Maybe if we cover it with leaves no one will notice
US nuclear dump plan in danger after seismic shock
Guardian Unlimited
The most expensive public works project in the US was today in disarray after it emerged that a planned giant nuclear dump would be located on a faultline.
Rock samples from deep within Yucca Mountain, in Nevada, showed that the fault runs directly beneath the site where the US federal government planned to store 70,000 tonnes of highly radioactive waste.
More than $8bn (£4bn) has already been spent on the $58bn project, which had been due to open in 2017, but the proposals - approved by George Bush in 2002 - may now have to be redrawn.
Samples taken from 76 metres below the surface of the mountains, which are around 90 miles north-west of Las Vegas, revealed that the Bow Ridge fault passes hundreds of metres to the east of where scientists believed it lay.
The measurements were backed up by US Geological Survey maps and a letter, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported yesterday.
The fault is now thought to run beneath a storage pad where spent radioactive fuel canisters would be cooled before being sealed in a maze of tunnels inside the mountain.
Bob Loux, the executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, expressed amazement that the US Department of Energy had only just carried out the "11th hour" drilling tests.
"It certainly looks like DoE has encountered a surprise out there, and it certainly speaks to the fact they haven't done the technical work they should have done years ago," he told the paper.
"It's going to have to cause some change of the design in the final analysis. It's going to impact the safety case."
The state of Nevada - the third most seismically unstable in the US - has long opposed the project on the grounds that earthquake activity makes the site unsafe.
Since 1976, there have been 621 seismic events of magnitude greater than 2.5 on the Richter scale within a 50-mile radius of Yucca Mountain.
The Department of Energy refused to comment on the claims, but project officials said they were continuing to develop repository design, construction and operating plans in preparation for applying next year for a licence from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I know. How about if everyone on the site selection committee takes a canister or two home with them?
He’s taking his secrets with him
Chimp gunned down in ape escape
LONDON, England (AP) -- A runaway chimp was shot dead after breaking out of his enclosure at an English zoo, his keepers said.
Chimpanzees Jonnie and Coco broke out of their compound Friday at the Whipsnade Zoo in Bedfordshire, about 35 miles north of London. The Zoological Society of London, which runs the zoo, said Coco was recaptured, but Jonnie could not immediately be caught and had to be killed.
Jonnie was still in the zoo at the time he was shot, said Christine Drabwell, a press officer at the Whipsnade Zoo. Officials declined to say how long he'd been free, saying an investigation was pending.
"It's just standard procedure, if the animal cannot be quickly and safely recaptured it will be shot," ZSL spokeswoman Alice Henchley said.
When asked why the chimps weren't shot with a tranquilizer gun or in another non-lethal manner, a zoo spokeswoman said that under their procedures, they have to shoot to kill when they have an animal who might be of danger to the public.
"We can't be sure with a tranquilizer," said the spokeswoman for the zoo who spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with the organization's policy. "It doesn't work quickly enough."
Jonnie, an adult male, was gunned down by the zoo's specially trained firearms squad, Henchley said. She added that Jonnie and Coco's keepers were still trying to figure out how the apes escaped.
Dr. Zaius: Tell me, why are all apes created equal?
George: Some apes, it seems, are more equal than others.
Just for the record, Heston had nothing to do with this. He wasn’t even in London
What’s passing for science this week? Illinois has an answer
When Children Are Upset, Mothers And Fathers Make A Difference
Science Daily — When a young child experiences negative emotions--anger, anxiety, or distress--can his parents respond in a way that fosters the child's emotional development?
A new University of Illinois study in the September/October issue of Child Development suggests that young children benefit when mothers and fathers differ in their reactions to their child's negative emotions.
The researchers found that when one parent provided little support in response to a child's feelings of anger or anxiety and the other parent provided a lot of support, the child had less conflict with friends and a better understanding of emotions.
When both parents provided a lot of support, however, children had less understanding of their emotions and more conflict with peers. This may be because when both parents support a child's negative feelings, they may shield the child from learning about and managing these emotions.
Co-authors include Amy G. Halberstadt of North Carolina State University and Brenda L. Volling of the University of Michigan. The articles is based on studies funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and the University of Michigan and Volling's NICHD Independent Scientist Award.
Do you mean that when a young child experiences negative emotions, his parents can actually respond in a way that fosters the child's emotional development? Even if they don’t have degrees in education? Get out.
It’s studies like this that encourage folks to refer to themselves as “educators.”
Don’t let the FCC find out, they'll try to regulate it
Mysterious Energy Burst Stuns Astronomers
Science Daily — In a shock finding, astronomers using CSIRO’s Parkes telescope have detected a huge burst of radio energy from the distant universe that could open up a new field in astrophysics.
The radio burst appears to have originated at least one-and-a-half billion light-years [500 Mpc] away but was startlingly strong.
“Normally the kind of cosmic activity we’re looking for at this distance would be very faint but this was so bright that it saturated the equipment,” said Professor Matthew Bailes of Swinburne University in Melbourne.
The burst was so bright that at the time it was first recorded it was dismissed as man-made radio interference. It put out a huge amount of power (10exp33 Joules), equivalent to a large (2000MW) power station running for two billion billion years.
“The burst may have been produced by an exotic event such as the collision of two neutron stars or be the last gasp of a black hole as it evaporates completely,” Professor Lorimer said.
The burst lasted just five milliseconds.
It was found by David Narkevik, an undergraduate at the West Virginia University, when he re-analysed data taken with the Parkes telescope six years ago.
Although they’ve found only one burst, the astronomers can estimate how often they occur.
“We’d expect to see a few bursts over the whole sky every day,” said Dr John Reynolds, Officer in Charge at CSIRO’s Parkes Observatory.
“A new telescope being built in Western Australia will be ideal for finding more of these rare, transient events.
”The Australian SKA Pathfinder, which is going to be built by 2012, will have a very wide field of view—be able to see a very large piece of sky—which is exactly what you want for this kind of work,” he said.
Meanwhile, the researchers will comb archived data from the Parkes telescope for more radio bursts.
The discovery of the radio burst is similar to the discovery of gamma-ray bursts in the 1970s, when military satellites revealed flashes of gamma-rays appearing all over the sky. One kind—the so-called long-period bursts—was eventually identified as the explosion (supernova) of a massive star with the associated formation of a black hole.
If you listen carefully you can hear Wolfman Jack and that big beat out of Del Rio, Texas on XERF
Thank you, come again. And by the way, nice turban.
Store Owner Says Thieves Hypnotized Him
Police Warn That Scammers Could Target Other Stores
MARLBOROUGH, N.H. – WFT-TV.com reports that two thieves scammed a store owner by claiming they could read his mind and reveal personal information about him before stealing money from his store, police said.
Police said that two Indian Punjabi men stole more than $1,000 from the Marlborough Country Convenience Store on Monday. The men told the storeowner that they were guruji, a type of Hindu priest, and that they could read his mind, police said.
Store owner Yogesh Patel, 29, who is also from India, said he had heard of the scam but never believed it and never thought it could happen to him. He said he's now upset and embarrassed, WMUR-TV in Manchester reported.
"I'd never been (scammed), and every time I heard about it, I laughed at it," Patel said.
Patel said the scam began with a simple mind game. The men asked him what his favorite flower was, and they opened a paper with the correct answer on it: "Rose." They then told him to think of a wild animal, and they again had written down his choice.
The scam quickly escalated to personal information involving family members and a former girlfriend.
"They also said my wife's name that not too many people know," Patel said. "My mom's name they told me. And they told me what was my future goal."
Patel said he believes the men were able to hypnotize him into giving them money. A surveillance tape shows him putting cash into a hollowed-out book before getting more money from the safe.
After watching the tape, police said Patel seemed to have fallen under their sway.
"From him telling me, I wouldn't believe it," Detective Steve LaMears said. "Seeing the video, saying he's hypnotized, it makes it a little stronger."
Scam artists commonly use techniques such as cold reading to appear to know more than they really do. In cold reading, a scammer carefully analyzes a victim's mannerisms and other details to determine basic facts about the person.
The scammer then may make high-probability guesses and pick up on any signals that indicate they were correct, the TV station reported.
Common magic tricks also can allow people to appear to have written something ahead of time that they actually learned later.
Marlborough has two convenience stores. Police said the men stopped at the other one and asked the woman at the register where the Indian-owned store is located. The clerk at that store said she was sorry to learn that the men scammed Patel.
Clerk Marty Stokes, who works for Patel, said the store has never lost this much money. She said her boss is now blaming himself.
"He's so sharp. He's very sharp," Stokes said. "The man is right on the ball all the time. He's got a business head you wouldn't believe."
Even though the men didn't use a weapon or make threats or demands, police said they still believe a crime was committed.
"I would say that they deceived him as a modern-day gypsy," LaMears said.
Police said one of the men was between 35 and 40 years old and weighed about 200 pounds. The other man was between 50 and 60 years old and also weighed about 200 pounds. The men were wearing turbans, and both spoke English and Hindi.
The men may be driving a white Acura with New York plates.
Investigators warned that the men could try their tricks with other store owners or clerks, especially those from India because they would share cultural similarities the men could take advantage of.
At least they didn’t try to curry favor with him.
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