April 1,2011

smarter them Einstein

HAMILTON COUNTY, Ind. - What were you doing when you were 12 years old?
Playing video ? Dreaming of winning a Heisman Trophy? Maybe starting to show a little interest in a significant other?

It’s probably safe to say you weren’t taking on Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.
Well, that’s what 12-year-old Jake Barnet, of Hamilton County, Indiana, is proposing. Jake has become somewhat of an Internet star thanks to YouTube videos of his ideas about mathematics and physics, which his mom shoots and posts online.
In one of the most recent videos, Jake discusses Einstein’s Theory of relativity, explaining in the description why he might have a different theory:
“My initial perception from this is that light does have mass,” Jake writes. “Obviously, energy coming out of a system where light is emitted could not be conserved otherwise. You can correct me later if I change my mind, but for the moment this is my perception.”

Jake has a mild form of autism, according to Time.com, and he also has an I.Q. of 170. He taught himself calculus, algebra and geometry in two weeks and graduated high school at the age of eight. He has been attending college-level physics since then.

link to the video

March 31,2011

2036 Asteroid Apocalypse An image provided by the German Aerospace Center DLR on Saturday, Sept. 6, 2008 shows a two photos combo of the asteroid Steins, on Friday, Sept. 5, 2008. (AP Photo/ESA) (Newser) – If that whole end-of-the-world thing doesn't work out next year, maybe the jig is up in 2036: Scientists are now saying that's the year an asteroid previously thought harmless (after having been deemed catastrophic before that) might just plow into the Earth. A few Russian scientists are warning that Apophis, which is expected to come within five Earth radii of our planet, will hit a gravitational "keyhole" that will pull it onto a collision course, the Christian Science Monitor reports. Apophis—which the Russian scientists estimate will hit our planet on April 13, 2036—has a diameter of two football fields, so a collision could be catastrophic. But NASA says the chance of an impact is slight. "Technically, they’re correct, there is a chance in 2036 that Apophis will hit Earth," said Donald Yeomans, head of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office. But that chance is just one in 250,000, he says. March 31,2011

Black hole confirmed in Milky Way

Core of the Milky Way galaxy, taken with Nasa's Spitzer space telescope

They tracked the movement of 28 stars circling the centre of the Milky Way, using two telescopes in Chile.
The black hole, said to be 27,000 light years from Earth, is four million times bigger than the Sun, according to the paper in The Astrophysical Journal.
Black holes are objects whose gravity is so great that nothing - including light - can escape them.
According to Dr Robert Massey, of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS), the results suggest that galaxies form around giant black holes in the way that a pearl forms around grit.
'The black pearl'
Dr Massey said: "Although we think of black holes as somehow threatening, in the sense that if you get too close to one you are in trouble, they may have had a role in helping galaxies to form - not just our own, but all galaxies.

"They had a role in bringing matter together and if you had a high enough density of matter then you have the conditions in which stars could form.
"Thus the first generation of stars and galaxies could have come into existence".
The researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany said the black hole was 27,000 light years, or 158 thousand, million, million miles from the Earth.
"Undoubtedly the most spectacular aspect of our 16-year study, is that it has delivered what is now considered to be the best empirical evidence that super-massive black holes do really exist," said Professor Reinhard Genzel, head of the research team.
"The stellar orbits in the galactic centre show that the central mass concentration of four million solar masses must be a black hole, beyond any reasonable doubt."
Observations were made using the 3.5m New Technology Telescope and the 8.2m Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. Both are operated by the European Southern Observatory (Eso).

April 2,2011

Japan nuclear struggle focuses on cracked reactor pit

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese officials grappling on Sunday to end the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl were focusing on a crack in a concrete pit that was leaking radiation into the ocean from a crippled reactor.
Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said it had found a crack in the pit at its No.2 reactor in Fukushima, generating readings 1,000 millisieverts of radiation per hour in the air inside the pit.
"With radiation levels rising in the seawater near the plant, we have been trying to confirm the reason why, and in that context, this could be one source," said Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy head of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), said on Saturday.
He cautioned, however: "We can't really say for certain until we've studied the results."
Leakage did not stop even after concrete was poured into the pit, and Tokyo Electric is now planning to use water-absorbent polymer to prevent contaminated water from leaking out into the sea.
Officials from the utility said checks of the other five reactors found no cracks.
Nishiyama said that to cool the damaged reactor, NISA was looking at alternatives to pumping in water, including an improvised air conditioning system, spraying the reactor fuel rods with vaporized water or using the plant's cleaning system.
PM UNDER PRESSURE
As the disaster that has left more than 27,000 dead or missing dragged into a fourth week, Prime Minister Naoto Kan toured devastated coastal towns in northern Japan on Saturday, offering refugees government support for rebuilding homes and livelihoods.
"It will be kind of a long battle, but the government will be working hard together with you until the end," Kyodo news agency quoted him as telling people in a shelter in Rikuzentakata, a fishing port flattened by the tsunami which struck on March 11 after a massive earthquake.
Unpopular and under pressure to quit or call a snap poll before the disaster, Kan has been criticized for his management of the humanitarian and nuclear crisis. Some tsunami survivors said he came to visit them too late.
Kan also entered the 20-km (12-mile) evacuation zone and visited J-village just inside the zone, a sports facility serving as the headquarters for emergency teams trying to cool the six-reactor Fukushima Daiichi plant.
Operators of the plant are no closer to regaining control of damaged reactors, as fuel rods remain overheated and high levels of radiation are flowing into the sea.
Japan is facing a damages bill which may top $300 billion -- the world's biggest from a natural disaster.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Friday the Japanese economy would take a short-term hit and it could not rule out further intervention for the yen.
The consequences for the world's third largest economy have already seen manufacturing slump to a two-year low. Power outages and quake damage have hit supply chains and production.
Hundreds of thousands remain homeless, sheltering in evacuation centers, as the death toll from the disaster rises.
Thousands of Japanese and U.S. soldiers on Saturday conducted a search for bodies using dozens of ships and helicopters to sweep across land still under water along the northeast coast. The teams hope when a large spring tide recedes it will make it easier to spot bodies.
Radiation 4,000 times the legal limit has been detected in seawater near the Daiichi plant and a floating tanker was to be towed to Fukushima to store contaminated seawater. But until the plant's internal cooling system is reconnected radiation will flow from the plant.

April 2,2011

hole fond in a plane

PHOENIX – A "gunshot-like sound" woke Brenda Reese as her Southwest Airlines flight cruised at 36,000 feet. Looking up, she could see the sky through a hole torn in the cabin roof.
The Boeing 737 lost cabin pressure after the hole developed Friday, prompting frightened passengers to grope for oxygen masks as the plane made a terrifying but controlled descent.
One passenger called it "pandemonium." Another watched as a flight attendant and another passenger passed out, apparently for lack of oxygen, their heads striking seats in front of them.
Officials said Flight 812 lost pressure because of a fuselage rupture. Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said the pilot made a "controlled descent from 36,000 feet to 11,000 feet altitude."
His safe emergency landing at a military base in Yuma, about 150 miles southwest of Phoenix, drew applause from relieved passengers.
No serious injuries were reported among the 118 people aboard although a flight attendant was slightly hurt, according to Southwest officials. The cause of the hole was not immediately known. The FBI called it a "mechanical failure," not an act of terror or other foul play.
The plane is a 15-year-old Boeing 737-300. Southwest officials said they would pull about 80 similar planes out of service for inspections of the fuselage, forcing the airline to plan to cancel roughly 300 flights Saturday.
Southwest operates about 170 of the 737-300s in its fleet of about 540 planes, but it replaced the aluminum skin on many of the 300s in recent years, spokeswoman Linda Rutherford said. The roughly 80 planes being grounded have not had their skin replaced, she said.
"Obviously we're dealing with a skin issue, and we believe that these 80 airplanes are covered by a set of (federal safety rules) that make them candidates to do this additional inspection that Boeing is devising for us," Rutherford said.
Southwest officials said the Arizona plane had undergone all inspections required by the FAA, but they did not immediately provide the date of the last inspection.
The 737-300 is the oldest plane in Southwest's fleet, and the company is retiring 300s as it take deliveries of new Boeing 737-700s and, beginning next year, 737-800s. But the process of replacing all the 300s could take years.
Reese said the plane had just left Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport for Sacramento, Calif., when the "gunshot-like sound" woke her up. Oxygen masks dropped as the plane dove.
Seated one row from the rupture, Don Nelson said it took about four noisy minutes for the plane to dip to less than 10,000 feet. "You could tell there was an oxygen deficiency," he said.
"People were dropping," said Christine Ziegler, a 44-year-old project manager from Sacramento who watched as the crew member and a passenger nearby fainted. Nelson and Ziegler spoke after a substitute flight took them on to Sacramento.
Reese described the hole as "at the top of the plane, right up above where you store your luggage."
"The panel's not completely off," she told The Associated Press. "It's like ripped down, but you can see completely outside... When you look up through the panel, you can see the sky."
Cellphone photographs provided by Reese showed a panel hanging open in a section above the plane's middle aisle, with a hole of about six feet long.
The National Transportation Safety Board said an "in-flight fuselage rupture" led to the drop in cabin pressure aboard the plane.
A similar incident happened in July 2009 when a football-sized hole opened up in flight in the fuselage of another Southwest 737, depressurizing the cabin. The plane made an emergency landing in Charleston, W.Va. It was later determined that the hole was caused by metal fatigue.
Afterward, Southwest and the FAA reached an agreement specifying actions the airline would take to prevent another episode, said John Goglia, a former National Transportation Safety Board member and an expert on airline maintenance. The details of that agreement are considered proprietary and haven't been made public, he said.
The latest incident "certainly makes me think there is something wrong with the maintenance system at Southwest and it makes me think there is something wrong with the (FAA) principal maintenance inspector down there that after that big event they weren't watching this more closely," Goglia said in an interview.
There was "never any danger that the plane would fall out of the sky," Goglia said. "However, anybody on that airplane with any sort of respiratory problems certainly was at risk."
Four months before that emergency landing, the Dallas-based airline had agreed to pay $7.5 million to settle charges that it operated planes that had missed required safety inspections for cracks in the fuselage. The airline, which flies Boeing 737s, inspected nearly 200 of its planes back then, found no cracks and put them back in the sky.
Julie O'Donnell, an aviation safety spokeswoman for Seattle-based Boeing Commercial Airplanes, confirmed "a hole in the fuselage and a depressurization event" in the latest incident but declined to speculate on what caused it.
Reese said passengers applauded the pilot after he emerged from the cockpit following the emergency landing at Yuma Marine Corps Air Station/International Airport.
"It was unreal. Everybody was like they were high school chums," Ziegler said, describing a scene in which passengers comforted and hugged each other after the plane was on the ground.
"I fly a lot. This is the first time I ever had something like this happen," said Reese, a 37-year-old single mother of three who is vice president for a clinical research organization. "I just want to get home and hold my kids."
An FAA inspector from Phoenix and an NTSB crew were expected to be in Yuma on Saturday to investigate.
Holes in aircraft can be caused by metal fatigue or lightning. The National Weather Service said the weather was clear from the Phoenix area to the California border on Friday afternoon.
In 1988, cracks caused part of the roof of an Aloha Airlines Boeing 737 to peel open while the jet flew from Hilo to Honolulu. A flight attendant was sucked out of the plane and plunged to her death, and dozens of passengers were injured.
Three years ago, an exploding oxygen cylinder ripped a gaping hole the fuselage of a Qantas Boeing 747-438 carrying 365 people. The plane descended thousands of feet with the loss of cabin pressure and flew about 300 miles to Manila, where it made a successful emergen

April 5,2011

Ozone layer faces record loss over Arctic

GENEVA – The depletion of the ozone layer shielding Earth from damaging ultraviolet rays has reached an unprecedented low over the Arctic this spring because of harmful chemicals and a cold winter, the U.N. weather agency said Tuesday.

The Earth's fragile ozone layer in the Arctic region has suffered a loss of about 40 percent from the start of winter until late March, exceeding the previous seasonal loss of about 30 percent, the World Meteorological Organization said.

The Geneva-based agency blamed the loss on a buildup of ozone-eating chemicals once widely used as coolants and fire retardants in a variety of appliances and on very cold temperatures in the stratosphere, the second major layer of the Earth's atmosphere, just above the troposphere.

Arctic ozone conditions vary more than the seasonal ozone "hole" that forms high in the stratosphere near the South Pole each winter and spring, and the temperatures are always warmer than over Antarctica.

Because of changing weather and temperatures some Arctic winters experience almost no ozone loss while others with exceptionally cold stratospheric conditions can occasionally lead to substantial ozone depletion, U.N. scientists say.

This year the Arctic winter was warmer than average at ground level, but colder in the stratosphere than normal Arctic winters. U.N. officials say the latest losses — unprecedented, but not entirely unexpected — were detected in observations from the ground and from balloons and satellites over the Arctic.

Atmospheric scientists who are concerned about global warming focus on the Arctic because that is a region where the effects are expected to be felt first.

Ozone scientists have said that significant Arctic ozone depletion is possible in the case of a cold and stable Arctic stratospheric winter. Ozone losses occur over the polar regions when temperatures drop below -78 degrees Celsius (-108 Fahrenheit), when clouds form in the stratosphere.

Average temperatures in January range from about -40 to 0 C (-40 to 32 F), while average temperatures in July range from about -10 to 10 C (14 to 50 F).

"The Arctic stratosphere continues to be vulnerable to ozone destruction caused by ozone-depleting substances linked to human activities," said WMO secretary-general Michel Jarraud. "The degree of ozone loss experienced in any particular winter depends on the meteorological conditions."

The loss comes despite the U.N. ozone treaty, known as the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which has resulted in cutbacks in ozone-damaging chemicals, such as chlorofluorocarbons, halons and other, that were used in the making of refrigerators, air conditioners, fire extinguishers and even hairspray.

The 196-nation ozone treaty encourages industries to use replacement chemicals less damaging to ozone, the atmospheric layer that helps protect against the sun's most harmful rays.

But because these compounds have long atmospheric lifetimes, it takes decades for their concentrations to subside to pre-1980 levels as was agreed in the Montreal Protocol.

U.N. officials project the ozone layer outside the polar regions will recover to pre-1980 levels sometime between 2030 and 2040.

April 9,2011

Shutdown avoided, White House, Congress cheer deal

WASHINGTON – A last minute budget deal, forged amid bluster and tough bargaining, averted an embarrassing federal shutdown and cut billions in spending — the first major test of the divided government voters ushered in five months ago.

Working late into the evening Friday, congressional and White House negotiators struck an agreement to pay for government operations through the end of September while trimming $38.5 billion in spending. Lawmakers then approved a days-long stopgap measure to keep the government running while the details of the new spending plan were written into legislation.

Actual approval of the deal would come in mid-week.

"Today Americans of different beliefs came together again," President Barack Obama said from the White House Blue Room, a setting chosen to offer a clear view of the Washington Monument over his right shoulder.

The agreement — negotiated by the new Republican speaker of the House, John Boehner, the president and the Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid — came as the administration was poised to shutter federal services, from national parks to tax-season help centers, and to send furlough notices to hundreds of thousands of federal workers. It was a prospect that all sides insisted they wanted to avoid but that at times seemed all but inevitable.

Shortly after midnight, White House budget director Jacob Lew issued a memo instructing the government's departments and agencies to continue their normal operations.

Boehner said the agreement came after "a lot of discussion and a long fight," and he won an ovation from his rank and file, including the new tea party adherents whose victories last November shifted control of the House to the GOP.

Reid declared the deal "historic."

April 9,2011

Nazi warplane lying off UK coast is intact

LONDON (Reuters) – A rare World War Two German bomber, shot down over the English Channel in 1940 and hidden for years by shifting sands at the bottom of the sea, is so well preserved a British museum wants to raise it.

The Dornier 17 -- thought to be world's last known example -- was hit as it took part in the Battle of Britain.

It ditched in the sea just off the Kent coast, southeast England, in an area known as the Goodwin Sands.

The plane came to rest upside-down in 50 feet of water and has become partially visible from time to time as the sands retreated before being buried again.

Now a high-tech sonar survey undertaken by the Port of London Authority (PLA) has revealed the aircraft to be in a startling state of preservation.

Ian Thirsk, from the RAF Museum at Hendon in London, told the BBC he was "incredulous" when he first heard of its existence and potential preservation.

"This aircraft is a unique aeroplane and it's linked to an iconic event in British history, so its importance cannot be over-emphasized, nationally and internationally," he said.

"It's one of the most significant aeronautical finds of the century."

Known as "the flying pencil," the Dornier 17 was designed as a passenger plane in 1934 and was later converted for military use as a fast bomber, difficult to hit and theoretically able to outpace enemy fighter aircraft.

In all, some 1,700 were produced but they struggled in the war with a limited range and bomb load capability and many were scrapped afterwards.

Striking high-resolution images appear to show that the Goodwin Sands plane suffered only minor damage, to its forward cockpit and observation windows, on impact.

"The bomb bay doors were open, suggesting the crew jettisoned their cargo," said PLA spokesman Martin Garside.

Two of the crew members died on impact, while two others, including the pilot, were taken prisoner and survived the war.

"The fact that it was almost entirely made of aluminum and produced in one piece may have contributed to its preservation," Garside told Reuters.

The plane is still vulnerable to the area's notorious shifting sands and has become the target of recreational divers hoping to salvage souvenirs.

The RAF museum has launched an appeal to raise funds for the lifting operation.

April 10,2011

Last year was a good one for the airline industry, with U.S. airlines churning out the highest profits in more than a decade. With the exception of American Airlines, every major carrier turned in positive profits for the year.

In the 2011 Airline Quality Rating (AQR) report released on April 4, quality is up as well.

But that doesn't mean airlines deserve high-fives all around. Soaring baggage fees, widespread airfare increases and the elimination of free food on many flights were major factors in improving the bottom line. Not surprisingly, customers were not happy in 2010. According to a Business Insider study conducted last November, which uses data from the American Customer Satisfaction Index, four of the major U.S. carriers made its list of the "18 Worst Companies in America." The year also saw PR nightmares for the industry, including discrimination against disabled and overweight passengers and the episode involving a JetBlue flight attendant (the now famous Steven Slater) hitting his breaking point. 2011 has already seen a pilot misplace his handgun and a flight attendant put a baby in an overhead bin -- hardly a good way to start the year.

Meanest Major Carrier

United

United came in last place among all major airlines on our 2011 Meanest Airlines list with an AQR score of -1.31. United had the second-highest customer complaint rate (1.64 per 100,000 passengers) of all airlines in 2010, including the regional carriers.

Meanest Regional Carrier

American Eagle

American Eagle earned last place among all regional airlines on our 2011 Meanest Airlines list with an AQR score of -2.82. The major contributing factors were that they had the most incidents of mishandled baggage (7.15 reports per 1,000 passengers) and the highest involuntary denied boardings rate (4.02 per 10,000 passengers) in 2010.

Most Complained About Airline

Delta

Delta had the highest consumer complaint rate (2.00 complaints per 100,000 passengers) of all the carriers surveyed for the 2011 Airline Quality Rating (AQR) report. Delta placed #5 among major airlines on our 2011 Meanest Airlines list with an AQR score of -1.22.

Most Likely to be Unsafe

JetBlue

With only 17 documented incidents out of approximately 219,000 flights in 2010, the "least safe" major (minimum of 600 flights a day on average) airline is still very safe. Fortunately, commercial air travel in the United States these days is about as safe as it gets.

Most Likely to Overcharge for Bags

Delta / US Airways / Continental

This worst culprit in this category depends on the type of baggage you're checking. Delta, US Airways and Continental all share a similar fee structure, with some variance.

Domestic Baggage Fees

1st Bag: $25 ($23 if checked online with Delta or Continental)

2nd Bag: $35 ($32 if checked online with Delta or Continental)

3rd Bag: $125 for Delta & US Airways; $100-$200 for Continental

Overweight/Oversized Bags

51-70 lbs: $90 for Delta & US Airways; $200 for Continental

71-100 lbs: $175 for Delta & US Airways; Continental will not accept luggage heavier than 70 lbs as checked baggage

Larger than 62 inches: $175 for Delta & US Airways; $100-$200 for Continental

Most Likely to Bump You

American Eagle

American Eagle had the highest rate of involuntary denied boardings in 2010, with a rate of 4.02 per 10,000 passengers. American Eagle was the worst overall airline on our 2011 Meanest Airlines list with an AQR score of -2.82.

Most Likely to be Late

Comair

Comair was the tardiest airline in 2010. With only 73.1 percent of flights arriving on time, the airline had the worst on -time performance of all of the airlines surveyed for the 2011 Airline Quality Rating (AQR) report. Comair placed #3 among regional airlines on our 2011 Meanest Airlines list with an AQR score of -1.56.

Most Likely to Mishandle Your Bag

American Eagle

American Eagle had the most incidents of mishandled baggage in 2010, with 7.15 reports per 1,000 passengers. American Eagle was the worst overall airline on our 2011 Meanest Airlines list with an AQR score of -2.82.

April 13, 2011

Key from the speech: What’s in Obama’s deficit reduction plan?

April 13, 2011

Ex-NY mob boss makes history with trial testimony