Pope in western Africa to outline church's future (AP)

COTONOU, Benin ? Women wearing dresses bearing Pope Benedict XVI's portrait tried to climb flagpoles to catch a glimpse of him as he arrived Friday on his second trip to Africa, while security struggled to hold back African nuns trying to reach their hands over the security cordon to touch him.

Africa, where the 84-year-old pope is returning for the first time since his controversial comments on condoms two years ago, is the fastest-growing region for the Roman Catholic Church. Its rapidly growing congregations and pool of aspiring priests are helping breathe life into a church which has seen a steep decline in the Western Hemisphere.

Several hundred women lined the tarmac awaiting his arrival, each one wearing a traditional block-print dress decorated with his face. Catholics carrying umbrellas printed with a silhouette of the pontiff lined the highway. Even the female anchors presenting the newscast on local television stations traded their usual wardrobe for outfits printed with the pope's likeness.

Benedict's trip is centered on the release of a document which articulates the role of the church in Africa, and which attempts to use the church doctrine of forgiveness to address the continent's chronic wars. It is meant to serve as a pastoral guide for Africa and includes some of the ideas he first touched on in his 2009 trip to Cameroon and Angola.

His message was derailed before his plane even landed, after he told reporters on the flight that condom distribution was worsening the problem of AIDS, setting off a storm of criticism.

This time, reporters traveling with the pope were instructed to submit written questions before the trip, and during the in-flight news conference, the pope steered clear of the touchy issue.

The 87-page document is the pontiff's position paper on a continent that is now seen as central to the church's future, but which also presents a challenge to the conscience of Christians worldwide because of the concentration of human suffering. Among the religious tools he is proposing is a "sacrament of reconciliation" which will use individual and collective acts of forgiveness as a way to try to resolve the region's cycle of violence.

After emerging from the plane, the pope grasped the handrails and slowly descended, his face turned downward against the blazing sun. He took slow steps along the red carpet flanked by Benin's lanky president, who slowed his gait so as not to overtake the pope. When Benedict neared the platform set up for him on the tarmac, an aide rushed to hold back the skirt of his robe so that he didn't trip.

"May this document fall into the ground and take root, grow and bear much fruit," the pope said when he took the microphone, referring to the text which he will sign at a ceremony this weekend.

In preparation for the pope's arrival, parishes throughout the country have tried to impart the principle of reconciliation, using creative techniques to reach the nearly two-thirds of Benin's population of 9 million that cannot read. The capital's seven choirs, for example, were asked to compose songs in local languages to explain through music the importance of getting past ethnic divisions.

At the cathedral, 9-year-old Mael Dossou waited for the pope alongside other pupils from one of the city's Catholic schools. He said his teacher had asked them to look no further than the playground to apply the pope's message.

"For example, there's my friend Muriel," Mael said. "We were horsing around and she insulted me. And I insulted her. From then on, we stopped being friends. But because the pope is coming, I went to her and I asked her to please forgive me. And she did, and now we're friends again."

The pope arrived at the cathedral encased inside the bulletproof glass of the popemobile. Nuns in white habits ululated as the car pulled in, and a frisson went across the hundreds of people gathered in the cathedral's courtyard.

Benedict, who recently started using a moving platform to get down the long aisle of St. Peter's Basilica, entered the cathedral and inched his way down the aisle. In its nave, he kneeled, closed his eyes and prayed for Africa.

"Our Lady of Africa," he said in French. "Fill the hearts of those who thirst for justice, for peace, for reconciliation."

Among the messages he is bringing to the faithful is that they do not need to eradicate their culture to be good Catholics. Based in part on the recommendations of the 2009 synod on Africa, the pope is expected to encourage the in-depth study of local customs, especially rituals used to resolve disputes in a region that has seen Rwanda emerge from genocide, creating neighborhoods where victims live side-by-side with those that murdered their families.

Priests who have traveled from neighboring countries to see the pope say the idea of looking to African traditions shows the Catholic faith has become more supple since colonial times, when becoming Christian meant turning your back on indigenous rites.

Among Cameroon's Bassa people, for example, if a man beats his wife and she returns to her parents' home, the husband can only get her back if he comes with plates of food and negotiates a cash amount to be paid to her kin in reparation, says Cameroonian priest Rev. Jean Benoit Nlend.

"In my seminary, we went around the table and talked about the types of rituals our ancestors performed to fix problems that arose in the society. If you try to destroy these things, you render the people fragile. You take away their moral coordinates," said Nlend, an editor at Cameroon's Episcopalian publication.

"Catholicism is a much more flexible religion now than it once was. The church shouldn't try to chase away African culture," he said. "What it needs to do is act like a sieve, and remove only the things that don't help human beings evolve."

___

Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111118/ap_on_re_af/af_benin_pope

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The rise and fall of Silvio Berlusconi (The Week)

New York ? The era of Berlusconi, Italy's longest-serving postwar prime minister, is finally over. Will Italy ever recover?

How did he get to the top?
By leveraging a roguish charm and a gift for demagoguery with great wealth and influence. Berlusconi started out his career as a crooner on cruise ships, before getting a law degree and starting a local cable TV company. He eventually grew that company into Italy's biggest media empire. Along the way, he bought a soccer team, AC Milan, and then founded a political party he called Forza Italia (Go Italy), after a popular fan chant for the national team. When vast bribery scandals in the early 1990s swept away the parties that had dominated the country's politics, many Italians saw Berlusconi as the perfect antidote to corruption: an independent, billionaire businessman who couldn't be bought. But his first stint as prime minister, beginning in May 1994, lasted less than a year before he was hit with fraud charges too. That was just the first of dozens of scandals that have marked his career.

What has he been accused of?
Even before being elected to his second term as prime minister, in 2001, Berlusconi was under investigation for money laundering, association with the Mafia, tax evasion, and bribing judges and financial regulators. Once in office, he applied pressure to downgrade charges, and even to rewrite laws he'd violated. He avoided punishment for using an illegal slush fund to buy a soccer star for AC Milan, for example, by pushing through a 2002 law partly decriminalizing false accounting. Berlusconi has long maintained that he is being picked on by leftist prosecutors. "I am the Jesus Christ of politics," he once said. "I am the most legally persecuted man of all time." He also claims political enemies have tried to create scandals out of his healthy interest in women.

How many sex scandals have there been?
Too many to count. "It's better to like beautiful girls than to be gay," Berlusconi once declared. He is notorious for appointing models and showgirls ? and even his dental hygienist ? to political positions, and for staging orgies at his various villas. Two years ago, his second wife filed for divorce after he began spending time with an 18-year-old girl who called him "Papi" ("Daddy"). After that came revelations of his "bunga bunga" parties, which he apparently adopted from his pal, the late Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi. Witnesses said "bunga bungas" featured Berlusconi sitting on a throne-like chair as young women dressed in nurse and police uniforms stripped and danced around him; Berlusconi would then allegedly select a few "winners" to join him in bed. He's now awaiting trial (see box) on charges that he paid for sex with an underage prostitute, Karima El Mahroug, and then tried to get her off a subsequent theft charge by falsely telling police the case would cause a diplomatic rift with Egypt.

Why did Italy keep electing him?
As embarrassing as Berlusconi has been to Italy's elites, he retained the grudging admiration of many working-class Italians, who identified with his love of soccer, envied his sex life, and saw him as an authentic man of the people. "The average Italian saw himself as Berlusconi, only poorer," newspaper columnist Massimo Gramellini told The New York Times. Berlusconi ? whose nickname, "Il Cavaliere,'' means "The Knight'' ? further secured his power by buying the loyalty of other politicians and powerbrokers. "The system he has built has the features of a lordly court: A signore sits at the center, surrounded by a large number of courtesans and servants who owe him their power, their wealth, and their fame," said Princeton political scientist Maurizio Viroli. And as Italy's biggest media tycoon, Berlusconi was able to suppress unfavorable news and comment. He owns three national TV networks, a major newspaper, a top newsmagazine, a publishing house, and the country's largest media buyer. As prime minister, he also had indirect control over state television and radio. Last year, wiretaps caught him chewing out a state broadcasting regulator for airing shows examining his alleged Mafia links. "You might expect this kind of [media] concentration in Turkmenistan or Iran," said Domenico Affinito of Reporters Without Borders. "But it shouldn't take place in a country like Italy."

Is Italy's dire economy his fault?
To some extent ? but mostly because of what he didn't do. In 2001 Berlusconi inherited an economy crying out for reform: The tax system was a mess, tax evasion was rampant, and the welfare system was unsustainable. But he ignored the economy to concentrate on passing laws that favored his media empire and protected him from prosecution. Productivity fell, but wages remained high. Italy's GDP began to drop, and the budget deficit and national debt ballooned. By this year, Italy ranked below Belarus and Mongolia in the World Bank's business index. Yet even this summer, in preparing an austerity budget desperately needed to stave off crisis, Berlusconi tried to slip in a measure that would have let defendants avoid paying court-ordered settlements for years ? saving his company hundreds of millions of dollars. As journalist Curzio Maltese put it, "Berlusconi never fails to live up to our worst expectations."

The charges he still faces
Out of office, Berlusconi faces three trials he no longer has the means to evade. The biggest is the Mahroug case, in which he's accused of sex with an underage prostitute and abuse of power. Berlusconi didn't manage to pass a law limiting the use of wiretaps, which would have rendered inadmissible some of the more sordid evidence, including phone conversations in which he talks of "doing eight girls." Then there's the charge that he bribed his former lawyer with $600,000 to perjure himself in court; Berlusconi tried to pass a law shortening the statute of limitations so that case would be thrown out. A third case involves tax fraud and false accounting in his company, Mediaset. Still, the 75-year-old needn't worry. In his previous term, he passed a law allowing most criminals older than 70 to avoid jail time.

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Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/oped/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/theweek/20111118/cm_theweek/221512

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Ozone from rock fracture could serve as earthquake early warning

Friday, November 18, 2011

Researchers the world over are seeking reliable ways to predict earthquakes, focusing on identifying seismic precursors that, if detected early enough, could serve as early warnings.

New research, published this week in the journal Applied Physics Letters, suggests that ozone gas emitted from fracturing rocks could serve as an indicator of impending earthquakes. Ozone is a natural gas, a byproduct of electrical discharges into the air from several sources, such as from lightning, or, according to the new research, from rocks breaking under pressure.

Scientists in the lab of Ra?l A. Baragiola, a professor of engineering physics in the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science set up experiments to measure ozone produced by crushing or drilling into different igneous and metamorphic rocks, including granite, basalt, gneiss, rhyolite and quartz. Different rocks produced different amounts of ozone, with rhyolite producing the strongest ozone emission.

Some time prior to an earthquake, pressures begin to build in underground faults. These pressures fracture rocks, and presumably, would produce detectable ozone.

To distinguish whether the ozone was coming from the rocks or from reactions in the atmosphere, the researchers conducted experiments in pure oxygen, nitrogen, helium and carbon dioxide. They found that ozone was produced by fracturing rocks only in conditions containing oxygen atoms, such as air, carbon dioxide and pure oxygen molecules, indicating that it came from reactions in the gas. This suggests that rock fractures may be detectable by measuring ozone.

Baragiola began the study by wondering if animals, which seem ? at least anecdotally ? to be capable of anticipating earthquakes, may be sensitive to changing levels of ozone, and therefore able to react in advance to an earthquake. It occurred to him that if fracturing rocks create ozone, then ozone detectors might be used as warning devices in the same way that animal behavioral changes might be indicators of seismic activity.

He said the research has several implications.

"If future research shows a positive correlation between ground-level ozone near geological faults and earthquakes, an array of interconnected ozone detectors could monitor anomalous patterns when rock fracture induces the release of ozone from underground and surface cracks," he said.

"Such an array, located away from areas with high levels of ground ozone, could be useful for giving early warning to earthquakes."

He added that detection of an increase of ground ozone might also be useful in anticipating disasters in tunnel excavation, landslides and underground mines.

###

University of Virginia: http://www.virginia.edu

Thanks to University of Virginia for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/115335/Ozone_from_rock_fracture_could_serve_as_earthquake_early_warning

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Ashton Kutcher in Men's Health: I Won't Change!


Kim Kardashian and Ashton Kutcher really need to work on their timing.

Both recent divorcees are featured in the December issues of magazines, spouting ironic statements about life and love. In Marie Claire, gushes over her marriage to Kris Humphries. And now in Men's Health, Kutcher talks about relationships in general.

Ashton Kutcher Men's Health Cover

"I could never be with a woman who felt like she needed to change me," says the now-single actor, adding: "The goal is not to get into a relationship; the goal is to be in a relationship.”

Kutcher does admit to one fault, at least, although it had nothing to do with his philandering ways.

“I would just like a woman someday, somewhere, at some point in my life to say to me, ‘You’re a great listener,'" he says. "Haven’t heard it yet, and that’s a superior compliment to get from a woman. But I’m going to work on it."

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2011/11/ashton-kutcher-in-mens-health-i-wont-change/

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Missouri Botanical Garden signs exchange agreement with 3 botanical institutions in China

[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 18-Nov-2011
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Karen Hill
karen.hill@mobot.org
314-577-0254
Missouri Botanical Garden

Memorandum of Understanding seeks to promote conservation, education and awareness about plant diversity

ST. LOUIS -- The Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, Mo. USA has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with three of China's botanical institutions in an effort to promote conservation, education and awareness about plant diversity. The mutually beneficial agreement between the Missouri Botanical Garden and the Nanjing Botanical Garden, Lushan Botanical Garden and Guangxi Institute of Botany calls for the exchange of herbarium specimens, plant materials, publications, data, scientific materials and personnel (staff and students), for the purpose of sharing experiences. The Memorandum of Understanding was signed on October 28, 2011 at the Missouri Botanical Garden.

"Agreements such as these are frequently undertaken to explore a mutual, shared scientific challenge. In this case, each of our institutions are keenly aware of the current threats to our respective floras, and through these agreements we seek to work jointly in documenting the plants found in our areas of interest, study the effects of climate variation on the ecosystems and promote our respective scientific efforts through collaborations," said Dr. Peter Wyse Jackson, president of the Missouri Botanical Garden. "The exchange of staff, literature and ideas can only enhance our botanical, horticultural and conservation research and promote our efforts to mediate the common threats to biodiversity."

The cooperative agreement calls for the Missouri Botanical Garden, Nanjing Botanical Garden, Lushan Botanical Garden and Guangxi Institute of Botany to pinpoint the relevant program opportunities and research needs at each of their institutions and identify staff and scientists to participate in the exchange. Administrators will propose, coordinate and supervise all exchange programs and projects, and each institution will provide appropriate assistance to visiting staff and research scientists.

The exchange of plant materials and herbarium specimens supports the development of plant collections and conservation work at the institutions. Providing copies of selected and relevant publications, documents, data and other materials is also addressed under the agreement.

"In addition to encouraging collaborations among our scientific staffs, these agreements facilitate herbarium study visits and field trips, as the local institution requests all visas, collecting permits and specimen transfer agreements for the visits," said Dr. Bob Magill, senior vice president of science and conservation at the Missouri Botanical Garden. "This equates to more time in the field studying plants or working directly with our colleagues in China."

The Memorandum of Understanding was signed by Peter Wyse Jackson, president of the Missouri Botanical Garden; Zhuang Yule, director of the Nanjing Botanical Garden Mem. Sun Yet-Sen in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province; Wu Yiya, director of the Lushan Botanical Garden, CAS in Lushan, Jiangxi Province; and Wen Yongxin, director of the Guangxi Institute of Botany, CAS in Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of China.

Today, 152 years after opening, the Missouri Botanical Garden is a National Historic Landmark and a center for science, conservation, education and horticultural display. With scientists working in 35 countries on six continents around the globe, the Missouri Botanical Garden has one of the three largest plant science programs in the world and a mission "to discover and share knowledge about plants and their environment in order to preserve and enrich life."

Garden scientists collaborate with local institutions, schools and indigenous peoples to understand plants, create awareness, offer alternatives and craft conservation strategies. The Missouri Botanical Garden is striving for a world that can sustain us without sacrificing prosperity for future generations, a world where people share a commitment to managing biological diversity for the common benefit.

###

For general information about the Missouri Botanical Garden, visit http://www.mobot.org. Follow the Garden on Facebook and Twitter at http://www.facebook.com/missouribotanicalgarden and http://twitter.com/mobotnews.

More than 37,000 households in the St. Louis region hold memberships to the Missouri Botanical Garden. Members help support the Garden's operations and world-changing work in plant science and conservation. Learn more at http://www.mobot.org/membership.



[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share 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.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 18-Nov-2011
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Karen Hill
karen.hill@mobot.org
314-577-0254
Missouri Botanical Garden

Memorandum of Understanding seeks to promote conservation, education and awareness about plant diversity

ST. LOUIS -- The Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, Mo. USA has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with three of China's botanical institutions in an effort to promote conservation, education and awareness about plant diversity. The mutually beneficial agreement between the Missouri Botanical Garden and the Nanjing Botanical Garden, Lushan Botanical Garden and Guangxi Institute of Botany calls for the exchange of herbarium specimens, plant materials, publications, data, scientific materials and personnel (staff and students), for the purpose of sharing experiences. The Memorandum of Understanding was signed on October 28, 2011 at the Missouri Botanical Garden.

"Agreements such as these are frequently undertaken to explore a mutual, shared scientific challenge. In this case, each of our institutions are keenly aware of the current threats to our respective floras, and through these agreements we seek to work jointly in documenting the plants found in our areas of interest, study the effects of climate variation on the ecosystems and promote our respective scientific efforts through collaborations," said Dr. Peter Wyse Jackson, president of the Missouri Botanical Garden. "The exchange of staff, literature and ideas can only enhance our botanical, horticultural and conservation research and promote our efforts to mediate the common threats to biodiversity."

The cooperative agreement calls for the Missouri Botanical Garden, Nanjing Botanical Garden, Lushan Botanical Garden and Guangxi Institute of Botany to pinpoint the relevant program opportunities and research needs at each of their institutions and identify staff and scientists to participate in the exchange. Administrators will propose, coordinate and supervise all exchange programs and projects, and each institution will provide appropriate assistance to visiting staff and research scientists.

The exchange of plant materials and herbarium specimens supports the development of plant collections and conservation work at the institutions. Providing copies of selected and relevant publications, documents, data and other materials is also addressed under the agreement.

"In addition to encouraging collaborations among our scientific staffs, these agreements facilitate herbarium study visits and field trips, as the local institution requests all visas, collecting permits and specimen transfer agreements for the visits," said Dr. Bob Magill, senior vice president of science and conservation at the Missouri Botanical Garden. "This equates to more time in the field studying plants or working directly with our colleagues in China."

The Memorandum of Understanding was signed by Peter Wyse Jackson, president of the Missouri Botanical Garden; Zhuang Yule, director of the Nanjing Botanical Garden Mem. Sun Yet-Sen in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province; Wu Yiya, director of the Lushan Botanical Garden, CAS in Lushan, Jiangxi Province; and Wen Yongxin, director of the Guangxi Institute of Botany, CAS in Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of China.

Today, 152 years after opening, the Missouri Botanical Garden is a National Historic Landmark and a center for science, conservation, education and horticultural display. With scientists working in 35 countries on six continents around the globe, the Missouri Botanical Garden has one of the three largest plant science programs in the world and a mission "to discover and share knowledge about plants and their environment in order to preserve and enrich life."

Garden scientists collaborate with local institutions, schools and indigenous peoples to understand plants, create awareness, offer alternatives and craft conservation strategies. The Missouri Botanical Garden is striving for a world that can sustain us without sacrificing prosperity for future generations, a world where people share a commitment to managing biological diversity for the common benefit.

###

For general information about the Missouri Botanical Garden, visit http://www.mobot.org. Follow the Garden on Facebook and Twitter at http://www.facebook.com/missouribotanicalgarden and http://twitter.com/mobotnews.

More than 37,000 households in the St. Louis region hold memberships to the Missouri Botanical Garden. Members help support the Garden's operations and world-changing work in plant science and conservation. Learn more at http://www.mobot.org/membership.



[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share 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/2011-11/mbg-mbg111811.php

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Dollar up vs euro as European borrowing costs rise (AP)

NEW YORK ? The dollar rose against the euro Tuesday as borrowing costs in Italy, Spain and France jumped, stoking fears that Europe's debt crisis may spread to other countries.

Higher borrowing costs are a sign that investors are worried that the country they are buying bonds from may have trouble paying its debts. Italy's 10-year bond jumped above 7 percent again Tuesday.

That level is important because Greece, Portugal and Ireland were forced to get financial lifelines after their rates rose above 7 percent. Unlike those countries, Italy's debt is considered too large to be bailed out by its European neighbors. Many economists think the higher borrowing costs are unsustainable.

The yields on 10-year bonds for Spain and France also rose Tuesday, although both are still below 7 percent. The increase is raising fears that more countries may be sucked into Europe's debt crisis.

The euro fell to $1.3542 in afternoon trading Tuesday from $1.3616 late Monday.

In other trading, the British pound fell to $1.5834 from $1.5898. The dollar rose to 0.9168 Swiss franc from 0.9076 Swiss franc and to 1.0215 Canadian dollar from 1.0174 Canadian dollar. It fell to 77.01 Japanese yen from 77.12 yen.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111115/ap_on_bi_ge/us_dollar

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The best of the space station's night lights

ITN's Mark Morris reports on Michael Konig's compilation of space station video.

Alan Boyle writes

It's been a great year for views of Earth at night from space ? in part because of the upswing in solar activity, and in part because more observers are taking better advantage of NASA's voluminous image databases.

German filmmaker Michael K?nig has drawn together some of the best time-lapse sequences from the International Space Station, which were captured from orbit between August and October and archived at the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth.


K?nig says he "refurbished, smoothed, retimed, denoised, deflickered, cut" the footage for his compilation. "All in all, I tried to keep the looks of the material as original as possible, avoided adjusting the colors and the like, since in my opinion the original
footage itself already has an almost surreal" look, he says on the Vimeo website.

The results certainly made a splash: It was picked up by Britain's ITN television network, as demonstrated by the video above. The full HD version reveals crackling lightning storms, whirling stars and whizzing satellites in the skies above, and the arc of airglow at the edge of the atmosphere. The stars of the show are the rippling auroral displays, which have been shining in abundance this year due to an increase in geomagnetic storms.

Give K?nig's video a look, and enjoy the spacey soundtrack by Jan Jelinek:

More amazing imagery from orbit:


Tip o' the Log to Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait.

Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or following the Cosmic Log Google+ page. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Source: http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/15/8818172-the-best-of-nasas-night-lights

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Facebook warns of recent wave of spam (AP)

BERLIN ? A recent wave of spam flooding Facebook users' pages with graphic pictures depicting sex and violence has mostly been stopped, but the social networking site said Wednesday that people need to remain vigilant to keep their accounts from being hijacked.

Facebook in Germany said the latest attack tricked users into pasting and executing malicious JavaScript in their browser URL bar, exploiting a browser vulnerability that caused them to unknowingly share the content, according to a statement to news agency dapd.

"Our team responded quickly and we have eliminated most of the spam caused by this attack," the statement said. "We are now working to improve our systems to better defend against similar attacks in the future."

According to Facebook, no user data or accounts were compromised during the attack.

Facebook said it built enforcement mechanisms to quickly shut down the malicious pages and accounts that attempt to exploit the vulnerability.

"Protecting the people who use Facebook from spam and malicious content is a top priority for us," Facebook said.

Meantime, Facebook warned users to never cut and paste unknown code into a browser's address bar, and to always use an up-to-date browser, as well as to flag and report any suspicious content.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111116/ap_on_hi_te/facebook_spam

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Pelosi fires back at report on 'insider trading'

A television report that questioned whether members of Congress are making investment decisions based on insider information drew a heated response from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, one of those highlighted.

A report on CBS' "60 minutes" on Sunday said Pelosi was among several lawmakers ? including Republicans such as House Speaker John Boehner ? who had profited from transactions that raised the possibility of conflicts of interest.

The report said Pelosi and her husband participated in a 2008 IPO involving Visa even as legislation that would have hurt credit card companies was being considered in the House. Pelosi was speaker at the time and the legislation failed to pass in that session.

In an exchange with CBS correspondent Steve Kroft, Pelosi denied that the transaction was a conflict of interest. And in a statement on Sunday, after the show aired, Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said the report failed to note her work for the rights of credit cardholders.

"Congress has never done more for consumers nor has the Congress passed more critical reforms of the credit card industry than under the Speakership of Nancy Pelosi," Hammill said.

It is not illegal for members of Congress to buy stocks or make land deals based on information they're privy to through their positions. And the profits are often substantial.

A recent study of House members' stock transactions showed them beating the markets' return by about 6 percentage points annually from 1985 to 2001. A 2004 study involving the same authors showed senators beating the market by 12 percentage points annually.

Those results "are way outside the boundaries of random luck," said the studies' lead author, Alan Ziobrowski, a business professor at Georgia State University.

Ziobrowski said Congress is preoccupied with three things: regulation, taxes and the federal budget.

"If you know a piece of legislation is coming down the line and you can trade in that, you can make a lot of money," he told msnbc.com.

The "60 Minutes" piece was all the buzz on Capitol Hill on Monday, where House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) declined to say whether he would support a law making it illegal for members of Congress to engage in insider trading.

  1. Other political news of note

    1. Supreme Court to take up Obama health care law

      Taking up its most important case in more than a decade, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the legal challenges to the Obama health care law.

    2. Perry: Jail lawmakers who insider trade
    3. Perry to unveil plan to 'uproot' government
    4. Cain struggles with question on Libya policy
    5. Congress poised to create new tax break

"I'm not familiar with the details of the Stock Act, but I know it was mentioned in the program last night. My sense is that it requires more disclosure, I'm for increased disclosure, if there is any sense of impropriety or any appearance of that, we should take extra steps that the public's cynicism is addressed. We are not here to be hiding anything. I've always been very supportive of full disclosure," he said at a pen-and-pad discussion with reporters.

Cantor also dodged a question about whether members of Congress should be subject to the same insider trading laws as the ones restricting the finance professionals.

"I'm not as familiar with what triggers insider trading and the specifics of the laws. What I can tell you is that we are accountable to our constituents and we should be providing the kinds of information that would satisfy any kind of perception of impropriet," he said. "Many members don't actively trade in their portfolios, I don't. Full disclosure though can satisfy some of the questions; we should put that in place."

Pelosi's spokesman, Hammill, said the CBS report left out critical information. He said the legislation in question was passed out of the House Judiciary Committee on Oct. 3, 2008, the last day the House was in session before the election break that year and a time when the House was grappling with TARP. He noted that the next Congress passed the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights along with the Dodd-Frank legislation, which he called "a? stronger, more direct approach to addressing swipe fees."

Hammill also criticized CBS' use of one source for the report, conservative author and editor Peter Schweizer.

"It is very troubling that '60 Minutes' would base their reporting off of an already-discredited conservative author who has made a career of out attacking Democrats," Hammill said.

Schweizer is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and is the editor of Bigpeace.com, a website focused on national security founded by conservative activist Andrew Breitbart.

In a follow-up story on Monday, CBS News said they had verified every piece of information included in the report.

CBS noted that the "60 Minutes" report also discussed transactions of Boehner and another Republican, Rep. Spencer Bachus, who denied any impropriety.

Boehner said he leaves daily transactions to a broker. "I have not made any decisions on day-to-day trading activities in my account," Boehner told "60 Minutes."

NBC News' Luke Russert and Frank Thorp contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45287592/ns/politics-more_politics/

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