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Planet Found in Habitable Zone Around Nearest Star - Pale Red Dot campaign reveals Earth-mass world in orbit around Proxima Centauri

Astronomers using ESO telescopes and other facilities have found clear evidence of a planet orbiting the closest star to Earth, Proxima Centauri. The long-sought world, designated Proxima b, orbits its cool red parent star every 11 days and has a temperature suitable for liquid water to exist on its...

Click to view the original at eso.org

Hasnain says:

"[4] The actual suitability of this kind of planet to support water and Earth-like life is a matter of intense but mostly theoretical debate. Major concerns that count against the presence of life are related to the closeness of the star. For example gravitational forces probably lock the same side of the planet in perpetual daylight, while the other side is in perpetual night. The planet's atmosphere might also slowly be evaporating or have more complex chemistry than Earth’s due to stronger ultraviolet and X-ray radiation, especially during the first billion years of the star’s life. However, none of the arguments has been proven conclusively and they are unlikely to be settled without direct observational evidence and characterisation of the planet’s atmosphere. Similar factors apply to the planets recently found around TRAPPIST-1."

Posted on 2016-08-24T22:06:32+0000

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Are they students? Or are they employees? NLRB rules that graduate students are employees.

Grad students who work as teaching and research assistants at private universities are school employees, the NLRB rules.

Click to view the original at washingtonpost.com

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Commentary: Evidence points to another Snowden at the NSA

By James Bamford In the summer of 1972, state-of-the-art campaign spying consisted of amateur burglars, armed with duct tape and microphones,

Click to view the original at reuters.com

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Chase Sapphire Reserve Review - NerdWallet

Chase has confirmed the rumors that have been swirling all summer: It’s coming out with a new premium card — the Chase Sapphire Reserve℠. As the name implies, the new card…

Click to view the original at nerdwallet.com

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The worlds most epic bank statement, 6 months later

As outlined in When the stupid stars align, My favorite day of the month is bank statement day at my company. There is a combination of two…

Click to view the original at medium.com

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How Can So Many Students Be Invisible? Large Percentages of American Students Perform Above Grade Level

America’s K-12 education systems place students in grade levels by age and set performance expectations accordingly, using historical, average grade-level performance rather than any specific content students are expected to master7. This should not surprise us. Nearly all aspects of America’s schoo...

Click to view the original at education.jhu.edu

Hasnain says:

"NAEP data provide evidence that, in 2013 alone, more than 400,000 Grade 4 students performed above the level of the lowest quarter of Grade 12 students in reading. Roughly 14.5 million Grade 4 students have scored at this level in reading in the years since 2002. Looking at NAEP mathematics scores, in 2015 alone more than a million Grade 4 students would have outscored the same number of Grade 8 students. In other words, in a single recent year, there were more students in the U.S. already working four years above grade level than the entire population of Rhode Island."

The data is really surprising. I'd love to see this cut by socioeconomic background though

Posted on 2016-08-16T20:10:22+0000

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Forget Technical Debt — Here's How to Build Technical Wealth

Andrea Goulet runs a software SWAT Team — parachuting in to help companies fix bad code that's holding them back. Here's what she's learned on the job.

Click to view the original at firstround.com

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The Shame of Palo Alto: an Interview with Kate Downing on Affordable Housing — Stanford Political Journal

This article is part of a series on housing politics and policy, particularly in the context of the Bay Area. Previous articles on housing…

Click to view the original at stanfordpolitics.com

Hasnain says:

"I would also add that housing and transportation are two things that have to go hand in hand, and we have to be building up our public transportation infrastructure, and there’s a lot that we can do in that direction. But when you ask me about whether it’s a deflection, I would say it is, because in my experience the people who say, ‘well, we can’t have housing because that will create transportation issues,’ they’re the very same people who show up to protest public transportation."

Posted on 2016-08-15T06:38:41+0000