West Xtra: Freedom girls basketball program builds off past success

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Three years ago when coach John Kaercher and his staff took over the Freedom Area girls basketball team, they had 11 players in the program.

Nine of those players were underclassmen and playing both junior varsity and varsity games.

"It was a struggle," Kaercher said of the 2012-13 season. "We had nine girls who were playing two full games but that made our program stronger and it reflected this year."

That first season the Bulldogs went 11-11, but missed the WPIAL playoffs.

Last year the roster grew to 13 and the team finished 5-7 in Section 6-AA to qualify for the playoffs.

This year the roster expanded to 18 players and a playoff berth has already been clinched.

Through 20 games Freedom is 10-10 overall and 6-5 in Section 5-AA with one remaining section contest against South Side Beaver (4-15, 3-7) and a regular-season non-section finale against Quaker Valley on Friday.

Last season Freedom lost five of its last six regular-season games and needed help in the form of an Avonworth loss to Beaver Area to clinch a playoff spot.

"Last year we backed into the playoffs," Kaercher said. "It came down to the last game."

The Bulldogs were dispatched in the first round of the playoffs by Brentwood, 49-45.

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West Xtra: Freedom girls basketball program builds off past success

Snakes give work extra bite

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Feb. 6, 2015, 8 a.m.

SNAKES are feared and loathed far more than they should be, when in reality, they should be respected as an important part of the eco-system.

Ulverstone artist Bill Flowers getting up-close and personal with a carpet python.

SNAKES are feared and loathed far more than they should be, when in reality, they should be respected as an important part of the eco-system.

This is the view of Devonport "snake artist" Bill Flowers, who has acoming exhibition called The World Hisssstory of Great Serpent Art, which is officially opened tonight at Deloraine.

"While art often takes itself too seriously, this exhibition is intended to be a light-hearted and fun view of snakes which form an important part of our eco-system," Flowers said.

"Art can often evoke deep emotions, why not the emotions of humour and laughter?

"With a few small precautions, I believe that humans and snakes can live together in peace."

Cindy Watkins, the owner of Elemental Artspace where Flowers exhibition is displayed, said the exhibition featured paintings that were influenced by styles of the "great masters" such as Van Gogh, Dali, Michelangelo, Da Vinci and Whistler.

"The snake artist wants people to experience positive emotions while looking at snakes, to help dispel loathing of these important reptiles," she said.

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Snakes give work extra bite

STAND & BANG – EXCLUSIVE CHARMAINE TWEET vs CRIS CYBORG INTERVIEW INVICTA FC 11 – Video

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STAND BANG - EXCLUSIVE CHARMAINE TWEET vs CRIS CYBORG INTERVIEW INVICTA FC 11
STAND BANG RADIO related article: http://lubmma.com/?p=9829 Aaron brings you an exclusive interview with Charmaine Tweet ahead of her upcoming main event title fight for Invicta FC 11 against.

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This Prosthetics Startup Shows How Software is Eating the World

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At first glance, Jeff Huber looks like a typical Y Combinator entrepreneur. Hes a 25-year-old mechanical engineer who dropped out of North Carolina State University in 2011 to start Knowit, an online education company. Knowit failed to catch on, but Huber was hooked on startups anyway. "We overestimated the percentage of autodidacts in the United States," he explains cheerfully. Huber exudes so much confidence that when I meet him for coffee in San Francisco, I don't initially notice that he walks with a slight hitch in his step. Huber was born with fibular hemimelia, the condition best known as what caused sprinter Oscar Pistorius to lose his legs. As an infant, Huber's non-functional left leg was amputated below the knee. Today, he wears a $23,000 prosthetic under his left pants leg.

Huber's status as an amputee isn't what makes him so unusual among Silicon Valley startup guys. What makes him distinctiveand why I sought him outis what his startup, Standard Cyborg, sells: not software or web services but artificial limbs. The company, which entered Y Combinator in January, is taking orders for its first product, a waterproof leg designed to be worn in the shower or at the beach. Huber has been manufacturing (and testing) the prototype himself as Standard Cyborgs inventor, founder, CEO, and sole employee. "I thought, Ill just Elon Musk this," says Huber, referring to the Tesla and SpaceX founders approach to developing expertise in fields like rocketry and cars. "I just tried to learn everything about prosthetics in as short a period of time as possible. I talked to experts, read books, read the Internet."

He first had the idea for a low-cost prosthetics company in college, but returned to it last year when he realized that the plummeting cost of 3-D printers and 3-D scanners had made it possible to create a prototype on the cheap. Huber bought a $1,000 kit printer and set it up makeshift shop located in the back alley behind a San Francisco co-working space. (He has since acquired a roof in Emeryville, California.)

Today, custom-made shower legs cost $5,000 or more. Standard Cyborg is selling its product for just $499. Rather than develop legs from scratch, Huber creates a 3-D scan of a customer's current prosthesis and then prints a low-cost copy, wrapping it in carbon fiber. The result isnt flexible enough to comfortably wear while running the 200-meter dashor even while walking around townbut it makes it possible for Huber to get into the shower without hopping on one foot. "Its something I didnt know I needed," he says.

Standard Cyborgs product offering may be novel, but Hubers approach is straight out of the Y Combinator playbook, which urges founders to create incremental improvements and to aim them at small, underserved markets. In its early days, YC, which distinguished itself by seeding a large number of companies with small amounts of money ($20,000 initially, $120,000 today), was widely dismissed. "Early on a lot of people didnt take us seriously," says Paul Buchheit, the creator of Google's Gmail service and a YC partner since 2010. "People said, Theyre only funding toys. How could anything serious be started with so little money?"

Though YC startups have always aimed higher than they were given credit for, the push towards more ambitious "hard technology" startups, as new YC president Sam Altman now describes them, started in earnest last year, when Y Combinator accepted its first group of biotech companies, a fusion energy startup, and Cruise, a driverless car startup. Cruise's co-founder Kyle Vogtwhod gone through an early YC class as part of Justin.TVsays he decided to enter the program in part because he thought it would give him a shot at bringing a product to market faster than, say, Google, which appears to be years away from offering its self-driving Priuses to the public. Vogt didnt try to compete with directly with the search giants famed innovation lab, Google X; instead he developed a $10,000 conversion kit that allows two Audi models to drive themselves on highways. Its a hack, but a hack with potential. And as Vogt points out, hes come a long way since early 2014. "We went from a pile of parts to a prototype in three months," he says.

Venture capitalists have a phrase to describe startups like Cruise: "Software," as Marc Andreessen has put it, "is eating the world. But nowhere is this trend more apparent than at Y Combinator, where this winter amid the inevitable smart phone apps and small business services companies, there are more than a dozen startups developing sophisticated hardware products, biotech technologies, and even medical devices. (I'll have more on a few more of these in the coming weeks.) Like Cruise, these startups are at once wildly ambitious, but are also narrowly focused. Transcriptic, for instance, is a 2015 Y Combinator company that offers automated laboratories that can be rented out for life sciences experiments the same way that Amazon rents web servers. Chematria, another new YC entrant, attempts to do biomedical research digitally, using sophisticated algorithms to predict the effectiveness of a given drug.

In the same way, Standard Cyborg is both an ambitious medical device manufacturer and a quintessential YC startup, using low-cost software and lean startup methodology to aim at a tiny market. In the long run, Huber imagines designing prosthetic limbs from scratch, and expanding to include 3-D printed replacement knees, hips, or anything that else might go on someones body. He hopes to get there someday, but for now hes thinking small. "If you want to have the best shot at changing things, that generally means not tackling the whole problem at once but finding a foothold," Huber says. "Thats whats useful about the way Silicon Valley thinks."

Next week: What, exactly, is growth in 2015?

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This Prosthetics Startup Shows How Software is Eating the World

Lifeguards at Whangamata wharf prove popular

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Whangamata's harbour wharf and beaches were more popular than ever over the peak holiday period, with a new lifeguard service there adding to the allure.

"Hundreds more people flocked to the area each day than would usually do so," says Council's Whangamata Area Manager Garry Towler.

Instead of the usual 200-300 people using the wharf and the harbour beaches, up to 600 people were there."All because a team of lifeguards were there to look after them," says Mr Towler.

The new lifeguard service was put in place following the tragic death of a teenage girl paddleboarding in the harbour on 7 January.

He said the death had sharpened focus on what was happening at the harbour, especially the increased numbers of people using the area every mid-to-high tide.

"A rough onshore breeze typically blows on hot summer days, prompting parents with little kids to move to the gentler waters of the harbour beaches," says Council's Whangamata Community Field Representative Lou Mackwell.

"After talking to the Harbour Master and boaties it became obvious the wharf and harbour beaches were becoming increasingly popular and record numbers of people, especially young families, were visiting day after day," says Mr Towler.

The Whangamata Community Board quickly gave its full support and funding was provided for a professional lifeguard. Volunteers from the Whangamata Surf Life Saving Club came forward to help provide a full lifeguard service at the wharf until the end of the Anniversary weekend.

The new pontoon and the jump-off wharf have been particularly popular.

"This is a great outcome and great example of community empowerment working," says Mr Towler.

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Lifeguards at Whangamata wharf prove popular

Rough seas, shark close Newcastle beaches

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A shark has been spotted off a Newcastle beach a day after a shark bit someone at Merewether Beach.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water ...

With several Newcastle beaches already closed due to rough weather, a shark sighting has prompted lifeguards to give swimmers a double reminder about taking the plunge.

A 1.8-metre shark has been spotted off Bar Beach on Friday morning, while a person was bitten by a small shark at nearby Merewether Beach on Thursday night.

Several Newcastle beaches had already been closed on Friday by lifeguards due to rough seas, but signs have since been erected warning of shark sightings.

A City of Newcastle Council spokesperson said the person bitten by a shark on Thursday appears to have minor injuries to the leg.

"We're getting all of this third hand because it was not reported to our lifeguards, they were off duty at the time, but someone was reportedly bitten by a bull shark, or the person thought it was a two foot (61cm) bull shark," she told AAP on Friday.

"I have also seen a picture on social media of the person's leg with a few little holes in it. So not to downplay it because any kind of shark bite is serious, but it's very minor."

Beaches around Newcastle were shut for a record nine days in January after repeated sightings of a five-metre great white shark, nicknamed Bruce.

Lifeguards will continue to warn swimmers about the recent sightings and patrol on jet skis to keep an eye out for further activity.

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Health advisories in place for 3 Hillsborough beaches, lifted for 1

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Health advisories were issued Thursday for two Hillborough County beaches, extended for one and lifted for one based on criteria for bacteria levels recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Samples taken Monday were above thresholds for enterococci bacteria at Cypress Point Beach, Bahia Beach and Picnic Island, according to the Hillsborough County Health Department. A similar advisory was issued for Picnic Island on Jan. 27.

An advisory issued on Jan. 27 for Ben T. Davis beach was lifted Thursday.

The beaches under advisories should be considered unsafe for swimming, the department said.

The health department has been conducting coastal quality monitoring at nine sites once every two weeks since August 2000 and weekly since August 2002 through the states Healthy Beaches Monitoring Program.

Enterococci bacteria is typically found in the intestinal tracts of humans and animals and may cause human disease, infections, or rashes. It is an indication of fecal pollution, which may come from stormwater runoff, pets and wildlife, and human sewage, the department said.

For more information, visit http://www.floridahealth.gov/environmental-health/beach-water-quality/index.html.

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Health advisories in place for 3 Hillsborough beaches, lifted for 1

Astronomy – Ch. 4: History of Astronomy (6 of 16) Ancient Structures: Ahu Tongariki, Easter Island – Video

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Astronomy - Ch. 4: History of Astronomy (6 of 16) Ancient Structures: Ahu Tongariki, Easter Island
Visit http://ilectureonline.com for more math and science lectures! In this video I will explain how the Ajanta Caves in India honors the summer and winter s...

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Astronomy - Ch. 4: History of Astronomy (6 of 16) Ancient Structures: Ahu Tongariki, Easter Island - Video

Highlights of the Night Sky – February 2015 | Astronomy Space Science Video – Video

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Highlights of the Night Sky - February 2015 | Astronomy Space Science Video
More space news and info at: http://www.coconutsciencelab.com - what to look for in the night sky during February 2015. Please rate and comment, thanks! Credits: STScI.

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Free astronomy camp set during spring break

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Published: Thursday, February 5, 2015 at 6:02 p.m. Last Modified: Thursday, February 5, 2015 at 6:02 p.m.

Teenaged stargazers will again have the chance to learn about astronomy from University of Florida professors at the fifth STARS Workshop, scheduled for late March.

The two-day free workshop, funded by a National Science Foundation grant, is scheduled for March 24-25 during Alachua County Public Schools spring break.

Astronomy graduate student and program organizer Tahlia De Maio said the workshop is geared toward students who are interested in science but may not have had experience with astronomy.

From 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. each day of the workshop, students will be in the astronomy department working with professors on labs and using the scientific method.

They get a real hands-on understanding of what it means to do science, De Maio said. Its an immersive two days of being an astronomer.

Students will also observe the stars in the evenings using UFs on-campus telescope.

The workshop is open to students in eighth through 10th grade in Alachua County and surrounding areas. Transportation to UF is not provided.

UF Astronomys STARS Workshop is free, but meals are not provided, De Maio said.

There are 40 spaces in the program and admission is based on student applications, which can be found at http://www.astro.ufl.edu/stars.

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Free astronomy camp set during spring break