Monday, 21 April 2014

The European Union Times

NASA’s latest robotic space explorer crashes into Moon

Posted: 20 Apr 2014 03:52 PM PDT

Concept art showing LADEE over the lunar surface.

After spending months in space analyzing the lunar atmosphere, NASA’s latest robotic space explorer crashed and burned onto the moon’s surface.
Nothing sinister occurred to cause such a result, though – NASA crashed the vending-machine-sized probe on purpose following what it dubbed a successful mission.
In a statement released on Friday, the space agency said its Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) probe was traveling at extremely high speeds when it smashed into a mountain or carter on the moon. As a result, flight controllers believe the spacecraft likely vaporized on impact, and that little, if anything, remains.
“At the time of impact, LADEE was traveling at a speed of 3,600 miles per hour – about three times the speed of a high-powered rifle bullet,” said NASA project scientist Rick Elphic. “There’s nothing gentle about impact at these speeds – it’s just a question of whether LADEE made a localized craterlet on a hillside or scattered debris across a flat area. It will be interesting to see what kind of feature LADEE has created.”

Launched in September 2013, the $280 million explorer arrived in lunar orbit in October and began collecting atmospheric data in November. In addition to analyzing the moon’s atmosphere, LADEE was also home to a new type of communication system, one that uses lasers to transmit data instead of radio waves. With this technology, NASA was able to download information at a record-breaking 622 megabits-per-second.
The probe was expected to stay in service for 100 days before being crashed into the moon’s surface, but it ended up surviving even longer.
“Having flown through the eclipse and survived, the team is actually feeling very good,” NASA project manager Butler Hine told the Associated Press.
With no more fuel left to keep itself in orbit, NASA had lowered the probe significantly by Thursday evening, when it was just 300 feet above the moon’s surface. Scientists estimate it’ll take a coup,e of days to pinpoint the exact sight of the crash. The agency may opt to take photos of the scene with its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
According to the New York Times, the only thing LADEE did not determine was why, before sunrise, astronomers saw glowing light on the lunar horizon. Since the moon’s atmosphere isn’t dense enough to scatter light, scientists speculated it might be caused by dust kicked up by electrostatic forces. LADEE, however, did not witness enough dust to account for such a glow, leaving the 40-year-old mystery unsolved.
Despite this, NASA’s Joan Salute said the probe still accomplished many things.
“LADEE was a mission of firsts, achieving yet another first by successfully flying more than 100 orbits at extremely low altitudes,” Salute said in a statement. “Although a risky decision, we’re already seeing evidence that the risk was worth taking.”
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E-cigarettes dangerous, at least 50 complaints in US alone

Posted: 20 Apr 2014 03:37 PM PDT

Complaints of injury associated with electronic cigarettes have witnessed a notable spike in the United States over the past year.
As many as 50 instances of public grievance, which included burns, nicotine toxicity, and respiratory and cardiovascular problems, were addressed to the US Food and Drug Administration between March 2013 and March 2014.
The number of such instances equals the number of complaints reported over the previous five years.
“Some evidence suggests that e-cigarette use may facilitate smoking cessation, but definitive data are lacking,” Dr. Priscilla Callahan-Lyon of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products wrote in a recent medical journal article.
The health problems, however, were not necessarily caused by e-cigarettes and it is not clear that the rate of adverse events has increased.
The industry is now worth USD 85 billion and the FDA is poised to regulate e-cigarettes and other “vaping” devices for the first time
Miguel Martin, president of Logic Technology, one of the biggest US e-cigarette makers along with Lorillard Inc and privately held NJOY, said, “Clearly, because of the business opportunities, you have companies in an unregulated environment that are importing without checks and balances,” he said, adding that while Logic pays attention to quality control, “some other companies just are not having the same diligence or focus.”
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Bundy Family Unearths BLM Mass Cattle Grave

Posted: 20 Apr 2014 03:24 PM PDT

New photos released by the Bundy family Sunday provided more evidence to the claim that the Bureau of Land Management was illegally killing and burying confiscated cattle.
Posted to the official Bundy Ranch Facebook page, the gruesome image shows several dead cattle being removed from a makeshift grave discovered just this weekend.
“Digging up 1 of the HUGE holes where they threw the cows that they had ran to death or shot,” the picture’s description reads. “I feel that this NEEDS to be put out for the public to see.”
The picture backs up reports by several people including Nevada assemblywoman Michele Fiore, who commented on the BLM’s cattle graves last Tuesday.
“Near their compound, right off the highway, they were digging holes,” Fiore said. “They tried to bury some cows on the compound, but I guess they didn’t dig the hole deep enough, so they throw a cow in and they put dirt over him and you have cows’ legs sticking up out of the dirt.”
Fiore also displayed several photos on her Twitter account Sunday, labeling the incident the “BLM Massacre.”
Although the BLM’s court order only permitted the agency to seize Bundy’s cattle, federal agents have thus far already admitted to shooting and killing two prized bulls, claiming the animals were a “safety hazard.”

Video from the area also revealed holes in water tanks, a smashed tortoise burrow, as well as destroyed fences and water lines.
“They had total control of this land for one week, and look at the destruction they did in one week,” Corey Houston, family friend of Cliven Bundy, told Fox News last week. “Nowhere in the court order that I saw does it say that they can destroy infrastructure, destroy corrals, tanks … desert environment, shoot cattle.”
Separate images taken from an airplane also uncovered hundreds of cattle stuffed into small pens on a BLM compound, prompting the FAA to order a no-fly zone over the area.
Despite a clear and violent overreach by the BLM, Nevada Senator Harry Reid has responded to the incident by calling Bundy and his supporters “domestic terrorists.”
“There were hundreds, hundreds of people from around the country that came there,” Reid said at an event in Las Vegas. “They had sniper rifles in the freeway. They had weapons, automatic weapons. They had children lined up. They wanted to make sure they got hurt first … What if others tried the same thing?”
Unsurprisingly, proof of automatic weapons being present during the stand off between peaceful protesters and the BLM was not provided by Reid. Video of the incident also clearly shows only men and woman, most of whom were unarmed, lined up peacefully.
Whether it be assaulting a cancer survivor, attacking a pregnant woman, tasereing protesters, killing animals or unleashing an attack dog, all extreme behavior has exclusively come from the BLM.
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Study: US no longer a democracy

Posted: 20 Apr 2014 03:17 PM PDT

Findings of a new scientific study suggest that the United States is no longer a democracy but an oligarchy because the ideas of a small number of elite individuals are far more influential than those of common people.
Power in an oligarchic system is effectively wielded by a small number of elite people of society including the rich, senior politicians, bankers, and high-ranking members of the military.
The study which is titled “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens” is carried out by researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page from Princeton University.
It shows that the policies opposed by business interest groups and economic elites are less likely to become law even if they are supported by the masses.
The survey which reviewed nearly 1,800 policy issues over a 20-year period between 1982 and 2002 also found that the preferences of the ordinary people of the society can by no means affects the fate of a bill of law.
Figures showed a policy has a 45%chance of being enacted when it is supported by the rich people and only an 18% chance of becoming law when it’s opposed by the rich.
“The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence,” wrote Gilens and Page in the study.
“In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule – at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the US political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it.”
“The preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.” In other words, their statistics say your opinion literally does not matter,” the study concluded.
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Boston police evacuate marathon finish line, detonate device

Posted: 20 Apr 2014 02:57 PM PDT

Male suspect in Boston Police custody in unattended bags investigation at finish line.

The Boston Police Department investigated two unattended backpacks near the finish line area of the city’s marathon. A man thought to have left one of the bags was taken into custody, though it appears to have been a hoax.
The Boston Police Department’s bomb squad was sent to check the bags, and officers cleared the area around the marathon’s finish line – at Boylston and Dartmouth Streets – at around 7 p.m. local time on Tuesday, according to local news outlets.
Police “disrupted” two of the bags for “precautionary reasons.” At around 9 p.m., a bomb squad using a robot inspected and conducted a controlled detonation of a bag, a routine measure, according to reports. An additional detonation reportedly occurred at around 9:35 p.m.
A barefoot man wearing a black veil over his head yelling “Boston Strong” was wearing a large backpack at the scene before the area was cleared, according to reports. The man has been identified as Kayvon Edson, Boston’s CBS affiliate WBZ-TV reported.
Witnesses say Edson left a bag at the finish line before running off. He was later taken into police custody.
WBZ-TV reported that Edson told police he was carrying a rice cooker in his backpack, prompting the bomb squad. Another source told WBZ-TV that the rice cooker in the bag was full of confetti.
Edson has been charged with disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace, and possession of a hoax device, according to WBZ’s Steven Bognar.
The second suspicious bag near the finish line belonged to a media outlet, according to CNN. Both bags were cleared by police.
Tuesday was the one-year anniversary of the bombings at the 2013 marathon which killed three people and injured around 264 others. The 2014 Boston Marathon will take place on Monday, April 21.
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