WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama is proposing dusting off and finally launching an old environmental satellite championed by Al Gore but shelved a dozen years by his 2000 rival George W. Bush.
Obama proposed Wednesday spending nearly $35 million in his 2014 budget to refurbish a satellite, nicknamed GoreSat by critics, that's been sitting in storage after it was shelved in 2001, months after Bush took office. It cost about $100 million by then with NASA's internal auditors faulting its cost increases.
In 1998, Gore, then vice president, proposed the idea of a satellite that would head nearly 1 million miles out in deep space in a special gravity balancing area between Earth and the Sun. The satellite would gaze at Earth, beam down a continuous picture of our planet and take what scientists said was needed climate change measurements.
It originally was named Triana after the sailor on Christopher Columbus's crew who first sighted land in the Americas. NASA later changed its name to Deep Space Climate Observatory or DISCOVR. But it often got called GoreSat by opponents who called it an expensive screensaver for the vice president.
Since it was canceled, the satellite has been at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. In 2009 and 2010, NASA spent another $14 million to refurbish its instruments. NASA this year has spent $3.4 million to test it. Obama put $9.9 million in NASA's budget for two science instruments and $23.7 million in the budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The new launch, paid for by the Air Force, is set for November 2014. It will be run by NOAA. Acting NOAA chief Kathryn Sullivan said its main mission will to give Earth warning when solar storms ? which can zap power systems on the ground and fry satellite electronics ? are on the way. That job is now being done by a NASA satellite that has surpassed its scheduled lifetime, she said.
"It is indeed still a valuable instrument," said Sullivan, a former astronaut.
The Oculus Rift VR headset has had a wild ride so far after hitting its Kickstarter goal in a single day, raising a whopping $2,437,429 and gaining accolades along the way to the release of a development kit last month. iFixit (or one of its very trusting friends) was apparently one of those ponying up the $300 for the developer version, and naturally the first thing they did was put a screw-gun to it. The teardown reveals as tidy-ooking a design on the inside as the exterior, and iFixit said that it couldn't have been easier to do. The only minor hitch was cables held together by tape which would likely need to be replaced in the event of any surgery on the Rift. It's hard to say whether that ease of access will remain with the final production model, but the way that Oculus has gone about its business so far, we wouldn't be surprised. Check the step-by-step process for yourself at the source.
Contacts, collisions, sutures, belts, and margins -- new GSA Bulletin contentPublic release date: 9-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Kea Giles kgiles@geosociety.org Geological Society of America
GSA Bulletin articles posted online ahead of print Mar. 7 - Apr. 5 2013
Boulder, Colo., USA GSA Bulletin articles posted online ahead of print over the last month study (1) a Carboniferous collision in central Asia; (2) crystal xenoliths in the Bolivian Altiplano; (3) The Tsakhir Event; (4) Onverwacht Group and Fig Tree Group contact, Barberton greenstone belt, South Africa; (5) iron oxide deposits in the Paraba Basin, NE Brazil; (6) the southern Alaska syntaxis; (7) paleotopography of the South Norwegian margin; and (8) the Cheyenne belt suture zone, USA.
GSA BULLETIN articles published ahead of print are online at http://gsabulletin.gsapubs.org/content/early/recent; abstracts are open-access at http://gsabulletin.gsapubs.org/. Representatives of the media may obtain complimentary copies of articles by contacting Kea Giles.
Sign up for pre-issue publication e-alerts at http://www.gsapubs.org/cgi/alerts for first access to new journal content as it is posted. Subscribe to RSS feeds at http://gsabulletin.gsapubs.org/rss/.
Please discuss articles of interest with the authors before publishing stories on their work, and please make reference to GSA Bulletin in your articles or blog posts. Contact Kea Giles for additional information or assistance.
Non-media requests for articles may be directed to GSA Sales and Service, gsaservice@geosociety.org.
Early Carboniferous collision of the Kalamaili orogenic belt, North Xinjiang, and its implications: Evidence from molasse deposits Yuanyuan Zhang et al., Key Laboratory of Orogenic Belts and Crustal Evolution, Ministry of Education, School of Earth and Space Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China 100871. Posted online 7 March 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30779.1.
The Central Asian Orogenic Belt extends from the Urals to the coast of northern China, of similar age and complexity to the Appalachian mountain belt in eastern North America. It was formed by the subduction of ancient oceans and the resulting collision of continental plates. Erosion of mountains formed by plate collision leads to thick conglomerates being deposited close to the mountain front and sandstone farther away -- a sediment package known as molasse. One critical piece of the puzzle in the Central Asian Orogenic Belt was the closure of an ocean and collision resulting in the Kalamaili Mountains in northern Xinjiang, China. Yuanyuan Zhang et al. have dated zircon mineral grains and pebbles of volcanic rocks from near the base of the molasses, and they have also dated lava flows that overlie the molasse. These ages confine the age of the molasse, and hence of the rapid uplift of the Kalamaili Mountains, to between 343.5 Ma and 345 Ma. These ages also help in the understanding of how nearby continental blocks fit into the mountain-building puzzle.
Depositional history, tectonics, and detrital zircon geochronology of Ordovician and Devonian strata in southwestern Mongolia
T.M. Gibson et al., Dept. of Geology, Colorado College, 14 E. Cache La Poudre Street, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80903, USA. Posted online 7 March 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30746.1.
Southern Mongolia is centrally located within the Central Asian Orogenic Belt, which is a mosaic of crustal fragments that amalgamated during one of the largest periods of crustal growth on Earth. However, the precise timing and nature of the events that formed this region remain poorly constrained. T.M. Gibson and colleagues provide the first detailed study of the Lower Devonian Tsakhir Formation in the Shine Jinst region of southern Mongolia. They interpret a stratigraphic transition from quiet water carbonate deposits to coarse siliciclastic marine deposits as a record of a tectonic event, which they have titled "The Tsakhir Event." Their sedimentological analysis, in combination with detrital zircon geochronology data, provides important insights into the depositional history and the tectonic evolution of the Gobi-Altai zone, and more generally, the Central Asian Orogenic Belt.
Characterizing the continental basement of the Central Andes: Constraints from Bolivian crustal xenoliths Claire L. McLeod et al., NCIET, Dept. of Earth Sciences, Durham University, South Road, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK. Posted online 7 March 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30721.1.
Critical to understanding the development of active continental margins is knowledge of the crustal basement on which magmatic arcs are built. This study by Claire L. McLeod and colleagues reports results from a whole-rock geochemical and zircon U-Pb geochronological study of a suite of crustal xenoliths from the Bolivian Altiplano, Central Andes, that provide new insight into the evolution and composition of the continental basement beneath the region. The xenoliths comprise both igneous and metamorphic lithologies, including diorites, microgranites, gneisses, garnet-mica schists, granulites, quartzites, and dacites. The xenolith suite exhibits significant Sr-isotopic heterogeneity (87Sr/86Sr from 0.7105 to 0.7368) whilst Pb isotopic signatures reflect crustal domains previously constrained from scattered surface exposures of basement rocks. Ion microprobe U-Pb dating of zircon reveal Early Phanerozoic, Late Mesoproterozoic and Paleoproterozoic age peaks. The presence of these age peaks in the detrital zircon population record demonstrates the important role of crustal recycling in the construction of the modern day Andean margin. The lithological character of the xenoliths and their detrital zircon ages are inconsistent with current understanding of the eastern extent of the Arequipa-Antofalla Basement block beneath the Bolivian Altiplano and instead indicate that it terminates farther to the west than previously assumed.
Crustal fracturing and chert dike formation triggered by large meteorite impacts, ca. 3.260 Ga, Barberton greenstone belt, South Africa Donald R. Lowe, Dept. of Geological and Environmental Sciences, 118 Braun Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305-2115, USA. Posted online 7 March 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30782.1.
The approx. 3260 million-year-old contact between the largely volcanic Onverwacht Group and overlying largely sedimentary Fig Tree Group in the Barberton greenstone belt, South Africa, is widely marked by chert dikes that extend downward for up to 100 m into underlying sedimentary and volcanic rocks of the Mendon Formation (Onverwacht Group). In the Barite Valley area, these dikes formed as open fractures that were filled by both precipitative fill and the downward flowage of liquefied carbonaceous sediments and ash at the top of the Mendon Formation. Spherules that formed during a large meteorite or asteroid impact event occur in a wave- and/or current-deposited unit, spherule bed S2, which widely marks the Onverwacht-Fig Tree contact, and as loose grains and masses within some chert dikes up to 50 m below the contact. Four main types of chert dikes and veins are recognized: (Type 1) irregular dikes up to 8 m wide that extend downward across as much as 100 m of stratigraphy; (Type 2) small vertical dikes, most less than one m wide, which are restricted to the lower half of the Mendon chert section; (Type 3) small crosscutting veins, most less than 50 cm across, filled with precipitative silica; and (Type 4) small irregular to bedding-parallel to irregular veins, mostly less than 10 cm wide, filled with translucent precipitative silica. Type 2 dikes formed first and reflect a short-lived seismic event that locally decoupled the sedimentary section at the top of the Mendon Formation from underlying volcanic rocks and opened narrow vertical tension fractures in the lower, lithified part of the sedimentary section. Later seismic events triggered formation of the larger type 1 fractures throughout the sedimentary and upper volcanic section, widespread liquefaction of soft, uppermost Mendon sediments, and flowage of the liquefied sediments and loose impact-generated spherules into the open fractures. Late-stage tsunamis everywhere eroded and reworked the spherule layer. The coincidence of crustal disruption, dike formation, spherule deposition, and tsunami activity suggests that all were related to the S2 impact or impact cluster. Crustal disruption at this time also formed local relief that provided clastic sediment to the postimpact Fig Tree Group, including a small conglomeratic fan delta in the Barite Valley area. Remobilization and further movement of debris in the subsurface continued for some time. Locally, the deposition of dense baritic sediments over soft dike materials induced remobilization of material in the dike, causing foundering of S2 and ~1-2 m of overlying baritic sediments into the dike. Spherule beds occur at the base of the Fig Tree Group over wide areas of the Barberton belt, marking the abrupt change from approx. 300 million years of predominantly anorogenic, mafic, and komatiitic volcanism of the Onverwacht Group to orogenic clastic sedimentation and associated felsic volcanism of the Fig Tree Group. This area never again returned to Onverwachtstyle mafic and ultramafic volcanism but evolved approx. 100 million years later into the Kaapvaal craton. These results indicate that this major transition in crustal evolution coincided with and was perhaps triggered by major impact events approx. 3260 to 3240 million years ago.
Structural control on the formation of iron-oxide concretions and Liesegang bands in faulted, poorly lithified Cenozoic sandstones of the Paraba Basin, Brazil F. Balsamo et al., Dept. of Physics and Earth Sciences, Parma University, Campus Universitario, Parco Area delle Scienze 157/A, I-43124, Parma, Italy. Posted online 7 March 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30686.1.
In this contribution, F. Balsamo and colleagues describe the occurrence and geometry of different types of iron oxide deposits, which are significant indicators of the mobility of Fe2+ and O2 in shallow groundwater, associated with strike-slip faults developed in the vadose zone in quartz-dominated sandstones of the Paraba Basin, NE Brazil. The development of highly permeable and low-permeability domains along isolated fault segments promoted the physical mixing of Fe2+-rich waters and oxygenated groundwater. This arrangement favors O2 diffusion in flowing Fe2+-rich waters and, consequently, iron oxide precipitation as sand impregnations, small nodular concretions, and well-cemented mineral masses. The formation of hydraulically isolated compartments along more complex strike-slip fault zones promoted the development of Liesegang bands (a classical example of spontaneous self-organization process) in a reaction zone dominated by pore-water molecular diffusion of O2 into Fe2+-rich stagnant water. The structural-diagenetic coupling described in this paper support the role of tectonic activity on near-surface sandstone diagenesis in determining preferential hydraulic pathways for the physicochemical interaction between oxygenated groundwater and iron-rich fluids. Structural setting, fault zone architecture, and related grain size-permeability structures determine the dominant mode of solution interaction and, thus, the type and distribution of iron oxide deposits in deformed sandstones.
Focused exhumation in the syntaxis of the western Chugach Mountains and Prince William Sound, Alaska Jeanette C. Arkle et al., Dept. of Geology, University of Cincinnati, P.O. Box 0013, Cincinnati, Ohio 45221, USA. Posted online 5 April 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30738.1.
The Yakutat microplate is subducting at a shallow angle beneath southern Alaska and in the region of maximum curvature of most of the major mountain belts and faults -- the southern Alaska syntaxis. The shallow subduction is thought to be responsible for most of the deformation in the region, as well as for devastating earthquakes such as the 1964 Good Friday M9.2 megathrust earthquake. Most studies of deformation have concentrated on the inboard deformation areas along the Denali fault in the Alaska Range, or on the more outboard collision-related deformation in the St. Elias orogen. This new study by Jeanette C. Arkle and colleagues focuses on the western Chugach Mountains and Prince William Sound area in between the inboard and outboard regions. They use thermochronologic data to infer recent and relatively rapid rock uplift that is focused in the core syntaxial area and interpret this focused rock uplift as being caused by underplating above the shallow subducting microplate. The increase in underplated material may be the result of influx of material derived from erosion of the St. Elias orogen farther outboard, thus attesting to the causal and temporal linking of these orogenic systems and the positive feedbacks between precipitation, glacial activity, and rock uplift.
Linking offshore stratigraphy to onshore paleotopography: The Late JurassicPaleocene evolution of the south Norwegian margin Tor O. Smme et al., Statoil, Martin Linges vei 33, 1330 Fornebu, Norway. Posted online 5 April 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30747.1.
The link between paleotopography and basin stratigraphy along the South Norwegian margin is a long-debated topic that recently has received new attention. Despite the wealth of data available both onshore and offshore, regional relationships between onshore source areas and offshore depocenters remain to be established. In this study, Tor O. Smme and colleagues use the volume of discrete Upper Jurassic-Paleocene, point-sourced depositional units to estimate corresponding landscape topography at the time of deposition. This is accomplished by comparing the observed volume to an ideal sediment prediction model. The results show that the geometry and volume of offshore sedimentary units are best explained by topography that varies from ~1.6 km in the latest Jurassic, to ~0.5 km in the Late Cretaceous, and ~1.1 km in the Paleocene. Long-term changes in sediment flux to the margin suggests that the onshore topography has experienced recurrent periods of uplift along major fault zones followed by periods of regional denudation. This approach may also be useful for analyzing source-to-sink relationships along continental margins elsewhere.
A new view of an old suture zone: Evidence for sinistral transpression in the Cheyenne belt W.A. Sullivan and R.J. Beane, Dept. of Geology, Colby College, 5803 Mayflower Hill, Waterville, Maine 04901, USA. Posted online 5 April 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30679.1.
This article revisits a fossil plate tectonic boundary, the Cheyenne belt, which lies near the Wyoming-Colorado boarder. The Cheyenne belt separates an old piece of crust, the 1,650 to 1,800-million-year-old Colorado province, from a very old piece of crust, the 2,500 to 3,100-million-year old Wyoming province. These crustal plates were connected or sutured together about 1,750-million years ago, and they now make up part of the stable core of the North American continent and underlie much of the central and southern Rocky Mountains. The authors present a new detailed dataset collected using modern analysis techniques that were not available when the area was last examined in detail 25 to 30 years ago. This dataset, combined with other new data from the region, indicates that the Wyoming and Colorado provinces collided obliquely rather than head on as previously thought. The authors' conceptual model for the Cheyenne belt suture zone explains a number of different geologic phenomena including the orientations of faults at the boundary between the two plates, the differences in temperatures at which the rocks were deformed across these faults, and a 2 to 10 km difference in the thickness of Earth's crust across the fossil plate boundary.
###
http://www.geosociety.org
[ | 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.
Contacts, collisions, sutures, belts, and margins -- new GSA Bulletin contentPublic release date: 9-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Kea Giles kgiles@geosociety.org Geological Society of America
GSA Bulletin articles posted online ahead of print Mar. 7 - Apr. 5 2013
Boulder, Colo., USA GSA Bulletin articles posted online ahead of print over the last month study (1) a Carboniferous collision in central Asia; (2) crystal xenoliths in the Bolivian Altiplano; (3) The Tsakhir Event; (4) Onverwacht Group and Fig Tree Group contact, Barberton greenstone belt, South Africa; (5) iron oxide deposits in the Paraba Basin, NE Brazil; (6) the southern Alaska syntaxis; (7) paleotopography of the South Norwegian margin; and (8) the Cheyenne belt suture zone, USA.
GSA BULLETIN articles published ahead of print are online at http://gsabulletin.gsapubs.org/content/early/recent; abstracts are open-access at http://gsabulletin.gsapubs.org/. Representatives of the media may obtain complimentary copies of articles by contacting Kea Giles.
Sign up for pre-issue publication e-alerts at http://www.gsapubs.org/cgi/alerts for first access to new journal content as it is posted. Subscribe to RSS feeds at http://gsabulletin.gsapubs.org/rss/.
Please discuss articles of interest with the authors before publishing stories on their work, and please make reference to GSA Bulletin in your articles or blog posts. Contact Kea Giles for additional information or assistance.
Non-media requests for articles may be directed to GSA Sales and Service, gsaservice@geosociety.org.
Early Carboniferous collision of the Kalamaili orogenic belt, North Xinjiang, and its implications: Evidence from molasse deposits Yuanyuan Zhang et al., Key Laboratory of Orogenic Belts and Crustal Evolution, Ministry of Education, School of Earth and Space Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China 100871. Posted online 7 March 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30779.1.
The Central Asian Orogenic Belt extends from the Urals to the coast of northern China, of similar age and complexity to the Appalachian mountain belt in eastern North America. It was formed by the subduction of ancient oceans and the resulting collision of continental plates. Erosion of mountains formed by plate collision leads to thick conglomerates being deposited close to the mountain front and sandstone farther away -- a sediment package known as molasse. One critical piece of the puzzle in the Central Asian Orogenic Belt was the closure of an ocean and collision resulting in the Kalamaili Mountains in northern Xinjiang, China. Yuanyuan Zhang et al. have dated zircon mineral grains and pebbles of volcanic rocks from near the base of the molasses, and they have also dated lava flows that overlie the molasse. These ages confine the age of the molasse, and hence of the rapid uplift of the Kalamaili Mountains, to between 343.5 Ma and 345 Ma. These ages also help in the understanding of how nearby continental blocks fit into the mountain-building puzzle.
Depositional history, tectonics, and detrital zircon geochronology of Ordovician and Devonian strata in southwestern Mongolia
T.M. Gibson et al., Dept. of Geology, Colorado College, 14 E. Cache La Poudre Street, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80903, USA. Posted online 7 March 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30746.1.
Southern Mongolia is centrally located within the Central Asian Orogenic Belt, which is a mosaic of crustal fragments that amalgamated during one of the largest periods of crustal growth on Earth. However, the precise timing and nature of the events that formed this region remain poorly constrained. T.M. Gibson and colleagues provide the first detailed study of the Lower Devonian Tsakhir Formation in the Shine Jinst region of southern Mongolia. They interpret a stratigraphic transition from quiet water carbonate deposits to coarse siliciclastic marine deposits as a record of a tectonic event, which they have titled "The Tsakhir Event." Their sedimentological analysis, in combination with detrital zircon geochronology data, provides important insights into the depositional history and the tectonic evolution of the Gobi-Altai zone, and more generally, the Central Asian Orogenic Belt.
Characterizing the continental basement of the Central Andes: Constraints from Bolivian crustal xenoliths Claire L. McLeod et al., NCIET, Dept. of Earth Sciences, Durham University, South Road, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK. Posted online 7 March 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30721.1.
Critical to understanding the development of active continental margins is knowledge of the crustal basement on which magmatic arcs are built. This study by Claire L. McLeod and colleagues reports results from a whole-rock geochemical and zircon U-Pb geochronological study of a suite of crustal xenoliths from the Bolivian Altiplano, Central Andes, that provide new insight into the evolution and composition of the continental basement beneath the region. The xenoliths comprise both igneous and metamorphic lithologies, including diorites, microgranites, gneisses, garnet-mica schists, granulites, quartzites, and dacites. The xenolith suite exhibits significant Sr-isotopic heterogeneity (87Sr/86Sr from 0.7105 to 0.7368) whilst Pb isotopic signatures reflect crustal domains previously constrained from scattered surface exposures of basement rocks. Ion microprobe U-Pb dating of zircon reveal Early Phanerozoic, Late Mesoproterozoic and Paleoproterozoic age peaks. The presence of these age peaks in the detrital zircon population record demonstrates the important role of crustal recycling in the construction of the modern day Andean margin. The lithological character of the xenoliths and their detrital zircon ages are inconsistent with current understanding of the eastern extent of the Arequipa-Antofalla Basement block beneath the Bolivian Altiplano and instead indicate that it terminates farther to the west than previously assumed.
Crustal fracturing and chert dike formation triggered by large meteorite impacts, ca. 3.260 Ga, Barberton greenstone belt, South Africa Donald R. Lowe, Dept. of Geological and Environmental Sciences, 118 Braun Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305-2115, USA. Posted online 7 March 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30782.1.
The approx. 3260 million-year-old contact between the largely volcanic Onverwacht Group and overlying largely sedimentary Fig Tree Group in the Barberton greenstone belt, South Africa, is widely marked by chert dikes that extend downward for up to 100 m into underlying sedimentary and volcanic rocks of the Mendon Formation (Onverwacht Group). In the Barite Valley area, these dikes formed as open fractures that were filled by both precipitative fill and the downward flowage of liquefied carbonaceous sediments and ash at the top of the Mendon Formation. Spherules that formed during a large meteorite or asteroid impact event occur in a wave- and/or current-deposited unit, spherule bed S2, which widely marks the Onverwacht-Fig Tree contact, and as loose grains and masses within some chert dikes up to 50 m below the contact. Four main types of chert dikes and veins are recognized: (Type 1) irregular dikes up to 8 m wide that extend downward across as much as 100 m of stratigraphy; (Type 2) small vertical dikes, most less than one m wide, which are restricted to the lower half of the Mendon chert section; (Type 3) small crosscutting veins, most less than 50 cm across, filled with precipitative silica; and (Type 4) small irregular to bedding-parallel to irregular veins, mostly less than 10 cm wide, filled with translucent precipitative silica. Type 2 dikes formed first and reflect a short-lived seismic event that locally decoupled the sedimentary section at the top of the Mendon Formation from underlying volcanic rocks and opened narrow vertical tension fractures in the lower, lithified part of the sedimentary section. Later seismic events triggered formation of the larger type 1 fractures throughout the sedimentary and upper volcanic section, widespread liquefaction of soft, uppermost Mendon sediments, and flowage of the liquefied sediments and loose impact-generated spherules into the open fractures. Late-stage tsunamis everywhere eroded and reworked the spherule layer. The coincidence of crustal disruption, dike formation, spherule deposition, and tsunami activity suggests that all were related to the S2 impact or impact cluster. Crustal disruption at this time also formed local relief that provided clastic sediment to the postimpact Fig Tree Group, including a small conglomeratic fan delta in the Barite Valley area. Remobilization and further movement of debris in the subsurface continued for some time. Locally, the deposition of dense baritic sediments over soft dike materials induced remobilization of material in the dike, causing foundering of S2 and ~1-2 m of overlying baritic sediments into the dike. Spherule beds occur at the base of the Fig Tree Group over wide areas of the Barberton belt, marking the abrupt change from approx. 300 million years of predominantly anorogenic, mafic, and komatiitic volcanism of the Onverwacht Group to orogenic clastic sedimentation and associated felsic volcanism of the Fig Tree Group. This area never again returned to Onverwachtstyle mafic and ultramafic volcanism but evolved approx. 100 million years later into the Kaapvaal craton. These results indicate that this major transition in crustal evolution coincided with and was perhaps triggered by major impact events approx. 3260 to 3240 million years ago.
Structural control on the formation of iron-oxide concretions and Liesegang bands in faulted, poorly lithified Cenozoic sandstones of the Paraba Basin, Brazil F. Balsamo et al., Dept. of Physics and Earth Sciences, Parma University, Campus Universitario, Parco Area delle Scienze 157/A, I-43124, Parma, Italy. Posted online 7 March 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30686.1.
In this contribution, F. Balsamo and colleagues describe the occurrence and geometry of different types of iron oxide deposits, which are significant indicators of the mobility of Fe2+ and O2 in shallow groundwater, associated with strike-slip faults developed in the vadose zone in quartz-dominated sandstones of the Paraba Basin, NE Brazil. The development of highly permeable and low-permeability domains along isolated fault segments promoted the physical mixing of Fe2+-rich waters and oxygenated groundwater. This arrangement favors O2 diffusion in flowing Fe2+-rich waters and, consequently, iron oxide precipitation as sand impregnations, small nodular concretions, and well-cemented mineral masses. The formation of hydraulically isolated compartments along more complex strike-slip fault zones promoted the development of Liesegang bands (a classical example of spontaneous self-organization process) in a reaction zone dominated by pore-water molecular diffusion of O2 into Fe2+-rich stagnant water. The structural-diagenetic coupling described in this paper support the role of tectonic activity on near-surface sandstone diagenesis in determining preferential hydraulic pathways for the physicochemical interaction between oxygenated groundwater and iron-rich fluids. Structural setting, fault zone architecture, and related grain size-permeability structures determine the dominant mode of solution interaction and, thus, the type and distribution of iron oxide deposits in deformed sandstones.
Focused exhumation in the syntaxis of the western Chugach Mountains and Prince William Sound, Alaska Jeanette C. Arkle et al., Dept. of Geology, University of Cincinnati, P.O. Box 0013, Cincinnati, Ohio 45221, USA. Posted online 5 April 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30738.1.
The Yakutat microplate is subducting at a shallow angle beneath southern Alaska and in the region of maximum curvature of most of the major mountain belts and faults -- the southern Alaska syntaxis. The shallow subduction is thought to be responsible for most of the deformation in the region, as well as for devastating earthquakes such as the 1964 Good Friday M9.2 megathrust earthquake. Most studies of deformation have concentrated on the inboard deformation areas along the Denali fault in the Alaska Range, or on the more outboard collision-related deformation in the St. Elias orogen. This new study by Jeanette C. Arkle and colleagues focuses on the western Chugach Mountains and Prince William Sound area in between the inboard and outboard regions. They use thermochronologic data to infer recent and relatively rapid rock uplift that is focused in the core syntaxial area and interpret this focused rock uplift as being caused by underplating above the shallow subducting microplate. The increase in underplated material may be the result of influx of material derived from erosion of the St. Elias orogen farther outboard, thus attesting to the causal and temporal linking of these orogenic systems and the positive feedbacks between precipitation, glacial activity, and rock uplift.
Linking offshore stratigraphy to onshore paleotopography: The Late JurassicPaleocene evolution of the south Norwegian margin Tor O. Smme et al., Statoil, Martin Linges vei 33, 1330 Fornebu, Norway. Posted online 5 April 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30747.1.
The link between paleotopography and basin stratigraphy along the South Norwegian margin is a long-debated topic that recently has received new attention. Despite the wealth of data available both onshore and offshore, regional relationships between onshore source areas and offshore depocenters remain to be established. In this study, Tor O. Smme and colleagues use the volume of discrete Upper Jurassic-Paleocene, point-sourced depositional units to estimate corresponding landscape topography at the time of deposition. This is accomplished by comparing the observed volume to an ideal sediment prediction model. The results show that the geometry and volume of offshore sedimentary units are best explained by topography that varies from ~1.6 km in the latest Jurassic, to ~0.5 km in the Late Cretaceous, and ~1.1 km in the Paleocene. Long-term changes in sediment flux to the margin suggests that the onshore topography has experienced recurrent periods of uplift along major fault zones followed by periods of regional denudation. This approach may also be useful for analyzing source-to-sink relationships along continental margins elsewhere.
A new view of an old suture zone: Evidence for sinistral transpression in the Cheyenne belt W.A. Sullivan and R.J. Beane, Dept. of Geology, Colby College, 5803 Mayflower Hill, Waterville, Maine 04901, USA. Posted online 5 April 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30679.1.
This article revisits a fossil plate tectonic boundary, the Cheyenne belt, which lies near the Wyoming-Colorado boarder. The Cheyenne belt separates an old piece of crust, the 1,650 to 1,800-million-year-old Colorado province, from a very old piece of crust, the 2,500 to 3,100-million-year old Wyoming province. These crustal plates were connected or sutured together about 1,750-million years ago, and they now make up part of the stable core of the North American continent and underlie much of the central and southern Rocky Mountains. The authors present a new detailed dataset collected using modern analysis techniques that were not available when the area was last examined in detail 25 to 30 years ago. This dataset, combined with other new data from the region, indicates that the Wyoming and Colorado provinces collided obliquely rather than head on as previously thought. The authors' conceptual model for the Cheyenne belt suture zone explains a number of different geologic phenomena including the orientations of faults at the boundary between the two plates, the differences in temperatures at which the rocks were deformed across these faults, and a 2 to 10 km difference in the thickness of Earth's crust across the fossil plate boundary.
###
http://www.geosociety.org
[ | 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.
African-American women are more likely than all other women to die from breast cancer, and according to research presented this week at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, doctors have gained more insight as to why that disparity exists.
For more than six years, researchers at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, Calif. followed nearly 1,700 breast cancer patients who had been treated for four different subtypes of breast cancer, including luminal A, luminal B, basal-like or HER2-enriched cancer. During that period, about 500 of the patients had died, nearly 300 of them from breast cancer, researchers say.
Among them, black patients were nearly twice as likely as white patients to have died from breast cancer, regardless of the cancer subtype, findings that turn traditional thinking about black women and breast cancer on its head.
"The results seem to indicate that although African-American women are more likely to be diagnosed with less treatable subtypes of breast cancer compared with white women, it is not the only reason they have worse breast cancer mortality," said Candyce Kroenke, M.P.H., Sc.D., research scientist at Kaiser.
The Black-White difference in breast cancer survival rates has been traditionally attributed to the fact that black women are more commonly diagnosed with less treatable tumor subtypes, such as the hard-to-treat triple-negative strain. But even though triple-negative diagnoses prevailed in her study and the likelihood of black women developing the most-treatable luminal A subtype did not, Kroenke says that poor prognosis among blacks appeared consistent across the board.
"African-Americans with breast cancer appeared to have a poorer prognosis regardless of subtype," Kroenke said. "It seems from our data that the black?white breast cancer survival difference cannot be explained entirely by variable breast cancer subtype diagnosis," she went on to say.
Recent genetic profiling has suggested that not all cancer subtypes are created equal and both the tumor makeup and methods for treating them may vary by race.
Yet others maintain that factors such as poverty, silence and racial inequities -- not genetics -- are responsible for high mortality rates. Their efforts have focused less on treatment than on awareness and eliminating cultural barriers to seeking care.
Apr. 9, 2013 ? In a development that could make the advanced form of secure communications known as quantum cryptography more practical, University of Michigan researchers have demonstrated a simpler, more efficient single-photon emitter that can be made using traditional semiconductor processing techniques.
Single-photon emitters release one particle of light, or photon, at a time, as opposed to devices like lasers that release a stream of them. Single-photon emitters are essential for quantum cryptography, which keeps secrets safe by taking advantage of the so-called observer effect: The very act of an eavesdropper listening in jumbles the message. This is because in the quantum realm, observing a system always changes it.
For quantum cryptography to work, it's necessary to encode the message -- which could be a bank password or a piece of military intelligence, for example -- just one photon at a time. That way, the sender and the recipient will know whether anyone has tampered with the message.
While the U-M researchers didn't make the first single-photon emitter, they say their new device improves upon the current technology and is much easier to make.
"This thing is very, very simple. It is all based on silicon," said Pallab Bhattacharya, the Charles M. Vest Distinguished University Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and the James R. Mellor Professor of Engineering.
Bhattacharya, who leads this project, is a co-author of a paper on the work published in Nature Communications on April 9.
Bhattacharya's emitter is a single nanowire made of gallium nitride with a very small region of indium gallium nitride that behaves as a quantum dot. A quantum dot is a nanostructure that can generate a bit of information. In the binary code of conventional computers, a bit is a 0 or a 1. A quantum bit can be either or both at the same time.
The semiconducting materials the new emitter is made of are commonly used in LEDs and solar cells. The researchers grew the nanowires on a wafer of silicon. Because their technique is silicon-based, the infrastructure to manufacture the emitters on a larger scale already exists. Silicon is the basis of modern electronics.
"This is a big step in that it produces the pathway to realizing a practical electrically injected single-photon emitter," Bhattacharya said.
Key enablers of the new technology are size and compactness.
"By making the diameter of the nanowire very small and by altering the composition over a very small section of it, a quantum dot is realized," Bhattacharya said. "The quantum dot emits single-photons upon electrical excitation."
The U-M emitter is fueled by electricity, rather than light -- another aspect that makes it more practical. And each photon it emits possesses the same degree of linear polarization. Polarization refers to the orientation of the electric field of a beam of light. Most other single-photon emitters release light particles with a random polarization.
"So half might have one polarization and the other half might have the other," Bhattacharya said. "So in cryptic message, if you want to code them, you would only be able to use 50 percent of the photons. With our device, you could use almost all of them."
This device operates at cold temperatures, but the researchers are working on one that operates closer to room temperature.
The paper is titled "Electrically-driven polarized single-photon emission from an InGaN quantum dot in a GaN nanowire." The first author is Saniya Deshpande, a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science. The work is supported by the National Science Foundation. The device was fabricated at the U-M Lurie Nanofabrication Facility.
Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Michigan.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Saniya Deshpande, Junseok Heo, Ayan Das, Pallab Bhattacharya. Electrically driven polarized single-photon emission from an InGaN quantum dot in a GaN nanowire. Nature Communications, 2013; 4: 1675 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms2691
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
"I like small penises," said no women interviewed for an actually scientific study released Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, or PNAS. Yes, PNAS is a funny sounding acronym, and, yes, PNAS has found that size does matter ? and that women prefer "showers" to "growers."
You have a lot of work to do. You're on a deadline. You're stressing out because people are constantly dropping by your desk saying hi, how you're doing because you're in a computer lab. You need to block everybody out. What do you do? Slap on some headphones and tape this sign onto your back. That should do the trick. You can work without any interruption now. More »
Designing a website is a complex activity which requires a full knowledge of the process and any agency employee needs to be capable to interpret your company?s Internet ambitions into authenticity. It is much better to hire a specialized web designer to fulfill your requirements and to build a bespoke website for your business, rather than using a template supplied by your domain provider. It is also not a good idea to outsource your requirements to other countries offering cheap web design because not only is there the possibility of language fences so that you may not get your message across to the designer, but there may also be cultural differences which could result in a website that is not suitable for the main target audience of your products and services.
It is better to find a website design agency that allows you to outline your requirements clearly, perhaps by asking for your favorite color schemes, perhaps naming three of your favorite sites so they can see what you like and who are generally prepared to listen to what you want. Being able to clearly identify your desires at the beginning will not only lead to the rapid design of your website, but also avoids the unnecessary redesigning and reworking of designs. Everyone who wants a website will prefer to have it done efficiently first time around.
In order to simplify this, there are a number of steps involved in designing a site that works well and is attractive. You need to be very clear about what you believe would best suit your business requirements and your website needs to be in tune with the type of business you are working. The site requires to be easy to navigate and user-friendly.
When selecting a designer, look judiciously at their portfolio and experience and confirm that they can handle complex design projects.
With a slight investigation, it is possible to find affordable web design, but investigation is important for this to be successfully achieved.
All growing and successful companies are enthusiastic to run a successful website and every businessman wants to recover the prospects of their business via the Internet that is why website designing has become a successful business in itself.
As a result, website designing now forms a critical part of the web development process. Building gorgeous, effective and easily controllable websites have far greater appeal to users than ones that are tedious. It is in this area that web designing plays a critical role. Hence, websites are one of the most significant tools a business can have to fetch clients straight to your business and help business to attain their full potential.
George Mason high school basketball players on a school bus. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post via Getty)One in 9 students in middle and high schools in the 2009-2010 school year were suspended at least once, according to a new report by a civil rights group concerned that the high suspension rate may be pushing kids to drop out of school altogether.
Most out-of-school suspensions were handed out for relatively minor infractions, such as violating the dress code or using a cellphone, the UCLA's Civil Rights Project found in the report, called "Out of School and Off Track: The Overuse of Suspensions in American Middle and High Schools."
The report estimated that 2 million students were suspended that year, based on discipline data from 26,000 middle and high schools. That figure doesn't include the more serious punishment of expulsion, or the number of students who faced in-school suspensions.
The report highlighted racial disparities in suspensions, an issue the U.S. Education Department is investigating in several school districts, including Los Angeles. A quarter of black students in middle and high school were suspended during the year, compared with 7.1 percent of white students. One in 3 black middle school males was suspended at least once, the report found.
Some schools had a particularly high rate of suspensions. In 519 of the high schools studied, more than half the student body had been suspended over the course of a year. Out of all the school districts studied, Chicago had the most secondary schools (82) that suspended at least a quarter of their student body in the year period.
The report's authors argue that students who are suspended are more likely to drop out of school altogether. They point out that students who are suspended might not be supervised by an adult for the duration of their out-of-school time, which they believe makes it an ineffective form of discipline.
A survey by Education Week found that 4 in 10 teachers and administrators said the ability to suspend and expel students is a good way to maintain a safe school environment. More than 75 percent of those surveyed, however, said in-school suspension is the most effective way to address misbehavior.
This is not the first study to point out the growing percentage of students who are sent away from school as punishment. A 2011 study by the Council of State Governments followed every single Texas 7th-grader throughout high school and found that the vast majority?60 percent?were suspended, expelled or faced in-school suspensions by the time they graduated.
The rise in suspensions. (UCLA Civil Rights Project)
There are big, complicated games, with guns, cars and explosions, missions to complete, stories to follow and characters to remember. Then there are simple games with just one objective where you have to do one thing over and over again till you get it right. PUK falls in that latter category.
In PUK, you hit larger circles with smaller circles before the time runs out. That?s basically all you do. But despite the simple premise, PUK is fiendishly addictive and one of the best games to have come out on mobile in recent times. Let?s see what makes it so good.
Title
PUK
Developer
Laser Dog Games Ltd.
Platform
iOS (iPhone only)
Android
Release Date
March 2012
March 2012
Content rating
4+
Everyone
Size
12.3MB
18MB
Price
$0.99
Gameplay
If you thought the gameplay description for PUK (I have no idea how to pronounce the name) in the previous paragraph was just a gross over-simplification, you?re mistaken. You really do shoot large circles with small circles. But there is a certain way of doing it.
In PUK, the screen is divided in two parts. The lower part has the smaller circles, which I shall refer to as ?strikers?, whereas the upper part has the bigger circles, which I shall refer to as ?bigger circles? because I can?t think of a better name. Anyway, to shoot the strikers towards the bigger circles, you have to pull them in the opposite direction and then release them, which catapults them forward towards your target. When you pull the striker back, you see a dotted like appear in front of it, indicating where it would shoot once you release it. The strikers can only be shot once they are in the lower portion of the screen.
Each level starts with you having a bunch of strikers at the bottom of the screen and an equal number of bigger circles above. Your job is to hit all the bigger circles with the strikers before the time runs out. Yes, there is a timer for each level and that?s what brings the tension and excitement in the game. The timer is ridiculously stringent, which leaves almost no room to dawdle around. You will see the bar near the bottom of the screen that splits it in two fills up as the timer runs. If the two ends meet, your time is over and if you still have any circles left, it?s game over for you and you have to start from the beginning. On the other hand, if you manage to complete a level before the timer crosses the first line on the bar, you win a medal for that level.
There are a 1000 levels in total. Yes, one friggin? thousand. And the game doesn?t follow a particular order for the levels, so you get different levels every time you play. Of course, the levels have varying difficulty and the game won?t throw the difficult ones at you from the beginning. But even though it compartmentalizes the levels based on difficulty and offers them as the game progresses the levels of a particular difficulty still appear at random so when you replay the game, which you will be doing quite often, you don?t feel like you?re playing the same levels again and again.
What makes the game so fun is the sheer addictive nature of the gameplay. You?d think flinging circles around all the time would get boring but it doesn?t. The game gives very little time for you to make your move and the resultant urgency is what makes is to exciting. You don?t have all the time in the world to line up your shot and you have to fling as fast as you can. In the initial levels, you don?t even have to aim properly to hit something. Even if you aim vaguely in the right direction, the strikers would end up bouncing around and manage to hit something.
As you progress in the game and play more levels, things start getting more difficult. You often have to guide the strikers around walls to hit the bigger circles, often by bouncing them off the wall. At times, you will find just one striker at your disposal, with one on the screen and you have to hit the second striker with the first so that the two bounce off of each other and hit the respective bigger circles. This is where the game goes from mindless flinging to precise shooting. The timer, however, continues to be strict, so don?t be disappointed if you don?t manage to get too far in the game even after several tries. It?s not just you; the game really is frustratingly difficult at times.
The Android version of the game, however, comes with its own set of frustrations that almost manage to break the game. As mentioned before, you have to pull the strikers down to shoot them, which are placed at the bottom of the screen. On an iPhone, this is not an issue. You can pull your finger close to the bottom edge of the display and even beyond without worrying about hitting anything (there is no way you?d press the Home button simply by sliding over it). On Android, this is a pretty serious problem.
Every Android phone has keys below the screen. Several, these days, have it directly on the screen. With that in mind, imagine pulling a striker down and then running your thumb over one of these keys. Depending upon the key you touch, you could either end up ending the game or landing directly on your homescreen.
I tested the game on a Galaxy S III, which thankfully has only two capacitive keys to worry about. While the menu button is innocent as it has no function assigned, the back button kills the game every time. The current version of the game has this ridiculous bug where if you press the Back button while playing, the screen goes black after the current level is over. That?s it. It just goes blank. Only option after that is to end and play the game from the beginning.
Out of every five games I played, approximately three ended because I pressed the Back button. I imagine things would be significantly worse for those who have the keys directly on the screen, such as the Nexus devices. I can?t imagine how the game managed to pass through testing stages with such an enormous oversight. It almost makes the game unplayable on Android.
There is also one feature in the game where, if a striker manages to stop in the upper portion of the screen (remember, you can only shoot them when they are inside the lower portion), you can shake the phone to move it around a bit, hopefully to hit a bigger circle before the timer runs out. Either I was doing something terribly wrong or this feature simply does not work. I shook my phone every way possible when the icon appeared on the screen and it did absolutely nothing. Several others have also complained about this, which tells me it?s not me who?s doing something wrong.
Another bug weird bug in the Android version is that you can?t adjust the volume once the game starts. Makes me wonder if the developers actually played the game on an Android device before publishing it.
Graphics and Sound
Along with the gameplay, the audio-visual presentation of the PUK is another great aspect of it. The game has a very minimalistic visual design, consisting only of orange and white colors. The screen is predominantly orange and the circles and text are white. While it does look very pretty the orange color can get overbearing after a while, especially on an AMOLED display. The UI animations and design, however, are very slick.
The music is equally cool. The continuous electronic music hums along throughout the game, picking up pace just when things start getting exciting while the movements and attacks of the circles are punctuated with distorted bass notes. Like the gameplay and visuals, the music maintains simplicity and minimalism but manages to be superb nonetheless.
The overall audio-visual design of PUK reminds me heavily of Hundreds. Incidentally, that game also dealt with circles and had a simple gameplay style. One would be fooled into thinking the same developer made both these games.
Verdict
PUK is simple, fun and pretty. At $0.99, it?s also cheap. The Android version of the game, unfortunately, comes with a major oversight as part of its feature list but even then the game somehow manages to be enjoyable. If you have an iPhone then it?s a no-brainer; you have to play this game. If you have an Android device, I?d suggest you try it out for a while to see if you can work around the controls otherwise refund it. Chances are, you probably won?t.
Rating: iOS: 9/10; Android: 6/10 Pros: Addictive gameplay, a thousand different levels to play that appear in a different order every time, minimalistic yet wonderful audio-visual presentation, inexpensive Cons: Android version has a major design flaw, several bugs and glitches, bright orange theme can get overbearing after a while
ASTANA, Kazakhstan (AP) ? Yuriy Schukin and Andrey Golubev beat Radek Stepanek and Jan Hajek 7-6 (2), 6-4, 6-3 in doubles Saturday to cut the Czech Republic's lead against Kazakhstan in the Davis cup quarterfinals to 2-1.
After rallying from a break down to win the first set, the Kazakh pair broke decisively in the ninth game of the second. They then won the next three games to take a 2-0 lead in the third set.
Schukin and Golubev closed it out on their first match point, breaking Stepanek's serve.
The defending champion Czechs took a 2-0 lead Friday after Hajek and Lukas Rosol won their opening singles matches.
Grosenick, who has been a part of the Dutchmen's back-to-back NCAA Tournament berths, reportedly forgoes his senior season.
According to our own Andy Johnson and Ken Schott of the Daily Gazette in Schenectady, New York, Union junior goaltender Troy Grosenick will forego his senior season to sign a professional contract with the San Jose Sharks.
He is the third undrafted free agent reported Friday to sign with San Jose. Previously, Minnesota State forward Eriah Hayes and Colorado College forward Rylan Schwartz signed following the expiration of their college eligibility.
After making a single start his freshman year, Grosenick more than made up for it his last two years. Troy posted 5 shutouts as a sophomore and had a 1.65 GAA and .936 save percentage. He was named a Hobey Baker finalist for his individual efforts. Team-wise, Grosenick led the Dutchmen to their first-ever Frozen Four appearance.
This past season wasn't as good individually - Grosenick finished with a 2.12 GAA and .926 save percentage - yet Union was successful as a team. They came on strong towards the end of the season and won their second straight ECAC conference tournament title. Although the Dutchmen routed Boston College 5-1, they fell to conference rival Quinnipiac in the East Region final.
--
For more SB Nation College Hockey coverage, follow us on Twitter @sbncollegepuck and like us on Facebook.
President Obama sparked a mini-tempest when he called California's Kamala Harris the 'best-looking attorney general in the country.' At least he also called her brilliant, dedicated, and tough.
By Linda Feldmann,?Staff writer / April 5, 2013
California Attorney General Kamala Harris speaks during a news conference in Los Angeles, Nov. 2012. President Obama praised Harris for more than her smarts and toughness at a Democratic Party event Thursday. The president also commended Harris for being 'the best-looking attorney general' during a Democratic fundraising lunch in the Silicon Valley.
Richard Vogel/AP/File
Enlarge
So President Obama thinks California?s Kamala Harris is ?by far the best-looking attorney general in the country.? But does he deserve all the grief he?s getting for saying that out loud?
Skip to next paragraph Linda Feldmann
Staff writer
Linda Feldmann is a staff writer for the Monitor based in Washington.
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition
On MSNBC?s ?Morning Joe? Friday, usually an Obama-friendly zone, the president came in for some criticism over his comment the day before at a fundraiser near San Francisco for the Democratic National Committee.
?I?m sure he meant to pay her a compliment ? but quite frankly, it just divides women and it just divides people up to separate them by looks and probably was a little ham-fisted,? said host Mika Brzezinski. ?I think he made a mistake.?
Under the headline ?Obama in Need of Gender-Sensitivity Training,? Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine writes: ?Women have a hard time being judged purely on their merits. Discussing their appearance in the context of evaluating their job performance makes it worse.?
Furthermore, for a president who has become a ?cultural model? for supporters, Mr. Obama set an example that is ?disgraceful,? Mr. Chait adds.
Well.
Was the comment really that bad? Before he weighed in on Ms. Harris?s looks, Obama in fact signaled that he knew he was about to say something politically incorrect.
?You have to be careful to, first of all, say she is brilliant and she is dedicated and she is tough, and she is exactly what you'd want in anybody who is administering the law, and making sure that everybody is getting a fair shake,? Obama said. ?She also happens to be by far the best-looking attorney general in the country ? Kamala Harris is here. (Applause.) It's true. Come on. (Laughter.) And she is a great friend and has just been a great supporter for many, many years.?
It?s also worth noting that before Obama?s shout-out to Harris, he commented on the physical appearance of a member of Congress who was also there.
From the White House transcript: ?A good friend of mine, somebody who you guys should be very proud of, Congressman Mike Honda is here. Where is Mike? (Applause.) He is around here somewhere. There he is. Yes, I mean, he's not like a real tall guy, but he's a great guy.?
Basically, this is all taking place at a swanky fundraiser in Atherton, Calif. ? at the home of Levi Strauss heir John Goldman ? and the president is relaxed and jovial, and just saying what he thinks. The republic will not fall over this. And it?s not as if Obama has a reputation as a skirt-chaser, as did some of his predecessors.
But what about his wife, first lady Michelle Obama? In a TV interview Thursday, Mrs. Obama slipped and referred to herself as a ?single mother.?
?Believe me, as a busy single mother ? or, I shouldn?t say single, as a busy mother. Sometimes, you know, when you?ve got a husband who is president, it can feel a little single. But he?s there,? Mrs. Obama told Vermont CBS affiliate WCAX.
Mrs. Obama was talking about the challenge busy working moms face in feeding their kids healthy food. We?re not sure if she was speaking before or after her husband?s comments on Harris, or if she had heard what he said.
I have two problems with doorbells. First, they sound incredibly annoying. Secondly, there isn?t an easy way to turn them off. DoorJamz provides a solution for both of these problems. It?s still a doorbell, but instead of the consistently infuriating ?ding-dong?, you can choose to have it play whatever you like. If can have Led Zeppelin?s Kashmir play whenever your guests or the Jehovah Witnesses announce their presence. That's pretty cool.
Anyone can start a blog these days. But it takes a great deal of time and effort to create, cultivate, and produce a high-quality blog. Writers of blogs must toe the line between being relevant and not regurgitating the same content or viewpoints than are being espoused elsewhere.
So it?s understandable that bloggers may not adequately focus on how to use social media to improve the popularity of their blogs. With that in mind, here are some tips on what bloggers should do (and not do) on various social media sites in order to enlarge readership and bolster the blog?s profile in cyberspace.
Facebook DO set up a fan page and/or group related to your blog. This isn?t overkill or egomania: It?s smart marketing. Facebook fan pages and groups provide another community for readers of your blog to interact with one another.
DO import new blog posts onto your Facebook page. You can do this on a post-by-post basis, or you can import these posts as a Facebook ?note? automatically if you change the appropriate setting in your ?Notes? tab.
DON?T ?overmix? your personal Facebook page with your blog. If the content of your blog isn?t completely in line with your personal page, then combining the two could hurt the efficacy of both. That?s where groups or fan pages come in handy.
Twitter DO use Twitter to help establish yourself as an ?expert.? You blog about the same topic regularly, so you probably know more about it than the average person on Twitter. Reach out to other and answer questions on Twitter ? and soon, you?ll be their go-to source for your blog topic.
DO use Twitter for live coverage of an event. If you are at an event and sending live updates on your blog, do the same on your Twitter feed. It?s better-suited for immediacy ? and it might draw more people to your blog in the future!
DON?T forget to read other Tweets. Limiting your Twitter time to your blog?s interests is cheating yourself. You can get plenty of ideas for blog topics if you pay attention to what others are tweeting about.
LinkedIn DO share blog posts on LinkedIn. It?s not just a job-hunting site. You can post blog entries in LinkedIn groups, email certain posts to members if you think they?ll find it relevant, or simply share an update with those who are linked to you.
DO build your LinkedIn profile. The more information you provide to the site, the more potential connections you can make. And since many decision-makers use LinkedIn frequently, that could transfer into influential readers ? or those who want to spend advertising dollars on your blog.
DON?T use the site?s canned solicitation messages. If you want someone to recommend your blog or write a review for it, you can utilize LinkedIn to make this request. But don?t use the site?s default messages to ask them; be personal and make the appeal in your own words.
Digg DO become an active user of Digg. The more posts and comments you make on Digg and the more friends you have on the site, the higher your Digg profile will be ? and users will be more likely to explore your submissions, which in turn could boost your blog traffic.
DO pay attention to titles and descriptions. These aspects are the ?hooks? which convince others to read about the article or post. So put as much thought into the Digg title and description of your content as you do the content itself.
DON?T Digg your own posts. This is a huge no-no in the Diggosphere. The site tends to penalize people who are the first to submit their own posts to the site. So ask a colleague or friend to do it for you.
Google+ (or Plus) DO join Google+ Communities. These clusters seem to be combining the popularity of Facebook groups with the type of influential members found in LinkedIn networks. So you definitely want to get in on these communities and promote your blog.
DO explore Google+ Hangouts. Conversely, this feature isn?t found on Facebook or Twitter. It allows users to easily congregate online to meet at a specific time, discuss a topic, or even be part of a demonstration ? and archive the event on YouTube. Try organizing a panel discussion on your blog topic; the exposure you receive could be enormous.
DON?T post the same stuff. Simply cutting and pasting your blog, Facebook, and/or other social media content in Google+ groupings won?t get the job done. Take the time to take a different angle or repurpose the content to fit the specific topic or viewpoint being discussed in a Community or Hangout.
Blogs and social media sites are not mutually exclusive. Successfully employing a targeted social media strategy and nurturing your presence on these sites can lead to an increase in readership, a boost in popularity, and a jump in influence for your blog.
This post was written by...
Chris Martin ? who has written 1 posts on Hello Bloggerz.
Chris Martin is a freelance writer who writes for numerous websites and is also a ghostwriter for several blogs. In addition, he is an accomplished voice actor and an experienced sportscaster. Martin has also worked as a radio DJ, a traffic reporter, and a public address announcer for sporting events - and he actively monitors his online reputation on Reputation.com.You can connect with Martin on Google Plus.
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 9-Apr-2013
Share ] 
I have two problems with doorbells. First, they sound incredibly annoying. Secondly, there isn?t an easy way to turn them off. DoorJamz provides a solution for both of these problems. It?s still a doorbell, but instead of the consistently infuriating ?ding-dong?, you can choose to have it play whatever you like. If can have 
