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‘Heart of a Soldier’ author recalls how New Yorker article became prize-winning book

By Guest PostOctober 19, 2013Cultureauthor, christopher theofanidis, heart of soldier, james b stewart, new yorker article, opera, prize winning book, pulitzer prize winning, rick rescorla, san francisco, world trade center, yale

James B. Stewart, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and reporter for the New Yorker, talked on campus on Oct. 4 about the inspiration for and process behind “Heart of a Soldier,” his 2002 book about Rick Rescorla, a security guard at the World Trade Center who lost his life on 9/11. Stewart’s talk was sponsored by the Poynter Fellowship in Journalism at Yale.

Tasked with reporting on the impact of the World Trade Center attacks on business, Stewart discovered — by chance — the heroic tale of Rick Rescorla and realized that his was a story worth telling. “If you have a character, anything becomes a story,” Stewart explained. (more…)

Seeing in the Dark

By Guest PostOctober 19, 2013Natureaquatic habitat, aran mooney, baiji river dolphin, China, chinese academy, chinese radiologist, computed tomography, ct scans, darlene ketten, dolphin, hydrobiology in wuhan, marine mammal, noisy environment, porpoise, representative species, sciences, seeing in dark, three gorges dam, toothed whales, whoi, yangtze finless porpoise

New research sheds light on how porpoises hear in one of the world’s busiest rivers

The Yangtze finless porpoise, which inhabits the high-traffic waters near the Three Gorges Dam in China, is highly endangered, with only about 1,000 animals alive today. Scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and their Chinese colleagues are using medical technology to shed new light on this species’ critical sense of hearing in a waterway punctuated by constant shipping, dredging, and underwater construction.

“We want to understand how they may be impacted by noise,” said Aran Mooney, a biologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and a lead author on the study published online this week in the Journal of Experimental Biology. (more…)

Klimaschutz und Energiewende in Koalitionsverhandlungen priorisieren

By Guest PostOctober 19, 2013Environment, Politicsbruessel, deutschland, energiewende, eu ambitionierte ziele, ganz europa, germanwatch, Greenpeace, internationale klimapolitik, klaus milke, klaus seitz, klimaschutz, koalitionsverhandlung, martin kaiser, misereor, oekosysteme, regine guenther, vereinten nationen, welt, weltklima, wwf

Umwelt- und Entwicklungsverbände fordern Klimaschutzgesetz, höhere EU-Klimaziele und zukunftsweisende Investitionen

Die fünf Entwicklungs- und Umweltverbände Brot für die Welt, Germanwatch, Greenpeace, MISEREOR und WWF rufen dazu auf, die Koalitionsverhandlungen nicht allein auf Mindestlohn und Steuern zu verengen. Alle Parteien müssten sich daran messen lassen, ob sie jetzt die richtigen Weichenstellungen vornehmen, um Deutschland für die Bewältigung der globalen Zukunftsfragen aufzustellen.

Die Menschen wollten wissen, welche konkreten Antworten die künftige Regierung auf den Klimawandel mit seinen dramatischen Folgen für die menschliche Entwicklung, die Überwindung der Armut sowie die planetaren Ökosysteme gibt. Die nachhaltige Befriedigung der wachsenden globalen Nachfrage nach Energie, Nahrungsmitteln und Ressourcen stehe auf dem Spiel. (more…)

Made in IBM Labs: Two-Factor Security for Mobile Transactions

By Guest PostOctober 18, 2013Technologyatm card, data platform, diego ortiz yepes, ibm scientists, market trend, mobile device, mobile security, mobile transaction, mobilefirst portfolio, near field communication, nfc, operating system, pin, sms, target for hackers, Technology, two factor authentication, upwardly mobile enterprise

ZURICH – 18 Oct 2013: IBM scientists have developed a new mobile authentication security technology based on the radio standard known as near-field communication (NFC). The technology provides an extra layer of security when using an NFC-enabled device and a contactless smartcard to conduct mobile transactions, including online banking and digital signatures when accessing a corporate Intranet or private cloud.

According to a recent report by ABI Research, the number of NFC devices in use will exceed 500 million in 2014. This statistic and the fact that 1 billion mobile phone users will use their devices for banking purposes by 2017* make for an increasingly opportune target for hackers. (more…)

Managing the Deluge of ‘Big Data’ From Space

By Guest PostOctober 18, 2013Scienceandrea donnellan, big data, chris mattmann, cloud computing, data points, distant galaxies, earth, eric de jong, extracting data, flood of data, from space, gps data, jet propulsion laboratory, mars reconnaissance orbiter, NASA, nasa mission, pasadena, ska, software engineer, spacecraft monitor, square kilometer array, steve groom

For NASA and its dozens of missions, data pour in every day like rushing rivers. Spacecraft monitor everything from our home planet to faraway galaxies, beaming back images and information to Earth. All those digital records need to be stored, indexed and processed so that spacecraft engineers, scientists and people across the globe can use the data to understand Earth and the universe beyond.

At NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., mission planners and software engineers are coming up with new strategies for managing the ever-increasing flow of such large and complex data streams, referred to in the information technology community as “big data.” (more…)

Can thermodynamics help us better understand human cancers?

By Guest PostOctober 18, 2013Healthcellular energy, human cancers, scientific validation, surprisal analysis, thermodynamic signature

When the “war on cancer” was declared with the signing of the National Cancer Act in 1971, identifying potential physical traits, or biomarkers, that would allow doctors to detect the disease early on was a significant goal. To this day, progress in the battle against cancer depends on understanding the underlying causes and molecular mechanisms of the disease.
(more…)

EEG optimieren statt liquidieren

By Guest PostOctober 17, 2013Environmentausbau, brandes weiter, eberhard brandes, eeg, energiewende, erneuerbare energien gesetz, kilowattstunde, meilenstein, windkraftanlagen, wwf deutschland

WWF fordert faire Ursachenanalyse

Nach der offiziellen Bekanntgabe der neuen EEG-Umlage für das kommende Jahr von 6,24 Cent je Kilowattstunde fordert der WWF eine faire Debatte über die Ursachen. Die Erhöhung der Umlage sei maßgeblich dem stark gesunkenen Börsenstrompreis geschuldet. Die niedrigen Börsenstrompreise, die auch durch erneuerbare Energien möglich geworden sind, würden jedoch nicht an den Normalverbraucher weitergegeben. Darüber hinaus trügen die ausufernden Rabatte für eine stetig steigende Anzahl von Industriekunden zum Ansteigen der Umlage für die nicht privilegierten Verbraucher bei. Der Ausbau weiterer EEG förderbarer Anlagen habe nur geringfügig die derzeitigen Kosten steigen lassen. „Das EEG wird immer weiter vollgepackt mit Industrierabatten, während Mittelstand und Normalbürger für die Energiewende zahlen. Dies ist nicht tragbar und muss schnell verändert werden“, sagt Eberhard Brandes, Vorstand des WWF Deutschland. (more…)

One in 2,000 of UK population carries variant CJD proteins

By Guest PostOctober 17, 2013Healthabnormal prion protein, degenerative brain disease, mad cow disease, prion protein

One in 2,000 people in the UK are estimated to be carrying variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) proteins, according to a study led by Professor Sebastian Brandner (UCL Institute of Neurology). (more…)

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