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Saturday, July 6, 2013

Landing On an a Asteroid Might Cause an Avalanche

Maybe we already have the materials, but the convention is to stick (ha) with what works.

We don't, though. In order to make the ship significantly stronger we have to spend more mass. Carbon fiber might one day be the right material, but right now it's still prone to cracking in many terrestrial applications.

Perhaps also a little static generator could polarize dust so it is more attracted to the asteroid than a craft.

That's a good or even great idea, but it won't help with rocks for the foreseeable future.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/5mqeAfNf4Mw/story01.htm

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Allergic Lisicki awaits Bartoli, Wimbledon grass

LONDON (AP) ? Sabine Lisicki is allergic to Wimbledon, sort of.

Not the town in southwest London, and not the All England Club. But she does have hay fever, making her hypersensitive to the very grass for which the tournament is so famous.

That affliction, of course, won't stop her from playing in the Wimbledon final Saturday, when either she or Marion Bartoli will end up with a first Grand Slam title.

"I learned how to cope with that," Lisicki said Friday. "In the beginning, the first time I was here, which was, what, five years ago, I really was struggling with the allergies. But by now I know what to do, what to take, to calm those allergies down. I'm on medication."

She also knows what to do on the tennis court when she steps onto the finely manicured lawn on Centre Court.

On Thursday, the 23rd-seeded German rallied from a 3-0 deficit in the third set to beat Agnieszka Radwanska and reach her first major final. She did the same thing in the fourth round, when she eliminated defending champion Serena Williams.

"I had a lot of challenges on my way to the finals with players being aggressive, players who were very solid, moving very well," Lisicki said. "So it will be another challenge."

Saturday's match will be only the second time in the 45-year Open era that two women who have never won a Grand Slam trophy will play for the championship at the All England Club. And it's difficult to say who has the edge.

Bartoli has been in this position before, reaching the 2007 Wimbledon final before losing to Venus Williams. And she hasn't lost a set so far this year, winning all six of her matches in straight sets. But Lisicki is 3-1 against Bartoli, including a win at Wimbledon two years ago when the 23-year-old German reached the semifinals.

"A final of a Grand Slam is always a matter of details. Maybe a point here, a point there will make the difference," said Bartoli, now 28 and much more experienced than the last time she made it this far. "Maybe someone who is a bit more gutsy than the other player, someone who is having a better day than the others.

"Sabine is definitely serving faster than me, especially on the first serve," Bartoli added. "I might take the ball a bit earlier. But obviously we both have the same thing, playing fairly flat and from the baseline and trying to hit some winners."

Lisicki's power game is something to note. Her hard serves have earned her the nickname "Boom Boom Bine," a moniker she shares with another German tennis great, three-time Wimbledon champion Boris Becker.

On Friday, "Boom Boom Bine" took a moment to seek out some advice from "Boom Boom Becker."

"I asked him a couple of questions, how it was for him," Lisicki said. "He won the first final he was in, so that's pretty good."

Lisicki has also been receiving well-wishes from Steffi Graf, the last German woman to win the Wimbledon title in 1996. But Bartoli has Amelie Mauresmo on her side, a 2006 Wimbledon champion who now coaches France's Davis Cup team.

After years of disagreements and disputes with the French tennis federation, Mauresmo has brought Bartoli back into the national team fold. And she has been watching Bartoli during her run to the final, even extending her stay at Wimbledon as Bartoli extended hers.

"She's helping me with the way I need to deal with my stress and with my energy out of the court. Sometimes I was losing too (much) energy being too focused for too long, especially a lot of times before the matches," Bartoli said. "I felt when I was going on court, I was already tired from it."

Part of her relaxation routine ? and Lisicki's, too ? entails music. Both said they listen to certain tunes when they are gearing up for a match.

"Bob Sinclar, 'Summer Moonlight.' The same track over and over," Bartoli said.

"When I walk on court, probably 'Play Hard,'" Lisicki said, referring to the David Guetta song.

Soon enough, the music in their ears will give way to the thwack of the racket and the sound of the crowd. That's when one of the two will start on the path to being a Wimbledon champion.

"I just want to be better than my opponent," Lisicki said. "That's all I'm thinking about."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/allergic-lisicki-awaits-bartoli-wimbledon-grass-161442521.html

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Friday, July 5, 2013

Islamists protest in Egypt demanding Morsi return

Supporters of ousted Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi chant slogans during a protest near the University of Cairo, Giza, Egypt, Friday, July 5, 2013. Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood called for a wave of protests Friday, furious over the military's ouster of its president and arrest of its revered leader and other top figures, raising fears of violence and retaliation from Islamic militants. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

A supporter of ousted Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi cries during a protest near the University of Cairo, Giza, Egypt, Friday, July 5, 2013. Arabic reads, "Yes for the legitimacy." Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood called for a wave of protests Friday, furious over the military's ouster of its president and arrest of its revered leader and other top figures, raising fears of violence and retaliation from Islamic militants. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Egyptian army soldiers stand guard on the border with Egypt in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, July 5, 2013. Egyptian official said the country's border crossing with Gaza Strip in northern Sinai has been closed indefinitely, citing security concerns. The decision comes hours after suspected Islamic militants attacked four sites in northern Sinai, targeting two military checkpoints, a police station and el-Arish airport, where military aircraft are stationed. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)

Egyptian army soldiers man a watch tower on the border with Egypt in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, July 5, 2013. Egyptian official said the country's border crossing with Gaza Strip in northern Sinai has been closed indefinitely, citing security concerns. The decision comes hours after suspected Islamic militants attacked four sites in northern Sinai, targeting two military checkpoints, a police station and el-Arish airport, where military aircraft are stationed. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)

An Egyptian protester flashes v signs for military aircrafts forming a heart shape trails in the sky over Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, July 5, 2013. Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood called for a wave of protests Friday, furious over the military's ouster of its president and arrest of its revered leader and other top figures, underlining the touchy issue of what role the fundamentalist Islamist movement might play in the new regime. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

CAIRO (AP) ? Tens of thousands, mainly Islamists, chanted "down with military rule" in protests around the country Friday, venting their fury at the military for ousting President Mohammed Morsi and vowing to restore him to office. The first major attack by militants, in Sinai, hiked fears that the Islamists' extreme fringe will turn to violent retaliation for Morsi's ouster.

A crowd of Morsi supporters filled much of a broad boulevard outside a Cairo mosque, vowing to remain in place until the Islamist leader who was Egypt's first freely elected president is returned to his position. The protesters railed against what they called the return of the regime of autocrat Hosni Mubarak, ousted in early 2011.

"The old regime has come back ... worse than before," said Ismail Abdel-Mohsen, an 18-year old student among the crowds outside the Rabia al-Adawiya Mosque. He dismissed the new interim head of state sworn in a day earlier, senior judge Adly Mansour, as "the military puppet."

The crowd began to march on the headquarters of the Republican Guard, many chanting, "After sunset, President Morsi will be back in the palace."

The military forced Morsi out Wednesday after millions of Egyptians turned out in four days of protests demanding his removal and saying he had squandered his electoral mandate by putting power in the hands of his own Muslim Brotherhood and other, harder-line Islamists. In the 48 hours since, the military has moved against the Brotherhood's senior leadership, putting Morsi under detention and arresting the group's supreme leader and a string of other figures.

The Brotherhood called for Friday's protests, which took place at several sites around the capital and in other cities. Brotherhood officials underlined strongly to their followers that their rallies should be peaceful.

But there are serious fears that more extremist groups who gain considerable influence during Morsi's year in office will lash out with a campaign of violence.

In the early hours Friday, masked assailants launched a coordinated attack with rockets, rocket-propelled grenades and anti-aircraft guns on the airport in el-Arish, the provincial capital of northern Sinai, as well as a security forces camp in Rafah on the border with Gaza and five other military and police posts. At least one soldier was killed in nearly four hours of clashes that ensued.

Islamic militants hold a powerful sway in the lawless and chaotic northern Sinai. They are heavily armed with weapons smuggled from Libya and have links with militants in the neighboring Gaza Strip, run by Hamas. After the attack, Egypt indefinitely closed its border crossing into Gaza, sending 200 Palestinians back into the territory, said Gen. Sami Metwali, director of Rafah passage.

Morsi supporters say the military has wrecked Egypt's democracy by carrying out a coup against an elected leader. They accuse Mubarak loyalists and liberal and secular opposition parties of turning to the army for help because they lost at the polls to Islamists. But many supporters have equally seen it as a conspiracy against Islam.

Many at Friday's protests held copies of the Quran in the air, and much of the crowd had the long beards of ultraconservative men or encompassing black robes and veils worn by women, leaving only the eyes visible. One protester shouted that the sheik of Al-Azhar ? Egypt's top Muslim cleric who backed the military's move ? was "an agent of the Christians" ? reflecting a sentiment that the Christian minority was behind Morsi's ouster.

The protesters set up "self-defense" teams, with men staffing checkpoints touting sticks and home-made body shields. There was no significant presence of military forces near the protests.

The night before, the military spokesman issued a statement urging all protesters to remain peaceful. In a message to Morsi's opponents, Col. Ahmed Mohammed Ali warned against "gloating," vengeance or attacks on Brotherhood offices, saying there must not be an "endless cycle of revenge."

The military has a "strong will to ensure national reconciliation, constructive justice and tolerance," he wrote in an official Facebook posting. He said the army and security forces will not take "any exceptional or arbitrary measures" against any political group.

But the Brotherhood has been furious over the arrests of its top leaders, as well as the closure of its TV station Misr25, its newspaper, and three other Islamist television stations. It called to move a return to Egypt's " dark, repressive, dictatorial and corrupt ages."

"We refuse to participate in any activities with the usurping authorities," the Brotherhood said in a statement, read Thursday by senior cleric Abdel-Rahman el-Barr to the crowd outside the Rabia al-Adawiya Mosque.

Morsi has been under detention in an unknown location since Wednesday night, and at least a dozen of his top aides and advisers have been under what is described as "house arrest," though their locations are also unknown.

Besides the Brotherhood's top leader, General Guide Mohammed Badie, security officials have also arrested his predecessor, Mahdi Akef, and one of his two deputies, Rashad Bayoumi, as well as Saad el-Katatni, head of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, and ultraconservative Salafi figure Hazem Abu Ismail, who has a considerable street following.

Authorities have also issued a wanted list for more than 200 Brotherhood members and leaders of other Islamist groups. Among them is Khairat el-Shater, another deputy of the general guide who is widely considered the most powerful figure in the Brotherhood.

The arrest of Badie was a dramatic step, since even Mubarak and his predecessors had been reluctant to move against the group's top leader. The ranks of Brotherhood members across the country swear a strict oath of unquestioning allegiance to the general guide, vowing to "hear and obey." It has been decades since a Brotherhood general guide was put in a prison.

Badie and el-Shater were widely believed by the opposition to be the real power in Egypt during Morsi's term.

The National Salvation Front, the top opposition political group during Morsi's presidency and a key member of the coalition that worked with the military in his removal, criticized the moves, saying, "We totally reject excluding any party, particularly political Islamic groups."

The Front has proposed one of its top leaders, Mohammed ElBaradei, to become prime minister of the interim Cabinet, a post that will hold strong powers since Mansour's presidency post is considered symbolic. ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace laureate who once headed the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, is considered Egypt's top reform advocate.

"Reconciliation is the name of the game, including the Muslim Brotherhood. We need to be inclusive," Munir Fakhry Abdel-Nour, a leading member of the group, told The Associated Press. "The detentions are a mistake."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-07-05-Egypt/id-c2245b752fe74b4caa7531455d1b3b0e

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Schedule slips for 1,000mph car

4 July 2013 Last updated at 10:32 ET By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News

The UK team building a car capable of driving beyond 1,000mph (1,610km/h) says the project is taking longer than anticipated to pull together.

The Bloodhound project expects now to roll out its vehicle in 2015, with the aim of breaking the current land speed record in the latter half of that year.

It is a slip of about 12 months on the present schedule.

Driver Andy Green, the only man ever to take a car through the sound barrier, says it is simply more realistic.

"When you look at the timescale that it took to put the Eurofighter together, which by the way at ground level will not go 1,000mph - it took them twice as long with thousands of people and a budget of billions," the RAF Wg Cdr told BBC News.

"By comparison, we are using the tiniest fraction of that money and a core engineering team of just 34 people."

Announced in 2008, Bloodhound was originally envisaged to be running in 2011/12. But just finding an aerodynamic shape that would keep the car stable on the ground took two years. The detailed design had to wait until that solution was found.

Drawings for most of the car have now been released to industry, and many components are starting to arrive at the project's new HQ for assembly.

"It's not that anything has gone wrong; it's just that some things have been harder than we thought," explained chief engineer Mark Chapman.

"The lower structure, for example, we initially thought would take us six-to-eight weeks to put together. It took us five months."

On Thursday, the Science Minister David Willetts formally opened the Avonmouth, Bristol, technical facility, and ceremonially tightened a bolt linking the carbon-fibre cockpit to the lower-chassis.

He also announced that a further ?1m from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council would go towards the education initiative associated with Bloodhound. Currently, more than 5,450 schools are using curriculum resource materials based on the science of a supersonic car.

"In the government, we are great admirers of this project," Mr Willetts said.

"We're backing it for two reasons. One is the sheer brilliance of the engineering and the quality of the R&D. But it is also the quite extraordinary outreach activities. It's one of the most ambitious schools outreach programmes going, perhaps the biggest ever centred around a single engineering challenge."

Although, the government has given considerable in-kind support to Bloodhound, including the loan of the Eurofighter jet engines that will help power the car, the project is fundamentally a privately funded venture.

So far, it has cost some ?12m and is likely to require another ?6-7m to finish the build.

Further money will then be needed to run the vehicle at its specially prepared race track, Hakskeen Pan in South Africa.

Some 200 UK companies are involved in the construction, including big aerospace concerns such as Rolls-Royce, Lockheed Martin UK, and Hampson Industries.

A number, like Rolls, are not just offering free technical support but are actively sponsoring the project.

Speaking of the slip in the schedule, Bloodhound director Richard Noble said the team had sought an independent assessment from an engineering consultancy on what was a credible timeline.

"I think we'd lost sight to some extent of the sheer scale of this thing," he told BBC News.

"From my point of view, it's not great because I've got to get out there and raise another year's worth of money. But we're getting a lot of people now chasing us, wanting to sponsor us, and that's really great. And having the likes of Rolls-Royce onboard is a tremendous signal."

The intention was always to run the car over two years.

This means, assuming no further delays are encountered, the finished vehicle will probably do some low-speed tests on a runway at Newquay in Cornwall in Q2, 2015. It will then be shipped to South Africa on an Antonov heavy-lift aeroplane for high-speed running in Q3.

The plan is first to raise the world land speed record from its current mark of 763mph (1,228km/h), and then return in 2016 for an attempt to go beyond 1,000mph (1,610km/h).

Bloodhound will use a rocket in addition to a Eurofighter-Typhoon jet engine to generate thrust.

It will also carry a Cosworth Formula 1 engine, although this will have no direct involvement in driving wheels as it does on a racing car. Instead, the F1 power unit will turn the pump that forces liquid oxidiser into the rocket's fuel chamber.

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23184687#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

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Perfect Scherzer has Tigers purring

By Steve Keating

TORONTO (Reuters) - Max Scherzer's perfect season continued on Wednesday as the Detroit Tigers' big righthander improved his record to a sparkling 13-0 and confirmed his status as an elite pitcher with a 6-2 win over the Toronto Blue Jays.

No-hitters and perfect games are pitching's great personal milestones but Scherzer's run of perfection that began in the chill of early April and has carried on into the heat of the North American summer is something not seen in major league ballparks since 1986 when Roger Clemens began his campaign 14-0.

A four-run burst in the second inning, keyed by a three-run homer from Alex Avila, was all the cushion Scherzer needed on a muggy night at the Rogers Centre to move him within two wins of the best undefeated start to a season by a pitcher since 1920.

"The record is kind of overblown in a sense just because I'm part of a great team here," Scherzer told reporters. "Every time I start they are always picking me up, they're always making plays so that's the reason I'm 13-0.

"I don't judge my season on being 13-0, I judge my season based on how I've pitched.

"I've pitched through the season very well, I'm doing a lot of things right. Am I going to be 13-0 every time I do that? No.

"But at the same time I've given my team a chance to win and they gone out every time and won."

Through much of his six-year major league career, Scherzer has been more reliable than spectacular.

He began to emerge as something more than a useful part of a solid rotation late last season, posting a career best mark of 16-7, but this year, as Detroit manager Jim Leyland points out, his righthander has been "as good as it gets".

High praise from someone who has the luxury of managing one of baseball's stingiest pitching staff featuring former-Cy Young winner Justin Verlander.

In Detroit the spotlight usually follows Verlander, a former-American League most valuable player, who became baseball's highest paid pitcher last March signing a seven-year $180 million deal.

But with Verlander (8-5) struggling this season, the humble Scherzer has stepped forward to become 'King of the Hill'.

He has not lost since September 23 last year and with his win on Wednesday tied the franchise record for most consecutive starts without a defeat, 18, set by Bobo Newsom in 1940.

"I don't want to make a big deal about it but it's hard to believe that somebody is 13-0 in this day and age," Leyland told reporters. "But he is and we'll take it, we'll accept it and we'll be happy for him and hopefully he goes 14-0."

It has been the type of performance that is certain to land Scherzer not only an invite to his first All Star Game but the honor of starting it later this month.

Looking further ahead, a Cy Young award could also be in Scherzer's future along with a massive raise with free agency on the horizon in 2014.

Drafted by the Arizona Diamondbacks and traded to the Tigers in December 2009, Scherzer came into the major leagues with a limited but effective repertoire of pitches relying on a fastball/changeup.

With excellent command and the velocity to overpower hitters, Scherzer was able to get the job done but with the addition of a curveball the 28-year-old has found a place among the game's elite.

"I don't put too much stock into the win-loss record. For me at times it can be a fluky stat," said Scherzer. "Tonight my team really picked me up. Only one walk through six plus innings tonight and when you do that you give your team a chance to win.

"Everyone did their job tonight and that's what's exciting."

(Editing by Peter Rutherford)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/perfect-scherzer-tigers-purring-034746702.html

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Google Maps Street View Now Lets You Explore Thomas Jefferson's Digs

Nobody wants to spend their vacation day studying history, but if you're feeling particularly patriotic tomorrow, you can head on over to Google Maps where Thomas Jefferson's Monticello residence is now available to explore using Google Street View.