Increased ozone levels are causing millions of pounds of damage to UK food crops, York University research shows.
Loss of production in wheat and potato crops alone costs £70m and £14m a year respectively, according to new methods of calculating ozone absorption.
The study was conducted by Dr Lisa Emberson of the university's Stockholm Environment Institute.
She said: "Research into the effects of ozone on UK crops is remarkably limited given the economic implications."
Study widened
Her findings build on a previous study, which estimated that in 1990 the UK lost £130m in crops due to ozone taken up by plants.
Dr Emberson's figures incorporate additional factors such as species-specific and environmental conditions that, in combination with ozone concentrations, determine plants' susceptibility to damage.
Work is now under way to assess the threat to maize, tomato, sunflower and sugar beet - economically important crops which are sensitive to ozone.
Ozone is a naturally occurring atmospheric gas. High up in the earth's atmosphere, it plays a crucial role in filtering out harmful ultraviolet radiation that would otherwise damage life on earth.
However, at ground level, it can damage the health of humans, animals and vegetation.
Before industrialisation, annual mean ozone concentrations were between 10 to 15 parts per billion (ppb). Concentrations have now risen to approximately 30 ppb.
Dr Emberson said: "It's crucial to agricultural management to understand the combined stresses of ozone pollution and climate, especially given the projected increase in background ozone concentrations and changes in climate likely to occur in coming decades."
sexta-feira, 27 de abril de 2007
Putin steps up missiles warning
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that US plans to build a missile defence system in eastern Europe would raise the risk of "mutual destruction".
Poland and the Czech Republic are keen to allow the US to site missile bases and radars on their territory.
Mr Putin spoke a day after threatening to halt involvement with a treaty limiting conventional arms in Europe.
"The threat of causing mutual damage and even destruction increases many times," he told Russian media.
"This is not just a defence system, this is part of the US nuclear weapons system," the Itar-Tass news agency quoted him as saying.
Mr Putin was speaking after meeting Czech President Vaclav Klaus.
Poland and the Czech Republic are keen to allow the US to site missile bases and radars on their territory.
Mr Putin spoke a day after threatening to halt involvement with a treaty limiting conventional arms in Europe.
"The threat of causing mutual damage and even destruction increases many times," he told Russian media.
"This is not just a defence system, this is part of the US nuclear weapons system," the Itar-Tass news agency quoted him as saying.
Mr Putin was speaking after meeting Czech President Vaclav Klaus.
Studies Reveal an Immune System Regulator
By NICHOLAS WADE
Published: April 27, 2007Scientists working independently in Cambridge, England, and Cambridge, Mass., have discovered an unexpected regulatory network that affects the entire immune system.The regulatory network may provide new clues to both the working of the body’s immune defenses and the generation of a class of cancers known as lymphomas, which include Hodgkin’s disease.
The network depends on a genetic element known as a micro-RNA. RNA is the versatile chemical cousin of DNA; the micro snippets are too short to make genes but can interfere with the much longer messenger RNAs, which are transcribed from the DNA and used to direct the synthesis of proteins.A micro-RNA called miR-155, one of about 500 that have been discovered in mammals in the last 10 years, was known to be more abundant in active B cells, the antibody-making cells of the immune system, as well as in lymphomas. Two groups of scientists, one led by Allan Bradley and Martin Turner in England and the other by Klaus Rajewsky at Harvard Medical School, had the idea of creating strains of mice from which the gene that generates the micro-RNA had been deleted. Their reports were published today in the journal Science.Dr. Bradley’s group found that the genetically engineered mice did not respond well to vaccination and failed to develop immunity. Without miR-155, they were unable to generate important cytokines, the cell-to-cell signaling proteins that coordinate the various components of the immune system.Dr. Rajewsky’s team found that without miR-155, the immune system was no longer able to select antibody-making cells of the right specificity to attack invaders.Dr. Rajewsky said the involvement of miR-155 in the immune system was a “completely new development” that is “leading to a lot of rethinking.” Up to now, most immunologists have assumed the immune system was governed at the level of transcription factors, the master regulator proteins that control how genes are turned off and on.“This has dominated everyone’s thinking for a generation,” said Dr. Turner, of the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, England. But the findings showed the importance of a different level of control.
“Knocking out the micro-RNA is affecting a lot of different cell types that need to cooperate with each other,” Dr. Turner said.The work on miR-155 opened a window into the understanding of the immune system, but it is too early for immunologists to figure out any practical consequences.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/27/us/27immune.html?_r=1&ref=health&oref=slogin
By NICHOLAS WADE
Published: April 27, 2007Scientists working independently in Cambridge, England, and Cambridge, Mass., have discovered an unexpected regulatory network that affects the entire immune system.The regulatory network may provide new clues to both the working of the body’s immune defenses and the generation of a class of cancers known as lymphomas, which include Hodgkin’s disease.
The network depends on a genetic element known as a micro-RNA. RNA is the versatile chemical cousin of DNA; the micro snippets are too short to make genes but can interfere with the much longer messenger RNAs, which are transcribed from the DNA and used to direct the synthesis of proteins.A micro-RNA called miR-155, one of about 500 that have been discovered in mammals in the last 10 years, was known to be more abundant in active B cells, the antibody-making cells of the immune system, as well as in lymphomas. Two groups of scientists, one led by Allan Bradley and Martin Turner in England and the other by Klaus Rajewsky at Harvard Medical School, had the idea of creating strains of mice from which the gene that generates the micro-RNA had been deleted. Their reports were published today in the journal Science.Dr. Bradley’s group found that the genetically engineered mice did not respond well to vaccination and failed to develop immunity. Without miR-155, they were unable to generate important cytokines, the cell-to-cell signaling proteins that coordinate the various components of the immune system.Dr. Rajewsky’s team found that without miR-155, the immune system was no longer able to select antibody-making cells of the right specificity to attack invaders.Dr. Rajewsky said the involvement of miR-155 in the immune system was a “completely new development” that is “leading to a lot of rethinking.” Up to now, most immunologists have assumed the immune system was governed at the level of transcription factors, the master regulator proteins that control how genes are turned off and on.“This has dominated everyone’s thinking for a generation,” said Dr. Turner, of the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, England. But the findings showed the importance of a different level of control.
“Knocking out the micro-RNA is affecting a lot of different cell types that need to cooperate with each other,” Dr. Turner said.The work on miR-155 opened a window into the understanding of the immune system, but it is too early for immunologists to figure out any practical consequences.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/27/us/27immune.html?_r=1&ref=health&oref=slogin
Scientists Predict Next Solar Cycle Peak
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID AP Science Writer
WASHINGTON Apr 25, 2007 (AP)— The peak of the next sunspot cycle is expected in late 2011 or mid-2012 — potentially affecting airline flights, communications satellites and electrical transmissions. But forecasters can't agree on how intense it will be.
A 12-member panel charged with forecasting the solar cycle said Wednesday it is evenly split over whether the peak will be 90 sunspots or 140 sunspots.
The government's Space Environment Center in Boulder, Colo., tracks space weather and forecasts its changes, which can affect millions of dollars worth of activities such as oil drilling, car navigation systems and astronauts.
Half of the specialists predicted a moderately strong cycle of 140 sunspots expected to peak in October of 2011, while the rest called for a moderately weak cycle of 90 sunspots peaking in August of 2012.
"We're hoping to achieve a consensus sometime in the next six to 12 months," said Douglas Biesecker, a space environment center scientist who is chairman of the forecast panel.
An average solar cycle ranges from 75 to 155 sunspots.
During an active solar period, violent eruptions occur more often on the Sun, the agency said. Solar flares and vast explosions, known as coronal mass ejections, shoot highly charged matter toward Earth.
Making these predictions is important for many businesses, which have been asking for a forecast for nearly a year, Biesecker said.
Just like coastal residents want a hurricane forecast as early as possible, so do those affected by solar activity, said Joseph Kunches, chief of forecast and analysis at the center, which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Daniel Baker, director of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado-Boulder, noted that more than $200 billion of satellites in space can be affected by changes in solar radiation as the cycle rises and falls.
In addition, Baker said, other problems include:
Airlines flying over the pole face loss of communications that could force them to use a different, longer route at an added cost of as much as $100,000 per flight.
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID AP Science Writer
WASHINGTON Apr 25, 2007 (AP)— The peak of the next sunspot cycle is expected in late 2011 or mid-2012 — potentially affecting airline flights, communications satellites and electrical transmissions. But forecasters can't agree on how intense it will be.
A 12-member panel charged with forecasting the solar cycle said Wednesday it is evenly split over whether the peak will be 90 sunspots or 140 sunspots.
The government's Space Environment Center in Boulder, Colo., tracks space weather and forecasts its changes, which can affect millions of dollars worth of activities such as oil drilling, car navigation systems and astronauts.
Half of the specialists predicted a moderately strong cycle of 140 sunspots expected to peak in October of 2011, while the rest called for a moderately weak cycle of 90 sunspots peaking in August of 2012.
"We're hoping to achieve a consensus sometime in the next six to 12 months," said Douglas Biesecker, a space environment center scientist who is chairman of the forecast panel.
An average solar cycle ranges from 75 to 155 sunspots.
During an active solar period, violent eruptions occur more often on the Sun, the agency said. Solar flares and vast explosions, known as coronal mass ejections, shoot highly charged matter toward Earth.
Making these predictions is important for many businesses, which have been asking for a forecast for nearly a year, Biesecker said.
Just like coastal residents want a hurricane forecast as early as possible, so do those affected by solar activity, said Joseph Kunches, chief of forecast and analysis at the center, which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Daniel Baker, director of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado-Boulder, noted that more than $200 billion of satellites in space can be affected by changes in solar radiation as the cycle rises and falls.
In addition, Baker said, other problems include:
Airlines flying over the pole face loss of communications that could force them to use a different, longer route at an added cost of as much as $100,000 per flight.
The Global Positioning System is immensely important to commerce and can be disrupted by solar activity.
Operating floating oil rigs in the ocean requires keeping them positioned within a few inches to prevent damaging drilling gear. "They have to know when GPS is going to be accurate."
There is an increased radiation risk to humans in space.
Currents can be induced in long electrical transmission lines, causing blackouts.
In the past, such problems have been caused by solar superstorms, he said.
"Storms don't have to be so super any more" to cause problems, Baker said, as more and more systems become susceptible to solar effects.
W. Dean Pesnell of NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory said the solar storms also can heat the Earth's upper atmosphere, causing it to expand. This increases drag on satellites, slowing them down. It also affects the position of the space debris encircling the planet, and it is essential to keep track of that debris for the safety of space flight.
The forecasters said the current solar cycle will probably end next March, when Solar Cycle 24 will begin. That will mean Cycle 23 lasted 12 years, slightly longer than the usual 11-year cycle.
On the Net:
NOAA Space Environment Center: http://www.sec.noaa.gov
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Operating floating oil rigs in the ocean requires keeping them positioned within a few inches to prevent damaging drilling gear. "They have to know when GPS is going to be accurate."
There is an increased radiation risk to humans in space.
Currents can be induced in long electrical transmission lines, causing blackouts.
In the past, such problems have been caused by solar superstorms, he said.
"Storms don't have to be so super any more" to cause problems, Baker said, as more and more systems become susceptible to solar effects.
W. Dean Pesnell of NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory said the solar storms also can heat the Earth's upper atmosphere, causing it to expand. This increases drag on satellites, slowing them down. It also affects the position of the space debris encircling the planet, and it is essential to keep track of that debris for the safety of space flight.
The forecasters said the current solar cycle will probably end next March, when Solar Cycle 24 will begin. That will mean Cycle 23 lasted 12 years, slightly longer than the usual 11-year cycle.
On the Net:
NOAA Space Environment Center: http://www.sec.noaa.gov
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
War Bill Passes House, Requiring an Iraq Pullout
Only hours after Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander in Iraq, told lawmakers he needed more time to gauge the effectiveness of a troop buildup there, the House voted 218 to 208 to pass a measure that sought the removal of most combat forces by next spring. Mr. Bush has said unequivocally and repeatedly that he will veto it.
"Last fall, the American people voted for a new direction in Iraq," said Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California. "They made it clear that our troops must be given all they need to do their jobs, but that our troops must be brought home responsibly, safely, and soon."
Republicans accused Democrats of establishing a "date certain" for America’s defeat in Iraq and capitulating to terrorism.
"This bill is nothing short of a cut and run in the fight against Al Qaeda," said Representative Harold Rogers, Republican of Kentucky.
On the final vote, 216 Democrats and 2 Republicans supported the bill; 195 Republicans and 13 Democrats opposed it.
The Senate is expected on Thursday to approve identical legislation, which provides more than $95 billion for combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through Sept. 30, with the money conditioned on the administration’s willingness to accept a timetable for withdrawal and new benchmarks to assess the progress of the Iraqi government.
Democratic leaders plan to send the bill to the White House early next week — coinciding with the fourth anniversary of Mr. Bush’s May 1, 2003, speech aboard an aircraft carrier when he declared the end of major combat operations before a banner that said "Mission Accomplished."
At the White House, Dana Perino, the deputy press secretary, released a statement minutes after the vote, calling the bill "disappointing legislation that insists on a surrender date, handcuffs our generals, and contains billions of dollars in spending unrelated to the war."
With the outcome essentially preordained, advocacy groups on both sides of the issue were readying campaigns to try to shape public opinion as the showdown unfolds.
Groups aligned with the Democrats plan to capitalize on the connection between the veto and the "mission accomplished" anniversary. Americans United for Change has produced a television commercial that replays scenes of Mr. Bush on the carrier and says: "He was wrong then. And he’s wrong now. It’s the will of one nation versus the stubbornness of one man."
Allies of the president are mobilizing as well. The conservative Web site Townhall.com was organizing an online "no surrender" petition, and urging visitors to the site to tell the Democratic Party’s "rogues’ gallery that we will not stand for their defeatism," adding, "While they may lack courage, our troops do not and they deserve the resources needed to win this war."
With the vote barely behind them, House Democrats were already considering how to respond legislatively to Mr. Bush’s veto. Though there are differing ideas, Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, a Democrat who oversees defense appropriations, said his preference would be to "robustly fund the troops for two months," and include benchmarks but no timetable for withdrawal.
The briefing by General Petraeus and other senior Pentagon officials appeared to do little to influence the House vote. Lawmakers said the commander had made no overt plea for them to oppose the legislation, which provides more money for the Pentagon than the president had sought for the war as well as billions of dollars for other unrelated projects.
"I’m not going to get into the minefield of discussions about various legislative proposals," General Petraeus told reporters at the end of the two briefings. "I don’t think that is something military commanders should get into."
The general pointed to a drop in sectarian killings and security gains in Anbar Province as improvements in recent weeks but referred to reversals as well. "The ability of Al Qaeda to conduct horrific, sensational attacks obviously has represented a setback and is an area in which we are focusing considerable attention," he said.
Lawmakers, speaking on condition of anonymity because the briefings in the House and Senate were classified, said that while the general had pointed to successful weapons seizures and a substantial drop in killings as evidence of progress, he and the others could not quantify how they would evaluate future success.
Lawmakers who attended a session said General Petraeus had said he would need until September to judge whether the troop increase was meeting its goals in quelling the sectarian and terrorism-related violence in Iraq.
As they walked into the House briefing, the officials were greeted by about a dozen war protesters, some of whom shouted: "War criminal! War criminal!" One woman walked alongside the general, urging him in a softer tone to consider her point of view.
After the briefing, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, disputed criticisms that Democrats were trying to end the war before giving the administration’s plan a chance to succeed.
"Nobody is saying get out tomorrow," Mr. Hoyer said, noting that the legislation would allow American troops to stay in Iraq to battle terrorist groups.
He and Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader, differed on what emerged from the briefing as the most significant cause of violence in Iraq. Mr. Hoyer attributed it to sectarian strife, while Mr. Boehner cited Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, calling the group "the major foe that we face in Iraq today."
Republicans took issue with the absence from the briefing of Ms. Pelosi, who had talked by telephone to General Petraeus. "This latest insult to our troops should come as no surprise since others in the Democrat leadership have declared the war lost," said Representative Geoff Davis, Republican of Kentucky. A similar message reverberated on talk radio and cable television news programs on Wednesday.
Aides said Ms. Pelosi was working on the vote count in her office and meant no disrespect to the military commander but had already heard his Iraq report. Democrats also noted that Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and a defender of the war, was out of town, announcing his presidential campaign in New Hampshire.
Democrats sought to portray their approach as reasonable and called for Mr. Bush to reconsider before sending the bill back to Congress, where Republicans hold enough votes to sustain his position.
"I believe that this legislation, if people were to just take their time and read it, is the exit strategy that the president ought to be pleased to receive," said Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the Democratic whip.
But Republicans called it a dubious attempt at micromanaging the war and said Democrats were also seizing the opportunity to stuff the bill with home-state spending.
The president’s allies, aware of public dissatisfaction with the war, acknowledged the difficulties on the ground in Iraq while portraying the Democratic approach as a prescription for defeat.
"It’s been ugly, it’s been difficult, it has been very painful," said Representative David Dreier, Republican of California. "We all feel the toll that has been taken and are fully aware of the price we are paying, especially in a human sense. But we do not honor those who have sacrificed by abandoning the mission."
The House vote on Wednesday and the preceding debate closely resembled those of one month ago, when the House passed its initial version 218 to 212.
"Last fall, the American people voted for a new direction in Iraq," said Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California. "They made it clear that our troops must be given all they need to do their jobs, but that our troops must be brought home responsibly, safely, and soon."
Republicans accused Democrats of establishing a "date certain" for America’s defeat in Iraq and capitulating to terrorism.
"This bill is nothing short of a cut and run in the fight against Al Qaeda," said Representative Harold Rogers, Republican of Kentucky.
On the final vote, 216 Democrats and 2 Republicans supported the bill; 195 Republicans and 13 Democrats opposed it.
The Senate is expected on Thursday to approve identical legislation, which provides more than $95 billion for combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through Sept. 30, with the money conditioned on the administration’s willingness to accept a timetable for withdrawal and new benchmarks to assess the progress of the Iraqi government.
Democratic leaders plan to send the bill to the White House early next week — coinciding with the fourth anniversary of Mr. Bush’s May 1, 2003, speech aboard an aircraft carrier when he declared the end of major combat operations before a banner that said "Mission Accomplished."
At the White House, Dana Perino, the deputy press secretary, released a statement minutes after the vote, calling the bill "disappointing legislation that insists on a surrender date, handcuffs our generals, and contains billions of dollars in spending unrelated to the war."
With the outcome essentially preordained, advocacy groups on both sides of the issue were readying campaigns to try to shape public opinion as the showdown unfolds.
Groups aligned with the Democrats plan to capitalize on the connection between the veto and the "mission accomplished" anniversary. Americans United for Change has produced a television commercial that replays scenes of Mr. Bush on the carrier and says: "He was wrong then. And he’s wrong now. It’s the will of one nation versus the stubbornness of one man."
Allies of the president are mobilizing as well. The conservative Web site Townhall.com was organizing an online "no surrender" petition, and urging visitors to the site to tell the Democratic Party’s "rogues’ gallery that we will not stand for their defeatism," adding, "While they may lack courage, our troops do not and they deserve the resources needed to win this war."
With the vote barely behind them, House Democrats were already considering how to respond legislatively to Mr. Bush’s veto. Though there are differing ideas, Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, a Democrat who oversees defense appropriations, said his preference would be to "robustly fund the troops for two months," and include benchmarks but no timetable for withdrawal.
The briefing by General Petraeus and other senior Pentagon officials appeared to do little to influence the House vote. Lawmakers said the commander had made no overt plea for them to oppose the legislation, which provides more money for the Pentagon than the president had sought for the war as well as billions of dollars for other unrelated projects.
"I’m not going to get into the minefield of discussions about various legislative proposals," General Petraeus told reporters at the end of the two briefings. "I don’t think that is something military commanders should get into."
The general pointed to a drop in sectarian killings and security gains in Anbar Province as improvements in recent weeks but referred to reversals as well. "The ability of Al Qaeda to conduct horrific, sensational attacks obviously has represented a setback and is an area in which we are focusing considerable attention," he said.
Lawmakers, speaking on condition of anonymity because the briefings in the House and Senate were classified, said that while the general had pointed to successful weapons seizures and a substantial drop in killings as evidence of progress, he and the others could not quantify how they would evaluate future success.
Lawmakers who attended a session said General Petraeus had said he would need until September to judge whether the troop increase was meeting its goals in quelling the sectarian and terrorism-related violence in Iraq.
As they walked into the House briefing, the officials were greeted by about a dozen war protesters, some of whom shouted: "War criminal! War criminal!" One woman walked alongside the general, urging him in a softer tone to consider her point of view.
After the briefing, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, disputed criticisms that Democrats were trying to end the war before giving the administration’s plan a chance to succeed.
"Nobody is saying get out tomorrow," Mr. Hoyer said, noting that the legislation would allow American troops to stay in Iraq to battle terrorist groups.
He and Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader, differed on what emerged from the briefing as the most significant cause of violence in Iraq. Mr. Hoyer attributed it to sectarian strife, while Mr. Boehner cited Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, calling the group "the major foe that we face in Iraq today."
Republicans took issue with the absence from the briefing of Ms. Pelosi, who had talked by telephone to General Petraeus. "This latest insult to our troops should come as no surprise since others in the Democrat leadership have declared the war lost," said Representative Geoff Davis, Republican of Kentucky. A similar message reverberated on talk radio and cable television news programs on Wednesday.
Aides said Ms. Pelosi was working on the vote count in her office and meant no disrespect to the military commander but had already heard his Iraq report. Democrats also noted that Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and a defender of the war, was out of town, announcing his presidential campaign in New Hampshire.
Democrats sought to portray their approach as reasonable and called for Mr. Bush to reconsider before sending the bill back to Congress, where Republicans hold enough votes to sustain his position.
"I believe that this legislation, if people were to just take their time and read it, is the exit strategy that the president ought to be pleased to receive," said Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the Democratic whip.
But Republicans called it a dubious attempt at micromanaging the war and said Democrats were also seizing the opportunity to stuff the bill with home-state spending.
The president’s allies, aware of public dissatisfaction with the war, acknowledged the difficulties on the ground in Iraq while portraying the Democratic approach as a prescription for defeat.
"It’s been ugly, it’s been difficult, it has been very painful," said Representative David Dreier, Republican of California. "We all feel the toll that has been taken and are fully aware of the price we are paying, especially in a human sense. But we do not honor those who have sacrificed by abandoning the mission."
The House vote on Wednesday and the preceding debate closely resembled those of one month ago, when the House passed its initial version 218 to 212.
Don't stop Dance
Dance: Recalling, Endearinh Moster (April 25,2007)
New York Times
New York Times
Paul Kolnik/New York City Ballet
Kyra Nichols performing in the New York City Ballet’s production of "Pavane." The company’s spring season opened on Tuesday night.
Kyra Nichols performing in the New York City Ballet’s production of "Pavane." The company’s spring season opened on Tuesday night.
For this richer and livelier legacy than any that survived Diaghilev, we have one person to thank above all others: Lincoln Kirstein, the centenary of whose birth is commemorated by the New York City Ballet spring season, which opened on Tuesday night. Without Kirstein and his efforts to give Balanchine a custom-built company, we might have scarcely more ballets by Balanchine today than we do by Léonide Massine and Bronislava Nijinska, Balanchine’s immediate predecessors with the Diaghilev company. Without the institutions that Kirstein put at Balanchine’s disposal, principally City Ballet and its School of American Ballet, many a Balanchine masterpiece would surely have gone the way of his "Cotillon," "Baiser de la Fée" and "Balustrade" — ballets loved in their day but lost before City Ballet was founded.
It is fitting, therefore, and moving too, that the company starts this spring season with one all-Balanchine week: 10 ballets created from 1928 ("Apollo") to 1975 ("Pavane"). None of them employ scenery; all employ major scores by composers from Bach and Corelli to Stravinsky, Ravel and Hindemith. And thereby all of them exemplify Balanchine’s most characteristic form of modernism, paring away all other matters to concentrate on the union of academic ballet and music, and building that into one castle in the air after another. Tuesday night’s program, well conducted by Fayçal Karoui, began with "The Four Temperaments" (1946), in which Balanchine’s pared-down conception of ballet became a brave-new-world breakthrough. Nothing here is more crucial than the basic transfer of weight. Starting with the weight on both legs, the dancer extends one leg into the air, then starts to transfer the body weight with the advancing foot well before it has reached the ground. (Here Balanchine caught something both jazzy and American, while offending the European sense of propriety.) The sense is of stepping out over a brink. Tuesday’s performance was on the demure side: often meticulous, almost always lucid, occasionally bold, but seldom powerful.
When people who have come to Balanchine choreography in the last 20 years ask me what makes me miss New York City Ballet in his lifetime (though I caught only the tail end of that golden age), I find myself saying that the company’s dancing in those days blazed with a kind of energy that was positively disturbing: it shook you by the shoulders as if to say, "This matters." "The Four Temperaments" is one of many Balanchine ballets so extraordinary in their architecture and its conception that many new dance-goers must surely feel that they still matter now; I can only say it mattered more.
The same goes for two of Tuesday’s other ballets, "Agon" (1957) and "Symphony in C" (1947). Against the blue backdrop of "Symphony in C," the curtain rises on the small corps of young women in their white tutus, all primed for ballet action, and the audience at once purrs in eager anticipation. As the ballet proceeds, there are moments that thrill at every performance: the way the horn call in the first movement brings on the ballet’s first man, the way the oboe in the second movement brings on the second ballerina, the astonishing views of the ballet’s massed forces in the finale, to name but a few. With "Agon," the thrills are largely to do with the new extreme of modernist ballet style achieved by Balanchine in terms of physical lines, musical rhythms, jazzy/urban body language, all shot through with a constant sense of ballet’s centuries-old classical tradition.
These things don’t vary, and yet both ballets vary intensely according to how they are being danced. There will be much more to say of individual dancers as this season proceeds, but it is right to acknowledge the authority of two cular ballerinas: Wendy Whelan, and Maria Kowroski in the second movement of "Symphony in C." Nobody can miss the severe, intelligent, proud distinction Ms. Whelan brings to the "Agon" pas de deux; however, I find the texture of her dancing too acidic to be agreeable. Ms. Kowroski doesn’t quite shape the great Bizet adagio into one coherent thought, but despite tentative moments, she lights up the role with a mixture of grandeur, fragrance and a fitfully romantic absorption. She was at her best in the famous alternation between backward falls and forward plunges into her partner’s arms, and in the off-balance luxuriance of her solo.
Unlike those three ballets, "Pavane" isn’t one of Balanchine’s great architectures. Here he conjures magic out of just a few sketchlike strokes. Dim lighting (too dim on Tuesday?); a single ballerina in a white dress; a square of soft white fabric that becomes, by turns, a shroud, a veil, an arc in the air, a prayer shawl, a heroic drape; and Ravel’s "Pavane pour une Infante Défunte." With Kyra Nichols, however, this was the evening’s moment of truest poetry. This whole season is colored by melancholy, since this enthralling artist — surely the most bewilderingly diverse chameleon of all the Balanchine ballerinas — has announced her retirement at its end. How is it that, in "Pavane," her remanipulation of that fabric becomes a major act of theatrical imagination? In one phrase, as she slowly advanced, placing her points with delicate decisiveness, I felt again that old reaction to the Balanchine experience: "This matters." And while she dances, nothing else matters in the world.
New York City Ballet’s spring season continues through June 24 at the New York State Theater, Lincoln Center; (212) 870-5570.
Big girls Don't cry- Fergie
La la la la
The smell of your skin lingers on me nowYou're probably on your flight back to your hometownI need some shelter of my own protection babyBe with myself in center, clarityPeace, SerenityI hope you know, I hope you knowThat this has nothing to do with youIt's personal, myself and IWe got some straightening out to doAnd I´m gonna miss you like a child misses their blanketBut I've gotta to get a move on with my lifeIt's time to be a big girl nowAnd big girls don't cryDon't cry,Don't cry,Don't cryThe path that I'm walking, I must go aloneI must take the baby steps til I'm full grown,full grownFairy tales don't always have a happy ending do theyAnd I foresee the dark ahead if I stayI hope you know, I hope you knowThat this has nothing to do with youIt's personal, myself and IWe got some straightening out to doAnd I´m gonna miss you like a child misses their blanketBut I've gotta to get a move on with my lifeIt's time to be a big girl nowAnd big girls don't cryLike a little school mate in the school yardWe'll play jacks and uno cardsI'll be your best friend and you'll be mineValentineYes you can hold my hand if you want to'cause I wanna hold yours tooWe'll be playmates and lovers and share our secret worldsBut it's time for me to go homeIt's getting late, dark outsideI need to be with myself in center, clarityPeace, SerenityI hope you know, I hope you knowThat this has nothing to do with youIt's personal, myself and IWe got some straightening out to doAnd I´m gonna miss you like a child misses their blanketBut I've gotta to get a move on with my lifeIt's time to be a big girl nowAnd big girls don't cryDon't cry,Don't cry,Don't cryLa Da Da Da Da Da
Bjooo pa td mundoo...
by... Brunno, Gre, Luan, Pah e Tinho!*
Putz... roubamoo a cena di novo...hauahuahauha=p
NANOTECHNOLOGY
What is Nanotechnology?
The term "nanotechnology" has evolved over the years via terminology drift to mean "anything smaller than microtechnology," such as nano powders, and other things that are nanoscale in size, but not referring to mechanisms that have been purposefully built from nanoscale components. See our "Current Uses" page for examples. This evolved version of the term is more properly labeled "nanoscale bulk technology," while the original meaning is now more properly labeled "molecular nanotechnology" (MNT), or "nanoscale engineering," or "molecular mechanics," or "molecular machine systems," or "molecular manufacturing." Recently, the Foresight Institute has suggested an alternate term to represent the original meaning of nanotechnology: zettatechnology. At the most basic technical level, MNT is building, with intent and design, and molecule by molecule, these two things: 1) incredibly advanced and extremely capable nano-scale and micro-scale machines and computers, and 2) ordinary size objects, using other incredibly small machines called assemblers or fabricators (found inside nanofactories). In a nutshell, by taking advantage of quantum-level properties, MNT allows for unprecedented control of the material world, at the nanoscale, providing the means by which systems and materials can be built with exacting specifications and characteristics. Or, as Dr. K. Eric Drexler puts it "large-scale mechanosynthesis based on positional control of chemically reactive molecules." MNT represents the state of the art in advances in biology, chemistry, physics, engineering, computer science and mathematics. The major research objectives in MNT are the design, modeling, and fabrication of molecular machines and molecular devices. The emergence of MNT - both infant and mature - has numerous social, legal, cultural, ethical, religious, philosophical and political implications. At the most basic social level, MNT is going to be responsible for massive changes in the way we live, the way we interact with one another and our environment, and the things we are capable of doing. For more information, read What is Nanotechnology? by the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, this explanation from CORDIS for a "child's eye view" of nanotechnology, and What is Nanotechnology? by Tim Harper. See also Introduction to Nanoscience by Prof. Vicki Colvin, Rice University Department of Chemistry and Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology. See also What is Nanotechnology? from LANL, and Dr. Mihail Roco's presentation titled National Nanotechnology Initiative Overview from the 3rd Integrated Nanosystems Conference in Pasadena, California, held on September 22nd, 2004. (PDF) For more information on the potential (both good and bad), see War, Interdependence, and Nanotechnology For more information on a recent study devoted to the beneficial potential of nanotechnology Nanotechnology in Construction - one of the top ten answers to world's biggest problems At the end of the day, it is not the meaning behind the terms that is important, it is the fact that all the many definitions suggest that we have been and are on a rapidly accelerating technological rollercoaster, and rapid change is the track it rides. Once MNT develops to the stage where we've built the two most essential machines - called the Universal Assembler and the Nanocomputer - everything has a near-term possibility of significant change.
fonte:www.nanotec-now.com
West Ham handed record £5.5m fine
The double Argentinian deal has proved costly for West HamWest Ham have been fined £5.5m after being found guilty over the transfers of Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano.
But the Hammers have avoided a points deduction which could have ended their hopes of staying in the Premeirship.
The club was found guilty of acting improperly and withholding vital documentation over the duo's ownership.
Among the reasons for the decision not to deduct points was because of a guilty plea and the club is under new management and ownership.
The hearing report also said that the Premier League could terminate Tevez's registration, and if West Ham want to play him they will have to re-sign him.
Tevez and Mascherano were part-owned by Media Sports Investment, the company formerly run by Iranian-born businessman Kia Joorabchian.
606: DEBATE
I'm glad there's been no points deduction but the fine seems huge to me
EZ
The transfers were negotiated by former chairman Terence Brown and managing director Paul Aldridge, both of whom have left since the takeover by current chairman Eggert Magnusson.
Magnusson has already indicated he would never have agreed to the terms of the deal negotiated by Brown and Aldridge and the new regime will consider legal action if the judgement goes against West Ham.
Representatives from the club, including Magnusson, and from the Premier League attended the two-day hearing in London.
West Ham are three points from safety heading into a vital game with fellow strugglers Wigan at the JJB Stadium on Saturday.
Latics' chairman Dave Whelan led calls for West Ham to be investigated, and manager Alan Curbishley: "Wigan have voiced their opinion, and if the boot was on the other foot I'm sure we would have done the same."
The club will reflect on the financial penalty that has been imposed and will take advice before commenting on the possibility of an appeal
West Ham statement
The fine is the biggest in English football, dwarfing the old record of £1.5m imposed on Tottenham in 1994 for financial irregularities.
A West Ham statement read: "West Ham received a fair hearing. The club's submission that the contracts gave no actual influence to any third party was accepted by the commission.
"The club regrets the fact that they fell foul of the FA Premier League regulations, but the new owners of the club now want to focus on matters on the pitch and remaining in the Premier League. The threat of a points deduction has now been removed and the club's fate remains in its own hands.
"The club believes that promotion and relegation issues should be decided on the pitch and we are pleased that the commission agree with that view.
"The club will reflect on the financial penalty that has been imposed and will take advice before commenting on the possibility of an appeal or any further steps that might be taken."
PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor believes West Ham escaped a points deduction because of their predicament at the bottom of the Premiership.
"If West Ham were in a comfortable mid-table position I think there would have been points deducted as a deterrent for the future.
"But I think with a relegation battle blowing up it's fair justice and something West Ham will be relieved about - particularly if they stay up.
"Fans of other clubs may not be happy with the verdict but if you need to stay in a division because another club has been deducted points it's not the sporting ethos you would want."
The double Argentinian deal has proved costly for West HamWest Ham have been fined £5.5m after being found guilty over the transfers of Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano.
But the Hammers have avoided a points deduction which could have ended their hopes of staying in the Premeirship.
The club was found guilty of acting improperly and withholding vital documentation over the duo's ownership.
Among the reasons for the decision not to deduct points was because of a guilty plea and the club is under new management and ownership.
The hearing report also said that the Premier League could terminate Tevez's registration, and if West Ham want to play him they will have to re-sign him.
Tevez and Mascherano were part-owned by Media Sports Investment, the company formerly run by Iranian-born businessman Kia Joorabchian.
606: DEBATE
I'm glad there's been no points deduction but the fine seems huge to me
EZ
The transfers were negotiated by former chairman Terence Brown and managing director Paul Aldridge, both of whom have left since the takeover by current chairman Eggert Magnusson.
Magnusson has already indicated he would never have agreed to the terms of the deal negotiated by Brown and Aldridge and the new regime will consider legal action if the judgement goes against West Ham.
Representatives from the club, including Magnusson, and from the Premier League attended the two-day hearing in London.
West Ham are three points from safety heading into a vital game with fellow strugglers Wigan at the JJB Stadium on Saturday.
Latics' chairman Dave Whelan led calls for West Ham to be investigated, and manager Alan Curbishley: "Wigan have voiced their opinion, and if the boot was on the other foot I'm sure we would have done the same."
The club will reflect on the financial penalty that has been imposed and will take advice before commenting on the possibility of an appeal
West Ham statement
The fine is the biggest in English football, dwarfing the old record of £1.5m imposed on Tottenham in 1994 for financial irregularities.
A West Ham statement read: "West Ham received a fair hearing. The club's submission that the contracts gave no actual influence to any third party was accepted by the commission.
"The club regrets the fact that they fell foul of the FA Premier League regulations, but the new owners of the club now want to focus on matters on the pitch and remaining in the Premier League. The threat of a points deduction has now been removed and the club's fate remains in its own hands.
"The club believes that promotion and relegation issues should be decided on the pitch and we are pleased that the commission agree with that view.
"The club will reflect on the financial penalty that has been imposed and will take advice before commenting on the possibility of an appeal or any further steps that might be taken."
PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor believes West Ham escaped a points deduction because of their predicament at the bottom of the Premiership.
"If West Ham were in a comfortable mid-table position I think there would have been points deducted as a deterrent for the future.
"But I think with a relegation battle blowing up it's fair justice and something West Ham will be relieved about - particularly if they stay up.
"Fans of other clubs may not be happy with the verdict but if you need to stay in a division because another club has been deducted points it's not the sporting ethos you would want."
Potentially Habitable Planet Found
WASHINGTON (AP) -- For the first time astronomers have discovered a planet outside our solar system that is potentially habitable, with Earth-like temperatures, a find researchers described Tuesday as a big step in the search for ''life in the universe.''
The planet is just the right size, might have water in liquid form, and in galactic terms is relatively nearby at 120 trillion miles away. But the star it closely orbits, known as a ''red dwarf,'' is much smaller, dimmer and cooler than our sun.
There's still a lot that is unknown about the new planet, which could be deemed inhospitable to life once more is known about it. And it's worth noting that scientists' requirements for habitability count Mars in that category: a size relatively similar to Earth's with temperatures that would permit liquid water. However, this is the first outside our solar system that meets those standards.
''It's a significant step on the way to finding possible life in the universe,'' said University of Geneva astronomer Michel Mayor, one of 11 European scientists on the team that found the planet. ''It's a nice discovery. We still have a lot of questions.''
The results of the discovery have not been published but have been submitted to the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
Alan Boss, who works at the Carnegie Institution of Washington where a U.S. team of astronomers competed in the hunt for an Earth-like planet, called it ''a major milestone in this business.''
The planet was discovered by the European Southern Observatory's telescope in La Silla, Chile, which has a special instrument that splits light to find wobbles in different wave lengths. Those wobbles can reveal the existence of other worlds.
What they revealed is a planet circling the red dwarf star, Gliese 581. Red dwarfs are low-energy, tiny stars that give off dim red light and last longer than stars like our sun. Until a few years ago, astronomers didn't consider these stars as possible hosts of planets that might sustain life.
The discovery of the new planet, named 581 c, is sure to fuel studies of planets circling similar dim stars. About 80 percent of the stars near Earth are red dwarfs.
The new planet is about five times heavier than Earth. Its discoverers aren't certain if it is rocky like Earth or if its a frozen ice ball with liquid water on the surface. If it is rocky like Earth, which is what the prevailing theory proposes, it has a diameter about 1 1/2 times bigger than our planet. If it is an iceball, as Mayor suggests, it would be even bigger.
Based on theory, 581 c should have an atmosphere, but what's in that atmosphere is still a mystery and if it's too thick that could make the planet's surface temperature too hot, Mayor said.
However, the research team believes the average temperature to be somewhere between 32 and 104 degrees and that set off celebrations among astronomers.
Until now, all 220 planets astronomers have found outside our solar system have had the ''Goldilocks problem.'' They've been too hot, too cold or just plain too big and gaseous, like uninhabitable Jupiter.
The new planet seems just right -- or at least that's what scientists think.
''This could be very important,'' said NASA astrobiology expert Chris McKay, who was not part of the discovery team. ''It doesn't mean there is life, but it means it's an Earth-like planet in terms of potential habitability.''
Eventually astronomers will rack up discoveries of dozens, maybe even hundreds of planets considered habitable, the astronomers said. But this one -- simply called ''c'' by its discoverers when they talk among themselves -- will go down in cosmic history as No. 1.
Besides having the right temperature, the new planet is probably full of liquid water, hypothesizes Stephane Udry, the discovery team's lead author and another Geneva astronomer. But that is based on theory about how planets form, not on any evidence, he said.
''Liquid water is critical to life as we know it,'' co-author Xavier Delfosse of Grenoble University in France, said in a statement. ''Because of its temperature and relative proximity, this planet will most probably be a very important target of the future space missions dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial life. On the treasure map of the Universe, one would be tempted to mark this planet with an X.''
Other astronomers cautioned it's too early to tell whether there is water.
''You need more work to say it's got water or it doesn't have water,'' said retired NASA astronomer Steve Maran, press officer for the American Astronomical Society. ''You wouldn't send a crew there assuming that when you get there, they'll have enough water to get back.''
The new planet's star system is a mere 20.5 light years away, making Gliese 581 one of the 100 closest stars to Earth. It's so dim, you can't see it without a telescope, but it's somewhere in the constellation Libra, which is low in the southeastern sky during the midevening in the Northern Hemisphere.
''I expect there will be planets like Earth, but whether they have life is another question,'' said renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking in an interview with The Associated Press in Orlando. ''We haven't been visited by little green men yet.''
Before you book your extrastellar flight to 581 c, a few caveats about how alien that world probably is: Anyone sitting on the planet would get heavier quickly, and birthdays would add up fast since it orbits its star every 13 days.
Gravity is 1.6 times as strong as Earth's so a 150-pound person would feel like 240 pounds.
But oh, the view. The planet is 14 times closer to the star it orbits. Udry figures the red dwarf star would hang in the sky at a size 20 times larger than our moon. And it's likely, but still not known, that the planet doesn't rotate, so one side would always be sunlit and the other dark.
Distance is another problem. ''We don't know how to get to those places in a human lifetime,'' Maran said.
Two teams of astronomers, one in Europe and one in the United States, have been racing to be the first to find a planet like 581 c outside the solar system.
The European team looked at 100 different stars using a tool called HARPS (High Accuracy Radial Velocity for Planetary Searcher) to find this one planet, said Xavier Bonfils of the Lisbon Observatory, one of the co-discoverers.
Much of the effort to find Earth-like planets has focused on stars like our sun with the challenge being to find a planet the right distance from the star it orbits. About 90 percent of the time, the European telescope focused its search more on sun-like stars, Udry said.
A few weeks before the European discovery earlier this month, a scientific paper in the journal Astrobiology theorized a few days that red dwarf stars were good candidates.
''Now we have the possibility to find many more,'' Bonfils said.http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Habitable-Planet.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all
WASHINGTON (AP) -- For the first time astronomers have discovered a planet outside our solar system that is potentially habitable, with Earth-like temperatures, a find researchers described Tuesday as a big step in the search for ''life in the universe.''
The planet is just the right size, might have water in liquid form, and in galactic terms is relatively nearby at 120 trillion miles away. But the star it closely orbits, known as a ''red dwarf,'' is much smaller, dimmer and cooler than our sun.
There's still a lot that is unknown about the new planet, which could be deemed inhospitable to life once more is known about it. And it's worth noting that scientists' requirements for habitability count Mars in that category: a size relatively similar to Earth's with temperatures that would permit liquid water. However, this is the first outside our solar system that meets those standards.
''It's a significant step on the way to finding possible life in the universe,'' said University of Geneva astronomer Michel Mayor, one of 11 European scientists on the team that found the planet. ''It's a nice discovery. We still have a lot of questions.''
The results of the discovery have not been published but have been submitted to the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
Alan Boss, who works at the Carnegie Institution of Washington where a U.S. team of astronomers competed in the hunt for an Earth-like planet, called it ''a major milestone in this business.''
The planet was discovered by the European Southern Observatory's telescope in La Silla, Chile, which has a special instrument that splits light to find wobbles in different wave lengths. Those wobbles can reveal the existence of other worlds.
What they revealed is a planet circling the red dwarf star, Gliese 581. Red dwarfs are low-energy, tiny stars that give off dim red light and last longer than stars like our sun. Until a few years ago, astronomers didn't consider these stars as possible hosts of planets that might sustain life.
The discovery of the new planet, named 581 c, is sure to fuel studies of planets circling similar dim stars. About 80 percent of the stars near Earth are red dwarfs.
The new planet is about five times heavier than Earth. Its discoverers aren't certain if it is rocky like Earth or if its a frozen ice ball with liquid water on the surface. If it is rocky like Earth, which is what the prevailing theory proposes, it has a diameter about 1 1/2 times bigger than our planet. If it is an iceball, as Mayor suggests, it would be even bigger.
Based on theory, 581 c should have an atmosphere, but what's in that atmosphere is still a mystery and if it's too thick that could make the planet's surface temperature too hot, Mayor said.
However, the research team believes the average temperature to be somewhere between 32 and 104 degrees and that set off celebrations among astronomers.
Until now, all 220 planets astronomers have found outside our solar system have had the ''Goldilocks problem.'' They've been too hot, too cold or just plain too big and gaseous, like uninhabitable Jupiter.
The new planet seems just right -- or at least that's what scientists think.
''This could be very important,'' said NASA astrobiology expert Chris McKay, who was not part of the discovery team. ''It doesn't mean there is life, but it means it's an Earth-like planet in terms of potential habitability.''
Eventually astronomers will rack up discoveries of dozens, maybe even hundreds of planets considered habitable, the astronomers said. But this one -- simply called ''c'' by its discoverers when they talk among themselves -- will go down in cosmic history as No. 1.
Besides having the right temperature, the new planet is probably full of liquid water, hypothesizes Stephane Udry, the discovery team's lead author and another Geneva astronomer. But that is based on theory about how planets form, not on any evidence, he said.
''Liquid water is critical to life as we know it,'' co-author Xavier Delfosse of Grenoble University in France, said in a statement. ''Because of its temperature and relative proximity, this planet will most probably be a very important target of the future space missions dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial life. On the treasure map of the Universe, one would be tempted to mark this planet with an X.''
Other astronomers cautioned it's too early to tell whether there is water.
''You need more work to say it's got water or it doesn't have water,'' said retired NASA astronomer Steve Maran, press officer for the American Astronomical Society. ''You wouldn't send a crew there assuming that when you get there, they'll have enough water to get back.''
The new planet's star system is a mere 20.5 light years away, making Gliese 581 one of the 100 closest stars to Earth. It's so dim, you can't see it without a telescope, but it's somewhere in the constellation Libra, which is low in the southeastern sky during the midevening in the Northern Hemisphere.
''I expect there will be planets like Earth, but whether they have life is another question,'' said renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking in an interview with The Associated Press in Orlando. ''We haven't been visited by little green men yet.''
Before you book your extrastellar flight to 581 c, a few caveats about how alien that world probably is: Anyone sitting on the planet would get heavier quickly, and birthdays would add up fast since it orbits its star every 13 days.
Gravity is 1.6 times as strong as Earth's so a 150-pound person would feel like 240 pounds.
But oh, the view. The planet is 14 times closer to the star it orbits. Udry figures the red dwarf star would hang in the sky at a size 20 times larger than our moon. And it's likely, but still not known, that the planet doesn't rotate, so one side would always be sunlit and the other dark.
Distance is another problem. ''We don't know how to get to those places in a human lifetime,'' Maran said.
Two teams of astronomers, one in Europe and one in the United States, have been racing to be the first to find a planet like 581 c outside the solar system.
The European team looked at 100 different stars using a tool called HARPS (High Accuracy Radial Velocity for Planetary Searcher) to find this one planet, said Xavier Bonfils of the Lisbon Observatory, one of the co-discoverers.
Much of the effort to find Earth-like planets has focused on stars like our sun with the challenge being to find a planet the right distance from the star it orbits. About 90 percent of the time, the European telescope focused its search more on sun-like stars, Udry said.
A few weeks before the European discovery earlier this month, a scientific paper in the journal Astrobiology theorized a few days that red dwarf stars were good candidates.
''Now we have the possibility to find many more,'' Bonfils said.http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Habitable-Planet.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all
News Tecnology for Home Video
Blu-ray
The name Blu-ray Disc is derived from the blue-violet laser used to read and write this type of disc. Because of its shorter wavelength (405 nm), substantially more data can be stored on a Blu-ray Disc than on the DVD format, which uses a red, 650 nm laser. A Blu-ray Disc can store 25 GB on each layer, as opposed to a DVD's 4.7 GB.
Blu-ray Disc is similar to PDD, another optical disc format developed by Sony (which has been available since 2004) but offering higher data transfer speeds. PDD was not intended for home video use and was aimed at business data archiving and backup.
Blu-ray Disc is currently in a "format war" with rival format HD DVD.
Hd Dvd
The HD DVD disc is designed to be the successor to the standard DVD format. It can store about three times as much data as its predecessor (15 GB per layer instead of 4.7 GB). The HD DVD standard was jointly developed by Toshiba and NEC. On 19 November 2003, the DVD Forum voted to support HD DVD as the high definition successor of the standard DVD. At this meeting, they also renamed it HD DVD. The format had previously been called the "Advanced Optical Disc" (AOD).
At CES 2006, Microsoft announced that there would be an external add-on HD DVD drive for the Xbox 360 game console; this was released in November 2006. Also at CES 2006, companies backing HD DVD said that nearly 200 titles would be available for the format by the end of the year.
On 31 March 2006, Toshiba released their first HD DVD player in Japan at ¥110,000 ($934). HD DVD was released in United States on 18 April 2006, with players priced at $499 and $799.
The current specification version for HD DVD-ROM and HD DVD-Rewritable is version 1.0. The specification for HD DVD-R is currently at 0.9, the HD DVD-RAM is not yet fully finalized. The first HD DVD-ROM drives were expected to be unveiled by Q4 2006, with mass production to start in Q1 2007. The actual product launch of both CE and PC units occurred in late 2006.
HD DVD is currently in a format war with rival format Blu-ray Disc.
HD DVD stands for "High Definition Digital Versatile Disc".
fonte: www.wikipedia.com
Canadian Vote Defeats Proposal for Leaving Afghanistan
The New York Times.
By CHRISTOPHER MASON
Published: April 25, 2007
TORONTO, April 24 — Canada’s Parliament on Tuesday narrowly defeated a proposal by opposition lawmakers that the Conservative government withdraw Canadian troops from Afghanistan at the end of its current commitment in February 2009.
The 150-to-134 vote rejecting the nonbinding motion lacked the unanimous support from opposition parties needed to outnumber Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s minority government.
But it further illustrates the growing demand in Canada for a debate over the country’s role in the United States-led mission in Afghanistan and for talk of an exit strategy in the face of rising casualty figures and increased military spending.
Mr. Harper has thus far rejected those demands, saying he does not want to put a fixed date on the end of Canada’s role in the mission.
The deaths two weeks ago of eight Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan marked the deadliest week for the country’s military since the Korean War and renewed calls for Canada to inform NATO that it is time to begin negotiating for another member to assume responsibilities in the volatile southern Kandahar Province.
Canada’s 2,500 soldiers in Afghanistan have suffered heavier casualties since they took control of the southern region a year ago.
Also, Mr. Harper’s recent announcement of the purchase of 120 tanks fueled discussions of the balance between military spending and foreign aid.
"There is this squeamishness in the Canadian soul," said the Carleton University historian Norman Hillmer. "We’re not a particularly military people, and yet over the last while we have put defense issues at the center, spent a lot of money on defense and elected a prime minister who talks tough on military issues."
Tensions surrounding the vote on Tuesday were heightened by allegations surfacing this week in The Globe and Mail that Afghans detained by Canadian troops were mistreated after being transferred to Afghan custody. The newspaper reported that interviews with Afghans revealed instances of abuse, like being whipped with electrical cables.
All three opposition parties reacted to the reports by demanding an investigation into how Canada monitors the conditions of detainees transferred to the Afghan police. Currently, the government relies on the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission for monitoring.
But the commission’s chief investigator in Kandahar expressed doubt that the organization had the resources or access to adequately monitor detainees. "We have an agreement with the Canadians, but we can’t monitor these people," the investigator, Amir Mohammed Ansari, told The Globe and Mail.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/25/world/americas/25canada.html
By CHRISTOPHER MASON
Published: April 25, 2007
TORONTO, April 24 — Canada’s Parliament on Tuesday narrowly defeated a proposal by opposition lawmakers that the Conservative government withdraw Canadian troops from Afghanistan at the end of its current commitment in February 2009.
The 150-to-134 vote rejecting the nonbinding motion lacked the unanimous support from opposition parties needed to outnumber Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s minority government.
But it further illustrates the growing demand in Canada for a debate over the country’s role in the United States-led mission in Afghanistan and for talk of an exit strategy in the face of rising casualty figures and increased military spending.
Mr. Harper has thus far rejected those demands, saying he does not want to put a fixed date on the end of Canada’s role in the mission.
The deaths two weeks ago of eight Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan marked the deadliest week for the country’s military since the Korean War and renewed calls for Canada to inform NATO that it is time to begin negotiating for another member to assume responsibilities in the volatile southern Kandahar Province.
Canada’s 2,500 soldiers in Afghanistan have suffered heavier casualties since they took control of the southern region a year ago.
Also, Mr. Harper’s recent announcement of the purchase of 120 tanks fueled discussions of the balance between military spending and foreign aid.
"There is this squeamishness in the Canadian soul," said the Carleton University historian Norman Hillmer. "We’re not a particularly military people, and yet over the last while we have put defense issues at the center, spent a lot of money on defense and elected a prime minister who talks tough on military issues."
Tensions surrounding the vote on Tuesday were heightened by allegations surfacing this week in The Globe and Mail that Afghans detained by Canadian troops were mistreated after being transferred to Afghan custody. The newspaper reported that interviews with Afghans revealed instances of abuse, like being whipped with electrical cables.
All three opposition parties reacted to the reports by demanding an investigation into how Canada monitors the conditions of detainees transferred to the Afghan police. Currently, the government relies on the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission for monitoring.
But the commission’s chief investigator in Kandahar expressed doubt that the organization had the resources or access to adequately monitor detainees. "We have an agreement with the Canadians, but we can’t monitor these people," the investigator, Amir Mohammed Ansari, told The Globe and Mail.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/25/world/americas/25canada.html
quinta-feira, 26 de abril de 2007
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