White: মে 2013

শুক্রবার, ৩১ মে, ২০১৩

Why We Can?t Send Humans to Mars Yet (And How We?ll Fix That)

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/128421/Why_We_Can___t_Send_Humans_to_Mars_Yet__And_How_We___ll_Fix_That_

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Amanda Bynes Slams Lance Bass as Ugly, Talentless

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/05/amanda-bynes-slams-lance-bass-as-ugly-talentless/

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NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale team assembles final observatory

May 30, 2013 ? On May 20, 2013, the Magnetospheric Multiscale, or MMS, mission team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., reached an unprecedented milestone. The team mated the instrument and spacecraft decks to form the fourth and final MMS observatory. This is the first time Goddard has simultaneously engineered this many observatories, or spacecraft, for a single mission.

"The logistics of building four of the same thing is a new challenge, one that really makes us push the boundaries of how we operate," said Brent Robertson the MMS deputy project manager at Goddard. "These are first generation, new science observatories, and we've built them all at the same time. It's been like a very intense game of musical chairs."

The large Goddard MMS clean room can hold all four spacecraft at once, and a detailed schedule keeps track of how the team is moving from task to task. The MMS team has cause for pride in their work: building four observatories for a single mission, when many don't have the chance to build four in an entire career.

Due to launch in late 2014, MMS will investigate how the sun and Earth's magnetic fields connect and disconnect, explosively transferring energy from one to the other -- a fundamental physical process that occurs throughout the universe, known as magnetic reconnection. Using four spacecraft will provide MMS with the multipoint measurements needed to determine whether reconnection events occur in an isolated locale, everywhere within a larger region at once, or by traveling across space.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by NASA.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/ZR_44pnG3ow/130530152307.htm

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বৃহস্পতিবার, ৩০ মে, ২০১৩

Lebanon parliament set to extend term amid turmoil

BEIRUT (AP) ? Lebanon's parliament moved Wednesday to extend its term, skipping scheduled elections because of the country's deteriorating security linked to the civil war next door in Syria.

The decision is a blow to Lebanon's tradition of free elections in a region known for autocratic governments, but it may help lower tensions at a critical time for the fragile and deeply divided country.

The extension of the 128-seat legislature's term by up to 18 months, which was set for a vote Friday, marks the first time that parliament has had to extend its term since Lebanon's own civil war ended in 1975-90, and underlines the growing turmoil as a result of the Syrian conflict.

Sectarian clashes tied to Syria's war have broken out with increasing regularity in Lebanon, a country with a religious divide that mirrors that of its neighbor. Rockets fired across the frontier have struck Lebanese border villages with growing frequency, killing several people ? including a 20-year-old student this week.

At least 28 people have been killed and more than 200 wounded in battles in the northern city of Tripoli recently as supporters and opponents of President Bashar Assad lobbed mortar shells and fired heavy machine guns at each other.

That violence, coupled with the militant Lebanese Hezbollah group's direct intervention in the Syrian conflict on the side of the Assad regime, has deeply shaken Lebanon, and it threatens to throw off the country's precarious sectarian balance.

The conflict also has forced some 500,000 Syrians to seek refuge in Lebanon, putting a severe strain on the country of 4 million to cope with the influx.

"We live in a very dangerous moment in our history. We have little civil wars going on in parts of the country. Logistically, it's not feasible to have elections take place right now," said Kamel Wazne, founder and director of the Center for American Strategic Studies in Beirut.

He said extending parliament's mandate removes one logistical issue and will prevent a power vacuum from forming in a country already divided along sectarian and regional lines.

Although most political factions agreed on the action as a way out of the crisis, President Michel Suleiman said he was deeply opposed to it.

"Arab countries are experiencing bloodshed so that they may have elections, and we go and do the opposite? This is not the message that we want to send to the world," he told Future TV in an interview Wednesday night.

In addition to the security situation, Lebanese politicians have been bickering for months, unable to agree on a law to govern elections, originally set for June 16.

Outgoing Prime Minister Najib Mikati abruptly resigned in March over a political deadlock between Lebanon's two main political camps and infighting in his government, dominated by Hezbollah.

Lebanon effectively has been without a government since then, although Mikati's Cabinet stayed on in a caretaker role.

The decision by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Wednesday to call for a plenary session to extend parliament's mandate Friday followed an agreement between most political factions that the worsening security situation has made campaigning and voting impossible, and that postponing it may ease soaring tensions.

Parliament's current term ends June 20.

"The reason for the extension is the current security situation, which does not allow the polls to be held not only in some areas, but also it does not allow freedom of movement for candidates and voters in more than one area," Berri told The Daily Star newspaper Wednesday.

On Tuesday, three Lebanese soldiers were killed in a drive-by shooting on a checkpoint near the Syrian border in the second attack targeting the army this year. Moreover, the overt involvement of Hezbollah fighters in the war in Syria alongside Assad's forces has further raised sectarian tensions. Most of the rebels fighting Assad are Sunnis, and many Lebanese Sunni fighters have also joined the fight.

Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, in a weekend speech, urged the Lebanese to keep the fight restricted to Syria.

"We can fight each other there, but keep Lebanon out of the fray," he said. His opponents accused him of involving Lebanon in the fight.

The increasing violence has raised fears that Lebanon would slide into civil war, and the decision to extend parliament's mandate brought back memories of that conflict.

Although presidents continued to be elected during the 1975-90 war, Lebanon had the same parliament from 1972 until 1992 ? two years after the civil war ended.

The decision to delay the parliamentary election was received mostly with apathy on the street, where most people are angry over worsening security and economic conditions and don't expect much from lawmakers anyway.

"What do I care if they hold elections or not?" asked Ibrahim Matar, a retired civil servant. "A new parliament won't bring me electricity, food or security. Better not waste our time with such meaningless things."

Others warned that the move could hurt Lebanon's reputation as a country known for regular, relatively free elections.

"Some countries have Arab Spring revolutions to achieve democracy, while in Lebanon we are willingly throwing our democracy aside and taking up guns instead. That's absolutely tragic," said Hani Mortada, a clothing shop owner and father of two.

Most hope the extension will help maintain a semblance of peace until a solution to the Syrian crisis is reached.

Beirut-based political analyst Rami Khouri said it was unlikely that Lebanon's own sectarian conflict will be reignited.

"The differences over Syria will continue to play out in Lebanon, both in the political debate and in armed clashes, but the civil war will remain in Syria," said Khouri, director of the Issam Fares Institute of Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut.

___

Associated Press writers Barbara Surk in Beirut and Bassem Mroue in Hermel, Lebanon, contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/lebanon-parliament-set-extend-term-amid-turmoil-133954578.html

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Sources: Obama to name ex-Bush aide to head FBI

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama is prepared to nominate James Comey, a former Bush administration official with bipartisan credentials, as the next FBI director. In a possible warning sign, the top Republican on the Senate committee that would review the nomination said Comey would face questions about his ties to Wall Street.

Three people with knowledge of the selection said Wednesday that Obama planned to nominate Comey, who was the No. 2 official at the Justice Department under President George W. Bush. Comey was general counsel to Connecticut-based hedge fund Bridgewater Associates from 2010 until earlier this year and now lectures at Columbia Law School.

Comey would replace Robert Mueller, who has held the job since shortly before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, which forced the FBI to transform itself into one of the nation's chief weapons in the war on terror. Mueller's last day on the job is Sept. 4.

The White House may hope that Comey's Republican background will help him through Senate confirmation at a time when some of Obama's nominees have been facing tough battles. But Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, indicated Comey's confirmation hearing would raise questions about the Obama administration's investigations of Wall Street.

Grassley said in a statement late Wednesday he had not heard from the White House about Comey's nomination but said Comey possessed a lot of important experience on national security issues.

"But, if he's nominated, he would have to answer questions about his recent work in the hedge fund industry," Grassley said. "The administration's efforts to criminally prosecute Wall Street for its part in the economic downturn have been abysmal, and his agency would have to help build the case against some of his colleagues."

Comey became a hero to Democrats for the central role he played in holding up Bush's warrantless wiretapping program, one of the administration's great controversies and an episode that focused attention on the administration's controversial tactics in the war on terror.

In stunning testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2007, Comey said he thought Bush's no-warrant wiretapping program was so questionable that Comey refused for a time to reauthorize it, leading to a standoff with White House officials at the bedside of ailing Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Comey said he refused to recertify the program because Ashcroft had reservations about its legality.

Senior government officials had expressed concerns about whether the National Security Agency, which administered the warrantless eavesdropping program, had the proper oversight in place. Other concerns included whether any president possessed the legal and constitutional authority to authorize the program as it was carried out at the time.

The White House, Comey said, recertified the program without the Justice Department's signoff, allowing it to operate for about three weeks without concurrence on whether it was legal. Comey, Ashcroft, Mueller and other Justice Department officials at one point considered resigning, Comey said.

"I couldn't stay if the administration was going to engage in conduct that the Department of Justice had said had no legal basis," Comey told the Senate panel.

A day after the March 10, 2004, incident at Ashcroft's hospital bedside, Bush ordered changes to the program to accommodate the department's concerns. Ashcroft signed the presidential order to recertify the program about three weeks later.

The dramatic hospital confrontation involved Comey, who was the acting attorney general during Ashcroft's absence, and a White House team that included Gonzales, Bush's counsel at the time, and White House chief of staff Andy Card, Comey said. Gonzales later succeeded Ashcroft as attorney general.

Comey testified that when he refused to certify the program, Gonzales and Card headed to Ashcroft's sick bed in the intensive care unit at George Washington University Hospital.

When Gonzales appealed to Ashcroft, the ailing attorney general lifted his head off the pillow and in straightforward terms described his views of the program, Comey said. Then he pointed out that Comey, not Ashcroft, held the powers of the attorney general at that moment.

Gonzales and Card then left the hospital room, Comey said.

"I was angry," Comey told the panel. "I thought I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man who did not have the powers of the attorney general."

Comey was deputy attorney general in 2005, when he unsuccessfully tried to limit tough interrogation tactics against suspected terrorists. He told then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales that some of the practices were wrong and would damage the department's reputation.

Some Democrats denounced those methods as torture, particularly the use of waterboarding, which produces the sensation of drowning.

Comey's selection was first reported by NPR and was not expected to be announced for several days at least. It was confirmed to the AP by three people speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the selection ahead of Obama's announcement. Senate confirmation will be needed.

The change in leadership at the FBI comes as the bureau and Justice Department are under scrutiny for their handing of several investigations. Obama has ordered a review of FBI investigations into leaks to reporters, including the secret gathering of Associated Press phone records and emails of a Fox News reporter. And there have been questions raised about whether the FBI properly responded to warnings from Russian authorities about a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings. The agency, meanwhile, is conducting a highly anticipated investigation into the Internal Revenue Service over its handling of conservative groups seeking tax exempt status.

Earlier in his career, Comey served as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, one of the nation's most prominent prosecutorial offices and one at the front lines of terrorism, corporate malfeasance, organized crime and the war on drugs.

As an assistant U.S. attorney in Virginia, Comey handled the investigation of the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers housing complex near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 U.S. military personnel.

He led the Justice Department's corporate fraud task force and spurred the creation of violent crime impact teams in 20 cities, focusing on crimes committed with guns.

___

Associated Press writer Pete Yost contributed to this report.

___

Follow Nedra Pickler on Twitter at https://twitter.com/nedrapickler

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ap-sources-obama-name-ex-bush-aide-head-065811607.html

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Watch Brian Eno Describe How He Bridges Time With Sound and Light

Brian Eno has always been a prolific artist, whether as a pop star or an ambient composer. But 77 Million Paintings, one of Eno?s more recent releases, is his most expansive: a series of almost 300 individual music and lightworks that combine in an infinite array of randomized variations. But where did the idea for the genre-bridging work come from? Eno himself talks about his inspiration in this mind-bending short film.

Hubble sees a swirl of star formation

May 28, 2013 ? The Hubble Space Telescope has captured the image of an unusual galaxy -- a beautiful, glittering swirl named, rather un-poetically, J125013.50+073441.5. A glowing haze of material seems to engulf the galaxy, stretching out into space in different directions and forming a fuzzy streak in this image. It is a starburst galaxy -- a name given to galaxies that show unusually high rates of star formation. The regions where new stars are being born are highlighted by sparkling bright blue regions along the galactic arms.

Studying starburst galaxies can tell us a lot about galactic evolution and star formation. These galaxies start off with huge amounts of gas, which is used to form new stars. This period of furious star formation is only a phase; once all the gas is used up, this star birth slows down. Other famous starbursts captured by Hubble include the Antennae Galaxies and Messier 82, the latter of which is forming new stars ten times faster than our galaxy, the Milky Way.

The data for this image were collected using Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 as part of a study named LARS (Lyman Alpha Reference Sample), which is investigating the interaction between radiation and matter in relatively nearby starburst galaxies.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by NASA.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/space_time/nasa/~3/Kjg5BTL-UN4/130528105104.htm

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The Business And Science Of Storm Shelters

JOHN DONVAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm John Donvan in Washington. Neal Conan is away. A small hole in the ground, that's all it looked like the other day in the photo of the Christian Science Monitor, published in its coverage of a tornado that ripped through Moore, Oklahoma, a small hole in the ground surrounded on all sides by the wreckage of totally flattened homes, right up to the very edge of that hole in the ground, which oddly is rectangular in shape in the photo and has a door attached to it, flung open.

The caption explains that actually this hole in the ground is a tornado shelter and that nine people's lives were saved because they were down inside it when the funnel blew past and that the shelter had only been installed two weeks earlier.

It's still unclear how many people were saved by storm shelters in last week's tornado, but there is little doubt that people who sought cover in previously installed underground shelters and safe rooms were protected. And yet most people in high-risk areas don't have them. The reasons for that? Well, we're going to ask.

But meanwhile, we are hearing from storm shelter companies in Oklahoma that their phones have been ringing off the hook. If you are in or even near a tornado alley out there, we want to learn from you. What is involved in deciding if you want to get a shelter of your own? And has one ever saved your life? Our number is 800-989-8255. Our email address is talk@npr.org. And you can join our conversation at our website. Go to npr.org and click on TALK OF THE NATION.

Later in the program, how Ta-Nehisi Coates reignited his imagination. But first let's go to Moore, Oklahoma. Joining me now by phone from Moore is Larry Tanner. He is the manager of the Debris Impact Test Facility for the Wind Science and Engineering Research Center at Texas Tech University. Welcome, Larry.

LARRY TANNER: Good afternoon.

DONVAN: Good afternoon. So you are in Moore now physically, and you study shelters professionally. What brings you there in the aftermath? What are you looking for?

TANNER: Well, we usually do lots of various types of forensic investigations of building failures, but this particular investigation is dedicated solely to shelters, shelter performance, shelter types that we find, numbers of shelters, visiting with people that have experienced the tornado and were in shelters and some that weren't in shelters, and you know, to quantify, you know, how, you know, people are doing nowadays with the advent of a whole lot of shelter opportunities from various manufacturers.

DONVAN: Are you - Larry, are you finding in this preliminary sense, are you finding any patterns? In other words most of the shelters, did they hold, did they work and serve their function?

TANNER: Well, we did not fail - did not find any failed shelters at all. (Technical difficulties)

DONVAN: Larry, I just want to stop you because your phone is breaking up a little bit, and you may be standing in a windy place or a place with a low signal, or maybe the phone just needs to be held a little closer to your lips when you speak. I'm not sure. I just wanted to see if you could do a little bit of a shift in that.

And while you're repositioning a little bit, we have asked our listeners to share their stories about making decisions about shelters, and I'll go to one of them, and you can listen in while you're repositioning, and then I'll come back to you. Thanks a lot.

All right, I want to go to Graham, who is in Yukon, Oklahoma. Hi Graham, you're on TALK OF THE NATION. So what's your story with - and first of all your exposure to tornadoes, and what's your decision been about getting yourself a shelter?

GRAHAM: Yeah, we've lived in Oklahoma City about seven years, and we recently purchased a new home in Yukon, and we decided when we moved out there we wanted to pay to have a tornado shelter installed.

DONVAN: So what does it cost? I think that's sort of a bottom line on this whole conversation.

GRAHAM: Yeah, it cost us $3,200, and it's pretty small. It's a six-person, and they installed it in our garage.

DONVAN: So does that mean - and again I'm talking as somebody who's never seen one of these, and maybe a lot of our listeners haven't - does that mean it stands on the floor of your garage, or is it sunk into your garage?

GRAHAM: No, it's below ground. They just saw a four-feet-by-eight-feet hole in the garage and drop a steel shelter in and put concrete around it.

DONVAN: We had heard earlier that the phones are ringing off the hooks among people who install these shelters since Moore happened. You put yours in before Moore happened?

GRAHAM: Yeah.

DONVAN: What was the prompt for you, since it wasn't that recent disaster?

GRAHAM: Well, we just purchased the home in February, and we had the storm shelter company install it the day after we closed because we wanted to make sure to get it in. And it only took about four hours for them to install it.

DONVAN: That's interesting, so it's not a gigantic inconvenience to you structurally to have it put in.

GRAHAM: No, no, the house is all finished. It just takes about four hours, and it's ready to use.

DONVAN: All right, Graham, thanks very much for your call from Yukon, Oklahoma. And I want to see if we can go back to Larry Tanner, who is the manager of the Debris Impact Test Facility, who studies these things. Larry, are you still with us? All right, it sounds like Larry's going to be relocating for the time being. Let's bring in Kristen(ph), who is in Oklahoma City. Kristen, hi, you're on TALK OF THE NATION. What's your story in regard to shelters?

KRISTEN: Hi, I was - I live in Oklahoma City, and I was recently in the tornado. My parents live about two miles from where the tornado hit, and I was at school. I teach at a community college. And they were with my two-year-old daughter in the hall and with no storm shelter. And I was watching it on television and it was just absolutely harrowing. It was coming straight for our house.

DONVAN: So you're in it, and you're watching it come at you.

KRISTEN: Yes, I was in Midwest City, and it was very close to Midwest City also.

So it was - there were several circulations at the time. But yeah, it was - I think it was the scariest thing I've experienced thus far as a parent. And so after that my mom just said I can't go through this again, I just - we have to get a storm shelter. So...

DONVAN: And Kristen, why wasn't there one before? And I'm not asking that in a critical way. I'm asking that as, you know, I'm sitting in Washington, D.C., and then I see what happens and a kind of thought crosses your mind, well, why doesn't everybody have one already? There's got to be reasons. What are the reasons for that?

KRISTEN: Well, there are a couple of reasons. One of the first reasons is that rarely homes are built with basements in Oklahoma City. So - and they're - I think it has to do with the water level. So there's - it's hard to get underground. And I think that we're sort of immune to it, in a way. There are tornado watches, tornado warnings all the time, and I think until the 1999 tornado, I mean we just sort of ignored it a lot of times because it just happens so often.

But that tornado really, I think, showed what kind of damage could be done, and when they were talking about it, they kept comparing it to the '99 tornado, and I knew then that it was really, really bad, so...

DONVAN: All right, Kristen, thanks very much for sharing your story with us. Thanks for joining us on TALK OF THE NATION.

I want to bring in Bill Stegman. Bill, we mentioned that companies that install these shelters are getting a lot of calls right now, and Bill Stegman owns a company called American Tornado Master. He's out of Dallas, Texas. Bill, hi, you're on TALK OF THE NATION, and thanks for joining us from Dallas.

BILL STEGMAN: Hello, sir, how are you today?

DONVAN: I'm well, thank you. It would really help us if you can tell us - picture, draw a picture for me of what your product is. How does a shelter go from your floor, your storage area to somebody's home?

STEGMAN: Well, sir, we have several different types. We have above-ground and below-ground shelters. We also have them built out of different construction types, from concrete to steel. And just depending on where a person lives at, that kind of determines what equipment we can and cannot use and install the various shelters that we have.

And we like to try to go out and meet with the client, survey the land and then talk with them and see what their needs are and then try to fulfill that for them.

DONVAN: So I heard a price tag of $3,200, and my sense was that that person was talking about a shelter that would hold a family of four or five people. What do you think that they're talking about? Is that obviously something prefabricated, he had it sunk in his garage? Is it a fiberglass product normally or...

STEGMAN: It would probably be a steel - they make a steel, and they do make steel fiberglass shelters also. That would - but that - for that price range that would probably be a steel in-ground storm shelter up in the Oklahoma area.

DONVAN: You know, I know that everybody in your field, everybody in your business is getting a lot of business right now, and I know that that happens after tragedy, and I don't want to ask you, you know, whether this is good for business, because obviously it is for painful reasons.

I do want to ask you a different question. Why do people hold off, do you think, on making this investment?

STEGMAN: I just think it's one of those items, sir, that is out of sight, out of mind, and then one day when day when they see the devastation and destruction, the injuries and the death, then people just wake up and decide, you know, we really need to invest in one and have it done. It's - but it's just one of those products that, you know, if it isn't on the news, it's just out - you know, they put it on the back burner.

We've had several clients call us that have told us in the last 10 days that they've been paying to call us for the last three to six months, and now they're doing it. We've had clients that we've seen two years ago call us back.

DONVAN: Are the shelters themselves always safe? I mean I'm imagining people think in terms - I'm going to go down there for 15 minutes, maybe an hour, until everything blows over. But if you're in a shelter and debris ends up being on top of you, are you safe if you're trapped inside a shelter?

STEGMAN: Well, most all the storm shelters, especially if they've been approved and tested at Texas Tech Wind Engineering, they're required to have X amount of square inch of ventilation per the size of the shelter. And unless it's just really covered up, and it would have to be, you know, compounded covered up, such as dirt impact on top, you're going to have enough ventilation in there. Any good storm shelter company is going to really put more ventilation than is the actual requirement on there.

But I would - you know, we have in-ground steel and in-ground concrete both, but our in-ground concrete is built in such a way where it's half above-ground and half below-ground. And we cover over the top of it, you know, with backfilled dirt, just sort of a mound over the top. But our door is on a 45-degree angle. You know, so in the event that there is debris on top of it, you would use a floor jack to - and a couple braces, you know, to jack the door up to try to let air inflow in and the same thing for the in-ground steel shelters. You can use a come-along...

DONVAN: Bill, can I ask you to hold on for just a second because we need to take a break? And I'm going to come back to you, and Larry Tanner is joining us again. We're talking about the storm shelter need and the business and what your decision is. I'm John Donvan. This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

DONVAN: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm John Donvan. The tornadoes that touched down in Moore, Oklahoma, last week killed more than two dozen people and destroyed more than 1,000 homes. Today Sooners around the states are warily once again eyeing the weather reports because meteorologists are tracking some storms that could develop later today.

They're predicted to deliver winds up to 80 miles an hour and hail the size of tennis balls. There is in the forecast mention of another possible tornado, and if it materializes, it could send residents right back down into their storm shelters. And that's what we're talking about, storm shelters. If you have thought about having one installed at your home or built, tell us what went into your decision.

And if you've ever taken shelter in one, we want to hear your story. What's it like to be in there feeling safe when the danger is outside? Our number is 800-989-8255. Our email address is talk@npr.org. And you can join the conversation at our website. Go to npr.org, and click on TALK OF THE NATION.

We're going to bring back into the conversation Larry Tanner. He is the manager of the Debris Impact Test Facility at the Wind Science and Engineering Research Center at Texas Tech University. Larry, thanks for your patience. You were with us earlier, and we had a little bit of communication problem.

But you were talking about the - really the requirements of a shelter, what it needs to stand up to, and that's what you test. I'm also interested to hear from you about really the challenges of the terrain itself and the soil itself, because we understand that in Moore, Oklahoma, the soil is not terribly conducive to placing a shelter underground.

And I want to understand what that's about. Why is that?

TANNER: Well, you can have rocky soils, you can have expansion soils, you can have a high water table, all of which pretty well rule out any kind of underground excavation for a shelter. So that leaves you with the, you know, the aboveground safe room concept. And we, you know, we've seen a number of those this investigation, and folks in those shelters were quite safe, and the shelter performed admirable, even though their houses didn't.

DONVAN: So it sounds as though this is not - this is not a technological challenge, that the manufacturers and the people who install, like Bill Stegman, they're - they have the product that's needed, it hits the standards.

TANNER: Yes, the thing is, the thing is that these shelters need to be tested because first of all the door is the most vulnerable, and, you know, that's - you open that door in the middle of a storm or get it knocked open by flying debris, then the occupant extremely danger. We also test doors for below-ground shelters because we see, we see doors that are blown off of below-ground shelters.

We see below-ground shelters that only have one lock, and the FEMA and ICC 500 standard requires a minimum of two locks at the conclusion of the testing but recommends the use of three locks for all shelter doors. That way you've got some redundancy if you lose one.

DONVAN: All right, I'd like to go back to some of our callers, and they - we have a lot of people, actually, lined up who want to share stories, and maybe we'll have some points that, Larry, you can respond to, and Bill Stegman, who is the owner of American Tornado Master who's joining us from Dallas, Texas. Let's bring in Elena(ph) from Norman, Oklahoma. Hi Elena, you're on TALK OF THE NATION.

ELENA: Hi, thank you so much for taking my call.

DONVAN: Sure.

ELENA: I wanted to, you know, mention that my family and I are all from Oklahoma, I grew up here. My family lives in Southern Oklahoma, and my family and I, it's me and my husband and our young son who is about 18 months old. We have all lived in Oklahoma our entire lives, and I've never lived in a home that had a shelter.

And I think the point should be made that for a lot of families who are poor and in these more rural areas, you know, $3,000 is a lot of money, and that's one of the cheapest shelters, and those are the ones that go usually in the garage and are kind of frightening because they're sort of right by your house, so the possibility of having debris trap you in the shelter is very, very likely.

But the cost, you know, $3,000 is really something that's - you know, it's not possible, it's prohibitive for a lot of families who have incomes that are, you know, $24,000 a year or less. So, you know, that's one point, but then another thing that I also wanted to mention is my family right now, we live in a rental home.

And it doesn't have shelter. In fact, I know a lot of homes that are rented that don't have shelters, and the landlords are not really very perceptive because of the cost of installing the shelter. They're not particularly perceptive to putting one in. But it puts a lot of families who don't own their homes, you know, in danger. Public - a lot of public facilities here in Oklahoma also don't have underground shelters.

I work for the University of Oklahoma, and though we have some buildings that have underground areas, basement-type, you know, underground areas, there's not an underground shelter on campus. My son's daycare doesn't; a lot of the schools don't. So this is - I mean, this is really a conversation that needs to be had, so I really appreciate that you're focusing on it today.

DONVAN: Well Elena, as a matter of fact since you feel this is a conversation that should be had, let me take it a little bit in that direction back to Larry Tanner.

ELENA: Absolutely.

DONVAN: And thanks for your call, thanks for joining us, Elena.

ELENA: Thank you very much.

DONVAN: Back to Larry Tanner, I don't want to get you into the politics of this, so I'm not going to ask your opinion, I just want to sort of ask you what the facts are. In terms of after a disaster like this, is there often a discussion? Does the discussion take place about whether building codes and construction regulation should require, require shelters be included in new construction?

I know that the mayor of Moore, Mayor Glenn Lewis, said he's going to seek a mandate that all new homes in Moore would have to have underground storm shelters, and we have an estimate that that'll add $4,000 to the price. Does this conversation tend to come and go with the level of disaster?

TANNER: Well yes, it does, you know, out of sight, out of mind does take place. It will occur probably six months from this disaster. But in answer to your caller, the 2015 International Building Code will require shelters in schools and in public buildings. That will be a requirement, you know, throughout, you know, the tornado regions.

Now municipalities can have the, you know, the authority to keep that verbiage in the codes or to modify that verbiage in the codes. So that's, you know, not only states' rights, but it's also city rights and taxpayer rights. But certainly, you know, these public places and schools, you know, need to have shelters because, you know, our children are the future of our families and our country.

DONVAN: Bill Stegman, again you're south, you're in Dallas, Texas, but also a tornado-prone area, and you make your living installing shelters. And Larry Tanner was just talking about what I guess we would call a communal shelter, a shelter large enough to service a school or maybe a nursing home or something like that. And I'm curious to know: Is that the trend? Is there a trend more towards building shelters for full neighborhoods or for large groups of people as opposed to the house-by-house-by-house shelter?

STEGMAN: I'm aware of a few towns here in Texas that have built community shelters, more out in the rural area. I haven't personally received very many calls from municipalities or cities requesting any info on that. We have recently built one for a school district where they were going to put in their computer systems.

So in the event, you know, that something's going to happen today, I guess they wouldn't be totally dysfunctional there. But I do believe that that is going to be the trend, more so coming down the line from here.

DONVAN: And is it a different technological challenge to build a large challenge? Does it just need, you know, a great deal more support and structure?

STEGMAN: Yes, sir, it is a different type with more structure but nothing that can't be built. I mean, they're being built now. So, you know, the challenges just have to be met.

DONVAN: All right, we are getting some emails, as well as listener calls, and I want to read one from Stephanie(ph), who is in Oklahoma City. She says: I was skeptical when my mother decided to have an in-ground shelter installed last spring. As a 35-year resident of Oklahoma City, she had an increasing fear that the storms and tornadoes were becoming more violent and more frequent. After seeking shelter in our subterranean structure three times last week, I am now a believer. I find that interesting because her mother is older and, you know, on this coast, on the East Coast, when we have people who live down by the beaches and hurricanes come in, it's often the older people who won't - who don't see the threat. And here, Stephanie's mom, who is older, is beginning to become more concerned about the threat.

And Jane Lawton - I'm sorry. Jane of Lawton, Oklahoma, she says: Lawton is 90 miles from Oklahoma City. We installed a shelter two years ago, and a few weeks ago, when circulatory winds passed right over our house, they went downstairs. We took refuge, she says. No damage, but we felt safe. A shelter company from Oklahoma City came at 7:30 one morning, and they were finished with the installation by 10:30 - three hours. Is the - three hours, Bill Stegman, is that all can it take sometimes?

STEGMAN: Sometimes - pardon me. Sometimes it can, depending on what type of soil conditions and foundation conditions you're working with. Sometimes, it can take 10 hours to do that very same one here in Dallas, Texas, and sometimes two days. But we have a large rock problem here. And then also, in our area here, most of the homes are built with post-tension cabling. So - but up in Oklahoma, I know some folks up there, and that's - their average is, on a real well-trained crew, is three to five hours.

DONVAN: Let's bring in Joe from Midwest City, Oklahoma. Hi, Joe. You're on TALK OF THE NATION.

JOE: Hello.

DONVAN: Hi, Joe. You're on the air.

JOE: Thank you.

DONVAN: So tell us, do you have a storm shelter?

JOE: I do have a storm shelter. We live in a house in Midwest City. It was built in 1952. The shelter was originally constructed on the patio. We figured it was also intended as a bomb shelter. It's a nice concrete shelter.

DONVAN: Oh, you mean as a sort of Cold War bomb shelter...

JOE: Exactly, exactly.

DONVAN: ...against nuclear attack. Uh-huh.

JOE: And it's now in the living room, since I built onto the house in 1970. And I stand on the steps and watch the radar right up until the time I have to close the lid.

DONVAN: So you have a hatch in your living room floor then, really.

JOE: I do. I do. Right next to the dining room table, up against the wall.

DONVAN: So somebody - an earlier caller mentioned a concern about - she said I wouldn't want it in the garage, because the house would fall down on top it if we were to hit - be hit directly. You have yours right...

JOE: (Unintelligible)

DONVAN: ...in the living room. What about - you have that concern?

JOE: We do have that concern. We are registered with the Midwest City Fire Department GPS. They know we have a shelter, and they know we're going to be in there. My wife has a whistle. We have cell phones and a six-foot pry-bar.

DONVAN: All right. Joe, thanks very much for sharing your story. And I want to go to Pam in Saint Louis. Hi, Pam. You're on TALK OF THE NATION. Actually, Pam, it's my mistake. I'm having a little difficulty with the buttons here, but you should be on TALK OF THE NATION now. Hi, Pam. Are you on the air?

PAM: I am.

DONVAN: Hi.

PAM: I know that cost is one of the biggest obstacles. And as people rebuild in Oklahoma, I just want them to know that FHA loans include the ability to finance a storm shelter. So when they go to refinance or rebuild, they can add that storm shelter on. And if they're using an FHA loan, they can finance it that way.

DONVAN: So we're talking about $4,000, maybe, it sounds like a rough ballpark. And you spread that out over 25 years, you maybe would be paying 40 or 50 bucks a month, something like that for it, to put it in there.

PAM: I don't know that it comes out to that much, but it's certainly an option for people that don't have the cash right up front.

DONVAN: Right. All right. A really good tip. If it's accurate - and I'm assuming that you're right - it's a really good tip. I'm interested in something, Larry Tanner, about, you know, in terms of the cost-benefit analysis, you know, even here in Washington, especially through the summer, we will get tornado watches and tornado warnings. And in the counties around Washington, tornadoes tend to touch down every summer somewhere around Maryland or Virginia, the states that surround Washington, D.C. But there's no great conversation here about installing shelters.

What - and I think that's because of the perception that the risk is relatively low. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But where do you draw the line on deciding whether you're at risk for this?

TANNER: Well, virtually any place east of the Rocky Mountains is susceptible to tornadoes. And so, you know, that's why you see them not only in Tornado Alley, but you see them in, you know, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois. I've researched a bunch in Ohio. Just in the last couple of years, we've had storms, pretty significant storms in Pennsylvania and Maryland and North Carolina. So, you know, it's not uncommon, and it's not really uncommon in New England. But the severity of the storms are less.

DONVAN: Right. Larry, let me just interrupt for a moment to tell our stations that you're listening to TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News. And I want to have Terrence(ph) from Tulsa join us. Hi, Terrence. You're on TALK OF THE NATION.

TERRENCE: Hi. Yeah. I'm in Tulsa. And I appreciate the opportunity to be on, because I'm going to bring something to the table that you guys aren't necessarily talking about but is extremely beneficial, which is a domed-shape structure for living, or even for a storm shelter. The benefit of that kind of a structure where it's perfectly circular are - they're wide-ranging, but specifically for what we're discussing with the tornadoes, there's a woman actually in Moore or the Oklahoma City area - I can't remember which - that I read an article about that she has this - she went and built a domed-shape building after the '99 storm. So you may want to try to look out for that and see if you can find this lady, because she could say - she could give you more specific information that I can't. (Unintelligible)

DONVAN: So you're saying - but, Terrence, you're saying that the dome shape of the home is aerodynamically less vulnerable to damage...

TERRENCE: Yeah. Right. Absolutely.

DONVAN: ...no corners - I'm assuming no corners and harder things for it to catch on to.

TERRENCE: Her home was totally fine in this, you know, in this experience. So if you could look for her, I'm sure you would be able to get more specific information from her. But, yes, you're absolutely accurate. Yes.

DONVAN: Terrence, thank you. You take us out of this conversation with something to look for and possibly with the future to look ahead to. Thanks, Terrence in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I also want to thank...

TERRENCE: All right.

DONVAN: ...Larry Tanner. He is the manager of the Debris Impact Test Facility for the Wind Science and Engineering Research Center at Texas Tech University, who joined us by phone from Moore, where he is investigating the situation, and also Bill Stegman. He is the owner of American Tornado Master in Dallas, Texas, who joined us by phone from his office in Dallas.

After a short break, The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates joins us to make the case for getting lost. Stay with us. I'm John Donvan. This is TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News.

Copyright ? 2013 NPR. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to NPR. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/05/28/186922983/the-business-and-science-of-storm-shelters?ft=1&f=1007

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Duke celebrates 2nd NCAA lacrosse title

WRALSportsFan

Duke celebrates 2nd NCAA lacrosse title

By JOEDY McCREARY, AP Sports Writer

Published: 2013-05-28 15:51:00
Updated: 2013-05-28 19:25:14

Yesterday at 7:25 p.m.

DURHAM, N.C. ? Duke celebrated its latest national championship in lacrosse like it had already won one before.

Which makes sense, because some of the Blue Devils already had.

So after Duke beat Syracuse to win its second NCAA title in four years, coach John Danowski had his players remove their championship caps and T-shirts, tone down the party and shake the Orange players' hands with grace and humility.

Danowski said Tuesday that "it just never made sense to me to put on a T-shirt that said, 'We beat you'" because "it doesn't seem to be sportsmanlike."

These Blue Devils let their results on the field speak for themselves.

Duke is the only program in Division I to reach each of the last seven Final Fours.

The Blue Devils have made it that far every year since Danowski took over the program in the summer of 2006, and the high point in that run came in 2010 when they won their first national title.

And during the past four years, the freshmen on that team developed into the seniors who delivered a second championship ? a 16-10 victory over the Orange after they fell behind 5-0 and appeared headed for their second title-game loss under Danowski.

The win made Danowski the fifth active coach in Division I with multiple national titles.

"I think it proves to everybody that what we do here is right," junior attacker Josh Dionne said. "What coach Danowski preaches to us, the discipline, he makes us mature very quickly. The greatness that he demands of us, that's a bar set so high."

Few expected a second title early in the season, when the Blue Devils lost four of their first six games ? including a 16-7 loss to Maryland that came a day after Danowski threw the team off the practice field because the players were lacking energy and sharpness.

"That was the last time that looked like that the day before a game," Danowski said. "One of the lessons that this team had to learn."

By season's end, Duke hardly resembled the team that stumbled out of the gate. The Blue Devils won 14 of their final 15 games, with the only loss coming to rival North Carolina in the ACC championship game.

Duke won its first three NCAA tournament games by a combined four goals, then came up with a timely rally to beat the Orange on Monday and claim another championship trophy.

This one came with a more mellow celebration, after Danowski's request to his team was unknowingly captured by television cameras.

"It just shows everyone who's watching what kind of person coach Danowski is," Dionne said. "It just shows that he is a winner. He knows the values and he's been there and lost so many times that he knows how the other coach feels."

It also marked the latest step forward from the infamous, since-debunked rape case that was brought in 2006 against three players and led to Danowski being hired that summer to replace former coach Mike Pressler.

"I can't help but think we've come full circle here in some ways," Danowski said. "Never in my wildest dreams did I think we'd be sitting here. You don't think in terms of wins and losses and championships and sitting here next to the trophy."

___

Follow Joedy McCreary on Twitter at (at)JoedyAP.

Most Recent Comments

RE: Duke celebrates 2nd NCAA lacrosse title

Just gotten into lacrosse the last few years. Happy to see an exciting sport grow & give an alternative to a painfully boring sport like baseball?
- Posted by canz

Agreed. It is also nice to see that the local ACC schools - both men and women - are doing well in what has traditionally been a "northern school" sport.

I would like to say, however, being at a local minor league baseball game in person is much more fun than watching on TV. The Durham Bulls put on a great show. Take the family and check them out.

RE: Duke celebrates 2nd NCAA lacrosse title

Just gotten into lacrosse the last few years. Happy to see an exciting sport grow & give an alternative to a painfully boring sport like baseball

RE: Duke celebrates 2nd NCAA lacrosse title

Way to go guys, I have to admit when it was 5-0 I was very concerned.
You guys showed great heart battling back in bringing the championship
back to Durham!

RE: Duke celebrates 2nd NCAA lacrosse title

Congrats guys!

Source: http://www.wralsportsfan.com/duke-celebrates-2nd-ncaa-lacrosse-title/12491530/

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Jamie Campbell Bower Loves Playing A 'Douchebag' In 'Mortal Instruments'

'He's just sarcastic and rude,' actor tells MTV News of his Shadowhunter character, Jace Wayland.
By Amy Wilkinson, with reporting by Josh Horowitz

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1708097/jamie-campbell-bower-mortal-instruments-character-jace.jhtml

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Independent RI Gov. Chafee, ex-GOP, to become Dem

NARRAGANSETT, R.I. (AP) ? Independent Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee is joining the Democratic Party ahead of his 2014 bid for a second term, his spokeswoman said Wednesday, confirming a move that Chafee has been talking about for months as a way to better position himself for re-election.

Chafee would not immediately address his party switch when asked about it Wednesday after he exited a ferry from Block Island to the mainland, saying only that he would announce his decision at his local board of canvassers in Warwick on Thursday morning. But he did say his priorities haven't changed.

"All I've cared about since my time in public service started is good, honest, efficient government. That hasn't changed. Nothing has changed since I was a councilman in Warwick," Chafee said.

The governor, a former Republican senator, became a political independent in 2007, the year after he lost re-election to the U.S. Senate. He was elected as the nation's only independent governor in 2010.

Chafee has noted in the past that he shares many positions with Democrats and that joining the party would help with fundraising. He is a supporter of President Barack Obama, who he endorsed ahead of the Democratic primary in 2008, and he spoke at last year's Democratic National Convention. But for local Democrats, the move complicates next year's gubernatorial primary and sets up the possibility of a three-way matchup with Providence Mayor Angel Taveras and Treasurer Gina Raimondo.

Obama said in a statement that he was delighted and thrilled by the decision. He called Chafee an "independent thinker and leader who's unafraid to reach across party lines to get things done" and said he looked forward to working with him in the years ahead. Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin, chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, said the group was excited to welcome Chafee and looked forward to "enthusiastically supporting whoever emerges as the Democratic nominee in Rhode Island."

Many local Democrats declined to immediately weigh in, with some saying they hadn't been informed of Chafee's plan and others declining to comment. House Speaker Gordon Fox, the most powerful Democrat in state politics, had not been told of any plan by Chafee to switch parties, a spokesman for Fox said. Hours after news of the switch broke, Fox issued a statement saying he was pleased Chafee had joined Democrats' ranks and looked forward to talking about it with Chafee soon.

Taveras responded by highlighting his own party credentials, saying in a statement that he has been "a Democrat and a Red Sox fan my whole life, and I don't intend on changing either."

Raimondo said in a statement that Chafee's decision to switch parties a second time has not changed her thinking on a run for governor, which she said she is seriously considering.

"The question Rhode Islanders have is who can provide the leadership we need to move our state forward," she said.

Former longtime Democratic Congressman Patrick Kennedy told The Associated Press that the move makes sense for Chafee given his political views, including his support for Obama's health care overhaul and his longtime support for legalizing same-sex marriage, which he recently signed into law in Rhode Island. Kennedy said Chafee's views "put him in the mainstream of the Democratic Party."

"He has been very progressive in those ways and I think he'll find a lot of people embracing him, and I think welcoming him," Kennedy said, adding that it would be great to have him join the party.

Registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans in Rhode Island more than three to one, although most voters aren't affiliated with any party.

When asked how he thinks local Democrats will react, given the likelihood that two longtime Democrats are already running for governor, Kennedy, who now lives in New Jersey, said Democrats know Chafee shares their core principles.

"He is the incumbent governor, and he has been a strong supporter of our incumbent president, and I think it would be important for us to acknowledge his support for the traditional principles of the Democratic Party. It's not like he's becoming a Democrat for political expediency alone. He's been consistent," Kennedy said.

Brown University political science Prof. Wendy Schiller said changing parties is a risky move for the governor, setting up a matchup with two of the state's most popular politicians with built-in bases of support.

Taveras is Hispanic and is likely to compete with Chafee for the support of organized labor. Raimondo could win over more conservative Democrats and tussle with Chafee for the party's female base.

"I still do not see the significant gain for Chafee in switching parties," Schiller said. "Raimondo and Taveras represent the future of the Democratic Party. They span a wide spectrum of Democratic voters. I think he'd really benefit if those two really beat each other up."

Schiller also downplayed the fundraising advantage to switching parties, saying his status as the nation's only independent governor gave him a distinction he will lose by becoming just another Northeast Democrat.

Although Rhode Island is heavily Democratic, it has not had a Democratic governor for years. Chafee will become the first Democrat to hold the seat since 1995.

Chafee is son of the late U.S. Sen. John Chafee, a former governor whose name was synonymous with the Republican Party in Rhode Island for decades. When John Chafee died in office in 1999, Lincoln Chafee was appointed to fill his seat, and then won re-election to the post the following year. In the Senate, he voted to the left of many Democrats, opposing the war in Iraq, for example. But he stuck it out as a Republican through his 2006 re-election campaign, which he lost to Whitehouse.

He left the party in 2007 and became an independent. He made his political comeback in 2010, winning a four-way race for governor with 36 percent of the vote.

As governor, Chafee has struggled with poor approval ratings and some of his policy proposals have fizzled in the face of opposition in the Democratic-controlled General Assembly, such as an early plan to expand the sales tax.

Chafee is a reluctant fundraiser, and he has often depended on personal wealth to fund his campaigns. He told the AP in December that he was considering joining the Democrats to help his chances of winning a second term.

___

Associated Press writers Michelle R. Smith in Providence and Ken Thomas and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/independent-ri-gov-chafee-ex-gop-become-dem-165053950.html

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Navy Wants Aircraft Carriers to Manufacture Weapons On the Go

These days, the mention of 3D-printed weapons conjures up visions of people printing AK-47s in their garages (ok, that might just be me). But a recent story in the Armed Forces Journal brings word of a more systematic implementation of 3D-printed warfare.

According to one Lieutenant Commander Michael Llenza, the Navy's future lies in converting aircraft carriers into ?floating factories,? each carrying a fleet of 3D printers to churn out weapons, drones, and even shelters at a moment?s notice. There?s money and time to be saved in the sheer logistical rationality of the scheme. For example, when cylindrical bullets are stacked, tiny bits of wasted space are created?which add up, when you're talking about millions of the things. Rectangular packages of powder, which could be printed into bullets when needed, are a far more efficient use of space.

Right now, research on such a scheme is being done in bits and pieces. Llenza points out a handful of examples, including Contour Crafting, the building-sized 3D printing system, as well as several recent projects in which complete UAVs were produced overnight:

[?] The University of Virginia printed a UAV controlled by a relatively cheap Android phone whose camera was used to shoot aerial imagery. Designed for a top speed of 45 mph, the aircraft crashed on its first flight. The students just went back to the lab and printed out a replacement nose cone, a capability envied by any squadron maintenance officer. The eventual goal is a drone that flies right out of the printer with electronics and motive power already in place. An organic ability to print replaceable drones from ships, forward operating bases or during disaster relief operations to serve as targets or observation platforms could be a huge enabler for sailors and Marines.

Of course, there are still huge gaps to be bridged, technologically speaking, before 3D printing can be adopted as a large-scale military inventory strategy. It?s supremely expensive right now, and more importantly, the structural stability of many materials is inconsistent?so replacing critical pieces of machinery is out of the question. Still, it?s an exciting idea, especially when you see it in the terms laid out by MIT?s Neil Gershenfeld, who describes the 3D printing as the ability to ?turn data into things and things into data.? Llenza sums it up nicely by wondering how much simpler Apollo 13's mission would have been, had the crew been able to simply request the appropriate CAD model from ground control. [Armed Forces Journal via ExtremeTech]

Navy Wants Aircraft Carriers to Manufacture Weapons On the Go

A rendering of the Contour Crafting system, the University of Southern California program that's developed a technology to print at an architectural scale.

Source: http://gizmodo.com/naval-aircraft-carriers-could-become-floating-3d-printi-510082371

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