Monday, January 21, 2013
'Cosmic bang' hit Medieval Earth
A gamma-ray burst - the most powerful explosion known in the Universe - may have hit the Earth in the 8th Century, a study suggests.
'Cosmic bang' hit Medieval Earth
Tractor Beams 'Pull' Tiny Particles Backward
Tractor Beams 'Pull' Tiny Particles Backward
Jan 21, 2013 09:13 AM ET
//
A laser moves tiny spheres of polystyrene floating in water.
In space opera, it's not uncommon for the hero's ship to be
snagged by a tractor beam that pulls him towards the enemy -- think of
the famous scene in Star Wars where Darth Vader's Death Star captures
Hans Solo's spaceship, the Millennium Falcon in an invisible grasp.
Scientists have now made a real tractor beam, that while not capable of
snaring spacecraft yet, is able to tug on tiny particles.
Pavel Zemanek and his colleagues at the Institute of Scientific Instruments of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic built a laser that moves tiny spheres of polystyrene floating in water. Changing the way the light is polarized changes the direction the spheres move. They also found that at certain sizes, the spheres arrange themselves into neat rows as they move, bound by the light itself.
"We used a relatively simple setup easily adaptable to any optical microscope and found that it works!" Zemanek told Discovery News via email. In fact Zemanek said it was so simple, one could build the tractor beam setup. All you'd need is a good microscope, a laser, tiny styrofoam balls and distilled water.
This kind of 'tractor beam' can't be scaled up to spaceships – the laser power needed to do that would end up vaporizing the intended target. But the beam could be used to assemble parts in very small robots, move around tiny particles in laboratory experiments and advance medical diagnostics.
"NASA also is actively investigating possible uses of optical tractor beams for sampling comet tails and planet surfaces. What the present paper makes clear is that tractor-beam technology also opens new avenues for lab-on-a-chip material processing that could be very useful for medical diagnostics and related applications," said David Grier, a professor of physics at New York University. Grier wasn't involved in this study.
Scientists have known for a century that light exerts pressure. About a decade ago, theoretical calculations showed that a particle could move against the direction of a light beam, but no one had demonstrated it in the real world without using a complex arrangement of lenses and mirrors.
Zemanek and his team got it to work using laser beams and a simple setup.
Pavel Zemanek and his colleagues at the Institute of Scientific Instruments of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic built a laser that moves tiny spheres of polystyrene floating in water. Changing the way the light is polarized changes the direction the spheres move. They also found that at certain sizes, the spheres arrange themselves into neat rows as they move, bound by the light itself.
"We used a relatively simple setup easily adaptable to any optical microscope and found that it works!" Zemanek told Discovery News via email. In fact Zemanek said it was so simple, one could build the tractor beam setup. All you'd need is a good microscope, a laser, tiny styrofoam balls and distilled water.
This kind of 'tractor beam' can't be scaled up to spaceships – the laser power needed to do that would end up vaporizing the intended target. But the beam could be used to assemble parts in very small robots, move around tiny particles in laboratory experiments and advance medical diagnostics.
"NASA also is actively investigating possible uses of optical tractor beams for sampling comet tails and planet surfaces. What the present paper makes clear is that tractor-beam technology also opens new avenues for lab-on-a-chip material processing that could be very useful for medical diagnostics and related applications," said David Grier, a professor of physics at New York University. Grier wasn't involved in this study.
Scientists have known for a century that light exerts pressure. About a decade ago, theoretical calculations showed that a particle could move against the direction of a light beam, but no one had demonstrated it in the real world without using a complex arrangement of lenses and mirrors.
Zemanek and his team got it to work using laser beams and a simple setup.
Two laser beams intersect and their photons kick back tiny spheres, moving the spheres up toward the light source.
The effect worked because the particles were small enough to scatter photons of light. The photons got pushed ahead of the particles and since the photons had momentum, the particles got a slight kick backwards.
Grier, who has himself experimented with tractor beams (http://physics.nyu.edu/grierlab/conveyor7c/) , noted that this is the first time anyone has shown that the pulling force was due to the scattering and that you could use it to manipulate objects this way. "It's just a beautifully clear demonstration," he said.
By changing the polarization of the light beam, the scientists could move objects in any direction. Zemanek's team found something else, though: the particles sorted themselves by size, with larger ones going to the left and smaller ones going to the right.
The sorting happens because how the light scattered by the particle depends on its size. At a given wavelength small particles will scatter light more than large ones. The light scatters in several directions, and at certain specific particle sizes, Zemanek said the tiny spheres acted like lenses, with some of the light making a kind of focus on one side.
The areas of focused light created a zone where the light's potential energy was at a minimum. This was a "well" where nearby particles would tend to fall. "It's like the cups for eggs in a carton." Zemanek said. A sphere would fall into the well, and as one was pulled along, it drags another behind it. Meanwhile other spheres fell in line, provided they were the same size.
Zemanek noted that if one were assembling a tiny robot, this would be a good way to move the parts around to where they are needed. Since the movement is done with light, it doesn't mater if the particles are metallic or not, or if they are susceptible to electric fields.
Grier said that the future work should focus on extending the range of the tractor beams to more than the micrometer scales. He noted that right now it seems that the object to be moved has to be smaller than the diameter of the beam. "Whether or not that's right, or how stringent a limit it sets, remains to be seen," he said.
The work was published in the Jan. 20 issue of Nature Photonics.
The Lincoln Futura
Via Wiki: “The Lincoln Futura was a concept car designed by the Lincoln division of Ford Motor Company. It was built by Ghia entirely by hand in Italy at a cost of $250,000 and displayed on the auto show circuit in 1955. In 1966 the car was modified by George Barris into the Batmobile, for the 1966 TV series Batman.”The Futura Concept Car, 1954.
Quadruple DNA Helix
'Quadruple helix' DNA in humans
Cambridge University scientists say they have seen
four-stranded DNA at work in human cells for the first time and wonder
if it might provide a target for the development of novel anti-cancer
treatments.
Balasubramanian's group has been pursuing a four-stranded version of the molecule that scientists have produced in the test tube now for a number of years.Jonathan Amos of BBC has the post: Here.
It is called the G-quadruplex. The "G" refers to guanine, one of the four chemical groups, or "bases", that hold DNA together and which encode our genetic information (the others being adenine, cytosine, and thymine).
The G-quadruplex seems to form in DNA where guanine exists in substantial quantities.
Darwin's Neon Orange Golf Balls
If
you're wondering what in the world are those neon orange balls growing
on a beech tree, you're in good company. See, it was Charles Darwin himself
who first encountered the strange balls when he landed in Tierra del Fuego
during his voyage on the HMS Beagle.Turns out, the neon-colored balls known as "beech orange" are actually a fungus named Cyttaria darwini (yes, named after the biologist in his honor). But that's not the strangest thing about the fungus. Turns out, you can make an alcoholic drink out of them!
Darwin himself noted they made up a substantial portion of the diet of the natives of Terra del Fuego and grew “in vast numbers on the beech trees”. He observed that the women and children collected their beech oranges when “tough and mature”, and that they had a “mucilaginous, slightly sweet taste, with a faint smell like that of a mushroom.”Jennifer Frazer of Scientific American's The Artful Amoeba blog has the post: Here.
Another South American group — the Araucans of Chile — discovered and capitalized upon the happy fact that Cyttaria harioti contains up to 15% fermentable sugars and that, like grapes, come naturally coated with the yeast Saccharomyces. This would be the same Saccharomyces that has made the fortunes of Fleischman’s, Budweiser, and half of France.
After drying, grinding, and mixing beech oranges with warm water and allowing nature to take its course, the Araucans enjoy an alcoholic beverage called chicha del llau-llau made from the ripe fruiting bodies, according to Bryce Kendrick’s The Fifth Kingdom.
Darwin was on his course-of-western-history-altering Beagle cruise when he was probably captivated by the odd appearance of Cyttaria darwini, the 'beech orange,' in Tierra del Fuego. This fungus grows in association with the southern hemisphere genus Nothofagus, the 'southern beeches,' and it is not subtle in going about it.
The evolution of white fur and an animal sex scandal
Up north — in Canada and other places where snowy winters are
reliable (and reliably heavy) — you find more animals whose fur comes in
various shades of white. This is true even for species that are brown
or black further south. The difference is obvious. But how does it
happen? Carl Zimmer presents two possible paths to paleness — random mutation, and fortuitous cross-species mating. In related news: Golden retrievers are probably getting it on with Canadian coyotes.
The Merfolk?
Grandpa Fish:
Another possibility is that Merfolk were inspired by fish with roughly
human-looking faces. This little fish, for instance. As for what this fish is, I don't know. I couldn't even find the origin
of the image. It's just one of those floating around the Internet. Could
even be a photoshopped hoax for all I know. But it makes a certain
point: Some fish can look humanoid. That would be enough to get superstitious sailors started.
Woman hurt after dead horse falls on top of her
A woman is in the hospital after a horse died and fell on top of her at a park in Bucks County.
More
More
The First Known Solar-Powered Vertebrate
Some
animals, such as particular sponge and coral species, use
photosynthesis to produce energy. But only recently have scientists
confirmed that a vertebrate--an animal with a backbone--does so as well.
When spotted salamanders lay eggs, algae colonize the egg clusters and
provide the means for photosynthesis:
A close examination of the eggs revealed that some of the algae were living within the embryos themselves, and in some cases were actually inside embryonic cells. That suggested the embryos weren't just taking oxygen from the algae: they might be taking glucose too. In other words, the algae were acting as internal power stations, generating fuel for the salamanders.To find out if that was happening, Erin Graham of Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and colleagues incubated salamander eggs in water containing radioactive carbon-14. Algae take up the isotope in the form of carbon dioxide, producing radioactive glucose.Graham found that the embryos became mildly radioactive – unless kept in the dark. That showed that the embryos could only take in the carbon-14 via photosynthesis in the algae.The algae do not seem to be essential to the embryos, but they are very helpful: embryos deprived of algae struggle. "Their survival rate is much lower and their growth is slowed," says Graham.
The Tortoise Beetle
Amazing Metallic Arthropods
The living tissue is often metallic in color and can in some species even change color. The combination is as diverse as it is extraordinary - many look like tiny robots assembled to infiltrate, the ultimate bug. Take a look in at the amazing variations of tortoise beetle our world holds.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
The Daily Drift
Good question!
Karachi, Pakistan
Makati, Philippines
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Panevezys, Lithuania
Albertslund, Denmark
Jakarta, Indonesia
Kajang, Malaysia
Tunis, Tunisia
Amman, Jordan
Monterrey, Mexico
Kuanas, Lithuania
Butterworth, Malaysia
Caracas, Venezuela
Haifa, Israel
Cape Town, South Africa
Paka, Malaysia
Islamabad, Pakistan
Ankara, Turkey
Batu Pahat, Malaysia
Bogota, Colombia
Minsk, Belarus
Vancouver, Canada
Kingston, Jamaica
Novi Sad, Serbia
T, Philippines
Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia
Kiev, Ukraine
Al Jizah, Egypt
Subang Jaya, Malaysia
Manila, Philippines
Nicosia, Cyprus
Sidi Bel Abbes, Algeria
Sialkot, Pakistan
Taytay, Philippines
Belgrade, Serbia
Seremban, Malaysia
Kuwait, Kuwait
San Pedro, Philippines
Algiers, Algeria
Pekanbaru, Indonesia
Slavutich, Ukraine
Tirana, Albania
Sofia, Bulgaria
Jawa, Indonesia
Today in History
| 1327 | Edward II of England is deposed by his eldest son, Edward III. | |
| 1616 | The French explorer Samuel de Champlain arrives to winter in a Huron Indian village after being wounded in a battle with Iroquois in New France. | |
| 1783 | Britain signs a peace agreement with France and Spain, who allied against it in the American War of Independence. | |
| 1908 | The Sullivan Ordinance bars women from smoking in public facilities in the United States. | |
| 1930 | Charles Lindbergh arrives in New York, setting a cross country flying record of 14.75 hours. | |
| 1935 | Belgium arrests some Nazi agitators who urge for a return to the Reich. | |
| 1941 | Hitler meets with Mussolini and offers aid in Albania and Greece. | |
| 1942 | Nazi officials meet in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to decide the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question." | |
| 1944 | Allied forces in Italy begin unsuccessful operations to cross the Rapido River and seize Cassino. | |
| 1945 | Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated for his fourth term. | |
| 1945 | The Allies sign a truce with the Hungarians. | |
| 1946 | France's Charles DeGaulle hands in his resignation. | |
| 1952 | British troops occupy Ismalia, Egypt. | |
| 1954 | Over 22,000 anti-Communist prisoners are turned over to UN forces in Korea. | |
| 1977 | President Jimmy Carter is sworn in and then surprises the nation as he walks from the U.S. Capitol to the White House. | |
| 1981 | Ronald Reagan is sworn in as president at the same time 52 American hostages are released from their captors in Tehran, Iran. |
Basic Barbecue Dipping Sauce
Makes 2 cups of sauce.
- 1 cup ketchup
- ½ cup tomato puree
- ½ cup tomato paste
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- ¼ teaspoon granulated garlic
- 2 teaspoons light brown sugar
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- 6 ounces water
Combine all ingredients in a 2-quart saucepan. Bring to a boil. Turn
heat down, and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring frequently. Remove pan
from heat, then let cool to room temperature.
Refrigerate until ready to use.
Oh, by the way ...
In the last 32 years ...
Just who raised the debt ceiling, how many times
And another thing ...
Just who raised the debt ceiling, how many times
He tripled the debt,
but...he was White, so it's OK.
Assad's overthrow "red line" for Iran
A senior aide to Iran's supreme
leader warned against the overthrow of Syria's President Bashar
al-Assad, saying his fate was a "red line", in one of the Islamic
state's strongest messages of support for the Damascus government.Iran has steadfastly backed Assad's rule since an
uprising against his rule began almost two years ago and regards him as
an important part of the axis of opposition against arch-foe Israel.
"If the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is toppled, the line of resistance in the face of Israel will be broken," Ali Akbar Velayati, who is seen as a potential contender in Iran's June presidential election, said in an interview broadcast on Sunday.
"We believe that there should be reforms emanating from the will of the Syrian people, but without resorting to violence and obtaining assistance from the (United States of) America," he told Lebanon's Al-Mayadeen satellite television.
Asked if Iran sees Assad as a red line, Velayati said: "Yes, it is so. But this does not mean that we ignore the Syrian people's right in choose its own rulers."
More than 60,000 people have died in the uprising against Assad, part of the Arab Spring protests that have swept aside four heads of state since 2011.
Iran, a regional Shi'ite Muslim power which backs Lebanon's Hezbollah group, describes many Syrian opposition groups as "terrorists" who are backed by Western and Arab states. Assad follows an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.
Velayati blamed what he called "reactionary" Arab states for the violence in Syria and singled out Qatar, accusing it of bringing in fighters from Somalia and Afghanistan to help topple Assad.
Velayati said all parties linked to the crisis in Syria needed to negotiate.
"Anyone who comes to the talks cannot negotiate on the table and support the armed elements, but must enter the negotiations and stop supporting the armed elements," he added.
The Islamic Republic has sought international backing for its six-point plan to resolve the Syrian conflict. The plan calls for an immediate end to violence and negotiations between all parties to form a transitional government, but does not call for Assad to step down.
"If the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is toppled, the line of resistance in the face of Israel will be broken," Ali Akbar Velayati, who is seen as a potential contender in Iran's June presidential election, said in an interview broadcast on Sunday.
"We believe that there should be reforms emanating from the will of the Syrian people, but without resorting to violence and obtaining assistance from the (United States of) America," he told Lebanon's Al-Mayadeen satellite television.
Asked if Iran sees Assad as a red line, Velayati said: "Yes, it is so. But this does not mean that we ignore the Syrian people's right in choose its own rulers."
More than 60,000 people have died in the uprising against Assad, part of the Arab Spring protests that have swept aside four heads of state since 2011.
Iran, a regional Shi'ite Muslim power which backs Lebanon's Hezbollah group, describes many Syrian opposition groups as "terrorists" who are backed by Western and Arab states. Assad follows an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.
Velayati blamed what he called "reactionary" Arab states for the violence in Syria and singled out Qatar, accusing it of bringing in fighters from Somalia and Afghanistan to help topple Assad.
Velayati said all parties linked to the crisis in Syria needed to negotiate.
"Anyone who comes to the talks cannot negotiate on the table and support the armed elements, but must enter the negotiations and stop supporting the armed elements," he added.
The Islamic Republic has sought international backing for its six-point plan to resolve the Syrian conflict. The plan calls for an immediate end to violence and negotiations between all parties to form a transitional government, but does not call for Assad to step down.
***
As if we give a rats ass what the Iranians think or want.
Except maybe this particular Iranian.
Three wounded at shooting at Dixie Gun & Knife Show
No personal gun sales when Dixie Gun & Knife show reopens Sunday
Police say a security guard and two others were wounded Saturday
afternoon at the Dixie Gun & Knife Show after a shotgun went off as
it was being checked in. The gun owner was planning to sell the weapon
at the show, which attracts thousands of people to the fairgrounds in
West Raleigh.
Police said that private gun sales will not be allowed at the show Sunday. Personal guns will not be allowed on property. Gun sales will be allowed only by licensed dealers within the Jim Graham Building.
“If we thought it was a problem, or it was a hazard, or it was dangerous, we would not have this show,” Joel Keith, police chief of the state Agriculture Department, said at a news conference at the fairgrounds. “Let’s keep in mind, as I said before, this was an accident, and I’m sure there’s nobody hates this any more than the guy that owned that weapon. But it’s also a responsibility of us to evaluate what we are doing and see what we can do better.”
Keith said no decision has been made yet whether private gun sales will be permanently banned.
He said private gun sales represent a “minuscule” amount of the market at the Dixie Gun & Knife Show, a quarterly event at the fairgrounds for decades.
‘We see … an accident’
Sunday’s new rules affect people such as Paul Milligan of Raleigh, who planned to sell three guns at the show to a dealer. Milligan, who said he wanted to sell the guns to help pay his bills, said police are overreacting by implementing the new rules.
He said the gun owner never should have brought a loaded weapon into the show.
“This is just a mess,” he said. “One guy gives all of us a bad reputation because he can’t follow fifth-grade safety rules.”
The 12-gauge shotgun discharged shortly after 1 p.m. inside the Jim Graham Building when its owner unzipped its case on a table for a security officer to check it at the main entrance, Keith said. The police chief emphasized that the gun went off before the security officer had a chance to examine the weapon.
Keith said birdshot pellets hit Janet Hoover, 54, of Benson, in the right torso; Linwood Hester, 50, of Durham, in the left hand; and Jake Alderman, a retired Wake County sheriff’s deputy from Wake Forest, in the hand. Hoover and Hester were taken to WakeMed, where an official said both were in good condition Saturday night and expected to be released soon.
Alderman, who was working security at the show, was treated and released at WakeMed North Healthplex.
Gary Lynn Wilson, 36, of Wilmington, who brought the shotgun, is being questioned by the Wake County Sheriff’s Office, which Keith asked to handle the investigation. Sheriff Donnie Harrison said investigators will consult with the district attorney’s office about whether charges should be filed.
“Right now, what we see is an accident,” Harrison said. “If there’s something he may be charged with, we’ll find that out.”
The shooting takes place amid a time of heightened tension about gun control following last month’s school shooting in Connecticut in which a gunman killed 20 children and six school staff members. Gun-rights supporters fear that new gun control restrictions will be implemented.
Protest at Capitol
As part of Saturday’s national Gun Appreciation Day, gun-rights supporters marched around the Legislative Building in downtown Raleigh. State Capitol Police estimated the crowd numbered around 200 people.
Protesters held signs such as “The Reason We Have a Constitution Is To Protect Us from Presidents like Barack Obama” and “I (Heart) My AK-47.” One sign had the words “Come and Take It!” over the image of an assault rifle equipped with a scope and bayonet.
Over at the fairgrounds, people faced long lines of an hour or more at the gun show, which closed early because of the shooting.
“I didn’t even get in the door,” said Christopher Kent of Tarboro. “I have been looking forward to this for a while.”
There were two other shootings at gun shows Saturday, The Associated Press reported. In Indianapolis, a man unloading his .45-caliber semi-automatic handgun shot his hand, and in Medina, Ohio, a gun dealer checking out a semi-automatic handgun he had bought accidentally pulled the trigger. The bullet ricocheted off the floor and struck a friend’s arm and leg.
Police said that private gun sales will not be allowed at the show Sunday. Personal guns will not be allowed on property. Gun sales will be allowed only by licensed dealers within the Jim Graham Building.
“If we thought it was a problem, or it was a hazard, or it was dangerous, we would not have this show,” Joel Keith, police chief of the state Agriculture Department, said at a news conference at the fairgrounds. “Let’s keep in mind, as I said before, this was an accident, and I’m sure there’s nobody hates this any more than the guy that owned that weapon. But it’s also a responsibility of us to evaluate what we are doing and see what we can do better.”
Keith said no decision has been made yet whether private gun sales will be permanently banned.
He said private gun sales represent a “minuscule” amount of the market at the Dixie Gun & Knife Show, a quarterly event at the fairgrounds for decades.
‘We see … an accident’
Sunday’s new rules affect people such as Paul Milligan of Raleigh, who planned to sell three guns at the show to a dealer. Milligan, who said he wanted to sell the guns to help pay his bills, said police are overreacting by implementing the new rules.
He said the gun owner never should have brought a loaded weapon into the show.
“This is just a mess,” he said. “One guy gives all of us a bad reputation because he can’t follow fifth-grade safety rules.”
The 12-gauge shotgun discharged shortly after 1 p.m. inside the Jim Graham Building when its owner unzipped its case on a table for a security officer to check it at the main entrance, Keith said. The police chief emphasized that the gun went off before the security officer had a chance to examine the weapon.
Keith said birdshot pellets hit Janet Hoover, 54, of Benson, in the right torso; Linwood Hester, 50, of Durham, in the left hand; and Jake Alderman, a retired Wake County sheriff’s deputy from Wake Forest, in the hand. Hoover and Hester were taken to WakeMed, where an official said both were in good condition Saturday night and expected to be released soon.
Alderman, who was working security at the show, was treated and released at WakeMed North Healthplex.
Gary Lynn Wilson, 36, of Wilmington, who brought the shotgun, is being questioned by the Wake County Sheriff’s Office, which Keith asked to handle the investigation. Sheriff Donnie Harrison said investigators will consult with the district attorney’s office about whether charges should be filed.
“Right now, what we see is an accident,” Harrison said. “If there’s something he may be charged with, we’ll find that out.”
The shooting takes place amid a time of heightened tension about gun control following last month’s school shooting in Connecticut in which a gunman killed 20 children and six school staff members. Gun-rights supporters fear that new gun control restrictions will be implemented.
Protest at Capitol
As part of Saturday’s national Gun Appreciation Day, gun-rights supporters marched around the Legislative Building in downtown Raleigh. State Capitol Police estimated the crowd numbered around 200 people.
Protesters held signs such as “The Reason We Have a Constitution Is To Protect Us from Presidents like Barack Obama” and “I (Heart) My AK-47.” One sign had the words “Come and Take It!” over the image of an assault rifle equipped with a scope and bayonet.
Over at the fairgrounds, people faced long lines of an hour or more at the gun show, which closed early because of the shooting.
“I didn’t even get in the door,” said Christopher Kent of Tarboro. “I have been looking forward to this for a while.”
There were two other shootings at gun shows Saturday, The Associated Press reported. In Indianapolis, a man unloading his .45-caliber semi-automatic handgun shot his hand, and in Medina, Ohio, a gun dealer checking out a semi-automatic handgun he had bought accidentally pulled the trigger. The bullet ricocheted off the floor and struck a friend’s arm and leg.
SWAT standoff in Georgia uncovers dismembered body
Police went to Chad Moretz's
home to ask him about a friend who had gone missing and quickly found
themselves in a tense standoff when a relative answered the door and
whispered: "He's got a rifle. He's going to kill y'all."
It was at least the fourth time in 18 months deputies had gone to see Moretz.
Neighbors and relatives had accused him of chasing his wife with a
machete, threatening to kill a man with a handgun and stabbing a dog
with a pocket knife. But none of that prepared investigators for what
they found Jan. 11 after Moretz walked onto his front porch with an
assault rifle and was killed by a SWAT team sniper.
Inside the home, amid filth and roaches and foul odors, police found
the missing man's severed head and two hands hidden behind a kitchen
cabinet inside a hole in the wall. The rest of the body, dismembered by a
power saw and wrapped in bags, was discovered in a storage locker a
half-hour away in neighboring South Carolina."I don't believe there was a motive," said David Ehsanipoor, an investigator for the Effingham County Sheriff's Office. "It wasn't a drug deal gone bad or a love triangle. Chad was just crazy."
Medical examiners confirmed the body belonged to Charlie Ray, 35. Ray had been a friend of Moretz, and his family had been searching for him since New Year's Eve.
An autopsy showed Ray was stabbed more than 40 times and had been
dead more than a week before his remains were found. Moretz's wife told
investigators her husband and Ray had been drinking and talking, then
started arguing. She said Moretz grabbed a knife and started repeatedly
stabbing Ray in their kitchen, Ehsanipoor said. Investigators suspect
Ray's body was dismembered to make it easier to hide.
Ray's mother, Sandi Ray, said in a brief phone interview her son struggled with Tourette's syndrome.
Megan Edgerly, a friend of Ray's since childhood, said the
debilitating brain disorder left him unable to drive or to hold down a
job. She said he handled his tics — flailing arms and vocal outbursts —
with grace and humor and treasured friends who accepted him in spite of
it."Charlie never had a frown on his face," Edgerly said. "He was dealt a bad hand, but he always maintained a real positive attitude throughout all of it."
Moretz lived about 20 miles from where Ray lived with his parents. Moretz had moved there from southwest Florida, where violence devastated his own family a year and a half ago.
His father is scheduled to stand trial in April for the slaying of Moretz's mother in Naples, Fla. Police said Jeffrey Moretz, 55, followed his estranged wife, Christine Moretz,
to a hospital and fatally shot her while she was visiting a friend on
July 5, 2011. He then shot himself, but survived. Court records show
Jeffrey Moretz filed for divorce in Collier County, Fla., two weeks
before his wife's slaying.
One of Chad Moretz's neighbors, Ross Maruca, said Moretz didn't work
and let his grass grow knee-high before Maruca decided to cut it
himself. He said Moretz once showed up at his door and asked his wife
for food and money. She gave him $20, he said, and Moretz later paid it
back."You could look at him and tell something was wrong, just the look he had," Maruca said. "He looked like he was dazed all the time."
Deputies jailed Moretz on July 23, 2011 — not quite three weeks after his mother was killed — when his brother-in-law told police he'd received a frantic phone call from his sister saying Moretz was chasing her with a machete. Moretz's wife denied the story. Deputies charged Chad Moretz with trespassing when they found him hiding by a shed in a neighbor's yard.
Last May, neighbors called the sheriff's office when they said Moretz stabbed a dog that had gotten loose after he was bitten several times. In November, a friend told police Moretz asked for a ride, and when he refused, he pointed the gun at him and threatened to kill him and his family.
Deputies arrested Moretz on
charges of making terroristic threats on Dec. 22. Jail records show he
was released on $3,500 bond the same day.
Almost two weeks later, Maruca
called police after seeing a TV news report that Charlie Ray was
missing. Maruca knew Ray because he had lived at Moretz's house for two
or three months the previous summer. The neighbor said he saw Ray at the
house Jan. 2.
Police initially talked to
Moretz's wife, who said Ray wasn't there. Days later, they decided to
return to the suburban neighborhood of modest brick homes talk to Moretz
himself. His brother-in-law, Kevin Lambert, met detectives at the door
and whispered a warning.
"He said, 'Chad's in here, he's got a rifle, he's going to kill y'all,'" Ehsanipoor said.
Detectives dragged Lambert out of
the house and retreated. Moretz, armed with an assault rifle, refused
to come out or to let his wife leave. A hostage negotiator and a SWAT
team were brought in.
After more than four hours,
Moretz's wife ran outside through the front door and collapsed in the
yard. Then Moretz emerged with an AR-15 rifle. Ehsanipoor said he was
raising the gun when a sniper shot him.
Though investigators say they
believe Moretz alone killed Ray, his wife and brother-in-law have been
charged with helping conceal the death. Kimberly Moretz
did not immediately return a message left at a phone number listed for
her on a police report. Lambert did not have a listed phone number.
Investigators said it was one of
the siblings who told authorities during the standoff that Ray's remains
were hidden in a storage locker in nearby Jasper, S.C.
"Everybody's still in a state of shock," said Edgerly, Ray's longtime friend. "This isn't supposed to happen."
Flu season fuels debate over paid sick time laws
A school speech therapist who works as an independent contractor, she doesn't have paid sick days.
So the mother of two reported to work and hoped for the best — and was
aching, shivering and coughing by the end of the day. She stayed home
the next day, then loaded up on medicine and returned to work.
"It's a balancing act" between physical health and financial well-being, she said.
An unusually early and vigorous
flu season is drawing attention to a cause that has scored victories but
also hit roadblocks in recent years: mandatory paid sick leave for the 40 percent of American private-sector workers — more than 40 million people — who don't have it.
Supporters and opponents are particularly watching New York City,
where lawmakers are weighing a sick leave proposal amid a competitive
mayoral race.
Pointing to a flu outbreak that
the governor has called a public health emergency, dozens of doctors,
nurses, lawmakers and activists — some in surgical masks — rallied
Friday on the City Hall steps to call for passage of the measure, which
has awaited a City Council vote for nearly three years. Two likely mayoral contenders have also pressed the point.
The flu spike is making people more aware of the argument for sick
pay, said Ellen Bravo, executive director of Family Values at Work,
which promotes paid sick time initiatives around the country. "There's
people who say, 'OK, I get it — you don't want your server coughing on
your food,'" she said.Advocates have cast paid sick time as both a workforce issue akin to parental leave and "living wage" laws, and a public health priority.
But to some business owners, paid sick leave is an impractical and unfair burden for small operations. Critics also say the timing is bad, given the choppy economy and the hardships inflicted by Superstorm Sandy.
Michael Sinesky, an owner of seven bars and restaurants around the city, was against the sick time proposal before Sandy. And after the storm shut down four of his restaurants for days or weeks, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars that his insurers have yet to pay, "we're in survival mode."
"We're at the point, right now, where we cannot afford additional social initiatives," said Sinesky, whose roughly 500 employees switch shifts if they can't work, an arrangement that some restaurateurs say benefits workers because paid sick time wouldn't include tips.
Employees without sick days are more likely to go to work with a contagious illness, send an ill child to school or day care and use hospital emergency rooms for care, according to a 2010 survey by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. A 2011 study in the American Journal of Public Health estimated that a lack of sick time helped spread 5 million cases of flu-like illness during the 2009 swine flu outbreak.
To be sure, many employees entitled to sick time go to work ill anyway, out of dedication or at least a desire to project it. But the work-through-it ethic is shifting somewhat amid growing awareness about spreading sickness.
"Right now, where companies' incentives lie is butting right up against this concern over people coming into the workplace, infecting others and bringing productivity of a whole company down," said John A. Challenger, CEO of employer consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
Paid sick day requirements are often popular in polls, but only four places have them: San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and the state of Connecticut. The specific provisions vary.
Milwaukee voters approved a sick time requirement in 2008, but the state Legislature passed a law blocking it. Philadelphia's mayor vetoed a sick leave measure in 2011; lawmakers have since instituted a sick time requirement for businesses with city contracts. Voters rejected a paid sick day measure in Denver in 2011.
In New York, City Councilwoman Gale Brewer's proposal would require up to five paid sick days a year at businesses with at least five employees. It wouldn't include independent contractors, such as Zavala, who supports the idea nonetheless.
The idea boasts such supporters
as feminist Gloria Steinem and "Sex and the City" actress Cynthia Nixon,
as well as a majority of City Council members and a coalition of
unions, women's groups and public health advocates. But it also faces
influential opponents, including business groups, Mayor Michael
Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has virtually complete control over what matters come to a vote.
Quinn, who is expected to run for mayor, said she considers paid sick
leave a worthy goal but doesn't think it would be wise to implement it
in a sluggish economy. Two of her likely opponents, Public Advocate Bill
de Blasio and Comptroller John Liu, have reiterated calls for paid sick
leave in light of the flu season.While the debate plays out, Emilio Palaguachi is recovering from the flu and looking for a job. The father of four was abruptly fired without explanation earlier this month from his job at a deli after taking a day off to go to a doctor, he said. His former employer couldn't be reached by telephone.
"I needed work," Palaguachi said after Friday's City Hall rally, but "I needed to see the doctor because I'm sick."
Do we really need deodorant?
New research shows that more than 75 per cent of people with a particular version of a gene don’t produce...
In The News
The Science of Flu Season
Flu season is in winter. Okay, great. But why? (Consider this an open thread for all your favorite humidifier recommendations.)How chili peppers can kill
In the latest "dose makes the poison" news: If you consume enough chili peppers (or even chili powder), it can act as a neurotoxin.Great moments in pedantry: Canada puts the wrong maple leaf on its $20 bill
Hey, that's not a Canadian sugar maple leaf! That is very clearly the leaf of the invasive Norway maple.Tree and human health may be linked
Evidence is increasing from multiple scientific
fields that exposure to the natural environment can improve human
health. In a new ...
Can The Plague Rise Again?
The short answer is: Yes!There's no doubt that the plague has staying power. The deadly bacterium has probably been infecting people for 20,000 years. And, its genes have hardly changed since it killed nearly half of Europe's population during The Black Death.
Now microbiologists have evidence that strains of the plague may be able to reactivate themselves and trigger new outbreaks - even after lying dormant for decades. That's the conclusion of a study just published in Emerging Infectious Diseases, which looked at recent plague outbreaks in Algeria and Libya.
Rare tropical disease close to eradication
A rare tropical disease called Guinea worm is closer to being
eradicated, according to former President Jimmy Carter and other
experts.
Bats are Reservoir for Ebola Virus in Bangladesh
EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit organization that
focuses on local conservation and global health issues, released new
research on Ebola virus ...
The Caucasus
The Caucasus are associated with snowy peaks, turbulent mountain rivers, Narzan (local mineral water), glaciers and old double-peak Elbrus. It's where you constantly hear rockfalling sounds, crackling glaciers and see the stars which seem to be so close that you can touch them with your hands. More
The History Behind Singapore's Only Surviving WWII Bomb Shelter
For some 70 years, the tunnels and chambers of Singapore's last
remaining WWII air raid shelter have gathered dust, only recently to be
rediscovered. More
'Astonishing' Ancient Amazon Civilization Discovery Detailed
Recently, new satellite imagery detected a hidden kingdom in the Amazon that had eluded explorers for nearly 500 years.
Some called it El Dorado, others, like Colonel Percy Harrison
Fawcett (a British version of Indiana Jones) cryptically named it the
"City of Z."
The jungle swallowed them all, and no evidence has ever been produced that such a place existed.
Now the satellite imagery of deforested sections of the upper Amazon Basin revealed more than 200 geometric earthworks. Sculpted from the clay rich soils of Amazonia as perfect circles and squares,
these structured earth mounds, or "geoglyphs," are located on the east side of the Andes and span a distance of 155 miles. Built long before Christopher Columbus set foot in the new world — the sites date from 200 to 1283 A.D.– the earthworks are the remains of roads, bridges and squares that formed the basis for a lost civilization, according to a study published in the journal Antiquity.
Denise Schaan, co-author of the study and anthropologist at the Federal University of Pará, in Belém,
Brazil, talks about this intriguing finding.
wide and several feet deep, lined by earthen banks up to 3 feet high.
The jungle swallowed them all, and no evidence has ever been produced that such a place existed.
Now the satellite imagery of deforested sections of the upper Amazon Basin revealed more than 200 geometric earthworks. Sculpted from the clay rich soils of Amazonia as perfect circles and squares,
these structured earth mounds, or "geoglyphs," are located on the east side of the Andes and span a distance of 155 miles. Built long before Christopher Columbus set foot in the new world — the sites date from 200 to 1283 A.D.– the earthworks are the remains of roads, bridges and squares that formed the basis for a lost civilization, according to a study published in the journal Antiquity.
Denise Schaan, co-author of the study and anthropologist at the Federal University of Pará, in Belém,
Brazil, talks about this intriguing finding.
Denise Schaan: The geoglyphs are an
astonishing discovery. They do not represent the ancient city full of
gold long sought by the early explorers of the Amazon, but they are
indeed an El Dorado to archaelogists: they are the vestiges of a
sophisticated pre-Columbian monument-building society.
According to Schaan and colleagues Martti Parssinen from the University of Helsinki and Alceu Ranzi from the Federal University of Acre, Rio Branco, Brazil, the structures are formed by ditches about 36 feetwide and several feet deep, lined by earthen banks up to 3 feet high.
Denise Schaan: We are talking
of enourmous structures, with diameters ranging from 100
to 300 meters, connected by straight orthogonal
roads. They are strategically located on plateaux
tops above the river valleys. Their builders took
advantage of the natural topography in order to construct spaces that
were full of symbolic meaning.
But who built the structures and what functions they had remains unclear.
Denise Schaan: They were probably
villages, ceremonial centers, gathering places and point to a society of
a complex nature. Indeed, to build these structures you need
organization, planning, and large labor force. Amazingly, this suggest
that quite substantial population was living in an area long believed to
be too harsh to sustain permanent settlements.
Schaan and colleagues estimated at least 300 people would be
needed to build a geoglyph. This points to a regional population of
around 60,000 people, which was then wiped out by diseases brought by
European conquistadores in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Denise Schaan: We were used to find
vestiges of large populations along the main rivers, in the Amazon
floodplain. Now we see that the interfluvies were also highly populated.
We are finding new structures every week, and I got the impression this
is just the tip of the iceberg.
The researchers believe that the sites already found make up only 10 percent of what is actually there.
Denise Schaan: Actually, there may
be another 2,000 structures hidden in the jungle. It is clear for us
that the search does not end here. We will carry out extensive
excavations to investigate more deeply the activities that took place in
these places.
A Giant Mystery
A Giant Mystery: 18 Strange Skeletons Found in Wisconsin
The dig site at Lake Delavan was overseen by Beloit College and it included more than 200 effigy mounds that proved to be classic examples of 8th century Woodland Culture.
Should We Clone Neanderthals?
Given
the advances in biotechnology, it's just a matter of time before humanity
can bring the Neanderthals back from the dead. Whether we should is a
completely different story, according to genomics and synthetic biology
pioneer George Church of
Harvard University.In this intriguing interview with Der Spiegel, Church explained that using synthetic biology to bring the Neanderthals back from extinction may actually benefit society:
SPIEGEL: Wouldn't it be ethically problematic to create a Neanderthal just for the sake of scientific curiosity?But first, you'd need an "extremely adventurous female human" to serve as a surrogate mother:
Church: Well, curiosity may be part of it, but it's not the most important driving force. The main goal is to increase diversity. The one thing that is bad for society is low diversity. This is true for culture or evolution, for species and also for whole societies. If you become a monoculture, you are at great risk of perishing. Therefore the recreation of Neanderthals would be mainly a question of societal risk avoidance.
SPIEGEL: Setting aside all ethical doubts, do you believe it is technically possible to reproduce the Neanderthal?Read the full interview over at Der Spiegel
Church: The first thing you have to do is to sequence the Neanderthal genome, and that has actually been done. The next step would be to chop this genome up into, say, 10,000 chunks and then synthesize these. Finally, you would introduce these chunks into a human stem cell. If we do that often enough, then we would generate a stem cell line that would get closer and closer to the corresponding sequence of the Neanderthal. We developed the semi-automated procedure required to do that in my lab. Finally, we assemble all the chunks in a human stem cell, which would enable you to finally create a Neanderthal clone.
SPIEGEL: And the surrogates would be human, right? In your book you write that an "extremely adventurous female human" could serve as the surrogate mother.
Church: Yes. However, the prerequisite would, of course, be that human cloning is acceptable to society.
Manchurian robots rising from the ocean floor
(OK, they're "non-lethal")
The US Department of Defense is launching a research effort to
develop underwater robots/sensor platforms that would hibernate on the
ocean floor until they "wake up when commanded, and deploy to surface
providing operational support and situational awareness." DARPA has
dubbed the research effort the Upward Falling Payloads program. (The
image below, from the DARPA press release, seems to be illustrating, um,
a robot's-eye-view as it's surfacing.) From their announcement:
"FALLING UP: DARPA TO LAUNCH JUST-IN-TIME PAYLOADS FROM BOTTOM OF SEA"Depending on the specific payload, systems would provide a range of non-lethal but useful capabilities such as situational awareness, disruption, deception, networking, rescue, or any other mission that benefits from being pre-distributed and hidden. An example class of systems might be small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that launch to the surface in capsules, take off and provide aerial situational awareness, networking or decoy functions. Waterborne applications are sought as well.
Sundogs
Spots Of Color Beside The Sun
They can be seen anywhere in the world during any season, but they are not always obvious or bright. Sundogs are best seen and are most conspicuous when the sun is low.
Yaks may be on the comeback
A team of American and Chinese conservationists
from the Wildlife Conservation Society and University of Montana
recently counted nearly 1,000 ...
Facts About Seahorses
The best part of this video is that all the facts presented in it are in fact true - as far as we can tell.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
The Daily Drift
Can't beat the Classics
Some of our readers today have been in:
Vancouver, Canada
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
T, Philippines
Jakarta, Indonesia
Al Jizah, Egypt
Amman, Jordan
Nicosia, Cyprus
Butterworth, Malaysia
Makati, Philippines
Cape Town, South Africa
Albertslund, Denmark
Ankara, Turkey
Tunis, Tunisia
Minsk, Belarus
Kaunas, Lithuania
Novi Sad, Serbia
Haifa, Israel
Manila, Philippines
Islamabad, Pakistan
Kiev, Ukraine
Bogota, Colombia
Sialkot, Pakistan
Kingston, Jamaica
Belgrade, Serbia
Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia
Kuwait, Kuwait
Subang Jaya, Malaysia
Algiers, Algeria
Taytay, Philippines
Slavutich, Ukraine
Sidi Bel Abbes, Algeria
Sofia, Bulgaria
San Pedro, Philippines
Tirana, Albania
Seremban, Malaysia
Jawa, Indonesia
London, England
Pekanbaru, Indonesia
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