NEW YORK (AP) ? The stock market stalled Friday after the U.S. economy didn't grow as much as hoped and earnings from a handful of big companies failed to rev up investors.
The economy grew at a 2.5 percent annual rate in the first three months of the year, the government said. That was below the 3.1 percent forecast by economists.
The shortfall reinforced the perception that the economy is grinding, rather than charging, ahead. Investors have also been troubled by reports in the last month of weaker hiring, slower manufacturing and a drop in factory orders. Many economists see growth slowing to an annual rate of around 2 percent a year for the rest of the year.
U.S. government bonds, where investors seek safety, rose after the report.
"There are some concerns as we head into the summer," said JJ Kinahan, chief derivatives strategist for TD Ameritrade. "In the last three weeks, we've seen numbers that weren't exactly what you'd love to see."
Corporate earnings this week have also contained worrisome signs. Many companies missed revenue forecasts from financial analysts, even as they reported higher quarterly profits. For example, Goodyear Tire slipped 3.3 percent to $12.51 Friday after revenue fell short of analysts' estimates, hurt by lower global tire sales.
Of the companies that have reported earnings so far, 70 percent have exceeded Wall Street's expectations, compared with a 10-year average of 62 percent, according to S&P Capital IQ. But 43 percent have missed revenue estimates. Just over half of the companies in the S&P 500 have reported quarterly results.
The S&P 500 index dropped 2.92 points, or 0.2 percent, to close at 1,582.24.
The Dow rose 11.75 points, or 0.1 percent, to 14,712.55. The index got a big lift from Chevron. Profit for the U.S. oil company beat expectations of financial analysts in the first quarter, pushing shares up 1.3 percent to $120.04.
Three stocks fell for every two that rose on the New York Stock Exchange.
Both indexes were up for the week and remain slightly below their all-time highs reached April 11. The Dow index rose 1.1 percent this week while the S&P gained 1.7 percent.
The market has been bolstered by the Federal Reserve's easy money policy. The disappointing growth figure for the economy will ensure that the Fed sticks with its stimulus policy, providing support for stocks, said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital.
"The economic data that we've been getting points to no early exit for the Fed's stimulus," Cardillo said.
The Nasdaq composite fell 10.72 points to 3,279.26, a decline of 0.3 percent. The index is 2.3 percent higher this week.
The tech-heavy index has lagged the Dow and the S&P 500 this year, but it led the way higher this week, boosted by Microsoft. The software giant, which makes up 5.3 percent of the Nasdaq, recorded its biggest weekly gain since January of last year ? up 6.8 percent. It reported earnings April 19 that beat Wall Street expectations. The company also began an aggressive push into the computer tablet market.
Apple, the largest stock in the Nasdaq, also had a good week. The stock rose 6.8 percent to $417.20, its best weekly gain since November, despite posting a decline in quarterly profit Tuesday. Apple accounts for 7.6 percent of the Nasdaq composite.
Among other big names investors focused on:
Amazon.com fell 7 percent to $254.81 after the company warned of a possible loss in the current quarter. The online retailer also reported lower income for the first quarter as it continued to spend heavily on rights to digital content.
Expedia fell 10 percent to $58.56 after the online travel company reported a quarterly loss.
Homebuilder D.R. Horton surged 8.7 percent to $26.66 after its income nearly tripled thanks to a continuing recovery the housing market. The results handily beat the forecasts of financial analysts who follow the company.
J.C. Penney jumped 12 percent to $17 after the billionaire financier George Soros disclosed that he had taken a 7.9 percent stake in the struggling company.
In government bond trading, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note slipped to its lowest rate of the year, 1.67 percent, from 1.71 percent the day before. The yield has fallen from 2.06 percent six weeks ago as traders move money into lower-risk investments.
The dollar weakened against the euro.
The European currency bought $1.3029 at the end of day, compared with $1.3002 the day before. The ISE dollar index, which measures the U.S. currency against a group of other world currencies including the Japanese yen and the euro, dropped 0.3 percent, to 82.48.
(Ends first round) NEW YORK, April 25 (Reuters) - Selections in the first roundof the 2013 NFL Draft at Radio City Music Hall on Thursday (picknumber, NFL team, player, position, college): 1-Kansas City, Eric Fisher, offensive tackle, Central Michigan 2-Jacksonville, Luke Joeckel, offensive tackle, Texas A&M 3-Miami (from Oakland), Dion Jordan, defensive tackle, Oregon 4-Philadelphia, Lane Johnson, offensive tackle, Oklahoma 5-Detroit, Ezekiel Ansah, defensive end, Brigham Young 6-Cleveland, Barkevious Mingo, linebacker, LSU 7-Arizona, Jonathan Cooper, guard, North Carolina 8-St. ...
A big thanks to everyone who participated in our Administrative Professionals Week celebration! We're delighted we could give you a little something here and there as a tribute to everything you do. The giveaways that we offered to celebrate this special week are still available:
Below are the winning responses?and just a few of our other favorites?to our Tuesday survey! The winners will each receive a $25 American Express gift card.
Question #1. If you were granted one superpower to help you do your job better on a day-to-day basis, what would it be, and why?
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MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) ? The death toll rose Monday to at least 35 killed in the most serious Islamic extremist attack in years on Mogadishu, a government official said.
Islamic radicals from al-Shabab launched a multi-pronged attack against the country's Supreme Court complex on Sunday. The interior minister said nine militants launched the attack, and that six exploded their suicide vests. A car bomb later exploded near the airport.
Dahir Amin Jesow, a Somali legislator who heads a security committee in parliament, said Monday that the toll from the attacks could rise even further because of the number of seriously wounded. Dozens were hurt, he said.
Al-Shabab once controlled almost all of Mogadishu. African Union and Somali forces pushed the Islamic militants out of the city in 2011, but the fighters have continued to carry out bomb attacks. The violence Sunday was the largest and most coordinated attack since al-Shabab was forced out of the city.
Abdirashid Hashi, the deputy director of the Mogadishu-based Heritage Institute for Policy Studies, said the attack shows that al-Shabab can strike the government at will and that the group could come quite close to "decapitating" a vital government arm. The Supreme Court was in session when the attack occurred.
"What happened ... in downtown Mogadishu will force the government to revisit its priorities," Hashi said by email. "Because if it fails to provide security to the citizens in the capital, it will have difficulties justifying its demands in extending its writ to other parts of the country."
Hashi noted that Somalia's intelligence agency and foreign governments had predicted a major al-Shabab attack. Britain's Foreign Office released a statement on Friday saying it believed a terror attack was imminent.
The top U.N. official for Somalia, Augustine P. Mahiga, said he was shocked and outraged by the attack. Mahiga said the total number of dead wasn't clear, but that reports indicated that "many innocent civilians were killed including women and at least one child."
The attack on the Supreme Court complex began at around 12:30 p.m. Sunday, sparking running battles with police and army forces. One car bomb detonated outside the court, and gunmen were seen on the roof of a court building firing shots.
On a Twitter feed believed to belong to the militants, al-Shabab appeared to take credit for the attack. A posting said five militants from the "Martyrdom Brigade" took part in the "daring" attack.
Somali security forces have moved outside of the city to confront al-Shabab militants on Mogadishu's outskirts, but that deployment has left somewhat of a security vacuum in the city itself, a vacuum that the militants exploited on Sunday, a Western official who demanded anonymity because he wasn't authorized to be quoted said on Sunday.
Despite intermittent attacks from al-Shabab, Mogadishu is generally considered more peaceful today than most of the previous seven years.
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AP reporter Jason Straziuso contributed from Nairobi, Kenya.
BOSTON (Reuters) - Two explosions hit the Boston Marathon as runners crossed the finish line on Monday, killing at least two people and injuring 23 on a day when tens of thousands of people pack the streets to watch one of the world's best known marathons.
Pictures from the scene showed blood stains on the ground and several people knocked down. Massachusetts General Hospital was treating victims of the explosion in its emergency room but information about their condition was not immediately available, a spokeswoman said.
Police reported at least one explosion and witnesses said there were two, which hit as spectators were cheering on people finishing the Boston Marathon, which was first run in 1897.
Reporters in the media center heard two blasts.
Boston police said two people were killed and 23 injured.
Scores of people, some bloody, wandered the streets around the finish line, though their numbers were thinning as police, some carrying heavy weaponry, tried to clear the area and a pungent smell hung in the air.
Mike Mitchell of Vancouver, Canada, a runner who had finished the race, said he was looking back at the finish line and saw a "massive explosion."
Smoke rose 50 feet in the air, Mitchell said. People began running and screaming after hearing the noise, Mitchell said.
"Everybody freaked out," Mitchell said.
Ambulances, fire trucks and dozens of police vehicles converged at the finish line.
U.S. President Barack Obama was notified and directed his administration to provide whatever assistance was necessary, the White House said.
"Blood everywhere, victims carried out on stretchers. I saw someone lose their leg, people are crying," the Boston Globe's Steve Silva reported from the citing, the Globe said on Twitter.
Hundreds of thousands of spectators typically line the 26.2 mile race course, with the heaviest crowds near the finish line. The blasts occurred more than five hours after the start of the race, at a time when most top athletes were off the course but slower amateur marathoners were still running.
The transit agency shut down all service to the area, citing police activity.
Ambulances arrived on the scene within minutes and runners and spectators could be seen crying and consoling each other.
The Boston Marathon has been held on Patriots Day, the third Monday of April, since 1897. The event, which starts in Hopkinton, Massachusetts and ends Boston's Copley Square, attracts an estimated half-million spectators and some 20,000 participants every year.
Earlier on Monday, Ethiopia's Lelisa Desisa and Kenya's Rita Jeptoo won the men's and women's events, continuing African runners' dominance in the sport.
The New York Police Department stepped up security around landmarks in Manhattan, including near prominent hotels, in response reports out of Boston, said Paul Browne, deputy commissioner of the NYPD.
New York police were redeploying counterterrorism vehicles around the city, Browne said.
(Reporting by Scott Malone, Tim McLaughlin, Edith Honan, Frank McGurty and Mark Hosenball; Editing by Daniel Trotta and Grant McCool)
BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese capital Beijing reported on Saturday its first case of a new strain of bird flu, state news agency Xinhua said, the first time it has been found in a human outside of eastern China.
The seven-year-old child is in a stable condition in a Beijing hospital, the report said.
Two people who have had close contact with the child have shown no signs of being infected so far, Xinhua added.
A total of 11 people have died of the H7N9 bird flu strain since it was confirmed in humans for the first time last month, with 44 infections in all having been reported to date.
Shanghai and the eastern provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui had been the only confirmed locations of infection until the Beijing case.
The source of infection remains unknown, though samples have tested positive in some birds in poultry markets that remain the focus of investigations by China and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.
The new virus has caused severe illness in most of the people affected, leading to fears that if it becomes easily transmissible, it could cause a deadly influenza pandemic, though there has been no indication of that happening.
In a bid to calm public jitters over the virus, Chinese authorities have detained a dozen people for spreading rumors about the spread of bird flu.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)
CLEVELAND -- Chris Sale knows, as ace of the Chicago White Sox's staff, it's his responsibility to help get his team on the right track when things are going wrong.
He didn't get the job done Saturday.
"It was a terrible, terrible day," he said after allowing a career-high eight runs in a 9-4 loss to the Cleveland Indians. "My team needed a better effort and deserved a better effort. I didn't give it to them."
Sale (1-1) allowed two home runs, including Mark Reynolds' grand slam in the fifth that turned Chicago's one-run deficit into a 7-2 lead for the Indians. He also gave up Nick Swisher's home run in the first after the White Sox had taken a 2-0 lead.
Sale lasted just 4 1-3 innings in losing to the Indians for the first time in 15 career appearances, including four starts.
"I'm just trying to forget about this one as best I can," he said. "There's nothing to take from this to learn from. There are going to be days like this."
Sale was particularly unhappy about the pitch to Reynolds.
"It was hanging slider right over the plate," he said. "You're not getting away with that here or anywhere."
"I was looking to put the ball in the air," Reynolds said. "It wasn't an easy day to get it out of the park, but it's never an easy day here, so far."
White Sox manager Robin Ventura knew Sale wasn't at his best.
"He seemed to be in the middle of the plate a lot," Ventura said. "When you get it over the middle of the plate they have some guys who can swing the bat. They didn't miss."
All five of Chicago's losses during the streak have been on the road. The White Sox are 0-5 away from home for the first time since 1972 and are the only winless team on the road in the majors.
Following Reynolds' home run, Sale's next hit pitch hit Michael Brantley in the back ? one of three hit batters Saturday ? prompting plate umpire Ed Hickox to immediately warn both teams. Sale then threw a pitch in the dirt that nearly hit Mike Aviles in the foot. He was removed after Aviles flied out before Gomes homered to center off Duente Heath for his first hit of the season.
Sale said he didn't hit Brantley intentionally.
"That was me being an idiot, honestly," he said. "Going out there and trying to overthrow and blow it by him. It got away and hit him. If you're going to hit a guy you don't do it there. I know enough about the game if I was going to do it intentionally it's not going to be at that time. Not only does that look bad on my part, it looks bad on my team and that's not what we're about and that's not what I'm about."
Sale said he doesn't want to put a target on his own hitters' backs in case the other team wants to retaliate in these situations.
"It's not their fault I gave up eight runs and it's not their fault the grand slam left the yard," Sale said. "That's on me. I had no intentions of doing that. I don't think I ever will."
Chicago scored two unearned runs in the first off Zach McAllister (1-1) thanks in part to first baseman Reynolds' throwing error. Following Jeff Keppinger's double, Alex Rios hit a slow roller toward first. Reynolds fielded the ball, but his toss was behind McAllister and hit off the pitcher's glove. Keppinger scored and Rios took second as the ball rolled away. Paul Konerko's single made it 2-0, but that was all the White Sox could muster off McAllister, who retired 16 of 17 at one point.
McAllister allowed three runs in 6 1-3 innings. He gave up five hits and struck out six. McAllister was removed after hitting Alexei Ramirez in the left arm in the seventh, but was not ejected. Alejandro De Aza hit a two-run homer off Bryan Shaw.
Sale was 2-0 with a 2.10 ERA (eight earned runs in 34 1-3 innings) in 16 career appearances against the Indians going into the game.
Konerko leads active players with 46 homers and 172 RBIs against the Indians.
NOTES: White Sox pitching coach Don Cooper was released from a northern Virginia hospital Saturday where he had been treated for diverticulitis. He became ill Tuesday while the team was in Washington for a series against the Nationals. Cooper will return to Chicago for more tests. ... C Tyler Flowers, who is hitless in his last 21 at-bats, started Saturday after not playing Friday. ... Indians manager Terry Francona said DH Jason Giambi would probably play Sunday against RHP Jake Peavy. Giambi, who began the season on the disabled list with a strained back, was activated Friday. ... RHP Brett Myers will start for the Indians.
TALLAHASSEE (AP) ? Gov. Rick Scott slammed a Florida House proposal Thursday that would pass up billions of federal dollars to provide health care coverage to 115,000 uninsured Floridians in a watered down alternative to expanding Medicaid under the federal health law.
The proposal relies entirely on $237 million in state taxpayer funds and would not tap into an estimated $51 billion dollars in federal aid available under the Affordable Care Act over the next decade.
It would also offer coverage to thousands fewer residents, covering only those making 100 percent of the federal poverty level as opposed to the roughly 1 million residents that would have been covered through Medicaid expansion.
The Obama Administration has sought to increase health coverage to more Americans by expanding Medicaid to those making up to 138 percent of the poverty level ? something many state GOP lawmakers are opposed to.
Instead, House Republicans plan to expand a health insurance program pushed by former House Speaker Marco Rubio that would give residents state money to help them obtain coverage from the private insurers through the online health exchange. Rubio's plan ? known as Florida Health Choices ? has had trouble getting off the ground and currently doesn't insure anyone.
"The House's plan will cost Florida taxpayers on top of what they are already taxed under the President's new healthcare law. This would be a double-hit to state taxpayers," Scott said in a statement.
Scott made an about-face decision earlier this year saying he supported Medicaid expansion because it was the compassionate, common-sense approach, but he's said he's open to alternatives after committees in both the House and Senate rejected expanding Medicaid. Scott signaled Thursday he would support a Senate plan proposed by Sen. Joe Negron "because it protects both state taxpayers and the uninsured in our state."
Negron's bill would still tap into billions of federal dollars and use those funds for vouchers so patients could purchase private health insurance. His plan would utilize Florida Healthy Kids, an organization he says has a strong record with the state.
But House Republicans made it clear that they would not accept any health plan that relies on federal funds, worrying that if they expand the program the federal government will not make good on its promise to fund it. The federal government has promised to foot the entire bill for three years and 90 percent after that. That's a much better deal than the state currently has for Medicaid patients, with the feds paying roughly half.
"Maybe it's the $16 trillion deficit that gives me pause," said Weatherford. "The federal government is more interested in expanding a flawed program. We think this is an opportunity to lead the health care debate not just in Florida, but to take a new idea for people who don't have care and do it in a more responsible way. I don't think we should be relying, long term, on a federal solution to our health care needs in the state of Florida."
The House proposal is similar to another plan in the Senate by Sen. Aaron Bean, R-Fernandina Beach, who also wants to rely on state dollars. But the House plan is more comprehensive and would offer coverage to disabled adults and adults with children. Most of the plans would provide low-cost preventative and primary care visits, subsidized by state funds.
Negron said he still preferred the Senate proposal, but he praised the House effort as a "well-thought out plan" to provide coverage to some uninsured.
"I think it's a step in the right direction," said Negron.
Angry House Democrats have said finding an affordable way to expand health coverage is still do-able even though the Legislative session is past the midpoint.
House Democrats felt so strongly about the health care decision they initially agreed to withhold their support for the House's proposed $74 billion budget to signal their strong advocacy for action. But shortly after the House proposal was released House Democratic Leader Perry Thurston said he went to fellow Democrats and said they should vote on the budget as they deem appropriate.
Thurston, however, criticized the House proposal.
"The problem is that they've been dragging their feet, they still don't want to accept the money that's there," Thurston said. "Other states will take it. As a donor state, we'll continue to give, give and we won't receive for our residents. And it's because it's the most needy residents in the state of Florida."
Cry me a river of possibility: Scientists design new adaptive material inspired by tears
Monday, April 8, 2013
Imagine a tent that blocks light on a dry and sunny day, and becomes transparent and water-repellent on a dim, rainy day. Or highly precise, self-adjusting contact lenses that also clean themselves. Or pipelines that can optimize the rate of flow depending on the volume of fluid coming through them and the environmental conditions outside.
A team of researchers at the Wyss Institute at Harvard University and Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) just moved these enticing notions much closer to reality by designing a new kind of adaptive material with tunable transparency and wettability features, as reported yesterday in the online version of Nature Materials.
"The beauty of this system is that it's adaptive and multifunctional," said senior author Joanna Aizenberg, Ph.D., a Core Faculty member at the Wyss Institute and the Amy Smith Berylson Professor of Materials Science at SEAS.
The new material was inspired by dynamic, self-restoring systems in Nature, such as the liquid film that coats your eyes. Individual tears join up to form a dynamic liquid film with an obviously significant optical function that maintains clarity, while keeping the eye moist, protecting it against dust and bacteria, and helping to transport away any wastes ? doing all of this and more in literally the blink of an eye.
The bioinspired material is a continuous liquid film that coats, and is infused in, an elastic porous substrate ? which is what makes it so versatile. It is based on a core concept: any deformation of the substrate ? such as stretching, poking, or swelling - changes the size of the pores, which causes the liquid surface to change its shape.
With this design architecture in place, the team has thus far demonstrated the ability to dynamically control ? with great precision ? two key functions: transparency and wettability, said Xi Yao, Ph.D, Wyss Institute and SEAS postdoctoral fellow, and lead author of the study.
Sitting at rest, the material is smooth, clear and flat; droplets of water or oil on its surface flow freely off of the material. Stretching the material makes the fluid surface rougher, Yao explained. The rough surface makes it opaque for one thing, and enables one to do something never possible before: It offers the ability to make every droplet of oil or water that is placed on it reversibly start and stop in their tracks. This capability is far superior to the "switchable wettability" of other adaptive materials that exist today, Yao said, which simply switch between two states ? from hydrophobic (water-hating) to hydrophilic (water-loving).
"In addition to transparency and wettability, we can fine-tune basically anything that would respond to a change in surface topography, such as adhesive or anti-fouling behavior," Yao said. They can also design the porous elastic solid such that it responds dynamically to temperature, light, magnetic or electric fields, chemical signals, pressure, or other environmental conditions, he said.
The material is a next generation of a materials platform that Aizenberg pioneered a few years ago called SLIPS. SLIPS stands for Slippery Liquid-Infused Porous Surfaces, and is a coating that repels just about anything with which it comes into contact ? from oil to water and blood.
But whereas SLIPS is a liquid-infused rigid porous surface, "the new material is a liquid-infused elastic porous surface, which is what allows for the fine control over so many adaptive responses above and beyond its ability to repel a wide range of substances. A whole range of surface properties can now be tuned, or switched on and off on demand, through stimulus-induced deformation of the elastic material," Aizenberg said.
"This sophisticated new class of adaptive materials being designed by the Institute's Adaptive Materials Technologies platform led by Joanna Aizenberg have the potential to be game-changers in everything from oil and gas pipelines, to microfluidic and optical systems, building design and construction, textiles, and more," said Wyss Founding Director Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D.
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Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard: http://wyss.harvard.edu/
Thanks to Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard for this article.
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Nanowires have the power to revolutionize solar energyPublic release date: 8-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Hillary Sanctuary hillary.sanctuary@epfl.ch 41-797-034-809 Ecole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne
Imagine a solar panel more efficient than today's best solar panels, but using 10 000 times less material. This is what EPFL researchers expect given recent findings on these tiny filaments called nanowires. Solar technology integrating nanowires could capture large quantities of light and produce energy with incredible efficiency at a much lower cost. This technology is possibly the future for powering microchips and the basis for a new generation of solar panels.
Despite their size, nanowires have tremendous potential for energy production. "These nanowires capture much more light than expected," says Anna Fontcuberta i Morral about her research, published on 24 March 2013 in Nature Photonics.
Nanowires are extremely tiny filamentsin this case able to capture lightwith a diameter that measures tens to hundreds of nanometers, where a nanometer is one millionth of a millimeter. These miniscule wires are up to 1000 times smaller than the diameter of human hair, or comparable in diameter to the size of viruses.
When equipped with the right electronic properties, the nanowire becomes a tiny solar cell, transforming sunlight into electric current. Anna Fontcuberta i Morral and her team built a nanowire solar cell out of gallium arsenide, a material which is better at converting light into power than silicon. They found that it actually collects more light than the usual flat solar cellup to 12 times moreand more light means more energy.
The nanowire standing vertically essentially acts like a very efficient light funnel. Even though the nanowire is only a few hundred nanometers in diameter, it absorbs light as though it were 12 times bigger. In other words, it has a greater field of vision than expected.
Fontcuberta's prototype is already almost 10% more efficient at transforming light into power than allowed, in theory, for conventional single material solar panels. Furthermore, optimizing the dimensions of the nanowire, improving the quality of the gallium arsenide and using better electrical contacts to extract the current could increase the prototype's efficiency.
Arrays of nanowire solar cells offer new prospects for energy production. This study suggests that an array of nanowires may attain 33% efficiency, in practice, whereas commercial (flat) solar panels are now only up to 20% efficient. Also, arrays of nanowires would use at least 10 000 times less gallium arsenide, allowing for industrial use of this costly material. Translating this into dollars for gallium arsenide, the cost would only be $10 per square meter instead of $100 000.
Free to the engineer's imagination to mount these nanowires onto a variety of substrate panels, be it lightweight, flexible or designed to withstand the harshest of conditions. In a world where energy consumption is on the rise, these nanowires may one day power everything from your favorite gadget to space missions to Mars.
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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.
Nanowires have the power to revolutionize solar energyPublic release date: 8-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Hillary Sanctuary hillary.sanctuary@epfl.ch 41-797-034-809 Ecole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne
Imagine a solar panel more efficient than today's best solar panels, but using 10 000 times less material. This is what EPFL researchers expect given recent findings on these tiny filaments called nanowires. Solar technology integrating nanowires could capture large quantities of light and produce energy with incredible efficiency at a much lower cost. This technology is possibly the future for powering microchips and the basis for a new generation of solar panels.
Despite their size, nanowires have tremendous potential for energy production. "These nanowires capture much more light than expected," says Anna Fontcuberta i Morral about her research, published on 24 March 2013 in Nature Photonics.
Nanowires are extremely tiny filamentsin this case able to capture lightwith a diameter that measures tens to hundreds of nanometers, where a nanometer is one millionth of a millimeter. These miniscule wires are up to 1000 times smaller than the diameter of human hair, or comparable in diameter to the size of viruses.
When equipped with the right electronic properties, the nanowire becomes a tiny solar cell, transforming sunlight into electric current. Anna Fontcuberta i Morral and her team built a nanowire solar cell out of gallium arsenide, a material which is better at converting light into power than silicon. They found that it actually collects more light than the usual flat solar cellup to 12 times moreand more light means more energy.
The nanowire standing vertically essentially acts like a very efficient light funnel. Even though the nanowire is only a few hundred nanometers in diameter, it absorbs light as though it were 12 times bigger. In other words, it has a greater field of vision than expected.
Fontcuberta's prototype is already almost 10% more efficient at transforming light into power than allowed, in theory, for conventional single material solar panels. Furthermore, optimizing the dimensions of the nanowire, improving the quality of the gallium arsenide and using better electrical contacts to extract the current could increase the prototype's efficiency.
Arrays of nanowire solar cells offer new prospects for energy production. This study suggests that an array of nanowires may attain 33% efficiency, in practice, whereas commercial (flat) solar panels are now only up to 20% efficient. Also, arrays of nanowires would use at least 10 000 times less gallium arsenide, allowing for industrial use of this costly material. Translating this into dollars for gallium arsenide, the cost would only be $10 per square meter instead of $100 000.
Free to the engineer's imagination to mount these nanowires onto a variety of substrate panels, be it lightweight, flexible or designed to withstand the harshest of conditions. In a world where energy consumption is on the rise, these nanowires may one day power everything from your favorite gadget to space missions to Mars.
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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.
Ready for debut: Fruit-juice-infused chocolate with 50 percent less fatPublic release date: 7-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Michael Bernstein
m_bernstein@acs.org
504-670-4707 (New Orleans Press Center, April 5-10)
202-872-6042
Michael Woods
m_woods@acs.org
504-670-4707 (New Orleans Press Center, April 5-10)
202-872-6293
American Chemical Society
NEW ORLEANS, April 7, 2013 Already renowned as a healthy treat when enjoyed in
moderation, chocolate could become even more salubrious if manufacturers embraced new technology for making "fruit-juice-infused chocolate," a scientist said here today. The presentation was part of the 245th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society, which continues through Thursday.
Stefan A. F. Bon, Ph.D., who led the research, explained that the technology would allow manufacture of chocolate with fruit juice, vitamin C water or diet cola replacing up to 50 percent of the fat. The juice is in the form of micro-bubbles that help chocolate retain the lush, velvety "mouth-feel" the texture that is firm and snappy to the bite and yet melts in the mouth. The process also prevents "sugar bloom," the unappetizing white film that coats the surface of chocolate that has been on the shelf for a while.
"We have established the chemistry that's a starting point for healthier chocolate confectionary," Bon said. "This approach maintains the things that make chocolate 'chocolatey', but with fruit juice instead of fat. Now we're hoping the food industry will take the next steps and use the technology to make tasty, lower-fat chocolate bars and other candy."
Chocolate's high fat and sugar content is a downside, compared to its high levels of healthful plant-based substances termed antioxidants or flavonoids, Bon explained. A 2-ounce serving of premium dark chocolate may contain 13 grams of fat ? 20 percent of the total daily fat recommended for a person who eats 2,000 calories per day. Much of that fat is the unhealthy saturated variety. Substituting fruit juice or cola also reduces the overall sugar content of the candy.
The technology works with dark, milk and white chocolate. Bon's team at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom has made chocolate infused with apple, orange and cranberry juice.
"Fruit-juice-infused candy tastes like an exciting hybrid between traditional chocolate and a chocolate-juice confectionary," he said. "Since the juice is spread out in the chocolate, it doesn't overpower the taste of the chocolate. We believe that the technology adds an interesting twist to the range of chocolate confectionary products available," according to Bon. "The opportunity to replace part of the fat matrix with water-based juice droplets allows for greater flexibility and tailoring of both the overall fat and sugar content."
Bon's team used fruit juices and other food-approved ingredients to form a Pickering emulsion, named for British chemist Percival Spencer Umfreville Pickering. In 1907, Pickering discovered a new way to stabilize emulsions ? combinations of liquids like the egg yolk and oil in mayonnaise that normally would not mix together. Chocolate is an emulsion of cocoa butter and water or milk combined with cocoa powder. Lecithin appears on the ingredient label in many chocolates because it is an emulsifier that fosters the process. Pickering's method used solid particles rather than an emulsifier, and Bon's team embraced that century-old approach in their work.
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The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 163,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society, contact newsroom@acs.org.
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Abstract
We demonstrate a route toward the preparation of healthier fruit juice infused chocolate candy. Up to 50 wt% of the fat content in chocolate, that is cocoa butter and milk fats, is replaced with fruit juice in the form of emulsion droplets using a quiescent Pickering emulsion fabrication strategy. Fumed silica particles are used in combination with chitosan under acidic conditions (pH 3.2-3.8) to prepare water-in-oil emulsions, the oil phase being sunflower oil, molten cocoa butter, and ultimately white, milk, and dark chocolate. Adsorption of the polycationic chitosan molecules onto the surface of the silica particles influenced the particle wettability making it an effective Pickering stabilizer, as shown by cryogenic scanning electron microscopy analysis. The formation of a colloidal gel in the continuous (molten) oil phase provided the system with a yield stress, hereby giving it a gel-like and thus quiescent behaviour under low shear conditions, as determined by rheological measurements. This warrants a homogeneous distribution of emulsion droplets as settling through gravity upon storage under molten/liquid conditions is arrested. In our low-fat chocolate formulations the cocoa butter has the desired polymorph V structure, and neither sugar nor fat bloom was observed upon storage of the fruit juice containing chocolate confectionaries.
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Ready for debut: Fruit-juice-infused chocolate with 50 percent less fatPublic release date: 7-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Michael Bernstein
m_bernstein@acs.org
504-670-4707 (New Orleans Press Center, April 5-10)
202-872-6042
Michael Woods
m_woods@acs.org
504-670-4707 (New Orleans Press Center, April 5-10)
202-872-6293
American Chemical Society
NEW ORLEANS, April 7, 2013 Already renowned as a healthy treat when enjoyed in
moderation, chocolate could become even more salubrious if manufacturers embraced new technology for making "fruit-juice-infused chocolate," a scientist said here today. The presentation was part of the 245th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society, which continues through Thursday.
Stefan A. F. Bon, Ph.D., who led the research, explained that the technology would allow manufacture of chocolate with fruit juice, vitamin C water or diet cola replacing up to 50 percent of the fat. The juice is in the form of micro-bubbles that help chocolate retain the lush, velvety "mouth-feel" the texture that is firm and snappy to the bite and yet melts in the mouth. The process also prevents "sugar bloom," the unappetizing white film that coats the surface of chocolate that has been on the shelf for a while.
"We have established the chemistry that's a starting point for healthier chocolate confectionary," Bon said. "This approach maintains the things that make chocolate 'chocolatey', but with fruit juice instead of fat. Now we're hoping the food industry will take the next steps and use the technology to make tasty, lower-fat chocolate bars and other candy."
Chocolate's high fat and sugar content is a downside, compared to its high levels of healthful plant-based substances termed antioxidants or flavonoids, Bon explained. A 2-ounce serving of premium dark chocolate may contain 13 grams of fat ? 20 percent of the total daily fat recommended for a person who eats 2,000 calories per day. Much of that fat is the unhealthy saturated variety. Substituting fruit juice or cola also reduces the overall sugar content of the candy.
The technology works with dark, milk and white chocolate. Bon's team at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom has made chocolate infused with apple, orange and cranberry juice.
"Fruit-juice-infused candy tastes like an exciting hybrid between traditional chocolate and a chocolate-juice confectionary," he said. "Since the juice is spread out in the chocolate, it doesn't overpower the taste of the chocolate. We believe that the technology adds an interesting twist to the range of chocolate confectionary products available," according to Bon. "The opportunity to replace part of the fat matrix with water-based juice droplets allows for greater flexibility and tailoring of both the overall fat and sugar content."
Bon's team used fruit juices and other food-approved ingredients to form a Pickering emulsion, named for British chemist Percival Spencer Umfreville Pickering. In 1907, Pickering discovered a new way to stabilize emulsions ? combinations of liquids like the egg yolk and oil in mayonnaise that normally would not mix together. Chocolate is an emulsion of cocoa butter and water or milk combined with cocoa powder. Lecithin appears on the ingredient label in many chocolates because it is an emulsifier that fosters the process. Pickering's method used solid particles rather than an emulsifier, and Bon's team embraced that century-old approach in their work.
###
The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 163,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society, contact newsroom@acs.org.
Follow us: Twitter | Facebook
Abstract
We demonstrate a route toward the preparation of healthier fruit juice infused chocolate candy. Up to 50 wt% of the fat content in chocolate, that is cocoa butter and milk fats, is replaced with fruit juice in the form of emulsion droplets using a quiescent Pickering emulsion fabrication strategy. Fumed silica particles are used in combination with chitosan under acidic conditions (pH 3.2-3.8) to prepare water-in-oil emulsions, the oil phase being sunflower oil, molten cocoa butter, and ultimately white, milk, and dark chocolate. Adsorption of the polycationic chitosan molecules onto the surface of the silica particles influenced the particle wettability making it an effective Pickering stabilizer, as shown by cryogenic scanning electron microscopy analysis. The formation of a colloidal gel in the continuous (molten) oil phase provided the system with a yield stress, hereby giving it a gel-like and thus quiescent behaviour under low shear conditions, as determined by rheological measurements. This warrants a homogeneous distribution of emulsion droplets as settling through gravity upon storage under molten/liquid conditions is arrested. In our low-fat chocolate formulations the cocoa butter has the desired polymorph V structure, and neither sugar nor fat bloom was observed upon storage of the fruit juice containing chocolate confectionaries.
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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.
This image made from AP video shows the scene moments after a car bomb exploded in front the PRT, Provincial Reconstruction Team, in Qalat, Zabul province, southern Afghanistan, Saturday, April 6, 2013. Six American troops and civilians and an Afghan doctor were killed in attacks on Saturday in southern and eastern Afghanistan as the U.S. military's top officer began a weekend visit to the country, officials said.(AP Photo via AP video)
This image made from AP video shows the scene moments after a car bomb exploded in front the PRT, Provincial Reconstruction Team, in Qalat, Zabul province, southern Afghanistan, Saturday, April 6, 2013. Six American troops and civilians and an Afghan doctor were killed in attacks on Saturday in southern and eastern Afghanistan as the U.S. military's top officer began a weekend visit to the country, officials said.(AP Photo via AP video)
An Afghan policeman stands guard on the roof of a house in the outskirts of Kabul, Saturday, April 6, 2013. NATO says a blast in Afghanistan has killed four coalition service members and two civilians working with the alliance. The blast from a roadside bomb occurred Saturday in southern Afghanistan.(AP Photo/Jawad Jalali)
ISTANBUL (AP) ? U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday railed against the "cowardly" terrorists responsible for the attack that killed five Americans in Afghanistan, including a "selfless, idealistic" young diplomat on a mission to donate books to students.
In the deadliest day in eight months for the United States in the war, militants killed six Americans in separate attacks Saturday, the violence occurring hours after the U.S. military's top officer arrived in Afghanistan for consultations with Afghan and U.S.-led coalition officials.
Kerry, in Turkey for meetings with the country's leaders, said 25-year-old Anne Smedinghoff of Illinois had assisted him when he visited Afghanistan two weeks ago. She served as his control officer, an honor often bestowed on up-and-coming members of the U.S. foreign service.
At a news conference with Turkey's foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, Kerry described Smedinghoff as "a selfless, idealistic woman who woke up yesterday morning and set out to bring textbooks to school children, to bring them knowledge."
"Anne and those with her," Kerry said, "were attacked by the Taliban terrorists who woke up that day not with a mission to educate or to help, but with a mission to destroy. A brave American was determined to brighten the light of learning through books, written in the native tongue of the students she had never met, whom she felt it incumbent to help."
Kerry said Smedinghoff "was met by a cowardly terrorist determined to bring darkness and death to total strangers. These are the challenges that our citizens face, not just in Afghanistan but in many dangerous parts of the world ? where a nihilism, an empty approach, is willing to take life rather than give it."
The attack also killed three U.S. service members, a U.S. civilian who worked for the U.S. Defense Department and an Afghan doctor when the group was struck by an explosion while traveling to a school in southern Afghanistan, according to coalition officials and the State Department.
Another American civilian was killed in a separate attack in eastern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said in a statement.
It was the deadliest day for Americans since Aug. 16, when seven U.S. service members died in two attacks in Kandahar province, the birthplace of the Taliban insurgency. Six were killed when their helicopter was shot down by insurgents and one soldier died in a roadside bomb explosion.
Officials said the explosion Saturday came just as a coalition convoy drove past a caravan of vehicles carrying the governor of Zabul province to the event at the school.
A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility and said the bomber was seeking to target either a coalition convoy or the governor.
Kerry said the terrorists only "strengthened the resolve of the nation, the diplomatic corps, the military, all resources determined to continue the hard work of helping people to help themselves."
He said "America does not and will not cower before terrorism. We are going to forge on, we're going to step up. ... We put ourselves in harm's way because we believe in giving hope to our brothers and sisters all over the world, knowing that we share universal human values with people all over the world ? the dignity of opportunity and progress," the Obama administration's top diplomat said.
"So it is now up to us to determine what the legacy of this tragedy will be. Where others seek to destroy, we intend to show a stronger determination in order to brighten our shared future, even when others try to darken it with violence. That was Anne's mission," he added.
The deaths brought the number of foreign military troops killed this year to 30, including 22 Americans. A total of six foreign civilians have died in Afghanistan so far this year, according to an AP count.
The Taliban have said civilians working for the government or the coalition are legitimate targets, despite a warning from the United Nations that such killings may violate international law.
In earlier remarks Sunday to U.S. consulate workers, Kerry said that "folks who want to kill people, and that's all they want to do, are scared of knowledge. They want to shut the doors and they don't want people to make their choices about the future. For them, it's you do things our way, or we throw acid in your face or we put a bullet in your face," he said.
Kerry described Smedinghoff as "vivacious, smart, capable, chosen often by the ambassador there to be the lead person because of her capacity."
He said "there are no words for anyone to describe the extraordinary harsh contradiction for a young 25-year-old woman, with all of her future ahead of her, believing in the possibilities of diplomacy to improve people's lives, making a difference, having an impact" to be killed, Kerry said.
Smedinghoff previously served in Venezuela.
"The world lost a truly beautiful soul today," her parents, Tom and Mary Beth Smedinghoff, said in a statement emailed to The Washington Post.
"Working as a public diplomacy officer, she particularly enjoyed the opportunity to work directly with the Afghan people and was always looking for opportunities to reach out and help to make a difference in the lives of those living in a country ravaged by war," they said. "We are consoled knowing that she was doing what she loved, and that she was serving her country by helping to make a positive difference in the world."
The last American diplomat killed on the job was Chris Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya. Stevens and three other American died in an attack Sept. 11 on a U.S. facility in Benghazi, Libya. No one has yet been brought to justice in that attack.
Security is at constant war with convenience. The stronger the passwords we use to keep our data safe, the more steps we take to lock down what we own, the less accessible our data and our devices become -- even to us. Balancing it all can be tough, and a lot depends on what the platforms and services we use do to help us. And nowhere is this more evident than mobile.
Multitouch keyboards, in large part, rely on things like like character pair prediction and auto-correct to make entry acceptable. Neither of those things are possible with passwords, and strong passwords require far higher than normal frequencies of shifting between upper and lower case, and between letters and numbers and symbols. It's the worst possible experience.
A 4-digit passcode lock, or weak password, gets around that by reducing the complexity at the expense of security. Intervals can also be set, so that your passcode is only required minutes after you last used your device instead of seconds. A short interval offers better protection should you lose your device or should a friend try to prank you during an unguarded moment, but it can be maddening if you need to complete a long series of intermittent tasks.
On iOS, ironically, Apple's security policies prevent password managers from working through Safari browser extensions the way they do on OS X, thus requiring more cumbersome copy-paste procedures, or the use of an in-app browser instead of Safari. Some websites, flabbergastingly, use JavaScript to block copy-paste, increasing the difficulty of using strong passwords.
2-step verification requires the use of an authenticator app, or the transmission of a token. Sometimes tokens don't work for no apparent reason, or network connectivity is spotty, complicating transmission. Sometimes it ends up being so secure, even you can't get in.
It's not an iOS-only problem either by any means. BlackBerry Z10 passcode entry is such that Adam Zeis of CrackBerry has stopped using a password to secure his phone.
It's possible future technologies like biometrics might make security more convenient, for example letting a thumbprint automagically allow access to a device. But what happens if your thumbprint is hacked or phished or otherwise compromised? You can't change your body as easily as you can a password.
Where do you stand between convenience and security? Do you use a passcode? A strong one? A password manager? 2-step verification? And what could be done to make being secure even more convenient for you?
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Public release date: 8-Apr-2013
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