by the University of Michigan

NN ARBOR, Mich.— In findings that took the experimenters three years to believe, University of Michigan engineers and their collaborators have demonstrated that light itself can twist ribbons of nanoparticles.

The results are published in the current edition of Science.

Matter readily bends and twists light. That’s the mechanism behind optical lenses and polarizing 3-D movie glasses. But the opposite interaction has rarely been observed, said Nicholas Kotov, principal investigator on the project. Kotov is a professor in the departments of Chemical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering.

While light has been known to affect matter on the molecular scale, bending or twisting molecules with sizes of a few nanometers, it has not been observed causing such drastic mechanical twisting to large particles.

The nanoparticle ribbons in this study were between one and four micrometers long. A micrometer is one-mil- lionth of a meter.

“I didn’t believe it at the beginning,” Kotov said. “To be honest, it took us three and a half years to re- ally fi gure out how photons of light can lead to such a remarkable change in rigid structures a thousand times bigger than molecules.”

Kotov and his col- leagues had set out in this study to create “superchi- ral” particles—spirals of nano-scale mixed metals that could theoretically fo- cus visible light to specks smaller than its wavelength. Materials with this unique “negative refractive index could be capable of pro- ducing Klingon-like invis- ibility cloaks, said Sharon Glotzer, a professor in the departments of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering who was also involved in the experiments. The twisted nanoparticle rib- bons are likely to lead to the superchiral materials, the professors say.

To begin the experiment, the researchers dispersed nanoparticles of cadmium telluride in a water-based solution. They checked on them intermittently with powerful microscopes. After about 24 hours un- der light, the nanoparticles had assembled themselves into flat ribbons. After 72 hours, they had twisted and bunched together in the process. But when the nanoparticles were left in the dark, distinct, long, straight ribbons formed.

“We discovered that if we make fl at ribbons in the dark and then illuminate them, we see a gradual twisting, twisting that in- creases as we shine more light,” Kotov said. “This is very unusual in many ways.”

The light twists the rib- bons by causing a stronger repulsion between nanopar- ticles in it.

The twisted ribbon is a  new shape in nanotechnol-ogy, Kotov said. Besides superchiral materials, he envisions clever applica- tions for the shape and the technique of creating it.

Sudhanshu Srivastava, a postdoctoral researcher in his lab, is trying to make the spirals rotate.

“He’s making very small propellers to move through fluid—nanoscale submarines, if you will,” Kotov said. “You often see this motif of twisted structures in mobility organs of bacteria and cells.

This newly-discovered twisting effect could also lead to microelectromechanical systems that are controlled by light. And it could be utilized in lithography, or microchip production.

Glotzer, and Aaron Santos, a postdoctoral researcher in her lab, performed computer simulations that helped Kotov and his team better understand how the ribbons form. The simulations showed that under certain circumstances, the complex combination of forces between the tetrahedrally- shaped nanoparticles could conspire to produce ribbons of just the width observed in the experiments. A tetrahedron is a pyramid-shaped, three-dimensional polyhedron.

“The precise balance of forces leading to the self-assembly of ribbons is very revealing,” Glotzer said. “It could be used to stabilize other nanostructures made of non-spherical particles. It’s all about how the particles want to pack themselves.”

Letter by National Association of Hispanic Journalist

Washington — The National Association of Hispanic Journalists called on the U.S. government to reverse its decision to deny a visa to Colombian journalist Hollman Morris so he can join this fall’s class of the prestigious Nieman fellowships at Harvard University.

With this request, NAHJ joins the chorus of human rights and civil liberties organizations and fellow journalists throughout Latin American and the United States who have raised concerns about the denial of a visa for Morris. The veteran journalist, whose work has been praised by U.S. State Department officials, received the 2007 Human Rights Defender Award from Human Rights Watch.

Morris was denied a visa under the USA Patriot Act’s “terrorist activities” section. Some human rights groups question whether the Obama Administra- tion was influenced by Colombian President Al- varo Uribe’s government, a frequent target of Morris’ journalistic work. Human rights groups say Colom- bia’s intelligence agencies have started a campaign to discredit Morris by tying him to the Revolutionary Armed Forced of Colom- bia (FARC), the country’s largest rebel group.

“Mr. Morris is a dis- tinguished journalist who, at great personal risk, has strived to report in an unbiased fashion o the bloody conflict tearing apart his country,” NAHJ stated to U.S. Ambassa- dor in Colombia William Brownfi eld and Assistant Secretary of State Janice Lee Jacobs in a letter signed by NAHJ President Michele Salcedo.

“His television pro-gram “Contravía” docu- ments the suffering of victims of human rights abuses committed by all parties, whether they be left-wing guerrillas, Co- lombian armed forces or paramilitary units,” the letter stated. “To accu- rately report the facts he – as would any reputable journalist – had to establish links with representatives of all those groups.

In the letter, NAHJ acknowledges that Mor-ris’ investigative journal- ism has bothered some in the government and “it is well documented that he, his collaborators and his family have been the targets of orchestrated harassment, surveillance and threats.”

Other colleagues from Colombia have been cho- sen for this prestigious fel- lowship. Colombia’s Presi-dent-elect Juan Manuel Santos was a Nieman Fel- low in 1988. And there is precedent for U.S. govern- ment offi cials to rescind a similar type of visa denial. Eight years ago, Stanford University successfully appealed the denial of a visa for Alberto Molano, a columnist for Bogotá’s El Espectador, chosen to be a Knight Fellow.

“Mr. Morris has been granted visas to visit the United States in the recent past to attend academic and journalistic events. He should not be denied one now,” NAHJ stated.

by Jennifer Chappels

Fremont, Nebraska, pop. 25,000, jumped on the anti-immigrant bandwagon June 21 when residents passed an ordinance designed to preven undocumented persons from renting property or getting a job.

No date has been set for the law to take effect.

“Fremont is an example of ‘If Washington won’t, Nebraskans will,’” said Bob Dane, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which supports tougher enforcement.

Approximately 2,000 residents are Latino, a number that has grown considerably in the last two decades. The city offered no estimate as to how many are undocumented.

Ann Morse, director of the Immigrant Policy Project at the National Conference of State Legislators, told Weekly Report, “When I talk to legislators, they say this is their way of signaling they want federal immigration reform to happen — that they care deeply about the issue, they’re working within the parameters they have, sometimes at the edge, trying to get federal attention.

Fremont is also signaling it isn’t necessary for a state to be tangent to a national border for it to want immigration reform. People within the city are deeply divided over the issue. One opponent, Kristin Ostrom, said, “Unfortunately, people have voted for an ordinance…that says to the Hispanic community that the Anglo community is saying they are not welcome here.”

Laurel Marsh, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Nebraska, said, “If this law goes into effect, it will cause discrimination and racial profiling against Latinos and others who appear to be foreign– born, including U.S. citizens.

Marsh viewed the ordinance as un-American, unconstitutional and in violation of federal law. She said that ACLU Nebraska will challenge it in court before it goes into effect. Other cities such as Hazleton, Pa., and Farmers Branch, Texas, are already involved in drawn-out legal battles involving anti-immigrant ordinances. South Carolina, Minnesota,

Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Michigan are considering legislation that will mimic Arizona’s stance on the issue.

In other related news:

NALEO survey sees big Latino turnout Likely in November

by Alex Galbraith

A National Associa- tion of Latino Elected and Appointed Offi cials survey projects a hefty Latino voter turnout for California, Texas, Florida and Colorado during their midterm elec- tions this year. The survey also reveals what issues will help Latinos steer their votes toward one candidate or another.

Of the 1,600 Hispanic registered voters surveyed by NALEO — 400 in each of the four states — 75 per- cent said they intend to vote in November, a drastic shift in a usually low-turnout non -presidential election year.

Though candidates may stir troubled waters by speaking against certain is- sues, the 2010 litmus test for Latinos is immigration.

“The issue of immigra-tion has a clearimpact on the importance of these elections to Latino voters,” said a state- ment from Latino Research and Communications, the company responsible for the survey. “46 percent of voters claim they are more likely to vote due to the immigration issue.”

Of the voters surveyed, 27 percent said that a candidate’s stance on im- migration reform was the most important issue, with 33 percent saying immigra- tion was in their top three concerns.

An additional 40 per-cent of respondents said they would withhold their vote from a candidate they would normally support should the candidate’s stance on an issue differ from their own.

Unemployment ranked as the secondmost impor- tant issue to Latinos. Some 15 percent said it was the most important issue and 22 percent said it was in their top three.

The majority of re-spondents agreed that candidates weren’t making enough of an effort to con- nect with their Hispanic constituents. No candidate in any state received more than 35 percent agree- ment with the question: “Has this candidate made an effort to reach Latino voters?”

“When it comes to reaching out to these voters,”said a statement from LRC, “all of the can- didates have some work to do.” Hispanic Link.

­ The cop who killed Oscar Grant during the verdict. (photo by NEWS SERVICES)

After a long wait for justice by the family of Oscar Grant, who was killed by a BART police officer in 2009, finally a verdict was reached in Los Angeles on Thursday, July 8: guilty of involuntary manslaughter, which carries a lighter sentence than murder.

“Involuntary manslaughter: unacceptable! We demand justice for Oscar Grant!,” cried thousands of people around the state, while riot police attacked protesters who marched denouncing the verdict as another injustice committed by the legal system against people of color and the poor.

Violence did not wait. Commercial shops were looted and windows smashed by angry demonstrators for the result of the judgment.

According to the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild (NLGSF), “The verdict is a painful example of what we already know, the criminal justice system treats white, police officers with deference and poor people of color with hostility, said Carlos Villarreal, the NLGSF executive director.

However, in a written statement, the Youth Speak Out Against Police Abuse, made a guilty or not verdict irrelevant.

statement, the Youth Speak Out Against Police Abuse, made a guilty or not verdict irrelevant.

by David BaconTruthout Report

Thousands of leftwing activists just spent a week at the US Social Forum in Detroit, gathered again under the banner “Another World is Possible!” Among them hundreds added a new subtext: “Another Immigration Policy is Possible!

This theme was especially popular among grassroots organizations in immigrant communities. Today non-traditional worker centers are spreading across the US, including ones for day laborers, domestic workers, farm workers and other low-wage immigrants. Most are Spanish-speaking migrants from Mexico and Central America, but many also come from the Philippines, India, Pakistan, China and the Caribbean.

If anyone should be in favor of immigration reform, these groups should be. Yet instead of embracing the proposals made in Washington by Representative Luis Gutierrez and Senator Charles Schumer, they reject them.

The Social Forum was over by the time President Barack Obama made a speech about immigration policy a week later, but the forum’s message could as easily have been given to him as well. There are no significant differences between Obama’s ideas and those of Gutierrez and Schumer.

These grassroots groups don’t like the proposals for new guest worker programs. They have been fighting raids, firings and increased immigration enforcement for years, and are angry that the Washington proposals all make enforcement heavier. They want the border demilitarized. And they believe any rational immigration reform must change US trade policies that displace people in other countries.

Washington’s proposals for immigration reform all have a similar structure. They assure a managed flow of migrant labor to employers at low wages, through expanded recruitment by contractors in countries like Mexico. Immigrants must work to stay, and those who aren’t working must leave.

To force the flow of undoc- umented workers into this program, the Washington bills all increase penalties for working or crossing the border without visas. And as the carrot, they propose limited legalization for undocumented people cur- rently in the US.

These proposals originally came from large corporations in the Essen- tial Worker Immigration Coalition, and were then supported by some unions and civil rights groups. These groups argued that corporations would never support legalization if they weren’t guaranteed a future fl ow of displaced people.

It’s not uncommon in Washington to hear ar- guments that “Mexicans would rather come to the US as braceros than die in the desert on the border,” or even “Mexicans are so desperate to migrate, they don’t care what kind of visa they have.”

In Detroit, it was obvious that immigrants do care. They don’t want to be used just as cheap labor, and want rights and equality with the people living around them. “We need a better alternative,” says Lillian Galedo, direc- tor of Filipino Advocates for Justice.

Renee Saucedo, who was born in Mexico and today directs the day labor program in San Francisco, says the biggest problem with the Washington con- sensus is that “it continues to mischaracterize migra- tion as a ‘criminal,’ or ‘il- legal,’ issue, rather than as a consequence of economic trade agreements and politi- cal repression that displace millions. Employers want to keep it this way to ensure their supply of cheap, vul- nerable, exploitable labor.

The Frente Indigena de Organizaciones Binacio- nales, with an indigenous membership on both sides of the Mexico/US border, has historically opposed contract labor, or guest worker, programs. “Mi- grants need the right to work, but these workers don’t have labor rights or benefi ts,” says FIOB’s bi- national coordinator, Gas- par Rivera Salgado. “It’s like slavery.” Many FIOB members are farm workers, and some remember the abuses of the old “bracero” program.

At the same time,Rivera Salgado cautions, “We need development in Mexico that makes migra- tion a choice rather than a necessity — the right to not migrate. Both rights are part of the same solution. But the right to not migrate has to mean more than the right to be poor or the right to go hungry and homeless.” For that reason, after a long consultation process, FIOB announced it would “work to renegotiate NAFTA, be- cause it creates migration by forcing poverty and inequal- ity on the communities we come from in Mexico.”

Immigrant activists In Detroit called for broad legalization that would give papers to all undocumented people. They want the US to make more residence visas available, allowing migrants to choose where to live without making them vulnerable to employers. They opposed trade agree- ments like NAFTA. But most of all, they called for ending the criminalization of immigrants, whether by Arizona’s infamous 1070 law, or through the fi rings of thousands of people for lacking work papers. Over 350,000 undocumented migrants were incarcerated last year alone, in private detention centers.

“We should never fi ght for the rights of some at the expense of others.” Saucedo declares. “Legal- ization would be an empty victory if most immigrants still faced high exploitation, fi rings and raids.”

http://www.truth-out.org/another-immi-gration-policy-is-pos-sible60995

by Raoul Lowery Contreras

President Barack Obama and AFL/CIO President Richard L. Trumka are lying, flaky politicians when speaking of immigration. The same must be said about Arizona Governor Jan Brewer. They are the most egregious dissemblers since a retired Army General lied to Americans and President Eisenhower that his “Operation Wetback” threw a million illegals out of the country back into Mexico.

Some illegals were picked up by a tiny Border Patrol and the INS — La Migra — and deported but that number was but a small percentage of what the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) claimed in news releases. The retired General lied. It was almost 50 years before the truth came out that the actual number deported was tiny but the “estimated” totals were artificially inflated with people that came and went as they pleased without

fearing “la migra.”

So, will Obama and Trumka ever admit that they lied today, the day Obama gave an Immigration Speech at American University? No. They are trapped in their own lies.

Obama’s lies started during his 2008 campaign when he promised to fix the immigration mess in his first year in office — Didn’t happen. In fact, he says that as senator he supported Comprehensive Immigration Reform but he actually voted for Laborsponsored “poison pill” amendments that killed the Reform. His lies continued at American University by declaring that the nation needs Comprehensive Im- migration Reform now but offered no date as a goal to vote for a Reform.

Where was his detailed plan? Why didn’t he show us a plan and release it to the press after his speech. A plan would itemize im- migration solutions, point by point. Instead, all he gave us were verbal very foggy generalities. He has never outlined a detailed  “comprehensive” reformproposal.

Specifically, where is his guest worker program? Republicans insist such a program must be part of a Reform they can support. No mention by Obama. Nonetheless, he insists that a Reform must have Repub- lican support and votes. Yet, he does not mention a pro- gram that allows men and women to come into the country legally to work for, say, harvest times or tourist seasons then go home. That alone solves 95% of the ille- gal alien problem as all but a handful come to work.

Obama offers no such program. Why? Richard Trumka’s unions are against such a plan. They insist, as Trumka did after the Presi- dent’s speech that there be a “Commission” in place to decide when and where foreign temporary labor is needed.

We know from U.S. Department of Labor stud- ies that California’s half million farm workers — in the state’s largest industry – – are mostly here illegally. Would an Obama-appointed union-populated Commis- sion see a need for foreign farm workers in California if they could point to LA’s Watts neighborhood with its chronic Black unem- ployment? Of course a ommission wouldn’t. It would maintain that there are unemployed black work- ers thus no foreigners were needed. Would these chroni- cally black unemployed ap- ply for farm worker jobs a hundred miles away, would they, Trumka? No. Crops would rot and food prices would skyrocket because supply would shrink.

Nonetheless, Trumka declares that Labor is “one hundred percent” behind President Obama on Im-of course, as a union-popu-lated Labor Commission is empowered to decide when foreign workers are needed, how much they are paid, how many would be imported and for how long. As long as Labor insists on this Commission, Com- prehensive Immigration Reform is a non-starter as far as Republicans are concerned. Obama insists on Republican support, no?migration Reform as long,Conundrum..?\

For example, Politico and the Arizona Republic have published quotes of Arizona Governor Jan Brewer that make false and irresponsible claims. She says that “beheaded” bodies have been found in the desert that resulted from criminal illegal aliens and/or Mexican drug car- tels. There is no truth to her statements. Reporters checked with all Arizona county medical examiners who said no, no such bodies have turned up, none.

Another example: Brewer lied through her teeth when she declared that “most” illegals cross- ing over from Mexico were smuggling drugs. Even the Border Patrol union’s presi- dent declared her wrong.

Will there be Com-prehensive Immigration Reform this year or next year? There won’t be as long as the AFL/CIO President, the President of the United States and the Governor of Arizona dissemble truth.

We have a passive President of the United States that refuses to lead, a union President who lies and a state Governor who lies whenever she opens her mouth. Is there any wonder we don’t and won’t have Immigration Reform under Obama?

(Contreras’ books are available at amazon.com)