Student loan debt weighs on more households

Students protest the rising costs of student loans for higher
education on Hollywood Boulevard on Saturday in Los Angeles.

(US) Even as the nation's households have reduced their total debt in recent years, the share that owes student loans has increased sharply, an analysis of the latest available Federal Reserve data shows.
Nearly one in five (19%) households in 2010 had outstanding student debt or loans in deferment, up from 15% in 2007, and more than double the number two decades earlier, says the Pew Research Center in a report released Wednesday.
And while increases in outstanding student debt are occurring across all income levels and ages, the trend is taking the biggest bite out of the nation's youngest and poorest households.
The report is based on the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances, published in June. The survey, conducted every three years, found that average total indebtedness between 2007 and 2010 for all households fell to $100,720 from $105,297. Yet the Fed also noted that debt related to education had risen in some households.
The Pew center's deeper dive into the data found, that among households headed by someone younger than 35, a record 40% owe student debt, the highest share among any age group.
Among households earning less than $21,000, outstanding debt represented 24% of household income.
"(The report) makes the very important point that the lowest income families bear the heaviest burden of debt relative to income, which reinforces the importance of Pell Grants and other aid that helps limit the need to borrow," says Lauren Asher, president of the Institute for College Access & Success.
Richard Fry, a Pew senior economist and author of the report, says he hopes the report will provide perspective for families as they consider educational options.
"Given the fact that the job market has been especially weak for young adults, I think there's a conversation going on in a lot of American families with high school students about, 'Is college worth it?' " he says. "Student loan debt is sort of the lightning rod issue for this conversation."

by Mary Beth Marklein, USA TODAY

Just One Day by Gayle Forman

A breathtaking journey toward self-discovery and true love, from the author of If I Stay

When sheltered American good girl Allyson "LuLu" Healey first meets laid-back Dutch actor Willem De Ruiter at an underground performance of Twelfth Night in England, there’s an undeniable spark. After just one day together, that spark bursts into a flame, or so it seems to Allyson, until the following morning, when she wakes up after a whirlwind day in Paris to discover that Willem has left. Over the next year, Allyson embarks on a journey to come to terms with the narrow confines of her life, and through Shakespeare, travel, and a quest for her almost-true-love, to break free of those confines.

Just One Day is the first in a sweepingly romantic duet of novels. Willem’s story—Just One Year—is coming soon!

April Sumatra quakes signal Indian ocean plate break-up

The sequence of huge earthquakes that struck off the coast of Sumatra in April may signal the creation of a new tectonic plate boundary.

Scientists give the assessment in this week's Nature journal.

They say their analysis of the tremors - the biggest was a magnitude 8.7 - suggests major changes are taking place on the ocean floor that will eventually split the Indo-Australian plate in two.

It is not something that will happen soon; it could take millions of years.

"This is a process that probably started eight to 10 million years ago, so you can imagine how much longer it will take until we get a classic boundary," said Matthias Delescluse from the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris.

Dr Delescluse is an author on one of three scholarly papers in Nature discussing the 11 April quakes.

Read More

Fenland Black Oak: 5,000-year-old tree found in Norfolk

Thousands of years ago the East Anglia fenland basin was densely
forested by gigantic oak trees

The trunk of a giant oak tree, thought by experts to be more than 5,000 years old, has been unearthed in a field in Norfolk.

The 44ft (13.4m) Fenland Black Oak, or bog oak, was found buried in farmland at Methwold Hythe, near Downham Market.

Planks cut from the trunk will be dried over seven months in a specialist kiln.

Building Crafts College students helped to
plank the bog oak 

A spokesman said the tree would make "a breathtaking table for public display giving an insight into the grandeur of these ancient giant forests".


Bog oak is generally found buried in farmland.

One of the rarest forms of timber in England, when dry it is said to be "comparable to some of the world's most expensive tropical hardwoods".

Experts believe the Norfolk bog oak is "the largest-ever intact 5,000-year-old sub-fossilised trunk of an ancient giant oak", but think it could be just a section - possibly as small as a quarter - of the original tree.

Standing trees began to perish as water levels gradually rose starting about 7,000 years ago and when they died they tumbled into silt that built up on the forest floor and this led to their preservation.

Hamish Low, of specialists Adamson and Low, said: "This one is so special in that it is intact and, as far as I can tell, sound along its full 44ft length.

"Along with the fact it is impossible to know how long Fenland Black Oaks will continue to rise out of the soil, and their inherent fragility, this one is worthy of preserving for the interest of the nation."

Having taken a team of experts a day on Tuesday to unearth the tree and mill on site to 10 planks, the wood is being transported to London for drying.

Working as the Diamond Jubilee Fenland Black Oak Project, Mr Low will lead a team of apprentice carpenters, in collaboration with the Worshipful Company of Carpenters, to create a 44ft table from the dried oak with the intention of putting it on show to the public.

"Most people in the woodwork business will think it's a ridiculous thing to try and attempt, but they are digging up less and less bog oak and there is very little of it on public display," said Mr Low.

"It's only by developing techniques over 20 years we've even dared to try and attempt this."

BBC.co.uk

Are Dolce and Gabbana’s New Designs Racist?

While slightly more subtle than their Vogue Italia compatriot's "slave earrings" from 2011, the "Blackamoor" motifs that rolled down the runway at Dolce and Gabbana's Spring 2013 show on Sunday are sparking controversy and accusations of racism. Art historically, "Blackamoor" describes sculptures or decorative motifs of dark skinned African servants, usually wearing a turban. Although nowadays the images are generally considered to be offensive evocations of slavery (akin to lawn jockeys or "Mammy" dolls), the super-luxe brand splashed them across the front of their dresses-which were made of burlap, no less. Ebony faces topped with head wraps also dangled from the models' earlobes. The blog Madame Noir points out that what makes the images particularly jarring is that all those earlobes were white-D&G didn't feature one woman of color on its catwalk. "For whatever reason, a black woman wasn't fit to be in the show; but she could certainly be used-exploited- as a form of decoration on a white model, in a white show, for a white company."

(Source: OMG Yahoo)

Facebook deleting fake 'likes', independent data suggests

Facebook has begun deleting fake page "likes", independent data suggests.

According to Pagedata, many of the site's most "liked" pages suffered large drops in numbers on Wednesday.

The move follows the social network's admission that 8.7% of its users are not "real", many having been set up by spammers who use them to artificially make pages appear more popular.

The issue poses a problem for Facebook as it seeks to expand its targeted advertising service.

Facebook's shares have slumped from their initial public offering of $38 (£23) in May to $20.62 on Thursday.

In a blog post written in August, Facebook said: "A 'like' that doesn't come from someone truly interested in connecting with a page benefits no-one."

Technology news site The Verge, citing Pagedata's statistics, noted that some of the most popular pages on Facebook had suddenly shed significant numbers of users.

The page for Texas HoldEm Poker, one of the site's most popular, shed 96,317 "likes" on Wednesday - compared with net gains of about 20,000 each day for the previous month.

Other prominent pages also saw a drop in numbers, including those of pop singers Rihanna (-28,275), Eminem (-15,420) and Lady Gaga (-34,326).

-  BBC.co.uk

Unemployment in France surpasses three million

French unemployment topped three million for the first time in over a decade, data showed Wednesday, as the country faces a yawning budget gap like those plaguing its southern eurozone neighbours.

The number of jobless in mainland France swelled to 3.011 million in August, 23,900 more than in July, Labour Ministry figures showed, the first time since 1999 that the figure has breached the three million mark.

Some 4.494 million people, including some who are partially employed, have registered themselves as actively looking for work on the French mainland. This is 40,800 more than in July and a record since the ministry began collecting comparable data in 1991.

"These three million unemployed embody the failure of economic and social policies undertaken during the last few years," the ministry said in a statement.

"In the face of this difficult report, the government is determined to implement as soon as possible" reforms, it said.

With the number of people out of work already reaching 2.99 million in July, the French government had expected a further rise in August, with Labour Minister Michel Sapin saying in early September that the symbolic figure of three million had been breached.

French President Francois Hollande earlier this month pledged to reverse the trend in a year's time, a target that Sapin said Tuesday was "reachable".

However, an economist at the French Economic Observatory, Eric Heyer, believes that annual growth of 1 percent is necessary to stabilise the rate of unemployment and that 1.5 to 2 percent in growth is needed to reduce the number of people out of a job.

The government has forecast 0.3 percent growth for the year, and has so far kept its 2013 target at 1.2 percent, which most economists now consider unrealistic.

France's central bank this month predicted that the eurozone's second biggest economy would contract by 0.1 percent in the third quarter after flat-lining for the first half of the year.

Uk tourists turning to vietnam

The incredible growth in demand for the currency suggests that Britons are beginning to reject traditional holiday destinations in favour of bargain deals to the South East Asian nation.

Andrew Brown, head of the Travel Money section at the UK Post Office suggests that British vacationers are more aware than ever of attractive exchange rates and discount deals when choosing their destinations.

While Vietnam is further afield than the European destinations usually favoured by Britons, the relatively low cost of living in South East Asia makes Vietnam an attractive prospect for the budget conscious.

Furthermore, the recent introduction of non-stop flights between the UK and Vietnam have made the country easier than ever to reach. Vietnam Airlines new service from Gatwick to Hanoi, introduced in late 2011, has reduced the journey time by several hours, forgoing the need to transfer in such Asian transport hubs as Beijing or Bangkok.

New resorts in Vietnam are poised to capitalise on this renewed interest in the country. The Sun Peninsula hotel celebrated its grand opening in June 2012, while the Anantara Mui Ne began taking guests in April. A slew of international chains have also announced plans to enter Vietnam, with the Hilton Danang set to open two years from now and Quy Nhon hotel expected to open for business in 2015.

Other currencies also saw significant gains in summer 2012, with Hungarian national currency Forint up 59% and Brazilian Real up by 66% on 2011, suggesting a growing trend for holiday makers to look to unconventional destinations in the future.

Swiss intelligence worker stole documents: defence

A Swiss intelligence agency employee stole documents earlier this year, but the theft was detected immediately and no information leaked to a third party, the defence department said Thursday.

"Data was stolen internally in May, but due to our safety procedures we detected it right away," Sonja Margelist, a spokeswoman for the Swiss defence department told AFP.

"There was no damage," she insisted.

The agency refused to reveal any information about the employee or the stolen documents.

According to the Le Temps daily, however, the thief was a 43-year-old technician and he had stolen millions of pages worth of data, which were found in his home.

The paper reported that, due to security concerns, regular VBS employees are barred from copying data using their work computers, but that restriction does not apply to the agency's chief technicians.

VBS said it has brought criminal charges against the employee, who reportedly spent six weeks in preventive detention, and a probe was launched by Switzerland's chief prosecutor.

School forced to disclose bullying questionnaire results to parents

HYOGO — A school in Kawanishi, Hyogo Prefecture, is to break a confidentiality agreement made with students who responded to a survey about bullying.

The survey was carried out following the suicide of a 17-year-old boy, who was being called “bug” and “germ” by classmates, and had dead insects placed on his chair in class, Sankei Shimbun reported. The boy committed suicide by hanging himself at his home on Sept 2. Following his death, the boy’s school told his parents that there were no problems in his school life and that they were unaware of any bullying. The boy did not leave any written notes.

However, following his funeral, the boy’s parents discovered a mourning letter written by a classmate and addressed to their son, which revealed that he had been bullied. The parents contacted his school and were told that the school principal had also heard reports from other sources that their son had been the victim of bullying.

School authorities conducted a survey of the boy’s classmates in order to ascertain the scale of the problem. The school read portions of the survey responses to parents, but said they did not release the full documents in an attempt to protect students’ privacy.

However, parents contacted the Hyogo Board of Education and demanded full access to the documents. The school’s principal told a news conference: “I would like to reveal what information we can, according to parents’ wishes.”

A spokesperson said that information identifying individuals will be removed from the documents before they are read by parents, Sankei reported.

Following that announcement, an emergency parent-teacher meeting was held on the Tuesday night, at which the school apologized for the comments of a teacher who told students in class that if parents continued to fail to understand the school’s reasons and methods, the school would cease to operate and eventually collapse. The principal apologized for the teacher’s “inappropriate” comments.

Japan Today

Shark attacks spark kill orders off Western Australia

PERTH — Sharks that stray too close to beaches on Australia’s west coast will be caught and killed under a new government plan in response to an unprecedented spate of fatalities.

Western Australia Premier Colin Barnett on Thursday unveiled a A$6.85 million (U.S.$7.12 million) package in shark mitigation strategies, including a track, catch and destroy program, in the wake of five fatal attacks over the past year.

Fisheries Minister Norman Moore said the move would enable “proactive action” as soon as a shark was detected close to beachgoers instead of waiting for the animal to strike.

“Previously the orders were used in response to an attack, but now proactive action will be taken if a large white shark presents imminent threat to people,” said Moore.

The funding package includes $2 million for shark hunting and killing and $2 million for a tagging and tracking program that is already underway and providing real-time alerts on social media when sharks enter populated areas.

A further $2 million would be set aside for shark research, while the remaining funding would be devoted to extra jet-skis for life guards, a study and trial of enclosures and a smartphone application for shark alerts.

“These new measures will not only help us to understand the behavior of sharks but also offer beachgoers greater protection and confidence as we head into summer,” said Barnett.

Western Australia’s government has come under growing pressure to increase protection measures after the five deaths over the past year—an unprecedented number for such a short period.

The most recent fatality was in July, when a surfer was bitten in half in a savage attack near Wedge Island, north of Perth, with another mauled but escaping alive last month at far-flung Red Bluff.

Most fatal attacks in the region involve great whites, among the largest shark species in the world and made famous by the horror movie “Jaws.” They can can grow up to six meters long and weigh up to two tons.

Sharks are common in Australian waters but deadly attacks have previously been rare, with only one of the average 15 incidents a year typically proving fatal.

Experts say the average number of attacks in the country has increased in line with population growth and the popularity of water sports.

© 2012 AFP

Pentax digital cameras

TOKYO —

The new flagship model of the Pentax K digital SLR camera series features newly developed state of the art AF sensor that boasts broadest AF working EV range range in its class. The Anti-aliasing filter less PENTAX K-5 II s to be released at the same time for resolution-conscious photographers.

The K-5 II features a newly developed, highly sensitive SAFOX X AF module. Thanks to the unit’s high-sensitivity AF sensor, which performs brilliantly in low-light conditions, this new module offers a broad AF working EV range (-3 EV to +18 EV). SAFOX X can work with luminous flux based on F2.8 levels in addition to that of F5.6. This increase the AF accuracy drastically when using with very fast lenses coupled with an upgraded AF algorithm, it delivers exceptional AF performance, including such useful features as a select-area expansion function, which automatically tracks the subject even when it moves away from a pre-assigned select point by assessing distance data collected by neighboring focus sensors.

The K-5 II comes equipped with a 3.0-inch, wide-view, air-gap-free LCD monitor with approximately 921,000 dots. Sandwiched between the front glass panel (which is coated with an anti-glare film) and the LCD screen is a unique resin layer that cuts down the reflection and dispersion of the light to effectively prevent ghost images and greatly reduce brightness loss. The front panel is also made of tempered glass to keep it free of scratches and abrasions.

With its large sensor measuring 23.7mm by 15.7mm in size with approximately 16.28 effective megapixels, the K-5 II’s latest-generation CMOS image sensor assures high-speed image data readout. By coupling this high-performance image sensor with the acclaimed PRIME (PENTAX Real Image Engine) II imaging engine, the K-5 II delivers super-high-resolution, rich-gradation digital images free of digital noise over a wide sensitivity range  from ISO 100 to ISO 12800 in standard setting, or from ISO 80 to ISO 51200 when expanded via a custom function.

The K-5 II features the custom image function, which allows the users to easily select the desired finishing touch for a particular image, in order to more faithfully express their creative intention or emphasize the prevailing atmosphere. This function offers a choice of nine distinctive custom image modes, such as: Bleach Bypass, which creates a solemn visual effect used in motion pictures; and Cross Process, which produces eye-catching images with unique, dramatic colors. The K-5 II also offers 18 digital filters including Sketch and Posterization to add distinctive visual effects to captured images, without the need of a computer. The user can even apply different filters one after another to a single image to create more inventive visual effects.

On sale from mid-October. Price: Around 110,000-160,000 yen.

Google has no plans to create Maps app for iPhone 5

TOKYO —

Google Inc has made no move to provide Google Maps for the iPhone 5 after Apple Inc dropped the application in favor of a home-grown but controversial alternative, Apple launched its own mapping service earlier this month when it began providing the highly anticipated update to its mobile software platform iOS 6 and started selling the iPhone 5.

But users have complained that Apple’s new map service, based on Dutch navigation equipment and digital map maker TomTom NV’s data, contains glaring geographical errors and lacks features that made Google Maps so popular.

Google and Apple were in constant communication at all kinds of levels. But any decision whether Google Maps would be accepted as an application in the Apple App Store would have to be made by Apple.

Google and Apple were close partners with the original iPhone in 2007 and its inclusion of YouTube and Google Maps. But the ties between the two have been strained by the rise of Google’s Android mobile operating system, now the world’s leading platform for smartphones.

Google provides Android free of charge and allows developers to add applications on an open basis, betting that by cultivating a bigger pool of users  now at over 500 million globally  it can make more money by providing search functions and selling advertising.

The feature allows users to shift their view of an area by moving the device in the air without touching the screen, similar to the effect of looking around.

Toshiba to launch hybrid drive to boost share in storage market

TOKYO —

Toshiba Corp announced that it will launch two 2.5-inch form factor Hybrid Drives that bring new levels of high speed read and write performance to notebook and desktop PCs. The new drives, which integrate high capacity hard disk drives and NAND flash memory in a single unit, will be available in two capacities, 1 terabyte (TB) and 750 gigabytes (GB).

The new drives the 1TB MQ01ABD100H and the 750GB MQ01ABD075H use hard disks to deliver high level capacity and 8GB NAND flash memory as a cache memory to support high speed data throughput. As a result, read and write times are about three times faster than in Toshiba hard disk drives with equivalent capacities. In PCs, the new Hybrid Drive reduces application boot times by about 40%. With a 2.5-inch form factor and high capacity, the new drives are ideally positioned as a high performance alternative for portable and desktop PCs.

In operation, data is allocated to one of the Hybrid Drive’s three memory layers: DRAM buffer memory, NAND flash memory or the magnetic disk media. This process is enhanced by an algorithm that dynamically learns the user’s data access pattern and stores data accordingly to the appropriate tier. High speed access is achieved by storing frequently accessed data in the NAND flash memory.

Today’s PCs must meet increasingly strong demands for storage capacities that can handle multiple HD videos and other data-rich sources and a read/write performance that can meet the demands of ever faster CPU and graphics chips. Through the synergy of state-of-the-art NAND flash memory manufactured with the latest generation of process technology and by leading-edge miniaturizing technique and high speed, high capacity HDD, Toshiba now offers business and consumers the solution of the Hybrid Drive, a large capacity drive that matches the capacity of HDD with data access speeds like the SSD.

Honda develops household gas engine cogeneration unit for use during power outage

TOKYO —

Honda Motor Co will begin sales of a new model for its household MCHP (Micro Combined Heat and Power) gas engine cogeneration unit, through gas utilities across Japan.

Building on its predecessors that have served as the core unit in the ECOWILL household cogeneration system, which runs by burning natural gas or LPG for electricity generation and using the exhaust heat for hot water supply and heating, the new model has an autonomous operation function that enables system use in a power outage or other emergencies.

In the aftermath of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, a market need has arisen for a cogeneration system that can be used even during a power outage. The new household gas engine cogeneration unit MCHP1.0R with an autonomous operation function was accordingly developed based on a power generation unit that underwent a full model change in 2011. The new model is the power generation unit of ECOWILL PLUS, a new gas engine cogeneration system for electricity generation, hot water supply, and heating, which will be put on sale through gas utilities.

Power can be generated independent of the utility grid by simply pulling the unit’s starter grip to start the engine. Maximum power output during autonomous operation is approximately 980 W, which is supplied through a dedicated outlet to provide night lighting and to enable operation of a television and a personal computer for gathering information. Hot water for a bath and a floor heating system can also be available during an outage.

In 2003, Honda began sales of its first compact household cogeneration unit, which combined a gas engine with Honda’s original sine-wave inverter power generation technology. The unit underwent a full model change in 2011 as MCHP1.0K2, featuring Honda’s EXlink (Extended Expansion Linkage Engine), whose expansion stroke is longer than its intake stroke, resulting in a high expansion ratio for greatly increased thermal and fuel efficiency. With EXlink and Honda’s original power generation technologies, MCHP1.0K2 achieves power generation efficiency of 26.3%.

Samsung launches new oversized smartphone

SEOUL —

Samsung launched the newest version of its oversized smartphone Galaxy Note, just a week after Apple’s iPhone 5 hit shelves, in an apparent bid to outpace its rival with a wider range of gadgets.

The South Korean electronics giant said the Galaxy Note II first unveiled at a trade fair in Berlin last month will eventually hit stores in 128 nations including the United States, where the firm’s recently lost a $1.05 billion patent case to Apple. The gadget is slightly bigger than the firm’s flagship smartphone Galaxy S series and comes with a stylus S pen to write notes or draw on the screen.

Samsung believe global sales of Galaxy Note II for the first three months will be more than three times those of the previous version, The world’s top smartphone maker has sold more than 10 million units of the first Galaxy Note since its debut in November and more than 20 million of the latest Galaxy S III, which was launched in late May.

The launch comes after a flurry of new devices from major phone makers including Apple, whose iPhone 5 just days ago enjoyed a record launch weekend with sales topping five million. Samsung’s smaller rival LG Electronics last week put on sale the new version of its headline Optimus G, hopes it will help the world’s number five phonemaker meet its goal to sell 80 million mobile phones this year.

Galaxy Note II powered by Google’s Android software is equipped with a new 1.6 GHz quad-core processor that helps run multiple applications faster than the dual-core processor of the previous version. About 15.1 centimeters long, 8 centimeters wide, 9.4 millimeters thin and featuring a 5.5-inch touchscreen, it allows users to split the screen in half to view two programs at once.

Samsung has been embroiled in a long-running patent battle with Apple in 10 countries, including the United States and Germany, with the two rivals accusing each other of stealing design and technology. Last month the South Korean firm was ordered to pay Apple $1.05 billion in damages for illegally copying iPhone and iPad features for its Galaxy S smartphones.

Headline Sep28,2012/

"!WOW! ''THE GENERAL BODY''  

Something To Sing About!"

There isn't, but there should be, a sign before you log into the World Students Society for Computers-Internet-Wireless that reads, ''Welcome To The DeStablization World!'' Because there really is no other way of explaining of what will go on here!!?? Hahaha!

Just Kidding! Don't quote that or we will all be up to our eyeballs in trouble.


But Jokes aside, I and the Samurai, have conceived for you, an organisation, and structure, the type and like of which the world has never known. We threw every book out. We preened and discarded every thing we knew at the Drafting Boards. We never had a bench mark to inhibit us. We never listened to anybody but our inner voices. I for one advised and emphasized two points of wisdom:

We have to think about becoming, ''Staying Power Geniuses''.

And we have to develop a Refined Grasp of Honorable Service in a very very Dangerous World.


My point was that !WOW! will succeed beyond our wildest dreams but only if the Students of the world are determined to shake every science known to mankind, to its very foundation.

We must succeed in designing 'A shape and structure evolving and shifting Form, that houses a fresh showcase of objectives with every yearly rotation!''

We have to evolve Management Theory on its head. Literally and create a ''Transformer Organisation''.


Our solution, therefore, had to be one that encompasses a ''multi-use venue''. This had to be capable of supporting its broad global culture agenda that encompasses the entire ''ecosystem'', while retaining the necessarily 'flux' element to achieve its pop up status that ensures an ongoing conversation between all students.

It must be the perfect metaphor for "WOW!

And it should be absolutely visible that the structure has been designed not simply to confound and amaze but to fill in the gaps between what is in practice and what the students want. And what it is able to show and how it views itself in the context of a free-standing artistic enterprise of the global students allied to anything that is good for Mankind and the Students.


So what we have designed is an ever evolving polymorphous structure the shape of which would be dictated by your needs, your struggles, and your accomplishments. In short, everything will be dictated by the Content Rather than Vice Versa.



At midnight on the 31st of December, The Registration on the World Society will stop. In the days following, the names of the Registered Students will be displayed.

This for the starting point will constitute ''The General Body'''

You then can move forward.

We will call it the ''Living Storage!''


Do sing all the way! Good night & God bless!

Toyota unveils robot helper

TOKYO —

Toyota unveiled a robotic best friend that can offer a helping hand around the house fetching and carrying for the elderly or immobile. The human support robot, a compact cylinder-shaped machine 37 centimeters in diameter and up to 130 centimeters tall, can be remotely controlled by a tablet computer to recognise items it is sent to fetch.

Taking their cue from dogs that are trained to retrieve things, Toyota engineers designed the robot to perform simple tasks on command, using an arm equipped with a small suction pad. The robot still has challenges such as selecting items from a drawer containing all sorts of things, for example, Finding an item by itself before getting it to the person controlling it is the most difficult challenge.

Toyota, one of the world’s biggest automakers, has applied technology developed for its cars, such as precise control of motors at high speeds, in the design of the robots. Products catering to the elderly are big business in Japan, where a declining birthrate and lengthening life-expectancy is creating a greying society.

Facing Complaints Over Paddling, Texas School Expands Policy

19 U.S. states allow for corporal punishment in schools

Well, we suppose that's one way of dealing with the complaints.

A Texas school district has expanded their corporal punishment policy to allow paddlings by opposite-sex administrators after two parents complained that a male staffer gave their daughters bruise-inducing spankings.

Here's how the Associated Press described the changes to Springtown's policy on corporal punishment. The school district's previous policy dictated that all paddlings must be carried out by an administrator of the same sex as the student being disciplined:

"Board members voted Monday night to let administrators paddle students of the opposite sex, after Superintendent Michael Kelley cited a lack of women administrators to carry out spankings. The new policy says a same-gender school official must witness the paddling, which is just one 'swat,' and that parents also can request one spanking per semester. In all cases, a parent must give written permission and request it in lieu of another punishment, such as suspension or detention."

Texas is one of 19 states that allow for corporal punishment in schools. About 75 percent of the districts in Texas include it as an acceptable form of punishment

ABC's Good Morning America did a segment earlier this year on the use of corporal punishment in schools, where they noted that the use of the punishment is approved mainly in southern and mid-western states. Both Texas and Florida have seen recent attempts to ban the practice, both of which have been so far unsuccessful.

The states that allow children to be disciplined with corporal punishment in schools are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming.

By Abby Ohlheiser - Slate.com

I Giggle, Therefore I Am

I have just discovered a profoundly human, evolutionarily crucial fact about the new baby in our house: He likes to be tickled.

This isn’t a joke. For centuries, the deepest of thinkers—Aristotle, Darwin, Shylock—have puzzled over this silliest of human acts. Robert R. Provine, a neuroscientist at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County, is their heir, and according to his new book, Curious Behavior, Shylock was on to something. Tickling is not an inexplicable physical tic. It’s central to who we are—and how we became who we are.

Provine first began researching tickling when someone came up to him before a talk on laughter—he’s an expert on the subject—and said she hoped he wasn’t studying tickling. She hated tickling. So inevitably, he decided to study it: “Her revulsion was persuasive.” If she’s that annoyed by it, he thought, it must be important.

Its importance begins in infancy. “When people say they hate being tickled and there’s no reason for it, they forget that it’s one of the first avenues of communication between mothers and babies,” he says. “You have the mother and baby engaged in this kind of primal, neurologically programmed interaction.” Or the father: I tickle my son; he shrieks; I tickle him more; he shrieks more; I tickle him yet more; he starts wailing. I apologize.

In a sense, this is our first conversation—how we manage to talk with someone despite being preverbal. The content here is socioemotional, and as a form of social binding, it preceded the development of language, Provine says. Play with a toddler and you might end up recapitulating that developmental progression: before talking comes tickling. “If one wants to become friends with a young child,” as the neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp has written, “there is no easier way to negotiate the social terrain than by gently escalating tickle games.”

Tickle games are not unique to humans. They’re part of our mammalian heritage. “Tickle is what binds mammals together in rough-and-tumble play,” Provine says. Pick a mammal. Squirrels engage in play that looks a lot like tickling. So do—of all species—elephants. So do rats: In a sensational experiment a decade ago, Panksepp recorded the ultrasonic sounds, inaudible to the human ear, that rats make when tickled by an experimenter. The rats, in other words, seem to giggle when tickled.

But only chimpanzee and human mothers gaze deeply into the eyes of their infants—and then tickle them. In the wild, chimpanzee infants will bite their mothers, who respond by tickling; the infants then bite their mothers again, which provokes more tickling; and so on. It’s a social dance: Tickling is the way we and the chimps establish, without words, that we’re in this thing together.

Tickling in infancy is foundational behavior, in other words. Provine contends that tickling is at the root of not just communication but laughter. “Tickle is the primal laugh stimulus,” Provine says. It is the “labored breathing” during this sort of rough-and-tumble play that is at the root of human laughter, he argues: Over millions of years, pant-pant became ha-ha. It goes back so far that the feigned tickle is Provine’s candidate for the oldest joke in the world. It’s the only joke, he says, that you can tell with equal success to a human and a chimpanzee: They both crack up. (An actual tickle would spark a purely reflexive response, so it doesn’t qualify.)

Provine is delightfully unconcerned about being seen as a serious scientist, even though he is. (Sample Provine sentence, from a peer-reviewed journal: “Solo tickle is even emptier than solo sex—you can masturbate to climax but you cannot tickle yourself.”) Curious Behavior, which has chapters on things like sneezing and yawning, is a work of what Provine calls sidewalk neuroscience—research you can do while walking down the street. You don’t need a massive NSF grant; you need people willing to laugh into your microphone. (“If you insist on more equipment, buy a stopwatch.”)

But Provine’s basic point is very serious: He thinks that we overlook the significance of mundane or embarrassing behavior. Sometimes deep insights are found in shallow places. We yawn when other people yawn, or itch when other people itch, because these are very old, herd-driven behaviors. We are obeying what Provine calls “neurological scripts.”

And tickling, Provine says, has a profound lesson to teach us. “When you look at the evolution of the development of tickle, you’re also looking at the evolution of the development of self,” he says.  What’s at work in tickling, he argues, is the neurological basis for the separation of self from other. After all, as Provine noted so indelicately, you can’t tickle yourself. Your body knows that you are you; you can’t fool it. “Otherwise you’d go through life in a giant chain reaction of goosiness,” Provine says. “You’d be afraid of your own clothing if you could never distinguish between touching and being touched.”

When a baby senses a foreign hand lightly brushing his bare feet, he’s experiencing something that is recognizably other—which means that there’s something that isn’t other, too: There’s himself. Tickling is central to who we are, because it is part of how we establish that there’s a we there. (This may why too much or unwanted tickling is so viscerally frightening and overwhelming: There’s the sense that someone is invading your body and you can’t stop it.)

It’s exhilarating to think about all this while I’m tickling my infant son. (Until he starts wailing, that is.) But there is a cautionary tale to Provine’s tickling research: Like hiccupping, the amount of tickling in your life diminishes with each passing year. Tell me how much you are tickled and I can tell you how old you are. After the age of 40, Provine says, the frequency of tickling drops tenfold.

I tell myself that tickling my son is keeping me young. And Provine tells me that the ramifications of not being able to tickle yourself—the link between tickling and the perception of self—haven’t been fully pursued yet. So with every diaper change, for the sake of science, I pursue those ramifications.

At press time, the research seemed to be going well.

By Nicholas Day - Slate.com