By Christie Nicholson (Click here for the original article and podcast)
Itch. Past studies have shown that whatever the cause?perhaps just hearing me talk about itch?something triggers nerve fibers that send a signal lighting up three areas of the brain: the emotional regions; the limbic system that sparks the urge to scratch; and the cortex that tells you where to scratch.
And recently researchers discovered that where the itch begins can predict how bad it is?and how much pleasure you?ll get by scratching it. The study is in the British Journal of Dermatology. ?
The researchers induced an itch on the ankles, forearms and backs of 18 subjects. And the research team also relieved the itch in a uniform way with a scratching device, rather than let each subject go to town in different and unmeasureable ways.
The results: The experimentally induced itch was particularly bad on the back and ankle. And scratching the back got rid of the itch most effectively. But scratching the ankle provided the most pleasurable relief.
So not all itches are created equal, even if they?re induced equally. The next steps are to find out why, and whether there is a treatment that can match the pleasure of the scratch.
WASHINGTON ? Former Fla. Gov. Jeb Bush, whose endorsement would be a prize for any of the Republican presidential candidates, has remained neutral.
This follows a pattern in early GOP contests: Gov. Terry Branstad in Iowa didn't choose sides. Nor did influential Sen. Jim DeMint in South Carolina.
New Jersey's Gov. Chris Christie threw his support to Romney, but there hasn't been a delegate-selection contest yet in New Jersey.
The New York Times reported in Monday's editions that Romney has sought to win over Jeb Bush, a brother of former President George W. Bush.
Asked about that in a Fox News Channel interview on Monday morning, Romney replied: "Jeb Bush and I haven't spoken. He's a good man. I'd love to get his opinion on any number of issues."
You may have heard that mechanical keyboards are making a comeback. Correction: If anyone you live or work with has started using one, you?ve definitely heard. These are peripherals that return typing to its glory days, where you don?t just create letters from nothing, you summon a distinctive sound, and can feel a firm bounce beneath your fingertips as you do so. Few companies have hawked their wares as energetically as Metadot, which over the last several years has released a series of mechanical keyboards intended for use with PCs. Now that there?s the Das Keyboard Model S Professional for Mac ($133 list), that?s all changed. Apple owners now have a substantial-feeling, legitimately clicky keyboard to call their own?provided they don?t care about how it looks.
We?ll get to that in due time. For now, let?s review what the Das Keyboard is and why you want it. It?s of fairly typical size for a desktop model (1 by 18 by 6.5 inches, HWD), but is heavier than most these days (about three pounds). That?s because, instead of using a lighter dome-switch (aka membrane) mechanism that creates electrical signals by pressing two circuit board traces together using rubber ?domes? beneath the keys, it uses honest-to-goodness mechanical switches like the ones you once would have found in a typewriter. This causes the keys, and thus the keyboard that contains them, to have a much sturdier and more responsive feel than you?ll find in even dedicated Mac keyboards.
Because the specific switches used in this version of the Das Keyboard are Cherry MX Blue, you also get outstanding feedback for both your hands (the unquestionable press down and a light bounce back up) and your ears (the satisfying ?click? that, until the advent of cheap PC keyboards, always told you typing was occurring). And because those switches are gold-plated, you also get unusual durability: Each key is rated for 50 million presses, several times more than on an average keyboard, and cannot rust.
But if you?re in for some chicly retro typing, everything else is sparklingly up to date. The keyboard works with all Mac operating systems, and requires no additional drivers. (We had to perform a brief setup procedure to help Mac OS X 10.7 Lion identify the keys, but it took just a few seconds, and the keyboard worked fine afterward.) It connects to your computer with a 6.6-foot USB cable that terminates in two connectors: one for transmitting the keyboard data, and one for driving the two-port USB 2.0 hub you?ll find in the keyboard?s upper-right corner. (It?s compatible with USB-based KVM switches as well.) The F6-F11 keys even double as media keys for Rewind, Play/Pause, Forward, Mute, Lower Volume, and Raise Volume, and F1 also functions as Sleep; to activate these functions, hit a blue-labeled function key in the lower-right corner.
Provided you?re disposed to this sort of typing?and, as it?s been a while since Macs went down this road, it?s possible you may need a little coaxing?you?re almost certain to find this ideal for whatever you want to do. In fact, aside from the price, which is admittedly high even for mechanical keyboards, this Das Keyboard has almost no significant drawbacks.
Except its design. We wouldn?t normally knock a product as good as this for something this mundane, but this keyboard is a special case. For better or worse, Macs are generally treated by Apple (and seen by its customers) as design statements, in which form exists in blessed union with function. Any company aiming an external piece of hardware at that audience must take that into account, and Metadot hasn?t. This keyboard is?sorry, there?s no other way to put it?black: matte on the keys and glossy everywhere else. And it's more distinctly angular and asymmetrical than you will ever see from an Apple product. On PCs, where keyboards can be (and frequently are) any color, this is less of an issue. But used with a Mac, this Das Keyboard stands out?and not in a good way.
True, Apple has occasionally utilized black in its keyboards in the past, and even does so on its current lines of laptops. In all these cases, however, it?s as part of a larger, more elegant design usually based on an abundance of silver and white. The complete absence of that here makes the Das Keyboard look like an out-of-place port from the PC, something that sends the wrong signal. We wish these things mattered less for Macs, but alas they do, and many people like the computers specifically for that kind of consistency. Metadot has cleverly demonstrated that in one unsuspected place: The keys (which contain Command and Option, of course) are labeled with lower-case letters, just like you?d see on an official Mac keyboard. So there?s no lack of attention to detail, and when we asked our contact about this, he said that white may be an option in the future; that?s definitely something to watch for.
Whether the Das Keyboard Model S Professional for Mac is ideal for you, then, depends on your personal taste and tolerance level. If you don?t mind having something on your desk that looks this astonishingly different from everything that surrounds it, you?ll have a hard time finding a better typing keyboard than this one. But if how your computer setup looks is just as important to you as how it works, you?re probably going to find the Das Keyboard an unwelcome interloper?though we?d encourage you to consider putting aside your prejudices so you can feel what you didn?t know your fingers have been missing.
More Keyboard Reviews: ??? Das Keyboard Model S Professional for Mac ??? Razer BlackWidow Ultimate Stealth Edition ??? Kensington KeyFolio Pro Universal Removable Bluetooth Keyboard for 10" Tablets ??? iLuv Portable Bluetooth Keyboard for iPad ??? Logitech Fold-Up Keyboard for iPad ?? more
ScienceDaily (Jan. 27, 2012) ? One day in 2010, Rutgers physicist Vitaly Podzorov watched a store employee showcase a kitchen gadget that vacuum-seals food in plastic. The demo stuck with him. The simple concept -- an airtight seal around pieces of food -- just might apply to his research: developing flexible electronics using lightweight organic semiconductors for products such as video displays or solar cells.
"Organic transistors, which switch or amplify electronic signals, hold promise for making video displays that bend like book pages or roll and unroll like posters," said Podzorov. But traditional methods of fabricating a part of the transistor known as the gate insulator often end up damaging the transistor's delicate semiconductor crystals.
Drawing inspiration from the food-storage gadget, Podzorov and his colleagues tried an experiment. They suspended a thin polymer membrane above the organic crystal and created a vacuum underneath, causing the membrane to collapse gently and evenly onto the crystal's surface. The result: a smooth, defect-free interface between the organic semiconductor and the gate insulator.
The researchers reported their success in the journal Advanced Materials. In the article,Podzorov and three colleagues describe how a single-crystal organic field effect transistor (OFET) made with this thin polymer gate insulator boosted electrical performance. The researchers further reported that they could remove and reapply membranes to the same crystal several times without degrading its surface.
Organic transistors electrically resemble silicon transistors in computer chips, but they are made of flexible carbon-based molecules that can be printed on sheets of plastic. Silicon transistors are made in rigid, brittle wafers of silicon.
The methods that scientists previously applied to organic transistor fabrication were based on silicon semiconductor processing, explained Podzorov, assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, School of Arts and Sciences. These involved high temperatures, high-energy plasmas or chemical reactions, all of which could damage the delicate organic crystal surface and hinder the transistor's performance.
"People have tendencies to go with something they've known for a long time," he said. "In this case, it doesn't work right."
Podzorov's innovation builds upon a decade of Rutgers research in this field, including his invention of the first single crystal organic transistor in 2003. While his latest innovation is still a ways from commercial reality, he sees an immediate application in the classroom.
"Our technique takes 10 minutes," he said. "It should be exciting for students to actually build these devices and immediately see them work, all within one lab session."
Podzorov was actually trying to solve another problem when he first recalled the food packaging demo. He was thinking about how to protect organic crystals from airborne impurities when his lab shipped samples to collaborating scientists in California and overseas.
"We could place our samples between plastic sheets and pull a vacuum," he said. "Then I thought, 'why don't we try doing this for our gate insulator?'"
Funding for the research was provided by the U. S. Department of Energy and the Rutgers Institute for Advanced Materials and Devices for Nanotechnology. Collaborators in Podzorov's lab were postdoctoral researchers Hee Taek Yi and Yuanzhen Chen, and undergraduate student Krzysztof Czelen. The department's machine shop made a custom-designed vacuum chamber for the project.
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H. T. Yi, Y. Chen, K. Czelen, V. Podzorov. Vacuum Lamination Approach to Fabrication of High-Performance Single-Crystal Organic Field-Effect Transistors. Advanced Materials, 2011; 23 (48): 5807 DOI: 10.1002/adma.201103305
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DEARBORN, Mich. ? Ford has shown it can make money even with U.S. car sales at depressed levels. Now it needs to show it can manage a myriad of challenges outside its home region.
North America was the only region where Ford Motor Co. saw profits rise in the fourth quarter and in all of 2011. Everywhere else the automaker lost money or saw profits fall, hurt by nervous consumers in Europe, flooding in Asia and aging products in South America. Costs rose faster than expected, too.
Ford reported $13.62 billion in net income, but investors brushed off the result because most of that came from an accounting change. Excluding that change, earnings totaled $1.1 billion, or 20 cents a share, down 15 percent from the fourth quarter of 2010. Ford missed Wall Street's expectations by 5 cents.
The stock price took an early hit but recovered once the company promised better ? if still bumpy ? results in 2012. Shares fell 4 percent to close at $12.21.
Chief Financial Officer Lewis Booth said the Thai flooding and the rising cost of steel and other commodities hurt Ford more than analysts expected.
The November floods, which affected Thai parts suppliers, cost 34,000 units of production in Thailand and in South Africa, which relies on Thai-made parts. Ford also spent $2.3 billion more on commodities in 2011 than the prior year, or $100 million more than it forecast.
Bill Selesky, an auto analyst with Argus Research, said investors relaxed after Ford explained its accounting change and reassured them that it expects operating margin to increase this year.
Ford's operating margin ? a measure of how much the company earned after all the costs of doing business ? fell to 2.2 percent from 3 percent in 2010, largely because of commodity costs.
"The company said, `Listen, we can manage through this, and North America is very, very strong,'" Selesky said.
North American operating profits rose 33 percent to $889 million in the fourth quarter. For the full year, North American profits rose 15 percent to $6.2 billion.
Ford's U.S. market share was up for the year, and the company got higher prices for new vehicles like the Ford Explorer and Ford Focus. U.S. buyers paid an average of $29,524 for Ford cars and trucks last year, up 6 percent from 2009, according to automotive pricing site TrueCar.com.
But in Europe, Ford's second-most important region by sales, fourth-quarter operating losses more than doubled to $190 million and sales fell 1 percent.
Booth said the company isn't sure how much impact the debt crisis will have on European sales this year. But CEO Alan Mulally said he's optimistic, since Ford has 10 new or revamped vehicles going on sale in the region. In the meantime, Ford is cutting European production by 36,000 vehicles in the first quarter.
Rival General Motors Co. is also expected to be hurt by weak results in Europe. It reports quarterly results Feb. 16. Chrysler Group, which has little international exposure, will be buoyed by its U.S. sales when it releases earnings Feb. 1.
In Asia, Ford's sales fell 7 percent in the fourth quarter, largely because sales in China have slowed. Ford's Asia Pacific region lost $83 million in the quarter after posting a profit in 2010.
Booth said things will be bumpy in Asia for the next several years as Ford embarks on a major expansion that includes the construction of seven plants. The company aims to triple the cars in its Chinese lineup to 15 over the next three years.
The South American market was another disappointment. Both sales and market share fell. Booth said South America is getting more competitive, and Ford's products there are older than other brands. Ford aims to turn that around when it introduces new products there next year.
For the full year, the Dearborn-based company reported net income of $20.2 billion, or $4.94 per share.
Ford's accounting change resulted in big gains on paper. The move dates to 2006, when Ford moved $15.7 billion worth of tax credits and other assets off its books because it wasn't making money so it couldn't take advantage of them. Now that it's profitable, the company moved most of those assets back onto its books.
The change will affect Ford's tax rates going forward. Ford's tax rate was 9 percent in 2010 because of the assets that were being held under the valuation allowance. Ford's new rate will be closer to 30 percent.
Booth called the change a "significant milestone" and said it's a strong indication that the company expects to stay profitable. Another is Ford's decision last month to reinstate a 5-cent quarterly dividend starting in March.
Without the big accounting gain, Ford earned $8.76 billion, or $1.51 per share, its highest operating profit since 1999. Revenue rose 13 percent to $136.3 billion. Analysts had forecast full-year earnings of $1.86 per share on revenue of $127.31 billion.
Based on its full-year North American results, Ford will make profit-sharing payments of around $6,200 each to its 41,600 U.S. hourly employees. Employees will get their checks in March.
Ford also said Friday that it plans to contribute $3.5 billion to its global pension funds this year. Underfunded pensions have been another area of concern for investors and for ratings agencies, which recently raised Ford's credit rating to one notch below investment grade. Ford has been below investment grade since 2005.
Standard and Poor's analyst Efraim Levy, who maintains a "buy" rating on Ford shares, said he wasn't concerned that Ford missed analysts' expectations.
"I don't think they have to fully meet their goals to be successful," he said. "Directionally, they are moving where they have to be."
But Levy said Ford will have to watch its back in the U.S., where Toyota and Honda are finally recovering from earthquake-related shortages and smaller players like Volkswagen and Kia are making inroads.
"I tend to give Ford the benefit of the doubt, but I do think the easy gains are over for them," he said.
New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski is helped off the field after being injured during the second half of the AFC Championship NFL football game against the Baltimore Ravens Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012, in Foxborough, Mass. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia)
New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski is helped off the field after being injured during the second half of the AFC Championship NFL football game against the Baltimore Ravens Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012, in Foxborough, Mass. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia)
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) ? Rob Gronkowski's playing status for the Super Bowl was listed as questionable on Friday after the star tight end missed the New England Patriots practice for the second straight day with an injured left ankle.
Twelve other players also were listed as questionable but participated in practice on a limited basis. That could change since more than a week remains before the game against the New York Giants on Feb. 5.
WIVB-TV in Buffalo reported that Gronkowski's father, Gordy Gronkowski, said he has a high ankle sprain. Rob Gronkowski attended Williamsville North High School in the Buffalo area. The station said his father expects him to be fine for the Super Bowl.
The Patriots have not disclosed the extent of the injury, and coach Bill Belichick rarely provides details on injuries.
"He must not have read the sign on the door" near the locker room, wide receiver Matthew Slater said with a smile of Gronkowski's father. "We've got to get him caught up to speed on that. We're not supposed to disclose that kind of stuff."
And Belichick's reaction to the father's revelation?
"Oh, man, I don't know," Slater said. "I would imagine he wouldn't be too excited about that."
For the second straight day, Gronkowski was not in the locker room during the period when media were allowed in.
Gronkowski, whose 17 touchdown catches set an NFL single-season record for tight ends, was injured late in the third quarter of Sunday's 23-20 AFC championship victory over the Baltimore Ravens.
Asked if he had any doubt that Gronkowski would play in the Super Bowl, Slater had a one word answer: "No."
But what if he doesn't play?
"We can't really worry about that," Slater said. "He's a special young man and there's not too many guys tougher than him out there. So I would imagine he's going to do everything he can to be out there."
Gronkowski was the only player who missed practice.
Those who participated on a limited basis were wide receivers Wes Welker and Deion Branch (knee injuries), offensive tackles Sebastian Vollmer (back and foot) and Marcus Cannon (ankle), offensive guard Logan Mankins (knee), defensive lineman Kyle Love (ankle), linebackers Rob Ninkovich (hip), Brandon Spikes (knee), Dane Fletcher (thumb), and Tracy White (abdomen), and safeties Patrick Chung (knee) and James Ihedigbo (shoulder).
Twenty-five years after the release of the now '80s pop-culture classic Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Matthew Broderick will reprise his role as the fun-loving "totally righteous dude" for a commercial airing on the day of the Super Bowl.
What product or company the commercial is for remains unknown ? the 10-second YouTube teaser was posted under an account named "chuckachucka 2012" seemingly in reference to the noise heard in the famous Yello song "Oh Yeah" that played over the end credits of the John Hughes film.
Check out photos of Matthew Broderick
But there's no question who Broderick is playing in the teaser when he opens the curtains, just like Bueller does at the start of his fun-filled ditch day, and asks the camera, "How can I handle work on a day like today?"
Watch the teaser below and begin speculating about what exactly Ferris will be shilling come game day:
For those of you that plopped down the money for the Call of Duty Elite premium service on the Xbox 360, then yesterday you likely went online to discover a digital treat waiting under their proverbial online tree. Two new maps were released, kicking off a nine month season of content drops that will feature 20 in all.
The first drop contained the maps ?Liberation? and ?Piazza.? Both maps will be included as part of a pack that will likely contain at least four maps, and will probably go on sale for around $15 in March (although nothing has been officially confirmed on that front). For right now, Xbox 360 users are the only ones to see these maps, but PS3 Elite premium members should have them within a month, while non-premium PS3 users should see the pack in April.
So with the number of people that have access to the maps relatively low, we took on the arduous and demanding task of playing the maps. It was rough, sitting there and getting paid to play video games, but we did it because we love you. Here are our impressions of the maps.
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Liberation
(DT Associate Editor Ryan Fleming)?Liberation is a map that I will both love and hate, depending on my mood. Set in a militarized Central Park in New York, the wide open spaces will immediately appeal to snipers and people that love to camp and/or use stealth, so for me it will depend on whether or not the Leroy Jenkins curse takes me. It is also a good map to follow people like Adam, and use them as bait?er?the vanguard. The actual geography of the map is fairly well plotted, but one of the biggest issues (or advantages depending on your POV) is the colors of the map. It is easy to blend into the trees and leaves and become incredibly hard to see. Because of that, this will be one of the slower moving maps in MW3.
Various game types will have drastically different feels, and some work better than others. I am a fan of Domination, which I think works well here. Kill Confirmed can lead to some interesting moments, as snipers leave several tags out as bait, but for me Team Deathmatch was the least fun. The mounted machine guns paired with a team of snipers and silenced opponents can make this frustrating and slow. For me, this map works better when there are objectives. Oddly, while teamwork is always important, the map is so wide open and you can die from so far away that it is harder to properly coordinate than other maps. Good news for the lone wolf-type player, bad news for the ?Captain Whatthehellareyoudoing? type who is trying to rally people to hold a certain area.
I really liked the survival mode potential of this map. There are a few areas that you can make into decent choke points?be warned though?learning the map is the key to survival, as enemies will pop out of areas you had no idea they could come from. If you choose your location poorly, you can also find yourself in a bad situation. Fighting off attack choppers and juggernauts can also be a pain if they catch you unprepared since there isn?t much cover, and riot/delta teams often try to catch bullets with their teeth. They fail. Or succeed if they are looking for the sweet embrace of death.
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(DT Contributing Editor Adam Rosenberg) Liberation is an easy sell with me. Not only does my New Yorker blood scream with joy at being able to run around in a virtual re-creation of a war-torn Central Park, but this new map?s big, open spaces and loooooooong sightlines also appeal to my love for dealing out death from a great distance. Ryan really nails it too; the lush greens on this map provide PERFECT cover for Ghillie suit-wearing snipers. Bring along a thermal scope if you can; it?s a tremendous help here.
As open as the map is, there?s a surprising amount of separation between the different avenues of advance. For such a flat landscape, Liberation has a strange sense of verticality to it. Dry creeks run beneath bridges, with the high and low positions being completely cut off from one another in most places. There could be a firefight raging right below you, or above you, but you?ll have to circle all the way around to get to it. Shotgun-toters and SMG wielders are at a distinct disadvantage, though a small, central underground area offers ample opportunity to ambush passing forces. A strategically placed personal radar can be quite useful on this map, especially if short-range actions are your specialty.
At the two ends of the map are sandbag-mounted chaingun turrets which, when used properly, can wreak havoc on enemy forces. Like the one in the Bakaara map, it?s suicide to spend much time firing, since it makes you an easy target for distant snipers. The two miniguns on Liberation are great for crowd control, however. Just be sure to note: they?re not usable in Survival mode, only multiplayer. The trick on this map?no matter which mode you?re playing?is to always proceed carefully and avoid the open central areas, particularly near the fountain and any other location in which your uniform colors might stand out against the environment. Anything to make you a less appetizing target for the many snipers who are sure to be watching the heavy traffic areas.
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Piazza
(Adam Rosenberg) Piazza is a small-ish map overall, but there are so many levels to it that it ends up feeling much larger than it actually is. Much like Liberation, there?s a lot of up-and-down movement; the difference here is that you have many more overlooks to work with. Snipers will want to swap their standard scope out for an ACOG, but a crack shot can do a lot of damage from a distance here.
Really though, shotguns and sub machine guns are your best bet for Piazza. The map is filled with sharp corners and steep stairwells, to the point that you?ll need to constantly be on your toes since you can never really be sure of when an enemy will suddenly come into view. Close-range fighters can confidently move around in the middle parts of the maps, while snipers and other long-range fighters will do best sticking to the fringes, preferably with a silencer.
The key with Piazza is to always be mindful of what?s above you and below you. Death can easily come from any angle. While it?s definitely important to keep your eyes on the path ahead, ignoring the raised balconies and walkways as you proceed will result in certain death sooner or later. The action moves quickly and intensely on Piazza, though I don?t see this one supplanting Dome as MW3?s Nuketown (the tiny Black Ops?map). It?s just too unpredictable. This one, moreso even than Liberation, is definitely going to live on as a ?love it or hate it? type of environment.
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(Ryan Fleming) Piazza is a different type of map in every way from Liberation. It is small and confined, with a few areas that can quickly turn into choke points. People that love their shotguns will be free to terrorize and annoy the crap out of opponents with free reign. Sniper rifles will be fairly useless in the center of the map, but as Adam noted, a prepared sniper can hold down the sides of the maps. SMGs will be right at home, and will?likely?be the weapon of choice for most. I personally love the fast paced nature of Piazza, but when people are spread out all over the map, spawning can suck (more so than usual). I may or may not have considered throwing a controller at least once.
The various map types all work fairly well here. Domination can be fun, but there are balance issues. Holding onto a flag can be easy, especially with claymores and the like, but attacking can make you angry to the point that you want to punch something cute. There are multiple pathways all throughout the map, so there are ways though. Team Deathmatch and Kill Confirmed are both a good fit for this map, and Search and Destroy can offer some interesting possibilities.
Survival can either lead to an epic stand, or a frustrating one. You can easily set up defenses in areas that can hold off endless waves of enemies, but if a few make it by, you will find yourself trapped. Moving around might be the best strategy, but it is also a risky one. Still, it makes for a different experience than most survival maps.
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Conclusion
Both maps offer something new to the current selection. Neither really blew us away, but we both thought that they will make for a good bit of variety in the rotation. The level design is solid, and both maps are designed to offer a certain amount of gameplay variety. Liberation gives snipers and distance players a new playground to try out, while Piazza is going to appeal to fast-paced players that dig their short range weapons. Both maps are a good addition, and a nice kickoff to the season of content.
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This article was originally posted on Digital Trends
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TEHRAN, Iran ? Senior Iranian lawmakers stepped up threats Monday that Islamic Republic warships could block the Persian Gulf's oil tanker traffic after the latest blow by Western leaders seeking to rein in Tehran's nuclear program: A punishing oil embargo by the European Union that sharply raises the economic stakes for Iran's defiance.
The EU decision in Brussels ? following the U.S. lead to target Iran's critical oil exports ? opened a new front against Iran's leadership. Pressure is bearing down on the clerical regime from many directions, including intense U.S. lobbying to urge Asian powers to shun Iranian crude, a nose-diving national currency and a recent slaying in what Iran calls a clandestine campaign against its nuclear establishment.
In response, Iranian officials have turned to one of their most powerful cards: The narrow Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf and the route for a fifth of the world's oil. Iran has rattled world markets with repeated warnings it could block the hook-shaped waterway, which could spark a conflict in the Gulf.
Military experts have questioned whether Iran has the naval capabilities to attempt a blockade. But the U.S. and allies have already said they would take swift action against any Iranian moves to choke off the 30-mile (50-kilometer) wide strait ? where the American aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, along with British and French warships, entered the Gulf on Sunday without incident.
The British Ministry of Defense said the three nations sought to "underline the unwavering international commitment to maintaining rights of passage under international law."
Earlier this month, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CBS' "Face the Nation" that Iranian forces could block shipping through the strait "for a period of time," but added "we can defeat that" and restore the flow of oil and other commerce. He did not offer details on a U.S. military response, but the Pentagon is believed to have contingency plans for such a scenario.
A member of Iran's influential national security committee in parliament, Mohammad Ismail Kowsari, said Monday that the strait "would definitely be closed if the sale of Iranian oil is violated in any way." He went on warn the U.S. against any "military adventurism."
Another senior lawmaker, Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, said Iran has the right to shutter Hormuz in retaliation for oil sanctions and that the closure was increasingly probable, according to the semiofficial Mehr news agency.
"In case of threat, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is one of Iran's rights," Falahatpisheh said. "So far, Iran has not used this privilege."
The lawmakers' comments do not directly reflect the views of Iran's ruling clerics, but they echo similar statements made earlier this month by military commanders with close ties to the theocracy.
At the same time, however, Iran has tried to ease tensions by offering to reopen nuclear talks with the U.S. and other world powers after a one-year gap, and backing off warnings about U.S. naval operations in the Gulf ? where the U.S. Navy 5th Fleet has a base in Bahrain.
On Monday in Brussels, the EU's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton urged Iran to offer "some concrete issues to talk about."
"It is very important that it is not just about words; a meeting is not an excuse, a meeting is an opportunity and I hope that they will seize it," she said as the EU adopted its toughest measures on Iran with an immediate embargo on new oil contracts and a freeze of the country's Central Bank assets. About 90 percent of the EU's nearly $19 billion in Iranian imports in 2010 were oil and related products, according to the International Energy Agency.
It follows new U.S. sanctions enacted last month that target the Central Bank and its ability to sell petroleum abroad. The U.S. has delayed implementing the sanctions for at least six months, worried about sending the price of oil higher at a time when the global economy is struggling. On Monday, benchmark crude pushed above $99 a barrel after the EU sanctions and the renewed threats to close the Strait of Hormuz.
"This is not a question of security in the region," said German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle. "It is a question of security in the world."
In Washington, a joint statement by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the EU move "will sharpen the choice for Iran's leaders and increase their cost of defiance" over the country's nuclear program.
But there are no signals from Iran that the tougher sanctions will force concessions on the core dispute: Iran's ability to enrich uranium.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast was quoted by state TV as calling the EU sanctions "psychological warfare" to try to halt Iran's nuclear program.
Iran's leaders have consistently portrayed the country's nuclear fuel labs as a symbol of national pride and part of efforts to become the Muslim world's center for homegrown technology, including long-range missiles and rockets capable of reaching orbit. Iran says it seeks reactors only for energy and research, but the U.S. and others worry that the uranium enrichment will eventually lead to warhead-grade material.
Earlier this month, Iran said it was beginning enrichment at a new facility buried in a mountainside south of Tehran.
"Iran's right for uranium enrichment is nonnegotiable," said conservative Iranian lawmaker Ali Aghazadeh. "There is no reason for Iran to compromise over its rights. But Iran is open to discussions over concerns about its nuclear program."
Russia ? which strongly opposed the EU sanctions ? said in a statement: "Under pressure of this sort, Iran will not make any concessions or any corrections to its policies."
On the U.S. side, President Barack Obama may also be wary about political fallout from any negotiations in an election year.
No date has been set to resume talks. A more pressing task for OPEC's No. 2 producer is assessing the sting from the EU slap.
The 27-nation bloc imposed an immediate halt to all new contracts for Iranian crude and petroleum products while existing ones are allowed to run until July. It also placed a freeze on the assets of Iran's Central Bank.
About 80 percent of Iran's oil revenue comes from exports, and any measures that affect its ability to export oil could hit hard at its economy, which is already staggering from widespread unemployment and a sinking currency that has sharply driven up the relative costs for imported goods.
Theodore Karasik, a security expert at the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, called the struggling Iranian economy a potential "weak spot" for the ruling system as the country moves toward parliamentary elections in early March.
Reflecting the uncertainties, the Iranian rial fell Monday to a new low of nearly 21,000 to the dollar, a 14 percent drop since Friday, currency dealers said. A year ago, the rial was trading at 10,500 to the dollar.
Samuel Ciszuk, a consultant at KBC Energy Economics in Britain, said the sanctions will likely cause crude prices to rise in Europe and soften in Asia in the short term as more Iranian oil heads east. The sanctions will make it even harder for Iran to find customers for its oil and shipping companies willing to carry it.
"Iranian crude is being made the last choice. ... You may be able to get it at a discount (outside the West), but how stable is the supply?" he said.
In order to sell supplies once destined for Europe, Iran may need to offer discounts to its main buyers in Asia such as Japan, South Korea and China. Ciszuk said there hasn't been much sign Tehran is willing to do this so far, and it may prefer for now to divert the excess into storage.
U.S. officials, meanwhile, have been pressing Tehran's main Asian oil markets to turn away from Iran.
China ? which counts on Iran as its third-biggest oil supplier ? has rejected sanctions and called for negotiations over Iran's nuclear program.
South Korea, which relies on Iran for up to 10 percent of its oil supplies, was noncommittal on the U.S. sanctions. Japan, which imports about 9 percent of its oil from Iran, gave mixed signals but most recently expressed concern about how the sanctions would affect Japanese banks.
But all three nations sent high-profile delegations ? including one led by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao ? to oil-rich Gulf Arab states this month for talks that left Iran fearful of efforts to undercut its crude exports.
Within Iran, meanwhile, security officials are on higher alert over what they claim is a covert campaign led by Israel's Mossad and backed by U.S. and Britain. On Jan. 11, a magnetic bomb placed on a car killed scientist who worked at Iran's main uranium enrichment facility. It was at least the fourth targeted killing of a nuclear-related researcher in two years.
The U.S. denied any role in the January attack, but Israel's military chief hinted that Iran could face incidents that happen "unnaturally."
After the sanctions vote, British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy issued a joint statement urging Iran to suspend its sensitive nuclear activities.
"Our message is clear," the statement said. "We have no quarrel with the Iranian people. But the Iranian leadership has failed to restore international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of its nuclear program. We will not accept Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon."
___
Murphy reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers Don Melvin in Brussels, Robert Burns in Washington and Adam Schreck in Dubai contributed to this report.
BAGHDAD (AP) ? An Iraqi police official says gunmen have attacked the house of a police officer near the northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk, killing one of his guards.
Kirkuk's police commander Brig. Gen. Sarhad Qadir says the officer was unharmed in Saturday's attack in the predominantly Sunni town of Hawija, a former insurgent stronghold located 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Baghdad.
Suspected Sunni insurgents have frequently targeted Iraqi security forces to undermine the confidence in the Shiite-dominated government and its efforts to protect people from violence without American backup.
Attacks have surged amid an escalating political crisis in Iraq. At least 160 people have been killed since the beginning of the year, raising fears of civil war a month after U.S. soldiers left.
The North Carolina single mom ? who was famously proposed to by Brad Womack on ABC's "The Bachelor" in March 2011 ? is ready to move on after their nasty split, and will search for love again as the network's newest "Bachelorette," multiple sources confirm in the new Us Weekly.
PHOTOS: Revisit Emily's time on 'The Bachelor'
Maynard, 25, has signed on for the show's eighth season, and will start filming in March. It was a "change of heart" for Maynard after months of playing hard-to-get with ABC, a Maynard pal tells Us. "She's looking for a man ? not a little boy."
Though "Bachelor" and "Bachelorette" fans are used to seeing the show's exploits carried out in a posh Los Angeles mansion where the contestants bunk together, a second insider says production for the series will relocate to Charlotte, N.C., where Maynard raises her young daughter, Ricki.
VIDEO: Emily's ex Brad bonds with her adorable litle girl
"The guys will be flying to her. We're switching things up a bit," hints an insider.
Maynard's upcoming search for love begins nearly one year after she and Womack, 38, called off their engagement. Shortly after their split, Maynard endured a barrage angry calls from her ex, but insisted there was no chance of a reconciliation.
PHOTOS: Hollywood's ugliest splits
"I wanted to be married and have more children, but I doubted he was going to still want to be with me," she told "Bachelor" host Chris Harrison in an emotional July 2011 interview. "As a single mom, I don't have the luxury of saying "we'll figure it out when we get there." I need that reassurance that he'd want to be with me six weeks down the road much less six years."
Think Emily will make a good "Bachelorette"? Tell us what you think on the Facebook page for our TV blog, The Clicker!
Mysterious flotsam in Gulf of Mexico came from Deepwater Horizon rig, WHOI study findsPublic release date: 19-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: WHOI Media Relations media@whoi.edu 508-289-3340 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Tracking debris from damaged oil rigs can help forecast coastal impacts in the future
Shortly after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, mysterious honeycomb material was found floating in the Gulf of Mexico and along coastal beaches. Using state-of-the-art chemical forensics and a bit of old-fashioned detective work, a research team led by scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) confirmed that the flotsam were pieces of material used to maintain buoyancy of the pipe bringing up oil from the seafloor.
The researchers also affirmed that tracking debris from damaged offshore oil rigs could help forecast coastal pollution impacts in future oil spills and guide emergency response effortsmuch the way the Coast Guard has studied the speed and direction of various floating debris to guide search and rescue missions. The findings were published Jan. 19 in Environmental Research Letters.
On May 5, 2010, 15 days after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, oceanographer William Graham and marine technicians from the Dauphin Island Sea Lab were working from a boat about 32 miles south of Dauphin Island, Ala., when they saw a 6-mile-long, east-west line containing more than 50 pieces of white material interspersed with sargassum weed. The porous material was uniformly embedded with black spheres about a centimeter in diameter. No oil slick was in sight, but there was a halo of oil sheen around the honeycomb clumps.
Two days later, the researchers also collected similar samples about 25 miles south of Dauphin Island. Nobody knew what the material was, with some hypothesizing at first that it could be coral or other substance made by marine plants or animals. Graham sent samples to WHOI chemist Chris Reddy, whose lab confirmed that the material was not biological. But the material's source remained unconfirmed.
In January 2011, Reddy and WHOI researcher Catherine Carmichael, lead author of the new study, collected a piece of the same unknown material of Elmer's Beach, Grand Isle, La. In April, 2011, they found several large pieces, ranging from 3 to 10 feet, of the honeycomb debris on the Chandeleur Islands off Louisiana.
Oil on all these samples was analyzed at WHOI using comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography. The technique identifies the thousands of individual chemical compounds that comprise different oils from different reservoirs. The chemistry of the oil on the debris matched that of oil sampled directly from the broken pipe from the Macondo well above the Deepwater Horizon rig.
In addition, one piece of debris from the Chandeleur Islands retained a weathered red sticker that read "Cuming" with the numbers 75-1059 below it. Reddy found a company called Cuming Corporation in Avon, Mass., which manufactures syntactic foam flotation equipment for the oil and gas industry. He e-mailed photos of the specimen to the company, and within hours, a Cuming engineer confirmed from the serial number that the foam came from a buoyancy module from Deepwater Horizon.
"We realized that the foam and the oil were released into the environment at the same time," Reddy said. "So we had a unique tracer that was independent of the oil itself to chronicle how oil and debris drifted out from the spill site."
The scientists overlaid the locations where they found honeycomb debris on May 5 and 7 with daily forecasts produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the trajectory of the spreading oil slick. NOAA used a model that incorporated currents and wind speeds, along with data from planes and satellites. On both days, the debris was about 6.2 miles ahead of the spreading slick.
The explanation, the scientists said, is the principle of leeway, a measure of how fast wind or waves push materials. The leeway for fresh oil is 3 to 3.3 percent, but the scientists suspected that "the protruding profile of the buoyant material" acted acting like a sail, allowing wind to drive it faster than and ahead of the floating oil.
In this case, the flotsam served as a harbinger for the oncoming slick, but because different materials can have different leeways, oil spill models may not accurately forecast where oiled debris will head. "Even a small deviation in leeway can, over time, results in significant differences in surface tracks because of typical wind fields," the scientists wrote.
The Coast Guard has a long history of calculating the leeway of various materials, from life jackets to bodies of various sizes and weights, to improve forecasts of where the materials would drift if a ship sank or a plane crashed into the sea. But calculating leeways has not been standard practice in oil spills.
"We never had solid data to make the case until this study," said Merv Fingas, who tracked oil spills for more than 38 years for Environment Canada, which is equivalent to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
"These results," the study's authors wrote, "provide insights into the fate of debris fields deriving from damaged marine materials and should be incorporated into emergency response efforts and forecasting of coastal impacts during future offshore oil spills."
###
This research was funded by the National Science Foundation.
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, independent organization in Falmouth, Mass., dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930 on a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences, its primary mission is to understand the ocean and its interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate a basic understanding of the ocean's role in the changing global environment.
[ | 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.
Mysterious flotsam in Gulf of Mexico came from Deepwater Horizon rig, WHOI study findsPublic release date: 19-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: WHOI Media Relations media@whoi.edu 508-289-3340 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Tracking debris from damaged oil rigs can help forecast coastal impacts in the future
Shortly after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, mysterious honeycomb material was found floating in the Gulf of Mexico and along coastal beaches. Using state-of-the-art chemical forensics and a bit of old-fashioned detective work, a research team led by scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) confirmed that the flotsam were pieces of material used to maintain buoyancy of the pipe bringing up oil from the seafloor.
The researchers also affirmed that tracking debris from damaged offshore oil rigs could help forecast coastal pollution impacts in future oil spills and guide emergency response effortsmuch the way the Coast Guard has studied the speed and direction of various floating debris to guide search and rescue missions. The findings were published Jan. 19 in Environmental Research Letters.
On May 5, 2010, 15 days after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, oceanographer William Graham and marine technicians from the Dauphin Island Sea Lab were working from a boat about 32 miles south of Dauphin Island, Ala., when they saw a 6-mile-long, east-west line containing more than 50 pieces of white material interspersed with sargassum weed. The porous material was uniformly embedded with black spheres about a centimeter in diameter. No oil slick was in sight, but there was a halo of oil sheen around the honeycomb clumps.
Two days later, the researchers also collected similar samples about 25 miles south of Dauphin Island. Nobody knew what the material was, with some hypothesizing at first that it could be coral or other substance made by marine plants or animals. Graham sent samples to WHOI chemist Chris Reddy, whose lab confirmed that the material was not biological. But the material's source remained unconfirmed.
In January 2011, Reddy and WHOI researcher Catherine Carmichael, lead author of the new study, collected a piece of the same unknown material of Elmer's Beach, Grand Isle, La. In April, 2011, they found several large pieces, ranging from 3 to 10 feet, of the honeycomb debris on the Chandeleur Islands off Louisiana.
Oil on all these samples was analyzed at WHOI using comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography. The technique identifies the thousands of individual chemical compounds that comprise different oils from different reservoirs. The chemistry of the oil on the debris matched that of oil sampled directly from the broken pipe from the Macondo well above the Deepwater Horizon rig.
In addition, one piece of debris from the Chandeleur Islands retained a weathered red sticker that read "Cuming" with the numbers 75-1059 below it. Reddy found a company called Cuming Corporation in Avon, Mass., which manufactures syntactic foam flotation equipment for the oil and gas industry. He e-mailed photos of the specimen to the company, and within hours, a Cuming engineer confirmed from the serial number that the foam came from a buoyancy module from Deepwater Horizon.
"We realized that the foam and the oil were released into the environment at the same time," Reddy said. "So we had a unique tracer that was independent of the oil itself to chronicle how oil and debris drifted out from the spill site."
The scientists overlaid the locations where they found honeycomb debris on May 5 and 7 with daily forecasts produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the trajectory of the spreading oil slick. NOAA used a model that incorporated currents and wind speeds, along with data from planes and satellites. On both days, the debris was about 6.2 miles ahead of the spreading slick.
The explanation, the scientists said, is the principle of leeway, a measure of how fast wind or waves push materials. The leeway for fresh oil is 3 to 3.3 percent, but the scientists suspected that "the protruding profile of the buoyant material" acted acting like a sail, allowing wind to drive it faster than and ahead of the floating oil.
In this case, the flotsam served as a harbinger for the oncoming slick, but because different materials can have different leeways, oil spill models may not accurately forecast where oiled debris will head. "Even a small deviation in leeway can, over time, results in significant differences in surface tracks because of typical wind fields," the scientists wrote.
The Coast Guard has a long history of calculating the leeway of various materials, from life jackets to bodies of various sizes and weights, to improve forecasts of where the materials would drift if a ship sank or a plane crashed into the sea. But calculating leeways has not been standard practice in oil spills.
"We never had solid data to make the case until this study," said Merv Fingas, who tracked oil spills for more than 38 years for Environment Canada, which is equivalent to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
"These results," the study's authors wrote, "provide insights into the fate of debris fields deriving from damaged marine materials and should be incorporated into emergency response efforts and forecasting of coastal impacts during future offshore oil spills."
###
This research was funded by the National Science Foundation.
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, independent organization in Falmouth, Mass., dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930 on a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences, its primary mission is to understand the ocean and its interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate a basic understanding of the ocean's role in the changing global environment.
[ | 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.
Happy Thursday! Check out today’s must-read links: POLL: Were you offended by Modern Family‘s F-bomb? ? PEOPLE.com Study shows 1 in 8 low-income parents water down formula to stretch it out ? MSNBC.com How to wean kids off of pacifiers ? iVillage.com VIDEO: S— people say?to breastfeeding mothers ? Parenting.com Wikipedia blackout raises credibility concerns [...]
For those of you that plopped down the money for the Call of Duty Elite premium service on the Xbox 360, then yesterday you likely went online to discover a digital treat waiting under their proverbial online tree. Two new maps were released, kicking off a nine month season of content drops that will feature 20 in all.
(DT Associate Editor Ryan Fleming)?Liberation is a map that I will both love and hate, depending on my mood. Set in a militarized Central Park in New York, the wide open spaces will immediately appeal to snipers and people that love to camp and/or use stealth, so for me it will depend on whether or not the Leroy Jenkins curse takes me. It is also a good map to follow people like Adam, and use them as bait?er?the vanguard. The actual geography of the map is fairly well plotted, but one of the biggest issues (or advantages depending on your POV) is the colors of the map. It is easy to blend into the trees and leaves and become incredibly hard to see. Because of that, this will be one of the slower moving maps in MW3. 
(DT Contributing Editor Adam Rosenberg) Liberation is an easy sell with me. Not only does my New Yorker blood scream with joy at being able to run around in a virtual re-creation of a war-torn Central Park, but this new map?s big, open spaces and loooooooong sightlines also appeal to my love for dealing out death from a great distance. Ryan really nails it too; the lush greens on this map provide PERFECT cover for Ghillie suit-wearing snipers. Bring along a thermal scope if you can; it?s a tremendous help here.
(Adam Rosenberg) Piazza is a small-ish map overall, but there are so many levels to it that it ends up feeling much larger than it actually is. Much like Liberation, there?s a lot of up-and-down movement; the difference here is that you have many more overlooks to work with. Snipers will want to swap their standard scope out for an ACOG, but a crack shot can do a lot of damage from a distance here. 
(Ryan Fleming) Piazza is a different type of map in every way from Liberation. It is small and confined, with a few areas that can quickly turn into choke points. People that love their shotguns will be free to terrorize and annoy the crap out of opponents with free reign. Sniper rifles will be fairly useless in the center of the map, but as Adam noted, a prepared sniper can hold down the sides of the maps. SMGs will be right at home, and will?likely?be the weapon of choice for most. I personally love the fast paced nature of Piazza, but when people are spread out all over the map, spawning can suck (more so than usual). I may or may not have considered throwing a controller at least once.
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Public release date: 19-Jan-2012
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