New Congo bank notes evoke hyperinflation fears

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/congo-bank-notes-evoke-hyperinflation-fears-161859224--sector.html

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Dust today, gone tomorrow: Astronomers discover Houdini-like vanishing act in space

ScienceDaily (July 5, 2012) ? Astronomers report a baffling discovery never seen before: An extraordinary amount of dust around a nearby star has mysteriously disappeared.

"It's like the classic magician's trick -- now you see it, now you don't," said Carl Melis, a postdoctoral scholar at UC San Diego and lead author of the research. "Only in this case, we're talking about enough dust to fill an inner solar system, and it really is gone!"

"It's as if the rings around Saturn had disappeared," said co-author Benjamin Zuckerman, a UCLA professor of physics and astronomy. "This is even more shocking because the dusty disc of rocky debris was bigger and much more massive than Saturn's rings. The disc around this star, if it were in our solar system, would have extended from the sun halfway out to Earth, near the orbit of Mercury."

The research on this cosmic vanishing act, which occurred around a star some 450 light years from Earth, in the direction of the constellation Centaurus, appears July 5 in the journal Nature.

"A perplexing thing about this discovery is that we don't have a satisfactory explanation to address what happened around this star," said Melis, a former UCLA astronomy graduate student. "The disappearing act appears to be independent of the star itself, as there is no evidence to suggest that the star zapped the dust with some sort of mega-flare or any other violent event."

Melis describes the star, designated TYC 8241 2652, as a "young analog of our sun" that only a few years ago displayed all of the characteristics of "hosting a solar system in the making," before transforming completely. Now, very little of the warm, dusty material thought to originate from collisions of rocky planets is apparent.

"Nothing like this has ever been seen in the many hundreds of stars that astronomers have studied for dust rings," Zuckerman said. "This disappearance is remarkably fast, even on a human time scale, much less an astronomical scale. The dust disappearance at TYC 8241 2652 was so bizarre and so quick, initially I figured that our observations must simply be wrong in some strange way."

Norm Murray, director of the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, who was not part of the research group, said, "The history of astronomy has shown that events that are not predicted and hard to explain can be game-changers."

The dust had been present around the star since at least 1983 (no one had observed the star in the infrared before then), and it continued to glow brightly in the infrared for 25 years. In 2009, it started to dim. By 2010, the dust emission was gone; the astronomers observed the star twice that year from the Gemini Observatory in Chile, six months apart. An infrared image obtained by the Gemini telescope as recently as May 1 of this year confirmed that the warm dust has now been gone for two-and-a-half years.

Like Earth, warm dust absorbs the energy of sunlight and re-radiates that heat energy as infrared radiation.

Because so much dust had been orbiting around the star, planets very likely are forming there, said Zuckerman, whose research is funded by NASA.

The lack of an existing model for what is going on around this star is forcing astronomers to rethink what happens within young solar systems in the making. The dust likely resulted from a violent collision -- but that would not explain where it went. Was it somehow swallowed by the star?

"Although we've identified a couple of mechanisms that are potentially viable, none are really compelling," Melis said. "In one case, gas produced in the impact that released the dust helps to quickly drag the dust particles into the star and thus to their doom. In another possibility, collisions of large rocks left over from an original major impact provide a fresh infusion of dust particles into the disc, which then instigate a runaway process where small grains chip into oblivion both themselves and also larger grains."

Major dusty regions are known to exist in our own solar system and include the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter and another located beyond the orbit of Neptune. Nearly 30 years ago, NASA's Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) first discovered many similar regions orbiting other stars -- but no disappearing act like the one at TYC 8241 2652 has ever been seen during these three decades.

The research is based on multiple sets of observations of TYC 8241 2652 obtained with the Thermal-Region Camera Spectrograph on the Gemini South telescope in Chile, the IRAS, NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) satellite, NASA's Infrared Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, the Herschel Space Telescope of the European Space Agency (ESA), and AKARI (a Japanese/ESA infrared satellite).

"We were lucky to catch this disappearing act," Zuckerman said. "Such events could be relatively common, without our knowing it."

Co-authors of the Nature paper are Joseph Rhee, a former UCLA postdoctoral scholar in astronomy, who is now an astronomer at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona; Inseok Song, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Georgia who also was a postdoctoral researcher at UCLA; and astronomers Simon Murphy and Michael Bessell at the Australian National University.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - Los Angeles. The original article was written by Stuart Wolpert.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Carl Melis, B. Zuckerman, Joseph H. Rhee, Inseok Song, Simon J. Murphy, Michael S. Bessell. Rapid disappearance of a warm, dusty circumstellar disk. Nature, 2012; 487 (7405): 74 DOI: 10.1038/nature11210

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/gG9T7uxe3xQ/120705201330.htm

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?Made in USA? Nexus Q Teardown Reveals Many Overseas Parts

Stating that a device is "designed and manufactured in the USA" doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a purely stateside product. Kyle Wiens and his team at iFixit took apart Google's Nexus Q, and found that the company sourced several of the Q's components from China, Japan, and other Asian or European countries.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GearFactor/~3/-94w7W_gcVw/

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The computing platform in phone's clothing

When Apple introduced the iPhone back in January of 2007, it was clearly aimed not at geeks but at mainstream consumers. Even though it lacked many of the basic functions of touted by competing smartphones of the time, its multitouch interface was so far ahead of the rest of the industry, especially when it came to the core experiences of web browsing and entertainment, that no one else stood a chance. And there's a very specific reason for that.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/dAH9B8dMssg/story01.htm

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Eureka! Physicists celebrate evidence of particle

Rolf Heuer, Director General of CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research), answers journalist's question about the scientific seminar to deliver the latest update in the search for the Higgs boson at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Meyrin near Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, July 4, 2012. The head of the world's biggest atom smasher is claiming discovery of a new particle that he says is consistent with the long-sought Higgs boson known popularly as the "God particle." Rolf Heuer, director of the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, says "we have a discovery" of a new subatomic particle, a boson, that is "consistent with a Higgs boson." He spoke after two independent teams at CERN said they have both "observed" a new boson that looks just like the one believed to give all matter in the universe size and shape. (AP Photo/Keystone/Martial Trezzini)

Rolf Heuer, Director General of CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research), answers journalist's question about the scientific seminar to deliver the latest update in the search for the Higgs boson at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Meyrin near Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, July 4, 2012. The head of the world's biggest atom smasher is claiming discovery of a new particle that he says is consistent with the long-sought Higgs boson known popularly as the "God particle." Rolf Heuer, director of the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, says "we have a discovery" of a new subatomic particle, a boson, that is "consistent with a Higgs boson." He spoke after two independent teams at CERN said they have both "observed" a new boson that looks just like the one believed to give all matter in the universe size and shape. (AP Photo/Keystone/Martial Trezzini)

FILE - In this March 22, 2007 file picture the magnet core of the world's largest superconducting solenoid magnet (CMS, Compact Muon Solenoid), one of the experiments preparing to take data at European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)'s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particule accelerator is photographed near Genva, Switzerland. The head of the world's biggest atom smasher is claiming discovery of a new particle that he says is consistent with the long-sought Higgs boson known popularly as the "God particle." Rolf Heuer, director of the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, says "we have a discovery" of a new subatomic particle, a boson, that is "consistent with a Higgs boson." He spoke after two independent teams at CERN said they have both "observed" a new boson that looks just like the one believed to give all matter in the universe size and shape.The results of the experiment will be announced Wendesday July 4, 2012. (AP Photo/Keystone/Martial Trezzini,File)

FILE - In this March 30, 2010 file picture a scientist looks at the first collisions pictures at full power at the CMS experience control room at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Meyrin near Geneva, Switzerland. The head of the world's biggest atom smasher is claiming discovery of a new particle that he says is consistent with the long-sought Higgs boson known popularly as the "God particle." Rolf Heuer, director of the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, says "we have a discovery" of a new subatomic particle, a boson, that is "consistent with a Higgs boson." He spoke after two independent teams at CERN said they have both "observed" a new boson that looks just like the one believed to give all matter in the universe size and shape.The results of the experiment will be announced Wendesday July 4, 2012. (AP Photo/Keystone/Salvatore Di Nolfi.File)

Joe Incandela, spokesperson of the CMS experiment, addresses a scientific seminar to deliver the latest update in the search for the Higgs boson at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Meyrin near Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, July 4, 2012. The head of the world's biggest atom smasher is claiming discovery of a new particle that he says is consistent with the long-sought Higgs boson known popularly as the "God particle" which is believed to give all matter in the universe size and shape. (AP Photo/Denis Balibouse, Pool)

British physicist Peter Higgs arrives for a scientific seminar to deliver the latest update in the search for the Higgs boson at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Meyrin near Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, July 4, 2012.The head of the world's biggest atom smasher is claiming discovery of a new particle that he says is consistent with the long-sought Higgs boson known popularly as the "God particle." Rolf Heuer, director of the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, says "we have a discovery" of a new subatomic particle, a boson, that is "consistent with a Higgs boson." He spoke after two independent teams at CERN said they have both "observed" a new boson that looks just like the one believed to give all matter in the universe size and shape. (AP Photo/Denis Balibouse, Pool)

GENEVA (AP) ? Scientists at the world's biggest atom smasher hailed the discovery of "the missing cornerstone of physics" Wednesday, cheering the apparent end of a decades-long quest for a new subatomic particle called the Higgs boson, or "God particle," which could help explain why all matter has mass and crack open a new realm of physics.

First proposed as a theory in the 1960s, the maddeningly elusive Higgs had been hunted by at least two generations of physicists who believed it would help shape our understanding of how the universe began and how its most elemental pieces fit together.

As the highly technical findings were announced by two independent teams involving more than 5,000 researchers, the usually sedate corridors of the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, erupted in frequent applause and standing ovations. Physicists shed tears reflecting on the decades of work that brought them to this momentous occasion.

The new particle appears to share many of the same qualities as the one predicted by Scottish physicist Peter Higgs and others and is perhaps the biggest accomplishment at CERN since its founding in 1954 outside Geneva along the Swiss-French border.

Rolf Heuer, director of CERN, said the newly discovered subatomic particle is a boson, but he stopped just shy of claiming outright that it is the Higgs boson itself ? an extremely fine distinction.

"As a layman, I think we did it," he told the elated crowd. "We have a discovery. We have observed a new particle that is consistent with a Higgs boson."

The Higgs, which until now had been purely theoretical, is regarded as key to understanding why matter has mass, which combines with gravity to give an object weight.

The idea is much like gravity and Isaac Newton's early theories: Gravity was there all the time before Newton explained it. The Higgs boson was believed to be there, too. And now that scientists have actually seen something much like it, they can put that knowledge to further use.

The center's atom smasher, the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider on the Swiss-French border, sends protons whizzing in a circle at nearly the speed of light to create high-energy collisions. The aftermath of those impacts can offer clues about dark matter, antimatter and the creation of the universe, which many theorize occurred in a massive explosion known as the Big Bang.

Most of the particles that result from the collisions exist for only the smallest fractions of a second. But finding a Higgs-like boson was one of the biggest challenges in physics: Out of some 500 trillion collisions, just several dozen produced "events" with significant data, said Joe Incandela, leader of the team known as CMS, with 2,100 scientists.

Each of the teams confirmed Wednesday that they had "observed" a new subatomic particle ? a boson. Heuer said the discovery was "most probably a Higgs boson, but we have to find out what kind of Higgs boson it is."

As the leaders of the two teams presented their evidence, applause punctuated their talks.

"Thanks, nature!" joked Fabiola Gianotti, head of the team called ATLAS, with 3,000 scientists, drawing laughter from the crowd.

Later, she told reporters that the standard model of physics is still incomplete because "the dream is to find an ultimate theory that explains everything. We are far from that."

Incandela said it was too soon to say definitively whether the particle was exactly the same as envisioned by Higgs and others, who proposed the existence of an energy field where all particles interact with a key particle, the Higgs boson.

Higgs, who was invited to be in the audience, said Wednesday's discovery appears to be close to what he predicted.

"It is an incredible thing that it has happened in my lifetime," he said, calling the discovery a huge achievement for the proton-smashing collider built in a 27-kilometer (17-mile) underground tunnel.

Outside CERN, the announcement seemed to ricochet around the world with some of the speed and energy of the particle itself.

Marc Sher, a professor of physics at William & Mary College, said most observers concluded in December that the Higgs boson would soon be found, but he was "still somewhat stunned by the results."

The phrase "God particle" was coined by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Leon Lederman, but it's used by laymen, not physicists, as an easier way of explaining how the theory got started.

Incandela said the last undiscovered piece of the standard model could be a variant of the Higgs that was predicted or something else that entirely changes the way scientists think about how matter is formed.

"This boson is a very profound thing we have found," he said. "We're reaching into the fabric of the universe in a way we never have done before. We've kind of completed one particle's story. ... Now we're way out on the edge of exploration."

The discovery is so fundamental to the laws of nature, Incandela said, that it could spawn a new era of technology and development the way that Newton's laws of gravity led to basic equations of mechanics that made the industrial revolution possible.

"This is so far out on a limb, I have no idea where it will be applied," he added. "We're talking about something we have no idea what the implications are and may not be directly applied for centuries."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-07-04-Switzerland-God%20Particle/id-1f2de7586cbe498aa8bf74f6286bffd5

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Global stocks muted ahead of central bank meetings

SINGAPORE (AP) ? Global stocks were muted Wednesday in holiday-thinned trade as markets looked to European central bankers for new steps to buoy sluggish economic growth.

Global equities and commodities have rallied so far this week amid growing expectations that policymakers will use fiscal and monetary stimulus to bolster flagging growth. The European Central Bank and the Bank of England are scheduled to meet Thursday, and analysts are expecting lending rate cuts or a boost of money in circulation.

Investors this week have brushed off signs of weakening economic growth, including reports that showed falling industrial production in the U.S. and China, the world's two biggest economies. But some analysts say investors may be expecting too much from possible stimulus measures.

"The markets are seemingly banking on European policymakers and the U.S. Fed to turn things around quickly," said Julian Jessop, an economist with Capital Economics. "However, at best, further monetary stimulus may limit the downside for the prices of riskier assets."

In early trading in Europe, Germany's DAX was 0.3 percent lower at 6,561.68 while the CAC-40 in France fell 0.5 percent to 3,254.73. Britain's FTSE 100 gained 0.2 percent to 5,674.24. Wall Street is closed for the Independence Day holiday.

Stocks in Asia were mostly higher. Japan's Nikkei 225 index rose 0.4 percent to 9,104.17 and South Korea's Kospi gained 0.4 percent to 1,874.45. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 added 1.1 percent to 4,172.20. China's Shanghai Composite fell 0.1 percent to 2,227.31 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng was down 0.1 percent at 19,709.75.

On Tuesday, the Dow Jones industrial average closed up 0.6 percent at 12,943.82. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 0.6 percent to 1,374.02. The Nasdaq composite average added 0.8 percent to 2,976.08.

The Commerce Department said factory orders increased 0.7 percent in May from April while U.S. car companies said sales rose in June.

The government's June jobs report is due Friday and second-quarter corporate earnings start next week.

Benchmark oil for August delivery was down 99 cents at $86.67 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $3.91 to close at $87.66 in New York on Tuesday.

In currencies, the euro fell to $1.2577 from $1.2610 on Tuesday in New York. The dollar dropped to 79.77 yen from 79.87 yen.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-07-04-World%20Markets/id-7886fb86864e470291cbb0b5898c84bf

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UK fraud office weighs prosecutions of Barclays

El frontis de una sucursal bancaria de Barclay's en el centro de Londres el viernes 28 de junio del 2012. Barclays PLC y sus subsidiarias pagar?n multas de 453 millones de d?lares por haber manipulado las tasas de inter?s crediticias. El presidente del Barclays Marcus Agiusanunci? el lunes su renuncia despu?s de aceptar responsabilidad de haber dado falsas tasas pr?stamo interbancario, lo cual le ha costado al banco multas trasatl?nticas de 453 millones de d?lares. (Foto AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

El frontis de una sucursal bancaria de Barclay's en el centro de Londres el viernes 28 de junio del 2012. Barclays PLC y sus subsidiarias pagar?n multas de 453 millones de d?lares por haber manipulado las tasas de inter?s crediticias. El presidente del Barclays Marcus Agiusanunci? el lunes su renuncia despu?s de aceptar responsabilidad de haber dado falsas tasas pr?stamo interbancario, lo cual le ha costado al banco multas trasatl?nticas de 453 millones de d?lares. (Foto AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

This undated file photo made available by Barclays Bank Monday July 2, 2012 shows the Chairman of United Kingdom-based Barclays bank Marcus Agius in London. The chairman of Barclays announced his resignation Monday July 2, 2012 after accepting responsibility for a price-fixing scandal that saw the bank slapped with trans-Atlantic fines of $453 million. Last week, U.S. and British agencies imposed the fines on Barclays for submitting false data on interbank borrowing rates between 2005 and 2009. The bank's executives have been under fire since then and the calls are growing for chief executive Bob Diamond to quit too. (AP Photo/Barclays Bank/VisualMedia, HO)

LONDON (AP) ? British prosecutors said Monday they are examining whether they can bring criminal charges on top of the massive fines imposed on Barclays bank for a financial market manipulation scandal.

The announcement followed hours after Barclays' chairman, Marcus Agius, resigned and accepted ultimate responsibility for the misbehavior between 2005 and 2009 which cost the company $453 million in fines by U.S. and British agencies.

Britain's Serious Fraud Office said it hopes to decide whether to pursue criminal charges within a month. "The SFO is aware of investigations in other jurisdictions and working with the relevant authorities," it said in a statement.

It wasn't immediately clear whether the SFO was considering charges against the company as well as individuals.

The U.S. Justice Department said last week that individuals at Barclays could face prosecution but the company would not because of its cooperation in revealing how the bank and individual employees submitted false data on interbank borrowing rates.

Agius' departure boosted the bank's share price but also brought fresh demands that Chief Executive Bob Diamond also accept responsibility and resign.

"Everybody is asking when are the other senior people at the top of Barclays going to take responsibility for the things that happened on their watch," Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said.

Ed Miliband, leader of the opposition Labour Party, also called for Diamond to step down. "I want to see criminal sanctions against those who broke the law," he added.

Barclays shares rose 3.4 percent to close at 168.4 pence, holding on to earlier gains despite the SFO announcement.

Diamond, giving no hint that he was considering resignation, sent a memo to bank staff saying that Barclays' own disciplinary process "will be completed swiftly now that regulatory reviews are complete."

Penalties could include clawing back bonuses and dismissal, he said.

"I am disappointed because many of these behaviors happened on my watch. It is my responsibility to make sure that it cannot happen again," Diamond said.

Barclays is one of a number of banks which regularly submit estimates of what it will cost them to borrow from other banks. These estimates feed into calculation of the London interbank offered rate (LIBOR) which is used to determine payments from a range of derivatives contracts.

The London rate, and the related European interbank offered rate, are the benchmarks for over $500 trillion in global contracts, including loans and mortgages.

Barclays admitted that it had submitted lower than actual figures on its interbank borrowing during the credit crisis in 2007 and 2008. Several other global banks are being investigated in other countries for similar actions.

Announcing his departure, Agius said "the buck stops with me and I must acknowledge responsibility by standing aside."

Agius' position was particularly sensitive as he was also chairman of the British Bankers' Association, the trade body that collects the banks' rate submissions to calculate the LIBOR. He resigned from that post as well on Monday.

Diamond said that on "the majority of days," traders didn't ask for false submissions, and in some case such requests were rejected by employees who submitted data.

"The attempted adjustments were, on average, small," Diamond said, and he quoted the Justice Department as saying the LIBOR was affected only on "some occasions."

Prime Minister David Cameron, meanwhile, announced a parliamentary inquiry into the culture and standards of the banking industry, to report by the end of the year.

Treasury chief George Osborne also ordered a review of whether setting the LIBOR should be a regulated activity and whether, as Bank of England Governor Mervyn King as suggested, it should be based on actual transactions instead of forecasts.

The British Bankers' Association earlier this year began its own review of LIBOR but has yet to announce recommendations.

Agius, 65, will remain as chairman until a successor is appointed. He was paid 751,000 pounds (1.18 million) by Barclays in 2011, but his final payoff was not immediately announced.

Rather than take the heat off Diamond, Agius' departure may leave the CEO more exposed.

Diamond is likely to face a grilling Wednesday when he appears before a group of lawmakers. His critics say he is culpable because he set the aggressive style at Barclays Capital, the investment banking operation he previously led.

He has said the actions by Barclays and its traders were wrong, but offered no suggestion he might leave his post. In some cases, regulators found individual Barclays traders encouraged colleagues to file false reports to protect their own dealings.

"If anything, by falling on his own sword, Mr. Agius leaves the board temporarily weakened at a time when a strong leader is required to make tough decisions," said Gary Greenwood, analyst at Shore Capital.

"While the departure of Mr. Agius will grab the headlines today, the bigger issue remains whether Mr. Diamond should also remain in his role," Greenwood added. "From a pure operational perspective it is not clear to us that his removal would be beneficial, but we question whether the negative sentiment towards the company, of which he is the focus, can be repaired while he remains at the helm."

Among other banks being investigated, Royal Bank of Scotland ?82 percent owned by British taxpayers ? declined to comment Monday on reports it had fired three traders in London and one in Singapore last year because of interest rate manipulation.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-07-02-Britain-Barclays%20Chairman/id-5624eaf4666e4b6eaf2b19829ea61af0

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