Hey, is that Mars or the Mojave in NASA rover's photo?

One of the first images from the camera atop the rover Curiosity's mast shows a Mars landscape that scientists called remarkably Earth-like, as if NASA 'put a rover out in the Mojave Desert.'

By Pete Spotts,?Staff writer / August 9, 2012

This image released on Aug. 8, by NASA, shows a mosaic of the first two full-resolution images of the Martian surface from the Navigation cameras on NASA's Curiosity rover.

NASA/AP

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It could be an old postcard from Earth ? a detailed black-and-white picture showing a barren, subtly undulating landscape stretching to a mountain range in the distance.

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Looking at the scene, "you would really be forgiven for thinking that NASA was trying to pull a fast one on you and we actually put a rover out in the Mojave Desert and took a picture," complete with "a little L.A. smog coming in there," quips John Grotzinger, a researcher at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and the Mars Science Laboratory mission's project scientist.

But this isn't the Mojave. It's Mars. Specifically, the interior of Gale Crater, with the crater's north rim rising in the distance.

As it examined the photo, the science team marveled at how Earth-like the scene appears, Dr. Grotzinger says. It's among the first images from the navigation camera mounted atop the rover's newly erected mast.

The scene's familiarity hints at why NASA is spending $2.5 billion on the Mars Science Laboratory mission. Mars is Earth-like in many ways, but seemingly is barren of life. Curiosity is designed to help scientists determine whether, in Mars? distant past, this 3-billion to 4-billion-year-old crater hosted an environment where life could have gained a foothold.

Now heading into its third Martian day, or sol, Curiosity has been performing virtually flawlessly as engineers carefully begin flexing its motorized joints and activating cameras and instruments.

Engineers have finished aiming the rover's high-gain antenna toward Earth. Curiosity has fully extended its camera mast, whose three different camera systems sit seven feet above the Martian surface. Engineers are well on the way toward fixing a software glitch with the rover's on-board weather station. And while the interior of the rover is a tad warmer than the engineering team expected, that extra heat will not affect the performance of Curiosity's science packages.

Indeed, the extra warmth may turn out to be helpful, said Jennifer Trosper, mission manager for the Mars Science Laboratory, at a briefing Wednesday. It means the rover will require less energy to warm actuators needed to drive around and to move the rover's seven-foot-long arm. The arm collects rock and soil samples and transfers them to the chemistry lab inside the rover. It also hosts an X-ray device for analyzing minerals in rocks and a small camera that serves as a geologist's magnifying glass.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/uzHWxANTC1o/Hey-is-that-Mars-or-the-Mojave-in-NASA-rover-s-photo

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Kris Jenner & 50 Cent Slam Kanye?s ?Perfect Bi**h? Song About Kim

Neolithic man: The first lumberjack?

Friday, August 10, 2012

During the Neolithic Age (approximately 10000 BCE), early man evolved from hunter-gatherer to farmer and agriculturalist, living in larger, permanent settlements with a variety of domesticated animals and plant life. This transition brought about significant changes in terms of the economy, architecture, man's relationship to the environment, and more.

Now Dr. Ran Barkai of Tel Aviv University's Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations has shed new light on this milestone in human evolution, demonstrating a direct connection between the development of an agricultural society and the development of woodworking tools.

"Intensive woodworking and tree-felling was a phenomenon that only appeared with the onset of the major changes in human life, including the transition to agriculture and permanent villages," says Dr. Barkai, whose research was published in the journal PLoS One. Prior to the Neolithic period, there is no evidence of tools that were powerful enough to cut and carve wood, let alone fell trees. But new archaeological evidence suggests that as the Neolithic age progressed, sophisticated carpentry developed alongside agriculture.

Evolution of axes

The use of functional tools in relation to woodworking over the course of the Neolithic period has not been studied in detail until now. Through their work at the archaeological site of Motza, a neighbourhood in the Judean Hills, Dr. Barkai and his fellow researchers, Prof. Rick Yerkes of Ohio State University and Dr. Hamudi Khalaily of the Israel Antiquity Authority, have unearthed evidence that increasing sophistication in terms of carpentry tools corresponds with increased agriculture and permanent settlements.

The early part of the Neolithic age is divided into two distinct eras ? Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) and Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB). Agriculture and domesticated plants and animals appear only in PPNB, so the transition between these two periods is a watershed moment in human history. And these changes can be tracked in the woodworking tools which belong to each period, says Dr. Barkai.

Within PPNA, humans remained gatherers but lived in more permanent settlements for the first time, he says. Axes associated with this period are small and delicate, used for light carpentry but not suited for felling trees or other massive woodworking tasks. In PPNB, the tools have evolved to much larger and heavier axes, formed by a technique called polishing. The researchers' in-depth analysis of these tools shows that they were used to cut down trees and complete various building projects.

"We can document step by step the transition from the absence of woodworking tools, to delicate woodworking tools, to heavier woodworking tools," Dr. Barkai says, and this follows the "actual transition from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle to agriculture." He also identifies a trial-and-error phase during which humans tried to create an axe strong enough to undertake larger woodworking tasks. Eventually, they succeeded in creating a massive ground stone axe in PPNB.

Home makeover

Whether the transition to an agricultural society led to the development of major carpentry tools or vice versa remains to be determined, says Dr. Barkai, who characterizes it as a "circular argument." Whatever the answer, the parallel changes led to a revolution in lifestyle.

Beyond the change from a hunter-gatherer to an agricultural economy, a new form of architecture also emerged. Not only did people begin to live in permanent villages, but the buildings in which they lived literally took a different shape. The round and oval structures of earlier domiciles were replaced by rectangular structures in PPNB, explains Dr. Barkai. "Evidence tells that us that for each home, approximately 10 wooden beams were needed. Prior to this, there were no homes with wooden beams." In addition, humans began to produce limestone-based plaster floors for their homes ? which also represented a growing use of wood, since plaster is manufactured by heating limestone.

These architectural developments, along with building pens and fences for domesticated animals, also necessitated the felling of trees in large quantities.

###

American Friends of Tel Aviv University: http://www.aftau.org

Thanks to American Friends of Tel Aviv University for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/122475/Neolithic_man__The_first_lumberjack_

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Does Zimmerman have a 'strong claim for self-defense?'

George Zimmerman says he was protecting himself when he shot and killed an unarmed black teenager in Florida. A hearing under Florida's 'Stand Your Ground' law will allow Zimmerman's defense to present its case to a judge, not a jury.?

By Kevin Gray,?Reuters / August 9, 2012

In this file photo, George Zimmerman, left, and attorney Don West appear before Circuit Judge Kenneth R. Lester, Jr. during a bond hearing at the Seminole County Criminal Justice Center in Sanford, Fla.

AP Photo/Orlando Sentinel, Joe Burbank, Pool, File

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Lawyers for a Florida?man charged in the shooting of black teenager?Trayvon Martin?said on Thursday they will seek a hearing under a controversial self-defense law that could result in the dismissal of criminal charges against him.

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George Zimmerman's lawyers said they saw "clear support for a strong claim of self-defense" after prosecutors released much of their evidence in the case.

Zimmerman, 28, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in the Feb. 26 shooting death of Martin in the central?Florida?of Sanford. He claims he shot the unarmed 17-year-old in self defense while acting as a neighborhood watch volunteer.

Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law allows people to use deadly force when they fear great bodily harm or death. Supporters of the law, which was enacted in 2005, argue it is intended to serve as a deterrent to violent crime, but critics charge it encourages vigilante justice.

In a hearing under "Stand Your Ground," a judge, not a jury, determines whether evidence meets criteria laid out in the law, said?David Weinstein, a former?Florida?state and federal prosecutor now in private practice in Miami.

If the judge rules in Zimmerman's favor, he would be granted immunity from prosecution in Martin's death.

"If Zimmerman?wins the hearing, it's case over," said Weinstein.

On the other hand, if the case goes forward to a full-blown trial, the hearing would offer the prosecution a good look at the defense strategy, he added.

"This is your shot. You lay it all out," said Weinstein.

Lawyers for Zimmerman?said it would take several months to prepare for the hearing, which they expect to focus on whether Zimmerman?"reasonably believed that his use of his weapon was necessary to prevent bodily harm to himself."

Confrontation in Street

Zimmerman?shot and killed Martin during a confrontation in a gated community. Martin was walking back from a store when Zimmerman?called a 911 dispatcher and said the teen looked suspicious.

Zimmerman?said he shot Martin after Martin attacked him and repeatedly slammed his head to the ground. Citing the self-defense law, police initially declined to arrest Zimmerman?for several weeks after the shooting.

Minutes before he was killed, Martin spoke with a girlfriend on his cellphone. That conversation may prove to be crucial testimony in the hearing, said?Charles Rose, a professor at the?Stetson University College of Law.

"The hearing may very well rotate around what?Trayvon Martin?did or did not say while he was on the phone right before the altercation," said Rose.

Ben Crump, a lawyer for Martin's family, said he expects the case will eventually go to trial.

"A grown man cannot profile and pursue an unarmed child, shoot him in the heart and then claim 'Stand Your Ground,'" he said in statement. "We believe that the killer's motion will be denied."

On Thursday, prosecutors released new evidence in the case, including Zimmerman's college records. But they later recalled some of the documents after realizing they included an indistinct photo of Martin's dead body, which is protected under?Florida's privacy laws.

Zimmerman?is free on a $1 million bond and living in an undisclosed safe house near Sanford.

(Additional reporting by Barbara Liston in Orlando and David Adams in Miami; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Philip Barbara)

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/33KjKaKk-DI/Does-Zimmerman-have-a-strong-claim-for-self-defense

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India's ground realities may scupper finance minister's reform agenda

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The return of a pro-market reformer to India's finance ministry has cheered investors and contributed to a market rally, but Palaniappan Chidambaram will need both political deftness and some luck to tackle the problems dragging the economy down.

Faced with impatient financial markets and the threat that India's credit rating could be cut to junk, Chidambaram has wasted no time since moving into his old ministry last week.

He has ordered a review of retrospective tax rules that had panicked foreign investors and sidelined officials behind those rules. And, in his first public comments, the Harvard-educated former lawyer vowed to fill a gaping hole in the budget and ease the burden of high interest rates on consumers.

In what is perhaps testament to his nimble media management, newspapers have somehow got wind of new early-morning starts and long hours for officials at the previously laid-back ministry.

During his last stint at finance, Chidambaram oversaw India's fastest growth surge in the past two decades that helped steer the economy through the worst of the global financial crisis. But this time, Chidambaram's task is more daunting.

Industrial output has fallen from year-earlier levels in three out of the last four months, and a summer drought has triggered a slew of cuts in growth forecasts, with economists predicting this year's economic expansion as low as 5.4 percent, the worst in a decade.

He also inherits the political constraints that stymied his predecessor Pranab Mukherjee's efforts to push major reforms.

Bills that would bring crucial financial-sector reforms were removed from the agenda of the current parliament session because Prime Minister Manmohan Singh failed to win support for them from coalition allies and even some in his own party.

Efforts to allow foreign supermarkets to set up in India have also run into opposition because, although such a step would ease supply-side bottlenecks in an inflation-plagued economy, political parties fear it would cost jobs - and votes.

"Things are easier said than done in India," says Robert Prior-Wandesforde, an economist with Credit Suisse in Singapore, referring to New Delhi's repeated reneging on promises.

"Rather than promising and running the risk of not delivering. I would like to see him delivering, then talking."

FISCAL TEST

To help him deliver, Chidambaram may appoint former International Monetary Fund Chief Economist Raghuram Rajan as his chief economic adviser. Rajan, currently a professor at Chicago University's Booth School of Business, is credited for predicting the 2008 global financial crisis and is a vocal critic of New Delhi's populist policies.

The new minister's biggest test will be controlling the fiscal deficit, which overshot a target of 4.6 percent of GDP by 1.2 percentage points in 2011/12 due to slowing growth and increased spending on fuel and fertilizer subsidies.

India's sovereign credit rating is at risk because of the high fiscal deficit, whose funding from domestic savings is crowding out private investment and lowering growth prospects.

However, a drought due to disappointing monsoon rains will push the government to spend more on relief for farmers. Rural demand for cheap fuel to drive irrigation pumps and tractors has further delayed a promised increase in subsidized diesel prices, which the government concedes is vital to fixing the deficit.

Privately, finance ministry officials warn a lack of action on subsidies could push the deficit to 6 percent of GDP this fiscal year, above the government's target of 5.1 percent.

"Without addressing the issue of fuel subsidies, fiscal consolidation is not possible," a senior official at the Finance Ministry said, adding that the budgeted fuel subsidy bill of 436 billion rupees ($7.9 billion) would nearly double if prices are not raised.

To ease the pressure, Chidambaram is looking at shoring up revenues through more efficient tax collections, the auction of cancelled second-generation mobile phone licenses and sales of stakes in state-run firms. But that may not be enough.

Tax revenues are under pressure from the economic slowdown. Plans to raise 300 billion rupees through partial privatizations this year have gone nowhere so far and much will depend on how equity markets perform.

Chidambaram's best hope is a bonanza from an auction of mobile airwaves, which could fetch more than the budgeted 400 billion rupees.

"The government will have to rely on the disinvestment program and the proceeds from the spectrum auction for overall fiscal management. If they are good, overall fiscal slippage can be contained within a reasonable limit," said Siddhartha Sanyal, an economist at Barclays Capital in Mumbai.

A failure to check the deficit would make it tougher for the minister to convince the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to lower interest rates further. The RBI has left rates steady for two straight reviews, asking the government to do its bit to revive the economy.

But Jagannadham Thunuguntla, head of research at SMC Investments and Advisors Ltd., says further economic deceleration could force a re-think at the RBI.

"We are worrying about peripherals. We are forgetting the epicenter. Epicenter is growth, growth and growth," he said.

($1=55.4 rupees)

(Additional reporting by Manoj Kumar; Editing by John Chalmers and Neil Fullick)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/indias-ground-realities-may-scupper-finance-ministers-reform-071214512--business.html

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US starts landmark Agent Orange cleanup in Vietnam

DANANG, Vietnam (AP) ? The United States began a landmark project Thursday to clean up a dangerous chemical left from the defoliant Agent Orange ? 50 years after American planes first sprayed it on Vietnam's jungles to destroy enemy cover.

Dioxin, which has been linked to cancer, birth defects and other disabilities, will be removed from the site of a former U.S. air base in Danang in central Vietnam. The effort is seen as a long-overdue step toward removing a thorn in relations between the former foes nearly four decades after the Vietnam War ended.

"We are both moving earth and taking the first steps to bury the legacies of our past," U.S. Ambassador David Shear said during the groundbreaking ceremony near where a rusty barbed wire fence marks the site's boundary. "I look forward to even more success to follow."

The $43 million joint project with Vietnam is expected to be completed in four years on the 19-hectare (47-acre) contaminated site, now an active Vietnamese military base near Danang's commercial airport.

Washington has been quibbling for years over the need for more scientific research to show that the herbicide caused health problems among Vietnamese. It has given about $60 million for environmental restoration and social services in Vietnam since 2007, but this is its first direct involvement in cleaning up dioxin, which has seeped into Vietnam's soil and watersheds for generations.

Shear added the U.S. is planning to evaluate what's needed for remediation at the former Bien Hoa air base in southern Vietnam, another Agent Orange hotspot.

The work begins as Vietnam and the U.S. forge closer ties to boost trade and counter China's rising influence in the disputed South China Sea that's believed rich in oil and natural resources. The U.S. says protecting peace and freedom of navigation in the sea is in its national interest.

The Danang site is closed to the public. Part of it consists of a dry field where U.S. troops once stored and mixed the defoliant before it was loaded onto planes. The area is ringed by tall grass, and a faint chemical scent could be smelled Thursday.

The contaminated area also includes lakes and wetlands dotted with pink lotus flowers where dioxin has seeped into soil and sediment over decades. A high concrete wall separates it from nearby communities and serves as a barrier to fishing there.

The U.S. military dumped some 20 million gallons (75 million liters) of Agent Orange and other herbicides on about a quarter of former South Vietnam between 1962 and 1971, decimating about 5 million acres (2 million hectares) of forest ? roughly the size of Massachusetts.

The war ended on April 30, 1975, when northern Communist forces seized control of Saigon, the U.S.-backed capital of former South Vietnam. Some 58,000 Americans died, along with an estimated 3 million Vietnamese. The country was then reunified under a one-party Communist government. Following years of poverty and isolation, Vietnam shook hands with the U.S. in 1995 and normalized diplomatic relations.

The Agent Orange issue has continued to blight the U.S.-Vietnam relationship because dioxin can linger in the environment for decades, entering the food supply through the fat of fish and other animals.

Although the chemical remains at the Danang site, U.S. officials said Thursday that containment measures implemented in recent years temporarily ended the public health threat to the local community.

In 2007, Vietnamese authorities ? with technical assistance from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and funding from the nonprofit U.S.-based Ford Foundation ? poured a 6-inch (15-cm) concrete slab half the size of a football field over the contaminated area where Agent Orange was mixed. Dioxin is not water-soluble and only spreads when rainfall and runoff move contaminated mud.

Vietnam's Ministry of Defense and the U.S. now plan to excavate 73,000 cubic meters (2.5 million cubic feet) employing technology used to clean superfund sites in the U.S.

Workers will first dig down about 2 meters (6.56 feet). The soil will then be heated to 335 degrees Celsius (635 Fahrenheit) in special containers where the dioxin will break down into oxygen, carbon dioxide and other substances that pose no health risks.

Vietnam's deputy defense minister, Nguyen Chi Vinh, said Thursday he hopes to receive more support from the international community and the U.S. government to help remediate dioxin hotspots elsewhere.

The former U.S. air base in southern Phu Cat has already been identified, but he said many contaminated areas in Vietnam have not been adequately assessed.

It is still unclear how much dioxin the U.S. will help clean up in the long term and how much it will allocate for people who claim to be Agent Orange victims.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-starts-landmark-agent-orange-cleanup-vietnam-100542424.html

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NASA Morpheus Lander Test Ends In Explosion

First time accepted submitter DishpanMan writes "For every success story from NASA like Curiosity, there is a failure story, like today's Morpheus project test flight at Kennedy Space Center. The project is trying to build a low cost Moon and Asteroid lander using clean fuels on a shoestring budget. While tethered flight test were successful, today's actual flight test ended in a crash and a ball of fire followed by a spectacular explosion. Initial feedback points to hardware failure, but the investigation is still ongoing."

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/7NNnyLwx5aw/nasa-morpheus-lander-test-ends-in-explosion

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94% The Queen of Versailles

All Critics (65) | Top Critics (25) | Fresh (61) | Rotten (4)

More than a social morality tale, this is a character study, with the title well chosen.

"The Queen of Versailles" ought to be required viewing for anyone who blames the rich for yanking the rug out from under America's economy.

What I left with was not hatred. I disapprove of the values they represent, but I also find them fascinating and just slightly lovable.

"The Queen of Versailles" turns out to be a portrait -- appalling, absorbing and improbably affecting -- of how, even within a system seemingly designed to ensure that the rich get richer, sometimes the rich get poorer.

Through a clear lens unclouded by politics or blame, it offers insight into the hazardous American practice of living beyond our means.

There's more going on here than classist derision, and the filmmaker uses her footage to try to sort out her feelings.

A can't-look-away cross between a Bergman drama and a "Real Housewives" spin-off.

The Queen of Versailles presents a fascinating case study of how the collapsing economy impacted the superrich. It will also likely drive anybody who isn't the superrich up the wall.

It would be easy to look at this with smug satisfaction, but director Lauren Greenfield is impassive.

Surely more topical (and essential) now than when it was conceived, The Queen of Versailles plays like a Christopher Guest parody of the financial crisis.

Watching "The Queen of Versailles" you don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Whatever their crimes of bad taste, they had it, flaunted it, lost it, and lived to tell the tale.

The pride, gluttony and inexplicable romance in the tale are almost Shakespearean.

By the end, the movie has pulled off a small miracle: You become absorbed in the lives of these people for who they are and not what they own.

In director Lauren Greenfield's tremendous documentary packed with terrific details, greed is not good. It is a slow, self-inflicted wound whose pain hits hard and fast.

A well-told tale about having to atone for sins of the sub-prime era.

A tragicomic indulgence of schadenfreude with the sophistication of a Kardashian reality show.

The result is a rich portrait.

A dysfunctional family documentary which invites the audience to take pleasure in the misfortunes of some decidedly-decadent 1%ers.

There are improbably involving human stories here.

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_queen_of_versailles/

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Nissan's e-NV200 all-electric van earmarked for a London taxi makeover

Nissan's e-NV200 all-electric van earmarked for a London taxi makeover

Buried within an announcement from Nissan about its NV200 diesel compact van hitting the London streets, the company has also outed its plans to trial the all-electric variant for ferrying people around the city. The e-NV200 went from concept to reality earlier this year, shortly after the diesel version got a New York paint job and was branded the "Taxi of Tomorrow." The NV200 has satisfied all legal requirements and is set to challenge the iconic London black cab with its lower emissions, greater efficiency and, of course, competitive pricing. The e-NV200 prototype (not to be confused with the soon-to-be certified diesel version) is scheduled for testing in London during 2013. However, Nissan does note that rolling out the EV would only be realistic if there's "increasing investment in charging infrastructure" across the capital.

[Image Credit: Auto Express]

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/06/e-nv200-could-get-london-taxi-makeover/

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