BEIJING (AP) ? A senior official in Chinese-ruled Tibet is ordering heightened security in Buddhist monasteries and along key roadways as the government tries to prevent protests that erupted in neighboring Tibetan communities from spreading.
Inspecting security around the Tibetan capital of Lhasa this week, the city's Communist Party secretary, Qi Zhala, warned officials and clerics at monasteries that they would be dismissed if any trouble arose and told police at a highway checkpoint to be alert for acts of sabotage.
Officials "must profoundly recognize the important significance of preserving stability in temples and monasteries," the state-run Tibet Daily on Tuesday quoted Qi as saying Monday. "Strive to realize the goal of 'no big incidents, no medium incidents and not even a small incident.'"
The exhortations underscore China's nervousness as it tries to squelch the most serious outbreak of anti-government protests among Tibetans in nearly four years.
Tibetan areas in the neighboring province of Sichuan ? on tenterhooks for more than a year as more than a dozen monks, nuns and lay people separately set themselves on fire to protest Chinese rule ? saw large demonstrations last week. Police fired on crowds in three separate areas, leaving several Tibetans dead and injuring dozens, according to Tibet support groups outside China.
The violence has highlighted anew the government's failure to win over Tibetans and other ethnic minorities through policies to boost economic growth and incomes while increasing police presence and controlling religious practices to deter displays of separatism. State media announced Monday that 8,000 additional police were being recruited in Xinjiang, a traditionally Muslim region north of Tibet that has its own separatist rebellion.
Before the latest protests, Chinese security forces were already hunkering down for an annual period of tensions in Tibetan areas: the weeks between the Tibetan new year, which this year falls in late February, and a string of anniversaries in March marking previous anti-Chinese uprisings.
A crucial task for the government is to keep the protests in Sichuan from spilling into Tibet proper, especially Lhasa, home to major monasteries that have been at the forefront of previous unrest. In 2008, rioting in Lhasa left at least 22 people dead.
Among the stops Qi, the Lhasa official, made on his inspection tour was a key roadway leading from Sichuan into the capital and two major monasteries on the city's outskirts.
Qi spoke with members of the monasteries' management committees. The committees are comprised of officials and clerics that Beijing has set up in Tibetan religious institutes to purge them of followers of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan leader in exile in India. The groups and their controls have contributed to the tensions behind the protests.
"They who do not do their jobs responsibly, if any problems happen, will be fired immediately without exception and will be strictly held accountable," Qi was quoted as saying.
(Reuters) ? News Corp's top New York-based public relations executive, Teri Everett, will be leaving the company, which said on Monday that it would promote her Los Angeles counterpart, Julie Henderson, to the newly created post of chief communications officer.
Everett, who spent more than 10 years at the Rupert Murdoch-controlled company, has spent much of the last year handling the communications around the fallout from the phone-hacking scandal at its UK newspaper. The company has been under intense scrutiny since the scandal erupted last July.
Everett is not leaving for another job, but is considering her options, according to a person familiar with her plans.
"Teri gained not only the trust and respect of all who worked with her -- but my great appreciation as well," said Murdoch in a statement.
In September, Alice Macandrew, the top PR executive at News International, the UK newspaper arm of News Corp, said she would step down, but worked out her notice through the end of the year.
Henderson, who is based in Los Angeles, will split her time between there and New York, where News Corp's headquarters are based. She will report to Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey.
(Reporting by Yinka Adegoke; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)
ScienceDaily (Jan. 30, 2012) ? Researchers at UC Santa Barbara have discovered a molecular pathway that may explain how a particularly deadly form of cancer develops. The discovery may lead to new cancer therapies that reprogram cells instead of killing them. The findings are published in a recent paper in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.
The UCSB research team described how a certain mutation in DNA disrupts cellular function in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The researchers were prompted to study this process by another research team's discovery that AML patients have a mutation in a certain enzyme, which was reported in the New England Journal of Medicine. The enzyme is a protein called DNMT3A, which leads to changes in how the DNA of AML patients is methylated, or "tagged." Norbert Reich, professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UCSB, was already studying that particular enzyme with his research group, so they began to study the disease process of AML at the cellular level.
Reich explained that tagging is a way of reading DNA at the cellular level. This falls within an area of study called epigenetics, a process that occurs "on top" of genetics. Each person has approximately 200 types of cells, all with the same DNA, and these must be controlled in different ways. "There is an enzyme -- a protein -- that tags DNA and controls which of the genes in your cells, your DNA, gets turned on and off," said Reich. "So you have 20,000 genes, and you have to control them differently in your brain than in your liver."
Reich explained that there is current interest in this broader field of epigenetics as a direction for the treatment of cancer. "There's definitely the idea that this may be a new way of developing therapeutics, because you don't have to kill the cancer cell," said Reich. "Almost every cancer therapy that's out there works on the principle that a cancer cell needs to be killed."
With epigenetics, instead of only having DNA sequence coding for certain genes, there is an epigenetic process, with another layer of information on top of the genetic process. In this case, that information is the tagging by the methyl groups.
"If you really think about it, this is part of the answer as to how your cells can be so different and yet they all have the same DNA," said Reich. "You have the same genome in every one of your cells, but you do not have the same epigenome, which is basically the methylation pattern, the tagging pattern. That is different in every type of your cells. And the way this relates back to cancer, with leukemia, in those patients, the tagging is messed up. The patterns are not correct. Our big contribution to that is we've explained how the mutations in the enzyme could lead to that disruption of the tagging pattern."
The UCSB group developed a test to demonstrate that the mutant enzymes in AML can only work on DNA for short distances. As a result, the precise methylation patterns of a healthy cell are disturbed, resulting in genes being turned on at the wrong place and time, which in turn can initiate the growth of cancerous cells.
The team found that the mutation AML patients have causes a certain complex of four proteins to be disrupted. "The surprise was that the disruption doesn't stop the enzyme from being active; it doesn't stop the enzyme from tagging the DNA," said Reich. "Instead, it stops the way it can do it. Instead of going to your DNA and tagging an entire region of chromosome, it goes there, does one thing, and leaves. That process, that change, is what we see in the AML patients. So we think we have a molecular explanation for this disease."
Reich said that the currently prescribed drug Vidaza works by affecting the same enzyme that is mutated in AML. There is interest in the pharmaceutical industry in developing other therapeutics to target the enzymes responsible for tagging the DNA. These epigenetic inhibitors would reprogram rather than kill the cell.
Traditional cancer therapies use radiation and chemotherapy to remove or kill cancer cells. "The problem with that is that cancer cells are often very subtly different from normal cells," said Reich. "So you have one of the most difficult therapeutic challenges known to man, which is to distinguish between two human cells -- one that's cancerous and one that's not. Instead of killing the cell, the notion is that if you could just reprogram the cell, then it goes back to being normal. You intercept the cancer development. This is still an aspiration; it hasn't been achieved really, but that's what attracts people to the field of epigenetic-based therapies, because of the prospect of not having to kill cells."
Celeste Holz-Schietinger and Douglas Matje, both graduate students working in the Reich lab, are the first and second authors of the paper.
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Journal Reference:
C. Holz-Schietinger, D. M. Matje, M. F. Harrison, N. O. Reich. Oligomerization of DNMT3A Controls the Mechanism of de Novo DNA Methylation. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 2011; 286 (48): 41479 DOI: 10.1074/jbc.M111.284687
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Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum exits the airport, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012, after speaking with members of the news media upon arriving at the Chester County Airport in Downingtown, Pa. (AP Photo/ Joseph Kaczmarek)
Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum exits the airport, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012, after speaking with members of the news media upon arriving at the Chester County Airport in Downingtown, Pa. (AP Photo/ Joseph Kaczmarek)
Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum speaks to members of the news media, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012, after arriving at the Chester County Airport in Downingtown, Pa. (AP Photo/ Joseph Kaczmarek)
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) ? Republican Rick Santorum is staying home in Philadelphia to be with this hospitalized daughter and is canceling campaign stops in Florida.
Santorum's campaign says the former senator will stay in Pennsylvania with 3-year-old Bella, who has a genetic condition known as Trisomy 18. The condition typically proves fatal and Santorum often says his daughter wasn't expected to live past 12 months.
Spokesman Hogan Gidley says Santorum hopes to return to a campaign schedule soon.
Santorum canceled his appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" and a stop at a Miami church.
Santorum is sending his 20-year-old daughter Elizabeth to Sarasota and Punta Gorda for campaign appearances on later Sunday.
How do you turn technology nerds into political experts? That's the question being asked by Engine Advocacy, a group dedicated to getting "tech startups, entrepreneurs and technologists" involved in shaping public policy. The goal of Engine Advocacy is "to give entrepreneurial people and businesses a voice in the Washington policy arena that they haven?t before," according to co-founder Michael McGeary.
[More from Mashable: U.S. Takes First Steps Toward Internet Voting]
The group has a stake in a variety of issues, including an open Internet, intellectual property rights, privacy laws, broadband access, spectrum reform and immigration reform. (Why immigration? Engine Advocacy wants a "startup visa" to make it easer for people to come to the U.S. to innovate.)
Engine Advocacy has no registered lobbyists working for it. Instead, the organization seeks to teach Silicon Valley about Washington, D.C and to give technological innovators "action tools" for getting involved with public policy.
[More from Mashable: How to Watch and Interact With the State of the Union Address Online]
"Most people realize it?s not good enough as an entrepreneur or startup CEO to take the feeling of 'let me do my job,'" says McGeary. "I come from the political world, I've worked on a couple of campaigns and I?ve come to Silicon Valley and I?ve been heartened to talk to so many smart people that are saying 'ok, let?s figure out how to do this so we don?t have to be passive all the time.'"
McGeary says his organization is a "loosely formed coalition" that's growing "quickly by the day." The idea to start the organization came before SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (PROTECT IP Act) became the hot-button issues of the day, but according to McGeary, they were the sparks that "set the building on fire," so to speak.
"What we thought was a good idea in the Fall turned into 'we have to do this right now."
"What we thought was a good idea in the fall turned into 'we have to do this right now,'" says McGeary. "[SOPA and PIPA] were a galvanizing moment."
Engine Advocacy isn't just trying to educate tech innovators about Washington, it's also doing the reverse. The organization is making an effort to educate politicians on technology and Internet issues.
"We?ve met with several members of congressional staff," says McGeary, singling out Sen. Moran of Kansas.
"(Sen. Moran) and his staff are really committed to tech issues and wanting to get more education about them and trying to find ways to legislate in more productive ways. We???re young in the Senate, but together there???s power in injecting these two communities and I???ve been glad about that."
SEE ALSO: ACTA 'Is More Dangerous Than SOPA'
With SOPA and PIPA gone, what's the next big fight for Engine Advocacy? We asked McGeary if ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) was on Engine Advocacy's radar.
"Yes, but it appears to be mostly complete at this point. We'll keep our eye on it as it rolls out, however, to see what implications there are for tech business going forward," he said.
"We're keeping our eyes on (SOPA and PIPA), of course, just in case they make a stunning, election-year comeback from being mortally wounded," says McGeary. "Beyond that, we're now taking some time to build and strengthen our organization and begin rolling out our legislative priorities for 2012, as well as beginning to develop campaign strategies looking toward the Fall. We're looking at things like Startup Act and spectrum coming down the pike fairly quickly, but also beginning to beef up our web presence and policy research to be ready for the next fights as they come along."
Do you think it's a good idea to get tech experts and innovators involved with the public policy process? Sound off in the comments below.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin meets WWII veterans in St.Petersburg on Friday, Jan. 27, 2012, to mark 68th anniversary of ending the Nazi siege of Leningrad during WWII.(AP Photo/RIA Novosti, Alexei Nikolsky, pool)
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin meets WWII veterans in St.Petersburg on Friday, Jan. 27, 2012, to mark 68th anniversary of ending the Nazi siege of Leningrad during WWII.(AP Photo/RIA Novosti, Alexei Nikolsky, pool)
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, center, takes part in a wreath laying ceremony at Piskarev Cemetery in St.Petersburg on Friday, Jan. 27, 2012, to mark 68th anniversary of ending the Nazi siege of Leningrad during WWII.(AP Photo/RIA Novosti, Alexei Nikolsky, pool)
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev meets with the Journalism School of the State Moscow University ( MGU) students in Moscow on Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012. (AP Photo/RIA Novosti Kremlin, Yekaterina Shtukina, Presidential Press Service, pool)
MOSCOW (AP) ? Vladimir Putin hasn't seen much support from Dmitry Medvedev in his bid to reclaim the Russian presidency, Putin's campaign chief says, suggesting there may be a rift between Russia's dominant political figure and his protege and successor.
Medvedev should have been more active in campaigning for Putin for the March 4 election, Stanislav Govorukhin told the daily newspaper Izvestia in an interview published Friday.
Medvedev succeeded Putin as president when he stepped down in 2008 due to term limits, but he has largely been seen as a stand-in for the figure who has towered over Russian politics for 12 years. He nominated Putin to run for president in September, and Putin, now the prime minister, in turn promised to appoint Medvedev the premier.
"I think it would be more proper if he actively joined campaigning for the man he has nominated for president," Govorukhin said of Medvedev. "I'm not seeing him playing any active role, and I find it strange because it was he who first proposed Putin's candidacy for president."
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov quickly moved to play down Govorukhin's statement, saying on Ekho Moskvy radio that Medvedev has shown "exhaustive support" for Putin.
Medvedev's decision to step down in Putin's favor has angered many Russians, who saw the swap as cynical maneuvering and a show of contempt for democracy. It has helped fuel massive protests in December that cast the strongest-ever challenge to Putin.
Medvedev, who said he agreed to step down because Putin was more popular, faced angry questions about the swap at a meeting with journalism students Wednesday. He again defended the decision by saying that he and Putin share similar views and that it would make no sense for them to compete.
Medvedev added that some of his supporters angry about the swap could have joined last month's protests in Moscow. The rallies in the Russian capital over allegations of fraud in favor of Putin's United Russia party in December's parliamentary election have drawn tens of thousands in the largest show of discontent since the 1991 Soviet collapse.
Medvedev's election in 2008 at the age of 42 raised hopes that he could ease tight controls established by Putin and allow more political competition, protect media freedoms, liberalize the economy and ensure a greater respect for the rule of law. But he has delivered little.
Last month, Medvedev proposed a series of bills restoring direct elections of provincial governors and easing rules of registration for political parties, but the opposition has seen the moves as a belated attempt to assuage public anger that could be reversed later by Putin in case of his victory.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? The National Park Service will bar Occupy DC protesters from camping in the two parks where have been living since October, in a blow to one of the highest-profile chapters of the movement denouncing economic inequality.
The Occupy DC protesters must stop camping in McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza, both a few blocks from the White House, starting at about noon on Monday, the Park Service said on Friday.
The Park Service will start to enforce regulations that "prohibit camping and the use of temporary structures for camping in McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza," the agency said in a flyer distributed at the sites.
"Although 24/7 demonstration vigils and the use of symbolic temporary structures, including empty tents used as symbols of the demonstration, may be permitted in the park areas, camping and the use of temporary structures for camping is not."
The protesters have been in the two sites since around the start of October. They have spearheaded numerous protests in Washington, including a demonstration that drew hundreds of people to the Capitol this month.
The McPherson Square site has drawn increasing criticism from Congress and the District of Columbia administration.
The park bordering K Street, a symbol of Washington lobbyists, has been criticized because of squalor and rats, and the protesters' numbers have been swelled by homeless people.
Sara Shaw, a McPherson Square protester handling contacts with the media, said the group would discuss its response at an evening meeting. She said 50 to 100 people were living in the square.
Bob Vogel, superintendent of the National Mall and Memorial Parks, said in a statement: "The National Park Service takes very seriously its tradition of providing opportunities for First Amendment activities.
"We have a long history spanning several decades of 24-hour First Amendment vigils."
(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Paul Thomasch)
And the cutest photo of the day award goes to If You Can't Reach That Nintendo 3DS, Team Up With Your Twin Sister. I wonder how often do they change places. [Google+ — Thanks Gustavo!] More »
The right candidate will manage integrated marketing and communications activities company-wide. Have the ability to operate as the companys key resource for internal and external communications using multiple delivery platforms. They will partner with key stakeholders, work group members, agencies, and vendors to create consistently branded content for internal and external audiences. Develop marketing campaign objectives, target customers, and optimal integrated marketing mix to drive brand equity, revenue and support company objectives.
DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
* Works with teams to develop action plans for achieving and measuring social media program success, including determining key metrics, processes for measurement and optimization
* Partners with internal departments to gather data informing the strategy of each major integrated marketing and communications campaign
* Develops a standard set of tools and best practices for monitoring social media
* Delivers excellent customer service"behaves as a can-do resource with all constituencies
* Educates and supports teams in the areas of responsibility
* Manages budgets for assigned campaigns and delivers marketing programs on time and within budget.
* Manages the creative development process for marketing campaigns, including creative brief writing and provides timely and insightful feedback on creative presentations to key stakeholders
* Develops project briefs that will be used by internal support teams, as well as external agencies to drive media planning
* Analyzes and reports results of communications and integrated marketing campaigns
* Successfully manages integrated programs that could include rich media, original video content, events, mobile, social media and print components from activation to recap
* Creates and manages program timelines and budgets
KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS & ABILITIES
* Must have exceptional writing and editing skills, preferably with SEO experience
* Intermediate to advanced proficiency in Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook)
* Graphics and web design skills (basic HTML, content management, custom templates, logo design)
* Proven experience with relevant design software (PhotoShop, DreamWeaver or InDesign, etc.)
* Blogging experience required (using Wordpress a plus)
* Exposure to videography and post-production desirable
* Experience and engagement with social networks (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, FourSquare, LinkedIn)
* Knowledge of measurement tools like Google Analytics, reputation management, Facebook Insights
* Understanding and interest in using the social media outlets and web tools for B2B/ B2C interaction
* Strong command of social media monitoring and reporting tools
* Ability to represent the company effectively in a variety of settings with a demonstrated understanding and appreciation for diverse cultures
* Ability to work closely with a variety of internal constituencies, as well as interface positively with clients and other external colleagues (vendors, media, professional associations, etc.)
* Must have experience leading complex projects across multiple cross-functional teams and stakeholders
Excellent organizational and multi-tasking skills with solid attention to detail
Minimum Requirements
College degree and 3-5 years in an integrated marketing/communications function with emphasis on brand management, sales, engagement and business positioning OR equivalent combination of education, training and experience. Exceptional writing and editing skills
ALTADENA, California ? John Levy, the first prominent African-American personal manager in the jazz or pop music field, whose clients included Nancy Wilson and Ramsey Lewis, has died at age 99.
Devra Hall Levy posted on his website that her husband died Friday in his sleep at his home in Altadena, California, less than three months before his 100th birthday.
An accomplished bassist, the New Orleans-born Levy performed with such jazz greats as Stuff Smith, Billie Holiday, Erroll Garner and Billy Taylor in the 1940s before joining pianist George Shearing's original quintet. In the early 1950s, he became Shearing's full-time manager and later went on to form his own management agency, John Levy Enterprises Inc.
Levy's client roster over the years included more than 85 artists, including Wilson, Lewis, Nat and Cannonball Adderley, Betty Carter, Roberta Flack, Herbie Hancock, Shirley Horn, Freddie Hubbard, Ahmad Jamal and Abbey Lincoln as well as comedian Arsenio Hall.
In 2006, the National Endowment for the Arts recognized Levy as a Jazz Master, the nation's highest jazz honor.
It may not be all that human-like in its current state, but a team of researchers at the University of Ottawa are promising that this robot will get there sooner or later. Dubbed "Pumpkin," the bot will apparently have its parts replaced piece-by-piece with more life-like counterparts over time, including parts that make use of a new artificial skin the researchers have developed. It not only includes the usual array of sensors that give the robot some degree of tactile sensitivity, but a network of tubes that circulate hot water to actually increase the temperature of the skin. According to the researchers, the eventual goal is to have a robot that appears and behaves naturally enough to make humans feel at ease when they're interacting with it, but it might get a bit worse before it gets better -- the next step is to replace the head with an anatomically correct model of the human skull, which will have the aforementioned artificial skin stretched over it.
VILLARREAL, Spain - Villarreal ended a 10-game winless streak, scoring three second-half goals to beat Sporting Gijon 3-0 in the Spanish league on Monday night.
Striker Marco Ruben returned from an injury to score in the 57th minute, Borja Valero doubled the lead with a powerful shot beat goalkeeper Juan Pablo a minute later and Bruno Soriano added the final goal in stoppage time.
Villarreal hadn't won since beating Real Betis on Nov. 19. At the halfway point, Villarreal (4-8-7) and Granada (5-10-4) have one point more than 19th-place Sporting (5-11-3).
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More newsGiuseppe Cacace / AFP - Getty Images
Barca awaits Real Madrid again
Real Madrid probably will abandon its defensive strategy and go on the attack against Barcelona in the second leg of the Copa del Rey quarterfinals on Wednesday.
Stefano Rellandini / Reuters
That's a reason?
AC Milan's Kevin-Prince Boateng is hurt again, and his girlfriend says it's because they have sex "7-10 times a week." Oh.
ISLAMABAD (AP) ? A government health official says bad drugs are suspected of killing at least 25 heart patients over the last month in the Pakistani city of Lahore.
Javed Akram said Monday that 100 other heart patients who had taken the same medicine have been admitted to hospitals in the city and 50 of them are in critical condition.
Akram is leading a probe into the deaths set up by the government of Punjab province, where Lahore is the capital. He said the suspected drugs were given free to patients by the state-run Punjab Institute of Cardiology.
Akram said patients developed red spots on their skin within days of taking the medicine that is suspected of killing them.
Contact: Gertie Skaarup skaarup@nbi.dk (45) 35-32-53-20 University of Copenhagen
Researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute have combined two worlds quantum physics and nano physics, and this has led to the discovery of a new method for laser cooling semiconductor membranes. Semiconductors are vital components in solar cells, LEDs and many other electronics, and the efficient cooling of components is important for future quantum computers and ultrasensitive sensors. The new cooling method works quite paradoxically by heating the material! Using lasers, researchers cooled membrane fluctuations to minus 269 degrees C. The results are published in the scientific journal, Nature Physics.
"In experiments, we have succeeded in achieving a new and efficient cooling of a solid material by using lasers. We have produced a semiconductor membrane with a thickness of 160 nanometers and an unprecedented surface area of 1 by 1 millimeter. In the experiments, we let the membrane interact with the laser light in such a way that its mechanical movements affected the light that hit it. We carefully examined the physics and discovered that a certain oscillation mode of the membrane cooled from room temperature down to minus 269 degrees C, which was a result of the complex and fascinating interplay between the movement of the membrane, the properties of the semiconductor and the optical resonances," explains Koji Usami, associate professor at Quantop at the Niels Bohr Institute.
From gas to solid
Laser cooling of atoms has been practiced for several years in experiments in the quantum optical laboratories of the Quantop research group at the Niels Bohr Institute. Here researchers have cooled gas clouds of cesium atoms down to near absolute zero, minus 273 degrees C, using focused lasers and have created entanglement between two atomic systems. The atomic spin becomes entangled and the two gas clouds have a kind of link, which is due to quantum mechanics. Using quantum optical techniques, they have measured the quantum fluctuations of the atomic spin.
"For some time we have wanted to examine how far you can extend the limits of quantum mechanics does it also apply to macroscopic materials? It would mean entirely new possibilities for what is called optomechanics, which is the interaction between optical radiation, i.e. light, and a mechanical motion," explains Professor Eugene Polzik, head of the Center of Excellence Quantop at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen.
But they had to find the right material to work with.
Lucky coincidence
In 2009, Peter Lodahl (who is today a professor and head of the Quantum Photonic research group at the Niels Bohr Institute) gave a lecture at the Niels Bohr Institute, where he showed a special photonic crystal membrane that was made of the semiconducting material gallium arsenide (GaAs). Eugene Polzik immediately thought that this nanomembrane had many advantageous electronic and optical properties and he suggested to Peter Lodahl's group that they use this kind of membrane for experiments with optomechanics. But this required quite specific dimensions and after a year of trying they managed to make a suitable one.
"We managed to produce a nanomembrane that is only 160 nanometers thick and with an area of more than 1 square millimetre. The size is enormous, which no one thought it was possible to produce," explains Assistant Professor Sren Stobbe, who also works at the Niels Bohr Institute.
Basis for new research
Now a foundation had been created for being able to reconcile quantum mechanics with macroscopic materials to explore the optomechanical effects.
Koji Usami explains that in the experiment they shine the laser light onto the nanomembrane in a vacuum chamber. When the laser light hits the semiconductor membrane, some of the light is reflected and the light is reflected back again via a mirror in the experiment so that the light flies back and forth in this space and forms an optical resonator. Some of the light is absorbed by the membrane and releases free electrons. The electrons decay and thereby heat the membrane and this gives a thermal expansion. In this way the distance between the membrane and the mirror is constantly changed in the form of a fluctuation.
"Changing the distance between the membrane and the mirror leads to a complex and fascinating interplay between the movement of the membrane, the properties of the semiconductor and the optical resonances and you can control the system so as to cool the temperature of the membrane fluctuations. This is a new optomechanical mechanism, which is central to the new discovery. The paradox is that even though the membrane as a whole is getting a little bit warmer, the membrane is cooled at a certain oscillation and the cooling can be controlled with laser light. So it is cooling by warming! We managed to cool the membrane fluctuations to minus 269 degrees C", Koji Usami explains.
"The potential of optomechanics could, for example, pave the way for cooling components in quantum computers. Efficient cooling of mechanical fluctuations of semiconducting nanomembranes by means of light could also lead to the development of new sensors for electric current and mechanical forces. Such cooling in some cases could replace expensive cryogenic cooling, which is used today and could result in extremely sensitive sensors that are only limited by quantum fluctuations," says Professor Eugene Polzik.
###
For more information:
Koji Usami, Associate Professor, Quantop, Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen, 45-3532-5268, 45-2829-7487, usami@nbi.dk
Eugene Polzik, Professor, Head of Quantop, Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen, 45-3532-5424, 45-2338-2045, polzik@nbi.dk
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Contact: Gertie Skaarup skaarup@nbi.dk (45) 35-32-53-20 University of Copenhagen
Researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute have combined two worlds quantum physics and nano physics, and this has led to the discovery of a new method for laser cooling semiconductor membranes. Semiconductors are vital components in solar cells, LEDs and many other electronics, and the efficient cooling of components is important for future quantum computers and ultrasensitive sensors. The new cooling method works quite paradoxically by heating the material! Using lasers, researchers cooled membrane fluctuations to minus 269 degrees C. The results are published in the scientific journal, Nature Physics.
"In experiments, we have succeeded in achieving a new and efficient cooling of a solid material by using lasers. We have produced a semiconductor membrane with a thickness of 160 nanometers and an unprecedented surface area of 1 by 1 millimeter. In the experiments, we let the membrane interact with the laser light in such a way that its mechanical movements affected the light that hit it. We carefully examined the physics and discovered that a certain oscillation mode of the membrane cooled from room temperature down to minus 269 degrees C, which was a result of the complex and fascinating interplay between the movement of the membrane, the properties of the semiconductor and the optical resonances," explains Koji Usami, associate professor at Quantop at the Niels Bohr Institute.
From gas to solid
Laser cooling of atoms has been practiced for several years in experiments in the quantum optical laboratories of the Quantop research group at the Niels Bohr Institute. Here researchers have cooled gas clouds of cesium atoms down to near absolute zero, minus 273 degrees C, using focused lasers and have created entanglement between two atomic systems. The atomic spin becomes entangled and the two gas clouds have a kind of link, which is due to quantum mechanics. Using quantum optical techniques, they have measured the quantum fluctuations of the atomic spin.
"For some time we have wanted to examine how far you can extend the limits of quantum mechanics does it also apply to macroscopic materials? It would mean entirely new possibilities for what is called optomechanics, which is the interaction between optical radiation, i.e. light, and a mechanical motion," explains Professor Eugene Polzik, head of the Center of Excellence Quantop at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen.
But they had to find the right material to work with.
Lucky coincidence
In 2009, Peter Lodahl (who is today a professor and head of the Quantum Photonic research group at the Niels Bohr Institute) gave a lecture at the Niels Bohr Institute, where he showed a special photonic crystal membrane that was made of the semiconducting material gallium arsenide (GaAs). Eugene Polzik immediately thought that this nanomembrane had many advantageous electronic and optical properties and he suggested to Peter Lodahl's group that they use this kind of membrane for experiments with optomechanics. But this required quite specific dimensions and after a year of trying they managed to make a suitable one.
"We managed to produce a nanomembrane that is only 160 nanometers thick and with an area of more than 1 square millimetre. The size is enormous, which no one thought it was possible to produce," explains Assistant Professor Sren Stobbe, who also works at the Niels Bohr Institute.
Basis for new research
Now a foundation had been created for being able to reconcile quantum mechanics with macroscopic materials to explore the optomechanical effects.
Koji Usami explains that in the experiment they shine the laser light onto the nanomembrane in a vacuum chamber. When the laser light hits the semiconductor membrane, some of the light is reflected and the light is reflected back again via a mirror in the experiment so that the light flies back and forth in this space and forms an optical resonator. Some of the light is absorbed by the membrane and releases free electrons. The electrons decay and thereby heat the membrane and this gives a thermal expansion. In this way the distance between the membrane and the mirror is constantly changed in the form of a fluctuation.
"Changing the distance between the membrane and the mirror leads to a complex and fascinating interplay between the movement of the membrane, the properties of the semiconductor and the optical resonances and you can control the system so as to cool the temperature of the membrane fluctuations. This is a new optomechanical mechanism, which is central to the new discovery. The paradox is that even though the membrane as a whole is getting a little bit warmer, the membrane is cooled at a certain oscillation and the cooling can be controlled with laser light. So it is cooling by warming! We managed to cool the membrane fluctuations to minus 269 degrees C", Koji Usami explains.
"The potential of optomechanics could, for example, pave the way for cooling components in quantum computers. Efficient cooling of mechanical fluctuations of semiconducting nanomembranes by means of light could also lead to the development of new sensors for electric current and mechanical forces. Such cooling in some cases could replace expensive cryogenic cooling, which is used today and could result in extremely sensitive sensors that are only limited by quantum fluctuations," says Professor Eugene Polzik.
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For more information:
Koji Usami, Associate Professor, Quantop, Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen, 45-3532-5268, 45-2829-7487, usami@nbi.dk
Eugene Polzik, Professor, Head of Quantop, Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen, 45-3532-5424, 45-2338-2045, polzik@nbi.dk
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A rocky exoplanet about the size of Mercury appears to be evaporating before our eyes. If confirmed, this would be the first time a rocky planet has been found turning to gas, demonstrating just how wacky alien planets can be. The provocative suggestion may also foreshadow the fate of Mercury.
"My first reaction was disbelief," says Dan Fabrycky of the University of California, Santa Cruz, who was not involved in the new analysis. After playing with the data himself, however, he has come around ? though he is still cautious. "After turning it over in my mind a few days, I cannot come up with a more natural theoretical explanation," he says.
The evaporation was inferred from observations by NASA's Kepler space telescope. These show that a star called KIC 12557548, which is slightly smaller than the sun, is dimming every 15.685 hours precisely. That suggests an orbiting companion is transiting, or passing in front of the star. Unlike other transits seen by Kepler, though, the dimming in this system varies wildly from one pass to another.
The best explanation is a rocky planet about the size of Mercury that is subliming ? turning directly to a gas - due to the intense radiation from its star, conclude a team led by Saul Rappaport of Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Hot rocks
The planet's orbital period suggests it is just 1 per cent of Earth's distance from the sun, where it should attain a temperature of 2000?kelvin. "That's well above what you would need to vaporise pyroxene and olivine ? common minerals that make up rocky planets," says team member Eugene Chiang of the University of California, Berkeley.
As a result, the subliming planet is leaking rock vapour and dust into space, the team say, forming a large cloud around the planet that blocks starlight when it passes in front of the star. This is similar to the way sunlight vaporises ice from comets, producing a dusty cloud called a coma. The planet may even have a comet-like tail, the team say.
The cloud fluctuates in size over time, explaining why the amount of dimming varies from one event to another, they say.
No rocky planets have been seen evaporating before, although gas giants have.
Grazing transit
The team considered another possibility: that the dimmings were caused by transits of a giant planet with a variable orbit. In that case, some transits might put the entire planet in front of the star, whereas others would be grazing transits, with only part of the planet blocking starlight. That could explain the variability.
However, this explanation requires a second planet to gravitationally perturb the first planet's path ? and such tugs would also change the timing of the transits. So far the time between transits has stayed constant to within one part in 100,000 ? far too regular to accommodate a second-planet explanation.
Alternatively, if there was a binary star very nearby in the sky, its light could contaminate measurements of the star's light, mimicking transit events ? but the team could find no sign of such a binary near the star of interest. That leaves the evaporating-planet idea as the only viable explanation the team could come up with.
"The idea is very provocative," says Jonathan Fortney of the University of California, Santa Cruz, who was not involved in the study. But he says further work is needed before all other possibilities can be ruled out.
Mercury boils dry
The planet is probably about the size of Mercury, the team say. If it were larger, its gravity would prevent the gas and dust from leaking into space to form the cloud, whereas a smaller planet would evaporate so quickly that we would be implausibly lucky to spot it during this phase.
Normally Kepler would not be able to detect a planet as small as Mercury, because it dims its star too little. If the team are right, the telescope only picked up this one because of the dust cloud, which blocks much more light than the planet alone would.
Assuming the planet is Mercury-sized, it should evaporate away to nothing in about 200 million years. This may offer a preview of things to come in our own solar system billions of years from now, when the sun is predicted to bloat into a red giant.
Mercury will eventually be engulfed by the expanding sun, but for a brief period before being swallowed, its surface may boil and produce a dusty cloud around the planet like the one Kepler has observed. "There will come a point where our Mercury will go through this phase, but it will be pretty short-lived," says Chiang.
The team hope to obtain time on the Hubble Space Telescope to measure the spectrum of starlight passing through the cloud. If it reveals common rock-forming elements like silicon and magnesium, it would bolster the evaporating-planet explanation.
Reference: arxiv.org/abs/1201.2662
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PORTO ERCOLE, Italy -- Stone fortresses and watchtowers which centuries ago stood guard against marauding pirates loom above pristine waters threatened by a new and modern peril: fuel trapped within the capsized Costa Concordia luxury liner.
A half-million gallons (2,400 tons) of black goo are in danger of leaking out and polluting some of the Mediterranean's most unspoiled sea, where dolphins are known to chase playfully after sailboats and fishermen's catches are so prized that wholesalers come from across Italy to scoop up cod, lobsters, scampi, swordfish and other delicacies.
"Compared to the Caribbean, we have nothing to be envious about," said Francesco Arpino, a scuba instructor in the chic port of Porto Ercole, marveling at how the sleek granite sea bottom helps keep visibility crystal clear even 40 meters (135 feet) down.
Divers in these transparent waters marvel at sea horses and red coral, while on the surface sperm whales cut through the sea.
But worry is clouding this paradise, which includes a stretch of Tuscan coastline that has been the holiday haunt of soccer and screen stars, politicians and European royals.
Rough seas hindering the difficult search for bodies by divers in the Concordia's submerged section have delayed the start of a pumping operation expected to last weeks to remove the fuel from the ship. Floating barriers aimed at containing any spillage now surround the vessel.
Concordia lies dangerously close to a drop-off point on the sea bottom. Should strong waves nudge the vessel from its precarious perch, it could plunge some 20-30 meters (65-90 feet), further complicating the pumping operation and possibly rupturing fuel tanks. Italy's environment minister has warned that if those tanks break, globs of fuel would block sunlight vital for marine life at the seabed.
A week after the Concordia struck a reef off the fishing and tourism island of Giglio, flipping on its side, its crippled 114,000-ton hull rests on seabed rich with an underwater prairie of sea grass vital to the ecosystem. The dead weight has likely already damaged a variety of marine life, including endangered sea sponges, and crustaceans and mollusks, even before a drop of any fuel leaks, environmentalists contend.
"The longer it stays there, the longer it impedes light from reaching the vegetation," said Francesco Cinelli, an ecology professor at the University of Pisa, in Tuscany. And the sheer weight of the Concordia will also crush sea life, he said.
The seabed where the Concordia lies is a flourishing home to Poseidon sea grass native to the Mediterranean, Cinelli told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
"Sea grass ... is to the sea what forests are to terra firma," Cinelli said: They produce oxygen and serve as a refuge for organisms to reproduce or hide from predators.
The Tuscan archipelago's seven islands are at the heart of Europe's largest marine park, extending over some 60,000 hectares (150,000 acres) of sea.
They include Elba, where Napoleon lived in exile, and the legendary island of Montecristo, a setting for Alexandre Dumas' novel "The Count of Monte Cristo" ? where rare Mediterranean monk seals have been spotted near the coast.
Montecristo has a two-year waiting list of people hoping to be among the 1,000 people annually escorted ashore by forest rangers to admire the uninhabited island. Navigation, bathing and fishing are strictly prohibited up to 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) from Montecristo's rocky, cove-dotted coast. A monastery, established on Montecristo in the 7th century, was abandoned nine centuries later after repeated pirate raids.
Come spring, Porto Ercole's slips will be full, with yachts dropping anchor just outside the port. It lies at the bottom of a steep hill, whose summit gives a panoramic view of a sprawling seaside villa, once a holiday retreat of Dutch royals, and of the crescent-shaped island of Giannutri, with its ancient Roman ruins.
Alberto Teodori, 49, who said he has been hired as a skipper for the yachts of Rome's VIPs for 30 years, noted that the area thrives on tourism in the spring and summer and survives on fishing in the offseason.
If the Concordia's fuel, "thick as tar," should pollute the sea, "Giglio will be dead for 10, 15 years," Teodori fretted, as workers nearby shellacked the hull of an aging fishing boat.
The international ocean-advocacy group, Oceana, on Thursday, described the national marine park as an "ecological diamond," favored by divers for its great variety of species.
"If the pollution gets into the water, we are ruined," said Raffaella Manno, who with her husband runs a portside counter selling fresh local fish in Porto Santo Stefano, a nearby town where ferries and hydrofoils depart for Giglio.
A wholesaler as well, she said fish from the archipelago's waters is prized throughout Italy for its quality and variety.
"The water is clean and the reefs are rich" for fish to feed, she said, as trucks carrying oil-removal equipment waited to board ferries Wednesday to Giglio. "The priciest markets in Italy come here to buy, from Milan, Turin, even Naples."
Concordia's captain, initially jailed and then put in house arrest in his hometown near Naples, is suspected of having deliberately deviated from the ship's route, miles off shore, to hug Giglio's reef-studded coastline in order to perform a kind of "salute" to amuse passengers and islanders.
The maneuver is apparently a common practice by cruise ships, environmentalists lament.
"These salutes are an established practice by the big cruise ships," said Francesco Emilio Borrelli, a Green party official from Naples. He said that the Greens have received reports of numerous such sightings by ships sailing by the Naples area islands of Capri, Ischia and Procida.
Even before the Concordia tragedy, environmentalists had railed against what they brand "sea monsters," virtually floating cities ? each pumping massive amounts of greenhouse gases ? sailing perilously close to the sea coast to thrill passengers aboard.
They even sail up to Venice, the lagoon city whose foundations are eroded by waves churned up by passing vessels. Venice port officials defend the practice, saying they're escorted by tugboats.
"These virtual cities," said Marevivo in a statement highlighting Cinelli's concerns, "put at risk the richness of biodiversity, which that we must never forget is at the foundation of our very survival on Earth."
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Public release date: 22-Jan-2012
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