travel to new zealand: June 2013

Thursday, June 27, 2013

The woman who took on DOMA

Edith Windsor (in purple) reacts to cheers in New York. (Mike Sega/Reuters)

The Supreme Court's landmark decision to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is much more than a symbolic victory for 84-year-old Edith Windsor, the plaintiff in the suit.

In 2009, Windsor's partner of 40 years, Thea Spyer, died after a battle with multiple sclerosis. Spyer left her estate to Windsor, but because their marriage was not legally recognized, Windsor was charged $363,053 in estate taxes.

Windsor first sued the United States in November 2010, arguing that DOMA was unconstitutional. In June 2012, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled in favor of Windsor. The case then went to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The panel ruled 2-1 in favor of Windsor.

With the Supreme Court's decision to strike down DOMA with a 5-4 ruling, Windsor will finally be eligible for a tax refund, plus interest.

Windsor heard the news of the court's decision while at her lawyer's home, according to the New Yorker. The room, which was filled with family and friends, erupted in cheers when the news of the ruling came down.

President Obama called Windsor to congratulate her on the victory.

"Hello, who am I talking to?" Windsor said, according to the New Yorker. "Oh, Barack Obama? I wanted to thank you. I think your coming out for us made such a difference throughout the country."

The president also spoke with the plaintiffs in the case against the legality of California's Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in the state.

Former President Bill Clinton, who originally signed DOMA into law in 1996, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released a joint statement applauding the Supreme Court's decision.

"By overturning the Defense of Marriage Act, the court recognized that discrimination towards any group holds us all back in our efforts to form a more perfect union," the statement reads. "We are also encouraged that marriage equality may soon return to California. We applaud the hard work of the advocates who have fought so relentlessly for this day, and congratulate Edie Windsor on her historic victory."

At a New York City press conference following the ruling, Windsor was modest about her role in history and status as an icon in the gay rights movement.

"It's an accident of history that put me here," said Windsor. "If Thea had been Theo," things would have been different, she said.

"What a way to celebrate the life of my beloved Thea," she said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/edith-windsor-woman-took-doma-201619670.html

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Space capsule returns from mission to Chinese lab

In this photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, the re-entry capsule of China's Shenzhou 10 spacecraft lands in Siziwang Banner, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on Wednesday, June 26, 2013. The space capsule with three astronauts has safely landed on grasslands in northern China after a 15-day trip to the country's prototype space station. (AP Photo/Xinhua,Ren Junchuan) NO SALES

In this photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, Chinese astronaut Wang Yaping, center, goes out of the re-entry capsule of China's Shenzhou 10 spacecraft after its successful landing at the main landing site in Siziwang Banner, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on Wednesday, June 26, 2013. The space capsule with three astronauts has safely landed on grasslands in northern China after a 15-day trip to the country's prototype space station. (AP Photo/Xinhua, Zhang Ling) NO SALES

In this photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, the screen at the Beijing Aerospace Control Center in Beijing shows three astronauts having prepared for the return of the Shenzhou 10 spacecraft to earth on Wednesday, June 26, 2013. The space capsule with three astronauts has safely landed on grasslands in northern China after a 15-day trip to the country's prototype space station. (AP Photo/Xinhua, Wang Yongzhuo) NO SALES

BEIJING (AP) ? A Chinese space capsule with three astronauts landed safely Wednesday on the country's northern grasslands after a 15-day trip to a prototype space station, marking the latest success for China's manned space program as it enters its second decade.

The Shenzhou 10's descent module landed by parachute in the vast territory of Inner Mongolia early Wednesday with the three crew members smiling and waving on live television after wriggling through the blackened capsule's narrow hatch.

"Space is our dream, the fatherland is our home. Thanks to all compatriots who supported us and best wishes for the wealth and success of our fatherland and the ever greater happiness of our people," mission commander and two-time space traveler Nie Haisheng said to the cameras.

Wang Haiping, China's second female astronaut to complete a mission, said the trip had been especially worthwhile for the opportunity to conduct China's first science class in space, beamed live to 60 million schoolchildren across the country.

"I hope all our young friends may wish beautiful dreams and may their dreams come true," said Wang, who, like her two colleagues, was still clad in her space suit and seated under bright sunshine in white folding chairs in front of the round-edged module.

Back at the Beijing command center, manned space program director Zhang Youxia declared the mission ? China's longest to date ? a "complete success" and said all three astronauts were in perfect health.

He was followed by the Communist Party's seventh-ranked official, Zhang Gaoli, who conveyed congratulations from the party leadership and declared that the manned program was entering a new and more challenging stage.

The program has "tremendous significance for the advance of our country's economic and technological strength and ethnic unity, and displays the great Chinese path, spirit and power," Zhang said.

China's military-backed space program is a source of massive national pride, and the successful mission stands as the latest milestone in the party's smooth consolidation of support under its new leader, President Xi Jinping, who also commands the armed forces.

China sent its first astronaut into space in 2003, becoming the third nation after Russia and the United States to achieve manned space travel independently, and has powered ahead in a series of methodically timed steps. Meanwhile, the American program, now in its sixth decade of putting people into space, routinely works on the International Space Station and has long-term plans to go to an asteroid and Mars.

The latest Chinese mission was the second crewed trip to the Tiangong 1 experimental space station, launched in 2011. It's due to be replaced by a three-module permanent station, Tiangong 2, seven years from now.

The future station will weigh about 60 tons, slightly smaller than NASA's Skylab of the 1970s and about one-sixth the size of the 16-nation International Space Station. China was barred from participating in the ISS, largely because of U.S. objections over political differences and the Chinese program's close military links.

Work on Tiangong 2 is going according to plan, and the station's laboratory module should be launched around 2015, another leading manned space program official, Wang Zhaoyao, told a news conference Wednesday. He said its core module would be launched around 2018 and the entire station assembled by 2020.

Alongside the manned program, China is developing the Long March 5 heavier-lift rocket needed to launch the Tiangong 2. It also plans to send a rover to the moon, possibly followed by a crewed lunar mission if officials decide to combine the human spaceflight and lunar exploration programs.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/b2f0ca3a594644ee9e50a8ec4ce2d6de/Article_2013-06-26-China-Space/id-237a5d300617477abcb6d27ba07e36de

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Monday, June 24, 2013

Space telescope funded by public donations meets $1 million goal

Public donors giving between $10 and $10,000 each have hit a $1 million crowdfunding goal for ARKYD, the pint-size space telescope that can be used by schools and enthusiasts alike.

By Pete Spotts,?Staff writer / June 20, 2013

An ARKYD telescope orbiting Earth is shown in this artist's rendering. A privately owned asteroid-mining firm launched the effort to crowdfund the project.

Planetary Resources/Reuters

Enlarge

Space telescopes are not just for pros anymore.

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The first space observatory paid for in part by public donations has hit its initial $1 million fundraising goal, putting the project on track for launch in 2015.

The telescope, dubbed ARKYD, is a munchkin compared with the venerable Hubble Space Telescope or its successor, the James Web Space Telescope. ARKYD's light-gathering mirror is only about 8 inches across, compared with Hubble's 13-foot mirror or the 21-foot mirror of the James Webb telescope, slated for launch in October 2018.

But ARKYD holds the potential to offer something these others don't ? time on an orbiting observatory for anyone from an elementary-school student to professional scientists whose research goals range from studying asteroids to hunting for planets outside our solar system.

The project is the first step toward Planetary Resources, Inc.'s ultimate aim of mining asteroids. The company intends to incorporate such an instrument into spacecraft that initially would rendezvous with an asteroid passing relatively close to Earth and later reach asteroids farther away.

To that end, Planetary Resources developed ARKYD and its needed support infrastructure, such as a ground station, with money from private investors. But the company was founded by X-Prize Foundation founder and chairman Peter Diamandis and Eric Anderson, both of whom champion broader public engagement in science. Hence the crowdfunding and the benefits that come with donating.

The $1 million mark ensures that a bare-bones telescope will get launched and maintained. And it ensures that the company will be able to deliver what they promised to donors. For instance:

A $10 donation "gets you our eternal gratitude" and "a say in how the telescope is used," according to the company's fundraising page on the website Kickstarter.
Up that to $25, and you get a "selfie" ? you supply a picture of yourself, they send it to the observatory, and an onboard camera takes a picture of your picture displayed on a small video screen on the telescope's exterior, giving you Earth or space as a backdrop.
For $450, you get to pick three targets for the telescope and receive the images that result.
Pony up $5,000, and the school or museum of your choice gets 25 targets, in addition to teaching tools that will help incorporate the observations into its science curriculum.
For $10,000 (24 people have contributed at this level so far), it's the school support plus extras, including tickets to the launch, among other items.

Now that fundraising has met the company's basic goal, the 10 days remaining in Planetary Resources' drive are devoted to raising more to increase the observatory system's capabilities. A total of $1.3 million would allow the company to build a second ground station to receive data from the craft. This would speed processing and distribution of images. If the company hits the $2 million mark, it will beef up the telescope for planet-hunting purposes.

This holds a special attraction for Sara Seager, a planetary scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of Planetary Resources' advisory board. The project represents what she terms "a fresh approach" to space science.

It's striving to engage the world with access to an on-orbit observatory, she says. And it's moving in a direction she has been advocating for the field ? smaller and more numerous space observatories.

"I'd like to see a new paradigm for space science, where instead of one big telescope we have a fleet of small telescopes," she adds.

Her students have been working on a prototype for what, in effect, is a telescope in a shoe box. The telescope is designed to hunt for planets around nearby stars. But, she says, it has been hard to get money to launch the prototype, which would piggyback on a rocket carrying a larger, primary payload to orbit.

A small telescope must be incredibly stable to have any hope of detecting an extrasolar planet as it passes in front of its star and dims the starlight briefly. In collaboration with MIT's Draper Laboratory, she says, she, her students, and collaborators have licked that problem.

"By combining forces with Planetary Resources, we may be able to the the job done," she says, referring to orbiting what could be the first of many small space telescopes with this precision-pointing capability.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/Q4ozYXZqCAg/Space-telescope-funded-by-public-donations-meets-1-million-goal

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Wells snaps slump as Yankees rally past Rays

By RACHEL COHEN

AP Sports Writer

Associated Press Sports

updated 5:38 p.m. ET June 22, 2013

NEW YORK (AP) - Vernon Wells glanced at the scoreboard and noted that the fastball he'd seen well clocked in at 96 mph.

Big slump or not, Wells felt good about his pinch-hit at-bat with the Yankees trailing Tampa Bay in the seventh inning Saturday. So with a confident swing, he smashed a three-run, go-ahead double that carried New York to a 7-5 win over the Rays.

Wells was in a 9-for-87 slide that landed him on the bench the past two days, with rookie outfielder Zoilo Almonte starting in his place. But with the Yankees down 5-4, Wells batted for No. 9 hitter Chris Stewart with the bases loaded and two outs.

"Through his struggles, I think his at-bats against lefties were still pretty good," manager Joe Girardi said. "We just liked the matchup. Vern's been doing it for a long time in big spots."

Wells' drive to right-center bounced above the top of the wall, where it hit a fan's glove and was ruled fan interference.

The umpires allowed all three runners to cross home plate, determining David Adams would have scored from first base if not for the fan interference. They sent Wells back to second, but the Yankees suddenly had a 7-5 lead.

Rays manager Joe Maddon argued that it should have been called a ground-rule double, with only two runs scoring.

"It was good to hit a ball and it not land in somebody's glove," Wells said. "And it came at a great time."

Tampa Bay led 5-3 after top prospect Wil Myers hit a grand slam for his first career home run in the sixth.

Wells' first extra-base hit since May 31 got CC Sabathia (8-5) off the hook after he allowed five runs in seven innings.

"It's frustrating," Sabathia said. "I'm happy these guys came back and were able to overcome that."

Mariano Rivera worked a scoreless ninth for his 26th save.

Meanwhile, Almonte kept up his hot hitting, starting in Wells' place in left field. On Friday night, he went 3 for 4 with a home run. He was 1 for 2 with two walks and three RBIs on Saturday.

"It's not easy at all, but I'm trying my best," Almonte said through a translator. "I feel like I'm seeing the ball really well and I just hope it continues."

David Robertson came on after the Yankees took the lead and pitched a perfect eighth with two strikeouts.

Joel Peralta (1-4) took over for the Rays in the seventh and immediately got in trouble. He loaded the bases with one out on two walks and Lyle Overbay's double, and was pulled for lefty Jake McGee.

McGee struck out Jayson Nix for the second out but walked Adams to force in a run, the second time the Yankees scored on a bases-loaded walk. Adams had never drawn a walk in 86 career plate appearances before Saturday; he had two in the game.

Wells then batted for Stewart, who was 0 for 3 with a double play to end a second-inning threat.

As bad as his numbers looked, Wells insisted he had felt OK at the plate. The time off gave him the chance to work on his swing in the batting cage.

"I never lose confidence," he said. "As soon as you lose confidence, you're done."

The Rays trailed 3-1 when the Yankees intentionally walked Evan Longoria with two outs to get to Myers.

The rookie came in hitting .190 in five games since he was called up from the minors at the beginning of the week. He'd had exactly one hit in four straight games before going 3 for 4 on Saturday in his first start as a designated hitter.

Longoria was 2 for 2 with a double and a solo homer that accounted for the Rays' lone run when the Yankees intentionally walked him. On a 1-2 count, Myers hit a high fly to center. Brett Gardner jumped at the fence and the ball bounced off the webbing of his glove and into the stands, though it appeared to already be over the wall when he touched it.

"It was just awesome to be down two strikes and the crowd cheering and to be able to put a swing like that on it," Myers said. "Just a cool experience."

Rays rookie starter Alex Colome is yet to allow an earned run over 10 innings in two career starts. He gave up three unearned runs, five hits and five walks with three strikeouts in 4 1-3 innings. The Rays handed out a season-worst nine walks.

"Walks really kicked our butt today," Maddon said.

With two outs in the third, Almonte singled on a two-strike count to drive in two runs and give the Yankees a 2-1 lead. He walked with the bases loaded in the fifth.

NOTES: Myers became the first visiting player to hit a grand slam at Yankee Stadium for his first career home run since Detroit's Ricky Peters in 1980. Myers is the second player in club history with a grand slam for that first homer. Jorge Velandia did it in 2007, also against the Yankees. ... Rays LHP Alex Torres allowed no hits and struck out three in 1 2-3 innings, extending his scoreless streak to open the season to 20 innings. ... Yankees 2B Robinson Cano had a career-high four walks. ... RHP Ivan Nova (2-1) looks to extend his career record against Tampa Bay at Yankee Stadium to 5-0 on Sunday, the park's 67th Old-Timers' Day. Rays RHP Chris Archer (1-3), their second straight rookie starter, is 0-5 on the road in his career.

More news

Taking it to the Max

HBT: Max Scherzer is off to a start that hasn't been equaled since Roger Clemens went 11-0 to begin the 1997 season.

Patrick Mcdermott / Getty Images

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/52284778/ns/sports-baseball/

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Tuesday, June 18, 2013

NASA's 2013 HS3 hurricane mission to delve into Saharan dust

June 17, 2013 ? NASA's 2013 Hurricane and Severe Storms Sentinel or HS3 mission will investigate whether Saharan dust and its associated warm and dry air, known as the Saharan Air Layer or SAL, favors or suppresses the development of tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean. The effects of Saharan dust on tropical cyclones is a controversial area of science. During the 2012 campaign, NASA's Global Hawk unmanned aircraft gathered valuable data on the dust layer that swirled around Tropical Storm Nadine for several days.

The Saharan dust layer is composed of sand and other mineral particles that are swept up in air currents and whisked westward over the Atlantic Ocean. The extreme daytime heating of the Sahara creates instability in the lowest layer of the atmosphere, warming and drying the air near the surface and cooling and moistening the air near the top of the dust layer near 5 kilometers (16,500 feet). Once it exits the African coast, the dust-laden air moves over air that is cooler, and moister, and it's the temperature inversion of warm air over cold that prevents deep cloud development. This suppression of deep cloud formation along with the dry air within the dust layer is reasons why this Saharan air layer is sometimes thought to suppress tropical cyclone development. On the other hand, the southern boundary of this hot desert air essentially acts like a front whose attendant wind patterns are a major source of the African waves that are precursors to storm formation.

Some Saharan dust has been known to make the journey across the Atlantic and to the U.S. east coast. But Saharan dust doesn't just cause sunrises to appear more reddish, the dust also impacts the development of clouds and precipitation. The dust particles can provide a surface for small cloud droplets and ice crystals to form within clouds. More dust particles means that a given amount of available water is spread onto more particles, creating large numbers of small drops and delaying the formation of larger raindrops. Those effects, coupled with the warm and dry air, have presented challenges to meteorologists who have been trying to understand the effect of Saharan dust on tropical cyclones.

HS3 addresses the controversial role of the Saharan Air Layer, or SAL, in tropical storm formation and intensification by taking measurements from three instruments on board the Global Hawk. These instruments include a cloud physics lidar which uses a laser to measure vertical profiles of dust; a dropsonde system that releases small instrumented packages from the aircraft that fall to the surface while measuring profiles of temperature, humidity, and winds; and an infrared sounder that measures temperature and humidity in clear-sky regions.

On Sept. 11 and 12, during the 2012 HS3 mission, the NASA Global Hawk aircraft covered more than one million square kilometers (386,100 square miles) going back and forth over the storm in a gridded fashion in what's called a "lawnmower pattern."

The SAL was present primarily during that first flight, and again on the flight from Sept. 14 to 15. "The SAL did not act to suppress development on Sept. 11 and 12, at least not in the sense of a direct intrusion into the storm circulation, but it is too early to say what role it might have played in other ways and in other flights," said Scott Braun, HS3 Principal Investigator, at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "There is some evidence that it (the SAL) was getting into the storm circulation on Sept. 14 and 15, but the extent to which it impacted development is unclear."

The dust data collected by the Global Hawk is important for scientific studies on the SAL. Other data was useful operationally to the National Hurricane Center (NHC), the entity that issues forecasts for tropical cyclones. The forecasters at the NHC used data from dropsondes released from the Global Hawk in the discussion of Nadine at 11 a.m. EDT on Sept. 20, "The current intensity is kept at 45 knots (51.7 mph/83.3 kmh)?is in good agreement with dropsonde data from the NASA global hawk aircraft and AMSU [satellite instrument] estimates."

Valuable data from the Global Hawk dropsondes on September 22-23 provided the National Hurricane Center with information that contributed to their reclassifying the storm as a tropical storm after one day of being called a post-tropical low. Shortly after HS3's last flight into Nadine on September 26-27, Nadine actually strengthened back into a hurricane and reached its maximum intensity.

Dropsonde data from HS3's flight on September 26-27 showed that temperature and humidity conditions in the storm were becoming more favorable for the occurrence of deep thunderstorms. Infrared data from NASA's Aqua satellite on Sept. 28, 2012, revealed that strong convection and thunderstorms did build up again and strengthened Nadine back into a hurricane.

HS3 is a five-year mission specifically targeted to investigate the processes that underlie hurricane formation and intensity change in the Atlantic Ocean basin.

For NASA's storm history of Hurricane Nadine, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hurricanes/archives/2012/h2012_Nadine.html

For more information about easterly waves, visit: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/A4.html

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/btsAYbF9x4I/130617130556.htm

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