NASA TESS Observatory Will Hunt For Alien Life On "Super-Earth" Exoplanets

An anonymous reader writes "Kepler may be down, but now NASA has another planet-hunting tool in mind. The space agency is preparing the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) observatory in order to follow in Kepler's footsteps. NASA has been searching for alien planets for several years now. Learning about strange exoplanets such as enormous, hot 'Jupiters' and 'rogue planets' that actually cruise through space without a parent star certainly adds to the body of research concerning our universe. Yet what scientists are really interested in are the Earth-like planets that may hold the potential for life."

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/SMj_LXosU_g/story01.htm

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Missouri Health Insurance Exchange Guide - Zane Benefits

Missouri Health Insurance Exchange Guide

This guide provides an overview of the Missouri?Health Insurance Exchange including the history of the Exchange, how the Exchange will operate, and Exchange information for?Missouri?residents and small businesses.

Missouri?Health Insurance Exchange Introduction

Beginning in 2014, as part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), health insurance coverage for individuals and small businesses will become available through new state health insurance exchanges (also called?health insurance marketplaces).

Most importantly, the key tax credits (e.g. the small business healthcare tax credits) and tax subsidies (e.g. individual health insurance tax subsidies) will only be available for coverage purchased through a state health insurance exchange.

All states have three options for setting up a state health insurance exchange for 2014:

1. Build a state-based exchange
2. Enter into a state-federal partnership exchange
3. Default to a federally-facilitated exchange

Missouri?will default to a federally-facilitated health insurance exchange.

Missouri?Health Insurance Exchange - History?

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon originally supported the idea of a state-based Exchange, however he did not receive backing from state government, nor from Missouri voters.

The Governor established Missouri?s Health Insurance Exchange Coordinating Council to coordinate the state?s response to the ACA.?In June 2011, the Senate created the Senate Interim Committee on Health Insurance Exchanges to explore Missouri?s options to establish a state-based Exchange. Legislation to create a state-based Exchange was introduced in the 2011 and 2012 sessions, but failed. In November 2012,?Missouri voters approved a ballot measure blocking the Governor from establishing an Exchange by Executive Order.

Therefore, efforts to run a state-based Exchange stalled and Missouri will default to the federally-run Exchange.

Missouri?Health Insurance Exchange - What is It?

The?Missouri?Health Insurance Exchange will be operated through a federally-run health insurance exchange, also referred to as the Health Insurance Marketplace. Starting October 1, 2013,?Missouri?residents will be able to access information about all the plans available through the Exchange, shop for plans, and access individual premium tax credits. The SHOP Exchange will be available to small businesses with 100 or fewer employees. Coverage from the Exchange starts in January 2014.

According to an estimate by healthcare.gov, 799,250 or 16% of Missouri?s non-elderly residents are uninsured, of whom 744,700 (93%) may qualify for either tax credits to purchase coverage in the Marketplace or for Medicaid if Missouri participates in the Medicaid expansion.

More information on the federally-run?Missouri?Health Insurance Exchange can be found here.

Missouri?Health?Insurance Exchange - What Plans will be Available?

All plans offered through the?Missouri?Health Insurance Exchange will meet the ACA definition of a Qualified Health Plan (QHP). The plans will be offered by level of coverage for essential health benefits (EHB), to allow consumers to compare plans on an "apples to apples" basis. The four "metal" levels are: Bronze (plan pays 60%), Silver (plan pays 70%), Gold (plan pays 80%) and Platinum (plan pays 90%). ?

Details on plan carriers and rates will be available by October 1, 2013.

Missouri?Health?Insurance Exchange - Role of Brokers and Navigators

The?Missouri?Health Insurance Exchange will follow federal guidelines for insurance professionals selling policies through the Exchange and for navigators assisting consumers and small businesses.

Insurance professionals will be able to register with the?Missouri?Health Insurance Exchange and receive any commissions directly from the carriers (using their Exchange ID number and NPN).?

The?Missouri?Health Insurance Exchange?navigator?program will assist consumers in making choices about their health care options and accessing their new health care coverage, including access to premium tax credits for some consumers. The federal government will run the navigator program in?Missouri.

Note: This should not be taken as legal or tax advice.

Source: http://www.zanebenefits.com/blog/bid/294187/Missouri-Health-Insurance-Exchange-Guide

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Year later, Serena Williams seeks more in Paris

PARIS (AP) ? In the moments immediately following her stunningly early exit from the 2012 French Open, as her eyes welled with tears and she bemoaned how she's "been through so much in my life," Serena Williams could not possibly find anything positive to take from the experience.

How could she?

For the first ? and, so far, only ? time in her career, Williams lost her opening match at a Grand Slam tournament. Not merely that, but a woman many considered the favorite to leave with the title lost to a woman ranked 111th and with 20 first-round losses in 46 previous major championships. And, surely adding to her disappointment, Williams lost after having been two points from victory against France's Virginie Razzano.

When the 31-year-old American returns to Court Philippe Chatrier to play Anna Tatishvili on Sunday ? the schedule for Day 1 of the 2013 French Open also features Williams' older sister, 30th-seeded Venus, and 17-time Grand Slam champion Roger Federer ? she will do so with a different understanding of what went wrong 12 months ago, and even a bit of appreciation for the disappointing result.

"Sometimes I think, 'Should I be happy that I lost last year?' You never know what can happen in your career and why things happen," said Williams, who is ranked and seeded No. 1 in singles and got a wild card Saturday to play doubles with her sister. "So it's been great for me just realizing that every match counts."

At that point she paused, perhaps hearing her own words and what they implied.

"I have always realized that," Williams continued, "but also realizing what I need to do to get better and to stay on top and to be, you know, the best tennis player that I can be."

Rare is the professional athlete, no matter the sport, who readily acknowledges taking victory for granted against a supposedly inferior opponent. That, though, is what it sounded like Williams was doing.

There are, to be sure, other explanations for what she has done on the court since that defeat: good health, which her mother, Oracene Price, calls the biggest single contributor to Williams' recent success; working with a new coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, who directed her training session Saturday on Court Suzanne Lenglen; and what Williams sums up as "really just staying relaxed and calm" during matches.

But it certainly can't hurt to take every match seriously, including against players such as Tatishvili, who is 2-10 this year, 0-2 at the French Open for her career and never been ranked better than 50th.

"You just have to always ... be ready to play," Williams said, "and expect anything."

So now she is back at the French Open, which she won in 2002, and is playing as well as, or perhaps even better than, ever. Williams is on a 24-match winning streak, part of a 36-2 record with a tour-leading five titles this season. Since that loss to Razzano, Williams is 67-3, including championships at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open that boosted her career haul to 15 Grand Slam titles.

With three more, Williams would match Hall of Fame members Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert at 18.

Evert thinks Williams will eventually surpass that total, and continue climbing up the list that Margaret Smith Court leads with 24 major championships, followed by Steffi Graf's 22, and Helen Wills Moody's 19.

"It's still a reachable goal for her to win 22 and match Steffi," Evert said. "If she plays another two, three, four years healthy, she can break all those records."

Evert, who will analyze French Open matches on TV for ESPN2, took her assessment of Williams a step further.

"With her serve and her athleticism, her power, her court mobility ? I just think when she's on, she's the greatest player we've ever seen. Ever," Evert said. "Now, whether her record is the greatest remains to be seen, because she hasn't retired yet. But I think she is really the greatest player, (and) I have seen Martina and Steffi at their best."

It's that serve that might very well be Williams' greatest advantage over her contemporaries.

She leads the tour this season in most significant serving categories: 227 aces, nearly 80 more than the next-highest count; 85.4 percent of service games won; 75.7 percent of first-serve points won; 68.4 percent of break points saved.

Williams still seems to bring out her most compelling tennis when across the net from the game's other top women: She is a combined 25-4 for her career against current No. 2 Maria Sharapova, the French Open's defending champion, and No. 3 Victoria Azarenka.

That includes a 6-1, 6-4 victory over Sharapova in Madrid, and a 6-1, 6-3 victory over Azarenka in Rome ? both in finals, both this month, and both on the same red clay used in Paris.

"She's been really consistent, playing on a high level. Because, you know, we all know the level she can play at," Azarenka said. "It wasn't maybe as consistent as it is now, so I think that's maybe the big difference."

Now the question becomes whether Williams can carry that over to Roland Garros, where the tough footing and shot-slowing surface give her far more trouble than the grass or hard courts used at other Grand Slam tournaments. While she's won Wimbledon and the Australian Open five times apiece, and the U.S. Open four times, Williams is stuck on one French Open title.

That's also her only appearance in the final. She hasn't even made it to the semifinals in France since the year after that, a decade ago.

"It's long overdue, her second French Open win," Evert said. "It's mind-boggling to me that she hasn't been in the final since 2002."

___

Follow Howard Fendrich on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HowardFendrich

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/later-serena-williams-seeks-more-paris-160438143.html

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lern2play Resources and Information. This website is for sale!

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Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/lern2play

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Jury foreman says life or death decision unfair

PHOENIX (AP) ? They were 12 ordinary citizens who didn't oppose the death penalty. But unlike spectators outside the courthouse who followed the case like a daytime soap opera and jumped to demand Jodi Arias' execution, the jurors faced a decision that was wrenching and real, with implications that could haunt them forever.

In an interview Friday, jury foreman William Zervakos provided a glimpse into the private deliberations, describing four women and eight men who struggled with the question: How heinous of a killing deserves a similar fate?

"The system we think is flawed in that sense because this was not a case of a Jeffrey Dahmer or Charles Manson," Zervakos told The Associated Press.

"It was a brutal no-win situation. ... I think that's kind of unfair," the 69-year-old added. "We're not lawyers. We can't interpret the law. We're mere mortals. And I will tell you I've never felt more mere as a mortal than I felt for the last five months."

Zervakos said the most difficult time of the entire trial was hearing directly from victim Travis Alexander's family as his brother and sister tearfully explained how his killing has shattered their lives.

"There was no sound in that jury room for a long time after that because you hurt so bad for these people," he said. "But that wasn't evidence. That's what made it so hard. ... This wasn't about them. This was a decision whether we're going to tell somebody they were going to be put to death or spend the rest of their life in prison."

Zervakos described a deliberations room full of tears and spinning moral compasses as each juror struggled to come to grips with their own beliefs about what factors ? including Arias' young age at the time of the killing and her lack of criminal history ? should cause them to show mercy and spare her life.

"You've got Travis Alexander's family devastated, that he was killed, that he was brutally killed. You've got Jodi Arias' family sitting in there, both families sitting and seeing these humiliating images and listening to unbelievably lurid private details of their lives, and you've got a woman whose life is over, too," Zervakos said. "I mean, who's winning in this situation? And we were stuck in the middle."

Zervakos declined to discuss his thoughts or those of other jurors on whether Arias should have been sentenced to death or life. But he said he was torn between her two personas: a killer and an average young woman struggling through life.

"You heard (prosecutor Juan) Martinez say she was only 27. ... She's old enough that she should have known better," Zervakos said. "I didn't look at it that way. I'm looking at 27 years of an absolutely normal everyday young woman that was living a life that was perfectly normal. Then something changed the trajectory of her life after meeting Travis Alexander, and it spiraled downhill from there."

The same jury on May 8 convicted Arias of first-degree murder in Alexander's killing, but couldn't reach a decision Thursday after about 13 hours of deliberations on whether she should live or die.

Judge Sherry Stephens was forced to declare a mistrial of the penalty phase and dismissed the panel.

A conference with the judge and attorneys is set for June 20 to determine how both sides want to proceed. In the interim, Stephens set a July 18 retrial date.

The mistrial set the stage for a whole new proceeding to determine whether the 32-year-old former waitress should get a life sentence or the death penalty for murdering Alexander five years ago.

Arias stabbed and slashed him nearly 30 times, slit his throat slit and shot him in the forehead. Prosecutors said she attacked Alexander in a jealous rage after he wanted to end their relationship and planned a trip to Mexico with another woman. Arias contends it was self-defense.

Prosecutors now have the option to take the death penalty off the table and avoid a new penalty phase. The judge would then determine whether to sentence Arias to spend her entire life behind bars, or give her life with the possibility of release after 25 years. Given Arias could not afford her own defense, taxpayers footed the bill for court-appointed attorneys at a cost so far of nearly $1.7 million, a price tag that will only balloon if the case moves forward.

Should the state decide to seek death again, jury selection alone could take months, given the difficulty of seating an impartial panel in a case that has attracted global attention and become daily cable TV and tabloid fodder with tales of sex, lies and violence, said jury consultant Jo-Ellan Dimitrius.

"Will it be impossible? No. Will it be tough? Absolutely," she said.

Dimitrius noted that jury selection in the widely publicized trial of infamous serial killer Richard Ramirez, known as the "Night Stalker," who is on death row in California, took six months as attorneys weeded through more than 2,000 prospective jurors.

If Arias faces a new penalty phase, her murder conviction would stand, leaving the new panel tasked only with sentencing her. However, the proceedings could drag on for several more months as the new jury reviews evidence and witness testimony.

If the second jury cannot reach a unanimous decision, the judge would then sentence Arias to one of the life-in-prison options. The judge cannot sentence Arias to death.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/jury-foreman-says-life-death-decision-unfair-000931802.html

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Housing Market is on the Rebound - RealEstate.com

New Home Sales Rise

The housing industry continued to gather momentum in April. New home sales, an important measure for the industry?s performance, climbed 2.3 percent last month. Home prices also rose to record highs.

The news comes at a significant time. Spring is a favorite season for homebuying or shopping. According to the Commerce Department, new home sales jumped to a seasonally adjusted rate of 454,000 units. That?s up 2.3 percent from March and 29 percent compared to a year-ago period.

According to?Reuters, some economists?were expecting an adjusted rate of 425,000 units.

The Commerce Department also reported that the median sales price of a new home skyrocketed 14.9 percent compared to last year. At $271,600, that?s the highest on record. The average new home price was $330,800.

The inventory of new homes in April shot up 3.3 percent to 156,000 units. That?s the highest since October 2011. Given the current inventory levels, it would take 4.1 months to purge the homes that are up for sale in the market. According to industry experts, a six-month supply is normally considered the sign of a healthy market. The tight inventory is triggering a rise in home prices.

Mortgage Rates Climb

Buyers beware. The sweet days of record low mortgage rates may soon be a thing of the past.

For the third week in a row mortgage rates recorded an increase, according to a survey of lenders by mortgage giant Freddie Mac. The average rate on 30-year fixed loans increased to 3.69 percent from 3.51 percent last week.

Rates on the shorter term 15-year loans also climbed from 2.69 percent to 2.77 percent. The short-term loans have been a big hit for homeowners looking to refinance.

Despite the increases, the rates continue to be lucrative for prospective homebuyers and current homeowners. But, not everyone can qualify for these rates. According to the survey, borrowers would have to pay lenders 0.7 percent of the total loan amount to qualify for these rates.

Housing Market Rebound to Continue, Experts Said

Wall Street is brimming with enthusiasm about the housing industry that once caused many shareholders serious anxiety.

Companies such as home improvement retailer Home Depot had a stellar earnings report this quarter. Its performance skyrocketed its stock to a 52-week high. The company?s performance is yet another indication of the housing market?s recovery. And the optimism about the market is contagious.

Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors?, said recently that the industry is headed to a ?multiyear housing recovery.?

Yun cited better job numbers, increased interest in investment and vacation homes, declining inventories and more relaxed credit score requirements for loans as reasons for a healthy market. Gone are the days when people were making a beeline for apartments, preferring to rent rather than buy.

According to the NAR, 51 percent of renters are qualified for a home mortgage. That?s up from 24 percent in 2005.

?Just looking at the financial qualifications, this means there are about 8 million more renters with the income necessary to buy a home now than in 2000, but they are choosing not to or are unable to become a homeowner,? Yun says.

Yun said that ?more renters will hit the housing market in the busy summer buying season.

Tagged as: housing, inventory, market, mortgage, new home, news, prices, rates, real estate, recovery, sales

Source: http://www.realestate.com/advice/housing-market-is-on-the-rebound-60623/

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Scientists offer first definitive proof of bacteria-feeding behavior in green algae

May 23, 2013 ? A team of researchers has captured images of green alga consuming bacteria, offering a glimpse at how early organisms dating back more than 1 billion years may have acquired free-living photosynthetic cells. This acquisition is thought to have been a critical first step in the evolution of photosynthetic algae and land plants, which, in turn, contributed to the increase in oxygen levels in Earth's atmosphere and ocean and provided one of the conditions necessary for animal evolution.

In a paper that appears in the June 17 issue of Current Biology and is available online today, researchers identify a mechanism by which a green alga that resembles early ancestors of the group engulfs bacteria, providing conclusive evidence for a process that had been proposed but not definitely shown.

"This behavior had previously been suggested but we had not had clear microscopic evidence until this study," said Eunsoo Kim, assistant curator in the Museum's Division of Invertebrate Zoology and corresponding author on the paper. "These results offer important clues to an evolutionary event that fundamentally changed the trajectory of the evolution of not just photosynthetic algae and land plants, but also animals."

In green algae and land plants, photosynthesis, or the conversion of light into food, is carried out by a specialized cell structure known as a chloroplast. The origin of chloroplast is linked to endosymbiosis, a process in which a single-celled eukaryote -- an organism whose cells contain a nucleus -- captures a free-living photosynthetic cyanobacterium but does not digest it, allowing the photosynthetic cell to eventually evolve into a chloroplast. The specific feeding mechanisms for this process, however, have remained largely unknown until now.

In this study, researchers used transmission electron microscopy and feeding and staining experiments to take conclusive images showing how a basic green alga from the genus Cymbomonas feeds on bacteria. The alga draws bacterial cells into a tubular duct through a mouth-like opening and then transports these food particles into a large, acidic vacuole where digestion takes place. The complexity of this feeding system in photosynthetic modern alga suggests that this bacteria-feeding behavior, and the unique feeding apparatus to support it, descend from colorless ancestors of green algae and land plants and may have played important roles in the evolution of early photosynthetic eukaryotes, the precursors to plants like trees and shrubs that cover Earth today.

Eunsoo Kim joined the Museum in 2012 as curator of the protist collection, which includes algae, protozoa, and fungus-like protists. A native of South Korea, Kim received her Ph.D. in botany from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and conducted postdoctoral research at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She works closely with associate curator Susan Perkins and curator Rob DeSalle as part of one of the first natural history museum microbial research programs.

Shinichiro Mauyama, currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Division of Environmental Photobiology at the National Institute for Basic Biology in Okazaki, Japan, is a co-author on this paper. In addition to Kim's laboratory at the Museum, this work was conducted in John Archibald's laboratory at Dalhousie University. Funding was provided by the American Museum of Natural History and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.

Watch Kim talk about the new finding and see green algae in action in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lafL_mmv3EA

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/cvY6kfnUaZI/130523143741.htm

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