science news for kids

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Should we let wunderkinds drop out of high school?

FILE - In this Oct. 1, 2012 file photo, Tumblr founder David Karp participates in the "Bloomberg Leadership Summit" seminar in New York. In a deal announced Monday, May 20, 2013, Yahoo is buying New York-based Tumblr, the online blogging forum, for $1.1 billion. About $275 million will go to Karp, 26, who dropped out of high school to concentrate on computer programming and started Tumblr six years ago. (AP Photo/Charles Sykes/Invision for Advertising Week)

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, and Tumblr Chief Executive David Karp speak during a news conference Monday, May 20, 2013, in New York. Yahoo edged up 31 cents, or 1.2 percent, to $26.83 after the Internet company said it was buying online blogging forum Tumblr for $1.1 billion. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

NEW YORK (AP) ? Thomas Sohmers, 17, of Hudson, Mass., has been working at a research lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since he was 13, developing projects ranging from augmented reality eyewear to laser communications systems. This spring, his mom, Penny Mills, let him drop out of 11th grade. She says she "could see how much of the work he was doing at school wasn't relevant to what he wanted to learn."

On Monday, Thomas and his mom learned that he is in esteemed company as a high-school dropout with a knack for computers: David Karp, 26, sold Tumblr, the online blogging forum he created, to Yahoo for $1.1 billion.

Examples of tech geniuses who lack college degrees are well-known ? Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg among them. But Karp left high school after his freshman year, with his mother's blessing, at the tender age of 14.

Critics say dropping out of school to pursue a dream is a terrible idea. Vivek Wadhwa, a fellow at Stanford Law School who teaches and advises startup companies, says it's like "buying a lottery ticket ? that's how good your odds are here. More likely than not, you will become unemployed. For every success, there are 100,000 failures."

But what about kids who are so good at computer programming that schools can't teach them what they need to know? "That's what internships are for; that's what extracurricular activities are for," says Wadhwa, who has founded two companies.

Karp, in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday, said he hopes teenagers don't look at his success as an excuse for leaving school. "That is not a path that I would haphazardly recommend to kids out there," he said. "I was in a very unique position of knowing exactly what I wanted to do at a time when computer science education certainly wasn't that good in high school in New York City."

Karp was a student at the Bronx High School of Science, an elite New York City public school that only admits students who score well on a difficult entrance exam, when his mother gave him the option of home-schooling. He took Japanese classes and had a math tutor while continuing with an internship at an animation production company, but by age 16, he was working for a website and was on his way to become a tech entrepreneur. He never did get his diploma. Karp's mother told the AP that she let him leave school because she realized "he needed the time in the day in order to create."

That resonates with Thomas' mom, who says her son "always wanted to learn more than what the schools wanted to teach him. At times it was very frustrating. I was fortunate to find people that were able to teach him more, but he has gone beyond what high school could ever give him."

Thomas just won a Thiel Fellowship, which gives $100,000 to 20 people under the age of 20 each year so they can skip college to focus on research or a dream, whether it's a high-tech project, a business or a nonprofit. But his mom says she would have let him drop out even if he hadn't won the award. "The part that really bothers me is that there are a lot of Thomases out there and their needs are not being met," said Mills.

Thomas says he's sad to be leaving his teenage friends behind, but he's excited about the future. And he has mixed feelings about his years in school. "I've had some amazing, great teachers that really have the passion to teach, but most of what is in school now is teaching to a test," he said. "It's really sad. You're not learning the skills for how to solve the problem ? you are just learning the answer to this question that is going to be on the test."

Susan Bartell, a psychologist based in Port Washington, N.Y., who works with adolescents and their families, says she frequently encounters parents who are convinced that their kids are extraordinarily gifted. But she cautions that it's "the very rare exception when this decision (to drop out) makes sense." In the case of Karp, she said, "it worked out, but almost always it doesn't ? even if a kid is extremely gifted. School is about much more than just academics and in most cases, even the most gifted kids need the socializing."

And not all young moguls take Karp's route. Earlier this year, a 17-year-old from London, Nick D'Aloisio, sold an app he created to Yahoo for $30 million ? but he decided to stay in school.

On the other hand, there are examples of successful individuals in many fields who lack a high school diploma, from top performers such as Jay-Z to billionaire businessmen such as Richard Branson.

But the tech community may be different from other industries. Degrees are not necessarily seen as a hallmark of achievement and programmers are judged on their ability to type lines of code. You are what you create.

What also sets the field apart is that computer programming is not taught at every high school, and even when it is, the most talented students often either "surpass the curriculum or feel it's not relevant to them," said Danielle Strachman, program director for the Thiel Fellowship. "They want to move at their own pace."

Strachman also emphasized that just because someone has left school, doesn't mean they've stopped learning. The Thiel program provides not just funding, but a community of peers and mentors to help recipients reach their goals. And they can always go back to pursue a degree when the fellowship is over.

It's a goal that even Karp has his eye on? despite his newfound wealth. "I hope I have an opportunity to go to school at some point," he said, "and study something completely different."

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Associated Press writers Meghan Barr in New York and Michael Liedtke in San Francisco contributed to this story.

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Online:

Thiel Fellowship: http://www.thielfellowship.org/

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-05-21-Wunderkind%20Dropouts/id-0cd1b6551f6f4e43849625ad1d1a336c

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Carmenlita Stevens, Quavon Foster Funeral: Ceremony Held For Mother, Son Slain In New Jersey Home

"Young L.A. Girl Slain; Body Slashed in Two" -L.A.'s Daily News

On January 15, 1947, the remains of Elizabeth Short, were found in a vacant lot in Los Angeles. What made this discovery the stuff of tabloid sensation, however, was the Glasgow smile left on the aspiring actress' face--made with 3-inch slashes on each side. This, coupled with Short's dark hair, fair complexion and reputation for sporting a dahlia in her hair, dubbed her "The Black Dahlia" in headlines. What followed was a media circus filled with rumors and speculation about the promiscuous 22-year-old's checkered past. What haunts theorists to this day, apart from the victim's uniquely nightmarish visage, is that the case remains unsolved after some 200 suspects were interviewed and ultimately released--making it one of Hollywood's most lurid legends.

"I Am Not Guilty - Thus Lizzie Borden Pleads Before Judge Hammond at New Bedford." -Boston Journal

"Lizzie Borden took an axe And gave her mother forty whacks. And when she saw what she had done, She gave her father forty-one." So goes the lurid nursery rhyme to one of the most mystifying crimes of the century. The nature of the deaths of Andrew J. Borden and his wife, Abby, are trumped only by the identity of the alleged perpetrator: their daughter, Lizzie. Inexplicably found "not guilty" in contrast to the era's zeitgeist of swift justice, Lizzie's legacy--guilty or not--has become immortalized as one of the most perplexing cases of parricide in history.

"Texas Mother Charged with Killing Her 5 Children" -CNN

In a case of mother-gone-mad that startled a nation, Andrea Yates, to her few friends and neighbors, was known as a mere recluse suffering from postpartum depression leading up to the birth of her fifth child. That all changed on June 20, 2001, when she snapped, drowning five of her children in their home's bathtub. She was convicted in 2002 of capital murder, carrying a sentence of life in prison with possible parole. As of July 2006, however, a Texas jury found her not guilty by reason of insanity.

"Buttafuoco Admits to Sex with Amy Fisher" -New York Times

Known as the "Long Island Lolita," Fisher became involved with Joey Buttafuoco in May of 1991. Shortly after the two began a sexual relationship (she, 16, while he, 35, was married with two children), his presence and influence in her life became all she cared for. In what he's since denied to this day, Buttafuoco would go on to help an obsessive Fisher plan the murder of his wife, culminating in Fisher putting a bullet in Mary Jo Buttafuoco's head, but failing to kill her. In the highly publicized trial that ensued, Fisher accepted a plea deal for 15 years in prison in exchange for a testimony against Joey, who faced and served out charges of statutory rape.

"Murder of a Little Beauty" -People Magazine

With a face that graced the covers of nearly every news and gossip rag during the winter of '96, it's hard to suggest the death of child beauty pageant queen JonBen?t Ramsey had little effect outside the city of Boulder, Colorado. Found dead from a blow to the head and strangulation in the family's basement, coupled with a ransom note left on the staircase asking for $118,00 (conveniently or coincidentally, nearly the same amount Mr. Ramsey received as a bonus that year), as well as no obvious signs of forced entry into the house, the evidence was overwhelmingly stacked against parents John and Patsy, who managed to maintain their innocence throughout the investigation. The case reopened in 2010, but critics cite poor handling of the crime scene as obstructing what remains a mystery regarding the events of that Christmas day.

"F.B.I. Joins Probe in Slaughter of 8 Nurses" -Nashua Telegraph

Tattooed with "Born to Raise Hell" on his arm, Richard Speck made good on his mantra through a history of violence, theft, alcoholism, and spousal abuse, but made his infamy known to all when, on July 13, 1966, he walked into a dormitory armed with a knife. After leaving 8 student nurses dead in his wake, only one, Cora Amurao, was spared--hiding under a bed until 6 a.m. Speck was found guilty of murder and died of a heart attack in prison. As one of the most press-worthy crimes of the decade, the grim events were used most recently as the backdrop for an episode of Mad Men.

"Sharon Tate, Four Others Murdered" -Los Angeles Times

Perhaps the most terrifying figure in American crime to have never actually killed anyone himself, Charles Manson founded a "family" of wayward individuals who hailed him as a prophet. So strong was his manipulation, he ordered, on the night of Aug. 8, 1969, four of his followers to kill everyone at the residence of 10050 Cielo Drive--including Roman Polanski's wife, Sharon Tate, and her unborn child. Tate was stabbed 16 times, and her blood was used to write "pig" on the house's front door. The next night, Manson accompanied six of his family to the residence of supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife, only to help bind them before ordering their deaths. In 1971, Manson and three of his fellow defendants were found guilty of murder in the first-degree and several other crimes. At the time, it was the longest murder trial in American history, spanning nine and a half months, as well as the most expensive, estimating $1 million. Manson was denied parole for the 12th time in April 2012.

"Lindbergh Baby Kidnapped from Home of Parents on Farm Near Princeton; Taken from His Crib; Wide Search on" -The New York Times

Used as the basis for an Agatha Christie novel (Murder on the Orient Express) and dubbed "the biggest story since the Resurrection" by famed journalist H.L. Mencken, the kidnapping and murder of aviator Charles Lindbergh's infant son continues to fascinate theorists today. Charles Jr. was discovered missing from his second-floor bedroom on March 1, 1932, along with a note demanding a then-unimaginable $50,000, igniting a media frenzy like no other. The tabloid pandemonium prompted many tips and leads, but none as concrete as a package containing the boy's pajamas and another message demanding the ransom. After some misdirection from the presumed kidnapper, Lindbergh's child was soon after discovered in the woods along a road near the family residence. Notwithstanding the evidence stockpiled against the easily vilified illegal German immigrant Bruno Hauptmann (who was sentenced), speculation prevails as to the true identity of the caper responsible in this tragic tale of one of America's greatest heroes.

"Not Guilty as Sin" -NY Post

Still fresh in the minds of many and not to easily be forgotten, the trial of Casey Anthony turned Orlando, Florida into anything but the "happiest place on earth." Following a series of lies, misdirection and manipulation by then-22 year old Casey, Caylee's skeletal remains were found five months into the investigation, setting the stage for what could only be described as the most incessantly publicized and shocking trial in recent memory. The media had a field day that went on for months: Highlighting the young, pretty, party girl image used against her in court as the prosecution tore apart an aimless defense--or so it seemed. After resorting to throwing her family under the bus, incriminating people entirely made-up ("Zanny the Nanny"), and fabricating elaborate stories for the police, Casey was found not guilty of murder due to evidence deemed mostly circumstantial and not meeting the burden of "beyond reasonable doubt," inciting much debate regarding whether true justice was served.

"An American Tragedy" -TIME

Known and heralded as the "trial of the century," former football star and actor O.J. Simpson found himself in the middle of the nation's biggest, most-televised trial following the deaths of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman, but not before fleeing an all-points bulletin in his Ford Bronco with 20 units in tow, interrupting game 5 of the NBA Finals. By enlisting a dream team including Johnnie Cochran, Robert Shapiro, and Robert Kardashian, the defense claimed Simpson was merely a victim of police fraud with regard to contaminated DNA evidence, while famously quipping "If it [the glove] doesn't fit, you must acquit." On October 3, 1995, an estimated 100 million people from around the world tuned in to watch the jury hand down a verdict of not guilty, consequently resulting in an estimated loss of $480 million in productivity and inciting an ongoing discussion of race in the judicial system that continues to this day.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/19/carmenlita-stevens-quavon-foster-funeral_n_3302164.html

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Mobile Miscellany: week of May 13th, 2013

If you didn't get enough mobile news during the week, not to worry, because we've opened the firehose for the truly hardcore. This week brought a new handset from Sony to the US and UK, updates to Nokia Creative Suite and three new (and very inexpensive) smartphones from Blu Products. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore all that's happening in the mobile world for this week of May 13th, 2013.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile, Sony

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/18/mobile-miscellany/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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5 dead, 20 missing in China factory explosion

BEIJING (AP) -- A massive blast ripped through an explosives factory Monday in eastern China, killing five people and leaving another 20 missing, state media reported.

Rescue work was continuing at the site of the mid-morning explosion in Shandong province's Caofan township, the Xinhua News Agency said. The company website said the factory run by the Baoli group manufactures 10,000 tons of industrial explosives annually.

A total of 34 people were inside the factory at the time of the blast, and only 14 of them have been found so far, including those that died, Xinhua said. The cause of the blast and condition of the nine survivors were not known.

A government spokesman for the surrounding city of Zhangqiu said a full accounting of the dead and injured was being compiled and would be released. Like many Chinese bureaucrats, he would only give his surname, Cao.

China has sought to tighten access to explosives used for quarrying following a series of attacks by people using homemade bombs. However, safety rules are often ignored and industrial accidents remain common.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/5-dead-20-missing-china-065508102.html

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Monday, May 20, 2013

All-day kindergarten approved in education bill (Star Tribune)

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Kinks and curves at the nanoscale

Public release date: 19-May-2013
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Contact: Joshua Brown
joshua.e.brown@uvm.edu
802-656-3039
University of Vermont

New research shows 'perfect twin boundaries' are not so perfect

One of the basic principles of nanotechnology is that when you make things extremely smallone nanometer is about five atoms wide, 100,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hairthey are going to become more perfect.

"Perfect in the sense that their arrangement of atoms in the real world will become more like an idealized model," says University of Vermont engineer Frederic Sansoz, "with smaller crystalsin for example, gold or copperit's easier to have fewer defects in them."

And eliminating the defects at the interface separating two crystals, or grains, has been shown by nanotechnology experts to be a powerful strategy for making materials stronger, more easily molded, and less electrically resistantor a host of other qualities sought by designers and manufacturers.

Since 2004, when a seminal paper came out in Science, materials scientists have been excited about one special of arrangement of atoms in metals and other materials called a "coherent twin boundary" or CTB.

Based on theory and experiment, these coherent twin boundaries are often described as "perfect," appearing like a perfectly flat, one-atom-thick plane in computer models and electron microscope images.

Over the last decade, a body of literature has shown these coherent twin boundariesfound at the nanoscale within the crystalline structure of common metals like gold, silver and copperare highly effective at making materials much stronger while maintaining their ability to undergo permanent change in shape without breaking and still allowing easy transmission of electronsan important fact for computer manufacturing and other electronics applications.

But new research now shows that coherent twin boundaries are not so perfect after all.

A team of scientists, including Sansoz, a professor in UVM's College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, and colleagues from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and elsewhere, write in the May 19 edition of Nature Materials that coherent twin boundaries found in copper "are inherently defective."

With a high-resolution electron microscope, using a more powerful technique than has ever been used to examine these boundaries, they found tiny kink-like steps and curvatures in what had previously been observed as perfect.

Even more surprising, these kinks and other defects appear to be the cause of the coherent twin boundary's strength and other desirable qualities.

"Everything we have learned on these materials in the past 10 years will have to be revisited with this new information," Sansoz says

The experiment, led by Morris Wang at the Lawrence Livermore Lab, applied a newly developed mapping technique to study the crystal orientation of CTBs in so-called nanotwinned copper and "boomit revealed these defects," says Sansoz.

This real-world discovery conformed to earlier intriguing theoretical findings that Sansoz had been making with "atomistic simulations" on a computer. The lab results sent Sansoz back to his computer models where he introduced the newly discovered "kink" defects into his calculations. Using UVM's Vermont Advanced Computing Center, he theoretically confirmed that the kink defects observed by the Livermore team lead to "rather rich deformation processes at the atomic scale," he says, that do not exist with perfect twin boundaries.

With the computer model, "we found a series of completely new mechanisms," he says, for explaining why coherent twin boundaries simultaneously add strength and yet also allow stretching (what scientists call "tensile ductility") properties that are usually mutually exclusive in conventional materials.

"We had no idea such defects existed," says Sansoz. "So much for the perfect twin boundary. We now call them defective twin boundaries."

For several decades, scientists have looked for ways to shrink the size of individual crystalline grains within metals and other materials. Like a series of dykes or walls within the larger structure, the boundaries between grains can slow internal slip and help resist failure. Generally, the more of these boundariesthe stronger the material.

Originally, scientists believed that coherent twin boundaries in materials were much more reliable and stable than conventional grain boundaries, which are incoherently full of defects. But the new research shows they could both contain similar types of defects despite very different boundary energies.

"Understanding these defective structures is the first step to take full use of these CTBs for strengthening and maintaining the ductility and electrical conductivity of many materials," Morris Wang said. "To understand the behavior and mechanisms of these defects will help our engineering design of these materials for high-strength applications."

For Sansoz, this discovery underlines a deep principle, "There are all manner of defects in nature," he says, "with nanotech, you are trying to control the way they are formed and dispersed in matter, and to understand their impact on properties. The point of this paper is that some defects make a material stronger."

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Kinks and curves at the nanoscale

Public release date: 19-May-2013
[ | E-mail |

Share ]

Contact: Joshua Brown
joshua.e.brown@uvm.edu
802-656-3039
University of Vermont

New research shows 'perfect twin boundaries' are not so perfect

But new research now shows that coherent twin boundaries are not so perfect after all.

Even more surprising, these kinks and other defects appear to be the cause of the coherent twin boundary's strength and other desirable qualities.

"Everything we have learned on these materials in the past 10 years will have to be revisited with this new information," Sansoz says

"We had no idea such defects existed," says Sansoz. "So much for the perfect twin boundary. We now call them defective twin boundaries."

###

[ | E-mail |

Share ]

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/2013-05/uov-kac051713.php

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Lundbeck says drug shows improvement in depression symptoms

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Danish pharmaceutical group Lundbeck and Japanese partner Takeda said on Saturday that data from clinical phase III studies with the antidepressant vortioxetine had shown significant improvement in patients' symptoms.

Lundbeck said in a statement that the trial showed safety levels consistent with previously completed studies at lower doses.

Lundbeck and Takeda submitted vortioxetine, also known as Brintellix, for regulatory approval in the United States and Europe at the end of last year.

Industry analysts at Deutsche Bank see the new drug having sales potential in excess of $1.5 billion and possibly up to $3 billion a year, although consensus forecasts for 2016 are a more modest $500 million, according to Thomson Reuters Pharma.

Lundbeck hopes the new drug will provide a new source of revenue as its existing antidepressant, Cipralex, sold as Lexapro in the United States and Japan, comes off patent protection.

(Reporting by Mette Fraende, Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/lundbeck-says-drug-shows-improvement-depression-symptoms-180542044.html

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