Solidarity with the Greek people !

I, too, am Greek ! 
We demand double nationality !

Enfuriated by the cowardice and lack of imagination of the Western governments—including our own 
(1)—towards the dictatorship of the financial markets;
And disgusted by the current humiliations being imposed on the Greek people, shamefully accused of excess and dishonesty, pronounced guilty without being allowed a defence 
(2), condemned to endless austerity and penitant contrition, in a language that evokes 1940 and Pétain with its "moral order," "effort" and "spirit of joy;"
And certainly not forgotting those who now sacrifice Greece to the financial speculators, pretend that "economic fascism" will content itself with the little countries, sparing themselves...
... those same people who abandoned Czechoslovakia to Adolf Hitler in Munich in 1938, hoping that he would be satisfied with this new prey, following the cowardice shown to the Spanish republicans 
(3); We will no longer support these nouveaux riches (the triumphant 1% of the globalised world), who ignore the moral debt that humanity owes to the Greek nation 
(4), which sowed the first seeds of direct democracy
(5), based precisely on the abolition of debts and the emancipation of citizens reduced to slavery by their indebtedness 2500 years ago 
(6). For all these reasons, we are all Greeks. We want to send a clear signal right now that we will no longer collaborate a minute longer in passivity towards the financial regime imposed on Greece 
(7). We wish to express our solidarity with Greece, and to share, at least symbolically, the fate of its people.
We therefore ask for dual Greek nationality, by making a formal request to the Greek ambassador in our country. We will launch this campaign with a list of primary signatories on the 24 November 2011, a date that is also the anniversary of a significant action by the Greek resistance at the Gorgopotamos Viaduct on the night of the 24/25 November 1942 
(8)."Declaration of Nantes for Greece," 11/11/11.
"Your excellency, in solidarity with your country, I, the undersigned.............. request personally to be counted at heart a Greek, to enjoy the rights and duties of dual nationality, and to express this international citizenship with a view to the establishment of universal democracy in liberty and equality, twenty-five centuries after the time of Solon, Clisthene, and Pericles. Thanks in advance for your response, and in fraternity with your people. "
My name, town and country of residence follow, along with my profession and other relevant personal information (blogger, musician, father, student, Hellenist, age, etc.): FAMILY NAME, First name............ Town........... Country of residence....... Profession and other personal information................. Where to send it ? In France, send a letter to l'Ambassade de Grèce, République hellénique, 17 rue Auguste-Vacquerie, 75116 Paris (Telephone : 01 47 23 72 28, Fax : 01 47 23 73 85 ).
Copy and paste this text, or write a personalised letter to the embassy. When you have done so, send a copy to the following list of email addresses (copy/paste the entire line):
mfapar@wanadoo.fr, grinfoamb.paris@wanadoo.fr, info@amb-grece.fr, grpresse@magic.fr, jesuisgrec@numericable.fr, (The first address is that of the Greek embassy in Paris, the next two
are those of its press office and communications office which must be informed of your application, the fourth is the Greek office at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, and the latter is the liaison address
for this initiative for information and coordination).
You can also post a personal comment on the dedicated blog: http//:www.jesuisgrec.blogspot.fr
This personal and collective response of a request for Greek nationality belongs only to those who undertake it, and is not directed by any party or institution. It has been proposed by the N.e.u.f. cultural association ("Nantes Est Une Fête! ", note 9)

Notes on the call for solidarity:
Note 1: We will never forget the paternalistic disdain displayed towards Greece by the leaders of Germany and France, an arrogant and vexatious attitude, made all the more scandalous by the fact that it is these two countries whose major arms deals with Greece have ruined the country.
We are shamed by the Merkel-Sarkozy couple, who lecture at Greece when it is down, forcing upon them a treatment that is as highhanded and inept as that of the bloodletting physicians of old, medicine which
they next plan to administer to their own people.
We cannot accept that, for the first time in the history of mankind, a country will lose its political sovereignty at the diktat of financial markets, merely to defend the investments of the privileged 1% of the world, who have bought themselves government bonds.
We will not allow these slanders towards the Greek people to pass, while the responsibilities of the profitmongers and international traffickers and their accomplices remain ignored.
Note 2: Nor even to express themselves in a referendum.
Note 3: Churchill's well known comment after Munich: "You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour and you will have war." Gandhi's comment from India is less well known: "Europe has sold her soul for the sake of seven-days’ earthly existence. The peace Europe gained at Munich is a triumph of violence; it is also its defeat."
We do not forget General Faucher, the French mission chief in Prague, who, sickened by the Munich agreement, submitted an honourable resignation to the French government, and then requested Czech citizenship. General Louis-Eugène Faucher (1874-1964) had lived for twenty years among the Czech people. On his return to France, he joined the resistance against the Nazi occupation, was arrested and deported to Germany, and survived to return home in 1945.
Note 4: Because Greece has given the world the inspiring myth of Antigone, the unconquerable defiance of conscience in the face of arbitrary tyranny; 
Note 5: Because Greece gave Europe the first seeds of direct democracy (not delegated to a class of professionals, but exercised directly by an assembly and by drawing lots),
Note 6: And because the first act of the newborn Athenian democracy, though but a fragile and imperfect shoot, under the rule of Solon in 594 BCE, was precisely the abolition of debts and the general emancipation of citizens reduced to slavery by personal indebtedness. But who remembers that?
We do not forget the eminent and heroic Greek resistance, which strongly participated in the liberation of Europe from Nazism.
Note 7: The controls imposed on Greece are a blatant coup d'etat against European democracy, a deliberate suffocation of its civil society, a material and moral humiliation of its people, which will inevitably spread in a domino effect to neighbouring countries, including our own, with a risk of pre-fascist crisis.
Note 8: On the night of the 24/25 November 1942, the destruction of the strategic Gorgopotamos railway viaduct between Thessaloniki and Athens was an important joint action between two major elements of the Greek resistance: the communist EAM-ELAS and the non-communist EDES-EOEA, with the support of British special forces.
Note 9: The N.e.u.f association organises the Fête des langues (Festival of languages) and walking tours commemorating the resistance against fascism in Nantes (Pays de la Loire/Brittany, France). This association was instrumental in achieving the transparent publication of public finances on the internet in 1995, and in 1997 launched the "Réveillon de 1er mai" (Eve of the 1st of May) outside the Paris Bourse (Stock exchange), the first demonstration in the western world for the Tobin tax on financial speculation and against tax havens.
N.e.u.f. also participated in the "Call to the youth for resistance" of the 8 March 2004 with ATTAC, and the Décapol Declaration for Ten new rights for the coming century.

http://lucky.blog.lemonde.fr/2006/11/13/video-et-texte-de-lappel-des-resistants-traductions/

http://cf.groups.yahoo.com/group/LeMonde-etLaResistance/message/2

http://lucky.blog.lemonde.fr/2005/09/18/2005_09_decapol_dekapol/

Technical notes:

There is a general Greek consulate in Marseille, as well as twenty or so honorary consulates in other French towns. Consult the list here: http://www.levoyageur.net/ambassade.php?pays=GRECE

A Greek flag measuring 1 x 1.5m with a pole, costs around 30 euros from a specialised shop. A small table flag costs about 3 euros.
The photo overleaf shows the Greek flag flying over the Acropolis in Athens, an important site for remembrance of the anti-nazi resistance.


SVP :
Nous cherchons des volontaires pour traduire l'intégralité de ce message en grec, anglais, et autres langues. Merci d'avance.

Tous contacts : jesuisgrec@numericable.fr

http://jesuisgrec.blogspot.com/

Air Force GPS Program Receives International Award

International Astronautical Federation President Berndt Feuerbacher presents 
the IAF's  60th Anniversary Award to General William Shelton, Commander, 
Air Force Space Command, during the  International Astronautical Congress in Cape Town, South Africa, on October 4, 2011.

by Staff Sgt. Richard A. Williams Jr.
Air Force Public Affairs Agency

10/5/2011 - ARLINGTON, Va. (AFNS) -- The Air Force Global Positioning System program was recognized Oct. 4 by officials at the International Astronautical Federation with a special award during the 62nd International Astronautical Congress in Cape Town, South Africa.

The IAF, which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year, established a one-time 60th anniversary award to honor the occasion and "recognize an organization or key individual for a singular and successful project in the field of space applications, space science and exploration, which could demonstrate through its implementation, that measurable benefit to humanity has been achieved," according to the IAF website.

Gen. William L. Shelton, the Air Force Space Command commander, accepted the award in Cape Town on behalf of the Air Force.

"This is a tremendous honor for the Air Force, Air Force Space Command and everyone on our GPS team," said Under Secretary of the Air Force Erin Conaton. "We are proud to have developed and invested in this remarkable system that our Airmen continue to operate, sustain and modernize for the benefit of billions of people.

"In addition to being a vital asset for our military and our nation, GPS is an international treasure that enables countless economic transactions," she said. "Its contributions to the global economy are enormous -- by one estimate more than $100 billion every year."

GPS is a space-based radio-positioning system that provides precision navigation and timing information to military and civilian users worldwide, officials said. Since its origin more than 30 years ago, GPS has evolved into an indispensible resource that enables technologies employed by users every day in a variety of government and private sectors, to include agriculture, banking, transportation, weather, and defense.

In its official award nomination package to the IAF, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics stated, "No other single space product, program or system has led to human benefits that are even remotely close to those that have resulted from GPS."

La physique des particules européenne réfléchit à son avenir

Genève, le 15 décembre 2011. Le Conseil du CERN1 a annoncé aujourd’hui qu’un symposium public en vue de la mise à jour de la stratégie européenne pour la physique des particules se tiendra à Cracovie (Pologne), du 10 au 13 septembre 2012. La première stratégie européenne pour la physique des particules a été adoptée par le Conseil en juillet 2006, étant entendu qu’elle serait mise à jour à intervalles appropriés (en principe tous les cinq ans).

« La physique des particules est un domaine de recherche à long terme qui nécessite une vision à long terme, a expliqué Tatsuya Nakada, secrétaire scientifique de la Session du Conseil sur la stratégie européenne. Alors que le LHC fonctionne parfaitement bien, que l’on commence à obtenir des résultats et que les perspectives d’avancées dans la physique hors LHC, par exemple concernant les oscillations neutrinos, s’annoncent prometteuses, l’heure est venue de réfléchir au rôle que devra jouer l’Europe dans le développement futur de la physique des particules. »

Le symposium public s’inscrit dans un processus de large consultation auprès des physiciens des particules et des autres intéressés, en Europe et au-delà, la stratégie européenne n'étant qu'un pan d'une stratégie plus globale. Ce sera l’occasion de solliciter l’avis des scientifiques qui mènent les recherches, des communautés qui en pourraient en voir les bénéfices et des ministères de la recherche qui fourniront le financement. Le symposium sera organisé par un groupe préparatoire, dont les membres seront désignés par le Conseil, et permettra à la communauté mondiale de la physique des particules de faire connaître ses vues sur les objectifs scientifiques de la stratégie. Il sera fait appel à des contributions écrites de physiciens et de groupes de scientifiques représentant des intérêts particuliers comme une expérience ou un sujet de recherche spécifique. Des institutions et organisations comme des organismes de financement et des ministères de la science pourront également s’exprimer. À l’issue des discussions au sein du symposium public, tous les éléments ainsi recueillis seront mis à la disposition du Groupe sur la stratégie européenne chargé par le Conseil de rédiger le document d’orientation stratégique mis à jour, sous la présidence du secrétaire scientifique.

Le Conseil examinera en mars 2013 la stratégie européenne mise à jour et tiendra au début de l’été 2013 une session spéciale à Bruxelles, au cours de laquelle la stratégie sera adoptée. La mise à jour de la stratégie devrait être inscrite à l’ordre du jour du Conseil des ministres de l’UE, qui aura lieu au même moment.

ATLAS and CMS experiments present Higgs search status

13 December 2011. In a seminar held at CERN1 today, the ATLAS2 and CMS3 experiments presented the status of their searches for the Standard Model Higgs boson. Their results are based on the analysis of considerably more data than those presented at the summer conferences, sufficient to make significant progress in the search for the Higgs boson, but not enough to make any conclusive statement on the existence or non-existence of the elusive Higgs. The main conclusion is that the Standard Model Higgs boson, if it exists, is most likely to have a mass constrained to the range 116-130 GeV by the ATLAS experiment, and 115-127 GeV by CMS. Tantalising hints have been seen by both experiments in this mass region, but these are not yet strong enough to claim a discovery.

Higgs bosons, if they exist, are very short lived and can decay in many different ways. Discovery relies on observing the particles they decay into rather than the Higgs itself. Both ATLAS and CMS have analysed several decay channels, and the experiments see small excesses in the low mass region that has not yet been excluded.

Taken individually, none of these excesses is any more statistically significant than rolling a die and coming up with two sixes in a row. What is interesting is that there are multiple independent measurements pointing to the region of 124 to 126 GeV. It's far too early to say whether ATLAS and CMS have discovered the Higgs boson, but these updated results are generating a lot of interest in the particle physics community.

"We have restricted the most likely mass region for the Higgs boson to 116-130 GeV, and over the last few weeks we have started to see an intriguing excess of events in the mass range around 125 GeV," explained ATLAS experiment spokesperson Fabiola Gianotti."This excess may be due to a fluctuation, but it could also be something more interesting. We cannot conclude anything at this stage. We need more study and more data. Given the outstanding performance of the LHC this year, we will not need to wait long for enough data and can look forward to resolving this puzzle in 2012."

"We cannot exclude the presence of the Standard Model Higgs between 115 and 127 GeV because of a modest excess of events in this mass region that appears, quite consistently, in five independent channels," explained CMS experiment Spokesperson, Guido Tonelli. "The excess is most compatible with a Standard Model Higgs in the vicinity of 124 GeV and below but the statistical significance is not large enough to say anything conclusive. As of today what we see is consistent either with a background fluctuation or with the presence of the boson. Refined analyses and additional data delivered in 2012 by this magnificent machine will definitely give an answer."

Over the coming months, both experiments will be further refining their analyses in time for the winter particle physics conferences in March. However, a definitive statement on the existence or non-existence of the Higgs will require more data, and is not likely until later in 2012.

The Standard Model is the theory that physicists use to describe the behaviour of fundamental particles and the forces that act between them. It describes the ordinary matter from which we, and everything visible in the Universe, are made extremely well. Nevertheless, the Standard Model does not describe the 96% of the Universe that is invisible. One of the main goals of the LHC research programme is to go beyond the Standard Model, and the Higgs boson could be the key.

A Standard Model Higgs boson would confirm a theory first put forward in the 1960s, but there are other possible forms the Higgs boson could take, linked to theories that go beyond the Standard Model. A Standard Model Higgs could still point the way to new physics, through subtleties in its behaviour that would only emerge after studying a large number of Higgs particle decays. A non-Standard Model Higgs, currently beyond the reach of the LHC experiments with data so far recorded, would immediately open the door to new physics, whereas the absence of a Standard Model Higgs would point strongly to new physics at the LHC's full design energy, set to be achieved after 2014. Whether ATLAS and CMS show over the coming months that the Standard Model Higgs boson exists or not, the LHC programme is opening the way to new physics.

New Documentaries Introduce the 2011 Nobel Laureates

(2011 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Dan Shechtman.
Copyright © Nobel Media 2011
Photo: David Blumenfeld)

1 December 2011
One hour documentary tells the inspiring stories of the ten men and 3 women awarded the 2011 Nobel Prizes. 30 minute documentary focuses on Nobel Peace Prize Laureates.

This unique one hour documentary, Nobel Laureates 2011, takes you to every corner of the globe to meet researchers, professors, a President, rights' activists and more, giving insights about the 2011 Nobel Prizes. From Sweden to France, Israel to Australia, the USA, Liberia and Yemen, this documentary explores the pioneering work and incredible discoveries. Featuring extensive interviews with the Laureates themselves, as well as those who have inspired or have been inspired by them, including Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve and the Irish poet Seamus Heaney, a Nobel Laureate himself.

The documentary captures the fascinatingly diverse range of subjects from the accelerating expansion of the universe awarded to Brian Schmidt and Adam Reiss and Saul Permutter, the discovery of quasicrystals by Dan Shechtman, to the work of Jules Hoffmann and Bruce Beutler on innate immunity and Ralph Steinman's work on the dendritic cell and its role in adaptive immunity. The translucent images in poetry by Tomas Tranströmer, the diverse work of Tawakkol Karman, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee for women's rights in peace building and the work of Christopher Sims and Thomas Sargent on cause and effect in the macroeconomy are also explored.

See a short excerpt from the film:
http://www.nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=1722

The Nobel Peace Prize Documentary 2011, 'Women of Peace', portrays the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, all women and mothers, united by their non-violent struggle for women's rights. We meet the first Arab woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, Tawakkol Karman, in New York and Africa's first female head of state, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and activist Leyman Gbowee, in Liberia. This film, through interviews with the Laureates, their friends and families, offers a unique view into the women's lives and their continued work towards peace.

See a short excerpt from the film:
http://www.nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=1723

City of Stockholm and Nobel Foundation Join Forces to Create a Nobel Prize Center

(Blasieholmen and Nybroviken in Stockholm
Photo: Jeppe Wikström)

On December 1, 2011, the Nobel Foundation and the City of Stockholm signed a declaration of intent to work jointly towards the creation of a permanent Nobel Prize Center, to be located on Nybroviken, an inlet of the Baltic Sea in the heart of Stockholm, Sweden. They have agreed on a site on the Blasieholmen peninsula that is owned by the City of Stockholm.

"Through the Nobel Prize Center, we want to create a contemporary meeting place for Nobel Laureates, researchers, students, school pupils and a curious general public. The center will provide a world-class experience and will serve as a base for our efforts to disseminate the message of the Nobel Prize on the importance of knowledge, humanism and peace," says Lars Heikensten, Executive Director of the Nobel Foundation.

The Nobel Prize Center at Nybroviken will be the new focal point of the Nobel Prize and will underscore the role of Stockholm and Sweden as the home city and home country of the Nobel Prize.

"With this project, we are demonstrating Stockholm’s ambition to be a world-leading knowledge region that promotes education, innovation and research. A center that can shed light on all aspects of the Nobel Prize is an eagerly awaited tourist attraction in Stockholm," says Sten Nordin (M), Mayor of Stockholm. "It will be of great importance to a younger generation, who can be inspired here to seek knowledge and to embrace their curiosity."

The Nobel Prize Center can be completed by 2018 and will among other things contain an enlarged Nobel Museum, enabling its public activities to expand. The intention is that the center will eventually also house the activities of the Nobel Foundation and Nobel Media. In order to create a landmark building of high quality, there are plans to launch an international architectural competition during the autumn of 2012.

For supplementary material, see the Nobel Foundation press room on the website Nobelprize.org. This includes an information folder, a report from the working group on a Nobel Prize Center and Nobel Museum in Stockholm which has examined potential locations, as well as illustrations.

EBU to Carry Live Feed of Nobel Prize Events

5 December 2011

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and Nobel Media have struck an agreement whereby the EBU will distribute live coverage of the Nobel Prize events until 2013.

This year's Nobel Prize Events, on 10 December, are expected to be watched by millions of viewers when the signal is carried on the EBU's Eurovision Network.

Norwegian and Swedish public broadcasters and EBU Members, NRK and SVT, are the production partners for these events, which will be broadcast from Oslo and Stockholm.

Under the three-year contract, the EBU will also provide a live stream of the events, which include the Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony, the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony and the Nobel Banquet, directly to the Nobel Prize website, www.nobelprize.org.

Stefan Kuerten, EBU Director Sports & Business said, "We are honoured once again to support this prestigious event. The EBU has over 60 years' experience in providing premium content to broadcasters and media organizations in a seamless, reliable and cost-effective way."

CEO of Nobel Media, Camilla Hyltén-Cavallius, commented, "To capture worldwide interest in the Nobel Prize and Nobel Laureates, we are happy to use the EBU's premier services to secure global distribution of our programmes."

Quantum Computing Has Applications in Magnetic Imaging, Say Pitt Researchers

Pitt physicists able to obtain higher-precision measurements with “single-electrons in-diamond” approach.

PITTSBURGH—Quantum computing—considered the powerhouse of computational tasks—may have applications in areas outside of pure electronics, according to a University of Pittsburgh researcher and his collaborators.

Working at the interface of quantum measurement and nanotechnology, Gurudev Dutt, assistant professor in Pitt’s Department of Physics and Astronomy in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, and his colleagues report their findings in a paper published online Dec. 18 in Nature Nanotechnology. The paper documents important progress towards realizing a nanoscale magnetic imager comprising single electrons encased in a diamond crystal.

“Think of this like a typical medical procedure—a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)—but on single molecules or groups of molecules inside cells instead of the entire body. Traditional MRI techniques don’t work well with such small volumes, so an instrument must be built to accommodate such high-precision work,” says Dutt.

However, a significant challenge arose for researchers working on the problem of building such an instrument: How does one measure a magnetic field accurately using the resonance of the single electrons within the diamond crystal? Resonance is defined as an object’s tendency to oscillate with higher energy at a particular frequency, and occurs naturally all around us: for example, with musical instruments, children on swings, and pendulum clocks. Dutt says that resonances are particularly powerful because they allow physicists to make sensitive measurements of quantities like force, mass, and electric and magnetic fields. “But they also restrict the maximum field that one can measure accurately.”

In magnetic imaging, this means that physicists can only detect a narrow range of fields from molecules near the sensor’s resonant frequency, making the imaging process more difficult.

“It can be done,” says Dutt, “but it requires very sophisticated image processing and other techniques to understand what one is imaging. Essentially, one must use software to fix the limitations of hardware, and the scans take longer and are harder to interpret.”

Dutt—working with postdoctoral researcher Ummal Momeen and PhD student Naufer Nusran (A&S’08 G), both in Pitt’s Department of Physics and Astronomy—has used quantum computing methods to circumvent the hardware limitation to view the entire magnetic field. By extending the field, the Pitt researchers have improved the ratio between maximum detectable field strength and field precision by a factor of 10 compared to the standard technique used previously. This puts them one step closer toward a future nanoscale MRI instrument that could study properties of molecules, materials, and cells in a noninvasive way, displaying where atoms are located without destroying them; current methods employed for this kind of study inevitably destroy the samples.

“This would have an immediate impact on our understanding of these molecules, materials, or living cells and potentially allow us to create better technologies,” says Dutt.

These are only the initial results, says Dutt, and he expects further improvements to be made with additional research: “Our work shows that quantum computing methods reach beyond pure electronic technologies and can solve problems that, earlier, seemed to be fundamental roadblocks to making progress with high-precision measurements.”

NSF director and Russian science minister sign historic agreement for bilateral collaboration

Subra Suresh and Andrei Fursenko establish cooperative framework with which to support US and Russian scientists and engineers
IMAGE: NSF Office of International Science and Engineering Director Machi Dilworth greets Russian Education and Science Minister during official signing of cooperative agreement in the office of NSF Director Subra Suresh.

IMAGE: NSF Director Subra Suresh and Russian Education and Science Minister Andrei Fursenko sign a historic memorandum of understanding, opening the doors for US-Russian collaboration.
Today, National Science Foundation (NSF) Director Subra Suresh signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Russian Education and Science Minister Andrei Fursenko to foster the continued growth of U.S.-Russian science and technology cooperation.

Noting the historic significance of this, the first time that NSF and the Russian Ministry of Education have agreed to jointly support each nation's scientists, Suresh discussed the importance of cooperation in nanoscience, energy and information technology in addressing the global challenges of adapting to environmental, social and cultural changes associated with the growth and development of human populations and attaining a sustainable energy future.

"This agreement between the National Science Foundation and the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian

Federation opens up a vast possibility for advancing research collaborations between USA and Russian scientists in all NSF supported disciplines," said Machi Dilworth, director of NSF's Office of International Science and Engineering.

Fursenko was first appointed Minister of Education and Science of the Russian Federation on March 9, 2004, by a Presidential Decree and was re-appointed to this post following the re-election of President Vladimir Putin to his second term in May 2004.

Fear no supernova

Caption: Supernova 1987A was the closest exploding star seen in modern times. It occurred in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy that orbits our own Milky Way. Images taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope were combined to make this composite of the blast's expanding debris.
Credit: Credit: NASA / ESA / P. Challis and R. Kirshner (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)
Given the incredible amounts of energy in a supernova explosion – as much as the sun creates during its entire lifetime – another erroneous doomsday theory is that such an explosion could happen in 2012 and harm life on Earth. However, given the vastness of space and the long times between supernovae, astronomers can say with certainty that there is no threatening star close enough to hurt Earth.

Astronomers estimate that, on average, about one or two supernovae explode each century in our galaxy. But for Earth's ozone layer to experience damage from a supernova, the blast must occur less than 50 light-years away. All of the nearby stars capable of going supernova are much farther than this.

Any planet with life on it near a star that goes supernova would indeed experience problems. X- and gamma-ray radiation from the supernova could damage the ozone layer, which protects us from harmful ultraviolet light in the sun's rays. The less ozone there is, the more UV light reaches the surface. At some wavelengths, just a 10 percent increase in ground-level UV can be lethal to some organisms, including phytoplankton near the ocean surface. Because these organisms form the basis of oxygen production on Earth and the marine food chain, any significant disruption to them could cascade into a planet-wide problem.

Another explosive event, called a gamma-ray burst (GRB), is often associated with supernovae. When a massive star collapses on itself -- or, less frequently, when two compact neutron stars collide -- the result is the birth of a black hole. As matter falls toward a nascent black hole, some of it becomes accelerated into a particle jet so powerful that it can drill its way completely through the star before the star's outermost layers even have begun to collapse. If one of the jets happens to be directed toward Earth, orbiting satellites detect a burst of highly energetic gamma rays somewhere in the sky. These bursts occur almost daily and are so powerful that they can be seen across billions of light-years.

A gamma-ray burst could affect Earth in much the same way as a supernova -- and at much greater distance -- but only if its jet is directly pointed our way. Astronomers estimate that a gamma-ray burst could affect Earth from up to 10,000 light-years away with each separated by about 15 million years, on average. So far, the closest burst on record, known as GRB 031203, was 1.3 billion light-years away.

As with impacts, our planet likely has already experienced such events over its long history, but there's no reason to expect a gamma-ray burst in our galaxy to occur in the near future, much less in December 2012.

LANDMARK U.S. HOUSE RESOLUTION PRESSES TURKEY TO RETURN STOLEN CHRISTIAN CHURCHES

Armenian National Committee of America


Majority Leader Eric Cantor Brought Key Religious Freedom Measure to a Floor Vote; Reps. Ed Royce and Howard Berman Led Bipartisan Drive for Adoption of H.Res.306


WASHINGTON, DC -- The U.S. House of Representatives today adopted a landmark religious freedom measure, H.Res.306, calling upon Turkey to return the Christian church properties it stole through genocide, and to end its repression of the surviving members of the vast Christian civilizations that once represented a majority in the territory of the present-day Republic of Turkey, reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).

The measure, spearheaded by Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) and Howard Berman (D-CA) was scheduled for House consideration by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, with the support of Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and Ranking Member Berman, of the Foreign Affairs Committee. House Members speaking in support of the measure included Representatives Royce, Berman, Congressional Armenian Genocide Resolution lead cosponsor Adam Schiff (D-CA), Congressional Armenian Caucus CoChair Frank Pallone (D-NJ), Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Eliot Engel (D-NY). Congressional Turkey Caucus Co-Chair Ed Whitfield (R-KY) was alone in speaking out against the resolution. The measure was adopted by voice vote.

“Despite Prime Minister Erdogan's recent claims of progress on religious freedom, Turkey's Christian communities continue to face severe discrimination,” explained Congressman Royce. “Today, the U.S. House of Representatives considered and adopted my legislation, which calls upon the government of Turkey to end religious discrimination, allow religious prayer and education, and return stolen church property. The United States has a strong interest in promoting religious freedom abroad.”

Rep. Berman concurred, noting that, “This important resolution calls attention to Turkey's disturbing, persistent failure to respect the ancient Christian heritage of Anatolia and to treat its Christian communities as free and equal citizens. Turkey should take immediate steps to restore all confiscated church property and allow full freedom of worship and religious education for all Christian communities."

In July, Reps. Royce and Berman were joined by Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) in spearheading House Foreign Affairs Committee consideration of the “Return of Churches” amendment to the State Department Authorization Bill. Their amendment was overwhelmingly adopted by a vote of 43 to 1.

“The passage of House Resolution 306 is a great victory for religious freedom around the world, and is a turning point in the Armenian people’s fight for religious freedom. Respect for the full exercise of our civil rights is really central to who we are as Americans and central to the values and ideals that we promote all over the world. My home state of Rhode Island was founded by Roger Williams on the principles of religious liberty and freedom and I am proud to co-sponsor the Resolution in that spirit,” said Congressman David Cicilline.

The text of H.Res.306 adopted today is the same as the abridged version adopted at the committee level.

“Today's vote - over opposition from Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Erdogan and, sadly, even our own American President's Administration, - represents a powerful victory for religious freedom, and also reflects the growing American and international consensus that Turkey must - starting with the return of thousands of stolen Christian churches properties and holy sites - accept its responsibilities for the full moral and material implications of a truthful and just resolution of the Armenian Genocide," said ANCA Chairman Ken Hachikian.

Armenian Americans across the U.S. were joined by religious freedom advocates and their counterparts in the Greek, Assyrian, and Syriac communities in making thousands of phone calls to their Representatives in support of H.Res.306, following action alerts issued by the Armenian National Committee of America, American Hellenic Institute, and American Hellenic Educational and Progressive Association and the American Hellenic Council.

With hours left to the scheduled vote on H.Res.306, Turkish American groups mounted a campaign to block the measure but were ultimately unsuccessful.

The ANCA will be posting full video coverage of U.S. consideration of H.Res.306 on its website at http://www.anca.org/return

The Higgs boson: vital to life but is it there?

By Robert Evans
GENEVA | Tue Dec 13, 2011 8:02am EST
(Reuters) - It has been called "the brick that built the universe," "the angel of creation" and "the god particle."

It is thought to have emerged from the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago and have brought much of the rest of the flying debris together to form galaxies, stars and planets.

It is a key component of the "Standard Model" - the all-encompassing theory developed by physicists of how the cosmos as we know it works at its basic level of particles and forces.

But until now, in the four decades since it was first posited, no one has convincingly claimed to have glimpsed the Higgs Boson, let alone proved that it actually exists.

At an eagerly awaited briefing on Tuesday at the CERN research centre near Geneva, two independent teams of "Higgs Hunters" - a term they themselves hate - were widely expected to suggest they were fairly confident they had spotted it.

But not confident enough, in the physics world of ultra-precision where certainty has to be measured at nothing less than 100 percent, to announce "a discovery."

In the jargon, this level is described as 5 sigma, which would exclude the possibility that the results recorded by the ATLAS and CMS teams at CERN - the 21-nation European Organisation for Nuclear Research - are a fluke.

A MILLION APPLES

As one scientist explained, that level of accuracy would equate to the 17th-century discoverer of gravity, Isaac Newton, sitting under his apple tree and a million apples one after another falling on his head without one missing.

Some leading scientists, including Briton Stephen Hawking, doubt that the tiny piece of matter that would be visible only as a trace on a computer screen is out there at all.

But most scientists involved in sifting through vast amounts of data produced in multi-trillions of particle impacts in CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) over the past 20 months seem sure that it is, in one form or another.

As is another Briton, physicist Peter Higgs, who conceived the idea of the boson - a type of particle that carries force - in the mid-1960s to explain why much of the matter produced by the Big Bang has mass, and can therefore coalesce.

"I find it difficult to imagine how the theory (the Standard Model) works without it," he told the London monthly Prospect.

Higgs, now 82 and seen as a Nobel prize contender, conceived of a mechanism that would fit into the Standard Model and allow particles to have mass - which the model had previously failed to explain.

The mechanism, he argued, was a medium - since called the Higgs Field - existing throughout the universe, which gave other particles mass as they passed through it and were brought together by the Higgs boson.

Without this mechanism, a briefing paper by CERN explains, "the universe would be a very different place.... no ordinary matter as we know it, no chemistry, no biology, and no people."

Higgs - who, like the vast majority of particle physicists as shown in surveys, rejects any religious explanation of the origins of life and the cosmos - has no time for the more spiritual epithets applied to his boson.

"For me, it is there because it is there," he once told journalists on a visit to Geneva, where in the 1960s he worked for a while at CERN, adding archly: "As long as we can prove scientifically that it is."

Canada first nation to pull out of Kyoto protocol

By David Ljunggren and Randall Palmer
OTTAWA | Tue Dec 13, 2011 6:30am EST
(Reuters) - Canada on Monday became the first country to announce it would withdraw from the Kyoto protocol on climate change, dealing a symbolic blow to the already troubled global treaty.

Environment Minister Peter Kent broke the news on his return from talks in Durban, where countries agreed to extend Kyoto for five years and hammer out a new deal forcing all big polluters for the first time to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Canada, a major energy producer which critics complain is becoming a climate renegade, has long complained Kyoto is unworkable precisely because it excludes so many significant emitters.

"As we've said, Kyoto for Canada is in the past ... We are invoking our legal right to formally withdraw from Kyoto," Kent told reporters.

The right-of-center Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, which has close ties to the energy sector, says Canada would be subject to penalties equivalent to C$14 billion ($13.6 billion) under the terms of the treaty for not cutting emissions by the required amount by 2012.

"To meet the targets under Kyoto for 2012 would be the equivalent of either removing every car truck, all-terrain vehicle, tractor, ambulance, police car and vehicle off every kind of Canadian road," said Kent.

Environmentalists quickly blasted Kent for his comments.

"It's a national disgrace. Prime Minister Harper just spat in the faces of people around the world for whom climate change is increasingly a life and death issue," said Graham Saul of Climate Action Network Canada.

Kent did not give details on when Ottawa would pull out of a treaty he said could not work. Canada kept quiet during the Durban talks so as not to be a distraction, he added.

"The writing on the wall for Kyoto has been recognized by even those countries which are engaging in a second commitment," he said. Kyoto's first phase was due to expire at the end of 2012 but has now been extended until 2017.

Kent said Canada would work toward a new global deal obliging all major nations to cut output of greenhouse gases China and India are not bound by Kyoto's current targets.

The Conservatives took power in 2006 and quickly made clear they would not stick to Canada's Kyoto commitments on the grounds it would cripple the economy and the energy sector.

The announcement will do little to help Canada's international reputation. Green groups awarded the country their Fossil of the Year award for its performance in Durban.

"Our government is abdicating its international responsibilities. It's like where the kid in school who knows he's going to fail the class, so he drops it before that happens," said Megan Leslie of the opposition New Democrats.

Canada is the largest supplier of oil and natural gas to the United States and is keen to boost output of crude from Alberta's oil sands, which requires large amounts of energy to extract.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) said all major emitters had to agree to cuts so that Canada did not put itself at a disadvantage.

Canada's former Liberal government signed up to Kyoto, which dictated a cut in emissions to 6 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. By 2009 emissions were 17 percent above the 1990 levels, in part because of the expanding tar sands development.

Kent said the Liberals should not have signed up to a treaty they had no intention of respecting.

The Conservatives say emissions should fall by 17 percent of 2005 levels by 2020, a target that CAPP president David Collyer said would oblige the energy sector to make sacrifices.

"It's a stretch and we'd be kidding ourselves if we said it wasn't," he told Reuters.

($1 = 1.03 Canadian dollars)

NASA Engages Public With New Custom Internet Radio Station

WASHINGTON -- NASA's mission of discovery and exploration will be showcased in a custom-produced Internet music radio station that is crafted specifically to speak the language of tech-savvy young adults.

Third Rock - America's Space Station is set to launch with a New Rock/Indie/Alternative format on Monday, Dec. 12. The station is being developed and operated at no cost to the government through a Space Act Agreement. Third Rock can be reached from NASA's home page, www.nasa.gov, and will soon be available through NASA iPhone and Droid mobile applications.

"NASA constantly is looking for new and innovative ways to engage the public and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers," said David Weaver, associate administrator for the Office of Communications at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "We have led the way in innovative uses of new media and this is another example of how the agency is taking advantage of these important communication tools."

NASA is collaborating with Houston-based RFC Media to launch the station.

"Today's 4G audience craves new music and enjoys finding it," said Pat Fant, RFC Media co-founder and chief operating officer. "We've pulled out the best songs and the deepest tracks from a full spectrum of rock artists across many styles and decades. NASA features and news items are embedded throughout the programming alongside greetings by celebrity artists."

Third Rock also will help partner companies fill high-tech job openings in the engineering, science and IT fields. In addition to the NASA Web Portal, the station will be available online in the future at the radio tab of Apple's iTunes and other sites.

"No one knows more about discovering new rock than NASA," said Cruze, RFC Media co-founder and president. "Exciting new music is being discovered online through specialty sites like Third Rock-America's Space Station, where listeners will hear about great new artists way before their friends hear of them.

Study of Yellowstone Wolves Improves Ability to Predict Their Responses to Environmental Changes

Methods developed in this study may ultimately improve predictions of wildlife responses to environmental changes in various ecosystems
December 1, 2011
A study of the wolves of Yellowstone National Park recently improved predictions of how these animals will respond to environmental changes.

The study, which was partially funded by the National Science Foundation, appears in the Dec. 2, 2011 issue of Science.

Part of the Yellowstone Wolf Project, researchers tracked changes in various characteristics of wolves living in the national park between 1998 and 2009. They found some tracked characteristics--such as population size--are related to population ecology, while other tracked characteristics--such as coat color--are genetically determined through evolution.

The project also involved using a new model to compare data collected on Yellowstone wolf characteristics to environmental conditions through the years covered by the study. Researchers defined conditions in the park during each year of the study along a continuum from "good years" to "bad years"--with good years more favorable to wolf survival than bad years.

Tim Coulson of Imperial College London, the study's lead author, explains, "The novelty of the new model is that it looks at how the frequencies of changes in environmental conditions along the 'good to bad' year continuum simultaneously impact many wolf characteristics."

Study results indicate:

Environmental changes will inevitably generate simultaneous ecological and evolutionary responses in the Yellowstone wolves.
Changes in mean environment conditions will impact the size of the Yellowstone wolf population more than will changes in the variability of environmental conditions.
A single environmental change may impact various wolf characteristics differently, depending on which particular aspects of wolf biology it impacts.
Researchers say to understand their conclusions, suppose environmental conditions in a "good year" helped increase the population size of Yellowstone wolves by increasing their survival rates. Also, suppose that a grey coat color would confer a survival advantage to wolves. Then, under those particular "good" conditions, an increase in the size of the wolf population would be expected to produce an increase in the prevalence of grey coats among the wolves.

By contrast, suppose that certain environmental conditions in a "good year" helped increase the population size of Yellowstone wolves by increasing the availability of their prey. Because the availability of prey and coat color are not related to one another, under those particular "good" conditions, an increase in the size of the wolf population would not be expected to produce an increase in the prevalence of grey coats among the wolves.

Coulson says increasing the specificity of the model's predictions requires collecting more data on the ecological and evolutionary responses of Yellowstone's wolves to various environmental conditions and on the relationships of these responses to one another.

As part of this effort, the Yellowstone Wolf Project research team currently is studying the differential impacts of various environmental changes on ecological and evolutionary characteristics of Yellowstone wolves during various stages of their life cycles. The team also is working to identify the types of environmental conditions--such as the sizes of various populations of prey species and the amount and residence time of snow on the ground--that define good, bad and intermediary years for wolves.

The researchers hope once the methods developed through this study are refined, they may be applicable to other types of species, such as insects or crop pests, that live in other types of ecosystems. What's more, Coulson suggests that these methods may ultimately help answer questions about human populations. As just one example, the methods developed through this study might ultimately be used to help predict the impacts of the ongoing obesity epidemic on survival and fertility rates and the resulting influence of those variables on the growth rate of selected human populations.

The National Science Foundation provided funding to all of this paper's co-authors: Daniel R. MacNulty of the University of Minnesota at St Paul, Daniel Stahler of the National Park Service, Bridgett vonHoldt of the University of California at Irvine, Robert K. Wayne of the University of California at Los Angeles and Douglas Smith of the National Park Service.

-NSF-

Scientists Assess Radioactivity in the Ocean from Japan Nuclear Power Facility

New study analyzes radioactivity from facility in first months after accident

December 9, 2011
With current news of additional radioactive leaks from the Fukushima nuclear power plants, the impact on the ocean of releases of radioactivity from the plants remains unclear.

But a new study by U.S. and Japanese researchers analyzes the levels of radioactivity discharged in the first four months after the accident.

It draws some basic conclusions about the history of contaminant releases to the ocean.

The study was conducted by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution chemist Ken Buesseler and two colleagues based in Japan, Michio Aoyama of the Meteorological Research Institute and Masao Fukasawa of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology.

They report that discharges from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plants peaked one month after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that precipitated the nuclear accident, and continued through at least July.

Their study finds that the levels of radioactivity, while high, are not a direct threat to humans or marine life, but cautions that the effect of accumulated radionuclides in marine sediments is poorly known.

The release of radioactivity from Fukushima--both as atmospheric fallout and direct discharges to the ocean--represents the largest accidental release of radiation to the ocean in history.

Concentrations of cesium-137, a radioactive isotope with a 30-year half-life, at the plants' discharge points to the ocean peaked at more than 50 million times normal/previous levels.

Concentrations 18 miles offshore were higher than those measured in the ocean after the Chernobyl accident 25 years ago.

This is largely related to the fact, says Buesseler, that the Fukushima nuclear power plants are located along the coast, whereas Chernobyl was several hundred miles from the nearest salt water basins, the Baltic and Black Seas.

However, due to ocean mixing processes, the levels are rapidly diluted off the northwest coast of Japan.

The study used data on the concentrations of cesium-137, cesium-134 and iodine-131 as a basis to compare the levels of radionuclides released into the ocean with known levels in the sea surrounding Japan prior to the accident.

The resulting paper, Impacts of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plants on Marine Radioactivity, is published in the current issue of the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Buesseler was awarded a rapid-response grant from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Ocean Sciences to establish baseline concentrations of radionuclides in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

"Understanding and management of the long-term geochemical fate and ecological consequences of radiochemical contamination of the sea is dependent on our knowledge of the initial conditions," says Don Rice, director of NSF's Chemical Oceanography Program. "Acquiring that knowledge depends on our ability to deploy experts to the scene with minimal delay."

The investigators compiled and analyzed data on concentrations of cesium and iodine in ocean water near the plants' discharge points.

The data were made public by TEPCO, the electric utility that owns the plants, and the Japanese Ministry of Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

The team found that releases to the ocean peaked in April, a fact they attribute to "the complicated pattern of discharge of seawater and freshwater used to cool the reactors and spent fuel rods, interactions with groundwater, and intentional and unintentional releases of mixed radioactive material from the reactor facility."

The scientists also found that the releases decreased in May by a factor of 1,000, "a consequence of ocean mixing and a primary radionuclide source that had dramatically abated," they report.

While concentrations of some radionuclides continued to decrease, by July they were still 10,000 times higher than levels measured in 2010 off the coast of Japan.

This indicates that the plants "remain a significant source of contamination to the coastal waters off Japan," the researchers report.

"There is currently no data that allow us to distinguish between several possible sources of continued releases," says Buesseler.

"These most likely include some combination of direct releases from the reactors, or storage tanks or indirect releases from groundwater beneath the reactors or coastal sediments, both of which are likely contaminated from the period of maximum releases."

Buesseler says that at levels indicated by these data, the releases are not likely to be a direct threat to humans or marine biota in the surrounding ocean waters.

There could be an issue, however, if the source remains high and radiation accumulates in marine sediments.

"We don't know how this might affect benthic marine life, and with a half-life of 30 years, any cesium-137 accumulating in sediments or groundwater could be a concern for decades to come," he says.

While international collaborations for comprehensive field measurements to determine the full range of radioactive isotopes released are underway, says Buesseler, it will take some time before results are available to fully evaluate the impacts of this accident on the ocean.

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation also funded the research.

-NSF-

Vision Scientists Demonstrate Innovative Learning Method

New research suggests it may be possible to learn high-performance tasks with little or no conscious effort
December 8, 2011
New research published today in the journal Science suggests it may be possible to use brain technology to learn to play a piano, reduce mental stress or hit a curve ball with little or no conscious effort. It's the kind of thing seen in Hollywood's "Matrix" franchise.

Experiments conducted at Boston University (BU) and ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan, recently demonstrated that through a person's visual cortex, researchers could use decoded functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to induce brain activity patterns to match a previously known target state and thereby improve performance on visual tasks.

Think of a person watching a computer screen and having his or her brain patterns modified to match those of a high-performing athlete or modified to recuperate from an accident or disease. Though preliminary, researchers say such possibilities may exist in the future.

"Adult early visual areas are sufficiently plastic to cause visual perceptual learning," said lead author and BU neuroscientist Takeo Watanabe of the part of the brain analyzed in the study.

Neuroscientists have found that pictures gradually build up inside a person's brain, appearing first as lines, edges, shapes, colors and motion in early visual areas. The brain then fills in greater detail to make a red ball appear as a red ball, for example.

Researchers studied the early visual areas for their ability to cause improvements in visual performance and learning.

"Some previous research confirmed a correlation between improving visual performance and changes in early visual areas, while other researchers found correlations in higher visual and decision areas," said Watanabe, director of BU's Visual Science Laboratory. "However, none of these studies directly addressed the question of whether early visual areas are sufficiently plastic to cause visual perceptual learning." Until now.

Boston University post-doctoral fellow Kazuhisa Shibata designed and implemented a method using decoded fMRI neurofeedback to induce a particular activation pattern in targeted early visual areas that corresponded to a pattern evoked by a specific visual feature in a brain region of interest. The researchers then tested whether repetitions of the activation pattern caused visual performance improvement on that visual feature.

The result, say researchers, is a novel learning approach sufficient to cause long-lasting improvement in tasks that require visual performance.

What's more, the approached worked even when test subjects were not aware of what they were learning.

"The most surprising thing in this study is that mere inductions of neural activation patterns corresponding to a specific visual feature led to visual performance improvement on the visual feature, without presenting the feature or subjects' awareness of what was to be learned," said Watanabe, who developed the idea for the research project along with Mitsuo Kawato, director of ATR lab and Yuka Sasaki, an assistant in neuroscience at Massachusetts General Hospital.

"We found that subjects were not aware of what was to be learned while behavioral data obtained before and after the neurofeedback training showed that subjects' visual performance improved specifically for the target orientation, which was used in the neurofeedback training," he said.

The finding brings up an inevitable question. Is hypnosis or a type of automated learning a potential outcome of the research?

"In theory, hypnosis or a type of automated learning is a potential outcome," said Kawato. "However, in this study we confirmed the validity of our method only in visual perceptual learning. So we have to test if the method works in other types of learning in the future. At the same time, we have to be careful so that this method is not used in an unethical way."

At present, the decoded neurofeedback method might be used for various types of learning, including memory, motor and rehabilitation.

The National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan supported the research.

-NSF-