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Tuesday 24 January 2012
The Incredible Optical Magic of a DSLR Transformed to Slow Motion [Video]
Review: Close almost too stoic in `Albert Nobbs' (AP)
The role of Albert Nobbs is one that's been near to Glenn Close's heart for a while. She first played it 30 years ago off-Broadway and reprises it now in a project she's been working for some time to bring to the screen.
Her dedication is obvious in watching "Albert Nobbs," based on a short story about a woman living as a man and working as a posh hotel waiter in order to survive in 19th century Ireland. Close's Albert is all quiet repression: the low monotone of her voice, the horizontal line of her mouth, the dark, conservative suit topped frequently by a prim bowler hat. The slightest gesture or facial expression is so subtle as to be practically imperceptible.
Every moment of the performance is a marvel of precision ? and yet, because she immerses herself so completely in the emotional restraint of this odd little man she's created, it's difficult to feel a connection with the character, despite the difficult life she's lived. There's no sense of the woman within ? to the extent that Albert can't even remember her real name anymore ? which would have provided crucial context for us to appreciate fully the sacrifice and sadness she's suffered for decades.
Rather, director Rodrigo Garcia ("Mother and Child"), working from a script Close herself co-wrote with John Banville and Gabriella Prekop, follows in melancholy tones as Albert goes about the duties of her day. She remembers the particular tastes of the hotel's regular guests and waits on new visitors with an impenetrable courtliness. She stashes her tips away each night in her modest bedroom with dreams of opening a little tobacco shop someday, and maybe even taking a bride. The saucy young maid Helen, played with much-needed liveliness by the ever-versatile Mia Wasikowska, catches her eye.
But Albert keeps these ideas to herself until the arrival of a brash painter named Hubert shakes up her world. You see, Hubert is also a woman disguising herself as a man, and Janet McTeer plays her with an irresistible, bawdy confidence. McTeer is electrifying in every scene she's in, to the point that "Albert Nobbs" drags noticeably in her absence.
Hubert also must hide her true identity in order to make a living ? and, like Albert, she's the victim of a physical abuse that drove her to reinvent herself. But she's found a way to reconcile the complexities of her identity and achieve real happiness. Albert inexplicably has pinned her hopes on a young woman who could never truly love her back ? as a man or a woman ? as evidenced by the volatile relationship Helen is in with the handsome but illiterate boiler repair man played by Aaron Johnson (a long way from the nerdy superhero he played in "Kick-Ass").
Other supporting players bring the film to life from time to time, including Brendan Gleeson as the hotel's resident doctor and perpetual drunk; Pauline Collins as its gossipy, social-climbing owner; and Bronagh Gallagher as Hubert's delightful, understanding wife.
But "Albert Nobbs" is clearly Close's show ? for better and for worse.
"Albert Nobbs," a Roadside Attractions release, is rated R for some sexuality, brief nudity and language. Running time: 113 minutes. Two stars out of four.
___
Motion Picture Association of America rating definitions:
G ? General audiences. All ages admitted.
PG ? Parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.
PG-13 ? Special parental guidance strongly suggested for children under 13. Some material may be inappropriate for young children.
R ? Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.
NC-17 ? No one under 17 admitted.
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Monday 23 January 2012
Egypt's Islamists win 75 percent of parliament (AP)
CAIRO ? Final results on Saturday showed that Islamist parties won nearly three-quarters of the seats in parliament in Egypt's first elections since the ouster of authoritarian president Hosni Mubarak, according to election officials and political groups.
The Islamist domination of Egypt's parliament has worried liberals and even some conservatives about the religious tone of the new legislature, which will be tasked with forming a committee to write a new constitution. It remains unclear whether the constitution will be written while the generals who took power after Mubarak's fall are still in charge, or rather after presidential elections this summer.
In the vote for the lower house of parliament, a coalition led by the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood won 47 percent, or 235 seats in the 498-seat parliament. The ultraconservative Al-Nour Party was second with 25 percent, or 125 seats.
The Salafi Al-Nour, which was initially the biggest surprise of the vote, wants to impose strict Islamic law in Egypt, while the more moderate Brotherhood, the country's best-known and organized party, has said publicly that it does not seek to force its views about an appropriate Islamic lifestyle on Egyptians.
The two parties are unlikely to join forces because of ideological differences, but both have a long history of charity work in Egypt's vast poverty-stricken neighborhoods and villages, giving them a degree of legitimacy and popularity across the country in areas where newer liberal parties have yet to get a foothold.
Muslim Brotherhood lawmaker Mohammed el-Beltagi said the new parliament represents "the wish of the Egyptian people."
Egypt's elections commission acknowledged that there were voting irregularities, but the vote has been hailed as the country's freest and fairest in living memory.
The liberals who spearheaded the revolt that toppled Mubarak struggled to organize and connect with a broader public in the vote, and did not fair as well as the Islamists.
The Egyptian bloc, which is headed by a party founded by Christian telecom tycoon Naguib Sawiris, said it won 9 percent of the seats in parliament. Egypt's oldest secular party, the Wafd, also won around 9 percent.
Newer parties, such as the liberal Revolution Continues Party won 2 percent, as did the Islamist Center Party, which had been banned from politics under Mubarak.
The results leave the liberal groups with little ability to maneuver in parliament, unless they choose to mobilize the street in protests or work on key issues with the dominant Islamist groups, said Mohamed Abu-Hamed, the deputy leader of the liberal Free Egyptians Party.
The Brotherhood has refused to join recent street protests, saying that elections and the new parliament are the best ways to respond to demands that the military transfer power immediately to a civilian authority.
"The street and the parliament are not at opposite ends. The issues are not going to be resolved by protests, but through parliamentary laws," the Brotherhood's el-Beltagi said.
The final tally, which includes at least 15 seats for former regime figures, comes as little surprise since election results had been partially announced throughout the three stages of the vote, which took place over several weeks across the country.
The United States long shunned Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and turned a blind-eye to the arrest and torture of Salafis, who now comprise the bulk of Al-Nour Party's constituents, under Mubarak, who was a longtime U.S. ally.
However, top U.S. officials from the State Department have recently met with the Muslim Brotherhood's leaders, who have in turn assured Western officials that they respect minority rights and support democracy.
A White House statement said that President Barack Obama called Egypt's ruling military leader, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, on Friday and welcomed the historic seating of the lower house of Egypt's Parliament, which is set to convene for the first time on Monday. Activists have accused the country's military leaders of repressive tactics. Critics say the nearly 12,000 civilians who have faced military trials since Mubarak's ouster have not been afforded proper due process.
Chief military prosecutor Adel el-Morsi said that 1,959 people convicted in military courts since Mubarak's ouster would be released on the one-year anniversary of the start of the uprising on Wednesday.
Among them would be Maikel Nabil Sanad, a blogger who was arrested in March and sentenced to two years in prison on charges of criticizing the armed forces and publishing false information for comments on his blog comparing the military to Mubarak's regime.
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Building a business with unwanted customers - Fortune Management
FORTUNE -- Diego Cobo was trying hard not to cry when he returned to his family in the waiting area at the dentist's office. The three-year-old just had just had a cavity filled, and it hurt. "Maybe you shouldn't eat so many candies," his mom said to him. Diego thought for a minute, then pointed to the teeth on the side of his mouth that wasn't numb with Novocaine, and said, "Maybe I can eat candies with these teeth?"
If Diego is like the majority of patients at Newark, N.J.-based Dental Kidz, he will be back soon enough with more cavities. Dental Kidz targets patients on Medicaid and other subsidized health care. The practice is jointly owned by husband-and-wife team Chris and Lezli Harvell -- he handles everything outside of the clinic, and she's a dentist.
Most dentists don't want to touch kids on Medicaid with a 10-foot pole, much less a dental scraper. But Chris Harvell believes that treating the underserved can make for good business. And in New Jersey, which has one of the worst records for pediatric dental care in the U.S., kids have so few options that a good provider, even to those with little income, can make a profit.
"I used to be deathly afraid of the dentist. I used to have tons of cavities," says Harvell, a former Booz Allen consultant turned business student turned entrepreneur.
Harvell tries to keep Dental Kidz's office inviting.? It's brightly lit, with an open floor plan, Crayola-colored seats for small patients, high ceilings, and mock hardwood floors. Mariah Carey's power pop version of "All I want for Christmas" is playing. Kids in the back squirm into their examination chairs, some are crying.
Despite his early fear of dentists, Harvell married one, and recognized a serious shortage of quality care in the Newark area. In 2008, before launching Dental Kidz, he crunched numbers that he requested from the state dental board and department of human services and found that there were about 210,000 children within a five-mile radius of the city, 40% of which receive Medicaid benefits, and only 15 pediatric dentists.
Medicaid's ups and downs
Nationally, dentists shy away from treating Medicaid patients. Many complain that this patient population has a far higher no-show rate than patients with private insurance, according to a May 2011 report called "The State of Children's Dental Health" from the Pew Center on the States. Those empty chairs eat at profits.
Medicaid compensation often falls woefully short of the cost of care: 33 states reimbursed under 60.5 cents for every dollar a dentist charged, according to the Pew study. The study also graded individual states' progress providing adequate pediatric dental care. New Jersey was one of five states to receive an F.
There is money in treating these patients, Harvell says, but getting it is a hassle. Dentists must wade through red tape for Medicaid reimbursement, says Richard Green, the managing director of public affairs for the American Dental Association. Many dentists, including American Dental Association president William Calnon, will treat Medicaid patients pro bono to avoid the inconvenience. "It's just not worth the headache," Green says, and many dentists figure that"it's better to get 100% of nothing, rather than working really hard to get 15 to 80% of something."
But 75% of Dental Kidz clients receive some kind of state subsidized dental care. This is not charity work; it's the foundation of the company's business. "In terms of having a practice like that," Green says, "the more you do, the easier it is."
Volume is the answer. Harvell sees opportunity in the same facts that deter so many dentists. He sees a group of patients who need care but aren't getting it. What's more, these patients tend to have more and more expensive problems than what is typical. The average age of the kids is four," Harvell says, "and the average number of cavities is eight. They only have 20 teeth!"
Dental Kidz patients have their first dentist visit much later than they should -- the American Dental Association recommends a child visit a dentist before the age of one. Because of this, along with poor education about proper nutrition and eating habits, patients often have advanced dental problems that require expensive procedures, which Medicaid does reimburse.
The key to profiting with patients who receive Medicaid or other subsidized care is getting enough of them in the door, then making sure those patients come back. Since Dental Kidz opened its doors in 2009, its patient population has grown from zero to roughly 6,600.
The limitations of the 'volume business'
While volume might be the key to financial success, this model has sunk other dental practices. In 2010, company Forba Holdings LLC, which owned a nationwide dental practice called Small Smiles, agreed to pay $24 million over five years to settle charges that it had advocated unnecessary procedures. Families of patients filed lawsuits claiming that dentists in Small Smiles offices were pulling healthy teeth and performing unneeded root canals for the sake of Medicaid money.
Many Medicaid patients have received sub-par treatment at clinics, Harvell says. Diego Cobo's grandmother, who was in the waiting room with Diego's mother and two siblings, told a couple of horror stories about other family members who had traumatic dental experiences. "This place is better," she says.
The office has a room to educate parents on oral care and nutrition. But does that kind of educational effort actually work? "After about the fourth or fifth visit, they get it," Harvell says. This gives enough lead-time to pull a substantial profit, while the information absorbs and before the patients' permanent teeth come in.
Harvell's business model is not for the faint of heart. "The first year, I called it 'Obama's ground game,'" Harvell says. "I Googled every competing office in the region. I visited 60% of them."
The pace is more manageable now, but business is booming. The clinic sees between 180 and 200 new patients per month. The company made $1.6 million in revenue for 2011, up from $500,000 at the end of 2009. Profit margins have also increased, up from 24% in 2009 to 47% this past year.
The most expensive part of the business is actually its staff, which accounts for 40% of Dental Kidz's overall expenditure, Harvell says. To attract talent to work so hard in a demanding environment, Harvell has set up a student loan forgiveness plan for his staff, the only one in the state for a private practice, he says. The state will pay $120,000 towards staff members' dental school loans over four years. Hiring can be a challenge, Harvell says. You can't be a tough guy with a heart of gold. You have to be outgoing, to love kids ? you have to be able to handle noise.
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Sunday 22 January 2012
Pro-Gbagbo rally attacked, many injured (AP)
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast ? Numerous supporters of ex-President Laurent Gbagbo were injured when their rally was attacked on Saturday, according to the United Nations.
A statement issued by the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Ivory Coast said that "many were injured" during the meeting of the Ivorian Popular Front party, known by its French acronym of FPI.
For 10 years, the Gbagbo-led FPI dominated the political scene in this former French colony in West Africa. The party has been reduced to a shell of its former self ever since Gbagbo was forced from power last April.
Reached by telephone, FPI spokesman Augustin Guehoun said that U.N. peacekeepers provided security for the rally, but armed intruders were able to gain access to the crowd, which had come to express support for Gbagbo.
"We had all the authorization (required to hold a rally) but we were aggressed. They started throwing stones then they began shooting," Guehoun said.
Gbagbo was held under house arrest for seven months after being toppled by Alassane Ouattara's forces. He was transferred to The Hague in November, where he is now awaiting trial for crimes against humanity committed by his army in the standoff that followed the 2011 election.
Although Gbagbo lost that election, he refused to cede power, forcing Ouattara to enlist the help of a rebel army which removed the former leader with the help of U.N. airstrikes.
Human rights groups say that abuses have been committed by both sides, and now that Gbagbo has been removed, the worst atrocities are being committed by Ouattara's armed forces, who are accused of massacres, rapes and summary executions of Gbagbo supporters.
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Saturday 21 January 2012
Video: MTP Political Minute: David?s analysis
High stakes in South Carolina, where Republicans there have picked the party?s eventual nominee for the last 32 years. We?ll have complete analysis of the crucial contest and breakdown the results, including what they will mean for the road ahead. Joining us: Host of MSNBC?s ?Morning Joe,? Joe Scarborough, Republican strategist Mike Murphy, the BBC?s Katty Kay, and NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/vp/46072388#46072388
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Barn owl wing adapted for stealth
19 January 2012
Last updated at 07:53
Their screech is one of nature's eeriest sounds, but barn owls hunt in almost total silence.
Now researchers in Germany have revealed how the predators' wings are specially adapted to allow noiseless flight.
Their supreme stealth is thanks, largely, to their ability to fly so slowly - with relatively little beating of their wings.
And the shape and size of the owls' wings enables this very slow flight.
Dr Thomas Bachmann from the Technical University Darmstadt in Germany recently presented his study of barn owl wings at the Society for Integrative and Comparitive Biology's annual meeting in Charleston, South Carolina.
Continue reading the main story- Barn owls can locate their prey in total darkness, using only their hearing
- The owls' heart-shaped face works in a similar way to humans' outer ears - collecting and directing sound toward the inner ears
- Each of a barn owls' two ears is a slightly different size and shape, and one is higher on the bird's head than the other. The owls can analyse the differences in the sound received by each ear to automatically calculate the exact position of that sound-source
He explained to BBC Nature that barn owls were highly specialised nocturnal hunters.
"They hunt mainly in the dark, so visual information is very limited.
"They use acoustic information to locate their prey."
Their silent flight helps them listen for the scurrying of the voles they hunt for, and also reduces their chances of being heard by the prey as they approach.
To find out how they managed to fly so slowly and quietly, Dr Bachmann examined the birds' wings in minute detail.
He examined the plumage and took 3-D medical scans of their skeletal structure.
The wings' most important features, he explained, were the high curvature or "camber" of the wings. This curvature means that each wing beat produces more lift.
This is because, Dr Bachmann explained, the air flow is accelerated over the upper surface the curved wing. "So the pressure drops," he said. "[And] the wing is sucked upwards into the lower pressure on the upper wing surface."
The feathery edges of each wing are also extremely fine - reducing any loud turbulence during flight, explained Dr Bachmann.
"Friction noise between single feathers is also reduced [by] their velvety surface," he told BBC Nature.
In fact, Dr Bachmann explained, "all the body parts of the owl are covered by very dense plumage - owls have more feathers than other similarly sized birds".
This soft, dense plumage absorbs other sounds the birds make as they fly.
Dr Bachmann and his team say their eventual aim is to use the structure of barn owl wings to inform the design of new, much quieter airfoils for the aviation industry.
"We're trying to understand the basic principles... that influence the airflow over aircraft and thus reduce noise," he explained.
"[But] we are far away from that point. Maybe in 20 years we can present such a wing.
"Until then, we will conduct many more experiments on owl wings."
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/16593259
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Friday 20 January 2012
Texas grocer gets prison over food stamp fraud
BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) ? A South Texas grocer has been sentenced to almost four years in prison and must repay nearly $2.5 million over electronic food stamp fraud.
Prosecutors say 56-year-old Parviz Sheikh Rezaei ran Pariz Dollar Supermarket in Brownsville.
A federal judge in Brownsville on Tuesday sentenced the businessman to 46 months in prison.
Rezaei in August pleaded guilty in the fraud investigation involving swapping card benefits from participants in the food stamp program for discounted amounts of cash. Prosecutors say Rezaei would then charge the government for the full value of the Lone Star card transaction.
Source: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/article/Texas-grocer-gets-prison-over-food-stamp-fraud-2606496.php
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Remains of the Day: Symantec Withheld Information Regarding Security Breach [For What It's Worth]
Symantec fesses up to several products being compromised, two Google contractors go off the reservation, and Airbnb joins the Android party.
- Symantec backtracks, admits own network hacked: Symantec confirms that source code from several Norton products has been stolen by a hacker and alerts pcAnywhere users to a heightened security risk. [Computerworld]
- Troubling Google Contractor Allegedly Caught Vandalizing Open Street Map: Two Google contractors in India have been identified for vandalizing Open Street Maps and have been removed from working on any further Google projects. It's possible these individuals could be responsible for the wrongdoing last week by Google contractors. [ReadWriteWeb]
- With Focus on International Expansion, Airbnb Comes to Android and Revamps Mobile Web Offerings: After great success on the iPhone, Airbnb has finally made its way to Android devices, noting the platforms worldwide reach. In addition, Airbnb has updated their webapp as well. [TechCrunch]
- Apple to Announce Tools, Platform to "Digitally Destroy" Textbook Publishing: Apple is rumored to announce this Thursday support for the ePub 3 standard for iBooks and software tools to create content for e-books. [Ars Technica]
- Google will protest SOPA using popular home page: Google will join the likes of Reddit, Wikipedia, Minecraft.net, and more in protesting SOPA and PIPA. However, Google will not go dark. They will instead post a link on their U.S. homepage stating their opposition to SOPA and PIPA. [CNET]
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Thursday 19 January 2012
British scientists rediscover 'lost' Darwin fossils
LONDON?? British scientists have found scores of fossils that were collected by the great evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin and his peers but were lost for more than 150 years.
Dr. Howard Falcon-Lang, a paleontologist at Royal Holloway, University of London, said Tuesday that he stumbled upon the glass slides containing the fossils in an old wooden cabinet that had been shoved in a "gloomy corner" of the massive, drafty British Geological Survey.
Using a flashlight to peer into the drawers and hold up a slide, Falcon-Lang saw one of the first specimens he had picked up was labeled 'C. Darwin Esq."
"It took me a while just to convince myself that it was Darwin's signature on the slide," the paleontologist said, adding he soon realized it was a "quite important and overlooked" specimen.
He described the feeling of seeing that famous signature as "a heart in your mouth situation," saying he wondering "Goodness, what have I discovered!"
Falcon-Lang's find was a collection of 314 slides of specimens collected by Darwin and other members of his inner circle, including John Hooker ? a botanist and dear friend of Darwin ? and the Rev. John Henslow, Darwin's mentor at Cambridge, whose daughter later married Hooker.
The first slide pulled out of the dusty corner at the British Geological Survey turned out to be one of the specimens collected by Darwin during his famous expedition on the HMS Beagle, which changed the young Cambridge graduate's career and laid the foundation for his subsequent work on evolution.
Falcon-Lang said the unearthed fossils ? lost for 165 years ? show there is more to learn from a period of history scientists thought they knew well.
"To find a treasure trove of lost Darwin specimens from the Beagle voyage is just extraordinary," Falcon-Lang added. "We can see there's more to learn. There are a lot of very, very significant fossils in there that we didn't know existed."
He said one of the most "bizarre" slides came from Hooker's collection ? a specimen of prototaxites, a 400 million-year-old tree-sized fungi.
Hooker had assembled the collection of slides while briefly working for the British Geological Survey in 1846, according to Royal Holloway, University of London.
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The slides ? "stunning works of art," according to Falcon-Lang ? contain bits of fossil wood and plants ground into thin sheets and affixed to glass in order to be studied under microscopes. Some of the slides are half a foot long (15 centimeters), "great big chunks of glass," Falcon-Lang said.
"How these things got overlooked for so long is a bit of a mystery itself," he said, speculating that perhaps it was because Darwin was not widely known in 1846 so the collection might not have been given "the proper curatorial care."
Royal Holloway, University of London said the fossils were 'lost' because Hooker failed to number them in the formal "specimen register" before setting out on an expedition to the Himalayas. In 1851, the "unregistered" fossils were moved to the Museum of Practical Geology in Piccadilly before being transferred to the South Kensington's Geological Museum in 1935 and then to the British Geological Survey's headquarters near Nottingham 50 years later, the university said.
The discovery was made in April, but it has taken "a long time" to figure out the provenance of the slides and photograph all of them, Falcon-Lang said. The slides have now been photographed and will be made available to the public through a new online museum exhibit opening Tuesday.
Falcon-Lang expects great scientific papers to emerge from the discovery.
"There are some real gems in this collection that are going to contribute to ongoing science."
Dr. John Ludden, executive director of the Geological Survey, called the find a "remarkable" discovery.
"It really makes one wonder what else might be hiding in our collections," he said.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46020014/ns/technology_and_science-science/
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Wednesday 18 January 2012
ZTE Warp Review
The market for prepaid cell phones continues to rise as more of us look for ways to reduce expenses in everyday life but no one wants to be stuck with a run of the mill phone because of it, right? Well lucky for us we have seen some more powerful Android handsets arriving in the pre-paid market, so you can now slash the price tag without giving up a whole lot when it comes to the device.
ZTE has recently released the Warp, a Gingerbread powered device with a 4.3-inch display that carries a rather affordable price tag of only $199 with no contract needed. Could a device at this price point hold up in comparison to others that have released recently? Let’s hit the break and break it all down.
  The ZTE Warp offers a great combination of nearly the most current OS (no ICS) along with a nice large display without breaking the bank. |  ZTE's record in Android has yet to be established here in the United States -- with U.S. carriers, so we are unsure what to expect as far as updates. |
  If money is a determining factor in your next cell phone purchase, but you don't want it to allow you to completely limit your purchase the ZTE Warp is a great device to consider. Keeping up with most of the specs of a high-end device, or an entry level price allows it to be ultra competitive in the market. | |
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/vPMsBvIuNw4/story01.htm
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Friday 13 January 2012
Oakland basketball teams featured on Fox Sports Detroit series
Oakland coach Greg Kampe talks with guard Reggie Hamilton. Photo courtesy of Oakland athletics
ROCHESTER ? Fox Sports Detroit will air three episodes of Oakland Basketball All-Access, beginning Thursday at 6:30 p.m. The show will be an inside look at Oakland Basketball and some features of Oakland athletics as a whole.
"This is a tremendous opportunity for the state of Michigan to witness what Oakland fans have come to know over the last decade or so since we have been competing in the Summit League," director of athletics Tracy Huth said. "We have special student-athletes that are driven to be successful on and off the floor."
The first episode will feature point guard Reggie Hamilton, along with profiles on both basketball coaches Greg Kampe and Beckie Francis. The show will also document travel inside The Summit League as the FS Detroit team traveled with the men's basketball team to Fargo, N.D. and Brookings, S.D.
The show will also have several re-airs throughout the rest of the month.
The second episode will launch in February and the third and final episode will take place in March.
Source: http://c.moreover.com/click/here.pl?r5723951203
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Thursday 12 January 2012
Wednesday 11 January 2012
Union Leader Publisher: Gingrich, Santorum, Perry Should Unite to Stop Romney
The publisher of New Hampshire's Union Leader newspaper told Newsmax Sunday that conservative candidates Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry soon may have to muster their forces and unite behind one conservative to challenge GOP frontrunner and moderate Mitt Romney.
The best candidate would be Newt Gingrich, Union Leader Publisher Joe McQuaid, a conservative kingmaker in New Hampshire's politcal scene, said in an exclusive interview.
That?s why his paper endorsed the former House Speaker in November. But any of those three conserviates would be a viable alternative to Romney, who McQuaid called the ?WORST candidate? and a ?disaster? for the GOP in a front-page editorial in his paper Sunday.
?At some point, the other conservatives ? Perry, Gingrich, Santorum ? are going to have to say, ?Let?s sit down and draw straws.' That?s the only way you?re going to stop Romney,? McQuaid said in an interview Sunday.
?All the so-called establishment Republicans seem to be moving in Romney?s direction. But I sincerely mean what I wrote on the front page. I think he would be the worst candidate,? McQuaid continued.
?Talk about the one vs. the 99 percent. I just don?t think Romney?s good. He?s so focused on just one of our problems ? the economy ? that versus a guy like Gingrich, who is a real forward thinker and will put out a lot of good ideas on a lot of subjects, it?s going to be tough.?
McQuaid also said that:
? Romney is a virtual shoo-in to win the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, though he doesn?t think he?ll garner the 40 percent many polls have him at right now. The other candidates failed to seriously hurt Romney in Saturday and Sunday?s debates.
? Santorum has failed to move beyond his social conservative base ? a smaller group among Republicans in New Hampshire compared to Iowa ? and hasn?t reached the ?unchurched? fiscal conservatives in the Granite State.
? Gingrich, Paul and Santorum will divide the second-place vote among conservatives in New Hampshire, who probably make up about one third of the voters who will cast ballots on Tuesday.
? Republicans may ultimately accept Romney as the nominee, but it could cost them the election because conservatives will not be motivated to turn out for him.
?Would Republicans accept Romney as the candidate? Yes,? said McQuaid. ?Turn out in droves for him in the fall? No. And I think that?s one of the problems. He does not light conservative fires whatsoever."
On Sunday, McQuaid wrote that ?Romney may be the WORST candidate? to pit against President Barack Obama. ?For one thing, his claimed record as a fiscally conservative governor is as much of a sham as his flipflops on social issues.
?He claims to have cut a $3 billion budget deficit without raising taxes,? McQuaid wrote. ?In fact, the deficit was one-third that size, and this supposed friend to business cut it by raising corporate taxes, along with taxes on New Hampshire commuters, by millions of dollars.
?Romney is a nice, rich man with a tin ear (he may or may not release his income taxes) and plenty of pals in the Republican in-crowd," the editorial continued. "Gingrich is a tough, smart Reagan conservative who brought his party out of 40 years in the wilderness, reformed welfare, and balanced the federal budget.
?Romney would be a disaster as the nominee. Gingrich would make an outstanding president at a time of crisis for America.?
If a Gingrich ran against Romney as the lone conservative candidate, McQuaid said Sunday, he would likely be the frontrunner. But for that to happen now, other coservatives are going to have to make the hard decision to step aside.
?I think there?s a possibility of that,? McQuaid said. ?They (Gingrich and Santorum) both understand that Romney is the guy and I think they may well figure out it?s best to put personality aside and decide who?s going to challenge him. I can see a conversation between Perry and Gingrich and Santorum about it.?
But that won?t change things in New Hampshire said McQuaid, who said he didn?t see any signs of an upset in the making. The weekend?s debates only solidified Romney?s lead.
?Although he (Romney) got whacked a couple of times, I don?t think it?s enough for his apparently overwhelming lead to change that much,? McQuaid said. ?Unless there?s a way for friends of Newt to come up with a lot of bucks to play on the ?pious baloney? line Newt used on Romney Sunday.?
?Romney didn?t fall down flat. The line in the press is going to be he withstood a thumping. Last night it was that nobody laid a glove on him though I don?t think anybody tried. Today it will be he withstood a thumping.
?Gingrich showed he?s the sharpest guy in the room but you only get so many questions thrown your way in one of those things.?
Conservatives make up probably about one-third of those casting their ballots on Tuesday, McQuaid said. Gingrich is weakened because he?s dividing that vote with Santorum, who isn?t a strong candidate.
?I think he (Santorum) is just not that deep,? McQuaid said. ?He doesn?t have that much strength in terms of people backing him. He?s a nice-enough guy, but why we (the Union Leader editorial board) didn?t go with him to begin with is that outside of the social conservatives, I think it?s tough for him to broaden his base.
?New Hampshire will either prove it or disprove it because New Hampshire is not socially conservative like Iowa is,? McQuaid said. ?There are a lot of voters who are unchurched and really care more about the fiscal issues.
?The average conservative voter in New Hampshire is not going to be attracted all that much to Romney. But the average conservative voter here may be a third of the potential turnout here on Tuesday.
?We just got rid of a Democratic legislature and we got a Democratic governor for life," McQuaid explained. "We have a Democratic U.S. Senator. It?s a moderate state. The Republicans tend to be more conservative, but it?s probably just one-third of those Republicans voting.
?I can?t believe the polls, that Romney is going to be as strong as the polls say," McQuaid added. "I just can?t believe that. That?s absurd to me.?
? Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Source: http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/gingrich-romney-santorum-union-leader/2012/01/08/id/423417
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Monday 9 January 2012
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Sunday 8 January 2012
Strikeforce postfight: ?King Mo? rips Mousasi and ?Rampage,? Rockhold still miffed about fighting Jardine and Columbus in March is official
LAS VEGAS - The Strikeforce postfight presser was unlike any we've seen in recent memory. The wins either came too easy or Scott Coker needs to bring in some new challenges.
Muhammed "King Mo" Lawal, Luke Rockhold and Tyron Woodley all sounded bored and uninterested about their future with the promotion. That's bizarre, since one of them has successfully defended his title just one time and the other two are without titles.
Lawal hammered on Gegard Mousasi, his possible challenger for the vacant 205-pound title. He was also asked about a crossover fight with UFC and PRIDE legend Quinton "Rampage" Jackson. King Mo responded by calling him a bum, washed up and a B-level actor.
At least King Mo got his dander up a bit. Rockhold couldn't get past the fact that he fought a guy in Jardine, who'd never fought for the promotion before, or down at middleweight.
"He was pretty tough. He was stronger than I thought he'd be in the clinch. I thought I could dominate a little more in the clinch," shrugged Rockhold. "It was somewhat of a test. A lot of guys couldn't finish him and I told you guys I was going to do what nobody else had done."
Rockhold also gave a half-hearted endorsement of Tim Kennedy being a worthy opponent suggesting he wasn't a very good stand-up fighter.
- Coker seemed to the suggest that the Strikeforce to UFC crossovers will no longer happen.
"The crossovers happened when there was a gray area over whether the Showtime contract was going to be renewed," Coker said. "Now that that's out of the way we're committed to building this league. We're going to continue to do that. That means bringing great fighters here. I think that's what you're going to see all year."
- Woodley vehemently defended his winning fight approach. A media member asked the welterweight contender why he was "reluctant" to stand with Jordan Mein.?
"When you coming forward especially with that kind of range you just don't want to engage in crazy combinations. So when he got within my range, I thought I did what I needed to do, take him down, ground and pound him," Woodley said. "I got the Compustrike [numbers] in my pocket if you want to check it out. I don't think I was reluctant to strike with him."
- Lawal and Rockhold, training partners at AKA, have quickly become pals. King Mo warned that if they're fighting on the same card again in the future, it's an automatic two wins. King Mo threw out nicknames like "Cookies and Cream" or "Domino."
- Strikeforce announced it'll be returning on Mar. 3 in Columbus, Oh. Four fights are officially booked for the Nationwide Arena. Ronda Rousey will challenge Miesha Tate for her 135-pound women's title. KJ Noons will battle Josh Thomson while Paul Daley faces Kazuo Misaki. Sarah Kaufman, another 135-pound contender will face Alexis Davis.
- Coker said the female title fight will not be the main event. The hope was that Strikeforce could finish off its heavyweight Grand Prix that night. Coker didn't sound optimistic about Daniel Cormier's broken hand being ready in time. The fight is eight weeks out and Cormier still hasn't been cleared by doctors.
- Some in the media were surprised that Daley was still fighting under Zuffa management. Coker simply said sometimes fighters lose their cool in the heat of the moment, referencing the sucker punch that Daley landed on Josh Koscheck at UFC 113. Daley was cut by Dana White, who said he'd never fight for the UFC again.
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Saturday 7 January 2012
Yahoo names PayPal's Thompson as CEO (Reuters)
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) ? Yahoo Inc named PayPal President Scott Thompson as its chief executive on Wednesday, hoping the well-regarded Internet technology and e-commerce expert will replicate his success at eBay Inc and turn around the struggling company.
Thompson, credited with driving growth at eBay's online payments division PayPal, joins Yahoo during a period of turmoil, as the company plows ahead with a strategic review in which discussions have included the possibility of being sold, taken private or broken up.
Yahoo shares finished Wednesday's regular trading session down 3 percent at $15.78, as Wall Street assessed how Thompson's hiring would affect the hopes of some investors that Yahoo would be sold or spin off its Asian assets, as well as how Thompson's background fits in with Yahoo's core online media business.
"It's a positive outcome, but not as positive as a sale of the company," said Lawrence Haverty, a fund manager with GAMCO investors, which owns Yahoo shares.
"The risk element is that his background was in payments. And this is not a payment company; it's a marketing, technology company," he said.
Thompson, a former Visa payments software platform designer, joins the company four months after the firing of previous CEO Carol Bartz as the one-time Web powerhouse Yahoo struggles to compete with newer heavyweights Google Inc and Facebook.
"I'm from Boston, we're the underdogs since the beginning of time. Hopefully that spirit has held through. I like doing complicated, very difficult, very challenging things," Thompson said in an interview.
Thompson, who takes over on January 9, will also join Yahoo's board. He ran eBay's PayPal since early 2008, and was previously its chief technology officer. Under his leadership, Yahoo said PayPal increased its user base from 50 million to more than 104 million active users. PayPal processed $29 billion in payments in the third quarter of 2011.
EBay's shares fell 3.8 percent as analysts said the online retailer would miss the respected Internet executive.
EBay Chief Executive John Donahoe told staff in an internal memo that Thompson's move was a "shock."
"Scott informed me Tuesday afternoon, saying that despite his passion for PayPal, this was an opportunity he felt he had to take," Donahoe said.
At PayPal, Thompson was known as a leader who was not afraid to make bold strategic bets. He came up with the idea of taking PayPal beyond its online stronghold and into the physical world by allowing PayPal payments in retail stores -- an opportunity analysts believe could prove much bigger than its existing business.
That kind of strategic risk-taking could be particularly useful at Yahoo. The Sunnyvale, California-based company, whose services include mail, search, news and photo-sharing, was a Web pioneer that grew rapidly in the 1990s. But in recent years, Yahoo has struggled to maintain its relevance and advertising revenue in the face of competition from rivals Google and Facebook.
"They really need that push to the next level," said Ryan Jacob, chairman and chief investment officer of Jacob Funds, which includes the Jacob Internet Fund and counts Yahoo as one of its largest positions.
"Ideally what they would do is rather than just follow where today's Internet leaders are moving, try to really be on that front edge," he said, citing Yahoo's need be better positioned in mobile, social networking and other fast-growing technology trends.
During a conference call on Wednesday, Thompson cited mobile as a key area that he expected to focus on at Yahoo, and he said he viewed the company's treasure trove data about its users as one of Yahoo's key assets. But he said it was too early to comment on his overall vision for the company.
NOT GOING PRIVATE
Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock told analysts on the joint conference call with Thompson that Yahoo has no intention of being taken private.
"If you want to look at it in a practical way, if you and I were to sit down tomorrow and say let's take this Company private, I think we have one hell of a challenge on our hands to do that," said Bostock.
The decision to appoint a new CEO is not expected to impact the strategic review, which includes Yahoo's ongoing dialogue with both China's Alibaba Group and its Japanese affiliate to slash its stakes in the two companies, sources close to the matter said.
Under the "cash rich split" plan being discussed, Yahoo would effectively transfer most of its 40 percent slice of Alibaba back to the Chinese company and all of its stake in Yahoo Japan to Softbank Corp in return for cash and assets.
A preliminary term sheet has been drawn up that broadly outlines the deal concept, said one of the sources.
"Everyone seems to be in agreement over it," the source said.
The question is whether a definitive agreement can be signed between the parties ahead of March 25 deadline when activist shareholders can submit director nominees to Yahoo's board and waging a proxy battle.
Alibaba has also hired a Washington lobbying firm in a sign that the Chinese e-commerce company would be willing to make a bid for all of Yahoo in the event that talks to unwind their Asian partnership fail.
"If they can successfully complete the Asian asset transactions, in a way that is beneficial to Yahoo shareholders, I think it will buy them some time and they'll have a chance to build for growth," said Jacob, of the Jacob Funds.
In 2008, Yahoo rejected an unsolicited takeover bid from Microsoft Corp worth about $44 billion. Its share price was subsequently pummeled during the global financial crisis and its current market value is about $20 billion.
Co-founder Jerry Yang stepped down in late 2008 after being severely criticized by investors for his handling of the bid. The company cut thousands of jobs and later agreed to an advertising and search partnership with Microsoft.
RALLYING THE TROOPS
One of Thompson's first orders of business at Yahoo may be to try to rebuild morale inside the nearly 14,000-person company, which has been beset by layoffs, management reorganizations and a revolving door of executive departures.
The company cannot compete with hot Web companies such as Facebook and Twitter when it comes to luring the most sought-after engineers and many of the staffers within the company have tired of the seemingly endless reorganizations and lost their competitive drive, said one Yahoo employee, speaking anonymously.
"There are fundamental cultural issues, there are people who are not motivated to do big things," the Yahoo employee said.
Thompson, 54, who speaks in a thick Boston accent, is described as calm under pressure and adept at energizing his team.
One of his signature management styles involves creating different groups, each tasked with achieving the same goal and pitting them against each other, said one PayPal manager who asked to remain anonymous.
"He's not afraid to experiment," the person said.
"He'll build teams that are both going after the same thing," the person said. The idea is "you guys go after the same thing, whoever does it better wins," the PayPal manager explained.
Thompson said in an interview that Yahoo was in a strong position with its large user base of more than 700 million people.
"The traffic itself that these sites generate is a very big number, the collection of assets that sit below this core business I think are not well understood and clearly have tremendous opportunity to be leveraged as we look forward to the future." (Additional reporting by Alistair Barr and Nadia Damouni; editing by Maureen Bavdek, Gunna Dickson, Bernard Orr and Andre Grenon)
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120105/bs_nm/us_yahoo
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Friday 6 January 2012
File:US Navy 041103-M-6237R-012 Cpl. James Wilkins, of Bellville, Texas, a rifleman assigned to 1st Battalion, 23rd Marines, provides perimeter security as a CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter lands.jpg
[unable to retrieve full-text content]
Source: commons.wikimedia.org --- Wednesday, January 04, 2012
removed Category:Military units and formations of the United States Marine Corps ; added Category:23rd Marine Regiment (United States) using HotCat ? Older revision Revision as of 04:10, 5 January 2012 Line 16: Line 16: [[Category:CH-53E Super Stallion]] [[Category:CH-53E Super Stallion]] ? [[Category:Military units and formations of the United States Marine Corps]] + [[Category:23rd Marine Regiment (United States)]] [[Category:M16 rifle]] [[Category:M16 rifle]] ...
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Leaping lizards and dinosaurs inspire robot design
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Public release date: 4-Jan-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Robert Sanders
rsanders@berkeley.edu
510-643-6998
University of California - Berkeley
Robots, like lizards, need a tail to remain upright when they stumble during leap
Leaping lizards have a message for robots: Get a tail!
University of California, Berkeley, biologists and engineers including undergraduate and graduate students studied how lizards manage to leap successfully even when they slip and stumble, and found that swinging the tail upward is the key to preventing a forward pitch that could send them head-over-heels into a tree.
The scientists subsequently added a tail to a robotic car they named Tailbot and discovered that it's not as simple as throwing your tail in the air. Robots and lizards have to adjust the angle of their tail just right to counteract the effect of the stumble. Given an actively controlled tail, even robots can make a leap and remain upright.
"We showed for the first time that lizards swing their tail up or down to counteract the rotation of their body, keeping them stable," said team leader Robert J. Full, UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology. "Inspiration from lizard tails will likely lead to far more agile search-and-rescue robots, as well as ones having greater capability to more rapidly detect chemical, biological or nuclear hazards."
Agile therapod dinosaurs like the velociraptor depicted in the movie Jurassic Park may also have used their tails as stabilizers to prevent forward pitch, Full said. Their tail movement is illustrated in a prescient sequence from the 1993 movie in which the animated animal leaps from a balcony onto a T. rex skeleton while chasing the lead characters.
"Muscles willing, the dinosaur could be even more effective with a swing of its tail in controlling body attitude than the lizards," Full said.
Full and his laboratory colleagues, including both engineering and biology students, will report their discoveries online on Jan. 5 in advance of publication in the Jan. 12 print edition of the journal Nature. The paper's first author, mechanical engineering graduate student Thomas Libby, also will report the results on Jan. 7 at the annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in Charleston, South Carolina.
From gecko toe hairs to tails
Full's research over the past 20 years has revealed how gecko toe hairs allow the animals to climb smooth vertical surfaces and, more recently, how their tails help keep them from falling when their feet slip and allow them to right themselves in mid-air. The research reported this week shows how the tail is used in leaping, providing inspiration for robots that can deal with tumbles that are inevitable if, for example, they are exploring rubble during search and rescue operations.
The new research tested a 40-year-old hypothesis that the two-legged theropod dinosaurs the ancestors of birds used their tails as stabilizers while running or dodging obstacles or predators. In Full's teaching laboratory, students noticed a lizard's recovery after slipping during a leap and thought a study of stumbling would be a perfect way to test the value of a tail.
In a research-based teaching lab associated with UC Berkeley's Center for interdisciplinary Bio-inspiration in Education and Research (CiBER), Full and his students used high-speed videography and motion capture to record how a red-headed African Agama lizard handled leaps from a platform with different degrees of traction, from slippery to easily gripped sandpaper.
They coaxed the lizards to run down a track, vault off an obstacle and land on a vertical surface with a shelter on top. When the friction on the obstacle was reduced, lizards slipped, potentially causing their body to spin out of control.
When the researchers saw how the lizard used its tail to counteract the spin, they created a mathematical model as well as Tailbot to better understand the animal's skills. With a tail but no feedback from sensors about body position, Tailbot took a nose dive when driven off a ramp, which mimicked a lizard's take-off. When body attitude was sensed and fed back to the tail motor, however, Tailbot was able to stabilize its body in midair. The actively controlled tail effectively redirected the angular momentum of the body into the swing of the tail, just as with leaping lizards, Full said.
Inertial assisted robotics
Tailbot's design pushed the boundaries of control in robotics in an area researchers call inertial assisted robotics, Full said, which drew the attention of attendees at last October's meeting of the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. Their paper, presented by Libby and fellow mechanical engineering graduate student Evan Chang-Siu, was one of five finalists in a field of more than 2,000 robot studies presented at the meeting.
"Engineers quickly understood the value of a tail," Libby said, noting that when he dropped Tailbot nose-down, it was able to right itself before it had dropped a foot. "Robots are not nearly as agile as animals, so anything that can make a robot more stable is an advancement, which is why this work is so exciting."
Full and his students are now investigating the role of the tail in controlling pitch, roll and yaw while running.
Full is enthusiastic about the interplay between biologists and engineers fostered in the CiBER lab, which provides undergraduate students with an opportunity to conduct cutting-edge research in teams with graduate students where each team experiences the benefits of how biologists and engineers approach a problem.
"This paper shows that research-based teaching leads to better learning and simultaneously can lead to cutting-edge research," Full said. "It also shows the competitive advantage of interdisciplinary approaches and how involvement of undergraduates in research can lead to innovation."
Last year, Full briefed the United States House of Representative's Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Education Caucus on this very topic.
"Learning in the context of original discovery, finding out something that no one has ever know before, really motivated me," wrote former UC Berkeley integrative biology undergraduate Talia Moore, now a graduate student in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. "This research-based lab course showed me how biologists and engineers can work together to benefit both fields."
###
UC Berkeley coauthors include Full, Libby and Chang-Siu, along with the Department of Integrative Biology undergraduate Deborah Li; former integrative biology undergraduate Talia Moore, now a graduate student in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University; and graduate students Ardian Jusufi in the Department of Integrative Biology and Daniel Cohen in the Department of Bioengineering.
The work was funded by the National Science Foundation, including NSF's Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program, and the Micro Autonomous Systems Technologies (MAST) consortium, a large group of researchers funded in part by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory that is focused on creating autonomous sensing robots.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 4-Jan-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Robert Sanders
rsanders@berkeley.edu
510-643-6998
University of California - Berkeley
Robots, like lizards, need a tail to remain upright when they stumble during leap
Leaping lizards have a message for robots: Get a tail!
University of California, Berkeley, biologists and engineers including undergraduate and graduate students studied how lizards manage to leap successfully even when they slip and stumble, and found that swinging the tail upward is the key to preventing a forward pitch that could send them head-over-heels into a tree.
The scientists subsequently added a tail to a robotic car they named Tailbot and discovered that it's not as simple as throwing your tail in the air. Robots and lizards have to adjust the angle of their tail just right to counteract the effect of the stumble. Given an actively controlled tail, even robots can make a leap and remain upright.
"We showed for the first time that lizards swing their tail up or down to counteract the rotation of their body, keeping them stable," said team leader Robert J. Full, UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology. "Inspiration from lizard tails will likely lead to far more agile search-and-rescue robots, as well as ones having greater capability to more rapidly detect chemical, biological or nuclear hazards."
Agile therapod dinosaurs like the velociraptor depicted in the movie Jurassic Park may also have used their tails as stabilizers to prevent forward pitch, Full said. Their tail movement is illustrated in a prescient sequence from the 1993 movie in which the animated animal leaps from a balcony onto a T. rex skeleton while chasing the lead characters.
"Muscles willing, the dinosaur could be even more effective with a swing of its tail in controlling body attitude than the lizards," Full said.
Full and his laboratory colleagues, including both engineering and biology students, will report their discoveries online on Jan. 5 in advance of publication in the Jan. 12 print edition of the journal Nature. The paper's first author, mechanical engineering graduate student Thomas Libby, also will report the results on Jan. 7 at the annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in Charleston, South Carolina.
From gecko toe hairs to tails
Full's research over the past 20 years has revealed how gecko toe hairs allow the animals to climb smooth vertical surfaces and, more recently, how their tails help keep them from falling when their feet slip and allow them to right themselves in mid-air. The research reported this week shows how the tail is used in leaping, providing inspiration for robots that can deal with tumbles that are inevitable if, for example, they are exploring rubble during search and rescue operations.
The new research tested a 40-year-old hypothesis that the two-legged theropod dinosaurs the ancestors of birds used their tails as stabilizers while running or dodging obstacles or predators. In Full's teaching laboratory, students noticed a lizard's recovery after slipping during a leap and thought a study of stumbling would be a perfect way to test the value of a tail.
In a research-based teaching lab associated with UC Berkeley's Center for interdisciplinary Bio-inspiration in Education and Research (CiBER), Full and his students used high-speed videography and motion capture to record how a red-headed African Agama lizard handled leaps from a platform with different degrees of traction, from slippery to easily gripped sandpaper.
They coaxed the lizards to run down a track, vault off an obstacle and land on a vertical surface with a shelter on top. When the friction on the obstacle was reduced, lizards slipped, potentially causing their body to spin out of control.
When the researchers saw how the lizard used its tail to counteract the spin, they created a mathematical model as well as Tailbot to better understand the animal's skills. With a tail but no feedback from sensors about body position, Tailbot took a nose dive when driven off a ramp, which mimicked a lizard's take-off. When body attitude was sensed and fed back to the tail motor, however, Tailbot was able to stabilize its body in midair. The actively controlled tail effectively redirected the angular momentum of the body into the swing of the tail, just as with leaping lizards, Full said.
Inertial assisted robotics
Tailbot's design pushed the boundaries of control in robotics in an area researchers call inertial assisted robotics, Full said, which drew the attention of attendees at last October's meeting of the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. Their paper, presented by Libby and fellow mechanical engineering graduate student Evan Chang-Siu, was one of five finalists in a field of more than 2,000 robot studies presented at the meeting.
"Engineers quickly understood the value of a tail," Libby said, noting that when he dropped Tailbot nose-down, it was able to right itself before it had dropped a foot. "Robots are not nearly as agile as animals, so anything that can make a robot more stable is an advancement, which is why this work is so exciting."
Full and his students are now investigating the role of the tail in controlling pitch, roll and yaw while running.
Full is enthusiastic about the interplay between biologists and engineers fostered in the CiBER lab, which provides undergraduate students with an opportunity to conduct cutting-edge research in teams with graduate students where each team experiences the benefits of how biologists and engineers approach a problem.
"This paper shows that research-based teaching leads to better learning and simultaneously can lead to cutting-edge research," Full said. "It also shows the competitive advantage of interdisciplinary approaches and how involvement of undergraduates in research can lead to innovation."
Last year, Full briefed the United States House of Representative's Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Education Caucus on this very topic.
"Learning in the context of original discovery, finding out something that no one has ever know before, really motivated me," wrote former UC Berkeley integrative biology undergraduate Talia Moore, now a graduate student in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. "This research-based lab course showed me how biologists and engineers can work together to benefit both fields."
###
UC Berkeley coauthors include Full, Libby and Chang-Siu, along with the Department of Integrative Biology undergraduate Deborah Li; former integrative biology undergraduate Talia Moore, now a graduate student in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University; and graduate students Ardian Jusufi in the Department of Integrative Biology and Daniel Cohen in the Department of Bioengineering.
The work was funded by the National Science Foundation, including NSF's Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program, and the Micro Autonomous Systems Technologies (MAST) consortium, a large group of researchers funded in part by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory that is focused on creating autonomous sensing robots.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/uoc--lla123111.php
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