Ark. Supreme Court declares execution law unconstitutional

By msnbc.com staff and news services

The Arkansas Supreme Court struck down the state's execution law Friday, calling it unconstitutional.

In a split decision, the high court sided with 10 death row inmates who argued that, under Arkansas' constitution, only the Legislature can set execution policy. Legislators in 2009 voted to give that authority to the Department of Correction.

The 2009 law says a death sentence is to be carried out by lethal injection of one or more chemicals that the director of the Department of Correction chooses.

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Death row inmate Jack Harold Jones Jr. sued the head of the correction department in 2010, challenging the constitutionality of the law. Nine other inmates have since joined the suit, asking that the law be struck down.

The state, meanwhile, asked the court to free up several executions it halted because of this lawsuit.

It wasn't immediately clear what the court's ruling will mean for the 40 men on death row in Arkansas. There aren't any pending executions, and the state hasn't put anyone to death since 2005, in part because of legal challenges like this one.

Three Arkansas inmates who were scheduled to be put to death last summer were spared by the state Supreme Court almost exactly a year ago. Jason Farrell McGehee, Bruce Earl Ward, and Marcel Wayne Williams, all of whom are plaintiffs in the lethal injection lawsuit, received stays of executions from the high court on June 23, 2011, according to ArkansasNews.com.

Josh Lee, an attorney for the death row inmates who challenged the law, declined to comment Friday.

During oral arguments last week, Lee said the state would have two options if the court found the law unconstitutional.

"The Legislature could either choose to stick with the 1983 statute, which everybody concedes is constitutional, or the Legislature could decide we want to amend it," Lee said last week.

The state adopted lethal injection as its method of capital punishment in 1983. There have been legal challenges to the way the state kills its condemned prisoners since then. In 2009, in the midst of a legal battle over lethal injection, the state Legislature passed the law that the court struck down Friday.

Joseph Cordi, an attorney for the state, told the Supreme Court last week that he thought the state would be left with the earlier law if the court struck down the entire statute.

Part of the 2009 law also says that in the event it's found unconstitutional, death sentences will be carried out by electrocution.

"That would be up for the lawyers to untangle and figure out what it means, but that's a possibility," prisons spokeswoman Dina Tyler said.

Since the reinstatement of capital punishment by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976, Arkansas has been the only state to ever conduct three executions on the same night, according to The Death Penalty Information Center, a non-profit organization. Triple executions were done twice in Arkansas's history: first on Aug. 3, 1994, under Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, and then again on Jan. 8, 1997, under Gov. Mike Huckabee, records on DeathPenaltyInfo.org show.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Super-social spaceman shares his story

NASA via Twitpic

NASA astronaut Ron Garan looks into the camera from outside the International Space Station in July 2011. "Knocking on the door to come back in #FromSpace after yesterday's spacewalk," Garan wrote on Twitpic.

By Alan Boyle

You might think it's cool enough that NASA astronaut Ron Garan has spent months aboard the International Space Station, but he?s become even better-known as a social-media maven. This month he passed the 2 million mark for Google+ circles, putting him at No. 21 on the Google+ Top 100. His Fragile Oasis postings are a highlight on the Web, Facebook and Twitter. His "Ask Me Anything" exchange with Reddit users went so well he's thinking of doing it again.

So what's the secret to his success? It's really not a secret at all: He?s got a good story to share, about the beauty and fragility of planet Earth.

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The 50-year-old New York native is a former Air Force fighter pilot who has degrees in business economics and aerospace engineering. He joined the astronaut corps in 2000, and his training for spaceflight included a turn as an "aquanaut" for NASA's NEEMO underwater research mission in 2006. Garan has been up in space twice ? in 2008, on the shuttle Discovery to help deliver Japan's Kibo lab to the International Space Station; and just last year for a nearly six-month tour of duty on the station.

Garan says another stint on the space station is "always a possibility, down the road." But right now, he's focusing on NASA's Open Government Initiative, which aims to build stronger collaborative ties between government, industry and the general public. That means social engagement isn't just something he does in his spare time. It's part of his job.

During a recent interview, Garan talked about how he became a super-social spaceman, and what he's learned from the adventure. Here are some edited excerpts of the Q&A:

Cosmic Log: When you come into contact with the public, what do you find they?re most curious about?

Garan:?"Well, what they?re most curious about is the basic question of what life is like, living in space. It really is a marvelous experience. It?s very interesting in a lot of respects ? and probably the greatest part about it is that it gave me an incredible sense of appreciation for what we have here on our planet. Everything from just simple things that define the beauty of life on our planet ? the breeze in your face, and the smell of flowers, watching a flock of birds and a million other things. After you?re up there for a while, those are things that?you really start to miss.

"I had the opportunity to have a short-duration flight on the space shuttle Discovery back in 2008, during which I was up there for two weeks, and then a long-term one where I was up for five and a half months. And it?s a very different experience. You have the same views, you have the same environment that you live in. But being able to see the earth, day in and day out, and watch the earth change ... and to really start to miss some of the things that I took for granted, that really gives you that appreciation."

Ron Garan / NASA

A fish-eye view of the International Space Station, captured by Ron Garan last July, features the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer in the foreground. A Russian Progress cargo ship and a Soyuz crew capsule are docked on the left end of the station. The structure extending to the left of the AMS is a thermal radiator. One of the station's gold-colored solar arrays is visible in the background. And off to the right, the shuttle Atlantis is docked to the station's Tranquility module.

Q: So how did the Fragile Oasis website enter into the mix?

A:?"That came out of my shuttle mission in 2008. I had a little bit of frustration. I imagine it?s like when you go to the Grand Canyon, and you?re there by yourself, and you sit there at the rim of the Grand Canyon and you?re looking out over this amazing thing. And imagine that very, very few people have been able to have that experience. For me, at least, that would be frustrating, and the experience would not be as rich as it would be if I had the opportunity to share that with people. So I was frustrated during my shuttle mission that I couldn?t share the experience.

"When I got assigned to my long-duration mission, there?s two and a half years of training, and during that two and a half years, I really brainstormed how I could do that. We came up with Fragile Oasis, not just to have it as a website where we could tell stories about space, but the goal was always to provide a platform for people to follow along on the mission, not as spectators but as fellow crew members. To have an interactive way to do it.

"We had some significant technical challenges in getting that thing off the ground, and it?s still a work in progress. It doesn?t have a lot of the interactive features that we wanted it to have, but we?re working on it. When I launched to the International Space Station, and I had the five and a half months up there, I really was very thankful that I had this tool, this platform, to be able to communicate. And in the meantime, we had the exponential increase in the popularity of social media tools.

"First I did Facebook, but I didn't see that as a public outreach tool. I saw that as a way to connect with old friends, and I was just using it on a personal basis. On the other hand, I started Twitter for one reason: I saw it as a way to do education outreach. I could say, I?m learning about this experiment we?re going to be doing in space, and I?d put a link on there to the experiment's website and the science behind it. I saw that as a very powerful way to do outreach. I now see the benefits of outreach in other platforms as well, including Facebook and obviously Google+. In the case of Google+, I see a very robust mechanism to share the space program and the experience of living in space with a lot of interactive features on that platform."

Q: With all your experience in social media, do you find that you favor one tool over the other? From your comments, it sounds as if you?re seeing some differentiation in how those different tools can be used. Particularly with Google+, you just recently passed the 2-million-follower mark. That must be one of the big successes for your efforts.

A:?"Well, I think all the platforms offer slightly different tools to tell the story. I think they all fit together really well, actually. So it?s not a 'one-platform' type of message. We want to reach the broadest audience we can, because the excitement of spaceflight is global. It?s for all humanity. So the more tools we can use to tell that story, and the more people we can get involved with the story, the better off the whole message will be."

Q: Did you have to do a selling job with NASA to do the sorts of things you?re doing?

A:?"It took a while to catch on, but it?s catching on now across the board. We realize the benefit of social media. I?m on some social-media committees now, on some working groups to help not only crew members and astronauts, but also thousands of other people who work in the space program. They have a very compelling story as well. We?re trying to find the best way to get that story out. And what we?re finding is that just letting people tell their story in the way they want to tell it is the best way to do it.

"Obviously, there have to be guidelines. But the more leeway we can give people in the space program to tell their story, the richer the experience will be, both for the people who are reading it and for the people who are doing it. That?s one of the cardinal rules here, to give people as much leeway as we possibly can."

Q: Are there any guidelines or favorites that you want to pass along to people who want to be closer in touch with the space adventure?

A:?"Oh, yeah. There are tons and tons of people. Most of the astronauts who fly in space right now have Twitter accounts. They?re all on there. There?s also @NASA_Astronauts, where we try to retweet, as best we can, everything from all the astronauts. There?s @NASA, the official Twitter account. There?s the Facebook version, and soon the Google+ version of all these as well. There?s commercial spaceflight: @SpaceX has a social media presence. There are people outside the space agency who are involved in telling the story as well, such as @YurisNight and #spacetweeps.

"What we?re finding through this is that it?s not just the official word from NASA, the European Space Agency and the Japanese space agency. There are citizen scientists and all these other groups that have formed around the idea of space exploration, and they really do a great job of telling the story as well. It?s obvious that there?s a lot of passion and heart and soul that?s put into this."

Q: Is there something about the space story that particularly resonates with social media?

A:?"I think it?s because it?s a human endeavor, and throughout the 50 years of human spaceflight, it?s always been a select few people who have gotten to fly in space, and we?ve relied on them to come back and tell us what it was like. Now, through technology and through these new platforms, we can bring people along with us on the missions and have them experience this is real time. You can see example after example of this.

"An easy example is, if one of us sends out a tweet with a picture, let?s say, and we misidentify the geographic location, we?re going to find out about that pretty fast. That happened to me on my mission, and I thanked the person who brought that to my attention. I started sending pictures to that person first, to make sure I got it right. We don?t have a lot of time up there, and all the pictures and all the social media that we do is in our free time. So to have people on the ground, crowdsourcing or open-sourcing or however you want to put it, that really empowers us to do more. It makes communication much more effective."

Q: Have you ever thought if it would be possible to boil down the glory of space down into one tweet? Is there any elevator talk you?ve thought about giving in 140 characters, about what it?s like to fly in space?

A:?"You?d need at least 147 characters to do that ... no. I know I couldn?t do it. That would be a pretty remarkable feat."

Q: What?s the one thing that you?d like people to know about spaceflight.

A:?"In 140 characters?"

Q: Not 140 characters, but what?s the one biggest message that you think the space experience provides for people on Earth?

A:?"Well,? to go back to the reason we started Fragile Oasis: The really compelling reason is that we wanted to use this perspective we have on the planet to inspire people to go out and make a difference, and make the world a better planet. The one gift that I think we get when we fly in space is this perspective.

"You don't necessarily have to be in space to get this perspective, but being in space really reinforces it: You see how fragile the planet is. You see how beautiful it is, how peaceful it looks. Then you realize that life is not as beautiful for everybody on the planet as it looks from space. That's a very compelling thing to experience, and hopefully it serves as a call to action, to not accept the status quo and make life on the planet as beautiful as it looks. That's the No. 1 thing that I want to get across."

NASA

The International Space Station looks like little more than a speck with solar panels in this picture, which was taken from the shuttle Atlantis during its approach on July 10. A first-quarter moon shines on the right side of the frame.

Where in the Cosmos
Garan and his colleagues at Fragile Oasis offer a cornucopia of outer-space imagery and blog postings, including this picture of the International Space Station and the moon, as seen from the shuttle Atlantis during its approach for docking last July. The photo served as today's quiz picture in the "Where in the Cosmos" contest, presented weekly on the Cosmic Log Facebook page.

Len Whitney's comment was my favorite: "I believe it's a TIE fighter ... but those are short-range fighters, we're too far out in space ... Must have taken off from that moon ... Wait a second ... that's no moon!!!! It's a space station!"

For figuring out so quickly that the picture showed a moon and a space station, I'm sending 3-D glasses to Facebook followers Matt Jaworski and Lawrence Johnson. I'm also reserving a pair for Whitney. To make sure you're in on next week's contest, click the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page and join the alliance. It's not a trap!

More about NASA and social media:

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Although Ron Garan is the highest-rated astronaut on the Google+ list, props also deserve to go out to Mike Massimino, the first NASA astronaut to tweet from space and NASA's top astronaut when it comes to Twitter rankings.

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.

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Speaking to young readers at Fairmount Public Library ? Writing of ...

On June 8, 2012, I spoke to young students at Fairmount Public Library about what it?s like to be an author and write books. What fun to chat with those little ones about reading and writing! They liked looking at my nine children?s books. When I pointed out my name on the cover of the book, their little eyes widened!

Chatting with young readers at Fairmount Public Library

?You wrote that??

?Yes!?

My name was put on the library?s sign out front!

Fairmount, for those who don?t know, is the birthplace of famed actor from the past James Dean.

I think these little ones are just as exciting to be with as any movie actor. We shared our favorite book titles and favorite places to read (When I was growing up, it was in the tree in our back yard!).

These kids loved learning about the process of writing books.

After my talk, the kids ate lunch ? right inside the library! I?ve never seen kids do this, but I thought how great it was that Library Director Linda Magers encourages kids to do this following a story time session. It?s like an air-conditioned picnic with friends every week and no ants!

Ms. Magers purchased a copy of each of my books for her young readers. That?s a sure sign of a caring librarian to reinforce the contact with an author after the visit. Visits to speak with kids is a highlight for me, one I?d like to?practice regularly.

If you?d like me to speak to your church, library, school or civic group about the subject of writing (or other subject that can be negotiated), please contact me. xxxkjreusser@adamswells.comxxx (remove the x?s).

One of my best writing buds, Cathy Shouse, lives in Fairmount and dropped by to say Hi!

Have a great day!

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NASA sees Chris become first hurricane of Atlantic season

Public release date: 21-Jun-2012
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Contact: Rob Gutro
Robert.j.gutro@nasa.gov
443-858-1779
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA satellites monitoring the life of Chris in the Atlantic saw the tropical storm become the first hurricane of the Atlantic Ocean season on June 21, 2012.

Infrared satellite imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite have revealed that the clouds around Hurricane Chris' eye have reached a cold peak early on June 21 when it was first designated a hurricane, and have since warmed. The thunderstorms that surround Chris' eye are now between -60 and -70 Celsius. Cloud top temperatures that cold indicate strong, high, thunderstorms with the potential for heavy rainfall.

When thunderstorm cloud tops cool, it means there's more uplight in the atmosphere, which can push cloud tops higher and build stronger thunderstorms. When cloud top temperatures warm, it means the cloud tops are falling, and the push of the air upward is lesser than it was before, and the storm is weakening. As a result, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center expect Chris to become a post-tropical cyclone on Friday, June 22. That weakening is expected because Chris is moving into stable air and cooler waters.

NOAA's GOES-13 satellite captured a visible image of Chris on June 21 at 1445 UTC (10:45 a.m. EDT). The image was created by NASA's GOES Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. and it showed Hurricane Chris with a tight circulation center.

At 11 a.m. EDT, Chris had 75 mph (120 kph) winds. It was located about 625 miles (1005 km) southeast of Cape Race, Newfoundland, Canada, near 41.1 North and 43.2 West. It was moving to the northeast at 20 mph (32 kph) and had a minimum central pressure of 987 millibars.

Chris is expected to turn in the Altantic over the next couple of days. First a turn to the north and then northwest and finally south. Chris is moving around a large mid-to-upper level low pressure area and will eventually become absorbed within the upper level low in the next couple of days.

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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.

Public release date: 21-Jun-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Rob Gutro
Robert.j.gutro@nasa.gov
443-858-1779
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA satellites monitoring the life of Chris in the Atlantic saw the tropical storm become the first hurricane of the Atlantic Ocean season on June 21, 2012.

Infrared satellite imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite have revealed that the clouds around Hurricane Chris' eye have reached a cold peak early on June 21 when it was first designated a hurricane, and have since warmed. The thunderstorms that surround Chris' eye are now between -60 and -70 Celsius. Cloud top temperatures that cold indicate strong, high, thunderstorms with the potential for heavy rainfall.

When thunderstorm cloud tops cool, it means there's more uplight in the atmosphere, which can push cloud tops higher and build stronger thunderstorms. When cloud top temperatures warm, it means the cloud tops are falling, and the push of the air upward is lesser than it was before, and the storm is weakening. As a result, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center expect Chris to become a post-tropical cyclone on Friday, June 22. That weakening is expected because Chris is moving into stable air and cooler waters.

NOAA's GOES-13 satellite captured a visible image of Chris on June 21 at 1445 UTC (10:45 a.m. EDT). The image was created by NASA's GOES Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. and it showed Hurricane Chris with a tight circulation center.

At 11 a.m. EDT, Chris had 75 mph (120 kph) winds. It was located about 625 miles (1005 km) southeast of Cape Race, Newfoundland, Canada, near 41.1 North and 43.2 West. It was moving to the northeast at 20 mph (32 kph) and had a minimum central pressure of 987 millibars.

Chris is expected to turn in the Altantic over the next couple of days. First a turn to the north and then northwest and finally south. Chris is moving around a large mid-to-upper level low pressure area and will eventually become absorbed within the upper level low in the next couple of days.

###

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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.

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Justin Timberlake to Star in 'Baywatch' Movie?

Picture Justin Timberlake wearing red lifeguard shorts, running into the waves in slow-motion. Enjoying the mental image? You may soon be seeing it in a theater near you! The soapy lifeguard drama Baywatch, which aired from 1989 to 1999, is in the early stages of being turned into a movie -- and reportedly, Timberlake is being courted for the starring role.

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Egypt's Mubarak reported in coma, off life support

FILE - In this Saturday, June 2, 2012 file photo, Egypt's ex-President Hosni Mubarak lays on a gurney inside a barred cage in the police academy courthouse in Cairo, Egypt. An Egyptian prison official says Hosni Mubarak?s health has taken a turn to the worst and is likely to be moved out of his prison hospital to a military facility nearby. The official said Tuesday doctors reported that the 84-year old former president has fallen unconscious. He said they have used a defibrillator to restart his heart, and have been administering breathing aid. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - In this Saturday, June 2, 2012 file photo, Egypt's ex-President Hosni Mubarak lays on a gurney inside a barred cage in the police academy courthouse in Cairo, Egypt. An Egyptian prison official says Hosni Mubarak?s health has taken a turn to the worst and is likely to be moved out of his prison hospital to a military facility nearby. The official said Tuesday doctors reported that the 84-year old former president has fallen unconscious. He said they have used a defibrillator to restart his heart, and have been administering breathing aid. (AP Photo, File)

Egyptian soldiers stand guard outside the Maadi military hospital where former president Hosni Mubarak was transferred and is currently on life support after suffering a stroke in prison in Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, June 20, 2012. The 84-year-old Mubarak suffered a "fast deterioration of his health" and his heart stopped beating, the state news agency MENA and security officials said. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

Egyptian soldiers stand guard outside the Maadi military hospital where former president Hosni Mubarak was transferred and is currently on life support after suffering a stroke in prison in Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, June 20, 2012. The 84-year-old Mubarak suffered a "fast deterioration of his health" and his heart stopped beating, the state news agency MENA and security officials said. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

A military armored vehicle guards the Maadi military hospital in Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, June 20, 2012. Egypt's Hosni Mubarak was on life support after suffering a stroke in prison. The 84-year-old Mubarak suffered a "fast deterioration of his health" and his heart stopped beating, the state news agency MENA and security officials said. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

CAIRO (AP) ? Hosni Mubarak was in a coma on Wednesday but off life support and his heart and other vital organs were functioning, according to security officials.

Overnight, state media reported that the 84-year old former president, ousted in last year's uprising and now serving a life sentence in prison, suffered a stroke and was put on life support. He was transferred to a military hospital from the Cairo prison hospital where he has been kept since his June 2 conviction and sentencing for failing to stop the killing of protesters during the uprising.

His wife Suzanne was by his side in the Nile-side hospital in Maadi, a suburb just south of Cairo. The security officials said a team of 15 doctors, including heart, blood and brain specialists, was supervising the condition of Mubarak, who needed help with his breathing. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Mubarak's health scare comes at a time of heightened tension in Egypt. Both candidates in a fiercely contested presidential runoff held last weekend are claiming victory. At the same time, the ruling military council that took over from Mubarak moved to tighten its grip on power a little more than a week before they were supposed to transfer complete authority to an elected civilian administration.

The ruling generals stripped the next president of many of his powers in a declaration made just as polls closed in the runoff late Sunday night. With the decree, they gave themselves control over the drafting a new constitution and declared themselves the country's legislative power after a court last week dissolved the Islamist-dominated parliament which was freely elected about six months earlier.

The runoff pitted Mubarak's last prime minister Ahmed Shafiq against conservative Islamist Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. The contest divided the country and their rival claims of victory could bring more of the turmoil that has rocked the country since Mubarak's ouster.

Mubarak was convicted of failing to prevent the killing of some 900 protesters during the 18-day uprising that forced him out of office on Feb. 11, 2011. He and his two sons, onetime heir apparent Gamal and wealthy businessman Alaa, were acquitted of corruption charges. But the two sons are held in Torah awaiting trial on charges of insider trading.

The two were by their father's side at the Torah prison hospital, but the officials said prison authorities refused their request to accompany him to the Maadi military hospital.

Associated Press

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Noisy environments make young songbirds shuffle their tunes: Baby songbirds shape their species' playlist

ScienceDaily (June 19, 2012) ? iPod owners aren't the only ones who frequently shuffle their favorite tunes. Baby songbirds do it, too, a new study shows.

A baby songbird prefers to learn the clearest versions of songs he hears and uses them to build his personal playlist for life. As a result, noise, from nature and humans, influences which songs a bird learns to sing and can create lasting changes to his species' top tunes, the study's results suggest.

"There's been an enormous amount of interest in how anthropogenic factors affect the channels animals use for communication and in particular how human noise affects birdsong," said Duke biologist and study co-author Steve Nowicki. "As far as we know, this is the first study that can link noise to cultural evolution of bird song."

The team designed the study to test a 30-year-old hypothesis suggesting that young birds memorize and later sing the clearest songs they hear during their critical learning period. In the experiment, Nowicki and his collaborators collected nine male, swamp-sparrow nestlings and hand-raised them in a soundproof room.

Twice a day for 12 weeks, the birds heard recordings of 16 song types sung by adult males of their species. Eight song types were degraded, or noisy, by being broadcast across a typical sparrow territory of 25 meters and then re-recorded. The other eight were clean copies of similar-sounding, but different songs. When the birds later matured and began to sing, they only repeated the clear songs.

"It wasn't too surprising that the sparrows preferred them," said Duke behavioral ecologist Susan Peters, lead author of the study. "What is exciting is how clear-cut the results are. All of the birds learned clear songs and none learned any of the degraded songs," she said.

The results appeared online June 20 in the journal Biology Letters.

This "simple" but "elegant" experiment "says a great deal about how birds put to use their extraordinary ability to hear small-time differences," said Eugene Morton, a biologist at York University in Canada who was not involved in the study.

The birds use this ability to learn songs that transmit through their habitat with the least amount of degradation. "In this way, the birds themselves reject songs less well suited to their environment," an example of cultural selection, Morton said.

Scientists consider the song shifts to be selected culturally, rather than naturally, because the songs are learned, not innate.

"This is important because cultural selection can happen more rapidly than natural selection,??? Peters said. ???It helps to explain why birdsong is so diverse," and shows evidence that song variation depends on the bird???s habitat.

She added that noise from cities and humans would have the same effect on song selection. "We already knew that some birds can adjust some features of their song when confronted with anthropogenic noise, and now we know that this may have an impact on cultural transmission of their song," she said.

If naturally noisy songs are less desirable to learn, then songs shaped by human noise are probably less likely to be passed down and learned generation after generation. "Who would have thought that a swamp sparrow song might be affected by human activity?" Peters said.

Peters and Nowicki worked on the NSF-funded study with Elizabeth Derryberry, a behavioral ecologist at Tulane University and Louisiana State University.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Duke University. The original article was written by Ashley Yeager.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. S. Peters, E. P. Derryberry, S. Nowicki. Songbirds learn songs least degraded by environmental transmission. Biology Letters, 2012; DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2012.0446

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

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Trade Degrees Should Receive Respect | Student Loans for College ...

We are all aware of the prejudice that seems to persist that assumes a degree from a traditional university is more valuable than a degree from an online, vocational, or trade school. But is that prejudice really justified? Is a student who goes to college and gets a degree in Brazilian studies, for example, any better off than a student who gets an online travel and tourism degree?

The style of education provided at traditional universities derives from a philosophy of education that states that it is the job of the institution to ensure that its students emerge with an education that is both diverse and well-rounded. There is merit to this: the more diverse our base of knowledge the more aware we are of the world we live in, and the more able we are to be happy and successful in that world.

The problem is that in recent years the momentum of thinking in higher education has pulled away from pragmatic training and toward intellectual curiosity. There?s nothing wrong with stretching the mind, of course. That is part of a well-rounded education, and colleges should expose their students to a variety of viewpoints and ideas. But the pragmatic side is part of a good education as well, and that seems to be getting left out.

It isn?t hard to find mental stimulation outside of the university environment if you just look for it. Our world is full of books, and an intellectual adventure is no further away than the local library or bookstore. In fact, because publishing is a prerequisite for tenure at most good universities it?s usually possible to find books authored by the very professors who would teach the classes we?d take at an elite institution.

Practical, formulaic knowledge is harder to come by. Sure, there are books that teach dummies and idiots about all sorts of different topics, but they only provide an introduction. They don?t provide the kind of in-depth understanding of a job that students receive at vocational and technical schools, and although a do-it-yourselfer can get the basics of a project from a book, a professional needs far greater understanding.

The student who attends a top-tier university and majors in Brazilian studies will graduate from college with a deep understanding of the politics, culture, economy, and history of Brazil, but there aren?t very many applications for that knowledge. She could go into marketing, using that knowledge to make her employable by companies who sell to Brazil. But odds are the only job she?ll find in her discipline will be teaching Brazilian studies.

The graduate of a travel and tourism school, on the other hand, will have in-depth knowledge and preparation for a career in one of the most stable industries in the world. Tourism is always popular, and working in the tourism industry also provides opportunities to live in some of the most exciting places in the world. Not to mention the fact that it probably pays better than teaching.

And while the knowledge contained in the Brazilian studies degree is readily available to anyone with a library card and a frequent flyer account, the knowledge contained in a travel and tourism degree is not. So while the prejudice against trade and vocational degrees can?t be denied, it also isn?t justified by anything but baseless intellectual snobbery.

I specialize in online degree programs. For more resources and information, check out petap.org.

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Sports and Match

Liu Xiang's record is broke, and it is influential to the market of Nike. In the capital of Cuba, Havana, we can see a Adidas shop. People there are all celebrating for the win of Roberts. He breaks the record of Liu Xiang. As the sponsor of Roberts, Adidas gets a good chance to win Nike because of Liu Xiang's absence.
According to the tradition of running, these two runners will avoid meeting in some small games. The meeting may influence the following games. In addition, they must be responsible for their own sponsors. If they lose in the game, it will be bad for their brand. We must pay attention to one point. Liu Xiang and Roberts are rivals, and Nike and Adidas are also competing all the time.
Gan Mingqi, the marketing manager of Adidas indicates that except China, other countries and areas are all celebrating for Roberts's breaking record. Among them, Cuba's sphere of activities and momentum are greatest in the world. As an international enterprise, Adidas should deal with all kinds of situations. People in China must be not well. Therefore, silence is best in China. This behavior is also helpful for improving the image of Adidas.
Adidas is celebrating for Roberts's new record in the whole world except. At this time, Nike is awkward for this game? According to Wang Xin, the progress of sports can not separate with the competition. As for this game, we need not do anything. Sponsor and athlete are equal and we are cooperative partners. When Liu Xiang faces the difficulty, we should offer our help and make him happy.
Ji Ning, the deputy secretary general of the Beijing Olympic Economy Research Association, he thinks that Adidas and Nike are the world's top-class sports brand. Brand image, product quality and reputation are in the same grade, so a magic weapon to win the competition is marketing planning. Sport is emotional, and can drive a person's mood. If sports marketing has too strong commercial flavor of the business, it will affect the mood of people who watch sports games. However, if corporate marketing communications can correspond with attached the pursuit and desire of people for the spirit of sport, the brand can be implanted in people's minds.
As the sponsor of Liu Xiang, Nike is clever enough. It did the advertisements of "12.88 seconds" when Liu Xiang broke the world record. Later they choose Liu's spirit of the movement as the theme and then advertise for their brand. For instance, we can know this point from the advertisement of Nike "I Am Fighting". We can see the figure of Liu Xiang, but the advertisement mentions and tells us the spirit of sports. Even if Liu Xiang's record is broke, the advertisement does not violate the truth either.
The advertisement strain is the most important one in the corporate marketing strategy, especially sports marketing. But, some domestic companies' sports sponsorship is in the starting point. The stars they signed are all well-known athletes, and some enterprises only signs with Liu Xiang. So once the athlete is in an unstable state, enterprises do not know what to do. So I propose that the domestic enterprises should always pay attention to the competitive state of the sponsored athletes, and timely change the marketing strategy.

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White House invokes executive privilege to stop Issa witch hunt (Americablog)

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Video: What's Tomlinson's legacy?

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Pleasant Ridge schools appoint new board president

The governing board of the Pleasant Ridge Union School District appointed a new member June 13 to replace its outgoing president Roger White, who resigned his seat as of June 8.

The board appointed Robert Tice-Raskin to fill the remainder of White's term, reported Superintendent Britta Skavdahl.

White, who works with cities and counties on land management, had been a member of the governing board for the past nine years and had served three two-year terms as board president, including the past two years.

?I will miss (White), as will the rest of the board,? Skavdahl told The Union. ?He's been a key player, he loves the district, and I hugely appreciate the time he gave the district and help he gave me. I wish him well.?

White cited increasing professional demands from out of state and the graduation of his youngest child as partial reasons for his departure.

?With my business situation and having been there long enough, it was time to move on and open the seat to new blood,? White told The Union. ?And, with the number of people who have passion for the district, I felt comfortable leaving.?

A parent of five children in the district, Tice-Raskin also volunteers as an art docent in addition to numerous other volunteer work undertaken in support of both school and community youth programs.

Tice-Raskin is a prosecutor with the United States Attorney's Office-Eastern California Division where he serves as the chief of the white collar crime unit.

His legal background, as well as his strong analytical and consensus building skills, will be of great value to the district as we continue to navigate difficult economic and budgetary times, Skavdahl said.

?He is awesome,? Skavdahl said. ?I am so excited to have him joining the board.?

To contact Staff Writer Chris Rosacker, email crosacker@theunion.com or call (530) 477-4236.

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Climate panel adopts controversial 'grey' evidence

Climate scientists are likely to face charges of putting politics before science, following two controversial decisions by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change at a meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, earlier this month.

The IPCC decided for the first time to impose strict geographical quotas on the scientists who author its major assessment reports. There will also be a push to increase the representation of women among its authors.

Controversially, it also voted to increase the role in those assessments of "grey literature": publications not subject to peer review. Using such material in the last assessment is what led to the "glaciergate" scandal in 2010, when the report was found to have vastly overestimated the rate at which Himalayan glaciers are losing ice.

The panel publishes three voluminous assessments of the state of climate science every six years, the last of which came out in 2007.

Some critics New Scientist spoke to say the changes, which have not so far been publicly announced, will reduce the quality of the assessments by excluding the best scientists and muddying the waters between peer-reviewed and other literature.

Geographical bias

However, the changes were backed this week by a senior IPCC scientist, Thelma Krug, a Brazilian co-chair of the panel's task force in greenhouse gas inventories. Speaking at a side event at the Rio+20 environment conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, she said the changes will correct geographical biases that have skewed past assessments.

Grey literature was responsible for several embarrassing errors in the 2007 report. These included the false claim that the Himalayas could be ice-free within 30 years and the assertion that African farmers could suffer yield losses of up to 50 per cent by 2020 because of climate change. The latter claim was formally corrected at this month's Geneva meeting.

After the scandals, some called for grey literature to be banished from IPCC assessments. Instead, the meeting embraced it, and set criteria for its use. From now on, for instance, any grey literature used in an IPCC report will have to be put online so that reviewers can assess its quality.

Correcting imbalance

Krug told New Scientist this would correct an imbalance in the assessments as it is harder for people in developing countries to get research findings into the major peer-reviewed journals.

"There is a lot of information available in [the grey literature of] developing countries that would balance IPCC literature," she said.

The IPCC is an intergovernmental body, but its reports are written by scientists. In the past these have been chosen largely on their scientific merit, but from now on the 30-person IPCC bureau - which oversees all publications - will have geographical quotas. For instance Africa will have five members and North America four. In addition, each of its three working groups must now include at least one person from every continent in their eight-person bureaux.

Richard Klein, an IPCC stalwart from the Stockholm Resilience Institute in Sweden, told New Scientist this was mostly a formalisation of current practices. "Membership has always been based on expertise, geographical balance and gender." But Krug said it represented a breakthrough for involvement of developing-world scientists.

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Open Laboratory 2013 - submissions so far

It is now expected by the science blogosphere that I post the full updated listing of all the submissions every Monday morning. This serves as a reminder for bloggers to submit their (and other people?s) posts, and to some extent prevents duplicate entries. But most importantly, it presents a growing listing of some of the most exciting work on science blogs. This is a weekly post where bloggers can discover each other and discover blogs they were not previously aware of. Thus it is also a promotion for all the bloggers involved.

The submission form for the 2013 edition of Open Lab is now open. Any blog post written since October 1, 2011 is eligible for submission. We will close the form on October 1st, 2012.

We accept essays, stories, poetry, cartoons/comics, and original art.

Once you are done submitting your own posts, you can start looking at the others?, including on aggregators like ScienceSeeker.org, Scienceblogging.org and Researchblogging.org.

The 2012 edition can now be pre-ordered at Amazon.com and Amazon UK. You can buy the last five annual collections here. You can read Prefaces and Introductions to older editions here.

Help us spread the word by displaying these badges (designed by Doctor Zen):

<a href=?http://openlab.wufoo.com/forms/submission-form/?><img src=?http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/network-central/files/2012/02/Open_Lab_2013.png></a>

Or take the Open Lab 2011 submission bookmarklet ? Open Lab ? and drag the link to your browser?s toolbar to have it always handy as you browse around science blogs.

====================================

3 Quarks Daily (Julia Galef): My Little Pony: Reality is Magic!

The II-I- blog: We, the pioneers.
The II-I- blog: The Great Revolution

A Blog Around The Clock: The New Meanings of How and Why in Biology?
A Blog Around The Clock: #scio12: Multitudes of Sciences, Multitudes of Journalisms, and the Disappearance of the Quote.
A Blog Around The Clock: Books: ?Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science? by Michael Nielsen
A Blog Around The Clock: Myths about myths about Thanksgiving turkey making you sleepy

A Hippo on Campus: Why men don?t listen and women are great at maths

A Schooner of Science: Fever dreams ? the true tale of Richard Spruce

Addiction Inbox: Reward and Punish: Say Hello to Dopamine?s Leetle Friend
Addiction Inbox: Army Doctor Sees Victory, and a Dangerous Drug Bites the Dust?Almost.
Addiction Inbox: Night Owls Get a Coffee Break

Almost Diamonds: About Those Gay Homophobes
Almost Diamonds: Writing Fiction with Science: Pedophilia
Almost Diamonds: About That Evo Psych Polygamy Stuff

Anole Annals: If You Want A Lizard To Run Fast, Yell At It

Anthropology in Practice: Beware: The Ides Have Come. No, Really. This Time It?s True.

Artologica: From the Cells to the stars

Au Science Mag: Geomagnetic Reversals ? the end of the world?
Au Science Mag: Homeopathy and Medical Ethics ? Aberdeen Skeptics in the Pub

Australian Science Magazine: Here be Dragons

Beach Chair Scientist: An important call for more forage fish to remain in the sea
Beach Chair Scientist: Dear Online Science Writing Community: A reminder for ?call to actions? because your perspective is priceless

Beaker: Rare bone disorder reveals new insights into autism
Beaker: What would Nature do?

Beatrice the Biologist: How the Brain Works (cartoon)
Beatrice the Biologist: Amoeba Hugs (cartoon)
Beatrice the Biologist: Single Cell is Just Fine, Thank You (cartoon)

Biobabel: On Transposable Elements and Regulatory Evolution

The Bug Chicks (Michael Barton): A taste for collecting beetles is some indication of future success in life!

Bug Girl?s Blog: How to get free media coverage for a bogus beehive design
Bug Girl?s Blog: Transcript of my ESA talk about Social Media

Byte Size Biology: The Search for Small finds Life on a Gradient
Byte Size Biology: So what?s new with humans?
Byte Size Biology: Using phylogenetics to reconstruct a 59 million year old drug
Byte Size Biology: Life is short
Byte Size Biology: The Origin of Gender Symbols in Biology

Cedar?s Digest: Purple Doesn?t Exist: Some thoughts on Male Privilege and Science Online

The Cellular Scale: The ?Human Neuron?, not so special after all?

CENtral Science IYC 2011: Chemistry Carnival: Your Favorite Chemical Reactions!

Chemjobber: How do institutions change? Not easily
Chemjobber: Ozymandias, senior med chemist (poem)
Chemjobber: Why choose a Ph.D. in chemistry? A response to @DocFreeride

Chimeras: Another genetic puzzle: why is mitochondrial DNA only inherited from the mother?s side?

Cocktail Party Physics: The Science of Mysteries: Of Granular Material and Singing Sands

Contagions: Mapping Malaria in Anglo-Saxon England
Contagions: Did India and China Escape the Black Death?

Context and Variation: Vaginal pH Redux: Broader Perspectives on Douching, Race? and Lime Juice

Cosmic Variance (Sean Carroll): Everything is Connected

Cosmology Science Blog: Cosmic Microwave Angular Resolution Surprise

Counterbalanced: Problems in the neurozone

Curiouser and Curiouser: James Randi: An Honest Liar
Curiouser and Curiouser: On Stanislaw Burzynski, the Streisand Effect, and Standing Up for Skeptical Bloggers
Curiouser and Curiouser: On Codes of Conduct, Part II
Curiouser and Curiouser: Mythbusting Makeup: Skepticism and Cosmetic Claims

The Curious Wavefunction: The unstoppable Moore hits the immovable Eroom

Deep Sea News (Miriam Goldstein): A wicked bad idear: National Geographic hunts bluefin tuna for entertainment and Eating Wicked Tuna: A marine scientist tries to figure out what the heck is going on fused into a single post.
Deep Sea News (Alistair Dove): On common names
Deep Sea News (Kevin Zelnio): #IamScience: Embracing Personal Experience on Our Rise Through Science
Deep Sea News (Alistair Dove): No fish is an island
Deep Sea News (Craig McClain): What knowledge of the deep sea tell us about life on other planets
Deep Sea News (Alistair Dove): A (fetid) river runs through it, the Brooklyn edition
Deep Sea News (Alexis Rudd): True Confessions of a Dolphin-Loving Marine Biologist
Deep Sea News (Craig McClain): Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow
Deep Sea News (Craig McClain and Alistair Dove): James Cameron?s Deep Sea Challenge: a scientific milestone or rich guy?s junket?

Deep Thoughts and Silliness: The Problems of Interpreting Data

The Demarcationproblem: What chronic stress does to your immune system (cartoon)

Denim and Tweed: Baby steps versus long jumps: The ?size? of evolutionary change, and why it matters

DiverseScholar: #SCIO12 Policy Report: Academia is Productive but Messy ? Effects on (Mis)Communication

Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The Wool of Snowfall

Eruptions: Looking Back at the 1982 eruption of El Chich?n in Mexico
Eruptions: The Mysterious Missing Eruption of 1258 A.D.

ESC Blog: Cool Insect Viruses

EvoEcoLab: The Message Reigns Over the Medium
EvoEcoLab: Trying to Catch His Breath With a Hole-Ridden Safety Net

The Febrile Muse: Inflammatory Language No 1. The ongoing cycle

From The Lab Bench: Google Search Engine Software goes ?Chemistry?
From The Lab Bench: Old News for Carbon Dioxide, New Threats for Climate Change
From The Lab Bench: A Planet Under Pressure, and Why Gender Matters
From The Lab Bench: Putting the ?Fear? in Climate Change
From The Lab Bench: The Nature of Learning, or the Learning of Nature?
From The Lab Bench: Climate Change Communicators Should Listen to the Public
From The Lab Bench: Melancholia and the ?Dance of Death?
From The Lab Bench: Bubbles for Life
From The Lab Bench: Manufactured Landscapes

Gaines, on Brains: Seeing into the future? The neuroscience of d?j? vu
Gaines, on Brains: Using psychology to silence your enemies: the speech-jammer gun
Gaines, on Brains: My Neuron (poem)

Galileo?s Pendulum: If You Love a Flower Found on a Star

Gene Expression: White supremacy and white privilege; same coin

GeoSphere: The Art of Geology

The ?Germ Guy? Blog: Confessions of a Mercurial Microbiologist: From Germ Guy to Monsieur Microbes?

Green Tea and Velociraptors: What is a Fossil Species..?
Green tea and Velociraptors: Dinosaurs: Then and Now

Happy Science: Eating More Chocolate Makes You Skinny
Happy Science: Negative Calorie Food: Science Myths and Legends

The Happy Scientist: Teach It Right the First Time.

The Haystack: How Jagabandhu Das made dasatinib possible
The Haystack: On Birth Control,?Plan B,? and?Batman
The Haystack: Biogen Idec Reveals Clinical Data for (Really) Small Oral MS Drug BG-12
The Haystack: Tetrodotoxin: Why Toxic Is Complicated

ICBS Everywhere: Science and Spin Are Very Bad Bedfellows
ICBS Everywhere: Are Atheists More Compassionate or Prosocial Than Highly Religious People?

In the Company of Plants and Rocks: Taxonomy of Agaves and Vino-mezcal

io9 (Maria Konnikova): What Happens When Alice and Anti-Alice Meet? (A Celebration of Lewis Carroll?s 180th Birthday)
io9 (Annalee Newitz): You are bitching about the wrong things when you read an article about science

Iqsoft science blog: Dilemma

Just Like Cooking: Petition Expedition ? Cancer in Laundry Detergent?
Just Like Cooking: This Just In ? File Under ?Huge Marine Polyethers?
Just Like Cooking: Did Someone Say Pink Slime?
Just Like Cooking: hERG: Legs, Drugs, and Heartbeats
Just Like Cooking: Super Tasters and Smells in Space
Just Like Cooking: The Chemistry Popularity Conundrum
Just Like Cooking: Sunscreen Chemophobia: Oxybenzone
Just Like Cooking: Chemistry Words, with Friends
Just Like Cooking: Friday Fun ? Lab Arts-n-Crafts

Katatrepsis: Why are there imperfect mimics?

KatiePhD: What exactly is a genetically modified plant?
KatiePhD: The Trouble with Teeth?
KatiePhD: Pain-free but itchy: Morphine?s alter ego

LabHomepage: Getting in on the ?what they think? meme

Lab Rat: Pathogens that feed off human blood

Last Word on Nothing (Sally Adee): Better Living Through Electrochemistry
Last Word on Nothing (Christie Aschwanden): What beer and running taught me about science (part 1 of 2) and/or Life without beer: part 2 of my beer & running science experiment

Life Traces of the Georgia Coast: Georgia Life Traces as Art and Science

Listen to Us!: Moby the Manta Ray

Literally Psyched: Our Storytelling Minds: Do We Ever Really Know What?s Going on Inside?

Lithics: Fault Dynamics 101

Magma Cum Laude: This is what a geologist looks like

Making Science Public: GM food, war metaphors and the perils of political entrenchment
Making Science Public: Making science policy public: Exploring the pitfalls of public protest
Making Science Public: Carbon and energy/publics and politics
Making Science Public: Making neuroscience public: Neurohype, neuroscepticism and neuroblogging
Making Science Public: Making science (in) public: What we can learn from museums
Making Science Public: Hype, honesty and trust
Making Science Public: Languages of uncertainty
Making Science Public: Waiting for gate-gate

My Growing Passion: When Plants Parasitise Fungi: myco-heterotrophy

Neurophilosophy: Sleights of hand, sleights of mind

Neurotic Physiology: Do you love Science? Well, that depends, do you like sleep?
Neurotic Physiology: Friday Weird Science: Does your menstrual blood attract BEARS?!
Neurotic Physiology: Friday Weird Science: Laptops and WIFI are coming for your SPERM. Again.
Neurotic Physiology: Overeating and Obesity: Should we really call it food addiction?
Neurotic Physiology: Friday Weird Science: The Social Psychology of Flatulence

Next Scientist: How Writing A Science Blog Saved My PhD

Nottingham Science Blog: Interview : Eben Upton at Raspberry Pi
Nottingham Science Blog: The Birdies and Peanuts Experiment
Nottingham Science Blog: Public Lecture ? Chris Lintott ? Astronomer
Nottingham Science Blog: Interview : Prof Alfonso Arag?n-Salamanca

Observations (Ferris Jabr): Animals Exposed to Virtual Reality Hold an Emergency Meeting

The Organometallic Reader: Ligand Field Theory & Frontier Molecular Orbital Theory

Oscillatory Thoughts: Automated Science, Deep Data, and the Paradox of Information

Powered by Osteons: From Birth to Burial: the Curious Case of Easter Eggs
Powered by Osteons: Childbirth and C-Sections in Bioarchaeology
Powered by Osteons: Line on the left, one cross each: Bioarchaeology of Crucifixion
Powered by Osteons: A Brief History of Bioarchaeology ? Part I: America
Powered by Osteons: Lead Poisoning in Rome ? The Skeletal Evidence

Providentia: That X-ray Vision
Providentia: Why Are People So Skeptical About Psychology?

PsySociety: Why Jersey Shore Won?t Make You Dumber: The Importance Of Responsible Science Journalism
PsySociety: If I Were A Well-Off White Man? I Might Not Understand Other People Very Well.

Puff the Mutant Dragon: Do vaccines contain toxic chemicals?
Puff the Mutant Dragon: Confessions of a Creationist: the making of a serial killer
Puff the Mutant Dragon: Does beer make you blush? or, why ?race? is a myth

Quantum Diaries: Error Control in Science

Questioning Answers: When poo tells a story (and I?m not talking about Winnie)

Reciprocal Space: What?s your favourite colour?

Reportergene: Where are your cells from?
Reportergene: Packaging madness

Rule of 6ix: The ethics of vaccination

Safari Ecology: Why is the African Savanna so full of thorns?

The Scicurious Brain: Cocaine and the sexual habits of quail, or, why does NIH fund what it does?
The Scicurious Brain: It hurts so good: the runner?s high

Science Calling: Seeing through sound
Science Calling: The next chapter of apoptosis research

Science. How hard can it be?: A tale of generations
Science. How hard can it be?: When we become nature?s mice.

Science Is Everyone?s Story: The Health Cost of Black Women?s Hair Products
Science Is Everyone?s Story: Energy Journalism: Cleaning up the Numbers

Science left untitled: Cholera riots?!

Science Sushi: Evolution: The Rise of Complexity
Science Sushi: Time ? and brain chemistry ? heal all wounds
Science Sushi: The Joke Isn?t Funny ? It?s Harmful

Scientific American Guest Blog (See Arr Oh): Cochineal Dye Bugs Starbucks Customers
Scientific American Guest Blog (Alexis Rudd): Singing Snails and Killer Whales: Parallels in Conservation
Scientific American Guest Blog (Deborah Blum): About Pepper Spray
Scientific American Guest Blog (Meera Lee Sethi): Internet Porn Fills Gap in Spider Taxonomy
Scientific American Guest Blog (Cheryl Murphy): Learning the Look of Love: That Sly ?Come Hither? Stare
Scientific American Guest Blog (Cheryl Murphy): Music can change (the way we see) the world
Scientific American Guest Blog (The Dog Zombie): The Hearty Ingredients of Canis Soup
Scientific American Guest Blog (Paige Brown): Catalytic Clothing?-Purifying Air Goes Trendy
Scientific American Guest Blog (Melanie Tannenbaum): Trayvon Martin?s Psychological Killer: Why We See Guns That Aren?t There
Scientific American Guest Blog (Melanie Tannenbaum): If It Looks Like a Compliment, and Sounds Like a Compliment?Is It Really a Compliment?
Scientific American Guest Blog (Sam McNerney): A Brief Guide to Embodied Cognition: Why You Are Not Your Brain
Scientific American Guest Blog (Danica Radovanovic): Digital Divide and Social Media: Connectivity Doesn?t End the Digital Divide, Skills Do
Scientific American Guest Blog (Danica Radovanovic): Phatic Posts: Even the Small Talk Can Be Big

The Scorpion and the Frog: The ?Love Hormone? Pageant and The ?Love Hormone? of 2012 fused into one.

Skulls in the Stars: Fran?ois Arago: the most interesting physicist in the world!
Skulls in the Stars: The secret molecular life of soap bubbles (1913)

Social Dimension: New Ways to Measure Science
Social Dimension: The Fractal Dimension of ZIP Codes

Southern Fried Science: If fish evolved on land, where did they all go? Evolution and Biodiversity in the Ocean

Southern Limits: Seven Myths Deniers Use To ?Debunk? Peak Oil, Debunked

Speakeasy Science: Cough Syrup, Dead Children, and the Case for Regulation

Speaking of Research: A New Low at NIO: extremists threaten students

Squid A Day: Neurotoxins In Stranded Squid (With Bonus Rant About Academic Publishing)
Squid A Day: Why Aren?t Humboldt Squid Giant?

Starts with a Bang: So, you?ve learned that the Sun is going to explode?

The Starving Neuron: Fooled by the senses.
The Starving Neuron: 24 hours in the lab
The Starving Neuron: Bad behaviour

This View of Life: There is Grandeur (Really)

Tim Poisot?s blog: What should the next generation of ecological journals look like?

Token Skeptic: Eye-Witness To A Crime And Not Raisins ? Reflections On The Bystander Effect In Helping Behaviour
Token Skeptic: The Special-Ness Of Species
Token Skeptic: Live-Blogging #ASC2012 ? Monday Morning At The Australian Science Communicators National Conference

Trauma Recovery: Parents tell about their children?s recovery from trauma

Universe Today: A New Look at Apollo Samples Supports Ancient Impact Theory
Universe Today: Is Earth Alive? Scientists Seek Sulfur For An Answer

The Virtuosi: A Very Small Slice of Pi

Watershed Moments: Tree die-off in western North America
Watershed Moments: C is for Communication
Watershed Moments: Food, water & energy

We Beasties: Allergies 101
We Beasties: Allergies 101 ? Part deux
We Beasties: Allergies 101: Part the Third

Words in mOcean: I?m a marine biologist, but sometimes I wish that what I did sounded a bit less interesting?

Zoonotica: How do we know what causes an infectious disease? Part 1 and How do we know what causes an infectious disease? Part 2

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Nuns start tour protesting Republican positions

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Sony Alpha NEX-F3

Despite having a rather odd progression in model names, the Sony Alpha NEX-F3 ($599.99 direct with 18-55mm?lens) is the direct successor to our Editors' Choice Sony Alpha NEX-C3 ($649.99, 4.5 stars). Like its predecessor, the F3 sports a 16-megapixel APS-C image sensor that delivers top-notch images in challenging light, and can focus and fire off images with impressive speed. It adds a built-in flash, an LCD that tilts all the way to face the front of the camera, and support for the FDAEV1S Electronic Viewfinder ($349.99), and in doing so wrangles our Editors' Choice award for entry-level compact interchangeable lens cameras away from the NEX-C3 .

Design and Features
Taking many of its design cues from the NEX-C3, the NEX-F3 ?sports a deeper grip, like the one found on the mid-range NEX-5N ($699.99, 4.5 stars). It's a bit larger and heavier than either camera, measuring 2.6 by 4.6 by 1.7 inches and weighing 11.1 ounces without a lens. (The NEX-5N is 2.4 by 4.4 by 1.6 inches, 9.5 ounces.) The rear LCD tilts, but unlike other NEX cameras, it can face all the way to the front for self portraits. When placed in that position it automatically activates a 3-second self timer and?flips the image horizontally, so that you get the natural feeling of looking in a mirror. Of course, once the actual photo is taken it is saved to the memory card in a normal orientation. The front-facing capability does have a cost. The downward tilt, which is useful when taking shots with the camera above your head, is not as deep as in other models, and if you opt to use the EVF, it blocks a good portion of the view when the LCD faces front.

The larger body also makes room for a built-in flash. It's identical to the one found on the pro-level Sony Alpha NEX-7 ($1,349.99, 4.5 stars), and is hinged so that you can bounce light off of a ceiling to add softer illumination to a scene.

Despite being small for an interchangeable lens camera, the NEX-F3 packs an APS-C image sensor?the same size found in most D-SLRs. Compact systems cameras that use smaller sensors, like the Nikon J1 ($649.95, 3.5 stars) and the Olympus PEN E-PL3 ($699.99, 3.5 stars) have smaller lenses since the physical area that needs to be covered with light isn't as great, but they sacrifice some of the ability to create shallow depth of field. The 18-55mm (27-82mm equivalent) zoom lens included with the F3 isn't quite as large as a typical D-SLR kit zoom, but it's pretty close.

One area in which Micro Four Thirds trumps the NEX system is lens availability?Sony has released a number of lenses for NEX cameras in the past year, but it still lags behind the Micro Four Thirds library. The NEX system currently lacks a fast f/1.4 lens, and the longest telephoto optic only reaches 210mm.

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Aside from its new hinge mechanism, the rear LCD is unchanged from the NEX-C3. It's a 3-inch display with a 921k-dot resolution and a 16:9 aspect ratio. The Live View frame is justified left, while a strip to the right displays the current function of the camera's programmable controls. You can customize three soft keys to suit your needs. My typical configuration is to set the bottom button as a focus assist, as I often use manual focus lenses with the NEX system, and I set the center button to bring up the Shooting Mode menu and use the right button to adjust ISO. In addition to the programmable controls, the camera has dedicated buttons for Drive Mode, EV Compensation, playback, and movie recording.

The menu system is vast and sprawling. Thankfully, once you have the camera configured to your liking you won't have to spend too much time adjusting things, but you may find yourself scratching your head in order to locate specific settings. Hitting Menu on the back of the camera brings up six options: Shoot Mode, Camera, Image Size, Brightness/Color, Playback, and Setup. If you can remember that Focus options are in Camera, Exposure controls in Brightness/Color, and any sort of customization options are in Setup, you should be good to go.

Auto Portrait Framing and Clear Image Zoom options are both located in the Camera menu, but are only active if you're shooting in JPG mode. The former works automatically, saving a cropped version of a portrait alongside your original shot?both in full 16-megapixel resolution. You'll have to activate Clear Image Zoom, which effectively doubles the focal length of your lens via an in-camera crop, although it can be programmed as a soft key function. Unlike traditional cropping, the image is saved as a full-resolution file, with some in-camera?interpolation to better preserve detail. It isn't as sharp as with a telephoto lens, but if you're a JPG shooter and don't plan on making large prints, there is absolutely no reason not to use the function to increase the reach of your lens?the resulting files will be more than adequate for online sharing, and will retain enough detail for printing in, say, a photo book.

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