Our $3 million prizes will turn scientists into heroes

Billionaire internet investor Yuri Milner says he launched his $3 million science prizes to create heroes for the next generation

What is the goal of the new prizes?
Scientists are under-represented as heroes in our society. We intend to change that. This is not an objective in itself; it will in turn encourage younger people to go into science and also help to increase funding. The more attention you attract to science, the better off everybody will be.

Why do you think famous scientists are key to inspiring the next generation?
To inspire young people to go into science you need to show them the heroes of the present. People look at Usain Bolt and they go into running. You need role models to attract young talent. That is not emphasised in science. How many scientists are household names?

You launched physics prizes last year. Why did you create life sciences prizes as well?
Fundamental physics is at the forefront of answering big questions; I don't think there is any bigger question than the universe. The next set of big questions is about life ? evolution, disease, genetics, longevity and so on. So the life sciences are a natural second step.

How did you decide on $3 million?
There is no magic in this number, but it emphasises the importance of these people in society: not only Wall Street traders should be making millions. That said, I don't think scientists are inspired by money. It's not so much about the $3 million ? though that's not going to hurt. It is about showcasing the scientists. Millions of lives are saved every year by what these people are discovering, yet nobody knows who they are.

Why did you decide to have prize recipients form a committee to select future winners?
I'm a former scientist and an internet investor. Something that makes some internet companies very powerful is the network effect: as people join a network, it becomes disproportionately more powerful. If previous winners pick the next winners, they have a vested interest in keeping the bar high ? if not, they devalue their own prize.

Are you concerned about networks of insiders ? colleagues selecting colleagues?
Over the years, I think this will not really dominate. If you remember, Facebook started in colleges. It was the network for Harvard, then Stanford and then other colleges. Then it went beyond colleges, and the bigger it grew, the more representative it became. You just have to start somewhere. Of all ways to pick winners, I think this is less political.

Critics of these prizes point out that most recipients work for well-funded universities.
This money is not going towards research. It is not to buy equipment and do genome sequencing ? there are multiple philanthropic organisations that do that. It is going straight into the pockets of individuals, to reward individual achievement. That's why I think a lot of this criticism is slightly misplaced. This is about people, not institutions.

How do you hope winners spend the money?
I hope this will give them more freedom to do what they want to, allow them to spend more time on science and less time thinking about how to fix the car or put someone through college or buy a house.

This article appeared in print under the headline "One minute with... Yuri Milner"

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Small airports upset at removal of new scanners

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) ? Managers at dozens of small airports have expressed outrage at federal officials for hauling new full-body scanners away from their facilities and sending them to large hubs that haven't yet upgraded older machines criticized for showing too much anatomy.

U.S. Transportation Security Administration contractors were threatened with arrest after officials at a Montana airport said they received no notice before the workers arrived. In North Dakota, the scanners are set to be yanked from a terminal remodeled last year with $40,000 in local funds just to fit the new machines.

"We think it's silly to have installed the thing and then come back nine months later and take it out," Bismarck airport manager Greg Haug said.

The L3 Millimeter Wave body scanners, which are about the size of a minivan on end and produce cartoonlike outlines of travelers, are being removed from 49 smaller airports across the country to help replace 174 full-body scanners used at larger airports. After controversy erupted over the bare images of a person's body the full-body scanners produce, Congress set a June deadline for them to be removed or updated.

But officials at smaller airports said removing their machines will produce longer lines, increased pat-downs, decreased security and a waste of taxpayer money.

North Dakota officials are especially critical of the swap because the state's airline boardings are skyrocketing with booming oil development. TSA is slated to remove the newly installed scanners this week at airports in Bismarck, Grand Forks and Minot.

"It does seem like a waste of time and energy, but the biggest issue is security concerns," state Aeronautics Commissioner Larry Taborsky said of removing the machines. "We are feeding a lot of traffic into the national system."

"Smaller airports are being treated as less important as bigger airports in the system," said Dave Ruppel, manager of the Yampa Valley Regional Airport in Steamboat Springs, Colo. "Any airport you go through is an entrance into the whole system."

Ruppel's airport lost its scanner late last month. He said the move to replace machines at big airports with scanners from smaller airports is "a political solution to a security problem."

TSA said in a statement that it will cost about $2.5 million to remove the machines from the 49 smaller airports and reinstall them at bigger facilities. The agency would not identify the specific airports where the scanners are slated to be removed. Airport directors said the machines cost about $150,000 each.

"TSA's deployment strategy is designed to ensure advanced imaging technology units are in place at checkpoints where they will be used a significant portion of operating hours, increasing overall use across the system," the agency's statement said. "TSA will continue to evaluate airport needs and will reassess its deployment strategy when additional units are procured."

That's little comfort for airport officials who point out the scanners were touted by TSA for being more secure, less intrusive and quicker.

At the Grand Forks airport, a bank of windows at the terminal had to be removed to place the machine, said Patrick Dame, airport director. The airport authority board in Grand Forks passed a resolution last week that prohibits the TSA from altering the terminal to remove the machine that has been in place less than a year.

"They're free to take the equipment, but they can't take the building apart to do so," Dame said.

Minot's scanning machine has been in place for only about 10 months, airport director Andy Solsvig said.

"With ours, they can disassemble it and wheel it out the door," Solsvig said.

That's what happened Tuesday night at the Meadows Field Airport in Bakersfield, Calif., said Jack Gotcher, airport director. The airport had its new scanner for about a year but it's now going to Los Angeles International Airport, he said.

"We're back to the metal detector, where we were before," Gotcher said.

Many of the 140,000 boardings at the Bakersfield airport are oil workers heading to North Dakota's rich oil patch in the western part of the state, he said.

The North Dakota Aeronautics Commission said 2012 was a record year at the state's eight commercial airports with more than 1 million boardings, bolstered by big gains in the western part of the state, where booming oil development has spurred huge increases in airline activity.

Haug, Bismarck's airport manager, said to keep the machines, an airport must have had more than 250,000 boardings annually for three consecutive years. Bismarck had 236,000 boardings last year and is projected to surpass that soon.

"It's just a matter of time that they'll have to come back in under mandate and reinstall them because we'll quality as a bigger airport," Haug said. "This is not one of TSA's finest hours."

Airport officials in Helena, Mont., have been more drastic in attempts to keep the machines. Airport manager Ronald Mercer said workers under contract with TSA attempted to pull the machine at the airport last week but were told to leave the property or be arrested.

"We told them we weren't going to allow them to do it," Mercer said.

TSA's decision to remove the machine was a surprise to airport officials, Mercer said.

"We never heard they were coming to get it in the first place and we haven't heard anything since," he said. "We have heard rumors that they are sending federal marshals to come get it."

Taborsky, who has had a hip replacement, said the new machines allowed him to pass through security checkpoints without setting off an alarm. He said he'll likely have to go back to being a subject of pat-downs once the machines are gone.

"I'm going to set off the old metal detector now so it is really personal," Taborsky said. "It's going to impact the elderly, who have had hip or knee replacements, in particular."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/small-airports-irked-removal-body-scanners-214729410.html

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Video: Chelsea Handler discusses feud with Jay Leno

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Source: http://www.today.com/video/today/51036009/

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Covenant Relationships: How to Open Your Hearts in Marriage

The following is a report on the practical applications of Jim Daly's book,?The Best Advice I Ever Got on Marriage: Transforming Insights from Respected Husbands and Wives?(Worthy Publishing, 2012).

Open hearts are the foundation of a healthy marriage. If your hearts are closed, all the best marriage advice in the world won?t help you and your spouse. But if you both decide to open your hearts, God?s love will flow through them, empowering you all to develop a strong marriage.

Here?s how you can open your hearts to each other and build a great marriage in the process:

Create emotional safety in your relationship. Encourage each other to share your deepest thoughts, feelings, beliefs, hopes, and dreams with each other. Listen to each other carefully and respectfully to build trust between you.

Develop a habit of cherishing your spouse through loving actions. Get to know which specific actions you can take on a regular basis to make your spouse feel loved, from writing love notes and speaking encouraging words to serving your spouse in ways that are meaningful to him or her.

Focus on what?s positive. Ask God to help you change negative thinking about your spouse to positive thinking. Aim to catch your spouse doing something right (not wrong) often. Keep in mind that it?s easier for your spouse to change when he or she is in a supportive environment than it is when facing constant criticism. Remember why you first fell in love with your spouse, and continue to appreciate and affirm those good qualities as you remain committed to your marriage. Rather than assuming the worst about each other, choose to believe the best about each other.

Learn to consider your spouse before yourself. Pray for the ability to love your spouse unselfishly and sacrificially through generous acts of kindness.

Think of God as your heavenly Father-in-Law. Keep in mind that God cares passionately about your spouse?s welfare, and you?ll be in trouble with Him if you mistreat your spouse. Remember that your spouse is the son or daughter of God, and do your best to treat him or her that way.

Practice non-random acts of kindness. Intentionally focus on looking at your spouse?s well-being by doing what you can to help him or her simply to express love and without expecting anything in return.

Laugh together. Enjoy and celebrate the humor in life with your spouse.

Be your spouse?s best friend. Sharing a close friendship with your spouse is vital for your marriage, since emotional intimacy is much more important to a successful marriage than physical intimacy. Become companions and partners who enjoy each other?s company and work for each other?s best interests.

Communicate well. When talking to each other, be open and honest. When listening to each other, be attentive and ask questions to clarify your understanding. Don?t make assumptions about each other?s intentions; communicate to find out the truth. Apologize whenever either of you makes a mistake that hurts the other.

Ask older couples what marriage practices work well for them. Learn some marriage wisdom from couples you admire who have been married longer than you. Be willing to help younger couples who ask you for advice.

Never threaten your spouse with divorce or separation. You and your spouse can never feel safe enough with each other to build deep trust and intimacy if either of you threatens the other with leaving the marriage. Decide never to use such threats as a weapon, and commit to always working out conflicts between you with love and respect.

This article first appeared on Crosswalk. and is written by Whitney Hopler.

Source: http://www.covenantrelationships.org/2013/03/how-to-open-your-hearts-in-marriage.html

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Benedict's obedience to new pope part of tradition

Pope Benedict XVI leaves after greeting the faithful from the balcony window of the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo, the scenic town where he will spend his first post-Vatican days and made his last public blessing as pope,Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Benedict XVI leaves after greeting the faithful from the balcony window of the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo, the scenic town where he will spend his first post-Vatican days and made his last public blessing as pope,Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

VATICAN CITY (AP) ? He slipped it in at the end of his speech, and said it so quickly and softly it almost sounded like an afterthought.

But in pledging his "unconditional reverence and obedience" to the next pope, Benedict XVI took a critical step toward ensuring that his decision to break with 600 years of tradition and retire as pope doesn't create a schism within the church.

It was also a very personal expression of one of the tenets of Christian tradition that dates back to Jesus' crucifixion: obedience to a higher authority.

In the two weeks since Benedict announced he would resign, questions have mounted about how much influence he would still wield and exert over the new pope.

Benedict will continue to live inside the Vatican, wear the white cassock of the papacy, call himself "emeritus pope" and "Your Holiness" and even have his trusted aide continue living with him while keeping his day job as head of the new pope's household.

The Vatican has insisted there should be no problem with a reigning and a retired pope living side-by-side, that Benedict has no plans to interfere and that as of 8 p.m. Thursday, Benedict was no longer pope.

But the real concern isn't so much about Benedict's intentions as it is about how others might use him to undermine the new pope's agenda or authority.

"There is the risk that Benedict is aware of that some people could claim in the future that they want allegiance to Benedict and not the next pope," said the Rev. Robert Gahl, a moral theologian at Rome's Pontifical Holy Cross University. "He wants to preclude any division in the church."

One needs only to look at the last time a pope abdicated to understand how real that risk was, at least in history: Pope Gregory XII stepped down in 1415 as part of a deal to end the Great Western Schism, when dueling papal claimants split the church.

Gregory and all the cardinals who elected him pope in 1406 had pledged to abdicate if the rival Pope Benedict XIII in Avignon, France, did the same. While the endgame didn't work out exactly as planned, Gregory did step down and the split was eventually healed.

The "shock" of that schism "certainly influenced the collective mentality of the church of Rome" and contributed to the tradition of popes reigning until death, church historian Giovanni Maria Vian, editor of the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, said.

Today, the Catholic Church already has fringe groups not in full communion with Rome, such as the ultra-traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, with whom Benedict took extraordinary measures to reconcile during his eight years as pope.

If the next pope were to roll back some of Benedict's overtures toward the group, which included allowing greater use of the pre-Vatican II Mass in Latin, some of its members could try to pressure the new pope by saying "'We want to be in full communion, but only if Benedict accepts us,'" noted Gahl.

By pledging his own obedience to the new pope, Benedict has undercut any such scenario.

Benedict also took measures to ensure that the election of his successor was free of any possible claims of illegitimacy, in another bid to thwart those who might still claim him as pope. He issued a final legal document giving the College of Cardinals the right to move up the start date of the conclave.

The cardinals could have interpreted the previous rules as giving them that right, but Benedict made it crystal clear to avoid any suggestion that the election itself wasn't valid.

In that same document, Benedict also moved to ensure that his successor is viewed as the only legitimate pope by requiring the cardinals who elected him to make a public pledge of obedience to him during one of his first Masses as pope. Under previous rules, the cardinals only make that pledge in the privacy of the Sistine Chapel immediately after the election.

"They represent the whole church, the universal church," Gahl said of the cardinals, adding that such a public show of deference to the new pope's authority was a powerful message to all believers.

But while his primary aim may have been to ensure a smooth transition to the next pope, Benedict was also voicing his own expression of submission to authority that that underlies Christian tradition dating from Jesus' act of obedience to God in dying on the cross.

Christians believe that Jesus died to save them from their sins.

"Christ's obedience isn't just the most sublime example of obedience, it's the fundamental one," the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa, Benedict's personal preacher, wrote in his 1986 book "Obedience." ''It's not so much the death of Jesus that saved us, but his obedience up until death."

Technically speaking, however, none of these pledges of obedience were necessary, said the Rev. Ladislas Orsy, law professor at Georgetown University of Law School.

"When Ratzinger was elected pope, he became the bishop of the diocese of Rome. When he resigned, he ceased to be bishop of the same diocese but he continued to belong to it," Orsy said. "As such, he is under the jurisdiction of the new bishop" ? the new pope.

Orsy, a Jesuit, also noted that obedience is far less important a virtue in the church than its three main virtues of faith, hope and charity. And there are several layers of obedience, as within the military, he added.

"A drill sergeant's authority extends as far as the drill goes ? it demands a mechanical unthinking obedience ? and that is all. Intelligence is exiled," he said. "When the general sends a major with a battalion into combat, the major owes thinking obedience to the general who is not on the battlefield. Intelligent interpretation of the command is required."

"The church believes that supreme authority is vested in the Gospel and in the tradition that communicates it. This is the framework within which all authorities in the church must function, and all must obey."

But he said the church is also a human organization where some social order is necessary. Priests and bishops make vows of obedience. Other members of the church obey to lesser degrees.

But lest anyone be concerned that Benedict's pledge of obedience is blind or open to abuse, Orsy noted that "There have been always situations when for the sake of faith, hope, and love, obedience to overreaching authority may ? or must ? be denied."

___

Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-03-02-Vatican-A%20Pope's%20Obedience/id-a4c77ce00b2242f0af0ef30f37efeafc

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Best Selling Cars And Trucks In America - Business Insider

Summary

The Ford Motor Company is an American multinational corporation based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford, Lincoln... More ?

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/best-selling-cars-and-trucks-in-america-2013-3

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Cardinals manager Mike Matheny has ruptured disk

VIERA, Fla. (AP) ? VIERA, Fla. (AP) ? St. Louis Cardinals manager Mike Matheny has a ruptured disk in his back.

Matheny, a major league catcher from 1994-06, is scheduled to have an epidural injection Monday to reduce inflammation and get a particle off a nerve. If the injection doesn't help alleviate pain, he said surgery would "have to be something we would consider."

Starting his second season as the Cardinals' manager, Matheny has had back issues for several years.

"I've had problems for a long time, off and on," he said Sunday. "I've been on a program to kind of strengthen it, but ... something set it off in a bad direction. I don't know exactly what it was.

Matheny did not travel with the team to Kissimmee on Friday, citing back pain and food poisoning. He returned to manage the Cardinals on Saturday in Jupiter.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cardinals-manager-mike-matheny-ruptured-disk-170446638--mlb.html

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