It?s a different Matt Wieters these days. When the most ballyhooed young catcher in Orioles history came to town nearly three years ago, he seemed sweet and innocent.
Wieters? salad days are over.
As Wieters begins to start his fourth season?his third complete one?as the Orioles? catcher, he draws respect from his teammates and around baseball.
Drafted fifth among all players in 2007, Wieters rocketed through the minors, and by late May 2009, he was the catcher.
Andy MacPhail took over as team president shortly after he was drafted in June 2007, and was given the authority to sign Wieters. His agent, Scott Boras, had a rocky relationship with the Orioles, and MacPhail overcame that?signing him to a deadline deal worth $6 million.
Wieters didn?t make his professional debut until the next spring, and what a debut it was. In 130 games at Frederick and Bowie, he hit .355 with 27 home runs and 91 RBIs and played outstanding defensively.
In spring training, he looked overmatched at the plate, but once he went to Frederick, Wieters felt comfortable. Even though his statistics warranted a September callup, MacPhail resisted?and started him at Norfolk the next year.
The Orioles didn?t bring him up until May 29. He was batting .305 with 5 home runs and 30 RBIs, and performing well behind the plate.
MacPhail didn?t want to rush Wieters, and by waiting until late May, he did his successors a huge favor?keeping him under team control for another year?until 2016. Wieters can play nearly seven seasons with the Orioles until he?s eligible for free agency.
If he continues to play as well as he did last season, Wieters will be a most valuable commodity and an impossible one to replace for the Orioles.
He caught 132 games, making the All-Star team and winning a Gold Glove?both for the first time. Wieters threw out 37 percent of the runners who attempted to steal, and it?s likely fewer will try to run on him this year.
Wieters batted .262 with 22 home runs and 68 RBIs?both marked improvements from his first complete season in 2010.
Manager Buck Showalter hopes the acquisition of Taylor Teagarden will allow him to rest Wieters more often?or at least let him DH a little more. In 2011, he was the DH only three times.
Last year, Showalter raved about his catching ability, and when he appeared at FanFest, Wieters didn?t talk about his improving offense, but about his pitchers.
?You win with pitching. It?s tough to outhit the Yankees and outhit the Red Sox. You look at Tampa and they have five starting pitchers, and that?s how they can compete every year,? he said.
?I think the young starters we have?we?re going to give them competition?and make them even better.?
Wieters is still only 25, and about the same age as some of those ?young starters,? some of whom came up through the minors with him.
He just seems much more mature.
?It?s going to be a lot of work in spring training, getting to know the guys that have a chance to make the club or be there at some point? during the year,? Wieters said. ?It?s going to be a lot of work, a lot of communication work on top of that.?
He had no trouble communicating with Koji Uehara and doesn?t think there will be an issue with another Japanese pitcher, Tsuyoshi Wada, and a Taiwanese pitcher, Wei-Yin Chen.
?The great thing is that baseball is a universal language, so you can sort of get on the same page. I was spoiled with Koji. He was one of the easiest guys to work with ? we?ll find a way to make it work,? Wieters said.
?You see what their pattern is ? what pitches they like to throw in certain counts ? especially with a guy you don?t speak the same language as. You want to know what he?s going to throw on the mound.?
Wieters won?t be eligible for arbitration until next year, and if the Orioles sign Adam Jones to a long-term contract, perhaps they?ll start thinking about Wieters.
Boras clients generally don?t leave money on the table. If Wieters continues to improve, he?ll be able to name his own price.
Joe Mauer,? not a Boras client,? re-signed with Minnesota for eight years and $184 million. He won the three previous Gold Gloves and was the American League MVP in 2009 when he batted .365 with 28 home runs and 96 RBIs. Injuries limited Mauer to 82 games in the first year of his contract.
Boras will use Mauer?s contract as a gauge when the time comes to speak productively with the Orioles. Thanks to MacPhail?s foresight, that day is still at least two years away.
PARIS (Reuters) ? France's Foreign Minister Alain Juppe will address the U.N. Security Council in New York on Tuesday in an effort to push through an Arab-backed resolution for political change in Syria.
"The minister will be in New York on Tuesday to convince the Security Council to meet its responsibilities as the crimes against humanity committed by the regime get worse," Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said on Monday.
Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby left for New York on Sunday where he will brief representatives of the Security Council on Tuesday, seeking support for the Arab peace plan, which calls for President Bashar al-Assad to step down.
France and Britain crafted the resolution in consultation with Qatar and Morocco, as well as Germany, Portugal and the United States. It is intended to supersede a Russian draft that Western delegations say is too accommodating to Assad and also no longer relevant in light of the recent Arab League proposals.
Veto-holding Russia, which said last week that parts of the Western-Arab draft resolution were unacceptable, said on Monday it wanted the Council to hear directly from the Arab League's observer mission in Syria before discussing any resolutions.
The French-backed draft resolution, obtained by Reuters, calls for a "political transition" in Syria. While not calling for U.N. sanctions against Damascus, it does say that the Security Council could "adopt further measures" if Syria does not comply with the terms of the resolution.
"It is time the Security Council acts to find a solution to this crisis," Valero said in a daily briefing to reporters.
France has been prominent in Western efforts to try to force Assad to end a crackdown on protests and has suggested a need to set up zones to protect civilians - the first proposal by a Western power for outside intervention on the ground.
Escalating bloodshed prompted the Arab League to suspend the work of its monitoring mission on Saturday. Arab foreign ministers, who have urged Assad to make way for a government of national unity, will discuss the crisis on February 5.
"The situation in Syria is appalling and is just getting worse," Valero said. "Everything must be done to put an end to the spiral of violence that has led to the bloody repression which we've seen for the last 10 months."
Juppe made a similar address in March to the 15-nation council when he urged it to adopt a resolution that would authorize a no-fly zone against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The resolution passed, with Russia and China abstaining, and within two days NATO air forces were bombing Libya.
Given Russian and Chinese objections now, and Syria's position, unlike Libya, at the heart of Middle East power politics, such an intervention seems unlikely as yet.
(Reporting By John Irish; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)
HBO has not yet announced a season five premiere date for True Blood. But the network did release the first official trailer for the suspenseful, sex-based summer smash and it teases a rather major return.
Of whom? We won't give any hints for those who wish to remain surprised, but any loyal fans of the series will have a very clear idea after viewing:
In other major True Blood news, former Law & Order: SVU star Christopher Meloni has signed on for a significant role, while the season five premiere title has been revealed.
What will it be? That information and a lot more can be found in the True Blood spoilers section at TV Fanatic!
Having an investing strategy is crucial to investing your money wisely, which is the best way to achieve your financial goals. With taxes and the rate of inflation accounted for, investing your money is the only way to ensure that you actually make money over time rather than fall behind in the long run. But, there are so many options to consider when planning an investment strategy it can all seem very overwhelming.
While the details of your investing strategy will be unique to your individual needs and the needs of your family there are some tried and true steps you can take to make sure you make the best decisions no matter what you invest in:
Start investing by first setting realistic goals. Do not expect to make huge gains on stock market tips overnight. Experts maintain that a 10 to 12% return on your investments is realistic. Still, you may not even make this every year, but it is at least an achievable goal to reach for.
Create your own investing strategy based on your own needs and goals. Think about what you want to achieve and the time frame you have to achieve it. Then write out a detailed investment plan that will realistically allow you to reach these goals. Be conservative in your estimates and stick to the plan!
o Make investing part of your daily routine and monthly budget. Monitor your investments daily to ensure that they are maintaining a good status and working toward your financial goals at the pace you have planned. Also, and especially if you do not have a lot of money to invest upfront, consider these two investing strategies to get off to a good start:
- Dollar Cost Averaging: with this investing strategy you invest $20, $50, $250, or what ever you can afford on a monthly basis. By setting yourself a fixed amount to invest with each month, not only will you average buying in at a lower cost over time, but you will also make investing part of your monthly budget and slowly grow your investments as the months pass.
- DRIP investing: this investing strategy allows you to buy small amounts of stock regularly, without paying outrageous prices for commissions. Through DRIP investing you will also be eligible for the company?s dividends reinvestment plan (DRIP). A growing number of companies are allowing for this type of investing and will sell shares directly to investors.
o Mitigate your risks! There are several investment strategies to do this that apply to all forms of investments:
- Do Not invest any amount of money that leaves you feeling uneasy
- Do Not invest in anything you do not fully understand
- Do Not invest until you feel ready
- Do invest aggressively for the long term and conservatively for the short term
- Do diversify your assets and investments
- Do avoid scams and only work with reputable and established companies
If you do decide you want to enlist professional help in formulating your investing strategy and decide to hire a personal broker, first check out the broker or the broker?s investment firm to see if any complaints have been filed. You can obtain a detailed report by calling the securities regulation office of the state the broker does business in. Beware also that most personal brokers charge high fees.
FRANKFURT, Germany ? Europe is getting tougher on government debt. After more than two years struggling to rescue financially shaky governments, leaders of the 17 countries that use the euro are ready to agree on a treaty that will force member countries to put deficit limits into their national laws.
At first glance, it seems logical ? after all, the crisis erupted after too many governments spent and borrowed too much for too long.
But a number of economists ? and some politicians ? say the focus on cutting deficits is misplaced and that more fundamental problems are being left unaddressed.
It's how the euro was set up in the first place, they say ? one currency, but multiple government budgets, economies moving at different speeds and no central treasury or borrowing authority to back them up.
Until those institutional flaws are tackled, the economists say, the euro will remain vulnerable. So far, Greece, Ireland and Portugal have turned to other eurozone governments and the International Monetary Fund for emergency funds to avoid defaulting on their debts.
Nonetheless, European leaders are pushing a new anti-debt treaty as the leading edge of their effort to reassure markets. European Union leaders hope to agree on the treaty's text at a meeting starting Monday, and sign it by March.
The proposed treaty pushes countries to limit "structural" deficits ? shortfalls not caused by ups and downs of the business cycle ? to a tight 0.5 percent of gross domestic product or face a fine. That comes on top of other recent EU legislation intended to tighten observance of the eurozone's limits: overall deficits of 3 percent of GDP and national debt of 60 percent of GDP.
European leaders are also urging countries to improve growth by reducing regulation and other barriers to business.
Yet economists like Jean Pisani-Ferry, director of the Bruegel think tank in Brussels, says it's striking that governments are focusing on budget rules, given Europe's earlier experience with them. An earlier set of rules were largely ignored at the behest of France and Germany in the first years after the euro's 1999 launch.
And some of the countries that now are in the deepest trouble ? such as Spain and bailed-out Ireland ? stayed well within the debt limit for years.
"This suggests that the simplistic view ? that a thorough enforcement of the rules would have prevented the crisis ? should be treated with caution," Pisani-Ferry wrote in a recent article for Bruegel.
Some European politicians are also voicing doubts about focusing primarily on deficits. They include new Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, who has warned that growth is the real answer to shrinking debt in the long term. International Monetary Fund head Christine Lagarde has urged a broader approach. She calls for a willingness to share the burden of supporting banks and other financial risks so troubles in one country don't become a crisis for the entire currency bloc.
Here are four reasons for concern cited by economists ? but not yet on the summit agendas of the eurozone's leaders.
NO COMMON BORROWING: Without a central, pan-European treasury, there's no steady central source of support for eurozone countries that run into economic or financial trouble. Many economists say issuing jointly guaranteed "eurobonds" would make sure no one country would ever default and governments would always be able to borrow. Governments would give up some of their sovereignty, allowing review of their spending and borrowing plans, to get the money.
Pisani-Ferry argues that this would protect governments from the kind of self-fulfilling bond market panic fueled by fears of default, that pushed Greece, Ireland and Portugal over the edge.
Yet the idea of more collective responsibility remains unpopular in prosperous EU countries such as Germany, Finland and the Netherlands. They can borrow cheaply due to their strong finances and would likely pay more to borrow at the rate that includes the shaky ones.
Eurobonds would also likely require a time-consuming change to the European Union's basic treaty ? which currently bans members from assuming each other's debts. There would also have to be a mechanisms in place to stop countries with shoddy finances from borrowing too much.
Opponents say that's unrealistic. "If you have mutual debt responsibility, and freedom of each country to borrow, then each country can drive the eurozone into bankruptcy," said Kai Konrad, managing director of the Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance in Munich.
BANK BAILOUTS: Europe currently has no safety mechanism that would stop a country from sinking under the weight of having to bail out banks based in that country.
At the moment, each country bears the brunt of rescuing its own banks. This can create serious problems in a crisis.
For example Ireland's loosely regulated banks borrowed heavily and loaned out money freely for speculative real estate projects. When the real estate market collapsed and the loans were not paid back, the Irish government had to step in to guarantee the bank's bonds ? and quickly went broke. Ireland had a very low debt level of only 25 percent of annual economic output in 2007. As bank losses moved to the government's balance sheet, by 2011 debt hit 106 percent of annual GDP. The country remains on EU-IMF life support.
Simon Tilford of the Centre for European Reform in London draws an analogy with U.S. insurer AIG, which was bailed out by the U.S. federal government in 2008. AIG was incorporated in the U.S. state of Delaware, yet Delaware did not go bankrupt handling the rescue. The central government stepped in.
TRADE IMBALANCES: Economists point out that gaps in how well countries compete and trade with one another have steadily widened since the euro was created.
Greece's current account deficit ? the broadest measure of trade ? is even worse than its budget deficit. It buys and borrows far more than it sells and earns abroad.
Normally trade imbalances are evened out by fluctuating exchange rates ? but that can't happen within the euro. Countries can improve their competitiveness by doing what Germany did in the 2000s ? cut labor costs to business by cutting general unemployment benefits. They can cut red tape and taxes. But that takes years.
Meanwhile, the region is also hampered by an inflexible pan-euro interest rate. Low interest rates ? set by the European Central Bank to see Germany and France through stagnation in the early 2000s ? were too low to control wage inflation and reckless borrowing in places like Greece and Ireland. Wage costs and debt levels rose. Competitiveness and exports declined, weakening the economy and undermining government finances.
CENTRAL BANK POWERS: Yet another structural issue is the limited power of the European Central Bank to support governments.
The bank resisted calls to buy larger amounts of government bonds. That resistance observes the spirit of the EU basic treaty, which forbids the central bank from financing governments.
But it's a constraint that central banks such as the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bank of England don't have. They can buy up their country's debt, a move that can push down government borrowing costs and reassure markets the state will always pay its debts.
The ECB remains "a limited-purpose central bank," says Tilford.
He notes that Britain has more debt than Spain, 81 percent of GDP versus 67 percent, yet borrows at just over 2 percent annual interest for its 10-year bonds, while Spanish debt for the same period has a 5 percent-plus interest rate. One difference: markets know the Bank of England has the ability to support the government in a crisis by buying bonds and driving down interest rates.
Many of these issue were raised before the currency was launched in 1999, then got less attention.
Tilford says that "the tendency has been to say the currency union needs all these things but in practice it's not necessarily the case" so long as countries obey budget rules and manage their finances well.
"It's become harder to maintain that kind of argumentation now, given how bad things have got."
NEW ORLEANS (AP) ? On the day the Deepwater Horizon sank, BP officials warned in an internal memo that if the well was not protected by the blow-out preventer at the drill site, crude oil could burst into the Gulf of Mexico at a rate of 3.4 million gallons a day, an amount a million gallons higher than what the government later believed spilled daily from the site.
The email conversation, which BP agreed to release Friday as part of federal court proceedings, suggests BP managers recognized the potential of the disaster in its early hours, and company officials sought to make sure that the model-developed information wasn't shared with outsiders. The emails also suggest BP was having heated discussions with Coast Guard officials over the potential of the oil spill.
The memo was released as part of the court proceedings to determine the division of responsibility for the nation's worst offshore oil disaster, which began when the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20, 2010, killing 11 men about 50 miles southeast of the Louisiana coast. The first phase of the trial is set to start Feb. 27.
BP officials declined to comment on the emails late Friday.
The official amount of oil that flowed from the well was pegged at 206 million gallons from at least April 22 until the well was capped on July 15, a period of 85 days. That's a daily flow rate of about 2.4 million gallons ? two-thirds of the way to BP's projection of what could leak from the well if it was an "open hole." BP has disputed the government's estimates.
Having an accurate flow rate estimate is needed to determine how much in civil and criminal penalties BP and the other companies drilling the well face under the Clean Water Act.
In the memo, a BP official urges not to share the flow-rate projections and refers to the "difficult discussions" the company was having at the time with the Coast Guard.
Gary Imm, a BP manager, told Rob Marshall, BP's subsea manager in the Gulf, to tell the modeler doing the estimates "not to communicate to anyone on this."
"A number of people have been looking at this we already have had difficult discussions with the USCG on the numbers," Imm said in the email string, referring to the Coast Guard and flow estimates.
On April 23, 2010, the Coast Guard, relying on BP's remotely operated vehicles, said no oil was leaking from the well a mile under the sea. A day later, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry announced that oil was leaking an estimated rate of 42,000 gallons a day. The Coast Guard and BP did not divulge how they reached that figure.
In the second week after the spill, the official flow rate was increased to 210,000 gallons a day, an estimate the government continued to use until May 27.
On May 24, BP informed Congress they used an "undisclosed method to generate much higher figures" than the official estimates, according to a report from a presidential commission investigating the spill. BP estimated that the flow rates were between 210,000 gallons and 1.6 million gallons a day, the January 2011 report said.
As the spill grew into weeks and months, and soiled fishing grounds, beaches and coastal marshes, independent scientists questioned the official flow rates. Eventually, the federal government convened teams of government and independent scientists to determine how much oil leaked out of the well. They came up with an official estimate of about 2.4 million gallons of oil a day on average.
WASHINGTON ? Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says she wants to step off the "high wire of American politics" after two decades and is again tamping down speculation that she might stay in government if President Barack Obama wins a second term.
Clinton told State Department employees on Thursday that she is ready for a rest and is paying no attention to the Republican presidential candidate debates. She said she wants to find out just how tired she is after working flat out as first lady, senator, aspiring presidential candidate and finally the top U.S. diplomat.
"I have made it clear that I will certainly stay on until the president nominates someone and that transition can occur" if Obama wins re-election, she told a town hall meeting. "But I think after 20 years, and it will be 20 years, of being on the high wire of American politics and all of the challenges that come with that, it would be probably a good idea to just find out how tired I am."
But, she appeared to leave the door open for a possible eventual return, adding to laughter from the crowd that "everyone always says that when they leave these jobs."
As secretary of state, Clinton is barred from partisan politics and she acknowledged that it is unusual not to be participating in this election season. But, she said she is enjoying being away from the fray and hasn't watched any of the GOP debates.
"It is a little odd for me to be totally out of an election season," she said. "But, you know, I didn't watch any of those debates."
Clinton said she expected the campaign for November's election to "suck up a lot of the attention" normally devoted to foreign policy issues but she joked that that might actually help the State Department.
"The good news is maybe we can even get more done if they are not paying attention, so just factor that in."
FILE - In this July 14, 2011 file photo released by U.S. Air Force, a 33rd Fighter Wing aircraft maintainer moves by the Department of Defense's newest aircraft, the U.S. Air Force F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter (JSF), before giving the pilot an order to taxi the aircraft at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. Detractors say the F-35 stealth fighter, the costliest military plane ever, is destined to go down as one of the biggest follies in aviation history. But it may have found a savior: deep-pocketed U.S. allies hungry to add its super high-tech capabilities to their arsenal. The program marked a major success last month when Japan chose it as a replacement for 42 aircraft. It was the F-35's first victory in an open-bidding competition, though countries from Britain to Israel previously made commitments. (AP Photo/U.S. Air Force, Samuel King Jr., File)
FILE - In this July 14, 2011 file photo released by U.S. Air Force, a 33rd Fighter Wing aircraft maintainer moves by the Department of Defense's newest aircraft, the U.S. Air Force F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter (JSF), before giving the pilot an order to taxi the aircraft at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. Detractors say the F-35 stealth fighter, the costliest military plane ever, is destined to go down as one of the biggest follies in aviation history. But it may have found a savior: deep-pocketed U.S. allies hungry to add its super high-tech capabilities to their arsenal. The program marked a major success last month when Japan chose it as a replacement for 42 aircraft. It was the F-35's first victory in an open-bidding competition, though countries from Britain to Israel previously made commitments. (AP Photo/U.S. Air Force, Samuel King Jr., File)
TOKYO (AP) ? Detractors say the F-35 stealth fighter, the costliest military plane ever, is destined to go down as one of the biggest follies in aviation history. But it may have found a savior: deep-pocketed U.S. allies hungry to add its super high-tech capabilities to their arsenal.
The program marked a major success last month when Japan chose it over the Boeing F/A-18 and the Eurofighter Typhoon as a replacement for 42 aircraft in its aging air force. It was the F-35's first victory in an open-bidding competition, though countries from Britain to Israel previously made commitments and others are expected to follow.
Manufacturer Lockheed Martin also is looking to bring F-35s to South Korea in a deal that could be Seoul's biggest single defense outlay ever ? 60 top-of-the-line fighters worth more than $7 billion. A decision could come as soon as October.
In the U.S., however, the stealth jet has been called a boondoggle. John McCain, the ranking Republican on the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, has slammed the F-35 as a "scandal and a tragedy," a "train wreck" and "incredibly expensive."
With U.S. defense budget cuts looming and many critics of the program still unconvinced, foreign support is a make-or-break issue for the program, which has been described as too big to fail. It could become the cornerstone of global air strategy for the next few decades, or a trillion-dollar bust.
"The U.S. fighter jet industry has all of its eggs in this one basket," said Richard Bitzinger, a security expert at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University. So many countries have bought into the program, he said, there is now no realistic choice but to forge ahead with it.
"It would be almost impossible for the U.S. to cancel the F-35, since the repercussions would be global," he said.
The F-35 is the world's only "fifth generation" fighter jet, combining state-of-the art stealth technology with highly advanced avionics and maneuverability. The first F-35 flew in 2006, and 42 have been produced so far. China and Russia are working on rival ? and some experts say superior ? aircraft.
About 130,000 people in 47 states and Puerto Rico have jobs related to the project. The only states without F-35 work are Hawaii, North Dakota and Wyoming.
"Simply put, there is no alternative to the F-35 program. It must succeed," Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley said in September.
The Pentagon envisions buying 2,443 F-35s for the U.S. Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy, but some members of Congress and Department of Defense officials are balking at the price tag, which has jumped from $233 billion to $385 billion. Some estimates suggest it could top out at $1 trillion over 50 years, making it the most expensive program in military history.
In frustration over cost overruns, Congress added a requirement that Lockheed Martin cover extra costs on future F-35 purchases to the defense bill it passed last month.
"The delays and cost increases that F-35 has suffered have put it under substantial political pressure in Washington, so a win like the Japan program is a major boost," said James Hardy, Asia Pacific specialist with IHS Jane's in London.
Success rides heavily on foreign investment because the more F-35s are produced, the cheaper each jet is to build and maintain.
Lockheed Martin, in conjunction with Northrop Grumman, Pratt & Whitney and BAE Systems, has been careful to bring in international partners. The fighter is being developed with support from Britain, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Italy, Turkey, Australia and Canada.
Among the leading international partners, the U.K. is planning to buy 138 F-35s, Italy 131 and Canada 65. Australia has ordered 14 and has plans to buy as many as 100 for 16 billion Australian dollars ($17 billion).
The Israeli government selected the F-35A as its air force's next generation aircraft in 2010 ? making it the first country to receive the F-35 through the U.S. government's Foreign Military Sales process.
Singapore also has said it will buy F-35, although it hasn't set numbers yet, and there may be longer-term interest from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Brazil and India, said Hardy, of IHS Jane's.
The wide range of buyers is in contrast to Lockheed Martin's last stealth fighter, the now discontinued F-22 "Raptor." It was hailed as a wonder of technology but failed in large part because Congress deemed it too sensitive to sell even to Washington's closest allies.
Narushige Michishita, a professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies who has advised the Japanese government on defense issues, said he thinks the F-35 is Japan's best option.
"If this was about a Cold War-type competition, then the F-22 would have been better. But if this is a long-term peacetime competition, you need numbers and presence, and close coordination among allies," Michishita said.
But defense analyst Carlo Kopp of the private Air Power Australia think tank said he thinks it was a mistake for his country and others to buy in. He said the F-35 program should have been canceled years ago and that the policy of pushing forward with it at any cost only threatens to create a budgetary sinkhole that would weaken the defenses of the U.S. and its allies.
"It will never become a viable combat aircraft due to cumulative poor choices made early in the design, and later Band-Aid fixes," Kopp said.
Further cost increases could prompt foreign buyers to cut their orders, which would put even more pressure on Lockheed Martin. Other problems also continue to trouble its international partners:
? Concerns about whether Lockheed will be able to deliver on time prompted Australia to caution that it won't decide until later this year whether to buy any more than the 14 ordered so far.
? Structural glitches have emerged that compromise the F-35's ability to land on aircraft carriers. That's a big issue for Britain, where the plane is slated to replace its carrier-friendly Harrier jets by 2020. British media have also reported that the F-35 can't fire British air-to-air missiles.
? Canada and Norway may have difficulty operating the F-35 on icy runways. The plane's single-engine design ? unlike the twin-engine F-22 or F-15 ? could also be an issue. If the engine goes out, planes and pilots in the Arctic could be lost.
WARSAW, Poland ? Despite the European debt crisis, Poland's economy grew a brisk 4.3 percent in 2011, even more than its strong 3.9 percent growth rate for 2010.
The figures released Friday by the Central Statistical Office underline how strongly the economy has continued to grow in Poland, the largest of the ex-communist countries now in the 27-nation European Union.
"This is even more than was expected, though close to what we planned a year ago," Prime Minister Donald Tusk said, expressing satisfaction and saying the numbers show his center-right government has managed the country well during a time of substantial financial upheaval.
Although Poland's economy has proven unusually resilient, even growing when the rest of the EU fell into recession in 2009, the pace of its growth is expected to slacken this year due to fallout from Europe's debt crisis. Various economists and institutions estimate 2012 growth to be in the range of 2.5 to 3 percent.
Despite the strong growth, Poland still struggles with a number of problems, including a stubbornly high jobless rate. Other statistics released Friday show that unemployment in December jumped to 12.5 percent from 12.1 percent in November.
Tusk also expressed satisfaction that the Polish currency, the zloty, has been appreciating for more than a week, giving relief to Poles who have foreign currency loans and to drivers, since gas prices are set in dollars.
"It's very important to me that I travel to Brussels on Monday as the prime minister of a country that is really managing in the crisis," Tusk said.
EU leaders are meeting in Brussels on Monday to hammer out a new deal to help prevent future debt crises, especially in the 17-nation eurozone. Tusk has been threatening to not sign the deal unless it allows Poland to participate in talks on the euro, even though his country isn't yet in the eurozone.
Poland plans to make the currency switch to the euro one day and fears that it is being sidelined.
CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (Reuters) ? Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner sought to calm fears that the Obama administration's bank reforms were hostile to the U.S. financial industry, saying on Wednesday the reforms were "tough where they need to be tough."
"I know that people are concerned that they will be too tough. I don't think there is much risk of this. I think there is no evidence of that," Geithner told the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce one day after President Barack Obama used his State of the Union address to toughen his stance on Wall Street.
The Treasury, the Federal Reserve and other financial supervisors are feverishly adopting dozens of rules to reorder Wall Street after the 2007-09 housing crisis exposed gaps in regulation. The administration and its regulators have been repeatedly criticized by Republican lawmakers for over-reaching with the new rules.
In response to a question, Geithner said it "wasn't true" that the administration was hostile to the banking world, while also noting that some in the United States feel it has been "too generous" to bankers.
"They cannot both be right, and they are both wrong," Geithner said after touring a Siemens plant that manufactures steam turbines and generators.
The state of the financial system was a hot topic in Charlotte, a city that saw its two big banks nearly collapse in the financial crisis. Wachovia Corp sold itself to San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co under duress in 2008, and Bank of America Corp is still struggling to shed mortgage-related losses and meet new capital rules.
The unemployment rate in North Carolina is 9.9 percent, which is above the national average of 8.5 percent.
Geithner, asked if the United States was heading toward another recession, said the economy was getting stronger in comparison to where it was in 2009 when the country was "falling off the cliff." "We are still living with the tremendous damage caused by the crisis," he said.
Geithner, who had helped the previous Bush administration respond to the financial crisis when he was the head of the New York Federal Reserve, plans to leave Treasury's chief job at the end of Obama's first term.
In an interview later with Bloomberg, Geithner said he did not expect to be asked to serve as secretary if Obama won a second term as president.
Geithner reiterated that Europe's deteriorating debt crisis was taking a toll on the fragile U.S. economy. "This crisis is having a big impact on us," he said.
His comments come after the International Monetary Fund warned that the European Union's debt problems could tip the world economy into recession.
Geithner has already made several trips to Europe to urge leaders to take decisive action to resolve the crisis.
(Reporting By Rick Rothacker, Rachelle Younglai; Editing by Leslie Adler)
When you have wrecked your vehicle a short while ago chances are you?ll have already faced this ordeal. This short article can help educate you for a customer over the variances of automotive crash substitute elements. I hope it will make it easier to make a more informed resolution when faced with this particular.
With the car system restore firm there are actually a few alternatives for substitute elements in the market currently. First you?ve got OEM ( Genuine Devices Producer ), they are elements made the vehicle?s authentic manufacturer and therefore are bought at neighborhood dealerships. These elements meet factory specifications regarding match, end and corrosion protection also as crash worthiness. They?re the very same elements which were set up in your vehicle when it was created with the classiques pari turf factory. In addition they carry the vehicle?s manufacturer?s guarantee.
Next you?ve got A/M or aftermarket elements. They?re frequently termed offshore elements. The vast majority of these elements appear from Asian nations. These elements are not made with the vehicle?s authentic manufacturer, meaning they do not go below the very same rigorous testing, nor do they carry the very same guarantee. Non-OEM elements were revealed in lots of circumstances to get diminished tolerances for match and end, corrode faster and supply you with lower crash resistance than factory approved elements. Moreover, the use of these elements may perhaps void your vehicle?s guarantee in locations that may be impacted by their use. These elements will not restore your vehicle back again to it can be pre-accident condition meaning a possible reducing of the vehicle?s price.
Lastly you?ve got used, salvage, or LKQ elements. The expression LKQ stands for Like, Variety, Outstanding. This expression was coined with the insurance policies trade. If, and that is a large if, the LKQ component has no prior damage, plus the restore store de-trims the component for painting, then treats the component with corrosion protection , chances are you?ll have got a component which will restore your vehicle back again to it can be pre-accident condition. A very good salvage garden will supply you with a guarantee on LKQ elements. LKQ elements really are a more inexpensive option to repairs for the vehicle operator. Some LKQ elements might never be used. For example, any suspension or welded on component mustn?t be used if LKQ. Cutting a welded component from a salvage vehicle plus the subsequent operations needed to set up claimed component will weaken the steel. Suspension elements have bearing and joints that have on may perhaps not be visible, but does exist.
With all this in intellect, the ideal elements to implement undoubtedly are OEM. Some insurers will use them on motor vehicles that are destroyed inside of two years of manufacture. People insist over the cheaper, inferior offshore elements basically to lower the cost of the loss, regardless of maintaining the vehicle?s price. A simple alternative could be to offer the insured a rider on their policy to insure the use of OEM elements by pick of the vehicle operator. I?m not mindful of this as an option now.
The author of this post has become inside car system firm considering 1977 and now owns an automotive system store.
Celebrity fitness trainer shares her advice for Blue Ivy Carter's mama. By John Mitchell
Beyonce Photo: Jemal Countess/Getty Images
Now that Beyoncé and Jay-Z have welcomed Blue Ivy Carter into the world, it's time to get back to work. In the days since Blue's birth, Jay has already released a track, "Glory," featuring his baby girl, making her the youngest person ever to appear on a Billboard chart. But for new mom Bey, the road back to headlining tours and music videos starts with getting her enviable physique back in tip-top shape.
Beyoncé is known for many things, and her bangin' body is right at the top of the list — hers was the bod that inspired a new word, "Bootylicious," after all. The pop superstar has always been the picture of health and happiness, and to celebrity trainer Jeanette Jenkins — who helped Pink and "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol" star Paula Patton get back in shape after their pregnancies — that's half the challenge.
"Working out should have been a part of a new mom's regimen before she got pregnant, while she was pregnant, and for the rest of her life," Jenkins told MTV News. "It should be part of your daily life, just like brushing your teeth or combing your hair. It's your internal hygiene.
"The goal should not be to lose weight," she added. "The goal should be to live a healthy life, and by working out and eating healthy, you will be happy and the weight will just fall off because you are making healthy choices."
So, where should Beyoncé start in her quest to get her fantastic abs and toned legs back? With her doctor, according to Jenkins. "A new mother should first wait until she gets clearance from her doctor, and she can immediately start by making healthy food choices. Once a mother receives clearance from her doctor, then her starting point depends on her fitness level," Jenkins said. "A weekly workout regimen should include all of the components of fitness — cardio, flexibility, muscular strength and muscular endurance — for overall functional health and fitness and for maximum results."
Jenkins prescribes a strict training and diet program to her celebrity clients — a four- or five-day-a-week mix of cardio, endurance exercises like circuit training, and strength and flexibility training, including yoga and Pilates — but understands that the outcome will be more successful if the new mom is enjoying the regimen and has realistic expectations.
"A new mother has to eat healthy for herself and for her child, but she also has to live and have a good time too," Jenkins said. "From my experience, if you make healthy food choices 80 percent of the time and eat whatever you like 20 percent of the time, then you will have great results. I recommend to my clients to eat healthy Monday through Friday and then let go on the weekend and enjoy yourself."
The trainer also noted that, "When people are having a good time, they are more likely to stick to their program."
"The goal is to find activities and workouts that you enjoy so that you keep it a part of your life forever. Consistently mix it up, and enjoy working out," she advised. "Try yoga, Pilates, playing in the park with your kids, hiking and kickboxing."
She also recommended dancing, which we know Queen B has down to a science.
For those not lucky enough to have a personal trainer or unable to sneak away to the gym, Jenkins said, "A walk with the baby in a stroller is good enough. It will help a mother lose their extra baby weight by boosting metabolic rate and increasing caloric expenditure, but more importantly it will give you a boost of happy hormones so you feel great and it cleans out your internal organs, improving your body's pH balance and decreasing your risk of illness and disease."
For Jenkins, the keys to a successful workout program are progression and variety. "Training for peak condition is just like training an athlete for peak performance. It has to be done in a healthy progression to maximize results and decrease risk of injury," she added. "For the best weight-loss and toning results, it is important to train the entire body head to toe through all of the components of fitness with an emphasis on using the core at all times. It doesn't matter if she is power walking, doing yoga or cooking in the kitchen, the core needs to be consistently engaged. Always pull your navel to your spine."
Beyoncé reportedly maintained a healthy diet throughout her pregnancy, and just days before giving birth at New York's Lenox Hill Hospital was spotted looking "amazing" while dining out with her hubby in Brooklyn, New York. If she keeps up her tireless work ethic, there's reason to believe she'll be back in bootylicious shape in no time.
So far this year, there have been far fewer flu reports, including the fever, coughing, aches and pains that usually make winter so miserable. But that doesn't mean people should be complacent about getting their flu shots, experts say.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. ? Country music legend Merle Haggard says he's nearly over the case of double pneumonia that has kept him in Georgia hospital for most of the last week.
Doctors found the 74-year-old had several other ailments while he was recovering in a Macon, Ga., hospital. Spokeswoman Tresa Redburn says they diagnosed him with three stomach ulcers, eight polyps in his colon and diverticulitis of the esophagus.
"Thanks to all the wonderful people all over the world that prayed their special prayers. I'm a new man," Haggard said in a statement issued through Redburn. "Another special thanks to the folks of Macon, Ga., for their kindness, intelligence and probably saving my life."
Haggard checked into a hospital and postponed his January tour dates last Tuesday after contracting pneumonia.
He checked himself out Friday and tried to make the ride home to Redding, Calif., on his tour bus. Haggard quickly realized he wasn't up to the trip and returned to Macon, Redburn said.
Haggard is now undergoing a more aggressive antibiotic treatment for pneumonia.
The "Okie from Muskogee" singer had part of a lung removed a few years ago while fighting cancer. It's unclear at this point how Haggard's tour schedule to support his latest album, "Walking in Tennessee," will be affected. His website shows his next date is Feb. 28 in Tuscon, Ariz.
ZAPOPAN, Mexico ? Life seemed to give Karla Zepeda a break when a woman came to her dusty neighborhood of cinderblock homes and dirt roads looking for babies to photograph in an anti-abortion ad campaign.
The woman asked to use the 15-year-old's baby girl in a two-week photo shoot for $755 ($10,000 pesos), a small fortune for a teen mother who earns $180 a month at a sandwich stand and shares a small, one-story house with her disabled mother, stepfather, and three brothers.
But 9-month-old Camila wasn't just posing for photographs when she was taken away.
Jalisco state investigators say the child was left for weeks at a time in the care of an Irish couple who had come to Ajijic, a town of cobblestone streets and gated communities 37 miles (60 kilometers) away, thinking they were adopting her.
Prosecutors say the baby was apparently part of an illegal adoption ring that ensnared destitute young Mexican women trying to earn more for their children and childless Irish couples desperate to become parents.
Camila and nine other children have been turned over to state officials who suspect they were being groomed for illegal adoptions. And authorities hint that far more children could be involved: Lead investigator Blanca Barron told reporters the ring may have been operating for 20 years, though she gave no details. Prosecutors also say four of the children show signs of sexual abuse, though they gave no details on how or by whom.
Nine people have been detained, including two suspected leaders of the ring, but no one has yet been charged.
At least 15 Irish citizens have been questioned, the Jalisco state attorney general's office said, but officials have not released their names. Neighbors say most or all have returned to Ireland after spending weeks or months in Ajijic trying to meet requirements for adopting a child. None was detained.
For Karla Zepeda, the story began in August, when she was approached by Guadalupe Bosquez and agreed to lend her daughter for an anti-abortion advertising campaign, she told The Associated Press. Bosquez later returned with another woman, Silvia Soto, and gave her half the money as they picked the child up. She got the rest two weeks later when they brought Camila home.
"They showed me a poster that showed my girl with other babies and said 'No To Abortion, Yes To Life,'" said Karla, a petite girl cleaning her house to loud norteno music. "I thought it was legal because everything seemed very normal."
Before long, the message spread to her neighbors. Seven other women, most between the ages of 15 and 22, agreed to let their babies be part of the ad campaign. Some already had several children. Some are single mothers. One of them doesn't know how to read or write. Five of them told they AP that they did not even have birth certificates for their babies when they came across Bosquez and Soto.
One said she needed money to pay for her child's medical care, another to finish building an extra room on her house.
All deny agreeing to give their children up for adoption.
"We're going through a nightmare," said Fernanda Montes, an 18-year-old housewife who said she took part to pay a $670 hospital bill from the birth of her 3-month-old. "How could we have trusted someone so evil?"
The women say that Bosquez and Soto persuaded three of them to register their children as single mothers so they could participate in the anti-abortion campaign, even though they live with the children's fathers.
Children's rights activists say that also could have made it easier to release the child for adoption: only the mother's signature would be needed.
The mothers were assured that the babies were being taken care of by several nannies and checked by doctors. The babies often returned home wearing new clothes.
Some of the mothers said they began having second thoughts. But when they declined to send their children back, they say, Bosquez and Soto insisted they would have to pay for the strollers, car seats, diaper bags and everything else they had bought for the babies.
Investigators say that Bosquez and Soto were taking the children to a hotel in Guadalajara, where they met with Irish couples who believed they were going to adopt them.
The plan began to unravel on Jan. 9, when local police detained 21-year-old Laura Carranza and accused her of trying to sell her 2-year-old daughter.
Investigators said Carranza denied that allegation, but acknowledged she was "renting" her 8-month-old son. She then led authorities to Bosquez and Soto.
Both are now being held on suspicion they ran the alleged anti-abortion ad campaign as a front for an illegal adoption ring. It was not clear if they have attorneys and they have not yet been brought before a judge to say if they accept or reject the allegations.
Carranza is also being held, as is Karla's mother, Cecilia Velazquez, who hasn't worked since she lost both legs in a traffic accident in 2010. Karla says her mother's only fault was agreeing to the ad campaign.
Seven of the mothers interviewed told the AP that the children had most recently been picked up by Bosquez and Soto between Dec. 27 and Dec. 30 for an alleged photo shoot. They returned the babies on Jan. 9 and 10, saying "there had been problems." The mothers said they didn't notice anything wrong with the babies or any signs of abuse.
Then state police investigators showed up at their homes and drove them and their children to the police department for questioning. The babies were taken from them and put into state protective custody. The women complained that only four of them have been allowed to see their babies since, and only once.
A statement from Jalisco state prosecutors' said authorities seized Carranza's two children and the other seven while they were with Irish couples. Prosecutors didn't respond to requests by the AP to clarify the discrepancy.
Residents of Ajijic, a town on the shore of Lake Chapala favored by American and Canadian retirees, say Irish citizens looking to adopt Mexican children began appearing there at least four years ago.
Jalisco state prosecutors' spokesman Lino Gonzalez wouldn't confirm the Irish had left, but said none had been charged with a crime.
Even if they had adopted the children, Ireland might not have accepted them because the adoptions were handled privately, said Frances FitzGerald, Ireland's minister for children.
"Obviously, for any couple caught up in this, it's a nightmare scenario," she said.
"What you can't have in Mexico is people going to local agencies or individuals doing private adoptions because they come back, there is going to be a difficulty."
Prosecutors say they have been trying without success to reach the attorneys who were handling the adoption paperwork in the neighboring state of Colima.
Custody release statements signed by all of the mothers carry the logo of Lopez y Lopez Asociados, a firm owned by Carlos Lopez Valenzuela and his son, Carlos Lopez Castellanos. Authorities raided the office last week.
The release statements were shown to the AP by a local advocate for missing and stolen children, Juan Manuel Estrada of Fundacion FIND, who said they had been leaked to him by a state official. He said Lopez Valenzuela had separately sent him a lengthy statement by email declaring that he too may have been duped in the case and denying wrongdoing.
Prosecutors wouldn't confirm the authenticity of that statement, but it mirrors the stories of seven mothers who were interviewed by the AP.
According to the statement Lopez said he had handled adoptions in Colima state for 63 Irish couples since 2004. He said he first met Bosquez when she approached him in 2009 about giving her own unborn child up for adoption to an Irish couple, a process, he wrote, that was completed legally.
The statement said that Bosquez also introduced Lopez to a social worker who together brought him the current case involving Zepeda and the other women from Zapopan, apparently hoping he could match the children to adopting couples.
It says Lopez was told the mothers wanted only to deal with the two women, and he agreed. The young mothers confirmed they never met Lopez.
According to the statement, Lopez said that 12 Irish couples had been paying for what they thought was the medical care of pregnant women on the request of the social worker, though all the children were already born when their mothers first came across Bosquez and Soto.
Lopez didn't respond to emailed interview requests from the AP.
According to the statement, Lopez said he follows the stringent adoption laws set by the Hague Adoption Convention, which Mexico has signed.
Unlike Guatemala or China, Mexico has not been a popular destination for foreigners looking to adopt, perhaps because the process, done by law, is complicated.
"The legal adoption process in Mexico is difficult, but cheating in Mexico is very easy," Estrada said.
___
Associated Press writer Shawn Pogatchnik in Dublin contributed to this report.
Contact: Michael Mullaney mullam@rpi.edu 518-276-6161 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Engineers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Rice University discover how the extreme thinness of graphene enables near-perfect wetting transparency
Troy, N.Y. Graphene is the thinnest material known to science. The nanomaterial is so thin, in fact, water often doesn't even know it's there.
Engineering researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Rice University coated pieces of gold, copper, and silicon with a single layer of graphene, and then placed a drop of water on the coated surfaces. Surprisingly, the layer of graphene proved to have virtually no impact on the manner in which water spreads on the surfaces.
Results of the study were published Sunday in the journal Nature Materials. The findings could help inform a new generation of graphene-based flexible electronic devices. Additionally, the research suggests a new type of heat pipe that uses graphene-coated copper to cool computer chips.
The discovery stemmed from a cross-university collaboration led by Rensselaer Professor Nikhil Koratkar and Rice Professor Pulickel Ajayan.
"We coated several different surfaces with graphene, and then put a drop of water on them to see what would happen. What we saw was a big surprisenothing changed. The graphene was completely transparent to the water," said Koratkar, a faculty member in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Rensselaer. "The single layer of graphene was so thin that it did not significantly disrupt the non-bonding van der Waals forces that control the interaction of water with the solid surface. It's an exciting discovery, and is another example of the unique and extraordinary characteristics of graphene."
Results of the study are detailed in the Nature Materials paper "Wetting transparency of graphene." See the paper online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/NMAT3228
Essentially an isolated layer of the graphite found commonly in our pencils or the charcoal we burn on our barbeques, graphene is single layer of carbon atoms arranged like a nanoscale chicken-wire fence. Graphene is known to have excellent mechanical properties. The material is strong and tough and because of its flexibility can evenly coat nearly any surface. Many researchers and technology leaders see graphene as an enabling material that could greatly advance the advent of flexible, paper-thin devices and displays. Used as a coating for such devices, the graphene would certainly come into contact with moisture. Understanding how graphene interacts with moisture was the impetus behind this new study.
The spreading of water on a solid surface is called wetting. Calculating wettability involves placing a drop of water on a surface, and then measuring the angle at which the droplet meets the surface. The droplet will ball up and have a high contact angle on a hydrophobic surface. Inversely, the droplet will spread out and have a low contact angle on a hydrophilic surface.
The contact angle of gold is about 77 degrees. Koratkar and Ajayan found that after coating a gold surface with a single layer of graphene, the contact angle became about 78 degrees. Similarly, the contact angle of silicon rose from roughly 32 degrees to roughly 33 degrees, and copper increased from around 85 degrees to around 86 degrees, after adding a layer of graphene.
These results surprised the researchers. Graphene is impermeable, as the tiny spaces between its linked carbon atoms are too small for water, or a single proton, or anything else to fit through. Because of this, one would expect that water would not act as if it were on gold, silicon, or copper, since the graphene coating prevents the water from directly contacting these surfaces. But the research findings clearly show how the water is able to sense the presence of the underlying surface, and spreads on those surfaces as if the graphene were not present at all.
As the researchers increased the number of layers of graphene, however, it became less transparent to the water and the contact angles jumped significantly. After adding six layers of graphene, the water no longer saw the gold, copper, or silicon and instead behaved as if it was sitting on graphite.
The reason for this perplexing behavior is subtle. Water forms chemical or hydrogen bonds with certain surfaces, while the attraction of water to other surfaces is dictated by non-bonding interactions called van der Waals forces. These non-bonding forces are not unlike a nanoscale version of gravity, Koratkar said. Similar to how gravity dictates the interaction between the Earth and sun, van der Waals forces dictate the interaction between atoms and molecules.
In the case of gold, copper, silicon, and other materials, the van der Waals forces between the surface and water droplet determine the attraction of water to the surface and dictate how water spreads on the solid surface. In general, these forces have a range of at least several nanometers. Because of the long range, these forces are not disrupted by the presence of a single-atom-thick layer of graphene between the surface and the water. In other words, the van der Waals forces are able to "look through" ultra-thin graphene coatings, Koratkar said.
If you continue to add additional layers of graphene, however, the van der Waals forces increasingly "see" the carbon coating on top of the material instead of the underlying surface material. After stacking six layers of graphene, the separation between the graphene and the surface is sufficiently large to ensure that the van der Waals forces can now no longer sense the presence of the underlying surface and instead only see the graphene coating. On surfaces where water forms hydrogen bonds with the surface, the wetting transparency effect described above does not hold because such chemical bonds cannot form through the graphene layer.
Along with conducting physical experiments, the researchers verified their findings with molecular dynamics modeling as well as classical theoretical modeling.
"We found that van der Waals forces are not disrupted by graphene. This effect is an artifact of the extreme thinness of graphenewhich is only about 0.3 nanometers thick," Koratkar said. "Nothing can rival the thinness of graphene. Because of this, graphene is the ideal material for wetting angle transparency."
"Moreover, graphene is strong and flexible, and it does not easily crack or break apart," he said. "Additionally, it is easy to coat a surface with graphene using chemical vapor deposition, and it is relatively uncomplicated to deposit uniform and homogeneous graphene coatings over large areas. Finally, graphene is chemically inert, which means a graphene coating will not oxidize away. No single material system can provide all of the above attributes that graphene is able to offer."
A practical application of this new discovery is to coat copper surfaces used in dehumidifiers. Because of its exposure to water, copper in dehumidifier systems oxidizes, which in turn decreases its ability to transfer heat and makes the entire device less efficient. Coating the copper with graphene prevents oxidation, the researchers said, and the operation of the device is unaffected because graphene does not change the way water interacts with copper. This same concept may be applied to improve the ability of heat pipes to dissipate heat from computer chips, Koratkar said.
"It's an interesting idea. The graphene doesn't cause any significant change to the wettability of copper, and at the same time it passivates the copper surface and prevents it from oxidizing," he said.
###
Along with Koratkar and Ajayan, co-authors of the paper are Yunfeng Shi, assistant professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Rensselaer; Rensselaer mechanical engineering graduate students Javad Rafiee, Abhay Thomas, and Fazel Yavari; Rensselaer physics graduate student Xi Mi; and Rice mechanical and materials engineering graduate student Hemtej Gullapalli.
This research was supported in part by the Advanced Energy Consortium (AEC); the National Science Foundation (NSF); and the Office of Naval Research (ONR) graphene Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI).
For more information on Koratkar's graphene research at Rensselaer, visit:
Contact
Michael Mullaney
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Troy, NY
518-276-6161
mullam@rpi.edu
www.rpi.edu/news
Visit the Rensselaer research and discovery blog: http://approach.rpi.edu
Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RPInews
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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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.
Contact: Michael Mullaney mullam@rpi.edu 518-276-6161 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Engineers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Rice University discover how the extreme thinness of graphene enables near-perfect wetting transparency
Troy, N.Y. Graphene is the thinnest material known to science. The nanomaterial is so thin, in fact, water often doesn't even know it's there.
Engineering researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Rice University coated pieces of gold, copper, and silicon with a single layer of graphene, and then placed a drop of water on the coated surfaces. Surprisingly, the layer of graphene proved to have virtually no impact on the manner in which water spreads on the surfaces.
Results of the study were published Sunday in the journal Nature Materials. The findings could help inform a new generation of graphene-based flexible electronic devices. Additionally, the research suggests a new type of heat pipe that uses graphene-coated copper to cool computer chips.
The discovery stemmed from a cross-university collaboration led by Rensselaer Professor Nikhil Koratkar and Rice Professor Pulickel Ajayan.
"We coated several different surfaces with graphene, and then put a drop of water on them to see what would happen. What we saw was a big surprisenothing changed. The graphene was completely transparent to the water," said Koratkar, a faculty member in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Rensselaer. "The single layer of graphene was so thin that it did not significantly disrupt the non-bonding van der Waals forces that control the interaction of water with the solid surface. It's an exciting discovery, and is another example of the unique and extraordinary characteristics of graphene."
Results of the study are detailed in the Nature Materials paper "Wetting transparency of graphene." See the paper online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/NMAT3228
Essentially an isolated layer of the graphite found commonly in our pencils or the charcoal we burn on our barbeques, graphene is single layer of carbon atoms arranged like a nanoscale chicken-wire fence. Graphene is known to have excellent mechanical properties. The material is strong and tough and because of its flexibility can evenly coat nearly any surface. Many researchers and technology leaders see graphene as an enabling material that could greatly advance the advent of flexible, paper-thin devices and displays. Used as a coating for such devices, the graphene would certainly come into contact with moisture. Understanding how graphene interacts with moisture was the impetus behind this new study.
The spreading of water on a solid surface is called wetting. Calculating wettability involves placing a drop of water on a surface, and then measuring the angle at which the droplet meets the surface. The droplet will ball up and have a high contact angle on a hydrophobic surface. Inversely, the droplet will spread out and have a low contact angle on a hydrophilic surface.
The contact angle of gold is about 77 degrees. Koratkar and Ajayan found that after coating a gold surface with a single layer of graphene, the contact angle became about 78 degrees. Similarly, the contact angle of silicon rose from roughly 32 degrees to roughly 33 degrees, and copper increased from around 85 degrees to around 86 degrees, after adding a layer of graphene.
These results surprised the researchers. Graphene is impermeable, as the tiny spaces between its linked carbon atoms are too small for water, or a single proton, or anything else to fit through. Because of this, one would expect that water would not act as if it were on gold, silicon, or copper, since the graphene coating prevents the water from directly contacting these surfaces. But the research findings clearly show how the water is able to sense the presence of the underlying surface, and spreads on those surfaces as if the graphene were not present at all.
As the researchers increased the number of layers of graphene, however, it became less transparent to the water and the contact angles jumped significantly. After adding six layers of graphene, the water no longer saw the gold, copper, or silicon and instead behaved as if it was sitting on graphite.
The reason for this perplexing behavior is subtle. Water forms chemical or hydrogen bonds with certain surfaces, while the attraction of water to other surfaces is dictated by non-bonding interactions called van der Waals forces. These non-bonding forces are not unlike a nanoscale version of gravity, Koratkar said. Similar to how gravity dictates the interaction between the Earth and sun, van der Waals forces dictate the interaction between atoms and molecules.
In the case of gold, copper, silicon, and other materials, the van der Waals forces between the surface and water droplet determine the attraction of water to the surface and dictate how water spreads on the solid surface. In general, these forces have a range of at least several nanometers. Because of the long range, these forces are not disrupted by the presence of a single-atom-thick layer of graphene between the surface and the water. In other words, the van der Waals forces are able to "look through" ultra-thin graphene coatings, Koratkar said.
If you continue to add additional layers of graphene, however, the van der Waals forces increasingly "see" the carbon coating on top of the material instead of the underlying surface material. After stacking six layers of graphene, the separation between the graphene and the surface is sufficiently large to ensure that the van der Waals forces can now no longer sense the presence of the underlying surface and instead only see the graphene coating. On surfaces where water forms hydrogen bonds with the surface, the wetting transparency effect described above does not hold because such chemical bonds cannot form through the graphene layer.
Along with conducting physical experiments, the researchers verified their findings with molecular dynamics modeling as well as classical theoretical modeling.
"We found that van der Waals forces are not disrupted by graphene. This effect is an artifact of the extreme thinness of graphenewhich is only about 0.3 nanometers thick," Koratkar said. "Nothing can rival the thinness of graphene. Because of this, graphene is the ideal material for wetting angle transparency."
"Moreover, graphene is strong and flexible, and it does not easily crack or break apart," he said. "Additionally, it is easy to coat a surface with graphene using chemical vapor deposition, and it is relatively uncomplicated to deposit uniform and homogeneous graphene coatings over large areas. Finally, graphene is chemically inert, which means a graphene coating will not oxidize away. No single material system can provide all of the above attributes that graphene is able to offer."
A practical application of this new discovery is to coat copper surfaces used in dehumidifiers. Because of its exposure to water, copper in dehumidifier systems oxidizes, which in turn decreases its ability to transfer heat and makes the entire device less efficient. Coating the copper with graphene prevents oxidation, the researchers said, and the operation of the device is unaffected because graphene does not change the way water interacts with copper. This same concept may be applied to improve the ability of heat pipes to dissipate heat from computer chips, Koratkar said.
"It's an interesting idea. The graphene doesn't cause any significant change to the wettability of copper, and at the same time it passivates the copper surface and prevents it from oxidizing," he said.
###
Along with Koratkar and Ajayan, co-authors of the paper are Yunfeng Shi, assistant professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Rensselaer; Rensselaer mechanical engineering graduate students Javad Rafiee, Abhay Thomas, and Fazel Yavari; Rensselaer physics graduate student Xi Mi; and Rice mechanical and materials engineering graduate student Hemtej Gullapalli.
This research was supported in part by the Advanced Energy Consortium (AEC); the National Science Foundation (NSF); and the Office of Naval Research (ONR) graphene Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI).
For more information on Koratkar's graphene research at Rensselaer, visit:
Contact
Michael Mullaney
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Troy, NY
518-276-6161
mullam@rpi.edu
www.rpi.edu/news
Visit the Rensselaer research and discovery blog: http://approach.rpi.edu
Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RPInews
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
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.
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Public release date: 23-Jan-2012
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