Nebraska approved by Big Ten

LINCOLN, Neb. — So long, Big 12. Nebraska’s membership in the Big Ten Conference is official.

The Big Ten’s board of presidents and chancellors unanimously welcomed Nebraska to the club on Friday, just a few hours after the school formally disclosed its interest. The move takes effect July 1, 2011.

Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman said the Big Ten offers stability “that the Big 12 simply cannot offer.”

Nebraska is the Big Ten’s first addition since 1990, when Penn State joined, and it comes just six months after the league announced that it was looking at expansion.

Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said he presumed there would be a Big Ten championship football game beginning in 2011. He also said the conference would “pause” from further expansion over the next 12 to 18 months. He declined to comment on whether Notre Dame or any other school was on the league’s radar.

Nebraska’s departure is a potentially crippling blow to the Big 12 and the biggest move yet in an offseason overhaul that will leave college sports looking much different by this time next year.

“We’ve had a couple disappointing days with the departure of two valued members,” Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe said during a teleconference. Beebe vowed to work to keep the 10 remaining members together but acknowledged that other Big 12 schools are mulling their options.
… Continue Reading

Uruguay 0-0 France

France and Uruguay contested a truly awful goalless draw in the second match of the 2010 World Cup at the Cape Town Stadium.

The result ensured that both of the opening day Group A fixtures ended in draws – but there was much more to savour in South Africa’s earlier game against Mexico.

The match in Cape Town never really got going; instead of sparking into life, it deteriorated into a largely forgettable contest only briefly illuminated by the occasional moment of trickery and skill.

In a game of few chances, Uruguay came closest to scoring through a Diego Forlan shot that was saved in the opening half, while they finished the contest with 10 men after substitute Nicolas Lodeiro picked up two bookings.

France were arguably the better team and might have snatched the points with a free-kick from a promising position deep into injury-time, but substitute Thierry Henry’s strike hit the wall.

Both teams had laboured through qualification, requiring play-offs to reach South Africa, and their lack of fluency was clear to see.
… Continue Reading

Cameron and Obama to discuss BP oil spill

David Cameron will discuss the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster with President Barack Obama later.

The prime minister has said he is “frustrated and concerned” about the environmental damage caused by the leaking well – owned by BP.

But Downing Street says the telephone conversation with the US president will be “statesmanlike and workmanlike”.

BP is under pressure from the US government to fix the leak and suspend dividends to shareholders.

The oil giant’s directors will meet on Monday to discuss a possible suspension.

Oil has been leaking into the Gulf since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on 20 April and sank off the coast of the US state of Louisiana, killing 11 workers.

As much as 40,000 barrels (1.7m gallons) of oil a day may have been gushing from a blown-out well before it was capped on 3 June.

‘Politically charged’
Mr Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne have already spoken to BP’s chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg, about the crisis.
… Continue Reading

Arkansas floodwaters hit campsites and leave 16 dead

At least 16 people have died in the US state of Arkansas after floodwaters hit campsites in a mountainous national park, state governor Mike Beebe says.

Two dozen people were taken to hospital and some 30 others remained unaccounted for.

Helicopters are taking part in the search in a remote, mountainous area in the state’s south-west.

The operation is focused on campsites along the Little Missouri and Caddo rivers in the Ouchita Mountains.

Mr Beebe said the deaths had occurred at about 0530, when the floodwaters reached their peak.

A river gauge at Langley, just south of Albert Pike in the Ouachita National Forest, showed the water rose 8ft (2.4m) in one hour, according to the US Geological Survey.

The National Weather Service said 7.6in (19.3cm) of rain had fallen overnight.

Some campers described how they had to cling to trees for hours to survive.

The remains of destroyed tents and damaged log cabins were later seen lining the banks of the swollen rivers.

The governor said damage to the area was comparable to a strong tornado.
… Continue Reading

BP’s bottom line on ‘top kill’ — wait a day

Venice, Louisiana (CNN) — Nearly four hours after BP’s latest attempt to cap the runaway leak in the Gulf of Mexico got under way Wednesday afternoon, the oil giant’s chief executive said he would not know for another 24 hours whether the plan is working.

Speaking from a command center in Houston, Texas, BP CEO Tony Hayward said the operation was going according to plan, but he cautioned against trying to reach any conclusions based on the live video feed of the stricken well a mile below the surface.

“It’s unlikely to give us any indication of what’s really going on,” he said. “Increases or decreases are not an indicator of success or failure at this time. We will be continuing for at least another 24 hours, and it will be 24 hours before we will know whether or not this has been successful.”

That timetable diverged from one offered by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who told reporters in Venice that he expects to know Wednesday night whether the attempt is working.

CNN.com Live: Underwater view of top kill procedure

“What they have told us is it will take a couple of days for it to be fully implemented, but that they should know in a matter of hours,” he said.
… Continue Reading

Madagascan bird declared extinct

London, England (CNN) — The Alaotra Grebe, a small diving bird native to Madagascar has been officially classified extinct, according to a leading bird conservation organization.

BirdLife International reported that the species, once found on Lake Alaotra, the largest lake in Madagascar, declined rapidly due to carnivorous fish being introduced to the lake and the use of nylon gill nets by local fishermen.

“No hope now remains for this species. It is another example of how human actions can have unforeseen consequences,” Dr Leon Bennun, BirdLife International’s director of science, policy and information said in a statement.

Invasive alien species are causing extinctions around the globe, Bennun says, and are one of the major threats not just to birds but to other wildlife.

BirdLife International’s report is the latest update to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species for birds and highlights additional cases of the negative impact of invasive species on bird life.

The status of Zapata Rail — a blue/brown bird native to Southwest Cuba — was upgraded to “critically endangered” due to the introduction of mongoose and exotic catfish to its marshland habitat.
… Continue Reading

Apple topples Microsoft’s throne

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Microsoft’s dominance as the tech industry’s most valuable player has ended.

On Wednesday, Apple’s market capitalization edged past its longtime rival’s as investors made official what consumers have long suggested: Microsoft is no longer the industry’s alpha dog.

Just last month, Microsoft’s market cap exceeded Apple’s by about $25 billion, but now Apple is in the lead by nearly $3 billion.

Microsoft’s consumer products business is struggling to compete as Apple’s hot new items like iPad and iPhone capture the attention of customers.

Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) fell 4% to close at $25.01 on Wednesday, while Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) lost 0.45%, closing at $244.11.

Shares of Microsoft have dipped more than 15% in the past couple weeks, while Apple’s stock is down just over 6%, despite recent market volatility.

“What this really means is that Wall Street has more confidence in Apple’s growth prospects than it does in Microsoft’s growth prospects,” said Matt Rosoff, lead analyst at Directions on Microsoft, an independent firm.
… Continue Reading

Genesis redux

A new form of life has been created in a laboratory, and the era of synthetic biology is dawning

IN THE end there was no castle, no thunderstorm and definitely no hunchbacked cackling lab assistant. Nevertheless, Craig Venter, Hamilton Smith and their colleagues have done for real what Mary Shelley merely imagined. On May 20th, in the pages of Science, they announced that they had created a living creature.

Like Shelley’s protagonist, Dr Venter and Dr Smith needed some spare parts from dead bodies to make their creature work. Unlike Victor Frankenstein, though, they needed no extra spark of Promethean lightning to give the creature its living essence. Instead they made that essence, a piece of DNA that carries about 1,000 genes, from off-the-shelf laboratory chemicals. The result is the first creature since the beginning of creatures that has no ancestor. What it is, and how it lives, depends entirely on a design put together by scientists of the J. Craig Venter Institute and held on the institute’s computers in Rockville, Maryland, and San Diego, California. When the first of these artificial creatures showed that it could reproduce on its own, the age of artificial life began.

The announcement is momentous. It is not unexpected. Dr Venter’s ambition to create a living organism from close to scratch began 15 years ago, and it has been public knowledge for a decade. After so much time, there is a temptation for those in the field to say “show us something we didn’t know.” Synthetic DNA is, after all, routinely incorporated into living things by academics, by biotech companies, even by schoolchildren. Dr Venter—a consummate showman—and the self-effacing Dr Smith (uncharacteristically in the foreground in the picture of the two above) have merely done it on a grand scale. … Continue Reading

Putting the raj in Rajapaksa

Reconciliation takes a back seat as a band of brothers settles in

THERE is no stopping the remorseless ascent of Mahinda Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka’s president. A year ago this week his government routed the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) after a 26-year civil war. This January, after a campaign featuring songs lauding him as a “king”, his grateful citizens re-elected him in a landslide. His party then cantered to victory in a parliamentary poll in April. His main rival in the presidential race, Sarath Fonseka, a former army chief, faces a court-martial and poses no threat. Now the president seems intent on an extraordinary concentration of power into his family’s hands, and on its prolongation.

Mr Rajapaksa himself, besides being president, is minister of defence, finance and planning, ports and aviation, and highways. In all, he is directly responsible for 78 institutions. One, the defence ministry, is a condominium with his brother, Gotabaya, the defence secretary. Besides control of the armed forces, police and coast guard, it has expanded its remit to take in immigration and emigration, as well as, curiously, the Urban Development Authority and the Land Reclamation and Development Corporation.

Another Rajapaksa brother, Basil, is economic-development minister and senior presidential adviser, with oversight, among other things, of wildlife conservation and the boards of both investment- and tourism-promotion. He also runs a presidential task force set up to develop the war-ravaged north and east.
… Continue Reading

South Korea sends a firm but measured message to the North

LEE MYUNG-BAK, South Korea’s president, has shown impressive restraint since the Cheonan, a South Korean warship, was sunk on March 26th. Now that the investigation into its cause has reached a conclusion however, he faces a dilemma. The 46 sailors who went down with their ship and the North Korean insignia found in the spent torpedo’s propulsion system demand a bold response. Yet Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s leader, is so unpredictable that it is hard to know where that might lead.

In his televised address on Monday, Mr Lee talked tough, referring to North Korea as the “most belligerent regime in the world”. Shortly after Mr Lee’s address, his ministers of unification, foreign affairs and defence laid out practical responses that South Korea will now take.

Their retaliatory measures are to go further than many expected. In addition to referring the matter to the UN Security Council, South Korea will ban North Korean vessels from its waters and cease all economic ties—save for those at Kaesong, a jointly run industrial complex. The South also plans to take part in the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), a multinational naval operation aimed at blocking the spread of nuclear materials. The North has always been especially wary of the PSI and until now the South had dithered on committing to it. To add insult to these injuries, Mr Lee’s government announced plans to resume the “psychological warfare” it had stopped in 2004. This consists mainly of spreading anti-Communist propaganda in the form of leaflets and radio broadcasts aimed across the border
… Continue Reading