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Wednesday, April 10, 2013
WikiLeaks Spills Its Biggest Ever Stash of Secret US Records
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Roger Ebert gets his final 'thumbs up'
Roger Ebert's funeral was attended by family, friends, and fans. "It didn't matter to him your race, creed, color," said his widow. "He had a big enough heart to accept and love all."
Movie critics Roger Ebert (r.) and Gene Siskel trademarked their 'two thumbs up' phrase. Mr. Siskel passed on in 1999 and Mr. Ebert passed on last week; his funeral was held today in Chicago.
Disney-ABC Domestic Television / AP / File
EnlargeRoger?Ebert, one of the nation's most influential film critics who used newspapers, television and social media to take readers into theaters and even into his own life, was laid to rest Monday with praise from political leaders, family and people he'd never met but who chose movies based on the direction of his thumb.
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"He didn't just dominate his profession, he defined it," said Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel in a brief eulogy to hundreds of mourners who gathered at Holy Name Cathedral just blocks from where?Ebert?spent more than 40 years as the film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times.?Ebert?died last Thursday at the age of 70 after a yearslong battle with cancer.
It was?Ebert?who told readers which films to see and needed to see and which ones they should stay away from, Mr. Emanuel said, remembering the influence?Ebert?had on movie goers through his newspaper reviews and the immensely popular television show he hosted with fellow critic Gene Siskel during which they would issue thumbs-up or thumbs-down assessments.
"Roger spent a lot of time sitting through bad movies so we didn't have to," joked the mayor.
In a 90-minute funeral mass, speakers took turns talking about how?Ebert?spent his career communicating his ideas about movies, social issues, the newspaper business and finally the health problems that left him unable to speak.
"He realized that connecting to people was the main reason we're all here and that's what his life was all about," said Sonia Evans, his stepdaughter, her voice choking with emotion.
That realization, she and other speakers said, helped explain?Ebert's?fascination with outlets such as Twitter and his blog that he took to just two days before he died to tell readers he was taking a "leave of presence."
"Roger was 24-7 before anybody thought of that term," said John Barron,?Ebert's?former boss at the Sun-Times, who said?Ebert?was among the first to recognize the changing media landscape as well as the first in the office to use a computer or send emails.
Ebert?was also a champion for the little guy, as over the years he weighed more and more on social issues and other topics that had nothing to do with film.
Gov. Pat Quinn spoke as much, if not more, about?Ebert's?"passion for social justice" and the fact that he was a "union man," as he did about?Ebert?as a film critic.
Ebert's?widow, Chaz, who received a standing ovation as she made her way to the lectern to speak, expanded on that devotion.
"It didn't matter to him your race, creed, color," she said. "He had a big enough heart to accept and love all."
That was the message of Jonathan Jackson, who, after relating comments from his father, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, told the crowded church why?Ebert's?early support for the films of Spike Lee and other black filmmakers was so important.
"He respected what we had to say about ourselves," said Jackson, who pointed to?Ebert's?glowing review of Spike Lee's 'Do The Right Thing' in the late 1980s. "It was not his story but he understood the value of an important film was authenticity and not the fact that it depicted your interests."
As when other Chicago icons such as former Cubs great Ron Santo died, fans of?Ebert?flocked to the church to pay tribute to someone they saw as one of their own: a Chicago guy. Fans said they liked it that?Ebert?never left the city for Los Angeles or New York, and that he remained a newspaper writer until the end. Some clapped when Barron ended his remarks with a story about how?Ebert?kept his word to stay at the paper.
And they liked it that he didn't hide after surgeons had to remove portions of his jaw.
"He let himself be the face of cancer and that illness," said Peggy Callahan, a 67-year-old retired teacher. "He did that and he kept doing that."
Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/i1ROLHQ0JGc/Roger-Ebert-gets-his-final-thumbs-up
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Ackman may be eyeing exit as JC Penney bet in tatters
By Svea Herbst-Bayliss and Katya Wachtel
BOSTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - William Ackman's multiyear bet that he could overhaul ailing retailer JC Penney
On Monday, JC Penney's board dismissed Ron Johnson, a former Apple executive handpicked by Ackman to remake the retailer, and brought back Mike Ullman, whom Ackman has previously criticized.
Now the hedge fund manager is likely searching for his own quick exit from an investment that is costing his $12 billion Pershing Square Capital Management millions in losses and has tarnished his reputation, say industry analysts and investors.
Selling off parts or taking the company private would be ways to quit now that JC Penney's slumping stock price has cost Pershing Square some $500 million in paper losses, people familiar with the firm said.
"The faster Ackman and group sell JCP's valuable assets to someone else, the more value they will capture," said George Bradt, managing director of PrimeGenesis, an executive consulting firm. "The longer they stay distracted with sure-to-fail ideas like fixing the business or taking it private, the less value will be left when JCP finally ceases to exist."
Taking it private is also a viable way for Ackman to get out. Even before Pershing Square and Vornado Realty Trust showed up in 2010, private equity investors were circling.
Today, a purchase would be cheaper with the stock price near at $14 a share, down about six dollars a share from where Ackman started buying. And a deal would still be attractive for players like Blackstone Group
Ackman has long championed JC Penney's vast real estate holdings as one reason the company should be trading at a higher stock price. Joining the JC Penney board in 2011, he also said less than a year a ago that Pershing Square could make 15 times its money if Ron Johnson's ambitious turnaround plans worked.
But that strategy resulted in Johnson's dismissal, and his plans to upgrade the stores and merchandise is in tatters. Now Mike Ullman, the CEO Ackman forced out has been brought back from retirement to run the company, so there is little reason for an activist investor to stick around.
The usually voluble Ackman has yet to publicly comment on the management changes at JC Penney, and he did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Shares of JC Penney rose almost 11 percent late Monday after Johnson had been ousted, but the stock fell when the company said Ullman was back, and continued its plunge on Tuesday, its shares down more than 10 percent in early afternoon trade.
"What we have now is clearly the worst case scenario and Bill will be looking to make as graceful an exit as quickly as possible," said one Pershing Square investor, who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak publicly.
Privately Ackman has long said the investment could be risky because it relied so heavily on shoppers liking Johnson's plan.
More stinging for Ackman personally may be that he appears to have been marginalized on a board that went back to the old boss, even though Ullman's tenure may not be long given that he has no employment contract.
"It appears the board is grasping for stability and the situation is more dire than outsiders realized," said Damien Park, the president of Hedge Fund Solutions, which tracks activist investors who push for management changes. "Ackman and the remainder of the board have a lot of work to do to demonstrate they're acting as a cohesive group."
One thing Ackman will likely not do is try to put the JC Penney investments into a side pocket the way some other hedge funds have done with their own poorly performing assets.
So far Pershing Square, which has strict liquidity conditions where investors need about two years to get their money back, has not been hit with heavy redemptions and the JC Penney investment is liquid enough to sell it off over time.
Pershing Square returned 6.1 percent during the first quarter even as JC Penney's stock was tumbling, suggesting that investors have no reason to run for the exits right now.
But the pick does cast a shadow over Ackman's record where average annual returns of 20 percent have made him a favorite with pension funds and other big investors.
The failure of Ackman's "candidate has resulted in substantially diminished credibility for him prospectively," said one investor who is not invested with Ackman but did not want to be named due to his continuing work in the hedge fund industry.
This does "not bode well for the board's receptivity to future recommendations. He is now a neutered activist," the person said.
(Reporting By Svea Herbst-Bayliss in Boston and Katya Wachtel in New York; Editing by Leslie Gevirtz)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ackman-may-eyeing-exit-jc-penney-bet-tatters-173248898--sector.html
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Remains of The Day: Facebook Home Raises Privacy Concerns
- Answering Your Questions on Home and Privacy Like most things Facebook does, it's forthcoming Home Screen/Android Launcher Facebook Home has been met with much concern over how private the new application would be. Today Facebook responded, reassuring users that the app can be turned off/uninstalled and, like other Facebook apps, collects information on how you interact with it. Due to it's nature as a home/lock screen replacement, this means that while the type of information Facebook Home gleans from you isn't very different, the quantity of information could potentially be much higher. A very janky, pre-release version of Facebook Home leaked earlier this morning, but seems to have since been taken offline. [Facebook Newsroom]
- 14.0.477 ? An Update of Feedly Desktop Focused on Performance and Quality Feedly, your favorite Google Reader alternative, released an update today for Chrome/Safari/Firefox browsers. The changes include a fix for a bug that required users to re-login when the server was under a high load, increased width and sharing options in title only view, and faster load times. [Feedly]
- Microsoft Planning Xbox Event for May Rumors say that Microsoft is planning to unveil the next Xbox, codenamed Durango, at an event on May 21st. [The Verge]
Photo by photastic (Shutterstock), a2bb5s (Shutterstock), and Feng Yu (Shutterstock).
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Monday, April 8, 2013
'Star Trek' phaser sells for $231K at auction
By Andy Lewis, The Hollywood Reporter
A one-of-a-kind phaser rifle used by?William Shatner?in the second pilot made for the original "Star Trek"?series sold for $231,000 at an auction conducted by Julien's.?
Reuters
A laser rifle from the William Shatner-starring 2nd pilot for "Star Trek" sold for $231,000 at auction.
The price is the second-highest paid at auction for a prop from the 1960s edition of "Star Trek," surpassed only by the $304,750 a collector laid out for the captain's chair in 2008. A miniature special effects model of the enterprise from?"Star Trek: The Next Generation"?sold for $576,000 in 2006.?
More from THR:?'Star Trek: The Next Generation' Cast Headlines Toronto ComiCon
Props and memorabilia from the original series are highly sought after by collectors. In addition to being an iconic and beloved show, many original items were lost or destroyed so that authentic memorabilia is comparatively rare.?
Toy designer?Reuben Klamer?created the prop for?Gene Roddenberry?to use in the pilot in exchange for licensing rights to produce toys based on the design. The rifle was seen in "Where No Man Has Gone Before," which was filmed as the series pilot but was the third episode of the series broadcast, airing on Sept. 22, 1966.??
The story revolves around a Lt. Commander who gains telepathic and telekinetic powers that threaten the crew. Captain Kirk (Shatner) kills the officer with the phaser rifle when he threatens the whole crew. After the pilot was completed, the phaser rifle was replaced with the now familiar handgun-style phaser.?
Photos from THR: 'STar Trek: Into Darkness'
The rifle never appeared in another episode, though it was seen in publicity photos of Shatner as Kirk and on an early lunchbox.?The prop is made of wood with an aluminum barrel and is painted with a metallic blue-green paint.??
After production, the rifle was returned to Klamer. See a video of the designer talking about its origins and construction below.
More in The Clicker:
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Sunday, April 7, 2013
Eyeing Syria, White House woos regional rulers
WASHINGTON (AP) ? When President Barack Obama meets over the next month with leaders from Mideast and other regional nations, he will have a timely opportunity to try to rally the Syrian opposition's main backers around a unified strategy to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Jordan, Turkey, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates ? whose Sunni Muslim leaders will meet separately with Obama starting April 16? are all believed to be arming or training rebel forces seeking to overthrow Assad's regime. But disparate political, geographic and religious considerations have led to conflicting approaches to which rebel factions to back and what kind of support to provide.
Infighting among mostly Sunni opposition groups and their failure to agree on a power structure to take over if Assad falls has been an important factor aiding the Alawite president as he clings to power two years into a civil war that has left at least 70,000 dead. Alawites are an offshoot of Shiite Islam, and the civil war has largely broken down along sectarian lines.
As resolute as Obama and most U.S. allies are that Assad must go, officials are increasingly worried about what Syria will look like if the regime falls before opposition groups can agree on a governing structure. That has resulted in extra U.S. pressure on regional allies to convince the opposition to unite.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said the high-level visits by leaders from the four nations reflect Obama's "deep personal interest" in the region and his commitment to the policies the U.S. is advocating.
"He will use these opportunities to discuss the complex developments in the broader Middle East," Carney said. "Not just Syria, but including Syria."
He pointed to other developments related to the Arab Spring and Obama's visit in March to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories as other topics the president would likely discuss with the Arab leaders. Secretary of State John Kerry also is returning to the Middle East on Saturday for meetings on Syria and Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Additionally, senior Obama administration leaders at the White House, State Department and Pentagon held a high-level meeting Friday that focused on Syria among its top national security priorities, according to two officials familiar with the discussion who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose the talks to the news media. Senior U.S. officials have been meeting regularly to discuss a range of options on U.S. involvement in Syria, including whether to arm the rebels.
"We are constantly reviewing every possible option that could help end the violence and accelerate a political transition," said Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council. "We are focusing our efforts on helping the opposition become stronger, more cohesive and more organized."
The global community's response to Syria will also be high on the agenda next Thursday, when Obama meets with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in the Oval Office. Washington has resisted arming the rebels, in part for fear that some weapons could fall into the hands of jihadi groups that are designated as terrorist fronts linked to al-Qaida.
But the U.S. has helped train some of the opposition fighters ? mostly former Syrian regime soldiers who have defected ? in Jordan and tacitly endorsed shipments of arms to the opposition from Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
Additionally, Kerry said last month that the U.S. will not stop Western nations seeking to open the possibility of arming the rebels, including Great Britain and France.
But the bulk of the aid to rebels has come from Sunni-led governments in Turkey and the Mideast ? as several Shiite leaders in the regions have spirited weapons, fighters and aid to Assad's forces.
Turkey and Qatar, along with Saudi Arabia, are widely believed to have been providing rebels with tanks and surface-to-air missiles to fight regime soldiers. Salman Shaikh, a Mideast expert who specializes in Gulf politics, said those countries have strongly backed the opposition Syrian National Council and its allied fighters ? which include elements of the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamists, as well as secular groups.
The United Arab Emirates, by contrast, has been unenthusiastic about aiding Islamist elements of the opposition. Shaikh said the Emirates is believed to be sending limited weapons, like small firearms and ammunition, to secular fighters but mostly have focused on supplying the opposition with humanitarian aid.
Syria's protracted civil war has been particularly taxing for Jordan, a close U.S. ally that shared its northern border with Syria and has absorbed more than 460,000 refugees fleeing the conflict ? the equivalent of 10 percent of Jordan's population. It's been just a few weeks since a meeting between Obama and Jordan's ruler, King Abdullah II, in which Syria topped the agenda.
"We are extremely concerned of the risk of prolonged sectarian conflict that, if it continues as we're seeing, leads to the fragmentation of Syria," Abdullah said then, standing alongside Obama in Amman.
Jordan mostly has been helping train and arm rebel fighters who defected from Assad's forces and has done so with U.S. help. It also has served as a way station for rebels' weapons flow into Syria, and this week drew a harsh warning from Assad about "playing with fire" amid Jordanian fears that its larger neighbor might try to retaliate.
The two leaders will meet in Washington on April 26 in what one U.S. diplomat predicted will be Abdullah's attempt to ensure that he has full U.S. backing as Jordan's campaign to help the rebels continues. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the talks more candidly.
"Regional players will find it difficult to always be singing off the same sheet," said Shaikh, director of the Brookings Doha Center think tank in Doha. "The U.S. hanging back and outsourcing a regional role is never going to achieve the goal of a unified opposition (to the regime) or even the military on the ground."
___
Associated Press writer Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.
___
Follow Lara Jakes on Twitter: https://twitter.com/larajakesAP
Follow Josh Lederman on Twitter: https://twitter.com/joshledermanAP
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Jim Ingraham's iChart: Examining the best NFL draft-eligible names
When you get right down to it ? and no country on the planet gets right down to it better than ours, don't you think? ? the only NFL mock draft you need is this one.
The Mock Draft of Names. This has nothing to do with 40-yard dash times, bench-press figures, agility drills or Wonderlic scores.
None of that matters. Because this is the mock draft that names names. In fact, that's all it does.
In this mock draft, the only thing that matters is the player's name. All of the following players are actual players actually eligible for the actual NFL draft later this month, and ? that's right ? these are their actual names.
This is how the draft would shake down if the only thing that mattered were names. So alert the Green Room. Here we go:
1. Kansas City: Stansly Maponga, DE, TCU ? He's not Stan, he's not Stanley, he's Stansly, and there's only one of him. "Maponga"? Sheer poetry.
2. Jacksonville: Barkevious Mingo, DE, LSU ? The strength of this draft is melodically-named defensive linemen, and Barkevious Mingo is one of those once-in-a-generation names that could have gone directly from high school to the NFL.
3. Oakland: Momo Thomas, CB, Colorado State ? After this pick, there will be no mo Momo in this draft.
4. Philadelphia: Isi Sofele, RB, California ? Isi Sofele? You bet he is.
5. Detroit: Taimi Tutogi, FB, Arizona ? Pancaked victims of this blocking back can consider themselves "Tutogi'd". Continued...
6. Browns: Laadarian Waddle, OT, Texas Tech ? After considering trading sideways, the Browns keep this pick, because you can't afford to bypass the chance to add a player named after a traditional dance done at Armenian wedding receptions.
7. Arizona: Blidi Wreh-Wilson, CB, UConn ? Whenever you have a chance to draft a guy named Blidi Wreh, you bloody well better.
8. Buffalo: Oday Aboushi, OG, Virginia ? Some feel this is a reach, but the Bills say they are OK with Oday.
9. Jets: Artavious Dowdell, DE, Eastern Illinois ? Offense sells tickets, but cadence wins games.
10. Tennessee: Trent Dupy, C, Tulsa ? The Titans, who would have settled for a Dopey, a Dippy or a Deppy, are joyously loopy at landing Trent Dupy.
11. San Diego: Jaheel Addae, S, Central Michigan ? It was Hall of Fame coach Bill Walsh who first said, "A Jaheel Addae keeps the doctor away."
12. Miami: Cole Zwiefellhofer, P, South Dakota ? His punts and his last name both have legendary hang times.
13. Tampa Bay: Robbie Rouse, RB, Fresno State ? He falls to the Bucs here because some feel Robbie Rouse is a rabble rouser.
14. Carolina: Gokhan Ozkan, OT, Buffalo ? As expected, the Panthers go with the best available Ozkan.
15. New Orleans: Ziggy Ansah, DE, BYU ? What do you get when you ask a Ziggy question? Continued...
16. St. Louis: Ray Ray Armstrong, S, Miami (Fla.) ? Really excels in double coverage.
17. Pittsburgh: Cass Covey, P, Citadel ? A punter in the first round? The Steelers give their fans a stomach ache when they are unable to pass Cass.
18. Dallas: Blaize Foltz, OG, TCU ? We know it and the Cowboys know it. Their biggest need is a hunk-a-hunk o'burning run blocking.
19. Giants: Star Lotulelei, DT, Utah ? He not only has "Star" written all over him, but he fills a need for the Giants because he's the only player in the draft whose name rhymes with "ukulele."
20. Chicago: Alonzo Tweedy, S, Virginia Tech ? Size-wise Tweedy is a tweener. Name-wise Tweedy is a keeper.
21. Cincinnati: Uona Kaveinga, ILB, BYU ? As any defensive coordinator in the league will tell you, you haven't lived until Uona Kaveinga.
22. St. Louis: Toben Opurum, DE, Kansas ? Inexplicably skipped his own pro day workout, causing some scouts to label him "The Phantom of the Opurum."
23. Minnesota: Paipai Falemalu, DT, Hawaii ? Rumor has it that "Paipai" is Polynesian for "Popeye," and that's good enough for the Vikings.
24. Indianapolis: Nick Kasa, TE, Colorado ? After the pick is in, Commissioner Roger Goodell looks to those sitting at the Colts' table and announces "Nick Kasa es su Kasa."
25. Minnesota: Roderick Rumble, WR, Idaho State ? Some names are just made for the NFL. Continued...
26. Green Bay: Joe Unga, OT, Midwestern State ? The over-Unga on his draft slot is 20th.
27. Houston: Zenel Dembasas, OT, Pitt ? The only player in the draft named after a percussion instrument used by most symphony orchestras.
28. Denver: Uzoma Nwachukwu, WR, Texas A&M ? Last name rhymes with "Mwachukwu".
29. New England: Jawanza Starling, S, USC ? ? always a Starling.
30. Atlanta: Omoregie Uzzi, OG, Georgia Tech ? A steal this late in the first round, he is just Uzzing talent.
31. San Francisco: Joaquenssi Eugene, OG, Alabama A&M ? Better known by his nickname "Joaquenss".
32. Baltimore: Eloy Atkinson, C, UTEP ? Would have gone higher in the draft if he wasn't a center, because really cool names should never be wasted on centers.
-- When Cavs forward Tristan Thompson called it "bogus," he was not talking about the lack of effort by so many players in recent games, but about rumors that coach Byron Scott could be in trouble. Apparently Thompson left the University of Texas before taking the class "Cause and Effect 101."
-- It's official. Compared to Kevin Ware the rest of us are a bunch of babies. The University of Louisville folk hero appeared on David Letterman Thursday night to personally read "The Top 10 Thoughts Going Through Kevin Ware's Mind At The Moment Of The Broken Leg."
Number eight: "Hey look ? my tibia!"
I'll never whine about a paper cut again.
-- After Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who (nudge-nudge) rarely ever says anything designed to get publicity for himself, suggested that he might consider drafting Baylor University All-American Brittany Griner, Miami's Shane Battier said the day is coming when a woman will play in the NBA.
Battier, who allegedly was educated at Duke, said the reason he thinks that is because of "the law of averages."
That must be the same law that says if you drop an anvil out of a second story window enough times that it will eventually fall up.
Nobody enjoys watching women's basketball more than me, but it's hard to envision a woman playing in the NBA when 99.9 percent of the men on planet can't play in the NBA ? including a few who are in the NBA.
-- The closer-less Detroit Tigers have signed their former closer Jose Valverde to a minor-league contract.
The Tigers did not re-sign Valverde after last year's postseason, when in four appearances he gave up nine runs on 11 hits, including two home runs, while only recording eight outs.
By the end of the World Series Valverde's nickname had evolved, from "Papa Grande" to "Mama Mia!"
Weak of the week
The NFL last week announced the exhibition schedule for the coming season, but only what teams will play, and where. The league will announce the exact dates and times of those games sometime later this month.
The NFL did not announce what day it will announce what days and what times those meaningless games will be played. The NFL will make those announcements when its good and ready. The NFL to its fans: You just sit there and wait. So there.
Weak. Very weak.
Source: http://news-herald.com/articles/2013/04/06/sports/nh6763359.txt
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Why mammography won't always detect breast cancer | PIX 11
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Source: http://pix11.com/2013/04/05/why-mammography-wont-always-detect-breast-cancer/
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NASA chooses all-sky planet hunter, neutron star watcher for liftoff in 2017
MIT
An artist's conception shows the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, in space. (Planets not to scale.)
By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News
NASA has selected two new space missions for launch in 2017:?a satellite that can scan the entire sky for exoplanets and a space station experiment that can monitor cosmic X-ray emissions. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and the Neutron-star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) won out at the end of a selection process that took more than two years.
"With these missions we will learn about the most extreme states of matter by studying neutron stars, and we will identify many nearby star systems with rocky planets in the habitable zone for further study by telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope," John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science, said in a statement Friday.
Under the terms of NASA's Explorer Program, the TESS mission will be budgeted at no more than $200 million, and NICER's mission costs will be capped at $55 million. Those price tags exclude the cost of the launch vehicle.
Planet hunter
TESS is designed to follow up on NASA's Kepler mission, which is surveying a patch of sky in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra for extrasolar planets. Like Kepler, TESS would detect other worlds by looking for the faint dips in starlight as they make regular transits across their parent suns. TESS' array of wide-angle cameras would take in much more territory, however.
"TESS will carry out the first space-borne all-sky transit survey, covering 400 times as much sky as any previous mission," principal investigator George Ricker, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, said in a statement. "It will identify thousands of new planets in the solar neighborhood, with a special focus on planets comparable in size to the Earth."
The mission's scientists say it will be possible to study the masses, sizes, densities, orbits and atmospheres of a wide range of planets, including a sampling of the rocky worlds in the habitable zones of nearby planetary systems. "The selection of TESS has just accelerated our chances of finding life on another planet within the next decade," said MIT planetary scientist Sara Seager.
TESS won out over another planet-hunting mission designed to study alien atmospheres, known as the?Fast Infrared Exoplanet Spectroscopy Survey Explorer or FINESSE.
NASA
An artist's conception shows the boxlike NICER array attached to the International Space Station.
Star watcher
NICER is an instrument that's about the size of a college dorm-room refrigerator, equipped with an array of 56 telescopes that can measure the variability of cosmic X-ray sources ? a method known as X-ray timing.?It's designed to explore the exotic states of matter within neutron stars and reveal their interior and surface compositions. The device can also monitor the stars' positions as a navigational aid.
"Our technology demonstration will establish the viability of spacecraft navigation using neutron stars, while the same instrument gives scientists an important new tool with which to better understand these stars that can serve as navigation beacons," principal investigator Keith Gendreau of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center said in a news release.
NICER would be brought to the International Space Station aboard a Japanese HTV robotic transport craft or a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule, and attached to the station's exterior.
NASA's Explorer Program is designed to provide frequent, low-cost access to space for astrophysics and solar science missions. The program has launched more than 90 missions, starting with Explorer 1 in 1958. The most recent Explorer mission to be launched was the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR. The next one is the?Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, or IRIS, due for launch sometime in the next couple of months.
More about exoplanets:
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's?Facebook page, following?@b0yle on Twitter?and adding the?Cosmic Log page?to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out?"The Case for Pluto,"?my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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Democrats lose fight in Montana Senate over ballot measures (reuters)
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