Major League Baseball is the stuff of Americana and nostalgia, but it's also trying hard to keep up with the 21st century. Today, MLBAM, its interactive/digital media subsidiary, said that it has inked a deal with Qualcomm, for the latter to provide technology and engineering support to improve mobile networks at 30 Major League Baseball ballparks. The deal follows an agreement struck between T-Mobile and MLBAM in January for the mobile carrier to help finally break the wired link between dugout and bullpen, and comes as the two parties forecast one-thousand-fold demand for mobile data in ballparks in the near future.
NEW YORK (AP) ? The man who gunned down radio and TV personality DJ Megatron in New York City will spend 21 years in prison.
The Staten Island Advance (http://bit.ly/12htitY ) says William "Billy" Williams was sentenced Wednesday.
He pleaded guilty to manslaughter in January.
Authorities say DJ Megatron was shot in the chest while resisting robbers near his Staten Island home in March 2011.
The 32-year-old disc jockey worked on cable TV network BET's "106 & Park" music countdown series. He also did on-camera work for the show and for BET's website. His given name was Corey McGriff.
Louvenia McGriff said at the sentencing that her son lived to help others.
A second defendant is scheduled to be sentenced Monday.
Looking to save some coin on your tech purchases? Of course you are! In this round-up, we'll run down a list of the freshest frugal buys, hand-picked with the help of the folks at Slickdeals. You'll want to act fast, though, as many of these offerings won't stick around long.
In another HD-heavy installment of our twice-weekly gadget deals, a 39-inch Sharp HDTV and Yamaha home theater receiver look to outfit those living rooms. Of course, a few other options hit the list too -- like a Sony Alpha A57 digital SLR. The full 5-pack of picks is waiting on the other side of the jump, complete with purchase links and the required coupon codes.
Women in Alabama are more likely to be obese, diabetic, and die from gunshot, according to a broad assessment of health data released today by the health and entertainment website iVillage .
But the good health news: Alabama women don't binge drink, ranking 4th best in the country in that category.
Overall, it was a pretty miserable showing for Alabama in the state-by-state look at 23 health categories using data from the Centers for Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health, state health departments and the census, among other sources.
Alabama was in the bottom 10 in 10 of those 23 categories.
Alabama women ranked 49th in both obesity and high blood pressure. Thanks to Mississippi in both of those categories for keeping Alabama out of the 50th spot.
Alabama women ranked 48th for diabetes and 47th in life expectancy.
Part of the reason for the shortened lifespan: Women in the state were most likely to die from gun violence than any other state that had data. In this category, 12 states did not have sufficient data to report, so Alabama's (bottom) rank was 38th.
The state with the highest life expectancy for women was Hawaii. And the state where women were least likely to die from gun violence was Massachusetts.
Other states ranking first in various categories: Colorado, diabetes; Hawaii, obesity; Utah, high blood pressure; Arkansas, breast cancer; Minnesota, cholesterol.
To see complete state-by-state figures in an online map go to iVillage.com's "State of Women: How Healthy Are We?"
2013 wintertime Arctic sea ice maximum fifth lowest on recordPublic release date: 3-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Maria-Jose Vinas maria-jose.vinasgarcia@nasa.gov 301-614-5883 NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Last September, at the end of the northern hemisphere summer, the Arctic Ocean's icy cover shrank to its lowest extent on record, continuing a long-term trend and diminishing to about half the size of the average summertime extent from 1979 to 2000.
During the cold and dark of Arctic winter, sea ice refreezes and achieves its maximum extent, usually in late February or early March. According to a NASA analysis, this year the annual maximum extent was reached on Feb. 28 and it was the fifth lowest sea ice winter extent in the past 35 years.
The new maximum 5.82 million square miles (15.09 million square kilometers) is in line with a continuing trend in declining winter Arctic sea ice extent: nine of the ten smallest recorded maximums have occurred during the last decade. The 2013 winter extent is 144,402 square miles (374,000 square kilometers) below the average annual maximum extent for the last three decades.
"The Arctic region is in darkness during winter and the predominant type of radiation is long-wave or infrared, which is associated with greenhouse warming," said Joey Comiso, senior scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., and a principal investigator of NASA's Cryospheric Sciences Program. "A decline in the sea ice cover in winter is thus a manifestation of the effect of the increasing greenhouse gases on sea ice."
Satellite data retrieved since the late 1970s show that sea ice extent, which includes all areas of the Arctic Ocean where ice covers at least 15 percent of the ocean surface, is diminishing. This decline is occurring at a much faster pace in the summer than in the winter; in fact, some models predict that the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free in the summer in just a few decades.
The behavior of the winter sea ice maximum is not necessarily predictive of the following melt season. The record shows there are times when an unusually large maximum is followed by an unusually low minimum, and vice versa.
"You would think the two should be related, because if you have extensive maximum, that means you had an unusually cold winter and that the ice would have grown thicker than normal. And you would expect thicker ice to be more difficult to melt in the summer," Comiso said. "But it isn't as simple as that. You can have a lot of other forces that affect the ice cover in the summer, like the strong storm we got in August last year, which split a huge segment of ice that then got transported south to warmer waters, where it melted."
The NASA Goddard sea ice record is one of several analyses, along with those produced by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colo. The two institutions use slightly different methods in their sea ice tally, but overall, their trends show close agreement. NSIDC announced that Arctic sea ice reached its winter maximum on Mar. 15, at an extent of 5.84 million square miles (15.13 million square kilometers) a difference of less than half a percent compared to the NASA maximum extent.
Another measurement that allows researchers to analyze the evolution of the sea ice maximum is sea ice "area." The measurement of area, as opposed to extent, discards regions of open water among ice floes and only tallies the parts of the Arctic Ocean that are completely covered by ice. The winter maximum area for 2013 was 5.53 million square miles (14.3 million square kilometers), also the fifth lowest since 1979.
While the extent of winter sea ice has trended downward at a less drastic rate than summer sea ice, the fraction of the sea ice cover that has survived at least two melt seasons remains much smaller than at the beginning of the satellite era. This older, thicker "multi-year ice" which buttresses the ice cap against more severe melting in the summer grew slightly this past winter and now covers 1.03 million square miles (2.67 million square kilometers), or about 39,000 square miles more than last winter. But its extent is still less than half of what it was in the early 1980s.
"I think the multi-year ice cover will continue to decline in the upcoming years," Comiso said. "There's a little bit of oscillation, so there still might be a small gain in some years, but it continues to go down and before you know it we'll lose the multi-year ice altogether."
This winter, the negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation kept temperatures warmer than average in the northernmost latitudes. A series of storms in February and early March opened large cracks in the ice covering the Beaufort Sea along the northern coasts of Alaska and Canada, in an area of thin seasonal ice. The large cracks quickly froze over, but these new layers of thin ice might melt again now that the sun has re-appeared in the Arctic, which could split the ice pack into smaller ice floes.
"If you put a large chunk of ice in a glass of water, it is going to melt slowly, but if you break up the ice into small pieces, it will melt faster," said Nathan Kurtz, a sea ice scientist at NASA Goddard. "If the ice pack breaks up like that and the melt season begins with smaller-sized floes, that could impact melt."
In the upcoming weeks, Kurtz will analyze data collected over the Beaufort Sea by NASA's Operation IceBridge, an airborne mission that is currently surveying Arctic sea ice and the Greenland ice sheet, to see if the sea ice in the cracked area was abnormally thin.
The sea ice maximum extent analysis produced at NASA Goddard is compiled from passive microwave data from NASA's Nimbus-7 satellite and the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Meteorological Satellite Program. The record, which began in November 1978, shows an overall downward trend of 2.1 percent per decade in the size of the maximum winter extent, a decline that accelerated after 2004.
###
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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.
2013 wintertime Arctic sea ice maximum fifth lowest on recordPublic release date: 3-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Maria-Jose Vinas maria-jose.vinasgarcia@nasa.gov 301-614-5883 NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Last September, at the end of the northern hemisphere summer, the Arctic Ocean's icy cover shrank to its lowest extent on record, continuing a long-term trend and diminishing to about half the size of the average summertime extent from 1979 to 2000.
During the cold and dark of Arctic winter, sea ice refreezes and achieves its maximum extent, usually in late February or early March. According to a NASA analysis, this year the annual maximum extent was reached on Feb. 28 and it was the fifth lowest sea ice winter extent in the past 35 years.
The new maximum 5.82 million square miles (15.09 million square kilometers) is in line with a continuing trend in declining winter Arctic sea ice extent: nine of the ten smallest recorded maximums have occurred during the last decade. The 2013 winter extent is 144,402 square miles (374,000 square kilometers) below the average annual maximum extent for the last three decades.
"The Arctic region is in darkness during winter and the predominant type of radiation is long-wave or infrared, which is associated with greenhouse warming," said Joey Comiso, senior scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., and a principal investigator of NASA's Cryospheric Sciences Program. "A decline in the sea ice cover in winter is thus a manifestation of the effect of the increasing greenhouse gases on sea ice."
Satellite data retrieved since the late 1970s show that sea ice extent, which includes all areas of the Arctic Ocean where ice covers at least 15 percent of the ocean surface, is diminishing. This decline is occurring at a much faster pace in the summer than in the winter; in fact, some models predict that the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free in the summer in just a few decades.
The behavior of the winter sea ice maximum is not necessarily predictive of the following melt season. The record shows there are times when an unusually large maximum is followed by an unusually low minimum, and vice versa.
"You would think the two should be related, because if you have extensive maximum, that means you had an unusually cold winter and that the ice would have grown thicker than normal. And you would expect thicker ice to be more difficult to melt in the summer," Comiso said. "But it isn't as simple as that. You can have a lot of other forces that affect the ice cover in the summer, like the strong storm we got in August last year, which split a huge segment of ice that then got transported south to warmer waters, where it melted."
The NASA Goddard sea ice record is one of several analyses, along with those produced by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colo. The two institutions use slightly different methods in their sea ice tally, but overall, their trends show close agreement. NSIDC announced that Arctic sea ice reached its winter maximum on Mar. 15, at an extent of 5.84 million square miles (15.13 million square kilometers) a difference of less than half a percent compared to the NASA maximum extent.
Another measurement that allows researchers to analyze the evolution of the sea ice maximum is sea ice "area." The measurement of area, as opposed to extent, discards regions of open water among ice floes and only tallies the parts of the Arctic Ocean that are completely covered by ice. The winter maximum area for 2013 was 5.53 million square miles (14.3 million square kilometers), also the fifth lowest since 1979.
While the extent of winter sea ice has trended downward at a less drastic rate than summer sea ice, the fraction of the sea ice cover that has survived at least two melt seasons remains much smaller than at the beginning of the satellite era. This older, thicker "multi-year ice" which buttresses the ice cap against more severe melting in the summer grew slightly this past winter and now covers 1.03 million square miles (2.67 million square kilometers), or about 39,000 square miles more than last winter. But its extent is still less than half of what it was in the early 1980s.
"I think the multi-year ice cover will continue to decline in the upcoming years," Comiso said. "There's a little bit of oscillation, so there still might be a small gain in some years, but it continues to go down and before you know it we'll lose the multi-year ice altogether."
This winter, the negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation kept temperatures warmer than average in the northernmost latitudes. A series of storms in February and early March opened large cracks in the ice covering the Beaufort Sea along the northern coasts of Alaska and Canada, in an area of thin seasonal ice. The large cracks quickly froze over, but these new layers of thin ice might melt again now that the sun has re-appeared in the Arctic, which could split the ice pack into smaller ice floes.
"If you put a large chunk of ice in a glass of water, it is going to melt slowly, but if you break up the ice into small pieces, it will melt faster," said Nathan Kurtz, a sea ice scientist at NASA Goddard. "If the ice pack breaks up like that and the melt season begins with smaller-sized floes, that could impact melt."
In the upcoming weeks, Kurtz will analyze data collected over the Beaufort Sea by NASA's Operation IceBridge, an airborne mission that is currently surveying Arctic sea ice and the Greenland ice sheet, to see if the sea ice in the cracked area was abnormally thin.
The sea ice maximum extent analysis produced at NASA Goddard is compiled from passive microwave data from NASA's Nimbus-7 satellite and the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Meteorological Satellite Program. The record, which began in November 1978, shows an overall downward trend of 2.1 percent per decade in the size of the maximum winter extent, a decline that accelerated after 2004.
###
[ | 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.
Monday’s LogicBUY Deal is the Sony MDR-X10 headphones in black for $199.99. ?Features: 50mm drivers High-energy neodymium magnets Noise-isolating earpads Inline remote for volume/playback control Dual folding design Tangle-free cord $299.99 – $100 savings = $199.99 with free shipping. This deal expires April 6, 2013 or sooner. Check the above link for more details on [...]
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) ? Australia is paying its biggest Hollywood inducement ever to bring "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" Down Under.
The Walt Disney Studios will film a new version of the science fiction classic in Australia, which will pay the studio 21.6 million Australia dollars ($22.6 million) to film there, the government said Tuesday.
David Fincher of "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" and "The Social Network" will direct, said Disney Asia-Pacific spokeswoman Alannah Hall-Smith.
"No casting decisions have been made," she said, so the filming schedule and locations haven't been set.
Sydney's The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported Tuesday that producers were believed to have been in discussions with Brad Pitt, who starred in Fincher's "Fight Club."
The newpaper reported that Fincher wanted Pitt for the film's hero Ned Land.
The story centers on Capt. Nemo and his submarine the Nautilus. Jules Verne's book was made into an Academy Award-winning movie in 1954 with Kirk Douglas starring as Land and James Mason as Nemo.
The announcement comes after "The Wolverine," starring Australian actor Hugh Jackman, recently wrapped filming in Sydney. The government paid Fox Studios AU$12.8 million to film in Australia.
Gillard said the "The Wolverine" created more than 1,750 jobs, contracted more than 1,027 Australian companies and generated AU$80 million in investment.
She expects "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" will create more than 2,000 jobs.
A strong Australian dollar buoyed by a mining boom has made Australia less attractive to Hollywood as a filmmaking location in recent years.
It wasn't known how much the payment would offset the film's budget.
"The securing of this film is a huge coup for the Australian film industry and for the near 1,000 local businesses that will be providing goods and services for the film," Gillard said in a statement.
"The Wolverine" in 3D opens in July in the United States, Australia and other countries.
Major League Baseball is the stuff of Americana and nostalgia, but it's also trying hard to keep up with the 21st century. Today, MLBAM, its interactive/digital media subsidiary, said that it has inked a deal with Qualcomm, for the latter to provide technology and engineering support to improve mobile networks at 30 Major League Baseball ballparks. The deal follows an agreement struck between T-Mobile and MLBAM in January for the mobile carrier to help finally break the wired link between dugout and bullpen, and comes as the two parties forecast one-thousand-fold demand for mobile data in ballparks in the near future.
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Public release date: 3-Apr-2013
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