Astronomers Have Discovered Eight Potentially Habitable Planets

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Credit: David A. Aguilar (CfA)

Astronomers have announced that they have discovered eight more planets that likely exist in temperature ranges where life could exist.

The astronomers began their research path by examining candidates for planets that had been identified by NASAs Kepler mission. The candidates were analyzed using a supercomputer running algorithms at NASAs Ames facility.

After exploring the statistical likelihood of the planets existence, the team followed up with months of observations using a variety of different methods. The planets are distant enough, however, that their habitabiliy is still only a likelihood, not a certainty.

We dont know for sure whether any of the planets in our sample are truly habitable, researcher David Kipping said in a statement. All we can say is that theyre promising candidates.

The two most potentially Earth-like planets of the group of eight are Kepler-438b and Kepler-442b, both of which circle red dwarf stars are are respectively 70% and 97% likely to be in the habitable temperature zones of their respective stars. However, it should be noted that there are serious issues regarding the potential habitability of planets circling red dwarf stars, so confirmation will require significantly more study.

In addition to nearly doubling the potential number of habitable planets, this latest discovery also helps astronomers in a different milestone. NASA announced this week that the Kepler mission has helped astronomers verify the discovery of over 1,000 planets outside of our solar system. The mission has also uncovered over 4,000 planetary candidates.

Each result from the planet-hunting Kepler missions treasure trove of data takes us another step closer to answering the question of whether we are alone in the Universe, NASA associate administrator John Grunsfeld said in a press release. The Kepler team and its science community continue to produce impressive results with the data from this venerable explorer.

The researchers findings will be published in The Astrophysical Journal.

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Astronomers Have Discovered Eight Potentially Habitable Planets

Review of the Saris Freedom Hitch-Bike-Racks on a 2014 Chrysler Town and Country – etrailer.com – Video

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Review of the Saris Freedom Hitch-Bike-Racks on a 2014 Chrysler Town and Country - etrailer.com
http://www.etrailer.com/Hitch-Bike-Racks/Saris/SA4414B.html Today on our 2014 Chrysler Town Country we #39;re going to be frustrating the Saris Freedom. Now this is a folding and tilting...

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N.O.V.A. 3: Freedom Edition Gameplay on Nvidia Shield Tablet (Tegra k1) (Android OS) – Video

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N.O.V.A. 3: Freedom Edition Gameplay on Nvidia Shield Tablet (Tegra k1) (Android OS)
Gameplay N.O.V.A. 3: Freedom Edition on Nvidia Shield Tablet (Tegra k1) (Android 5.0.1 Lollipop) FREE in Google Play https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gameloft.android.ANMP.

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USA: John Kerry condemns Charlie Hebdo shooting as an attack on ‘freedom’ – Video

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USA: John Kerry condemns Charlie Hebdo shooting as an attack on #39;freedom #39;
US Secretary of State John Kerry condemned the attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine, adding that "the world will never give in to the intimidation of terror" in Paris on Wednesday. Kerry also...

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USA: John Kerry condemns Charlie Hebdo shooting as an attack on 'freedom' - Video

Freedom of Speech Is of No Use Unless We Exercise It

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TIME Ideas world affairs Freedom of Speech Is of No Use Unless We Exercise It A person holds a candle next to a placard which reads "I am Charlie" to pay tribute during a gathering in Strasbourg on Jan. 7, 2015, Vincent KesslerReuters

Jytte Klausen is a scholar of politics who teaches at Brandeis University in Massachusetts. She is the author of The Cartoons that Shook the World (Yale University Press, 2009).

Editors and producers across the Western world will now be asking themselves: Can I print this? They are asking the wrong question. It is a fallacy to think that could be us. The readers of the world rely on them to say collectively: Yes, we can.

In 2009, Yale University Press censored a book I had written about the worldwide protests against the Danish Mohammed cartoons. The book contains a discussion of traditions for depicting Mohammed in Islamic and Western art. Citing fear of unknown terrorists, the press redacted all illustrations from the book featuring Mohammed: Ottoman prints, the Danish cartoons, and a 19th-century engraving made by Gustave Dore, a French artist, who mass produced such art for middle-class homes in the United Kingdom. The danger was imagined. There were no known threats against the press or against myself, at the time, and there never have been any.

Stifling debate in order to evade unknown or perceived threatsat home or abroadmay seem a reasonable tradeoff at the moment, but it has corrosive effects on debate and the dissemination of knowledge in the long-term. The standard for what is permissible expression becomes essentially unknowable. Nor is risk-aversion without cost.

Imagine for a minute that the Western press had continued to publish irascible cartoons ridiculing jihadist pieties after the Danish cartoon episode? What if we did not have to go to the hidden corners of the Internet to find reproductions of Ottoman painting of Mohammed? The editors and cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo were targeted because, over the past five years, they have been left alone standing in defense of press freedom against the jihadist Kulturkampf.

Hebdo was attacked to send a message to all of us who write, read, consume, and produce intellectual content. The jihadists are the new thought police. Clearly, there are reasons to take precaution, but we should not exaggerate the threat. Trained teams of angry Muslim assassins are not lurking in every metropolis, ready to attack the editorial offices of newspapers big and small.

The right reaction is to rally our wagons and protect controversial speechand the speakerand suppress the threat. We have to trust our governments to protect us and allow them to do the job. Salman Rushdie has lived for 23 years with an active and credible death threat. Two American bookstores and a community newspaper were bombed in response to the Rushdie fatwa, and yet, bookstores kept stocking the book. Rushdies Italian and Japanese translators were killed. The Norwegian publisher was shot and wounded. Yet Penguin kept the book in print. This should be the model for how to deal with threats and intimidation.

Freedom of speech is of no use unless we exercise it. The right thing to do right now is to rely on our governments to tamp down the scourge of terrorism. After the July 7 suicide attacks on the London Underground, Londoners conquered their fears and went back on the trains. Let us, the editors and the producers, the corporate managers and owners of our big newspapers and media companies, get back on the train, publish and carry on.

TIME Ideas hosts the world's leading voices, providing commentary and expertise on the most compelling events in news, society, and culture. We welcome outside contributions. To submit a piece, email ideas@time.com.

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Freedom of Speech Is of No Use Unless We Exercise It

Angela Merkel: Freedom of movement cannot be questioned 'in any way'

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Mrs Merkel said that she is ready to seek "common solutions" to concerns raised by the UK about the European Union and added: Where there's a will there's a way.

She suggested that EU laws could be changed to ensure that migrants access to benefits in countries like Britain can be restricted.

The Prime Minister has called for major changes to welfare rules across the EU, including requiring migrants to have a job offer before coming to the UK, making them wait four years before they can receive certain benefits and stopping foreigners sending benefits to children living abroad.

Mrs Merkel said: We have no doubt about the principle of freedom of movement being any way questioned but we also have to look at abuse of that.

We are looking at the legal and legislation here. We want to see how this plays out at a local level. We want to also say to our local authorities that abuse needs to be fought against so that freedom of movement can prevail.

"One has to take a very close look at the social security systems of individual member states that are not part of communal law - to what extent they have to be adjusted to this situation. That is something we have to address together.

The German leader said a recent European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling that Germany can refuse welfare benefits to EU migrants if they have never held a job in the country - seized on by Number 10 as a vindication of the PM's reform calls - had been "quite helpful".

She added: Where there is common ground is that the last ruling of the ECJ was helpful as regards to the abuse of social benefits and entitlement. We deal with all of those issues in the sense that everything is connected to other things.

"We together have said that we don't want to question the right of freedom of movement. In each and every members state There is a necessity to address this issue.

Although Mrs Merkels comments do not go as far as some figures in Downing Street would have wanted, they will be seen as a sign that Germany is willing to support many of the changes being demanded by Mr Cameron.

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Nikola Tesla's Incredible Predictions For Our Connected World

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We might complain that it's 2015 and we're still waiting on our hoverboards. But if Nikola Tesla were alive today, he'd probably wonder where the hell our fuel-free, super fast airplanes were. And who could blame him? Fuel-free planes aside, he actually predicted a lot of 21st century technologies quite accurately.

The January 30, 1926 issue of Collier's magazine included an interview with the legendary inventor. In it, Tesla relayed his amazing predictions for the future a world of flying machines, wireless power, and female superiority. Some of the predictions were spot on. Others, not so much.

July 1922 cover of Science and Invention imagining broadcast TV

At the beginning of 1926, when this interview with Tesla was published, television was barely making its first baby steps. But Tesla was already looking into the distant world of videophones, broadcast TV, and worldwide mobile communication.

Tesla explained:

When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do his will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket.

We shall be able to witness and hear eventsthe inauguration of a President, the playing of a world series game, the havoc of an earthquake or the terror of a battlejust as though we were present.

When the wireless transmission of power is made commercial, transport and transmission will be revolutionized. Already motion pictures have been transmitted by wireless over a short distance. Later the distance will be illimitable, and by later I mean only a few years hence. Pictures are transmitted over wiresthey were telegraphed successfully through the point system thirty years ago. When wireless transmission of power becomes general, these methods will be as crude as is the steam locomotive compared with the electric train.

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Nikola Tesla's Incredible Predictions For Our Connected World

Killer 'Nazi cows' too aggressive for British breeder

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Several cows belonging to a breed that was specially bred by the Nazis have been sent to the abattoir by their owner because they "would try to kill everyone," the Mail Online reports.

The cows are thedescendants of a Nazi attempt to revive the auroch, a massive ox that featured prominently in Teutonic folklore. Over-hunting led to the extinction of the auroch in Europe by the mid-17th century.

The new breed was named after its breeders, zoologist brothers Heinz and Lutz Heck, who mixed animals from the Scottish Highlands, Corsica and the French Camargue, as well as Spanish fighting bulls, in the 1930s.

The attempt, which was ultimately unsuccessful, won the support of the Nazi regime, with Hitler reportedly taking a personal interest. But most of the offspring were destroyed after the fall of Nazism, being uncomfortable reminders of the German attempt to build a master race.

Derek Gow, an ecological consultant who runs a 600-acre farm in Devon, southwestern England, bred a herd of 20 Heck cattle, after importing 13 of them from European wilderness sanctuaries.

He has now reduced the herd to six, after finding most of the cows "incredibly aggressive."

"The ones we had to get rid of would just attack you any chance they could," said Gow, 49. You couldnt walk through a field with them in it. They would try and kill you. We just couldnt have animals like that."

Gow said the cows he sent to the abattoir would be turned into sausages and sold in Europe.

The cattle, which have lethal-looking horns and a muscular build, are unlike any modern commercial breed of cow, Gow said. His cows were slightly shorter than the original aurochs, but retain their ancestors' muscular build, deep brown complexion, and shaggy coffee-colored fringe.

"What the Germans did with their breeding program was create something truly primeval," Gow said. "The aurochs were wild bulls.

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Battle for Donetsk Airport: Kremlin insurgents seek to encircle Ukrainian ‘cyborg’ soldiers – Video

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Battle for Donetsk Airport: Kremlin insurgents seek to encircle Ukrainian #39;cyborg #39; soldiers
In response to reports that Russian-backed insurgents are trying to regain ground near the village of Pisky in east Ukraine, which lies near the strategic Donetsk Airport, Ukrainian soldiers...

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