April, the month of violence ..?



 After Monday's bombing at the Boston Marathon, many people casting around for an explanation have focused on the date: April 15, a holiday in Massachusetts and the middle of a month with a history of violence.

It's not yet known whether the perpetrator or perpetrators of the bombing, which killed three, chose April 15 for its associations with tax day or with Massachusetts' Patriots' Day, a commemoration of the first battles of the Revolutionary War. The month could simply be a coincidence, given that the Boston Marathon, always held on the third Monday of April, was a convenient target.

Nevertheless, some have speculated about the symbolism. On NBC, reporter Tom Llamas told Matt Lauer that "over the last 20 years in this country several terrorist attacks and school shootings have taken place around this time of the year." He cited the Virginia Tech shooting, which took place April 16, 2007; the Columbine school shooting, which occurred April 20, 1999, and the Oklahoma City bombing, which took place on April 19, 1995. [History of Human Aggression: 10 Ways Combat Has Evolved]

April violence?

It's true that some dates in April have special significance to right-wing extremist fringes — and these dates can feed on one another. Timothy McVeigh chose to carry out the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19 because it was the anniversary of the end of the 1993 Waco siege. That siege occurred when Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms officials attempted to execute a search warrant on a compound of Branch Davidians in Texas. The siege lasted 50 days and ended with a deadly fire that killed 76 on April 19.

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the Columbine shooters, left journals behind indicating they were inspired by McVeigh (bombs the pair set to go off in the school's cafeteria and kitchen failed to explode). The pair may have initially planned to carry out the massacre on April 19, only to be delayed a day. There is also speculation that Harris and Klebold chose April 20 deliberately, because it is Adolf Hitler's birthday.

There is no evidence that Seung-Hui Cho, the perpetrator of the Virginia Tech mass shooting, planned the date symbolically. In his suicide manifesto, Cho did mention "martyrs like Eric and Dylan," indicating that he felt a link to the Columbine killers.

Not-so-special month

While April does have a history, it's hardly a statistical outlier. The National Counterterrorim Center, which tracks both international and domestic terrorism, reveals a worldwide history of attacks on almost every day of the year.

 


In the United States, terrorist attacks or attempted attacks occur year-round as well. Eric Robert Rudolph bombed Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta in July 1996. An Austin man angry over federal taxes flew a small airplane into the IRS building in Austin, Texas, in February 2010, killing himself and one other person. "Shoe bomber" Richard Reid attempted to bring down an American Airlines flight in December 2001. "Underwear bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab made his attempt to bring down an airplane on Christmas day in 2009. And the worst terrorist attacks on U.S. soil took place, of course, on September 11.

Mass shootings, which are not typically classified as terrorism, are similarly scattered. Columbine and Virginia Tech may have happened in April, but the shooting in Tucson, Ariz., that wounded then-congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords occurred in January. The Newtown school shooting in Connecticut was a mid-December disaster.

A list of mass shootings since 1980 compiled by Mother Jones magazine reveals that six occurred in April, comparable to other months: eight in December, five in November, four in July, and six in March, to name a few examples.

 

Do earthquakes threaten Iran's nuclear facilities?



A magnitude 7.8 earthquake has rocked Iran, a week after another major quake struck the country.

How bad was today's earthquake?

According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), the quake struck at 15:14 local time in Sistan and Baluchestan Province in the south-east of the country. A magnitude of 7.8 marks it as a major quake. Tremors were felt as far away as India.

"The earthquake was probably a result of normal faulting within the Arabian plate as it is subducted under the Eurasian plate along the Makran coast of Iran and Pakistan," says Brian Baptie of the British Geological Survey.

So far it is unclear how many people have been killed; the BBC suggests at least 40. The USGS says the focus of the quake was 82 kilometres below the surface. Such deep quakes are less damaging than shallower ones.

 

Sistan and Baluchestan Province is a particularly poor and desolate part of Iran. It is sparsely populated, with many people living in vulnerable mud-brick houses. Many of these buildings have apparently collapsed. The remoteness of the area means it could take days or weeks to find out how many have died.

Is this linked to last week's earthquake?

Today's quake comes a week after a magnitude 6.3 quake that struck Bushehr Province in the south-west of Iran on 9 April. Although it was a smaller quake, at least 37 people were killed.

The two quakes were 1000 kilometres apart, says seismologist Jana Pursley of the USGS. "I wouldn't call them related right now," she says. Iran is a tectonically active country, and earthquakes are common.

Is there a danger to Iran's nuclear facilities?

As far as we know, today's quake was far from Iran's nuclear facilities. Many of these are in the centre of country, particularly near the capital Tehran, or in the west.

Last week's south-western quake occurred close to Iran's only nuclear power station, in Bushehr. Iranian officials said that the plant was undamaged and no radioactive material escaped.

Nuclear power stations generally cope quite well with earthquakes, says Michael Bluck of Imperial College London. They are built on thick slabs of concrete that cushion them, and backup generators are used to keep the reactors cool in the event of an accident.

Iran does have other nuclear facilities but little is known about them.

Didn't the Fukushima disaster show that earthquakes are a risk to nuclear power stations?

Fukushima rode out the earthquake safely but the Japanese disaster was a reminder that nuclear power stations are vulnerable to tsunamis.

When the Tohoku earthquake struck Japan in 2011, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors automatically shut down. The real problems started when a massive tsunami swept over the sea wall. This knocked out the backup generators, leaving the reactors without their cooling systems. The reactors then overheated, there were explosions, and radioactive material escaped.

Boston Marathon Explosions Leave 12 Dead






Twin blasts kill 12 and injure over 140 as Barack Obama declares those responsible "will feel the full weight of justice".

At least three people have been killed and more than 140 others hurt after two bombs exploded during the Boston Marathon.

The blasts ripped through the crowd near the finish line of what is the world's oldest marathon.

They took place almost simultaneously about 100m apart, knocking spectators and at least one runner off their feet.

As the second bomb erupted, spectators' cheers turned to screams and a pool of blood formed on the ground.

US Marathon 4 An injured runner is helped away from the blast site

Windows were shattered and dense plumes of smoke rose over the street, as national flags lining the course fluttered.

More than 25,000 people were registered as taking part in the race, 374 of whom were British. There were also 108 Irish athletes.

The Associated Press reported that an eight-year-old boy was among the dead. Of the 144 reported injured, 17 are critical.

Barack Obama vowed to find and punish those responsible, as a senior White House official said the attacks were being treated as an act of terrorism.

Mr Obama pointedly avoided using the words "terror" or "terrorism", saying officials "still do not know who did this or why".

But he vowed: "We will find out who did this. We'll find out why they did this. Any responsible individuals, any responsible groups, will feel the full weight of justice."
US Marathon 8 The blasts struck close to the finish line in central Boston

The explosions happened about two hours after the men's winner had crossed the line, as amateur runners were reaching the finish.

More than 17,000 competitors had completed the race by the time the blasts struck but thousands of others were still taking part.

TV helicopter footage showed blood on the pavement in the popular shopping and tourist area known as the Back Bay.

Runners in the medical tent being treated for dehydration or other race-related problems were pushed out to make room for bombing victims.

A woman near the second bomb, Brighid Wall, 35, said runners and spectators had frozen, unsure of what to do.

Her husband threw their children to the ground, lay on top of them and another man lay on top of them and said, "Don't get up, don't get up."
Bomb disposal experts at scene of blast at Boston Marathon Windows in buildings nearby shattered into the streets

She said she saw six to eight people bleeding profusely, including one man who was kneeling, dazed, with blood coming down his head. Another person was on the ground covered in blood and not moving.

"My ears are zinging. Their ears are zinging. It was so forceful. It knocked us to the ground," she said.

Runner Tim Davey, from Virginia, was with wife Lisa and their children in a medical tent set up for exhausted runners. "They just started bringing people in with no limbs," he said.

Roupen Bastajian, 35, a state police officer from Rhode Island, had just finished the race and been handed a heat blanket when he heard the blasts.

"I started running toward the blast. And there were people all over the floor," he said. "We started grabbing tourniquets and started tying legs.

"A lot of people amputated. ... At least 25 to 30 people have at least one leg missing, or an ankle missing, or two legs missing."
Boston Marathon Blasts A bomb squad officer inspects a bag along the route

There were reports of a third blast at the JFK library a few miles away but that was later confirmed as a fire that was believed to be unrelated to the blasts.

A senior US intelligence official said another two unexploded bombs were found near the end of the 26.2mile (42km) course but had been safely disarmed.

No-one has yet been arrested, although officers reportedly searched an apartment in the Boston suburb of Revere on Monday night.

Massachusetts State Police confirmed a search warrant related to the investigation had been granted for the suburb but gave no further details.

A no-fly zone was also put in place over the city as security was tightened and flights bound for Boston's Logan International Airport were briefly held up at other airports.
Boston Marathon Blasts A map showing the crimescene perimeter set up by police

At the White House, the Secret Service expanded its security perimeter - although it was not put on complete lockdown.

The Boston marathon is held on Patriots Day, a Massachusetts state holiday which commemorates the first battles of the American Revolution in 1775.

It attracts more than 500,000 spectators and ends in the heart of central Boston.

People were asked to stay indoors or return to their hotels as bomb squads methodically checked parcels and bags left along the route.

Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis said the authorities had received "no specific intelligence that anything was going to happen".

At Massachusetts General Hospital, Alisdair Conn, chief of emergency services, said: "This is something I've never seen in my 25 years here ... this amount of carnage in the civilian population. This is what we expect from war."

Korean conflict could nuke your next Phone





Chances are that the smartphone tucked away in your purse, the TV in your living room and the laptop sitting on your desk wouldn’t exist without components from South Korea. Mega manufacturers such as Samsung and LG are located in Seoul near the border of North and South Korea, a border that’s primed to explode if recent tensions between the two nations boil over.

If North Korea’s heated rhetoric and missile tests evolve into a full-fledged war, there could be major disruptions in the supply chain for products such as LCD televisions, smartphones and tablets, analysts have said.

“Anything that disrupts the work flow of supply is going to be an issue,” said Thomas J. Dinges, Senior Principal Analyst, Outsourced Manufacturing for IHS.

Supplying the World

According to Dinges, more than half of the world’s supply of DRAM and a substantial amount of its flash memory and display panels are manufactured in Korea.

“Let’s ballpark it somewhere between 40 and 50 percent of the world’s supply of these three major components are coming out of Korea,” he said.

During the fourth quarter of 2012 alone, Korea accounted for a monstrous 78.5 percent of the global DRAM market share, with Japan coming in at a distant second with 19 percent, market research firm TrendForce reports. Most desktop computers and laptops use DRAM to store data because its less expensive than RAM alternatives such as SRAM.

Samsung is at the forefront of the semiconductor industry in Korea, with tech industry big shots such as Apple, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments among its clientele. Theoretically, if warfare in Korea blocked major suppliers like Samsung from exporting product, we could see effects on product availability in the United States in about three months.

“There’s so much that’s already in the pipelines whether it’s in inventory or in transit,” said Gene Tyndall, executive vice president of global supply chain solutions for Tompkins International. “There’s probably about two to three months of safety, but after that [companies] would have to find alternate sources of production.”

Supply chain delays would hit the TV industry specifically hard since Korea plays a major role in LCD screen manufacturing.

“From a display panel supply standpoint, it probably wouldn’t be as disruptive for tablets and handhelds as it possibly could be for television,” Dinges said. “A higher percentage of those [panels] are built in Korea than panels made for smartphones and tablets.”

Samsung’s Vulnerability

Samsung could experience more severe availability issues with its products than other competing brands. Companies such as Apple and HP keep about four to six weeks of inventory handy to prepare for any supply chain disruption, Dinges said, but Samsung operates differently.

“They’ll keep what they consider to be emergency stock, but they don’t like to keep stock that may not be able to be sold,” Tyndall said. “They’re very tight on that.”

Although Samsung does have smaller factories in other regions of the world, it largely relies on Korea to manufacture its own products and components for its clients.

“Samsung doesn’t have a lot of flexibility around the world because they don’t have that many plants outside of Korea,” Tyndall said. “They do have some in Mexico and a few in Europe, but that’s not enough. Because they are primarily a produce-at-home company, [a production slowdown] would indeed impact others in about two to three months, again if the conflict drags a bit.”
 
Potentially Seismic Impact

A supply chain disruption in South Korea could also ignite a surge in component demand from Samsung’s customers, according to Dinges.

“The natural reaction is that things start to look like they’re going to get worse,” he said. “The natural reaction is that [companies] dependent on these types of products are all of a sudden going to say ‘Look, I don’t know what the supply disruption is going to be, just open the checkbook up and buy whatever we can.”

However, the biggest potential obstacle for Samsung customers would be seeking out new suppliers, Tyndall said. Similarly, when Japan was struck by an 8.9 magnitude earthquake in 2011, panel makers were forced to scout out new material suppliers to keep their product lines going. Sony, Toshiba and Texas Instruments halted production at their plants for months following the disaster.

“First of all, the customers of Samsung would have to find alternate suppliers, and that’s not easy,” Tyndall said. “It will take time to even find alternate sources. It doesn’t happen overnight. The risk plans are there and they’re probably being discussed right now, but depending on the length and severity we can see availability problems.”
Wait and See Mode

Unless warfare escalates into more than disturbing threats and mounting tensions, the supply chain isn’t likely to suffer, according to Tyndall.

“I think these days we’re pretty much okay, but again if the conflict goes on for months we could see all sorts of problems,” he said.  “I think we’d have to watch it very carefully and see what can be done.”

Lady Thatcher: 'the prime minister who changed the world' - video obituary

 

Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee, Cabinet Office minister Oliver Letwin and the late Labour pollster Philip Gould look back at the life and legacy of Margaret Thatcher. On becoming Britain's first female prime minister in 1979, she promised harmony – but became one of the most divisive figures in postwar politics.

Nervy flyers be warned: warming will boost turbulence

Brace yourself: global warming is going to be a bumpy ride – literally. The amount of moderate to extreme turbulence affecting transatlantic flights could more than double by the middle of the century as carbon dioxide levels increase.

Turbulence can develop where clouds and storms create updraughts and downdraughts. More problematic for planes, though, is clear-air turbulence. This occurs where air at one altitude is travelling faster than the air immediately below, leading to atmospheric instabilities.

"Clear-air turbulence is invisible to the human eye and also to the electronics on planes, which makes it difficult to avoid," says Paul Williams at the University of Reading, UK. Current estimates suggest that, on average, around 1 per cent of a transatlantic flight is spent flying through moderate to extreme clear-air turbulence.

Williams and Manoj Joshi at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, used climate models to work out whether that 1 per cent figure is likely to rise as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels increase. The models show that the high-altitude atmospheric jet streams will accelerate as CO2 levels climb. This speeding up, relative to the air immediately below, will lead to more clear-air turbulence at exactly the cruising altitude of transatlantic flights.

Jet stream migration

What's more, the models also suggest that the jet streams will migrate slightly northwards. This will shift the patch of the most severe clear-air turbulence from the central Atlantic to the north Atlantic – right into the path of many flights.

Williams and Joshi calculated that if CO2 levels double relative to pre-industrial levels – an event projected to occur by the middle of the century if current emission trends continue – the twin effects on the jet stream could lead to the strength of flight turbulence increasing by between 10 and 40 per cent, and an increase in the frequency of moderate to extreme turbulence of between 40 and 170 per cent.

With perhaps five minutes of a typical 8-hour flight today subject to such turbulence, a 170 per cent increase – to around 13 1/2 minutes – might seem trivial to anyone but those with an extreme fear of flying. "You could argue a few more drinks will get knocked over. So what?" says Williams. But he says that the extra turbulence could cost the aviation industry dear, by accelerating aircraft wear and tear, for instance.

Robert Sharman at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, researches flight turbulence. He says it is difficult to predict it even on a daily basis, and there is no single forecasting technique that researchers can agree to use. Williams and Joshi tackled this problem, he says, by using several of the most popular turbulence forecasting techniques – and almost all suggested clear-air turbulence would rise.

Michael Sprenger at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich says future technologies should make it easier to identify and avoid clear-air turbulence, so any rise in the level of turbulence might have little impact on flights. However, if planes begin taking more convoluted routes to avoid turbulence, flight times and fuel consumption will rise, say Williams and Joshi, which may only aggravate the problem by adding yet more CO2 to the atmosphere.

City from 500 BC discovered in India

 

 

New Delhi: Explorers claim they have evidence of a 2,500-year-old planned city—complete with water reservoirs, roads, seals and coins—buried in Chhattisgarh, a discovery that is being billed as the nation’s biggest archaeological find in at least half a century.

The discoveries were made from Tarighat in Durg district and spanned five acres of a sparsely inhabited region beside a river, according to archaeologists from the state’s department of culture and archaeology.
“As of now, we have four 15ft high mounds around which we have evidence of pottery, coins and some terracotta figures,” said J.R. Bhagat, deputy director in the department. “Once we begin, the entire digging could take at least 5-10 years.”

The 5th and 3rd century BC—to which the Tarighat finds date—points to a period when the region was ruled by the Kushan and Satavahana dynasties in central India. While there have been extensive, previous evidence of urban growth after the first century, such finds are extremely rare for preceding periods.
“These were among the most interesting times in early India,” said Abhijit Dandekar, an archaeologist at the Deccan College, Pune. “It was the end of the period of the 16 mahajanapadas (loosely translated to great kingdoms) when the Mahabharata was supposedly set, and the beginning of the Maurya empire. There’s very little known about urban structures in this period, in regions spanning modern-day Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.”

Dandekar, who is not involved in these finds, added that evidence of towns and urbanization spanning five acres was quite significant in an Indian context, though only excavations and peer review would throw true light on the import of these findings.


He added that the excavations at Ahichhatra, near Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh, that began in 1960s were the most recent evidence of large-scale town planning in India for a comparable period and, if the Chattisgarh findings were as extensive, then it would be a significant find.

“In an Indian context, an excavation has rarely been disappointing,” said Dandekar. “If you believed there’s a city, it usually turns out to be one and bigger than what you first expected.”
To be sure, Bhagat clarified that the finds still haven’t been dated using methods such as radiocarbon or thermoluminescence dating—modern, established techniques that measure the amount of carbon or the relative proportions of other elements from which exact ages of materials are deduced—but he added that the texture of the pots, the typical pattern of raised mounds etc all pointed to evidence of an urban agglomeration.

“The kind of pottery called the Red and Black Northern Pottery, the coins, etc., at the surface of the site itself show very visible signs of complex urbanization.”

Arun Raj, a Chhattisgarh-based archaeologist with the Archaeological Survey of India, characterized Chhattisgarh as being an untapped “gold mine” for archaeology.

“We’ve just given them permission for this dig, and I think it will be some time before we understand how important this is,” Raj said. “But this region, which has been relatively unexplored due to Naxalite conflict, could throw up several such finds.”

He added that one strand of Indian archaeological research sought to find common threads urban lifestyle patterns of the Indus Valley civilization that declined around 1300 BC, to urban formations in central India. “This may possibly falsify or add more credibility to such theories,” he said.

 Italy pushes on with controversial stem cell therapy

   

Italian health officials are allowing a handful of patients to continue with a controversial stem cell therapy amid protests from scientists that the treatments are unproven and unsafe.

The Stamina Foundation has been administering the therapy at the public hospital Spedali Civili of Brescia to people with a range of degenerative diseases. Their approach is based on mesenchymal stem cells, derived from bone marrow, which can become mature bone and connective tissue.

In 2011 the hospital agreed to host the research and assist with cell extraction and patient treatments, stirring protests from the medical community. "The hospital is not even listed among the 13 Italian authorised stem cell factories," says Michele de Luca, director and gene therapy programme coordinator at the Centre for Regenerative Medicine in Modena. After an inspection in 2012, Italian drug regulator AIFA ordered an immediate halt to Stamina's stem cell treatments at the hospital.

The AIFA report says the Stamina Foundation's treatment did not follow Italy's official path required for clinical approval. So far no scientific publications describing its effectiveness are available.

But the halt sparked protests among patients' families who believed the treatment was working. Some appealed to the courts, and as a result a few patients were allowed to go ahead with the therapy. On 15 March, a group of 13 Italian stem cell researchers published an open letter to the country's Minister of Health, Renato Balduzzi, asking him to shut down all of the Stamina Foundation's treatments at the hospital.

Instead Balduzzi signed a bill last week authorising the foundation to continue treatments in patients who had already begun the regime unless they are experiencing serious side effects.

 Red meat boosts gut bugs that raise heart disease risk


 


Red meat gives a boost to gut bugs that are bad news for your arteries. The discovery may explain why eating lots of meat increases the risk of heart disease.

Stanley Hazen at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute in Ohio and colleagues fed mice a diet high in carnitine, a nutrient found in large amounts in red meat and also added to energy drinks. The team found that this increased the incidence of atherosclerosis, a thickening of the artery walls.

However, when the researchers fed the same diet to mice with suppressed gut flora, they saw no increase in atherosclerosis.

A similar effect appears to exist in humans. The team studied a group of people undergoing cardiac evaluation, and found that those who had higher levels of carnitine in their blood also had a higher incidence of previous cardiac problems.

Bacteria boost

Some bacteria in the intestine use carnitine as an energy source, breaking it down and producing a waste product called trimethylamine (TMA). The liver converts this into another substance, trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO), which is excreted in urine.

In mice, high levels of dietary carnitine shifted the types of bacteria present in the gut and increased the volume of TMAO produced tenfold. "Imagine a Petri dish full of bacteria," says Hazen. "If you start feeding them carnitine, the ones that like carnitine more will reproduce and those that don't will decrease."

TMAO levels matter because the substance increases the uptake of "bad" cholesterol and prevents its destruction by macrophages – white blood cells – in artery walls. This causes a build-up of plaque that can lead to atherosclerosis.

In further tests, Hazen's team found that meat-eaters produced higher levels of TMAO than vegans or vegetarians after they were fed carnitine, suggesting that they had more TMA-producing bacteria in their gut. "I'm not telling people to cut out red meat," Hazens says. "But cut down the frequency and portion sizes."

Too much of a good thing

Carnitine has its good side: it transports fuel into mitochondria, a cell's powerhouses. "A bit like stoking a fire, carnitine shovels fatty acid into the mitochondrial furnace," says Hazen.

As our body makes all of the carnitine it needs, any additional intake – for example, in energy drinks or commercially available carnitine supplements – has no significant benefit. Evidence that increasing carnitine intake gives you more energy is weak, Hazen says. He adds that the new work suggests that taking carnitine supplements could in fact alter your metabolism to increase risk of cardiovascular disease.

"This is impressive work that may help to explain the association seen in epidemiological studies between red meat consumption and coronary heart disease," says David Leake at the University of Reading, UK, who studies atherosclerosis. "However it will require a lot more work to prove how important the role of TMAO is in cardiovascular disease in humans."

Hazen hopes to have a diagnostic test for TMAO ready by the end of the year so that doctors could monitor TMAO just like keeping tabs on high cholesterol. This will be useful if TMAO levels in the blood are indeed a precursor for the onset of atherosclerosis.