In space, no one can hear you be a total perv and tell women that you want to taste them "like yogurt." Good thing too.
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Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Time Warner Cable on your Apple TV? It may be closer than you think!
Reports suggest that Apple is currently in negotiations with Time Warner Cable to give subscribers access to channels through the Apple TV, with both parties getting close to a deal. It's long been rumored that Apple was negotiating with cable providers for content, and Time Warner Cable in particular, but talks have been difficult. According to Bloomberg, Apple is hiring Pete Distad from Hulu in order to get deals hammered out.
The companies plan to announce an agreement within a few months, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. The iPhone maker is also hiring Pete Distad from online-video service Hulu, where he was senior vice president in charge of marketing and distribution, to help Apple executives in negotiations with media and cable companies, two people with familiar with the matter said.
Distad being brought aboard is interesting. Eddie Cue, Apple's SVP of Internet Software and Services, has been known to handle content negotiations in the past with music labels and movie studios. But cable companies are a different beast entirely. In the end they're the middle men of content, and no doubt want to make sure that they have a deal in place that isn't a threat to their relationship with content providers. Distad, with his experience at Hulu, should be able to help craft a deal that will satisfy the cable companies.
We don't know what shape Time Warner's offering on the Apple TV could take. It could be a TV-based version of their current streaming offering, which lets customers view a select group of channels from their iOS devices, or a more full-featured service. The deal is expected to be announced withing the next few months. We're all keen for more from our Apple TV, but is this the sort of more you're looking for?
Source: Bloomberg
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/FUO8UoW8Bks/story01.htm
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Nuke test radiation can fight poachers who kill elephants, rhinos, hippos
July 1, 2013 ? University of Utah researchers developed a new weapon to fight poachers who kill elephants, hippos, rhinos and other wildlife. By measuring radioactive carbon-14 deposited in tusks and teeth by open-air nuclear bomb tests, the method reveals the year an animal died, and thus whether the ivory was taken illegally.
"This could be used in specific cases of ivory seizures to determine when the ivory was obtained and thus whether it is legal," says geochemist Thure Cerling, senior author of a study about the new method. It was published online the week of July 1 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"The dating method is affordable and accessible to government and law enforcement agencies," costing about $500 per sample, says the study's first author, geochemist Kevin Uno, who did the research for his University of Utah Ph.D. thesis.
"It has immediate applications to fighting the illegal sale and trade of ivory that has led to the highest rate of poaching seen in decades," says Uno, now a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
Not only can the method help wildlife forensics to combat poaching, but "we've shown that you can use the signature in animal tissues left over from nuclear weapons testing in the atmosphere to study modern ecology and help us learn about fossil animals and how they lived," says Cerling, a distinguished professor of geology and geophysics, and biology at the University of Utah.
The method uses the "bomb curve," which is a graph -- shaped roughly like an inverted "V" -- showing changes in carbon-14 levels in the atmosphere -- and thus absorbed by plants and animals in the food chain. The carbon-14 was formed in the atmosphere by U.S. and Soviet atmospheric nuclear weapons tests in Nevada and Siberia from 1952 through 1962. Those levels peaked in the 1960s and have declined ever since but still are absorbed by and measurable in plant and animal tissues.
The study was funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society and the University of Utah. Cerling and Uno conducted it with geologist Jay Quade, a former Utah doctoral student now at the University of Arizona; Daniel C. Fisher, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; George Wittemyer, Colorado State University; Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of Save the Elephants; and Samuel Andanje, Patrick Omondi and Moses Litoroh, all of the Kenya Wildlife Service.
Ivory Trade Drives Elephant Slaughter
International agreements banned most trade of raw ivory from Asian elephants after 1975 and African elephants after 1989. In the United States, raw and worked African ivory (jewelry, figurines, gun and knife handles) is legal if it was imported before 1989 or, if worked ivory is imported after, it must be at least 100 years old.
Yet tons of illegal ivory still are sold because dealers claim the ivory was taken before the ban and there has been no test to prove them wrong -- until now.
"With an accurate age of the ivory, we can verify if the trade is legal or not" when the age is combined with existing DNA analysis to determine if an elephant is from Africa or Asia, says Uno, who earned his University of Utah Ph.D. last year. "Currently 30,000 elephants a year are slaughtered for their tusks, so there is a desperate need to enforce the international trade ban and reduce demand."
Only 423,000 African elephants are left. Conservation groups say 70 percent of smuggled ivory goes to China. The United States is the next biggest illegal market. Rising ivory prices have drawn organized crime and spurred militias in Darfur, Uganda, Sudan and Somalia to kill elephants and sell tusks so they can buy guns.
How the Study Was Performed
Neutrons from the nuclear tests bombarded nitrogen -- the atmosphere's most common gas -- to turn some of it into carbon-14. Cosmic rays do that naturally at a low level, but open-air nuclear tests in the 1950s and 1960s sharply increased atmospheric, plant and animal carbon-14 levels, followed by a steady decline ever since.
The method in the study is a bit like telling a tree's age by its rings, but instead of counting rings, Cerling, Uno and colleagues measured carbon-14 levels at various points along the lengths of elephants' and hippos' tusks and teeth.
The conventional way of measuring carbon-14 is to wait for and count when the isotope decays radioactively. In the study, the researchers used accelerator mass spectrometry, or AMS, which requires 1,000 times less material for analysis -- a big advantage when sampling fossils or small pieces of worked ivory, Cerling says.
In AMS, the material being analyzed is bombarded with cesium atoms, which sputters off carbon atoms so the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 can be measured.
The researchers tested the accuracy of carbon-14 dating in 29 animal and plant tissues killed and collected on known dates from 1905 to 2008. The samples included elephant tusks and molars, hippo tusks and canine teeth, oryx horn, hair from monkeys and elephant tails, and some grasses collected in Kenya in 1962.
Samples came from museums in Africa and elsewhere, and from Amina, an elephant that died naturally in Kenya in 2006, and from Misha, an African elephant euthanized in 2008 due to declining health at Utah's Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City.
The analysis revealed that various tissues that formed at the same time have the same carbon-14 levels, and that grasses and the animals eating them had the same levels. By determining carbon-14 in these samples of known dates, the researchers now can measure carbon-14 levels in other ivory to determine its age, within about a year.
The four oldest samples -- from animals died between 1905 and 1953 -- had minimal carbon-14 because they died before atmospheric nuclear weapons tests. So the test can identify pre-1955 ivory by its low, pre-nuclear-test levels of carbon-14.
Cerling says the method can determine the year of death for any animal killed after 1955, identifying the time of the most recent tissue formation -- at the base of a tusk or tooth, for example. The method is less precise for animals killed more recently; it can tell if an animal died between 2010 and 2013, but not more precisely.
It takes about 5,700 years for half of carbon-14 to decay radioactively. But the amount in Earth's atmosphere after the 1950s and 1960s bomb tests faded much more quickly because oceans and trees absorb carbon dioxide -- including carbon-14 -- from the atmosphere. So the method won't work for tusks or other tissues that grow after about 15 years from now, when atmospheric carbon-14 returns to pre-bomb levels.
Understanding Ancient and Modern Ecosystems
While the method's use against poaching is important, "the scientific part is the importance of understanding time in the formation of animal tissues and how diet and physiology is recorded in those tissues over time" as they grow, Cerling says.
Cerling says that will improve understanding of what prehistoric and modern animals ate over time, especially when combined with existing isotope analysis of ratios of carbon-13 to carbon-12 in teeth -- data that reveal whether animals ate diets based on tree and shrub leaves and fruits, or upon grasses and grazing animals.
So as part of the new study, the scientists also analyzed another 41 samples to determine the growth rates for tusks and teeth from elephants and hippos, and elephant tail hair, Cerling says.
Extrapolating the growth rates of tusks, teeth and hair to fossil or modern elephants and other animals "will help us improve the chronology of the diet history of an individual fossil or modern animal," Cerling says.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/ZBGcLb1BO0M/130701151445.htm
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Monday, July 1, 2013
Fox Searchlight Acquires 'Belle', Amma Asante's Tale of British Biracial Girl
By Lucas Shaw
NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - Fox Searchlight has acquired distribution rights across much of the globe to "Belle," Amma Asante's film about Dido Elizabeth Belle, the biracial daughter of a British admiral and a slave. The film marks Asante's second directorial project, following her award-winning turn behind the camera for "Way of Life."
Gugu Mbatha-Raw stars as the titular young woman alongside Tom Wilkinson, Emily Watson, Sarah Gadon and Miranda Richardson. Wilkinson and Watson play the couple that raises Belle, whose social standing is enhanced by her lineage but limited by her race.
"Gugu Mbatha-Raw is a revelation as Belle, she gives a brave and powerful performance joined by an outstanding ensemble cast and we look forward to introducing her to film audiences everywhere," Fox Searchlight presidents Nancy Utley and Stephen Gilula said in a statement. "We were entranced by this inspiring story of love and perseverance during a time of significant social and legal changes."
Searchlight's Ray Strache, Megan O'Brien and Tony Safford made the deal with Bankside Films' Hilary Davis andStephen Kelliher, Lee & Thompson's Christos Michaels and Steve Christian of Isle of Man Film and Pinewood Pictures.
The specialty distributor acquired rights in both North America and the UK and will release the film in the spring of 2014.
"The experience and sensibilities of the team at Fox Searchlight make it a wonderful match for ?Belle,'" Asante said in a statement. "I am so pleased their passion for this film means it now has the ability to be seen by audiences worldwide. We've worked hard to turn historical facts of the life of a true pioneer into a compelling and moving cinema."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fox-searchlight-acquires-belle-amma-asantes-tale-british-205933567.html
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Chris Brown, Nicki Minaj Kick Off BET Awards With 'Love More'
YMCMB star joins Breezy onstage as he performs a medley that includes 'Fine China' and an Aaliyah tribute.
By Nadeska Alexis
Chris Brown performs at the 2013 BET Awards
Photo: Getty Images
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1709805/bet-awards-2013-chris-brown-nicki-minaj.jhtml
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Gerrans holds off Sagan to win 3rd stage of Tour
Stage winner Simon Gerrans of Australia celebrates on the podium of the third stage of the Tour de France cycling race over 145.5 kilometers (91 miles) with start in Ajaccio and finish in Calvi, Corsica island, France, Monday July 1, 2013. (AP Photo/Laurent Rebours)
Stage winner Simon Gerrans of Australia celebrates on the podium of the third stage of the Tour de France cycling race over 145.5 kilometers (91 miles) with start in Ajaccio and finish in Calvi, Corsica island, France, Monday July 1, 2013. (AP Photo/Laurent Rebours)
Jan Bakelants of Belgium, wearing the overall leader's yellow jersey, celebrates on the podium of the third stage of the Tour de France cycling race over 145.5 kilometers (91 miles) with start in Ajaccio and finish in Calvi, Corsica island, France, Monday July 1, 2013. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)
Peter Sagan of Slovakia, wearing the best sprinter's green jersey, celebrates on the podium of the third stage of the Tour de France cycling race over 145.5 kilometers (91 miles) with start in Ajaccio and finish in Calvi, Corsica island, France, Monday July 1, 2013. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)
Pierre Roland of France puts on the best climber's dotted jersey on the podium of the third stage of the Tour de France cycling race over 145.5 kilometers (91 miles) with start in Ajaccio and finish in Calvi, Corsica island, France, Monday July 1, 2013. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)
Australia's Simon Gerrans, left, crosses the finish line ahead of Peter Sagan of Slovakia, right and second place, Jose Joaquin Rojas of Spain, second left and third place, and Belgium's Philippe Gilbert, center in white and fifth place, to win the third stage of the Tour de France cycling race over 145.5 kilometers (91 miles) with start in Ajaccio and finish in Calvi, Corsica island, France, Monday July 1, 2013. (AP Photo/Laurent Rebours)
CALVI, Corsica (AP) ? Australian sprinter Simon Gerrans held off a late charge by Peter Sagan to win Monday's hilly third stage of the Tour de France by less than half a wheel.
Belgian rider Jan Bakelants did enough in the sweltering heat to keep the race leader's yellow jersey.
Gerrans looked to have the finish line in sight with about 100 meters to go, though the Slovakian rider put on a late sprint and almost caught him.
But Gerrans dug deep to clinch his second career Tour stage win. Spaniard Jose Joaquin Rojas finished third.
"Sagan is a guy who can often climb with the best climbers and sprint with the best sprinter, so I'm really thrilled to be able to beat such a classy rider," Gerrans said. "I surprised quite a few people a little bit today, including myself."
Gerrans shouldn't be too surprised, though, as he had prepared well.
"This is a stage that I've been targeting for quite some time," he said. "We were down here in Corsica last weekend doing a recon and scouting the finishes and it all paid off today."
Although Gerrans has clinched a stage win on all three Grand Tours, his previous stage win on "Le Tour" was five years ago ? when it actually finished in the northern Italian ski resort of Prato Nevoso.
He was slowing up but just managed one last effort to throw his bike forward the way a 100-meter runner would dip for the line.
"I wasn't sure if I had won ? a half-wheel length?!" Gerrans said. "All went perfectly well, my team took great care of me after the last climb."
He will also need to thank his countryman and teammate Simon Clarke, who placed himself in the early breakaway.
"It was the team plan. I was brought to the Tour de France to join breakaways, so I made sure I did my job," Clarke said. "I was quite relaxed today and when you're relaxed it means you have good legs."
It was a particularly welcome win for Gerrans' Orica Greenedge team after the confusion of Saturday's first stage, when the team bus was stuck on the finish line and removed moments before the riders arrived.
"We saw the footage," Gerrans said. "You really can't do (anything) but laugh at the situation. (Our driver) did a fantastic job, we are proud of him. He was embarrassed so we felt quite sad for him."
Sagan is in the coveted sprinter's green jersey he is expected to contest with British sprinter Mark Cavendish, who is 49 points behind.
"I'm a bit sad about the stage, but the team's objective is to get the green jersey and that's what we have," Sagan, a Slovak, said through a translator. "I don't feel at my best yet. But the Tour is long and there are still a lot of good stages to come."
Bakelants, the winner of Sunday's second stage, finished in 19th place.
"The team worked very hard for me, and I'm very happy to keep the yellow jersey," Bakelants said. "It was a very hot day and the conditions were not easy."
Monday's 90-mile trek started from Ajaccio, where French emperor and military mastermind Napoleon Bonaparte was born in 1769, and finished in Calvi after three moderate climbs and a steeper last climb tested the legs of the peloton.
Gerrans clocked about 3 hours, 40 minutes.
It was the last of the trio of Corsican stages before the race heads to mainland France for Tuesday's team time trial in Nice, where race favorite Chris Froome's Sky team are expected to challenge for the win.
"There are some strong teams out there," Froome said.
With the Tour heading through Corsica for the first time, some fans got their first glimpse of the showcase race ? and made a point of getting noticed. One defied the heat to dress up in a full Napoleon outfit, saluting from the roadside.
Further on, a man held up a Coriscan flag as he rode on horseback alongside the rolling pack.
But the riders were concentrating too hard to notice.
"Twisty roads like that along the coast, stunning scenery," Froome said. "I'm sure it made for great shots from the helicopter, but that's not what we were interested in."
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'Obama is Adolf Hitler' Say Soweto Protesters as US President Addresses South Africa
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Source: www.ibtimes.com --- Sunday, June 30, 2013
Protests and stun grenades mar US President's visit as Nelson Mandela clings to life. ...
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