NASA Balloon Crashes in Australia

Sad video of that balloon crash on April 29, 2010...

Gamma ray astronomy took a hit today, when a balloon carrying a NASA telescope toward space crashed back to Earth, sideswiping an SUV, narrowly missing onlookers, and wrecking its rather pricey payload.

The "other" ABC, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, caught video of the failure to launch

Gamma ray astronomy took a hit today, when a balloon carrying a NASA telescope toward space crashed back to Earth, sideswiping an SUV, narrowly missing onlookers, and wrecking its rather pricey payload.

The "other" ABC, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, caught video of the failure to launch:



via NASA Balloon Crashes in Australia - Breaking Orbit.

That's "moorings", not "mornings". A mooring is "a structure designed to hold airships and blimps securely in the open when they are not in flight."

Russian president asked to investigate alien claims

A Russian MP has asked President Dmitry Medvedev to investigate claims by a regional president that he has met aliens on board a spaceship.

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the leader of the southern region of Kalmykia, made his claim in a television interview.

MP Andre Lebedev is not just asking whether Mr Ilyumzhinov is fit to govern.

He is also concerned that, if he was abducted, he may have revealed details about his job and state secrets.

The MP has written a letter to Mr Medvedev raising a list of his concerns.

In his letter he says that - assuming the whole thing was not just a bad joke - it was an historic event and should have been reported to the Kremlin.

He also asks if there are official guidelines for what government officials should do if contacted by aliens, especially if those officials have access to state secrets.

Mr Ilyumzhinov said in an interview on primetime television that he had been taken on board an alien spaceship which had come to planet Earth to take samples - and claims to have several witnesses.

He has been president of Kalmykia, a small Buddhist region of Russia which lies on the shores of the Caspian Sea, for 17 years.

The millionaire former businessman has a reputation as an eccentric character.

As president of the World Chess Federation, he has spent tens of millions of dollars turning the impoverished republic into a mecca for chess players - building an entire village to host international tournaments.

via BBC News - Russian president asked to investigate alien claims.

How Capt. Kirk Changed the World

"Standard orbit, Mr. Sulu." Captain Kirk barks out the order with such confidence. He knows the USS Enterprise can slip in and out of planetary orbits with ease. But it's only easy in the realm of science fiction. In the real world, such maneuvers have been impossible --until now.

Enter Dawn, NASA's cutting edge mission to the asteroid belt.

Powered with a futuristic sounding new technology called "ion propulsion," this spacecraft will perform space moves rivaling those of the Enterprise.

At this very moment, Dawn is slowly climbing away from the sun, beyond Mars, on its way to its first destination, asteroid Vesta. Dawn will enter "standard orbit" around this rocky world for a year, exploring its mysteries.

Then Dawn will do something unprecedented in real-world spaceflight: exit the orbit of one distant body, and fly to and orbit another. The second destination is asteroid Ceres.

"Dawn will be the first spacecraft ever built to orbit two target bodies after leaving Earth," says Marc Rayman, Dawn chief engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "There's not even a concept for doing such a mission with conventional propulsion systems. The spacecraft would have to carry so much fuel, it would be too heavy to launch."

Instead, Dawn relies on ion propulsion, which doesn't require a huge spacecraft. Rayman first heard the term years ago while watching – you guessed it -- Star Trek.

via How Capt. Kirk Changed the World - NASA Science.

Elvis Presley's Doctor Claims He Died of an 'Embarrassing' Case of Chronic Constipation

It has been widely reported that Elvis Presley died in 1977 from cardiac arrhythmia, an irregular heartbeat, possibly brought on by drug dependency, obesity and a weak heart. But the music legend's longtime friend and physician, Dr. George “Nick” Nichopoulos, has put pen to paper for the first time and revealed his belief that it was chronic constipation that actually killed the King of Rock and Roll.

“After he died we weren’t sure (of the exact cause of death) so I continued to do some research and I had some doctors call me from different places and different med schools that were doing research on constipation and different problems you can get into with it. I just want to get the story straight – it all made sense with the new research that was done,” the now retired Memphis M.D told Pop Tarts. "Dr. Nick" was by Presley's side for the last twelve years of his life and tried to resuscitate him the day he died. He recently released the book “The King and Dr. Nick” about his time with The King, and his theory on the death that shocked America.

“We didn’t realize until the autopsy that his constipation was as bad – we knew it was bad because it was hard for us to treat, but we didn’t realize what it had done," the doctor explains of Elvis' condition. "We just assumed that the constipation was secondary to the meds that he was taking for his arthritic pain and for his insomnia.”

According to Dr. Nick, the autopsy revealed that Presley’s colon was 5 to 6 inches in diameter (whereas the normal width is 2 to 3 inches) and instead of being the standard 4 to 5 feet long, his colon was 8 to 9 feet in length.

“The constipation upset him quite a bit because Elvis thought that he could handle almost anything, he thought he was really a man’s man and he wasn’t going to let something like this … he thought that this was a sign of weakness and he wasn’t going to be weak,” Nichopoulos said. “And it’s not the kind of thing you table talk. Back in the ‘60s and ‘70s you didn’t’ talk about constipation much, you didn’t’ hear people complaining about it, or saying what they did or how much trouble they had with it.”

In 1975, the primary treatment for this kind of problem involved removing part of the colon, known as a colostomy, and at the time Dr. Nick was in talks with a surgeon at the University of Memphis to perform the procedure. However Presley’s “ego” got in the way.

“He would get embarrassed, he’d have accidents onstage. He’d have to change clothes and come back because of the way we were trying to treat his constipation,” Nichopoulos said. “So if they had done the colostomy then, he’d probably still be here. But it wasn’t acceptable treatment at that time. Now the treatment is short.”

Nichopoulos also believes that Presley’s prominent weight gain in the years prior to his death, was not a result of overeating or eating the wrong foods, as they initially assumed. The doctor reveals that Elvis' bloated appearance was due to his severe constipation.

“It was really a physiological problem. During the last few years we were going back and comparing pictures, some of them were taken just two weeks a part but he looked like he’d gained 20 pounds when the only difference was that he had a good healthy bowel movement and then lost a lot of weight from that,” Dr. Nick explained. “Usually you pass it all in two or three days, but at the autopsy we found stool in his colon which had been there for four or five months because of the poor motility of the bowel.”  ...

via FOXNews.com - EXCLUSIVE: Elvis Presley's Doctor Claims He Died of an 'Embarrassing' Case of Chronic Constipation.

SETI: Handling a Detection

SETI continues to look for signals of extraterrestrial civilizations. What happens if a signal is actually detected? For the answer, we can look to the SETI Post-Detection Taskgroup, created by the SETI Permanent Study Group of the IAA (International Academy of Astronautics). The Taskgroup’s job is to look at what would happen if we do get a confirmed detection. Understand that we’re talking about a group that is purely advisory in nature, but one whose insights may help scientists. It’s an impressive group whose members are listed here.

Step one is obvious. The reception of a signal would be met with the Taskgroup urging its discoverer to evaluate its authenticity beyond any shadow of a doubt. If it is genuine, the Taskgroup then advises that details be disclosed to the astronomical community first, beginning with the International Astronomical Union (IAU), which would then pass the news along to the United Nations and other govermental bodies. The discoverer would then be free to call a press conference to announce the finding, and soon the airways and computer networks would be filled with discussion.

Paul Davies runs through all this in his book The Eerie Silence (Davies is currently Chair of the Taskgroup, so he’s an unusually good source). And he notes that this calm procedure would likely be a good deal messier in practice:

The discoverer may be deliberately uncooperative or overawed and disoriented by the magnitude of events. There may be more than one person and one country involved. The news might leak out ahead of the formal diplomatic steps… Also, there is nothing to stop an astronomer who detects a signal out of the blue from going straight to the press or to her or his government, or any other organization, bypassing our Taskgroup altogether.

Handling Our Response

Davies goes on to say that despite all this, the most likely scenario is one involving a detection that occurs within the SETI community, and in that case the Taskgroup protocol is likely to be followed. You can read more in the Declaration of Principles Concerning Activities Following the Detection of Extraterrestrial Intelligence, written in 1989, which runs through the above steps.

via SETI: Handling a Detection.

I highly recommend the book After Contact by Al Harrison, a psychology professor involved with SETI.

Toxic Oil Dispersant Used in Gulf Despite Better Alternative

British Petroleum and government disaster-relief agencies are using a toxic chemical to disperse oil in the Gulf of Mexico, even though a better alternative appears to be available.

As the Deepwater Horizon oil spill spreads, BP and the U.S. Coast Guard have conducted tests with Corexit 9500, a chemical designed to break oil slicks into globules that are more quickly consumed by bacteria or sink into the water column before hitting shore.

The decision has been a controversial one. A few scientists think dispersants are mostly useful as public relations strategy, as they make the oil slick invisible, even though oil particles continue to do damage. Others consider Corexit the lesser of two evils: It’s known to be highly toxic, adding to the harm caused by oil, but at least it will concentrate damage at sea, sparing sensitive and highly productive coastal areas. Better to sacrifice the deep sea than the shorelines.

But even as these arguments continue, with 230,000 gallons of Corexit on tap and more commissioned by BP, a superior alternative could be left on the shelf.

Called Dispersit, it’s manufactured by the U.S. Polychemical Corporation and has been approved for use by the Environmental Protection Agency. Both Corexit and Dispersit were tested by the EPA, and according to those results, Corexit was 54.7 percent effective at breaking down crude oil from the Gulf, and Dispersit was 100 percent effective.

Not only did Corexit do a worse job of dispersing oil, but it was three times as lethal to silverfish – used as a benchmark organism in toxicity testing — and more than twice as lethal to shrimp, another benchmark organism and an important part of Gulf fisheries.

As for why Corexit is being used instead of Dispersit, authorities haven’t yet said. According to the Protect the Ocean blog, U.S. Polychemical executive Bruce Gebhardt said the government had used Corexit before, and was sticking with what it already knows. Corexit makes up most dispersant stockpiles in the United States for this reason, though dispersant manufacture can be easily ramped up.

In a 1999 letter, the U.S. Coast Guard told U.S. Polychemical that “product information from planning mode evaluations remain on file to facilitate rapid review in the context of a spill.” In that same year, the EPA added Dispersit to the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan, which determines what will be considered for use in an oil spill.

Relief agencies were not immediately available for comment about Dispersit. I

via Toxic Oil Dispersant Used in Gulf Despite Better Alternative | Wired Science | Wired.com.

Six-year-old saved from dropping to his death by his ears

A six-year-old Chinese boy was saved from dropping eight storeys by his ears when he was left dangling from window bars outside his home.

Ming Ming, managed to get his head stuck in the bars of his home in Yichang, China.

But rather than fall through completely, he became lodged between the grate due to his ears sticking out.

The boy is believed to have woken up alone after his grandfather left his home temporarily to run an errand. When he woke up, he is then thought to have fallen from the window while looking for his grandfather.

Crowds gathered after hearing the boy screaming and recuers were able to save him. Firefighters were able to use a hydraulic pressure expander to force the bars apart and pull him back into his apartment.

One witness said: "The only thing stopping him from plunging to the ground below was the fact hsi head was trapped between two window bars."

Fire service spokesman Wang Shen said: "He could have fallen to the ground - or have been suffocated - at any minute".

via Six-year-old saved from dropping to his death by his ears - Telegraph.

Experts astounded by 'city of gonads' jellyfish

Tasmanian scientists have discovered a new species of jellyfish in Hobart's River Derwent and given it a sexy name.

The species is only a few millimetres wide and scientists say it looks like a flying saucer with a cluster of gonads, or sex organs, on top.

Scientists discovered the jellyfish while surveying the waters outside the CSIRO in Hobart.

The new species has been named Csiromedusa medeopolis, meaning "jellyfish from CSIRO" and "city of gonads".

Launceston jellyfish expert Lisa-Ann Gershwin says it is an astounding discovery.

"It's absolutely different from every other jellyfish that's ever been known," Dr Gershwin said.

"So we not only put it into its own new species and its own new genus, but it's actually a brand new family."

Dr Gershwin says the find is also tremendously exciting.

"Quite possibly and quite humbly the greatest discovery of my career, ever. I mean I'll be lucky if I ever get a discovery even half as incredible again," she said.

"You know any mum with a new bub is always excited, but when you have a whole family of new bubs I think it's triply exciting."

Dr Gershwin says the jellyfish is harmless to humans.

via Experts astounded by 'city of gonads' jellyfish - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).

World's biggest beaver dam discovered in northern Canada

A Canadian ecologist has discovered the world's largest beaver dam in a remote area of northern Alberta, an animal-made structure so large it is visible from space.

Researcher Jean Thie said Wednesday he used satellite imagery and Google Earth software to locate the dam, which is about 850 metres (2,800 feet) long on the southern edge of Wood Buffalo National Park.

Average beaver dams in Canada are 10 to 100 metres long, and only rarely do they reach 500 metres.

First discovered in October 2007, the gigantic dam is located in a virtually inaccessible part of the park south of Lac Claire, about 190 kilometres (120 miles) northeast of Fort McMurray.

Construction of the dam likely started in the mid-1970s, said Thie, who made his discovery quite by accident while tracking melting permafrost in Canada's far north.

"Several generations of beavers worked on it and it's still growing," he told AFP in Ottawa.

Mike Keizer, spokesman for the park, said rangers flew over the heavily forested marshlands last year to try to "have a look." They found significant vegetation growing on the dam itself, suggesting it's very old, he said.

"A new dam would have a lot of fresh sticks," Keizer explained. "This one has grasses growing on it and it's very green." ...

via World's biggest beaver dam discovered in northern Canada.

Archaeologists in Egypt Find Ptolemaic King Statue

Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered a 2,000-year-old granite statue of a Ptolemaic-era king near what is believed to be the tomb of Egyptian Queen Cleopatra.

A statement from Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities says the headless statue was discovered at the temple of Taposiris Magna, west of the coastal city of Alexandria.

The ancient Egyptian temple is believed to be the burial site of Cleopatra and her lover, Mark Antony.

The head of the Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, says the statue could belong to King Ptolemy IV. Hawass says it represents the traditional shape of an ancient Egyptian king wearing a collar and kilt.

The archeology team, led by Hawass and Dominican archeologist Kathleen Martinez, has spent the last five years trying to locate Cleopatra and Mark Antony's final resting place. The Egyptian queen and her lover supposedly committed suicide after their defeat at the battle of Actium.

The archeologists say they also have discovered the original entrance to the temple of Taposiris Magna on its western side. They say there is evidence the entrance to the temple was lined with a series of sphinx statues similar to those of the pharaonic era.

via Archaeologists in Egypt Find Ptolemaic King Statue.

How do they know it is not a fake? Could modern artists make things like this and create false antiquities?

Zimbabwe - laughter course to cope with the economy

Two women are planning to set up laughter clubs in Zimbabwe, one of the world's most challenging economies.

Shilpa Shah and Celina Stockill believe they will help people cope with the strains of Zimbabwean life.

They recently held workshops at the Harare International Festival of the Arts, with a range of exercises to encourage good hearty laughter.

"If you laugh - you change; and when you change - the world changes," said laughter trainer Ms Shah.

"So it's peace to the world, laughter to Zimbabwe, so let's share the happiness and spread the happy-demic."

At their workshops, Ms Shah and Ms Stockhill encourage people to hold hands, make funny faces at each other and lie on the floor and kick their legs in the air.

They also ask them to pull their empty pockets out to laugh at each other's lack of cash, and to point and laugh at themselves.

"We need to laugh more, especially in our situation in Zimbabwe - being poor, you've got to learn to laugh," said one man at a recent workshop.

Last year a unity government halted the collapse of Zimbabwe's economy - which left the Zimbabwean dollar almost worthless - by allowing the use of foreign currency.

But it has meant that those without access to hard currency are often in a desperate situation.

'No sense of humour'

The mood in the workshop quickly moved from quiet anticipation to an explosion of mirth and merriment.

"You don't have to have a reason to laugh; you don't have to be happy to laugh," said Ms Shah.

"And you don't have to have a sense of humour to laugh."

Ms Stockhill says laughter has many health benefits, and she passionately believes that people should aim for 10 minutes of hearty laughter a day.

"There are three benefits - emotional, physical and mental. We release stress by laughing, we activate our lymphatic system and it's a very strong cardio work-out."

"It helps your digestive system and your reproductive system - it's a big 'on' button, whereas stress is a big 'off' button. ...

via BBC News - Zimbabwe - laughter course to cope with the economy.

Ha!

Woman with no arms goes for black belt

Sheila Radziewicz has been beating the odds since birth.

"I was not supposed to live," she said. "Then I wasn't ever supposed to walk."

Because of a congenital birth defect, she was born without arms. She also came into the world without kneecaps and with her feet rotated in, toward each other.

She endured multiple surgeries as a young girl, all aimed at helping her walk. Until she was in junior high, Radziewicz had to wear metal braces that stopped at the top of her thigh, similar to the ones the character Forrest Gump wore in the movie.

Today, Radziewicz, 32, is not only walking, she is kicking. And next month she will test for her black belt in taekwondo.

Reaching such heights in the realm of martial arts is laudable for anyone. For Radziewicz to do it is nearly a miracle.

"I grew up with the phrase, 'The impossible only takes a little longer,'" she said.

She walked into Bruce McCorry's Martial Arts in Peabody three years ago. Since then, the Route 1 studio has turned into a second home for Radziewicz, and her instructors and classmates have become an extended family.

Radziewicz appreciated being treated like any other student, not as a person with disabilities. Her teachers, meanwhile, were awed by her determination.

"She is a very motivating person for myself," said McCorry, who has never had a student like Radziewicz in his 32 years operating a karate academy. "There are no excuses, in other words."

via Woman with no arms goes for black belt » Local News » SalemNews.com, Salem, MA.

Earth Could Become Too Hot for Humans

Earth's current warming trend could bring deadly heat for humans.

A new study that looked at reasonable worst-case scenarios for global warming found that if greenhouse gases continue to be emitted at their current rate, temperatures could become deadly in coming centuries.

Researchers calculated the highest tolerable "wet-bulb" temperature — equivalent to what is felt when wet skin is exposed to moving air — and found that this temperature could be exceeded for the first time in human history if greenhouse gas emissions continue at their current rate and future climate models are correct. Temperatures this unbearable for humans haven’t been seen during the existence of hominids — the primate family that includes ancient humans — but they did occur about 50 million years ago.

Exposure to wet-bulb temperatures above 95 degrees for six hours or more will create lethal stress levels in humans and other mammals, said study team member Matthew Huber of Purdue University’s earth and atmospheric sciences.

Huber said that while areas of the world regularly see temperatures above 100 degrees, really high wet-bulb temperatures are rare because the hottest areas of the planet normally have low humidity — think Arizona’s dry heat. Areas of the world such as Saudi Arabia have the highest wet-bulb temperatures near the coast where winds occasionally bring extremely hot, humid ocean air over hot land leading to unbearably stifling conditions.

"The wet-bulb limit is basically the point at which one would overheat even if they were naked in the shade, soaking wet and standing in front of a large fan," said Steven Sherwood of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, Australia and the study’s lead author. "Although we are very unlikely to reach such temperatures this century, they could happen in the next."

The study did not address how likely this worst-case scenario is, only that it is possible based on so-called business-as-usual warming models, which make projections assuming that greenhouse gases continue to be emitted at the rate they are today.

"We found that a warming of 12 degrees Fahrenheit (roughly 7 degrees Celsius) would cause some areas of the world to surpass the wet-bulb temperature limit, and a 21-degree warming would put half of the world's population in an uninhabitable environment," Huber said. ...

via Earth Could Become Too Hot for Humans | LiveScience.

Now it is the scientists turn to offer visions of hell if we don't change our ways.

Zettabytes Now Needed to Describe Global Data Overload

Humankind will generate over one sextillion bytes of digital information this year, surging into the realm of the "zettabyte" as we create ever more electronic data.

In 2010, 1.2 zettabytes of digital information will be created, according to a new "Digital Universe" study from IDC sponsored by IT firm EMC Corporation.

A zettabyte is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes (that's 21 zeroes for those counting).

A byte is a unit typically consisting of eight "binary digits," or bits. Bits are either a one or a zero and represent the basic building blocks of digital information.

For a comparison, an MP3 song file is about five megabytes, or five million bytes (six zeroes), and a gigabyte – a still decent-sized chuck of information at about 200 songs – is a billion bytes, or nine zeroes.

Put another way, one zettabyte equals one trillion gigabytes, or a playlist of approximately four-minute-long MP3s – assuming about a megabyte per minute – that might last you until the year 1,902,589,529 give or take a few thousand thousand millennia if you opt more for two-minute Ramones tunes versus Tool prog-rock opuses.

Gone digital

The rapid expansion of this digital universe is courtesy of the boom in recent years of online video sites such as YouTube, social networking sites such as Facebook, plus reams of digital photography stored at Flickr and cell phone-produced data piles.

Even during the recession of 2009, the glut of digital information expanded 62 percent over the previous year to 800 billion gigabytes.

As we officially enter the zettabyte era, we leave behind last year's 800 exabyte-mark (a quintillion bytes, or 18 zeroes), blow past the petabyte (a quadrillion, or 15 zeroes), and trounce the terabyte (a trillion, or 12 zeroes).

Zetta what?

According to the study, and as one might have guessed, 1.2 zettabytes is a heck of a lot of data.

A zettabyte-plus would just fit on 75 billion of the 16 gigabyte-version of Apple's iPad. If all these tablet computers were jammed together, they would fill the Dallas Cowboys' new monster stadium all the way up to the dome enclosure almost 16 times. ...

via Zettabytes Now Needed to Describe Global Data Overload | LiveScience.

Fears for crops as shock figures from America show scale of bee catastrophe

Disturbing evidence that honeybees are in terminal decline has emerged from the United States where, for the fourth year in a row, more than a third of colonies have failed to survive the winter.

The decline of the country's estimated 2.4 million beehives began in 2006, when a phenomenon dubbed colony collapse disorder (CCD) led to the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of colonies. Since then more than three million colonies in the US and billions of honeybees worldwide have died and scientists are no nearer to knowing what is causing the catastrophic fall in numbers.

The number of managed honeybee colonies in the US fell by 33.8% last winter, according to the annual survey by the Apiary Inspectors of America and the US government's Agricultural Research Service (ARS).

The collapse in the global honeybee population is a major threat to crops. It is estimated that a third of everything we eat depends upon honeybee pollination, which means that bees contribute some £26bn to the global economy.

Potential causes range from parasites, such as the bloodsucking varroa mite, to viral and bacterial infections, pesticides and poor nutrition stemming from intensive farming methods. The disappearance of so many colonies has also been dubbed "Mary Celeste syndrome" due to the absence of dead bees in many of the empty hives.

US scientists have found 121 different pesticides in samples of bees, wax and pollen, lending credence to the notion that pesticides are a key problem. "We believe that some subtle interactions between nutrition, pesticide exposure and other stressors are converging to kill colonies," said Jeffery Pettis, of the ARS's bee research laboratory.

A global review of honeybee deaths by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) reported last week that there was no one single cause, but pointed the finger at the "irresponsible use" of pesticides that may damage bee health and make them more susceptible to diseases. Bernard Vallat, the OIE's director-general, warned: "Bees contribute to global food security, and their extinction would represent a terrible biological disaster."

Dave Hackenberg of Hackenberg Apiaries, the Pennsylvania-based commercial beekeeper who first raised the alarm about CCD, said that last year had been the worst yet for bee losses, with 62% of his 2,600 hives dying between May 2009 and April 2010. "It's getting worse," he said. "The AIA survey doesn't give you the full picture because it is only measuring losses through the winter. In the summer the bees are exposed to lots of pesticides. Farmers mix them together and no one has any idea what the effects might be."

Pettis agreed that losses in some commercial operations are running at 50% or greater. "Continued losses of this magnitude are not economically sustainable for commercial beekeepers," he said, adding that a solution may be years away. "Look at Aids, they have billions in research dollars and a causative agent and still no cure. Research takes time and beehives are complex organisms." ...

via Fears for crops as shock figures from America show scale of bee catastrophe | Environment | The Observer.

War Against a Wind-Rich Super Grid

After several years of debate, a coalition has emerged around the idea of a strong national electric grid, centrally planned and broadly financed, that would promote renewable energy. The group includes giant investor-owned utilities, public power entities, influential elected officials of both parties and state energy officials, and they speak with a single voice.And they oppose it.

The group, the Coalition for Fair Transmission Policy, founded in January, is trying to block the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission from approving a series of major transmission paths from wind-rich areas in the middle of the continent to load centers all over and then spreading the cost of the new lines around the whole country.

“It is fundamentally about fairness,’’ said Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, who hosted a panel discussion on Tuesday with Senator Robert Corker, Republican of Tennessee, to denounce such a plan.

Senator Wyden compared such power lines to gas pipelines or telephone lines that would carry fuel and traffic between New York and California but might pass through Oregon, “with no direct benefit to the people in my state.’’ The people in between, he said, should not pay.

Earlier this year Senator Corker successfully offered an amendment to an energy bill at the committee level that would require that payment for transmission improvements be made by those who benefit.

But the coalition went further. “Voluntary interconnection-wide coordination should be a complement to, and not a substitute for, local and regional processes,’’ the group said.

New transmission lines should be considered case by case and billed to the generators that would be hooked up to the new transmission or to the customers who would use the power, it said.

That approach seems counter to three studies in the last two years that propose a transmission “overlay.’’ This would be somewhat like an interstate highway system added to a network of local roads and would turn electricity from a product that is mostly locally produced and locally consumed into a national commodity.

The most recent of the studies, produced for the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory at the beginning of the year, stressed that wind power would become more valuable as it was dispersed around the country and connected with powerful grid links. Once wind was available from all over the country, it explained, production levels would average out and a steady supply could be predicted. ...

via War Against a Wind-Rich Super Grid - Green Blog - NYTimes.com.

Store cameras record every move you make, every interest you take. Tracking outstrips protections

Cameras that can follow you from the minute you enter a store to the moment you hit the checkout counter, recording every T-shirt you touch, every mannequin you ogle, every time you blow your nose or stop to tie your shoelaces.

Web coupons embedded with bar codes that can identify, and alert retailers to, the search terms you used to find them and, in some cases, even your Facebook information and your name.

Mobile marketers that can find you near a store clothing rack, and send ads to your cellphone based on your past preferences and behavior.

To be sure, such retail innovations help companies identify their most profitable client segments, better predict the deals shoppers will pursue, fine-tune customer service down to a person and foster brand loyalty. (My colleagues Stephanie Rosenbloom and Stephanie Clifford have written in detail about the tracking prowess of store cameras and Web coupons.)

But these and other surveillance techniques are also reminders that advances in data collection are far outpacing personal data protection.

Enter the post-privacy society, where we have lost track of how many entities are tracking us. Not to mention what they are doing with our personal information, how they are storing it, whom they might be selling our dossiers to and, yes, how much money they are making from them.

On the way out, consumer advocates say, is that quaint old notion of informed consent, in which a company clearly notifies you of its policies and gives you the choice of whether to opt in (rather than having you opt out once you discover your behavior is being tracked).

“How does notice and choice work when you don’t even interface with the company that has your data?” says Jessica Rich, a deputy director of the bureau of consumer protection at the Federal Trade Commission.

via Slipstream - Consumer Tracking Outstrips Protections - NYTimes.com.

Bedbound by boobs: Julia Manihuari has operation. Amazing before and after photos

A mother-of-four who was left bedbound for six months because of her N cup breasts has had an operation to remove [35 pounds] of flesh from her chest.

Peruvian Julia Manihuari's chest started growing seven years ago after the birth of her third son, until they reached a size N, leaving her unable to move.

'It was awful,' said Mrs Manihuari, 29, who lives in a rural area of Peru near Loreto. 'If I tried to get up I would faint because my breasts were so heavy.'

The farmer's wife, who is only 5ft, was finally helped when local media paid for her to take a three-day boat journey to the nearest town to seek medical help.

Mrs Manihuari and her husband Ascension were flown to the capital Lima where doctors diagnosed an extreme form of Bilateral Gynecomastia, an illness where the mammary gland keeps growing.

Doctors at the Loayza Archbishop Hospital were worried the weight of her chest could crush her lungs and kill her.

Mrs Manihuari was rushed in for a six-hour operation, during which she had [35 pounds] of flesh removed from her chest.

Doctors reduced her chest to a 34B cup, giving the 29-year-old back her freedom after the operation a month ago.

via Bedbound by boobs: Julia Manihuari has operation to remove 2.5st of flesh | Mail Online.

Strange exits: Chef dies after eel insertion prank

A CHEF has died after an EEL was put up his bum.

Shocked doctors in Sichuan, China, found the sea creature in the 59-year-old man's rectum after his death, it has been reported.

The 50cm long Asian swamp eel was allegedly inserted into the unnamed man's bottom, after he passed out drunk, by pals playing a prank on him.

Medics said the eel had devoured his bowels.

via Chef dies after feeling eel | The Sun |News.

German man 'marries' his dying cat

A German man has unofficially married his cat after the animal fell ill and vets told him it might not live much longer, Bild newspaper reports.

It says Uwe Mitzscherlich, 39, paid an actress 300 euros (£260,$395) to officiate at the ceremony, as marrying an animal is illegal in Germany.

Mr Mitzscherlich said he had wanted to tie the knot before his asthmatic cat Cecilia died.

The cat and groom have lived together for 10 years.

"Cecilia is such a trusting creature. We cuddle all the time and she has always slept in my bed," Mr Mitzscherlich, a postman from the eastern town of Possendorf, told Bild.

Actress Christin-Maria Lohri, who officiated the ceremony, was quoted as saying: "At first I thought it was a joke. But for Mr Mitzscherlich it's a dream come true".

via BBC News - German man 'marries' his dying cat.