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).
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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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
[ | 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.
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
[ | 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.
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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