US plans significant military presence in Kuwait

WASHINGTON (AP) ? A congressional report says the United States is planning a significant military presence of 13,500 troops in Kuwait to give it the flexibility to respond to sudden conflicts in the region.

The study by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee examined the U.S. relationship with the six nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council ? Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.

The Associated Press obtained the report in advance of Tuesday's release. It comes as the Middle East deals with the demands of the Arab Spring, the end to U.S. combat operations in Iraq at the end of 2011 and fears of Iran's nuclear program.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said he envisions about 40,000 troops stationed in the Middle East region after the withdrawal from Iraq.

Associated Press

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30 under 30: Exploring String Theory to Figure Out How Things Work

Features | More Science

Meet Ioannis Florakis, 29, one of the up-and-coming physicists attending this year's Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting

June 19, 2012

Image: Courtesy Ioannis Florakis

We?ve long understood black holes to be the points at which the universe as we know it comes to an end. Often billions of times more massive than the Sun, they...

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The annual Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting brings a wealth of scientific minds to the shores of Germany?s Lake Constance. Every summer at Lindau, dozens of Nobel Prize winners exchange ideas with hundreds of young researchers from around the world. Whereas the Nobelists are the marquee names, the younger contingent is an accomplished group in its own right. In advance of this year?s meeting, which focuses on physics, we are profiling several promising attendees under the age of 30. The profile below is the 14th in a series of 30.

Name: Ioannis Florakis
Age: 29
Born: Athens, Greece
Nationality: Greek

Current position: Postdoctoral researcher, Max Planck Institute for Physics and Ludwig-Maximilian University, Munich, Germany
Education: Bachelor?s degree from the University of Athens, master's and doctoral degrees from Ecole Normale Sup?rieure (University of Paris)

What is your field of research?
My research focuses in the field of theoretical high-energy physics and, in particular, superstring theory.

What drew you to physics, and to that research area in particular?
I would say that, since a very young age, I had an inherently curious spirit. It was precisely this intrinsic desire to understand ?how things work? that drew my attention to physics and mathematics. In particular, I can remember spending my final years before high school graduation struggling to read books on higher mathematics, so that I would apply this knowledge to physical problems. The pleasure gained from the satisfaction of ?finding things out? was what made me realize this is the road I would pursue in life. I should also add that a very important element that helped trigger my passion for theoretical physics was my constant impression that high school textbooks were often filled with oversimplifying arguments that I rarely considered satisfactory. My specific choice of research domain (theoretical physics and, in particular, string theory) was largely motivated by the conviction that, despite their apparent complexity, physical phenomena can actually be described in terms of a small set of fundamental principles (i.e. symmetries), which can in turn be re-cast into precise mathematical form.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
It is hard to make predictions about the future, though I certainly aspire to continue contributing to the scientific community. One of the problems that I consider fundamentally important is the study of thermodynamics in the extreme high temperature regime, within the framework of an ultraviolet-complete theory that contains gravity, such as string theory. It appears that various theoretical problems arise in such regimes, where the energy (or curvature) approaches the Planck (or string) scale, the scale where the effects of quantum gravity are expected to dominate. There is also evidence that the correct understanding of string theory in the high-temperature (or high-curvature) regime may provide answers to some of the long-standing problems of cosmology and, in particular, the initial singularity problem. It seems that part of the difficulty of analyzing string thermodynamics in such setups is due to the absence of mathematical techniques adapted for such calculations. My current research essentially aims to develop techniques that will hopefully help treat this long-standing problem.

Who are your scientific heroes?
There are several scientists whose work and, sometimes, whose approach to science and life in general I deeply admire. I could mention, for example, Werner Heisenberg, Paul Dirac, Richard Feynman and Eugene Wigner.

What activities outside of physics do you most enjoy?
One of my favorite musical instruments is the piano, which I have played since an early age. I also have a special interest in listening to classic music records and films.

What do you hope to gain from this year?s Lindau meeting?
Attending the Lindau Nobel meetings is a unique opportunity for any young scientist to meet and discuss with some of the pioneers of the field and profit from their deep physical insight. Personally, I believe that events such as the Lindau meeting help provide a source of considerable inspiration for a young scientist?s work. In this sense, the Lindau experience is unique, in that it permits an interaction of young researchers with the fathers of the field. I am certain that the discussions will influence my own views and ideas in a way beneficial to my research. In addition, it will also provide an excellent opportunity for me to meet and interact with other young researchers.

Are there any Nobelists whom you are particularly excited to meet or learn from at Lindau?
David Gross and Martinus Veltman are two of the Nobelists that will be present in Lindau this year and whom I am particularly looking forward to meeting. Their deep and important contributions to perturbative and non-perturbative quantum field theory and theoretical physics, in general, are well-known and now constitute standard textbook material. It will be a rare occasion for me to meet them in person.

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Merkel: Greek must stick to bailout terms

Supporters of the New Democracy conservative party celebrate at an election kiosk at Syntagma square in Athens, Sunday, June 17, 2012. The pro-bailout New Democracy party came in first Sunday in Greece's national election, and its leader has proposed forming a pro-euro coalition government.(AP Photo/Kostas Tsironis)

Supporters of the New Democracy conservative party celebrate at an election kiosk at Syntagma square in Athens, Sunday, June 17, 2012. The pro-bailout New Democracy party came in first Sunday in Greece's national election, and its leader has proposed forming a pro-euro coalition government.(AP Photo/Kostas Tsironis)

Brokers work as an image of the Euro 2012 soccer tournament appears on a screen at the Stock Exchange in Madrid Monday June 18, 2012. Spanish markets breathed a sigh of relief Monday with stocks opening higher and the country's borrowing costs dipping slightly after pro-bailout parties won the elections in Greece. Spain is a focus of fears it might be the next eurozone country to need a full bailout. The government is to announce this week how much of a euro100 billion fund it will tap to rescue banks that got burned when a real estate bubble popped. (AP Photo/Paul White)

Leader of the New Democracy conservative party Antonis Samaras, speaks to supporters at an election kiosk at Syntagma square in Athens, Sunday, June 17, 2012. The pro-bailout New Democracy party came in first Sunday in Greece's national election, and its leader has proposed forming a pro-euro coalition government.(AP Photo/Kostas Tsironis)

Radical Left party (SYRIZA) leader Alexis Tsipras waves to his supporters in front of Athens' university, Sunday, June 17, 2012. Alexis Tsipras and his party shot to prominence in the May 6 vote, where he came a surprise second and quadrupled his support since the 2009 election. Syriza party has vowed to rip up Greece's bailout agreements and repeal the austerity measures, which have included deep spending cuts on everything from health care to education and infrastructure, as well as tax hikes and reductions of salaries and pensions.(AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

ATHENS, Greece (AP) ? German Chancellor Angela Merkel is insisting that Greece must implement the reforms it agreed to in exchange for rescue loans from international creditors.

German news agency dapd reports that Merkel said at the Group of 20 summit in Mexico that "no departures can be made from the reform measures."

She added that "we have to count on Greece sticking to its commitments."

Stocks in Europe fell Monday after Merkel's comment. Markets are widely expecting that Greece will get more time to make budget cuts to avoid an aid cutoff that could see it leave the euro.

Associated Press

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Study improves understanding of surface molecules in controlling size of gold nanoparticles

ScienceDaily (June 18, 2012) ? North Carolina State University researchers have shown that the "bulkiness" of molecules commonly used in the creation of gold nanoparticles actually dictates the size of the nanoparticles -- with larger so-called ligands resulting in smaller nanoparticles. The research team also found that each type of ligand produces nanoparticles in a particular array of discrete sizes.

"This work advances our understanding of nanoparticle formation, and gives us a new tool for controlling the size and characteristics of gold nanoparticles," says Dr. Joseph Tracy, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the research. Gold nanoparticles are used in industrial chemical processes, as well as medical and electronics applications.

The bulkier the ligand, the fewer ligands can sit side-by-side -- leading to a smaller nanoparticle.

When creating gold nanoparticles, scientists often use organic molecules called ligands to facilitate the process. The ligands effectively bring gold atoms together in a solution to create the nanoparticles. In the process, ligands essentially line up side by side and surround the nanoparticles in all three dimensions.

The researchers wanted to see whether the bulkiness of the ligands affected nanoparticle size, and opted to assess three types of thiol ligands -- a family of ligands commonly used to synthesize gold nanoparticles. Specifically, the molecules bound to the gold nanoparticles are linear hexanethiolate (-SC6), cyclohexanethiolate (-SCy) and 1-adamantanethiolate (-SAd). Each of these ligands has a bulkier configuration than the last.

For example, picture each ligand as a slice of pie, with a gold atom attached to the pointed end. -SC6 looks like a very narrow slice of pie. -SCy is slightly larger, and -SAd is the largest of the three -- with the "crust" end of the pie wedge far wider than the pointed end.

The researchers found that the bulkiness of the ligands determined the size of the nanoparticles. Because fewer -SAd and -SCy ligands can line up next to each other in three dimensions, fewer gold atoms are brought together in the core. Therefore, the nanoparticles are smaller. -SC6, the least bulky of the thiolates, can create the largest nanoparticles.

"While we've shown that this is an effective means of controlling size in gold nanoparticles, we think it may have implications for other materials as well," says Peter Krommenhoek, a Ph.D. student at NC State and lead author of the paper. "That's something we're exploring."

But the researchers made another interesting finding as well.

When particularly small nanoparticles form, they tend to form at very specific sizes, called discrete sizes. For instance, some types of nanoparticles may consist of 25 or 28 atoms -- but never 26 or 27 atoms.

In this study, the researchers found that the bulkiness of the ligands also changed the discrete sizes of the nanoparticles. "This is interesting, in part, because each discrete size represents a different number of gold atoms and ligands," Tracy says, "which could influence the nanoparticle's chemical behavior. That question has yet to be addressed."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by North Carolina State University.

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. Peter J. Krommenhoek, Junwei Wang, Nathaniel Hentz, Aaron C. Johnston-Peck, Krystian A. Kozek, Gregory Kalyuzhny, Joseph B. Tracy. Bulky Adamantanethiolate and Cyclohexanethiolate Ligands Favor Smaller Gold Nanoparticles with Altered Discrete Sizes. ACS Nano, 2012; : 120615094327005 DOI: 10.1021/nn3003778

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.

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Wisconsin recall battle finally goes to voters

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, left, shakes hands with J & D Manufacturing employee Steve Poppe of Eau Claire, Wis., during a visit Monday, June 4, 2012 to the Altoona, Wis. company. The governor scheduled campaign stops at six of the state's largest cities on the day before Wisconsin's historic recall election. Walker's wife, Tonette, takes a photo, at right. (AP Photo/The Eau Claire Leader-Telegram, Steve Kinderman)

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, left, shakes hands with J & D Manufacturing employee Steve Poppe of Eau Claire, Wis., during a visit Monday, June 4, 2012 to the Altoona, Wis. company. The governor scheduled campaign stops at six of the state's largest cities on the day before Wisconsin's historic recall election. Walker's wife, Tonette, takes a photo, at right. (AP Photo/The Eau Claire Leader-Telegram, Steve Kinderman)

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, right, and Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, left, greet J & D Manufacturing employee Steve Poppe of Eau Claire, Wis., during a visit Monday, June 4, 2012 to the Altoona, Wis. company. The governor made campaign stops at six of the state's largest cities on the day before Wisconsin's historic recall election. (AP Photo/Eau Claire Leader-Telegram, Steve Kinderman).

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, left, shakes hands Monday, June 4, 2012 with J & D Manufacturing employee Ryan Schweikert of Eau Claire, Wis. during a tour of the Altoona, Wis. company. Walker visited six of Wisconsin's largest cities on the day before the state's historic recall election. (AP Photo/Eau Claire Leader-Telegram, Steve Kinderman).

MADISON, Wis. (AP) ? The battle over Gov. Scott Walker's agenda has attracted millions of dollars from out of state, campaign volunteers from across the country and months of concentrated attention from the two major political parties.

But on Tuesday, the only voices that matter will be those of Wisconsin voters deciding whether to keep Walker or fire him and hand his job to the Milwaukee mayor. After more than a year in the national spotlight, both sides are preparing for a razor-thin margin.

Polls show Walker, a Republican just 17 months into his term, with a small lead over Democrat Tom Barrett.

"You know what distresses me?" state Sen. Mark Miller said to a group of Democratic volunteers last week in Madison. "It's close. It's so darn close."

During Monday's first campaign stop, Walker said he expects a close race, too, and he's focused on turning out voters who supported his efforts to take on public-employee unions.

"We want to move on and move forward," Walker said at a plastics plant near Madison. He was joined by his wife, Tonette, who wore a button that read "Luv My Gov."

Walker planned other campaign stops at a brewery in Stevens Point and a distillery in Green Bay before wrapping up with a nighttime rally in Milwaukee.

Barrett was spending most of Monday in western and northern Wisconsin before ending his day with a rally at a United Auto Workers union hall in Kenosha.

Walker is only the third governor in U.S. history to face a recall vote. The other two lost, most recently California Gov. Gray Davis in 2003. Wisconsin's recall election is a rematch of the 2010 governor's race in which Walker defeated Barrett by 5 percentage points.

Walker's lieutenant governor, Rebecca Kleefisch, and three Republican state senators also face recall votes Tuesday. In addition, voters will fill a fourth state Senate seat after the Republican incumbent resigned rather than face the recall.

Anger over Walker and his conservative agenda began building almost as soon as he took office in January 2011. Just a month into his term, Walker took the state by surprise with a proposal to effectively end collective bargaining rights for most state workers. The recall idea emerged soon thereafter.

But the recall petition drive couldn't officially start until November, months after Walker signed the union changes into law. Organizers hit the streets a week before Thanksgiving and spent two months gathering more than 900,000 signatures ? about 360,000 more than were needed to trigger the election.

Retired teacher Jan Stebbins cast her ballot early for Barrett, just as she did two years ago. She said she's been offended by Walker, not by what he's done but "how he's done it."

Stebbins can't stand the division that's emerged in the past two years.

By Wednesday morning, she hopes the state "gets back to a little bit more unity," she said. "I don't know what will happen."

Todd Schober, a financial planner from Racine, voted for Walker in 2010 and plans to do so again on Tuesday.

"When is this going to end?" he asked after shaking his head and sighing. "I'm just going to be so glad when it's all over."

Walker, the 44-year-old son of a minister, has remained unflappable throughout the campaign just as he was during the massive protests that raged at the Statehouse for weeks as lawmakers debated his proposal.

Along the way, he's become a star among Republicans and the most successful fundraiser in Wisconsin politics, collecting at least $31 million from around the country since taking office. That obliterated his fundraising record of $11 million from 2010.

About $63 million has been spent on the race so far, including $16 million from conservative groups such as the Republican Governors Association, Americans for Prosperity and the National Rifle Association.

Democratic groups ? including those funded by unions, the Democratic Governors Association and the Democratic National Committee ? have poured in about $14 million, based on a tally from the government watchdog group the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

The majority of Walker's donations have come from people outside Wisconsin. Most of Barrett's $4.2 million came from inside the state.

The race has implications for national labor unions. It's also seen as a proxy fight for the presidential election, especially given the importance of Wisconsin and its 10 electoral votes.

President Barack Obama has kept his distance, just as he did during the unrest last year. Other prominent Democrats, including former President Bill Clinton, campaigned for Barrett in the week leading up to the vote.

White House press secretary Jeff Carney was asked during a briefing Monday why Obama wasn't campaigning for Barrett.

"The president supports him, stands by him," Carney said, adding that Obama hopes Barrett prevails.

Walker enlisted the support of several prominent national Republicans, including New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, an unabashed union hater.

A Marquette University Law School poll released last week showed Walker with a narrow 7-percentage point lead over Barrett, 52 percent to 45 percent. The poll's margin of error was 4.1 percentage points. In the same poll two weeks earlier, Walker held a 6-point lead, 50 percent to 44 percent.

The poll also showed the deep division in Wisconsin, where 39 percent of respondents said they liked the job Walker has done and 38 percent said they did not like it. Twenty-one percent said they like what he's done, just not how he did it.

In the days leading up to the election, they expressed a mixture of anticipation and fatigue with the political turmoil.

In the working-class city of Janesville, signs on both sides of the election were scattered across the community, some just a few feet apart.

Retired businessman Dave Flury plans to support Walker. And he's worried about what will happen if Barrett wins.

"If Walker loses, shouldn't Republicans turn right around and recall Barrett?" Flury asked.

For months, voters have been inundated with telephone calls, campaign mail and television advertising. Barrett supporter John Oehrke is ready for all of it to end.

"It doesn't really matter who wins I guess," Oehrke said. "It's all crazy.

___

Associated Press writers Todd Richmond in Fitchburg, Dinesh Ramde in Racine and Brian Bakst in Janesville contributed to this report.

Associated Press

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3 Critical Currency Trading Tools | Finance Action Time

Posted on June 4th, 2012

Every forex trading platform will incorporate different tools to help a forex trader become successful. Three of the most important currency trading tools include 1) a demo version to help you assess the platform, 2) regular forex technical analysis, live streaming of data and price quotes, and 3) charting capability to give a forex trader the data he needs to make an informed decision. Each of these currency trading tools is important in its own right, but combined, they can help you become a successful forex trader in the shortest amount of time. It is therefore highly recommended to check for the availability of these tools before choosing your forex broker.

1) The Demo

Whether you?re a new trader or you?ve been in the currency trading business for a while, you will surely understand that practice makes perfect. Practice is even better when you?re not using your own money to fund trading errors made as a result of lack of knowledge and understanding of how the trading platform operates. Let?s face it, forex trading is a complex business to begin with; you will want a trading platform that takes all the hassle and stress out of making trades. If you?ve got access to a trading demo, make good use of it, discover all of its capabilities and learn its limitations, play with it until it feels comfortable. Trading on the demo platform must become second-nature, because trading in the real world leaves little room for error.

2) Streaming Data

Granted, forex trading isn?t done on an exchange like stocks and commodities, but the forex market is also never closed. And forex traders want and need the ability to see real time data, i.e., pair pricing, in order to make an informed decision. Streaming real time data also ensures that you maintain full and complete control of your funding account and trades.

3) Charting Package Capabilities

A good charting software program will provide you with more precise calculations, and give you the option of various trading periods, including ones on a very short scale (such as a 4-hour chart) or over a much longer period of time (even out to several years). The benefit of the chart is it gives forex traders an appreciation and understanding of forex technical analysis. From that, the application of this important currency trading tool will allow the forex trader to reasonably predict price movements and develop the appropriate strategy.

There?s no question that the forex market is complicated ? but the right tools will help traders at all level find profitable positions and to develop confidence in their forex trading skills.

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Iron Range lung cancer study advancing | Old Dominion ...

A comprehensive study on why so many Iron Rangers are dying of a rare lung disease is entering its final data-crunching stages with some results expected later this year.

But in an update provided last week, key researchers confided they may never find a link between a high rate of fatal mesothelioma and the taconite iron ore industry ? that the high rate of mesothelioma deaths may have been caused by exposure long ago and far away.

?It could be we don?t see any relationship to the workplace,? said Jeff Mandel, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota?s School of Public Health and the lead researcher in the study.

But researchers in the nearly $5 million Minnesota Taconite Workers Health Study quickly added that they haven?t reached that conclusion yet and are working to see where and how Rangers may have been exposed to asbestos or asbestos-like fibers that are the only known cause of the always fatal mesothelioma.

On Thursday, researchers revealed that the study already has confirmed a 300 percent higher rate of mesothelioma on the Iron Range than the general population in Minnesota.

Thursday?s update, the first since October, also reported that Rangers have about 20 percent more lung cancer and 11 percent more heart disease than the general population.

Yet while lung cancer can be caused by smoking and heart disease from bad eating habits and obesity, mesothelioma can come only from exposure to certain kinds of airborne fibers.

Researchers said they simply aren?t finding many, if any, of the traditional asbestos-size mineral fibers in their study. So now they are focusing on shorter fibers. Once called ?asbestos-like fibers,? researchers are now calling them ?elongated mineral particles? because they are not truly asbestos.

Some Rangers have speculated that the lung disease killing their cohorts comes from the minerals in the rock released by the process of mining low-grade iron ore and processing it into taconite pellets. Researchers continue to look at that, but say it?s possible the exposure came from previous jobs, such as in the ship building industry or onboard asbestos-laden Navy ships, or handling asbestos molds or insulation while working in taconite plants.

Meanwhile, a health screening of current and retired taconite workers found that 17 percent had reduced lung capacity and about the same had abnormalities on tissue around the lung. It?s not clear, however, if those problems are from smoking, dust exposure or other issues.

At least 82 Iron Rangers have died in recent years from mesothelioma, which often doesn?t appear until 30 to 40 years after initial exposure to asbestos fibers.

It?s estimated about 80,000 workers have been involved in mining since the first operations began in Minnesota in the late 1800s. Researchers are focusing on the roughly 46,000 people born since 1920 who worked in the production of taconite, which has been mined and processed in Minnesota since the 1950s.

The health study, headed by the University of Minnesota?s School of Public Health and funded by the 2008 Minnesota Legislature, has five distinct parts:

? An occupational exposures assessment to determine how and where the asbestos or shorter particles came from.

? A mortality study to determine the cause of death for thousands of deceased taconite workers.

? A cancer incidence study to see whether lung cancer rates are higher on the Iron Range.

? An environmental study of current airborne particulates to check for asbestos levels in taconite plants and in local cities.

? And a respiratory health study of living taconite workers and their spouses.

All of the field work has been completed and now scientists are crunching their numbers. All of the data analysis will be peer reviewed before it?s released.

Bob Brown, safety chairman for United Steelworkers of America Local 2750 at Hibbing Taconite, who serves on the health study?s advisory committee, said Thursday?s update was good but steelworkers are still awaiting the results with trepidation.

?It seems like they are doing a very thorough job. I think people are satisfied that they are at least taking this serious this time,? said Brown, 56. ?But people are worried. They want to know if they are going to have some golden years after they retire or if they are just going to get sick. I?ve got 24 years in at HibTac and 35 years in the mining game. ? I?m concerned where this (lung disease) is coming from.?

Brown said he was encouraged to hear that the study also is looking at the relatively high exposure to silica in taconite operations as a possible health concern.

Results from each part of the study will be made public when completed, with more results later this year and a final, overall report expected in 2013.

Article source: http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_20769778/iron-range-lung-cancer-study-advancing

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