Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/288741580?client_source=feed&format=rss
Monday, March 4, 2013
Turning It Down: Cities Combat Light Pollution By Going Dim
This summer Paris will start dimming its streetlights, though major landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, will not be affected.
Mike Hewitt/Getty ImagesThis summer Paris will start dimming its streetlights, though major landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, will not be affected.
Mike Hewitt/Getty ImagesBright lights are part of a city's ecosystem. Think of Times Square or the Las Vegas Strip or right outside your bedroom window.
Electric lighting is ubiquitous in most urban and suburban neighborhoods. It's something most people take for granted, but appreciate, since it feels like well-lit streets keep us safer. But what if all this wattage is actually causing harm?
"We're getting brighter and brighter and brighter," warns Paul Bogard, author of the upcoming book, End of Night: Searching for Natural Darkness in an Age of Artificial Light.
Bogard says the developed world's desire to light up the night has gotten out of control.
"Things like gas stations and parking lots are lit now 10 times as bright as they were just 20 years ago," Bogard tells Celeste Headlee, host of weekends on All Things Considered. "It has everything to do with marketing, really. The gas station on the corner has figured out that if they turn up the lights, more people will be attracted to those lights."
And, Bogard says, all that light is having some unintended consequences. For one, it affects our sleeping patterns, he says.
Others say the effects of light pollution are worse.
Richard Stevens, an epidemiologist at the University of Connecticut Health Center, was one of the first to make the connection between bright, artificial light and breast cancer. Stevens' research found that artificial light can disrupt our body clock ? and affect our production of melatonin.
"We know for sure that the lighting in the modern world can disrupt our circadian rhythms, and that cannot be good," Stevens tells Headlee.
Cities such as Santa Rosa, Calif., and Brainerd, Minn., are turning off a certain number of streetlights. Even Paris seems willing to cut down on its illumination to reduce light pollution.
The French Environment Ministry recently announced that starting this summer, office buildings and storefronts will have to turn off artificial lights between the hours of 1 a.m. and 7 a.m. Major landmarks like the Eiffel Tower will continue to be lit.
Yet Bogard says he hopes Paris will lead a lighting revolution.
"The fact that Paris, the city of lights, is choosing to control their use of light at night is fantastic, and can serve as a model for cities all over the world," he said.
Perhaps, someday soon, we'll get off the subway, look up at the dark city sky, and see the stars of the Milky Way again.
Biden leads re-enactment of voting rights march
Vice President Joe Biden and other lawmakers leads a group across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., Sunday, March 3, 2013. They were commemorating the 48th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when police officers beat marchers when they crossed the bridge on a march from Selma to Montgomery. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)
Vice President Joe Biden and other lawmakers leads a group across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., Sunday, March 3, 2013. They were commemorating the 48th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when police officers beat marchers when they crossed the bridge on a march from Selma to Montgomery. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)
Vice President Joe Biden, center, leads a group across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., Sunday, March 3, 2013. They were commemorating the 48th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when police officers beat marchers when they crossed the bridge on a march from Selma to Montgomery. From left: Selma Mayor George Evans, U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala., Rev. Jesse Jackson, Biden, Rev. Al Sharpton and U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)
Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., lead a group across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., Sunday, March 3, 2013. They were commemorating the 48th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when police officers beat marchers when they crossed the bridge on a march from Selma to Montgomery.(AP Photo/Dave Martin)
U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., points to where he and others were beaten 48 years ago when they tried to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge during a civil rights march in Selma, Ala., Sunday, March 3, 2013. At rear is Vice President Joe Biden. At left is U/S. Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala., Jesse Jackson is second from left. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder addresses those who gathered for the Bridge Crossing Jubilee in Selma, Ala., Sunday, March 3, 2013. They were commemorating the 48th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when police officers beat marchers when they crossed the bridge on a march from Selma to Montgomery. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)
SELMA, Ala. (AP) ? The vice president and black leaders commemorating a famous civil rights march on Sunday said efforts to diminish the impact of African-Americans' votes haven't stopped in the years since the 1965 Voting Rights Act added millions to Southern voter rolls.
More than 5,000 people followed Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma's annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee.
The event commemorates the "Bloody Sunday" beating of voting rights marchers ? including a young Lewis ? by state troopers as they began a march to Montgomery in March 1965. The 50-mile march prompted Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act that struck down impediments to voting by African-Americans and ended all-white rule in the South.
Biden, the first sitting vice president to participate in the annual re-enactment, said nothing shaped his consciousness more than watching TV footage of the beatings. "We saw in stark relief the rank hatred, discrimination and violence that still existed in large parts of the nation," he said.
Biden said marchers "broke the back of the forces of evil," but that challenges to voting rights continue today with restrictions on early voting and voter registration drives and enactment of voter ID laws where no voter fraud has been shown.
"We will never give up or give in," Lewis told marchers.
Jesse Jackson said Sunday's event had a sense of urgency because the U.S. Supreme Court heard a request Wednesday by a mostly white Alabama county to strike down a key portion of the Voting Rights Act.
"We've had the right to vote 48 years, but they've never stopping trying to diminish the impact of the votes," Jackson said.
Referring to the Voting Rights act, the Rev. Al Sharpton said: "We are not here for a commemoration. We are here for a continuation."
The Supreme Court is weighing Shelby County's challenge to a portion of the law that requires states with a history of racial discrimination, mostly in the Deep South, to get approval from the Justice Department before implementing any changes in election laws. That includes everything from new voting districts to voter ID laws.
Attorneys for Shelby County argued that the pre-clearance requirement is outdated in a state where one-fourth of the Legislature is black. But Jackson predicted the South will return to gerrymandering and more at-large elections if the Supreme Court voids part of the law.
Attorney General Eric Holder, the defendant in Shelby County's suit, told marchers that the South is far different than it was in 1965 but is not yet at the point where the most important part of the voting rights act can be dismissed as unnecessary.
Martin Luther King III, whose father led the march when it resumed after Bloody Sunday, said, "We come here not to just celebrate and observe but to recommit."
One of the NAACP attorneys who argued the case, Debo Adegbile, said when Congress renewed the Voting Rights Act in 2006, it understood that the act makes sure minority inclusion is considered up front.
"It reminds us to think consciously about how we can include all our citizens in democracy. That is as important today as it was in 1965," he said.
Adegbile said the continued need for the law was shown in 2011 when undercover recordings from a bribery investigation at the Alabama Legislature included one white legislator referring to blacks as "aborigines" and other white legislators laughing.
"This was 2011. This was not 1965," he said.
Associated PressThis Android-Controlled RC Car is a Great Exercise in Arduino
Tolik777's Instructables walkthrough provides the details, but basically you're strapping an Arduino controller with a motor driver and Bluetooth receiver to an old RC car chassis, and controlling it with an Android app. Once you're all set up, you'll be able to control the vehicle's direction and speed by tilting your Android device, which sounds way more fun than any RC car I grew up with.
If you want to know more about Arduino, our beginner's guide has a bunch of other simple projects and walkthroughs to get you started.
Simple RC Car for Beginners | Instructables via WonderHowTo
ScienceDaily: Child Development News
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/rss/mind_brain/child_development.xml
YahLive delivers the future of satellite TV broadcasting now - AME Info
As a panelist for the "Increasing Profitability" discussion aimed at facilitating dialogue amongst industry leaders to discuss ways to capitalise on emerging trends at the Broadcast Conference 2013, Magnus Simons, Director of Sales and Business Development at YahLive, emphasised the need for broadcast industry players to adapt their business models to the inevitable HD migration that is being driven by consumer demand, not just in the region, but globally: "There is a significant number of HDTVs sold in the Middle East region, and in some Gulf countries, it is almost impossible now to buy a conventional Standard Definition (SD) TV set, which indicates that MENA consumers have an insatiable appetite for content choice and a quality viewing experience. It is our belief that the future direction of the regional television market will be driven by the consumers' willingness to pay a modest price for content and quality."
Simons further explained YahLive's cataclysmic role in enabling broadcasters to make a faster, more cost-effective SD-to-HD conversion: "YahLive allocates eight megabits per second per HD channel, which we see is the minimum needed for a high-quality HD viewing experience. Yahlive, in collaboration with SES, a leading global satellite operator, is implementing new technologies to make transmission of HD channels more efficient and affordable, offering Ku band satellite capacity suitable for broadcast services through three connected high power beams."
Other panelists included Yousef Touqan, Chief Executive Officer, Flip Media; Christopher O'Hearn, General Manager of Emirates Media Measurement Company and Nick Grande, Managing Director, Channel Sculptor.
YahLive also conducted an HD migration workshop at the conference, which featured YahLive's up-scaling SD-to-HD process that lowers barriers to HD conversion and frees up much needed capacity for broadcasters.
Ammar Baranbo, Director of Engineering at YahLive, who led the workshop stated: "High Definition is the future of television and, because we have the necessary capacity and engineering infrastructure and our diverse channel bouquet on the YahLive platform means that we can offer the future of TV today to both broadcasters and consumers."
Broadcasting from the powerful satellite Y1A at 52.5? East, Abu Dhabi-based YahLive has a high-quality, robust and secure HD TV service standard and is also creating an extensive MENA HD installation network to support the region's growing HD broadcast demand through its HD Academy roadshows that provide technical satellite and dish installation training to the installers.
Baranbo commented: "HD is becoming the 'new normal' for TV channels across the region and consumer demand is driving the HD conversion that is sweeping across the region. The benefit of YahLive is that we offer a platform exclusively for HD channels which television households across the MENA region can access simply by installing a small satellite dish pointed at 52.5 degrees East."
Within a year of launching operations, YahLive has established a regional installer network of 500 with aims to reach 2,000 by year-end 2013 and also created an exclusive HD bouquet of 47 quality channels including Saudi TV, Dubai Media Incorporated, Abu Dhabi Media, Cartoon Network Arabia, GEM, MBC and others that appeal to diverse audiences.
Source: http://www.ameinfo.com/yahlive-delivers-future-satellite-tv-broadcasting-331773
Sunday, March 3, 2013
China's Xi rides high hopes ahead of presidency
LUOTUOWAN VILLAGE, China (AP) ? China's fawning state media, jaded social media commentators and even poor corn and cabbage farmers agree: new Communist Party chief Xi Jinping is off to a good start.
"General Secretary Xi doesn't put on any airs. He talks like an ordinary person," said 69-year-old farmer Tang Rongbin. The new leader visited Tang's sparse, dimly lit farmhouse in Luotuowan village in December, bearing gifts of cooking oil, flour and a blanket.
Xi has styled himself as an economic reformer, an iron-fisted graft-buster, a staunch nationalist and a no-frills man-of-the-people ? spurring expectations for change. But as he prepares to be appointed to the largely ceremonial role of president, pressure will be growing on him to deliver.
China faces rising public anger over endemic corruption, a burgeoning rich-poor gap and the degradation of the country's air, soil and waterways. Slower economic growth and territorial disputes, especially with Japan, add to the tension.
Mounting protests over environmental issues, land seizures and high-handed officialdom point to the underlying social discontent. Days before the party conclave that brought Xi to power last year, thousands of protesters in the eastern city of Ningbo faced off against riot police outside government offices, calling on officials to halt a chemical plant expansion.
"I think there has been a revolution of rising expectations," said Willy Lam, an expert on party politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. "People realize they can get away with even demonstrations to make their wills heard."
Joining the clamor for change this past week were dozens of prominent intellectuals who signed a petition urging the government to ratify an international treaty on protecting human rights and the rule of law. Also, a group of about 100 parents of gays and lesbians urged lawmakers to legalize gay marriage.
The annual session of the national legislature, which opens Tuesday, will complete the once-a-decade handover of power that began in November when Xi and his leadership team assumed the top positions in the Communist Party. At the end of the session, Xi will take the title of president from his predecessor as party leader, Hu Jintao.
Deputies to the National People's Congress will rubber-stamp appointments of senior officials to the State Council, or Cabinet, to run economic and foreign policies; Xi and other party leaders finalized the personnel changes at a closed-door meeting last week. The No. 2 party leader, Li Keqiang, will become premier, the country's top economic official.
The legislature gives the Xi administration a high-profile platform to lay out policies to build the prosperous, strong and fairer society he has talked about in his public appearances.
Xi came to power in the wake of a scandal that exposed infighting and corruption in the highest reaches of the party. Exuding a confidence and ease lacking in the remote, wooden Hu, Xi has seized on the public's disgust over graft and its hopes for national greatness to rally support for his leadership.
"He certainly took challenges and made them opportunities," said Cheng Li, an expert on Chinese politics at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "He turned them around into great expectations for him, and great hope."
Xi visited an early testing ground for the market reforms that have transformed China into the world's No. 2 economy to align himself with reform in broad terms, though he has given no indication of the changes he wants to make.
He stopped off at Luotuowan and other farming villages to show his concern for those struggling to get by. And he has played to nationalist sentiments, taking a hard line against Japan in a long-festering territorial dispute, and touring military units to show his commitment to national defense.
Xi has disappointed some who had hoped for greater political freedom. Though he has espoused the virtues of constitutional government and the rule of law, dissidents continue to be harassed, and a crackdown on self-immolation protests in Tibetan areas has only intensified.
It is fighting graft that Xi has made the signature campaign of his first three months ? a popular campaign that so far featured more symbolism than action.
He launched a drive to cut out red carpets, motorcades and other official extravagance. State media touted that he preferred simple meals over the usual banquets leaders are given while on inspection tours. He has vowed to target corruption at high and low levels of power ? both the "tigers" and the "flies."
So far, it's mostly flies that have been swatted. A slew of lower-level officials have been punished after revelations they were keeping mistresses or amassing multiple unaccounted-for properties. Its highest-level victim has been a deputy provincial party chief suspected of influence peddling and dodgy real estate deals.
Many politically minded Chinese aren't convinced that Xi will take the painful steps needed to root out deeply embedded corruption. Eliminating graft would require an overhaul of the patronage-based political culture and restraining the party's unchecked power.
"Will it be like the past when there was great determination expressed in speech, but ultimately no effective efforts followed to control corruption?" said Ren Jianming, an anti-corruption expert at prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing. "We haven't seen much in terms of specific measures."
Some Chinese want the party to allow its anti-corruption watchdogs to operate independently, and to require officials to declare assets publicly. A system in place since 2010 requires some officials to report income, real estate holdings and other wealth to their superiors ? not the public ? but that has done little to stanch graft. A few areas in Guangdong have recently been named as testing grounds for public asset declaration.
Still, resistance to full disclosure is high within the bureaucracy and perhaps even the leadership. Bloomberg News reported in June last year that Xi's extended family has amassed assets totaling $376 million, though it said none was traced to Xi himself.
"I believe that Xi should take the lead," said Wang Yukai, an anti-corruption expert at the Chinese Academy of Governance, which trains provincial and ministerial-level civil servants. "Politburo Standing Committee members also need to declare information about their spouses and children. This will pave the way for future declarations."
Many experts advocated an asset declaration mechanism when they attended a meeting called by Wang Qishan, the party's new anti-corruption agency chief, in late November, according to Ren, who was one of the participants. Ren said Wang noted that more research needed to be done but otherwise stayed noncommittal.
"There's now a lot of public expectation about anti-corruption work, and as the leading cadre in charge of this work, he must remain calm and rational," Ren observed. "It's easy to raise public expectations, but if you're unable to meet them, then you'll end up disappointing everyone."
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Follow Gillian Wong on Twitter: http://twitter.com/gillianwong
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/chinas-xi-rides-high-hopes-ahead-presidency-053258313.html
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