Survive plane crash course

Survive plane crash course

Survive plane crash course, British Airways is offering its frequent flyers the chance to trade in their air miles for a course on how to survive a plane crash.
For around £125 - the average cost of a round-trip from London to Rome - members of the airline's Executive Club can sign up for the four-hour safety session when it starts next year. Survive plane crash course,

UK airlines actually have a brilliant aviation safety record, with no British passenger jet suffering a fatal smash since 47 people died in the British Midland 737 crash in Leicestershire in 1989.

Which might beg the question of why BA finds it necessary to offer the course. The airline actually developed the passenger-training programme in response to a request by BP, which sends staff into remote areas of the world where safety standards are lower.

And studies have shown that many plane crashes are survivable, with passengers often dying in the moments after the accident. Civil Aviation Authority research actually showed that a large number of passenger struggled with the most basic task of undoing the seat belt.

Andy Clubb, the BA manager running the course, told the Independent: 'It makes passengers safer when travelling by giving additional skills and information, it dispels all those internet theories about the "brace position" and it just gives people so much more confidence in flying.' Survive plane crash course,

Source: aol

Conrad Murray trial

Conrad Murray trial
Conrad Murray trial, The manslaughter trial of Michael Jackson's doctor Conrad Murray officially got under way Tuesday with opening statements from the prosecution and defense and testimony from the first witnesses.


While the world watched, prosecutors showed a photo of Jackson lying dead in a hospital bed and played a shocking audio tape of a drugged Jackson slurring his words so badly that he was barely understandable.

Michael Jackson's Drugged Phone Call

For his part, Murray looked stunned at what was presented by the prosecution. Murray cried as his defense attorney described his client as a doctor who saved the lives of people who couldn't afford to pay.

The Houston-based cardiologist is accused of administering a lethal dose of the powerful anesthetic propofol to Jackson, who died June 25, 2009.

Before opening statements began it could have been a scene from the singer's 2005 trial, as members of the Jackson family filled the courtroom. While most of their faces are already familiar, others are less so.

To help you sort through the cast of characters in Murray's trial, we've put together a list of who's who. Click through to see them.

Source: abcnews

Lindsay Lohan Philipp Plein, Lindsay Lohan Models For Philipp Plein, Flakes on Community Service, Former movie star Lindsay Lohan actually secured a paying job as the face of a new fashion collection from German designer Philipp Plein, according to reports.Bizarrely, Lohan admitted the collaboration came about so “spontaneously” that she had not met Plein or even seen the line until her shoot this weekend. Makes you wonder if Plein knew what he was getting into when he hired this hot mess. Anyway, here's LiLo at her new modeling gig on the shores of Lake Como, Italy ... Aside from this, Lindsay has kept herself busy attending New York fashion week, being Vikram Chatwal's home wrecker and sucking face with her mom. It's no wonder, then, that she's fallen well behind in her court ordered community service, having completed just 60 out of 480 mandatory hours so far. Judge Stephanie Sautner ordered Lindsay to do 380 hours of community service at the Downtown Women's Center, and 100 at the L.A. County Morgue. "Lindsay has completed about 60 hours at the Downtown Women's Center. Lindsay hasn't done any time at the morgue,” a source close to her said. Lohan did complete her shoplifting class, but we don't suspect the community service stats are going to sit well at her progress hearing next month. Source: thehollywoodgossip

Boeing 787 celebration starts with hand delivery

Boeing 787 celebration starts with hand delivery, Boeing Co workers hand-delivered -- literally -- the company's first 787 Dreamliner in the pouring rain on Monday to All Nippon Airways, capping nearly a decade of development of the world's most advanced jetliner.The 500 Seattle workers, with help from a mechanical tug, hauled the carbon-composite plane about 100 yards to its Japanese buyers at a podium outside the planemaker's mammoth Everett, Washington, production plant.

The hand-delivery was a vivid demonstration of the airplane's lightweight structure, which promises 20 percent fuel savings for airlines, but also of the snail's pace of production following numerous delays.

"The 787 represents a fundamental revolution, a transformational change in airplane design, manufacturing and performance benefits," Boeing Chief Executive Jim McNerney told the assembled crowd of about 5,000 people huddled under umbrellas around the airplane.

"Embodied in this incredible machine are 95 years of Boeing aerospace know-how," he said.

Boeing shares rose as much as 4.2 percent on Monday and were still up 2.7 percent at $61.09 in afternoon trading. (Graphic on Dreamliner timeline: r.reuters.com/hyx83s )

"I cannot wait to see the day when the skies of the world are filled with 787s," said ANA President Shinichiro Ito.

Executives and workers repeatedly acknowledged the long, rocky road the Dreamliner has traveled.

The delivery ceremony was held at the planemaker's Everett wide-body production facility, which is packed with undelivered aircraft in a sign of an inventory build-up pegged at more than $16 billion, sitting on the Boeing balance sheet.

Dozens of aircraft were parked around the site in various stages of readiness, some with billowing plastic covers over their cockpits and engines or with weight-balancing yellow blocks hanging off the wings where the engines would be.

Investors are now waiting to see whether Boeing can pull a rabbit out a hat and meet its production goals after three years of delays and seven postponements.

"Now is the time for Boeing looking forwards and not backward, concentrate on the manufacturing process and satisfy the customer," said Howard Wheeldon, senior strategist at London brokerage BGC Partners. "Once they do that the rest will fall into place."


Hundreds of Boeing workers were taught on the eve of the ceremony how to bow in unison as a mark of respect for ANA's Ito whose company formally took control of the first of its 55 Dreamliners on Sunday.

ANA expressed confidence in Boeing's ability to build the rest of its fleet on time, including 12 airplanes due by end-March and eight in the following 12 months. But after seven delays, analysts say Boeing must work hard to prevent further slippage.

Boeing plans to lift production to 10 787 Dreamliners a month by the end of 2013, while also pushing up production of the 737 narrowbody, upgrading the same model and gearing up for production of a 767 aerial tanker for the U.S. Air Force.

"We share some apprehension with the market about the achievability of that plan, which will take us to a very high production rate for a wide-body aircraft," said aerospace analyst Carter Copeland at Barclays Capital in New York.

"Given the stops and starts and problems it is natural for investors to have some concerns about achievability but the company seems confident."

A Boeing official said production problems at a key Italian supplier were no longer seen as a "pacing item," or potential source of bottlenecks that define how quickly it can raise 787 production from the current rate of about two aircraft a month.

The company plans to make a decision on when to go to the next step "soon," he said, adding it could proceed in increments of one aircraft or even half an aircraft a month.

Boeing's Everett plant contains four 787s in one bay of its giant assembly hall, with other 787s parked in an area set aside for completion work. Each aircraft currently stays for 10 days at each point on the line, but this will have to be accelerated as production increases.

The main line is designed to rise to seven aircraft a month. A second temporary "surge" line is being readied to tackle three aircraft a month when necessary and a planned facility at North Charleston, South Carolina, will assemble three a month.

The surge line will partly allow Boeing to smooth out alterations of production flow between two models of aircraft currently on sale.

Source: reuters

Nasas Dead Satellite

Nasas Dead Satellite

Nasas Dead Satellite, The biggest piece of US space junk to fall in 30 years is taking aim at a vast span of territory that includes Canada, Australia and Africa as well as plenty of open ocean, NASA said.The US space agency stressed there was a "very remote" risk to the public from the 26 fragments of the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) expected to survive the fiery re-entry into the atmosphere.

The latest data showed the debris could re-enter Earth's atmosphere between 11:00 pm Friday (0300 GMT Saturday) and 3:00 am Saturday (0700 GMT), according to NASA.

"During that time period, the satellite will be passing over Canada, Africa and Australia, as well as vast areas of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans. The risk to public safety is very remote," the agency added in an update.

The Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies at the California-based Aerospace Corporation predicted the re-entry would occur at 0404 GMT Saturday, plus or minus three hours.

The two dozen parts that survive the re-entry may weigh as little as two pounds (one kilogram) or as much as 350 pounds (158 kilograms), NASA said, and the debris field is expected to span 500 miles (800 kilometers).

The tumbling motion of the satellite has made it difficult to narrow down the location. And given that the world is 70 percent water, an ocean landing was considered likely.

"In the entire 50 plus year history of the space program, no person has ever been injured by a piece of re-entering space debris," said Mark Matney, an orbital debris scientist at NASA.

"Keep in mind we have bits of debris re-entering the atmosphere every single day."

The US Department of Defense and NASA were busy tracking the debris and keeping all federal disaster agencies informed, a NASA spokeswoman said.

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a notice Thursday to pilots and flight crews of the potential hazard, and urged them to report any falling space debris and take note of its position and time.

Early Friday, Italy's civil protection agency warned that the probability of a crash in its northern territory had risen from 0.6 to 1.5 percent, and urged residents to stay indoors, on lower floors, preferably near load bearing walls.

Orbital debris experts say space junk of this size from broken-down satellites and spent rockets tends to fall back to Earth about once a year, though this is the biggest NASA satellite to fall in three decades.

NASA's 85-ton Skylab crashed into western Australia in 1979.

The surviving chunks of the tour-bus-sized UARS, which launched in 1991 and was decommissioned in 2005, will likely include titanium fuel tanks, beryllium housing and stainless steel batteries and wheel rims.

"No consideration ever was given to shooting it down," NASA spokeswoman Beth Dickey said.

The craft contains no fuel and so is not expected to explode on impact, and NASA also said on Twitter that talk of "flaming space debris" was a "myth."

"Pieces of UARS landing on Earth will not be very hot. Heating stops 20 miles up, cools after that," NASA said, adding that UARS contains nothing radioactive but its metal fragments could be sharp.

The US space agency has warned anyone who comes across what they believe may be UARS debris not to touch it but to contact authorities for assistance.

Space law professor Frans von der Dunk from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln told AFP that the United States will likely have to pay damages to any country where the debris falls.

"The damage to be compensated is essentially without limit," von der Dunk said, referring to the 1972 Liability Convention to which the United States is one of 80 state signatories.

Source: yahoo

Spontaneous combustion kills man?

Spontaneous combustion kills man?

Spontaneous combustion kills man? A man who burned to death in his home died as a result of spontaneous combustion, an Irish coroner has ruled. West Galway coroner Dr Ciaran McLoughlin said it was the first time in 25 years of investigating deaths that he had recorded such a verdict.Michael Faherty, 76, died at his home at Clareview Park, Ballybane, Galway on 22 December 2010.

Such incidents are extremely rare.

Deaths attributed by some to "spontaneous combustion" occur when a living human body is burned without an apparent external source of ignition.

Typically police or fire investigators find burned corpses but no burned furniture.

An inquest in Galway on Thursday heard how investigators had been baffled as to the cause of Mr Faherty's death.

Forensic experts found that a fire in the fireplace of the sitting room where the badly burnt body was found, had not been the cause of the blaze that killed Mr Faherty.

The court was told that no trace of an accelerant had been found and there had been nothing to suggest foul play.

The court heard Mr Faherty had been found lying on his back with his head closest to an open fireplace.

The fire had been confined to the sitting room. The only damage was to the body, which was totally burnt, the ceiling above him and the floor underneath him.

Dr McLoughlin said he had consulted medical textbooks and carried out other research in an attempt to find an explanation.

He said Professor Bernard Knight, in his book on forensic pathology, had written about spontaneous combustion and noted that such reported cases were almost always near an open fireplace or chimney.

"This fire was thoroughly investigated and I'm left with the conclusion that this fits into the category of spontaneous human combustion, for which there is no adequate explanation," he said.

Read more: bbc

Todd Palin Divorce

Todd Palin Divorce

 Todd Palin Divorce, Sarah and Todd Palin share how they reacted to rumors that they were headed towards a $20 million divorce in the new issue of People magazine.


According to People, Sarah was "steaming" over a report that the couple was divorcing, while Todd was able to laugh it off.

"I call Todd on the cell phone [from the grocery checkout] and I say, 'Todd, you won't believe this cover!' And he says, 'Twenty million? Write me a check,' " Sarah told People. "He's good about laughing some of that stuff off."

Rumors that the couple, who have been married since they eloped in 1988, were splitting up circled in 2009 shortly after Sarah stepped down from the Alaska governor's office. The National Enquirer had reported that both Palins had had extramarital affairs, and a blog called AlaskaReport.com alleged that the report had "led to a deterioration of their marriage." At the time, the Palin camp shot down those rumors via Facebook, saying through a spokesperson that "the Palins remain married [and committed to each other and their family."

Source: huffingtonpost

Starbucks hidden toilet camera

Starbucks hidden toilet camera

 Starbucks hidden toilet camera, $3 million lawsuit instituted against Seattle-based global coffee chain. Starbucks is being sued for $3 million after a man claimed his five-year-old daughter found a video camera hidden in the toilets of one of its outlets.

William Yockey, 28, accuses the Seattle-based global coffee chain of invasion of privacy, negligence, "intentional infliction of emotional distress" and negligent hiring, training and supervision of staff.

Mr Yockey, who visited the US capital in April, "immediately reported this humiliating and disgusting matter" to the manager of the outlet, a few blocks from the White House, said a copy of his lawsuit.

Police roped off the toilets and dusted the camera - tucked inside the U-shaped drain beneath the wash basin, according to the plaintiff - for fingerprints before confiscating it as evidence, according to the lawsuit.

"It's embarrassing, humiliating, even today," Mr Yockey told ABC News, adding that any video of his daughter in the TOILET "could have been all over the internet. She could have been violated".

Mr Yockey's lawyer Hank Schlosberg is asking the District of Columbia Superior Court for a jury trial, $US1 million in compensatory damages and $US2 million in punitive damages just on the invasion of privacy count.

A spokesmen for Starbucks could not be reached for comment, but local weekly City Paper said the company had tried but failed to get the lawsuit thrown out on grounds that Mr Yockey had not proven any wrongdoing by its employees.

Last May, police arrested a man on suspicion of recording at least 40 women with a hidden camera in a Starbucks in California, while another man was arrested in June for placing a camera inside another Starbucks in Florida.

Source: emirates247

US Hikers Released from Iran Prison

US Hikers Released from Iran Prison, Two American hikers held in an Iranian prison for over two years were set free today, ending a standoff among President Ahmadinejad and the Iranian judiciary over their release.

A second Iranian judge who had already delayed their release twice signed their release order today and $500,000 each in bail was deposited.

Attorney Masoud Shafii, the lawyer representing the Americans, Shane Bauer and Joshua Fattal told ABC News earlier today that "The natural path has taken its course."

Shafii waited now inside the notorious Tehran prison where the pair has been held to take them to their freedom, along with the Omani and Swiss diplomats who've been negotiating their release. United States interests in Tehran are handled by Switzerland as there is no U.S. embassy there.

The news was also confirmed on the Iranian judiciary's website, which is comprised mostly of rivals of Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad. The delay of the hikers' release has been thought to be an attempt by Ahmadinejad's political rivals to prevent him from gaining traction on the world stage.

News of the release came moments before U.S. President Barack Obama was set to address the United Nations General Assembly in New York City. Ahmadinejad is also in New York for the annual plenary.

It is expected that Fattal and Bauer will make their first stop out of Iran in Oman, as the Omanis are playing a key part in negotiations of their release. Oman is the same place that their companion Sarah Shourd went to when she was freed from Iran nearly a year ago to the day. Shourd was in Oman today to greet the men -- she's engaged to Bauer.

Ahmadinejad announced plans to release Bauer and Fattal on $500,000 bail each last week. Though one judge had signed the paperwork Saturday, Ahmadinejad left for that meeting in New York on Monday with the two American still behind bars.

On Wednesday it was disclosed that the the government of Oman paid the $1 million bail for the two men. A third hiker, Sarah Shroud, who was initially detained with the two men was released in 2009. Oman paid the bail for her release as well.

Bauer and Fattal's release has been beset by mixed signals since Ahmadinejad indicated a fast-track release. Iran's judiciary, which is directly controlled by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – swiftly reminded the public that only the courts have the power to control the release's timing.

The two men were convicted last month for spying and illegally entering Iran and were both sentenced to eight years in prison. They appealed the verdicts and an Iranian court set bail of $500,000 each, opening the way for their release.

Bauer, a freelance journalist, and Fattal, and environmental activist, have denied the charges, saying they were just hiking in Iraq's scenic north, and may have accidentally crossed an unmarked border with Iran.

Shourd was detained with them, but she was released last September with mediation by Oman after her $500,000 bail was paid. The payment of bail in the cases must be arranged through third parties, like Oman, due to United States' economic sanctions on Iran.

Source: abcnews

Japan Typhoon: Japan warns one million to evacuate as typhoon nears

Japan Typhoon: Japan warns one million to evacuate as typhoon nears, More than a million people in Japan were warned to leave their homes on Tuesday as an approaching typhoon brought heavy rain and floods which left three dead or missing.

Typhoon Roke, packing winds of up to 144 kilometres (89 miles) an hour near its centre, could land in central Japan Wednesday and move northeast, possibly towards the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, the Japanese weather agency said.

"While keeping its strength, the typhoon could make a land fall on Wednesday," an official with the Japan Meteorological Agency said in a televised news conference.

"We ask that the highest level of caution be used because of the heavy rain, strong wind, and high waves."

The city of Nagoya, a regional commercial hub located near the home of Toyota Motor, issued an evacuation advisory to some 1.09 million residents at one point because of worries that rivers might burst their banks.

The advisory was lifted from parts of the city, but landslide, flooding and tornado warnings affecting over a million people were still in place as night fell.

A 65-year-old man in Nagoya fell to his death while fixing a stuck drain, Jiji Press news agency reported, while in neighbouring Gifu prefecture a nine-year-old boy and an 84-year-old man were feared to have been swept away by rising flood waters.

Water has poured into Nagoya's subway system and underpasses, with television images showing pedestrians wading knee-deep in water, helped by firefighters with rafts.

The city asked for Self Defense Force troops to be deployed to assist with rescues, transport, and engineering damage.

Nationwide, evacuation advisories have been issued to a total of 1.32 million people, national broadcaster NHK said.

It was not known how many people have heeded the evacuation warning, which falls far short of a mandatory evacuation order.

Rain and runoff water flooded residential areas and major local streets in southern and western regions. Heavy rain stopped trains and forced officials to close highways.

The typhoon was located 330 kilometres south of the Shikoku island as of 6:00 pm (0900 GMT), and was on course to approach Nagoya and the main island of Honshu Wednesday afternoon, the weather agency said.

The storm was then expected to move towards the disaster-ravaged Tohoku region north of Tokyo, with the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant located on its possible path.

Roke was expected to move to northernmost Hokkaido by Thursday afternoon, the weather official said.

"Its speed will accelerate. In similar cases in the past, we have seen strong wind and high waves occur suddenly. Rain will increase in northern Japan. We ask that people take early counter-measures," he said.

The storm has already dumped 400 millimetres (16 inches) of rain over the past 24 hours on the southern province of Miyazaki.

The agency warned of downpours over a wide area of the country on Wednesday, saying as much as 50 millimetres of rain could fall in an hour.

Japan was hit by Typhoon Talas earlier this month, leaving around 100 people dead or missing, mostly in the west of the country.

Source: yahoo

Facebook Page Design

Facebook Page Design, Facebook plans to roll out a major redesign of user profiles at its f8 developer conference this week, Mashable has learned. Details about the redesign are sparse, but two sources familiar with Facebook's plans (who have asked to remain anonymous) have told us that the redesign is "major" and will make Facebook profiles nexuses for consuming content.The profile changes will be part of a wider launch, one that will include launch of a music and media platform.

Here's what we know so far about the profile redesign:

-- The redesigned profiles will be more "sticky," says one source. One of the goals of the new profiles is to get users to stay on them for longer.

-- We already knew Facebook is launching a media platform at f8. However, we've also learned that the platform -- which will include music and video from partner sites -- will display the media content a user is watching or listening to on their profiles. Essentially, when you're listening to Lady Gaga on Spotify, your friends can see and access that on your Facebook profile. This confirms a recent New York Times report.

-- The redesigned profiles are part of a larger push into social ecommerce. We don't exactly know what that means, but we've heard whispers that Facebook intends to give Facebook Credits more prominence. We've also heard that a Facebook app store may emerge at f8.

-- Facebook's push into ecommerce may be related Project Spartan, an HTML5-based mobile platform rumored to be launching soon.

Facebook is being tight-lipped about the changes; the company declined to comment on this story. However, more and more pieces of Facebook's big launch continue to leak out as the excitement builds for f8 (feel free to send us screenshots if you have any) The company is currently under lockdown, trying to fix the final bugs before Thursday's big launch.

Source: cnn

TSA agents search afro for weapons

TSA agents search afro for weapons, Is it possible to hide weapons in your hair? The Transportation Security Administration thinks so.

Dallas resident Isis Brantley said she was stopped on Monday at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta after she went through security.

Brantley said an agent asked her if someone had checked her hair. She said no one had and continued on her way. She then heard someone yelling as she went down the escalator to catch her flight.

"I just heard these voices saying, 'Hey you, hey you, ma'am, stop. Stop -- the lady with the hair, you," she said.

Two TSA agents told her she could not go any further until they checked her hair for explosives, Brantley said.

She said she reluctantly allowed them to do it. The agents patted her hair down right there instead of asking to return to a private area for screening.

"And so she started patting my hair, and I was in tears at that point," Brantley said. "And she was digging in my scalp."

She said the experience was very humiliating.

"I was outraged," Brantley said. "I was humiliated. I was confused."

"TSA's screening procedures are designed to ensure the security of the traveling public," TSA said in a statement. "Additional screening may be required for clothing, headwear or hair where prohibited items could be hidden. This passenger left the checkpoint prior to the completion of the screening process. She was offered but refused private screening."

After the pat-down, Brantley complained to a TSA supervisor at Hartsfield-Jackson who then apologized to her.

"She said, 'Ma'am, please, I promise you, I'm going to take care of it. I'm so sorry that happened to you,'" Brantley said. "And I'm like, 'OK, that's weird.'"

Brantley, who styles hair for a living, frequently travels to style clients across the country. She said has worn her hair naturally for 20 years and has never had her hair checked until Monday's incident.

"They've never done that to me, ever -- never, never, never," she said.

Brantley said she is scared she will be harassed again the next time she flies.

EastEnders B&B fire

EastEnders B&B fire, EastEnders Pat Evans is reportedly set to die in a fire. It was announced earlier this year that Pam St Clement, 63, is leaving the BBC soap after 25 years, and now the Daily Mirror reports a replica of her Albert Square B&B is being built on the show's stunt set at Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire.

A source said: "The last time EastEnders built something on this set was when they set fire to the Queen Vic last year. It is only used when they need to film fires and explosions.

"They want Pam's character to go out with a bang. The script is so top secret even she doesn't know how Pat is going to go yet. But she will be killed off."

The dramatic scenes are set to air at Christmas and it has already been reported that Pat's exit will coincide with the return of her granddaughter Bianca (Patsy Palmer) and stepson Ricky (Sid Owen).

It has also been rumoured that Pat's bad boy sons David and Simon Wicks, played by Michael French and Nick Berry, are set to return to Albert Square. A funeral could be what brings them back.

An EastEnders spokeswoman said: "Although there has been much speculation around Pat's departure, we're not going to comment so as not to spoil the storyline for viewers as this stage."

Video gamers solve AIDS mystery

Video gamers solve AIDS mystery, At last, there is hard evidence that video gamers can help save the real world. A group of scientists, after failing to solve the crystal structure of a protein involved in AIDS, challenged players of the protein-folding game Foldit to try.
The players were able to create what the scientists described as "models of sufficient quality" for the scientists to complete the structure.

The scientists hail from the University of Washington, A. Mickiewicz University in Poland, the Polish Academy of Sciences, and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. The crowdsourcing effort is described in a research paper, "Crystal Structure of a Monomeric Retroviral Protease Solved By Protein Folding Game Players," published in the current issue of Nature.

Five Out of Ten

The problem in defining this particular molecular structure has puzzled scientists for years. Protein folding is important in a variety of diseases, including Alzheimer's, cystic fibrosis, and mad cow disease. Mis-folded proteins have been related to disease, while properly folded ones could, for instance, block the HIV virus.

Foldit is an online collaborative game developed by researchers as a way to harness distributed computing and crowdsourced resources. Players win or lose points by creating viable structures within the established rules. Red balls with spikes, for instance, appear when sections of a protein are too close together, resulting in a loss of points.

In their Nature paper, Seth Cooper of the University of Washington's Center for Game Science, who was the developer of Foldit, said he and his colleagues knew that "top-ranked Foldit players excel at solving challenging structure refinement problems" relating to protein folding, even though the players are not scientists.

Ten puzzles involving protein-folding were introduced into the game, along with a scoring mechanism that related to how the proteins and their components should work. A player could increase a score by successfully re-twisting a protein, for example.

The scientists compared the Foldit results to their protein-folding prediction application, called Rosetta. The results: The collaborative players beat Rosetta on five of 10 protein-folding challenges. On three of the remaining, both efforts led to similar results, and on the other two, Rosetta was technically better but still "basically incorrect," the scientists said.

Collaboration and Competition

One of the most interesting results was how Foldit's process supported both collaboration and competition, resulting in both greater group and individual efforts. The researchers noted that players shared structures and exchanged solutions with their fellow group members, and helped each other out with strategies and tips via chatting and a wiki. Between groups, there was competitive motivation to play more.

Al Hilwa, program director for application development at IDC, called the Foldit effort and similar ones a "tremendous way to harness the power of the crowd, especially gamers, who are perceived to be doing nothing useful" as they spend countless hours solving game-based problems.

Hilwa said that, "once the software and models mature," he thought it "was absolutely possible" that smaller companies could begin using distributed processing and crowdsourced efforts on some commercial basis that would give them access to massive computing without the huge capitalization that is currently required.

Foldit is only one of several collaborative games intended to tap the crowd-based resources of "citizen science." Others include Galaxy Zoo, which uses more than a quarter-million Net-based users to classify hundreds of thousands of galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey; MoonZoo, designed for users ages 9 to 18 to design and build a virtual lunar rover; and SETI@Home, which uses distributed processing to look for intelligent signals from space.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, The military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law for gay personnel is slated to run out as scheduled on Tuesday, the armed forces said, ending a 17-year rule fraught with controversy.

Pentagon spokesman George Little said on Monday that repeal of the law would mean gay and lesbian service members may be open about their sexual orientation, according to the Armed Forces Press Service.

Little said the Defense Department was ready for repeal.

“This is something that has been known for a long time,” he was quoted as saying. “We’ve gone through a process to certify repeal.”

President Barack Obama in December signed a repeal of the ban into law in December. More than 13,000 homosexuals have been expelled from the armed services for revealing their sexual orientation since the policy took effect in 1993 under then-President Bill Clinton.

Little said nearly all service members had taken training associated with the law’s repeal. Recruiters are accepting enlistment applications from openly gay and lesbian applicants, he said.

Three months before Congress passed the repeal, a gay rights group, the Log Cabin Republicans, won a landmark court decision striking down the rule.

The court said the law infringed on the constitutional free-speech and due-process rights of homosexuals in the armed forces.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is weighing whether to affirm or overturn the decision declaring the ban unconstitutional.

Marine Corps Commandant General James Amos argued against the repeal last year, saying lifting the ban could harm troops’ combat effectiveness.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will discuss the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law on Tuesday at a news conference.

Air Canada passengers burned during turbulence

Air Canada passengers burned during turbulence, At least six people on an Air Canada flight sustained various degrees of injuries on Monday when their flight hit turbulence. It is reported that three cabin crew members and at least three passengers suffered various degrees of injuries when the hot coffee in the flight went flying following the turbulence.

Some of the travelers spoke to newsmen after the plane successfully got to its destination. The flight was moving from Vancouver to Australia’s Sydney.

A passenger on the flight told reporters that, “They were serving tea and coffee and then we ran in to some turbulence.” Another passenger explained that, “The coffee cups just went up and sprayed everywhere.”

The injured people were reportedly taken to a hospital in Sydney when the plane landed.

The Australian police are investigating an unrelated incident in the country after two passengers managed to get into the secured area of the Qantas domestic terminal without being checked. The incident has triggered fears about the efficiency of the country’s security at the various airports. Flights were grounded until it was determined that it was safe for the planes to fly again. Four flights were affected by the delay.

via: thaindian

Russian Billionaire Punch

Russian Billionaire Punch, Russian billionaire and British newspaper proprietor Alexander Lebedev hurled punches at a fellow Russian businessman during a television talk show, sending the property developer flying across the studio.Sergei Polonsky, himself a one-time billionaire who lost part of his fortune during the economic crisis, goaded Lebedev on the pre-recorded show, announcing that he would rather punch someone than discuss financial issues with oligarchs.

"Do you want to try it out?" Polonsky said.

Within seconds Lebedev, who owns British newspapers including The Evening Standard and The Independent, jumped up and punched Polonsky three times in the face, throwing Polonsky off his metal stool and sliding alongside the stage.

"I am in shock," a dazed Polonsky later told the show's anchor, who intervened in the brawl and held back a snarling Lebedev.

A host on the show, called "Crisis: The Russian response," said the brawl was a sign of a worsening economic situation.

"If oligarchs are fighting then it means things are not going well and the crisis a very worrying issue," said Yekaterina Gordeyeva, with a slight smile.

Lebedev, 51, is a former Russian spy who made billions trading stocks and bonds after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. Polonsky was on the Forbes billionaires list in 2008 but was knocked off during the economic crisis, which hit Russia harder than many other emerging countries.

Six tonne satellite falling to earth

Six tonne satellite falling to earth, London: A six-tonne satellite, launched in 1991 and which completed its mission in 2005, will now fall out of orbit. Its debris would possible spread over large parts of Britain, Europe, North and South America and Asia, NASA has said.

The $750 million Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS), launched to study climate change, will fall in a few weeks, The Telegraph reported.

Though NASA said the risk to public safety from the satellite was "extremely small", officials are concerned about the risk to billions of people when the satellite starts falling uncontrolled out of orbit.

A major chunk of the satellite will burn up after entering Earth's atmosphere, but more than half a tonne of metal will survive, NASA said.

While NASA did not know the exact areas it will fall, the projected danger zone has been narrowed to areas between 57 degrees north and 57 degrees south of the Equator.

Six-tonne satellite to fall from orbit
These areas cover six continents and billions of people and three oceans.

Gene Stansbery, NASA's orbital debris chief said: "Things have been re-entering ever since the dawn of the space age. To date nobody has been injured by anything that's re-entered. That doesn't mean we're not concerned."

Six-tonne satellite to fall from orbit
The satellite, launched by space shuttle Discovery in 1991, is 35 feet long, 15 feet in diameter, weighs 13,000 pounds, and carries 10 instruments. It was designed to operate for three years but six of its 10 instruments are still working. It ran out of fuel in 2005.

Source: zeenews

Sperm bank Cryos turns down redheads

Sperm bank Cryos turns down redheads, The world’s largest sperm bank has started turning down redheaded donors because there is too little demand for their sperm.

Ole Schou, Cryos’s director, said that there had been a surge in donations in recent years, allowing the facility to become much more picky about its donors.

“There are too many redheads in relation to demand,” he told told Danish newspaper Ekstrabladet. “I do not think you chose a redhead, unless the partner – for example, the sterile male – has red hair, or because the lone woman has a preference for redheads. And that’s perhaps not so many, especially in the latter case.”

Mr Schou said the only reliable demand for sperm from redheaded donors was from Ireland, where he said it sold “like hot cakes”…

Cryos pays donors up to $500, and sends its semen to over 65 countries worldwide.

James Carville panic advice

James Carville panic advice, ames Carville advises President Obama to “panic” after Tuesday’s two special election results resulted in victory for the Republicans. Carville wrote an open letter in a CNN op-ed, giving Obama advice on how to halt the GOP’s momentum and win re-election.

Carville said Democrats are “past sending out talking points” and said he would tell the president, “The time has come to demand a plan of action that requires a complete change from the direction you are headed.”

Carville’s letter is titled: “Fire. Indict. Fight.”

He wrote that first, Obama must fire someone – “No, fire a lot of people,” he corrected himself – because the current team is just not working.

“It's time to show [your economic analysts] the exit. Wake up – show us you are doing something,” Carville demanded of the president.

Chip Saltsman, former campaign manager for Mike Huckabee, told The Christian Post that “as much as it pains” him to do so, he has to agree with Carville.

“The White House has not been involved. He’s got real leadership problems. This was evident in the debt ceiling debate as the President seemed to have taken a back seat.”

“Up until this week with his jobs plan, Obama hasn’t really led on anything this year. I don’t agree with his jobs proposal, but at least he’s finally doing something,” Saltsman said.

Saltsman said that when Rahm Emanuel was in the White House, the President had a legislative agenda. However, he said, since Emanuel left, Obama doesn’t seem very involved at all when it comes to happenings on the Hill.

After Obama fires “a lot of people,” Carville wrote that indictments need to happen because American people need to see that certain responsible parties are held accountable for bringing the United States into economic disaster.

“I know Attorney General Eric Holder is a close friend of yours, but if his explanations aren't good, fire him too. Demand answers to why no one has been indicted,” the letter said.

“Do not accept excuses. Demand action now.”

Carville’s third piece of advice to Obama was to make a valid case against the GOP and hold fast to the explanation as to why things are better under his leadership.

If Obama follows these terms, he may have a shot at stopping one of those “creationism-loving, global-warming-denying, immigration-bashing, Social-Security-cutting, clean-air-hating, mortality-fascinated, Wall-Street-protecting Republicans” from running the country,” Carville said.

“The course we are on is not working. The hour is late, and the need is great. Fire. Indict. Fight.”

Source: christianpost

iPhone 5 arriving by mid-October

iPhone 5 arriving by mid-October, The New York Times ran a piece Thursday saying that the next iPhone is "just weeks away," citing "an Apple employee who asked not to be named because he was not allowed to speak publicly for the company." Meanwhile, according to TechCrunch, the CEO of France Telecom is saying the phone's launch date is Oct. 15 — for France at least.

Seth Weintraub at 9to5Mac says that he's heard there will be two phones, an iPhone 5 and an "aggressively priced" version of the iPhone 4, available by Oct. 7.

Our thinking has been that the unveiling event will probably happen on Oct. 3 or 4, and then the phone would be available within two weeks of that. These nuggets corroborate that assumption pretty nicely, especially since iPhone availability in France could easily be later than in the U.S.

The Times' Nick Bilton goes on to say that "an engineer familiar with the new iPhone" told him it would be "fairly different" than the iPhone 4, with an 8-megapixel camera and an A5 dual-core processor, as we suspected. Furthermore, Bilton writes that sources told him that either this phone or the next one will contain a telecom chip made by Qualcomm which includes near-field communication (NFC). This turns the phone into a so-called "digital wallet," that can be waved over a sensor to make a credit-card payment, for example. Google's Nexus S phone already has NFC built in.

Weintraub says that the new iPhone should be quite attractive:

The iPhone 5 itself is a sight to behold, we’ve been told. It is impossibly light, yet much firmer than Samsung Galaxy phones which are backed in plastic. The camera rivals point and shoot cameras and will be a major marketing point for this device.

It's worth noting that while nobody seems to confirm or deny it, the iPhone 5 name dominates the coverage, while the earlier rumored iPhone 4S name is nowhere to be found. Perhaps the lower end model will be renamed iPhone 4S, but that doesn't quite make sense because it's supposed to be cheaper than the current iPhone, so why would it be faster?

While all the latest millings seem to match previous iPhone 5 rumors, there is some alleged production trouble. According to Weintraub, at least on one assembly line is "seeing continued design and production delays," which could cause delays or at least shortages "all the way into 2012."

So if you really want an iPhone, you had better check your camping gear, because you might end up sleeping outside your local Apple Store in the coming weeks.

Source: technolog