Parents crashing online party

Scott Seigal was awakened one recent early morning by a cell phone text message. It was from his girlfriend's mother.

His friends' parents have posted greetings on his MySpace page for all the world to see. And his 72-year-old grandmother sends him online instant messages every day so they can better stay in touch while he's at college.

"It's nice that adults know SOME things," says Seigal, an 18-year-old freshman at Binghamton University in New York. He especially likes IMing with his grandma because he's "not a huge talker on the phone."

Increasingly, however, he and other young people are feeling uncomfortable about their elders encroaching on what many young adults and teens consider their technological turf.

Long gone are the days when the average, middle-aged adult did well to simply work a computer. Now those same adults have Gmail, upload videos on YouTube, and sport the latest high-tech gadgets.

Young people have responded, as they always have, by searching out the latest way to stay ahead in the race for technological know-how and cool. They use Twitter, which allows blogging from one's mobile phone or BlackBerry, or Hulu.com, a site where they can download videos and TV programs.

They customize their cell phones with various faceplates and ringtones. And, sometimes, they find ways to exclude adults -- using high-frequency ringtones that teens can hear but most adults can't, for instance.

Nowhere are the technological turf wars more apparent than on social networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook, which went from being student-oriented to allowing adults outside the college ranks to join.

Gary Rudman, a California-based youth market researcher, has heard the complaints. He regularly interviews young people who think it's "creepy" when an older person -- we're talking someone they know -- asks to join their social network as a "friend." It means, among other things, that they can view each others' profiles and what they and their friends post.

"It would be like a 40-year-old attending the prom or a frat party," Rudman says. "It just doesn't work."

It's a particular quandary for image-conscious teens, says Eric Kuhn, a junior at Hamilton College in upstate New York, who's blogged about the etiquette of social networking.

He accepted his mom's invitation to be Facebook friends and has, in turn, become online friends with other adults she knows. But so far, he says, his 16-year-old sister has declined to add their mom "because she thinks it is not cool."

Lakeshia Poole, a 24-year-old from Atlanta, says "my Facebook self has become a watered down version of me." Worried about older adults snooping around, she's now more careful about what she posts and has also made her profile private, so only her online friends can see it.

"It's somewhat a Catch-22, because now I'm hidden from the people I would really like to connect with," she says.

Lauren Auster-Gussman, a freshman at Juniata College in Pennsylvania, says it's particularly awkward when one of her parents' friends asks to join her social network. She thinks Facebook should only be used by people younger than, say, 40.

"I mean, I'm in college," she says. "There are bound to be at least a few drunken pictures of me on Facebook, and I don't need my parents' friends seeing them."

There are ways around the problem.

It's possible on some sites, for instance, to limit what someone can see on your profile, though some users think it's a pain to have to deal with that.

"That is the beauty of Facebook and other online social networks. If you want to only interact with your peers, then you can adjust the settings to only allow that," says Katie Jones, a senior at Ohio Wesleyan University, who's studied ways prospective students use Facebook to contact students at colleges and universities they're interested in attending.

It's also possible to simply decline or ignore an adult's request to be an online friend. Or adults could back off and only use social networking to contact their own peers.

But it's not always so easy to relinquish that control, especially for parents of teens, says Kathryn Montgomery, the author of "Generation Digital: Politics, Commerce and Childhood in the Age of the Internet" and mother of a 14-year-old.

"As parents, we have to figure out where to draw the line between encouraging and allowing our teens to have autonomy, to experience their separate culture, and when we need to monitor their use of media," says Montgomery, a professor of communication at American University.

She says it's especially important to help young people understand that social networking is often more public than they think. Sometimes monitoring them is the best way to do that.

Sue Frownfelter, a 46-year-old mom in Flint, Michigan, thinks it's less of an issue for parents who discover technology with -- or even before -- their children. Among other things, she has a blog, uses Twitter and has a Chumby, a personal Internet device that displays anything from news and weather to photos and eBay auctions.

Her children, ages 9 and 11, begged her to allow them to have a MySpace page, because she does. Instead, she suggested Imbee.com, a social networking site for kids that allows parental monitoring.

"I can't imagine my life without technology! It has truly become an extension of who I am and who my family will likely be," says Frownfelter, who works at a community college.

Still, in today's world, parents are finding that the urge to stake out technological turf is starting at a very young age.

Jennifer Abelson, a mom in New York, says her 2-year-old daughter asks every day if she can play on the "'puter" on such kid-oriented sites as Noggin.com and Nickjr.com.

"She's constantly telling us 'I will do it!' and 'Go away!' if we try to interfere with her 'working,"' Abelson says.

"It's pretty amazing to see technology ingrained at such a young age. But I know she's learned so much from being able to use technology on her own

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No astronaut ever seen drunk on launch day

Survey: No astronaut ever seen drunk on launch day
There's been only one incident of a NASA crew member being impaired by drugs or alcohol close to a launch, but never on a launch day, according to a new survey of active-duty astronauts and flight surgeons.

The person was seen to be impaired in the time leading up to the launch because of an apparent interaction between prescription medication and alcohol.

"Medical personnel in performing their routine preflight monitoring assessed the situation and determined there was no impact to flight readiness, or risk to safe operations," said astronaut Ellen Ochoa, who is also deputy director of the Johnson Space Center.

"We really can't say too much else due to medical privacy."

The few details available seem to suggest a simple mistake rather than a binge drinking episode.

The incident didn't occur on a launch day, and survey respondents were unanimous in indicating that none of them had ever observed an intoxicated crew member on a launch day.

Nonspecific reports of astronauts who were drinking or hung over on launch day first surfaced last summer in a report by a panel of outside experts looking into NASA's astronaut health care policies.

That report was commissioned after astronaut Lisa Nowak's arrest last year after allegations that she assaulted a romantic rival.

NASA officials wanted to find out if managers, co-workers or doctors could have done anything differently to detect any behavioral or mental health problems that she may have shown.

In a full investigation concluded in August, Bryan O'Connor -- NASA's chief of safety and mission assurance -- asked astronauts from every flight crew going back to the early 1990s to go on the record in identifying any crew mates who might have been impaired by alcohol on launch day.

He failed to turn up any additional details regarding the drinking allegations, and NASA Administrator Michael Griffin wrote them off at the time as an "urban myth."

However, agency managers commissioned the survey to try to further identify problems that might need fixing related to astronaut health care and safety, and to ask astronauts again about the drinking issues -- this time with the protection of anonymity.

"We've asked every which way that we can think of, and and we still really haven't uncovered anything that led us to believe that is an issue," Ochoa said.

Overall, the survey paints a sunny picture of life in the astronaut corps. Respondents widely agreed that astronauts generally have a candid and trusting relationship with the flight surgeons who care for them. Astronauts voiced ongoing reservations that medical information be kept private.

Both groups say they feel comfortable raising concerns about astronauts and potential flight safety issues to management without fear of retribution or ostracism.

Some astronauts indicated they were troubled by the subjective nature of the crew assignment process, voicing some concern that raising safety issues could affect future flight assignments.

Managers say they are working on developing new procedures to clarify how flight assignments are made and give astronauts more individual feedback as to why they do or do not receive a flight assignment.

But the upbeat nature of the survey stands in contrast to the review authored by the panel of independent experts and released last July.

At a press conference in Washington on the day of the release, lead author Dr. Richard Bachmann Jr., a colonel in the Air Force, outlined a more complicated state of affairs.

"Members of the medical and astronaut communities raised significant concerns regarding barriers to communication," he said.

"They described instances where medical personnel or fellow astronauts raised concerns about an astronaut's fitness for flight due to astronaut use in the immediate preflight period, and these concerns appeared to them to be disregarded or overridden."

He recommended NASA conduct exactly the sort of anonymous survey released Wednesday.

Rep. Mark Udall of Colorado, who chairs the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee, released a statement suggesting NASA still has work to do.

"While the anonymous survey released today provides some useful data, NASA's action plan for addressing the problems identified last year is still unavailable," he said.

"NASA needs to provide that plan expeditiously if Congress is to be confident that NASA is serious about dealing with concerns raised by Col. Bachmann and others."

MORE...

No astronaut ever seen drunk on launch dayCNN - 10 hours ago(CNN) -- There's been only one incident of a NASA crew member being impaired by drugs or alcohol close to a launch, but never on a launch day, according to a new survey of active-duty astronauts and flight surgeons.2nd Survey Finds Astronauts Haven't Drunk Before Flights New York TimesNASA survey refutes report about drunk astronauts ReutersABC News - Space.com - Aero-News Network

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In Diatom, Scientists Find Genes

By manipulating the genes responsible for silica production in diatoms -- unicellular algae that encase themselves in intricately patterned, glass-like shells -- scientists hope to produce faster computer chips. (Credit: Dr. Neil Sullivan, University of Southern Calif; courtesy of NOAA Photo Library

In Diatom, Scientists Find Genes

That May Level Engineering Hurdle
Denizens of oceans, lakes and even wet soil, diatoms are unicellular algae that encase themselves in intricately patterned, glass-like shells. Curiously, these tiny phytoplankton could be harboring the next big breakthrough in computer chips.

Diatoms build their hard cell walls by laying down submicron-sized lines of silica, a compound related to the key material of the semiconductor industry--silicon. "If we can genetically control that process, we would have a whole new way of performing the nanofabrication used to make computer chips," says Michael Sussman, a University of Wisconsin-Madison biochemistry professor and director of the UW-Madison's Biotechnology Center.

To that end, a team led by Sussman and diatom expert Virginia Armbrust of the University of Washington has reported finding a set of 75 genes specifically involved in silica bioprocessing in the diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana, as published January 21 in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Armbrust, an oceanography professor who studies the ecological role of diatoms, headed up the effort to sequence the genome of T. pseudonana, which was completed in 2004.

The new data will enable Sussman to start manipulating the genes responsible for silica production and potentially harness them to produce lines on computer chips. This could vastly increase chip speed, Sussman says, because diatoms are capable of producing lines much smaller than current technology allows.

"The semiconductor industry has been able to double the density of transistors on computer chips every few years. They've been doing that using photolithographic techniques for the past 30 years," explains Sussman. "But they are actually hitting a wall now because they're getting down to the resolution of visible light."

Before diatoms were appreciated for their engineering prowess, they interested ecologists for their role in the planet's carbon cycle. These photosynthetic cells soak up carbon dioxide and then fall to the ocean floor. They account for upwards of 20 percent of the carbon dioxide that is removed from the atmosphere each year, an amount comparable to that removed by all of the planet's rainforests combined.

"We want to see which genes express under different environmental conditions because these organisms are so important in global carbon cycling," explains Thomas Mock, a postdoctoral researcher in Armbrust's lab and the paper's first author.

But research on these algae has uncovered other enticing possibilities. As he learned about diatoms, Sussman became intrigued by the fact that each species of diatom--there may be around 100,000 of them--is believed to sport a uniquely designed cell wall.

To determine which genes are involved in creating those distinctive patterns, the research team used a DNA chip developed by Sussman, UW-Madison electrical engineer Franco Cerrina and UW-Madison geneticist Fred Blattner, the three founders of the biotechnology company NimbleGen. Put simply, the chip allows scientists to see which genes are involved in a given cellular process. In this case, the chip identified genes that responded when diatoms were grown in low levels of silicic acid, the raw material they use to make silica.

Of the 30 genes that increased their expression the most during silicic acid starvation, 25 are completely new, displaying no similarities to known genes.

"Now we know which of the organism's 13,000 genes are most likely to be involved in silica bioprocessing. Now we can zero in on those top 30 genes and start genetically manipulating them and see what happens," says Sussman.

For his part, Sussman is optimistic that in the long run these findings will help him improve the DNA chip he helped develop -- the very one used to gather data for this research project. "It's like the Lion King song," he says. "You know, 'the circle of life.'"

Contributions to this paper were also made by Vaughn Iverson, Chris Berthiaume, Karie Holtermann and Colleen Durkin of the University of Washington; Manoj Pratim Samanta of Systemix Institute; Matthew Robison, Sandra Splinter BonDurant, Kathryn Richmond, Matthew Rodesch, Toivo Kallas, Edward L. Huttlin and Francesco Cerrina of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Funding came from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the UW National Institutes of Health Genomic Sciences Training Grant and the postdoctoral program of the German Academic Exchange Service.

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In Diatom, Scientists Find Genes

By manipulating the genes responsible for silica production in diatoms -- unicellular algae that encase themselves in intricately patterned, glass-like shells -- scientists hope to produce faster computer chips. (Credit: Dr. Neil Sullivan, University of Southern Calif; courtesy of NOAA Photo Library

In Diatom, Scientists Find Genes

That May Level Engineering Hurdle
Denizens of oceans, lakes and even wet soil, diatoms are unicellular algae that encase themselves in intricately patterned, glass-like shells. Curiously, these tiny phytoplankton could be harboring the next big breakthrough in computer chips.

Diatoms build their hard cell walls by laying down submicron-sized lines of silica, a compound related to the key material of the semiconductor industry--silicon. "If we can genetically control that process, we would have a whole new way of performing the nanofabrication used to make computer chips," says Michael Sussman, a University of Wisconsin-Madison biochemistry professor and director of the UW-Madison's Biotechnology Center.

To that end, a team led by Sussman and diatom expert Virginia Armbrust of the University of Washington has reported finding a set of 75 genes specifically involved in silica bioprocessing in the diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana, as published January 21 in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Armbrust, an oceanography professor who studies the ecological role of diatoms, headed up the effort to sequence the genome of T. pseudonana, which was completed in 2004.

The new data will enable Sussman to start manipulating the genes responsible for silica production and potentially harness them to produce lines on computer chips. This could vastly increase chip speed, Sussman says, because diatoms are capable of producing lines much smaller than current technology allows.

"The semiconductor industry has been able to double the density of transistors on computer chips every few years. They've been doing that using photolithographic techniques for the past 30 years," explains Sussman. "But they are actually hitting a wall now because they're getting down to the resolution of visible light."

Before diatoms were appreciated for their engineering prowess, they interested ecologists for their role in the planet's carbon cycle. These photosynthetic cells soak up carbon dioxide and then fall to the ocean floor. They account for upwards of 20 percent of the carbon dioxide that is removed from the atmosphere each year, an amount comparable to that removed by all of the planet's rainforests combined.

"We want to see which genes express under different environmental conditions because these organisms are so important in global carbon cycling," explains Thomas Mock, a postdoctoral researcher in Armbrust's lab and the paper's first author.

But research on these algae has uncovered other enticing possibilities. As he learned about diatoms, Sussman became intrigued by the fact that each species of diatom--there may be around 100,000 of them--is believed to sport a uniquely designed cell wall.

To determine which genes are involved in creating those distinctive patterns, the research team used a DNA chip developed by Sussman, UW-Madison electrical engineer Franco Cerrina and UW-Madison geneticist Fred Blattner, the three founders of the biotechnology company NimbleGen. Put simply, the chip allows scientists to see which genes are involved in a given cellular process. In this case, the chip identified genes that responded when diatoms were grown in low levels of silicic acid, the raw material they use to make silica.

Of the 30 genes that increased their expression the most during silicic acid starvation, 25 are completely new, displaying no similarities to known genes.

"Now we know which of the organism's 13,000 genes are most likely to be involved in silica bioprocessing. Now we can zero in on those top 30 genes and start genetically manipulating them and see what happens," says Sussman.

For his part, Sussman is optimistic that in the long run these findings will help him improve the DNA chip he helped develop -- the very one used to gather data for this research project. "It's like the Lion King song," he says. "You know, 'the circle of life.'"

Contributions to this paper were also made by Vaughn Iverson, Chris Berthiaume, Karie Holtermann and Colleen Durkin of the University of Washington; Manoj Pratim Samanta of Systemix Institute; Matthew Robison, Sandra Splinter BonDurant, Kathryn Richmond, Matthew Rodesch, Toivo Kallas, Edward L. Huttlin and Francesco Cerrina of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Funding came from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the UW National Institutes of Health Genomic Sciences Training Grant and the postdoctoral program of the German Academic Exchange Service.

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The Ulysses spacecraft today is making a rare flyby of the sun's north pole.

Ulysses Spacecraft Flies Over Sun's North Pole

The Ulysses spacecraft today is making a rare flyby of the sun's north pole. Unlike any other spacecraft, Ulysses is able to sample winds at the sun's poles, which are difficult to study from Earth.
Ulysses has flown over the sun's poles three times before, in 1994-95, 2000-01 and 2007. Last week, solar physicists announced the first indications of a new solar cycle. Visiting the pole at this time may lead to new insights about solar activity.

"This is a wonderful opportunity to examine the sun's north pole within a transition of cycles," said Arik Posner, Ulysses program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "We've never done this before."

Many researchers believe the sun's poles are central to the 11-year ebb and flow of solar activity. When sunspots break up, their decaying magnetic fields are carried poleward by vast currents of plasma. This makes the poles a sort of graveyard for sunspots. Old magnetic fields sink beneath the polar surface 200,000 kilometers deep (about 124,000 miles), all the way down to the sun's inner magnetic dynamo, which generates the solar magnetic field. There, dynamo action amplifies the fields for use in future solar cycles.

"Just as Earth's poles are crucial to studies of terrestrial climate change, the sun's poles may be crucial to studies of the solar cycle," said Ed Smith, Ulysses project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Each previous flyby revealed something interesting and mysterious. One puzzle has been the temperature of the sun's poles. In the previous solar cycle, the magnetic north pole was about 80,000 degrees Fahrenheit (more than 44,000 degrees Celsius), or 8 percent cooler than the south. The current flyby may help solve this puzzle because it comes less than a year after a similar south pole flyby in Feb. 2007. Mission scientists will be able to compare temperature measurements, north versus south, with hardly any gap between them.

Ulysses also discovered the sun's high-speed polar wind. At the sun's poles, the magnetic field opens up and allows solar atmosphere to stream out at a million miles per hour. By flying around the sun, covering all latitudes in a way that no other spacecraft can, Ulysses has been able to monitor this polar wind throughout the solar cycle and has found that it is acting a bit odd.

"Twelve years ago, just before the previous 'sea change' between solar cycles, the polar wind spilled down almost all the way to the sun's equator. But this time it is not. The polar wind is bottled up, confined to latitudes above 45 degrees, " said Posner.

Launched in Oct. 1990 from the space shuttle Discovery, Ulysses is a joint mission of NASA and the European Space Agency.

MORE...

Consider it a case of exquisite timing. Just last week, solar physicists announced the beginning of a new solar cycle and now, January 14th, the Ulysses spacecraft is flying over a key region of solar activity--the sun's North Pole.

"This is a wonderful opportunity to examine the sun's North Pole at the onset of a new solar cycle, "says Arik Posner, NASA Ulysses program scientist. "We've never done this before."

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The commercial arm of the British Broadcasting Corporation is expected to announce a partnership with MySpace

Growing Online, BBC Is to Join With MySpace

The commercial arm of the British Broadcasting Corporation is expected to announce a partnership with MySpace on Thursday to make some of its content available on MySpace, the popular social networking Web site.

MySpace, part of the News Corporation, controlled by Rupert Murdoch, said Wednesday that the relationship was its first global agreement with a major broadcaster. The companies will share advertising revenue.

The BBC has already found some success syndicating content on the Google Web site YouTube, where its videos have garnered more than three million views since last February. MySpaceTV is the second most popular video Web site, behind YouTube.

For the BBC, the latest deal offers an opportunity to widen the release of its content, trying to reach younger consumers where they socialize.

"This partnership continues our strategy of putting BBC content right at the heart of where audiences spend their time and watch video online," Simon Danker, the director of digital media at BBC Worldwide, said in a statement.

The partnership is significant for the 13 local-language versions of MySpaceTV around the world, because MySpace's previous collaborations with television networks have been restricted to certain markets. The BBC content will be available anywhere in the world on MySpace's 23 regional sites.

"Our users are consuming an enormous amount of video," said Jeff Berman, the general manager of MySpaceTV. With the deal, Mr. Berman is expected to be promoted to executive vice president for marketing and content. The former marketing chief left in November.

While MySpaceTV offers full-length episodes of NBC and Fox television shows, short-form video has proved to be a more popular format.

The new BBC site promises clips from "the best of British TV," grouped into channels for comedy, drama, sci-fi, documentary and other content. On YouTube, which will continue to carry BBC videos, the most popular BBC products have featured the automotive action series "Top Gear," and on MySpace, the show will have its own channel.

Like many British programs before it, "Top Gear" has elicited American interest; NBC ordered an American pilot episode this month.

Users will be able to embed the videos on their MySpace profile pages and discuss them content on a BBC forum.

more....

MySpace, Chasing YouTube, Upgrades Its Offerings

Two years ago, millions of MySpace users began adding video clips to their profile pages, helping to give rise to YouTube, which Google bought last October for $1.65 billion.
MySpace, a division of the News Corporation, will show that it is serious about challenging YouTube in the booming world of online video.

British Broadcasting Company

The British Broadcasting Company Ltd was a British commercial company formed on October 18, 1922 by British and American electrical companies doing business in the United Kingdom. Its original office was located on the fifth floor of the Marconi building in London. On December 14, 1922, John Reith was hired to become the Managing Director of the company. On December 31, 1926, the company was dissolved and its assets were transferred to the Crown Chartered British Broadcasting Corporation.

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