science according to stephanie m. mcpherson
“Galileo, God rest his soul; king of night vision, king of insight”
– Emily Saliers –
Four hundred years ago on Aug. 25, Galileo Galilei took Dutch pseudo-binoculars and created the precursor to our Hubble and Kepler Telescopes. We celebrate this invaluable innovation with a new Google doodle and a slew of memorial articles.
Out of Town News stand, Cambridge, Mass.
By Kevin Koczwara
The New York Times Co. hasn’t closed down Boston’s largest daily newspaper, for now. The Boston Globe remains open with a certain feeling of dread. The dread comes from not knowing how long the Times Co. can keep financing a product that loses $20 million a day, and the uncertainty hung over the paper for the month of April and into May.
An open rally for readers and workers to show their support was organized at Faneuil Hall on Friday, April 24, early afternoon. The time frame allowed workers in the area to show their support. Although many would not comment on their feelings on the situation because they were skipping work, some did speak about how the loss of the paper would affect them.
“I think it would be a tremendous loss,” said Jerry Lewis, an Electrician on lunch break. “It’s a nationally recognized institution.”
The Globe’s closure would have been seen as a huge loss to the Boston community. “The Boston Globe is the leading voice of New England and if it were to go silent, we’d lose an institution that has become part of our regional identity,” said Meredith O’Brien, a columnist and author living in the MetroWest area.
“The Globe leads the charge in covering state government and holding the Commonwealth’s leaders accountable,” she said. “And, as a former reporter for the Boston Herald, I’d be tremendously saddened to see the city lose its coveted status as a two-newspaper town. Having journalistic competition keeps reporters on their toes, keeps ‘em sharp and, whatever stories one paper doesn’t have, the other likely does, a yin and yang, particularly when it comes to their editorial leanings.”
Founded in 1872, the Globe has been a staple in newsstands since the turn of the century. “Every day Globe readers wake up and learn about each other, about the places we live, what’s important to us, about the events, the institutions, the forces that affect our lives,” said Brian Mooney, Globe reporter.
Printed seven days a week, the paper has evolved over the years alongside technology. Boston.com was started in 1995, giving users and readers up-to-date information for free. The Web site brings in revenue, however minimal, from ad space. The innovations have saved the company some money as its distribution numbers have slumped over the years.
City Council President Michael Ross added his voice to the Faneuil Hall rally. Even if the paper may not always be on his side, he said, he stands by it. “Newspapers serve as a touchstone for our community, which ultimately makes our country, city and government better,” Ross said.
The rally showed its diversity in voices by bringing in Neiman Fellow and Pulitzer Prize winning reporter David Jackson of the Chicago Tribune, a Boston native. He sees the paper as a necessary piece of government.
“Every day Globe reporters comb the corridors of power and the public alleyways, and they shed light. They bring forth vested facts, and they spark the conversation on which our democracy depends,” Jackson said to the crowds.
O’Brien feels the same. “Without the Globe, I shudder to think of the number of stories that would go uncovered and the things with which the folks at the State House would be able to do knowing there aren’t many reporters keeping tabs on them,” she said.
Dan Totten, president of the Boston Newspaper Guild, sees the paper as a landmark for the Boston area. “The Boston Globe is far too important to the life of New England to ever be placed in jeopardy,” says Totten, whose Guild will need to ratify the new contact that has been negotiated between the Guild and The New York Times Co.
The 190 guaranteed jobs and more than $10 million in pay cuts have been agreed upon, now The Boston Newspaper Guild must vote ratify the new terms of their contacts at the June 8 meeting. This must surely be done or the New York Times Co. will have to close shop to one of the nations oldest and largest daily papers, and make Boston a one paper city.
The Future of Journalism
By Ted Rogers
With the newspaper industry in a desperate search for a business model that pays, many critics have begun to brainstorm what the new face of media will be. As early as March of 1993, Michael Crichton wrote a piece for a fledgling magazine called Wired.
The article, titled “Mediasaurus“, predicted the Web would mean a diversity of one topic news websites, artificial intelligence systems that could find stories he was interested in, and a host of other ideas. He also suggested newspapers, that in the far off year of 2008, would be gone for good.
After the Globe’s month long standoff with the New York Times, the debate over the future of the media has reached a frenzied pitch. As Crichton’s essay prophesied, the Internet is brimming with possibilities, but not certainties.
One of the main reasons for the newspaper industries’ decline has been the drop-off in both advertising and classifieds. Due to the rise of the internet, advertisers have found different venues and classifieds have become free.
While touring the Boston Globe offices, long tine photographer George Rizer pointed to a group of desks covered in old papers and unused equipment. “See those?” he said, “Those desks used to have tons of people taking classifieds, at all times of the day. Now, they’re gone.” Rizer went on to predict that in the next five years, one third of all newspapers will fold.
Veterans of the newspaper industry have their own ideas for how to keep the presses running. Jim Foudy, editor of the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton, enjoys his system for keeping the Gazette in print.
“The newspapers shot themselves in the foot by providing free content, and Craigslist has done a number on our wanted ads and classifieds,” he said. To stay afloat, the Gazette requires a subscription to view its web content.
The Gazette model is a rarity in the online newspaper circuit because it requires cash to use. Foudy admits that needing a subscription probably keeps readership from reaching its full potential This roadblock has led other editors take a different approach.
Boston.com, the site on which the Boston Globe posts all of its material, is free for anyone who chooses to use it. Bennie DiNardo, one of the deputy of managers of multimedia content at the Globe, has a different philosophy. “Our business is to deliver the news, no matter what the format,” he said. “To quote Arthur Sulzberger, head of the New York Times, we need to be agnostic about how people get their news.”
While newspapers continue to experiment with possible business models that will allow them to put content on the web while making a profit, other groups in the media are trying different methods.
One development occurring in the media sphere is the rise of citizen journalists. Often unpaid, these men and women report on issues that affect their communities. Opinions on the future of citizen journalists are mixed. Critics of the current media feel that citizen journalists offer news without agendas, a fault that the mass media is often accused of having. Critics of the current media feel that citizen journalists, like Rizer, say that amateur journalists practice an exercise in egomania that will lead to news without
substance.
Some branches of the media are working overtime to fill in the gaps left by the newspapers‘ decline. Cambridge Community Television, a public television station set up in Boston, is starting to use citizen journalists for a project called Neighbor Media, with the eventual goal of putting a journalist in every zip code in Cambridge. Colin Rhinesmith, director of the project said, “to have residents see people they know reporting is inspiring. Seeing them produce stories that effect them is truly media by the people, for the people.”
CCTV may be a good place to start when looking for the new face of the media. It presents itself as a merchant of information newsworthy to those in the local community, users of nonprofessional talent, and is endlessly inventive. A project using the program GoogleMaps, called MediaMap shows how the new media is shaping up. One can zoom into a map of Boston, choose a location, and watch, listen, or read a news story that happened the spot. Rhinesmith says that this is an especially exciting development for those with mobile devices.
MediaMap is interesting for an additional reason. Another attempt at divining the future of the media predicted a hypothetical, hyperlocal media program that used GoogleMaps. Called EPIC, it would become the ultimate answer in media. In an interesting turn, it was predicted that this program would be made only after the almighty New York Times folded.
Jim Foudy said, “the newspaper business is in flux, but the principles of journalism are here to stay.” Some parts of the media are gloating at a bigger role in making the news, other parts are doing scrambling to hold the newspaper above the water. One suspects that when the dust finally clears in the media’s civil war, the winner will be something both very similar -yet very different- from the models already predicted.
The rock formation called "Kissing Camels" in the Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, Colo. (Photo by: Stephanie McPherson)
“Climate change presents a serious test for humankind, but it also provides an opportunity for great innovation and adaptation. The United States has risen to such challenges before, and Earth Day inspires us to transcend differences among nations so we may lead the world in protecting our planet from this global threat.”
– President Barack Obama, in an Earth Day 2009 Proclamation –
Every day is an Earth day lately, what with the ever-growing public environmental consciousness thanks to programs like the BBC’s “Planet Earth” and Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.” But on April 22, the world came together to be hyper-aware of our Earth’s plight on the official 39th annual Earth Day.
April 22, 1970 is known as the day that started it all. According to EarthDay.net, on this date 39 years ago, 20 million Americans demonstrated in support of a cleaner, healthier Earth. It was a bi-partisan, multi-racial, all-social-classes-welcome event that unified everyone under the umbrella of environmental change.
Almost four decades later, President Barack Obama issued a proclamation asking the American people to do their part in their individual lives – cut down on heat and air-conditioning, turn off lights that aren’t being used, and use less packaging. He called on businesses to have the same environmental awareness in their practices. President Obama also mentioned his plans to create “green” jobs as energy sources move towards wind, water and solar.
In other news, Disneynature released its feature film “earth.” The movie was co-directed by Mark Linfield and Alastair Fothergill (the latter was the producer/director for the award-winning BBC and Discovery Channel series “Planet Earth.”)
More Earth Day news can be found here.
Richard Clarke speaks at University of Massachusetts Amherst
By Stephanie McPherson and Kevin Koczwara
The danger of another war looms over head of the United States and it will be fought with the use of the Internet, or so believes Richard Clarke. There will not be any machine guns or bombs, just computers communicating over networks.
Richard Clarke, a government counter-terrorism expert who has been active in Washington for over 30 years, spoke on Thursday, April 2 at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Engineering Lab II to a standing room only crowd about Iraq, Afghanistan, and a third war that may be on its way.
“Two of the wars are very well known,” Clarke said. They are ongoing. They are, in fact, the type of war that’s been going on for over 200 years, insurgencies. And the third, where we’re going to get a little bit geeky, is to talk about the next kind of war that could happen. That is the war in cyberspace.”
Starting in Iraq and moving to Afghanistan, Clarke outlined four step plans for each war that would help lead to their ends. Clarke’s build up of plausible war strategies allowed for a transition into the third war, the war in cyberspace.
With his insider knowledge of the military and its potential, Clarke went into an explanation about the Internet becoming the next tool for war.
Relating cyber-warfare to nuclear warfare, Clarke drew up plans for a guideline to safe and fair use of technology. His outline resembled what was done to regulate nuclear war, based on a set of rules that kept the Cold War in check.
The Internet and its near infinite possibilities is so integrated into the American culture that U.S. society has become dependent on its services, according to Clarke. People trade stocks and assets, purchase, sell and conduct personal banking with nothing more than a mouse click. And hackers run amok online stealing identities, money, and controlling other networks and computers through code.
“Here it [the Internet] is a blessed anarchy,” said Clarke of America’s deregulated Internet. He compared the United States Internet to China’s severely restricted network. Clarke believed that while freedom of the Web is good in some cases, certain critical functions should be taken offline.
“What can we do to secure cyberspace?” He asked.
Clarke proposed a system of steps and procedures to help prevent cyber warfare. One important step was to avoid mincing words and get straight to the point.
“Declare that if any nation attacks the United States in cyber space and any American civilian is hurt, or our economy or infrastructure is hurt, we will retaliate,” Clarke said.
At the conclusion of the speech, Clarke continued with a question and answer session. He fielded questions on Israel and Palestine, the Iraq war and the situation in Darfur.
One speech attendee asked why the military is willing to release tactical information to the press and public.
“Because that’s how democracy works,” Clarke said. “For democracy to work correctly there needs to be communication.”
Clarke spoke as part of the Sidney Topol Distinguished Lecturer Series. His speech was originally scheduled for October, but was postponed when Clarke became a part of President Obama’s campaign and transition team.
Crowds enjoy a Red Sox game at Fenway Park in Boston, Mass. (Photo by Stephanie McPherson)
Ever wonder whether or not the MLB is joining in on the green movement? What about the exact physics of a knuckleball? Curious about a different perspective on steroid use?
Scientific American has the answers. In honor of 2009 Opening Day, SciAm.com is home to a spread of features about baseball – its physics, biology and psychology.
In “Green Diamonds: Baseball Stadiums Take a Swing at Energy Efficiency,” Adam Hadhazy gives an overview of the environmentally friendly adjustments being made to parks around the country.
In “Field Equations: The Physics of Baseball,” John Matson talks with physicist Alan Nathan about how to hit a long fly ball, the pros and cons of corking a bat and the “gyroball.” (Nathan has been working for years on the physics of baseball. More on his work can be found here.)
Hadhazy also has a conversation with NFL player-turned-physiologist Jay Hoffman about the effects of steroids on the human body and how they helped and hindered him in his pro-football career in “Do anabolic steroids make you a better athlete?“
More stories, both current and from the SciAm.com archives, can be found here.
“I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.”
– H.A.L. 9000, from “2001: A Space Odyssey” –
Artificial intelligence and robotics may not yet be at the point of Haley Joel Osment’s character in the Spielberg film “AI.” Scientists haven’t yet created any sort of C-3PO. But they’re close. Scientists are now able to use robots in their labs to analyze data and even create and conduct their own experiments.
According to articles in the New York Times and Scientific American, a robot, biblically dubbed “Adam,” are helping physicists and biologists wade through the drudge work. The robot can analyze data coming in and organize and process it in such a way that it give the researchers specified data. The articles both report that a similar robot, named “Eve,” is in the works. An abstract of the official paper printed in “Science” announcing the developments can be read here.
Scientists in robotics and artificial intelligence in general are making advances previously only thought possible in science fiction novels. Hanson Robotics, a company that makes scarily human-like robots, is one example. The University of Massachusetts’ Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics is programming robots to actually learn and think, using psychological and kinesiological models of human infants.
Will a robot ever be able to communicate with humans in the way so many futuristic films predict? There are debates in the scientific community about what makes a conscious being, and whether that essence can ever be replicated by machine. But judging by the exponential curve on which computer abilities have been growing, intelligent robotics is a frighteningly plausible occurence.
Question: What was about 50 feet long, weighed 45 tons and had a bite power that could crush an SUV?
Answer: Predator X.
This Jurassic beast was six times the size of a T-Rex with twice the bite power. Its mouth was large enough to swallow a basketball player whole. On Sunday, March 29, the History Channel ran a special about Predator X’s unearthing and reconstruction. The two-hour documentary followed paleontologist Jørn Harald Hurum on his quest around the world while he used every resource he could find to figure out if he had discovered the “ultimate predator.”
Hurum’s journey started near Norway, in the island chain of Svalbard. Hurum and his team dug 150 million years into the past to pull out Predator X, on not much more than Hurum’s hunch that the Jurassic seas were home to a much larger predator than we had yet found.
After surviving the brutal “summer” of Svalbard (though the sun never set, the team was still faced with sub-zero wind chills), the team had enough of the fossilized predator to determine much of its morphology.
The beast’s head alone was about 10 feet long. Encased in this head was a brain hard-wired to be a deadly efficient killer. Hurum and his team determined the shape of Predator X’s brain using intense CT scans, and they found it to be strikingly similar to that of a great white shark – one of the fiercest creatures in the ocean today. The estimated bite force was calculated through a study of crocodilian jaws, which most resembled the bone structure of Predator X.
Through studies of great whites themselves, Hurum painted a terrifying picture of how the Predator probably hunted. The four fins adorning the sides of the Predator were ten feet long each. Hurum believes that the front two fins were used for cruising along the oceans. Eyes placed on the top of the head allowed the Predator to swim deep and scan the upper ocean for its prey. Once it spotted its victim, it used its two hind flippers to propel itself up at great speeds, snapping its jaws closed at a force of 33,000 pounds around its dinner’s neck.
“Predator X” will air on the History Channel again on Wednesday, April 1 at 8 p.m. and Thursday, April 2 at midnight.
Mud pools on the University of Massachusetts Amherst Campus Center lawn (Photo by: Stephanie McPherson)
Audio slideshow and story by Stephanie M. McPherson and Kevin Koczwara
It’s almost every University of Massachusetts Amherst student’s dream – to wake up to the world wrapped in winter. Roads closed, classes cancelled, dining common trays ready to become sleds. But while students are coasting down Orchard Hill, the UMass Buildings and Grounds services toil away to clear the roads.
When the ice melts and those same students toss around a Frisbee on the freshly thawed library lawn, the Building and Grounds crew smoothes out muddy tire tracks and fills in potholes.
This winter in particular has been tough on the grounds and roadways of UMass. With 29 storms to date, Buildings and Grounds services have to deal with not only cleanup, but pothole maintenance as well.
Pam Monn, assistant director for UMass Buildings and Grounds services credited unpredictable New England weather as the cause of potholes.
“As we have this freeze, thaw, freeze, thaw cycle, the blacktop begins to breakaway, it also begins to heave. If it happens multiply times you have a humongous pothole,” she said. The ice gets under the black top then, as it thaws, it pushes the pavement up and out, leaving a gaping hole just waiting to pop a tire.
The Buildings and Grounds services options for pothole fixes are limited for the months between Thanksgiving and Easter, a time when black top companies are closed.
“We have really at our disposal only temporary patching materials – a product that they call a cold patch,” said Monn. Dirt is not an option, since, with the next snowstorm, it would be turned into mud. Gravel is also not optimal because it gets kicked out of the hole and onto the blacktop. Even the cold patch is not a perfect fix. It is susceptible to the same freeze and thaw cycle problems pavement faces.
“To do a good fix, we need the hot patch. So, we are biding our time through the winter to get us to March or April when the potholes can be fixed with hot patch,” Monn said.
Along with icy winter roads comes the inevitable salt and sand. Or, as UMass students have discovered, the use of a mysterious product akin to soy sauce.
For seven years, UMass has been using this “brown goo” called Ice-Be-Gone. This bi-product of distillation is eco-friendly and less expensive than salt and sand, but yields the same results. The solution is sprayed pre-snowstorm to prevent snow and ice from sticking to the sidewalks and roads.
“We moved to it because it is biodegradable, friendlier to the environment,” said Monn. “It helps us reduce the amount of road salt, which is not good for the environment. And it also helps us reduce the amount of sand that we put out.” The reduced use of sand saves Buildings and Grounds services the purchase cost and lessens the time needed for clean-up come spring.
When the weather finally warms, the grounds crew is also in charge of the landscaping on campus. They mow the grass, rake the leaves, trim trees and shrubs, tend to the flower beds and plant new trees around campus.
“You’ll see a lot of clumps and divots in the ground from the snow plowing,” said Monn. “So we need to clean those up and reseed… We patch, we put new loom down, new fertilizer, and reseed on those areas that were hardest hit.”
Rain, shine or snow, Buildings and Grounds services employees make sure UMass looks its finest during any season.
“For my department, weather doesn’t stop them,” Monn said.
A volcano six miles off the coast of Tongatapu, part of the Tonga island chain near Australia (it makes a triangle with Figi and New Zealand), is wreaking havoc, according to the Associated Press. It has been shooting smoke, steam and ash into the air for days. So far, winds have kept the debris away from the main island, posing no immediate threat to the islanders. MSN.com has footage of the ash being expelled into the air.
The volcano currently erupting is just one of 36 residing underwater. The Tonga Island chain is located on the “Ring of Fire,” the plate boundaries outlining the Pacific Ocean. In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, on the other side of the world, is a divergent plate boundary, where two oceanic plates are moving away from each other. This is called seafloor spreading, and new oceanic crust is being formed, widening the Atlantic.
But where do the rest of the plates go? Imagine the pressure built up on the fault lines surrounding the Pacific, which are being forced together. All the pressure that is built up leads to violent earthquakes and volcanic activity along the Pacific coastlines.
As a side note. MSN.com put together this slideshow on the world’s most dangerous volcanoes.
