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Thursday, March 31, 2005A report Tuesday from a United Nations-backed project, consulting more than 1,300 scientists from 95 countries, and written over the last four years, warns that 60 percent of the basics of life on Earth — water, food, timber, clean air — are currently being used in ways which degrade them. Furthermore, fisheries and fresh water use-patterns are unsustainable, and getting worse.

“The harmful consequences of this degradation could grow significantly worse in the next 50 years,” according to a press release from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), a massive four-year study begun in 2001.

“We’ve had many reports on environmental degradation, but for the first time we’re now able to draw connections between ecosystem services and human well-being,” Cristian Samper, director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington and a chief architect of the study, told the Christian Science Monitor.

The project’s Synthesis Report, first in a series of eleven documents and published yesterday, explains the objective: “to assess the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being and to establish the scientific basis for actions needed to enhance the conservation and sustainable use of ecosystems and their contributions to human well-being.”

It then goes on to report on four main findings:

• Changes over the last 50 years to meet rapidly growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fiber and fuel, have effected substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth.

• Net gains in human well-being and economic development are offset by growing costs, in the form ecosystem degradation, the possibility of abrupt and unpredictable ecosystem changes, and worsened poverty for some groups. Unless addressed, these problems will substantially diminish the benefits that future generations obtain from ecosystems.

• Ecosystem degradation could grow significantly worse over the next 50 years, presenting a barrier to meeting UN Millennium Development Goals.

• The challenge of reversing the degradation while meeting increasing ecological demands can be partially met under some scenarios, but only with significant changes in policies, institutions and practices — changes that are not currently under way.

Walter Reid, the study’s director, speaking at yesterday’s London launch of the report said it shows that over the last 50 years “humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable time in human history.”

“This has resulted in substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth,” he said.

It is unclear what this will mean to future generations or the possible emergence of new diseases, absence of fresh water and the continuing decline of fisheries and completely unpredictable weather.

With half of the urban populations of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean suffering from several diseases associated with these problems, the death toll is reaching 1.7 million people a year. Entire species of mammals, birds and amphibians are disappearing from the planet at nearly 1,000 times the natural rate, according to the study. Oxygen-depleted coastal waters and rivers result from overuse of nitrogen fertilizer – an effect known as “nutrient loading” which leads to continuing biodiversity loss.

With the United States’ non-participation in the Kyoto Treaty, former U.S. Senator Timothy Wirth, president of this U.N. Foundation, says “U.S. leadership is critical in providing much-needed expertise, technological capabilities and ingenuity to restore ecosystems.

“We can take steps at home to reduce our nation’s adverse impact on the global environment.”

“At the heart of this assessment is a stark warning,” said the 45-member board.

Thursday, April 5, 2007

An evacuation operation was carried out today as a cruise ship ran aground off the coast of Santorini, a Greek island, leaving up to 1,167 passengers and 391 crew to abandon the ship.

The Sea Diamond took on water and listed twelve degrees after running aground, but had been stabilized. Fifteen hours after the grounding, the ship sank.

Cruise operator Louis Cruise Lines had announced earlier that all passengers and crew were accounted for. Officials are now reporting that two passengers are missing. A 45-year-old man, Jean-Christophe Allain, and his 16-year-old daughter, Maud, were reported missing by family members also on the cruise, according to a merchant marine ministry official.

BBC journalist Malcolm Brabant reported that the missing passengers had been in a lower-deck cabin when the ship ran aground. Allain’s wife and son escaped safely to the upper decks.

Most of the passengers on board the Sea Diamond ship are either American or German. Local news reported that the ship is taking on water after striking a reef in the volcanic island’s lagoon, similar to a lake, and issued a distress signal, launching an operation that led more than a dozen ships and five Greek Navy helicopters to evacuate all the people on board, with many boarding a small ferry.

The ship was about one nautical mile – 1.8km – from the island’s coast when it ran aground. The ship’s operators, Louis Cruise Lines, earlier said that a “controlled evacuation” was underway, but that “there is no danger to passengers”. The ship had left the Athenian port of Piraeus on Monday for a five-day tour of the islands. The sea was calm when the incident occurred.

“Some passengers have already reached the island and no-one has been hurt,” an official at the Santorini coastguard has said, whilst Merchant Marine Minister Manolis Kefaloyiannis said to reporters, “Thankfully, everything has gone well so far. Emergency services responded very quickly and very well.”

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Zaragoza, Spain — On Thursday, Wikinews traveled to Zaragoza, Spain to interview the nation’s most decorated Paralympian and IPC Athlete Council representative Teresa Perales. A wide range of topics about the Paralympics and sport in Spain were discussed including the evolution of Paralympic sport, disability sport classification, funding support across all levels of elite sport including the Paralympics and Olympics, the role of sportspeople in politics, sponsorship issues, and issues of gender in Spanish sport.

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Occupy protests in two Irish cities have been cleared in the last two days. Dublin’s Occupy Dame Street was cleared by police while the local council cleared the abandoned Occupy Waterford site.

The early hours of Thursday saw the Dublin site raided and cleared by Gardai (police). Gardai cited health and safety concerns over the camp, with St Patrick’s Day festivities planned. Irish tourism minister Leo Varadkar previously called it “disappointing” the campers would not move while the celebrations were ongoing. “I understand they feel very strongly about their politics but I’m sure they don’t want to damage the festival,” Varadkar said.

“[Our] priority is to ensure that all of St Patrick’s Day events and celebrations pass off smoothly and that all participants and the large crowds of spectators at the parade can access and egress the parade route without a risk or threat to their health and safety,” said a Garda statement. They claimed to have asked for “assistance and co-operation, however this was not forthcoming,” and said it took hours to clear the site. The clearance began at 3:30 am local time.

A single arrest was made but the individual was released without charge. Around 100 officers cleared the site, which almost filled the plaza before the Central Bank. Cleaners later cleared all signs of the camp. It had been in place since October, but pallets and solid structures replaced the usual tents of Occupy protests earlier this year in response to local weather. Fifteen people who had been staying overnight were removed.

“We are not stopping any time soon, it’s all hands on deck now, we are going to carry on”, vowed protestor Saoirse Bennet, who was on-scene when police arrived.

Waterford City Council yesterday dismantled the empty camp in their city while Gardai looked on. The quayside protest was abandoned after internal disputes; only two youths and a homeless person were found in the 5:30 am raid, but at one stage the protest had 40 residents. Gardai took the youths “home to their parents,” said a spokesman. “The people we found there had nothing to do with Occupy Waterford.” Needles and drugs were found, but nobody was arrested.

Occupy Galway may be the next to go: After months of tolerance, Galway City Council have claimed “serious health and safety concerns” justify legal eviction proceedings if the camp does not pack up voluntarily. John Walsh of Occupy Galway said the camp was lawful and would remain.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

NASA has denied media and internet speculation that the Phoenix Lander has found life on the ‘Red Planet’, Mars and has also denied that the White House in the United States has been briefed on such matters that would lead up to an announcement by NASA later this week. This comes just after NASA stated on July 31, that Phoenix confirmed the presence of water-ice on Mars.

Rumors began to spread on the internet Saturday after an unnamed scientist working on the Phoenix Mission stated to Aviation Week & Space Technology, the White House had been briefed on “provocative and complex” information that NASA has yet to disclose to the public regarding the “potential for life on Mars.” The scientist said that the announcement will be regarding the habitability of Mars rather than finding actual life. The scientist also said that the information had been excluded from the July 31 press conference.

NASA immediately denied those claims sending out a message on Twitter, a social networking and micro-blogging website which is used by NASA to communicate to the public in a style pretending that the Lander itself is talking to its readers, stating, “Heard about the recent news reports implying I may have found Martian life. Those reports are incorrect. Reports claiming there was a White House briefing are also untrue and incorrect.” The Phoenix Lander, according to NASA, does not have the ability to detect life, past or present, but the Lander’s MECA microscopy station could potentially ‘see’ bacteria in the soil, which NASA states have not been discovered.

“[The report of a White House briefing is] not true [and is] bogus”. MECA results have not been discussed at the White House. There is no one who knows either on the [Phoenix] project in Tucson or at [NASA] HQ who knows where this information came from,” said Peter Smith, the top investigator for the Phoenix Mission. Smith also added that MECA has “nothing new to report.”

The MECA or Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer, is designed to analyze soil samples as small as 16 ?m to determine the chemical composition of the sample. While the lander were unable to image any bacteria, Phoenix’s MECA did detect potassium, magnesium and chloride, minerals that are necessary to create or sustain life. MECA also determined that the soil was acidic, which means it could support the growing of some plants from Earth like asparagus.

“We are attempting to assess the chemicals and minerals that make up the soil composition. We are now about half way through the process and there are several conflicting points of view. This is not a good time to go public with half the story,” added Smith who also stated that “we are committed to following a rigorous scientific process. While we have not completed our process on these soil samples, we have very interesting intermediate results. Initial MECA analyses suggested Earth-like soil. Further analysis has revealed un-Earthlike aspects of the soil chemistry.”

Despite the denials by NASA, some Internet observers maintain that NASA is still preparing for a major announcement.

“The reason that all this seems so hush-hush is due to a future paper and press release that appears likely to pop out of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and its Science magazine. Whatever the poop is from the scoop that’s been studied by Phoenix, that information is purportedly going through peer-review”, said David Leonard for LifeScience.com.

NASA will hold a media teleconference today August 5, at 2:00 p.m. EDT, to discuss these recent science activities.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

A new historic physics record has been set by scientists for exceedingly small writing, opening a new door to computing‘s future. Stanford University physicists have claimed to have written the letters “SU” at sub-atomic size.

Graduate students Christopher Moon, Laila Mattos, Brian Foster and Gabriel Zeltzer, under the direction of assistant professor of physics Hari Manoharan, have produced the world’s smallest lettering, which is approximately 1.5 nanometres tall, using a molecular projector, called Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) to push individual carbon monoxide molecules on a copper or silver sheet surface, based on interference of electron energy states.

A nanometre (Greek: ?????, nanos, dwarf; ?????, metr?, count) is a unit of length in the metric system, equal to one billionth of a metre (i.e., 10^-9 m or one millionth of a millimetre), and also equals ten Ångström, an internationally recognized non-SI unit of length. It is often associated with the field of nanotechnology.

“We miniaturised their size so drastically that we ended up with the smallest writing in history,” said Manoharan. “S” and “U,” the two letters in honor of their employer have been reduced so tiny in nanoimprint that if used to print out 32 volumes of an Encyclopedia, 2,000 times, the contents would easily fit on a pinhead.

In the world of downsizing, nanoscribes Manoharan and Moon have proven that information, if reduced in size smaller than an atom, can be stored in more compact form than previously thought. In computing jargon, small sizing results to greater speed and better computer data storage.

“Writing really small has a long history. We wondered: What are the limits? How far can you go? Because materials are made of atoms, it was always believed that if you continue scaling down, you’d end up at that fundamental limit. You’d hit a wall,” said Manoharan.

In writing the letters, the Stanford team utilized an electron‘s unique feature of “pinball table for electrons” — its ability to bounce between different quantum states. In the vibration-proof basement lab of Stanford’s Varian Physics Building, the physicists used a Scanning tunneling microscope in encoding the “S” and “U” within the patterns formed by the electron’s activity, called wave function, arranging carbon monoxide molecules in a very specific pattern on a copper or silver sheet surface.

“Imagine [the copper as] a very shallow pool of water into which we put some rocks [the carbon monoxide molecules]. The water waves scatter and interfere off the rocks, making well defined standing wave patterns,” Manoharan noted. If the “rocks” are placed just right, then the shapes of the waves will form any letters in the alphabet, the researchers said. They used the quantum properties of electrons, rather than photons, as their source of illumination.

According to the study, the atoms were ordered in a circular fashion, with a hole in the middle. A flow of electrons was thereafter fired at the copper support, which resulted into a ripple effect in between the existing atoms. These were pushed aside, and a holographic projection of the letters “SU” became visible in the space between them. “What we did is show that the atom is not the limit — that you can go below that,” Manoharan said.

“It’s difficult to properly express the size of their stacked S and U, but the equivalent would be 0.3 nanometres. This is sufficiently small that you could copy out the Encyclopaedia Britannica on the head of a pin not just once, but thousands of times over,” Manoharan and his nanohologram collaborator Christopher Moon explained.

The team has also shown the salient features of the holographic principle, a property of quantum gravity theories which resolves the black hole information paradox within string theory. They stacked “S” and the “U” – two layers, or pages, of information — within the hologram.

The team stressed their discovery was concentrating electrons in space, in essence, a wire, hoping such a structure could be used to wire together a super-fast quantum computer in the future. In essence, “these electron patterns can act as holograms, that pack information into subatomic spaces, which could one day lead to unlimited information storage,” the study states.

The “Conclusion” of the Stanford article goes as follows:

The team is not the first to design or print small letters, as attempts have been made since as early as 1960. In December 1959, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman, who delivered his now-legendary lecture entitled “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom,” promised new opportunities for those who “thought small.”

Feynman was an American physicist known for the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as work in particle physics (he proposed the parton model).

Feynman offered two challenges at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society, held that year in Caltech, offering a $1000 prize to the first person to solve each of them. Both challenges involved nanotechnology, and the first prize was won by William McLellan, who solved the first. The first problem required someone to build a working electric motor that would fit inside a cube ¹/₆₄ inches on each side. McLellan achieved this feat by November 1960 with his 250-microgram 2000-rpm motor consisting of 13 separate parts.

In 1985, the prize for the second challenge was claimed by Stanford Tom Newman, who, working with electrical engineering professor Fabian Pease, used electron lithography. He wrote or engraved the first page of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, at the required scale, on the head of a pin, with a beam of electrons. The main problem he had before he could claim the prize was finding the text after he had written it; the head of the pin was a huge empty space compared with the text inscribed on it. Such small print could only be read with an electron microscope.

In 1989, however, Stanford lost its record, when Donald Eigler and Erhard Schweizer, scientists at IBM’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose were the first to position or manipulate 35 individual atoms of xenon one at a time to form the letters I, B and M using a STM. The atoms were pushed on the surface of the nickel to create letters 5nm tall.

In 1991, Japanese researchers managed to chisel 1.5 nm-tall characters onto a molybdenum disulphide crystal, using the same STM method. Hitachi, at that time, set the record for the smallest microscopic calligraphy ever designed. The Stanford effort failed to surpass the feat, but it, however, introduced a novel technique. Having equaled Hitachi’s record, the Stanford team went a step further. They used a holographic variation on the IBM technique, for instead of fixing the letters onto a support, the new method created them holographically.

In the scientific breakthrough, the Stanford team has now claimed they have written the smallest letters ever – assembled from subatomic-sized bits as small as 0.3 nanometers, or roughly one third of a billionth of a meter. The new super-mini letters created are 40 times smaller than the original effort and more than four times smaller than the IBM initials, states the paper Quantum holographic encoding in a two-dimensional electron gas, published online in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. The new sub-atomic size letters are around a third of the size of the atomic ones created by Eigler and Schweizer at IBM.

A subatomic particle is an elementary or composite particle smaller than an atom. Particle physics and nuclear physics are concerned with the study of these particles, their interactions, and non-atomic matter. Subatomic particles include the atomic constituents electrons, protons, and neutrons. Protons and neutrons are composite particles, consisting of quarks.

“Everyone can look around and see the growing amount of information we deal with on a daily basis. All that knowledge is out there. For society to move forward, we need a better way to process it, and store it more densely,” Manoharan said. “Although these projections are stable — they’ll last as long as none of the carbon dioxide molecules move — this technique is unlikely to revolutionize storage, as it’s currently a bit too challenging to determine and create the appropriate pattern of molecules to create a desired hologram,” the authors cautioned. Nevertheless, they suggest that “the practical limits of both the technique and the data density it enables merit further research.”

In 2000, it was Hari Manoharan, Christopher Lutz and Donald Eigler who first experimentally observed quantum mirage at the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California. In physics, a quantum mirage is a peculiar result in quantum chaos. Their study in a paper published in Nature, states they demonstrated that the Kondo resonance signature of a magnetic adatom located at one focus of an elliptically shaped quantum corral could be projected to, and made large at the other focus of the corral.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Television producer and owner of the anti-Scientology website www.xenutv.com (XenuTV), Mark Bunker, also known as Wise Beard Man, chatted online with Wikinews for nearly three hours. More than 120 people followed the interview live (many from Project Chanology), which makes this exclusive Wikinews interview our most attended IRC interview to date.

Bunker started XenuTV in 1999 and began to make videos that he provided for the Lisa McPherson Trust. Bunker has been a critic of the Church of Scientology since 1997.

In 2006, he won a Regional Emmy Award after he and KUSI-TV news reporter Lena Lewis produced a documentary news video on the issues with the United States – Mexico border with San Diego, California.

Saturday, September 8, 2007

Australian Prime Minister John Howard has announced that leaders of APEC nations have agreed on “aspirational goals” on climate change. The agreement, which Prime Minister Howard calls the Sydney declaration focuses on reducing energy intensity (the amount of energy used to produce a dollar of gross domestic product), reforestation and technology sharing.

Despite Australia, the United States and China being non-signatories to the United Nations’ Kyoto protocol on greenhouse gas reductions which is set to expire in 2012, the APEC accord calls for “We call for a post-2012 international climate change arrangement … that strengthens, broadens and deepens the current arrangement and leads to reduced global emissions of greenhouse gases,” according to the draft declaration.

The declaration as agreed upon will be released on Sunday. The draft agreement recognised that action was required to “slow, stop and reverse” greenhouse gas emissions; that nations should vow to reduce energy intensity by 25 percent by 2030; that forest cover in the region should be increased by 50 million acres by 2020; and that APEC nations will work with other nations to find a solution to climate change. The declaration is non-binding and is simply a statement of goals to which the nations will try to achieve.

Host nation Australia has been criticised by China, Indonesia, Japan and Malaysia for putting climate change on the agenda at the APEC summit, saying they would prefer dialogue on climate change to occur under a United Nationa framework. Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda said “the APEC meeting does not replace the appropriate forum to deal with climate change.”

Mr Wiraydua said that despite Indonesia not being entirely satisfied with the declaration they would “live with it”.

Environmental group Greenpeace has rejected the APEC statement because it doesn’t set firm targets and includes the use of nuclear energy as a replacement for fossil fuels.