Life & works of local literary icon on exhibit

Label:





SINGAPORE: An exhibition that features the life and works of local literary icon Dr Muhammad Ariff Ahmad was launched at the National Library Building on Saturday.

"Sumbangsih MAS: Muhammad Ariff Ahmad" also showcases his writings that are displayed for the first time, including an unpublished manuscript.

The well-respected Malay language and cultural luminary turned 88 two days ago.

This exhibition - which recognises his efforts and contributions towards Singapore's literary scene, comes as a timely birthday gift.

Jointly organised by National Library Board, ASAS 50 and the Malay Language Council, the exhibition is in English and Malay to reach out to a wider community.

In conjunction with the exhibition, NLB published a bibliography on Dr Ariff's works, in the hope that it becomes a source of reference for researchers of Malay literature in Singapore.

The National Library Board also produced a collection of 25 of Dr Ariff's poems that were penned since 1947.

"What can be expected in this exhibition is the life and contributions of Cikgu Muhammad Ariff, mainly in the areas of language, literature and in the education field," said Juffri Supa'at, curator for the exhibition and senior librarian of the National Library.

The exhibition is part of NLB's Literary Pioneer Series in honour of Singapore's literary figures.

The exhibition runs at Level 9 of the National Library Building until 3 February 2013. It is open to public and admission is free.

- CNA/xq



Read More..

Android's Google Now services headed for Chrome, too

Label:



It looks like Chrome users, not just
Android users, will get access to Google Now, the search giant's technology for bringing weather reports, trip departure reminders, birthday alerts, nearby restaurant reviews, and more to the attention of Android users.


Chrome team programmers accepted the addition of a "skeleton for Google Now for Chrome" to the Google browser yesterday, an early step in a larger project to show Google Now notifications in Chrome.


Google Now integration into Chrome gives Google a new way to connect people closely to online services that Google judges to be relevant depending on time and location. Francois Beaufort, who keeps a close eye on the Chrome source code, spotted the move.




The move reflects the growing maturity of Google's operating system strategy. In mobile, it steers people to Android, and on personal computers, it steers them to Chrome or Chrome OS. Although Chrome isn't an operating system, strictly speaking, browsers are absorbing more and more OS abilities, and Chrome OS systems of course can't run anything but Web apps.


Whatever OS a person is using, Google is designing it as a mechanism to reach Google services: search, Google Maps, YouTube, Google Apps, Gmail, Google+, and more. These services are where Google makes its money.


Read More..

Plants Grow Fine Without Gravity

Label:

When researchers sent plants to the International Space Station in 2010, the flora wasn't meant to be decorative. Instead, the seeds of these small, white flowers—called Arabidopsis thaliana—were the subject of an experiment to study how plant roots developed in a weightless environment.

Gravity is an important influence on root growth, but the scientists found that their space plants didn't need it to flourish. The research team from the University of Florida in Gainesville thinks this ability is related to a plant's inherent ability to orient itself as it grows. Seeds germinated on the International Space Station sprouted roots that behaved like they would on Earth—growing away from the seed to seek nutrients and water in exactly the same pattern observed with gravity. (Related: "Beyond Gravity.")

Since the flowers were orbiting some 220 miles (350 kilometers) above the Earth at the time, the NASA-funded experiment suggests that plants still retain an earthy instinct when they don't have gravity as a guide.

"The role of gravity in plant growth and development in terrestrial environments is well understood," said plant geneticist and study co-author Anna-Lisa Paul, with the University of Florida in Gainesville. "What is less well understood is how plants respond when you remove gravity." (See a video about plant growth.)

The new study revealed that "features of plant growth we thought were a result of gravity acting on plant cells and organs do not actually require gravity," she added.

Paul and her collaborator Robert Ferl, a plant biologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville, monitored their plants from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida using images sent from the space station every six hours.

Root Growth

Grown on a nutrient-rich gel in clear petri plates, the space flowers showed familiar root growth patterns such as "skewing," where roots slant progressively as they branch out.

"When we saw the first pictures come back from orbit and saw that we had most of the skewing phenomenon we were quite surprised," Paul said.

Researchers have always thought that skewing was the result of gravity's effects on how the root tip interacts with the surfaces it encounters as it grows, she added. But Paul and Ferl suspect that in the absence of gravity, other cues take over that enable the plant to direct its roots away from the seed and light-seeking shoot. Those cues could include moisture, nutrients, and light avoidance.

"Bottom line is that although plants 'know' that they are in a novel environment, they ultimately do just fine," Paul said.

The finding further boosts the prospect of cultivating food plants in space and, eventually, on other planets.

"There's really no impediment to growing plants in microgravity, such as on a long-term mission to Mars, or in reduced-gravity environments such as in specialized greenhouses on Mars or the moon," Paul said. (Related: "Alien Trees Would Bloom Black on Worlds With Double Stars.")

The study findings appear in the latest issue of the journal BMC Plant Biology.


Read More..

Australian DJs Behind Prank Call Under Fire

Label:












An outpouring of anger is being directed today at the two Australian radio hosts after the death of a nurse who was caught in the DJs' prank call to hospital where Kate Middleton was treated earlier this week.


Lord Glenarthur, the chairman of King Edward VII's Hospital - the U.K. hospital where the Duchess of Cambridge was receiving treatment, condemned the prank in a letter to the Max Moore-Wilton, chairman of Southern Cross Austereo, the Australian radio station's parent company.


Glenarthur said the prank humiliated "two dedicated and caring nurses," and the consequences were "tragic beyond words," The Associated Press reported.


DJs Mel Greig and Michael Christian, radio shock jocks at Sydney's 2Day FM have been taken off the air, but the company they work for did not fire them or condemn them.


"I think that it's a bit early to be drawing conclusions from what is really a deeply tragic matter," Rhys Holleran, CEO of Southern Cross Austereo told a news conference in Sydney. "I mean, our main concern is for the family. I don't think anyone could have reasonably foreseen that this was going to be a result."


Nurse Jacintha Saldanha was found dead Friday morning after police were called to an address near the hospital to "reports of a woman found unconscious," according to a statement from Scotland Yard.


Circumstances of her death are still being investigated, but are not suspicious at this stage, authorities said Friday.


Following news of Saldanha's death, commentary on social media included posts expressing shock, sadness and anger.








Jacintha Saldanha, Nurse at Kate Middleton's Hospital, Found Dead Watch Video









A sampling of some of the twitter posts directed at the DJs included: "you scumbag, hope you get what's coming to you" and "I hope you're happy now."


The hospital said that Saldanha worked at the hospital for more than four years. They called her a "first-class nurse" and "a well-respected and popular member of the staff."


The hospital extended their "deepest sympathies" to family and friends, saying that "everyone is shocked" at this "tragic event."


"I am devastated with the tragic loss of my beloved wife Jacintha in tragic circumstances, she will be laid to rest in Shirva, India," Saldanha's husband posted on Facebook.


The duchess spent three days at the hospital undergoing treatment for hyperemesis gravidarum, severe or debilitating nausea and vomiting. She was released from the hospital on Thursday morning.


"The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are deeply saddened to learn of the death of Jacintha Saldanha," a spokesman from St. James Palace said in a statement.


On Friday, Greig and Christian had been gloating about their successful call to the hospital, in which they pretended to be Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles and were able to obtain personal information about the Duchess's serious condition.


"You know what they were the worst accents ever and when we made that phone call we were sure a hundred people at least before us would have tried the same thing," said Grieg on air. She added with a laugh, "we were expecting to be hung up on we didn't even know what to say [when] we got through."


"We got through and now the entire world is talking, of course," said her co-host Christian.


When the royal impersonators called the hospital, Saldanha put through to a second nurse who told the royal impersonators that Kate was "quite stable" and hadn't "had any retching."


The hospital apologized for the mistake.


"The call was transferred through to a ward, and a short conversation was held with one of the nursing staff," the hospital said in a statement. "King Edward VII's Hospital deeply regrets this incident."


"This was a foolish prank call that we all deplore," John Lofthouse, the hospital's chief executive, said in the statement. "We take patient confidentiality extremely seriously, and we are now reviewing our telephone protocols."


The radio station also apologized for the prank call.






Read More..

Parasite makes mice fearless by hijacking immune cells

Label:








































The Toxoplasma parasite is an unusually devious operator. When it infects mice, it alters their behaviour so they become fearless enough to seek out cats and get eaten. But exactly how it did this was it a mystery.












Now it appears that the parasite hijacks its victim's immune system, causing it to produce a chemical normally found in the brain. The discovery suggests that the brain and immune system might have evolved using similar processes to control their behaviour, including electrical and chemical signals now known mainly in nerves.












Toxoplasma gondii spends part of its life in a cat's gut, then spreads to mice via cat droppings. It invades their brains and causes them to behave fearlessly towards cats – quickly returning the parasite to a cat's gut and completing its life cycle.











The parasite can use other animals as a host, and can spread to humans via infected, uncooked meat as well as cat droppings. Acute infection can harm a fetus, so pregnant women are told to avoid cat litter boxes. A quarter of people have a lifelong Toxoplasma infection and may suffer psychological effects, including increased recklessness.













Antonio Barragan of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, has now discovered that the parasite's mind-bending abilities could be a side effect of the way it hijacks the immune system. Invaders like Toxoplasma normally get engulfed by white blood cells called dendritic cells (DCs), a process that helps other immune cells learn to recognise them.











Cell hijack













Toxoplasma, however, hijacks DCs. It not only lives and multiplies inside them, it makes them "hypermobile", crawling more actively through tissue and migrating faster around the body than usual. "The DCs are vehicles that transport the parasite around the body," says Barragan.












Barragan's team has found that the parasite does this by turning on a set of genes within DCs for producing and secreting a chemical called GABA. This was a surprise as GABA is a neurotransmitter, carrying signals in the brain from one nerve cell to another. The researchers found that DCs, like a few other non-neural cells, carry receptors for GABA.












The GABA that DCs make stimulates their own receptors, causing the voltage across the cell membrane to change, just as it would in a nerve cell membrane. This somehow makes the DCs more mobile and able to spread the parasite: drugs that block GABA stopped the cells becoming hypermobile and this led to fewer parasites in the brain.












The fact that immune cells respond to a neurotransmitter raises the possibility that mechanisms though to be unique in nerves may also operate in many other types of cell.











Intriguingly, says Barragan, as a neurotransmitter in the brain, GABA reduces fear and anxiety. A brain invaded by parasite-infested DCs churning out GABA may well become inappropriately fearless. Alternatively, the parasite might be able to invade brain cells too and turn on their GABA genes.













"It's hard to say which came first," says Barragan, the parasite's ability to hijack the brain, or the immune system. Either way, it is GABA that gets the parasite where it wants to go: down a cat's throat.












Journal reference: PLoS Pathogens, doi.org/jxk


















































If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.




































All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.


If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.








Read More..

Yachting: Stamm takes lead in Vendee Globe

Label:





PARIS: Switzerland's Bernard Stamm has taken the lead for the first time in the solo, round-the-world Vendee Globe race ahead of France's Francois Gabart, Jean-Pierre Dick and Armel Le Cleac'h, organisers said on Friday.

Stamm took pole position in the southern Indian Ocean after Le Cleac'h, who had held the lead for much of the last 18 days, paid the price for trying to cut off an anticyclone near the Crozet "ice gate".

The Swiss skipper was the first to pass the virtual marker post on Thursday morning and the first to meet gentle winds - those slower than 10 knots.

At 0400 GMT on Friday, he was sailing at no more than 4.6 knots while Stamm (15.5 knots), Gabart (14.3 knots) and Dick (13.4 knots) were travelling nearly three times faster and more southward, buoyed by more sustained wind.

Le Cleac'h dropped to fourth overall and those in his wake chose to delay heading through the gentle wind zone, crossing their fingers that it will disappear when they head northward to pass Crozet.

Stamm's performance in his third Vendee Globe is remarkable given that his boat "Cheminees Poujoulat" is the most powerful of the fleet but also the most demanding physically.

The 49-year-old, who is based in the Brittany region of northwest France, has a glittering record in world sailing, having twice won the Velux 5 Oceans in 2002/3 and 2006/7 and is experienced in the Southern Ocean.

Standings at 0400 GMT:

1. Bernard Stamm (SUI/Cheminees Poujoulat) 16,641 nautical miles (19,150 miles, 30,819 kilometres) from the finish

2. Francois Gabart (FRA/Macif) at 11.5 miles

3. Jean-Pierre Dick (FRA/Virbac Paprec 3) at 59.5 miles

4. Armel Le Cleac'h (FRA/Banque Populaire) at 106.2 miles

5. Alex Thomson (GBR/Hugo Boss) at 145.3 miles

6. Mike Golding (GBR/Gamesa) at 653.7 miles

7. Dominique Wavre (SUI/Mirabaud) at 677.6 miles

8. Jean Le Cam (FRA/SynerCiel) at 678.1 miles

9. Javier Sanso (ESP/Acciona) at 1,295 miles

10. Arnaud Boissieres (FRA/Akena Verandas) at 1,515 miles

- AFP/de



Read More..

Google puts deadline on bids for Motorola STB biz -- report

Label:


Google solicitation of bids for Motorola's set-top box business could come to an end later today.


Google has been accepting bids for Motorola's operation for some time, but the company has set a deadline on the last bid round for today, the Wall Street Journal is reporting, citing people who are familiar with the dealings. The Journal's sources said that Google might extend the deadline if the offers aren't up to par.


According to the Journal's sources, Google expects the bids to reach between $1.5 billion and $2 billion, though they could go as high as $2.5 billion.



Google acquired Motorola Mobility in May for $12.5 billion. When Google announced the deal last year, it made clear that it was acquiring Motorola for its intellectual property in the smartphone industry. Motorola's set-top box business, which sees the company selling hardware to cable providers, generates solid cash for the company, but is believed to be plagued by lesser growth opportunities.


For its part, Google hasn't publicly confirmed that it's shopping Motorola's set-top box operation. However, several reports have been surfacing over the months suggesting that's the case. The Journal's sources say a host of companies, including telecommunications equipment maker Arris Group and set-top box company Pace, will place their bids.


CNET has contacted Google for comment on the report. We will update this story when we have more information.


Read More..

Space Pictures This Week: Lunar Gravity, Venusian Volcano

Label:








































































































');



































































































































































 $'+ doc.ngstore_price_t +'';
html += ' $'+ doc.ngstore_saleprice_t +'';
} else {
html += ' $'+ doc.ngstore_price_t +'';
}
html += '
';

$("#ecom_43331 ul.ecommerce_all_img").append(html);




o.totItems++;

}// end for loop
} // end if data.response.numFound != 0

if(o.totItems != o.maxItems){
if(o.defaultItems.length > 0){
o.getItemByID(o.defaultItems.shift());
} else if(o.isSearchPage && !o.searchComplete){
o.doSearchPage();
} else if(!o.searchComplete) {
o.byID = false;
o.doSearch();
}
}// end if
}// end parseResults function

o.trim = function(str) {
return str.replace(/^\s\s*/, '').replace(/\s\s*$/, '');
}

o.doSearchPage = function(){
o.byID = false;

var tempSearch = window.location.search;
var searchTerms ="default";
var temp;

if( tempSearch.substr(0,7) == "?search"){
temp = tempSearch.substr(7).split("&");
searchTerms = temp[0];
} else {
temp = tempSearch.split("&");
for(var j=0;j 0){
o.getItemByID(o.defaultItems.shift());
} else if(o.isSearchPage){
o.doSearchPage();
} else {
o.doSearch();
}

}// end init function

}// end ecommerce object

var store_43331 = new ecommerce_43331();





store_43331.init();









































































































































































Read More..

November Unemployment Falls to 7.7 Percent

Label:











The economy generated 146,000 new jobs in November and unemployment fell to 7.7 percent, better than economists expected, despite worries that superstorm Sandy and the looming fiscal cliff would dampen hiring.


There are still 12 million people unemployed in the country, but the Labor Department said Sandy did not "substantively impact" employment.


The Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics dialed back job gains for the previous two months. In October, the U.S. economy added 138,000 jobs, not the 171,000 reported before the election. The jobs added in September were also revised downward to 132,000 from 148,000.


Stephen Bronars, chief economist with Welch Consulting in Washington, D.C., said many economists believed Superstorm Sandy would have influenced Friday's jobs report after causing devastation especially in the Caribbean and U.S. Northeast. Many expected an addition of 90,000 jobs causing the unemployment rate to tick up slightly.


Though the job numbers seemed strong, Bronars still said the overall report was "mixed" as many people were giving up their job searches. He also said he expects the payroll number for November will also be revised downward in the next two months.


"We need to see a few more months of data to see the full impact of both Sandy and expiring unemployment insurance benefits," Bronars said.






Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images







Businesses and residents in the tri-state region of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, which produce about one-eighth of U.S. GDP, experienced prolonged power outages and major infrastructure damage.


Bronars said, "Sandy hit the U.S. at a place where it inflicted close to the maximal possible economic damage from a storm that size."


New Jersey and New York were the hardest hit, with at least 120,000 jobs lost, at least temporarily, in those two states, some estimates showed. The Labor Department will release official regional and state unemployment estimates on Dec. 21.


Expiring unemployment insurance benefits for many jobless workers also affected the labor department's household survey as benefits have run out for hundreds of thousands of workers. A condition for receiving unemployment insurance benefits is an active job search.


"It is not surprising that some of the workers that have been out of work for a year and a half would give up job search, for a while, after their benefits ran out," Bronars said.


The labor force dropped by 350,000 in one month and employment fell by 122,000 according to the household survey.


"Those numbers are weak, even given Hurricane Sandy," Bronars said.


In addition, the employment to population ratio and the labor force participation rates fell.


On Wednesday, payroll provider ADP, reported that private companies added 118,000 jobs in November, down from 157,000 in October. However, ADP includes in its figures people as employed if they remain on payroll, whereas the Labor Department's includes workers as employed if they are paid.


Now that election season is over, employers and investors are surrounded by worries from another uncertainty, the fiscal cliff.


Read more: Eliminating Charitable Deduction Would Help Budget, Hurt Charities


Bronars said the November report will not have quite picked up effects of the looming fiscal cliff, as employers prepare for a mix of government spending cuts and tax increases after the end of the year.






Read More..

Your next boss could be a computer

Label:





















Software that delegates tricky problems to human workers is changing the nature of crowdsourcing






















"I'D RATHER have a computer as my boss than a jerk," says Daniel Barowy. To that end he has created AutoMan, the first fully automatic system that can delegate tasks to human workers via crowdsourcing platforms such as Amazon's Mechanical Turk.












Artificial intelligence is improving all the time, but computers still struggle to complete certain tasks that are easy for us, such as quickly reading a car's license plate or translating a joke. To get round this, people can post such tasks on platforms like Mechanical Turk for others to complete. Barowy wanted to automate this process - and AutoMan was born.












"We think of it as a new kind of computing," says Barowy, a computer scientist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. "It changes the kind of things you can do."












Barowy and colleagues designed AutoMan to send out jobs, manage workers, accept or reject work and make payments. "You're replacing people's bosses with a computer," he says.












The quality guarantee is the most important contribution of the work, says Barowy. "Without a mechanism for addressing the quality of worker output, full automation is not possible."












Unlike existing crowdsourcing platforms, AutoMan doesn't attempt to predict the reliability of its workers based on their previous performance. Instead, if it is not sure it has the correct answer, it keeps on posting the same job, upping the fee each time, until it is confident that it does.












"One way to think about it is that it saves the interesting parts, the creative parts, or the fun parts for people," says Barowy. "It's really the best of both worlds. You have the computer doing the grunt work."


















AutoMan could be used by developers of apps like VizWiz, in which blind people take a photo of their surroundings and receive a description of the scene. The algorithm could be incorporated into the app, sending the photos to crowdworkers, choosing the correct descriptions and sending them back to the app's user.












Of course, human labour doesn't come free. AutoMan will be given a budget by the app developer and be programmed to keep costs down. Quicker - or higher quality - responses will cost more but AutoMan will manage all of this automatically. Anyone using such hybrid software wouldn't know whether they were interacting with a machine or a crowd of humans - or both.












So how do Mechanical Turk workers feel about being directly employed by a computer? Barowy has received positive feedback so far. When a human boss rejects your work, it can feel personal or unfair. But that's not the case with AutoMan. "People ended up liking the system because it's impartial," he says. The team presented the work at the OOPSLA conference in Tucson, Arizona, last month.












"Any programmer could pick this up and use it," says Michael Bernstein of Stanford University in California. "That's a really powerful thing." Bernstein has developed hybrid computational systems himself, such as Soylent, a word processor that uses crowd workers to edit text.












Barowy's team hopes that their system will make crowdsourcing mainstream, with software delegating tasks to human workers around the globe. "AutoMan might even help grow a new class of jobs that could become a new sector of the world economy," says team member Emery Berger, also at the University of Massachusetts.




















People power makes Google work







Google likes to give the impression that it organises the world's information using algorithms alone, but the manual for its human raters tells the true story. Google's small army of home workers have a big say in what sites we are offered when we type in a search term.









The manual, revealed by technology website The Register, gives instructions on how raters should judge whether a set of search results matches a user's intention. They are also asked to make calls on a website's "relevance" - something that popular myth suggests is handled by the PageRank algorithm alone - and "quality". Raters are told to look for websites with content that is less than four months old.











































If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.




































All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.


If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.








Read More..

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)