Shape from sound: New methods to probe the universe

Apr. 3, 2013 ? As the uni?verse expands, it is con?tin?u?ally sub?jected to energy shifts, or "quan?tum fluc?tu?a?tions," that send out lit?tle pulses of "sound" into the fab?ric of space?time. In fact, the uni?verse is thought to have sprung from just such an energy shift.

A recent paper in the jour?nal Phys?i?cal Review Let?ters reports a new math?e?mat?i?cal tool that should allow one to use these sounds to help reveal the shape of the uni?verse. The authors recon?sider an old ques?tion in spec?tral geom?e?try that asks, roughly, to what extent can the shape of a thing be known from the sound of its acoustic vibra?tions? The researchers approached this prob?lem by break?ing it down into small work?able pieces, accord?ing to author Tejal Bhamre, a Prince?ton Uni?ver?sity grad?u?ate stu?dent in the Depart?ment of Physics.

To under?stand the authors' method, con?sider a vase. If one taps a vase with a spoon, it will make a sound that is char?ac?ter?is?tic of its shape. Sim?i?larly, the tech?nique Bhamre and her coau?thors devel?oped could, in prin?ci?ple, deter?mine the shape of space?time from the per?pet?ual ring?ing caused by quan?tum fluctuations.

The researchers' tech?nique also pro?vides a unique con?nec?tion between the two pil?lars of mod?ern physics -- quan?tum the?ory and gen?eral rel?a?tiv?ity -- by using vibra?tional wave?lengths to define the geo?met?ric prop?erty that is spacetime.

Bhamre worked with coau?thors David Aasen, a physics grad?u?ate stu?dent at Cal?tech, and Achim Kempf, a Water?loo Uni?ver?sity pro?fes?sor of physics of information.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Princeton University. The original article was written by Mor?gan Kelly.

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. David Aasen, Tejal Bhamre, Achim Kempf. Shape from Sound: Toward New Tools for Quantum Gravity. Physical Review Letters, 2013; 110 (12) DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.121301

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.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/vTU4S4Dh68g/130403131359.htm

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Gossip Girl Movie Reportedly Being Discussed, Blake Lively Reportedly Not a Fan

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/04/gossip-girl-movie-reportedly-being-discussed-blake-lively-report/

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White supremacists in DA death?

KAUFMAN, Texas (AP) ? Suspicion in the slayings of a Texas district attorney and his wife shifted Monday to a violent white supremacist prison gang that was the focus of a December law enforcement bulletin warning that its members might try to attack police or prosecutors.

The weekend deaths of Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, who were found fatally shot in their home, were especially jarring because they happened just a couple of months after one of the county's assistant district attorneys, Mark Hasse, was killed near his courthouse office.

And less than two weeks ago, Colorado's prison chief was shot to death at his front door, apparently by a white supremacist ex-convict who died in a shootout with deputies after fleeing to Texas.

The Aryan Brotherhood of Texas has been in the state's prison system since the 1980s, when it began as a white supremacist gang that protected its members and ran illegal activities, including drug distribution, according to Terry Pelz, a former Texas prison warden and expert on the gang.

The group, which has a long history of violence and retribution, is now believed to have more than 4,000 members in and out of prison who deal in a variety of criminal enterprises, including prostitution, robbery and murder.

It has a paramilitary structure with five factions around the state, Pelz said. Each faction has a general, who is part of a steering committee known as the "Wheel," which controls all criminal aspects of the gang, according to court papers.

Four top leaders of the group were indicted in October for crimes ranging from murder to drug trafficking. Two months later, authorities issued the bulletin warning that the gang might try to retaliate against law enforcement for the investigation that also led to the arrest of 30 other members.

At the time, prosecutors called the indictments "a devastating blow to the leadership" of the gang. Pelz said the indictments might have fragmented the gang's leadership.

Hasse's death on Jan. 31 came the same day as the first guilty pleas were entered in the indictment. No arrests have been made in his killing.

McLelland was part of a multi-agency task force that investigated the Aryan Brotherhood with help from the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and police in Houston and Fort Worth. McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, were found shot to death Saturday in their rural home just outside the town of Forney, about 20 miles from Dallas.

Detectives have declined to say if the Aryan Brotherhood is the focus of their investigation, but the state Department of Public Safety bulletin warned that the group is "involved in issuing orders to inflict 'mass casualties or death' to law enforcement officials involved in the recent case."

Killing law enforcement representatives would be uncharacteristic of the group, Pelz said.

"They don't go around killing officials," he said. "They don't draw heat upon themselves."

But Pelz, who worked in the Texas prison system for 21 years, said the gang has a history of threatening officials and of killing its own members or rivals.

The 18-count indictment accused gang members of being involved in three murders of rival gang members, multiple attempted murders, kidnappings, assaults and conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and cocaine.

Some of the attempted murders in the indictment involved gang members who were targeted for not following orders or rules or who were believed to be cooperating with law enforcement. The indictment also alleges that gang members discussed killing a police officer in 2008 and allegedly ordered a subordinate gang member to kill a prospect "and to return the victim's severed finger as a trophy."

Meanwhile, law enforcement agencies throughout Texas were on high alert, and steps were being taken to better protect DAs and their staffs.

In Kaufman County, deputies escorted some employees into the courthouse Monday after the slayings stirred fears that other public employees could be targeted. Law enforcement officers were seen patrolling outside the courthouse, one holding a semi-automatic weapon, while others walked around inside.

Over the last century, 14 prosecutors have been killed in the U.S., according to news reports and statistics kept by the National District Attorneys Association.

Deputies were called to the McLelland home by relatives and friends who had been unable to reach the pair, according to a search warrant affidavit. When they arrived, investigators found the couple had been shot multiple times. Cartridge casings were scattered near their bodies, the affidavit said.

Authorities have not discussed a motive.

The slayings also called to mind the death of Colorado's corrections director, Tom Clements, who was killed March 19 when he answered the doorbell at his home outside Colorado Springs. Two days later, Evan Spencer Ebel, a white supremacist and former Colorado inmate suspected of shooting Clements, died in a shootout with Texas deputies about 100 miles from Kaufman.

In an Associated Press interview shortly after the Colorado killing, McLelland himself raised the possibility that Hasse was gunned down by a white supremacist gang.

After that attack, McLelland said, he carried a gun everywhere around town, even when walking his dog. He figured assassins were more likely to try to attack him outside. He said he had warned all his employees to be constantly on the alert.

___

Lozano reported from Houston. Associated Press Writer Angela K. Brown in Fort Worth also contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/suspicion-da-death-shifts-white-supremacists-223215989.html

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Google's Director Of Privacy Alma Whitten Steps Down

As Forbes first reported this afternoon, Alma Whitten, Google’s director of privacy for product and engineering, has decided to step down from her current position. Google has now confirmed this. Whitten joined Google 10 years ago and oversaw the company’s privacy policies during a tumultuous time when its Street View cars were accused of spying on people’s Wi-Fi networks and Google decided to consolidate its over 70 privacy policies under a single document. Whitten has a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon, where her thesis looked into “Making Security Usable.” She spent seven years as an engineer at the company before she was promoted to director of privacy right after the Wi-Fi Street View story broke and Google had been severely criticized for the privacy controls of Buzz, its pre-Google+ attempt at launching a social network. At the time, Google described her as “an internationally recognized expert in the computer science field of privacy and security. She has been our engineering lead on privacy for the last two years, and we will significantly increase the number of engineers and product managers working with her in this new role.” Whitten, Forbes reports, will be replaced by Lawrence You, a Google engineer who previously worked at Pixo, Apple and Taligent. Forbes reports Whitten will remain at the company to oversee the transition.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/4UeqQxNU9dI/

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Facebook Is In Danger Of Becoming Yahoo - Business Insider

Getty Images/Flickr

Yahoo's Marissa Meyer and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg.

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Facebook is in danger of becoming a big, old-fashioned web publisher like Yahoo?or AOL because it is now more concerned with audience "reach" than it is with the unique way Facebook users interact with each other inside the social network, Ad Age suggests.

"Reach" is about the scale or size of the audience. Television has been the premier "reach" medium for decades. (In fact, Facebook is gunning for TV's ad dollars.)

Facebook, by contrast, has always been about "social" advertising, that is, super-relevant ads that are keyed off the organic interaction of its users.

Ad Age's Cotton Delo states the obvious about Facebook's recent movies into ads generated by automated real-time bidding (via Facebook's FBX exchange) and "custom audiences," in which companies match their own marketing lists against Facebook's.

But, crucially, she notes that big advertisers, who need big audiences ? where the real money is ? might never have been that interested in the social side:

While Facebook clearly isn't abandoning social ads, its adoption of more tried-and-true online-ad models has the advantage of being more easily explained to CMOs, most of whom never grasped the significance of accruing fans and "likes," according to Colin Sutton, social-media director at OMD.

One agency chief even suggested that Facebook might be on the road to Yahoo-dom:

Ian Schafer, CEO of Deep Focus.? "It's become less about having a relationship ... and more about reach," he said. "I would hate to see Facebook just end up being a publisher like everyone else is."

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-is-in-danger-of-becoming-yahoo-because-advertisers-dont-understand-social-2013-4

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This Accordion-Shaped House Doesn't Quite Fit In

This meandering house was planned around a central narrow corridor, resulting in its accordion-like shape. Designed by FujiwaraMuro Architects, it's a bit out of place in a Japanese residential neighborhood filled with traditional homes. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/AbGR6I10f0c/this-accordion+shaped-house-doesnt-quite-fit-in

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Indian Supreme Court Denies Novartis Cancer Drug Patent

Correction: the price of testing drugs is mostly due to the bribes that need to be applied for them to be approved and the patents granted.

About the closest thing to a bribe you'll see in first-world drug development is the payments to the doctors who participate in the clinical trials. That is actually a considerable part of the trial costs. The payment can't induce them to manipulate the trial results, since the doctors don't have the ability to do this (the trials are double-blind - if they lied and said the patient was doing better than they actually were it would just affect the placebo group as much). However, if you don't throw money at doctors they won't bother to tell their patients about the option of participating in the trial.

Unfortunately, sometimes the money does cause doctors to enroll patients for whom the trials are inappropriate. Companies actually try to stop this, because it is likely to result in a drug NOT being approved (if you give a pill to somebody who is not expected to benefit from it, you add noise to the data which is already quite noisy).

So, while lots of money in the pharma industry gets spent on lots of stuff, the fact remains that it does cost hundreds of millions of dollars to test drug candidates, and most of the time the testing demonstrates that the drug is not safe/effective.

Oh, I'm all for having the NIH competitively do drug development/testing/etc (and making the resulting drugs freely licensable within the US, for use in 3rd world countries, and in 1st world countries that make similar investments and reciprocate). However, I don't think that it will magically make the testing less expensive, unless the whole healthcare system changes so that doctors can be compelled to participate in trials without much additional compensation (that is something that would be more likely to work in a country with nationalized healthcare, though it is worth pointing out that clinical trials tend to happen on a global scale anyway).

In the drug industry the patent system is in part used to let the high-risk/high-cost of development pay for itself. A tweaked molecule might not be very innovative, but it is just as expensive to test. If rulings like this prevail then you simply won't see tweaked molecules developed using private money, even if the resulting drug is a substantial improvement for patients. Again, there are other ways to fund drug development, but I'd like to see those methods employed and demonstrated as successful before we just pull the plug on the drug industry. There is no reason that publicly funded efforts can't just compete with the private ones - the public drugs would be much cheaper for consumers so they'll have no trouble if the R&D labs manage to come up with the goods. The pharma industry has been laying off so many scientists of late that the NIH shouldn't have trouble hiring some...

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/s_IWrOoYVM0/story01.htm

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