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Thursday, October 4, 2012

Rowan Williams: A wise man who makes my brain ache | God and ...

Last night I was in London attending the Annual Theos Think Tank lecture, which this year was being given by Archbishop Rowan Williams.? I don?t think I?ve seen so many dog collars in one room before, but I digress.

This was my first opportunity to see Rowan in the flesh and the eyebrows were as impressive as I?d hoped, but the real reason I went to see him speak was to hear what he had to say. The title of his talk was ?The person and the individual: human dignity, human relationships and human limits?, which suggested it was going to be pretty deep theologically and that proved to be the case.

I?m now going to have a go at briefly summarising his lecture.? I?m hoping this makes sense and follows what was said accurately:

You can?t define me as a person by the functional nature of who I am; I eat, think, walk and do a lot of other things, but that doesn?t make me ?me?.? I?m more than a biological set of facts.? What makes me fully human is the way I interact with other people.? In my life I?m surrounded by a network of relationships and they define who I am.

This is the mysterious nature of what it means to be a person.? This relational element?that is the key to our?humanity doesn?t change whether we are disabled, dying or?on the margins of society.? Even a baby inside the womb is in relationship with its mother.? Christians believe that attention and respect is due to every person because we are all caught up in this relational reality. No one is outside of it.? We are fully human because of our relationships.

There is a distinction between seeing ourselves as a person because?of our relationships and seeing ourselves primarily as an individual where my world revolves around myself.? The problem with identifying ourselves?primarily as individuals above that of relational beings is that we inevitably detach and alienate ourselves from those around us.? It leads to us wanting to control our lives, to let our desires and expectations push us on towards and past our limits seeking to become more perfect and prosperous.? We resent our limitations rather than embracing them.

If our understanding of our humanity is focused on the self rather than understanding it through our connectedness with others then we are in danger of losing the desire to treat others with the respect and attention we seek to give ourselves.

St. Augustine wrote that before our relationships with each other, we are in relationship with God.??Our relationship with God then defines those relationships with others; it is the root of everything it means to be a person.? It is through our relationship with God also that we can claim our human rights.? These are the rights to be respected and affirmed and for our lives to be valued.

Ultimately what binds relationships together is love and that love first and foremost comes from God.? I am neither a machine or a self-contained?soul; I am a person, spoken to, seen and?loved into existence.? My relationships make me who I am as a person, but they also require me to have faith; faith to allow others to impact and shape my life.? This engagement is risky.? It forces us to open up to others, but it also teaches us to be responsible for each other and to place value on those around us.

It?s impossible to understand who we are as humans unless we can grasp the concept of person over individual.? And we can?t address our humanity fully without seeing it from a theological (God?s) perspective.

This summary is a lot shorter than Rowan William?s full 45 minute discourse, which you can listen to here.? I?ve been thinking about how we can simplify this concept further and Rowan?s discussion of who I am as a person can really be summed up by Jesus famous teaching:

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. ^?One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: ?Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law??

Jesus replied: ??Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. ^?This is the first and greatest commandment.? And the second is like it: ?Love your neighbour as yourself.? ^?All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.? (Matthew 22:34-40)

The heart of the Bible, the gospel and our very existence are inseparable from love and relationship.? You can guarantee that where our society is struggling, it comes down to love and relationship, whether it be marital breakdown, abortion, addiction or areas such as banking and crime.

I struggle to see how a nation that ignores Jesus? commands can function healthily.? It?s why I believe the Christian faith needs to be at the heart of our institutions and in the corridors of power.? I have not found a way to live that is superior to that which is taught in the Bible.? That?s what drives me to present the Good News when I write and gives me the desire to see the Church alive and at work in every part of our nation.

I think Rowan believes this too.? Listening?to him, I was bowled over by his wisdom and deep level of understanding of theology and also of the human condition.? It was a privilege to hear him speak in such a way at one of his last engagements before he steps down from his position.

It also made my brain hurt too.

Source: http://godandpoliticsuk.org/2012/10/02/rowan-williams-a-wise-man-who-makes-my-brain-ache/

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Bill Clinton fires up Democratic voters in New Hampshire

Former President Bill Clinton addresses delegates during the second session of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, September 5, 2012. 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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bill-clinton-fires-democratic-voters-hampshire-200231720.html

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Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Watching crystals 'heal' themselves: Novel way to remove defects in materials

ScienceDaily (Oct. 1, 2012) ? In a paper just published in Nature Materials, a team of researchers that includes William T.M. Irvine, assistant professor in physics at the University of Chicago, has succeeded in creating a defect in the structure of a single-layer crystal by simply inserting an extra particle, and then watching as the crystal "heals" itself. The trick to this self-healing property is that the crystal, an array of microscopic particles, must be curved.

This effect, which carries important implications for improving the conductivity of electronics and other realms of materials science, was predicted six years ago by physicist Mark Bowick of Syracuse University, along with David Nelson, Homin Shin and Alex Travesset, in research supported by the National Science Foundation. NSF also funded the new study.

In order to prove their prediction experimentally, Bowick sought out Paul M. Chaikin of the Center for Soft Matter Research at New York University. Chaikin enlisted the help of Irvine while he was a postdoctoral scientist working in Chaikin's laboratory.

All three researchers specialize in the branch of materials science called "soft matter," which studies a wide range of semi-solid substances such as gels, foams and liquid crystals.

Of soft matter and salad dressing

Bowick described the soft matter microemulsions he works with as being similar to a mayonnaise-based ranch dressing.

"Mayonnaise is made from a mixture of olive oil and vinegar (which is essentially water)," he explained. "You have to beat the ingredients for a long time to disperse tiny droplets of the vinegar in the oil to make an emulsion." But keeping so many droplets mixed evenly throughout the oil requires the presence of a surfactant, a stabilizer that is equally happy in both the oil and the water.

"In ranch dressing, the surfactant used is ground-up mustard seed particles, which arrange themselves at the interface between the water and the oil," Bowick said. "The mustard seed particles collect on the surface of the water droplets."

To study curved crystals, the researchers emulated ranch dressing by adding microscopic acrylic glass particles to an emulsion of glycerol droplets mixed in a base of oil.

Like the mustard seed, the glass particles naturally collect on the surface of individual glycerol droplets. Depending on the experiment, somewhere between 100 and 10,000 particles coat each droplet.

The particles' positive electric charges repel each other, causing them to arrange themselves naturally in a honeycomb pattern, with each particle equally distant from six others.

Scarred crystals

The regular six-sided pattern doesn't fit perfectly around the spherical droplet any more than gift-wrapping a soccer ball results in a perfectly flat paper covering. Just as the paper wrinkles when molding it to the surface of the ball, the curved crystal pattern generates 12 defects, or scars, evenly spaced around the sphere.

The number and location of these scars is a fundamental structural property prescribed by the geometry of the sphere. A similar pattern can be seen on the leather cover of the soccer ball, which requires 12 five-sided pentagons (defects) evenly spaced within an overall six-sided pattern.

Bowick was a member of the team that originally discovered this 12-scar property of curved crystals in 2003. After that, he wondered what would happen if they added an extra particle, called an interstitial, right in the middle of the crystal.

"Even though the particles have self-organized into a crystal pattern, they are still free to wiggle about within that structure," Bowick said. "You'd expect that an additional particle would just push the other ones apart slightly and settle in place, as it would on a flat surface."

The result would be a defective pattern containing an area of seven- and five-sided shapes, rather than the regular six-sided hexagons. But what Bowick and colleagues predicted using computer models is that on a curved surface, an extra particle added halfway between two scars would create a defect in the pattern that splits into two parts.

They calculated that the strain on the crystalline structure caused by these two defects would "flow" away from site, like ripples on a pond, as the particles readjust their distances from one another. Eventually the defects would migrate to opposite scars, where they would disappear.

Amazingly, the scientists predicted that the original particle's mass would remain close to where it was placed, and large areas of the hexagonal pattern would have rotated slightly ? -- about 30 degrees. But the original defect would be gone.

To prove this remarkable result experimentally, however, required a special instrument.

Making it work

"William Irvine had already begun his beautiful experiments in my lab on colloidal crystals on curved surfaces," recalled NYU's Chaikin. "The present study came from a conversation that Mark Bowick and I had on a plane coming back from a meeting several years ago. Mark's experiment was a natural extension of William's work."

"For this project, we had to figure out how to add a particle to the curved crystal, while imaging the particles as they shift around in three-dimensional space," explained Irvine, who is now at UChicago's James Franck Institute. "This makes the experiment considerably more complicated."

Irvine planned to use optical tweezers to grab a microscopic particle from the surrounding emulsion and place it on the surface of a droplet using radiation pressure from a focused laser beam.

"In most experiments, you come in with the laser 'tweezers' using the same lens as you use for imaging the particle, and that's great, because you want to focus the beam on the same plane where you're looking," Irvine said.

But for this experiment, the laser tweezers and the microscope had to be separated.

"A confocal microscope selects a very thin slice of the object to be imaged, so that one slice is in focus and the rest of the image (before and after) is out of focus, like a photo of a person with their face in focus and the background blurred," he explained. "In order to create a full three-dimensional image, you move the objective up and down and bring the different slices into focus one at a time."

But moving the lens also moves the laser beam holding the particle.

"In order to hold onto a particle and watch what happens as you gradually bring it to the surface of the droplet, you have to essentially build a second microscope on top of the first one," Irvine said. "Technically, that's not trivial -- you have to get a lot of things to work at the same time."

But once Irvine had designed and built the instrument, the team tested Bowick's predictions and actually created video images showing the defects moving across the crystal surface and disappearing into the scars.

Self-healing graphene

"The study of crystals on curved surfaces is interesting and important for systems that range from geodesic domes to viruses to Buckyballs," said Chaikin, referring to symmetric molecules of carbon. "The defect structure and the 'healing' of defects are particularly important in the conductivity, heat and mechanical properties of carbon nanotubes, graphene and similar materials."

Graphene, a two-dimensional sheet of carbon molecules, is a very strong material and a good conductor of electricity.

"There are always going to be defects that will decrease the conductivity of graphene," said Bowick. "Ultimately, for electronic devices, you want graphene with high conductivity and as pure as possible."

And that's where the researchers' discovery could prove an ideal solution. "You might be able to simply flex a piece of graphene, remove the defects, and improve the conductivity," Bowick said.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Chicago.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

William T. M. Irvine, Mark J. Bowick, Paul M. Chaikin. Fractionalization of interstitials in curved colloidal crystals. Nature Materials, 2012; DOI: 10.1038/nmat3429

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_technology/~3/FdN1QiMeSWM/121002092841.htm

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Low vitamin D levels linked to more severe multiple sclerosis symptoms

Public release date: 2-Oct-2012
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Contact: Stephanie Desmon
sdesmon1@jhmi.edu
410-955-8665
Johns Hopkins Medicine

Mega-dose supplements not recommended across the board pending further research

Low blood levels of vitamin D are associated with an increased number of brain lesions and signs of a more active disease state in people with multiple sclerosis (MS), a new study finds, suggesting a potential link between intake of the vitamin and the risk of longer-term disability from the autoimmune disorder.

But researchers, led by Ellen M. Mowry, M.D., M.C.R., an assistant professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and principal investigator of a multicenter clinical trial of vitamin D supplementation in MS patients, caution that more research is needed to determine if large doses of vitamin D help without harming MS patients.

Mowry's study, conducted mostly when she worked at the University of California, San Francisco, shows a strong correlation between vitamin D levels in the body (measured through blood samples) and the characteristic brain lesions of MS as measured with MRI images. Results were described in the August issue of Annals of Neurology.

"Even though lower levels of vitamin D are associated with more inflammation and lesions in the brain, there is no evidence that taking vitamin D supplements will prevent those symptoms," she says "If we are able to prove that through our currently-enrolling trial, it will change the way people with multiple sclerosis are treated."

In people with MS, the body's immune system attacks the coating of nerve fibers in the brain and spinal cord. The coating, made of a fatty protein called myelin, insulates the nerves and helps them send electrical signals that control movement, speech and other functions. When myelin is attacked, inflammation interferes with message transmission, activity that shows up on an MRI as lesions, which look like white spots.

In the most common form of MS, called relapsing-remitting MS, patients may at times have no symptoms, but at other times may suffer from "attacks" (or "relapses") of symptoms such as blurred vision, numbness and weakness. There is currently no cure for the disease but there are medications to help reduce the number of attacks and to help reduce symptoms left over if a person hasn't fully recovered from an attack.

For the study, Mowry and her colleagues used data from a five-year study of 469 people with MS. Each year, beginning in 2004, researchers drew blood from, and performed MRIs on, the brains of study participants, looking for both new lesions and active spots of disease, which lit up when a contrast dye was used. The investigators found that each 10-nanograms-per-milliliter increase in vitamin D levels was associated with a 15 percent lower risk of new lesions and a 32 percent lower risk of spots of active disease, which require treatment with medication to reduce likelihood of permanent nerve damage. Higher vitamin D levels were also associated with lower subsequent disability.

The impact of vitamin D levels remained even after other factors that can affect disease progress were accounted for, including smoking status, current MS treatment, age and gender.

At least early in MS, the more new lesions and active spots of disease, the more likely a patient is to develop longer-term disability, Mowry says. Some people with relapsing-remitting MS progress to a more serious form due to damage of the underlying nerve cells.

From one year to the next, Mowry says, she and her colleagues were able to predict the appearance of new lesions and active disease spots based on vitamin D levels from the year before. Active and new lesions indicate that a patient's MS is not under optimal control.

Previous studies have indicated that lower vitamin D levels are associated with increased relapse risk in certain MS patients. Those studies relied on patients to report their attacks, which is sometimes a less reliable assessment than MRI.

Some patients already take extra vitamin D because of publicity about earlier studies. However, Mowry says that there is no research proving vitamin D alleviates symptoms or suggesting what dose is best or safest. And nothing is known about whether vitamin D can prevent the autoimmune disorder, she says.

"People think vitamin D is available over the counter so it must be safe," Mowry says. "But vitamin D is a hormone, and any medication really does need to be thoroughly tested before we definitely recommend it. That's the main reason why we are now performing a randomized trial of vitamin D supplementation. People with MS should talk with their doctors about the pros and cons of taking vitamin D before starting the supplement."

###

The research was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (K23NS067055 and RO1NS062885), GlaxoSmithKline and Biogen Idec.

For more information: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/neurology_neurosurgery/experts/profiles/team_member_profile/C148C8711F2834CCDD51DE68855E8E6C/Ellen_Mowry

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Low vitamin D levels linked to more severe multiple sclerosis symptoms

Public release date: 2-Oct-2012
[ | E-mail |

Share ]

Contact: Stephanie Desmon
sdesmon1@jhmi.edu
410-955-8665
Johns Hopkins Medicine

Mega-dose supplements not recommended across the board pending further research

The impact of vitamin D levels remained even after other factors that can affect disease progress were accounted for, including smoking status, current MS treatment, age and gender.

###

The research was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (K23NS067055 and RO1NS062885), GlaxoSmithKline and Biogen Idec.

For more information: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/neurology_neurosurgery/experts/profiles/team_member_profile/C148C8711F2834CCDD51DE68855E8E6C/Ellen_Mowry

[ | E-mail |

Share ]

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-10/jhm-lvd100112.php

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Monday, October 1, 2012

South Africa starts investigating mine violence

MARIKANA, South Africa (AP) ? A judicial panel Monday investigated the rocky site where South African police killed 34 striking miners on August 16.

Crime experts showed the commission of inquiry the scene of the police shootings that were South Africa's worst state violence since apartheid ended in 1994. President Jacob Zuma ordered the judicial investigation to determine the causes of the police killings which shook the nation.

More than 100 people, including many protesting against the killings, followed the members of the judicial panel as they visited the scene. "Don't let the police get away with murder," was written on placards carried by several protesters.

Among those participating in inquiry is George Bizos, former lawyer for Nelson Mandela and now of the Legal Resources Center, which is representing some family members of the dead miners.

In addition to those killed, some 78 were injured and more than 250 arrested in the incident.

During the tour, a crime expert pointed out where bodies and shotgun cartridges were found.

Monday was the first day of the four-month-long investigation into the killings at the Marikana mines. At least 12 more people were killed in other violence, including two policemen, bringing the total death toll during the strike to 46.

"This is very important to us," said a Marikana miner watching the group navigating the scene of the police shootings. "I hope those involved are found out and they must be brought to jail."

"We are still afraid," he said of the police.

He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The inquiry launched Monday focuses on violence at a Lonmin PLC platinum mine 94 kilometers (58 miles) northwest of Johannesburg.

The Marikana commission of inquiry, chaired by retired Judge Ian Farlam, will determine the roles played by the police, Lonmin, the National Union of Mineworkers and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union. It will also determine whether any of those investigated could have put measures into place to prevent the violence.

"It is very important the truth of what happened should become clear as soon as possible," Farlam said Monday morning at the Civic Center in Rustenburg, where hearings began before the visit to the Marikana site. "Our country weeps for this unnecessary and tragic loss of life."

The police shootings of the striking miners were "a turning point which reveals the state is willing to go to break the working class organizations, and it's of particular concern that the major trade unions didn't take full action in getting permission for the gatherings," said Peter Alexander, the South African research chair on social change at University of Johannesburg.

Alexander said he can't recall so many people being killed for a strike since 1922, when he said mostly white miners went on strike and were killed. He noted the importance of the events before the Aug. 16 shootings, saying that the earlier killings and who was responsible for them may give more insight as to why the shot dead so many strikers that day.

"It's important that the investigation reveals the truth about the killings," said Alexander. "I'm very concerned that ordinary people could have the opportunity to collect information about the inquiry. And I'm very concerned that there is no relationship of trust between the people of the inquiry and the people of Marikana."

He said: "I hope that it will be established that police engaged in unlawful killings, and hopefully if we establish what happened so that a massacre like this won't happen again.

No family members of those killed participated in the commission's visit to the site of the police shootings. Judge Farlam said that the tour would be recorded for family members. At the meeting before the tour, the commission read the names of the dead and asked that any family present stand, but none did.

Families of many of the miners live far away, in the Eastern Cape, Swaziland and Lesotho. Dumisa Ntsebeza, an advocate for the families of those who died, said some didn't know an official inquiry was happening.

He asked that financial support be given to the families to enable them to attend the inquiry and that the process be postponed by 14 days. Farlam said the government would be helping the families travel to the inquiry, but did not grant a postponement.

The commission's tour of the informal settlements around the Lonmin mine and the shafts will continue Tuesday. Public hearings are set to begin Wednesday, with families of the dead given priority seating. The commission asked the news media, which has graphic videos of the police shootings, hand over material for examination.

The first phase of the inquiry will look at the early events. The second phase will examine Lonmin's role in the violence and the company's conduct. The third stage will look at the unions and actions of non-unionized strikers, and the final phase will examine the actions and omissions of the police.

The nearly six-week strike at Marikana was resolved with a wage deal that saw miners gain a 22 percent pay rise and return to work Sept. 20. The strikes, however, have spread to other platinum and gold mines in South Africa and workers are increasingly rejecting their unions and instead choosing their own representatives to speak directly with management.

As those in Marikana tried to find answers to the shootings, labor unrest continued.

The National Union of Mineworkers, or NUM, said one of its officials was in intensive care Monday after a petrol-bomb attack on his house Friday night. The union said the victim is the union's top official at Anglo American Platinum's Khomanani branch and that the attack was carried out by people who are deliberately intimidating union members. The NUM did not elaborate, but a new union has purportedly been intimidating NUM leaders in its bid to gain more members and bargaining power. Workers have been on strike for weeks at Anglo American Platinum, the world's largest platinum producer.

Meanwhile South Africa's truck drivers, represented by the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union, or SATAWU, said it is organizing peaceful protests and meetings of its members across the country. Truck drivers have been on strike for a week for higher pay.

___

Associated Press writer Rodney Muhumuza in Johannesburg contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/south-africa-starts-investigating-mine-violence-120246117.html

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Las Vegas: The Chronicles

las Vegas, present day...gangs casinos police media girlsetc etc

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One Connect programme launched in Marine Parade Cluster

SINGAPORE - Private estate residents in the Marine Parade cluster, which includes Marine Parade GRC, Mountbatten SMC and Potong Pasir SMC, will now have a one-stop hotline to help deal with municipal issues such as drainage and cleanliness.

The programme, called 'One Connect, was launched in the cluster this morning by Acting Minister Tan Chuan-Jin. He was joined by grassroots advisors for the area Mr Seah Kian Peng, Mr Lim Biow Chuan and Ms Tin Pei Ling at the event.

The programme will provide residents with a hotline which will help connect them to the relevant Government agencies, an issue which many residents in the area had difficulty with before this service, according to Mr Willie Ho who will head the task force.

The 'One Connect' programme was first rolled out to Ang Mo Kio GRC, Sengkang West SMC and Moulmein-Kallang GRC in July this year.

Source: http://www.todayonline.com/Singapore/EDC120930-0000026/One-Connect-programme-launched-in-Marine-Parade-Cluster

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