Archive for July, 2010
The heaviest and brightest star known to exist – with a mass some 300 times as big as our own Sun – has been discovered by British astronomers who said yesterday that its existence defies current views on the maximum size of stellar objects.
The researchers found the star, known as R136a1, in a region of a neighbouring galaxy that is known to be a "cosmic factory". It exists inside the Tarantula Nebula of the Large Magellanic Cloud, more than 165,000 light years away from Earth, in an area where stars are being born from extensive clouds of gas and dust
It is the biggest of a number of extremely rare "super heavyweight" stars that form in clusters so dense and bright that until now it has been impossible to distinguish between many of the individual objects. R136a1 is so bright that it would outshine the Sun by as much as the Sun outshines the Moon – a luminosity close to 10 million times greater than our own star.
"This is probably the most luminous star as well as the most massive star ever found. There are bigger stars in terms of physical size, it's just that this is the heaviest. It weighs about 300 million times more than the Earth," said Professor Paul Crowther, of Sheffield University, who led the study published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
"These stars are born heavy and lose weight as they age. Being a little over a million years old, the most extreme star R136a1 is already 'middle-aged' and has undergone an intense weight-loss programme, shedding a fifth of its initial mass over the time, or more than 50 solar masses," Professor Crowther said.
The star is so massive that its gravitational attraction would easily outweigh that of our own star. If it could be swapped for the Sun, R136a1 would dramatically speed up the rate at which the Earth made its annual orbit around its star, according to Raphael Hirschi of Keele University. "Its high mass would reduce the length of the Earth's year to three weeks, and it would bathe the Earth in incredibly intense ultraviolet radiation, rendering life on our planet impossible," Dr Hirschi said.
Using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile, Professor Crowther and his colleagues were able to distinguish between the super heavyweight stars in two different stellar clusters, known as R136, where the brightest and heaviest star is located, and NGC3603, which is about 22,000 light years from Earth.
Within the R136 cluster, the scientists estimate that only four stars weigh more than 150 times the mass of the Sun but even though there are about 100,000 stars within the cluster, these four heaviest objects account for nearly half of all the solar wind and radiation emitted from the cluster.
The new findings support the idea that there are lower size limits for stars. "The smallest stars [must be] more than 80 times the mass of Jupiter," said Olivier Schnurr, from the Astrophysics Institute in Potsdam, Germany. "Below that they are failed stars or brown dwarfs. Our new finding supports the previous view that there is also an upper limit to how big stars can get, but raises the limit by a factor of two, to about 300 solar masses."
In numbers
165,000 The distance in light years between R136a1 and the Earth
300 Number of Suns needed to equal the mass of the star. It is more than 300,000 times bigger than Earth
3 The length, in weeks, of a year on Earth if R136a1 was swapped with our own Sun. The huge gravitational pull would speed up the Earth's orbit and intense radiation would make life impossible
10,000,000 Number of Suns required to equal the brightness of the star. It outshines the Sun by as much as the Sun outshines the Moon
driver from www.independent.co.uk
The CW isn't shy about showcasing the hotness of Nikita star Maggie Q: Pictures of the actress, looking well-armed and leggy, are everywhere at Comic-Con, from posters to advertisements on bike taxis to swag bags.
But would you believe that Q is a little self-conscious?
The actress, who first drew attention in the U.S. for blowing up a lamborghini in Misson: Impossible III, did joke about a possible inferiority complex during The CW's upfront presentation last spring: "You can't imagine how good looking it is backstage," Q said, referring to the casts of the network's other shows. "I had to push the A cups up a little."
Check out all of TVGuide.com's Comic-Con coverage
Q is in the middle of her first-ever visit to Comic-Con to promote both Nikita, in which she stars as the titular ass-kicking assassin, and the upcoming action thriller Priest. At the Warner Bros. party Friday night, she looked smashing, simply made up in a black dress and heels.
She told TVGuide.com that she likes to keep her look "classy," and revealed that she once tried to take command of the wardrobe in the pilot for Nikita, an action-heavy spy drama that she said is more an homage to the 1990 Luc Besson film than its 1997 series spin-off, La Femme Nikita.
In one scene — arguably, the one that The CW is most heavily promoting — Nikita is undercover, ready to take care of some baddies, poolside, in a red, barely-there swimsuit.
Comic-Con: Let TVGuide.com be your Avatar
"But I requested a one-piece!" Q said. "I like to keep it classy, you know. I think it's sexier." The wardrobe department obliged, but when they presented the winning suit, she scoffed.
"I was like, 'When I said one-piece, I meant something that would go all the way around me,'" she said. "I didn't mean a two-piece with this little strip of fabric going down the middle.'"
Q said when she heard her Comic-Con poster for Nikita would be blanketing the convention — and indeed, surrounding downtown San Diego— she winced. Really. But her boyfriend, who accompanied Q to the party, approved.
And, Maggie? As Cher wisely told Christian in Clueless, "Carpe diem, OK? You look hot."
driver from www.tvguide.com
MARTIN WOLF had a very harshly-worded piece in the Financial Times on Monday warning of the long-term consequences of the GOP's continuing de facto embrace of supply-side economics. While we don't often hear explicit arguments anymore that we could increase revenues by cutting taxes, Mr Wolf thinks the inherited belief in supply-side economics is at the root of the GOP's current fiscal policy trilemma: the belief that large budget deficits are ruinous; a continued eagerness to cut taxes; and an utter lack of interest in spending cuts on the scale that would be required to make a noticeable dent in the deficit. To illustrate, he cites a recent pronouncement by Jon Kyl, the senator from Arizona, that while spending hikes need to be paid for, tax cuts don't:
You do need to offset the cost of increased spending, and that's what Republicans object to. But you should never have to offset cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax rates on Americans.
Mr Wolf thinks the Republicans' "de facto Keynesianism" puts the Democrats at a historic disadvantage, as it's almost impossible to run against a party that constantly promises everyone a free lunch and blames the other guys when the check arrives. He thinks the situation could become disastrous if a Republican win leads to long-term policies so fiscally irresponsible as to flirt with the possibility of a federal default.
Bruce Bartlett, whom we interviewed over the weekend, agrees with Mr Wolf's prognosis, and adopts a tone that is if anything more dire. Andrew Sullivan agrees as well. Derek Thompson holds out the hope that over the long term, the GOP will produce more leaders like George H.W. Bush, who saw the need to raise taxes in 1990 (and paid the, shall we say, penultimate price in 1992). Paul Krugman wishes he could disagree with Mr Wolf, but can't.
What I find really interesting here arises in a quick reference Mr Krugman makes to a discussion he had last week with Jamie Galbraith. Mr Galbraith is one of a few economists who hold the view that deficits don't matter, from the left. (Or, to be fair, that they can matter, but only in circumstances so different from those of the contemporary American economy as to be irrelevant.) In a comment responding to Mr Krugman, Mr Galbraith writes:
In the actual world we live in, government does not have to “persuade the private sector to release real resources.” In the actual world, the private sector has already released those resources by the tens of millions of people.
All the government has to do, in the actual world, is mobilize those resources, which it does by issuing checks, preferably to pay people to do useful things.
There is no reason why this should be considered “costly.” Done correctly, in economic terms it amounts simply to the reduction of the waste that is associated with unemployment.
Mr Krugman thinks Mr Galbraith is wrong because, while the Fed can issue money today without risk of inflation because we're in a liquidity trap, the extra money issued will ultimately start to fuel inflation once the economy recovers, and that could prompt some nasty after-effects. But what interests me is that this is a way of thinking about money that not just the vast majority of Republicans, but the vast majority of citizens find completely incomprehensible. Most people have a naive view of money based on the model of the household budget. They're not used to thinking about money as an artificial token of exchange backed by the totality of productive capacity in the economy, whose purpose is to allow people to incentivise others to do useful things for them, such that if an accounting imbalance makes it difficult to pay people to do the useful things they're capable of doing, one way to get them working again might be simply to create more money. I obviously can't describe this view of the economy as well as Paul Krugman or Jamie Galbraith can, so you should read them on this question, not me. But I'm struck by the immense gap in vocabulary between the discussion Mr Krugman and Mr Galbraith are having, and the discussions going on in our political sphere. It's not just that Messrs Galbraith and Krugman believe in fiscal stimulus, while Republicans don't. It's that the two don't seem to agree on the definition of the word "money".
driver from www.economist.com
In Scotland,in fact,there are no other snakes at all.The adder is also the only British snake with a poisonous bite.lt can be found almost anywhere,but prefers sunny hillsides and rough open country, including high ground.In Ireland there are no snakes at all.
Most people regard snake bites as a fatal misfortune,but not all bites are serious,and very few are fatal.Sometimes attempts at emergency treatment turn out to be more dangerous than the bite itself, with amateurs hero¬ically, but mistakenly,trying do-it-yourself surgery and other unnecessary measures.
All snakes have small teeth,so it follows that all snakes can bite,but only the bite of the adder presents any danger.British snakes are shy ani¬mals and are far more frightened of you than you could possibly be of them. The adder will attack only if it feels threatened, as can happen if you take it by surprise and step on it accidentally or if you try to catch it or pick it up, which it dislikes intensely.If it hears you coming,it will normally get out of the way as quickly as it can,but adders cannot move very rapidly and may attack before moving if you are very close.
The effect of a bite varies considerably.lt depends upon several things, one of which is the body-weight of the person bitten.The bigger the person, the less harmful the bite is likely to be,which is why children suffer more seriously from snake bites than adults.A healthy person will also have better resistance against the poison.
Very few people actually die from snake bites in Britain,and though these bites can make some people very ill,there are probably just as many cases of bites having little or no effect,as there are of serious illness.
These figures from the Department of Education are suffi- , cient: 27 million Americans cannot read at all, and a further 35 million read at a level that is less than sufficient to survive in our society.
But my own worry today is less that of the overwhelming problem of elemental literacy than it is of the slightly more luxurious problem of the de¬cline in the skill even of the middle-class reader, of his unwillingness to afford those spaces of silence, those luxuries of domesticity and time and concentration, that surround the image of the classic act of reading. It has been suggested that almost 80 percent of America's literate, educated teenagers can no longer read without an accompanying noise (music) in the background or a television screen flickering (W^$) at the corner of their field of perception. We know very little about the brain and how it deals with simultaneous conflicting input, but every common-sense intuition suggests, we should be profoundly alarmed. This violation of concentration, silence, soli- | tude (Js^bml'KiS) goes to the very heart of our notion of literacy; this new j form of part-reading, of part-perception against background distraction, renders impossible certain essential acts of apprehension and concentration, let alone that most important tribute any human being can pay to a poem or a ! piece of prose he or she really loves, which is to learn it by heart. Not by brain, by heart; the expression is vital.
Under these circumstances, the question of what future there is for the arts of reading is a real one. Ahead of us lie technical, psychic ('fciSW), and social transformations probably much more dramatic than those brought about by Gutenberg, the German inventor in printing. The Gutenberg revolution, as we now know it, took a long time; its effects are still being debated. The information revolution will touch every facet of composition, publication, distribution, and reading. No one in the book industry can say with any confidence what will happen to the book as we've known it.
Teaching chlildren to read is not passing reading on to them. It is certainly not endless hours spent in itivities about reading. Douglas insists that "reading cannot be taught directly and school could stop trying to do the impossible. "
Teaching and learning are two entirely different processes. They differ in kind and iction. The function of teaching is to create the conditions and the climate that will make it issible for children to devise the most efficient system for teaching themselves to read, saching is also a public activity: It can be seen and observed.
Learning to read involves all that each individual does to make sense of the world of inted language. Almost all of it is private, for learning is an occupation of the mind, and that ocess is not open to public scrutiny.
If teacher and learner roles are not interchangeable, what then can be done through aching that will aid the child in the quest ($C-^) for knowledge? Smith has one principal rule • all teaching instructions. "Make learning to read easy, which means making reading a janingful, enjoyable and frequent experience for children. "
When the roles of teacher and learner are seen for what they are, and when both teacher d learner fulfil them appropriately, then much of the pressure and feeling of failure for both eliminated. Learning to read is made easier when teachers create an environment where ildren are given the opportunity to solve the problem of learning to read by reading.
It wasn't as if I didn't want to work. I did. I had even gone to the social security office the month before to get my social security number. I needed money. The Catholic high school cost a lot, and Papa said nobody went to public school unless you wanted to turn out bad.
I thought I'd find an easy job, the kind other kids had, working in the dime store or maybe a hotdog stand. And though I hadn't started looking yet, I thought I might the week after next. But when I came home that afternoon, all wet because Tito had pushed me into the open water hydrant—only I had sort of let him—Mama called me in the kitchen before I could even go and change, and Aunt Lala was sitting there drinking her coffee with a spoon. Aunt Lala said she had found a job for me at the Peter Pan Photo Finishers on North Broadway where she worked, and how old was I, and to show up tomorrow saying I was one year older, and that was that.
So the next morning I put on the navy blue dress that made me look older and borrowed money for lunch and bus fare because Aunt Lala said I wouldn't get paid till the next Friday, and I went in and saw the boss of the Peter Pan Photo Finishers on North Broadway where Aunt Lala worked and lied about my age like she told me to and sure enough, I start-ed that same day.
In my job I had to wear white gloves. I was supposed to match negatives with their prints, just look at the picture and look for the same one pn the negative strip, put it in the enve-lope, and do the next one. That's all. I didn't know where these envelopes were coming from or where they were going. I just did what I was told.
Dita Von Teese, she of burlesque and Perrier fame, recently sounded off on the subject of sweatpants. When asked if she'd ever wear a pair, she remarked, "Why would I do that? Who wants to purposefully feel crappy?"
But, don't get her wrong, Miss Von Teese isn't high maintenance. She revealed that she gets ready just as quickly as any other woman she knows. She told Vogue UK, "I have a lot of friends that have a very natural look and it takes just as long [to achieve]. They straighten their hair, wear all that bronzer and beige lipstick and apply 50 coats of mascara to make themselves look natural. I'm doing the same thing just with different colors. I set my hair which is actually quicker than a blow dry."
Driver from: www.huffingtonpost.com
TUCSON, Ariz. — Sen. John McCain has squared off in a sometimes testy debate with a former Arizona congressman hoping to take his job.
J.D. Hayworth portrayed McCain Saturday night as a flip-flopper on illegal immigration, while McCain painted his rival as a faux conservative who is lax with tax dollars.
And each launched some zingers at the other as the candidates met here in their second and final debate before the Aug. 24 primary.
The third candidate in the contest, political newcomer Jim Deakin, called McCain and Hayworth "career politicians" who have allowed the federal government to grow. The contractor and Navy Veteran promoted his credentials as a Washington outsider.
Hayworth entered the Senate race in February as a formidable threat to the four-term senator and two-time presidential candidate.
But polls show he has stumbled recently with McCain television ads have highlighting his role in a 2007 infomercial pitching free government grants.
McCain tried to solidify his apparent lead Saturday.
McCain said Hayworth would continue out-of-control spending that he blamed for Republicans losing their majorities in both chambers of Congress in 2006. Hayworth was one of more than two dozen of Republicans who met the wrath of voters in a devastating election cycle for the GOP four years ago.
"They brought Congressman Hayworth in 1994, and they pushed him out in 2006 because of the spending that got out of control," McCain said.
Hayworth fought back, saying an unsuccessful immigration overhaul that McCain once championed would have stressed Social Security and Medicare with millions of new American citizens.
"You are scarcely in a position, sir, to lecture us about fiscal responsibility," Hayworth told McCain.
Seated closely around a table with host Bill Buckmaster of Arizona Public Media, the candidates traded barbs and talked over each other throughout the hour-long debate.
Hayworth repeatedly referred to McCain being "rejected" by the American people in losing his 2008 bid for the presidency.
Hayworth tried hard to portray McCain as a supporter of "amnesty" for illegal immigrants – an unacceptable position to many of the conservative Republicans who will vote in the primary. It's a critique that Hayworth, a former talk-radio host, has hurled at McCain since even before he entered the race.
"President Obama wants to ignore existing law. Sen. McCain with his amnesty bill sought to erase existing law," Hayworth said.
McCain pushed back. He said he's never supported amnesty. McCain, who was once a prime sponsor of a comprehensive immigration overhaul, has eliminated much of the daylight between him and Hayworth.
Both now say emphatically that authorities must choke off the flow of illegal immigrants before Congress can discuss overhauling the immigration system or dealing with the millions of illegal immigrants now in the country.
McCain said Americans are weary of immigration reform because Congress broke a promise to beef up border security after granting amnesty to millions of illegal migrants in the 1980s.
"The American people don't believe us," he said. "That's why we have to secure the border first."
Wielding iron in new ways, he built bridges for the century's burgeoning railways in Europe, South America and Indochina. And after sculptor Frederic Anguste Bartholdi designed a colossal, 151-foot statue of copper sheets in 1871, he turned to France's magician of iron for its internal skeleton. Thus Eiffel was instrumental in creating two of the best-known monuments to liberty in the modern world—the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower, which was built to mark the centennial of the French Revolution.
During the Nazi occupation in World War II, the tower's personnel sabotaged the elevators to deprive the enemy of a view of Paris (Hitler, who refused to climb the 1710 steps to the top, posed for his picture with the tower in the background.). The city knew liberation was at hand on August 25, 1944, when two Parisians, braving bullets ricocheting through the girders, tore down the swastika and hoisted the tricolor.
The tower illustrates Eiffel's genius for meticulous, innovative engineering. After he had set massive stone foundations beside the Seine, four giant leaning pillars, encompassing four acres, were joined 200 feet up at the fist platform, an iron belt of trusses running from pillar to pillar. This belt had to be perfectly horizontal; if out of line by a hair, the structure would tilt disastrously at 1,000 feet. Eiffel's solution: hydraulic jacks embedded in each 440-ton column, enabling him to fine-turn its angle perfectly.
Next, Eiffel deployed creeper cranes that climbed the tower as it grew, helping to hoist 15,000 girders and 2.5 million rivets to the exact spot where needed. Astonishingly, the tower was completed in only two years and two months for three percent less than its $1.5-million budget, with no fatalities among the 250 workers.
Thanks to Eiffel's mastery of design, the tower gives the wind little to size. Seen from certain angles, the oddly beautiful tracery of intersecting iron beams appears almost transparent. The tower is so light that pressure on the foundations is only about 60 pounds per square inch — not much more than a well-fed gentleman exerts on the floor when sitting in a chair.
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