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For Lindsey Anne Gilman SM ’12 playing with  bubbles is serious work. Her PhD research project, launched this past summer, concerns ways of improving heat transfer for energy production utilizing boiling water. In nuclear reactors, the formation and movement of bubbles in boiling water turns out to be a critical issue: “If instead of nice little bubbles leaving the surface of the fuel, you get a film of vapor forming, the temperature of the fuel rods can increase,†Gilman says. “When this happens, you have reached critical heat flux. The concern is that if the temperature of the fuel rods gets high enough, the structural integrity of the rods might be compromised, and even fail.â€Gilman’s studies focus on optimizing flow conditions to achieve maximum power without compromising safety. She has just begun the first phase of her project, which entails building a software model that describes precisely what  is taking place inside reactors as water heats up and approaches the boiling point. “We want to predict critical heat flux better, so we can stay away from it,†Gilman says. “My research looks at the physical phenomena, such as the surface condition of the rods, and the velocity and temperature of the water flowing across the surface, that might drive heat transfer.â€Gilman arrived at this computation-centered project, and even her research topic, in a roundabout way.  As a chemistry major at Valparaiso University in Indiana, she attended a lecture on nuclear isotopes and was instantly mesmerized. “At first I was kind of afraid to tell anybody about my interest in nuclear science, because nobody I knew ever discussed the field, and I was worried they’d think I was strange,†Gilman recalls. After junior year, she found her  way to a Department of Energy summer school in nuclear and radiochemistry, which exposed her to different subjects in nuclear science. Says Gilman, “The thing that really got my interest was the possibility of transmuting nuclear waste,†to reduce radioactive stockpiles.She returned to Valparaiso and immediately signed up for courses in nuclear physics and quantum mechanics, determined to pursue nuclear science as a graduate student. After some hesitation, she applied to MIT. “I was afraid I wouldn’t fit in, given my chemistry background,†she says. After a campus visit, though, she says, “I realized I loved the department†— particularly after she discovered she shared a passion for running with Professor Emeritus Sidney Yip.Read the full article Riot police separate small dissident republican protest from Orangemen passing along Crumlin RoadThe most contentious Orange Order parade of Northern Ireland's marching season has passed off peacefully.A huge contingent of riot police – some of whom  came from English constabularies – separated a small dissident republican protest from Orangemen and their supporters passing along the Crumlin Road in Belfast on Friday morning.There was also no trouble at another flashpoint outside St Patrick's Catholic church although protesting Catholic residents alleged that Orangemen hurled  sectarian abuse in their direction with one shouting: "Stick a poker up the pope's hole."The Orange Order is banned from the return leg of the journey past Ardoyne, which presents the police with a major security challenge if the loyalists decide to force their way through or hold disruptive protests in the north of  the city later in the evening.Around 30,000 Orangemen and their supporters are taking part in about 550 parades across Northern Ireland, the majority of which will be entirely peaceful.Two Belfast Orange bands passing by St Patrick's church unfurled new banners dedicated to the memory of the soldier Lee Rigby, who is being buried on Friday.Among those following the march past Ardoyne was the former EastEnders star Ross Kemp, who is in Belfast filming a documentary for Sky 1. Kemp told the Guardian that reports that he had helped light a loyalist bonfire on the eve of 12 July Orange celebrations were "total bullshit". Kemp said he hoped for a peaceful day on the climax of the Ulster loyalist marching season.On Thursday the Northern Ireland secretary, Theresa Villiers, insisted she had no powers to overturn a ruling that bans Orangemen and their supporters from returning past the flashpoint in Belfast.The body that adjudicates on controversial parades in the province, the Parades Commission, has ruled that a feeder parade from Ligoniel past the  nationalist Ardoyne area cannot return by the same  route after the main 12 July celebrations in  the city to commemorate William of Orange's victory at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.The secretary of state said she could only intervene if Matt Baggott, chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, requested that she do so, which appeared unlikely at this stage.The commission's decision came under fire from the Orange Order and loyalists who were considering how to react to the ruling.BelfastNorthern IrelandHenry McDonaldguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Tiger Eyes is the first film adaptation from the work of Judy Blume, loved by teen girls but hated by US conservativesFor decades she has been a heroine to generations of young women who have used her bestselling books as guides through the perils of adolescence, even as her frank discussions of sexuality and puberty have outraged social conservatives.But Judy Blume's legions of fans, who have bought books such as Forever, Blubber and Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret in their millions, have so far been denied seeing her work translated to the big screen.In an age when Hollywood will turn even a theme-park ride into a movie, the lack of films based on works by such a prolific and globally famous author has been an enduring mystery of the entertainment industry. However, Blume's time has finally come.To the huge  excitement of Blume's followers, a film version of her 1981 book Tiger Eyes is being released in  the United States. It tells the story of a young girl relocating to New Mexico after her father's death, where she meets a good-looking Native American boy called Wolf. It features Willa Holland as the leading character, Davey; and Tatanka Means as her love interest. But, in typical Blume style, its adult themes of death, loss and dislocation are set to put it far above run-of-the-mill movies aimed at younger audiences."Judy Blume has been an untapped resource," said Carolyn Kellogg, who writes about books for the Los Angeles Times. "She deals with controversial issues in a straightforward way, but she does not preach about it to her readership. Kids like to be treated as if they can make their own decisions, and that's what she does so well."That style has made Blume a favourite author to many. But it has also earned her a reputation for controversy in works where she frankly depicts losing one's virginity, having a first period or wondering about religion. Her most famous book is perhaps Forever, which came out in 1975 and immediately created a stir over its depictions of young sexuality. Blubber anticipated today's fierce  debates over bullying by almost four decades and includes disturbing scenes where the central character's assailants try to tear her clothes off. In Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, Blume deals with religion, buying a first bra and the onset of menstruation.Tiger Eyes – while not being as controversial as some other  works – still cuts close to the bone with its description of the difficulty of being young. Davey's father is killed in a shooting and its themes of utter loss and the bleakness of grief are heart-wrenching, especially when combined with the adolescent awakening of sexual attraction to Wolf.Blume's works are  frequently the target of social conservatives who eschew themes about sex and religion and tough family issues in works aimed at a young audience. There is a long history of fights with schools  and libraries to keep her books available and on the shelves – a struggle that Blume herself has championed. "These are topics that a lot of people would rather prefer don't exist. But Judy Blume has been an incredibly staunch and principled defender of free expression," said Joan Bertin, president of the National Coalition Against Censorship, which has frequently worked with Blume on such issues.Bertin has  already seen the Tiger Eyes film, which is directed by Blume's son, Lawrence Blume. "I really enjoyed it. It is well done, engaging and true to her vision," she said.Blume's break on to the big screen comes at a time when turning young adult books into movies is spectacularly big business. Franchises such as Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and Twilight show that youthful audiences are eager to pay big bucks – or get their parents to pay big bucks – for tickets to see their favourite reading turned into films.The film comes at a time of exploding interest in young adult books. In the past year more than a dozen publishers have launched or announced young adult imprints in genres ranging from thrillers to craft-making guides. "It is about money. Everyone is trying to go after the young adult audience now," said Kellogg.Even though The Hunger Games features children fighting to death in ritualised combat and Twilight has vampires stalking teens in high school, it is Blume's depictions of the reality of modern childhood that are still the most likely to stir up controversy."Bullying, menstruation and  questioning whether God exists; for some segments of the American population that is too much. They think that kids should just be given a nice story," said Bertin.Film adaptationsChildren and teenagersTeen booksUnited StatesPaul Harrisguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds What's garbage to most people is the perfect nest decoration for some birds. Black kites adorn their nests with bits of white plastic they find littering the ground. Although  most birds decorate their nests to woo mates, the kite's adornment says, "Don't mess with me." Researchers say that these ... Now consider a program to install a light-rail system — a move that could help relieve highway congestion, expand commuting choices, reinvigorate urban centers, and more. You know that getting voter approval to fund and implement the new light-rail line will be difficult. According to the MIT assessment, you can increase your odds of success by having a referendum that addresses multiple transportation modes rather than just light rail. But your best bet is to use existing funds to build a demonstration line and then present a referendum to fund future expansion. In Dallas and Salt Lake City, for example, people who initially opposed light-rail construction in their communities saw the success of the initial line elsewhere and subsequently lobbied for an extension into their areas. To improve your chances of winning over voters, you should place your new line on a  corridor with many potential riders, avoid delays and cost overruns during construction, and involve the affected community in the design process. General advice for planners What general messages can mayors glean from the work to date? According to Layzer, a critical first step is to know your city. "The part I find fascinating that's not often discussed or researched is all the ways that  implementation can fail because you didn't think about some aspect of the target — the entity whose behavior you're trying to influence," she says. One key variable is a city's attitude toward environmental action. San Francisco, Austin, Boulder, and Minneapolis, for example, are thought to have a strong environmental ethic, which may contribute to those cities' ability to adopt aggressive sustainability policies. Indeed, in some cases, environmental ethic may trump other seemingly obvious influences, such as climate. Minneapolis, for instance, has cold,  snowy winters and yet is a leader in bicycle programs; when winter comes, the bike-share stations are simply removed until spring. The propensity to accept or resist rules may also influence the form of a city's programs. New York, for example, has a culture of rules, fines, and compliance. In 2009, New York City instituted a rule prohibiting retail establishments that are running air conditioners from propping their doors open on hot days. Few stores complied — until the city began fining stores and issuing warnings, and compliance began to rise. "If you tried that approach in San Diego or Houston, you might get a lot more pushback," says Layzer. In such cities, successful environmental programs are more likely to take the form of incentives or education than mandates. In the end, different variables and city attributes matter for different kinds of programs — a complicating factor that the MIT teams try to address in their assessments. "One thing we talk about is that for this policy area, these kinds of city attributes can really matter," says Layzer. "So it may be in the realm of, say, tinnitus miracle review New York can learn  from Minneapolis but not from Chattanooga." And while putting values on such attributes as environmental ethic may seem subjective, Layzer believes that long-term residents have a "pretty accurate sense" of their city's culture and what would work and what would not. Continuing work Layzer and her team are now grappling with how best to present the assessment information so that people can use it and learn from it. Her goal is to produce a series of web-based tools that gives the visitor easy access to relevant, action-oriented analyses incorporating prose, graphics, and links to detailed supporting information. When those tools are available, she will ask various sustainability organizations to post them so that others can use, refine, and expand them. She is also seeking a  means of constantly updating the data so as to generate new assessments and analyses every few years. Her original concept was to have cities and students collaborate.  "Cities have no money, but there are lots of universities with students who want real-world experience," says Layzer. But as her own experience has shown, students have many demands on their time, and progress can be slow — and that is a problem for urban planners. "Wait too long and the political moment will have passed," notes Layzer. She is hoping to speed the process by incorporating methods of automated data collection. "While the time-consuming, labor-intensive interviews would still be necessary, certain types of data could be collected automatically that could tell you a lot about a city," she says. Once she's finished "inventing the method" and others are using and improving it, she plans to move onto the next piece: determining whether urban programs actually make a difference. It may seem obvious that they would — but perhaps not always. For example, if people get appliances that are more energy-efficient, they might use them more, causing overall energy use to increase rather than decrease. Similarly, the energy and environmental gains from requiring new buildings to be green may be less than predicted if those buildings are not used as efficiently as possible. Layzer recognizes that establishing a clear link between sustainability programs and measurable environmental impacts will be tricky. "You have to be clever about what you measure and how you figure out whether it was the program that caused the outcome or not," she says. "It'll be a totally different kind of challenge, but I think it's worth a try." This research was funded by a seed grant from the MIT Energy Initiative. Work continues under a grant from the Summit Foundation. Further information can be found at papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers. cfm?abstract_id=1644156 The executive director of Lyndhurst in Tarrytown, N.Y., is married there to an events marketer for Time Inc. The 2013 Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize in association with the Guardian and the Observer is now open for entries. This year, our  blog to accompany the prize asks some top science writers about their craft. First up, former Guardian science editor Tim RadfordWhat makes a good science story? Good science stories are hard to define but paradoxically easy to find. They are hard to define because science – unlike premier league football, the balance of trade figures, or party political briefings – so often delivers the unexpected. They are unexpected because they can come from anywhere: from Egyptology or entomology or epigenetics or nanotechnology or high earth orbit or a galaxy far away and long  ago. They are unexpected because there is now a huge, competitive and international effort to deliver research, so good stories arrive daily, by the bucketful.A good science story may be hard to define, but it will always have these qualities: there will be something you can say in an opening sentence that will leave the audience urgently wanting to know more; it will arrive with an image – not necessarily a photograph, drawing or diagram; it could be just a vivid picture in the mind – that will evoke a sense of beauty, or comedy, or delight or horror; somewhere in the story there will be a  scientist who will say something laconic, lurid or droll, but always quotable; and somewhere in it too will be a hinterland, an exciting story-so-far, and the promise of a next thrilling episode. Crime stories end when the  perpetrator goes to prison. Good science stories tend to run and run.How you tell these stories is of course, the problem. First, you cannot cheat: you do have to deliver the substance of the story, very quickly: fast enough for the reader to make a judgment about its importance, or its entertainment value. This can be quite difficult: many science  stories start from unfamiliar concepts – that is, few ordinary humans ever think about biology at the level of a cell, or contemplate the space rocket as a problem of general relativity. Many science stories involve unfamiliar language,  freshly coined words derived from Greek or Latin, or newly minted labels that deploy familiar terms in an unexpected context (for instance, a gene called sonic hedgehog). So the trick is to introduce an unexpected idea in very familiar words: preferably simple, one-syllable words rooted in English rather than Latin or Greek.What do you need to know to write well about science?Can people write knowledgeably about science if they don't have a science degree? I really do not know if this question can be answered usefully one way or the other. Some journalists just started writing about science because they were sent to a press conference because the real science correspondent was doing something else. Some science journalists moved from  science to science writing because they liked it, and hey, it was a living, with travel and expenses too.My own feeling is that this may just be the wrong question. Someone who writes about science is going to learn something about science: writing is an act of learning. I am fond of pointing out that every day a newspaper reporter, like a university student, attends either a seminar or a lecture – that is, does an interview or goes to a press conference – and then has to write an essay (only we call it a story) based on what he or she has heard. It then gets marked for accuracy, fairness and comprehension not just by the authorities that gave the seminar or conducted the press conference, but by 500,000 other random, unidentified examiners as well. The first is incentive enough to get the story right. And those 500,000 other examiners didn't have to read it. But they did, and that is the ultimate pass-mark.How do you get the best out of an interviewee?I often ask a scientist to tell me how he would explain his research to his own family, to a parliamentary committee that wants to know why it should fund his institution; or to a colleague from a very different discipline.Any interviewee will tend to respond in the language anticipated by the question: ask a knowing, informed, sophisticated question and you'll get a knowing, sophisticated answer. This won't be any use to the reader. My advice is always: do not be frightened to ask simple questions. You stand a better chance of getting simple answers. But don't expect simple answers; if science was that easy, we'd all be doing it. But there is a better reason for asking seemingly dumb questions: they often provoke really interesting, unexpected and enjoyable answers.Do you use metaphors and analogies in a story?All the time. I cannot expect the reader to understand the words that the scientist has just coined, or the phenomenon he or she has just revealed. I must rely on imagery. It helps if it is not stale, tired imagery, or misleading, or ridiculous imagery, of course!What do you leave out of your stories?The crude answer is: everything I possibly can – everything that might turn a straightforward, swiftly told 500-word tale into a series of irritating, frustrating digressions; everything that would take an extra unnecessary paragraph to explain; every detail that doesn't really matter. It is more useful to think about what the story must include: it must answer the questions who, what, why, how, when and where? These questions, of course, can be multiplied infinitely. But you have to answer them all at least once.How do you stay objective and balanced as a writer? Should you?Words like impartial, balanced, detached and objective are intellectual snares. Each of us stands at the centre of his or her own universe: we can never really be objective. But we can try to be fair, to remember that other people might not see things the way you, or your scientist source, might see them. Balance is important, but it should remain a matter for the writer's judgment. If you think a reported conclusion sounds a bit too simple – and this is not unknown in science – go and ask a researcher from another group or laboratory for a second opinion. But some good stories are just good stories. A dramatic and unexpected find in a hitherto-neglected Egyptian burial ground is just that: a good story because it is dramatic and unexpected, and involves somebody who has been dead for 3,000 years. What would be the point of searching for a scholar to say, halfway down the story: "Aw, shucks, mummies, they're all over the place, I mean who cares?"What's the biggest potential pitfall when writing about science?There are potential pitfalls in writing about anything. The biggest single hazard of all, however, is simply this: not being readable, and not being read.• Tim Radford is a former science editor of the Guardian. • Read some Tim Radford – we like his article, The first man on the moon published in the Guardian in 2009.• Find out more about the Science Writing Prize on the Wellcome Trust website – the closing date is 28 April 2013.Science writing prizeScience and natureAwards and prizesPeople in scienceNewspapers & magazinesThe GuardianNational newspapersTim Radfordguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Dominique Morisseau’s “Detroit ’67,†at the Public Theater, sets its story of a fraying relationship between an adult brother and sister in a vividly specific place. 'I would rate it an extravagant 9/10!'This story is somewhat powerful, and left a melancholy impact upon me. Based on the war, this brilliant story established friends and enemies, as different religions, nationalities and cultures clashed together causing one of the best story-lines I have ever read! The characters were so likeable, as they united, yet dispersed creating both violent and political up-roar.The story is a sequel of other moving stories, that all contain the main character, Felix. Felix is a kind and accepting young man, who through terrible injustice faces serious poverty and loss. In the previous books, unfortunately, Felix has suffered many unreasonable and heartbreaking deaths; they left him mourning and pessimistic - all hope was lost. As well as that, the only place Felix considers to be home was brutally burned down in the blink of the eye! When one night, (the beginning of this book) Felix follows his companion - Gabriek - into the forest, where he finds out Gabriek's biggest secret! Felix decides to entwine, with his one and only remaining friend, and enter the world of the Partisans, where his adventures run wild. Suddenly Felix finds himself befriending  a beautiful young women, who wears a stunning red hat, named Yuli. Felix plans an unrealistic, fantasy life with Yuli and Gaberiek; the war is truly getting to him. As the dreaded war draws to a violent end, Felix discovers, cares for and becomes a parent to a group of poverty-stricken, vulnerable children who unite together to fight for survival...I adored this book, it taught me historical fiction, and gave me a real insight into the vicious wars and how they affected each individual differently. It follows the story of a 13-year old and how much horror and terror tortured him through the years. This is a great tale of loss and courage- I would recommend this book to anyone desperate for a fantastic yearn, with fantastic, loveable characters. Overall, as this book was slightly slow moving in parts, I would rate it an extravagant 9/10!Want to tell the world about a book you've read? Join the site and send us your review!Children and teenagersTeen booksAdventure (children and teens)guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds MIT biological engineers have found a way to mass-produce smell receptors in the laboratory, an advance that paves the way for "artificial noses" to be created and used in a variety of settings.The work could also allow scientists to unlock the coffee shop millionaire download how the sense of smell can recognize a seemingly infinite range of odors."Smell is perhaps one of the oldest and most primitive senses, but nobody really understands how it works. It still remains a tantalizing enigma," said Shuguang Zhang, associate director of MIT's Center for Biomedical Engineering and senior author of a paper on the work appearing online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).Artificial noses could one day replace drug- and explosive-sniffing dogs, and could have numerous medical applications, according to Zhang and his colleagues. DARPA recently approved funding for the team's MIT (microfluidic-integrated transduction) RealNose project.Until now, efforts to understand the molecular basis of smell have been stymied by the difficulty in working with the proteins that detect odors, known as olfactory receptors."The main barrier to studying smell is that we haven't been able to make enough receptors and purify them to homogeneity. Now, it's finally available as a raw material for people to utilize, and should enable many new studies into smell research," said Brian Cook, who just defended his MIT PhD thesis based on this work.Smell is  one of the most complex and least-understood senses. Humans have a vast olfactory system that includes close to 400 functional genes, more than are dedicated to any other function. Animals such as dogs and mice have around 1,000 functional olfactory receptor genes.That variety of receptors allows humans and animals to discern tens of thousands of distinct odors. Each odor activates multiple receptors and this pattern of activation creates a signature that the brain can recognize as a particular scent.The olfactory receptors that bind to odor molecules are membrane proteins, which span the cell surface. Since cell membranes are composed of a bilayer of fatty lipid molecules, the receptor proteins are highly hydrophobic (water-fearing). When such proteins are removed from the cell and placed in water-based solutions, they clump up and lose their structure, said Liselotte Kaiser, lead author of the PNAS paper. That makes it very difficult to isolate the proteins in quantities large enough to study them in detail.Kaiser and others spent several years developing a method to isolate and purify the proteins by performing each step in a hydrophobic detergent solution, which allows the proteins to maintain their structure and function.The technique reported this week in PNAS involves a cell-free synthesis using commercially available wheat germ extract to produce a particular receptor, then isolating the protein through several purification steps. The method  can rapidly produce large amounts of protein -- enough to start structural and functional studies.The team has also demonstrated a similar method that uses engineered mammalian cells to produce the receptors. That method, reported in PLoS One in August, takes more time and labor than the cell-free approach, but could have advantages in that the receptor is processed more naturally.In future work, the team plans to work with researchers worldwide, including MIT's Media Lab and Department of Biology, to develop a portable microfluidic device that can identify an array of different odors. Such a device could be used in medicine for the early diagnosis of certain diseases that produce distinctive odors, such as diabetes and lung, bladder and skin cancers,  Zhang said. There are also a wide range of industrial applications for such a smell-based biosensing device, he said.Other authors of the PNAS paper are Johanna Graveland-Bikker, a postdoctoral fellow at MIT, visiting graduate students Dirk Steuerwald and Melanie Vanberghem, and Kara Herlihy of GE Healthcare Biacore.The research was funded by the ROHM Corporation (Japan), the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (Sweden), the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. Joyce and Roger Kiley '60, MS '61 provided pure odorants. Murray Moss chooses items for the new store at the modernist’s home in Connecticut. A recent survey finds that although cost is No. 1 in importance among the respondents, it is followed by trust and customer service. Cyprien Gaillard’s solo show at MoMA PS1 uses film, photography and artifacts to show that the hubris of every civilization, including ours, will have its just reward. Some surgeons say anterior hip replacements, in which the incision is made at the front of the hip instead of through the buttocks or the side, result in decreased pain and faster recovery. Getting your first career break in academia is about being open to jobs outside the UK, says Kirsten HarrisAs the teaching year draws to a close and I finish my first year as a lecturer, it doesn't feel very long ago that I was juggling job applications, part-time university sessional work and hourly-paid private tutoring, all while trying to do unfunded research and find ways to attend conferences that I didn't know how to pay for.Those times were not easy. For me, it was being open to jobs outside the UK that helped me carve my way through.In September, I made the move to Kuala Lumpur to take up a post at the University of Nottingham's Malaysia campus. After a whirlwind month of planning, packing and goodbyes, I left Birmingham International with an overweight suitcase jammed full of 19th-century novels, with a mixture of excitement and trepidation.As I had expected, learning how to be a bona fide lecturer while adapting to living in a new country isn't easy. The tax system is, quite frankly, baffling, and the Kuala Lumpur roads seem to have been planned on purpose to make you get lost. But what I hadn't fully anticipated is just how much I'd love teaching in a different cultural environment, or how rewarding and thought-provoking I'd find the experience.Teaching 19th-century literature often involves unlocking a culture that many undergraduates find alien and far removed. If this is true in Britain, where most students have studies the industrial revolution at school, visited a Victorian museum as a child, or even just walked around a city with recognisably 19-century architecture, then it is much more so in the Malaysian classroom where, by and large, students haven't.Rather than being an obstacle, this unfamiliarity has enriched my teaching: the students here have helped me to see my subject with fresh eyes. Their thoughtful, and often illuminating, responses to a literary and historical culture which is entirely new to them have made me more aware of the cultural assumptions that I bring to the texts I teach.It's something of a commonplace to observe that literary criticism says as much about the critic as it does a text, but I hadn't been fully aware of how deep this runs – even at the level of deciding which texts and topics to teach. Putting together a module does, of course, reveal something about yourself, and what you believe is important about your subject.This is my first experience of teaching in a truly multicultural classroom. We have a high proportion of international students, and Malaysia itself is incredibly diverse in terms of religion, ethnicity and cultural heritage. As the year progressed, this has made me critically consider my module design and, at times, the whole enterprise of teaching 19th-century British literature in a former British colony, riddled as the texts often are with notions of British political, cultural or religious superiority. But this is in itself something important to discuss – as my  students commented, you lose something by stepping around uncomfortable issues.And the texts have wider resonances. Not every student loved Victorian literature, but it has sparked compelling, nuanced discussions about the way that fiction and poetry engage with subjects such as human rights, politics, nationhood, gender, education and relationships. Our close readings and interpretations have been enhanced by the sheer range of cultural backgrounds and life experiences that we've collectively brought to the table.A research project on the poetry of religious faith and doubt, for example, particularly caught the students' intellectual imagination; their search for spiritual poetry elicited sophisticated readings of Hopkins, Arnold and Christina Rossetti alongside less canonical poets such as Francis Thompson and Augusta Theodosia Drane. Thinking about how metaphors and conceits were used to depict the religious experience opened into a comparative discussion about how spirituality is represented in literary texts from non-British and non-Christian cultures, and how this, in turn, relates to the languages and cadences of different sacred texts.I can honestly say that I learned as much as I taught. One student commented on the value of studying writers with whom there is no immediate sense of identification or shared belief. Not only was it of academic interest, she said, but "we change as people due to conflicts". This is what happens every time we open a book – we come into contact, sometimes conflict, with convictions, ideas and world views which are not our own. This is what makes literature such a fascinating subject, and what has made this year's teaching such a privilege.Kirsten Harris is assistant professor of English literature at the University of Nottingham, Malaysia Campus – follow her on Twitter @KirstAnneHarrisThis content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. To get more articles like this direct to your inbox, become a member of the Higher Education Network.InternationalAcademicsProfessional developmentStudent engagementRecruitment and HRHigher educationEnglishguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Open letter from writers including Stephen Fry says defamation bill is in danger of being killed off by Leveson rowSome of the Britain's most acclaimed authors and playwrights including Sir Tom Stoppard, William Boyd, Margaret Drabble, Ian McEwan and Salman Rushdie have called on the main party leaders to honour their pledge and implement a defamation bill aimed at transforming 170-year-old laws they say have silenced scientists and authors as well as journalists and activists.In an open letter the authors tell David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband they were "deeply concerned" that the bill was going to be killed off after three years going through the legislative process simply because it had become entangled in a political row over the Leveson report on press regulation in the past month.They said it was "entirely inappropriate, and even reckless, for libel reform to be sacrificed to the current political stalemate" in the letter, organised by the writers' lobby group English Pen.Current British libel laws, the authors argue, have not changed substantially since 1843, have made London the libel capital of the world and are "not just a national disgrace" but an international concern. In 2010 the US president, Barack Obama, introduced laws in America to protect US citizens from British courts.The signatories, who also include Julian Barnes, Claire Tomalin, Ali Smith, Dame Antonia Fraser, Sir David Hare, Stephen Fry, Susie Orbach and Michael Frayn, are concerned that improved libel laws are on the verge of collapse because of amendments inserted by Lord Puttnam into the bill in the past month during its final stage in the House of Lords.The bill has been three years in the making and was included in the Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem manifestos. It did not touch on press regulation until last month, when a group of peers, frustrated by the lack of progress on the Leveson report among the political parties, won overwhelming support in the Lords to add sections to the bill covering a newspaper watchdog's activities.Writer Gillian Slovo, daughter of the anti-apartheid leader Joe Slovo, told the Guardian: "It would be a terrible thing if the bill was killed, not because it isn't supported by all three parties, because it is, but because it became entangled in Leveson. It would be a great loss."She said that "one of the great strengths of Britain was freedom of speech but its achilles heel is the libel laws which are mostly used to silence the less  well-off".Libel reform campaigners including Lord Lester, believe it can be salvaged but only if it gets on to Commons business by the middle of March. Political sources have confirmed it is not currently slated for discussion and will not be while Leveson talks continue, raising fears the bill is already dead.Boyd, vice-president of English Pen, said Puttnam's amendments had "nothing to do with the principle of libel reforms, whose validity had already been established" through consultation and debate in three parliamentary committees.The amendments include proposals for a new arbitration unit to resolve disputes with newspapers and an incentive system that would mean publishers who did not sign up to the new press regulator could face punitive damages and costs in high court libel actions.The authors say that in the past three years a number of scientists have faced "ruinous libel suits simply for blowing the whistle on dangerous medical practices". If the defamation bill became law, the risk of libel action would be lessened because of a new public interest defence. Big corporations such as drugs companies would also have to prove serious financial harm before they could take action."If the law is not reformed, bullies will continue panic away pdf able to prevent the publication of stories that are often not only in the public interest, but a matter of public health and safety," the letter says.Other signatories are Lisa Appignanesi, Jake Arnott, Amanda Craig, Victoria Glendinning, Mark Haddon, Ronald Harwood, Michael Holroyd, Howard Jacobson, Hisham Matar, Philippe Sands, Will Self, Kamila Shamsie and Raleigh Trevelyan.Downing Street said it supported the bill but said it was stymied as long as the Puttnam amendments remained. "The government is strongly behind the objectives of the original defamation bill. The government does not support the Puttnam amendments and is clear the Puttnam amendments will not make it onto statute," said a spokesman for Number 10.A Labour spokesperson said: "Labour's commitment to modernising our outdated defamation laws can be seen in the sheer effort we've put into knocking into shape an original set of proposals that really weren't up to the mark. It would be an outrage if the government prevented parliament from having its say given how much work has gone into proposals that give our defamation laws a much-need updating."Libel reformDefamation lawFreedom of speechPress freedomLeveson reportNewspapers & magazinesLeveson inquiryLisa O'Carrollguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Tim Tebow was "excited" about coming to the New York Jets. So much so, he used the word 44 times in his introductory news conference in March 2012. It may be years before the full cost of Edward Snowden’s intelligence leaks can be measured. But his disclosures about top-secret surveillance programs have already come at a price for the U.S. government: America’s foes have been handed an immensely powerful tool for portraying Washington as a hypocritical proponent of democratic values that it doesn’t abide by at home. Read full article >> TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran ratcheted up its defiance ahead of a U.N. Security Council deadline to suspend uranium enrichment, threatening Tuesday to hide its program if the West takes "harsh measures" and to transfer nuclear technology to chaos-ridden Sudan. Energy efficiency promises to cut emissions, reduce dependence on foreign fuel, and mitigate climate change. As such, governments around the world are spending tens of billions of dollars to support energy-efficiency regulations, technologies and policies. But are these programs realizing their potential? Researchers from the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) and University of California at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business have collaborated to find out. The researchers’ energy-efficiency research project, dubbed “E2e,†is a new interdisciplinary effort that aims to evaluate and improve energy-efficiency policies and technologies. Its goal is to support and conduct rigorous and objective research, communicate the results and give decision-makers the real-world analysis they need to make smart choices. The E2e Project is a joint initiative of the Energy Institute at Haas and MIT’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR), an affiliate of MITEI — two recognized leaders in energy research. The project’s name, E2e, captures its mission, the researchers say: to find the best way to go from using a large amount of energy (“Eâ€) to a small amount of energy (“eâ€), by bringing together a range of experts — from engineers to economists — from MIT and UC Berkeley. This collaboration, the researchers say, uniquely positions the E2e Project to leverage cutting-edge scientific and economic insights on energy efficiency. “Cutting energy has lots of potential to help us save money and fight climate change,†says Michael Greenstone, MIT’s 3M Professor of Environmental Economics and a member of MITEI’s Energy Council. “It’s critical to find the local, national and global policies with the biggest bang for the buck to use governments’, industry’s and consumers’ money wisely while slowing climate change.†Greenstone is leading the project with Christopher Knittel, co-director of CEEPR, and Catherine Wolfram, associate professor and co-director of the Energy Institute at Haas. “When deciding on the best energy measures to implement, decision-makers should compare model predictions to actual consumer behaviors. That’s where this project comes in,†Wolfram says. “The E2e Project is focused on singling out the best products and approaches by using real experiments centered on real buying habits. It will provide valuable guidance to government and industry leaders, as well as consumers.†The group’s motivations for studying energy efficiency are derived, in part, from the McKinsey Curve — a cost curve that shows that abating emissions actually pays for itself.“Our goal is to better understand what the costs and benefits of energy-efficient investments are — where the low-hanging fruit is, as well as how high that fruit is up the tree,†says Knittel, MIT's William Barton Rogers Professor of Energy Economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management. “The McKinsey curve would suggest the fruit’s already on the ground. If this is true, we want to figure out why no one is picking it up.â€Former U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz, a member of the E2e advisory board, says, “I like the saying ‘A penny saved is a penny earned,’ which rings true from the standpoint of energy. Energy that is used efficiently not only reduces costs, but is also the cleanest energy around. The E2e Project will allow us to better understand which energy-efficiency programs save the most pennies.â€Shultz is a distinguished fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, where he leads the Energy Policy Task Force. The board also includes MIT Institute Professor John Deutch, former undersecretary of the Department of Energy; Cass Sunstein, a professor at Harvard Law School and President Obama’s former director of regulatory affairs; Susan Tierney, managing principal at Analysis Group and a former Department of Energy official; and Dan Yates, CEO and founder of Opower. The E2e Project seeks to answer questions such as: Are consumers and businesses bypassing profitable opportunities to reduce their energy consumption? What are the most effective ways to encourage individuals and businesses to invest in energy efficiency? Are current energy-efficiency programs providing the most savings?The project’s first experiments are already underway. For example, the team is tracking consumers’ vehicle purchasing decisions to discover if better information about a car’s fuel economy will influence consumers to buy more fuel-efficient vehicles. If so, emphasizing the calculated fuel savings in the vehicle information presented to consumers may be productive.Other initial projects include evaluating the Federal Weatherization Assistance Program, and determining why households invest in energy efficiency and the returns to those investments. More information: e2e.haas.berkeley.edu or e2e.mit.eduThe E2e Project was funded with a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Rory McIlroy has admitted he was wrong to withdraw from the Honda Classic last week, saying he now regretted his decision to stop playing. Since the 1970s, leaded gasoline has been slowly phased out worldwide, as studies have shown that lead can cause neurological and cardiovascular damage and degrade vehicles’ catalytic converters. Today, 185 countries have stopped using leaded gasoline; six others, including Afghanistan, Iraq and North Korea, plan to phase it out in the next two years. But while leaded gasoline usage has decreased drastically in the last few decades, lead is still pervasive in the environment. Ed Boyle, a professor of ocean geochemistry in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, has been tracking lead and other trace elements in Earth’s oceans for the past 30 years. Most recently, Boyle and his students in MIT’s Trace Metal Group have analyzed water and coral samples from the Indian Ocean, using the coral to trace the history of anthropogenic lead over the last 50 years. The researchers have now discovered high concentrations of lead in the open ocean, as well as closer to population centers such as Singapore. They are presenting their results this week at the Goldschmidt Geochemistry Conference in Montreal. Graduate student Yolanda Echegoyen-Sanz and postdocs Jong-Mi Lee and Intan Nurhati contributed to the research. The group found that lead concentrations in the Indian Ocean are now higher than in the northern Atlantic and northern Pacific oceans. One explanation, Boyle says, may be that Asian and African countries lagged North America and Europe both in industrialization and then in phasing out leaded gasoline. The result, he says, is that the Indian Ocean has had less time than the Atlantic and Pacific to dissipate lead pollution. In analyzing their samples, the researchers also came upon an odd measurement: In samples taken off the coast of Singapore, they found a type of lead they did not expect in this region of the world. While most countries around the Indian Ocean used leaded gasoline produced in Europe and the Middle East, the lead found near Singapore matches the kind once used in North American gasoline. “It’s almost as if Singapore had gone off and imported a whole lot of lead from the United States,†Boyle says. “It doesn’t make any sense why they would do that, because there are more local sources that presumably would be cheaper, more economical.â€Trying to make sense of this mystery, Boyle’s team is now monitoring the air near Singapore, as well as rivers, streams and lakes, in hopes of finding the source of the anomalous lead. “It’s a bit of a puzzle that we’re working on,†Boyle says. “But the data is very clear that this is happening.â€An ocean of dataBoyle and his students began collecting water and coral samples from the Indian Ocean three years ago. The team obtained samples from various sources: Corals from the middle of the Indian Ocean came from a Japanese-funded expedition, while samples from the Singapore shores were collected by the MIT team. “We went out in small boats that are 20 feet long,†Boyle says. “You’re underneath the shadows of the skyscrapers of Singapore, but they do have coral reefs, and it was very local, day-trip sampling there.â€Once the researchers brought the samples back to the lab, they started analyzing corals for trace amounts of lead, determining the type of lead in each sample. They were able to trace the history of lead deposition in corals by a process similar to counting the rings in a tree trunk: Corals tend to grow in “density bands,†or alternating layers of light and dark sediment. By counting these layers, the researchers determined when various amounts of lead were absorbed. The team also measured the lead in each band — an amount proportional to the lead in the surrounding water at the time the band grew. By ascertaining how much lead was deposited in a given year, the researchers were able to reconstruct a history of lead in the Indian Ocean over the last 50 years. They found that lead levels began to increase in the mid-1970s, peaking in 2002 and 2003 before beginning to decline — a timeline consistent with the region’s pattern of industrialization and leaded gasoline use.“It is an indication of the human footprint on the planet that essentially all the lead in the oceans now is from human activities,†Boyle says. “It’s very hard to find a trace of the lead that’s there naturally.â€Robert Anderson, a professor of geochemistry at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, says industrial uses of lead, and the addition of lead to gasoline, “completely overwhelmed the natural amount of lead in the ocean.†He adds that scientists were not able to reliably measure lead in the oceans until industrialization was well under way in North America and Europe. As a result, observations in the Atlantic and the Pacific have only captured lead on the decline. “Lead was phased out much later in South Asia, so conditions there are more like they were 20 years ago in the North Atlantic,†Anderson says. “Studying the Indian Ocean now can tell us something about conditions in the Atlantic Ocean before lead measurements were made.â€Boyle says that the levels of lead observed, particularly in the open ocean, pose no immediate environmental concern. Just as did the Atlantic Ocean — in which he has observed a steady decrease in lead over the years — Boyle anticipates the Indian Ocean will recover naturally: “It’s a demonstration of the ability of the ocean to clean itself when we clean up our act and stop polluting it.â€This research was funded by the Singapore National Research Foundation. Former Redskin Jon Jaqua used to call RFK Stadium home, now he returns to watch his son Nate play for the Houston Dynamo in the MLS Cup. Many independent workers, finding themselves alienated, are joining a new generation of co-working spaces, some quite |
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