Ultra-fast photodetector and terahertz generator

Public release date: 31-Jan-2012
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Contact: Dr. Andreas Battenberg
battenberg@zv.tum.de
49-892-891-0510
Technische Universitaet Muenchen

New applications for graphene

Graphene leaves a rather modest impression at a first sight. The material comprises nothing but carbon atoms ordered in a mono-layered "carpet". Yet, what makes graphene so fascinating for scientists is its extremely high conductivity. This property is particularly useful in the development of photodetectors. These are electronic components that can detect radiation and transform it into electrical signals.

Graphene's extremely high conductivity inspires scientists to utilize it in the design of ultra-fast photodetectors. However, until now, it was not possible to measure the optical and electronic behavior of graphene with respect to time, i.e. how long it takes between the electric stimulation of graphene and the generation of the respective photocurrent.

Alexander Holleitner and Leonhard Prechtel, scientists at the Walter Schottky Institut of the TU Muenchen and members of the Cluster of Excellence Nanosystems Initiative Munich (NIM), decided to pursue this question. The physicists first developed a method to increase the time resolution of photocurrent measurements in graphene into the picosecond range. This allowed them to detect pulses as short as a few picoseconds. (For comparison: A light beam traveling at light speed needs three picoseconds to propagate one millimeter.)

The central element of the inspected photodetectors is freely suspended graphene integrated into electrical circuits via metallic contacts. The temporal dynamics of the photocurrent were measured by means of so-called co-planar strip lines that were evaluated using a special time-resolved laser spectroscopy procedure the pump-probe technique. A laser pulse excites the electrons in the graphene and the dynamics of the process are monitored using a second laser. With this technique the physicists were able to monitor precisely how the photocurrent in the graphene is generated.

At the same time, the scientists could take advantage of the new method to make a further observation: They found evidence that graphene, when optically stimulated, emits radiation in the terahertz (THz) range. This lies between infrared light and microwave radiation in the electromagnetic spectrum. The special thing about THz radiation is that it displays properties shared by both adjacent frequency ranges: It can be bundled like particle radiation, yet still penetrates matter like electromagnetic waves. This makes it ideal for material tests, for screening packages or for certain medical applications.

###

The research was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Excellence Cluster Nanosystems Initiative Munich and the Center for NanoScience (CeNS). Physicists from Universitt Regensburg, Eidgenssische Technische Hochschule Zrich, Rice University and Shinshu University also contributed to the publication.

Original publication:

Time-resolved ultrafast photocurrents and terahertz generation in freely suspended grapheme. Leonhard Prechtel, Li Song, Dieter Schuh, Pulickel Ajayan, Werner Wegscheider, Alexander W. Holleitner, Nature Communications

Links: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms1656

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Public release date: 31-Jan-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Dr. Andreas Battenberg
battenberg@zv.tum.de
49-892-891-0510
Technische Universitaet Muenchen

New applications for graphene

Graphene leaves a rather modest impression at a first sight. The material comprises nothing but carbon atoms ordered in a mono-layered "carpet". Yet, what makes graphene so fascinating for scientists is its extremely high conductivity. This property is particularly useful in the development of photodetectors. These are electronic components that can detect radiation and transform it into electrical signals.

Graphene's extremely high conductivity inspires scientists to utilize it in the design of ultra-fast photodetectors. However, until now, it was not possible to measure the optical and electronic behavior of graphene with respect to time, i.e. how long it takes between the electric stimulation of graphene and the generation of the respective photocurrent.

Alexander Holleitner and Leonhard Prechtel, scientists at the Walter Schottky Institut of the TU Muenchen and members of the Cluster of Excellence Nanosystems Initiative Munich (NIM), decided to pursue this question. The physicists first developed a method to increase the time resolution of photocurrent measurements in graphene into the picosecond range. This allowed them to detect pulses as short as a few picoseconds. (For comparison: A light beam traveling at light speed needs three picoseconds to propagate one millimeter.)

The central element of the inspected photodetectors is freely suspended graphene integrated into electrical circuits via metallic contacts. The temporal dynamics of the photocurrent were measured by means of so-called co-planar strip lines that were evaluated using a special time-resolved laser spectroscopy procedure the pump-probe technique. A laser pulse excites the electrons in the graphene and the dynamics of the process are monitored using a second laser. With this technique the physicists were able to monitor precisely how the photocurrent in the graphene is generated.

At the same time, the scientists could take advantage of the new method to make a further observation: They found evidence that graphene, when optically stimulated, emits radiation in the terahertz (THz) range. This lies between infrared light and microwave radiation in the electromagnetic spectrum. The special thing about THz radiation is that it displays properties shared by both adjacent frequency ranges: It can be bundled like particle radiation, yet still penetrates matter like electromagnetic waves. This makes it ideal for material tests, for screening packages or for certain medical applications.

###

The research was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Excellence Cluster Nanosystems Initiative Munich and the Center for NanoScience (CeNS). Physicists from Universitt Regensburg, Eidgenssische Technische Hochschule Zrich, Rice University and Shinshu University also contributed to the publication.

Original publication:

Time-resolved ultrafast photocurrents and terahertz generation in freely suspended grapheme. Leonhard Prechtel, Li Song, Dieter Schuh, Pulickel Ajayan, Werner Wegscheider, Alexander W. Holleitner, Nature Communications

Links: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms1656

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/tum-upa013112.php

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Netanyahu set to win party primary ahead of U.S. poll (Reuters)

JERUSALEM (Reuters) ? Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is poised to win a new mandate to lead his right-wing Likud party Tuesday in a primary vote which may signal he favors an early parliamentary election to strengthen his hand with Washington.

National elections are not due until late 2013, and Netanyahu's decision to hold the Likud primaries now has raised speculation that he intends to call a national vote closer to the time of the U.S. presidential election late this year.

Political commentators say a Likud victory in a parliamentary poll held before or shortly after the U.S. vote in November would leave Netanyahu better placed to deal with Barack Obama, with whom he has had a frosty relationship, if the Democrat is re-elected.

Many Israelis worry that Obama, in a second term, may exert greater pressure on Israel to yield land for peace with the Palestinians, which could upset Netanyahu's clout in his pro-settler party and its core conservative electorate.

His coalition government of right-wing and religious parties has shown few cracks and opinion polls show that Likud would emerge on top if a parliamentary election were held now.

In the Likud leadership poll, Netanyahu's only challenger is a far-right settler who has no chance of unseating him.

"It's a done deal," Danny Danon, one of the Likud's most prominent legislators, said about the primaries.

"There is no tension or competition. Our main battle is with Kadima," he said, referring to the centrist, main opposition party led by former foreign minister Tzipi Livni.

Danon said he saw a possibility of Israel holding the general election later this year. While Netanyahu has not said he wanted an early poll, "he prefers to lead and not be dragged there," Danon told Reuters.

LIKUD CHALLENGER

Netanyahu's opponent in the Likud race is Moshe Feiglin, 49, who lost a party contest to him in 2007 but hopes to win more than the 24 percent of the vote he polled then.

Results of Tuesday's poll are expected to be announced by early Wednesday.

"I want to return the Likud to its real path," Feiglin told Reuters. Feiglin opposes Netanyahu's embrace of a Western goal of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

U.S.-sponsored peace talks stalled shortly after they began in 2010 in a dispute over settlement building in the occupied West Bank.

Feiglin applauded U.S. Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich for recently calling the Palestinians an "invented people" and thought Israel should pay Palestinians living in West Bank land they seek for a state to leave.

"They don't deserve a state, certainly not in land that God promised the Jews," Feiglin said.

Though Feiglin's views mirror those of many pro-settler lawmakers in Likud, he is supported by few in the party's mainstream.

But political analyst Jonathan Rhynold of Bar-Ilan University said Netanyahu had reason to be wary of Feiglin.

"The Israeli public is not where Feiglin is. Any rise in Feiglin's influence in the party can hurt Netanyahu," he said.

The Likud poll will be followed by a Kadima primary election on March 27. Both Kadima and the left-of-center Labor party have been actively recruiting popular figures, and some influential wild cards, such as former journalist Yair Lapid, have thrown their hats into the electoral ring as well.

(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan, Editing by Jeffrey Heller and David Stamp)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120130/wl_nm/us_israel_politics

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Experts, officials to testify on Cuba oil drilling (AP)

MIAMI ? Members of the U.S. Coast Guard, experts and U.S. officials will testify on the risk of oil drilling off the coast of Cuba, and whether the U.S. is prepared for any possible spill.

Those expected to speak Monday at the satellite congressional sub-committee hearing in Sunny Isles, just north of Miami Beach, include U.S. Rep Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Also on the list, fellow South Florida Cuban-American U.S. Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart and David Rivera. They will discuss possible impacts of the deep-water oil drilling Cuba is seeking to begin.

Ros-Lehtinen wants to deny U.S. visas to anyone helping the Cuban government advance its oil drilling plans.

Florida University Professor John Proni says spills could reach U.S. coastal waters, seriously damaging the nation's ecology and economy.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/latam/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120130/ap_on_re_us/us_cuba_oil_drilling

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Curebit Apologizes for Copying 37Signals: ?Stupid, Lazy, and Disrespectful?

That's awkward: Just as it was announcing a $1.2 million round of funding, online referral startup Curebit was caught lifting designs and code from 37Signals, the company behind popular collaboration tools Basecamp, Highrise, and others. The copying was called out on Twitter by 37Signals partner David Heinemeier Hansson, who, after an exchange with Curebit co-founder Allan Grant, called the Curebit team "fucking scumbags." It probably didn't help that Grant's initial responses didn't seem particularly contrite ? he defended the copying as a "quick test" and at one point told Heinemeier Hansson, "Chill dude :)" (VentureBeat has a great blow-by-blow account of the initial controversy.)

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/9DnB4ozkuKY/

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Trade cheats beware: new U.S. team will come after you: Kirk (Reuters)

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) ? A new team of U.S. trade enforcers will make countries think twice about putting up unfair barriers to American exports, President Barack Obama's top trade official said.

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk told Reuters that the team, announced by Obama last week, will include intelligence officials as well as representatives of other agencies in order to beef up U.S. resources and crack open markets.

"We want to make sure we aren't resource-constrained. Other countries know our budget and our resources ... and so they'll game the system because they know that we're very discriminating on which cases we make," Kirk said in an interview.

"We don't want them to make ... that bet that we don't have the resources to come after them if they're intentionally and unfairly discriminating against American exporters," Kirk said, speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

He did not identify countries that could attract the attention of the unit, but Obama is under pressure to show business and voters he is taking a tough stance against China.

Republican presidential candidates have slammed Obama's handling of Beijing ahead of November's elections.

The U.S. trade deficit with China is expected to have hit a record of about $300 billion in 2011. Obama has set a target of doubling total U.S. exports between 2010 and 2015.

Kirk's office negotiates and enforces trade deals. But it has only about 250 employees, which could tempt countries to think they can flout world trade rules, Kirk said.

"This (the new unit) will provide a much better tool basket and put more bodies in terms of being able to develop some of these cases and gather the intelligence that is necessary to take some of these complex matters before the World Trade Organization," he said.

"There will be additional people, some additional resources," Kirk said without providing details of any extra funding for the unit.

FOCUS ON COLLABORATION

Obama announced the team during his January 24 State of the Union speech in which he said the United States needs to do more to tackle unfair foreign trade practices and rebuild American manufacturing.

As well as officials with the Commerce Department, which Obama is proposing to close as part of a government streamlining, customs personnel will also work with the unit, Kirk said.

"Even some of the intelligence agencies will be working collaboratively together" on the project, Kirk said.

Obama said last week his administration was more forceful than that of his predecessor in the White House, George W. Bush, in challenging other countries at the World Trade Organization.

Washington has filed six WTO cases since Obama took office in January 2009, five of them against China. Bush brought seven cases against China in his two terms although for most of his first year in office, China was not yet a member of the WTO.

U.S. trade officials say their main complaints against China are barriers to its agricultural and services markets, discriminatory industrial policies and weak intellectual property rights protection.

Kirk told Reuters in the interview, which was conducted on Thursday, that his office would lead the team.

Trade is likely to be high on the agenda when Obama hosts China's likely next leader, Vice President Xi Jinping, at the White House on February 14.

China has complained about anti-dumping duties applied to its exports to the United States and about restrictions on Chinese companies seeking to invest in U.S. firms.

(Writing By Doug Palmer; Editing by Xavier Briand)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120129/bs_nm/us_usa_trade_kirk

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German court rejects Samsung's second 3G patent complaint against Apple

About a week after suffering a legal setback in Germany, Samsung received another bit of bad news this morning, when the Mannheim Regional Court rejected the second of its patent infringement claims against Apple. As with last week's ruling, today's decision addresses one of Samsung's arguments that Apple's 3G / UMTS technology infringes upon its patents. Judge Andreas Voss officially shot down these claims early this morning, though he didn't offer an immediate reason for his ruling. As FOSS Patents points out, however, these initial decisions against Samsung may be based on the validity of the specific patents themselves, and would therefore have no bearing upon the outcome of the Korean manufacturer's three other claims -- all of which are based upon different 3G / UMTS patents. In addition, the company is pursuing two lawsuits based on patents not related to 3G standards, including one, apparently, that details a way to type smiley emoticons on a mobile handset. We're still awaiting more information on today's outcome and will update this post as soon as we hear more.

German court rejects Samsung's second 3G patent complaint against Apple originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 03:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  FOSS Patents  | Email this | Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/27/german-court-rejects-second-samsung-patent-complaint-against-app/

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UN to world: Don't ignore Syria's dying children

BEIRUT?? Updated at 9:20 a.m. ET: At least 384 children have been killed during Syria's 10-month uprising and virtually the same number have been jailed, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

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Spokeswoman Marixie Mercado calls the situation for children in Syria "of the gravest concern to UNICEF."

"It is something the world should not ignore," she tells msnbc.com.

Syria has a legal obligation to protect children and uphold their rights according to international law.

Rima Salah, acting UNICEF deputy executive director, told reporters in Geneva earlier on Friday that as of Jan. 7, 384 children had been killed, most of them boys. About 380 children have been detained, some less than 14 years old.

UNICEF stresses that it has raised these concerns with the government of President Bashar Assad, with whom it has an ongoing relationship.

"Our office there is functioning well, we have a dialogue all the time with the government and civil society," Rima Salah, acting UNICEF deputy executive director, told reporters in Geneva earlier.

The U.N. says at least 5,400 have been killed in a monthslong Syrian government crackdown on civilian protests.

The U.N. Security Council was to discuss the crisis in Syria on Friday afternoon, French and other diplomats said.

Updated at 3:15 a.m. ET: Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, describes the killings of at least 35 people in the city of Homs as a "terrifying massacre."

Interactive: Young and restless: Demographics fuel Mideast protests (on this page)

Videos posted online from activists showed the bodies of children wrapped in plastic bags lined up next to each other. Another video shows women and children with bloodied faces and clothes and in a house, with the narrator saying an entire family with its children had been "slaughtered."

The videos could not be independently verified.

The U.N. Security Council meets on Friday to discuss the next move on Syria and council envoys said members will be given a new Western-Arab draft resolution that supports the Arab League's call for President Bashar Assad to transfer his powers to his deputy.

The resolution calls for Assad's deputy to set up a unity government and prepare for elections after a ten-month crackdown.

The Security Council could vote as early as next week on the resolution, which diplomats from Britain and France are crafting in consultation with Qatar, Morocco, the United States, Germany and Portugal, envoys said. It replaces a Russian text that Western diplomats say is too weak.

The Observatory and the Local Coordination Committees, an umbrella group of activists, both said the death toll in Homs was at least 35, but the reports could not be confirmed. The groups cited a network of activists on the ground in Syria.

The Observatory said 29 people were killed in the religiously mixed Karm el-Zaytoun neighborhood of Homs on Thursday, including eight children, most of them when a building came under heavy mortar and machine gunfire.

Residents spoke of another massacre that took place when shabiha ? armed regime loyalists ? stormed the district, slaughtering residents in an apartment, including children.

"It's racial cleansing," said one resident of Karm el-Zaytoun, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. "They are killing people because of their sect," he said.

Published at 4:30 a.m. ET: Dozens of people were killed in a day of relentless violence in the restive Syrian city of Homs, two activist groups said on Friday.

Two activist groups said the death toll in Homs on Thursday was at least 35, but the reports could not be confirmed. Details about the bloodshed were only emerging Friday.

Witnesses on the ground told The Associated Press they were still gathering information but that the city was rocked by sectarian killings, gunfire and explosions for much of Thursday.

Many of the reported victims were inside a building in the Karm el-Zaytoun neighborhood, the AP reported. Activists say at least 22 civilians were killed in the building, including children.

Outside Syria's capital, suburbs look like war zone

The Local Coordination Committees said in an email sent to news media that a total of 65 people were killed in Syria Thursday.

"Among them were 10 children, 4 women and 8 defected military soldier, they were martyred on Thursday by the bullets of security forces and the heavy weaponry of the military," the email said.

Family: US-born student held in Syria set free

The Syrian uprising against the Bashar Assad regime began last March with largely peaceful anti-government protests, but it has grown increasingly militarized in recent months.

The Associated Press, Reuters and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46160189/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/

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Russia says U.N. Syria draft unacceptable: Itar-Tass (Reuters)

MOSCOW (Reuters) ? A Western-Arab draft United Nations Security Council resolution on Syria is unacceptable for Russia in its current form because it does not take Moscow's position into account, Itar-Tass news agency quoted a senior Russian diplomat as saying on Friday.

Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov's remarks were the latest sign that Russia, a veto-wielding Security Council member, will push hard for changes in the draft, which supports the Arab League's call for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step aside.

The draft, which was expected to be distributed to the Security Council later on Friday, contains "no fundamental consideration of our position" and is missing "key aspects that are fundamental to us," Itar-Tass quoted Gatilov as saying.

"The draft is unacceptable for us in this form," he said.

Gatilov suggested Russia was unhappy that the draft included no clause ruling out military intervention, and that it made a reference to sanctions that have already been imposed on Syria by the Arab League.

Russia has warned it would not let any resolution endorsing military intervention pass in the Security Council, where it has veto power as a permanent member, and has also said it will not retroactively support Western or Arab sanctions on Syria.

Gatilov said Russia was concerned by a clause saying the Security Council would review Syria's implementation of the resolution after 15 days and "adopt further measures" if it has not complied.

"What measures? That is our question," he said.

Russia has urged Assad to implement reforms faster to end 10 months of bloodshed, but says his opponents share much of the blame for violence and has refused to join other nations calling for him to step down.

Russia has been increasingly isolated in its support for Assad's government, and is still delivering Syria arms in defiance of U.S. calls for a moratorium on weapons sales to Damascus.

Russia joined China in October in vetoing a European-drafted Security Council resolution condemning Assad's government for a crackdown on pro-democracy protesters that the United Nations says has killed more than 5,000 people, mostly civilians.

Gatilov said Russia's own draft resolution, which it submitted last month and revised earlier this month, remained on the table, suggesting it must not be superseded by the Western-Arab draft.

Western diplomats have said Russia's draft was too easy on Assad's government.

(Writing by Steve Gutterman; Editing by Timothy Heritage)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/russia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120127/wl_nm/us_syria_russia

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NASA satellites see cyclone Funso exiting Mozambique Channel

ScienceDaily (Jan. 26, 2012) ? Powerful Cyclone Funso is now beginning to exit the Mozambique Channel, and NASA's Aqua satellite captured a stunning image of the storm that shows the depth and extent of it.

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Cyclone Funso on January 26 at 1110 UTC (6:10 a.m. EST). The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, better known as the MODIS instrument captured a true color image of the storm that showed a 25 nautical-mile-wide (29 miles/~46 km) eye, and clouds swirling down into it. The outer extent of Funso's clouds skirted Madagascar to the east, and Mozambique to the west.

At 0900 UTC (4 a.m. EST) on January 26, Funso's maximum sustained winds were down to 100 knots (115 mph/185 kph). It was located about 277 nautical miles (319 miles/513 km) east-northeast of Maputo, Mozambique. Its center was pinpointed near 24.0 South latitude and 39.2 East longitude. It was moving to the south-southeast near 4 knots (4.6 mph/7.4 kph). The storm is over 400 nautical miles (460 miles/~741 km) in diameter, which is the extent of tropical-storm-force winds.

Funso is expected to maintain cyclone strength over the next couple of days as it moves out of the Mozambique Channel and into the open waters of the Southern Indian Ocean, where it will begin to weaken.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center. The original article was written by Rob Gutro.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/8hH1ojIWHNc/120126224520.htm

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New Video From Smeezaleen ?The Weed Song?

FOLLOW SMEEZALEEN ON TWITTER: https://twitter.com/IamSmeezaleen https://twitter.com/TeamSmeezaleen

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The Note's Must-Reads for Wednesday, January 25, 2012 (ABC News)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/191241990?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Public memorial set for Joe Paterno at Penn State

The flag in front of Old Main on the Penn State University campus is lowered to half-staff on Monday, Jan. 23, 2012 in State College, Pa., in honor of legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno. Paterno, a sainted figure at Penn State for almost half a century but scarred forever by the scandal involving his one-time heir apparent, died Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012 in State College. He was 85. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

The flag in front of Old Main on the Penn State University campus is lowered to half-staff on Monday, Jan. 23, 2012 in State College, Pa., in honor of legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno. Paterno, a sainted figure at Penn State for almost half a century but scarred forever by the scandal involving his one-time heir apparent, died Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012 in State College. He was 85. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

A mural is shown on the side of a student bookstore with a likeness of legendary Penn State coach Joe Paterno on it wearing a halo that was added, Monday, Jan 23, 2012 in State College, Pa.. Paterno, a sainted figure at Penn State for almost half a century but scarred forever by the scandal involving his one-time heir apparent, died Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012 in State College. He was 85. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

A newspaper with the headline re-written, is left in remembrance around a statue of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, outside Beaver Stadium on the Penn State campus Monday, Jan. 23, 2012 in State College, Pa. Paterno died Sunday morning. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Margaret Bigham, left, and Jake Bigham, from near Charleston, S.C., pause ion remembrance around a statue of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, outside Beaver Stadium on the Penn State campus Monday, Jan. 23, 2012 in State College, Pa. Paterno died Sunday morning. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Samantha Maceil of Pittsburgh, places a Bear Bryant style hat on a statue of legendary former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno on Monday, Jan. 23, 2012, in State College, Pa. Paterno died Sunday at age 85, less than three months after being diagnosed with lung cancer. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) ? Joe Paterno's family said Monday the legendary football coach will get a two-day viewing and a public memorial this week on the Penn State campus, two months after the university summarily fired him over the phone.

The family gave no details on who might be invited or asked to speak at the memorial Thursday at the basketball arena, which can hold 16,000 people. Penn State spokeswoman Lisa Powers said the specifics were still being worked out with the Paternos.

But many alumni and students say Paterno was treated shabbily by the Board of Trustees in November, and trustees and other members of the administration might not be made to feel welcome at the memorial for the 85-year-old coach, who died Sunday of lung cancer.

"I don't think it's going to be heavily laden with administration and trustees," said trustee Linda Strumpf, who lives in New York and will not attend. "This is something the family is putting together and not the university. I don't think the university wants to be in a position to tell them what a memorial service looks like."

But trustee Al Clemens said he will be there to honor a man he described as a good friend.

"This is really a family thing, and so we're just going to go as individuals," Clemens said. "Joe's a great guy. No matter was the situation was in the last two months, it doesn't take away from what he's done through history for so many people. He's just been tremendous."

The viewing will be held Tuesday and Wednesday at a campus spiritual center, followed by a private funeral Wednesday afternoon. The public memorial will be at the Jordan Center and is expected to draw thousands.

Michael Day, a 1973 Penn State graduate from Hagerstown, Md., whose father taught there and whose four children all have Penn State degrees, said the trustees were wrong to fire Paterno and he believes they will ultimately be replaced. He said he hopes they don't attend.

"I think the Penn State community is separate from the Penn State Board of Trustees," he said. "The Board of Trustees has separated itself from the Penn State community, and the Penn State community loves Joe Paterno and always will. So it's appropriate for the Penn State community to honor Joe Paterno in this service."

Paterno was fired Nov. 9 after he was criticized over his handling of child sex-abuse allegations leveled against former assistant Jerry Sandusky in 2002. Pennsylvania's state police commissioner said that in not going to the police, Paterno may have met his legal duty but not his moral one.

Bitterness over Paterno's removal has turned up in many forms, from online postings to a note placed next to Paterno's statue at the football stadium blaming the trustees for his death. A newspaper headline that read "FIRED" was crossed out and made to read, "Killed by Trustees." Lanny Davis, lawyer for the board, said threats have been made against the trustees.

Janice Hume, a journalism professor at the University of Georgia, said that staging an appropriate memorial creates a dilemma similar to the one faced by Paterno's obituary writers: how to address the scandal without letting it negate his entire career.

"I think it's probably very difficult to strike the right balance," she said.

Clemens said the board will later consider more lasting tributes to Paterno, including scholarships in his name. Because of his generosity to the school, his family name is already on the library and a spiritual center.

There has also been a movement over the past few years to change the name of Beaver Stadium, the football team's home field, to Joe Paterno Field at Beaver Stadium, and on Monday the man behind it, Warren W. Armstrong, a 1960 graduate and retired Allentown advertising executive, said he would renew his efforts. Some are suggesting renaming the street leading to the stadium Paterno Way.

A family spokesman said the Paternos' focus this week is on the viewing and funeral plans and they do want to weigh in on any ideas for a permanent memorial right now. But "I would say the family would welcome a conversation on that," Dan McGinn said.

___

AP writers Kathy Matheson and Patrick Mairs in Philadelphia and Michael Rubinkam in Allentown contributed to this story.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-01-23-FBC-Paterno-Services/id-45aa65fe12764046a04fbf98b0cb76d8

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New Genetic Clues to Breast Cancer? (HealthDay)

SUNDAY, Jan. 22 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers have identified three new genomic regions they believe are linked with breast cancer that may help explain why some women develop the disease.

All three newly identified areas "contain interesting genes that open up new avenues for biological and clinical research," said researcher Douglas Easton, a professor of genetic epidemiology at the University of Cambridge in England.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women, with about 1 million new cases annually worldwide and more than 400,000 deaths a year.

Scientists conducting genome-wide association studies -- research that looks at the association between genetic factors and disease to pinpoint possible causes -- had already identified 22 breast cancer susceptibility loci. Locus is the physical location of a gene or DNA sequence on a chromosome.

"The three [newly identified] loci take the number of common susceptibility loci from 22 to 25," said Easton.

However, the three new susceptibility loci might explain only about 0.7 percent of the familial risks of breast cancer, bringing the total contribution to about 9 percent, the researchers said.

Michael Melner, scientific program director for the American Cancer Society, said this current research adds some important new clues to existing evidence, but he agreed that the number of cases likely associated with these three variants is probably low.

"So the total impact in terms of patients would be fairly small," Melner said.

The study is published online Jan. 22 in Nature Genetics.

To find the new clues, Easton's team worked with genetic information on about 57,000 breast cancer patients and 58,000 healthy women obtained from two genome-wide association studies.

The investigators zeroed in on 72 different single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). A SNP -- pronounced "snip" -- is a change in which a single base in the DNA differs from the usual base. The human genome has millions of SNPs, some linked with disease, while others are normal variations.

The researchers focused on three SNPs -- on chromosomes 12p11, 12q24 and 21q21.

Easton's team found that the variant on the 12p11 chromosome is linked with both estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer (which needs estrogen to grow) and estrogen receptor-negative breast cancer. The other two variants are only linked with ER-positive cancers, they said.

One of the newly identified variants is in an area with a gene that has a role in the development of mammary glands and bones. Easton said it was already known that mammary gland development in puberty is an important period in terms of determining later cancer risk. "But these are the first susceptibility genes to be shown to be involved in this process," he said.

One of the other SNPs is in an area that can affect estrogen receptor signaling, the researchers found.

Melner, noting some of the research is "fine tuning" of other work, said in his view the new understanding of the signaling pathways and their genetic links is the most important finding.

"When you delineate a pathway, you bring up new potential targets for therapy," he said. "The more targets you have, you open up the potential for having multiple drugs and attacking a cancer more easily, without it becoming more resistant."

Overall, Melner added, the results underscore the complexity of the different mechanisms involved in breast cancer development.

More information

For more about the genetics of breast cancer, visit the American Cancer Society.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20120122/hl_hsn/newgeneticcluestobreastcancer

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Video: Who is Mitt Romney?

Despite mild flu season, don't skip shots

So far this year, there have been far fewer flu reports, including the fever, coughing, aches and pains that usually make winter so miserable. But that doesn't mean people should be complacent about getting their flu shots, experts say.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/46107135#46107135

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Apple reportedly believes Chinese factories faster, more flexible than U.S. counterparts

According to The New York Times, not the cost of labor, not the cost of components, but rather the speed and flexibility with which Chinese factories can respond to manufacturing demands is reportedly the reason Apple prefers them over their U.S. counterparts.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/PHJhpr3w8V4/story01.htm

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Video: Catching a comet death on camera

Friday, January 20, 2012

On July 6, 2011, a comet was caught doing something never seen before: die a scorching death as it flew too close to the sun. That the comet met its fate this way was no surprise ? but the chance to watch it first-hand amazed even the most seasoned comet watchers.

"Comets are usually too dim to be seen in the glare of the sun's light," says Dean Pesnell at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., who is the project scientist for NASA's Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO), which snapped images of the comet. "We've been telling people we'd never see one in SDO data."

But an ultra bright comet, from a group known as the Kreutz comets, overturned all preconceived notions. The comet can clearly be viewed moving in over the right side of the sun, disappearing 20 minutes later as it evaporates in the searing heat. The movie is more than just a novelty. As detailed in a paper in Science magazine appearing January 20, 2012, watching the comet's death provides a new way to estimate the comet's size and mass. The comet turns out to be somewhere between 150 to 300 feet long and have about as much mass as an aircraft carrier.

"Of course, it's doing something very different than what aircraft carriers do," says Karel Schrijver, a solar scientist at Lockheed Martin in Palo Alto, Calif., who is the first author on the Science paper and is the principal investigator of the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly instrument on SDO, which recorded the movie. "It was moving along at almost 400 miles per second through the intense heat of the sun ? and was literally being evaporated away."

Typically, comet-watchers see the Kreutz-group comets only through images taken by coronagraphs, a specialized telescope that views the Sun's fainter out atmosphere, or corona, by blocking the direct blinding sunlight with a solid occulting disk. On average a new member of the Kreutz family is discovered every three days, with some of the larger members being observed for some 48 hours or more before disappearing behind the occulting disk, never to be seen again. Such "sun-grazer" comets obviously destruct when they get close to the sun, but the event had never been witnessed.

The journey to categorizing this comet began on July 6, 2011 after Schrijver spotted a bright comet in a coronagraph produced by the SOlar Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). He looked for it in the SDO images and much to his surprise he found it. Soon a movie of the comet circulated to comet and solar scientists, eventually making a huge splash on the Internet as well.

Karl Battams, a scientist with the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC, who has extensively observed comets with SOHO and is also an author on the paper, was skeptical when he first received the movie. "But as soon as I watched it, there was zero doubt," he says. "I am so used to seeing comets simply disappearing in the SOHO images. It was breathtaking to see one truly evaporating in the corona like that."

SDO's AIA instrument captured the first ever video of a comet passing directly in front of the sun in the early morning of July 6, 2011. The comet comes in from the right and is very faint. Credit: NASA/SDO

After the excitement, the scientists got down to work. Humans have been watching and recording comets for thousands of years, but finding their dimensions has typically required a direct visit from a probe flying nearby. This movie offered the first chance to measure such things from afar. The very fact that the comet evaporated in a certain amount of time over a certain amount of space means one can work backward to determine how big it must have been before hitting the sun's atmosphere.

The Science paper describes the comet and its last moments as follows: It was traveling some 400 miles per second and made it to within 62,000 miles of the sun's surface before evaporating. Before its final death throes, in the last 20 minutes of its existence when it was visible to SDO, the comet was some 100 million pounds, had broken up into a dozen or so large chunks with sizes between 30 to 150 feet, embedded in a "coma" -- that is the fuzzy cloud surrounding the comet -- of approximately 800 miles across, and followed by a glowing tail of about 10,000 miles in length.

It is actually the coma and tail of the comet being seen in the video, not the comet's core. And close examination shows that the light in the tail pulses, getting dimmer and brighter over time. The team speculates that the pulsing variations are caused by successive breakups of each of the individual chunks that made up the comet material as it fell apart in the Sun's intense heat.

"I think this is one of the most interesting things we can see here," says Lockheed's Schrijver. "The comet's tail gets brighter by as much as four times every minute or two. The comet seems first to put a lot of material into that tail, then less, and then the pattern repeats." Figuring out the exact details of why this happens is but one of the mysteries remaining about this comet movie. High on the list is to answer the not-so-simple question of why we can see the comet at all. Certainly, there are a few basic characteristics of this situation that help. For one, this comet was big enough to survive long enough to be seen, and its orbit took it right across the face of the Sun. It was also, says Battams, probably one of the top 15 brightest comets seen by SOHO, which has observed over 2,100 sun-grazing comets to date. The SDO cameras, in of themselves, also contributed a great deal: despite being far away and relatively small compared to the sun, the comet showed up clearly on SDO's high definition imager. This imager, called the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) takes a picture every 12 seconds so the movement of the comet across the face of the sun could be continuously watched. Most other similar instruments capture images every few minutes, which makes it hard to track the movement of an object that's only visible for 20 minutes.

But ultimately, the fact that one can see this comet against the background of the sun means there is some physical process not yet understood. "Normally," says Goddard's Pesnell, "a comet passing in front of the sun absorbs the light from the sun. We would have expected a black spot against the sun, not a bright one. And there's not enough stuff in the corona to make it glow, the way a meteor does when it goes into Earth's atmosphere. So one of the really big questions is why do we see it at all?"

Figuring out this question should offer information not only about material in the comet, but also about the sun's atmosphere ? and so this opens up the door to a new niche of study. Assuming, of course, that one can spot some more comets. So far SDO has only seen the one passing in front of the sun, though SDO did spot Comet Lovejoy traveling through the corona, as it went behind the sun and reappeared.

Stay tuned, as new sun-grazing comets appear every few days . . .

###

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center: http://www.nasa.gov/goddard

Thanks to NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center for this article.

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

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/116903/Video__Catching_a_comet_death_on_camera

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The confidence of a physicist (Unqualified Offerings)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/189083777?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Family Finance: Claiming those who depend on you | The ...

Is your unemployed college graduate "occupying" your couch? Has your elderly parent moved in with you, or are you paying for an assisted living facility?
If so, these issues likely have stirred up a host of emotional and financial issues in your home. They may also impact your taxes.
"We see this more and more," said John Steffee, a partner at the accounting firm Pfister and Rompalo, in Wormleysburg, Pa. With the economy continuing to sputter, adult children frequently can't find jobs, and older parents are having trouble keeping up with their homes. "And all of a sudden, they have grandma and grandpa, mom and dad and the kids under one roof. Just like the Waltons."
Most households bear little resemblance to that wholesome television brood of the 1970s, but data confirm Steffee's impressions. A review of census data by the Pew Research Center last year found that by 2009 about 7 million households in the U.S. consisted of two adult generations, and another 4.2 million households had three generations living under one roof.
Kristine and Kevin Tanzillo brought her mother, Nancy Haugen, to live in their Myrtle Springs, Texas, home about five years ago because she needed near constant care after spinal surgery.
Haugen, 73, receives Social Security and a small pension, but together they make for a "pretty meager" income, her daughter said. Although the Tanzillos paid Haugen's mortgage and other living expenses before she moved in, it was only when they began sharing a home that the couple started claiming Haugen as a dependent.
That will be a $3,700 deduction on their 2011 tax return.
Just sharing living quarters isn't enough to qualify someone as your dependent, so it's important to make sure they meet the support test laid out by the Internal Revenue Service.
For someone to qualify as a dependent, the taxpayer must provide more than 50 percent of the person's annual support ? including housing, food and medical care. For someone sharing a home, the total support figure would include the market value of the space the parent is living in, Steffee said ? for example, the cost of renting a comparable room or apartment.
The dependent's total support figure is based on an annual tally, so it doesn't matter how many days or months you contributed. That means Social Security and other government benefits must be counted toward that support, along with pensions and any personal savings. In addition, the individual must not have earned more than $3,700 in 2011, or about $310 per month, outside of government benefits.
Haugen didn't have to live with the Tanzillos in order to be claimed as a dependent. Since they were paying the bulk of her living expenses in the years before they combined households, their accountant told them they would be able to make the claim.
But Kristine Tanzillo initially didn't feel comfortable. She said she worried about an audit, despite the reassurance from her accountant.
Also, at that time, her mother was still independent. "We didn't want to intrude on that," Tanzillo said.
The fist request for her mother's financial paperwork created a little friction, but now, it's just part of normal family business.
Andrew Schwartz, a certified public accountant in Woburn, Mass., said many of his clients claim parents as dependents. Most take the claim readily.
Another potential tax benefit may come from medical expenses. The IRS requires that family medical expenses exceed 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income before they are deductible, a difficult threshold for most families to meet. The additional costs for an older parent, especially one with serious health concerns, may lift costs to above that line.
Even if the family earns enough to have to pay the alternative minimum tax when filing their federal return ? usually those who earn between $150,000 and $650,000 per year ? Schwartz said claiming a parent as a dependent may help save on state or local income taxes.
Adult children who have returned to the nest may also be considered dependents in many cases. Like the older generation, the main issue is whether you are providing their support.
Parents may claim children living with them as dependents up to age 19 automatically. Full-time students may be claimed up to age 24.
But plenty of young adults are living with their parents after those cutoffs, largely because of the economy. The federal government pegs the unemployment rate for people 20 to 24 years old at 14.4 percent, much higher than the 8.5 percent overall rate.
Other relatives may also qualify as dependents if they live in the same home, and non-relatives may also squeeze in under certain conditions.
Most tax preparation software asks simple questions that can help a taxpayer determine who qualifies, but for complicated living arrangements it may be helpful to consult a professional tax preparer.
Steffee warned that there can be all kinds of hazards because the regulations are very specific. "You have to be really careful," he said. "And make sure you don't trip over the rules."

Source: http://www.sfexaminer.com/news/2012/01/family-finance-claiming-those-who-depend-you

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Iran says in touch with powers on new talks, U.S. denies (Reuters)

TEHRAN (Reuters) ? Iran said it was in touch with world powers to reopen talks soon on its nuclear program, but Washington and the European Union denied this and said they were still waiting for Tehran to show it was ready for serious negotiations.

A year after the last talks fell apart, confrontation is brewing over Tehran's nuclear work, which the United States and other countries say is focused on developing atomic weapons. Iran dismisses the accusation.

The EU is preparing to intensify sanctions against Iran with an embargo on its economically vital oil exports. EU diplomats said on Wednesday member governments had also agreed in principle to freeze the assets of Iran's central bank, but had yet to agree how to protect non-oil trade from sanctions.

Iran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, used for a third of the world's seaborne oil trade, if it cannot sell its own crude, fanning fears of a descent into war in the Gulf that could inflame the Middle East.

Iranian politicians said U.S. President Barack Obama had expressed readiness to negotiate in a letter to Tehran, a step that might relieve tensions behind recent oil price spikes.

"Negotiations are going on about venue and date. We would like to have these negotiations," Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told reporters during a visit to Turkey.

"Most probably, I am not sure yet, the venue will be Istanbul. The day is not yet settled, but it will be soon."

Washington denied there were any new discussions underway about resuming talks, but declined to comment on whether Obama had sent a letter to Tehran.

"There are no current talks about talks," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said on Wednesday.

"What we are doing, as we have said, is making clear to the Iranians that if they are serious about coming back to a conversation, where they talk openly about their nuclear program, and if they are prepared to come clean with the international community, that we are open to that," Nuland said at a media briefing.

The United States is pushing countries to reduce the volume of Iranian oil they buy in line with a new sanctions law Obama signed on December 31 that targets Tehran's ability to sell crude oil.

The State Department denial was echoed by a spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who represents the six world powers trying to engage with Iran.

"There are no negotiations under way on new talks," he said in Brussels. "We are still waiting for Iran to respond to the substantive proposals the High Representative (Ashton) made in her letter from October."

SERIOUS NEGOTIATIONS

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Iran had to be ready for serious negotiations. "It is significant that when we are discussing additional sanctions in the European Union an offer of negotiations emerges from Iran," he said.

"We will not be deterred from imposing additional sanctions simply by the suggestion there may be negotiations. We want to see actual negotiations," he told a news conference in Brazil.

Tehran denies wanting nuclear bombs, saying its enrichment work is for power generation and medical applications.

The last talks between Iran and the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council - the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China - along with Germany stalled in Istanbul a year ago, with the parties unable to agree even on an agenda.

The six countries have also failed to agree on a common line in their relations with Iran.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao defended his country's extensive oil trade with Iran against Western sanctions pressure in comments published on Thursday. Even so, he said Beijing firmly opposes any efforts by Tehran to acquire nuclear weapons.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said a last-ditch military option mooted by the United States and Israel would ignite a disastrous, widespread Middle East war. Russia has also criticized the new sanctions.

PROTRACTED IMPASSE

EU foreign ministers are expected to approve a phased ban on imports of Iranian oil at the meeting on January 23 - three weeks after the United States passed a law that would freeze out any institution dealing with Iran's central bank, effectively making it impossible for most countries to buy Iranian oil.

"On the central bank, things have been moving in the right direction in the last hours," one EU diplomat said on Wednesday. "There is now a wide agreement on the principle. Discussions continue on the details."

Iran has said it is ready to talk but has also started shifting uranium enrichment to a deep bunker where it would be less vulnerable to the air strikes Israel says it could launch if diplomacy fails to curb Tehran's nuclear drive.

Western diplomats say Tehran must show willingness to change its course in any new talks. Crucially, Tehran says other countries must respect its right to enrich uranium, the nuclear fuel which can provide material for atomic bombs if enriched to much higher levels than that suitable for power plants.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking during a visit to the Netherlands on Wednesday, repeated his view that "Iran must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons, period."

Earlier in the day, his Defense Minister Ehud Barak said any decision about an Israeli attack on Iran was "very far off.

Iranian politicians said Obama had written to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei responding to Tehran's threat to close the Strait of Hormuz if sanctions prevent it selling oil.

Several members of Iran's parliament who discussed the matter on Wednesday said it included the offer of talks.

"In this letter it was said that closing the Strait of Hormuz is our (U.S.) 'red line' and also asked for direct negotiations," the semi-official Fars news agency quoted lawmaker Ali Mottahari as saying.

Ashton wrote to Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili in October to stress that the West still wanted to resume talks but Iran must be ready to engage "seriously in meaningful discussions" about ways to ensure its nuclear work would be wholly peaceful in nature.

A U.N. nuclear watchdog report has lent weight to concern that Iran has worked on designing a nuclear weapon.

(Reporting by Tulay Karadeniz in Ankara, Chris Buckley in Beijing, Phil Stewart in Washington, Alexei Anishchuk in Moscow, Justyna Pawlak in Brussels, Allyn Fisher-Ilan in Jerusalem, Fredrik Dahl in Vienna and Estelle Shirbon in London; Anthony Boadle in Brasilia; Writing by Robin Pomeroy and David Stamp; Editing by Jon Boyle and Andrew Heavens)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iran/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120119/wl_nm/us_iran

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Belief in Evolution Boils Down to a Gut Feeling (LiveScience.com)

Gut feelings may trump good old-fashioned facts, and even religious beliefs, when it comes to accepting the theory of evolution, new research suggests.

"The whole idea behind acceptance of evolutionhas been the assumption that if people understood it, if they really knew it, they would see the logic and accept it," study co-author David Haury, an associate professor of education at Ohio State University, said in a statement.

But, he noted, research on the matter has been inconsistent. While one study would find a strong relationship between knowledge level and acceptance, another would not. Likewise, studies have contradicted each other on the relationship between religious identity and acceptance of evolution, he said.

Haury and his colleagues figured that another unexplored factor must be at work. Previous research has shown that the human brain doesn't judge the merits of an idea solely on logic, but also on how intrinsically true the idea feels: Could this process of intuitive reasoning help explain why some people are more accepting of evolution than others?

To find out, the researchers recruited 124 pre-service biology teachers at different stages in a standard teacher preparation program at two Korean universities. They chose to look at students in Korea because teacher preparation programs in the country are quite standardized. "In Korea, people all take the same classes over the same time period and are all about the same age, so it takes out a lot of extraneous factors," Haury explained.

Moreover, about half of Koreans don't identify themselves as belonging to any particular religion, he said. In the U.S., only about 16 percent of people are religiously unaffiliated, according to the Pew Research Center. (Religion can be a reason for not accepting evolution, as some think it goes against a god as a creator.)

The researchers first asked the students a series of questions to measure their overall acceptance of evolution, teasing out whether they generally believed the main concept sand scientific findings that define the theory of evolution. Next, they tested the students on their knowledge of evolutionary science with questions about various processes, such as natural selection. For each question, the students wrote down how certain they felt about the correctness of their answers ? an indicator of their gut feelings.

They found that intuition?had a significant impact on what the students accepted, no matter how much they knew and regardless of their religious beliefs. Even students with a greater knowledge of evolutionary facts weren't more likely to accept the theory unless they also had a strong gut feeling about the facts, the results showed.

The study has important implications for the teaching of evolution, the researchers said. Informing students about this conflict between intuition and logic may help them judge ideas on their merits.

"Educationally, we think that's a place to start," Haury said. "It's a concrete way to show them, 'Look, you can be fooled and make a bad decision, because you just can't deny your gut.'"

The study was published in the January 2012 issue of Journal of Research in Science Teaching.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20120120/sc_livescience/beliefinevolutionboilsdowntoagutfeeling

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