Today on New Scientist: 5 February 2013







Engineering light: Pull an image from nowhere

A new generation of lenses could bring us better lighting, anti-forgery technology and novel movie projectors



Baby boomers' health worse than their parents

Americans who were born in the wake of the second world war have poorer health than the previous generation at the same age



New 17-million-digit monster is largest known prime

A distributed computing project called GIMPS has found a record-breaking prime number, the first for four years



Cellular signals used to make national rainfall map

The slight weakening of microwave signals caused by reflections off raindrops can be exploited to keep tabs on precipitation



NASA spy telescopes won't be looking at Earth

A Mars orbiter and an exoplanet photographer are among proposals being presented today for how to use two second-hand spy satellites that NASA's been given



China gets the blame for media hacking spree

The big US newspapers and Twitter all revealed last week that they were hacked - and many were quick to blame China. But where's the proof?



Nobel-winning US energy secretary steps down

Steven Chu laid the groundwork for government-backed renewable energy projects - his successor must make a better case for them



Sleep and dreaming: Where do our minds go at night?

We are beginning to understand how our brains shape our dreams, and why they contain such an eerie mixture of the familiar and the bizarre



Beating heart of a quantum time machine exposed

This super-accurate timekeeper is an optical atomic clock and its tick is governed by a single ion of the element strontium



A life spent fighting fair about the roots of violence

Despite the fierce conflicts experienced living among anthropologists, science steals the show in Napoleon Chagnon's autobiography Noble Savages



Challenge unscientific thinking, whatever its source

Science may lean to the left, but that's no reason to give progressives who reject it a "free pass"



Need an organ? Just print some stem cells in 3D

Printing blobs of human embryonic stem cells could allow us to grow organs without scaffolds



Ice-age art hints at birth of modern mind

An exhibition of ice-age art at London's British Museum shows astonishing and enigmatic creativity





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SSC may sell naming rights to facilities in Sports Hub






SINGAPORE: The Singapore Sports Council (SSC), which is developing the Sports Hub, may sell the naming rights to individual facilities within the complex, except for the National Stadium.

However, any sale of naming rights within the Sports Hub is still subject to SSC's consent.

The aim is to strike a balance between preserving the character of Singapore's national icons and allowing sports to benefit from corporate sponsorship.

Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Lawrence Wong said this in Parliament on Wednesday in response to questions from Nominated MP, Assistant Professor Eugene Tan, on the policy on naming rights.

Mr Wong said: "We would certainly be considering naming the facilities which could take the name of our public figures or sports personalities. We are prepared to consider the suggestion and that is provided for within the context of the Sports Hub. Not all of the naming rights have been sold or are part of the agreement with the operator. The government can decide to so name in a different manner."

The Sports Hub is being developed under a 25-year public-private-partnership (PPP) agreement.

A commercial operator will finance, build and operate the entire project in return for a pre-agreed payment and a share of the overall revenue.

Part of the revenue from the operation of the Sports Hub, which would include revenue from the sale of naming rights, may be used to pay for future improvements in facilities, events and shows, as well as to fund community events and support the development of athletes.

On whether a local bank is in discussions with the sports operator on the naming rights, Mr Wong said any interested party can approach the Sports Hub operator and let it know it is interested in a sponsorship deal with naming rights for a particular facility.

He said the Sports Hub operator has been talking to many parties,.

He added that while the media may have speculated about a deal with one local bank, that doesn't mean only one party is interested.

- CNA/fa



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Twitter gives Vine an NC-17 rating after porn controversy



Vine update ask for ID -- kind of.



(Credit:
Steven Musil/CNET)



After a dustup over pornography showing up on Vine, the Twitter-owned video-sharing app has added an age rating for possible adult content.


The app for iPhone and
iPod Touch, which lets anyone create and share six-second clips, quickly became a popular venue for pornography after its release last month. Twitter responded by trying to make it harder for users to find the adult videos, blocking a number of porn-related search terms such as "#porn."


The microblogging site initially added a warning still to the beginning of videos in question that users would have to bypass to see the clip. As first noted by The Verge, Twitter released a new version today that requires users to confirm that they are at least 17 years of age; the previous version described itself for users 12 and older.




The app captured the controversy spotlight when a pornographic video briefly made Vine's "Editor Pick" list, further raising the question of whether the video-clip-sharing app has a porn problem.


However, the pop-up confirmation screen on version 1.0.5 does appears to do little more to prevent access to questionable content than previous moves; children under the age of 17 lacking direct adult supervision can easily subvert this new obstacle to install the app.


CNET has contacted Twitter for comment on the new move and will update this report when we learn more.


The update follows similar moves by Tumblr and 500px, the latter of which was briefly removed from the Apple App Store presumably because of its photo-sharing capabilities, which might allow users to search for and find naked bodies.

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The Real Richard III


It's a question that actors from Laurence Olivier to Kevin Spacey have grappled with: What did Richard III, the villainous protagonist of Shakespeare's famous historical drama, really look and sound like?

In the wake of this week's announcement by the University of Leicester that archaeologists have discovered the 15th-century British king's lost skeleton beneath a parking lot, news continues to unfold that helps flesh out the real Richard III.

The Richard III Society unveiled a 3D reconstruction today of the late king's head and shoulders, based on computer analysis of his skull combined with an artist's interpretation of details from historical portraits. (Related: "Shakespeare's Coined Words Now Common Currency.")

"We received the skull data before DNA analysis confirmed that the remains were Richard III, and we treated it like a forensic case," said Caroline Wilkinson, the University of Dundee facial anthropologist who led the reconstruction project. "We were very pleasantly surprised by the results."

Though Shakespeare describes the king as an "elvish-marked, abortive, rooting hog," the reconstructed Richard has a pleasant, almost feminine face, with youthful skin and thoughtful eyes. His right shoulder is slightly higher than the left, a consequence of scoliosis, but the difference is barely visible, said Wilkinson.

"I think the whole Shakespearean view of him as being sort of monster-like was based more on his personality than his physical features," she reflected.

Look back at 125 years of National Geographic history

People are naturally fascinated by faces, especially of historical figures, said Wilkinson, who has also worked on reconstructions of J.S. Bach, the real Saint Nicholas, the poet Robert Burns, and Cleopatra's sister.

"We make judgments about people all the time from looking at their appearance," she said. "In Richard's case, up to now his image has been quite negative. This offers a new context for considering him from the point of view of his anatomical structure rather than his actions. He had quite an interesting face."

A Voice From the Past

Most people's impression of Richard's personality comes from Shakespeare's play, in which the maligned ruler utters such memorable lines as "Now is the winter of our discontent/Made glorious summer by this son of York," and "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!"

But how would the real Richard III have expressed himself? Did he have an accent? Was there any sense of personality or passion in his choice of words?

To find out more about the mysterious monarch, Philip Shaw, a historical linguist at University of Leicester's School of English, analyzed the only two known examples of Richard III's own writing. Both are postscripts on letters otherwise composed by secretaries—one in 1469, before Richard became king, and one from 1483, the first year of his brief reign.

Shaw identified a quirk of spelling that suggests that Richard may have spent time in the West Midlands, or perhaps had a tutor who hailed from there.

"I was looking to compare the way he spells things with the way his secretaries spell things, working on the assumption that he would have been schooled to a fairly high level," Shaw explained.

Read about National Geographic explorers on our Explorers Journal blog

In the 1469 letter, Richard spells the word "will" as "wule," a variation associated with the West Midlands. But Shaw also notes that by 1483, when Richard wrote the second letter's postscript, he had changed his spelling to the more standard "wyll" (the letters 'i' and 'y' were largely interchangeable during that period of Middle English).

"That could suggest something about him brushing up over the years, or moving toward what would have been the educated standard," Shaw said, noting that the handwriting in the second example also appears a bit more polished. "One wonders what sort of practice and teaching he'd had in the interim."

Although it's hard to infer tone of voice from written letters, there is certainly emotion in the words penned by Richard III.

In the 1469 letter, the 17-year-old seeks a loan of 100 pounds from the king's undertreasurer. Although the request is clearly stated in the body of the letter, Richard adds an urgent P.S.: "I pray you that you fail me not now at this time in my great need, as you will that I show you my good lordship in that matter that you labour to me for."

That could either be a veiled threat (If you don't lend me the money, I won't do that thing you asked me to do) or friendly cajoling (Come on, I'm helping you out with something, so help me out with this loan).

"His decision to take the pen himself shows you how important that personal touch must have been in getting people to do something," Shaw said.

The second letter, written to King Richard's chancellor in 1483, also conveys a sense of urgency. He had just learned that the Duke of Buckingham—once a close ally—was leading a rebellion against him.

"He's asking for his Great Seal to be sent to him so that he can use it to give out orders to suppress the rebellion," Shaw said. "He calls the Duke 'the most untrue creature living. You get a sense of how personally let down and betrayed he feels."

Shaw said he hopes his analysis—in combination with the new facial reconstruction—will help humanize Richard III.

"He probably wasn't quite the villain that Shakespeare portrays, though I suspect he was quite ruthless," he said. "But you probably couldn't afford to be a very nice man if you wanted to survive as a king in those days."


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Lance Armstrong Under Criminal Investigation













Federal investigators are in the midst of an active criminal investigation of disgraced former Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong, ABC News has learned.


The revelation comes in stark contrast to statements made by the U.S. Attorney for Southern California, Andre Birotte, who addressed his own criminal inquiry of Armstrong for the first time publicly on Tuesday. Birotte's office spent nearly two years investigating Armstrong for crimes reportedly including drug distribution, fraud and conspiracy -- only to suddenly drop the case on the Friday before the Super Bowl last year.


Sources at the time said that agents had recommended an indictment and could not understand why the case was suddenly dropped.


Today, a high level source told ABC News, "Birotte does not speak for the federal government as a whole."


According to the source, who agreed to speak on the condition that his name and position were not used because of the sensitivity of the matter, "Agents are actively investigating Armstrong for obstruction, witness tampering and intimidation."


An email to an attorney for Armstrong was not immediately returned.


READ MORE: Lance Armstrong May Have Lied to Winfrey: Investigators






AP Photo/Bas Czerwinski, File











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Earlier Tuesday, during a Department of Justice news conference on another matter, Birotte was confronted with the Armstrong question unexpectedly. The following is a transcript of that exchange:


Q: Mr. Birotte, given the confession of Lance Armstrong to all the things --


Birotte: (Off mic.)


Q: -- to all thethings that you, in the end, decided you couldn't bring a case about, can you give us your thoughts on that case now and whether you might take another look at it?


Birotte: We made a decision on that case, I believe, a little over a year ago. Obviously we've been well-aware of the statements that have been made by Mr. Armstrong and other media reports. That has not changed my view at this time. Obviously, we'll consider, we'll continue to look at the situation, but that hasn't changed our view as I stand here today.


The source said that Birotte is not in the loop on the current criminal inquiry, which is being run out of another office.


Armstrong confessed to lying and using performance-enhancing drugs throughout his career in an interview with Oprah Winfrey.


READ MORE: Armstrong Admits to Doping


WATCH: Armstrong's Many Denials Caught on Tape


READ MORE: 10 Scandalous Public Confessions


Investigators are not concerned with the drug use, but Armstrong's behavior in trying to maintain his secret by allegedly threatening and interfering with potential witnesses.


Armstrong is currently serving a lifetime ban in sport handed down by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. He has been given a Feb. 6 deadline to tell all under oath to investigators or lose his last chance at a possible break on the lifetime ban.


PHOTOS: Olympic Doping Scandals: Past and Present


PHOTOS: Tour de France 2012



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Ice-age art hints at birth of modern mind



Sumit Paul-Choudhury, editor


don-valley-figurines.jpg

Figurines from the Don river valley (Images: Kirstin Jennings)


The world’s oldest portrait, the world’s first fully carved sculpture, the world's oldest ceramic figure, the world’s earliest puppet - there’s no shortage of superlatives in the new exhibition of art from the ice age at the British Museum in London


But focus too closely on the exhibits’ record-breaking ages alone, and you might miss the broader point: these beautiful objects are the earliest evidence we have of humans who seem to have had minds like ours.






lionman.jpg

Consider, for example, the "lion man" found in 1939 in south-west Germany’s Stadel cave (pictured above). As the name suggests, this statue, standing 30 centimetres tall, harmoniously combines human and leonine features: the head is unmistakeably a lion’s, while the body and lower limbs are more human.


This is clearly the product of artistic creativity rather than a naturalistic drawing from life - suggesting that whoever carved it some 40,000 years ago had the capacity to express their imagination, as well as to replicate what they saw around them.


The temptation to speculate about what symbolic meaning the lion man might have had is, of course, irresistible. It was clearly valuable, taking around 400 hours and enormous skill to carve from a single piece of mammoth ivory.


The exhibition also includes a second, much smaller, feline figure found in another cave nearby, pointing to the idea that such imaginative objects might have cultural significance, perhaps as ritual objects within a shamanic belief system, rather than being isolated art objects.


Given what we know of modern traditions, that would make sense - but there is no hard evidence that anything resembling those traditions existed in Europe during the ice age.


Almost every object on show invites similarly thought-provoking consideration. Thumb-sized figurines from settlements along Russia's Don river (top) seem to present a woman's perception of her own pregnant body in an age before mirrors: no face, bowed head, the shelf of the bosom, the protrusion of the hips and buttock muscles and the swell of the belly. Were they carved by the women themselves, perhaps as protective talismans for themselves or their unborn children? And if so, what are we to make of those that were apparently deliberately destroyed subsequently?


Only a few of the animal models found at the Czech site of Dolní Věstonice are intact. The rest had shattered into thousands of clay fragments when they were heated while still wet. This must also have been deliberate: was the dramatic shattering part of a rite?


A tiny relief of a human figure with upraised arms invites interpretation as a celebrant or worshipper. Was he or she participating in a ceremony to promote social cohesion during tough times - perhaps to the accompaniment of music played on instruments such as the flute displayed nearby, which is precisely carved from a vulture's wing-bone?


Such interpretations deserve a healthy dose of caution, of course. The note accompanying an elegantly carved water bird (perhaps a cormorant) found near the smaller lion man drily reads: "This sculpture may be a spiritual symbol connecting the upper, middle and lower worlds of the cosmos reached by a bird that flies in the sky, moves on land and dives through water. Alternatively, it may be an image of a small meal and a bag of feathers."


In the total absence of documentary evidence, there is no way of telling which is correct: archaeological material might help clarify the utilitarian perspective, but it is far less helpful when it comes to discovering any symbolic value.


In any case, there is very little archaeological evidence on display at the British Museum. Curator Jill Cook says she was keen to avoid exhausting visitors with copious background material about the evolutionary and environmental contexts in which these objects were made.


Humans were capable of complex behaviour long before they reached Europe - as demonstrated by discoveries such as the 100,000-year old "artist's workshop" in South Africa's Blombos cave - but Cook thinks the explosion of art among Europeans 40,000 years ago may reflect changing social needs during the ice age.


When Homo sapiens first arrived in Europe some 45,000 years ago, "the living was initially probably reasonably easy", explains Cook. They would have found temperatures only about 5 °C lower than they are now, she says, and grassy prairies would have been well stocked with bison. As the human population grew, they would have had to find new ways of building, socialising and organising themselves.


“And as it turns desperately cold, around 40,000 years ago, suddenly we have all this art," she says.


That may have reflected the need to communicate and develop ideas - a need pressing enough for people to spend hundreds of hours creating objects that generally seem to have had little quotidian function.


"This is all about planning and preconceiving and organising and collaborating and compromising," suggests Cook, "and that is something art and music helps us do."


The dazzling array of objects on display, spanning tens of thousands of years, anticipate practically every modern artistic tradition. The first portrait, dating back 26,000 years, includes closely modelled details of its female subject's unusual physiognomy, perhaps the result of an injury or illness.


But nearby is an extraordinary figure of similar age whose facial features are utterly abstract, resembling a visor with a double slit in it.


picasso-inspiration.jpg

Another (above) has a body whose angular patterns anticipate Cubism by some 23,000 years: Picasso kept two copies of it in his studio. Elsewhere, there are doll-like models of women with stylised faces, and female forms streamlined into little more than slender, strategically curved lines.


movement.jpg

Representations of animals, too, come in all forms, from incredibly realistic illustrations scratched onto stone or ivory, to elegantly minimal sculptures; there are even carvings designed to create the illusion of movement when viewed from different angles or rotated (above) - a form of prehistoric animation.


The masterpieces in the latter part of the show include - and sometimes combine - both precisely observed, superbly rendered naturalism, and more abstract work that is still beautiful, but much harder to interpret.


tusks.jpg

Carved mammoth tusks


"The brain likes to tease us," says Cook. "We don't just represent things with great realism and naturalism, we like to break things down into patterns. That sparks your imagination, and makes you curious and questioning.


“What’s so spectacular about the modern brain, and the mind that it powers, is that it doesn't just make everything simple, it pushes us to new ideas and new thoughts."


After tens of thousands of years, the objects displayed in this extraordinary exhibition still have the power to do just that.


Ice Age Art: Arrival of the modern mind runs at the British Museum from 7 February 2013



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China police chief accused of having 192 houses






BEIJING: A Chinese police chief is alleged to have had at least 192 houses and a fake identity card, state media said Tuesday, the latest in a number of similar cases that have sparked outrage online.

Zhao Haibin, a senior police official in Lufeng in the southern province of Guangdong, was reported by a businessman to have accumulated the properties under his name and his company's, the Guangzhou Daily said.

The businessman, Huang Kunyi -- who was involved in a dispute with the officer -- also said Zhao used a fake identity card to record a different name on company documents, the newspaper reported.

Authorities cancelled the false card after Huang's report in 2011, it added.

An official of the Communist Party's discipline department for Lufeng told AFP Tuesday that Zhao -- who is also the vice party secretary of a local county -- had been investigated but the inquiry was over and he retained his public offices.

According to the newspaper, Zhao said the properties were owned by his younger brother, a businessman, and that he was only "managing" them for him.

A separate report said Zhao or the company had 192 properties in the city of Huizhou, also in Guangdong, and others in the cities of Shenzhen and Zhuhai.

The case is the latest of a series of reports involving officials owning multiple houses with different identity cards and residence permits.

Gong Aiai, a vice president of a bank in the northern province of Shaanxi and a delegate to the local legislature, was reported last month to hold more than 20 houses worth nearly one billion yuan (US$160 million), using four different residence permits and three identity cards.

She was detained by police Monday on suspicion of "forging official documents and stamps", the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The cases have sparked mounting criticism in Chinese social media over rampant graft and high home prices that are running out of reach of the average citizen.

"(I) finally realised that in China, properties are forever in the hands of a tiny number of people," said a user of China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo.

-AFP/fl



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Twitter hack may have targeted elected officials, journalists




Although Twitter hasn't revealed who may have been victimized in last week's suspected massive account hack, an analysis suggests that accounts with high levels of influence may have been among those affected.


Within days of accusations that hackers in China were responsible for network breaches at The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, the microblogging site revealed Friday that about 250,000 accounts might have been compromised. In e-mails to affected users, Twitter said it reset passwords for accounts it suspected of being compromised after identifying unauthorized attempts to access Twitter user data.


"This attack was not the work of amateurs, and we do not believe it was an isolated incident," Twitter said in a company blog post Friday explaining its action. "The attackers were extremely sophisticated, and we believe other companies and organizations have also been recently similarly attacked."




Now it appears that key media outlets, high-level elected officials, and influential journalists and tech figures may have been affected, including the Twitter account of President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. Seventeen percent of the 100 most influential accounts in politics were possibly affected, including House Speaker John Boehner (@johnboehner), House Majority leader Eric Cantor (@EricCantor), and Republican tech strategist Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini), according to analysis by PeerReach.


Because of the hackers' attack -- which could have been intended to snare influential tech figures -- 70 percent of PeerReach's Webtech top 100 list, including @TechCrunch, Evan Williams (@ev), Tim O'Reilly (@timoreilly), Fred Wilson (@fredwilson), Om Malik (@om), and Kara Swisher (@karaswisher), were among those whose Twitter accounts had their passwords reset, the analyst reported, noting that the impacted accounts appeared to be early adopters who launched their accounts prior to 2007.


Meanwhile, 22 percent of the account linked to the analyst's list of 100 most influential media outlets may also have been breached, according to PeerReach, including @nytimes, @reuters, @cnn, and @foxnews.


Despite the password reset, PeerReach notes that because many users recycle their credentials on a variety of sites, the hack still poses a threat:


If the hackers have 250,000 encrypted passwords in their possession they have all time of the world to break these passwords. Although the compromised accounts are forced to change their passwords, many are likely to have re-used passwords for other applications such as email, domain names and other critical services. This gives the criminals great possibilities, in combination with Social Engineering, to continue their campaign against other media sources.


CNET has contacted Twitter for comment on PeerReach's conclusions and will update this report when we learn more.

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Space Pictures This Week: A Space Monkey, Printing a Moon Base

Illustration courtesy Foster and Partners/ESA

The European Space Agency (ESA) announced January 31 that it is looking into building a moon base (pictured in an artist's conception) using a technique called 3-D printing.

It probably won't be as easy as whipping out a printer, hooking it to a computer, and pressing "print," but using lunar soils as the basis for actual building blocks could be a possibility.

"Terrestrial 3-D printing technology has produced entire structures," said Laurent Pambaguian, head of the project for ESA, in a statement.

On Earth, 3-D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, produces a three-dimensional object from a digital file. The computer takes cross-sectional slices of the structure to be printed and sends it to the 3-D printer. The printer bonds liquid or powder materials in the shape of each slice, gradually building up the structure. (Watch how future astronauts could print tools in space.)

The ESA and its industrial partners have already manufactured a 1.7 ton (1.5 tonne) honeycombed building block to demonstrate what future construction materials would look like.

Jane J. Lee

Published February 4, 2013

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Sarai Sierra's 2 Young Boys Don't Know Mom's Dead













The two young sons of slain New York mom Sarai Sierra are under the impression that their father has gone to Turkey to bring their mother home - alive.


Sierra, whose battered body was found near a highway in Istanbul over the weekend, was the mother of two boys aged 9 and 11.


Steven Sierra, who went to Istanbul in search of his wife after she disappeared nearly two weeks ago, told his children that he was going to Turkey to bring their mom home.


"The father will be speaking to them and it's something that's going to be hard and he's going to be talking to them when he comes back," Betsy Jimenez, the mother of Sarai Sierra, said today during a family news conference.


State Representative Michael Grimm said Steven Sierra's biggest concern is telling his children that mom's not coming home.


"It's going to be the hardest thing he's ever going to have to do in his life," said Grimm, who added that the Staten Island family isn't sure when Steven Sierra will be able to bring home his wife's body.


An autopsy was completed Sunday on Sarai Sierra, 33, but results aren't expected for three months. Turkish officials however said she was killed by at least one fatal blow to her head.


A casket holding the Staten Island mother was carried through alleyways lined with spice and food stalls to a church, where the casket remained on Monday.


Turkish police hope DNA samples from 21 people being questioned in the case will be key to finding the perpetrators, the Associated Press reported, according to state run media.








Sarai Sierra's Body Found: Missing New York Mom Found in Turkey Watch Video









Body Found in Search for Missing Mother in Turkey Watch Video









Vanished Abroad: US Woman Missing in Turkey Watch Video





Earlier this week, it was also reported that Turkish police are speaking to a local man who was supposed to meet Sierra the day she disappeared, but he said she never showed.


After an intense search for Sierra that lasted nearly two weeks, her body was found Saturday near the ruins of some ancient city walls and a highway. Sierra was wearing the same outfit she was seen wearing on surveillance footage taken at a food court and on a street the day she vanished, Istanbul Police Chief Huseyin Capkin said.


Sierra's body was taken to a morgue, Capkin said, and was identified by her husband.


It did not appear she had been raped or was involved in any espionage or trafficking, Capkin said.


Betsy Jimenez said Monday that her family has many unanswered questions such as what happened to her daughter after she left her hotel room to go and take photographs of a famous bridge.


"They're still investigating so they might think it might be a robbery, but they're not sure," said Jimenez.


Sierra, who had traveled to Istanbul on Jan. 7 to practice her photography hobby, was last heard from on Jan. 21, the day she was due to board a flight home to New York City.


Dennis Jimenez, Sierra's father, told reporters Monday that he didn't want her to go on the trip.


"I didn't want her to go. But, she wanted to go because this was an opportunity for her to sightsee and pursue her photography hobby because Turkey was a land rich with culture and ancient history and she was fascinated with that," said Jimenez.


While in Istanbul, Sierra would Skype with her family and friends daily, telling them about how amazing the culture was.


Sierra's best friend Maggie Rodriguez told ABC News that she was forced to pull out of the trip at the last minute because she couldn't afford it. That's why Sierra traveled alone.


Her husband, Steven Sierra, and brother, David Jimenez, traveled to Istanbul last Sunday to meet with American and Turkish officials and push the search forward.






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