Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Following the return of the Stardust space capsule from its encounter with the Comet Wild 2, NASA scientists have come up with a novel approach to dealing with the samples of “interstellar dust” that have been collected; they want help from the public.

The Stardust spacecraft carried an aerogel-based dust collector, which was exposed to space in varying orientations during different phases of the mission.

Only one side of the collector was exposed towards the stream of particles coming off the Comet Wild 2 during the encounter in 2004, while the other side was used to collect interstellar dust at an earlier point in the spacecraft’s journey.

Although scientists have seen the particles captured from comet Wild 2 when they examined the aerogel, they have not examined any of the particles expected on the other side of the collector due to their smallness. They will be examined after they are found with the help of Stardust@home. It is believed that on the order of 50 interstellar dust particles impacted the aerogel, each now resting inside a tiny crater.

Stardust traveled nearly three billion miles and its mission lasted seven years. At times it was traveling at 8 miles a second. Thats fast enough to go from San Francisco to Los Angeles in one minute.

Stardust set a new all-time record for being the fastest spacecraft to return to Earth, breaking the previous record set in May of 1969 during the return of the Apollo X(10) command module. Don Brownlee of the University of Washington, Seattle said “our spacecraft has traveled further than anything from Earth ever has – and came back. We went half-way to Jupiter to meet the comet and collect samples from it. But the comet actually came in from the outer edge of the solar system, out beyond the orbit of Neptune, out by Pluto.”

In a move similar to some distributed computing projects, the analysis work for the project will be spread among volunteers on the Internet, who are being asked to participate in this scientific undertaking.

Wikinews reporter Jason Safoutin investigated the Stardust@home project, and discussed its goals with one of its founders. Via email, he interviewed David P. Anderson, a founder of the SETI@home project, and one of the creators of the Virtual Microscope which will be used to search for captured particles from interstellar space.

I was wondering If I could get some questions answered or if you could give me some “insider” info for the project. I am aware that you are taking place in the development of the VM (Virtual Microscope)…Could I know more about that?The ‘virtual microscope’ lets you scan through a set of images as if you were turning the focus knob on a microscope. The images are fairly large (about 100 KB each) so it’s important to pre-load the images. While you’re looking through one set of images, the VM is busy downloading the JPEG files for the next set.

At first we thought we’d have to do this with a Java applet or Flash program – something tricky and complicated. My contribution was to point out that it could be done fairly easily using Javascript, and I wrote a prototype of this.

Will this project use the BOINC Platform/Program?

No. We thought about using some parts of BOINC (like the database and web pages for creating “accounts”) but it was easier just to do this from scratch.

How long will the project take?

It depends how many volunteers participate, and how fast they look at the ‘focus movies’. It will probably be just a month or two.

Anyone can join but they have to take a test before they can participate. What will the test include?

Looking at some focus movies and deciding whether they contain a dust particle. Participants see a lot of training examples before they take the test. It’s easy, not like a test in school.

How many will be allowed to participate?

No limit as of now.

When will the project start?

I think in about 2 months. It will take that long to transport the aerogel to the laboratory, and photograph it with the microscope. The software is ready to go.

Will the VM project analyze any of the particles or just look for them?

Stardust@home will only locate the particles. When they are located, they will be cut out of the aerogel and physically analyzed.

Thank you for your time David. And great work on the upcoming project and SETI@home.

A compilation of brief news reports for Monday, October 26, 2009.

A fatal car crash has killed a 79-year-old man Framingham, Massachusetts, United States, and seriously injured a woman. The woman is currently being held at Norwood, Massachusetts Hospital and is being treated for serious injuries. It was a single vehicle crash that happened on Route 1 on Saturday afternoon in Walpole, Massachusetts.

The car was heading south when it lost control and struck a utility pole just after 4 P.M. local time on Saturday. The man died at the scene.

Sources

• “Fatal car crash in Walpole” — NBC 10, October 25, 2009
• “Framingham man killed in Walpole car crash.” — Metro West Daily News, October 25, 2009

Ireland has pledged €1.35 million in emergency aid to Ethiopia, in order to help quell the ongoing food crisis in the country.

According to figures by the Ethiopian government released on Friday, the number of people needing food aid in the country is 6.2 million.

Irish Minister of State for Overseas Development Peter Power said that he was “deeply concerned” about the figures.

• “Ireland and Norway donate millions for Ethiopia emergency” — Jimma Times, October 24, 2009
• “€1.3m pledge for Ethiopian crisis” — Independent.ie, October 24, 2009

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Just two weeks after China sent global markets into a tumble, growing worries about sub-prime mortgage lenders in the United States are sending jitters through stock exchanges around the globe. The three major US stock market indices each fell two percent from Monday’s closing price, marking the second-biggest loss of 2007. London’s FTSE 100, Paris’ CAC 40 and Frankfurt’s DAX 30 indices each closed down more than 1 percent.

As the Mortgage Bankers Association reported that late payments on mortgages and home foreclosures in the US homes rose in the fourth quarter to their highest level in years, investors are concerned that not only US banks but also multi-national banks around the globe could have exposure.

More than two dozen sub-prime lenders have closed or sold operations as defaults on those mortgages have risen. “The delinquencies and defaults have started to soar,” said Nicolas Retsinas, director of Housing Studies at Harvard University. “A lot of these lenders started to make loans and lost track of some of the fundamentals.”

New Century Financial Corporation, the second largest sub-prime lender in the US, has recently revealed that its creditors were no longer providing funds and, further, it has become subject of an SEC investigation. The New York Stock Exchange has said it will delist New Century. Accredited Home Loan Lending, another major sub-prime mortgage specialist, said it was seeking fresh capital and waivers on its lending covenants.

Sub-prime lenders provide mortgages to people who do not qualify for loans from mainstream lenders, typically due to their credit histories. The lenders then bundle these mortgages as collateral for loans that they obtain from other financing firms, such as GMAC. Such firms can then repackage these loans and sell them as mortgage-backed securities. These securities may end up in the hands of major multi-national banks such as Citibank, HSBC, and Commerzbank. Each level of lending assumes a level of financial risk, but trouble can arise when the risk tolerances are exceeded. If too many homeowners default on their mortgages, the sub-prime lender can end up defaulting. If too many of these lenders default, as it is feared may be happening now, the defaults can cascade upward. While no one is predicting major bank failures at this point, it is feared that their profits could be hurt.

Friday, August 7, 2009

The remaining six workers staging an occupation in Newport, Isle of Wight, England have left peacefully after police entered their factory.

After barricading the office which has served as a living quarters for 19 nights against police entry, three of the workers, Justin Moody, Mark Smith, and Dave Arbuthnott, exited via a fire escape escorted by security staff; two, Ian Terry and Mark Flower, abseiled down the factory’s wall; and Jaymie Rigby jumped thirty feet from a balcony to the bushes below. Rigby was examined at a local hospital after the jump but was found to be in good condition and released. The six were processed by police but not arrested.

The six, who as part of a group of around 25 entered the factory on the evening July 20, had been conducting their occupation in a bid to get the government to nationalise the factory. Despite rising profits and rising orders, Vestas has decided to close their production facilities in the United Kingdom and most of their facilities in Denmark, at a cost of 1900 jobs, in order to concentrate on growth in North and South America and in Asia. The Vestas factory in Newport does not produce blades for the UK market and the company has refused both a £6 million grant and offers from the government to assist the company in re-tooling the plant for production of British blades.

The company, in turn, blames the British government for making it too hard to obtain planning permission for on-shore wind farms. A Vestas spokesman, commenting to the BBC about the end of the occupation, said, “we have always understood the frustrations of the workers but have been surprised at the length of this action.”

The evicted workers say that, after spending time with their families, they plan to return to the protests against Vestas, joining the impromptu camp of hundreds of protesters which has sprung up outside the factory gates. The Vestas occupiers have received support from a broad coalition of left-wing political parties, trade unions, environmental groups, the Tory-dominated Isle of Wight Council, and a handful of MPs; today, the last major left party which had not joined the coalition, Arthur Scargill‘s Socialist Labour Party, released a statement saying

The SLP’s spokesman, Alan Johnson, went on to tell Wikinews that the occupiers “have our full support.” None of the three large parties dominating the British parliament have backed the Vestas workers, however, although the ruling Labour Party has recently sponsored talks between among the coalition of trade unions supporting the occupiers.

Police served the remaining occupiers notice to vacate the premises yesterday at noon; Vestas’s first attempt at obtaining a warrant was stymied in court when the defence successfully argued that notice requiring possession had not been correctly served to the occupiers.

The occupiers lived in the factory twenty-four hours a day during the occupation, sleeping in a 1600-square-foot (149-square-metre) office, maintaining hygiene as well as possible in the factory’s bathrooms, and eating one small meal a day — initially from the contents of vending machines, then from what the company management supplied supplemented by whatever protesters were able to get over the fence surrounding the factory. The RMT, which has arranged legal representation for the Vestas occupiers, has accused Vestas of violating human rights and at one point said it would arrange to have a helicopter airlift food into the workers.

The end of the Newport occupation does not represent the end of unrest at Vestas’s facilities in the Isle of Wight, however. A number of workers at Vestas’s smaller plant in Cowes occupied the plant there on the evening of August 4, with activists from the RMT and environmental groups taking to the roof and waving flags proclaiming the occupation.

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Two dog attacks in a week puts Spotsylania County authorities in the spotlight to take action on pet owners for their dog’s behavior. In unrelated incidences, an elderly woman was killed and another woman was bitten. Three dogs have been shot dead by police.

An 82 year old woman was walking her Shih Tzu breed of dog in her front yard last week when she came under attack by three Pit Bulls. She died being transported to the hospital after police responded and shot two of the attacking dogs. They later captured the third dog and euthanized it.

More recently, a 31 year old woman was bitten on her hand during a fight that ensued between two Pit Bulls in her back yard. The responding police officer shot the aggressor dog.

Public outcry over the death of the elderly woman stirred procecutors to charge the dogs’ owner, Deeana Large, with involuntary manslaughter. This is a first for the Commonwealth of Virginia where charges that carry a maximum penalty of 10 years are leveled in a case involving a pet’s owner. In order to gain an indictment, prosecuters will have to prove the dogs’ owner was criminally negligent. In the biting incident, the attacking dog’s owner faces a misdemeanor charge of letting the dog run at large.

Deeana Large, who initially said she owned only 1 of the 3 dogs involved in the mauling case, has not yet been formally charged and awaits indictment. Investigators in the case say there were earlier reports of her dogs allegedly killing a German Shepard and a kittten in her neighborhood. Complaints by neighbors spurred an animal control officer to be looking for the dogs at the time the woman was killed.

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Grammy Award-winning rock band The White Stripes announced on Wednesday the Canadian leg of a tour in support of their soon-to-be-released album, Icky Thump. The tour, which would be the first cross-Canada excursion for The White Stripes, will see the band play dates in all provinces and territories.

The latest tour for The White Stripes will kick off June 1 in Nürburgring, Germany and will play several dates in Europe before starting off in Canada on June 24, in Burnaby, British Columbia. Canadian dates will include stops in northern locales such as Whitehorse, Yellowknife, and Iqaluit, on Baffin Island.

The White Stripes, made up of guitarist/singer Jack White and drummer Meg White, have developed a significant worldwide following with their blend of punk and blues, guitar-oriented rock. The band had expressed interest in playing cities they had not yet visited. “Having never done a full tour of Canada, Meg and I thought it was high time to go whole hog,” said Jack White on The White Stripes website. “We want to take this tour to the far reaches of the Canadian landscape. From the ocean to the permafrost.” The band’s website referred to Canada by its nickname, the ‘Great White North’.

The White Stripes have played to thousands in large outdoor festival settings, but will have to deal with different logistics while setting up in a northern location, such as Iqaluit.

Some 500 tickets for the Iqaluit show are to be sold, with an admission fee of approximately CA$40. Mike Bozzer, the city of Iqaluit’s economic development officer, told CBC News that talks have taken place with The White Stripes’ publicist regarding equipment, technicians, security and other such details. “It’s definitely going to have some economic impact, and they’ll come back home with positive stories of the city,” said Bozzer.

The band’s ten-year anniversary will be reached at a point during the Canadian leg of the tour, which will be commemorated. “Another special moment of this tour is the show which will occur in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia on July 14th, The White Stripes’ Tenth Anniversary,” said Jack White.

Following the Canadian dates, The White Stripes will embark on a tour in the United States, which will reach some 16 states they have not yet visited during their career, among other repeat locations.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Tuesday was a tumultuous day in the Khadr household as they desperately awaited to hear whether Abdullah, the Canadian family’s oldest son, would be released on bail after nearly four years of detention awaiting trial in the United States for helping Afghan militants procure weapons.

“We couldn’t help but be a little hopeful,” his older sister Zaynab remarked, though Khadr himself remained more optimistic and encouraged his family to use their second weekly visit to Toronto West Detention Centre later that day, as a sign of faith that the courts would soon reunite the fractured family. But when the family returned home from their second visit, there was a crushing message from his lawyers, “Abdullah didn’t make bail”.

The family feels frustrated and says that the court’s ruling that Khadr still represents a serious flight risk is unfair. “None of us have every tried to leave the country”, Zaynab sighs, pointing to Abdullah’s co-operation with Canadian authorities since the very beginning.

Although his lawyers proposed a “stringent supervision plan” that would have seen the Ottawa-born Khadr living with his grandparents and fitted with an electronic ankle-bracelet to track his whereabouts, the ruling released late Tuesday confirmed that Mr. Justice Gary Trotter was not convinced that Khadr would remain in Canada if released back into the community.

The ruling echoes a similar finding made in 2005, when Khadr first applied to be released pending the outcome of his extradition hearing to the United States, where he faces federal conspiracy charges.

Khadr’s lawyers appeared successful in allaying earlier concerns about the insufficient ankle bracelet that would have tracked Khadr’s movements in 2005, bringing the owner of Trace Canada, Len Beagley, to testify that “tremendous developments” had been made since the courts last heard Khadr’s plea for bail in 2005. However, Trotter seemed unconvinced that ankle-bracelets were an “accepted way of monitoring individuals”, and agreed with Crown arguments that such devices required “co-operation from the subject”.

Fatmah and Mohammad Elsamnah again offered their $300,000 Toronto home as surety for Khadr’s behaviour if released on bail. However, they were judged unacceptable guardians for their grandson, in part due to Mohammad’s stuttered and confused responses to questions from the Crown, and his advanced memory loss.

Khadr’s lawyers chose to focus on the recent community support shown at Salaheddin Islamic Centre, where his family prays. In addition to adding $50,000 in collected donations as assurance that the community would keep a close eye on Khadr, the Board of Directors agreed to pay the costs associated with the most advanced system of monitoring ankle-bracelet for Khadr. The manager of the Islamic Centre also offered to employ the 27-year old Khadr, driving him to and from work each day. Crown lawyers Matthew Sullivan and Howard Piafsky challenged the mosque’s credibility however, asking RCMP officer Tarek Mokdad to describe the number of worshippers who were later accused of militant action.

Trotter dismissed claims that the mosque was tied to terrorism, but said the donations from worshippers were unacceptable since they gave the money without expecting to see it returned to them, regardless of Khadr’s behaviour.

The last to find out about his fate, Abdullah wasn’t told the outcome of the hearing until he phoned his family Wednesday evening.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

US stock markets dropped to twelve-year lows on Thursday, amidst falling confidence in the financial sector and worries over whether the US automobile manufacturer General Motors will be able to keep operating.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by 4.08%, or 280.52 points, at the closing bell, reaching a level of 6595.32, a new 12-year low. The Nasdaq Composite lost 54.15 points, or 4%, to 1299.59, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 plunged by 30.27 points, or 4.25%, closing at 682.60.

Every stock in the Dow Jones, other than Wal-Mart, either lost ground or remained even, and all stocks in the S&P 500 index lost ground.

General Motors’ shares lost 15.5% after the auto firm announced that its auditors had “substantial doubt” over whether it would be able to keep operating.

Shares of financial companies were lower by nine percent, with Bank of America losing 11.7% and Citigroup falling by 9.7%.

“What’s most worrisome is that we haven’t hit the crescendo yet,” said Bill Groeneveld, the head trader for vFinance Investments. “Asset-management divisions are getting calls to just liquidate everything, and we haven’t seen the big players come back in at all.”

“This is one of the worst bear markets in the last 100 years; it started out with the credit crisis and the subprime [loans], but it is like a forest fire that has raced across the clearing and ignited other parts: Autos, auto parts, the insurance companies have been hit very hard. The credit crisis is causing an unraveling of industry after industry because the banks don’t lend,” said David Dreman, the chief investment officer of Dreman Value Management.

European markets were also lower today, with the London’s FTSE index losing 3.2% and the DAX index of Germany falling by five percent.

Saturday, November 4, 2006

On November 13, Torontonians will be heading to the polls to vote for their ward’s councillor and for mayor. Among Toronto’s ridings is Scarborough East (Ward 43). One candidates responded to Wikinews’ requests for an interview. This ward’s candidates include Paul Ainslie, Amarjeet Chhabra, Mujeeb Khan, Glenn Kitchen, John Laforet, Abdul Patel, Jim Robb, and Kumar Sethi.

For more information on the election, read Toronto municipal election, 2006.