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Wednesday, March 9, 2005File:Plastic bag stock sized.jpg

They are cheap, useful, and very plentiful, and that is exactly the problem, according to researchers. A report issued on Feb. 23 by a cadre of environment and economics researchers suggested that Kenya should ban the common plastic bag that one gets at the checkout counter of grocery stores, and place a levy on other plastic bags, all to combat the country’s environmental problems stemming from the bags’ popularity.

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Monday, November 30, 2009

The world’s Large Hadron Collider accelerated its protons to an energy of 1.18 TeV at 00:44 GMT+1 today. This set a new world record, surpassing the 0.98 TeV record set at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory‘s Tevatron collider, which was commissioned in Chicago in 2001. The event came ten days after the LHC collider restart.

Yesterday at 20:48 UTC, one proton beam was accelerated to 1050 GeV (1.05 TeV) in LHC. Three hours later, the next record was set by two beams of opposite direction, 1.18 TeV each.

The CERN researchers are delighted with the quick progress and are happy with the excellent performance of the machine. Steve Myers, director of accelerators and technology at the Cern particle physics laboratory near Geneva, commented on LHC optimistically, comparing it with the twenty-year old Large Electron-Positron Collider (LEP): “I was here 20 years ago when we switched on Cern’s last major particle accelerator, LEP. I thought that was a great machine to operate, but this is something else. What took us days or weeks with LEP, we’re doing in hours with the LHC. So far, it all augurs well for a great research programme.”

High proton beam energy is needed to get many proton-proton collisions. However, all elements of the system need to be monitored carefully, and sudden energy increases are undesirable to ensure that the machine operates within normal parameters, in order to avoid a repeat of the superconductive magnet quench and consequent six-tonne liquid helium leak catastrophe on September 19, 2008, nine days after the first start. The damage caused by the leak, and the subsequent repairs and upgrades to the LHC that were needed, caused a delay of more than a year in the commissioning of the collider.

“We are still coming to terms with just how smoothly the LHC commissioning is going. It is fantastic. However, we are continuing to take it step-by-step, and there is still a lot to do before we start physics in 2010” said Cern’s director general Rolf Heuer.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

NASA officials have decided to call an end to the Mars Phoenix Mission, after winter took hold of the red planet. NASA calls the mission a total success.

“Phoenix has given us some surprises, and I’m confident we will be pulling more gems from this trove of data for years to come,” said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona in a statement on NASA’s website.

The Phoenix lander last sent a signal to Earth on November 2. NASA says that colder temperatures, lack of sunlight and increased dust particles on the lander’s solar arrays has stopped its on board batteries from charging, causing the instruments to fail.

Despite the news, Phoenix had operated two months longer than scheduled. The lander had been operating for over five months.

Phoenix was responsible for several discoveries on Mars, including the confirmation of the presence of water-ice, which had previously only been detected from space.

“Phoenix provided an important step to spur the hope that we can show Mars was once habitable and possibly supported life. Phoenix was supported by orbiting NASA spacecraft providing communications relay while producing their own fascinating science. With the upcoming launch of the Mars Science Laboratory, the Mars Program never sleeps,” said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program.

NASA officials will continue to listen for a signal from Phoenix, in hopes that it will phone home again in the near future.

Tuesday, March 7, 2006

Australian Greens Senator Bob Brown today called for a ban on junk food advertisements during times that children are watching TV. In a press release, the Senator referred specifically to the previous night’s episode of Four Corners.

“The extensive use of psychologists to analyse little children’s responsiveness to TV advertising, including how best to influence parents to buy goods by ‘nagging’ from children, is exploitation without honour,” Senator Brown said.

The documentary, entitled How The Kids Took Over, investigated the increase in marketing to children, who “have a say” in AU$700 billion worth of spending each year. “The marketing assault is aimed not only at getting children to spend. Even companies who market adult products, such as cars, are enlisting children to help persuade their parents to buy the ‘right’ brand,” the program summary said.

In the past the Government has rejected such calls. It recently launched a $6 million advertising campaign encouraging children to exercise an hour each day.

Senator Brown says he plans to propose a Senate Inquiry.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

The death toll from yesterday’s suspension bridge collapse on the Indonesian island of Borneo has risen from three to four, with a six-month-old baby among the dead. Search and rescue teams continue to look for survivors in the Mahakam River.

The initial death toll was raised at first to five, but was revised back down to four. The number of wounded rose from at least seventeen to at least nineteen, but Monsters and Critics offers a figure as high as 39 injured; Indonesia Today yesterday suggested the actual figure was 100 hospitalised. Roughly 40 people remain missing at the scene in East Kalimantan’s Kutai Kartanegara district, where “Kalimantan’s Golden Gate Bridge” linked the towns of Tenggarong and Samarinda.

At least three cars, several motorbikes, and at least one public bus all fell into the Mahakam River. Another car was left overturned and balanced upon wreckage over the water. State-owned builders PT Hutama Karya completed the bridge about a decade ago in the image of California’s Golden Gate Bridge, and it is now reported it was under repair at the time of the failure. New information suggests a cable on the 720-metre structure failed as workers dealt with it; six of the repair crew are among the missing.

National police representative Boy Rafly Amar said “It is believed that some victims are still in the river. There are two buses in the river and efforts are under way to lift them.” He said 39 were rescued with 20 still in hospital. Health Minister Endang Rahayu Sedyaningsih visited survivors in Parikesit Hospital and promised them medical treatment at government expense.

“It happened so fast, only about 30 seconds,” according to National Disaster Management Agency spokesman Sutopo Nugoroho. National search and rescue head Daryatmo said Monday will see cranes attempt to move debris.

The president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, has sent three ministers to the site to investigate the accident, while Bambang Widaryatmo, head of East Kalimantan’s police, promised “parties found to be negligent will be prosecuted”. The government has promised a replacement ferry service. The river is closed to boats as rescue operations continue, and a 22-strong team has been dispatched from the national police, comprising six forensics experts, five disaster victim identification specialists, and eleven investigators. They are there to augment the East Kalimantan Police.

Some people swam ashore after falling, with the aftermath filled with screams. 40-year-old Adam Nur describes breaking free from a car and swimming 300 metres with one arm after his other arm was injured in the fall. Syakrani, 24, says he survived by clinging to empty plastic containers when he fell from the bridge after leaving his truck to investigate a traffic jam. “The authorities should have closed the bridge if it was under repair,” he said.