Agent Higgs game turns real particle hunt on its head

As the world waits for the next installment of news in the hunt for the Higgs boson, a simple smart phone game encourages players to hide, not hunt, the world's favourite particle.

Last December, researchers at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland, reported that they had seen a hints of the Higgs boson, an elementary but still hypothetical particle that may help explain how mass forms.

Since then, more data has been collected, which could either strengthen or refute the tentative signal. These are due to be presented on 4 July at a seminar at CERN, ahead of a hotly anticipated conference in Melbourne, Australia.

The game, Agent Higgs, turns the quest on its head. Though physicists still hunt the Higgs, they are the bad guys ? the player's goal is to keep the particle hidden.

Hide that Higgs

Created by Andy Hall of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Agent Higgs depicts the slippery particle as a hapless and immobile secret agent wearing a ridiculous moustache. Other elementary particles also feature, including electrons, muons, other bosons and neutrinos.

Agent Higgs has a simple interface. Players shuffle these particles around a grid, trying to land on ? and therefore conceal ? the stationary Higgs.

Whether or not you can move a particle to a particular spot, however, is governed by the standard model of physics: our leading explanation of fundamental particles and force. That means electrons can't approach each other because the electromagnetic force pushes them apart. And when a particle meets its antimatter doppelganger, both of them vanish. As the levels increase, it becomes more difficult to orchestrate the particles and their forces to keep the Higgs hidden.

Be warned: "Agent Higgs" may be addictive. New Scientist sent a link to the game to several physicists, and at least one is already hooked. "I just wasted 2 hours on a sunny Saturday morning on it," says Pauline Gagnon of Indiana University in Bloomington, who works on ATLAS, one of the main particle detectors at CERN.

Strong force

She has one gripe with the science however: "An antineutrino meeting an electron should form a W boson ? but who cares? It is a fun game and all the different rules certainly add to the fun."

A former educator at the Boston Museum of Science before going full time as a game designer, Hall has previously designed games about gravity and special relativity. He's currently expanding Agent Higgs to include quarks and the strong force, which holds quarks together in protons and neutrons, and holds protons and neutrons together in the nuclei of atoms.

"The strong force is not only the toughest one in particle physics to understand, but it will also make for the most difficult game play," he says.

There's another major change he may have to consider in the near future: when physicists find the elusive particle ? or rule out its existence ? will Agent Higgs finally be out, making the game irrelevant? "I don't know," Hall says. "I'm going to have to track the progression of current events to see what happens. I'll have to wait and see."

The game costs 99 cents at the iTunes store and is designed for smart phones and tablets, although a stripped down version can be played on a computer.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

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The Silence of Mark Singer; Also: Kimberlin v. Walker Hearing ...

Posted on | June 24, 2012 | 12 Comments

FROM AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
Three years ago, progressive blogger Seth Allen was in communication with Mark Singer, whose 1996 book Citizen K: The Deeply Weird American Journey of Brett Kimberlin, had exposed Kimberlin as pathologically dishonest ? a ?top-flight con man,? as a reviewer for Publisher?s Weekly put it.

A February 2009 e-mail exhange published by Allen shows that Singer was approached by investigative reporter Joe Lauria, who was impressed by Allen?s writing under his ?Prepostericity? pseudonym. Lauria wrote to Singer that Allen had ?emerged as a player??by?exposing the falsehoods promoted by Kimberlin?s tax-exempt 501(c) non-profit Velvet Revolution. Kimberlin was threatening to sue Singer for his alleged involvement with Allen and Ohio attorney Cliff Arnebeck.

Arnebeck had supported Kimberlin?s claims that Republicans ?stole? the 2004 election by rigging the vote in Ohio, but there was a subsequent falling-out between the two. Sources have told me that Arnebeck suspected Kimberlin of financial wrongdoing.

For?some reason,?it appears Lauria never wrote anything about Kimberlin or Velvet Revolution, and Singer has remained silent for more than three years, even while Kimberlin has waged an escalating war of harassment against bloggers, including Allen.

Monday morning, there will be a hearing in Montgomery County (Md.) Circuit Court on an appeal by attorney/blogger Aaron Walker, who was arrested last month after he was accused of violating a peace order obtained by Kimberlin.

UPDATE: Walker will be represented by attorney Reginald W. Bours III?at Monday?s hearing at Circuit Court (Judicial Center, 50 Maryland Avenue,?Rockville, MD 20850). David Hogberg of Investors Business Daily reported Friday that Bours has filed an emergency motion?in Circuit Court seeking ?a partial stay or a modification of Kimberlin?s peace order that would in effect lift the peace order until the Appeals Court hears the case on July 5th.?

In a May 29 ruling that outraged First Amendment activists, District Court Judge C.J. Vaughey effectively imposed a gag order that prevents Walker from writing or speaking about Kimberlin.

Welcome, Instapundit readers!

UPDATE II: Aaron Walker became a target of Kimberlin?s ?lawfare? strategy after Walker offered volunteer legal assistance to Seth Allen. In October 2010, Kimberlin sued Allen, who had been criticizing Kimberlin?s Velvet Revolution (whose director is blogger Brad Friedman) in a variety of liberal Web forums, including Democrat Underground. Allen blames Friedman and former Raw Story reporter Larisa Alexandrovna for getting him banned at DU and other sites, including Daily Kos.

Walker had been a co-blogger at the Patterico blog, whose proprietor Patrick Frey had written critically of Kimberlin. The escalating legal conflict, driven by Kimberlin?s efforts to silence his online crtitics, resulted in Walker publishing on May 17 a 28,000-word blog post entitled, ?How Brett Kimberlin Tried to Frame Me for a Crime (And How You Can Help!).?

In addition to his appeal in Maryland state courts, Walker has filed for an emergency preliminary injunction in federal court.

? Robert Stacy McCain, Whereabouts Unknown

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Are you as well read as the average 10th grader?

Forty-five US states have adopted the Common Core, a set of standards that spell out what US public school students learn in each grade, from kindergarten to graduation. How would you match up? Test yourself on everything from Ovid to Shakespeare to see how familiar you are with the novels, short stories, plays, and poems that the Core expects 9th and 10th graders to have read.

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Tropical Storm Debby unleashes heavy rains over Florida

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NASA Visualization Explorer, v.1.5 (for iPad)

Version 1.5 of NASA Visualization Explorer (for iPad) improves on a useful science app that I reviewed in version 1.0.3. The latest version adds larger images, pinch and zoom-ability, marking of favorites, playlists of stories, and the ability to save stories for offline reading. The ability to save stories to your iPad is particularly significant. Although a fast Internet connection is still helpful in downloading stories?most of which contain one or more videos?stories saved on your iPad for later viewing will load instantly, whether you're online or not.

NASA isn?t only about space; it's had a fleet of Earth-monitoring satellites for more than 40 years. NASA Visualization Explorer (for iPad) combines images, videos, and simulations from both the cosmos and our own planet in a series of informative and visually stunning stories, each highlighting a different finding or aspect of NASA?s work.

Start Your Exploration

When you open the NASA Visualization Explorer (aka NASAViz) app, clicking on a menu icon at the screen?s lower left corner brings up the full menu of available stories, identified by title, date, and an associated image. You can also access lists of stories, sorted by topic: Earth; Planets and Moons; Sun; and Universe, as well as unread and saved stories and custom story lists.

Clicking on any of the stories brings up an image (or video) and caption, while along the bottom are thumbnails with more images and/or videos related to the caption. You can shrink the caption to show a full-screen image, or access the next story (or previous one), by clicking a right or left arrow. Holding your finger to an image lets you save it to a Photo Album on your iPad, print it, copy it, or email it, or share it to Facebook or Twitter. Stretching an image brings up a full-screen version.

At the screen?s lower right corner are four icons. A down arrow lets you save a story with all related images and video for offline viewing. A star arrow lets you mark stories as your personal Favorites. A plus icon lets you create custom lists of stories.

The last icon, at the lower right corner of the screen, is a right arrow. It lets you copy a story, open it in Safari on the NASAViz Web site (which includes the content of all the stories); share the story?s URL to Facebook or Twitter, e-mail or text it.

A gear icon in the screen?s upper left corner takes you to the Control Panel, which gives you information about the app and lets you change some basic settings. The About tab discusses the app?s creation by the Goddard Space Flight Center, while Instructions gives you a basic primer for using the app, and there?s a button for sending feedback to the app?s development team.

Stellar Content

There are plenty of timely stories, too, such as the one about the survival and amazing performance of sungrazing Comet Lovejoy, including videos of its reappearance after an exceedingly close encounter with our star. There's even a later video of the comet, now sporting a long tail, taken from the International Space Station. Another story that gained some play in the press was the discovery by NASA?s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope of antimatter bursts released by thunderstorms. It, too, is featured in NASA Visualization Explorer. Visions of Venus contains a superb video of our sister world?s transit across the face of the Sun, captured in multiple wavelengths by the Solar Dynamics Observatory.

I found the first entry, titled Artificial World Captures Reality particularly interesting, as it describes NASA?s use of computer models that it uses in both short-term weather models and long-term climate models. NASA satellites in earth orbit relay immense amounts of data back to Earth each day, and scientists create a numerical model based on the data. As new data comes in, they tweak the model in an attempt to get a better approximation of reality. NASA?s Goddard Space Flight Center uses a supercomputer-based climate model called GEOS-5, which?at least in the short term?is able to predict shifts in weather patterns.

Many of the stories detail changes observed over time by satellites, ranging from local phenomena such as Las Vegas?s shrinking water table to large-scale changes such as the melting of ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland and rising mean global temperatures. The app provides both evidence supportive of global warming and NASA?s reasoning and conclusions.

Regular Updates

The app?s content is regularly updated. In 2012, new entries have consistently been added to NASA Visualization Explorer at the rate of 8 or 9 a month. A significant majority are Earth science stories. Of the 87 stories available as mid-June, 67 were indexed under Earth, 15 under Sun, 8 under Planets and Moons, and 5 under Universe.

This free app gives viewers a look at what NASA?s satellites are studying?in space and especially on our own world. Version 1.5 offers improvements over version 1.0, the most significant one being the ability to save stories for offline viewing. NASA's impressive app could still could benefit from links to additional material on the topics covered. Overall, NASA Visualization Explorer provides dazzling visuals and detailed explanatory text of some timely and compelling science stories, and it's definitely worth a download.

More iPad App Reviews:

??? NASA Visualization Explorer, v.1.5 (for iPad)
??? OfficeTime (for iPad)
??? Bento 4 (for iPad)
??? Instapaper (for iPad)
??? Pocket (for iPad)
?? more

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Views shift little after Obama backs gay marriage

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama's endorsement of gay marriage appears to have made Americans on both sides of the issue even more entrenched in their positions, firing up his young, liberal backers and intensifying opposition from Republicans and conservatives, according to a new poll.

Overall, his announcement last month that he supported gay marriage did little to shift the nation's views on the subject, with the country remaining evenly divided on it, the Associated Press-GfK survey found. And people still seem to favor him over Republican presidential rival Mitt Romney when it comes to handling social issues.

Even so, the poll, out Friday, found stronger approval from Democrats and liberals for the way he's handled gay marriage over the last year and deeper discontent over that performance from the other side.

In the poll, 42 percent of respondents oppose gay marriage, 40 percent support it and 15 percent are neutral. Last August, the country was similarly divided over whether same-sex couples should be allowed to be legally married in their state, with 45 percent opposing, 42 percent favoring and 10 percent neutral.

The country's divisions ? and conflictions ? are clear in the voices of Americans.

"Marriage is a marriage, and it's between a man and a woman," said John Von Sneidern, a 76-year-old Republican from Fairfield, Conn., before pausing. "But on the other side of that, there are a lot of gay couples who are responsible and dedicated to each other and deserve a lot of the benefits of marriage."

The issue, however, won't shape his vote. He plans to vote on the economy and support Romney because of his private-sector experience.

Katherine Galdarisi, a 67-year-old Democrat from Sacramento, Calif., backed Republican John McCain four years ago but plans to vote for Obama this time. That's partly because she faults Republicans for not working with the president on issues voters care about, saying: "They fight him every step of the way and talk about things that don't matter, like gay marriage."

"It's none of anybody's business," Galdarisi said. "It doesn't affect me in the least."

For years, Obama faced pressure from the left to announce his support for gay marriage, and he spent a chunk of his presidency signaling that he would do just that by saying that he was "evolving" on the issue.

While the economy continues to dominate the presidential race, Obama's team was mindful that anything ? including social issues like gay marriage ? could shift the balance in a contest that appears close five months from the election. Even so, Obama announced his reversal and risked turning off some conservative, moderate and independent voters across the nation and in states like Virginia and North Carolina that hadn't voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in decades until Obama won them four years ago.

But the AP-GfK poll suggests that voters, at least nationally, didn't flee the president.

When asked which candidate Americans trust to do a better job of handling social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage, there was little change from a poll taken about a week before Obama's May 9 announcement; 52 percent now side with Obama, compared with 36 percent for Romney.

And more Democrats and liberals said they strongly approved of the president's handling of gay marriage than they did in August; 41 percent of Democrats now say that, compared with 26 percent then, and 48 percent of liberals have that view, up from 28 percent almost a year ago.

But his announcement may have fired up the right against him. More Republicans and conservatives said they strongly disapproved of his handling of the issue now than before; 53 percent of Republicans said that, compared with 45 percent in August, and 52 percent of conservatives say as much now, up from 43 percent back then.

The issue could compel more conservatives to turn out to vote against Obama.

Self-described social conservative Bethel Hissom of Knoxville, Tenn., is among those who plan to back Romney and don't support allowing gays to wed.

"It's not marriage," the 65-year-old retired speech therapist said. Of Obama's position, she said: "It will probably help his chances at being re-elected. It will get the gay population in favor of that and that could swing votes to his favor. But it is not marriage."

Obama's announcement clearly affected some ? and in personal ways.

Trevor Rzucidlo, a 22-year-old who graduated last month from the University of Connecticut, had a roommate who is gay, and said that hearing the president speak out in support of someone he cared about "was huge."

"My peers are just way more chilled out than older people are," said Rzucidlo, who considers himself an independent and plans to vote for Obama. "They're less concerned with how other people live their lives."

Indeed, support for gay marriage remains a more popular position with younger voters: 50 percent of people under age 35 said they would favor allowing same-sex couples to be legally married in their state, compared with 36 percent of those ages 35 and up.

Among those under 35, overall approval of the president's handling of same-sex marriage has held steady, but those who back him do so more strongly now. His "strong" approval numbers have doubled, jumping from 17 percent last August to 34 percent in the AP-GfK survey.

The Associated Press-GfK Poll was conducted June 14-18, 2012, by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications. It involved landline and cellphone interviews with 1,007 adults nationwide, including 878 registered voters. Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.0 percentage points and for registered voters it is 4.2 points.

___

Associated Press Deputy Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta and AP writer Josh Lederman contributed to this report.

___

Online: http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com

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Syrian government accuses rebels of mass killing

BEIRUT (AP) ? An online video showed more than a dozen bloodied corpses, some of them piled atop each other and in military uniforms, dumped beside a road in northern Syria in what the government Friday called a mass killing by rebel forces.

The circumstances of the deaths were not immediately clear, with the state-run news agency saying at least 25 men were killed. In the video ? which The Associated Press could not independently verify ? the narrator said the victims were members of the "shabiha," or pro-regime gunmen.

If confirmed, the video is yet another sign of the brutality of the Syrian conflict, which began in March 2011. As the fighting grinds on, Syria is descending into a civil war where gunmen prowl the streets and gruesome massacres are growing increasingly common.

The government has used heavy weapons and unleashed snipers and loyalist fighters, but rebels, too, have been accused of bloody attacks.

Civilians have been caught in the crossfire; activists estimate that more than 14,000 people have been killed since the start of the uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime.

In a desperate bid to end the violence after an earlier peace plan failed to do so, U.N. envoy Kofi Annan said that Iran ? one of Syria's most loyal allies ? should be part of the solution to the conflict.

Syria's state-run news agency, SANA, said the dead found in the rebel-held area of Daret Azzeh near Aleppo were killed and their bodies mutilated by terrorist groups. The government refers to rebels as terrorists.

The amateur video showing the corpses appeared to back up the allegation of a mass killing.

"The terrorist groups in Daret Azzeh committed a brutal massacre against the citizens, whom they had kidnapped earlier in the day," SANA said.

The report said at least 25 people were killed, but others were missing.

It was not clear whether the men were killed execution-style or died in clashes. An activist in the area, Mohammed Saeed, said rebels regularly collect the bodies of the dead from the government side and dump them by the side of the road so troops can collect them later.

The city of Aleppo, Syria's largest, has been relatively quiet, but towns and villages around it have seen intense clashes. Daret Azzeh has endured withering government shelling in the past two weeks as Assad's forces try to regain areas taken by rebels. The violence continued Friday, as Syrian troops shelled the area and used helicopter gunships in their attacks on rebels, Saeed said.

"The army has been trying to push through for days without success," Saeed said.

Government troops have been launching a major offensive on many areas throughout the country in the past two weeks to try to regain ground captured by the opposition. Attacks have mostly concentrated on Aleppo, the suburbs of the capital of Damascus, the central province of Homs, the southern region of Daraa and the eastern city of Deir el-Zour.

Activists reported that thousands of people demonstrated against the regime following Friday prayers in different parts of Syria, including Daraa, Aleppo, the northeastern region of Hassakeh and Damascus. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said troops opened fire at protesters in Aleppo and the Damascus neighborhood of Mazzeh. Several casualties were reported.

The Syrian uprising began with regular anti-regime protests, although they have lost momentum as the revolt turned into an armed insurgency.

An international crisis meeting on Syria set for June 30 is in disarray over the involvement of Iran. The United States has vehemently opposed the participation of Iran, which Russia is demanding.

"I have made it quite clear that I believe Iran should be part of the solution," said Annan, the joint U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria.

Annan told reporters in Geneva it was "time for countries of influence to raise the level of pressure on the parties on the ground." However, he had no specific proposals for changing his six-point peace plan, which he said Syria had not yet implemented but still might support.

"The longer we wait, the darker Syria's future becomes," said Annan, flanked by Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, the head of the struggling U.N. observer mission in Syria.

Western powers are clinging to the Annan plan, in part because there are no other clear options. There is little support for military intervention of the type that helped bring down Libya's Moammar Gadhafi during a 2011 uprising in that country, and several rounds of sanctions and other attempts to isolate Assad have done little to stop the bloodshed.

Mood praised the work of his 300 U.N. monitors, whose mandate ends next month. He conceded, however, that they are now largely confined to bureaucratic tasks and calling Syrians by phone because of dangers on the ground.

"Their commitment to the Syrian people has not faltered," he said. "Whether more observers or arming observers would be relevant to the situation on the ground, I'm far from convinced that that would help the situation on the ground."

The failure of Annan's peace plan has made it more difficult for outside observers, humanitarian workers and supplies to get in, or reliable information to filter out. Syria restricts the movement of journalists, making it hard to confirm accounts from either side.

Also Friday, the Observatory said four senior army officers have defected from the regime. The group provided a video purporting to show two brigadier generals and two colonels who declared they were joining the opposition.

The group said the defections came Thursday ? the same day a Syrian fighter pilot flew his MiG-21 warplane to neighboring Jordan, where he was given asylum.

Thousands of soldiers have abandoned the regime, but most are low-level conscripts. The Free Syria Army, the loosely linked group of rebel forces, is made up largely of defectors.

A Turkish warplane went down in Syrian waters on Friday, but Turkey's prime minister said he said he had no "definite information" about whether it was shot down by Syrian forces.

"I cannot say it was downed, without definite information. It is not possible to say that," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at a news conference.

Media reports said Syrian forces downed the plane and apologized.

___

AP writers Elizabeth A. Kennedy in Beirut, Selcan Hacaoglu in Ankarak, Turkey, and John Heilprin in Geneva contributed to this report.

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NY Operator Lands Contract with Major Hotel/Conference Center ...

Your message has been sent!

Steve Mabus, General Manager, Doral Arrowwood(left) and Melissa Thornton,CEO, Limousine Service of Westchester,(right) announce the partnership between Doral Arrowwood and Limousine Service of Westchester.

RYE BROOK, N.Y ? Limousine Service of Westchester (LSW) recently contracted with the Doral Arrowwood Hotel and Conference Center, providing guests and conference attendees with access to exclusive, chauffeured limousines for immediate, on-site transportation to any location at a moment?s notice.

Sedans, SUVs, buses and mini-coaches also will be available upon request. As an added convenience, LSW will maintain a kiosk in the Doral Arrowwood lobby, staffed from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week, for information and booking of transportation services provided by a knowledgeable LSW specialist.

LSW also will provide corporate chauffeured travel services for guests attending conferences and meetings at Doral Arrowwood. Companies within a five-mile radius may arrange for shuttle services to and from Doral Arrowwood through their corporate travel department. One of the benefits of the arranged corporate service is the ability for guests to add transportation fees to their master invoice if requested prior to their arrival.

Doral Arrowwood is a Westchester-based hotel and conference center about 45 minutes from Manhattan. Both business executives and leisure travelers have found Doral Arrowwood an ideal destination for corporate retreats, meetings and special events. Steve Mabus, general manager at Doral Arrowwood said, ?The partnership with LSW adds a new world-class service for our guests. We are pleased to have LSW on stand-by, around the clock to deliver the highest level of service.?

About Limousine Service of Westchester
LSW is a full-service chauffeured transportation company founded in 1978. Based in White Plains, N.Y., LSW runs a fleet of luxury cars, sedans, SUVs, busses, and mini coaches and reaches a global network of more than 550 affiliate providers. Led by CEO Melissa Thornton, LSW is one of the first certified minority- and woman-owned limousine services in Westchester County. LSW is located at 10 New King St., Suite 209, White Plains, N.Y. 10604. ?

Information: (877) 878-LIMO; reservations@lswlimo.com.

About Doral Arrowwood
Doral Arrowwood, located just 45 minutes north of Manhattan and five minutes away from the Westchester County Airport, provides both business executives and leisure travelers. The property is nestled on 114 wooded acres, surrounded by a Robert von Hagge designed golf course. Guests can enjoy a wide range of activities including golf, tennis and racket sports. The hotel offers 373 guest rooms (including seven suites), three distinct restaurants, an indoor-outdoor pool and state-of-the-art sports center with spa services such as massages and facials. The facility boasts 33 custom-built meeting rooms and an elegant 6,500 square foot grand ballroom for corporate and special events.

Information: www.DoralArrowwood.com.

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Irreplaceable items feared lost in NE Minn. flood

In this aerial photo, waters from an overflowing nearby creek inundate homes in the Irving Park neighborhood of Duluth, Minn., Wednesday afternoon, June 20, 2012. Residents evacuated their homes and animals escaped from pens at a zoo as floods fed by a steady torrential downpour struck northeastern Minnesota, inundating the city of Duluth, officials said Wednesday. (AP Photo/The Duluth News-Tribune, Bob King)

In this aerial photo, waters from an overflowing nearby creek inundate homes in the Irving Park neighborhood of Duluth, Minn., Wednesday afternoon, June 20, 2012. Residents evacuated their homes and animals escaped from pens at a zoo as floods fed by a steady torrential downpour struck northeastern Minnesota, inundating the city of Duluth, officials said Wednesday. (AP Photo/The Duluth News-Tribune, Bob King)

In this aerial photo, floodwaters surround the Burning Tree Plaza shopping area in Duluth, Minn., Wednesday afternoon, June 20, 2012. Residents evacuated their homes and animals escaped from pens at a zoo as floods fed by a steady torrential downpour struck northeastern Minnesota, inundating the city of Duluth, officials said Wednesday. (AP Photo/The Duluth News-Tribune, Bob King)

In this photo provided by Ellie Burcar, a seal that escaped from the Lake Superior Zoo lies on Grand Avenue in Duluth, Minn. around 2:30 a.m. on Wednesday, June 20, 2012. Some animals escaped from their pens at the zoo as floods fed by a steady torrential downpour struck northeastern Minnesota, inundating the city of Duluth, officials said Wednesday. (AP Photo/Ellie Burcar)

Water flowing from Miller Creek fills the backyards of several homes on West Second Street in Duluth, Minn. after record rainfall hit the area on Wednesday June, 20, 2012. Most areas received seven to 10 inches of rain in the past 24 hours.(AP Photo/The Duluth News-Tribune, Clint Austin)

Carl Carlson III, left, and Connie Strong, right, help evacuate Jan Martin from her home in the Lincoln Park neighborhood after record rainfall hit the Duluth, Minn., area Wednesday June, 20, 2012. Most areas received seven to 10 inches of rain in the past 24 hours. Martin remarked that she has lived in the neighborhood for 69 years and has never seen Miller Creek this high. (AP Photo/The Duluth News-Tribune, Clint Austin)

DULUTH, Minn. (AP) ? Exhausted and depressed, Michelle Henry sat in a Red Cross shelter, filling out paperwork and worried about what she'll find when she is able to return to her flooded Fond du Lac home.

Henry, her boyfriend and their two kids were among the 250 residents told to evacuate their neighborhood Wednesday after the heaviest rains in more than a century fell on Duluth and the surrounding area, washing out roads, flooding a local zoo and prompting the governor to declare a state of emergency.

"It's hard," Henry, 26, said Wednesday night after her family walked into the shelter carrying a pile of pillows and blankets. "It's not fun. We were soaked, but other than that, we're OK. ... I'm more worried about the pictures and stuff we can't replace ? the baby pictures, baby books."

She hoped she'd be allowed to return to her home to assess the damage on Thursday, when Gov. Mark Dayton also planned to tour the deluged northeastern Minnesota city.

National Weather Service meteorologist Kevin Kraujalis said 7.2 inches of rain fell on Duluth on Tuesday and Wednesday, breaking the two-day record of nearly 6.7 inches set on July 20-21, 1909.

An 8-year-old boy who was swept about six blocks through a culvert in Duluth suffered some scrapes and bruises: A "miracle out of this whole disaster," Louis County Undersheriff Dave Phillips said.

The heavy rains also sent workers at the Lake Superior Zoo scrambling before dawn to find animals that escaped from their enclosures in the flood. Workers safely recovered two seals and a polar bear, but about a dozen animals from the barnyard exhibit perished under water.

"It's completely devastating," said lead zookeeper Maicie Sykes.

Furniture from zoo exhibits lay scattered about the zoo, and water marks showed flooding that reached as high as 14 feet off the ground in places, said Peter Pruett, the zoo's director of animal management.

Pruett learned of the disaster with an early morning phone call alerting him to a seal on a city street. He went to the scene and found the harbor seal, Feisty, corralled by three police cars. Pruett got a piece of plywood and nudged Feisty along, about a half a block, back to the zoo.

As he was walking with Feisty, he knew her escape could mean trouble, "because if the seal's out, the polar bear very well could be out too," he said.

Zoo employees were called in and began searching for animals in the darkness. One employee found the lions and tigers were still in their exhibits ? a relief. But Berlin, the polar bear, wasn't in sight.

"A dangerous animal is out and it's the middle of the night, and you cross your fingers and you pray to whomever you want to pray to that she's still there and not terrorizing some other place," Pruett said.

Thankfully, a zookeeper spotted the bear about 5 a.m. atop the rock wall that encloses her exhibit. The zoo vet and a police officer approached her in a squad car, enabling the vet to safely shoot her with a tranquilizer gun.

He said Berlin was groggy and dirty from her ordeal a few hours later but otherwise OK.

After the bear was subdued, zoo officials got a call that Vivian, the other harbor seal, was about a half mile away on a trail. Officials picked her up safely too.

The zoo was closed Wednesday and will stay closed until officials determine all the pathways, bridges and other amenities were safe. It will take some time to assess the damage, Pruett said.

"We filled up like a bathtub, and it should not have been that way," he said. "Everything was going so fast. You have a plan, but your plan doesn't take into account the biblical proportions."

Don Ness, Duluth's mayor, said it may take time for the damage to become fully apparent. He said the volume of rain in a short period puts a tremendous amount of stress on sewer and road systems.

"We're concerned about washouts and sinkholes, and they'll likely show themselves in the coming days. ... The water is rushing so hard that we're concerned about the integrity of the roadbeds being washed out," he said.

___

Associated Press writers Steve Karnowski and Jeff Baenen in Minneapolis, and Gretchen Ehlke in Milwaukee contributed to this report.

Associated Press

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Video: Boehner accuses White House of cover up

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DOJ sues Arizona, Utah polygamous towns, saying sect outsiders face religious discrimination

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Importance Of Blogging In Internet Marketing - Easy Business Today

A lot of blogging platforms have emerged recently and more people are finding the pleasure of making their thoughts available to the public. Blogging platforms enable individuals to easily create their own personal blog and use it as much as they can, as long as they adhere to the rules and regulations set by the website. As such, more and more individuals are starting their own blog, and network marketers are taking advantage of this in order to improve their MLM business. Promoting their business and the products and services it offers has been made much easier for network marketers. As such, blogging has become very important to the MLM business if you wish to become successful and keep pace with the changing times.

A lot of MLM businesses have emerged recently with the promise of providing people opportunities to earn money without having to do that much. These MLM businesses employ independent distributors that are not paid as regular employees are, but are given just compensation for whatever sales they will be able to make in their careers as distributors. Distributors are not in any way bound to earn a specific amount, but are offered the boundless opportunities that only MLM businesses can provide. More so, they can significantly increase their income by organizing a downline organization, which is basically a network of individuals that you have brought into the company. You are also given commission from the sales that they are able to push through, not to mention the bonuses they get from their direct referrals. Having your own downline organization also qualifies you to get amazing bonuses and rewards that will make your every effort in your MLM business so worth it.

Starting your MLM business does not end the long list of things you have to do if you wish to find success in the MLM industry. There are still a lot of things that you ought to do in order to imp[rove your business. Several marketing methods are available both offline and online, and it is up to you as to which methods you will be using.

Traditional marketing methods remain to be among the most popular means of improving the MLM business. Such a method often makes use of materials that opt to catch the attention of regular passersby with the sincere hope that they will actually be lured into your MLM business. Personal communication and relations with the clientele remains to be a valuable aspect of this marketing method. It is believed that people are more likely to participate in business where they have been given attention and are in good terms with the businesspeople involved. However, it is quite untimely to make use of this method since it only has a very narrow reach and consumes much time and effort from the network marketer. What has become very ideal in these times is online marketing since more people are turning to the Internet for the information they need.

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Hawaii Gov.: Oracle's Ellison to buy most of Lanai

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Denver Public Schools, teachers union reach tentative contract

Teachers in Denver Public Schools will have a new contract to vote on when they return to school in August, after their union and the Denver Board of Education announced a tentative agreement this afternoon.

The new deal would provide teachers higher pay with more time for for classroom planning and collaboration with other educators, according to a joint statement from the district and the Denver Classroom Teachers Association.

The proposed contract also provides more responsibility for school leadership teams, they said.

The three-year deal would allow teachers to earn annual experience and advanced-degree raises, and the school district would pay the 0.9 percent increase to teachers' pension funds.

The contracts also allows cost-of-living raises each year, if Denver voters approve a property tax increase on the ballot this fall. If passed, the mill-levy increase would give teachers a 1 percent raise for the upcoming school year, a 0.5 percent increase in the 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 school years.

Teachers also can fatten their earnings t hrough the district's incentive program for meeting goals for students' academic growth, by earning professional development units. They also can earn incentive pay for their schools' overall academic performance, as well as for working in "hard-to-staff" schools, according to the union and district.

"Student-based bargaining keeps the focus on student achievement through the recruitment and retention of excellent educators and shared accountability among teachers and administrators," Melissa Verdeal, the union's vice president and spokesperson for its bargaining team, said in a statement.

The current contract expires on Aug. 31, and teachers will need to vote on the new one before then. The contract would take effect on Sept. 1 and expires on Aug. 31, 2015.

In the last three-year contract t eachers approved in 2008, they received a 3 percent raise the first year followed by cost-of-living raises plus 0.25 percent the next two years.

"We're very appreciative of the work and dedication of our teachers," schools superintendent Tom Boasberg stated. "They are the lifeblood of our schools, and this is an important investment in making sure we continue to have the best and most talented educators in Denver's classrooms to serve our kids."

Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com

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Abbas announces death of the peace process, blames Israel

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Video: Syria, eurozone crisis on G20 agenda

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Black Death Discovered In Oregon

I think you over-estimate the effects of "domestication" on dogs... although I do admit that many of them have had the piss bred out of them. Pocket dogs are an abomination.

But for most of human history, dogs were working animals, too. The only difference is that they are (usually) too big to be allowed to gather their own food. That would be dangerous (and inconvenient, considering that they are pack hunters). That is the difference: practicality, not biology.

Dogs do go feral. In an area not very far from here there has been a pack of feral dogs, descended from escaped domestic dogs, roaming the mountains for at least 30 years. They have been spotted every few years (it is a very remote place and rough country) but their fate is uncertain now that the wolves have returned. And Dingos are of course another example of formerly-domesticated dogs returning to the wild.

Another interesting example is the domestic ferret. Evidence indicates that they have been domesticated for approximately as long as dogs and cats. And again, for most of human history they were working animals: they were (and still are) used to hunt small game. Not only that, but prior to WWII, right here in the United States, ferrets were also popular farm animals, used for keeping rats, mice, etc. out of the granaries just like cats.

But unlike both dogs and cats, and except in New Zealand (which presented very specific and unusual conditions), ferrets don't go feral. They just don't. It doesn't happen.

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Chris Brown, Drake Fight Fallout Continues

As you know by now, the Chris Brown, Drake fight has made waves online and in the media. But what is very clear now is that neither performer suffered any injuries, but some of the people nearby did. The story goes that the man convicted of savagely beating Rihanna has been beefing with Drake via Twitter. The two apparently disagree over who can take ownership over Ri-Ri, who has been romantically linked to both of them. Reports just hit recently that, despite the whole beating incident, Rihanna still links up with Chris Brown on occasion. But more recently, she and Drake were supposedly together. That is what sparked the issue. I’m guessing that Drake also doesn’t like the idea of Brown beating on Rihanna, and might not be over it yet. So now both performers were at the same club when the fight started. It turns out that Drake began to talk smack to Brown’s security and things got out of control from there. The fall out from the fight is continuing because we are now learning of more injuries. The worst was by far to one of Brown’s security team, who was apparently injured by someone who was on [...]

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UN mission chief appeals to both sides in Syria

The UN observer force on Friday accused both sides in the Syrian conflict of hampering its peace mission and admitted its limitations in the face of escalating violence.

France, meanwhile, said that world powers could hold a summit on the Syrian crisis as the deadly anti-regime revolt entered its 16th month.

"Violence, over the past 10 days, has been intensifying, again willingly by both the parties, with losses on both sides and significant risks to our observers," the force's chief Major General Robert Mood told a news conference in Damascus.

A UN convoy trying to reach Al-Haffe, a town in northwest Syria under siege by regime troops, came under fire on Tuesday and was forced to turn back by a stone-throwing crowd of pro-regime residents of a nearby village.

The observer team was finally able to visit the town two days later, finding it all but deserted with a strong stench of dead bodies and most state buildings gutted by fire.

Mood said it was the Syrian people who were suffering the consequences of the failure to implement UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's peace plan.

"There is no other plan on the table, yet it is not being implemented," the veteran Norwegian peacekeeper said. "Instead there is a push towards advancing military positions."

Mood warned that "this is not a static mission," adding that the mission's mandate would come under review by the UN Security Council at the end of July. "It is important that the parties give this mission a chance," he stressed.

On the ground, at least 15 people were killed in violence on Friday, including two demonstrators killed in the northern city of Aleppo by regime forces as thousands protested against the regime across Syria, a monitoring group said.

Activists uploaded videos of protests outside mosques or street marches on what they named a "Friday of Readiness."

Eight people were killed in Busra al-Sham in the southern province of Daraa in an explosion outside a mosque, while another blast was reported in Al-Midan area of Damascus, without reports of casualties.

Regime forces also tried to reassert control over the central city of Homs and the town of Andan in Aleppo province, clashing with rebels and leaving two people dead in shelling, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Britain-based group had reported at least another 84 people killed in clashes and bombings nationwide on Thursday.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said major powers could hold a conference at the end of the month in Geneva on the crisis which erupted in mid-March 2011 and has since cost more than 14,400 lives, according to the Observatory.

"There is a possibility of holding a conference in Geneva on June 30," Fabius told France Inter radio.

Participants would include UN Security Council countries, but the meeting would be held "without the constraints of the Security Council," he added.

Fabius also said that talks were under way with Russia on Syria's future if President Bashar al-Assad was ousted.

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov swiftly denied such talks had taken place with France or the United States, which have both been pushing for Assad to step down.

"There were no such discussions and there could not have been such discussions. This completely contradicts our position," Lavrov told reporters. "We are not involved in regime change."

Russia, along with China, has vetoed two Security Council resolutions against Assad and has vowed to oppose any military intervention.

Also on Thursday, 14 people were also wounded in suicide vehicle bombing near an important Shiite Muslim shrine in the capital, the state news agency SANA said.

Syrian authorities said they had uncovered an Al-Qaeda plot to bomb Damascus mosques around the main weekly prayers.

A suspect detained on Thursday confessed that he had been planning a suicide bombing during Friday prayers at Al-Rifai Mosque in the heart of the capital, SANA reported.

The suspect told interrogators that the group's members "have prepared young men... to carry out suicide bombings in several areas in Damascus during prayers on Friday, June 15," SANA said.

In a fresh report of bloodshed, the Syrian Observatory said nine bodies, some of them mutilated, had been found.

"The bodies of nine people were found in Hamouria in Damascus province, some with their throats slit," the watchdog's head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP. "It is unclear who carried out the attack."

In Istanbul, Syrian opposition leaders were meeting on Friday in a bid to settle their differences and forge a united front to confront the escalating conflict in their homeland.

"We will work towards a unified vision," Burhan Ghalioun, the former head of the main opposition group, the Syrian National Council, told AFP shortly before the two-day gathering kicked off.

Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, accused Syrian government forces of having used sexual violence to torture men, women, girls and boys detained since the unrest broke out in March 2011.

The New York-based group said it had interviewed 10 former detainees, including two women, who described being sexually abused or witnessing such abuse in detention.

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Foxconn employee jumps to death in southwest China

BEIJING (AP) ? A Foxconn Technology Group employee jumped to his death Wednesday from a company-rented apartment building in southwest China's Sichuan province, local police said.

At least a dozen Foxconn employees have jumped to their deaths or tried to do so since 2010, casting spotlight on the world's largest contract maker of electronics. The Taiwan-based company has been besieged with reports of poor working and living conditions for its workers at factories and dorms. The company installed nets in 2010 to prevent such deaths after the spate of suicides.

A public security bureau in Chengdu city announced the death Wednesday on the Sina Weibo microblogging site. The post identifies the employee only by the surname Xie and says the cause remains under investigation.

The official Xinhua News Agency said the man was 23.

In February, Foxconn ? which employs about 1 million workers at its massive plants in China ? said it had raised wages by up to 25 percent and that it was taking measures to limit workers' total work hours.

The plants that turn out iPhones, iPads, Xbox video game consoles, Dell and Hewlett-Packard computers, are run with military-like discipline.

Associated Press

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Spanish cave paintings shown as oldest in world

This undated handout photo provided by pedro suara/aaas shows detail of the 'Panel of Hands', El Castillo Cave showing red disks and hand stencils made by blowing or spitting paint onto the wall. A date from a disk shows the painting to be older than 40,800 years making it the oldest known cave art in Europe. The bison overlay the hands and are therefore painted later. New tests show that crude Spanish cave paintings of a red sphere and handprints are the oldest in the world, so ancient they may not have been by modern man. They might have even been made by the much-maligned Neanderthals, some scientists suggest but others disagree. (AP Photo/Pedro Saura, AAAS)

This undated handout photo provided by pedro suara/aaas shows detail of the 'Panel of Hands', El Castillo Cave showing red disks and hand stencils made by blowing or spitting paint onto the wall. A date from a disk shows the painting to be older than 40,800 years making it the oldest known cave art in Europe. The bison overlay the hands and are therefore painted later. New tests show that crude Spanish cave paintings of a red sphere and handprints are the oldest in the world, so ancient they may not have been by modern man. They might have even been made by the much-maligned Neanderthals, some scientists suggest but others disagree. (AP Photo/Pedro Saura, AAAS)

This undated handout photo provided by pedro suara/aaas shows the 'Panel of Hands', El Castillo Cave showing red disks and hand stencils made by blowing or spitting paint onto the wall. A date from a disk shows the painting to be older than 40,800 years making it the oldest known cave art in Europe. The bison overlay the hands and are therefore painted later. New tests show that crude Spanish cave paintings of a red sphere and handprints are the oldest in the world, so ancient they may not have been by modern man. They might have even been made by the much-maligned Neanderthals, some scientists suggest but others disagree. (AP Photo/Pedro Saura, AAAS)

This undated handout photo provided by pedro suara/aaas shows detail of the 'Panel of Hands', El Castillo Cave, Spain, showing red disks and hand stencils made by blowing or spitting paint onto the wall. A date from a disk shows the painting to be older than 40,800 years making it the oldest known cave art in Europe. The bison overlies the hands and is therefore painted later. New tests show that crude Spanish cave paintings of a red sphere and handprints are the oldest in the world, so ancient they may not have been by modern man. They might have even been made by the much-maligned Neanderthals, some scientists suggest but others disagree. (AP Photo/Pedro Saura, AAAS)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? New tests show that crude Spanish cave paintings of a red sphere and handprints are the oldest in the world, so ancient they may not have been by modern man.

Some scientists say they might have even been made by the much-maligned Neanderthals, but others disagree.

Testing the coating of paintings in 11 Spanish caves, researchers found that one is at least 40,800 years old, which is at least 15,000 years older than previously thought. That makes them older than the more famous French cave paintings by thousands of years.

Scientists dated the Spanish cave paintings by measuring the decay of uranium atoms, instead of traditional carbon-dating, according to a report released Thursday by the journal Science. The paintings were first discovered in the 1870s.

The oldest of the paintings is a red sphere from a cave called El Castillo. About 25 outlined handprints in another cave are at least 37,300 years old. Slightly younger paintings include horses.

Cave paintings are "one of the most exquisite examples of human symbolic behavior," said study co-author Joao Zilhao, an anthropologist at the University of Barcelona. "And that, that's what makes us human."

There is older sculpture and other portable art. Before the latest test, the oldest known cave paintings were those France's Chauvet cave, considered between 32,000 and 37,000 years old.

What makes the dating of the Spanish cave paintings important is that it's around the time when modern humans first came into Europe from Africa.

Study authors say they could have been from modern man decorating their new digs or they could have been the working of the long-time former tenant of Europe: the Neanderthal. Scientists said Neanderthals were in Europe from about 250,000 years ago until about 35,000 years ago. Modern humans arrived in Europe about 41,000 to 45,000 years ago ? with some claims they moved in even earlier ? and replaced Neanderthals.

"There is a strong chance that these results imply Neanderthal authorship," Zilhao said. "But I will not say we have proven it because we haven't."

In a telephone press conference, Zilhao said Neanderthals recently have gotten "bad press" over their abilities. They decorated their tools and bodies. So, he said, they could have painted caves.

But there's a debate in the scientific community about Neanderthals. Other anthropologists say Zilhao is in a minority of researchers who believe in more complex abilities of Neanderthals.

Eric Delson, a paleoanthropologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and John Shea at Long Island's Stony Brook University said the dating work in the Science paper is compelling and important, but they didn't quite buy the theory that Neanderthals could have been the artists.

"There is no clear evidence of paintings associated with Neanderthal tools or fossils, so any such evidence would be surprising," Delson said. He said around 41,000 years ago Neanderthals were already moving south in Europe, away from modern man and these caves.

Shea said it is more likely that modern humans were making such paintings in Africa even earlier, but the works didn't survive because of the different geology on the continent.

"The people who came in to Europe were very much like us. They used art, they used symbols," Shea said. "They were not like Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble."

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Online:

Science: http://www.sciencemag.org

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Seth Borenstein can be followed at http://twitter.com/borenbears

Associated Press

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