Elon Musk's Hyperloop dream is beginning to take on substance. There is now a company led by an impressive duo, with a strong lineup of partners, a road map for building a prototype, and a mob of highly skilled applicants begging to help. "I think it is an great engineering project," said analyst Jim McGregor, "but like all such projects, you never see all the hurdles until you begin."
A project to build a super-high-speed transportation system in California is gaining traction. JumpStartFund on Thursday revealed its users had voted to select the official name, "Hyperloop Transportation Technologies Inc.," for the company undertaking the challenge.
Marco Villa, Ph.D., former director of mission operations for SpaceX, and Patricia Galloway, Ph.D., former president of the American Society of Civil Engineers, will lead the project, which aims to demonstrate a Hyperloop prototype within 18 months.
SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk this summer revealed his concept for the Hyperloop high-speed mass transit system as an alternative to a planned high-speed rail line between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Hyperloop Passenger Capsule
While the state's project would get commuters from one city to the other in around two hours and 40 minutes, the Hyperloop would move as many as 840 passengers an hour with a travel time of just 30 minutes. It works by transporting people inside capsules riding along an air cushion inside a steel tube; it uses solar arrays on the roof of the tube to generate power.
Musk did not feel he had the time to develop his idea further, so he made his plans open source, inviting others to work on their execution.
Line Forming
JumpStartFund, a crowd-powered incubator, announced its intention to back the Hyperloop project just a month later.
JumpStartFund says it's been "inundated by applications" from people looking to join the effort. As of earlier this week, it had 165 applications.
"Those are all people interested in joining the team, either part-time or full-time, in exchange for equity," Dirk Ahlborn, CEO and cofounder of JumpStartFund, told the E-Commerce Times.
Most are engineers, though marketers and businesspeople are applying too.
"It's actually surprising how great a profile and background [the engineers have]. They are all high-level engineers and scientists," said Ahlborn.
JumpStartFund is in the process of speaking with those applicants and expects to hear from more interested candidates following Thursday's announcement.
Hyperloop Transportation Technologies has revealed its list of initial partners: Ansys, which carried out a Hyperloop feasibility study; GloCal Network Corporation, which will support the manufacturing and supply and value chain aspects of the project; and UCLA Architecture and Urban Design's graduate program Suprastudio, which will offer urban planning and traveler experience design suggestions.
Additionally, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies unveiled a timeline for developing the prototype. The company plans to start fundraising next week, with a view to releasing a white paper for the project by the end of March and holding demo events for the prototype by the first quarter of 2015.
A Lot of Ifs
"It shouldn't take that much time if the technology as presented is viable," Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, told the E-Commerce Times, but "it is likely they will run into unforeseen problems and I'd expect this date to move out as a result."
Musk suggested the Hyperloop project would cost less than US$7.5 billion -- far less than the state's estimated price tag of $68 billion for the rail line between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
It is not yet clear how much this Hyperloop project, a for-profit venture, actually will cost, though. JumpStartFund has been in contact with venture capital firms regarding financing, and fundraising is still in the early stages.
"With the second iteration of the white paper, one of those tasks is to solve all of [the costing] issues," noted JumpStartFund's Ahlborn.
That said, there is certainly an array of barriers that could prevent the Hyperloop from coming to fruition.
"In terms of building the project, I see a mountain of hurdles. Nothing ever works as planned, especially on this scale," Jim McGregor, principal analyst at Tirias Research, told the E-Commerce Times."
"They are trying something that has never been done before, so the mathematical algorithms to calculate everything have to be developed and tested along the way, and there is still no promise they will work," he pointed out. "I think it is an great engineering project, but like all such projects, you never see all the hurdles until you begin."
FILE - In this April 20, 2013 file photo, Arizona Diamondbacks third base coach Matt Williams chats with William Geivett, assistant general manager of the Colorado Rockies, before the first inning of a Major League Baseball game in Denver. Williams is the new manager of the Washington Nationals. The Nationals will hold a news conference Friday to introduce Williams as the team's fifth manager since it moved to Washington from Montreal in 2005. He replaces Davey Johnson, who is retiring. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)
FILE - In this April 20, 2013 file photo, Arizona Diamondbacks third base coach Matt Williams chats with William Geivett, assistant general manager of the Colorado Rockies, before the first inning of a Major League Baseball game in Denver. Williams is the new manager of the Washington Nationals. The Nationals will hold a news conference Friday to introduce Williams as the team's fifth manager since it moved to Washington from Montreal in 2005. He replaces Davey Johnson, who is retiring. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)
FILE - In this May 1, 2013 file photo, Arizona Diamondbacks' Gerardo Parra, right, kisses the head of third base coach Matt Williams in the dugout prior to a baseball game against the San Francisco Giants, in Phoenix. Williams is the new manager of the Washington Nationals. The Nationals will hold a news conference Friday, Nov. 1, 2013, to introduce Williams as the team's fifth manager since it moved to Washington from Montreal in 2005. He replaces Davey Johnson, who is retiring.(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)
FILE - In this April 8, 2011 file photo, Arizona Diamondbacks coach Matt Williams watches a game against the Cincinnati Reds, in Phoenix. Williams is the new manager of the Washington Nationals. The Nationals will hold a news conference Friday, Nov. 1, 2013, to introduce Williams as the team's fifth manager since it moved to Washington from Montreal in 2005. He replaces Davey Johnson, who is retiring. (AP Photo/Paul Connors, File)
FILE - In this Aug. 26, 2013 file photo, Arizona Diamondbacks third base coach Matt Williams gets a high-five from players after he took batting practice prior to a baseball game against the San Diego Padres, in Phoenix. Williams is the new manager of the Washington Nationals. The Nationals will hold a news conference Friday, Nov. 1, 2013, to introduce Williams as the team's fifth manager since it moved to Washington from Montreal in 2005. He replaces Davey Johnson, who is retiring. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)
This photo taken in 2012 shows Matt Williams of the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team, in Scottsdale, Ariz. Williams is the new manager of the Washington Nationals. The Nationals will hold a news conference Friday to introduce Williams as the team's fifth manager since it moved to Washington from Montreal in 2005. He replaces Davey Johnson, who is retiring. (AP Photo/Matt York)
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than a decade ago, when Matt Williams was still a third baseman, and Mike Rizzo was still climbing the front-office rungs, the future general manager thought he noticed the makings of a future skipper.
Well, here they are. Williams will make his debut as a major league manager with the Washington Nationals, a hiring announced by Rizzo on Thursday, one day after the World Series ended.
"Matt played with intensity as a player, but he also was a terrific teammate. You talk to the guys that he played with, and they swear by him. He was always team first, and self second. He was the consummate team player and a great teammate. He was a leader in the clubhouse, by example and also a vocal leader," Rizzo said.
"As a manager candidate, I feel he has the same fire, same desire, and the same team-first attitude that will be taken well by the players," Rizzo added. "He's always been a players' guy as a player, and I think he'll continue to be a players' guy as a manager."
Rizzo was a part of the Arizona Diamondbacks' front office when the expansion team entered the majors in 1998, and he became their scouting director two years later along the way to becoming Washington's GM. Williams played in Arizona from 1998-2003, part of a 17-year career that also included time with the San Francisco Giants and Cleveland Indians.
Williams, a five-time All-Star and a four-time Gold Glove recipient, is the first player mentioned in the Mitchell Report — the accounting of baseball's Steroids Era that was released in December 2007 — to become a manager in the majors. The San Francisco Chronicle reported in 2007 that records indicated Williams purchased more than $10,000 worth of growth hormone, steroids and other drugs while with the Diamondbacks in 2002. According to the newspaper, Williams said in an interview a doctor advised him to try growth hormone to heal a severe ankle injury during spring training that year.
"It certainly was something we discussed. We didn't agonize over it. ... In the interview process, we asked about it," Rizzo said.
"Matt was extremely candid about the Mitchell Report and owned up to it," Rizzo continued. "He certainly showed accountability for it. He wants to only be judged by his coaching and managing going forward."
The Nationals will hold a news conference to introduce Williams at their stadium on Friday. He replaces the retired Davey Johnson, who won the NL Manager of the Year award for leading Washington to a majors-leading 98 wins and the NL East title in 2012, then announced before this season that 2013 would be it for him in the Nationals' dugout.
After entering the season with sky-high expectations — and, famously, Johnson's "World Series or bust" declaration — the Nationals missed the playoffs, going 86-76 and finishing 10 games out of first place in the division.
The 47-year-old Williams was the third-base coach for the Diamondbacks the past three seasons. He has only brief managerial experience at any level, having spent some time in the Arizona Fall League and five weeks as a midseason fill-in at Double-A in the minors.
"There are different routes to the manager's office," Rizzo said. "I think experience is important, but you can get experience in many different ways."
While he was not willing to discuss other personnel moves, Rizzo certainly did make it sound Thursday as if some — and perhaps most — of Johnson's coaching staff from the end of last season will remain with the Nationals, a group that includes bench coach Randy Knorr, pitching coach Steve McCatty and hitting coach Rick Schu.
"We're not going to have a lot of turnover," Rizzo said.
"Suffice it to say, there's not going to be a whole transforming of the coaching staff. We're going to try to keep some consistency," he said. "But we're not at the point yet where we can announce what the coaching staff consists of."
___
Follow Howard Fendrich on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HowardFendrich
TORONTO (AP) — Toronto police said Thursday they have obtained a video that appears to show Mayor Rob Ford smoking a crack pipe — a video that Ford had claimed didn't exist and has been at the core of a scandal that has embarrassed and gripped Canada for months.
Police Chief Bill Blair said the video, recovered after being deleted from a computer hard drive, did not provide grounds to press charges. Ford, a populist mayor who has repeatedly made headlines for his bizarre behavior, vowed not to resign.
Speaking outside the door his office, where visitors were free to check out the Halloween decorations, Ford said with a smile: "I have no reason to resign." He said he couldn't defend himself because the affair is part of a criminal investigation involving an associate, adding: "That's all I can say right now." Toronto police discovered the video while conducting a huge surveillance operation into a friend and sometimes driver suspected of providing Ford with drugs.
Ford faced allegations in May that he had been caught on video puffing from a glass crack pipe. Two reporters with the Toronto Star said they saw the video, but it has not been released publicly. Ford maintained he does not smoke crack and that the video did not exist.
The scandal has been the fodder of jokes on U.S. late night television and has cast Canada's largest city and financial capital in an unflattering light.
Ford was elected mayor three years ago on a wave of discontent simmering in the city's outlying suburbs. Since then he has survived an attempt to remove him from office on conflict-of-interest charges and has appeared in the news for his increasingly odd behavior. Through it all, the mayor has repeatedly refused to resign and pledged to run for re-election next year.
But the pressure ramped up on Thursday with all four major dailies in the city calling on Ford to resign.
Cheri DiNovo, a member of Ontario's parliament, tweeted: "Ford video nothing to celebrate Addiction is illness. Mayor please step down and get help?"
On Thursday, Blair said the video of the mayor "depicts images that are consistent with those previously reported in the press."
"As a citizen of Toronto I'm disappointed," Blair said. "This is a traumatic issue for citizens of this city and the reputation of this city."
Blair said the video will come out when Ford's associate and occasional driver, Alexander Lisi, goes to trial on drug charges. Lisi now also faces extortion charges for trying to retrieve the recording from an unidentified person. Blair did not say who owned the computer containing the video.
Blair said authorities believed the video is linked to a home in Toronto, referred to by a confidential informant as a "crack house" in court documents in Lisi's drug case.
The prosecutor in the Lisi case released documents Thursday showing they had rummaged through Ford's garbage in search of evidence of drug use. They show that they conducted a massive surveillance operation monitoring the mayor and Lisi following drug use allegations.
The documents show that friends and former staffers of Ford were concerned that Lisi was "fuelling" the Toronto mayor's alleged drug use.
The police documents, ordered released by a judge, show Ford receiving packages from Lisi on several occasions.
"Lisi approached the driver's side of the Mayor's vehicle with a small white gift bag in hand; he then walked around to the passenger side and got on board," reads one document dated July 30, 2013. "After a few minutes Lisi exited the Escalade empty handed and walked back to his Range Rover."
Another dated July 28 says Lisi "constantly used counter surveillance techniques" when he met with Ford that day.
On August 13 documents say Lisi and Ford met and "made their way into a secluded area of the adjacent woods where they were obscured from surveillance efforts and stayed for approximately one hour."
Ford recently vouched for Lisi in a separate criminal case, praising his leadership skills and hard work in a letter filed with the court. The letter was part of a report prepared by a probation officer after Lisi was convicted of threatening to kill a woman.
Ford said previously that he was shocked when Lisi was arrested earlier this month, calling him a "good guy" and saying he doesn't abandon his friends.
The documents also say that Ford met Lisi through Payman Aboodowleh, a volunteer football coach at Don Bosco Catholic Secondary School, where Ford coached the team while also serving as mayor. He told police he was "mad at Lisi because he was fuelling the mayor's drug abuse," the document says.
Ford's controversies range from the trivial to the serious: Walking face-first into a TV camera. Falling down during a photo op while pretending to play football. Being asked to leave an event for wounded war vets because he appeared intoxicated, according to the Toronto Star. Being forced to admit he was busted for marijuana possession in Florida in 1999, after repeated denials. Making rude gestures at Torontonians from his car.
Ford was fired earlier this year from his beloved volunteer job coaching football over disparaging remarks he made to a TV network about parents and their kids at the school.
"The mayor has said there wasn't a video," Toronto councilor Paula Fletcher said. "He has said there is a conspiracy against him. With Chief's Blair's press conference I think that's put to rest."
Results of the TRANSLATE-POPS trial presented at TCT 2013
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Judy Romero jromero@crf.org Cardiovascular Research Foundation
New study evaluates outcomes of providing access to platelet function testing in a clinical setting
SAN FRANCISCO, CA October 31, 2013 According to a new study of heart attack patients treated with percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), free access to platelet function testing had only a modest impact on anti-clotting drug selection and dosing. Findings of the TRANSLATE-POPS trial were presented today at the 25th annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Sponsored by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF), TCT is the world's premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine.
While previous trials have examined platelet function testing-guided antiplatelet treatment strategies among patients undergoing PCI, little is known regarding how this testing impacts real world practice. The TRANSLATE-POPS trial evaluated whether routine availability of platelet function testing alters clinician selection and dosing of anti-clotting therapy, as well as patient outcomes after acute myocardial infarction treated with PCI. The primary end point was the rate of in-hospital therapeutic adjustments to anti-clotting therapy.
The prospective, cluster randomized trial randomly assigned sites not already routinely testing platelet function (
A total of 2,013 patients at 50 sites were enrolled in the device arm and 1,853 patients at 50 sites were enrolled in the usual care arm. Platelet function testing was performed in 66 percent of patients in the device arm and 1.4 percent of patients in the usual care arm. Compared to the usual care arm, device arm patients were more likely to have an in-hospital therapeutic adjustment of their antiplatelet regimen (15.9 percent in the device arm vs. 11.6 percent in the usual care arm). The device arm had a higher rate of switching antiplatelet agents (14.5 percent vs. 10.6 percent). The odds ratio for therapeutic adjustment, accounting for clustering effect within a site, was 1.54 for device vs. usual care.
However, after 30 days, patients in the device arm experienced a similar percentage of major adverse cardiac events compared to the usual care arm (4.5 percent vs. 5.1 percent, respectively). Both groups reported a similar rate of bleeding events (4.2 percent in the device arm vs. 4.3 percent in the usual care arm).
"TRANSLATE-POPS demonstrated that accessibility to platelet function testing had only a modest impact on ADP receptor inhibitor selection and dosing," said lead investigator Tracy Wang MD, MHS, MS of the Duke Clinical Research Institute.
"However, access to testing had no observed impact on early bleeding complications or major adverse cardiac events. An investigation of long-term outcomes is ongoing."
###
The TRANSLATE-POPS trial is funded by Lilly and Daiichi Sankyo. Dr. Wang reported research grants to the Duke Clinical Research Institute from Daiichi Sankyo, Eli Lilly, Gilead Sciences, and GlaxoSmithKline; and honoraria from AstraZeneca and the American College of Cardiology Foundation.
About CRF and TCT
The Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) is an independent, academically focused nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the survival and quality of life for people with cardiovascular disease through research and education. Since its inception in 1991, CRF has played a major role in realizing dramatic improvements in the lives of countless numbers of patients by establishing the safe use of new technologies and therapies in interventional cardiovascular medicine. CRF is the sponsor of the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, TCT is the world's premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine. For more information, visit http://www.crf.org and http://www.tctconference.com.
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Results of the TRANSLATE-POPS trial presented at TCT 2013
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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]
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Contact: Judy Romero jromero@crf.org Cardiovascular Research Foundation
New study evaluates outcomes of providing access to platelet function testing in a clinical setting
SAN FRANCISCO, CA October 31, 2013 According to a new study of heart attack patients treated with percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), free access to platelet function testing had only a modest impact on anti-clotting drug selection and dosing. Findings of the TRANSLATE-POPS trial were presented today at the 25th annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Sponsored by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF), TCT is the world's premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine.
While previous trials have examined platelet function testing-guided antiplatelet treatment strategies among patients undergoing PCI, little is known regarding how this testing impacts real world practice. The TRANSLATE-POPS trial evaluated whether routine availability of platelet function testing alters clinician selection and dosing of anti-clotting therapy, as well as patient outcomes after acute myocardial infarction treated with PCI. The primary end point was the rate of in-hospital therapeutic adjustments to anti-clotting therapy.
The prospective, cluster randomized trial randomly assigned sites not already routinely testing platelet function (
A total of 2,013 patients at 50 sites were enrolled in the device arm and 1,853 patients at 50 sites were enrolled in the usual care arm. Platelet function testing was performed in 66 percent of patients in the device arm and 1.4 percent of patients in the usual care arm. Compared to the usual care arm, device arm patients were more likely to have an in-hospital therapeutic adjustment of their antiplatelet regimen (15.9 percent in the device arm vs. 11.6 percent in the usual care arm). The device arm had a higher rate of switching antiplatelet agents (14.5 percent vs. 10.6 percent). The odds ratio for therapeutic adjustment, accounting for clustering effect within a site, was 1.54 for device vs. usual care.
However, after 30 days, patients in the device arm experienced a similar percentage of major adverse cardiac events compared to the usual care arm (4.5 percent vs. 5.1 percent, respectively). Both groups reported a similar rate of bleeding events (4.2 percent in the device arm vs. 4.3 percent in the usual care arm).
"TRANSLATE-POPS demonstrated that accessibility to platelet function testing had only a modest impact on ADP receptor inhibitor selection and dosing," said lead investigator Tracy Wang MD, MHS, MS of the Duke Clinical Research Institute.
"However, access to testing had no observed impact on early bleeding complications or major adverse cardiac events. An investigation of long-term outcomes is ongoing."
###
The TRANSLATE-POPS trial is funded by Lilly and Daiichi Sankyo. Dr. Wang reported research grants to the Duke Clinical Research Institute from Daiichi Sankyo, Eli Lilly, Gilead Sciences, and GlaxoSmithKline; and honoraria from AstraZeneca and the American College of Cardiology Foundation.
About CRF and TCT
The Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) is an independent, academically focused nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the survival and quality of life for people with cardiovascular disease through research and education. Since its inception in 1991, CRF has played a major role in realizing dramatic improvements in the lives of countless numbers of patients by establishing the safe use of new technologies and therapies in interventional cardiovascular medicine. CRF is the sponsor of the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, TCT is the world's premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine. For more information, visit http://www.crf.org and http://www.tctconference.com.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Could a milky way supernova be visible from Earth in next 50 years?
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Pam Frost Gorder Gorder.1@osu.edu 614-292-9475 Ohio State University
Advances in cameras, new strategies for detection make it possible
COLUMBUS, OhioAstronomers at The Ohio State University have calculated the odds that, sometime during the next 50 years, a supernova occurring in our home galaxy will be visible from Earth.
The good news: they've calculated the odds to be nearly 100 percent that such a supernova would be visible to telescopes in the form of infrared radiation.
The bad news: the odds are much lowerdipping to 20 percent or lessthat the shining stellar spectacle would be visible to the naked eye in the nighttime sky.
Yet, all this is great news to astronomers, who, unlike the rest of us, have high-powered infrared cameras to point at the sky at a moment's notice. For them, this study suggests that they have a solid chance of doing something that's never been done before: detect a supernova fast enough to witness what happens at the very beginning of a star's demise. A massive star "goes supernova" at the moment when it's used up all its nuclear fuel and its core collapses, just before it explodes violently and throws off most of its mass into space.
"We see all these stars go supernova in other galaxies, and we don't fully understand how it happens. We think we know, we say we know, but that's not actually 100 percent true," said Christopher Kochanek, professor of astronomy at Ohio State and the Ohio Eminent Scholar in Observational Cosmology. "Today, technologies have advanced to the point that we can learn enormously more about supernovae if we can catch the next one in our galaxy and study it with all our available tools."
The results will appear in an upcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal.
First through calculations and then through computer models, generations of astronomers have worked out the physics of supernovae based on all available data, and today's best models appear to match what they see in the skies. But actually witnessing a supernovathat is, for instance, actually measuring the changes in infrared radiation from start to finish while one was happeningcould prove or disprove those ideas.
Kochanek explained how technology is making the study of Milky Way supernovae possible. Astronomers now have sensitive detectors for neutrinos (particles emitted from the core of a collapsing star) and gravitational waves (created by the vibrations of the star's core) which can find any supernova occurring in our galaxy. The question is whether we can actually see light from the supernova because we live in a galaxy filled with dustsoot particles that Kochanek likened to those seen in diesel truck exhaustthat absorb the light and might hide a supernova from our view.
"Every few days, we have the chance to observe supernovae happening outside of our galaxy," said doctoral student Scott Adams. "But there's only so much you can learn from those, whereas a galactic supernova would show us so much more. Our neutrino detectors and gravitational wave detectors are only sensitive enough to take measurements inside our galaxy, where we believe that a supernova happens only once or twice a century."
Adams continued: "Despite the ease with which astronomers find supernovae occurring outside our galaxy, it wasn't obvious before that it would be possible to get complete observations of a supernova occurring within our galaxy. Soot dims the optical light from stars near the center of the galaxy by a factor of nearly a trillion by the time it gets to us. Fortunately, infrared light is not affected by this soot as much and is only dimmed by a factor of 20."
By balancing all these factors, the astronomers determined that they have nearly a 100 percent chance of catching a prized Milky Way supernova during the next 50 years. Adams summarized the findings in an online video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzuzFivr8ng.
The astronomers' plan takes advantage of the fact that supernovae issue neutrinos immediately after the explosion starts, but don't brighten in infrared or visible light until minutes, hours, or even days later.
So, in the ideal scenario, neutrino detectors such as Super-Kamiokande (Super-K) in Japan would sound the alert the moment they detect neutrinos, and indicate the direction the particles were coming from. Then infrared detectors could target the location almost immediately, thus catching the supernova before the brightening begins. Gravitational wave observatories would do the same.
But given that not all neutrinos come from supernovaesome come from nuclear reactors, Earth's atmosphere or the sunhow could a detector know the difference? A supernova would cause short bursts of neutrinos to be detected within a few seconds of each other. But rare glitches in the electronics can do the same thing, explained John Beacom, professor of physics and astronomy and director of the Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at Ohio State.
"We need some way to tell immediately that a burst is due to a supernova," Beacom said.
He and colleague Mark Vagins, an American neutrino expert working at Super-K, pointed out a decade ago how this could be done. Now Vagins and others have built a scale model of a special kind of neutrino detector in a new underground cave in Japan.
As coauthors on the Astrophysical Journal paper, Vagins and Beacom described the new detector, which they call EGADS for "Evaluating Gadolinium's Action on Detector Systems." At 200 tons, EGADS is much smaller than the 50,000-ton Super-K, but both consist of a tank of ultra-pure water.
In the case of EGADS, the water is spiked with a tiny amount of the element gadolinium, which helps register supernova neutrinos in a special way. When a neutrino from a Milky Way supernova enters the tank, it can collide with the water molecules and release energy, along with some neutrons. Gadolinium has a great affinity for neutrons, and will absorb them and then re-emit energy of its own. The result would be one detection signal followed by another a tiny fraction of a second latera "heartbeat" signal inside the tank for each detected neutrino.
Vagins and Beacom hope that EGADS' unmistakable heartbeat signal will enable neutrino detector teams to make more timely and confident announcements about supernova neutrino detections.
Vagins said that the experiment is going well so far, and he and the rest of the Super-K scientists may decide to add gadolinium to the tank as early as 2016. Because of its larger size, Super-K would also be able to measure the direction of the neutrinos. So the possibility of using Super-K to pinpoint a Milky Way supernova is on the rise.
For those of us who would hope to see a Milky Way supernova with our own eyes, however, the chances are lower and depend on our latitude on Earth. The last time it happened was in 1604, when Johannes Kepler spotted one some 20,000 light years away in the constellation Ophiuchus. He was in northern Italy at the time.
Could such a sighting happen again in the next half-century?
Adams did the math: the probability of a galactic supernova being visible with the unaided eye from somewhere on Earth within the next 50 years is approximately 20-50 percent, with people in the southern hemisphere getting the best of those odds, since they can see more of our galaxy in the night sky. The odds worsen as you go north; in Columbus, Ohio, for example, the chance could dip as low as 10 percent.
And Adams placed the odds that Ohioans would spy a truly dazzling supernovalike the one in 1604 that outshone all other stars in the skyat only around 5 percent.
"The odds of seeing a spectacular display aren't in our favor, but it is still an exciting possibility!" he concluded.
"With only one or two happening a century, the chance of a Milky Way supernova is small, but it would be a tragedy to miss it, and this work is designed to improve the chances of being ready for the scientific event of a lifetime," Beacom concluded.
###
Contacts:
Christopher Kochanek, (614) 292-5954; Kochanek.1@osu.edu
John Beacom, (614) 247-8102; Beacom.7@osu.edu
Scott Adams, (614) 292-7881; Adams.1433@osu.edu
Written by Pam Frost Gorder, (614) 292-9475; Gorder.1@osu.edu
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Could a milky way supernova be visible from Earth in next 50 years?
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Pam Frost Gorder Gorder.1@osu.edu 614-292-9475 Ohio State University
Advances in cameras, new strategies for detection make it possible
COLUMBUS, OhioAstronomers at The Ohio State University have calculated the odds that, sometime during the next 50 years, a supernova occurring in our home galaxy will be visible from Earth.
The good news: they've calculated the odds to be nearly 100 percent that such a supernova would be visible to telescopes in the form of infrared radiation.
The bad news: the odds are much lowerdipping to 20 percent or lessthat the shining stellar spectacle would be visible to the naked eye in the nighttime sky.
Yet, all this is great news to astronomers, who, unlike the rest of us, have high-powered infrared cameras to point at the sky at a moment's notice. For them, this study suggests that they have a solid chance of doing something that's never been done before: detect a supernova fast enough to witness what happens at the very beginning of a star's demise. A massive star "goes supernova" at the moment when it's used up all its nuclear fuel and its core collapses, just before it explodes violently and throws off most of its mass into space.
"We see all these stars go supernova in other galaxies, and we don't fully understand how it happens. We think we know, we say we know, but that's not actually 100 percent true," said Christopher Kochanek, professor of astronomy at Ohio State and the Ohio Eminent Scholar in Observational Cosmology. "Today, technologies have advanced to the point that we can learn enormously more about supernovae if we can catch the next one in our galaxy and study it with all our available tools."
The results will appear in an upcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal.
First through calculations and then through computer models, generations of astronomers have worked out the physics of supernovae based on all available data, and today's best models appear to match what they see in the skies. But actually witnessing a supernovathat is, for instance, actually measuring the changes in infrared radiation from start to finish while one was happeningcould prove or disprove those ideas.
Kochanek explained how technology is making the study of Milky Way supernovae possible. Astronomers now have sensitive detectors for neutrinos (particles emitted from the core of a collapsing star) and gravitational waves (created by the vibrations of the star's core) which can find any supernova occurring in our galaxy. The question is whether we can actually see light from the supernova because we live in a galaxy filled with dustsoot particles that Kochanek likened to those seen in diesel truck exhaustthat absorb the light and might hide a supernova from our view.
"Every few days, we have the chance to observe supernovae happening outside of our galaxy," said doctoral student Scott Adams. "But there's only so much you can learn from those, whereas a galactic supernova would show us so much more. Our neutrino detectors and gravitational wave detectors are only sensitive enough to take measurements inside our galaxy, where we believe that a supernova happens only once or twice a century."
Adams continued: "Despite the ease with which astronomers find supernovae occurring outside our galaxy, it wasn't obvious before that it would be possible to get complete observations of a supernova occurring within our galaxy. Soot dims the optical light from stars near the center of the galaxy by a factor of nearly a trillion by the time it gets to us. Fortunately, infrared light is not affected by this soot as much and is only dimmed by a factor of 20."
By balancing all these factors, the astronomers determined that they have nearly a 100 percent chance of catching a prized Milky Way supernova during the next 50 years. Adams summarized the findings in an online video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzuzFivr8ng.
The astronomers' plan takes advantage of the fact that supernovae issue neutrinos immediately after the explosion starts, but don't brighten in infrared or visible light until minutes, hours, or even days later.
So, in the ideal scenario, neutrino detectors such as Super-Kamiokande (Super-K) in Japan would sound the alert the moment they detect neutrinos, and indicate the direction the particles were coming from. Then infrared detectors could target the location almost immediately, thus catching the supernova before the brightening begins. Gravitational wave observatories would do the same.
But given that not all neutrinos come from supernovaesome come from nuclear reactors, Earth's atmosphere or the sunhow could a detector know the difference? A supernova would cause short bursts of neutrinos to be detected within a few seconds of each other. But rare glitches in the electronics can do the same thing, explained John Beacom, professor of physics and astronomy and director of the Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at Ohio State.
"We need some way to tell immediately that a burst is due to a supernova," Beacom said.
He and colleague Mark Vagins, an American neutrino expert working at Super-K, pointed out a decade ago how this could be done. Now Vagins and others have built a scale model of a special kind of neutrino detector in a new underground cave in Japan.
As coauthors on the Astrophysical Journal paper, Vagins and Beacom described the new detector, which they call EGADS for "Evaluating Gadolinium's Action on Detector Systems." At 200 tons, EGADS is much smaller than the 50,000-ton Super-K, but both consist of a tank of ultra-pure water.
In the case of EGADS, the water is spiked with a tiny amount of the element gadolinium, which helps register supernova neutrinos in a special way. When a neutrino from a Milky Way supernova enters the tank, it can collide with the water molecules and release energy, along with some neutrons. Gadolinium has a great affinity for neutrons, and will absorb them and then re-emit energy of its own. The result would be one detection signal followed by another a tiny fraction of a second latera "heartbeat" signal inside the tank for each detected neutrino.
Vagins and Beacom hope that EGADS' unmistakable heartbeat signal will enable neutrino detector teams to make more timely and confident announcements about supernova neutrino detections.
Vagins said that the experiment is going well so far, and he and the rest of the Super-K scientists may decide to add gadolinium to the tank as early as 2016. Because of its larger size, Super-K would also be able to measure the direction of the neutrinos. So the possibility of using Super-K to pinpoint a Milky Way supernova is on the rise.
For those of us who would hope to see a Milky Way supernova with our own eyes, however, the chances are lower and depend on our latitude on Earth. The last time it happened was in 1604, when Johannes Kepler spotted one some 20,000 light years away in the constellation Ophiuchus. He was in northern Italy at the time.
Could such a sighting happen again in the next half-century?
Adams did the math: the probability of a galactic supernova being visible with the unaided eye from somewhere on Earth within the next 50 years is approximately 20-50 percent, with people in the southern hemisphere getting the best of those odds, since they can see more of our galaxy in the night sky. The odds worsen as you go north; in Columbus, Ohio, for example, the chance could dip as low as 10 percent.
And Adams placed the odds that Ohioans would spy a truly dazzling supernovalike the one in 1604 that outshone all other stars in the skyat only around 5 percent.
"The odds of seeing a spectacular display aren't in our favor, but it is still an exciting possibility!" he concluded.
"With only one or two happening a century, the chance of a Milky Way supernova is small, but it would be a tragedy to miss it, and this work is designed to improve the chances of being ready for the scientific event of a lifetime," Beacom concluded.
###
Contacts:
Christopher Kochanek, (614) 292-5954; Kochanek.1@osu.edu
John Beacom, (614) 247-8102; Beacom.7@osu.edu
Scott Adams, (614) 292-7881; Adams.1433@osu.edu
Written by Pam Frost Gorder, (614) 292-9475; Gorder.1@osu.edu
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Sandia's Katherine Guzman receives national Hispanic award for technical contributions
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Mike Janes mejanes@sandia.gov 925-294-2447 DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
LIVERMORE, Calif. The Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Corp. (HENAAC) recently named Sandia National Laboratories' Katherine Guzman one of its 2013 Luminary honorees. She received her award Oct. 5 at the 25th Anniversary HENAAC Conference in New Orleans.
"This is an incredible honor," said Guzman. "I remember going to the HENAAC awards ceremony as an undergraduate and looking up at the award winners with awe, never imagining that one day I might be considered for such an award."
Luminary honorees represent professionals in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics who initiate, collaborate, and lead key programs and research in their organizations. These individuals have made significant contributions to the Hispanic technical community as leaders and role models.
"Katherine truly embodies our core values," said Todd West, one of Guzman's managers at Sandia. "She consistently executes and leads high-quality work in the face of sometimes challenging and ambiguous environments. She manages effective teams and fosters an attitude of mutual respect. Her outreach activities are equally exemplary. In short, Katherine is an ideal role model for others considering a career in science, technology, engineering or math."
New tools, service and science
At Sandia, Guzman has distinguished herself with her work in the area of risk management. She played a key role in the development of SUMMIT (Standard Unified Modeling, Mapping, and Integration Toolkit), a new technology to enable emergency management personnel to seamlessly access information from diverse models and data coming from different sources. The creation of these tools is now enabling the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to rigorously plan for and exercise against highly complex disaster scenarios.
Guzman now leads a Sandia effort to better understand risk for DHS, work that could shape the way the nation understands and attempts to mitigate homeland security risk.
Guzman said science was part of her upbringing. "My father is a scientist and he raised me and my sisters the way he was raised to ask a lot of questions," she said "He spent a lot of time explaining to us the how and why of everything."
Her future in mechanical engineering became apparent at a young age. "I was always more interested in building furniture for my dolls than playing with the dolls themselves," said Guzman. "Making things was what fascinated me."
Guzman earned a B.S. at The University of Texas at Austin and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. As both an undergraduate and graduate student, she found herself to be one of the few women and one of even fewer Hispanic women.
When it came time to consider where to begin her career, service was at the front of Guzman's mind. "My father served in the Peace Corps and my mother is a social worker, so I was raised with a very keen sense of making a contribution to the world," she said. "My dad is an agronomist and he felt that he, as part of a large community of scientists, was helping to solve world hunger through his work. That's a pretty noble cause to go to work for every day. So coming to Sandia was a natural choice because our work has true national impact."
Guzman is also driven by a personal passion to help minorities and women in science and engineering achieve their career dreams. As an undergraduate and graduate engineering student at two of the country's largest and most prestigious universities, she encountered very few female and minority role models and virtually no female minority role models. That is something she hopes to change with her work as a leader, mentor and keynote speaker.
Outside of work, Guzman stays busy with her husband and two young sons. "Balancing work with family and community is important to me," said Guzman. "I want to instill in my children the values I was raised with hard work, the value of education, the importance of community and respect for everyone."
###
Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin company, for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. With main facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., Sandia has major R&D responsibilities in national security, energy and environmental technologies and economic competitiveness.
Sandia news media contact: Mike Janes, mejanes@sandia.gov, (925) 294-2447
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Sandia's Katherine Guzman receives national Hispanic award for technical contributions
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Mike Janes mejanes@sandia.gov 925-294-2447 DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
LIVERMORE, Calif. The Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Corp. (HENAAC) recently named Sandia National Laboratories' Katherine Guzman one of its 2013 Luminary honorees. She received her award Oct. 5 at the 25th Anniversary HENAAC Conference in New Orleans.
"This is an incredible honor," said Guzman. "I remember going to the HENAAC awards ceremony as an undergraduate and looking up at the award winners with awe, never imagining that one day I might be considered for such an award."
Luminary honorees represent professionals in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics who initiate, collaborate, and lead key programs and research in their organizations. These individuals have made significant contributions to the Hispanic technical community as leaders and role models.
"Katherine truly embodies our core values," said Todd West, one of Guzman's managers at Sandia. "She consistently executes and leads high-quality work in the face of sometimes challenging and ambiguous environments. She manages effective teams and fosters an attitude of mutual respect. Her outreach activities are equally exemplary. In short, Katherine is an ideal role model for others considering a career in science, technology, engineering or math."
New tools, service and science
At Sandia, Guzman has distinguished herself with her work in the area of risk management. She played a key role in the development of SUMMIT (Standard Unified Modeling, Mapping, and Integration Toolkit), a new technology to enable emergency management personnel to seamlessly access information from diverse models and data coming from different sources. The creation of these tools is now enabling the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to rigorously plan for and exercise against highly complex disaster scenarios.
Guzman now leads a Sandia effort to better understand risk for DHS, work that could shape the way the nation understands and attempts to mitigate homeland security risk.
Guzman said science was part of her upbringing. "My father is a scientist and he raised me and my sisters the way he was raised to ask a lot of questions," she said "He spent a lot of time explaining to us the how and why of everything."
Her future in mechanical engineering became apparent at a young age. "I was always more interested in building furniture for my dolls than playing with the dolls themselves," said Guzman. "Making things was what fascinated me."
Guzman earned a B.S. at The University of Texas at Austin and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. As both an undergraduate and graduate student, she found herself to be one of the few women and one of even fewer Hispanic women.
When it came time to consider where to begin her career, service was at the front of Guzman's mind. "My father served in the Peace Corps and my mother is a social worker, so I was raised with a very keen sense of making a contribution to the world," she said. "My dad is an agronomist and he felt that he, as part of a large community of scientists, was helping to solve world hunger through his work. That's a pretty noble cause to go to work for every day. So coming to Sandia was a natural choice because our work has true national impact."
Guzman is also driven by a personal passion to help minorities and women in science and engineering achieve their career dreams. As an undergraduate and graduate engineering student at two of the country's largest and most prestigious universities, she encountered very few female and minority role models and virtually no female minority role models. That is something she hopes to change with her work as a leader, mentor and keynote speaker.
Outside of work, Guzman stays busy with her husband and two young sons. "Balancing work with family and community is important to me," said Guzman. "I want to instill in my children the values I was raised with hard work, the value of education, the importance of community and respect for everyone."
###
Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin company, for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. With main facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., Sandia has major R&D responsibilities in national security, energy and environmental technologies and economic competitiveness.
Sandia news media contact: Mike Janes, mejanes@sandia.gov, (925) 294-2447
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — Outside a state-of-the-art grain elevator, Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley talks of how Republicans and Democrats in Congress need to overcome differences that scuttled farm legislation last summer. A day later, he tells veterans at a rec center in his blue-collar, northern Iowa district that both parties should work together to help them.
"The issues surrounding our veterans should be issues that bring us together, not issues that drive us apart," Braley says in a bipartisan pitch that lacks direct criticism of Republicans over the 16-day partial government shutdown.
In this district dotted with farming towns, as well as in districts around the country, the political environment is toxic for lawmakers running for re-election or seeking higher office. Polls show voters of all political stripes are down on Washington, especially after the shutdown. While people blame Republicans more, Democrats are hardly immune to criticism and easily could be fired next year. Besides, a second-term president's party typically suffers losses in midterm elections.
Braley and many other Democrats are treading carefully. They are avoiding the partisan slashing that marked the shutdown crisis, delicately presenting their party as the better bet to break the gridlock, and seeking to take advantage of a possible political opening.
A CBS News poll taken immediately after the shutdown showed more Americans see more Democrats as pursuing the right level of compromise than Republicans, 35 percent to 24 percent.
Still, Democrats are mindful of the risks of overplaying their hand. Gloating over the GOP's public squabbles probably wouldn't go over well with a public angry and hungering for Washington to work together. Assailing Republicans as ideological obstructionists also could give voters reason to view all politicians as the same. And acting overconfident could invite criticism that Democrats are out of touch with a public made bitter not just by the shutdown, but by weeks of problems with a health care law enacted solely by their party.
Braley has extra incentive to play nice. He is running for the Senate next year.
He also may have a case to make about bipartisanship. During the shutdown, he was among a handful of Democratic House members to vote with Republicans in favor of the 35 bills that would have at least partially reopened government. But he also opposed four of five resolutions that would have avoided the interruption in government services in the first place, leaving him open to Republican criticism.
A National Republican Congressional Committee spokeswoman called Braley's position a "convenient display of bipartisanship."
Braley also took heat during the shutdown for a comment he made on a radio show about the House gym's closure. "There's no towel service. We're doing our own laundry down there," he said, providing comedic fodder for TV hosts Jimmy Kimmel and Jon Stewart.
Lost in the laughter, Braley says, was the point he was trying to make about lawmakers' checking politics at the gym door.
"It's a place where members come together," he later explained. "That's something we need more of, not less of."
That was precisely his message on a quick visit home this month.
In Cedar Falls, Braley told farmers he was trying to rally rural Democrats and Republicans to reach out to urban Democrats facing pressure to oppose the farm bill's cuts in food-stamp spending. He said he's reminding all lawmakers that without a farm bill, food prices could spike and prompt voters to fault lawmakers next fall.
His message: "Let's try to work together to address all of these issues, realizing there's going to have to be give-and-take."
Jon Mixdorf, an independent voter from Cedar Falls, was among the skeptics in the crowd. He said the congressman has to do more to make the case to angry Iowans that he's above the partisan fray.
"I don't think people can see it, at least not yet," Mixdorf said. "He's just one man and there's so much noise out there."
In Cedar Rapids, veteran Randy Dunn pressed Braley to prove his commitment to legislation that would ensure that veterans get all their benefits if another shutdown occurs by working to get it passed before Veterans' Day, Nov. 11.
"I just want you to stand up and do the right thing, because it is the right thing," Dunn said.
Today, only health care benefits — they constitute 85 percent of veterans benefits — are budgeted a year in advance. The bill would put all other benefits, such as housing and vocational training, under the same protection. It has bipartisan support in both the House and Senate. The White House has been ambivalent.
Braley said he was optimistic it could pass. "This is one of those issues that can bring us together and get us focused on what the right thing is to do," he said, "not what the politically expedient thing is to do."
For all the talk of finding common ground, some constituents remained skeptical — underscoring the challenge for Braley and other politicians.
"I'm not so sure he's any different than the rest," said Larry Van Lincker, a retired veteran from Cedar Rapids. "I think they ought to throw them all out."
Boston Red Sox's Mike Napoli hits an RBI single during the fourth inning of Game 6 of baseball's World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, in Boston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Boston Red Sox's Mike Napoli hits an RBI single during the fourth inning of Game 6 of baseball's World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, in Boston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Boston Red Sox catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia watches as home plate umpire Dana DeMuth calls St. Louis Cardinals' Allen Craig safe on an obstruction during the ninth inning of Game 3 of baseball's World Series Saturday, Oct. 26, 2013, in St. Louis. The Cardinals won 5-4 to take a 2-1 lead in the series. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Boston Red Sox starting pitcher Jon Lester gets the ball back as St. Louis Cardinals left fielder Matt Holliday runs the bases after hitting a home run during the fourth inning of Game 5 of baseball's World Series Monday, Oct. 28, 2013, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Boston Red Sox's Jacoby Ellsbury gets past St. Louis Cardinals relief pitcher Kevin Siegrist as he makes it safely back to first on a rundown during the fifth inning of Game 6 of baseball's World Series Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, in Boston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
BOSTON (AP) — The Boston Red Sox built a World Series champion in 2013 by avoiding the expensive free agents they've made mistakes on in the past.
They'll have to do it again this winter.
Center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury is a free agent, as are first baseman Mike Napoli, shortstop Stephen Drew and catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia. The team will almost certainly prevent pitcher Jon Lester from becoming a free agent by picking up his $13 million option.
Expect the team to avoid trying to make a big splash on players like they did when they overpaid for Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford. Instead, general manager Ben Cherington will follow up on a strategy that brought in Shane Victorino, Jonny Gomes and Koji Uehara — all key parts of this year's title.
It's the job of celebrities to wear costumes for a role, but even in their downtime, they still love to dress up -- especially during Halloween! Even before they were stars, celebs like Kate Bosworth and Channing Tatum had fun getting into the spirit of the holiday, and we've got the pictures they shared in their yearbooks to prove it! Check them out:
Airplane mode will still be required, and you'll have to pretend to pay attention to the safety briefing
The Federal Aviation Administration this morning at a news conference announced that it has determined that portable electronic devices can be used not just above 10,000 feet, but during "all phases of flight." That means no more turning off your iPhones, iPads, e-books, e-readers, Game Boys, Kindles, BlackBerry, blueberry, strawberry — anything with an on/off switch that must be in the off position before the aircraft can push back from the gate.
You will, however, have to wait on the airlines to implement the FAA's guidance, which it expects to see happen by the end of the year.
Don't look now, but if we learned anything at UFC Fight Night 30, it's that one of the UFC's most exciting divisions is middleweight.
To those who've been watching the sport for more than a few years, this sounds almost comical. To those who've been watching even longer, it could almost be passed off as a pathetic attempting at trolling.
And yet, it's true. There are many ways to illustrate just how lackluster middleweight has historically been, but perhaps the best reminder was the reign of Anderson Silva when he was forced to defend his UFC middleweight title against Patrick Cote, Thales Leites and Demian Maia. Those are all accomplished fighters, but two of them don't even compete in that weight class anymore. The other was cut from the UFC and only recently returned after a mostly successful stint in regional MMA.
Silva's resume is impeccable, but his peers can barely hang onto employment? That's hardly the mark of talent-rich division.
And when he wasn't defending his title against complete non-challengers, Silva was moonlighting as a light heavyweight. There aren't many fighters who force the UFC to give them challenges in different weight classes because the one they're competing in is abysmally thin enough to force boredom.
Remember Silva not doing anything in title fights because he couldn't be bothered to fight competitors that far below his level? That is the scarlet letter middleweight has been carrying around.
Yes, Silva is arguably the greatest fighter of all time. He's going to make most fighters look bad. Even very good ones. But it's one thing for them to look bad at Silva's hand and it's quite another for them to demonstrate the rigors of simply maintaining position in the weight class is too tall an order to handle.
That's all behind us now, however. Now we have a middleweight division with a new champion (Chris Weidman). We have a man some consider the best fighter ever trying to reclaim a title he lost when he was brutally knocked out. If nothing else, that creates intrigue at the top of the division.
We have more than that, though. Today, there's depth in this space. We have an infusion of talent from Strikeforce (Luke Rockhold, Ronaldo Souza and Gegard Mousasi). We have a surging veteran (Vitor Belfort). We also have a former UFC light heavyweight champion dropping down to stake a new claim in Lyoto Machida.
The reality is middleweight isn't just thin in the UFC. It's thin in all of MMA, much as lightweight isn't just strong in the UFC, but other organizations as well. My point is not that these institutional or existential reasons for middleweight not being very good are all of a sudden changed. But right now in this division, there's a reason to enjoy the sudden intrigue that's now there. Maybe the circumstances that have created this are ephemeral, but they're here now. Might as well enjoy them before things change.
One wonders how much Silva being so dominant made things so lackluster. Something similar is happening at light heavyweight with Jon Jones dominating everyone he fights. Yet, Alexander Gustafsson happened and that all changed. Daniel Cormier is also making his way down, which adds to that narrative. Just as things were getting boring, now there's a reason to pay attention.
Perhaps the best thing for any division, be it middle or flyweight, is to have things shaken up when they get stale. Lucky for us, that's exactly what we're getting at middleweight right now. With new blood at the top, middle and bottom and a rearrangement of the division's hierarchy, all of a sudden there's hope.
The middleweight division is dead. Long live the middleweight division.
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