Category: News

Usually, I can get batter evenly divided into a muffin tin without any problems using a spoon or a small ladle. Once in a while, however, the stars align against me and I end up with muffin batter that wants to get stuck to the top of the pan, rather than sitting neatly in its muffin cups. It was after I had spend some time scrubbing caked-on batter off of the top of a pan that I started to wonder if there was an easier way to get batter into those muffin cups in the first place. It turns out that there is. The Wilton Easy Pour Funnel is a funnel with a trigger that opens and closes the spout of the funnel as you pull it, letting melted chocolate, cake batter, or even pancake batter flow out neatly and easily.

The funnel is not huge and is primarily designed for getting melted chocolate into candy molds, but it is large enough to handle most batters and will do well with thinner ones (like pancakes and some cupcake batters). Its size means that it is easy to clean and handle, even if you might need to refill it from the main mixing bowl as you work. Not only will it work well for you, but it will also work well for kids who might not have as steady of a hand when pouring batter and will enjoy the novelty and stability that the funnel gives them – especially if you let them do some chocolate work with it!

It seems Home will finally be leaving its beta phase behind later this year. That’s according to Veemee, a company that has had a hand in a bunch of Home content including the London Pub and some

The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University has announced the 48 women and men selected to be Radcliffe Institute fellows in 2010–11. These creative artists, humanists, scientists, and social scientists were chosen — from a pool of nearly 900 applicants — for their superior scholarship, research, or artistic endeavors, as well as the potential of their projects to yield long-term impact. While at Radcliffe, they will work within and across disciplines.

Two Radcliffe Institute professors will join the community of fellows next year. Joanna Aizenberg, the Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at Radcliffe and the Amy Smith Berylson Professor of Materials Science at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), will lead a thematic cluster in biomimetics, and Nancy E. Hill, the Suzanne Murray Professor at Radcliffe and a professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, will study cultural belief systems and ethnic group variations in parenting and children’s development.

“We welcome these distinguished fellows to the Radcliffe Institute and we enthusiastically await the important discoveries, artistic creations, and collaborations — within Radcliffe and in the wider Harvard and local communities — that will emerge during their time here,” said Barbara J. Grosz, dean of the Radcliffe Institute and Higgins Professor of Natural Sciences at SEAS.

Now in its 10th year, the Radcliffe Institute Fellowship Program has awarded fellowships to more than 500 accomplished and promising artists, scientists, and scholars. Past fellows include Elizabeth Alexander, the fourth U.S. presidential inaugural poet; Mulatu Astatke, founder of the hybrid musical form Ethio Jazz; Debra Fischer, who has participated in the discovery of roughly half the known extrasolar planets; and Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Tony Horwitz.

For a list of fellows and their projects.

Is Mariah Carey with child?

The singing star, now 40, has reportedly been undergoing fertility treatments in hopes of conceiving a child with hubby Nick Cannon. Now she’s fueled pregnancy rumors after jumping ship on a new Tyler Perry drama, citing medical reasons.

The singer was slated to follow up her award-winning success in the Lee Daniels drama Precious by appearing in Perry’s film adaptation of Ntozake Shange’s 1975 play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf, set to begin shooting next month. However, Carey mysteriously pulled out this week, offering little explanation.

Her rep hasn’t been much help either.

“She is not doing the movie because her doctor advised her not to,” the star’s publicist Cindy Berger tells PEOPLE.com. “More than that I cannot comment further.”

For Colored Girls will begin filming as scheduled, featuring an all-star cast, which includes: Janet Jackson, Kimberly Elise, Whoopi Goldberg, Kerry Washington, Macy Gray, Phylicia Rashad, Jill Scott, Loretta Devine and Anika Noni Rose.

Article Tags: Facebook, Met Office, Updated, World Temperatures, You could not make it up

Their promises of a barbecue summer and a mild winter in 2009 could hardly have been more wrong, but the Met Office is now predicting extreme droughts like the one that gripped Britain in the summer of 1976 could become much more common.

The drought of 1976 culminated in a 18-month period of below average rainfall which started in May 1975. The period was marked by daily fires and dry river beds, while agriculture suffered badly, with an estimated £500 million in failed crops.

A study by the meteorologists looked at how frequently droughts could occur in the UK by 2100 in the face of global warming.

The researchers ran a series of simulations of their climate model to see how weather patterns may change in the future, and the majority showed extreme dry spells would become more common.

There was a range of 11 different versions of the model.

Updated below with FaceBook/Ask Jeeves link for Met Office Competition TODAY!! (27th May)

Source: dailymail.co.uk

Read in full with comments »   

Successful people are considered to be better future prognosticators than average. Why? Because it is assumed they must have known something about the future at some previous point in order to become as successful as they are. (Unfortunately Taleb’s various injunctions as to the workings of randomness fall on deaf ears, as do Gladwell’s many observations as to the tricky relationship between cause and effect.)

In 1995, at the height of Microsoft’s power over the economy and the zeitgeist (before Google came into its own, before Apple renewed, etc.) Bill Gates wrote “The Road Ahead,” which was, as one would expect, a broadly techno-optimistic look at the future. Did it see 9/11? No. Iraq War 2? No. The Credit Crunch? No. For a start it only really thinks about digital technology, and that’s going to be a very partial guide to the road ahead, at best.

But, in a recent The Atlantic article, “Bill Gates: More Profit than Prophet,” Tom McNichol evaluates Gates’s foresight on its own terms. As reproduced below, he finds it more “miss” than “hit.”

In general, Gates makes the mistakes outlined in Future Savvy, particularly in predicting the future based on its technological possibility rather than economic or social practicality. He’s short on systemic/feedback thinking and therefore misses side effects and unintended consequences. He also falls into the wishful-thinking bias: mixing up what he and (and Microsoft business) would like the future to be with what it really will be.

This last factor is less a mistake than a classic tool of future advocacy, and Gates would no doubt admit to a bit of this. It is illuminating (and sobering for future predictors) to see how much of the digital future Microsoft had within in its area of control in 1995, which it ceded to others. That lowered Microsoft’s ability to influence the road ahead and therefore weakened Gates’ predictions.

The McNichol analysis (shortened in places):

E-Mail
Prediction: Gates wrote, “Electronic mail and shared screens will eliminate the need for many meetings. … when face-to-face meetings do take place, they will be more efficient because participants will have already exchanged background information by e-mail. … information overload is not unique to the (information) highway, and it needn’t be a problem.”
Verdict: Miss. Gates’s view of e-mail now seems naively Utopian, failing to account for unintended consequences. If anything, e-mail has made workplace meetings more frequent and less efficient. “Didn’t you get that e-mail?” is probably the single most common question posed at meetings, a query that often leads to … another meeting.

The Wallet PC
Prediction: “You’ll be able to carry the wallet PC in your pocket or purse. It will display messages and schedules and also let you read or send electronic mail and faxes, monitor weather and stock reports, play both simple and sophisticated games, browse information if you’re bored, or choose from among thousands of easy-to-call up photos of your kids.”
Verdict: Hit. Gates’s wallet PC is more or less today’s mobile smartphone with voice capability added.

Wireless Networks
Prediction: “The wireless networks of the future will be faster, but unless there is a major breakthrough, wired networks will have a far greater bandwidth. Mobile devices will be able to send and receive messages, but it will be expensive and unusual to use them to receive an individual video stream.”
Verdict: Miss. Today, receiving a wireless video stream is neither expensive nor unusual; in fact, it’s so commonplace that most people don’t give it a second thought. Gates failed to anticipate that wireless would become cheaper and faster, but his chief mistake was a common but flawed assumption among techno-futurists: that new technology is adopted chiefly on the basis of technological superiority rather than social factors.

Social Networking
Prediction: “The (information) highway will not only make it easier to keep up with distant friends, it will also enable us to find new companions. Friendships formed across the network will lead naturally to getting together in person.”
Verdict: Hit and Miss. One of the killer apps of the information highway has turned out to be social networking… But friendships formed online don’t regularly lead to face-to-face meetings. Far more common is the user with 250 Facebook friends, most of whom he rarely, if ever, sees in person.

Online Shopping
Prediction: “Because the information highway will carry video, you’ll often be able to see exactly what you’ve ordered. … you won’t have to wonder whether the flowers you ordered for your mother by telephone were really as stunning as you’d hoped. You’ll be able to watch the florist arrange the bouquet, change your mind if you want, and replace wilting roses with fresh anemones.”
Verdict: Miss. Gates was right that the information highway would carry video, but he completely misread the social and economic factors that would shape its use in online commerce. How on earth would a harried florist find the time to hold a videoconference with every customer who orders flowers for Mother’s Day? What company would absorb the colossal expense of having orders changed at the last second according to customers’ shifting whims? Gates’s vision of online shopping has turned out to be a lot like past predictions about personal jet packs and moving sidewalks: a future that’s technologically possible but socially and economically impractical.

Videoconferencing
Prediction: “Small video devices using cameras attached to personal computers or television sets will allow us to meet readily across the information highway with much higher quality pictures and sound for lower prices.”
Verdict: Hit. What came to be called webcams are standard issue on PCs, or can be purchased from Bill Gates’s favorite company for under $30.

The Internet and the Web
Prediction: Gates’s 286-page book mentions the World Wide Web on only four of its pages, and portrays the Internet as a subset of a much a larger “Information Superhighway.” … Verdict: Miss. Gates’s notion that the Internet would play a supporting role in the information highway of the future, rather than being the highway itself, was out-of-date the day The Road Ahead was published… and he made major revisions to a second edition of The Road Ahead, adding material that highlighted the significance of the Internet. In many ways, Gates’s cloudy crystal ball regarding the Internet amounted to wishful thinking. Gates built Microsoft into a global powerhouse by selling proprietary software that users loaded onto their PCs. He wasn’t likely to warm to the idea that the same functions could be delivered cheaper and faster through a decentralized network that he couldn’t control.

Privacy
Predication: “A decade from now, you may shake your head that there was ever a time when any stranger or wrong number could interrupt you at home with a phone call. … by explicitly indicating allowable interruptions, you will be able to establish your home — or anywhere you choose — as your sanctuary.”
Verdict: Little Hit, Big Miss. It’s true that technology lets you explicitly indicate allowable interruptions — you can use caller ID to dodge unwanted calls or sign up at the National Do Not Call Registry to nix telemarketers. But the notion that technology would pave the way to greater privacy has turned out to be anything but true.

Tweet This Post

Remember when everyone was like “I’m returning my iPad? It’s the garbage?” That was SO early Spring 2010. The new hotness is increased iPad affection with a soupcon of wistful disappointment that comes to the folks who originally attacked the iPad and are now smitten. It was so fun to have a flat, glassy enemy back in April!

First, anecdotally, Disrupt this week featured so many iPads you could have feasibly placed one on every seat in the auditorium and still had iPads left over to pave halls by the loading dock. The iPad is the new iPhone but the tamagotchi effect – that thing you see where people just endlessly fiddle with their iPhones in public, rubbing them like hamsters – just doesn’t happened. The iPad sits, open, on your table in front of you and you occasionally brush your hand over it like a sleepy wizard. It doesn’t require as much attention as the iPhone.

Then you have Fred Wilson who, at first, was against the iPad and then he was for it. Why? Because it is unobtrusive.

Here’s what I think is going on. The iPad hits a sweet spot between a “device” and a piece of printed matter. If you see someone at dinner whipping out a phone, they’re a douche. But the iPad requires a bit more preparation and since it looks like a book or a magazine, we process its intrusion differently. If you pull it out in mixed company, it’s to show them something. It’s not so you can check 50 email messages and send tweets while everyone else is toasting the bride and groom.

Because the iPad looks like a book, the rules of book reading apply. If you’re outside using it, you’re available. You wouldn’t shush someone as you skimmed the Do’s and Don’t in Glamour just as you wouldn’t shush someone while using the iPad. It’s not a private activity, really. The screen is big and there’s always something you can share on the iPad’s screen with the other person. It’s inclusive rather than exclusive.

So go ahead and hate your neighbor and go ahead and cheat a friend, but don’t claim the iPad hasn’t hit a sweet spot with far to many people to dismiss it.

It’s the slow season here at the footnoted global campus: Filings are coming in at a trickle compared to the flood we saw in April and early May. Many of the ones we’re seeing are the results of recent annual meetings.

Cablevision aside, these tend to be dull affairs: Uncontested incumbents are re-elected, vague executive incentive plans are adopted, auditors are rehired, and shareholder proposals are shot down — from greenhouse gas emissions at coal company Massey Energy (MEE) to bird welfare at BJ’s Wholesale Club (BJ).

Once in a while, however, there’s a little excitement on the stockholder proposal front, and that’s what we saw earlier this week — with very different outcomes — at both Williams Cos. (WMB) and Hartford Financial Services (HIG).

At Williams Cos., shareholders passed a “say on pay” proposal — akin to one of the measures in pending congressional regulatory-reform legislation — despite stern opposition from the board and management. The final vote was 224.8 million share for, and 201.5 million shares against, or 53% to 47%, according to one of the 8-Ks the company filed yesterday. (The Tulsa World Herald got the scoop on the day of the actual meeting last week.)

The proposal, published in the April 8 proxy, was pretty straightforward:

“That the shareholders of THE WILLIAMS COMPANIES request its Board of Directors to adopt a policy that provides shareholders the opportunity at each annual meeting to vote on an advisory resolution, prepared by management, to ratify the compensation of the named-executive officers listed in the proxy statement’s Summary Compensation Table. “

It wouldn’t, the sponsor stressed up high, “affect any compensation paid or awarded any named-executive officer.” Gerald Roberts, the sponsor identified by the World Herald, who has campaigned for similar proposals for years, explained his motivation there:

“As a shareholder, I am concerned about the levels of compensation afforded our top management and members of the board of directors, who are to be independent, when the dividend seems frozen for the last two years.”

For the record, total compensation for Chairman and Chief Executive Steven J. Malcolm for last year was $9.5 million, according to the proxy’s summary compensation table.

No word from Williams Cos. on implementation, but one can imagine the board wasn’t pleased, given its invective against the original proposal. It called the proposal unnecessary and misleading, and said primly (echoing just about every other corporate rebuttal to a pay proposal that we’ve seen) that

“The Board has carefully considered this stockholder proposal and believes that the proposal is both not necessary and not in the best interests of our stockholders … [in part] because of the strong linkage between pay and performance that currently exists within our pay programs … Our pay program is structured to motivate and drive performance, emphasize long-term performance, and align our NEOs’ interests with those of long-term stockholders.”

Mind you, it’s not as if Williams Cos. shareholders were in a full-on, throw-the-bums-out revolt: The three directors on the ballot each received at least 97% of the vote, amendments to the 2007 incentive plan were approved 329 million to 35.3 million, and a proposal requesting an environmental report on some gas exploration and production business was shot down 149 million for vs. 207 million against.

Over at Hartford, meantime, another modest proposal failed, but the nays only squeaked past the yeas by a relatively slim margin: 164.5 million against vs. 152 million for, according to the 8-K it filed on Tuesday. That’s a good bit short of the 222 million it would have needed to pass (a majority of outstanding shares), but interesting nonetheless, because the proposal — from the pension plan of the big public-workers union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — would have required the company to change its bylaws and “allow for the reimbursement of certain proxy expenses incurred in connection with a stockholder proposed director nomination.”

It would have covered proxy efforts fielding a partial slate of directors as long as at least one won a seat and the move wasn’t meant to take over the board, according to the proposal Hartford’s proxy. AFSCME added:

“In our opinion, the power of stockholders to elect directors is the most important mechanism for ensuring that corporations are managed in stockholders’ interests. … The safety valve is ineffective, however, unless there is a meaningful threat of director replacement.”

Hartford opposed it in part on the grounds that the SEC was already proposing rules that would give shareholders proxy access in certain circumstances. But really, it just didn’t like the idea:

“The AFSCME proposal would encourage an increase in contested elections, which would result in increased distraction of management from the Company’s ordinary business and could result in increased costs to the Company and its shareholders, with no showing that it is needed. “

Management and the board won the day, of course. But the strong showing by AFSCME’s supporters may lead them to perk up and take note.

Image source: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com via Flickr

————

Want to see more of what’s hidden in corporate filings? Check out FootnotedPro, where we highlight unusual opportunities and potential problems well in advance of the market. For more information or to inquire about a trial subscription, email us at [email protected].

Brabus Stealth 65

About two weeks ago, we saw something called the Brabus VANISH a one-off Mercedes-Benz SL 65 AMG Black Series that makes 788-hp and goes from 0-62 mph in 3.6 seconds. It was known as the fastest, most exclusive SL 65 AMG Black Series on planet Earth… until now.

Click here for prices on the 2011 Mercedes-Benz SL-Class.

Meet the new Brabus Stealth 65. The 6.0L AMG V12 biturbo engine from the Mercedes-Benz SL 65 AMG Black Series has been upgraded to produce a whopping 809-hp with a maximum torque of 1,047 lb-ft. The standard SL 65 AMG Black Series makes 661-hp and a peak torque of 738 lb-ft.

The Brabus Stealth 65 uses the T65 RS tuning kit from the VANISH, but engineers at the tuning firm added a little something extra to give that extra 21-hp.

Of course, the Stealth 65 is owned by some very rich guy in Dubai with a very expensive license plate.

Hit the jump for the high-res image gallery.

Brabus Stealth 65 (Mercedes-Benz SL 65 AMG Black Series):

– By: Omar Rana

Source: Brabus (via WCF)

Almost 10 percent of the country is traveling this weekend, and most will be going more than 50 miles. This makes Memorial Day the perfect time to get caught speeding. You may think more cars on the road equals more cover. But there will also be more police. We have a few ideas for your trip, and all of them involve not getting caught and ticketed.

It helps if you’re armed with some intelligence about speed traps.

That’s where Trapster from Reach Unlimited Corporation comes in. It’s a free iPhone app that keeps track of speed traps, heavy enforcement zones and speed cameras in real-time. Users post their own trap and camera locations, and other drivers can see and avoid them. When a driver goes through an area, he can vote on how serious the police presence is. Once started, the app works hands-free. The best way to use it is to mount it on your dash where a GPS usually is, this way it won’t distract you.

If you don’t have an iPhone, there’s always www.speedtraps.com. This site lists all the major speedtraps in across the country. For those who don’t know, a speedtrap is a spot where police usually hide to catch fast drivers. Sometimes it’s just over a hill or around a curve. Other times, the natural scenery gives officers the perfect cover. In either case, when you’re informed, it’s much easier to check your speed or to just avoid the area entirely.

Here are some places to really mind your speed.

California

– Outside LAX, southbound on Sepulveda

The officer sets up in a bus stop catching drivers as the speed limit changes.

– 805 Freeway southbound, just south of the 8 Freeway

The California Highway Patrol sits around the wide sweeping curve, just past the 8 Freeway. Look out.

New York

– FDR Drive under the Brooklyn Bridge

Slow down before climbing the hill to get on FDR. If you can see the officer, it’s too late.

– Clearview Expressway southbound off Throngs Neck Bridge

It’s a large empty road with few vehicles, easy to speed, easy to get caught.

Michigan

– I-94 near Ten Mile Road

The speed limit drops from 70 to 55 near a curve. Keep your head up and speed down.

– Eight Mile Road near John R. Road.

It’s easy to come off the freeway at a good clip onto Eight Mile, but the speed limit is 40 mph.

Texas

– U.S. Highway 183 near Oak Knoll Drive

Cops target cars going north. Drivers have to illegally cross three lanes to get to Frontage Road. Don’t do it!

North Carolina

– Liles Parkway between Poplar Tent and Weddington Road.

Police sit on an unused turnoff; they point toward Poplar Tent.

Maryland

– I-95 southbound in Baltimore near Whitemarsh Boulevard. The speed limit changes near the McHenry tunnel, right by the speed cameras.

Arizona

– I-10 westbound to SR51 north

This is another place where the speed limit drops unexpectedly, with an unmanned speed camera waiting.

Rural Road near Rio Salado Parkway

– One of many speed traps in the Tempe-Scottsdale area, the limit goes to 35 mph and the sign is hard to see.

For more

Source: Car news, reviews and auto show stories

The BBC will be one of the first content providers in the UK to have video available on the Apple iPad when it ships across the pond tomorrow, according to Mark Prigg of the Evening Standard. Prigg tweeted yesterday that Erik Huggers, the BBC’s director of future media and technology, said an iPad-ready version of the BBC’s latest iPlayer site would be ready for viewing on the device when it becomes available to users in the UK market.

The news comes just a day after the Beeb launched the latest version of its iPlayer site online, which integrates more social viewing features into the video catchup service. And it follows on the heels of similar high-profile video services from Netflix, ABC and CBS, which were made available during the iPad launch in the U.S.

Unlike Netflix and ABC, which came out with dedicated apps for video playback, the BBC iPlayer will be available through an iPad-optimized browser. And since the BBC currently uses Adobe Flash for its web videos, which isn’t supported on the iPad, the broadcaster will instead rely on HTML5 video encoded in the H.264 video format. That’s the same approach taken by CBS in the U.S., which is working to ensure that all videos available on CBS.com through PC web browsers will also be viewable on the iPad.

While the BBC iPlayer will initially be available in the browser on the new tablet device, it may release an iPad app at some point in the future. The broadcaster is still trying to determine whether it can release free apps of its content on mobile devices such as the iPad or iPhone, or if that action would be considered harmful to its commercial peers. That decision — which would be made by the BBC Trust — has already delayed the release of news and sports iPhone apps in the UK, due to concerns by newspaper rivals that allege such apps would undermine their ability to create commercial services on those devices. In the meantime, Huggers says the broadcaster will make sure its iPlayer videos are playable in the iPad’s Safari browser.

“The BBC Trust has decided that it wants to take a look at the BBC’s plans for applications in general. That is within the gift of the BBC Trust to decide,” Huggers told the Register. “But through the browser we will absolutely make iPlayer available on the iPad.”

Related content on GigaOM Pro: TV Apps: Evolution from Novelty to Mainstream (subscription required)

This NASA time lapse video shows how the Gulf of Mexico oil rig disaster evolved from April 20, the day of the explosion, to May 24. The images were taken by the MODIS instrument in NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites. More »










NASA – Space – Gulf Oil – Gulf of Mexico – Technology

A while back, a young blogger named Jaden wrote about his college biology teacher who used the opportunity of his class to teach creationism and abstinence:

He started off his discussion by saying that there are two ideas (not theories, but ideas) of how life became how it is on Earth. He closed the classroom’s door. Once the door was closed, he glossed over the scientific explanation very quickly (less than 20 seconds), then explained Creationism for about five minutes (5000 year old Earth, no evolution, etc). He then said that accepted scientific thought is the first, and that’s what the school wants him to teach, “…but we all know which one is right.” WHOA! […] After he finished his Creationism lecture, he opened the classroom door again.

Yegads. That post was from April 23. Now that classes are over and grades finalized, on May 21 Jaden gave details. He did what I would’ve: approached the Dean of Science and told her the biology teacher was a crackpot.

What happened?

[The Dean] acted like I was being unreasonable. She said two things that really sit poorly with me. She told me that he is completely entitled to share his opinions in class. Then, she said eluded to the fact that I’m being intolerant of his beliefs and need to show more respect for him.

Ha!

First, this is not public high school, so the teacher can, if he so pleases, teach that Thor created the Universe by cracking an ostrich egg in two and then dancing around nude on one foot while swinging a lawn mower blade around his head (being careful not to nick his winged helm, of course). He can do that, but should he do that there should be repercussions. Just as there should be if he teaches creationism, a provably wrong idea that goes counter to everything a science class represents.

But clearly the Dean disagrees. Here’s what Jaden learned:

What I took away from this meeting with Dr. Williams was that my school didn’t care about science content in its science classes.

He’s right. The next step I would take would be to talk to the people that accredit colleges in Oklahoma. I am not saying that Jaden’s college should have their accreditation taken away, but I certainly think a focused and deep investigation is warranted. What other wacky (and useless) stuff is being taught there?

In the second year of the David Rockefeller International Experience Grants Program, more than 400 Harvard College students accepted funding for international internships, volunteer projects, study abroad programs, and research opportunities in 53 countries across the world. With the generosity of David Rockefeller ’36, LL.D. ’69, this grant program was developed to give students the opportunity to gain a broader understanding of the world and to learn about other countries and peoples by spending at least eight weeks immersed in a culture other than their own.

This year’s recipients will conduct independent research on diverse topics, such as the experience of aging and dementia in France, the Tomb Shrines of Sayyidah Zaynab in Egypt, and forest succession in tropical forests in Panama. Recipients participating in internships and service activities will support both corporate and nonprofit organizations, such as Gucci Worldwide in Italy, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Switzerland, the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, and the New Hope Orphanage in Uganda. Students will participate in 23 Harvard Summer School study abroad programs, as well as summer study programs supported by 40 other academic institutions.

The David Rockefeller International Experience Grants Program is administered through the Office of Career Services. For more information about the program.

The Center for European Studies (CES) recently announced its 2010-11 student grant winners, continuing its long tradition of promoting and funding student research on political, historical, economic, social, cultural, and intellectual trends in modern or contemporary Europe. Thirty-four undergraduates will pursue thesis research and internships in Europe this summer, while 18 graduate students have been awarded support for their dissertations over the coming year.

CES undergraduate senior thesis travel grants fund summer research in Europe for juniors in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences preparing senior theses. Graduate summer travel grants and graduate dissertation research fellowships fund students who plan to spend either a summer or up to a year in Europe conducting dissertation research, while graduate dissertation writing fellowships are intended to support doctoral candidates as they complete their dissertations. These grants and fellowships are funded by the Krupp Foundation and by the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies.

Marie-Ange Bunga, a graduating M.P.A./M.C. student at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), has started the Congo Initiative at Harvard, a student organization aiming to increase awareness about the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“The scramble for minerals in eastern Congo is the crux of this tragedy,” she says. “These minerals, used to produce cell phones and computers in the U.S. and elsewhere, is fueling the conflict.”

Bunga and advocates are pressing for passage of the bipartisan Congo Conflict Minerals Act and the Congo Relief, Security and Democracy Promotion Act of 2006. They’re also urging the appointment of a U.S. special envoy for Congo.

“We urgently need help from people with interest in the Congo, its politics and economy, and the issues related to its mineral resources,” says Bunga, who collaborated with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Harvard Defense Against Genocide, and the Human Rights Center at HKS, and sought connections with other universities.

Though graduating, Bunga is hopeful her legacy will live on in the capable hands of more concerned students. To express your interest or learn more about issues in the Congo, contact [email protected].

Fernando M. Reimers, Ford Foundation Professor of International Education and director of the International Education Policy Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, has been appointed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to serve on the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).

The commission is a federal advisory committee to the Department of State that supports worldwide humanitarian development and values by coordinating efforts and delivering expert advice from federal, state, and local governments, as well as non-governmental organizations on issues of education, science, communications, and culture.

The following faculty members have been named full professors with tenure in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences:

David Charbonneau, professor of astronomy, is an international leader in the search for planets orbiting stars other than our sun. He has been a member of the Harvard faculty since 2004.

Matthew Nock, professor of psychology, is a clinical psychologist renowned for his research on self-injury and suicidal behavior in adolescents and adults. He has been on the Harvard faculty since 2003.

James M. Snyder Jr., professor of government, has examined how well Congress represents the economic, political, and social values of the American electorate. He was previously the Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science and Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1992.

Malika Zeghal, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Professor in Contemporary Islamic Thought and Life, has examined the changing relationship between Islam and governments across the Middle East. She was previously associate professor of the anthropology and sociology of religion at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School, where she has been a member of the faculty since 2005.

For complete announcements.