What's the difference between the ceremonial funeral that will be held for the late prime minister and the state funeral her supporters wanted for her?
By Ryan Lenora Brown,?Correspondent / April 16, 2013
The coffin of British former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher rests in the Crypt Chapel of St. Mary Undercroft beneath the Houses of Parliament in London on Tuesday. Mrs. Thatcher's funeral will be held at St. Paul's Cathedral on Wednesday.
Leon Neal/AP
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Before dawn Monday morning, several hundred British soldiers gathered along the dark streets of central London to escort an empty casket to St. Paul?s Cathedral.
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Correspondent
Ryan Brown edits the Africa Monitor blog and contributes to the national and international news desks of the Monitor. She is a former Fulbright fellow to South Africa and holds a degree in history from Duke University.?
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The somber early morning march was a dress rehearsal for the Wednesday funeral of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, an elaborate and expensive ceremony that has touched off new debate about how the country should eulogize one of its most divisive leaders.
Immediately following her death last Monday, supporters began to clamor for Mrs. Thatcher to be afforded a so-called state funeral: an elaborate ceremony generally reserved for the country?s monarchs.?
Thatcher wouldn?t have been the first modern prime minister afforded such an honor ? Winston Churchill and the major prime ministers of the late 19th?century all had them ? but it would have been a ritzy departure from the ceremonies celebrating most of her predecessors.
Thatcher herself foresaw the controversy her memorial might inspire, however, and made clear before she died that she did not want a state funeral. So instead she will be commemorated Wednesday with a ?ceremonial funeral? ? one notch lower on the hierarchy of British official burials.
Here?s what you need to know about the Iron Lady's funeral.?
What is the difference between a ceremonial funeral and a full state funeral?
Practically speaking, almost nothing. Both state and ceremonial funerals are elaborate, expensive affairs (Thatcher's will cost an estimated 10 million pounds, or $15 million) involving a military procession and a funeral at one of London?s eminent old chapels.?
Thatcher?s casket will follow a winding route through central London ? flanked by about 700 military personnel ? beginning at the Palace of Westminster, continuing on to the Royal Air Force chapel, St. Clement Danes, and ending at St. Paul?s Cathedral. (You can see a minute-by-minute breakdown of the events here.)
It?s the same route followed by Winston Churchill?s casket in his state funeral, with a very similar supporting cast. So what gave Churchill?s ceremony the coveted ?state? label? Two things.
First, the gun carriage containing Mr. Churchill?s coffin was drawn by Royal Navy sailors, while Thatcher?s will be drawn by horses.
Second, and perhaps more essentially, a state funeral requires parliamentary approval, while a ceremonial funeral requires only the consent of the monarch. Before her death, Thatcher nixed the idea of a state funeral for herself in large part because of the divisive debate its approval was likely to stir up in Parliament, the Guardian reported last week.
What prime ministers have had state funerals?
Britain?s only 20th century prime minister to receive the honor was Winston Churchill, buried January 31, 1965. The BBC described the elaborate pomp and circumstance of that day.
The procession took that most ancient road that runs from the Palace of Westminster to the steps of the cathedral of St Paul. It is a road that half the history of England seems to have taken, on its way to a crowning or to a public and ignoble death, to murder or be murdered, to raise revolt, to seek a fortune, or to be buried. The route was lined with young soldiers, their heads bowed over their automatic rifles in ceremonious grief. The bands played old and slow tunes. The drums were draped in black. The staffs of the drum-majors were veiled. They moved slowly, steadily, at a curiously inexorable pace, and it looked as if nothing could ever stop them. The great crowd watched with an eloquent and absolute silence.
Before Churchill, three other prime ministers received state funeral honors in modern times: the Duke of Wellington in 1852, Viscount Palmerston in 1865, and William Gladstone in 1898. But the practice largely fell out of service in the 20th century.
What about ceremonial funerals? How common are those?
They're often given to important royals and there have been two in the past decade and a half. Princess Diana had one when she died suddenly in a car crash in 1997, as did Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, who died in 2002. Both of those ceremonies took place in Westminster Abbey.
So what kind of funerals do prime ministers usually have?
That's a matter of individual choice. Most have opted for a ceremony at Westminster Abbey. Labour Party Prime Minister Harold Wilson had one in 1995, and Edward Heath in 2005.
But the family of Harold Macmillan, Conservative Party prime minister from 1957 to 1963, held a private funeral in January 1987 at a church in the village of Horsted Keynes where he often worshiped. Just 200 people ? Thatcher among them ? attended.
By any estimation, Thatcher?s sendoff will be a slightly more audacious affair.?
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, an NRA supporter, announced on Wednesday morning he will vote for bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines being offered as amendments one month after pulling those bans from a package of overall gun-reform legislation.
"I will vote for [Sen.] Dianne Feinstein?s assault weapons ban," Reid announced on the Senate floor as the chamber prepared to begin voting later Wednesday on gun legislation amendments.
The Nevada Democrat, who noted Wednesday that he has a B rating from the NRA and who has voted against past assault weapon bans, said his opinion has evolved and he no longer understands why assault weapons and high-capacity magazines are necessary.
"I don?t know anyone who needs 30 rounds in a weapon to go hunting. Don?t people deserve as much protection as birds?" he asked, referring to laws that limit the number of shells in shotguns used by hunters.
The assault weapons ban and a ban on high-capacity magazines were dropped from the overall legislation due to their controversial nature and the prospect that their inclusion in a bill would doom overall legislation. The Senate is expected to vote on multiple amendments late Wednesday related to background checks, human trafficking and other measures.
April showers are bringing more than May flowers to the Detroit area for spring 2013. A trifecta of thunderstorms, lightning, and flooding is barreling down on the metro area starting Thursday, April 18. The National Weather Service says to watch for possible tornadoes and 1-inch diameter hail. Here's a rundown for Detroiters of what to prepare for over the next few days.
Weather Alerts
The National Weather Service has issued a Hazardous Weather Outlook for southeast Michigan that forecasts winds up to 70 mph, possible isolated tornadoes, and 1-inch hail through tonight.
Storms could yield up to 1.5 inches of rain through early Friday. Much of the Detroit area is already saturated from rain throughout the week. Flooding is expected in rivers, streams, tributaries, and low-lying areas. Additional flooding is expected in urban areas from overflowing sewers and areas with poor drainage. The Flood Watch for southeast Michigan -- including Lenawee, Macomb, Monroe, Oakland, Washtenaw, and Wayne -- continues through early tomorrow.
Wunderground is reporting unusually high temperatures in Detroit -- around 75 degrees -- for Thursday afternoon. The warm spike will be followed by 25- to 30-degree drops for the rest of the week.
School Closings, Travel Guidelines
Several area schools closed early on Thursday. WXYZ Action 7 reports that a fire broke out at Cory School in Romulus, Michigan, possibly caused by lightning. Cornerstone Charter Health High and Madison-Carvery Academy closed on Thursday at 1 p.m.
Motorists should beware of reduced driving visibility in heavy rain. Be careful of deep puddles and water-covered roads. Watch for flooded potholes at older highway overpasses and exit ramps like I-94 at John R. Stick to major highways, and avoid areas where sewers may be backed up. Do not attempt to cross a road covered by water, and beware of hydroplaning.
Departures from Metro Airport are currently delayed up to an hour or more, depending on destination, due to thunderstorms -- be sure to check flight status.
A woman walks through security barriers put up outside St Paul's Cathedral in London, Tuesday, April 16, 2013. British police are reviewing security plans for Sunday's London Marathon, the next major international marathon, because of the bombs that killed three people at the race in Boston. Police already were preparing a major security operation for Wednesday's ceremonial funeral for former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, an event at St. Paul's Cathedral that will be attended by Queen Elizabeth II and many dignitaries. The funeral's security plans are expected to be reviewed in light of the Boston bombings. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
A woman walks through security barriers put up outside St Paul's Cathedral in London, Tuesday, April 16, 2013. British police are reviewing security plans for Sunday's London Marathon, the next major international marathon, because of the bombs that killed three people at the race in Boston. Police already were preparing a major security operation for Wednesday's ceremonial funeral for former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, an event at St. Paul's Cathedral that will be attended by Queen Elizabeth II and many dignitaries. The funeral's security plans are expected to be reviewed in light of the Boston bombings. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
British forces' officers escort a Union Jack-draped coffin on a gun carriage drawn by the King's Troop Royal Artillery during a rehearsal for the upcoming funeral of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in central London, early Monday, April 15, 2013. Thatcher, the combative "Iron Lady" who infuriated European allies and transformed her country by a ruthless dedication to free markets in 11 bruising years as prime minister, died Monday, April 8, 2013. The funeral will take place Wednesday, April 17, 2013. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)
LONDON (AP) ? More than 2,300 guests have confirmed they will attend the funeral of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Among the former U.S. presidents, surviving U.K. prime ministers, world leaders and celebrities who were invited are some high profile would-be guests who sent regrets: Former First Lady Nancy Reagan ? whose husband had a close relationship with the late premier ? will not be able to attend; nor will former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who shared key moments in history with Britain's so-called "Iron Lady." Germany's Angela Merkel is sending her foreign minister, while U.S. power families the Clintons and the Bushes won't be making appearances.
In all, 11 serving prime ministers and dignitaries representing 170 countries will attend, Downing Street said.
Here's a look at who is attending the funeral Wednesday at London's St. Paul's Cathedral.
ROYALS
Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip
Greece's Crown Prince Pavlos and Princess Marie-Chantal of the Hellenes
WORLD DIGNITARIES AND PUBLIC FIGURES
Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney
Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron
Former U.K. Prime Ministers Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and John Major
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle
F.W. de Klerk, the last apartheid-era South African president
U.S. presidential delegation, led by former secretaries of state George Shultz and James Baker
Three-member delegation from U.S. House of Representatives, comprised of Republican Reps. Marsha Blackburn, Michele Bachmann and George Holding
Former U.S. presidential candidate Newt Gingrich
Poland's Lech Walesa and Prime Minister Donald Tusk
Greek Foreign Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney
Czech Republic's Prime Minister Petr Necas and former President Vaclav Klaus
Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard and his wife, Janette
Former Prime Minister Mahathir of Malaysia
London Olympics chief Seb Coe
CELEBRITIES
"Dynasty" star Joan Collins
Singer Shirley Bassey
Designer Anya Hindmarch
Actor and singer Michael Crawford
"Top Gear" TV personality Jeremy Clarkson
Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber
Best-selling novelist Jeffrey Archer
Internet pioneer Tim Berners-Lee
Advertising magnate Maurice Saatchi
Classical singer Katherine Jenkins
NOTABLE NO-SHOWS
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Former U.S. First Lady Nancy Reagan, who asked Fred Ryan, Chairman of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, to represent her
Apr. 16, 2013 ? Researchers at the University of North Carolina have discovered that transcription factors regulating the levels of oxygen in the blood also play a role in the spread of the skin cancer melanoma.
In research published April 8 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, a research team led by William Kim, MD, member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, and graduate student and first author Sara Hanna, linked melanoma metastases to a pair of transcription factors known as HIF1 and HIF2.
Researchers found that HIF1 and HIF2 are overexpressed in melanoma tumors. In healthy cells, HIF1 and HIF2 assist in regulating hypoxia, the state caused by low levels of oxygen in the blood. Hypoxia has been linked to metastases in several sold tumors, and the UNC team has found that it promotes the spread of melanoma from the skin to other sites in the body through the lymphatic system.
Patients who are diagnosed with early stage melanomas have a high rate of survival, but the prognosis worsens significantly once the tumors spread to other sites throughout the body. Using in vitro systems and mouse models, researchers suppressed the expression of HIF1 and HIF2 in the melanoma tumors. While the inactivation of the transcription factors did not reduce the growth of the initial tumors, it did reduce the rate at which the melanoma spread to other sites in the body.
Both HIF1 and HIF2 independently activate the protein kinase SRC using different signaling pathways. The SRC protein has been linked to several different cancers, and the identification of its role in melanoma suggests that existing therapies targeting SRC may prove to be a viable target for therapies aimed at reducing the spread and ultimate lethality of the cancer.
"What we are trying to do now is inhibit these pathways with drugs in the mice to see if we see a decrease of metastasis," said Hanna.
UNC researchers who contributed to this article include Bhavani Krishnan, PhD; Sean Bailey; Stergios Moschos, MD; Pei-Fen Kuan, PhD; Marni Siegel and C. Ryan Miller, MD, PhD, of the Lineberger Cancer Center; and Lukas Osborne, E. Tim O'Brien III and Richard Superfine, PhD, of the UNC Department of Physics and Astronomy.
This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (P30-DK-034987), the National Cancer Institute (3P30CA016086), the Department of Defense (W81XWH-09-2-0042) and the University Cancer Research Fund.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of North Carolina School of Medicine.
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Journal Reference:
Sara C. Hanna, Bhavani Krishnan, Sean T. Bailey, Stergios J. Moschos, Pei-Fen Kuan, Takeshi Shimamura, Lukas D. Osborne, Marni B. Siegel, Lyn M. Duncan, E. Tim O?Brien, Richard Superfine, C. Ryan Miller, M. Celeste Simon, Kwok-Kin Wong, William Y. Kim. HIF1? and HIF2? independently activate SRC to promote melanoma metastases. Journal of Clinical Investigation, 2013; DOI: 10.1172/JCI66715
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Fishermen in Japan have adopted a new way of killing dolphins in drive hunts ? but the method is no more humane than the previous techniques, say vets and dolphin behaviour experts.
Japanese dolphin culls received global attention in 2009, after the release of the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove. It showed in graphic detail how each year, hundreds of dolphins were herded into a cove near the fishing village of Taiji, and killed with knives and spears. In the film the cove waters turned crimson with blood.
In 2010, Toshihide Iwasaki and Yoshifumi Kai of Far Seas Fisheries and Taiji Fisheries Cooperative reported on another supposedly more humane method to cull dolphins. This involves using a thin rod to impale dolphins behind their blowhole and sever the spinal cord.
They said tests had shown that the animals died faster and as a consequence the method was adopted officially. In the case of four striped dolphins (Stenella coeruleoalba), time to death was said to be 5 seconds, considerably less than the 300 seconds using conventional practices.
Covert footage
A new study refutes these claims. "Our analysis shows that this method does not fulfil the internationally recognised requirement for immediacy," says Andrew Butterworth of the University of Bristol Veterinary School, UK. "It would not be tolerated or permitted in any regulated slaughterhouse process in the developed world."
Butterworth and his colleagues assessed video footage of the Taiji cull, filmed covertly in 2011 for German conservation group AtlanticBlue. They say dolphins took longer to die than the Japanese team claim. One striped dolphin, say Butterworth and colleagues, was still moving 254 seconds after being impaled.
They add that the criteria used in the Japanese report to determine time of death ? termination of breathing and movement ? is flawed. Any animal that has just had its spinal cord severed is likely to stop moving, they say. And dolphins are known for their ability to hold their breath for extended periods of time.
In drive hunts the animals are tethered to boats by their tail flukes to herd them into the culling cove. "From a scientific, humane, and ethical perspective, [this] sharply contradicts animal welfare standards employed in most modern and technologically advanced societies," says team member Diana Reiss of City University in New York.
"In the US and UK, regulations and guidelines governing the humane treatment and slaughter of animals prohibit the killing of an animal in the presence of other animals."
'Hypocrites'
A Taiji fisheries official told me in 2009 that such reactions were "hypocritical" and "racially motivated", saying that spinal cord transection was also practised on chickens and other animals in the West. The new study argues that accuracy is a problem when severing the spinal cord in large animals like dolphins.
Ultimately, blood loss induces first paraplegia and later death, says the report. The process is prolonged by inserting a wooden peg into the wound, which Iwasaki and Kai said was done to prevent water contamination and to conserve the blood for commercial use.
Lori Marino of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia says the decision to focus on the culling method is unfortunate as it implies there is a humane way to kill a dolphin.
Asked if there are other killing methods that would be considered more humane, Reiss said: "The killing of dolphins is indefensible given our scientific knowledge of dolphins, which has demonstrated their sophisticated cognitive abilities including self and social awareness."
"We should ensure that dolphins receive the highest standards of treatment in any hunt, equal to that granted to domestic animals," says Kris Simpson of International Dolphin Watch. "This is clearly not being achieved, nor, under conditions in the wild, is it ever likely to be. Our position is therefore unequivocal; the dolphins must not be hunted."
Journal reference: Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, DOI: 10.1080/10888705.2013.768925
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After a rather lazy 17 years spent relaxing underground, billions of incredibly noisy insects are about to burst out of the earth, noisily swarming over the East Coast and wreaking havoc along the way. This is The Great Cicada Invasion of 2013—but what the hell is a cicadia, anyway, and why have they been hiding for nearly two decades? More »
Apr. 10, 2013 ? The irony of getting away to a remote place is you usually have to fight traffic to get there. After hours of dodging dangerous drivers, you finally arrive at that quiet mountain retreat, stare at the gentle waters of a pristine lake, and congratulate your tired self on having "turned off your brain."
"Actually, you've just given your brain a whole new challenge," says Thomas D. Albright, director of the Vision Center Laboratory at of the Salk Institute and an expert on how the visual system works. "You may think you're resting, but your brain is automatically assessing the spatio-temporal properties of this novel environment-what objects are in it, are they moving, and if so, how fast are they moving?
The dilemma is that our brains can only dedicate so many neurons to this assessment, says Sergei Gepshtein, a staff scientist in Salk's Vision Center Laboratory. "It's a problem in economy of resources: If the visual system has limited resources, how can it use them most efficiently?"
Albright, Gepshtein and Luis A. Lesmes, a specialist in measuring human performance, a former Salk Institute post-doctoral researcher, now at the Schepens Eye Research Institute, proposed an answer to the question in a recent issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It may reconcile the puzzling contradictions in many previous studies.
Previously, scientists expected that extended exposure to a novel environment would make you better at detecting its subtle details, such as the slow motion of waves on that lake. Yet those who tried to confirm that idea were surprised when their experiments produced contradictory results. "Sometimes people got better at detecting a stimulus, sometimes they got worse, sometimes there was no effect at all, and sometimes people got better, but not for the expected stimulus," says Albright, holder of Salk's Conrad T. Prebys Chair in Vision Research.
The answer, according to Gepshtein, came from asking a new question: What happens when you look at the problem of resource allocation from a system's perspective?
It turns out something's got to give.
"It's as if the brain's on a budget; if it devotes 70 percent here, then it can only devote 30 percent there," says Gepshtein. "When the adaptation happens, if now you're attuned to high speeds, you'll be able to see faster moving things that you couldn't see before, but as a result of allocating resources to that stimulus, you lose sensitivity to other things, which may or may not be familiar."
Summing up, Albright says, "Simply put, it's a tradeoff: The price of getting better at one thing is getting worse at another."
Gepshtein, a computational neuroscientist, analyzes the brain from a theoretician's point of view, and the PNAS paper details the computations the visual system uses to accomplish the adaptation. The computations are similar to the method of signal processing known as Gabor transform, which is used to extract features in both the spatial and temporal domains.
Yes, while you may struggle to balance your checkbook, it turns out your brain is using operations it took a Nobel Laureate to describe. Dennis Gabor won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Physics for his invention and development of holography. But that wasn't his only accomplishment. Like his contemporary Claude Shannon, he worked on some of the most fundamental questions in communications theory, such as how a great deal of information can be compressed into narrow channels.
"Gabor proved that measurements of two fundamental properties of a signal-its location and frequency content-are not independent of one another," says Gepshtein.
The location of a signal is simply that: where is the signal at what point in time. The content-the "what" of a signal-is "written" in the language of frequencies and is a measurement of the amount of variation, such as the different shades of gray in a photograph.
The challenge comes when you're trying to measure both location and frequency, because location is more accurately determined in a short time window, while variation needs a longer time window (imagine how much more accurately you can guess a song the longer it plays).
The obvious answer is that you're stuck with a compromise: You can get a precise measurement of one or the other, but not both. But how can you be sure you've come up with the best possible compromise? Gabor's answer was what's become known as a "Gabor Filter" that helps obtain the most precise measurements possible for both qualities. Our brains employ a similar strategy, says Gepshtein.
"In human vision, stimuli are first encoded by neural cells whose response characteristics, called receptive fields, have different sizes," he explains. "The neural cells that have larger receptive fields are sensitive to lower spatial frequencies than the cells that have smaller receptive fields. For this reason, the operations performed by biological vision can be described by a Gabor wavelet transform."
In essence, the first stages of the visual process act like a filter. "It describes which stimuli get in, and which do not," Gepshtein says. "When you change the environment, the filter changes, so certain stimuli, which were invisible before, become visible, but because you moved the filter, other stimuli, which you may have detected before, no longer get in."
"When you see only small parts of this filter, you find that visual sensitivity sometimes gets better and sometimes worse, creating an apparently paradoxical picture," Gepshtein continues. "But when you see the entire filter, you discover that the pieces -- the gains and losses -- add up to a coherent pattern."
From a psychological point of view, according to Albright, what makes this especially intriguing is that the assessing and adapting is happening automatically-all of this processing happens whether or not you consciously 'pay attention' to the change in scene.
Yet, while the adaptation happens automatically, it does not appear to happen instantaneously. Their current experiments take approximately thirty minutes to conduct, but the scientists believe the adaption may take less time in nature.
The work was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the Gatsby Charitable Foundation.
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Apr. 11, 2013 ? In 1972, a U.S. Senate committee reported, "Many of the great whales which once populated the oceans have now dwindled to the edge of extinction," due to commercial hunting. The committee also worried about how tuna fishing was accidentally killing thousands of dolphins, trapped in fishing gear. And they considered reports about seal hunting and the decline of other mammals, including sea otters and walruses.
In October of that year, Congress passed the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
Four decades later, new research shows that the law is working.
Not only has the act "successfully prevented the extirpation of any marine mammal population in the United States in the forty years since it was enacted," write University of Vermont conservation biologist Joe Roman and his colleagues in a new report, but also, "the current status of many marine mammal populations is considerably better than in 1972."
Their study, published online on March 22, in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, shows that population trends for most stocks of these animals remain unknown, but of those stocks that are known, many are increasing.
"At a very fundamental level, the MMPA has accomplished what its framers set out to do," says co-author Andrew Read, professor of marine biology at Duke University, "to protect individual marine mammals from harm as a result of human activities."
Some marine mammals, like endangered right whales, continue to be in deep trouble, but other populations "particularly seals and sea lions, have recovered to or near their carrying capacity," the scientists write.
"We have seen remarkable recoveries of some populations of marine mammals, such as gray seals in New England and sea lions and elephant seals along the Pacific coast," says Read.
"U.S. waters are pretty compromised with lots of ship traffic and ship strikes, big fisheries, pollution, boat noise, " Joe Roman says. "And yet it's safer to be a marine mammal in U.S. waters than elsewhere," he says, due to the Act's strong protections against commercial and accidental killing -- what the law calls "take" -- and its aim to maintain sustainable populations of mammals and their ecological roles in oceans.
"It's important to evaluate such broad legislation," says co-author Caitlin Campbell, a UVM student.
"A lot of people think that the hard part was getting it passed through Congress, but in reality you have to make sure that big protective measures like this actually are effective," she says. "This paper shows that this act is doing its job."
The research team -- Campbell; Joe Roman in UVM's Gund Institute for Ecological Economics; Irit Altman from Boston University; Meagan Dunphy-Daly and Andrew Read from Duke University; and Michael Jasny from the Natural Resources Defense Council -- gathered hundreds of data sets from around the world, including from NOAA, Canadian agencies, and the IUCN. Their goal was to get an accurate picture of population levels and trends of more than two hundred stocks of marine mammals from the Pantropical Spotted Dolphin to the West Indian Manatee.
The team concluded that for many of these animals there simply aren't enough data. For seventy-one percent of the stocks they identified, they couldn't say which way the population was heading, up or down. "There isn't enough research," Roman says.
But for the ones they could evaluate, they found that nineteen percent of stocks were increasing, while five percent were stable and only five percent were declining.
Another fundamental conclusion of this research: "stopping harvesting these mammals, stop fisheries bycatch, stop killing them -- and many populations bounce back," says Roman. Marine mammals are long-lived "so it's going to take decades, maybe longer for populations to rebound," he says, "but it seems the trends are increasing."
In 1934, trends were definitely not increasing for right whales, when an international treaty banned hunting these nearly extinguished creatures. But other protections lagged, and by the 1960s many whales and other marine mammals -- including some dolphins and seals -- faced plummeting populations and the risk of extinction.
Yet in the early 1970s, the U.S. Department of Defense resisted legislation to protect whales and other marine mammals: they relied on sperm whale oil for use as a lubricant in submarines and other military engines, Roman's team writes.
In one curious part of the complex negotiations at the White House, Lee Talbot, a canny scientist working for Richard Nixon, produced an affidavit from the DuPont Corporation stating that they could produce an artificial lubricant that could do the same job as the whale oil. This helped make the Pentagon more receptive toward whale-protecting legislation. In October 1972, the Marine Mammal Protection Act passed. This victory was also a key step toward the passage of the more forceful (though less ecologically oriented) Endangered Species Act that passed the next year.
Under these two laws, "countless tens of thousands of individual whales, seals, and manatees have been protected from harm since 1972," the scientists write, "exactly as intended by those who crafted the legislation."
In 1994, major amendments to the MMPA established a new framework for dealing with interactions between marine mammals and commercial fisheries, "which remains perhaps the most important conservation issue facing these iconic animals," says Andrew Read.
This new framework, relies on "a negotiated rule-making process," Read says, looking for solutions to the incidental death of mammals in commercial fisheries. One of the strengths of the new process is that it "requires the direct involvement of fishermen, conservationists and scientists in the management process," Read says.
Still, some deeply depleted species, like right whales, may never recover, and additional threats beyond direct killing remain. The Marine Mammal Protection Act has generally been ineffective in dealing with problems like increasing underwater noise from naval operations and other ships, new diseases, and depleted prey species in fraying food webs. "Existing conservation measures have not protected large whales from fisheries interactions or ship strikes in the northwestern Atlantic," the team writes.
And this points to a new generation of challenges such as moving shipping lanes in whale feeding territory, slowing speed boats in manatee habitat, changing lobster fishing technologies and other fishing gear modifications, and continuing to improve ecosystem-based fisheries management. "That's going to be hard and require real political will," Joe Roman says.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - What would you do if you got your hands on a closely watched report that often moves stocks, bonds and currency markets, and it was sent to you by the Federal Reserve the day before its official release?
Would you trade on the information it contained? If you did, would that be insider trading?
Some bank employees were faced with that dilemma on Tuesday when a member of the Fed's congressional liaison office accidentally sent emails to more than 100 people with the normally closely guarded minutes of the Fed's March 19-20 policy meeting, 24 hours before the official release time.
There was no immediate sign that anyone traded improperly, and markets did not move much on the minutes, either on Tuesday or after the Fed released them officially on Wednesday.
While most of the recipients were congressional staff and trade groups, some worked at banks, raising questions about whether their employers could have gotten an unfair advantage.
Legal experts say that whether the recipients knew that the information was confidential, how they stumbled upon it, and whether anyone in fact traded on the contents would be big factors in determining any liability for insider trading.
Among the early recipients were people who worked for Barclays Plc, Citigroup Inc, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, UBS AG and Wells Fargo & Co.
The banks declined to comment, and it was not clear what positions the recipients at all the banks held.
One early recipient was an employee in Goldman's government affairs office, who did not forward the email or use its contents inappropriately, a person familiar with the matter said.
"One could argue that the dissemination was wide enough that the news wasn't a secret anymore," said Michael MacPhail, a partner at Faegre, Baker & Daniels in Denver and a former senior lawyer at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. "I would if I were defending someone caught up in this kind of situation."
STATE OF MIND
The Fed learned of the leak early Wednesday morning, and then released the minutes five hours ahead of schedule.
It said it would review what happened, and had alerted the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The SEC confirmed discussions with the Fed but declined further comment.
"We don't know the state of mind of the people involved," said Mark Fickes, a partner at the law firm BraunHagey & Borden in San Francisco and a former SEC senior trial lawyer.
"It would be hard to imagine liability if the early release were totally accidental and the recipient didn't know the release was early," he added.
MacPhail said investigators could look for possible misappropriation - the idea that something in the Fed minutes would have alerted anyone that trading would be wrong.
In this case, an attachment to the leaked email noted that the information was not for release until 2 p.m. on Wednesday.
But MacPhail said this can go only so far.
While the government will go "far down the food chain" to uncover illegal trading, he said "the evidence is often difficult to establish, given that the ultimate recipients may have been far removed from the initial tip."
Brad Simon, a white-collar criminal defense lawyer at Simon & Partners in New York, said that absent "nefarious" activity at the Fed, the key question is whether a recipient "knows he got information that most people don't have."
THIRD-PARTY TIPS
Lawyers said legal problems could arise if a recipient of the information were to provide it to a third party who then traded on it. They pointed to Dirks v. SEC, a 1983 Supreme Court decision, for guidance.
There, the court said receivers of inside tips about a company could be liable for insider trading if they knew or should have known an insider breached a fiduciary duty to shareholders in providing the tips.
This depends in large part on whether the insider received a personal benefit for the disclosure.
MacPhail also noted that one difference between a Fed leak and other kinds of leaks is that the Fed is a government agency, not a corporation. He said it might be tough for prosecutors to show a recipient had any duty to the Fed.
That likely wouldn't be the case if the Fed insider who released the information traded on it.
In March 2012, former Food and Drug Administration chemist Cheng Yi Liang was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to trading on confidential information he learned there. His trades led to $3.77 million of illegal gains.
Here, however, the Fed said the release was "entirely accidental." A copy of the email indicates it was sent by Brian Gross, a member of the Fed's congressional liaison staff. He has not been accused of wrongdoing.
Gross declined to comment on Thursday.
The Fed releases minutes of its meetings to the public a few weeks after each of its eight regular annual meetings. They can shed light on monetary policy, such as when the Fed might begin winding down its monthly bond purchases.
Thousands of professional and amateur traders depend on getting market-moving data instantly. Getting the minutes early could be a huge advantage for traders in stock, bond, currency, commodity, derivative and other markets.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Additional reporting by Lauren Tara LaCapra, Jonathan Spicer and Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Claudia Parsons)
A ghostly green bubblePublic release date: 10-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Richard Hook rhook@eso.org 49-893-200-6655 ESO
ESO's VLT snaps a planetary nebula
Stars the size of the Sun end their lives as tiny and faint white dwarf stars. But as they make the final transition into retirement their atmospheres are blown away into space. For a few tens of thousands of years they are surrounded by the spectacular and colourful glowing clouds of ionised gas known as planetary nebulae.
This new image from the VLT shows the planetary nebula IC 1295, which lies in the constellation of Scutum (The Shield). It has the unusual feature of being surrounded by multiple shells that make it resemble a micro-organism seen under a microscope, with many layers corresponding to the membranes of a cell.
These bubbles are made out of gas that used to be the star's atmosphere. This gas has been expelled by unstable fusion reactions in the star's core that generated sudden releases of energy, like huge thermonuclear belches. The gas is bathed in strong ultraviolet radiation from the aging star, which makes the gas glow. Different chemical elements glow with different colours and the ghostly green shade that is prominent in IC 1295 comes from ionised oxygen.
At the centre of the image, you can see the burnt-out remnant of the star's core as a bright blue-white spot at the heart of the nebula. The central star will become a very faint white dwarf and slowly cool down over many billions of years.
Stars with masses like the Sun and up to eight times that of the Sun, will form planetary nebulae as they enter the final phase of their existence. The Sun is 4.6 billion years old and it will likely live another four billion years.
Despite the name, planetary nebulae have nothing to do with planets. This descriptive term was applied to some early discoveries because of the visual similarity of these unusual objects to the outer planets Uranus and Neptune, when viewed through early telescopes, and it has been catchy enough to survive [1]. These objects were shown to be glowing gas by early spectroscopic observations in the nineteenth century.
This image was captured by ESO's Very Large Telescope, located on Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, using the FORS instrument (FOcal Reducer Spectrograph). Exposures taken through three different filters that passed blue light (coloured blue), visible light (coloured green), and red light (coloured red) have been combined to make this picture.
###
Notes
[1] Even early observers such as William Herschel, who discovered many planetary nebulae and speculated about their origin and composition, knew that they weren't actually planets orbiting the Sun as they did not move relative to the surrounding stars.
More information
ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world's most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It is supported by 15 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope, the world's most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory and two survey telescopes. VISTA works in the infrared and is the world's largest survey telescope and the VLT Survey Telescope is the largest telescope designed to exclusively survey the skies in visible light. ESO is the European partner of a revolutionary astronomical telescope ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. ESO is currently planning the 39-metre European Extremely Large optical/near-infrared Telescope, the E-ELT, which will become "the world's biggest eye on the sky".
Links
Photos of the VLT: http://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/category/paranal/
Photos taken with the VLT: http://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/search/?adv=&facility=31
Contacts
Richard Hook
ESO, La Silla, Paranal, E-ELT & Survey Telescopes Press Officer
Garching bei Mnchen, Germany
Cell: 49-151-1537-3591
[ | 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.
A ghostly green bubblePublic release date: 10-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Richard Hook rhook@eso.org 49-893-200-6655 ESO
ESO's VLT snaps a planetary nebula
Stars the size of the Sun end their lives as tiny and faint white dwarf stars. But as they make the final transition into retirement their atmospheres are blown away into space. For a few tens of thousands of years they are surrounded by the spectacular and colourful glowing clouds of ionised gas known as planetary nebulae.
This new image from the VLT shows the planetary nebula IC 1295, which lies in the constellation of Scutum (The Shield). It has the unusual feature of being surrounded by multiple shells that make it resemble a micro-organism seen under a microscope, with many layers corresponding to the membranes of a cell.
These bubbles are made out of gas that used to be the star's atmosphere. This gas has been expelled by unstable fusion reactions in the star's core that generated sudden releases of energy, like huge thermonuclear belches. The gas is bathed in strong ultraviolet radiation from the aging star, which makes the gas glow. Different chemical elements glow with different colours and the ghostly green shade that is prominent in IC 1295 comes from ionised oxygen.
At the centre of the image, you can see the burnt-out remnant of the star's core as a bright blue-white spot at the heart of the nebula. The central star will become a very faint white dwarf and slowly cool down over many billions of years.
Stars with masses like the Sun and up to eight times that of the Sun, will form planetary nebulae as they enter the final phase of their existence. The Sun is 4.6 billion years old and it will likely live another four billion years.
Despite the name, planetary nebulae have nothing to do with planets. This descriptive term was applied to some early discoveries because of the visual similarity of these unusual objects to the outer planets Uranus and Neptune, when viewed through early telescopes, and it has been catchy enough to survive [1]. These objects were shown to be glowing gas by early spectroscopic observations in the nineteenth century.
This image was captured by ESO's Very Large Telescope, located on Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, using the FORS instrument (FOcal Reducer Spectrograph). Exposures taken through three different filters that passed blue light (coloured blue), visible light (coloured green), and red light (coloured red) have been combined to make this picture.
###
Notes
[1] Even early observers such as William Herschel, who discovered many planetary nebulae and speculated about their origin and composition, knew that they weren't actually planets orbiting the Sun as they did not move relative to the surrounding stars.
More information
ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world's most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It is supported by 15 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope, the world's most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory and two survey telescopes. VISTA works in the infrared and is the world's largest survey telescope and the VLT Survey Telescope is the largest telescope designed to exclusively survey the skies in visible light. ESO is the European partner of a revolutionary astronomical telescope ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. ESO is currently planning the 39-metre European Extremely Large optical/near-infrared Telescope, the E-ELT, which will become "the world's biggest eye on the sky".
Links
Photos of the VLT: http://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/category/paranal/
Photos taken with the VLT: http://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/search/?adv=&facility=31
Contacts
Richard Hook
ESO, La Silla, Paranal, E-ELT & Survey Telescopes Press Officer
Garching bei Mnchen, Germany
Cell: 49-151-1537-3591
[ | 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.
The circular structure was first detected in a sonar survey of part of the sea in the summer of 2003.
By Owen Jarus LiveScience
A giant "monumental" stone structure discovered beneath the waters of the Sea of Galilee in Israel has archaeologists puzzled as to its purpose and even how long ago it was built.
The mysterious structure is cone shaped, made of "unhewn basalt cobbles and boulders," and weighs an estimated 60,000 tons, the researchers said. That makes it heavier than most modern-day warships.
Rising nearly 32 feet (10 meters) high, it has a diameter of about 230 feet (70 meters). To put that in perspective, the outer stone circle of Stonehenge has a diameter just half that with its tallest stones not reaching that height. [See Photos of the Mysterious Sea of Galilee Structure]
It appears to be a giant cairn, rocks piled on top of each other. Structures like this are known from elsewhere in the world and are sometimes used to mark burials. Researchers do not know if the newly discovered structure was used for this purpose.
The structure was first detected in the summer of 2003 during a sonar survey of the southwest portion of the sea. Divers have since been down to investigate, they write in the latest issue of the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology.?
"Close inspection by scuba diving revealed that the structure is made of basalt boulders up to 1 m (3.2 feet) long with no apparent construction pattern," the researchers write in their journal article. "The boulders have natural faces with no signs of cutting or chiselling. Similarly, we did not find any sign of arrangement or walls that delineate this structure."?
Diagram courtesy of Shmuel Marco
Putting all the data together researchers found that the structure is cone shaped, about 230 feet (70 meters) in diameter and nearly 32 feet (10 meters) tall. It weighs an estimated 60,000 tons.
They say it is definitely human-made and probably was built on land, only later to be covered by the Sea of Galilee as the water level rose. "The shape and composition of the submerged structure does not resemble any natural feature. We therefore conclude that it is man-made and might be termed a cairn," the researchers write.
More than 4,000 years old? Underwater archaeological excavation is needed so scientists can find associated artifacts and determine the structure's date and purpose, the researchers said.
Researcher Yitzhak Paz, of the Israel Antiquities Authority and Ben-Gurion University, believes it could date back more than 4,000 years. "The more logical possibility is that it belongs to the third millennium B.C., because there are other megalithic phenomena (from that time) that are found close by," Paz told LiveScience in an interview, noting that those sites are associated with fortified settlements.?
The researchers list several examples of megalithic structures found close to the Sea of Galilee?that are more than 4,000 years-old. One example is the monumental site of Khirbet Beteiha, located some 19 miles (30 kilometers) north-east of the submerged stone structure, the researchers write. It "comprises three concentric stone circles, the largest of which is 56 m (184 feet) in diameter." [Gallery: Aerial Photos Reveal Mysterious Stone Structures]
An ancient city If the third-millennium B.C. date idea proves correct it would put the structure about a mile to the north of a city that researchers call "Bet Yerah" or "Khirbet Kerak."
During the third millennium B.C. the city was one of the biggest sites in the region, Paz said. "It's the most powerful and fortified town in this region and, as a matter of fact, in the whole of Israel."
Archaeologist Raphael Greenberg describes it in a chapter of the book "Daily Life, Materiality, and Complexity in Early Urban Communities of the Southern Levant" (Eisenbrauns, 2011) as being a heavily fortified 74-acre (30 hectares) site with up to 5,000 inhabitants.
With paved streets and towering defenses its people were clearly well organized. "They also indicate the existence of some kind of municipal authority able to maintain public structures," Greenberg writes.
The research team says that, like the leaders of Bet Yerah, whoever built the newly discovered Sea of Galilee structure needed sophisticated organization and planning skills to construct it. The "effort invested in such an enterprise is indicative of a complex, well-organized society, with planning skills and economic ability," they write in their journal paper.
Paz added that "in order to build such a structure, a lot of working hours were required" in an organized community effort.
Future exploration Paz said that he hopes soon that an underwater archaeological expedition will set out to excavate the structure. They can search for artifacts and try to determine its date with certainty.
He said that the Israel Antiquities Authority has a research branch capable of excavating it. "We will try to do it in the near future, I hope, but it depends on a lot of factors."
Follow us @livescience, Facebook?and Google+. Original article on?LiveScience.com.
Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) ? The Maryland General Assembly has approved a measure to allow medical marijuana programs at academic medical research centers that decide to participate.
The Senate passed the bill on Monday by a vote of 42-4, sending the measure to Gov. Martin O'Malley. It had already been approved by the House of Delegates.
O'Malley, a Democrat, said Monday he "probably would" sign the bill.
The measure includes a provision enabling the governor to suspend the program, if the federal government decides to prosecute state employees who administer it, a key part O'Malley said he required.
It's not expected patients would be able to get marijuana under the program for several years, but the bill puts Maryland on the path to developing a framework to do so.
Pratt & Whitney Additive Manufacturing Center opens at the University of ConnecticutPublic release date: 9-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Colin Poitras colin.poitras@uconn.edu 860-486-4656 University of Connecticut
New facility is one of the most advanced additive manufacturing laboratories in the US
Storrs, Conn. (April 9, 2013) -- The University of Connecticut and Pratt & Whitney, a United Technologies Corp. (NYSE: UTX) company, celebrated the opening of a new Pratt & Whitney Additive Manufacturing Innovation Center at UConn, one of the most advanced additive manufacturing laboratories in the nation.
The Pratt & Whitney Additive Manufacturing Innovation Center, a unique collaboration between UConn and Pratt & Whitney, will be used to further additive manufacturing research and development and is the first additive manufacturing facility in the Northeast to work with metals rather than plastics. The center also will be used to train a new generation of engineers and designers in the latest advancements in manufacturing technology.
"The University of Connecticut's outstanding technical capacity complements our fundamental research needs and will help us continue to grow our additive manufacturing capabilities," said Paul Adams, Pratt & Whitney's Chief Operating Officer. "Additive manufacturing is complimentary to traditional methods by enabling new innovation in design, speed and affordability, and is necessary to build the next generation of jet engines. We are currently using additive manufacturing to build complex components with extreme precision for the flight-proven PurePower commercial jet engine."
Located on UConn's Depot Campus in Storrs, the Pratt & Whitney Additive Manufacturing Innovation Center features the latest in 3-D manufacturing equipment and rapid prototyping technologies. It is home to two Arcam electron beam melting (EBM) A2X model machines for the manufacturing of large, complex metal parts at high temperatures. The A2X models are the first to be introduced in North America and the two EBM machines are believed to be the first of their kind in the Northeast. The UConn center recently provided the first EBM on-site training for academic personnel and industry engineers in the United States.
Pratt & Whitney engineers and UConn faculty and students will use the center's resources to develop advanced fabrication techniques for complex production parts that are in high demand in aerospace, biomedical science, and other industries. Over time, the Pratt & Whitney Additive Manufacturing Innovation Center at UConn is expected to elevate Connecticut industries' production capabilities, reduce manufacturing times, eliminate material waste and allow for the creation of a new generation of intricate, light-weight, and durable custom products.
"This unique partnership between Pratt & Whitney and UConn is an excellent example of the innovation and collaboration that will drive Connecticut's future economic success," said UConn President Susan Herbst. "The new Pratt & Whitney Additive Manufacturing Innovation Center will allow us to push into new frontiers of manufacturing and materials science while training a new generation of engineers in some of the world's most sophisticated manufacturing technology."
Pratt & Whitney invested more than $4.5 million in the Pratt & Whitney Additive Manufacturing Center and over the next five years will invest an additional $3.5 million in the facility. In 2010, Pratt & Whitney established a research Center of Excellence at the University of Connecticut. The Pratt & Whitney Center of Excellence at UConn focuses on fundamental and applied research initiatives that support the design and development of more efficient gas turbine engines. UConn's primary research is in the field of advanced sensors, diagnostics, and controls.
The new Pratt & Whitney Additive Manufacturing Innovation Center supports President Obama's Advanced Manufacturing Partnership initiative. This initiative, launched in 2011, encourages innovative collaborations between industry, universities and the federal government in order to increase the nation's global competitiveness by improving existing manufacturing capabilities through the development of advanced materials, components and technologies.
As a teaching and research center, the new facility will assume a pivotal place in UConn's new Technology Park scheduled to open in 2015 in Storrs. The University of Connecticut is developing new degree concentrations and a new curriculum associated with additive manufacturing. The additive manufacturing innovation center also will host workshops and training sessions for students and engineers interested in the latest technology. Other Connecticut manufacturers will be invited to explore additive manufacturing for their own product design and development.
"Under Governor Malloy, economic development strategy is based upon building a strong relationship between the state, the private sector, and our institutions of higher learning. The Additive Manufacturing Innovation Center is the latest example of the structural and strategic changes we're making," said Catherine Smith, Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development. "From Bioscience Connecticut and Jackson Labs; to workforce development through our Manufacturing Technology programs at our community colleges; to the re-launch of the Small Business Development Center; these important investments in our state's future are reigniting and reinvigorating Connecticut's economy."
Additive manufacturing is transforming industry today by allowing for new innovations in design, speed and affordability. It is complimentary to traditional manufacturing, which is a "subtractive" process in which parts are made when raw metal is ground down into a shape engineers need. This process generates a large amount of material waste and often requires the assembly of multiple dependent parts to produce a single component.
The Pratt & Whitney Additive Manufacturing Innovation Center at UConn uses advanced powder bed manufacturing technologies and high-powered electron beams and lasers to repeatedly melt fine layers of powdered metals like titanium into one solid integrated piece. This layer-by-layer "additive" process allows for the creation of extremely complex three-dimensional objects without the constraints of the traditional manufacturing process. Additive manufacturing dramatically reduces production time from design to prototyping to finished product and results in components with material properties better than cast. It also reduces the amount of raw material used and the need for tooling as parts can be made on-demand and on-site. Additive manufacturing has near limitless potential applications and can be used for a wide range of products - from advanced turbine components for jet engines to personalized prosthetic implants for patients who need them.
###
For photos of the new center and its equipment, please go to: http://s.uconn.edu/additivemanufacturing. All photos courtesy of the University of Connecticut.
About Pratt & Whitney
Pratt & Whitney is a world leader in the design, manufacture and service of aircraft engines, auxiliary and ground power units, small turbojet propulsion products and industrial gas turbines. United Technologies Corporation, based in Hartford, Conn., is a diversified company providing high technology products and services to the global aerospace and building industries.
About UConn
The University of Connecticut is one of the nation's leading public research universities. UConn's main campus in Storrs is admitting the highest-achieving freshmen in University history. As a Carnegie Foundation Research University, the University of Connecticut has more than 100 research centers and institutes supporting its teaching, research, diversity, and outreach missions.
[ | 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.
Pratt & Whitney Additive Manufacturing Center opens at the University of ConnecticutPublic release date: 9-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Colin Poitras colin.poitras@uconn.edu 860-486-4656 University of Connecticut
New facility is one of the most advanced additive manufacturing laboratories in the US
Storrs, Conn. (April 9, 2013) -- The University of Connecticut and Pratt & Whitney, a United Technologies Corp. (NYSE: UTX) company, celebrated the opening of a new Pratt & Whitney Additive Manufacturing Innovation Center at UConn, one of the most advanced additive manufacturing laboratories in the nation.
The Pratt & Whitney Additive Manufacturing Innovation Center, a unique collaboration between UConn and Pratt & Whitney, will be used to further additive manufacturing research and development and is the first additive manufacturing facility in the Northeast to work with metals rather than plastics. The center also will be used to train a new generation of engineers and designers in the latest advancements in manufacturing technology.
"The University of Connecticut's outstanding technical capacity complements our fundamental research needs and will help us continue to grow our additive manufacturing capabilities," said Paul Adams, Pratt & Whitney's Chief Operating Officer. "Additive manufacturing is complimentary to traditional methods by enabling new innovation in design, speed and affordability, and is necessary to build the next generation of jet engines. We are currently using additive manufacturing to build complex components with extreme precision for the flight-proven PurePower commercial jet engine."
Located on UConn's Depot Campus in Storrs, the Pratt & Whitney Additive Manufacturing Innovation Center features the latest in 3-D manufacturing equipment and rapid prototyping technologies. It is home to two Arcam electron beam melting (EBM) A2X model machines for the manufacturing of large, complex metal parts at high temperatures. The A2X models are the first to be introduced in North America and the two EBM machines are believed to be the first of their kind in the Northeast. The UConn center recently provided the first EBM on-site training for academic personnel and industry engineers in the United States.
Pratt & Whitney engineers and UConn faculty and students will use the center's resources to develop advanced fabrication techniques for complex production parts that are in high demand in aerospace, biomedical science, and other industries. Over time, the Pratt & Whitney Additive Manufacturing Innovation Center at UConn is expected to elevate Connecticut industries' production capabilities, reduce manufacturing times, eliminate material waste and allow for the creation of a new generation of intricate, light-weight, and durable custom products.
"This unique partnership between Pratt & Whitney and UConn is an excellent example of the innovation and collaboration that will drive Connecticut's future economic success," said UConn President Susan Herbst. "The new Pratt & Whitney Additive Manufacturing Innovation Center will allow us to push into new frontiers of manufacturing and materials science while training a new generation of engineers in some of the world's most sophisticated manufacturing technology."
Pratt & Whitney invested more than $4.5 million in the Pratt & Whitney Additive Manufacturing Center and over the next five years will invest an additional $3.5 million in the facility. In 2010, Pratt & Whitney established a research Center of Excellence at the University of Connecticut. The Pratt & Whitney Center of Excellence at UConn focuses on fundamental and applied research initiatives that support the design and development of more efficient gas turbine engines. UConn's primary research is in the field of advanced sensors, diagnostics, and controls.
The new Pratt & Whitney Additive Manufacturing Innovation Center supports President Obama's Advanced Manufacturing Partnership initiative. This initiative, launched in 2011, encourages innovative collaborations between industry, universities and the federal government in order to increase the nation's global competitiveness by improving existing manufacturing capabilities through the development of advanced materials, components and technologies.
As a teaching and research center, the new facility will assume a pivotal place in UConn's new Technology Park scheduled to open in 2015 in Storrs. The University of Connecticut is developing new degree concentrations and a new curriculum associated with additive manufacturing. The additive manufacturing innovation center also will host workshops and training sessions for students and engineers interested in the latest technology. Other Connecticut manufacturers will be invited to explore additive manufacturing for their own product design and development.
"Under Governor Malloy, economic development strategy is based upon building a strong relationship between the state, the private sector, and our institutions of higher learning. The Additive Manufacturing Innovation Center is the latest example of the structural and strategic changes we're making," said Catherine Smith, Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development. "From Bioscience Connecticut and Jackson Labs; to workforce development through our Manufacturing Technology programs at our community colleges; to the re-launch of the Small Business Development Center; these important investments in our state's future are reigniting and reinvigorating Connecticut's economy."
Additive manufacturing is transforming industry today by allowing for new innovations in design, speed and affordability. It is complimentary to traditional manufacturing, which is a "subtractive" process in which parts are made when raw metal is ground down into a shape engineers need. This process generates a large amount of material waste and often requires the assembly of multiple dependent parts to produce a single component.
The Pratt & Whitney Additive Manufacturing Innovation Center at UConn uses advanced powder bed manufacturing technologies and high-powered electron beams and lasers to repeatedly melt fine layers of powdered metals like titanium into one solid integrated piece. This layer-by-layer "additive" process allows for the creation of extremely complex three-dimensional objects without the constraints of the traditional manufacturing process. Additive manufacturing dramatically reduces production time from design to prototyping to finished product and results in components with material properties better than cast. It also reduces the amount of raw material used and the need for tooling as parts can be made on-demand and on-site. Additive manufacturing has near limitless potential applications and can be used for a wide range of products - from advanced turbine components for jet engines to personalized prosthetic implants for patients who need them.
###
For photos of the new center and its equipment, please go to: http://s.uconn.edu/additivemanufacturing. All photos courtesy of the University of Connecticut.
About Pratt & Whitney
Pratt & Whitney is a world leader in the design, manufacture and service of aircraft engines, auxiliary and ground power units, small turbojet propulsion products and industrial gas turbines. United Technologies Corporation, based in Hartford, Conn., is a diversified company providing high technology products and services to the global aerospace and building industries.
About UConn
The University of Connecticut is one of the nation's leading public research universities. UConn's main campus in Storrs is admitting the highest-achieving freshmen in University history. As a Carnegie Foundation Research University, the University of Connecticut has more than 100 research centers and institutes supporting its teaching, research, diversity, and outreach missions.
[ | 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.
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