"The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff," said Dr. Sagan. Pumpkin pies too.
     |
Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/wv6r-DTK5VM/@caseychan"The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff," said Dr. Sagan. Pumpkin pies too.
| |
Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/wv6r-DTK5VM/@caseychanEpisode 1 of the documentary serial, UFC Primetime: St-Pierre vs. Hendricks, premiered Wednesday night and took fans inside the lives and camps of both welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre and challenger Johny Hendricks as they head into their UFC 167 main event bout next month. Watch the full episode above to see what kinds of training St. Pierre is doing in Montreal and Hendricks has been doing in Dallas.
A couple things stood out to Cagewriter while watching UFC Primetime. First off, St. Pierre seems completely focused on motivated to fight Hendricks.
When you're champ as long as the Canadian has been, there's always the question of if you can stay motivated to keep doing what you've been doing. In St. Pierre's case, there's been indication that he's already thinking of retirement.
In episode 1 of Primetime, however, we see a St. Pierre who is either a really good actor or that he is truly obsessed with Hendricks. Unfortunately, we'd already seen enough commercials and "films" that he's appeared in to know the former isn't the case.
But take two examples from last night's UFC Primetime to let the point sink in. St. Pierre talks about learning recently during a media tour to promote the fight that Hendricks was planning to get to Las Vegas - the site of the bout - three weeks early in order to train in and acclimate himself to the regulation-sized Octagon.
St. Pierre lost his mind thinking that his opponent might have even the smallest advantage there and so says he purchased and and had constructed a full-sized UFC Octagon replica in the Tri-Star gym in Montreal where he trains.
Also, Primetime shows that St. Pierre and his coach Firas Zihabi have brought in Rick Story to train with the champ in preparation for Hendricks and UFC 167. Now, Rick Story is an excellent fighter but he's certainly not red-hot or appearing to be at his all-time sharpest of late.
Story has lost two out of his last three bouts and four out of his last six. However, Story is the only person to have ever beaten Hendricks in an MMA bout, back in 2010. Therein lies his true value to the Hendricks-obsessed St. Pierre.
There's lots of fun intimate, family time and training footage in episode 1 of Primetime, but the main other take away for us was simply this - Johny Hendricks may have been the most adorable little kid in America.
While learning about Hendricks' life growing up in a tough, wrestling family, we're treated to photo after photo of Hendricks being way too cute for anyone's good. As fearsome as he looks now as a grown man and knockout specialist, it is hilarious to see pictures of a chubby-cheeked and wide-smiling little Johny in Primetime.
(Lil' Johny Hendricks. Cutest. Baby. Ever.)
Follow Elias on Twitter @EliasCepeda
This is a pretty cool new iOS app from Russia’s Displair, maker of the Minority Report-styled Multi-Touch “air” display.
Similar to Google-acquired Bump, using an iPhone’s various sensors in combination with its own cloud-powered algorithms, Airlike lets you share photos, videos and contacts with other iPhone users in close proximity, but with one key difference: There’s no need to bump phones or fists. Instead, you flick content through the “air” from one phone to another.
Shunning Bluetooth or WiFi for peer-to-peer networking, the app uses a combination of GPS, and each phone’s gyroscope, compass and accelerometer sensors, and relays that information to its own servers to know when two phones are pointing at each other. You then each confirm a connection and can begin flicking content from phone-to-phone — an experience the company describes in Arthur C. Clarke fashion as “absolutely magic”.
And in our quick testing, the iPhone app works as advertised.
In addition, and crucially longterm, Displair plans to release Android and Windows Phone versions of the app, making Airlike, just like Bump before it, truly cross-platform.
One thing lacking for now, however, is an Airlike API that other developers can tap into, though I’m told that this is on the roadmap and could be one way the company hopes to monetize the technology.
Interestingly, the ability to transfer money between contacts peer-to-peer is also currently in development, thus taking another page from the Bump playbook.
Meanwhile, the longer term business model revolves around the way Airlike will tie into the Russian startup’s Displair Digital Signage product to enables users to grab content from advertising displays. So, for example, you could walk into a mall, see interesting ad-related content on Displair (or even a standard LCD screen) and have it sent to your smartphone using a simple gesture, much in the same way as the Airlike app works for phone-to-phone content sharing.
TechCrunch’s Darrel Etherington contributed to this article
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — After two years of review, Montana and federal officials notified Exxon Mobil Corp. on Thursday that they intend to seek damages for injuries to birds, fish and other natural resources from a major crude oil spill into the Yellowstone River.
The Texas company's 12-inch Silvertip pipeline broke near Laurel during flooding in July 2011, releasing 63,000 gallons of oil that washed up along an 85-mile stretch of the scenic river.
The move puts Exxon on notice that Montana and the Department of Interior expect the company to make up for harm done to wildlife and their habitat. The company also is being asked to pay for long-term environmental studies and for lost opportunities for fishing and recreation during and since the cleanup.
Separate fines totaling $3.4 million for safety and water pollution violations already have been resolved or are pending before state and federal agencies.
Exxon has told regulators it spent $135 million on the cleanup and related repair work intended to prevent a repeat of the spill, which came on a line installed just a few feet beneath the riverbed.
State officials said some of the damage is ongoing and will take years to fully understand and quantify.
That includes harm done to the river and its banks during the cleanup itself, when Exxon brought in 1,000 workers who removed hundreds of oil-stained wood piles along the river.
"You picked up the oil, but you picked up the stuff that makes the habitat work, as well," said Bob Gibson, a spokesman for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. "We know there's damage out there that has not been mitigated, cleaned up or compensated for. We need to decide what further can be done."
Representatives of Exxon said they were preparing a response to Thursday's notice.
The break spurred Congress to demand a Department of Transportation review of oil and other hazardous liquid pipelines that cross beneath major rivers and other waterways across the U.S. The agency last year said there were more than 2,800 such locations.
The Transportation Department recently revised its estimate to 18,136 hazardous pipeline crossings, including 5,110 locations where the body of water has a width of 100 feet or greater.
Federal officials have said they will return to Congress in early 2014 with a determination on whether rules such as a 4-foot depth requirement for pipeline crossings are sufficient.
The Yellowstone spill also prompted oil companies including Exxon to rebury pipelines at other water crossings where the lines were considered at risk of failure due to erosion. In the case of Silvertip, the company installed new sections of line dozens of feet beneath the surface at the Laurel site and two other crossings.
Negotiations with Exxon are ongoing but no agreement has been reached, said Robert Collins, the state's lead attorney in the case.
If the company resists paying for the upcoming studies or for compensation, Collins said the state and federal government could take legal action. It's uncertain how long it will take to gauge the extent of damages. For other spills the process has taken many years.
"We're anticipating we could go to court, but we want to give (negotiations) a try before we take that step because that would string things out even further," Collins said.
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
In the wake of a multitude of rumors, the $349 Nexus 5 is finally here. Google's newest handset, made by LG, sports a 2.3Ghz quad-core Snapdragon 800, the premium feel of edge-to-edge glass and, most notably, Android KitKat (version 4.4). Click through to our hands-on for the rest of the details, most of which we already knew.
The FAA has decided to allow the usage of personal electronics during all phases of flight with "very limited exception." Carriers may even act on the decision as early as 2014. Read on to find out about how Delta's already made provisions to grant its customers this newfound privilege by November 1st.
Anyone in need a full-sized iPad that's lighter than last year's model can start hammering Apple's online store now. The new iPad Air is now on sale, marking Apple's biggest tablet launch yet. Starting with Australia, by the close of November 1st, it will have landed in 42 countries, and you know ...
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/y5Hrv3yjRD0/
Photo illustration by Derreck Johnson; photo courtesy Columbia Pictures
Toward the beginning of the 2012 comedy 21 Jump Street, Officer Jenko (Channing Tatum), a onetime cool kid, gives his partner some advice as they prepare to infiltrate the ranks of the cool kids at Sagan High. “You gotta one-strap it,” Jenko chides Officer Schmidt (Jonah Hill). Schmidt, a onetime nerd, is two-strapping—wearing his backpack over both shoulders. That is not, warns Jenko, what cool kids do.
This advice may sound obvious to all cool kids of a certain age, but when the officers make their debut at school, times have changed. Jenko’s attitude—“I don’t care about anything,” he announces—has gone out of style. The cool kids are into diversity, environmentalism, and, worst of all, trying. And symbolizing this generational sea change: “Everybody’s two-strapping it,” notes Schmidt.
When I first watched this scene, I thought: Funny bit, but is it right? I, like everyone cool (or trying to be cool) in my high school, one-strapped all the way. It was a foundational tenet of cool—you might argue about what kind of music was cool, or what clothes, or what hairstyles, but it was a given that one-strapping was the only way to wear a backpack. Is one-strapping really not cool anymore? And if so, how could something once so cool become so not? My search for the answer sent me on a quest in which I’d consult pediatric orthopedic surgeons, re-examine decades of pop culture, and track down the one consummately cool high-schooler from East Amherst, N.Y., who might have the answer.
The first step was obvious: determining if and when, exactly, this happened. Left without any serious research on the subject—even chiropractors and pediatric orthopedists who have studied the effect of backpacks couldn’t point to any data—I decided to collect some data myself.
After speaking with 75 ex-students and students from all over the country, spanning 60 years of high-schoolers—from the class of 1965 to the class of 2026—the data (however unscientific my polling) were clear. Every ex-student from the class of 1994 and earlier, 12 students, had, to a man, one-strapped. “Everyone one-strapped. No exceptions,” reported a graduate of the class of 1991. “I one-strapped all through college,” reported one of his female classmates.
Starting with the class of 1995, however, the number of two-strappers began to very slowly increase. One ’95-er, who noticed one particularly cool male classmate of hers switching to two-strapping, followed his lead. (More on him later.) A member of the class of ’97 remembered doing the same. Nevertheless, most still one-strapped—it was “the only way,” reported two separate members of the class of ’96. (One member of the class of 2001 even recalled, “Actually, I'm pretty sure I had a backpack that only had one big diagonal strap ... What happened to those Forrest???”)
The real sea change from one strap to two seemed to occur in the mid-2000s. Before this time there was the occasional two-strapper, but starting with the class of 2005, two-strappers began to dominate, outnumbering their peers. “By high school, I’d say pretty much every guy did the two straps,” said one graduate of 2005 (who remembered that most women ditched backpacks altogether). “I don’t remember one-strapping ever being cool in actuality, it was always in theory,” mused another. “Like on TV if you were cool you had one strap, but in person it didn’t really make a difference.” (This was news to me and my classmates from Glastonbury High School’s Class of 2005, who largely remembered one-strapping being the only cool way.)
By the time the class of 2008 started shouldering their backpacks, the change was complete. Every backpack-wearing respondent from then on, from the class of 2008 through the class of 2027—20 former and current students—used both straps. More, they claimed that they always used two straps, and their classmates did, too. (The only exception was one current 5-year-old, who, according to his father, “occasionally one-straps.”)
For many, the idea of one-strapping was silly or uncool, or never even occurred to them. “I wore my backpack with both straps, as did most people,” wrote one 2010 graduate. “I don’t remember ever having a conversation about how to wear a backpack in high school; no one seemed to notice.” “I think one-strapping, even temporarily, is unnecessary and unhelpful,” wrote one 13-year-old. A former college classmate of mine even told me, “I now teach sixth grade and it’s all about the backpacks with the extra straps and clasps. All straps on, all clasps closed.”
Extra straps? Something had happened, starting around the mid-’90s, and finishing around the mid-’00s, that changed the way that kids wear their backpacks. But what could have caused such a radical shift in behavior? Intense data analysis, interviews, and archival research led me to three hypotheses.
1. The Cultural Hypothesis
If one-strapping, and later two-strapping, were about being cool, then something in the nature of cool must have changed. I turned to the source that tells us what’s cool: pop culture.
It’s no surprise at all that movies and TV reflected the above trends almost exactly. Take a look at any ’80s teen movie—Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), or Heathers (1988)—and you’ll find almost nothing but one-strappers. In Fast Times, for example, one-strapping isn’t about clique or comportment. It’s just what everyone does. Students of every type sport one bare shoulder, whether it be the ripped shoulder of surf-stoner Jeff Spicoli (Sean Penn) or the skinny one of dutiful Brad Hamilton (Judge Reinhold).
Universal Pictures
In ’90s movies, the trend, at first, continues. When the title character returns to high school for the first time in years in Billy Madison (1995), everyone is one-strapping. In Clueless (1995), Cher (Alicia Silverstone) laments the way that all the guys walk around her high school’s campus dressed like this:
Paramount Pictures
But then things start to shift. In Election (1999), the way characters carry their book bags helps define their characters. The overachieving Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon) wears her bag over both arms. Her opponent, the airheaded Paul Metzler (Chris Klein), covers only one of his athletic shoulders.
Paramount Pictures
In 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), similarly, it’s a mix. Most of the heroes—when they use backpacks—two-strap, and the one-strappers tend to be students like the conceited Joey Donner:
Touchstone Pictures
In other words, these movies reflect a trend away from depicting everyone one-strapping and toward using one-strapping as a broad way to signal “cool kid” or, in the case of characters like Donner, “douchebag.” From the mid-2000s on—from Brick (2005) to the High School Musical trilogy (2006–2008) to Easy A (2010)—teen movies seem to have shown just about everyone two-strapping it. In The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), when Peter Parker protects his (two-strapping) classmates by battling the Lizard in the halls of his high school, he two-straps it the whole time.
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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 31-Oct-2013
ShareContact: George Vlahakis
vlahakis@iu.edu
812-855-0846
Indiana University
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A new paper by an Indiana University professor sheds new light on the U.S. Supreme Court's rejection of legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act, which many critics said threatens state sovereignty and individual liberties.
The paper comes at a time when problems with the act's implementation, particularly the creation of state health care exchanges, highlight the limits of federal capabilities and the importance of state cooperation in the success of domestic government programs.
In an article in Business Horizons, a journal published by IU's Kelley School of Business, Tim Lemper argues that the court's decision in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius actually established new limits on the power of the federal government.
"The court was heavily criticized for betraying the principles of federalism and limited government in the U.S. Constitution," Lemper said. "In reality, the court's decision placed groundbreaking limits on Congress' power to regulate commerce and use federal funds to pressure states into doing its bidding.
"These aspects of the court's decision received less attention in the popular media but may actually prove to have a more significant impact on the scope of federal power in the future," said Lemper, a clinical professor of business law at Kelley.
In his research, Lemper often takes a more critical approach to overlooked details in legislation and jurisprudence. Earlier research brought to light a drafting error in the federal trademark dilution statute, which led Congress to amend the law last fall.
In his paper, "The Supreme Struggle: 'Obamacare' and the New Limits on Federal Regulation," Lemper bases his arguments on two points raised in the court's opinion: new limits on Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce and to coerce states with the threat of losing federal funding.
In his majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts explained that the limits on Congress' power in the Constitution, and the reservation of powers to the states, were intended to protect individual liberty.
Details overlooked in media reports about the decision include what Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in dissent, called "a novel constraint" on Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce, a sweeping and seemingly unlimited power that has been used to uphold a broad range of federal regulations on activity far beyond traditional commercial transactions, Lemper said.
"Set in historical context, the court's decision is significant because it establishes a new limit on Congress' expansive power under the Commerce Clause," he wrote. "Five of the nine justices concluded that the Commerce Clause gives Congress the power to regulate existing commercial activity, but does not allow Congress to compel individuals to become active in commerce.
"In other words, Congress can regulate activity under the Commerce Clause, but it cannot regulate inactivity."
Applying this rationale to the Affordable Care Act, the majority on the court concluded that the individual mandate (requiring individuals to buy health insurance or pay a tax penalty) exceeded Congress' power to regulate commerce because it compelled people to engage in commerce by buying health insurance.
"That the court still upheld the individual mandate as a valid exercise of Congress' more limited power to lay and collect taxes does not diminish the significance of the limit that it placed on Congress' more expansive power to regulate interstate commerce," Lemper said. "Congress' power to lay and collect taxes is more limited and less coercive than its power to regulate interstate commerce, which -- before this decision -- increasingly appeared to have no limit."
"The court's decision precludes Congress from venturing into new regulatory territory under the guise of regulating commerce," he said. "At the very least, it forecloses future governmental regulation that uses a person's inaction as a basis to compel them to act."
Lemper said the court's decision also broke new ground in restricting Congress' power under the Spending Clause. Seven of the justices -- "a majority of rare size for this court" -- held that the Affordable Care Act wrongly coerced states into accepting the Medicare expansion by threatening them with the loss of all Medicare funding (a significant portion of states' budgets) if they refused to do so.
"The court's decision is remarkable because it is the first time that the court has ever struck down a federal law under the Spending Clause on the ground that it runs counter to the system of federalism in the Constitution," he added. "For decades, the court has recognized the possibility that the federalism principles could limit Congress' power under the Spending Clause, but it had never actually done so until its decision on the Affordable Care Act.
"Its landmark holding gives real teeth to limits on Congress' power that had previously only existed in theory."
###
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: 31-Oct-2013
ShareContact: George Vlahakis
vlahakis@iu.edu
812-855-0846
Indiana University
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A new paper by an Indiana University professor sheds new light on the U.S. Supreme Court's rejection of legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act, which many critics said threatens state sovereignty and individual liberties.
The paper comes at a time when problems with the act's implementation, particularly the creation of state health care exchanges, highlight the limits of federal capabilities and the importance of state cooperation in the success of domestic government programs.
In an article in Business Horizons, a journal published by IU's Kelley School of Business, Tim Lemper argues that the court's decision in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius actually established new limits on the power of the federal government.
"The court was heavily criticized for betraying the principles of federalism and limited government in the U.S. Constitution," Lemper said. "In reality, the court's decision placed groundbreaking limits on Congress' power to regulate commerce and use federal funds to pressure states into doing its bidding.
"These aspects of the court's decision received less attention in the popular media but may actually prove to have a more significant impact on the scope of federal power in the future," said Lemper, a clinical professor of business law at Kelley.
In his research, Lemper often takes a more critical approach to overlooked details in legislation and jurisprudence. Earlier research brought to light a drafting error in the federal trademark dilution statute, which led Congress to amend the law last fall.
In his paper, "The Supreme Struggle: 'Obamacare' and the New Limits on Federal Regulation," Lemper bases his arguments on two points raised in the court's opinion: new limits on Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce and to coerce states with the threat of losing federal funding.
In his majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts explained that the limits on Congress' power in the Constitution, and the reservation of powers to the states, were intended to protect individual liberty.
Details overlooked in media reports about the decision include what Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in dissent, called "a novel constraint" on Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce, a sweeping and seemingly unlimited power that has been used to uphold a broad range of federal regulations on activity far beyond traditional commercial transactions, Lemper said.
"Set in historical context, the court's decision is significant because it establishes a new limit on Congress' expansive power under the Commerce Clause," he wrote. "Five of the nine justices concluded that the Commerce Clause gives Congress the power to regulate existing commercial activity, but does not allow Congress to compel individuals to become active in commerce.
"In other words, Congress can regulate activity under the Commerce Clause, but it cannot regulate inactivity."
Applying this rationale to the Affordable Care Act, the majority on the court concluded that the individual mandate (requiring individuals to buy health insurance or pay a tax penalty) exceeded Congress' power to regulate commerce because it compelled people to engage in commerce by buying health insurance.
"That the court still upheld the individual mandate as a valid exercise of Congress' more limited power to lay and collect taxes does not diminish the significance of the limit that it placed on Congress' more expansive power to regulate interstate commerce," Lemper said. "Congress' power to lay and collect taxes is more limited and less coercive than its power to regulate interstate commerce, which -- before this decision -- increasingly appeared to have no limit."
"The court's decision precludes Congress from venturing into new regulatory territory under the guise of regulating commerce," he said. "At the very least, it forecloses future governmental regulation that uses a person's inaction as a basis to compel them to act."
Lemper said the court's decision also broke new ground in restricting Congress' power under the Spending Clause. Seven of the justices -- "a majority of rare size for this court" -- held that the Affordable Care Act wrongly coerced states into accepting the Medicare expansion by threatening them with the loss of all Medicare funding (a significant portion of states' budgets) if they refused to do so.
"The court's decision is remarkable because it is the first time that the court has ever struck down a federal law under the Spending Clause on the ground that it runs counter to the system of federalism in the Constitution," he added. "For decades, the court has recognized the possibility that the federalism principles could limit Congress' power under the Spending Clause, but it had never actually done so until its decision on the Affordable Care Act.
"Its landmark holding gives real teeth to limits on Congress' power that had previously only existed in theory."
###
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.
