Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Mayo Clinic CEO to Minnesota: 'We'll have to rethink...the best use of our money' (Star Tribune)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/297849197?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Victims of Madoff fraud can't sue SEC: appeals court

By Nate Raymond

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Victims of Bernard Madoff's investment fraud have lost their bid to sue the Securities and Exchange Commission for negligence in failing to uncover the swindler's Ponzi scheme.

On Wednesday, a federal appeals court in New York upheld the dismissal of lawsuits against the securities regulator brought by Madoff investors. The court said the SEC's actions and "regrettable inaction" were protected by a law that shields federal agencies from liability.

The Madoff case embarrassed the SEC, which had investigated the now-imprisoned money manager but failed to detect his fraud.

The investor lawsuits relied heavily on a 2009 report by the SEC Inspector General's office, which outlined how the agency missed red flags and failed to follow up properly on leads that he was running a massive scam at his firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC.

Howard Kleinhendler, a lawyer for eight plaintiffs who lost $50 million in Madoff's scheme, said he could not envision a better example of a case in which the SEC should be held liable for failing to prevent a fraud.

"It just shows that we spend a lot of money on this agency, and when they screw up, they're not accountable," he said, adding he would seek a Supreme Court review of the case.

An SEC spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In an unsigned opinion, a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals expressed "sympathy for Plaintiffs' predicament (and our antipathy for the SEC's conduct)," but said Congress' intent was to protect regulators' discretionary use of their investigatory powers.

The ruling upholds an April 2011 decision by U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain in Manhattan, which tossed a lawsuit brought by Madoff investors Phyllis Molchatsky and Steven Schneider.

Several similar cases by other investors that were also dismissed were consolidated for the appeal.

Howard Elisofon, a lawyer for Molchatsky and Schneider at the law firm Herrick Feinstein, said in a statement he "recognized that challenging the SEC would be difficult, but this was a case that needed to be fought."

Separately, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this year rejected claims against the SEC by other former Madoff clients.

Madoff pleaded guilty in March 2009 to running what prosecutors said was a $65-billion Ponzi scheme. He was sentenced to a 150-year prison sentence in June 2009.

Irving Picard, a court-appointed trustee, has said he has recovered or reached settlements for $9.32 billion for former Madoff customers.

The case is Molchatsky v. United States, 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 11-2510.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Martha Graybow, Alden Bentley and Bernadette Baum)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/madoff-investors-cant-sue-sec-appeals-court-173818369--sector.html

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Jennifer Lawrence Sex Tape Tops Fans' Celebrity Wish List, Survey Finds

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Atlantic turbulence 'to hit flights'

Flights across the North Atlantic could get a lot bumpier in the future if the climate changes as scientists expect.

Planes are already encountering stronger winds, and could now face more turbulence, according to research led from Reading University, UK.

The study, published in Nature Climate Change, suggests that by mid-century passengers will be bounced around more frequently and more strongly.

The zone in the North Atlantic affected by turbulence could also increase.

Reading's Dr Paul Williams said comfort was not the only consideration; there were financial consequences of bumpier airspace as well.

"It's certainly plausible that if flights get diverted more to fly around turbulence rather than through it then the amount of fuel that needs to be burnt will increase," he told BBC News.

"Fuel costs money, which airlines have to pay, and ultimately it could of course be passengers buying their tickets who see the prices go up."

Dr Williams was presenting his research here in Vienna at the European Union Geosciences (EGU) General Assembly.

It was undertaken with Dr Manoj Joshi from the University of East Anglia.

The scientists concentrated their investigation on the North Atlantic corridor, which some 600 flights cross each day to go between the Americas and Europe.

They used a supercomputer to simulate likely changes to air currents above 10km in altitude, such as the fast-moving jet stream.

There is evidence to suggest this has been blowing more strongly, and under some scenarios could be prone to more of the instabilities associated with turbulence as the Earth's climate warms.

Williams and Joshi compared what was essentially an unchanged ("pre-industrial") climate with one that contained double the carbon dioxide. This could happen in the 2050s on present trends.

The modelling suggested the average strength of transatlantic turbulence could increase by between 10% and 40%, and the amount of airspace likely to contain significant turbulence by between 40% and 170%, where the most likely outcome is around 100%. In other words, a doubling of the amount of airspace affected.

"The probability of moderate or greater turbulence increases by 10.8%," said Dr Williams.

"'Moderate or greater turbulence' has a specific definition in aviation. It is turbulence that is strong enough to bounce the aircraft around with an acceleration of five metres per second squared, which is half of a g-force. For that, the seatbelt sign would certainly be on; it would be difficult to walk; drinks would get knocked over; you'd feel strain against your seatbelt."

The Nature Climate Change study is said to be the first to examine the future of aviation turbulence.

Figures are hard to come by but the costs of air turbulence in terms of injuries, plane damage and post-incident inquiries are thought to be in the region of $150m (?100m) a year.

Detecting clear-air turbulence (unstable air in clear blue skies) by remote sensing is difficult.

Currently, pilots rely a lot on reports from planes that have already made the journey across the Atlantic earlier in the day for information about probable flight conditions.

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22063340#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

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Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Heavy metal, Islamist politics, and democracy in Indonesia

Heavy metal band Jamrud and a major Indonesian Islamist party throw a gig together. That's one of the smallest changes in Indonesian politics.

By Dan Murphy,?Staff writer / April 9, 2013

When I moved to Indonesia in 1993, the Indonesian media and political spheres were closed shops. There were only three legal political parties and the media, particularly broadcast media, were tightly controlled. The scenes around me now, in this corner of the archipelago, reveal just how much the nation has transformed itself.?

Skip to next paragraph Dan Murphy

Staff writer

Dan Murphy is a staff writer for the Monitor's international desk, focused on the Middle East.?Murphy, who has reported from Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, and more than a dozen other countries, writes and edits Backchannels. The focus? War and international relations, leaning toward things Middle East.

Recent posts

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Twenty years ago, nightly news reports largely consisted of long, loving accounts of the latest factory opening by President Soeharto, the self-styled "father of Indonesian development" (the old 50,000 rupiah note carried a beaming Soeharto with this title beneath), followed by an account of the latest foreign dignitary he received and then, perhaps, sports.?

There were red lines everywhere for reporters and film and television producers. Most important was to never, ever discuss in a critical tone the 1965 coup that brought him to power and the anti-Communist purge that followed, leaving an estimated 500,000 dead. There was an official narrative that everyone had to adhere to: Evil communists tried to take over and brave young Soeharto saved the day, pushing the first president of Indonesia,?Sukarno, from power for having unsavory friends. End of story. Or else.

It wasn't until 2000, two years after Soeharto was pushed from power, that the mawkish 1983 romance "The Year of Living Dangerously," set amid Indonesia's 1965 turmoil, was allowed to be shown here, with Indonesians in the audience twittering at the accents of the Filipino actors when they spoke Indonesian.

Even almost 30 years later, Soeharto's regime still played masterfully with the fear and paranoia generated by the national tragedy of 1965. In that time, he built an order (which he called the "New Order") based on rigid political control. In the years after taking power he forced Indonesia's existing political parties into two super-parties that, for decades, represented the loyal (very, very, very loyal) opposition: the United Development Party (PPP) for Islamist political groups and the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) for more secular nationalist ones.

And then there was the new party to rule them all: His Golkar, an acronym that means "Functional Groups."

In the early 1990s, the protest movement that would help galvanize opinion against Soeharto in 1998 was being born, though no one really understood it back then. It was much like Egypt when I arrived there a decade ago: activists hounded by the state, organizing, seeking to make links to labor unions, often getting their heads kicked in by the police or the military in what seemed like a hopeless cause.

In 1993, Soeharto made one of his great miscalculations. Though he had show-elections every five years, which his government called "festivals of democracy," both PDI and PPP were allowed some scraps of parliamentary representation as rewards for good behavior. At the time, some members of the PDI, however, were pushing to engage politics in a real way, and Soeharto's government sought to directly control the election of a new party leader. However, the PDI succeeded in naming Megawati Sukarnoputri, Sukarno's daughter, as the head of the party.

While she had neither political skills nor governing ability of her own, a group of bright political operators seeking political change gathered around her, and were important players when the curtain came down on Soeharto's 32-year reign. Megawati ended up Indonesia's first post-Soeharto vice president and its second president, in a political era in which the country exploded from just three parties to over 100.

Today, Indonesia's raucous political environment is a stunning change from a decade ago. South Maluku, of which Ambon is the capital, is gearing up for gubernatorial elections (under Soeharto, all local politicians down to the district level were appointed by Jakarta) and the island is awash in political posters and canvassers. Judging from a few days traveling in the province, there are at least five candidates with some money behind them, and the bottoms of their billboards show the support they've aligned in each case from dozens of national parties.

Speaking to an old friend from Indonesia recently, who describes himself as a "glass half-empty guy," he nevertheless said direct local elections and a commitment to the political process has been one of the great successes of Indonesia since Soeharto. Sure, crooks often get into office, "but they end up getting voted out."

Indonesia's next big "festival of democracy" (this time, a real one) is scheduled for next year. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is being term-limited from office, and the jockeying to replace him has already begun.

The old three parties have had mixed fortunes in the years since democracy came to Indonesia. The PDI (which came to be known as the PDI-P, or "Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle") leads the opposition in parliament, with about 17 percent of the seats. Golkar, which has parlayed backing from big businesses and years of organization into ongoing support, is the junior partner in the governing coalition with about 19 percent of the seats. And the PPP? A shadow of their former selves, with 7 percent of the seats in parliament.

But I switched on the TV here two nights ago before going to bed, and came across the PPP's 40th anniversary rally in Surabaya, East Java. Having spent much of the past decade in the Middle East, and having covered the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Indonesia, I was transfixed. A crowd of thousands of enthusiastic young Indonesians, the girls in headscarves, were head-banging to the heavy metal band Jamrud, which was headlining a party for an avowedly Islamist political group.

With apologies to Mark Levine, who wrote an excellent book on the alternative music scene in the Arab world called "Heavy Metal Islam," this was the real thing. I wish I could find an online video of the show. But though its absent the PPP's green flag, with the Kabbah in Mecca in the middle waving above the music, this is what Jamrud sounds like:

And it reminded me that a unique political culture is evolving here that can consistently confound expectations and preconceptions.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/QEnGQX-II2I/Heavy-metal-Islamist-politics-and-democracy-in-Indonesia

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Harold M. Schmeck Jr., Times Science Writer, Dies at 89

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Mr. Schmeck covered medical research for The New York Times, where he worked for more than 30 years.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/09/business/media/harold-m-schmeck-89-times-science-writer-dies.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Cabela's to Hire 200 to Staff New Green Bay, Wis., Store

Applications being accepted now, according to general manager Steve Farone.

Cabela?s Green Bay, Wisconsin Store

Cabela?s Green Bay, Wisconsin Store

Cabelas

Cabelas

SIDNEY, Neb. --(Ammoland.com)- Cabela?s Incorporated, the World?s Foremost Outfitter of hunting, fishing and outdoor gear, plans to hire approximately 200 full-time, part-time and seasonal employees to staff its new Green Bay, Wis., store scheduled to open this summer.

Applications are being accepted now and interviews will begin April 22, continuing through April 26.

To apply, visit www.cabelas.jobs, click on ?Apply Now,? then ?United States Jobs,? and select ?Green Bay.? Follow instructions to log in. Applications must be submitted online. Applying does not guarantee an interview.?http://tiny.cc/jdp8uw

Most employees are expected to come from Green Bay and the surrounding area. Typically, Cabela?s attracts applicants with detailed knowledge about the outdoors and an aptitude for customer service.

?Cabela?s is looking for employees who will deliver legendary customer service, and who will be excited about sharing their passion and knowledge of the outdoors with our many loyal customers across the area,? said Steve Farone, general manager of the new store.

The 100,000-square-foot store is located at 1499 Lombardi Ave N near Lambeau Field in the Village of Ashwaubenon in Brown County. It is Cabela?s third Wisconsin store, joining the Richfield and Prairie du Chien locations. In addition to thousands of quality outdoor products, the store will feature a mountain replica, aquarium, indoor archery range, dynamic wildlife displays, Gun Library, Bargain Cave, Deli, Fudge Shop and Sportsman?s Hall of Fame displaying Wisconsin trophy animal mounts.

Currently, Cabela?s operates 43 stores across the United States and Canada. The company has announced plans to open an additional 12 stores by the end of 2014.

www.cabelas.com

About Cabela?s Incorporated
Cabela?s Incorporated, headquartered in Sidney, Nebraska, is a leading specialty retailer, and the world?s largest direct marketer, of hunting, fishing, camping and related outdoor merchandise. Since the Company?s founding in 1961, Cabela?s? has grown to become one of the most well-known outdoor recreation brands in the world, and has long been recognized as the World?s Foremost Outfitter?. Through Cabela?s growing number of retail stores and its well-established direct business, it offers a wide and distinctive selection of high-quality outdoor products at competitive prices while providing superior customer service. Cabela?s also issues the Cabela?s CLUB? Visa credit card, which serves as its primary customer loyalty rewards program. Cabela?s stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ?CAB?.

Source: http://www.ammoland.com/2013/04/cabelas-to-hire-200-to-staff-new-green-bay-wis-store/

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Someone at the Vatican Is Downloading Really Dirty Porn

That whole secret report on gay sex and bribery and the Pope aside, the Catholic Church is known for being fairly uptight when it comes to doing the deed. So you might be surprised to learn that someone in the Vatican has a taste for leather. Sexy leather.

RELATED: Pope Benedict XVI Says Goodbye

The file-sharing folks at TorrentFreak discovered that some Vatican City IP addresses?were fairly frequent torrent users, downloading episodes of Chicago Fire, Touch, and The Americans. Someone in the Vatican also downloaded Love Actually, which isn't that surprising because it's a great movie, obviously, though we suspect they probably don't agree with some of the humor. But Bill Nighy's potty mouth is hardly the worst thing TorrentFreak has discovered in the download caches within the confines ofthe Catholic Church headquarters. There was porn, too. And lots of it.?

RELATED: California Voters Came Down Hard on Sex Workers Yesterday

While TorrentFreak declined to say what kind of porn some poor Vatican citizen was interested in, Fleshbot had no problem busting the Church's hidden freaks. [LINK IS VERY NSFW] "This Is The BDSM Porn They Watch In The Vatican," their headline reads. And, yeah, it's that simple. The files are for movies like TS Pussy Hunters, and Whipped Ass, and something called Russian Slaves. They sound... interesting. (As TorrentFreak suggests,?"feel free to do your own 'research' using the titles shown above.")

RELATED: Is Francis the Most Humble Pope Ever?

Now, we can't say for certain if it's a cardinal or a priest or the Pope downloading these smutty things. Can you imagine the Pope ? even the last one, though most of the IP addressed point to recent downloads ? watching something called Whipped Ass? Well, no, don't answer that. Anyway, it could be one of the servants or a member of the Swiss Guard. We'll never know who it is, really. But someone in that small little town has some interesting taste. Kind of like that Velvet Mafia dossier that uncovered?this: "the cardinals were said to have uncovered an underground gay network, whose members organise sexual meetings in several venues in Rome and Vatican City, leaving them prone to blackmail."?

RELATED: The Vatican Did Not Like Benetton's Papal Makeout Ad

Well, this isn't blackmail, but speculate away!

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/someone-vatican-downloading-really-dirty-porn-220053331.html

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Video: Pros Reveal Most Memorable Investment

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Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/video/cnbc/51464923/

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Monday, April 1, 2013

Deal of the Day: 25% off Seidio OBEX Waterproof Case for iPhone 5

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/baCrMMZRdd8/story01.htm

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Terms on Online Marketing - Nature in Pakistan

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Source: http://fitfitpakistan.blogspot.com/2013/03/terms-online-marketing-one-need-to-know.html

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Pope makes Easter pleas for Mideast peace

VATICAN CITY (AP) ? Pope Francis delivered a plea for peace in his first Easter Sunday message to the world, decrying the seemingly endless conflicts in the Middle East and on the Korean peninsula after celebrating Mass at an outdoor altar before more than 250,000 people in flower-bedecked St. Peter's Square.

Francis shared in his flock's exuberance as they celebrated Christianity's core belief that Jesus Christ rose from the dead following crucifixion. After Mass, he stepped aboard an open-topped white popemobile for a cheerful spin through the joyous crowd, kissing babies and patting children on the head.

One admirer of both the pope and of the pope's favorite soccer team, Argentina's Saints of San Lorenzo, insisted that Francis take a team jersey he was waving at the pontiff. A delighted Francis obliged, briefly holding up the shirt, and the crowd roared in approval.

Francis has repeatedly put concern for the poor and suffering at the center of his messages, and he pursued his promotion of the causes of peace and social justice in the Easter speech he delivered from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica, the same vantage point above the square where he was introduced to the world as the first Latin American pope on March 13.

The Roman Catholic leader aimed his Easter greetings at "every house and every family, especially where the suffering is greatest, in hospitals, in prisons." Francis prayed that Jesus would inspire people to "change hatred into love, vengeance into forgiveness, war into peace."

As popes before him have, he urged Israelis and Palestinians to resume peace talks and end a conflict that "has lasted all too long." And, in reflecting on the two-year-old Syrian crisis, Francis asked, "How much suffering must there still be before a political solution" can be found?

The pope also expressed desire for a "spirit of reconciliation" on the Korean peninsula, where North Korea says it has entered "a state of war" with South Korea. He also decried warfare and terrorism in Africa, as well as what he called the 21st century's most extensive form of slavery: human trafficking.

The first pontiff to come from the Jesuits, an order with special concern for the poor, and the first pope to name himself after St. Francis, a medieval figure who renounced wealth to preach to the down-and-out, Francis lamented that the world is "still divided by greed looking for easy gain."

Earlier, wearing cream-colored vestments, Francis celebrated Mass on the esplanade in front of the basilica at an altar set up under a white canopy. He frequently bowed his head as if in silent reflection.

The sun competed with clouds in the sky Sunday, but the square was a riot of floral color in Rome, where chilly winter has postponed the blossoming of many flowers. Yellow forsythia and white lilies shone, along with bursts of lavender and pink, from potted azalea, rhododendron, wisteria and other plants.

Francis thanked florists from the Netherlands for donating the flowers. He also advised people to let love transform their lives, or as he put it, "let those desert places in our hearts bloom."

The Vatican had prepared a list of brief Easter greetings in 65 languages, but Francis didn't read them. The Vatican didn't say why not, but has said that the new pope, at least for now, feels at ease using Italian, the everyday language of the Holy See. Francis also has stressed his role as a pastor to his flock, and, as Bishop of Rome, Italian would be his language.

The pontiff improvised his parting words to the crowd. He repeated his Easter greeting to those "who have come from all over the world to this square at the heart of Christianity" as well as to those "linked by modern technology," a reference to TV and radio coverage as well as social media.

Francis added that he was especially remembering "the weakest and the neediest" and praying that all of humanity be guided along "the paths of justice, love and peace."

In another departure from Easter tradition, Francis won't be heading for some post-holiday relaxation at the Vatican's summer palace in Castel Gandolfo, in the hills southeast of Rome. That retreat is already occupied by his predecessor, Benedict XVI, who went there in the last hours of his papacy on Feb. 28. Benedict became the first pope in 600 years to resign from the position, and eventually is to move back to the Vatican, after a convent there is readied for him.

Francis so far has declined to move into Benedict's former apartment in the Apostolic Palace, into the rooms whose studio overlooks St. Peter's Square. He is still in the Vatican hotel where earlier this month he was staying along with other cardinals participating in the secret conclave to choose Benedict's successor.

While Francis has just begun to make his mark on the church, it is plain he has little desire to embrace much of the pomp customarily associated with the office.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pope-makes-easter-pleas-mideast-peace-101523086.html

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Sunday, March 31, 2013

End of the line for Roadrunner supercomputer

It's the end of the line for Roadrunner, a first-of-its-kind collection of processors that once reigned as the world's fastest supercomputer.

The $121 million supercomputer, housed at one of the nation's premiere nuclear weapons research laboratories in northern New Mexico, will be decommissioned Sunday.

The reason? The world of supercomputing is evolving and Roadrunner has been replaced with something smaller, faster, more energy efficient and cheaper. Still, officials at Los Alamos National Laboratory say it's among the 25 fastest supercomputers in the world.

"Roadrunner got everyone thinking in new ways about how to build and use a supercomputer," said Gary Grider, who works in the lab's high performance computing division. "Specialized processors are being included in new ways on new systems and being used in novel ways. Our demonstration with Roadrunner caused everyone to pay attention."

In 2008, Roadrunner was first to break the elusive petaflop barrier by processing just over a quadrillion mathematical calculations per second.

Los Alamos teamed up with IBM to build Roadrunner from commercially available parts. They ended up with 278 refrigerator-size racks filled with two different types of processors, all linked together by 55 miles of fiber optic cable. It took nearly two dozen tractor trailer trucks to deliver the supercomputer from New York to northern New Mexico.

The supercomputer has been used over the last five years to model viruses and unseen parts of the universe, to better understand lasers and for nuclear weapons work. That includes simulations aimed at ensuring the safety and reliability of the nation's aging arsenal.

As part of the U.S. nuclear stockpile stewardship program, researchers used Roadrunner's high-speed calculation capabilities to unravel some of the mysteries of energy flow in weapons.

Los Alamos has been helping pioneer novel computer systems for decades. In 1976, the lab helped with the development of the Cray-1. In 1993, the lab held the fastest supercomputer title with the Thinking Machine CM-5.

"And to think of where we're going to be in the next 10 to 15 years, it's just mindboggling," said lab spokesman Kevin Roark.

Right now, Los Alamos ? along with scientists at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California ? is using a supercomputer dubbed Cielo. Installed in 2010, it's slightly faster than Roadrunner, takes up less space and came in at just under $54 million.

Roark said in the next 10 to 20 years, it's expected that the world's supercomputers will be capable of breaking the exascale barrier, or one quintillion calculations per second.

There will be no ceremony when Roadrunner is switched off Sunday, but lab officials said researchers will spend the next month experimenting with its operating system and techniques for compressing memory before dismantling begins. They say the work could help guide the design of future supercomputers.

? 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653377/s/2a2b3210/l/0L0Snbcnews0N0Ctechnology0Ctechnolog0Cend0Eline0Eroadrunner0Esupercomputer0E1C9144294/story01.htm

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Saturday, March 30, 2013

Steve Angello Says Swedish House Mafia 'Keeps On Going'

MTV News catches up with Angello after SHM's last show at Ultra Music Festival.
By Elizabeth Lancaster and Sam Hendrick


Steve Angello
Photo: Associated Press

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1704624/swedish-house-mafia-steve-angello-keeps-on-going.jhtml

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'Biggest cyberattack in history' turns out to be overblown

Is it "the biggest cyberattack in history"? Or just routine flak that network-security providers face all the time?

News websites across the Western world proclaimed Internet Armageddon today (March 27), largely due to a New York Times story detailing a "squabble" between the spam-fighting vigilantes at Spamhaus and the dodgy Dutch Web-hosting company Cyberbunker.

"Fight Jams Internet," the Times headline said. "Global Internet slows," the BBC proclaimed in the wake of the Times' story. Both websites alleged that Netflix streaming was slowing down as a result.

The reality is less exciting, though still serious. The Internet disruptions, which were centered in Western Europe, appear to be largely over, and were largely unnoticed even when occurring.

But, if anything, the incident may prompt a fix for a basic security flaw in the Domain Name System that serves as one of the underpinnings of the Internet.

"Despite the work that has gone into making the Internet extremely resilient, these attacks underscore the fact that there are still some aspects of it that are relatively fragile," said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at San Francisco-based network-security provider nCircle.

Too much information

Cyberbunker appears to be behind a massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that first tried to first take down Spamhaus, then Spamhaus' network-reliability provider CloudFlare, and finally this past Saturday (March 23) hit CloudFlare's own bandwidth providers in Europe.

Boston-based Akamai Networks told the Times, and Spamhaus told the BBC, that the last round of attacks peaked at 300 gigabits per second, possibly the largest amount of bandwidth ever recorded during a DDoS attack.

According to a CloudFlare blog posting, the attack was launched on March 18 and immediately involved a tactic called DNS amplification, in which unprotected Domain Name System (DNS) servers are used to flood targeted servers with huge amounts of useless information, tying up bandwidth and processing time.

The attacks increased in volume during the week, finally peaking on Saturday when, according to CloudFlare, half of the infrastructure on the London Internet Exchange, an Internet node connecting several large-scale networks, was tied up by the attack. (CloudFlare is based in Palo Alto, Calif., but runs a global network.)

DNS servers are essentially the phone books of the Internet. Every Internet-connected device, from your computer to your smartphone, uses them to match a website address that humans use, such as "www.technewsdaily.com," with an Internet Protocol address that computers and routers use, such as "207.86.128.60."

DNS servers are essential, yet many remain "open," which means they will accept lookup requests from anyone, not just their specified clients.

Attackers make lookup requests using the IP addresses of their targets, then request tons of information, which ends up flooding the targeted servers with huge amounts of DNS information.

[5 (Probably) American Cyberweapons]

Did two wrongs make a bigger wrong?

Spamhaus, a group of related companies based in London and Geneva, was started in 1998 to track and combat email spam and spammers. It maintains a blacklist of Web-hosting companies known to host spammers, and a whitelist of known "clean" Web hosts.

Both lists are used by Internet service providers around the world, and Spamhaus is partly responsible for the huge drop in email spam in recent years.

Some Web-hosting companies have complained they've been unfairly placed on the Spamhaus blacklist. Spammers have launched DDoS attacks against Spamhaus' website and servers. (There's even a "Stophaus" website based in Russia and dedicated to combating what it calls Spamhaus' "underhanded extortion tactics.")

It appears Cyberbunker has both complained and attacked.

Cyberbunker bases its operations in a decommissioned NATO bunker, built to withstand a nuclear war, in the southern Netherlands. The company was founded in 1998 by a group of hackers who proclaimed the "Republic of Cyberbunker," a sovereign state "surrounded by the Netherlands on all borders."

The company pledges not to ask questions about what its clients are up to.

"In most cases we have no idea as to who or where our customers actually are," the Cyberbunker site proclaims. "Customers are allowed to host any content they like, except child porn and anything related to terrorism. Everything else is fine."

Such a policy has attracted some unsavory clients, including the file-sharing site The Pirate Bay, and, according to Spamhaus, the cybercrime gang known as the Russian Business Network. Cyberbunker also claims to have been raided by a Dutch police SWAT team, which apparently found nothing incriminating on the premises.

It was Cyberbunker's alleged hosting of spammers that caused Spamhaus to place both Cyberbunker and its ISP on the Spamhaus blacklist in the fall of 2011.

As a result, Cyberbunker's ISP dropped it as a client, but both the ISP and Cyberbunker posted long manifestos about why Spamhaus was evil.

The issue seems to have lain dormant until March 18, when a false Anonymous campaign called "Operation Stophaus" was proclaimed on the online bulletin board Pastebin.

It listed a litany of complaints against the "tax-circumventing self-declared Internet terrorists" of Spamhaus, then added a variant of the Anonymous "We Are Legion" tagline.

That posting may have been cover for the DDoS attacks that began the same day. In a statement to the New York Times, Sven Olaf Kamphuis, who claimed to speak for Cyberbunker, and whose Google+ page gives his residence as "Republic Cyberbunker," affirmed that the Dutch hosting company was behind the attacks.

"Nobody ever deputized Spamhaus to determine what goes and does not go on the Internet," Kamphuis told the newspaper. "They worked themselves into that position by pretending to fight spam."

It's hard to see how such an attack can be legally justified. The Netherlands has famously lax laws governing the Internet and other digital communications, but odds are Cyberbunker will be facing another SWAT raid very soon.

Fixing a hole

For his blog posting, CloudFlare's Matthew Prince used the headline "The DDoS That Almost Broke the Internet." That's not entirely accurate, since the problems were rather localized.

However, the attack may prompt an overhaul of the DNS system. Prince and others have been vocal about the need to lock down most or all DNS servers so they no longer respond to lookup requests from anyone.

That move would go against the model of openness and accessibility that's guided the Internet for 40 years. The idea has always been that any Internet-connected device can reach any other using any path, and open DNS servers are essential to that model.

But the problem of DNS-amplified attacks has been growing exponentially in just the past few months.

The ongoing attacks against U.S. bank websites which began last September use the tactic, and have reached 100 Gbps at times.

If this week's unrelated attacks truly did hit 300 Gbps, the end to the open-DNS server model may be inevitable.

This story was provided by TechNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience. Follow Paul Wagenseil?@snd_wagenseil. Follow us?@TechNewsDaily,?Facebook?or?Google+.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/truth-behind-biggest-cyberattack-history-210723787.html

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Friday, March 29, 2013

U.S. law to restrict government purchases of Chinese IT equipment

By Alina Selyukh and Doug Palmer

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congress quietly tucked in a new cyber-espionage review process for U.S. government technology purchases into the funding law signed this week by President Barack Obama, reflecting growing American concerns over Chinese cyber attacks.

The law prevents NASA, and the Justice and Commerce Departments from buying information technology systems unless federal law enforcement officials give their approval.

A provision in the 240-page spending law requires the agencies to make a formal assessment of "cyber-espionage or sabotage" risk in consultation with law enforcement authorities when considering buying information technology systems.

The assessment must include "any risk associated with such system being produced, manufactured or assembled by one or more entities that are owned, directed or subsidized" by China.

The United States imports about $129 billion worth of "advanced technology products" from China, according to a May 2012 report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

During a news conference on Thursday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei urged the United States to abandon the law to help develop relations and trust on both sides.

"This bill uses Internet security as an excuse to take discriminatory steps against Chinese companies. It is not beneficial to mutual trust between China and the United States nor to the development of trade and economic relations," Hong said.

The amendment to the so-called "continuing resolution" to fund the government through September 30 originated in the Commerce, Justice and Science subcommittee of the House of Representatives, chaired by Virginia Republican Rep. Frank Wolf.

It had gotten little attention until a blog post this week by Stewart Baker, a partner in the Washington office of Steptoe & Johnson LLP and a former assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Writing in the "Volokh Conspiracy", one of the country's most prominent legal blogs, Baker wrote on Monday that the measure "could turn out to be a harsh blow" for Chinese computer-maker Lenovo and also "bring some surprises for American companies selling commercial IT gear to the government."

Lenovo Group Ltd, which bought IBM Corp's PC unit in 2005 and is now on track to become the world's largest PC maker, said it was aware of the bill and reviewing the specific language.

"Depending on how the language is interpreted, it could in fact apply very broadly to many companies across the IT industry from all around the world," Lenovo said in an emailed statement.

"We are very confident and comfortable that we will continue to be very successful in growing our business in the U.S. even as we and all of our competitors navigate new regulations."

U.S. concern about Chinese cyber-attacks has mounted in recent months, with top officials, including President Barack Obama, vocally condemning the practice.

Obama raised the issue in a phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier this month, and told ABC News in an interview that some cyber-security threats are "absolutely" sponsored by governments.

"We've made it very clear to China and some other of the state actors that, you know, we expect them to follow international norms and abide by international rules," he said.

Xi said the United States and China should avoid making "groundless accusations" against each other about cyber-security and work together on the problem.

The exchange came after U.S. computer security company Mandiant said a secret Chinese military unit based in Shanghai was the most likely driving force behind a series of hacking attacks on the United States.

Last year, the House Intelligence Committee released a report urging U.S. telecommunication companies not to do business with Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp because it said potential Chinese state influence on the companies posed a threat to U.S. security.

Both companies took issue with the report, which Huawei spokesman William Plummer called "baseless."

Plummer said in an email their reading of the bill is that it "does not apply to Huawei based on the description of covered entities."

ZTE officials declined to comment on the latest U.S. law, while Huawei officials were not available for comment.

Baker, a technology security lawyer, said he believed the language would live on in future appropriations bills and possibly get tougher over time.

"Once a provision ends up in the appropriations bill...it tends to stay there unless there's a good reason to take it out," Baker said. "We could easily see (the appropriation committees) tighten up some of the language in the future."

China could challenge the measure as a violation of World Trade Organization rules, but may have a tough time making that case because it is not a member of the WTO agreement setting international rules for government procurement.

The WTO agreement also contains a national security exemption that could be another U.S. line of defense against a possible Chinese challenge, Baker said.

It is possible other countries could raise objections because of the potential for the provision to prevent purchases of Lenovo computers manufactured in Germany or Huawei handsets designed in Britain, he said. But they may decide to tolerate it because of their own concerns about Chinese hacking, Baker said.

"The goal is not to hurt American and European companies that have operations in China," said a congressional aide who worked on the House bill where the wording originated. "It was really targeting entities that are directed by Beijing," said the aide, who asked not to be identified.

The federal government's purchases, which are funded by taxpayers' money, are often urged to give preference to vendors that offer the cheapest services.

The congressional aide said China may heavily subsidize some companies to present the U.S. market with a much lower price.

"It's a helpful reminder to look at the supply chain" of U.S. firms, the aide said. "The cheap option may be artificially lowered because potentially there are ulterior motives."

(Additional reporting by Lee Chyen Yee in HONG KONG and Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Fred Barbash, Bernard Orr and Matt Driskill)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-law-restrict-government-purchases-chinese-equipment-083520519.html

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Demi Lovato Will Return To 'X Factor'

'I couldn't be happier that Demi wants to come back this year,' Simon Cowell confirms in a statement.
By Jocelyn Vena


Demi Lovato
Photo: Albert L. Ortega/ Getty Images

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1704520/demi-lovato-x-factor-season-three.jhtml

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The risk of autism is not increased by 'too many vaccines too soon'

The risk of autism is not increased by 'too many vaccines too soon' [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 29-Mar-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Becky Lindeman
journal.pediatrics@cchmc.org
513-636-7140
Elsevier Health Sciences

Cincinnati, OH, March 29, 2013 -- Although scientific evidence suggests that vaccines do not cause autism, approximately one-third of parents continue to express concern that they do; nearly 1 in 10 parents refuse or delay vaccinations because they believe it is safer than following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) schedule. A primary concern is the number of vaccines administered, both on a single day and cumulatively over the first 2 years of life. In a new study scheduled for publication in The Journal of Pediatrics, researchers concluded that there is no association between receiving "too many vaccines too soon" and autism.

Dr. Frank DeStefano and colleagues from the CDC and Abt Associates, Inc. analyzed data from 256 children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 752 children without ASD (born from 1994-1999) from 3 managed care organizations. They looked at each child's cumulative exposure to antigens, the substances in vaccines that cause the body's immune system to produce antibodies to fight disease, and the maximum number of antigens each child received in a single day of vaccination.

The researchers determined the total antigen numbers by adding the number of different antigens in all vaccines each child received in one day, as well as all vaccines each child received up to 2 years of age. The authors found that the total antigens from vaccines received by age 2 years, or the maximum number received on a single day, was the same between children with and without ASD. Furthermore, when comparing antigen numbers, no relationship was found when they evaluated the sub-categories of autistic disorder and ASD with regression.

Although the current routine childhood vaccine schedule contains more vaccines than the schedule in the late 1990s, the maximum number of antigens that a child could be exposed to by 2 years of age in 2013 is 315, compared with several thousand in the late 1990s. Because different types of vaccines contain varying amounts of antigens, this research acknowledged that merely counting the number of vaccines received does not adequately account for how different vaccines and vaccine combinations stimulate the immune system. For example, the older whole cell pertussis vaccine causes the production of about 3000 different antibodies, whereas the newer acellular pertussis vaccine causes the production of 6 or fewer different antibodies.

An infant's immune system is capable of responding to a large amount of immunologic stimuli and, from time of birth, infants are exposed to hundreds of viruses and countless antigens outside of vaccination. According to the authors, "The possibility that immunological stimulation from vaccines during the first 1 or 2 years of life could be related to the development of ASD is not well-supported by what is known about the neurobiology of ASDs." In 2004, a comprehensive review by the Institute of Medicine concluded that there is not a causal relationship between certain vaccine types and autism, and this study supports that conclusion.

###


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share 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.


The risk of autism is not increased by 'too many vaccines too soon' [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 29-Mar-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Becky Lindeman
journal.pediatrics@cchmc.org
513-636-7140
Elsevier Health Sciences

Cincinnati, OH, March 29, 2013 -- Although scientific evidence suggests that vaccines do not cause autism, approximately one-third of parents continue to express concern that they do; nearly 1 in 10 parents refuse or delay vaccinations because they believe it is safer than following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) schedule. A primary concern is the number of vaccines administered, both on a single day and cumulatively over the first 2 years of life. In a new study scheduled for publication in The Journal of Pediatrics, researchers concluded that there is no association between receiving "too many vaccines too soon" and autism.

Dr. Frank DeStefano and colleagues from the CDC and Abt Associates, Inc. analyzed data from 256 children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 752 children without ASD (born from 1994-1999) from 3 managed care organizations. They looked at each child's cumulative exposure to antigens, the substances in vaccines that cause the body's immune system to produce antibodies to fight disease, and the maximum number of antigens each child received in a single day of vaccination.

The researchers determined the total antigen numbers by adding the number of different antigens in all vaccines each child received in one day, as well as all vaccines each child received up to 2 years of age. The authors found that the total antigens from vaccines received by age 2 years, or the maximum number received on a single day, was the same between children with and without ASD. Furthermore, when comparing antigen numbers, no relationship was found when they evaluated the sub-categories of autistic disorder and ASD with regression.

Although the current routine childhood vaccine schedule contains more vaccines than the schedule in the late 1990s, the maximum number of antigens that a child could be exposed to by 2 years of age in 2013 is 315, compared with several thousand in the late 1990s. Because different types of vaccines contain varying amounts of antigens, this research acknowledged that merely counting the number of vaccines received does not adequately account for how different vaccines and vaccine combinations stimulate the immune system. For example, the older whole cell pertussis vaccine causes the production of about 3000 different antibodies, whereas the newer acellular pertussis vaccine causes the production of 6 or fewer different antibodies.

An infant's immune system is capable of responding to a large amount of immunologic stimuli and, from time of birth, infants are exposed to hundreds of viruses and countless antigens outside of vaccination. According to the authors, "The possibility that immunological stimulation from vaccines during the first 1 or 2 years of life could be related to the development of ASD is not well-supported by what is known about the neurobiology of ASDs." In 2004, a comprehensive review by the Institute of Medicine concluded that there is not a causal relationship between certain vaccine types and autism, and this study supports that conclusion.

###


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share 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/2013-03/ehs-tro032613.php

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Toilets in Video Games Are All Pretty Gross

Though most video games never involve a player having to drop a deuce, video game worlds always seem to have dirty toilets in even dirtier restrooms. Who uses these toilets and why are they universally dirty! Video Game Toilets rounds up the toilets found in video games—it spans from like the early 80's until now—in a hilarious Tumblr. Here are a few we love (the one above is from F.E.A.R. 3). More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/9K_WFNlypTU/toilets-in-video-games-are-all-pretty-gross

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Friday, March 15, 2013

Winners & Losers: Supercell's Clash of Clans Tripled Its U.S. Marketshare, Report Shows

ClashofClansClash of Clans, the title that’s made Finland’s Supercell the new darling of the mobile gaming industry, has doubled its marketshare among U.S. iPhone users over the last six months, according to Onavo, an app tracking company that can actually see active usage. The data is part of a monthly report Onavo does on winners and losers in marketshare — which is defined as the percentage of U.S. iPhone users who open an app at least once in a 30-day period. The last time Supercell publicly shared its revenues was last fall when it said it was pulling in $500,000 per day about five months ago?– when Clash of Clans’ marketshare was one-third of what it is now. But from sources in the industry, we hear that figure is much higher now, in the $1 to $1.3 million range per day.?Generally, the?top grossing games are doing about four times what they were pulling in a year ago. With the iOS base of devices growing, we could see a $2 million per day for a single developer by summer.?The big question for a lot of observers in the industry is if and when Supercell will raise a massive funding round off the back of its success. Meanwhile, the bootstrapped husband-and-wife team at Imangi looks like they are making a successful sequel transition with Temple Run 2 picking up market share where the original game left off. Sequels can be pretty risky for studios if they’re not executed properly because they cannibalize players from the original. And if the sequel isn’t good at retaining users, then the entire franchise can suffer. EA Popcap’s Plants Vs. Zombies also made a big comeback this month after the company made the paid title free. Many developers behind the older, popular titles on iOS from several years ago are making their original games free. Rovio just made the original Angry Birds game free this month. Perhaps it’s a bid to rekindle interest in these games, or perhaps it’s a recognition of the huge shift in the industry toward free-to-play games. More midcore games are also climbing in active usage. Phoenix Age, the quiet studio behind Castle Age HD, saw its title triple its marketshare over the past month. The developer, which often has titles in the top-grossing charts, hasn’t publicly announced any funding to date and is based out of the San Francisco Bay Area. Meanwhile,

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/rsNhOXKHInM/

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New details of atomic structure of water under extreme conditions found

New details of atomic structure of water under extreme conditions found [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 14-Mar-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Christoph Sahle
christoph.sahle@helsinki.fi
University of Helsinki

Scientist from Dortmund, Helsinki, Potsdam, and the ESRF have revealed details of the microscopic atomic structure of water under extreme conditions. The results have now been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA.

Liquid water remains a mystery even after decades of dedicated scientific investigations and researchers still struggle to fully describe its unusual structure and dynamics. At high temperatures and high pressures, water is in the so called supercritical state and exhibits a number of peculiar characteristics that are very unlike from water at ambient conditions. In this state water is a very aggressive solvent, enabling chemical reactions impossible otherwise, e.g. the oxidization of hazardous waste or the conversion of aqueous biomass streams into clean water and gases like hydrogen and carbon dioxide.

High temperature and high pressure conditions can also be found inside the Earth, in its lower crust and upper mantle. Here, the unique properties of supercritical water have been believed to play a key role in the transfer of mass and heat as well as in the formation of ore deposits and volcanoes. Supercritical water is even thought to have contributed to the origin of life.

Knowledge of the structural properties of water on an atomic scale under these extreme conditions of high temperature and high pressure may become very helpful in understanding these processes, says Christoph Sahle, from the Department of Physics at the University of Helsinki and a member of the research team behind the new results.

Spectroscopic investigations confirm previous theoretical model

Now, a research team of scientists from the Technische Universitt Dortmund, Germany, the University of Helsinki, Finland, the Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum in Potsdam, Germany, and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), Grenoble, France, have used x-ray spectroscopy to study the structural properties of water in the supercritical state.

Conventional spectroscopic analyses can provide key insights into the atomic structure of a substance, however, these techniques are not well suited to studying water under supercritical conditions because of the complicated sample environments in which supercritical water has to be contained. Using the intense x-ray radiation from the ESRF for inelastic x-ray scattering spectroscopy and a new technique that makes it possible to look at the chemistry of water inside a complex environment together with a quantum mechanical modeling framework known as density functional theory, the group of scientists has made these spectroscopic investigations of water at high temperature and high pressure feasible.

The researchers found that the measured inelastic x-ray scattering spectra evolve systematically from liquid-like at ambient conditions to more gas-like at high temperatures and pressures. To learn more about the local atomic structure of water at the tested conditions, theoretical inelastic x-ray scattering spectra from computer simulations were calculated and compared to the experimental data. All features found in the experimental data and the systematic changes of these features as a function of temperature and pressure could be reproduced by the calculation.

Based on this close resemblance of the calculated and measured data, the authors extracted detailed information about the atomic structure and bonding. They could show that, according to the theoretical model, the microscopic structure of water remains homogeneous throughout the range of examined temperatures and pressures.

The presented findings also implicate means to study unknown disordered structures and samples under extreme conditions on an atomic scale in depth even when other structural probing techniques fail.

###

Read more: Microscopic Structure of Water at Conditions of the Earth's Crust and Mantle, http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/03/07/1220301110

Additional information:

Christoph Sahle
tel. 358-9-191-59641

Yours truly,

Minna Merilinen-Tenhu
Press officer
University of Helsinki
minna.merilainen@helsinki.fi


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share 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.


New details of atomic structure of water under extreme conditions found [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 14-Mar-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Christoph Sahle
christoph.sahle@helsinki.fi
University of Helsinki

Scientist from Dortmund, Helsinki, Potsdam, and the ESRF have revealed details of the microscopic atomic structure of water under extreme conditions. The results have now been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA.

Liquid water remains a mystery even after decades of dedicated scientific investigations and researchers still struggle to fully describe its unusual structure and dynamics. At high temperatures and high pressures, water is in the so called supercritical state and exhibits a number of peculiar characteristics that are very unlike from water at ambient conditions. In this state water is a very aggressive solvent, enabling chemical reactions impossible otherwise, e.g. the oxidization of hazardous waste or the conversion of aqueous biomass streams into clean water and gases like hydrogen and carbon dioxide.

High temperature and high pressure conditions can also be found inside the Earth, in its lower crust and upper mantle. Here, the unique properties of supercritical water have been believed to play a key role in the transfer of mass and heat as well as in the formation of ore deposits and volcanoes. Supercritical water is even thought to have contributed to the origin of life.

Knowledge of the structural properties of water on an atomic scale under these extreme conditions of high temperature and high pressure may become very helpful in understanding these processes, says Christoph Sahle, from the Department of Physics at the University of Helsinki and a member of the research team behind the new results.

Spectroscopic investigations confirm previous theoretical model

Now, a research team of scientists from the Technische Universitt Dortmund, Germany, the University of Helsinki, Finland, the Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum in Potsdam, Germany, and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), Grenoble, France, have used x-ray spectroscopy to study the structural properties of water in the supercritical state.

Conventional spectroscopic analyses can provide key insights into the atomic structure of a substance, however, these techniques are not well suited to studying water under supercritical conditions because of the complicated sample environments in which supercritical water has to be contained. Using the intense x-ray radiation from the ESRF for inelastic x-ray scattering spectroscopy and a new technique that makes it possible to look at the chemistry of water inside a complex environment together with a quantum mechanical modeling framework known as density functional theory, the group of scientists has made these spectroscopic investigations of water at high temperature and high pressure feasible.

The researchers found that the measured inelastic x-ray scattering spectra evolve systematically from liquid-like at ambient conditions to more gas-like at high temperatures and pressures. To learn more about the local atomic structure of water at the tested conditions, theoretical inelastic x-ray scattering spectra from computer simulations were calculated and compared to the experimental data. All features found in the experimental data and the systematic changes of these features as a function of temperature and pressure could be reproduced by the calculation.

Based on this close resemblance of the calculated and measured data, the authors extracted detailed information about the atomic structure and bonding. They could show that, according to the theoretical model, the microscopic structure of water remains homogeneous throughout the range of examined temperatures and pressures.

The presented findings also implicate means to study unknown disordered structures and samples under extreme conditions on an atomic scale in depth even when other structural probing techniques fail.

###

Read more: Microscopic Structure of Water at Conditions of the Earth's Crust and Mantle, http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/03/07/1220301110

Additional information:

Christoph Sahle
tel. 358-9-191-59641

Yours truly,

Minna Merilinen-Tenhu
Press officer
University of Helsinki
minna.merilainen@helsinki.fi


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share 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/2013-03/uoh-ndo031413.php

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