China docks spacecraft manually

24 June 2012 Last updated at 01:07 ET

China has successfully completed its first ever manual docking of a spacecraft with another space module.

Astronauts on the Shenzhou-9 spacecraft docked with the Tiangong-1 lab module without relying on an automated system.

State television broadcast images of Jing Haipeng, Liu Wang and China's first female astronaut, Liu Yang, smiling after carrying out the manoeuvre.

The docking is seen as a key step in the building of a space station.

A manual docking procedure would be used in the event of a failure with the automated system.

Liu Wang had been expected to take charge of the manual docking manoeuvres, while Liu Yang was to conduct aerospace experiments, according to AFP.

China aims to complete the construction of a space station by 2020, said the AFP news agency.

Manual docking was carried out by the USSR and US successfully in the 1960s.

The Shenzhou-9 spacecraft was launched on 16 June.

It docked with the Tiangong-1 module on 18 June after a successful automatic procedure.

obama care miss universe canada don draper gallagher madmen james cameron liam hemsworth

Infants can't distinguish between large and small groups

ScienceDaily (June 19, 2012) ? Human brains process large and small numbers of objects using two different mechanisms, but infants have not yet developed the ability to make those two processes work together, according to new research from the University of Missouri.

"This research was the first to show the inability of infants in a single age group to discriminate large and small sets in a single task," said Kristy vanMarle, assistant professor of psychological sciences in the College of Arts and Science. "Understanding how infants develop the ability to represent and compare numbers could be used to improve early education programs."

The MU study found that infants consistently chose the larger of two groups of food items when both sets were larger or smaller than four, just as an adult would. Unlike adults, the infants showed no preference for the larger group when choosing between one large and one small set. The results suggest that at age one infants have not yet integrated the two mental functions: one being the ability to estimate numbers of items at a glance and the other being the ability to visually track small sets of objects.

In vanMarle's study, 10- to 12-month-old infants were presented with two opaque cups. Different numbers of pieces of breakfast cereal were hidden in each cup, while the infants observed, and then the infants were allowed to choose a cup. Four comparisons were tested between different combinations of large and small sets. Infants consistently chose two food items over one and eight items over four, but chose randomly when asked to compare two versus four and two versus eight.

"Being unable to determine that eight is larger than two would put an organism at a serious disadvantage," vanMarle said. "However, ongoing studies in my lab suggest that the capacity to compare small and large sets seems to develop before age two."

The ability to make judgments about the relative number of objects in a group has old evolutionary roots. Dozens of species, including some fish, monkeys and birds have shown the ability to recognize numerical differences in laboratory studies. VanMarle speculated that being unable to compare large and small sets early in infancy may not have been problematic during human evolution because young children probably received most of their food and protection from caregivers. Infants' survival didn't depend on determining which bush had the most berries or how many predators they just saw, she said.

"In the modern world there are educational programs that claim to give children an advantage by teaching them arithmetic at an early age," said vanMarle. "This research suggests that such programs may be ineffective simply because infants are unable to compare some numbers with others."

VanMarle's research was published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:

---

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Missouri-Columbia.

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

---

Journal Reference:

1. Kristy vanMarle. Infants use different mechanisms to make small and large number ordinal judgments. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2012; DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2012.04.007

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

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

bud shootout aretha franklin stevie wonder new orleans weather new orleans weather sparkle sacagawea

America's Immigration Stalemate: Conflicted Policies | Center for ...

An immigration datum buried deep inside a New York Times-CBS political poll is a timely reminder of America's immigration stalemate. The poll was conducted from May 31 to June 6 and primarily focused on the Supreme Court and its upcoming health care decision.

But reading through the poll, one comes to Question 18:

18. Which comes closest to your view about illegal immigrants who are currently working in the U.S.? 1. They should be allowed to stay in their jobs, and to eventually apply for U.S. citizenship; OR 2. They should be allowed to stay in their jobs only as temporary guest workers, but NOT to apply for U.S. citizenship; OR 3. They should be required to leave their jobs and leave the U.S.

That question is striking because it contains three options, not the usual two, such as a "pathway to citizenship" vs. deportation, or the even more reductionist, singular option question "Do you favor or oppose a pathway to legalization for illegal immigrants?"

The importance of the Times question is not to be found in any assumption that respondents are giving thorough answers based on thoughtful reflection. Most respondents lack a wide base of factual information about immigration and would probably have trouble correctly gauging how many legal immigrants the United States admits each year. So responses to such questions are most likely a mix of na?ve candor, "conventional wisdom" that they have encountered, and the conflicted feelings of sympathetic support for those trying to build a better life and disapproval of those who don't follow America's immigration laws to gain legal entry.

It is conventional, but often forgotten, "wisdom" that every immigration poll question is a snapshot that summarizes a much more complex reality beneath the surface of the questions asked. But it is more than that. It is also a window into that complexity that is either more or less open, depending on how the question is asked and the range of possibilities allowed in any answer. The more open the window, the more we can see. Questions asked also reflect an angle of view that is either fully frontal, taking wide swaths of it into account, or narrowly constructed, so that one gets a very thin, distorted slice of public views about a particular immigration issue.

The Times question demonstrates these points nicely. So to the questions of what respondents would do regarding "illegal immigrants who are currently working in the U.S.", respondents said the following:

Stay and apply for citizenship	Stay as guest workers	Required to leave jobs & U.S.	DK/NA
43	21	32	3

These three broad categories can be labeled "legalization", "limited legal work status", and "required departure". As a rough estimate of public sentiment at this point in time, after years of contentious immigration debate, we can say this: A majority of Americans do not prefer to legalize 11-12 million immigrants and their families who are living and working in the United States in violation of American immigration laws.

Yes, a plurality of Americans is in favor of legalization, but a majority favors the two non-legalization options. And this is true of every year in which the question has been asked by the Times.

What these numbers reflect about the emotional state of the American public regarding immigration is worth considering as the 2012 presidential election campaign begins in earnest.

NEXT: Beneath America's Immigration Stalemate: Conflicted Emotions

Bookmark/Search this post with

anne hathaway nathan hale kohls coupons joe kapp joe kapp kohls target

Outsource Philippines Vendors ? How to Make the Right Choice

Outsourcing has evolved to become a regular practice in today?s business world. Several businesses have experienced exceptional growth by outsourcing some of their business operations to offshore professionals at comparatively low cost. Outsource Philippines vendors are making great waves, their outstanding performance in handling outsourced processes is the reason behind this popularity. However, you need to choose an offshore outsourcing company carefully.

Here are some useful tips on how to decide which outsource Philippines company is right for your business;

? How Knowledgeable is the Vendor concerning the Required Business Process?

This is very essential, you would not want to end up with a shabby or sub-standard performance. Each business operation is better handled by an offshore company that has expertise in that area. For instance, it is best to outsource IT tasks to a Philippine outsourcing vendor that specializes in Information Technology. The result would definitely be different from a general outsourcing vendor. However, some outsourcing vendors run several segments under one umbrella and each segment is usually very skillful in its area of specialization.

? Check the Vendor?s Portfolio

The portfolio of a potential outsource Philippines company will reveal its capacity or incapacity to handle the required business process. The portfolio would showcase both past and present concluded projects. It is not enough to feed your eyes with the portfolio contents, take a step further to contact some of the clients and find out if they were truly satisfied. Ask sensitive questions in tactful manners to ascertain if the clients are merely make-shift clients. A phony outsourcing vendor may arrange with their partners elsewhere to act as clients and claim absolute satisfaction when contacted. So, ensure you ask sensitive and intelligent questions that are capable of revealing the true situation.

? Research the Vendor Extensively

Do not take an offshore outsourcing company only on face value. Extensive research is necessary and would reveal the company?s reliability or otherwise. Things to research about an outsource Philippines vendor include years of operation, expertise in the required business process, membership to a professional body, license to practice and more.

Ask Intelligent Questions

If you are not well informed about the outsource-able business process, allow an informed member of your business group or employee to interview a potential outsourcing vendor. Asking direct and relevant questions would reveal the expertise of the vendor in that area or otherwise.

No doubts, hiring outsource Philippines vendor for business processes comes with exceptional benefits. However, those benefits are only real when you hire the right vendor. Do your research very well and take note of every bit of information. If you are not too sure about how to get the right vendor, contact a professional intermediary between outsourcing vendors and clients.

Daven Michaels is an award-winning outsourcer and author of the book, ?Outsource This!? Daven has been honored more than any other individual or outsourcing organization. You can get more information on outsourcing by visiting www.123Employee.com

brandon marshall iditarod nfl free agents 2012 encyclopedia brittanica nfl free agency jonbenet ramsey jason campbell

SanDisk announces Extreme Pro microSD cards for smartphones and tablets, quick speeds starting at $60

Touting the "world's fastest mobile memory card" moniker, SanDisk has unveiled the Extreme Pro microSDHC line of storage add-ons for your smartphone or tablet. The outfit is advertising 95MB/s read and 90MB/s write speeds for the UHS Class 1 memory cards -- clocking in a bit faster than Samsung's Ultra High Speed offerings for LTE devices. The cards are now available in either 8GB or 16GB capacities and will hit your wallet for $59.99 or $99.99, depending on your preference. Naturally, you'll want to make sure that your device is compatible with the duo before pulling the trigger, which can be done via the source link below.

Continue reading SanDisk announces Extreme Pro microSD cards for smartphones and tablets, quick speeds starting at $60

SanDisk announces Extreme Pro microSD cards for smartphones and tablets, quick speeds starting at $60 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 Jun 2012 09:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  SanDisk  | Email this | Comments

lost in space elizabeth banks battle royale key largo arnold palmer invitational ryan madson louisiana primary

From pomegranate peel to nanoparticles

ScienceDaily (June 19, 2012) ? Food waste is a growing problem in many parts of the world, but discarded fruit peel, in the case of pomegranates, could be put to good use in the burgeoning field of nanotechnology according to research published in the International Journal of Nanoparticles.

Punica Granatum, the pomegranate is native in northern India and has been cultivated and naturalized over the whole Mediterranean region since ancient times. The fruit extract is a rich source of highly potent antioxidants.

Now, botanist Naheed Ahmad of Patna University and physicist colleague Seema Sharma of AN College, also in Patna, India, are working together to exploit the skin of pomegranates as a reducing agent for making silver nanoparticles. The team says their approach to these widely researched and technologically invaluable nanoparticles represents a more environmentally benign method than the use of "chemical" reducing agents and industrial solvents. The process also precludes the need to heat the reaction mixture as it proceeds at ambient temperature.

The team suspects that biological co-factors present in the pomegranate biomass act as substitutes for more conventional chemical reagents in nanoparticle formation from the silver nitrate starting material. They used UV-Vis spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, selected area electron diffraction, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier-Transform infrared spectroscopy to analyze the nanoparticles formed by the reaction. The particles generated are about 5 nanometers in diameter. (One nanometer is a billionth of a meter).

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:

---

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Inderscience Publishers, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

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

---

Journal Reference:

1. Naheed Ahmad, Seema Sharma. Biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles from biowaste pomegranate peels. International Journal of Nanoparticles, 2012 [link]

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

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

stoudemire jordan hill tony nominations dark knight trailer dallas mavericks washington capitals elizabeth warren

Ancient warming greened Antarctica, study finds

ScienceDaily (June 17, 2012) ? A new university-led study with NASA participation finds ancient Antarctica was much warmer and wetter than previously suspected. The climate was suitable to support substantial vegetation -- including stunted trees -- along the edges of the frozen continent.

The team of scientists involved in the study, published online June 17 in Nature Geoscience, was led by Sarah J. Feakins of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and included researchers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

By examining plant leaf wax remnants in sediment core samples taken from beneath the Ross Ice Shelf, the research team found summer temperatures along the Antarctic coast 15 to 20 million years ago were 20 degrees Fahrenheit (11 degrees Celsius) warmer than today, with temperatures reaching as high as 45 degrees Fahrenheit (7 degrees Celsius). Precipitation levels also were found to be several times higher than today.

"The ultimate goal of the study was to better understand what the future of climate change may look like," said Feakins, an assistant professor of Earth sciences at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. "Just as history has a lot to teach us about the future, so does past climate. This record shows us how much warmer and wetter it can get around the Antarctic ice sheet as the climate system heats up. This is some of the first evidence of just how much warmer it was."

Scientists began to suspect that high-latitude temperatures during the middle Miocene epoch were warmer than previously believed when co-author Sophie Warny, assistant professor at LSU, discovered large quantities of pollen and algae in sediment cores taken around Antarctica. Fossils of plant life in Antarctica are difficult to come by because the movement of the massive ice sheets covering the landmass grinds and scrapes away the evidence.

"Marine sediment cores are ideal to look for clues of past vegetation, as the fossils deposited are protected from ice sheet advances, but these are technically very difficult to acquire in the Antarctic and require international collaboration," said Warny.

Tipped off by the tiny pollen samples, Feakins opted to look at the remnants of leaf wax taken from sediment cores for clues. Leaf wax acts as a record of climate change by documenting the hydrogen isotope ratios of the water the plant took up while it was alive.

"Ice cores can only go back about one million years," Feakins said. "Sediment cores allow us to go into 'deep time.'"

Based upon a model originally developed to analyze hydrogen isotope ratios in atmospheric water vapor data from NASA's Aura spacecraft, co-author and JPL scientist Jung-Eun Lee created experiments to find out just how much warmer and wetter climate may have been.

"When the planet heats up, the biggest changes are seen toward the poles," Lee said. "The southward movement of rain bands associated with a warmer climate in the high-latitude southern hemisphere made the margins of Antarctica less like a polar desert, and more like present-day Iceland."

The peak of this Antarctic greening occurred during the middle Miocene period, between 16.4 and 15.7 million years ago. This was well after the age of the dinosaurs, which became extinct 64 million years ago. During the Miocene epoch, mostly modern-looking animals roamed Earth, such as three-toed horses, deer, camel and various species of apes. Modern humans did not appear until 200,000 years ago.

Warm conditions during the middle Miocene are thought to be associated with carbon dioxide levels of around 400 to 600 parts per million (ppm). In 2012, carbon dioxide levels have climbed to 393 ppm, the highest they've been in the past several million years. At the current rate of increase, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are on track to reach middle Miocene levels by the end of this century.

High carbon dioxide levels during the middle Miocene epoch have been documented in other studies through multiple lines of evidence, including the number of microscopic pores on the surface of plant leaves and geochemical evidence from soils and marine organisms. While none of these 'proxies' is as reliable as the bubbles of gas trapped in ice cores, they are the best evidence available this far back in time. While scientists do not yet know precisely why carbon dioxide was at these levels during the middle Miocene, high carbon dioxide, together with the global warmth documented from many parts of the world and now also from the Antarctic region, appear to coincide during this period in Earth's history.

This research was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation with additional support from NASA. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:

---

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

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

---

Journal Reference:

1. Sarah J. Feakins, Sophie Warny, Jung-Eun Lee. Hydrologic cycling over Antarctica during the middle Miocene warming. Nature Geoscience, 2012; DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1498

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

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

hanukkah gpa calculator menorah chanukah chanukah david archuleta david archuleta

Insight of the Moment: Creative Writing Class #2: Ordinary Object

My second class in Beginning Creative Writing was over a week ago on 4 June, but as you can imagine, I have been slightly overcome by a monster lately and the blogging has suffered. You know THE monster of which I speak.

Anyway, in this class we each read our writing assignments out loud and everyone critiqued each other's writing. More interesting than each person's writing style, was each person's unique interpretation of the assignment.

We were supposed to write about an ordinary object and make it extraordinary. My approach was to give it the context of a story. I was told that was an easy way to do it and didn't necessarily meet the intent of the assignment. But other people took a very direct approach and killed their ordinary object with adjectives. The best ones used personification and imagery in a effective yet sparing way. I took note.

You know how each organization and discipline has its own language to tell someone that they suck? For example, if someone shows tremendous potential, that means they haven't lived up to it yet. Or if someone isn't the right match for a job position - they did a crappy job at it. Well if someone's creative writing misses the mark completely, "well, it's a contribution."

Mine wasn't labelled a "contribution," but it's only a matter of time.

This class is good. It's yet another humbling life exercise in practice makes a better product and if you do it every day, you get better and better. Dreams of being a brilliant writer overnight and making tons of money - checked by reality. But it's no surprise. I've been in a creative "straightjacket" for almost 20 years!

Our assignment for the following week is character development. Observe a stranger in a public place and take note of specific things about them. Things like how they are dressed, if they are married, not married, body language, anything that might give clues as to what their life is like. Based on that info, create a life for that person but without a laundry list of adjectives. I took this to heart, but definitely didn't invest enough time due to the monster.

robert e lee dez bryant aaliyah golden globe winners the express zappos hacked jane fonda

autismvox: Chinese Woman Feng Jianmei Forced to Abort 7-Month-Old Baby | @Care2 @Care2Causes http://t.co/TyXpJSSk

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

king arthur there will be blood there will be blood nigel barker 420 secret service fenway park

Jennifer Armstrong: How Not to Start Your Own Website

Launching your own blog or online magazine provides one of the best venues for you to hone and showcase your own vision, voice, and views. (Like we do here!) In short, it's a way to make an outspoken lady's dreams come true, almost instantly, at very little cost (if you do it right). It might not make you rich, but it could make you a known rabble-rouser, promote your soapbox issue of choice, give you a chance to build a community of like-minded women, look cool on your resume, and even lead to a book deal. (Look for our book, Girls Just Wanna, out next year.)

It did all of that for us when we started SexyFeminist.com together six years ago. But it also caused us a lot of headaches we didn't anticipate. We want to stop you from going through what we did, so we're sharing what we learned. Here are our top 10 things you shouldn't do while starting a website -- and remedies for making them right:

1. Don't get ahead of yourselves. In the early stages of planning our launch, we spent more time than we'd like to admit envisioning the outfits we would wear on the Today show when they inevitably called us for an interview about our groundbreaking vision for an edgy women's site. While we were right that we were a little ahead of our time, we were wrong to think it mattered where we bought our power suits. And to think any media outlet was going to magically show up at our door begging to cover us.

2. Don't set unrealistic publishing goals that will discourage you and stress you out. Unless you're independently wealthy or have financial backing, you probably have at least a day job, if not a day job plus other projects plus a personal life plus a basic human need to eat and sleep. At the beginning, we considered such absurd ideas as having at least a post a day; as things progressed we realized we couldn't even handle a post a week at certain times in our lives. (Like when we were working full time while writing books, planning weddings, having babies, or running marathons.) Now that we're freelancers, we can handle a few posts a week, but our disillusionment back in the early days almost made us quit. Just blog when you can blog!

3. Don't think you have to do everything yourselves. The happy/sad truth (happy for you, sad for writers) is that a lot of writers will work for free under the right circumstances. Guilt your friends into writing. Give writers you know a chance to cover topics they don't usually get to but feel passionate about. Hire "interns," who are really just young people who will work for free, and give them a chance to do the kind of work they need to build their resumes. We love our interns.

4. Don't set up your blog on unfamiliar software, particularly if it doesn't have a tech support line. We're on WordPress now and adore its user-friendliness. This was not the case on the first platform we used, and we paid for it. More than once, we actually "broke" our own site and spent days wondering if all our hard work would ever re-appear online. There's no excuse for this, especially with the software available now.

5. Don't get too caught up in design. We hired a friend's husband at a very reasonable price to design our now-gorgeous site. But if you don't know someone who can do this, don't worry too much. Pick one of the many great templates available online and start blogging. If you eventually make enough money on an ad service (think: Google ads, BlogHer), you can hire someone to make you a logo, but don't go crazy. No one cares that much about your aesthetics if you've got great content.

6. Don't think you know anything about tax law.

You've done your research; you've looked up every official IRS document applicable to starting a small business (which is what you're doing if you plan to ever run an ad on your website) and think you've got it covered. Think again. Tax laws are multilayered, complex, confusing beasts filled with loopholes and special circumstances that could end up costing you thousands of dollars or triggering an audit. Starting your own website is hard enough without a visit from the IRS.

If funds for a proper tax attorney are unavailable (and let's assume that), worry not. There are many resources for small businesses to get the expert input they need. A favorite -- and savior--of ours is SCORE. The free, nonprofit service pairs newbies like you with mentors -- attorneys, accountants, lawyers, CEOs and scads of extremely knowledgeable and caring individuals who are, let's face it, way smarter than you about this stuff. Say you have a question, such as, "Should I incorporate my two-person, content-based, non-retail, not-profitable website in the state of California?" They will kindly tell you it might cost you a fee of around $350 and an unexpected annual tax bill of around $800. We wish we'd talked to them before we found this out the hard way and went to them to fix it.

7. Don't have a nebulous concept that can't be articulated in a clear title.

We're writers. We like interesting words. This is a great asset as you create the content for your new website, but it can be a liability when you complete the simple, essential task of naming it. Before you buy a domain, order 2,000 business cards and customize cute t-shirts with your new site's name emblazoned on them, be certain that you've chosen wisely. And wisely means that the name of your website needs to explain what said website contains. Personal blogs can be nonsensical, but if you want people to find your site and remember its content, "simple, straightforward, and clear" is your mantra.

When we first launched our "women's lifestyle with a feminist twist" website, we called it Sirens, inspired by strong, iconic female historical characters. Now it's called The Sexy Feminist. Which of these actually says anything about the content of the site? It took us six years to get it right.

8. Master self-promotion -- the right kind.

Many creative types -- writers especially -- are introverted, preferring to practice their craft without much fanfare. To put it frankly: We can suck at self-promotion. But it's more necessary now than ever, especially if you're running a site you hope other people will read. And you don't need an elaborate ad campaign to do it. Here are just three steps that will guarantee spikes in traffic:

* Make friends with other bloggers and offer to cross-post items.
* Email relevant content links to bigger sites in your field suggesting they link to your story.
* Tweet everything--not just your new content links, but 120-character quips about news and thoughts relevant to your website's focus. Make Pinterest boards thematically linked to your content.

9. Know what your money is buying.

Startup money is scarce, especially for those of us not inventing the next Google. If you don't plan to make a lot of money from your website (and most don't), then you needn't stress about raising seed money for startup. You won't need much anyway. You have to buy a domain name and a hosting package, then just put the site up, which can be done using free software such as WordPress.

A note on web developers: Bless them, but some create more problems than they solve, especially if they are the only ones who can solve the problems they themselves create. Make sure you really, really need any service before investing in it.

10. Don't make things harder on yourself than you need to. This is supposed to be at least a little fun, right?

Please see all of the above.

Originally posted on SexyFeminist.com.

?

Follow Jennifer Armstrong on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jenmarmstrong

"; var coords = [-5, -72]; // display fb-bubble FloatingPrompt.embed(this, html, undefined, 'top', {fp_intersects:1, timeout_remove:2000,ignore_arrow: true, width:236, add_xy:coords, class_name: 'clear-overlay'}); });

etan patz obama dog doug hutchison larry brown kevin hart thomas kinkade brewers

US stocks end lower as Europe teeters; Dow off 77

FILE- In this Monday, June 11, 2012, file photo, traders Stephen Kaplan, center, and Jeffrey Vazquez, right, work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. U.S. stocks were poised to fall Wednesday June 13, 2012. Dow futures lost 0.1 percent to 12,500.00 while broader S&P 500 futures dropped 0.2 percent to 1,317.70. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, FIle)

FILE- In this Monday, June 11, 2012, file photo, traders Stephen Kaplan, center, and Jeffrey Vazquez, right, work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. U.S. stocks were poised to fall Wednesday June 13, 2012. Dow futures lost 0.1 percent to 12,500.00 while broader S&P 500 futures dropped 0.2 percent to 1,317.70. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, FIle)

NEW YORK (AP) ? U.S stocks skidded Wednesday, a looming election in Greece and the broader debt maelstrom in Europe their ominous backdrop.

Major market indexes wavered for much of the day but fell sharply after the finance minister of Cyprus warned that his country may seek its own bailout this week, stoking the uneasy feeling that the crisis is far from over.

In a troubling sign, Spain's 10-year borrowing rate inched up to 6.71 percent from 6.67 percent. Other countries in Europe have had to seek bailouts when their borrowing rates hit 7 percent.

European leaders said over the weekend that they will lend up to $125 billion to Spain's banks, but that has not soothed markets. Investors want more details about the plan, including where the money would come from and how likely it is that Spain would pay it back.

Investors aren't even sure they can believe the announcements out of Europe, said Jeff Sica, president and chief investment officer of SICA Wealth Management in Morristown, N.J.

"(Spanish Prime Minister Mariano) Rajoy came out a few weeks ago and said Spain didn't need money, and then he needs 100 billion euro," Sica said. "There's not a level of trust where people could say, 'The people in charge of this crisis have it under control.'"

Moody's, the credit ratings agency, downgraded Spain's government debt three notches late Wednesday, placing it one level above junk status. It downgraded Cyprus's debt by two, pushing it deeper into junk rating.

Italy ? which, like Cyprus, could be the next flashpoint in the debt crisis ? had setbacks of its own. Its 10-year borrowing rate rose to 6.07 percent from 6.02 percent, and the interest rate on its one-year bonds also rose sharply.

Greece will hold elections Sunday, and voters may endorse a party that wants to cancel the terms of Greece's own bailout. That would almost certainly force Greece to leave the euro currency.

Greece's elections are especially hard to predict because rules there forbid polling in the two weeks before an election, said Jim McDonald, chief investment strategist at Northern Trust in Chicago.

So "in a void of real developments," McDonald said, investors are hard-pressed to figure out how to trade, which helps explain the market's whiplash-inducing changes this week.

The Dow Jones industrial average shed 77.42 points to end at 12,496.38 after another day of volatile trading. The Dow had been down as much as 120 points and up as much as 24 points. That followed a triple-digit gain on Tuesday and a triple-digit loss on Monday.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 9.30 points to 1,314.88, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 24.46 points to 2,818.61.

Richard Ross, global technical strategist at Auerbach Grayson in New York, said he's still bullish on U.S. stocks. He thinks their decline throughout May, perhaps a necessary correction, means they're ready to charge ahead.

The market's inability to make up its mind this week, he said, is a result of investors trading on news headlines rather than examining the fundamentals of individual stocks.

"The sovereign debt crisis, the Greek elections, the Egyptian elections ? if you are basing an investment strategy around these headlines, you will be paralyzed," Ross said.

The interest rate on the U.S. 10-year Treasury note fell to 1.60 from 1.66 percent. Investors moved money into one of the few places where they think it will be safe, with the U.S. government.

Big movers included JPMorgan Chase, which rose 53 cents to $34.30 after CEO Jamie Dimon testified to Congress about the bank's surprise $2 billion trading loss. Dell jumped 30 cents to $12.28 after the computer maker said it would begin paying its first shareholder dividend. Cigarette maker Philip Morris International rose 69 cents to $85.70 after announcing it would buy back more of its own stock.

Scotts Miracle-Gro, which makes lawn-care products, fell $2.84 to $40.21 after issuing weak forecasts for profit and revenue. Cobalt International Energy fell $1.36 to $21.67 after announcing it will abandon a Gulf of Mexico well that hasn't yielded any commercial hydrocarbons. Nike fell $5.38 to $102.22.

Associated Press

derrick rose acl earthquake los angeles unemployment 2012 nfl draft grades young justice nfl draft

Twitter Launches Expanded Tweets, Letting You Read News, Check Out Images, And Watch Video Inline

On the Twitter blog today, the company announced a new way that users will be able to get access to an expanded array of content from partners. The latest new innovation, Expanded Tweets, will let users check out content directly from certain partners, without having to leave its web site. News partners like the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, MSNBC's Breaking News, San Francisco Chronicle, Der Speigel, and TIME will now let users see more content directly within their Tweets, without having to click through to their websites. When you expand a news-based Tweet, for example, Twitter's Expanded Tweets will provide a preview of the headline and introduction, as well as the Twitter accounts of the publisher and writer. They can then click through to read the article, follow news accounts, reply or retweet within the Twitter page itself.

m.i.a super bowl coin toss madonna super bowl halftime kelly clarkson super bowl giants super bowl 2012 half time show halftime show 2012

Like they did last summer: Fed may Twist again (reuters)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

pittsburgh steelers detroit lions seattle seahawks space shuttle space shuttle new york courtney upshaw russell wilson

Apple Store Goes Down Ahead Of WWDC, Silver Background Further Hints At UI Color Scheme Change-Up

What do you know? In proper Apple fashion, the Apple Store is officially down in preparation for the company's WWDC Keynote announcements, where we expect to hear about refreshed notebooks, a new OS X Mountain Lion, and most importantly, the next-generation version of iOS. But we noticed something a little different about the company's "Be Back Soon" page. Once upon a time, the Apple store placeholder was a post-it note, with the text appearing in the same default font used in the Notes application. But more recently, Apple changed the page to something a bit more mature, with standard Apple font on a white place card. But alas, the same linen finish seen on the Siri application has taken over the entirety of the background of the page. Except... it isn't dark grey, it's silver.

bobby abreu 2012 draft chicago bears colt mccoy philadelphia eagles arbor day packers

CDC: Older teens often text while behind the wheel

Dylan Young, 18, a senior at North Arlington High, stands Wednesday, June 6, 2012, near the site where he was in a fender bender caused by being distracted while texting and driving, in North Arlington, N.J. More than half of high school seniors say they text or email while driving, according to a jarring new study that offers the first federal statistics on how common the dangerous habit is in teens. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the numbers Thursday, June 7, 2012. They come from a 2011 survey of about 15,000 high school students across the country. The study found 58 percent of high school seniors said that, in the previous month, they had texted or emailed while driving. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Dylan Young, 18, a senior at North Arlington High, stands Wednesday, June 6, 2012, near the site where he was in a fender bender caused by being distracted while texting and driving, in North Arlington, N.J. More than half of high school seniors say they text or email while driving, according to a jarring new study that offers the first federal statistics on how common the dangerous habit is in teens. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the numbers Thursday, June 7, 2012. They come from a 2011 survey of about 15,000 high school students across the country. The study found 58 percent of high school seniors said that, in the previous month, they had texted or emailed while driving. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Dylan Young, 18, poses for The Associated Press as a vehicle cruises by, Wednesday, June 6, 2012, in North Arlington, N.J. Young, a senior at North Arlington High, was in a fender-bender accident caused by being distracted while texting and driving. More than half of high school seniors say they text or email while driving, according to a jarring new study that offers the first federal statistics on how common the dangerous habit is in teens. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the numbers Thursday, June 7, 2012. They come from a 2011 survey of about 15,000 high school students across the country. The study found 58 percent of high school seniors said that, in the previous month, they had texted or emailed while driving. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Chart shows rate of high school teens in the United States who text while driving.

ATLANTA (AP) ? Think your teen would never text while driving? More than half of high school seniors admitted in a government survey that they've done just that.

It's the first time the question was asked in a teen poll on risky behavior, and the finding comes amid a renewed federal crackdown on distracted driving.

Texting and cellphone use behind the wheel is "a national epidemic," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Thursday.

"We need to teach kids, who are the most vulnerable drivers, that texting and driving don't mix," LaHood said at a Washington news conference to announce pilot projects in Delaware and California to discourage distracted driving.

In the survey, about 58 percent of high school seniors said they had texted or emailed while driving during the previous month. About 43 percent of high school juniors acknowledged they did the same thing.

"I'm not surprised at all," said Vicki Rimasse, a New Jersey woman whose son caused a fender bender earlier this year after texting in traffic. She made him take a safe-driving class after the mishap.

"I felt like an idiot," said her 18-year-old son, Dylan Young. The episode taught him "to be a lot more cautious," although he conceded that he sometimes still texts behind the wheel.

The findings released Thursday are the first federal statistics on how common the dangerous habit is in teens. Distracted driving deaths are most common in teens, blamed for about 16 percent of teen motor vehicle deaths.

Focusing on a cellphone instead of the road leads to delayed reaction times, lane swerves and other lapses with sometimes fatal consequences, experts say.

Thirty-nine states ban texting for all age groups, and an additional five states outlaw it for novice teen drivers. And authorities are increasingly cracking down. In the last two weeks, teens in Missouri and Massachusetts have been sentenced to jail ? one for a year ? for fatal accidents involving texting.

For the survey, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last year questioned more than 15,000 public and private high school students across the country. Some earlier studies had suggested teen texting while driving was becoming common, though perhaps not quite so high.

Still, the numbers aren't really surprising, said Amanda Lenhart, a senior researcher at the Pew Research Center in Washington. She studies how teens use technology.

A typical teen sends and receives about 100 text messages a day, and it's the most common way many kids communicate with their peers.

"A lot of teens say 'Well, if the car's not moving and I'm at a stoplight or I'm stuck in traffic, that's OK,'" said Lenhart, who has done focus groups with teens on the topic.

Other teens acknowledge that it's not safe, but they think it is safer if they hold the phone up so they can see the road and text at the same time, she said.

The CDC survey didn't ask whether the texting or emailing was done while the vehicle was moving or stopped. The survey is conducted every two years, but this was the first time it asked about texting while driving.

Young's fender bender occurred one winter afternoon while he was in crawling traffic on his way to a guitar lesson. No one was hurt.

It's frustrating that the accident did not break him of the habit, Rimasse said.

She described her son as an articulate honors student in North Arlington who walks to school and spends little time in the SUV that they share.

But he is also part of a teen culture where virtually everyone texts while driving and thinks nothing bad will happen, she lamented.

"Nothing seems to stop them," his mother said. "It's ridiculous."

"Everybody just does it," Young said.

CDC officials said there was some good news in the survey:

? More teens are wearing seatbelts. Only 8 percent said they rarely or never wear seatbelts, down from 26 percent in 1991.

? Fewer teens said they drove drunk (8 percent vs. double that in the 1990s) or rode with a driver who had been drinking (24 percent, down from 40 percent).

Overall, teen deaths from motor vehicle crashes are down 44 percent in the last decade. About 3,100 teens died from traffic crashes in 2009, according to the most recent federal statistics.

___

Associated Press Writer Joan Lowy in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

___

Online:

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/yrbs

Associated Press

karen handel hangout todd haley kareem abdul jabbar karl rove miramonte elementary school mark jenkins

Democratic leader consoles Wisconsin party after recall (reuters)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

fletcher cox charlotte bobcats denver broncos new york rangers nfl mock draft 2012 norfolk island michael brockers

The Future Fruits Of Apple + Facebook

When CEO Tim Cook kept saying "stay tuned" at D10 about new Apple collaborations with Facebook, he may have meant it literally. Soon you could be tuning into Facebook on Apple TV, or seeing your iTunes or iPod activity auto-shared to Facebook. Boosted revenue, better ad targeting, and trouble for mutual enemy Google are all potential benefits. While there are plenty of?smaller ways Facebook and Apple?could intertwine, here's a ?look at two big developments that could grow from?deeper ties between 1 Infinite Loop and 1 Hacker Way.

taylor swift zac efron the scream stephen colbert new madrid fault rihanna and chris brown affirmative action helicon

Notre Dame announces that football coach Brian Kelly is resting comfortably after undergoing back surgery Thursday to repair a...

SbB LIVE FROM LA (Jun 8, 2012 @ 7:18pm ET)

Comments | SbB Live RSS Feed Friday, June 08, 2012

7:15 PM: Boston Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine says of watching Washington Nationals pitcher Stephen Strasburg play: "He's like looking at a rainbow; you don't miss it. It's a rather beautiful sight."

7:00 PM: Friday's LSU-Stony Brook NCAA baseball super regional game has been postponed until 10:05 a.m. Saturday with the score tied 4-4 in the top of the 12th inning.

6:45 PM: Former USC & Carolina Panthers receiver Dwayne Jarrett announced his retirement from football Thursday after a failed tryout with the CFL's Saskatchewan Roughriders.

6:30 PM: On facing Manny Pacquiao this Saturday, boxer Timothy Bradley believes "Manny Time" is up.

6:15 PM: Denver Broncos LB D.J. Williams defends his decision to tweet a photo of his team's playbook on his iPad: "Every defense has that play. But they making it seem like I gave the whole playbook up It's just like if you took a picture and in the back ground was a Will lead."

6:00 PM: Tulane Green Wave defensive lineman Lawrence Burl has been suspended indefinitely after his arrest last month on marijuana & weapons charges.

5:45 PM: The Boston Globe reports that a 22-year-old college student was stabbed in the thigh by a man reportedly wearing Miami Heat apparel outside the TD Garden after Thursday night's Celtics-Heat game.

5:30 PM: Former Formula One driver Jacques Villeneuve has criticized student protesters in Quebec, calling them "lazy" & an "embarrassment to Canada" while suggesting they were raised by bad parents.

5:15 PM: A semi carrying merchandise for NASCAR driver Danica Patrick was involved in an accident in Pennsylvania Thursday, having been rear-ended by another semi on Interstate 80.

5:00 PM: Russia clinched the first victory of the Euro 2012 tournament, defeating the Czech Republic 4-1 on Friday.

4:45 PM: NFL spokesman Greg Aiello tweets that arbitrator Shyam Das has dismissed the NFLPA's grievance over the penalties handed down in the New Orleans Saints bounty program case.

4:30 PM: Notre Dame announces that football coach Brian Kelly is "resting comfortably" after undergoing back surgery Thursday to repair a herniated disc.

4:15 PM: During the New York Giants' visit to the White House Friday, coach Tom Coughlin told President Obama: "I hope this is not a twice in a lifetime experience. We both have a goal to get back here next year."

4:00 PM: An L.A. Superior Court judge ruled Friday that two suspects in the Dodger Stadium parking lot beating of Giants fan Bryan Stow must stand trial.

3:45 PM: Former & current members of the Chicago Bears & Green Bay Packers will compete in a Ryder Cup-style Rivalry Cup charity golf tournament on June 18 at the Medinah Country Club in Illinois.

? previous entries

japan earthquake bosom buddies diplo rodney atkins fergie one republic michael dyer suspended

Will Wireless Charging Ever Take Off?

Link Information - Click to View

Will Wireless Charging Ever Take Off?
If your ultrabook could charge your phone, would you care? The Verge got a hands-on with Intel?s vision for inductive charging. The idea is to have your smartphone charge straight from you ultrabook. No wires required, just ?close proximity.? Check out the video, and then let?s mull the thing.

Source: Technology Review
Posted on: Friday, Jun 08, 2012, 9:52am
Views: 6

madison bumgarner wnba draft tax day april 17 boston marathon tu pac hologram shuttle

Woman falls to death on first day of job at Yellowstone

[ [ [['Connery is an experienced stuntman', 2]], 'http://yhoo.it/KeQd0p', '[Slideshow: See photos taken on the way down]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['Connery is an experienced stuntman', 7]], ' http://yhoo.it/KpUoHO', '[Slideshow: Death-defying daredevils]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['know that we have confidence in', 3]], 'http://yhoo.it/LqYjAX ', '[Related: The Secret Service guide to Cartagena]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['We picked up this other dog and', 5]], 'http://yhoo.it/JUSxvi', '[Related: 8 common dog fears, how to calm them]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['accused of running a fake hepatitis B', 5]], 'http://bit.ly/JnoJYN', '[Related: Did WH share raid details with filmmakers?]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['accused of running a fake hepatitis B', 3]], 'http://bit.ly/KoKiqJ', '[Factbox: AQAP, al-Qaeda in Yemen]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['have my contacts on or glasses', 3]], 'http://abcn.ws/KTE5AZ', '[Related: Should the murder charge be dropped?]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['have made this nation great as Sarah Palin', 5]], 'http://yhoo.it/JD7nlD', '[Related: Bristol Palin reality show debuts June 19]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['have made this nation great as Sarah Palin', 1]], 'http://bit.ly/JRPFRO', '[Related: McCain adviser who vetted Palin weighs in on VP race]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['A JetBlue flight from New York to Las Vegas', 3]], 'http://yhoo.it/GV9zpj', '[Related: View photos of the JetBlue plane in Amarillo]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['the 28-year-old neighborhood watchman who shot and killed', 15]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/white-house-stays-out-of-teen-s-killing-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/cv/ip/ap/default/120411/martinzimmermen.jpg', '630', ' ', 'AP', ], [ [['Titanic', 7]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/titanic-anniversary/', ' ', 'http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/b/4e/b4e5ad9f00b5dfeeec2226d53e173569.jpeg', '550', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['He was in shock and still strapped to his seat', 6]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/navy-jet-crashes-in-virginia-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/cv/ip/ap/default/120406/jet_ap.jpg', '630', ' ', 'AP', ], [ [['xxxxxxxxxxxx', 11]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/russian-grannies-win-bid-to-sing-at-eurovision-1331223625-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/1/56/156d92f2760dcd3e75bcd649a8b85fcf.jpeg', '500', ' ', 'AP', ] ]

[ [ [['did not go as far his colleague', 8]], '29438204', '0' ], [ [[' the 28-year-old neighborhood watchman who shot and killed', 4]], '28924649', '0' ], [ [['because I know God protects me', 14], ['Brian Snow was at a nearby credit union', 5]], '28811216', '0' ], [ [['The state news agency RIA-Novosti quoted Rosaviatsiya', 6]], '28805461', '0' ], [ [['measure all but certain to fail in the face of bipartisan', 4]], '28771014', '0' ], [ [['matter what you do in this case', 5]], '28759848', '0' ], [ [['presume laws are constitutional', 7]], '28747556', '0' ], [ [['has destroyed 15 to 25 houses', 7]], '28744868', '0' ], [ [['short answer is yes', 7]], '28746030', '0' ], [ [['opportunity to tell the real story', 7]], '28731764', '0' ], [ [['entirely respectable way to put off the searing constitutional controversy', 7]], '28723797', '0' ], [ [['point of my campaign is that big ideas matter', 9]], '28712293', '0' ], [ [['As the standoff dragged into a second day', 7]], '28687424', '0' ], [ [['French police stepped up the search', 17]], '28667224', '0' ], [ [['Seeking to elevate his candidacy back to a general', 8]], '28660934', '0' ], [ [['The tragic story of Trayvon Martin', 4]], '28647343', '0' ], [ [['Karzai will get a chance soon to express', 8]], '28630306', '0' ], [ [['powerful storms stretching', 8]], '28493546', '0' ], [ [['basic norm that death is private', 6]], '28413590', '0' ], [ [['songwriter also saw a surge in sales for her debut album', 6]], '28413590', '1', 'Watch music videos from Whitney Houston ', 'on Yahoo! Music', 'http://music.yahoo.com' ], [ [['keyword', 99999999999999999999999]], 'videoID', '1', 'overwrite-pre-description', 'overwrite-link-string', 'overwrite-link-url' ] ]

flight attendant pau gasol trade michael madsen spring forward day light savings day light savings daylight saving time 2012

Some newfound planets are something else

Re-evaluation suggests one-third of hot giant orbs are misclassified

Web edition : Thursday, June 7th, 2012

When the Kepler spacecraft finds a giant planet closely orbiting a star, there?s a one in three chance that it?s not really a planet at all.

At least, that?s the case according to a new study that put some of Kepler?s thousands of candidate planets to the test using a complementary method for discovering celestial objects in stellar orbits. The results, posted June 5 on arXiv.org, suggest that 35 percent of candidate giants snuggled close to bright stars are impostors, known in the planet-hunting business as false-positives.

?Estimating the Kepler false-positive rate is one of the most burning questions in this field,? says astronomer Jean-Michel D?sert of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who has performed similar calculations for smaller planets.

Estimates by D?sert and others place the false-positive rate at less than 10 percent, which isn?t necessarily contradictory given the different target populations of various research efforts.

?We cannot say anything about smaller planets,? says Alexandre Santerne, a graduate student at the University of Aix-Marseille in France and coauthor of the arXiv.org paper. ?It?s just for giant planets close-in.?

Kepler looks for the periodic dimming of starlight produced by planets passing between Earth and their home stars near the constellation Cygnus. But not everything that darkens a star is a planet; smaller stars, for example, might masquerade as a planet. Instead of detecting periodic twinkles, Santerne and his colleagues looked for gyrations in host stars, the wiggles produced by orbiting planets? gravitational tugs. Since heavy, nearby planets yank more noticeably on their stars, the team focused on giant candidates with orbits of 25 days or less.

Out of more than 2,300 possible planets, only 46 fell into that category. Eleven of these were already known planets. Santerne?s team confirmed nine more.

The remaining 26 candidates included 13 unknowns, two failed brown dwarf stars, and 11 members of binary star systems. ?These can mimic clearly a planetary transit event,? says Santerne. ?That?s why it?s so important to distinguish these things when you want to study planets and transits from the Kepler mission.?

After distributing the unknowns according to the observed ratios of objects, the team arrived at the 35 percent false-positive rate.

That number might seem high when compared with previous estimates, but scientists don?t consider it a serious flaw for Kepler. ?This false-positive percentage is very low compared to all other transit programs,? says study coauthor and astronomer Claire Moutou, also at the University of Aix-Marseille.

The authors point to a discrepancy between their result and a 2011 study done by Timothy Morton and John Johnson at Caltech, who found a false positive rate closer to 5 percent. But comparisons between the two studies might not be so simple, Morton says, noting that the two groups calculated different things. Instead of looking at impostor rates in a specific population of planets, Morton determined the probability that any candidate ? plucked from the sea of twinkling candidates ? was real. He also excluded data from obvious impostors.

?Everything here is sort of a game of probabilities,? Morton says, pointing to the abundance of candidates. ?It will be impossible to confirm them all with observations.?

As for current estimates of billions and billions of planets in the Milky Way, Moutou says those numbers are still valid. ?Short period transiting planets are exotic objects, we don?t expect them to be everywhere,? she says. ?The potential billion planets are more expected to be small, long-period planets. We didn?t kill those ones, fortunately.?

Found in: Atom & Cosmos

chuck colson death meteor showers 2012 ufc 145 jones vs evans bobby valentine bobby valentine marian hossa

Thompson sets Oregon record, Ducks off to good start at NCAA's

DES MOINES, Iowa ? Lanie Thompson set the school record in the women?s 3,000 meter steeplechase and Luke Puskedra was fourth in the 10,000 meters to highlight a nearly perfect first day of the NCAA Track & Field Championships in front of 4,052 fans Wednesday at Drake Stadium.?

Oregon?s women also advanced English Gardner in the 100 meters, Phyllis Francis in the 400, Anne Kesselring and Laura Roesler in the 800, Kimber Mattox in the steeplechase and the 4x100 meter relay team on to finals. For the men, Mike Berry moved on in the 400 meters, while Elijah Greer advanced in the 800.?

"It was a good day. It?s always good not to be surprised on the first day," said Associate Athletic Director Vin Lananna. "We still have a long way to go."?

Thompson was in sixth place a few paces behind the lead pack in the first heat when she made her move with two laps remaining. She caught the leaders with a lap to go and then pushed the pace before finishing second to Colorado?s Shalaya Kipp. Kipp won in 9:59.18, with Thompson next in 9:59.90.?

"I wanted to treat today as a final and just qualify," said Thompson. "I wasn?t really trying to set a record or anything, but I knew I had this race in me."?

The sophomore from High Bridge, N.J., broke Claire Michel?s year-old school record of 10:02.55.?

Senior Kimber Mattox was seventh heat one in 10:08.39 and advanced to Friday?s final based on time. Junior Taylor Wallace was 10th in 10:35.76.?

In the men?s 10,000 meters, Puskedra was part of a swift lead pack of four runners that broke away from the field midway through the race. The four of Stephen Sambu of Arizona, Chris Derrick of Stanford, Cameron Levins of Southern Utah continued to distance themselves from the field by churning through impressive 67 and 68 second laps. The three pulled away from Puskedra with two laps remaining. Levins won in 28:07.14.?

"It feels pretty good to be in that company," said Puskedra. "It was fun out there."?

Puskedra, a senior from Ogden, Utah, was fourth in 28:24.24, marking his best NCAA showing in his final race as a Duck.

Earlier in the day, Gardner ran the fastest qualifying time in the women?s 100 meters to advance to Friday?s final. She got out of the blocks quickly and held on to win her heat in 11.10.?

"It wasn?t the best race," said Gardner. "I still have a lot of technical things to work on."?

Gardner was also part of Oregon?s impressive 4x100 relay team that ran the second-fastest time in school history, 43.32, finishing second to Texas A&M in its semifinal heat to automatically advance to Saturday?s final.?

Phyllis Francis led off, and gave the baton to Gardner, who powered Oregon to the lead on the back stretch. Gardner handed off to Lauryn Newson, followed by Amber Purvis, who came in just behind Texas A&M?s 42.90. Oregon?s time was the third fastest overall on Wednesday.?

"I?m very proud about the relay," said an excited Gardner.?

Oregon was also strong in the 800 meters where two women and one man advanced.?

Laura Roesler set a big personal-best to finish second in the final heat in 2:02.09, the fifth fastest time in school history. She let Chanelle Price of Tennessee take the race out on a swift pace, before closing with a big kick over the last 150 meters to easily advance to Friday?s final. Price won in 2:01.66.

"It felt really good because I knew my training was there," said the Fargo, N.D., native. "I just watched Chanelle and didn?t want to get too excited and go too early.?

"It feels really good," said Roesler, who finally bettered her high school PR in the 800. "It?s definitely a weight off my shoulders."?

In the second heat of the 800, Kesselring got boxed in midway through the race, but fought her way out to finish second in 2:02.66 and move on to the final. Freshman Claudia Francis was eighth in her heat in 2:12.74.?

On the men?s side, junior Elijah Greer ended up third in a tight battle in heat three, but advanced to Friday?s final on time. Erik Sowinski of Iowa won in 1:46.09, Edward Kemboi of Iowa State was second in 1:46.20 and Greer was next in 1:46.22. Sophomore Boru Guyota was seventh in his heat in 1:48.01.?

"That was a little bit of a scare there," said Greer. "I think I could have closed that race a little better."?

In the men?s 400 meters, Mike Berry flipped a switch around the last turn and won his heat in 45.05 to qualify for Friday?s final. The sophomore from Seattle, Wash., held off charges from Akheem Gauntlett of Arkansas (45.13) and Deon Lendore of Texas A&M (45.19).?

"I?m excited for the finals because a lot of people ran fast in the prelims," said. Berry. "I felt pretty smooth today."?

The women saw Phyllis Francis win her 400 meter heat in a personal-best 51.22, which was the second-best time in school history, as the sophomore from Queens, N.Y., advanced to Friday?s final. Sophomore Chizoba Okodogbe was sixth in her heat in 53.38 and did not advance.?

Also Wednesday, Dakotah Keys set personal bests in both decathlon running events to stand 16th after day one with 3,789 points. The freshman from Sweet Home, Ore., opened the day by running 11.14 in the 100 meters and closed it by timing 50.15, both PRs.?

In between, Keys went 22-2.5/6.77m in the long jump, 6-6.25/1.99m in the high jump and 38-10.25/11.84m in the shot put.?

"It wasn?t a great day for me, but I?m still in it," said Keys. "Some things didn?t go as well as I wanted, but you can?t let yourself get out of the game.?

"I just wanted to forget everything else and PR in the 400."?

The men?s 4x100 team of Dior Mathis, Arthur Delaney, Joeal Hotchkins, Dior Mathis and Berry was sixth in their heat in 40.03.

whitney houston will toyota recall northern lights sign of the times keystone pipeline purim acc tournament

President Obama Delivers Remarks on the Economy: ABC News Special Report

Please check the URL for proper spelling and capitalization. If you're having trouble locating a destination on Yahoo!, try visiting the Yahoo! homepage or look through a list of Yahoo!'s online services.

Please try Yahoo Help Central if you need more assistance.

new air jordans jeff dunham young guns concord safe and sound botticelli x factor winner

sbnation: Best Of The SB Nation Network: June 7, 2012. Read our 322 fantastic sports blogs, or just read this. http://t.co/yoK7OyKx

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

d day red solo cup new planet new planet green bay packers stock jeff garcia jeff garcia

COLLEGE TRACK & FIELD: LBSU's Woodruff 19th at national meet

DES MOINES, Iowa - Senior Ben Woodruff concluded his two-year career at Long Beach State with a 19th-place showing in the men's javelin at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships on Thursday at Drake Stadium.

Woodruff's best throw of the day was on his first attempt - 221 feet, 10 inches. His placing at the NCAA Championships earned him honorable mention All-America recognition.

Woodruff was unable to advance out of his flight as only the top nine performers moved on to the finals.

Woodruff, who started competing in the javelin in 2010, had a remarkable senior season. The Redondo Beach native claimed his second consecutive Big West title in the javelin and was named the 2012 Big West Men's Field Athlete of the Year.

Woodruff's best performance of the season came at the Big West Challenge where he established a school and conference record of 243-2. His top mark also meets the Olympic Trials "B" standard.

kristin cavallari jay cutler oscar nominations rough riders joy division dodd frank norco

A conversation with Microsoft's Marc Whitten on SmartGlass and the quest for a better living room

Microsoft SmartGlass hands-on

Xbox SmartGlass: did Microsoft just render the Wii U controller obsolete?

Microsoft's Marc Whitten: SmartGlass is the 'enabling technology' of IE on Xbox 360

What good is a surprise if you already saw it coming? When I mention to Microsoft's Marc Whitten, corporate vice president of Xbox Live and the man who has shepherded SmartGlass to its debut, that we kind-of-sort-of knew that his baby was set to be announced at E3 before the company got a chance to show do so, he lets out a frustrated laugh. "Yeah..."

He'd hoped the unveiling at the company's pre-show keynote would be the first time we, and everyone else in the industry, got eyes on the fruit of his and his team's labors. But, when I tell him we were still genuinely surprised at the scope of SmartGlass, and genuinely impressed at the potential, he seems genuinely pleased and reminds us that what we've seen is "all just the beginning." Join us after the break for an exploration of what comes next for Microsoft SmartGlass.

Continue reading A conversation with Microsoft's Marc Whitten on SmartGlass and the quest for a better living room

A conversation with Microsoft's Marc Whitten on SmartGlass and the quest for a better living room originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Jun 2012 16:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

daytona 500 winner cleveland plain dealer barry sanders barry sanders john scott jimmie johnson juan pablo montoya crash