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Submission + - Florida newspaper says stop depending on Russia for human spaceflight (orlandosentinel.com)

Submitted by spineas
spineas writes: The Orlando Sentinel published an editorial today saying that even though NASA and Roscosmos (the Russian Federal Space Agency) are still friendly for now even with the tensions between the two countries building over the future of Ukraine, it's foolish for the US to give $70 million per astronaut to the Russians to use their Soyuz vehicles to reach the ISS, since the United States paid half of the $100 billion price for the station.

Submission + - Turing's Theory Of Chemical Morphogenesis Validated 60 Years After His Death (phys.org)

Submitted by cold fjord
cold fjord writes: Phys.org reports, "Alan Turing's accomplishments in computer science are well known, but lesser known is his impact on biology and chemistry. In his only paper on biology (abstract), Turing proposed a theory of morphogenesis, or how identical copies of a single cell differentiate, for example, into an organism with arms and legs, a head and tail. Now, 60 years after Turing's death, researchers from Brandeis University and the University of Pittsburgh have provided the first experimental evidence that validates Turing's theory in cell-like structures. The team published their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday, March 10."

Submission + - Is the New "Common Core SAT" Bill Gates' Doing?

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "I want to explain why Common Core is among the most important education ideas in years," wrote Bill Gates in a USA Today op-ed last month that challenged the "dangerous misconceptions" of those who oppose the initiative (pretty confident for a guy who conceded there wasn't much to show for his earlier $5B education reform effort!). "The Gates Foundation helped fund this process," acknowledged Gates in quite an understatement of his influence. Receiving $6.5M in Gates Grants was Student Achievement Partners, whose founder David Coleman was dubbed the 'Architect of the Common Core.' So it's not too surprising that at last week's SXSWedu, Coleman — now President and CEO of The College Board (no stranger to Gates money itself) — announced a dramatic overhaul of the SAT that includes a new emphasis on evidence-based reading and writing and evidence analysis, which the AJC's Maureen Downey calls "reflective of the approach of the Common Core State Standards". And over at The Atlantic, Lindsey Tepe reports that the Common Core is driving the changes to the SAT. "Neither Coleman nor the national media," writes Tepe, "have really honed in on how the standards are driving the College Board-as well as the ACT-to change their product." In conjunction with the redesigned SAT, The College Board also announced it would exclusively team with Khan Academy (KA) to make comprehensive, best-in-class SAT prep materials open and free in an effort to level the playing field between those who can and can't afford test prep services. In a conversation with KA founder Sal Khan — aka Bill Gates' favorite teacher and a beneficiary of $10+ million in Gates Foundation grants (much earmarked for Common Core) — Coleman stressed that Khan Academy and CollegeBoard will be the only places in the world that students will be able to encounter free materials for the exam that are "focused on the core of the math and literacy that matters most." "There will be no other such partnerships", Coleman reiterated. Game, set, and match, Gates?

Submission + - Why the world needs Cosmos

Submitted by StartsWithABang
StartsWithABang writes: Yes, yes, he's not Carl Sagan, and if the first episode of Neil de Grasse Tyson's Cosmos was at all indicative of what's to come, it seems there be a slanted version of history presented. But there's a compelling case to be made that the world needs Cosmos now, and not just for social, political or scientific reasons, but for very personal ones that are relevant to us all.

Submission + - Milky Way amidst a 'Council of Giants' (ras.org.uk)

Submitted by Thorfinn.au
Thorfinn.au writes: We live in a galaxy known as the Milky Way – a vast conglomeration of 300 billion stars, planets whizzing around them, and clouds of gas and dust floating in between.
Though it has long been known that the Milky Way and its orbiting companion Andromeda are the dominant members of a small group of galaxies, the Local Group, which is about 3 million light years across, much less was known about our immediate neighbourhood in the universe.
Now, a new paper by York University Physics & Astronomy Professor Marshall McCall, published today in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, maps out bright galaxies within 35-million light years of the Earth, offering up an expanded picture of what lies beyond our doorstep.
“All bright galaxies within 20 million light years, including us, are organized in a ‘Local Sheet’ 34-million light years across and only 1.5-million light years thick,” says McCall. “The Milky Way and Andromeda are encircled by twelve large galaxies arranged in a ring about 24-million light years across – this ‘Council of Giants’ stands in gravitational judgment of the Local Group by restricting its range of influence.”

Comment Re: Denver? Atlanta? (Score 1) 285

The influx is coming primarily from the mid-west and northeast. Spike Lee even went on a profanity filled rant last week because so many are leaving Brooklyn for Atlanta.

Just so you know, people from Mississippi & Alabama tend to stay there. They see huge cities like Atlanta as cesspools of sin.

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