Military calls UK attack victim a model soldier

LONDON (AP) ? The soldier brutally murdered in a suspected terrorist attack in London was a popular 25-year-old ceremonial military drummer and machine gunner, a father and a passionate fan of the Manchester United soccer team, the British military said Thursday.

Lee Rigby, of 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, who had joined the army in 2006, was posted in Cyprus, Afghanistan and Germany before becoming a recruiter, assisting with duties in the Tower of London.

"All he wanted to do from when he was a little boy was be in the Army," Rigby's family said in a statement issued through the Ministry of Defense. "He wanted to live life and enjoy himself."

The family said that Rigby would "do anything for anybody," always looked out for his sisters and took a "big brother" role with everyone he met.

"He was a loving son, husband, father, brother, and uncle, and a friend to many," the statement added.

Rigby, nicknamed Riggers, was an important member of the Corps of Drums who was known for his good nature and wit, as well as his love of his hometown soccer team, fellow soldiers said. Two men believed to have extremist Islamic beliefs are suspected of attacking and killing him.

"He was one of the battalion's great characters, always smiling and always ready to brighten the mood with his fellow Fusiliers. He was easily identified ... on parade by the huge smile on his face and how proud he was to be a member of the Drums," Warrant Officer Class 1 Ned Miller said in a statement issued by the defense ministry. "He would always stop for a chat just to tell me Manchester United would win the league again."

The ministry said Rigby had a 2-year-old son, Jack.

"His loss will be felt across the battalion, but this is nothing compared to how his family must be feeling at this difficult time," said Capt. Alan Williamson, the adjutant of the 2nd Fusiliers in the statement.

A small group of mourners gathered Thursday at a church in Woolwich near where Rigby was killed to remember him. The Rev. Christopher Chessun said he had come to show solidarity with members of all faiths shocked by the killing.

Help for Heroes, a military support charity, said it was working hard to keep up with the many people who were showing their solidarity by buying T-shirts and hoodies.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/military-calls-uk-attack-victim-model-soldier-185520292.html

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Reforestation study shows trade-offs between water, carbon and timber

May 23, 2013 ? More than 13,000 ships per year, carrying more than 284 million tons of cargo, transit the Panama Canal each year, generating roughly $1.8 billion dollars in toll fees for the Panama Canal Authority. Each time a ship passes through, more than 55 million gallons of water are used from Gatun Lake, which is also a source of water for the 2 million people living in the isthmus.

However, the advent of very large "super" cargo ships, now more than 20 percent of the ships at sea, has demanded change. The Panama Canal is being expanded to create channels and locks three times larger than at present, leaving the authority to consider how best to meet the increased demand for water. One proposed measure is the reforestation of the watershed.

To help planners and policy makers understand the effects of reforestation, ASU scientists Silvio Simonit and Charles Perrings studied the effects of reforestation on a 'bundle' of ecosystem services: dry-season water flows, carbon sequestration, timber and livestock production.

Published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), their study -- "Bundling ecosystem services in the Panama Canal Watershed" -- examines precipitation, topography, vegetation, and soil characteristics to model on-site and off-site effects of several reforestation options.

"The Panama Canal watershed is currently being reforested to protect the dry-season flows needed for canal operations. We find however that reforestation does not necessarily increase water supply, but does increase carbon sequestration and timber production," said Simonit. "Our research provides an insight into the importance of understanding the spatial distribution of the costs and benefits of jointly produced services." Simonit, a member of ASU's Ecoservices Group co-directed by Perrings, is part of a collaborative research partnership between ASU and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI). He is also a post-doctoral fellow on the National Science Foundation-funded research coordination network: Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Training Network (BESTNet).

Simonit and Perrings found that only 37 percent of the currently forested area positively impacts dry-season water flows, offering up roughly 37.2 million cubic meters of seasonal flow (equivalent to US $16.37 million in revenue to the Panama Canal Authority).

In parts of the watershed not currently under forest, they found that reforestation of areas with high precipitation rates, flat terrain, and soil types with high potential infiltration would enhance dry-season flows. However, they note that these conditions exist in less than 5 percent of watershed not currently under forest.

"Water supply is, however, only one amongst many ecosystem services affected by reforestation of the watershed," said Perrings, a professor in the School of Life Sciences in ASU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. "And the balance between services depends on the type of reforestation undertaken." Accordingly, the duo investigated two reforestation scenarios: natural forest regeneration and teak plantation.

"We found that if all existing grasslands were allowed to regenerate as natural forest, there would be a reduction in dry-season flows across the watershed of 8.4 percent, compared to 11.1 percent if reforestation took the form of teak plantations." In both cases, these conditions potentially pose a problem for the Panama Canal Authority. Even with water-saving advances in the new locks, the canal is expected to need 14 percent more water when the expansion takes full effect, and other options for securing dry-season flows are not cost-free. However, the Panama Canal Authority is not the only beneficiary of the watershed, and water is not the only ecosystem service supplied. "Both natural forest and teak plantations offer benefits in the form of carbon sequestration and timber products, among other things, and these should be weighed against any water losses," said Perrings.

According to their study, water losses from "natural" forest regeneration would be compensated by the value of carbon sequestration in 59.6 percent of the converted area at current carbon prices. On the other hand, reforestation of existing grassland with teak (under sustainable forest management) would generate gains sufficient to offset the hydrological losses in all converted areas, regardless of the value of carbon.

The authors note that their study does not consider the value of land cover as habitat for wild fauna and flora. However, they say their results could help canal planners prioritize reforestation efforts. Knowing what to plant and where can reduce the negative impact of forests on dry season water flows, while providing other important ecosystem services.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/zDhueQPBzqY/130523162212.htm

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Logitech unveils $60 wired iPad keyboard built for classroom abuse

Bluetooth keyboards for the iPad are nice and all, but aren't you going to need to be within a wire's-length to see the thing anyway? To that end, Logitech has announced a full-sized wired iPad keyboard targeted to classrooms with an emphasis on durability and maintenance. It has a spill-resistant design, three-year warranty and key life of over 5 million strokes, according to the company, and comes in either lightning or 30-pin versions. If you don't mind being tethered, the Lightning model will ship in August and the last-gen iPad model in November for $60 each -- but you can pre-order now at the source.

Filed under: Peripherals

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Via: ZDNet

Source: Logitech

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/22/logitech-wired-ipad-keyboard/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Swim, water polo coach from Walnut Creek pleads not guilty to sex crime charges

MARTINEZ -- A former swim and water polo coach pleaded not guilty Monday to felony charges alleging sex crimes against a teenage girl, according to the Contra Costa District Attorney's Office.

Christopher Yang, 27, of Walnut Creek, was charged in April with nine felonies, including four counts of unlawful sex with a minor. Yang has coached at Northgate High School in Walnut Creek and Campolindo High School in Moraga, but authorities are not saying how he knows the girl.

"This is a regrettable situation for everyone involved, and Mr. Yang accepts responsibility for his lapse in judgment in his brief relationship with the alleged victim," Yang's attorney, Marvin Lew, said.

Yang remains out of jail custody on $610,000 bail. He returns to court June 18 to schedule his preliminary hearing.

Contact Malaika Fraley at 925-234-1684. Follow her at Twitter.com/malaikafraley.

Source: http://www.contracostatimes.com/contra-costa-times/ci_23294172/swim-water-polo-coach-from-walnut-creek-pleads?source=rss_viewed

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Innovation could bring flexible solar cells, transistors, displays

May 22, 2013 ? Researchers have created a new type of transparent electrode that might find uses in solar cells, flexible displays for computers and consumer electronics and future "optoelectronic" circuits for sensors and information processing.

The electrode is made of silver nanowires covered with a material called graphene, an extremely thin layer of carbon. The hybrid material shows promise as a possible replacement for indium tin oxide, or ITO, used in transparent electrodes for touch-screen monitors, cell-phone displays and flat-screen televisions. Industry is seeking alternatives to ITO because of drawbacks: It is relatively expensive due to limited abundance of indium, and it is inflexible and degrades over time, becoming brittle and hindering performance.

"If you try to bend ITO it cracks and then stops functioning properly," said Purdue University doctoral student Suprem Das.

The hybrid material could represent a step toward innovations, including flexible solar cells and color monitors, flexible "heads-up" displays in car windshields and information displays on eyeglasses and visors.

"The key innovation is a material that is transparent, yet electrically conductive and flexible," said David Janes, a professor of electrical and computer engineering.

Research findings were detailed in a paper appearing online in April in the journal Advanced Functional Materials. It was authored by Das; visiting student Ruiyi Chen; graduate students Changwook Jeong and Mohammad Ryyan Khan; Janes and Muhammad A. Alam, a Purdue professor of electrical and computer engineering.

The hybrid concept was proposed in earlier publications by Purdue researchers, including a 2011 paper in the journal Nano Letters. The concept represents a general approach that could apply to many other materials, said Alam, who co-authored the Nano Letters paper.

"This is a beautiful illustration of how theory enables a fundamental new way to engineer material at the nanoscale and tailor its properties," he said.

Such hybrid structures could enable researchers to overcome the "electron-transport bottleneck" of extremely thin films, referred to as two-dimensional materials.

Combining graphene and silver nanowires in a hybrid material overcomes drawbacks of each material individually: the graphene and nanowires conduct electricity with too much resistance to be practical for transparent electrodes. Sheets of graphene are made of individual segments called grains, and resistance increases at the boundaries between these grains. Silver nanowires, on the other hand, have high resistance because they are randomly oriented like a jumble of toothpicks facing in different directions. This random orientation makes for poor contact between nanowires, resulting in high resistance.

"So neither is good for conducting electricity, but when you combine them in a hybrid structure, they are," Janes said.

The graphene is draped over the silver nanowires.

"It's like putting a sheet of cellophane over a bowl of noodles," Janes said. "The graphene wraps around the silver nanowires and stretches around them."

Findings show the material has a low "sheet resistance," or the electrical resistance in very thin layers of material, which is measured in units called "squares." At 22 ohms per square, it is five times better than ITO, which has a sheet resistance of 100 ohms per square.

Moreover, the hybrid structure was found to have little resistance change when bent, whereas ITO shows dramatic increases in resistance when bent.

"The generality of the theoretical concept underlying this experimental demonstration -- namely 'percolation-doping' -- suggests that it is likely to apply to a broad range of other 2-D nanocrystaline material, including graphene," Alam said.

A patent application has been filed by Purdue's Office of Technology Commercialization.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/J7DB8dvwjlQ/130522142032.htm

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NBA Playoffs 2013 schedule: Pacers, Heat get series started in Miami

Heat vs. Pacers 2013: Eastern Conference Finals Preview

After a grueling 6-game postseason battle a year ago, the Miami Heat and Indiana Pacers will meet up again for the right to represent the Eastern Conference in the 2013 NBA Finals. Ben Golliver of SB Nation and SI.com breaks down the key factors, storylines and matchups with the series set to tip off on Wednesday evening.

Source: http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2013/5/22/4357128/nba-playoffs-2013-schedule-pacers-vs-heat

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Xbox One pre-order notification is live: here's where to sign up

How much? When? Where? Who cares? If you aren't exactly interested in knowing how much the impending Xbox One will cost you -- let alone when it'll actually hit your doorstep -- you can sign up to be notified of your opportunity to pre-order the console right now. To be clear, this isn't a sign-up for a pre-order. It's just a sign-up to be notified of pre-orders officially opening up. So really, what's to lose? Hit the source link below in order to share your email address, and you'll get a $10 Microsoft online store credit for your trouble. (Or, you can hit the Amazon link for those needing an excuse to make better use of their Prime subscription.)

Filed under: Gaming, Microsoft

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Source: Microsoft, Major Nelson (Twitter), Amazon

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/21/xbox-one-pre-order-notification-is-sign-up/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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