March 16, 2013

Number of pigs in and near Shanghai goes to 12,566

The number of dead pigs retrieved from waters in and near China's financial hub of Shanghai has reached 12,566.

Authorities in Shanghai plucked 611 dead pig carcasses Saturday from Huangpu river, which provides drinking water to the city's 23 million residents. In total, 8,965 dead pigs have been found in the river since March 8.

The swollen and rotting pigs are largely believed to be from the upstream city of Jiaxing in neighboring Zhejiang province, but Zhao Shumei, a deputy mayor, said it was inconclusive to say all the pigs were from her city.

Jiaxing — where small hog farms are prevalent — reported Friday night that it had recovered 3,601 dead pigs from its streams, according to state media.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/Number-of-pigs-in-and-near-Shanghai-goes-to-12-566-4359742.php

March 16, 2013

World’s largest solar power plant opens tomorrow. (100 megawatt)

The inauguration of the world’s largest solar power plant in operation, the $600 million, 100 megawatt Shams-1 located 120 kilometres southwest of Abu Dhabi will enable its parent Masdar gain a competitive edge in developing and investing in similar projects in the region, said a senior official at Shams-1.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shams_solar_power_station

The project has been huge. Shams 1 has 258,048 parabolic trough mirrors, 192 solar collector assembly loops with eight solar collector assemblies per loop, 768 solar collector assembly units and 27, 648 absorber pipes.

Read more: http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/environment/for-abu-dhabi-2030-vision-shams-1-is-about-knowing-and-diversifying

At some point they had to expand it, as the dust kept them from generating as much energy as calculated.

March 16, 2013

Reuters photo of the week.

Family grieves for soldier who died after six tours of duty


Lesleigh Coyer, 25, of Saginaw, Michigan, lies down in front of the grave of her brother, Ryan Coyer, who served with the U.S. Army in both Iraq and Afghanistan, at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia on March 11, 2013. Coyer died one year ago.

At 26, Staff Sgt. Ryan Coyer already had a lifetime of accomplishments: four tours to Afghanistan, two tours to Iraq, and being named a member of the elite U.S. Army Rangers.

On Monday, the eve of the one-year anniversary of Coyer’s death, his family gathered at his graveside to commemorate that lifetime of accomplishments, unexpectedly cut short when Coyer died of cardiac arrest.

http://photoblog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/12/17280866-family-grieves-for-soldier-who-died-after-six-tours-of-duty?lite

Was it his heart that failed him, or his country?

March 16, 2013

Police failed to test 11,303 rape kits in Detroit

Prosecutor leads effort to test long-abandoned rape kits, brings justice to victims

Wayne County, Mich., Prosecutor Kym Worthy has seen her share of grisly crime, but even she was shocked by a discovery in 2009 at a former police storage warehouse. There, stacks of dusty boxes were found on the shelves of the warehouse. The boxes contained thousands of untested rape kits, some decades old.

“What we were potentially looking at, at that time, was over 10,000 rape kits, representing over 10,000 cases where women had reported, whose lives and what had happened to them was sitting on a shelf and nobody cared. I was shocked, and I think I was kind of stunned -- and not too much stuns me,” Worthy told Kate Snow in an interview that aired Friday on NBC’s Rock Center with Brian Williams.

Worthy and her team would ultimately discover 11,303 untested kits. Rape kits are what hospitals use to collect DNA evidence from a victim in hopes that police can test it and identify a rapist. Victims have to undergo a thorough exam that can take hours. The DNA evidence is often the most important evidence used to convict in a rape case.


“To know that we had all of these potential victims sitting out there, all of them, mostly women, and nothing had been done, was just truly appalling,” Worthy said.

http://rockcenter.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/15/15848051-prosecutor-leads-effort-to-test-long-abandoned-rape-kits-brings-justice-to-victims

•So far, 600 kits have been tested, and investigators say that they have discovered evidence of 21 serial rapists.
•One kit from 2002 revealed DNA belonging to a man who was in prison for the murder of three women. The murders had been committed during the seven years the rape kit sat on a warehouse shelf.

The police became accessories to rape, after the fact by ignoring evidence that proves guilt of a heinous crime. Money or politics?

March 16, 2013

This is how they treat a rape victim in India.(Swiss-tourist-gang-raped-in-central-India)

A Swiss woman, center, who was gang raped by a group of eight men while touring by bicycle with her husband, is escorted by policewomen for a medical examination at a hospital in Gwalior, in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, Saturday, March 16, 2013. Thirteen men were detained and questioned in connection with the attack, which occurred Friday night as the couple camped out in a forest after bicycling from the temple town of Orchha, local police officer R.K. Gurjar said. The men beat the couple and gang-raped the woman, he said. They also stole the couple's mobile phone, a laptop computer and 10,000 rupees ($185), Gurjar said.
Photo: AP

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/article/Swiss-tourist-gang-raped-in-central-India-4359729.php#ixzz2NiyS29s2



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/article/Swiss-tourist-gang-raped-in-central-India-4359729.php#ixzz2NiynYW2s

March 16, 2013

Your Brain Scans Show Who You're Thinking About

Scientists scanning the human brain can now tell whom a person is thinking of, the first time researchers have been able to identify what people are imagining from imaging technologies.

Work to visualize thought is starting to pile up successes. Recently, scientists have used brain scans to decode imagery directly from the brain, such as what number people have just seen and what memory a person is recalling.

They can now even reconstruct videos of what a person has watched based on their brain activity alone. Cornell University cognitive neuroscientist Nathan Spreng and his colleagues wanted to carry this research one step further by seeing if they could deduce the mental pictures of people that subjects conjure up in their heads.

“We are trying to understand the physical mechanisms that allow us to have an inner world, and a part of that is how we represent other people in our mind,” Spreng says.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/brain-scans-show-who-youre-thinking-about-2013-3

If you can decode, you can encode...

March 16, 2013

Next Generation Subway system coming to America.

The Air Force will soon ask industry for help in planning how to modernize the ground-based leg of the nuclear triad, eying a big-ticket acquisition effort to either maintain the Minuteman III missile or replace it with a new ICBM that could be hidden in a custom-built underground subway system.
<Snip>

Of these approaches, the most bold -- and potentially most expensive -- would be the "new tunnel" concept. It would require a vast underground subway-like network of pathways to shuttle new missiles around to multiple launch portals, any of which of could be used to fire the missile. "The tunnel concept mode operates similar to a subway system but with only a single transporter/launcher and missile dedicated to a given tunnel," states the notice. "The tunnel is long enough to improve survivability but leaving enough room to permit adequate 'rattle space' in the event of an enemy attack."

Unmanned cars, either on rails or in "trackless" mode, would move along the tunnels and, in a doomsday scenario, use any one of the launch portals that would be built at "regular" intervals to allow the transporter to raised and fire the missile.

The "new fixed" concept calls for a new "super-hardened" silo capable of withstanding "ground shock levels."

The mobile concept would involve a new ICBM on a "transporter erector launcher" that is capable of off-road deployment -- one that could "leave government land to increase survivability." This system should be able to launch up to two Mk12A or Mk21 reentry vehicles, which house thermonuclear warheads.

"Guidance needs to account for the deployed mode to ensure adequate accuracy is achieved while maintaining prompt responsive capabilities," states the solicitation.

http://insidedefense.com/201303122427355/Inside-Defense-General/Public-Articles/air-force-readies-contracts-to-shape-minuteman-iii-modernization-plans/menu-id-926.html

March 9, 2013

The Yellow Man of Allepo

The yellow man of Allepo is an old man in Allepo, Syria who earns his living posing for pictures for tourists. Here he is written about back in 2010

"Mention the Yellow Man to anyone from Aleppo and it is guaranteed to cause a stir.

The Yellow Man, as one would expect, is a man dressed in yellow. From his shirt to his shoes to his mobile phone, refusing to tell people his secret. On first hearing of him, I thought him simply to be an eccentric. However, as I began to question people about him, a different story emerged.

http://pauljacobnaylor.wordpress.com/journalism/

Flash forward to 2013 lets see how the yellow man fares under the brave "Free" Syrian Army.