2015年11月30日 星期一

Luis Ho Pushes China Into World Astronomy Club

Photo
“How can something so tiny like a black hole influence the entire galaxy itself? The belief now is that they know how to talk to one another.” — Luis Ho. CreditGilles Sabrie for The New York Times
Luis Ho, 48, is the director of the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics and a professor at Peking University in Beijing. As an American researcher who has worked for more than two years in China, he has a unique perspective on the country’s scientific ambitions.
Dr. Ho is on leave from Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, Calif. We spoke for nearly three hours this summer at his office there — it once belonged to Edwin P. Hubble — and later by telephone. A condensed and edited version of the conversation follows.
Q. Where did you grow up?
A. In Mozambique, which during that time was still a colony of Portugal. In the Africa of my childhood, there was a clash of backgrounds. The Portuguese were not very accepting. There were many outward expressions of racism. Then, in the late 1970s, after the country became independent and essentially deteriorated into a very ugly civil war, we were forced to leave. They confiscated all my father’s properties. We left with our suitcases.
Where did you go?
By a stroke of good fortune, we somehow got visas for the U.S., so to East Boston. I was 12, the only Asian in a very rough school. My father washed dishes. At school, people made fun of me. That made me determined to learn English quickly enough to get into a better school, which I did. I got into the best one in the city, the Boston Latin School. From there I went to Harvard, where it seemed as if I was the only person who wasn’t rich and worked. It felt like wherever I went I was the outsider.
When did that end for you?
One day at Harvard, I stumbled into a lecture about the black holes in the Milky Way. I was absolutely captivated. I sought out the lecturer, Paul Ho [no relation], and he immediately gave me a research project.
One of the things I loved about astronomy was that it was not tied to the mundane. It was not even tied to our planet. Maybe this was a reaction against all the day-to-day things my family had to struggle with.
What area of astronomy did you work in?
Black holes. I was one of the first people to show how common they are. This was one of the results of my doctoral thesis in 1995. Before, the thinking was that they should exist but that they were really very rare. I was able to demonstrate that every big galaxy has a nucleus containing supermassive black holes. This was suspected before, but I was able to prove it.
How did you accomplish that?
By searching for an indirect way to show their existence. I looked for signs of energy, and what I found was that basically every galaxy had a black hole. We just hadn’t seen it before.
After I finished my doctorate, the Hubble Space Telescope was repaired. It made it possible to measure the rotation speed of the stars and gas around those black holes. The Hubble confirmed many of the points of my thesis.
How central are black holes to understanding what the universe looks like?
We’re learning they are to be considered to be one of the key ingredients that make galaxies look the way they do. The big question is, how can something so tiny like a black hole influence the entire galaxy itself? The belief now is that they know how to talk to one another.
Continue reading the main story

An Earthling’s Guide to Black Holes

Welcome to the place of no return — a region in space where the gravitational pull is so strong that not even light can escape it. This is a black hole.
We are living in an era of tremendous breakthroughs in our knowledge of the universe. Why are we learning so much now?
A lot of it is technology-driven. Astronomers have a lot of very nice new toys. The rapid development of astronomy is completely tied to access to big telescopes. That’s one reason why I urged China’s leaders to partner on one of the big new international telescopes.
China has great scientific ambitions. It’s an unwritten rule that to be part of the astronomy club, you need to be part of a big telescope. It wasn’t an easy sell. The three new telescopes that were coming were all to be on foreign soil, and that was a difficult concept. They eventually choose to join with Caltech, the University of California, Canada and India on theThirty Meter Telescope.
When you were growing up, did you ever think you’d come to live and work in China?
Not ever. One of the things that influenced me was meeting so many talented young Chinese scientists. I helped some get into American universities. I could relate to their struggles here. When they returned to China, it wasn’t always possible for them to succeed. There was a mismatch between their talents and opportunities.
Over the past decade, things have begun to change. China has made large science investments, and these people now have something to go back to. In 2013, when the Kavli people approached me, I felt I might have something to contribute to an environment like that.
What appealed to you about the foundation’s offer?
It actually was very unappealing. It came at the worst possible moment. My wife and I had just had a baby. There were older kids in high school. They could not be uprooted. The job meant living in Beijing, with its pollution, traffic and cramped apartments. My wife, who stayed behind, said, “We’ll just have to make it happen.” My wife didn’t want me to lose this opportunity.
It involves a lot of juggling. To save commuting time, I sleep at my Peking University office. I get up at 5 a.m. to Skype my daughter. I tutor my son via the Internet.
I return to California every two months to see them.
Chinese education has a reputation for being mechanistic and rigid. Have you found it that way?
They had a very rigid system because, in a different time, that’s what worked.
I know what made Carnegie an effective center for astronomy research. It was an environment that allowed a lot of free discussion and brainstorming. I’m trying to bring some of that to our institute in China.
My dream is that 20 years from now, the best students from Harvard and Princeton will want to go to Peking University, not the reverse. What my institute can do is provide an oasis where I can expedite the process, because I have more control over this little patch.
I think the Chinese system can evolve, and Kavli is providing one model. We have nonhierarchical interactive discussions. We’ve attracted very high-level visitors to lecture and teach. Already, our Kavli Institute attracts many non-Chinese postdocs, and they want to come here because they see the ferment.
The other thing is that China now has the means to invest in science. And it is willing to do so! Even in the most advanced countries, basic astronomy is a hobby science. Yet in China they are willing to spend on it. With that and these great human resources, the trick is to combine them.
After a lifetime of travel and displacement, do you feel at home in Beijing?
That’s where I hope I can find a home. That’s why I work so hard to make the program successful. I am there for the long haul. I’ve been learning to speak and write the language. Funny thing: The last time I returned I actually missed the place. A year ago, it was the most alien place to me.

Lessons From Cellphones on Distribution of Wealth

In developing countries, information about the distribution of wealth or poverty may be gleaned from someone’s mobile phone records, a new study reports.
The study, published in the journal Science, was done in Rwanda. In much of Africa, as in developing countries elsewhere, accurate statistics on poverty are difficult to collect.
“This could be a useful policy instrument to estimate the geographic distribution of poverty and wealth,” said Joshua Blumenstock, a data scientist at the University of Washington and one of the study’s authors.
He and his colleagues relied on anonymized data on billions of interactions, including details about when calls were made and received and the length of the calls. The researchers also looked at when text messages were sent, and which cellphone towers the texts and calls were routed through in order to get a rough idea of geographic location.
“So it’s the who, where and when of the call, but not the what or the why,” Dr. Blumenstock said.
They combined this information with responses collected from about 850 cellphone owners to build an algorithm that predicts how wealthy or impoverished a given cellphone user is.
Using the same model, the researchers were able to answer even more specific questions, like whether a household had electricity.
The researchers are trying to do similar work in Afghanistan, where certain areas are difficult or dangerous to access and ground surveys are not possible.
“We don’t think this method is the be-all or end-all, but in the absence of good information, this is better than nothing,” Dr. Blumenstock said.

3.2 Millimeters: A Troubling Rise in Sea Level

3.2
Sea levels are rising, and rising faster every year.
According to the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, sea levels rose an average of 1.7 millimeters a year during the 20th century. Some areas have had larger rises than others, and measurements vary from year to year at different locations.
Measuring sea level is difficult. Scientists use tidal gauges and satellite altimeter data to measure these changes, and there are some questions about the precision of these tools. Variations in land level complicate matters further; it is often difficult to distinguish rising seas from falling land. And as water warms, it expands.
Continue reading the main story

Short Answers to Hard Questions About Climate Change

Still, there is no question about the basic facts. Since 1993, the average rate of increase has nearly doubled, to 3.2 millimeters a year. The retreat of glaciers and the melting of the Greenland ice sheet have contributed to these accelerating increases. Extreme sea levels during storm surges like that of Hurricane Sandy in 2012 have increased since 1970, mainly the result of rising seas.
By 2081, yearly increases are likely to be as high as 16 millimeters a year, or about six-tenths of an inch. By the end of this century, seas will have risen by as much as three feet, and levels will almost certainly continue to rise for many centuries.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has a web tool that shows the effect of changing sea levels across the country. A three-foot rise in sea level in Malibu, Calif., for example, would put many houses near Malibu Beach under water. In New York, most of Harlem River Drive and Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive south of 168th Street would be inundated, and Ellis Island would be about half its present size. In Florida, Tampa and Miami would lose large areas of land, and much of the Keys would disappear.

Canada woman faces 10 years in prison for giving pigs water on hot day



Canada woman faces 10 years in prison for giving pigs water on hot day


Anita Krajnc tried to give pigs in a tractor-trailer water as the vehicle was stopped at a traffic light on the way to the Fearmans Pork processing facility

Canada woman clashes with pig farmer after giving animals water on hot day.


Jessica Murphy in Ottawa

Monday 30 November 2015 20.41 GMTLast modified on Monday 30 November 201522.11 GMT

A Canadian animal rights activist could face up to 10 years in prison for giving water to pigs heading to the slaughter on a scorching summer day.

Toronto resident Anita Krajnc, 48, was charged with criminal mischief after clashing with the driver of a tractor-trailer carrying pigs to an Ontario pork processing plant in June.


Krajnc and a fellow protester tried to give the pigs water as the vehicle was stopped at a traffic light on the way to the Fearmans Pork processing facility, about 45 miles south-west of Toronto.


A video of the incident shows the driver, identified in court documents as Jeffery Veldjesgraaf, climbing from the vehicle to confront Krajnc.

“Jesus said, ‘If they are thirsty, give them water,’” she tells him.


Veldjesgraaf responds: “You know what? These are not humans, you dumb frickin’ broad.”


He threatens to call the police and then asks: “What you got in that water?”

When she replies that it is just water, he says: “How do I know?”

Ontario hog farmer Eric Van Boekel, who owned the pigs, filed a police complaint the next day.

After a pre-trial hearing on Monday, Krajnc told the Guardian: “It’s an outrage. It’s insane to charge somebody with criminal mischief for doing that.”

Krajnc, who founded Toronto Pig Save – a group whose mission is “to bear witness of suffering of animals in transport and at slaughterhouses” – called her group’s activities “small acts of charity”.

The pigs’ owner, Van Boekel, said his pigs are treated ethically and in accordance with all standards and regulations.

He told the Guardian he was concerned for both the safety of his product and that of the animal rights protesters, who sometimes crowd near the large transport vehicles when they are stopped in traffic.


“We don’t have a fight with the protesters per se,” he said.


“It’s a free country. Their views – we don’t agree – but they have a right to their opinion as we do ours. If they’d like to protest in a safe and reasonable manner, they’re afforded those rights.”

Several online petitions have sprung up in Krajnc’s defence. By Monday afternoon, one – entitled Compassion Isn’t a Crime – had gathered more than 125,500 signatures, while another, calling on the Ontario court of justice to drop charges against her, had more than 24,600 signatures.

Krajnc’s next pretrial date is 15 December. The earliest her case is expected in court is next August.



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2015年11月28日 星期六

balcony, soffit, paved decking


Kang-i Sun Chang 新增了 2 張相片。
Really looking forward to Mozart's opera "The Marriage of Figaro" (Le nozze di Figaro) at the Metropolitan Opera in Ny City this Saturday 10/25. The opera, in 4 acts, was composed in 1786 by Mozart, with an Italian libretto written by Lorenzo Da Ponte.


The 35-foot-by 17-foot back garden has paved decking. “I have had some great parties here yet the house also feels like home,” Ms. Snelson said. “Not too big and empty when it’s just me.



Jonathan Player for The New York Times
A deck area built and paved the rest of the 35-foot by 17-foot garden, to keep maintenance work at a minimum. More Photos »



deck


  
━━ n. 甲板, デッキ(に似たもの); (電車・バスなどの)床, 階; (ビルの)陸屋根(ろくやね); 〔米〕 (トランプ札の)ひと組 (pack1); 【コンピュータ】デック ((一連のカードの集まり)); (家の後ろ又は横に張り出した木製の)テラス; (AV機器の)デッキ; テープデッキ; 〔英俗〕 大地, 地面.

deck (FLOOR) Show phonetics
noun [C]
1 a flat area for walking on, especially one built across the space between the sides of a boat or a bus; a type of floor:
We sat on deck until it was dark.
The upper/top deck of the bus was always full of people smoking.
See also quarterdecksundeck.
See picture .

2 US a raised area without a roof, which is attached to a house, similar to a balcony



Architecture: soffit
The exposed undersurface of any overhead component of a building, such as an arch, balcony, beam, cornice, lintel, or vault.
soffit of an arch and of a lintel, S



Main Entry:
sof·fit Listen to the pronunciation of soffit
Pronunciation:
\ˈsä-fət\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
French soffite, from Italian soffitto, from Vulgar Latin *suffictus, past participle of Latin suffigere to fasten underneath — more at suffix
Date:
1592
: the underside of a part or member of a building (as of an overhang or staircase)especially : the intrados of an arch

balcony

Line breaks: bal|cony
Pronunciation: /ˈbalkəni /



NOUN (plural balconies)

1platform enclosed by a wall or balustrade on theoutside of a building, with access from an upper-floorwindow or door:the glass doors opened on to a balcony with a view of the park
2(the balcony) The highest tier of seats in a theatre, above the dress or upper circle.
2.1The upstairs seats in a cinema.
2.2North American The dress circle in a theatre.

Origin

early 17th century: from Italian balcone, probably ultimately of Germanic origin.


Derivatives



balconied

ADJECTIVE


[名](複 -nies)
1 バルコニー,露台.
2
(1)((米))(劇場の)特等席(dress circle);階上席(gallery).
(2)((英))張り出し席(upper circle).
[イタリア語balcone(ステージ). 原義は「足場」. 古英語balca(梁(はり))とも関係がある. △BALK(妨害)]
bal・co・nied
[形]バルコニーのある.