MIT Anthropologist Stefan Helmreich wins Rachel Carson Prize for "Alien Ocean" Presented by the Society for the Social
Study of Science Stefan Helmreich's much-admired
book "Alien Ocean, Anthropological Voyages in Microbial Seas" (University of California Press,
2009), has won the 2012 Rachel Carson Book Prize, given by the Society for the Social Study of Science to recognize a work of special social or political relevance in science and technology studies. Helmreich, a professor of anthropology, has
received two earlier significant prizes for "Alien Ocean": the 2010 Gregory Bateson Book Prize, awarded by the Society of Cultural
Anthropology, and the 2010 Senior Book Prize from the American Ethnological Society. Presenting the award
at the ceremony in
Copenhagen, Javier Lezaun said, "This is a book that leads us into an alien world in the company of the scientists who research microbial life forms, and of all those who place their hopes in the hidden riches of the sea. This is a book that will change
the way you think about nature and ecology; an anthropological study that reads, at times, like science fiction. Please join me in congratulating Stefan for this
achievement." Full story at MIT SHASS News A giant trout once believed to be extinct is again delighting anglers at Pyramid Lake in Nevada after an intense federal and tribal effort to restore it. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki warned on Thursday that the growing sectarian conflict in Iraq could lead to a civil war like
the one raging in Syria. • Alleged incident
happened in city centre pub on Wednesday• Witness says Henson lay unconscious for five minutesBath are investigating reports Gavin Henson was allegedly punched by a team-mate in a pub this week.
It has been reported that the former
Wales back,
who joined
the club last month, was involved in an incident in the Pig and Fiddle in the city centre.The
Premiership side said in a statement: "Bath Rugby can confirm there was a minor incident in the city centre on
Wednesday night involving a few members of the playing squad. The club are investigating the matter as a priority and will only make a statement when further information
is available."According to the Bath Chronicle, Henson
squared up to a team-mate who punched him so hard he lay unconscious on the floor until helped on to a
chair.One witness said: "There were about 10 of them in the pub getting ******
but not being too rowdy. They seemed like they were all having a good time, apart from
Henson who was strutting around like he owned the place.
One of the other
players told him to calm down and after a bit of a to-ing and fro-ing he just hit
him.
He went out like a
light for about five minutes. He just lay there like a lump, right on the floor."Avon and Somerset police has confirmed it received a call reporting "aggressive behaviour" that night but while the caller was on the line the group left the pub and so officers were not required to attend.
No offences are being investigated.The Pig and Fiddle has declined to comment on the matter while
Henson's representatives could not be contacted.Bath are Henson's
fifth club in two years as the 31-year-old seeks to revive a career that promised
much in his youth. The fly-half or centre has won two
Six Nations grand slams but has not represented his
country since winning the last of his 33 caps in 2011.Gavin
HensonBathRugby unionguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of
this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions |
More Feeds The festival, called Next Weekend, will take place
Aug. 8-11.
The recommendation by the United States Preventive Services Task Force now aligns it with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Frugal travel along the Yangtze River, a dad can’t have it all either, answers to questions about
paying for
college and
other
consumer-focused news from The New York Times. The NHL suspended Buffalo's Patrick Kaleta
for five games Monday, its stiffest punishment of
the season. The World Health Organization said in May that cellphone use
could increase the risk of some types of brain tumors, Reuters reports. But this
study didn't find a connection.
By imposing multiple restrictions on the processes of writing, this group of French writers seek to find what literature might be, rather than what it isYou might think Raymond Queneau was guilty of a little overkill when he cured a bout of writer's block by writing One Hundred Thousand Billion Poems, but this flipbook presentation of 10 sonnets did more than
paper over a barren spell, it became the founding text of an experimental literary collective.The 14 lines on each page are printed on individual strips, so that every line can be replaced
by the corresponding one in any of the
other poems. By the author's reckoning, it would take someone 190,258,751 years to go through all possible combinations. Cent
Mille Milliards de Poèmes is at once complete, always in the process of becoming (with a little help from
the reader) and necessary (on its own combinatorial terms) – the signatures of the Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle, or Potential Literature Workshop (OuLiPo) launched by Queneau and François Le Lionnais in 1960.The
Oulipo replayed literary
modernity in ludic mode. It was, inter alia,
an attempt to reconcile CP Snow's two
cultures, an
undertaking which was embodied
by the workshop's co-founders: Queneau was a writer fascinated by
science; Le Lionnais, a scientist fascinated by writing.
In their own way, they were reprising the early Romantic trade miner "all art should become science, and all science art" (Friedrich Schlegel). Despite such lofty claims, the collective adopted a very pragmatic approach to fiction, which is rather
unusual in
France, where literature has preserved much of its mystique and creative writing programmes are almost unheard of. According to Daniel Levin Becker, Oulipians consider "literature in the conditional mood;
not the imperative". They do
not profess to know what literature should be, but attempt to uncover what it could be, either in theory
or practice. In the early days, the emphasis was firmly on the former (i.e. "anoulipism" in Oulipospeak). When they were not scouring the great works of the past in
search of proto-Oulipian procedures, the group members were busy establishing a lineage
of "pre-emptive plagiarists" (Lewis Carroll, Raymond Roussel et al.).
The invention and possible deployment of new writing constraints ("synthoulipism") soon became the main focal point, however, and under the aegis of Georges
Perec (who joined in 1967)
the production of ambitious new works took centre stage.Oulipians
are into literary bondage. Their fetish is predicated on the notion that writing is always constrained by something, be it simply time or language itself.
The solution, in their view, is not to try, quixotically, to abolish constraints, but to acknowledge their presence, and embrace them proactively. For Queneau, "Inspiration which consists in blind
obedience to every impulse is in reality a sort of slavery". Italo Calvino (who was co-opted in 1973) concurred: "What Romantic terminology called genius or talent or inspiration or intuition is nothing other than finding the right road empirically". Choosing the "right road" from the outset, instead of stumbling upon it haphazardly, is the Oulipian way: once the Apollonian structure has been circumscribed, Dionysus can work his magic. "I set myself rules
in order to be totally
free," as Perec put it, echoing Queneau's earlier definition of Oulipians as "rats who build the labyrinth from which they plan to escape".As
Gabriel Josipovici
argues in What Ever Happened to Modernism?, modern
literature was forged out of a refusal to submit to external constraints, with the novel
a "new form in which the
individual could express himself precisely by throwing off
the shackles that bound him to his fathers and
to tradition". The flipside of this emancipation of the writer
(or privatisation
of writing) was, as Walter Benjamin pointed out, isolation. No longer the mouthpiece of
the Muses or society, novelists could only derive legitimacy from themselves.
"Going back to the world of genres is not an option, any more than is a return to the world of the ancien régime," writes Josipovici. The Oulipo escapes
the Romantic cul-de-sac of unfettered imagination (or its Surrealist avatar, chance) by reintroducing external constraints, which are self-imposed.Whether
or not constraints should be disclosed to the reader is a moot point. Harry Mathews refuses to do so, while Jacques Roubaud (another mathematician) argues that the constraint(s) should be the very subject matter of any truly Oulipian work.
Some constraints are a trifle gimmicky, like Jacques Jouet's metro poems, or even Jean Lescure's N+7 procedure.
Others are far more convincing, for example, Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style
in which the same anecdote is retold in
99 different
ways. "The problem, when you see the constraint,"
Perec observed, is that you no
longer see anything else. It is a testament to his prodigious talent that one of the first reviewers of A Void (1969) should have failed to notice that the novel does
not contain the most
common letter (e) in the
French language. This lipogrammatic tour
de force is particularly poignant because the missing e (pronounced "eux"
– "them" – in French) refers to all those (including the
author's parents) who went missing during the second world war.For
Philippe
Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc
Nancy, the Romantic fragment "stands for itself and for that from which it has been detached," making it both finite and (theoretically) infinite. According to Lauren
Elkin and Scott
Esposito, the Oulipian constraint serves a
similar purpose: "The work which results may be 'complete' in itself, but it will also gesture at all the other work that could potentially be generated using that constraint". Exhaustion is the "necessary corollary" of potentiality,
they continue. This is particularly true in
the
case of Perec, who,
like an agoraphobic miniaturist, focuses on manageable, bite-sized chunks of reality, which he then tries to shoehorn into his books. He claimed that his ambition in Life: A User's Manual (1978) was "to exhaust not the world"
but "a constituted fragment of the world".
An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris (1975) – his famous exploration of
the "infra-ordinary" – involved spending three days on the Place Saint-Sulpice observing what happened when nothing happened.One
could argue that the failure of the Oulipian project is Perec's major theme. In one of the dreams in La Boutique obscure – recently translated for the first time – Perec discovers an edition of A Void in which the banned letter e keeps recurring.
In Life: A User's Manual, Bartlebooth dies clutching the
last piece of a jigsaw puzzle, which turns out to be the wrong shape.
The plot – based on an algorithm enabling
the knight in a game of chess to touch every single square
on the board once –
enacts the novel's failure
(there is a missing chapter corresponding to an unvisited basement).
"The Winter Journey" (which Atlas Press is bringing out in a new edition) revolves around the discovery – and subsequent loss – of
a book
(the eponymous Winter Journey) proving that all the great modern poets were in fact plagiarists.
Also, 53 Days – about an unfinished book ex girlfriend guru a
writer who
disappears – was left unfinished by Perec, when he disappeared in 1982.
The most famous Oulipian ― himself a crossword constructor – knew that literature
was an unsolvable puzzle.Some
say that the Oulipo increasingly resembles a gathering of ageing cruciverbalists: it started off looking for "pre-emptive plagiarists" and is now largely concerned with archiving its glory days.
In an age of N+7 Machines and ebooks, many of the Oulipo's algorithm-based experiments have lost their cutting edge.
The recent revival of
interest, in the English-speaking world, is due to translations
of works by historic Oulipians, as well as Daniel Levin Becker's
youthful transatlantic enthusiasm (he is the group's latest recruit).
Perhaps it is a measure of the movement's success that these days some of the most interesting debates and experiments are taking place outside the narrow confines of the group.
Take
Multiples, for instance,
which originated as a special issue of McSweeney's, edited by Adam Thirlwell,
which Portobello is bringing out here next month.
It is a typically Oulipian exercise in which 12 short stories
are translated by 61 novelists into 18 different languages.
Each story is translated into or out of English several
times, until something new is found in translation.FictionPoetryAndrew Gallixguardian.co.uk
© 2013 Guardian News
and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.
| Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions
| More Feeds JERUSALEM  In a landmark ruling on the struggle over prayer at Judaism’s holiest shrine, an Israeli court
ruled Thursday that women could legally pray at the Western Wall wearing prayer shawls, contrary to Orthodox practice enforced at the site. Read full article >> In an effort to win
more mainland customers, Net-a-Porter is adding a Chinese language
site and opening a distribution center in Hong
Kong to speed deliveries.
Scientists waiting for the spacecraft to enter the wider reaches
of the Milky Way are perplexed: Only
one of two telltale signs of its
departure has been detected.
Microsoft has
made
significant changes to Windows
8, making life for desktop users more like it used to be
on Windows 7 - while aiming to keep tablet users happyLast year Microsoft reimagined Windows. Windows 8 was released in October 2012,
complete with a new touch-friendly personality intended to make the operating system work well on tablets as well as with keyboard and mouse.
It was a
bold but controversial experiment. Users have not found it easy to adjust to the Windows 8 Start screen, which replaced the Start menu in Windows 7, and the Windows
8 app market is weak compared to that for Apple or
Android apps.
"I installed Windows 8 two months ago.
I have yet to use a Metro app for anything," said developer Robert Smallshire on Twitter,
where "Metro" refers to the new tablet apps which Microsoft officially calls "Modern"
apps or Windows Store apps. Most Windows users still live in the traditional desktop environment, which is why
many Windows 8
tablets are "hybrids", with keyboards and trackpads as well as touch screens.On Wednesday at its Build developer conference in San
Francisco, Microsoft unveiled the preview of Windows 8.1, an update which refines the operating system without changing its character.
I've
been running the preview on the Surface Pro tablet given to all Build attendees. No retreatMicrosoft is not backtracking
on concepts such as the Start screen or the "immersive UI" which presents Modern apps without the clutter of visible menus and toolbars. Yes, there is a Start button on the desktop - but it
takes you to the Start screen rather than restoring the menu in Windows 7. The Start button will be a point of familiarity for new users, but its main benefit is the enhanced administrative menu (known as Win-X because of
its keyboard shortcut) which pops up if you right-click,
including an option to shut down.Users who
want to avoid
Modern apps have other new options, offered if
you right-click the taskbar and choose properties. Here you will find "boot to desktop", the ability to list desktop
apps first
in the Start screen when sorted by category, and an option to default to the "All
apps" view
in Start.
Unlike the mainly
cosmetic Start button, these are significant changes. Engage them all, and when you tap Start you get a list of desktop apps grouped almost like the old menu, though it is not hierarchical.
You can also show the
desktop background in Start, making the transition to the Modern UI less jarring.The Start screen
no longer shows all apps in the default tiled view,
but only apps you select. It is also easier to
customise Start groups.
A swipe down takes
you to the All apps view, unless you chose this
as the default.Snapped to itMost of the changes in Windows 8.1 relate to Modern apps. In Windows 8.0,
you can have up to two
apps on view, with one snapped
to the side.
This snapped view has gone (a Microsoft engineer admitted to me that few
people used it).
If two apps are on view, you can now size them as you like
by dragging a vertical bar, and if you have
a large screen you can have up to four apps on
view, though
my Surface only accommodates two.
Apps can also be written for two displays, with different data on each, so for example you could have a controller
view and a presentation view.
All good stuff.New searchThe way Search works has changed. Previously, if you invoked search by pressing Win-S or
selecting it from the right-hand Charms menu, you would be taken automatically to vitiligo treatment screen.
Now, search opens in a panel, and by default searches "Everywhere" rather than just Apps
as before. One effect is that you can now easily open a new desktop app without
ever leaving the
desktop environment, using
search as an app launcher.
On the other hand, if you are searching more generally, you get results in a new Bing app that combines local and web search in a rich view.
A search for "guardian", for example, shows Word documents with that word in the title as well as matching websites. Search
for a celebrity and you get photos, biography, and for a musician, options to play songs in
Xbox Music, the native
music app on Windows 8.
Each search creates a kind of custom app, Microsoft explained, and this feature is fun
to use. The prize for Microsoft is greater Bing adoption if the approach proves popular.SkyDrive: now landingSkyDrive, Microsoft's cloud storage, is deeply embedded in Windows 8.1. It has its
own section in PC Settings, and you can opt to save all
documents to SkyDrive by default. Open Notepad, for example,
type something, hit save, and it goes to SkyDrive if you do not change the location.
Another SkyDrive change is that the Modern SkyDrive app now works offline, sharing local storage with the Desktop
version. This makes
sense if you travel or regularly work on more than one machine.Talking of PC Settings, Window 8.1 has more settings in the Modern settings app, reducing the need to run the old Control Panel. It
is still not comprehensive. Mouse settings, for example, has just three options in PC settings, with many more in Control Panel. This is an improvement though. PC Settings is also the place for new
features like Workplace, which when combined
with the forthcoming update to Windows
Server will let users access a business network under the control of IT administrators, but without the full "domain join"
that corporate machines normally require. This is in keeping with the Bring Your Own Device trend, where a machine is used both for
home and business. Combined with another feature called work folders,
this lets users synchronize with documents on their business network, while allowing the IT administrator to
switch off access if the machine is lost
or the employee leaves.Turning
IE
up to
11Windows 8.1 comes with version 11 of Internet Explorer (IE), which will also
be available for Windows
7. The big new feature is WebGL (Web Graphics Library) support, a standard for showing 3D accelerated graphics in the browser without a plug-in, and ideal for browser-based games.
Previously Microsoft had resisted WebGL because of security
concerns, which it
says are now resolved thanks to improvements both in the standard and in IE itself.
There is also better
touch support and faster performance, though I have not noticed much difference in day to day browsing so
far.
The presence of two versions of IE in Windows 8 - one
on the Start screen, one on the desktop - remains
confusing.Fun
in Store?The Windows Store
has been revamped.
The home
page is more appealing and magazine-like, categories are selected from the top menu rather than by endless scrolling, and apps now update automatically if you allow it.What about the built-in apps? A new recipe app has what looks like a brilliant feature, called Hands-Free mode.
If your machine has a
front-facing camera, you wave your hand
to navigate pages, avoiding touching the screen with sticky
fingers. Unfortunately this hardly works on my Surface, suggesting that Microsoft has more work to do here,
or that it
is fussy about the exact hardware you use.I
had better luck with Reading List, essentially an app which lists shortcuts for future reference.
Run Modern IE, for example,
and you can add links to the Reading List using Share on
the Charms menu. This also works with maps and other apps.Mailed
itThe Mail app is slightly improved.
When I tried to add my Exchange Server account, it actually told
me why it was not working (a digital certificate issue), whereas the old Mail
app used to fail with infuriating silence.
You can also view web links
with an automatic side-by-side view,
making a better experience.The
Photo app now has an Edit feature with a range of options for adjusting the colour, tint, light and
various effects. It is easy to use and effective.ConclusionWindows
8.1
is a significant improvement. After just a short spell with the preview, I do not want to go back. The experience for desktop users (which is most users most of the time) is smoother, and there are many small enhancements which combine make a big
difference, of which I have mentioned only a few.But
is it enough to fix the poor reputation of Windows 8, to persuade users sticking with Windows 7 to upgrade, or even to win sales that would otherwise go to iPad or
Android
tablets? Redmonk analyst James Governor is optimistic. "It's a long game," he
told me.
"You remember Vista, which needed a significant refactoring, and what came out of it was a decent platform. The Bing integration is significant. The split personality is a problem, but Metro is beautiful and a step forward, and will increasingly be the kind of model people use to access apps."All this chimes with me as a reviewer and early
adopter; yet Microsoft is coming from behind in the tablet market, has many users reluctant to relearn how they work with Windows, and its hardware partners are creating largely hybrid devices that are expensive and compromised - though also more powerful - compared
to their
tablet rivals. Windows
8.1 is clickbank pirate review but doesn't remove these obstacles.I am writing this at Microsoft's developer conference, and the effort to win over developers to the new Modern platform is key.
Just a few compelling apps will drive adoption; and it may even be that the
new Bing app is one such in the way it combines local and web search in a single and appealing package.Overall, it is too early to call Windows 8.1 a success, but also too soon to call the Windows 8 project a failure. Microsoft had done good work, and those who disliked the first release may want to take another look. Preview: where to get itYou can get the preview at http://preview.windows.com, but be warned that there is no uninstall and it may
not be possible to upgrade to the final version without a complete reinstall. In other words, it is not yet ready for general use.Rating: 4/5Windows 8MicrosoftMicrosoft Surfaceguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or
its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. |
Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds After Hurricane Sandy wiped out nearly all
the cars in Howard Beach, Queens, residents bought new ones and provided tire thieves inviting targets.
“This Town,†by Mark Leibovich, the national political correspondent
for The New York Times Magazine, is a blistering look at the egos and
machinations of Washington’s insider culture. The benchmark Dow Jones industrial average reached an all-time high Tuesday, underscoring the contrast between corporate America’s rapid recovery since the financial
crisis and the rest
of the country’s ongoing struggle to regain its footing. Read full article >> Peter T. Demos, a nuclear physicist who guided
MIT’s Bates Linear Accelerator from a groundbreaking idea in 1961 to a globally renowned center for the study of nuclear structure and
reactions, died of coronary artery disease on Sept.
18. A
longtime resident of Belmont, Mass.,
Demos was 94.Demos was a “remarkable scientific leader,†said Robert Redwine, a
professor of physics at MIT and current
director of the Bates
Center. “His
excellent scientific taste, his unquestioned
integrity, and his determination to support every user
of the laboratory were critical in establishing a style
of operation that
was a model for laboratories around the world.â€ÂThe Bates Accelerator “opened up a huge new area of research in nuclear physics. We pioneered studies in high-resolution electron scattering and started a program in coincidence experiments,†said MIT physics professor Stanley Kowalski, Demos’ former student and faculty colleague.
Demos and Kowalski worked with a team of MIT physicists to launch the Bates facility.Demos
served as director of the
Bates Center from 1973 to 1983. During its more-than-30-year life as an international center for the study of nuclear physics, scientists came from around the world to use the facility in Middleton, Mass.
Before developing and directing Bates, Demos served as a leader in the design and construction of MIT’s first microwave linear accelerator, completed in 1951.
During the 1960s, he was a
trustee to the group of nine universities, including MIT, founded to operate the Brookhaven National Laboratory’s proton accelerator. “Those whose passion is to understand the basic nature of matter and energy are in Peter Demos’ debt,†John M.
Deutch, Institute Professor of Chemistry and dean emeritus of the School of Science, noted when Demos retired as Bates director.
“He gave us essential leadership  a remarkable national resource for physics research, a tool of inestimable value.â€ÂThe Bates Center now provides critical technical support for MIT researchers and their collaborators in nuclear and particle physics experiments, and houses the largest MIT facility for high-performance computing.
Bates staff members also collaborate on applications
of accelerator technology to projects
in medical physics and in homeland
security.Demos’ legacy was honored when the Peter T.
Demos Award was established to recognize a graduate student who demonstrates the “spirit, persistence and intellectual qualities†Demos embodied over his long career.ÂÂ
Research and a leap An expert in radiation and applications of radiation, Demos specialized in
ballistics and radar studies before coming to MIT with his young family in 1946 as a research associate.
He earned his PhD at the Institute in 1951 and joined the MIT
physics faculty in 1957, becoming a full professor and director of the Laboratory for Nuclear Science (LNS)
in 1961.
He served as LNS director
until 1973.As director of LNS and Bates, Demos “pushed heaven and earth to get good ideas
implemented.
His efforts were very important toward having LNS recognized as a world leader in nuclear and particle physics,†said William Bertozzi, a professor of physics at MIT and and Demos’ first graduate student.Demos’
early MIT work, concentrating on
low-energy physics
and photonuclear reactions, might have set him on a conventionally successful academic career.
But he made a classic MIT leap: When an innovative, hands-on project arose  building one
of the first linear accelerators, a 17-million-electron-volt machine  Demos twice
set aside
his doctoral research to get the room-sized device working. At that time there were three
accelerators on MIT’s campus  a synchrotron in Building 24, a cyclotron in Building 44 and the linear accelerator, or linac, that Demos and his team built
in Building 20. “The linac made possible world-leading research,†Kowalski recalled.
“It truly was an exciting time to do physics.â€Â
Demos’ example and his generosity helped harness those exciting times at MIT.
His support was “crucial to success in experimental research. In his quiet but convincing style he helped open many doors of opportunity and recognition for the faculty and research staff,†Bertozzi said. “I shall miss
his advice and counsel.â€ÂNot surprisingly, Demos advocated breadth in physics education and
flexibility with young google sniper 2.0 download they grew, as
he did, through experience. A devoted mentor and educator, he once wrote that while he valued a “good undergraduate physics education and direct experience with good
experimental work,
I have learned the most from teaching others.â€ÂIn recent years, Demos was interested
in energy issues as well as new techniques for cooling hadron beams at high energies. “He was a wise and regular contributor
to informal discussions on energy
in LNS in the years 2007 to 2010. With
his LNS colleagues, he co-authored an article in the MIT Faculty Newsletter on nuclear energy in 2008,†noted Richard Milner, the
current LNS director and a professor of physics. Demos was a member of the American Physical Society and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a former director of the advisory panel to the Center for Radiation Physics Division at the National Bureau of Standards.
He also served as chair of the Committee on Radiation of the National Research Council. ÂÂ
A native of Toronto, Demos became
a U.S. citizen
in 1958.
His wife of 62 years, Elizabeth (Betty) Jean, died in
2003.
He is survived by his sons, Theodore of California and John of Maine; his daughter Ellen of Ireland; his sister Georgia Davies of Calgary, Alberta; six grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; and many devoted Canadian and American nieces and nephews.Donations
in Demos’ memory
can be made to Hospice of the
Good Shepherd. Revisiting John Tierney’s 2002 article
on trains in America.
China
is considering price control mechanisms and tightly regulated markets for its emissions trading schemes (ETS) in a bid to avoid the price volatility and scandals that have hit Europe's ETS, as
surveys show the
country has reached European per-capita emission levels.
More 'Â LAS VEGAS - Tablets and smartphones took the spotlight at the Consumer Electronics Show on Thursday, with Motorola, Samsung and LG showering attendees with dozens of faster and more powerful devices that will reach consumer hands this year.
I was touring a new home, and one of the features that really interested me was the central
vacuum system.
It seems like one of these
would be really handy.
What's involved when you
install a central vacuum? Can you
share some tips, especially what not to do? - Ray H.,
Newtown, Pa. Former congressman and recently minted San Diego Mayor Bob Filner (D) admitted in a video late Thursday that he is
seeking professional help for his treatment of
women.
Former Filner supporters said earlier Thursday that Filner had
harassed women in the workplace and called on him
to resign.
Read full article >> Marshall says winds and eddies along the Southern Ocean drag deep waters  and any buried carbon  to the surface around Antarctica. He and Speer write that the updated diagram
“brings the Southern
Ocean to the forefront†of the global circulation system, highlighting its role as a powerful climate mediator.Indeed, Marshall and Speer review
evidence that the Southern Ocean may have had a part in thawing the planet out of the last Ice Age. While it’s unclear what
caused Earth to warm initially, this warming may have driven surface wind patterns poleward, pulling up deep water and carbon  which would have
been released into the atmosphere, further warming the climate.
Shifting windsIn a cooling world,
it appears that winds shift slightly closer
to the Equator, and are buffeted by the continents. In a
warming world, winds shift toward the poles; in the Southern Ocean, unimpeded winds whip
up deep waters.
The researchers note that two manmade atmospheric trends  ozone depletion and greenhouse
gas emissions from fossil
fuels  have a large effect on winds over the Southern Ocean: As the ozone hole recovers, greenhouse gases rise and
the planet warms, winds over the Southern Ocean are likely to shift, affecting the delicate balance at play.
In the future,
if the Southern Ocean experiences stronger winds displaced slightly south of their current position, Antarctica’s ice shelves may be more vulnerable to melting  a phenomenon
that may also have contributed to the
end of the Ice Age.ÂÂ
“There are huge reservoirs of carbon in the interior of
the ocean,†Marshall says.
“If the climate changes and
makes it easier for
that carbon to get into the atmosphere, then there will be an additional
warming effect.â€ÂJorge Sarmiento, a professor of atmospheric and oceanic
sciences at Princeton University, says the Southern Ocean has been
a difficult area to study. To fully understand the Southern Ocean’s dynamics requires models with high resolution  a significant challenge, given the ocean’s size.“Because it’s so
hard to observe the Southern Ocean,
we’re still in the process of learning things,†says Sarmiento, who was not involved with this research. “So I think this is
a very nice snapshot of our current understanding, based on models and observations, and it will sort of be a touchstone
for
future developments in the field.â€ÂMarshall and Speer are now working with a multi-institution team led by MIT’s collaborator, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, to measure
how waters
upwell in the Southern Ocean.
The researchers are studying the flow driven by eddies in
the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, and have deployed tracers and deep
drifters to measure its effects; temperature, salinity and oxygen content in the water also help tell them how eddies behave, and how quickly or slowly warm water rises to the surface.“Any perturbation that is made to the
atmosphere, whether it’s due to glacial cycles or ozone or greenhouse forcing, can change the balance over the Southern Ocean,†Marshall says.
“We have to understand how the Southern Ocean works in the climate system and take that
into
