Month: February 2013

Russia: Chelyabinsk Meteor Was Largest Object To Hit Earth In More Than A Century, Say Scientists

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– The Search Is on for Meteorite (Wall Street Journal , Feb 19, 2013):

The meteor that crashed to earth in Russia was about 55 feet in diameter, weighed around 10,000 tons and was made from a stony material, scientists said, making it the largest such object to hit the Earth in more than a century.

Large pieces of it have yet to be found. However, a team from Ural Federal University, which is based in Yekaterinburg, collected 53 fragments, the largest of which was 7 millimeters, according to Viktor Grokhovsky, a scientist at the university.

It is the largest reported meteor since the one that hit Tunguska, Siberia, in 1908, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The U.S. agency’s new estimate of the meteor’s size was a marked increase from its initial one.

Read moreRussia: Chelyabinsk Meteor Was Largest Object To Hit Earth In More Than A Century, Say Scientists

US: No. 1 In Healthcare Spending, Last In Life Expectancy

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– U.S. ranks first in healthcare spending but last in life expectancy (Natural News, Feb 18, 2013):

If you think pharmaceutical drugs, vaccines, and various other instruments of modern Western medicine are responsible for improving quality of life and increasing the average lifespan in America, think again. A report recently issued by the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) reveals that the U.S. spends up to 250 percent more on healthcare than most other developed nations, and yet has the lowest life expectancy rate among all these same nations.

Entitled U.S. Health in International Perspectives: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health, the report compares the latest available data on mortality and health outcomes in the United States with that of 16 other so-called “peer” nations, including Japan, Switzerland, Australia, and Canada. Each of these other countries is considered to be roughly on par with the U.S. in terms of income and government structure, and each represents an important cross-section of the collective welfare of the developed world.

Based on the figures, the U.S. far outspends all other developed nations on healthcare expenditures, ranking in at a whopping $8,233 annually per person, on average. The only nation that even comes close to this figure is Norway, which spends roughly $5,388 annually per person on medical expenditures, or roughly 65 percent of what the U.S. spends. Iceland, whose economy recently made a huge comeback after its citizens forcibly dismantled the nation’s corrupt central bank, only spends about $3,309 annually per person.

Read moreUS: No. 1 In Healthcare Spending, Last In Life Expectancy

UBS: The British Pound Is At Risk Of ‘Large-Scale Devaluation’

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– Forex Flash: The British pound is the next big devaluation story – UBS (Nasdaq, Feb 17, 2013):

Sterling is likely to be the next major currency that depreciates strongly, says Mansoor Mohi-uddin, Head of Foreign Exchange Strategy at UBS Macro Research.

“As central banks tolerate higher levels of inflation, the pound is set to weaken further across the board particularly against our favourite G4 currency, the US dollar” Mr. Mohi-uddin adds.

He concludes: “The GBP seems clearly at risk of following the yen and suffering the next large scale devaluation. As a result, we issued a recommendation that clients buy a six-month sterling put/US dollar call option with a strike of 1.4800.”

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts: America Shamed Again: A Colonized People

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Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

– America Shamed Again: A colonized people — Paul Craig Roberts (Feb 17, 2013):

Americans have been shamed many times by their elected representatives who cravenly bow to vested interests and betray the American people. But no previous disgraceful behavior can match the public shame brought to Americans by the behavior of the Senate Republicans in the confirmation hearing of Senator Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense.

Read moreDr. Paul Craig Roberts: America Shamed Again: A Colonized People

Chimpanzee Memory Study Suggests Apes’ Short-Term Recall Better Than Humans’

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– Chimpanzee Memory Study Suggests Apes’ Short-Term Recall Better Than Humans’ (Huffington Post, Feb 17, 2013):

Boston — Chimpanzees may have more smarts than humans, at least regarding short-term memories, new research suggests.

A Japanese researcher presented a video showing the remarkable abilities of a chimpanzee named Ayumu, here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Thursday (Feb. 14). When the numbers 1 through 9 appeared randomly on a screen and then disappeared, the chimpanzee was able to recall the exact sequence and location of each number. Ayumu has also learnt numbers 1 through 19 and is able to touch each one in ascending order, which hasn’t been shown before, Tetsuro Matsuzawa, a researcher at Kyoto University’s Primate Research Institute, told Livescience.

As Matsuzawa showed the video to a room of scientists and journalists, murmurs of amazement were heard. “Don’t worry, nobody can do it,” Matsuzawa said, with an almost mischievous smile. “It’s impossible for you.”

Read moreChimpanzee Memory Study Suggests Apes’ Short-Term Recall Better Than Humans’

Sensational Breakthrough: The First Bionic Hand That Can Feel

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The hand will be attached directly to the patient’s nervous system via electrodes

– A sensational breakthrough: the first bionic hand that can feel IIndependent, Feb 17, 2013):

The first bionic hand that allows an amputee to feel what they are touching will be transplanted later this year in a pioneering operation that could introduce a new generation of artificial limbs with sensory perception.

The patient is an unnamed man in his 20s living in Rome who lost the lower part of his arm following an accident, said Silvestro Micera of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland.

The wiring of his new bionic hand will be connected to the patient’s nervous system with the hope that the man will be able to control the movements of the hand as well as receiving touch signals from the hand’s skin sensors.

Read moreSensational Breakthrough: The First Bionic Hand That Can Feel

Scientists Create ‘Sixth Sense’ Brain Implant To Detect Infrared Light

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– Scientists create ‘sixth sense’ brain implant to detect infrared light (Telegraph, Feb 17, 2013):

A brain implant which could allow humans to detect invisible infrared light has been developed by scientists in America.

Scientists have created a “sixth sense” by creating a brain implant through which infrared light can be detected.

Although the light could not be seen lab rats were able to detect it via electrodes in the part of the brain responsible for their sense of touch.

Similar devices have previously been used to make up for lost capabilities, for example giving paralysed patients the ability to move a cursor around the screen with their thoughts.

But the new study, by researchers from Duke University in North Carolina, is the first case in which such devices have been used to give an animal a completely new sense.

Dr Miguel Nicolelis said the advance, reported in the Nature Communications journal this week, was just a prelude to a major breakthrough on a “brain-to-brain interface” which will be announced in another paper next month.

Speaking at the annual meeting of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science in Boston on Sunday, he described the mystery work as something “no one has dreamed could be done”.

The second paper is being kept secret until it is published but Dr Nicolelis’s comments raise the prospect of an implant which could allow one animal’s brain to interact directly with another.

Read moreScientists Create ‘Sixth Sense’ Brain Implant To Detect Infrared Light

DARPA Wants To Watch You Type

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– DARPA wants to watch you type (Foreign policy, Feb 15, 2013):

DARPA is getting serious about one of the issues that cyber-security professionals inside and outside government regularly bemoan: the relative inability of weak passwords to protect…anything.

To overcome the fact that passwords can be stolen or hacked — and don’t necessarily protect a computer once the authorized user is logged on — the Pentagon’s research arm has kicked off a $14 million effort to develop sensors that can constantly monitor users’ online behavior to determine whether they are who they say they are.

Read moreDARPA Wants To Watch You Type

WA: Hanford Nuclear Tank Is Leaking Liquids

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From the article:

“Central to that cleanup is the removal of millions of gallons of a highly toxic, radioactive stew — enough to fill dozens of Olympic-size swimming pools — from 177 aging, underground tanks. Many of those tanks have leaked over time — an estimated 1 million gallons of waste — threatening the groundwater and the neighboring Columbia River, the largest waterway in the Pacific Northwest.”

– Hanford Nuclear Tank in Wash. Is Leaking Liquids(ABC News, Feb 16, 2013):

The long-delayed cleanup of the nation’s most contaminated nuclear site became the subject of more bad news Friday, when Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced that a radioactive waste tank there is leaking.

The news raises concerns about the integrity of similar tanks at south-central Washington’s Hanford nuclear reservation and puts added pressure on the federal government to resolve construction problems with the plant being built to alleviate environmental and safety risks from the waste.

The tanks, which are already long past their intended 20-year life span, hold millions of gallons of a highly radioactive stew left from decades of plutonium production for nuclear weapons.

Read moreWA: Hanford Nuclear Tank Is Leaking Liquids

Drones Are Taking To The Skies In The U.S.

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– Drones are taking to the skies in the U.S. (Los Angeles Times, Feb 15, 2013):

WASHINGTON — While a national debate has erupted over the Obama administration’s lethal drone strikes overseas, federal authorities have stepped up efforts to license surveillance drones for law enforcement and other uses in U.S. airspace, spurring growing concern about violations of privacy.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Friday it had issued 1,428 permits to domestic drone operators since 2007, far more than were previously known. Some 327 permits are still listed as active.

Operators include police, universities, state transportation departments and at least seven federal agencies. The remotely controlled aircraft vary widely, from devices as small as model airplanes to large unarmed Predators.

The FAA, which has a September 2015 deadline from Congress to open the nation’s airspace to drone traffic, has estimated 10,000 drones could be aloft five years later. The FAA this week solicited proposals to create six sites across the country to test drones, a crucial step before widespread government and commercial use is approved.

Local and state law enforcement agencies are expected to be among the largest customers.

Read moreDrones Are Taking To The Skies In The U.S.

Why Almost Everyone in Russia Has A Dash Cam In Their Car

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– Why Almost Everyone in Russia Has a Dash Cam (Wired, Feb 15, 2013):

How is it possible that a dozen different motorists around the Russian city of Chelyabinsk were able to capture video of a massive meteor flying through the sky? Because almost everyone in Russia has a dash-mounted video camera in their car.

The sheer size of the country, combined with lax — and often corrupt — law enforcement, and a legal system that rarely favors first-hand accounts of traffic collisions has made dash cams all but a requirement for motorists.

“You can get into your car without your pants on, but never get into a car without a dash cam,” Aleksei Dozorov, a motorists’ rights activist in Russia told Radio Free Europe last year.

Read moreWhy Almost Everyone in Russia Has A Dash Cam In Their Car

Gun Dealers Report Shortages Of Ammunition

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– Gun dealers report shortages of ammunition (USA Today, Feb 18, 2013):

Retailers say much of the demand is from gun owners who are stockpiling in case certain weapons are banned.

Gun shops are running low on ammunition from a run by customers fearful of potential gun-control legislation, according to gun retailers and customers.

Prices have more than doubled over past year in some shops, retailers are putting limits on the amount a customer can buy, and some common types of ammunition, such as .22-caliber long rifle shells, are hard to get.

Read moreGun Dealers Report Shortages Of Ammunition

More Than 100 New Nuclear Reactors Planned In Asia In The Next 20 Years

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–  #Radioactive Asia: There Will Be 100 Additional Nuclear Reactors in Asia in 20 Years (EX-SKF, Feb 16, 2013):

As far as Asians are concerned, the Fukushima nuclear accident seems to have encouraged them to embark on new nuclear projects.

They probably look at Japan, and say, “Well their government has said all along there is no bad effect from triple meltdowns and melt-throughs, and people don’t seem to care anyway, so what’s there to lose? Not much.”

Read moreMore Than 100 New Nuclear Reactors Planned In Asia In The Next 20 Years

Israeli Banks Said to Be Implicated in U.S. Tax Evasion

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– Israeli Banks Said to Be Implicated in U.S. Tax Evasion (Bloomberg, Feb 17, 2013):

A California man born in Israel agreed to plead guilty to conspiring with people at Bank Leumi Le-Israel Ltd. and Mizrahi Tefahot Bank Ltd. to hide offshore accounts and income from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, according to court filings and people familiar with the matter.Zvi Sperling was accused Feb. 14 by federal prosecutors in Los Angeles of conspiring with people at two Tel Aviv-based banks, identified only as Bank A and Bank B. The charging document and plea agreement didn’t identify the banks. Bank A is Mizrahi, according to a person who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about the case. Bank B is Leumi, according to a second person, who similarly asked not to be identified.

Since 2008, U.S. prosecutors have cracked down on offshore tax evasion, charging at least 83 U.S. taxpayers or foreign bankers, lawyers or advisers with tax crimes. UBS AG, the largest Swiss bank, avoided prosecution in 2009 by admitting it aided tax evasion, paying $780 million and handing over account data on 250 clients. It later disclosed information on about 4,450 more accounts. Wegelin & Co., a Swiss bank, pleaded guilty last month. No Israeli bank has been charged.

Read moreIsraeli Banks Said to Be Implicated in U.S. Tax Evasion

European Bank CEO Admits: ‘The Whole Thing Is Doomed’

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– European Bank CEO Admits: “The Whole Thing Is Doomed” (ZeroHedge, Feb 18, 2013):

As the European parliament attempts to create a budget and Draghi repeats how the temporary lull in European growth is merely a prelude to a growth renaissance in the second half of the year (not to be confused with the verbatim lie rehashed by European dignitaries in 2012, 2011, 2010 and 2009), it appears a few leaks of truthiness are seeing daylight in the disunion. In a shockingly frank interview, the CEO of Saxo Bank describes the Euro’s recent rally as illusory and that “the whole thing is doomed,” as the continent is not supported by a fiscal union. As Bloomberg reports, Lars Seier Christensen says he would be a “seller of the EUR at anything near 1.40,” noting that “right now we’re in one of those fake solutions where people think that the problem is contained or being addressed, which it isn’t at all.” Confirming that the only thing holding the farce together is political not economic efforts, he sums the situation up perfectly: “people have been dramatically underestimating the problems.”

Via Bloomberg,

Lars Seier Christensen, co-chief executive officer of Danish bank Saxo Bank A/S, said the euro’s recent rally is illusory and the shared currency is set to fail because the continent hasn’t supported it with a fiscal union.

“The whole thing is doomed,” Christensen said yesterday in an interview at the bank’s Dubai office. “Right now we’re in one of those fake solutions where people think that the problem is contained or being addressed, which it isn’t at all.”

Read moreEuropean Bank CEO Admits: ‘The Whole Thing Is Doomed’

The Computer That Never Crashes

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– The computer that never crashes (New Scientist, Feb 14, 2013):

A revolutionary new computer based on the apparent chaos of nature can reprogram itself if it finds a fault

OUT of chaos, comes order. A computer that mimics the apparent randomness found in nature can instantly recover from crashes by repairing corrupted data.

Dubbed a “systemic” computer, the self-repairing machine now operating at University College London (UCL) could keep mission-critical systems working. For instance, it could allow drones to reprogram themselves to cope with combat damage, or help create more realistic models of the human brain.

Everyday computers are ill suited to modelling natural processes such as how neurons work or how bees swarm. This is because they plod along sequentially, executing one instruction at a time. “Nature isn’t like that,” says UCL computer scientist Peter Bentley. “Its processes are distributed, decentralised and probabilistic. And they are fault tolerant, able to heal themselves. A computer should be able to do that.”

Read moreThe Computer That Never Crashes

GMO Fail: Monsanto Foiled By Feds, Supreme Court, And Science

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– GMO fail: Monsanto foiled by feds, Supreme Court, and science (Grist, Feb 15, 2013):

It’s been a good week if you enjoy a little GMO schadenfreude. The FDA has reportedly bowed to public pressure to extend the comment period on its approval of genetically engineered salmon, and Illinois, Maryland, and Iowa are the latest states to buck GMOs by introducing labeling bills into state legislature.

Even the Supreme Court has an opportunity to take Monsanto down a peg. On Feb. 19, the court will hear arguments in a patent infringement case between an Indiana farmer and Monsanto (I covered it in detail here). If Monsanto prevails, it’ll move a few more paces towards agricultural monopoly; if it loses, the company will take a couple steps back. It’s encouraging that the Supreme Court chose to hear the case over the solicitor general’s urging to dismiss it, but Monsanto could have an inside man: As in other Monsanto-related cases, former Monsanto-lawyer-turned-Supreme-Court-Justice Clarence Thomas has no plans to recuse himself.

But GMOs took the biggest punch this week from academia: Tom Philpott highlights a USDA-funded study [PDF] by University of Wisconsin scientists who found that several types of GMO seeds (including Monsanto’s RoundUp Ready varieties) actually produce a lower yield than conventional seeds. Only one seed — a corn that produces its own pesticide to combat the corn borer — offers any significant yield benefit. In other words, planting most genetically modified seeds results in less harvest per acre than planting non-genetically modified seeds.

The researchers looked at 20 years of data from test plots in Wisconsin from 1990-2010, both on research plots and on plots in participating farmers’ fields. Philpott flags a key point from the study:

Read moreGMO Fail: Monsanto Foiled By Feds, Supreme Court, And Science

NASA: Russian Meteor Exploded With Force Of 30 Hiroshima Bombs

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The meteor that streaked across the skies over Russia on Friday exploded with a force 30 times greater than the Hiroshima bomb, Nasa scientists have said.


– Russian meteor exploded with force of 30 Hiroshima bombs (Telegraph, Feb 16, 2013):

The 55 foot wide rock, said by Nasa to have a mass of 10,000 tonnes, lit up the sky above the Urals region on Friday morning, causing shockwaves that injured 1,200 people and damaged thousands of homes in an event unprecedented in modern times.

Nasa estimated that the energy released as the meteor’s disintegrated in the atmosphere was 500 kilotons, around 30 times the size of the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

Read moreNASA: Russian Meteor Exploded With Force Of 30 Hiroshima Bombs

Over 5,000,000 Bq/m² Of Cesium-137 In Fukushima City (Video)

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YouTube

– “They Know All”: Over 5,000,000 Bq/m² of Cesium-137 in Fukushima City (ENENews, Feb 16, 2013):

Title: Over 5,000,000 Bq/? of Cs137-Soil Contamination. Fukushima City
Source: guardianofmiyagi
Date Published on Feb 16, 2013

Video Description

Miyagi Radiation-Monitoring Committee (MIRMC), Organizer and two Japanese medical doctors: Don’t Forget 3.11. Don’t Forget Fukushima Daiichi Accident. NHK Never Rebroadcast. They Know All…

*Note the video shows 5,000 kBq/m² of Cesium-137, which is equal to 5,000,000 Bq/m²