Things in the news

snowy · Mar 26, 2014

This interactive shows the devastation of the mudslide in Washington State well. The good weather on Sunday and Monday solidified the mud and has made it hard to look for survivors. Thankfully, the Stillaguamish River seems to be cutting a new channel through the debris flow that blocked its course, so flash flooding downstream is less likely: Interactive: Before and after the 530 mudslide | Local News | The Seattle Times

What's really scary is that this is not the only unstable hillside around, and we're receiving a lot of rain at the moment. It's rather horrifying to think about it.

Taliesin · Mar 26, 2014

The Vatican's new No. 3 accused Holy See officials Monday of downplaying the clerical sex abuse scandal in the 1990s, saying they were generally skeptical of victims and often considered them "enemies of the church" out for political gain.
Cardinal George Pell made the comments while testifying before Australia's federal inquiry into allegations of child sex abuse in state and religious institutions. Next week he takes up his new job in Rome as prefect of the Vatican's Secretariat of the Economy, Pope Francis' new finance ministry.
Pell, the outgoing archbishop of Sydney, said the Australian church by 1995 was far ahead of the Vatican in recognizing the scale of the problem, though he acknowledged that even in 2007 "mistakes were made by me and others." He was referring to the notorious case of John Ellis, an altar boy abused by a priest in the 1970s who sued the church in 2007 but lost — following a vigorous defense by Pell's lawyers — when the court ruled Australia's church couldn't be sued as an entity
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Vatican No. 3 Finds Blame Within in Abuse Scandal - ABC News

Taliesin · Mar 31, 2014

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ruled Japan must immediately stop its whaling program in the Antarctic. The ICJ's 16-judge panel ruled 12 votes to four in favour of Australia's argument that Japan's whaling program was not in fact designed and carried out for scientific purposes.
The court ruled that Japan must revoke current whaling permits and refrain from issuing any more.Japan has used the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, which permits killing for research, to justify killing whales in the Antarctic.
But the court's judges agreed with Australia that the Japanese research - two peer-reviewed papers since 2005, based on results obtained from just nine killed whales - was not proportionate to the number of animals killed.
"In light of the fact the JARPA II [research program] has been going on since 2005, and has involved the killing of about 3,600 minke whales, the scientific output to date appears limited," presiding judge Peter Tomka of Slovakia said.
Japan shall revoke any existent authorisation, permit or licence granted in relation to JARPA II and refrain from granting any further permits in pursuance to the program."
Japan signed a 1986 moratorium on whaling, but has continued to hunt up to 850 minke whales in the icy waters of the Southern Ocean each year.
The ICJ's ruling is final and there will be no appeal.
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Japan ordered to immediately stop whaling in Antarctic as International Court of Justice rules program was not carried out for scientific purposes - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Taliesin · Apr 4, 2014

A network designed to detect nuclear test explosions has recorded more asteroid impacts over the past decade than expected, according to a group that's working on an asteroid-hunting telescope.
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Blast Sensors Detect More Asteroid Strikes Than Expected - NBC News

The sensor readings show that 26 explosions more powerful than a kiloton of TNT have been detected since 2001, "all of which are due to asteroid impacts," said former astronaut Ed Lu, the foundation's CEO.
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I liked this quote,

"It shows that asteroid impacts are not rare — but actually three to 10 times more common than we previously thought," Lu said inFriday's news advisory. "The fact that none of these asteroid impacts shown in the video was detected in advance is proof that the only thing preventing a catastrophe from a 'city-killer'-sized asteroid is blind luck."
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Taliesin · Apr 5, 2014

Greens Senator Scott Ludlam appears to have retained his seat in the re-run West Australian Senate election, with early results showing a big swing to the party.At 12.44pm (AEDT), when 70.88 per cent of polling places had counted first preferences, there was a 5.91 per cent swing against the Liberals and a 5.33 per cent swing against Labor, while the Greens had put on 6.69 per cent.At the same time, there was a 7.51 per cent swing towards the Palmer United Party (PUP)
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WA senate re-run election: Greens, PUP big winners | SBS News

Street Pattern · Apr 8, 2014

NEW STUDY: 72 Percent of Fox News Climate Segments Are Misleading

Taliesin · Apr 8, 2014

NASA Explains Martian Flash, and It's Not What You Think

leader of NASA's Mars Curiosity rover team has offered a couple of explanations for an anomalous bright spot that showed up on pictures from the Red Planet — but they're not the conventional explanations.Let's get this straight first: It's not an alien spotlight, according to Justin Maki, an imaging scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who is the lead for Curiosity's engineering cameras.
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"We think it's either a vent-hole light leak or a glinty rock."
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Even if the flash is the glint from a shiny rock, the crater's rim looks far enough away that Curiosity's course is unlikely to be changed to investigate. Unless, of course, it turns out to be a Martian flashing a mirror.
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NASA Explains Martian Flash, and It's Not What You Think - NBC News

Taliesin · Apr 8, 2014

Australian Game of Thrones fans need to “check their privilege” as the country once again takes the international crown for illegal downloads, says the Australian Copyright Council.
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Australia accounted for 11.6 per cent of the total torrent site downloads of the Game of Thrones' fourth season premiere, according to data gathered by TorrentFreak.The piracy tracking website also stated that Melbourne fans were the largest downloaders, accounting for 3.2 per cent of the total, followed by Athens and Sydney. Brisbane and Perth also made the top 10 city by city breakdown.Naomi Messenger from the Australian Copyright Council said most local downloads were driven by impatience
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Warning issued after Aussies top list of illegal downloaders of Game of Thrones | SBS News

Taliesin · Apr 9, 2014

Designer Alex Perry apologises for his use of extremely thin model at Fashion Week - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Designer Alex Perry apologises for his use of extremely thin model at Fashion Week

Designer Alex Perry has apologised for his decision to use an extremely thin model on the runway at his show at Sydney's Fashion Week.
Perry blamed a "serious lapse of judgment" for his use of 21-year-old Cassi Van Der Dungen, whose thin appearance caused one fashion magazine editor to speak out publicly.
"I looked at that footage and I recoiled from it and the images," Perry told breakfast television on Channel Nine.
"That's not the image that I think is a good one to put forward. It's certainly not what I've presented my brand about.
"The editor of Marie Claire magazine, Jackie Frank, says she was concerned for the model's health.
"I was just taken aback when I saw the visuals of what the girl looked like and it just kept ringing in my head what message it was sending," Ms Frank said.
"I didn't want the industry to be seen as condoning this kind of look and putting it up as a kind of poster for what the industry's about.
"Ms Frank says Perry’s public apology will help to shift body image attitudes in the fashion industry.
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Taliesin · Apr 9, 2014

Box jellyfish stings, which can be deadly, could be made worse by applying vinegar, Australian researchers have found.Pouring vinegar on the welts caused by the sting of the jellyfish has been the recommended first aid treatment for decades.But researchers from James Cook University and Cairns hospital in far north Queensland have found that vinegar promotes the discharge of box jellyfish venom."You can increase the venom load in your victim by 50 per cent," says Associate Professor Jamie Seymour from the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine at the university."That's a big amount, and that's enough to make the difference, we think, between someone surviving and somebody dying.
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Vinegar makes box jellyfish stings worse, Australian researchers say - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Taliesin · Apr 10, 2014

In a world first, executives from Australia's major sporting codes made a commitment on Wednesday to rid their sports of homophobia.
All four football codes as well as Cricket Australia presented a united front in Sydney, emphasising the need to end discrimination in sport.The agreement came ahead of the Bingham Cup, the world cup of gay rugby, with all codes agreeing to introduce policies in line with the new Anti-Homophobia and Inclusion Framework by the end of August.
It marks the first time in all the major professional sports in a country have collectively committed to tackling discrimination based on sexual orientation by way of inclusion policies.
"Put simply, we believe that every individual - whether they're players, supporters, coaches or administrators - should all feel safe, welcome and included, regardless of race, gender and sexuality," ARU chief executive Bill Pulver said
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Australia's major sporting codes commit to ending homophobia ahead of Bingham Cup - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Taliesin · Apr 10, 2014

This story has been all over Australian news for weeks now, I don't know if it's been making news elsewhere in the world? But I heard the latest evidence developments and had to share it.

A background story;
Peter Greste: Australian Al Jazeera journalist again denied bail after returning to court in Egypt - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

And a quote from a story about the latest evidence;

Holiday snaps of Australian Peter Greste’s parents and his award-winning BBC documentary on Somalia were just two of the many pieces of irrelevant material presented as evidence to an Egyptian court, as the trial of three Al-Jazeera journalists descended further into farce during its fifth day.
Other purported evidence against the journalists, who are charged with conspiring with the Muslim Brotherhood to broadcast news that falsely portrayed Egypt as being in a state of “civil war”, included footage of a press conference in Kenya and five Sky News Arabia stories filmed in Cairo.
Not a single video or photograph shown to the court was produced by Al-Jazeera English in Egypt, leaving Judge Mohamed Nagy Shehata bemused...
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Off-topic evidence brought in Australian journalist Peter Greste's case in Cairo | brisbanetimes.com.au

redux · Apr 13, 2014

The KFC Chicken Corsage

KFC released a new ad campaign this week, just in time for prom. The video features a young man showing up to go through the awkward pre-dance ritual with his date. You know, trading flowers and pat compliments. But then — then! — the fellow opens a box and reveals to his date the ultimate corsage: Baby's breath and a drumstick.

"I know how much you like Original Recipe," he says.

So smooth.

It's not just a commercial, either. Gutsy high schoolers can actually buy a chicken corsage with which to either impress or terrify their date.

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Taliesin · Apr 14, 2014

The first total lunar eclipse in more than two years will grace the skies Monday, and it's all the more rare because it will be visible above the entire Western Hemisphere.
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The best views will be from the entire North and South American continents and much of the Pacific Basin, including Hawaii. Eastern Australia should get to see the second half of the show on the night of April 15, as the moon rises during totality.Europe, Africa, and central Asia, meanwhile, will miss the entire eclipse because it will be daytime in those regions at the time of the event.
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Viewing Guide: Watch Moon Turn Red During Total Lunar Eclipse

Japchae · Apr 14, 2014

*sigh* rain.

Chris Noyb · Apr 14, 2014

japchae said: ↑

*sigh* rain.
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Rain, and the cool front that arrived with it, probably the last one we'll have until November. We had one hell of a windstorm earlier this afternoon.

Taliesin · Apr 17, 2014

'Earth's Cousin': Scientists Find Alien Planet That's Most Like Home - NBC News

Scientists say a world that's 490 light-years away qualifies as the first confirmed Earth-sized exoplanet that could sustain life as we know it — but in an environment like nothing we've ever seen.
The planet, known as Kepler-186f, is "more of an Earth cousin than an Earth twin," Elisa Quintana, an astronomer at the SETI Institute at NASA Ames Research Center, told the journal Science. Quintana is the lead author of a report on the planet published by Science this week.
This discovery does confirm that Earth-sized planets do exist in the habitable zones of other stars," Quintana said during a Thursday news briefing at NASA Headquarters.
Kepler-186f goes around an M-type dwarf star that's smaller and cooler than our sun. But it orbits much closer to its parent star than Earth does, within what would be Mercury's orbit in our own solar system. Those two factors combine to produce an environment that could allow for liquid water on the surface, assuming that the planet had a heat-trapping atmosphere.
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OtherSyde · Apr 18, 2014

Taliesin said: ↑

'Earth's Cousin': Scientists Find Alien Planet That's Most Like Home - NBC News: Scientists say a world that's 490 light-years away qualifies as the first confirmed Earth-sized exoplanet that could sustain life as we know it — but in an environment like nothing we've ever seen.
The planet, known as Kepler-186f, is "more of an Earth cousin than an Earth twin," Elisa Quintana, an astronomer at the SETI Institute at NASA Ames Research Center, told the journal Science. Quintana is the lead author of a report on the planet published by Science this week.
This discovery does confirm that Earth-sized planets do exist in the habitable zones of other stars," Quintana said during a Thursday news briefing at NASA Headquarters.
Kepler-186f goes around an M-type dwarf star that's smaller and cooler than our sun. But it orbits much closer to its parent star than Earth does, within what would be Mercury's orbit in our own solar system. Those two factors combine to produce an environment that could allow for liquid water on the surface, assuming that the planet had a heat-trapping atmosphere.
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OMG I saw this in the news today! And immediately developed a huge throbbing erection, cause this is some amazing sciency stuff! Great post!
.

Taliesin · Apr 22, 2014

Glad you liked it
And keeping with the sciency theme, these attracted my attention over the weekend...

Milky Way origins probed as Australian Astronomical Observatory unveils high-tech HERMES tool - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Australian astronomers are hoping a new high-tech tool will help reveal the origins of the Milky Way.They have built a one-of-a-kind, $13 million High Efficiency and Resolution Multi-Element Spectrograph known as HERMES.It took Australian scientists five years to build and will enable them to map the age and movements of stars.The robotics inside are state of the art and the Australian Astronomical Observatory's Dr Sarah Martell said it could capture images of up to 400 stars at once."Our goal in our survey is to look at a million stars and to do that one at a time would be wildly inappropriate," Dr Martell said.
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Church of Facebook? Cyberspace Inspires New Visions of Heaven - NBC News

Miller says she's also intrigued in heavenly visions that are inspired by cyberspace rather than Scripture."There are people who believe in a fourth dimension, where heaven is just on the other side of some wall," Miller told NBC News. "An idea that I'm actually more interested in is that of the Internet as a place like heaven. People gather in worlds that suit them, that are like them, where they meet each other based on similar interests. There's a kind of infiniteness to the Internet that's similar to ideas of heaven, and a kind of democracy. The parallels have definitely been drawn there, and I think they're interesting."
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Depp Impact: The Science Behind 'Transcendence' - NBC News

Two researchers who consulted on “Transcendence,” both professors of electrical engineering and neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley, are not sure that is an attainable goal, but that does not mean it’s not worth pursuing.

To upload the mind, you would have to build technology that would let you interface with the brain,” added his colleague, Michel Maharbiz. “The race to do try and do that could motivate a lot of technology along the way, and that could potentially help a lot of people.
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Chris Noyb · Apr 22, 2014

It's too bad they can't or won't completely remove this mayor from office. Texas might have redneck reputation, but at least Houston voters don't have a problem with a lesbian mayor.

Mayor Who Fired Lesbian Police Chief Caught On Tape In Homophobic Tirade

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