NASA ban on Chinese scientists 'inaccurate'

By Kerry Sheridan | AFP News 


AFP News/Josh Edelson - Moffett Field, NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California on May 3, 2013

A decision by NASA to bar Chinese scientists from an upcoming conference was deemed "inaccurate" Tuesday by the US congressman who wrote the law on which the restriction is based.

The US space agency's announcement that Chinese nationals would not be permitted to enter the Second Kepler Science Conference on exoplanets at California's Ames Research Center November 4-8 sparked a boycott by some prominent US astronomers.

"In good conscience, I cannot attend a meeting that discriminates in this way. The meeting is about planets located trillions of miles away, with no national security implications," Geoff Marcy, an astronomy professor at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote in an email to the organizers.

The restriction is based on a law passed in 2011 and signed by President Barack Obama that prevents NASA funds from being used to collaborate with China or to host Chinese visitors at US space agency facilities.

The legal language was inserted into a funding bill by Congressman Frank Wolf, who chairs the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies.

The law bans NASA funds from being used to work "bilaterally in any way with China or any Chinese-owned company" or being "used to effectuate the hosting of official Chinese visitors at facilities belonging to or utilized by NASA," according to a copy of the legal text sent to AFP by Wolf's office.

However, Wolf's office issued a letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on Tuesday seeking to correct an article on the matter that first appeared Friday in The Guardian newspaper, as well as NASA's stance.

"Unfortunately, the article is riddled with inaccuracies, as is, it appears, the guidance provided by NASA Ames staff to the attendees," said the letter.

The law "primarily restricts bilateral, not multilateral, meetings and activities with the Communist Chinese government or Chinese-owned companies," it said.

"It places no restrictions on activities involving individual Chinese nationals unless those nationals are acting as official representatives of the Chinese government."

Wolf said NASA officials may have believed that the move was needed because of extra temporary restrictions on foreign nationals after a potential security breach by a Chinese citizen at a NASA facility in Virginia earlier this year.

Bolden announced those extra measures at a hearing on March 20 before the House subcommittee that oversees funding for NASA -- the same one that Wolf chairs.

"I have ordered a complete review of the access which foreign nationals from designated countries are granted at NASA facilities," Bolden said at the time.

"I have ordered a moratorium on granting any new access to NASA facilities to individuals from specific designated countries, specifically China, Burma, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Uzbekistan."

In the intervening months, a formal report on the probe has been completed and should be released soon, Wolf wrote on Tuesday.

"It was my understanding that NASA's temporary restrictions had been lifted after a review of security protocols for foreign nationals at all NASA centers," his letter said.

"It is clear the NASA Ames guidance provided to conference attendees was inaccurate and not reflective of the statutory restrictions enacted by Congress," he concluded.

"NASA headquarters needs to send updated guidance to both the conference attendees and to the press to correct this misconception."

The co-chair of the upcoming Kepler conference, Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, issued a statement to attendees Tuesday that did not reference Wolf's letter.

However, it said the committee learned of the rules in the final stages of planning in late September and as a result denied the pre-registrations of six Chinese scientists.

"We find the consequences of this law deplorable and strongly object to banning our Chinese colleagues, or colleagues from any nation," said the letter from Boss.

"We are pursuing other options that will allow participation by all interested scientists either in person or remotely."

Hooked on Candy Crush? King gets gameplayers to pay

By Mia Shanley

By Mia Shanley

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - With 100 million people logging on every day for a fix of its games like Candy Crush Saga, global gamemaker King is showing rivals not just how to hook players, but how to get them to pay.

King is the latest among European tech firms like Rovio, creator of mega-hit Angry Birds, and Mojang, behind Minecraft, to make it big on the global gaming scene. But its stunning profitability in an industry littered with firms who failed to make money from popular games has made it a totem for others seeking to emulate its success.

King's focus on the multi-billion dollar mobile games market - creating short, addictive puzzles for the fastest-growing part of the gaming industry - has helped it reap profits rare in its field. Though the company does not publish numbers, industry experts have estimated its revenues at $1 million-$3 million a day. Media reports now talk about an IPO valuation of $5 billion after a source recently said the company had filed to go public in the United States.

King was set up in Sweden a decade ago by friends working at the same tech startup and got 34 million euros funding from Apax Partners and Index Ventures in 2005. It has been profitable since, a fact that analysts put down to its ability to persuade players to pay several times over to continue the same game. Its "freemium model", in which games are free but players can pay for add-ons or extra lives, has been particularly effective because of the success of Candy Crush, described by some analysts as a global phenomenon.

"Candy Crush is one of the biggest mass market consumer games in years," said Adam Krejcik at Eilers Research in California. "They have been profitable for a while. This game has certainly brought them into a new category."

The puzzle game, in which players line up gleaming 3-D sweets to knock out jelly, chocolate and liquorice, is available online, on smartphone and Facebook. It has held the No. 1 spot for apps on Facebook for nine months and is Apple's top-grossing U.S. app, more popular than Spotify and TripAdvisor. King also says it is considering new platforms for the game such as smart TV.

Globally, mobile game revenues generated through Apple iOS & Google Playstore are expected to exceed $10 billion this year, according to Krejcik. Roughly half of those are revenues generated by seven publishers including King, DeNa, GungHo Online and Electronic Arts.

BITE-SIZED

According to King's Chief Creative Officer Sebastian Knutsson, Candy Crush is addictive because it's equal parts pain and fun and fits consumers' short attention span.

"We talk internally about.. bite-sized entertainment, and we think that fits the mobile generation of today... short game rounds as opposed to having a super deep, long game," he said.

Knutsson, one of the five founders of King who between them hold 25 percent, is also part of the 10-strong Swedish team that came up with Candy Crush. It combines elements of other popular games - the shiny graphics of Bejewelled, the candies of Candy Land and the grid-like action of Tetris.

"Candies felt like something that everybody would have a positive feeling about.. And I wanted something that could have shine and glossiness without being something unattainable," Knutsson told Reuters in a Stockholm office where meeting rooms have names like Bubble Witch Lair, after the game.

Players lured by the appealing graphics of Candy Crush can pay for more lives, or must wait for 30 minutes before they may start again - though some cheat and move the clocks on their smartphones ahead so they can continue. The game's appeal was broadened by its social aspect: Players can share their progress on Facebook, swapping lives as well as tips on how to crack the various levels. Others share their pain: "Die Candy Crush. Die." writes one player, stuck at level 60, on King's Facebook page.

King says its decision last year to shift its focus to its mobile platform was pivotal because that market was booming and the game suited it well.

The candies worked well on mobile screens, Knutsson said. Analysts note the game is easy to hop in and out of, making it a good time killer for mobile players, yet offers new challenges to give players a new twist when they play again.

"We knew it would be big on Facebook but I think the mobile success is what really took us by surprise," Knutsson said.

The game's success led CEO of arch-rival Zynga, former Microsoft Corp Xbox boss Don Mattrick to admit: "I'll fess up, I'm a candy crush player and I've enjoyed it."

California-based Zynga's trajectory demonstrates the fate of many others in the industry. In 2009 it developed social game FarmVille - a huge hit in which players harvested crops and raised livestock - but is now struggling to make money from it because it is still based on Facebook as players migrate in droves to mobile. Zynga's stock price has slumped 65 percent since a high-profile $1 billion IPO two years ago and it is now slashing staff numbers while closing offices.

NEXT LEVEL

Market researcher Newzoo estimates global game revenues across all platforms to reach $86.1 billion by 2016 as the number of gamers reaches 1.55 billion. It expects the fastest growth to come from mobile gaming, which will make up almost 30 percent of the total, up from about 17 percent this year.

Accordingly King - currently offering 150 games and boasting more than a billion gameplays each day - is lining up its next mobile games, readying alternatives for when its immense audience is no longer as mesmerized by its cascading candies.

Analysts expect the company to launch a mobile version of Farm Heroes Saga, a game in which players must match 3 items, which is already Facebook's second-most popular app. King is already starting to roll out a mobile version of Papa Pear Saga, currently available on the web and on Facebook, in which players bounce and dive into barrels.

In the meantime, it plans to build on growth in Asia, the latest market to succumb to Candy Crush, which is gaining popularity there along with Supercell's Clash of Clans.

"These are really the first western productions to break into the top 10 or the top 20 in the app store in Japan," said David Gibson, a senior analyst at Macquarie in Tokyo.

Sex kills for some male marsupials: research

AFP News 


The rodent-like animal Antechinus Flavipes, which is one of a small number of mammals that die after mating.

Sex is such a frenetic and stressful process for some male marsupials that it literally kills them -- and female promiscuity partly fuels this "suicidal" behaviour, according to a new Australian-led research.

Scientists had wondered for decades why some species of insect-eating marsupials dropped dead after mating, with speculation including that they died from fighting or to leave more food for their offspring.

But research published in the US-based Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences puts the "dying off" down to the animals' extreme efforts to ensure their sperm is successful in the short once-a-year window that females offer to mate.

"There's always a cost to reproducing -- it's an energy expensive thing that animals do," lead researcher, mammal ecologist Diana Fisher from the University of Queensland, explained Tuesday.

"But in this case they haven't spread out their effort over time, they do it all at once in a really short time. And they just die afterwards."

Organisms that mate once and then die are common among plants and some fish, but rarer among mammals.

Among the exceptions of mammals that can die, are some species of small marsupials including the mouse-like antechinus and the phascogales, which is more like a possum. Die-off occurs in all males of the 12 Australian species of antechinus, three species of phascogale and the dasykaluta, a rodent-like cousin of the antechinus.

Fisher said the male marsupials that die are so intent on mating that their high testosterone levels trigger a cascade effect of stress hormones, which causes the animals' body tissue to break down and their immune systems to collapse.

"They mate for 12 or 14 hours at a time with lots of females, and they use up their muscle and their body tissues and they are using all of their energy to competitively mate, that's what they are doing. It's sexual selection," she told AFP.

"They just kill themselves mating in this extreme way."

The study, which included researchers from the University of Sydney and the University of Tasmania, compared 52 species of insect-eating marsupials in Australia, Papua New Guinea and South America -- not all of which self-destructed after sex.

The researchers found that among species with low male survival rates after mating, those with what is referred to as "suicidal reproduction" had shorter mating seasons and larger testes relative to body size, allowing them to fertilise many females.

"We demonstrate that short mating seasons intensified reproductive competition between males, increasing male energy investment in copulations and reducing male post-mating survival," the paper said.

The females also escalated sperm competition, not only by synchronising their annual mating period but by mating promiscuously.

"We conclude that precopulatory sexual selection by females favoured the evolution of suicidal reproduction in mammals," the paper added.

Fisher said across species, as the breeding season became shorter and shorter, there was a decline in male post-coital survival "until it reaches the pinnacle of extreme trade-off when you have to die".

Females had the advantage of timing their reproduction to be at the same time which encouraged mating competition, and ensured they got the best males.

"Rather than the males fighting, their sperm just compete," she said.

Fisher said, in the case of some of the marsupials, their life-and-death mating system seemed a shame.

"They have a nice temperament, they are very inquisitive little animals. They are quite interactive. It's a bit sad. But they don't know it's coming I suppose, it's just something that happens to them," she said.

Obama cancels Asia trip

AFP News


Photo By Saul Loeb

President Barack Obama scrapped trips to two key Asian summits on Thursday, blaming the US government shutdown for the cancelation of a tour designed to advance a central prong of his foreign policy.

After days of speculation that the trip was in jeopardy following the shutdown crisis, a White House statement late Thursday confirmed Obama would miss the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Bali and the East Asia summit in Brunei next week.

The president had already cancelled plans to visit Malaysia and the Philippines, but had delayed taking a decision on the summit meetings, both seen as an opportunity to push important foreign policy initiatives in the region.

"Due to the government shutdown, President Obama's travel to Indonesia and Brunei has been canceled," the White House statement said.

"The President made this decision based on the difficulty in moving forward with foreign travel in the face of a shutdown, and his determination to continue pressing his case that Republicans should immediately allow a vote to reopen the government."

The White House said Obama had called Indonesia President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to inform him of the cancelation.

"He expressed his regret that the ongoing government shutdown in the United States will prevent him from attending the Summit," the statement said.

Obama had also called the Sultan of Brunei, the White House said.

Secretary of State John Kerry would lead the US delegations to both countries in place of Obama, the statement said, before rounding on Republicans for causing a "completely avoidable shutdown."

"The cancelation of this trip is another consequence of the House Republicans forcing a shutdown of the government," the White House statement said.

"This completely avoidable shutdown is setting back our ability to create jobs through promotion of US exports and advance US leadership and interests in the largest emerging region in the world."

The budget impasse which has shuttered swathes of government departments and sent hundreds of thousands of federal workers home had left Obama torn between his political priorities at home and important foreign policy goals.

White House spokesman Jay Carney had already hinted that the trip to Asia was at risk if the government shutdown was not resolved by the time of Obama's scheduled departure on Saturday.

Political analysts had questioned whether Obama would risk traveling abroad and present an opening to domestic foes while on the other side of the globe.

Republicans would almost certainly accuse the president of placing more importance on striding the world stage while neglecting his duties at home.

However analysts had warned a no-show by Obama could hurt US interests in Asia, allowing competitors in the region such as China to make the case that Washington is an unreliable partner.

"I think there’s a lot at stake here with this trip," said Ernie Bower, a Southeast Asia specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies before the cancelation was made official.

"The geopolitical ramifications of the president not making a trip if he decides indeed that he has to cancel... -- it would leave a big geopolitical mark."

Bower said US allies would also question the extent of Obama's commitment to Asia.

Bower said US allies would also question the extent of Obama's commitment to Asia amid concerns that Washington lacked the political focus and capital to advance its pivot to Asia.

By nixing the Asia visit, Obama will be missing a chance to rub shoulders with leaders like China's Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin, key players in ongoing geopolitical crises from Syria to North Korea.

Obama in his first term, sensed an opening with Southeast Asian nations irked by China's increasingly abrasive foreign policy and power plays in simmering maritime territorial disputes in the region.

But the exit of administration heavyweights like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and national security advisor Tom Donilon -- both closely identified with the pivot -- have deprived US Asia policy of a figurehead.

Senior administration officials however point to repeated visits to Asia by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and noted their commitment to concluding a Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) region-wide trade deal as proof of US commitment.

They also cite Obama's repeated travel to Asia, most recently in November last year, when he visited Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar.

For Japan, China is losing its competitive edge

 Published: Friday, 4 Oct 2013

By: Leslie Shaffer | Writer for CNBC.com

Recent market turmoil may have spurred an exodus of funds from Southeast Asia's markets, but Japanese companies are piling in – and shunning China. 

In the wake of the Bank of Japan's massive easing program, Japanese bank lending and capital is pouring into Southeast Asia, with acquisition activity picking up, HSBC said in a report. "Corporate Japan is also taking the plunge, setting up more and more factories across Southeast Asia."

It's more than just caution over investing in China, it said. "China is no longer the highly competitive export platform it used to be," HSBC said. "It also reflects the growing pull of markets like Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam as promising consumer markets in their own right and increasingly competitive export platforms."

Why is investment swinging away from China?

"We can see from a survey of Japanese exporters that they are becoming increasingly worried about the political situation between Japan and China," said Robert Prior-Wandesforde, head of economics for Southeast Asia at Credit Suisse, citing a survey from Japan External Trade Organization, or Jetro. Last year, a territorial dispute over the East China Sea islands flared up, spurring tension between China and Japan, with violent protests on the mainland leading some Japanese firms to shut down factories temporarily.

Japan's currency has weakened sharply in the wake of the BOJ's April pledge to pump $1.4 trillion into the Japanese economy over the following two years, marking the world's most aggressive quantitative easing program.

The weaker yen should probably have slowed investments into Southeast Asia as it makes investments at home more attractive and investments overseas more expensive.

Japanese companies aren't terribly likely to keep their investments in their home market, even with the weaker yen, Prior-Wandesforde said. "It's still an expensive place to locate and produce," he said, noting there are also concerns about power supply amid ongoing problems at the Fukushima nuclear plant in the wake of the March 2011 earthquake. The plant has been taken offline as radioactive material continues to leak, with the resulting outcry putting the fate of Japan's other nuclear plants in jeopardy.

"(Companies) see better opportunities to meet demand elsewhere in the region than they do in their own market, which is aging rapidly and where consumer spending is still very depressed," he said.

HSBC noted the yen's weakness appears to be actually accelerating the investment flows. 

"With the BOJ holding its foot firmly on the gas, expect this to rise a lot further," it said.

To be sure, not everyone thinks the BOJ's easing is driving Japanese investment toward Southeast Asia.

Corporate investments take a while to decide upon, indicating the Japanese corporate investment boost may be unrelated to the stimulus measures introduced in April, Prior-Wandesforde said.

"Japanese companies have taken the view that a number of these Southeast Asian countries offer significant opportunities, particularly to meet domestic demand," he said. Japanese manufacturers, especially in the auto segment, have targeted Indonesia's growing middle class, while heavy supply-chain investment in Thailand is of long-standing, he noted.

—By CNBC.Com's Leslie Shaffer; Follow her on Twitter 

@LeslieShaffer1

'Killer hornets' kill 42 in China

Chinese firefighters in full protective suits spray hornets' nests at a park in Xian, on October 19, 2002 (AFP Photo/)

Beijing (AFP) - Swarms of hornets have killed 42 people in northwestern China in recent months, state media said Thursday, as temperatures rise and development drives the stinging insects into cities.

The terrifying attacks started in July, the official Xinhua news agency said Thursday, with 1,640 people having been stung.

Of those, 206 are being treated in hospital, it quoted the National Health and Family Planning Commission as saying.

"With the development of air-conditioning, urban landscaping and residential environment, hornets have started to migrate and relocate to cities, which has increased the probability of their hurting people," Xinhua said in a report Wednesday.

It carried a photo of a doctor examining a hospitalised patient with several large and swollen sting wounds on the legs.

It also quoted Huang Rongyao -- a senior official concerned with pest control in the city of Ankang, which has borne the brunt of the attacks -- as attributing the phenomenon to warmer-than-usual temperatures in the region.

"Furthermore, hornets are sensitive to bright colours, the smell of human sweat, alcohol, perfume, any specially scented articles and things that are sweet as well as the running of humans or animals," Huang said.

Hua Baozhen, a professor of entomology at Northwest Agriculture Forestry University, attributed the attacks mostly to a decrease in the number of the hornets' natural enemies, such as spiders and birds, due to ecological changes.

The Shaanxi Daily has said the attacks were centred on the cities of Ankang, Hanzhong and Shangluo.

CNWEST, the government-run news portal of Shaanxi province, said the provincial forestry department sent three teams of personnel to raise public awareness of hornets.

It also said that the province allocated six million yuan ($980,000) for work to prevent attacks and treat victims in the three cities.

Xinhua described the hornets as about the size of an adult thumb.

China News quoted a person working to combat them as saying they are about three to four centimetres (less than two inches) long and thousands can inhabit a single hive.

U.S. Is Overtaking Russia as Largest Oil-and-Gas Producer

By Russell Gold and Daniel Gilbert | The Wall Street Journal – Wed, Oct 2, 2013


Associated Press/Eric Gay, File - FILE -This Wednesday, May 9, 2012, file photo, shows drilling rig near Kennedy, Texas, Wednesday, May 9, 2012. Some thought the South Texas area known as Eagle Ford Shale would never produce much oil, but now the Department of Energy predicts it holds 3.4 billion. Some even expect 10 billion, which would make it the biggest oil field in U.S. history. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

The U.S. is overtaking Russia as the world's largest producer of oil and natural gas, a startling shift that is reshaping markets and eroding the clout of traditional energy-rich nations.

U.S. energy output has been surging in recent years, a comeback fueled by shale-rock formations of oil and natural gas that was unimaginable a decade ago. A Wall Street Journal analysis of global data shows that the U.S. is on track to pass Russia as the world's largest producer of oil and gas combined this year—if it hasn't already.

The U.S. ascendance comes as Russia has struggled to maintain its energy output and has yet to embrace technologies such as hydraulic fracturing that have boosted American reserves.

"This is a remarkable turn of events," said Adam Sieminski, head of the U.S. Energy Information Administration. "This is a new era of thinking about market conditions, and opportunities created by these conditions, that you wouldn't in a million years have dreamed about."

The U.S. produced the equivalent of about 22 million barrels a day of oil, natural gas and related fuels in July, according to figures from the EIA and the International Energy Agency. Neither agency has data for Russia's gas output this year, but Moscow's forecast for 2013 oil-and-gas production works out to about 21.8 million barrels a day.

U.S. imports of natural gas and crude oil have fallen 32% and 15%, respectively, in the past five years, narrowing the U.S. trade deficit. And since the U.S. is such a big consumer of energy, the shift to producing more of its own oil and gas has left substantial fuel supplies available for other buyers. Nations that rely on peddling petroleum for their economic strength and political clout face dwindling market power as a result. Oil prices so far remain high, however, closing Wednesday at $104.10 a barrel, up 18% from a year ago.

Many analyses of energy markets look only at crude oil. But Russia and the U.S. also are major players in natural-gas markets, where they far outproduce countries such as Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer.

The U.S. last year tapped more natural gas than Russia for the first time since 1982, according to data from the International Energy Agency. Russia's exports have been crimped by rising competition and the economic slump in Europe. Russia forecasts that its gas production will increase slightly in coming years, but its forecast for this year is below current U.S. production.

The U.S. is also catching up in the race to pump crude. Russia produced an average of 10.8 million barrels of oil and related fuel a day in the first half of this year. That was about 900,000 barrels a day more than the U.S.—but down from a gap of three million barrels a day a few years ago, according to the IEA.

The amount of crude from two of the hottest plays in the U.S.—the Bakken oil field in North Dakota and the Eagle Ford shale formation in South Texas—continues to rise rapidly, while Russian output has increased modestly over the past three years. The Russian government predicts oil output will remain flat through 2016, while natural gas ticks up 3%. The shift has raised concerns in Moscow that U.S. crude supplies will crowd out Russia's oil exports.

"Russia looks like the main loser in the global market," said Tatiana Mitrova, of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Energy Research Institute. More than 40% of Russia's budget comes from oil-and-gas related duties and taxes, she said.

The institute has forecast that Russian oil exports could fall 25% to 30% after 2015, reducing gross domestic product more than $100 billion.

To be sure, Russia is believed to have one of the world's largest, untapped oil-bearing shale formations, creating the potential for a surge in production.

And not everyone in Russia sees a threat from the U.S. The head of one the country's largest energy companies, OAO Gazprom, has called expanding U.S. shale output "a bubble that will soon burst."

A similar view was expressed Tuesday by Abdallah Salem el-Badri, the head of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, who said in an interview that the U.S. oil boom from shale will run out of steam by decade's end.

Saudi Arabia remains the world's largest supplier of crude oil and related liquids. As of July, Saudi Arabia was pumping 11.7 million barrels a day, according to the IEA. Russia was second, at 10.8 million barrels, while the U.S. was third, at 10.3 million. Each of the three pumps more than twice the daily output of such major producers as Canada, Venezuela and Nigeria.

Even optimists in the U.S. concede that the shale boom's longevity could hinge on commodity prices, government regulations and public support, the last of which could be problematic. A poll last month by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that opposition to increased use of fracking rose to 49% from 38% in the previous six months.

Other risk factors: a global economic contraction would depress oil and gas prices, leading companies to slow production. And drilling in shale is expensive and more complex than conventional exploration, leading to concerns that a market downturn could take a large bite out of U.S. output.

So far, most companies aren't dialing back, even though they need access to enormous amounts of capital to pay for the deep wells required to tap dense rock formations.

Much of the growth in fossil-fuel production comes from companies that need to sell shares, take on debt or sell assets to plug a gap between spending and their revenue. According to an estimate by Barclays PLC, 50 major U.S. oil and gas explorers needed to raise $50.3 billion last year to close that gap.

Plenty of private-equity funding and overseas investment remains available, industry experts say, and debt remains relatively cheap.

"The dollars needed have never been larger," said Maynard Holt, co-president of Houston-based investment bank Tudor, Pickering Holt & Co. "But the money is truly out there. The global energy capital river is flowing our way."

U.S. energy producers also are drilling more efficiently and cutting costs in other ways. Some companies have said that the amount of oil and gas produced by shale wells isn't dropping as fast as predicted.

Ken Hersh, chief executive of NGP Energy Capital Management LLC, a private-equity fund with $13 billion under management, said the immense amounts of oil and gas uncovered in recent years indicate that the U.S. energy boom could last a long time.

"It is not a supply question anymore," he said. "It is about demand and the cost of production. Those are the two drivers."

—Gregory L. White contributed to this article.

Write to Russell Gold at russell.gold@wsj.com and Daniel Gilbert at daniel.gilbert@wsj.com

Ancient Kingdom Discovered Beneath Mound in Iraq

By By Owen Jarus, LiveScience Contributor | LiveScience.com


A domestic structure, with at least two rooms, that may date to relatively late in the life of the newfound ancient city, perhaps around 2,000 years ago when the Parthian Empire controlled the area in Iraq.

In the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq archaeologists have discovered an ancient city called Idu, hidden beneath a mound.

Cuneiform inscriptions and works of art reveal the palaces that flourished in the city throughout its history thousands of years ago. 

Located in a valley on the northern bank of the lower Zab River, the city's remains are now part of a mound created by human occupation called a tell, which rises about 32 feet (10 meters) above the surrounding plain. The earliest remains date back to Neolithic times, when farming first appeared in the Middle East, and a modern-day village called Satu Qala now lies on top of the tell.

The city thrived between 3,300 and 2,900 years ago, said Cinzia Pappi, an archaeologist at the Universität Leipzig in Germany. At the start of this period, the city was under the control of theAssyrian Empire and was used to administer the surrounding territory. Later on, as the empire declined, the city gained its independence and became the center of a kingdom that lasted for about 140 years, until the Assyrians reconquered it. [See Photos of Discoveries at the Ancient City of Idu]

The researchers were able to determine the site's ancient name when, during a survey of the area in 2008, a villager brought them an inscription with the city's ancient name engraved on it. Excavations were conducted in 2010 and 2011, and the team reported its findings in the most recent edition of the journal Anatolica.

"Very few archaeological excavations had been conducted in Iraqi Kurdistan before 2008," Pappi wrote in an email to LiveScience. Conflicts in Iraq over the past three decades have made it difficult to work there. Additionally archaeologists before that time tended to favor excavations in the south of Iraq at places like Uruk and Ur.

The effects of recent history are evident on the mound. In 1987, Saddam Hussein's forces attacked and partly burnt the modern-day village as part of a larger campaign against the Kurds, and "traces of this attack are still visible," Pappi said.

Ancient palaces

The art and cuneiform inscriptions the team uncovered provide glimpses of the ancient city's extravagant palaces.

When Idu was an independent city, one of its rulers, Ba'ilanu, went so far as to boast that his palace was better than any of his predecessors'. "The palace which he built he made greater than that of his fathers," he claimed in the translated inscription. (His father, Abbi-zeri, made no such boast.)

Two works of art hint at the decorations adorning the palaces at the time Idu was independent. One piece of artwork, a bearded sphinxwith the head of a human male and the body of a winged lion, was drawn onto a glazed brick that the researchers found in four fragments. Above and below the sphinx, a surviving inscription reads, "Palace of Ba'auri, king of the land of Idu, son of Edima, also king of the land of Idu."

Another work that was created for the same ruler, and bearing the same inscription as that on the sphinx, shows a "striding horse crowned with a semicircular headstall and led by a halter by a bearded man wearing a fringed short robe," Pappi and colleague Arne Wossink wrote in the journal article.

Even during Assyrian rule, when Idu was used to administer the surrounding territory, finely decorated palaces were still built. For instance, the team discovered part of a glazed plaque whose colored decorations include a palmette, pomegranates and zigzag patterns. Only part of the inscription survives, but it reads, "Palace of Assurnasirpal, (king of the land of Assur)." Assurnasirpal refers to Assurnasirpal II (883-859 B.C.), the researchers said, adding that he, or one of his governors, must have built or rebuilt a palace at Idu after the Assyrians reconquered the city. [The 10 Biggest Battles for the Control of Iraq]

A hero facing a griffon

Another intriguing artifact, which may be from a palace, is a cylinder seal dating back about 2,600 years. When it was rolled on a piece of clay, it would have revealed a vivid mythical scene.

The scene would have shown a bow-wielding man crouching down before a griffon, as well as a morning star (a symbol of the goddess Ishtar), a lunar crescent (a symbol of the moon god) and a solar disc symbolizing the sun god. A symbol called a rhomb, which represented fertility, was also shown.

"The image of the crouching hero with the bow is typical for warrior gods," Pappi wrote in the email. "The most common of these was the god Ninurta, who also played an important role in the [Assyrian] state religion, and it is possible that the figure on the seal is meant to represent him."

Future work

Before conducting more digs, the researchers will need approval from both the local government and the people of the village.

"For wide-scale excavations to continue, at least some of these houses will have to be removed," Pappi said. "Unfortunately, until a settlement is reached between the villagers and the Kurdistan regional government, further work is currently not possible."

Although digging is not currently possible, the artifacts already excavated were recently analyzed further and more publications of the team's work will be appearing in the future. The archaeologists also plan to survey the surrounding area to get a sense of the size of the kingdom of Idu.

New Photos of Pakistan's Earthquake Island Released

1. An aerial photo from Pakistan's National Institute of Oceanography suggests the new island is 60 to 70 feet (15 to 20 meters) tall.

The Earth performed the ultimate magic trick last week, making an island appear out of nowhere. The new island is a remarkable side effect of the deadly Sept. 24 earthquake in Pakistan that killed more than 500 people.

A series of satellite images snapped a few days after the earthquake-triggered island emerged offshore of the town of Gwadar reveals the strange structure is round and relatively flat, with cracks and fissures like a child's dried-up mud pie.

The French Pleiades satellite mapped the muddy hill's dimensions, which measure 576.4 feet (175.7 meters) long by 524.9 feet (160 m) wide. Aerial photos from Pakistan's National Institute of Oceanography suggest the gray-colored mound is about 60 to 70 feet (15 to 20 m) tall. [Gallery: Amazing Images of Pakistan's Earthquake Island]

Gwadar is about 230 miles (380 kilometers) from the earthquake's epicenter. The magnitude-7.7 earthquake was likely centered on the Chaman Fault, Shuhab Khan, a geoscientist at the University of Houston told LiveScience last week..

Geologists think the new island, named Zalzala Koh, is made of erupted mud, spewed from the seafloor when either trapped gases escaped or subsurface water was violently expelled.

The new island could be a mud volcano. Mud volcanoes form when hot water underground mixes with sediments and gases such as methane and carbon dioxide. If the noxious slurry finds a release valve, such as a crack opened by earthquake shaking, a mud volcano erupts, said James Hein, a senior scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Santa Cruz, Calif, said in an earlier interview. Geologists from the Pakistan Navy report that Zalzala Koh is releasing flammable gas. But seafloor sediments commonly hold methane-producing bacteria, so the possible methane coming from the island isn't a clincher to its identity.

Shaking from the powerful Sept. 24 earthquake could have also loosened the seafloor sediments offshore of Pakistan, jiggling them like jelly. The great rivers coming down from the Himalayas dump tons of water-saturated sediment into the Arabian Sea every year. The new island could be a gigantic example of a liquefaction blow, when seismic shaking makes saturated sediments act like liquid and trapped water suddenly escapes, Michael Manga, a geophysicist at the University of California, Berkeley, told LiveScience last week.

Similar islands have appeared offshore of Pakistan after strong earthquakes in the region in 2001 and 1945. If the earlier examples hold, the soft mud island won't last a year, disappearing under the erosive power of the pounding of waves from monsoon storms.

Email Becky Oskin or follow her @beckyoskin. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.

New Bigfoot Evidence Screened as Experts Claim Proof of Existence

By Kevin Dolak | ABC News Blogs 


New Bigfoot Evidence Screened as Experts Claim Proof of Existence (ABC News)

Bigfoot is real, and now at least one scientist claims there is proof.

A group of Sasquatch researchers who have been collecting over 100 pieces of evidence over the past five years screened "never before seen HD video" of the alleged creature at a news conference in Dallas on Tuesday.

The footage, which came from a similar effort dubbed TheErickson Project, led by Adrian Erickson, included what the group said was a sasquatch moving through wooded areas in Kentucky.

Dr. Melba Ketchum, who has led the group of researchers called the Sasquatch Genome Project, has been working on a $500,000 analysis of DNA samples from an unknown hominin species. Ketchumcalls the project "a serious study" that concludes the legendary Sasquatch exists in North America and is a human relative that arose approximately 13,000 years ago.

"They're a type of people, they're a human-hybrid, we believe. And all of the DNA evidence points to that. And they can elude us, so if you get [footage] at all, it can be fleeting," Ketchum told ABC affiliate WFAA.

Ketchum, who was initially a skeptic, says she implemented strict protocols as DNA was extracted from the collected samples.

"We soon discovered that certain hair samples - which we would later identify as purported Sasquatch samples - had unique morphology distinguishing them from typical human and animal samples," Ketchum said in February of the research.

"Those hair samples that could not be identified as known animal or human were subsequently screened using DNA testing, beginning with sequencing of mitochondrial DNA followed by sequencing nuclear DNA to determine where these individuals fit in the 'tree of life,'" she said.

In total, 111 specimens of purported Sasquatch hair, blood, skin, and other tissue types were analyzed for the Sasquatch Genome Project's study. The samples were submitted from 34 different hominin research sites in 14 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces.

At Tuesday's press conference, Dennis Pfoul, the group's project manager, showed footage of footprints of what he believes belongs to a Sasquatch in the snow in Colorado.

"We've all had experiences that have changed our lives, I mean, literally shook the foundation of what we believe in," Pfoul said at the news conference.

Funding for the Sasquatch Genome Project comes from Erikson and entrepreneur Wally Hersom, according to Ketchum. The Erikson Project has in the past teased footage of supposed Sasquatch sightings, notable in a November 2012 trailer for "Sasquatch: The Quest." Watch the trailer here.

Todd R. Disotell, a professor at the Department of Anthropology at New York University, told ABCNews.com that Ketchum's research is nonsense.

"It's just a joke," he said. "She is a laughing stock of people that are of a community that are already kind of wacko."

"This was not reported in any scientific way whatsoever. It's complete junk science, and then she misinterprets it. She hasn't published in peer-reviewed papers on this stuff. I don't know how this got put together," he said.

Disotell says that he has disproven samples from being what they're claimed to be many times, including debunking a yeti, a chupacabra, and a sasquatch eight times, including once on ScyFy's "Joe Rogan Questions Everything."

"You can't prove something doesn't exist," he said. "You can prove that every sample you're brought isn't what they're claiming, But you can't disprove this. It will go on forever. We'll always have it."

Obama tells congressional leaders he won't negotiate on shutdown, debt

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama stressed to congressional leaders on Wednesday that he will not negotiate with Republicans over a government shutdown or raising the U.S. debt limit, the White House said.

After more than an hour of talks at the White House that did not lead to a breakthrough, the White House issued a statement saying that Obama remains hopeful that "common sense will prevail" in the budget standoff.

"The president made clear to the leaders that he is not going to negotiate over the need for Congress to act to reopen the government or to raise the debt limit to pay the bills Congress has already incurred," the White House said.

Obama held talks in the Oval Office with the top U.S. Republican, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, the Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, the top Democrat in Congress, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.

It was their first face-to-face talks since a government shutdown began on Tuesday.

House Republicans have been demanding that Obama agree to cut funding or delay implementation of his signature healthcare law in exchange for their agreement to approve spending measures to reopen the government.

In addition to the government shutdown, the United States faces a historic debt default on October 17 unless Congress agrees to raise the U.S. borrowing limit.

"The House could act today to reopen the government and stop the harm this shutdown is causing to the economy and families across the country," the White House said.

"The president remains hopeful that common sense will prevail, and that Congress will not only do its job to reopen the government, but also act to pay the bills it has racked up and spare the nation from a devastating default," it said.

(Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Stacey Joyce and David Brunnstrom)