Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/302448874?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Monday, April 29, 2013
Samsung Galaxy Mega hits FCC (again), this time with LTE
Better start working on those powerball exercises. At least if Samsung's Galaxy Mega was the thing you thought your life was missing, as it's just landed at the FCC. Yeah, we know this isn't the first time, but on second time around it's the LTE-sporting GT-i9205 model. The usual lab tests show little that we didn't know already -- unless you didn't know it had LTE Band 5, dual band WiFi, NFC or GSM 850 / 1900. As the 5.8-inch isn't 4G-enabled, this means we're looking at the bigger 6.3-inch version, but still no word on if, when or how a version might land on US shores. Still no harm in limbering up though, is there?
Update: Upon further inspection, this variant only uses LTE band 5 (850mhz), which no us carrier currently uses. It's very unlikely this I9205 will hit the US.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung
Source: FCC
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Sunday, April 28, 2013
Edward Jay Epstein: The Amanda Knox Circus -- Again
Amanda Knox, even while appearing on prime time television in America to promote her book Waiting to Be Heard, is facing yet another murder trial in Italy for a crime -- of which, in 2011, after spending four years in prison, she was found innocent by an Italian appeals court. In throwing out the murder case against her, that court declared that the prosecution's charges were "not corroborated by any objective element of evidence." The revival of the baseless charges against Knox, and the tabloid frenzy it will no doubt stoke, proceeds from a five-year-long judicial circus in Italy.
Amanda Knox's ordeal began on November 1, 2007 with the brutal murder of Meredith Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, in a ground-floor flat in a cottage shared by four young women in Perugia, Italy. When police arrived the next morning, they found Kercher's body with several knife wounds, her clothing strewn around, and a broken window. They did not find a murder weapon. It was a holiday weekend; the seven other tenants of the cottage -- including four men in the basement flat -- all claimed to have been away on the night of the murder, including one other exchange student who was there when the police arrived: Amanda Knox. Knox, an angel-faced 20-year-old student from Seattle, Washington, told police that she had spent the night at the home of her new boyfriend Raphaele Sollecito. Sollecito, who was standing with her, confirmed her alibi.
While the police investigators had no immediate witnesses to the murder and no murder weapon, they had a blood-stained bedroom in which the coroner determined that the victim was sexually assaulted and stabbed to death. This crime scene was crucial to solving the case since as the great French criminologist Edmond Locard suggested nearly a century ago, even the most careful criminal is likely to leave behind a hair, clothing fiber, a fingerprint or other trace of himself or herself. The crime scene in Perugia contained more than enough such clues fully to identify the assailant. There were 14 identifiable fingerprints in the room, a palm print on the blood-stained pillow under the victim's body, a sneaker print in the blood on the floor. DNA of a person other than Sollecito or any other tenant was found inside Kercher's vagina and on her purse. (Kercher's money was missing from that purse.) All those clues were marks of a single individual, though it took over a month to identify him. He was Rudy Guede, a 20-year-old drifter from the Ivory Coast, who had broken into other homes in the area. Less than a week before the murder, Guede had even been temporarily detained by police in Milan for breaking into a nursery and stealing an 11-inch kitchen knife.
The crime scene could establish from Guede's fingerprints that he had been inside the victim's room, from his DNA inside Kercher's vagina that he had had sexual contact with her, and from his sneaker impression found on the floor in her blood, his palm print found in her blood on the pillow, and his DNA found on her purse, that he had been in the room after she was stabbed. His description, moreover, fit that of a black man whom two witnesses had seen on the street running away from the cottage that night
Shortly after the murder, Guede had fled to Germany. It took more than a month to capture him. He was then extradited to Italy, tried, and in October of 2008, convicted of both the sexual assault upon Kercher and Kercher's murder.
The belated identification of a local burglar as the intruder and sexual assailant did not, however, end the ordeal of Amanda Knox. In the interim, the chief prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini had developed a theory that Knox - whom he described as a "she-devil" -- had murdered her roommate and staged the evidence of a break-in. Knox had been imprisoned. For Mignini to abandon his "she-devil" theory, even after Guede's arrest, could prove an embarrassment. In an earlier, so-called "Monster of Florence case," he had already advanced a "Satanic theory" -- in which he attributed a string of unsolved murders to a Satanic cult who killed young women to use their body parts in black masses. His efforts in that pursuit of a non-existent cult resulted in him being criminally indicted for prosecutorial misconduct. (He was still under that indictment in 2007.) If his "she-devil" characterization of Knox were to fail as well, the prosecutor might be further discredited.
The solution Mignini now found was to expand the "she-devil" theory to include Guede, and to claim that Knox teamed up with Guede and her boyfriend to kill her flat mate after a sex game.
The initial crime scene investigation had not produced a shred of evidence that Knox had been in the room at the time of the murder. Under interrogation, Knox had, however, lied to police. She had falsely told them that she had witnessed the Congolese-born owner of a nearby bar, Patrick Lumumba, murder Kercher. Knox had worked part-time for that bar. Lumumba denied having ever been at the cottage. He was, nonetheless, arrested -- as were Knox and her boyfriend Sollecito. Lumumba was fortunate enough to have a solid alibi for the night of the murder. He was released. Knox repudiated her accusation. In her new book, Waiting to Be Heard, she says the accusation was a pure fabrication, induced by police intimidation.
The false statement makes Knox a liar, but not at all, by implication, a murderer. A recent study of criminal justice in the U.S. by law professor Brandon Garrett shows it is not uncommon for innocent people to lie under police pressure; indeed no fewer than 40 people out of 250 who were convicted and later exonerated by DNA evidence, had falsely confessed to crimes they did not commit.
In Knox's case, Italian prosecutors in their subsequent investigation did find two bits of DNA that could support a conspiracy theory. The first was taken from a knife found in Sollecito's kitchen and matched Knox's DNA. The second bit of DNA was taken from Kercher's bra clasp and matched Sollecitto's DNA. As it turned out, both DNA samples were later invalidated by the appeals court because of a serious flaw: the police technician who examined them had failed to change her lab gloves between examining DNA samples, raising the possibility of cross-contamination. That "evidence" was invalidated, leaving none. In the absence of any physical evidence against them, Knox and Sollecito were acquitted by the appellate court.
In Italy, prosecutors have the right to appeal an acquittal. On March 25, 2013, at the request to the prosecutor, a court of Cassation overturned the acquittal of Knox, ordering her to be tried again for a crime, which an appellate court had found there was absolutely no evidence that she committed. The United States Constitution, under its double jeopardy provisions, protects individuals from being retried for crimes of which they have been acquitted. It would be a violation of Knox's constitutional rights as a United States citizen to return her to Italy to be tried again. It would also, of course, be a travesty of justice for an Italian prosecutor to use her case as a means to revive a his reputation, as an advocate of Satanic and "she-devil" conspiracy theory.
Edward Jay Epstein is the author of Annals of Unsolved Crimes
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-epstein/amanda-knox-italy_b_3174771.html
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Saturday, April 27, 2013
Today on New Scientist: 25 April 2013
Quantum effects get a weirdness scale
A ranking system for quantum effects gives us a sense of how close ? or not ? we are to realising Schr?dinger's cat
Mindscapes: The woman who was dropped into her body
Depersonalisation disorder ? in which your memories feel alien and your world unreal ? is less rare than you might think. We speak to someone who has it
Zoologger: The rat with two faces
The African ice rat is both friend and foe to its companions ? cooperative when underground in a burrow, but nasty once they go outside
Kinect plus projector makes anything a remote control
A combination of depth cameras and projectors called WorldKit lets you create zappers for TVs, room lighting, and more, on any bit of household furniture
A portrait of neon hedgehogs in a nanosphere garden
An award-winning image of brightly coloured microscopic pom-poms reveals how a novel material affects crystal growth
Humans may have reached the Americas 22,000 years ago
A controversial find of stone tools in Brazil suggests that humans somehow reached the Americas at the height of the last ice age
Stress has unexpected health benefits ? sometimes
Chronic stress can increase our risk of age-related diseases, but in the right conditions a little stress can protect against the effects of ageing
Oases of cool: Taking the heat out of urban living
Can new technology and astute planning keep our cities cool in the face of global warming? Kat Austen investigates the best ideas
Water worlds bring us closer to finding Earth's twin
A pair of planets roughly the size of Earth are adding to the diversity of life-friendly worlds we may find across the galaxy
Voice-based web access helps illiterate get online
A new internet system is giving a voice to people in Africa who cannot read or write or who lack a computer
Ice-bound hunter sees first hint of cosmic neutrinos
Two high-energy particles glimpsed by the IceCube neutrino detector may be opening the door on a new way of exploring the universe
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Instant View: Amazon sustains growth, revenue up 22 percent
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc kept up a strong pace of growth in core retail and newer businesses like digital media, posting a 22 percent jump in revenue to $16.1 billion in the first quarter, while its earnings beat expectations.
Commentary:
KERRY RICE, ANALYST, NEEDHAM & CO
"Gross margin is definitely better than expected. That is something that investors are certainly keen on.
"Guidance was light, both top- and bottom-line. That certainly won't help the stock perform, although they have over the last several quarters exceeded expectations on the operating income side. So for the guidance, people are more concerned about revenue than operating income."
(Reporting By Malathi Nayak and Poornima Gupta)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/instant-view-amazon-sustains-growth-revenue-22-percent-202758794--finance.html
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PFT: Rodgers gets extension, reportedly five years
APHere are the terms of trades completed on Friday, April 26, the second day of the 2013 NFL Draft. All draft picks are 2013 selections unless otherwise noted:
The Titans acquired a second-round pick from San Francisco (No. 34 overall), sending second- and seventh-round picks (Nos. 40, 216) in 2013 and a 2014 third-rounder to the 49ers. The Titans selected Tennessee wide receiver Justin Hunter at No. 34. The 49ers took Florida State defensive lineman Cornellius ?Tank? Carradine at No. 40.
The Chargers traded for the Cardinals? second-round pick (No. 38), giving up second- and fourth-round picks (Nos. 45, 110) to Arizona. The Chargers used selection No. 38 on Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te?o, while the Cardinals took LSU linebacker Kevin Minter at No. 45.
The 49ers acquired the Packers? second-round pick (No. 55). In return, San Francisco surrendered second- and sixth-round picks (Nos. 61, 173). The 49ers took Rice tight end Vance McDonald at No. 55. The Packers used the No. 61 choice on Alabama running back Eddie Lacy.
The Ravens traded for the Seahawks? second-round selection (No. 56). Baltimore sent Seattle second-, fifth- and sixth-round picks (Nos. 62, 165, 199) to complete the deal. The Ravens took Kansas State linebacker Arthur Brown with pick No. 56. Six picks later, the Seahawks selected Texas A&M running back Christine Michael at No. 62.
The Saints acquired a third-round selection from Miami (No. 82). In exchange, the Dolphins received two fourth-round picks (Nos. 106, 109) from New Orleans. The Saints took Georgia nose tackle John Jenkins at No. 82. The Dolphins would trade selection No. 109 to Green Bay.
The 49ers traded for the Packers? third-round choice (No. 88), surrendering third- and seventh-round picks (Nos. 93, 216) to Green Bay. With pick No. 88, San Francisco chose Auburn defensive lineman Corey Lemonier. The Packers would deal the 93rd selection to Miami (see next entry).
The Dolphins acquired a third-round pick from Green Bay (No. 93), giving up fourth-, fifth- and seventh-round picks (Nos. 109, 146, 224). The Dolphins selected Utah State cornerback Will Davis at No. 93.
The Dolphins traded wide receiver Davone Bess and their fourth- and seventh-round picks (Nos. 111, 217) to Cleveland. In return, the Browns sent the Dolphins fourth- and fifth-round picks (Nos. 104, 164).
The Saints traded running back Chris Ivory to the Jets in exchange for New York?s fourth-round pick (No. 106). The Saints dealt No. 106 in a package for pick No. 82, which was used on Georgia nose tackle John Jenkins.
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Friday, April 26, 2013
Teachers in Mexico break windows, torch offices to protest anti-union reforms
Some educators are teaching a not-so-gentle lesson to President?Enrique Pe?a Nieto about his ambitious government reforms.
A teacher gives the thumb down sign as he holds a photograph of Mexico's President Enrique Pe?a Nieto outside of the office of the Secretary of Educations after they attacked the building causing significant damage in Chilpancingo, Mexico, Wednesday.
Alejandrino Gonzalez/AP
EnlargeMexican teachers and teachers-in-training once again abandoned lesson plans to protest education reform in the southwestern state of Guerrero this week.
Skip to next paragraph Whitney EulichLatin America Editor
Whitney Eulich is the Monitor's Latin America editor, overseeing regional coverage for CSMonitor.com and the weekly magazine. She also curates the Latin America Monitor Blog.
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The individuals charged with educating Guerrero's children, and helping build a brighter future for a country lauded for its economic promise, have been on strike since a federal education reform bill was introduced almost two months ago.
The bill is part of a wider reform agenda by President?Enrique Pe?a Nieto which aims to feed economic opportunity and growth in Mexico. Other initiatives discussed include boosting competition in the telecommunications industry and increasing bank lending rates.
But in yet another sign that President Enrique Pe?a Nieto is facing pushback on his ambitious reform plan, this week scores of educators took to the streets armed with sticks and spray paint. They broke windows, threw papers and plants out of buildings, vandalized furniture and office equipment, and set fire to political offices, according to Mexican news outlets.
?Teach and learn ? vandalism,? read today?s front page of Mexican newspaper Reforma, with photos splashed above the fold showing a political party office in Guerrero?engulfed in flames, and a highway road block using a ?kidnapped? 18-wheeler from state-owned oil company PEMEX in the neighboring state Michoac?n, which is also experiencing teacher protests.
Earlier this year President Pe?a Nieto passed far-reaching education reform that aims to diminish the tight grasp of Mexico?s powerful teachers union and reverse common practices like teachers receiving pay despite not showing up to work. According to The Christian Science Monitor:
The reform strips the education union ??arguably the most powerful in Latin America ??of its influence over the hiring of teachers. It provides for a system of merit-based pay and promotions, subjects Mexico?s estimated 1 million teachers to evaluations, and requires exams of those entering the profession. All with greater oversight by the federal government.
In Guerrero state, educators upped protests after state legislators failed to incorporate the 200,000-member education union?s demands to water down the federal legislation at the state level on Tuesday.
The mayor of Chilpancingo, where the vandalism took place yesterday afternoon, told Mexican newspaper Milenio that he?s requested federal assistance. The governor of Guerrero announced via Twitter that arrest warrants had been issued for the head of the state Education Workers Union, Minervino Moran, and another union leader, for ?masterminding? the destruction of property, reports the Associated Press.
Guerrero, home of the well-known beach destination Acapulco, has repeatedly made headlines this year for violence and the uptick in vigilante militias and self-defense groups.
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'Urgent need' to remove space debris
25 April 2013
Last updated at 12:44 ET
There is now so much debris in orbit that the space environment is close to a cascade of collisions that would make space extremely hazardous, a major international meeting has concluded.
Its summary position stated there was an "urgent need" to start pulling redundant objects out of the sky.
Scientists estimate there are nearly 30,000 items circling the Earth larger than 10cm in size.
Some are whole satellites and rocket bodies, but many are just fragments.
These have resulted from explosions in fuel tanks and batteries, and from the high-velocity impacts between objects.
Upwards of 10cm is trackable with radar, but there are tens of thousands more pieces that are smaller and move unseen.
Continue reading the main story?Start Quote
End Quote Prof Heiner Klinkrad Esa Space Debris OfficeOnly active removal of five to 10 large objects per year can reverse the debris growth?
And it is the prospect of an increase in the frequency of catastrophic collisions among all this material that now worries the experts.
"There is a consensus among debris researchers that the present orbit debris-environment is at the rim of becoming unstable within a few decades, a phenomenon that is commonly known as the Kessler Syndrome, and that only active removal of five to 10 large objects per year can reverse the debris growth," Prof Heiner Klinkrad, the head of the European Space Agency's (Esa) Space Debris Office told reporters.
Prof Klinkrad was the chairman for the 6th European Conference on Space Debris in Darmstadt, Germany.
Insufficient complianceThe meeting was presented with a study earlier in the week that suggested the population of objects in low-Earth orbits (LEO) - the important altitudes used by imaging spacecraft to health-check the planet - would likely rise steadily over the next 200 years even under the most optimistic of scenarios.
The research highlighted the need for better adherence to best-practice guidelines.
These "rules" call on space operators in LEO to make sure their equipment naturally falls out of the sky within 25 years of the end of a mission.
But compliance with the guidelines is far from perfect, and the panel said active removal was now the urgent topic on the agenda.
Quite how much time there was to act before conditions became intolerable was not yet clear, said Christophe Bonnal from the French space agency (Cnes).
"We say we want to 'stabilise' the environment. Does that mean we are satisfied with today's situation? Could we live with a situation that is two times worse than today, or do we need to decrease [the debris population]? These are questions which are ongoing at international level," he told BBC News.
Active removal would see new spacecraft launched specifically to take other, redundant satellites out of orbit. And the Darmstadt meeting was presented with an array of concepts that included the use of nets, harpoons, tentacles, ion thrusters and lasers.
The conference summary panel told the media it was vital that pilot programmes were implemented to advance these technologies.
Commercial barrierA few have been approved. The German Space Agency (DLR) is developing a project called DEOS that would demonstrate the robotic capture of a tumbling object in space.
"In this mission, what we want to show is that it is technically possible to safely approach a satellite, which we launch together with our main satellite, to capture it by means of a robotic arm and to perform a number of services like repairing or maintenance operations," explained DLR's Dr Manuel Metz.
"Many of the technologies which are currently being developed for DEOS would be useful for potential future international active debris-removal missions."
The experts also stated that the international community needed to sort through the myriad legal issues that would currently frustrate attempts to clean up space.
At the moment, international law permits only the launching nation or agency to touch an object in orbit, something that would prevent, for example, commercial debris removal activities.
"My dream is that a new agency like the International Telecommunications Union will be proposed at UN level to coordinate all this activity," said Dr Claudio Portelli from the Italian space agency (Asi).
Costly missionEsa was hosting this week's meeting. It has two old satellites in orbit that are likely to become targets for a future de-orbiting exercise.
ERS-1 and Envisat both suffered major failures that left them drifting uncontrolled through LEO.
The duo can be tracked but nothing can be done to move them off a potential collision course, should one arise.
Envisat in particular is considered a high priority for removal because of its great size - over eight tonnes.
However, de-orbiting this dead satellite would probably be very expensive. And the robotic spacecraft sent up to bring Envisat down would itself be very large.
Prof Klinkrad explained: "If you want to have a controlled de-orbit - and this is what you should have for Envisat because large portions are going to survive to ground impact - then you should have a highly energetic chemical propulsion system, and to reliably de-orbit Envisat from its altitude you'd need, I'd say, about 6% of its mass in terms of fuel.
"With everything included, you are talking about a two-tonne-type spacecraft [to do the de-orbiting]," he told BBC News.
To date, there have only been a handful of major collisions in orbit involving the largest objects.
Perhaps the best known was the 2009 impact between the defunct Russian Cosmos 2251 spacecraft and the American Iridium 33 satellite. The collision produced over 1,500 trackable fragments, many of which continue to pose a threat to operational missions.
Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22299403#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
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Thursday, April 25, 2013
Activist investor starts whipping Microsoft into shape, demands Office for iOS, Android
DORTMUND, April 24 (Reuters) - Teams for Wednesday's Champions League semi-final first leg between Borussia Dortmund and Real Madrid at BVB stadium. Teams: Borussia Dortmund: 1-Roman Weidenfeller; 26-Lukasz Piszczek, 4-Neven Subotic, 15-Mats Hummels, 29-Marcel Schmelzer; 8-Ilkay Guendogan, 6-Sven Bender, 16-Jakub Blaszczykowski, 10-Mario Goetze, 11-Marco Reus; 9-Robert Lewandowski Real Madrid: 41-Diego Lopez; 4-Sergio Ramos, 3-Pepe, 2-Raphael Varane, 5-Fabio Coentrao; 6-Sami Khedira, 14-Xabi Alonso; 19-Luka Modric, 10-Mesut Ozil, 7-Cristiano Ronaldo; 20-Gonzalo Higuain. ...
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New Nobel letters reveal secrets of DNA prize
Heritage Auctions
Doctor Francis Crick's endorsement of the Nobel Prize check.
By Stephanie Pappas
LiveScience
A new cache of letters released 50 years after Maurice Wilkins, Francis Crick and James Watson won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of DNA's structure reveals that not everyone agreed on which prize the trio should receive.
Wilkins, Crick and Watson ended up winning the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material," according to the official citation. But at least one scientist nominated them for the chemistry prize instead, researchers will report Wednesday?in the journal Nature.
Nature first published a series of three papers describing the structure of DNA by the team on April 25, 1953, making this year the 60th anniversary of the discovery. Watson, Crick, Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin (who died before the 1962 Nobel Prize was awarded) and their colleagues were the first to understand DNA's unique double-helix structure. [Photos: Crick DNA Nobel On the Auction Block]
Nobel Prize puzzler
Jan Witkowski and Alexander Gann of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York wrote to the Nobel committee to request the release of the nomination letters for the 1962 prize, as nomination letters are unsealed after 50 years. To their surprise, one letter seemed to be missing: That of Jacque Monod, a French biologist who would later win the Nobel Prize himself for research into the genetics of enzymes.
"We were surprised because both Jim Watson and Francis Crick said that Monod was one of the people who nominated them," Witkowski told LiveScience. In fact, in 1961, Crick sent Monod a nine-page letter telling the story of the DNA structure discovery, at Monod's request.
Monod worked at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, so Witkowski and Gann turned to the Institute's archives to solve the puzzle of the missing nomination. There, they found Monod's nomination letter ? only sent to an unexpected address.
"It turns out that he nominated them for the chemistry prize, and not the medicine prize," Witkowski said. That's why the medicine or physiology committee had no record of the nomination, though the committees must have shared the nomination letters to decide which of the two prizes the DNA structure scientists should win.?
Third nominee
The nomination letters also reveal that Franklin, who died in 1958, was never nominated for the Nobel Prize. There has been a lot of controversy over whether Franklin would have shared in the Nobel had she been alive in 1962, Witkowski said. (Nobels are not awarded posthumously.) Many have argued that Franklin's contributions were downplayed and overlooked by Watson and Crick.
As it turns out, Franklin died two years before the DNA structure was first nominated for the Nobel, which occurred in 1960. Wilkins, who did early work on DNA structure, was also not a major contender from the nominators' perspectives; of six nominations, not including Monod's, only one included Wilkins. Two others suggested that the committee might possibly include him, but didn't make a case for it. In his letter to Monod, Crick was insistent Wilkins should be nominated, however.
"It could be that the nomination Monod wrote, following Crick's advice, where he strongly endorsed Wilkins may have helped sway the committee," Witkowski said.
Another series of letters, these consisting of personal correspondence released in 2010, reveal that despite this nomination congeniality, there were professional rivalries between Watson and Crick and Wilkins ? not to mention sexist attitudes toward Franklin. Another letter from Crick to his son explaining DNA went for a whopping $6 million?at auction earlier this month.
Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter?and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook?and Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.
Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Video: Earnings Squad: Zynga, Colgate & More
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Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/video/cnbc/51648695/
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Lockheed CFO sees bigger impact from budget cuts in second and third quarters
April 22 (Reuters) - Pep Guardiola is not the only connection between Bayern Munich and Barcelona, who meet in their Champions League semi-final, first leg at the Allianz Arena on Tuesday. Both teams are dominating their leagues to an almost embarrassing extent, have won the Champions League four times apiece, share an acrimonious rivalry with Real Madrid, and owe part of their success to the flamboyant Dutchman Louis van Gaal. Both have also been in two Champions League finals in the last four years, though the Catalans won both of theirs and the Bavarians came out losers on each occasion. ...
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/lockheed-cfo-sees-bigger-impact-budget-cuts-second-121452162--finance.html
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US teens doing better than public realizes: survey
WASHINGTON (AP) ? American teenagers aren't doing as poorly on international science tests as adults think. Despite the misconception, people don't think the subject should get greater emphasis in schools, a survey released Monday found.
More Americans than not wrongly think that U.S. 15-year-olds rank near the bottom on international science tests, according to a Pew Research Center for the People and the Press poll. U.S. students actually rank in the middle among developed countries.
Even so, Americans are more likely to pick math or language skills over science when they are asked which subject they think deserves greater attention.
Among adults, there is wide variety in what they know about science and technology, the survey also found. For instance, two-thirds of those surveyed correctly said rust is an example of a chemical reaction and 77 percent correctly said the continents have been moving for millions of years and will continue to shift.
Yet only 47 percent correctly said electrons are smaller than atoms. Protons, neutrons and electrons are parts of atoms.
Education advocates have long warned that U.S. students need more science education if they are to keep pace with international peers. That perhaps has yielded the impression that the nation's students don't stack up to other nations on international tests.
About 35 percent of those surveyed by Pew correctly said U.S. 15-year-olds are about in the middle and 7 percent incorrectly said Americans ranked among the top nations. Yet the plurality ? 44 percent ? wrongly said American teens were ranked at the bottom of other developed nations.
International tests find U.S. scores aren't measurably different from the average of all other nations. Among the 33 countries measured in the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment, 12 had higher scores and nine had lower scores. Another 12 had scores that weren't that much different than Americans' scores.
The survey also asked participants an open-ended question about which single subject they thought deserved greater emphasis in elementary and secondary schools. Some 30 percent suggested math and arithmetic. Another 19 percent said English, grammar, writing and reading.
Science was the top choice for just 11 percent of participants. Among those who picked science, though, there was a partisan divide. Some 17 percent of Democrats said science should receive more attention, while 7 percent of Republicans agreed.
Republicans, however, were more likely to favor math and arithmetic than Democrats. Some 35 percent of Republicans picked math skills as the subject they thought deserved more attention while 24 percent of Democrats agreed.
Americans with college degrees were more likely than others to underestimate the students' international rankings. Those college graduates were also more likely to answer their own questions about science and technology correctly.
For instance, 76 percent of college graduates correctly identified carbon dioxide as the gas that most scientists blame for climate change. Just 55 percent of those with some college courses got the answer right, and that number reached 49 percent among adults who did not attend college.
Pew's poll was conducted March 7-10 and used landline and cellular telephone interviews with 1,006 adults. Results for the full sample have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points. It is larger for subgroups.
The survey was conducted with Smithsonian Magazine for an upcoming edition focusing on science, technology, engineering and mathematics education.
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SpaceX's Grasshopper rocket sets another high mark with 820-foot hop
This SpaceX video shows the Grasshopper rocket rising 820 feet to triple its March 7 leap.
By Nancy Atkinson
Universe Today
SpaceX's Grasshopper flew 250 meters (820 feet) straight up, tripling the height flown on its previous leap. The video provides a great overhead view from SpaceX?s hexacopter.
Via?Twitter, SpaceX CEO said the Grasshopper was able to remain steady in its flight even on a windy day, hover and then land.
Grasshopper is a 10-story Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing (VTVL) vehicle that SpaceX has designed to test the technologies needed to return a rocket back to Earth intact. While most rockets are designed to burn up in the atmosphere during re-entry, SpaceX's rockets are being designed to return to the launch pad for a vertical landing.
This is Grasshopper's fifth in a series of test flights, with each test demonstrating dramatic increases in altitude. Last September, Grasshopper flew to 2.5 meters (8.2 feet). In November, it flew to 5.4 meters (17.7 feet). In December, it flew to 40 meters (131 feet), and then 80.1 meters (262.8 feet) in March.
Grasshopper consists of a Falcon 9 rocket's first-stage tank, a Merlin 1D engine, four steel and aluminum landing legs with hydraulic dampers, and a steel support structure.
Nancy Atkinson?is Universe Today's Senior Editor. She also is the host of the?NASA Lunar Science Institute podcast?and works with the?Astronomy Cast?and?365 Days of Astronomy?podcasts. Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador.
This report was originally published on Universe Today as "SpaceX Grasshopper Flies High." Copyright 2013 Universe Today. Reprinted with permission.
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BeagleBone Black packs 1GHz ARM CPU, 512MB RAM for just $45 (video)
The BeagleBone might be just the piece of kit for the DIY set itching to boot Linux in 10 seconds, but the freshly unveiled BeagleBone Black packs an even greater punch -- and the same speedy start times -- at just half the price of its predecessor. The $45 credit card-sized package totes a 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor, 3D graphics accelerator, a pair of PRU 32-bit RISC CPUs, 2GB of built-in storage, a microSD slot and 512MB of RAM. Connectivity-wise, the canine-themed board carries support for USB, Ethernet, micro-HDMI and two 46 pin headers. Those pining for hardware flexibility can make use of the platform's existing "cape" hardware add-ons. Though it ships from Texas Instruments with Angstrom Linux on board, it's also tuned to support Android and Ubuntu, and arrives pre-loaded with the Cloud9 IDE. BeagleBone Black is already up for grabs in limited quantities, but it's expected to ship en masse by the end of May. Hit the second source link to start ordering, or head past the break for a video tour of the pint-sized computer.
Filed under: Misc
Source: BeagleBoard, Texas Instruments
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/TrOuLFXHtKw/
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Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Monday, April 22, 2013
Cutting back on sleep harms blood vessel function and breathing control
Apr. 22, 2013 ? With work and entertainment operating around the clock in our modern society, sleep is often a casualty. A bevy of research has shown a link between sleep deprivation and cardiovascular disease, metabolic disorders, and obesity. However, it's been unclear why sleep loss might lead to these effects. Several studies have tested the effects of total sleep deprivation, but this model isn't a good fit for the way most people lose sleep, with a few hours here and there. In a new study by Keith Pugh, Shahrad Taheri, and George Balanos, all of the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, researchers test the effects of partial sleep deprivation on blood vessels and breathing control. They find that reducing sleep length over two consecutive nights leads to less healthy vascular function and impaired breathing control.
The team will discuss the abstract of their study entitled, "The Effects of Sleep Restriction on the Respiratory and Vascular Control," at the Experimental Biology 2013 meeting, being held April 20-24, 2013 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, Boston, Mass. The poster presentation is sponsored by the American Physiological Society (APS), a co-sponsor of the event. As the findings are being presented at a scientific conference, they should be considered preliminary, as they have not undergone the peer review process that is conducted prior to the data being published in a scientific journal.
Cutting Sleep in Half The researchers have worked with eight healthy adult volunteers between the ages of 20 to 35 to date. For the first two nights of the study, the researchers had these volunteers sleep a normal night of eight hours. Then, rather than restrict their sleep completely, the researchers instead had them sleep only four hours during each of three consecutive nights.
Each of these volunteers underwent tests to see how well their blood vessels accommodate an increase in blood flow, a test of healthy blood vessel, or vascular, function. Following the first two nights of restricted sleep, the researchers found a significant reduction in vascular function compared to following the nights of normal sleep. However, after the third night of sleep restriction, vascular function returned to baseline, possibly an adaptive response to acute sleep loss, study leader Pugh explains.
In other tests, the researchers exposed subjects to moderately high levels of carbon dioxide, which normally increases the depth and rate of breathing. However, breathing control was substantially reduced after the volunteers lost sleep.
The researchers later had these volunteers sleep 10 hours a night for five nights. After completing the same tests, results showed that vascular function and breathing control had improved.
A Mechanism for Cardiovascular Harm Pugh notes that the results could suggest a mechanism behind the connection between sleep loss and cardiovascular disease. "If acute sleep loss occurs repetitively over a long period of time, then vascular health could be compromised further and eventually mediate the development of cardiovascular disease," he explains.
Similarly, the loss of breathing control that the researchers observed could play a role in the development of sleep apnea, which has also been linked with cardiovascular disease. Pugh adds that some populations who tend to report sleeping shorter periods, such as the elderly, could be at an even higher risk of these adverse health effects.
He and his colleagues plan to continue studying these effects in more subjects to strengthen their results. Eventually, Pugh says, they hope to discover a mechanism to explain why restricting sleep harms vascular function and breathing control.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by American Physiological Society (APS), via Newswise.
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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.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/D1DcLLRW614/130422102026.htm
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Editor's desk: Offline in NYC
All that prep work I've been doing in New York City for the last few weeks? It jumps to warp speed tomorrow and I, along with my fellow Mobile Nations editors, Phil Nickinson, Daniel Rubino, and Kevin Michaluk, along with the enormously talented Cali Lewis and John P, will be pretty much offline most days this week.
I'll still pop in as much as possible, and I'll share via @reneritchie on Twitter, ADN, and Instagram as much as I can. Apple earnings are coming up on Tuesday, so at the very least I'll make sure I'm around for that.
Meanwhile, our new editor, Peter Cohen, starts tomorrow, and Leanna, Ally, Joe, as well as Chris and Simon will be around to keep things running.
We're going to have a ton of stuff coming your way and soon, so please excuse me for a few while we all work our asses off to make it so.
Photo: safe solvent
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/kUq4SB5iFBY/story01.htm
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Sunday, April 21, 2013
Picking Stocks And Printing Profits - Seeking Alpha
The stock market is a fickle beast and with good reason. It is the reflection of collective greed, fear, and best efforts of millions of investors. Some adhere to a belief that the market is efficient and passive investing is the only sound approach, while others believe active and disciplined approaches can yield profits. Still others have abandoned the market's turbulence and perceptions of corruption. Whatever the case, those who have held on through the past five years have recovered losses and are now largely ahead. Investors who added to positions during its depths of decline in late 2008 and early 2009 have made significant profits.
Wall Street has often been criticized for its copious number of buy ratings. The height of the internet bubble typified this exuberance. Subsequent legislation required disclosure of the percentage of types of ratings issued. Seeking Alpha has no such requirements and offers a enormous array of articles covering a range of viewpoints on what can seem like every single stock. It would not surprise me, if you could find a positive viewpoint on pretty much every significant stock in a given month. And by significant, I'd almost be willing to drop the bar to stocks possessing ticker symbols. The articles augmented with comments can provide a wealth of information, new ideas, and tickers to investigate.
The current bull market has not been fully embraced and there are many good reasons to remain skeptical. However, the past eleven months have been undeniably good, as long as Apple Inc. (AAPL) wasn't your complete portfolio. Just how good has it been? I worked through 5,282 stocks for which I had basic metrics from May 18, 2012 and compared their performance since that time. This list excludes stocks with a market capitalization below $10 million. Among these stocks 70% had a positive return. The market capitalization weighted average total estimated return was 21.0%. Take away AAPL and that return estimate creeps up to 21.9%.
| Market Capitalization (May 2012) | Stocks with Positive Total Return | Number of Stocks | Percent | Total Return Estimate |
| $20+ Billion | 257 | 302 | 85% | 19.6% |
| 1000-20000 million | 1424 | 1755 | 81% | 23.5% |
| 500-1000 million | 388 | 547 | 71% | 19.5% |
| 250-500 million | 357 | 545 | 66% | 21.6% |
| 100-250 million | 457 | 710 | 64% | 23.9% |
| 10-100 million | 795 | 1423 | 56% | 84.9% |
| Total | 3678 | 5282 | 70% | 21.0% |
Source: Data provided by Zacks.com for May 18, 2012 and April 18, 2013, Author Calculations. Total return is calculated as dividend yield at May 2012 plus price appreciation.
So the case for mega cap stocks is even stronger, it was pretty hard to pick a loser eleven months ago. In fact, if you chose five stocks with market capitalizations over $20 billion, these statistics show that there was only .01% chance that all five would be losers. However, the ease of doing so increases as the market capitalization declines. But for those investigating the micro caps, the rewards can be enormous. The second screen is to group stocks by dividend yield.
| Dividend Group (May 2012) | Stocks with Positive Total Return | Number of Stocks | Percent | Number with Price Appreciation | Percent | Total Return | Price Appreciation |
| No Dividend | 1771 | 3018 | 59% | 1771 | 59% | 15.8% | 15.8% |
| 0 -1% | 226 | 263 | 86% | 225 | 86% | 25.9% | 25.3% |
| 1 -2 % | 395 | 488 | 81% | 387 | 79% | 20.0% | 18.5% |
| 2 - 5% | 889 | 1042 | 85% | 834 | 80% | 22.3% | 19.0% |
| 5 - 7.5% | 223 | 260 | 86% | 214 | 82% | 22.9% | 17.2% |
| 7.5 - 10% | 98 | 116 | 84% | 90 | 78% | 29.0% | 20.6% |
| 10% + | 75 | 95 | 79% | 62 | 65% | 17.7% | 4.6% |
Source: Data provided by Zacks.com for May 18, 2012 and April 18, 2013, Author Calculations. Total return is calculated as dividend yield at May 2012 plus price appreciation.
This second table is interesting for several reasons and is also important for highlighting a challenge in the methodology. The first observation is that dividend paying stocks outperform non-dividend paying stocks. Note that many of the smaller market capitalization stocks fall into this category. The next observation is that with performance, especially in terms of price appreciation, there is some bias towards higher yielding stocks. This does raise the issue of whether there is systematic bias towards higher dividend yields. If people are creating more demand for these stocks than others, it might result in an overvaluation. The nice counter is that the 1-2% dividend yield stocks actually had the highest level of price appreciation and the second highest total return estimate.
The final observation is also linked to a methodology concern. As noted, the total return estimate is based upon the dividend yield in May 2012 plus the price appreciation. If the dividends are not paid as expected, whether it is cut or increased, the actual total return would be different from the estimate used. This would also include stocks that began paying dividends since May 2012.
AAPL is a notable company in this group; however, its dividend would not offset the stock price decline. Annaly Capital Management, Inc. (NLY) is an example of a company that has since cut its dividend. On May 18, 2012, the stock closed at $16.15 and had been paying a quarterly of dividend of $0.55 per quarter for a yield of 13.6% - very attractive. However, the company subsequently cut the dividend to a current rate of $0.45 per quarter for an estimated annual yield of 11.4%. This means that the actual return was 9.5% instead of the estimated return of 11.1%. In some cases, this would shift the percentages of stocks with positive returns a little, but not much. It should also be noted that some stocks, like AAPL, have estimated returns that are below their actual returns.
This issue is important when one looks at the last group of stocks with 10+% yields. Most of these stocks had relatively low overall returns and most of that return was embedded in the dividends. This highlights the risk of chasing yield. I've long been a skeptic of companies like Frontier Communications Inc. (FTR) for these reasons.
Lessons for Investors
I had initially started doing this analysis to try to see if there has been bias towards dividend yield stocks. Are they becoming overvalued? I raised this question in an earlier article, and subsequently markets have performed quite nicely. Since that article, the SPDR S&P 500 Trust ETF (SPY) is up from $139.35 to Friday's close of $155.48, a gain of 12% before dividends. Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) climbed from $69.12 to $84.49 for a nice gain of 22% and delivered $1.83 of dividends (3 quarterly payments since August 6, 2012). In contrast, International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) is down about 4%, but did pay $2.55 in dividends, with another dividend coming shortly. While this analysis notes some concern, I definitely would not consider it to show a conclusive bias towards higher yields. I found a very low correlation between returns and yields based on the data pulled with a linear regression despite the averages noted earlier.
Beware of very high yields - I do think the very highest dividend yields should raise concerns though, and require a thorough examination of how sustainable that dividend is and appreciation for the notion that your principal might not appreciate very much and in fact, could very easily decline. A simple question to ask is whether the yield is high because the stock price is declining or because the dividend is growing.
Risk and return - If you threw a dart at the Wall Street Journal on May 18, 2012, you most likely picked a winning stock. However, this doesn't necessarily mean that you were adequately compensated for the risks you took. Nor does it say anything about the future performance of that stock. Picking individual stocks is tough and requires good research. Warren Buffett espouses his margin of safety - this is an approach designed to manage investing risk.
Euphoria and caution - The stock market has done quite well recently and there is still a lot of money on the sideline, meaning that there is still upward fuel. However, I still think there are challenges ahead for investors. Over the next year, there might be upward pressure from money entering the market that results in price outpacing fundamental performance. This would be a concern. In my own investing, I've been letting my cash reserves grow with very limited additions to stocks. I had even sold some positions back in the Fall of 2012.
Over the past eleven months, investors have been able to print profits. It almost didn't matter whether they bought dividend stocks, high yield, low yield, no yield or any range of sizes of stocks. Any reasonably diversified portfolio since May 18, 2012 has performed well. However, the word printing was used deliberately since it links to paper. Paper profits are nice, but they can also disappear as some AAPL investors have been learning.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational and educational purposes only and shall not be construed to constitute investment advice. Nothing contained herein shall constitute a solicitation, recommendation or endorsement to buy or sell any security.
Disclosure: I am long SPY. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Source: http://seekingalpha.com/article/1356701-picking-stocks-and-printing-profits?source=feed
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Across America, a week of chaos, horror _ and hope
A mourner reacts during a candlelight vigil in the aftermath of Monday's Boston Marathon explosions, which killed at least three and injured more than 140, Wednesday, April 17, 2013, at City Hall in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
A mourner reacts during a candlelight vigil in the aftermath of Monday's Boston Marathon explosions, which killed at least three and injured more than 140, Wednesday, April 17, 2013, at City Hall in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
People react as an explosion goes off near the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon in Boston, Monday, April 15, 2013. Two explosions went off at the Boston Marathon finish line on Monday, sending authorities out on the course to carry off the injured while the stragglers were rerouted away from the smoking site of the blasts. (AP Photo/The Boston Globe, David L Ryan) MANDATORY CREDIT
Firefighter conduct search and rescue of an apartment destroyed by an explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, Thursday, April 18, 2013. A massive explosion at the West Fertilizer Co. killed as many as 15 people and injured more than 160, officials said overnight. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
President Barack Obama hugs Nicole Hockley, mother of Dylan who was killed in the Newtown School shootings, during conference in the Rose Garden of the White House, Wednesday, April 17, 2013, in Washington, about measures to reduce gun violence, as he is joined by former Rep. Gabby Giffords, second from left, Vice President Joe Biden, and other Newtown family members from left, Neil Heslin, father of Jesse Lewis; Jimmy Greene, father of Ana; Mark and Jackie Barden, with their children Natalie and James, who lost Daniel; and Jeremy Richman, father of Avielle, behind the Barden's.(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Federal agents wearing hazardous material suits and breathing apparatus inspect the trash can outside the West Hills Subdivision house of Paul Kevin Curtis in Corinth, Miss., Friday, April 19, 2013. Curtis is in custody under the suspicion of sending letters covered in ricin to the U.S. President Barack Obama and U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
Moment after nail-biting moment, the events shoved us through a week that felt like an unremitting series of tragedies: Deadly bombs. Poison letters. A town shattered by a colossal explosion. A violent manhunt that paralyzed a major city, emptying streets of people and filling them with heavily armed police and piercing sirens.
Amid the chaos came an emotional Senate gun control vote that inflamed American divisions and evoked memories of the Newtown massacre. And through it all, torrential rain pushed the Mississippi River toward flood levels.
"All in all it's been a tough week," President Barack Obama said Friday night. "But we've seen the character of our country once more."
America was rocked this week, in rare and frightening ways. We are only beginning to make sense of a series of events that moved so fast, so furiously as to almost defy attempts to figure them out. But beneath the pain, as the weekend arrived, horror was counteracted by hope.
"We inhabit a mysterious world," Rev. Roberto Miranda said at a prayer service for the Boston Marathon bombing, which killed three people, inflicted life-changing injuries on scores more and shook the sense of security that has slowly returned to America since 9/11.
"The dilemma of evil is that even as it carries out its dark, sinister work," Miranda said, "it always ends up strengthening good."
That evil arrived Monday when twin bombs exploded near the finish line of the marathon. Not since 9/11 had terror struck so close to home. Although the scale of the Boston attack was far smaller than the destruction of the World Trade Center, a dozen years' worth of modern media evolution made it reverberate in inescapable ways.
In 2001, we could walk away from our televisions. In 2013, bad news follows us everywhere. It's on our computers at work and home, on our phones when we call our loved ones, on social media when we talk to our friends.
"There's no place to run, no place to hide," said Dr. Stuart Fischoff, a professor of media psychology at California State University in Los Angeles. "It's like perpetual shock. There's no off button. That's relatively unprecedented. We're going to have to pay the price for that."
"We're dealing with future shock on a daily basis," Fischoff said.
Steffen Kaplan, a social media specialist in New Jersey, tried his best to protect his young son from the madness. His television stayed off. He browsed the Internet with caution. But reality finally intruded at a local pizzeria, where a TV was playing images of the injured in Boston.
"What's going on?" his son asked. "Nothing," Kaplan replied. "That's just a movie."
Kaplan fears the world his son will inherit. To cope, "I rely on faith in humanity," he said. "If we raise our children correctly, somehow, some way, humanity will prevail."
But the present remains difficult, Kaplan said: "It seems to be a spiral of things happening one after the other. It can be inundating on your senses."
The downward spiral steepened Tuesday morning. As authorities in Boston searched for leads, and the nation debated whether the perpetrators were terrorism or a different type of killer, congressional leaders said a letter containing the poison ricin had been mailed to Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi. It touched off memories of the jumbled days after 9/11, when letters containing anthrax were sent to politicians and media organizations..
On Wednesday, the Secret Service said it had intercepted a ricin letter mailed to President Barack Obama. Tensions immediately rose in Washington, with a half-dozen suspicious packages reported and parts of the Capitol complex shut down. On Wednesday evening, a suspect was arrested in Mississippi.
"I think it's fair to say this entire week we've been in pretty direct confrontation with evil," Secretary of State John Kerry said.
All this happened as the Senate, with high feelings on both sides, voted down legislation that would have banned assault weapons and expanded background checks of gun buyers. The measures, sought for decades, only became possible after 20 children and six others were gunned down at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Conn.
The defeat of the bill "brought the whole Sandy Hook thing up again," said Rachel Allen, a lawyer from suburban Pittsburgh.
"There are so many senseless things that go on, and you see how people can come together," Allen said Friday. She recalled being moved to tears watching the first Boston Bruins hockey game after the bombing, when the national anthem singer fell silent and let the entire arena roar the song to a finish.
Events in Washington can magnify the sense of chaos, says Fischoff, the psychologist. "Most of our institutions that we use to stabilize ourselves and our country are damaged, crippled," he said. "What you're having is a kind of emotional, cognitive anarchy."
Late Wednesday night, reports emerged of an explosion outside Waco, Texas. As Thursday dawned, the magnitude became clear: A fertilizer plant had blown up with such force, it registered as an earthquake and wrecked homes, apartments, a school and a nursing home. As of Saturday morning, 14 people were dead.
"Is this week feeling a little apocalyptic to anyone else?" tweeted Jessica Coen, editor in chief of the Jezebel.com blog. "Boston. Poison. Explosions. Floods. Tomorrow, locusts."
Recent Aprils have often been cruel to America. In 1993, dozens died in the siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco. In 1995, a domestic terrorist killed 168 people in the Oklahoma City federal building bombing. In 1999, two students killed 12 classmates, a teacher and themselves at Columbine High School. In 2007, a student rampage left 32 innocents dead at Virginia Tech.
But April 2013's convergence of events is extremely rare, statisticians say.
Such calculations are based on the likelihood of each individual tragedy, said Michael Baron, a professor of statistics at the University of Texas at Dallas.
Baron has no actual data on how often this week's events have separately occurred throughout history. But he estimated that if a terrorist attack occurs once every four years, a suspicious mailing once per year and an industrial accident twice per year, there is a .000004 probability of them all happening in the same week ? "once in 4,808 years."
Such absurd odds were too much for the satirical publication The Onion to resist.
The Onion "report" offered this "quote": "'Maybe next time we have a week, they can try not to pack it completely to the (expletive) brim with explosions, mutilations, death, manhunts, lies, weeping, and the utter uselessness of our political system,' said basically every person in America who isn't comatose or a complete sociopath.'"
The week was no joke for Mary Helen Gillespie, a bank vice president who lives near Boston. When she saw news of the Texas explosion, "I got sick to my gut."
"If we were to look at a map of the United States right now ? our country is strong and proud and brave and we will win. But if you look at a map, we are bleeding," Gillespie said.
"The world is upside down," she said. "Facebook can't keep up with it, TV can't keep up with it. It's just overwhelming."
"What I found was hope in prayer," Gillespie said. "The more the media started reporting on the stories of hope, the heroes, the first responders, the everyday Americans going out trying to save others. That was my inspiration. It was, OK, this will get better."
While authorities tried to determine Thursday how many had died in the fertilizer plant explosion ? many victims were feared to be first responders who rushed into the inferno ? the FBI released photos and videos of two suspects in the marathon attack.
"It's been a rough week for the country," said House Speaker John Boehner. "It's been a rough week, but we're thankful for the blessings of life and the opportunity to live in a country whose people always look out for each other."
Finally, on Friday morning, the nation awoke to news that one suspect and a police officer had been killed ? after the suspects hurled explosives during a car chase and had a shootout in the residential community of Watertown.
In Chicago, the cover of the Redeye newspaper on Friday was a giant red RESET button. "That was a rough one. Who's ready for next week?" the caption said.
Jesse Bonelli, a video game artist who lives in locked-down Watertown, stayed inside his house Friday and sharpened a machete ? just in case.
"It's something I usually keep hanging on the wall, but it's the only weapon I have," he said. "I want to be ready in case anyone bursts into the house. After everything that happened this week, I keep wondering what's next."
All day Friday, Boston was shut down, public transit halted and people ordered to stay in their homes as thousands of police and federal agents chased down the fugitive.
He was finally captured on Friday night.
"God has not forsaken Boston. God has not forsaken our nation," Rev. Miranda had said a few days earlier, at the prayer service. "He merely weaves a beautiful bright tapestry of goodness that includes a few dark strands."
___
Follow AP National Writer Jesse Washington on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jessewashington
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