Intelligence historian cites changing focus of American espionage
In the spy trade, predicting the future is a risky business at best, but experts believe that America’s intelligence efforts will focus on Iran, North Korea and China.
Matthew M. Aid, intelligence historian and expert on the National Security Agency, discussed the forces driving this emerging strategy during a talk on Wednesday, May 2, in Mitchell Hall.
Aid’s talk, “The Future of Intelligence and Espionage,” concluded the spring 2012 Global Agenda speaker series “Spies, Lies and Sneaky Guys: Espionage and Intelligence in the Digital Age.” (more…)
USGS scientists have developed a new method for mapping grasslands that demonstrate high potential for growing biofuel crops with relatively little energy input and environmental impact.
The pioneering investigation used remote sensing data from satellites to identify detailed areas of the Greater Platte River Basin (most of Nebraska, parts of adjacent states) that are best suited for producing cellulosic (from the cell walls of plants) biofuel derived from hardy switchgrass, a native plant that grows wild or is easily cultivated. (more…)
University of Minnesota law professor Dale Carpenter’s first book, Flagrant Conduct, took him nearly nine years of research and writing to complete. Research that included, he says, “sitting in police department parking lots at 3 a.m., trying to catch officers going on and off duty so that I could interview them.”
He characterizes the amount of time he put into the book not as a job but as a way of life. If he had been looking for a payoff in writing it, he found it. With reviews in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and this past Sunday, the crème de la crème of the review world—the cover of The New York Times Book Review—it’s clearly a hit with critics. (more…)
UD prof honored for research on sexuality, religion in American history
Rebecca Davis, assistant professor of history at the University of Delaware, has received a Religious History Award from the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Religious Archives Network for her essay titled “‘My Homosexuality Is Getting Worse Every Day’: Norman Vincent Peale, Psychiatry, and the Liberal Protestant Response to Same-Sex Desires in Mid-Twentieth-Century America.”
Norman Vincent Peale, to whom the title refers, was famous for his self-help book The Power of Positive Thinking. As a renowned Protestant minister, he encouraged people to heal themselves through prayer and believed heterosexual marriage was essential to personal happiness. (more…)
Some of the earliest humans to inhabit America came from Europe according to a new book.
Across Atlantic Ice puts forward a compelling case for people from northern Spain travelling to America by boat, following the edge of a sea ice shelf that connected Europe and America during the last Ice Age, 14,000 to 25,000 years ago.
Across Atlantic Ice is the result of more than a decade’s research by leading archaeologists Professor Bruce Bradley of the University of Exeter and Dr Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian Institution. Through archaeological evidence, they turn the long-held theory of the origins of New World populations on its head.
For more than 400 years, it has been claimed that people first entered America from Asia, via a land bridge that spanned the Bering Sea. We now know that some people did arrive via this route nearly 15,000 years ago, probably by both land and sea. (more…)
HOMESTEAD, Fla. — Precipitous declines in formerly common mammals in Everglades National Park have been linked to the presence of invasive Burmese pythons, according to a study published on Jan. 30, 2012, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The study, the first to document the ecological impacts of this invasive species, strongly supports that animal communities in this 1.5-million-acre park have been markedly altered by the introduction of pythons within 11 years of their establishment as an invasive species. Mid-sized mammals are the most dramatically affected. (more…)
*Berkeley Lab scientists push chemistry to the edge, testing plans for a new generation of light sources*
For Ali Belkacem of Berkeley Lab’s Chemical Sciences Division, “What is chemistry?” is not a rhetorical question.
“Chemistry is inherently dynamical,” he answers. “That means, to make inroads in understanding – and ultimately control – we have to understand how atoms combine to form molecules; how electrons and nuclei couple; how molecules interact, react, and transform; how electrical charges flow; and how different forms of energy move within a molecule or across molecular boundaries.” The list ends with a final and most important question: “How do all these things behave in a correlated way, ‘dynamically’ in time and space, both at the electron and atomic levels?” (more…)
*iPhone takes the top spot in 2011; Casey Anthony pled her way onto the list; Kim Kardashian joins the list again; and Osama bin Laden’s death captivated the world*
SUNNYVALE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)— Today Yahoo! Inc., the premier digital media company, announced the 10th anniversary edition of its Year in Review (yearinreview.yahoo.com), the highly-anticipated annual look-back that identifies the top stories and trends of the year based on nearly 700 million monthly unique visitorsi activity on the network and billions of consumer searches. The annual look-back of aggregated visitor activity is a gauge for worldwide interests. The 2011 Year in Review is available in 17 versions including Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy, Korea, Mexico, Philippines, Spain, Taiwan, United Kingdom, and United Statesii.
The top search term of 2011 didn’t go to a person or a news event, but to a technological marvel.The iPhone led the 2011 search queries, bypassing a reality TV star’s marriage and pending divorce, a notorious criminal defendant, and America’s most wanted terrorist. (more…)
