Tag Archives: new york

Marcus Garvey Movement Owes Large Debt to Caribbean Expats, UCLA Historian Finds

Conventional wisdom has long held that Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association, which advocated racial self-help and the unity of the African diaspora, grew out of the heady political and cultural environment of the Harlem Renaissance and benefited African Americans above all other black people. Any Caribbean role, according to this view, was separate and incidental to the primary legacy bequeathed to American race relations by the charismatic Jamaica native.

Now a UCLA historian argues the reverse in the first book of a multi-volume series on the Garvey movement and the Caribbean. From the UNIA’s organizational structure to its most valuable foot soldiers during its first half-decade, Garvey’s Caribbean links were indispensable to the movement’s success, and the region ultimately proved to be its most important theater, contends Robert A. Hill in “The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers: The Caribbean Diaspora 1910–1920.” (more…)

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Mr. Fusion Helps Students Build a Nuclear Reactor

*Microsoft employee Carl Greninger helped a team of young students build a working nuclear reactor in his garage. He hopes the project can inspire a passion for physics in students around the country.*

REDMOND, Wash. – Sometimes you have to smash a few atoms to excite people about science.

So says Carl Greninger, a program manager in Microsoft IT Operations by day and full-fledged physics fanatic by night. That’s why he decided to help some young students get hands-on experience with something they couldn’t find in their classrooms: a working thermonuclear reactor.

For the past year, a group of local students – some as young as 13 years old – have met at Greninger’s garage every Friday night to build a type of fusion reactor known as a Farnsworth–Hirsch Fusor. Dubbed IEC-9000, their machine has been fusing atoms and producing neutrons since May. It cost about as much as a high-end SUV, weighs 1,400 pounds, and generates temperatures hotter than the surface of the sun. (more…)

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Yahoo! Sports and Gow Broadcasting Hit the Radio Airwaves with Yahoo! Sports Radio

*No. 1 online sports destination announces new relationship with leading sports radio network*

SUNNYVALE, Calif.– Yahoo!, the premier digital media company, and Gow Broadcasting, LLC (formerly Mission Media Group, LLC), today announced the launch of Yahoo! Sports Radio. The new, national sports radio network can be heard on over 180 affiliate radio stations across the country, Sirius Satellite Radio, and a number of digital and mobile partners. This partnership enables Yahoo! Sports — the No. 1 destination for online sports with more than 50 million monthly unique users — to reach its avid fans in the largest local sports markets across the country.

“Yahoo! Sports Radio builds on our leadership as the No. 1 sports site online and creates a national and local outlet for our brand and talent,” said Ken Fuchs, VP Yahoo! Media Network. “As Yahoo! Sports covers the biggest events, stories and athletes on and off the field, our partnership with Gow Broadcasting will provide more access to our users and solutions to our advertising partners that want to connect with them wherever they consume sports.” (more…)

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Dream Chasers: Winners of 2011 Imagine Cup Announced in New York City

*Teams from Ireland, Taiwan, France, Poland, Brazil, Greece, Korea, Denmark and Romania today took home the nine top awards at Microsoft’s 9th annual Imagine Cup. Microsoft also announced a $3 million grant program to help Imagine Cup participants solve the world’s toughest challenges.*

NEW YORK CITY – July 13, 2011 – Student projects that tackle global problems such as improving road and fire safety, eradicating poverty, and creating a more sustainable environment took top honors at the Imagine Cup 2011 Worldwide Finals in New York on Wednesday.

Ireland’s Team Hermes won the competition’s premier Software Design category and $25,000 (U.S.) with their project that combined embedded technology, mobile devices and cloud computing technology to change driving habits and reduce road deaths. (more…)

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Microsoft Announces Finalists for Global Student Technology Competition

*More than 400 students invited to showcase their technology to solve the world’s toughest problems at Microsoft Imagine Cup 2011 Worldwide Finals in New York.*

NEW YORK — May 23, 2011 — In July, more than 400 of the brightest young minds from around the world will travel to New York to showcase their innovative ideas for using technology to solve the world’s toughest problems. As the winners of regional, national and online Imagine Cup competitions, these high school and university students represent the pinnacle of innovation, creativity and entrepreneurialism from 73 countries and regions around the globe. (more…)

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Asteroids Collide at 11,000 Miles Per Hour; Scientists Study Debris

Scientists have captured and studied the collision of two asteroids for only the second time in the history of astronomy. In the May 20 edition of the Astrophysical Journal Letters (currently online), UCLA’s David Jewitt and colleagues report on observations from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope of a large asteroid that was hit by a much smaller one.

On Dec. 11, 2010, astronomers noticed that an asteroid known as (596) Scheila had unexpectedly brightened and was sporting short-lived dust plumes. Data from NASA’s Swift satellite and Hubble Space Telescope showed that these changes likely occurred after Scheila was struck by a much smaller asteroid, probably in late November or early December. The shape, evolution and content of the plumes enabled the scientists to reconstruct what occurred. (more…)

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Did Obama’s Election Kill the Antiwar Movement?

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Since 2003, the antiwar movement in the United States has had much to protest with Americans fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya, but the movement—which has dropped off sharply the past two years—may be more anti-Republican than antiwar, says a University of Michigan researcher.

A new study by U-M’s Michael Heaney and colleague Fabio Rojas of Indiana University shows that the antiwar movement in the United States demobilized as Democrats, who had been motivated to participate by anti-Republican sentiments, withdrew from antiwar protests when the Democratic Party achieved electoral success, first with Congress in 2006 and then with the presidency in 2008. (more…)

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Pollution Triggers Genetic Resistance Mechanism in a Coastal Fish

For 30 years, two General Electric facilities released about 1.3 million pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into New York’s Hudson River, devastating and contaminating fish populations. Some 50 years later, one type of fish—the Atlantic tomcod—has not only survived but appears to be thriving in the hostile Hudson environment.

Researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have joined colleagues from New York University (NYU) and NOAA to investigate this phenomenon and report that the tomcod living in the Hudson River have undergone a rapid evolutionary change in developing a genetic resistance to PCBs. (more…)

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