management kristan

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

New telescopes to give researchers glimpse of the beginning of time

Jan. 8, 2013 ? Where do we come from? What is the universe made of? Will the universe exist only for a finite time or will it last forever? These are just some of the questions that University of California, San Diego physicists are working to answer in the high desert of northern Chile. Armed with a massive 3.5 meter (11.5 foot) diameter telescope designed to measure space-time fluctuations produced immediately after the Big Bang, the research team will soon be one step closer to understanding the origin of the universe. The Simons Foundation has recently awarded the team a $4.3 million grant to build and install two more telescopes. Together, the three telescopes will be known as the Simons Array.

?The Simons Array will inform our knowledge of the universe in a completely new way,? said Brian Keating, associate professor of Physics at UC San Diego?s Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences. Keating will lead the project with Professor Adrian Lee of UC Berkeley.

Fluctuations in space-time, also known as ?gravitational waves,? are gravitational perturbations that propagate at the speed of light and can penetrate ?through? matter, like an x-ray. The gravitational waves are thought to have imprinted the ?primordial soup? of matter and photons that later coalesced to become gases, stars and galaxies?all the structures that we now see. The photons left over from the Big Bang will be captured by the telescopes to give scientists a unique view back to the universe?s beginning.

The telescopes of the Simons Array?named in recognition of the grant?will focus light onto more than 20,000 detectors, each of which must be cooled nearly to absolute zero. The result will provide an unmatched combination of sensitivity, frequency coverage and sky coverage.

Last year, the first POLARBEAR (for Polarization of Background Radiation) telescope, which will comprise one third of the Simons Array, was set up in Chile?s Atacama Desert. The site is one of the highest and driest places on Earth at 17,000 feet above sea level, making it one of the planet?s best locations for such a study. The site?s high elevation means that it lies above half of the Earth?s atmosphere. Because water vapor absorbs microwaves, the dry climate allows the already thin atmosphere to transmit even more of the faint cosmic microwave background radiation. Since March 2012, the telescope has recorded data to identify an imprint of primordial gravitational waves on the cosmic microwave background radiation, the relic radiation remaining from the Big Bang.

While POLARBEAR was a major technological achievement, the single telescope is sensitive to just one frequency. Additional detectors in the new telescopes will measure the cosmic microwave background at different frequencies so that researchers can compare the data and subtract out contaminating radiation emitted from the Milky Way Galaxy. Together, the three telescopes will also be much more sensitive to the elusive gravitational wave signals, offering deeper insight into the origin of the universe.

Keating continued, ?The Simons Array will have the same or better capabilities as a $1 billion satellite, and with NASA?s budget constraints, there are no planned space-based missions for this job.?

Scientists from UC San Diego, UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of Colorado, McGill University in Canada and the KEK Laboratory in Japan are collaborating on the project.

Based in New York City, the Simons Foundation was established in 1994 by Jim and Marilyn Simons. The foundation?s mission is to advance the frontiers of research in mathematics and the basic sciences. The Foundation is delighted to be able to help support this innovative investigation into the earliest moments of the universe.

Initial funding for the first POLARBEAR telescope came from the National Science Foundation, the James B. Ax Family Foundation and an anonymous donor.

For more information on the Simons Array, visit cosmology.ucsd.edu. More information on the Simons Foundation can be found at simonsfoundation.org.

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California, San Diego. The original article was written by Jade Griffin.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/bAUo3fcmmFk/130108141955.htm

catamount mike dantoni bulls heat goldman sachs brandon carr knicks coach encyclopedia britannica

Five presidential cabinet nominations that were rejected

President Barack Obama faces a tough nomination process for his proposed defense secretary, Chuck Hagel. But if the past is any indicator, a Senate rejection would be historic in many ways.

johntower

Former senator John Tower. Source: Congress.

Hagel faces vocal opposition from senators from both political parties. However, it?s rare for the Senate to actually reject a cabinet nominee in a public vote?the last such act took place in the administration of President George H.W. Bush.

More likely, the Obama administration would withdraw Hagel?s nomination before a vote, if the math proved problematic.

The Senate?s official website has a detailed analysis of the nomination and approval process, which wasn?t spelled out in the Constitution, but follows precedents set by the first president, George Washington.

The Constitution, in Article II, Section 2, says that the president ?shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for.?

The Founding Fathers worked out most of the process in the 1st Congress, as President Washington nominated Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and Henry Knox to his first cabinet, and the Senate approved the nominations by a simple majority vote.

Early nominations dramas were more about Supreme Court candidates, but in later years, fights over cabinet nominees were dramatic, even if they were rare.

The first high-profile cabinet rejection by the Senate was in 1834, when President Andrew Jackson lost a fight to get Attorney General Roger Taney named as treasury secretary, in the bitter fight over the Second Bank of the United States.

The Senate rejected Taney?s nomination by a 18-28 vote, but a determined Jackson was able to get Taney appointed as the Supreme Court?s chief justice in 1835 when his Democratic party had a slim Senate majority.

The next nomination fight over the cabinet involved a senator who had played a key role in Taney?s rejection: John Tyler of Virginia.

By 1843, Tyler had become president, after William Henry Harrison died, and he was openly feuding with his own Whig party. On March 3, the Senate rejected Tyler?s nomination of Caleb Cushing?s as treasury secretary three times on the same day. Three other Tyler nominees were later rejected by the Senate, giving him a record six cabinet rejections.

A third historic cabinet rejection came in the troubled administration of President Andrew Johnson. Johnson?s attorney general, Henry Stanbery, resigned his position to defend Johnson at the president?s Senate trial after his impeachment.

Johnson survived the trial, and he nominated Stanbery to resume his job as attorney general in 1868. The Senate promptly rejected Stanbery?s nomination.

Since then, only three cabinet nominations have been rejected by a vote in the Senate. In comparison, six nominations have been withdrawn before a vote, by the president, since 1993.

Recent Constitution Daily Stories

Michelle Obama: Future presidential candidate?
Clinton soars, Palin plummets in most-admired survey
NCAA?s power at heart of Corbett?s lawsuit over Penn State
Why Americans will really, really hate Congress in 2013

In 1959, President Dwight Eisenhower nominated Admiral Lewis Strauss as commerce secretary. The Democrats controlled more than 60 Senate seats and Strauss lost in a contentious nomination process by just four votes.

The fight between the Senate and its former member, John Tower, in 1989 was historic in many ways. Tower had headed the Senate Armed Services Committee until he retired in 1985. President Bush had nominated Tower as defense secretary.

The public debate over Tower?s nomination included a lot of mudslinging, and Tower lost the vote along party lines in the Democrat-controlled Senate. He was the only former Senate member rejected for a cabinet position by the Senate in its history. Dick Cheney was later approved in Tower?s place.

In the current case of Hagel, a former Republican senator, the Democrats have about 55 votes in the Senate, including independents that caucus with them.

But Hagel has bipartisan critics because of his past comments about Israel and his opinions on the war in Iraq.

It?s unlikely Hagel?s nomination would make it to a vote if his candidacy is in trouble, but if Hagel were to lose, it would be a double rarity: a former senator rejected by a Senate controlled by the president?s party.

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Video: The best cinematics from 2012

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/in-game/50388834/

macauly culkin joe namath stefon diggs nazi ss naomi watts andrej pejic steve jobs fbi

Monday, January 7, 2013

Detecting dusty clouds and stars in our galaxy in a new way

Public release date: 7-Jan-2013
[ | E-mail |

Share ]

Contact: Megan Fellman
fellman@northwestern.edu
847-491-3115
Northwestern University

Radio wave technique uncovers shadows of clouds and stars in Milky Way's center

The center of our Milky Way galaxy is a wondrous place full of huge star clusters, dust clouds, magnetic filaments and a supermassive black hole. But it can be a confusing place, too, posing challenges to astronomers trying to image these exotic features and learn more about where they are located in the galaxy.

Northwestern University's Farhad Zadeh has discovered a new tool for detecting dusty clouds and stars: simply take a picture using radio waves. He is the first to identify what he calls radio dark clouds and stars. Stars in the early and late phases of their evolution are shrouded by huge dusty envelopes in the form of dust and gas outflows.

"When you see these dark stars or clouds in radio wavelength images, it tells you something very interesting," Zadeh said. "We immediately know there is a cold gas cloud or dusty star mixing with a hot radiative medium and that an interaction is taking place. Knowing details of these clouds is important because the clouds can produce stars and also provide material for the growth of black holes."

Zadeh is a professor of physics and astronomy in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and a member of Northwestern's Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA).

Unlike in the optical, X-ray and infrared wavelengths, it is unusual to see a dark feature with radio waves. Radio is a long wavelength and therefore doesn't get absorbed easily and typically passes through whatever is in its way.

Initially Zadeh thought maybe the dark features he saw on the radio images he was studying were nothing, but then he connected the features to five known dense molecular and dusty clouds located in the center of our galaxy, some near Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the black hole.

"This technique provides very good sensitivity of faint dusty features, and it can produce images with even higher resolution than many other telescopes," Zadeh said. "It is an initial observation that tells you something is there that needs to be studied more closely."

In addition, astronomers can measure the size of dusty stars using this new technique.

Zadeh will present his results at 11:30 a.m. PST (Pacific Standard Time) Tuesday, Jan. 8, at the 221st meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach, Calif. He also will participate in a press conference on the galactic center at 12:45 p.m. PST the same day.

The interaction of a cold dust cloud with a hot radiation field results in a loss in the continuum emission and appears as a dark feature in the radio wavelength image, Zadeh said. The dark features that trace the embedded molecular clouds provide astronomers with the size of the cloud in three dimensions.

Although not part of the work he is presenting, Zadeh said a good example of a dusty cloud that could be imaged with his technique is G2, the tiny cloud that is fast approaching Sgr A*, our galaxy's black hole.

The cloud now is too close to the black hole for Zadeh to take an image, but he is looking at earlier data to see if he can locate G2 as a radio dark cloud.

"If the cloud was farther away from the black hole than it is now, we could detect it," Zadeh said.

For his study, Zadeh used Green Bank Telescope maps and Very Large Array images from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. The National Science Foundation (grant AST-0807400) supported the research.

The title of Zadeh's paper, which was published Nov. 1 by the Astrophysical Journal Letters, is "Imprints of Molecular Clouds in Radio Continuum Images."

###

[ | E-mail |

Share ]

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Detecting dusty clouds and stars in our galaxy in a new way

Public release date: 7-Jan-2013
[ | E-mail |

Share ]

Contact: Megan Fellman
fellman@northwestern.edu
847-491-3115
Northwestern University

Radio wave technique uncovers shadows of clouds and stars in Milky Way's center

In addition, astronomers can measure the size of dusty stars using this new technique.

The cloud now is too close to the black hole for Zadeh to take an image, but he is looking at earlier data to see if he can locate G2 as a radio dark cloud.

"If the cloud was farther away from the black hole than it is now, we could detect it," Zadeh said.

The title of Zadeh's paper, which was published Nov. 1 by the Astrophysical Journal Letters, is "Imprints of Molecular Clouds in Radio Continuum Images."

###

[ | E-mail |

Share ]

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-01/nu-ddc010713.php

marianas trench camille grammer camille grammer us supreme court breaking dawn part 2 trailer mississippi state chris carpenter

New path to more efficient organic solar cells uncovered

Jan. 7, 2013 ? Why are efficient and affordable solar cells so highly coveted? Volume. The amount of solar energy lighting up Earth's land mass every year is nearly 3,000 times the total amount of annual human energy use. But to compete with energy from fossil fuels, photovoltaic devices must convert sunlight to electricity with a certain measure of efficiency. For polymer-based organic photovoltaic cells, which are far less expensive to manufacture than silicon-based solar cells, scientists have long believed that the key to high efficiencies rests in the purity of the polymer/organic cell's two domains -- acceptor and donor. Now, however, an alternate and possibly easier route forward has been shown.

Working at Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source (ALS), a premier source of X-ray and ultraviolet light beams for research, an international team of scientists found that for highly efficient polymer/organic photovoltaic cells, size matters.

"We've shown that impure domains if made sufficiently small can also lead to improved performances in polymer-based organic photovoltaic cells," says Harald Ade, a physicist at North Carolina State University, who led this research. "There seems to be a happy medium, a sweet-spot of sorts, between purity and domain size that should be much easier to achieve than ultra-high purity."

Ade, a longtime user of the ALS, is the corresponding author of a paper describing this work in Advanced Energy Materials titled "Absolute Measurement of Domain Composition and Nanoscale Size Distribution Explains Performance in PTB7:PC71 BM Solar Cells." Co-authors are Brian Collins, Zhe Li, John Tumbleston, Eliot Gann and Christopher McNeill.

Solar cell conversion efficiency in polymer/organic photovoltaic cells hinges on excitons -- electron/hole pairs energized by sunlight -- getting to the interfaces of the donor and acceptor domains quickly so as to minimize energy lost as heat. Conventional wisdom held that the greater the purity of the domains, the fewer the impedances and the faster the exciton journey.

Ade and his co-authors became the first to simultaneously measure the domain size, composition and crystallinity of an organic solar cell. This feat was made possible by ALS beamlines 11.0.1.2, a Resonant Soft X-ray Scattering (R-SoXS) facility; 7.3.3, a Small- and Wide-Angle X-Ray Scattering (SAXS/WAXS/) end-station; and 5.3.2, an end-station for Scanning Transmission X-Ray Microscopy (STXM).

Says Collins, the first author on the Advanced Energy Materials paper, "The combination of these three ALS beamlines enabled us to obtain comprehensive pictures of polymer-based organic photovoltaic film morphology from the nano- to the meso-scales. Until now, this information has been unattainable."

The international team used the trifecta of ALS beams to study the polymer/fullerence blend PTB7:PC₇₁BM in thin films made from chlorobenzene solution with and without the addition (three-percent by volume) of the solvent diiodooctane. The films were composed of droplet-like dispersions in which the dominant acceptor domain size without the additive was about 177 nanometers. The addition of the solvent shrank the acceptor domain size down to about 34 nanometers while preserving the film's composition and crystallinity. This resulted in an efficiency gain of 42-percent.

"In showing for the first time just how pure and how large the acceptor domains in organic solar devices actually are, as well as what the interface with the donor domain looks like, we've demonstrated that the impact of solvents and additives on device performance can be dramatic and can be systematically studied," Ade says. "In the future, our technique should help advance the rational design of polymer-based organic photovoltaic films."

This research was primarily supported by the DOE Office of Science, which also supports the ALS.

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

Brian A. Collins, Zhe Li, John R. Tumbleston, Eliot Gann, Christopher R. McNeill, Harald Ade. Absolute Measurement of Domain Composition and Nanoscale Size Distribution Explains Performance in PTB7:PC71BM Solar Cells. Advanced Energy Materials, 2012; DOI: 10.1002/aenm.201200377

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/tGAofzzyqps/130107130939.htm

best buy sears abercrombie abercrombie Aeropostale Jcpenny ohio state football

Lenovo to release giant 27-inch 'coffee table PC'

An image provided by Lenoovo shows the IdeaCentre Horizon Table PC that they say is the first "interpersonal computer." It is a PC the size of a coffee table that works like a gigantic tablet and lets four people use it at once. (AP Photo/Lenovo)

LAS VEGAS (AP) ? Dismayed that family members are spread out over the house, each with a separate PC or tablet? Lenovo has something it believes will get them back together: a PC the size of a coffee table that works like a gigantic tablet and lets four people use it at once.

Lenovo Group Ltd., one of the world's largest PC makers, is calling the IdeaCentre Horizon Table PC the first "interpersonal computer" ? as opposed to a "personal computer."

At first glance, it looks like a regular all-in-one machine in the vein of the iMac: It's a 27-inch screen with the innards of a Windows 8 computer built into it, and it can stand up on a table.

But you can pick it up off the table, unhook the power cord and lay it flat for games of "Monopoly." It's big enough to fit four people around it, and the screen can respond to ten fingers touching it at the same time.

As a tablet, it's a monstrosity. The screen is the size of eight iPads stitched together, and it weighs 15 pounds. It's almost as homebound as a flat-panel TV.

The Table PC will include plastic "strikers" for "Air Hockey," and joysticks that attach to the screen for other games, including multiplayer shooter "Raiding Company."

Lenovo, a Chinese company that owns IBM Corp.'s former PC business, said the Table PC will go on sale this summer starting at $1,699. It's being unveiled this week at the International CES gadget show in Las Vegas.

Microsoft Corp. pioneered the idea of a table PC with the Surface, a PC with a 30-inch touch-sensitive screen released in 2008. It was designed for store displays and other commercial applications. The concept is now called PixelSense, as Microsoft started using the "Surface" name for an unrelated tablet computer last year.

More recently, Sony Corp. released the Tap 20, an all-in-one PC that can also be laid flat. But it's smaller than the Lenovo model, at 20 inches diagonally, and doesn't have as much table-oriented software as the Table PC.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-01-06-Gadget%20Show-Lenovo-Coffee-Table%20Tablet/id-f7aaa3015a5047afaa8b93fab19e9d27

Kevin Krim Autumn Pasquale ann coulter Iron Man 3 Trailer minecraft Pretty Little Liars Ben Wilson

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Era of the Creatures: The End of Humans

Humans were kaput, so they got wiped out. That simple. With humans out of the way, the creatures that were in hiding can come out and rise to a great era. There are territory issues, naturally.

Owner:

Game Masters:

Topic Tags:

Forum for completely Out of Character (OOC) discussion, based around whatever is happening In Character (IC). Discuss plans, storylines, and events; Recruit for your roleplaying game, or find a GM for your playergroup.

Can I reserve the right hand of the Akashinu?

OFortune: Member for 1 years

OFortune wrote:Can I reserve the right hand of the Akashinu?

For certain! :D
I shall put it up the reservation right now ;3

xDarkTiger Rose: Member for 1 years

Post a reply

RolePlayGateway is a site built by a couple roleplayers who wanted to give a little something back to the roleplay community. The site has no intention of earning any profit, and is paid for out of their own pockets.

If you appreciate what they do, feel free to donate your spare change to help feed them on the weekends. After selecting the amount you want to donate from the menu, you can continue by clicking on PayPal logo.

Who is online

Registered users: ali_rox96, AngelJoyeuse, Arcayne, Arch_Demon666, Armageddon*, Augustus, Awood2100*, Azrieldemourn*, bandgeek*, Banshee, Beach-Born-Boy, Belynta, Blackfridayrule, BOO!, Bosch*, Brock10, Bromander Shepard*, Buddywazzizname, Cadounus, Calvazara*, CassandraElyonill, Celaradith, ChaoticMarin*, CNAGamer, CnCProdux, code6435, Crooked Thoughts*, delfiler, Dmitrij Rosha, Drogyn*, Ebrie*, Exabot [Bot], Flexar*, Frozen Soul*, FyreT1ger*, Gamer_Templar*, Gasmask*, Geekly*, Google [Bot], Google Adsense [Bot], Google Feedfetcher, HereMeNow*, Hoga*, iCat, ichigomew*, Iezobel, Ikuto Tsukiyomi Fan*, jukuma*, Kodaibito*, Kravos*, KulasLightShadow*, Layla, Leolego, Liberator600*, lostamongtrees*, Luxe*, macheteshark, Majestic-12 [Bot], Mela*, Miss_Dreamer*, mkiyogawa*, Mr Lynch*, MSNbot Media, NasiaWords*, Nevan*, Nieki, NightLady*, Nightmaric_Angel*, Ninjasaur*, No-one-special, Patcharoo*, Porecomesis*, Princess Awinita*, PsychicBastard*, RaichuFTW*, RawkFist, ReaperGirl4, RebornAncient12*, RedWolfe*, Rem?us*, Romaneck, Rougeshadow*, rpannier, Ruzuki Nakamora*, S1mon*, Seirei*, shadereen*, Sicariius, SmartyPants*, Sneakyrio*, Sokka25*, SpartanWolf*, St. Valentine*, StitchSaysHi*, Stryk33*, TaniaSoulEater, TemplarWarden*, TheChaplain*, TheUnnamedOne, TurtleSoup*, Vestiline*, ViviOrunitiaFF9*, WinterWhisperz*, wolfoftheage*, xfaithyx123, xoxMissClairexox, Yahoo [Bot], YellowGrand*, Yolo, Zero Reaper*

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/K57iX7cqrNU/viewtopic.php

golden globes red carpet nfc championship game martin luther king jr quotes martin luther king jr i have a dream speech packers score ricky gervais napoleon dynamite