Commentary: African American Scientists and Inventors
by Black Kos Editor, Sephius1
Sylvester James Gates, Jr. (born December 15, 1950) is a noted American theoretical physicist. He received BS and PhD degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the latter in 1977. His doctoral thesis was the first thesis at MIT to deal with supersymmetry. Gates is currently the John S. Toll Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland, College Park and serves on President Barack Obama's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. He is known for his work on supersymmetry, supergravity, and superstring theory. In 1984, working with M. T. Grisaru, M. Rocek, W. Siegel, Gates co-authored Superspace, the first comprehensive book on the topic of supersymmetry.
(con't.)
Gates has been featured extensively on many NOVA PBS programs on physics, most notably "The Elegant Universe" in 2003. In 2006, he completed a DVD series titled Superstring Theory: The DNA of Reality for The Teaching Company composed of 24 half-hour lectures to make the complexities of unification theory comprehensible to laypeople. During the 2008 World Science Festival, Prof. Gates narrated a ballet "The Elegant Universe", where he gave a public presentation of the artistic forms connected to his scientific research.
Dr. Gates has been nominated by the Department of Energy to be one of the USA Science and Engineering Festival's Nifty Fifty Speakers who will speak about his work and career to middle and high school students in October 2010. He is currently a Martin Luther King Jr. Visiting Scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for the 2010-2011 School Year, and is a Residential Scholar at MIT's Simmons Hall. He is also currently continuing his research in String Theory, Supersymmetry, and Supergravity at the MIT Center of Theoretical Physics. He is a member of the board of trustees of Society for Science & the Public.....Read More
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News by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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A few months ago, the world watched, enthralled, as Prince William married his beloved Princess Kate at London's Westminster Abbey. Today, London is burning. The Grio: Riots were a long time coming for black Britons
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The pomp and ceremony of the royal wedding long forgotten, for the past three days London has been under attack from some of its own inhabitants, as violent rioting has spread from North to South, East to West.
The violence -- sparked by the killing of Jamaican-British man Mark Duggan by police last week -- has even spread far beyond London as young people have taken to the streets in other major cities like Birmingham and Bristol.
The riots have been ferocious. Buildings have been burned down, shopping centers looted, police and firemen attacked. People are afraid for their lives and their livelihoods; Londoners are now angrily calling for the army to step in and a state of emergency to be declared. The footage is depressing and disheartening; it is sad to see the lawlessness and wanton violence, stealing, looting and thuggery that is being captured on video cameras and mobile phones.
What's even sadder, however, is that I -- as a black British female -- am not surprised. Neither are my other black British friends who I have spoken to who now reside in the US. This has been a long time coming.It's even why some left in the first place.
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The chairwoman of the NAACP is among those spreading the word about the DreamWorks film, which focuses on relationships between white Southern women and their maids during the civil rights era. LA Times: Black leaders give 'The Help' a hand in marketing
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When Roslyn Brock, chairwoman of the NAACP, first heard about "The Help," a new film based on a novel about the volatile relationships between Southern white women and their black maids at the dawn of the civil rights movement, she was skeptical.
"I didn't have any great expectations for a movie based in the '60s about domestics," Brock said. "I thought it would be a heavy, dark movie that would bring to mind segregation."
After seeing the film, though, "I felt so proud," she said. "My grandmother was a domestic in Florida, and when she passed, almost two generations of families whom she had taken care of sent condolences saying what an important part she was to their family. And it never really connected with me until I saw this movie."
Last week, during the annual convention in Los Angeles of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, Brook took to the stage after a screening of the film with an impassioned plea: "I ask each of you: Tell your friends, your family, your co-workers, your church. Organize screening parties. Go see this movie."
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MSNBC diversify it's lineup, but there is a "controversy" brewing over it. Maynard Institute: NABJ "Happy" for Al Sharpton Opportunity
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Sharpton devoted most of the call to a refutation of hints by Daily Beast writer Wayne Barrett, who wrote July 27, "Eight months after Al Sharpton signed a pivotal agreement that helped Comcast and NBC secure Federal Communications Commission approval for their $30 billion merger, MSNBC appears poised to reward him with a prime-time news show."
The next week, Barrett added, "Al Sharpton wasn’t just pleasing prospective employer MSNBC when he became the first major black leader to endorse the controversial Comcast/NBC merger. It turns out he was also enriching his current employer, Radio One, the largest black-owned radio company in the country, which has paid him more money than he’s made anywhere else in his life."
Sharpton answered several points in the articles, criticizing journalists for repeating the charges without investigating them. He asked, why would TV One support creation of potential rival stations, as Comcast committed to do when it signed memoranda of understanding with African American and other groups? And why would other civil rights groups settle for a television show for Sharpton in exchange?
"That is trivializing the commitment made to black people," Sharpton said. "Do they really think we're that stupid?" He also noted that Comcast was a major supporter of the NABJ convention in Philadelphia last week and that NABJ, like Sharpton, had given MSNBC President Phil Griffin an award. Yet "no one sees that as a conflict of interest."
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[] The Black Jacobins Chapter 1:The Property: Haiti Book Diary by alie123
[] Racism Be It At Fox, MSNBC or DailyKos Is Still Racism. Unite Against Racism. by ThisIsMy Time
[]Losing What We Never Had: The Deferred Dreams of Black America Part Three by Dr Rhymes
[] UK Riots: the Role of Race and Relevance to the US by Brit
[] Thinking of London and Remembering When My City Burned by Adept2u
[] Police Crimes And Repression Revealed: 10 Black Men In Illinois Exonerated By DNA Evidence by TomP
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Bob Marley & The Wailers' High Tide Low Tide Re-Released In Aid Of Save The Children East Africa Appeal
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