New York's annual EDM fest gets off to an electrifying start as 40,000 fans pack Citi Field.
By Sarah Harper
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1707611/electric-daisy-festival-2013-steve-angello.jhtml
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"Listening to the nightly news, this appears to be just the latest example of a culture of cover-ups and political intimidation in this administration. It seems like the truth is hidden from the American people just long enough to make it through an election." ? Republican Dave Camp, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, speaking about the IRS scandal and two other issues plaguing the White House.
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"If this hearing becomes essentially a bootstrap to continue the campaign of 2012 and to prepare for 2014, we will be making a very, very serious mistake." Democratic Rep. Sander Levin speaking during the Ways and Means Committee hearing on the IRS scandal..
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"Everybody seemed pretty calm. Everybody was thankful they didn't get seriously hurt. They were anxious to get home to their families."? Bridgeport Police Chief Joseph Gaudett after two commuter trains serving New York City collided in Connecticut during rush hour, sending 60 people to the hospital.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/quotations-day-070627283.html
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New discovery of ancient diet shatters conventional ideas of how agriculture emerged
Friday, May 17, 2013Archaeologists have made a discovery in southern subtropical China which could revolutionise thinking about how ancient humans lived in the region.
They have uncovered evidence for the first time that people living in Xincun 5,000 years ago may have practised agriculture ?before the arrival of domesticated rice in the region.
Current archaeological thinking is that it was the advent of rice cultivation along the Lower Yangtze River that marked the beginning of agriculture in southern China. Poor organic preservation in the study region, as in many others, means that traditional archaeobotany techniques are not possible.
Now, thanks to a new method of analysis on ancient grinding stones, the archaeologists have uncovered evidence that agriculture could predate the advent of rice in the region.
The research was the result of a two-year collaboration between Dr Huw Barton, from the School of Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Leicester, and Dr Xiaoyan Yang, Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Beijing.
Funded by a Royal Society UK-China NSFC International Joint Project, and other grants held by Yang in China, the research is published in PLOS ONE.
Dr Barton, Senior Lecturer in Bioarchaeology at the University of Leicester, described the find as 'hitting the jackpot': "Our discovery is totally unexpected and very exciting.
"We have used a relatively new method known as ancient starch analysis to analyse ancient human diet. This technique can tell us things about human diet in the past that no other method can.
"From a sample of grinding stones we extracted very small quantities of adhering sediment trapped in pits and cracks on the tool surface. From this material, preserved starch granules were extracted with our Chinese colleagues in the starch laboratory in Beijing. These samples were analysed in China and also here at Leicester in the Starch and Residue Laboratory, School of Archaeology and Ancient History.
"Our research shows us that there was something much more interesting going on in the subtropical south of China 5,000 years ago than we had first thought. The survival of organic material is really dependent on the particular chemical properties of the soil, so you never know what you will get until you sample. At Xincun we really hit the jackpot. Starch was well-preserved and there was plenty of it. While some of the starch granules we found were species we might expect to find on grinding and pounding stones, ie. some seeds and tuberous plants such as freshwater chestnuts, lotus root and the fern root, the addition of starch from palms was totally unexpected and very exciting."
Several types of tropical palms store prodigious quantities of starch. This starch can be literally bashed and washed out of the trunk pith, dried as flour, and of course eaten. It is non-toxic, not particularly tasty, but it is reliable and can be processed all year round. Many communities in the tropics today, particularly in Borneo and Indonesia, but also in eastern India, still rely on flour derived from palms.
Dr Barton said: "The presence of at least two, possibly three species of starch producing palms, bananas, and various roots, raises the intriguing possibility that these plants may have been planted nearby the settlement.
"Today groups that rely on palms growing in the wild are highly mobile, moving from one palm stand to another as they exhaust the clump. Sedentary groups that utilise palms for their starch today, plant suckers nearby the village, thus maintaining continuous supply. If they were planted at Xincun, this implies that 'agriculture' did not arrive here with the arrival of domesticated rice, as archaeologists currently think, but that an indigenous system of plant cultivation may have been in place by the mid Holocene.
"The adoption of domesticated rice was slow and gradual in this region; it was not a rapid transformation as in other places. Our findings may indicate why this was the case. People may have been busy with other types of cultivation, ignoring rice, which may have been in the landscape, but as a minor plant for a long time before it too became a food staple.
"Future work will focus on grinding stones from nearby sites to see if this pattern is repeated along the coast."
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University of Leicester: http://www.leicester.ac.uk
Thanks to University of Leicester for this article.
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21 hours ago
A Mighty Girl
Merida, left, dressed to impress, and from the film.
It?s the before-and-after makeover heard around the world.
When Princess Merida of ?Brave? was crowned the 11th princess at Walt Disney World this weekend, she had a new look that included not only a tiny waist, sultry eyes, and cleavage but also the teal gown that the feisty tomboy so detested in the Oscar-winning movie. It was as if Merida stepped onto the cover of ?Vogue? magazine and her rebellious spirit was photo-shopped right out of the red-headed heroine.
Nearly 212,000 of her fans weren?t having it. Through a Change.org petition, ?Keep Merida Brave,? girl empowerment blog ?A Mighty Girl,? demanded that Disney reconsider the redesign. By Wednesday, word had spread on the Internet that Disney had removed the sexified image from its official princess website, and the movement declared itself victorious.
But much of it has turned out to be as fictitious as the bow-and-arrow-carrying princess herself. The party girl image of Merida was never used on Disney?s official sites or Facebook pages, a Disney spokesperson told NBCNews.com Thursday.
?The artwork used on Merida?s official social media sites has always been the imagery from the movie ? there have been no changes," a Disney spokesperson said in a statement. "We routinely use different art styles with our characters and this rendition of Merida in her party dress was a special one-time effort to commemorate her coronation. Merida exemplifies what it means to be a Disney Princess through being brave, passionate and confident and she remains the same strong and determined Merida from the movie whose inner qualities have inspired moms and daughters around the world. ?
Merida?s new look was created for her "special coronation" and is intended to be used in a limited product line this summer and fall. Her image on her official princess page will remain intact, the spokesperson said.
?For a wedding or prom, even a tomboy is going to dress up for a special occasion,? a source familiar with the product line said, describing the idea behind Merida?s newfound glamour. ?That doesn?t change who she is or who she will continue to be or who she remains on the Disney web sites or in most of the products.?
Disney typically creates multiple artwork for each character to use in different platforms for different reasons. But the main look is always the look that everyone knows, the source said.
?It?s not like you walk into the toy aisle and Merida?s flipped over completely to this new look,? the source said. ?This was a one-time special occasion effort.?
Still, the backlash against Merida?s transformation is understandable considering that she was created as an ?anti-princess? of sorts, a tough and feisty warrior resistant to conventional beauty. Creator Brenda Chapman modeled Merida after her own teenage daughter and wants her to be representative of all teenage girls.
?Merida wouldn?t be caught dead looking like that and I think that?s what?s angering everyone,? Chapman told CNN. They?ve totally lost sight of the character in this new design. I understand, with the toys, that they don?t want to put in a lot more money creating a new body for the dolls. But this is a drawing that?s going to be put on tons of merchandise and it doesn?t cost that much money to put a lot of effort into a drawing that portrays the character as who the character is--as opposed to this grotesque, sexist depiction of her.?
The petition also decries the way Disney has introduced Merida into the Princess collection and calls it a "disservice to the millions of children for whom Merida is an empwering role model who speaks to girls' capacity to be change agents in the world rather than just trophies to be admired."
Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/brave-princess-sexy-makeover-not-permanent-disney-says-1C9952299
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May 7, 2013 ? The search for cleaner, low temperature nuclear fuels has produced a shock result for a team of experts at The University of Nottingham.
First they created a stable version of a 'trophy molecule' that has eluded scientists for decades. Now they have discovered that the bonding within this molecule is far different than expected. Remarkably their findings have shown that it behaves in much the same way as its counterparts in the well-known transitional metals such as chromium, molybdenum and tungsten.
The research, done by PhD student David King, which could help in the extraction and separation of the two to three per cent of highly radioactive material in nuclear waste, was led by Professor Stephen Liddle in the School of Chemistry, and has been published in the academic journal Nature Chemistry.
Professor Liddle said: "The major motivation for doing the first piece of research was to understand the nature of the chemical bonding of uranium. Now we have extended the series to enable meaningful comparisons the 'shock' is that whereas the bonding would be expected to be very different to commonly known and well understood transition metal analogues the bonding is in fact very similar. This is a real surprise and could have an effect on nuclear clean up because differences in chemical bonding are exploited in the separation processes.
Building on previous advances
Working with experts in the Photon Science Institute at The University of Manchester, their latest discovery builds on their previous advances in this area of chemistry, published in the academic journal Science last year.
With funding from the Royal Society, European Research Council, and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council the team first established the method to make the 'title molecule'. For the first time they prepared a terminal uranium nitride compound which was stable at room temperature and could be stored in jars in crystallized or powder form.
Previous attempts to do this required temperatures as low as -268 ?C -- roughly the equivalent temperature of interstellar space -- therefore these compounds have, until now, been difficult to work with and manipulate, requiring specialist equipment and techniques.
Exploiting the bonding process
Professor Liddle said: "What the nuclear industry wants to do is minimise the volume of waste by extracting the radioactive elements from spent fuel. This relies on exploiting differences in the bonding, but in some circumstances it may be surprisingly similar and this is going to be important in the amelioration of nuclear waste clean-up and devising new atom-efficient catalytic cycles."
The way atoms behave in uranium bonding is still unclear and there is much debate and great interest in respect to the nature of uranium nitride materials because they have the potential to offer a viable alternative to the mixed oxide nuclear fuels currently used in reactors. Nitrides exhibit superior high densities, melting points and thermal conductivities and the process this team of researchers has developed could offer a cleaner, low temperature route reducing the amount of impurities which are difficult to remove from the waste produced by current fuels.
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Chart shows U.S. online sales and projections
Chart shows U.S. online sales and projections
This photo taken May 2, 2013, shows Sarah Davis, co-owner of Fashionphile.com, posing with her bags in a company warehouse in the Carlsbad, Calif. The Internet company sells rare, vintage, and discontinued previous owned bags and is facing the complicated task of dealing with new state regulations on Internet sale taxes. (AP photo/Lenny Ignelzi)
This photo taken May 2, 2013, shows Sarah Davis and Ben Hemmnger, co-owners of Fashionphile.com, posing in the lobby of their Carlsbad, Calif. office. The Internet company sells rare, vintage, and discontinued previous owned bags and is facing the complicated task of dealing with new state regulations on Internet sale taxes. (AP photo/Lenny Ignelzi)
This photo taken May 2, 2013, shows Sarah Davis and Ben Hemmnger, co-owners of Fashionphile.com posing in the lobby of their Carlsbad, Calif. office. The internet company sells rare, vintage, and discontinued previous owned bags and is facing the complicated task of dealing with new state regulations on Internet sale taxes. (AP photo/Lenny Ignelzi)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Buy anything on the Internet lately without paying sales tax? In all but a few states, you're probably a tax cheat.
That's right, even if Internet retailers don't collect sales tax at the time of the purchase, you're required by law to pay it in 45 states and the District of Columbia.
Here's the problem for states: hardly anyone pays the tax, and there's not much states can do about it.
The Senate is expected to pass a bill Monday making it easier for states to collect sales taxes for online purchases. Some of the nation's largest retailers are rejoicing. But small-business owners who make their living selling products on the Internet worry they will be swamped by new requirements from faraway states.
"It's a huge burden for a company like ours," said Sarah Davis, co-owner of Fashionphile.com, a California-based company that sells high-end pre-owned handbags and purses. "We don't have an accounting department, we've got my father-in-law."
Davis started the company in 1999 and now runs it with her brother-in-law. They have 26 workers and three stores, in Beverly Hills, San Diego and San Francisco. Last year, Fashionphile.com did $10 million in sales, the vast majority of it online, Davis said.
Fashionphile.com sells bags directly from its website and on eBay. The company collects sales taxes from customers who live in California, but not from people who live in other states, Davis said. Under the law, states can only require stores to collect sales taxes if the store has a physical presence in the state.
That means big retailers, such as Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Target, with stores all over the country collect sales taxes when they sell goods over the Internet. But eBay, Amazon and other online retailers don't have to collect sales taxes, except in states where they have offices or distribution centers.
As a result, many online sales are essentially tax-free, giving Internet retailers an advantage over brick-and-mortar stores.
But the purchases aren't really tax free under the law.
In states with sales taxes, if you buy something from an out-of-state retailer and don't pay taxes, you are supposed to pay those taxes when you file your state tax return, said Neal Osten, director the Washington office of the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Only Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon have no sales tax. Alaska has no state sales tax but does have local ones.
Unpaid sales taxes are usually referred to as "use taxes" on state income tax returns. Use taxes apply to purchases made over Internet, from catalogs, television and radio ads and purchases made directly from out-of-state companies. State officials, however, complain that few people pay these taxes, Olsten said.
"I do know about three people that comply with that," says Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., the main sponsor of the Senate bill.
Enzi's bill would empower states to require businesses to collect taxes for products they sell on the Internet, in catalogs and through radio and TV ads. Under the bill, the sales taxes would be sent to the states where a shopper lives.
Businesses with less than $1 million a year in out-of-state sales would be exempt.
The Senate is expected to pass Enzi's bill Monday. Already, the measure has survived three procedural votes. President Barack Obama supports it, but the bill faces an uncertain fate in the House where some Republicans consider it a tax increase.
Supporters say the bill is about fairness for local businesses that already collect sales taxes, and lost revenue for states. Many governors, both Republicans and Democrats, have lobbied the federal government for years for the authority to collect sales taxes from online sales.
The issue is getting bigger for states as more people make purchases online. Last year, Internet sales in the U.S. totaled $226 billion, nearly 16 percent more than the previous year, according to Commerce Department estimates.
States lost a total of $23 billion last year because they couldn't collect taxes on out-of-state sales, according to a study by three business professors at the University of Tennessee. About $11.4 billion was lost from Internet sales; the rest came from purchases made through catalogs, mail orders and telephone orders, the study said.
The study was done for the National Conference of State Legislatures.
"This is a sales and use tax which is on the books," said Michael Kercheval, president and CEO of the International Council of Shopping Centers. "This isn't a tax issue. It's a tax collection issue."
Kercheval's group is part of a broad coalition of retailers that supports Enzi's bill, including Internet giant Amazon, which says it wants a uniform national policy for collecting taxes on Internet sales.
Supporters say the bill makes it relatively easy for Internet retailers to comply. States must provide free computer software to help retailers calculate sales taxes, based on where shoppers live. States also must establish a single entity to receive Internet sales tax revenue, so retailers don't have to send them to individual counties or cities.
"The same software that allows people to figure out shipping costs by ZIP code can figure out what the taxes are," Kercheval said.
Opponents say the bill doesn't do enough to protect small businesses. EBay wants to exempt businesses with less than $10 million in sales or fewer than 50 employees.
"Complying and living under the tax laws of 50 states is a major undertaking because the process of complying with tax law goes far beyond just filling out the right forms," said Brian Bieron, eBay's senior director of global public policy. "You have to deal with the fact that all of these government agencies can audit you and can question you and can actually take you into court and sue you if they think you are doing something wrong."
Davis, the co-owner of Fashionphile.com, said even with free computer software, her business doesn't have the manpower to separate sales taxes for each state and meet each state's deadline to send in the money.
"We collect and pay sales tax here in California and we're happy to do that. We receive benefit from that. We can influence lawmakers locally on how those taxes are spent and how much those are and how they're collected," Davis said.
"I don't feel the same about Indiana."
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Follow Stephen Ohlemacher on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stephenatap
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