Online Bailout Outrage Jumps to Streets, and Into Lawmakers' Inboxes

by Sarah Lai Stirland September 24, 2008

An e-mail that began as a rallying cry from a lone journalist to an influential circle of friends to protest the U.S. government bailout of Wall Street has ignited a national day of street protests. Some demonstrators plan to dump their rubbish in front of the bronze bull sculpture near Wall Street in downtown Manhattan Thursday.

"People are going to bring their own personal junk that they think is worth as much as the junk financial instruments that the government is proposing to buy from the Wall Street banks," says Andrew Boyd, an activist and freelance online-video artist for nonprofit groups in Manhattan. "We're hoping that people show up with their 8-track cassette collections, their old Spice Girl CDs, their surf boards that got bit by sharks and old Enron stock certificates."

Boyd is just one of thousands of Americans from all over the political spectrum who the Bush Administration has angered with its vague proposal to hand $700 billion over to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to restore U.S. financial markets' health. That anger has manifested itself online through e-mail, web sites and other online chatter, with one site, BuyMyShitPile.com, going rapidly viral this week. The site, a parody of the dire financial situation, is what is inspiring the self-organizing group of activists to show up in downtown Manhattan Thursday evening with all their junk. They hope to make their simmering fury palpable to Wall Streeters getting off work.

"Why should people who made financially imprudent decisions be rewarded?" asks Boyd, who is best known for founding the political protest theater group Billionaires For Bush. "It's our hard-earned tax dollars, and we're being asked to bail these guys out at the same time as this locks out all the things that we want for the future."

Boyd's is one of many voices of frustration. Other people's anger spilled out online, which in turn, is fueling the planned protests' momentum.

Arun Gupta, a 43-year-old freelance journalist in Manhattan, is someone else who was so upset by unfolding events that he was moved to action.

"I've been spending a lot of time reading about the intensifying crisis and the bailout plan," he says. "The more I read, the more outraged and flabbergasted I was: It became clear to me that this was the financial equivalent of the Sept. 11 attacks."

He was so upset that he banged out a passionately worded 629-word e-mail on his laptop Sunday afternoon urging his friends -- and anyone else who would listen -- to show up at the southern tip of Manhattan late Thursday afternoon to demonstrate. He says that he's never organized a protest before in his life.

"This week the White House is going to try to push through the biggest robbery in world history with nary a stitch of debate, to bail out the Wall Street bastards who created this economic apocalypse in the first place," he wrote. "This is the financial equivalent of September 11. They think, just like with the Patriot Act, they can use the shock to force through the “therapy,” and we’ll just roll over!"

He added:

Think about it: They said providing health care for 9 million children, perhaps costing $6 billion a year, was too expensive, but there’s evidently no sum of money large enough that will sate the Wall Street pigs. If this passes, forget about any money for environmental protection, to counter global warming, for education, for national healthcare, to rebuild our decaying infrastructure, for alternative energy.

This is a historic moment. We need to act now while we can influence the debate. Let’s demonstrate this Thursday at 4 pm in Wall Street (see below).

The e-mail ricocheted through the electronic ecosystem faster than the implosion of Wall Street itself, tapping into and riding the frisson of resentment among Americans at this monumental financial foul-up.

"I wrote up an e-mail Sunday night, and I sat on it." he says. "I was a bit hesitant because I'm not an organizer, I'm a journalist, but I also think that things have to be done in the world."

He said that he sent it out to best-selling author Naomi Klein, who posted it to her website, and sent it out to her e-mail list. Then TrueMajority, a 700,000 member activist group headed by Ben and Jerry's co-founder Ben Cohen, sent out an action alert the next day.

TrueMajority is making a "protest kit" available on its web site with instructions for groups who are interested on how to organize a rally. One of the instructions is to bring cell phones to the protest, and to have protesters simultaneously call their members of Congress. The site has also put up a web page that enables people to find an event near them by ZIP code.

"This was a convergence of everyone having the same thought at the same time," says Matt Holland, TrueMajority's online director.

He says everybody he knew had received Gupta's e-mail at least three times from different people. It's also been widely circulated on blogs.

Holland says that Gupta's language just taps into "the strength of the emotion" that many Americans are feeling right now. TrueMajority's members themselves have made 20,000 phone calls to Congress, he says. Members report the calls that they made through the group's website.

"Everybody is just incredibly pissed off about this, and if there is a place and time for them to express themselves, they're going to do it," he says.

Congressional lawmakers have expressed frustration and skepticism over Treasury's proposal, although they won a concession about CEO pay Wednesday afternoon. President Bush is scheduled to address the nation about the bailout plan 9 p.m. Eastern time Wednesday, and John McCain has asked Barack Obama to agree to cancel Friday's presidential debate so that they could both work with the administration to hammer out an agreement.

In the meantime, a proposal to add several restrictions on the package from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) has gained traction online. He's asked Americans to sign onto the petition, and he intends to present it to Paulson. The senator's office reported Wednesday that 8,000 people signed the petition within the first 24 hours. Another sign that the petition gained widespread notice: "Bernie Sanders," was one of the most-searched-for terms on Google Tuesday.

Also on Tuesday, a long list of economists from the nation's top universities sent a letter to congressional leaders voicing their concerns about the too-speedy passage of any bailout package.

They said that they were most concerned about the plan's fundamental fairness and its ambiguity.

Detecting human activities through barriers: X Ray Vision?

University of Texas professor Hao Ling and Ph.D. candidate, Shobha Ram, are one step closer to making x-ray vision a reality. They are perfecting radar systems that can detect human activities through barriers and convert the signals to virtual renderings similar to that of a video game.

"There are several ongoing research programs in through-wall imaging, but they focus on building hardware sensors with very specific capabilities, says Ling. "That's expensive. What we want to do in this project is to first understand how human movements are manifested in radar data. Then utilize this knowledge to generate an image of a human."

Doppler based radio frequency radar systems are particularly suited for tracking moving humans. They suppress background clutter from stationary objects and provide enough detail to show the dynamic movements of different body parts, in the form of "microDopplers".

"A human has very complex motion dynamics. When walking, the arms and legs move very differently than the torso, and these subtle, minute movements translate into unique microDoppler signatures," Ling says.

Ling and Ram built a physics-based Doppler radar simulator using computer animation data of human motions. Then they incorporated barrier characteristics into the simulation model. Finally, they validated the results with a previously developed Doppler radar testbed with live human movements in line-of-sight situations and behind barriers. Several former and present graduate students including Youngwook Kim, Craig Christianson, Nick Whitelonis, and Yang Li also contributed to the project.

"MicroDoppler signatures could become important tools for monitoring human activities over long durations," says Ram. "The radar simulator, in particular, is a flexible, inexpensive tool we can use to optimize the sensor configurations and signal processing algorithms needed for generating an accurate virtual image of a human behind different types of barriers."

Ultimately, this technology has important applications in search and rescue missions, law enforcement operations, and physical surveillance.

Source: University of Texas at Austin, Electrical & Computer Engineering

New life found in ancient tombs

Life has been discovered in the barren depths of Rome's ancient tombs, proving catacombs are not just a resting place for the dead. The two new species of bacteria found growing on the walls of the Roman tombs may help protect our cultural heritage monuments, according to research published in the September issue of the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology.

The Catacombs of Saint Callistus are part of a massive graveyard that covers 15 hectares, equivalent to more than 20 football pitches. The underground tombs were built at the end of the 2nd Century AD and were named after Pope Saint Callistus I. More than 30 popes and martyrs are buried in the catacombs.

"Bacteria can grow on the walls of these underground tombs and often cause damage," said Professor Dr Clara Urzì from the University of Messina in Italy. "We found two new species of bacteria on decayed surfaces in the catacombs and we think the bacteria, which belong to the Kribbella group, may have been involved in the destruction."

By studying bacteria that ruin monuments, the researchers hope to develop methods of protecting cultural heritage sites such as the catacombs in Rome. The two new bacterial species discovered in the tombs also have the potential to produce molecules that have useful properties, like enzymes and antibiotics.

"The special conditions in the catacombs have allowed unique species to evolve," said Professor Dr Urzì. "In fact, the two different Kribbella species we discovered were taken from two sites very close to each other; this shows that even small changes in the micro-environment can lead bacteria to evolve separately."

Kribbella species are found in many different locations all over the world, from a racecourse in South Africa to a medieval mine in Germany. The genus was only discovered in 1999 but since then several species have been found. The two species discovered in the Roman catacombs have been named Kribbella catacumbae and Kribbella sancticallisti.

"The worldwide existence of the genus Kribbella raises questions about the path of evolution," said Professor Dr Urzì. "If the bacteria are very old, does the wide geographical distribution prove the genus is stable? Or have similar bacteria evolved in parallel to one another in different places? The questions are made even more interesting by the discovery of these two different bacteria in the Roman tombs."

Source : Society for General Microbiology

NASA’s Dirty Secret: Moon Dust

ScienceDaily (Sep. 24, 2008) — The Apollo Moon missions of 1969-1972 all share a dirty secret. “The major issue the Apollo astronauts pointed out was dust, dust, dust,” says Professor Larry Taylor, Director of the Planetary Geosciences Institute at the University of Tennessee. Fine as flour and rough as sandpaper, Moon dust caused ‘lunar hay fever,’ problems with space suits, and dust storms in the crew cabin upon returning to space.

Taylor and other scientists will present their research on lunar dust at the “Living on a Dusty Moon” session on Thursday, 9 October 2008, at the Joint Meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA), Soil Science Society of America (SSSA), American Society of Agronomy (ASA), Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), and Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies (GCAGS) in Houston, Texas, USA.* NASA will use these findings to plan a safer manned mission to the Moon in 2018. Taylor will also deliver a Pardee Keynote Session talk on Sunday, 5 October 2008 entitled “Formation and Evolution of Lunar Soil from An Apollo Perspective.”

The trouble with moon dust stems from the strange properties of lunar soil. The powdery grey dirt is formed by micrometeorite impacts which pulverize local rocks into fine particles. The energy from these collisions melts the dirt into vapor that cools and condenses on soil particles, coating them in a glassy shell.

These particles can wreak havoc on space suits and other equipment. During the Apollo 17 mission, for example, crewmembers Harrison “Jack” Schmitt and Gene Cernan had trouble moving their arms during moonwalks because dust had gummed up the joints. “The dust was so abrasive that it actually wore through three layers of Kevlar-like material on Jack’s boot,” Taylor says.

To make matters worse, lunar dust suffers from a terrible case of static cling. UV rays drive electrons out of lunar dust by day, while the solar wind bombards it with electrons by night. Cleaning the resulting charged particles with wet-wipes only makes them cling harder to camera lenses and helmet visors. Mian Abbas of the National Space Science and Technology Center in Huntsville, Alabama, will discuss electrostatic charging on the moon and how dust circulates in lunar skies.

Luckily, lunar dust is also susceptible to magnets. Tiny specks of metallic iron (Fe0) are embedded in each dust particle’s glassy shell. Taylor has designed a magnetic filter to pull dust from the air, as well as a “dust sucker” that uses magnets in place of a vacuum. He has also discovered that microwaves melt lunar soil in less time than it takes to boil a cup of tea. He envisions a vehicle that could microwave lunar surfaces into roads and landing pads as it drives, and a device to melt soil over lunar modules to provide insulation against space radiation. The heating process can also produce oxygen for breathing.

But the same specks of iron that could make moon dust manageable also pose a potential threat to human health, according to Bonnie Cooper at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. “Those tiny blebs of pure iron we see on the surface of lunar grains are likely to be released from the outside edges of the particle in the lungs and enter the bloodstream,” she says. Preliminary studies suggest that the inhalation of lunar dust may pose a health hazard, possibly including iron toxicity. Members of NASA’s Lunar Airborne Dust Toxicity Advisory Group, Cooper, Taylor, and colleagues are studying how moon dust affects the respiratory system. They plan to set a lunar dust exposure standard by 2010, in time for NASA engineers to design a safer and cleaner trip to the Moon.

*On 9 October, the following abstracts will be presented in the George R. Brown Convention Center, Room 310AD at the Joint Meeting:

1. Abstracts, Session 345: “Living on a Dusty Moon”
2. Abstract 345-1 (Taylor): “Formation of Lunar Dust: Unique Properties for a Human Outpost”
3. Abstract 345-9 (Cooper): “Physical and Biological Hazards of Lunar Dust and Their Impact on Habitat and Space Suit Design”

---

Adapted from materials provided by Soil Science Society of America, via Newswise.

House approves $630B spending bill

The Pentagon will receive a record $488B budget; automakers get $25B in loans; offshore drilling ban lifted.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House passed a $630 billion-plus spending bill Wednesday that wraps together a record Pentagon budget with aid for automakers and natural disaster victims, and increased health care for veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The year-end budget measure also would lift a quarter-century ban on oil drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The legislation, which senators are expected to approve and send to President Bush for his signature, is flying under the political radar compared with the White House's contentious plan to bail out Wall Street.

The spending bill, which passed 370-58, is fueled by a need to keep the government running past the Oct. 1 start of the new budget year. Passage also was greased by 2,322 pet projects totaling $6.6 billion.

The measure is dominated by $488 billion for the Pentagon, $40 billion for the Homeland Security Department and $73 billion for veterans' programs and military base construction projects -- amounting to about 60% of the budget work Congress must pass each year.

Earlier this year, Congress provided $70 billion for U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan; more will be needed by mid-2009.

The budget legislation is the result of months of wrangling between Democrats who control Congress and the lame-duck Bush administration and its allies on Capitol Hill. The administration won approval of the defense budget while Democrats wrested concessions from the White House on disaster aid, heating subsidies for the poor and smaller spending items.

In a major victory for Republicans in this election season, Democrats capitulated and agreed to lift the offshore drilling ban. The administration also succeeded in blocking Democrats' efforts to extend unemployment insurance, increase food stamp payments and help states deal with shortfalls in their Medicaid budgets.

Democrats doubled the money for heating subsidies for the poor and successfully pressed the White House for a generous $23 billion aid plan for disaster-ravaged states. The measure would avert a shortfall in Pell college aid grants and address problems in the Women, Infants and Children program, which delivers healthy foods to the poor.

Bush had threatened to veto bills that did not cut the number and cost of pet projects in half or cause agency operating budgets to exceed his request.

The legislation includes an increase for the census as well as money to cover transition costs for the incoming administration. It provides money for 20 F-22 fighter planes over and above the Pentagon request, and additional dollars for armored vehicles, body armor and combating roadside bombs.

Veterans' health programs are in line for a 10% increase; veterans driving to Veterans Affairs' medical clinics would get an increase in mileage reimbursements; federal firefighting accounts would be replenished; Georgia would receive $365 million in economic help to recover from the recent conflict with Russia.

After hard lobbying, automakers won up to $25 billion in low-interest loans to help them develop technologies and retool factories to meet new standards for cleaner, more fuel efficient cars.

The bill would pay, until March, for agencies whose budgets have not passed. This would eliminate the need for a much-dreaded, lame-duck session after the Nov. 4 election to deal with unfinished work.

The legislation came together in a remarkably secret process that concentrated decision-making power in the hands of a few lawmakers. They include House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Republicans blasted the process by which the measure came before the House. Lawmakers had just a few hours to scrutinize the 357-page measure -- along with 752 pages of accompanying explanations and tables of previously secret pet projects -- before the vote. Debate lasted less than one hour.

The rush also ran counter to Democratic promises for more open disclosure of billions of dollars worth of home-state pet projects sought by most lawmakers.

Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group, discovered 2,322 pet projects totaling $6.6 billion. That included 2,025 in the defense portion alone that cost a total of $4.9 billion. Among them was a long-standing request by the Iowa delegation for a new $182 million federal courthouse in Cedar Rapids, which was granted after flood damage this summer.

House Republicans had started a major campaign this year to add further reforms to the pet project process. But Republican protests over such projects were limited at best. Instead, Republicans crowed over their success in lifting the drilling freeze.

Patent system 'stifling science'

By James Morgan
Science reporter, BBC News

Nanotechnology will not fulfil it s potential without patent reforms

Life-saving scientific research is being stifled by a "broken" patent system, according to a new report.

"Blocking patents" are delaying advances in cancer medicine and food crops, says the Canada-based Innovation Partnership, a non-profit consultancy.

The full benefits of synthetic biology and nanotechnology will not be realised without urgent reforms to encourage sharing of information, they say.

Their findings will be reported next week to UK policymakers and NGOs.

The report is compiled by the Innovation Partnership's International Expert Group on Biotechnology, Innovation and Intellectual Property.

It cites examples of medical advances which have been delayed from reaching people in need - in both the developed and developing world.

These include HIV/Aids drugs and cancer screening tests.

In pharmacy, we no longer see much discovery - we see firms playing safe and holding onto their turf Pat Mooney, ETC Group

The authors offer guidelines for a transition from "Old IP" to "New IP", in which companies, researchers and governments recognise that sharing information is mutually beneficial.

"If we are to turn the atoms of publicly funded discovery into molecules of innovation... we have to make sure research avenues stay open," said the report's lead author, Professor Richard Gold.

"That doesn't mean there will be no patents. It simply means that patents don't become a barrier to early stage research.

"We do not want to end up in the same situation with nanotechnology that we are in with genetics."

Fortress IP

The traditional view is that strong patent protection stimulates innovation, reassuring companies that it is safe to invest in research without fear of being stung by rivals.

Under this "old" model of intellectual property (IP), biotech firms raced to file a "fortress" of patents around newly discovered genes, closing off avenues of research for their competitors.

But this strategy is ultimately counter-productive for both industry and consumers, argues the report, not least because it deters grass roots research in universities.

Work on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes that can cause breast cancer has been held up by legal disputes over patents held on the genes by Myriad Genetics, a biotech firm based in Utah, US.

Meanwhile, patients in European countries were denied access to the cancer screening kits, because national health services were unwilling to meet the cost.

The Myriad case is "an anatomy of old IP gone wrong", said Dr Gold, Professor of Intellectual Property Law at McGill University in Montreal.

"Myriad is not the exception - it is the rule. Others are following and will continue to follow, unless we drastically change things."

To facilitate sharing of information, he believes companies should be encouraged to form "patent pools", allowing them to cross-license their technologies without losing out on royalties.

An example is the pool established by the international partnership Unitaid to provide HIV patients in developing countries with access to affordable anti-retroviral drugs.

Partnerships

Governments should develop public-private partnerships to conduct early stage research, and seek other ways to encourage innovation - via tax credits, for instance.

Meanwhile, patent offices must standardise their information gathering and do more to help firms in developing countries gain access to accurate patent information, the report recommends.

Reform now would ensure that society feels the full benefit of new fields such as synthetic biology, a discipline that could lead to cells with novel genomes which perform useful functions, such as making biofuels or absorbing greenhouse gases.

Dr Craig Venter, the man who led the private sector effort to sequence the human genome, has already raised eyebrows by applying to patent the method he plans to use to create a "synthetic organism".

Fears that these patents may be too broad have been raised by the ETC Group, which campaigns for the reform of biotech patenting.

"The patenting system is not functioning. It is more of a barrier than an incentive," said Pat Mooney, the organisation's executive director.

"In pharmacy, we no longer see much discovery - we see firms playing safe and holding onto their turf.

"Meanwhile, in nanotechnology, we have seen some dangerously broad patents, which cut off whole areas of research.

"Patent offices must get up to speed with new areas of science, so they know exactly how much they are giving away."

Man Sues Doctors After Penis Amputated

By Kate Cornell/WLKY

POSTED: 5:32 pm EDT September 24, 2008

UPDATED: 6:05 pm EDT September 24, 2008

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- A Shelby County man and his wife said two doctors amputated the man's penis without his consent, and have filed a lawsuit.Watch The Story

According to the lawsuit, Philip Seaton went to have a circumcision last October. Seaton said when he woke up from the procedure, he realized his penis had been amputated.

Seaton has suffered mental anguish, pain, and has lost the enjoyment of life, according to the lawsuit.The lawsuit was filed in Shelby County court last week against Dr. John Patterson, who performed the procedure, Dr. Oliver James, who administered anesthesia, and Commonwealth Urology, PSC.The lawsuit states that Patterson received consent to perform a circumcision and only a circumcision, and that Seaton did not consent to his penis being removed.Kevin George, the plaintiff's attorney, said Patterson amputated the organ after finding cancer, but he only had consent to remove the foreskin."Sometimes you have an emergency and you have to do this, but he could very easily closed him up and said, 'Here are your options. You have cancer,' and the family would have said, 'We want a second opinion. This is a big deal,'" George said.The lawsuit also claims the plaintiff did not consent to general anesthesia.WLKY attempted to contact the doctors, but have not been able to reach them.The Seatons are seeking punitive damages against both doctors and the medical practice. Attorneys for the defendants will now have a chance to respond to the suit.

Polar bears resort to cannibalism as Arctic ice shrinks

By Marsha Walton
CNN

(CNN) -- Summer is over in the northern hemisphere, but it's been another chilling season for researchers who study Arctic sea ice.

Disappearance of Arctic ice cover may affect storm systems, storm tracks and crops, according to researchers.

"It's definitely a bad report. We did pick up little bit from last year, but this is over 30 percent below what used to be normal," said Walt Meier, a research scientist with the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.

This past summer, the Arctic sea ice dwindled to its second lowest level. Arctic sea ice is usually 1 to 3 meters, or as much as 9 feet thick. It grows during autumn and winter and shrinks in the spring and summer.

Scientists have monitored sea ice conditions for about 50 years with the help of satellites. Changes in the past decade have been alarming to climate researchers and oceanographers.

"It is the second lowest on record. ... If anything, it is reinforcing the long-term trend. We are still losing the ice cover at a rate of 10 percent per decade now, and that is quite an increase from five years ago," Meier said. "We are still heading toward an ice cover that is going to melt completely in the summertime in the Arctic."

Arctic ice helps regulate and temper the climate in many other parts of the world. The less ice there is, the more dramatic the impact. Huge sheets of ice reflect solar radiation, keeping our planet cool. When that ice melts, huge expanses of darker, open ocean water absorb the heat instead, warming things up.

Although few humans live in the Arctic, the disappearance of this ice cover can have effects far beyond the few residents and the wildlife of this harsh region. Ice cover loss can influence winds and precipitation on other continents, possibly leading to less rain in the western United States and creating more in Europe.

"That warming is going to spread to the lower latitudes, to the United States, and it's going to affect storm systems and storm tracks, the jet stream; that's going to affect crops and all sorts of things," Meier predicted.

So, just how much ice is disappearing?

Less than 30 years ago, there would still be 7 million square kilometers or 2.5 million square miles of ice left at the end of an Arctic summer. That's now dropped by almost 40 percent. See how much Arctic sea ice has disappeared »

"Seven million square kilometers roughly corresponds to an area of the lower 48 United States. So back in the early 1980s, the lower 48 states would be covered in sea ice in the summer," Meier said. "Now we've essentially lost sea ice east of the Mississippi River and even beyond. So that's a significant amount of area."

The best known consequence of disappearing sea ice in the Arctic is the loss of the polar bear habitat. Learn more about polar bears and their habitat »

"The Arctic sea ice melt is a disaster for the polar bears," according to Kassie Siegel, staff attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity. "They are dependent on the Arctic sea ice for all of their essential behaviors, and as the ice melts and global warming transforms the Arctic, polar bears are starving, drowning, even resorting to cannibalism because they don't have access to their usual food sources."

Scientists have noticed increasing reports of starving Arctic polar bears attacking and feeding on one another in recent years. In one documented 2004 incident in northern Alaska, a male bear broke into a female's den and killed her.

In May, the U.S. Department of Interior listed the polar bear as a "threatened" species under the Endangered Species Act. In a news release, U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne stated, "loss of sea ice threatens and will likely continue to threaten polar bear habitat. This loss of habitat puts polar bears at risk of becoming endangered in the foreseeable future, the standard established by the ESA for designating a threatened species."

What is the future for Arctic sea ice? Some scientists believe that in just five years, the Arctic may be ice-free during the summer.

"The Arctic is kind of the early warning system of the climate," Meier said. "It is the canary in the coal mine, and the canary is definitely in trouble."

Is a Dark-Matter Galaxy Orbiting the Milky Way?

People used to think that the heavens were a vast clockwork, with planets and moons moving in circular orbits like a vast timepiece. Recent advances have shown us that this stellar machinery is far vaster than they ever suspected - even our galaxy has satellites, mini-galaxies orbiting the Milky Way and some of them could be very interesting indeed.

We now know about two dozen of these satellite galaxies. One of the most recent is "Segue 1", uncovered by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), whose extremely low light-to-mass ratio makes it a particularly significant cosmic find. Despite having a mass of a million suns it is nowhere near as luminous as astronomers would expect, with only a couple of hundred stars visible. They think "How can so much matter be so dark?", then they go "Dark matter!" and at this point we like to believe their monocle flies out and they dash down the street shouting Eureka.

Of course, the actual physics of arriving at this conclusion is a tiny bit more complicated, but the result is the same: Marla Geha (Yale professor of astronomy) and colleagues believe that it's a galaxy composed mainly of dark matter. A handy thing to have around when you're trying to study the stuff or even prove that it exists.

The SDSS has made many such observations possible, picking out objects in the sky which have the bad manners not to twinkle twinkle bright enough, despite being little stars. These mini-galaxies and other previously unobservable objects offer a wealth of data on galaxy formation, evolution, and even the composition of the universe itself.

Posted by Luke McKinney

FBI investigating companies at heart of meltdown

By LARA JAKES JORDAN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI is investigating four major U.S. financial institutions whose collapse helped trigger a $700 billion bailout plan by the Bush administration, The Associated Press has learned.

Two law enforcement officials said Tuesday the FBI is looking at potential fraud by mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and insurer American International Group Inc. Additionally, a senior law enforcement official said Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. also is under investigation.

The inquiries will focus on the financial institutions and the individuals that ran them, the senior law enforcement official said.

The law enforcement officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigations are ongoing and are in the very early stages.

Officials said the new inquiries bring to 26 the number of corporate lenders under investigation over the past year.

Spokesmen for AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did not immediately return calls for comment Tuesday evening. A Lehman spokesman did not have an immediate comment.

Just last week, FBI Director Robert Mueller put the number of large financial firms under investigation at 24. He did not name any of the companies under investigation but said the FBI also was looking at whether any of them have misrepresented their assets.

Over the past year as the housing market cratered, the FBI has opened a wide-ranging probe of companies across the financial services industry, from mortgage lenders to investment banks that bundle home loans into securities sold to investors. Mueller has previously said the FBI's hunt for culprits in the nation's subprime mortgage crisis focused on accounting fraud, insider trading, and failure to disclose the value of mortgage-related securities and other investments.

The investigations revealed Tuesday come as lawmakers began considering whether to approve emergency legislation that would give the government broad power to buy up devalued assets from troubled financial firms.

The bailout proposed by the Bush administration is aimed at helping unlock credit and stabilize badly shaken markets in the United States and around the globe.

In the past two weeks, the government has taken over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the country's two biggest mortgage companies, with a bailout plan that could require the Treasury Department to put up as much as $100 billion for each of them over time if needed to keep them afloat as mortgage losses mount.

Last week, the Federal Reserve provided an emergency $85 billion loan to AIG, which teetered on the brink of bankruptcy. Lehman Brothers was forced to file for bankruptcy after attempts to engineer a private rescue fell apart. All the companies were laid low from bad bets on complex mortgage-related securities.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke made the joint decision last week that the only way to stop the carnage was to deal with the root cause of all the troubles, billions of dollars of bad mortgage debt sitting on the books of major financial companies. This debt has triggered the worst credit crisis in decades, causing credit markets to essentially freeze up despite the fact that the Fed joined with major central banks around the world to pump billions of dollars of reserves into the financial system.

Additionally, the FBI is investigating failed bank IndyMac Bancorp Inc. for possible fraud. Countrywide Financial Corp., formerly the nation's largest mortgage lender and now owned by Bank of America Corp., is also under scrutiny.

Big News: Expanding and Growing Digg

see original article here.

by Jay Adelson at 9am, Sep 24th, 2008 in Digg Company

Hey All —

Today is a big day for Digg. We’re announcing a major expansion effort – the largest we’ve undergone in our history. With a new round of funding, we’re accelerating many of the programs that we’ve been working on over the past several months, including investments in infrastructure, new feature development, international expansion and hiring all the people we need to get there.

You’ve given us some great feedback on how we can make Digg better. As you’ve heard us say many times before, we feel that we’ve only implemented a fraction of the vision for what we believe Digg can achieve. The new features that will be a part of this program will incorporate much of your feedback, including personalizing the Digg experience, enhancing the recommendation system across other areas of the site, creating deeper category and topic content views and more ways to discover and organize content.

Of Digg’s over 30 million unique monthly users, almost half are from outside of the U.S., so this expansion will also include initiatives aimed at making Digg more relevant to local tastes, including local languages. We will begin laying the groundwork for that immediately with the beginning of our international growth strategy in early 2009.

Other initiatives will focus on expanding our community outreach programs and developing more sophisticated tools and interfaces for publishers.

To help support all of this, we will be significantly growing the size of the Digg team in the next year and moving to larger San Francisco offices that give us the room we need to do it. We’re hiring, so check out our jobs page. Fueling the acceleration of all of these programs is our revenue success to date, along with a new $28.7 million round in funding, led by Highland Capital Partners.

Thanks again to all of you for your support in making Digg the vibrant community that it is today.

Digg on,
Jay

The Quick 10: What 10 CEOs Were Doing Before Conquering the Corporate World

The Quick 10: What 10 CEOs Were Doing Before Conquering the Corporate World
by Stacy Conradt

Yeah, they’re making a bazillion dollars now, but even the corporate bigwigs had to start somewhere. Here are a few that might give you hope for your own career. I’m especially fond of #1…

1. Robert Iger, CEO of the Walt Disney Company, was a weatherman for the local news.

2. Howard Stringer, CEO of Sony, served in the Vietnam war for the U.S., even though he is British and had only been in the States for about six weeks when he was drafted. After that he worked various jobs at CBS, including running the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, which he claims is still his favorite job ever.

3. Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, worked for Atari on and off for a while, helping them develop and tweak games. He designed the circuit board for the Pong-like game Breakout.

4. Mark Parker, CEO of Nike. This may not come as a surprise, but Mark used to design footwear… for Nike.

5. Frank Blake, CEO of Home Depot, served as the law clerk to Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

6. Larry Probst, the CEO of Electronic Arts (you know, The Sims, Spore, Rock Band, etc.), was the National Accounts Manager for Clorox. Yeah, the bleach. So it totally makes sense that he runs a video game publisher now.

7. Vikram Pandit, the CEO of Citigroup, was a junior finance professor at Indiana University (Bloomington).

8. Brad Anderson, the CEO of Best Buy, started his career in the music business in 1973 as a salesman with a chain of stereo stores called Sound of Music. It took him two weeks to make his first sale.

9. Samuel Palmisano, the CEO of IBM, had a stint playing backup sax for The Temptations. OK, it was only for a week, but that’s still interesting.

10. Alan Lafley, the CEO of Procter and Gamble, started his career in 1977 as a “Brand Assistant of Joy”. I’m assuming that means the dish soap, not the emotion. Although that would have been awesome. Balloon animals for all employees!!

Ten Unforgettable Evil Twins

by Larson Hill
see the original article here.

Throughout the years, many of our favorite film and TV characters have encountered siblings they didn't know existed. In a lot of cases, if it were real life, there's a good chance most would wish they never found out about their long lost brother or sister since they turned out to be an "evil twin". Evil twins have always been villainous staple in Hollywood and a quick go-to bad guy if you were stuck for a foe. As great as an evil twin can be as an adversary, we've seen so many over the years that they've become more comic relief than pure evil.

Still, it's hard to deny that evil twins make for cool baddies when the timing is right. Here's a look at Ten Unforgettable Evil Twins in the movies and television.

King Louis XIV and Philippe - Man in the Iron Mask

Every few years, Man in the Iron mask gets a modern upgrade, with the last installment coming in 1998, as Leonardo DiCaprio stepped into the dual roles of France's Louis XIV and his historically inaccurate twin brother Philippe. Unlike other movies involving evil twins where the bad sibling emerges to claim his rightful place among the family, it's the good twin that arrives in France only to be antagonized by his brother who couldn't accept the fact that he had an identical family member. Is Louis XIV really the evil twin or is it his newly discovered sibling? That's the alternate spin, which reverses the typical "evil twin" formula when it's all said and done. The most effective element of Man in the Iron Mask is its twist ending that ensures the future reign of King Louis XIV remains intact.

Godzilla and Mechagodzilla

When you start to run out of villains for your franchise, it's inevitable you'll lean toward the evil twin. After fourteen Godzilla movies, the King of the Monsters was bound to square off with an evil imposter at some point. Who knew it would be a cyborg version of the famous green monster? It's hard to believe Mechogodzilla would pose a threat to mankind these days since it looks more like a homemade Halloween costume you'd make in your basement, but somehow it worked for the 20th Anniversary of the franchise back in 1974. Although previous villains proved much more formidable without the bells and whistles, Mechagodzilla was loaded with an arsenal that included laser fire-breathe, a force field, missiles on every appendage, an energy beam and armor made of Space Titanium. In a lot of ways, Mechagodzilla is the M1A1 Abrams Tank of evil twins.

Bender and Flexo - Futurama

Who says evil twins aren't good for a few laughs? In Fox's Futurama, Bender received a few of his own cool threads when Matt Groening and crew gave him an evil twin named Flexo. Unlike most double-siblings, it was often hard to tell who was the evil twin - Bender or Flexo. Although Bender appeared to be the lovable good guy prankster throughout the series, when Flexo burst onto the scene we got more insight into exactly which robot was more sinister than the other. Was Bender really more evil than Flexo? Despite the fact that Flexo sported the typical evil twin goatee, several references in at least two episodes indicated the robotic facial feature appeared to be nothing more than a red-herring. Although the "evilness" between the two always seemed to be in question, there was a constant a sense of evil sibling rivalry Bender and Flexo, even when Bender ended up dating Flexo's ex-wife.

Jaime Sommers and Lisa Galloway - The Bionic Woman

Although the Fembots proved to be much cooler than Jaime Sommers' evil twin, Lisa Galloway, the double-dip was a untapped thread within the show that gave the original Bionic Woman an new foe. Galloway wasn't so much evil as she was a complete nutcase who actually believed she was Jaime Sommers, going so far as altering her appearance with plastic surgery to look like Sommers and infiltrating the ranks of the OSI to fool Oscar Goldman and Dr. Rudy Wells. How did she duplicate the power of the Bionic Woman when she wasn't bionic? Easy. Galloway discovered an experimental drug that gave her super-strength long enough to fool the powers that be with the intent to sell it on the black market. Galloway ends up poisoning herself and in one of the most sappiest moments in the show's history, Jaime Sommers comes face to face with her evil twin to urge her to live life as her own person.

Bad Ash/Evil Ash - Army of Darkness

Say what you will about the genius of Sam Raimi after three Spider-Man movies, but he's still one twisted mofo when you look back to the Evil Dead series and the evolution of lead character Ash. How many times in movies do you see an evil twin of an evil twin? The Evil Dead movies might be cheesy as hell, but the concept behind Bad Ash and Evil Ash is brilliant. Bruce Campbell's Ash feels guilty over killing his girlfriend so the dark side of conscience appears in the form of Bad Ash who tries to kill the real Ash out of revenge. Ash kills Bad Ash, dismembers his dark side and buries it in the ground only to have it reappear later as the pieced together Evil Ash. As far as evil twins go, that's some crazy sh*t. If you're one of those horror fans who could never figure out why so many people were into the Evil Dead movies, take a closer look. It's a awesomely complex spin on the evil twin shtick.

Michael Knight and Garthe Knight - Knight Rider

You can make fun of David Hasselhoff all you want, but he played one of the most unforgettable evil twins in the history of "evil-twindom". When the original Knight Rider was one of the hottest shows on the airwaves in the '80s, Michael Knight's estranged brother Garthe escaped from an African prison and returned to the U.S. to seek revenge on his sibling over the fact that his father favored one over the other. As far as evil twins go, Garthe Knight embodies everything an evil twin should be - evil, bitter, manipulative, scheming, vengeful, sinister, and deceptively charming. When you look at a picture of Hasselhoff as Garthe Knight you can't help but think "evil twin". Although we could easily add KITT's evil twin KARR to the list, too, ask anyone who grew up in the '80s for an evil twin and there's a 90% chance they'll say Michael Knight's evil twin Garthe.

Elliot and Beverly Mantle - Dead Ringers

There's no question that Dead Ringers was one of the most, if not the most, memorable twin movies of the '80s, as Jeremy Irons pulled double-duty as twin gynecologists Elliot and Beverly Mantle under the direction of horror legend David Cronenberg. If anything, it was one of the most uncomfortable, disturbing and screwed up twin movies of the past 30 years. For women who went for their yearly check-up back in the '80s, Dead Ringers could very well have left lasting scars. Although most twins have pulled the old "switcheroo" while dating, Dead Ringers takes it to a whole new level. One Playboy type brother lures women into their practice only to pass them off on to the socially inept brother who becomes obsessed with his newfound but sexually deformed lover. When she rejects the latter, Jeremy Irons as Beverly Mantle organically ruins the lives of both twins. It's something only David Cronenberg could think of, which is still as disturbing today as it was back in 1988.

Kirk and Spock - "Mirror, Mirror" - Star Trek

One of the best episodes of the original Star Trek series featured the crew of the Enterprise transported to an alternate, mirror universe where everyone met their evil equivalent. Even the USS Enterprise became known as the ISS Enterprise within the Empire instead of the Federation. Although Kirk and Spock later became icons for their unique personalities and vocal deliveries, it was their ruthless evil personas that helped to define what we've come to expect from the many evil twins who followed in their footsteps. Sporting one of the coolest fashion statements of the day, Spock became an evil goateed version of his former self while evil-mirror Kirk and crew ultimately clashed with both of their identities - good and bad - before they could continue their existence in their own universe. In the end it was Spock who was able to convince evil-Spock that the evil way of life was illogical as compared to living the Federation way. It was an evil twin episode that "mirrored" the Cold War between the U.S. and Russia.

Alfred Borden and Robert Angier - The Prestige

Sure there's an unspoken statute of limitations on revealing spoilers, but this one's better left alone to check out fresh. First off, Christian Bale's Alfred Borden and High Jackman's Robert Angier aren't twins. The Prestige is so complex and cool that I'm not going to spend much time on detail. It's a completely new spin on the evil twin idea. In fact, if you haven't seen it yet, I've already said way too much. Two magicians battle each other for ultimate supremacy in 19th Century London and nothing is ever as it seems in The Prestige. Throw in David Bowie as electrical magnetic wizard Nikola Tesla and you've got one of the best, scientifically intelligent double-identity doppelgangers to come down the cinematic pike. For those who go along for the ride, the pay-off is well worth the wait. Really, it's not what you're expecting at all. In fact, you might not figure out what happened until a few hours after you watch it. After watching The Prestige, there's little doubt that Christopher Nolan is one of the best directors on the planet. That is, if he is indeed the real Christopher Nolan.

Austin Powers and Dr. Evil - Austin Powers: Goldmember

Although it took three movies to reveal that Dr. Evil was in fact Austin Powers' twin brother, you knew it was coming sooner or later. Still, Mike Meyers' portrayal of the bitter, estranged brother of Austin Powers almost overshadowed the International Man of Mystery himself. When you think of the Austin Powers movies, it's hard not to get a mental image of Dr. Evil, who was separated from his brother after a car crash and subsequently raised in Belgium. Evil twin characters have become so cliché that Dr. Evil embodies all of the cheesy characteristics from similar villains in the years prior to the release of Austin Powers. The funny thing is… it's even tougher nowadays to buy into evil twin characters on TV or film since Dr. Evil trumps them all. If you couldn't take an evil twin seriously before, it's even harder to now thanks to Meyers and Dr. Evil. Writers will think twice before relying on the old evil twin as a crutch.

-- Larson Hill

Study: Facebook profiles can be used to detect narcissism

see original article here.

A new University of Georgia study suggests that online social networking sites such as Facebook might be useful tools for detecting whether someone is a narcissist.

"We found that people who are narcissistic use Facebook in a self-promoting way that can be identified by others," said lead author Laura Buffardi, a doctoral student in psychology who co-authored the study with associate professor W. Keith Campbell.

The researchers, whose results appear in the October issue of the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, gave personality questionnaires to nearly 130 Facebook users, analyzed the content of the pages and had untrained strangers view the pages and rate their impression of the owner's narcissism.

The researchers found that the number of Facebook friends and wallposts that individuals have on their profile pages correlates with narcissism. Buffardi said this is consistent with how narcissists behave in the real-world, with numerous yet shallow relationships. Narcissists are also more likely to choose glamorous, self-promoting pictures for their main profile photos, she said, while others are more likely to use snapshots.

Untrained observers were able to detect narcissism, too. The researchers found that the observers used three characteristics – quantity of social interaction, attractiveness of the individual and the degree of self promotion in the main photo – to form an impression of the individual's personality. "People aren't perfect in their assessments," Buffardi said, "but our results show they're somewhat accurate in their judgments."

Narcissism is a trait of particular interest, Campbell said, because it hampers the ability form healthy, long-term relationships. "Narcissists might initially be seen as charming, but they end up using people for their own advantage," Campbell said. "They hurt the people around them and they hurt themselves in the long run."

The tremendous growth of social networking sites – Facebook now has 100 million users, for example – has led psychologists to explore how personality traits are expressed online. Buffardi and Campbell chose Facebook because it's the most popular networking site among college students and because it has a fixed format that makes it easier for researchers to compare user pages.

Some researchers in the past have found that personal Web pages are more popular among narcissists, but Campbell said there's no evidence that Facebook users are more narcissistic than others.

"Nearly all of our students use Facebook, and it seems to be a normal part of people's social interactions," Campbell said. "It just turns out that narcissists are using Facebook the same way they use their other relationships – for self promotion with an emphasis on quantity of over quality."

Still, he points out that because narcissists tend to have more contacts on Facebook, any given Facebook user is likely to have an online friend population with a higher proportion of narcissists than in the real world. Right now it's too early to predict if or how the norms of online self-promotion will change, Campbell said, since the study of social networking sites is still in its infancy.

"We've undergone a social change in the last four or five years and now almost every student manages their relationships through Facebook – something that few older people do," Campbell said. "It's a completely new social world that we're just beginning to understand."

Source: University of Georgia

650 Million Year-Old Reef Discovered in Australia’s Outback

For original article, click here.

Scientists at the University of Melbourne have discovered the relics of a 650 million year-old reef in the Australian Outback. The reef is 10 times higher than the modern Great Barrier Reef and predates the evolution of animal life by at least 40 million years. It could also offer valuable information about climate change.

The reef is located in the Flinders Ranges of southeastern Australia (pictured here). When the reef was submerged, these mountains formed Australia’s eastern seaboard. Since then, tectonic and natural forces have combined to expose a section of the reef around 20 km (12.4 miles) wide. Despite its size and relative proximity to Melbourne, Australia’s second most populous city, the reef remained hidden to science until this week.

The discovery is of tremendous scientific value in understanding the origins of modern life. Little is known about life before around 542 million years ago–the end of the Precambrian age–since discoveries of fossils this old are rare. To put the reef’s age in perspective, it predates the first known fish by about 150 million years and the first mammals by about 450 million years. The reef itself, the only one of its age ever discovered, is not composed of coral like today’s reefs. Most of the reef is made of layers of non-living stromatolite accretion formed by previously unknown unicellular organisms.

Jonathan Giddings, one of the researchers studying the reef, says it could offer new insights into the formation of early animals.

“The organisms that build the majority of the reefs are previously undescribed and may help us to understand the evolution of early multicellular life,” said Giddings. “It could prove that life took more complex forms much earlier in history than we previously thought.”

The find could also hold information for climate scientists. The reef formed very gradually over a period of 5 million to 10 million years. During this same time span, the planet was relatively warm. Even in the absence of plant life on land, earth’s climate was what we might consider tropical. This warm spell came between two epochs of intense cold, when scientists believe ice existed even at the equator. The reef might therefore have recorded information about extreme climate variations, which would be valuable in today’s studies of climate change.

Researchers say that more information about the reef’s discovery will be made available later this week at the Selwyn Symposium at the University of Melbourne.

What is XKCD?

Xkcd is a webcomic created by Randall Munroe, a former contractor for NASA. He describes it as "a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language." Munroe states there is no particular meaning to the name and it is simply a "treasured and carefully-guarded point in the space of four-character strings."

The subjects of the comics themselves vary. Some are statements on life and love (some love strips are simply art with poetry), and some are mathematical or scientific in-jokes. Some strips feature simple humor or pop-culture references. Although known for its crudely drawn cast of stick figures, the comic occasionally features landscapes, intricate mathematical patterns such as fractals (for example, strip #17 "What If" shows an Apollonian gasket), or imitations of the style of other cartoonists (as during "parody week"). Occasionally, realism is featured.

The comic is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License. New comics are added three times a week, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday,at midnight EST although on three occasions so far they have been updated every weekday: parody week, the five-part 'Choices' series and the 1337 series.

Tones - XKCD

XKCD is a popular webcomic blog. It usually features new perspectives, insights and slightly dry humor on daily occurences.

Welcome to the GotDigg blog.

The GotDigg blog aims to pick the latest popularly digged entry that're quite suitable to taste, yet amusing and informative at the same time. Not only will this further improve the choice of popular entries but it also aims to create a set of regular Digg readers, who are more into the author's own set of choice content.

Like a small town to that of a city, GotDigg doesnt aim to be the next Digg, but rather be a redistrubutor of quality content to casual surfers and the like. It also serves as an online repository for articles that had been dugged down in the past.