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A bipartisan group of legislators in Oregon not only thinks every student in the state should be college-ready, but that they should go into higher education with a few college credits under the belt. Jonathan J. Cooper of the Associated Press detailed one of the more aggressive pushes for higher secondary school standards in the nation.
Senate Bill 222 would see earning college credits be made a requirement for graduation in the state, and lawmakers think it provides a host of benefits. Students would be making the most of their high school careers; they would receive an introduction to college-level work; and perhaps most importantly, they would reduce their student loan debt by earning credit that didn?t come with a famously-high price tag.
?It represents a great play on college affordability if someone can come out of Roseburg High School with 40 credits,? Hass said Tuesday at a committee hearing for the measure. ?That student saves thousands of dollars for himself and his family on the cost of a bachelor?s degree.
The legislation would require that six of the 24 required courses for graduation would be college-level, and addresses funding ? though the numbers are uncertain ? to make sure schools and teachers can deliver tougher classes adequately.
Earning college credit while still in high school isn?t a new thing in Oregon. Over 25,000 students last year took dual-enrollment classes that earned them credit, with more taking Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate classes to demonstrat their ability to do college-level work ? and to reap the benefits as they move on to higher education.
But the proposition is not universally popular. Critics of the bill say that students shouldn?t be forced to take college classes if they don?t want to, and that mandating excellence should take a back seat to ensuring that each student has the right education path to meet their own needs.
Others point out the difficulties with rural and small schools. Urban and larger systems can offer a wider variety of classes ? and assign qualified teachers to lead them ? more easily than schools with limited student and teacher populations.
At this point, SB 222 is still in the draft stage. As debate continues and more numbers are crunched, the details may change:
The bill is likely to change substantially before going before the full Senate, Hass said, and the mandate for college credits could eventually be watered down or removed. But he said he?s committed to creating powerful incentives for high schools to boost the number of students earning college credits.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? With Google's stock hovering at record highs, Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt plans to sell more than 40 percent of his stock in the Internet search leader this year.
The plan disclosed Friday calls for Schmidt to sell up to 3.2 million shares. If he were to sell all that stock at Google's current price, Schmidt would realize a $2.5 billion windfall.
Schmidt ended December with 7.6 million Google shares, or a 2.3 percent stake in the Mountain View, Calif., company.
He would be left with about 4.4 million shares of Google stock worth another $3.5 billion if he follows through on his divestiture plan for this year. He has gradually been winnowing his holdings in Google in recent years, without giving a specific reason.
Google Inc. declined to comment Friday.
Google's stock rose $11.42 to close at $785.37 Friday. Earlier in the day, it traded at $786.67 ? its highest price since the company went public at $85 per share in August 2004.
Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are the only company executives who own more stock than Schmidt.
Page controls an 8.7 percent stake and Brin holds an 8.5 percent stake. Each stake is currently worth nearly $20 billion.
Schmidt, 57, was Google's CEO for a decade before turning over the job to Page, 39, in April 2011.
Over the years, the Grammys have become a souped up variety show ? light on awards and heavy on all-star performances. The Recording Academy even cut prizes recently in several less popular categories.?
By Mark Guarino,?Staff writer / February 10, 2013
American recording artist, songwriter and producer, Miguel, poses for a portrait, in New York. Miguel is nominated for five Grammy Awards, including song of the year for his No. 1 R&B hit, ?Adorn,? and best urban contemporary album for ?Kaleidoscope Dream.? The Grammys air Sunday night.
Amy Sussman/Invision/AP
Enlarge
While the ceremonial aspect of?the annual Grammy Awards suggests it is an event designed for industry recognition, the actual Grammy telecast Sunday is something entirely different. This year, only around a dozen of the more than 70 award categories will be announced?during the 3-1/2 hour show. ?
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That?s because the Grammy Awards, like the Oscars and the Tonys, have evolved into old-school variety programs, heavy on singing numbers and dance routines that promote emerging stars, resurrect veteran performers, and emphasize the artists and musical genres that dominate commercial radio.?
The majority of the awards for genres such as jazz, Christian, bluegrass, blues, and classical are never telecast. These are awarded privately, through smaller ceremonies that take place earlier in the day or week.
However, even those events feature fewer awards than before. Two years ago the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences eliminated 31 categories, knocking the list down from 109 to 78 and eliminating whole genres including Latin jazz, Hawaiian music, zydeco, traditional blues, and American Indian music. The categories on the chopping block had?deep roots in American culture, but lacked the sales receipts of more lucrative genres like hip-hop, pop, or country.
The grumbling from artists in the slashed categories resulted in protests last year from all quarters of the industry, including a group of acclaimed Latin jazz musicians who held a rally and concert outside the Staples Center in Los Angeles ? home to the Grammy telecast ? to protest the decision.?
Since then, the complaints have quieted as many acquiesced to the fact that the Grammy telecast is essentially a marketing?platform for the major record companies and a ratings boon for CBS, the network that has traditionally carried it each year.?
Smaller recording organizations like the Blues Foundation in Memphis and the Americana Music Association in Nashville have stepped up their efforts to fill the gap with their own awards ceremonies, including?the Blues Music Awards given out every May and the Americana Honors & Awards held each September.
Jeff McCall, a professor of media studies at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind., says the show ?is about creating a musical spectacle that is watchable, and the awards are just the framework in which the rest of this happens.?
A misty mountain range on the Philippine island of Luzon boasts more than 100 species of reptiles and amphibians, according to a new catalog of the region's species.
On the entire island, more than 150 reptile and amphibian species exist.
The catalog, published Wednesday (Feb. 7) in the journal ZooKeys, is the first for the remote region, known as the Sierra Madre Mountains, which lies on the Northeastern portion of the island. The study reveals that the region may be a hidden hotspot for biodiversity.
The study combined data from several extensive surveys done over the past years, as well as an exhaustive search of all historical museum records.
The team found over 29 amphibians, 30 lizards, 35 snakes, five turtles, and two crocodilians.
For instance, they catalogued a frog called Platymantis cagayanensis, which sports yellow upper irises and calls ("tuk-tuk-tuk") from understory vegetation immediately following rain. Other characters tallied included a colubrid snake (Hologerrhum philippinum) with vibrant-yellow skin decorations, and the bizarre soft-shell turtle, Pelochelys cantorii.
Also, pale-colored frogs, called Rhacophorus appendiculatus, were found in high-elevation forests in the crater of Mt. Cagua.
Most of the species are native to the island, and a full 38 percent of them can't be categorized taxonomically, the researchers wrote in the paper. That suggests at least some may be completely new species.
Protecting those species "remains an on-going effort, challenged by rapid development, large-scale extractive logging and mining industries and conversion of natural habitats into agricultural lands driven by a burgeoning human population," the researchers write in their paper.
In addition, some of the areas that have been least studied lie next to populated areas, so cataloging species diversity there should be a top priority, the researchers write.
Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience. We're also on Facebook?& Google+.?
Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
To get ahead of the questions that may arise I'm going to list the characters that can't be used for various reasons. First, I'll start with the OP characters who aren't dead or who will be NPCs.
By William L. Watts and Myra P. Saefong, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) ? The yen climbed sharply versus the dollar and euro Friday after Japan?s finance minister said the currency?s fall had caught the government by surprise ? a remark the ministry later described as a misstatement.
The dollar /quotes/zigman/4868099/sampledUSDJPY-0.9939%
traded at 92.75 yen in recent action, down from ?93.41 in North American trade late Thursday. The dollar had bought as much as ?93.70 early Friday. For the week, the greenback is little changed versus the yen.
The euro /quotes/zigman/4868097/sampledEURJPY-1.2492%
fetched ?123.93, down from around ?125.32. For the week, the euro has lost more than 2% versus the yen.
Week ahead: Currency wars at G-20
Currency wars are likely to dominate the G-20 meeting in Moscow even if most countries will try not to make any explicit accusations. .
On Friday, during a parliamentary session, Japan Financial Minister Taro Aso said the dollar had ?abruptly risen to the ?90 level from the previous ?78-?79 level in a manner we didn?t anticipate.?
Later, however, a finance ministry official said Aso had meant to say the yen?s drop had been ?fast paced? rather than unexpected.
See: Japan: Aso meant to say yen's fall 'fast-paced'
.
Combined with indications Japanese exporters are starting to re-emerge as yen sellers, Aso?s comments were ?sufficient to drive a stop run down to a low of ?92.17 before a partial retracement,? said Adam Cole, currency strategist at RBC Capital in London.
/conga/story/2013/02/rotation.html248995
Aso?s remarks certainly don?t imply the yen?s fall is unwelcome, ?but does call into question the ?95-100 range [versus the dollar] that many were beginning to talk of? as a government objective, Cole said.
Taking a look at the bigger picture, seasonals are ?in favor of yen strength,? with March representing the end of Japan?s fiscal year, and the yen typically strengthening from mid-February through late-April,? said Christopher Vecchio, currency analyst at DailyFX, in an emailed note.
Given that, ?we very-well may be on the verge of the next bout of risk-aversion if political concerns stemming from Italy and Spain boil over,? he said. ?A drop back to ?120 in EURJPY can?t be ruled out at [the] present time.?
Euro falls vs. dollar
The euro, meanwhile, moved lower against the dollar.
European leaders reached an agreement Friday on a seven-year budget plan for the European Union, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy announced on Twitter without providing details after a final set of negotiations that stretched to around 24 hours.
See: European leaders agree on 7-year EU budget deal.
?The EU budget deal, which confirms the EU?s appetite for austerity, provides continued support for the euro bears to bet against the euro based on a weak growth outlook,? said Richard Hastings, a macro strategist at Global Hunter Securities. ?But the market already understands this, so it looks like the budget conversation is a small catalyst in the same general direction.?
The euro had taken a tumble Thursday after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said policy makers would watch the currency?s appreciation for any sign it is affecting the euro-zone inflation outlook. Draghi also said the euro?s recent rise is a sign of confidence in the shared currency.
He emphasized repeatedly that the ECB was maintaining an ?accommodative? monetary policy.
Read Draghi: Euro reflects confidence, but eyeing rise.
The euro /quotes/zigman/4867933/sampledEURUSD-0.2687%
, which pushed above $1.37 earlier this week, changed hands at $1.3365 in recent trade, down from $1.3392 in late North American action Thursday. For the week, its down about 2%.
Although down about 2% just this week, the currency is still up nearly 4.9% against the greenback compared with three months ago.
ECB's Draghi knocks euro back a bit
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi helped the euro to reverse some of its recent gains with slightly more dovish comments at his monthly news conference.
?What we note is that the latest data shows the euro-zone is stabilizing. More work is needed, however,? said Evan Lucas, a market strategist at IG Markets.
?Mario Draghi?s ?whatever it takes? comments that came [at midyear] last year was the flash point for the current rally and he is holding true to his word, meaning Europe is going to be a distraction, not a disaster,? Lucas said.
The ICE dollar index /quotes/zigman/1652083DXY-0.02%
, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major global currencies, rose to 80.234 from around 79.721 late in New York on Thursday. The index was about 1.4% higher for the week.
The WSJ dollar index /quotes/zigman/9625991XX:BUXX-0.21%
, a gauge that measures the greenback?s moves against a slightly wider basket of currencies, slipped to 71.53 from 71.66 Thursday.
Among other major currency pairs, the British pound /quotes/zigman/4867886/sampledGBPUSD+0.5417%
climbed to $1.5794 from $1.5696, while the Australian dollar /quotes/zigman/4867876/sampledAUDUSD+0.3414%
fetched $1.0317, compared with $1.0284.
/quotes/zigman/4868099/sampled
US
: ICAP Currencies
Volume: 0.0000
Feb. 8, 2013 4:59p
/quotes/zigman/4868097/sampled
US
: ICAP Currencies
123.8750
-1.5670-1.2492%
Volume: 0.0000
Feb. 8, 2013 4:59p
/quotes/zigman/4867933/sampled
US
: ICAP Currencies
Volume: 0.0000
Feb. 8, 2013 4:59p
/quotes/zigman/1652083
US
: U.S.: ICE Futures U.S.
Volume: 0.00
Feb. 8, 2013 5:12p
/quotes/zigman/9625991
XX
: WSJ Index
Volume: 0.00
Feb. 8, 2013 5:00p
/quotes/zigman/4867886/sampled
US
: ICAP Currencies
Volume: 0.0000
Feb. 8, 2013 4:59p
/quotes/zigman/4867876/sampled
US
: ICAP Currencies
Volume: 0.0000
Feb. 8, 2013 4:59p
William L. Watts is MarketWatch's European bureau chief, based in Frankfurt. Follow him on Twitter @wlwatts.Myra Saefong is a MarketWatch reporter based in San Francisco. Follow her on Twitter @MktwSaefong. V. Phani Kumar contributed to this report.
'He has yet to actually go to the frat house where we meet on a yearly basis,' Jude Law joked of co-star Channing Tatum. By Amy Wilkinson, with reporting by Josh Horowitz
All people features a nick of creativeness in them. Many people are God gifted even though some hone their creative expertise with exercise. An imaginative head develops a special viewpoint and sees things creatively.
I not too long ago produced a fondness of capturing factors all around me on camera. When i spot something distinctive I make it a degree to capture it on my digital camera. Images provides me a possibility to seize the planet close to me from my viewpoint.
As a novice in photography, there is a whole lot that i nevertheless have to learn. To begin with, I discovered myself losing desire following clicking a couple of photographs. The main reason probably was my adopting a bird?s eye look at. I now realize there exists far more to pictures. Pictures is supposed so as to add a special meaning to the image.
I don?t think in pre-conceived concepts, as they tend not to include uniqueness within the condition of eyesight. I capture things, which I feel diverse and inviting- like an innocent smile of a kid or shifting morning hues. There is certainly so much to check out about us, which we frequently usually do not see with our bare eye and closed mind.
Every single photograph includes a concept which I try out to capture. In my images, I try out to communicate suggestions or incorporate that visible aspect. An excellent photographer can make sure he provides a well-balanced tone, shade, depth, symmetry, scale and lights to his image. This absolutely adds existence to a picture. I make sure I follow these things.
I also maintain in mind the digicam I am making use of. In this digital era, we?ve got myriad of tools all around us. At first I produced myself very clear about Megapixels, Constant Shoot rate, Lens zoom, Sensor dimensions, Built-in flash, Interchangeable lenses, Automated qualities, varieties of memory, online video characteristics and handbook instruction.
A camera is your good friend for life. Tend not to try to find low cost things accessible while in the marketplace. I am quite distinct that i want good quality out of daily life; I usually do not compromise with price tag. After i went out to purchase a camera for myself, I searched for these answers:
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CANON NB-4L Electronic Camera Battery functions well for photography lovers like me. It is possible to effortlessly depend upon this product for battery backup. Nevertheless, it?s recommended to shop the battery in a great and dry location. The battery must be stored away from high temperature and metal objects. I constantly shop my battery at about 40% charged state.
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This entry was posted on Thursday, February 7th, 2013 at 10:17 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
The first Ouya video game consoles are expected to ship in March. They?ll feature Android software and 1.6 GHz NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processors. When the Ouya project was first announced last year, those were some of the most impressive specs available for an Android device.
These days, Tegra 3 is already old hat, with Qualcomm, Samsung, and others already offering faster mobile processors. And NVIDIA?s Tegra 4 platform is set to launch shortly after the Ouya hits the street. So in some ways, the hardware will be dated on day one.
But don?t worry ? the next Ouya will be more powerful.
Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman tells Engadget and The Verge that the company plans to launch a new game console every year, offering faster processors and other improvements at about the same price.
In other words, you won?t have to wait 5 years to get a next-generation game console the way you do with Nintendo, PlayStation, or Xbox devices. Instead, Ouya is following a mobile phone/tablet-like strategy and putting out new hardware every year.
That means we could see a Tegra 4 based model eventually, or a device with a different, faster mobile chip. Thanks to the falling prices of storage and other components, future Ouya consoles might also have more than 8GB of built-in storage.
Does that mean you?ll have to purchase new games every year? Not necessarily ? games purchased from the Ouya Store will be tied to your account, not your hardware. So if you pay $99 to get next year?s model, all of the games you bought for your first-generation Ouya should still be available (although it?s not yet clear if your saved games and other data will be transferred automatically).
With rumors suggesting that the PlayStation 4 could cost more than $400, a $99 Ouya seems like an interesting low-cost alternative. It might not be as powerful as a PS4, but you could buy a new one every year for 4 years and still spend less than you would on Sony?s next-gen game console (if the rumors are correct).
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New report in Science illuminates stress change during the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquakePublic release date: 7-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Miyuki Otomo motomo@iodp.org 81-367-013-188 Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Management International
The 11 March 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake (Mw9.0) produced the largest slip ever recorded in an earthquake, over 50 meters. Such huge fault movement on the shallow portion of the megathrust boundary came as a surprise to seismologists because this portion of the subduction zone was not thought to be accumulating stress prior to the earthquake. In a recently published study, scientists from the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) shed light on the stress state on the fault that controls the very large slip. The unexpectedly large fault displacements resulted in the devastating tsunamis that caused tremendous damage and loss of lives along the coast of Japan. The study, published in 8 February 2013 issue of the journal Science, presents compelling evidence that large slips are the results of a complete stress drop during the earthquake. These new findings from IODP Japan Trench Fast Drilling Project (JFAST) research are relevant to better understanding earthquakes and tsunamis in many areas of the world.
"The study investigated the stress change associated with the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake and tested the hypothesis by determining the in-situ stress state of the frontal prism from the drilled holes," says a lead author Weiren Lin of Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC). "We have established a new framework that the large slips in this region are an indication of coseismic fault zone and nearly the total stress accumulated was released during the earthquake."
JFAST was designed and undertaken by the international scientific community to better understand the 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake. The expedition was carried out aboard the scientific drilling vessel Chikyu from April to July 2012. JFAST drill sites were located approximately 220 km from the eastern coast of Honshu, Japan, in nearly 7000 m of water.
"The project is looking at the stress and physical properties of the fault zone soon after a large earthquake," co-author James Mori of Kyoto University, Co-Chief Scientist who led the JFAST expedition explains.
It is the first time that "rapid-response drilling" (within 13 months after the earthquake) has been attempted to measure the temperature across a subduction fault zone. The fast mobilization is necessary to observe time sensitive data, such as the temperature signal. JAMSTEC successfully mobilized a research expedition for IODP to investigate the large displacement by drilling from the ocean floor to the plate boundary, reaching a maximum depth of more than 850 m below seafloor (mbsf).
"Understanding the stress conditions that control the very large slip of this shallow portion of the megathrust may be the most important seismological issue for this earthquake." Mori says.
The research published this week determined the stress field from breakouts observed in a borehole around 820 mbsf, in a region thought to contain the main slip zone of the 2011 earthquake. Lin and his co-authors analyzed a suite of borehole-logging data collected while drilling with Logging-While-Drilling (LWD) tools during IODP Expedition 343. Local compressive failures (borehole breakouts) are formed in the borehole wall during the drilling and are imaged with the LWD tools. The orientation and size of the breakouts are used to infer the present direction and magnitudes of the stress field. An important finding of the paper is that the present shear stress on the fault is nearly zero, indicating that there was a nearly complete stress change during the earthquake. Usually, earthquakes are thought to release only a portion of the stress on the fault.
"This was the first time for such nearly complete stress change has been recognized by direct measurement in drilling through the ruptured fault. This is the first time direct stress measurements have been reported, a little over a year after a great subduction zone earthquake." Lin says.
The expedition set new milestones in scientific ocean drilling by drilling a borehole to 854.81 mbsf in water depths of 6897.5 meters. Deep core was obtained and analyzed from this depth. The Japan Trench plate boundary was sampled and a parallel borehole was instrumented with a borehole observatory system. The core samples and borehole observatory provide scientists with valuable opportunities to learn about residual heat, coseismic frictional stress, fluid and rock properties, and other factors related to megathrust earthquakes.
"We will be able to address very fundamental and important questions about the physics of slip of the thrust near the trench, and how to identify past events in the rock record." says Frederick Chester, Texas A&M University, co-author of the Science report and the other expedition Co-Chief Scientist.
The expedition science party, comprising both ship-board and shore-based scientists, is conducting further investigations of core samples and borehole logging data. Data from the borehole observatory are expected to be retrieved later this month using the JAMSTEC ROV Kaiko7000II, and those data will be combined with the current results to continue to increase understanding of the processes involved in this large slip earthquake.
"We anticipate that the results from the JFAST expedition will provide us with a better understanding of the faulting mechanisms for this critical location," says Mori. "Investigations and research findings from the expedition have obvious consequences for evaluating future tsunami hazards at other subduction zones around the world, such as the Nankai Trough in Japan and Cascadia in the Pacific of North America."
###
ABOUT IODP:
The current scientific ocean drilling program, the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP), is an international research program dedicated to advancing scientific understanding of the Earth through drilling, coring, and monitoring the subseafloor. The JOIDES Resolution is a scientific research vessel managed by the US Implementing Organization of IODP (USIO). Chikyu is a scientific drilling vessel operated by JAMSTEC/CDEX (Japan), and mission-specific platforms are supplied by ECORD (the European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling). IODP is supported by two lead agencies: the US National Science Foundation (NSF) and Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). Additional program support comes from ECORD, the Australian-New Zealand IODP Consortium (ANZIC), India's Ministry of Earth Sciences, the People's Republic of China (Ministry of Science and Technology), the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, and Coordination for Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) in Brazil.
USEFUL WEBSITES:
For more information about JFAST project, latest images and blogs from the expedition, visit
www.jamstec.go.jp/chikyu/exp343/.
For more information about IODP, visit www.iodp.org/.
CONTACTS:
About the JFAST Project
James Mori
Professor, Earthquake Hazards Division, Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan,
mori@eqh.dpri.kyoto-u.ac.jp
+81-774-38-4205
Frederick Chester
Professor, Center for Tectonophysics, Department of Geology and Geophysics, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, U.S.,
chesterf@tamu.edu
+1-979-845-3296
About the Findings in Science
Weiren Lin
Principal Research Scientist, Physical Property Research Group, Kochi Institute for Core Sample Research, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC)
lin@jamstec.go.jp
About IODP
Miyuki Otomo
Outreach and Communications Manager
IODP Management International, Inc. (IODP-MI), Tokyo, Japan
motomo@iodp.org
+81-3-6701-3188
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
New report in Science illuminates stress change during the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquakePublic release date: 7-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Miyuki Otomo motomo@iodp.org 81-367-013-188 Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Management International
The 11 March 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake (Mw9.0) produced the largest slip ever recorded in an earthquake, over 50 meters. Such huge fault movement on the shallow portion of the megathrust boundary came as a surprise to seismologists because this portion of the subduction zone was not thought to be accumulating stress prior to the earthquake. In a recently published study, scientists from the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) shed light on the stress state on the fault that controls the very large slip. The unexpectedly large fault displacements resulted in the devastating tsunamis that caused tremendous damage and loss of lives along the coast of Japan. The study, published in 8 February 2013 issue of the journal Science, presents compelling evidence that large slips are the results of a complete stress drop during the earthquake. These new findings from IODP Japan Trench Fast Drilling Project (JFAST) research are relevant to better understanding earthquakes and tsunamis in many areas of the world.
"The study investigated the stress change associated with the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake and tested the hypothesis by determining the in-situ stress state of the frontal prism from the drilled holes," says a lead author Weiren Lin of Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC). "We have established a new framework that the large slips in this region are an indication of coseismic fault zone and nearly the total stress accumulated was released during the earthquake."
JFAST was designed and undertaken by the international scientific community to better understand the 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake. The expedition was carried out aboard the scientific drilling vessel Chikyu from April to July 2012. JFAST drill sites were located approximately 220 km from the eastern coast of Honshu, Japan, in nearly 7000 m of water.
"The project is looking at the stress and physical properties of the fault zone soon after a large earthquake," co-author James Mori of Kyoto University, Co-Chief Scientist who led the JFAST expedition explains.
It is the first time that "rapid-response drilling" (within 13 months after the earthquake) has been attempted to measure the temperature across a subduction fault zone. The fast mobilization is necessary to observe time sensitive data, such as the temperature signal. JAMSTEC successfully mobilized a research expedition for IODP to investigate the large displacement by drilling from the ocean floor to the plate boundary, reaching a maximum depth of more than 850 m below seafloor (mbsf).
"Understanding the stress conditions that control the very large slip of this shallow portion of the megathrust may be the most important seismological issue for this earthquake." Mori says.
The research published this week determined the stress field from breakouts observed in a borehole around 820 mbsf, in a region thought to contain the main slip zone of the 2011 earthquake. Lin and his co-authors analyzed a suite of borehole-logging data collected while drilling with Logging-While-Drilling (LWD) tools during IODP Expedition 343. Local compressive failures (borehole breakouts) are formed in the borehole wall during the drilling and are imaged with the LWD tools. The orientation and size of the breakouts are used to infer the present direction and magnitudes of the stress field. An important finding of the paper is that the present shear stress on the fault is nearly zero, indicating that there was a nearly complete stress change during the earthquake. Usually, earthquakes are thought to release only a portion of the stress on the fault.
"This was the first time for such nearly complete stress change has been recognized by direct measurement in drilling through the ruptured fault. This is the first time direct stress measurements have been reported, a little over a year after a great subduction zone earthquake." Lin says.
The expedition set new milestones in scientific ocean drilling by drilling a borehole to 854.81 mbsf in water depths of 6897.5 meters. Deep core was obtained and analyzed from this depth. The Japan Trench plate boundary was sampled and a parallel borehole was instrumented with a borehole observatory system. The core samples and borehole observatory provide scientists with valuable opportunities to learn about residual heat, coseismic frictional stress, fluid and rock properties, and other factors related to megathrust earthquakes.
"We will be able to address very fundamental and important questions about the physics of slip of the thrust near the trench, and how to identify past events in the rock record." says Frederick Chester, Texas A&M University, co-author of the Science report and the other expedition Co-Chief Scientist.
The expedition science party, comprising both ship-board and shore-based scientists, is conducting further investigations of core samples and borehole logging data. Data from the borehole observatory are expected to be retrieved later this month using the JAMSTEC ROV Kaiko7000II, and those data will be combined with the current results to continue to increase understanding of the processes involved in this large slip earthquake.
"We anticipate that the results from the JFAST expedition will provide us with a better understanding of the faulting mechanisms for this critical location," says Mori. "Investigations and research findings from the expedition have obvious consequences for evaluating future tsunami hazards at other subduction zones around the world, such as the Nankai Trough in Japan and Cascadia in the Pacific of North America."
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ABOUT IODP:
The current scientific ocean drilling program, the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP), is an international research program dedicated to advancing scientific understanding of the Earth through drilling, coring, and monitoring the subseafloor. The JOIDES Resolution is a scientific research vessel managed by the US Implementing Organization of IODP (USIO). Chikyu is a scientific drilling vessel operated by JAMSTEC/CDEX (Japan), and mission-specific platforms are supplied by ECORD (the European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling). IODP is supported by two lead agencies: the US National Science Foundation (NSF) and Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). Additional program support comes from ECORD, the Australian-New Zealand IODP Consortium (ANZIC), India's Ministry of Earth Sciences, the People's Republic of China (Ministry of Science and Technology), the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, and Coordination for Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) in Brazil.
USEFUL WEBSITES:
For more information about JFAST project, latest images and blogs from the expedition, visit
www.jamstec.go.jp/chikyu/exp343/.
For more information about IODP, visit www.iodp.org/.
CONTACTS:
About the JFAST Project
James Mori
Professor, Earthquake Hazards Division, Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan,
mori@eqh.dpri.kyoto-u.ac.jp
+81-774-38-4205
Frederick Chester
Professor, Center for Tectonophysics, Department of Geology and Geophysics, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, U.S.,
chesterf@tamu.edu
+1-979-845-3296
About the Findings in Science
Weiren Lin
Principal Research Scientist, Physical Property Research Group, Kochi Institute for Core Sample Research, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC)
lin@jamstec.go.jp
About IODP
Miyuki Otomo
Outreach and Communications Manager
IODP Management International, Inc. (IODP-MI), Tokyo, Japan
motomo@iodp.org
+81-3-6701-3188
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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In this undated photo released by the FBI on Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2013, a tent covers the bunker where where a 5-year-old child was held for a week by Jimmy Lee Dykes in Midland City, Ala. The boy was rescued and his captor was killed when federal agents raided the bunker on Monday. (AP Photo/FBI)
In this undated photo released by the FBI on Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2013, a tent covers the bunker where where a 5-year-old child was held for a week by Jimmy Lee Dykes in Midland City, Ala. The boy was rescued and his captor was killed when federal agents raided the bunker on Monday. (AP Photo/FBI)
This undated photo released by the FBI on Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2013, shows the pipe FBI agents and Dale County negotiators used to communicate with Jimmy Lee Dykes while he held a 5-year-old boy hostage in a bunker on his Midland City, Ala. property for a week. The pipe was also used to send food, medicine, and other items into the bunker. The boy was rescued and his captor was killed when federal agents raided the bunker on Monday. (AP Photo/FBI)
This undated photo released by the FBI on Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2013, shows the pipe FBI agents and Dale County negotiators used to communicate with Jimmy Lee Dykes while he held a 5-year-old boy hostage in a bunker on his Midland City, Ala. property for a week. The pipe was also used to send food, medicine, and other items into the bunker. The boy was rescued and his captor was killed when federal agents raided the bunker on Monday. (AP Photo/FBI)
In this undated photo released by the FBI on Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2013, FBI agents and Dale County Sheriff's deputies secure the residence where a 5-year-old child was rescued after being held hostage for almost one week by Jimmy Lee Dykes, in Midland City, Ala. The boy was rescued and his captor was killed when federal agents raided the bunker on Monday. (AP Photo/FBI)
In this undated photo released by the FBI on Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2013, FBI agents and Dale County Sheriff?s deputies secure the residence where a 5-year-old child was rescued after being held hostage for almost one week by Jimmy Lee Dykes, in Midland City, Ala. The bunker where the two were holed up is covered by a blue tent, at rear left. The boy was rescued and his captor was killed when federal agents raided the bunker on Monday. (AP Photo/FBI)
Bomb technicians have found no more explosive devices after an arduous search of the rural Alabama property of Jimmy Lee Dykes, the gunman who shot dead a school bus driver and held a boy captive for nearly a week in a rigged underground bunker.
Dykes was killed Monday by SWAT team members during a gunfight when officers raided the bunker and rescued the kindergartner unharmed, officials said. With the work of bomb experts concluded, Dykes' body could be safely removed from the bunker, the FBI said.
An autopsy was planned Thursday and the FBI said evidence-collection and review teams had already begun the next phase ? sifting the crime scene.
The FBI said after the raid that the 65-year-old man had planted one explosive artifact in a ventilation pipe used by negotiators to communicate with him in his underground bunker in the bucolic farming community of Midland City. The agency said a second device was found in the roughly 6-by-8-foot hand-dug bunker. Both were safely removed.
FBI Special Agent Paul Bresson said in an email late Wednesday that the technicians who scoured the 100-acre property in the days after the end of the standoff had "completed their work and cleared the crime scene."
"No additional devices were found," he added.
Dale County Coroner Woodrow Hilboldt told The Associated Press late Wednesday that he was waiting to pronounce Dykes dead. He added that the autopsy would be held at the state forensic laboratory in Montgomery.
Bresson, meanwhile, said evidence review teams now processing the crime scene could take two or three days to finish their work. A shooting review team from Washington also is reviewing the hostage-taking episode that began Jan. 29 with the attack on the school bus.
Authorities said Dykes boarded the bus full of children and gunned down drive Charles Albert Poland Jr. as he sought to protect the 21 children on board. According to officials, the gunman then seized a 5-year-old boy and fled with his hostage to the nearby bunker, setting up the standoff that had captured national attention.
The boy's rescue was carried out by the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team, which serves as the agency's full-time counterterrorism unit, FBI agent Jason Pack said Wednesday. Trained in military tactics and outfitted with combat-style gear and weapons, the group was formed 30 years ago in preparation for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.
Composed of FBI agents, some of whom have prior military experience, the team is deployed quickly to trouble spots and provides assistance to local FBI offices during hostage situations. It has participated in hostage situations more than 800 times in the United States and elsewhere since 1983, the FBI said.
"As an elite counterterrorism tactical team for law enforcement, the HRT is one of the best, if not the best, in the United States," Sean Joyce, deputy FBI director, said in a statement.
The FBI also brought out an array of military-style equipment including armored personnel carriers and combat rifles. Drones also flew large, lazy circles overhead.
According to a U.S. official, about a dozen Navy Seabees in special naval construction unit helped authorities build a mock-up of the bunker to plan the FBI assault. The official, who was not authorized to discuss the rescue effort, spoke on condition of anonymity.
"This was a classic, textbook situation," said Clint Van Zandt, a former FBI negotiator who worked with the hostage rescue team repeatedly before retiring in 1995.
Building a replica of Dykes' bunker, practicing an assault, negotiating Dykes into a sense of security and even sneaking a camera into the shelter are all part of the agency's tools, said Van Zandt.
"This is what negotiators and team members train to do all the time," added Van Zandt, president of Van Zandt Associates, Inc., a Virginia-based company that profiles and assesses threats for corporate clients. "To me, there was nothing unique in this other than it played out in front of the world."
FBI and other officials said the team exchanged gunfire with Dykes and killed him before rescuing the boy, whom law enforcement officials only identified by his first name, Ethan.
Hostage-rescue methods were far from the minds of folks in Midland City
On Wednesday, Ethan's sixth birthday, Midland City residents sought to resume a normal life after the ordeal that upended lives in the tight-knit rural community nestled amid peanut and cotton farms.
The boy, who has Asperger's syndrome and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, was said to be acting like a normal kid despite his ordeal.
Officials hope to eventually throw a party to celebrate Ethan's birthday. They also plan to honor the memory of the slain driver.
___
Associated Press writers Frank Eltman in Mineola, N.Y., and Lolita Baldor in Washington, contributed to this report.
ATHENS, Greece (AP) ? Greek lawmakers are fuming over colleagues who openly flout the country's anti-smoking laws in the very building where the statutes were passed.
A cross-party group of 88 representatives wrote to the Parliament speaker Thursday urging action against what they call a "pathetic and infuriating" state of affairs.
Greece has one of the European Union's highest smoking rates. It introduced a strict law in 2010 to outlaw smoking in enclosed public areas. Violators face ?50-?500 ($68-$680) fines.
It was the third anti-smoking law passed in recent years, but has met with no noticeable success: People still light up freely in bars, cafes, restaurants ? and Parliament.
The lawmakers wrote that, apart from assembly halls, at times there is "not a single square meter" in Parliament where the law isn't broken.
FILE - In this Sept. 14, 2010 file photo, Twitter CEO Evan Williams makes a presentation about changes to the social network at Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, In the latest online attack, Twitter says hackers may have gained access to information on 250,000 of its more than 200 million active users, Friday, Feb. 1, 2013. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)
FILE - In this Sept. 14, 2010 file photo, Twitter CEO Evan Williams makes a presentation about changes to the social network at Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, In the latest online attack, Twitter says hackers may have gained access to information on 250,000 of its more than 200 million active users, Friday, Feb. 1, 2013. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Twitter confirmed Friday that it had become the latest victim in a number of high-profile cyber-attacks against media companies, saying that hackers may have gained access to information on 250,000 of its more than 200 million active users.
The social media giant said in a blog posting that earlier this week it detected attempts to gain access to its user data. It shut down one attack moments after it was detected.
But it discovered that the attackers may have stolen user names, email addresses and encrypted passwords belonging to 250,000 users. Twitter reset the pilfered passwords and sent emails advising affected users.
The online attack comes on the heels of recent hacks into the computer systems of U.S. media and technology companies, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Both American newspapers reported this week that their computer systems had been infiltrated by China-based hackers, likely to monitor media coverage the Chinese government deems important.
China has been accused of mounting a widespread, aggressive cyber-spying campaign for several years, trying to steal classified information and corporate secrets and to intimidate critics. The Chinese foreign ministry could not be reached for comment Saturday, but the Chinese government has said those accusations are baseless and that China itself is a victim of cyber-attacks.
"Chinese law forbids hacking and any other actions that damage Internet security," the Chinese Defense Ministry recently said. "The Chinese military has never supported any hacking activities."
Although Bob Lord, Twitter's director of information security said in the blog that the attack "was not the work of amateurs, and we do not believe it was an isolated incident."
"The attackers were extremely sophisticated, and we believe other companies and organizations have also been recently similarly attacked," Lord said. "For that reason we felt that it was important to publicize this attack while we still gather information, and we are helping government and federal law enforcement in their effort to find and prosecute these attackers to make the Internet safer for all users."
One expert said that the Twitter hack probably happened after an employee's home or work computer was compromised through vulnerabilities in Java, a commonly used computing language whose weaknesses have been well publicized.
Ashkan Soltani, an independent privacy and security researcher, said such a move would give attackers "a toehold" in Twitter's internal network, potentially allowing them either to sniff out user information as it traveled across the company's system or break into specific areas, such as the authentication servers that process users' passwords.
In a telephone interview Friday, Soltani said that the relatively small number of users affected suggested either that attackers weren't on the network long or that they were only able to compromise a subset of the company's servers.
Twitter is generally used to broadcast messages to the public, so the hacking might not immediately have yielded any important secrets. But the stolen credentials could be used to eavesdrop on private messages or track which Internet address a user is posting from.
That might be useful, for example, for an authoritarian regime trying to keep tabs on a journalist's movements.
"More realistically, someone could use that as an entry point into another service," Soltani said, noting that since few people bother using different passwords for different services, a password stolen from Twitter might be just as handy for reading a journalist's emails.
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AP reporters Raphael Satter in London and Didi Tang in Beijing contributed to this report.
Super Bowl XLVII will be watched by more people than ever before, and they're buying millions of televisions and preparing lots of food to mark the occasion. Here's a look at the mind-boggling stats for Super Bowl XLVII's TV audience.?
By Schuyler Velasco,?Staff writer / February 2, 2013
Workers drive through an area being set up for fans outside the Mercedes-Benz Superdome on Monday in New Orleans. Super Bowl XLVII is expected to garner the highest-ever TV viewership, and surges in purchases for pizza, chicken wings, and avocados are sure to follow.
Mark Humphrey/AP
Enlarge
Billions of chicken wings, millions of slices of pizza, and nearly 7 million pounds of avocados? Must be Super Bowl time.
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It?s no secret: Football is America?s most popular sport, and the NFL its most widely-watched, profitable league. The numbers back that up: The Super Bowl is routinely the most-watched television event of the year, pulling in numbers that make other TV events flush with envy. According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), 179 million people worldwide are expected to watch the Baltimore Ravens take on the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XLVII, up from 172 .5 million last year. The 2012 Oscars, by comparison, netted 39 million viewers. Game 5 of the 2012 NBA Finals? 12.5 million.
And America?s biggest TV-watching ?holiday? is rapidly becoming one of its top consumer-spending holidays as well. The NRF projects that shoppers will spend a combined $12.3 billion on food, gear, and electronics for the Super Bowl this year, up from $11 billion last year.
Why the jump? The NRF suggests that the teams involved could play a role. The 49ers and the Ravens are both hugely popular franchises that haven?t reached the Super Bowl in quite a while: The Ravens last made the trip in 2000; the once-dynastic 49ers in 1994. Some 17 million fans are expected to buy team apparel or accessories, up from 14.8 million last year.?
Super stuffed
But for the most part, we?re spending our money on food. Super Bowl Sunday is the second-biggest food ?holiday? in the US, behind Thanksgiving. It?s a booming weekend for the most popular foods: namely, wings, chips. and pizza.
An estimated 1.2 billion chicken wings will be consumed this Super Bowl Sunday, according to the Washington-based National Chicken Council. That?s down slightly from last year, because chicken wing prices have soared recently in the face of higher demand and soaring costs for feed ? wings currently cost $2.11 per pound on average, up 26 cents from a year ago. There were even frantic rumors circulating last week of a Super Bowl chicken wing shortage, but the council quickly dispelled them.
"The good news for consumers is that restaurants plan well in advance to ensure they have plenty of wings for the big game," National Chicken Council economist Bill Roenikg said in a press statement.
It?s also the busiest day of the year for pizza joints. Dominoes expects to sell 11 million slices this Super Bowl Sunday; Papa John?s sold around 8 million last year. Other big food stats: Football revelers ate 11.2 million pounds of potato chips last year. Another (surprising) contender: avocados. Thanks to guacamole, an estimated 79 million avocados will be eaten during Super Bowl festivities.
TVs
Of course, the Super Bowl is, more than any other, a day for watching television. And to properly mark the occasion, 7.5 million households intend to buy a new TV, according to the NRF. That?s 2 million more than last year, when 5.5. million households bought a new TV for the Super Bowl. Happy high-def football, everyone!
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Public release date: 7-Feb-2013
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