[LINK] On potentially habitable exoplanet HD 40307g

It's been known since 2008 that the orange dwarf star HD 40307, roughly 42 light years away, hosted three close-orbiting exoplanets each many tims more massive than the Earth. A team of astronomers pouring over publically-available data about HD 40307's wobbles has found evidence of three more exoplanets, including one that orbits within the star's habitable zone. (Found via Universe Today's Jason Major.)

HARPS (High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher) on ESO’s La Silla 3.6m telescope is a dedicated exoplanet hunter, able to detect the oh-so-slight wobble of a star caused by the gravitational tug of orbiting planets. Led by Mikko Tuomi of the UK’s University of Hertfordshire Centre for Astrophysics Research, a team of researchers reviewed publicly-available data from HARPS and has identified what seems to be three new exoplanets in the HD 40307 systems. The candidates, designated with the letters e, f, and g, all appear to be “super Earth” worlds… but the last one, HD 40307 g, is what’s getting people excited, as the team has calculated it to be orbiting well within the region where liquid water could exist on its surface — this particular star’s habitable zone.

In addition, HD 40307 g is located far enough away from its star to likely not be tidally locked, according to the team’s paper. This means it wouldn’t have one side subject to constant heat and radiation while its other “far side” remains cold and dark, thus avoiding the intense variations in global climate, weather and winds that would come as a result.

“If the signal corresponding to HD 40307 g is a genuine Doppler signal of planetary origin, this candidate planet might be capable of supporting liquid water on its surface according to the current definition of the liquid water habitable zone around a star and is not likely to suffer from tidal locking.” (Tuomi et al.)

If HD 40307 g is indeed confirmed, it may very well get onto the official short list of potentially habitable worlds outside our Solar System — although those others are quite a bit closer to the mass of our own planet.

While the other planetary candidates in the HD 40307 system are positioned much more closely to the star, with b, c, d, and e within or at the equivalent orbital distance of Mercury, g appears to be in the star’s liquid-water habitable zone, orbiting at 0.6 AU in an approximately 200-day-long orbit. At this distance the estimated 7-Earth-mass exoplanet receives around 62% of the radiation that Earth gets from the Sun.

The paper in question, "Habitable-zone super-Earth candidate in a six-planet system around the K2.5V star HD 40307", goes into great detail about the detection. Superterrestrial planet candidate HD 40307g is probably too massive to have a gravity close to Earth-like levels, but it may yet support life.

Centauri Dreams has more.

[MUSIC] Zebra Katz ft. Njena Reddd Foxxx, "Ima Read"

The sheer rhythmic intensity of New York city queer rapper Zebra Katz's single "Ima Read", reinforced by guest vocalist Njena Reddd Foxxx, is awesome.

The lyrics are here, at rapgenius.com.

What The Guardian's Paul Lester says about the song.

Zebra Katz, a 25-year-old former catering manager from New York, looks set to be the first break-out star of "queer rap", with his single Ima Read. Although Katz, the alias of Ojay Morgan, studied Shakespeare during a year in London as part of his course, Ima Read isn't actually a pro-literature anthem. It's about "reading": urban slang for letting someone have it, verbally, preferably in public. Katz, who does sound catty – albeit via a deep, dark baritone – is joined on the single by a female rapper, Njena Reddd Foxxx. Her presence serves to heighten the intensity of the impending diss and prove that, despite the prolific use in the lyric of the term "bitch", Katz, as he pointed out recently, isn't "trying to be a misogynist" – anyone can be a bitch, be they black, white, male, female, whatever.

"Impending" is the operative word here, because actually the diss never comes. Ima Read is all about implied threat and the sense of menace you get from a slow, crawling buildup to annihilation. Over a super-minimal backing that makes Clipse sound like Muse and allows every clipped consonant to be heard, Katz and Foxxx simply pile on the pressure as they recite a litany of warnings. Only once do they detail what that read will involve, which includes chopping, dicing, slicing and icing him/her/it. Apart from that, it's all talk. And they never say what said bitch has done to deserve the slaughter, although – so impressively do they contrive their warning via a series of education metaphors – one can only wonder in awe at how brutal it might be. That said, there would appear to be some metaphor mixing going on. Early in the track they're at school issuing threats about the read that will take place during "first and second periods"; by the end, they've moved to higher education and even a publishing house, rhyming "cohesive" and "thesis" and threatening to "proof-read that bitch".

[LINK] Two links on the Republican Party's alienation of growing minorities

Via Douglas Muir on Facebook came this San Francisco Chronicle article describing how the Democratic Party in Callifornia now holds a supermajority in both houses of that state's legislature.

California Democrats appear to have picked up a supermajority in both houses of the state Legislature Tuesday night, a surprise outcome that gives the party the ability to unilaterally raise taxes and leaves Republicans essentially irrelevant in Sacramento.

Democrats were long expected to gain a two-thirds advantage in the Senate, but Assembly Speaker John Pérez had downplayed expectations that the party could win a supermajority in the lower house. The party's apparent capture of 54 seats in the 80-member Assembly and 27 in the 40-member Senate would mark the first time in nearly 80 years that one party controlled two-thirds of both houses, according to Senate President pro tem Darrell Steinberg.

[. . .]

A two-thirds majority would not only hand Democrats strong control of the executive and legislative branches, but give them far more power, including the ability to override vetoes by Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, bypass legislative rules and deadlines and put constitutional reforms before voters.

When combined with the passage of Proposition 30, the governor's budget-balancing tax measure, the results offer lawmakers "a great opportunity to begin a new chapter in California," Steinberg said. He called a supermajority "a tremendous responsibility," and one that is "humbling to have."

"California is back on track ... we have come through this very tough period. When I started the deficit was $42 billion," he said. "Now we've made the awful cuts, and the voters have given us not only the tools to say no more cuts, but also to begin to focus on some positive agendas ... It will be very different to govern without a constant crisis."

The win for Democrats comes the first year that two major changes to election rules, both approved by voters, took effect in California: A new primary system, which allowed the top two voter-getters to proceed to the general election, regardless of their party; and the creation of a an independent citizens' commission to redraw Legislative and Congressional district lines, a change that made many races more competitive.

Democrats believe that a third change, the implementation of online voter registration - the system was rolled out in late September - was key for Democratic victories.

Elsewhere, baseball blogger Rany Jazayerli posted an extended essay, drawn from his own personal experience as a Muslim in the United States who once voted Republican, describing how a Republican Party run by Christian fundamentalists and nationalists managed to alienate a demographic that once voted strongly Republican.

The Muslims who immigrated to America in the 1970s, like the ones who immigrate to America today, were not lazy. Lazy people don’t leave their homeland 5,000 miles behind to move to a foreign country where they speak a foreign language. For these Muslims, the Republican message of self-reliance and entrepreneurship, the exaltation of small business owners, the emphasis on cutting taxes to encourage industriousness, was catnip. So too was the vilification of people sucking from the public teat and asking for handouts. There were no Muslim welfare queens, and Muslims joined the Republican stampede against them.

The immigrant Muslim community remained a reliable pillar of support for the Republican Party throughout the 1980s and 1990s, even as the party underwent a gradual but very significant change. Ronald Reagan’s platform when he ran for president in 1980 was largely an economic one; social issues were only an ancillary part of his message. Twenty years later, when George W. Bush ran for president, his platform revolved around social issues: his pro-life and anti-gay marriage positions were front and center. His platform reflected the massive influence that Christian organizations had had on the Republican Party over the previous two decades, intertwining Christian religious beliefs with politics, and co-opting the Republican message on issues of great concern to devout Christians.

Believe it or not, Muslim support for the Republican Party did not waver in the face of its gradual Christianization. On the contrary, Muslims saw common ground with Christians on most social issues. While the topic of abortion is not nearly as cut-and-dried for Muslims as it is for many Christians, the Muslim community certainly agreed with the goal of limiting them as much as possible – and more to the point, in limiting unwanted pregnancies in the first place by stigmatizing casual sexual encounters. Muslims shared with their Christian neighbors their belief in the sanctity of the nuclear family, and their belief that a household headed by a married mother and father was the best household in which to raise children.

By 2000, the Muslim community in America was several decades old, and had started to mature as a political entity. Muslim organizations almost unanimously endorsed George W. Bush. I voted for Bush that year. I would have voted for Bob Dole in 1996 if I weren’t so busy with medical school that I forgot to vote; I would have voted for Bush Sr. in 1992 if I weren’t still 17 years old.

In the 2000 election, approximately 70% of Muslims in America voted for Bush; among non-African-American Muslims, the ratio was over 80%.

Four years later, Bush’s share of the vote among Muslims was 4%.

(Jazayerli ended up voting for Obama this time around.)

[LINK] Two links from Xtra! about gays in the Conservative Party of Canada

Back at the end of September I noted that the Conservative Party of Canada--a right-wing political party, currently holding the majority in federal Parliament and so forming the Canadian government--has actually been embracing gay rights issues to a noteworthy degree. Journalist Justin Ling has recently had two article published in Xtra! describing queer presences and policies in the government.

In "Blue boys", Ling highlights the existence of an active gay subculture within the party.

[Roy] Eappen is a bit of a curious case. Indian by birth, he now lives in Quebec, where he splits his time between advocating for a new centre-right consensus in the province, stumping for the federal Conservatives and hobnobbing with Republican heavyweights down south. A quick Google search will turn up pictures of Eappen alongside George W Bush, Newt Gingrich and Paul Ryan.

But he’s becoming increasingly known for his parties.

Recently, Eappen was in Tampa for the Republican National Convention, where he helped organize for conservative gay group GOProud. Before that, he started the Fabulous Blue Tent party for the Conservative convention here in Canada. “It’s a funny little secret that Tory parties all over the world are full of gay people,” he says.

Eappen’s recent 800-person party in Ottawa was met with accolades and positive reviews from partygoers and pundits. It attracted Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and MP Rick Dykstra, as well as staffers from all parties. Even Laureen Harper was supposed to come, but she couldn’t make it.

He laughs again. “She’s an Evangelical Christian, and she’s cool with us.”

Critics derided the party, lobbing accusations of tokenism. But Eappen shrugs it off. “When we had this party, a lot of gay bloggers went nuts,” he says. People asked him, “How can you homophobes have this party?’”

But Eappen says that gay Tories are nothing new. He’s been in the party — the Progressive Conservative side — since he was 16. He says Centre Block in Ottawa is flush with gay staffers, advisers, strategists and other Tories in positions of power. “[The party was] just to show that we’re there. We usually don’t make a big thing about it,” he says.

Meanwhile, in "Baird forces action on gay rights at IPU", Ling describes how Foreign Minister John Baird did he best to get the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly, a collection of political representatives around the world, to adopt a resolution supporting gay rights.

At the close of a divisive Quebec City conference, 162 countries adopted a new declaration that underlines their dedication to fighting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

But the group appears to have nixed a more clearly worded endorsement of gay rights from its declaration.

The Quebec Declaration, named for the host city of the conference that adopted it, is a series of 38 commitments approved by the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (IPU). The IPU is a collection of political representatives that works to establish guidelines to promote democracy and human rights amongst its member states.

[. . .]

"I firmly believe it is the role of the state to protect its people regardless of sex, sexuality or faith," Baird told the IPU conference.

It was a vow to fight a hard-line approach taken by Baird.

“It is cases like [murdered Ugandan gay activist David Kato’s] that drive me to raise this issue, often to the discomfort of the people sitting across the table, as I did at recent meetings in Australia and New York,” Baird told the plenary. “I firmly believe it is the role of the state to protect its people regardless of sex, sexuality or faith.”

Baird seemed to get his way, to an extent.

The text of the draft declaration initially did not include a mention of protection for sexual minorities. It repeatedly declared the members’ mission to fight “discrimination of any kind, including that based on race, colour, language, religion, sex,” but left out anything about queer people.

A later draft encouraged member states to foster tolerance, understanding and diversity for sexual minorities.