AAA??May. 3, 2012?7:07 PM ET Scientists use airship to look for meteorites AP
Carrying scientists and researchers, the zeppelin, Eureka lifts off from McClellan Air Park in Sacramento, Calif., to search for pieces of a meteorite, Thursday, May 3, 2012. The researchers are using an aerial search hoping to locate sites where large fragments landed after a meteor exploded in the atmosphere over the Sierra Nevada in late April. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
Carrying scientists and researchers, the zeppelin, Eureka lifts off from McClellan Air Park in Sacramento, Calif., to search for pieces of a meteorite, Thursday, May 3, 2012. The researchers are using an aerial search hoping to locate sites where large fragments landed after a meteor exploded in the atmosphere over the Sierra Nevada in late April. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
Peter Jenniskens, right, the NASA scientist in charge of a group of researchers searching for pieces of a meteorite, walk to the zeppelin, Eureka, at McClellan Air Park in Sacramento, Calif., Thursday, May 3, 2012. Researchers from NASA and the SETI Institute are using the slow moving airship in hope of spotting sites where large fragments landed after a meteor exploded in the atmosphere over the Sierra Nevada in late April. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
NASA scientist Peter Jenniskens, second from right, leaders of a group of researchers searching for pieces of a meteorite, goes over the search plan before take off from McClellan Air Park in Sacramento, Calif., Thursday, May 3, 2012. Researchers from NASA and the SETI Institute are using the zeppelin, Eureka for their aerial search in hope of spotting sites where large fragments landed after a meteor exploded in the atmosphere over the Sierra Nevada in late April. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
Wearing blue flight suits, four NASA researchers walk to the zeppelin, Eureka, at McClellan Air Park in Sacramento, Calif., that will be used to search for pieces of a meteorite Thursday, May 3, 2012. The researches from NASA and the SETI Institute are hoping to spot sites where large fragments landed after a meteor exploded in the atmosphere over the Sierra Nevada in late April. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
NASA researchers walk to the zeppelin, Eureka, at McClellan Air Park in Sacramento, Calif., that will be used to search for pieces of a meteorite Thursday, May 3, 2012. The researchers from NASA and the SETI Institute are hoping to spot sites where large fragments landed after a meteor exploded in the atmosphere over the Sierra Nevada in late April. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) ? A group of scientists took to the skies in a slow-moving airship Thursday in search of meteorites that rained over California's gold country last month.
It's the latest hunt for extraterrestrial fragments from the April 22 explosion that was witnessed over a swath of Northern California and Nevada.
Treasure hunters have swarmed the Sierra Nevada foothills over the past two weeks, snatching up pieces of meteorites. Most of the recovered space rocks have been tiny, with the largest weighing in at 19 grams, or the weight of one AA battery.
Researchers from NASA and the nonprofit SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., were on the lookout for larger fragments. After a brief weather delay, they took off from a Sacramento airfield aboard an airship outfitted with sensors and cameras.
From the air, scientists scoured the terrain for places where sizable meteorites might have scattered. The survey took them over the area where James W. Marshall first discovered gold in California in 1848. Once they pinpoint possible impact sites, they plan to follow up with a search party.
"Only small pieces have been found. There has to be big pieces out there," SETI Institute meteor astronomer Peter Jenniskens said before the trip. "We're just hoping to collect more meteorites for research."
Days after the approximately 154,300-pound meteor plunged through Earth's atmosphere with a loud sonic boom that was heard from Sacramento to Las Vegas, Jenniskens organized a team and found a 4-gram meteorite in the parking lot of a park.
NASA estimated the minivan-sized meteor released energy equal to one-third the explosive power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II. An event this size occurs once a year usually over unpopulated areas.
Initial inspection of rock fragments indicates this type of meteorite is among the oldest, dating to the solar system's birth 4 billion to 5 billion years ago.
___
Online:
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov
Associated PressNews Topics: Meteors and meteorites, Space exploration, Gold mining, Science, Astrobiology, Astronomy, Precious metal mining, Metal mining, Mining, Metals and minerals, Materials, Industries, Business, Biology
Unconscious racial attitudes playing large role in 2012 presidential votePublic release date: 7-May-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Molly McElroy mollywmc@uw.edu 206-543-2580 University of Washington
After the 2008 election of President Barack Obama, many proclaimed that the country had entered a post-racial era in which race was no longer an issue. However, a new large-scale study shows that racial attitudes have already played a substantial role in 2012, during the Republican primaries. They may play an even larger role in this year's presidential election.
The study, led by psychologists at the University of Washington, shows that between January and April 2012 eligible voters who favored whites over blacks either consciously or unconsciously also favored Republican candidates relative to Barack Obama.
"People were saying that with Obama's election race became a dead issue, but that's not at all the case," said lead investigator Anthony Greenwald, a UW psychology professor.
The study's findings mean that many white and non-white voters, even those who don't believe they tend to favor whites over blacks, might vote against Obama because of his race. These voters could cite the economy or other reasons, but a contributing cause could nevertheless be their conscious or unconscious racial attitudes.
"Our findings may indicate that many of those who expressed egalitarian attitudes by voting for Obama in 2008 and credited themselves with having 'done the right thing' then are now letting other considerations prevail," said collaborator Mahzarin Banaji, a psychology professor at Harvard University.
In the study, a majority of white eligible voters showed a pattern labeled "automatic white preference" on a widely used measure of unconscious race bias. Previous studies indicate that close to 75 percent of white Americans show this implicit bias.
In a study done just prior to the 2008 presidential election, Greenwald and colleagues found that race attitudes played a role in predicting votes for the Republican candidate John McCain.
The 2012 data, collected from nearly 15,000 voters, show that race was again a significant factor in candidate preferences.
In an online survey, Greenwald asked survey-takers about their political beliefs, how "warmly" they felt toward black and white people, and which presidential contender they preferred. Because the survey was conducted in the first four months of 2012, it included the five main Republican hopefuls Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum as well as Obama.
Greenwald also measured unconscious race attitude using the Implicit Association Test, a tool he developed more than a decade ago to gauge thoughts that people don't realize they have. Different variations of the test measure implicit attitudes about race, gender, sexuality, ethnicities and other topics.
Greenwald found that favoritism for Republican candidates was predicted by respondents' racial attitudes, both their self-reported views and their implicit biases measured by the IAT. Greenwald emphasized that the study's finding that some candidates are more attractive to voters with pro-white racial attitudes does not mean that those candidates are racist.
"The study's findings raise an interesting question: After nearly four years of having an African-American president in the White House, why do race attitudes continue to have a role in electoral politics?" Greenwald said.
He suspects that Obama's power as president in 2012, compared with his lesser status as candidate in 2008, may have "brought out race-based antagonism that had less reason to be activated in 2008."
Another possibility is that Republican candidates' assertions that their most important goal is to remove Obama from the presidency "may have strong appeal to those who have latent racial motivation," Greenwald said.
Greenwald and his research team will continue to collect people's attitudes about the 2012 presidential candidates as part of their Decision 2012 IAT study. Now that Mitt Romney has emerged as the presumptive Republican nominee, the researchers are modifying their survey to focus on voters' comparisons of Romney with Obama.
###
They plan to post summaries of the data each month until the November election. Anyone can take the test online: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/featuredtask.html
Other collaborators on the Decision 2012 IAT project are Teri Kirby and Kaiyuan Xu, both at UW, and Brian Nosek and Sriram Natarajan, at the University of Virginia. Nosek and Banaji have collaborated with Greenwald in developing uses of the Implicit Association Test since the test's creation in the 1990s.
For more information, contact Greenwald at 206-543-7227 or agg@uw.edu, Banaji at 617-384-9203 or mahzarin_banaji@harvard.edu, or Nosek at nosek@virginia.edu.
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Unconscious racial attitudes playing large role in 2012 presidential votePublic release date: 7-May-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Molly McElroy mollywmc@uw.edu 206-543-2580 University of Washington
After the 2008 election of President Barack Obama, many proclaimed that the country had entered a post-racial era in which race was no longer an issue. However, a new large-scale study shows that racial attitudes have already played a substantial role in 2012, during the Republican primaries. They may play an even larger role in this year's presidential election.
The study, led by psychologists at the University of Washington, shows that between January and April 2012 eligible voters who favored whites over blacks either consciously or unconsciously also favored Republican candidates relative to Barack Obama.
"People were saying that with Obama's election race became a dead issue, but that's not at all the case," said lead investigator Anthony Greenwald, a UW psychology professor.
The study's findings mean that many white and non-white voters, even those who don't believe they tend to favor whites over blacks, might vote against Obama because of his race. These voters could cite the economy or other reasons, but a contributing cause could nevertheless be their conscious or unconscious racial attitudes.
"Our findings may indicate that many of those who expressed egalitarian attitudes by voting for Obama in 2008 and credited themselves with having 'done the right thing' then are now letting other considerations prevail," said collaborator Mahzarin Banaji, a psychology professor at Harvard University.
In the study, a majority of white eligible voters showed a pattern labeled "automatic white preference" on a widely used measure of unconscious race bias. Previous studies indicate that close to 75 percent of white Americans show this implicit bias.
In a study done just prior to the 2008 presidential election, Greenwald and colleagues found that race attitudes played a role in predicting votes for the Republican candidate John McCain.
The 2012 data, collected from nearly 15,000 voters, show that race was again a significant factor in candidate preferences.
In an online survey, Greenwald asked survey-takers about their political beliefs, how "warmly" they felt toward black and white people, and which presidential contender they preferred. Because the survey was conducted in the first four months of 2012, it included the five main Republican hopefuls Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum as well as Obama.
Greenwald also measured unconscious race attitude using the Implicit Association Test, a tool he developed more than a decade ago to gauge thoughts that people don't realize they have. Different variations of the test measure implicit attitudes about race, gender, sexuality, ethnicities and other topics.
Greenwald found that favoritism for Republican candidates was predicted by respondents' racial attitudes, both their self-reported views and their implicit biases measured by the IAT. Greenwald emphasized that the study's finding that some candidates are more attractive to voters with pro-white racial attitudes does not mean that those candidates are racist.
"The study's findings raise an interesting question: After nearly four years of having an African-American president in the White House, why do race attitudes continue to have a role in electoral politics?" Greenwald said.
He suspects that Obama's power as president in 2012, compared with his lesser status as candidate in 2008, may have "brought out race-based antagonism that had less reason to be activated in 2008."
Another possibility is that Republican candidates' assertions that their most important goal is to remove Obama from the presidency "may have strong appeal to those who have latent racial motivation," Greenwald said.
Greenwald and his research team will continue to collect people's attitudes about the 2012 presidential candidates as part of their Decision 2012 IAT study. Now that Mitt Romney has emerged as the presumptive Republican nominee, the researchers are modifying their survey to focus on voters' comparisons of Romney with Obama.
###
They plan to post summaries of the data each month until the November election. Anyone can take the test online: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/featuredtask.html
Other collaborators on the Decision 2012 IAT project are Teri Kirby and Kaiyuan Xu, both at UW, and Brian Nosek and Sriram Natarajan, at the University of Virginia. Nosek and Banaji have collaborated with Greenwald in developing uses of the Implicit Association Test since the test's creation in the 1990s.
For more information, contact Greenwald at 206-543-7227 or agg@uw.edu, Banaji at 617-384-9203 or mahzarin_banaji@harvard.edu, or Nosek at nosek@virginia.edu.
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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.
Facebook is expanding Offers, a free, DIY-coupon generator for local businesses that bears more than a passing resemblance to Deals, which was widely touted as a potential "Groupon-killer" when it launched last year. Offering local deals isn't easy: Facebook scrapped Deals after four months.?
"Local and daily deals in general are very labor intensive, and contrast sharply with Facebook's business model of being engineering-heavy," Sam Hamadeh, CEO of PrivCo LLC, said via email.?Making Offers free and self-serve isn't the solution, though, according to experts in the business of monetizing data.
Facebook needs to stop emulating daily deal strategies and instead take a page from the playbook of credit card companies, which are slicing and dicing the reams of customer information at their disposal to connect businesses only with the people who are likely to become customers ? or who already shop at their competitors.
Offers was announced back in February along with other changes to Facebook's advertising platform. It's still in beta, but was made available to?most local businesses in the United States last week.?"Offers are a free new way for businesses to share discounts and promotions directly from a Facebook Page," the company said in a statement when it launched.?
This is a tool intended for the mom-and-pop small business with tiny marketing budgets.?While deals can either be posted on a business's news feed or made into a "sponsored story" ? Facebook-speak for ad ? the video tutorial on Facebook's site focuses on the free aspect and includes a short Marketing 101 lesson on structuring a coupon.?
Once it's created, the offer goes onto the business's timeline, which means people who have liked the business page will see it on their news feeds, and anyone who views the business's timeline will be able to see the offer. This is likely to be too scattershot an approach to deliver much businesses to the local restaurants, retailers and service providers Facebook is targeting.
"You can't drop this stuff like they're leaflets from airplanes," said Brian Riley, senior research director at CEB TowerGroup.
Sites like Groupon and its rivals probably don't have to start worrying just yet, since Offers has to develop a traction it never managed to achieve with Deals. "Groupon has a huge presence in local,"?Ken Sena, an analyst at Evercore Partners, said via email. "Therefore, it could be disruptive longer term but I think initially they will be somewhat separated."
But if Facebook takes a more data-driven, targeted approach to offers, daily deal sites might have to contend with much stiffer competition.?"A lot of the information on Facebook is so general, you've got to be able to drive that down... and really turn it from data into information," Riley said.?
Banks that issue credit and debit cards are doing this using a model the industry calls "merchant funded rewards." The issuer or a third-party middleman slices and dices anonymized spending and demographic data and uses that to present offers to customers.?Merchants pay the cost of the discount plus a cut to the bank or third-party firm only for offers actually redeemed.?
For instance, imagine a chain coffee shop wants to reach females under the age of 35 who earn more than $50,000 a year and who make purchases at a competing coffee chain. They create an offer ? say, for a half-price blended coffee drink ? that goes out only to consumers who match those specs. This way, the coffee chain avoids giving offers to customers who would have made a purchase there anyway, or to deal-hunters who will take the discount and never return.
"What I'm noticing what's happening with those types of programs is they're generally incorporating a variety of anonymized data," said?Beth Robertson, director of payments research at Javelin Strategy & Research, and that data is what makes users more likely to only receive offers to which they'll respond.
PrivCo's Hamadeh said it's promising that Facebook is letting businesses combine an offer with a targeted ad, but Robertson said Facebook needs to exploit the information it has at its disposal more aggressively.
"Facebook?could do those things but theres no indication it's offering that right now," she said. Although Facebook doesn't have information about users' spending patterns ? with the exception of the brisk sale of game-related virtual goods ? it has plenty of demographic information along with information about what businesses users like, and this is what could eventually give it an edge over deal sites.
"Making it more sophisticated draws it out of the daily deal sort of generic offering and would add value to the merchant," Robertson said.?
CNBC's Becky Quick discusses her conversation with Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett regarding his perspective on Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. It's too difficult to value, he says.
A nearly full moon rises behind the cross of the Frauenkirche in the German city of Dresden in May 4.
By Alan Boyle
Tonight's "supermoon" is the biggest and brightest full moon of the year, due to the fact that the moon is near the closest point in its orbital path around Earth. But just how much bigger and brighter does it look? That's a tricky question.
Most reports say the moon looks 14 percent bigger than usual, which is close to the truth but isn't quite right. They also say it's 30 percent brighter than usual, which isn't right, either. James Garvin, chief scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, ran the numbers to come up with an explanation that seems to make the most sense.
First of all, it's important to note that the moon itself is not getting significantly bigger or smaller. There's a scientific debate over whether the moon is slowly shrinking or spreading out. But in either case, the change isn't noticeable on human time scales.
The difference in the moon's apparent size is basically a function of how close it is to Earth in its elliptical orbit. That orbit isn't changing on human time scales, either. It just so happens that tonight, the moon is coming closest to Earth at the same time that it's going full.?Because the moon and the sun are precisely opposite each other, relative to Earth, tonight's ocean tides may be a bit higher than typical ? but again, the effect is nowhere near big enough to worry about.
So how noticeable is the visual effect? Here what Garvin told me in an email today:
"The biggest predictable effect on the brightness of the full moon is how close the moon is to Earth.? With everything else the same, a full moon is about 30 percent brighter?when the moon is closest to Earth in its orbit (called perigee) compared to a full moon when the moon is farthest from Earth in its orbit (called apogee).? Today?s full moon is at perigee."
"Also, when the moon is high in the sky (as it is now), we are closer to the moon by approximately the radius of Earth compared to when the moon is on the horizon. (Note: Earth?s radius is about 6,371 kilometers)."
"Since the distance from the center of Earth to the center of the moon is on average about 384,403 kilometers, the radius of the earth is about 6,371 kilometers, and brightness changes as the square of the distance, being closer to the moon by about the radius of the earth increases the brightness of the full moon by about 3 percent." ?
"Thus the present supermoon is, at maximum, only about 9 to 10 percent larger in an angular (appearance) sense than a typical full moon and is also brighter (by a few percent), making it appear 'super.'"
"Meanwhile, our intrepid Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter continues its remarkable mapping of our nearest celestial neighbor, coming up (in June) on its three-year anniversary of being in lunar orbit with its amazing array of 7 instruments," Garvin added. ?"As of now, the data returned from LRO (over 300 trillion bytes) is larger than all of the rest of the data acquired for planets in the solar system combined (except for Earth, of course)."
Which just goes to show that every day is a "super moon" day for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and its science team. Check out NASA's Web site for more wisdom from James Garvin.
A NASA video explains the science behind the "supermoon."
Geoff Chester, an astronomer at the U.S. Naval Observatory, says the moon appears 14 percent larger in angular size when it's at the closest point in its orbit, compared with its appearance when it's farthest away from Earth. That's not 14 percent larger than average. That's 14 percent larger than the minimum apparent size.
"You'd be very hard-pressed to detect that with the unaided eye," Chester told The Associated Press. Seasoned skywatchers, however, say they can definitely tell the difference. Can you? Take a look at the moon tonight ??before, during or after the moment of maximum fullness at 11:35 p.m. ET ??and tell us what you see.
Update for 6:45 p.m. ET May 5: Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait observes that the moon's angular size is roughly equivalent to that of a dime as seen from 6 feet away. You can bet I'll have a dime taped onto a south-facing window tonight to make the observations. Also, tonight's supermoon will be a little less super than last year's supermoon, because the moon is about 240 miles farther away at peak fullness than it was in March 2011. For what it's worth, next year's supermoon will be imperceptibly smaller than this year's. I wonder if there'll be perceptibly less hype.
Update for 2:20 a.m. ET May 6: Yes, the weather was clear enough for supermoon-gazing in my Seattle-area neighborhood ? and yes, I really did tape a dime onto a window to compare its angular size with the moon's. But it seemed to me that the sizes were about the same at a dime distance of 4 or 5 feet, rather than the?6-foot distance that Phil Plait suggested. Which just goes to show you: YMMV (your moon may vary). You can see what I saw by checking my Twitpic gallery.
More about the supermoon:
If you snap a great photo of the moon, feel free to upload it into msnbc.com's FirstPerson in-box.
Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
If Sony's German site is to be believed, then it's safe to say the outfit's had a change of heart recently. According to a revealing spec sheet on the website, there's now a T13 Ultrabook model with one of Intel's latest chips on board. Just last week, Sony announced the Euro-bound T13 would be sporting a last-gen Core i3-2367M CPU, but the recent finding shows an i5-3317U variant (you know, the one on Sammy's Series 9) could be in the works. Still, it's unknown whether this Ivy Bridge-packing VAIO would replace its Sandy Bridge sibling or if it's just going to be a complete different offering. We'll have to wait and see.
Floyd Mayweather Jr., left, lands a punch against Miguel Cotto during a WBA super welterweight title fight, Saturday, May 5, 2012, in Las Vegas. Mayweather won by unanimous decision. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken)
Floyd Mayweather Jr., left, lands a punch against Miguel Cotto during a WBA super welterweight title fight, Saturday, May 5, 2012, in Las Vegas. Mayweather won by unanimous decision. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken)
Floyd Mayweather Jr. sits in his corner after the ninth round against Miguel Cotto during a WBA super welterweight title fight, Saturday, May 5, 2012, in Las Vegas. Mayweather won by unanimous decision. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken)
Miguel Cotto, left, exchanges punches with Floyd Mayweather Jr. in the first round during a WBA super welterweight title fight, Saturday, May 5, 2012, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken)
Floyd Mayweather Jr. exchanges punches with Miguel Cotto in the 11th round during a WBA super welterweight title fight, Saturday, May 5, 2012, in Las Vegas. Mayweather won by unanimous decision. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken)
Miguel Cotto throws a flurry of punches against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in the seventh round during a WBA super welterweight title fight, Saturday, May 5, 2012, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Eric Jamison)
LAS VEGAS (AP) ? Floyd Mayweather Jr. was getting ready to make his ring walk about the time Manny Pacquiao arrived at Los Angeles International Airport on Philippine Airlines Flight 102. He'll be occupying a cell at the Clark County Detention Center by the time Pacquiao makes his way to this gambling city for his June 9 fight with Timothy Bradley.
The two are seemingly destined never to be in the same spot at the same time. Certainly not in the ring, something Mayweather made clear Saturday night after taking on Miguel Cotto in a bruising fight that, if not his best, was certainly among his most exciting.
"The Pacquiao-Mayweather fight is not going to happen," Mayweather said. "It's not my fault."
More on that later, though Mayweather could be called out for using some convoluted logic about why the fight won't happen. Suffice it to say he believes he's in the driver's seat for any mega-fight, and is both suspicious of Pacquiao and unwilling to take equal money for the bout.
After making a minimum $32 million in an impressive performance Saturday night against Cotto, Mayweather could be excused for dismissing what would be the richest fight in boxing history. But, with jail time coming up for a domestic abuse charge, there will be plenty of time for reflection about his future
"I don't know where we're going to go from here because we basically have fought everybody in this sport," Mayweather said. "I don't have to fight if I don't want to."
Indeed, Mayweather hinted of retirement following his tough battle with Cotto, which ended with Mayweather claiming a piece of the 154-pound title with a unanimous decision. But there's huge money still to be made, and he's a fighter who burns through cash with a Money Team entourage that seems to grow with each fight.
Unlike most of his fights, though, Mayweather looked like he had been in a fight after beating Cotto. He had welts under his both eyes and he spoke deliberately, like a fighter who was exhausted by the effort needed to capture the 43rd win of his unblemished career.
He could have danced about and beaten Cotto without taking the most punishment of his career, Mayweather insisted. But he wanted to give fans a good show, and make them happy they spent $69.95 on pay-per-view to see him fight.
Having Justin Bieber and 50 Cent accompany him into the ring was entertaining, sure. But the action in the ring was even better.
"Things happened tonight and we both had to fight. But the main thing is that we got the victory," Mayweather said. "The fans were happy. It's about impressing fans and giving them what they want to see."
The fans did enjoy it, though it was a strange strategy for the normally defensively oriented Mayweather, who said a few days before the fight that he wasn't going to get into any brawls in the ring because he was worried about his future health. Both fighters paid a price for this brawl, with Cotto going to a local hospital for examination instead of attending the post-fight press conference.
They traded punches for 12 rounds without taking a second off, and the sellout crowd at the MGM Grand arena stood and cheered most of the way. Mayweather was the sharper and cleaner puncher, but Cotto had his moments, too, landing some big shots to Mayweather's head and body.
Though Mayweather ended up winning easily on all three ringside scorecards, the fight was in doubt in the middle rounds and he never really dominated until he caught Cotto with an uppercut that buckled his knees in the final round.
"You're a hell of a champion," Mayweather told Cotto in the ring afterward. "You're the toughest guy I ever fought."
Most in boxing figure Pacquiao would be even tougher for Mayweather, which might be the reason he seems to want no part of him. Mayweather said before the fight he believes Pacquiao used steroids to bulk up and it would be dangerous to fight him, though he has offered no proof of his claims and is being sued by Pacquiao for defamation.
Afterward, Mayweather said the fight wouldn't be happening because Pacquiao is tied to promoter Bob Arum and he doesn't want to deal with Arum. He said he offered Pacquiao $40 million to fight ? with $20 million wired to him within 24 hours of accepting ? and was turned down. The fight could easily make each man much more than that, but Mayweather believes he is the true attraction and won't agree to split the proceeds 50-50 with Pacquiao.
Mayweather's more immediate future is a bigger worry for him than a Pacquiao fight. He's going to be spending much of the summer in a jail cell for his no contest plea to domestic abuse stemming from a fight with the mother of his children. It will be the first long jail stretch for Mayweather, who has a history of such charges over the years.
He didn't feel much like talking about it after the fight, preferring instead to highlight his contributions to charity and some vague plans to help hungry and homeless people. Still, he acknowledged that the impending move from his multimillion-dollar mansion to a spartan cell was weighing on him.
"The only thing it can do is make me stronger as a person," Mayweather said. "When it comes to June 1, I have to accept it like a man."
On this night he was certainly man enough, putting on a show that even his detractors had to admire. The knock on Mayweather has long been that, though he's a masterful boxer, he often fought too defensively to excite fight fans and was seldom worth the money they put out to watch him in their living rooms.
Against Cotto he fought, and fought hard. He beat a brawler, and he beat him at his own game.
Aside from the punishment that showed on his face, the night was a huge success for Mayweather and his many minions. Though he hinted at retirement, few in boxing doubt that he will be back in the ring, if only because the money is so big he can't afford not to be.
Who knows, if jail does indeed make him stronger, maybe he'll even be up to taking on Pacquiao.
(Yes, I'm late coming to this, but I rarely see anything in the theater.)
My Review:
Clancy Brown!!!!
Oh, Noez!!!!
Well, at least the dog made it out alive.
Verdict? Definitely worth $1.20.
______________ One question: Why would the Apaches carry a stranger's corpse back to their camp, then dump it on the middle of their central fire?
That was such a transparent for-the-sake-of-the-plot action that I wasn't in any way surprised by the result.
______________ ______________
Woke up this morning at 3:30 after having a 'preparation' dream. I was stripping apart dry-rotted wood pieces to reinforce some fences, as if that would somehow save us from the whatevers that were shooting at us from above (see the reference to the movie there?)
The 'preparation for warfare' dream is my most common recurring dream (in its many variantions). I'm sure Freud had some arcane interpretation of what that means.
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Left Coalition party leader Alexis Tsipras greets supporters with a clenched fist, in central Athens after elections on Sunday, May 6, 2012. Tsipras was projected to come second in the poll, behind the front-runner conservatives, on a pledge to cancel Greece's bailout agreements. (AP Photo/Kostas Tsironis)
Left Coalition party leader Alexis Tsipras greets supporters with a clenched fist, in central Athens after elections on Sunday, May 6, 2012. Tsipras was projected to come second in the poll, behind the front-runner conservatives, on a pledge to cancel Greece's bailout agreements. (AP Photo/Kostas Tsironis)
Greece's conservative leader of New Democracy Antonis Samaras waves to his supporters at the headquarters of his party in Athens, Sunday, May 6, 2012. Samaras called for a coalition government with two aims, for Greece to remain in the euro and to amend the terms of its international bailout. (AP Photo/Eurokinissi, Giannis Panagopoulos) GREECE OUT
An extreme far-right Golden Dawn party's supporter holds a flare during the elections results in the northern Greek port city of Thessaloniki, Sunday, May 6, 2012. Golden Dawn, which has vowed to kick out immigrants and mine Greece's borders with Turkey, was predicted to win between 6.5-7.5 percent, well above the 3 percent needed to enter parliament. (AP Photo/Nikolas Giakoumidis)
Greece's socialist leader, Evangelos Venizelos of the PASOK party leaves the podium after his statements in Athens on Sunday, May 6, 2012. Greece's former finance minister and Socialist party leader called for a broad coalition government of pro-European parties, ruling out a two-party government with his conservative rivals after his party received a drubbing in Sunday's parliamentary elections. The banner reads ''Self-sufficient Greece, PASOK.'' (AP Photo/Eurokinissi, Christos Bonis) GREECE OUT
Golden Dawn leader Nikolaos Michaloliakos, center, speaks during a news conference in front of a banner with the twisting Maeander, an ancient Greek decorative motif that the party has adopted as its symbol in Athens, Sunday, May 6, 2012. The far-right Golden Dawn party is set to win as much as 8 percent of the vote, according to exit polls, as Greeks punished traditionally dominant parties that backed harsh austerity measures tied to debt relief agreements. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
ATHENS, Greece (AP) ? Greece faces weeks of political turmoil that could scupper its financial bailout after voters angry at crippling income cuts punished mainstream politicians, let a far-right extremist group into Parliament and gave no party enough votes to govern alone.
Greek conservative leader Antonis Samaras, whose pro-austerity party came first in national elections but fell well short of a governing majority, is currently trying to form a new coalition government. Samaras has three days in which to build an alliance, after receiving the formal mandate from President Karolos Papoulias Monday.
Given the way the national vote split in Sunday's election, there are real doubts that Samaras ? or anyone else ? will be able to forge a new government that will command a majority in Parliament. Another election, possibly as soon as next month, looms for a country that is reliant on international support to avoid bankruptcy.
The one certainty was that parties backing the draconian international rescue package lost their majority in parliament ? raising the chances of a possible Greek exit from the common euro currency.
The uncertainty weighed on markets across Europe, with the Athens exchange tumbling 6.4 percent in afternoon trading.
Official results showed conservative New Democracy came first with 18.85 percent and 108 of Parliament's 300 seats. Samaras, who backs Greece's bailout commitments for austerity but has called for some changes to the bailout plan, will launch coalition-forming talks later in the day.
"I understand the rage of the people, but our party will not leave Greece ungoverned," Samaras said.
But even with the support of the only other clearly pro-bailout party elected, Socialist PASOK, New Democracy would fall two seats short of a governing majority.
If the deadlock does not ease, Greece faces new elections under a caretaker government in mid-June, about the time it has to detail new drastic austerity measures worth ?14.5 billion ($19 billion) for 2013-14.
In June, Athens is also due to receive a ?30 billion ($39.4 billion) installment of its rescue loans from the other countries in the 17-strong eurozone and the International Monetary Fund. If aid is cut off, analysts at Commerzbank estimated, the country would have trouble paying its debts by autumn. The consequences of a second Greek default might be messy enough however that some room for negotiation might exist, despite officials unwillingness to acknowledge that Monday.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Athens would still be expected to live up to its agreements, while conceding that the situation remained "not uncomplicated" and that the country needed "the opportunity to review the election results themselves."
"Of course the most important thing is that the programs we agreed with Greece are continued," she said.
Her remarks were echoed by a European Commission spokesman, Amadeu Altafaj Tardio, who stressed the need for "full and timely implementation" of Greece's agreement with its international creditors and underlined that "solidarity is a two-way street."
Analyst Vangelis Agapitos said protracted instability would threaten the country's eurozone membership. Greece's debt inspectors ? the eurozone, IMF and European Central Bank, collectively known as the troika ? could turn the screws by halting release of the bailout funds until Athens moves forward with its pledged reforms.
"Europe can live without Greece but I don't think Greece can live without Europe," he said. "If the troika is bluffing, Greece will remain in the euro. But if the troika says: 'I can negotiate, but first show me some progress,' Greece has no progress to display right now."
"If the troika rattles our bars, then either the people will come to their senses at the next elections or the country will enter an alternative course, and when we open that door we will see what kind of chaos ? or paradise ? lies behind," Agapitos said.
Sunday's big winner was the anti-bailout Radical Left Coalition, or Syriza, whose unprecedented second place with 16.78 percent gives it 52 seats.
Disaffected voters deserted PASOK and New Democracy, the two mainstays of Greek politics, leaving them at their worst level since 1974, when Greece emerged from a seven-year dictatorship. Instead, strong gains were registered by smaller parties, including the extremist Golden Dawn, which rejects the neo-Nazi label and insists it is nationalist and patriotic.
Golden Dawn has been blamed for violent attacks on immigrants and ran on an anti-immigrant platform, vowing to "clean up" Greece and calling for land mines to be planted along the borders. It got 6.97 percent of the vote ? a stunning improvement from 0.29 percent in 2009 ? and won 21 seats.
The election was Greeks' moment to vent their fury over two years of austerity that Athens has been pushing through to qualify for bailout loans. Incomes, benefits and pensions have been slashed repeatedly and taxes hiked. Unemployment has soared to a record of over 21 percent.
PASOK, which has spent 21 years in government since 1981 and stormed to victory with more than 43 percent in 2009, saw its support slashed to 13.18 percent.
Samaras is to meet with the leaders of PASOK and Syriza, as well as the head of a smaller, more moderate left-wing party, to seek coalition partners.
Both Samaras and PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos indicated any unity government would have to include more than just their two parties.
But in a note that will likely raise alarm among Greece's creditors, Samaras insisted any coalition should renegotiate the terms of the bailout.
Riding high on his gains, Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras, aged 38, stuck to his anti-bailout position.
"The people have rewarded a proposal made by us to form a government of the left that will cancel the loan agreements and overturn the course of our people toward misery," he said.
___
Elena Becatoros in Athens, Raf Casert in Brussels and David McHugh in Frankfurt contributed
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, left, is greeted by Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Dipu Moni upon her arrival in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Saturday, May 5, 2012. Clinton is in Bangladesh to press tolerance, democracy and development in one of the world's most impoverished nations that is now in the throes political turmoil. (AP Photo/Pavel Rahman)
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, left, is greeted by Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Dipu Moni upon her arrival in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Saturday, May 5, 2012. Clinton is in Bangladesh to press tolerance, democracy and development in one of the world's most impoverished nations that is now in the throes political turmoil. (AP Photo/Pavel Rahman)
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton alights from an airplane upon her arrival in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Saturday, May 5, 2012. Clinton is in Bangladesh to press tolerance, democracy and development in one of the world's most impoverished nations that is now in the throes political turmoil. (AP Photo/Pavel Rahman)
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is greeted by Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Dipu Moni upon arrival at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Saturday, May 5, 2012. Clinton is in Bangladesh to press tolerance, democracy and development in one of the world's most impoverished nations that is now in the throes political turmoil. (AP Photo/Shannon Stapleton, Pool)
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) ? U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday urged Bangladesh's feuding political leaders to work together and end their most recent bout of discord for the good of their impoverished country.
Clinton said that weeks of strikes and protests that have paralyzed the country and killed at least five people have undermined development and scared of foreign investors. The actions stem from the disappearance of an opposition leader last month.
She appealed to Bangladeshis to respect the rule of law and called for a robust government investigation of the missing politician and allegations by the opposition of a brutal crackdown on dissent.
"Violent demonstrations ... exact a heavy toll, especially on Bangladesh's poorest and most vulnerable citizens," Clinton said. "They also send a negative signal to the international community about the investment climate here."
"We strongly urge all sides to settle differences through constructive political dialogue," Clinton told reporters at a news conference with Foreign Minister Dipu Moni.
She said that in a strong democracy, "everybody has to be rowing in the same direction because you are all in the same boat. You are going to make progress together or you are going to run into very turbulent waters."
Clinton visited the county as first lady with her daughter, Chelsea, in 1995 and later worked with New York's Bangaldeshi community as a U.S. senator. She said she felt strongly about the country's success. "This is personal for me," she said.
In recent weeks, the situation in the capital has grown increasingly tense. General strikes have brought the country to a standstill, leading to the arrest of dozens of opposition activists, and homemade bombs have exploded across the city.
"It is important that in this country ... everybody take seriously any disappearance, any violence against activists, any oppression of civil society, any intimidation of the press," said Clinton, who arrived in Bangladesh from China where she was embroiled in the case of a blind Chinese activist who had fled to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. "That is just what is required in the 21st century if democracy (is to be) sustainable."
In advance of the visit by Clinton, the first secretary of state to stop in Dhaka since 2003, the opposition suspended protests in a goodwill gesture that reflects the importance Bangladeshis place on relations with the United States, one of their largest trading partners.
In talks with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, opposition leader Khaleda Zia and civic leaders, Clinton was stressing the importance of inclusive democracy and unity to improve living conditions in the country of 160 million that the U.S. sees as a potentially important voice for moderation among Muslim majority nations.
American officials said the trip was aimed at taking U.S.-Bangladesh ties to a new level by creating a new strategic dialogue and encouraging further cooperation on counterterrorism, health, environmental and educational issues.
Not everyone was pleased with the visit, though as dozens of students paraded through the campus of Dhaka University on Saturday to protest Clinton's visit, saying the U.S. cannot be a friend of Bangladesh and chanting, "Go, go Hillary."
At least 22 people, mostly politicians, have disappeared this year, according to a local human-rights group, Ain-o-Salish Kendra. Another Dhaka-based group, Odhikar, says more than 50 people have disappeared since 2010. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have blamed security agencies for the disappearances.
Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia have been bitter rivals for decades but the latest anger over what the opposition says is political repression erupted into the streets after an opposition party leader, Elias Ali, went missing along with his driver April 17 from a street in Dhaka. His car was found later abandoned.
The opposition blamed the government and launched five days of general strikes over the past two weeks in protest. The government accused the opposition of hiding Ali to give it an excuse to create anarchy in the streets. He has still not been found.
The foreign minister said Bangladesh wanted the U.S. to eliminate its 15.3 percent tariff on Bangladesh's vital garment industry. Bangladesh exported $5.1 billion worth of goods ? mainly garments ? to the U.S. last year and imported $676 million worth in return.
Bangladeshi officials believe that dropping the duty will send exports soaring even further and boost the economy.
The countries are also expected to discuss an investment and trade framework agreement that would protect the huge investments of U.S. energy giants like Chevron and ConocoPhillips.
Chevron, one of the biggest foreign investors here, supplies half Bangladesh's natural gas needs, while ConocoPhillips is exploring for gas in the deep waters of the Bay of Bengal.
Clinton also was expected to raise the issue of Nobel Peace Laureate Muhammad Yunus' ouster from his Grameen Bank, which pioneered providing small loans to the poor. Clinton on Sunday is to meet the 71-year-old Yunus, a family friend, who the government forced out last year, saying he was well past the retirement age of 60.
Yunus' allies said the ouster was political and pointed to Hasina's anger at his 2007 effort to form a political party backed by the army when the country was under a state of emergency and Hasina was behind bars.
Clinton did not mention Yunus by name on Saturday but said she thought it was imperative that the government find a new managing director for the Grameen Bank.
Bangladesh is also seeking the repatriation of Rashed Chowdhury, who is facing a death sentence for his role in the 1975 assassination of independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Hasina's father, during a military coup. The government says he lives in the United States, and the two nations have no extradition treaty.
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ScienceDaily (May 5, 2012) ? The Boeing Company successfully completed the second parachute drop test for its Crew Space Transportation (CST) spacecraft May 2, 2012, part of its effort to develop commercial crew transportation capabilities that could ferry U.S. astronauts to and from low-Earth orbit (LEO) and the International Space Station.
A helicopter lifted the CST-100 crew capsule to about 10,000 feet above the Delmar Dry Lake Bed near Alamo, Nev. A drogue parachute deployment sequence was initiated, followed by deployment of the main parachute. The capsule descended to a smooth ground landing, cushioned by six inflated air bags. The test demonstrated the performance of the entire landing system.
"Boeing's parachute demonstrations are a clear sign NASA is moving in the right direction of enabling the American aerospace transportation industry to flourish under this partnership," NASA's Commercial Crew Program Manager Ed Mango said. "The investments we're making now are enabling this new path forward of getting our crews to LEO and potentially the space station as soon as possible."
Boeing's CST system is designed to be a reusable, capsule-shaped spacecraft capable of taking up to seven people, or a combination of people and cargo, to and from low-Earth orbit, including the space station. HDT Airborne Systems of Solon, Ohio, designed, fabricated and integrated the parachute system, including the two drogue parachutes. ILC Dover of Frederica, Del., designed and fabricated the landing air bag system.
The first test, on April 3, validated the architecture and deployment of the parachute system, characterized pyrotechnic shock loads, confirmed parachute size and design, and identified potential forward compartment packaging and deployment issues. The company inspected and re-packed the full parachute system for this second test.
"This second parachute drop test validates Boeing's innovative system architecture and deployment plan," said John Mulholland, vice president and program manager of Boeing Commercial Programs. "Boeing's completion of this milestone reaffirms our commitment to provide safe, reliable and affordable crewed access to space."
The company has scheduled additional tests to be performed in 2012 that will provide more data on elements of the spacecraft's design.
Boeing's spacecraft was designed to be compatible with a variety of expendable launch vehicles. The company selected United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket for initial CST-100 test flights.
All of NASA's industry partners, including Boeing, continue to meet their established milestones in developing commercial crew transportation capabilities.
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FILE - In this April 12, 2012, file photo, Madonna arrives at Macy's Herald Square in New York. Madonna says Adam Yauch, the Beastie Boys rapper who died Friday, May 4, was one of a kind and that the group was important to her musical history. The singer said Saturday that the seminal hip-hop group was ?integral to the musical revolution that was happening at the time.? (AP Photo/Evan Agostini, File)
FILE - In this April 12, 2012, file photo, Madonna arrives at Macy's Herald Square in New York. Madonna says Adam Yauch, the Beastie Boys rapper who died Friday, May 4, was one of a kind and that the group was important to her musical history. The singer said Saturday that the seminal hip-hop group was ?integral to the musical revolution that was happening at the time.? (AP Photo/Evan Agostini, File)
NEW YORK (AP) ? Madonna says Adam Yauch, the Beastie Boys rapper who died Friday, was one of a kind and that the group was important to her musical history.
The singer says the seminal hip-hop group was "integral to the musical revolution that was happening at the time."
Yauch's representatives confirmed that the rapper, also known as MCA, died Friday morning in New York after a nearly three-year battle with cancer.
Madonna says she was sad to hear of Yauch's death and asked God to bless his family.
The Beastie Boys opened for Madonna on tour in the 1980s, and the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last month.
When is it OK for your child to have a Facebook profile? Let us know what you think.
When is it OK for your child to have a cell phone? Have a Facebook profile? Log onto YouTube? James Steyer, founder and CEO of Common Sense Media and the father of four children, tackles those questions and more in a new book, "Talking Back to Facebook: The Common Sense Guide to Raising Kids in the Digital Age."
Steyer will talk about the potential pitfalls and payoffs relating to kids? use of media and technology on the TODAY show on Wednesday. We?d like to hear how you handle these issues with your own children. Please answer the four questions below, and we?ll share the results during the broadcast segment.
Live Poll
1. When is it OK to let your child create a social media profile?
183021
Birth to age 4
2%
183022
Ages 5-8
3%
183023
Ages 9-12
10%
183024
Ages 13-15
49%
183025
16 or older
37%
VoteTotal Votes: 236
Live Poll
2. When is it OK to let your child log onto the Internet?
183026
Birth to age 4
5%
183027
Ages 5-8
31%
183028
Ages 9-12
45%
183029
Ages 13-15
15%
183030
16 or older
4%
VoteTotal Votes: 214
Live Poll
3. When is it OK for your child to have a cellphone?
183031
Birth to age 4
1%
183032
Ages 5-8
5%
183033
Ages 9-12
32%
183034
Ages 13-15
44%
183035
16 or older
17%
VoteTotal Votes: 215
Live Poll
4. When is it OK for your child to use electronic games/apps?
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Some may wonder why this headline is in a Connecticut consumer website. Fair question.
My answer is that if the business climate ? and that includes education ? does not improve in Connecticut, we face serious problems as consumers, taxpayers, homeowners, workers and as families. Without good-paying jobs ? from high tech manufacturing to biology ? our children and our grandchildren will have to move where business expands or relocates.
And where will they end up moving to? How does visiting your family in Texas sound? That, according to Chief Executive?s eighth annual survey of CEO opinion of Best and Worst States in which to do business, Texas came in first.
And where will you NOT be going to? California, the worst, according to a poll of 650 business leaders.
?CEOs were asked to grade states in which they do business among a variety of areas, including tax and regulation, quality of workforce and living environment. The Lone Star State was given high marks foremost for its business-friendly tax and regulatory environment. But its workforce quality, second only to Utah?s, is also highly regarded,? said ChiefExecutive.net which includes all the states.
?Florida moved up from number three last year to number two. Last year, Florida Gov. Rick Scott penned a tongue-in-cheek letter to Texas Gov. Rick Perry, warning him that Florida is coming after the Lone Star State?s top ranking. Since Scott took office, his administration has enacted business tax and regulatory reforms that have contributed to the creation of more than 140,000 private sector jobs and an unemployment drop of 2.1 percentage points last year?one of the biggest decreases in the nation.?
So where is Connecticut, number 44 ? same as last year ? and our Bay State neighbor, 47, down two from last year.
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Public release date: 7-May-2012
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