Life on ice, Antarctica and Mars

The study of the origin of life and the prospects for human exploration of Mars are two themes developed in a new 57-minute film, Life on Ice, Antarctica, and Mars, produced by the InnerSpace Foundation and WHRO Television for broadcast by the Public Broadcasting System (PBS). A brief explanation of the film and how it relates to the future human exploration of space is presented

Recent Cases

If the instant case, rather than Northway, is to become the accepted rule in the area of discounting, consumers and state lenders will be protected while the national bank-lenders will be burdened only slightly, if at all. National banks located in states that permit state lenders to discount loans at the maximum rate, with-out regard to the actual yield, will not be affected. National banks located in states that permit state lenders to discount only to the extent that the actual yield is within the statutory maximum will need to change their practices merely by charging the statutory rate only when it becomes due, or by charging a lower rate in advance that yields an effective rate not in excess of the maximum. Furthermore, the impact of the instant decision on national banks will be practically limited to consumer loans, because of the usual exemption of corporations from usury laws and of section 85\u27s higher alternative rate for business or agricultural loans. This limited restriction on the national banks will be justified by its beneficent effect on the borrower and on the competing state lenders, who have always been subject to the state restrictions. Linda A. Bunsey ======================= With the instant decision, federal defamation law has advanced within the space of ten years from no constitutional privilege, even for the press in defending against a public person, to the realized prospect of a constitutional privilege so sweeping that it prevents recovery of an element of damages by a public person who has been defamed by an individual. Specifically, the instant court\u27s holding completes a four-part scheme for liability and damages in defamation actions: under Supreme Court decisions, a private figure must prove negligence to receive compensatory damages and actual malice to receive punitive damages, and a public figure must prove actual malice to recover compensatory damages; under the instant decision, a public figure is almost totally precluded from recovering punitive damages. As the Sullivan Court in large measure adopted the minority position concerning fair comment and liability, so too the Maheu court in large measure adopted the minority position concerning punitive damages. Nevertheless, the instant decision was solidly based: the court fully considered the Supreme Court\u27s prior concerns with encouraging debate and discouraging self-censorship, shielding reputation and privacy, and, most importantly, scrutinizing the need for punitive damages. David M. Thompson ============================ In rejecting the State\u27s reliance upon the stated rule of the Brady trilogy and Tollett, the instant Court noted the suggestion originally made in a McMann footnote that an exception might exist if the applicable state law permitted appeal from adverse pretrial rulings despite a subsequent guilty plea. Under New York procedure, a defendant who chooses to plead guilty does not deliberately by-pass state appellate review of certain constitutional claims, and the State acquires no legitimate expectation of finality in the ensuing conviction. As to these constitutional claims, the plea does not constitute a break in the chain, but operates merely as a procedural device to secure review of the adverse pretrial ruling without the necessity of a time-consuming and expensive trial. The Court held that because the respondent\u27s guilty plea was entered in reliance upon a guarantee of the availability of further appellate review of his constitutional claims, it was essentially different from guilty pleas entered in other states that result in an absolute conviction and a waiver of all further state review. Charles K. Campbell, Jr. ======================================== In determining whether the challenged statute met the procedural requirements of the fourteenth amendment, the instant Court looked to the statutory safeguards protecting the debtor\u27s property interest in the absence of prior notice and hearing. Comparing the instant statute to the Fuentes statutes, the Court asserted that the same constitutional infirmities were present. Each statute allowed the seizure of property without prior notice and opportunity for a hearing by the issuance of a writ by a court clerk after the filing of an affidavit containing conclusory allegations. The instant Court restated its belief set forth in Sniadach and Fuentes that even a temporary deprivation of property does not put the seizure beyond scrutiny under due process requirements. The Court then asserted that the Georgia statute had none of the saving characteristics of the Louisiana sequestration statute upheld in Mitchell. According to the Court, the Mitchell statute survived challenge because of the presence of safeguards which imposed judicial control over the process of issuance of the writ; required the creditor\u27s affidavit to contain factual allegations; and provided for an immediate post-seizure hearing at which the debtor could seek dissolution of the writ. Keith B. Simmons ============================== The instant court rejected arguments based mainly on the vague wording of the statute and relied on two basic policies-(1)to compel pro rata distributions of unneeded funds that will be taxable to shareholders and (2) to avoid constructions that lead to inconsistent results in similar fact situations. Also, the court seemed to contemplate two theories of liability available to the Commissioner-first, that the corporation was availed of by permitting funds not used in the redemption to remain accumulated, and secondly, that the corporation was availed of through the redemption itself. The arguments based on the equivalency of the phrases to accumulate and to remain accumulated , the purpose of Congress to reach any corporation with an undue accumulation, and the relevance of past accumulations, plus the remand for determination of whether an unreasonable accumulation actually occurred, relate to the first theory. Other arguments used by the court relate more to the second theory-the repeated idea that preferential distribution of unneeded funds is not a congressionally approved method of abating the penalty tax with respect to those funds, the mention of corporations formed for the proscribed purpose that may be liable without regard to actual accumulation, and especially the concluding statement that the judgment concerning 1967 made liability in 1968 apparent. Thomas C. Hundle

What is a quantum shock wave?

Shock waves are examples of the far-from-equilibrium behaviour of matter; they are ubiquitous in nature, yet the underlying microscopic mechanisms behind their formation are not well understood. Here, we study the dynamics of dispersive quantum shock waves in a one-dimensional Bose gas, and show that the oscillatory train forming from a local density bump expanding into a uniform background is a result of quantum mechanical self-interference. The amplitude of oscillations, i.e., the interference contrast, decreases with the increase of both the temperature of the gas and the interaction strength due to the reduced phase coherence length. Furthermore, we show that vacuum and thermal fluctuations can significantly wash out the interference contrast, seen in the mean-field approaches, due to shot-to-shot fluctuations in the position of interference fringes around the mean.Comment: Final published version, 6 pages, 3 figures, plus Supplementary Materia

An Analysis of the Legal, Social, and Political Issues Raised by Asbestos Litigation

This Special Project examines the most important issues of the asbestos problem and advocates a congressional solution (1) to relieve the courts of the thousands of present and potential asbestos cases, (2) to protect future claimants\u27 rights to adequate compensation, and (3) to provide for equitable participation by all responsible parties, which, in addition to asbestos manufacturers,include the federal government, insurance companies, and the tobacco industry. The first six parts of the Special Project examine the various issues of asbestos litigation: theories of liability in products liability suits against asbestos manufacturers, causation,defenses, statutory limitations on actions, collateral estoppel, and punitive damages. The Special Project then discusses in parts VIII,IX, and X the methods used by asbestos manufacturers to attempt to spread their liability through asserting insurer liability, the exclusive remedy of workers\u27 compensation, and indemnity and contribution from the United States. Finally, the Special Project evaluates and analyzes recent developments in the asbestos litigation area, including proposals for federal legislative compensation programs and business alternatives available to asbestos manufacturers facing enormous asbestos-related liabilities... This Special Project critically has examined the most important issues concerning the asbestos problem. It has considered the complex legal, legislative, and social questions that society must confront in order to resolve this predicament. Only swift action by Congress in the form of a fair and comprehensive compensation scheme for victims of asbestos-related disabilities will initiate a solution to this difficult and pervasive problem

High Magnetic Field Microwave Conductivity of 2D Electrons in an Array of Antidots

We measure the high magnetic field ($B$) microwave conductivity, Re$\sigma_{xx}$, of a high mobility 2D electron system containing an antidot array. Re$\sigma_{xx}$ vs frequency ($f$) increases strongly in the regime of the fractional quantum Hall effect series, with Landau filling $1/3<\nu<2/3$. At microwave $f$, Re$\sigma_{xx}$ vs $B$ exhibits a broad peak centered around $\nu=1/2$. On the peak, the 10 GHz Re$\sigma_{xx}$ can exceed its dc-limit value by a factor of 5. This enhanced microwave conductivity is unobservable for temperature $T \gtrsim 0.5$ K, and grows more pronounced as $T$ is decreased. The effect may be due to excitations supported by the antidot edges, but different from the well-known edge magnetoplasmons.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, revtex

Electron and hole transmission through superconductor - normal metal interfaces

We have investigated the transmission of electrons and holes through interfaces between superconducting aluminum (Tc = 1.2 K) and various normal non-magnetic metals (copper, gold, palladium, platinum, and silver) using Andreev-reflection spectroscopy at T = 0.1 K. We analyzed the point contacts with the modified BTK theory that includes Dynes' lifetime as a fitting parameter G in addition to superconducting energy gap 2D and normal reflection described by Z. For contact areas from 1 nm^2 to 10000 nm^2 the BTK Z parameter was 0.5, corresponding to transmission coefficients of about 80 %, independent of the normal metal. The very small variation of Z indicates that the interfaces have a negligible dielectric tunneling barrier. Fermi surface mismatch does not account for the observed transmission coefficient.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Magnetism ICM2012 (Busan 2012

Environmental Costs of Government-Sponsored Agrarian Settlements in Brazilian Amazonia

Brazil has presided over the most comprehensive agrarian reform frontier colonization program on Earth, in which ~1.2 million settlers have been translocated by successive governments since the 1970's, mostly into forested hinterlands of Brazilian Amazonia. These settlements encompass 5.3% of this ~5 million km2 region, but have contributed with 13.5% of all land conversion into agropastoral land uses. The Brazilian Federal Agrarian Agency (INCRA) has repeatedly claimed that deforestation in these areas largely predates the sanctioned arrival of new settlers. Here, we quantify rates of natural vegetation conversion across 1911 agrarian settlements allocated to 568 Amazonian counties and compare fire incidence and deforestation rates before and after the official occupation of settlements by migrant farmers. The timing and spatial distribution of deforestation and fires in our analysis provides irrefutable chronological and spatially explicit evidence of agropastoral conversion both inside and immediately outside agrarian settlements over the last decade. Deforestation rates are strongly related to local human population density and road access to regional markets. Agrarian settlements consistently accelerated rates of deforestation and fires, compared to neighboring areas outside settlements, but within the same counties. Relocated smallholders allocated to forest areas undoubtedly operate as pivotal agents of deforestation, and most of the forest clearance occurs in the aftermath of government-induced migration

Non-monotonic magnetic field and density dependence of in-plane magnetoresistance in dilute two-dimensional holes in GaAs/AlGaAs

We studied low temperature (T=50mK) in-plane magnetoresistance of a dilute two-dimensional hole system in GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure that exhibits an apparent metal-insulator transition. We found an anisotropic magnetoresistance, which changes dramatically at high in-plane fields (B_{\parallel}\agt5T) as the hole density is varied. At high densities where the system behaves metallic at $B_{\parallel}=0$, the transverse magnetoresistance is larger than the longitudinal magnetoresistance. With decreasing the hole density the difference becomes progressively smaller, and at densities near the "critical" density and lower, the longitudinal magnetoresistance becomes larger than the transverse magnetoresistance