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WISE Delivers Millions of Galaxies, Stars, Asteroids

Astronomers across the globe can now sift through hundreds of millions of galaxies, stars and asteroids collected in the first bundle of data from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission.

“Starting today thousands of new eyes will be looking at WISE data, and I expect many surprises,” said Edward (Ned) Wright of UCLA, the mission’s principal investigator. (more…)

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Crime And The Rise of Modern America

Nowhere celebrates its criminals like America. In books and on film, in fact and in fiction criminals sell. 

The way people break the law has shaped American national identity just as clearly as any war according to research by University of Exeter historian, Dr Kristofer Allerfeldt. (more…)

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Crossing the Line: What Constitutes Torture?

Torture. The United Nations defines it as the “infliction of severe physical or mental pain or suffering.” But how severe is severe? That judgment determines whether or not the law classifies an interrogation practice as torture.

Now, a study published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, condemns this method of classification as essentially flawed. The reason: The people estimating the severity of pain aren’t experiencing that pain—so they underestimate it.

As a result, many acts of torture are not classified—or prohibited—as torture, say authors, Loran F. Nordgren of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, Mary-Hunter Morris of Harvard Law School, and George Loewenstein of Carnegie Mellon University. (more…)

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Search for Dark Matter Narrowed by New Data From XENON100

Collaboration reveals results from 100-day experiment

Today, scientists from the XENON collaboration announced the result from their search for the elusive component of our universe known as dark matter. After analyzing one hundred days of data taken with the XENON100 experiment, they see no evidence for the existence of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), the leading candidates for the mysterious dark matter. The XENON100 experiment is operated deep underground at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory of the Italian National Institute for Physics (INFN). (more…)

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Fable Creator Blames Success on Baked Beans, Happy Accidents

Peter Molyneux, creator of the popular “Fable” games series and head of Microsoft Game Studios in Europe, recalls the highs and lows of a 22-year career in video games – a career that was just honored by two lifetime achievement awards.

 GUILDFORD, U.K. — April 15, 2011 – Peter Molyneux, one of the video game industry’s most celebrated designers and the creative force behind hits such as “Fable,” “Populous” and “Dungeon Keeper,” credits much of his 22-year career to a happy accident involving baked beans. (more…)

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Readability of Annual Reports Affects Accuracy of Analyst Forecasts

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—Stock analysts’ earnings forecasts for companies with hard-to-read annual financial reports are more informative, but less accurate, say University of Michigan researchers.

A new journal article in the May issue of Accounting Review shows that sell-side financial analysts expend greater effort to generate earnings forecasts of publicly traded firms with less readable 10-K filings. This increased effort by analysts results in earnings reports to investors that contain more information—but less accuracy and greater uncertainty. (more…)

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