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Saturday, January 5, 2019

A road accident followed by a fire on a Florida highway near Gainesville on Thursday killed five children in a church bus and two truck drivers. One semi truck and a car broke through the center guardrail before colliding with other vehicles; around 50 gallons of diesel fuel, officials said, spilled and ignited.

The children were all from Marksville, Louisiana. The Avoyelles House of Mercy, a Pentecostal church, had been travelling 700 miles from Louisiana to Walt Disney World and was within an hour of its destination. One truck driver was from West Palm Beach, Florida, the other from Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The deceased were aged nine, ten, thirteen, two aged fourteen, 49, and 59. At least eight more people were hospitalized.

The accident sequence began, Florida Highway Patrol described, in the northbound lanes of Interstate 75 close to Alachua when the initial collision between the car and truck occurred. After crossing the center divider, the out-of-control vehicles collided with the church bus and a second semi truck in the southbound lanes. The bus overturned, with occupants ejected; a southbound fifth vehicle was unable to prevent itself running through the debris. Reports indicate this vehicle may have struck victims lying on the roadway.

According to eyewitness Vinnie DeVita, “within probably 15 to 20 seconds of it all, it exploded. I mean, just a ball of flames.” DeVita narrowly avoided being caught up in the accident. The Alachua Sheriff’s Office tweeted the response “required all hands on deck.” Authorities stated the road was damaged by the fire’s ferocity. Emergency workers have indicated a homicide probe is ongoing.

Another eyewitness, Nicole Towarek, described extensive tire marks and “insane” heat. Florida Department of Transportation official Troy Roberts said yesterday morning the road itself, which is straight in the vicinity, will be examined as part of investigations. He said “Guardrails can only take so much.” The guardrail would be examined, Roberts said, to determine if it had performed as designed. The state had lanes closed last night as it worked to repair the damaged surface.

Also investigating is the Florida Highway Patrol, which is attempting to ascertain who, if anyone, is to blame. Meanwhile the National Transportation Safety Board, commonly involved in major highway accident probes, was absent. It is presently unable to operate due to a shutdown of much of the Federal government in a budget dispute; however, its website notes that its operations center is still accepting accident notifications without specifying if this resource is operating 24/7 as it usually does.

Sunday, April 10, 2005

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, the San Jose, California-based joint venture of Japanese storage vendor Hitachi and U.S. technology giant IBM, has set a new record for storage density at 230 gigabits per square inch (Gb/in²). The company has developed technology to implement a recording method known as perpendicular recording, which allowed the increase in density above the current ~130 Gb/in² limit.

Techworld claims there is a race between Hitachi and Toshiba for who will get the first drives to market which use the technology. According to Hitachi, they expect, “to ship [their] first perpendicular recording product in 2005 on a 2.5-inch hard drive”. Toshiba is also planning to ship a drive in 2005 that uses perpendicular recording.

According to Techworld, Toshiba will ship an 80 GB, 1.8″ drive in 2005. Toshiba’s 1.8″ drives are used in portable electronic devices such as Apple’s iPod, which is currently available in sizes 60 GB and smaller.

While all commercially available hard drives to date use longitudinal recording, perpendicular recording has roots in research done in academic circles over 100 years ago.

Hitachi Tech has produced a Flash animation that explains the rudiments of perpendicular recording in a music-video style.

Inspired by the 1970s Schoolhouse Rock series of educational animation shorts, the flash movie features whimsical moments with data bits and disk platters that speak and sing (not possible with today’s technology), it also contains realistic details. Of no importance to the viewer, but perhaps of interest to some, the animation shows Texas Instruments’ UC5608DWP chips visible briefly in the background. While TI’s UC5608DWP 18-line SCSI terminator chips have been made obsolete by the new UCC5618, the chips are indeed designed for use in hard drives.

Friday, November 20, 2009

The family of a railway worker in Oxford, United Kingdom whose death was tied to cancer caused by asbestos exposure received a payout of approximately £100,000.

In 2005, Dudley Maasz was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a disease resulting from exposure to asbestos. He had been exposed to the substance during his time in the 1940s as a railway worker for Great Western Railway, where he took part in cleaning engines and serving as a fireman. Maasz died in July 2006.

The company BRB (Residuary) Ltd., the successor to British Railways Board, came to an agreement to give Maasz’s family a payout of £98,000 and costs as a settlement.

Brigitte Chandler, the Maasz family’s solicitor, told BBC News, “We were able to establish that Mr Maasz death was caused by asbestos during his employment at the Oxford works.”

Dudley Maasz’s brother Norman described him to BBC News as outgoing, and a “friendly chap”. He said that he had noticed his brother begin to complain of shoulder pain approximately four years ago, and subsequently began to sleep more and later was bedridden a majority of the time.

“One day I looked at him and thought — my goodness — he was half the size, he’d been eaten away, I felt so sorry for him,” said Norman Maasz.

BBC News reported that no individual from BRB (Residuary) Ltd. was available to provide a comment about the payout to the Maasz family.

Saturday, August 5, 2006

Three of Sweden’s ten nuclear reactors have been shut down due to safety concerns following an incident last week at the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant, in which the reactor cooling systems failed. The reactor has since been shut down there. After the incident, the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate, SKI asked all the nuclear power plants to demonstrate that the same failure could not happen in them. On Wednesday, two more reactors at Oskarshamn were shut down after the operator said their safety could not be guaranteed.

Last week’s incident at the Forsmark plant was triggered by a short circuit that cut power to the reactor cooling system. Two of the four backup generators also failed to start, but the remaining two worked and were sufficient to meet the plant’s needs. Greenpeace reports that the fault in the backup power systems were traced to new equipment installed in 1993.

The spokesman of the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate Anders Bredfell denied that there was any danger of a meltdown, adding that there was also a backup gas turbine to power the cooling system in an emergency.

However, Lars-Olov Höglund, who was responsible for the nuclear plant Forsmark for many years, said the incident was the most dangerous one since Chernobyl and Three Mile island, and that a meltdown was avoided only by pure luck. His views have however been questioned as he is involved in litigation with the Swedish nuclear industry and is known as an outspoken nuclear critic. Researchers at the Royal Institute of Technology as well as the personnel at the power plant were critical of Höglunds’ view.

Speaking to BBC News, SKI spokesman Anders Bredfell said that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was informed of the incident as required and that the incident classes as a ‘2’ in the 0-7 scale used by the IAEA to assess the severity of the incident.

Another reactor in Forsmark and a fifth at Ringhals nuclear power plant have been offline due to planned maintenance work. With five of its ten reactors down, Sweden’s power generation capacity is down by almost a fifth.

The environmental group Greenpeace called on the government to shut down all reactors and probe whether the fault was a generic one. The Green Party has called for an independent investigation of the incident. Sweden is scheduled to retire all its nuclear power plants in the next few decades, as decided by a referendum in 1980.

Saturday, May 6, 2006

Ten American soldiers were killed when a CH-47 Chinook helicopter crashed near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border close to a landing zone in the Kunar province. A military spokesman said it crashed while conducting combat operations. The Soldiers were involved with Operation Mountain Lion, which is aimed at rooting out al-Qaeda and former Taliban militants.

“The remains of all the 10 soldiers have been found and there are no survivors. There is no indication that the helicopter came down due to some enemy action. Additional aircraft and crews were also at the landing zone and confirmed that enemy forces did not cause the crash,” said Lt. Tamara D. Lawrence, a spokeswoman for the U.S. military.

However; Muhamad Hanif, a Taliban spokesman, said that the crash was the result of the Taliban. He also said that advanced weaponry was used to shoot down helicopters.

“We have no indication that that happened,” said Lawrence in response to Hanif’s claim. “The crash occurred in a very mountainous terrain and the landing zone was very difficult. It was a mountain-top landing zone. There were various weather factors that could have come into play…. There were high winds. We are investigating any possible causes for the accident but there were no enemy actions detected at the scene,” she added.

In June of 2005, Taliban forces brought down a Chinook in the same province, which killed all American soldiers onboard. According to the military, rocket-propelled grenades were used in that attack.

There are at least 20,000 coalition forces in Afghanistan; 18,000 of them are American soldiers. At least 2,500 of the American soldiers are also involved with Operation Mountain Lion.

Monday, March 20, 2006

Fears of contaminated bone and skin grafts are being felt by unsuspecting patients following the revelation that funeral homes may have been looting corpses.

Janet Evans of Marion Ohio was told by her surgeon, “The bone grafts you got might have been contaminated”. She reacted with shock, “I was flabbergasted because I didn’t even know what he was talking about. I didn’t know I got a bone graft until I got this call. I just thought they put in screws and rods.”

The body of Alistair Cooke, the former host of “Masterpiece Theatre,” was supposedly looted along with more than 1,000 others, according to two law enforcement officials close to the case. The tissue taken was typically skin, bone and tendon, which was then sold for use in procedures such as dental implants and hip replacements. According to authorities, millions of dollars were made by selling the body parts to companies for use in operations done at hospitals and clinics in the United States and Canada.

A New Jersey company, Biomedical Tissue Services, has reportedly been taking body parts from funeral homes across Brooklyn, New York. According to ABC News, they set up rooms like a “surgical suite.” After they took the bones, they replaced them with PVC pipe. This was purportedly done by stealth, without approval of the deceased person or the next of kin. 1,077 bodies were involved, say prosecuters.

Investagators say a former dentist, Michael Mastromarino, is behind the operation. Biomedical was considered one of the “hottest procurement companies in the country,” raking in close to $5 million. Eventually, people became worried: “Can the donors be trusted?” A tissue processing company called LifeCell answered no, and issued a recall on all their tissue.

Cooke’s daughter, Susan Cooke Kittredge, said, “To know his bones were sold was one thing, but to see him standing truncated before me is another entirely.” Now thousands of people around the country are receiving letters warning that they should be tested for infectious diseases like HIV or hepatitis. On February 23, the Brooklyn District Attorney indicted Mastromarino and three others. They are charged with 122 felony counts, including forgery and bodysnatching.

See the discussion page for instructions on adding schools to this list.Tuesday, September 13, 2005

NAICU has created a list of colleges and universities accepting and/or offering assistance to displace faculty members. [1]Wednesday, September 7, 2005

This list is taken from Colleges offering admission to displaced New Orleans students, and is intended to make searching easier for faculty, graduate, and professional students.

In addition to the list below, the Association of American Law Schools has compiled a list of law schools offering assistance to displaced students. [2] As conditions vary by college, interested parties should contact the Office of Admissions at the school in question for specific requirements and up-to-date details.

The Association of American Medical Colleges is coordinating alternatives for medical students and residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina. [3]

ResCross.net is acting as a central interactive hub for establishing research support in times of emergency. With so many scientists affected by Hurricane Katrina, ResCross is currently focused on providing information to identify sources of emergency support as quickly as possible. [4]

With so many scientists affected by Hurricane Katrina, ResCross is currently focused on providing information to identify sources of emergency support as quickly as possible.

Physics undergraduates, grad students, faculty and high school teachers can be matched up with housing and jobs at universities, schools and industry. [5] From the American Association of Physics Teachers, the Society of Physics Students, the American Institute of Physics and the American Physical Society.

If you are seeking or providing assistance, please use this site to find information on research support, available lab space/supplies, resources, guidelines and most importantly to communicate with fellow researchers.

The following is a partial list, sorted by location.

Alabama |Alaska |Arizona |Arkansas |California |Colorado |Connecticut |Delaware |District of Columbia |Florida |Georgia |Hawaii |Idaho |Illinois |Indiana |Iowa |Kansas |Kentucky |Louisiana |Maine |Maryland |Massachusetts |Michigan |Minnesota |Mississippi |Missouri |Montana |Nebraska |Nevada |New Hampshire |New Jersey |New Mexico |New York |North Carolina |North Dakota |Ohio |Oklahoma |Oregon |Pennsylvania |Rhode Island |South Carolina |South Dakota |Tennessee |Texas |Utah |Vermont |Virginia |Washington |West Virginia |Wisconsin |Wyoming |Canada

Friday, May 4, 2007

Two people are dead after a plane crashed at a intersection in McAllen shortly after 7:00 p.m. local time (CDT) on May 2.

A man who video taped the scene stated on a TV interview, “The plane just missed my truck… total strangers just started jumping in to help the pilot… people were yelling ‘Bring a fire extinguisher’… It was amazing that the pilot still asked to save his girlfriend even though his own life was in danger.”

They succeeded in dragging the pilot, 35-year old Jose Francisco Vasquez, out of the burning wreckage; however, his girlfriend, 24 year Gina Asuara, was burned to death. Vasquez suffered 3rd degree burns to 90% of his body. He later died at the Brook Army Medical Center at around 7:30 a.m. (CDT) on May 3

Friends say Vasquez was an experienced pilot. He owned several planes and flew at least twice every week. He was in the Mexican Air Force during his earlier years and was on vacation at Houston, Texas.

Officials said the accident was likely due to a engine failure during take off. The plane crashed near a intersection on 10th St. and Dicker Road about 2 minutes away from the Dodge Arena. The road was closed due to investigations; however it was reopened on May 3 at 8:30 p.m. (CDT)

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

David S. Touretzky, prominent free speech activist and critic of Scientology, discussed his opinions on the recent Internet backlash against the Church of Scientology in an interview with former Scientologist and Wikinews reporter Nicholas Turnbull. The recent conflict on the Internet between critics of Scientology and the Church has been spurred on in declarations by a nebulous Internet entity using the name Anonymous that the Church of Scientology “will be destroyed”. Anonymous has directed recent protests at Scientology centres across the world, which have attracted significant numbers of individuals supporting the cause. In recent e-mail correspondence with Wikinews, a representative of the Church of Scientology declared that the Church considers the activities of Anonymous to be illegal, and that Anonymous “will be handled and stopped”.

Touretzky, a research professor in artificial intelligence and computational neuroscience at Carnegie Mellon University, has been a prominent critic of the Church of Scientology since mid-1995, and has been protesting against Scientology vociferously since then; he has also run websites that publish material that Scientology wishes to keep suppressed from the public eye, such as extracts from Scientology’s formerly-confidential Operating Thetan (OT) materials. Touretzky views the actions of the Church of Scientology as being “a threat to free speech”, and has endured harassment by the Church of Scientology for his activities.

The Church of Scientology continues to suffer damage to its public reputation through increased exposure on the Internet and vocal protests by Scientology critics such as Prof. Touretzky. A recent event that focused intense attention on Scientology’s totalitarian attitude was the leak of an internal Church of Scientology propaganda video to the Internet video sharing site YouTube, in which celebrity Scientologist Tom Cruise spoke heavily in Scientology’s jargon and stated that that “we [Scientology] are the authorities” on resolving the difficulties of humanity. The declaration of war by Anonymous followed shortly after this leak, in the form of a video posted to the Internet.

The ongoing dispute, cast by some as Scientology versus the Internet, brought Scientology terms such as “SP” (Suppressive Person, an enemy of Scientology) and “KSW” (Keeping Scientology Working) into general usage by non-Scientologists from the late 1990s onwards; increased attention has been drawn to Scientology by the release of the Cruise video in addition to media coverage. This focus has caused an even greater propagation of these terms across the outside world, as Touretzky comments in the interview.

Wikinews asked Prof. Touretzky about the impact that the activities of Anonymous will have on Scientology, the public relations effect of the Tom Cruise video, the recent departure of individuals from the Church of Scientology’s executive management, the strategies that Anonymous will employ and Touretzky’s experiences of picketing the Church.