Search advertising became such a popular and lucrative juggernaut because it offered businesses the ability to reach and persuade people with true purchase intent. But now keyword targeting is available on Twitter and Facebook, which could loosen Google's stranglehold on ads that convince us what to buy.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/YTCJhJ7XOi4/
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Public release date: 25-Apr-2013
Share ] Contact: Richard Hook
rhook@eso.org
49-893-200-6655
ESO
An international team has discovered an exotic double object that consists of a tiny, but unusually heavy neutron star that spins 25 times each second, orbited every two and a half hours by a white dwarf star. The neutron star is a pulsar that is giving off radio waves that can be picked up on Earth by radio telescopes. Although this unusual pair is very interesting in its own right it is also a unique laboratory for testing the limits of physical theories.
This pulsar is named PSR J0348+0432 and is the remains of a supernova explosion. It is twice as heavy as the Sun, but just 20 kilometres across. The gravity at its surface is more than 300 billion times stronger than that on Earth and at its centre every sugar-cubed-sized volume has more than one billion tonnes of matter squeezed into it. Its companion white dwarf star is only slightly less exotic; it is the glowing remains of a much lighter star that has lost its atmosphere and is slowly cooling.
"I was observing the system with ESO's Very Large Telescope, looking for changes in the light emitted from the white dwarf caused by its motion around the pulsar," says John Antoniadis, a PhD student at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) in Bonn and lead author of the paper. "A quick on-the-spot analysis made me realise that the pulsar was quite a heavyweight. It is twice the mass of the Sun, making it the most massive neutron star that we know of and also an excellent laboratory for fundamental physics."
Einstein's general theory of relativity, which explains gravity as a consequence of the curvature of spacetime created by the presence of mass and energy, has withstood all tests since it was first published almost a century ago. But it cannot be the final explanation and must ultimately break down [1].
Physicists have devised other theories of gravity that make different predictions from general relativity. For some of these alternatives, these differences would only show up in extremely strong gravitational fields that cannot be found in the Solar System. In terms of gravity, PSR J0348+0432 is a truly extreme object, even compared to the other pulsars that have been used in high precision tests of Einstein's general relativity [2]. In such strong gravitational fields small increases in the mass can lead to large changes in the spacetime around such objects. Up to now astronomers had no idea what would happen in the presence of such a massive neutron star as PSR J0348+0432.It offers the unique opportunity to push tests into new territory.
The team combined Very Large Telescope observations of the white dwarf with very precise timing of the pulsar from radio telescopes [3]. Such a close binary radiates gravitational waves and loses energy. This causes the orbital period to change very slightly and the predictions for this change from general relativity and other competing theories are different.
"Our radio observations were so precise that we have already been able to measure a change in the orbital period of 8 millionths of a second per year, exactly what Einstein's theory predicts," states Paulo Freire, another team member.
This is just the start of detailed studies of this unique object and astronomers will be using it to test general relativity to ever greater precision as time goes on.
###
Notes
[1] General relativity is not consistent with the other great theory of twentieth century physics, quantum mechanics. It also predicts singularities under some circumstances, where some quantities tend to infinity, such as the centre of a black hole.
[2] The first binary pulsar, PSR B1913+16, was discovered by Joseph Hooton Taylor, Jr. and Russell Hulse, for which they won the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics. They accurately measured the changes in the properties of this remarkable object and showed that they were precisely consistent with the gravitational radiation energy losses predicted by general relativity.
[3] This work made use of data from the Effelsberg, Arecibo and Green Bank radio telescopes as well as the ESO Very Large Telescope and the William Herschel Telescope optical telescopes.
More information
This research was presented in a paper "A Massive Pulsar in a Compact Relativistic Orbit", by John Antoniadis et al., to appear in the journal Science on 26 April 2013.
The team is composed of John Antoniadis (Max-Planck-Institut fur Radioastronomie [MPIfR], Bonn, Germany), Paulo C. C. Freire (MPIfR), Norbert Wex (MPIfR), Thomas M. Tauris (Argelander Institut fur Astronomie, Bonn, Germany; MPIfR), Ryan S. Lynch (McGill University, Montreal, Canada), Marten H. van Kerkwijk (University of Toronto, Canada), Michael Kramer (MPIfR; Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, The University of Manchester, United Kingdom), Cees Bassa (Jodrell Bank), Vik S. Dhillon (University of Sheffield, United Kingdom), Thomas Driebe (Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt, Bonn, Germany), Jason W. T. Hessels (ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, Dwingeloo, The Netherlands; University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands), Victoria M. Kaspi (McGill University), Vladislav I. Kondratiev (ASTRON; Lebedev Physical Institute, Moscow, Russia), Norbert Langer (Argelander Institut fur Astronomie), Thomas R. Marsh (University of Warwick, United Kingdom), Maura A. McLaughlin (West Virginia University), Timothy T. Pennucci (Department of Astronomy, University of Virginia) Scott M. Ransom (National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville, USA), Ingrid H. Stairs (University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada), Joeri van Leeuwen (ASTRON; University of Amsterdam), Joris P. W. Verbiest (MPIfR), David G. Whelan (Department of Astronomy, University of Virginia).
ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world's most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It is supported by 15 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope, the world's most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory and two survey telescopes. VISTA works in the infrared and is the world's largest survey telescope and the VLT Survey Telescope is the largest telescope designed to exclusively survey the skies in visible light. ESO is the European partner of a revolutionary astronomical telescope ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. ESO is currently planning the 39-metre European Extremely Large optical/near-infrared Telescope, the E-ELT, which will become "the world's biggest eye on the sky".
Links
* Photos of the VLT - http://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/category/paranal/
Contacts
John Antoniadis
Max-Planck-Institut fr Radioastronomie
Bonn, Germany
Tel: +49-228-525-181
Email: jantoniadis@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
Michael Kramer
Max-Planck-Institut fr Radioastronomie
Bonn, Germany
Tel: +49-228-525-278
Email: mkramer@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
Richard Hook
ESO Public Information Officer
Garching bei Mnchen, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6655
Cell: +49 151 1537 3591
Email: rhook@eso.org
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 25-Apr-2013 Share ] Contact: Richard Hook
rhook@eso.org
49-893-200-6655
ESO
An international team has discovered an exotic double object that consists of a tiny, but unusually heavy neutron star that spins 25 times each second, orbited every two and a half hours by a white dwarf star. The neutron star is a pulsar that is giving off radio waves that can be picked up on Earth by radio telescopes. Although this unusual pair is very interesting in its own right it is also a unique laboratory for testing the limits of physical theories.
This pulsar is named PSR J0348+0432 and is the remains of a supernova explosion. It is twice as heavy as the Sun, but just 20 kilometres across. The gravity at its surface is more than 300 billion times stronger than that on Earth and at its centre every sugar-cubed-sized volume has more than one billion tonnes of matter squeezed into it. Its companion white dwarf star is only slightly less exotic; it is the glowing remains of a much lighter star that has lost its atmosphere and is slowly cooling.
"I was observing the system with ESO's Very Large Telescope, looking for changes in the light emitted from the white dwarf caused by its motion around the pulsar," says John Antoniadis, a PhD student at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) in Bonn and lead author of the paper. "A quick on-the-spot analysis made me realise that the pulsar was quite a heavyweight. It is twice the mass of the Sun, making it the most massive neutron star that we know of and also an excellent laboratory for fundamental physics."
Einstein's general theory of relativity, which explains gravity as a consequence of the curvature of spacetime created by the presence of mass and energy, has withstood all tests since it was first published almost a century ago. But it cannot be the final explanation and must ultimately break down [1].
Physicists have devised other theories of gravity that make different predictions from general relativity. For some of these alternatives, these differences would only show up in extremely strong gravitational fields that cannot be found in the Solar System. In terms of gravity, PSR J0348+0432 is a truly extreme object, even compared to the other pulsars that have been used in high precision tests of Einstein's general relativity [2]. In such strong gravitational fields small increases in the mass can lead to large changes in the spacetime around such objects. Up to now astronomers had no idea what would happen in the presence of such a massive neutron star as PSR J0348+0432.It offers the unique opportunity to push tests into new territory.
The team combined Very Large Telescope observations of the white dwarf with very precise timing of the pulsar from radio telescopes [3]. Such a close binary radiates gravitational waves and loses energy. This causes the orbital period to change very slightly and the predictions for this change from general relativity and other competing theories are different.
"Our radio observations were so precise that we have already been able to measure a change in the orbital period of 8 millionths of a second per year, exactly what Einstein's theory predicts," states Paulo Freire, another team member.
This is just the start of detailed studies of this unique object and astronomers will be using it to test general relativity to ever greater precision as time goes on.
###
Notes
[1] General relativity is not consistent with the other great theory of twentieth century physics, quantum mechanics. It also predicts singularities under some circumstances, where some quantities tend to infinity, such as the centre of a black hole.
[2] The first binary pulsar, PSR B1913+16, was discovered by Joseph Hooton Taylor, Jr. and Russell Hulse, for which they won the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics. They accurately measured the changes in the properties of this remarkable object and showed that they were precisely consistent with the gravitational radiation energy losses predicted by general relativity.
[3] This work made use of data from the Effelsberg, Arecibo and Green Bank radio telescopes as well as the ESO Very Large Telescope and the William Herschel Telescope optical telescopes.
More information
This research was presented in a paper "A Massive Pulsar in a Compact Relativistic Orbit", by John Antoniadis et al., to appear in the journal Science on 26 April 2013.
The team is composed of John Antoniadis (Max-Planck-Institut fur Radioastronomie [MPIfR], Bonn, Germany), Paulo C. C. Freire (MPIfR), Norbert Wex (MPIfR), Thomas M. Tauris (Argelander Institut fur Astronomie, Bonn, Germany; MPIfR), Ryan S. Lynch (McGill University, Montreal, Canada), Marten H. van Kerkwijk (University of Toronto, Canada), Michael Kramer (MPIfR; Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, The University of Manchester, United Kingdom), Cees Bassa (Jodrell Bank), Vik S. Dhillon (University of Sheffield, United Kingdom), Thomas Driebe (Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt, Bonn, Germany), Jason W. T. Hessels (ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, Dwingeloo, The Netherlands; University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands), Victoria M. Kaspi (McGill University), Vladislav I. Kondratiev (ASTRON; Lebedev Physical Institute, Moscow, Russia), Norbert Langer (Argelander Institut fur Astronomie), Thomas R. Marsh (University of Warwick, United Kingdom), Maura A. McLaughlin (West Virginia University), Timothy T. Pennucci (Department of Astronomy, University of Virginia) Scott M. Ransom (National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville, USA), Ingrid H. Stairs (University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada), Joeri van Leeuwen (ASTRON; University of Amsterdam), Joris P. W. Verbiest (MPIfR), David G. Whelan (Department of Astronomy, University of Virginia).
ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world's most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It is supported by 15 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope, the world's most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory and two survey telescopes. VISTA works in the infrared and is the world's largest survey telescope and the VLT Survey Telescope is the largest telescope designed to exclusively survey the skies in visible light. ESO is the European partner of a revolutionary astronomical telescope ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. ESO is currently planning the 39-metre European Extremely Large optical/near-infrared Telescope, the E-ELT, which will become "the world's biggest eye on the sky".
Links
* Photos of the VLT - http://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/category/paranal/
Contacts
John Antoniadis
Max-Planck-Institut fr Radioastronomie
Bonn, Germany
Tel: +49-228-525-181
Email: jantoniadis@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
Michael Kramer
Max-Planck-Institut fr Radioastronomie
Bonn, Germany
Tel: +49-228-525-278
Email: mkramer@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
Richard Hook
ESO Public Information Officer
Garching bei Mnchen, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6655
Cell: +49 151 1537 3591
Email: rhook@eso.org
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/e-ewr042313.php
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?U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, center, talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, left, and Pakistani Army Chief Gen. Asfhaq Parvez Kayani as they take a walk during a break in a meeting on Wednesday, April 24, 2013, in Brussels, Belgium. The trilateral meeting is to discuss regional security issues, and the 2014 withdrawal of NATO combat forces from Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, Pool)
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, center, talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, left, and Pakistani Army Chief Gen. Asfhaq Parvez Kayani as they take a walk during a break in a meeting on Wednesday, April 24, 2013, in Brussels, Belgium. The trilateral meeting is to discuss regional security issues, and the 2014 withdrawal of NATO combat forces from Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, Pool)
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, center, laughs as Afghan President Hamid Karzai, left, and Pakistani Army Chief Gen. Asfhaq Parvez Kayani shake hands after he made a statement after a meeting on Wednesday, April 24, 2013, in Brussels, Belgium. The trilateral meeting is to discuss regional security issues, and the 2014 withdrawal of NATO combat forces from Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, Pool)
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, center, meets with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, left, and Pakistani Army Chief Gen. Asfhaq Parvez Kayani on Wednesday, April 24, 2013, in Brussels, Belgium. The trilateral meeting is to discuss regional security issues, and the 2014 withdrawal of NATO combat forces from Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, Pool)
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry delivers a statement after a meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani Army Chief Gen. Asfhaq Parvez Kayani on Wednesday, April 24, 2013, in Brussels, Belgium. The trilateral meeting is to discuss regional security issues, and the 2014 withdrawal of NATO combat forces from Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, Pool)
BRUSSELS (AP) ? U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry brought senior Afghan and Pakistani officials together Wednesday for security talks aimed at improving relations between the two nations ahead of next year's withdrawal of NATO combat forces from Afghanistan.
Kerry met Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani military chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani at Truman Hall, the secluded estate on the outskirts of Brussels that is home to the U.S. ambassador to NATO. Kerry said as he opened the meeting that the talks were important, as Afghanistan is currently in a "critical transformational period."
The meeting lasted about three hours and included lunch and a stroll around the estate's manicured gardens, but apparently did little to ease the tension between Afghanistan and Pakistan as all sides try to lure the Taliban to peace negotiations.
"It's fair to say that there is a good feeling among all of us that we made progress in this dialogue. But we have all agreed that results are what will tell the story, not statements at a press conference," Kerry told reporters after the meeting.
"We have a lot of homework to do. We are not going to raise expectations or make promises that can't be delivered," he said, noting it was better to "under-promise but deliver."
Ties between Afghanistan and Pakistan have long been strained over links between Pakistan's security apparatus and the Taliban. The U.S. supports Afghan-Taliban reconciliation but Karzai has said the effort must have Pakistan's backing to succeed.
Associated Press
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TUPELO, Miss. (AP) ? A court filing says charges have been dropped against a Mississippi man accused of sending ricin-laced letters to President Barack Obama and others.
The one-sentence document was filed Tuesday, hours after Paul Kevin Curtis was released from custody. The document says the ongoing investigation has revealed new but unspecified information.
An FBI agent had testified in court that no evidence of ricin was found at Curtis's home.
Meanwhile, authorities searched Tuesday at the home of another Mississippi man in connection with the case.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/charges-dropped-against-man-ricin-letters-case-220145767.html
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'I want to rob,' the 'Harry Potter' alum says in latest preview of Sofia Coppola film.
By Terri Schwartz
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1706227/emma-watson-bling-ring-new-trailer.jhtml
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Luis Fernando Vasquez has been a coffee farmer in the central valley of Costa Rica his entire life.
Dan Charles/NPRWhat does it take to find guilt-free coffee?
Much of our coffee comes from places where the environment is endangered and workers earn very little ? sometimes, just a few dollars for a whole day's work. Coffee farmers have helped cut down tropical forests, and most of them use pesticides.
It doesn't take much effort, though, to find bags of coffee with labels that promise social and environmental improvements. Among the best-known are Fairtrade or Rain Forest Alliance Certified.
I went to Costa Rica to find out what those labels mean and how well they deliver on their promises.
I visited, for example, a hillside in the country's central valley, near the town of San Ramon, where Luis Fernando Vasquez grows coffee.
Vasquez loves showing off his farm, which also produces bananas and honey. He's lived here his whole life and learned to grow coffee from his father. But in the past few years, he says, he's changed the way he farms.
Luis Fernando Vasquez's coffee farm in Costa Rica. Vasquez says farmers have changed their methods in recent years. Where they once would cut down trees, he says, "now we are coming to understand that the tree plays a role" in a healthy coffee plant ecosystem.
Dan Charles/NPRLuis Fernando Vasquez's coffee farm in Costa Rica. Vasquez says farmers have changed their methods in recent years. Where they once would cut down trees, he says, "now we are coming to understand that the tree plays a role" in a healthy coffee plant ecosystem.
Dan Charles/NPR"Before, a tree used to be an obstacle, and we'd just cut it down," he says. "Now, we are coming to understand that the tree plays a role, and it can coexist with our commercial coffee plantation."
Coffee plants that grow in the shade of trees produce fewer beans, but many people say those beans taste better. In addition, trees help reduce soil erosion and provide a home for wildlife.
Vasquez points at the ground, which is covered by a layer of dead, decaying leaves. "We used to pick all that up, bring it to one central point on the farm and then set it on fire," he says. "But now I know that if I leave it there, it will actually help improve soil fertility."
There also have been changes that I can't see: He's using fewer pesticides and recycling his trash.
Vasquez is enthusiastic about these changes, but they were not originally his idea.
They're the result of a long chain of decisions reaching all to way back to American consumers contemplating their many coffee options in the local Stop & Shop.
Several people who are part of that chain are also with me here on the farm.
First, there's Sergio Gurdian, who works for ECOM Trading, the second-biggest coffee trader in the world. ECOM buys beans from farmers and sells them to big companies like Starbucks or Nestle.
Gurdian and his colleagues went to Vasquez and persuaded him to change his farming practices.
Why? "I think that the world is changing right now," says Gurdian.
To be specific, one of ECOM's big customers is changing. Nespresso, a coffee business owned by Nestle, has decided that it wants most of its coffee to carry a particular label: Rainforest Alliance Certified.
And Rainforest Alliance, the environmental group behind this label, has a whole set of rules for farmers, called the Sustainable Agriculture Standard.
ECOM took on the job of getting farmers onboard. "We said, 'OK, it's time to show the producers that sustainability is OK, and that we can offer lots of benefits, not only for them, the producers, but also for their farms," says Gurdian.
There was also a small financial incentive. Now that Vasquez, the farmer, is Rainforest Alliance Certified, he gets about 15 cents more for each pound of coffee.
The number of farmers like him is growing. According to Rainforest Alliance, 4.5 percent of all coffee produced in 2012 came from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms. That's a 45 percent increase over 2011.
There are other labels, of course: fair trade; organic; direct trade.
All of these labels promise slightly different things, and every promise involves some compromises.
For instance: Rainforest Alliance runs a relatively strict system, with independent auditors who inspect farms at random. If the auditors find prohibited pesticides, or workers earning less than the minimum wage, that farm can lose its certification. Sometimes, a whole group of neighboring farms also can be decertified.
You may be glad to know that the program has teeth. On the other hand, those rules shut out many of the smallest, poorest farmers.
Emilia Uma?a, who also helps farmers get Rainforest Alliance certification, says the rules ask for things that are too expensive for many small farmers to buy ? like special showers for workers to use after applying pesticides. "One of the biggest flaws in the system is that they use the same rule book, worldwide, for every type of producer in every company," she says.
If you're specifically interested in helping small farmers, maybe you should look for fair trade coffee. Its whole focus is small coffee producers. Traditionally, all fair trade coffee has come from cooperatives of small producers.
Christian Mora is the general manager of AFAORCA, a fair trade coffee cooperative in Costa Rica.
Dan Charles/NPRChristian Mora is general manager of one of these co-ops, called AFAORCA, in Costa Rica. It has just 24 members.
To get fair trade certification, he says, you have to show a fair trade organization that your cooperative keeps an honest set of books, that it operates democratically, and that it treats workers fairly.
"They come in and interview people who work in the coffee fields, and they make sure that salaries are fair, and that labor rights are respected, according to the law," he says.
Once certified, the cooperative gets 20 cents extra for every pound of fair trade coffee that it sells. The cooperative then decides how to spend that "social premium." It could pass the money on to its members, or do something else with it, such as improve a local school.
But there are compromises with fair trade, too. It doesn't focus primarily on environmental practices on the farms, and some buyers complain that fair trade coffee isn't always good-quality coffee.
At the moment, in fact, the fair trade movement is going through a bitter split. One group, Fair Trade USA, wants to expand the label so it can include coffee from individual farmers ? even big estates.
Mora isn't happy about this expanded definition of fair trade. "It could be a problem, because the goal of the label gets lost, and it becomes more of a marketing tool for big businesses, and just makes it easier for them to sell their product," he says.
This tension ? between trying to be a real alternative to the mainstream and joining the mainstream ? comes up all the time in these certification schemes.
The toughest environmental certification is probably one called Smithsonian Bird Friendly coffee. This coffee is grown organically, with no manufactured fertilizer or pesticides, in fields that also contain 10 different kinds of shade trees. Only a few farmers, though, are willing to grow coffee this way.
Angelina Zu?iga Godinez and Fanny Cordero Mora grow coffee for Coopetarrazu, one of Costa Rica's largest coffee cooperatives. These bags of coffee are labeled with the towns where they are grown
Dan Charles/NPROn the other end of the spectrum, Starbucks runs a really big program called C.A.F.E. Practices (Coffee and Farmer Equity Practices). Like Rainforest Alliance certification, this scheme includes both environmental and social standards, but the Starbucks audits aren't really tests that a farmer can flunk. They're more like counseling sessions. If farmers are doing something wrong, Starbucks will tell them how to improve, but it still buys their coffee.
Yet for all their differences and compromises, coffee producers in Costa Rica say these certification systems, collectively, have had a real impact.
Carlos Rivera Chavarria, general manager of one of the country's largest cooperatives, Coopetarrazu, says certifications all helped farmers to hear what consumers wanted, much more directly than ever before.
These programs allowed his producers to "rediscover quality coffee," he says.
Coopetarrazu sells coffee under the fair trade label. In addition, some of its farmers are Rainforest Alliance Certified, and the co-op sells a lot of coffee to Starbucks.
Now the co-op is experimenting with "direct trade." It's selling small lots of coffee from particular villages to roasters who can pass along the story of that coffee, and that village, to consumers who want to know even more about the sources of their coffee.
Regulates growing methods, prohibiting GMO seeds and synthetic substances
Forty countries carry organic coffee farms, with the first certified in 1967
Averages a $0.255/lb increase in market price for coffee producers
298 million pounds organic coffee grown in 2010
Seeks to increase welfare for small farmers and communities
Guarantees a minimum market price plus 10- to 20-cent premium per pound
Premium is paid to cooperatives to either distribute to farmers or use for community development projects
790 million pounds grown in 2010
Emphasizes sustainability in social, environmental, economic and ethical areas
Developed in early 1990s
Recently gained the support of major buyers including McDonalds and Nespresso
Expanded from 197 million pounds grown in 2007 to 827 million pounds in 2012
Promotes biodiversity through the planting of trees for habitat and shade cover
Requires organic certification and the use of specific trees
Certification can lead to a 5- to 10-cent premium over organic coffee prices
One of the smallest certification programs, with approximately 10.4 million pounds of coffee sold in 2011
Verification criteria developed over past 14 years with Conservation International
Evaluates workers' rights, benefits, environmental protection and sustainability
Starbucks aims for 100 percent-certified coffee supply by 2015
In 2012, 90 percent of supply ? approximately 491 million pounds ? was from CAFE-verified farms
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