Lupita Amondi Nyong'o Kenya born and Mexican citizenship is a, after graduating from Hampshire College with a bachelor's degree in film and theatre studies, Nyong'o worked as a production assistant on several Hollywood films.

In 2008 she made her acting debut with the short film East River and subsequently starred in the Kenyan television series Shuga (2009). Also in 2009, she wrote, produced and directed the documentary film In My Genes.

Nyong'o later completed a master's degree in acting from the Yale School of Drama, followed by her first feature film role in Steve McQueen's historical drama 12 Years a Slave (2013). Her role in the film was widely acclaimed, earning her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, among numerous other awards and nominations.

Lupita Nyong’o famously struck Oscar gold earlier this month with a screen-stealing performance as Patsey in her first feature-length film, 12 Years a Slave. Despite her sparse acting résumé, she’s reportedly having no trouble finding potential roles to follow her award-winning debut. Shortly before the Academy Awards, Nyong’o met with director J.J. Abrams for talks concerning the female lead role in his upcoming Star Wars: Episode VII, reports the Hollywood Reporter. Though there’s no confirmation of what role, if any, she’s being considered for, THR suggests it could be a non-Caucasian descendent of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

But Star Wars isn’t the only upcoming project rumored to be in Nyong’o’s sights. Speaking with Arise Entertainment 360, author and Beyoncé-sampled feminist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie coyly hinted at a big-screen adaptation of her acclaimed 2013 novel Americanah, which won the National Book Critics Circle prize for fiction over the weekend, starring none other than Nyong’o. Of the collaboration, Adichie said:

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I’m going to do the mysterious thing and say that Lupita might be making an announcement sometime soon … I don’t know. That announcement might be about Americanah … I don’t know.

The only thing I’ll tell you is that Lupita was a very early fan of Americanah. And so before she was sort of well known in the way that she is now, she wrote me the loveliest email—a very long and passionate email about Americanah. So I’m going to now play the mysterious person who won’t say more.

With so many talented actresses of color routinely overlooked by Hollywood, the concern over Lupita Nyong’o’s own future in film is not without merit. Add in the “It Girl” culture of competition Hollywood forces upon its young women and the odds are overwhelming stacked against Lupita based on race and gender alone. The fact that she was already taking meetings with J.J. Abrams before her Oscar win and only narrowly just lost out to Rooney Mara for the role of Tiger Lily in the next Peter Pan adaptation, though, suggests a possible attitude shift in Hollywood when it comes to the way it perceives women of color and their ability to carry a major-market film. Is it possible that Lupita won’t look back on her résumé in another 15 years only to find a long list of stereotypical supporting roles? If these castings rumors prove true, Nyong’o could get a shot at a career that rivals or even exceeds that of contemporaries like Anne Hathaway and Jennifer Lawrence. That, more than any Oscar, would surely validate her dreams.
Source: Slate's Culture Blog

 

A simulation of the dark matter distribution in the universe 13.6 billion years ago

Illustration courtesy Volker Springel, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, et al

The visible universe—including Earth, the sun, other stars, and galaxies—is made of protons, neutrons, and electrons bundled together into atoms. Perhaps one of the most surprising discoveries of the 20th century was that this ordinary, or baryonic, matter makes up less than 5 percent of the mass of the universe.

The rest of the universe appears to be made of a mysterious, invisible substance called dark matter (25 percent) and a force that repels gravity known as dark energy (70 percent).

Scientists have not yet observed dark matter directly. It doesn't interact with baryonic matter and it's completely invisible to light and other forms of electromagnetic radiation, making dark matter impossible to detect with current instruments. But scientists are confident it exists because of the gravitational effects it appears to have on galaxies and galaxy clusters.

For instance, according to standard physics, stars at the edges of a spinning, spiral galaxy should travel much slower than those near the galactic center, where a galaxy's visible matter is concentrated. But observations show that stars orbit at more or less the same speed regardless of where they are in the galactic disk. This puzzling result makes sense if one assumes that the boundary stars are feeling the gravitational effects of an unseen mass—dark matter—in a halo around the galaxy.

Dark matter could also explain certain optical illusions that astronomers see in the deep universe. For example, pictures of galaxies that include strange rings and arcs of light could be explained if the light from even more distant galaxies is being distorted and magnified by massive, invisible clouds of dark matter in the foreground-a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing.

Scientists have a few ideas for what dark matter might be. One leading hypothesis is that dark matter consists of exotic particles that don't interact with normal matter or light but that still exert a gravitational pull. Several scientific groups, including one at CERN's Large Hadron Collider, are currently working to generate dark matter particles for study in the lab.

Other scientists think the effects of dark matter could be explained by fundamentally modifying our theories of gravity. According to such ideas, there are multiple forms of gravity, and the large-scale gravity governing galaxies differs from the gravity to which we are accustomed.

Dark energy is even more mysterious, and its discovery in the 1990s was a complete shock to scientists. Previously, physicists had assumed that the attractive force of gravity would slow down the expansion of the universe over time. But when two independent teams tried to measure the rate of deceleration, they found that the expansion was actually speeding up. One scientist likened the finding to throwing a set of keys up in the air expecting them to fall back down-only to see them fly straight up toward the ceiling.

Scientists now think that the accelerated expansion of the universe is driven by a kind of repulsive force generated by quantum fluctuations in otherwise "empty" space. What's more, the force seems to be growing stronger as the universe expands. For lack of a better name, scientists call this mysterious force dark energy.

Unlike for dark matter, scientists have no plausible explanation for dark energy. According to one idea, dark energy is a fifth and previously unknown type of fundamental force called quintessence, which fills the universe like a fluid.

Many scientists have also pointed out that the known properties of dark energy are consistent with a cosmological constant, a mathematical Band-Aid that Albert Einstein added to his theory of general relativity to make his equations fit with the notion of a static universe. According to Einstein, the constant would be a repulsive force that counteracts gravity, keeping the universe from collapsing in on itself. Einstein later discarded the idea when astronomical observations revealed that the universe was expanding, calling the cosmological constant his "biggest blunder."

Now that we see the expansion of the universe is accelerating, adding in dark energy as a cosmological constant could neatly explain how space-time is being stretched apart. But that explanation still leaves scientists clueless as to why the strange force exists in the first place.

 

Rare Blue Diamond found in South Africa's Cullinan mine

The "exceptional" 29.6 carat blue diamond is the latest rare stone to be found in the Cullinan mine

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A rare blue diamond has been discovered in a mine in South Africa.

The 29.6-carat stone was recovered by Petra Diamonds at its Cullinan mine, about 40km (25 miles) north-east of Pretoria.

"This stone is one of the most exceptional stones recovered at Cullinan during Petra's operation of the mine," the company said.

Petra unearthed a 25.5 carat blue diamond which sold for $16.9m (£10.3m) in 2013.

'Class of its own'

The latest discovery is also expected to sell for a high price.

The Cullinan mine is famed for the production of blue diamonds

"The stone is an outstanding vivid blue with extraordinary saturation, tone and clarity, and has the potential to yield a polished stone of great value and importance," Petra said in a statement on Tuesday.

Cullinan mine has produced hundreds of large stones and is famed for its production of blue diamonds - among the rarest and most highly coveted of all diamonds.

The mine was acquired in 2008 by Petra Diamonds, which also operates in Botswana and Tanzania.

A similar 26.6-carat blue rough diamond discovered by the company in May 2009 was cut into a near perfect stone and fetched just under $10m at a Sotheby's auction.

Another deep-blue diamond from Cullinan was auctioned for $10.8m in 2012 and set a world record for the value per carat.

The largest ever rough gem diamond was discovered at the Cullinan mine in 1905 and was presented to the British monarch Edward VII.

The 3,106-carat stone was then cut, with two of the principal diamonds forming part of the British crown jewels - the 530-carat First Star of Africa and the Second Star of Africa at 317 carats.

The Cullinan

The Cullinan I - aka the Star of Africa. 530.20 carats.

Royal Sceptre with Star of Africa
(The stone can be removed from the Royal Scepter and worn as a pin or pendant.)

The Star of Africa, a pear shaped diamond weighing 530.20 carats, aka the Cullinan I. It measures 58.9 × 45.4 × 27.7 mm, and has 76 facets (counting the culet and the table). It is called the Cullinan I because it's the largest of the 9 large stones cut from the Cullinan Diamond, and the Cullinan II is the massive 317.40-carat cushion shaped diamond in the center-front of the Imperial State Crown of Great Britain. The Crown also features the Black Prince's Ruby, as well as St. Edward's Sapphire, and the Stuart Sapphire. All the stones in the crown seem to have a history. The Star of Africa holds the place of 2nd largest cut diamond in the world and is on display with the other Crown Jewels in the Tower of London.

The nine largest pieces of the Cullinan Diamond. The largest piece would of course be cut into the Cullinan I (530.20 carats)
and the the next largest into the Cullinan II (317.40 carats), and so on. This photo was probably taken in 1908, the year
after the Cullinan rough was presented to King Edward VII for his 66th birthday.

Publicity photo of the Cullinan crystal being handed from Fred Wells (right)
to McHardy, who then hands it to Sir Thomas Cullinan (left).

Late one afternoon in 1905, Mr. Frederick Wells, the superintendent of the prolific Premier Mine in South Africa, was making a routine inspection trip through the mine when his attention was attracted by something reflecting the last slanting rays of the setting sun. Curious, he stopped for a closer look. He was eighteen feet below the surface of the earth, and the shiny object was on the steep wall of the mine a few feet above him. Mr. Wells quickly scaled the wall and extracted from the blueground what appeared to be a large diamond crystal. At first, he thought he was being fooled by a large piece of glass, but tests proved it to be the largest gem-quality diamond ever discovered. It weighed 3106 carats, or about 1⅓ pounds. It was named after Sir Thomas Cullinan, who opened the mine and was visiting on that eventful day. Many diamond experts believe that the huge stone was only a fragment, and that another piece, (possibly as large or even larger) either still exists and awaits discovery, or was crushed in the mining process. The latter is very unlikely. The prospect of finding the portion of the Cullinan has added zest to the activities of numerous miners and prospectors. The Cullinan was sold to the Transvaal government, which presented it to King Edward VII on his 66th birthday on November 9th, 1907. It was insured for $1,250,000 when it was sent to England. The King entrusted the cutting of the stone to the famous Asscher's Diamond Co. in Amsterdam, which had cut the Excelsior and other large gems. The huge diamond was studied for months. On February 10th, 1908, Mr. Asscher placed the steel cleaver's blade in a previously prepared V-shaped groove and tapped it once with a heavy steel rod. The blade broke, but the diamond remained intact! The second time, it fell apart exactly as planned, and an employee at the factory reported that Mr. Asscher had fainted. A second cleavage in the same direction produced three principal sections; these in turn would produce nine major gems, 96 smaller brilliants, and 9.50 carats of unpolished pieces. The nine larger stones remain either in the British Crown Jewels or in the personal possession of the Royal Family. These historically celebrated gems and their present mountings are as follows: The Cullinan I, also known as the Star of Africa, weighs 530.20 carats. King Edward placed it in the Sovereign's Royal Sceptre as part of the Crown Jewels, and it is now on display in the tower of London. The Cullinan II is a 317.40 carat cushion cut stone mounted in the band of the Imperial State Crown, it is also in the Tower of London as part of the Crown Jewels. The Cullinan III is a pear-shaped diamond weighing 94.40 carats, and is in the finial of Queen Mary's Crown and can be worn with the IV as a pendant-brooch. Many of Queen Mary's portraits show her wearing these two stones, and Elizabeth II makes use of them the same way. The Cullinan IV, a 63.60-carat cushion shape, was originally set in the band of Queen Mary's crown, but can also be worn as jewelry, as described above. The Cullinan V is a triangular-pear cut weighing 18.80 carats, was originally mounted in a brooch for Queen Mary, to be worn alternately in the circlet of her crown as a replacement for the Koh-i-Noor. This was after the Koh-i-Noor was removed to the new crown that was made for Elizabeth (now the Queen Mother) in 1937.

The Cullinan IV (upper, 63.60 carats) and Cullinan III
(lower, 94.40 carats), set in a pendant brooch.

The Cullinan VI, an 11.50 carat marquise-cut stone, was originally presented by King Edward to his wife, Queen Alexandra, and is now worn by Elizabeth II as a drop on a diamond and emerald necklace. It was worn more frequently by the young Queen than any other section of the Cullinan. The Cullinan VII is an 8.80 carat marquise-cut stone mounted in a pendant on a small all-diamond brooch, in the center of which is the 6.80-carat cushion cut Cullinan VIII, and lastly, the Cullinan IX, a 4.39 carat pear shape, is mounted in a ring with a prong setting that was made for Queen Mary; it too is sometimes worn by Queen Elizabeth.

The Cullinan VI (lower, 8.80 carats) and Cullinan VIII (upper, 6.80 carats)

Elizabeth II's Imperial State Crown of Great Britain

Imperial State Crown: originally made for Queen Victoria's coronation in 1838, it was remade for George VI in 1937. It contains the 317.40 carat Cullinan II. The large stone above the Cullinan II is the Black Prince's Ruby, which is actually a red spinel. The stone was at one time a giant bead. Note the red dot on the upper part of the stone - this is a ruby that was used to plug a small hole that went right through the stone. The Stuart Sapphire is a fine 104-carat oval shaped sapphire that appears on the backside of the crown. It was among the Crown Jewels of Charles II. The sapphire in the center of the cross on the top of the crown is St. Edward's Sapphire, (believed to have belonged to Edward the Confessor), and the four large drop-shaped pearls are said to have been Elizabeth I's earrings.

The Cullinan II Diamond. Note the two tiny platinum loops on the edges.
This is so the stone can be worn as a brooch, alone or with the Cullinan I
attached. However, it usually resides in the front of the Imperial State Crown.

The Stuart Sapphire has been moved to its own section.

St. Edward's Sapphire, from the top of the Imperial State Crown. Photo © HMSO, London

The Black Prince's Ruby on the front of the Imperial State Crown, a name which is misleading because the stone is actually a red spinel weighing about 170 carats. The gem is a large bead - the lighter-colored dot on the front of the stone is actually a ruby plugging up the hole that goes through the stone. Photo © HMSO, London

Siyabulela's a shining star

ROWAN PHILP | 14 August, 2011 03:34

 

 

 

Siyabulela Xuza has gone from being a praise singer for Nelson Mandela to becoming a top scientist - with even Nasa having named a large asteroid after him.

The 22-year-oldfrom Mthatha in the Eastern Cape is studying at Harvard University in the US, where he is trying to save the planet by developing a new energy technology.

This year, he attended the May launch of the space shuttle Endeavour as a guest of Nasa and, in June, met US first lady Michelle Obama.

Speaking from the US this week, he said his greatest thrill was singing Xhosa praise songs at cultural evenings in Harvard.

In an astonishing rise from once working in a vegetable field, Xuza has met three SA presidents, the king of Sweden, Nobel laureates, astronauts and the UN secretary-general.

He is the youngest member of an energy advisory panel to the African Union and recently visited corporate heavyweights at the New York Stock Exchange, hoping they might invest in his future technologies.

Clem Sunter, former chairman of the Anglo American Scholarship Panel, said Xuza was so bright that he had had no need of his Anglo scholarship, having won another to study engineering at the world's top-ranked university.

"In any other country in the world, if a schoolboy had won the awards he has - he has what they call a 'minor planet' named after him by Nasa, for goodness' sake - he would probably be a household name," said Sunter.

"In South Africa, nobody knows about it. It breaks all the normal stereotypes about South Africa and (the Eastern Cape). We should be using this guy as an inspiration to young people."

Now beginning his final year, Xuza is using supercomputers and equipment worth up to R100-million to develop a new "nano-material" for "personalised energy systems".

His remarkable journey began at 12 when he used utensils in his mother's kitchen to bake rocket fuel "like cookies" and was scolded for causing fires. Four years later, his "safer, cheaper" solid rocket fuel won him the top prize in its category at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in the US.

Nasa's Lincoln Laboratories then gave the name "Siyaxuza" to a giant asteroid near Jupiter, discovered in 2000, and which they describe as "minor planet 23182".

Xuza said he got hooked on science at five, when - standing on his rural plot near Mthatha in 1994 - he saw a light aircraft for the first time, dropping election leaflets. His parents, now business people, were teachers at the time.

He built his own rocket after watching Mark Shuttleworth's space flight in 2002, but it exploded on the launch-pad. His next, a year later, broke the national amateur altitude record at nearly 1000m.

He then won a scholarship to St John's College in Johannesburg. Principal Roger Cameron said he was "not the smartest as a younger child, but he was very focused and very determined".

Cameron credited Xuza's parents, as well as top tuition, for the phenomenon - "(giving him) that sense that you are special, but also accountable to a strong set of values".

Xuza won both a Harvard scholarship and an "Opportunities Grant" from the US State Department.

Elizabeth Trudeau, spokesman for the US embassy, said: "We really view Siya as a true global citizen who will not only be able to shape the future of his own country, but the world."

He said he was often sought for praise-singing performances "to open big university events or if there is a class on ethnic music or African culture".

"My culture inspires me, and science is a way to serve my culture and my society. People here are always surprised to see this black guy coming out of nowhere and doing a Xhosa praise song."

Although he insists he will return to start an energy company in Africa, he said he would need to spend more time in the US "to incubate my technology" after graduating next year.

As a teenager, he declared in his journal: "The purpose of this diary is to inspire the next generation of South Africa's scientists."

Today, his outlook and statements continue to be breathtaking in their casual ambition. "I don't enjoy being called 'rocket man' or 'rocket boy'. I must stress that the main thrust of my work is in nano-enabled solar energy and no longer on rocket fuels.

"I prefer to describe myself as an aspiring entrepreneur with a passion for using technology to solving the world's energy crisis."

Siyabulela Lethuxolo Xuza:  Yes, it is rocket science

05 March 2012

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Seen here during a class at Harvard, Siyabulela Xuza is one of the new young generation of Africans who are committed to developing the continent's potential. (Image: Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences) "

 

 

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Engineering whizzkid Siyabulela Lethuxolo Xuza is a young man with a big future.

From the early days of experimenting with science in his mother’s kitchen in the poor community of Mthatha in the Eastern Cape, to international science and engineering accolades, he is now a role model for South Africa’s aspiring scientists.

These days the darling of Nasa, who were so taken with him that they gave him a personal guided tour of their facilities, is the youngest member of the Africa 2.0 energy advisory panel.

The pan-African organisation comprises the continent’s brightest minds and is committed to seeking sustainable solutions to challenges faced by Africans.

In a March 2012 interview with US television network CBS, Xuza said that his current work is focusing on transforming homes into power plants "that capture the energy of the sun during the day and store some of it in fuel cells, for use at night".

Starting young

In his own words, Xusa described the moment that sparked his lifelong passion for science.

“I was chasing the roar of a Cessna plane dropping election pamphlets over Mthatha, my South African township,” he wrote on the America.gov website.

“It was 1994, the first year of a new democracy in my country, and the sight of that technological marvel ignited in me a curiosity for science and a passion for using technology to engineer an African renaissance.”

He was just five years old at the time. The youngster was also later inspired by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth’s trip into space in 2002, an event that was largely responsible for his long-standing interest in rocketry.

His mother's kitchen soon became the scene for much experimentation with formulations of jet and rocket fuel, but the informal laboratory had to be moved to the garage after a sticky incident with a too-hot stove.

Xuza wasn’t deterred, and over the next few years he continued to work on the project, which culminated in the successful launch of a real home-built rocket, the Phoenix. This vehicle achieved a final height of over a kilometre and earned him the junior South African amateur high-powered altitude record.

The rocket was propelled by Xuza’s own invention, a cheaper, safer type of rocket fuel, which became the subject of a project titled African Space: Fuelling Africa's quest to space. It won a gold medal in the 2006 Eskom National Science Expo as well as a trip to the Nobel Prize ceremony in Sweden, where he presented his work to the Swedish king and queen.

The same project took him to the 58th Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as part of Team South Africa.

Here the project was entered in the energy and transport category and won the 18-year-old, then a matric pupil on a scholarship at St John’s College in Johannesburg, a Best of Category award and a First award.

Xuza also received the honour of having a celestial body named after him by the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, which is replacing the complicated scientific names of thousands of minor planets with more accessible names in honour of the world’s top achievers.

The minor planet 23182 Siyaxuza circles the solar system in the main asteroid belt near Jupiter and takes 4.01 years to complete a single orbit. It was discovered in July 2000.

Xuza has garnered numerous other accolades, including a fellowship in 2010 of the African Leadership Network, and in 2011 he was made a fellow of the international student-run Kairos Society. Membership to this global body is by invitation only.

A bright future

Matriculating in 2007 with a string of As, it was almost guaranteed that Xuza would take up further studies at a prestigious institution – that turned out to be Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, where he became one of just 1 948 students accepted out of about 28 000 who applied.

He started his engineering degree in September 2008, but wasn’t afraid to take up academic challenges such as debating, the Mandarin language, and world music. These interests, he said, would broaden his mind.

The young man from the Eastern Cape also joined the Harvard Forum for International Leadership, a society that brings together students from all around the world to discuss global issues such as HIV/Aids, terrorism and the development of emerging economies, as well as the need for efficient energy solutions.

“I may not be able to predict what the future holds,” he wrote on www.america.gov, “but I am excited at how my engineering education will enable me to achieve my aspirations for Africa.”