China, Europe Add Fuel to U.S. Sell-Off | Breakout - Yahoo! Finance

"Deleveraging Everywhere." It doesn't get much more concise than and it is exactly how Stifel Nicolaus trader Dave Lutz begins his morning missive to clients today. For others, the sheer volume of things suddenly going wrong is almost fitting, given the 7-month rally that defiantly pushed stocks to all-time highs.

"No one knows how it will end but we do know this; it all comes at once," says Peter Kenny, chief market strategist at Knight Capital in the attached video, of roiled world markets, including the Dow Jones Industrials (^DJI) , which is suffering its third, 200-plus point down day in the past 4 sessions.

Not only is he - and every investor for that matter - contending with the fastest eroding bond market in most of our adult lifetimes, there's also the continued debasement of complicated Chinese markets, as well as the perennial perk-up of Eurozone bond yields, which have Geiger counter-like sensitivity to any signs of trouble.

Not only did China's benchmark Shanghai Index shed 5%, but every major equity market in Asia and Europe closed lower today, adding to the weight upon U.S. stocks, which were being lead lower by economically cyclical sectors such as Energy (XLE), Materials (XLB), Financials (XLF) and Industrials (XLI). More broadly, the emerging markets (EEM) continued their descent towards bear market territory, having plunged almost 20% now from a 52-week high hit at the start of the year. If not for the isolated gains of the dollar (^DX-Y), Treasury yields (^TNX) and volatility (^VIX) there would be no green at all on trader's screens.

And yet, in spite of all of the contagion and liquidation, a silver lining may emerge this week in the form of a parade of seven Fed governors who are on tap to make speeches in the next few days, and hammer home the reality that when Ben Bernanke says any reduction in stimulus from the markets will be "data dependent," he means it.

"This is what they get paid for. Fed speak. To make things more digestable for the markets," Kenny says, branding it a "very, very important week for the Fed."

Still, he's the first to acknowledge that the addict-like tantrum currently being thrown by the markets was not only expected, but is also arguably overdue. The surprise, really, is in the speed at which the global demise is happening, and whether the sell-off has come too far, too fast and might be poised for a bounce.

More from Breakout:

Don't Look at Bernanke, China Is Driving This Meltdown

Stocks Threatened by the Pace of Rising Interest Rates: Baruch

Bargains and Necessities Outclass Luxury in Retail Patch: Suttmeier

Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/breakout/china-europe-add-fuel-u-sell-off-152937642.html

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Why 2 Birds in the Hand May Be Better Than a "Hobbit" Skull (in a Cave Deposit, at Least)

Labeled bags of bones

The light flickers, and then goes out. The humming of the air conditioning stops. The sounds of Jakarta?s hustle-bustle and infamous traffic gridlock slowly seep into the room, softly lit by the glow of my laptop screen. It?s a late October afternoon, the rainy season started a few days ago, and I?m at the National Research and Development Centre for Archaeology in Jakarta, Indonesia. On the table in front of me, now only dimly lit from my laptop screen, lies a cast of a famous human skeleton. Carefully arranged on a fine layer of black velvet, these pieces represent Homo floresiensis, the enigmatic hominin species from Liang Bua cave on the Indonesian island of Flores.

Excavation in progress

The discovery in 2003 of Homo floresiensis, affectionately referred to as a ?hobbit?, took scientists worldwide by surprise, and challenged many things thought to be understood about human evolution. Intense scientific debates followed about the validity of Homo floresiensis and its status as a separate species, and many of these debates continue to this day. Behind the black velvet covered table, however, stacked up high against the walls, are hundreds of boxes and plastic containers, each of which contains evidence of the other animals that lived and died among Homo floresiensis. I can?t help but think that these boxes and containers, not the skeleton on the table, will help us to better understand the rise and fall of Homo floresiensis.

Liang Bua interior

Liang Bua is a limestone cave in western Flores, located on the southern slope of a lush green valley that over time has been cut down by the Wae Racang river. Its sediments have yielded an enormous number of animal bones, and despite its star status, ?hobbit? remains are hugely outnumbered by the remains of other animals, such as rats, pygmy elephants, Komodo dragons, bats, and most importantly in my case, birds. My first encounter with the ancient birds of Liang Bua was in 2006, when I made my first trip to Jakarta. Coping as best as I could with the heat (I?m northern European after all), I spent my days carefully unwrapping tissue paper only to find bird bones, some very large, most of them small, tucked inside. I couldn?t help but feeling a bit overwhelmed when I left Jakarta.

Now, several years and many trips to Jakarta later, the birds from Liang Bua are speaking, figuratively at least (technically, parrots may talk but they and others make sounds). And their story is fascinating! Although bird remains probably make up only about 1% of the total number of animal bones excavated from Liang Bua (which is a lot more than the hominin bones by the way), they are consistently present from the top layers of sediment all the way down to the bottom of the cave. On top of that, the birds are incredibly diverse, which means that the ?hobbits? lived in a world full of birds. The nearby forests were home to pigeons, parrots, small owls, and goshawks. A barn owl probably roosted at the eastern cave wall next to the entrance.

Further back in the cave, swiftlets nested high up against the wall in the dark crevices. When I visited Liang Bua in 2011, I was so excited to see living swiftlets darting in and out of the cave like acrobats. I had been looking at the bones of these birds for months, but I fell in love with them as they gathered above the forest canopy in the late afternoon to feed on insects. Fossil swiftlet bones, which are found as deep as 9.5 m, show that these tiny birds have been doing this for tens of thousands of years. They own this place.

River valley in the Liang Bua area

Throughout prehistory, occasional overflowing of the nearby Wae Racang river likely created marshy and muddy areas that were excellent feeding grounds for all kinds of water birds, including snipes, plovers and sandpipers, probing and prodding the mud with their long bills in search of food (invertebrates mostly). Brahminy Kites patrolled the river for fish or hung out near the mouth of the cave, waiting for a fly-by bat or swiftlet snack. Kingfishers and small rails could be found in the woodlands close to the river, while little buttonquails scurried around in the drier grasslands higher up.

Despite this seemingly peaceful setting, life at Liang Bua wasn?t all peachy. The remains of multiple individuals of giant marabou storks and vultures illustrate a darker side of Liang Bua. Carcasses of pygmy Stegodon (an extinct relative of elephants), probably brought into the cave by Homo floresiensis (Morwood et al., 2004, 2005; van den Bergh et al., 2009), must have attracted the attention of these fierce scavenging birds.

Their modern-day counterparts, the African marabou storks and vultures, have a love-hate relationship. Marabou storks signal that it is safe for vultures to approach a carcass, helping them in their quest for food. But, as their massive straight bill is poorly equipped for tearing off chunks of meat, they then often resort to intimidating vultures to drop their chunk, or even steal the meat directly from them. We can only imagine what the scene at Liang Bua must have looked like. If these videos of modern marabou storks and vultures are any indication, I?m not placing bets on who got the last scraps of Stegodon meat, but it may not have been a hobbit or even a komodo dragon:

The bird remains from Liang Bua paint a lively and colorful background for Homo floresiensis, but their implications extend far beyond a soundtrack to the hobbit story. Birds are closely associated to vegetation, and their presence throughout the stratigraphic sequence serves as a paleoecological signal, much more so than mammals. Changes in local climate affect vegetation, which in turn affects the bird community. The diverse assortment of birds in the Pleistocene sediments indicates that Liang Bua?s surroundings hosted a range of different habitats, including mature and floristically diverse forests that would have provided plenty of food and other resources for Homo floresiensis. In the Holocene sediments, bird diversity appears to drop. This may well be biased due to smaller sample sizes in the Holocene, but we cannot rule out changes in the local ecology. The absence of water birds (abundant in Pleistocene deposits) during the Holocene might reflect a shift to a drier climate, which is on par with isotope data from the region (Westaway et al., 2009).

Swiftlets over forest near Liang Bua

However, as the Wae Racang river changed its course, snipes and plovers may no longer have been attracted to the cave surroundings. Forest birds, such as swiftlets, parrots, and pigeons made it unscathed into the Holocene, indicating that despite a shift to a drier climate during the terminal Pleistocene, enough forest remained nearby to sustain populations of these birds. Interestingly, a majority of the bird species observed in the Pleistocene sediments are still found on the island today. While pygmy elephants, hobbits, giant marabou storks, and vultures disappeared toward the end of the Pleistocene, most birds seem unaffected by this extinction event, or were able to cope with changing environmental conditions. What made them different?

As more material is excavated and studied, the Liang Bua avifauna continues to grow and the resolution of its paleoecological and paleoenvironmental signal will increase. It might show us what happened to the wetlands and forests over time, tell us who was eating whom, and when each character arrived on the scene. Moreover, it allows us to test hypotheses about climate change, extinction patterns, and yes, human evolution.

I hear a clanking sound as the air condition comes back to life. Delicious cold air hits my face. Back to the birds it is.

References:

van den Bergh, G. D., H. J. M. Meijer, R. A. Due, K. Szabo ?? , L. W. van den Hoek Ostende, T. Sutikna, E. W. Saptomo, P. Piper, K. M. Dobney, and M. J. Morwood. 2009. The Liang Bua faunal remains: a 95 k.yr. sequence from Flores, East Indonesia. Journal of Human Evolution 57:527?537.

Meijer, H.J.M., Sutikna, T., Saptomo, W.E., Due, R. A., Wasisto, S., James, H.F., Morwood, M.J., & Tocheri, M.W. Late Pleistocene-Holocene non-Passerine Avifauna of Liang Bua (Flores, Indonesia). The Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 33(4).

Morwood, M. J., P. Brown, Jatmiko, T. Sutikna, E. W. Saptomo, K. E. Westaway, R. A. Due, R. G. Roberts, T. Maeda, S. Wasisto, and T. Djubiantono. 2005. Further evidence for small- bodied hominins from the late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia. Nature 437:1012?1017.

Morwood, M. J., R. P. Soejono, R. G. Roberts, T. Sutikna, C. S. M. Turney, K. E. Westaway, W. J. Rink, J.-X. Zhao, G. D. van den- Bergh, R. A. Due, D. R. Hobbs, M. W. Moore, M. I. Bird, and L. K. Fifield. 2004. Archaeology and age of a new hominin from Flores in eastern Indonesia. Nature 431:1087?1091.

Westaway, K. E., R. G. Roberts, T. Sutikna, M. J. Morwood, R. Drysdale, R., J.-X. Zhao, and A. R. Chivas. 2009a. The evolving landscape and climate of western Flores: an environmental context for the archae- ological site of Liang Bua. Journal of Human Evolution 57:450?464.

Images: by author.

Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=why-two-birds-in-the-hand-may-be-better-than-a-hobbit-skull-in-a-cave-deposit-at-least

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Northwestern researchers examine mechanical bases for the emergence of undulatory swimmers

Public release date: 24-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Megan Fellman
fellman@northwestern.edu
847-491-3115
Northwestern University

Findings could provide insights in evolutionary biology, neural control of movement, bio-inspired devices

How do fish swim? It is a simple question, but there is no simple answer.

Researchers at Northwestern University have revealed some of the mechanical properties that allow fish to perform their complex movements. Their findings, published on June 13 in the journal PLOS Computational Biology, could provide insights in evolutionary biology and lead to an understanding of the neural control of movement and development of bio-inspired underwater vehicles.

"If we could play God and create an undulatory swimmer, how stiff should its body be? At what wave frequency should its body undulate so it moves at its top speed? How does its brain control those movements?" said Neelesh Patankar, professor of mechanical engineering at Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. "Millennia ago, undulatory swimmers like eels that had the right mechanical properties are the ones that would have survived."

The researchers used computational methods to test assumptions about the preferred evolutionary characteristics. For example, species with low muscle activation frequency and high body stiffness are the most successful; the researchers found the optimal values for each property.

"The stiffness that we predict for good swimming characteristics is, in fact, the same as the experimentally determined stiffness of undulatory swimmers with a backbone," said Amneet Bhalla, graduate student in mechanical engineering at McCormick and one of the paper's authors.

"Thus, our results suggest that precursors of a backbone would have given rise to animals with the appropriate body stiffness," added Patankar. "We hypothesize that this would have been mechanically beneficial to the evolutionary emergence of swimming vertebrates."

In addition, species must be resilient to small changes in physical characteristics from one generation to the next. The researchers confirmed that the ability to swim, while dependent upon mechanical parameters, is not sensitive to minor generational changes; as long as the body stiffness is above a certain value, the ability to swim quickly is insensitive to the value of the stiffness, the researchers found.

Finally, making a connection to the neural control of movement, the researchers analyzed the curvature of its undulations to determine if it was the result of a single bending torque, or if precise bending torques were necessary at every point along its body. They learned that a simple movement pattern gives rise to the complicated-looking deformation.

"This suggests that the animal does not need precise control of its movements," Patankar said.

To make these determinations, the researchers applied a common physics concept known as "spring mass damper" -- a model, applied to everything from car suspension to Slinkies, that determines movement in systems that are losing energy -- to the body of the fish.

This novel approach for the first time unified the concepts of active and passive swimming -- swimming in which forcing comes from within the fish (active) or from the surrounding water (passive) by calculating the conditions necessary for the fish to swim both actively and passively.

###

The paper, "A Forced Damped Oscillation Framework for Undulatory Swimming Provides New Insights into How Propulsion Arises in Active and Passive Swimming," was authored by Patankar, Bhalla, and Boyce E. Griffith, assistant professor of medicine and mathematics at New York University.

The work was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 24-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Megan Fellman
fellman@northwestern.edu
847-491-3115
Northwestern University

Findings could provide insights in evolutionary biology, neural control of movement, bio-inspired devices

How do fish swim? It is a simple question, but there is no simple answer.

Researchers at Northwestern University have revealed some of the mechanical properties that allow fish to perform their complex movements. Their findings, published on June 13 in the journal PLOS Computational Biology, could provide insights in evolutionary biology and lead to an understanding of the neural control of movement and development of bio-inspired underwater vehicles.

"If we could play God and create an undulatory swimmer, how stiff should its body be? At what wave frequency should its body undulate so it moves at its top speed? How does its brain control those movements?" said Neelesh Patankar, professor of mechanical engineering at Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. "Millennia ago, undulatory swimmers like eels that had the right mechanical properties are the ones that would have survived."

The researchers used computational methods to test assumptions about the preferred evolutionary characteristics. For example, species with low muscle activation frequency and high body stiffness are the most successful; the researchers found the optimal values for each property.

"The stiffness that we predict for good swimming characteristics is, in fact, the same as the experimentally determined stiffness of undulatory swimmers with a backbone," said Amneet Bhalla, graduate student in mechanical engineering at McCormick and one of the paper's authors.

"Thus, our results suggest that precursors of a backbone would have given rise to animals with the appropriate body stiffness," added Patankar. "We hypothesize that this would have been mechanically beneficial to the evolutionary emergence of swimming vertebrates."

In addition, species must be resilient to small changes in physical characteristics from one generation to the next. The researchers confirmed that the ability to swim, while dependent upon mechanical parameters, is not sensitive to minor generational changes; as long as the body stiffness is above a certain value, the ability to swim quickly is insensitive to the value of the stiffness, the researchers found.

Finally, making a connection to the neural control of movement, the researchers analyzed the curvature of its undulations to determine if it was the result of a single bending torque, or if precise bending torques were necessary at every point along its body. They learned that a simple movement pattern gives rise to the complicated-looking deformation.

"This suggests that the animal does not need precise control of its movements," Patankar said.

To make these determinations, the researchers applied a common physics concept known as "spring mass damper" -- a model, applied to everything from car suspension to Slinkies, that determines movement in systems that are losing energy -- to the body of the fish.

This novel approach for the first time unified the concepts of active and passive swimming -- swimming in which forcing comes from within the fish (active) or from the surrounding water (passive) by calculating the conditions necessary for the fish to swim both actively and passively.

###

The paper, "A Forced Damped Oscillation Framework for Undulatory Swimming Provides New Insights into How Propulsion Arises in Active and Passive Swimming," was authored by Patankar, Bhalla, and Boyce E. Griffith, assistant professor of medicine and mathematics at New York University.

The work was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-06/nu-nre062413.php

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Asia shares slide on China worries, Fed outlook; dollar firms

By Chikako Mogi

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares fell to a fresh 9-1/2-month low on Monday as investors worried about China's economic and financial stability and markets scrambled to price in the Federal Reserve's plan to tone down its stimulus drive starting later this year.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> slipped 1.2 percent to its lowest since early September, after posting its worst week since May 2012 with a drop of 4.5 percent last week.

China's money market rates remained elevated and volatile, keeping investors jittery about the intentions of the Chinese authorities, as the recent spike in market rates compounds fears of a sharper-than-expected slowdown in the world's second-largest economy.

China's weighted average overnight bond repurchase rate, a measure of the cost of funds, fell to a low of 6.1 percent earlier in the day but briefly crawled back up again to 9.1 percent, slightly above Friday's close at 8.89 percent.

China shares extended losses with banks leading the downward spiral after official news reports over the weekend suggested Beijing will crack down on shadow banking, blamed for the cash crunch in the mainland. Hong Kong shares <.hsi> fell 1.4 percent and Shanghai shares <.ssec> shed 2.1 percent, with the financials sub-index tumbling nearly 6 percent.

Many analysts saw the People's Bank of China's withholding of money market funding as a strategy to force banks to stop channeling cash into the informal banking sector, known as shadow banking, which authorities worry is creating significant credit risks.

"The Chinese authorities are purposefully doing this to let investors be aware of pains that must accompany structural reforms the government is trying to pursue, so investors shouldn't be complacent about the government avoiding a hard landing," said Xiao Minjie, an independent economist in Tokyo.

Australian shares <.axjo> tumbled 1.6 percent, weighed by concerns about slowing China growth, while South Korean shares <.ks11> fell 0.7 percent, extending Friday's losses to a fresh 11-month low.

Japan's Nikkei stock average <.n225> gave up early gains on the back of a weaker yen as investors remained skittish after last week's global market rout. It was marginally weaker by midday.

"The weaker yen certainly is the main driver today. Nevertheless, investors are hesitant to buy into exporters because the external situation, especially that of the emerging markets, is uncertain," said Ryota Sakagami, chief strategist at SMBC Nikko Securities.

DOLLAR SOLE OUTPERFORMER

Financial markets sold off last week after Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said that with the U.S. economy showing signs of recovery, the central bank may start scaling back its huge monthly bond-buying plan which was aimed at keeping bond yields down and supporting the economy. The Fed's strong accommodative stance has also encouraged investment in riskier assets such as shares.

"The valuation adjustment for tapering of Fed stimulus is well underway," said Ric Spooner, chief market analyst at CMC Markets.

The dollar was the sole outperformer, gaining broadly amid improving U.S. economic prospects and rising yields.

The dollar was up 0.4 percent against the yen at 98.25, slowly extending gains and moving away from its 10-week low of 93.75 yen hit earlier in the month.

Traders said the prospect of diverging yield directions will support the dollar against the yen.

U.S. Treasuries prices slipped in Asia on Monday, extending last week's dismal performance with the benchmark 10-year yield posting its biggest weekly rise since November 2001 after the Federal Reserve signaled it might scale back its stimulus.

The yield on 10-year notes added 2.6 basis points to 2.5684 percent, its highest in almost two years.

"A better economic outlook will eventually need to be priced into the short end of the yield curve. This suggests that there is a catch-up trade for the USD versus low-yielding currencies (such as the yen)," Barclays Capital said in a research note.

Against a basket of major currencies, the dollar index <.dxy> rose 0.32 percent to a two-week high after ending last week up 2.2 percent for its biggest weekly gain since early November, 2011.

Spot gold fell 0.4 percent to $1,291.65 an ounce, after touching its lowest since September 2010 of $1,268.89 on Friday and ending the worst week in nearly two years.

U.S. crude futures eased 0.2 percent to $93.55 a barrel and Brent fell 0.3 percent to $100.60.

Going into the Fed's June meeting, investors continued to take money out of emerging-market fund groups in the week ending June 19, with redemptions from EPFR Global-tracked emerging markets bond funds hitting a 90-week high and more than $3 billion leaving emerging markets equity funds, EPFR said on Friday.

(Additional reporting by Thuy Ong in Sydney and Tomo Uetake in Tokyo; Editing by Eric Meijer)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fed-outlook-bolsters-dollar-caps-asian-shares-003746943.html

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Why Immigration Reform Is The Panama Canal Treaty Redux (Powerlineblog)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/314654322?client_source=feed&format=rss

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FTC Antitrust Google Waze Deal - Business Insider

REUTERS/Chip East

Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are recognized for their efforts at the conclusion of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York, September 22, 2006. Former US President Bill Clinton's annual event brings together world leaders from business, government and philanthropy to try to solve world issues.

?

Google has been contacted by the Federal Trade Commission over their $1.1 billion purchase of mobile mapping app Waze ? sparking off an antitrust investigation into whether the deal would have adverse effects on competition in the marketplace, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The search giant edged out Facebook to purchase the Israeli startup on June 11. In Google's official announcement, they wrote of enhancing Google maps with Waze's traffic update features, as well as using it to improve Google search.

From WSJ:

Lawyers familiar with government antitrust investigations say the FTC may have asked Google not to integrate with Waze, pending its review.

The FTC would have to determine whether Waze would have become a head-to-head competitor with Google, whose Google Maps software is the dominant digital mapping and navigation service around the world, or whether there is any evidence, such as emails, that showed Google wanted to acquire the company only to keep it from rivals.

The FTC did not comment on the matter, and other than to confirm they had been contacted, Google also declined comment to WSJ.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/ftc-antitrust-google-waze-deal-2013-6

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Brazil leader breaks silence about protests

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) ? Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff vowed to battle corruption while improving government services as she acknowledged the anger that has led to vast, sometimes violent protests across Latin America's largest country.

Friday's nationally broadcast 10-minute address ended Rousseff's much-criticized silence in the face of demonstrations that have roiled the nation for more than a week, and were projected to continue on Saturday.

She said she planned to soon meet with leaders of the protest movement, governors and the mayors of major cities. But it remained unclear who could represent the massive and decentralized groups of demonstrators taking to the streets, venting anger over a range of grievances, including woeful public services despite a high tax burden.

Rousseff said that her government would create a national plan for public transportation in cities. Officials in many cities have already backed down from the hike in bus and subway fares that set off the protests. She also reiterated her backing for a plan before congress to invest all oil revenue royalties in education and a promise she made earlier to bring in foreign doctors to areas that lack physicians.

"I want institutions that are more transparent, more resistant to wrongdoing," Rousseff said in reference to complaints of deep corruption in Brazilian politics, which is emerging as a focal point of the protests. "It's citizenship and not economic power that must be heard first."

The leader is a Marxist rebel who fought against Brazil's 1964-1985 military regime and was imprisoned for three years and tortured by the junta, and she pointedly referred to earlier sacrifices made to free the nation from dictatorship.

"My generation fought a lot so that the voice of the streets could be heard," Rousseff said. "Many were persecuted, tortured and many died for this. The voice of the street must be heard and respected and it can't be confused with the noise and truculence of some troublemakers."

Edvaldo Chaves, a 61-year-old doorman in Rio's upscale Flamengo neighborhood, said he found the speech convincing.

"I thought she seemed calm and cool. Plus, because she was a guerrilla and was in exile, she talks about the issue of protests convincingly," Chaves said. "I think things are going to calm down. We'll probably keep seeing people in the streets but probably small numbers now."

But Bruna Romao, an 18-year-old store clerk in Sao Paulo, said Rousseff's words probably wouldn't have an impact.

"Brazilians are passionate," she said. "We boil over quickly but also cool down fast. But this time it's different, people are in full revolt. I don't see things calming down anytime soon."

Some 1 million anti-government demonstrators took to the streets nationwide Thursday night to denounce everything from poor public services to the billions of dollars spent preparing for next year's World Cup soccer tournament and the 2016 Olympics in Brazil.

The protests continued Friday, as about 1,000 people marched in western Rio de Janeiro city, with some looting stores and invading a $250 million arts center that remains empty after several years of construction. Police tried to disperse the crowd with tear gas as they were pelted with rocks. Police said some in the crowd were armed and firing at officers.

Other protests broke out in in the country's biggest city, Sao Paulo, where traffic was paralyzed but no violence was reported, and in Fortaleza in the country's northeast. Demonstrators were calling for more mobilizations in 10 cities on Saturday.

With Pope Francis scheduled to visit Brazil next month, the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops issued a statement expressing "solidarity and support for the demonstrations, as long as they remain peaceful."

"This is a phenomenon involving the Brazilian people and the awakening of a new consciousness," the Catholic leaders said in the statement. "The protests show all of us that we cannot live in a country with so much inequality."

Rousseff had never held elected office before she became president in 2011 and remains clearly uncomfortable in the spotlight. A career technocrat and economist, she was helped into the presidency by her mentor, the tremendously popular former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Marlise Matos, a political science professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, said before Rousseff spoke that officials need to take stronger action.

"The government has to respond, even if the agenda seems unclear and wide open," she said. "It should be the president herself who should come out and provide a response. But I think the government is still making strategic calculations to decide how to respond. What I'd like to see as a response is a call for a referendum on political reform. Let the people decide what kind of political and electoral system we have."

Social media and mass emails were buzzing with calls for a general strike next week. However, Brazil's two largest nationwide unions, the Central Workers Union and the Union Force, said they knew nothing about such an action, though they do support the protests.

A Thursday night march in Sao Paulo was the first with a strong union presence, as a drum corps led members wearing matching shirts down the city's main avenue. Many protesters have called for a movement with no ties to political parties or unions, which are widely considered corrupt here.

The unrest is hitting the nation as it hosts the Confederations Cup soccer tournament, with tens of thousands of foreign visitors in attendance.

Carlos Cardozo, a 62-year-old financial consultant who joined Friday's protest in Rio, said he thought the unrest could cost Rousseff next year's elections. Even as recently as last week, Rousseff had enjoyed a 74 percent approval rating in a poll by the business group the National Transport Confederation.

"Her paying lip service by saying she's in favor of the protests is not helping her cause," Cardozo said. "People want to see real action, real decisions, and it's not this government that's capable of delivering."

___

Barchfield reported from Rio de Janeiro and Brooks from Sao Paulo. Associated Press writers Stan Lehman in Sao Paulo and Jack Chang in Mexico City contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/brazil-leader-breaks-silence-protests-001503729.html

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Wambach breaks Hamm's mark for career goals

United States' Megan Rapinoe, right, celebrates with Abby Wambach as teammates rush in after Wambach scored a goal against South Korea during the first half of an international friendly soccer match at Red Bull Arena, Thursday, June 20, 2013, in Harrison, N.J. With the goal, Wambach broke Mia Hamm's national goal-scoring record. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

United States' Megan Rapinoe, right, celebrates with Abby Wambach as teammates rush in after Wambach scored a goal against South Korea during the first half of an international friendly soccer match at Red Bull Arena, Thursday, June 20, 2013, in Harrison, N.J. With the goal, Wambach broke Mia Hamm's national goal-scoring record. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

United States' Abby Wambach, center right, reacts after scoring a goal against South Korea as United States' Heather O'Reilly (9) and Crustal Dunn (6) and South Korea's Jeoun Eunha (18) look on during the first half of an international friendly soccer match at Red Bull Arena, Thursday, June 20, 2013, in Harrison, N.J. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

United States' Abby Wambach, left, reacts after scoring a goal against South Korea during the first half of an international friendly soccer match at Red Bull Arena, Thursday, June 20, 2013, in Harrison, N.J. With the goal Wambach ties for most scored goals with former US player Mia Hamm. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

United States' Abby Wambach kisses a soccer ball after scoring against South Korea during the first half of an international friendly soccer match at Red Bull Arena, Thursday, June 20, 2013, in Harrison, N.J. With the goal, Wambach broke Mia Hamm's national goal-scoring record. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

United States women soccer players mob Abby Wambach after she scored a goal against South Korea during the first half of an international friendly soccer match at Red Bull Arena, Thursday, June 20, 2013, in Harrison, N.J. With the goal, Wambach broke Mia Hamm's national goal-scoring record. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

HARRISON, N.J. (AP) ? Abby Wambach broke Mia Hamm's record for international career goals by a soccer player, scoring four times in the first half against South Korea to push her total to 160.

Wambach tallied three times in the first 29 minutes to break Hamm's mark of 158 international goals, and she added another in injury time to give her a nice round number.

The historic 159th came on a line-drive header that ripped into the twine in the back of the net off a corner kick by Megan Rapinoe.

The 33-year-old Wambach turned and ran a couple of steps in the direction of the U.S. bench, then stopped as Rapinoe jumped into her arms. The Rochester, N.Y., native was then mobbed by teammates on the field and those who streamed off the bench as the crowd at Red Bull Arena cheered wildly.

After the hugs, Wambach turned to the stands and blew a kiss toward her parents, Judy and Peter.

Chants of "Ab-bee, Ab-bee, Ab-bee," cascaded through the stadium as officials got the ball and gave it to the U.S. bench.

"I'm just so proud of her," Hamm said. "Just watching those four goals, that's what she is all about. She fights for the ball, she's courageous and she never gives up. Her strength and perseverance is what makes her so great and it's what defenders and opposing teams fear.

"From being her teammate early in her career, I know all she ever wanted to do was win, and she continues to do that. I'm just glad I got to share 158 with her. It was short, but it was fun."

Her first goal Thursday came on a shot in the box past South Korean goalkeeper Kim Jung-mi in the 10th minute. The second came nine minutes later in the friendly on a flicking header.

Lauren Cheney set up the first two goals on crossing passes on plays that Wambach eluded Korean defender Shim Seo-yeon.

Wambach's fourth goal was an easy tap-in after Alex Morgan made a run down the right side and centered the ball to the on-rushing Wambach, the 2012 FIFA Women's World Player of the Year.

Wambach had a chance for a fifth goal, which would have tied her single-game record, but she could not get her head on a cross early in the second half.

Wambach was given a standing ovation by many in the crowd when she was replaced in the 58th minute by Christen Press.

Before leaving the field, she exchanged hugs with long-time teammates Rapinoe, Heather O'Reilly and Carli Lloyd and a few other players. As she got to the sideline she applauded the crowd and then hugged her coaches and teammates.

Wambach said on Tuesday she wanted to get the record and stop being the center of attention. On Thursday night she held the spotlight and no one was going to take it away.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-06-20-SOC-Wambach-Record/id-d9413b92ceb2468cb16516dc6df2ad2b

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Brazil protesters struggle to define next steps

SAO PAULO (AP) -- After a week of mass protests, Brazilians won the world's attention and a pull-back on the subway and bus fare hikes that had first ignited their rage. But many say the real work is just beginning.

Middle-class protesters marching for the first time say the challenge for Brazilians is to keep alive the political spirit that was awakened in the last week, after decades of apathy. They say they hope leaders emerge at the forefront of an eclectic mass movement and present concrete demands to national and state governments.

In short, protesters say it's time to organize around their flurry of grievances, ranging from ending government corruption to improving public education, health care and public safety.

"I think leaders will emerge but in smaller groups," said secretary Juliane Furno, while standing under a banner in Sao Paulo Thursday reading "Only struggle changes life."

"We're all taking the experiences of the past week back to our universities, communities and workplaces. I think things will calm down now but we have politicized Brazil and there's no turning back from that. We won't return to the Brazil of last week."

Despite such enthusiasm, Brazil's protesters face a dilemma that has bedeviled modern social movements in Latin America and beyond. If protests focus too narrowly on single issues such as bus fares, they risk losing steam when the issue is addressed. And if they embrace too many issues, they risk spreading themselves too thin to achieve any of their goals.

The U.S.-based Occupy movement, for example, failed to turn outrage over Wall Street corruption last year into a focused political force. Demonstrators in Egypt did manage to oust leader Hosni Mubarak but have since struggled to stay unified.

On top of that, having emerged from dictatorship only three decades ago, Brazil has no strong national civic groups that could naturally assume leadership of the protests.

"Based on the experiences we had in Chile, it will be key to foment organization," said Gabriel Boric, a former student leader who helped lead protests that forced Chilean President Sebastian Pinera to boost spending on education and social programs.

"In these type of massive movements there is often a rejection toward any sort of representation," Boric said. "But spokesmen will be needed to mediate with authorities and obtain planned goals. The work has to be permanent ? they have to create representation and dispute the power of traditional politicians."

The protests in Brazil are fresh and still running on adrenaline. Some of the biggest actions are planned for Thursday night in dozens of cities across the country.

Only one organized group has shown any control of the mobilizations so far, the Free Fare Movement that has fought since 2006 to make public transportation free across Brazil. The group's first protest in Sao Paulo last Thursday drew such a harsh police crackdown that hundreds of thousands of Brazilians were incited to take to the streets with every lament under the sun.

The Free Fare Movement has stuck to its one issue, and won its demands by putting forth leaders who could negotiate with governments.

The rest of the protesters have coalesced only around a general dissatisfaction with the sorry state of public services versus the high taxes citizens pay, as well as the billions of dollar spent on stadiums for the coming World Cup and Olympics.

But when pressed on how to turn frustration and disparate demands into concrete results, few on the streets could describe a way forward. In Salvador on Thursday, about 5,000 protesters couldn't even agree on a single march route, instead splitting up into two groups.

Ricardo Hammem, a 37-year-old lawyer attending a Sao Paulo rally in a black suit and tie this week, said that despite the amorphous nature of the protests and the lack of central leadership nationwide, the most important step had already been taken.

"It's been a long time coming. Everyone here is unsatisfied, but no one ever complains," he said. "Everyone waits for others to start."

Leonardo Avritzer, a political science professor at the University of Belo Horizonte, said time was short to harness the protests' momentum.

"This movement is like an onion," Avritzer said. "At the heart, there are these well-organized and politicized groups around which there are many external layers. Those external layers are going to disperse very rapidly ? especially if the movement doesn't find a way to turn their demands into a concrete, actionable agenda and particularly if they keep up this rhythm of daily protests."

Clive Bloom, professor emeritus at the U.K.'s Middlesex University and the author of several books on protest movements, said he sees common challenges facing protests in Europe and Latin America.

"Theses protests are made up of alliances of numerous causes and ideas," he said. "The difficulty is getting people to follow one of the ideas and see it through. You have 50,000 people out there, and each has their own agenda."

Bloom said a hallmark of modern protests is their dependence on loosely affiliated groups such as hackers collective Anonymous. Yet those groups by definition don't believe leaders can carry out traditional negotiations with governments, and form and disappear at will.

Such groups have driven the protests in Brazil, where every demonstration has included people donning the mask of British rebel leader Guy Fawkes ? a symbol adopted by hackers and anarchists globally. Brazil's Anonymous wing, however, has taken down several government and corporate websites and issued demands for combatting corruption and implementing government reforms.

For cab driver Roberto Amorim, what Brazilians need now is patience and to not lose hope if the protests die down.

"There are so many faces and voices out here, they're crying out against the same suffering that most in Brazil know," he said. "Nobody is waiting for deep changes today, tomorrow or next week ? I have no idea how it will come about. But the Brazilian people have been so submissive for so long, for now it's good to just see that we're able to put the scare into our leaders."

___

Associated Press writers Luis Henao in Santiago, Chile, and Jenny Barchfield in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/brazil-protesters-struggle-define-next-122225311.html

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Instagram Video Vs. Vine: What's The Difference?

Instagram just launched video functionality. Glorious, 15-second, editable video functionality. Complete with image stabilization. So what does this mean for Vine?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/warVUXaDF60/

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Possible record-setting deadzone for Gulf of Mexico predicted

June 18, 2013 ? Scientists are expecting a very large "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico and a smaller than average hypoxic level in the Chesapeake Bay this year, based on several NOAA-supported forecast models.

NOAA-supported modelers at the University of Michigan, Louisiana State University, and the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium are forecasting that this year's Gulf of Mexico hypoxic "dead" zone will be between 7,286 and 8,561 square miles which could place it among the ten largest recorded. That would range from an area the size of Connecticut, Rhode Island and the District of Columbia combined on the low end to the New Jersey on the upper end. The high estimate would exceed the largest ever reported 8,481 square miles in 2002 .

Hypoxic (very low oxygen) and anoxic (no oxygen) zones are caused by excessive nutrient pollution, often from human activities such as agriculture, which results in insufficient oxygen to support most marine life in near-bottom waters. Aspects of weather, including wind speed, wind direction, precipitation and temperature, also impact the size of dead zones.

The Gulf estimate is based on the assumption of no significant tropical storms in the two weeks preceding or during the official measurement survey cruise scheduled from July 25-August 3 2013. If a storm does occur the size estimate could drop to a low of 5344 square miles, slightly smaller than the size of Connecticut.

This year's prediction for the Gulf reflect flood conditions in the Midwest that caused large amounts of nutrients to be transported from the Mississippi watershed to the Gulf. Last year's dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico was the fourth smallest on record due to drought conditions, covering an area of approximately 2,889 square miles, an area slightly larger than the state of Delaware. The overall average between 1995-2012 is 5,960 square miles, an area about the size of Connecticut.

A second NOAA-funded forecast, for the Chesapeake Bay, calls for a smaller than average dead zone in the nation's largest estuary. The forecasts from researchers at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and the University of Michigan has three parts: a prediction for the mid-summer volume of the low-oxygen hypoxic zone, one for the mid-summer oxygen-free anoxic zone, and a third that is an average value for the entire summer season.

The forecasts call for a mid-summer hypoxic zone of 1.46 cubic miles, a mid-summer anoxic zone of 0.26 to 0.38 cubic miles, and a summer average hypoxia of 1.108 cubic miles, all at the low end of previously recorded zones. Last year the final mid-summer hypoxic zone was 1.45 cubic miles.

This is the seventh year for the Bay outlook which, because of the shallow nature of large areas of the estuary, focuses on water volume or cubic miles, instead of square mileage as used in the Gulf. The history of hypoxia in the Chesapeake Bay since 1985 can be found at the EcoCheck website.

Both forecasts are based on nutrient run-off and river stream data from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), with the Chesapeake data funded with a cooperative agreement between USGS and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Those numbers are then inserted into models developed by funding from the National Ocean Service's National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS).

"Monitoring the health and vitality of our nation's oceans, waterways, and watersheds is critical as we work to preserve and protect coastal ecosystems," said Kathryn D. Sullivan, Ph.D., acting under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and acting NOAA administrator. "These ecological forecasts are good examples of the critical environmental intelligence products and tools that help shape a healthier coast, one that is so inextricably linked to the vitality of our communities and our livelihoods."

The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico affects nationally important commercial and recreational fisheries, and threatens the region's economy. The Chesapeake dead zones, which have been highly variable in recent years, threaten a multi-year effort to restore the Bay's water quality and enhance its production of crabs, oysters, and other important fisheries.

During May 2013, stream flows in the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers were above normal resulting in more nutrients flowing into the Gulf. According to USGS estimates, 153,000 metric tons of nutrients flowed down the rivers to the northern Gulf of Mexico in May, an increase of 94,900 metric tons over last year's 58,100 metric tons, when the region was suffering through drought. The 2013 input is an increase of 16 percent above the average nutrient load estimated over the past 34 years.

For the Chesapeake Bay, USGS estimates 36,600 metric tons of nutrients entered the estuary from the Susquehanna and Potomac rivers between January and May, which is 30 percent below the average loads estimated from1990 to 2013.

"Long-term nutrient monitoring and modeling is key to tracking how nutrient conditions are changing in response to floods and droughts and nutrient management actions," said Lori Caramanian, deputy assistant secretary of the interior for water and science. "Understanding the sources and transport of nutrients is key to developing effective nutrient management strategies needed to reduce the size of hypoxia zones in the Gulf, Bay and other U.S. waters where hypoxia is an on-going problem."

"Coastal hypoxia is proliferating around the world," said Donald Boesch, Ph.D., president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. "It is important that we have excellent abilities to predict and control the largest dead zones in the United States. The whole world is watching."

The confirmed size of the 2013 Gulf hypoxic zone will be released in August, following a monitoring survey led by the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium beginning in late July,and the result will be used to improve future forecasts. The final measurement in the Chesapeake will come in October following surveys by the Chesapeake Bay Program's partners from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.

Despite the Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Nutrient Task Force's goal to reduce the dead zone to less than 2,000 square miles, it has averaged 5,600 square miles over the last five years. Demonstrating the link between the dead zone and nutrients from the Mississippi River, this annual forecast continues to provide guidance to federal and state agencies as they work on the 11 implementation actions outlined by the Task Force in 2008 for mitigating nutrient pollution.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/3UcVS13cqeA/130618161546.htm

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U.S. cites Russia, China among worst in human trafficking: report

By Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An annual U.S. State Department report on Wednesday cited Russia and China among the world's worst offenders in fighting forced labor and sex trafficking, which could lead to U.S. sanctions.

The U.S. designation drops Russia and China, which already often are at odds with Washington, in the same category as North Korea and Iran.

The State Department ranks countries according to the efforts they make to fight human trafficking and Russia, China and Uzbekistan all fell to the lowest level, Tier 3, in the new report.

While the Chinese government has taken some steps to address the problem, such as vowing to work with international organizations and increasing public awareness, it also has continued to perpetuate the problem in hundreds of its own institutions, the State Department report said.

"Despite these modest signs of interest in anti-trafficking reforms, the Chinese government did not demonstrate significant efforts to comprehensively prohibit and punish all forms of trafficking and to prosecute traffickers," U.S. officials wrote.

The report said China's one-child policy and preference for sons has led to fewer women in the country, thus increasing demand for women as brides or prostitutes.

In Russia, the government "had not established any concrete system for the identification or care of trafficking victims, lacking any formal victim identification and referral mechanism," although there were some "ad hoc efforts," the report said.

The citation is likely to further strain the complicated relations between the United States and the two countries, which already have been strained by the handling of the civil war in Syria and cybersecurity, among other issues.

While it was not immediately clear what the Obama administration might do given the downgrade, human rights advocates and some U.S. lawmakers urged strong steps such as imposing sanctions or withholding foreign aid. They also called on the Russian and Chinese governments to take action.

"China has become the sex and labor trafficking capital of the world," said U.S. Representative Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican. "Without serious and sustained action by Beijing, it is only going to get worse."

Under U.S. law, Tier 3 countries may face sanctions that do not effect trade or humanitarian assistance, such as educational funding or culture programs.

John Sifton, Asia advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, said China and Russia have been given several chances to improve their effort to combat such trafficking and protect victims.

"The question for the White House is whether they're prepared to execute the sanctions," he said. "The question for China, Russia, and Uzbekistan is whether they're prepared to make commitments in the next 90 days to avoid those sanctions."

A GLOBAL PROBLEM

Despite pledges to combat such crimes, countries have failed to identify tens of millions of victims, according to the report, which ranked 188 countries and territories based on their efforts.

Just 40,000 victims of so-called modern slavery were identified last year among the estimated 27 million men, women and children who are held against their will globally, the report said.

"Despite a growing body of knowledge about victims and their needs, finding them remains a tremendous challenge," department officials wrote in their 2013 Trafficking in Persons report.

Among the millions of victims, most are women and girls, although many men and boys are also affected, the report said.

Human trafficking can take many forms - from prostitution to forced labor such as migrant work or domestic servitude - and children also can be victims. Perpetrators are difficult to track and largely circulate in the private economy, although cases can involve rebel groups or national authorities.

Among perpetrators, 7,705 were prosecuted in 2012, leading to 4,746 convictions, a slight increase from the prior year, U.S. officials said. In 2011, there were 7,206 prosecutions and 4,239 convictions.

Overall, there were far more countries downgraded than cited as improving, Sifton said.

"This is a much more negative report than years past," he said. "Russia and China rightly deserve attention but many other countries have very serious trafficking and forced labor problems."

Countries that did show improvement in fighting human trafficking include the Republic of Congo, Iraq and Azerbaijan, Sifton said.

President Barack Obama last year pledged to step up the U.S. effort to target trafficking.

Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday's report would guide U.S. action but did not offer details, citing continued "diplomacy and development efforts" as well as work with victim support groups, the private sector and others.

"Every government can do better," Kerry said in a letter accompanying the findings.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Bill Trott)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-cites-russia-china-among-worst-human-trafficking-211732411.html

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Shifting IRS polls contradict key deposition (CNN)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

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Advanced Micro Devices may bounce back with new servers: Barron's

(Reuters) - Prospects are looking better for Advanced Micro Devices Inc, the No. 2 maker of microprocessors for personal computers whose revenue fell sharply last year, as computer servers acquired last year in its purchase of tiny startup company SeaMicro bolster results, Barron's said.

"SeaMicro offers AMD a chance to take share in the mainstream server-computer market, in which Intel sells about 96 percent of the chips," Barron's said, citing industry data. "SeaMicro's technology looks good; its management team, astute; and the market opportunity, promising."

Barron's said Dan Niles, an investor with AlphaOne Capital Partners, believes AMD shares could double to over $8 by 2015 if company revenue grows to $7 billion and other sales measurements improve.

Company revenue fell 17 percent last year to $5.4 billion, following gains in 2010 and 2011, Barron's said. Recent results were hurt by weakening sales of personal computers and strong demand for Intel's Xeon line of server chips, the newspaper said.

(Reporting by Ransdell Pierson; Editing by Theodore d'Afflisio)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/advanced-micro-devices-may-bounce-back-servers-barrons-234751303.html

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How to Move a Fifteen-Ton Electromagnet

How do massive electromagnets move? Incredibly slowly, if the $3 million plan to get one of them from New York to Chicago can tell us anything. The move, over land and sea, will take a total of five weeks.?

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Here's why: the 15-ton electromagnet can't just be disassembled and reassembled ? it has to move with minimal tweaks to maintain its functionality. The entire rig is about 50 feet wide, and if it twists more than an eight of an inch, it could break for good. Given that it's ten times cheaper to move the magnet than it is to build a new one, researchers will take their chances transporting it to Chicago's Fermi lab in an inert state, where it's needed for a new experiment. According to the Associated Press, the 3,200-mile trip will go something like this:?

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Day One: move the magnet from its place at the?Brookhaven National Lab to the lab's front gate, nearly 2 miles away.

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Day Two: Somehow transport it down the ?William Floyd Parkway to the ocean, 6 miles away. That's two days to move fewer than 10 miles.?

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Here's a model of the rig they'll use to transport it:?

RELATED: Should You Watch Tonight's Transit of Venus or Take a Nice Nap?

Source: Brookhaven National Laboratory

And a video!?

According to Brookhaven, they'll only drive the rig at night, at a top speed of 10 miles an hour.?

That will get them about this far (route is very, very approximate):?

Source: Google Maps

Day Three, etc.: get that thing on a boat. The bulk of the magnet's trip will be on water. It'll head south, go around Florida, and use the Mississippi river to get as close to the Fermi lab as possible.?

Then, it's a two-day journey over land for a few miles to the lab. Once it's in place, the massive magnet will help researchers learn more about subatomic particles called muons. They live for?2.2 millionths of a second, and there's a lot the field of particle physics has to learn about them. The magnet move begins next Saturday.?

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/move-fifteen-ton-electromagnet-022929228.html

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MoveIT Cloud

Ipswitch offers businesses grappling with the thorny issue of how to securely transfer large files with an easy-to-use secure email platform, MOVEit Cloud. Employees can share files securely amongst themselves as well as with authorized individuals outside the organization.

Think about it: when your employees need to share files with colleagues, contractors, partners, and customers, what do they do? Odds are they are either just emailing the files to each other or using consumer-focused cloud services such as Dropbox and Box.net. This means that you, as IT, have a difficult time tracking who has access to which file, where these files are winding up, and whether sensitive information is protected. For companies in regulated industries, this becomes a bigger headache because IT has no control over how data is shared within and outside the organization, nor does it know if the information is encrypted before leaving the network.

MOVEit Cloud from Ipswitch is a secure, cloud-based file service that helps IT control how documents are passed around, without over-complicating the interface for the end-users. It is very similar to AppRiver's CipherPost Pro but has better folder management.

From the end-user perspective, MOVEit Cloud is intuitive to use because the Web interface is just like a Webmail client, and there is an Outlook plugin, which means they don't even have to leave the familiar interface. Users don't have to install complicated tools or jump through a series of steps to properly encrypt the file before sending it; MOVEit Cloud automatically takes care of that.

IT teams will like MOVEit Cloud because it provides a detailed view on who transferred what files when, as well as define certain rules on what can be done with the documents, such as restricting forwarding and automatically deleting the files after they are read.

MOVEit Portfolio
Ipwsitch offers two main modules in its MOVEit suite: Ad Hoc Transfer and File Transfer. File Transfer handles cases when files and data are shared between servers, systems, and applications, or when groups need to access a common shared folder. Ad Hoc Transfer, also available as a stand-alone module, refers to situations when an employee has to send files and messages to another individual or group.

These two modules are available in two deployment packages, MOVEit DMZ, which refers to the on-premise version, and MOVEit Cloud, the hosted version. This review focuses on MOVEit Cloud and the Ad Hoc Transfer module, in particular.

At a little over $23 a month, the platform is very affordable. However, MOVEit Cloud is not intended for the smallest business, as there is a minimum 25-user investment, which comes out to $3,600 a year, or just $12 per user per month. Final pricing depends on the actual number of users, and it can go as low as $5 per user per month, according to Ipswitch.

Getting Started
To begin, Ipswitch created a MOVEit Cloud account and the accompanying environment, branding it with the PCMag logo. The fact that it can be customized to look like the company's internal portal indicates this is the "official" platform, as opposed to a random service employees may be using.

I also received a username and password for accessing the support portal, which contains detailed manuals and reams of documentation. The password requirements for the support portal are pretty stringent as even a 12-character string with upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols, was not considered strong enough. I finally managed to change to a password that was 21-characters long with a mix of upper and lower case letters and numbers.

The administrator has full control over the system, managing users who have access to the system, storage and bandwidth limitations, and deciding whether messages could ever be saved locally. The administrator can see all the files that have been ever uploaded, by whom, and who has sent that file or viewed it. I could generate in-depth reports based on this information.

MOVEit Users
When I logged in for the first time, I was prompted to download the upload/download wizard, which requires Java to run. The tool speeds up getting the files up for transfer, handles multiple file transfers, performs automatic integrity checking, and handles files larger than 2GB in size?Next: MOVEit Cloud Administrator, User Interfaces

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/lsKFhuVMb-I/0,2817,2420442,00.asp

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A peek behind the curtain at the trailers gamers see at E3

E3 2013

Yannick LeJacq NBC News contributor

3 hours ago

Warner Bros.

Derron Ross of Blur Studio got to play as Batman and Deathstroke at different points during his company's latest trailer for "Batman: Arkham Origins."

If you've been watching the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) this week, you've probably seen a lot of sleek trailers for upcoming video games. Many game developers use E3 to tease gameplay footage in order to give gamers an early glimpse of what a highly anticipated game like "The Division" or "Titanfall" will actually look like in action.

But as the kerfuffle over Sega and Gearbox's eagerly awaited-then-critically-lambasted "Aliens: Colonial Marines" showed, fans have become wary of any heavily produced videos that claim to depict actual gameplay. Cinematic trailers, on the other hand, can offer a sort of proof-of-concept for a new game without owing the same debt to realism (think "Dead Island" trailer).

That's where Blur Studio comes in. Founded in 1995, Blur has worked on such popular game franchises as "Dragon Age," "Bioshock" and a number of different "Star Wars" titles. In 2010, the video game site Kotaku dubbed Blur "the Pixar of video games."

Still a small company with a distinct start-up feel, Blur only brought one trailer to this year's E3 ? the new CGI trailer for "Batman: Arkham Origins." But that was more than enough to keep the studio busy since the beginning of 2013.

Derron Ross, an animation supervisor at Blur, told NBC News that a team that eventually grew to around 20 performers, animators and filmmakers started working on the new trailer in January after getting a few bare-bones directives and a sample of gameplay footage from "Arkham Origins" publisher Warner Bros.

"We get sent gameplay footage so we could assess the fight moves and see if we could mix it into our choreography to have something that's true to what the game is going to have in it," Ross said. "But Warner Bros. just told us they wanted to reveal Black Mask (the game's chief supervillain), they wanted to reveal Deathstroke (another slightly-less-super villain), and they wanted it to be Christmas time. The rest was pretty much up to us."

Since Ross was working with a relatively small team and has a background in both martial arts and acting, he ended up suiting up to play all three of the major villains in the trailer and even Batman himself in one shot.

BioWare / Electronic Arts

Blur's trailer for "Star Wars: The Old Republic" debuted at 2010's E3. Running to almost six minutes, the video was immediately celebrated as one of the best CGI "Star Wars" films ever created, let alone a thrilling trailer for a video game.

"I've gotten to fulfill a lot of dreams playing Jedi Knights and Sith Lords at the same time," Ross joked. "But I have to say, villains are fun to play. They're evil and twisted characters, so there's more to play on and think about."

The glamour of stepping into the shoes of superheroes and Jedi knights aside, Ross said that there can be some downright eerie moments given how much motion-capture and facial modeling technology has improved.

"The one that is still the creepiest role to play had to be playing myself as a Tyger guard," Ross said of his role as one of the unlucky henchmen who ends up falling prey to Batman in the trailer. "Being tortured and then seeing my face three-dimensionally represented was just like: 'Whoa, this is too spooky.'"

While Ross admitted that producing trailers is still a distinct field unto itself, separate from the game industry, the tech behind video game engines and cinematic CGI work are both improving so rapidly that he thinks they'll begin to merge in the next console generation. Visually stunning games like "The Last of Us" and "Beyond: Two Souls" have already begun to bridge the gap between film and interactive media already, after all ? something Microsoft promised to take a step further with its video game/television show hybrid "Quantum Break."

Does this mean that CGI producers like Ross will eventually become obsolete? Maybe someday, Ross said. But he's more excited about the possibility of game engines becoming powerful enough to allow filmmakers like him to work directly within a video game itself to produce their work ? either as an element of gameplay or a stand-alone film. Describing some of his work on the "Arkham Origins" trailer, Ross already sounds like he's stepped into this virtual movie set.

"Some of the cameras angles you see in 'Batman' have a handheld feel to them because I'm actually going back into the motion-capture space, " Ross said. "I have a shoulder rig with a screen so I can see the 3D world playing in the monitor. Then I can track the action, react and move to the fight!"

"That's almost like a game engine that we're piping through," he continued excitedly. "As I move through the space, it's almost like I'm in the game world."

Yannick LeJacq is a contributing writer for NBC News who has also covered technology and games for Kill Screen, The Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic. You can follow him on Twitter at @YannickLeJacq and reach him by email at: ylejacq@gmail.com.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653377/s/2d42979c/l/0L0Snbcnews0N0Ctechnology0Cpeek0Ebehind0Ecurtain0Etrailers0Egamers0Esee0Ee30E6C10A312263/story01.htm

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