US awaits release of 3 students held in Egypt (AP)

PHILADELPHIA ? Three American students arrested during a protest in Cairo and ordered released by an Egyptian court are in the midst of being processed by authorities there, a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman said Friday.

Katharina Gollner-Sweet, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, told The Associated Press that Derrik Sweeney, Luke Gates and Gregory Porter are being processed for their eventual release one day after a court ordered them released from police custody, according to information from Egyptian officials.

"According to the latest information that the Egyptians gave out they were ordered released in the court but they are in an administrative out-processing stage," Gollner-Sweet said. "We are continuing to provide normal consular services."

The three U.S. college students, who attend the American University in Cairo, were arrested on the roof of a university building near Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square on Sunday. Officials accused them of throwing firebombs at security forces fighting with protesters.

A court in Egypt ordered the release of the students, a lawyer in Philadelphia confirmed Thursday.

Attorney Theodore Simon, who represents Porter, a 19-year-old student at Drexel University in Philadelphia, said he spoke by phone with Porter, describing the student's demeanor as "calm and measured, demonstrating a maturity well beyond his 19 years."

"He was extremely thankful and appreciative for our efforts and the unconditional support of his mother and father," Simon said.

Porter is from Glenside, Pa., a suburb of Philadelphia.

Sweeney's mother, Joy Sweeney, said she is "absolutely elated" at the news of her 19-year-old son's release.

"I can't wait to give him a huge hug and tell him how much I love him," she said, adding that the news of the court order was the best Thanksgiving gift.

The 21-year-old Gates is a student at Indiana University.

His parents released a statement Thursday through the school, saying they were "extremely happy" to hear that their son would soon be released.

"This has been a difficult situation, and while we are disappointed that he will be held a few days longer to complete administrative procedures related to his release, we're confident he will be home soon," Bill and Sharon Gates wrote.

The State Department released a statement saying it was trying to independently confirm the reports of the students' release.

Earlier Thursday, Egypt officials said the Abdeen Court in Cairo had ordered their release. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media. They did not say when the students would be released.

Joy Sweeney said she wasn't sure when her son, a student at Georgetown University, would be returning to their home in Jefferson City, Mo.

"If he can find his passport (then he'll leave) tomorrow, if not, it won't be until Monday," she said.

She said the U.S. consul general in Egypt, Roberto Powers, recommended that her son leave Egypt as soon as possible.

"He also conveyed that that was what Derrik had conveyed to him that he wanted to do. He was enjoying his experience but (was) ready to be done with it," Sweeney said.

Derrik Sweeney interned for U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., earlier this year. Luetkemeyer's spokesman Paul Sloca, said the congressman is "extremely pleased that he's safe and coming home, especially on Thanksgiving."

Sweeney said she had not prepared for a Thanksgiving celebration, although a friend had taken her some food. She said the idea of a Thanksgiving feast had seemed "absolutely irrelevant" before the news of her son's pending freedom.

Asked what she thought her son would take away from his arrest, Sweeney said she thought he would make something useful of it.

"I'm sure that he'll put a life-lesson learning experience into a positive story," Sweeney said. "He's a writer, he will write about this experience."

___

Associated Press reporter Ed Donahue in Washington contributed to this report. Hadeel Al-Shalchi reported from Cairo.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111125/ap_on_re_us/egypt_american_students

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DARPA aims to hear your fear in a crowd

Arshad Arbab / EPA

In this file photo locals topple over a burnt out car after a car bomb blast near a market in Peshawar, Pakistan. The U.S. military is working on technology to track down terrorists by listening for their heartbeats, even in a crowd.

By John Roach

You can run, you can hide, but the masterminds in the military's high-tech research arm have their eyes on a gadget that will allow them to hear your racing heart even as you try to get lost in a crowd.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency already has the technology to hear your heart as you crouch and cower in a dark corner across the room. Now the agency aims to increase its ability to do this at even greater distances, through walls ??and even hear and distinguish between multiple hearts at once.

---

The technology could help chase down terrorists who set off a bomb and then scatter into the fleeing crowd, for example. It could also help rescue victims trapped in the rubble from the explosion.

The goal of the agency's "Biometrics-at-a-distance" program is a technology that "can record human vital signs at a distance greater than 10 meters using non-line-of-sight and non-invasive or non-contact methods" and do this for up to 10 people at once.

The technology to do this, the agency suspects, is likely to build from electrocardiograms, which measure the heart's electrical activity. This is what doctors use, for example, to diagnose heart disease in people.

[Via Gizmodo]

More on DARPA tech:

---

John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. To learn more about him, check out his website. For more of our Future of Technology series, watch the featured video below.

?

Kids' play has moved to tablets and PCs. In this new age, toy makers and researchers alike are sorting out the benefits ? and detriments ? of playful educational interaction in virtual space.

?

Source: http://futureoftech.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/21/8934288-darpa-aims-to-hear-your-fear-in-a-crowd

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Separating signal and noise in climate warming

Friday, November 18, 2011

In order to separate human-caused global warming from the "noise" of purely natural climate fluctuations, temperature records must be at least 17 years long, according to climate scientists.

To address criticism of the reliability of thermometer records of surface warming, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists analyzed satellite measurements of the temperature of the lower troposphere (the region of the atmosphere from the surface to roughly five miles above) and saw a clear signal of human-induced warming of the planet.

Satellite measurements of atmospheric temperature are made with microwave radiometers, and are completely independent of surface thermometer measurements. The satellite data indicate that the lower troposphere has warmed by roughly 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit since the beginning of satellite temperature records in 1979. This increase is entirely consistent with the warming of Earth's surface estimated from thermometer records.

Recently, a number of global warming critics have focused attention on the behavior of Earth's temperature since 1998. They have argued that there has been little or no warming over the last 10 to 12 years, and that computer models of the climate system are not capable of simulating such short "hiatus periods" when models are run with human-caused changes in greenhouse gases.

"Looking at a single, noisy 10-year period is cherry picking, and does not provide reliable information about the presence or absence of human effects on climate said Benjamin Santer, a climate scientist and lead author on an article in the Nov. 17 online edition of the Journal of Geophysical Research (Atmospheres).

Many scientific studies have identified a human "fingerprint" in observations of surface and lower tropospheric temperature changes. These detection and attribution studies look at long, multi-decade observational temperature records. Shorter periods generally have small signal to noise ratios, making it difficult to identify an anthropogenic signal with high statistical confidence, Santer said.

"In fingerprinting, we analyze longer, multi-decadal temperature records, and we beat down the large year-to-year temperature variability caused by purely natural phenomena (like El Ni?os and La Ni?as). This makes it easier to identify a slowly-emerging signal arising from gradual, human-caused changes in atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases," Santer said.

The LLNL-led research shows that climate models can and do simulate short, 10- to 12-year "hiatus periods" with minimal warming, even when the models are run with historical increases in greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosol particles. They find that tropospheric temperature records must be at least 17 years long to discriminate between internal climate noise and the signal of human-caused changes in the chemical composition of the atmosphere.

"One individual short-term trend doesn't tell you much about long-term climate change," Santer said. "A single decade of observational temperature data is inadequate for identifying a slowly evolving human-caused warming signal. In both the satellite observations and in computer models, short, 10-year tropospheric temperature trends are strongly influenced by the large noise of year-to-year climate variability."

###

DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory: http://www.llnl.gov

Thanks to DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 55 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/115331/Separating_signal_and_noise_in_climate_warming

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GOP co-chair: Debt talks a 'roller coaster ride' (AP)

WASHINGTON ? The Republican co-chair of a committee in charge of slashing the nation's deficit on Sunday called deliberations a "roller coaster ride" and gave no indication that a deal could be struck before the panel's Thanksgiving deadline.

Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling said the panel will fail unless Democrats agree to significant "structural" changes to entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security. When asked whether that could be done in a matter of days, he said "we haven't given up hope."

"But if this were easy, the president of the United States (Barack Obama) and the speaker of the House (John Boehner) would have gotten it done themselves," Hensarling said.

The supercommittee has until Nov. 23 to agree on how to reduce the deficit by at least $1.2 trillion in the next decade. Any amount less than that would be made up in automatic across-the-board cuts divided evenly between defense and domestic programs.

The panel has been stymied for weeks over taxes. Democrats want to raise revenue by making tax code changes that directly add money to government coffers. Republicans have agreed to increase government revenue, but are demanding large cuts to benefit programs, which they say are bleeding Americans dry.

Both sides have blamed the other for failing to move forward. Last week, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said that Obama has told panel members that their finished product must contain both sources of new revenue, or taxes, as well as spending cuts.

At a press conference at the Asia-Pacific economic summit in Hawaii Sunday, Obama said he hopes lawmakers will "bite the bullet and do what needs to be done," but voiced frustration with what he said was a desire by some members of Congress to "want to keep jiggering the math" to get a different outcome.

The president refused to say whether he would veto any effort to bypass the deep cuts in defense and other spending that would take effect if there is no deal forthcoming from Congress.

Hensarling offered no new talking points Sunday, indicating that the two sides remain far from reaching consensus.

"We want more revenues. We just want to raise it by growing the economy," he said.

Likewise, Democratic panel member Rep. James Clyburn offered no hint that a real compromise was in the works.

"We've got 10 days to do this, and I really believe that all of the ingredients for a good resolution are there. We just need to build the will," said Clyburn, D-S.C. At the same time, Clyburn accused Republicans of wanting to cut a billionaire's tax bill by $300,000 while eliminating Medicare for people on a fixed income.

"That is just not fair," he said.

Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, a Republican member of the committee, defended his latest proposal as one that would get the economy moving again. Toomey and other Republicans want to generate at least $250 billion in new revenue by limiting tax deductions but only if Democrats agree to drop the top tax rate from 35 percent to 28 percent.

"You absolutely can do this in a way that will be pro-growth, that will generate more revenue, (and) that would avoid this huge tax increase that's coming otherwise," Toomey said.

Democrats have rejected the idea as something that will ultimately cost more than it would save, and called for a mix of $1 trillion in spending cuts and $1 trillion in higher tax revenue over the next decade.

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat who supports entitlement and tax reform, suggested that politics was the biggest culprit in preventing a deal.

"You'll know this supercommittee is getting close when folks on both ends of the political extreme scream the loudest, because that will show that there's actually movement being made," he said.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., agreed.

"We can fix our problems but we require leadership from the president, and the leaders from the House and the Senate to say `we're going to do this.' And we have not seen that on both sides of the aisle and that's disappointing," he said.

Coburn, a vocal opponent of any tax increase, said he could stand the idea of increasing government revenues if the money comes from restructuring entitlement programs.

"I want to tell you, we're going to touch Medicare because there's no way we can borrow the money five years from now to run Medicare the way it is today," he said. "The question really is, will politicians do what is best for the country or best for their party and position?"

Hensarling, Warner and Coburn spoke on CNN's "State of the Union." Toomey and Clyburn spoke on "Fox News Sunday."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/uscongress/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111114/ap_on_go_co/us_debt_supercommittee

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2011 KIA Optima SX Turbo Test Drive

A few days ago I was given the opportunity to review a 2011 KIA Optima SX Turbo. This is undoubtedly the biggest and most expensive “gadget” that I’ve ever been offered to review and you all know that I didn’t even have to think about it for more than a second before agreeing to a [...]

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2011/11/13/2011-kia-optima-sx-turbo-test-drive/

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Deal of the Day ? Dell Vostro 260s Core i3 Slim Tower with 20? LCD Monitor

Today?s LogicBUY Deal is the customizable Vostro 260 slim tower desktop with 2011 Core i3-2120 cpu and 20? LCD monitor starting at $455.55.? Features:? 2GB RAM, 250GB hard drive, Intel HD graphics with VGA and HDMI outputs, card reader, DVD-RW, keyboard and mouse, 15-months Trend Micro, Windows 7, and more. $598 ?? $129 off? – [...]

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2011/11/11/deal-of-the-day-%e2%80%93-dell-vostro-260s-core-i3-slim-tower-with-20%e2%80%9d-lcd-monitor/

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Total Recall: Actors Playing Opposite Themselves

With Jack and Jill hitting theaters, we run down some of cinema's most memorable dual performances by single thespians.

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Video: Penn State to host Nebraska Saturday

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Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/45259535#45259535

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Small-business owners tell Occupy Wall Street: You're hurting the 99 percent. (Christian Science Monitor)

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

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Venezuela vows all-out hunt for Nationals' Ramos

FILE - In this Aug. 17, 2011, file photo, Washington Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos looks up from the dugout at the end of the fifth inning of a baseball game against the Cincinnati Reds at Nationals Park in Washington. According to Kathe Vilera, a spokeswoman for Ramos' Venezuelan League team, the Aragua Tigers, four armed men kidnapped Ramos on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2011, from his home in central Venezuela. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

FILE - In this Aug. 17, 2011, file photo, Washington Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos looks up from the dugout at the end of the fifth inning of a baseball game against the Cincinnati Reds at Nationals Park in Washington. According to Kathe Vilera, a spokeswoman for Ramos' Venezuelan League team, the Aragua Tigers, four armed men kidnapped Ramos on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2011, from his home in central Venezuela. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

FILE - In this June 4, 2011, file photo, Washington Nationals' Wilson Ramos looks on during a baseball game against the Arizona Diamondbacks in Phoenix. According to Kathe Vilera, a spokeswoman for Ramos' Venezuelan League team, the Aragua Tigers, four armed men kidnapped Ramos on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2011, from his home in central Venezuela. (AP Photo/Paul Connors, File)

FILE - This July 6, 2011 file photo shows Washington Nationals' Wilson Ramos hitting a sacrifice bunt to drive in teammate Michael Morse for the go-ahead run in the seventh inning against the Chicago Cubs at Nationals Park in Washington. According to Kathe Vilera, a spokeswoman for Ramos' Venezuelan League team, the Aragua Tigers, four armed men kidnapped Ramos Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2011 from his home in central Venezuela. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, file)

FILE - This 2011 file photo shows player Wilson Ramos of the Washington Nationals baseball team. According to Kathe Vilera, a spokeswoman for Ramos' Venezuelan League team, the Aragua Tigers, four armed men kidnapped Ramos Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2011 from his home in central Venezuela.?(AP Photo/David J. Phillip, file)

David Ramos, brother of Washington Nationals' catcher Wilson Ramos, left, opens the gate of his family's home for an unidentified woman in the municipality of Santa Ines in Valencia, Venezuela, Thursday Nov. 10, 2011. The 24-year-old player, who had just finished his rookie season, was just outside the front door at his home in the town of Santa Ines on Wednesday night when an SUV approached, armed men got out "and they took him away," said Ramos' agent, Gustavo Marcano. (AP Photo/Lexander Loiza)

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) ? The government sent top investigators Thursday to hunt for Washington Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos, whose abduction has shaken Venezuela's elite athletes and focused attention on the nation's sharp rise in kidnappings for ransom.

The 24-year-old player, who had returned to Venezuela after his rookie season, was just outside the front door at his home in the town of Santa Ines on Wednesday night when an SUV approached, armed men got out "and they took him away," said Ramos' agent, Gustavo Marcano.

It was the first known kidnapping of a Major League Baseball player in Venezuela, though the relatives of some ballplayers have previously been held captive for ransom.

Police found the kidnappers' vehicle abandoned in the nearby town of Bejuma on Thursday morning, Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami said. He said anti-kidnapping units led by "the best investigators we have" were dispatched to the area in central Carabobo state.

He vowed to rescue Ramos and capture his abductors.

"We're taking on this investigation with everything we've got," El Aissami said.

Major League Baseball and the Nationals said the leagues' Department of Investigations was working with authorities.

"Our foremost concern is with Wilson Ramos and his family and our thoughts are with them at this time," the team and the MLB said in a joint statement, adding there would be no further comment.

Ramos was outside with his father and two brothers when the SUV pulled up with four men inside, three of whom got out and seized the player, Marcano said.

"The abductors haven't made contact with the family or with anyone," said Domingo Alvarez, vice president of the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League. "We're worried."

Ramos is a key young player for the Nationals. As a rookie in 2011, he hit .267 with 15 home runs and 52 RBIs in 113 games. He also threw out 19 of 67 runners attempting to steal a base, a 28 percent success rate that ranked third among qualifying catchers in the National League.

Washington acquired Ramos from the Minnesota Twins in a trade for All-Star relief pitcher Matt Capps in July 2010.

He is one of dozens of Venezuelans in professional baseball, and security while at home has increasingly become a concern for the players and their families as a rising wave of kidnappings has hit the wealthy as well as the middle class.

Venezuelan police said 618 kidnappings were reported in 2009, and the numbers have grown rapidly in recent years. In 1998, when President Hugo Chavez was elected, just 52 kidnappings were reported. Security experts say the real number of kidnappings today is much higher because many cases aren't reported to authorities.

The wealthy have taken steps to protect themselves. Sales of armored cars have soared in the past several years. Bodyguards typically shadow major leaguers when they return to their homeland to play in the winter league.

"Every major league player has his own security, but we don't know if he had his security there at that time," Alvarez said.

Former Boston Red Sox slugger Tony Armas, who lives in Venezuela, said young players have been taking additional security measures due to the risk of kidnappings.

"But many of them are careless sometimes. No one seriously thinks that this can happen to us, and much less in a country like ours where people love baseball," Armas said in a telephone interview.

"Most of us came from humble families. We still have relatives who live in poor areas; we frequent those places and unfortunately the criminals are getting more soulless all the time," he said.

In November 2009, the 56-year-old mother of Victor Zambrano, who retired after a seven-year Major League career, was rescued in a commando-style operation three days after she was kidnapped. The former pitcher's cousin, Richard Mendez Zambrano, had been kidnapped a few days earlier, and was later killed.

In June 2009, Colorado Rockies catcher Yorvit Torrealba's 11-year-old son and brother-in-law were kidnapped and released a day later.

The mother of former player Ugueth Urbina, who was a two-time All-Star pitcher, spent more than five months in captivity until she was rescued in early 2005.

Venezuela has one of Latin America's highest murder rates, and violent crime has worsened in recent years. As ransom kidnapping has soared, the government passed a revised law in 2009 that stiffened prison sentences for kidnapping and also allows authorities to freeze the banks accounts of victims' families to prevent them from paying ransom.

Ramos had been training and planned to start playing with his Venezuelan team next week. Arizona Diamondbacks third baseman Melvin Mora, also a Venezuelan, proposed that the Venezuelan league ought to call off its games "until he appears."

But league president Jose Grasso said that won't happen. "Turning out the stadium lights isn't a solution," Grasso said, calling Ramos' abduction "an isolated event."

____

AP Sports Writers Howard Fendrich in Washington and Ron Blum in New York contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-11-10-BBN-Venezuela-Ramos-Abducted/id-fc3338e4839141b297328274d4c1e03f

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Clean-up exposes 17 to plutonium

8 November 2011 Last updated at 23:55 ET

At least 17 people were exposed to plutonium at a US energy department research facility in Idaho during clean-up of a decommissioned reactor.

A statement from the Idaho National Laboratory said there was no evidence that radiation was released outside the facility.

All those exposed were undergoing full-body scans after being decontaminated.

Before it was decommission in 1992, the facility was used to build and test nuclear reactors.

Clean-up workers have been slowly demolishing the reactor, and last year millions of pounds of steel and other materials that made up the reactor core were removed.

But the shell and plutonium fuel that once powered the reactor remains.

The accident occurred inside the Materials and Fuels Complex, near the edge of the facility's 890-sq-mile (2,300-sq-km) site.

The exposed workers were in an area that required no special protective shielding, lab spokesman Earl Johnson told Reuters.

"We certainly didn't expect this to happen," he said.

The facility produced the first usable amounts of electricity generated by nuclear power in 1951, according to its website.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/world-us-canada-15649579

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