text:
We are open - safety is our top priority!
Our East Brunswick dentists offer a variety of dental services to meet the needs of all ages and dental conditions. From cosmetic dentistry to general and specialty dentistry, we are here to serve the dental needs of the East Brunswick community.
- Braces
- Children's Dental Care
- Cosmetic Dentistry Services
- Dental Exams & Teeth Cleaning
- Dental Implant Services
- Dentures – Complete & Partial
- Emergency Dentist
- Extractions
- Fillings, Crowns & Bridges
- General Dentistry Services
- Gum Treatment
- Implant-Supported Dentures
- Invisalign®
- Orthodontic Services
- Periodontics
- Porcelain Veneers
- Root Canal & Endodontics
- Teeth Whitening
Book Online Now
Complete the form below to book your appointment today.
Office Hours
- Monday 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM
- Tuesday 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM
- Wednesday 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM
- Thursday 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM
- Friday 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM
- Saturday 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM
* Open every other Saturday
CareCredit is a healthcare credit card designed for your health and wellness needs. Pay for the costs of many treatments and procedures through convenient monthly payments.
Our patients leave smiling
Have been going to this office for the past 12 years. Wait time is short and Dr Mark and his assistants are very professional and friendly. A few times I had to come in for emergency fillings and they were able to see me on very short notice, which is always a plus. Also, their hygienist is extremely competent – very thorough but at the same time very gentle during cleanings.
Iuliana R.
I have been a patient of Garden state dental since I was little . I don't think I will ever find a dental office like this one. Friendly and professional. Great office!!!!!
Dena K.
This office is all around great! they took my husband in last minute as a new patient for an emergency and set him up with a dental plan that night. great staff, down to earth and very friendly! we love our new dentist!
Kat B.
EVERYONE in the office is very helpful, knowledgeable and kind. Making appointments is very easy and you are seen within a few minutes once you arrive. The facility is impeccably clean and comfortable. My family and I am very happy to have found this practice.
Kim L.
This is an amazing office with an excellent staff. They are very accommodation with all of your needs, whether it be rescheduling or if you are running late. In addition, the dentist at the office are stellar and make you as comfortable as possible. For someone who has been skittish of going to the dentist for years, this office has quelled my fears and going to the office excites me because of th…
Justin P.
We have been going to Garden State Dental for more than 12 years and we always leave happy with our experience. They treat us with kindness and respect. We love coming here and love the people working there. Thank you for helping us achieve beautiful smiles!
Zahelis F.
Another fun time with Dr. Mark, Ruth Ann, Alina and the gang. HAPPY SMILES!!!
Michael U.
I recently moved to the area and was in a lot of pain due to a wisdom tooth that needed to be pulled out. I Googled dental offices near me because the pain had become unbearable. I couldn't sleep for days so I ended up coming here. When they confirmed the pain WAS coming from the wisdom tooth, I called several dentist offices to compare costs as I was in the middle of applying for insurance.…
Great staff, very pleasent and great to work with.
Brian J.
I've never had such a great experience at a dentist's office before. Ruth Ann and Marc made me feel comfortable immediately and were never pushy. They constantly made sure I was comfortable and made a root canal actually pleasant. If you're like me and have had nothing but traumatic experiences, come here, I highly recommend them!!
Monica S.
I found Garden state dental on line. Thank goodness I did. They took great care of me for I was in bad pain. Thank you Dr Marc and Ruth Ann
Rafael C.
Love this office! Highly recommended! The entire staff is amazing and makes you feel extremely comfortable and at ease!
Danielle C.
They do excellent work and the prices are fair as well. I am glad that I switched to this office. The office staff is very nice and the doctors do great work and are very kind. They even work around your schedule by offering after hours appointments. I recommend to everyone and even urged my boyfriend to sign on as a patient.
Carmella L.
I have been a patient of Doctor Marc scene1988. I would not go to any other dentist. I enjoy the whole staff. Great people.
Obbey T.
Excellent experience! Always a pleasant check up.
Brian W.
I always have so much anxiety going to the dentist but everyone here is so nice and they calmed me down, let me know what exactly they are doing. Great place.
Samantha F.
I came here for a check-up and cavity fillings after years of not visiting the dentist (out of fear mostly). The doctors and dental hygienists were fantastic and made me feel very comfortable. I look forward to coming here in the future and I highly recommend others to come here for their dental care!
Pallavi J.
I've been going here since I was young, and they have always been amazing! Great dental office!
Andrew G.
I have been coming here for years and everyone is so nice! They always make sure I am comfortable and feel at home! Everyone there is so friendly and I do not go anywhere else for my teeth !
Cassie K.
Been coming here for as long as I can remember and I love this office!
Isaac H.
Great staff highly recommended to all thank u for your service will come back soon thank u dr Marc
Vincent C.
The staff is very nice and attentive. I've never had a problem here
Maggie T.
Great services,friendly staff!! Efficient dentist will definitely come back.
Jyana V.
Been coming to Garden State for years as well as my family…Great Dentist and staff.
Great office highly recommend thank u for great service
George M.
I love this office I have been coming here for years with my family. Dr. Marc is a great dentist I wouldn't go anywhere else! Would recommend this office to all!
Rafael M.
I absolutely love this place, the service is excellent, the staff friendly and most importantly the prices so reasonable, unlike the previous place I had been!!
Ashwini B.
Dr. Marc and Ruth Ann are the best! Dr. Marc makes sure my family is comfortable and checks in at all times during dental procedures. Ruth Ann is comforting and eases any anxieties we may have about getting work done. They are like family. Definitely, recommend!
Danielle K.
Very nice staff! Make you feel very comfortable
My 5yr old first dental experience was excellent at Garden State Dental of East Brunswick. Dr. Marc and his Assistant Alina was well equiped in handling the task of a 5 yr old child. They made his first teeeth cleaning a magical one and i love the fact, it was no waiting prior to his cleaning. The bottom line for this Mom, is two thumbs up for this office and their staff. Keep up the great work.
Lisandra W.
I saw Dr. Mark and Alina and they are absolutely wonderful. They gave me a wonderful experience, consultation, and cleaning. They explained every step of the way. I would highly recommend them to everyone.
Vanna C.
First visit to this office the staff is amazing. I am always nervous going into a new dentist but they made me feel so comfortable. Would recommend it to anyone.
Garden I.
Great office all around! Staff is very friendly and personable. I would recommend them to anyone looking for good dentist.
Eric Z.
Awesome office amazing people and they definitely do great work!!! I most certainly recommend.
Keon C.
I love the doctors and the professional care team here! They are friendly and warm, and the price is reasonable.
Lu Z.
Excellent service and great friendly team
Chris S.
I'm farly a new patient at this Office. I could not be happier i found them. Great team.
Uddy S.
Got an appointment last minute for a painful tooth after dealing with my current dentist denying me an appointment. Garden State Dental took me in fast, were extremely kind and informative about what was going on. So excited to have them as my new dentist!
Marie C.
Love this office!
Best office in town wouldn't go any where else I never wait dr Marc is the best and Ruthann also Annemarie at the front desk is great thank u for services recommend to all
Dawn F.
Dr. Mark is an excellent dentist who makes you feel comfortable every step of the way. Great office staff!
Elvira C.
Great office and staff recommend to all my family and friends
Rich P.
Dr Marc and his dental asst RuthAnn are awesome. They explain in detail every step of their way during their routine while in the process while in youre mouth and treatment plan.
David G.
Dr.Mark is da bomb!
Brian Y.
Thank u for your service best cleaning in town front desk always on point wouldn't go anywhere else
Elvis V.
They have a very caring and dedicated staff. Very personable and very accommodating to their patients. And great availability for emergency appointments. Extremely professional . Great place. I will be bringing my daughter in next!
Wendy W.
Very good service and the people are like family
Gary K.
had exam and cleaning done, exelent service, great staff. thank you
Rob C.
Great office. Highly recommend.
Jesus G.
I love this place, there's never any wait and the staff is extremely friendly. I recommend everyone to this dentist
Dora F.
This is an amazing office .They have great staff,,makes you very comfortable I will recommend to all…
Rose C.
The staff are all super nice and friendly and I always get an appointment right away.
Tracy V.
My husband read about your office on line. He was right very nice office. Dr Marc and his assistant Ruth Ann are great. Front desk knows exactly what they are doing. So glad I found them.
Best Dentists Around! I had a horrible tooth ache 3 years ago and they took me right away. I have been coming here ever since.
Zack G.
From the receptionists to the doctors hands down the most friendly and helpful staff teams around. They were very informative and able to answer all questions regarding my procedure as well as the coverage my insurance was able to offer. They were quick to greet me as I walked in the door, my appointment was right on schedule with virtually no wait time and I was out the door with a better smile t…
Andrew G.
Best office in town wouldn't go any where but here front desk is The best love Dr Marc and Ruth Ann always caring
David D.
Love this office!
Ruthann C.
My mom was being treated well with her teeth that needed a lot of work.
Christina A.
best office thank u for your time
Andrew G.
Awesome experience here getting my wisdom teeth removed. Would definitely recommend.
Darwin C.
I come to this office often or cleanings and fillings very friendly staff and proffesional they make you feel very welcome!
Dillon B.
Awesome place!
Ftfa C.
The dentist and hygienist were professional, efficient, accommodating and knowledgeable. The staff members are so friendly and awesome. I would recommend this place to anyone I know.
Joy D.
Awesome staff!!!!!Ruth Ana is amazing!!! Made me feel so comfortable.
Lia M.
Great Experience, i went in for a teeth cleaning and came out with clean teeth, a tooth brush, tooth paste, floss, and a ton of time added to my day.
Justin P.
Great service and dental care !
Shakti S.
I am so happy with every single aspect of Garden State Dental. Everyone is so friendly and accommodating!
Lori G.
Long time patient and i feel lile family coming here. EVERYONE is so nice and friendly and Dr. Marc is the best. The entire staff is friendly and competent and ALWAYS a pleasure. Highly recommend this dental office
Joseph A.
Great office and staff
Dina K.
This place is amazing! The staff is on point and really nice. I would recommend this place to anyone.
Phil B.
This place is fantastic! Prob the only place where they actually stick to the time of your appointment. From the second you walk in you feel welcomed. It's kind of a strange feeling to be honest. Maybe it's just my past experience talking but generally walking into dentist / doctors office isn't a pleasant experience. Receptionist was very nice and welcoming and Ruth-Anne perform…
Extremely friendly staff
Ryan K.
I highly recommend Garden State Dental. Since we moved to East Brunswick, I have been going here. Staff is extremely friendly and always a good experience.
Elaine T.
Love this office & the staff, they akwats make me feel very comfortable and explain in detail whats going to be done.
Shukirra F.
Great experience… been coming for years and always pleasant!
Linda G.
I'm a very outgoing/social person, but the one thing that makes me uncomfortable are dentist visits. Being a new patient here I was more nervous but Ruth Ann was great to me. She helped me relax and made me feel at home! I appreciated that so much! For once I will not be nervous to come back to the dentist!
Charles H.
I was very happy, able to make appointment . Taken on time with very professional service. Highly recommended!.
Joann A.
Who likes going to the dentist? No one does! But at least at Garden State Dental East Brunswick they make it as enjoyable as possible! I cannot say enough good things about this practice! However my teeth speak for themself!
Rebecca L.
Best offices in town love ya
Michele H.
Great place nice people
Vincent D.
Best office ever highly recommend
Jessica H.
Love coming here one of best offices in town wouldn't go anywhere but here love them thank u for your services
Ellen E.
I hate going to the dentist but they make it much easier on me and they are always so nice and helpful. Alina, the assistant was amazing!!! She was calm and supportive and so sweet to me. Made my procedure so much easier!
Donna G.
Garden State Dental they are the greatest. First time I went there my dentist did a extraordinary work on my teeth and still doing a excellent work. Thank you
Raquel D.
Very nice staff! And the dentist is very nice too! I switched from another dentist and I am glad i made the switch!
John L.
Great office and staff. Dr. Marc is very patient and informative. His assistant RuthAnn is very sweet and helpful. Overall great experience at this office.
Jackline A.
I had a good teeth cleaning and very comfortable. I recommend this dental office
Hong Z.
Been coming here for awhile.Very friendly staff .Easy to get an appointment would recommend this dental office to everyone.
Edite D.
Best cleaning I ever had thank u heili!
Glenn K.
I love it here ! The staff are amazing !!
Stephanie G.
Everyone was beyond helpful and knowledgeable! The doctor was amazing along with his assistant! Best experience at the dentist Iv ever had!
Alyse H.
Great office highly recommended great staff always helpful wouldn't come to any other office
Alice H.
very friendly staff answered any question i had and were very helpful
Salvatore C.
This was emergency visit. Great experience from check in to check out. In and out in about 30 minutes. Courteous friendly staff. Doctor explained all that was happening.
James C.
The staff is so friendly and gentle. I felt very comfortable.
Jose G.
Let's just say that if every doctor's office/dentist was like Garden State Dental, the world would easily be a better place. The first time I went there for an x-ray/cleaning, I went to sit down in one of the waiting room chairs after checking in and my tookus was about to hit the chair when my name was called. I was blown away as to how quickly they called me. Thinking that this was a…
Michelle T.
Il was seen for the first time in this dental office. The assistant and doctor were very professional. My cleaning was so gentille. I would recommend this dental office to all my family. I truly liked the whole office.
Idrissa D.
I've been going here for over a decade! The teeth cleaning is fast, efficient and usually starts on time or earlier than scheduled (if I arrive 15 minutes early). Everyone is extremely nice to me at Garden State Dental and I highly recommend them! My mother has also been going there as well for longer than I have and she has no complaints. Thanks.
Milky M.
Everyone was very friendly and Ruthann made me feel very comfortable.
Dr littmen and dr Marc is a very good dentist in east Brunswick.
Prakash B.
Dr. Mark is a great Dentist. He gets to the point and he gets the job done. He cares for the patient and makes them feel very comfortable when he is working on them. Enjoy your weekend Doc.
Richard I.
Great place, Great service, Great people!!!
Alex S.
These guys are so great! Every doctor here is super caring . They sometimes attended me even without appointments. And very important… they do listen.
Emilio G.
Have been going there for 4 years. Always greeted with smiling faces, right from receptionist to who helps with insurance claims scheduling. Dr. Marc Hygienists Heili Quilban are great, very kind and gentle. Strongly recommend them.
Akshaya K.
My family has been going to Garden State Dental for 10 years now. My son has had his braces on for a year now and his teeth are looking good. My daughter got her braves in today and she is very excited. Dr. Peters-Schuster is great. She is very good. The staff is wonderful and very helpful. Appointments are easy and we never wait long. They are very proficient and well organized. Thank you Garden…
Bryan B.
The dentist and the dental assistant where very warm and friendly. The dental assistant was very considerate and did everything she could to make me feel comfortable.
Karan W.
I have never had such a great bunch of people taking such great care I recommend them to all.
Susana S.
My family has been going to Garden State Dental for 10 years now. My son has had his braces on for a year now and his teeth are looking good. My daughter got her braves in today and she is very excited. Dr. Peters-Schuster is great. She is very good. The staff is wonderful and very helpful. Appointments are easy and we never wait long. They are very proficient and well organized. Thank you Garden…
Bryan B.
Dr litman and everyone at garden State dental are awesome people. Highly recommend!!
Michael H.
Went to GSD of EB after switching from another dental office and it was the best thing for me! They are very warm, welcoming and knowledgeable to everyone. Front desk, dental assistant, hygienist and doctors are so nice. Easy to get appointments including emergencies and hours are flexible. They did a full evaluation and put me on a nice treatment plan to keep my teeth healthy and my nice smile go…
I received excellent care from both my hygienist and dentist. Both are gentle, caring and efficient!
Theresa M.
I was recommended to this dental office. I was a little hesitated at first, because of my past experiences with bad dentists; but I've been coming here for 2yrs now. I love the cleaningness of the office, the friendly and accommodating staff, love my dentist he is caring, takes his time, and will find the source of your pain and make it all better. The hygienist, two words: Angel hands. I to…
Angelica C.
Garden state dental is agreat office and has outstanding staff , recommend to all
Paul B.
I have been a patient for over 20 years! I would totally recommend Garden State Dental to all my family and friends! The staff is caring, professional and gentle !
Theresa M.
I've been coming to East Brunswick office for the past 7 years. Great staff; doctors are open and honest about the services you need. They make you feel at home. I highly recommend!
Yvonne P.
Haley is the best!
Mary B.
Ashley C.
Great experience
Joana T.
My 8 year old had painful cavity the night before. I called first thing in the morning, and they were able to schedule me in right away as a new patient and took very good care of him. I am so grateful for their professionalism and their entire care of him!
Safia H.
The entire staff is friendly and very professional. I will recommend this office to everyone.
Peter M.
Great cleaning, very friendly abd professional. Highly recommended.
Bryan S.
The staff are all very nice and accommodating. Very positive experience every time.
Mar S.
Excellent service and everything went smoothly and painlessly. Highly recommend this office
Michael B.
Best Service, Quick in and out, Excellent Job
Dana W.
I was referred by one of the workers Ruth Ann and im glad she did! Ruth Ann is awesome and I really like Dr. Anna and the whole office is really nice! Def recommend them!
Theresa M.
I was very happy with the care I received on my visit. I appreciated the way the staff took care of me and made sure that I was comfortable.
Elizabeth G.
Great experience with ruth
Dawn N.
I have always experienced the highest level of quality care at Garden State Dental East Brunswick, and yesterday was no exception. Procedures are always clearly explained, my questions are answered thoroughly, the appointments run on time, and I have never felt rushed. I have been a patient here for over ten years and would never consider going elsewhere. The entire staff has my highest regards.
Robert E.
I recently had my first appointment with Garden State Dental in East Brunswick. The entire staff was very friendly and my cleaning was excellent. I would recommend this practice to anyone!
Irwin S.
I have been coming here for over 20 years. My girls grew up in this office and the office staff always make me and my family feel welcome. I wouldn't go to any other office it's the best!
Joseph K.
Friendly staff, no waiting time. Everything done nicely. Good doctors, hygienist and nurses. I will definitely return here in future.
They was really friendly from start to end.They did great job on my teeth and it was really fast and professional.I highly recommend garden state dental to everyone .thank you for great job
The front desk staff were very friendly and helpful. The Dental hygienist Alina was also very kind and informative. Dr. Anna was great! She answered all my questions and helped put my mind at ease. I was really nervous about going but the staff was exceptionally kind. I would absolutely recommend Garden State Dental.
Gianina A.
Dr. Marc, Ruthann and the whole staff in East Brunswick office Is phenomenal exceptional, fantastic people they took me out of pain and had lots of fun for my first time visiting had a great experience Thank you so much ! Tanakia
Traditional C.
Ive been going to Garden State dental since i was a little kid. Im turning 21 this year and i refuse to go anywhere else. Majority of the time, making dentist appointments is such a bother to most people. But, at GSD, i will never ever mind coming here. Everyone from the dentist himself to the receptionists (anne marie, youre the best!) will make you feel welcome and like you are at home. If youve…
Dr Mark and his staff are top notch! Been a patient for about 15 years and never been so thrilled with my teeth. Highly recommend this place for your next cleaning or check-up 😁
Sal E.
I have been coming here for over 15+ years! Great staff, always kind and professional. Would definitely recommend!
Stephanie M.
My dentist provided a very thorough exam and took time to explain to me the steps I should take to stop nerve pain in my tooth. The hygienist who took my xrays was super nice and friendly. The hygienist who did my teeth cleaning was extremely gentle and gave me the best teeth cleaning ever! Even the staff in the reception area were friendly and helpful. I am glad I decided to make Garden State Den…
Toby F.
The best service I have ever had. The front desk has two warm kind and accommodating young ladies. The office manager has worked extremely hard on my behalf several times. I moved 35. Miles away and still come back to Garden State Dental! Changed all my other doctors.
Robert C.
Office staff is very nice and helpful. Easy to get an appointment, esp. for emergencies. Dr. Marc and his assistants are very thorough and great in making every procedure as painless as possible.
Samuel G.
I've been coming to Garden State Dental for most of my life and would never trust another dentist. Fast and friendly service, and they always do a great job with my teeth. When I had very complicated jaw issues, they were sensitive to my special needs and helped to resolve my issues, and they are always careful to make their patients as comfortable as possible. Is it weird that I LOVE going…
Christa D.
I loved it. Staff and receptionist were very professional. I felt comfortable and communication was great all around. Very positive experience and I will definitely keep going back.
Jennifer O.
i always have a pleasant experience . the staff are very professional and courteous. they make me feel like i am the most important patient of the day. i am sure they make everyone feel like that,
Geraldine S.


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Square Huggie Hoop with Pearl Drop
Our new favorite every day earring. Freshwater pearls hang from hand carved square huggie hoops. Satin, textured gold and lustrous pearls give this classic earring a luminous glow.
- 14k yellow gold
- Freshwater pearls
- Approx. 1" tall
Due to the organic nature of our pearls, each piece is one of a kind. Your order will be similar but not exactly what is shown in the photograph.
Each piece is custom made to order. Please allow 1-2 weeks for production and delivery. Contact us before placing an order if you need to receive your items sooner.
Shipping - Shaesby offers complimentary UPS Ground shipping on orders over $250 within the continental U.S. Online orders are shipped and delivered Monday through Friday, excluding major holidays. If you need additional delivery services, send us an email prior to placing your order.
Returns - Exchanges and returns are valid for 14 days after receipt. See FAQ for more details.
Our jewelry is designed and made one piece at a time in our Austin, Texas studio. Each style is specially handcrafted for you.
At Shaesby, we work with sterling silver, 14k and 18k yellow, white and rose gold. All materials are responsibly and ethically sourced.
Please contact us for additional options.
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
I admit that in general I have been underwhelmed in the past with Saba. A LMS whose UI is poor, ease of use not there and questionable feature sets and service. So, when I went and checked out Saba Social, Saba's new social learning platform, I had very low expectations.
I was surprised.
They finally figured it out. Saba Social is a very solid product, that despite a few hiccups and "huh" moments, achieves what it sets out to do, provide a user friendly social experience.
- Best UI they have ever had – seriously, the ease of use is there and navigation is ultra simple
- Drag and Drop on home screen, plus delete of areas – I like that
- Ability to add new areas on home page, although there is a slight hiccup there, overall though a good job
- Layout on other screens, again, simple to use, nav friendly
- Extensive options under the Profile page (your profile)
- Bookmark feature is interesting, but with this one item – Saba's past UI issues appear – too bad, it has an spin on the bookmark concept
- .epub file upload that worked, which is rarely seen in any file acceptance of other social learning systems and even the majority of e-learning solutions to begin with
- Hodgepodge of social media components – albeit the extensive and main one – social networking with a FB, Linkedin components in there, and of course a blog – thankfully no pure micro-blog like thing nor wiki (A congrats on that one, btw)
- Ability to add links, files
- Upload speed – average, not fast, despite a home upstream speed of 2Mbs (Megabits – when u hear on TV, 10MBs for a cable or DSL, that is referring to the downstream speed (download), not upload. my downstream is 20Mbs. 2Mbs is very fast in upstream for home cable, DSL)
- Testing worked well on all well known browsers: Latest version of Chrome, Firefox 5, IE 9 and latest version of Safari (did not test with Opera, Avant or a few others)
- My Learning – identified the popular courses – solid
- Over 25 different social media types and Saba Social sticks with the ones everyone always sees – WHY?
- No Skype nor Google+ icons and thus direct connections to, under your profile (although I understand with Google+ because it is so new)
- IM icons under profile – who is still using these things anyway?
- No Google voice nor any news aggregators such as Google Reader, etc. icons listed under profile
- Bookmark feature – i.e. adding a new one is difficult to figure out, i.e. UI stinks
- Generally speaking, nothing innovative – there is so much potential there and it is wasted – I mean this can be a really awesome product, but they missed the boat
- No multicultural buttons on the main screen
- Under your bio profile, optional items include you providing your religion and ethnicity
Note: Saba did not provide me with the Admin side of the solution, so this review does not cover it. I am hoping they do so in the near future.
Home Page
Upon entering Saba Social you are presented with an visually solid home screen. This is your home, which offers the ability to drag and drop any of the sections anywhere on the screen or completly remove them.
You can also add sections which are not on the screen, but are available as part of the site, this is archived by selecting "Configure Page" and choosing from a wealth of options, such as "my video channels" and "impressions".
Your default view has the following sections
- Wall – your status or updates
- My Virtual Events
- Recent Activity – with default tab of "all activity" and then two other tabs "My Network", "My Discussions"
- Announcements
- My Groups (those that you are a member of)
- People I am following
- Suggested Connections
People I am Following & Suggested Connections
- Photo and name are visible
- When you click on the person, you again see their name, title, impressions (more on that in a sec), address, tags, latest update or their post, email address.
- You can share this information with your followers, bookmark this information, Stop following them (i.e. you are following them to begin with) or connect with them (i.e. suggested connection) or Go to – which shows a series of icons that are created and viewed under their profile
Top of the home screen Header
Consists of the following
- Home icon
- People
- Groups
- Learning
- Videos
On the right side of the header
- Bookmark
- My Stuff
- Add New
- Search bar
What I found curious was while they showed and show throughout there options, an icon followed by text, for the headers with the exception of the home, they do not. We are training people know that in a quick guide or training materials, we often include icons such as "a light bulb" for an idea or whatever.
Why not have a people icon, group icon, video icon and learning icon? Seems to me that this would retain consistency with the rest of their icon approach.
Your Profile
This can be quite extensive, because they offer a lot of choices/options which is something that is wonderful. Yet, at the same time, I can see someone overwhelmed. What is nice is that they are all optional.
As you can see the options list is quite extensive. Again, kudos.
But here is the thing. In order for you to get to your profile, you have to click your name on the home screen, it would have been nice to see either on the main header or under "People" – "My Bio". I can see from their perspective that if people want to see your bio, they can see it under "suggested connections", when they click to view your image, but that seems like an extra step.
It is one of the "hiccups" I see with the product, and it goes back to "who is this meant for", because if it is meant for the person who initially is creating the bio and thus the learner (which it is for), then having them remember to click their name can be an irritant. People like easy, and "My Bio" on the main header is easy.
Back to Bio
As noted on the left side of the bio, you have your picture, then underneath it which of the social media sites you belong to (but they give you only four choices)
- Blog – your external blog
The ones you post, which you must provide your username and password to, appears as icons. The person who views your profile can click any of the icons and go to the site.
Some of the more interesting options include
- Profile – Where you add information about yourself, including email address, current employment, title, short bio, current business address, employment history, education – with breakouts for institution, type (whether it was a college, university..), degree, major, completion date, and percent complete
- Internet Profiles – i.e the Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, External blog, IM connections – Yahoo, AIM, etc., conference call information, professional interests, secondary address and optional information (more on that in a sec)
Let's remember this is for your business, or school, it is not a general social networking site – so that joe average, who does not work at your company, can zing into the site and fill out all of this info. Of course, it could be for customers – they having their own social site, and yes a mixture of employees and customers, but honestly, would you want to fill out this much about yourself?
True it is fully optional and I surmise that from the admin side, you can turn some of this off, but if I work at your company, why would I want to put the business address down – I mean doesn't everyone know where they work and where it is located? Plus, do I really need to tell you what percentage I have completed for my university and date of graduation?
I found some of the suggested information (again, you do not have to enter anything) a tad too personal and really I see as a privacy issue.
But it gets better. Under the suggested information (which doesn't state that you do not have to fill it out), is "Optional Profile Information". This section offers you the opportunity to tell people
- Gender (M or F)
- Ethnicity
- Religion
- Person ID and Legal ID – which I assume can be an assigned number or employee number
In this section for a moment, I thought "am I in a dating site"? I mean really, my ethnicity and religion? Who is the heck is ever going to put that in their profile, because I want to meet that person who cares little about privacy.
Think about it, would you ever share that information with another employee who you don't really know or even if you know? Would a customer want to share that information with another customer of yours? Would you want to provide any of that to customers?
Then when you toss in some of the suggested, what customer is going to enter in some of those winners such as completion date of college, employment history or secondary address (which smells of home address). Why not add what time you go to work and when you depart for vacations, just in case they want to stop by when they are in town for a little home shopping.
Again, it is a though Saba failed to remember who is using this, and someone went into the "social networking site" that anyone on the Internet can access.
This part of the bio, is one of my "huh, what were they thinking" and really does a massive disservice to an otherwise solid product.
Blog by the way, which is one of the options, is not your external blog, but one internal. When I tried it, it went to a page that did not exist. Interestingly enough, the icon they used is the same one as "Blogger".
Not sure I would have went with that, when most people use WordPress, which offers an API, so that your blog looks like WordPress and you can write internally in the system and then it also appears external.
I liked that you could list your expertise in there, including technical, because if you are offering a Mentor program or SME angle, others can see who is an expert in that specific area. Yet for all that, the site does not have a Social Q/A, which could help with that approach.
One of the worst ideas, IMO, ever offered in a social learning or social platform is "Impressions".
Here is how it works.
- People – followers or others who download your stuff, view your bookmarks or in general read your bio, can leave their impression of you
- They click "leave impression" and begin to enter what they think of you
- On the downside: this is a wonderful opportuntiy to get back at your fellow employee or boss or CEO, with a zinger comment and star rating (of course, no one will do that to the CEO or boss, unless they just quit the company or found out they got laid off)
Lets take a quick glance of that impressions piece, which btw is visible when someone clicks your "picture, under the suggested connections or people you are already following and vice versa)
And if you assume that you can stop it from happening, lets not forget that a typical issue at companies is the IT staff is slow to cut the person from the network internally, but people can access off site, so the admin has to remember to yank their password access. Of course, I assume that the admin has the capability of not offering this feature.
Without knowing if it exists on the admin side (as noted on the top of this review), a filter would be logical for anything on the platform. I have seen systems that offer it, and trust me, it saves a lot of misery and headaches.
Items that work in the system – and I found very useful
- Nice UI and identifies what groups you belong to, leave and new groups you can join
- Shows recent discussions and popular discussion categories
- Courses I am taking, with status options of not started, in-progress and completed
- Popular courses and recommend courses
- Video channels you subscribe to, members and option to unscribe
- New video channels you can subscribe to
- Event recordings
Hiccups – Bookmarks
When you first create a bookmark within the "bookmark" header, there is no "?" icon which indicates help, so you have to figure out on your own on how do to it. However, within your links section, where you can add sites for people to visit, it offers the option to place it as a bookmark, so it is visible to to others.
You can also bookmark other people's links, or latest post or link within their bio.
New Stuff
Shows all the options you have in your bio, and what is new, which is identified in ( ). Again, very nice and I found it useful when people actually add new things. As with any social platform you are going to find people who use it frequently or never use it at all, and despite you nagging them or I have seen the "ultimate" email to force people to use it, eventually they will not. They have no idea – overall, that you can see on the back end who is using it and again, without seeing the admin – but typically found on other platforms – how often and when they were last there.
Why Not?
Here is just a brief list of sections or components that they did not offer, but really should
- Number of times people have looked at your bio
- Number of times your links have been clicked
- Number of times your files have been downloaded and a top three list of the files across the entire site that have been downloaded or the most popular downloads
- Audio message that is listed under your bio – it adds a personal touch
- Other social media options, I mean there is over 2,400 social media sites on the net, and over 390 social networking sites – either come up with your own ideas – preferable, or look around and see what you can use
- Extensive API and Mashup directors for you to pick and choose from
Bottom Line
Saba Social offers a wealth of choices and deserves kudos in numerous areas. Overall, it can be fun for folks and be utilized, depending on how it is setup. Is it the best social learning or social platform on the market? No. But it is solid and has a lot of potential.
In general, this solution's UI is very strong considering their LMS UI which is unremarkable.
The real challenges for Saba Social is support and service and eradicating some items that are very questionable from a privacy angle.
Which I hope they do, because until then they are a middle of the road solution, and who wants to be that?
E-Learning 24/7


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The ability to measure brain functions non-invasively is important both for clinical diagnoses and research in Neurology and Psychology. Two main imaging techniques are used: positron emission tomography (PET), which reveals metabolic processes in the brain; and activity of different brain regions is measured on the basis of the cells' oxygen consumption by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). A direct comparison of PET and MRI measurements was previously difficult because each had to be performed in a separate machine.
Researchers from the Werner Siemens Imaging Center at the University of Tübingen under the direction of Professor Bernd J. Pichler in collaboration with the Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University Hospital Tübingen, and the Tübingen Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems have now successfully combined both methods. The researchers are able to explore functional processes in the brain in detail and can better assess what course of action to take. These results were achieved by the use of a PET insert enabling complementary, simultaneous PET/MRI scans. It was developed and built at the University of Tübingen.
The researchers could identify in certain regions a mismatch between glucose metabolism related brain activation measured with PET and oxygenation related signals, measured with MRI. Furthermore information about functional connectivity in the brain could be derived from MRI and from dynamic PET data. These results help to further decipher the nature of brain function, and are ultimately useful for basic research as well as clinical practice. The study, by lead author Dr. Hans Wehrl of Professor Bernd J. Pichler's research team is soon to be published in the journal "Nature Medicine".
In PET imaging the distribution of a weakly radioactive substance is shown in cross sections of the body, enabling doctors to see many different metabolic and physiological functions at work. Functional MRI (fMRI) allows researchers to depict changes in blood oxygenation that are associated with brain function. This measurement of functional active brain regions is also important for the planning of brain surgeries, where particular care must be taken in certain areas. The ability to collect different kinds of data from different scans simultaneously represents a major step forward in the fields using these technologies.
This research was conducted in close cooperation with the companies Siemens and Bruker and was supported from the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Wilhelm Schuler Foundation and the Werner Siemens Foundation.


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Why a House Rabbit?
Perhaps you've just adopted your first rabbit, or maybe you already have a rabbit and would like more information to help you understand them better. House Rabbit Society, an international nonprofit organization, recommends that you keep your rabbit in the house rather than outdoors. Rabbits are intelligent, social animals who need affection, and they can become wonderful companion animals if given a chance to interact with their human families.
The Benefits of Spay and Neuter
Although most rabbits will use a litterbox, hormones may cause unneutered males and unspayed females to "mark territory." Spaying or neutering your rabbit improves litterbox habits, lessens chewing behavior, decreases territorial aggression, and gives your rabbit a happier, longer life. Have your rabbit neutered between ages 4 to 6 months, depending on sexual maturity, by an experienced rabbit veterinarian.
For rabbits more than 2 years old, get a veterinary checkup first.
Rabbits may have free run of the home. However, it's best for most—and necessary for some—to start with a space they can call their own. This can be an exercise pen, a large dog crate, a bunny proofed room, or a very large cage or condo. To make this confined time learning time, make sure that there's a litterbox in the corner of the space that your rabbit chooses for a "bathroom." As soon as he uses the box consistently, you can give him some freedom. Place one or more large litterboxes in corners of the running area outside the rabbit's home base.
Use only positive reinforcement (treats and praise)–never punishment.
Bunny-proofing your home is part of living with a house rabbit. It is natural for rabbits to chew on furniture, rugs, drapes, and, most deadly of all, electrical cords. Cords must be concealed so that the rabbit cannot reach them. Exposed cords can be encased in vinyl tubing (found at hardware stores). By splitting the tubing lengthwise with a utility knife the cord can be pushed inside it.
Give your rabbit enough attention, safe chewables, and toys, so that she is distracted from chewing furniture and rugs. A cardboard box stuffed with hay makes an inexpensive playbox. Young rabbits (under a year) are more inclined to mischief and require more confinement and/or bunny-proofing than mature rabbits.
House Rabbits and Other Animals
House rabbits and indoor cats can get along fine, as do rabbits and well-mannered dogs. Dogs should be trained to respond to commands before being trusted with a free-running rabbit, and supervision is needed to control a dog's playful impulses (this is especially true for puppies). Adding a second rabbit is easiest if the rabbits are neutered adults of opposite sexes, and they are introduced for short periods in an area unfamiliar to both rabbits.
Major Health Problems
Intestinal Blockages
Because rabbits groom themselves constantly, they get hairballs just as cats do. Unlike cats, however, rabbits cannot vomit, and excessive swallowed hair may cause a fatal blockage. Rabbits can also develop a serious condition known as GI stasis which has many of the same symptoms and is much more deadly.
Symptoms: If your rabbit shows a decrease in appetite and in the size of droppings, get advice from a rabbit veterinarian.
Prevention: keep bunny brushed (less hair is swallowed); provide exercise time/space–at least 30 hours a week; give a fresh handful of hay daily; add fresh vegetables gradually to the diet.
Bacterial Balance
A rabbit's digestive tract is inhabited by healthful bacteria. If the "good" bacteria balance is upset by stale food or a sudden change in diet, harmful bacteria can take over the digestive track and kill the rabbit.
Prevention: Keep all rabbit food in a cool dry place and make dietary changes slowly, giving a new food in small amounts. If no abdominal gurgling or loose stool results in 24 hours, the food may be offered again. If your rabbit goes outside, check for pesticides and poisonous plants.
Infectious bacteria: Many rabbit diseases are caused by bacteria, not viruses, and should be treated with antibiotics. If your rabbit shows symptoms of a "cold," take him to a veterinarian familiar with antibiotics that can be safely used in rabbits. Oral drugs of the Penicillin family, such as Amoxicillin, should NOT be given to a rabbit, since there is risk of destroying good intestinal bacteria.
Find a Vet Before You Have an Emergency
Find an experienced rabbit veterinarian before a problem develops. If your rabbit has been harassed by a predator, take him to a veterinarian even if no injuries are apparent. When it is over, keep your rabbit cool with nearby wet towels or ice.
Regularly check eyes, nose, ears, teeth, weight, appetite, and droppings.
Danger Signs
Don't waste valuable time! Call your veterinarian immediately if you see:
Diarrhea with listlessness
Sudden loss of appetite with bloat and abdominal gurgling
Loss of appetite with labored breathing
Loss of appetite with runny nose
Head tilt
Incontinence (urine-soaked rear legs)
Abscesses, lumps or swellings anywhere
Any sudden behavior change
Have List
- Roomy pen or other habitat
- Litterbox
- Pellet bowl or feeder
- Water bottle/crock
- Toys (chew & toss)
- Pet carrier
- Bunny-proofed room(s)
- Litterbox
- Toys (chew & dig)
Outdoors (if the rabbit will be given SUPERVISED play time outdoors):
- Fenced patio/porch/playpen (with floor)
- Limited pellets daily
- Fresh water
- Hay (for digestive fiber and chewing recreation)
- Fresh salad veggies/fruit (add gradually)
- Barley/oats (very small amounts)
- Wood (for chewing recreation)
- Flea comb
- Brush
- Flea products safe for rabbits (no Frontline!)
- Toenail clippers
- Dust-free organic litter (not wood shavings)
- Whiskbroom/dustpan
- White vinegar (for urine accidents)
- Hand vacuum
- Chlorine bleach (for disinfecting)
- Newspapers
For Danish translation, please visit: http://www.autoteiledirekt.de/science/at-leve-med-et-hus-kanin


text:
Gull in flight
Harlequin drake and hen
Harlequin drake
Harlequin drakes
Harlequin drakes and hen
Harlequin ducks
In the huddle
Red-breasted merganser
Long-tailed duck drake
(a/k/a oldsquaw)
Long-tailed duck hens
(a/k/a oldsquaw)
Ruddy turnstone
Purple sandpiper
Landing gear DOWN!
Tern? Gull?
A crabby loon
"Oh, stretching feels so good!"
"And MORE stretching!"
"That's better!"
"Go on, Charlie. Try it. Nobody's watching!"
"Okay... let's see... Like this, huh?"
"Oh, man, Ralph, you're right! It feels great!"
"Ulp... but somebody WAS watching!"
Surfacing brant
"You pick your left foot up..."


text:
Here's the latest article from the Soapmaking site at BellaOnline.com.
How to use Avery Design Pro to create labels
How to use Avery design Pro to create soap cigar bands and other labels for your handmade crafts
Please visit soapmaking.bellaonline.com for even more great content about Soapmaking.
To participate in free, fun online discussions, this site has a community forum all about Soapmaking located here -
I hope to hear from you sometime soon, either in the forum or in response to this email message. I thrive on your feedback!
Have fun passing this message along to family and friends, because we all love free knowledge!
Winsome Tapper, Soapmaking Editor
One of hundreds of sites at BellaOnline.com


text:
Chicago, IL - The 2014 ASCO Annual Meeting - Dr. Charles Penley (Chair of CCF BOD), Red Carpet photos at 2014 Conquer Cancer Foundation Grants & Awards Ceremony at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, Sunday June 1, 2014. More than 30,000 physicians, researchers, health care professionals, cancer survivors and patient advocates are expected to attend the 50th Anniversary meeting at the McCormick Convention Center. The Annual Meeting highlights the latest findings in all major areas of oncology from basic through clinical and epidemiological studies. Photo by © ASCO/Zach Boyden-Holmes 2014 Technical Questions: email@example.com
From 2014 G&A Ceremony and Reception


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Canada aware of two cyber attacks, second one on energy firm
Canada said on Friday it was aware of an attempt by hackers to target a domestic energy company, the second time in 24 hours Ottawa had acknowledged a cyber security attack against a Canadian firm.
In both cases the Canadian government declined to comment on reports which suggested a Chinese connection.
The news comes at an awkward time for Canada's Conservative government, which is deciding whether to approve a landmark US$15.1 billion bid by China's CNOOC Ltd to take over Canadian oil producer Nexen Inc.
Some Conservative legislators are wary of the proposed CNOOC takeover, in part because of what they say are China's unfair business practices.
Ottawa revealed the second case after being asked about a security report from computer manufacturer Dell Inc, which said it had tracked hackers who targeted a number of firms around the world, including an unnamed energy company in Canada. Dell said on its website that the hackers had used a Chinese service provider based in Beijing.
"The Canadian Cyber Incident Response Centre is aware of this incident," said Jean-Paul Duval, a spokesman for Canada's public safety ministry. Dell did not name the firm and Duval declined to comment further.
Less than 24 hours earlier Duval said Canada knew hackers had breached security at a domestic manufacturer of software used by big energy companies.
Calgary-based Telvent Canada Ltd, which is owned by France's Schneider Electric SA, warned customers about the attack, which hit operations in the United States, Canada and Spain, the cyber security news site KrebsOnSecurity.com reported on Wednesday. It cited experts who said digital fingerprints left during the attack pointed to Chinese hackers.
China is often cited as a suspect in various hacking attacks on companies in the United States and other nations. Beijing dismisses allegations it is involved.
The US Cyber Command's top intelligence officer accused China on Thursday of persistent efforts to pierce Pentagon computer networks.
Candice Bergen, an aide to Canadian Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, did not directly address the Telvent incident when asked about it in Parliament.
The opposition New Democratic Party said the Conservatives needed to pay more attention to security concerns when looking at foreign takeover bids.
"Cyber security is something we have to pay attention to and that ... includes how deals are set up and trade deals are set up and acquisitions are made," said legislator Paul Dewar, the party's foreign affairs spokesman.
Although Industry Minister Christian Paradis is responsible for deciding whether the CNOOC bid should be approved, independent Conservative legislator Peter Goldring says a parliamentary committee ought to examine it.
"One of the main priorities of this committee will be to determine whether a foreign state-owned enterprise is an acceptable bidder ... for taking over a Canadian corporation," he said in a statement.
If a committee were set up it could delay the government's timetable for a ruling on the CNOOC deal. Paradis is expected to announce that decision by Nov 12.
An organisation that regulates US electric utilities is looking into the breach at Telvent Canada Ltd, which makes software that energy companies use to manage production and distribution of electricity. Telvent acknowledged a breach had taken place but gave few details.
The government's Canadian Security Intelligence Service says hackers try to break into government networks every day.
"Another traditional economic espionage target we often come across is the oil and gas industry," the spy agency said in its annual report released last week.
CSIS did not identify nations it said were responsible for the attacks. In 2010, the head of CSIS said ministers in two of Canada's 10 provinces were under "the general influence of a foreign government" and made clear he was talking about China.


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Fearless Love
Price: $18.94
CMC *Supporting Members* pay only $17.05
To become a CMC *Supporting Member* click here
Fearless love is the key to realizing heaven on earth, teaches Gary Renard. Why? Because ¿fearless love¿ allows you to fully experience who you really are and rediscover your connection with the divine. Now, this bestselling author and contemporary teacher of A Course in Miracles (Foundation for Inner Peace, 2007) offers Fearless Love, a practical audio program to help listeners remember what it's like to be God or love itself. This insightful two-CD program complete with guided meditations and visualizations available nowhere else¿teaches how to: Shift your mind's subconscious projector from seeing your reality as the effect instead of the cause. Turn any human existence challenge into an opportunity for deeper communion with the divine through fearless love. Amplify the power of love and forgiveness to melt away worry, fear, and guilt. Live a life where suffering is impossible, love is everywhere, and truth is all there is.
By Gary Renard


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Floofy Friday
18 comments:
She deserves her new pet-on-demand program. We hope you have a great weekend.ReplyDelete
Truffle and Brulee
We hope you get some porch time this weekend, Finny!ReplyDelete
I'm on the poke-on-demand program: I demand to poke my human with my paw whenever she deserves it.ReplyDelete
Thanks fur the floof! We hopes you get sum great whiffies on the porch! xoxoReplyDelete
Pet on demand program? Awesomeness! Hope you get some good porch time this weeked!ReplyDelete
That is a lovely shot of your sweet face, Finny. Hoping for good porch weather for you.ReplyDelete
Hey Fin,ReplyDelete
Great going you have there - pet-on-demand sounds swell. purrr....meow!
Smooch and hugs to you beautiful Fin!ReplyDelete
Enjoy your sunshine and whiffy time Fin sitting in the porch. We suggest you organise a little bell so you can summon your Mom when you feel the need for a treat, a snack or a kiss.ReplyDelete
We hope you all have a Happy Easter
Luv Hannah and Lucy xx xx
Sounds like Finny has you under thumb if she had one. It is fun to wait on them. I have an old dog right now that I have to watch like a hawk. Love the picture. Always love to see Finny on a Friday. Have a great week end with lots of porch time. Take care.ReplyDelete
I really love your floof. Paws crossed that you get your porch time -- we're having a giganticat snow storm! :-(ReplyDelete
Hope the winds drop so you can get plenty of porch time Finny.ReplyDelete
you look as beautiful as ever!ReplyDelete
Looking beautiful, Finny! Hope you enjoy some nice porch time with your mom this weekend. :)ReplyDelete
We hope you get some outdoor time this weekend! Happy Easter, sweetie!ReplyDelete
Hi Fin, looking gorgeous!ReplyDelete
Yeah, strong wind can sweep you away so stay inside when it's blowing hard. But I do hope you get some porch time. Have a wonderful weekend!
Pet-on-demand is the only way to go. I know Fin is worthy of it.ReplyDelete
Finny is such a beautiful girl. I enjoy reading her view of things Hope you two have lots of great porch time this weekend.ReplyDelete


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In honor of the Nobel Prize, here are some questions that are frequently asked about dark energy, or should be.
What is dark energy?
It's what makes the universe accelerate, if indeed there is a "thing" that does that. (See below.)
So I guess I should be asking… what does it mean to say the universe is "accelerating"?
First, the universe is expanding: as shown by Hubble, distant galaxies are moving away from us with velocities that are roughly proportional to their distance. "Acceleration" means that if you measure the velocity of one such galaxy, and come back a billion years later and measure it again, the recession velocity will be larger. Galaxies are moving away from us at an accelerating rate.
But that's so down-to-Earth and concrete. Isn't there a more abstract and scientific-sounding way of putting it?
The relative distance between far-flung galaxies can be summed up in a single quantity called the "scale factor," often written a(t) or R(t). The scale factor is basically the "size" of the universe, although it's not really the size because the universe might be infinitely big — more accurately, it's the relative size of space from moment to moment. The expansion of the universe is the fact that the scale factor is increasing with time. The acceleration of the universe is the fact that it's increasing at an increasing rate — the second derivative is positive, in calculus-speak.
Does that mean the Hubble constant, which measures the expansion rate, is increasing?
No. The Hubble "constant" (or Hubble "parameter," if you want to acknowledge that it changes with time) characterizes the expansion rate, but it's not simply the derivative of the scale factor: it's the derivative divided by the scale factor itself. Why? Because then it's a physically measurable quantity, not something we can change by switching conventions. The Hubble constant is basically the answer to the question "how quickly does the scale factor of the universe expand by some multiplicative factor?"
If the universe is decelerating, the Hubble constant is decreasing. If the Hubble constant is increasing, the universe is accelerating. But there's an intermediate regime in which the universe is accelerating but the Hubble constant is decreasing — and that's exactly where we think we are. The velocity of individual galaxies is increasing, but it takes longer and longer for the universe to double in size.
Said yet another way: Hubble's Law relates the velocity v of a galaxy to its distance d via v = H d. The velocity can increase even if the Hubble parameter is decreasing, as long as it's decreasing more slowly than the distance is increasing.
Did the astronomers really wait a billion years and measure the velocity of galaxies again?
No. You measure the velocity of galaxies that are very far away. Because light travels at a fixed speed (one light year per year), you are looking into the past. Reconstructing the history of how the velocities were different in the past reveals that the universe is accelerating.
How do you measure the distance to galaxies so far away?
It's not easy. The most robust method is to use a "standard candle" — some object that is bright enough to see from great distance, and whose intrinsic brightness is known ahead of time. Then you can figure out the distance simply by measuring how bright it actually looks: dimmer = further away.
Sadly, there are no standard candles.
Then what did they do?
Fortunately we have the next best thing: standardizable candles. A specific type of supernova, Type Ia, are very bright and approximately-but-not-quite the same brightness. Happily, in the 1990′s Mark Phillips discovered a remarkable relationship between intrinsic brightness and the length of time it takes for a supernova to decline after reaching peak brightness. Therefore, if we measure the brightness as it declines over time, we can correct for this difference, constructing a universal measure of brightness that can be used to determine distances.
Why are Type Ia supernovae standardizable candles?
We're not completely sure — mostly it's an empirical relationship. But we have a good idea: we think that SNIa are white dwarf stars that have been accreting matter from outside until they hit the Chandrasekhar Limit and explode. Since that limit is basically the same number everywhere in the universe, it's not completely surprising that the supernovae have similar brightnesses. The deviations are presumably due to differences in composition.
But how do you know when a supernova is going to happen?
You don't. They are rare, maybe once per century in a typical galaxy. So what you do is look at many, many galaxies with wide-field cameras. In particular you compare an image of the sky taken at one moment to another taken a few weeks later — "a few weeks" being roughly the time between new Moons (when the sky is darkest), and coincidentally about the time it takes a supernova to flare up in brightness. Then you use computers to compare the images and look for new bright spots. Then you go back and examine those bright spots closely to try to check whether they are indeed Type Ia supernovae. Obviously this is very hard and wouldn't even be conceivable if it weren't for a number of relatively recent technological advances — CCD cameras as well as giant telescopes. These days we can go out and be confident that we'll harvest supernovae by the dozens — but when Perlmutter and his group started out, that was very far from obvious.
And what did they find when they did this?
Most (almost all) astronomers expected them to find that the universe was decelerating — galaxies pull on each other with their gravitational fields, which should slow the whole thing down. (Actually many astronomers just thought they would fail completely, but that's another story.) But what they actually found was that the distant supernovae were dimmer than expected — a sign that they are farther away than we predicted, which means the universe has been accelerating.
Why did cosmologists accept this result so quickly?
Even before the 1998 announcements, it was clear that something funny was going on with the universe. There seemed to be evidence that the age of the universe was younger than the age of its oldest stars. There wasn't as much total matter as theorists predicted. And there was less structure on large scales than people expected. The discovery of dark energy solved all of these problems at once. It made everything snap into place. So people were still rightfully cautious, but once this one startling observation was made, the universe suddenly made a lot more sense.
How do we know the supernovae not dimmer because something is obscuring them, or just because things were different in the far past?
That's the right question to ask, and one reason the two supernova teams worked so hard on their analysis. You can never be 100% sure, but you can gain more and more confidence. For example, astronomers have long known that obscuring material tends to scatter blue light more easily than red, leading to "reddening" of stars that sit behind clouds of gas and dust. You can look for reddening, and in the case of these supernovae it doesn't appear to be important. More crucially, by now we have a lot of independent lines of evidence that reach the same conclusion, so it looks like the original supernova results were solid.
There's really independent evidence for dark energy?
Oh yes. One simple argument is "subtraction": the cosmic microwave background measures the total amount of energy (including matter) in the universe. Local measures of galaxies and clusters measure the total amount of matter. The latter turns out to be about 27% of the former, leaving 73% or so in the form of some invisible stuff that is not matter: "dark energy." That's the right amount to explain the acceleration of the universe. Other lines of evidence come from baryon acoustic oscillations (ripples in large-scale structure whose size helps measure the expansion history of the universe) and the evolution of structure as the universe expands.
Okay, so: what is dark energy?
Glad you asked! Dark energy has three crucial properties. First, it's dark: we don't see it, and as far as we can observe it doesn't interact with matter at all. (Maybe it does, but beneath our ability to currently detect.) Second, it's smoothly distributed: it doesn't fall into galaxies and clusters, or we would have found it by studying the dynamics of those objects. Third, it's persistent: the density of dark energy (amount of energy per cubic light-year) remains approximately constant as the universe expands. It doesn't dilute away like matter does.
These last two properties (smooth and persistent) are why we call it "energy" rather than "matter." Dark energy doesn't seem to act like particles, which have local dynamics and dilute away as the universe expands. Dark energy is something else.
That's a nice general story. What might dark energy specifically be?
The leading candidate is the simplest one: "vacuum energy," or the "cosmological constant." Since we know that dark energy is pretty smooth and fairly persistent, the first guess is that it's perfectly smooth and exactly persistent. That's vacuum energy: a fixed amount of energy attached to every tiny region of space, unchanging from place to place or time to time. About one hundred-millionth of an erg per cubic centimeter, if you want to know the numbers.
Is vacuum energy really the same as the cosmological constant?
Yes. Don't believe claims to the contrary. When Einstein first invented the idea, he didn't think of it as "energy," he thought of it as a modification of the way spacetime curvature interacted with energy. But it turns out to be precisely the same thing. (If someone doesn't want to believe this, ask them how they would observationally distinguish the two.)
Doesn't vacuum energy come from quantum fluctuations?
Not exactly. There are many different things that can contribute to the energy of empty space, and some of them are completely classical (nothing to do with quantum fluctuations). But in addition to whatever classical contribution the vacuum energy has, there are also quantum fluctuations on top of that. These fluctuation are very large, and that leads to the cosmological constant problem.
What is the cosmological constant problem?
If all we knew was classical mechanics, the cosmological constant would just be a number — there's no reason for it to be big or small, positive or negative. We would just measure it and be done.
But the world isn't classical, it's quantum. In quantum field theory we expect that classical quantities receive "quantum corrections." In the case of the vacuum energy, these corrections come in the form of the energy of virtual particles fluctuating in the vacuum of empty space.
We can add up the amount of energy we expect in these vacuum fluctuations, and the answer is: an infinite amount. That's obviously wrong, but we suspect that we're overcounting. In particular, that rough calculation includes fluctuations at all sizes, including wavelengths smaller than the Planck distance at which spacetime probably loses its conceptual validity. If instead we only include wavelengths that are at the Planck length or longer, we get a specific estimate for the value of the cosmological constant.
The answer is: 10120 times what we actually observe. That discrepancy is the cosmological constant problem.
Why is the cosmological constant so small?
Nobody knows. Before the supernovae came along, many physicists assumed there was some secret symmetry or dynamical mechanism that set the cosmological constant to precisely zero, since we certainly knew it was much smaller than our estimates would indicate. Now we are faced with both explaining why it's small, and why it's not quite zero. And for good measure: the coincidence problem, which is why the dark energy density is the same order of magnitude as the matter density.
Here's how bad things are: right now, the best theoretical explanation for the value of the cosmological constant is the anthropic principle. If we live in a multiverse, where different regions have very different values of the vacuum energy, one can plausibly argue that life can only exist (to make observations and win Nobel Prizes) in regions where the vacuum energy is much smaller than the estimate. If it were larger and positive, galaxies (and even atoms) would be ripped apart; if it were larger and negative, the universe would quickly recollapse. Indeed, we can roughly estimate what typical observers should measure in such a situation; the answer is pretty close to the observed value. Steven Weinberg actually made this prediction in 1988, long before the acceleration of the universe was discovered. He didn't push it too hard, though; more like "if this is how things work out, this is what we should expect to see…" There are many problems with this calculation, especially when you start talking about "typical observers," even if you're willing to believe there might be a multiverse. (I'm very happy to contemplate the multiverse, but much more skeptical that we can currently make a reasonable prediction for observable quantities within that framework.)
What we would really like is a simple formula that predicts the cosmological constant once and for all as a function of other measured constants of nature. We don't have that yet, but we're trying. Proposed scenarios make use of quantum gravity, extra dimensions, wormholes, supersymmetry, nonlocality, and other interesting but speculative ideas. Nothing has really caught on as yet.
Has the course of progress in string theory ever been affected by an experimental result?
Yes: the acceleration of the universe. Previously, string theorists (like everyone else) assumed that the right thing to do was to explain a universe with zero vacuum energy. Once there was a real chance that the vacuum energy is not zero, they asked whether that was easy to accommodate within string theory. The answer is: it's not that hard. The problem is that if you can find one solution, you can find an absurdly large number of solutions. That's the string theory landscape, which seems to kill the hopes for one unique solution that would explain the real world. That would have been nice, but science has to take what nature has to offer.
What's the coincidence problem?
Matter dilutes away as the universe expands, while the dark energy density remains more or less constant. Therefore, the relative density of dark energy and matter changes considerably over time. In the past, there was a lot more matter (and radiation); in the future, dark energy will completely dominate. But today, they are approximately equal, by cosmological standards. (When two numbers could differ by a factor of 10100 or much more, a factor of three or so counts as "equal.") Why are we so lucky to be born at a time when dark energy is large enough to be discoverable, but small enough that it's a Nobel-worthy effort to do so? Either this is just a coincidence (which might be true), or there is something special about the epoch in which we live. That's one of the reasons people are willing to take anthropic arguments seriously. We're talking about a preposterous universe here.
If the dark energy has a constant density, but space expands, doesn't that mean energy isn't conserved?
Yes. That's fine.
What's the difference between "dark energy" and "vacuum energy"?
"Dark energy" is the general phenomenon of smooth, persistent stuff that makes the universe accelerate; "vacuum energy" is a specific candidate for dark energy, namely one that is absolutely smooth and utterly constant.
So there are other candidates for dark energy?
Yes. All you need is something that is pretty darn smooth and persistent. It turns out that most things like to dilute away, so finding persistent energy sources isn't that easy. The simplest and best idea is quintessence, which is just a scalar field that fills the universe and changes very slowly as time passes.
Is the quintessence idea very natural?
Not really. An original hope was that, by considering something dynamical and changing rather than a plain fixed constant energy, you could come up with some clever explanation for why the dark energy was so small, and maybe even explain the coincidence problem. Neither of those hopes has really panned out.
Instead, you've added new problems. According to quantum field theory, scalar fields like to be heavy; but to be quintessence, a scalar field would have to be enormously light, maybe 10-30 times the mass of the lightest neutrino. (But not zero!) That's one new problem you've introduced, and another is that a light scalar field should interact with ordinary matter. Even if that interaction is pretty feeble, it should still be large enough to detect — and it hasn't been detected. Of course, that's an opportunity as well as a problem — maybe better experiments will actually find a "quintessence force," and we'll understand dark energy once and for all.
How else can we test the quintessence idea?
The most direct way is to do the supernova thing again, but do it better. More generally: map the expansion of the universe so precisely that we can tell whether the density of dark energy is changing with time. This is generally cast as an attempt to measure the dark energy equation-of-state parameter w. If w is exactly minus one, the dark energy is exactly constant — vacuum energy. If w is slightly greater than -1, the energy density is gradually declining; if it's slightly less (e.g. -1.1), the dark energy density is actually growing with time. That's dangerous for all sorts of theoretical reasons, but we should keep our eyes peeled.
What is w?
It's called the "equation-of-state parameter" because it relates the pressure p of dark energy to its energy density ρ, via w = p/ρ. Of course nobody measures the pressure of dark energy, so it's a slightly silly definition, but it's an accident of history. What really matters is how the dark energy evolves with time, but in general relativity that's directly related to the equation-of-state parameter.
Does that mean that dark energy has negative pressure?
Yes indeed. Negative pressure is what happens when a substance pulls rather than pushes — like an over-extended spring that pulls on either end. It's often called "tension." This is why I advocated smooth tension as a better name than "dark energy," but I came in too late.
Why does dark energy make the universe accelerate?
Because it's persistent. Einstein says that energy causes spacetime to curve. In the case of the universe, that curvature comes in two forms: the curvature of space itself (as opposed to spacetime), and the expansion of the universe. We've measured the curvature of space, and it's essentially zero. So the persistent energy leads to a persistent expansion rate. In particular, the Hubble parameter is close to constant, and if you remember Hubble's Law from way up top (v = H d) you'll realize that if H is approximately constant, v will be increasing because the distance is increasing. Thus: acceleration.
Is negative pressure is like tension, why doesn't it pull things together rather than pushing them apart?
Sometimes you will hear something along the lines of "dark energy makes the universe accelerate because it has negative pressure." This is strictly speaking true, but a bit ass-backwards; it gives the illusion of understanding rather than actual understanding. You are told "the force of gravity depends on the density plus three times the pressure, so if the pressure is equal and opposite to the density, gravity is repulsive." Seems sensible, except that nobody will explain to you why gravity depends on the density plus three times the pressure. And it's not really the "force of gravity" that depends on that; it's the local expansion of space.
The "why doesn't tension pull things together?" question is a perfectly valid one. The answer is: because dark energy doesn't actually push or pull on anything. It doesn't interact directly with ordinary matter, for one thing; for another, it's equally distributed through space, so any pulling it did from one direction would be exactly balanced by an opposite pull from the other. It's the indirect effect of dark energy, through gravity rather than through direct interaction, that makes the universe accelerate.
The real reason dark energy causes the universe to accelerate is because it's persistent.
Is dark energy like antigravity?
No. Dark energy is not "antigravity," it's just gravity. Imagine a world with zero dark energy, except for two blobs full of dark energy. Those two blobs will not repel each other, they will attract. But inside those blobs, the dark energy will push space to expand. That's just the miracle of non-Euclidean geometry.
Is it a new repulsive force?
No. It's just a new (or at least different) kind of source for an old force — gravity. No new forces of nature are involved.
What's the difference between dark energy and dark matter?
Completely different. Dark matter is some kind of particle, just one we haven't discovered yet. We know it's there because we've observed its gravitational influence in a variety of settings (galaxies, clusters, large-scale structure, microwave background radiation). It's about 23% of the universe. But it's basically good old-fashioned "matter," just matter that we can't directly detect (yet). It clusters under the influence of gravity, and dilutes away as the universe expands. Dark energy, meanwhile, doesn't cluster, nor does it dilute away. It's not made of particles, it's some different kind of thing entirely.
Is it possible that there is no dark energy, just a modification of gravity on cosmological scales?
It's possible, sure. There are at least two popular approaches to this idea: f(R) gravity , which Mark and I helped develop, and DGP gravity, by Dvali, Gabadadze, and Porati. The former is a directly phenomenological approach where you simply change the Einstein field equation by messing with the action in four dimensions, while the latter uses extra dimensions that only become visible at large distances. Both models face problems — not necessarily insurmountable, but serious — with new degrees of freedom and attendant instabilities.
Modified gravity is certainly worth taking seriously (but I would say that). Still, like quintessence, it raises more problems than it solves, at least at the moment. My personal likelihoods: cosmological constant = 0.9, dynamical dark energy = 0.09, modified gravity = 0.01. Feel free to disagree.
What does dark energy imply about the future of the universe?
That depends on what the dark energy is. If it's a true cosmological constant that lasts forever, the universe will continue to expand, cool off, and empty out. Eventually there will be nothing left but essentially empty space.
The cosmological constant could be constant at the moment, but temporary; that is, there could be a future phase transition in which the vacuum energy decreases. Then the universe could conceivably recollapse.
If the dark energy is dynamical, any possibility is still open. If it's dynamical and increasing (w less than -1 and staying that way), we could even get a Big Rip.
What's next?
We would love to understand dark energy (or modified gravity) through better cosmological observations. That means measuring the equation-of-state parameter, as well as improving observations of gravity in galaxies and clusters to compare with different models. Fortunately, while the U.S. is gradually retreating from ambitious new science projects, the European Space Agency is moving forward with a satellite to measure dark energy. There are a number of ongoing ground-based efforts, of course, and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope should do a great job once it goes online.
But the answer might be boring — the dark energy is just a simple cosmological constant. That's just one number; what are you going to do about it? In that case we need better theories, obviously, but also input from less direct empirical sources — particle accelerators, fifth-force searches, tests of gravity, anything that would give some insight into how spacetime and quantum field theory fit together at a basic level.
The great thing about science is that the answers aren't in the back of the book; we have to solve the problems ourselves. This is a big one.


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Pardon the hyperbole, but boy, this is something else.
Designer Hiroto Ikeuchi calls his PC the "secret base".
Most PC casemods are content with using some paint, maybe some basic custom cases. Ikeuchi's is more like a work of art.
Wired says his PC is inspired by stuff like Gundam and Macross. No matter where you look, whether it's, monitor, keyboard or tower, there's something going on, some little hidden treasure.
Not all of the embellishments are just for show, either. That tank is the PC's mouse, and there are eight pieces of heavy artillery that are actually USB sticks!
There are more of these wonderful photos on raku-taro's tumblr (which is itself an awesome way to spend a morning).
This Insane Case Mod Looks Like a World War III Fever Dream [Wired, via technabob]
Ikeuchi Products[Site]
Photos[Rako Taro]


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A couple of weeks ago, I decided to check out Cape Cod in the winter. It was pretty great, even if cold. On my way to the Cape, I drove past a Wendy's. They were offering a fish sandwich–made with North Pacific cod. That's right, North Pacific cod on Cape Cod.
The cod fishery of the North Atlantic and the livelihoods it sustained for 300 years are basically finished. The New England Fishery Management Council has reduced the cod catch by 77% in the Gulf of Maine, 61% on Georges Bank. The reality is that the fishers probably won't even catch that tiny quota. The fish are gone, driven to near extinction not by the family fishermen that work out of the small ports in New England but by giant industrial fishing trawlers that are taking every fish of any edible size out of the oceans at an alarming rate.
Here's a graph of the annual catch off the Grand Bank:
Reduced quotas have not brought the fish back in the last 15 years because there just aren't any left. The only way to bring this back at all is a total moratorium on fishing for at least 20 years and then maybe not. A lot of fishermen are angry–but what can we do? There's just no fish left.
There actually are two things we can do. Neither will bring the fish back, but that's a done deal. First, as the first linked article suggested, we can develop alternative economies for these fishing ports around wind energy. That's very different work than fishing, but it's something. Some of these cities–New Bedford for instance–have developed reasonable tourist industries and have attracted some young people to live there and build some kind of alternative economies. Many–Fall River for instance, a mere 15 miles from New Bedford–have not. This is the best and most obvious way to create at least some jobs based upon harvesting natural resources, albeit in a very different way.
The second thing we can do is to take some kind of national responsibility for workers who lose their jobs because of resource depletion. There's actually significant precedent for this in the Pacific Northwest. The Clinton Forest Plan that provided some finality to the old growth/spotted owl logging wars in the 1980s and early 1990s provided retraining programs for loggers and mill workers who lost their jobs due to the industry's disappearance. My own father took advantage of this program, although he later found work in another mill.
Even more interesting is the case of the Redwood Employee Protection Program. The first real battle in the Northwest over the forests, really the precursor to the spotted owl, was the successful campaign to expand Redwood National Park. When the bill was signed by President Carter in 1978, it included REPP, a program that provided significant payments to workers displaced by the mills that had to close down. They received direct payments from the federal government until 1984 to build a bridge until they could find other work. The generosity of this was controversial–Carter himself was quite skeptical. And in many ways it didn't work that well. There were battles over who should qualify–were the mills shutting down because of a lack of timber or because of globalization and mechanization? Moreover, there were some disappearing funds and management issues. We don't need to get into these details now. What's notable though is that at least one time the federal government decided to expand the welfare state, however tentatively, to workers unemployed in order to save rare resources.
Of course, this is politically impossible, even unthinkable, in the modern political climate. But rather than throw the fishermen and their families on the street with few economic opportunities, wouldn't a program to help build regional economies and stabilize communities make a lot more sense? I think it would.


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Bloomberg Deputy Arrested for Beating His Wife Last Month
If the second-most powerful official in New York City government spends two days in jail for assaulting his wife, is that something the Bloomberg administration thinks people ought to know about? Nope.
When Stephen Goldsmith, the former Indianapolis mayor and technocratic guru that Michael Bloomberg hired as his deputy last year, resigned suddenly in August, everyone assumed it was because he failed so miserably during last winter's blizzard. "The change will provide me, at age 64, with more flexibility for me and my family and a secure foundation for our future," Goldsmith said at the time in a statement.
Turns out that four days before his resignation, Goldsmith had been arrested for allegedly beating his wife at their Georgetown home. The New York Post has the police report:
The shocking report describes in dramatic detail how a "verbal altercation" between the former Indianapolis mayor, 64, and his wife in their ritzy house turned ugly at around 11:30 p.m. July 30.
"I should have put a bullet through you years ago!" Margaret, 59, allegedly told Goldsmith, the report revealed.
Stephen Goldsmith then "shoved [Margaret into] the kitchen counter," according to the report.
"You're not going to do this to me again, I'm calling the police," Margaret responded, the report said.
Goldsmith "then grabbed the phone from her hands and threw it onto the ground, breaking the phone. He then grabbed [Margaret] and refused to let her go."
"She kept screaming, 'Let me go, let me go,' " as Stephen refused to let her out of his grasp, according to the report.
"She dug her nails into [Stephen's] forearms," causing him to release Margaret, who then "ran to the other room to call police."
Cops arrived and arrested Stephen for "simple assault domestic violence," the report said. Margaret complained of back pain but refused medical attention.
Goldsmith spent two days in a D.C. jail—while he was still serving as the deputy mayor of New York City—and Bloomberg didn't think to tell anyone.
Goldsmith's wife now insists there was no violence, and charges were never filed in the case.
[Photo via Getty Images.]


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Superbike Concorso Finals 2007 - Laguna Seca II
Laguna Seca AMA weekend. The culmination of 5 rounds of heavyweight Ducati Superbike prize fights, the finalists of the richly contested Ducati Superbike Concorso have now come to town. 10 finalists representing superbike models from the original Ducati Superbike, the 750 Sport, to the latest contender, the 1098 lined up for a winner takes all final round. Join me for a visit to Ducati Island, a history lesson as well as a visual feast since these machines, brought by their owners from all over the USA literally represent the full spectrum of Ducati Superbike history over the years. One lucky owner goes home with a new Ducati 1098, and two runner up's with Ducatisti "trips of a lifetime" to the Ducati factory and the Milan Motorcycle show. Let the contest begin...Read More
Photos and captions by Vicki Smith
Photos and captions by Vicki Smith


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The Supreme Court announced disturbing decisions today on two important cases dealing with marriage law. The Court refused, however, to create a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.
Proposition 8
In its ruling on California's Proposition 8, the Court declared that the citizen group that sponsored Prop 8 did not have standing to defend the constitutional amendment that millions of Californians voted to pass. The only reason this jurisdictional question was an issue is because the governor and attorney general of the state of California decided to not defend a law passed by the people of that state.
It is scandalous that the governor and attorney general refused to perform their duty. That abdication of their constitutional responsibility should not have prevented these laws from having a vigorous defense in court. This sets a disturbing precedent and distorts the balance of powers between the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government. It would allow the executive branch to effectively veto any duly enacted law simply by refusing to defend it against a constitutional challenge.
While the government of California through its inaction has tried to silence the voices of Californians, the Court has not created a right to the redefinition of marriage. Marriage laws in the states that tell the truth about marriage—that it is a union of one man and one woman to provide children with a mom and a dad—have not been struck down.
And we must now work to protect marriage laws in the 37 other states defining marriage as a man and a woman across the country.
Defense of Marriage Act
In its ruling on the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the Court struck down Section 3, declaring that the federal government cannot define marriage for its own federal policies and federal laws but must accept whatever the states decide about marriage. The Court's ruling, however, does not affect Section 2, which provides that no state is required to give effect to another state's recognition of same-sex marriages.
Here, the Court got it wrong. The Court ignored the votes of a large bipartisan majority of Members of Congress. It is absurd for the Court to suggest that Congress does not have the power to define the meaning of words in statutes that Congress itself has enacted. Just as the states have constitutional authority to make state policy about marriage, so too Congress has constitutional authority to pass a federal statute defining a term for federal programs created by federal law.
DOMA imposes no uniform definition of marriage upon the individual states, and the states should not be able to impose varying definitions of marriage upon the federal government. This is a serious loss for federalism and democratic self-government. We must work to reverse it and to defend the rights of all Americans to make marriage policy. And we should promote the truth about marriage between a man and a woman and why it matters for children, civil society, and limited government.
Nothing in the text, history, logic, or structure of the U.S. Constitution requires redefining marriage. Indeed, in a Heritage Legal Memorandum, John Eastman explains why marriage laws are constitutional:
Nothing in the Court's jurisprudence suggests that the right of same-sex couples to have their relationships recognized as marriages is so fundamental as to be protected by the Constitution's Due Process Clause. Nor does the Equal Protection Clause require that result, given the societal purpose and value of marriage as furthering procreation and child-rearing. Because the Constitution does not speak to this question, it is one that is left to ordinary political processes, not to judicial fiat.
Marriage policy should be worked out through the democratic process, not dictated by unelected judges. The American people and their elected representatives have constitutional authority to make marriage policy.
For more answers to frequently asked questions in the marriage debate, download a copy of What You Need to Know about Marriage, an e-book available at TheMarriageFacts.com.