Monster blizzard threatens Northeast

BOSTON (Reuters) - The northeastern United States braced on Friday morning for a blizzard that could drop up to three feet (nearly one meter) of snow through Saturday and bring travel to a halt.

Blizzard warnings were in effect from New Jersey through southern Maine, with Boston expected to bear the brunt of the massive storm that could set records. The day began with light snow and winds that were due to pick up with much heavier snowfall by afternoon.

Officials urged residents to stay home, rather than risk getting stuck in deep drifts or whiteout conditions.

Boston and surrounding communities said schools would be closed on Friday, and city and state officials told nonessential city workers to stay home. Businesses were urged to let staff work from home or shorten schedules.

"Accumulation is expected to be swift, heavy and dangerous," Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick told reporters. "I am ordering all nonessential state workers to work from home (Friday). I am strongly urging private employers to take the same precautions."

Officials across the region echoed his recommendations, telling residents to prepare for any power outages and consider checking on elderly or disabled neighbors who might need help.

In New York City, still not fully recovered from the effects of October's devastating Hurricane Sandy, officials said they had 1,800 Sanitation Department trucks equipped with snow plows ready to be deployed.

In New Jersey, also hit hard by Sandy, state officials expected major coastal flooding, high winds, and possible blizzard conditions in the northeastern section of the state.

"This is a dangerous storm, and we ask motorists to be careful while driving. There is also the potential for downed trees and wires because of wind conditions," said Colonel Rick Fuentes, director of the New Jersey Office of Emergency Management. "(The) evening commute will be treacherous throughout much of New Jersey."

The National Weather Service, warning of a "major, maybe even historic, snowstorm," said Boston and much of New England could get up to three feet of snow on Friday and Saturday, its first heavy snowfall in two years. Winds could gust as high as 60 miles to 70 miles per hour (95 to 112 km per hour).

If more than 18.2 inches of snow falls in Boston, it will rank among the city's 10 largest snowfalls. Boston's record snowfall, 27.6 inches, came in 2003.

Cities from Hartford, Connecticut, to Portland, Maine, were expected to see at least one foot of snow.

Airlines have already canceled nearly 2,500 flights for Friday, according to website FlightAware.com, with the largest number of cancellations at airports in Newark, New Jersey; New York City; Chicago and Boston.

Some 550 flights were canceled for Saturday, according to the flight-tracking site.

Boston's Logan International Airport warned that once the storm roars in, all flights would likely be grounded for 24 hours.

United Continental Holdings Inc, JetBlue Airways Corp and Delta Air Lines Inc all reported extensive cancellations.

ECHOES OF '78

For some in the Boston area, the forecast brought to mind memories of the blizzard of 1978, which dropped 27.1 inches, the second largest snowfall recorded in the city's history. That storm started out gently and intensified during the day, leaving many motorists stranded during the evening commute.

Dozens of deaths were reported in the region after that storm, many from people touching downed electric lines.

Officials warned of a high risk of extensive power outages across the region due to the combination of heavy snow and high winds. Residents were also at risk of losing heat at a time when temperatures would dip to 20 Fahrenheit (minus 7 Celsius).

Across the region, store shelves were picked clean of food and storm-related supplies such as shovels and salt as residents scrambled to prepare.

Some big employers said they were considering pleas by officials to let workers stay home, including State Street Corp, one of Boston's largest employers in the financial sector.

(Additional reporting by Daniel Lovering and Tim McLaughlin in Boston, Dave Warner in Philadelphia, Karen Jacobs in Atlanta and Colleen Jenkins in North Carolina; Editing by Daniel Trotta; and Jeffrey Benkoe)

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/england-bear-brunt-powerful-blizzard-032605853.html

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The God of Thunder, and Momentum

Thor?Norse god, Marvel superhero, and Hollywood eye candy?presents those of us living in the real world with a few problems. Thor is a ?demigod,? and any attempt to scientifically explore his otherworldly abilities can be dismissed as such. But with his resurgence in The Avengers last year, and seeing that today is Thor?s Day, the time has come to discuss in real terms his most prized possession: Mjolnir (literally, ?that which smashes?)?his hammer.

The argument about Thor?s hammer usually revolves around its role in Thor?s ?flight.? Some argue that Thor can summon storms, and therefore wind, to keep himself aloft. Others point out that he merely keeps himself hovering by spinning the hammer like a helicopter blade. But the most common explanation is that Thor?s hammer, being tremendously massive, is used to propel Thor into the sky in a suitably beefy exhibition of momentum.

In The Avengers and the comics, Thor?s main mode of transportation is spinning and then throwing the hammer, and hanging on for dear physics. With the help of Neil deGrasse Tyson, there are numbers and assumptions we can make to see just how demigodly you would have to be to wield such a power. With enough strength to literally toss billions of pounds around, you would be ?worthy? indeed.

The Amazing?Mass of Thor?s Hammer

Recently, the world?s favorite astrophysicist tweeted this out to his million followers:

Neutron stars are the tiny (in astronomical terms) remnants of once massive stars. Though a neutron star could fit within the borders of Philadelphia, it?s not the size that?s important. A neutron star is so dense that a teaspoon of it would weigh about as much as a good-sized mountain.

I?ll give NdGT the benefit of the doubt and assume that he made correct assumptions about the dimensions of Thor?s hammer. As for the weight, ?a herd of 300-billion elephants? (of the African variety) would weigh in the neighborhood of A LOT. We are talking nine times the total biomass of the Earth. I guess those Chris Hemsworth muscles ain?t just for show.

Now we have to invoke the demigod excuse a bit here, as it would be impossible to lift such a weight. Thor is ?worthy,? so I guess he can lift it. But no matter how he can lift it, I sure hope he holds on, as something so dense would sink all the way through the Earth if he let it hit the ground.

Conservation of Demigod Momentum

It turns out that while nerds like myself have been arguing the mechanics of Thor?s flight, the comics have at least tried to resolve the issue:

Of course, sometimes we see Thor fly in the comics without spinning the hammer and apparently he can control the flight of it with magic demigod powers, but we?ll stick to the explanation we can explore?throwing and then hanging onto Mjolnir.

Any object with mass gains momentum as it moves. This value is simply the product of mass and velocity. Likewise, when an object with mass moves around some axis, it gains angular momentum.

Both kinds of momentum are conserved. You don?t create or destroy momentum; you just transfer it from one place to another. Think of cracking two billiard balls together. When one travels towards the other, it has momentum. When it hits the other ball, some (or all) of that momentum is transferred and the other ball moves. Angular momentum is conserved in the same way. A figure skater can increase the speed of her spin by bringing her arms closer to her chest?by moving mass closer to the axis of her spin, speed increases to conserve momentum. Conservation of momentum also explains why Newton?s cradles work (they would go forever if they didn?t lose energy to heat and air resistance).

Thor?s flight is a souped-up version of Newton?s cradle or the billiard balls. As explained in the comic panel above, the demigod takes to the skies by first hurling his hammer and then quickly grabbing onto the ?indestructible? strap. Flight is only possible because momentum is conserved.

If you spin some object around in a circle and then let go, it will fly off in a straight line from where you let it go. The path of the hammer will be some straight line coming off a circular path?a tangent?into the sky. So while angular momentum would explain the ridiculous energies and forces created by spinning the hammer, linear momentum will explain how Thor flies.

Time for some numbers. The Marvel Wiki puts Thor?s weight at a massive 291 kilograms, or 640 pounds. And, I?ll assume that Thor can spin his hammer as fast as a major league pitcher can throw?around 100 miles per hour or 45 meters per second.

If you let go of a hammer spinning at 100 mph, it will fly off in a straight line (at least until gravity takes over) at that speed. To calculate its momentum, we multiply its mammoth mass by this speed. The calculation results in 3.0*10^16 Newton-seconds of momentum (that?s a lot of zeroes). If Thor quickly grabs onto the hammer with this momentum, he adds mass to the system (his body+the hammer). If the mass changes, the velocity also has to change to conserve momentum.

It?s an odd conclusion: the speed that Thor releases the hammer is the speed at which Thor and the hammer will travel. But it makes sense from the math. Because the hammer is so incredibly heavy, a tiny addition to its mass won?t slow it down at all.

It would be like jumping onto a space shuttle while it?s taking off: with so much mass and speed, the addition of your tiny body won?t exactly change much.

And you might have tested this principle for yourself. As a kid, that merry-go-round on the playground was only fun if you could get it spinning quickly first. Try as you might, no matter how fast it went, once you jumped on it would slow down. This is because the mass of the system increased, so the velocity of the system had to decrease. But in Thor?s case the hammer outweighs him by astronomical factors. The mass increases and the velocity decreases, but by an insignificant amount.

If you could throw something as massive as Thor?s hammer around, not much will stop it. Wind resistance and other factors would have a hard time slowing it down, making ?flying? with it (more like hanging on to a ballistic missile) plausible.

The kinetic energy alone is out-of-this-world huge. Throwing the hammer at 100 mph (45 m/s) gives it 688,500,000,000,000,000 Joules of energy. That is almost three times the yield of the largest nuclear bomb ever exploded, Tsar Bomba, which shook the Earth with an equivalent of 57 megatons of TNT. Needless to say, with this kind of energy, Tony Stark should have asked Thor to simply throw his hammer at the alien ship at the end of The Avengers and watched the fireworks.

The only way around a mass heavy enough to sink through the Earth, and to pick it up and swing it no less, is to invoke the demigod excuse. But applying real-world physics to his flight only makes Thor that much more v?ndr bacraut (the closest I could find in old Norse to badass). Not only would he be able to ?fly,? but Thor could nearly vaporize a mountain with a single throw of his hammer.

Images: Tor?s Fight with the Giants, 1872 by M?rten Eskil Winge, Comic Panel found on Scifi+Fantasy Stack Exchange?Can anyone identify the issue? Thor meme on Meme Center

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=c4f67e6f78d150646614dba39da49161

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Wellness Wednesday: The Emotional Affect of Long-distance ...

With Valentines Day coming up, it?s a good time to talk about relationships in the context of studying abroad. All relationships experience ups and downs- it?s during these major periods of discomfort and challenge that you?re most likely to see whether a relationship can stand up to the test. Studying abroad is one of those tests! It brings the question to mind, ?does absence make the heart grow fonder?? If there were anytime to ask yourself that question, it would be when you?re in a long-distance relationship while you are studying abroad.

Major periods of transition, i.e. studying abroad and being away from each other for long periods of time, serve as a true measure of the foundation of your relationship. Key elements that are being challenged are: how compatible you are with your partner, how comfortable each of you are with change and how you handle it, and if that relationship will gel with the experiences you?re having while globetrotting.

Let?s not kid ourselves; it?s really tough to be away from someone you care about for long periods of time. The longing you?re experiencing shows how much you really value that person in your life. Even though the pain of long distance hurts, how you handle it shows a lot about yourself and your partner during times of strain. The reactions seen during this period can be indicative of how well suited you are for each other when the going gets tough. It?s a good learning experience to see how you and your partner can manage the discomfort, and believe me, those skills will serve you well in the future.

Being homesick, especially for someone you care about, is not enjoyable, but rest assured you are not alone in your pain. As I?ve mentioned in this article about managing depression while overseas, if you?re ever feeling very depressed about missing your partner to the point you feel you can?t manage it, please reach out for help to either your friends, program leader, or a counselor. Having someone to talk to about what you?re feeling and to give you a big hug can go a long way! The key during these down in the dump moments is to keep busy! Exercise, go see new sights, or hangout with friends. It?ll ease your mind about missing your significant other.

If you didn?t already do so before you left for your host country, address these things with your partner sooner rather than later:

-?????? What?s the status of the relationship? (i.e. monogamously committed, open relationship, etc.)

-?????? How often will you be in contact with each other?

-?????? How will you contact each other? (i.e. Skype, email, Facebook chat, etc.)

-?????? Will your partner come visit you in your host country?

Don?t worry, there are ways to manage those long-distance woes! It?s very important to have healthy boundaries in place during a major transition like this, because without them, there is bound to be confusion or potentially hurt feelings that may ensue. Don?t forget to take care of not only yourself, but your partner too! If you?re ever feeling down and really missing your significant other, make sure you have pictures of them to look at or trinkets that remind you of them. A fun way to show your partner you really miss them is to buy a locally made gift that is symbolic of the host country you?re living in and send it to them as a surprise! There are lots of positive ways to ease the transition of being away from each other that will not only show that you are thinking of one another, but your partner back home will have a piece of your study abroad journey to cherish for themselves!

Also, for those of you who are studying abroad, remember that you are having the adventure of a lifetime! While your partner will miss you a lot, the sign of a great relationship is when your partner wants you to do great things for personal development that will push you to be the best version of yourself. Allow yourself room to breathe while you?re away! Just because you?re off writing one of the best chapters of your life in a far away land, doesn?t mean that you?re putting less value or importance on your relationships at home. Each relationship is unique, so come up with whatever works best for you as a couple and respect those boundaries. Every single relationship is different, so it heeds no benefit to either person in the relationship to compare yourselves to other people who are in a similar situation. It?s very useful to practice adaptability and resiliency during these types of experiences.

Since it?s 2013, we all know there have been stellar developments in the online communication realm. The best part is ? a lot of the best ones are free!? Here are a few ways that you can keep in touch with your sweetie pie while you?re away:

• Voxer: a free smart phone app that serves as a walkie-talkie. You can record short voice messages that you can instantly send in real-time to anyone else who has the Voxer app on their smart phone anywhere in the world!
• Skype: a free computer-to-computer telephone/video chat program. In case you want to use your Skype account to dial an actual telephone, you can load up your Skype account with money to do so.
• All forms of email: Gmail seems to be the most comprehensive email account that also has voice and video functions for free.

As someone who has been in a long distance relationship, I can tell you first hand it has its positives and negatives. While it was a tough experience to go through, it made me learn a lot about myself, what types of people I?m really compatible with, and how I deal with those types of changes. I know a lot of people who have done long distance relationships during study abroad as well. Some of them stood the test of time, and upon the study abroader?s return, continued on their normal course. My own parents did long distance for 2 years during graduate school, and through that test of their relationship, are now approaching their 38^th year of marriage. Other people, during their study abroad experience, decided ultimately that they were going on a different direction in their life and chose to move on. I encourage you not to be scared of these potential changes! These movements have purpose behind them ? pay attention to and value where they guide you.

I leave you with the wise words of French memoirist Roger de Bussy-Rabutin, who can describe what I?m talking about the best. ?Absence is to love as wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small and kindles the great.?

?

Tags: dating, long distance relationship

Source: http://blog.studyabroad101.com/2013/02/wellness-wednesday-the-emotional-affect-of-long-distance-relationships-during-study-abroad/

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Pakistan port run by China a "matter of concern" for India: minister

BANGALORE (Reuters) - China's role in operating a strategically important port in Pakistan is a "matter of concern", India's defence minister said on Wednesday, as New Delhi and Beijing jostle for influence in the region.

Indian policy-makers have long been wary of a string of strategically located ports being built by Chinese companies in its neighbourhood, as India beefs up its military clout to compete with its Asian rival in what it sees as its sphere of influence.

Management of Gwadar port, around 600 km (370 miles) from Karachi and close to Pakistan's border with Iran, was handed over to state-run Chinese Overseas Port Holdings last week.

When complete, the port, which is close to the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil shipping lane, is expected to open up an energy and trade corridor from the Gulf, across Pakistan to western China.

India, the world's biggest arms importer in recent years, plans to spend around $100 billion over the next 10 years in upgrading its mostly Soviet-era military hardware to keep pace with China's ramping up of defence spending.

The country was bound to modernise its armed forces in response to China's own modernisation, Indian Defence Minister A.K. Antony told reporters at a press conference at an air show in the southern city of Bangalore, adding that strengthening its north-eastern border with China was not a confrontation with its neighbour.

"It is our duty. If they are doing it, we will also do it," said Antony, adding that the presence of a Chinese delegation at the show was a "welcome step," without elaborating.

Despite the push to overhaul its military, India's defence budget will not escape a tightening of government spending this year, Antony said, as New Delhi looks to rein in its fiscal deficit.

"Our priority areas will not face budget cuts. Those essential to operational preparedness, there won't be any budget cuts," Antony said.

A long-awaited deal for India to buy over 100 Rafale fighter jets from France's Dassault Aviation is being reviewed by a cost negotiation committee, Antony said, adding that the delay in finalising the deal was not due to budget cuts.

(Reporting by Anurag Kotoky and A. Ananthalakshmi; Additional reporting by Frank Daniel in NEW DELHI; Writing by Henry Foy; Editing by Matthias Williams and Jeremy Laurence)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pakistan-port-run-china-matter-concern-india-minister-095902118--business.html

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Syrian capital erupts with fresh fighting

BEIRUT (AP) ? Heavy fighting between rebels and President Bashar Assad's forces broke out in parts of Damascus on Wednesday in some of the worst violence to hit the Syrian capital in weeks.

Activists said the clashes were focused in the city's western districts, and residents in the heart of Damascus said the heavy thud of shelling emanating from the neighborhoods under attack was louder than in recent months, when government forces tried to dislodge rebels from the capital's suburbs.

Damascus has not seen the scale of violence that has destroyed whole neighborhoods in Syria's other urban centers like Aleppo and Homs. While the government has lost control of parts of those cities, it has kept a tight grip on the capital despite the rebels' attempts to storm the city center from their enclaves in its outskirts.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights activist group, said Wednesday's shelling of Jobar and Qaboun is part of a wider government offensive on the towns and villages on the capital's doorstep that have been opposition strongholds since the beginning of the uprising against Assad in March 2011.

A government official said army troops are chasing rebels in the suburbs of Harasta, Sbeineh, and Jober. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.

Fighting also erupted in the central province of Homs, where a blast targeting a military complex early Wednesday killed an unknown number people, the SANA state news and activists said.

There were conflicting reports about the nature of the explosion in the city of Palmyra. The Observatory said a car bomb blew up near a compound that houses a military intelligence branch and a state security agency, killing several regime troops.

SANA said two suicide bombers detonated cars packed with explosives near a garage in a residential area of the city, killing a number of people, wounding dozens and causing significant material damage in the area.

After the blast, rebels clashed with government soldiers guarding the compound, according to the Observatory, which relies on reports from activists on the ground.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, although car bombs and suicide attacks targeting state institutions have been a hallmark of Islamic militants fighting alongside Syrian rebels aiming to topple Assad, whose family has ruled Syria for more than 40 years.

Homs has been an opposition stronghold since the Syrian uprising erupted nearly two years ago. The province and its capital of the same name were the scene of massive protests early in the revolt, which has since devolved into a civil war that has turned urban centers like Homs and the northern city of Aleppo into battlefields.

The United Nations say more than 60,000 people have been killed since conflict started in March 2011. At least 700,000 Syrians have fled their homes, seeking shelter in neighboring countries like Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, and more than one million people have been displaced within Syria during 22 months of fighting, according to aid agencies.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/heavy-clashes-erupt-syrian-capital-112149794.html

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Surprise Open-Heart Surgery for Runner

Like many relatively recent college graduates, Jane Lee wasn't always on top of her doctor's appointments. She was young and had just run a half marathon, so she assumed she was in good health.

But as Lee trained for her first full marathon alongside her fraternal twin sister, she realized something was wrong. Her sister was able to run longer and faster than Lee despite their equally long training hours.

"In the last two years, my mileage was increasing a lot, and that was when I started noticing," Lee said. "She was running a lot faster and a lot farther. I thought, maybe it's because I have a heart condition."

When Lee was a baby, her mother noticed she sometimes turned blue, prompting doctors to diagnose her with a congenital heart defect called tetralogy of fallot. Lee was born with a hole in her heart, which caused the oxygen levels in her blood to drop.

Lee had a surgery to fix the hole and subsequently had a normal childhood in Los Angeles full of sports and the occasional check-up at the cardiologist's office. But when she moved to New York City after college, finding a general practitioner took a back seat to everything else in her life until she was about 25, when she noticed her athletic progress had slowed.

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"I kind of forgot about the fact that I ever had a heart condition," she said. "I was never really limited at sports."

So Lee eventually found a general practitioner, who referred her to Dr. Doff McElhinney, a cardiologist at NYU Langone Medical Center. McElhinney ordered a stress test, an echocardiogram and several other tests before Lee got a diagnosis: She needed a pulmonary valve replacement, which is open heart surgery.

And she needed it soon.

"I really wasn't expecting that because I had been so healthy," she said. "I wasn't that winded during the half [marathon]."

Congenital heart defects occur in about 1 percent of live births, McElhinney said, adding that their severity can vary greatly. A congenital heart defect, or congenital heart disease, just refers to a heart abnormality the patient was born with. Some congenital heart defects require surgery within a few days of birth, but others can go unnoticed until middle age.

McElhinney said patients in their 20s and 30s who, like Lee, had congenital heart problems and surgeries as children often failed to continue seeing cardiologists until they get to him. McElhinney specializes in cardiac catheterization, which involves inserting a flexible tube, or sheath, into a blood vessel in the arm or groin, and pushing the sheath toward the heart to perform diagnostic tests.

"People who had surgery in the 1980s and then went to college may have been told when they were young that they're not going to need anything done," he said. "They went off to college and somehow got out of the care of a cardiologist."

Although the surgeries to correct heart malformations were (and are still) very good, that doesn't mean they're permanent repairs, McElhinney said. Replacement valves, for instance, don't last forever.

Problems that can arise from an untreated heart defect include pulmonary hypertension, which can cut off blood to the lungs; cardiac arrhythmias, which are irregular heart beats; an infection of the heart lining; and congestive heart failure.

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/runner-congenital-heart-condition-surprise-open-heart-surgery/story?id=18412265

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