From the Ticker?
The dog days of summer are still months away, but is becoming a canine-friendly town? According to livability.com, the most pet-friendly city for Fido is Portland, Ore. with more than 32 dog parks. That got The Ticker thinking, just how dog-friendly is TC? Click here for more info.
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Source: http://petfriendsmagazine.wordpress.com/2013/03/29/is-traverse-city-going-to-the-dogs/
Cast your memory back to last summer. Sweep away memories of iPhone 5 leaks galore, and you might remember that the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) asked the FCC to reevaluate its radiation limits for mobile phones. Now a few seasons later, the FCC has finally wrapped up a report that responds to the GAO, and there are no changes to its RF radiation levels in sight because it feels comfortable with its current caps. "We continue to have confidence in the current exposure limits, and note that more recent international standards have a similar basis," reads the report. However, given that its guidelines were adopted in 1996, new research on radiation and the proliferation of mobile devices, the FCC would like some feedback regarding its restrictions. It's put out a call for comments from concerned parties and even federal health and safety bodies.
Though the freshly-released document didn't rock the proverbial boat, it made one change worth noting. The pinna (outer ear) is now classified an extremity, which means the FCC allows devices to hit the tissue with more radiation. Feel like poring through 201 pages of regulatory minutiae? Click the source link below for the commission's full dossier.
Filed under: Cellphones
Via: The Verge
Source: FCC
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/30/fcc-confident-in-mobile-phone-radiation-limits-seeks-comments/
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By Euan Rocha
TORONTO (Reuters) - BlackBerry reported a surprise quarterly profit on Thursday after shipping 1 million new Z10 smartphones, but the Canadian company still fell short of convincing markets that its turnaround plan is already a runaway success.
BlackBerry shares were up 2.3 percent at midday on the Nasdaq, down from their 10 percent gain immediately after the results came out.
Expressing lingering doubts, some analysts focused on a decline in the company's subscriber base, a potential threat to its long-term growth prospects and turnaround plans. Others, however, zeroed in on strong sales of the new touchscreen Z10 device, which BlackBerry started rolling out at the end of January.
"I think the one million units is a nice start," said Morningstar analyst Brian Colello. "I think the encouraging thing is that BlackBerry was still able to sell a good portion of older models and generate solid service revenue during the transition. I think that will be important in terms of cash balance and profitability."
The well-reviewed Z10 smartphone is the first in a line of devices that will be powered by the new BlackBerry 10 operating system. It is a key plank in the company's attempt to regain relevance and win back market share in the smartphone arena it once dominated.
In a positive sign, BlackBerry said roughly 55 percent of the buyers of the Z10 were coming from other platforms - news that should allay fears that BlackBerry would be unable to attract users who have never used one of the company's devices, or who have abandoned BlackBerry in favor of Apple's iPhone and smartphones using Google's Android software, or other platforms.
The results offered solace to both bulls and bears on BlackBerry, which virtually invented on-your-hip email before ceding ground to rivals.
Some analysts noted that the company's quarterly revenue missed expectations and fretted about the decline in subscriber numbers to 76 million from 79 million during the fourth quarter.
But others focused on the unexpected profit and on the Z10 sales. The stock was up 2.3 percent at $14.89 on Nasdaq. Its Toronto-listed shares were 2 percent higher at C$15.10 at 1230 EDT (1630 GMT). The stock was the most actively traded issue on the Nasdaq on volume of more than 65 million shares.
"All in all, I'm happy because I think the majority seemed to be expecting the world to cave in on them, and that did not happen," said Eric Jackson, founder and managing partner of Ironfire Capital LLC, which owns BlackBerry shares.
BREAK-EVEN FORECAST
BlackBerry said its fiscal fourth-quarter net income was $98 million, or 19 cents a share, compared with a year-earlier loss of $125 million, or 24 cents a share. The swing to profit largely reflected a provision for income tax recoveries.
Excluding one-time items, the company reported a profit of 22 cents a share. Analysts had expected a loss.
BlackBerry surprised some investors by saying it believes it will approach break-even in its first quarter, based on a lower cost base, a more efficient supply chain and improved hardware margins.
Analysts on average had expected a loss of 10 cents a share in the first quarter, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
The Z10 device is currently available in more than 25 countries, and the company's new Q10 device, equipped with the physical keyboard that BlackBerry aficionados love, is expected to start being rolled out in April.
BlackBerry said it will step up investment on marketing the new phones in the current quarter.
"As the business migrates to BlackBerry 10 we intend to enhance our business offering with new value-creating services to continue to generate service revenue," Chief Executive Thorsten Heins said on a conference call on Thursday.
Heins said BlackBerry plans to generate service revenue through licensing deals for BlackBerry 10, advanced security tools and additional enterprise services.
BlackBerry's strong focus on security was long a draw for corporate and government users, and the company boasts of a new "Balance" feature that allows BlackBerry 10 users to isolate and secure corporate and private activities.
Analysts have been concerned that revenues from BlackBerry's very profitable services business would drop as it alters its fee structure for those users moving across to the BlackBerry 10 devices.
QUARTERLY RESULTS
Gross margins in the quarter were 40.1 percent, up from 33.5 percent, a year earlier, driven by higher average selling prices.
"Those were really solid results," said Jefferies & Co analyst Peter Misek. "The gross margin blew everybody out of the water, that was fantastic."
"Overall, this is step one on the recovery ladder and a very, very, very good result," Misek said.
Still, BlackBerry is not out of the woods. Quarterly revenue fell to $2.68 billion from $4.2 billion a year earlier, and was below analysts' estimates of $2.84 billion.
BlackBerry said Mike Lazaridis, who co-founded the company nearly 30 years ago, would step down as vice chairman and director.
Lazaridis, co-chief executive until last year, told Reuters he has no plans to sell his stake in the smartphone maker even as he steps down from the board to focus on a new quantum computing investment fund.
(Additional reporting by Allison Martell, Alastair Sharp, Sinead Carew and Julie Gordon; Editing by Janet Guttsman, Lisa Von Ahn and Peter Galloway)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blackberry-reports-quarterly-profit-one-million-sales-z10-111608415.html
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Mar. 28, 2013 ? People living near asphalt pavement sealed with coal tar have an elevated risk of cancer, according to a study in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. Much of this calculated excess risk results from exposures in children, age six or younger, to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from the sealant.
"The increased cancer risk associated with coal-tar-sealed asphalt (CSA) likely affects a large number of people in the U.S. Our results indicate that the presence of coal-tar-based pavement sealants is associated with significant increases in estimated excess lifetime cancer risk for nearby residents," said E. Spencer Williams, Ph.D., principal author of the study and Baylor University assistant research scientist at the Center for Reservoir and Aquatic Systems Research in Baylor's College of Arts & Sciences.
Researchers from Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and the in Austin, Texas, are the first to report on the potential human health effects of PAHs in settled house dust and soil in living spaces and soil adjacent to parking lots sealed with coal-tar-based products.
"Exposure to these compounds in settled house dust is a particularly important source of risk for children younger than six years of age, as they are expected to ingest this material at higher rates," Williams said. "This indicates that the use of coal-tar-based pavement sealants magnifies aggregate exposures to PAHs in children and adults in residences adjacent to where these products are used and is associated with human health risks in excess of widely accepted standards."
Data on PAHs in settled house dust used for this analysis were published previously by the same authors. In that study, settled house dust and parking lot dust were sampled for 23 ground-floor apartments in Austin, Texas. The parking lot surfaces adjacent to the apartments were coal-tar-sealed asphalt, asphalt-based sealant over asphalt pavement, or unsealed concrete. Concentrations of PAHs were 25 times higher in house dust in residences adjacent to coal-tar-sealed pavement compared to those with other pavement types. "This study was the first to find a strong association between a product or a behavior and PAHs in house dust," said Barbara Mahler, the USGS research hydrologist who oversaw the study.
For this study, doses and risk associated with residences adjacent to unsealed asphalt lots were considered relative to those adjacent to (CSA) parking lots. Benzo(a)pyrene concentrations in CSA-affected settled house dust were high relative to those reported in most parts of the U.S. where coal-tar-based sealcoat is not used (California and Arizona). Data for PAHs in coal-tar-sealed asphalt-affected soils and unsealed asphalt-affected soils are available from samples from New Hampshire and suburban Chicago.
The analysis did not consider exposure to the dust on the pavement itself, which has PAH concentrations 10s to 100s of times higher than those in house dust or soil, or inhalation of air over sealed pavement. "Over time, about half of the PAHs in the sealcoat are released into the air, and concentrations in air are extremely high, particularly in the hours to days after application," said Peter Van Metre, USGS research hydrologist and author of two papers on volatilization of PAHs from sealcoat.
Sealcoat is a black, shiny substance sprayed or painted on the asphalt pavement of parking lots, driveways, and playgrounds to improve appearance and protect the underlying asphalt. An estimated 85 million gallons of coal-tar-based sealant are applied to pavement each year, primarily east of the Continental Divide in the U.S. and parts of Canada. Coal-tar-based pavement sealants are 15 to 35 percent coal-tar pitch, which has been classified as a human carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Over time, the dried sealant is worn away from pavement surfaces, and the resulting mobile dust particles can be transported into nearby homes.
"Although the analysis presented here is based on a limited dataset, the results indicate that biomonitoring might be warranted to characterize the exposure of children and adults to PAHs associated with coal-tar-based pavement sealant," Williams said. "Further investigation is also needed into the impacts of coal-tar-based pavement sealants on PAH concentrations in indoor and outdoor environments."
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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/fZe2BuEECVo/130328125236.htm
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FILE - In this April 16, 2012 file photo North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple speaks in Bismarck, N.D. Dalrymple signed legislation Tuesday, March 26, 2013 that that would make North Dakota the nation's most restrictive state on abortion rights, banning the procedure if a fetal heartbeat can be detected ? something that can happen as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. (AP Photo/Dale Wetzel, File)
FILE - In this April 16, 2012 file photo North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple speaks in Bismarck, N.D. Dalrymple signed legislation Tuesday, March 26, 2013 that that would make North Dakota the nation's most restrictive state on abortion rights, banning the procedure if a fetal heartbeat can be detected ? something that can happen as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. (AP Photo/Dale Wetzel, File)
Map identifies states with time-based restrictions on abortions.
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) ? North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple said his decision to sign strict new abortion laws, including the nation's toughest restriction on the procedure, was not based on "any religious belief or personal experience" and that he believes legislators have a right to ask such questions about abortion restrictions.
The Republican governor signed three anti-abortion measures on Tuesday ? including one banning abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, or when a heartbeat can be detected. By doing so, Dalrymple positioned his oil-rich state as a primary battleground in the decades-old fight over abortion rights.
Within minutes of signing the laws, unsolicited donations began pouring into the state's lone abortion clinic to help opponents prove the new laws are unconstitutional. The governor urged lawmakers to set aside cash for an inevitable legal challenge.
"Although the likelihood of this measure surviving a court challenge remains in question, this bill is nevertheless a legitimate attempt by a state legislature to discover the boundaries of Roe v. Wade," Dalrymple said in a statement, referring to the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion up to until a fetus is considered viable ? usually at 22 to 24 weeks.
In an interview later Tuesday, Dalrymple told The Associated Press that the courts opened the door for a challenge by picking a specific moment in the timeline of gestation. He also said he studied the fetal heartbeat bill and "educated myself on the history and legal aspects as best I could. My conclusion is not coming from any religious belief or personal experience."
Dalrymple seemed determined to open a legal debate on the legislation, acknowledging the constitutionality of the measure was an open question. He asked the Legislature to set aside money for a "litigation fund" that would allow the state's attorney general to defend the measure against lawsuits.
He said he didn't know how much the likely court fight would cost. But, he said money wasn't the issue.
"The Legislature has decided to ask these questions on additional restrictions on abortions, and I think they have the legitimate right to ask those questions," he said.
He also signed into law measures that would makes North Dakota the first state to ban abortions based on genetic defects such as Down syndrome and require a doctor who performs abortions to be a physician with hospital-admitting privileges.
Lawmakers endorsed a fourth anti-abortion bill last week that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy based on the disputed premise that fetuses feel pain at that point. The governor stopped short of saying he would sign it, but said: "I've already signed three bills. Draw your own conclusion."
The signed measures, which take effect Aug. 1, are fueled in part by an attempt to close the Red River Women's Clinic in Fargo ? the state's only abortion clinic.
Tammi Kromenaker, the clinic's director, called the legislation "extreme and unconstitutional" and said Dalrymple "awoke a sleeping giant" by approving it. The clinic, which performs about 3,000 abortions annually, was accepting cash donations and continued to take appointments Tuesday, she said.
"First and foremost, abortion is both legal and available in North Dakota," she said. "But anytime abortion laws are in the news, women are worried about access."
The Center for Reproductive Rights announced Tuesday that it has committed to challenging the fetal heartbeat bill on behalf of the clinic. The New York-based group already represented the clinic for free in a lawsuit over a 2011 law banning the widely accepted use of a medication that induces abortion. A judge has temporarily blocked enforcement of the law, and a trial is slated for April in Fargo.
Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem told the AP that lawyers from his office would defend any lawsuits that arise but an increase to the agency's budget would likely be necessary. He did not have a dollar amount.
The state has spent about $23,000 in legal costs to date defending the 2011 legislation, according to agency records obtained by the AP.
Julie Rikelman, litigation director for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said the group has provided three attorneys to argue that case. But in the recent round of legislation, the fetal heartbeat measure is the priority because it would effectively ban abortion in the state, she said.
"The impact is very, very clear," she said. "It would have an immediate and very large impact on the women in North Dakota."
Rikelman said the center also would support the clinic in other litigation, if need be and at no cost.
Kromenaker said other states have spent millions of dollars defending legislation, if the case reaches the nation's highest court. Rikelman said it's impossible to put a dollar amount on the impending legal fight in North Dakota.
"Litigation is so unpredictable," she said. "It could be very quick with a ruling in our favor."
North Dakota's law, since it would ban most abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, goes further than a bill approved earlier this month in Arkansas that establishes a 12-week ban ? prohibiting them when a fetal heartbeat can be detected using an abdominal ultrasound. That ban is scheduled to take effect 90 days after the Arkansas Legislature adjourns.
A fetal heartbeat can generally be detected earlier in a pregnancy using a vaginal ultrasound, but Arkansas lawmakers balked at requiring women seeking abortions to have the more invasive imaging technique.
North Dakota's legislation doesn't specify how a fetal heartbeat would be detected.
Doctors performing an abortion after a heartbeat is detected could face a felony charge punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. Women having an abortion would not face charges.
The legislation to ban abortions based on genetic defects also would ban abortion based on gender selection. The Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortion laws throughout the country, says Pennsylvania, Arizona and Oklahoma also have laws outlawing abortion based on gender selection.
The Republican-led North Dakota Legislature has endorsed a spate of anti-abortion Legislation this year. North Dakota lawmakers moved last week to outlaw abortion in the state by passing a resolution defining life as starting at conception, essentially banning abortion in the state. The measure is likely to come before voters in November 2014.
Dalrymple attended a groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday for a new diesel refinery in western North Dakota and made no public appearance to explain his signing of the abortion legislation.
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AMMAN, Jordan (AP) ? Mideast powers opposed to President Bashar Assad have dramatically stepped up weapons supplies to Syrian rebels in coordination with the U.S. in preparation for a push on the capital of Damascus, officials and Western military experts said Wednesday.
A carefully prepared covert operation is arming rebels, involving Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, with the United States and other Western governments consulting, and all parties hold veto power over where the shipments are directed, according to a senior Arab official whose government is participating. His account was corroborated by a diplomat and two military experts.
The Arab official said the number of arms airlifts into Jordan and Turkey has doubled in the past four weeks. He did not provide exact figures on the flights or the size of the cargo. Jordan opened up as a new route for the weapons late last year, amid U.S. worries that arms from Turkey were going to Islamic militants, all four told The Associated Press in separate interviews. Jordan denies helping funnel weapons to the rebels.
The two military experts, who closely follow the traffic, said the weapons include more powerful, Croatian-made anti-tank guns and rockets than the rebels have had before.
The Arab official said there was a "master plan" for the rebels to seize Damascus. He and the diplomat spoke to the AP on condition that their identities and their nationalities not be disclosed because the operation was covert.
"The idea is that the rebels now have the necessary means to advance from different fronts ? north from Turkey and south from Jordan ? to close in on Damascus to unseat Assad," the Arab official said. He declined to provide details, but said the plan is being prepared in stages and will take "days or weeks" for results.
Rebels have captured suburbs around Damascus but have been largely unable to break into the heavily guarded capital. Instead, they have hit central neighborhoods of the city with increasingly heavy mortar volleys from their positions to the northeast and south.
But rebels in the south are fighting to secure supply lines from the border with Jordan to the capital, and the new influx of weapons from Jordan has fueled the drive, a rebel commander in a southwestern suburb of the capital said. The consensus among the multiple rebel groups was that Damascus is the next objective, he added.
"There is an attempt to secure towns and villages along the international line linking Amman and Damascus. Significant progress is being made. The new weapons come in that context," said the commander, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of Syrian government reprisal. He said his own fighters on the capital's outskirts had not received any arms from the influx but that he had heard about the new weapons from comrades in the south.
Syria's rebels, who are divided into numerous independent brigades, have long complained that the international community is not providing them with the weaponry needed to oust Assad, drawing out a civil war that in the past two years has killed more than 70,000 people and displaced 3.5 million Syrians, nearly a third of them fleeing into neighboring countries.
But the United States in particular has been wary of arming the rebellion, fearing weapons will go to Islamic extremists who have taken a prominent role in the uprising. Washington says it is only providing non-lethal aid to the rebels. The U.S. involvement in the arms channels opened up by its regional allies is aimed at ensuring the weapons are not going to militants.
The Arab official, the diplomat and the military experts said the material was destined for "secular" fighters not necessarily linked to the Free Syrian Army, the nominal umbrella group for the rebels. Jordan and other Arabs have been critical of the FSA, which they accuse of having failed as an effective or credible force because its elements lack the fighting skills and military prowess.
The four described a system in which Saudi Arabia and Qatar provide the funding for the weapons, while Jordan and Turkey provide the land channels for the shipments to reach the rebels, while all coordinate with the U.S. and other Western governments on the shipments' destinations. All must agree for a shipment to go through. The Arab official said some of the arms are being purchased from Croatia, or from U.S. drawdowns in unspecified European countries. He said other sources were black market arms dealers across Europe and the Mideast.
Jordanian Information Minister Sameeh Maayatah insisted the kingdom was not helping funnel weapons. "Jordan is neither assisting the Assad regime, nor its opponents," he told the AP. Instead, he argued, Jordan wants a "quick political solution" to the Syrian crisis.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry would not confirm weapons transfer through Turkey, saying, "We have no official information to confirm such reports or claims."
Initially, Turkey was the main route for arms smuggled to the rebels when the flow began in early 2012, but Washington was unhappy that some weapons ended up in the hands of militants, the four said in separate interviews with the AP.
Subsequently, Jordan became an additional route, with the first airlift landing there Dec. 13, they said. Jordan insisted that its role remain clandestine so that it would not be at risk of reprisal by Assad's forces or rockets, they said. Jordan borders Syria to the south, and its frontier is within a two-hour drive of Damascus.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on the sidelines of a Syrian opposition meeting in Italy last month that the weapons are ending up in the hands of secular groups. "I will tell you this: There is a very clear ability now in the Syrian opposition to make certain that what goes to the moderate, legitimate opposition is in fact getting to them, and the indication is that they are increasing their pressure as a result of that," he said, without elaborating.
Wrapping up a summit in Qatar on Tuesday, Arab states underlined their right to arm the Syrian rebels, noting the growing frustration with Assad's regime and with what is believed to be a supply of weapons flowing to his regime from his main ally, Iran. Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are headed by Sunni Muslim governments seeking the fall of Assad's regime, which is dominated by Syria's Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. The Arab powers in particular are hoping Assad's departure would break the influence in the region of predominantly Shiite Iran and its Hezbollah allies in Lebanon.
In an interview with the AP last week, Jordan's King Abdullah II said Assad's days were numbered, but warned of the risk that Syria might use chemical weapons against its neighbors, including Jordan. Traditionally, Damascus has been suspicious of its smaller southern neighbor, whom it accuses of being a U.S. puppet and a spy for Israel since the 1994 Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty. Despite the tensions, their common border has remained relatively quiet and open.
The opening of the weapons pipeline through Jordan "provides a fresh approach" to Syrian rebels, said Shashank Joshi, a military expert who has been monitoring the arms flow for two years for Britain's Royal United Services Institute think tank.
"This way opens a new front in southern Syria. It breaks free from connections with Saudi and Lebanese middlemen (in Turkey), while ensuring the weapons get to those rebels with secular, or nationalist ties, rather than the jihadists," he said.
Sweden-based arms trafficking expert Hugh Griffiths, who has been monitoring the arms flow and collecting independent data, said some 3,500 tons of military equipment have been shipped to the rebels since the traffic began in early 2012. He said there were at least 160 airlifts of weapons deliveries from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and later Jordan, with the most recent being a shipment of unspecified material from Qatar to Turkey on Sunday.
"Nothing compares in terms of the intensity of these flights over months-long periods at a time," said Griffiths, of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Two prominent independent researchers monitoring weapons traffic ? Eliot Higgins in Britain and Nic Jenzen-Jones in Australia ? said Croatian arms began appearing only recently in Syria. They include M60 recoilless guns, M79 Osa rocket launchers, and RBG-6 grenade launchers, which all are powerful anti-tank weapons.
Griffiths said the Croatian arms are a "major game changer." He said they are "portable, but pack a much bigger explosive punch."
The question will be whether the arms influx will tip the balance if rebels do launch an offensive for Damascus ? and whether the attempt to boost more moderate rebels over Islamists will be effective.
Syrian opposition activists estimate there are 15-20 different brigades fighting in and around Damascus now, each with up to 150 fighters. Many of them have Islamic tendencies and bear black-and-white Islamic flags or al-Qaida-style flags on their Facebook pages. There is also a presence of Jabhat al-Nusra, one of the strongest Islamic militant groups fighting alongside the rebels. In the Damascus area, the al-Nusra fighters are active mostly in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp, but the presence is not as strong as it is in the north and east.
Capt. Islam Alloush, a spokesman for Liwaa al-Islam, a prominent rebel brigade with an Islamist ideology that is operating outside Damascus, denied any arms were being smuggled into southern Syria. "If there are any weapons being brought in, it would be from the north," he said.
Still, he said rebels were gearing up for the battle for Damascus. "We have been preparing for it for a long time. We have our own strategy," he said. "God willing, the battle for Damascus will begin soon."
___
Associated Press writers Zeina Karam and Bassem Mroue contributed reporting from Beirut.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/officials-arms-shipments-rise-syrian-rebels-203529946.html
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The Washington Post reported over the weekend that a proposal by officials in Fairfax County, Virginia, to get the FBI to move its headquarters to a seemingly unused patch of government land next to a Metro station has run into opposition from a secret source. ?It seems that the CIA is a tenant, and, indeed, has used the facility for years for clandestine purposes of some sort. ...
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cyprus-capital-controls-last-matter-weeks-minister-091746670--finance.html
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Mar. 25, 2013 ? Two forthcoming European Physical Journal D papers challenge established wisdom about the nature of vacuum. In one paper, Marcel Urban from the University of Paris-Sud, located in Orsay, France and his colleagues identified a quantum level mechanism for interpreting vacuum as being filled with pairs of virtual particles with fluctuating energy values. As a result, the inherent characteristics of vacuum, like the speed of light, may not be a constant after all, but fluctuate.
Meanwhile, in another study, Gerd Leuchs and Luis L. S?nchez-Soto, from the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Light in Erlangen, Germany, suggest that physical constants, such as the speed of light and the so-called impedance of free space, are indications of the total number of elementary particles in nature.
Vacuum is one of the most intriguing concepts in physics. When observed at the quantum level, vacuum is not empty. It is filled with continuously appearing and disappearing particle pairs such as electron-positron or quark-antiquark pairs. These ephemeral particles are real particles, but their lifetimes are extremely short. In their study, Urban and colleagues established, for the first time, a detailed quantum mechanism that would explain the magnetisation and polarisation of the vacuum, referred to as vacuum permeability and permittivity, and the finite speed of light. This finding is relevant because it suggests the existence of a limited number of ephemeral particles per unit volume in a vacuum.
As a result, there is a theoretical possibility that the speed of light is not fixed, as conventional physics has assumed. But it could fluctuate at a level independent of the energy of each light quantum, or photon, and greater than fluctuations induced by quantum level gravity. The speed of light would be dependent on variations in the vacuum properties of space or time. The fluctuations of the photon propagation time are estimated to be on the order of 50 attoseconds per square meter of crossed vacuum, which might be testable with the help of new ultra-fast lasers.Leuchs and Sanchez-Soto, on the other hand, modelled virtual charged particle pairs as electric dipoles responsible for the polarisation of the vacuum.
They found that a specific property of vacuum called the impedance, which is crucial to determining the speed of light, depends only on the sum of the square of the electric charges of particles but not on their masses. If their idea is correct, the value of the speed of light combined with the value of vacuum impedance gives an indication of the total number of charged elementary particles existing in nature. Experimental results support this hypothesis.
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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/physics/~3/OKTioXXFUZ8/130325111154.htm
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Older couples should reassess their relationship as they approach retirement, Relate has claimed.
In a new survey of over 50s, conducted by for the relationships advisors by Ipsos MORI, a happy relationship came second only to good health in a list of the most important factors in a relationship. In addition, 91 per cent of the respondents described a happy relationship as ?very important? in retirement.
Meanwhile, three quarters of the over 50s said they would ?turn to their partner in times of need?.
Ruth Sutherland, Chief Executive of Relate, said older couples should use the approach of retirement to take a fresh look at their marriage.
?This survey tells us that strong and healthy relationships are a key ingredient for a good old age?. Retiring is a good time to think about your relationship ? is it ready for the changes that later life can bring? We know at Relate that people often don?t seek help until things are going badly wrong in their relationship and we?re encouraging people to invest early to get the most out of their old age.?
The advisory service has launched a new website focused on relationships in later life. It has also partnered with grandparents website Gransnet to offer an online ?relationship checker?. This asks users to consider whether their relationship is ?drifting in the doldrums of midlife or sailing off into the sunset.?
It notes:
?Midlife can be wearing on romance ? but relationships can also stay fit.?
Gransnet editor Geraldine Bedell ?said: ?We?re delighted to partner with Relate on this important campaign?.All sorts of things can knock relationships off course, but with a little TLC, relationships can also spiral upwards again surprisingly quickly.?
Photo by?Detective C?via Flickr under a Creative Commons licence
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Source: http://www.marilynstowe.co.uk/2013/03/24/marriage-health-check-recommended-for-older-couples/
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Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/video/cnbc/51295790/
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Viewing angle is one of the factors missing from the stereo-vision hack being marketed as "3d" today. Another is focal depth.
Supplying 64 different angles of view is (barely) a start. It'll still foul up your visual processing, though, because the focus cues to your brain are entirely wrong. And that, unfortunately, leads to neurological problems like headaches.
You're not going to see actual 3d displays for a while. First we need the tech, then we need it standardized so manufacturers have a consistent targ
Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/PXuaGV_y6IY/story01.htm
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How is your career going? How is your life going?
Do you lead a charmed life? Do you wish that every day was Groundhog's Day? Are you, literally, sucking the juice out of every day and accomplishing everything that you had hoped to accomplish? My guess is that there are very few people who can truly make these claims of unbridled glee. We live in an anxiety-riddled society, where even the people we look up to as the top performers suffer from the same stress, fears and concerns that the rest of us do. In short: life isn't easy. Being all Zen and at one with the quiet of the earth may be the daily spiritual ascent of monks and those fascinated with the new age, but for the vast majority of us (and I count myself as one of them), even a rigorous and regular schedule of meditation and relaxation is less about finding that Zen, and more about holding the anxious wolves at bay, if but for a few moments of solace in an otherwise calendar-packed day of meetings, assignments, pressures and more from both work and home.
Shoring it all up.
There is no clear-cut answer to happiness. You can read books, speak to a professional, carve out moments to find your balance and more, but in the end we all have bills to pay, expectations from others that need to be fulfilled and our own, personal development to satisfy. Even when things are going well and money becomes less of an issue of survival, many of us begin to look at what's next. Where is all of this taking us? What will make us happy now and tomorrow? When it comes to work, the layers of complexity are magnified. I am currently reading Lean In, the first business book by Sheryl Sandberg (of Facebook fame). It makes many strong (and some might say, controversial) statements about women in the workplace. It's an issue that I never understood, thankfully, because I entered the workplace without having knowledge that there was a time and place when women weren't welcome. I also chose work environments where there was always a near-even balance between men and women (and lots of diversity, I might add). In the handful of positions that I have held, two of those instances had me working for women bosses. I recall being at chamber of commerce event over a decade ago and someone asking me what it was like to have a woman for a boss. That question stopped me dead in my tracks. It was never even a thought in my mind, and it was also something that I didn't realize would be on someone else's mind. Sadly, it turns out that I may be in the minority.
What's a woman (and man) to do????
Several months ago, I had the honor of speaking to the senior-most marketers of Mattel (Barbie, Hot Wheels, Matchbox, etc...). During dinner, there was an "Inside The Actor's Studio" component with three members of the leadership team. All of them were women. During the Q&A segment, one of the team members asked these leaders for the one piece of advice that has always stuck with them. One person on the panel said that her father told her as she entered the workforce this: "Remember, every day you are writing your resume."
Every day you are writing your resume.
What seemed like powerful advice from a loving father to a very business-driven daughter is a line that transcends gender, race, skill level and occupation. We worry about what how complete our LinkedIn profiles are. We spend countless hours gossiping about company policies or others within our own team. We're worried with everybody else's level of compensation and acknowledgements, when - in reality - so few of us spend much time - each and every day - making sure that we're writing our own resume.
There are power in words. There are power in actions.
Not a day goes by since hearing that story in late January that those words don't ring in my head. Multiple times a day. For me, it has become a key driver in focus and in creating the future that I hope to have. It certainly does take away the lazy and makes me choose activities that can help me write a better resume - whether it's spending thirty minutes on a stationary bike instead of watching Auction Kings or writing a blog post instead of getting lost in Facebook's newsfeed or thinking up a strategy for a client at Twist Image instead of wondering who I am meeting for lunch. Choices. We all make choices. If I'm going to spend the majority of my waking hours thinking about the business, it may as well have the hue of writing a better resume for myself anchored to it.
So, what are you doing to write your own resume every day? What words inspire you daily to do more?
By
Source: http://www.twistimage.com/blog/archives/writing-your-resume-its-not-what-you-think/
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You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/18/the-daily-roundup-for-03-18-2013/
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'Killer dolphins' escape: A story of highly-trained killer dolphins escaping from a Ukrainian military facility has turned out to be a hoax. But there is such a thing as a military dolphin.
Sergeant Andrew Garrett watches as K-Dog, a bottle nose dolphin attached to Commander Task Unit 55.4.3 leaps out of the water while training near the USS Gunston Hall in the Persian Gulf in 2003.
Brien Aho/US Navy/AP/File
EnlargeThree "killer dolphins" trained by the Ukrainian navy to kill combat swimmers, possibly armed with guns or knives attached to their heads, have escaped and are now roaming the Black Sea in search of a mate.
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At least that's what a?Ukrainian?and Russian news outlets are claiming, and it's almost certainly not true.?
The state-owned RIA Novosti repeated stories Thursday from Ukrainian media outlets that said that, following a training exercise in the Crimean port of Sevastopol, only?two of five military-trained dolphins returned to their handler. From there, the story was picked up by many English-language news outlets.
But?Ukraine's Defense Ministry has denied the reports, and has refused to confirm that its navy even has a dolphin program.
The Atlantic, which originally accepted the report as more or less factual, followed up with the news that the story is a hoax, apparently started by a museum director.?
But is it plausible? Does the Ukrainian military train dolphins for warfare??
Apparently, it does, just like the US Navy does. Beginning in 1973, the Soviet Navy in?Sebastopol?trained dolphins to detect military equipment such as mines on the seabed, to attack divers, and even to carry explosives on their heads to plant on enemy ships.
After the USSR broke up and the Black Sea Fleet divided into Ukrainian and Russian fleets, the Ukrainian Navy took over the dolphin training section, which then were used for civilian goals such as working with disabled children. In 2000, the BBC reported that many of the trained dolphins, along with several sea lions, walruses, and a beluga whale, were sold to the Iranian government.?
Dolphins are believed to be the world's second smartest animals, at least by human standards, with a large capacity for social cognition. ?US Navy officials said dolphins have exceptional sonar and deep diving capabilities that outperform anything human divers or the latest technology developments can provide. The US Navy has relied on specially trained dolphins and sea lions to find sea mines, that, if not found, could sink ships, destroy landing crafts and kill or injure people, according to the American Forces Press Service.
US military dolphins programs date back to in the early 1960s, when the military first started to study the aqua-dynamics of the mammals to help them design ships and submarines. The Navy quickly realized the animals could be used for more complex assistance tasks.
In addition to dolphins, the US Navy has also trained whales, grey seals, and sea lions for military purposes. Such marine mammals are so important that there is an entire program dedicated to studying, training, and deploying them, called the Navy Marine Mammal Program (NMMP).
The dolphins, according to NMMP officials, usually receive two or three years of specialty training before working on underwater security projects. Recently, NMMP, which is based in?San Diego, Cal.,?used its militarized dolphins to train Montenegrin Navy divers to locate and clear underwater mines and explosives dating back to World War I.
Last year, the Navy announced that it would be laying off some of its mine-seeking dolphins, replacing them with robots.?
Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/E08-C3dtaII/Killer-dolphins-escape-Not-so-fast
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FILE- This March 5, 2009, file photo shows the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington. The Supreme Court will struggle this week with the validity of an Arizona law that tries to keep illegal immigrants from voting by demanding all state residents show documents proving their U.S. citizenship before registering to vote in national elections. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
FILE- This March 5, 2009, file photo shows the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington. The Supreme Court will struggle this week with the validity of an Arizona law that tries to keep illegal immigrants from voting by demanding all state residents show documents proving their U.S. citizenship before registering to vote in national elections. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Supreme Court will struggle this week with the validity of an Arizona law that tries to keep illegal immigrants from voting by demanding all state residents show documents proving their U.S. citizenship before registering to vote in national elections.
The high court will hear arguments Monday over the legality of Arizona's voter-approved requirement that prospective voters document their U.S. citizenship in order to use a registration form produced under the federal "Motor Voter" voter registration law that doesn't require such documentation.
This case focuses on voter registration in Arizona, which has tangled frequently with the federal government over immigration issues involving the Mexican border. But it has broader implications because four other states ? Alabama, Georgia, Kansas and Tennessee ? have similar requirements, and 12 other states are contemplating similar legislation, officials say.
The Obama administration is supporting challengers to the law.
If Arizona can add citizenship requirements, then "each state could impose all manner of its own supplemental requirements beyond the federal form," Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. said in court papers. "Those requirements could encompass voluminous documentary or informational demands, and could extend to any eligibility criteria beyond citizenship, such as age, residency, mental competence, or felony history."
A federal appeals court threw out the part of Arizona's Proposition 200 that added extra citizenship requirements for voter registration, but only after lower federal judges had approved it.
Arizona wants the justices to reinstate its requirement.
Kathy McKee, who led the push to get the proposition on the ballot, said voter fraud, including by illegal immigrants, continues to be a problem in Arizona. "For people to conclude there is no problem is just shallow logic," McKee said.
Opponents of Arizona's law see it as an attack on vulnerable voter groups such as minorities, immigrants and the elderly. They say Arizona's law makes registering more difficult, which is an opposite result from the intention of the 1993 National Voter Registration Act.
Proposition 200 "was never intended to combat voter fraud," said Democratic state Sen. Steve Gallardo of Phoenix. "It was intended to keep minorities from voting."
With the additional state documentation requirements, Arizona will cripple the effectiveness of neighborhood and community voter registration drives, advocates say. More than 28 million Americans used the federal "Motor Voter" form to register to vote in the 2008 presidential elections, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
An Arizona victory at the high court would lead to more state voting restrictions, said Elisabeth MacNamara, the national president of the League of Women Voters.
Opponents of the Arizona provision say they've counted more than 31,000 potentially legal voters in Arizona who easily could have registered before Proposition 200 but who were blocked initially by the law in the 20 months after it passed in 2004. They say about 20 percent of those thwarted were Latino.
Arizona officials say they should be able to pass laws to stop illegal immigrants and other noncitizens from getting on their voting rolls. The Arizona voting law was part of a package that also denied some government benefits to illegal immigrants and required Arizonans to show identification before voting.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the voter identification provision. The denial of benefits was not challenged.
Opponents "argue that Arizona should not be permitted to request evidence of citizenship when someone registers to vote, but should instead rely on the person's sworn statement that he or she is a citizen," Arizona Attorney General Thomas C. Horne said in court papers.
"The fallacy in that is that someone who is willing to vote illegally will be willing to sign a false statement. What (opponents) are urging is that there should be nothing more than an honor system to assure that registered voters are citizens. That was not acceptable to the people of Arizona."
The Arizona proposition was enacted into law with 55 percent of the vote.
This is the second voting issue the high court is tackling this session. Last month, several justices voiced deep skepticism about whether a section of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a law that has helped millions of minorities exercise their right to vote, especially in areas of the Deep South, was still needed.
This case involves laws of more recent vintage.
The federal "Motor Voter" law, enacted in 1993 to expand voter registration, allows would-be voters to fill out a mail-in voter registration card and swear they are citizens under penalty of perjury, but it doesn't require them to show proof.
Under Proposition 200 approved in 2004, Arizona officials require an Arizona driver's license issued after 1996, a U.S. birth certificate, a passport or other similar document, or the state will reject the federal registration application form.
This requirement applies only to people who seek to register using the federal mail-in form. Arizona has its own form and an online system to register when renewing a driver's license. The court ruling did not affect proof of citizenship requirements using the state forms.
State officials say more than 90 percent of those Arizonans applying to vote using the federal form will be able to simply write down their driver's license number, and all naturalized citizens simply will be able to write down their naturalization number without needed additional documents.
Former Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce, a leading Republican proponent of Proposition 200, strongly disputed claims that Arizona doesn't have voter fraud problems. "They turn a blind eye," Pearce said of the state's election officials.
But Karen Osborne, elections director for Maricopa County, where nearly 60 percent of Arizona's voters live, said voter fraud is rare, and even rarer among illegal immigrants.
"That just does not seem to be an issue," Osborne said of the claim that illegal immigrants are voting. "They did not want to come out of the shadows. They don't want to be involved with the government."
The main legal question facing the justices is whether the federal law trumps Arizona's law. A 10-member panel of the 9th Circuit in San Francisco said it did.
The appeals court issued multiple rulings in this case, with a three-judge panel initially siding with Arizona. A second panel that included retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who from time to time sits on appeals courts, reversed course and blocked the registration requirement. The full court then did the same, and that decision will be reviewed by the justices in Washington.
The case is 12-71, Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc.
___
Billeaud reported from Phoenix.
___
Follow Jesse J. Holland on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jessejholland
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OS X: Alfred, your favorite desktop search program and one of our favorite application launchers, just updated to version 2, almost completely rewritten from the ground up for speed and with a few new features. Here's what you'll find.
Apart from speed boosts and a few other improvements (like better contact searching and more themes), the biggest change in Alfred 2 is a feature called Workflows, which lets you perform a number of actions at once using custom scripts. For example, you can:
flickr and the image in question, after which it will notify you of when the upload starts and finishesmovie and search a movie name to load that movie's trailer, IMDB page, and Rotten Tomatoes pageAlfred 2 comes with a few workflows, but you can also create your own with its templates. Check out Alfred's original blog post on Workflows for more info, as well as their guide to version 2 for some links on where you can find more. And, of course, hit the link below to download it and try it out for yourself.
Alfred v2 (Free)
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Paul Marshallsea seen grabbing a shark. (Wales News Service via Telegraph)
A 62-year-old man who bravely dragged a shark away from children at an Australian beach has been fired from his job at a British charity because he had claimed to be on sick leave.
Paul Marshallsea and his 56-year-old wife, Wendy, were on leave from the Pant & Dowlais Boys & Girls Club in Wales for "work-related stress" in January, when he was spotted on a video grabbing the shark in shallow water as it approached the children and pulling it in the other direction. The footage, captured by a local television crew, went viral, with Marshallsea "hailed a hero," as London's Telegraph newspaper put it.
"We don't recommend manhandling sharks, but this gentleman did a great job," a spokesman for the Australian coast guard said at the time.
But Marshallsea and his wife returned from Australia to find a letter from the charity's board of trustees informing the pair they had been fired.
"Whilst unfit to work you were well enough to travel to Australia," the letter read in part. "And, according to recent news footage of yourself in Queensland, you allegedly grabbed a shark by the tail and narrowly missed being bitten by quickly jumping out of the way.?
The husband and wife had worked there for 10 years.
"You think being in charge and running a children's charity, they would have patted me on the back and congratulated me," Marshallsea told the paper. "But to sack us both without any sort of discussion first is just disgusting."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/man-shark-wrestle-video-fired-155745529.html
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'Idol's' Top 10 go head-to-head Wednesday night, and we rank the remaining contestants.
By James Montgomery
Angie Miller
Photo: Michael Becker/ Fox
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1703566/american-idol-top-10.jhtml
Vision scientists long have thought that lack of very long chain fatty acids in photoreceptor cells caused blindness in children with Stargardt type 3 retinal degeneration, an incurable eye disease. But researchers at the University of Utah's John A. Moran Eye Center have shown in a new study that lack of these fatty acids does not cause blindness, meaning that the search for the mechanism that robs sight from children with the disease must start anew.
Researchers led by David Krizaj, Ph.D., associate professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences at the Moran Eye Center, bred mice that lacked fatty acids in their photoreceptor cells and to their surprise found that the mice's eyesight was normal. "There was no defect in their daytime or nighttime vision," Krizaj says. "The lack of very long chain fatty acids does not appear to compromise vision in itself."
The research was published March 11, 2013, in PNAS online. Peter Barabas, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at the Moran Eye Center, is first author on the study.
Stargardt disease is a form of macular degeneration that strikes about one in 10,000 children between the ages of 6 and 20. There is no treatment for the disease, although there is evidence that nutrition supplements and protecting eyes from UV rays might be beneficial in slowing the progression of blindness.
There are three types of Stargardt disease caused by three different gene mutations. (Paul Bernstein, M.D., Ph.D., professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences and a co-author in the PNAS study, discovered one of the mutations in a Utah family.) Type 3, a rare dominant form of Stargardt disease, is caused by a mutation in ELOVL4, a gene that encodes an enzyme that helps to make fatty acids obtained through our diet into forms that can be incorporated into cell membranes. The mutation displaces the enzyme from its location in an intracellular organelle called endoplasmic reticulum into the cell cytosol, which blocks the synthesizing of very long chain fatty acids in photoreceptor cells. But proving that the lack of these fatty acids actually causes blindness has been difficult to show in experiments, because mice in which the ELOVL4 was knocked out did not survive.
Krizaj and his colleagues overcame that problem by engineering mouse models that lacked ELOVL4 only in their photoreceptor cells, allowing the mice to survive but with the fatty acids in those cells reduced up to 90 percent. This allowed them to test directly whether loss of very long chain fatty acids replicates vision loss observed in children with Stargardt's disease. As they report in the journal, electrophysiological and behavioral testing of daytime and night vision in genetically engineered mice showed that sight was not affected despite the dramatic reduction in very long chain fatty acids in photoreceptor cells.
Researchers now must look for a different cause of Stargardt type 3. "If it's not the loss of fatty acids causing the disease, then we'll have to find other strategies to help these kids," Krizaj says.
One possibility, according to Krizaj, is that mutated proteins, escaping from the endoplasmic reticulum are aggregating in the cytoplasm causing large deposits consisting of mutated and normal proteins, which is "almost like causing photoreceptor cell death by blocking intracellular traffic and clogging the cells' drains."
###
University of Utah Health Sciences: http://www.healthcare.utah.edu/publicaffairs/
Thanks to University of Utah Health Sciences for this article.
This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.
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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127253/Long_suspected_cause_of_blindness_from_eye_disease_disproved
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Here's what you missed over the weekend in MMA if you were wrapped up in a baseball fight with actual punches thrown or a dunk that may have killed a guy (metaphorically speaking.)
-- Remember that Mark Hunt ? Junior dos Santos bout that UFC president Dana White said isn't happening? Now it is. MMA Fighting reports the two will meet at UFC 160 in May. Dos Santos was supposed to fight Alistair Overeem on that weekend, but an injury took Overeem out of the bout.
This will be dos Santos' first fight since losing the UFC heavyweight belt to Cain Velasquez. Hunt is currently riding a four-fight winning streak, with the most recent win coming over Stefan Struve on March 3.
-- UFC flyweight champ Demetrious Johnson had successful surgery over the weekend to repair a torn labrum. The injury forced him out of his April 13 title defense. Johnson will find out later this week how long his rehab should last.
-- Lightweight Joe Lauzon's last bout was a memorable loss to Jim Miller at UFC 155. Damage from that fight caused considerable scar tissue in Lauzon's face. He is in (kinda gross) treatment to break the scar tissue up and hopes to return to action this summer.
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United States's David Wright hits a grand slam during the fifth inning of a World Baseball Classic game against Italy Saturday, March 9, 2013, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
United States's David Wright hits a grand slam during the fifth inning of a World Baseball Classic game against Italy Saturday, March 9, 2013, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
United States's David Wright is greeted by teammates after hitting a grand slam in the fifth inning of a World Baseball Classic game against Italy Saturday, March 9, 2013, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
United States's David Wright celebrates as he crosses the plate after hitting a grand slam in the fifth inning of a World Baseball Classic game against Italy Saturday, March 9, 2013, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Italy left fielder Lorenzo Avagnina chases after a grand slam hit by United States's David Wright during the fifth inning of a World Baseball Classic game Saturday, March 9, 2013, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
United States pitcher Ryan Vogelsong throws during the second inning of a World Baseball Classic game against Italy on Saturday, March 9, 2013, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
PHOENIX (AP) ? With one swing, David Wright got the sputtering U.S. team off the mat in the World Baseball Classic.
The New York Mets slugger hit a two-out grand slam and the U.S. pitching did the rest in a 6-2 victory over Italy Saturday night.
Manager Joe Torre said he was finally able "to exhale" after Wright's hit
"Because we have been teasing ourselves the last couple of days and all of a sudden we blast it open," Torre said.
The U.S. (1-1) meets Canada (1-1) in the final game of Pool D play on Sunday with the winner advancing to the second round.
Ryan Vogelsong settled down after a shaky start to get the victory. The San Francisco right-hander went four-plus innings, allowing two runs and six hits, striking out four.
The U.S., bouncing back from Friday night's 5-2 loss to Mexico, fell behind 2-0 after two innings, but shut the Italian squad down on two hits the rest of the way.
"We were in the clubhouse last night and there was dead silence," Torre said. "It is a pretty determined group and when you look into their eyes you see something special."
Italy (2-1) clinched a second-round berth for the first time in its WBC history when Mexico lost to Canada earlier Saturday.
Washington's Ross Detwiler blanked Italy on one hit over the final four innings to get the save.
Vogelsong left after giving up a leadoff single in the fifth, then his Giants teammate Jeremy Affeldt retired three straight to end the inning. Detwiler did the rest.
Vogelsong said the experience was "very similar" to the feelings he had last season in San Francisco's' run to the World Series title.
"Same kind of emotions," he said. "Not exactly how I planned it in my mind, but it was fun."
Wright, Jimmy Rollins, Brandon Phillips and Ryan Braun had two hits apiece for the United States, which could have lost to Italy and still advanced, but would have needed to beat Canada and deal with the run differential tiebreaker mess in place for the WBC's first round. Now, all it will take is a victory over the Canadians, who beat Mexico 10-3 in a game married by a big, ninth-inning brawl.
Down 2-1 after four innings, the U.S. finally got the big hit it had been lacking in WBC play.
Adam Jones led off the fifth with a walk, then Jonathan Lucroy singled and Phillips singled Jones home to tie it at 2-2.
Ryan Braun narrowly missed a home run on a foul ball to deep left but struck out, then Joe Mauer walked to load the bases.
That brought up Wright, who hit Matt Torra's 1-2 pitch over the left field wall several rows into the seats and the United States had its first lead of the tournament, and by a whopping four runs.
'It's emotional," Wright said. "You hear the 'USA' chants, you look up in the stands and see the flag."
The Americans, who were 2 of 13 with runners in scoring position, squandered an early opportunity when Rollins singled and Phillips reached safely on a bunt for a base hit in the first. But Braun hit into a double play and Mauer flew out.
Italy, off to a surprising 2-0 start in the WBC, scored in its half of the first when second baseman Nick Punto singled, advanced to third on Anthony Rizzo's single and scored on Vogelsong's wild pitch.
After two outs in the second, Tyler Latorre singled and scored when Anthony Granato, the No. 9 hitter in the order, doubled over Jones' head in center to make it 2-0.
The U.S. cut it to 2-1 in the fourth when Mauer doubled home Braun.
Meanwhile, Vogelsong was rolling, striking out the final batter in the third and all three in the fourth.
Wright's slam was the second for the United States in its WBC history. The first was by Jason Varitek against Canada on March 8, 2006.
The second baseman Phillips made a spectacular play to rob Mario Charini to end the sixth inning. The Cincinnati Reds star made a diving stop to his right, then threw from a sitting position to first, throwing his hands in the air in triumph when the ball got to the bag ahead of the runner.
Italy used nine pitchers. The second, Marco Grifantini, took the loss, going one inning plus two batters, allowing three runs and three hits.
Punto said the Italian players gathered in a big room at their hotel to watch the Mexico-Canada game.
"It was an exciting moment for all of us," he said. "We were in there celebrating, knowing that we were moving on to Miami no matter what."
Associated Press