Index on Censorship

The objective of the UK-based Index on Censorship is to promote international freedom of expression.

This Web site is a companion to the award-winning magazine of the same name, published by academically acclaimed SAGE Publications and founded in 1972. Well-known editor Kampfner is an author, broadcaster, and commentator. The current site was developed in 2009 when its forerunner indexonline.org.blog ceased. This site contains a wealth of information from international organizations that promote freedom of expression. Partners range from the ACLU to the Human Rights House Network to the Open Society Institute. One of the most interesting features of the site is its coverage of globally important landmark issues, such as the 1989 fatwa issued by the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, against Salman Rushdie, targeting his novel Satanic Verses. This Web site, or at least its predecessor, has not been without controversy. Among other incidents, it posted comments in 2004 that were interpreted by some as condoning the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh. However, controversy has not tarnished its reputation as an excellent, comprehensive source. With its user-friendly format, this site will be of value to undergraduates and others who wish to keep abreast of global censorship issues.,

by John Kampfner et al.  Internet Resource. Reviewed in 2011dec CHOICE.

Thanksgiving

The USA.gov site has links to travel information on airlines & road closures - recipes & food safety - and Thanksgiving history & heritage links ! Check out the statistics section for information on how many turkeys are raised in the US, how many pounds of cranberries and sweet potatoes will be consumed . . .

Google is celebrating Thanksgiving with links to many Thanksgiving online resources

Centers for Disease Control has Health e-cards you can send to your friends!

And of course, one of my all-time favorite sites, the History Channel has provided video clips, pictures and a variety of other fascinating facts and information about this All-American holiday.

Another Thanksgiving tradition is pictured right, President Obama pardoning the turkeys this morning -

The TCC Library Staff wish everyone a safe and happy Thanksgiving holiday.

More evidence that Einstein got it wrong

2nd test affirms faster-than-light particles

This picture shows a view of the Oscillation Project
with Emulsion-Racking Apparatus detector (OPERA)
at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory (LNGS) located
 under the Gran Sasso mountain in Italy, Nov. 14, 2011. (Getty)

ByWashington Post reporter Brian Vastag . November 18, 2011 5:30 AM
 
A second experiment at the European facility that reported subatomic particles zooming faster than the speed of light -- stunning the world of physics -- has reached the same result, scientists said late Thursday.
The "positive outcome of the [second] test makes us more confident in the result," said Fernando Ferroni, president of the Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics, in a statement released late Thursday. Ferroni is one of 160 physicists involved in the international collaboration known as OPERA (Oscillation Project with Emulsion Tracking Apparatus) that performed the experiment.

While the second experiment "has made an important test of consistency of its result," Ferroni added, "a final word can only be said by analogous measurements performed elsewhere in the world."

That is, more tests are needed, and on other experimental setups. There is still a large crowd of skeptical physicists who suspect that the original measurement done in September was an error.

CERN clocks subatomic particles traveling faster than light

Video: Faster-than-light measurement shocks physicists
God Particle riddle could be solved "by 2012"

Should the results stand, they would upend more than a century of modern physics.

In the first round of experiments, a massive detector buried in a mountain in Gran Sasso, Italy, recorded neutrinos generated at the CERN particle accelerator on the French-Swiss border arriving 60 nanoseconds sooner than expected. CERN is the French acronym for European Council for Nuclear Research.
A chorus of critiques from physicists soon followed. Among other possible errors, some suggested that the neutrinos generated at CERN were smeared into bunches too wide to measure precisely.

So in recent weeks, the OPERA team tightened the packets of neutrinos that CERN sent sailing toward Italy. Such tightening removed some uncertainty in the neutrinos' speed.

The detector still saw neutrinos moving faster than light.

"One of the eventual systematic errors is now out of the way," said Jacques Martino, director of the National Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics in France, in a statement.

But the faster-than-light drama is far from over, Martino added. The OPERA team is discussing more cross-checks, he added, including possibly running a fiber the 454 miles between the sites.

For more than a century, the speed of light has been locked in as the universe's ultimate speed limit. No experiment had seen anything moving faster than light, which zips along at 186,000 miles per second.

Much of modern physics -- including Albert Einstein's famous theory of relativity -- is built on that ultimate speed limit.

Should Einstein be worried?

The scientific world stopped and gaped in September when the OPERA team announced it had seen neutrinos moving just a hint faster than light.

"If it's correct, it's phenomenal," said Rob Plunkett, a scientist at Fermilab, the Department of Energy physics laboratory in Illinois, in September. "We'd be looking at a whole new set of rules" for how the universe works.

More on this Story
Faster-than-light neutrino poses the ultimate cosmic brain teaser for physicists

Particles faster than light: Revolution or mistake?

CERN neutrinos don’t “disprove” Einstein

Would-Be Engineers Hit Books the Hardest, a Study Finds

By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA,  November 17, 2011

Business majors spend less time on course work than other college students, but they devote more hours to nonschool duties, like earning money and caring for family members. In contrast, engineering students spend the most time studying and the least on outside demands.

http://nsse.iub.edu/

Those are among the findings released on Thursday from the annual National Survey of Student Engagement, a project that tries to measure how hard, and how effectively, students are working. This year’s results are based on forms filled out last school year by more than 400,000 undergraduates, all of them freshmen or seniors, at nearly 700 colleges and universities in the United States

Grouping students into seven academic disciplines, the study shows wide differences in the number of hours they put into schoolwork outside the classroom. Among students concentrating in engineering, 42 percent say they spend at least 20 hours per week on such study, well ahead of any other group.

http://nsse.iub.edu/

They are followed, in descending order, by students studying physical sciences, biological sciences, arts and humanities, education and social sciences. Business majors ranked last, with 19 percent saying they spend 20 hours or more each week on schoolwork.

 . . . . . . The survey shows that many students fail to use study techniques that have been proved effective. The great majority of students take notes in class, but fewer than two-thirds review them later, and even fewer take notes while reading. Only about half of the students surveyed make outlines of course material, or talk with other students or teachers about study strategies. And about 30 percent do not ask for help when they do not understand the course material . . . . .

Find the complete NYT article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/education/college-student-survey-shows-balance-of-work-and-study.html
National Survey of Student Engagement, http://nsse.iub.edu/

To Post or Not to Post: College Students Should Be Wary of Their Social Media Use

from: BestCollegesOnline.com

Twitter, Facebook, and even the slowly dwindling MySpace – no doubt you have heard of these social phenomena that have infiltrated the everyday lives of modern teenagers and young adults across the country. These sites are dubbed "social media sites" because they encourage users to connect with one another and use their own pages as a means of representing their identity in the online community. They’ve even sprouted a lingo all their own. Twitter users "tweet" and "follow" one another. Facebook users "friend" (and sometimes even "un-friend") one another.

In fact, social media sites are so prevalent these days that job recruiters will use it to research applicants for a position. Sometimes, an applicant’s work-inappropriate Facebook or MySpace profile can break the deal, costing them the chance at a position. Other times, social media sites can even cost a currently employed worker his or her job. Such was the case for the infamous "Drunken Pirate" case in 2006, where student-teacher Stacy Snyder was refused a teaching degree just days before her graduation. Snyder had posted photographs from a costume party on her MySpace page, one of which was titled, "Drunken Pirate." In that photograph, she was drinking from a red plastic cup – the stereotypical cup of choice for alcohol-infused college parties. Millersville University found out about the photograph and denied Snyder a teaching degree on the grounds that she was not fit to teach because of her inappropriate behavior, though the photograph was taken off-campus.

This case was astonishing because social media sites and profiles are believed by many young adults to be a private sanctuary that is untouchable by the professional world. Many users of social media sites would not think twice about posting photographs from wild nights or rants about their job. However, the plain truth is that social media sites are on the Internet and therefore accessible to nearly anyone who has an Internet connection, which includes employers, professors, and even parents. At a time when college students face a tougher job market, it is imperative that they present their online personas in the same manner that they would present themselves in face-to-face encounters. That means you should think twice before putting up your album of embarrassing photographs from last weekend’s drunken debaucheries; you never know who may be looking at those photos besides your friends.

Related Posts:
Getting to Know Your Future Roommate With Social Media

Social Media Education in the Classroom

Living Without Social Media: Can You Do It?

Online Colleges and Social Media

College Students and Their Dependence on Technology

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009 at 4:15 pm by BestCollegesOnline.com

More Facebook Friends, Fewer Real Ones, Says Cornell Study

We may "friend" more people on Facebook, but we have fewer real friends -- the kind who would help us out in tough times, listen sympathetically no matter what, lend us money or give us a place to stay if we needed it, keep a secret if we shared one.
That's the conclusion made by Matthew Brashears, a Cornell University sociologist who surveyed more than 2,000 adults from a national database and found that from 1985 to 2010, the number of truly close friends people cited has dropped -- even though we're socializing as much as ever. . . . . .


Friends, Following and Feedback:
How We’re Using Social Media

Does that mean we're more isolated in these times when we seem to meet more people online than in person? (How many of your Facebook "friends" are really friends of yours?) Defying some of the stereotypes of the digital age, social scientists say Facebook may actually be healthy for us. Keith Hampton at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania wrote a report for the Pew Research Center in which he found that "Internet users in general, but Facebook users even more so, have more close relationships than other people."

"Facebook users get more overall social support, and in particular they report more emotional support and companionship than other people," wrote Hampton in a blog post. "And, it is not a trivial amount of support. Compared to other things that matter for support -- like being married or living with a partner -- it really matters. Frequent Facebook use is equivalent to about half the boost in support you get from being married."

But online contact and personal contact are different. While Hampton reports we know more people because of Facebook and similar sites, Brashears reports there are fewer whom we choose to trust with our most intimate worries.

"We're not becoming asocial," said Brashears, "but these people give us social support, and they give us advice."
View the complete ABC News report

and heres another research study of related interest !
Friends, Following and Feedback: How We’re Using Social Media

So much for social networking: Most people only have TWO close friends (that's fewer than we had BEFORE Facebook)