NASA's Curiosity Rover Lands Safely on Mars

News | Space

The elaborate landing of the $2.5-billion mission went off without apparent incident

By John Matson ?| August 6, 2012?|

FIRST LIGHT: One of Curiosity's first images of Mars. Image: NASA

The seven minutes of terror are over.

NASA's Curiosity rover touched down safely on the surface of Mars early Monday morning, Eastern Daylight Time, sticking the landing in what had been one of the most anticipated?and feared?arrivals in the history of robotic planetary exploration.

The 900-kilogram rover autonomously navigated its landing sequence, slowing from 21,000 kilometers per hour at the top of the atmosphere to a dead stop on the surface, with nary an apparent hitch. The elaborate process, which involved a detachable heat shield, a supersonic parachute and finally a hovering sky crane that lowered the rover to the surface, had been branded the "seven minutes of terror" in a NASA video released in June. In the end, based on preliminary data at least, the fears were for naught.

"It looked good, in short," said entry, descent and landing engineer Adam Steltzner in a post-landing news conference. "Good and clean."

The data from the descending rover were relayed to Earth by the Mars Odyssey orbiter, which passed nearby as Curiosity executed its landing sequence. On NASA TV Steltzner could be seen pacing in front of his workstation in the control room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). But each successive step of the landing sequence passed by without incident, and finally a mission controller announced words that caused the room to erupt in cheers: "Touchdown confirmed. We are safe on Mars."

Within minutes Curiosity relayed its first images of the Red Planet, beaming back a low-resolution shot of one of its six wheels. A higher-resolution version followed, along with a photograph of the rover's own shadow cast across the Martian soil.

In a nearly two-year, $2.5-billion mission, the rover will explore Gale Crater, a basin with a towering mound of sedimentary layers. The mission should help determine what Mars was like during an earlier, wetter era billions of years ago, and whether the planet could have once been hospitable to extraterrestrial life.

The three-meter-long, two-meter-tall rover comes equipped with 10 science instruments, including an onboard sample analysis unit for assessing the chemistry of rock and soil samples and a laser that can vaporize small regions of rocks several meters away to analyze their composition. Curiosity's unprecedented science payload draws its power from a radioisotope thermoelectric generator, a 4.8-kilogram plutonium fuel source whose radioactive decay provides heat, which devices called themocouples convert to about 110 watts of electricity.

"Nobody has ever done anything like this," John Holdren, the White House science adviser, told NASA TV. "This is by far the most capable device, set of instruments, we've put up there for determining whether Mars ever could have supported life."

Nobody had ever attempted anything like the sky crane?enabled landing, either. But some saw good omens, even before the seven minutes of terror had begun. At the post-landing news conference, JPL Director Charles Elachi said he had stepped outside to look at Mars in the evening sky shortly before the landing sequence commenced. "In an hour and a half, you're going to have a visitor," Elachi said as he gazed to the west, he recalled. "And the planet smiled."

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=160b22eb58770cc9603bc40d22faa1a0

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Baidu despide a 4 empleados por borrar posteos de usuarios en China

Baidu, el motor de b?squeda m?s importante de China ?seg?n el ranking de Alexa es el sitio m?s visitado del gigante asi?tico y el quinto en el mundo? despidi? a cuatro empleados por sospechas de que borraban posteos de usuarios a cambio de dinero, tres de los cuales fueron arrestados debido a que, si bien ya hab?an ocurrido hechos similares en la empresa, en esta ocasi?n los detenidos manejaban sumas demasiado grandes de dinero que llevaron a que se involucrara la polic?a china.

?Baidu despidi? a los cuatro empleados. Si descubrimos casos similares, los castigaremos severamente. Baidu cerrar? las lagunas jur?dicas fortaleciendo su administraci?n para mantener el orden de nuestra plataforma de comunicaciones?, afirm? en un comunicado la empresa.

El borrar posteos es un negocio que crece cada d?a m?s y aproblema a China, donde ya se considera ?una norma de la industria? con compa??as de publicidad como Beijing Haotian Lianmeng, que cobran?US$ 157 por borrar un comentario de un foro, US$ 314 por borrarlo desde un blog y US$ 471 por eliminar el posteo de una noticia en portales de noticias como Sina.

Tambi?n ofrecen a empresas privadas un muy completo??servicio de mantenci?n?, donde cobran entre US$ 25.000 y US$ 30.000 al a?o por vigilar y borrar todos los comentarios negativos respecto a la compa??a.

Read more:
Baidu despide a 4 empleados por borrar posteos de usuarios en China

Source: http://www.cyanogenmod.info/2012/08/baidu-despide-a-4-empleados-por-borrar-posteos-de-usuarios-en-china/

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General says all Damascus retaken, Aleppo pounded

The Syrian army said Saturday it had seized the last rebel-held district of the capital Damascus as insurgents in the strategic northern city of Aleppo came under heavy bombardment by regime forces.

The army said it had retaken the hold-out rebel district of Tadamun in Damascus, a day after the United Nations deplored the failure of diplomacy to end a conflict that has reportedly claimed more than 21,000 lives in nearly 17 months.

A brigadier general who refused to give his name told journalists visiting the neighbourhood of Tadamun, the scene of heavy fighting earlier, that it has been retaken, and that the military controls all of the capital.

"We have cleansed all the districts of Damascus, from Al-Midan to Mazzeh, from Al-Hajar Al-Aswad to Qadam... to Tadamun," said the officer.

He said it was the last rebel bastion in the capital to be retaken.

"There is no more presence of armed groups apart for some individuals who are moving from one place to another, just to prove that they exist," he said.

Fighting erupted in Damascus on July 15 and raged for several days as rebels seized several districts, forcing thousands of residents to flee.

In Aleppo, Abdel Jabar Oqaida, commander of the Free Syrian Army there, said the Salaheddin district had "come under the heaviest bombardment since the battle began" on July 20 but that loyalists had "not managed to advance."

In what is also a war of words, a senior government security figure said "the battle for Aleppo has not yet begun, and what is happening now is just the appetizer."

"The main course will come later," he warned.

More than a week ago, a pro-government newspaper was already proclaiming what was to be the "mother of all battles" in Aleppo.

And earlier this week, a security official said troops were "testing the terrorists' defence systems before annihilating them by carrying out a surgical operation."

The security official on Saturday said more reinforcements had arrived and that at least 20,000 troops were now on the ground.

"The other side are also sending reinforcements," the official added of the rebels, who claim to have seized half the city since they poured in two weeks ago.

Because of restrictions on the free movement of journalists in Syria, none of the claims can be verified.

Echoing UN chief Ban Ki-moon's remarks on Thursday that violence was intensifying, a watchdog said July was the deadliest month since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's regime erupted in March 2011.

Rami Abdel Rahman who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 4,239 people, the vast majority civilians, died in July, bringing the overall toll since March 2011 to more than 21,000.

"The death toll is escalating," Abdel Rahman said.

Explosions shook Aleppo as fighter jets and helicopter gunships overflew the city and rebels tried to storm the state television building before being driven back by shelling, said the Britain-based Observatory.

State media said the army defended the site from "mercenary terrorist groups."

The violence killed at least 67 people across Syria on Saturday, including at least eight in Aleppo province, the Observatory said. It said 42 civilians, 18 soldiers and seven rebels were killed.

On Friday, a day after UN and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan resigned in frustration over the failure of an April peace plan to take hold, Ban warned world powers they must overcome their rivalries to put an end to a "proxy war" in Syria.

And the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to condemn the Security Council for its failure to act and it condemned the Syrian regime for using heavy weapons.

Ban said growing radicalisation and extremism had been predicted at the start of the uprising, as had been a "proxy war, with regional and international players arming one side or the other."

After the General Assembly vote, US Ambassador Susan Rice said that, "despite the continued opposition of an increasingly isolated minority, the overwhelming majority of UN members clearly stands resolutely with the Syrian people."

That was an allusion to Russia and China, who voted against the resolution and who had already vetoed three Security Council resolutions on Syria.

But Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said the assembly gave "blatant" support to Syrian rebels and that its backers were the countries providing "mercenaries and arms" to the opposition.

China's deputy ambassador, Wang Min, said pressuring only Damascus would "cause further escalation of the turmoil and let the crisis spill over to other countries in the region."

On Saturday, senior foreign ministry official Wang Kejian accused countries that oppose its position of pursuing their own geopolitical interests and "trying to hinder or even undermine the political settlement process."

France's UN ambassador, Gerard Araud, said Paris would use its presidency of the Security Council to push for humanitarian aid for Syrians, warning Russian and Chinese intransigence could lead to "a final disaster."

While political progress "will be difficult," he said things can be done "on the humanitarian front because, above and beyond the deadlock on the Security Council or the resignation of Annan, there is the suffering of the Syrians."

In other developments on Saturday, Qatar said Arab states will not accept a replacement for Annan unless the nominee's mandate is to clearly negotiate a transfer of power in Syria.

And 48 Iranian pilgrims were kidnapped in Damascus, Tehran's consul said, while an official in Ankara said another Syrian general had defected to Turkey.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/un-chief-scolds-world-powers-syria-fighting-rages-034644858.html

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transvaal titian: Family Card Games For Fun Time ? hot news ...

Family bonding is important and one way to have a quality time is to have family card games at home. This card games are for family fun time and it?s coming in different types of games and it can be played even if your children are younger. This is a wholesome game and others are even educational games. There might be some issues when you play or buy a family card games today, other games might encourage you or even your children to be involved in gambling. So make sure that when you buy one it will not involve gambling or betting to avoid this unpleasant habit in the future.These are some few tips in buying; make sure that it does not involve gaming or playing cards like in the casino, read the instruction on how to play the games to know how to engage in betting or close to gambling types game. Check if the cards games are educational and informative, multi-player is also a nice choice, games that involve more than four people. If you probably have a quiz game card or games that engage in knowing your country?s history or even the world history for that matter.You should be very careful in buying a family card games since this involves your children?s participation. If you try to check online gaming, most of the games encourage gambling, and this is not a good thing for children. That is why most of the parents should have a parental control on your children?s personal computer to keep away from this terrible attraction. These online games are bad influence for the grown ups, much more damaging for the young kids.Remember this, the child?s mind is not yet polluted by the world and make sure to make it as pure as possible and prepare their mind for the different types of games that they might know on how to put themselves in the right position if things go bad. This might be just family card games for others but if not careful, this will cause more trouble than solution. It is not that you are trying to restrict your children from the world; you are just trying to protect them from the bad influence of it. Besides, the best time to train your children in their younger years where they obey and listen to their parent.

Source: http://hotnews.blogspages.com/2012/08/04/family-card-games-for-fun-time-2/

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Source: http://transvaal-titian.blogspot.com/2012/08/family-card-games-for-fun-time-hot-news.html

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Source: http://figueroasung726.typepad.com/blog/2012/08/transvaal-titian-family-card-games-for-fun-time-hot-news.html

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Price Busters Dinning Room - Price Busters Dining Room Sets ...

This press release informs the readers that Price Busters dining room sets come in traditional as well as contemporary styles.

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Price Busters dining room furnishings allow you to dine in comfort and style. They are a great way to entertain guests and family on all special occasions. Price Busters offers the highest variety of stunning furniture styles at the most affordable prices on the web. The dining room sets are available for a large family size as well as for small gatherings. Dining tables are made of wood, steel and quality materials for enduring quality. The company offers you distinct options that are perfect to suit your requirements and preferences.

Dining room is an important place in homes where family members gather and enjoy their meals. A dining room is a place of laughter, gossip and to spend quality time with friends and family, thus strengthening friendships and bonds. It is vital to select right dining room set which is made from quality materials and will last for years. Price Busters has made it easy for their customers to create an ideal living space by offering them high quality furniture that look perfect in any home. Price Busters dining room collection is known for their versatility and elegance.

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How One Teacher Built a Computer Lab for Free : TreeHugger

Robert Litt/CC BY-NC 3.0
In a sunny Bay Area classroom, twenty sixth graders are working at computers. They are making websites?"MySpace" pages for figures from American History. One student is researching Frederick Douglass's five greatest accomplishments. Another is showing a classmate how to search for pictures of Susan B. Anthony. They're all learning how to use Google Sites, helping each other along the way. Earlier this week, this class learned how to add numbers in a spreadsheet. Last week, they learned how to make music on a simple synthesizer. People often assume that getting technology into classrooms is expensive, but this lab cost absolutely nothing.

The problem? An underfunded school needed computers for the classroom. Budget? $0. Staff involved? Just one: Robert Litt, a sixth-grade teacher.

Robert teaches at ASCEND, a small arts K-8 school in the Alameda County School District. He's a fan of technology and believes that it's an important part of K-12 education. Yet ASCEND had no computer lab and no computers in classrooms. So in 2007, Robert acquired 18 donated computers. But these computers were less help than he'd anticipated. The operating systems were slow. Some computers had viruses or malware. Students became frustrated.

Most of the computers' problems could be fixed by wiping the disks and reinstalling the operating system?but buying new software for every donated computer would be prohibitively expensive. So Robert began to research more affordable options. An acquaintance at the Alameda County Computer Recyclers suggested he use a free operating system, such as Linux. Having never ventured into the world of open-source software, Robert scoured the internet for help. He came upon a local Linux user's group, a friendly group of people dedicated to helping new Linux users get started.

With the help of his local LUG, he got Linux up and running on his 18 donated machines. Suddenly, they were fast. They were clean. They worked well in the classroom. Robert was invigorated, as were his students. His principal saw how excited they all were, and decided to give Robert four hours of teaching leave per week to give him time to find more computers for a full lab for ASCEND. And so Robert became a "teacher on special assignment," as he puts it.

Finding computers was less difficult than he originally anticipated. Most families and businesses have an old computer (or ten) sitting in storage. Robert began to call businesses and ask for donations of equipment they'd otherwise be sending for recycling. People were generally very receptive. Most people would rather their used computers do good than rot in a landfill or get shredded; they just don't usually know how to get computers to where they are needed. "Underfunded schools are starving in the midst of plenty," Robert explains. "Discarded computers are our nation's most wasted educational resource."

In fact, donations were easy enough to find that Robert began turning down equipment that had less than 512 megabytes of RAM or was made before 2002. He wouldn't turn down computers people said were "broken," however. "Many computers people say are broken are actually experiencing software problems," he found. When he'd install Linux, many of the supposedly broken computers would work just fine.

Robert Litt/CC BY 3.0

Six months later, Robert had his first full ASCEND lab, filled with donated computers running free, open-source software. But he wasn't done. As he continued to make connections with people, donations kept pouring in. Soon, he got in touch with a local non-profit called Partimus (http://partimus.org/), which is dedicated to "providing computers and Free Software system administration support" to schools in the Bay Area. Partimus helped Robert set up a Linux install server, so that he could install Linux on multiple machines at once.

This year to date, he has acquired over 70 computers for ASCEND.

Faced with inadequate educational technology, few teachers would take it upon themselves to create an entire computer lab with no funding. It's a daunting task, no doubt. But, Robert argues, it's within every teacher's capabilities. He came into the project with absolutely no computer repair or tinkering background. "My background is being a 6th grade teacher," he says. "I am self-taught 100%." He used free resources available online and troubleshot as he went along.

Robert advocates open-source software even for schools that aren't lacking technology. US government reports say the digital divide is shrinking, at least in schools?97% of teachers have at least a single computer in the classroom. Yet that's not the whole story. "The digital divide is growing in a hidden statistic," Robert says, "the actual teaching of technology in a meaningful way." He shows students how to do math on spreadsheets, how to make simple websites, how to put together slide presentations, all on free software. These are the computer skills that, students tell him, they are later expected simply to know. And with the prevalence of recycled computers, there's no need for even 3% of classrooms to be without computers.

Robert will be moving to a new school this coming Fall, where he hopes to continue teaching technology meaningfully. And he calls on other teachers to do the same: in a digital world, teachers are responsibile for making students "better digital citizens."

Check out some video of Robert speaking at Maker Faire below.

Source: http://www.treehugger.com/gadgets/how-one-teacher-built-computer-lab-free.html

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Shocking Nuclear Breach Highlights Three Defense Investments ...

An 82-year-old nun may have just signaled a coming wave of potential business for several Department of Homeland Security contractors.

Congress will be asking questions for months about how Sister Megan Rice and two others ? ages 57 and 63 ? were able to penetrate four physical barriers to reach the outside wall of the nation's only weapons-grade uranium storage facility in Tennessee last week.

The incident was a shocking failure for DHS, as well as for G4S, the parent of the private company hired to protect the facility.

Perhaps unexpectedly, the breach may turn into a business opportunity for other major contractors ? the ones that sell technology solutions to beef up the physical and online security of other nuclear and chemical installations.

Moreover, the breach could create even more business for infrastructure protection and threat-detection technology providers if there is a thorough review of security holes at the nation's energy storage facilities, pipelines, dams and other critical installations.

The top 25 Department of Homeland Security contractors were awarded $5.78 billion in contracts for fiscal year 2011, up 7.6 percent from the previous year according to researchers Philip Finnegan and Peter Barnes at Homeland Security Today .

Much of that spending increase was focused on Coast Guard initiatives, representing $3.7 billion in contract obligations. Northrop Grumman (NOC) led the way with two contracts of about $480 million each for next-generation cutter ships to protect borders and waterways.

Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC) also was a major winner, with a $500 million contract to beef up technology at the U.S. Transportation and Safety Administration.

Spending on border security and air safety spending is likely to continue as both are likely to remain top overall priorities.

The nuclear security incident last week could possibly shift spending on those priorities to protect key infrastructure. This shift would likely create more sales opportunities for the following three companies:

Raytheon (RTN): This defense technology provider has a vested interest in building up its Homeland Security business as a means of revenue diversification. The company is known mainly for its missiles. It received an additional $604.5 billion defense budget request just this week.

Raytheon also is leading the way with some border security and infrastructure protection technologies it has acquired through acquisition in the past five years. That includes command systems for security perimeters, identity management technologies and mobile nuclear radiation detection systems.

Within its DHS unit, Raytheon has a Critical Infrastructure Protection unit that focuses on protecting nuclear plants, shipment facilities, petrochemical plants, refineries and pipelines ? the type of infrastructure that is likely to face additional scrutiny.

The company is among a a decreasing number of well-known U.S. stocks trading for less than 10 time forward earnings that also have a strong dividend yield, which is 3.6 percent for Raytheon.

American Science & Engineering (ASEI): The company's shares are up 12 percent in early trading Friday, following a strong earnings report and a stock repurchase announcement.

It could see additional gains should DHS choose to implement its Z Backscatter scanning and detection systems more broadly. The technology helps to detect explosives, illegal immigrants and other items that might elude traditional X-ray scanners.

DHS is mainly using the technology at airports. The security breach appears to highlight the need for Z Backscatter within infrastructure facilities, domestic security checkpoints, as well as for freight and vehicle screening at critical facilities.

The stock trades around 29 times forward earnings ? a strong premium to peers, but that also is due to high operating margins and miniscule debt levels.

Harris Corp. (HRS): This firm has potential to benefit from an increase in arguably the most critical defense measure: communications.

Harris is a leader in selling radios and systems to DHS, as well as to other utility companies and transportation facilities. All of those radio systems are supposed to be integrated, and make the switch away from analog networks to secure digital ones.

As U.S. troops make their way home from Afghanistan, it had been assumed that the company's communications segment would see lessened demand. However, the latest security breach may help spur its communications market domestically.

Harris has 6.9 percent of sales sold short due to its slowing revenue growth. It may still be a stock to put on the radar, however, if it continues to win DHS contracts. It remains one of the lowest-priced defense contractors, trading at 8.4 times forward earnings.

Editor's Note: This content was originally published on Benzinga.com by Michael Matthews.

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Source: http://www.minyanville.com/trading-and-investing/stocks/articles/ASEI-CSC-HRS-NOC-RTN-trading/8/3/2012/id/42962

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