Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/176187912?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Sunday, December 18, 2011
Sentencing delayed for Wheatland teen in Russian roulette case (Rochester Democrat and Chronicle)
Saturday, December 17, 2011
New App Lets iPad Users Play With Real Live Pigs
? Playing With Pigs
With tens of thousands of apps currently available for the iPad and iPhone, there is certainly no shortage of distractions to keep us smartphone-wielding humans entertained -- but as it turns out, we're not the only ones who could benefit from bit of beguilement. That said, in hopes of staving off boredom in human and swine alike, a team of Dutch designers have created Pig Chase -- an app for interspecies entertainment that playfully pits iPad users against real-life pigs, who might otherwise only meet one another on a plate.
Since 2001, law has required pig farmers in the European Union to provide some form of entertainment to their livestock as a way of keeping them in good emotional health, which in turn helps curb aggression and anxiety. Often, toys and other materials are placed inside the sties for animals to interact with, but perhaps unsurprisingly, some farmers have found it quite difficult to play host to satisfactorily turn their pigpens into playpens.
With that in mind, designers from Utrecht School of the Arts and Wageningen University in the Netherlands ventured to create new ways to make swine swoon -- resulting in a project called Playing with Pigs. But with a shortage of literature on entertaining pigs, developers soon found themselves experts in the field.
"During the design process we discovered something that, to our knowledge at the time, animal scientists had not noticed until now: pigs like to play with light. For example, pigs are fascinated by the movement of reflected points of light, and are attracted to new light spots on a surface," the project's web site states.
That's when the idea for Pig Chase dawned on them as a means to bring a bit of joy to animals on the farm, all while forging a "new relationship between pigs and humans."
Here's how it works:
? Playing With Pigs
Pigs play with the help of a large touch sensitive display. On it, a human-controlled ball of light moves around. When they touch the ball, it fires off colorful sparks.
? Playing With Pigs
Humans play the game on a tablet computer such as an iPad. They move the ball of light with their finger and see the pigs? snouts as if they were on the other side of the screen.
? Playing With Pigs
If pigs and humans move in harmony, that is, if a pig?s snout and the human?s ball of light move through a goal triangle, it triggers a colorful display of fireworks. An additional challenge for humans is to maintain contact with the pigs? snouts. If they do not, their ball of light fizzles out.
? Playing With Pigs
? Playing With Pigs
Finally, the number of targets a human and pig hit in one session is kept track of and shown in a high score table. So what we have is a game that enables humans to play with an animal they normally only consume as meat. For pigs, humans are transformed into a source of entertainment.
? Playing With Pigs
In both intent and execution, this is pretty awesome. For too long and for too many people, livestock pigs have been relegated to the murky outskirts of our awareness, despite possessing an intellect and emotional sensitivity found in few other non-human species. At the very least, Pig Chase will undoubtedly, and perhaps subconsciously, raise awareness of not only of where our food comes from -- but from whom as well.
According to its creators, Pig Chase is in development with Dutch gaming firm Gamefonds, and could soon be coming to an iPad -- or sty -- near you.
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Making Pets Safer? With Science! ? Cute Overload
Ah, but therein the beauty of the design! Upon close examination, you will note that the kitteh?s nose faces Southwest, while the goggie?s, erm, ?exhaust? faces Northeast, directly in line, in fact, to the goggie?s air intake (so the dog can ascertain that he is himself, and no other dog, I guess).
Source: http://cuteoverload.com/2011/12/14/making-pets-safer-with-science/
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Friday, December 16, 2011
Lindsay Lohan back to court for probation update
FILE - In this Nov. 2, 2011 file photo, actress Lindsay Lohan appears with her attorney Shawn Chapman Holley for a probation hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court. Lohan returns to court Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011, to update an LA judge on her progress under strict new probation requirements. (AP Photo/Mario Anzuoni, Pool)
FILE - In this Nov. 2, 2011 file photo, actress Lindsay Lohan appears with her attorney Shawn Chapman Holley for a probation hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court. Lohan returns to court Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011, to update an LA judge on her progress under strict new probation requirements. (AP Photo/Mario Anzuoni, Pool)
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Lindsay Lohan is due in court Wednesday to give a judge her first progress update under strict new probation requirements intended to keep close tabs on the troubled actress.
Lohan has been reporting regularly for work at the Los Angeles County morgue since being repeatedly threatened with a long jail sentence if she failed to complete the terms of her probation, which include community service and counseling sessions.
The hearing is without the usual drama that precedes Lohan's recent court appearances, which have focused on the actress' shortcomings by missing court-ordered therapy sessions and getting booted from a community service assignment at a women's shelter. The "Mean Girls" star spent less than five hours at a jail last month as part of a 30-day sentence imposed by Judge Stephanie Sautner for Lohan's continued misbehavior.
The judge is requiring the starlet to report on her progress on a monthly basis and it appears Lohan has been successful in meeting the goals of Wednesday's hearing.
"She's been doing fine," Deputy Chief Coroner Ed Winter said Tuesday, saying the actress has been showing up, working and leaving without incident.
He said he did not know how many hours Lohan had completed.
Her spokesman, Steve Honig, said Lohan has met or exceeded the terms of her probation imposed by Sautner last month.
"She's working very diligently to keep up her days so she can finish up with probation," he said.
Lohan remains on probation for a 2007 drunken driving case and a misdemeanor grand theft case filed after she took a $2,500 necklace without permission from a store.
She has consistently struggled with the terms of her various sentences, which have included jail terms, rehab, community service and counseling.
Her appearance Wednesday comes days before a Playboy issue featuring Lohan in a mostly-nude pictorial hits newsstands. The magazine was forced to release the issue online early after photos of the Marilyn Monroe-inspired spread leaked out online.
___
Follow Anthony McCartney at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP
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Physicists say they are near epic Higgs boson discovery
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
The Holy Grail of high-energy physics ? the predicted but elusive Higgs boson ? is almost within reach, and the Brandeis high-energy physics group, along with other particle physicists around the world collaborating on making the finding, is almost giddy with excitement.
The Brandeis group has contributed since 1994 to collaborative experiments to detect the Higgs particle in the world's largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). CERN, the international agency in Geneva that oversees experiments in the LHC, announced Monday in a progress report the news of mounting experimental evidence for the existence of this critically important speck of nature.
"It's very exciting," says Brandeis physics Professor Craig Blocker, explaining that experiments in the LHC's two detectors have amassed enough evidence of the Higgs particle to suggest much more than an unexplained blip in the data produced by trillions of protons smashing into each other at almost the speed of light.
"The data look very tantalizing but we're not there yet," says Blocker. "We don't have quite enough evidence to claim a discovery but it looks promising ? there's a good indication that this particle is there, so we'll probably be able to announce the discovery next year with more data."
What makes the prospect of finding the Higgs particle so electrifying for physicists is that its discovery could put in place the final piece of the puzzle that describes the fundamental building blocks of matter and their interactions ? hence its description as the "God Particle." Higgs particles are thought to interact with other subatomic particles to give them mass through a phenomenon known as the Higgs mechanism.
The Higgs mechanism was first described in the 1960s by Scottish physicist Peter Higgs. A few years later, physicist Steven Weinberg applied Higgs' ideas to weak interactions and predicted the Higgs particle. It is the only elementary particle in the Standard Model ? the description of the fundamental particles and the forces that hold them together ? that has not been observed experimentally yet.
Blocker says detecting the Higgs is challenging because the strength with which it interacts with other particles depends on the mass of those other particles. The Higgs itself is quite massive (for something on the subatomic level); it interacts well with other massive particles, but very poorly with lightweight particles. However, massive particles generally require higher-energy conditions than lightweight particles to record experimentally ? energy levels difficult to obtain even inside the mind-boggling fast Large Hadron Collider. Consequently, says Blocker, physicists don't obtain the signature energy decay of a Higgs boson often in the supercollider.
The growing anticipation surrounding the Higgs particle seems almost overshadowed by a gathering anxiety that physicists might actually get what they wish for ? a perfectly realized prediction that completes the Standard Model. If that happens says Blocker, "we'd be unhappy ? the quest is what's interesting."
Higgs or no Higgs, the chances of particle physicists actually arriving at what Einstein called a "theory of everything" anytime soon seem infinitesimally remote. When it comes to particle physics, says Blocker, it is much more likely that new theories will be generated with each experimental advance.
###
Brandeis University: http://www.brandeis.edu
Thanks to Brandeis University for this article.
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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/115960/Physicists_say_they_are_near_epic_Higgs_boson_discovery
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Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Alec Baldwin asked to leave flight for playing game (Reuters)
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ? Actor Alec Baldwin was involved in a dispute with an American Airlines flight attendant on Tuesday and asked to disembark an airplane because he was playing a smart-phone word game before departure.
"Alec was asked to leave the flight for playing 'Words with Friends' while parked at the gate. He loves WWF so much that he was willing to leave a plane for it, but he has already boarded another AA flight," Baldwin's spokesman Matthew Hiltzik said in a statement.
Baldwin took to Twitter with several posts addressing the incident, as well as supporting rival United Airlines.
"Flight attendant on American reamed me out 4 playing WORDS W FRIENDS while we sat at the gate, not moving," tweeted the "30 Rock" actor.
He also tweeted "Last flight w American. Where retired Catholic school gym teachers from the 1950's find jobs as flight attendants."
Baldwin's tweets and his spokesman's statement came after a passenger on the flight from Los Angeles International Airport to New York City, posted on Twitter, "On an AA flight at LAX. Alec Baldwin removed from the plane We had to go back to the gate. Terrible that everyone had to wait."
An official with American Airlines declined to comment citing customer privacy.
(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
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