Photos: Kilauea Lava Reaches the Sea









































































































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Police: KC Chiefs Player Killed Girlfriend, Self













Jovan Belcher, a linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs, committed suicide today in front of his coaches and police officers outside the team's stadium, shortly after he fatally shot his girlfriend, police said.


"We heard that they had been arguing in the past [and] as far as recently, they'd been arguing before the shooting occurred this morning," Kansas City Police spokesman Darin Snapp told ABC News Radio.


The victim was identified Kasandra Perkins, 22. Snapp said the couple had lived together and had a 3-month-old daughter.


A woman first alerted police this morning that her daughter had been shot by her boyfriend, who was a Kansas City Chiefs player, Snapp said. Police initially believed the woman was Perkins' mother, but later learned she was Belcher's mother, who lived with the couple to help care for their daughter and according to family members felt extremely close to Perkins.


It is believed Belcher drove to Arrowhead Stadium shortly after the shooting and police were called.


"When the officers arrived, when they were pulling up, they actually observed a black male who had a gun to his head and he was talking to a couple of coaches out in the parking lot," Snapp said. "As officers pulled up, and began to park, that's when they heard the gunshot and it appears the individual took his own life."












Idaho Teacher Accused of Locking Boy, 5, in Dark Closet Watch Video





Snapp said the coaches told officers they didn't feel they were in any danger from Belcher.


"They said the player was actually thanking them for everything they'd done for him," he said. "They were just talking to him and he was thanking them and everything. That's when he walked away and shot himself."


Kansas City is scheduled to host the Carolina Panthers on Sunday, and the league has told the Panthers to go ahead with their travel plans because the game will be played as scheduled.


In a statement posted on their website, the Chiefs said they are "cooperating with authorities in their investigation" and did not mention Belcher by name.


The 6-foot-2, 228-pound linebacker joined the Kansas City Chiefs in 2009, and had spent all four seasons of his career with the team. He has played every in game since joining the team.


Originally from West Babylon, N.Y., where he was a three-time all-America wrestler in addition to playing on the football team, Belcher went undrafted out of the University of Maine, where he started all 45 games in which he played.


Maine Head Football Coach Jack Cosgrove described Jovan as a "tremendous student-athlete."


"His move to the NFL was in keeping with his dreams," Cosgrove said in a statement released by the university today. "This is an indescribably horrible tragedy. At this difficult time, our thoughts and prayers are with Jovan, Kasandra and their families."


Belcher signed with the Chiefs as a rookie free agent, started 15 of 16 games his second season and last year started all 16 games as left inside linebacker.


Belcher expressed gratitude for his NFL career in an article posted on Nov. 21 on the Chiefs' website that has since been taken down.


"First and foremost, God. Family and friends just keeping me focused, coaches and just everyone," he said.



Read More..

Today on New Scientist: 30 November 2012







Dinosaurs might have once gazed into the Grand Canyon

It had been thought that the canyon formed 6 million years ago, but now two geologists say it is actually closer to 70 million years old



Saturn's rings may double up as a moon factory

A new model suggests Saturn's famous rings spawned the planet's moons. Could the mechanism explain the moons of Uranus, Neptune and even Earth?



Gaming the future: the best of 2012

New Scientist looks back at the video games that explored the boundaries of science and technology this year



Friday Illusion: Mystery mirror reveals missing banana

A prize for the first person to figure out how a strange mirror image remains in view



Syria again disconnects nation from the internet

Once again, the Syrian government appears to have pulled the plug on the internet, cutting off its citizens from the rest of the world



Crowdfund your area's projects one brick at a time

As the recession bites and budgets are cut, websites are springing up that allow citizens to club together to fund everything from parks to bridges



Omniphobia: the stuffs that stick at nothing

Whether it's water, oil, ketchup or ants, materials that repel everything that touches them are on the way, says Jessica Griggs



Feedback: Commas in breach of copyright

Why these words break the law, impure apples, Google rewrites the history of everything, and more



A quantum of... We want to see your movies!

The deadline for the Quantum Shorts Film Competition is hard on us and we've already had some amazing entries - submit yours before Sunday



LHC sees hint of high-speed particle pancake

Purely by accident, the Higgs-boson-hunting Large Hadron Collider may have stumbled upon a rare state of matter called a colour-glass condensate



Social bee-haviour: The secret life of the hive

Bees have a brain the size of a pinhead, yet their daily activities rival the range of behaviours seen in many mammals



Florida pet spa mystery link to China's great firewall

China's censors have innovative ways of stopping its citizens accessing banned websites, including poisoning internet servers



Giant tortoises bounce back in the Galapagos

A slow and steady rescue mission has seen the population of the iconic creatures on Española Island leap from just 12 into the thousands



Messenger finds hints of ice at Mercury's poles

The innermost planet of the solar system could harbour a small polar habitable zone - but the chances of finding life there are remote



Projections of sea level rise are vast underestimates

Estimates made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007 were wildly wrong





Read More..

Palestinians need separate vote to join IMF: spokeswoman






WASHINGTON: The International Monetary Fund said on Friday that the UN vote to recognize Palestine as a non-member observer state does not mean the Palestinians will automatically become members of the financial institution.

In response to an AFP query, spokeswoman Wafa Amr said United Nations recognition "by itself has no direct effect on a possible application for membership of the IMF."

"The Fund has its own procedures for determining membership, which include the requirement that Fund members representing a majority of the Fund's voting power recognize the applicant to the Fund as a 'country'."

That would mean that the countries and blocs with the IMF's largest voting power, the United States and Europe, would have to back the Palestinian state's membership.

But Washington on Thursday voted against the resolution elevating the Palestinians' diplomatic status, and Europe was split over the matter. The UN General Assembly backed the measure 138-9 with 41 abstentions.

Joining the IMF would allow the Palestinians to benefit from financial advice and support from the Washington-based body.

Newly-formed South Sudan became the most recent country to join the IMF, in April this year, nine months after gaining independence.

- AFP/xq



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Apple re-posts 10.8.2 update for Mac Mini and MacBook users



Apple has re-issued its 10.8.2 update for specific
Mac systems after having pulled it over a week ago.


OS X 10.8.2 has been available for Mac systems since mid-September, but in mid-November Apple pulled a specific version of the updater for the 2012
Mac Mini,
iMac, and 13-inch MacBook Pro models, resulting in the inability for those with these systems to be updated to the latest version of OS X.

The reasons for the pulled update were not made public. When users attempted to install the Combo updater for OS X 10.8.2 on their systems, the installer gave an error stating the volume does not meet the requirements for this update.

As silently as this update was pulled, Apple has re-issued the update so it should be available for those who have affected systems. With this update available, you can now meet the system requirements for additional updates, including those for the latest versions of Aperture and iPhoto. If you already have OS X 10.8.2 on your system then you do not need to do anything, but if you have one of these systems and have been stuck with OS X 10.8.1, you can now bring your system up to date.

To install this update, check Software Update in your Mac's Apple Menu and apply all available updates there, but it can also be downloaded as a standalone updater from its Apple Support Downloads page. As always, be sure to fully back up your system before applying this or any other update.



Questions? Comments? Have a fix? Post them below or !
Be sure to check us out on Twitter and the CNET Mac forums.

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Photos: Kilauea Lava Reaches the Sea









































































































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3 Dead After Attack at Wyo. Community College













Three people are dead after an attack at Casper College, a Wyoming community college, that may have involved a type of bow and arrow.


The college was shut down Friday morning after the attack.


"Emergency Alert: All classes and activities are cancelled today," read a message posted on the school's website.


Initial calls came in just after 9 a.m. reporting a "traumatic injury" on campus, according to a statement provided by local law enforcement to ABC News. Officers found "multiple victims" and the school was immediately placed on lockdown.






Alan Rogers/Casper Star-Tribune/AP Photo













Three people were found dead. One was a Casper College faculty member and another was a suspect who died of "apparent suicide," according to the statement.


The suspect, authorities said, "was not a current student at Casper College and the incident does not appear to be school motivated."


"There were no firearms involved in the crime," they said, "and the victim's injuries were caused by a sharp-edged weapon."


Police told Wyoming station KCWY that one of the victims was stabbed with a "bow-and-arrow-type" weapon.


The school of around 5,000 students is located in Casper, the state's second-largest city. It was founded in 1945, according to the school's website.


Calls to Casper Police Chief Chris Walsh and school spokesman Rich Fujita were not returned Friday afternoon.


The lockdown was later lifted. The school's website said campus travel was "now permitted" and that counselors were available at the school's Gateway Building.



Read More..

Projections of sea level rise are vast underestimates








































Expect more water to lap at your shores. That's the take-home message from two studies out this week that look at the latest data on sea level rise due to climate change.













The first shows that current projections for the end of the century may seriously underestimate the rise in global sea levels. The other, on the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, looks at just how much of the water stored up there has been moving into the oceans.












Both demonstrate that global warming is a real and imminent threat.












What mechanisms could lead to a rise in global sea level as climate change warms the planet?
There are four major mechanisms: the thermal expansion of oceans in a warming world; the loss of ice from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets; the melting of mountain glaciers and ice caps (such as those in the Himalayas); and the extraction and discharge of groundwater.












What is the latest on sea level rise?
One of the two new studies shows that last report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published in 2007, vastly underestimated actual sea level rise. That's because the IPCC's fourth assessment report (AR4) did not include contributions from the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.












So, for the years 1993-2011, the IPCC estimated that sea level would rise by about 2 millimetres a year. But the satellite data from that period now tell a different story.












Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany and colleagues compared IPCC AR4 projections with actual measurements and found the projections lagging behind what was happening in the real world. Global sea level has been rising at about 3.2 millimetres a year over the past two decades (Environmental Research Letters, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/7/4/044035).












Why the discrepancy?
The likely culprits are continental ice sheets. "[In IPCC models], the two big ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica contribute nothing to future sea level rise, because they assume that the mass loss from Greenland is balanced by ice gain in Antarctica due to higher snowfall rates," says Rahmstorf.












But satellite data show that the ice sheets are losing ice to the oceans.












If the models have not accurately reproduced what happened in recent years, it is likely that their projections for the future are not correct either. Since 2007, the IPCC has recognised this. Its initial projection of a maximum sea level rise of 60 centimetres by 2100 has been upped to include an additional 20-centimetre rise due to ice sheets melting. This effect comes from simplified models of what the ice sheets are doing, however, so even the updated projections could be off the mark and sea level rise could potentially be greater still.












So, what do the latest satellite readings tell us about ice sheets?
They tell us that the melting in Greenland is not offset by gain of ice in Antarctica. Andrew Shepherd of the University of Leeds, UK, and colleagues combined data from three independent types of satellite studies to lessen uncertainties and remove year-to-year variability.












"It's probably now the best overall and most comprehensive estimate of what the ice sheets are doing and what they have been doing for the last 20 years," says team member Ian Joughin of the University of Washington in Seattle.












And the data are clear: from 1990 to 2000, the melting of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets added about 0.25 millimetres a year to global sea level rise. For 2005-2010, that number has increased to about 1 millimetre a year (Science, http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1228102"












This is a concern, says Joughin. "It shows an accelerating increase of mass loss."












Is there a difference in how Greenland and Antarctica are reacting to global warming?
Yes. Greenland is losing the most ice, causing sea level to rise by about 0.75 millimetres per year. What's happening in Antarctica is more nuanced. East Antarctica is gaining mass because of increased snowfall, but this is more than offset by the loss of ice from West Antarctica, particularly along the Amundsen Coast, where warm water is melting ice shelves from beneath. This is leading to thinning and speed-up of glaciers, such the Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers.












How much will the extraction of groundwater for irrigation add to the sea level?
Until now, sea level rise from the extraction of groundwater (which eventually ends up in the sea) has been countered by dams built on rivers over the last century, which hold water back on land. But the best sites for dams have now been utilised, so we can't expect to store more water on land.












As we extract more groundwater for irrigation – a trend that could increase as climate change causes droughts – it could add up to 10 centimetres to the sea level by 2100, according to Rahmstorf. "This will become a net contribution to sea level rise in the future," he says. "Not big, but not negligible."


















































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.

















































































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US, Israel isolated in downplaying Palestine vote






WASHINGTON: The United States and Israel downplayed on Thursday the Palestinians' new upgraded status at the UN, saying it changed nothing in actual practice and even made peace with the Jewish state a remoter prospect.

Palestinians rejoiced at the historic albeit largely symbolic vote at the UN General Assembly in New York, firing guns into the air in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, shooting off fireworks and embracing each other with glee.

In between the two ends of the spectrum were major powers like Britain, which said it respected the vote but abstained on the grounds that the Palestinians had not unconditionally agreed to negotiations on a lasting two-state deal with Israel.

Britain pledged support for efforts to reach an elusive peace accord, as did France, which voted for the resolution but called on Israel and the Palestinians to resume peace talks without conditions and as soon as possible.

The Vatican welcomed the 138-9 vote, saying it reflected the majority sentiment of the international community and the Holy See had long encouraged more global involvement to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"Peace needs courageous decisions," it said in a statement.

But top US diplomats warned the Palestinians that they had essentially achieved nothing, while Israel sounded as angry as the Palestinians did joyful.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's speech before the General Assembly ahead of the vote on the status upgrade was "defamatory and venomous."

"The world watched a defamatory and venomous speech that was full of mendacious propaganda against the IDF (army) and the citizens of Israel," the statement said.

The American ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said the Palestinians' joy would be short-lived.

"Today's grand announcements will soon fade and the Palestinian people will wake up tomorrow to find little of their lives has changed, save (that) the prospects of a durable peace have receded," she said.

"This resolution does not establish that Palestine is a state," she said, echoing an earlier speech by the ambassador to Israel. "Today's vote should not be misconstrued by any as constituting eligibility for UN membership."

Rice said that "only through direct negotiations between the parties can the Palestinians and the Israelis achieve the peace that both deserve."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking in Washington, used exactly the same language to denounce a decision that she said "places further obstacles in the path to peace."

The United States and Israel were among just nine countries bucking global support for a resolution giving Palestine non-member status at the United Nations.

Speaking prior to the vote, Netanyahu said in Jerusalem: "The decision at the United Nations today won't change anything on the ground." He added, "It won't promote the establishment of a Palestinian state; it will distance it.

"Israel's hand is always extended in peace, but a Palestinian state will not be established without (a Palestinian) recognition of the State of Israel as the Jewish people's state," Netanyahu said.

Among the allies of Israel and the United States was Canada, whose foreign minister John Baird said giving Palestine non-member observer status, a step on the path to full UN membership, "undermines the core" of attempts to broker a Palestinian-Israeli peace deal.

But nothing would spoil the Palestinians' big day.

The Hamas movement, which had opposed its rival Abbas's drive for the status change on grounds it was unilateral and not a product of consensus, welcomed the vote as a victory.

And while some in Ramallah recognized it was a half-triumph, they savoured it nonetheless.

"I'm happy they declared the state even though it's only a moral victory. There are a lot of sharks out there, but it feels good," 39-year-old Rashid al-Kor told AFP.

Ethar al-Asmar, a teacher, was pragmatic about the approval.

"Israel isn't going anywhere," she admitted. But, she said, the moment felt historic nonetheless.

"We have been waiting for this for so long. I never thought this day would come."

- AFP/xq



Read More..

Anonymous declares war on Syrian government Web sites




Determining that the Syrian government was responsible for the country's Internet blackout, the online hacktivist group Anonymous has announced a campaign against Syrian government Web sites hosted outside the country.


The Middle Eastern country began experiencing an Internet outage this morning, and many people on Twitter reported that phone lines are down as well. All 84 of Syria's IP address blocks have become unreachable, effectively removing the country from the Internet, according to Renesys, which operates a real-time grid that continuously monitors Internet routing data.


Anonymous said it had conducted an "exhaustive analysis" of the blackout and determined that the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad had severed fiber-optic and coaxial cables going into Syria.


"Essentially, they have physically 'pulled the plug out of the wall,'" Anonymous said in a press release. "As we discovered in Egypt, where the dictator Mubarak did something similar -- this is not damage that can be easily or quickly repaired."


Characterizing the outage as a "desperate move by a dying regime," Anonymous said it would be begin a campaign at 6 p.m. PT dubbed "Operation Syria" to remove all Web assets belonging to Assad's government hosted outside the country. The group said its first target would be servers for all Syrian embassies, beginning with the embassy in China.


"By turning off the Internet in Syria, the butcher Assad has shown that the time has come for Anonymous to remove the last vestiges of his evil government from the Internet," Anonymous said.

Read More..