2014-09-30

Fwd: Ebola

'U.S. health officials said on Tuesday the first patient infected with the deadly Ebola virus had been diagnosed in the country after flying from Liberia to Texas, in a new sign of how the outbreak ravaging West Africa can spread globally.

 

The patient sought treatment six days after arriving in Texas on Sept. 20, Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told reporters on Tuesday. He was admitted two days later to an isolation room at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas.

 

U.S. health officials and lawmakers have been bracing for the eventuality that a patient would arrive on U.S. shores undetected, testing the preparedness of the nation's healthcare system.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/30/us-health-ebola-usa-idUSKCN0HP2F720140930


2014-09-29

Turning Algae into oil

'We think it is a really elegant solution," said Matt Atwood, the chief executive. At its heart is a "hydrothermal liquefaction" system that heats the algae and other solids in the sewage to more than 550 degrees Fahrenheit, at 3,000 pounds per square inch, turning out a liquid that resembles crude oil from a well.

The company sent the liquid to Auburn University, where scientists added hydrogen (a common step in oil refining) to produce diesel fuel. An independent laboratory, Intertek, confirmed that the diesel fuel met industry specifications. The thermal processing has caught the attention of independent scientists. The Department of Energy recently awarded a $4 million grant to a partnership led by SRI International for further work on Algae Systems' hydrothermal processing system…

Some companies have tried gene-altered algae, but Algae Systems uses naturally occurring forms drawn from the bay. Whichever strain flourishes in the bags is what the company uses. "We call it the Hunger Games," Mr. Atwood said.

The early results were promising enough for IHI, a Japanese conglomerate, to invest $15 million.'
  

2014-09-28

Fwd: Ebola

'Sierra Leone on Thursday took the dramatic step of sealing off districts where more than 1 million people live as it and other West African countries struggle to control the Ebola outbreak that has claimed thousands of lives.

With three new districts under quarantine, about one-third of Sierra Leone's 6 million people are now living in areas where their movements are heavily restricted. In parts of Sierra Leone and in neighboring Liberia where these cordons have been used in this outbreak, food prices have soared, some markets have shut and the delivery of goods has slowed.'


2014-09-26

India/Mars

'This is a mission that has been budgeted at 4.5bn rupees ($74m), which, by Western standards, is staggeringly cheap.

 

The American Maven orbiter that arrived at the Red Planet on Monday is costing almost 10 times as much.

 

Back in June, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi even quipped that India's real-life Martian adventure was costing less than the make-believe Hollywood film Gravity.'

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29341850

 

Newlight Technologies is turning carbon into plastic

Eyeball injections equal eye-popping profits

As rumors swirl of consumers bending Apple's iPhone 6, CNN put them to the test.

Islamic State terrorist: We’ll ‘make some attacks in New York soon’

As U.S. takes on the Islamic State, al-Qaeda remains degraded but not defeated

Illegal aliens to serve in the military

2014-09-25

IMDb Picks: September 2014 | Fall TV New Shows

http://www.imdb.com/imdbpicks/month/september/fall-tv-new-shows

Fwd: Khorasan

'within a timeframe of just days, the Islamic State has been sidelined by a new name in the world of Islamic extremism: "Khorasan." U.S. officials say that Khorasan, often referred to as "the Khorasan group," is a small al-Qaeda linked outfit operating in Syria. They are portrayed as a more direct threat to U.S. interests than the Islamic State, which is still largely focused on operations in Syria and Iraq…

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/09/25/the-strange-story-behind-the-khorasan-groups-name/

Fwd: Water vapor exoplanet

'Astronomers have detected water vapour in the atmosphere of a planet that orbits a star far beyond our solar system.

 

Observations of the Neptune-sized planet, which lies 120 light years from Earth in the constellation of Cygnus, revealed that its atmosphere was mostly hydrogen with around 25% made up from water vapour.

 

Until now, researchers have been frustrated in their efforts to study the atmospheres of planets much smaller than Jupiter because their skies were thick with clouds. The problem was so persistent that astronomers had begun to think that all warm, small planets formed with substantial cloud cover.

 

But writing in the journal Nature, scientists in the US describe how they found a Neptune-sized planet with cloud-free skies, enabling them to make detailed measurements of a small planet's atmosphere for the first time.

 

The planet, named HAT-P-11b, is about four times the diameter of Earth. It orbits so close to its star that surface temperatures reach more than 600C and a year passes in five Earth days. Like our own Neptune, the planet lacks a rocky surface – it's a ball of gas – and is thought to be lifeless'

 

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/sep/24/water-small-warm-planet-atmosphere

2014-09-24

Fwd: Nitrogen

'The most common method of executing condemned prisoners in the U.S. — lethal injection — has suffered a mountain of setbacks in recent months. Most notably, executions using relatively untested drugs have not gone as intended in several states, including Arizona, Ohio and Oklahoma.

 

But one Oklahoma lawmaker thinks he might have a potential solution to the lethal-injection crisis: nitrogen gas.

 

Rep. Mike Christian, a Republican from Oklahoma City, is slated to present the idea Tuesday to the state legislature, inviting its members to take up a broader study on the issue.

 

According to a story by a local television station:

 

    [Rep. Christian] wants to use nitrogen gas. . . . The process is officially called Nitrogen Asphyxiation, a fancy term for the process of slowly replacing oxygen with nitrogen. Those who have studied the process say it causes no pain and can kill a person within a matter of minutes.

 

A message left with Rep. Christian wasn't immediately returned. But he told News Channel 4 that "if you deplete oxygen it's within 8-to-14 seconds, up to no more than 20 seconds that they pass out. And then, within a few minutes, up to 8 minutes, probably less, that they would be pronounced dead."

 

According to the Oklahoman, nitrogen has likely never been used for an execution. But Mr. Christian told the paper that the approach seems humane. "Some who have received an accidental excess of the gas have even said the effect was mildly euphoric," according to the story. '

 

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2014/09/16/oklahoma-lawmaker-suggests-nitrogen-as-alternative-to-lethal-injection/

How to get free checked bags.

2014-09-17

Fwd: Iran

Despite the pious promises from Kerry and all of the other defenders of the interim accord that the West had learned its lesson about being strung along by the Iranians, they have in fact fallen for the same trick again. Having been suckered into an interim deal that weakened sanctions on Iran just at the moment when the enormous economic and military leverage over the regime seemed to provide an opportunity to pressure it to come to terms without the use of force, Western negotiators have now found themselves trapped in a device of their own making. They gambled everything on the belief that Iran was ready to sign a final accord that would allow President Obama to fulfill his campaign promise to stop Iran. But after several months of talks that demonstrated anew that the Iranians will never give up their nuclear program or agree to any terms that will effectively prevent them from building a bomb, the U.S. and its allies feel they have no choice but to keep talking even if there is no end in sight.

 

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2014/09/16/about-that-iran-talks-deadline-catherine-ashton-deadline/