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National Deficit Outlook Unchanged Under Obama: UMD Policy Analysis

By Guest PostSeptember 9, 2012Economy, Politicsaccumulation, afghanistan, alternative, budget control act, bush era tax, cbo, congress, congressional budget office, debt, deficit, democrats, election policy, fact check, finance, fiscal cliff, fiscal scenario, gdp, george bush, Iraq, key, national debt, philip joyce, policy issue, President Obama, presidential campaign, public policy, republican, social security, university of maryland, war, wealthy american

Public Policy’s Philip Joyce Offers Election Policy Fact Check

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – From a public policy point of view, the national debt accumulation since President Obama took office is largely a result of policies put in place prior to his inauguration, says a new analysis by University of Maryland expert Philip Joyce. He adds that Obama’s policies will make little impact in the debt over the next decade.

“The best that can be said about presidential fiscal policies thus far is that they would slow the bleeding, but they neither would stop it nor would they do much to heal the patient,” Joyce says.

The size of the debt has been one of the biggest issues of the presidential campaign, with Republicans arguing that the President has allowed the debt to rise out of control and Obama saying that he inherited the policies that led to an increase in debt and deficits. (more…)

‘The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2’

By Guest PostSeptember 9, 2012Entertainmentashley greene, bella swan, best selling, bill condon, breaking dawn, dreamgirls, edward cullen, emmett cullen, epic, kellan lutz, kristen stewart, love story, robert pattinson, series, stephenie meyer, taylor lautner, twilight saga

Synopsis

The epic love story between Bella Swan and Edward Cullen concludes in this final installment of Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling series. DREAMGIRLS’ Bill Condon directs this second segment of the two-film adaptation. (more…)

First Stars, Galaxies Formed more Rapidly than Expected

By Guest PostSeptember 9, 2012Scienceanalysis, anisotropy probe, Antarctica, astronomer, background, Berkeley, california, christian reichardt, cmb, cosmic microwave, cosmological evolution, data, earth axis, electron, Epoch, Galaxy, geographic, herschel satellite, high resolution, hydrogen atom, image, john carlstrom, kavli foundation, microwave, millimeter wavelength, national, neutral, neutral gas, oliver zahn, period, plasma, polar plateau, proton, radiation, reionization, s chandrasekhar, science foundation, south pole, star, telescope, ultraviolet light, universe, university, wilkinson

Analysis of data from the National Science Foundation’s South Pole Telescope, for the first time, more precisely defines the period of cosmological evolution when the first stars and galaxies formed and gradually illuminated the universe. The data indicate that this period, called the epoch of reionization, was shorter than theorists speculated — and that it ended early.

“We find that the epoch of reionization lasted less than 500 million years and began when the universe was at least 250 million years old,” said Oliver Zahn, a postdoctoral fellow at the Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics at the University of California, Berkeley, who led the study. “Before this measurement, scientists believed that reionization lasted 750 million years or longer, and had no evidence as to when reionization began.” (more…)

NASA/WHOI Voyage Set to Explore Link Between Sea Saltiness and Climate

By Guest PostSeptember 9, 2012Environment, Science3d picture, aquarius instrument, autonomous glider, azores, bahamas, climate change, climate model, data, david fratantoni, drought, effect, equator, eric lindstrom, evaporation, expedition, flood, fluctuate, global temperature, knorr, NASA, north africa, north atlantic, ocean, pattern, phenomena, planet, rainfall, rainy belt, raymond schmitt, research vessel, sac d, salinity processes, salinity variability, salt content, satellite technology, scale, spurs, upper layer, us midwest, voyage, water cycle, western coast, woods hole

A NASA-sponsored expedition is set to sail to the North Atlantic’s saltiest spot to get a detailed, 3-D picture of how salt content fluctuates in the ocean’s upper layers and how these variations are related to shifts in rainfall patterns around the planet.

The research voyage is part of a multi-year mission, dubbed the Salinity Processes in the Upper Ocean Regional Study (SPURS), which will deploy multiple instruments in different regions of the ocean. The new data also will help calibrate the salinity measurements NASA’s Aquarius instrument has been collecting from space since August 2011. (more…)

That Giant Tarantula Is Terrifying, But I’ll Touch It

By Guest PostSeptember 8, 2012Sciencedomestic violence, emotional experience, giant, intuition, katharina kircanski, macbeth, malcolm, matthew lieberman, michelle craske, psychology study, returning, Shakespeare, soldier, stressful time, tarantula, ucla, victim, war

Expressing your emotions can reduce fear, UCLA psychologists report

“Give sorrow words.”

—Malcolm in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”

Can simply describing your feelings at stressful times make you less afraid and less anxious?

A new UCLA psychology study suggests that labeling your emotions at the precise moment you are confronting what you fear can indeed have that effect.

The psychologists asked 88 people with a fear of spiders to approach a large, live tarantula in an open container outdoors. The participants were told to walk closer and closer to the spider and eventually touch it if they could. (more…)

Droughts are Pushing Trees to the Limit

By Guest PostSeptember 8, 2012Environmentatmospheric sponge, droughts, plant growth, plant response, plant stress, tree death, vapor pressure deficit, variable precipitation

Droughts in the Southwest made more severe by warming temperatures are putting plants in stressful growing conditions, a new study has found, identifying an increasingly water-thirsty atmosphere as a key force that sucks moisture from plants, leading to potentially higher stress – especially in mid and low elevations.

As temperatures rise and droughts become more severe in the Southwest, trees are increasingly up against extremely stressful growing conditions, especially in low to middle elevations, University of Arizona researchers report in a study soon to be published in the Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences. (more…)

Scientists Dramatically Reduce Plaque-Forming Substances in Mice with Alzheimer’s Disease

By Guest PostSeptember 8, 2012Sciencea beta peptides, ajaya kunwar, alzheimer's disease, amp kinase, ampk, amyloid beta, amyloid precursor protein, app, chemical reaction, chhavy tep, cognitive decline, compound, cycle, dong ju park, endoplasmic reticulum, enzyme, er, fat, genetic manipulation, glucose, jae cheon ryu, jnk3, metabolism, mice, mouse brain, mtor pathway, ohio state university, proteins, reduction, rna expression, sung ok yoon, symptom, tae hee lim, type 2 diabetes, yong jae shin

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Scientists have found that eliminating an enzyme from mice with symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease leads to a 90 percent reduction in the compounds responsible for formation of the plaques linked to Alzheimer’s disease.

That is the most dramatic reduction in this compound reported to date in published research.

The compounds are amyloid beta, or A-beta peptides; peptides are proteins, but are shorter in length. When A-beta peptides accumulate in excessive amounts in the brain, they can form plaques, which are a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease. (more…)

Rust Never Sleeps

By Guest PostSeptember 7, 2012Scienceconductor of electricity, iron oxide, pump probe spectroscopy, rust, rusted battery, solar energy collection, solar energy devices, uranium in groundwater

Berkeley Lab-led Observations of Electron Hopping in Iron Oxide Hold Consequences for Environment and Energy

Rust – iron oxide – is a poor conductor of electricity, which is why an electronic device with a rusted battery usually won’t work. Despite this poor conductivity, an electron transferred to a particle of rust will use thermal energy to continually move or “hop” from one atom of iron to the next. Electron mobility in iron oxide can hold huge significance for a broad range of environment- and energy-related reactions, including reactions pertaining to uranium in groundwater and reactions pertaining to low-cost solar energy devices. (more…)

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