mardi 13 mai 2014
Manchester City crowned champions after effortless win over West Ham
This time, they spared the emotions of their supporters. There was no late drama. No bedlam. For once, Manchester City resisted any temptation to make life unnecessarily hard for themselves. Instead, they just rolled up their sleeves and set about finishing off their work. They are the champions of England and they did it in a way that made it feel like the old City, the club they once said should carry a government health warning, were a fading memory.
By the time it was all done, Manuel Pellegrini's team had clocked up 102 goals for the season and it was probably a surprise they had not managed to catch, or overhaul, Chelsea's record of 103 from four years ago. Sergio Agüero is probably thinking the same after one of Pablo Zabaleta's overlapping runs had presented him with the kind of chance he would normally score blindfolded.
No matter. Vincent Kompany's goal four minutes into the second half could not generate the mosh pit that Agüero set in motion on the final day two seasons ago but, for once, City's crowd might actually appreciate a party with a chill-out zone. West Ham were generous opponents and, for City, the only real problem was persuading their supporters to leave the pitch so the presentation could begin. "We want to see the trophy," the public announcer reminded everyone, with a crackle of irritation in his voice.
Eventually, it was brought on by three of the players – Ashley Brown, Joel Labotierre and Egan Riley – from City's trophy-winning sides at under-18, under-14 and under-11 level.
Greg Dyke, the FA chairman, had said it would be "pretty depressing" for a team to win the league with only a scattering of homegrown English players. This was not a direct riposte from City (it had been planned 10 days ago). But it was still a way of making a point. What a moment for Kompany, too, bearing in mind it was his error at Anfield a month ago that had threatened to extinguish City's chances of glory.
A lesser side might have crumpled, particularly after the clumpy 2-2 draw against Sunderland that left them six points behind the following Wednesday, with only one game in hand. City have made it a victory for resilience. Their song tells us they "fight to the end." The mosaic said: "Together." Among the banners, there was the message: "Nobody remembers who comes second." And City – calm, professional, slick, assured – made absolutely certain the title race had experienced its final twist.
Pellegrini, his medal still round his neck, made sure afterwards to mention the work of his predecessor, Roberto Mancini, but there was another moment later on, analysing a "beautiful great season," when he offered a rare glimpse into some of the issues he inherited.
"Maybe the relations were not the best," he said. "It was very important to have calm, to try to convince them how we can play, and how important it was to be close, all of us."
On the pitch, Kompany could be seen coaxing some of the fringe players to the presentation stage. Joleon Lescott had set up a photograph of the English players and Joe Hart was singing: "We are the quota." Yet there is a great sense of unity among a cosmopolitan squad. As Pellegrini said, there are no factions, no cliques, no disruptions.
Just consider the number of controversies that have accompanied this success (practically zero). Super City have Gone Holistic, to borrow the buzzword they introduced after Pellegrini had replaced Mancini.
They were ahead, five minutes before the interval, when Samir Nasri took a short pass from Yaya Touré and, with nobody closing him down, let fly from 25 yards. Adrián, the West Ham goalkeeper, got his glove to the shot but it was a weak attempt to keep it out.
The ball thudded in off the right-hand post and the Etihad was enveloped in the state of euphoria that culminated in Pellegrini, this man of quiet, measured dignity, getting the bumps from the victorious players. For a few moments, there were even a couple of hairs out of place.
The crowd's nerves had already been soothed because of the news filtering through from Anfield of Martin Skrtel's own goal and Kompany's close-range finish shooed away any lingering doubts. Edin Dzeko applied the first touch and the ball brushed off Nolan to fall invitingly for Kompany, inside the six-yard area. The crowd were on their third Poznan by the time the final whistle turned the pitch into a writhing mass of bodies.
West Ham had plodded through what could conceivably be Sam Allardyce's last game in charge. They defended stoutly for the opening half an hour but it has never been the structure and organisation of Allardyce's team that is in doubt. It is the absence of any real spark or creativity and, if this was the farewell, it petered out unsatisfactorily. They did not manage a single effort on target from their three shots and there was a note of tragicomedy attached to the chance that fell to Andy Carroll midway through the second half.
From West Ham's only real opening, Carroll attempted to bring down Stewart Downing's cross and his first touch sent it out for a corner. He was substituted a few minutes later.
Touré's celebrations were slightly tarnished by the hamstring injury that had forced him out of the game early but before then he had demonstrated again he was a worthy rival to Luis Suárez for the season's individual awards. Martín Demichelis deserves more acclaim than he has actually received for the way he has justified Pellegrini's faith and when the manager was asked about Nasri potentially missing out on France's World Cup squad it was rare to hear him so opinionated. "I can't believe Samir Nasri will not be going," was his verdict. "It will be an important mistake."
More than anything, there was the sense that if City play a wise hand then the Pellegrini era, unlike Mancini's, can sustain success. "Big teams cannot be satisfied with one title," Pellegrini continued. "On Tuesday we start working for the next season."
A meeting has been arranged in Abu Dhabi with Sheikh Mansour. It is just a pity City's owner does not make an appearance in Manchester. He would enjoy what he sees.
The Guardian
lundi 12 mai 2014
'Nothing can stop retreat' of West Antarctic glaciers (By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News)
Key glaciers in West Antarctica are in an irreversible retreat, scientists led from the US space agency (Nasa) say.
Although these are abrupt changes, the timescales involved are likely measured in centuries, the researchers add.
If the glaciers really do disappear, they would add roughly 1.2m to global sea level rise.
The new study has been accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union, but Nasa held a teleconference on Monday to brief reporters on the findings.
Prof Eric Rignot said warm ocean water was relentlessly eating away at the glaciers' fronts and that the geometry of the sea bed in the area meant that this erosion had now entered a runaway process.
"This retreat will have major consequences for sea level rise worldwide. It will raise sea levels by 1.2m, or 4ft, but its retreat will also influence adjacent sectors of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet which could triple this contribution to sea level.""We present observational evidence that a large section of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has gone into a state of irreversible retreat; it has passed the point of no return," the agency glaciologist explained.
The Amundsen Bay sector includes some of the biggest and fastest moving glaciers on Earth.
Pine Island Glacier (PIG), over which there has been intense research interest of late, covers about 160,000 sq km, or about two-thirds the area of the UK.
Like the Thwaites, Smith, Haynes, Pope, Smith and Kohler Glaciers in this region - the PIG has been thinning rapidly.
And its grounding line - the zone where the glacier enters the sea and lifts up and floats - has also reversed tens of km over recent decades.
What makes the group vulnerable is that their bulk actually sits below current sea level with the rock bed sloping inland towards the continent.
This is a geometry, say scientists, that invites further melting and further retreat.
The new study includes radar observations that map the underlying rock in the region, and this finds no ridge or significant elevation in topography that could act as a barrier to the glaciers' reverse.
"In our new study, we present additional data that the junction of the glaciers with the ocean - the grounding line - has been retreating at record speeds unmatched anywhere in the Antarctic," said Prof Rignot.
"We also present new evidence that there is no large hill at the back of these glaciers that could create a barrier and hold the retreat back. This is why we conclude that the disappearance of ice in this sector is unstoppable."
The researcher, who is also affiliated to the University of California, Irvine, attributed the underlying driver of these changes to global warming.
This, together with atmospheric behaviours influenced by a loss of ozone in the stratosphere, had created stronger winds in the Southern Ocean that were now drawing more warm water towards and under the glaciers.
Dr Tom Wagner, the cryosphere program scientist with Nasa, said it was clear that, in the case of these six glaciers, a threshold had been crossed.
"The results are not based on computer simulations or numerical models; they are based on the interpretation of observations," he told reporters.
"And I think this is an important point because this sometimes can get lost on the general public when they're trying to understand climate change and the implications."
Prof Rignot and colleagues put no real timescales on events, but a paper released by the journal Science to coincide with the Nasa media conference tries to do just this.
It does include computer modelling and was led by Dr Ian Joughin, a glaciologist at the University of Washington's Applied Physics Laboratory. The study considers the particular case of Thwaites Glacier.
In the model, Dr Joughin's team is able to reproduce very accurately the behaviour of the glacier over the past 20 years.
The group then runs the model forwards to try to forecast future trends.
This, likewise, indicates that a collapse of the glacier is inevitable, and suggests it will most likely occur in the next 200 to 500 years.
Prof Andy Shepherd, from Leeds University, UK, is connected with neither Rignot's nor Joughin's work.
He told BBC News: "[Joughin's] new simulations are a game changing result, as they shine a spotlight on Thwaites Glacier, which has until now played second fiddle to its neighbour Pine Island Glacier in terms of ice losses.
"There is now little doubt that this sector of West Antarctica is in a state of rapid retreat, and the burning question is whether and how soon this retreat might escalate into irreversible collapse. Thankfully, we now have an array of satellites capable of detecting the tell-tale signs, and their observations will allow us to monitor the progress and establish which particular scenario Thwaites Glacier will follow."
Phrasal verbs: lesson & exercice
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vendredi 9 mai 2014
Why we need to make good processed food
Can we create meals that are both satisfying and enjoyable but more convenient and better tailored to our physical needs? Glenn Zorpette thinks so.
Processed food has a bad reputation: nutritionally bankrupt, and loaded with sugar, fat and salt. But it doesn’t have to be unhealthy, says Zorpette, Executive Editor of engineering magazine IEEE Spectrum. As populations increase and the effects of climate change begin to take hold, we will face shortages in protein, so it’s important to realise this and investigate how to use processed food to address this.
Meat has a very large ecological footprint, so what are the alternatives? Zorpette is particularly optimistic about meat analogues based on vegetable protein. One significant advance in the area is high-moisture meat analogues (HMMAs). They are similar in texture to cooked chicken, though he thinks the flavour is not quite there. So adults used to eating chicken breasts in a light sauce may not take to the substitutes, but it is a promising possibility that younger people may grow up with these substitutes and get used to them.
There will come a time when we all know our full genetic sequence, says Zorpette, and doctors will be able to tell a person’s nutritional needs from this information. We can also measure people’s activities through wearable technology. So it’s not too hard to envision a world in which all this information is fed into an app or device that helps individuals to understand their optimum nutritional needs. It may even be the case that we have machines at home that can print out this food for us.
Glenn Zorpette spoke to BBC Future at SXSW Interactive in Austin Texas.
mardi 6 mai 2014
Will we ever… control the weather?
We’ve long tried to make it rain, and now scientists aim to harness lightning with lasers and hurricanes with oil slicks. Is manipulating weather possible?
With 2,000 drummers, 15,000 other performers and vast quantities of fireworks, the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics was a dazzling spectacle. It was also a dry one. In the run-up to the event, held during the rainy season, the Chinese authorities fired 1,100 rockets into the skies in an effort to intercept and trigger downpours before they reached the capital city.
The night of the ceremony saw 100mm (4in) of rain fall on the nearby city of Baoding, but none in Beijing. Proof positive that we can successfully control the weather, say many, but how true is this?
Efforts to keep nature at bay in this manner aren't new. It’s almost 70 years since US scientists first suggested seeding clouds with particles to stimulate precipitation, and the State of California has been using the technique for 50 years. “The interest in this last year has been dramatically greater because of the drought conditions in California,” says Jeff Tilley, director of weather modification at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada.
In 2008, Chinese authorities fired 1,100 rockets into the skies to divert rain from Beijing during the Olympics (Getty Images)
Several forms of cloud seeding are used, depending on prevailing conditions. Seeding involves adding crystals of a material like silver iodide to the clouds, around which the tiny droplets can condense. As more water freezes onto the crystals, they eventually grow large enough to fall as precipitation. The silver iodide is generally scattered onto the cloud from aircraft, but some, such as the Chinese, also use rockets. In California, this is often done during the winter when temperatures inside the clouds are far below freezing. Very pure water can remain liquid at well below 0C, and clouds contain tiny droplets of this “supercooled” water that are too light to fall as rain or snow.
Storm brewing
In 2010, Jerome Kasparian at the University of Geneva in Switzerland came up with a new method to summon clouds – this time using lasers. He says tests under carefully controlled laboratory conditions show this works by stripping electrons from the atoms in the air, forming positively charged particles that help generate tiny “seeds” around which ice or rain drops can grow. Some however remain sceptical, arguing that what has been demonstrated in the lab cannot necessarily be repeated in the variable and unpredictable conditions of our atmosphere.
Tilley says scepticism around cloud seeding is understandable because relatively little funding goes into research that could convince doubters it works. “The people providing the funding are already convinced it works, so they would rather just fund actual seeding operations,” he says.
Today that funding often comes from authorities wishing to guarantee water supplies (although the US military was once reportedly interested in using cloud seeding to extend the Monsoon season during the Vietnam War as part of its combat strategy). Several airports in the western US including Boise Airport, in Idaho, use cloud seeding as part of efforts to clear thick fog that would otherwise cause flight delays.
Another laser-based weather control system could help keep airports open during severe thunderstorms. In 2004, Kasparian and his colleagues fired laser pulses into thunderclouds in an attempt to suck out lightning in a controlled manner. Their efforts were unsuccessful – perhaps because the laser beams needed to be more powerful to trigger lightning, says Kasparian. Yet a similar experiment by another research team in 2012 succeeded, at least in the lab. They used a laser to divert artificial lightning so that it travelled down a controlled path.
Twister resistance
What about our ability to prevent dangerous weather formations such as tornadoes? Speaking at the recent American Physical Society conference in Denver, Rongjia Tao, of Temple University in Philadelphia suggested that tall walls may hold the key to preventing devastating twisters.
Tao says tornadoes form in America’s Midwest because of the interaction between hot air from the south and cold air from the north. The problem is most severe in the infamous tornado alley – a vast plain running from Texas in the south to Nebraska in the north. Three 300-metre-tall east-west walls – one running through North Dakota, one between Kansas and Oklahoma, and one in Texas and Louisiana – would slow the flow of air and reduce the threat posed by tornadoes in the region forever, Tao says.
Could tall walls help to prevent devastating tornados from forming? (Thinkstock)
Some meteorologists were quick to argue the walls wouldn’t work. Violent tornadoes can form where there are relatively small differences in temperature of the mixing air, said some, which may explain why China still experiences tornadoes despite possessing natural east-west “walls” in the form of mountain chains. Tao counters that China had only three tornadoes in 2013, compared to 811 in the US.
Windbreaker
Beyond tornadoes, there are also efforts to control hurricanes. One approach tested in the early 2000s involved using aircraft to dump thousands of kilogrammes of a water-absorbing polymer into hurricanes to simply soak up the storm. It didn’t work.
Beyond tornadoes, there are also efforts to control hurricanes. One approach tested in the early 2000s involved using aircraft to dump thousands of kilogrammes of a water-absorbing polymer into hurricanes to simply soak up the storm. It didn’t work.
Other researchers have suggested using non-toxic oil slicks to calm the surface of the ocean and prevent the formation of the ocean spray that eventually evolves into a hurricane – literally pouring oil onto troubled waters. And earlier this year, US researchers suggested offshore wind farms could reduce the wind speeds of hurricanes.
Tilley says the oil idea, at least, may have some merit. “It came up again during the Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010,” he says. “People speculated about the effects the slick would have on tropical cyclones. But the oil slick started to disperse more quickly than expected so the research never got funded.”
For Hugh Willoughby at the Florida International University in Miami, though, plans to tame hurricanes are pie in the sky. “Nearly all of the schemes are utter nonsense,” he says. Draining the energy out of a hurricane is a tall order, because the storm systems are a lot more powerful than people realise. “They release heat at a rate equivalent to a 10-megaton nuclear bomb exploding every 20 minutes.” Using oil to nip hurricanes in the bud before they form won’t work either, he says, because it’s impossible to predict which of the many storm disturbances seen in the ocean will actually become a hurricane.
So will we ever control the weather? Some say we have succeeded for years, others that we will struggle to do so for decades. The debate rages on. About the only thing we can be sure of is that when those on either side of the debate meet, the outlook looks likely to remain stormy for some time to come.
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