health: Lincoln Tribune

الجمعة، 16 ديسمبر 2011

Lincoln Tribune

Six bombs found and defused in eastern Bangkok
Helicopter crash in eastern Venezuela kills 1
Helicopter crash in eastern Venezuela kills 1
Fermilab Scientists Optimistic About Finding Higgs Boson Particle
Stranded fishermen in Antarctica days away from rescue

Six bombs found and defused in eastern Bangkok

Posted: 15 Dec 2011 09:05 PM PST

BANGKOK (BNO NEWS) -- Thai police found and defused six home-made explosive devices at three separate locations in the capital of Bangkok on early Friday morning, officials said. One suspect has been arrested.

The six bombs were found at around 4 a.m. local time in eastern Bangkok. One explosive device was placed in front of a Bangkok Bank branch, two were found at a road intersection and three more were found under a bridge near a market.

Police said the bombs were found after officers arrested a man about an hour earlier on suspicion of planting a bomb at a traffic island in front of the Government Lottery Office (GLO) on December 6. The suspect then told police he had set bombs in three different locations.

According to the MCOT news agency, the suspect is a resident from Rayong province and was working with several others. He reportedly told police that the group had planned to place explosive devices in eight locations in Bangkok but only managed to do so at three locations.

Bomb disposal experts disabled the devices which were found on Friday. The device found on December 6 was said to be incomplete and would not have been able to explode. Police said it had been placed to cause panic.

The Thai government recently called for heightened vigilance amid the upcoming New Year's celebrations. On New Year's Eve in 2006, a series of explosions hit nine locations in Bangkok, killing three people and injuring nearly 40 others.

Helicopter crash in eastern Venezuela kills 1

Posted: 15 Dec 2011 08:08 PM PST

CARACAS, VENEZUELA (BNO NEWS) -- One person was killed on Thursday when a transport helicopter crashed in eastern Venezuela, officials said. The pilot survived the accident with minor injuries.

The Eurocopter BO-105 aircraft crashed at a parking lot belonging to the residential building 'Las Blanquillas', which is located in the Rosabella housing complex in the western area of Guayana City in Bolivar state. It was carrying out test flights near the city's Manuel Carlos Piar International Airport.

Bolivar State Civil Protection and Disaster Management chief Jose Garcia confirmed aeronautical technician Edsel Arturo Pacheco was killed in the crash. Pilot Pedro Malave, the only other person on board the aircraft, was taken to Ceciamb Clinic with only minor injuries.

Rescue crews arrived quickly at the scene following the accident and put out a fire which had broken out and destroyed three vehicles which were parked at the parking lot. There were no injuries on the ground.

Bolivar State Civil Security Secretary Julio Cesar Fuentes Manzulli said the helicopter was being tested after being repaired. For unknown reasons, which are still being investigated, the aircraft suddenly lost power and, while Malave tried to land on a street, he lost control of the aircraft and crashed at the parking lot.

The aircraft belongs to private transport company Puente Aereo de Venezuela.

Helicopter crash in eastern Venezuela kills 1

Posted: 15 Dec 2011 08:08 PM PST

CARACAS, VENEZUELA (BNO NEWS) -- One person was killed on Thursday when a transport helicopter crashed in eastern Venezuela, officials said. The pilot survived the accident with minor injuries.

The aircraft belongs to private transport company Puente Aereo de Venezuela.

Fermilab Scientists Optimistic About Finding Higgs Boson Particle

Posted: 15 Dec 2011 06:42 PM PST

Scientists at the CERN laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland say they are encouraged by new data suggesting their Large Hadron Collider, the world's most powerful atom-smasher, is one step closer to finding an elusive sub-atomic particle known as the Higgs boson. The so-called "God particle" was the object of a three-decades-long search by particle physicists at Fermilab's now-idled Tevatron Accelerator in suburban Chicago. They greeted the news from Geneva with guarded optimism.

CERN's Large Hadron Collider is just a few years old, but data streaming in after it smashes subatomic particles together at near-light speed has scientists around the world excited.

University of Florida professor Jacobo Konigsberg has contributed to CERN's hunt for the "Higgs boson." If they find it, he says, it would solve one of the most enduring mysteries of physics. "The mystery of mass in the universe is one of the most fundamental questions we have," he said.

Konigsberg is on a quest to answer that fundamental question, halfway around the world from the machine that is likely to find it.

He is pouring through the results of the LHC's latest findings at the Energy Department's Fermi National Laboratory in suburban Chicago.

In a control room directly linked to CERN, Konigsberg watches test results and information. He says the recent announcement by his colleagues in Geneva pinpoints a specific location where the Higgs is likely to exist, if it exists at all. "The number of events we expect in the data in this region is higher than if the Higgs [boson] wasn't there. So people are very excited about the possibility that this could be the beginning of unearthing, if you will, the Higgs [boson]," he said.

But at Fermilab, scientist Robert Roser greets the news with skepticism. "These are both kind of like one in 50, one in 100 probability that the background could fluctuate up to be a signal. So not very compelling at all yet," he said.

Roser visited the CERN laboratories in the days leading up to the announcement of progress in the search for the Higgs. He says there is also caution in Europe about what the latest results mean. "And there was no popping of champagne corks… it was pretty much business as usual going on in there. People were talking about their individual analyses and what's going on… they weren't giving each other high fives saying we got this thing settled. So I think in Europe there is an air of caution," he said.

"You cannot yet rule out that this small axis of events is from other processes that are mimicking the Higgs. So unfortunately at the moment the situation is ambiguous," said Konigsberg.

But the development demonstrates the LHC's power. It has eclipsed Fermilab's Tevatron Accelerator, which went offline in September. "The LHC was meant to surpass the Tevatron. It was meant to eventually find the Higgs, and the Tevatron established a lot of the techniques that are today used by the LHC," said Konigsberg.

There is still a chance the Tevatron could yield the results scientists are looking for.

Though it's turned off, Roser and his team are still sifting through data and expect to release their findings in March.

If it exists at all, Roser expects the Tevatron or the LHC to find the Higgs boson soon. "If it's there, we will find it in 2012. If it's not there, we'll say that too in 2012," he said.

Roser says if they do find the Higgs boson, scientists could spend the next several decades trying to understand it.

Stranded fishermen in Antarctica days away from rescue

Posted: 15 Dec 2011 04:32 PM PST

ANTARCTICA (BNO NEWS) -- The crew of a stricken Russian fishing vessel which is stranded in Antarctica and is taking on water is at least four to five days away from being rescued, rescue officials said on Friday. The ship is carrying crew members from Russia, Indonesia and Ukraine.

The 55-meters (180-foot) vessel, Sparta, issued a distress call at around 3 a.m. New Zealand time on Friday while next to the Antarctic ice shelf in the Ross Sea, about 2,000 nautical miles (3,704 kilometers) south of New Zealand. The crew is made up of 15 Russians, 16 Indonesians and 1 Ukrainian.

Ramon Davis, the search and rescue mission coordinator at the Rescue Coordination Center New Zealand (RCCNZ), said the vessel is taking on water and is at a 13 degree angle. He said the crew is pumping water out of the holds and discharging cargo onto the ice to lighten the ship.

Some of the crew have been offloaded onto the ice as a precautionary measure, the RCCNZ said, but all crew members are believed to be safe. Davis said RCCNZ has contacted a number of vessels operating in the Southern Ocean, but heavy sea ice is making vessel movement difficult.

Sparta's sister ship, the Chiyo Maru no. 3, is making its way towards the stricken vessel to rescue the crew. But the Chiyo Maru no. 3 is about 290 nautical miles (537 kilometers) away and has no ice classification, meaning no capacity to cut or break through sea ice.

The New Zealand vessel San Aspiring, which has some capacity to move through ice, is also making its way towards Sparta. But San Aspiring was about 470 nautical miles (870 kilometers) away from Sparta on Friday and will need at least four to five days to reach the area.

The RCCNZ said a third vessel is only 19 nautical miles (35 kilometers) away from Sparta, but it is hemmed in by heavy ice and unable to proceed towards the stricken vessel. A Hercules aircraft from McMurdo Station is expected to fly over the ship on Friday afternoon to assess the ice conditions but will be unable to rescue any of the crew.

There are also no helicopters nearby which could undertake a rescue in the area and Davis said the best option to assist Sparta is to identify a nearby vessel which can come to its aid. "We have contacted a number of vessels," he said, adding that the RCCNZ is continuing to contact vessels in the Southern Ocean to see if there are any others with ice capability.

"We are working to find a way to speed the rescue up, but it is possible the crew will have a fairly long wait for rescue," Davis said. "We have confirmed the crew has immersion suits on board and other resources which will assist them to survive if they have to abandon the ship."

According to RCCNZ, the weather in the area was calm on Friday with temperatures of about 3 degrees Celsius (37.4 degrees Fahrenheit).

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الجمعة، 16 ديسمبر 2011

Lincoln Tribune

Lincoln Tribune

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