China Launches 1st Female Astronaut and 2 Men to Space Lab

This story was updated at 9:29 a.m. ET.

China launched three astronauts into space Saturday (June 16), kicking off an ambitous test mission that marks the country's first attempt to dock a manned spaceship in orbit and its first flight of a female astronaut.

The Chinese astronauts rode into orbit aboard the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft, which lifted off atop a Long March 2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China's northern Gansu province at 6:37 p.m. local time (6:37 a.m. EDT; 1037 GMT).

If all goes according to plan, Shenzhou 9 will soon link up with the unmanned Tiangong 1 space lab, and China will become the third nation ? after the United States and Russia ? to perform a manned docking in Earth orbit.

The mission is considered a key step in China's ambitious space plans, which include the construction of a permanently staffed space station by 2020 and a manned moon landing sometime after that.

"The launch of the Shenzhou 9 is a highly influential event that marks an important milestone for the development of China's space technology," Cui Jijun, director of the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, said Wednesday (June 13), according to the nation's state-run Xinhua news agency. [Liftoff! Launch Photos for China's Shenzhou 9 Mission]

Historic mission

Once Shenzhou 9 reached orbit, cheers rang out at China's launch control center and Chang Wanquan, China's manned spaceflight program chief, declared the liftoff a success.

China's president Hu Jintao commended the launch in a letter from Denmark, where he is currently paying a state visit to Copenhagen.

"I?feel very glad to hear the success of launching the Shenzhou 9 manned spacecraft," Hu said in the letter, which was read by China state councilor Liu Yandong at the Jiuquan launch center shortly after liftoff.

The three taikonauts, as Chinese astronauts are known, include Jing Haipeng, Liu Wang and Liu Yang. The astronauts, clad in spacesuits, offered a salute as their rocket launched into space, then waved to cameras after reaching orbit.

Jing is China's first taikonaut to launch to space twice. He also flew on the Shenzhou 7 mission in 2008, which featured the country's first spacewalk. Liu Wang is a senior colonel in the People's Liberation Army making his first spaceflight.

Like her two male colleagues, Liu Yang, 33, is a former pilot with the People's Liberation Army and a member of the Communist Party of China.

Liu Yang is China's first female astronaut, and she blasted off on a historically appropriate anniversary. Forty-nine years ago today, on June 16, 1963, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space; she ended up orbiting Earth nearly 50 times during her three-day mission.

The United States didn't launch a female astronaut until 1983, when Sally Ride flew on the space shuttle Challenger's STS-7 mission.

The Shenzhou 9 crew will remain in space for 13 days, Chinese space officials have said. During this time, they'll perform at least two separate dockings with Tiangong 1, a prototype space module that launched last September. The first docking will be automated, but then the two vehicles will separate to give the taikonauts a chance to drive.

"Then the astronauts will control the spaceship autonomously and realize manual rendezvous and docking with the target vehicle and form the complex again," said Wu Ping, spokeswoman for China's Manned Space Engineering Office, which oversees China's human spaceflight program.

The crewmembers will also "conduct scientific experiments, technological experiments, exercise and rest in Tiangong 1 target vehicle" during the mission, she added.

While Shenzhou 9's flight is China's first attempt at a crewed space docking, the nation has successfully linked up two robotic spacecraft in orbit. In November, the unmanned Shenzhou 8 craft docked twice with Tiangong 1 before returning safely to Earth.

The various Shenzhou docking missions are seen as important steps along the path to building a permanent space station in orbit. China hopes to have a 60-ton station up and running by 2020. (For comparison, the $100 billion International Space Station weighs about 430 tons.)

China's big space plans

The space-station effort is part of China's bold human spaceflight plans. It's just the third country, after Russia and the United States, to develop spacecraft capable of flying humans to space and back. Before today, China had launched three manned space missions, one each in 2003, 2005 and 2008.

And China's space ambitions don't end in Earth orbit. The country also hopes to land a taikonaut on the moon sometime after its space station becomes operational, officials have said.

China is also ramping up its unmanned space activities and capabilities.

In December, for example, the country joined the United States and Russia as the only nations with operational homegrown satellite navigation systems. China's Beidou system is somewhat rudimentary at the moment, consisting of just 13 satellites and providing incomplete coverage.

However, China envisions a global system with more than 30 satellites by 2020. The country hopes Beidou's emergence will make it far less dependent on the GPS constellation, which is operated by the United States military and is currently the world's dominant satellite navigation network.

Follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+.

Copyright 2012 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

ohio primary cell phone jammer sandra fluke g8 summit netanyahu aipac vanessa minnillo

Facebook points at Nasdaq in legal motion

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

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

turkey recipes happy holidays norad how to carve a turkey how to cook a turkey yorkshire pudding larry the cable guy

MileHighGayGuy: Fatherhood, Part Two

By Todd Craig

?

As I said before, the word fatherhood carries some powerful connotations with it.

?

I know this because five and a half years ago, my husband and I became parents when we adopted an infant boy, and ever since, I?ve taken on the title of father to my son.

?

Let me first say that fatherhood shapes you unlike anything else. ?Things that used to be important, like which club you?d meet up at on Friday night, fade quickly into the past.? Routines and structure become more and more important. ?You start doing things that only responsible adults do like shopping for life insurance, reading the nutrition labels on your grocery store items, and talking about the importance of things like keeping yesterday?s pair of Lightning McQueen underwear from hanging off the bookshelf.

?

In short, you become a dad.

?

When I was single, I would always get to that point in the relationship where you start looking long term.? I was greedy, I would tell my prospective boyfriends.? I wanted the house, the fenced yard, and kids.? I wanted a family.

?

Most of the boys I dated would echo the same thoughts, but from their mouths it always sounded more like an echo than an honest statement of desire.? How many of them felt as seriously as I did about having a family? ?I don?t know.?

?

?

We hired an adoption agency up in Denver about six months later.

?

The agency had never worked with two dads before. They told us they only worked with fifty couples at a time and profiled couples that had been on the list the longest to prospective birth mothers first.? They told us that the average wait for a couple was approximately a year, but because we were a gay male couple, the wait time might double for us.? ?Undeterred, we filled out the forms that summer knowing that we could use the years of waiting to get ourselves emotionally and financially as prepared as possible.

?

Four months later in October, a birth mother picked us.

?

She gave birth on Halloween. That weekend, she asked to meet us before going through with the adoption. We met at a local restaurant. There we held this beautiful little three-day old baby boy in our arms.

?

We left without hearing a decision. We arrived home and sat on the sofa in a silent ball of emotions for a couple of hours.? We put in a DVD to kill time and fill the dead air.? It didn?t help.

?

?

Then the phone rang. ?

?

We were dads.

?

We picked up our son that Sunday.? He was five days old.

?

Those first few years flew by in a blur of sleepless nights with a crying baby, and endless trips to our local Target for formula and diapers.? Life as we had known it was wiped out in a nuclear explosion called fatherhood. More than once, we would exchange what-the-hell-did-we-get-ourselves-into types of glances at hearing the 3 a.m. cries echoing down the hallway.

?

But just when we were about to snap our mental caps, our little guy started sleeping through the night.? Soon, he was growing, babbling a few words, and crawling his way straight into our hearts.

?

Now that he?s age five and a half, I find that the role of dad to this little boy has grown in significance.? He wants me to throw the football with him in the back yard; he follows me throughout the day just happy to be in my presence.? I am constantly aware of how this little boy looks up to my person, repeats the words that I say, and takes his cues from my actions.

?

He?s five and a half now.? If I?m lucky, I?ll have another twelve to thirteen years or so to teach him the things that he?ll need to be a man.? I want to instill so much into my son.? I want him to demonstrate respect.? I want him to make change for a dollar in his head.? I want him to open doors for ladies, read passionately, and laugh at his mistakes while still learning from them.? I want him to fight through the tough times, take advantage of the quiet times, and pursue his passions with undeniable enthusiasm and energy.? I want him to feel at home in nature, to stand up for the little guy, and to know the words to at least three Adele songs.? He should be able to throw a football in a tight spiral, to dance without looking too foolish, and to feel the love and support of his parents each and every day of his life. ?I want him to bound out of bed like he does now, ready for life and ready for fun.? I want him to be excited for ladybugs, homemade sugar cookies, and Christmas presents ? even when he?s 18.? I want him to play more board games than video games.? I want him to love his Buzz Lightyear, Woody, and Lightning McQueen toys for another ten years. After all, we have a fuck-ton of money spent on those.

?

Is all of that too much to teach to one boy?? And how in the hell did my dad do all of this??

?

So now my husband and I find ourselves stressing things like being polite and teaching him how to open the door for others, and even though he tends to block the doorway with his little body, he gets the idea.? The highlight of my day is reading his favorite bedtime stories at night, and he loves picking out the story for the night by himself.? We get excited taking him to movies, volunteering in his classroom, and planning his birthday parties.

?

In short, fatherhood is what our lives are all about anymore.? Dance clubs, ten-dollar martinis, and tight shirts no longer exist in our world.? We may be gay dads, but it's that label of dads that defines us.

?

Recently, this was illustrated when we took a trip to Las Vegas for a convention for my husband?s work.? There?s a huge jewelry show there every year, and my husband couldn?t believe that he?d finally get to experience it for himself.

?

While we were a little nervous at leaving our son?s side for the first time in five years for the trip, it helped when we made arrangements with my parents to come down and watch him for the duration of the five-day trip.? It?s hard to be too traumatized with missing your parents when your grandparents are in town.? It probably also helps that visits from grandma and grandpa are slightly more lucrative than visits from Santa and the Easter Bunny.

?

?

Our biggest expense of the trip wasn?t money for the slot machines or the poker tables; it was our trip to the Disney Outlet.

?

When we our return flight finally touched down, we arrived home late at night, well after our son?s bedtime by a long shot. ??While we were tempted to sneak into his room and wake him up, we resisted the urge.? For as fun as it was being in Vegas, it sure felt good to get back home and back to being a dad.?

?

This last idea was driven home the next morning when I was woken up by a very soft kiss from a certain five-year old boy that afterwards whispered quietly into my ear, "I missed you while you weren't here, daddy!"

?

Damn.? Fatherhood is powerful stuff, but you know what?? We wouldn?t have it any other way.

sloth birth control pill recall ground hog day florida primary results black history groundhogs day paula abdul

Florida governor mistaken for dead in 2006 vote (Reuters)

Florida governor mistaken for dead in 2006 vote


By Michael PeltierPosted 2012/06/14 at 12:46 pm EDT

TALLAHASSEE, Florida, June 14, 2012 (Reuters) ? Florida's governor, who is leading a disputed purge of voter registration rolls, had to cast a provisional ballot in 2006 because officials mistakenly thought he was dead, election officials said on Thursday.

Governor Rick Scott was required to use a provisional ballot in the 2006 primary and general elections because Collier County election officials had received a Social Security Death Index Death Record that led them to believe he had died on January 27, 2006.

In fact the deceased was Richard E. Scott, who had the same birthday as the governor, December 1, 1952. The governor's full name is Richard Lynn Scott.

Election officials verified that Scott was among the living and his ballots were counted.

"I've been here for more than seven years and it's the first time I am aware of somebody who was removed for being deceased and it was a mistake," said Tim Durham, Collier County deputy election supervisor. "It was the exact same name, Florida resident, identical date of birth."

Scott took office in January 2011. Spokesman Lane Wright said the incident underscores the governor's contention that his push to purge the voting rolls of ineligible voters will not prevent eligible voters from casting ballots.

Florida's provisional ballot process allows contested voters to cast ballots and requires local election officials to verify their votes within 30 days.

"The system is set up so that people can vote," Wright said.

Over the past several weeks, the Republican governor has been at the center of the storm as state and federal agencies battle over a Scott-backed attempt to purge ineligible voters from the rolls. The Florida Secretary of State and the U.S. Department of Justice have traded lawsuits over the issue.

Critics said the Scott administration's effort to purge ineligible non-citizens from Florida's voter rolls relies on faulty data that threatens to disenfranchise legitimate voters. A federal court blocked enforcement of a Scott-supported law that put "harsh and impractical" limits on voter registration drives.

(Editing by Jane Sutton and Doina Chiacu)

Related Stories

Search NewsDaily

Number of stories in archives: 2,855


landon collins dorial green beckham mike kelly kristen bell colbert super pac colbert super pac sloth

Kevin Costner wins lawsuit brought on by Stephen Baldwin

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

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

limbaugh aaron smith wilt chamberlain joe arpaio cat in the hat green eggs and ham wiz khalifa and amber rose

Wall Street Week Ahead: Spain aid deal calms Europe fears

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

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

kindle fire review community matt schaub carrie underwood jessica simpson ryan seacrest

Team finds microbes in extreme environment on South American volcanoes

Monday, June 11, 2012

A team led by the University of Colorado Boulder looking for organisms that eke out a living in some of the most inhospitable soils on Earth has found a hardy few.

A new DNA analysis of rocky soils in the Martian-like landscape on some volcanoes in South America has revealed a handful of bacteria, fungi and other rudimentary organisms called archaea, which seem to have a different way of converting energy than their cousins elsewhere in the world.

"We haven't formally identified or characterized the species," said Ryan Lynch, a CU-Boulder doctoral student involved in the study. "But these are very different than anything else that has been cultured. Genetically, they're at least 5 percent different than anything else in the DNA database of 2.5 million sequences."

Life gets little encouragement on the incredibly dry slopes of the tallest volcanoes in the Atacama region, where CU-Boulder Professor Steve Schmidt and his team collected soil samples. Much of the sparse snow that falls on the terrain sublimates back to the atmosphere soon after it hits the ground, and the soil is so depleted of nutrients that nitrogen levels in the scientists' samples were below detection limits.

Ultraviolet radiation in the high-altitude environment can be twice as intense as in a low-elevation desert, said Schmidt of CU-Boulder's ecology and evolutionary biology department. While the researchers were on site, temperatures dropped to 14 degrees Fahrenheit one night and spiked to 133 F the next day.

How the newfound organisms survive under such circumstances remains a mystery. Although Ryan, Schmidt and their colleagues looked for genes known to be involved in photosynthesis and peered into the cells using fluorescent techniques to look for chlorophyll, they couldn't find evidence that the microbes were photosynthetic.

Instead, they think the microbes might slowly generate energy by means of chemical reactions that extract energy and carbon from wisps of gases such as carbon monoxide and dimethylsulfide that blow into the desolate mountain area. The process wouldn't give the bugs a high-energy yield, Lynch said, but it could be enough as it adds up over time. A paper on the findings has been accepted by the Journal of Geophysical Research-Biogeosciences, published by the American Geophysical Union.

While normal soil has thousands of microbial species in just a gram of soil, and garden soils even more, remarkably few species have made their home in the barren Atacama mountain soil, the new research suggests. "To find a community dominated by less than 20 species is pretty amazing for a soil microbiologist," Schmidt said.

He has studied sites in the Peruvian Andes where, four years after a glacier retreats, there are thriving, diverse microbe communities. But on these volcanoes on the Chile-Argentina border, which rise to altitudes of more than 19,685 feet and which have been ice-free for 48,000 years, the bacterial and fungal ecosystems have not undergone succession to more diverse communities. "It's mostly due to the lack of water, we think," he said. "Without water, you're not going to develop a complex community."

"Overall, there was a good bit lower diversity in the Atacama samples than you would find in most soils, including other mountainous mineral soils," Lynch said. That makes the Atacama microbes very unusual, he added. They probably had to adapt to the extremely harsh environment, or may have evolved in different directions than similar organisms elsewhere due to long-term geographic isolation.

Growth on the mountain might be intermittent, Schmidt suggested, especially if soils only have water for a short time after snowfall. In those situations, there could be microbes that grow when it snows, then fall dormant, perhaps for years, before they grow again. High-elevation sites are great places to study simple microbial communities, ecosystems that haven't evolved past the very basics of a few bacteria and fungi, Schmidt said.

"There are a lot of areas in the world that haven't been studied from a microbial perspective, and this is one of the main ones," he said. "We're interested in discovering new forms of life, and describing what those organisms are doing, how they make a living."

Schmidt's lab, along with others, is studying how microorganisms travel from one site to another. One common method of microbe transport is through the air -- they're caught up in winds, sucked up into clouds, form rain droplets and then fall back to the ground somewhere else as precipitation.

But on mountains like Volc?n Llullaillaco and Volc?n Socompa, the high UV radiation and extreme temperatures make the landscape inhospitable to outside microbes. "This environment is so restrictive, most of those things that are raining down are killed immediately," Schmidt said. "There's a huge environmental filter here that's keeping most of these things from growing."

The next steps for the researchers are laboratory experiments using an incubator that can mimic the extreme temperature fluctuations to better understand how any organism can live in such an unfriendly environment. Studying the microbes and finding out how they can live at such an extreme can help set boundaries for life on Earth, Schmidt said, and tells scientists what life can stand. There's a possibility that some of the extremophiles might utilize completely new forms of metabolism, converting energy in a novel way.

Schmidt also is working with astrobiologists to model what past conditions were like on Mars. With their rocky terrain, thin atmosphere and high radiation, the Atacama volcanoes are some of the most similar places on Earth to the Red Planet.

"If we know, on Earth, what the outer limits for life were, and they know what the paleoclimates on Mars were like, we may have a better idea of what could have lived there," he said.

###

University of Colorado at Boulder: http://www.colorado.edu/news

Thanks to University of Colorado at Boulder 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 30 time(s).

il postino online black friday deals college football scores maggie daley black friday online deals black friday news gamestop

Syrian troops renew shelling of Homs: 38 killed

BEIRUT (AP) ? Syrian government forces pounded parts of central Homs province Sunday in a renewed push to regain control of rebel-held territories, and activists said at least 38 people were killed by shelling there over the past 24 hours.

The main opposition group in exile, the Syrian National Council, elected a Kurdish dissident as its new leader in hopes of overcoming the disorganization and infighting that has hobbled the opposition since the popular revolt against President Bashar Assad began in March 2011.

The government assault focused on the town of Qusair, near the border with Lebanon, where activists reported at least six people died on Sunday. Three others were killed in in shelling of the town of Talbiseh, north of the city of Homs, according to the Britain-based activist group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"The mortars came down on Qusair by the dozens," said Abu al-Hoda, a Qusair-based activist. He said women and children have been huddled for days in basements of apartment buildings, too fearful to come out. On Saturday, 29 people died in violence across Homs province, according to activists.

Regime forces also unleashed a new round of heavy shelling and sent reinforcements to a mountainous area near the coastal city of Latakia, where hundreds of rebels have set up a base and fierce fighting has raged in recent days.

The fighting between government troops backed by helicopter gunships and armed groups in the area of Haffa began on Tuesday. Rami Abdul-Rahman, the director of the Observatory, said at least 58 soldiers have been killed and more than 200 wounded in the operation there since it began.

He said the heavy losses indicate the seriousness of the challenge in the mountainous area where "hundreds" of rebels are entrenched. His estimated death toll could not be independently verified.

State-run news agency SANA said "terrorist groups" in Haffa attacked public and private institutions on Saturday and committed "heinous" crimes against civilians, setting fire to the national hospital and forcing people to leave their homes. It said troops killed a number of them and arrested several others, adding it was still pursuing gunmen and working to restore security to the area.

Six children were among 10 people killed by a shell that exploded in a house where they had taken cover during the fighting in the region on Saturday, the Observatory said.

Activists claim more than 13,000 people have been killed in violence since the uprising began 15 months ago. International envoy Kofi Annan brokered a cease-fire that was supposed to take effect on April 12 but never really took hold.

Armed rebels have stepped up their attacks on government troops recently, taking their fight against Assad to the capital Damascus, which on Friday saw some of the most intense fighting since the uprising began.

In northern Syria, thousands took part Sunday in the funeral for nine people who died in reported shelling Saturday night of the town of Maaret al-Numan in Idlib province.

Amateur video posted online by activists Sunday showed a large crowd taking part in the funeral procession. The victims were placed on makeshift stretchers which were carried in the streets as people chanted and mourned their death.

The opposition Syrian National Council chose Abdulbaset Sieda, a 56-year-old activist who has been living for many years in exile in Sweden, as their new leader. He was the only candidate to replace liberal opposition leader Burhan Ghalioun for the three-month presidency. He was elected unanimously during an SNC meeting Saturday night in Istanbul that stretched into early hours Sunday.

The Paris-based Ghalioun had presided over the council since it was created last August but recently offered to step down over mounting criticism of his leadership and repeated renewals of his three-month term. Several prominent Syrian dissidents have quit the group calling it an "autocratic" organization no better than Assad's authoritarian rule.

They also complained the group was dominated by Islamists, including the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood.

The SNC's international backers have repeatedly appealed for the movement to pull together and work as one unit. The SNC itself has been plagued by infighting, hampering efforts by Western and Arab nations to help the opposition.

Sieda is a secular member of Syria's minority Kurdish community. He is seen as a neutral, consensus figure and has said his priority would be to expand the council to include more opposition figures, particularly from Syria's religious minorities.

In his first comments at a news conference in Istanbul, Sieda pledged to work on restructuring the SNC to make it more inclusive and to reach out to other groups within the opposition.

"We are now in the process of repairing the relationship between the SNC and the forces working inside Syria so that we may reach common grounds between us," he said. "There will be changes in the coming weeks both within the forces inside the SNC and the forces that will hopefully join the group," he added.

His elevation to the post of SNC chief could be part of an attempt to appeal to Syria's significant Kurdish minority, which has largely stayed on the sidelines of the uprising. The community is deeply suspicious that Sunni Arabs who dominate the opposition will be no more likely to provide them greater rights than what they have had under Assad's regime.

Sieda said he was already engaged in talks with the main Kurdish umbrella group, the Kurdish National Council, whose delegates walked out of an SNC gathering in March after the group ignored Kurdish demands it support political decentralization and Kurdish rights in a post-Assad state.

"He is an academic. He's also well-known, a moderate man. We shouldn't claim that he has Islamic tendencies or secular tendencies. He has been approved and accepted by everyone," Abdel Hamid Al Attassi, a member of the SNC, said of Sieda.

second degree murders bobby petrino brian dunn vin scully petrino fired george zimmerman charged tony romo

Michael Giltz: Paul Simon's "Graceland" Turns 25 -- Part Two: The Cultural Impact

2012-06-08-refdp_image_08.jpeg


PAUL SIMON: GRACELAND 25TH ANNIVERSARY
DELUXE BOXED SET:
$119.98
CD/DVD SET: $15.98
LP: $24.98

Paul Simon's album Graceland has turned 25 sounding better than ever. Its impact on music and culture is vast and any list of the best albums of all time looks silly if Graceland doesn't appear on it somewhere. The best selling solo album for an artist who continues to produce great music, Graceland is a landmark, but not one that has grown dusty with Importance. It's not just a "significant" work with historical meaning; it's also an exhilarating collection of songs as timeless and current as ever. This is the second of a four part series covering the boxed set, its cultural impact, the story of the boycott and the music itself. You can buy the album in any configuration from Paul Simon's website or any major outlet.

Part One: The Boxed Set Review

PART TWO: GRACELAND -- ITS CULTURAL IMPACT

Graceland forever changed the game when it came to raising the visibility of world music, making arguments about "authenticity" when it came to such music seem pointless and silly and helping to legitimize sampling.

No work of art exists in a vacuum. Obviously, many artists in the West drew inspiration from other cultures just as musicians in other cultures drew inspiration from the West. The Talking Heads, the Beatles and countless others dipped into the well of "world music." Heck, Simon himself had been doing so throughout his career. Also, artists from around the world would occasionally break onto the US pop charts, usually as an "exotic" novelty playing "genuine" folk music or under more traditional terms, like Edith Piaf, a French singer people could easily grasp. Record stores in major cities had world music sections. People listened to the music but it often had an aura of nobleness or academia.

Graceland changed all of that for good. The world music sections of record stores exploded in size. Artists who had always championed acts from around the world were able to redouble their efforts. Peter Gabriel and David Byrne launched record labels to do just that. If you were like me, once you became obsessed with Graceland and the music on it, you wanted to hear more. I ran out and bought The Indestructible Beat Of Soweto, Vol. 1, the first in a terrific series that is still an excellent introduction to the music of South Africa. It wasn't an education, however; it was fun. However raw or "exotic" the rhythms or instrumentation may sound, this was pop music. What matters is not how "genuine" music is but simply how good it is. Our ears would soon be opened to everything from Peruvian rock bands inspired by psychedelia to Bulgarian women's choirs that did indeed sound like a thousand year old tradition. Here's the second track on that album, Nelcy Seibe singing "Holotelani."

The album had no liner notes to speak of so I had only the vaguest idea that she was singing a daughter-in-law's praise song for a wedding, celebrating the cattle being given as a dowry, the bridegroom entering and the new in-laws that must be shown respect. Later I would learn this was a South African urban pop style known as mbaqanga. Sure it had roots in traditional folk music but it also mixed in jazz, blues, rhythm & blues from the US and more. The people performing with Simon weren't the hottest acts in South Africa at the time, really. Paul Simon had discovered a rich vein of music that had fallen a bit out of favor. According to Under African Skies, the documentary about the making of Graceland, many of the acts he worked with were passe; most of the hot bands were heavily into the funk music of George Clinton. All I knew for certain was that the entire compilation was compulsively listenable

People who accused Paul Simon of being a colonialist who crudely "stole" or perverted authentic music failed to understand that the artists he collaborated with were creating pop music themselves. Their music was inspired by Motown and Stax and a thousand other strands of popular music. If you live in Paris and don't speak English, why then Bob Dylan is world music to you. Byrne's label Luaka Bop reportedly kept a focus on its album cover art to make certain it was as modern as possible. They didn't want the music they were presenting -- like Brazilian pop on the seminal compilation Brazil Classics 1: Beleza Tropical -- to be seen as musty or anthropological. This wasn't music for scholarly erudition -- or rather not just for scholarly erudition. It was music to dance to, like Jorge Ben's infectious "Umbabarauma." Try not to move while hearing this.

So the covers they created were sexy and fun. Just like the music. When these artists were interviewed, their diverse range of influences made a mockery of the idea of purity. This growing awareness of music's journey around the world, how musical ideas leapfrogged from Africa to Cuba to New Orleans to New York to Paris and on and on freed up fans the way artists had always been free, to listen with open ears to anything from anywhere and not be worried about taking inspiration anywhere it could be found. Vampire Weekend? College preppies who took inspiration from the rhythms and sound of Soweto township jive? Why not?

While the documentary film's claim Simon launched hip-hop and sampling is far-fetched, he was an important influence. Simon was sampling the hard way. When he heard a track he liked, he didn't digitally sample it and manipulate the music to create something new. He invited the artist into the studio to perform that track again and rework and refashion it into something wholly new.

Graceland contains more songwriting credits for other artists than any other album in Simon's career. It was a true collaboration and not "sampling" in the sense we understand it today. But it did help to legitimize it artistically. No one could deny the brilliance of the music or the fact that it was unquestionably a Paul Simon album with Paul Simon songs. That voice and those lyrics are inimitable. But his approach to songwriting was radically new for Simon. He began with the rhythm and musical track and then wrote the lyrics later, often reshaping the tune along the way. It would define his approach to music for the next two decades.

Was he "cheating?" On Rhythm of the Saints, the opening track "The Obvious Child" begins with thunderous drumming Simon heard and recorded on the streets while traveling through Central and South America. He didn't write that drum pattern and the people who were jamming don't get songwriting credit, though they are credited as musicians on the album and did get financial recompense. Let's remember what a radically new idea this was for recorded popular music. Simon heard something, recorded it, fiddled and expanded it and made it the very tiny kernel of a song only he could have created. He credited the musicians and paid them but can you "steal" a drum sound you hear on the streets or sample it from an old album and loop it and claim to have created something new? Yes, of course you can. And before recorded music that's exactly how "authentic" folk music worked. People heard a song and learned it and maybe fiddled with the lyrics or melody and then passed it down to someone else.

Sampling isn't inherently artistic of course. Sometimes it's lame and reductive and depends too much on the original track. Sometimes it's brilliant and fresh. But it's definitely art and as long as sources are acknowledged and properly rewarded when necessary it's all good. Bitter court battles have determined what is legal and how much this or that artist deserves to get paid. But artistically, the idea of "stealing" someone's music by going into a studio and collaborating with them the way Simon did now seems absurd. The idea of "pure" music existing somewhere in the world when we can hear the cross-currents from culture to culture seems silly.

Many artists paved the way, many world music acts toured and became famous long before 1986. But Graceland took world music to another level, turning some of the acts on the album into international superstars, expanding everyone's appreciation for world music, establishing once and for all that music is music and anyone can dip into the stream and pull out whatever they need for artistic inspiration and that sampling is just another way of building on what's come before.

Here's Paul Simon's playful video for "You Can Call Me Al," the closest Graceland came to a hit in the US. It originally peaked at #44 in 1986, but was rereleased in early 1987 and went all the way to...#23. Ultimately Graceland sold 5 million copies in the US thanks to touring, constant media attention and word of mouth.

Part One: The Boxed Set Review
Tomorrow: Graceland -- The Boycott

Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the cohost of Showbiz Sandbox, a weekly pop culture podcast that reveals the industry take on entertainment news of the day and features top journalists and opinion makers as guests. It's available for free on iTunes. Visit Michael Giltz at his website and his daily blog. Download his podcast of celebrity interviews and his radio show, also called Popsurfing and also available for free on iTunes. Link to him on Netflix and gain access to thousands of ratings and reviews.

Note: Michael Giltz was provided with a free copy of the deluxe boxed set with the understanding that he would be writing a review.

?

Follow Michael Giltz on Twitter: www.twitter.com/michaelgiltz

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

one direction tulsa news scalloped potatoes the ten commandments charlton heston moses tulsa shooting