Thursday, May 5, 2005

Animal Waste Studied As Energy Source

SYRACUSE, N.Y. - The Rosamond Gifford Zoo is looking to become the first zoo in the nation to be powered by its own animal waste — particularly the prodigious piles produced by its pachyderms. The zoo — world prominent for its Asian elephant breeding program — is studying how feasible it would be to switch to animal waste as an alternative energy source to reduce its $400,000 annual heating and electricity bill. The zoo's six elephants produce more than 1,000 pounds of dung per day, said Zoo Director Anne Baker.

"Zoos are about conservation and stemming the loss of animals and habitat," Baker said. "But conservation also is about how people use natural resources. This is an opportunity to give visitors the whole picture." The zoo sends most of its animal waste to a local farm, where it is composted. The zoo spends about $10,000 a year on animal-waste disposal, but Baker noted it also requires the use of additional fossil fuels for transportation. "This would be just such a good idea on so many levels," she said. Although other zoos have come up with creative ways to reuse their elephant manure — including using it to make stationery — Rosamond Gifford appears to be the first to propose using it for power, according to Jane Ballentine, a spokeswoman for the American Zoo and Aquarium Association.

Baker said the idea of using animal waste for energy first arose several years ago when she was talking to local officials about the potential for creating a more environmentally friendly and self-sustaining zoo. Because the elephants eat mostly hay, they are the ideal waste producers for the project, Baker said. Additionally, they are inefficient digesters, which makes their feces higher in energy content, she said. The zoo also will look at using the manure from its domestic farm animals, its other hoof stock, such as its bison and caribou, and even its lions and tigers, she said. Depending on the process, the zoo animal waste could be used to produce methane or hydrogen for powering a fuel cell or generator. In the United States, a number of farms have used animal waste to produce power, so the technology is available to apply at the zoo, said John Fox of Homeland Energy Resources Development, a New York City-based renewable energy developer assisting with the study. But there are questions to be answered to know whether it can be worthwhile, he said. The study will start by evaluating the energy-producing potential of all the animals' dung. Another important question, said Fox, is determining just how much animal waste the zoo produces.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, April 28, 2005

Greenhouse effect confirmed by new NASA ocean study

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Earth absorbs more solar energy than it emits back into space, causing a heat imbalance that confirms what researchers have long pointed to as the hothouse effect of atmospheric pollution, according to a study. "This energy imbalance is the 'smoking gun' that we have been looking for," said James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and a lead author in research published online in Science Express.

The accumulated energy is likely to bring with it an increase of 0.6 degree Celsius (one degree Fahrenheit) of the Earth's median temperature by the end of the century, the researchers said. An increase of one watt per square meter over 10,000 years would be enough to melt ice equivalent to one kilometer (0.6 mile) of ice cap. Researchers who used satellites, data from ocean buoys and computer models for oceanic study, calculated that the Earth is holding on to 0.85 watts of energy per square meter contributing to the imbalance. No immediate temperature increase is observed, but since the ocean stores heat in its depths, a delay occurs in human-induced, or anthropogenic, climate change.

Consequences of the time lag include a likely one degree Fahrenheit increase globally that is "already in the pipeline," researchers said. Even if such human-induced increase of gases in the air was stalled, climate temperature would rise that much over the next 25 years, researchers say. The time lag also allows opportunities to take action that could reduce the scope of climate change before it is fully realized -- provided action is taken to reduce climate forcing agents.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, April 21, 2005

Surveys: Young Adults Search Spiritually

By JUSTIN POPE, AP Education Writer

For some young adults, spirituality goes hand in hand with religious practice. For others, it is a substitute. Regardless, young Americans are actively engaged in spiritual questions, two new surveys indicate, even if they may not be exploring them in traditional ways. One of the surveys, of more than 100,000 freshmen who started college last fall, found four in five reporting an interest in spirituality, with three in four searching for meaning or purpose in life, and the same proportion discussing the meaning of life with friends. The students starting college expected their institutions to help them explore such questions. And while an even higher proportion, more than 90 percent, said they expect their college to prepare them for employment, the authors noted that the results challenge the view of young Americans as crassly materialistic.

"They are looking inwardly and they are searching for ways to cultivate their inner selves," said Helen Astin, professor emeritus of higher education and a senior scholar UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute, which produced the survey of college freshman released Wednesday in Washington. A separate survey of 1,325 18-25 year-olds released earlier this week by Reboot, a Jewish networking group, and several collaborating organizations, emphasizes the degree to which young people are confronting religious issues informally, through conversations and even Christian rock music rather than formal religious practice. While 44 percent of respondents called themselves "religious," 35 percent said they are "spiritual but not religious" and 18 percent said neither. At Roanoke College, in Salem, Va., where he has been chaplain for more than 20 years, Paul Henrickson said he is quite familiar with the "spiritual but not religious" phenomenon.

"You have a lot of kids that understand in their hearts that there is a mystery about life that is larger than they are and larger than they understand, and they would call that 'spiritual.' And they are very interested in that," Henrickson said. But, he added, "they pursue that in private ways" and "in kind of a shotgun approach. They'll look at all kinds of things from Eastern religions to yoga to New Age stuff to the standard Christianity. But they are unlikely to have that solid commitment to a religious institution (like) church membership." Still, many students view spirituality as a complement to their religious beliefs. In the UCLA survey, for instance, Mormons, Baptists and nontraditional Christians all exhibited high degrees of both spirituality and religious engagement as measured by such things as praying, attending services and reading sacred texts. Students exhibiting high religious engagement were more likely to have conservative social views, though some issues like the death penalty and affirmative action do not conform to the pattern.

"It's very difficult to put people in boxes," Astin said in a telephone interview. The survey's authors challenged American colleges and universities to be more responsive to the spiritual hunger of their students. They said previous studies have indicated older college students are disappointed with how infrequently they have been challenged to think about "meaning of life" issues in class. UCLA plans to check back with the students when they are juniors; for now, the survey says nothing about the effects of college because it captures students at the very beginning of their college careers. HERI's previous studies have found students' participation in organized religion fell during their college years, though interest in spiritual questions persists. But the studies and other data suggest the late teens are a time when serious contemplation of spiritual issues begins.

Previous research by Chris Smith, a University of North Carolina sociologist and adviser to the UCLA study, found 13-17 year-olds are highly conventional in their religious practices, following how they were raised. But just 9 percent of the UCLA respondents said they felt compelled to follow their parents' religious practice. While 42 percent described themselves as "secure" in their spiritual and religious views, 10 percent said they were "doubting," 23 percent "seeking" and 15 percent "conflicted" (respondents could choose more than one response). College students, Smith said, "are starting to branch out somewhat in their thinking and their exploring."


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, April 14, 2005

Moon offers place in Sun for future colony

PARIS (AFP) - Astronomers say they have identified a place on the Moon that lies in permanent sunlight and close to regions suspected to hold water ice: in short, an ideal location for a tentative lunar colony. The spot is located on a highland close to the lunar north pole, between three large impact craters called Peary, Hermite and Rozhdestvensky, they report in Thursday's issue of Nature, the British weekly science journal. The temperature there is estimated to range between minus 40 and minus 60 C (minus 40 to minus 76 F), which by lunar standards is relatively balmy -- and stable.

By comparison, the temperature on the Moon's equator ranges from minus 180 C to plus 100 C (minus 292 to plus 212 F). Because the area is bathed in perpetual sunlight, a future human outpost on the Moon could draw on abundant solar energy. In addition, the lunar pioneers could tap into supplies of water if -- as some scientists speculate -- ice lurks in permanently shadowed craters at the lunar poles. The study is lead-authored by Ben Bussey of Johns Hopkins University, Maryland. In January 2004, President George W. Bush sketched plans for a US return to the Moon as early as 2015, saying a lunar base would be a launch pad for manned missions to Mars and "across our Solar System."


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, April 7, 2005

'Superfoods' Aim to Make You Healthier

WASHINGTON - There is food, and then there is superfood. Salmon, trout and albacore tuna may reduce the risk of heart disease. So may olive oil, almonds, walnuts, Cheerios and Boca Burgers. These foods, which go beyond basic nutrition and help fight disease or make you healthier, are what shoppers increasingly want. At a health food store in St. Louis, Inda Schaenen loaded her cart with whole-grain bread, brown rice, beans and green leaf lettuce — all labeled as "superfoods." "I have three growing children, so I look for foods high in vitamins, fiber and protein," said Schaenen, a 44-year-old writer. "I don't want growth hormones and pesticide." Wild Oats, a chain of health food stores, is promoting 20 different "superfoods," from berries to seeds and yogurt. Not only are they healthier because of fewer calories, they add vitamins and minerals, cancer-fighting antioxidants and other healthy components. "We wanted to say, `Here are things you should be adding to your diet, rather than taking things away,'" said Wild Oats spokeswoman Sonja Tuitele. "If you're going to buy nuts, choose almonds. If you're going to buy deli meat, choose boneless, skinless turkey breast."

Nine in 10 shoppers have bought foods because the packages had health or nutritional claims, according to a 2004 survey by the Food Marketing Institute, which represents retailers and wholesalers. Companies introduced 658 new whole-grain products last year, market research firm A.C. Nielsen said. Also, there were 825 new products claiming to be good or excellent sources of calcium. But buying healthier food is not yet a trend, said analyst Harry Balzer of the consumer research firm NPD Group. Americans still care more about how food tastes, whether it is convenient and how much it costs, Balzer said. Interest in food that carries health claims dipped in the mid-1990s and is only now beginning to rebound, he said. "We often mistake trying new things as a trend," Balzer said. "What we're really looking at is Americans' desire to find `new.'" More of these disease-fighting, health-promoting foods are finding a market, according to the Institute of Food Technologists, the leading professional society in the food science field.

Researchers have found food components with potential to improve memory, ease arthritis and fight heart disease. The report also found that the government often stands in the way of people learning the health-inducing benefits of some products. For example, juice makers can claim that cranberry products help maintain urinary tract health, but they cannot say cranberry juice cocktail prevents urinary tract infections. That claim is legal in France. The makers of the butter-like spread Take Control had clinical studies showing it lowers cholesterol. But until they got approval from the Food and Drug Administration, they couldn't put it on the label. "They had to say something like, `Maintains healthy levels of cholesterol,'" said Fergus Clydesdale, a food science professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who headed the study. "What does it mean? What's a healthy level?" Clydesdale said. "That isn't very good — matter of fact, it isn't true. We knew the product lowered cholesterol." In the grocery store, shoppers might see these claims on Cheerios, which has soluble oat fiber that can reduce the risk of heart disease, or on Boca Burgers, which has soy protein that can also fight heart disease. Yoplait's Heart Healthy yogurt has cholesterol-reducing plant sterols, and similar sterols and stanols are found in Take Control and BENECOL spreads.

Last year, the FDA approved new health claims for the monounsaturated fat in olive oil and omega-3 fatty acids found in fish, saying both have been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease. The claims are qualified; labels must say research is not conclusive. Under review is whether products containing lycopene, found in tomatoes and watermelon, can claim the potential to reduce the risk of cancer, particularly prostate cancer. The scientists recommended several changes in the FDA's approval process. FDA spokeswoman Kimberly Rawlings said the agency is reviewing the report. The group also suggests rewarding tax breaks and exclusivity, similar to a patent, to food companies that develop new foods. Both would require action by Congress.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, April 1, 2005

No Joke: Animals Laugh, Too

Life can be funny, and not just for humans. Studies by various groups suggest monkeys, dogs and even rats love a good laugh. People, meanwhile, have been laughing since before they could talk. "Indeed, neural circuits for laughter exist in very ancient regions of the brain, and ancestral forms of play and laughter existed in other animals eons before we humans came along with our 'ha-ha-has' and verbal repartee," says Jaak Panksepp, a neuroscientist at Bowling Green State University.

When chimps play and chase each other, they pant in a manner that is strikingly like human laughter, Panksepp writes in the April 1 issue of the journal Science. Dogs have a similar response. Rats chirp while they play, again in a way that resembles our giggles. Panksepp found in a previous study that when rats are playfully tickled, they chirp and bond socially with their human tickler. And they seem to like it, seeking to be tickled more. Apparently joyful rats also preferred to hang out with other chirpers. Laughter in humans starts young, another clue that it's a deep-seated brain function. "Young children, whose semantic sense of humor is marginal, laugh and shriek abundantly in the midst of their other rough-and-tumble activities," Panksepp notes.

Importantly, various recent studies on the topic suggest that laughter in animals typically involves similar play chasing. Could be that verbal jokes tickle ancient, playful circuits in our brains. More study is needed to figure out whether animals are really laughing. The results could explain why humans like to joke around. And Panksepp speculates it might even lead to the development of treatments for laughter's dark side: depression. Meanwhile, there's the question of what's so darn funny in the animal world. "Although no one has investigated the possibility of rat humor, if it exists, it is likely to be heavily laced with slapstick," Panksepp figures. "Even if adult rodents have no well-developed cognitive sense of humor, young rats have a marvelous sense of fun."

Science has traditionally deemed animals incapable of joy and woe. Panksepp's response: "Although some still regard laughter as a uniquely human trait, honed in the Pleistocene, the joke's on them."


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, March 24, 2005

World Water Day puts precious resource in spotlight

PARIS (AFP) - A UN-backed International Decade for Water has kicked off with addresses, media-friendly demonstrations and awards aimed at drawing attention to the plight of the world's most plentiful but most abused resource. Placed under the banner "Water for Life," the decade seeks to lobby support for the United Nations (news - web sites)' Millennium Goals, which hope to halve the number of people without access to clean drinking water or sanitation by 2015.

Some 2.4 billion people have no toilets or sewers, and 1.1 billion do not even have drinkable water. Every day, an estimated 22,000 people, half of them children, die of diseases borne by polluted water, such as typhoid, cholera, malaria and diarrhoea. In countries stricken by shortage, the start of the water decade -- coinciding with the annual World Water Day -- took on special significance. In Thailand, King Bhumipol Adulyadej personally supervised a cloud-seeding operation -- in which chemicals are shot at clouds to encourage rainfall -- to alleviate a drought that has afflicted 71 out of 76 provinces, drying up reservoirs and baking rice paddies. In Beijing, the city warned that a severe water shortage would prompt a further hike in water prices, by up to 20 percent, after an increase of 25 percent in 2004. "Water is a strategic and precious resource, so water prices will continue to rise," said the head of the Beijing Water Service Bureau, Jiao Juzhang. Other countries worried by regional droughts today include Portugal, France, Brazil and Uganda.

Scientists say that the risk of shortages, but also floods, is bound to amplify in the coming years as global warming affects traditional rainfall patterns. In Paris, leaders of the French environmental party the Greens defied city regulations to bathe in the River Seine to draw attention to the problem of heavy metals, pesticides and fertiliser runoff from farms and industry. Party secretary Yann Wehrling, dressed in a blue and black wetsuit, said the demonstration cocked a snook at French President Jacques Chirac. "In 1977 and again in 1998, Jacques Chirac said he would take a swim in the Seine because it was so clean. He still hasn't done it," said Wehrling. "We did, but we donned rubber suits for protection because the water is still a little dangerous for bathing." Nearby, European and African delegates attended a UNESCO conference to assess water problems in Africa. The continent paradoxically has some of the mightiest rivers in the world, but its populations also have the greatest need for fresh water. In an opening message to the meeting, Chirac noted that demographic growth "is exacerbating tensions" in countries crossed by the Nile, Congo and Niger rivers.

"Water is abundant in Africa but unequally shared," Chirac said, as he urged a "fresh mobilisation of the international community" to fix such problems. The Millennium Goals on water were spelt out in 2000 and reaffirmed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002. The promises have so far proved empty, because UN members made no provision for the hundreds of billions of dollars of new investments needed. To meet the targets would mean providing sanitation for more than 300,000 additional people every day and clean water for nearly 150,000 a day. But public aid for water projects declined from 2.7 billion dollars (two billion euros) in 1997 to only 1.4 billion dollars in 2002, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and has stagnated at that level ever since. In fact, less than five percent of multilateral development aid goes to water projects. That has placed the emphasis on the privatisation of water resources and distribution -- a politically contentious issue in many countries -- and on finding novel ways of harnessing water supplies and channelling them to poor people. In Sweden, an Indian environmental organization, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), on Tuesday was named winner of the annual 150,000-dollar (114,000-euro) Stockholm Water Prize for its work on rainwater harvesting. The organization will receive its prize from the hands of King Carl XVI Gustaf at a ceremony at Stockholm's City Hall in August.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Quiet British Bike Seeks Added Vroom

LONDON (Reuters) - Environmentally minded British motorcycle engineers have produced a zero-emission bike that ticks all the right boxes except one -- it's too quiet. So quiet in fact that its designers are looking to introduce artificial vroom to keep potential customers happy. Powered by a high pressure hydrogen fuel cell, the Emissions Neutral Vehicle (ENV) produces the equivalent noise of a personal computer fan belt.

Not only is that distinctly wimpish in the eyes of many bikers, it could also be dangerous. Makers Intelligent Energy are looking at ways to produce an artificial engine noise that will alert people to its presence, making sure the machine is not silent and deadly. "We will consider that," said Nick Talbot, the project leader at Seymourpowell, who were hired by Intelligent Energy to design a bike to their brief. The British designed and built bike, which has no gears, can reach speeds of 50 miles per hour. Motorcycle enthusiasts have welcomed the green innovation but say some bikers like the roar of an engine and the thrill of going fast. "It fits the definition of a motorcycle, but not as we know it," said Jeff Stone, a spokesman for the British Motorcycle Federation.

"The motorcycle is a primitive thing and it appeals to the inner person. The excitement and exhilaration of a bike is why people ride them." Stone, however, believes that the "soft and cuddly" green bike could be useful in city traffic. The bike's briefcase-sized fuel cell needs to be topped up every 100 miles and so far there is only one station in Britain that supplies the type of hydrogen required. But its makers believe that will change. "The whole point of the project is to say the technology is here, it works, so now put the infrastructure up," said Talbot.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, March 10, 2005

Health Tip: Help for Teen 'Couch Potatoes'

(HealthDay News) -- Only 25 percent of children in the United States get significant physical activity each day, and it's this lack of exercise that contributes to the nation's childhood obesity epidemic. Inactive teens may already have the beginnings of serious health problems. The National Association of Sport and Physical Education offers these ways to coax your teenage "couch potato" off the sofa:

Enroll your teen in a class. Analyze your child's likes and dislikes, and come up with something creative. Check colleges and community programs for fun and unusual classes. Offer to drive your teen and his or her friends to the ice skating rink or community swimming pool -- instead of the video store. Suggest older teens go on a hike or take a long walk. Plan family activities (with emphasis on the word "active"). Instead of watching your kids tan this summer, grab a Frisbee or volleyball, and challenge them to a game. Or rent bikes and explore new surroundings. Set limits on passive activities such as watching TV and playing video games.

Do we need government or an association to tell us this?!


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, March 3, 2005

Japanese robot mannequins to strike a pose for their customers

TOKYO (AFP) - The mannequin moving in the store window is no longer a fantasy. A Japanese firm has developed a mannequin robot that can strike a pose for customers -- and spy on who they are and what they're buying. "Mannequins have been static but this will pose for the nearest person by sensing his or her position," robot designer Tatsuya Matsui told a news conference Monday. "It makes the product the mannequin wears look more attractive, increasing consumers' appetite to buy," said Matsui, who heads Flower Robotics Inc.

The female robot, code-named "Palette", can draw inspiration from the world's most beautiful women, using motion-capture technology to replay the movements of supermodels. But Palette will double-up as an industrial spy, with the maker planning to program it to judge the age and sex of shoppers and even identify the bags they are carrying and pass along the information to stores for marketing purposes. Matsui developed Palette with software company SGI Japan Ltd. and aim to start selling it this year for the fashion and service industries. The price has not been set yet but SGI wants to make it "as close as possible to that of conventional mannequins," said Hiroshi Otsuka, who is in charge of new business promotion at SGI Japan. There is a business chance as "the concept of showcases being static has not changed for more than a century," Otsuka said. Palette for the time being will be off the catwalk, as its torso is on a metal bar. Otsuka said it was "safer that the robot stays in a showcase."

The robot may remind some people of a 1987 US movie "Mannequin," starring Andrew McCarthy as a department store window-dresser who falls in love with a mannequin who was actually an ancient Egyptian woman. Palette, however, has no face to fall in love with. "Consumer attention would be diverted to the face if there were one," said Matsui, the designer, noting he wanted customers to focus on the clothes or jewelry the mannequin wears. Palette is available in two versions -- the whole-body without legs or upper torso models for jewelry displays. Matsui said he wanted in the future to design a Palette with legs along with male and child models."

Doesn't that make you think about the future of humanity?


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, February 24, 2005

Space Colonization: The Quiet Revolution
Science - Space.com

ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO -- An initial step towards the creation of mass transit beyond our planet is the emerging public space travel market. At present, a number of technologies are being developed for other applications by non-aerospace industries deemed useful in fostering space colonization. These technologies will automate many aspects of large scale space system development, as well as drive down costs - thereby advancing the onset of colonization. That's the view among a group of visionary practitioners of the future taking part in the Space Technology & Applications International Forum (STAIF), held here February 13-17.

Advances in such areas as propulsion, power, using space resources, and giving other worlds a planetary makeover through terraforming -- along with public space travel -- are hastening the day of space colonization. Backing that view is Eric Rice, chair of a symposium on space colonization held at STAIF this year. Rice is leader of an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) technical committee that focuses on space colonization issues. There are so many things underway now that relate to space colonization. The International Space Station is part of this too, as well as the long-term potential for terraforming Mars into another planet for humans to live on," Rice told SPACE.com. Rice said that the growing business of public space tourism "is really the spirit of colonization." The giggle factor of citizen space travelers is totally gone, he said.

Part of that "de-giggling", Rice said, stems from last year's set of flights by SpaceShipOne. Then there's the work of Las Vegas, Nevada entrepreneur Robert Bigelow in fabricating inflatable space modules to be planted in Earth orbit. Also the pay-for-a-seat travels to the space station of Dennis Tito and Mark Shuttleworth in past years are milestones along the route, he added. Lastly, toss in numbers of firms and organizations now busy making space tourism a growing profitable concern. It all adds up to "a quiet revolution," Rice said. The prognosis for space colonization is good, said Edward McCullough, principal scientist for The Boeing Company in Huntington Beach, California. He pointed to numbers of technologies that are on exponential growth curves - that is, showing signs of increasing rapid growth.

"During the last half of the 20th century, a host of technologies and disciplines which had witnessed millennia of slow or no growthsuddenly went exponential," McCullough reported at the STAIF meeting. McCullough pointed to photography, chemistry and quantum mechanics that have combined to produce a new industrial revolution. Electrical and mechanical engineering are on courses that appear to indicate unbounded exponential improvement. Delving into the structure of DNA has spurred a better understanding of the cellular processes. The human genome has been sequenced and micro biomechanics has taken off, he said. Furthermore, the centuries old technology of printing has been extended to three dimensions with inks of polymers, ceramics, wood and metals. "These technologies have affected other technologies so that now at the dawn of the 21st century, one technology after another is assuming an exponential trajectory," McCullough noted. And all this is good news, he suggested, when one speculates on what these technologies portend for space colonization.

"There are so many technologies coming on," McCullough told SPACE.com. "The commercial drivers of these technologies are so massive, and the money is so large, that they they're going to come right out of the blue," he said. There are many more advancements that are already in the pipeline, McCullough said. "Some of the technologies that are out there are going to allow us to do some things that people are going to find incredible."

A few favorites on the Boeing scientist's list are: Large scale, micro scale and high-speed fabrication with metal, ceramics, plastics and electro active polymers; Autonomous robotics capable of interacting with complex objects and capable of piecing together modules and performing complicated repair duties unattended; Smart programmable shape materials and intelligent materials, along with microscopic fluidic computers; Space suits amplified with artificial muscles and polymer electronics; Artificial organs for life support, chemical processing and water treatment; Genetic engineering of Mars adapted plants and intelligence-boosted domestic animals, including e-coli delivered pharmaceuticals and other very advanced health care remedies. But behind any mass colonization movement there are, of course, a few assumptions.

First, McCullough explained, is that advanced lunar infrastructure will provide semi-finished modules and other lunar materials for integrating and expanding space systems. Secondly, large vehicles can be fabricated in space using mostly automated methods. These great vessels could shuttle between planetary LaGrange points far from Earth. Lastly, large passenger-carrying vehicles will need to haul a massive "water radiation shelter" to protect occupants on outward bound flights. McCullough estimates that a nominal size of a settlement on Mars would support 1,000 people, with a larger colony housing 10,000 individuals. Once an interplanetary vehicle is crafted that's the size McCullough envisions - and at four flights per year - upwards of 400,000 people could call Mars home in the first decade of deliverance. Late stage colonies will require large scale equipment. Technologies are needed to assemble these types of vehicles "with little or no touch labor," McCullough said.

"Mars is a planet that has many unusual and spectacular features that will draw people to it," McCullough told the STAIF gathering. "Being a planet rather than a moon, it has undergone many of the geological processes which have caused the formation of minerals on Earth," he said. That being the case, Mars is a user-friendly world, rife with many industrially useful minerals for construction and manufacturing purposes. It has a suite of "ates", "ites" and "ides" of common metals with common non metals, McCullough pointed out. The red planet is also wrapped in abundant carbon dioxide which will be fairly easy to condense, he said. Water availability on Mars is another huge plus. There is abundant evidence of past water activity on Mars. It should be present in permafrost at higher latitudes on the planet. It may also be present in hydrated minerals, McCullough stated. "The availability of water on Mars in significant quantities would once again simplify our projected industrial activities. This makes extensive bases leading to colonies more likely," McCullough concluded.

Thursday, February 17, 2005

Feted and Hated, Kyoto Global Warming Pact Starts

OSLO (Reuters) - A world plan to fight global warming went into force on Wednesday, feted by its backers as a lifeline for the planet amid sniping at the United States for pulling out. After years of delays, the U.N. Kyoto Protocol on curbing emissions of heat-trapping gases blamed for disrupting the climate took effect at midnight EST with muted celebrations for a deal Washington dismisses as an economic straitjacket. Green groups marked Kyoto by protesting outside U.S. embassies, by interrupting oil trading on London's International Petroleum Exchange and by carving fast-melting ice sculptures of kangaroos in Australia.

"Climate change is a global problem. It requires a concerted global response," U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in remarks beamed to the ancient Japanese city of Kyoto where the pact was signed in 1997. "I call on the world community to be bold, to adhere to the Kyoto Protocol and to act quickly in taking the next steps," he said. "There is no time to lose." Supporters of the 141-nation pact say it is a tiny first step to slow global warming by imposing legally binding caps on greenhouse-gas emissions -- mainly from burning fossil fuels in power plants, factories and cars -- in 35 developed nations. Many climate experts fear temperature rises will disrupt farming, raise sea levels by melting icecaps, cause more extreme weather like hurricanes or droughts, spread diseases and wipe out thousands of animal and plant species by 2100.

The United States, the world's biggest polluter, pulled out in 2001. President Bush said Kyoto was too costly, based on unreliable science and unfairly excluded big developing nations like India, China and Brazil which account for a third of the world's population. Some backers made veiled criticisms of Washington. "141 countries have not allowed this process to be blocked by the unilateral power play of one country," German Environment Minister Juergen Trittin said, outlining plans for even bigger German cuts beyond 2012. The White House said it aims to fight climate change through technology, especially with techniques that still need work such as clean-burning coal, advanced nuclear power and hydrogen fuel cells. "The U.S., in the last three years of the Bush administration, has dedicated more resources to the issue of climate change than any other nation of the world and most other nations of the world combined," James Connaughton, chairman of the White House's Council on Environmental Quality, said.

Under Kyoto, developed nations will have to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. Those exceeding the 2012 goals will be penalized with bigger cuts than the average targets from 2012. Australia, the only big developed nation on the sidelines with the United States, said it had no plan to sign up. "Until such time as the major polluters of the world, including the United States and China, are made part of the Kyoto regime it is next to useless and indeed harmful for a country such as Australia to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol," Prime Minister John Howard told parliament. Some skeptics reckon Kyoto will cost $150 billion a year and have no measurable effect. Despite big costs, the European Union reaffirmed pledges to meet promised cuts by 2012. "Climate change is one of the greatest threats we face today," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said. "If the world acts together in the fight against climate change we have a real chance." And Britain, which is making climate change a key issue for its presidency of the Group of Eight industrialized nations in 2005, promised to try to persuade Washington to rethink. "The truth of the matter is without America there is no deal. We have got to do our best and use our relationship with America to try and make sure they come into agreement with us. Whether I will be able to achieve it or not, I don't know," British Prime Minister Blair told Channel Five TV. Canada said it would host U.N. talks in December about what to do after Kyoto runs out in 2012.

In Sydney, ice sculptures of kangaroos and koalas melted during a protest by greens over Australia's refusal to ratify. In London, 35 protesters from the Greenpeace environmental group broke into the International Petroleum Exchange, forcing an interruption of trade. Outside the building, they hung a banner saying "Climate Change Kills -- Stop Pushing Oil." In China, home to 1.3 billion people and one of the world's fastest-growing economies, a man dressed as a gloomy looking polar bear took to Beijing's streets as part of Greenpeace China's campaign to explain the impact of climate change. Kyoto backers say rich nations are probably the main cause of a 1 F (0.6 C) rise in world temperatures since the Industrial Revolution and should take the lead by cutting use of fossil fuels and shifting to cleaner energy like wind and solar power. A new EU market will enable polluters overshooting their targets to buy emission allocations from those falling below. Carbon dioxide now trades at about $9.51 (7.33 euros) per tonne. Russia, whose ratification last November gave Kyoto enough weight to enter into force, hopes to sell carbon dioxide quotas abroad, after the collapse of Soviet-era industries reduced emissions. In Moscow, Russian electricity giant Unified Energy, which accounts for 2 percent of world greenhouse gases, said it was close to signing 30 Kyoto-linked deals to cut emissions. Even if fully implemented, Kyoto would brake rising temperatures by just 0.18 F (0.1 C) by 2100, according to U.N. figures, tiny compared to forecasts by a U.N. climate panel of an overall rise of 2.5-10.4 F (1.4-5.8 C) this century.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, February 10, 2005

Meditation Calms Blood Pressure, Too

(HealthDay News) -- Transcendental meditation (TM) reduces hypertension and cuts down on the need for blood pressure-lowering medications, according to a study in black Americans. For many patients with high blood pressure, "it may be practical and feasible to lower blood pressure using the TM technique and thereby reduce or eliminate the use of antihypertensive drugs and their side effects," study co-author Dr. Frank Staggers Jr., senior drug detoxification specialist at the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic's Drug Rehabilitation Program, San Francisco, said in a prepared statement. The findings appear in a recent issue of the American Journal of Hypertension.

In the study, 150 black men and women with stage I hypertension (average blood pressure readings of 142/95 mm Hg) were randomly assigned to three groups: TM, progressive muscle relaxation, or conventional health education classes. Nearly two-thirds of participants were taking blood pressure-lowering medications at the start of the study. By the end of one year, blood pressure in the TM group was reduced by an average of 3 mm systolic pressure and nearly 6mm diastolic pressure (the top and bottom numbers in a reading, respectively). Patients in the other two groups achieved an average reduction of 3 mm diastolic pressure and no change in systolic pressure. There was also a 23 percent relative reduction in use of antihypertensive drugs between the TM and the other two groups. According to Staggers, TM-related reductions in blood pressure and the need for medications "would be expected to result in major health-care cost savings and the prevention of adverse side effects associated with blood pressure drugs."


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, February 3, 2005

Many EU Cancer Patients Use Alternative Meds

(HealthDay News) -- More than a third of cancer patients in Europe use complementary and alternative therapies, says a study in the latest issue of the journal Annals of Oncology. Based on their findings, the international team of researchers who conducted the study said the use of complementary and alternative medicine in cancer care should be integrated into healthcare systems and regulated by the European Union. Herbal treatments were mostly commonly used by European cancer patients, followed by treatments such as homeopathy, vitamin and mineral supplements, and spiritual therapies, the researchers found.

The Europe-wide study of almost 1,000 cancer patients found that use of these types of treatments by cancer patients ranged from a low of slightly less than 15 percent in Greece to a high of almost 75 percent in Italy. Users of alternative or complementary therapies tended to be female, younger and more highly educated. Most users believed in the efficacy of these remedies, with only 3 percent expressing doubts as to their effectiveness. People with pancreatic, bone, liver and brain cancer (cancers with a poor prognosis) used alternative treatments far more often than other cancer patients. The mean length of treatment was 27 months, with a range from one month to 18 years, the researchers report. The findings show that it's essential for doctors and other health professionals to be aware of alternative remedies, and to be able educate their patients about them, the study authors said. "Irrespective of what health professionals believe about complementary and alternative medicines and how dismissive they might be, our findings show that patients are using, and will continue to use [them]," study lead author Dr. Alex Molassiotis of the University of Manchester School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, said in a prepared statement.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, January 27, 2005

Report: Global Warming at Critical Point
By ED JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer

LONDON - Global warming is approaching the point of no return, after which widespread drought, crop failure and rising sea levels will be irreversible, an international climate change task force warned Monday. It called on the Group of 8 leading industrial nations to cut carbon emissions, double their research spending on technology and work with India and China to build on the Kyoto Protocol for cuttings emissions of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases" blamed for global warming. The independent report was made by the Institute for Public Policy Research in Britain, the Center for American Progress in the United States and the Australia Institute.

"An ecological time bomb is ticking away," said Stephen Byers, who was co-chairman of the task force with U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine. "World leaders need to recognize that climate change is the single most important long-term issue that the planet faces." Byers is a close confidant of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and the report was timed to coincide with Blair's commitment to advance international climate change policy during Britain's presidency of the G-8 this year. Byers said it is vital that Blair secure U.S. cooperation in tackling climate change. President Bush has rejected the Kyoto accord, arguing that the carbon emission cuts it demands would damage the U.S. economy and that it leaves out emerging polluters like China and India. "What we have got to do then is get the Americans as part of the G-8 to engage in international concerted effort to tackle global warming," said Byers. "If they refuse to do that then other countries will be reluctant to take any steps."

According to the report, urgent action is needed to stop the global average temperature rising by 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above the level of 1750 — the approximate start of the Industrial Revolution when mankind first started significantly adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Beyond such a rise, "the risks to human societies and ecosystems grow significantly," the report said, adding that there would be a danger of "abrupt, accelerated, or runaway climate change." It warned of "climatic tipping points" such as the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets melting and the Gulf Stream shutting down. No accurate temperature readings were available for 1750, the report said, but since 1860 the global average temperature has risen by 0.8 percent to 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit). The report said a 2-degree Celsius rise in the average temperature could be avoided by keeping the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere below 400 parts per million. Current concentrations of 379 parts per million "are likely to rise above 400 parts per million in coming decades and could rise far higher under a business-as-usual scenario," it said.

The task force urged G-8 countries to agree to generate a quarter of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025 and shift agricultural subsidies from food crops to biofuels. The task force of senior politicians, scientists and business figures was formed last March. Its chief scientific adviser was Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the United Nations's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The British government welcomed the report, which mirrors many of the suggestions already floated by Blair in the leadup to Britain's G-8 presidency. Blair has acknowledged the importance of U.S. cooperation, but concedes Washington is unlikely to sign on for the Kyoto Protocol and is instead pursuing international commitment to developing new environmentally friendly technology.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, January 20, 2005

China's endangered animals make a comeback

BEIJING (AFP) - Endangered animals in China, including the giant panda and rare crested ibis, are making a comeback due to enlarged habitats and improved ecosystems, state media said. "Some rare and endangered species of wildlife have multiplied, including the Chinese alligator and crested ibis," Zhou Shengxian, director of the State Forestry Administration (SFA), was quoted by the China Daily as saying. He told a meeting Wednesday that shrinking habitats caused by worsening local ecosystems had more or less been controlled following China's rehabilitation of forestry resources since the 1990s.

The number of giant pandas, one of the world's most endangered species, increased by 40 percent to 1,596 over the number recorded before 2000, Zhou said, referring to the latest SFA survey. The number of crested ibis, a bird related to the heron of which there were only seven known in the world at one point, had leapt to 740, said Lei Jiafu, SFA's deputy director. Thanks to protective efforts, the number of Eld's deer, found only in south China's Hainan island, also rose to 1,600 last year from just 26 in 1975, China Daily said.

Ecosystem protection programs have also helped to replenish China's flora. Of China's 189 rare and extremely endangered species of wild plants, 71 percent have been stabilized, Zhou said. Arborvitae, an endangered species of plant which has tailed off for more than 100 years, has been rediscovered in the remote Daba Mountains in southwest China's Chongqing municipality. So far, forestry authorities have put the distribution areas of 130 wild plants and the habitats for more than 300 wild animals under protection, according to statistics released by the SFA, the paper said.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, January 13, 2005

Milky Way's Center Packed with Black Holes

By Robert Roy Britt (SPACE.com)

SAN DIEGO -- A new study reveals that the center of our Milky Way Galaxy is loaded with black holes, as astronomers have expected in recent years.The galactic center is dominated by one supermassive black hole. It packs a mass equal to about 3 million Suns. Around it, scientists have expected to find a high concentration of stellar black holes, the sort that result from the collapse of massive stars. Each can be a few to many times the mass of the Sun.

Observations have hinted at the existence of many stellar black holes near the galactic center. But nosing around there is hard, because the region is shrouded in dust. Visible light doesn't escape the region.The ongoing study, led by UCLA postdoctoral fellow Michael Muno, is searching the inner 75-light-years of the galaxy with the NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. X-rays conveniently pierce interstellar dust.Muno and his colleagues have found strong evidence for seven black holes (they could be neutron stars, which are also very dense). Importantly, four of the objects were concentrated in the inner 3 light-years of space around the supermassive black hole. "The observed high concentration of these sources implies that a huge number of black holes and neutron stars have gathered in the center of the galaxy," Muno said.

Extrapolating to the whole sky, the finding suggest a swarm of 10,000 black holes and neutron stars orbit near the galaxy's middle. A theory by UCLA's Mark Morris, co-researcher on the new project, predicted the concentration back in 1993. Dense objects like black holes interact gravitationally with less dense stars. The lighter stars tend to get jettisoned outward, Morris figured, while the black holes slow down on their orbital trek around the galactic center, and they sink inward. The black holes can't be seen directly. Those that are detected have likely taken a companion, a normal star that they devour gradually, the theorists figure. The extended feast also involves a release of X-rays as gas from the normal star is superheated until it glows before plunging beyond the point of no return. The findings were reported here at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. More research is needed to confirm the conclusions, the scientists said.

Scientists Pinpoint Milky Way Galaxy's Black Hole Surprising Second Black Hole Found in Milky Way's Center Where The Action Is: Heart of Milky Way Unveiled

Visit SPACE.com for more space-related news including videos, launch coverage and interactive experiences. Check out our huge collection of Image Galleries and Satellite Views from Space. Follow the latest developments in the search for life in our universe in our SETI: Search for Life section.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, January 6, 2005

UN Report: Science Vital to Cut Scale of Disasters

By Patricia Reaney

LONDON (Reuters) - Developing the scientific potential of poor nations could reduce the scale of disasters like the Asian tsunami, researchers said on Thursday. As nations pledged billions to help victims of the disaster and aid agencies struggled to help the more than 1.5 million left homeless, members of a United Nations Task Force wrote in a report of the danger of ignoring the importance of science and technology. "The terrible devastation caused by the tsunamis last week raises the question of whether enough was invested in adopting existing technologies which could have reduced the scale of the disaster," said Professor Calestous Juma, of Harvard University, a lead author of the report. Discussions on establishing an early warning system should be part of a larger context of developing technology and science in poor nations, he told a news conference.

"Developed countries should reflect, in the wake of this disaster, on the price of investing in building the scientific and technological capacity of developing countries to prevent the impacts of natural disasters, compared to the huge costs of responding through international aid after the disasters have occurred," Juma said. The report said a lack of scientific advice to governments and international organizations was a stumbling block in tackling the problems of developing countries. "Money spent on developing the science and technology potential of countries is an investment in preventing the worst effects of diseases and natural disasters," Lord May of Oxford, the president of the Royal Society, Britain's national academy of science, said in a statement. "Although it is easy to be wise after the event, it now seems tragically short-sighted that discussions initiated two years ago about an early warning system for tsunamis in the Indian Ocean were not given greater priority." Juma emphasized the importance of learning from the disaster and of sharing the knowledge to avert future catastrophes.

"The lessons should be shared globally," he said. The report, which will be presented to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan later this month, said a lack of investment in developing science and technology could threaten the achievement of the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goals to alleviate poverty and improve the lives of people in developing countries.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, December 30, 2004

Over 100,000 people have died
as Southeast Asia was hit by a
devastating tsunami. Thousands
more are injured and missing.
One-third were children.
Many are in need of basic things
to survive: shelter, water, food.
You can help here:

UNICEF
RED CROSS
NETWORK FOR GOOD


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, December 23, 2004

EU Gives Upbeat Assessment on CO2 Emissions Cuts

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union is on track to cut greenhouse gas emissions and meet its Kyoto targets but more needs to be done, an annual report by the EU's executive Commission said on Tuesday. The European Commission gave a positive assessment of the fight against global warming as the bloc prepared to launch the world's first emissions trading scheme on Jan. 1, 2005. Under the EU project, 12,000 plants including power stations, steel-makers and other energy-intensive industries will buy and sell carbon credits -- the right to emit carbon dioxide (CO2).

It is the linchpin of the 25-nation bloc's plan to reach its Kyoto Protocol target and cut greenhouse gas emissions by eight percent of 1990 levels over the period 2008-12. "This progress report gives grounds for optimism that both the EU-15 and the new member states are well on course to meet their Kyoto targets," EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said in a statement. The report said by 2002 the former 15-nation bloc had reduced greenhouse emissions by 2.9 percent compared to the 1990 base year. The enlarged 25-nation bloc had cut emissions by 9.0 percent. The Commission predicts the former EU-15 will reduce emissions by 8.6 percent by 2010.

But the Commission warned that a 22-percent rise in emissions in the transport sector over the period 1990-2002 could scupper progress. The transport sector is not part of the EU's CO2 trading scheme and has no caps on emissions. Under the trading scheme, countries must submit plans to the Commission detailing or allocating the amount of emissions their installations are allowed to have. The scheme will start on Jan. 1 in 21 EU states. Poland, Czech Republic and Italy have submitted plans but they will not be assessed in time. Greece has not yet sent a scheme to Brussels. The Commission will approve five plans -- Lithuania, Spain, Malta, Cyprus and Hungary -- by the end of the year or at the beginning of 2005, an official added.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, December 16, 2004

2004 Signals More Global Warming, Extreme Weather

By Thomas Atkins

GENEVA (Reuters) - Global warming is set to continue, and bring with it an increase in extreme weather such as hurricanes and droughts, scientists from the United Nations' World Meteorological Organization warned on Wednesday. The year 2004 is set to finish as the fourth-warmest since record-keeping began in 1861, fitting a pattern that has placed nine of the past 10 years among the warmest on record, the WMO said in its annual global climate report. "The series of warm years is continuing," Soobasschandra Chacowry, a director at the WMO, told journalists.

The year is also finishing with an above average number of hurricanes and deadly typhoons, with floods killing thousands in the Philippines and Haiti and storms wreaking $43 billion in damage in the United States. Droughts swept Africa, India and Australia and contributed to record forest fires in Alaska. The global mean surface temperature in 2004 is expected to reach 0.44 degrees Celsius above the 1961-1990 annual average of 14 degrees, with October the warmest October ever recorded. "It is expected from models that the air temperature will go on rising and the surface temperature will go on rising and the glaciers will go on melting," said WMO scientist Gilles Sommeria. "There is the likelihood of an increase in extreme events in the coming decade."

Sommeria said the rise in greenhouse gases was man-made. "The controversy on the greenhouse effect is somewhat artificial," he said, pointing to a 2001 U.N. report predicting global temperatures will rise by 1.4-5.8 degrees by 2100, mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels such as gasoline and coal -- the sharpest rise over a century in the last 10,000 years. Environment ministers from 80 countries met on Wednesday for the final days of a U.N. conference on climate change that has been unable to crack U.S. resistance to join international efforts against global warming. The conference of nearly 200 nations has turned into a polarized affair, with the European Union and nations supporting the Kyoto protocol to cut greenhouse gases in one camp and the United States, the world's biggest polluter, in the other. Just two months before Kyoto goes into force thanks to Russia's recent ratification, the United States has made it very clear it will not sign up for Kyoto's mandatory caps on emissions after Washington withdrew from the agreement in 2001.

Scientists say rising temperatures are likely to disrupt the climate and trigger more floods, storms and droughts. As glaciers melt, sea levels may rise, swamping low lying Pacific islands and coasts from Florida to Bangladesh. Chacowry urged governments and people to take heed of year-to-year developments in the abnormal weather patterns documented in the WMO study. In the last century, the global surface temperature rose by over 0.6 degrees Celsius, with the rate of change since 1976 three times higher than for the past 100 years on the whole, the WMO said. Over the same period, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased by 40 percent.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, December 9, 2004

Pygmy Chimpanzees on Brink of Extinction

By Ed Stoddard

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Pygmy chimpanzees, one of humanity's closest living relatives, have been pushed to the brink of extinction in the war-battered Democratic Republic of Congo, conservation group WWF International said on Thursday. WWF said recent surveys in Africa's Congo basin revealed that perhaps only 10,000 of the primates, also known as bonobos, remain in the wild compared to previous estimates of around 50,000. "There may be as few as 10,000 bonobos left ... These initial results concern us greatly," said Dr. Peter J. Stephenson, WWF's African Great Apes Program Coordinator.

The survey was conducted in the Democratic Republic of Congo -- the only country where bonobos are found -- in the 36,000 square kilometer Salonga National Park, a protected area the size of Holland. "The first data in from about a third of the park show evidence of very few bonobos living there. No bonobos were encountered, and sightings of nests and dung were only made in a quarter of the area surveyed, at lower densities than previously measured," Swiss-based WWF said in a statement. "In contrast, there was abundant evidence of human encroachment into the park and of poaching," it said, blaming the decline of the species on illegal hunting for food -- or "bushmeat" -- by militias and hungry local peasants. The findings add to a grim body of evidence that the great apes are in serious trouble -- with Congo one of their most blighted spots on earth at the moment.

While the bonobos in the country's west are reeling from rampant poaching, the lowland gorillas in the east have also taken a beating. Conservationists fear the numbers of eastern lowland gorillas in the region are down to 3,000-5,000 from an estimated 17,000 in 1996. Poverty and conflict are the chief reasons behind the falls in ape numbers. And Congo, where millions of people have died from war-related hunger and disease over the past decade, has had more than its share of both. "During the long running civil war in (Congo), it became almost impossible ... to protect effectively the country's national parks," said WWF.

"Increased poaching by armed militias and local people was inevitable with serious consequences for the bonobos of Salonga as well as the local people," it said. WWF said it had launched a new project to monitor and protect bonobo populations in the north of Salonga. Often equal in height to chimpanzees, bonobo's limbs are more slender and they have a black face with reddish lips. The genetic code in the DNA of chimpanzees and bonobos is closer to that of humans than to that of gorillas.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, December 2, 2004

Groups mark World AIDS Day with call for women's empowerment

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The world's deadliest year yet for AIDS was marked with concerts, processions and speeches, as the United Nations focused on women, who are suffering a increasing share of new cases. "Keeping women healthy is not only the right thing to do it's the smart thing to do," UNAIDS director Peter Piot said on World AIDS Day. "We must put women at the center of the response to AIDS." Alarmed by new data showing that women represent an increasing share of new cases of infection with the human immunodeficiency virus, known as HIV, UN officials chose to focus on their needs in this year's World AIDS Day observance.

More than 23 million people have died since AIDS first emerged in 1981 as a disease that wrecks the immune system, leaving the body exposed to infection by other viruses and bacteria. An estimated 3.1 million people will have died in 2004, the highest toll in any single year, as the rate of infection continues to outrace prevention efforts. Women now account for 47 percent of the 39.4 million people around the world infected with HIV, an increase of six percentage points since 1997. Women make up nearly 60 percent of HIV cases in sub-Saharan Africa, the region hardest hit by the disease, a UNAIDS report released last week said. The report said 15- to 24-year-old women are three times more likely to be infected than males of the same age. Piot and others told a news conference in Washington that poverty and discrimination against women make them particularly vulnerable to HIV infection. "We are now tired. We have had enough statistics," said Asunta Wagura, founder and executive director of Kenya Network of Women with AIDS. "Let us now spend the resources in saving lives."

Wagura offered her story as an example of the devastating impact of AIDS on women. She said she was kicked out of nursing school and disowned by her family after being diagnosed as HIV-positive 16 years ago. Her experience prompted her to fight to improve the lot of Kenyan women affected by the disease. "One thing that HIV has taught me is there always is room for change," she said. "It's heartbreaking that we live with death staring at our faces." Geeta Rao Gupta, president of the International Center for Research on Women, called for an expansion of prevention programs -- which focus on abstinence, fidelity in sexual relationships and condom use -- to address the problems stemming from the subordinate role of women in many societies. "Without that, women will be shut out" from efforts to fight the disease, she said. Canada said Wednesday it would funnel 88 million US dollars (105 Canadian) into programs targeting women and young girls infected or affected by HIV/AIDS in developing countries. Earlier this year, US President George W. Bush unveiled a 15-billion-dollar plan to fight the disease in more than 100 nations, focusing on countries in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.

In Europe, British Prime Minister Tony Blair pledged to make AIDS one of the priorities of his presidency of the Group of Eight top industrialized countries next year. Many European countries staged exhibitions and seminars on ways of tackling sexual coercion, poverty, lack of rights and empowerment in male-dominated societies, a key element in the spread of HIV among women. That message was echoed by contestants at the Miss World competition on the Chinese tropical resort island of Hainan. "From the day we are born, we have no right to decide," said Miss Tanzania, 19-year-old law student Faraja Kotta. "Girls cannot decide whether they want to go to school, cannot decide who they will marry, cannot decide when they will be sexually active. Girls have no right to education, they are always second place." Meanwhile, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao called for "still greater, substantial efforts" to stir public awareness, backed by a nationwide mobilization of officials to implement "all preventive and control policies and measures."

Chinese authorities for years denied the threat AIDS posed to the nation's 1.3 billion people, but have recently begun to face it. Beijing officially estimates it has 840,000 HIV-infected people, but many AIDS experts contend the true figure is much higher. Some estimates suggest the number of cases could reach as high as 10 million by 2010 if effective action is not taken to stem the rate of infection. In India -- named alongside China and Russia as a plum target after the destruction wrought by AIDS in Africa -- Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss announced that 1.5 billion condoms would be distributed nationwide, backed by an intense media campaign. "We are going all-out, and within six months the whole country should know about HIV/AIDS and its implication," he told parliament. In Southern Africa, governments renewed their vows to promote prevention, tackle stigma and discrimination and speed up distribution of drugs which keep the virus at bay.

Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika said he hoped a million of Malawi's 11 million people would go for voluntary HIV tests next year, and set the 2005 target of boosting the number of people in free drug programs from 9,000 to 80,000. Africa is home to nearly two-thirds of the world's HIV cases -- some 25.4 million, according to UN figures -- and three-quarters of all infected females. AIDS has driven life expectancy to less than 40 years in nine African countries: Botswana, the Central African Republic, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. In Iran, meanwhile, health experts warned that the country's growing AIDS problem was shifting from drug users into the bedroom, and urged Islamic authorities to go further in breaking the taboo over talking about sex. "The trend of transmission has changed from intravenous drug users to high-risk sexual behavior," said Minoo Mohraz, a doctor and specialist in Iran's official AIDS Association. "People cannot afford to get married so young and are getting married older. The gap is being filled by more prostitution. AIDS is still largely a taboo, and policy makers have for a long time been in denial."


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, November 25, 2004

Obesity a Major Obstacle to Good Sex Life!?!

By Randy Dotinga

(HealthDayNews) -- New research confirms the worst fears of those who worry about putting on extra pounds: Severely overweight people are much more likely to report poor sex lives. In some areas of their sex lives, the obese report 25 times as many problems as people of weight levels considered healthy. Both men and women suffered from lack of sexual desire and enjoyment along with hampered performance. Many reported avoiding sex entirely.

The study results suggest that many fat people share similar challenges on the sexual level, said study co-author Martin Binks, a clinical psychologist and director of behavioral science at Duke University's Diet and Fitness Center. "It's important for people to know it's not something that's wrong with them. It's something that other people experience. They're not alone in this." Binks and his colleagues surveyed 1,210 people from the Durham, N.C., area. Most had sought treatment at Duke's diet center, and all but 282 were obese, with an average body mass index of 41. The index indicates whether a person's weight is proportional to his or her height; a 5 foot, 5 inch person weighing 250 pounds would have a BMI of 41. Binks presented his findings Nov. 17 at the North American Association for the Study of Obesity annual meeting in Las Vegas.

Half of those seeking treatment for obesity said they sometimes, usually or always felt no desire for sex, compared to just 2 percent of those who were not obese. About four out of every 10 treatment-seekers reported physical problems with sex; 41 percent said they avoided sex. In contrast, just 2.5 percent of the non-obese people said they stayed away from sexual activity. Obese people who didn't seek treatment reported more sexual satisfaction, but they remained much less likely to report normal sex lives than the non-obese. Sexual difficulties among the obese are "a more common problem than one would expect, and they deserve treatment," Binks said. He speculated that self-esteem issues may contribute to the sexual problems facing the obese, whose numbers are growing.

"The public is well aware that they can run a risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and hypertension and so forth [if they're obese]," he said. But the risk of sexual problems "isn't as much talked about." In another study released at the obesity meeting, researchers found that high levels of fat in the abdominal area -- a pot belly -- spell as much trouble on the disability front as overall obesity. The researchers examined a study of 16,000 people in Mississippi, Maryland and Minnesota between the ages of 45 and 64. They found that obese people with apple-shaped bodies -- instead of pear shapes with fat distributed below their waist -- were 1.6 times more likely to have difficulty managing daily chores like cooking and household chores than non-overweight people who had low levels of abdominal fat. They were 2.5 times more likely to have trouble with tasks such as dressing and feeding themselves.

"In women, the pear shape is more common. In men, the apple shape is more common, but you see [the apple shape] in both genders," said study co-author Denise Houston, who worked on the research while a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is now a research associate at Wake Forest University. The research is another sign of the importance of weight loss, she said, and provides a message to doctors about the importance of understanding the danger of abdominal fat. "If a person is more apple-shaped, they may have more health risks, not just for disability but other chronic conditions," Houston said.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, November 18, 2004

Pink Locusts from North Africa Swarm Through Cairo

By Amil Khan and Tom Perry

CAIRO (Reuters) - Swarms of pink locusts swept through the Egyptian capital on Wednesday, evoking the biblical description of the plagues which struck in the time of Moses. The swarms of millions flew high above tall towers or swooped down onto treelined streets, where scared pedestrians stamped on them or ran for cover. The flying insects arrived from neighboring Libya after devouring the countryside in central and western Africa in past months. But locust experts said they were unlikely to wreak similar havoc in Egypt, where agriculture is a cornerstone of the economy.

"This is really horrible," said one man as he ran past a building where locusts, some of them more than 3 inches (7.6 cm) long, smacked into office windows or landed on cars. Some of the locusts, which arrived and disappeared in waves, settled on shrubs and trees. Authorities battled swarms at Cairo international airport, but flights were unaffected. "They are driven by strong winds ... Under current climatic conditions they will not likely cause damage," Christian Pantenius, a locust expert with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), told Reuters. Pantenius said the locusts would not feed voraciously when the temperature was under 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit). Forecasts put Cairo's temperature for the coming days at below 25 degrees Celsius. Pantenius said the locusts were arriving in medium-sized swarms. "They will very likely either die or migrate further to the south," he said, adding that the Saudi and Sudanese authorities had been alerted.

The locusts appeared to be passing through Egypt and did not pose a threat to agriculture, Egypt's official Middle East News Agency quoting Agriculture and Land Reclamation Minister Ahmed el-Laithi as telling a news conference. Agriculture is a key sector of the Egyptian economy, employing millions of people in the North African country, which has a population of about 70 million. The locust swarms have already traveled on the wind from North Africa to Cyprus. They can form swarms of tens of millions, occupying hundreds of square kilometers (miles). In the Old Testament, locusts were the eighth of 10 plagues which God brought on the Egyptians before Pharaoh, their ruler, relented and let the enslaved children of Israel go.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, November 11, 2004

Program Gets Kids to Be More Active

(HealthDayNews) Exercise-intervention programs can help boost physical activity in children, says a study by researchers at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing. The study found that a short, moderately intensive exercise intervention encouraged third graders in three Nashville public schools to get involved in activities such as soccer and swimming instead of sitting around watching TV.

Black children, especially girls, had the greatest increase in activity following the intervention, which focused on moderate to vigorous, aerobic exercises and non-competitive games designed to engage children. The intervention included 24 20-minute sessions over eight weeks. "This modest, eight-week school intervention changed and heightened the intensity levels of the existing physical exercise program in the schools and benefited children by encouraging more vigorous physical activities and less sedentary activities at home," study author Tom H. Cook, an assistant professor at Vanderbilt, said in a prepared statement.

Before the intervention, about 24 percent of the children reported sedentary behaviors such as reading, playing video games and watching TV. That dropped to 16 percent after the intervention. The study also found that more than 13 percent of the students who reported moderate physical activity before the intervention became more involved in more vigorous activities after the intervention. The findings were reported Wednesday at the American Heart Association's scientific sessions in New Orleans.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, November 4, 2004

Optimism May Make for a Longer Life

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Older adults with a bright outlook on the future may live longer than those who take a dimmer view, a study out Monday suggests. Researchers in the Netherlands found that older men and women judged to have optimistic personalities were less likely to die over the nine-year study period than those with pessimistic dispositions.

Much of this reduced risk was due to lower rates of death from cardiovascular disease among the most optimistic men and women in the study. They were 77 percent less likely to die of a heart attack, stroke or other cardiovascular cause than the most pessimistic group-regardless of factors such as age, weight, smoking and whether they had cardiovascular or other chronic diseases at the study's start. The researchers, led by Dr. Erik J. Giltay of the Psychiatric Center GGZ Delfland in Delft, report the findings in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Many studies have tied negative emotions, such as chronic depression and hopelessness, to the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease or other conditions. Less clear, according to Giltay's team, has been whether an optimistic disposition -- the tendency to believe that good things, rather than bad, will happen -- may help an older person live longer. To investigate, the researchers followed 941 Dutch adults between the ages of 65 and 85. At the outset, participants completed a standard survey on general well-being that included a scale that gauged their tendency to be optimistic or pessimistic. The scale included statements like, "I often feel that life is full of promises," and "I still have many goals to strive for."

Study subjects were divided into four groups according to their levels of optimism or pessimism. The researchers also collected information on lifestyle factors, occupation, education and health history. After an average follow-up of nine years, 42 percent of the study group had died, but those with the highest levels of optimism at the start had the lowest death rates-30 percent versus more than 57 percent in the most pessimistic group. With other factors considered, the risk of death was 29 percent lower among highly optimistic men and women.

There are a number of possible explanations for the findings, according to the researchers. One is that, although chronic disease was accounted for in this study, pessimistic participants still may have been in poorer general health, possibly suffering "subclinical" health conditions. But optimism may have had positive effects as well. Optimists, Giltay and his colleagues note, may be better at coping with adversity, and may, for example, be more likely to comply with medical treatment if they do fall ill. It's also possible, they add, that there are biological benefits of having a sunnier disposition, such as effects on the immune and hormonal systems.

SOURCE: Archives of General Psychiatry, November 2004.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, October 28, 2004

Wed Oct 27, 3:38 PM ET

Protest in Kashmir: School children from Pakistan-controlled
Kashmir take part in an anti-India demonstration in front of
the Indian Embassy in Islamabad. (AFP/Jewel Samad)

HATE AND IGNORANCE SADLY INFECTS INNOCENT YOUNG MINDS.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, October 21, 2004

U.N.: Robot Use to Surge Sevenfold by 2007

By JONATHAN FOWLER, Associated Press Writer

"GENEVA - The use of robots around the home to mow lawns, vacuum floors and manage other chores is set to surge sevenfold by 2007 as more consumers snap up smart machines, the United Nations said. That boom coincides with record orders for industrial robots, said the U.N.'s annual World Robotics Survey, released Wednesday. The report, issued by the U.N. Economic Commission for Europe and the International Federation of Robotics, said that 607,000 automated domestic helpers were in use at the end of 2003, two-thirds of them purchased that year. Most of them — 570,000 — were robot lawnmowers. Sales of vacuum cleaning robots reached 37,000.

By the end of 2007, some 4.1 million domestic robots will likely be in use, the study said. Lawnmowers will still make up the majority, but sales of window-washing and pool-cleaning robots are also set to take off, it predicted. Sales of robot toys, like Sony's canine AIBO, also have risen. The study said there are now about 692,000 "entertainment robots" around the world. Colin Angle, Chief Executive of iRobot Corp. of Burlington, Massachusetts, said many consumers had been introduced to the idea of household robots 40 years ago with Rosie, the mechanical housekeeper for the futuristic cartoon family The Jetsons. But until now robots have failed to live up to their promise. "Our biggest hurdle right now is skepticism," Angle said. But "we are just at a point where robots are becoming affordable ... and some of them can actually do real work." UNECE said household robots could soon edge their industrial counterparts, which have dominated the figures since the U.N. body first began counting in 1990.

Industrial robots have nonetheless continued to recover from the slump recorded in the 2001 study. "Falling or stable robot prices, increasing labor costs and continuously improving technology are major driving forces which speak for continued massive robot investment in industry," said Jan Karlsson, author of the 414-page study. In the first half of 2004, business orders for robots were up 18 percent on the same period a year earlier, mostly in Asia and North America. Japan still remains the most robotized economy, home to around half the current 800,000 industrial robots. After several years in the doldrums, demand there jumped 25 percent in 2003. But Europe and North America are fast catching up, the study said.

European Union countries were in second place, with 250,000 robots in operation by the end of last year, mostly in Germany, Italy and France. Demand from North American businesses rose 28 percent, with some 112,000 robots in service by the end of last year. The machines are also taking off in richer developing countries, including Brazil, China and Mexico, spurred by plummeting prices. Taking the global average, a robot sold in 2003 cost a quarter of what a robot with the same performance cost in 1990, the study found. It said that by 2007, world industrial robot numbers will likely reach at least 1 million. The term "robot" covers any machine that operates automatically to perform tasks in a human-like way, often replacing the human workers who did the job previously. In most cases, robots move under their own propulsion and do not need to be controlled by a human operator after they have been programmed.

Most industrial robots are used on assembly lines, chiefly in the auto industry. But increasingly, companies are using them for other tasks, the study said. There are now some 21,000 "service robots" in use, carrying out tasks such as milking cows, handling toxic waste and even assisting in operating theaters. The number is set to reach a total of 75,000 by 2007, the study said. By the end of the decade, the study said, robots will "not only clean our floors, mow our lawns and guard our homes but also assist old and handicapped people with sophisticated interactive equipment, carry out surgery, inspect pipes and sites that are hazardous to people, fight fire and bombs."


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, October 14, 2004

Greenhouse Gas Jump Spurs Global Warming Fears

By Alister Doyle, Reuters Environment Correspondent

OSLO (Reuters) - An unexplained jump in greenhouse gases since 2002 might herald a catastrophic acceleration of global warming if it becomes a trend, scientists said on Monday. But they said the two-year leap might be an anomaly linked, for instance, to forest fires in Siberia or a freak hot summer in Europe in 2003 rather than a portent of runaway climate change linked to human disruption of the climate system.

"There have been two years where the rise of carbon dioxide (CO2) has been faster than average," said Richard Betts, Manager for Ecosystems and Climate Impacts at Britain's Hadley Center. "We shouldn't get alarmist about this ... If it lasted for more than about five years you'd start to get worried," he said. Carbon dioxide levels, the main gas blamed for blanketing the planet and pushing up temperatures since the Industrial Revolution, have risen by more than two parts per million (ppm) in the past two years against a recent rate of about 1.5 ppm. Scientists said the figures were confirmed at sites including Mauna Loa, Hawaii, west Ireland or the Norwegian Arctic island of Svalbard, about 800 miles from the North Pole. The rise was less in the southern hemisphere. "CO2 levels are up about two ppm in the past two years -- but it would be pushing it to say that it could be the start of runaway global warming," said Kim Holmen, senior scientist at the Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU).

The rise in the past two years is quicker than mapped out in U.N. projections to the year 2100 based on increased human use of fossil fuels like coal, oil or gas. Higher temperatures could trigger everything from desertification to rising sea levels. On Svalbard, CO2 levels have varied in 2004 from 365-385 ppm, Holmen said. The level is lowest in summer, when plants absorb CO2 as they grow. Organisms from plants to animals emit CO2 when they breathe and the oceans and soil also trap CO2. A background fear is that extra human emissions, by cars, factories and power plants, may be blunting the planet's ability to absorb CO2. In the worst case, that could lead to a runaway warming.

"These results are deeply worrying, and indicate that the battle against global climate change could be even more pressing than was previously thought," echoed Cathrine Pearce, Friends of the Earth International's climate campaigner. "It's a worrying sign," said Steve Sawyer, climate policy director at environmental group Greenpeace. U.N. scientists project that average temperatures will rise by 1.4 to 5.8 C (3 to 11 F) by 2100 because of human impact on the climate. Temperatures have already risen by 0.8C since the Industrial Revolution in tandem with a 30 percent rise in CO2 levels. The U.N.'s Kyoto protocol, likely to come into force in coming months with Russian help after a U.S. pullout in 2001, obliges developed nations to cut their carbon dioxide emissions by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.

Thursday, October 7, 2004

Rocket Wins $10M Prize for Trip to Space

By JOHN ANTCZAK, Associated Press Writer

MOJAVE, Calif. - A stubby private rocket plane blasted through the Earth's atmosphere for a second time in a week on Monday, capturing a $10 million prize meant to encourage space tourism. A crowd of thousands of enthusiasts on the ground began celebrating as soon as unofficial reports said SpaceShipOne had climbed over 62 miles — generally considered to be the point where the Earth's atmosphere ends and space begins.

"This is the true frontier of transportation," said Marion C. Blakey, head of the Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites), who stood near the runway. "It feels a little bit like Kitty Hawk must have." The rocket plane, funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen, took off from a desert runway slung to the belly of a carrier plane. It was released at about 46,000 feet, and test pilot Brian Binnie fired its rockets to continue to the edge of space at three times the speed of sound. The mother craft and chase planes did flyovers for spectators before landing. SpaceShipOne returned about 90 minutes after leaving the ground. "Let me say I thank God that I live in a country where this is possible," Binnie said after landing and receiving a hug of congratulations from his wife. "And I really mean that. There's no place on Earth that you can take this flag and take it up to space."

About an hour after it landed, X Prize founder Peter Diamandis announced that SpaceShipOne's team had claimed the prize, awarded for the first privately built, manned rocket ship to fly in space twice in a span of two weeks. Word of Binnie's accomplishment was relayed from Mission Control to the two people aboard the international space station, astronaut Mike Fincke and cosmonaut Gennady Padalka. "Fantastic," Fincke said, adding that it was great to learn that for a while Monday he and Gennady weren't "the only ones off the planet." The choice of Binnie as Monday's pilot was kept secret until hours before the scheduled takeoff. Last week, SpaceShipOne rolled dozens of times with Michael Melvill at the wheel. Melvill also flew the first flight by a private plane into space on June 21, and he was awarded the nation's first commercial astronaut wings by the FAA (news - web sites).

After a safety analysis, SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan posted preliminary information about last week's flight on his Web site this weekend to address what he called the "incorrect rumors" that have circulated. The first roll occurred at a high speed, about Mach 2.7, but aerodynamic loads on the spacecraft were low and decreasing rapidly "so the ship never saw any significant structural stresses," he said. Diamandis, who founded the X Prize eight years ago, hoped it would have the same effect on space travel as the Orteig Prize had on air travel. Charles Lindbergh claimed that $25,000 prize in 1927 after making his solo trans-Atlantic flight. Major funding came from the Ansari family of Dallas. More than two dozen teams around the world are trying to win the prize, but only SpaceShipOne has reached space. Last week, Richard Branson, the British airline mogul and adventurer, announced that beginning in 2007, he will begin offering paying customers flights into space aboard rockets like the SpaceShipOne. He plans to call the service Virgin Galactic.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, September 30, 2004

Australia defies new pressure to sign Kyoto
after Russia moves to ratify

by AFP News Agency

SYDNEY (AFP) - Prime Minister John Howard refused to bow to renewed pressure to back the Kyoto Protocol on global warming after Russia ended years of hesitation by moving to become the latest signatory to the pact. Howard said Australia intended to meet the emissions targets set by the protocol, but under existing rules the country would be disadvantaged if it were to sign the climate change treaty.

"The difficulty by ratifying, through ratifying under the present conditions, is that countries like China and Brazil and Indonesia would not be subject to the emissions targets we'd be subject to," he told a Melbourne radio station. "Therefore it would be more attractive for industry to invest in those countries rather than Australia and that would take investment and also jobs out of our country." His remarks followed renewed demands by the opposition Labor Party backed by a coalition of environmental groups in the last days of campaigning for the October 9 election, for Australia to join the international community in signing the accord.

Australia, like the United States, which has also stood firm in its rejection of the accord despite Russia's decision, refused to sign it in 2001, arguing it was too costly and unfair because developing countries are not bound to make specific pollution cuts. Opposition Labor leader Mark Latham said that without a national commitment to reversing global warming -- the aim of the Kyoto protocol -- many of Australia's great natural wonders would be under threat. He said the world-renowned Great Barrier Reef which draws hundred of thousands of tourists a year, could suffer disastrous coral bleaching, while salt water could flood, and destroy, the Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory.

"We're at risk of losing our natural assets," Latham told Australian television. "And (that's) all the more reason for Australia to follow the international pattern, become part of Kyoto, become part of the effort against global warming." "We need national leadership," added Latham. "This is a big issue for Australia. I can't understand, given the high stakes involved, why Mr Howard is so backward on this big environmental issue." Two major environmental groups, the Australian Conservation Foundation and Greenpeace, have also argued that Australia's position on Kyoto islolates it as a global voice on environmental issues. Greenpeace spokeswoman Catherine Fitzpatrick said the Russian decision demonstrated that Howard's position was "indefensible".


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, September 23, 2004

Patrick Deuel talks Monday, Aug. 9, 2004, at Avera McKennan Hospital, in Sioux Falls, S.D., about how he has lost 321 pounds since June after checking in at 1,072. Deuel, 42, who is just under 6 feet tall, is on a 1,200 calorie-a-day diet. He wants to lose at least another 450 pounds or more in the next year and a half to two years. He is being supervised by a team of eight doctors.
(AP Photo/Argus Leader, Stuart Villanueva)


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, September 16, 2004

People on Mars Possible in 20 to 30 Years

By Jude Webber

LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - People could land on Mars in the next 20 to 30 years provided scientists can find water on the red planet, the head of NASA's surface exploration mission said on Wednesday. Two partially solar-powered "robot geologists" -- Mars Exploration Rovers, or MERs -- have been trundling across 3 miles of the planet and into craters since January, beaming back data about the makeup of what scientists believe is Earth's sister planet.

Asked how long it could be before astronauts land on Mars, Arthur Thompson, mission manager for MER surface operations, told Reuters in an interview in Lima, "My best guess is 20 to 30 years, if that becomes our primary priority." The two MER robots, dubbed Spirit and Opportunity, have found ancient evidence that water was once plentiful -- important for scientists hoping to know if there was once -- or could still be -- life on Mars. Without water, the dream of sending astronauts to the often dusty planet, which has rust-colored rocks and where the sky is red and sunsets are blue, could unravel. "If we cannot find water in situ ... it really makes it difficult to send humans. Water is the key," said Thompson, who was attending a mining engineers' conference.

Such a mission would take 11 to 12 months to get to Mars and it would be impossible to carry enough water for the astronauts, plus the water needed to make rocket fuel for the return journey, to cool the spacecraft and to generate energy. "We'll find it (water). It's there, we'll get it," he said. Thompson said scientists had found a canyon on Mars "that makes the Grand Canyon look like a small canyon," where water could still be present. "There are indications that there is actually water that seeps out the side of the canyon, and going down the side it evaporates. We believe it's an ongoing process," he said.

Three satellites now orbiting Mars are constantly gathering information, and Thompson said, "If there is water, we believe the chances of finding life are greatly increased." President Bush wants a permanent presence on the moon and to land people on Mars in the future. NASA's buildup includes sending at least one nuclear-powered robot to Mars in 2009, the Mars Science Laboratory, or MSL, program. NASA -- which just lost its Genesis capsule that crash-landed on Earth with its cargo of solar particles -- has competing strains on its resources. NASA chief Sean O'Keefe said last week it could take at least $2.2 billion to get space shuttles back in flight after Columbia broke up in February 2003, killing all seven astronauts aboard.

"NASA has a finite budget ... (but) they have pretty much assured us that they want MSL, that Mars exploration is very high on the agency's agenda," Thompson said. "My understanding is that Mars program office is pretty much assured funding for the next few years." MER cost $800 million. The cost of MSL was not clear. Thompson said the MER robots, which had been expected to die last April, were healthy and may go on for another year. That made his "the best job on the planet. ... How bad is it to have to get up every day to go to work to drive on Mars?


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, September 9, 2004

Australia, Japan work on near zero-emission
coal-fired electricity plant

by AFP News Agency

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australian and Japanese researchers are working on a prototype "near zero-emission" coal-fired electricity plant in an effort to reduce a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, they said. Announcing the program in the Queensland state capital Brisbane, they said Thursday the oxy-fuel combustion technology could provide a "retro-fit" which could be applied to existing power stations.

The Australian Coal Association said the technology would involve the capture and geological storage of carbon dioxide, the leading cause of global warming, after substituting air with pure oxygen in the generating process. "To meet growing energy demand, coal will continue to dominate our electricity mix for the foreseeable future," said executive director Mark O'Neill. "Technologies like oxy-fuel combustion and carbon capture and geological storage will be crucial for reducing emissions in coming decades, along with increased use of renewables and improved energy efficiency." Backed by the state government and a major Japanese power engineering company, the project involves feeding pure oxygen rather than air into a modified boiler and recycling some of the gases through the combustion chamber.

This should raise the concentration of carbon dioxide. Low concentrations of the gas in existing power stations makes it very expensive to separate and process and is seen as the major barrier to its capture. Among the partners in the project are Japan's Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries and Center for Coal Utilization. Various Australian bodies involved include the University of Newcastle.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, September 2, 2004

Virtual Humans Proposed As Space Travelers

by Leonard David, Senior Space Writer SPACE.com

TELLURIDE, COLORADO -- Better make room for an extra crewmember aboard any spaceship heading outward. This person wont require food, oxygen or water, nor even need to buckle up for safety. The tag-along traveler could, however, be a lifesaver in terms of getting the expedition to and from a celestial destination.Roll out the welcome mat for the virtual astronaut and enter the 3D space of Peter Plantec, a consultant in virtual human design and animation, as well as a leading expert on visual entertainment. He also initiated the "Sylvie" project -- the first commercially available virtual human interface.

And if dispatching virtual humans from Earth doesnt turn on your thrusters, think about this. Its likely that extraterrestrial civilizations might send surrogate entities our way instead of propelling their delicate, soft-shell selves across interstellar mileage."In a sense, our space probes are a kind of virtual human," Plantec told SPACE.com after speaking at the 5th Annual Telluride Tech Festival, held here August 13-15. "They are very sophisticated. They have to make decisions on their own...not many, but some. Its a very primitive stage of virtual human technology," he said.Plantec envisions a partnership between in-the-flesh space voyagers and virtual humans. "We humans are fairly limited characters. We are very good at soft responses...but not very good at high-speed, highly complex responses. And thats what virtual humans are really great at. Thats their deal," he noted.

From a space perspective, not investigating the utility of virtual human technology in the future exploration of space is insane, Plantec said. "Its more than just looking like or acting like a human. It is all the capabilities behind that...the capabilities that can be used to make journeys into space more successful."Most certainly, a humans-to-Mars mission would be very complicated, fully loaded with high-tech gear and festooned with operating manuals, along with scads of on-line documentation. A virtual human could be set up to monitor highly complex systems in real time. It can interface with the human sojourner, easing that persons workload, Plantec advised, by monitoring onboard systems and automatically make whatever critical adjustments it has been authorized to do. "The future of space exploration has to do with filtering the input to the humans, so they dont get overloaded. And a virtual human is a great way to do it," Plantec said.

Plantec bristles a bit when contrast is made between virtual humans and HAL 9000, that artificially flavored intelligence that audiences ate up like popcorn in the movie classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey."HAL was a vision of artificial intelligence...and Im not a big fan of AI. Never have been," Plantec said. "What we really need is to fake conscious behavior so that we humans can have the emotional relationship with machines. You cant do that with AI."At some point, there will be a merging of AI and the faking of consciousness, Plantec added, leading to AI beings that are self-programming entities and able to emulate human consciousness behavior. "And I look forward to that," he said.

Today, there are a number of advancements taking place in blending artistry and technology to virtual-human personality design. On-screen faces that humans talk to and interact with come replete with exquisite features, along with nuances of eye and lip movement, not to mention a dash of personality. "Its eerie. You absolutely know that theres somebody inside there. And thats the kind of thing you have to do in order to captivate the technological disenfranchised...the people who are being left behind," Plantec explained. "We want to bridge between the ordinary human and technology. We can do that with the one thing that they really understand...and thats ordinary conversation." Examples of where things are headed have been captured by Plantec in his bestseller on 3D animation: Caligari trueSpace2 Bible, as well as the recently published Virtual Humans -- nothing less than a build-it-yourself resource guide, complete with software and step-by-step instructions for fashioning your own creature of comfort.

As virtual humans walk among us, so to speak, one can speculate about future implications. "We humans, I think, are hungry to bond with machines...and I dont understand that at all," Plantec said. "Wouldnt it be interesting if it was a natural instinct that was the next part of our evolution? I really believe that, eventually, these things will evolve into a quasi-life form and we will form symbiotic relationships with them." What about other civilizations distant from Earth, far older than we are -- standing tall on higher rungs of the evolutionary ladder? "Any intelligent species is not going to send out their most fragile, soft life forms to do the hard space exploration. They are going to send out their hardened life forms," Plantec stated. "When you have virtual life forms, you can harden them to almost any circumstance."

But what about those space voyagers among you, anxious to fly by the seat of your pants for real? Dont worry, Plantec responded."There is an element of the human nature that needs to explore. I believe its genetically breed into us to explore space. Its an inexplicable drive that we have," Plantec said. "Theres lots of evidence that it is our destiny to go beyond Earth and explore." Plantec added that being the hands-on creatures we are, its almost like we wish we could touch and taste atomic energy. Same thing with Quantum theory and a hunger to shrink down and frolic with the physics of it all. "But the one thing we really can do is explore the macrocosm. So were going to do it...no matter what," Plantec said. Nonetheless, taking along some virtual human companions is essential. "In exploring space, there are a lot of hard decisions that need to be made. Were much better at soft decisions. Virtual humans are much better at looking at the information and making the correct decision for survival," Plantec concluded.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, August 26, 2004

This image shows Cassiopeia A in the most detailed image ever
made of the remains of an exploded star. The colors represent
different ranges of X-rays with red, green, and blue representing,
low, medium, and higher X-ray energies of the supernova remnant.
The one million second image shows a bright outer ring (green) ten light
years in diameter that marks the location of a shock wave generated by
the supernova explosion. A large jet-like structure that protrudes
beyond the shock wave can be seen in the upper left. Chandra was
launched July 23, 1999, aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia. The
data for this new Cassiopeia A image were obtained by Chandra's Advanced
Charged Coupled Device Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS) instrument during
the first half of 2004. (EDITORIAL USE ONLY) REUTERS/NASA


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, August 19, 2004

By JAN M. OLSEN, Associated Press Writer

Europe Is Warned of Changing Climate

COPENHAGEN, Denmark - Rising sea levels, disappearing glaciers in the Alps and more deadly heat waves are coming for Europeans because of global warming, Europe's environmental agency warned Wednesday. The European Environment Agency said much more needs to be done — and fast. Climate change "will considerably affect our societies and environments for decades and centuries to come," its 107-page report said.

It said rising temperatures could eliminate three-quarters of the Alpine glaciers by 2050 and bring repeats of Europe's mammoth floods two years ago and the heat wave that killed thousands and burned up crops last summer. The rise in sea levels along Europe's coasts is likely to accelerate, it added. Global warming has been evident for years, but the problem is becoming acute, Jacqueline McGlade, executive director of the Copenhagen-based agency, told The Associated Press. "What is new is the speed of change," she said.

"It takes a long time to see these changes in the glaciers, at the sea level, so like big tankers turning around, they take a long time to change. But now that we see them changing direction, then it means that there are warning signals in many parts of our life," she added. McGlade said action is needed at all levels in Europe — continental, regional, national and local. She said, for example, that European nations should insist climate change be on the agenda of international free-trade talks. Greenpeace welcomed the report. Flooding, heat waves and melting glaciers "make people become more and more aware of the consequences of global warming," Steve Sawyer of Greenpeace International told AP.

Global warming is believed to be intensified by human activities, in particular emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. The European Union has been a leader in pushing for implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, a U.N. pact drawn up in 1997 to combat climate change by reducing carbon-dioxide emissions worldwide in 2010 to 8 percent below 1990 levels. So far 123 countries, including all 25 EU members, have ratified the pact, but it isn't in effect because it hasn't reached the required level of nations accounting for 55 percent of the industrialized world's emissions. The United States, the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, has refused to ratify, arguing the agreement would hurt its economy, and Russia also hasn't signed.

Wednesday's report, "Impacts of Europe's Changing Climate," urges that the Kyoto Protocol be adopted, saying climate changes "will considerably affect our societies and environments for decades and centuries to come." It said the 1990s were the warmest decade on record, and the three hottest years recorded — 1998, 2002 and 2003 — occurred in the last six years, with the average global temperature now rising at almost 0.36 degrees per decade. The report singled out floods across Europe two summers ago and last summer's heat wave in western and southern Europe as examples of destructively extreme weather caused by global warming. The flooding killed about 80 people in 11 countries, affected more than 600,000 and caused economic losses of at least $18.5 billion, the report said. More than 20,000 deaths, many of them elderly, were recorded during the 2003 heat wave, which also caused up to 30 percent of harvests in many southern countries to fail, it said.

The report said melting shrank glaciers in the Alps by 10 percent in 2003 alone and predicted three-quarters of them could be gone altogether by 2050. European sea levels have been rising by 0.03-0.12 inches a year over the last century, it said, and the rate of increase could be two to four times faster during this century. The agency is sponsored by the 25 EU countries as well as Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

EEA report:
http://reports.eea.eu.int/climate_report_2_2004/en


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, August 12, 2004
Wed Aug 11, 8:55 AM ET

Pollutants From Asia Appear on East Coast

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. - Scientists looking into air quality and climate change have found pollutants from as far as Asia over New England and the Atlantic. It is the first time Asian pollution plumes have been observed over the East Coast and suggests that American air quality could be threatened as Asian countries become more industrialized. "We have to be concerned whether the cost of continuing to ratchet up emission controls is not going to be offset by growing pollution coming to us from Asia," Daniel Jacob, a Harvard University researcher, told The Boston Globe. "At some point, it may be cheaper to sell pollution control equipment to China," he said.

The Asian pollution was spotted above Portsmouth and other locations this by the International Consortium for Atmospheric Research on Transport and Transformation, an air quality study billed as the largest, most comprehensive ever done. The six-week study by researchers from six nations began July 5. "I think what you're going to see in five to 10 years' time, when you get a better handle on the long-range transport, is that pollution is traveling from continent to continent and there may need to be some new agreements put into place," said Robert Talbot, a University of New Hampshire's scientist.

Talbot also believes results of a parallel New England Air Quality Study may surprise the region, which often blames other regions for creating the smog that drifts in on prevailing winds. "I think there's quite a bit of pollution generated within the region that we're not really recognizing," said Talbot. The Asian pollution was identified through chemical fingerprints — halocarbons produced only in Chinese industry, said Jacob. "I think the most profound thing that you draw from this is that the globe is one air shed," said Armond Cohen, director of the Clean Air Task Force, a Boston-based nonprofit. "Right now, there's a lot of interest in the community about this influence of Asian pollution and whether it can compromise our ability to achieve regional air quality objectives," said Jacob. "We knew the transport from Asia was efficient in the spring, but we didn't know it was so prevalent in the summer," Talbot said.

Three years ago, an Asian storm sent dust across the United States, sprinkling it as far as New Hampshire. Forest fires raging through Quebec in 2002 blanketed New England and much of the East Coast. And divisive battles long have been fought over border-crossing gases. In recent years, Northeastern states have been suing over the pollution blown from the Midwest, blaming power plants for producing acid rain and ozone, and, most recently, exacerbating global warming. In 1991, the United States signed a treaty with Canada agreeing to reduce U.S. emissions blamed for spoiling lakes and forests with acid rain.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, August 5, 2004
Wed Aug 4, 5:10 PM ET

Solar System May Be Unique After All -- Astronomers
By Maggie Fox

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Our solar system may be unique after all, despite the discovery of at least 120 other systems with planets, astronomers said on Wednesday. All the other solar systems that have been found have big, gassy planets circling too close to their stars to allow them to be anything like Earth or its fellow planets, the British and U.S.-based researchers said. If that is the case, Earth-like planets will be very rare, the astronomers write in the latest issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

"Maybe these other extrasolar systems ... contain only the giant planets," said Mario Livio of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. Livio and colleagues took a close look at what is known about the other planetary systems that have been discovered. "In (our) solar system the orbits are very circular. Most of the giant planets observed in extrasolar systems have very elliptical orbits," Livio said in a telephone interview. This could mean that astronomers have been wrong in assuming that all planets formed in basically the same way. Livio said most experts thought that planets formed out of dust. "This dust coagulates and forms small rocks and the rocks combine and form small bodies and then those bodies form things like Earths," he said.

"The Earths collect and accrete gas and then they form giant planets like Jupiter. That is one model." But so far no one has found a planet outside our solar system that looks like it formed that way. "Then there is a second model that has been suggested specifically for the formation of giant planets like Jupiter. You start with a gas disk and this disk becomes unstable and it breaks up into large clumps and those clumps are the things that form giant planets," Livio said. "In that model it is not obvious at all how planets like Earth may have formed." It could be our solar system formed in the first way and most of the others formed in the second way, Livio said.

But he said it is hard to tell as planets outside this solar system can only be detected through indirect observation and these methods are not able to detect smaller planets like Earth. Either way, it is time to start thinking about the possibility that our system is unique or at least unusual, Livio said. What has been seen up to now does not bode well for the main purpose of seeking other planets -- finding life outside our solar system. "If the orbit is very elliptical then the planet may come very close to its sun at some point and that doesn't appear to be very healthy for life," Livio said.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, July 29, 2004
Wed Jul 28, 5:49 PM ET

Data Show Amazon Still 'Lungs of the World'
By Axel Bugge

BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) - The Amazon deserves to be called the "lungs of the world," as new projections show it is a net producer of oxygen despite widespread burning of the jungle, scientists said on Wednesday. The projections show that the trees in the world's largest tropical forest are cleaning the air by absorbing carbon dioxide. The data collected indicates that the Amazon absorbs slightly more carbon dioxide than the burning spews out.

"The indication is that it is a small net supplier of oxygen," said Paulo Artaxo, a researcher at the University of Sao Paulo. That conclusion is based on the latest projections made possible by the Large Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia, the world's leading study of jungle deforestation. Experts are meeting this week in Brasilia to discuss the findings of the series of experiments, which started in 1998 and are conducted by Brazilian and foreign organizations, including the U.S. space agency NASA.

The results are based on data collected by 14 observation towers in the jungles, which scientists use to monitor carbon dioxide, wind, temperature levels and weather conditions. The full findings are not yet ready but projections are. Scientists have long thought that the Amazon is a net producer of oxygen. The issue is politically sensitive in Brazil because it reinforces environmentalists' calls to stop Amazon burning, which hit its second-highest level last year. "This situation can be extremely advantageous for Brazil," said Artaxo. "There is just the problem of the burning." The Amazon, home to up to 30 percent of the world's animal and plant species, covers an area of continuous forest larger than the continental United States.

An area of 5.9 million acres, bigger than the U.S. state of New Jersey, was destroyed as loggers and farmers hacked and burned the forest in 2003. Scientists warned at the conference that rising temperatures and declining rainfall are accelerating its disappearance. Scientists at the conference said there is additional sensitivity surrounding the Amazon's absorption of carbon dioxide because the government is expected to publish this year a long-delayed inventory of Brazil's greenhouse gas emissions.

The report is expected to show that Brazil is among the world's 10 top polluters and that 75 percent of its greenhouse gas emissions come from Amazon burning. It will be first official confirmation of that information. Under the Kyoto Protocol to curb greenhouse gas emissions, which Brazil has signed, the country is obliged to produce an inventory of its pollution. The problem is that under the international agreement the inventory will not include carbon dioxide absorption.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, July 22, 2004
Tue Jul 20, 6:05 PM ET

Pilgrim's Pride Probes Poultry Cruelty Charges
By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A video from an animal rights group allegedly showing cruelty at a U.S. poultry plant owned by Pilgrim's Pride Corp. prompted the company on Tuesday to launch an investigation of its workers and sent its shares lower. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said the tape showed workers at a West Virginia Pilgrim's Pride plant ripping off birds' beaks, spitting tobacco into their mouths and eyes, stomping and kicking live chickens, and squeezing them with such force "that the birds expelled feces."

The tape is the latest in an 18-month-long series of investigations by PETA of companies that supply KFC, the fast-food chicken chain owned and operated by Yum Brands Inc. PETA spokesman Dan Shannon said the abuses found at the Pilgrim's Pride facility went far beyond the "routine, standard cruelty" the animal rights group found in past investigations. Shannon said PETA workers routinely observed crippled chickens and chickens living without adequate food and water on farms in England, Germany, Australia and India that supplied meat to KFC. But he contrasted that to "the really sadistic abuse" found in the plant in Moorefield, West Virginia.

Pilgrim's Pride, the No. 2 U.S. poultry producer after Tyson Foods, is a KFC supplier. Shares in Pilgrim's Pride fell 91 cents, or 3 percent, to close at $29.85 after earlier dipping as low as $29.00 in New York Stock Exchange trading. Pilgrim's Pride President O.B. Goolsby said in a statement that the company was appalled and outraged by the allegations. The alleged actions, he said, were in direct contradiction of the company's animal welfare policies. Goolsby also said an investigation into the PETA allegations had begun. One worker was suspended without pay and three others were being investigated, he said. Goolsby called the problem an isolated incident, but added that animal welfare policies will be reviewed at all plants that handle live animals.

KFC, also describing the videotape as appalling, said it notified Pilgrim's Pride that it will stop buying from the West Virginia plant "unless they can definitively assure us there are absolutely no abuses taking place." Shannon said PETA's undercover investigator documented the animal abuses over an eight-month period ending in May. He said hundreds of hours of video footage illustrated the cruelty. Excerpts were posted on a PETA Web site, http://www.petatv.com, and were being offered to U.S. television networks, Shannon said.

PETA asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in a letter on Tuesday, to investigate the facility, Shannon said. Steven Cohen, a spokesman for the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service, said it was looking into the allegations. PETA also said it had presented the video to local prosecutors, calling for felony charges against those responsible for the alleged animal cruelty. Asked whether Pilgrim's Pride had adopted voluntary animal welfare guidelines created by the National Chicken Council, a Washington-based association representing the U.S. industry, council spokesman Richard Lobb said, "Of course they have."

Lobb downplayed the impact the video will have on consumers. "This is going to be an isolated case of bad behavior and I think consumers understand that," he said. PETA argues the problem with KFC chicken suppliers is chronic. "What KFC has been saying for years is that they have an animal welfare program in place. We think that this investigation proves that they don't," Shannon said.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, July 15, 2004
Tue Jul 13, 7:47 AM ET

MTV chief says Bush AIDS policies
will not halt condom adverts

BANGKOK (AFP) - The president of cable music giant MTV vowed not to stop the channel's hard-hitting AIDS and condom messages despite the US government promoting a sexual abstinence programme to counter the pandemic.

"We get criticised quite a bit, we even get penalised quite a bit and I am here to see that we will continue to take those risks," said Bill Roedy, at the 15th International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, where the debate between strict sexual abstinence versus a pro-condom approach has emerged as a key issue. Roedy said MTV's no-nonsense specials on AIDS and condom use had also found the televised music giant in hot water in many countries outside the United States.

The MTV president sat on a panel with Hollywood icon Richard Gere, who joined Roedy in criticising the approach of President George W. Bush's administration to condom and AIDS awareness. "We may well have hopefully another administration in about four months in the US and along with that some sanity on this subject," said Gere. An adviser on women's issues to the United Nations on Friday partially blamed a rising AIDS rate among women in the US on popular media such as MTV.

"Among young people in America, there is a feeling that sex is cool, that it's okay to be growing up and to be sexually experienced," said Stephanie Urdang. The number of American women with HIV / AIDS leapt from 180,000 in 2001 to 240,000 two years later, she said.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, July 8, 2004

Sat Jul 3,12:01 AM ET - REUTERS by Sukree Sukplang

"A piglet sleeps on a tiger at Siracha zoo, 80 km east of the Thai
capital Bangkok, July 2, 2004. The zoo is trying to boost visitor
numbers by teaching domestic animals such as pigs, and wild animals
such as tigers, to live together in harmony from an early age."

If they can live in harmony, we must be able to do it too.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, July 1, 2004

World meeting vows to "substantially
increase" renewable energy

Fri Jun 4, 8:06 AM ET

BONN (AFP) - Ministers attending the world's biggest meeting on renewable energy pledged to "substantially increase with a sense of urgency" this source's share in the global energy supply. "Renewable energies, combined with increased energy efficiency, will become a most important and widely available source of energy and will offer new opportunities for cooperation among all countries," they said in a declaration.

The communique did not give a timetable for this, nor set any other specific targets. The meeting also prepared a document of policy guidelines and an "action plan" of measures by governments and corporations for promoting renewables. Renewable energies include solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and hydro. At present, they account for just a tiny share of the world's energy mix and much of the technology is in its infancy.

Oil, gas and coal have long dominated energy needs in industrialised countries and this has given them a cost edge in infrastructure as well as a political advantage. Interest in renewables has surged in the light of this year's rise in oil prices, driven in part by uncertainty over the future of supplies from Saudi Arabia and Iraq. The four-day Bonn meeting which ended Friday gathered around 3,000 ministers or senior officials, corporate executives, energy users and green activists, making it the biggest forum of its kind. Representatives from 154 countries took part.

The declaration said countries were "committed to achieving tangible progress as well as substantive follow-up" and planned to "continue the high-level political dialogue begun in Bonn."


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, Jun 24, 2004

Private U.S. Rocket Plane Soars Into Space

Mon Jun 21, 4:56 PM ET
By Reed Stevenson

MOJAVE, Calif. (Reuters) - The privately funded rocket plane SpaceShipOne flew to outer space and into history books on Monday as the world's first commercial manned space flight. The white rocket plane was released from a larger plane called the White Knight and ignited its rocket engine to enter space and reach an altitude of 328,491 feet, or 62.2 miles above the earth. Against the backdrop of a clear blue sky, it landed safely back at a runway in the Mojave Desert in California, about 100 miles north of Los Angeles. Thousands gathered for the hourlong journey.

"The sky was jet black above, and it got very blue above the horizon," said pilot Michael Melvill, 63, who earned his wings as an astronaut and was greeted by Buzz Aldrin, one of the first men to walk on the moon. "The earth is so beautiful," added Melvill in describing the planet's vast curvature and the Southern California coast he saw during a brief three and half minutes just beyond the atmosphere. "The flight today opens a new chapter in history, making space within the reach of ordinary citizens," declared Patti Grace Smith, FAA associate administrator for commercial space transportation. In Washington, Michael Lembeck of NASA's office of exploration systems said the agency might offer up to $30 million in prizes to encourage commercial missions to orbit the Earth or land on the moon.

Lembeck told Reuters there was even discussion of offering "a couple hundred million dollars for the first private orbital flight." SpaceShipOne with its striking nose -- a pointed cone covered with small portholes -- was designed by legendary aerospace designer Burt Rutan and built with more than $20 million in funding by billionaire Paul Allen, who co-founded Microsoft Corp. Rutan and Allen said the success of the project proved commercial space flight and space tourism would soon become a reality. "We've clearly shown it can be done," said Allen, who attended the launch of the first U.S. space shuttle in 1981. Future flights in spacecraft based on SpaceShipOne's design will be able to take at least six passengers to 93 miles above the earth, said Rutan, who designed the Voyager airplane that was flown nonstop around the world in 1986.

Melvill's mission was the first privately piloted flight in the space age that began when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbited the earth in 1961. It also marked the first time a non-government spacecraft reached the altitude considered to be the boundary between earth's atmosphere and outer space. The Federal Aviation Administration awarded Melvill with its first civilian astronaut wings, and Guinness World records cited the team for achieving the first commercial manned space flight. After burning its rocket for about 80 seconds, SpaceShipOne sped up to more than three times the speed of sound and then coasted to its peak altitude, making Melvill weightless.

He said he released a bag of M&Ms chocolates, which "just spun around like little sparkling things." There were a few glitches, however, that may delay Allen and Rutan's next goal, an attempt to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize, offered by a group of private donors to the first team that sends three people, or an equivalent weight, into space and repeats the trip within two weeks. SpaceShipOne's trim controls got stuck as it made its rocket boost, causing it to go about 22 miles off course and not reach its full expected altitude of 68 miles. In addition, a piece of cowling, or protective cover near the end of the rocket nozzle, buckled, Rutan said.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Tuesday, Jun 17, 2004

U.N. Says Globe Drying Up at Fast Pace

Tue Jun 15,10:14 AM ET
By CHRIS HAWLEY, Associated Press Writer

UNITED NATIONS - The world is turning to dust, with lands the size of Rhode Island becoming desert wasteland every year and the problem threatening to send millions of people fleeing to greener countries, the United Nations says. One-third of the Earth's surface is at risk, driving people into cities and destroying agriculture in vast swaths of Africa. Thirty-one percent of Spain is threatened, while China has lost 36,000 square miles to desert — an area the size of Indiana — since the 1950s.

This week the United Nations marks the 10th anniversary of the Convention to Combat Desertification, a plan aimed at stopping the phenomenon. Despite the efforts, the trend seems to be picking up speed — doubling its pace since the 1970s. "It's a creeping catastrophe," said Michel Smitall, a spokesman for the U.N. secretariat that oversees the 1994 accord. "Entire parts of the world might become uninhabitable." Slash-and-burn agriculture, sloppy conservation, overtaxed water supplies and soaring populations are mostly to blame. But global warming is taking its toll, too.

The United Nations is holding a ceremony in Bonn, Germany, on Thursday to mark World Day to Combat Desertification, and will hold a meeting in Brazil this month to take stock of the problem. The warning comes as a controversial movie, "The Day After Tomorrow" is whipping up interest in climate change, and as rivers and lakes dry up in the American West, giving Americans a taste of what's to come elsewhere.
The United Nations says:

_ From the mid-1990s to 2000, 1,374 square miles have turned into deserts each year — an area about the size of Rhode Island. That's up from 840 square miles in the 1980s, and 624 square miles during the 1970s.
_ By 2025, two-thirds of arable land in Africa will disappear, along with one-third of Asia's and one-fifth of South America's.
_ Some 135 million people — equivalent to the populations of France and Germany combined — are at risk of being displaced.

Most at risk are dry regions on the edges of deserts — places like sub-Saharan Africa or the Gobi Desert in China, where people are already struggling to eke out a living from the land. As populations expand, those regions have become more stressed. Trees are cut for firewood, grasslands are overgrazed, fields are over-farmed and lose their nutrients, water becomes scarcer and dirtier. Technology can make the problem worse. In parts of Australia, irrigation systems are pumping up salty water and slowly poisoning farms. In Saudi Arabia, herdsmen can use water trucks instead of taking their animals from oasis to oasis — but by staying in one place, the herds are getting bigger and eating all the grass.

In Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece, coastal resorts are swallowing up water that once moistened the wilderness. Many farmers in those countries still flood their fields instead of using more miserly "drip irrigation," and the resulting shortages are slowly baking the life out of the land. The result is a patchy "rash" of dead areas, rather than an easy-to-see expansion of existing deserts, scientists say. These areas have their good times and bad times as the weather changes. But in general, they are getting bigger and worse-off. "It's not as dramatic as a flood or a big disaster like an earthquake," said Richard Thomas of the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas in Aleppo, Syria. "There are some bright spots and hot spots. But overall, there is a trend toward increasing degradation."

The trend is speeding up, but it has been going on for centuries, scientists say. Fossilized pollen and seeds, along with ancient tools like grinding stones, show that much of the Middle East, the Mediterranean and North Africa were once green. The Sahara itself was a savanna, and rock paintings show giraffes, elephants and cows once lived there. Global warming contributes to the problem, making many dry areas drier, scientists say. In the last century, average temperatures have risen over 1 degree Fahrenheit worldwide, according to the U.S. Global Change Research Program. As for the American Southwest, it is too early to tell whether its six-year drought could turn to something more permanent. But scientists note that reservoir levels are dropping as cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas expand.

"In some respects you may have greener vegetation showing up in people's yards, but you may be using water that was destined for the natural environment," said Stuart Marsh of the University of Arizona's Office of Arid Lands Studies. "That might have an effect on the biodiversity surrounding that city." The Global Change Research Program says global warming could eventually make the Southwest wetter — but it will also cause more extreme weather, meaning harsher droughts that could kill vegetation. Now, the Southwest drought has become so severe that even the sagebrush is dying.

"The lack of water and the overuse of water, that is going to be a threat to the United States," Thomas said. "In other parts of the world, the problem is poverty that causes people to overuse the land. Most of these ecological systems have tipping points, and once you go past them, things go downhill."

On the Web:

United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification

International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, June 10, 2004

Earth's Air: NASA's Aura Spacecraft
to Gauge Atmospheric Health

Wed Jun 9,10:14 AM ET
By Tariq Malik Staff Writer, SPACE.com

Humans can live without a lot of things on Earth, cable television and Twinkies for example, but air isn't one of them. Now a new NASA satellite is poised to take the closest look ever at the air humans breathe to understand how smoke, aerosols and other pollutants can be carried through the atmosphere and affect air quality around the world.

The Aura spacecraft, the latest and last satellite NASA's first Earth Observing System (EOS), will also monitor changes in Earth climate and search the planet's ozone layer for any signs of recuperation after years of attack by man-made pollutants like chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). "It truly is a chemistry lab in space," said Michael Tanner, Aura's lead engineer and the mission's program executive at NASA headquarters, of the spacecraft. "If it works for one day we will have more information on our air than ever seen from space." Aimed for an orbital slot some 438 miles (705 kilometers) above Earth, Aura will focus its attention on the stratosphere, home to the ozone layer, and the layer of breathable air stretching down to ground level. The spacecraft will fill the atmospheric gap in left by its EOS satellite comrades Aqua, which studies Earth oceans, and Terra, aimed at landmasses.

The spacecraft is expected to launch on earlier than July 3, 2004. Nestled among the four instruments aboard Aura is a device called the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) that will study a layer of the atmosphere in which most people live, work and play. That layer, the troposphere, starts on the ground and stretches about six miles (10 kilometers) up to the stratosphere, where the ozone layer screens the planet from ultraviolet radiation. Space-based observations of the troposphere are traditionally difficult due to interference from clouds that sit between satellites and the atmosphere's bottom-most layer. Aura's TES instrument, however, is designed look downward and horizontally at the same time. The configuration should be able to track air pollution caused by Mother Nature from volcanoes or wildfires, as well as by man, including the burning of trees and other biomass in the tropics and industrial byproducts in North America and China.

"Mostly, it's considered a local problem, but it's really a global one," said Aura project scientist Mark Schoeberl, based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, during a telephone interview. "We need to understand how well pollutants can get from the United States to Europe, for example." Dust from deserts in China, for example, can waft out over the Pacific Ocean and affect air quality in the Pacific Northwest, and smoky air from Canadian wildfires stretched from New York to Washington D.C. in 2002. But with a better understanding of how such pollutants are transported through the atmosphere, researchers would be better equipped to issue air quality warnings for residents who might otherwise suffer health problems.

Aura's second target is the ozone layer in the stratosphere, a protective layer of the atmosphere that has been closely-watched since the 1970s when satellite measurements first began recording signs of ozone depletion due to man-made CFC pollution. The spacecraft's Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) will map changes in the ozone layer as well as the levels of nitrogen dioxide and other pollutants. Along with two other Aura instruments, OMI should help researchers pin down any mixing between constructive ozone in polluting ozone in the upper troposphere. "There is such a thing as good ozone and bad ozone," Tanner told SPACE.com.

Aura instruments are also designed to detect greenhouse gas levels and measure how aerosol particles reflect or absorb sunlight, which could contribute to climatic changes such as global warming and cooling trends. The Aura spacecraft won't be alone in space during its planned six-year mission. Once aloft, Aura will trail the Aqua spacecraft in a formation flight pattern to make comprehensive climate observations of the Earth. In 2005, the cloud-watching satellites - CloudSat and the CALYSPO - are expected to fill in the gap between the two EOS spacecraft, with the French-developed PARASOL satellite to join them in 2006.

Mission scientists have dubbed the five-spacecraft formation the "A-train," in which each spacecraft passes over a region 15 minutes after its predecessor and takes data that can ultimately be combined into a complete climate picture. "We've come up with this sort of super assault on the atmosphere," said Schoeberl, adding that while the multiple spacecraft will follow each other, they will be at different orbital inclinations. "We'll really be able to look at the interaction between the climate and the atmosphere." The train won't run forever though. Its engine, Aqua, has already been orbiting for about two years and could be a limiting factor for the complete satellite constellation. Aura itself, the train's "caboose," could last much longer.

"It has enough propellant to last eight to 10 years," Tanner said, adding that some older Earth-observing satellites have outlived their designed lifetimes by 12 years or so. "These observatories, in all aspects, are quite tough."


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, June 3, 2004

Study: Dieting Can Weaken Immune System

Wed Jun 2, 7:14 AM ET
By KRISTEN GELINEAU, Associated Press Writer

SEATTLE - A new study has found that "yo-yo dieting" — repeatedly losing, then regaining weight — may harm a woman's immune system. The study by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center also found that maintaining the same weight over time appears to have a positive effect on a woman's immune system, according to one of the lead researchers.

Researchers in the study, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, interviewed 114 overweight but otherwise healthy sedentary, older women about their weight-loss history during the past 20 years. The women had to have maintained a stable weight for at least three months before joining the study, which was funded by the National Cancer Institute (news - web sites). The study, which found that long-term immune function decreases in proportion to how many times a woman has intentionally lost weight, measured natural killer cell activity in the women's blood. Natural killer cells are an essential part of the immune system, killing viruses and leukemia cells, said Cornelia Ulrich, senior author and an assistant member of the Hutchinson Center's Public Health Sciences Division.

Low natural killer cell activity has been associated with increased cancer rates and a higher susceptibility to colds and infections, she said. "While one weight-loss episode of 10 pounds or more in the previous 20 years was not associated with current natural killer cell activity, more frequent weight-loss episodes" were associated with a significant decrease in such activity, Ulrich said. The study found that women who maintained a fairly stable weight over several years had higher levels of such cells than those whose weight frequently fluctuated. Those who reported losing weight more than five times had about a third lower natural killer cell function, the study found. Conversely, women who maintained the same weight for at least five years had 40 percent greater natural killer cell activity as compared to those who maintained their weight for fewer than two years.

Though no men participated in the study and further research is needed, Ulrich said the immune systems of male dieters would likely be affected the same way. The findings, while intriguing, are preliminary, cautioned Ulrich, who is also a research assistant professor in epidemiology at the University of Washington School of Public Health and Community Medicine. Researchers had to rely on the participants' own reports of their weight loss histories and the analysis was based on blood samples collected at a single point in time, representing a narrow sample. A long-term study could provide more conclusive results, said Ulrich, who is planning to collaborate with Canadian researchers who have been working on a similar study.

Although the study suggests that yo-yo dieting is harmful, Ulrich stopped short of saying that people should stop attempting to lose weight. "There's clearly evidence that weight loss is beneficial for your health," she said. "What we're concerned about is this pattern of weight cycling where women go up and down." Exercise has been shown to boost immunity and temper some of the negative effects of weight loss on the immune system, Ulrich said. Despite its preliminary nature, the study is significant, said Katherine Tallmadge, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association in Washington, D.C. Although dietitians have known for years the negative psychological effects of yo-yo dieting, this appears to be the first study to examine the long-term impact of such dieting on immunity, she said.

People should avoid popular low-carb and low-fat diets that can produce initial weight loss but rarely work in the long term, Tallmadge said. "Study after study shows that more moderate restrictions are more likely to last permanently," Tallmadge said. "That's why we registered dietitians are urging people not to do the fad diets, and just try small changes that they're more likely to be able to live with — even if the weight loss is slower."


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, May 27, 2004

Group Unearths Part of Ancient University

Wed May 26, 2:59 PM ET
By MAGGIE MICHAEL, Associated Press Writer

CAIRO, Egypt - Polish archaeologists have unearthed 13 lecture halls believed to be the first traces ever found of ancient Egypt's University of Alexandria, the head of the project said Wednesday.

"This is the oldest university ever found in the world," Grzegory Majderek, head of the Polish mission, told The Associated Press. The lecture halls, with a capacity of 5,000 students, are part of the 5th century university, which functioned until the 7th century, according to a statement from Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. "This is the first material evidence of the existence of academic life in Alexandria," Majderek said. Knowledge of earlier intellectual pursuits in the Mediterranean coastal city came through historical and literary documents and materials.

Ancient Alexandria was home to a library, which was founded about 295 B.C. and burned to the ground in the 4th century. Ruins were never found, but Alexandria was an intellectual center where scholars are thought to have produced the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, and edited Homer's works. The auditoriums were found near the portico of the Roman Theater in the eastern part of the ancient city. All the lecture halls are of identical dimensions. Each contains rows of stepped benches in a form of semicircle and an elevated seat apparently for the lecturer, the Antiquities Department statement said.

Alexandria has tried to recapture some of its intellectual glory, building a $230 million library on the city's renovated seaside promenade with help from around the world. The new library, which opened in 2002, contains about 240,000 books, a planetarium, conference hall, five research institutes, six galleries and three museums.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, May 20, 2004

Asteroid Eaters: Robots to Hunt
Space Rocks, Protect Earth

Wed May 19, 2:30 PM ET
By Tariq Malik
Staff Writer, SPACE.com

At the movies, the best way to stop an asteroid from wiping out Earth is to lob a few nuclear missiles at the rocky beast or blow it apart from the inside with megaton bombs. While those methods promise some fantastic explosions -- and maybe a blockbuster hit -- a team of engineers are looking at a more patient approach. Their weapon: a swarm of nuclear-powered robots that could drill into an asteroid and hurl chunks of it into space with enough force to gradually push it into a non-Earth impacting course.

"We're aiming to examine the whole idea of these robots," said Matthew Graham, design project manager for the study at SpaceWorks Engineering, Inc. (SEI), an engineering consulting and concept analysis firm in Atlanta, Georgia. SEI researchers have completed a preliminary study into the robots, called Modular Asteroid Deflection Mission Ejector Node (MADMEN) spacecraft, under a grant awarded by the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) to come up with new techniques to defend the planet against pesky near-Earth objects (NEOs).

"Previous studies by NASA and NIAC focused on concepts that could detect asteroids or bump them using propulsion systems of nuclear weapons," NIAC director Robert Cassanova told SPACE.com. "[MADMEN] was rather unique in that it would nibble away at the asteroid." At the heart of the MADMEN concept is a mass driver, which would eject asteroid material as it is drilled out of the rock and sling it out into space using electromagnetic acceleration. The recoil from that ejection would pushes against the robot, and therefore the asteroid, imparting a small amount of force for each shot.

"It's like throwing rocks from inside a rowboat," Graham said in a telephone interview. "Over time, you end up moving the boat." A preliminary design for a MADMEN spacecraft outlines a one-ton robot that would stand about 36 feet (11 meters) high, just slightly taller than NASA's Apollo moon lander, on an asteroids surface. The mass driving ejector, a self-assembling tube, would extend out toward space ready to start its slow, steady push against the rock at a rate of one shot a minute or so. A liquid-propellant booster rocket could deliver the lander to its cometary or asteroid target.

But the push would be small, and more than one MADMEN spacecraft would be required to constantly shove a space rock in one, uniform direction. Since each MADMEN robot could only give a small push to an asteroid over time, SEI reseachers envision sending an entire fleet of them to a potential Earth impactor. The key, they said, is to have a lander on each face of an asteroid working together autonomously to push the space rock in one direction as it tumbles through space, each lander "firing" as it comes into position. In a presentation to NIAC, MADMEN researchers compared their robotic devices to Star Trek's cybernetic juggernaut, the Borg, a species that overlooks individual casualties in pursuit of its goals.

"The benefit of the swarm is redundancy," Graham said. "Some could be destroyed, others lost, and the rest can still challenge the asteroid." To build a swarm, MADMEN robots would have to be manufactured well before a potentially Earth-threatening asteroid was discovered. A stockpile of inert MADMEN spacecraft -- each with its own fuel reserve -- could be gathered into nearby parking orbits where they could be called upon if a stray space rock wandered too close.

Deciding how many MADMEN to send, thousands or maybe just four or so, would depend on the lead-time before a potential impact, researchers said. "If you have a good amount of warning, like 10 years, then you don't need to send many," Graham added. There are still a number of technological hurdles facing researchers before the first MADMEN robot could start its Earth-protecting mission. Not the least of which is the mass driver machinery needed to eject asteroid chunks into space. "People have not made a production versions of this," Graham said, adding MADMEN mass drivers would have to continuously fire away ejecta on time scales of a year. "So something very reliable and light and strong and accurate is needed."

A lightweight space nuclear power plant also requires further study, as well as the drilling system that would eventually eat away at offending asteroids or comets. The spacecraft would be designed to stay in space for many years, being called into action when needed. "Drilling systems today mainly use water to move mass up the tube and away from the bit," Graham said. "In space, you need to develop a closed system to do that." With the first phase of MADMEN study complete, SEI researchers are awaiting a decision from NIAC on whether to fund a second round of research that would focus, among other things, on the design of a technology-testing precursor mission to be carried out in the next decade.

"Phase two means going into more detail, building a roadmap to develop the enabling technology for these projects," Casanova said. "We'd like to think that NASA would be interested in these projects once a phase two study is finished." Graham said it could be several months before phase two approval for the MADMEN project is awarded. He is confident, however, that if the need were urgent enough, Earth scientists would be able to step up to the task of defending the planet with MADMEN robots or some other method.

NASA, Graham explained, has already demonstrated its ability to land on as asteroid when the NEAR spacecraft came to a soft landing on the asteroid Eros. Meanwhile, the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission is expected to drop its own lander Philae on a comet sometime in 2014. "If it's a world-killing asteroid, well then it's all about motivation," Graham said.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, May 13, 2004

Lemurs Aren't So Dumb After All,
Study Finds

Wed May 12, 5:31 PM ET
REUTERS

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lemurs, once believed to be cute but basically stupid, show startling intelligence when given a chance to win treats by playing a computer game, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday. The study will help shed light on how humans became sophisticated mathematically, the Duke University team said.

So far, it suggests primitive animals such as lemurs need a good reason, such as a treat, to bother trying to count. Humans and monkeys, in contrast, will stretch their minds simply out of curiosity. Lemurs are primates, as are monkeys, apes and humans. But they are considered far less intelligent. "The little bit of research that's out there suggests their learning capacities are not as sophisticated as those of monkeys," said psychologist Elizabeth Brannon, who led the research.

"So initially, I thought it very unlikely that I was going to get any cognitive experiments to really work with them." But she found a combination of greed and the lure of a touch-screen computer worked to get the long-tailed animals to cooperate. "If a task involves a food reward, they can be amazing," she said. "They'll work for a couple of hundred trials because they want these sugar pellets, even though we do not deprive them of food in any way." Although lemurs are social, they would often stop what they were doing to play on the computer. "Occasionally, one animal would come over and finish the sequence started by another to get the reward," said Brannon.

Unexpectedly, the lemurs could remember sequences. For instance, they showed they could remember the order of appearance of random images by touching them in order when they reappeared as a group. "It shows that the animal is actually learning some kind of strategy above and beyond what they're learning about the individual pictures in a given set," Brannon said. But the lemurs were not especially dexterous. "While monkeys will use their fingers, the ringtails (lemurs) use their nose or mouth to touch the screen, sometimes kind of kissing it," Brannon said.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, May 6, 2004

For Aging Hubble, Basic Questions About Universe

Wed May 5, 4:28 PM ET
By Deborah Zabarenko
REUTERS

BALTIMORE (Reuters) - With the end in sight for the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers said on Wednesday they are posing the most basic cosmic questions to the orbiting observatory, including queries about extraterrestrial life. "It's definitely race-the-clock," said John Tonry of the University of Hawaii, who gathered with other scientists at the Space Telescope Science Institute for a forum on what problems Hubble should tackle in its final years.

"The questions that we're answering now with Hubble were never even anticipated when it was conceived of ... As time goes by we just keep coming up with more questions and they seem more important," Tonry said. One of these essential questions is whether there is intelligent life on planets besides Earth, said Mario Livio of the Baltimore-based telescope institute. Another is the examination of a mysterious dark energy, which is thought to make up about three-quarters of the energy in the universe.

Livio said Hubble was able to determine the chemical composition of the atmospheres of some of these extraterrestrial planets, and could close in on how strong dark energy is and whether it is permanent or changes over time. The scientists said other fundamental issues that can use Hubble's abilities include queries about how stars blow up in explosions known as supernovas, how supermassive black holes -- monstrous matter-sucking drains in space -- relate to the galaxies that swirl around them, and how galaxies formed in the furious spate of creation in the early universe. Without a service call from space shuttle astronauts, Hubble's capabilities are expected to erode in the next two or three years as its stability gyroscopes fail and its batteries fade, making targeted observation all but impossible.

POIGNANT TIME FOR HUBBLE

NASA chief Sean O'Keefe decided in January to forgo a servicing mission set for 2005 or 2006, deeming it too risky and not in keeping with recommendations made after the fatal shuttle Columbia disaster. The remaining three shuttles have been grounded since Columbia's break-up on Feb. 1, 2003 and are not expected to fly for another year or so. When they do, their efforts will focus on finishing the International Space Station.

"This is a particularly poignant time in the history of Hubble," said Steve Beckwith, the space telescope's director. He said that without a servicing mission, scientists would make only "scant progress" on the supernova question and the issue of the composition of the atmospheres of planets outside our solar system. "If Hubble is serviced, then on the other hand the questions will have very significant progress," Beckwith said. Jay Gallagher of the University of Wisconsin-Madison stressed the orbiting telescope's importance. "It's become, I think, a key tool in the astronomer's tool kit and missing it means we miss a chance to get a complete picture of what's going on," Gallagher said. "In observational science like this, if you're missing a brick, the whole thing can come down."

Hubble, which carries optical and ultraviolet instruments, was launched in 1990 with a projected lifespan of 15 years; servicing missions have repaired and upgraded it. NASA has nothing on the drawing board to replace Hubble's instruments, but there are currently orbiting telescopes that look at the cosmos through X-Rays and through infrared light.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, April 29, 2004

X Prize Will Be Won by 'Summer's End',
Event Organizer Says

Thu Apr 29, 1:12 PM ET
By Tariq Malik
SPACE.com Staff Writer, SPACE.com

CAPE CANAVERAL, FL -- The race to loft a three-person spaceship on a suborbital flight twice in two weeks will be won by the end of the summer, the competition's founder said Wednesday. Peter Diamandis, chairman of the international X Prize competition to build and launch reusable spaceships, announced that the race will most likely be won in mere months.

We do expect the X Prize to be captured within three to five months, Diamandis said during a presentation here before the 41st Space Congress. The X Prize is a competition between 27 teams across seven countries to design, build and develop a craft capable of launching three people 62.5 miles (100 kilometers) into space, returning them safely, then repeating the feat with the same vehicle within two weeks. The first team to make such a flight wins a $10 million purse, though the entrants have spent more than $50 million to develop their vehicles.

So far, the leader appears to be SpaceShipOne, an entry led by aerospace engineer Burt Rutan and his company Scaled Composites. With a launch license already in hand, and several test flights under his belt, Rutan appears poised to snag the X Prize. But Diamandis added that other teams are also well on their way, including the Canadian Da Vinci team headed by Brian Feeney, which has secured a launch license in Canada. We are already looking beyond the X Prize, said Pablo De Leon, leader of his own X Prize team based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, who conceded that his team is not ready to win the competition. The team plans to conduct two launch tests with a half-size scale of their vehicle in the fall, he added.

De Leon told SPACE.com he and his teammates are looking forward to the X Prize Cup, an annual, post-X Prize meeting of private spacefarers to compete for the fastest launch turnaround, highest altitude, most passengers in a single launch, total passengers within two weeks, and fastest flight. But to conduct any private launch competition, the X Prize Foundation -- the St. Louis, Missouri-based group running the X Prize contest -- needs a spaceport. In January, the X Prize Foundation announced a request for proposals from a number of states developing commercial spaceports, including Oklahoma, New Mexico, Texas and California.

Diamandis said the foundation has narrowed the choices down to New Mexico or Florida -- home to NASA (news - web sites)'s Kennedy Space Center (news - web sites) and launching grounds for the space shuttle and other NASA, U.S. Air Force and commercial missions -- and New Mexico. We will be making a decision and announcing it in the next month or so, he added. De Leon said his money is on New Mexico winning the bid for spaceport. The southwestern state recently promised $9 million in funds to develop the infrastructure and marketing necessary for an X Prize spaceport, he told SPACE.com.

Thursday, April 22, 2004

Leaked Pentagon report warns climate
change may bring famine, war

Sun Feb 22, 5:17 PM ET

LONDON (AFP) - A secret report prepared by the Pentagon warns that climate change may lead to global catastrophe costing millions of lives and is a far greater threat than terrorism. The report was ordered by an influential US Pentagon advisor but was covered up by "US defense chiefs" for four months, until it was "obtained" by the British weekly The Observer. The leak promises to draw angry attention to US environmental and military policies, following Washington's rejection of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and President George W. Bush's skepticism about global warning -- a stance that has stunned scientists worldwide.

The Pentagon report, commissioned by Andrew Marshall, predicts that "abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies," The Observer reported. The report, quoted in the paper, concluded: "Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life.... Once again, warfare would define human life." Its authors -- Peter Schwartz, a CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of Global Business Network based in California -- said climate change should be considered "immediately" as a top political and military issue.

It "should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern", they were quoted as saying. Some examples given of probable scenarios in the dramatic report include:

-- Britain will have winters similar to those in current-day Siberia as European temperatures drop off radically by 2020.

-- by 2007 violent storms will make large parts of the Netherlands uninhabitable and lead to a breach in the acqueduct system in California that supplies all water to densely populated southern California

-- Europe and the United States become "virtual fortresses" trying to keep out millions of migrants whose homelands have been wiped out by rising sea levels or made unfarmable by drought.

-- "catastrophic" shortages of potable water and energy will lead to widespread war by 2020.

Randall, one of the authors, called his findings "depressing stuff" and warned that it might even be too late to prevent future disasters. "We don't know exactly where we are in the process. It could start tomorrow and we would not know for another five years," he told the paper. Experts familiar with the report told the newspaper that the threat to global stability "vastly eclipses that of terrorism". Taking environmental pollution and climate change into account in political and military strategy is a new, complicated and necessary challenge for leaders, Randall said. "It is a national security threat that is unique because there is no enemy to point your guns at and we have no control over the threat," he said.

Coming from the Pentagon, normally a bastion of conservative politics, the report is expected to bring environmental issues to the fore in the US presidential race. Last week the Union of Concerned Scientists, an influential and non-partisan group that includes 20 Nobel laureates, accused the Bush administration of having deliberately distorted scientific fact to serve its policy agenda and having "misled the public". Its 38-page report, which it said took over a year to prepare and was not time to coincide with the campaign season, details how Washington "systematically" skewed government scientific studies, suppressed others, stacked panels with political and unqualified appointees and often refused to seek independent expertise on issues.

Critics of the report quoted by the New York Times denied there was deliberate misrepresentation and called it politically motivated. The person behind the leaked Pentagon report, Andrew Marsall, cannot be accused of the same partisan politicking. Marsall, 82, has been an advisor for the defense department for decades, and was described by The Observer as the author of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's plans for a major transformation of the US military.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, April 15, 2004

FDA Approves Human Brain Implant Devices

Tue Apr 13, 6:34 PM ET

By JUSTIN POPE, AP Business Writer

BOSTON - For years, futurists have dreamed of machines that can read minds, then act on instructions as they are thought. Now, human trials are set to begin on a brain-computer interface involving implants. Cyberkinetics Inc. of Foxboro, Mass., has received Food and Drug Administration approval to begin a clinical trial in which four-square-millimeter chips will be placed beneath the skulls of paralyzed patients.

If successful, the chips could allow patients to command a computer to act — merely by thinking about the instructions they wish to send. It's a small, early step in a mission to improve the quality of life for victims of strokes and debilitating diseases like cerebral palsy or Lou Gehrig's. Many victims of such ailments can now survive for long periods thanks to life support, but their quality of life is poor. "A computer is a gateway to everything else these patients would like to do, including motivating your own muscles through electrical stimulation," said Cyberkinetics chief executive Tim Surgenor. "This is a step in the process."

The company is far from the only research group active in the field. An Atlanta company, Neural Signals, has conducted six similar implants as part of a clinical trial and hopes to conduct more. But for now, its device contains relatively simple electrodes, and experts say Cyberkinetics will be the first to engage in a long-term, human trial with a more sophisticated device placed inside a patient's brain. It hopes to bring a product to market in three to five years. A number of research groups have focused on brain-computer links in recent years.

In 1998, Neural Signals researchers said a brain implant let a paralyzed stroke victim move a cursor to point out phrases like "See you later. Nice talking with you" on a computer screen. The next year, other scientists said electrodes on the scalp of two Lou Gehrig's disease patients let them spell messages on a computer screen. Cyberkinetics founder Dr. John Donoghue, a Brown University neuroscientist, attracted attention with research on monkeys that was published in 2002 in the journal Nature. Three rhesus monkeys were given implants, which were first used to record signals from their motor cortex — an area of the brain that controls movement — as they manipulated a joystick with their hands. Those signals were then used to develop a program that enabled one of the monkeys to continue moving a computer cursor with its brain.

The idea is not to stimulate the mind but rather to map neural activity so as to discern when the brain is signaling a desire to make a particular physical movement. "We're going to say to a paralyzed patient, 'imagine moving your hand six inches to the right,'" Surgenor said. Then, he said, researchers will try to identify the brain activity associated with that desire. Someday, that capacity could feed into related devices, such as a robotic arm, that help patients act on that desire. It's misleading to say such technologies "read minds," said Dr. Jonathan Wolpaw, of the New York State Department of Health, who is conducting similar research. Instead, they train minds to recognize a new pattern of cause and effect, and adapt.

"What happens is you provide the brain with the opportunity to develop a new skill," he said. Moving the experiment from monkeys to humans is a challenge. Cyberkinetics' "Brain Gate" contains tiny spikes that will extend down about one millimeter into the brain after being implanted beneath the skull, monitoring the activity from a small group of neurons. The signals will be monitored through wires emerging from the skull, which presents some danger of infection. The company is working on a wireless version. But Richard Andersen, a Cal Tech expert conducting similar research, said the field is advanced enough to warrant this next step.

"I think there is a consensus among many researchers that the time is right to begin trials in humans," Andersen said, noting that surgeons are already implanting devices into human brains — sometimes deeply — to treat deafness and Parkinson's disease (news - web sites). "There is always some risk but one considers the benefits." Wolpaw said it isn't clear that it's necessary to implant such devices inside the brain; other technologies that monitor activity from outside the skull may prove as effective. But, he said, the idea of brain implants seems to attract more attention.

"The idea that you can get control by putting things into the brain appears to have an inherent fascination," he said. Andersen, however, said that for now devices inside the brain provide the best information. "It would be nice if in the future some technology comes along that would let you non-invasively record from the brain," he said. "MRIs do that. But unfortunately, it's very expensive and cumbersome, and the signal is very indirect and slow."


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, April 8, 2004

Pole reversal: Feared "flip" of Earth's
magnetic field takes 7,000 years

Wed Apr 7, 2:15 PM ET

PARIS (AFP) - A reversal of the Earth's magnetic field, a rare but feared event due to the catastrophic effect it could have on human life, takes about 7,000 years to complete, according to a study. The so-called "flip" between the Earth's North and South poles occurs at long but unpredictable intervals, the most recent one occurring about 780,000 years ago.

The 180-degree switch occurs when there is a change in the circulation patterns in the molten iron which flows around the Earth's outer core and, like a dynamo, creates the magnetic field. The intensity of the field drops for a while before the circulation rhythm is established and the new polarity occurs. But how long the switching process takes before the new poles become established has only been guessed at. Estimates have ranged from a couple of thousand years to 28,000.

US researcher Bradford Clement casts light on this area of uncertainty by analysing records taken from sedimentary samples drilled from various sites around the world. These samples, deposited at four different ages in Earth's history, have a residual magnetic echo from the magnetic field that prevailed at the time. "These records yield an average estimate of about 7,000 years for the time it takes for the directional change to occur," Clement, of Florida International University, writes in Nature, the British science weekly.

The big switchover does not take place in one swoop, though. It happens faster at the Equator and takes longer at higher latitudes -- the closer one gets to the poles. The reason for this, says Clement, is that in the absence of the main North-South magnetic field, the Earth's core develops a weaker secondary field which has many "mini-poles" at the surface. Eventually the two main poles are established again, but on opposite sides of the planet, and restore their primacy.

No-one knows what would happen to life on Earth if the "flip" occurred today but the speculation borders on the doomsday. Many aspects of life today would be literally turned upside down, both for humans, given our dependence on magnets for navigation, and for migrating animals which use an inner compass.

We would also be more exposed to deadly busts of solar radiation, from which we are normally protected by Earth's magnetic field. And the loss of that shield would cause solar particles to smash into the upper atmosphere, warming it and potentially causing wrenching climate change.

There was a scare in 2002 after French geophysicist Gauthier Hulot discovered a weakening of Earth's magnetic field near the poles, which could be interpreted as an early sign that a "flip" is near. Polarity reversals "seem to occur randomly in time," says University of Washington scientist Ronald Merrill. The shortest interval between "flips" is between 20,000 and 30,000 years, and the longest is a mighty 50 million years.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, April 1, 2004

Dogs Get Their Own Toilet

Wed Mar 31, 2:12 PM ET Reuters to My Yahoo!

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch dog owners can soon throw away their pooper-scoopers and plastic bags and instead walk their furry creatures to their very own toilet. The developer of a new "doggy toilet," a small fenced-in patch of artificial grass, hopes the self-cleaning device will help rid towns of the mess left behind by man's best friend. The first toilet is being tested in Zaltbommel, a small town in central Netherlands, but the developer has already been approached by government officials from as far away as London. "This is only a pilot program, but we hope to roll out 200 to 300 of these toilets in one year," Hans van de Pos, who has patented the device, told Reuters Tuesday.

**ENJOY! LAUGH! LIVE LIFE IN BALANCE! Happy April 1!


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, March 25, 2004

Unilever wipes trans-fats from products
Demand, health concerns spur move

By RICHARD BLOOM Tuesday, March 23, 2004

Consumer products giant Unilever Canada Inc. said yesterday that it is now making its entire line of margarine products without trans-fatty acids, joining a growing contingent of companies wiping out trans fats. Among its many products, Toronto-based Unilever makes the popular spreads Imperial, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter and Blue Bonnet. The company -- which had sales of $1.6-billion in 2002 -- is a division of Dutch behemoth Unilever NV.

The trans-fat-free products will be on store shelves over the next three months, said Barbara Ledermann, Unilever Canada's nutrition affairs manager. With the move, there will be no Unilever products containing "any significant" amount of the fats, the company said.The changes, Ms. Ledermann said, came from a combination of consumer demand and recent reports from the World Health Organization and Health Canada encouraging people to reduce the amount of trans-fats they eat.

Unilever's move is the latest in a series of similar changes implemented by some other high-profile food firms, including Frito-Lay Canada Inc. and Pepperidge Farm. Trans-fatty acids are manufactured partly hydrogenated oils described by one Canadian nutritional scientist as a "secret killer." The fats are found in many snacks and processed and fast foods. Trans-fats can raise levels of the so-called bad cholesterol, while lowering the good cholesterol in the body.Canadians are reportedly the among the biggest consumers of trans-fatty acids, ingesting about 10 grams a day on average. Research has shown that eating as little as one gram daily can increase the risk of heart disease by 20 per cent. Daniel Peris, an analyst with Federated Investors Inc. in Pittsburgh, described the move as "very important" for Unilever, but there remains a significant "caveat."

Food manufacturers have consistently made a slew of changes catering to consumers' diet demands over the past 40 years, only to see the changes eclipsed by something new -- ranging from low-sodium diets to low-fat routines to the current low-carbohydrate craze, he said. "From an investment perspective or even just a business perspective, you simply have to ask: Is this time for real?" Mr. Peris said, adding: "The demographics do suggest that this [the anti-trans-fat movement] has significant staying power in the business community because so many of the baby boomers are now in middle age and pondering their mortality."

Mr. Peris said that because the North American population only grows by about 1 per cent a year and the booming diet industry is causing many people to scale back consumption, food companies have to rely on these types of strategies to try to take away market share from rivals to improve sales. "Look for more of this," he said.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, March 18, 2004

Damage from Warming Becoming 'Irreversible,'
Says New Report

Mon Mar 15, 9:50 AM ET
WASHINGTON, D.C., Mar 15 (OneWorld) -- Ten years after the ratification of a United Nations treaty on climate change, greenhouse gas emissions that lead to global warming are still on the rise, signaling a "collective failure" of the industrialized world, according to the Washington-based World Resources Institute (WRI), a leading environmental think-tank. "We are quickly moving to the point where the damage will be irreversible," warned Dr. Jonathan Pershing, director of WRI's Climate, Energy and Pollution Program. "In fact, the latest scientific reports indicate that global warming is worsening. Unless we act now, the world will be locked into temperatures that would cause irreversible harm."

WRI researchers estimate that greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide rose 11 percent over the last decade, and will grow another 50 percent worldwide by 2020. Under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol (news - web sites), the international agreement that sets out specific targets to follow up on the treaty, 38 industrialized countries were supposed to reduce their emissions by an average of seven percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

The administration of former President Bill Clinton signed the Kyoto Protocol, but President Bush withdrew the U.S., which currently emits about 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gases, from negotiations over Kyoto's implementation. Russia, which indicated initially that it intended to ratify the Protocol, remains undecided. As a result the Protocol--which must be ratified by countries whose greenhouse emissions totaled more than 55 percent of global emissions in 1990 in order to take effect--remains in limbo.

WRI decided to make a relatively rare public statement now, both because the tenth anniversary of the UNFCCC's ratification will take place next weekend and because of the growing pessimism surrounding the international community's ability and will to deal with the problem. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which called for voluntary reductions in greenhouse emissions, was signed by, among others, then-President George H.W. Bush, at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and took formal effect March 21, 1994. Today, 188 countries are signatories.

The Kyoto Protocol grew out of the UNFCCC when it became clear that plans for voluntary reductions would not meet the initial targets, and as climate and atmospheric scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have become increasingly convinced that the rise in global temperatures of about one degree Fahrenheit over the last century is due primarily to artificial emissions, notably the combustion of fossil fuels, including coal, oil, and gas. Studies over the past decade have shown that the warming trend continues. "The five warmest years in recorded weather history have taken place over the last six years," noted WRI's president, Jonathan Lash.

"The ten warmest years in recorded weather history have taken place since 1987. Whether it's the retreat of glaciers, the melting of the permafrost in Alaska, or the increase in severe weather events, the world is experiencing what the global warming models predict," he said. Europe, the main champion of the Kyoto Protocol, suffered its hottest year on record last year. Some 15,000 people in France alone died due to heat stress in combination with pollution, while European agriculture suffered an estimated $12.5 billion in losses. Britain's most influential scientist, Sir David King, recently excoriated the Bush administration for withdrawing from the Protocol and ignoring the threat posed by climate change. "In my view, climate change is the most severe problem we are facing today," he wrote in Science magazine, "more serious even than the threat of terrorism."

Even the Pentagon (news - web sites) recently issued a warning that global warming, if it takes place abruptly, could result in a catastrophic breakdown in international security. Based on growing evidence that climate shifts in the past have taken place with breathtaking speed, based on the freshening of sea water due to accelerated melting of glaciers and the polar ice caps. Given enough freshening, the Gulf Stream that currently warms the North Atlantic would be shut off, triggering an abrupt decline in temperatures that would bring about a new "Ice Age" in Europe, eastern Canada, and the northeastern United States and similar disastrous changes in world weather patterns elsewhere--all in a period as short as two to three years.

Wars over access to food, water, and energy would be likely to break out between states, according to the report. "Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life," according to the report. "Once again, warfare would define human life." Even if climate change is more gradual, recent studies have argued that as many as one million plant and animal species could be rendered extinct due to the effects of global warming by 2050. A recent report by the world's largest reinsurance company, Swiss Re, predicted that in 10 years the economic cost of disasters like floods, frosts, and famines caused by global warming could reach $150 billion annually.

"Accelerated development of a portfolio of technologies could stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations, enhance global energy security, and eradicate energy poverty," noted David Jhirad, WRI's vice president for research. "We urgently need the political will and international cooperation to make this happen."


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, March 11, 2004

Hubble Images Show Deepest Universe View

Wed Mar 10, 3:47 PM ET
BALTIMORE - The deepest-ever view of the universe, a long-duration exposure by the Hubble Space Telescope (news - web sites) that looks back to the edge of the big bang, shows a chaotic scramble of odd galaxies, smashing into each other and re-forming in bizarre shapes.

The snapshot of the universe, called the Ultra Deep Field, captured light that streaked through space for more than 13 billion years, starting its journey when the universe was only 5 percent of its 13.7-billion-year age. The view has about 10,000 galaxies, some mixed in a chaos that one astronomer said "looked like a train wreck." Capturing such faint and distant light, officials at the Space Telescope Science Institute said Tuesday, was like photographing a firefly hovering above the moon. "For the first time we're looking back at stars that are forming out of the depths of the big bang," said Steven V. W. Beckwith, director of the institute. "We're seeing the youngest stars within a stone's throw of the beginning of the universe."

Hubble's images were collected by focusing its instruments at a single point in the sky for 1 million seconds, an exposure that took more than 400 orbits of the space telescope. The portion in the sky photographed by two Hubble instruments is very small. Astronomers compared the field of view it to looking at the sky through an 8-foot-long soda straw. They said capturing the images is akin to reading the mint date on a 25-cent coin from a mile away. What the view lacks in width, however, it makes up for in depth. Beckwith said that never before has a telescope captured such detail from such a distance. "These images will be in astronomy textbooks for years," he said.

Many of the photographed galaxies lack the stately grace and order of spirals, such as the Milky Way, or of the huge elliptical galaxies seen in the nearby universe. Some of the galaxies in the Ultra Deep Field appear to be colliding, with gravitational forces mashing them into unusual shapes. Some resemble toothpicks and others are like a string of faint lights. There also are faint points of vivid red, which may be the most distant and ancient of the galaxies. Astronomers believe that during the few hundred million years of star formation, the universe was smaller, the objects closer together and galaxy formation more chaotic.

Institute officials immediately posted the Hubble images on the Internet and began handing out discs with all of the data. In what Beckwith described as a "land rush," astronomers worldwide now will begin an intensive study of the deep field view, searching for clues to fundamental questions about the formation and evolution of stars and galaxies. "Getting us the deepest picture of the universe ever is giving us new land to explore," said Massimo Stiavelli, a Space Telescope Science Institute astronomer. Release of the Ultra Deep Field may be among the Hubble's last major contribution to astronomy. Maintaining the orbiting telescope requires periodic repair visits by space shuttle astronauts. NASA (news - web sites) has announced that, in the aftermath of the Columbia accident in 2003, it is canceling future plans to service the Hubble. Beckwith said the Hubble batteries or gyroscopes eventually will fail and disable the observatory. He said it may be down to two gyros by the end of 2005, and if another fails after that, "We'll be out of business."

He said batteries on the craft are showing signs of wear. When the batteries fail, he said, Hubble could tumble out of control. "We don't know exactly when that will happen," he said. "It could happen this year, or it could be another five years." Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., who attended the presentation of the new deep-space images, said that such a result "is why I continue to stand up for Hubble." She said she continues to fight to extend the life of Hubble and is awaiting a "second opinion" about the telescope's fate. NASA announced its intention late on a Friday in January after private discussions that involved NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe. "The future of the Hubble should not be made by one man in a NASA backroom without a transparent process," said Mikulski. Astronomers present cheered.

The Ultra Deep Field is focused on a point in the southern sky. The Hubble conducted deep field study of a point in the northern sky, but the new study penetrates four times farther into the universe. Astronomers said the view reaches to the very edge of what is known as the "Dark Ages" in the evolution of the universe. Current theory holds that the universe started with an immense explosion, called the big bang, about 13.7 billion years ago. During the next 300 million years or so the universe cooled and was dark, lacking stars.

First stars and then galaxies begin to form, and it's light from these very early objects that has been captured by Hubble, astronomers believe. Just how far away is the most distant object in the photos will require analysis and study of the data, a process that could take years."

On the Net: http://hubblesite.org/news/2004/07


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, March 4, 2004

Mars Had Enough Water for Life, NASA Says

Wed Mar 3,12:17 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Parts of Mars were once "drenched" with so much water that life could easily have existed there, NASA (news - web sites) said on Tuesday. The robot explorer Opportunity has seen clear evidence of the main goal of Mars exploration -- that water once flowed or pooled on the Red Planet's surface.

"Opportunity has landed in an area of Mars where liquid water once drenched the surface," NASA associate administrator Ed Weiler told a news conference. "Moreover, this area would have been good habitable environment." That does not mean that evidence of life has been found -- but it suggests that life could have evolved on Mars just as it did on Earth, NASA said. It does mean NASA can go ahead with a plan to eventually send people to Mars. Finding strong evidence of water has been a prerequisite for more ambitious missions.

Evidence of frozen water has been seen in several places on Mars, and photographs taken from orbiters have shown structures that could have been formed by flowing or gushing water, but the Opportunity's instruments provide the strongest evidence yet of something resembling the way water flows and collects on or just under the surface of the Earth. Opportunity landed on Jan. 24 in a small crater on the vast flat Meridiani Planum near the planet's equator. It has been studying finely layered bedrock in the crater's wall.

Scientists have been puzzling over whether the layers were formed by wind, volcanic lava flows or water, and if little round balls nicknamed "blueberries" may have been formed by water.

"BLUEBERRIES," HEMATITE AND LAVA FLOWS
They have also been intrigued by the discovery of a gray shiny mineral called hematite, which on Earth is formed in water. The scientists said the hematite, the blueberries and the heavy salt content of the area all add up to one conclusion -- salt water. "We have concluded the rocks here were once soaked with liquid water," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who leads the scientific investigation. "It changed their texture, and it changed their chemistry," he added. "We cannot yet tell you with certainty that these rocks were laid down in a lake, in a pool, in a sea."

They may have been formed by water percolating through layers of volcanic ash, he said. "(This area) would have been suitable for life," Squyres said. "That doesn't mean life was there. But this was a habitable place on Mars at one period of time." More will be known when a mission can be sent to bring back Mars rocks, Squyres said. "The best way to get at the age is going to be to bring some of this stuff back," he said. "It is clear that we are going to have to do a sample return," agreed Weiler. He said work will start right away on preparing for an eventual human mission to Mars.

In the meantime, another robotic mission will be set up, probably to pick up some rocks and soil and bring them back to Earth for close analysis. Pictures from the rover's panoramic camera and microscopic imager show a rock it has been looking at called "El Capitan" is pocked with indentations about a centimeter (0.4 inch) long. "This distinctive texture is familiar to geologists as the sites where crystals of salt minerals form within rocks that sit in briny water," NASA said in a statement. Benton Clark, chief scientist of space exploration at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Astronautics Operations in Denver, said the salty area resembled a dried-up seabed -- and the composition was comparable to the saltiness in the Dead Sea, between Israel and Jordan.


MINDTUNE ENLIGHTENING NEWS

Thursday, February 26, 2004

Cancer Patients Likelier to Use
Alternative Medicine

TUESDAY, Feb. 24 (HealthDayNews) -- Cancer patients are twice as likely to turn to acupuncture and herbal therapy as people suffering from other diseases are, claims a new study of alternative medicine use. In fact, alternative medicine accounted for an average of $500 worth of therapy a year among cancer patients in Washington state, which requires insurers to pay for nontraditional treatments.

"A substantial number of people in our region are using naturopathic medicine," says study co-author Dr. William Lafferty, an associate professor of public health at the University of Washington. "This may deserve some additional investigation to see exactly what people are getting from those forms of treatment that they aren't getting elsewhere." While patients and conventional doctors appear to accept alternative medicine more than ever before, they aren't approved by all insurance companies, making it difficult for researchers to study them. In Washington state, however, a 1995 law requires insurers to cover visits to licensed alternative medicine providers, such as massage therapists, acupuncturists, and naturopathic doctors, Lafferty says. Chiropractors were covered under previous laws.

In the new study, Lafferty and colleagues analyzed the medical claims of 357,709 Washington patients. The findings appear in the April 1 issue of Cancer. The researchers found cancer patients were twice as likely to turn to naturopathy -- herbal medicine -- and acupuncture. Patients treated with chemotherapy, those with blood or bone cancer, and those with spreading cancer were most likely to turn to naturopaths and acupuncturists, as were women as a whole. The sicker patients may have been trying "to get help with the toxicity of cancer itself as well as from conventional treatments," Lafferty says.

On average, alternative medicine accounted for 2 percent -- or $500 -- of the average $25,000 annual medical costs per cancer patient. Cancer patients were less likely than other patients to go to chiropractors and about as likely to turn to massage therapy. Lafferty says the fact that 12 percent of female chemotherapy patients saw a naturopathic physician highlights the importance of full communication between health providers. "If you're going to get naturopathic care, you should tell your [conventional] care providers that you're doing that," he says. "The same would be true for other forms of care like chiropractic and acupuncture. The more you share with all your health-care providers, the better service and outcome you're going to get."

Some insurance companies try to guarantee that communication takes place. At the Kaiser Permanente Health Plan in the Mid-Atlantic states, for example, conventional physicians work directly with alternative therapists, says Dr. Lydia S. Segal, service chief for integrative medicine. Among other things, the alternative practitioners recommend meditation, guided imagery, acupuncture, acupressure, and massage, she says. Also, "we judiciously, cautiously review the diets [of cancer patients] and recommend supplements and herbs on a case-by-case basis," she says. "But we do not recommend using alternatives in place of
traditional cancer therapy."