Three spacecraft flying three million miles apart are to fire laser beams at each other across the emptiness of space in a bid to finally prove whether a theory proposed by Albert Einstein is correct. Physicists hope the ambitious mission will allow them to prove the existence of gravitational waves – a phenomenon predicted in Einstein’s famous theory of general relativity and the last piece of his theory still to be proved correct. The mission, a collaboration between Nasa and the European Space Agency, will use three spacecraft flying in formation while orbiting the sun, with each housing floating cubes of gold platinum. Laser beams fired between the spacecraft will then be used to measure minute changes in the distance between each of the cubes, caused by the weak waves of gravity that ripple out from catastrophic events in deep space. Einstein’s theory of general relativity predicted that when large objects such as black holes collide, ripples in space and time flow outwards. These ripples are called gravitational waves. A panel of international experts have now set out a detailed plan for the mission and how it can be used to reveal new insights […]
Many who think they have food allergies actually do not. A new report, commissioned by the federal government, finds the field is rife with poorly done studies, misdiagnoses and tests that can give misleading results. While there is no doubt that people can be allergic to certain foods, with reproducible responses ranging from a rash to a severe life-threatening reaction, the true incidence of food allergies is only about 8 percent for children and less than 5 percent for adults, said Dr. Marc Riedl, an author of the new paper and an allergist and immunologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. Yet about 30 percent of the population believe they have food allergies. And, Dr. Riedl said, about half the patients coming to his clinic because they had been told they had a food allergy did not really have one. Dr. Riedl does not dismiss the seriousness of some people’s responses to foods. But, he says, ‘That accounts for a small percentage of what people term ‘food allergies.’ Even people who had food allergies as children may not have them as adults. People often shed allergies, though no one knows why. And sometimes […]
Los Angeles on Wednesday became the largest city yet to boycott Arizona over its tough new law targeting illegal immigration in a move that likely will affect some $8 million in contracts with the state. The City Council voted 13-1 to bar Los Angeles from conducting business with Arizona unless the law is repealed. The vote followed an emotional council discussion during which many members noted that their ancestors were U.S. immigrants. ‘Los Angeles is the second-largest city in this country. An immigrant city, an international city needs to have its voice heard,’ Councilman Ed Reyes said. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa already has said he would approve the boycott. Although Arizona’s law has been modified to forbid police from using race to stop people, opponents say racial profiling is inevitable, CBS 2/KCAL 9’s Mark Coogan reported. ‘We must say stop… this is a law that we think is wrong. It’s going in the wrong direction,’ Councilwoman Janice Hahn said. The proposal could affect investments and contracts worth as much as $52 million, including contracts for airport, harbor and trucking services, according to a report from the city’s chief legislative analyst. That report recommends the council […]
More than a year and a half after Iceland’s major banks failed, all but sinking the country’s economy, police have begun rounding up a number of top bankers while other former executives and owners face a two-billion-dollar lawsuit. Since Iceland’s three largest banks — Kaupthing, Landsbanki and Glitnir — collapsed in late 2008, their former executives and owners have largely been living untroubled lives abroad. But the publication last month of a parliamentary inquiry into the island nation’s profound financial and economic crisis signaled a turning of the tide, laying much of the blame for the downfall on the former bank heads who had taken ‘inappropriate loans from the banks’ they worked for. On Wednesday, the administrators of Glitnir’s liquidation announced they had filed a two-billion-dollar (1.6-billion-euro) lawsuit in a New York court against former large shareholders and executives for alleged fraud. ‘I think this lawsuit is without precedence in Iceland,’ Steinunn Gudbjartsdottir, who chairs Glitnir’s so-called winding-up board, told reporters in Reykjavik. ‘It is about higher figures than we have ever seen,’ she said, adding that she expected Glitnir to file more lawsuits going forward, but that ‘it is unlikely any will be this […]
The nation’s six largest banks and their trade associations have hired more than 240 former government officials-turned-lobbyists to represent them in the fight over Wall Street reform, according to a new report by several progressive groups. The Service Employees International Union, Campaign for America’s Future and the Public Accountability Initiative will release the report Tuesday as part of a new campaign aimed at taking on the lobbyists who represent the financial services industry. Throughout the debate, progressive groups and their allies have targeted banks, but the report marks the first time they are singling out lobbyists by name with plans to march on their offices. ‘We’re going to lobby the lobbyists a little bit and let them know the anger that’s building about the role they play in warping and undermining democracy in this country, said Stephen Lerner, SEIU’s financial reform campaign director. The idea is to make individual lobbyists and their firms as politically toxic as Goldman Sachs and other big banks have become, Lerner said. The report cites 243 government insiders turned lobbyists working for the industry. Of those, 202 used to work in Congress, and the rest served in the White House, […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
