Find Your Productivity Catalyst

Some of the most successful and productive people I've ever met all have something they use to help them overcome procrastination. Some may call it a routine or ritual. I like to call it the "Productivity Catalyst." It's the thing that pushes you to start working?to finally get that one thing done that leads to the next thing, and so on.

A productivity catalyst is simply something you do each and every time before you begin working. It puts you in the right mindset because it's what you always do immediately before you start working. Earnest Hemingway sharpened pencils before he started writing; Charles Dickens arranged trinkets on his desk.

Without a catalyst, it's so easy to procrastinate because nothing acts as a "signal" that you're going to start working. You're stuck, trying to drive uphill when you haven't even started the car.

My catalyst is preparing a cup of tea. Because there are several steps?heating the water, selecting the tea, scooping and packing the loose tea into a tea ball, pouring the water over the tea, watching as it steeps?it becomes a short ritual that I carry out with my full attention. I can then sit down and, say, write this article. Maybe yours is waking up early, preparing morning coffee, taking a shower, doing 15 minutes of exercise or stretching, or even just commuting to work.

Don't let yourself procrastinate: find your productivity catalyst. It's one of the most important tools you'll ever acquire.

The Productivity Catalyst | Unwieldy

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Joshua Gross is co-founder of BundleScout, a smarter way to keep up-to-date with the web development tools and libraries you use. He tweets at @endtwist, and periodically writes short articles on his blog about life, design, development, and startups.

Want to see your work on Lifehacker? Email Tessa.

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/9b8DNMzsmxE/finding-your-productivity-catalyst

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Bob Woodward: 'Very Senior' White House Official Told Me I'd 'Regret' Sequester Comments (VIDEO)

The Washington Post's Bob Woodward said on Wednesday that a "very senior" White House official threatened him over his continued public disagreements with the Obama administration. BuzzFeed later reported that the official was Gene Sperling, who heads President Obama's White House Economic Council.

Woodward has repeatedly accused the White House of "moving the goal posts" in the fight over the looming budget sequester. He has been challenged on the facts of his assertions many times, but has not strayed from his claims.

Speaking to Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday, Woodward described a tense series of exchanges he had with the White House.

"Well, they're not happy at all, and some people kind of, you know, said, look, we don't see eye to eye on this," Woodward said. "They've said that this is factually wrong, and it was said to me in an e-mail by a top --"

"What was said?" Blitzer prodded. "It was said very clearly, you will regret doing this," Woodward said.

"Who sent that e-mail to you?" Blitzer asked. "Well, I'm not going to say," Woodward said.

"Was it a senior person at the White House?" Blitzer asked.

"A very senior person," Woodward said. "It makes me very uncomfortable to have the White House telling reporters, you're going to regret doing something that you believe in."

Woodward also spoke to Politico, and read out part of the email. He said he had been "yelled at" for about 30 minutes, and that the official wrote, ?I apologize for raising my voice in our conversation today. You?re focusing on a few specific trees that give a very wrong impression of the forest. But perhaps we will just not see eye to eye here. ? I think you will regret staking out that claim.?

BuzzFeed's Ben Smith wrote Wednesday night that the official was Sperling.

"Officials often threaten reporters that they will 'regret' printing something that is untrue, but Woodward took the remark as a threat," Smith wrote.

Note: this post has been updated to include the information from BuzzFeed.

UPDATE: Sean Hannity will interview Woodward on Fox News tomorrow night, according to a tweet from Politico's Dylan Byers.

Related on HuffPost:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/27/bob-woodward-white-house-threatened-sequester_n_2777681.html

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New Rosa Parks statue: 'She defied injustice'

President Obama and Congressional leaders paid tribute to Rosa Parks today, as the civil rights pioneer took her "rightful place" among those who have shaped the nation's history.

"She defied the odds and she defied injustice," Obama said at the unveiling of a statue of Rosa Parks at the U.S. Capitol. "She lived a life of activism, but also a life of dignity and grace. And in a single moment, with the simplest of gestures, she helped change America and change the world."

In 1955, Parks refused to move to the back of a segregated bus in Montgomery, Ala., sparking a movement against racial prejudice with one simple act. More than half a century later, she became the first African-American woman honored with a statute in the U.S. Capitol's Statuary Hall.

"So we place her here, in a chamber where many fought to prevent a day like this," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said. "For when the trappings of ceremony come down, people from all walks, backgrounds and beliefs will pass through here?. It will be an ordinary routine, but one that about half a century ago would have been improbable. I can think of no more perfect way to capture the vision of a more perfect union ? and to continue what Rosa Parks started."

"With this statue, we affirm that the courage and the cause of Rosa Parks not only earned her a place in the hearts of all Americans, but a permanent place among the other figures in this hall of national memory," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell proclaimed. "This simple carpenter's daughter from Tuskegee is honored as a national hero. What a story. What a legacy. What a country."

The "seamstress slight in stature but mighty in courage" continues to inspire Americans to face today's challenges, Obama said.

"Rosa Parks tells us there's always something we can do. She tells us that we all have responsibilities to ourselves and to one another. She reminds us that this is how change happens, not mainly through the exploits of the famous and the powerful but through the countless acts of often anonymous courage and kindness and fellow feeling and responsibility that continually, stubbornly expand our conception of justice, our conception of what is possible," he said.

"That is why this statue belongs in this hall: to remind us, no matter how humble or lofty our positions, just what it is that leadership requires, just what it is that citizenship requires," Obama said.

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See Who Else Is Memorialized In the Capitol Here

Also Read

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/she-defied-injustice-rosa-parks-203406448.html

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How To Reach Millions of People with Your Product or Services ...

The main element to reach thousands of people with your product or services is start writing your article at this time and distributes it to hundreds of ezine publishers on line. Currently there are thousands of ezine marketers online and they?re all trying to find good material to write in their ezines. Your article risk submit in their newsletter or the web sites, if you write not and good article a sales letter that selling your business.

If your article publishes in their publication or internet site, exposure will be given by these to your online business since every article you write you are free to include your business info in your source field. So treat your reference box invaluable.

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ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com, articlealley.com, articlecity.com, webpronews.com, ideamarketers.com, certificate.net, netterweb.com, articlecentral.com, articlefinders.com, xongoo.com, zinos.com, addme.com, amazines.com

Head to search engine and variety, free ezine directory or ezine directory. Click each ezine you search and view for ezine accept post within their distribution. Acquire their name and contact emails. If you fail to find their name, attempt whois their web site. As an alternative, go to godaddy.com, sort their ezine URL address, and press whois.

Deliver emails to these ezine marketers with a quick cover letter and personalized passage at the top of one?s emails. Include your report in your mail after your customization. Personalization your emails have become important because most ezine publishers receive hundreds of these emails every single day. Therefore, you need to make your emails interesting and allow these ezine editors very happy to examine your emails and then take action to publish your article.

If it?s hard for you yourself to find these ezine writers, use article announcement lists or groups. Announcement lists is a categories of ezine publishers and authors that sign up for these lists and they are in double opt-in process. All these writers is searching for good material inside their ezine, e-books, or those sites. Currently each of these publishers and editors has customer or ezine audience between 1,000 ? 10,000 readers. These customers or ezine viewers are growing every daily. That?s suggest your articles are reveal to countless ezine or newsletter readers.

Head to search engine and type, report announcement databases. Listed below are several lists of article statement lists on the web. To post your posts to these lists you must first be considered a client.

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Source: http://www.poetaday.com/how-to-reach-millions-of-people-with-your-product-or-services/

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Texting Gloves Dangerous in Winter, Says expert

Feb. 26, 2013 ? The popular half-gloves that leave fingers uncovered for texting may be good for communicating electronically but they may also lead to permanent loss of fingers due to exposure to the cold.

"Fingers are one of the first body parts to feel the effects of the cold and damp and along with toes, ears and the nose are frequently subjected to frostbite and even amputation," says Arthur Sanford, MD, Division of Trauma, Surgical Critical Care and Burns, Loyola University Health System. "Better to fat finger a text due to wearing winter gloves than to lose a finger due to the cold."

Frostbite is most likely to happen in body parts farthest from the heart and those with large exposed areas. "Blood vessels start to constrict at or below 32 degrees Celsius to preserve body temperature," says Sanford. "The lack of blood in areas of the body can lead to freezing and the death of skin tissue."

Sanford says he treats frostbite in people of all ages. "The old lady who goes out in the snow to get her mail, falls, breaks a hip and lays in the cold and wet for hours until being discovered is a typical victim of frostbite," he says. "But the younger person who goes on a drinking bender and walks home in the snow and damp is also a familiar sight at Loyola trauma."

When suffering from prolonged exposure to cold, use room temperature or slightly warm water to gently revitalize the body. "Do not use hot water, do not rub with handfuls of snow and do not vigorously massage the frozen area," warns Sanford. Overstimulation can actually worsen the situation.

Winter wellness tips from Sanford and Loyola include the following:

? Dress in layers. "If a sweater, pair of socks or other article of clothing gets wet, you can quickly remove it and still be protected from the cold and wet," says Sanford.

? Wear a hat, gloves or mittens and proper footwear including socks and boots. "Texting gloves may look cool and be handy for communicating but it is better to wear full gloves or mittens and save your fingers," says Sanford.

? When outerwear becomes wet, go inside and change to dry clothing. "Wet socks especially are dangerous and can lead to a condition called trench foot which results in poor blood circulation, decay of tissue, infections and even amputation," says Sanford.

? If affected area becomes numb, turns red or blue, swells or feels hot, go to the emergency department. "An emergency physician will assess the tissue and take the proper steps to save the body part," says Sanford.

Hypothermia, when the body temperature is below 95 degrees F(35 degrees C), was the cause of death for 700 Americans between 1979 -- 1998. "Frostbite in January, operate in July is a common mantra here at Loyola," says Sanford. "Bundling up for winter may take you out of media circulation temporarily but better that than to permanently lose the ability to text due to frostbite."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Loyola University Health System, via Newswise.

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

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

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/Fix8HP4hpmE/130226141235.htm

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S.Africa's rand softens ahead of budget

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's rand softened against the dollar on Wednesday ahead of Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan's budget speech, which is likely to outline plans for cutting the government's spending deficit amid anaemic economic growth.

The rand was at 8.8428 against the dollar at 0643 GMT, 0.28 percent weaker than New York's Tuesday close at 8.82.

"Clearly the gap between revenues and expenditures needs to be closed, and today's budget will be about how quickly that might be done and by which means," Barclays Capital said in a note.

Rising borrowing costs for Italy due to a political stalemate following its recent election also weighed on the euro, putting pressure on the rand.

Domestic GDP statistics released on Tuesday showed surprisingly strong economic growth of 2.1 percent for the fourth quarter of 2012 from 1.2 percent in the third quarter, due to a boost from the manufacturing and farm sectors.

Gordhan is due to present his budget to parliament at 1200 GMT.

The yield on the three-year bond lost 1.5 basis points to 5.235 percent and that on the longer-dated paper due in 2026 edged up half a basis point to 7.245 percent.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/africas-rand-softens-ahead-budget-074647322--finance.html

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Big Neuroscience: Billions and Billions (Maybe) to Unravel Mysteries of the Brain

The Human Brain Project intends to create a computer simulation at scales ranging from the nano to the macro.

The era of Big Neuroscience has arrived.

In late January, The Human Brain Project?an attempt to create a computer simulation of the brain at every scale from the nano nano to the macro biotic?announced that it had successfully arranged a billion Euro funding package for a 10-year run.

And then on Feb. 18, an article in The New York Times took the wraps off a plan to spend perhaps billions of dollars for an effort to record large collections of brain cells and figure out what exactly they are doing.

Is this the Large Hadron Collider vs. the Superconducting Supercollider redux?

Not yet. The billions for the Brain Activity Map, the U.S. project, are still a wish that has yet to be granted.

But, despite as-always hazy government finances, brain researchers are thinking large as they never have before, and invoking the attendant rhetoric of? moon shots, next-generation Human Genome Projects and the need for humankind to muster the requisite visionary zeal to tackle one of science?s ?last frontiers.? Oy, spare me that last part.

The challenges these projects have set for themselves, though, illustrate the challenge of? going from today?s crude profiles of? a biological machine of incomprehensible complexity to an accurate rendering of the goings-on of some 100 billion neurons woven together by a pulsating tapestry of 100 trillion electrical interconnections.

Henry Markram of ?cole Polytechnique F?d?rale de Lausanne described the goals for the Human Brain Project in Scientific American in June, saying that the project would become the ?most powerful flight simulator ever built. Rather than simulating ?thermal runaway? in a Boeing 787, it is intended to? furnish a big-screen blowup of every cell and connection inside the human skull.

The Human Brain Project continues to receive brickbats from a number of quarters. The researchers? plan to take the most current knowledge of brain anatomy and function to create an elaborate computer simulation. The? pitfall has to do with the simple fact that what we know at the molecular, cellular, circuit levels and up is often inadequate or just plain wrong. Layering faulty assumption upon faulty assumption can produce an elaborate? software fantasy world. But, as Markram hastens to emphasize, software can always be revised for a next release to fold in the latest from experiments in cells, fruit flies, roundworms, mice, monkeys and people.? The hurdles are still enormous. When we ran this article last year, it was accompanied by a Web-based excerpt from? a section of a chapter of Connectome, a book by neuroscientist Sebastian Seung, that described the difficulties involved in reducing the brain to a piece of software.? What happens, for instance, if a neurotransmitter like dopamine escapes from the immediate connection point, a synapse, and interacts with a synapse at some distance. How does this magisterial brain model take into account this possibility?

By contrast, the Brain Activity Map, in its still nascent conception, has plans for something less ambitious than a brain in a box. It intends, from what can be gleaned, to provide a record of everything that happens along a neural circuit. It would function not? just as a static model of the connections between, say,? the frontal lobe of the brain to? the emotion-processing amygdala. Rather it would be a dynamic rendition of what goes on along that pathway, a record of even the most minute voltage fluctuations along the intricate links of this circuit.

John Donoghue of Brown University, a researcher in brain-machine interfaces, and one of the scientists involved in planning the Brain Activity Map, noted that probes exist today to capture what happens at the cellular and molecular level and that brain imaging machines can take in what happens over gross areas of neural anatomy. Missing, however, is the technology to monitor in real time what happens when hundreds to millions of neurons coordinate their firing patterns, a circuit-level view of brain activity from which aspects of conscious function emerge?seeing a dog, hearing a song, feeling happy or sad. ?We don?t have the tools to study large numbers of neurons at high temporal resolution over large areas of the brain,? Donoghue says. ?We need tools to do that. Once we have the tools, we can do the experiments and that can drive theory about what goes wrong in schizophrenia or depression.?

Even if the Brain Activity Map doesn?t meet its most ambitious goals, it might still be deemed a success because it could produce? tools that could sense and stimulate individual neurons at the scale of nanometers?one speculative proposal would even use an artificial DNA sensor that would detect electrical activity in a brain circuit?a sort of DNA ticker tape

The tangled complexity of the brain?s wiring may make any Big Neuroscience effort a bigger hurdle to overcome than decoding the sequence of nucleotides, the A, C, G, Ts that make up the human genome. A documentary released recently?The Singularity?explores the idea that computing and other technology is advancing so rapidly?that machines will soon be smarter than humans and humans will be achieve immortality by making a copy of their neural circuits and transferring them to a robot or computer. The documentary interviews a number of prominent neuroscientists about the prospects for The Singularity becoming a reality. In it, neuroscientist Christof Koch mentions that the? wiring diagram of the nervous systems of the roundworm, Caenorhabditis elegans, has been known for decades and neuroscientists are still attempting to unravel its basic functioning.

Michael Gazzaniga, another prominent brain researcher, endorsed the idea of proceeding with the Brain Activity Map as long as other critical brain research does not suffer. But he added that a realistic perspective is required on how long it will take to achieve the ambitious goals that were widely discussed in the popular press in recent days. ?I say go with a new approach while keeping the best of the old,? he says. ?It will take dozens of years to figure this all out.?

Image Source: Scientific American

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Pirate Bay moves from Sweden to Norway, Spain

STOCKHOLM (AP) ? Embattled file-sharing site The Pirate Bay is looking for safe havens in Norway and Spain after its Swedish host came under legal pressure to shut it down.

The Swedish Pirate Party, a small political party advocating transparency and freedom online, has provided Internet access to the site for the past three years.

But it's handing over those duties to sister parties in Norway and Spain's Catalonia region following legal threats from the Rights Alliance, a Swedish anti-piracy group representing the entertainment industry, officials for all three parties told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

"Basically, the service that was provided by the Swedish Pirate Party is nowadays provided by the Norwegian Pirate Party, and soon also by the Catalan Pirate Party," said Kenneth Peiruza, a spokesman for the Catalan group.

The Pirate Bay is one of the world's biggest free file-sharing websites, offering millions of users a forum for downloading music, movies and computer games. The site doesn't host any pirated material itself, but acts as an index to help people find files they can share with each other using BitTorrent software. The entertainment industry has failed to shut it down, even after its operators were convicted of copyright violations in Sweden in 2009.

Sara Lindback of the Rights Alliance said the case underlines how difficult it is to combat illegal file-sharing online, but suggested the fight against The Pirate Bay would continue.

"It's a step in the right direction that the service is driven out of Sweden," Lindback said. "But as long as the service is up we will do what we can to protect our rights-holders."

Pirate Party officials said the laws in Norway and Catalonia would make it hard for the entertainment industry to prevent them from offering web hosting services to The Pirate Bay.

By doing so, the parties are only acting as a "digital post office," said Geir Aaslid, leader of the Norwegian Pirate Party. "We're not responsible for the mail passing through the pipeline."

The Pirate Bay didn't comment on the move directly, but changed the name of the site temporarily to The Hydra Bay, an apparent reference to a mythological beast that grows two new heads when one head is cut off.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-02-26-EU-Sweden-Pirate-Bay/id-486c63bf493a4a3688186f2bca34b661

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Tips On Just How To Be Efficient When Improving Your House ...

Performing home improvement does not must be a difficult task. Enhancing your home can be enjoyable and simple, and make your home environment a whole lot more enjoyable. Make-over the areas you like and make them into areas you love. Follow the guidelines below and you will be able to turn your home into your dream home.

Set electrical wire connectors on your tubes of caulking! Those little plastic covers that are included with the tubes often get missing! A commonly had alternative that works of the same quality or a lot better than the original top can be an electrical wire connection. Special colors can be even used by you for special forms of tubes.

An low priced method to give your kitchen a new search without spending thousands on new cabinets would be to give them a facelift. Install new hard ware and recondition them with oil to make them seem new. With respect to the substance of the units, you may be able to paint them too.

To save on energy prices, consider putting a number of small fluorescent lighting fixtures under your cabinetry. On the surface that is ideal for preparing food or illuminating a richly colored counter top or ornamental back dash region these lights eat up less power than your overhead light and can cast a great light.

Try changing the house figures outside your house for many easy home improvement. If the house numbers on your house are old, buy some new ones. Try trying to find contemporary house figures made from stainless, aluminum, or brass. Fit them with the final in your exterior light fixtures for greater curb appeal.

In regards to do-it-yourself, make sure to get prices from at minimum three different contractors. This is crucial as may the grade of work, because prices may differ considerably. Get yourself a good experience for the specialist by sitting yourself down with her or him and discussing your whole approach.

After some initial use, your kitchen cabinets can start to get rid of their appeal. You can shine up kitchen cabinetry by using car wax. Use some car feel liberally to a towel and wash your units down in a circular motion. This will make your units resemble they are new and shiny.

When it?s time for you to make improvements to your residence, engage the services of a reliable general contractor. Look around and make careful comparisons. A competent and sincere, general contractor, can complete home developments professionally. A contractor can also perform do-it-yourself work cheaper than you can control, by carrying it out yourself.

When signing a contract with a contractor doing home improvements, search for a place of business for that contractor. A clear sign that something is not around level with your builder is once they just give you a phone number for a contact and not a stone and mortar building address. It?s super easy for them to just change figures and start shop elsewhere If a problem occurs.

In regards to home improvement, consider putting solar power panels to your house. You may think it is to become a wise investment in comparison to the increasing costs of energy, while the upfront cost may be big. This will save on your monthly electric bills, because the most of your energy will come from the energy you?re saving. This is a great, natural treatment for running your house.

When cracks come in your interior walls or your ceilings, keep these things examined with a building professional as soon as possible. They can reveal greater, far more serious causes, while the most likely cause of such breaks is just a simple failure in the finished floor. You do not want to blithely paint over a break and just forget about it when it is actually showing base negotiation!

Raise the security of your home by adding motion detecting floodlights on the exterior of your house. These lights are ideal for domiciles with large front yards or those situated on dark streets. Mount these lights near your garage or shed. These lights will illuminate the area and decrease the threat of break-ins.

Take the time to look for inspiration in magazines, color swatches and whatever else that you can find, before you begin your next do it yourself project. It is important to plan ahead so that you don?t get stuck trying to do a lot of when it?s time for you to begin your project. This may make the entire process a whole lot more comforting for you personally.

Several things jazz up a residence such as for instance a well-maintained flower bed. Before you undertake a significant remodel, nevertheless, research your options. Find out which flowers are best suited to your home?s climate, soil type, and shaded places. This may ensure that you don?t spend your time or money by planting roses that aren?t appropriate.

Fit your fire extinguisher to the space where it?s being used. Along with could be the same old red but fire extinguishers are considered based on function. School B?s are best suited for the home but Class A?s would probably work well in the remaining portion of the house.

You don?t already have one and if you have a sizable backyard, it could be good for develop a deck before putting your property on the market. potential house buyers look at as an important entertaining space for family and friends a deck to hang out in in is because.

Do not place a television in your kitchen, If you should be creating the building of your dwelling. More time will be then spent by you in the kitchen, if you love television. This can put you in a position where you are convinced more, with the plethora of food around you.

As you can see, do-it-yourself can be quite simple. With the recommendations above, you can accomplish the task of turning your home into your private sanctuary, a place you are proud to call home. What?re you looking forward to? Go ahead and start that home improvement project you?ve been considering. cheap nautical cabinet hardware

In: Aparitii editoriale | | Link ????? 11 vizualizari

Source: http://culturapopulara.ro/?p=25593

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Scientists develop a whole new way of harvesting energy from the sun

Feb. 24, 2013 ? A new method of harvesting the Sun's energy is emerging, thanks to scientists at UC Santa Barbara's Departments of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, and Materials. Though still in its infancy, the research promises to convert sunlight into energy using a process based on metals that are more robust than many of the semiconductors used in conventional methods.

The researchers' findings are published in the latest issue of the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

"It is the first radically new and potentially workable alternative to semiconductor-based solar conversion devices to be developed in the past 70 years or so," said Martin Moskovits, professor of chemistry at UCSB.

In conventional photoprocesses, a technology developed and used over the last century, sunlight hits the surface of semiconductor material, one side of which is electron-rich, while the other side is not. The photon, or light particle, excites the electrons, causing them to leave their postions, and create positively-charged "holes." The result is a current of charged particles that can be captured and delivered for various uses, including powering lightbulbs, charging batteries, or facilitating chemical reactions.

"For example, the electrons might cause hydrogen ions in water to be converted into hydrogen, a fuel, while the holes produce oxygen," said Moskovits.

In the technology developed by Moskovits and his team, it is not semiconductor materials that provide the electrons and venue for the conversion of solar energy, but nanostructured metals -- a "forest" of gold nanorods, to be specific.

For this experiment, gold nanorods were capped with a layer of crystalline titanium dioxide decorated with platinum nanoparticles, and set in water. A cobalt-based oxidation catalyst was deposited on the lower portion of the array.

"When nanostructures, such as nanorods, of certain metals are exposed to visible light, the conduction electrons of the metal can be caused to oscillate collectively, absorbing a great deal of the light," said Moskovits. "This excitation is called a surface plasmon."

As the "hot" electrons in these plasmonic waves are excited by light particles, some travel up the nanorod, through a filter layer of crystalline titanium dioxide, and are captured by platinum particles. This causes the reaction that splits hydrogen ions from the bond that forms water. Meanwhile, the holes left behind by the excited electrons head toward the cobalt-based catalyst on the lower part of the rod to form oxygen.

According to the study, hydrogen production was clearly observable after about two hours. Additionally, the nanorods were not subject to the photocorrosion that often causes traditional semiconductor material to fail in minutes.

"The device operated with no hint of failure for many weeks," Moskovits said.

The plasmonic method of splitting water is currently less efficient and more costly than conventional photoprocesses, but if the last century of photovoltaic technology has shown anything, it is that continued research will improve on the cost and efficiency of this new method -- and likely in far less time than it took for the semiconductor-based technology, said Moskovits.

"Despite the recentness of the discovery, we have already attained 'respectable' efficiencies. More importantly, we can imagine achievable strategies for improving the efficiencies radically," he said.

Research in this study was also performed by postdoctoral researchers Syed Mubeen and Joun Lee; grad student Nirala Singh; materials engineer Stephan Kraemer; and chemistry professor Galen Stucky.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - Santa Barbara, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

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

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Journal Reference:

1. Syed Mubeen, Joun Lee, Nirala Singh, Stephan Kr?mer, Galen D. Stucky, Martin Moskovits. An autonomous photosynthetic device in which all charge carriers derive from surface plasmons. Nature Nanotechnology, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2013.18

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/top_science/~3/aTqnvmAaFnw/130224142917.htm

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Koop, who transformed surgeon general post, dies

FILE - In this Feb. 12, 2002 file photo, former U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Koop testifies in Concord, N.H. Koop, who raised the profile of the surgeon general by riveting America's attention on the then-emerging disease known as AIDS and by railing against smoking, has died in New Hampshire at age 96. (AP Photo/Jim Cole, File)

FILE - In this Feb. 12, 2002 file photo, former U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Koop testifies in Concord, N.H. Koop, who raised the profile of the surgeon general by riveting America's attention on the then-emerging disease known as AIDS and by railing against smoking, has died in New Hampshire at age 96. (AP Photo/Jim Cole, File)

FILE - In this May 12, 1997 file photo, former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop discusses the proposed increase of the New Hampshire cigarette tax at the governor's office in the Statehouse in Concord, H.H. Koop, who raised the profile of the surgeon general by riveting America's attention on the then-emerging disease known as AIDS and by railing against smoking, died Monday, Feb. 25, 2013, in Hanover, N.H. He was 96. (AP Photo/Andrew Sullivan, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 1, 1993 file photo, former Surgeon Genera C. Everett Koop, left, sits with then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton during a meeting with more than 100 prominent doctors in the White House in Washington. Koop, who raised the profile of the surgeon general by riveting America's attention on the then-emerging disease known as AIDS and by railing against smoking, died Monday, Feb. 25, 2013, in Hanover, N.H. He was 96. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - In this Aug. 29, 1991 file photo, former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop speaks in Washington during a conference for preventing transmission of Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Hepatitis B Virus to patients during procedures by medical personal. Koop, who raised the profile of the surgeon general by riveting America's attention on the then-emerging disease known as AIDS and by railing against smoking, died Monday, Feb. 25, 2013, in Hanover, N.H. He was 96. (AP Photo/Barry Thumma, File)

FILE - In this Sept. 14, 1988 file photo, U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop speaks in Philadelphia. Koop, who raised the profile of the surgeon general by riveting America's attention on the then-emerging disease known as AIDS and by railing against smoking, died Monday, Feb. 25, 2013, in Hanover, N.H. He was 96. (AP Photo/Robert J. Gurecki, File)

With his long silver beard and white braided uniform, former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop became one of the most recognizable figures of the Reagan era ? and one of the most unexpectedly enduring.

His nomination in 1981 met a wall of opposition from women's groups and liberal politicians, who said President Ronald Reagan selected Koop, a pediatric surgeon and evangelical Christian from Philadelphia, only because of his conservative views, especially his staunch opposition to abortion.

Soon, though, he was a hero to AIDS activists, who chanted "Koop, Koop" at his appearances but booed other officials. And when he left his post in 1989, he left behind a landscape where AIDS was a top research and educational priority, smoking was considered a public health hazard and access to abortion remained largely intact.

Koop, who turned his once-obscure post into a bully pulpit for seven years during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and who surprised both ends of the political spectrum by setting aside his conservative personal views on issues such as homosexuality and abortion to keep his focus sharply medical, died Monday at his home in Hanover, N.H. He was 96.

An assistant at Koop's Dartmouth College institute, Susan Wills, confirmed his death but didn't disclose its cause.

Although the surgeon general has no real authority to set government policy, Koop described himself as "the health conscience of the country" and said modestly just before leaving his post that "my only influence was through moral suasion."

Koop shocked his conservative supporters when he endorsed condoms and sex education to stop the spread of AIDS. He carried out a crusade to end smoking in the United States ? his goal had been to do so by 2000. A former pipe smoker, he said cigarettes were as addictive as heroin and cocaine.

Even after leaving office, he continued to promote public health causes, from preventing childhood accidents to better training for doctors.

"I will use the written word, the spoken word and whatever I can in the electronic media to deliver health messages to this country as long as people will listen," he promised.

In 1996, he rapped Republican presidential hopeful Bob Dole for suggesting that tobacco is not invariably addictive, saying Dole's comments "either exposed his abysmal lack of knowledge of nicotine addiction or his blind support of the tobacco industry."

Although Koop eventually won wide respect with his blend of old-fashioned values, pragmatism and empathy, his nomination met staunch opposition.

Foes noted that Koop traveled the country in 1979 and 1980 giving speeches that predicted a progression "from liberalized abortion to infanticide to passive euthanasia to active euthanasia, indeed to the very beginnings of the political climate that led to Auschwitz, Dachau and Belsen."

But Koop, a devout Presbyterian, was confirmed after he told a Senate panel he would not use the surgeon general's post to promote his religious ideology. He kept his word.

In 1986, he issued a frank report on AIDS, urging the use of condoms for "safe sex" and advocating sex education as early as third grade.

He also maneuvered around uncooperative Reagan administration officials in 1988 to send an educational AIDS pamphlet to more than 100 million U.S. households, the largest public health mailing ever.

Koop personally opposed homosexuality and believed sex should be saved for marriage. But he insisted that Americans, especially young people, must not die because they were deprived of explicit information about how HIV was transmitted.

Koop further angered conservatives by refusing to issue a report requested by the Reagan White House, saying he could not find enough scientific evidence to determine whether abortion has harmful psychological effects on women.

Koop maintained his personal opposition to abortion, however. After he left office, he told medical students it violated their Hippocratic oath. In 2009, he wrote Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid urging that health care legislation include a provision to ensure doctors and medical students would not be forced to perform abortions. The letter briefly set off a security scare because it was hand delivered.

Koop served as chairman of the National Safe Kids Campaign and as an adviser to President Bill Clinton's health care reform plan.

At a congressional hearing in 2007, Koop spoke about political pressure on the surgeon general post. He said Reagan was pressed to fire him every day, but Reagan would not interfere.

Koop, worried that medicine had lost old-fashioned caring and personal relationships between doctors and patients, opened an institute at Dartmouth to teach medical students basic values and ethics.

He also was a part-owner of a short-lived venture, drkoop.com, to provide consumer health care information via the Internet.

Koop was born in New York's borough of Brooklyn, the only son of a Manhattan banker and the nephew of a doctor. He said by age 5 he knew he wanted to be a surgeon and at age 13 he practiced his skills on neighborhood cats.

He attended Dartmouth, where he received the nickname Chick, short for "chicken Koop." It stuck for life.

Koop was by far the best-known surgeon general, and decades after he left the job he was still a recognized personality.

"I was walking down the street with him one time" about five years ago, recalled Dr. George Wohlreich, director of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, a medical society with which Koop had longstanding ties. "People were yelling out, 'There goes Dr. Koop!' You'd have thought he was a rock star."

Dr. Joseph O'Donnell, an oncologist and professor at the Geisel School of Medicine, where the Koop Institute is located, said he shared Koop's desire to focus on disease prevention.

"When he decided he was going to come here, I felt like I died and went to heaven," said Donnell, the senior scholar at the institute. "He was my hero, and we worked a lot together."

Koop received his medical degree at Cornell Medical College, choosing pediatric surgery because so few surgeons practiced it.

In 1938, Koop married Elizabeth Flanagan, the daughter of a Connecticut doctor. They had four children ? Allen, Norman, David and Elizabeth. David, their youngest son, was killed in a mountain-climbing accident when he was 20.

Koop's wife died in 2007, and he married Cora Hogue in 2010.

Koop was appointed surgeon-in-chief at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia and served as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

He pioneered surgery on newborns and successfully separated three sets of conjoined twins. He won national acclaim by reconstructing the chest of a baby born with the heart outside the body.

Although raised as a Baptist, he was drawn to a Presbyterian church near the hospital, where he developed an abiding faith. He began praying at the bedside of his young patients ? ignoring the snickers of some of his colleagues.

"It used to be said in World War II that there were no atheists in foxholes," he wrote in 1973. "I have found there are very few atheists among the parents of dying children.

"This is a time when religious faith can see a family through trying circumstances."

___

Ring reported from Montpelier, Vt. Cass reported from Washington.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-02-25-US-Obit-Koop/id-9e20fe45dafb46eca53cbf7a7368380e

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Pope makes last St. Peter's Square window appearance of his pontificate

Playing off his?pre-Oscars prediction?that everyone would hate him at the Oscars, Seth MacFarlane spent the first 19 minutes of the Academy Awards on Sunday making sure everyone would, in fact, hate him.?After some real stinkers, the main conceit was William Shatner descending on a screen as Captain Kirk, from the future, to tell MacFarlane to do a better job of hosting, in a kind of alternate-reality bit that turned pretty sordid?and pretty fast. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pope-makes-last-st-peters-square-window-appearance-110327192.html

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McCain: Obama should have Camp David budget summit

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Sen. John McCain says President Barack Obama should invite lawmakers to Camp David or the White House to hammer out a last-minute deal to avert deep budget cuts set to start taking effect at week's end.

The Arizona Republican says Obama should be talking with lawmakers instead of demonizing them over the looming across-the-board cuts in domestic and defense spending.

McCain calls the Pentagon cuts "unconscionable" and says military leaders are already warning they would be devastating.

McCain, the 2008 GOP president nominee, says it's time for Obama to show leadership and call lawmakers either to Camp David or to the White House for a budget summit.

McCain appeared on CNN's "State of the Union."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-02-24-US-Budget-Battle-McCain/id-6fefe922ab8f4d4da2b2c87a0896e01a

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Samsung Launches iPad mini Competitor, the Galaxy Note 8.0 [PICS]

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Source: http://forums.iphoneincanada.ca/showthread.php?14448-Samsung-Launches-iPad-mini-Competitor-the-Galaxy-Note-8.0-PICS&goto=newpost

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10 Celebrity Bodies We Need To Stop Talking About

Adele

<strong>Lose It:</strong> "The thing at the moment is Adele. She is a little too fat, but she has a beautiful face and a divine voice," <a href="http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-body/news/karl-lagerfeld-adele-is-too-fat-201262">Karl Lagerfield snarked</a> about the British singing sensation. Grammy-award-winning singer, Grammy winner, Oscar nominee and poster girl for bringing back the bouffant. <strong>Love It:</strong> Adele Laurie Blue Adkins, who admits the Spice Girls were her first inspiration, was first discovered on MySpace in 2006. From there, she went on to become one of the most successful singers of all time, winning nine Grammy Awards, 12 Billboard Music Awards (including Artist of the Year twice), a Golden Globe Award, and an Oscar nomination. But that's not even the best part: The new mom requires all backstage visitors to make a minimum $20 donation to Sands, a British charity that helps people deal with the death of a baby. Who cares what her dress size is when she collects $13,000 for charity -- in one night? <strong>Live It:</strong> Don't let the big (or little) people bring you down. People's words only have as much power as you give them.

Jennifer Hudson

<strong>Lose It:</strong> First called "too fat" for Hollywood, <em>American Idol</em> finalist Jennifer Hudson made headlines when she dropped more than 80 pounds as a spokeswoman for Weight Watchers. Then, proving that nothing is ever good enough, critics called her "too thin." With so much buzz about her body, we might remember the talented singer best for the 20 seconds of "Believe" she belts out in the commercial. <strong>Love It: </strong>With an Oscar, a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, a NAACP image, and a Screen Actors Guild award tucked under her chic belt, the singer-actress proves she is so much more powerful than a number on the scale. When a personal tragedy rocked Hudson's world (her mother, brother and nephew brutally murdered in 2008), she showed us her true mettle as she dealt with a private tragedy in a very public way. In 2012 she released her autobiography that focuses partly on how she stays optimistic no matter what life throws at her. <strong>Live It:</strong> Sometimes we aim to change the world only to find the world has changed us; the trick is how you deal with it. Optimism is a gift worth far more than a designer dress in a sample size.

Kate Winslet

<strong>Lose It:</strong> Ever since <em>Titanic</em> launched Kate Winslet into the spotlight, her weight has been a popular topic of discussion, mainly because she refuses to apologize for any "imperfections" and goes out of her way to publicly promote a healthy body image. In 2003, when she appeared on the cover of GQ looking trimmed down to Barbie proportions, Winslet issued a statement decrying the photo as fake, saying, "I just didn't want people to think I was a hypocrite and that I'd suddenly lost 30 pounds or whatever." <strong>Love It:</strong> The multiple Academy Award winner has received accolades not just for her acting but also for her work in children's literacy. She also showed her bravery when she helped rescue several people from a burning home during a vacation on Necker Island in 2011. Then, inspired by <em>A Mother's Courage: Talking Back to Autism</em>, the 2010 documentary she narrated, she founded the Golden Hat foundation, a charity that aims to "eliminate barriers for people with autism." <strong>Live It:</strong> Find something to be passionate about and then immerse yourself in it. It won't feel like work if you love it.

Victoria Beckham

<strong>Lose It:</strong> The rumors of starvation diets, surgery, and eating disorders have swirled around Victoria Beckham for years, as people speculate about how she maintains her super slim figure. While the singer-turned-fashion-designer is fairly tight-lipped about the subject, she did say that she's not perfect and tends to get "obsessive" about her six-days-a-week fitness regimen. <strong>Love It:</strong> Beckham has worked incredibly hard to establish her fashion brand and has gotten many accolades in recent years for her creative designs, but it's with children where she really shines. Being a mum of four is an accomplishment in its own right, but over the past five years, she and her soccer legend husband, David Beckham, have donated more than 1 million dollars to buy specialized wheelchairs for disabled children. <strong>Live It:</strong> Don't be afraid to try something new, even when everyone tells you that you shouldn't. And then don't apologize when you prove them all wrong.

Jessica Simpson

<strong>Lose It:</strong> Pregnant. Not pregnant. Pregnant again. With a highly publicized deal with Weight Watchers to lose her baby weight, Jessica Simpson's body has been the topic of more conversations than the number of hair extensions she's sold. Does anyone even remember she started out as a singer? <strong>Love It:</strong> While the world has been discussing the implications of her speedy second pregnancy on her weight-loss deal (she broke up with Weight Watchers), Simpson has been quietly building an empire of clothing, shoes, handbags, and her eponymous hair line. Not to mention launching her show <em>Fashion Star</em>. But the fashion star herself is about more than just heels and hair; the mom of one (with number two on the way!) sponsors an orphanage in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico which she visits often, once even giving them her own SUV as a gift. <strong>Live It</strong>: Life is about balance but you can be a mom, have a job you love, and be healthy. It's not about perfection, it's about being happy.

Oprah

<strong>Lose It:</strong> Oprah Winfrey defined the relationship between celebrity scales and the media, being one of the first to publicly put her own dieting and body image struggles up for discussion. Of her famous Vogue cover shoot (she was the first black woman to land the coveted spot) she explained, "If you want to be on the cover of Vogue and editor-in-chief Anna Wintour says you have to be down to 150 pounds -- that's what you gotta do." <strong>Love It:</strong> While the talk-show host admits to many painful moments, she was also at the forefront of teaching women how to love their bodies and take care of them by establishing a respected cadre of experts, doctors, nutritionists, and life coaches, including the now-famous Dr. Oz, Dr. Weil, and Dr. Phil. She's also known for her hugely generous spirit and many philanthropic activities, including a girl's school in South Africa. <strong>Live It:</strong> Life is not a competition. Bringing others up only lifts us as well.

Jennifer Lawrence

<strong>Lose It:</strong> Criticized for not looking ?hungry enough? to be the star of the action franchise <em>The Hunger Games</em>, actress Jennifer Lawrence has embraced all the body talk with humor and placidity. "In Hollywood, I'm obese,? the gorgeous Oscar nominee said in one interview while simultaneously dismissing any idea of dieting. <strong>Love It:</strong> Lawrence, while still maintaining a busy and diverse career as an actress, also strives to be a healthy role model to other girls. And she walks her own talk. Showing girls that they'll get further by focusing on their dreams than their waistlines, she said dryly, "I'd rather look chubby on screen and like a person in real life." <strong>Live It:</strong> Worry more about what you do and less about how you look doing it.

Kate Middleton

<strong>Lose It:</strong> Just like her mother-in-law, Princess Diana, before her, Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton is subjected to media scrutiny over every ounce she gains or loses. Her apparent slim-down right before her 2011 ?wedding of the century? to heir apparent Prince William, was decried as an eating disorder by countless newspaper and magazine articles (Stress from having to plan the "wedding of the century," perhaps?). But when the private princess recently announced her pregnancy, tabloids responded by stalking her on holiday until they got photos of her protruding belly. <strong>Love It:</strong> Middleton, like many of her royal clan, is known for her humanitarian work and is often photographed visiting sick children or helping improve art programs in British schools. But what's even more telling of her generous nature is that when she got married, rather than accepting lavish gifts from admirers worldwide, she and William instead started a gift fund that supported 26 of their favorite charities, benefiting everything from the armed forces, children, and the elderly, to art, sports and conservation. <strong>Live It:</strong> It?s wonderful to recieve, but it feels even better to be able to give! And you don?t have to be a Duchess to help out your local school or veteran?s association.

Sonia Sotomayor

<strong>Lose It: </strong>Justice Sonia Sotomayor got a lot of attention when President Obama first nominated her for the US Supreme Court in 2009. She would be the court?s first Hispanic and third female justice. Unfortunately rather than dwell on her many accomplishments, many people focused in on her weight. One Salon.com article asked ?How do you say 55, overweight, and diabetic in Spanish?? and implied she would be unfit to rule because of her ill health prospects. (Sotomayor was diagnosed with Type I diabetes as a child and it is not caused by weight gain.) <strong>Love It:</strong> Since becoming a public figure, Justice Sotomayor has given hundreds of speeches, mainly to women?s and ethnic groups, encouraging them to overcome negative stereotypes and be smart, strong, and politically active. Her 2013 memoir, <em>My Beloved World</em>, is published in both Spanish and English and details her difficult childhood in the New York housing projects. Today she lives in the U-Street Corridor, a neighborhood in Washington D.C. that was once known as ?the black broadway? and today is still one of the most ethnically and economically diverse areas in the region, because she says it reminds her of home. <strong>Live It: </strong>Never be ashamed of your roots. You are who you are because of your past, not in spite of it.

Steve Jobs

<strong>Lose It:</strong> By the end of his life Steve Jobs was more talked about for his obsession with eating apples than for his genius making Apple. Ashton Kutcher, who plays the tech wizard in an upcoming movie, has said that eating Jobs' strict vegetarian diet put him in the hospital. And even before news of his terminal cancer surfaced, Jobs was often singled out for his gaunt appearance. <strong>Love It:</strong> During his 56 years, Jobs was credited as being the "father of the personal computer" and for revolutionizing the tech, phone, music, and movie industries. So next time you pull up Finding Nemo on your iPad to keep your kid occupied while you get some work e-mails answered on your iPhone, remember Jobs for his genius and not his jeans. <strong>Live It: </strong>Think big thoughts. Don't dismiss anything as "crazy".

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/24/celebrity-bodies-weight_n_2725636.html

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Dot Earth Blog: Can Humans Do Better Than Dinosaurs When it Comes to Incoming Space Objects?

Can humans do better than the dinosaurs?

This is one of a string of questions I posed in a Skype chat on Sunday with Russell L. Schweickart, the Apollo 9 astronaut who has become a leading proponent of investing in tools that can spot and deflect earthbound asteroids and other orbiting threats. We spoke shortly after the cosmic coincidence on Feb. 15, when a long-projected close flyby by the DA14 asteroid was upstaged by the meteor that disintegrated over Siberia.

Schweickart, along with former space shuttle astronaut Edward Lu and others, has for years pursued the goal of creating the technological capacity (through a privately financed Sentinel space telescope mission) and encouraging governmental responsibility (through discussions with NASA, the United Nations and other relevant entities) to address this long-understood, but largely discounted, threat.

My first question was whether Schweickart saw the cosmic events last week as changing the equation. He was hopeful but doubtful.

Below you can read transcribed portions of our conversation, including Schweickart?s views on why developing a system for spotting and deflecting near-Earth objects has been a tough sell both at NASA and in Congress.

For a closer look at the planetary-protection efforts of Schweickart, Lu and their allies, I encourage you to read William J. Broad?s recent feature, ?Vindication for Entrepreneurs Watching Sky: Yes, It Can Fall.?

I also recommend Lu?s TEDx talk on the Sentinel space telescope project, and explore background posted by the B612 Foundation, the group co-founded by Lu, Schweickart and others, first to explore deflection options and, since 2011, focused on the telescope mission.

My central question for Schweickart was:

Can we be smarter than the dinosaurs? We clearly have the foresight to recognize this is possible but now can we actually be smarter? Intelligence is taking knowledge and doing something with it.

He replied:

We clearly have both the knowledge and the capability to protect the Earth from these impacts. The bigger question is will we really recognize our shared interest in survival to cooperate internationally to make decisions and protect life on earth?. We?re broken into nations and tribes of all kinds and sizes and whether we can recognize our common humanity to the point where we do better than the dinosaurs, there?s not a clear answer to that.

He laid out the three-pronged approach that?s required:

There are three fundamental elements to protecting the Earth from these things.

Number one is having adequate early warning. That?s what our Project Sentinel infrared telescope is all about.

The second one is once you know something?s coming at you, you have to have a way to prevent it, and that?s deflection. And right now, while we know how to deflect ? and the B612 Foundation was a major cohort in developing those capabilities ? nevertheless it?s never been demonstrated?. Public safety is a fundamental responsibility of government everywhere. And to me NASA needs to be given the clear responsibilty to protect the earth from a predicted impact.

And the third is the most challenging issue: the international coordination?. The easiest way to state it is that you can?t deflect an asteroid without putting temporarily at risk other nations and people who were not initially threatened? that international complexity says there has to be some ultimately we may watch ourselves get hit with the first one that threatens, hopefully in the ocean, while everybody is still debating at the U.N. But hopefully that will only happen once.

I recalled how, in 2004, Schweickart described a Senate hearing on strategies for spotting and deflecting near-Earth objects as a sad affair in which lawmakers were concerned publicly, but privately said there was no way to get the money for an ambitious program. Why is planetary protection seen as a boondoggle, I asked?

He replied:

It?s not officially on anybody?s to-do list in terms of legal requirements. NASA does have a legal requirement to discover asteroids and to do certain research work, track them and catalog them, etc., but NASA does not have responsibility nor does anyone else, to protect the Earth from potential impacts. This is really public safety. This is not science or exploration. It?s always been a sad sister.

He said the Siberian meteor blast might boost prospects, but was doubtful it would have a lasting effect on spending, particularly given other pressures in Washington:

Given the financial situation in the federal government, not to mention the tremendous partisan contention going on, and the sequestration and everything else, this is a tough time for anybody to propose spending money that isn?t already committed.

Schweickart added that?s where the Sentinel mission, for which the nonprofit B612 Foundation is trying to raise $450 million, comes in:

It?s one of the nice things about being a private entity. We can focus on something that?s of very great importance and we can see it through, notwithstanding the rapidly changing political environment.

He concluded by describing how the Sentinel mission could, within a decade, identify a huge number of orbiting objects that cannot be detected now but could have the destructive power of the Tunguska object, which exploded over Siberia in 1908, flattening hundreds of square miles of forest.

If we can get our B612 telescope into orbit by 2018, by the time we get to 2020, 2022, we?ll have something like 50 percent of the Tunguska-size objects ? things like DA14 [the 50-meter-diameter asteroid that passed between Earth and some satellites on Friday]. Having 50 percent is a lot better than what we have now which is less than one half of one percent of objects that size. These are not panic situations, but they can hit any day, as we found out last Friday.

Source: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/can-humans-do-better-than-dinosaurs-when-it-comes-to-incoming-space-objects/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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BOJ board rift may delay new governor's policy ambitions

TOKYO (Reuters) - A rift among Bank of Japan board members over how to achieve the new 2 percent inflation target means the central bank's next governor may have to move more cautiously than markets expect in stimulating the economy.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has demanded bold action from the BOJ, raising expectations the next governor will shake up policy and finally manage what previous governors have not - to jump start an economy that has stagnated for years.

But sources familiar with central bank thinking said that while the central bank may well ease policy under an existing asset-buying program, fresh ideas to expand the balance sheet more aggressively may be months away.

That's because the new governor will face the challenge of trying to reach consensus on a board split over the feasibility of seeking a 2 percent inflation target and how best to achieve it, they said. They declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Incumbent BOJ Governor Masaaki Shirakawa and his two deputies step down on March 19. The BOJ will hold its first policy meeting under a new leadership on April 3-4 if parliamentary approval of Abe's nominees goes smoothly.

To keep easing policy, the meeting will have little choice but to continue with the steps already adopted of boosting asset purchases and buying government bonds, analysts said. Anything more ambitious is unlikely.

"What we have now is a very fragmented board, confused on what the BOJ is really trying to achieve. Reaching a consensus will be tough," said Hideo Kumano, chief economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute in Tokyo.

Under pressure from Abe, the central bank agreed in January to double its inflation target to 2 percent and committed to "open ended" asset buying from 2014.

His persistent pressure to shift the central bank to more aggressive action has driven the yen down to a 33-month low against the dollar, lifted share prices and given the export-reliant economy hope of relief from the fourth recession since 2000.

The BOJ board will be dominated by those in favor of further easing but that is about where consensus ends.

It is split on everything else, including the feasibility of trying to achieve 2 percent inflation in an economy that has rarely seen prices rise to that level, except for blips caused by tax hikes or a spike in energy costs.

BOARD SPLIT

Board members Takehiro Sato and Takahide Kiuchi voted against the BOJ's decision in January to double the inflation target. They felt 2 percent inflation was not sustainable in Japan, minutes of the meeting released on Tuesday show.

"Even if the central bank were to set 2 percent inflation as a target, this alone was highly unlikely to have a substantial influence on inflation expectations," they were quoted as saying in the minutes.

That contrasted with the BOJ's official line that by setting a new inflation target, the central bank could show its resolve to beat deflation and alter public expectations that prices will continue to fall.

The two dissenters are not necessarily opposed to further easing. They voted with the board at the same January meeting on the decision to make an "open-ended" commitment to buy assets from next year.

But there is hardly any consensus on how the BOJ should try to beat deflation, which has weighed on the economy for so long that consumer expectations of falling prices are entrenched.

Some board members want the BOJ to focus on nudging down longer-term interest rates by buying longer-dated government bonds, the sources say. A reduction in longer-term interest rates might encourage longer-term lending and thus investment in the economy, the thinking goes.

Others prefer scrapping a 0.1 percent floor set by the central bank on money market rates, or want the central bank to buy treasury discount bills forcefully. Both measures would be aimed at pushing down short-term rates and to help weaken the yen.

Policymaker Ryuzo Miyao, a former academic, proposed strengthening the BOJ's commitment to ultra-easy monetary policy by pledging to keep interest rates virtually at zero until 2 percent inflation is in sight. That would be more binding than the BOJ's current commitment to maintain zero rates and asset purchases "for as long as needed."

Miyao's idea was turned down at a policy review last week.

The more unorthodox step of buying foreign bonds is fading as a near-term possibility as Japan faces heat from fellow members of the Group of 20 leading economies.

The fall in the yen has already sparked concern Japan's policies could encourage competitive currency devaluations, although the G20 refrained from directly criticizing Japan at a financial leaders' meeting last weekend.

Even Sato, initially an advocate of buying foreign bonds, has toned down his calls and stressed the hurdles that must be met, such as seeking global consent for such a step. Foreign bond buying is considered a more radical option for the central bank because it would be seen as tantamount to currency intervention.

"Given the global debate surrounding Japan, it may be hard for the BOJ to consider buying foreign bonds," said one source.

So while the BOJ may well ease policy as early as in April, it is likely to opt for another increase in its asset-buying program, rather than a new measure, analysts say.

Indeed, the sources said that given the board split, new ideas for policies may be months away.

The BOJ might also extend the duration of government bonds it targets under its asset-buying program to five years from the current three years, an option floated by a few board members in January as a way to pressure the longer end of the yield curve.

For the time being, the only realistic option left for the central bank may be to continue buying government bonds, said one of the sources.

"The only question is how aggressively it will do this."

(Reporting by Leika Kihara; Editing by Neil Fullick)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/boj-board-rift-may-delay-governors-policy-ambitions-102958842--business.html

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Dr. Steve Hammond leaving Florida TaxWatch Center for Smart Justice

Today, Florida TaxWatch announced the resignation of Steven Hammond as the TaxWatch Center for Smart Justice Executive Director, effective immediately.

Dominic M. Calabro, Florida TaxWatch President and CEO said, ?Steve has brought an intense personal connection to the issue of criminal and juvenile justice, and will continue to work with Florida?s inmates through his prison ministry services. The TaxWatch Center for Smart Justice has been in good hands under Steve?s leadership, and will continue to advance its very successful work.??

Dr. Hammond, in announcing his resignation, stated, ?I sincerely appreciate the opportunities I have been given at Florida TaxWatch. I have enjoyed the relationships both within TaxWatch and the community of stakeholders across Florida who are committed to justice reform. I was extremely fortunate to be supported by an advisory board of true professionals, each and everyone of whom was and is fully committed to advocating creative and innovative ways to promote justice reform, improve public safety, and reduce the taxpayers? burden. I feel that it is time for me to move on to pursue other interests and opportunities, not the least of which is further commitment to prison ministry.??

The Center will continue its work, and will conduct an extensive search for its new Executive Director over the next four months. In the interim, the important work of the Center will continue through the dedicated efforts of TaxWatch Center for Smart Justice researcher Nathan Waible, and others, under the direction of Robert Weissert, Vice President for Research and General Counsel.

Source: http://www.saintpetersblog.com/dr-steve-hammond-leaving-florida-taxwatch-center-for-smart-justice

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Ecuador President Rafael Correa sails to re-election on vows to deepen welfare reforms, but is it sustainable?

QUITO, Ecuador A landslide second re-election secured, President Rafael Correa immediately vowed to deepen the "citizen's revolution" that has lifted tens of thousands of Ecuadoreans out of poverty as he expanded the welfare state.

"In this revolution the citizens are in charge, not capital," the leftist U.S.-trained economist said after winning 56.9 percent of the vote Sunday against 23.8 percent for his closest challenger, longtime banker Guillermo Lasso.

With 57 percent of the vote counted, former President Lucio Gutierrez finished third with 6 percent. The remainder was divided among five other candidates. Lasso conceded defeat late Sunday.

The fiery-tongued Correa has brought surprising stability to an oil-exporting nation of 14.6 million with a history of unruliness that cycled through seven presidents in the decade before him.

With the help of oil prices that have hovered around $100 a barrel, he has raised lower-class living standards and widened the welfare state with region-leading social spending.

The 48-year-old Correa dedicated his victory to his cancer-stricken friend President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who some analysts have suggested he could succeed as the standard-bearer of Latin America's left.

"We are only here to serve you. Nothing for us. Everything for you," Correa told cheering supporters from the balcony of the Carondelet presidential palace Sunday shortly after polls closed.

Yet Correa has also drawn wide rebuke for intolerance of dissent and some analysts have questioned how sustainable his economic policies are. The number of people working for the government has burgeoned from 16,000 to 90,000 during Correa's current term if office, Ecuador's nongovernmental Observatory of Fiscal Policy reported in December.

Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank, called Correa's ramping up of social spending "simply applying the standard recipe for many populist governments in the region." While it succeeds in building political support in the short term, he said, it is not clear whether it is sustainable.

And while Correa has shown himself to be the "undisputed rhetorical leader of Latin America's left" ? and should now see his standing enhanced there ? Shifter said Correa's consolidation of power has damaged Ecuador's "already precarious institutions" and he lacks the clout, the ambition and the coffers to build a coalition that could curtail U.S. power in the region.

Correa's result Sunday easily topped the 51.7 percent that he won in his first re-election in April 2009. He is barred by the constitution from another 4-year term.

While a practitioner of one-man rule in the Chavez mold, he is more respectful of private property.

Ecuador relies on petroleum for more than half of its export earnings, and he has used this oil wealth to make public education and health care more accessible, and lay thousands of miles of new highways.

Foreign investment has suffered, however, and Lasso, the former head of the Banco de Guayaquil, ran on a platform of guaranteeing multinational businesses more favorable terms, such as abolishing a 5 percent tax on capital removed from Ecuador.

Correa said he's happy to have more foreign investment but "it's better not to have it than to mortgage the country in the name of that pipe dream called foreign investment."

He did not explain, meanwhile, how he planned to pay for efforts to "quicken and deepen" poverty reduction. Skeptical economists say the state can't afford it without major new revenue sources.

Such talk doesn't dim the enthusiasm for Correa of the likes of Jomaira Espinosa.

"Before (Correa), my family didn't have enough to eat" and her father couldn't find work, the 18-year-old said. Now her father has a job as a public servant and she expects to be able to study for free at a university thanks to Correa's programs.

Since Correa took office in 2007, the United Nations says Ecuador's poverty rate has dropped nearly five percentage points to 32.4 percent. In all, 1.9 million people receive $50 a month in aid from the state. Critics complain that the handouts to single mothers, needy families and the elderly poor, along with other subsidies, have bloated the government.

Civil liberties, meantime, have suffered.

Correa has been widely condemned for using criminal libel law against opposition news media and for such strong-arm tactics as seizing Ecuador's airwaves virtually at will to spread his political gospel and attack opponents.

German Calapucha, a 29-year-old accountant, said he voted against Correa because he's tired of the president's imperiousness.

"He thinks that because he wins elections he has the right to mistreat people," Calapucha said.

Correa has eroded the influence not just of opposition political parties but also of the Roman Catholic Church and independent news media. He has stacked courts with friendly judges and prosecuted indigenous leaders for organizing protests against Correa's attempt to open up Ecuador to large-scale mining without their consent.

Meanwhile, Correa has been unable to stop a growing sensation of vulnerability in a country where robberies and burglaries grew 30 percent in 2012 compared with the previous year.

The graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign gained an early reputation as a maverick, defying international financiers by defaulting on $3.9 billion in foreign debt obligations and rewriting contracts with oil multinationals to secure a higher share of oil revenues for Ecuador.

He has also kept the United States at arm's length while upsetting Britain and Sweden in August by granting asylum at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the online spiller of leaked U.S. government secrets who is wanted for questioning in Sweden for alleged sexual assault.

Correa has, meanwhile, cozied up to U.S. rivals Iran and China. The latter is the biggest buyer of Ecuador's oil and holds $3.4 billion in Ecuadorean debt, according to Finance Minister Patricio Rivera.

Source: http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~r/cbsnews/feed/~3/uz-AiVKRLfo/

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