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machelbarnaby04

Ok, I admit it. I love snow. There I said it.

As a kid growing up in Central New York, we always had plenty of snow thanks to the lake effect off of the Great Lakes. I would sled and ski, cross country and downhill constantly. Each year once Halloween passed, I found myself with elbows pressed on the window sills, head in my hands, just waiting for the first snowfall to totally transform the earth white.

Even if you despise snow, you have to admit the first snowfall and accumulation of the season is quite beautiful. Everything is clean, white and pure. The eyes are instantly aware of something new and your senses may delight in a change to the normal daily environment to which they have grown accustomed.

So what causes our region to undergo this wardrobe change into white? The answer lies partly in the intricate design of each snowflake and science oh mystical science.

A snow crystal forms in a cloud when water vapor condenses and crystallizes around a single particle of dust. In order for the water vapor to crystallize, the atmospheric temperature has to be at or below freezing point. It is interesting to note that the temperature here on the earth?s surface that we pay attention to isn?t very important when it comes to the formation of snow occurring up in the clouds. In other words, it can snow even when we see our thermometers above 32 degrees Fahrenheit ?(0 degrees Celsius).

As the air gets colder, molecules of water in a cloud can join together to construct an ice lattice in the shape of a hexagon. Some of the prettiest snow crystals are the ones that have this little hexagon shaped ice prism as their foundation. Once the hexagon shaped base is established, beautiful arms or dendrites can grow outwards from each of its six corners. This is what most people usually picture in their mind when they think of a snowflake.

However, the term ?snowflake? is actually incorrect. Scientifically speaking, the word snowflake refers to a cluster of snow crystals stuck together. Snowflakes are what we usually encounter in an everyday flurry. The awe-inspiring six-sided individual snow crystals are spotted falling softly from the sky only on those special winter days where there is little to no wind and the weather conditions are just right. Most of us probably recall seeing a perfect snow crystal fall onto our gloved hand at one point or another in our lives and it really is amazing to see.

Kenneth Libbrecht is a physicist and researcher at Caltech who spends more than just the winter months admiring snow crystals. He has provided us with actual images of the stunning snow crystal you see throughout this article. Ken studies the physics of crystal formation and ?lets it snow? in his lab all year round as he works to uncover and capture the beauty and wonder of snow crystals with his camera lens. ??I enjoy photographing snowflakes, it?s like a treasure hunt,? he says.

Many different shapes and types of snow crystals exist, not just the aforementioned six cornered variety. The type and shape of each snow crystal is determined by the atmospheric temperature and supersaturation of water vapor in the air, also known as the humidity. The most complex designs occur when humidity in the air is the highest.

Even on the same day, there is a unique design seemingly carved into the arms of each snow crystal. This is in part due to each snow crystal following a slightly different path as it falls through the sky and it endures different temperature and environmental changes along the way as its arms developed. This gives it individualized beauty and lends some truth to the legend of how ?no two snowflakes are alike.?

Morphology diagram used with permission from Kenneth Libbrecht

On the ground, as snow crystals and snowflakes fall and accumulate, they do so in a very light and airy arrangement. In fact, 80% of fresh snow accumulation on the ground is composed of air. When we look at freshly fallen snow, we see it as white. This is because sunlight traveling to and through the airy snow is made up of all of the colors in the visible spectrum of light. This light is scattered and reflected through the many snow crystals and flakes. The hexagonal bases of snow crystals act like thousands of prisms lying on the ground, refracting and reflecting all of the colors of the visible light. In most cases, no wavelengths or colors of light are absorbed by the snow and nearly all of the light is reflected back towards our eyes which interpret all of these reflected wavelengths together as the color white.

Having said that, there is more to the picture than just what we see on the surface. If you pierce a small, deep hole in the snow you may notice the snow way down inside appearing bright blue. Also, different layers of snow and bubbly ice like that of frozen waterfalls and glaciers sometimes have been observed to emit a subtle blue or even greenish hue. Red algae is also said to alter the perceived color of snow. These and other topics relating to the physics of snow continue to captivate researchers and science lovers alike as they have for over 100 years.

Studying and understanding crystal formation can have other benefits for the advancement of science and technology such as making ?better artificial snow, better ice for Olympic skating, bigger diamonds, faster computers?? but that is not the reason why Ken and others really study it. He says he believes ?that basic science can and should be pursued for its own sake.?

So this winter, maybe instead of focusing on the negative aspects of snow such as shoveling and slush, we should once again stop and look at the wonder of snow through the eyes of the child, or better yet, through those of the scientist inside all of us. After all, it is freshly fallen physics.

Acknowledgements: With very special thanks to Ken Libbrecht for allowing me to interview him via email. I learned so much and he really helped make this article possible. If you want to savor the magic of snowflakes a little longer, check out his amazing books on Snow Crystals and Snowflakes! His website is also well written and very fun to read! Thank you Ken for sharing your knowledge and passion with all of us. Also, thank you to Erica Angiolillo for allowing the use of her exquisite wintery pics!

Photo credits: (Snow Day), (Tranquility), (Cold Veins), (A Taste of Winter), and (Author) by Erica Angiolillo/Gotcha! by Erica photography (Snow Crystal pictures 1, 2 and 3) and (Morphology Diagram) by Kenneth Libbrecht.

References:

Bohren, Craig. Colors of snow, frozen waterfalls and icebergs. J. Opt. Soc. Am 1983 Dec; 73 (12): 1646-51. doi:10.1364/JOSA.73.001646

Doesken, Nolan and Judson, Arthur. The Snow Booklet. Colorado Climate Center, Colorado State Univ. Fort Collins, CO. ISBN #0-9651056-2-8 (2nd Edition)

Libbrecht, Kenneth. Personal Interview via electronic mail. Dec 2011.

Libbrecht, Kenneth. The physics of snow crystals. Rep. Prog. Physics 2005; 68: 855-895. doi:10.1088/0034-4885/68/4/R03
Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=577ac5da6429adc427b3eecf6d172c3d
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President Barack Obama salutes as he steps off of Air Force One at Hickam Air Force Base in Friday, Dec. 23, 2011, in Honolulu. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Fighting to win over unhappy American voters, President Barack Obama and his Republican challengers are seizing on one of the most potent issues this election season: the struggling middle class and the widening gap between rich and poor.

Highlighted by the Occupy movement and fanned by record profits on Wall Street at a time of stubborn unemployment, economic inequality is now taking center stage in the 2012 presidential campaign, emphasized by Obama and offering opportunities and risks for him and his GOP opponents as both sides battle for the allegiance of the angst-ridden electorate.

For Obama, who calls boosting middle-class opportunity "the defining issue of our time," the question is whether he can bring voters along ? while parrying GOP accusations of class warfare ? even though he's failed to solve the country's economic woes during his first term in office.

For Republicans, Obama's potential vulnerability gives them an opening, but they also must battle perceptions that their policies favor the wealthy at a time when voters support Obama's call to raise taxes on the very rich. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has already made clear he'll resist Obama's attempts to capitalize on the issue, adopting the language of Occupy Wall Street in an interview with the Washington Post this month where he called the president "a member of the 1 percent."

For both sides, the question is how to find political advantage in light of a weak economy with unemployment above 8 percent. Since Obama is expected to run for re-election with higher unemployment than any recent president even if the economy continues to show signs of improvement, he must aim to set the terms of the debate in a way that helps him and hurts the GOP ? while Republicans will be working just as hard to deny him any advantage.

The president won a year-end victory Friday with the passage of a two-month extension of a payroll tax cut that had bipartisan support in the Senate.

The measure will keep in place a 2 percentage point cut in the Social Security payroll tax ? worth about $20 a week for a typical worker making $50,000 a year ? and prevent almost 2 million unemployed people from losing jobless benefits averaging $300 a week.

House Republicans had unsuccessfully attempted to push for further negotiations toward a yearlong extension, which allowed Obama to argue for the two-month extension of the tax cuts and prevention of a pending tax increase. The two sides resume discussions on the payroll tax cut early next year.

Obama's campaign pressed its economic argument Friday in an op-ed by Vice President Joe Biden in The Des Moines Register where Biden, taking direct aim at Romney, wrote that the former Massachusetts governor "would actually double down on the policies that caused the greatest economic calamity since the Great Depression and accelerated a decades-long assault on the middle class."

Romney, campaigning in New Hampshire, quickly countered that it's Obama who is hurting the country and expressed astonishment that Biden would have the "chutzpah ... the delusion" to write such a piece. "This president and his policies have made it harder on the American people and on the middle class," Romney said.

It was a preview of an argument certain to carry through the 2012 race, as the Obama campaign, viewing Romney as the likely GOP nominee even before any votes have been cast, works vigorously to define him early on, and Romney does everything he can to resist.

And the dispute taps into a striking reality. After-tax income grew by 275 percent between 1979 and 2007 for the top 1 percent of the population, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found in a report this fall. But for the 20 percent of the population making the least money, income growth over the same period was only 18 percent.

Obama "is viewed as more likely to help the middle class than is the GOP, so he can capitalize on this by playing on concerns about inequality and contrasting his positions and the GOP's on issues like tax cuts for the wealthy," John Sides, political science professor at George Washington University, said by email. "However," Sides added, "it's an open question whether that strategy would enable him to overcome a weak economy and win."

Aides say Obama has long been concerned with economic inequality given his background in community organizing. But he brought the issue into much sharper focus in a speech in Osawatomie, Kan., earlier this month, where he reprised a populist message delivered in the same town by Theodore Roosevelt decades ago, and decried a growing inequality between chief executives and their workers.

"This kind of inequality ? a level that we haven't seen since the Great Depression ? hurts us all," Obama said at the time.

"This kind of gaping inequality gives lie to the promise that's at the very heart of America: that this is a place where you can make it if you try."

The issue has become a rallying cry of the Occupy Wall Street movement that's swept the country, with activists proclaiming "We are the 99 percent" ? as opposed to the "1 percent" at the top. And Obama advisers have identified this sense of inequality as the strongest current running through politics, one that they will be focusing on through Election Day.

But some polling suggests a note of caution for Obama in pressing the inequality argument. Gallup found this month that a majority of Americans don't view the country as divided into haves and have-nots. The polling also found that more people thought it was important for the government to focus on growing and expanding the economy, (82 percent) and increasing equality of opportunity (70 percent) than on reducing the income and wealth gap between the rich and poor (46 percent).

"The middle class certainly believes that it's in trouble and rightly so, because it is," said Bill Galston, a former Clinton administration domestic policy adviser now at the Brookings Institution. "But they are yet to be convinced that going after the rich will go to the heart of the problems that now afflict them."

That may suggest an opening for some GOP attacks against Obama. Romney charged in a speech in New Hampshire this month that Obama is pursuing an "entitlement society," versus the "opportunity society" that the former Massachusetts governor said he wants to offer the country. Newt Gingrich, Romney and other Republicans also regularly accuse Obama of "class warfare."

Obama senior adviser David Axelrod called such criticism the "Republican cartoon" of Obama's argument.

"In some ways the race will be different depending on who the nominee is but in some ways the same because they largely subscribe to the same economic theory" of cutting taxes for the wealthy and paring back regulations, said Axelrod. He added that Obama's speech in Osawatomie, Kan., "was a very, very good statement of his values and vision and will help frame much of what comes in the next year."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2011-12-24-Obama-Economic%20Inequality/id-ef941781ce07492b98ce07a795c4f7b9

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PHOENIX ? It will be a special Christmas for the family of a 21-year-old University of Arizona student who was nearly taken off life support before awaking from a coma.

Sam Schmid was walking and speaking Friday at a Phoenix hospital. Dressed in a T-shirt, shorts and sneakers, he was able to use a walker and talk in brief sentences.

"Right now, I'm feeling all right ... except for the rehabilitation, I'm feeling pretty good," Schmid said.

Doctors at Barrow Neurological Institute say Schmid has a long recovery ahead of him to regain full speech, balance and memory abilities.

Schmid was involved in an Oct. 19 car crash in Tucson that left him with a brain aneurysm, among other life-threatening injuries. Because of the complexity of his brain injury, Schmid was flown to Phoenix.

He underwent surgery performed by Dr. Robert Spetzler. With no responsive signs, staff discussed taking Schmid off life support.

"They never approached me to say would I donate his organs," said Susan Regan, Schmid's mother. "The people that were surrounding us were just asking about Sam, his quality of life, what would Sam want if we had to come to a difficult decision."

Spetzler said Schmid was never officially classified as a potential organ donor. And after an MRI scan showed he wasn't at a point of no hope of survival, Spetzler recommended keeping him alive for one more week.

Then on Oct. 24, Schmid shocked doctors by following commands to hold up two fingers.

"It may not seem like a lot to you," Spetzler said. "It's an incredible loop to show brain ability. That was like fireworks going off."

Since then, Schmid has been spending his days in physical rehabilitation. Dr. Christina Kwasnica, who is overseeing Schmid's rehabilitation, said he has gone from practicing sitting in a chair to doing rehab three hours a day. She described his recovery so far as amazing but hesitated to make any predictions of what "normal" would be for him.

"It's so early in Sam's injury. We have no idea where the ceiling is," Kwasnica said.

While he will be able to spend Christmas day with family in Phoenix, Schmid will not officially be released until next week. His brother, John, based in Tucson, will relocate to Phoenix so Schmid can continue rehabilitation on an out-patient basis.

Schmid, who is a business major and was coaching basketball at a University of Arizona recreation center, is holding onto the belief that he can get back to what his life was like before the accident.

"I see myself leaving the house, going to school, work, basic things like that," Schmid said. "I just want my life to be what it used to be."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111224/ap_on_he_me/us_coma_patient_wakes

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machelbarnaby04

On Tuesday, President Barack Obama used the payroll tax debate to continue to push his campaign trail effort to portray the House Republicans as irresponsible and petulant obstacles to economic recovery.

The Republican-led House has rejected the Democrat-led Senate?s economic bill, which extends the Social Security tax cut for 160 million people by two months. Obama had asked for a one-year extension worth $1,000 per person. That one-year extension is in the House bill, which the Senate rejected.

?This is not a game, this is not politics, this is Americans? livelihoods ? it?s a thousand bucks? for the average family, Obama said in a surprise appearance in the White House?s newsroom.

?What they?re really trying to do ? is to wring concessions from Democrats on issues that have nothing to do with the payroll tax cut,? he continued.

Obama left after his short statement and refused to take any questions.

Immediately afterward, Republican Speaker of the House?John Boehner appealed for the president to summon the Senate back for Hill negotiations.

?The Senate voted to give the people a [two-month,] $166 tax cut. We voted to give the people a $1,000 tax cut,? Boehner said. ?I need the president to help out.?

?We?re proud of the bill we passed. ? We?ve done our work for the American people, now it is up to the president and the Senate Democrats.?

White House spokesman Jay Carney echoed the same themes as Obama, and declined to comment on polling data that shows some gains for the president.

?This is not a game, this is not politics, this is Americans? livelihoods ? it is a thousand bucks on average,? White House speaker Jay Carney said on Dec. 20, after suggesting that the GOP opposed the budget deal out of personal animus to President Barack Obama.

?The president is not, and should not, be a marriage counselor? between the Senate and Republican congressmen, Carney added. ?That?s a conflict they need to resolve on behalf of the American people.?

Obama?s anti-Congress strategy may be working. In early December, a Washington Post/ABC poll showed Obama?s approval ratings rise, especially in relation to Congress.

The poll showed that 49 percent of respondent approve of his job performance, and 47 percent disapproved. Compared to an earlier poll by the Post and ABC, ?he has recovered from single digits among Republicans, with 19 percent of Republicans now approving of his job performance,? the Post article read. ?For the first time since May, he?s pulled about even with seniors, 48 percent to 49 percent, and strengthened among people age 18 to 29, 55 percent to 36 percent.?

The poll of 1,005 was not limited to likely voters, however, and included people who are not registered and who are not likely to vote as well.

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