and avian life were coming back quickly, as well, she said.
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You are looking at the Sun's Evil Eye. Or the Death Star ready to shoot its planet-destructing laser. Or Jean Grey turning into the Phoenix. Actually, I really don't care about what the hell is going on hereit just looks amazing.
And the fact is that, even while this M4.7-class solar flare ended before any coronal mass ejection happened, it doesn't make it look less scary. According to NASA, "this image is shown in the 131 Angstrom wavelength, a wavelength that is typically colorized in teal and that provided the most detailed picture of this particular flare."
So. Pretty. [NASA Goddard Flickr]
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A hundred million light years away, two gorgeous spiral galaxies are locked in an embrace that may end with them merging, a dance spread across a hundred thousand light years in space and a hundred million years of time.
[Click to galactinate, and yeah, just do it. The hi-res version is big and lush and lovely indeed.]
This image, taken by frequent BABlog contributor Adam Block, shows this cosmic waltz in lovely detail (another wonderful image is available via the ESO as well [UPDATE: ... and from Gemini, with a diagram of the two and a nice explanation]). The two galaxies (NGC 5426 on the left, and NGC 5427 on the right) are just starting this eons-long encounter, but affects are already visible. You can see tendrils of material stretching from NGC 5426 to its companion, drawn out by the force of NGC 5427s gravitational attraction.
Inside the galaxies, you can easily see the pink glow of gas clouds, disturbed by the interaction, starting to furiously churn out hot young stars. Actually, stars of all masses are born in these clouds, but its the rare massive stars that have the most impact. They blast out ultraviolet light which makes the gas glow, and will explode as supernovae, lighting things up even more.
In galactic collisions like this the outcome can be difficult to ascertain. Perhaps theyll pass this one time and do so with sufficient velocity to make this a one-eon stand, continuing on into the night. Or, if their relative speeds arent enough, theyll pull apart, only to be drawn inexorably together once again. Even then they may pass, but this time in an ever-decreasing arc, until finally they merge into one bigger galaxy. Although this plays out over far too long a timespan to watch in real time, we see so many colliding galaxies that its like having snapshots at all different stages of evolution (see Related Posts below for lots of collidey goodness).
The general steps here are known, but the specific outcome of this particular encounter is still to be seen.
And well see something like it up close, if not for quite some time: the Andromeda Galaxy will one day collide with our Milky Way, and when that happens well be able to see what a galactic collision looks like from the inside. Buy your tickets now. The show begins in just a billion years or two.
Image credit: Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona
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The Tamil Nadu Science and Technology Centre will be organising a three-day Summer School on Astronomy and Astrophysics for students studying in classes VII to IX.
The programme will be held during May 17 to 19, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. at the B. M. Birla Planetarium, Periyar Science and Technology Centre, Gandhimandapam Road, Guindy.
Topics such as fundamentals of celestial coordinate systems, solar system, studies on the Moon, birth and evolution of stars, galaxies, cosmology, telescopes in astronomy, etc., will be taught. The course also has practical sessions for observing stars, planets, deep sky objects and the Sun, using modern telescopes. Only 50 students will be admitted on first-come-first served basis.
For registration and further details, contact 2441 0025.
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Did the universe have a beginning? When was it, and what was it like? What are the stars? How distant are they? Why do they shine? How and when did the Earth form? Are there other worlds like Earth in the universe? Do they, too, have life?
We are living in a Golden Age of astronomy, where some of the oldest and most profound questions of philosophy long thought unanswerable are finding resolution.
The Apollo era created new interest and capabilities to answer these questions, and our next forays into the solar system led us to Venus, Mars and Jupiters moon, Europa. Our searches there have led to a scientific bounty, but also mild philosophical disappointment: so far, there is no sign of life on these worlds, or even conditions where much life from Earth could thrive.
Astronomers have not given up on these nearby bodies as potential hosts for life, but in 1992 a new avenue of discovery opened when Alexander Wolszczan, now an Evan Pugh professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State, discovered planets orbiting the distant corpse of a burnt-out star the first exoplanets ever found outside our own solar system. Three years later, a Swiss team led by Michel Mayor, an astrophysicist and professor emeritus at the University of Geneva, discovered a giant gas planet like Jupiter orbiting scorchingly close to a nearby star. The methods that professors Wolszczan and Mayor helped to pioneer rapidly led to the discovery of many more of these distant planets. Over the next five years, the number of known exoplanets would approach 40 and astronomers would begin to measure the
sizes and compositions of these alien worlds.
The promise of research for finding Earth-like exoplanets has been realized rapidly over the past decade. Ever-smaller and balmier exoplanets have been continuously discovered in systems reminiscent of our own solar system. The past few years have been especially exciting, as the first exoplanets have been directly imaged, and exoplanets not much larger than Earth have been detected around the nearest stars.
The Kepler spacecraft has discovered thousands of exoplanets throughout our galaxy. As astronomers pore over this bounty they hope, and cautiously expect, to find the sort of exoplanet Kepler was specifically designed to reveal: an Earth-sized body (a terrestrial planet) around a sun-like star with an orbital distance implying a surface temperature compatible with liquid water (within the habitable zone). This discovery may be only months away.
And what of life? The search for extraterrestrial intelligence has been scouring the skies for radio and
Editors note:The Focus on Research column will highlight different research projects being conducted at Penn State. The bimonthly columns will feature the work of researchers from across all disciplines at the university.
Coming up next:A look at the new Center for Sport Concussion Research and Service at Penn State.
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Because you simply cannot have enough incredibly beautiful photographs of aurorae in your life, heres one taken near Tromso, Norway, on March 28, 2012 by photographer Helge Mortensen:
[Click to coronalmassejectenate, and you should.]
What a shot! Dead center in the picture is the Pleiades, the small cluster of bright stars. The bright object is the Moon, and to the lower right is Venus. If you look carefully, just above the horizon, lies Jupiter. To see it, start at the Pleiades, let your eyes move down and to the right to Venus, then keep going; Jupiter is in line with the clouds, just at the edge of the aurora itself.
I love how that one long swooshing ribbon of aurora cuts across the whole picture. See how it looks broader to the left, then narrower as you follow it to the right? Thats almost certainly perspective making it looks smaller. Its probably something like 100 kilometers (60 miles) above the Earths surface and follows the Earths curve. The far end of it, near the horizon, is much farther away than the part at the upper left.
And despite all the drama occurring in the sky, my eye keeps getting drawn to the water. In this 10 second exposure, the slow movement of the water softens its appearance. Funny, too: I saw a face in the water and chuckled, then noted that Mortensen got a note from a friend who saw the face as well or maybe a different one. But the one I see is pretty obvious. Do you see it too?
Mortensen has many more beautiful shots of aurorae on his 500px page, so head over there and soak up the glory of the active sky.
Image credit: Helge Mortensen, used by permission.
Related Posts:
- The green fire of the aurora, seen from space - Januarys aurora from way far north - Faith and begaurora - The rocket, the laser, and the northern lights
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REDWOOD SHORES, CA--(Marketwire -05/11/12)- Rocket Fuel, the leading provider of artificial intelligence advertising solutions for digital marketers, today announced it has won the San Francisco Business Tech & Innovation Award for the Advertising and Marketing Category. Profiles of the winners will be featured in the May 11 issue of the publication.
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About Rocket Fuel:
Rocket Fuel is the leading provider of artificial intelligence advertising solutions that transform digital media campaigns into self-optimizing engines that learn and adapt in real-time, and deliver outstanding results from awareness to sales. Recently awarded #22 in Forbes Most Promising Companies in America list, over 500 of the world's most successful marketers trust Rocket Fuel to power their advertising across display, video, mobile, and social media. Founded by online advertising veterans and rocket scientists from NASA, DoubleClick, IBM, and Salesforce.com, Rocket Fuel is based in Redwood Shores, California, and has offices in 13 cities worldwide including New York, London, and Toronto.
About the San Francisco Business Times:
The San Francisco Business Times is a print and online newspaper covering businesses headquartered in San Francisco, Oakland, the East Bay and Marin. Our editorial staff is led by Editor Steve Symanovich and Managing Editor Jim Gardner, and features experienced business reporters who cover health care, banking, insurance, real estate, green business and technology, among other topics.
2012 Rocket Fuel Inc. All rights reserved. Rocket Fuel Inc. is a registered trademark of Rocket Fuel Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
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Rocket Fuel Wins 2012 San Francisco Business Times Tech & Innovation Award
Sylmar, CA - Testing by an independent certified laboratory has confirmed nine coatings systems by PPG Industries aerospace business, including chromate-free basecoat/clearcoat systems, meet requirements of SAE Internationals Aerospace Material Specification 3095A for airline exterior paint. The results are under SAE review to add the PPG Aerospace systems to the Qualified Products Listing.
According to Scott Cavin, PPG Aerospace global coatings marketing manager for airlines and aftermarket, the AMS 3095A standard is an important consideration for airlines when choosing exterior coating systems.
These test results confirm performance by PPG coatings systems, Cavin said. Qualification to the standard will give airlines and third-party maintenance operators the flexibility they need, especially with mixed fleets, when selecting the best systems for their applications.
These PPG chromate-free systems have passed AMS 3095A standard testing as applied over DesoGel EAP-9 pretreatment and DESOPRIME CF/CA 7502E primer:
Testing has shown a synergistic effect between the chromate-free pretreatment and primer that gives remarkable adhesion and protection for the substrates, Cavin said. When these PPG systems are listed as qualified to the standard, they will be the first to be completely chromate-free.
Two PPG coatings systems have passed AMS 3095A standard testing with P99 wash primer and chromate-free PAC33CF primer, using these PPG topcoats:
Systems including Desoprime CF/CA 7502E primer along with a conventional conversion coating and these PPG coatings have passed testing:
PPG Aerospace is the aerospace products and services business of PPG Industries. PPG Aerospace PRC-DeSoto is the leading global producer of aerospace sealants, coatings, and packaging and application systems. PPG Aerospace Transparencies is the worlds largest supplier of aircraft windshields, windows and canopies.
SOURCE: PPG
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PPG Aerospace Coatings Systems Pass Aerospace Material Specification Testing
By Anna Shiryaevskaya and Andrea Rothman - Fri May 11 20:01:00 GMT 2012
Alexey Druzhinin/AFP/GettyImages
Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russian President Vladimir Putin. Photographer: Alexey Druzhinin/AFP/GettyImages
President Vladimir Putins ambition to revive Russias aerospace industry will hang on one question dominating the Sukhoi Superjet crash probe in Indonesia this week: pilot or plane?
Investigators have located the remains of the 90-seat Russian-built aircraft that crashed into a mountainside on May 9 with 45 people on board. Salvage crews also spotted the flight recorder, which may offer vital clues to the cause of the crash, after the same jet had performed flawlessly on earlier flights piloted by an expert crew.
Theres a very good chance this crash wasnt related to the design of the plane, but battling negative perceptions is very difficult, said Richard Aboulafia, vice president of Teal Group in Fairfax, Virgina, an aviation consulting company.
At stake is Russias attempt to reassert itself on the global aviation scene after a two-decade absence in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The SuperJet, which carries about 100 passengers, was designed with Western partners and equipped with cutting-edge systems, as Russia seeks to win a slice of the regional jet market now dominated by incumbents Bombardier Inc (BBD/B) and Embraer SA (EMBR3) of Brazil.
The Superjet that crashed was on a promotional tour of Asian nations. The same plane had already ferried other potential customers and reporters on flights in Myanmar, Pakistan and Kazakhstan and was scheduled to move on to Laos and Vietnam. Hours earlier, Putin hailed Russian military and industrial might at a Red Square parade in Moscow to honor the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.
The twin-engine aircraft is the centerpiece of Putins attempt to revive a manufacturing industry that has languished since communism collapsed in 1991. The SuperJet, which Russia spent about $1.4 billion developing with an Italian partner, Rome-based Finmeccanica SpA (FNC)s Alenia Aeronautica SpA, has a range of 4,600 kilometers (2,800 miles) and comes with a price tag of $35 million, according to the manufacturer.
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Putin’s Aerospace Rebirth Ambition Hangs on SuperJet Crash Probe