Fabio Capello resigns as concerns over new manager arises

Fabio Capello's resignation from England manger has been accepted by executives from the FA, hours after Redknapp, the bookmakers favorite to replace him, was cleared of tax evasion in a trial in London.

The Italian took the decision after the governing body removed John Terry as team captain without consulting him.

"I acted the way I always have in football," said Capello today. "I cannot permit interference from the FA in my work. I have always been clear who should manage the team and the dressing room, and who has to take decisions."

The Italian also issued a statement thanking the FA for their approach to him before the Terry confrontation.

"I would like to thank all players, staff and Football Association for the professionalism they have shown during my years as manager of the English National Team," Capello said in a short statement.

"A very special thanks to all the supporters: they've always supported the team and me in our job. I wish all of them every success in achieving all their sporting goals."

Since Capello's departure, the FA has confirmed that U21 manager Stuart Pearce will take charge of England for the friendly against Holland on February 29 while the board looks for a permanent replacement.

Bernstein told a press conference at Wembley: "I can announce that Stuart Pearce will manage the England team against Holland.

"I have got great confidence in Stuart, we will be in good hands.

"Our priority then will be to appoint a new England manager."

Harry Redknapp was acquitted of tax evasion charges just before Capello's resignation. Redknapp might have got up yesterday wondering if he was going to jail. He went to bed wondering if he was going to be the England manager as almost every one wants him to take over the post.

The Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand wrote on Twitter: "I think we need an English manager now, we don't need anything else lost in translation. Harry Redknapp would be my choice by a distance."

Wayne Rooney wrote on Twitter following the announcement: "Gutted capello has quit. Good guy and top coach. Got to be English to replace him. Harry redknapp for me."

The former England goalkeeper Peter Shilton also agreed, telling Sky: "I think it's maybe Harry's time. He plays the game the right way."

Harry Redknapp today said he has "not even thought about" becoming the next England manager.

Redknapp spoke as he left his home near Poole today, and played down talk of him stepping in to guide the team at Euro 2012.

He said on Sky News: "I've not even thought about it. I've got a job to do.

"I've got a big game on Saturday for Tottenham. Tottenham is my focus."

Tottenham face Newcastle at the weekend, and Redknapp insists all his attention is on that fixture.

Asked whether he could help out England this summer, Redknapp said: "I've never thought about it.

"They (the Football Association) will make whatever decision they want to make.

"Hopefully it'll be the right decision for the country but my focus is all on Tottenham."

When Will There Be Good News by Kate Atkinson

On a hot summer day, Joanna Mason's family slowly wanders home along a country lane. A moment later, Joanna's life is changed forever...

On a dark night thirty years later, ex-detective Jackson Brodie finds himself on a train that is both crowded and late. Lost in his thoughts, he suddenly hears a shocking sound... At the end of a long day, 16-year-old Reggie is looking forward to watching a little TV. Then a terrifying noise shatters her peaceful evening. Luckily, Reggie makes it a point to be prepared for an emergency.

These three lives come together in unexpected and deeply thrilling ways in the novel from Kate Atkinson, the critically acclaimed author who Harlan Coben calls "an absolute must-read."

Palestine to Join the ICTP as New Spirit for Tourism Industry

The International Council of Tourism Partners (ICTP) announced today that the Palestine Ministry of Tourism & Antiquity has become a member of this alliance of destinations.

ICTP president Geoffrey Lipman said:” We are particularly excited about Palestine joining ICTP - it is one of the most iconic destinations on the planet containing some of mankind’s great historical and cultural treasures. To support the evolution of its green growth future will be a privilege for our organization.

The Chairman of ICTP, Juergen Thomas Steinmetz, said: “We’re pleased to welcome Palestine as our latest destination to join the International Council of Tourism Partners. Palestine demonstrates its commitment to responsible tourism, green growth, and to peace. We’re looking forward to working alongside Palestine to partner with their region to contribute to green growth and streamlined travel to their region.”

Palestine offers a unique travel experience that will leave visitors with memories that will last a lifetime. A visit to this region is safe, welcoming, and to put it best – simply remarkable. Palestine offers the ultimate pilgrimage, an archaeologist’s dream, a shopper’s paradise, and a culinary connoisseur’s delight where the Mediterranean diet is fresh, organic, and wholesome.

(Source: BTN)

The Manchurian Candidate (2004)

The Manchurian Candidate is a 2004 thriller film based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Richard Condon, and a re-imagining of the previous 1962 film.

Film is about a platoon of soldiers who remember the heroic acts of one of their members. However, once they're back home, they begin to suffer nightmares that are all too real. They soon begin to realize that their memories may have been tampered with, and something horrible may have happened while they thought they were on the battlefield.

The film stars Denzel Washington as Bennett Marco, a tenacious, virtuous soldier; Liev Schreiber as Raymond Shaw, a U.S. Representative from New York, manipulated into becoming a vice-presidential candidate; Jon Voight as Tom Jordan, a U.S. Senator and challenger for vice president and Meryl Streep as Eleanor Prentiss Shaw, also a senator and the manipulative, ruthless mother of Raymond Shaw.

Navy Likely New Black at New York Fashion Week

Navy is likely to replace black on the catwalk when New York Fashion Week starts on Thursday, with experts expecting rich fabrics, waist-defining jackets and some 1920s-inspired styles sparked by movies like The Artist.

Dresses will continue to feature strongly among the 90 or so designers showing fall 2012 collections, experts say, because of the wide appeal to consumers who are more thoughtful and focused on value as the United States emerges from recession.

A dress is seen as more tempting because it allows women to skip the extra, and sometimes more costly, step of having to coordinate skirts or pants with a blouse or T-shirt.

"Dresses perform very well. Women love a dress," said Ken Downing, fashion director of luxury chain Neiman Marcus. "It's such an easy way to look amazing. It's effortlessly chic ... it goes from coffee to cocktails."

"Navy will be the neutral of the season," he said.

Adele Opens Up About Throat Surgery Before Grammys

Sunday is shaping up to be quite a big day for Adele. Not only is the big-voiced diva up for six awards at the Grammys, but she will also open up about her recent throat surgery in a "60 Minutes" interview, airing on CBS immediately before the awards show.

In a teaser for the TV special, the British songstress speaks with Anderson Cooper about her vocal-cord procedure as well as how she dealt with the post-surgery restrictions. "They put lasers down your throat, cut off the polyp and kind of laser your hemorrhage back together and fix it," Adele wearily told the news anchor.

She was ordered not to speak a word throughout the months of November and December, but the songstress made the best of a not-so-bright situation by using notepads and a text-to-speech cellphone application to communicate with others.

"It was really hard. I love talking," she said.

The singer confessed that the advances in technology made it a little difficult to say what was really on her mind. "I love to swear, and most of them you can't swear on, but I found this one app where you can swear, so I'm still really getting my point across," she said with a smile.

Adele's road to recovery will come full-circle when the singer performs at Sunday night's Grammys. The U.K. songstress recently tweeted her excitement about returning to the stage: "Ima be, Ima be singing at the Grammys. It's been so long I started to forget I was a singer! I can't wait."

(Source: Mtv)

Headline Feb 9th, 2012 / Education Prime Minister!

''Education Prime Minister!'' 

Respectful dedication Prime Minister Vladimir Putin

Lets start with an obvious bitter truth: Almost every country's education contrasts wildly with the real-world needs. Most Engineering Universities educate well in the science underlying engineering, but engineering involves activities barely touched on in the classroom or laboratory: designing products and systems of quality that can be manufactured or implemented, and utilized in a cost effective way.

And what of return on invested capital, what of safety and environmental protection requirements??? Many, rather in the developing world, every single engineering graduate leaves college without ever realizing that such matters constitute the heart of their chosen profession. What is vital to understand is that ''A greater engineering'' needs to evolve.

Granted, that it would not be realistic to redefine engineering so that technical schools presume to teach every aspect of the complex process of exploiting technology, from the underlying science to economics, business management etc. The world is ever short on wisdom. For every problem that gets solved 3 new and complex ones loom. The world considered many options both strategic and tactical but all frittered away.

What mankind truly needs is a 'Education Prime Minister' to support and build education in all its phases. We need an Education Prime Minister to create massive public backing for educational reforms-every sector of society must call for change, and business must lead the way. He must pursue innovative approaches. He must focus his energies to educate his nation in the importance of education.

Should any Prime Minister attempt this philosophy and approach, he will find all problems melt and recede. Maybe what education really teaches is, how ignorant we all are! And how fearful we are likely to be as 'quality survival' pressure mounts.

All nations of the world will have to inevitably adjust to a more open world of education exchange, alliance and research. Dengue, aids should have taught us many lessons!!? But we are just so WOODEN. It seems that the promise of better life in the developing world, has a dark side: insecurity and loss of control.

Thats the Truth! A weary Goodnight.

SAM Daily Times - Voice Of The Voiceless

Research at 'The end of the world'

It has been difficult to keep track of Taylor Dunbar ’12 during her career as a student at Franklin & Marshall College. In the summer of 2010, she traveled to South Africa to participate in a 10-week course on global public health. She returned to Africa last spring, researching the green turtle population on Mnemba Island, Tanzania, during a semester abroad.

Dunbar, an animal behavior and art double major, set off on another international adventure over winter break. This time the destination was Ushuaia, Argentina, where she studied the Chilean swallow (Tachycineta meyeni) for her project for the Marshall Scholarship, an award given to students who have demonstrated unusual motivation, spirit of achievement and independence of thought. Joining her on a portion of the trip was Assistant Professor of Biology Dan Ardia, who is part of an international community of scientists exploring swallows from northern Canada to Argentina in a project titled Golondrinas de las Americas.

In conducting research on the southern tip of South America—an area sometimes called “The End of the World”—Dunbar studied how swallows live and reproduce in an environment that is often stormy, usually cold, and almost always unpredictable. She collected data in a valley surrounded by snow-capped mountains, working closely with Ardia and recent F&M graduate Maya Wilson ’11, who is an intern with the Golondrinas project.

“We studied how the birds cope and survive in a harsh environment,” Dunbar says. “We collected egg temperature data to measure parental investment in the nest. If the nest is likely not to survive, the parents may spend more or less time there. It’s a tradeoff between parents maintaining their own survival and that of their young.”

The research in Argentina follows Dunbar’s summer 2011 project as a Cargill Environmental Scholar, during which she worked with Ardia in Lancaster to explore the breeding biology of local tree swallows. Dunbar is comparing data from Lancaster and Argentina to better understand the factors that influence parental investment in the two populations of swallows.

“It was rewarding for me to see Taylor use all the skills and experience she gained at F&M in Argentina,” Ardia says. “She had to troubleshoot to make things work in difficult field conditions, and I think she rose to the challenge and did a great job. She’ll make a great scientist. It was nice to see how confident she felt conducting research in another country.”

In addition to her international travel, Dunbar has wide-ranging interests at F&M. She is the managing editor of The College Reporter, a tutor at the Writing Center and is a member of the Life After College Success Program. She has also turned her longtime passion for art into her second academic major.

“I’d be taking art classes for fun anyway,” Dunbar says. “In high school, I discovered that I loved biology. Sometimes it’s difficult to go from [biology to art] because they require different parts of the brain. It’s hard to go back to your creative side.”

And for Dunbar, it is also difficult to sit still. She hopes to attend graduate school, but only after other international adventures.

Read article at the original source.

Honorary degrees for business leaders

The University of Auckland is bestowing honorary doctorates on two prominent New Zealand business figures, Hugh Fletcher and Owen G Glenn ONZM, in recognition of their major contributions to New Zealand and to the University’s well-being in recent years.

Both will receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree at a ceremony at the Maidment Theatre (Wednesday 1 February, 6pm).

Hugh Fletcher is a former CEO of Fletcher Challenge Ltd whose time in business was remembered as one of innovation. Mr Fletcher retired in 1997 but is still on the board of Fletcher Building as well as holding a number of other directorships, among them the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, and advisory positions.

Since graduating with a BSc and MCom with honours from Auckland he has strongly supported the University.

He served 12 years as a University Council member and was Chancellor from 2004 to 2008. His insights and business experience helped the University develop programmes and facilities needed to maintain its position as a leading research-driven institution. He championed such ambitious initiatives as the new Business School, the Centre for Brain Research, the expansion of the Grafton (Medical and Health Sciences) Campus, and creation of the Institute for Innovation in Biotechnology.

Mr Fletcher is a Trustee of The University of Auckland Foundation which manages and distributes philanthropic funds given to the University.

Owen G Glenn created a successful global business in freight forwarding and is recognised as an international leader in the logistics industry. He helped develop a new business model providing “full service” to customers at both points of origin and destination.

Although born in Calcutta, Mr Glenn and his family emigrated to New Zealand when he was 12. He was educated and found his first job in New Zealand. His family philanthropic foundation supports activities in New Zealand, India, Fiji, and China.

His support for the University reflects his strong and enduring interest in higher education and his firm belief that the University has an important role to play in the economic and social development of New Zealand.

To acknowledge his generosity in donating $7.5 million towards establishing a globally competitive and internationally recognised business school the University named the new building opened in 2008 after him.

Mr Glenn has also financially supported a professorial chair in Marine Science, a PhD scholarship in the Business School and a chair in Molecular Cancer.

He regularly visits the University and the Business School, is a member of the Business School’s Supporters’ Council and was on the Business School’s initial advisory board.

• Currently the University has 49 living honorary graduates, among them the Rt Hon Helen Clark, the Rt Hon Dame Sian Elias, Maurice Gee, Sir Anand Satyanand, Elizabeth Smither, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Dame Catherine Tizard and Sir Miles Warren. Most have been made Doctors of Engineering, Laws, Literature, Music or Science.

Read article at the original source.

Teacher Today / Professor Peter Bruce

A SCOTTISH academic whose work could be the next big leap forward in the development of electric cars has been honoured with a UK Science Award.
Professor Peter Bruce, of St Andrews University, is working on a new type of battery he believes may be able to deliver the “holy grail” of fuelling an engine to run for 300 miles without stopping. The lithium air battery, which uses oxygen, could also help Scotland store and make greater use of energy from wind and wave power.
Prof Bruce said: “It is rewarding to work in an area where you feel your contribution might be something which will be help advance human kind.”
At the moment, electric cars can drive for about 170km before they need recharging.
Prof Lesley Yellowlees, chairman of the selection panel, described Prof Bruce as a “brilliant scientist”.

Student Today / Eve Bird

A STUDENT who used to nod off in class has overcome a rare sleep disorder to be awarded a doctorate.
Eve Bird, 31, left school with no qualifications because she was too sleepy to concentrate.
Her teachers put her symptoms down to being a lazy teenager.
But she was suffering from sleep narcolepsy - which makes people drop off at inappropriate times.
Eve only discovered she had the chronic condition after completing an honours degree in microbiology and biotechnology at Edinburgh's Napier University.
She went on to study for a further four years and is now celebrating graduating with a PhD in biofuel.

Getting a handle on molecular ‘baskets’

Denison University Granville, Ohio, United States 

Tell someone you’re learning how to build baskets in college, and most folks would think of that mythological class Basketweaving 101 — a catch phrase for an easy “A.”

No such thing here. In Jordan Fantini’s chemistry research lab, students are learning how to make calixarenes, basket-shaped molecules that detect important compounds through their complementary shape and electronic charge, like a baseball glove is designed to recognize a baseball instead of a basketball.

Fantini, an associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry, has discovered and refined a process that expands the potential of calixarenes. Here’s how he and his students build a better basket.

Calixarenes are organic molecules that have rings of atoms linked together to form a larger ring. This large ring takes a shape like a basket with three predominant features; an upper “rim” that generally holds a specific electronic charge; a lower rim that stablizes the molecular shape; and in between, a so-called methylene bridge that connects them. Calixarenes are very useful in detecting dissolved substances because they can be created in a variety of shapes and charges made to “fit” those substances, like putting three-dimensional puzzle pieces together.

But, while calixarenes are useful in detecting compounds, they’re not always so good atremoving them. Selective removal of substances is desirable in many applications, such as hazardous nuclear waste or water pollutants.

Fantini discovered a way to attach a “handle” to a calixarene by making a molecular substitution at one of its methylene bridges, without altering its shape and charge. This results in a way to link the calixarene to a small solid bead, made of plastic or silicon, for example. These beads, coated with designed calixarenes, can then be used to trap molecules in a liquid. When the beads are filtered out of the liquid, the selected molecules come along. The beads can be reused, a strong attribute for any purification process, as it enhances sustainability and provides a more cost-effective model.


So, each time they step into their lab in the newly renovated and expanded Ebaugh Laboratories, Fantini and his students expand the potential of these organic molecules and add to the base of both pure and practical chemistry scientific knowledge.

Read article at the original source.

Why are there few fish in the sea

The ocean takes up 70 percent of the Earth's surface, but contains only 15 percent to 25 percent of the Earth's total estimated species. John Wiens, a professor of ecology and evolution at Stony Brook University in New York conducted a research which said Freshwater fish could have diversified from saltwater ancestors, only to see those ancestors wiped out in ocean extinctions. Such extinctions would free up space for some freshwater fish to evolve, once again, to thrive in the ocean.

"Looking at a group in which all these species are aquatic … helps us to isolate what's special specifically about the ocean," Wiens said.
He and his co-authors pulled information on all living fish species from a comprehensive database called FishBase. Next, they combined that information with a family tree of ray-finned fish that shows relationships between groups and clades (groupings of organisms consisting of an individual species and all its descendents). The researchers also put together a tree for known fossil fishes.

LED lights point shoppers in the right direction

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. -- Looking for an item in a large department store or mall can be like searching for a needle in a haystack, but that could change thanks to a hybrid location-identification system that uses radio frequency transmitters and overhead LED lights, suggested by a team of researchers from Penn State and Hallym University in South Korea.

"LED lights are becoming the norm," said Mohsen Kavehrad, W.L. Weiss Chair Professor of Electrical Engineering and director of the Center for Information and Communications Technology Research at Penn State. "The same lights that brighten a room can also provide locational information."

To locate an item in a mall, the system would not need to transfer large amounts of data. Kavehrad and his team envision large stores or malls with overhead LED light fixtures, each assigned with a location code. At the entrance, a computer that is accessible via keyboard or even telephone would contain a database of all the items available. Shortly after a query, the location or locations of the desired item would appear.

"The human eye can't see beyond 15 on and offs of a light per second," said Kavehrad. "We can get kilobytes and megabytes of information in very rapid blinking of the LEDs," he told attendees at the SPIE Photonics West 2012 conference today in San Francisco.

But LED-transmitted locational information alone will not work because light does not transmit through walls. Kavehrad, working with Zhou Zhou, graduate student in electrical engineering, Penn State, designed a hybrid LiFi system using a Zigbee multihop wireless network with the LEDs.

ZigBee is an engineering specification designed for small, low-power digital radio frequency applications requiring short-range wireless transfer of data at relatively low rates. ZigBee applications usually require a low data rate, long battery life, and secure networking.

While a ceiling light can have communications with anything placed beneath its area, light cannot travel through walls, so a hybrid system using light and RF became the practical solution.

The system consists of the location-tagged LEDs and combination photodiode and Zigbee receiver merchandise tags. The request for an item goes from the computer through the many jumps of short radio frequency receivers and transmitters placed throughout the mall. The RF/photodiode tag on the merchandise sought, reads its location from the overhead LED and sends the information back through the wireless network to the computer.

Even when merchandise is moved from room to room, the accurate location remains available because a different LED overhead light with a different location code signals the tag.

While ideal for shopping applications, this hybrid model is also useful in other situations. LED-transmitted information is useful in places like hospitals, where radio frequency signals can interfere with equipment.

Modern Geographic Positioning Systems, such as those in cell phones, can easily locate people outside, but they do not work within buildings. A hybrid system in a high-rise office building, for example, could not only tell the system someone was in the building, but could identify the floor where the person was at that time. In museums or hospitals, navigation systems could guide people through large buildings by reading the final destination signal from a hand-carried photodiode device and initializing lights or other indicators to show the proper path.

Kavehrad notes that Zigbee devices are designed to be inexpensive, as are the photodiodes also required for the system. Not every identical item would need a tag and the tags are reusable.

Also working on this project were Yong Up Lee, professor of electronics, Hallym University, Chuncheon, Korea, currently at Penn State on sabbatical, and Sungkeun Baang and Joohyeon Park, masters degree students at Hallym University.

The National Research Foundation of Korea and the National Science Foundation funded this work.

Read article at the original source.

Ken Clarke gets Oldie award

A magazine has named the British Justice Secretary Ken Clarke as the 'Oldie of the year'.


The 72-year-old Conservative MP is "one of the most characterful men on either front bench. He displays all the characteristics of a cast-iron Oldie: true to his principles, age worn lightly, still in the job long after his work mates have gone. He survived Ted Heath, Margaret Thatcher and John Major. Not only is he justifiably and prominently the Oldie of the Year but he is also the political survivor of the year" says one of the judges, Jon Snow.


Others to have won the award in the past include Sir David Attenborough and Joanna Lumley.


Source: BBC News

Spanish sculptor Tapies dies

Spanish artist and sculptor Antoni Tapies, known for his sprawling works, has died aged 88.


One of the "world's leading contemporary art figures", Tapies won the top Spanish art award Velazquez Prize in 2003.


Originally inspired by the works of surrealist painters like Miro and Klee, Tapies later developed a unique style of his own "featuring built-up surfaces that were often scratched with letters, numbers and signs".


His creations often contained discarded material from everyday use, such as the sculpture Mattress.


The artist, at the age of 17 had suffered a heart attack due to tuberculosis and had been in poor health since 2007.


Source: BBC News

The clock does it!

By Sarah Mahmood

Melancholy are the days.
Things are not the way you'd like them to be.
 Ill omens are pretty evident, everywhere.

What do you do? Folks, here's a piece of advice: give yourself time. Time to ponder. Time to settle down. Time to do the right thing this time (and additionally, they aren't wrong when they say time is the best healer of all - and the approach is what catalyzes it!)

With obstacles, worms wiggle faster

The findings by researchers at New York University have implications for a better understanding of basic locomotion strategies found in biology, and the survival and propagation of the parasite that causes malaria.

Nematodes, which are very small worms, and many other organisms, use a snake-like, undulatory motion to propel forward across dry surfaces and through fluids.

There are, however, many instances where small organisms must make their way through a fluid-filled environment studded with obstacles that are comparable in size to the swimmers themselves.

Nearly all microscopic nematodes, about one millimeter in length, face such barriers when moving through wet soil—the soil’s granules serve as hurdles these creatures must navigate.

Similarly, the malaria parasite’s male gametes, or reproductive cells, must swim through a dense suspension of their host’s blood cells in order to procreate. A similar situation arises for spermatozoa moving through the reproductive tract.

The researchers, from NYU’s Applied Math Lab, sought to understand how efficiently such undulating organisms can move through obstacle-laden fluids. To do so, they conducted a study comparing experiments using live worms, the nematode C. elegans, with the results of a computer model of a worm moving in a virtual environment.

In the experiment, the worms swam through a very shallow pool filled with a lattice of obstructing micro-pillars while the computer simulation gave a benchmark of a worm moving blindly without sensing and response.

Surprisingly, C. elegans was able to advance much more quickly through the lattice of obstacles than through a fluid in which their movement was unimpeded. Details are reported in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

“If the lattice is neither too tight nor too loose, the worms move much faster by threading between and pushing off the pillars,” the researchers write.

The second surprise was that the computer simulation gave very similar results, reproducing the fast motions of the worm in the lattice, but also showing complex “life-like” behaviors that had been interpreted as coming from sensing and response of the worm to its local environment.

These results enhance our understanding of biological locomotion through tortuous environments like soils or the reproductive tract, showing how real organisms can take advantage of what seems like defiant complexity, and offer intriguing insights into how the reproductive processes of dangerous parasites might be interrupted.

The study’s co-authors are Trushant Majmudar and Professors Jun Zhang and Michael Shelley of NYU, and Eric Keaveny of Imperial College London.

The study was funded by grants from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy.

www.futurity.com 

Taylor's art collection fetches £14m

Elizabeth Taylor's personal art collection goes on sale, fetching £14m for three paintings.

Pissarro's Pommiers a Eragny

The works of artists Vincent Van Gogh, Edgar Degas and Claude Pissarro went for auction at Christie's fetching more than twice the estimated amount.

Van Gogh's Vue de l'asile et de la Chapelle de Saint-Remy, a self-portrait by Degas and a Pissarro landscape - Pommiers a Eragny - were sold for £10.1m, £713,250 and £2.9m respectively.

The artworks were displayed in London and New York last year at the Collection of Elizabeth Taylor global tour.

Source: BBC News