#1
This is talking about how the United States delivered a hydrogen bomb from the air in 1956. Also the then drop it on a small island group known as the Bikini Atoll. Also it went 4 miles instead of just the mile target. It seems inconceivable now, but there was a time when hydrogen bombs were routinely tested right out in the open — monstrously menacing mushroom clouds, radioactive shroud and all. After a while tests were driven underground and, under a series of treaties which began in 1963.
I thought that this was a great artlice and that i learned more then i knew.
#2
This is talking aobut the oil spill that bp had. The experts are saying that Proegler said the figure has always been just an estimate because there is no way to measure how much is spilling from the well.Tentacles of the oil spill were seeping Thursday into Louisiana's lower marshes.
Some of the crude seeped into the Loop Current, a fast-moving current south of the well that could swing the oil east toward Florida's coastline, said Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But she said only a small amount of oil is entering the current and will likely break down by the time it nears Florida."The bulk of the oil on the surface is still far away from the Loop Current," she said.Crews have been struggling for nearly a month to cap the well that began gushing oil following last month's explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig about 50 miles offshore. The downing of the rig killed 11 workers and sparked an ecological emergency in the Gulf.Oil pushing into marshes ratchets up the urgency and marks the start of a complex cleanup effort, said Kurt Fromherz, a spokesman for Plaquemines Parish, who toured the oily marshes with parish leaders and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal Pond-size sheets of oil, some of them coal-black, others bright orange or red, have wrapped around the roseau cane and other marsh features near the mouth of the Mississippi River, Fromherz said. Tar balls also washed ashore 25 miles to the west in Grand Isle."The oil is no longer just a projection or miles from our shore," Jindal said in a statement. "The oil is here. It is on our shores and in our marsh."Engineers on Sunday or Monday will attempt to pump mud into a massive device sitting over the well and choke off the flow of oil, BP spokesman John Curry said. "We are making progress." I thought that this article was good but can use more information.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
Haiti relief less than Katrina, 9/11 and Diocese of Vermont to pay $17.6M to sex-abuse victims
This is talking about how Four months after an earthquake devastated Haiti, Americans have donated $1.3 billion for disaster relief there, almost on a par with theirgiving after the Asian tsunami in 2004, according to a tally by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.
Four months after the tsunami struck Asia, Americans had given $1.5 billion, according to figures tracked by the center. Lower giving for Haiti could be the result of the recent recession, says Una Osili, director of research.The pace for Haiti relief donations trails that of giving by Americans after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005.More than half the total for Haiti has been raised by the American Red Cross, which has collected $444 million, and Catholic Relief Services, nearly $136 million, according to a list of relief agencies compiled by The Chronicle of Philanthropy.mmediate needs in Haiti are so great that relief organizations are spending faster than they initially expected.Members of a coalition of aid organizations called InterAction, which include the American Red Cross, Catholic Relief Services, World Vision, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF and Save the Children, have planned to split their funds almost equally between immediate relief and long-term reconstruction in Haiti, InterAction President Sam Worthington says. Now, aid groups may have to choose between meeting immediate needs and rebuilding the country later. This can use less information.
Also this is talking about The payout, announced Thursday by the diocese, will settle 26 lawsuits. The altar boys served in the 1970s."Our clients are very happy to have an opportunity to close this chapter of their lives," said Jerome O'Neill, lead attorney for the victims. "All of them know that nothing goes away, nothing changes. They will live with this for the rest of their lives."Bishop Salvatore Matano, speaking at the diocesan headquarters, which was put up for sale to help pay the settlements, said the diocese agreed to the deal as a way to end the pain the scandal has caused for both the victims and the Catholic Church."These unfortunate incidents crippled the life of the church," he said. "It seriously impacted (the church's) mission. Now it is my task to rejuvenate that mission."Matano — who joined the statewide diocese in 2005, inheriting the lawsuits when he arrived — said he deeply regretted the abuse the victims had endured. "I apologize most sincerely for the pain the victims have suffered," he said. "I ask for all of our faithful to pray for our wounded brothers and sisters."Matano said no church programs will be affected by settlement cost. He said sale of the diocesan headquarters and a sprawling church camp complex in Colchester will help pay off a loan the diocese obtained to pay the settlement.FAITH & REASON: Pope calls for justice, repentanceMost of the cases covered by the settlement centered on Edward Paquette and his time as a parish priest in Rutland, Montpelier and Burlington between 1972 and 1978.
Paquette was suspended in 1978.The diocese did not dispute the abuse, but claimed it had been advised by church psychiatrists that Paquette had been cured of what was identified as "homosexuality" at the time. Church documents displayed during the trials showed that the diocese hired Paquette in 1972 even though he had molested boys at parishes in Massachusetts and Indiana.Paquette, who lives in Westfield, Mass., and was officially defrocked by the Vatican in 2009, told The Burlington Free Press last year he regretted his conduct."If what I know now I knew back then, all of this would have been avoided," he said. "But I was blinded. It's hard to explain why I did it. I don't know."In addition to the 26 cases settled Thursday, the diocese also agreed to pay an undisclosed amount to settle three other abuse cases. Those cases were on appeal before the Vermont Supreme Court. The diocese said the settlements would remain confidential.O'Neill said his clients who are party to the mass settlement — 25 men and one woman — took a courageous stand in pursuing their cases."They have mixed feelings about the settlement," he said. "A few are frustrated that they will not get the chance to present their case to a jury."The settlement was hammered out during the past three months in closed-door mediation sessions between O'Neill's firm and lawyers for the diocese, O'Neill said.
Four months after the tsunami struck Asia, Americans had given $1.5 billion, according to figures tracked by the center. Lower giving for Haiti could be the result of the recent recession, says Una Osili, director of research.The pace for Haiti relief donations trails that of giving by Americans after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005.More than half the total for Haiti has been raised by the American Red Cross, which has collected $444 million, and Catholic Relief Services, nearly $136 million, according to a list of relief agencies compiled by The Chronicle of Philanthropy.mmediate needs in Haiti are so great that relief organizations are spending faster than they initially expected.Members of a coalition of aid organizations called InterAction, which include the American Red Cross, Catholic Relief Services, World Vision, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF and Save the Children, have planned to split their funds almost equally between immediate relief and long-term reconstruction in Haiti, InterAction President Sam Worthington says. Now, aid groups may have to choose between meeting immediate needs and rebuilding the country later. This can use less information.
Also this is talking about The payout, announced Thursday by the diocese, will settle 26 lawsuits. The altar boys served in the 1970s."Our clients are very happy to have an opportunity to close this chapter of their lives," said Jerome O'Neill, lead attorney for the victims. "All of them know that nothing goes away, nothing changes. They will live with this for the rest of their lives."Bishop Salvatore Matano, speaking at the diocesan headquarters, which was put up for sale to help pay the settlements, said the diocese agreed to the deal as a way to end the pain the scandal has caused for both the victims and the Catholic Church."These unfortunate incidents crippled the life of the church," he said. "It seriously impacted (the church's) mission. Now it is my task to rejuvenate that mission."Matano — who joined the statewide diocese in 2005, inheriting the lawsuits when he arrived — said he deeply regretted the abuse the victims had endured. "I apologize most sincerely for the pain the victims have suffered," he said. "I ask for all of our faithful to pray for our wounded brothers and sisters."Matano said no church programs will be affected by settlement cost. He said sale of the diocesan headquarters and a sprawling church camp complex in Colchester will help pay off a loan the diocese obtained to pay the settlement.FAITH & REASON: Pope calls for justice, repentanceMost of the cases covered by the settlement centered on Edward Paquette and his time as a parish priest in Rutland, Montpelier and Burlington between 1972 and 1978.
Paquette was suspended in 1978.The diocese did not dispute the abuse, but claimed it had been advised by church psychiatrists that Paquette had been cured of what was identified as "homosexuality" at the time. Church documents displayed during the trials showed that the diocese hired Paquette in 1972 even though he had molested boys at parishes in Massachusetts and Indiana.Paquette, who lives in Westfield, Mass., and was officially defrocked by the Vatican in 2009, told The Burlington Free Press last year he regretted his conduct."If what I know now I knew back then, all of this would have been avoided," he said. "But I was blinded. It's hard to explain why I did it. I don't know."In addition to the 26 cases settled Thursday, the diocese also agreed to pay an undisclosed amount to settle three other abuse cases. Those cases were on appeal before the Vermont Supreme Court. The diocese said the settlements would remain confidential.O'Neill said his clients who are party to the mass settlement — 25 men and one woman — took a courageous stand in pursuing their cases."They have mixed feelings about the settlement," he said. "A few are frustrated that they will not get the chance to present their case to a jury."The settlement was hammered out during the past three months in closed-door mediation sessions between O'Neill's firm and lawyers for the diocese, O'Neill said.
Friday, May 7, 2010
April Jobs report: Best gain in four years and One ocean, four (or more) killer whale species
#1
This is talking about how In another sign that the recovery in the U.S. economy is taking hold, employers added significantly more jobs to payrolls in April, according to a government report released Friday.There was a gain of 290,000 jobs in the month, up from a revised 230,000 jobs added in March. It was the largest number of jobs added to the labor force since March 2006. The results were much better than expected. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast a gain of 187,000 jobs. Also After nearly two years of job losses, the economy has now added jobs in five of the last six months. With upward revisions for both March and February, there has been a gain of 573,000 jobs since the start of the year.
"It clearly shows that this economic recovery can no longer be seen as a jobless one," said Bart van Ark, chief economist of The Conference Board, a leading business research firm. "Companies apparently are finding they can't squeeze out any more output without adding workers."
The report also includes a separate survey of households that it uses to estimate the unemployment rate, which increased to 9.9%. Economists had forecast the rate would hold steady at 9.7%.The rise in the unemployment rate is actually a sign of improving perception of labor market conditions. The increase was due to an uptick in job seekers who had previously been discouraged and dropped out of the job market. There was a jump of 805,000 workers returning to the labor force in April alone. "When you think about the force it takes to get 800,000 beaten-down people off the couch and back on the street looking for work, that's pretty significant," said Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of Economic Cycle Research Institute.Broad-based gains: The job picture got a lift from the addition of 66,000 jobs by the U.S. Census Bureau, which is in the process of completing the once-in-a-decade headcount of the U.S. population. But the gains went far beyond that one-time Census boost, as private sector employers added 231,000 jobs. And the gains were broad based, as nearly two-thirds of industries across the private sector added jobs rather than cutting staff.Manufacturing did exceptionally well, adding 44,000 jobs, the biggest one-month gain in the sector since August 1998. Construction added 14,000 jobs, the second straight month of gains after nearly three years of uninterrupted job losses in that battered sector.Retailers added 12,400 jobs, and the leisure and hospitality industries added 45,000 jobs on a seasonally adjusted reading, a sign that employers in those sectors see increased consumer demand.Temporary help services added 26,200 jobs, which economists see as an important sign of future hiring, since employers often take on temporary workers before they add permanent staff. Temp workers have now increased by 330,000 over the last seven months after roughly three straight years of job losses there.Looking ahead: Still, the gain in jobs this year has barely made a dent in the 8.4 million jobs that were lost in 2008 and 2009. And the 15.3 million unemployed workers are suffering a great deal. A record 46% have been out of work six months or longer. This is talking about the the jobs are going up. I think that this can use less information.
#2
This is talking about
New genetic analysis splits killer whales into multiple taxa
By Tina Hesman Saey
May 22nd, 2010; Vol.177 #11 (p. 8)
Text Size
EnlargeDifferent killer?The northeast Pacific transient killer whale may be a distinct species. Dave Ellifrit, NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center
Determining whether animals belong to the same species is not as black and white as you might think.
Take killer whales. Scientists have long debated whether the ocean-dwelling mammals all belong in one species. Now, DNA evidence suggests that killer whales should be classified in at least four species, and maybe more.
Scientists once thought killer whales all belonged to the species Orcinus orca. But as researchers began observing more closely, they discovered that the whales seem to belong to different groups, called ecotypes, with distinct feeding habits and appearances. Killer whales from different ecotypes don’t seem to breed with each other — one criterion for being classified as separate species. So some scientists proposed that killer whales should be grouped into different species.
Early genetic analyses didn’t support that idea. Studies that looked at pieces of mitochondrial DNA, a type of genetic material that can be used as a molecular clock to measure the time since two genetic lineages split, concluded that the various killer whale groups are similar enough to fall into a single species.
But recently, researchers have come to realize that not all molecular clocks keep the same time. The mitochondrial DNA of Adélie penguins, for example, evolves faster than previously thought (SN Online: 11/17/09). Killer whales and other cetaceans, on the other hand, have molecular clocks that tick more slowly than other species’ clocks do, says Phillip Morin, a marine mammal geneticist at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, Calif.
Morin and colleagues analyzed the mitochondrial genomes of 139 killer whales from around the globe and found that the animals fall into several genetically distinct groups.
“The genetic data show that they are each independently evolving lineages,” Morin says.
There is enough evidence to split off three new killer whale species, Morin and his colleagues propose in a study published online April 22 in Genome Research.
This is talking about how In another sign that the recovery in the U.S. economy is taking hold, employers added significantly more jobs to payrolls in April, according to a government report released Friday.There was a gain of 290,000 jobs in the month, up from a revised 230,000 jobs added in March. It was the largest number of jobs added to the labor force since March 2006. The results were much better than expected. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast a gain of 187,000 jobs. Also After nearly two years of job losses, the economy has now added jobs in five of the last six months. With upward revisions for both March and February, there has been a gain of 573,000 jobs since the start of the year.
"It clearly shows that this economic recovery can no longer be seen as a jobless one," said Bart van Ark, chief economist of The Conference Board, a leading business research firm. "Companies apparently are finding they can't squeeze out any more output without adding workers."
The report also includes a separate survey of households that it uses to estimate the unemployment rate, which increased to 9.9%. Economists had forecast the rate would hold steady at 9.7%.The rise in the unemployment rate is actually a sign of improving perception of labor market conditions. The increase was due to an uptick in job seekers who had previously been discouraged and dropped out of the job market. There was a jump of 805,000 workers returning to the labor force in April alone. "When you think about the force it takes to get 800,000 beaten-down people off the couch and back on the street looking for work, that's pretty significant," said Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of Economic Cycle Research Institute.Broad-based gains: The job picture got a lift from the addition of 66,000 jobs by the U.S. Census Bureau, which is in the process of completing the once-in-a-decade headcount of the U.S. population. But the gains went far beyond that one-time Census boost, as private sector employers added 231,000 jobs. And the gains were broad based, as nearly two-thirds of industries across the private sector added jobs rather than cutting staff.Manufacturing did exceptionally well, adding 44,000 jobs, the biggest one-month gain in the sector since August 1998. Construction added 14,000 jobs, the second straight month of gains after nearly three years of uninterrupted job losses in that battered sector.Retailers added 12,400 jobs, and the leisure and hospitality industries added 45,000 jobs on a seasonally adjusted reading, a sign that employers in those sectors see increased consumer demand.Temporary help services added 26,200 jobs, which economists see as an important sign of future hiring, since employers often take on temporary workers before they add permanent staff. Temp workers have now increased by 330,000 over the last seven months after roughly three straight years of job losses there.Looking ahead: Still, the gain in jobs this year has barely made a dent in the 8.4 million jobs that were lost in 2008 and 2009. And the 15.3 million unemployed workers are suffering a great deal. A record 46% have been out of work six months or longer. This is talking about the the jobs are going up. I think that this can use less information.
#2
This is talking about
New genetic analysis splits killer whales into multiple taxa
By Tina Hesman Saey
May 22nd, 2010; Vol.177 #11 (p. 8)
Text Size
EnlargeDifferent killer?The northeast Pacific transient killer whale may be a distinct species. Dave Ellifrit, NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center
Determining whether animals belong to the same species is not as black and white as you might think.
Take killer whales. Scientists have long debated whether the ocean-dwelling mammals all belong in one species. Now, DNA evidence suggests that killer whales should be classified in at least four species, and maybe more.
Scientists once thought killer whales all belonged to the species Orcinus orca. But as researchers began observing more closely, they discovered that the whales seem to belong to different groups, called ecotypes, with distinct feeding habits and appearances. Killer whales from different ecotypes don’t seem to breed with each other — one criterion for being classified as separate species. So some scientists proposed that killer whales should be grouped into different species.
Early genetic analyses didn’t support that idea. Studies that looked at pieces of mitochondrial DNA, a type of genetic material that can be used as a molecular clock to measure the time since two genetic lineages split, concluded that the various killer whale groups are similar enough to fall into a single species.
But recently, researchers have come to realize that not all molecular clocks keep the same time. The mitochondrial DNA of Adélie penguins, for example, evolves faster than previously thought (SN Online: 11/17/09). Killer whales and other cetaceans, on the other hand, have molecular clocks that tick more slowly than other species’ clocks do, says Phillip Morin, a marine mammal geneticist at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, Calif.
Morin and colleagues analyzed the mitochondrial genomes of 139 killer whales from around the globe and found that the animals fall into several genetically distinct groups.
“The genetic data show that they are each independently evolving lineages,” Morin says.
There is enough evidence to split off three new killer whale species, Morin and his colleagues propose in a study published online April 22 in Genome Research.
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