Carter's induction into hall concludes festivities

CANTON, Ohio (AP) ? Forcefully and emotionally, Cris Carter summed up the 50th induction ceremony for the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday night.

The seventh and final inductee from the Class of 2013, Carter honored dozens of people in his life who were "going into the Hall of Fame with me tonight," as he followed Jonathan Ogden, Dave Robinson, Larry Allen, Bill Parcells, Curley Culp and Warren Sapp in being inducted.

More than 120 hall members, a record, and a crowd of 11,500 was on hand at Fawcett Stadium for the golden anniversary celebration of the shrine.

"I appreciate the process you have to go through to get to be a Hall of Famer," Carter said. "To be able to join these men on this stage in football heaven is the greatest day of my life."

Carter needed six tries to make the hall even though he retired as the No. 2 career receiver behind Jerry Rice. He choked back tears as he made his speech after being presented by his son, Duron, and he spoke of his problems with alcohol while playing three years for the Eagles before being released.

He hooked on immediately with the Vikings and hooked onto nearly everything throw his way: Carter finished his 16-season career with 1,101 catches for 13,899 yards and 130 touchdowns.

"This game gave me identity, gave me a sense of purpose," he said.

Parcells also seemingly spoke for everyone in the Hall of Fame, and all the people gathered Saturday night.

"There's a kinship created that lasts for the rest of your life," he said about his experience as one of the NFL's most successful coaches.

The master of the franchise turnaround as the only coach to take four teams to the playoffs, Parcells won Super Bowls with the New York Giants in the 1986 and 1990 seasons.

"Every organization I worked for supported me to the fullest," Parcells said. "Without that, you've got no shot."

Parcells was Coach of the Year honors in 1986 and 1994. He asked to have his bust placed somewhere near Lawrence Taylor in the hall "so I can keep an eye on that sucker."

As relaxed as if he had no one to block, Ogden became the first Baltimore Raven enshrined. The first player drafted by the Ravens after the franchise moved from Cleveland in 1996 and was renamed, Ogden was presented by the man who made that selection, fellow Hall of Famer Ozzie Newsome, now Baltimore's general manager.

A former college shot putter at UCLA, the 6-foot-9, 345-pound Ogden starred at tackle for a dozen seasons in Baltimore, winning the 2000 NFL championship.

"He is part of the foundation of this franchise, part of the reason we have two Super Bowl championships," Newsome said.

Ogden, who was given a 2013 Super Bowl ring by the team, made the hall in his first year of eligibility. He was a six-time All-Pro, made the Pro Bowl 11 times and was the main blocker when Jamal Lewis rushed for 2,066 yards in 2003.

"Talent isn't enough," Ogden said. "A lot of people have talent, they don't always live up to it. For me it is about maximizing, striving for perfection."

Allen, who sniffled his way through his speech, was just as dominating a blocker as Ogden. He also was the NFL's strongest man, once bench-pressing 700 pounds, saying "I did it naturally."

A lead blocker for Dallas as Emmitt Smith became the NFL's career rushing leader, Allen made six All-Pro squads and 11 Pro Bowls in his 14 seasons, the final two with San Francisco. He won the Super Bowl in the 1995 season and was voted into the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility,

"I just knew I had to win every play," he said. "That's the reason I am here. I knew if I lost a play, I had 45 seconds to get even."

Sapp became only the second Tampa Bay Buccaneer enshrined, 18 years after Lee Roy Selmon made it. He was elected in his first year of eligibility following 13 seasons in which he went from instant starter after being selected 12th overall in the 1995 draft to Defensive Player of the Year in 1999. That season, he had 12 1/2 sacks as the Bucs won their first division title in 18 years. For his career, Sapp had 96 1/2 sacks, extremely high for a defensive tackle.

"I sit here with the greatest among the great," Sapp said, breaking into tears. "We're here, baby."

Presented Saturday night by his 15-year-old daughter, Mercedes, Sapp made the NFL's All-Decade squads for the 1990s and the 2000s.

Sapp, who both Ogden and Allen said was as tough to handle as any player they faced, paid tribute to his roots in Plymouth, Fla.

"That dirt road was something rough," he said. "We sure turned it into something special."

Robinson became the 12th inductee from the vintage Packers coached by Vince Lombardi to be enshrined. Robinson was a prototype outside linebacker who could rush the quarterback, cover tight ends or running backs on pass plays, and stop the run. He made the NFL's All-Decade team of the 1960s and won three NFL titles, including the first two Super Bowls.

"This is the biggest day of the 21st century for the Robinson family," he said, adding that he "lives 25 miles from here but it took me 38 years to get here.

"Now, I am immortalized."

As is Culp, one of the game's most dominant defensive tackles for much of his 14 pro seasons, including the 1969 season when he helped Kansas City win the NFL title.

A five-time Pro Bowler, Culp also played for Houston and Detroit, retiring in 1981, then waiting more than three decades to be enshrined Saturday as a senior nominee.

"It gives me joy and inspiration that will last the rest of my life," Culp said. "I am just overwhelmed by the struggles, joys and tears of those who made it here. I'm happy to join them in the Hall of Fame.

___

AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-08-03-Hall%20of%20Fame/id-88f23dc1a2364084ac6e2af36339e188

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Gov. Chris Christie/Sen. Rand Paul feud could make Christie president

Rand Paul surrendered. He ran the risk of opening an intraparty debate that needs to be had. Chris Christie, a real conservative who is willing to go off the ideological track, is not to be messed with. He is willing to call out those that are much more intellectually dishonest than he is. Rand Paul and the pseudo-conservative Libertarians could not allow the debate to go there. Rand Paul did what he had to do. He surrendered and asked Chris Christie to a beer summit.

So how did this Republican feud get started? A few days ago, Christie said that there was a strain of Libertarianism on both the left and the right that opposes the NSA surveillance program. He then used the standard 9/11 defense of the program. Rand Paul responded by implying that was a cheap shot and accused Christie of having the ?gimme, gimme, gimme? disease, always wanting from the government. Christie responded that New Jersey gives much more to the U.S. Treasury than it gets back and by contrast Kentucky gets back much more than they put in. Rand Paul attempted to imply that their two military bases were the reasons, not realizing that New Jersey has 8 military bases. Continuing the discussion for Rand Paul was pointless. He was beaten. It turns out that Kentucky, Rand Paul?s state, is in fact the ?gimme, gimme, gimme? state, the welfare state. Chris Christie cracked that door.

Jump below the fold for the full story about Rand Paul, Chris Christie, and what it all means for 2016.

The chart below is quite illuminating. Texas is the only red state that gets back less than it sends to Washington. Of course Texas' wealth of natural resources can hide a lot of its intrinsic dysfunction.

The above chart and many others have been circulating over the internet for years. They are modified as new data becomes available. One would think that every time a red state politician started grandstanding about smaller government, the mainstream media would ask them if they realized their stance was disproportionately harming their states. In fact, the chart demonstrates a particular pathology that is systemic mostly with red states. One must wonder why the mainstream media?s objective journalists do not feel compelled to investigate this reality with in depth reporting and specials.

Rand Paul inadvertently opened that door for debate. Most importantly, since the argument was made by a Republican to a Republican it runs the risk of being heard by Republicans. Had these facts been articulated by Democrats or liberals, no one on the right would be listening to them or be receptive of learning the fact that Kentucky, as well as all but one red state, are very dependent on the federal government.

Conventional wisdom by most in the mainstream media and other talking heads is that Chris Christie cannot make it out of a Republican primary because he is not conservative enough. Some believe his acceptance of the Obamacare Medicaid expansion was one of the nails in his presidential coffin.

Christie has already earned his conservative bona fides. He cancelled a much-needed tunnel project. He lambasted unions even as some unions endorsed him likely for political reasons. He has revived his tax cut proposal that gives most of its benefits to the top 1 percent. He attacked the Supreme Court decision for ruling that key parts of DOMA were unconstitutional.

If Christie decides to run for president, he will win the Republican primary. He is a conservative and made the minimal political moves in a Blue State to remain so. He is willing to defend his policies even if he has to destroy the false narratives of his red state rivals. He will make them the fake conservatives for preaching small government even as they are on the dole. He will spin his acceptance of Obamacare Medicaid expansion as a fiscally responsible move on a bill that had conservative origins. Christie will use the social-welfare red state reality and make any additional austerity proposed by the right-wingers an attack on the red state middle class. He will make himself the only adult in the room.

Republicans want the White House. They have lost the popular vote in five of the last six elections. 2016 is likely the last election they can win without revamping their party. While the far right claims that the party is not sufficiently to the Right, most Republicans know better. If they were willing to elect Mitt Romney, the governor that actually passed Massachusetts? version of Obamacare, they surely would be willing to elect Christie who uses it to benefit his indigent (and make money for insurance companies, hospitals, and drug makers).

Ultimately the real question is, can Chris Christie beat Hillary Clinton? As a blue state conservative Republican who uses his brashness when questioned to deflect from the actual policies, as a mainstream media darling, and as a recipient of poor mainstream media scrutiny and in depth analysis, the answer is yes. If Hillary Clinton is tied to Bill Clinton and a narrative is constructed with his Glass Steagall sin, the answer is yes.

If, however, the country buys into two tenets Hillary will win. If the country believes the truth that governance by testosterone has been a failure to the middle class and that conservative policies by Republicans and Democrats alike decimated the middle class, then Hillary Clinton will win.

The exuberance of many that assume that because of demographic changes a Republican cannot win the presidency is false. A Republican like Gov. Chris Christie can.

Source: http://rss.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/gh04Qrdrn3k/-Gov-Chris-Christie-Sen-Rand-Paul-feud-could-make-Christie-president

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No delay in release of California inmates

WASHINGTON (CNN) -

The U.S. Supreme Court refused Friday to stop the pending release of thousands of California inmates to solve chronic, severe overcrowding in the state prisons.

The unsigned order is the latest chapter in a long-running federal lawsuit by prisoners and their advocates against what they called dangerous and unacceptable conditions in 30 state correctional institutions.

A judge's order in May required the state to further reduce the prison population by 9,600 inmates by year's end. The state has repeatedly cited public safety in resisting the mandated releases. The state in recent days asked the Supreme Court for an injunction to delay implementation of the order.

The high court in 2011 upheld an earlier order setting limits on the prison population and a timetable for the state to follow to meet that ceiling.

Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito said they would have granted the stay requested by the state. Scalia, in a toughly worded dissent, called the original release order a "terrible injunction" and suggested the result would be that many of the released prisoners will commit more crimes.

There was no immediate reaction from Gov. Jerry Brown, but he had called the earlier mandate "unprecedented." A three-judge federal court panel ordered the state to reduce its prison population to 137.5% of design capacity by December 31 and threatened to find the state in contempt if it did not report on its progress every two weeks.

Until recently, California had the nation's largest prison system and officials have said they have been reducing overcrowding.

The case grows out of lawsuits filed in 1990 and 2001 that alleged overcrowding is at the core of a domino effect of unsafe and unhealthy conditions for those on both sides of the iron bars.

In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the federal panel's determination that California's medical and mental health care for inmates fell below a constitutional level of care and that the only way to meet the requirement was by reducing prison crowding.

The justices two years ago found "continuing injury and harm resulting from these serious constitutional violations," including as many as 156,000 people crammed in correctional facilities designed to hold about half that many.

Justice Anthony Kennedy at the time noted "needless suffering and death have been the well-documented result. Over the whole course of years during which this litigation has been pending, no other remedies have been found to be sufficient."

Federal judges in May expressed impatience with California officials, the defendants in the case. They threatened to cite the state with contempt if it did not comply with the release orders.

The larger issue is a classic battle over state versus federal authority, focusing on whether U.S. courts can step in and essentially run state prisons when officials have repeatedly violated basic constitutional guarantees afforded inmates.

The competing arguments amount to a sharply divided debate between public safety concerns and individual rights, a debate that goes into how the three branches of government should balance competing state interests.

Alito had dissented from the 2011 ruling, and warned any mass release of inmates to alleviate overcrowding would be "gambling with the safety of the people of California."

Prison overcrowding is a nationwide problem, but California's dilemma is unique in its massive scope and time frame.

A special federal court in 2009 ordered the state to shrink the prison population from 202% over capacity to a maximum of 137.5%, and to accomplish that in two years. The state was given wide latitude to meet the goal, but the court was adamant the state do it without delay and without excuse.

The current high court appeal is Brown v. Plata (13A57).

Source: http://www.ktvz.com/news/No-delay-in-release-of-California-inmates/-/413192/21309716/-/aq6jfj/-/index.html

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India's baby Roona discharged after surgeons shrink skull

NEW DELHI: Doctors allowed a one-year-old Indian baby to go home Friday, after nearly four months of treatment to correct a rare disorder that caused her head to double in size.

Roona Begum and her parents left New Delhi and headed home to a remote region of India's northeast after surgeons declared that her health had significantly improved.

Roona, whose plight captured international sympathy, has battled through several life-saving surgical procedures which saw doctors drain fluid from her head and dramatically reduce the size of her skull.

"Roona's health has improved significantly.... We have discharged the baby this morning and she is fit to travel," neurosurgeon Sandeep Vaishya said as the child left the private hospital on the outskirts of Delhi where she has been since April.

A drowsy-looking Roona was then driven with her smiling parents to Delhi airport, her first time out of a hospital gown in nearly four months.

Roona was born with hydrocephalus, a potentially fatal condition that causes cerebrospinal fluid to build up on the brain.

Her condition had caused her head to swell to a circumference of 94 centimetres (37 inches), putting pressure on her brain and making it impossible for her to sit upright or crawl.

Her head shrank to 58 centimetres after procedures conducted between April and July at the hospital run by the private Fortis Healthcare group.

Vaishya, who heads the hospital's neurosurgery unit, said he expected her head to shrink further after conducting a final surgery in about six months' time.

"When she came here, she was almost immobile. Now, she is moving her head from side to side easily, it shows that her neck muscles are already getting stronger," he said.

"The next big step will be for her to sit up.

"Neurologically as well the baby shows several signs of improvement. She can see better, her limb movements are much better," he added.

Although Roona's skull is likely to remain large compared with other children, she has a good chance of developing normally, provided her neck muscles can grow strong enough to support her head, he explained.

"Except for the size of her head, she is an absolutely normal baby. She eats without a problem and moves her arms and legs easily," he said.

Her 25-year-old mother, Fatema Khatun, said she was looking forward to taking the baby home to their village in the remote northeastern state of Tripura.

"Everyone at home is eagerly waiting to see Roona. Her grandparents were so happy when they heard we were coming home," Khatun told AFP ahead of their departure.

Roona's father, Abdul Rahman, 18, called her an "extraordinary" child.

"She is so strong, she has gone through so many surgeries and she is still here and she's in good spirits," Rahman told AFP.

Roona's parents were too poor to pay for treatment, but publication of pictures taken by an AFP photographer prompted the hospital to offer to treat her for free.

The photographs also triggered an outpouring of support worldwide, with prospective donors contacting AFP and other news organisations to enquire how they could contribute to a fund for her treatment.

Two Norwegian college students, Jonas Borchgrevink and Nathalie Krantz, started an online campaign that has raised $58,000.

The campaign has paid around $30,000 to the charitable arm of Fortis hospital, as the initially estimated cost of Roona's treatment multiplied by more than 30 times, Borchgrevink told AFP.

The donations have covered about half the total cost of treatment so far, with the rest paid by the hospital's charitable foundation.

"We still have around $28,000 left, which we want to send to the family for her aftercare," Borchgrevink said.

"This is not a short-term project for us. We intend to follow up with the family in the coming years to ensure she gets the help she needs," he said.

Roona's mother Khatun said, "I will never meet all the people who have helped my child, but I want them to know that I am very very grateful to them."

Source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/india-s-baby-roona/763900.html

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Threat to U.S. embassies appears al Qaeda-linked: lawmaker

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee said al Qaeda appears to be behind a threat that has prompted several U.S. embassies to close on Sunday.

"It's my understanding that it is al Qaeda linked ... and the threat emanates in the Middle East and in Central Asia," Representative Ed Royce said Friday on CNN's "New Day" program.

Royce, a Republican, said he and several other lawmakers met two days ago with Vice President Joe Biden on the threat, "and as you know we're going to take whatever steps necessary to protect our personnel overseas. When we do have an indication of a threat, we take that seriously."

The State Department on Thursday said U.S. embassies that would normally be open this Sunday - including those in Abu Dhabi, Baghdad and Cairo - will be closed that day because of unspecified security concerns.

CBS News reported the embassy closings were tied to U.S. intelligence about an al Qaeda plot against American diplomatic posts in Muslim countries in the Middle East and elsewhere.

(Reporting by Vicki Allen; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/threat-u-embassies-appears-al-qaeda-linked-lawmaker-123950104.html

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Phoenix among the most miserable sports cities

Staff Phoenix Business Journal

Forbes magazine is out with its annual list of the most miserable sports cities, and Phoenix ranked quite highly on this dubious list.

Forbes ranks Phoenix as the third-most miserable sports city, and describes its rankings this way: "This is about misery in the heartbreak sense ? cities whose teams have been good enough over the years to win games and make championship runs, only to disappoint in the end more often than not."

The magazine points out that the Phoenix Suns have been to the Western Conference Finals nine times but never won an NBA title.

See the full list of miserable cities here.

Source: http://feeds.bizjournals.com/~r/bizj_phoenix/~3/_NJDifIAmt4/phoenix-among-the-most-miserable.html

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UCSB astronomer uncovers the hidden identity of an exoplanet

Public release date: 1-Jul-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Julie Cohen
julie.cohen@ia.ucsb.edu
805-893-7220
University of California - Santa Barbara

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) Hovering about 70 light-years from Earth that's "next door" by astronomical standards is a star astronomers call HD 97658, which is almost bright enough to see with the naked eye. But the real "star" is the planet HD 97658b, not much more than twice the Earth's diameter and a little less than eight times its mass. HD 97658b is a super-Earth, a class of planet for which there is no example in our home solar system.

While the discovery of this particular exoplanet is not new, determining its true size and mass is, thanks to Diana Dragomir, a postdoctoral astronomer with UC Santa Barbara's Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope (LCOGT). As part of her research, Dragomir looked for transits of this exoplanet with Canada's Microvariability & Oscillations of Stars (MOST) space telescope. The telescope was launched in 2003 to a pole-over-pole orbit about 510 miles high. Dragomir analyzed the data using code written by LCOGT postdoctoral fellow Jason Eastman. The results were published online today in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

A super-Earth is an exoplanet with a mass and radius between those of the Earth and Neptune. Don't be fooled by the moniker though. Super-Earth refers to the planet's mass and does not imply similar temperature, composition, or environment to Earth. The brightness of HD 97658 means astronomers can study this star and planet in ways not possible for most of the exoplanet systems that have been discovered around fainter stars.

HD 97658b was discovered in 2011 by a team of astronomers using the Keck Observatory and a technique sometimes called Doppler wobble. But only a lower limit could be set on the planet's mass, and nothing was known about its size.

Transits, such as those observed by Dragomir, occur when a planet's orbit carries it in front of its parent star and reduces the amount of light we see from the star ever so slightly. Dips in brightness happen every orbit, if the orbit happens to be almost exactly aligned with our line of sight from Earth. For a planet not much bigger than our Earth around a star almost as big as our Sun, the dip in light is tiny but detectable by the ultraprecise MOST space telescope.

The first report of transits in the HD 97658 system in 2011 turned out to be a false alarm. That might have been the end of the story, but Dragomir knew that the ephemeris of the planet's orbit (a timetable to predict when the planet might pass in front of the star) was not exact. She convinced the MOST team to widen the search parameters, and during the last possible observing window for this star last year, the data showed tantalizing signs of a transit tantalizing, but not certain beyond doubt. A year later, MOST revisited HD 97658 and found clear evidence of the planet's transits, allowing Dragomir and the MOST team to estimate the planet's true size and mass for the first time.

"Measuring an exoplanet's size and mass leads to a determination of its density, which in turn allows astronomers to say something about its composition," Dragomir said. "Measuring the properties of super-Earths in particular tells us whether they are mainly rocky, water-rich, mini gas giants, or something entirely different."

The average density of HD 97658b is about four grams per cubic centimeter, a third of the density of lead but denser than most rocks. Astronomers see great significance in that value about 70 percent of the average density of Earth since the surface gravity of HD 97658b could hold onto a thick atmosphere. But there's unlikely to be alien life breathing those gases. The planet orbits its sun every 9.5 days, at a distance a dozen times closer than we are from our Sun, which is too close to be in the Habitable Zone, nicknamed The Goldilocks Zone. The Goldilocks nickname is apropos: If a planet is too close to its star, it's too hot; if it's too far away, it's too cold, but if it's in the zone, it's "just right" for liquid water oceans, one condition that was necessary for life here on Earth.

Over the past few years, systems with massive planets at very small orbital radii have proved to be quite common despite being generally unexpected. The current number of confirmed exoplanets exceeds 600, with the vast majority having been discovered by radial velocity surveys. These are severely biased toward the detection of systems with massive planets (roughly the mass of Jupiter) in small orbits. Bucking that trend is HD 97658b, which orbits its star at a distance farther than many of the currently known exoplanets. HD 97658b is only the second super-Earth known to transit a very bright star.

"This discovery adds to the still small sample of transiting super-Earths around bright stars," said Dragomir. "In addition, it has a longer period than many known transiting exoplanets around bright stars, including 55 Cnc e, the only other super-Earth in this category. The longer period means it is cooler than many closer-in exoplanets, so studying HD 97658b's properties is part of the progression toward understanding what exoplanets in the habitable zone might be like."

###

---

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?

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: 1-Jul-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Julie Cohen
julie.cohen@ia.ucsb.edu
805-893-7220
University of California - Santa Barbara

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) Hovering about 70 light-years from Earth that's "next door" by astronomical standards is a star astronomers call HD 97658, which is almost bright enough to see with the naked eye. But the real "star" is the planet HD 97658b, not much more than twice the Earth's diameter and a little less than eight times its mass. HD 97658b is a super-Earth, a class of planet for which there is no example in our home solar system.

While the discovery of this particular exoplanet is not new, determining its true size and mass is, thanks to Diana Dragomir, a postdoctoral astronomer with UC Santa Barbara's Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope (LCOGT). As part of her research, Dragomir looked for transits of this exoplanet with Canada's Microvariability & Oscillations of Stars (MOST) space telescope. The telescope was launched in 2003 to a pole-over-pole orbit about 510 miles high. Dragomir analyzed the data using code written by LCOGT postdoctoral fellow Jason Eastman. The results were published online today in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

A super-Earth is an exoplanet with a mass and radius between those of the Earth and Neptune. Don't be fooled by the moniker though. Super-Earth refers to the planet's mass and does not imply similar temperature, composition, or environment to Earth. The brightness of HD 97658 means astronomers can study this star and planet in ways not possible for most of the exoplanet systems that have been discovered around fainter stars.

HD 97658b was discovered in 2011 by a team of astronomers using the Keck Observatory and a technique sometimes called Doppler wobble. But only a lower limit could be set on the planet's mass, and nothing was known about its size.

Transits, such as those observed by Dragomir, occur when a planet's orbit carries it in front of its parent star and reduces the amount of light we see from the star ever so slightly. Dips in brightness happen every orbit, if the orbit happens to be almost exactly aligned with our line of sight from Earth. For a planet not much bigger than our Earth around a star almost as big as our Sun, the dip in light is tiny but detectable by the ultraprecise MOST space telescope.

The first report of transits in the HD 97658 system in 2011 turned out to be a false alarm. That might have been the end of the story, but Dragomir knew that the ephemeris of the planet's orbit (a timetable to predict when the planet might pass in front of the star) was not exact. She convinced the MOST team to widen the search parameters, and during the last possible observing window for this star last year, the data showed tantalizing signs of a transit tantalizing, but not certain beyond doubt. A year later, MOST revisited HD 97658 and found clear evidence of the planet's transits, allowing Dragomir and the MOST team to estimate the planet's true size and mass for the first time.

"Measuring an exoplanet's size and mass leads to a determination of its density, which in turn allows astronomers to say something about its composition," Dragomir said. "Measuring the properties of super-Earths in particular tells us whether they are mainly rocky, water-rich, mini gas giants, or something entirely different."

The average density of HD 97658b is about four grams per cubic centimeter, a third of the density of lead but denser than most rocks. Astronomers see great significance in that value about 70 percent of the average density of Earth since the surface gravity of HD 97658b could hold onto a thick atmosphere. But there's unlikely to be alien life breathing those gases. The planet orbits its sun every 9.5 days, at a distance a dozen times closer than we are from our Sun, which is too close to be in the Habitable Zone, nicknamed The Goldilocks Zone. The Goldilocks nickname is apropos: If a planet is too close to its star, it's too hot; if it's too far away, it's too cold, but if it's in the zone, it's "just right" for liquid water oceans, one condition that was necessary for life here on Earth.

Over the past few years, systems with massive planets at very small orbital radii have proved to be quite common despite being generally unexpected. The current number of confirmed exoplanets exceeds 600, with the vast majority having been discovered by radial velocity surveys. These are severely biased toward the detection of systems with massive planets (roughly the mass of Jupiter) in small orbits. Bucking that trend is HD 97658b, which orbits its star at a distance farther than many of the currently known exoplanets. HD 97658b is only the second super-Earth known to transit a very bright star.

"This discovery adds to the still small sample of transiting super-Earths around bright stars," said Dragomir. "In addition, it has a longer period than many known transiting exoplanets around bright stars, including 55 Cnc e, the only other super-Earth in this category. The longer period means it is cooler than many closer-in exoplanets, so studying HD 97658b's properties is part of the progression toward understanding what exoplanets in the habitable zone might be like."

###

---

[ | 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/2013-07/uoc--ua070113.php

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PFT: July 2012 victims didn't know Hernandez

AP

As the nonstop developments in the Aaron Hernandez murder case(s) begin to subside, it?s time to broaden the lens and address a topic that has popped up from time to time over the past two weeks.

Should the Patriots have avoided drafting Hernandez in 2010 and/or giving him a long-term, big-money contract in 2012?

Many are suggesting that the Pats screwed the proverbial pooch on this one, that they negligently brought a potential murderer to Massachusetts and, two years later, made him a multi-multi-millionaire.? But there are multi-problems with that logic.

For starters, there really was no indication that Hernandez was anything other than a kid who:? (1) liked to smoke marijuana; and (2) periodically made mischief.? As the folks at CFT pointed out on Saturday, Hernandez was indeed questioned in connection with a shooting nearly six years ago in Gainesville.? But it was perfunctory and brief.? Other Gators were questioned at the time, including safety Reggie Nelson and the Pouncey twins.

The only true red flag that attached to Hernandez from his college days came from an affinity for inhaling the fumes of a plant that, if anything, make the user less likely to commit violence or do anything other than sit around and eat Fritos.? And if there?s a link between smoking pot and murder, there would be a lot more murders.

Whatever was wrong with Hernandez, he supposedly had been rehabilitated by former Florida coach Urban Meyer, who according to the New York Times personally conducted ?daily Bible sessions? with Hernandez in order to turn him around.? Meyer presumably vouched for Hernandez to Patriots coach Bill Belichick.? Given the strong friendship between Belichick and Meyer that likely went a long way to persuading Belichick that Hernandez?s talents justified the risk.

Of course, some are now painting the picture that Hernandez entered the NFL with a pair of six-guns strapped to his side and ink on his arms that not-so-cryptically spelled out plans for his future crime sprees.? But where we these ?sources? with knowledge of supposed gang ties and other actual or perceived misdeeds or antisocial tendencies when Hernandez emerged as a fourth-round star in his second NFL season?

That would have been the obvious time for scouts, General Managers, and coaches to cover their collective asses by leaking the notion that, even though Hernandez was playing at a very high level, they avoided Hernandez in rounds one through three because he had more problems than marijuana.? But there was nothing ? not until after Hernandez was tied to a murder case and scouts and sources and some in the media all began to join in a hands-across-Whoville chorus of I told you so.

Even if Hernandez?s antics had generated real warning signs beyond marijuana, it?s impossible to connect dots from off-field misbehavior to premeditated murder.? It?s far more reasonable (or, as the case may be, far less reckless) to connect a substance-abuse problem (drugs or alcohol) to the potential for accidental death or dismemberment while driving a car.

Murderers come from all walks of life, with no way to prospectively screen for them ? unless they?ve actually killed in the past.? For every Aaron Hernandez there?s a Jovan Belcher, who generated no objective evidence to suggest that he would get into serious trouble before he repeatedly shot the mother of his young child and then killed himself in the presence of his coach and G.M.? Ditto for Rae Carruth, who orchestrated the murder of the mother of his unborn son because Carruth apparently didn?t want to pay child support.? The Chiefs and the Panthers saw neither problem coming, because there?s rarely any reason to suspect someone of having the capacity to deliberately kill someone else, regardless of the person?s history.

For the best proof of this, look no farther than O.J. Simpson.? Revered as a player, beloved as a broadcaster, and celebrated as an actor, he would have been the last man anyone would have regarded as the potential murderer of his ex-wife and a stranger who was in the worst possible place at the worst possible time.? (Simpson was acquitted in criminal court, but found legally responsible in civil court for the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.)

On one hand, this is an extreme example of how the Modified Patriot Way of buying low ? via trades, free agency, and the draft ? can go very wrong.? On the other hand, the only way to avoid blame for harboring a potential murderer is to shun any player who has generated at any time any reason to believe that he could do anything wrong as an NFL player.

Even then, there?s still a chance that a player with no red flags will be the next Jovan Belcher, Rae Carruth, or O.J. Simpson.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/06/30/july-2012-victims-didnt-know-hernandez/related/

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Fryer: Prep All-star football game's early start a fair deal

COSTA MESA ? This year's Brea Lions Orange County North-South Prep All-Star Football Game was played on an unusually early date.

Historically, the game at Orange Coast College is played on the same Friday night in early or mid July as the opening night of the Orange County Fair. The fair's continued surge in popularity has made it necessary for nearby Orange Coast College to be used for fair parking. The fair's All-Star game chairman Phil Anton said the parking squeeze necessitated an earlier date for the game.

"We did look at July 5," Anton said. "But that's right after the Fourth of July, and we thought too many people would be out of town. So we went with June 28."

RARE MISS

Grif Amies did something he rarely did during regular-season games. The All-Orange County kicker missed a field goal.

Amies kicked 22 field goals for Corona del Mar in the 2012 season, his senior year. That tied the state record set by Chris Sailer of Notre Dame of Sherman Oaks.

Amies missed a 27-yard attempt with 29 seconds remaining in the second quarter Friday.

Amies missed his final field-goal try of the '12 season. His 57-yard effort late in the fourth quarter of the CIF-SS Southern Division championship game was just short of the target. Earlier he made a 43-yarder, the one that tied for the record, in the Sea Kings' victory over Garden Grove in the Southern Division final at Angel Stadium.

COACHING FRATERNITY

An all-star coaching staff often is a mix of the head coach's assistants from his high school, with perhaps a longtime friend who is head coach at another school. That was the case with the North coaching staff. Fred DiPalma of Katella brought in Anaheim coach Lanny Booher to be the defensive coordinator.

FUNDRAISER

The Brea Lions organize and manage the all-star game for charity. Proceeds from Friday's game will go to the PADRE Foundation (Pediatric Adolescent Diabetic Research & Education), Western Youth Services, Orange County Youth Foundation and other groups.

Past all-star AJ Hoover, Orange County football's leading tackler at Canyon a few seasons ago, spoke at halftime about how he managed his diabetic condition so he could continue to play football.

NOTES

Time Warner Cable channel 101 will carry taped coverage of the game Monday at 8 p.m. Other telecasts are Wednesday, July 6 and July 7 at 8 p.m. ...

Attendance was approximately 4,800 at Orange Coast College, which has a capacity of 7,600. ...

Catch of the game: Cody White, El Toro. In the third quarter, White went up to snare a pass from Corona del Mar's Cayman Carter, pulling the ball through the hands of a North defender. White ran another 20 yards to the South 47 for a first down. ...

The decidedly defensive game did not provide many offensive highlights. Of the few there were, the best might have been a 44-yard pass play by the South. Carter threaded an over-the-middle pass to Scott Hoover of San Juan Hills, who was brought down at the North 9-yard-line at the point of the catch. The South appeared to score on the next play, but the end-zone catch by Cole Robinson of Capistrano Valley was waved off because of an offensive pass interference call. ...

The North-South border for the game had been the 22 Freeway, until this year's game. In a pursuit of improved competitive equity, the border was moved south, to Warner Avenue. The smaller South still won for the fifth time in a row and has won nine of the past 11.

Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com

Source: http://www.ocvarsity.com/articles/game-37950-orange-south.html

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Clinical! Mexico striker runs on and scores despite losing his boot

Oops: Jesus Escoboza?s boot flies off as he goes to score (Picture: YouTube)

Mexico striker Jesus Escoboza has shown he?s a true predator in front of goal after running on and scoring against Mali at the Under-20 World Cup ? despite losing his boot.

Escoboza, of Santos Laguna FC, found the net along with Marco Bueno, Jesus Corona and Uvaldo Luna in a 4-1 thrashing of Mali that helped El Tri qualify for the knockout stages.

But he had to work a lot harder than most to find the net, after his football boot flew off in the build-up.

Finisher: Escoboza still goes on and finds the net (Picture: YouTube)

Escoboza had scampered onto a flicked header from team-mate Bueno down the left wing, but just as he appeared to have got away from the last defender to run on and score, his right boot slipped off and the forward was left to control with the ball with his sock.

It worked, though, and after showing some serious composure Escoboza kept going and eventually lashed the ball into the corner with his left peg.

Not bad, and further proof of Escoboza?s rising stock, with Inter Milan believed to be chasing his signature.

Source: http://metro.co.uk/2013/06/29/clinical-mexico-striker-runs-on-and-scores-despite-losing-his-boot-3861723/

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Noodling tournament raises money for cancer benefits

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Eric Dennis spent his Saturday supporting the Huauni Creek Hunting Club.

While he's never cast a fishing line he hoped to reel in a big catch for the organization.

"I'm not a hunter, but I'm going to learn," said Dennis.

With their noodling tournament the club hopes to continue to help Texomans battle cancer.

"This hunting club does more than hunting things," Dennis said. "They're really people oriented, and they're looking for people to help. They want to help people."

Club Secretary Bill Delaney explains how noodling helps them help the community.

"To replenish funds to hold more cancer benefits," said Delaney. "We held one last week and it took just about everything we had."

Saturday, more than 40 teams made up of two to four people paid the $25 per person entry fee.

"And let the community help the community, and this is a very, very giving community," Delaney said.

The Huauni Creek Hunting club plans to make this an annual event. Cash prizes go to the top three heaviest catches, and noodlers are able free to take their fish home or set them free at the end of the evening.

Source: http://www.kxii.com/home/headlines/Noodling-tournament-raises-money-for-cancer-benefits-213713891.html

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Oil companies turning to submarine technology in fracking

HOUSTON ? A gossamer-thin glass line threaded two miles underground is allowing oilfield engineers to listen to a new kind of music: the sounds of fracking.

Halliburton Co. and competing providers of drilling gear are adapting acoustic spy technology used by U.S. submarines to record sounds made deep in the earth that can guide engineers in finishing a well and predicting how much oil will flow.

The ability to hear inside a well enables producers to fine-tune hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the process that blasts underground rock with water, sand and chemicals to free trapped oil and natural gas. The technology is targeted at an estimated $31 billion that will be spent this year on fracking stages that yield less-than-optimal results, a majority of the work at 26,100 U.S. wells set to be pressure-pumped in 2013, according to PacWest Consulting Partners.

"We're creating a new science," said Magnus McEwen-King, managing director for OptaSense, a Qinetiq Group lc unit that's one of the fiber-optics pioneers for the energy industry. "From an acoustic perspective, this is very much the start of what I think is going to be a revolutionary technology."

Fracking has helped U.S. oil production reach a 21-year high. Environmental groups have criticized the practice because of concerns it may affect drinking water supplies.

Energy companies are fueling the booming business of so- called distributed fiber-optic lines, where the cord itself is a sensor for sound and temperature throughout its entire length.

The U.S. market for such lines, used across industries from energy to military, will almost double to $1.1 billion by 2016 from an estimated $586 million this year, according to a study published by Information Gatekeepers and revised this month by Light Wave Venture, which helps develop new companies using fiber-optic technology.

The prospect of fine-tuning energy discovery has the world's largest oilfield service providers joining companies with ties to the defense industry including OptaSense and U.S. Seismic Systems Inc., a unit of Acorn Energy Inc., to develop ways to eavesdrop on wells. Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron and Statoil are among customers testing the technology.

"This market is evolving very, very aggressively," said Dave Krohn, a Connecticut-based materials engineer who wrote the market study. "Clearly the driver is oil and gas."

Halliburton, the world's largest provider of fracking services, is working on cataloging the combination of sounds that signal the perfect frack: an explosion, cracking rock, and eventually the gurgle of hydrocarbons seeping into the well bore, said Glenn McColpin, director of reservoir monitoring at Halliburton's Houston-based Pinnacle unit. A bad frack means the rock didn't crack as much as it could have.

When perfected, a computer will convert the sounds to a graph that will show how deeply and thoroughly cracks penetrate the rock surrounding the well, indicating the success of each frack stage. The longer and more numerous the cracks, the more oil and gas will flow.

One fracking stage can cost about $100,000 and a typical well now will have about 15 stages, said Alex Robart, principal at PacWest. The effectiveness of each stage varies wildly. The industry generally subscribes to the 80-20 rule, meaning 80 percent of North American production comes from about 20 percent of the fracking stages, he said.

Finding out immediately which fracks were successful allows a company to repeat the process to improve flow.

"Our whole goal is to make the perfect frack every time," McColpin said. "You're spending millions of dollars pumping millions of gallons of fluid, and if you're only getting a third of the rock, you're getting a third of the production."

A fiber optic line consists of a stainless steel cable encasing one long, thin string of glass that vibrates when struck by sound waves. The sound waves are converted to light pulses reflected through the line, then converted by computer software back into sound that McColpin can monitor from his laptop.

"Bink, bank, boink" is what McColpin hears as a small metal ball rolls down the well bore and lands in a "ball seat" that triggers the rock's first fracture. The fiber line captures the noise of the ball and the reverberating blast of the perforation gun firing into the rock. Computer software converts those sounds into a colored graph on his laptop screen, etching a bright red fever line across a green background.

"Our whole goal is to make the earth transparent," McColpin said. "Now we've got a window into the well to see exactly what's happening."

The oil industry started experimenting with fiber optic lines' temperature-sensing abilities about a decade ago, and five years later started testing it with sounds.

In August 2009 OptaSense traveled to Alberta, Canada, to show off its acoustic fiber-optic line to Shell. Executives from both companies piled into an observation truck parked near the well site to oversee a fracking job while OptaSense's McEwen- King sat in his office back in England monitoring the real-time results on his computer.

As the perforation gun exploded, sound waves traveling along the fiber optic line were transformed into data that lit up his screen with a brightly colored graph illustrating the results.

"You guys just turned the lights on down there!" McEwen- King told his colleagues back in Canada. "The whole well-bore imaged instantaneously," he recalled in an interview earlier this month. Three years later, OptaSense announced an agreement with Shell to provide global frack-monitoring services using the acoustic lines.

Some of the world's largest oil producers are interested in the still-evolving technology, Joseph Elkhoury, general manager of microseismic services at Schlumberger.

"There's always this wide enthusiasm around a new technology," he said. Inevitably, that's followed months or years later by a drop in the adoption curve as customers realize the technology isn't everything they hoped it would be. Once the service companies fix some of the challenges, adoption picks up again, he said.

"We are in the wide-enthusiasm phase of acoustic sensing," Elkhoury said.

One of the biggest challenges for acoustic fiber in the oilfield is making the business case to use it onshore, Robart said. Installing the technology can cost as much as several hundred thousand dollars a well, meaning it doesn't pay off as easily on a $6 million land well as it would on a $50 million offshore well, he said.

To confirm how large a fracture was and where it went, companies still need to use a network of specific sensors called geophones to listen from a nearby monitoring well, measuring subtle earth movements from the rock cracking. Some service companies want to one day ditch these microseismic tools and get the same listening sensitivity from their one fiber optic line, helping bring costs down and becoming more efficient.

U.S. Seismic is using three acoustic fiber-optic lines to listen for sounds in place of traditional geophones. The technology provides a more accurate sense of how far the cracks penetrated the rock and in which direction, said Jim Andersen, chief executive officer of U.S. Seismic.

Contractors ranging from Halliburton to Exiius have begun permanently installing fiber optic lines in U.S. wells. During completion of a just-drilled well, the fiber can listen for subtle noises that suggest sealing the well with cement didn't work properly.

Then the fiber can listen for good and bad fracking stages, and finally it'll be able to confirm if oil and gas is flowing. Eventually they'll be able to actually measure production flow based on sounds, McColpin said. He compares it to a flute: as different holes in the well's casing are open or clogged, the sound pitch of fluids flowing through the well are affected.

Programmers also are working on algorithms to detect the difference in sound for water versus oil flowing into the well from surrounding rock. Then valves for different areas in the well bore could be opened or closed as needed to minimize water incursion, which is a waste.

Scientists also want to beef up the listening capability of the fiber optic line during seismic shoots of the underground rock to capture better reservoir images for future exploration.

Submarines were among the first adopters of acoustic fiber- optic technology in the late 1990s. Some of OptaSense's technology expertise originates from its parent company, Qinetiq, a British defense contractor providing military services ranging from drones to cyber security.

Before moving to U.S. Seismic, Andersen previously ran the group at Litton Industries Inc. that sold about $450 million worth of fiber-optic sensor technology to the U.S. Navy. Northrop Grumman Corp., a maker of surveillance drones, bought Litton in 2001 for about $5 billion.

Outside of oil and gas production, fiber optic lines are being used on pipelines to detect leaks or foul play, for monitoring perimeter security along a property fence line and to measure the stress on infrastructure such as roads and bridges. The rebuilt Interstate 35 bridge in Minneapolis is now packed with 300 fiber-optic sensors after it collapsed in 2007, Krohn said.

One of the biggest challenges for the new technology is figuring out what to do with the mountains of data they're collecting. Halliburton has assembled engineers, scientists and former U.S. space program technicians in a Houston lab to comb through data that pores in fast enough to fill up a DVD every 28 seconds.

So far, companies are afraid to throw anything out, not knowing what might prove to be the crucial puzzle piece later, McColpin said.

"It's untenable," he said. "You can't collect 15 terrabytes a week continuously for 20 years on a well."
?

Source: http://feeds.stripes.com/~r/starsandstripes/general/~3/rZB2vde6iCg/oil-companies-turning-to-submarine-technology-in-fracking-1.228248

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'Parrot dinosaur' walked on all fours, then graduated to two

New research suggests that Psittacosaurus, China's 'parrot dinosaur,' walked on four feet ? and then two feet.

By Elizabeth Barber,?Contributor / June 28, 2013

A Psittacosaurus skeleton is shown in the permanent collection of The Children?s Museum of Indianapolis.

Michelle Pemberton/Wikimedia Commons/Science Daily

Enlarge

A baby in a dinosaur costume can do a laudable imitation of how a young dinosaur might have behaved.

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New research suggests that Psittacosaurus, the 'parrot dinosaur,' walked on four feet ? and then two feet ? some 100 million years ago in what is now China. It would have grown up much like the modern human, at first exploring its world on all fours, like a toddler, and then graduating to upright motion.

Qi Zhao, a Ph.D student at the University of Bristol and a researcher at the Institute for Vertebrate Paleontology in Beijing, studied a total of 16 fossil specimens ranging in from less than 1 year old to 10 years old. He found that the 1-year-old Psittacosaurus?specimens had long arms and short legs, meaning that the toddler dinosaur was biologically equipped to walk on all fours.

The arm bones showed continued growth in the dinosaurs between 1 and 3 years old, but the arm growth was dwarfed when the animal?s legs began to rapidly grow between 4 and 6 years old. At the age of 6, the Psittacosaurus?had legs twice as long as its arms and would have walked upright.?

That discovery, published in the scientific journal Nature Communications,?suggests not only that individual?Psittacosauruses went from four to two legs, but that the species had also evolved over time from four-legged adults to two-legged adults, adapting to environmental pressures.

?Having four-legged babies and juveniles suggests that at some time in their ancestry, both juveniles and adults were also four-legged, and Psittacosaurus and dinosaurs in general became secondarily bipedal,? said Mike Benton, a professor at the University of Bristol.

Measuring dinosaur growth is difficult, since enough samples are seldom available to track the species? development through its life cycle. Psittacosaurus, an herbivore distantly related to Triceratops, is a popular dinosaur for study, given the uniquely wide availability of viable fossils. The dinosaur?s genus includes between nine to 11 species, found in China, Mongolia, Russia, and Thailand.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/rf1Cm44IaeQ/Parrot-dinosaur-walked-on-all-fours-then-graduated-to-two

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Large-scale quantum chip validated

Public release date: 28-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Robert Perkins
perkinsr@usc.edu
213-740-9226
University of Southern California

New research finds that prototype quantum optimization chip operates as hoped

A team of scientists at USC has verified that quantum effects are indeed at play in the first commercial quantum optimization processor.

The team demonstrated that the D-Wave processor housed at the USC-Lockheed Martin Quantum Computing Center behaves in a manner that indicates that quantum mechanics plays a functional role in the way it works. The demonstration involved a small subset of the chip's 128 qubits.

This means that the device appears to be operating as a quantum processor something that scientists had hoped for but have needed extensive testing to verify.

The quantum processor was purchased from Canadian manufacturer D-Wave nearly two years ago by Lockheed Martin and housed at the USC Viterbi Information Sciences Institute (ISI). As the first of its kind, the task for scientists putting it through its paces was to determine whether the quantum computer was operating as hoped.

"Using a specific test problem involving eight qubits we have verified that the D-Wave processor performs optimization calculations (that is, finds lowest energy solutions) using a procedure that is consistent with quantum annealing and is inconsistent with the predictions of classical annealing," said Daniel Lidar, scientific director of the Quantum Computing Center and one of the researchers on the team, who holds joint appointments with the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

Quantum annealing is a method of solving optimization problems using quantum mechanics at a large enough scale, potentially much faster than a traditional processor can.

Research institutions throughout the world build and use quantum processors, but most only have a few quantum bits, or "qubits."

Qubits have the capability of encoding the two digits of one and zero at the same time as opposed to traditional bits, which can encode distinctly either a one or a zero. This property, called "superposition," along with the ability of quantum states to "tunnel" through energy barriers, are hoped to play a role in helping future generations of the D-Wave processor to ultimately perform optimization calculations much faster than traditional processors.

With 108 functional qubits, the D-Wave processor at USC inspired hopes for a significant advance in the field of quantum computing when it was installed in October 2011 provided it worked as a quantum information processor. Quantum processors can fall victim to a phenomenon called "decoherence," which stifles their ability to behave in a quantum fashion.

The USC team's research shows that the chip, in fact, performed largely as hoped, demonstrating the potential for quantum optimization on a larger-than-ever scale.

"Our work seems to show that, from a purely physical point of view, quantum effects play a functional role in information processing in the D-Wave processor," said Sergio Boixo, first author of the research paper, who conducted the research while he was a computer scientist at ISI and research assistant professor at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.

Boixo and Lidar collaborated with Tameem Albash, postdoctoral research associate in physics at USC Dornsife; Federico M. Spedalieri, computer scientist at ISI; and Nicholas Chancellor, a recent physics graduate at USC Dornsife. Their findings will be published in Nature Communications on June 28.

The news comes just two months after the Quantum Computing Center's original D-Wave processorknown commercially as the "Rainier" chipwas upgraded to a new 512-qubit "Vesuvius" chip. The Quantum Computing Center, which includes a magnetically shielded box that is kept frigid (near absolute zero) to protect the computer against decoherence, was designed to be upgradable to keep up with the latest developments in the field.

The new Vesuvius chip at USC is currently the only one in operation outside of D-Wave. A second such chip, owned by Google and housed at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, is expected to become operational later this year.

Next, the USC team will take the Vesuvius chip for a test drive, putting it through the same paces as the Rainier chip.

###

This research was supported by the Lockheed Martin Corporation; U.S. Army Research Office grant number W911NF-12-1-0523; National Science Foundation grant number CHM-1037992, ARO Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative grant W911NF-11-1-026.

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Public release date: 28-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Robert Perkins
perkinsr@usc.edu
213-740-9226
University of Southern California

New research finds that prototype quantum optimization chip operates as hoped

A team of scientists at USC has verified that quantum effects are indeed at play in the first commercial quantum optimization processor.

The team demonstrated that the D-Wave processor housed at the USC-Lockheed Martin Quantum Computing Center behaves in a manner that indicates that quantum mechanics plays a functional role in the way it works. The demonstration involved a small subset of the chip's 128 qubits.

This means that the device appears to be operating as a quantum processor something that scientists had hoped for but have needed extensive testing to verify.

The quantum processor was purchased from Canadian manufacturer D-Wave nearly two years ago by Lockheed Martin and housed at the USC Viterbi Information Sciences Institute (ISI). As the first of its kind, the task for scientists putting it through its paces was to determine whether the quantum computer was operating as hoped.

"Using a specific test problem involving eight qubits we have verified that the D-Wave processor performs optimization calculations (that is, finds lowest energy solutions) using a procedure that is consistent with quantum annealing and is inconsistent with the predictions of classical annealing," said Daniel Lidar, scientific director of the Quantum Computing Center and one of the researchers on the team, who holds joint appointments with the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

Quantum annealing is a method of solving optimization problems using quantum mechanics at a large enough scale, potentially much faster than a traditional processor can.

Research institutions throughout the world build and use quantum processors, but most only have a few quantum bits, or "qubits."

Qubits have the capability of encoding the two digits of one and zero at the same time as opposed to traditional bits, which can encode distinctly either a one or a zero. This property, called "superposition," along with the ability of quantum states to "tunnel" through energy barriers, are hoped to play a role in helping future generations of the D-Wave processor to ultimately perform optimization calculations much faster than traditional processors.

With 108 functional qubits, the D-Wave processor at USC inspired hopes for a significant advance in the field of quantum computing when it was installed in October 2011 provided it worked as a quantum information processor. Quantum processors can fall victim to a phenomenon called "decoherence," which stifles their ability to behave in a quantum fashion.

The USC team's research shows that the chip, in fact, performed largely as hoped, demonstrating the potential for quantum optimization on a larger-than-ever scale.

"Our work seems to show that, from a purely physical point of view, quantum effects play a functional role in information processing in the D-Wave processor," said Sergio Boixo, first author of the research paper, who conducted the research while he was a computer scientist at ISI and research assistant professor at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.

Boixo and Lidar collaborated with Tameem Albash, postdoctoral research associate in physics at USC Dornsife; Federico M. Spedalieri, computer scientist at ISI; and Nicholas Chancellor, a recent physics graduate at USC Dornsife. Their findings will be published in Nature Communications on June 28.

The news comes just two months after the Quantum Computing Center's original D-Wave processorknown commercially as the "Rainier" chipwas upgraded to a new 512-qubit "Vesuvius" chip. The Quantum Computing Center, which includes a magnetically shielded box that is kept frigid (near absolute zero) to protect the computer against decoherence, was designed to be upgradable to keep up with the latest developments in the field.

The new Vesuvius chip at USC is currently the only one in operation outside of D-Wave. A second such chip, owned by Google and housed at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, is expected to become operational later this year.

Next, the USC team will take the Vesuvius chip for a test drive, putting it through the same paces as the Rainier chip.

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This research was supported by the Lockheed Martin Corporation; U.S. Army Research Office grant number W911NF-12-1-0523; National Science Foundation grant number CHM-1037992, ARO Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative grant W911NF-11-1-026.

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Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-06/uosc-lqc062813.php

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Texts, video cited in charges against Hernandez

ATTLEBORO, Mass. (AP) ? In the final minutes of his life, Odin Lloyd sent a series of texts to his sister.

"Did you see who I was with?" said the first, at 3:07 a.m. June 17. "Who?" she finally replied.

"NFL," he texted back, then added: "Just so you know."

It was 3:23 a.m. Moments later, Lloyd would be dead in what a prosecutor called an execution-style shooting orchestrated by New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez because his friend talked to the wrong people at a nightclub. Hernandez was charged Wednesday with murder and could face life in prison, if convicted.

Hernandez was cut from the NFL team less than two hours after he was arrested and led from his North Attleborough home in handcuffs, and nine days after Lloyd's body was discovered by a jogger in a remote area of an industrial park not far from Hernandez's home. The 2011 Pro Bowl selection had signed a five-year contract last summer with the Patriots worth $40 million.

His attorney, Michael Fee, called the case circumstantial during a Wednesday court hearing packed with reporters, curiosity seekers and police officers. Fee said there was a "rather hysterical atmosphere" surrounding the case and urged the judge to disregard his client's celebrity status as he asked for Hernandez, 23, to be released on bail.

The judge, though, ordered Hernandez held without bail on the murder charge and five weapons counts.

Another man, Carlos Ortiz, 27, was arrested Wednesday in Hernandez's hometown of Bristol, Conn., as part of the murder investigation, New Britain State's Attorney Brian Preleski said Thursday. Ortiz was charged as a fugitive from justice and waived extradition to Massachusetts. Prison records show he is being held on $1.5 million bail at a Hartford jail.

Hernandez was scheduled to appear at a bail review hearing Thursday afternoon in Fall River, according to Bernie Sullivan, spokesman for the Bristol County sheriff.

On Wednesday, Hernandez stood impassively with his hands cuffed in front of him as Bristol County Assistant District Attorney Bill McCauley laid out a detailed timeline of the events, cobbled together from sources including witnesses, surveillance video, text messages and data from cellphone towers.

Lloyd, 27, a semi-pro football player with the Boston Bandits, had known Hernandez for about a year and was dating the sister of Hernandez's fiancee, the mother of Hernandez's 8-month-old baby, McCauley said.

On June 14, Lloyd went with Hernandez to the Boston nightclub Rumor. McCauley said Hernandez was upset Lloyd had talked to people there with whom Hernandez had trouble. He did not elaborate.

Two days later, McCauley said, Hernandez texted two unidentified friends and asked them to hurry to Massachusetts from Connecticut. At 9:05 p.m., a few minutes after the first message to his friends, Hernandez texted Lloyd to tell him he wanted to get together, McCauley said.

Later, surveillance footage from Hernandez's home showed his friends arrive and go inside. Hernandez, holding a gun, then told someone in the house he was upset and couldn't trust anyone anymore, the prosecutor said.

At 1:12 a.m. June 17, the three left in Hernandez's rented silver Nissan Altima, McCauley said. Cell towers tracked their movements to a gas station off the highway. There, he said, Hernandez bought blue Bubblicious gum.

At 2:32 a.m., they arrived outside Lloyd's home in Boston and texted him that they were there. McCauley said Lloyd's sister saw him get into Hernandez's car.

From there, surveillance cameras captured images of what the prosecutor said was Hernandez driving the silver Altima through Boston. As they drove back toward North Attleborough, Hernandez told Lloyd he was upset about what happened at the club and didn't trust him, McCauley said. That was when Lloyd began sending texts to his sister.

Surveillance video showed the car entering the industrial park and at 3:23 a.m. driving down a gravel road near where Lloyd's body was found. Four minutes later, McCauley said, the car emerged. During that period, employees working an overnight shift nearby heard several gunshots, McCauley said.

McCauley said Lloyd was shot multiple times, including twice from above as he was lying on the ground. He said five .45-caliber casings were found at the scene.

Authorities did not say who fired the shots or identify the two others with Hernandez.

At 3:29 a.m., surveillance at Hernandez's house showed him arriving, McCauley said.

"The defendant was walking through the house with a gun in his hand. That's captured on video," he said.

His friend is also seen holding a gun, and neither weapon has been found, McCauley said.

Then, the surveillance system stopped recording, and footage was missing from the six to eight hours after the slaying, he said.

The afternoon of June 17, the prosecutor said, Hernandez returned the rental car, offering the attendant a piece of blue Bubblicious gum when he dropped it off. While cleaning the car, the attendant found a piece of blue Bubblicious gum and a shell casing, which he threw away. Police later searched the trash bin and found the gum and the casing. The prosecutor said it was tested and matched the casings found where Lloyd was killed.

As McCauley outlined the killing, Lloyd's family members cried and held each other. Two were so overcome that they had to leave the courtroom.

The Patriots said in a statement after Hernandez's arrest but before the murder charge was announced that cutting Hernandez was "the right thing to do."

"Words cannot express the disappointment we feel knowing that one of our players was arrested as a result of this investigation," it said.

Hernandez was drafted by the Patriots in 2010 out of the University of Florida, where he was an All-American.

During the draft, one team said it wouldn't take him under any circumstances, and he was passed over by one club after another before New England picked him in the fourth round. Afterward, Hernandez said he had failed a drug test in college ? reportedly for marijuana ? and was up front with teams about it.

A Florida man filed a lawsuit last week claiming Hernandez shot him in the face after they argued at a strip club in February.

Hernandez became a father on Nov. 6 and said he intended to change his ways: "Now, another one is looking up to me. I can't just be young and reckless Aaron no more. I'm going to try to do the right things."

___

Associated Press writers Bridget Murphy in Boston and Howard Ulman in North Attleborough contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/texts-video-cited-charges-against-hernandez-072445310.html

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