Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Scientists Narrow Down Dark Matter's Mass (SPACE.com)

Physicists have set the most precise limit yet on the mass of dark matter, the mysterious and elusive stuff that is thought to make up 98 percent of all matter in the universe and nearly a quarter of its total mass.

The researchers used data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope to set parameters on the mass of dark matter particles by calculating the rate at which they appear to collide with their antimatter partners and annihilate each other in galaxies that orbit our own Milky Way.

Savvas Koushiappas, an assistant professor in the department of physics at Brown University, and graduate student Alex Geringer-Sameth found that dark matter particles must have a mass greater than 40 giga-electron volts (GeV) ? approximately 42 times the mass of a proton.

"What we find is if a particle's mass is less than 40 GeV, then it cannot be the dark matter particle," Koushiappas said in a statement.

The details of the study will be published in the Dec. 1 issue of the journal Physical Review Letters.

Casting doubt on previous findings

The results throw into question recent findings from underground experiments that reported the potential detection of dark matter, the researchers said.

These experiments claimed to have found dark matter particles with masses ranging from 7 to 12 GeV, which is significantly less than the limit determined by the new study. [Twisted Physics: 7 Mind-Blowing Findings]

Dark matter is invisible, and scientists have long tried in vain to directly detect the mysterious particles. But since dark matter has mass, its presence is inferred based on the gravitational pull it exerts on regular matter.

But it's more complicated than that. In the 1920s, astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe is not static, but is expanding. More than 70 years later, observations from the Hubble Space Telescope, which was named for the astronomer, found that the universe was expanding at a much more rapid pace than it was earlier.

Cosmologists think a mysterious force called dark energy is behind this puzzling acceleration. Dark energy, like dark matter, has not been directly detected, but it is thought to be the force pulling the cosmos apart at ever-increasing speeds.

"If, for the sake of argument, a dark matter particle's mass is less than 40 GeV, it means the amount of dark matter in the universe today would be so much that the universe would not be expanding at the accelerated rate we observe," Koushiappas said.

Our complicated universe

Dark energy is thought to make up 73 percent of the total mass and energy in the universe. Dark matter accounts for 23 percent, which leaves only 4 percent of the universe composed of the regular matter that can be seen, such as stars, planets, galaxies and people.

But because neither dark matter nor dark energy has been directly detected, they remain unproven concepts.

In at least one respect, dark matter is thought to behave like normal matter: When a dark matter particle meets its matching antimatter partner, they should destroy each other. Antimatter is a sibling to normal matter; an antimatter partner particle is thought to exist for each matter particle, with the same mass but opposite charge.

Scientists suspect that dark matter is made of particles called WIMPs ("weakly interacting massive particles"). When a WIMP and its anti-particle collide, they should annihilate one another.

To examine the mass of dark matter, Koushiappas and Geringer-Sameth essentially reversed the process of annihilation. The researchers observed seven dwarf galaxies that are thought to be full of dark matter because the motion of the stars within them cannot be fully explained by their mass alone.

Since these dwarf galaxies also contain much less hydrogen gas and other regular matter, they help paint a clearer picture of dark matter and its effects, Koushiappas said.

The physicists worked backward using data from the last three years that was collected by the Fermi telescope, which observes the universe in high-energy gamma-ray light. By measuring the number of light particles, called photons, in the galaxies, the scientists calculated backward to deduce how often particles called quarks are produced, which are products of the WIMP-anti-WIMP annihilation reaction.

This enabled the physicists to establish limits on the mass of dark matter particles and the rate at which they annihilate.

"This is a very exciting time in the dark matter search, because many experimental tools are finally catching up to long-standing theories about what dark matter actually is," Geringer-Sameth said in a statement. "We are starting to really put these theories to the test."

Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/space/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/space/20111130/sc_space/scientistsnarrowdowndarkmattersmass

walmart black friday walmart black friday raiders chargers san diego chargers san diego chargers vincent jackson

90% The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975

All Critics (42) | Top Critics (11) | Fresh (38) | Rotten (4)

Broken into nine chapters -- one for each year -- the documentary isn't a rigorous work but a felt piece of vital, if flawed, art.

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 is not your standard documentary dealing with racism in America.

A film that suffers from a surfeit of credulity.

You watch the material here and wonder whether most of the movies made about black people are meant to pacify general audiences, to distract them from demanding more of the movies.

It is mostly impressionistic - but, wow, some of those impressions really pack a punch.

This chronicle of pride and social upheaval is filled with vintage images and important voices.

...we see our parents and ourselves refracted through a cool if subjective lens, and it's easy to wonder exactly how we made it.

What is most impressive about the film is that it manages to put human faces -- not just caricatures -- on the key figures of the movement.

It's thrilling to hear from unrepentant revolutionaries such as Angela Davis and amusing to hear from their bell-bottomed white lawyers.

It may not add up to a narrative, but it's a fascinating compilation -- a mixtape you may want to hear more than once.

"Mixtape" is about a foreign country. And the foreign country is ours.

Impressively made documentary that paints a fascinating portrait of an important period in American history, not least because the perspective stands in stark contrast to the American media's coverage of the same events at the time.

This fascinating documentary brings together material shot by Swedish documentarists and TV journalists dealing with the African American civil rights movement...

The timing of this release is more than perfect. And the story behind the film is nearly as interesting as the stories it tells.

It is not a comprehensive history but the footage is an extraordinarily potent reminder that the stand taken by black people eventually bore fruit.

Interesting stuff, though it sometimes looks like a block of unedited raw material.

Blazing interviews with Angela Davis and Stokely Carmichael supply stinging and unforgettable rhetoric: it simply can't fail with footage this wild.

Like the era it represents, there are highs and lows.

Like most mix-tapes, offers crackling content even when its contexts aren't clear.

The film is testament to the power of archival legwork in documentary-filmmaking.

While it assumes a fair bit of knowledge of the social changes exploding in sixties America, there's a wealth of fascinating material and punchy insights into an earth shaking movement.

It's a dizzying mess of perspectives and lacks a firm head on its shoulders, but history buffs will find this assembly of footage - largely unseen outside of Sweden - to be riveting and important.

From the fly-on-the-wall, cin?ma-v?rit? style of the '60s to a more aggressive, advocacy approach in the mid-'70s, "Mixtape" is a wide slice of nonfiction film history.

These are the men and women Richard Nixon, J. Edgar Hoover, and the networks didn't want us to know about.

More Critic Reviews

No quotes approved yet for The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975. Logged in users can submit quotes.

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_black_power_mix_tape_1967_1975/

storage wars storage wars millionaire matchmaker millionaire matchmaker shawshank redemption 3 10 to yuma lsu football

Monday, November 28, 2011

German police clear huge sit-in at nuke protest (AP)

BERLIN ? German police cleared a sit-in of thousands of protesters attempting to block a shipment of nuclear waste and detained 1,300 people Sunday, officials said.

Hundreds of officers started evicting protesters from the rail lines near Dannenberg in the north of the country early Sunday, police spokesman Stefan Kuehm-Stoltz said. Those who refused to leave were detained and are being brought before judges. It was not clear how many were still being held.

Police put the number of protesters at 3,500 while protest organizers said 5,000 people had occupied the tracks that will be used to transport a nuclear waste shipment reprocessed in France and now on its way to a storage site near the northern town of Gorleben.

Activists say the waste containers, and the temporary storage facility near Gorleben, are not safe.

Police also clashed with two groups of protesters that hurled stones and fireworks at officers. Several officers were injured and at least 10 people detained, Kuehm-Stoltz said.

Activists said some 150 people were injured as police dispersed some protests with tear gas and batons over the weekend, the German news agency dapd reported.

The train carrying the shipment of 11 containers of nuclear waste reprocessed at France's La Hague facility entered western Germany on Friday after delays in France, where activists damaged railway tracks in an attempt to halt the cargo.

The shipment paused overnight south of Hamburg and is expected to reach its destination with considerable delay later Sunday or Monday. Some 20,000 German police officers are on hand to secure the cargo.

A group of four activists used a pyramid-shaped concrete structure to attach themselves to the tracks near Dannenberg, requiring a diligent dismantling operation that "certainly will take several hours," Kuehm-Stoltz said.

Some 500 people gathered around the activists on the tracks, and a sit-in of several hundred protesters also popped up near the Gorleben facility. Police estimated 400 people took part, while activists said about 1,000 had gathered there.

Nuclear energy has been unpopular in Germany since fallout from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine drifted over the country. The annual shipment from France has been a traditional focal point for protesters.

This is the first shipment, however, since Chancellor Angela Merkel decided to speed up shutting down all of Germany's nuclear plants, with the last one scheduled to go offline by 2022, following safety questions raised after the disaster at the Fukushima plant in Japan.

But Germany ? as most other nations using atomic power ? has not yet decided where nuclear waste, which remains radioactive for thousands of years, should be stored permanently.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111127/ap_on_re_eu/eu_germany_nuclear_waste

osu football osu football christopher walken ok state ok state kurt budke regis philbin

Mexican group asks ICC to probe president, officials (Reuters)

THE HAGUE/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) ? Mexican human rights activists want the International Criminal Court to investigate President Felipe Calderon, top officials and the country's most-wanted drug trafficker, accusing them of allowing subordinates to kill, torture and kidnap civilians.

Netzai Sandoval, a Mexican human rights lawyer, filed a complaint with the ICC in The Hague on Friday, requesting an investigation of the deaths of hundreds of civilians at the hands of the military and traffickers.

More than 45,000 people have died in drug-related violence in Mexico since 2006 as powerful cartels fight security forces and each other for control of smuggling routes into the neighboring United States and other countries.

"The violence in Mexico is bigger than the violence in Afghanistan, the violence in Mexico is bigger than in Colombia," Sandoval said.

"We want the prosecutor to tell us if war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed in Mexico, and if the president and other top officials are responsible."

Signed by 23,000 Mexican citizens, the complaint names the Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, who has a $5 million bounty on his head, as well as Public Security Minister Genaro Garcia Luna and the commanders of the army and navy.

A decision by ICC prosecutors on whether to investigate could take months or even years, legal experts said.

The ICC, the world's first permanent war crimes court, has investigated crimes including genocide, murder, conscription of child soldiers and rape, mostly in Africa.

The Mexican government denied it is "at war" and said the use of the military in its battle against drug gangs was a temporary measure taken at the request of state governments.

"The established security policy in no way constitutes an international crime. On the contrary, all its actions are focused on stopping criminal organizations and protecting all citizens," the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

"Mexico, as never before, has implemented, in a systematic and growing way, a public policy to strengthen the rule of law and promote and respect human rights."

TICKING THE BOXES

The office of the ICC prosecutor said in a statement it had the request, would study it and "make a decision in due course."

The ICC tries cases of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity in states that are unwilling or unable to prosecute these crimes on their own.

"There are a large number of boxes that the prosecutor would need to check off before he could actually open an investigation," said Richard Dicker, an international justice expert with Human Rights Watch.

"It's possible ... but I think you want to be clear on what the challenges and obstacles are."

Several of those requirements have been met: Mexico has signed up to the ICC, the crimes fall within the ICC's time frame and the case is not already being prosecuted in Mexico.

But in considering the case, ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo will have to decide if the crimes presented in the activists' complaint, such as the torture of criminal suspects, qualify as crimes against humanity.

"The crimes would have to be widespread or systematic, carried out by a state or organization in attacks on a civilian population," Dicker said.

"It's certainly very arguable," said William Schabas, professor of international law at Middlesex University.

"The prosecutor has been very focused on Africa. The pattern is he stays within the comfort zone of the United States. Going after Mexicans for the war on drugs falls outside that comfort zone."

Activists say Calderon has systematically allowed Mexican troops to commit abuses against civilians since the military was deployed to fight drug traffickers in 2006.

More than 50,000 soldiers are now battling cartels around the country, while the ranks of federal police have swelled from 6,000 to 35,000 under Calderon's watch.

A Human Rights Watch report said there was evidence Mexican police and soldiers were involved in 170 cases of torture, 24 extrajudicial killings and 39 forced disappearances in five Mexican states.

"We have known for five years that the Mexican army is committing sexual abuse, executing people, torturing people and kidnapping, and there have been no sanctions," Sandoval said.

Mexico's national human rights commission received more than 4,000 complaints of abuses by the army from 2006 to 2010. In the same period, it issued detailed reports on 65 cases involving army abuse, according to Human Rights Watch.

(Editing by Rosalind Russell and John O'Callaghan)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111126/wl_nm/us_mexico_icc

storm in alaska storm in alaska asteroid eric johnson eric johnson russell pearce russell pearce

Sunday, November 27, 2011

GROSSMONT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT ANNOUNCES SALE OF PROPOSITION H REFUNDING BONDS

Printer-friendly versionPrinter-friendly version

Transaction results in savings of $1.3 million for district taxpayers


November 27, 2011 (San Diego?s East County)??Grossmont Union High School District (GUHSD)?has?announced the successful implementation of Proposition H 2004 series bond refunding, which was approved by the Board at its meeting on Oct. 13, 2011. The transaction represents a savings of $1.3 million for taxpayers in the district over the next six years.


Refunding bonds are used to refinance certain 2004 bonds (?prior bonds?) that have higher interest rates than the refunding bonds. The proceeds of the sale of the refunding bonds are kept in an interest-bearing escrow account until the prior bond?s maturity or redemption date. At that time, the monies in the escrow account are used to pay off the prior bonds along with related interest and redemption costs. The refunding bonds will then be serviced using the same property tax payments initially used to pay the prior bonds, but at a reduced overall cost
. ?This is very much like a refi on a home loan,? Catherine Martin, district spokeperson, said of the bond refund.? ?The principal loan amount stays the same, but we get a lower interest rate.?

?The district?s taxpayers placed their trust in us by voting to approve both Propositions H and U,? said Deputy Superintendent Scott Patterson. ?The process of continually monitoring the financial markets to most efficiently implement the financing of these programs is part of our duty within that trust. We are gratified to be able to return these savings to our taxpayers.?

?

The transaction, executed on Thursday, Nov. 3, is summarized as follows:

?

  • Total Amount of Bonds Refunded: ?$20,920,000
  • True Interest Cost:??????????????????????????2.533%
  • Net Present Value of Savings:???????? $1,145,145
  • Savings as % of Refunded Bonds:????5.638%?
  • Average Life of Bonds:??????????????????? 6.137 years?

?

?

?Any taxpayer savings, or bond money saving measures on behalf of the public by the GUHSD is good,? said Bill Weaver, an Alpine resident and 2009 Alpine Leadership and Public Service Citizen of the Year. But he added, ?We still expect the GUHSD, its Board, and Administration, to remember that the voters passed two bond measures that stipulated a 12th High School be built. A strong case is being made that the 12th HS will be self-supporting if the Board and Administration look at all the data in-depth. There should be an operational expense or complete budget plan, with accurate revenue and cost projections. We have yet to see a comprehensive operational budget study for the 12th high school.


Proposition H, a $274 million program, was approved by 62 percent of voters in March 2004 to fund repairs of aging schools in the district as well as the construction of a new school. With state school facility program dollars, the Proposition H program is $327 million. To date, nearly $322 million has been expended.


Proposition U is a $417 million General Obligation Bond Measure passed by voters in November 2008. When combined with projected state funding, the estimated program budget is $605.1 million. The program substantially completes the modernization of district schools, providing classrooms and equipment for Career Technical Education, multi-purpose facilities to support the superintendent?s vision for the arts in education, and the construction of a new high school in the Alpine/Blossom Valley area. Nearly $80 million in Prop U funds have been expended to date.

?

?

About Grossmont Union High School District

?

Established in 1920, Grossmont Union High School District encompasses an area of approximately 465 square miles, including all of the cities of El Cajon, Santee and Lemon Grove, most of the city of La Mesa, a small portion of the city of San Diego, and the unincorporated areas of Alpine, Dulzura, Jamul, Lakeside and Spring Valley. Over 24,000 students are served by the District?s schools. The district consists of nine comprehensive high schools, three charter schools, one continuation high school, two alternative education sites, four special education facilities, a middle college high school program, a Regional Occupational Program (ROP) and an adult education program. The District employs 2,300 full-time employees, as well as hundreds of hourly employees, making it the largest employer in the East County. More information about Grossmont Union High School District can be found at?www.guhsd.net.

?

?

?

?

Source: http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/node/7992

osu football osu football christopher walken ok state ok state kurt budke regis philbin