Even brown dwarfs may grow rocky planets: Sizing up grains of cosmic dust around failed star

ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2012) ? Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have for the first time found that the outer region of a dusty disc encircling a brown dwarf contains millimetre-sized solid grains like those found in denser discs around newborn stars. The surprising finding challenges theories of how rocky, Earth-scale planets form, and suggests that rocky planets may be even more common in the Universe than expected.

Rocky planets are thought to form through the random collision and sticking together of what are initially microscopic particles in the disc of material around a star. These tiny grains, known as cosmic dust, are similar to very fine soot or sand. However, in the outer regions around a brown dwarf -- a star-like object, but one too small to shine brightly like a star -- astronomers expected that grains could not grow because the discs were too sparse, and particles would be moving too fast to stick together after colliding. Also, prevailing theories say that any grains that manage to form should move quickly towards the central brown dwarf, disappearing from the outer parts of the disc where they could be detected.

"We were completely surprised to find millimetre-sized grains in this thin little disc," said Luca Ricci of the California Institute of Technology, USA, who led a team of astronomers based in the United States, Europe and Chile. "Solid grains of that size shouldn't be able to form in the cold outer regions of a disc around a brown dwarf, but it appears that they do. We can't be sure if a whole rocky planet could develop there, or already has, but we're seeing the first steps, so we're going to have to change our assumptions about conditions required for solids to grow," he said.

ALMA's increased resolution compared to previous telescopes also allowed the team to pinpoint carbon monoxide gas around the brown dwarf -- the first time that cold molecular gas has been detected in such a disc. This discovery, and that of the millimetre-size grains, suggest that the disc is much more similar to the ones around young stars than previously expected.

Ricci and his colleagues made their finding using the partially completed ALMA telescope in the high-altitude Chilean desert. ALMA is a growing collection of high precision, dish-shaped antennas that work together as one large telescope to observe the Universe with groundbreaking detail and sensitivity. ALMA "sees" the Universe in millimetre-wavelength light, which is invisible to human eyes. Construction of ALMA is scheduled to finish in 2013, but astronomers began observing with a partial array of ALMA dishes in 2011.

The astronomers pointed ALMA at the young brown dwarf ISO-Oph 102, also known as Rho-Oph 102, in the Rho Ophiuchi star-forming region in the constellation of Ophiuchus (The Serpent Bearer). With about 60 times the mass of Jupiter but only 0.06 times that of the Sun, the brown dwarf has too little mass to ignite the thermonuclear reactions by which ordinary stars shine. However, it emits heat released by its slow gravitational contraction and shines with a reddish colour, albeit much less brightly than a star.

ALMA collected light with wavelengths around a millimetre, emitted by disc material warmed by the brown dwarf. The grains in the disc do not emit much radiation at wavelengths longer than their own size, so a characteristic drop-off in the brightness can be measured at longer wavelengths. ALMA is an ideal instrument for measuring this drop-off and thus for sizing up the grains. The astronomers compared the brightness of the disc at wavelengths of 0.89 mm and 3.2 mm. The drop-off in brightness from 0.89 mm to 3.2 mm was not as steep as expected, showing that at least some of the grains are a millimetre or more in size.

"ALMA is a powerful new tool for solving mysteries of planetary system formation," commented Leonardo Testi from ESO, a member of the research team. "Trying this with previous generation telescopes would have needed almost a month of observing -- impossibly long in practice. But, using just a quarter of ALMA's final complement of antennas, we were able to do it in less than one hour!" he said.

In the near future, the completed ALMA telescope will be powerful enough to make detailed images of the discs around Rho-Oph 102 and other objects. Ricci explained, "We will soon be able to not only detect the presence of small particles in discs, but to map how they are spread across the circumstellar disc and how they interact with the gas that we've also detected in the disc. This will help us better understand how planets come to be."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by European Southern Observatory - ESO.

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. L. Ricci, L. Testi, A. Natta, A. Scholz and I. De Gregorio-Monsalvo. ALMA OBSERVATIONS OF ?-OPH 102: GRAIN GROWTH AND MOLECULAR GAS IN THE DISK AROUND A YOUNG BROWN DWARF. Astrophysical Journal Letters, 2012 (in press)

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/strange_science/~3/uwSfGYyN0Mk/121130095118.htm

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Managing Heart Disease The Natural Way

Heart disease comprises of conditions that affect your cardiac system and include cardiac arrest, angina, and stroke. Cardiovascular disease is a condition referred to as atherosclerosis. With this condition, blood circulation is affected. This may lead to much pressure that thickens the walls making the flow of blood restricted.

Unhealthy diet, smoking, and overweight are major causes of atherosclerosis. Other cardiac conditions are such as arrhythmia, which is simply an abnormal heart rhythm. Your heart could also experience defects, which may occur right from birth or as a person ages. Infections like bacteria, virus, and parasites may also cause problems related to the cardiac.

Heart disease cause more deaths in men and women in United States than any other health condition. It is estimated that about 1 million people lose their lives from this condition every year in America, and by 2020, it will be the leading cause of deaths in the world. Nations are struggling to keep up with the increasing costs of managing cardiac-related complications.

Diet is essential when managing heart disease and patients should pay attention to what they eat. Patients can reduce the risks of suffering atherosclerosis or hardening of blood vessels if they stick to a diet, which is healthy. Similarly, if the vessels have become stiff and you are experiencing clogging, this could be slowed by adjusting to the right diet.

A diet suitable for your heart should be able to reduce the amount of low-density lipoproteins- LDL. This is the bad cholesterol, which is responsible for stiffening of the vessel walls. The diet should also help lower the amount of blood sugar, which could result to cardiac problems. In addition, taking food that lowers blood pressure also helps keep your cardiac system healthy.

Fish is a good source of nutrients including protein, and contains omega-3 fatty acids. The omega-3 fatty acids are helpful in clearing the vessels and could reduce the risks of stroke and other cardiac problems. Vegetable and fruits are also important because they contain essential nutrients and vitamins that help boost the body immune system and metabolic activities for a hearty cardiac system.

Non-saturated fats like those found in peanuts and olive oil are equally important when managing conditions of the cardiac. Simple sugars like carbohydrates found in soft drinks and sweets should be minimized. In addition, patients should avoid taking processed meat as it may contain sodium additives and nitrites, which could increase risks of suffering cardiac problems. Some form co chelation therapy may also be of help.

Exercise is recommended whether you are managing a health condition or just keeping your body fit. This is why it is important to have regular exercises throughout your life and this helps keep the body strong and enhance the immune system. Exercise helps lower blood sugar and high blood pressure. In addition, physical exercise helps improve the flow of blood.

When you exercise your body, you bring down the bad cholesterol- LDL and raise the good cholesterol- HDL. You can manage your weight with moderate exercise consisting of aerobic and resistant training. Another important thing, which you need to emphasize on, is water intake. You body needs water for life and without it, your tissues become dehydrated and cells do not function properly, something which affects the management of a Heart Disease.

About Clifford Woods

Clifford Woods is the CEO of Organic Environmental Technology. You can purchase beneficial microorganism products here: Purchase Here He is also the Executive Director of Vibrant Life: http://www.oralchelation.com Mr. Woods, who holds a bachelors degree (equiv) in Business Administration, is also considered a stellar trouble shooter and excels in untangling complex business and personal issues.

Source: http://www.bestarticlepost.com/261864/managing-heart-disease-the-natural-way?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=managing-heart-disease-the-natural-way

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Black hole upsets galaxy models

Public release date: 29-Nov-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Remco van den Bosch
bosch@mpia.de
49-622-152-8381
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft

An unusually massive object at the heart of a tiny galaxy is challenging the theory

This press release is available in German.

A group headed by Remco van den Bosch from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy has discovered a black hole that shakes the foundations of current models of galaxy evolution. This monster has 17 billion solar masses and is thus significantly heavier than the models predict. And even more significantly: the object could be the most massive black hole known to date.

Astronomers believe there is a super-massive black hole at the heart of every galaxy. Its mass ranges from several hundred thousand solar masses to a few billion. The black hole that has been best investigated has around four million solar masses and sits at the centre of our home galaxy, the Milky Way.

Studies of the masses of distant galaxies and their black holes have turned up an interesting relationship: accordingly, a black hole typically reaches only a tiny fraction - around 0.1 percent - of the total mass of all stars belonging to the parent galaxy. Although this relationship is not completely understood, it plays an important role in all current galaxy evolution models.

Now, during a systematic search which started in 2010, the team headed by Remco van den Bosch has tracked down a black hole that could upset this generally accepted relationship. To accomplish this, the astronomers used the Hobby-Eberly telescope and archived images from the Hubble space telescope.

The Hobby-Eberly telescope at the McDonald observatory in Texas/USA has a main mirror measuring 11 by 9.8 metres in total and is comprised of 91 hexagonal sub-mirrors. Thanks to the size of the optics, the observation of each individual galaxy can be carried out relatively quickly; the team was able to obtain almost 700 galactic spectra.

The spectra enabled the astronomers to draw conclusions about the motions of the stars, which depend directly on the gravitation of the black hole. With the aid of specific changes, such as the shift of spectral lines (Doppler effect), they were able to derive the velocity, for example. The rule here: the more massive the black hole, the more rapid the motion of the stars in the centre of the galaxy.

The team thus identified six candidate galaxies which were comparatively small and had to have large black holes. The archives of the Hubble space telescope already contained detailed images of one of them, NGC 1277.

In order to determine the mass of the black hole, van den Bosch and his colleagues produced a dynamic model of the galaxy that includes all possible stellar orbits. Systematic comparisons of model and observation data then showed which orbits in combination with which mass value for the black hole provided the best explanation for the observations.

In the case of the NGC 1277 disk galaxy, the astronomers arrived at around 17 billion solar masses. This meant that the black hole could be the largest known object of this class. Researchers estimate the mass of the current record holder to be between 6 and 37 billion solar masses; if the true value is at the lower end, NGC 1277 breaks this record.

The greatest surprise for the astronomers was that the mass of the huge gravitational trap amounted to around 14 percent of NGC 1277's total mass - which is significantly more that the 0.1 percent stated above and means a factor of more than ten. In other words: the astronomers had expected a black hole of this size in an unstructured ("elliptic") galaxy at least ten times as big - but not in a small disk galaxy like NGC 1277.

Is this a rare freak of nature, an exception? Preliminary analyses of further data point in a different direction: Remco van den Bosch and his colleagues have to date discovered five further galaxies which are comparatively small, but might nevertheless have unusually massive central black holes. This will only be known for sure when detailed images of these galactic systems are available, however.

If these further cases are confirmed and there are indeed more black holes like the one found in NGC 1277, then astronomers will need to fundamentally rethink their galaxy evolution models. They will particularly have to direct their attention to the early universe: the NGC 1277 galaxy appears to have formed more than eight billion years ago and has not changed very much since then. No matter how this gigantic black hole formed - it must have happened a long time ago.

###

Original publication:

R. van den Bosch et al.

An over-massive black hole in the compact lenticular galaxy NGC 1277

Nature, November 29, 2012: doi:10.1038/nature11592 (2012)

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

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: 29-Nov-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Remco van den Bosch
bosch@mpia.de
49-622-152-8381
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft

An unusually massive object at the heart of a tiny galaxy is challenging the theory

This press release is available in German.

A group headed by Remco van den Bosch from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy has discovered a black hole that shakes the foundations of current models of galaxy evolution. This monster has 17 billion solar masses and is thus significantly heavier than the models predict. And even more significantly: the object could be the most massive black hole known to date.

Astronomers believe there is a super-massive black hole at the heart of every galaxy. Its mass ranges from several hundred thousand solar masses to a few billion. The black hole that has been best investigated has around four million solar masses and sits at the centre of our home galaxy, the Milky Way.

Studies of the masses of distant galaxies and their black holes have turned up an interesting relationship: accordingly, a black hole typically reaches only a tiny fraction - around 0.1 percent - of the total mass of all stars belonging to the parent galaxy. Although this relationship is not completely understood, it plays an important role in all current galaxy evolution models.

Now, during a systematic search which started in 2010, the team headed by Remco van den Bosch has tracked down a black hole that could upset this generally accepted relationship. To accomplish this, the astronomers used the Hobby-Eberly telescope and archived images from the Hubble space telescope.

The Hobby-Eberly telescope at the McDonald observatory in Texas/USA has a main mirror measuring 11 by 9.8 metres in total and is comprised of 91 hexagonal sub-mirrors. Thanks to the size of the optics, the observation of each individual galaxy can be carried out relatively quickly; the team was able to obtain almost 700 galactic spectra.

The spectra enabled the astronomers to draw conclusions about the motions of the stars, which depend directly on the gravitation of the black hole. With the aid of specific changes, such as the shift of spectral lines (Doppler effect), they were able to derive the velocity, for example. The rule here: the more massive the black hole, the more rapid the motion of the stars in the centre of the galaxy.

The team thus identified six candidate galaxies which were comparatively small and had to have large black holes. The archives of the Hubble space telescope already contained detailed images of one of them, NGC 1277.

In order to determine the mass of the black hole, van den Bosch and his colleagues produced a dynamic model of the galaxy that includes all possible stellar orbits. Systematic comparisons of model and observation data then showed which orbits in combination with which mass value for the black hole provided the best explanation for the observations.

In the case of the NGC 1277 disk galaxy, the astronomers arrived at around 17 billion solar masses. This meant that the black hole could be the largest known object of this class. Researchers estimate the mass of the current record holder to be between 6 and 37 billion solar masses; if the true value is at the lower end, NGC 1277 breaks this record.

The greatest surprise for the astronomers was that the mass of the huge gravitational trap amounted to around 14 percent of NGC 1277's total mass - which is significantly more that the 0.1 percent stated above and means a factor of more than ten. In other words: the astronomers had expected a black hole of this size in an unstructured ("elliptic") galaxy at least ten times as big - but not in a small disk galaxy like NGC 1277.

Is this a rare freak of nature, an exception? Preliminary analyses of further data point in a different direction: Remco van den Bosch and his colleagues have to date discovered five further galaxies which are comparatively small, but might nevertheless have unusually massive central black holes. This will only be known for sure when detailed images of these galactic systems are available, however.

If these further cases are confirmed and there are indeed more black holes like the one found in NGC 1277, then astronomers will need to fundamentally rethink their galaxy evolution models. They will particularly have to direct their attention to the early universe: the NGC 1277 galaxy appears to have formed more than eight billion years ago and has not changed very much since then. No matter how this gigantic black hole formed - it must have happened a long time ago.

###

Original publication:

R. van den Bosch et al.

An over-massive black hole in the compact lenticular galaxy NGC 1277

Nature, November 29, 2012: doi:10.1038/nature11592 (2012)

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

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.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-11/m-bh112912.php

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Frederick County Parks and Recreation Sports: Winter Indoor ...

The Frederick County Winter Indoor Soccer League will be starting back up in January!

We will be offering this league at three rec center locations this winter.? Children will be divided up into teams depending on how many are registered and will play a game each saturday for 6 weeks.

Middletown Recreation Center on Saturdays, starting January 19th
Ages: 4-6 year old
Time: 9:00am-Noon
Cost: $50 per child / $30 per coaches child

Centerville?Recreation Center on Sundays, starting January 20th
Ages: 4-6 year old
Time: 12:30pm-4:30pm
Cost: $50 per child / $30 per coaches child

Tuscarora Recreation Center on Sundays, starting January 20th
Ages: 6-8 year old
Time: 1:30pm-5:30pm
Cost: $50 per child / $30 per coaches child

For more information or to register please visit our website at www.recreater.com or call our main office at 301-600-2936.

Source: http://fredcosports.blogspot.com/2012/11/winter-indoor-soccer-leagues.html

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Students at cooperative schools are more engaged

ScienceDaily (Nov. 26, 2012) ? Student engagement is not independent of the type of school attended. Nor is it independent of the organisational development of the school. The school's organisational style affects the work of its teaching staff, which, in turn, has repercussions on the performance and engagement of their students. As Iker Ros, the UPV/EHU researcher, has been able to verify in his PhD thesis, these factors vary when comparing public schools, subsidised schools and co-operative schools, the latter being the ones that fare best.

"The study of engagement is a subject that motivates me a lot, because I believe that a student who is engaged with his or her school is also engaged with his or her environment," says Iker Ros. As a PhD holder in Psychopedagogy, he has analysed the differences in the organisational development of schools by looking at their typology and the level of engagement of their students, and highlights that the best results were achieved at the associated work co-operative school in Vitoria-Gasteiz (Basque Country).

The study was carried out with students from primary and secondary school. The thesis is entitled "Desarrolloorganizacional de unacooperativa de trabajoasociado y la Implicaci?n de sus estudiantes y docentes" (Organisational Development of an associated work cooperative and the Engagement of its students and teaching staff) and some of his conclusions have been published recently in the Revista de Psicodid?ctica.

The greater the organisational development, the more engagement there is

According to the results, organisational development is higher in a co-operative than in subsidised schools, and public schools come between the two. "We have established highly significant statistical differences," explains Ros; "you have to bear in mind that the associated work co-operative is much more horizontal. In schools of this kind people collaborate more, and this leads to greater organisational learning. They are organisations that learn."

As far as the students are concerned, it has also been the students at a co-operative school who have displayed the greatest engagement, while those of the public schools are the most hostile. "If the biggest difference in the engagement of the workers is to be found between the co-operative and the subsidised schools, the same thing does not happen with respect to the students. The biggest difference emerges between the co-operative and the public schools, which indicates to us that work clearly needs to be done with the students attending public schools which, despite having a more similar organisational development, have less engagement," reflects Ros.

This engagement is made up of three elements: the emotional or psychological aspect, translated into the feeling of belonging to the school; the behavioural element, which is extracted from the data on student participation in teaching and extramural activities; and the cognitive element that has to do with the students' perception of academic work and future expectations. "It is a subject that is of great educational importance in the Anglo-Saxon sphere and in China and Taiwan as well," stresses the author, "but studies on the subject have not yet been published here."

Ros has also detected differences with respect to the sex and age of the students. For example, engagement is greater among girls than among boys, and in both cases falls with age, above all at secondary school and sixth form levels.

In this study the author also wanted to check whether the teaching staff is the factor that most influences the students, as established by previous pieces of research. On the basis of the hypothesis that the greater the organisational development is, the greater and better the work of the teaching staff is, and consequently the greater student engagement is, Ros believes that the results leave no room for doubt. "The results seem to indicate that, in actual fact, the work of the teacher and his/her engagement would need to be better considered, but this is being undermined today at a time of cutbacks," he stresses. In this respect, Ros foresees an increase in the number of associated work co-operative schools due primarily to two factors: firstly, the economic crisis, and the fall in the number of members of religious orders who are putting the management of their schools into the hands of teachers through co-operative formulas.

The research was carried out at 14 public (10) and subsidised (4) schools in the Basque Country and Catalonia -- in collaboration with the Autonomous University of Barcelona -- ; and at an associated work co-operative school in Vitoria-Gasteiz. A total of 1,273 students between 9 and 17, and 343 teachers participated in the study.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Basque Research.

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---

Journal Reference:

1. Iker Ros, Javier Goikoetxea, Joaqu?n Gair?n, Pablo Lekue. Student Engagement in the School: Interpersonal and Inter-Center Differences // Implicaci?n del alumnado en la escuela: diferencias interindividuales e intercentros. Revista de Psicodidactica / Journal of Psychodidactics, 2012; DOI: 10.1387/RevPsicodidact.4557

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

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/M3AyDIHJssM/121126142951.htm

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Funneling the sun's energy: New way of harnessing photons for electricity proposed

ScienceDaily (Nov. 26, 2012) ? The quest to harness a broader spectrum of sunlight's energy to produce electricity has taken a radically new turn, with the proposal of a "solar energy funnel" that takes advantage of materials under elastic strain.

"We're trying to use elastic strains to produce unprecedented properties," says Ju Li, an MIT professor and corresponding author of a paper describing the new solar-funnel concept that was published this week in the journal Nature Photonics.

In this case, the "funnel" is a metaphor: Electrons and their counterparts, holes -- which are split off from atoms by the energy of photons -- are driven to the center of the structure by electronic forces, not by gravity as in a household funnel. And yet, as it happens, the material actually does assume the shape of a funnel: It is a stretched sheet of vanishingly thin material, poked down at its center by a microscopic needle that indents the surface and produces a curved, funnel-like shape.

The pressure exerted by the needle imparts elastic strain, which increases toward the sheet's center. The varying strain changes the atomic structure just enough to "tune" different sections to different wavelengths of light -- including not just visible light, but also some of the invisible spectrum, which accounts for much of sunlight's energy.

Li, who holds joint appointments as the Battelle Energy Alliance Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering and as a professor of materials science and engineering, sees the manipulation of strain in materials as opening a whole new field of research.

Strain -- defined as the pushing or pulling of a material into a different shape -- can be either elastic or inelastic. Xiaofeng Qian, a postdoc in MIT's Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering who was a co-author of the paper, explains that elastic strain corresponds to stretched atomic bonds, while inelastic, or plastic, strain corresponds to broken or switched atomic bonds. A spring that is stretched and released is an example of elastic strain, whereas a piece of crumpled tinfoil is a case of plastic strain.

The new solar-funnel work uses precisely controlled elastic strain to govern electrons' potential in the material. The MIT team used computer modeling to determine the effects of the strain on a thin layer of molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂), a material that can form a film just a single molecule (about six angstroms) thick.

It turns out that the elastic strain, and therefore the change that is induced in electrons' potential energy, changes with their distance from the funnel's center -- much like the electron in a hydrogen atom, except this "artificial atom" is much larger in size and is two-dimensional. In the future, the researchers hope to carry out laboratory experiments to confirm the effect.

Unlike graphene, another prominent thin-film material, MoS₂ is a natural semiconductor: It has a crucial characteristic, known as a bandgap, that allows it to be made into solar cells or integrated circuits. But unlike silicon, now used in most solar cells, placing the film under strain in the "solar energy funnel" configuration causes its bandgap to vary across the surface, so that different parts of it respond to different colors of light.

In an organic solar cell, the electron-hole pair, called an exciton, moves randomly through the material after being generated by photons, limiting the capacity for energy production. "It's a diffusion process," Qian says, "and it's very inefficient."

But in the solar funnel, he adds, the electronic characteristics of the material "leads them to the collection site [at the film's center], which should be more efficient for charge collection."

The convergence of four trends, Li says, "has opened up this elastic strain engineering field recently": the development of nanostructured materials, such as carbon nanotubes and MoS₂, that are capable of retaining large amounts of elastic strain indefinitely; the development of the atomic force microscope and next-generation nanomechanical instruments, which impose force in a controlled manner; electron microscopy and synchrotron facilities, needed to directly measure the elastic strain field; and electronic-structure calculation methods for predicting the effects of elastic strain on a material's physical and chemical properties.

"People knew for a long time that by applying high pressure, you can induce huge changes in material properties," Li says. But more recent work has shown that controlling strain in different directions, such as shear and tension, can yield an enormous variety of properties.

One of the first commercial applications of elastic-strain engineering was the achievement, by IBM and Intel, of a 50 percent improvement in velocity of electrons simply by imparting a 1 percent elastic strain on nanoscale silicon channels in transistors.

The work was done with Ji Feng of Peking University and Cheng-Wei Huang, and was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The original article was written by David L. Chandler.

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. Ji Feng, Xiaofeng Qian, Cheng-Wei Huang, Ju Li. Strain-engineered artificial atom as a broad-spectrum solar energy funnel. Nature Photonics, 2012; DOI: 10.1038/NPHOTON.2012.285

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/matter_energy/electronics/~3/XlOWu2a6vXU/121126110741.htm

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FBI uses Twitter, social media to look for securities fraud

9 hrs.

Matthew Goldstein and Jennifer Ablan , Reuters

(Reuters) - The FBI sees social media as a potential breeding ground for securities fraud, and has agents scouring Twitter and Facebook for tips, according to two top agents overseeing a long-running investigation into insider trading in the $2 trillion hedge fund industry.

April Brooks, a special agent in charge of the New York field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and David Chaves, a supervisory agent, said it is hard to predict the next wave of securities fraud, but they add that it will have a lot to do with advances in technology and social media.

"I will tell you technology will play a huge part, social media, Twitter. Any kind of technology that is new and doesn't exist today, if there is any way to exploit it, these individuals will exploit it," Brooks told Reuters TV in an interview for the Reuters Investment Outlook 2013 Summit.

Brooks and Chaves oversee what the FBI calls "Operation Perfect Hedge," which has led to more than 60 convictions of hedge fund traders, analysts and industry consultants.

Last Tuesday, a day after the Reuters TV interview, the government charged a former employee of Steven A. Cohen's SAC Capital, Mathew Martoma, with a $276 million insider trading scheme that prosecutors called "the most lucrative" ever.

While Cohen, whose $14 billion hedge fund is one of the most successful and best known on Wall Street, was not charged with any wrongdoing, the complaint says he signed off on trades in Elan Corp and Wyeth in July 2008 ahead of bad news about a clinical drug trial the companies were working on.

Brooks and Chaves gave no hints about the SAC case in the interview, and declined to talk about active investigations.

"Some view insider trading as reaching this crescendo, and we have reached a top. I would suggest we have not," Chaves said.

Investors embrace Twitter
Hedge funds, big institutional investors and investment research firms, such as Muddy Waters (@muddywatersre), have embraced Twitter as a platform for sharing their ideas and investment strategies.

On November 20, PIMCO's Bill Gross tweeted via @PIMCO: "Bernanke confirms PIMCO's New Normal after 3 years! 2% economic potential at least for a time. Probably lower & longer Mr. Chairman."

Gross was referring to Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, and PIMCO's portfolio positioning for what he calls a "New Normal" developed world economy - 2.0 percent real growth and 2 percent inflation.

"People have used Twitter as a powerful distribution mechanism, occasionally with meaningful market impact," said independent analyst Daniel Yu, who is an avid user of Twitter under the handle @LongShortTrader.

Studies and research reports have shown that Twitter can be used as an early indicator of changing investor sentiment around particular stocks and commodities. This allows Twitter data to be used to predict price fluctuations in the market.

One report, authored by academics Johan Bollen, Huina Mao and Xiao-Jun Zeng, says the degree of "calmness" of the Twitterverse can predict - with 87.6 percent accuracy -- how the Dow Jones industrial average will move two to six days ahead of time.

Some hedge funds and other investors have criticized U.S. authorities for cracking down on insider trading to distract attention from the fact that law enforcement has not been able to bring any prosecutions against Wall Street bankers over the financial crisis.

Brooks and Chaves acknowledged the criticism. They said there is a desire to prosecute, but the laws are not there to criminalize actions that some think deserve to be punished.

"I wouldn't say we have missed opportunities," Brooks said, commenting on the 2008 financial crisis. "There may be others who are responsible, but who don't necessarily violate the federal statutes."

The two agents, who both work in the securities division of the New York branch of the FBI, said that when they meet with people on Wall Street, they explain there is no vendetta or campaign against the hedge fund industry. The insider trading investigation is simply part of an effort to make the markets more fair for everybody.

"The message is we are out there, and we are going to continue to be out there," Brooks said. "This type of violation, this type of crime impacts everyone."

(Reporting by Matthew Goldstein and Jennifer Ablan; Editing by Tiffany Wu and Jan Paschal)

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Check for restrictions at: http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/fbi-uses-twitter-social-media-look-securities-fraud-1C7209895

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Activists: Syrian rebels seize major dam in north

BEIRUT (AP) ? Syrian rebels on Monday captured a hydroelectric dam on the Euphrates River in the country's north after days of heavy clashes, carting off boxes of ammunition from defeated regime forces in the latest in a string of recent strategic advances for opposition fighters, activists said.

Also Monday, activists said rebels and pro-government Kurdish gunmen struck a truce to end days of fighting in the town of Ras al-Ayn near the border with Turkey that opposition forces entered earlier this month.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebel fighters overran regime defenses and captured the Tishrin Dam, near the town of Manbij, before dawn Monday. Observatory director Rami Abdul-Rahman said the dam supplies several areas of Syria with electricity.

"This is a major blow to the regime," said Abdul-Rahman by telephone, describing the dam as "strategic location" on the Euphrates, which flows from Turkey through Syria and into Iraq.

The rebels have scored a series of hard-fought strategic advances recently, perhaps even seizing the momentum in their relentless battle of topple President Bashar Assad's regime. On Sunday, they captured a regime helicopter base outside Damascus before pulling back for fear of government airstrikes.

Amateur videos posted online showed gunmen inside the dam's operations room as an employee sat in front of five screens speaking by telephone about the level of water behind the dam. Another video showed gunman in front of dozens of green wooden boxes apparently full of munitions.

A gunman opened one of the boxes showing that it contained hand grenades. "The Free Syrian Army has fully liberated the Tishrin Dam," one of the rebels could be heard saying.

The activist videos appeared genuine and corresponded to other AP reporting about the events depicted. Syria restricts the access of reporters.

Syria's conflict started in March 2011 as an uprising against Assad's regime, but quickly morphed into a civil war that has since killed more than 40,000 people, according to activists. It has also prompted hundreds of thousands of Syrians to flee to neighboring Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey.

Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency said airstrikes by regime warplanes killed and wounded several people in the Syrian border town Atmeh on Monday. The agency said some of the wounded were brought to Turkey for treatment, and several people were also heading to the Turkish border to seek refuge. Atmeh is about 130 kilometers (80 miles) west of the Tishrin Dam.

A local official in the Turkish town of Reyhanli confirmed that Turkish F-16 jets flew over the border region Monday. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.

The Observatory reported air raids on other areas as well, including the northern towns of Maaret al-Numan, Kfar Rouma and Harem.

Also Monday, Kurdish activist Mustafa Osso and the Observatory's Abdul-Rahman said the town of Ras al-Ayn has been quiet since Saturday after fighters from the government-leaning Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD, reached an agreement on a truce with rebels, most of them from Islamist extremist groups, including the al-Qaida-inspired Jabhat al-Nusra.

The rebels entered the town earlier this month and have since clashed almost daily with PYD gunmen for control over the area. Both factions add to the complexity of Syria's conflict, which has taken on heavy sectarian ? and ethnic ? overtones.

The fighting in recent days has left dozens of people killed or wounded, and dozens captured on both sides. Osso and Abdul-Rahman said PYD forces and the rebels agreed to exchange prisoners and to withdraw their militiamen from the town.

Abdul-Rahman said the rival parties agreed to form a local council that will run day to day life in Ras al-Ayn. Osso said thousands of people who fled the town, which has a mixed population including Arabs, Kurds, Chechens and Christians, have started returning home.

A journalist in Ras al-Ayn told The Associated Press that the town has been calm since Saturday, adding that cars with PYD gunmen were seen in the streets with loudspeakers urging residents to return to their homes after the truce was reached. He added by telephone that parts of the town were heavily damaged by government air raids earlier this month.

When regime forces withdrew from Kurdish areas in northeastern Syria in July, they were quickly replaced by Kurdish fighters from PYD. Those forces then battled rebel fighters after they pushed their way into predominantly Kurdish areas. The Kurdish group is affiliated with the PKK, rebels fighting for autonomy in the Kurdish-dominated southeast region of Turkey.

The Islamic militants, who are fighting on the side of the rebels, have played a bigger role in the Syrian conflict in recent months and many openly say they want to set up an Islamic state. The opposition is split, with some groups strongly opposed to the influence of extremists.

The Observatory also said that the health of leading opposition figure Abdul-Aziz al-Kheir, who it said is being held by one of the country's security agencies, has deteriorated recently. It did not disclose details of his health problems.

The National Coordination Body for Democratic Change in Syria accused the regime of being behind the disappearance of two of its leaders, including al-Kheir, shortly after they arrived home from China in September.

Al-Kheir, 61, comes from Assad's hometown of Kardaha and belongs to the president's ruling Alawite minority sect. He spent long periods in jail in the past because of his opposition to the regime.

____

Associated Press writer Suzan Fraser contributed to this report from Ankara, Turkey.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/activists-syrian-rebels-seize-major-dam-north-094500305.html

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Convicted Russian spy Danilov released on parole

MOSCOW (AP) ? A Russian physicist convicted of spying for China has been released on parole and is continuing to protest his innocence.

Valentin Danilov was arrested in 2001 on charges of passing classified information on space technology to China. He claimed the information was already publicly available.

He was acquitted in a 2003 trial, but retried the next year and convicted and sentenced to 14 years.

After his release Saturday, Danilov told a news conference in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk that he would pursue his case with the European Court of Human Rights.

Before his arrest, Danilov was a professor at Krasnoyarsk Technical University.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/convicted-russian-spy-danilov-released-parole-103616543.html

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REAL ESTATE: Christmas lights on Chatham Place : Real Estate

Posted on | November 24, 2012 | Comments

I?ll never forget my first Christmas in California.

As the family boarded the plane to leave behind the white Christmases we?ve known in the Midwest, I couldn?t help but think it would be a bit bleak without that nip in the air, a blanket of snow, the bustle along Michigan Avenue and the jingle of carriage bells.

Christmas Star card hauled out for the holidays

I was taken by storm, and total surprise.

From the palm tree lined drives along Highway 111 in Palm Springs to the Mission Inn in Riverside, I was captivated by the spirit and beauty of it all: We watched a rainbow form over the San Bernardino Mountains after a rain storm, heard carolers decked in Old English clothes sing, ?Noel,? and watched rabbits elude coyotes in a maze of Joshua Trees that were dusted with snow.

Now in Riverside, I can?t wait to take in The Mission Inn and see the lights go up on Chapman Place, a one-block enclave of homes that go all out for Christmas ? and have since the 1950s.

It?s a neighborhood I picked to kick off a string of stories aimed at getting to the heart of a neighborhood ? mostly, because I know that when it comes to real estate, there?s far more at stake than price.

Schools. Closeness to work. The view. Strong suits. Oddities. Quirks. The sense of community and place.

If you were the Realtor what would you tell the potential buyers? What do you look for, like or want to change?

A quote that fits the place: ?Love the moment, and the energy will spread beyond all boundaries.?

The first installation of ?On the Street Where You Live,? entitled, ?Christmas Comes to Chapman,? will appear in Sunday?s print business section of The Press-Enterprise. It?s online, now.

If you?ve got an idea for a story about your house, or your neighborhood that makes it special, helps leverage a deal or is a stand-out, please contact me at dgruszecki@pe.com

Share your comments on this blog; or send a note to Twitter @debinpalsprngs.com

?

Written by: dgruszecki on November 24, 2012.
Last revised by: dgruszecki on November 23, 2012.

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Source: http://blog.pe.com/real-estate/2012/11/24/real-estate-christmas-lights-on-chatham-place/

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Congo rebels push on after repelling counter-attack

SAKE/GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) - Rebels advanced in eastern Congo on Friday, seeking to strengthen their grip before a regional summit intended to damp down the insurgency in an area long plagued by ethnic and political conflict.

Fighters from the M23 group, who are widely thought to be backed by neighboring Rwanda, pushed south along Lake Kivu near the new rebel stronghold of Goma on the Rwandan border.

In the capital Kinshasa, protesters accused the rebels of abuses including the rape of pregnant women while the United Nations reported killings of civilians and kidnappings.

The rebels advanced as their political chief Jean-Marie Runiga was due to meet the president of Uganda on the eve of the Kampala summit of leaders from Africa's Great Lakes region.

Regional and international leaders are scrambling to halt the latest violence in the Great Lakes area, fuelled by a mix of local and regional politics, ethnic rifts and competition for big reserves of gold, tin and coltan, an ore of rare metals used in electronics and other high-value products.

Another rebel contingent moved north from the road junction at the town of Sake, scene of a failed counter-offensive by government forces.

A Reuters correspondent in Sake said rebels were in control after Thursday's battle, which had been the first sign of a government fightback since the army abandoned Goma, a frontier city of one million, on Tuesday.

"There was heavy fighting," said pastor Jean Kambale. "It's M23 who control the town. They never lost it."

Fighters for the group - which said after taking Goma that it would march on Kinshasa 1,000 miles away to defeat Kabila - met no resistance as they probed south from Sake.

Those rebels who pushed north from Sake moved closer to the home town of Bosco Ntaganda, a Rwandan-born warlord who many say controls the insurgency and is wanted for war crimes by the international court at The Hague.

Thousands of refugees were fleeing the fighting and heading for Goma, where aid agencies have a significant presence, along with U.N. peacekeepers who stood back when the rebels moved in.

U.N. aid agencies painted a bleak picture of the aftermath of the fighting, which they estimate has displaced 140,000 people in and around the lakeside city of Goma.

A rebel spokesman said M23 had "demilitarized" Goma, moving soldiers out and securing it with a makeshift police force.

"Our soldiers are outside the city. We demilitarized two days ago," said M23 spokesman Vianney Kazarama.

A Reuters correspondent saw hundreds of people in Goma's stadium on Thursday registering to become police.

KINSHASA PROTEST

In the distant capital, hundreds of women marched on Friday on the headquarters of the U.N. mission to protest against the rebellion. "I am saddened by everything that is happening over there. Pregnant women are raped and mistreated. I am marching in solidarity with them," said one of the women, herself pregnant, who asked not to be named.

The women, clad in black, carried banners calling for peace and criticizing Congo's tiny but militarily powerful neighbor. "No to Rwanda!" read one.

Rape during conflict is well documented in Congo, with rights groups saying it is used as a weapon of war.

In a statement on Friday, U.N. Human Rights chief Navi Pillay's spokesman said they had reports of rebels killing at least nine civilians, wounding dozens more and carrying out a series of kidnappings. Government troops had also committed abuses, including looting, the spokesman said.

The crisis has raised tensions between Congo and Rwanda, which Kinshasa, backed by U.N. experts, accuses of secretly supporting the rebels.

Kigali has a history of meddling in Congo's conflicts but Rwandan President Paul Kagame has repeatedly denied involvement, accusing Congo and world powers of seeking a scapegoat for their failures. "It doesn't matter how many times you repeat lies about us, it doesn't make it the truth ... we will not accept it," the Rwandan presidency said on its official Twitter account.

In Goma, capital of North Kivu province, M23 fighters showed journalists on Friday an arms cache they said the army abandoned when it fled the town. Weapons on display included multiple rocket launchers, artillery canons, hundreds of mortars, anti personnel mines, and stacks of ammunition.

"Kabila is gone, With this, Kabila leaves. We'll take this to the front. If he doesn't negotiate, we continue," said Colonel Seraphin Mirindi, a senior rebel officer.

Previous uprisings in Democratic Republic of Congo, among them one led by Kabila's father, have been launched from the area, where a mix of colonial-era borders, mineral deposits and ethnic rivalries has caused millions of deaths during nearly two decades of turmoil dating from the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

Red Cross officials had so far retrieved bodies of 31 people killed in fighting for Goma, UNICEF said.

REFUGEES

The rebels have had a mixed welcome in areas taken this week, with some welcoming promises of change but many also tired of years of conflict and expecting abuse by gunmen on all sides.

Fearing more fighting, thousands of people, clutching children and belongings, were on the move around the lake on Friday, trudging along the road towards Goma from Sake.

M23 was formed in April by army mutineers who accused Kabila of reneging on a peace deal from an earlier conflict. It now says it plans to "liberate" the whole country and has rejected a call from regional states to withdraw from Goma.

While Kabila's armed forces are on the back foot, analysts remain skeptical the rebels can make good on their threat to march on Kinshasa in the west without significant, overt support from foreign backers.

The rebels have so far ignored international calls to withdraw from occupied areas and say they are doubtful of Kabila's stated readiness to look into their complaints, since they complain of having already waited months for talks.

Ben Shepherd, an associate fellow at UK-based Chatham House think tank, wrote in a paper that Congo and Rwanda were playing a high-stakes game, with Rwanda risking further international condemnation for reportedly backing the rebels and Kabila potentially facing a backlash over his handling of the rebellion.

"Both will be hoping the other blinks first," he said.

(Additional reporting by Bienvenu-Marie Bakumanya in Kinshasa and Jenny Clover in Kigali, Tom Miles in Geneva; Writing by David Lewis and Richard Valdmanis; Editing by David Stamp and Giles Elgood)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/congo-army-fights-back-rebels-hold-goma-065626581.html

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Online Marketing Tools: Hot Black Friday Sales - Traffic Generation ...

Would you rather have a new pair of shoes today or build a business asset that would provide for your family for years to come?

(Women: don?t answer that.)

The holiday season is finally here, which means that you?ll be either

?

• making money for someone else by spending every single cent you?ve got and then some;

or

• making money for yourself off this holiday frenzy.

As for me, I am planning on spending this Black Friday right here in front of my computer eating Thanksgiving leftovers, hiding from my out-of-town guests, learning, building, and keeping my eyes on the prize.

However, I don?t want you to feel left out, so I put together a list of marketing tools that will be offering special discounts during this Black Friday / Cyber Monday weekend.

This way you can at least spend money to make money ? not a bad way to do it, if you ask me.

Most of these deals will be available between Friday, November 23 and Monday, November 26.

Many of them are special deals that the product owners are offering to Traffic Generation Caf? readers exclusively.

A few of them are just great deals that you can pass on to your readers as well.

Marketing Tools: Courses & Ebooks

Become a Blogger 2.0 ? 50% off

Most blogging courses don?t work.

Very few do.

This one DEFINITELY does.

Originally created by?Yaro Starak?(Entrepreneurs-Journey.com) and?Gideon Shalwick?(GideonShalwick.com) and now ran by Leslie Samuel (BecomeABlogger.com),?Become a Blogger 2.0?is a blogging course?with the mission of helping as many people as possible to set up Authority Blogs, and build successful businesses around those blogs.

Leslie was kind enough to offer my readers a special Black Friday discount: a whooping 50% off this phenomenal course.

Take advantage of this while you can:

1. ??Go to Become a Blogger 2.0?,

then

2. ? Enter the following discount code when checking out:

Ana

?***Offer valid November 23 through November 26.

The Ultimate Blog Post Promotion Guide ? 50% off

Get a copy of Kristi Hines? popular Blog Post Promotion Guide for $12.50 ? that?s half off the regular price with free access to future revisions.

Available Friday, November 23 through Monday, November 26.

How to get the discount:

1. ?Go to?Blog Post Promotion Guide,

2. Enter this promo code when checking out:

BFRICMON

Black Friday ?Kindle Book Camp? ? FREE

Free weekend workshop:

?How to write and launch your Kindle book over Black Friday weekend?.

Are you going to screw off this weekend or really do something important?

At the end of this long weekend, if you?ve followed this FREE plan, you?ll have your first Kindle book outlined and maybe even DONE and ready for launch.

Follow this link to beat the Black Friday crowd (what, you thought it was only for the malls?):

Sign in here to get started?

Marketing Tools: Plugins & Software

Tweet Adder ? 20% off

Tweet Adder is one of the very few social media tools I use, yet the one that yields the most return; both in terms of social media traffic and income.

To learn more about why I love Tweet Adder and how I use it in my business, read my Tweet Adder review.

To take advantage of adding Tweet Adder to your rolodex of marketing tools at a special Ana?s discount, simply:

1. Click on this link to get your own copy,
then
2. Enter the following discount code at checkout:

AH20

CommentLuv Premium ? starting at $22

When I first tested CommentLuv Premium over a year ago, it was love at first sight.

And like a great wine, it?s only getting better with age.

CommentLuv Premium now includes even more features, including

• redirecting first-time commenters to a special ?Thank You? page (you?ve probably seen mine before, unless you are a TGC commenting virgin), and
• ReplyMe plugin (that?s what emails you when anyone responds to your comment at TGC).

Sale starts at 00:01 Friday morning and runs until Monday midnight.

Starting price is?$22?and goes up on every sale so make sure you get in early.

Just follow this link:

Download your CommentLuv Premium here?

By the way, the word is this is probably the last time CommentLuv Premium?will be sold at a discount for unlimited updates.

WPSubscribers List Building Plugin ? 25% off

Another huge discount: you can get 25% off my favorite list building plugin when you click on this special link:

Get your WPSubscribers at 25% off here

The link above will bypass the sales page.

If you are not familiar with the plugin and would like to see what it?s capable of first, you can get more info about it here.

Again, if you want to get it at a discounted price though (and you do, don?t you? ), this is the only link that will get you there:

Get your WPSubscribers at 25% off here?

Thirsty Affiliates ? 30% off

Every single affiliate link in this post was created with Thirsty Affiliates plugin.

As well as every affiliate link throughout Traffic Generation Caf?.

It tracks, it automates, it optimizes ? I couldn?t and wouldn?t do what I do without it.

And now you can get addicted to your own Thirsty Affiliates at a cool 30% off.

1. ? Go to download Thirsty Affiliates?,

then

2. ? Enter the following discount code during checkout:

TRAFFIC30

***Offer valid through midnight, November 26.

Author hReview ? 30% off

Author hReview is the plugin that takes your reviews to the next level.

You can see it in action in my sidebar under ?Latest Reviews? or in my reviews, like this review of Market Samurai.

It also adds those cool stars to your reviews in Google searches, which definitely makes them stand out above all others.

How to get your discount:

1. ? Follow this link to download Author hReview;

2. ? Use this discount code during checkout:

109A1

***This offer is valid from now till the end of November.

Web Design

ThesisAwesome Membership ? 30% off

I love Thesis WP Theme.

That?s what TGC runs on.

My blog design looks pretty sleek, don?t you think?

And it?s OK if you are not a professional web designer; Thesis Awesome membership will give you all the tools you need to customize your Thesis theme.

Joining Thesis Awesome community will allow you to download all the available collection of Thesis Skins from the gallery, enjoy a high class support, and get upgrades for?6 Months?from the date of your purchase.

After 6 months you can still use any of our products on your sites as long as you want.

Here?s how to get in on the deal:

1. Follow this link to join Thesis Awesome?;

2. Enter the following discount code?at checkout:

8FB6

***This offer is valid from now till the end of November.

Web Hosting

Hostgator ? 50% off

Have you been thinking about starting another niche site?

Do you still need to move your free blog to a self-hosted WordPress blog? (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED)

Now is as good time as ever ? the hosting prices don?t get any better than this.

Traffic Generation Caf? has been hosted by?Hostgator?since its beginning and, thanks to their great customer service, is not planning on going anywhere.

Thus it remains my recommended hosting service provider.

Here?s the rundown on the Black Friday deal:

50% OFF on ALL hosting services.

This includes shared hosting, reseller hosting, VPS hosting, Dedicated servers and Windows hosting.

Domain Names for only $1.95 if purchased with Web Hosting.

Domain names not purchased with web hosting will still be only $6.95.

This promotion will bring their hosting packages as low as:

• Shared hosting: As low as $4.95 Now only: $2.48/month (pre-paid)
• Reseller Hosting: As low as $24.95 Now Only: $12.48/month (pre-paid)
• VPS Hosting: As low as $19.95 Now Only: $9.98/month (First Month)
• Dedicated Servers: As low as $174 Now Only $87/month (First Month)

This promotion will begin just after midnight, Friday, November 23rd, 2012 CDT. The special offer will run until 11:59PM CDT Friday, November?23rd, 2012.

Get your 50% hosting here

More Marketing Tools Sales

This is not an exhaustive list of all the upcoming deals.

Many vendors prefer to wait till the last minute to announce their holiday specials.

I?ll be adding more sales as they are published, so check back often.

Feel free to offer these deals to your readers.

You can also contact the product owners directly to see if they?d be willing to run a special for your readers, just like I did.

Never hurts to ask, right?

Happy business building!

?

What's Next?

• Discover how to bring YOUR website to life.
• Get the insider skinny on free traffic generation.
• Convert more traffic into more sales.

"When it comes to traffic generation, Ana knows her stuff. She provides actionable information about the latest tips, trends, and technology that can result in getting more visits to your blog or business. Not only does she give great advice, but she puts it to the test and shares the results in a regular income report so you know that her strategies really work if you are willing to put in the effort!"

Kristi Hines, Kikolani.com

"Ana has become someone I look to for a unique insight into all kinds of aspects of running an internet business, but especially for updated SEO information. She does the research and testing to back up her claims, so I refer back to her content when I need to see what is fresh and current in the world of generating traffic to your website."

Yaro Starak, Entrepreneurs-Journey.com

I will never share your email address with anyone.

If you like this post and think it would be valuable to your followers, share the ish out of it for me, would you?

Source: http://www.trafficgenerationcafe.com/marketing-tools-black-friday-deals/

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Gasoline Prices And Hybrid Cars | Gardening Gang

The appeal and acceptance of numerous hybrid vehicles have grown particularly with the issues about high gasoline prices as nicely as a worsening air pollution. Here are some bits of helpful information that would support you understand far more about hybrid vehicles and how they might support you save on gas and be somehow protected from worries about increasing gasoline costs.

A hybrid automobile is a sort of auto that makes use of at least two different fuel sources to make it operate. Both fuel sources usually are getting used with each other in some situations to aid propel the car much more effectively. There are a number of various combinations possible for hybrid vehicles, but the most frequent hybrid car so far is the gas-electric hybrid.

The gas-electric hybrid auto, also known as the hybrid electric automobile or HEV, is recognized to make use of a gasoline internal combustion engine or ICE and a separate electric motor to assist power it. While the ICE makes use of gasoline to make it run, an electric battery is employed to retailer the electrical power that powers the hybrid vehicles electric motor. The HEV generally has a gasoline engine that is smaller than a standard 1 utilized in common gasoline powered automobiles. Use of far more advanced technologies tends to make this feasible and allows the HEV have better running effectiveness as properly as substantially decreased pollutant emissions.

Aside from the gasoline engine, the hybrid electric vehicle also has a special electric motor built in that not only assists supply added energy to the vehicle but also acts as a generator when not becoming employed. The electric motor can act as a generator in situations exactly where it is not becoming utilized to aid charge the battery for added efficiency.

In a common HEV set up, the car uses its electric motor when becoming propelled at very low speeds. The gasoline engine acts as a secondary power source when the HEV needs significantly necessary power as in the case of climbing up an incline. The gasoline engine also has the capacity to compensate the electric motor with power whenever the car wants it in order to go more rapidly. The gas and the electric motor can also perform in combo at certain instances if required. mil specifications

Due to the fact the hybrid electric automobile makes use of both an electric motor as effectively as a gasoline motor, a substantial improvement in auto mileage is somehow achieved. A hybrid electric automobile or HEV can run longer distances using the same amount of fuel as compared to a conventional gasoline powered auto. Whenever the electric motor is needed, gasoline use is avoided. This benefits in fewer gas used when running the exact same distance as a conventional gasoline powered automobile.

And simply because the hybrid electric auto has a smaller sized gasoline engine, the hybrid vehicle can also runs a lot more efficiently simply because of lesser engine weight as compared to the typical car. The working components of the hybrid automobile engine also are smaller and need less energy to move. This efficiency makes the hybrid electric auto rather a wonderful choice for individuals concerned with rising gasoline prices. Using the hybrid car can assist drivers conserve a substantial amount of gas when traveling. Not only that, using the hybrid auto can also help in decreasing pollutant emissions by using less gas whilst traveling.

Private Bankruptcy Impacting Your Life? Try These Tips | Trade ...

When you?re on the route to bankruptcy, you almost certainly will probably be discussing with your creditors a lot. Make sure you achieve copies of whatever you say yes to with your creditors. Your creditors might be a bit adaptive in regards to your case, for that reason it is actually needed to record any contracts.You need to do not shed precisely what you own when you choose to declare bankruptcy. Often you will end up enabled to keep your personalized property. This can include some jewellery, clothes, household furnishing, electronics and much more. Your existing state?s legislation, deciding involving Chapter 7 or 13, and also your current fiscal situation determines precisely how very much you can continue to keep. Before making the decision to document for bankruptcy, make sure you perform some research and find out all you can in regards to the issue. There are numerous sites readily available that supply this information. The United States You can find strong advice readily available through the NACBA, (Client Bankruptcy Attorneys? relationship) the ABI, (United states Bankruptcy Institute) and america Division of Justice. You will recognize that the whole process of filing for personalized bankruptcy is much simpler and a smaller stress together with the more information on the subject you accumulate before hand. Be sure to are invariably offering truthful records when you have to document for personalized bankruptcy.

Discover More Here

You need to steer clear of the attraction to conceal any belongings, money or any other possessions through the courts. As long as they discover that you have lied, you may be confronted by fines, penalties or maybe the lack of ability to document in the foreseeable future. Always file every one of the debts you wish to be eliminated. Any debts omitted through the documentation will never be protected inside the discharge. It can be your career to ensure every little thing significant is composed downward, to ensure you don?t need to pay debts that could?ve been discharged. Be as truthful when you possibly can when filing for bankruptcy camouflaging liabilities or possessions will still only harm you in the long run. Whomever you have to file with have to know every little thing there is to know regarding your money, each good and bad. Don?t maintain back info and make up a approach to help you cope with what?s really occurring. Choose a bankruptcy legal representative carefully. Bankruptcy rules appear to be a haven for brand new, unskilled lawyers. The attorney you end up picking must be knowledgeable and registered. The Web can be helpful in investigating an attorney?s disciplinary record, buyer ratings, and back ground.

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When you are thinking about filing for personalized bankruptcy, you should find out what guided you to definitely your existing scenario. Unanticipated healthcare monthly bills is a thing, but blowing cash on purchasing can be another. You may need a lot more support that a bankruptcy attorney can provide in case you are continually paying money that you simply don?t have. When completing the bankruptcy petition, it will pay to be honest. In the event you neglect to reveal essential info within your filing, your case may be dismissed immediately. Make certain all possessions and income places are accounted for if you document your petition. Once the court sees that you are staying truthful, it permits those to shift ahead a lot more efficiently. Each and every item of fiscal info you may have needs to be studied and correctly outlined when filing a bankruptcy case. Forgetting to provide these might cause your petition to be delayed, or perhaps dismissed. Add each summer, irrespective of how insignificant, to the records. This might have the type of odd careers, added vehicles and excellent personalized financial loans. When you are irritated and confused from numerous cell phone calls from harassing creditors, filing for bankruptcy can stop that habits immediately. You cannot stay away from mental anxiety when confronted with a deluge of financial debt. Bankruptcy defense may be the very best device to prevent anxiety when you cope with your financial situation. Guard your property. Bankruptcy doesn?t always mean you?ll shed your property. Whether you can keep your household is determined by a few things, including its importance and no matter if you may have debts just like a next home loan or HELOC. Find out if you complete the requirements needed to document for a homestead exemption.

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Burning off some of your valuable possessions, including jewellery or motor vehicles, will make you extremely fearful. Give some thought to your financial situation and set a conclusion to creditor cell phone calls, by petitioning for personalized bankruptcy. Read on for tips to help you survive through bankruptcy. Keep abreast of new legislation which could impact your bankruptcy if you decide to document. Most of these legislation are continually changing and it is essential that you happen to be aware of these modifications, to help you discover how to correctly document for bankruptcy. A qualified bankruptcy legal representative is the greatest reference for that latest info on the legislation in your state.

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Source: http://www.tradefinancebank.com/private-bankruptcy-impacting-your-life-try-these-tips/

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NSW Proposed shift towards adoption - Growing Family

A family and a home for foster children ?is an article by Josephine Tovey that was released today. The Family and Community Services Minister, Pru Goward, is recommending a number of changes to the current Care Act including?

• recognizing adoption as the third preferred option (after restoration, or familial placement), instead of handing parental responsibility to the minister (or making the child a "ward of the state" as is the current practice)
• legislating a 6 month - 1 year maximum time frame for pursuing restoration (currently there is no set time frame)
• allowing foster carers to be assessed for adoption during their initial assessment process (at the moment you need to have a child in your care for two years before you can begin to approach the court in hopes to adopt them)

Josephine Tovey's article does a great job of explaining how fundamentally different being a foster child and being a permanently adopted family member can be for a child.?

''It's a little bit like if you're living with somebody, and then you marry them ? you don't love them any more, but there's a real security that comes with it..Nothing changed, but then everything changed,'' says foster, now adoptive mother Patricia Economos.?

As a foster parent you do not have complete authority when it comes to making decision on behalf of your child. You must apply for court permission to travel overseas, months in advance. You must update permission to start your child on certain medications. Ultimately, the minister has parental responsibility, even if you are pouring your heart and soul into being a great parent.

Minister Goward is hoping that these measures will encourage more adoptions in NSW. The current adoption rates come as quite a shock to someone with a U.S. based experience of adoption. According to Josephine Tovey's research, "There were 65 children adopted from out-of-home care in 2011-12, a rise from 45 the year before. There were 16 local adoptions and 46 international adoptions, down from 70 in 2010-11."

Contrasting those 65 children with the 18,000 children in out-of-home-care in NSW, it seems clear to me that a long term loving family for these children, most of whom will not be restored to family, is just good sense.?

If these measures had been in place for little B, he would have been spared the multiple placements he has been rotated through, would have spend much less overall time in care, and if the court didn't rule for restoration, would most likely already be settled into his permanent family.?

Each of those 18,000 is a real child, with a real story. I applaud Minister Goward for having the courage to get in the thick of an established system to advocate for change.

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Source: http://growingfamily.typepad.com/growing_family/2012/11/nsw-proposed-shift-towards-adoption.html

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