The "News" thread.

[Buster's Uncle]

Deaf Twins Going Blind Euthanized
By Russell Goldman | ABC News – 23 hrs ago.. .


Two deaf twin brothers in Belgium were euthanized by their doctor after realizing they were going blind and would be unable to see each other ever again, their physician says.
 
The 45-year-old men, whose names have not been made public, were legally put to death by lethal injection at the Brussels University Hospital in Jette, on Dec. 14.
 
The men, who were born deaf, had a cup of coffee and said goodbye to other family members before walking into hospital room together to die, their doctor told Belgian television station RTL.
 
"They were very happy. It was a relief to see the end of their suffering," said Dr. David Dufour.
 
"They had a cup of coffee in the hall. It went well and a rich conversation. Then the separation from their parents and brother was very serene and beautiful," he said. "At the last there was a little wave of their hands and then they were gone,"
 
More than 1,000 people legally availed themselves of doctor-assisted deaths in Belgium in 2011, most of them were terminally ill cancer patients.
 
The brothers are unique in that their illness was not terminal. Belgian law, however, allows doctors to euthanize "suffering" patients who are both mentally sound, over 18 and want to die.
 
Belgian lawmakers are considering a law that would extend euthanasia to dementia patients and children, whose families and doctors consented.

http://news.yahoo.com/deaf-twins-going-blind-euthanized-165500992--abc-news-topstories.html

[Unorthodox]

:b: 

I'm actually for euthanizing folks. 

Sad we can spare dogs pain but not people. 

[Unorthodox]

http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/wireStory/erratic-bat-behavior-smokies-18219060

Officials in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park caution that there have been numerous reports of bats acting erratically and caution people to avoid contact with them.

Park biologists say bats should be hibernating now, but some have been seen flying in erratic ways during the day and diving toward people.

Bats can carry diseases, including rabies. Any skin-to-skin contact is dangerous. Heath officials say people who have touched bats should seek immediate medical advice.

Unusual bat activity inside the park should be reported to rangers. Erratic behavior elsewhere should be reported to state wildlife officials.

[Unorthodox]

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/15/16533328-boeing-787-dreamliner-makes-emergency-landing-in-japan?lite

TOKYO - A Boeing 787 Dreamliner headed for Tokyo made an emergency landing Wednesday morning in Takamatsu, Japan after error messages indicated there was a problem with the plane's batteries and smoke in the plane.


 An "unusual smell" was detected inside the cockpit and the passenger cabin, according to a news conference held by All Nippon Airlines, whose plane was grounded. Fire trucks were deployed after the plane landed, but there was no fire to put out. 

This adds to a slew of recent problems with Boeing's new Dreamliner aircraft. Another 787 -- the world's first mainly carbon-composite airliner -- had two fuel leaks, a battery fire, a wiring problem, brake computer glitch and cracked cockpit window last week.

The two Japanese airlines -- ANA and Japan Airlines -- said they would ground the 21 Boeing 787 jets currently being flown for further safety checks. 

Both Japan and the United States have opened broad and open-ended investigations into the plane after a series of incidents that have raised safety concerns.

ANA said instruments on the early Wednesday domestic flight indicated a battery error. All passengers and crew evacuated safely by using the plane's inflatable slides, ANA said.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ANA said it evacuated 129 passengers and eight crew members from the Dreamliner after measuring instruments in the flight's cockpit indicated there was a battery malfunction and the pilot smelled something strange.

Flight 692 bound for Haneda Airport near Tokyo left Yamaguchi Airport in western Japan shortly after 8 a.m. but made an emergency landing in Takamatsu at 8:45 a.m. after smoke appeared in the cockpit, an Osaka airport authority spokesman said.


Reuters

An All Nippon Airways' Boeing 787 Dreamliner, photographed here by a passenger, made an emergency landing at Takamatsu airport in western Japan after there were reports of smoke in the cockpit.
Boeing spokesman Marc Birtel told Reuters: "We've seen the reports, we're aware of the events and are working with our customer."

Federal Aviation Administration officials said Friday they would conduct a comprehensive review of Boeing’s 787 airplane program following several high-profile mishaps, including a fire. But the FAA sought Friday to reassure fliers that they still believe the airplane is safe to fly.

In a statement following the emergency landing in Japan, the FAA said it is monitoring the report: "The incident will be included in the comprehensive review the FAA began last week of the 787 critical systems, including design, manufacture and assembly."

The FAA plans to review all aspects of the new aircraft, including design and production. But the review will focus heavily on the electric components of the aircraft.

The new 787 Dreamliner, which went into service in the fall of 2011, relies much more heavily on electric components than previous airplane models.

Boeing officials said Friday that they welcome a review of the new model aircraft and that the FAA's scrutiny did not diminish the company's confidence in the airplane.

Japan is so far the biggest market for the Dreamliner, with ANA and Japan Airlines Co. flying 24 of the 50 Dreamliners delivered to date.

Shares of Boeing Dreamlier suppliers in Japan came under pressure on Wednesday, with Fuji Heavy Industries, GS Yuasa Corp, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, IHI down between 1.6 and 3 percent, while the benchmark Nikkei shed 1.3 percent.

Japanese authorities said on Monday they would investigate fuel leaks on a 787 operated by JAL, and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said later its agents would analyse the lithium-ion battery and burned wire bundles from a fire aboard another JAL 787 at Boston's Logan Airport last week.

Just feel like pointing out, I wasn't afraid to fly till AFTER I got the job in aerospace...

[Buster's Uncle]

It ususally kinda sucks to know what's goes in the sausage...

[Zoid]

Teach children to worship Satan!

Satanists plan rally in support of Florida governor
Published: 16 January, 2013, 23:31
Edited: 16 January, 2013, 23:31

 
The Satanic Temple is planning a rally outside of Florida Governor Rick Scott’s office to support his bill allowing students to pray at school events.
Senate Bill 98 gives students “sole discretion in determining whether an inspirational message is to be delivered” at a school assembly – including religious prayers. Scott has long advocated for students to be able to pray at school events, but he wasn’t expecting Satanists to jump on the opportunity.
To celebrate the governor’s signing of the bill, Satanists will rally outside of his office on Jan. 25 to show their support for Scott’s decision, as well as to promote their own beliefs.
“You don’t build up your membership unless people know about you,” Satanic Temple spokesman Lucien Greaves told the Palm Beach Post. “So this allows us to get our message out in public. We’re hoping it will reduce the stigmatism.”
Neil Bricke, founder of the Satanic Temple, will travel from his home in New York to Florida to speak at the rally.
“New York is a pretty good place for Satanism. Florida is too,” Greaves told ABC News. Currently, the Satanic Temple is “more or less an online community”, but its members are trying to bring their places of worship to US cities.
“Though we have far to go before public education leads to a mainstream embrace of our Satanic religion, we feel that our own public ‘coming out’ will go a long way toward raising the consciousness of the populace … and the social environment has never yet been better prepared for the welcoming of the Satanic era.”
Gov. Scott is an evangelical Christian who supports prayer in schools and has therefore always supported Senate Bill 98, which was sponsored by Sen. Gary Siplin. The bill was subject of heated opposition in early 2012, with the American Civil Liberties Union, the Anti-Defamation League and Americans United claiming it would alienate students whose religions are in the minority.
Gov. Scott did not expect the Satanic minority to publicly thank him for the legislation and hold a rally outside of his office, but told ABC News that every group has a right to express themselves.
The Satanic Temple does not know how many people will attend the Jan. 25 rally, since most of its followers have expressed online interest and could be located anywhere in the world. But one thing is clear: they want the Republican governor to know the effect the new legislation is having on their community.
“Satanists are happy to show their support of Rick Scott who – particularly with SB 98 – has reaffirmed our American freedom to practice our faith openly, allowing our Satanic children the freedom to pray in school,” the Temple said in a press release announcing the rally. 

[Zoid]

And in case you missed this one...

Cleaning Lady Steals Train, Slams It Into Apartment Building
 Neetzan Zimmerman
Transit officials in Sweden are at a loss to explain how a cleaning lady was able to steal a commuter train from a station near Stockholm and drive it for three minutes before crashing into a three-story house.

Luckily, no one was on the train at the time of the accident, which occurred early Tuesday morning.

A spokesman for Stockholm County's transit operator Storstockholms Lokaltrafik said the twentysomething woman seized the train around 3 AM and drove it for two stops before derailing in the Stockholm suburb of Saltsjöbaden.

The train slammed into the first-floor kitchen of an apartment building where three families live. The cleaning lady had to be rushed to the hospital with "serious" injuries, but none of the building's residents were hurt.

An investigation into the incident has been launched, with local politicians demanding to know how an unauthorized person was able to commandeer a commuter train.

A spokesman for Arriva, the subcontractor that operates the line, said driving their trains wasn't that complicated.

"Generally speaking that's possible even if you're not a train driver," he told the Associated Press. "You can read about it on the Internet, or observe how others do it."

[Unorthodox]

Teach children to worship Satan!

In all honestly, the world could use more satanic worship.  Which is a lot more benign than the name may make it seem. 

[Buster's Uncle]

Why am I surprised?

[Unorthodox]

Why am I surprised?

Well, seriously:

The Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth

1.Do not give opinions or advice unless you are asked.
2.Do not tell your troubles to others unless you are sure they want to hear them.
3.When in another’s home, show them respect or else do not go there.
4.If a guest in your home annoys you, treat them cruelly and without mercy.
5.Do not make sexual advances unless you are given the mating signal.
6.Do not take that which does not belong to you, unless it is a burden to the other person and they cry out to be relieved.
7.Acknowledge the power of magic if you have employed it successfully to obtain your desires. If you deny the power of magic after having called upon it with success, you will lose all you have obtained.
8.Do not complain about anything to which you need not subject yourself.
9.Do not harm young children, for they are the future.
10.Do not kill non-human animals unless you are attacked.
11.When walking in open territory, bother no one. If someone bothers you, ask them to stop. If they do not stop, destroy them.

The Nine Satanic Sins

1.Stupidity
2.Pretentiousness
3.Solipsism
4.Self-deceit
5.Herd Conformity
6.Lack of Perspective
7.Forgetfulness of Past Orthodoxies
8.Counterproductive Pride
9.Lack of Aesthetics

The world could do far worse. 

I'm not entirely sure this particular group is LaVeyan satanists, however, they could be Theological Satanists, but this rally seems very LaVeyan...

[Unorthodox]

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/world/blast-at-african-sorcerers-house-kills-5/story-e6frfkui-1226559670382

POLICE in Zimbabwe say they are investigating a massive explosion at a tribal sorcerer's house outside the capital, Harare.
Police officials said on Tuesday the blast killed five people.

The sorcerer, often known in the West as a witchdoctor, and a man seeking to improve his failing finances, were among the dead, witnesses said.

The explosion damaged 12 nearby houses in the Chitungwiza township.

Witnesses said crowds began sprinkling salt on nearby streets and footpaths afterward, a traditional belief to ward off evil spirits.

Army bomb disposal experts told neighbours they found no remnants of a bomb or petrol or gas containers.

In Zimbabwe superstition, sorcerers can use lightning, common during current rain storms, to eradicate enemies. Neighbours told reporters they feared a "lightning manufacturing process" was being carried out Monday.



Read more: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/world/blast-at-african-sorcerers-house-kills-5/story-e6frfkui-1226559670382#ixzz2IjvPgYT6

That there is some bad ju-ju.

[Unorthodox]

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/taking-action-on-the-windsor-hum-2013-01-21

WINDSOR, Ontario, Jan. 21, 2013 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- On behalf of Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, Bob Dechert, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, today visited Windsor, Ontario, to announce the launch of a study to identify the cause of the so-called "Windsor Hum"--the recurring vibration and noise that have been disturbing people in the area for almost two years.

"Our government takes this issue seriously and is following up on its commitment to find a solution that works for the people of Windsor. Promise made, promise kept," said Parliamentary Secretary Dechert.

Acting on a recommendation from the International Joint Commission, the Government of Canada is funding the study to try to identify the source of the Hum. The study, to be conducted jointly by scientists at the University of Windsor and Western University, will be a key step in developing a possible solution.

"Our government will continue to work with the people of Windsor and others to hopefully pinpoint the source of the Windsor Hum," said Dechert. "We want to protect citizens' quality of life. To get a solution, we first need to find the source. This study is a step in the right direction."

"I would also like to thank Jeff Watson, Member of Parliament for Essex, for his tireless efforts to get this matter resolved," added Dechert.

Follow us on Twitter: @DFAIT_MAECI

SOURCE Canadian Consulate General

Copyright (C) 2013 PR Newswire. All rights reserved

I knew about the hum in new mexico, but not the one in canada.  Curious to see if/what they find.

[Buster's Uncle]

Scientist: I'm NOT seeking a mom for a Neanderthal
By MALCOLM RITTER | Associated Press – 15 hrs ago.. .

 
NEW YORK (AP) — A prominent genetics expert from Harvard Medical School says he is not looking for a woman to bear a Neanderthal baby. Not even an adventurous one.
 
Some press reports in the past few days suggest Harvard's George Church is supporting the idea of creating a Neanderthal and even looking for an "adventurous" woman for the project.
 
Church says those reports are based on misunderstandings of an interview he gave the German magazine Der Spiegel. Church said the idea gets a brief mention as a theoretical possibility in his recent book.
 
Scientists have recovered DNA from Neanderthal fossils. Making a Neanderthal baby would start with putting that DNA into human stem cells.
 
Church says such a process would face ethical questions.

http://news.yahoo.com/scientist-im-not-seeking-mom-neanderthal-215347543.html

[gwillybj]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/24/technology/robot-makers-spread-global-gospel-of-automation.html

Robot Makers Spread Global Gospel of Automation

Sally Ryan for The New York Times: A robot designed by Rethink Robotics to work with people. An industry group said increased automation would lead to millions of new jobs by 2020.

By JOHN MARKOFF
Published: January 23, 2013

CHICAGO — The robot equipment industry has one word for the alarmist articles and television news programs that predict a robot is about to steal your job: Fiddlesticks!

Multimedia:
Video Feature: Robots for Tasks Large and Small, Light and Heavy.
Sally Ryan for The New York Times: Rethink Robotics’ Baxter adapts to the actions of humans.
Sally Ryan for The New York Times: Motoman by Yaskawa dealt cards at a robotics trade show.

Well, that wasn’t actually the word used this week at the Automate 2013 trade show held here through Thursday, but the sentiment was the same. During a presentation on Monday, Henrik I. Christensen, the Kuka Chair of Robotics at Georgia Institute of Technology’s College of Computing, sharply criticized a recent “60 Minutes” report on automation that was based on the work of the M.I.T. economists Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson.

The two economists in 2011 wrote “Race Against the Machine,” a book that renewed the debate about the relationship between the pace of automation and job growth. They argue that the pace of automation is accelerating and that robotics is pushing into new areas of the work force like white-collar jobs that were previously believed to be beyond the scope of computers.

During his talk, Dr. Christensen said that the evidence indicated that the opposite was true. While automation may transform the work force and eliminate certain jobs, it also creates new kinds of jobs that are generally better paying and that require higher-skilled workers.

“We see today that the U.S. is still the biggest manufacturing country in terms of dollar value,” Dr. Christensen said. “It’s also important to remember that manufacturing produces more jobs in associated areas than anything else.”

An official of the International Federation of Robotics acknowledged that the automation debate had sprung back to life in the United States, but he said that America was alone in its anxiety over robots and automation.

“This is not happening in either Europe or Japan,” said Andreas Bauer, chairman of the federation’s industrial robot suppliers group and an executive at Kuka Robotics, a German robot maker.

To buttress its claim that automation is not a job killer but instead a way for the United States to compete against increasingly advanced foreign competitors, the industry group reported findings on Tuesday that it said it would publish in February. The federation said the industry would directly and indirectly create from 1.9 million to 3.5 million jobs globally by 2020.

The federation held a news media event at which two chief executives of small American manufacturers described how they had been able to both increase employment and compete against foreign companies by relying heavily on automation and robots.

“Automation has allowed us to compete on a global basis. It has absolutely created jobs in southwest Michigan,” said Matt Tyler, chief executive of Vickers Engineering, an auto parts supplier. “Had it not been for automation, we would not have beat our Japanese competitor; we would not have beat our Chinese competitor; we would not have beat our Mexican competitor. It’s a fact.”

Also making the case was Drew Greenblatt, the widely quoted president and owner of Marlin Steel, a Baltimore manufacturer of steel products that has managed to expand and add jobs by deploying robots and other machines to increase worker productivity.

“In December, we won a job from a Chicago company that for over a decade has bought from China,” he said. “It’s a sheet-metal bracket; 160,000 sheet-metal brackets, year in, year out. They were made in China, now they’re made in Baltimore, using steel from a plant in Indiana and the robot was made in Connecticut.”

A German robotics engineer argued that automation was essential to preserve jobs and also vital to make it possible for national economies to support social programs.

“Countries that have high productivity can afford to have a good social system and a good health system,” said Alexander Verl, head of the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering in Germany. “You see that to some extent in Germany or in Sweden. These are countries that are highly automated but at the same time they spend money on elderly care and the health system.”

In the report presented Tuesday by the federation, the United States lags Germany, South Korea and Japan in the density of manufacturing robots employed (measured as the number of robots per 10,000 human workers). South Korea, in particular, sharply increased its robot-to-worker ratio in the last three years and Germany has twice the robot density as the United States, according to a presentation made by John Dulchinos, a board member of the Robot Industries Association and the chief executive of Adept Technology, a Pleasanton, Calif., maker of robots.

The report indicates that although China and Brazil are increasing the number of robots in their factories, they still trail the advanced manufacturing countries.

Mr. Dulchinos said that the United States had only itself to blame for the decline of its manufacturing sector in the last decade.

“I can tell you that in the late 1990s my company’s biggest segment was the cellular phone market,” he said. “Almost overnight that industry went away, in part because we didn’t do as good a job as was required to make that industry competitive.”

He said that if American robots had been more advanced it would have been possible for those companies to maintain the lowest cost of production in the United States.

“They got all packed up and shipped to China,” Mr. Dulchinos said. “And so you fast-forward to today and there are over a billion cellphones produced a year and not a single one is produced in the United States.”

Yet, in the face of growing anxiety about the effects of automation on the economy, there were a number of bright spots. The industry is now generating $25 billion in annual revenue. The federation expects 1.6 million robots to be produced each year by 2015.

Mr. Greenblatt said that one of the advantages of robots was they did not take breaks.

“My robots are going to work during the Super Bowl,” he said. “Do you know how popular I would be to ask my employees to work during the Super Bowl?”

A version of this article appeared in print on January 24, 2013, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: This Robot Wants to Be Your Co-Worker.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/24/technology/robot-makers-spread-global-gospel-of-automation.html

[Unorthodox]

http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/01/24/dung-beetles-navigate-via-the-milky-way-an-animal-kingdom-first/

News Watch HomeExplorers JournalWater CurrentsOcean Views Dung Beetles Navigate Via the Milky Way, An Animal-Kingdom FirstPosted by Christine Dell'Amore of National Geographic News in Weird & Wild on January 24, 2013 (0)
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Talk about star power—a new study shows that dung beetles navigate via the Milky Way, a first in the animal kingdom.

The tiny insects can orient themselves to the bright stripe of light generated by our galaxy, and move in a line relative to it, according to recent experiments in South Africa.

“This is a complicated navigational feat—it’s quite impressive for an animal that size,” said study co-author Eric Warrant, a biologist at the University of Lund in Sweden.


A dung beetle rolling its ball in South Africa. Photograph courtesy Eric Warrant.
Moving in a straight line is crucial to dung beetles, which live in a rough-and-tumble world where competition for excrement is fierce. (Play “Dung Beetle Derby” on the National Geographic Kids website.)

Once the beetles sniff out a steaming pile, males painstakingly craft the dung into balls and roll them as far away from the chaotic mound as possible, often toting a female that they have also picked up. The pair bury the dung, which later becomes food for their babies.

But it’s not always that easy. Lurking about the dung pile are lots of dung beetles just waiting to snatch a freshly made ball. (Related: “Dung Beetles’ Favorite Poop Revealed.”)

That’s why ball-bearing beetles have to make a fast beeline away from the pile.

“If they roll back into the dung pile, it’s curtains,” Warrant said. If thieves near the pile steal their ball, the beetle has to start all over again, which is a big investment of energy.

Seeing Stars

Scientists already knew that dung beetles can move in straight lines away from dung piles by detecting a symmetrical pattern of polarized light that appears around the sun. We can’t see this pattern, but insects can thanks to special photoreceptors in their eyes.


The Milky Way glimmers over Indonesia. Photograph by Justin Ng, Your Shot.
But less well-known was how beetles use visual cues at night, such as the moon and its much weaker polarized light pattern. So Warrant and colleagues went to a game farm in South Africa to observe the nocturnal African dung beetle Scarabaeus satyrus. (Read another Weird & Wild post on why dung beetles dance.)

Attracting the beetles proved straightforward: The scientists collected buckets of dung, put them out, and waited for the beetles to fly in.

But their initial observations were puzzling. S. satyrus could still roll a ball in a straight line even on moonless nights, “which caused us a great deal of grief—we didn’t know how to explain this at all,” Warrant said.

Then, “it occurred to us that maybe they were using the stars—and it turned out they were.”

Dapper Beetles

To test the star theory, the team set up a small, enclosed table on the game reserve, placed beetles in them, and observed how the insects reacted to different sky conditions. The team confirmed that even on clear, moonless nights, the beetles could still navigate their balls in a straight line.

To show that the beetles were focusing on the Milky Way, the team moved the table into the Johannesburg Planetarium, and found that the beetles could orient equally well under a full starlit sky as when only the Milky Way was present. (See Milky Way pictures.)

Lastly, to confirm the Milky Way results, the team put little cardboard hats on the study beetles’ heads, blocking their view of the sky. Those beetles just rolled around and around aimlessly, according to the study, published recently in the journal Current Biology.


The scientists put hats on the dung beetles to block their ability to see stars. This beetle, which is wearing a clear hat, acted as a control in one experiment. Photograph courtesy Eric Warrant.
Dung beetle researcher Sean D. Whipple, of the University of Nebraska at Kearney, said by email that the “awesome results …. provide strong evidence for orientation by starlight in dung beetles.”

He added that this discovery reveals another potential negative impact of light pollution, a global phenomenon that blocks out stars.

“If artificial light—from cities, houses, roadways, etc.—drowns out the visibility of the night sky, it could have the potential to impact effective orientation and navigation of dung beetles in the same way as an overcast sky,” Whipple said.

Keep On Rollin’

Study co-author Warrant added that other dung beetles likely navigate via the Milky Way, although the galaxy is most prominent in the night sky in the Southern Hemisphere.

What’s more, it’s “probably a widespread skill that insects have—migrating moths might also be able to do it.”

As for the beetles themselves, they were “very easy to work with,” he added.

“You can do anything you want to them, and they just keep on rolling.”