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Ross Levine: Finance and Baseball

By Guest PostMarch 1, 2012Economyballs and strikes, baseball, brown university, deborah baum, economist, electronic monitoring, federal reserve, financial crises, financial markets, financial meltdown, gerard caprio, grand poobahs, guardians of finance, home crowd, homicide, james r barth, l jon wertheim, public, regulatory agencies, ross levine, scorecasting, the sentinel, tobias j moskowitz, united states

In Guardians of Finance, economists Ross Levine, James R. Barth, and Gerard Caprio Jr. argue that the financial meltdown of 2007 to 2009 was no accident — it was negligent homicide. Levine speaks with Deb Baum about how that happened, what can be done, and why the home team always seems to win.

A new book co-authored by Brown University economist Ross Levine argues that the reason the United States suffers financial crises time and time again is because the major regulatory agencies — the so-called “guardians of finance” — do not work for the public. Instead, they frequently work in the best interests of the financial services industry, the very entities they are supposed to be regulating. Guardians of Finance: Making Regulators Work for Us, published in February by MIT Press, goes beyond telling us what went wrong. The authors also suggest reforms needed to prevent the next crisis. (more…)

Torosaurus is Not Triceratops, Yale Researchers Say

By Guest PostMarch 1, 2012Scienceanatomical difference, dinosaur research, horned dinosaurs, torosaurus, triceratops

A year-long study by Yale University paleontologists concludes that two related horned dinosaurs are different animals and not adult and juvenile versions of the same. (more…)

Russian Dolls of the Bug World

By Guest PostMarch 1, 2012Scienceacyrthosiphon pisum, aphid alarm pheromone, aphidius ervi, aphids, apse, bacteriophage, bacterium, battle for survival, environmental sciences, Europe, hamiltonella defense, hemolymph, insect, kerry oliver, martha molly hunter, North America, parasite and host, parasitic wasps, pea aphid, russian dolls, symbiont, trans b farnesene, university of arizona, virus, wasp larva

Parasitic wasps using tiny insects known as aphids as living nurseries for their brood can sniff out whether the host insect is protected by symbiotic bacteria, researchers have discovered.

A research team including Martha (Molly) Hunter from the department of entomology in the University of Arizona’s College of Agriculture of Life Sciences has disentangled relationships in an assembly of players that resemble Russian dolls: a bacterium that lives inside a tiny insect, a virus that infects those bacteria, and a parasitic wasp that lays its eggs in the insect.

In a war between parasite and host, the parasitic wasp, Aphidius ervi, and the pea aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum, are locked in a battle for survival. (more…)

When Continents Collide: A New Twist To a 50 Million-Year-Old Tale

By Guest PostMarch 1, 2012Scienceearth, earthquakes, eurasia, fifty million years, geological activity, geological history, geology, geomorphologist, geophysicist, highest mountain, himalaya mountains, India, indian plate, indian sub continent, jim erickson, marin clark, mountain building episode, northern india, northern tibet, plate boundaries, plate tectonics, post collisional motion, the himalaya, theory, tibet, tibetan plateau, university of michigan, volcanoes

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Fifty million years ago, India slammed into Eurasia, a collision that gave rise to the tallest landforms on the planet, the Himalaya Mountains and the Tibetan Plateau.

India and Eurasia continue to converge today, though at an ever-slowing pace. University of Michigan geomorphologist and geophysicist Marin Clark wanted to know when this motion will end and why. She conducted a study that led to surprising findings that could add a new wrinkle to the well-established theory of plate tectonics – the dominant, unifying theory of geology. (more…)

MU Scientists Study How to Improve Pesticide Efficiency

By Guest PostMarch 1, 2012Environmentcarcinogen, farm workers, methyl iodide, midas, pesticide efficiency, tomato fields

COLUMBIA, Mo. – In 2007, a controversial pesticide was approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use on fruit and vegetable crops, mainly in California and Florida. Farm workers and scientists protested the approval of the pesticide because its active ingredient, methyl iodide, is a known carcinogen. Now, MU researchers are studying the molecular structure of the pesticide to determine if the product could be made more efficient and safer for those living near, and working in, treated fields. (more…)

China’s Urbanization Unlikely To Lead To Fast Growth of Middle Class: UW Geographer

By Guest PostMarch 1, 2012Economy, Politicschina urbanization, global market, kam wing chan, mao era, mao zedong, middle class, poor farmers, rural citizens, rural hukou holders, social welfare, urban dwellers, urbanization

The number of people living in China’s cities, which last year for the first time surpassed 50 percent of the national population, is considered a boon for the consumer goods market. That is based on the assumption that there will be more families with more disposable income when poor farmers from China’s countryside move to cities and become middle-class industrial and office workers. (more…)

Microsoft Announces Availability of Windows 8 Consumer Preview

By Guest PostFebruary 29, 2012Technologyconsumer preview, microsoft corp., operating system, windows blogs

Milestone lets users explore a re-imagined, no-compromises Windows experience

BARCELONA, Spain — Feb. 29, 2012 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the availability of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview — the next milestone of the Windows operating system. This latest preview will be made available for download starting today at https://preview.windows.com. The Windows 8 Consumer Preview offers a more robust experience for testing the world’s most popular operating system and is available to the widest range of people yet following the initial release of the Windows 8 Developer Preview late last year. The Developer Preview received more than 3 million downloads. (more…)

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