sebul.miah: February 2013

Thursday, February 28, 2013

Can South Africa's justice system handle the Oscar Pistorius case? (+video)

The lead detective in the Oscar Pistorius murder case has been replaced. But can the South African police force recover from the mistakes made to date?

By Staff,?CSMonitor.com / February 21, 2013

Detective Hilton Botha sits inside the court witness box during the Oscar Pistorius bail hearing in Pretoria, South Africa. Botha is off the case, and now faces attempted murder charges himself over a 2011 shooting, police said Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013,

AP Photo/Themba Hadebe

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The lead investigator in the Oscar Pistorius murder case has been replaced. Why? Detective Hilton Botha himself now faces charges of attempted murder.

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With Its New Medical Language iPad App, Swiftkey Edges Closer To The iOS Platform

Switftkey ? the intuitive typing interface for smartphones which has made its way into some Android phones and is reputedly behind the new BlackBerry touchscreen keyboard (though the company declines to comment or confirm) ? is edging closer to the iOS platform. Today it announced exclusively with TechCrunch at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, that it is launching an iPad typing app aimed at the lucrative Healthcare market.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/NQ8c3NLM_dA/

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Wednesday, February 27, 2013

The 2013 Bunny Dash 5k provides students and members of the ...

Posted on 26 February 2013.

Beth Godwin congratulates Wayne Glass at the finish line of the Bunny Dash 5K last year. (Photo courtesy of R&C Services)

Pensacola prides itself in its foot races, with the hosting of the Double Bridge Run, McGuire?s St. Patrick?s Day 5K, the recent Jubilee Run, Walk or Drag with Color and several others.

The University of West Florida holds two races every year: the Ghost Chase 5K in the fall semester and the Bunny Dash 5K in spring.

Runners will head to the Multipurpose Fields for the Bunny Dash 5K on the morning of March 30. They will be trekking through 3.1 miles of the cross country trails at the Edward Ball Nature Trail.

Light refreshments will be provided. Bunny costumes are encouraged.

?For Halloween, people dress up way more, of course,? said Jennifer Hernandez, the supervisor for Fitness and Wellness at the Health, Leisure and Sports Facility. ?For Bunny Dash, people wear bunny ears or they paint their faces.?

The Bunny Dash 5K is open to the public. Registration can be completed online at www.uwf.edu/recreation/FitnessWellness/bunnydash1.cfm or in person at the front desk downstairs in the HLS Facility. Students can register at no cost for the race with a valid Nautilus card. Faculty, staff and community members will be charged a $15 registration fee until March 23, but after March 23, the fee will increase to $20.

The race is limited to 150 runners. Hernandez said that more runners come from the community than the university.

?It?s a mix, but there are actually more community members, a lot of older alumni,? Hernandez said. ?They bring their kids or grandchildren. Out of 150, there?s probably 70 that are actual students.?

James Barnett, a sophomore pre-professional biology major, will participate again this year.

?When a lot of people show up to races, it makes it enjoyable,? Barnett said in an email interview. ?5K races are something I always look forward to because it gives me a chance to meet new people who share the love for running.?

Barnett placed first with a time of 19 minutes and 16 seconds in the men?s division last spring.

The race will begin at 9:00 a.m. and is hosted by Recreation and Sports Services at the university. For more information about the Bunny Dash 5K, contact Beth Godwin at erg1@students.uwf.edu.

Kristine Medina
Staff Writer

Source: http://www.thevoyager.net/2013/02/the-2013-bunny-dash-5k-provides-students-and-members-of-the-community-a-fun-way-to-burn-off-all-those-pre-easter-candy-calories/

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Tuesday, February 26, 2013

The Consmer: Questions About a Robotic Surgery

Ever since it was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2005, robotic surgery for hysterectomy has been heavily advertised. Surgeons promise that using the da Vinci robotic device will bring better results and an easier recovery, and many hospitals claim that patients will experience less pain and fewer complications, getting back on their feet faster.

The company that makes da Vinci robotic surgery equipment promoted it last May at free health workshops organized by the federal Office on Womens? Health. On Sunday, the Liberty Science Museum in Jersey City will host its first ?Let?s Operate Day,? offering guests ?hands-on? practice peering into video monitors and using da Vinci?s robot arms to pick up and manipulate small objects.

The cost of the new technology is rarely mentioned. But last week, a new study that evaluated outcomes in more than a quarter of a million American women raised questions about the manufacturer?s claims. The paper, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, compared outcomes in 264,758 women who had either laparoscopic or robotically assisted hysterectomy at 441 hospitals between 2007 and 2010. Both methods are minimally invasive and involve smaller incisions than open abdominal surgery.

The researchers found no overall difference in complication rates between the two groups, and no difference in the rates of blood transfusion, even though one of the claims regarding robotic surgery is that it causes less blood loss.

But the researchers did find a big difference in cost. Robotically assisted surgery for hysterectomy costs on average about one-third more than laparoscopic surgery.

?It?s important to separate the marketing from the data,? said Dr. Jason D. Wright, the study?s lead author, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University Medical Center. ?For the surgeon, there is a greater degree of movement and control of the instruments and the visualization is better.

?But the ultimate question is, does this change outcomes for patients? This study suggests that there really is not a lot of difference as far as quantifiable outcomes.?

The majority of patients in both groups left the hospital in less than two days, though patients who had robotic surgery were slightly more likely to go home that early: 80 percent went home in less than two days, compared with 75 percent of those who had laparoscopic surgery.

But the cost of robotic surgeries was significantly higher, with a median cost to the hospital of $8,868, compared with $6,679 for laparoscopic hysterectomy. The study did not look at the difference in patients? bills, but according to Newchoicehealth.com, the average patient price for a laparoscopic hysterectomy ranges from $7,700 in Dallas to $11,600 in Los Angeles.

With laparoscopic surgery ? sometimes called keyhole surgery ? narrow instruments and a small video camera are inserted through tiny incisions; the surgeon sees the image on a monitor and can cut and sew tissue with the instruments. With robotically assisted surgery, the surgeon sits at a console with a 3-dimensional view of the surgical site, and computer technology translates his or her hand movements into precise, scaled movements of the instruments.

Even without offering clear advantages the proportion of hysterectomies performed robotically has increased rapidly, up to nearly 10 percent of hysterectomies in 2010 from less than 1 percent in 2007, Dr. Wright said. Minimally invasive surgeries for hysterectomies are increasing across the board, he found, even at hospitals not performing robotic surgery.

Dr. Myriam J. Curet, chief medical adviser to Intuitive Surgical, which makes the da Vinci systems, did not dispute the study?s findings, but said the important message was that more women were able to receive minimally invasive surgeries because more options were available.

?That?s good for patients and for the health care system,? Dr. Curet said. Women who are not candidates for laparoscopic surgery might still be candidates for robotically-assisted surgery, she added.

Right now, however, it is not clear how to identify which women would benefit from robotic surgery and which would do well with a less expensive method.

The growing use of robotic surgery in hospitals will continue to drive up health costs, said Joel S. Weissman, of Brigham and Women?s Hospital and a co-author of an editorial published with the study.

?Once you have that robot, the tendency is to use it for all kinds of things, for which it may or may not have great value,? Dr. Weissman said. Studies like this one, he said, demonstrate the waste of health care dollars on ?something that costs a lot more and doesn?t offer any added benefit over current treatment options.?

Each year approximately 600,000 American women have hysterectomies, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By age 60, one in three American women has had her uterus removed, often along with her ovaries and cervix.

Critics who say far too many hysterectomies are done in the United States worry that all the attention to surgical method distracts from the question of whether patients should be having the surgery at all.

Most hysterectomies are prescribed for conditions that are not life-threatening, and advocates worry that women are not fully informed of the long-term harms, which may include a loss of sexual responsiveness, depression and chronic constipation, and higher risk for osteoporosis and heart disease, said Nora W. Coffey, the founder of the nonprofit Hysterectomy Educational Resources and Services Foundation.

?That?s the conversation we should be having,? Ms. Coffey said.

Nora W. Coffey and other experts emphasize that women considering a hysterectomy should discuss all options with their doctors.

?Ask what the alternatives are and whether watchful waiting is an option. Remember that it is irreversible, regardless of how the surgery is done.

?Learn about the nonreproductive functions of the uterus, ovaries and cervix, and the potential long-term consequences associated with their removal, as well as the function of the ovaries and cervix.

?If you proceed, discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different surgical methods with your doctor. Interview several surgeons and inquire about the cost and how much insurance will cover. Your co-pay may vary depending on the surgical method.

?Tell your surgeon if you do not want your ovaries and cervix removed.

Source: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/questions-about-a-robotic-surgery/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Apple Patents Situational Awareness And Location Information Sharing For Mobile Devices

Apple was issued a couple of interesting new patents today (spotted by AppleInsider), including one that could make an iPhone aware of changes in a user's situation, and alter phone settings accordingly. That would make for a mobile phone that might be able to automatically switch to silent mode when in a movie theatre, for instance, or which could wake from sleep upon being pulled out of a pocket.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/JV4dQztEc3k/

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Nobel Prize medal for DNA work to be sold

Heritage Auctions

The 1962 Nobel Prize gold medal awarded to Dr. Francis Crick for his work in the discovery of the structure of DNA will be offered by his family in a public auction in New York City on April 10.

By Wynne Parry
LiveScience

Sixty years after the discovery of DNA's spiraling, ladderlike structure first hinted at the mechanism by which life copies itself, one of the Nobel Prize medals honoring this achievement is up for sale.

Three men who played crucial roles in deciphering DNA's double helix in 1953 later received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The family of one of those men, Francis Crick, plans to sell his medal, the accompanying diploma and other items at auction with a portion of the proceeds set to benefit research institutions in the United States and the United Kingdom.

"It had been tucked away for so long," said Kindra Crick, Francis Crick's 36-year-old granddaughter, of the medal. "We really were interested in finding someone who could look after it, and possibly put it on display so it could inspire the next generation of scientists." Francis Crick passed away in 2004 at the age of 88.?

The value of Nobel gold
There is little precedent for this sale. Nobel medals appear to have changed hands publicly in only a couple of instances. This particular medal, like others made before 1980, is struck in 23-carat gold, and recognizes a particularly high-profile accomplishment in biology, one fundamental to modern genetics.

The auction house handling the sale, Heritage Auctions, has valued the medal and diploma at $500,000, which is "an educated guestimate," said Sandra Palomino, Heritage Auctions' director of historical manuscripts. Estimates by Heritage's in-house coin experts went as high as $5 million, Palomino said. [See Photos of Crick's Medal & Other Auction Items]

The April auction will also include Crick's award check with his endorsement on the back, the scientist's lab coat, his gardening logs, nautical journals and books. Separately, the family hopes to sell a letter Crick wrote in 1953 to his then-12-year-old son Michael, who is Kindra's father, describing the discovery's meaning. The auction house Christies, which Kindra Crick said is handling the sale, declined to confirm plans to sell this letter.

Out of the box
The medal was not displayed much within Crick's family. Kindra remembers that the Nobel, which she has yet to see herself, was locked in a room with her grandfather's other awards and other family heirlooms after he moved to California at the age of 60. After the scientist's wife, Odile, passed away in 2007, the medal was sequestered in a safe deposit box. Crick's children, including Kindra's father, Michael, attended the award ceremony in 1962, but saw almost nothing of the medal afterward.

Kindra plans to get a look at the medal before the auction.

"My grandfather was not the type of personality to show off," she said. "His conversation tended to be on what's next as opposed to reminiscing about the past. ? I guess he always thought there was more to come."

Crick's family hopes to see the medal displayed publicly after its sale; however, Kindra Crick acknowledged that a public auction offered no guarantee a buyer would display the award. But she is optimistic, saying those individuals or institutions with enough interest in science to bid on the medal are also likely to display it publicly. [Creative Genius: The World's Greatest Minds]

Crick's family and Heritage Auctions plan to donate a portion of the proceeds from the sale of the medal and the other items to The Francis Crick Institute, a medical research institute scheduled to open in London in 2015. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of the letter will go to benefit the Salk Institute in California, where Francis Crick studied consciousness?later in his career, Kindra said.

Sixty years later
On Feb. 28, 1953, according to legend, Crick and his colleague James Watson announced that they had discovered the "secret of life" in a pub frequented by other Cambridge University scientists.

This followed Watson's realization that the molecular bonds between the two types of base pairs in DNA ? adenine with thymine and cytosine with guanine ? were identical in shape, suggesting a double helix with complementary halves, Watson recounts in "The Annotated and Illustrated Double Helix" (Simon & Schuster, 2012).

This discovery was the result of a combination of approaches; Watson and Crick built models, trying to determine how the molecules known to make up DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) fit together. Meanwhile, two of their colleagues, Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin, created images by bouncing X-rays off DNA crystals.

One of Franklin's images, called Photograph 51, provided key evidence of a helical shape.

Crick, Watson and Wilkins received the Nobel Prize in 1962. Franklin did not because she passed away in 1958, and the Nobel Prize is not awarded posthumously.

Form means function
In the years prior to this discovery, scientists knew of the existence of DNA (a type of molecule known as a nucleic acid), but not what it looked like or its true function. They also knew genes carried traits from generation to generation, but many scientists believed genes to be made of proteins, said Jan Witkowski, executive director of the Banbury Center at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York.

The discovery of the structure of DNA was key to understanding the molecule's function as the code for genes. Watson and Crick understood this, but when they described their discovery in a paper in the journal Nature in April 1953, they wrote coyly of the implications: "It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for genetic material." [Code of Life: Photos of DNA Structures]

However, in the letter to 12-year-old Michael, dated March 19, 1953, Crick drew a diagram spelling out the scientists' theory of how DNA replicated: the double helix and its base-pair rungs separated to create templates for new strands.

"In other words, we think we have found the basic copying mechanism by which life comes from life," Crick wrote to his son. The scientists signed the letter, which appears in "The Annotated and Illustrated Double Helix," "lots of love, Daddy."

A geneticist himself, Witkowski lists the discovery of the structure of DNA as one of the three most pivotal accomplishments in biology, along with Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection and Gregor Mendel's principles of inheritance. ?

"Of course, it wasn't so much what each discovery was in itself, but what avenues it opened up and what it led on to," said Witkowski, who with Alexander Gann, edited the "Annotated and Illustrated Double Helix."

Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience. We're also on Facebook?and Google+.

Source: http://science.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/25/17089577-for-sale-famed-nobel-medal-for-discovery-of-dna-structure?lite

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Obesity Reduces Quality of Life in Boys | Psych Central News

By Traci Pedersen Associate News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on February 23, 2013

Obesity Reduces Quality of Life in Boys For boys, being overweight or obese significantly lowers their quality of life compared to healthy weight peers.? Interestingly, these results were not found in girls.

The study, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, also showed that quality of life (QOL) scores improved for children of either sex whose weight status changed from overweight/obese to normal.

The research involved more than 2,000 Australian school children who were about 12 years old at the start of the study in 2004-2005. The researchers followed up with the children after five years.?

The participants then answered a questionnaire designed to measure whether being obese (also known as? adiposity) influenced their quality of life at age 17 or 18.

?Adiposity in boys was associated with poorer quality of life during adolescence. This association was not observed among girls.

?In both boys and girls, though, persistent overweight or obesity was related to poorer physical functioning after the five years. In contrast, weight loss was associated with improved quality of life during adolescence,? said Bamini Gopinath, Ph.D., senior research fellow at the University of Sydney in Australia.

The questionnaire measured the children?s physical and psychosocial health.?It also calculated a combined total quality of life score. The psychosocial health summary score reflected how well the teens were functioning emotionally and socially.

The study revealed that both males and females who were obese at the start of the study and who later reduced to a normal weight had far better physical functioning scores than those who remained obese after five years. These physical functioning scores measured one aspect of the overall quality of life score.

?The findings suggest that an unhealthy weight status and excess body fat could negatively impact the mental and physical wellbeing of adolescents, particularly boys,? said Gopinath.

He noted that the study highlights the value of looking at the quality of life among obese teens in both clinical practice and in research studies.?

He also added that ?obesity prevention and treatment efforts [ought] to address the broad spectrum of psychosocial implications of being obese as a teenager.?

Lawrence J. Cheskin, M.D., director of the Johns Hopkins Weight Management Center, noted that the differences in quality of life and physical functioning between obese and normal weight teens has not been carefully done before.

?The fact that QOL improved with improvement in weight over time is also important,? said Cheskin. He added that parents, health care providers and teenagers need to understand the far-reaching effects that being overweight can have on a teen?s enjoyment of life.

Source:? Center for Advancing Health

Obese boy on scale photo by shutterstock.

APA Reference
Pedersen, T. (2013). Obesity Reduces Quality of Life in Boys. Psych Central. Retrieved on February 25, 2013, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/02/24/obesity-reduces-quality-of-life-in-boys/51902.html

Source: http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/02/24/obesity-reduces-quality-of-life-in-boys/51902.html

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Monday, February 25, 2013

Firefox phones coming this summer

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) ? Mozilla, the non-profit foundation behind the popular Firefox Web browser, is getting into phones. But it's not stopping at Web browsers ? it's launching an entire phone operating system.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based foundation said Sunday that phones running Firefox OS will appear this summer, starting in Brazil, Colombia, Hungary, Mexico, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, Spain and Venezuela.

The Firefox OS will land in a crowded environment, where many small operating systems are trying to become the "third eco-system," alongside Apple's iOS and Google's Android. Together, those two account for 91 percent of smartphone sales, according to research firm IDC.

Mozilla Foundation has an ally in phone companies, who are interested in seeing an alternative to Apple and Google, particularly one coming from a non-profit foundation. Thirteen phone companies around the world have committed to supporting Firefox phones, Mozilla said, including Sprint Nextel in the U.S., though it gave no time frame for a release. Other supporters include Telecom Italia, America Movil of Mexico and Deutsche Telekom of Germany. DT is the parent of T-Mobile USA, but plans to sell Firefox phones first in Poland.

Phone makers that plan to make Firefox phones include Huawei and ZTE of China and LG of Korea. The first devices will be inexpensive touchscreen smartphones.

All the phones will run on chips supplied by San Diego-based Qualcomm Inc., whose CEO Paul Jacobs appeared at Mozilla's press event Sunday in Barcelona, Spain, on the eve of the world's largest cellphone trade show.

The industry has seen various attempts to launch "open" smartphone operating systems, with little success. Jay Sullivan, vice president of products at Mozilla, said these failed because they were designed "by committee," with too many constituents to please. While developing and supporting the Firefox browser, Mozilla has learned to develop large-scale "open" projects effectively, he said.

He also said that putting quality third-party applications on Firefox phones will be easy, because they're based on HTML 5, an emerging standard for Web applications.

"Firefox OS has achieved something that no device software platform has previously managed - translating an industry talking shop into a huge commitment from both carriers and hardware vendors at its commercial launch," said Tony Cripps an analyst at research firm Ovum. "Neither Android nor Symbian ? the closest benchmarks in terms of broad industry sponsorship that we've previously seen ? have rallied the level of support that Firefox OS has achieved so early in its development."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/firefox-phones-coming-summer-172308147--finance.html

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New theater production office opens in NYC

This Jan. 9, 2013 photo provided by The Hartman Group shows Adam Blanshay, the new chief executive officer of Just For Laughs Theatricals, in New York. Blanshay will develop and produce plays and musicals internationally. (AP Photo/The Hartman Group, Dennis Kwan)

NEW YORK (AP) ? The producers behind one of the largest comedy festivals in the world are launching a new theatrical subsidiary that hopes to become a major player on Broadway and in London's West End.

The Just For Laughs Group on Monday unveiled its new stage-orientated producing division and said Adam Blanshay will be its chief executive officer.

Just For Laughs Theatricals, which will be based in New York City, is already signed on to help produce the new Broadway musical "Kinky Boots," the West End productions of "A Chorus Line," ''Old Times" with Kristin Scott Thomas, and "Merrily We Roll Along." Future projects include the new Broadway musical "Bullets Over Broadway" in 2014.

"While comedy has always been our focus, we believe great theatre ? whether musical, drama or comedy ? can be an equally powerful unifying force," Gilbert Rozon, founder of the Just For Laughs Group, said in a statement.

Blanshay's recent Broadway credits include the revival of "Evita" starring Ricky Martin, "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" with Daniel Radcliffe, "The Scottsboro Boys," ''Catch Me If You Can" and "Jerusalem." He has been nominated for six Tony Awards, one Grammy Award, and is a graduate of McGill University.

The Just For Laughs Group creates comedy festivals around the globe, dozens of hours of TV and operates concert tours. It is behind the Montreal Just For Laughs Comedy Festival, which this summer will celebrate its 31st anniversary.

The festival attracts 2 million people each summer and has featured Jerry Seinfeld, Dave Chappelle, John Cleese, Jon Stewart, Chris Rock, Ray Romano, Jason Alexander, Dane Cook and Tim Allen.

___

Online: http://www.hahaha.com/en/about-us/theatricals

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-02-25-US-Theater-Just-For-Laughs-Theatricals/id-6f3196f0e8854c71b9abf1a7c30c4154

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The First Amendment Bombs Nuclear Energy By Accident

In a journalistic drone strike gone horribly wrong, news outlets across the country ran images of a nuclear power plant last Saturday with their reports on a leaking underground radioactive nuclear weapons waste tank at the Government?s nuclear reservation many miles away. Everyone from the New York?s The Daily News to TV stations in Portland, Oregon seem to forget that nuclear weapons production from 60 years ago has nothing to do with a nuclear power plant today.

B-roll photos of Washington State?s only commercial nuclear power plant, the Columbia Generating Station, were used as the main image about a completely unrelated leaking waste tank that was built in 1944 at the Department of Energy?s Hanford Site (KXLY Spokane).

The tank contains waste left over from making nuclear bombs during and after World War II. The only thing the power plant did was lease the land from the U. S. Department of Energy.

Let me clarify the science behind this issue:

Nuclear Bombs ? Bad!

Nuclear Energy ? Good!

The icky sludge and saltcake generated from making weapons is nothing like fuel from a power reactor. The Daily News did pull the photo when it was pointed out to them that the photo had nothing to do with the story, but few seem to care. Scientific accuracy doesn?t appear necessary when reporting on nuclear issues.

The only news outlet to get the story, and the image, correct was the Tri-City Herald in Washington State, but then they know the nuclear issues very well and almost always gets them right (Tri-City Herald).

Slowly, outlets appear to be pulling the reports, but the damage is done. Another victory for ignorance!

Can you tell which of these pictures is of huge underground storage tanks filled with millioins of gallons of sludge and saltcake that is constantly monitored for activity, and which is of a nuclear power plant? Hint: the one with the steam turning turbines is not the waste tank. Bottom left -tank farm under construction. Top left ? inside a tank leaking from sludge and saltcake dewatering. Top right ? Waste tank farm being monitored. Bottom right ? nuclear power plant Courtesy of DOE and Columbia Generating Station.

The other thing that was misreported is that these leaking tanks hold high-level radioactive waste (HLW), which is not true.? They contain another, much less radioactive waste called transuranic waste (TRU waste) that is thousands of times less radioactive than high-level waste.? I?ve actually held this waste in my hand, so I?m not too impressed.

But everyone can be forgiven since only a few of us science geeks know the difference.

Although hundreds of gallons of this leaking water might be leaking from a tank each year, the 100 billion gallons of volume between it and the river won?t be much affected. The environmental impact is not even measurable and there won?t be any discernable effects on public health ? ever (Environmental Impact Statement DOE/EIS-0391). If all of this leakage reaches the river it will have less of an affect than if you moved to Colorado.

Terrible, I know.

Yes, we need to clean this up. Yes, we need to get this waste in the right geology where it can?t get out for a billion years. And yes, we know exactly how to do this and where to put it (Chris Helman ? Nuke Town).

We just need to be allowed to get on with it.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2013/02/24/the-first-amendment-bombs-nuclear-energy-by-accident/

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Threat of sequestration looms as deadline approaches (cbsnews)

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Online education transforming college

As politicians and academics debate the future of higher education, it is already happening -- in dorm rooms, off-campus apartments and living rooms around the world.

Estela Garcia, a working mother from Menlo Park, attends class at her kitchen table after she puts her daughters to bed; Tim Barham, a UC Berkeley senior, takes statistics at home after a day at work; and Oakland teenager Sergio Sandoval studies a college course while in high school.

For years, online classes existed on the margins of higher education. Then Silicon Valley startups devised slick platforms delivering elite university courses, free, to students everywhere. Suddenly, online studies have become central to discussions about the future.

"I think this is the single most transformational thing that could occur in higher education in decades," said Ron Galatolo, chancellor of the San Mateo County Community College District.

Proponents see online courses containing university costs, making college more affordable and instruction more engaging, raising completion rates, enrolling more students, graduating them faster, easing crowding and better preparing high-schoolers for college.

No one knows how effectively this experimental wonder drug can deliver a college education to the masses, though. Can virtual professors lecturing across the globe really be sure their students grasp everything from Camus to chemistry?

UC, CSU on board

The latest e-learning experiment of open access, with its explosive potential, has top universities and more than 3 million students jumping aboard. Less than a year old, the online education startup Coursera announced last week it would soon offer more than 300 courses from 62 universities around the world.

Most of these massive open online courses -- MOOCs in campus lingo -- have been offered with only a certificate of completion, no credit. That could soon change. This month, the American Council on Education recommended credit for four Coursera undergraduate math and science courses from Duke University, the University of Pennsylvania and UC Irvine.

With the urging of Gov. Jerry Brown, California's universities are rolling out similar initiatives with renewed gusto.

At the University of California, whose campuses offer more than 2,500 online classes, leaders recently floated the idea of undergraduates taking 10 percent of their courses online. The system's outgoing president, Mark Yudof, said students everywhere should be able to use credits from online courses "from UC's own distinguished faculty" to transfer to a UC campus.

California State University is a few steps ahead in the credit department: As soon as this summer, San Jose State and Udacity, a Mountain View-based company, could open for-credit math classes to all takers, at $150 each. Some 300 high school, community college and university students are in a pilot program to test the classes.

As in other courses offered by the leading startups, professors create the content, giving it the university brand, and technologists package it. Most of the grading is automated.

Galatolo is also interested in seeing whether the company would design an online diagnostic test and personalized refresher course for the state's incoming college students. That would keep tens of thousands of Californians from failing college placement tests and languishing in remedial classes, he said.

"I want students who come to us ready to go right into college," he said.

Getting ahead

For students like Sergio Sandoval, online college courses provide a chance to get ahead. The high school junior from East Oakland would be the first in his family to attend a U.S. college -- one of the kinds of students for whom the San Jose State pilot course is designed.

With access to cheap, for-credit courses, the thinking goes, the fate of bright young students like Sandoval won't depend on what their high schools offer. Anyone with a high-speed Internet connection can take a shot at college work.

After a full day at the Oakland Military Institute, a charter school he travels across the city to attend, Sandoval returns home, has dinner and delves into an online statistics class, watching the videos and doing the exercises at his dining room table.

"Even if the credits don't transfer, it's still something you can put on your application -- that you've taken your high school classes as well as the online classes, so you're even more prepared for that college," he said.

Possible pitfalls

Even before the rise of free, open courses, online education was becoming more common. The number of college students enrolled in an online course rose by nearly 5 million from 2002 to 2011.

But the prospect of for-credit college courses on a mass scale has raised a new set of questions: How well can students learn without interacting with instructors? How much money will universities save, and will they charge students less for cheaper courses? How will complex assignments be graded? Will robots replace professors?

Some experts say the rapid proliferation of online courses is bound to yield some inferior products. Cynics recently pounced on an ironic embarrassment for Coursera: Technical problems forced it to suspend its course on the fundamentals of online education.

"That's what I worry about, the quality controls," said Michelle Asha Cooper, president of the Institute for Higher Education Policy.

A sobering statistic undercuts the hype: Just 10 percent of those who sign up for classes with the leading startups actually finish them. With that in mind, Udacity assigned mentors for students in its San Jose State test project. They will nudge students who seem to be falling behind.

As other students noted, Sandoval said a self-paced course takes more discipline than in-person classes. "Here, there is no teacher whatsoever telling me we need it done," he said. "It's all on you."

Garcia and a former classmate, Kelsey Harrison, described similar pressures. Still, because of the relatively small size of the class, it was easy for them to reach their College of San Mateo instructors when they needed help. That kind of communication between students and faculty is impossible in a course with thousands of students. Those courses rely on virtual study groups and crowd-sourcing -- seeking answers from the whole universe of students.

New teaching style

A well-developed online class might reach struggling students better than a traditional one, said Ronald Rogers, the San Jose State professor who developed Udacity's statistics course. Rogers said when he stands in a lecture hall and asks if anyone has a question, nary a hand goes up. The new platform inserts short exercises and quizzes into the lecture, prompting instant student feedback.

"Imagine being in a class where if every minute and a half, the teacher shut up and asked if you got it," he said.

Still, Rogers doesn't know if his instincts are right. "The first thing all of us want to know is, 'Does it work?'" he said. "We want to know: Did they feel like they were just out there alone, or did they feel more connected?"

The San Jose State-Udacity project is undergoing an independent review to find out. Researchers will also explore which students are most likely to succeed -- or not. It's an important question if universities want to give poor or nontraditional students a leg up.

Online savings

Gov. Brown has argued that large, online courses could help make California's colleges and universities more efficient. But forecasting profits or savings is a risky business, as UC has learned. Before startup companies began offering classes for free, ?the university decided to sell them to the public for credit -- for up to $2,100 per course.

Since last year's launch, five nonstudents have enrolled.

The online option can make college more affordable for students, however. Barham said it helped him transfer from a community college to UC Berkeley a year earlier than he otherwise would have, given his work schedule. Now at Cal, the legal studies major said taking statistics online has saved him more time and money.

Otherwise, he said, "I would have had to graduate later or cut down on work hours, which I can't afford to do."

But when it comes to the UC system's budget challenges, he said, educators should keep their online hopes in check. "I don't think online education is the savior of the UC system or anything like that."

Follow Katy Murphy at Twitter.com/katymurphy.

Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_22651626/online-education-transforming-college?source=rss

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