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Pictures: Fungi Get Into the Holiday Spirit
Label: Health
Photograph courtesy Stephanie Mounaud, J. Craig Venter Institute
Mounaud combined different fungi to create a Santa hat and spell out a holiday message.
Different fungal grow at different rates, so Mounaud's artwork rarely lasts for long. There's only a short window of time when they actually look like what they're suppose to.
"You do have to keep that in perspective when you're making these creations," she said.
For example, the A. flavus fungi that she used to write this message from Santa grows very quickly. "The next day, after looking at this plate, it didn't say 'Ho Ho Ho.' It said 'blah blah blah,'" Mounaud said.
The message also eventually turned green, which was the color she was initially after. "It was a really nice green, which is what I was hoping for. But yellow will do," she said.
The hat was particularly challenging. The fungus used to create it "was troubling because at different temperatures it grows differently. The pigment in this one forms at room temperature but this type of growth needed higher temperatures," Mounaud said.
Not all fungus will grow nicely together. For example, in the hat, "N. fischeri [the brim and ball] did not want to play nice with the P. marneffei [red part of hat] ... so they remained slightly separated."
Published December 21, 2012
Departing Secretary of State Clinton's Legacy of Firsts
Label: Business
After 31 years of public service, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton leaves the limelight behind.
On Friday, President Obama nominated Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., to take her place as secretary of state, leaving Clinton to help him move in and then bow out.
Over the past three decades, Clinton has served her country in one way or another, a tenure that was full of firsts.
She was the only first lady to refuse the traditional cookie bake off and the first secretary of state to visit more than 100 countries. She served under the first black president and was the first first lady to have an office in the West Wing of the White House. Clinton was the first secretary of state to visit East Timor, and the first first lady to later win elective office. And long before she ever appeared on a ballot, Clinton was the first child born to Hugh and Dorothy Rodham.
Hillary Clinton Through the Years
Her departure from the State Department does not come as a surprise. For the past year, she has made clear her intentions to step down and said her goodbyes at outposts all over the world.
"It's important for me to step off this incredibly high wire I've been on," Clinton said after casting her ballot in November's presidential election, "to take stock of the rest of my life."
Laurent Gillieron/AFP/Getty Images
President Obama Nominates Sen. John Kerry for Secretary of State Watch Video
Barbara Walters' 10 Most Fascinating People: Hillary Clinton Watch Video
'This Week' Roundtable: Hillary Clinton in 2016? Watch Video
Recently, she told ABC's Barbara Walters she's looking forward to taking a step back, "maybe do some reading and writing and speaking and teaching."
In October, she took the blame for State Department security failures that led to the death of four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, in Benghazi, Libya. It was a move that signaled a willingness to put politics aside and embrace responsibility.
I take responsibility," Clinton said a month after the attack in an interview in Lima, Peru. "I'm in charge of the State Department's 60,000-plus people all over the world, 275 posts.
"The president and the vice president wouldn't be knowledgeable about specific decisions that are made by security professionals," Clinton said, a clear attempt to absolve a president who was up for re-election of blame with little regard for her own popularity.
At the end of November, Clinton reflected on her accomplishments as secretary of state over the past four years in two wide-ranging speeches on foreign policy.
Her four years of work focused on advancing rights for women and religious minorities across the globe, helping to maintain the tenuous peace between Israelis and Palestinians, discouraging Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and, in her own words, "advancing a new approach to development that puts human dignity and self-sufficiency at the heart of our efforts."
Clinton reflected on her travels to more than 112 countries, calling it "shoe-leather diplomacy," and emphasizing the importance of being on the ground.
"I have found it highly ironic that, in today's world, when we can be anywhere virtually, more than ever people want us to show up, actually," she said at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. "Somebody said to me the other day, 'I look at your travel schedule. Why Togo? Why the Cook Islands?' No secretary of state had ever been to Togo before. Togo happens to be on the U.N. Security Council. Going there, making the personal investment, has a real strategic purpose."
Though Clinton took political heat this year for her role in the Benghazi attack, her global colleagues joked and prodded her about a second presidential run at each increment of her long-term farewell. The popular Democrat continues to deny she'll run.
Today on New Scientist: 21 December 2012
Label: WorldCadaver stem cells offer new hope of life after death
Stem cells can be extracted from bone marrow five days after death to be used in life-saving treatments
Apple's patents under fire at US patent office
The tech firm is skating on thin ice with some of the patents that won it a $1 billion settlement against Samsung
Himalayan dam-building threatens endemic species
The world's highest mountains look set to become home to a huge number of dams - good news for clean energy but bad news for biodiversity
Astrophile: Black hole exposed as a dwarf in disguise
A white dwarf star caught mimicking a black hole's X-ray flashes may be the first in a new class of binary star systems
Blind juggling robot keeps a ball in the air for hours
The robot, which has no visual sensors, can juggle a ball flawlessly by analysing its trajectory
Studio sessions show how Bengalese finch stays in tune
This songbird doesn't need technological aids to stay in tune - and it's smart enough to not worry when it hears notes that are too far off to be true
Giant tooth hints at truly monumental dinosaur
A lone tooth found in Argentina may have belonged to a dinosaur even larger than those we know of, but what to call it?
Avian flu virus learns to fly without wings
A strain of bird flu that hit the Netherlands in 2003 travelled by air, a hitherto suspected by unproven route of transmission
Feedback: Are wind turbines really fans?
A tale of "disease-spreading" wind farms, the trouble with quantifying "don't know", the death of parody in the UK, and more
The link between devaluing animals and discrimination
Our feelings about other animals have important consequences for how we treat humans, say prejudice researchers Gordon Hodson and Kimberly Costello
Best videos of 2012: First motion MRI of unborn twins
Watch twins fight for space in the womb, as we reach number 6 in our countdown of the top videos of the year
2012 Flash Fiction winner: Sleep by Richard Clarke
Congratulations to Richard Clarke, who won the 2012 New Scientist Flash Fiction competition with a clever work of satire
Urban Byzantine monks gave in to temptation
They were supposed to live on an ascetic diet of mainly bread and water, but the monks in 6th-century Jerusalem were tucking into animal products
The pregnant promise of fetal medicine
As prenatal diagnosis and treatment advance, we are entering difficult ethical territory
2013 Smart Guide: Searching for human origins in Asia
Africa is where humanity began, where we took our first steps, but those interested in the latest cool stuff on our origins should now look to Asia instead
The end of the world is an opportunity, not a threat
Don't waste time bemoaning the demise of the old order; get on with building the new one
Victorian counting device gets speedy quantum makeover
A photon-based version of a 19th-century mechanical device could bring quantum computers a step closer
Did learning to fly give bats super-immunity?
When bats first took to the air, something changed in their DNA which may have triggered their incredible immunity to viruses
Van-sized space rock is a cosmic oddball
Fragments from a meteor that exploded over California in April are unusually low in amino acids, putting a twist on one theory of how life on Earth began
50-km run to raise funds for boxer's medical bills
Label: Technology
SINGAPORE: Well wishers who are raising funds to help pay for the medical bills of young mixed martial arts boxer Shahril Salim have so far raised S$18,000.
But with medical bills expected to reach S$380,000, families and friends of Shahril are holding a 50-kilometre run to raise more money.
It has been two months since Shahril collapsed during training, shortly before his debut as a professional boxer in a championship scheduled at Marina Bay Sands.
The 22-year-old, nicknamed "Bull" for his determination to succeed in the ring, is still in coma despite having undergone multiple surgeries.
The "Wake the Bull Project" hopes to raise as much as possible through the run, sale of T-shirts, personal and corporate donations.
Since the flag-off of 33 runners headed by the Singapore Bladerunner, the group managed to raise S$1,000 via online donations, aided by regular updates on social media.
- CNA/xq
A made-in-the-U.S., audiophile-grade turntable for $150?
Label: Lifestyle
The U-Turn Audio Orbit turntable
(Credit:
Jon Hyatt)
Great audio can be expensive, but Ben Carter's ambitious Kickstarter project aims to make a serious dent in the price of quality turntables. A $150 pledge secures an Orbit belt-drive turntable, fitted with an Ortofon phono cartridge. As I write this blog, and just a few days after the Kickstarter project was launched, Carter has already passed the halfway mark to reaching his $60,000 goal!
I spoke with Carter on Thursday; he has a background in marketing and consulting, and Bob Hertig is handling the engineering for the project. Orbits will be manufactured by U-Turn Audio in the Boston area. Pledges of $150 buy the turntable finished in black, but Carter can't for certain guarantee that price for production turntables. They may sell for a little more.
Rather than going with a conventional tonearm, the Orbit features a Hertig-designed, ultra-low-friction uni-pivot arm (similar to the type of arm on my $2,700 VPI Classic turntable). I don't know of another turntable anywhere near the price of the Orbit with a uni-pivot tonearm. The Orbit's plinth/base is CNC machined out of medium-density fiberboard (MDF), and the base rests on specially designed styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) feet, to prevent external vibrations from affecting the sound.
Since Carter is already over halfway toward meeting the Kickstarter goal, turntable deliveries should start in May 2013. I hope to get an Orbit in for review around that time.
Pictures: Fungi Get Into the Holiday Spirit
Label: Health
Photograph courtesy Stephanie Mounaud, J. Craig Venter Institute
Mounaud combined different fungi to create a Santa hat and spell out a holiday message.
Different fungal grow at different rates, so Mounaud's artwork rarely lasts for long. There's only a short window of time when they actually look like what they're suppose to.
"You do have to keep that in perspective when you're making these creations," she said.
For example, the A. flavus fungi that she used to write this message from Santa grows very quickly. "The next day, after looking at this plate, it didn't say 'Ho Ho Ho.' It said 'blah blah blah,'" Mounaud said.
The message also eventually turned green, which was the color she was initially after. "It was a really nice green, which is what I was hoping for. But yellow will do," she said.
The hat was particularly challenging. The fungus used to create it "was troubling because at different temperatures it grows differently. The pigment in this one forms at room temperature but this type of growth needed higher temperatures," Mounaud said.
Not all fungus will grow nicely together. For example, in the hat, "N. fischeri [the brim and ball] did not want to play nice with the P. marneffei [red part of hat] ... so they remained slightly separated."
Published December 21, 2012
'Fiscal Cliff' Leaves Boehner a Wounded Speaker
Label: Business
John Boehner is a bloodied House speaker following the startling setback that his own fractious Republican troops dealt him in their "fiscal cliff" struggle against President Barack Obama.
There's plenty of internal grumbling about the Ohio Republican, especially among conservatives, and lots of buzzing about whether his leadership post is in jeopardy. But it's uncertain whether any other House Republican has the broad appeal to seize the job from Boehner or whether his embarrassing inability to pass his own bill preventing tax increases on everyone but millionaires is enough to topple him.
"No one will be challenging John Boehner as speaker," predicted John Feehery, a consultant and former aide to House GOP leaders. "No one else can right now do the job of bringing everyone together" and unifying House Republicans.
The morning after he yanked the tax-cutting bill from the House floor to prevent certain defeat, Boehner told reporters he wasn't worried about losing his job when the new Congress convenes Jan. 3.
"They weren't taking that out on me," he said Friday of rank-and-file GOP lawmakers, who despite pleading from Boehner and his lieutenants were shy of providing the 217 votes needed for passage. "They were dealing with the perception that somebody might accuse them of raising taxes."
Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo
That "somebody" was a number of outside conservative groups such as the Club for Growth and Heritage Action for America, which openly pressured lawmakers to reject Boehner's bill. Such organizations often oppose GOP lawmakers they consider too moderate and have been headaches for Boehner in the past.
This time, his retreat on the tax measure was an unmistakable blow to the clout of the 22-year House veteran known for an amiable style, a willingness to make deals and a perpetual tan.
Congressional leaders amass power partly by their ability to command votes, especially in showdowns. His failure to do so Thursday stands to weaken his muscle with Obama and among House Republicans.
"It's very hard for him to negotiate now," said Sarah Binder, a George Washington University political scientist, adding that it's premature to judge if Boehner's hold on the speakership is in peril. "No one can trust him because it's very hard for him to produce votes."
She said the loss weakens his ability to summon support in the future because "you know the last time he came to you like this, others didn't step in line."
Boehner, 63, faces unvarnished hostility from some conservatives.
"We clearly can't have a speaker operate well outside" what Republicans want to do, said freshman Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan.
Huelskamp is one of four GOP lawmakers who lost prized committee assignments following previous clashes with party leaders. That punishment was an anomaly for Boehner, who is known more for friendly persuasion than arm-twisting.
He said Boehner's job would depend on whether the speaker is "willing to sit and listen to Republicans first, or march off" and negotiate with Obama.
Conservative Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, said one of the tea party's lasting impacts would be if Boehner struggled to retain his speakership due to the fight over the fiscal cliff, which is the combination of deep tax increases and spending cuts that start in early January without a bipartisan deal to avert them.
"If there's a major defeat delivered here, it could make it tough on him," King said. "He's in a tough spot."
Studio sessions show how Bengalese finch stays in tune
Label: WorldJulian Richards, deputy editor, newscientist.com
(Image: Sam Sober/Emory University)
Let's take it from the top again... Human singing stars these days rely on Auto-Tune technology to produce the right pitch, but this songbird does it the old way - by listening out for its own mistakes. And it's also smart enough to ignore notes that are too far off to be true.
Brains monitor their owners' physical actions via the senses, and use this feedback to correct mistakes in those actions. Many models of learning assume that the bigger the perceived mistake, the bigger the correction will be. Samuel Sober at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and Michael Brainard of the University of California, San Francisco, suspected that the system is a bit cleverer than that - otherwise, for instance, a bird might over-correct its singing if it confused external sounds with its own voice, or if its brain made a mistake in processing sounds.
They decided to fool Bengalese finches into thinking that they were singing out of tune, and measured what happened at different levels of this apparent tone-deafness. To do this, they fitted the birds with the stylish headphones shown in the photo above and fed them back the sound of their own singing, processed to sound sharper than it really was. The researchers sharpened the birdsong by degrees ranging from a quarter-tone to one-and-a-half tones. They found that the birds learned to "correct" their pitch more accurately and more quickly when they heard a smaller mistake than when they heard a large one. It was also clear that the bird brains took "errors" seriously when they fell within the normal range of pitches in the bird's song: the birds seemed to ignore errors outside this range.
Let's just hope all this media exposure doesn't go their heads - they're better unplugged.
Journal reference: PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1213622109
Obama vows action after online guns petitions
Label: Technology
WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama on Friday vowed to take action to stop gun violence in response to online petitions signed by more than 400,000 people after last week's elementary school massacre.
"In the days since the heartbreaking tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, hundreds of thousands of you, from all 50 states, signed petitions asking us to take serious steps to address the epidemic of gun violence in this country," Obama said in an online video. "We hear you."
Obama has called on Congress to pass legislation banning military-style assault rifles and high-capacity ammunition clips. It would also close loopholes that allow people to purchase guns without background checks.
He has also appointed Vice President Joe Biden to head a task force to explore ways to prevent mass shootings, including by improving access to mental health care, and addressing depictions of violence in popular culture.
"I will do everything in my power as president to advance these efforts, because if there's even one thing we can do as a country to protect our children, we have a responsibility to try," Obama said in the video.
"But as I said earlier this week I can't do it alone. I need your help."
Obama called on ordinary citizens, law enforcement officials and gun owners to campaign publicly and petition Congress in support of his reforms.
Last Friday's massacre of 26 people, including 20 children, at Sandy Hook Elementary School - the latest in a series of mass shootings over the past two years - has galvanised support for reforms aimed at stemming gun violence.
More than 400,000 people have signed "We the People" petitions on the White House's website calling for action on gun violence, making it one of the most popular issues since the launch of the site, a White House official said.
One such petition set the record for being the fastest ever to reach 25,000 signatures, the official said.
- AFP/il
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