Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/167159324?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Tuesday, November 29, 2011
New RIM software a sign BlackBerry is over?
By Wilson Rothman
RIM just announced a security platform that covers BlackBerry devices?? but also devices running Android and iOS. On one hand, it's a sign that IT managers seek BlackBerry's renowned security. On the other hand, it's a sign that RIM is giving up on competing with its functionally superior rivals.
"If you can't beat them, join them," wrote telecom analyst Jeff Kagan, in a note. "This looks like RIM's attempt to remain relevant in a changing marketplace."
What's the change? That people aren't buying BlackBerry handsets anymore, choosing instead phones that run an operating system powered by Google or Apple. RIM's global sales have plummeted 58 percent?in the past year, according to a recent report by Canalys, which said RIM is doing even worse than that in the United States. RIM's U.S. market share fell from?24 percent this time last year, to just 9 percent now. Meanwhile, the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet has been a total flop.?
The new software, called BlackBerry Mobile Fusion,?sounds great: IT managers can juggle apps, settings, passwords and other software on phones running all three major operating systems. They can wipe the memory of lost or stolen phones. And the system can handle multiple devices per user. This last bit is a key benefit since a lot of people who were issued a BlackBerry by their company have gone out and bought a cooler phone?? to the chagrin of the IT folks.
If RIM's intent is to shift from hardware to software and services, like IBM did so successfully, then this may make sense. But it's hard to ignore BlackBerry Mobile Fusion's acknowledgment of the ascendancy of Android and iPhone, at the cost of RIM's core business.
BlackBerry Mobile Fusion "will help stem the tide of those companies that may have considered eliminating their BlackBerry Enterprise Servers but it won't help sell more phones," Gartner analyst Phillip Redman told Reuters. "That's what they really need to do."
RIM will be discussing the software in a press conference later today, so we'll hear more from the company itself.
More on BlackBerry from msnbc.com:
Catch up with Wilson on Twitter at @wjrothman, or on Google+. And join our conversation on Facebook.
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A New Deal Flow: Startup Raps For Angel Funding, Venture Firm Responds In Kind
Last week, Erick posted a video in which the founders of a stealth, San Francisco-based startup called Undrip spit some rhymes in an effort to raise seed funding for their new venture. Undrip, which is building a service to better filter your social networking streams (like Twitter) and let people consume media content without the noise, hoped to use their creative plea as a way to attract attention from top investors. They even created custom videos that they sent to individual investors, like Ron Conway. (See the video here.) And today, we've been pointed to this response created by Detroit-based venture capital firm, Ludlow Ventures, which seems to prove that some investors are not only listening, they may just want in. You may (or may not) know the Detroit firm as an investor in startups like Hipster, Graphic.ly, Fundly, and FLUD, to name a few. Jonathon Triest, the Co-founder of Ludlow Ventures is the moonwalking, rhyme-dropping emcee above.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/JeEiPS4aayc/
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Monday, November 28, 2011
92% Take Shelter
schizophrenia or prophecy? this is a hard film to score. its at least a 4 star film, and potentially 5, so ill go in between. it doesnt have a high re-watchability factor which is my only criticism, and that isnt really a criticism because its more a product of the material then the quality of the film. this is easily one of the best films of the year, and one of the better films in the past few years. shannon and chastain were both amazing in their roles, which for chastain amazes me because she has so little experience in film, and even the supporting players around them all added wonderful performances. the subject matter is as engaging as it gets, and as i hoped for through the entire film, things are not what they seem. beautiful direction by nichols, amazing cinematography for such a small scale story, and the material was handled with perfect care. nichols, shannon, and chastain probably all deserve oscar noms, and this is the type of soul stirring film that must be seen. i havent felt like this leaving a film since "a serious man".
November 7, 2011Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/take_shelter/
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International community makes last-ditch attempt to save Russian space probe
Officials from NASA and the European Space Agency have pitched in to help save the Russian Phobos-Grunt probe, which was supposed to fly to a Martian moon to collect soil samples but is instead stuck in orbit around Earth.?
An international effort is under way to save Russia's Phobos-Grunt mission to Mars, but time is quickly running out on propelling the probe toward the Red Planet.
Skip to next paragraphThe interplanetary undertaking is designed to visit Phobos, one of the moons of Mars, and return samples to Earth by 2014.
But?Phobos-Grunt's deadline?only chance for departure from Earth orbit is projected to be Nov. 24, due to the alignment of Earth and Mars as well as the spacecraft's fuel status to attain the outward-bound oomph required.
Using powerful radio dishes to monitor the vehicle, officials from the European Space Agency, NASA and Russia have been engaged in a global endeavor to rescue the spacecraft, which has been stranded in low-Earth orbit since its Nov. 8 launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. After the?Phobos-Grunt probe?separated from its Zenit booster, the probe failed to perform a critical maneuver needed to begin the trek toward Mars. [Photos: Russia's Mars Moon Mission]
"We are trying to help them out of trouble," said Wolfgang Hell, the service manager who is overseeing the European Space Agency's support to Russia's NPO Lavochkin, the main contractor on the Phobos-Grunt project. Hell is based at the European Space Operations Center in Darmstadt, Germany.
"Normally, we were supposed to step in, so to speak, and provide tracking services with our ground station network once the spacecraft was on an escape trajectory to Mars," Hell told SPACE.com. "It was never planned that we would support the spacecraft while in the near-Earth phase."
Hell said that his Russian colleagues have gained a better understanding of what ails the spacecraft. "They reached the conclusion that they have some kind of power problem onboard. So they have become more specific in terms of what we should be doing to help them."
But that help embraces a number of challenges, Hell said.
For instance, the spacecraft risks running out of electrical power each time the probe is eclipsed as it spins around Earth. Commanding?Phobos-Grunt?, therefore, is possible only while it's facing the sun.
Also, due to a lack of downlink from the craft's onboard transponder, ground trackers must rely on imprecise radar-tracking data. Not knowing exactly where the spacecraft is makes pointing ground transmitting antennas correctly a challenge.
"It takes a lot of luck to really hit the spacecraft with a main beam," Hell said. "Because it's in such a low-Earth orbit ? we have so little time, something like six to eight minutes, to get the command up."
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Sunday, November 27, 2011
Mexico: Drought hits water supply for 2.5 million (AP)
MEXICO CITY ? Forget lawn watering or car washing: A drought has dried up even drinking water supplies for an estimated 2.5 million people in more than 1,500 small communities in northern Mexico.
Social Development Secretary Heriberto Felix Guerra says water has to be trucked in, treated on the spot and stored in tanks for many of those towns.
Felix Guerra said Friday that seven Mexican states are suffering from drought while other parts of the country have been troubled by such severe weather as floods or hail.
The secretary notes that the trucked-in water is for drinking and doesn't help problems with crops and cattle. He estimates farmers have lost 2.2 million acres (900,000 hectares) of crops to dry conditions this year.
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Life's diversity snowballed when Earth froze
Ancient animals may have started their drive toward explosive diversity back when the Earth was a giant snowball, new research suggests.
A startling expansion in the diversity of life forms began about 540 million years ago, early in the Cambrian period. During this apparently sudden outburst, known as the Cambrian explosion, all the major groups of animals seemed to materialize rapidly. Scientists have debated the causes of this great flowering of life for centuries.
Now researchers have new evidence that major groups of animals actually may have existed many tens of millions of years before this seeming flurry of diversity. This early activity helped light the fuse of the later Cambrian explosion.
Scientists analyzed the fossil record and genomes of existing organisms that are related to Cambrian species. The aim was to figure out when different lineages of animals diverged from each other.
The results suggest that many of Earth's early organisms developed the genetic programs for their body plans during the Cryogenian period, which spanned from 635 million to 850 million years ago, with the last common ancestor of all living animals originating nearly 800 million years ago. These early creatures may then have flourished later in more favorable environments ? say, when more oxygen was around ? leaving behind enough fossils to survive up to now.
"We see that there's this long lag between the evolution of the developmental toolkits for their bodies and the explosion of diversity we see in the fossil record," said researcher Douglas Erwin, curator of paleozoic invertebrates at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.
During the Cryogenian period, recent studies suggest the planet may have been a "Snowball Earth " at times, completely coated in ice for stints lasting millions of years. Researchers have suggested the deep freeze could have spurred the evolution of animals by pumping a surge of nutrients into the oceans.
"Lots of lineages of animals appear to have their start back in the Cryogenian," Erwin told LiveScience.
The burst in diversity later seen in the Cambrian might then be due to how traits of animals evolved and interacted with each other while Earth was a frozen orb. This interaction spurred the development of more features, and thus greater diversity. For instance, the advent of multicellular predators might have triggered arms races between hunters and prey, and sponges and burrowing worms around at the time might have altered the landscape in ways that helped other life flourish, just as earthworms do now by churning up soil.
"The explanation for what happened in the Cambrian lay in how organisms modified their environment," Erwin said.
The scientists detailed their findings in the Nov. 25 issue of the journal Science.
Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.
? 2011 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45437841/ns/technology_and_science-science/
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Saturday, November 26, 2011
UN: 'Numerous' reports of child torture by Syria
A U.N. human rights panel expressed alarm Friday at reports it has received of Syrian security forces torturing children.
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The Committee Against Torture said it had received "numerous, consistent and substantiated reports" of widespread abuse in the country.
The chair of the panel, Claudio Grossman, told reporters in Geneva that the reports referring to the abuse of children were of "particular concern."
The U.N. human rights office says more than 3,500 people have been killed in the eight-month uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.
Meanwhile, Syria ignored a deadline imposed by the Arab League to allow an observer mission into the country or face economic sanctions, a senior Arab League diplomat said Friday.
The diplomat said the Friday afternoon deadline passed with no word from Damascus. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The 22-nation bloc had given Syria 24 hours to agree to the observer mission, saying it would meet to decide on punishing measures that could include a freeze on financial dealings and assets if the deadline was missed.
Patience 'running out'
Syria is the scene of the deadliest crackdown against the Arab Spring's eruption of protests and international pressure has been mounting on Assad to stop the bloodshed.
Earlier Friday, before the deadline passed, Turkey's foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Syria faced a test of goodwill over the proposal and said the country "must open its doors to observers."
Davutoglu said the patience of Turkey and Arab countries was "running out over the bloodshed in Syria."
He spoke during a joint news conference with Italy's new Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi in Istanbul.
Terzi described the situation in Syria as a "worrying tragedy."
Syria had previously slammed the Arab League's ultimatum, which increased the international pressure on Assad's government following France's proposal for "humanitarian corridors" to be set up to alleviate civilian suffering.
However, Russia, China and their partners in the BRICS group of emerging economies warned against foreign intervention without U.N. backing and urged Assad to start talks with the opposition.
Story: 5 children among 23 civilians killed in Syria, rights group saysUnder an Arab League initiative, Syria had agreed to withdraw troops from urban centers, release political prisoners, start a dialogue with the opposition and allow monitors and international media into the country.
Since then hundreds of people, including civilians, security forces and army deserters, have been killed as the unrest which the U.N. says has claimed at least 3,500 lives since March continued unabated.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based opposition group, said at least 47 people were killed in Syria Thursday, including 16 soldiers and 17 army deserters, mostly around the city of Homs and Rastan to the north.
"In the case that Syria does not sign the protocol ... or that it later violates the commitments that it entails, and does not stop the killing or does not release the detainees ... (Arab League officials) will meet on Saturday to consider sanctions on Syria," the Arab ministers said in a statement.
Story: Army defectors threaten to transform Syrian uprising into civil warPossible sanctions, which are not intended to affect ordinary Syrians, included suspending flights to Syria, stopping dealings with the central bank, freezing Syrian government bank accounts and halting financial dealings.
They could also decide to stop commercial trade with the government "with the exception of strategic commodities so as not to impact the Syrian people," the statement said.
Syria's economy is already reeling from the eight months of unrest, aggravated by U.S. and European sanctions on oil exports and several state businesses.
The Arab League suspended Syria's membership two weeks ago, while this week the prime minister of neighboring Turkey ? a NATO member with the military wherewithal to mount a cross-border operation ? told Assad to quit and said he should be mindful of the fate of fallen dictators such as Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Libya's deposed leader Moammar Gadhafi.
"The Syrian crisis may or may not have entered its final phase, but it undoubtedly has entered its most dangerous one to date," the International Crisis Group said.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to his report.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45434540/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/
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LG, Prada officially renew phone partnership, confirm v3.0 for early 2012
Continue reading LG, Prada officially renew phone partnership, confirm v3.0 for early 2012
LG, Prada officially renew phone partnership, confirm v3.0 for early 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Nov 2011 02:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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'Hugo,' Harry Potter And Other Magical Movie Orphans
by Amanda Sprecher
Being an orphan is no laughing matter? unless we're talking about the movies, in which case growing up without parents can actually yield some incredible results. It's become a long standing film trope that parents tend to be the one thing standing in the way of their children's magical adventures ? a trope [...]
Being an orphan is no laughing matter? unless we're talking about the movies, in which case growing up without parents can actually yield some incredible results. It's become a long standing film trope that parents tend to be the one thing standing in the way of their children's magical adventures ? a trope [...]
Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2011/11/23/hugo-harry-potter-and-other-magical-movie-orphans/
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PFT: Elway 'very hopeful' Tebow is answer
Getty ImagesIn the past, when Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh has supplied his version of an on-field incident that resulted in a penalty or a fine, he seemed persuasive.
After Thursday?s Haynesworthy performance against the Packers, Suh?s effort to talk his way out of trouble comes off as pathetic.
?What I did was remove myself from the situation the best way that I felt in me being held down in the situation that I was in,? Suh said, via NFL.com.? ?My intentions were not to kick anybody, as I did not.? [I was] removing myself, as you see, I?m walking away from the situation.? And with that I apologize to my teammates, and my fans and my coaches for putting myself to be in position to be misinterpreted and taken out of the game.?
It gets better.? Or, for Suh, worse.
?I was on top of a guy being pulled down and trying to get up off the ground, which is why you see me pushing his helmet down,? Suh said.? ?As I?m getting up, I?m getting pushed so I?m getting myself unbalanced. . . .? With that a lot of people are going to interpret it as or create their own storylines, . . . but I know what I did, and the man upstairs knows what I did.?
What Suh did requires no interpretation.? He aggressively pushed the head of Evan Dietrich-Smith into the ground, and Suh stomped on Dietrich-Smith?s arm as Suh started to walk away.
?I understand in this world because of the type of player and type of person I am, all eyes are on me,? Suh said.? ?So why would I do something to jeopardize myself, jeopardize my team, first and foremost?? I don?t do bad things.? I have no intentions to hurt someone.? If I want to hurt him, I?m going to hit his quarterback as I did throughout that game.?
He needs to quit while he?s not ahead.
?If I see a guy stepping on somebody I feel like they?re going to lean into it and forcefully step on that person or stand over that person,? Suh said.? ?I?m going in the opposite direction to where he?s at.?
It?s an amazingly flimsy, and perhaps delusional, effort to explain what was obvious to anyone with eyes.? Apart from the ultimate penalty that will be imposed on Suh by the league office ? and plenty of people believe a suspension is coming ? Suh needs to be concerned about the impact of his behavior and his lame explanation of it on his marketability.? From Subway to Chrysler to any other company that has chosen to give Suh a lot of money to endorse its products, that money could be drying up, quickly.
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Friday, November 25, 2011
Medvedev: Russia may target missile defense sites (AP)
MOSCOW ? President Dmitry Medvedev says Russia will aim its missiles at the U.S. missile defense sites in Europe if Washington fails to address Russian concerns on its missile defense plans.
Medvedev said that Russia will deploy missiles in its westernmost Kaliningrad region and other areas if Russia and NATO fail to reach a deal on the U.S.-led missile defense plans.
He also said in a televised statement Wednesday that Moscow may opt out of the New Start arms control deal with the United States and halt other arms control talks if the U.S. proceeds with its plans to deploy its missile shield in Europe.
Russia considers the U.S. shield as a threat to its nuclear forces.
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What Demi Lovato Is Most Thankful for in 2011 (omg!)
Demi Lovato is counting her blessings this holiday season.
"As many of you know, last year at this time, I was in treatment. I spent Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve away from my home and family which is why I am so excited to be with them this year," the 19-year-old singer writes in her monthly Seventeen column. "Thinking about how far I have come in a year makes me so thankful."
PHOTOS: Demi through the years
In late 2010, Lovato checked into a rehab facility to treat depression and bulimia. While there, the former Disney Channel star also discovered she suffers from Bipolar II disorder.
"I could not have done this without God and the amazing support from my family," Lovato says. "They have stuck by me through everything and love me just the way that I am. That is a wonderful feeling to know that people accept the real you."
VIDEO: Watch Demi's triumphant return to the stage
Despite her hardships, the teen singer says she's "thankful for my life path, including the highs and the lows, because it has caused my true self to shine through."
"Going to treatment was a gift and I believe it saved my life. I learned how to be strong and healthy even through struggles," Lovato says. "It also helped me open up about my issues and share them with others. Knowing that my family, friends and fans accept me for who I am is the greatest feeling ever!"
PHOTOS: Famous Disney stars
Lovato -- who is currently on tour to promote her third album, Unbreakable -- says the experience taught her to stop taking "things for granted, like my family, friends, fans and career. Each day is special to me and I take each day one day at a time."
"Sometimes people get busy and forget to enjoy the moment, but I know I will not do that this holiday season," she adds. "I have worked very hard to get to the place I am today and I am going to enjoy every minute of it!"
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Islanders reclaim ancestor bones
23 November 2011
Last updated at 08:17 ET
Representatives of the Torres Strait islanders collected bones of their ancestors from the Natural History Museum in London.
The development is the latest step in a long campaign by the islanders to have the human remains returned to them so they can be properly buried and - in their view, allow the spirits of their ancestors to rest in peace.
But critics say that the handover of the bones will set back scientific research and has been done for the sake of political correctness.
The islanders have collected 19 skeletal remains of indigenous people that have been identified as taken from the Torres Strait Islands in the 19th Century. The islands lie roughly halfway between Papua New Guinea and the northern coast of Australia.
A further 125 remains thought to have come from the islands are to be held in trust on behalf and under the control of the islanders at the Natural History Museum until their origin can be firmly established.
Continue reading the main story?Start Quote
End Quote Ned David Islanders' SpokesmanObviously there's a lot of joy that we are taking our people home, but there's a tinge of sadness that they've been away so long?
At an hour-long private ceremony, eight representatives from the islands carried out a ritual which they told me involved communicating with their long dead ancestors.
Ned David, who speaks for the islanders, said that in what he described as a a deeply moving ceremony, the delegates told their long-dead ancestors that they were "going home" and that soon their souls would be at rest.
"Obviously there's a lot of joy that we are taking our people home, but there's a tinge of sadness that they've been away so long."
The Torres Straits are home to a hundred islands between the northern coast of Australia and Papua New Guinea. The islanders have fought a long battle to have the bones of their ancestors returned home.
Souls to rest
Early explorers and missionaries collected the bones of the islanders as curios. Many of them found their way to London's Natural History Museum. They believe that until the bones are buried - the souls of their forefathers will not be able to rest.
Continue reading the main storyHuman Remains Returned
- 1996 Royal Albert Museum in Exeter sends human remains to New Zealand, Australia and North America
- 2007 University of Aberdeen returns nine tattooed heads to New Zealand
- 2008 Natural History and Pitt Rivers museums in Oxford repatriate remains to Australia
- 2008 British Museum sends nine bone fragments to New Zealand
- 2009 Booth Museum of Natural History in Brighton repatriates three skulls and two thigh bones to Australia
- 2010 National Museum Liverpool returns the mummified body of a baby to the Torres Strait Islands
In March, museum officials agreed to return the remains of the Torres Strait Islanders but asked if they could continue to have access to the bones for research purposes.
Dr Richard Lane, former scientific director of the Natural History Museum and an architect of the agreement said that the islanders began warming to the idea of allowing the bones to be used for research as they learnt more about the work of the museum staff.
"When we got talking in the pub, the islanders started asking us 'what is this DNA business and how can we use it to learn more about our history?'"
The Natural History Museum has nearly 20,000 human remains, some of which scientists analyse to learn more about how humans evolved and migrated across the world. The vast majority though are not used for research and kept in storage.
'Colonial guilt'
The Royal Albert Museum in Exeter was the first British scientific institute to return human remains to New Zealand, North America and Australia in 1996. But it is only recently that the pace of repatriation of remains has gathered momentum, with six British museums returning bones to native people since 2008. Museums across the world are doing the same.
Dr Tiffany Jenkins, of the Institute of Ideas, believes that museums are acting out of a sense of post-colonial guilt: "This is meant to make reparations for all sorts of past wrongs," she told BBC News.
"But do giving human remains back really do that and do they not distract us from the very real material problems faced by the islanders?"
Dr Jenkins also argues that religion and religious beliefs should not "trump" the research that could be done on these remains.
"(The research) could tell us all sorts of things about past people which is something that belongs to everybody: you, me and the Torres Straits people."
Dr Ian Owens, the Natural History Museum's current scientific director said that the choice between good science and taking heed of people's religious beliefs was a false dichotomy. He believes that scientists will be able to continue doing research and will be able to do so with the consent and collaboration of the Islanders.
"I think there is the potential to do better science and the only way of doing that is to come to these kinds of agreements with the islanders.
Follow Pallab on Twitter
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/science-environment-15822232
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Thursday, November 24, 2011
What Are Climate Change Skeptics Still Skeptical About? (LiveScience.com)
Richard Muller used to be a global warming skeptic. A prominent physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, Muller didn't trust the level of rigor ? or the results ? of past climate studies. As he explained in editorials that were often cited by other skeptics, he thought the dramatic global temperature rise reported by NASA and many other groups may have stemmed from systematic measurement errors rather than an environmental catastrophe.
Instead of leaving it at that, Muller founded the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) study in 2010 to do the job right. His team of statisticians, physicists and climate experts conducted an exhaustive analysis of 200 years of global temperature data, running 1.6 billion temperature reports from 39,000 recording stations through a complex process that filtered out questionable data and averaged the rest.
Today, Muller no longer doubts the reality of global warming.
The BEST team's rigorous analysis showed that the average global land temperature has risen by 1 degree Celsius since the 1950s. The finding exactly matches those of past studies by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NASA and others. But this time, Muller says that because his team cleaned up the data in ways no other study has, their result is rock-solid.
Earth's climate is extremely sensitive to temperature fluctuations: That one degree of rapid warming is believed to be driving major changes to weather patterns ? causing, for example, drought and rapid desertification in arid regions of the globe. The effects have been felt in the United States, with the Southwestern part of the country experiencing its worst drought in centuries. Global warming is also melting the polar ice caps, which, consequently, is raising sea levels worldwide and threatening to drown hundreds of coastal cities.
Furthermore, the vast majority of climate scientists attribute global warming to deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels ? coal, oil and natural gas. These activities have poured millions of tons of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide (CO2), into Earth's atmosphere over the past few decades. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has risen from about 280 parts per million (ppm) in preindustrial times to 392 ppm today, its highest level in at least 800,000 years (as far back as the ice core record goes), and probably higher than in the past 20 million years. Like the roof of a greenhouse, the thickening layer of CO2 traps heat at the Earth's surface, and if the rate of human carbon emissions continues to increase, global warming is expected to accelerate in the near future, so that by 2100, Earth will be at its warmest in millions of years. [5 Ways the World Will Change Radically This Century]
This is the consensus view among scientists. However, a small but vocal handful of academics ? some of them climatologists, others in outside fields ? believe the whole thing is a case of alarmism. Some argue that global warming isn't actually happening. Others concede that Earth is warming, but believe the process is natural (and has nothing to do with us humans). If they're right, then there's no need for the fossil fuel industry to cap carbon emissions, lesser developed countries should feel free to industrialize in the cheapest way possible (i.e. with carbon-spewing coal), and the rest of us can stop worrying about the fate of future generations.
But the Berkeley study shows with a high level of confidence that global warming is real, and the overwhelming scientific consensus is that we're causing it. So what, exactly, are the skeptics' remaining arguments?
It's urban warming
Pat Michaels, a climatologist and senior research fellow for policy and economic development at the Cato Institute, has written several books arguing that the danger of global warming is overblown. Michaels believes CO2 emissions are having a warming effect on the Earth, but it's so small as to be negligible. Based on his calculations, "it amounts to about four-hundredths of a degree [Celsius] of spurious warming in a global temperature record since 1979," Michaels told Life's Little Mysteries, a sister site to LiveScience. That's orders of magnitude less than the total warming observed by BEST, NASA and NOAA and others.
He attributes the rest of the warming detected by those groups to inaccurate temperature measurements made in "urban heat islands": cities where the temperature reads higher than in surrounding areas because of the way concrete, stone and brick building materials retain heat.
However, several past climate studies have debunked the claim that urban heat islands are so hot that they're being mistaken for global warming; the BEST study thoroughly debunked that notion again. Muller and his colleagues compared temperature data recorded at thousands of rural and urban stations around the world and found a negligible difference in the upward temperature trend exhibited by both. If anything, cities have recently heated up at an ever-so-slightly slower rate than rural areas (though the difference is not statistically significant). "The key conclusion," the researchers wrote, is that "urban warming does not unduly bias estimates of recent global temperature change."
Michaels, who has been criticized for accepting research funding from the fossil fuel industry, rebuts this by arguing that BEST's negative urban effect couldn't possibly be correct, and so the whole study should be disregarded. "Muller's study says that the effect of cities on temperatures is to cool the temperature. Well, I don't think there's a climate scientist around who believes that that could happen ? unless the cities are so polluted that the haze around them keeps the sunlight from hitting the ground," he said. "In China, there is some evidence that cities are cooler because of pollution." (In short, Michaels agrees that urban cooling can and does happen, but disagrees about the degree to which it does.)
It's actually getting cooler
Still, Michaels attributes almost all of the apparent 0.16 degrees Celsius warming per decade observed by climatologists to the bias of urban heating, rather than carbon emissions from fossil fuel use. However, he also says that even that warming seems to have stopped in the past decade. Similarly, Dennis Avery, a food policy analyst at the conservative think tank the Hudson Institute, and an outspoken advocate of pesticides and industrial-scale agriculture, argues that there is scientific evidence that the Earth has now entered a period of cooling, rather than warming.
"The U.S. Solar Observatory is now projecting decades of cooling as the current sunspot minimum continues ? and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation has shifted into its 30-year cool phase," Avery wrote in an email. "The outlook for Dr. Muller?s position is shaky indeed, following the cool winters since 2007." [If Global Warming Is Real, Why Is It Still Snowing?]
It is true that the U.S. Solar Observatory recently detected a decrease in sunspots, pointing to a decline in magnetic activity on the sun's surface. A drop in solar activity also occurred in the 17th century, and it partly overlapped with a period of unusually cold weather now known as the "little ice age."
However, mainstream climatologists do not believe that variations in sunspot activity actually cause ice ages, little or otherwise. The 17th century cold spell is thought to have resulted from an upsurge in volcanic activity at that time that cloaked Earth in sunlight-blocking soot. Climate models show that reduced solar activity can produce no more than 0.3 degrees Celsius of cooling, and a 2010 study in Geophysical Research Letters showed that, even if we are entering another solar minimum period like the one that occurred in the 17th century, its cooling effect will be (and is being) completely dwarfed by the warming effect of greenhouse gas emissions.
In short, Avery's global cooling hypothesis is not supported by scientific research. But he makes another, more compelling argument ? typically viewed as the most viable alternative to the mainstream view on climate change.
It's natural
Before he'll be convinced that humans are impacting the climate, "I would like some evidence that this modern warming is not part of the 1,500-year Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle, coming as it does at the appropriate time," Avery wrote in an email.
Dansgaard-Oeschger (D-O) events are natural climate fluctuations that occurred 25 times during the last ice age, approximately every 1,500 years. The events are relatively brief, but can have dramatic, lasting effects on Earth's temperature. Ice core samples taken in Greenland reveal that, when these events happened, they were marked by rapid warming of up to 8 degrees Celsius in the Northern Hemisphere in just 40 years, followed by gradual cooling.
Avery says such an event is happening now. His argument that global warming is part of this natural climate cycle was the subject of his book, "Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), co-authored with atmospheric physicist Fred Singer (who has also been criticized for receiving funding from the fossil fuel industry). Theirs may be the most common argument espoused by climate change skeptics.
However, most climatologists say this scientific-sounding argument is greatly flawed. First, D-O events did not cause the same global warming patterns observed today, but rather acted to redistribute Earth's warmth. Ice cores drilled in Antarctica show that equal-and-opposite cooling in the Southern Hemisphere balanced out the warming that occurred to the Northern Hemisphere during D-O events.
Secondly, D-O events happened during the last ice age, not afterward. There is some evidence that the current interglacial period may also be experiencing 1,500-year climate cycles, called "Bond events," and that these may be related to D-O events. But Bond events have a much smaller impact on temperature than did D-O events ? so small that not all scientists believe Bond events actually exist. If they do, then rather than being marked by dramatic rises in global temperature, they too cause a weak redistribution of heat around the globe.
Today, by contrast, all indicators point in only one direction: warming of the entire planet, and at a rate not seen during any past Bond event. The climatologist Gerard Bond, for whom Bond events are named, strongly disagrees with efforts by climate skeptics to use his research as proof that global warming is a natural phenomenon. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated in a recent report, "The rapid warming is consistent with the scientific understanding of how the climate should respond to a rapid increase in greenhouse gases like that which has occurred over the past century, and the warming is inconsistent with the scientific understanding of how the climate should respond to natural external factors." [See graph]
It's an error
Some skeptics just don't trust the quality of global temperature data enough to believe that it can reliably show a warming trend.
All climate models rely heavily on temperature records from thousands of recording stations around the world; if the stations are inaccurate, they can skew the results. In fact, it was Muller's concern that past climate studies might rely on too much erroneous temperature data that led him to found BEST. Statisticians on his team employed complex error analysis, averaging methods, and clever data filtering to minimize uncertainty in their set of 1.6 billion temperature reports; the team also separately analyzed a subset of the data coming from only the highest quality stations.
Though they ended up finding the same 1 degree C of warming since the 1950s that past climate studies found, they reduced the statistical uncertainty in that result nearly to zero.
But Michaels has written several editorials since late October arguing that it isn't surprising that the BEST team detected the same degree of warming as other studies, because they used the same set of temperature data.
This is not the case. In their analysis, the BEST researchers used more than five times more data than prior studies; they also looked at subsets of data that excluded all data analyzed previously. "Using only these previously unused data, we find no statistically significant difference [in warming trends]," Muller wrote in an email. When Michaels' error was pointed out to him, he responded that he meant a different part of the study corresponding to temperature reports from 1800 to 1850.
Muller said that data was also new. "Our analysis from 1800 to 1855 obviously uses new data sets, since no other group has ever published results prior to 1855. From 1855 onwards, we have now done the work that I described above using the 77 percent of the stations unused by the other groups."
Muller added that the BEST study has been met with a flurry of similar false criticisms in the past several weeks. "Be aware that many people are giving their knee-jerk reactions ? without careful reading of our papers. That is unfortunate, but an inevitable consequence of the great interest our work has engendered. Our goal is not to convince people in the week or two following our release, but to convince them in the months that follow as they begin to appreciate the care that we took, and the validity of our analysis methods," Muller said.
It's unknowable
Some scientists believe that climate change and global warming are real, but think that their causes are unknown. In this small camp is Freeman Dyson, a prominent physicist at Princeton University.
"Of course climate change and global warming are real," Dyson wrote in an email to Life's Little Mysteries. "I am skeptical not about the facts, but about the claims of climate experts to understand the facts. To the question whether either the causes or the consequences of climate change are understood, I answer no."
Dyson believes carbon dioxide does have a warming effect on the Earth, but questions the extent of its influence. He believes climate models that strongly link global warming to the rapid rise in atmospheric CO2 are based on false assumptions about the effects of atmospheric carbon. However, in the past, Dyson has admitted that he does not know much about the technical facts involved in climate modeling.
These are the primary arguments made against global warming. The large platform given to those who voice them ? prominently by some media outlets ? has had an astounding impact on public opinion in the United States. A May 2011 survey found that only 47 percent of Americans attribute global warming to human activities, while 36 percent blame it on natural causes. A staggering 95 percent of people who reported being "disengaged," "doubtful" or "dismissive" of global warming had no idea that 97 percent of publishing climate scientists believe global warming is happening and that it is caused by humans.
It seems the media has inaccurately portrayed the climate debate by paying disproportionate attention to many of the unscientific claims laid out here. Is the damage irreparable?
This story was provided by Life's Little Mysteries, a sister site to LiveScience. Follow Natalie Wolchover on Twitter @nattyover. Follow Life's Little Mysteries on Twitter @llmysteries, then join us on Facebook.
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PFT: Vick, Jackson miss practice again
Getty ImagesAfter Sunday?s loss to the Cowboys, which was capped by Dallas receiver Dez Bryant beating Redskins cornerback DeAngelo Hall for a gain that preceded the game-winning field goal, Hall said he?s so bad that the team should cut him.
Hall now says that he has heard from a laundry list of NFL greats regarding his greatness.
?I had so many calls from other guys in the league telling me how great I was as a corner,? Hall said, via the Associated Press.? ?And I?m, like, ?Dude, I?m not on suicide watch.?? It was amazing, just the reaction that I didn?t think it was going to get.?
Hall claimed that he heard from men like Larry Fitzgerald, Ben Roethlisberger, Chad Ochocinco (OK, they aren?t all great players), and Ray Lewis.
But before Mr. Martini declares that he busted the juke-a-box, let?s consider whether Hall was having a crisis of confidence ? or whether he was hoping to get a free ticket out of town in the hopes of signing with a contender for the stretch run.? After all, Hall was once cut by the Raiders after earning $8 million for eight games, before landing in D.C. and eventually pocketing another big-money contract.? Now that he?s playing for a bad team with no immediate prospects for success, maybe that was the first step of a clumsy, passive-aggressive exit strategy.
If that?s the goal, he?s still holding out hope.? Indeed, he reiterated his position on Wednesday.
?I stand by it,? Hall said. ?I wear this ?C? on my chest for a reason. I hold myself to a higher standard than a lot of other people.?
Then came the possible glimpse into his soul.
?I probably haven?t been as productive as I would like to,? Hall said.? ?I don?t know if this defense is built for a corner to go out here and get eight or nine picks or seven picks.? It?s built to stop the deep ball and manage the game.?
In other words (possibly), ?I want out.?
If he really wants out, we?d have more respect for Hall if he simply laid down on the job.
Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/11/23/vick-desean-wont-practice-wednesday/related
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Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Gilead to buy biotech Pharmasset for $11 billion (Reuters)
(Reuters) ? Gilead Sciences Inc (GILD.O) struck a deal to buy biotechnology company Pharmasset (VRUS.O) for about $11 billion in a huge bet to diversify its portfolio with new hepatitis C treatments.
Gilead, the world's largest maker of HIV drugs, will pay $137 per share for each Pharmasset share, an 89 percent premium to Pharmasset's Friday closing price.
Pharmasset has been one of the hottest biotech stocks in the last year based on the potential of its experimental hepatitis C medicines to create a regimen without commercially manufactured interferons, proteins that help the body's immune system respond to viruses and other invaders.
The interferons often cause flu-like side effects that lead many patients with the serious liver disease to stop or delay treatment.
Shares of Pharmasset rose 86.1 percent to $135.25 in pre-market trading. Shares of Gilead, which said the deal would hurt earnings through 2014, fell 5.2 percent to $37.80.
"Gilead is making a pretty smart acquisition here," said Brian Skorney, an analyst with Brean Murray, Carret & Co. "It's definitely a high-risk acquisition, but I think it could pay off in dividends for them."
Skorney said it was possible that another bidder could emerge, noting that Roche Holding AG (ROG.VX) has a partnership with Pharmasset. Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY.N), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) and Merck & Co (MRK.N) also sell or are developing hepatitis medicines.
"Given the premium, Gilead is hoping to avoid another potential suitor coming to the table at a higher price," Skorney said.
Shares of Inhibitex Inc (INHX.O), which also is developing hepatitis C medicines, jumped 28 percent.
Hepatitis C can lead to cirrhosis, liver cancer and the need for a transplant if untreated. The disease infects an estimated 4 million Americans and 180 million people worldwide.
According to Gilead, more than 12 million people are infected with hepatitis C in major markets, but fewer than 200,000 are treated per year.
Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc (VRTX.O) and Merck won approval this year for new hepatitis C medicines that hold the potential for far higher cure rates for the disease. However both new drugs must be taken with interferon, and Vertex shares have dropped on expectations that new treatments like Pharmasset's could soon overtake them.
Vertex shares were down 2.5 percent after the deal was announced.
ANTIVIRAL EXPERIENCE
Pharmasset has three hepatitis C medicines in clinical trials. Its lead candidate, PSI-7977, was recently advanced into two Phase III studies. Gilead expects PSI-7977 would be submitted for U.S. approval in the second half of 2013.
Gilead Chief Executive John Martin said on a call with analysts that Pharmasset's experimental drugs combined with Gilead's own hepatitis C portfolio would allow the company to test multiple regimens that are oral and interferon-free.
In justifying the high premium, Gilead said PSI-7977 will be more valuable in its hands because it has the infrastructure in place to bring the product to more people faster than Pharmasset would have been able to do on its own.
"Gilead has vast experience in antivirals and is currently a leader in HIV, but has been hard at work developing a broad pipeline of therapies for Hep C," JPMorgan analyst Geoff Meacham said in a research note.
Gilead projected the deal would hurt its earnings through 2014. It is expected to close in the first quarter of next year, when Gilead plans to provide further outlook.
Gilead said it will temporarily suspend its share repurchase program in order to focus on paying down debt.
Gilead said it had commitments from Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Barclays Capital for financing of the transaction.
Barclays and Bank of America advised Gilead on the deal, while Morgan Stanley advised Pharmasset. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP is Gilead's legal counsel, while Sullivan & Cromwell LLP is serving as legal counsel to Pharmasset.
(Reporting by Lewis Krauskopf in New York; additional reporting by Anand Basu in Bangalore and Toni Clarke in Boston; Editing by Michele Gershberg, Esha Dey and John Wallace)
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UC Davis pepper spray, smear tactics: 'Occupy' protests face rougher response
A pepper spray incident at UC Davis and reports of a smear campaign by a PR firm with ties to the financial industry indicate that the Occupy Wall Street movement is?meeting an increasingly tough response from opponents and from police.
Two months after the Occupy Wall Street protests began, the movement's nationwide expression appears to be meeting an increasingly tough response from opponents and from police.
Skip to next paragraphTwo cases in point:
? In an incident Friday, police at the University of California, Davis, appeared to use pepper spray on a group of protesters seated quietly on a paved area on the campus.
? On Saturday, MSNBC reported that a Washington lobbying firm with ties to the financial industry has proposed an $850,000 plan to promote "negative narratives" about Occupy Wall Street and politicians who might express sympathy for the protests.
MSNBC said it had obtained a memo in which the lobbying firm pitches the negative campaign to the American Bankers Association, saying it could help the industry avoid fallout if the protests result in a Congress that is less friendly to Wall Street.
RECOMMENDED:?What do they want??Top 5 targets of Occupy Wall Street
The pepper-spray incident was not the first involving police and the Occupy protesters, but it stirred immediate public outrage.
"Shame on you," onlookers shouted as one officer displayed a bottle and then sprayed its contents toward the faces of activists who appear in video footage to be seated passively with arms interlocked. Officers then moved the protesters off the pavement.
Calling the video "chilling," UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi said on Saturday she is forming a task force made up of faculty, students, and staff to review the events surrounding the protests a day earlier. Ms. Katehi made the announcement in a message to the campus.
Police have said protesters were warned repeatedly beforehand that force would be used if they didn't move.
The incident comes as officials are weighing how long to allow protesters to camp on city lands ? and the related question of police tactics. The U.C. Davis video added fuel to media coverage critical of authorities.
"I may be a critic of Occupy Wall Street, but the police are public servants, and public servants have no business treating the public this way," wrote blogger E.D. Kain at Forbes.com on Saturday.
As to the apparent "opposition research" proposal against the wider Occupy movement, MSNBC producers Jonathan Larsen and Ken Olshansky wrote on the station's website Saturday that the memo ?came from the lobbying firm Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford.
They quote the memo warning about the impact the protests could have on the financial industry, if Democratic and Republican lawmakers become less sympathetic to Wall Street firms (major campaign?contributors) as a result.
?This would mean more than just short-term political discomfort for Wall Street," the producers quote the memo as saying. "It has the potential to have very long-lasting political, policy and financial impacts on the companies in the center of the bullseye.?
One focus of the letter's proposed opposition-research efforts, MSNBC said, would be to find information on people or groups providing financial support to the protests, and perhaps show "cynical" political motives behind the funding.
In the 2011-12 election cycle, financial firms (including insurance?and real estate) are listed by the website Open Secrets as donating?more to political campaigns than any other industry. The amount totals?some $123 million as of Oct. 31, with Republicans getting 55 percent?of the funds.
Anger at banking bailouts is one point of apparent common ground between the Occupy movement and the tea party on the political right.
Reuters reported that the lobbying firm did not respond to requests?for comment, but that a spokesman for the American Bankers Association?said the group, after receiving the proposal, "chose not to act on it?in any way."
In the pepper-spray video footage, it was not immediately clear what agency the officer who used the pepper spray represents. Officers from UC Davis and other UC campuses as well as the city of Davis responded to the protest, according to Annette Spicuzza, UC Davis police chief.
Protesters were apparently warned on Friday that their tents, set up Thursday, violated university policies.
Katehi said she is asking for a review of the university's policies regarding encampments to see if they allow students enough flexibility to express themselves.
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Tuesday, November 22, 2011
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