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Messenger mission systems engineer Eric Finnegan explains some of the features on the craft designed to help it cope with Mercury’s extreme conditions.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
By Richard Black
The Discovery took Scott, Shackleton and other pioneers to Antarctica in 1901-02 Samples of a marine creature collected during Scott’s Antarctic expeditions are yielding data that may prove valuable in projecting climate change.
The expeditions in the early 1900s brought back many finds including samples of life from the sea floor.
Comparing these samples with modern ones, scientists have now shown that the growth of a bryozoan, a tiny animal, has increased in recent years.
They say this means more carbon dioxide is being locked away on the ocean bed.
“Scott really should be given more credit for some of the scientific work they did”
David Barnes BAS
The tiny bryozoan, Cellarinella nutti, looks like a branching twig that has been stuck into the sea floor.
It grows during the period in the year when it can feed, drawing plankton from the water with its tentacles.
The length of the feeding season is reflected in the size of the annual growth band – just as with tree rings.
Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have just published an analysis of growth rates in samples collected in the Ross Sea.
This is the Antarctic region where Capt Robert Falcon Scott moored during both the Discovery expedition of 1901-04 and the Terra Nova expedition a decade later, in which he lost his life attempting to return from the South Pole.
Other projects have since collected bryozoan samples at the same site, while the Census of Marine Life has increased the flow of data over the past decade.
The bryozoan’s seasonal growth yields growth rings, similar to a tree’s Putting all this data together has allowed researchers to show that the creatures grew roughly the same amount each year until about 1990.
Since then, there has been a steady increase, with the annual growth rate now being more than double the 20th Century average.
The BAS scientists suggest this means that the bryozoans are now eating for longer, which means they are eating more phytoplankton – the tiny marine plants that draw dissolved CO2 from seawater.
“This is important because it’s locking away carbon,” said lead researcher David Barnes.
“The ‘branches’ of the bryozoans break off and are easily buried, and we’ve seen that – so burial is taking carbon out of circulation,” he told BBC News.
The team suggests this is acting to increase the size of the carbon sink – the absorption and storage of CO2 – in the Southern Ocean.
However, other researchers have concluded that the Southern Ocean is progressively absorbing less CO2.
The Global Carbon Project, an international research network, concluded four years ago that the size of the global sink fell by 18% in the period 2000-06, with a large chunk of that decrease registered in the Southern Ocean.
“Winds there have accelerated over the last 50 years, and it’s thought this is speeding up the mixing in the Southern Ocean and bringing to the surface deep water that’s rich in CO2,” said Corinne Le Quere, a member of the Global Carbon Project and director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.
“So we have observations of this physical process, but the biological activity we don’t have much information about; if you’re mixing the ocean more, how are organisms responding?
“Usually in my experience the biological response compensates a bit, but not enough [to counteract the physical change]; and the fact that you have this one organism with higher growth rates doesn’t say how much this is going to affect the carbon balance.”
If the new research does not shed too much light on the likely progression of climate change, it does help us put the achievements of Captain Scott and his colleagues in a new light.
Despite the hardships inherent in polar exploration, both expeditions made the collection of scientific samples a top priority – including retrieving samples from the sea bed at a depth of half a kilometre using trawls.
“Prior to this, I tended to associate success in the Antarctic with people like Amundsen and Shackleton – Scott, I thought, doesn’t have the same attachment to success,” said Dr Barnes.
“But now I view things differently, and I think in 100 years’ time people will still be using the collections he made – they’re extensive and high quality, and in fact we struggled to find collections made after that that were as good.
“He really should be given more credit for some of the scientific work they did.”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Eminen won just two of the 10 awards he was nominated for A veteran music executive has criticised the Grammy Awards in a full-page advert in the New York Times.
Steve Stoute said Grammy voters had “lost touch with contemporary popular culture” by snubbing artists like Eminem and Justin Bieber.
He added the show had become “a series of hypocrisies and contradictions”, claiming both acts were only asked to perform to boost TV ratings.
Last week’s ceremony attracted 27m viewers – the largest since 2001.
Stoute, who is most famous for managing hip-hop arts Nas, is the chief executive of marketing company Translation and is considered to be one of the most influential voices in entertainment marketing and pop culture.
He also took the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences to task for snubbing Eminem in 2001, which saw the rapper’s Marshall Mathers LP miss out on album of the year in favour of Steely Dan.
Stoute’s letter also questioned why Kanye West’s Graduation was also passed over for the same award three years ago by Herbie Hancock’s River: The Joni Letters.
“We must acknowledge the massive cultural impact of Eminem and Kanye West and how their music is shaping, influencing and defining the voice of a generation,” Stoute wrote.
‘Change this system’
Eminem, who lead this year’s Grammys with 10 nominations, picked up only two awards, while Bieber went home empty-handed despite his two nominations.
“How is it that Justin Bieber, an artist that defines what it means to be a modern artist, did not win best new artist?” Stoute said.
Esperanza Spalding beat Justin Bieber to the best new artist award “His cultural impact and success are even more quantifiable if you factor in his YouTube and Vevo viewership.”
Beiber lost out to singer and bassist Esperanza Spalding for the award in question.
Stoute added: “Interesting that the Grammys understands cultural relevance when it comes to using Eminem’s, Kanye West’s or Justin Bieber’s name in the billing to ensure viewership and to deliver the all-too-important ratings for its advertisers.”
He also said his “suspicions” over a link between performers and winners appeared to be proven true, citing Arcade Fire’s surprise album of the year win just after they had finished performing on stage.
“Does the Grammys intentionally use artists for their celebrity, popularity and cultural appeal when they already know the winners and then program a show against this expectation?” he said.
He finished by calling on artists to “demand they change this system” and uphold “its mission for advocacy and support of artistry as culture evolves”.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
A publicity drive has started for the census, now just five weeks away, but the survey is being criticised for its question on religion. So is it even possible to accurately measure how religious the UK is?
According to the Gospel of Luke, it was a Roman census that sent Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, where she gave birth to Jesus Christ.
And more than 2,000 years later, the same kind of counting exercise is being used to gauge the religious make-up of the UK.
According to the last Census 10 years ago, more than two-thirds of people in Britain regarded themselves as Christian – 72% in England and Wales, and 65% in Scotland.
More than 1.5 million in England and Wales, more than 3% of the population, said they were Muslim and nearly eight million ticked “no religion”. There were also 390,000 self-proclaimed Jedi.
But five weeks before the next census day, Sunday 27 March, some groups are questioning whether the religious numbers are at all accurate, and could ever be.
They prefer to use the British Social Attitudes survey, carried out annually by the National Centre for Social Research, which paints a picture of a less-religious country, with 51% describing themselves as non-religious and 43% as Christian.
“It fairly allows you to answer it because you can say ‘no religion’ but if you wanted to make it as neutral as possible, you might ask ‘Which of these would you describe yourself as?’ says Stephan Shakespeare of YouGov.
“It does have a slight assumption, although not a strong one, but these wordings do make a difference.”
The religious question in the census was first introduced in 2001, as a voluntary option. In some other countries such as France, state questions about race, ethnicity or religion are not permitted.
But in the UK, the vast majority of people answered it despite not having to, although the reappearance of the same question in the forthcoming census has prompted complaints.
Question 20 in England and Wales will say: “What is your religion?” In Scotland, question 13 will ask: “What religion, religious denomination or body do you belong to?”
The British Humanist Association (BHA) believes they are leading questions that actively encourage people to tick a religious answer, thereby inflating the numbers, especially among Christians because many people hold a weak affiliation.
If you were baptised but had not been to church since then, you might be inclined to say you were still Christian, says Naomi Phillips, the head of public affairs at the BHA. She says the actual number of secular people is probably double the number the census recorded.
“Many people tick Christian but wouldn’t consider themselves to be religious if you asked them otherwise. And this is used to justify maintaining faith schools and used by local authorities to make their planning decisions to allocate resources to public services.
“It means more budgets go to Christian groups and the needs of non-religious groups are not taken into account.”
The BHA begins a poster campaign next week on buses and at railway stations that urges people who are non-religious to “for God’s sake, say so”.
Ms Phillips says it would be preferable not to have the question, because it’s hard to get an accurate picture.
Outside London, the counties with the highest proportion of Christians were Durham, Merseyside and Cumbria, all with 82% or moreThe districts with the highest proportions of Christians were all in the North West: St Helens, Wigan and Copeland (Cumbria) each with 86% or moreThe number of people who stated Jedi was 390,000
Source: 2001 census
“It’s very difficult to measure. There are so many different things to measure – by belief, practice, whether you believe in God, whether you attend places of worship, whether you pray.”
The census question pre-supposes you have a religion, she says, and a two-part question like they have in Northern Ireland would be fairer, which differentiates between your faith at birth and your faith now.
The humanists are not alone in wanting the question changed. The Foundation for Holistic Spirituality (F4HS) wants it easier for those people who have a spiritual but non-religious tendency to answer the question.
But the Office for National Statistics, which collects the data, says the question is one of a number that allows people to fully express their identity in the way they consider most appropriate.
“The religion question measures the number of people who self-identify an affiliation with a religion, irrespective of the extent of their religious belief or practice,” says a spokesman.
It’s a question that is worded in the most sensitive way possible, says historian and broadcaster Nick Barratt, especially with the subtle change of emphasis introduced in the new census – respondents are now faced with “no religion” as the top option to tick, rather than “none”.
The census is a compulsory survey taken every 10 yearsNew questions this time cover civil partners, the number of bedrooms in your home and recent migrationCritics say it’s too intrusive, duplicates information held elsewhere and it’s expensiveThe 2011 census will cost about £482m
“This [change] makes it more secular, and easier for people to identify with the question and where they are coming from. There’s the question of faith and belief as opposed to religion. It allows other beliefs to get in. If you said ‘none’, it is like you have no belief or faith, but ‘no religion’ means you may have.”
He expects this change could mean fewer Christians this time, but it’s an important question, he says, because it shows how richly diverse some communities are.
It also has a practical purpose, says the ONS. The results are used to improve understanding of communities, it says, and to provide public services, monitor discrimination and develop policy to best cater for people’s religious backgrounds.
But what is the true picture? Whichever survey is accurate, it’s clear that many people in Britain still feel an affinity with Christianity, even if they haven’t attended church in many years.
Average Sunday attendance in the Church of England was 960,000 in 2008, a figure which has been falling for a number of years. A survey by Christian charity Tearfund suggested it was one in 10.
Yet nearly 40 million people in England and Wales, 72%, identified themselves as Christian. Other surveys suggest the majority of people pray and believe in God, even if they don’t regularly go to church.
The question does seem to imply that you have a religion already, says Anne Atkins, author and contributor to BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day.
“But that’s ameliorated by the very first option being ‘none’, so it’s not something I’d get very exercised about.
“The 72% figure for Christians is higher than I initially expected. If I had shut my eyes and considered how many people in my street are Christians, I probably wouldn’t have realised it was more than half.
“But if I had actually asked them in person then perhaps it would have been. Who am I to say if someone is Christian or not?”
Christianity should not be measured simply in terms of Sunday worshippers, which are falling in number, says a Church of England spokesman, because the numbers of people going at other times remains high.
“The 72% figure seems to be constant and not decreasing. What’s interesting for us is the social mobility and social change. People might not go on a Sunday to church any more but might go on a Saturday or Thursday or they might go less often. It’s a change in how much time they have available.
“We have made worship available online, in the morning and in the evening. There’s probably more people engaging with the church than ever before.”
Christianity is a religion that people identify with, he adds, regardless of their level of church-going.
But it’s impossible to quantify the numbers, says pollster Stephan Shakespeare, founder of YouGov.
“It’s very hard to make an absolute measurement. You have to get an ideal definition about what being a Christian means or what being religious means. But what is useful is to ask the same question as last time and see the change.”
So even if a question is slightly flawed, it’s better to stick with it.
Editors’ Picks All Comments (90) 
‘Religion’ implies that Christianity is about ‘doing’ things, whereas I think many Christians would agree with me that it’s not about ‘doing’ (trying to BUY favour to get into heaven), it’s about ‘being’ (accepting you are loved). Also, the idea that if you don’t go to church, you’re not a Christian or vice versa, is flawed. I don’t go to church, but I love God. Very interesting 🙂
46. Schism
Isn’t it obvious? If you believe in the religion and follow its rules then you belong to the religion! If you dont believe or dont follow the rules then how can you possibly be of that religion? You might involve yourself in the social events but that means nothing seeing as religion is a life long commitment for the body and the mind.
33. ArmchairScot
I find “No religion” just as confusing as “None”. It certainly covers a range of options ranging from ‘strict’ atheism, through agnosticism to an even more woolly ‘don’t really think about it’ category. How we are supposed to draw conclusions on religious attitudes Britain today, based on this multiple choice, frankly escapes me.
32. Desiderius Erasmus
Is it a really fair reflection of the nations beliefs, when some people can’t declare themselves as atheists, or of a religion not their families liking, for fear of violent reprisals? And don’t say the forms are ‘secret’, because in reality they will be filled in by just one person in many households.
22. TallBlondJohn
My parents will tick C of E, but they are agnostics. For them religion is social activity – its part of the village community. They do the church flowers regularly, but only go to church for the major festivals. So do they have a religion, or a tradition?
Comments 5 of 7
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The current “brown” economy is carbon and resource intensive and is not sustainable, the study says Investing $1.3 trillion (£800bn) each year in green sectors would deliver long-term stability in the global economy, a UN report has suggested.
Spending about 2% of global GDP in 10 key areas would kick-start a “low carbon, resource efficient green economy”, the authors observed.
They also recommended following policies that decoupled economic growth from intensive consumption.
The findings have been published at a meeting attended by 100 ministers.
“Governments have a central role in changing laws and policies, and in investing public money in public wealth to make the transition possible,” said Pavan Sukhdev, head of the UN Environment Programme’s (Unep) Green Economy Initiative.
“Misallocation of capital is at the centre of the world’s current dilemmas and there are fast actions that can be taken, starting literally today,” he added.
“From phasing down and phasing out the $600bn global fossil fuel subsidies, to re-directing more than $20bn subsidies perversely rewarding those in unsustainable fisheries.”
Unep defined a “green economy” as one that resulted in “improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities”.
When it came to investing 2% of GDP in greening the global economy, the authors recommended a number of investments, including:
$108bn greening agriculture, such as encouraging and supporting smallholder farms$134bn on the building sector, including improving energy efficiency$110bn improving fisheries, including reducing the capacity of the world’s fishing fleet$15bn on forestry, with “important knock-on benefits for combating climate change”Almost of $110bn on both water and waste, including sanitation and recycling
The report, produced by experts from developed and developing nations, suggests that the green economy model would deliver higher annual growth rates within 5-10 years than a business-as-usual scenario.
In order to unlock the level of investment required, it added that it was necessary to reform existing national and international policies.
“The green economy – as documented and illustrated in the report – offers a focused and pragmatic assessment of how countries, communities and corporations have begun to make a transition towards a more sustainable pattern of consumption and production,” said Unep executive director Achim Steiner.
“With 2.5bn people living on less than $2-a-day and with more than two billion people being added to the global population by 2050, it is clear that we must continue to develop and grow our economies.
“But this development cannot come at the expense of the very life support systems on land, in the oceans or in the atmosphere that sustain our economies, and thus, the lives of each and everyone of us.”
The findings are being published at the 26th session of Unep’s Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environmental Forum, which is being held in Nairobi, Kenya, until 24 February.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The government has abandoned its plans to privatise England’s public forests because of opposition from the public and MPs, Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman has told the Commons.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Looking for email lists to buy cheap $10 + review. Please state what kind, how old and what type of people you have. Where the list is from.
Looking to see what the cost and lead time would be to develop a relatively simple app for an Automotive Group. Ideally, the app would have two functions:
1) Be able to offer a searchable interface of the inventory fed to our website. A web version of a search tool is:
http://www.jimpattisonautogroup.ca/carfinder/index.htm
And the full stream of current inventory is:
http://www.jimpattisonautogroup.ca/used-inventory/index.htm?invType=used?invType=used&reset=InventoryListing
2) A very simple ‘find the dealership’ section. This would have options to give directions from current location:
– link over from the dealership listed in the first section
– select different dealerships from a list and provide directions from current location
The design can be very simple with an initial load/splash screen and then a two tab system for the two above functions. Priorities are stability and functionality. At this point it is being posted without a budget to gauge what it would take to get this done properly. The timeline is flexible but the functionality is not.
Please include the term ‘jpag’ in your response to indicate you have read the full project details.
I have a simple html website where I need changes done to the colors of
should take you less than 2 hours for sure (probably more time communicating with me)
let me know if u can do
Looking for SL’rs with over 10 feedback or more please!
Cheers, M
I need a programmer with experience to do update on this website www.lasana.fr
I will provide all design in .fla and .psd with all images.
Update :
– main page : change some text, link button to pages, make the slide show changing automicately
– Menu page : i provide the psd to finish this page
– Plan d´acces page : put a real google embed map
– Gallery photo : put this gallery photo http://www.flash-gallery.org/demo.html
Contact page : minor change like resize photos, link button and put text on bold
Good luck
can you write content “one heading, description, 5 sub heading, that relating to my site idea?
http://www.tomyegide.com/tomy.html
Example site (just to show you where i place the written description and headlines)
http://sni.pr/
We have a joomla site that displays fine in all browsers but IE. In IE, the left and right sides of the page don’t load as well as the bottom footer of the site. www.glennpelham.org
To see how it should look, load the site in Firefox.
The turn around on this project needs to be 24 hours. Please do not bid if you cannot work immediately on it.
We need a business directory designed based on designs that we have. The system will have feature for coupan creation and features as provided in all business directories.
Please apply only if you have a ready to use business directory script
Please do not bid on this job If your work has not been published in ezine articles.
I am looking for someone who has experience writing SEO content, You must know what a Meta Tag is and know how to do keyword research.
I will not answer anyone that applies without their sample from ezine articles.
I would like original articles and rewrites 450-550 words
articles. Error free (spelling and grammar).They will be copyscaped.
Must be original content.
Must have prior experience writing for American market.
If selected I need 3-5 articles weekly for a few website blogs.
I will provide titles, to help you.Pet,online Education niches and Affiliate marketing.
I am looking for a long term commitment if the standards are met.
Are you crazy for iTunes? Do you spend hours cruising forums, blogs and social networks, discussing your favourite apps + games for the iPod, iPhone + iPad?
We’re a British Columbia-based company that works with Canada’s leading app developers to create winning marketing strategies. Last month, our clients had 13 #1 iTunes all over the world, because of smart, creative people just like you.
In order to do the job, you’ll need:
– A good Internet connection
– Active accounts in one or more regional iTunes stores
– Active accounts in regional social networks, Twitter, Wikis + user forums
– Familiarity with Google Docs and Spreadsheets
– Verbal + written command of English and at least one other language
– Self-motivation, a great team attitude, the desire to engage in meaningful social media dialogue, enthusiasm for apps + games, and the passion to succeed
We add new associates regularly. Everybody starts off with 5-10 hours a week and the commitment and opportunity grow from there base don performance.
Are you intrigued?
Send us a short proposal that talks about your online marketing experience, or your passion for social media/apps/games/whatever. Also, be sure to tell us what regions you have iTunes accounts in, what sorts of social networks and forums you frequent and what languages you speak and write.
Have fun, be creative and knock our socks off!
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