bananas
bananas's JournalApartheid divestment spurs Beyond Coal campaign
Apartheid divestment spurs Beyond Coal campaign
By Sarah Niss | The Daily Tar Heel
Updated: 03/21/13 10:45pm
Students calling for UNC to divest from coal are looking to the 1980s for inspiration in their ongoing campaign asking administrators to take a moral stance on climate change.
In 1987, student-led protests culminated in UNC divesting funds from companies doing business in South Africa in response to apartheid.
And now, Stewart Boss, events coordinator of the Sierra Student Coalition’s Beyond Coal campaign and a Daily Tar Heel columnist, said the campaign is urging the University to divest from coal to set an example.
Jim Leloudis, a history professor and associate dean of UNC’s honors department, said divestment campaigns in general call into question the ethical responsibility universities have in controversial areas.
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Rudi Colloredo-Mansfeld, co-president of the Campus Y during the time of the campaign and now a professor of anthropology at UNC, said the shantytown was essential in inspiring campus awareness of an international issue.
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Wow - remember the campus shanty-towns?
Administration confirms NASA plan: Grab an asteroid, then focus on Mars
Source: NBC
NASA's accelerated vision for exploration calls for moving a near-Earth asteroid even nearer to Earth, sending out astronauts to bring back samples within a decade, and then shifting the focus to Mars, a senior Obama administration official told NBC News on Saturday.
The official said the mission would "accomplish the president's challenge of sending humans to visit an asteroid by 2025 in a more cost-effective and potentially quicker time frame than under other scenarios." The official spoke on condition of anonymity because there was no authorization to discuss the plan publicly.
The source said more than $100 million would be sought for the mission and other asteroid-related activities in its budget request for the coming fiscal year, which is due to be sent to Congress on Wednesday. That confirms comments made on Friday by Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., a one-time spaceflier who is now chairman of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Science and Space. It also confirms a report about the mission that appeared last month in Aviation Week.
The asteroid retrieval mission is based on a scenario set out last year by a study group at the Keck Institute for Space Studies. NASA's revised scenario would launch a robotic probe toward a 500-ton, 7- to 10-meter-wide (25- to 33-foot-wide) asteroid in 2017 or so. The probe would capture the space rock in a bag in 2019, and then pull it to a stable orbit in the vicinity of the moon, using a next-generation solar electric propulsion system. That would reduce the travel time for asteroid-bound astronauts from a matter of months to just a few days.
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Read more: http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/06/17630481-administration-confirms-nasa-plan-grab-an-asteroid-then-focus-on-mars
Are you selling DU?
I was telling someone about the changes at DU, and he said it sounded like you might be selling the place.
UW researchers want to power Mars mission with fusion
UW researchers want to power Mars mission with fusion
By AUBREY COHEN, SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF
Published 10:22 pm, Thursday, April 4, 2013
Researchers at the University of Washington and a Redmond company are working on a fusion-powered rocket that could one day carry people to Mars, the university announced Thursday.
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The researchers have devised a system in which a powerful magnetic field causes large metal rings to implode around specially developed plasma, compressing it to a fusion state, according to UW. The rings would then merge to form a shell that ignites the fusion for a few microseconds, heating and ionizing the shell. This super-heated, ionized metal would be ejected out of the rocket nozzle at a high velocity, propelling the spacecraft. This process would be repeated every minute or so.
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The researchers have demonstrated successful lab tests of all portions of the process, according to the UW. Now, the key will be combining each isolated test into a final experiment that produces fusion using this technology, Slough said. He hopes to be ready for a first test at the end of the summer.
NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts Program is funding the project. At a NASA symposium last month, Slough and his team presented their mission analysis for a trip to Mars, along with detailed computer modeling and initial experimental results.
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A concept image of a spacecraft powered by a fusion-driven rocket. In this image, the crew would be in the forward-most chamber. Solar panels on the sides would collect energy to initiate the process that creates fusion.
Photo: University Of Washington, MSNW
A few things everyone ought to know (about nuclear abolition)
A high-school student in New Zealand produced this for her social studies class.
I came across this on ICAN's facebook page,
I had to watch it after reading this comment:
"Wow! This is great. Very clear. I will use it with my students. Well done."
I agree, it is very well done, so I posted it here.
Via http://www.facebook.com/icanw.org/posts/508855889151713
New WikiLeaks cable reveals US embassy strategy to destabilize Chavez government
Source: Russia Today
In a secret US cable published online by WikiLeaks, former ambassador to Venezuela, William Brownfield, outlines a comprehensive plan to infiltrate and destabilize former President Hugo Chavez' government.
Dispatched in November of 2006 by Brownfield -- now an Assistant Secretary of State -- the document outlined his embassy’s five core objectives in Venezuela since 2004, which included: “penetrating Chavez’ political base,” “dividing Chavismo,” “protecting vital US business” and “isolating Chavez internationally.”
The memo, which appears to be totally un-redacted, is plain in its language of involvement in these core objectives by the US embassy, as well as the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI), two of the most prestigious agencies working abroad on behalf of the US.
According to Brownfield, who prepared the cable specifically for US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), the “majority” of both USAID and OTI activities in Venezuela were concerned with assisting the embassy in accomplishing its core objectives of infiltrating and subduing Chavez’ political party:
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Read more: http://rt.com/news/wikileaks-venezuela-us-chavez-358/
Full copy of memo here: http://www.cablegatesearch.net/cable.php?id=06CARACAS3356&version=1314919461
Via http://www.democraticunderground.com/110812229
"No sound strategic energy planning would prioritize nuclear energy in a country like Iran"
"Instead of enhancing Iran's energy security, the nuclear program has diminished the country's ability to diversify and achieve real energy independence."
That's from a report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Federation of American Scientists.
Reuters::
Iran's nuclear program entails huge costs, few benefits: report
By Yeganeh Torbati
DUBAI | Tue Apr 2, 2013 8:11pm EDT
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The report, entitled "Iran's Nuclear Odyssey: Costs and Risks", seeks to tabulate the opportunity costs of the nuclear program, and puts these at "well over $100 billion" in terms of lost foreign investment and oil revenues.
Relatively small uranium deposits will keep Iran from being fully self-sufficient in nuclear energy, it said, while Tehran has neglected to maintain existing infrastructure and develop other resources that could better secure its energy needs.
For instance, Iran's 1,000-megawatt Bushehr nuclear reactor, which came onstream in 2011 after repeated delays, accounts for just 2 percent of its electricity production, while about 15 percent of "generated electricity is lost through old and ill-maintained transmission lines", the report said.
Iran has vast oil and gas reserves, but sanctions have forced major Western firms to abandon the petroleum sector, making crucial upkeep difficult. Iran's solar and wind energy sectors have also gone undeveloped, the report said.
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The report is at http://carnegieendowment.org/2013/04/02/iran-s-nuclear-odyssey-costs-and-risks/fvui
PDF version: http://carnegieendowment.org/files/iran_nuclear_odyssey.pdf
International Space Apps Challenge
Source: NASA
The International Space Apps Challenge is an international mass collaboration focused on space exploration that takes place over 48-hours in 80 cities around the world (in 42 countries) on the weekend of April 20-21, 2013. The event embraces collaborative problem solving with a goal of producing relevant open-source solutions to address global needs applicable to both life on Earth and life in space. NASA is leading this global collaboration along with more then 150 partner organizations.
* Events will be held in 80 cities throughout 42 countries on all seven continents. Complete list here: https://spaceappschallenge.org/locations.
* 3,000 people have registered to participate as of today. We anticipate about 5,000 registrants overall.
* 50 challenges have been posted online at http://spaceappschallenge.org/challenges. There is quite a bit of conversation around these challenges online.
* Nathan Bergey created a beautiful visualization of 1,129,177 Astronaut photos taken from the International Space Station, which serves as an example of what can be done at #spaceapps: http://open.nasa.gov/blog/2013/04/02/a-million-iss-images/
* Over 150 partners are supporting the 80 events. All partners listed here: http://spaceappschallenge.org/about/partners/. Partners of note include:
1. Space Agencies: ESA, JAXA, CNES, JAXA, and UKSA
2. Government Agencies: US Department of State, National Science Foundation (NSF), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Department of Energy (DOE), General Services Administration (GSA), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), UK Met Office
3. Other Partners: Angry Birds Space, i.am.angel, Sally Ride Science Center
* We are rolling out new features on the website daily: http://spaceappschallenge.org. Useful Links:
- Website: http://spaceappschallenge.org
- Challenges: http://spaceappschallenge.org/challenges
- Locations: http://spaceappschallenge.org/locations/
- People: http://spaceappschallenge.org/people/
* A few videos have been released publicly about the event.
1. A great video by ESA's Filippo Angelucci:
- There is the summary "Space Apps Challenge in 51 seconds"
- We also have this great multi-lingual video from last year that we may refer to in the media: )
Read more: http://spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=43744
US World's Largest Exporter of Sperm
US World's Largest Exporter of Sperm
Apr 3, 2013 11:54 AM ET // by Tracy Staedter
Look out foreign ovum, that’s an American sperm headed your way.
Sperm from the United States is making its way overseas in great quantities. According to this article on The Verge, tens of thousands of vials of sperm depart the country every year. The reasons, say Brooke Jarvis include:
Good ethnic diversity. The immigration history in the United States means a lot of ethnicities are represented. Jarvis says, “For would-be mothers from other parts of the world, this can give US product a leg up over places like Denmark, another sperm exporting powerhouse.”
High standards. Donors are screened and FDA regulates sperm as if it’s human tissue like organs. Once a sample is produced, the sperm are counted under a microscope to determine if it’s of good quality. If there are more alive cells then dead ones, the sample gets a passing grade. It’s put into a centrifuge that removes blood cells, seminal fluid and other unwanted particles and then frozen in liquid nitrogen.
Large donor pool. Because men can donate anonymously and be paid for doing so, there is a larger donor pool than in other countries.
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Future Forum Presents Admiral Bobby Ray Inman - LBJ Library, March 26, 2013
http://vimeo.com/63111683Future Forum Presents Admiral Bobby R. Inman
Mar 26, 2013
Admiral Bobby R. Inman joined us to share his view of the world, touching on U.S-Chinese relations, nuclear talks in Iran, and other international issues.
Admiral Inman served in the U.S. Navy from November 1951 to July 1982, when he retired with the permanent rank of Admiral. While on active duty he served as Director of the National Security Agency and Deputy Director of Central Intelligence. He became an adjunct professor at the University of Texas at Austin in 1987, and was appointed as a tenured professor holding the Lyndon B. Johnson Centennial Chair in National Policy at the LBJ School of Public Affairs in August 2001.
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