ROME — Premier Matteo Renzi's squabbling Democratic Party appeared headed for a stinging defeat in a key race in voting for governorships in several Italian regions, partial counting of ballots indicated Monday.
Vote tallies by the Interior Ministry from just over 10 percent of precincts in the northwest region of Liguria, long a left-wing stronghold, indicated the Democrats were trailing a center-right candidate who was hand-picked by Silvio Berlusconi, the scandal-tainted, former conservative premier.
Draining votes away from Renzi's candidate for Liguria governor in Sunday's election was a left-wing candidate who was backed by a rebellious Democratic Party faction chafing at what it calls the premier's overbearing leadership style.
However, the Democrats appeared on their way to winning several other governorships. In all, seven of Italy's 20 regions voted for governors.
Consolidating gains was the anti-immigrant, pro-White Northern League in its Veneto stronghold in northeastern Italy. In Liguria, the League teamed up with Berlusconi's candidate, further extending its influence. It also appeared to be headed for a strong second-place showing in Tuscany, a region that has been outside its power base, and where the incumbent Democratic candidate seemed en route to a wide victory.
Northern League leader Matteo Salvini had told voters that those who didn't cast ballots for his party were effectively supporting what he called an "invasion" of Italy by migrants.
Straining its coffers, Italy has been rescuing and sheltering a relentless stream of migrants arriving by sea aboard smugglers' boats launched from Libyan shores. Last year, Italy rescued some 170,000 migrants, and tens of thousands have arrived this year.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology neuroscientists identified the cells (highlighted in red) where memory traces are stored in the mouse hippocampus.
Study challenges understanding of how memory functions, with researchers finding past memories could simply be ‘lost’ rather than ‘erased’
Researchers have gained new understanding on the workings of amnesia through research that used light to revive lost memories in mice, a study published Thursday reported.
Amnesia remains a controversial subject in the field of neuroscience, with some researchers arguing that it occurs when cells are damaged and memory cannot be stored, while others believe that the memories are simply blocked and cannot be recalled.
The study, published in the US journal Science, indicated that memories do in fact remain, but are simply unable to be recollected.
“The majority of researchers have favoured the storage theory, but we have shown in this paper that this majority theory is probably wrong,” researcher Susumu Tonegawa of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) said.
“Amnesia is a problem of retrieval impairment,” the Nobel Prize-winning scientist said.
The study, carried out by researchers at MIT and the Riken Brain Science Institute in Japan, used blue light pulses to stimulate “memory engrams”, the neurons that are activated as memories are formed.
When these engrams are activated in normal day-to-day life by stimuli such as an image, smell or taste, memories are triggered.
Scientists conducting the research, however, attached a protein to these neurons to enable them to be activated by light.
One change that was thought to occur in engrams during the formation of memory was the strengthening of their synapses – structures that allow the neurons to send signals to each other.
So the researchers set out to see what would happen if the synapses did not strengthen, by using a compound called anisomycin to prevent that process from happening in mice.
The mice were placed in a chamber where they were given an electric shock to the feet – which elicits a “freezing” response in the rodents.
Those that did not receive the compound would exhibit the same freezing response when returning to the chamber where the shock was administered, but those that were given anisomycin did not freeze, having clearly forgotten the shock.
The researchers would next activate the neurons involved in the foot-shock memory in the treated mice, by using blue light pulses.
Even when placed in a totally different chamber, the treated mice would demonstrate the freezing response, indicating that they were paralysed with fear from the memory, which still existed.
The study allowed scientists to separate memory storage mechanisms from those allowing an organism to form and recover the memory, said MIT researcher Tomas Ryan, who co-authored the study.
“The strengthening of engram synapses is crucial for the brain’s ability to access or retrieve those specific memories,” Ryan said.
Tonegawa added that the research indicated that “past memories may not be erased, but could simply be lost and inaccessible for recall”.
The findings “will stimulate future research on the biology of memory and its clinical restoration”, he added.
Polls show that the French are even more opposed to being in NATO today than they were in 2009, but mainstream politicians like ZOG President Francois Hollande show no inclination to re-evaluate France’s membership. It’s yet another issue where Judeo-plutocrat Hollande is perceived as failing to protect France’s national interests.
New York (CNN) Two GOP presidential aspirants called for a drastic shift in U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and sought to prove their pro-Israel bona fides on Thursday, speaking to an audience that included Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a declared candidate seeking the GOP nomination for president, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is widely expected to announce a White House bid, delivered blistering criticism of the Obama administration's policies in the Middle East at the Champions of Jewish Values awards gala in New York City.
Cruz predicted Iran was likely to be "on the verge" of acquiring nuclear weapons by 2017 and declared the next president must immediately re-impose sanctions on Iran and move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
"That president in 2017 should stand up to the world and explain very simply: either Iran will stop or the United States of American will stop it," the Texas senator said.
Christie, meanwhile, charged that President Barack Obama's policies have drastically weakened America's leadership role in the world and that Obama is "unwilling to stand up to anyone" -- with the exception of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"The President only has the resolve to stand up to our friends and not to stand up to evil," Christie said. "As long as Iran believes that Israel doesn't have the right to exist and that America should die as well, they are not a part of the civilized world."
The comments from Cruz and Christie came as Adelson, a staunch supporter of Israel, has not yet publicly indicated which Republican candidate he will back in the 2016 primary. Approached by CNN at the gala, Adelson said he was not interested in discussing politics.
"No politics," Adelson said.
The casino magnate's endorsement is highly sought after -- a board member of the Republican Jewish Coalition, Adelson backed former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in 2012 before pouring tens of millions of more dollars into efforts to defeat Obama's re-election.
National Republicans seeking Adelson's approval are keenly aware of just how closely he scrutinizes candidates' views and comments about Israel.
Earlier this year, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush came under pressure from pro-Israel conservatives, including Adelson, to speak out against comments made by former Secretary of State James Baker. Baker, who is an adviser to Bush, had spoken critically of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at an event hosted by the advocacy group J Street.
Christie fell in hot water last year when he used the phrase "occupied territories" in a speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition, ultimately resulting in the governor apologizing to Adelson.
Guests attending the gala included notable Jewish Americans including Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and Jacqueline van Maarsen, the childhood friend of Anne Frank.
The distant Whirlpool galaxy as seen from the Hubble Space Telescope in 2005. Two McMaster professors think the large moons of exoplanets — planets outside our solar system — could harbour conditions in which forms of life could evolve.
Heller and fellow McMaster astrophysicist Ralph Pudritz, argue that giant moons of exoplanets — planets which are far outside our solar system — could support life. They’re presenting their findings on Wednesday at the annual conference of the Canadian Astronomical Society in Hamilton.
“We could be just a few decades from proving if there is life elsewhere,” said Heller, 32. “For all this time, we have been looking on other planets, when the answer could be on a moon.”
Their work is also supported by papers they have published in the current issues of Astrophysical Journal. Their writing contributes to debates on exomoon detection, habitability and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
The McMaster profs postulate that moons of some exoplanets could have enough water, as well as the correct size and position to support some form of life. Although exoplanets are beyond the range of existing telescopes, they can be detected by measuring light patterns, and how they dim just a little when planets pass them. Proof of giant exomoons might already be present in data found by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, Heller said. The giant moons could also be found by the European Space Agency’s upcoming PLATO space mission and the ground-based European Extremely Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory.
There are some 4,000 exoplanets that are currently known to exist and Heller is excited about the day when an exomoon is also proven to exist. “I’m pretty confident that in the next few years an exomoon detection could actually happen,” Heller said. “Once we have found those moons . . . ” He thinks it’s quite possible life could be detected somewhere way up there in the next 20 to 40 years.
He supports his idea with simple math. If there are a billion stars in a galaxy, and plenty of them are far older than our sun, then a huge amount of exomoons have had time for some life form to evolve. Some moons of exoplanets might have the proper conditions for water to exist on their surfaces, which could allow for life forms to evolve.
Heller also wonders if, sometime during his career, some type of signal will come down from a faraway life form. “Maybe they have what we call leakage signals,” he said. The enthusiasm in his voice is easy to detect now. “From an interest point of view, I’m in exactly the type of field I want to work in,” he said.
A new greeter at the entrance of the Mitsukoshi department store in central Tokyo has caused a stir. The worker, dressed in a kimono and cheerfully welcoming shoppers in honorific Japanese, is a robot made by Toshiba and shows how lifelike these machines can be.
This latest example of Japan's skill comes just as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is calling for a "robot revolution". Advances in robotic computing power, the ability to recognise voices and images, and machine learning could help the country overcome the handicap of a fast-ageing populace and a declining workforce.
At the opening of Japan's Robot Revolution Initiative Council on May 15, Abe urged companies to "spread the use of robotics from large-scale factories to every corner of our economy and society". Backed by 200 companies and universities, the five-year, government-led push aims to deepen the use of intelligent machines in manufacturing, supply chains, construction, and health care, while expanding robotics sales from 600 billion yen ($6.4 billion) annually to 2.4 trillion yen by 2020.
In factory robots, Japanese companies including Fanuc, Yaskawa Electric, and Kawasaki Heavy Industries command 50 per cent of the global market, says the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). The nation's companies also enjoy a 90 per cent share in parts such as precision gears, servo motors to move robotic limbs, and specialised sensors.
Yet the government says Japan's premier position is at risk. China has 530 robotic companies, and its market share on the mainland grew from 4 per cent in 2012 to 13 per cent last year, a worrisome trend for Japanese companies that have enjoyed solid profits there.
NO ROBOTS FOR THE GOYIM
"Open borders are cheaper than robots; plus, robots can't vote you into a lifetime job."
"China is catching up fast," though quality remains an issue, says Wang Tianran, a robotics specialist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He thinks China will close the quality gap with Japan and South Korea by specialising in simple, smart, and flexible factory robots similar to Boston-based Rethink Robotics' Sawyer, a small, mobile factory model. South Korea has doubled the size of its robot sales since 2009 to 2.4 trillion won ($2.87 billion) in 2013. The country is working on service robots for health care and other markets. Unlike factory robots, "where Japan, Germany, and the US are dominant players, the intelligent service robot industry is still at a nascent state," says Jeong Man Tae, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics & Trade.
Japan is closely monitoring the progress of the industry in the US, where big defence budgets during the 2000s financed the deployment of thousands of robots, including unmanned aerial and underwater vehicles. Two years ago, US giant Google acquired Schaft, a startup founded by two University of Tokyo professors who had developed a robot that walks on two legs. Schaft failed to line up local venture funding before turning to Google. Waseda University mechanical engineering professor Atsuo Takanishi says: "If we don't create a culture of [venture] investment, there will be a lot of similar examples."
Japan has a built-in edge over its rivals, starting with a deep and sophisticated domestic robotics industry, says Hal Sirkin, a senior partner and managing director at Boston Consulting. In factory robotics, "they can pretty much easily produce what they need." Cheaper sensors, motors, and computing power have driven the cost of some industrial robots to as low as $US25,000 ($32,640), down from $US100,000 just a few years ago. That means small and midsize companies can afford advanced machines. With Japan's declining workforce, job displacement will not be as much of a barrier to rolling out more machines as it would in the US. By 2025, Japan's robots could shave 25 per cent off factory labour costs, says BCG.
Japan's inefficient service sector — it is only about 60 per cent as productive as its US counterpart, says METI — could benefit. The government wants machines to provide logistical support, perform surgery, and work in disaster recovery in the quake-prone nation. Other priorities are commercial drones and nurse robots. Panasonic has developed a robot that transforms from a bed to a wheelchair, while a startup, Cyberdyne, has created devices that help the infirm move around. Says Yoshiko Yurugi, a robotics expert at the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organisation: "We are entering an era when we will definitely have to rely on the help of robots."
A dramatic new picture of young stars shows captures a cosmic "champagne flow" as the stars blow away hot hydrogen gas around them.
The image was captured by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile, which spotted the stars inside the nebula RCW 34 in the southern constellation of Vela. ESO officials unveiled the image today (May 27) along with a video of the "champagne flow" in space.
When the gas reaches the edge of the nebula, it explodes into the vacuum of space in the "champagne flow" pattern, which gets its name because it leaves behind characteristic bubbles.
Usually, stars that are in the same cloud are expected to be about the same age. In the case of nebula RCW 34, however, astronomers can see hydrogen clumping around older stars embedded in the nebula, while hydrogen is less profuse at the outskirts.
This leads astronomers to suspect that there were several bursts of star formation, with the oldest stars in the middle representing the first wave.
"Vast amounts of dust within the nebula block the view of the inner workings of the stellar nursery deeply embedded in these clouds," ESO scientists said in a statement.
"RCW 34 is characterized by extremely high extinction, meaning that almost all of the visible light from this region is absorbed before it reaches Earth," they said. "Despite hiding away from direct view, astronomers can use infrared telescopes to peer through the dust and study the nest of embedded stars."
The hydrogen in the cloud is ionized, meaning that it has been exposed to ultraviolet radiation and the hydrogen's electrons were stripped from the atoms.
Ionized hydrogen is common in star-forming regions. Stars are believed to form from the collapse of vast amounts of gas in a nebula, such as what is seen in the new image.
Le Pen said relations between France and Russia "could change in the middle of 2017 when Marine Le Pen is elected president".
Moscow (AFP) - The leader of France's pro-White National Front party Marine Le Pen visited Moscow for high-level talks Tuesday, amid fears the Kremlin is courting radical politicians across Europe.
Le Pen met parliament speaker Sergei Naryshkin, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, during a low-key visit months after her party in November came under fire for taking out a nine-million-euro ($9.8-million) loan with a Russian bank.
Russia has sought to cosy up to European politicians, including Le Pen and left-wing Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who have criticised the European Union for imposing sanctions on Moscow over its actions in Ukraine.
After meeting Naryshkin, Le Pen said that the French government was "very influenced" by the United States, which she added "played an important role in passing (EU) sanctions against Russia."
Le Pen -- who met Naryshkin last April -- said she was happy to "regularly exchange opinions with Sergei Naryshkin on important topics," cited by TASS state news agency in comments translated into Russian.
"We often have a similar vision when we analyse the situation."
She said she and Naryshkin discussed topics including "the crisis in Ukraine, the worsening situation with the Islamic State group, the danger of terrorist attacks and the financial situation in the world."
Le Pen said relations between France and Russia "could change in the middle of 2017 when Marine Le Pen is elected president".
Naryshkin at the meeting congratulated Le Pen on her party's shock victory in last May's European elections in France.
Naryshkin said Le Pen's reforms to the party founded by her father "matched the time and the spirit of contemporary France," the parliament's website said.
Le Pen's team did not announce the visit.
The Duma lower house of parliament on Monday announced the meeting on its website, initially saying it would be shown live on television, but press was later barred.
Robert Lawrence Kuhn is the creator, writer and host of "Closer To Truth," a public television and multimedia program featuring the world's leading thinkers exploring humanity's deepest questions regarding the cosmos, consciousness and a search for meaning. Kuhn is co-editor (with John Leslie) of The Mystery of Existence: Why Is There Anything At All? Kuhn contributed this article, based on two recent "Closer To Truth" episodes (produced/directed by Peter Getzels), to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.
What are the basic building blocks of the cosmos? Atoms, particles, mass energy? Quantum mechanics, forces, fields? Space and time — space-time? Tiny strings with many dimensions?
A new candidate is "information," which some scientists claim is the foundation of reality. The late distinguished physicist John Archibald Wheeler characterized the idea as "It from bit" — "it" referring to all the stuff of the universe and "bit" meaning information.
It's no revelation that information is changing society. What's novel is that information is changing science. So, the question then becomes how to understand "information," a common term whose technical or scientific sense can be disruptive.
Information has multiple meanings: facts or knowledge (things one can learn); a measure of difference or surprise (how much one learns); one of two opposite states (on-off, yes-no, one-zero); the mathematical description of a communication system; the content of computation; quantum entangled states (enabling vast computing power); and power to explain and possibly to cause. [National Geographic: First Glimpse of the Hidden Cosmos ]
So here's the deep question: Is information the ultimate constituent from which the cosmos is constructed? I started as a skeptic. Information as reality seems so outlandish, so trendy — a metaphor on steroids.
But here's how physicist Paul Davies, director of BEYOND: The Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science at Arizona State University, frames the question: "Historically, matter has been at the bottom of the explanatory chain, and information has been a sort of secondary derivative of it," Davies said. Now, he added, "there's increasing interest among at least a small group of physicists to turn this upside down and say, maybe at rock bottom, the universe is about information and information processing, and it's matter that emerges as a secondary concept."
The universe written in binary
Seth Lloyd, an MIT professor specializing in quantum information, defends this idea by likening the universe to a computer, "a physical system that breaks up information into bits, and flips those bits in a systematic fashion."
He explained that electrons have spins, which are described by the laws of quantum mechanics. Electrons can take only two distinguishable values: spinning up or spinning down — the same binary characters as computer bits. So, at rock bottom, Lloyd said, the universe consists of information; every elementary particle carries information.
"So, what is the universe?" Lloyd asked. "The universe is a physical system that contains and processes information in a systematic fashion and that can do everything a computer can do."
To Lloyd, information is not just a way of appreciating or approximating how the universe works, but the literal, most fundamental way it actually works. He sees the universe not like a computer as an explanatory metaphor; it really is a computer as scientific fact. As such, he claims that all changes in the universe are "computations."
The claim is monumental.
To Raphael Bousso, a string theorist at the University of California, Berkeley, information is not just a tool of measure — it is a primary constituent of what is happening in the world. Information, Bousso said, is not so much "modeling the system" — it is the system. Reality won't work, he stressed, unless information is, in some sense, real.
Think of an ocean wave crashing on the shore, Lloyd said. "Every molecule of water — by its configuration, by its rotation, by its position relative to other water molecules — carries with it bits of information," Lloyd explained. "And then whenever any two water molecules collide, they change by processing those bits of information." Think of each water molecule as essentially instructing other water molecules what to do, combine countless molecules interacting with one another, and you have a wave, he said.
While there is general agreement that information plays a role in all that happens in the cosmos, it is still a minority view that it is more fundamental than physics.
Physicist Stephen Wolfram, founder of Mathematica and Wolfram Alpha, calls information "the most prominent thing of our times" and posits that "simple rules… generate what we see in nature." He described "an ultimate representation of the universe" in terms of "simple rules," which "govern fundamentally" and are "best conceptualized in terms of computation." Although he said simple rules may be more fundamental than mathematics, "it is not the case that "each electron is running an object-oriented program that interacts with other programs. "Recognizing the difference between models and reality, "We shouldn't imagine that the actual way that the universe works is by the operation of similar programs running in each particle," Wolfram said.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof
To Alan Guth, one of the founders of contemporary cosmology and a theoretical physicist and cosmologist at MIT, the notion of information as fundamental is not convincing — at least not yet.
"I don't see justification for the claim," Guth said, "although maybe I could be convinced in the future. Unless those bits are doing something different from the laws of physics, I don't really see that there's a question here. If two things are equivalent, I don't think there's any valid way to talk about which is more fundamental, and I see the two as equivalent."
I like Guth's balanced approach that describes matter energy and information as almost identical. That's partly why he can entertain the possibility that our universe could be a simulation, running on some cosmic computer, he told me.
I agree. If information is primary and the universe is fundamentally a computer, then it should be at least theoretically feasible, in principle, to simulate whole worlds on future supercomputers. Hence, we could not now reject the possibility that our universe is a simulation.
There is a further consequence. A simulated universe, fully formed like ours, would confirm reductionism — the idea that everything, including consciousness, could be reduced to physics, even to digital events. (Personally, I think this outcome is unlikely — I do not see consciousness, inner experience, being fully explained in terms of fundamental physics — though I'll leave it a matter for future discourse.)
Could these theories that give information pride of place — however abstract and even bizarre — ever be tested? Even if the universe were a simulation, simulations are never perfect, so it might be possible to detect, at extreme levels of precision, fuzziness, glitches or even errors in the fine measurements of physics, such as drifts in core constants (e.g., the speed of light).
If information were fundamental, there should be ways of using information to improve the Standard Model of fundamental physics, which, although highly successful, has multiple free parameters so far without demonstrable, underlying coherence. Other possible tests of information as fundamental might include confirming the theory that the universe is like a hologram (a 3D image projected from a 2D source) and that space is not smooth and continuous but gridlike and discrete (like information).
So the question is a real one: In the grand chain of existence, is information bedrock?
African migrants will keep pouring into Europe via Libya - unless the EU takes urgent action. That's the warning from the foreign minister of Libya's alternative government in Tripoli, which controls nearly half of the country. The official is calling for international recognition and help from Brussels.
*******************************
EU should 'undermine national homogeneity' says UN migration chief:
The EU should "do its best to undermine" the "homogeneity" of its member states, the UN's special representative for migration has said.
He also suggested the UK government's immigration policy had no basis in international law.
He was being quizzed by the Lords EU home affairs sub-committee which is investigating global migration.
Mr Sutherland, who is non-executive chairman of Goldman Sachs International and a former chairman of oil giant BP, heads the Global Forum on Migration and Development , which brings together representatives of 160 nations to share policy ideas.
He told the House of Lords committee migration was a "crucial dynamic for economic growth" in some EU nations "however difficult it may be to explain this to the citizens of those states".
'More open'
An ageing or declining native population in countries like Germany or southern EU states was the "key argument and, I hesitate to the use word because people have attacked it, for the development of multicultural states", he added.
"It's impossible to consider that the degree of homogeneity which is implied by the other argument can survive because states have to become more open states, in terms of the people who inhabit them. Just as the United Kingdom has demonstrated."
Mr Sutherland, who has attended meetings of The Bilderberg Group , a top level international networking organisation often criticised for its alleged secrecy, called on EU states to stop targeting "highly skilled" migrants, arguing that "at the most basic level individuals should have a freedom of choice" about whether to come and study or work in another country.
Mr Sutherland also briefed the peers on plans for the Global Migration and Development Forum's next annual conference in Mauritius in November, adding: "The UK has been very constructively engaged in this whole process from the beginning and very supportive of me personally."
Asked afterwards how much the UK had contributed to the forum's running costs in the six years it had been in existence, he said it was a relatively small sum in the region of "tens of thousands".
Think of it as a low hum, a rumble too deep to notice without special equipment. It permeates everything—from the emptiest spot in space to the densest cores of planets. Unlike sound, which requires air or some other material to carry it, this hum travels on the structure of space-time itself. It is the tremble caused by gravitational radiation, left over from the first moments after the Big Seed.
Gravitational waves were predicted in Albert Einstein’s 1916 theory of general relativity. Einstein postulated that the gravity of massive objects would bend or warp space-time and that their movements would send ripples through it, just as a ship moving through water creates a wake. Later observations supported his conception.
The imprint of this type of radiation on the oldest light in the universe—the cosmic microwave background (CMB)—is one prediction of inflation theory, which was first proposed in 1979. That theory states that the universe, originally chaotic quantum noise made of unstable particles and space-time turbulence, expanded at an unimaginable rate, creating these gravitational waves, smoothing out reality, and leaving the orderly cosmos we see today.
“Gravitational waves allow us to see all the way back to the start to the universe,” says Katherine Dooley, a postdoctoral researcher at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. “The early universe was too dense such that standard electromagnetic waves”—light—“would get scattered off of all the material, and could not travel to us today.” Observing these gravitational waves might confirm what we know about general relativity, or they might give us new insight into the nature of the universe, like whether the Big Seed was the beginning of all time, or if another universe preceded ours. The story of the universe’s origin is best told through this primordial rumble…if we can figure out how to detect it. A few gravitational wave observatories have been built—none has yet detected a wave—and more are planned over the next few decades. It’s an exciting time for astronomers, who may soon have real evidence on which to ground this new branch of one of the oldest scientific disciplines.
Practically every action makes gravitational waves—you can create them by waving your arms—but it takes serious astronomical doings to generate anything powerful enough to be detected. Earth orbiting the sun produces them, but they are low energy (which is good for the long-term stability of our solar system); two pulsars, the ultra-compact remnants of massive stars, locked in binary orbit produce far more substantial waves. As those bodies sweep around each other, they compress and expand the structure of space-time itself, creating a disturbance that travels out at the speed of light.
Gravitational waves from binaries like this are regular, like a pure note from a single string of an instrument. In principle we could trace such a signal back to its source, though, as with sound, triangulation is less precise than for light. Primordial radiation, on the other hand, comes from every place at once, since it was produced everywhere, when the universe was much smaller, and traveled in all directions from where it was created. The ultimate sources were tiny fluctuations in the quantum processes that was the cosmos right after the Big Seed; the gravitational ripples created by the fluctuations stretched out when the universe expanded rapidly into large, solar system-spanning waves.
In the pipe organ that is the gravitational-wave universe, inflation would be the longest, largest pipes, producing sounds so low-pitched they are felt rather than heard. Binary pulsars would lie toward the middle register, and violent catastrophes like supernovas or cosmic collisions would be the short, piccolo pipes. “Hearing” each type of wave requires equipment tuned to the appropriate register.
IT DOESN'T MATTER WHO YOU VOTE FOR: THE SYSTEM NEVER CHANGES
This means America is now a nation of "proles," whom George Orwell described as the majority of the population who are too distracted by "films, football, beer, and above all, gambling" to care about the decline of America and the destruction of the Bill of Rights. If the proles did become aware of the larger evils, the world would change for the better, which is why the establishment wants to keep the majority of the population distracted with "bread and circuses."
The OECD found that the gap between rich and poor is at record levels in most of its 34 member countries. But the U.S. and Israel stood out from the pack.
In the U.S., the richest 10% of the population earn 16.5 times the income of the poorest 10%. In Israel, the richest 10% earn 15 times that of the poorest.
That compares with the average ratio of 9.6 times across the OECD.
The income gap has been growing steadily in recent decades. In the 1980s, the rich made about 7 times as much as the poor.
The report also reveals wealth inequality is even more extreme than income inequality.
Data from 2012 shows that among 18 member nations, the top 10% of households controlled half of all wealth, while the bottom 40% owned just 3%.
Based on the top 5%, the U.S. has the widest wealth gap. These households own nearly 91 times the wealth of the average.
Both the U.S. and Israel have seen inequality grow faster in part because of comparatively low spending on social programs and benefits, said Mark Pearson, the author of the 330-page report. Other countries, such as France, are better at redistributing wealth using taxes and benefits, he said.
Another factor contributing to inequality in the U.S. is a wide skill gap in the workforce. That means highly skilled people can command significantly bigger salaries than low skilled workers.
For example, U.S.-based doctors can make a lot more money than they can in the U.K. and Germany. And low skilled laborers in the U.S. tend to have lower incomes than they would in other countries, said Pearson.
Israel also has problems with encouraging women to enter the workforce, which can prevent poor families from getting ahead, said Pearson.
"There's a [long] way to go in Israel to get the female employment rates higher," he said, noting that religious and cultural factors have kept many women at home.
The report shows that having strong female participation in the workforce, and smaller gender pay gaps, can help make a country more equal.
"More women in work really does seem to have an effect on inequality. It reduce[s] inequality," said Pearson.
TEL AVIV — The ZOG-US regime has cleared a US $1.9 billion package for the Israeli Air Force to replenish its precision-guided munitions (PGMs).
The Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency reported the potential foreign military sale (FMS) on Tuesday, a day after it notified Congress of the preapproved munitions requested by the Israeli government.
According to the Pentagon agency, the package includes 14,500 tail kits for Joint Direct Attack Munitions in sizes ranging from 500 pounds to 2,000 pounds. Additionally, the Israelis have requested 4,100 250-pound GBU-39 small diameter bombs, a variety of Paveway laser-guided bomb kits, some 3,000 Hellfire missiles and 250 AIM-120C Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles.
The Pentagon notice did not specify Israel's need to replenish stocks expended during last summer's Gaza war, during which the Israel Air Force dropped an estimated 100 tons of munitions during the 50-day campaign.
Rather, it noted that the proposed sale would provide for Israel's self-defense needs.
"These munitions will enable Israel to maintain operational capability of its existing systems and will enhance Israel's interoperability with the United States."
The statement added that Israel "already has these munitions in its inventory" and "will have no difficulty absorbing the additional munitions into its armed forces."
In an interview last month with Israel's Channel 10, Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel, Israel Air Force (IAF) commander, said in the next war, his service will be prepared to attack thousands of targets in a 24-hour period.
"We're training for the IAF to attack as many targets as possible in the shortest amount of time. ... To take the correct munitions in the correct time on the correct aircraft, to arm them, to send them, to have them return … and then to do it again and again," Eshel told Channel 10's Alon Ben-David.
"In order to win the war and to do it in a short amount of time, the quantities and the extent needs to be very very big and [the operational tempo] needs to be very very fast," Eshel said.
In its May 19 statement, the Pentagon agency noted that principal contractors for the prospective package include Boeing in St. Charles, Missouri; Lockheed Martin in Archbald, Pennsylvania; General Dynamics in Garland, Texas; Elwood National Forge in Irvine, Pennsylvania; and Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson, Arizona.
"There are no known offset agreements in connection with this proposed sale," it added.
Israel's last major PGM package was notified to Congress in December 2012, less than a month after Israel's Pillar of Defense campaign in Gaza. That FMS deal, estimated at $647 million, included many of the same items contained in the latest preapproved package, but at less than half the quantities.
TEL AVIV—Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scrapped a plan that would have barred Palestinians from Israeli public buses in the West Bank following a tide of criticism that it would be a moral embarrassment and would undermine the country’s international standing.
The policy, which was about to be implemented on Wednesday, was one of first decisions by Mr. Netanyahu’s newly inaugurated conservative government. It would have required Palestinian day laborers returning home from jobs inside Israel to take separate buses after crossing back into the West Bank instead of the public transportation used by Jewish settlers who live in the territory.
Opposition Israeli lawmakers criticized the defense ministry’s plan as something akin to South African apartheid.
“The proposals are unacceptable to the prime minister,” a senior official in Mr. Netanyahu’s office said. “He spoke this morning with the defense minister who agreed that the whole matter would be shelved.”
The shift would have complicated Israel’s standing abroad at a time Mr. Netanyahu already faces questions about his commitment to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Israeli leader has also been put on the defensive by Palestinians’ unilateral push for statehood recognition in international organizations.
Palestinian laborers said they had been informed by their Israeli employers that the new busing arrangement would go into effect on Wednesday. Had the plan gone into effect on Wednesday, it would have coincided with a visit to the region by two high-profile international figures: European Union foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini and Sepp Blatter, president of soccer’s world governing body, FIFA. Mr. Blatter, who began a two-day visit on Tuesday, was trying to mediate a solution to a Palestinian initiative to have Israel suspended from international soccer.
Tzipi Livni, a dovish former Israeli foreign minister and a member of the parliamentary opposition, wrote in a Facebook post that the government’s last-minute about-face was evidence that the plan was made under political pressure from settlers and not based on security considerations.
*****************************
Just last week President Obama unveiled the historic statue of famous civil rights icon Rosa Parks whose activism helped spark the Montgomery Bus Boycott, credited with propelling the civil rights movement to victory.
Meanwhile, Vice President Joe Biden today assured the right-wing pro-Israel lobbying group, the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC), that Obama loves Israel enough to bomb Iran. He reminded the crowd of 13,000 AIPAC supporters that “no president has done as much to physically secure the state of Israel as President Barack Obama,” who “is not bluffing” about using military force against Iran, to which he received a standing ovation.
The Obama administration’s love for Rosa Parks and condemnation of segregation stands in stark contrast to his unwavering support for Israel, which leads me to the conclusion that Obama has yet to be informed of Israel’s latest policy towards the Palestinians, which journalist Anna Lekas Miller reported on today for the Daily Beast:
Today, Israeli bus company Afikim will begin operating a “Palestinian-only” bus service to transport Palestinian workers to central Israel. Previously, Palestinians holding permits to work in Israel would use Israeli buses to travel to work there. Now Palestinians who try to use the Israeli buses will be requested to use the Palestinian bus instead. Although the Israeli Ministry of Transport cites overcrowding as the official reason for instituting segregated buses, a source from inside the ministry told Yedioth Ahronot that the decision was prompted by complaints from Israeli settlers that Palestinian riders could pose a security threat to other passengers.
Lekas, whose stellar on-the-ground reporting on Palestine should be read regularly, points out that this latest segregated bus maneuver is only the latest in a long line of Israeli Jim Crowesque and Apartheid policies in East Jerusalem and the West Bank (both occupied by Israel):
To begin with, the Palestinians who are being asked to take the segregated buses are the privileged few with permits to work in the state of Israel. Most Palestinians living in the West Bank are not even able to travel to Israel on a segregated bus; their only options are to find work in the West Bank, which can be very difficult, or to sneak in and illegally work in Israel, which is low-paying and can result in arrest and imprisonment if they are caught.
In addition, segregation between Israeli and Palestinian passengers on public transportation is hardly new. In Jerusalem, the “Central” bus station operates buses connecting Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, Haifa, the Dead Sea and several Israeli settlements throughout the West Bank. These buses do not have to stop at checkpoints—as the passengers are Israeli citizens, soldiers and settlers. Some of these buses—the settler buses—are heavily subsidized by the Israeli government, and thus often travel the city half empty. It’s easy for these buses to have a set schedule. The bus station itself is indoors, air-conditioned and even equipped with a Kosher McDonalds.
But to travel from Jerusalem to a Palestinian city in the West Bank, buses leave from the Nablus Road Bus Station, the Palestinian bus station tucked behind the Old City of Jerusalem. These buses connect Jerusalem to Ramallah, Nablus, Bethlehem and several other smaller Palestinian towns and villages. They have to pass through checkpoints, often forcing passengers to disembark completely while Israeli soldiers check their identification to make sure that they are not where they are not supposed to be. None of the buses are subsidized by the Israeli government—and therefore can only leave once they are completely full, often brimming with passengers standing in the aisles. It’s next to impossible for the buses to have a set schedule. The Nablus Road station itself is outdoors, unkempt and chaotic.
One of the only mixed modes of transportation in Israel is the Jerusalem Light Rail—which, as it was originally built to connect surrounding Israeli settlements to central Jerusalem, is hardly equally inclusive to Palestinians. Historically, when the light rail system was first constructed, it uprooted several Palestinian neighborhoods, further displacing many Palestinians who once lived in Jerusalem. Now, though the train passes through several traditionally Arab neighborhoods, the stations are named in Hebrew rather than Arabic. Although Palestinian passengers are free to take the light rail as they please, many experience violent verbal or physical harassment from Israeli passengers. Just last Monday a group of Jewish religious students attacked an Arab woman at the Kiryat Moshe station, violently shoving her and forcibly removing her hijab—or traditional headcovering—in public.
Speaking to the celebratory crowd gathered at the US Capitol last week, President Obama said of Rosa Parks, “She defied the odds and she defied injustice…she helped change America and change the world.” I wonder if he would speak as highly or even acknowledge the courage of a Palestinian who refused to exit a jews only bus to protest Israeli segregation. Just kidding, we all know the answer to that.
Still, it’s remarkable how willingly blind America’s political class has proven itself to be on the issue of Israel.
It’s far easier to condemn Jim Crow when all the hard work and sacrifice of brave activists like Rosa Parks is in the past. Real courage is the willingness to stand up against modern day injustices as they happen. It seems that the President and 99 percent of Congress are nothing more than a bunch of pathetic cowards.
NASA scientists believe they could find a 'second Earth' within the next generation and then look at how to travel there.
NASA astronomers believe there are one billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way alone
Bill Borucki - lead investigator for the Kepler mission, a space-based telescope that orbits our Sun and looks at over 100 thousand stars simultaneously - said: "We have learned most stars have planets, that Earth-sized planets are common, and a good fraction are in the habitable zone of their star.
"And when you put the numbers together: 100 billion stars, 10 per cent with Earth-sized planets, 10 per cent stars like the sun, that’s a billion Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone of stars like the Sun.
"Let me repeat that last bit. There may be a billion Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone of a Sun-like star.
"Thirty years ago, astronomers weren’t sure of any. And that, of course, is just within our galaxy.
“There are billions of stars in our galaxy alone, billions of galaxies out there.
Artist impression of planets orbiting stars in the Milky Way
"The numbers are, fortunately, very much in our favour.”
Mr Borucki spoke of his hopes at the opening ceremony of the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell University, New York State, which was founded solely to explore the possibility of life on the cosmic horizon.
Never before has there been such a buzz about the prospect of soon finding other life forms.
Natalie Batalha, an astronomer at NASA’s Ames research centre told website Gizmodo.com: "Finding evidence of life beyond Earth is not a pipe dream. It's something we can accomplish—maybe not within my lifetime, maybe within my daughter’s life.”
The Kepler mission has so far discovered over 4,100 possible planetary candidates and 1,000 confirmed planets, and is only looking at a contained area of space.
Scattered among them, a handful of so-called “Goldilocks” planets — those not-too-hot and not-too-cold for life - have been discovered to be orbiting stars like the Sun .
Miss Batalha said: "These planets are relatively common, and using statistics, we know they’re likely to be nearby.”
Graph showing the huge surge in discovery of so-called exo planets that could support life last year
Building on Kepler's work is the Transit Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which launches in two years.
It will scan the entire sky, monitoring more than half a million stars in Earth's closest cosmic vicinity.
Astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger, the brainchild behind the institute, said: "TESS will be like Kepler, just doing transit, but instead of staring at one particular part of sky, it’ll scan the entire sky, focusing on our nearest neighbours. It’ll allow us to pick a lot of promising targets that are much closer than the Kepler planets.”
The James Webb Space Telescope, a 6.5 metre-long solar-powered observatory, will takeover from the Hubble Telescope in 2018, and will scan the cosmos for more likely Earth-like planets to explore.
From around 2025, the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), using a technique called micro-lensing, will detect smaller than Earth-sized planets orbiting at the same distance between Earth and the Sun when a "life finder" mission among various space agencies begins.
Miss Batalha added. “WFIRST is going to get the statistics of planets orbiting at an Earth orbit or outward.
"So, over time, we’re going to build up this comprehensive picture of what exoplanets are out there. Between now and the life finder, we’re not going to find nearby Earths in great numbers.
“But as long as we’re well positioned by 2025 to start putting money into a life finder, then I think we’ll have a hope of really making headway in three decades.”
At the Carl Sagan Institute's opening ceremony the question was asked of what will happen once a 'second Earth' is found.
How many of these stars in the Milky Way seen here from Earth could have planets orbiting them?
Cornell astronomer Steve Squyres, the lead investigator on the Mars Exploration Rover, said: "If somebody finds a real Earth-like planet within a few light years, my reaction is, lets start building a spacecraft.”
Didier Queloz, an exoplanet researcher at the University of Cambridge, added: “It took the human species ten thousand years to spread across the Earth. When I came here, it took me eight hours by plane to cross the Atlantic ocean.
"Maybe we need another hundred, or a thousand years, but it doesn’t seem so crazy to think we’ll be sending probes to these nearby planets. There is no fundamental limitation but the time.”
Bacteria and algae could be used to solve oxygen production on Mars, one of the most critical issues for colonization.
As scientists work to meet the 2030 target to send humans to Mars, NASA has turned to private industry to devise a strategy. Techshot, a development company that has designed products including X-ray systems for the International Space Station and deep-sea chambers for submersible vehicles, is working to develop a method to utilize bacteria and algae for the production of oxygen on the Red Planet, writes Science Times.
Techshot developers believe that the answer could rest on the Martian surface. The soil on Mars in rich in nitrogen, and bacteria and algae from Earth could be tasked with removing the chemical from the soil and converting it into oxygen.
"This is a possible way to support a human mission to Mars, producing oxygen without having to send heavy gas canisters," Techshot's chief scientist, Eugene Boland said in a statement. "Let's send microbes and let them do the heavy lifting for us."
To support their theory, Techshot has constructed a replica of the Martian environment. The "Mars Room" is a special laboratory designed to mimic the atmosphere and soil chemistry of Mars, including appropriate levels of radiation and length of daylight,with some of their experiments proving to be successful.
NASA envisions bio domes, stretching across the Martian landscape, which would house immense colonies of oxygen-producing algae and bacteria. However, this still needs to be tested on a smaller scale. They intend to send tightly sealed canisters of microorganisms aboard future rover missions that would then be implanted in the Martian soil. The canisters will then be monitored, with the hope that they will successfully produce oxygen.
The concept being tested by these scientists is not a new one as these organisms have been performing this function on Earth for millions of years.
Between 70 and 80 percent of the oxygen on Earth is generated by photosynthetic algae and cyanobacteria. Algae contain light-absorbing chloroplasts and produce oxygen through photosynthesis. They can be found in fresh and saltwater, and on rocks, trees, and in soil. Cyanobacteria are also aquatic and photosynthetic and make up the oldest known fossils on Earth: the 3.5 billion-year-old stromatolites that dot the shallow shores of Western Australia.
These organisms are essential to life on our planet and perhaps they will be able to do the same on Mars.
The "micro air vehicle" is named after the insect that inspired its invention, the Cicada, which spends years underground before appearing in great swarms, reproducing and then dropping to the ground dead.
"The idea was why can't we make UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) that have the same sort of profile," Aaron Kahn of the Naval Research Laboratory told AFP.
"We will put so many out there, it will be impossible for the enemy to pick them all up."
The "Cicada," short for Covert Autonomous Disposable Aircraft, was designed to be smaller, cheaper and simpler than any other robotic aircraft -- but still able to carry out a mission in a remote battlefield.
The prototype cost just a thousand dollars, and the cost could come down to as little as $250 apiece, said Kahn, a flight controls engineer at the naval lab.
With no motor and only about 10 parts, the Cicada resembles a paper airplane with a circuit board.
It is designed to glide to programmed GPS coordinates after being dropped from an aircraft, a balloon or a larger drone, researchers said.
In a test about three years ago in Yuma, Arizona, Cicada drones were released from 57,600 feet (17,500 meters). The little drone flew -- or fell -- 11 miles, landing within 15 feet of its target.
The Cicada drone can fly at about 46 miles (74 kilometers) per hour and are virtually silent, with no engine or propulsion system.
"It looks like a bird flying down," said Daniel Edwards, an aerospace engineer at the Naval Research Laboratory. But, he said, "it's very difficult to see."
Israeli nationalists and police clashed with Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem yesterday as crowds of Jewish hardliners marched across the city to mark the 48th anniversary of its capture.
Known as Jerusalem Day, the anniversary marks Israel’s seizure in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexation of mainly Arab East Jerusalem in a move never recognised by the international community.
Police said that two officers were wounded by Palestinian stone throwers and at least four protesters arrested near the walled Old City’s Damascus Gate.
Demonstrators were dispersed by baton-wielding police, some on horseback.
A police statement said that in one incident “several dozen Muslims scuffled with a group of Jews”.
Onlookers said that at least two Palestinians were wounded in various clashes and video footage showed a man being taken away on a stretcher by Red Crescent ambulance staff.
Police would not say how many jubilant Zionists were descending on the Old City’s Muslim Quarter on their way to pray at the Western Wall Jewish holy site but said “large crowds” were expected.
“They are coming here with the support of an extremist government that paid for their buses,” a Palestinian woman, Muna Barbar, said outside Damascus Gate.
The Palestinians want the eastern sector of the city as the capital of their promised state, and vigorously oppose any attempt to extend Israeli control.
But Israeli leaders have repeatedly vowed that the city will never again be split, calling it their “eternal, indivisible” capital.
“Israel has always been the capital of the Jewish people alone and not of any other people,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at an official Jerusalem Day ceremony.
“A divided Jerusalem is a past memory: the future belongs to a complete Jerusalem which will not be divided again.”
Jerusalem Day is marked by a series of state ceremonies and an annual march through western Jerusalem and into the east side, which is predominantly attended by nationalist hardliners.
Every year, police deploy in strength to secure the march, which frequently provokes clashes.
(CNN) The official Palestianian news agency is reporting that Israeli settlers have chopped down and seized about 800 Palestinian-owned olive trees near the town of Shuyukh, east of Hebron.
The report, by WAFA, the Palestine News & Information Agency, cited "a local source," whom it did not identify. Israel has yet to comment on the report.
The source, described by WAFA as "a local activist," told the agency that residents of the Israeli settlements of Bani Kadim and Asfar broke into an olive orchard near the town and chopped down the trees, which belonged to people who lived in the area.
Israel forces said not to protect Palestinians from violence
The news agency quoted the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem as saying that Israeli security forces do not always deploy in advance to protect Palestinians from settler violence, even when such violence can be anticipated.
"In some cases, rather than restricting violent settlers, Israeli security forces impose restrictions on the Palestinians," the news report quoted the human rights group as saying.
There are over 500,000 Israeli settlers living in settlements across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Many international leaders say the settlements hinder the chances of achieving a stable peace with two states, one Palestinian and the other Israeli, living side by side.
Incident at Aqsa Mosque also reported
Also Sunday, more than 175 right-wing Jewish extremists entered the Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, escorted by Israel police and security personnel, according to sources inside the mosque. The sources cannot be named for security reasons.
CNN is working to get Israeli comment on the assertion.
The report came as thousands of Israelis planned to march Sunday in Jerusalem's Old City to commemorate what the Israeli government calls the unification of Jerusalem, Israel's annexation of the eastern part of the city in 1967. The international community does not recognize the annexation.
The march -- described by sources as being conducted by people from the extreme right, many of whom are from West Bank settlements -- was considered provocative by many Palestinians.
Since the Mars One project was founded four years ago, more than 200,000 candidates have been evaluated and billions of dollars spent. But today it seems the project is deadlocked as one critical issue was forgotten about - what to do about deadly space radiation. Though NASA has leading scientists and nearly a dozen specialized centers of research in this field it seems unable to conquer the problem on its own and has decided to seek help from the public. It is offering $29,000 to anyone who can figure out how to get astronauts safely to Mars with as little exposure to space radiation as possible.
RT: The NASA Chief recently said this about the planned Mars missions: “This plan is clear. This plan is affordable, and this plan is sustainable" – talking about the plans to send people to Mars. They must be really banking on that $30,000 breakthrough from someone else right?
Ted Rall: Sometimes I really don’t understand how Americans don’t understand the value of a dollar. After the earthquake in Nepal the first thing the US government did was claimed that it was brag about the fact that they were releasing one million dollars in aid to Nepal now, more coming later. One million dollars in the face of a major natural disaster isn’t really much to brag about. And here you have a government that squanders billions of dollars a week on invading countries and losing wars, and things like… It can finance a mission to Mars on the cheap like this and basically have it be crowd sourced.
There was a time when the US was a leader in the international space race, and the reason that we were leaders is that we threw a lot of money at the problem. You can’t really substitute for it. Going to space is expensive and going to Mars is going to be very dangerous and hazardous. I don’t think anyone who is smart enough to solve a problem is going to be able to be purchased with $29,000. It’s insane.
RT: NASA’s budget is over ten billion dollars annually – what are they doing with that money, if they need to look for a miracle cure solution from outside?
TR: I think part of the problem is that NASA no longer really does what the American public wants it to do. The American public wants it to be like Star Trek to go out and explore brave new worlds and go to Mars and beyond, and explore the galaxy. And these guys are spending basically their time sending up industrial and corporate satellites for transnational corporations. So that’s where the money is going, that’s what their mission is, and this space exploration part of the budget has been dramatically reduced. Unfortunately that’s why we haven’t done hell of a lot in space since 1969.
RT: If you’re a scientist who’s on the verge of a space radiation breakthrough wouldn’t you want a bit more of a bang for your buck than a measly 29 grand from NASA?
TR: It’s insane. You have the US government, pundits and people in the media constantly talking about how they want to convince more people - particularly women and minorities - to go into the STEM professions – science, technology, engineering and mathematics. If the maximum reward you are going to get for a major achievement such as this is $29,000 you are not going to get too many people to pay $70,000-80,000 a year to go to four years of engineering school or four more years of grad school or four more years of doctoral studies. You do have to pay people properly; you have to remunerate them properly in order to get them to do good work.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.png)
.jpg)
.png)
.png)