Iran launches monkey into space



Lisa Grossman, physical sciences reporter

Last summer, the Iranian Space Agency announced their plan to send a monkey into space - and now they've apparently done it.

According to Iranian state-run television, a press release on the space agency's website, and photos of the event, Iran sent a live rhesus monkey into sub-orbital space aboard a small rocket called Pishgam, or Pioneer. There's even a video posted on YouTube that appears to be of the launch (though New Scientist could not confirm its authenticity).

The report has not been confirmed independently, however, and the US air force's North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has not reported seeing any missile launches from Iran.

But independent observers say the launch looks legitimate.

"Really, I see no reason not to take their word for it," says Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who also keeps a log of space launches. He says he's convinced by the photos and discussions he's had with several knowledgeable source in online forums.

In photos released on the Iranian Space Agency's website, the rocket looks like the same kind the agency has launched before, but with a larger nose cone designed to fit a small chamber that can support life. Images also showed a live rhesus monkey strapped to a small seat.

The reports say the rocket went straight up 120 kilometres, which McDowell says qualifies as outer space, but not high enough to reach orbit, and came back down with a parachute.

It's unclear exactly when the launch took place. The press release says that the launch happened on the birthday of Mohammed the Prophet, which is celebrated by Shiites on 29 January, but was celebrated last week elsewhere in the world.

Some countries worry that Iranian rockets capable of carrying animals or people could also carry weapons. Iran has denied any military intention.

"This is not a scary thing because this is not a big new rocket that could hit America or anything like that," McDowell says. "There's nothing military to this. It's purely for propaganda. Nevertheless, it advances their science and their technology by being able to do it."

Iran says the launch is a first step towards sending humans into space, which they intend to do in the next 5 to 8 years. To do that, McDowell says, they'll need to build a larger rocket. The country currently has a vehicle called Safir that has successfully put satellites in orbit, and is developing a more powerful launcher called Simorgh.

The next step will probably be to either launch Safir to carry a human to sub-orbital space, or an unmanned Simorgh flight into orbit to make sure mission controllers can return it to the ground safely.

"They don't want to repeat what the Soviets did" in 1957, McDowell says, "which is put a living being in orbit before you figure out how to get it back."

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Man charged with using another person's credit card to pay for fast food






SINGAPORE: A man who used another person's credit card to pay for a fast food chain's home delivery service on four occasions has been charged with cheating.

Tan Kok Sin, 32, allegedly made the home delivery orders between 29 January and 12 February in 2011.

The orders, each costing more than S$21, were delivered to a residential address in Bukit Panjang.

Tan faces four other charges of using another person's credit card in 2010.

On 27 September 2010, Tan is believed to have used the card three times, to pay for more than S$400 worth of groceries at a supermarket in Woodlands.

He also allegedly used the same card to pay for a rice cooker at an electrical shop on the same day.

If guilty, Tan faces 10 years' jail and a fine.

- CNA/ck



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Forget Episode VII, watch 'JJ Abrams Star Wars - The Musical'




Are you a late-model "Star Trek" fan with issues about your guy J.J. Abrams jumping ship in order to direct the next "Star Wars" film? Or maybe a "Star Wars" devotee filled with dread at having your favorite franchise be under the control of someone who's directed two "Star Trek" films?


If so, there's a musical for you. "JJ Abrams Star Wars -- The Musical," to be precise.


Picture Darth Vader and Abrams singing at each other on a pier. Picture Vader shaming Abrams -- well, a very poor look-alike at least -- with a line like, "So you think // you can walk right in // You who joined with the other side // You now betray every 'Star Trek' fan // You have crushed their pride." And then Abrams' rejoinder, "It is true // That I have jumped ship // I was always a Star (Trek) Wars guy // I cannot pass on this perfect chance // Let's see eye to eye."


This is YouTube silliness at its best. It's topical, it's funny (sort of), and it's camp of the highest order. What's not to love?



George Lucas and new 'Star Wars Episode VII' director J.J. Abrams.



(Credit:
Joi Ito)



Abrams, of course, was recently named the director of the "Star Wars Episode VII" after already directing 2009's "Star Trek," and the forthcoming "Star Trek Into Darkness."


Some, of course, wonder whether someone with such a "Star Trek" pedigree can switch sides.


But as our musical's fictional Abrams notes to the incredulous Vader, he will return the "Star Wars" franchise to its glory days, starting with what every real fan's obvious first step: killing off Jar Jar.


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Space Pictures This Week: Martian Gas, Cloud Trails

Image courtesy SDO/NASA

The sun is more than meets the eye, and researchers should know. They've equipped telescopes on Earth and in space with instruments that view the sun in at least ten different wavelengths of light, some of which are represented in this collage compiled by NASA and released January 22. (See more pictures of the sun.)

By viewing the different wavelengths of light given off by the sun, researchers can monitor its surface and atmosphere, picking up on activity that can create space weather.

If directed towards Earth, that weather can disrupt satellite communications and electronics—and result in spectacular auroras. (Read an article on solar storms in National Geographic magazine.)

The surface of the sun contains material at about 10,000°F (5,700°C), which gives off yellow-green light. Atoms at 11 million°F (6.3 million°C) gives off ultraviolet light, which scientists use to observe solar flares in the sun's corona. There are even instruments that image wavelengths of light highlighting the sun's magnetic field lines.

Jane J. Lee

Published January 28, 2013

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US Mom Missing in Turkey Took Side Trips













Sarai Sierra, the New York mother who disappeared in Turkey while on a solo trip, took several side excursions out of the country, but stayed in contact with her family the entire time, a family friend told ABC News.


Turkish media reported today that police were trying to establish why Sierra visited Amsterdam and Munich. Police were also trying to establish the identity of a man Sierra, 33, was chatting with on the Internet, according to local media.


Rachel Norman, a family friend, said the man was a group tour guide from the Netherlands and said Sierra stayed in regular touch with her family in New York.


Steven Sierra, Sarai's husband, and David Jimenez, her brother, arrived in Istanbul today to aid in the search.


The men have been in contact with officials from the U.S. consulate in the country and plan to meet with them as soon as they open on Tuesday, Norman said.


After that, she said Sierra and Jimenez would meet with Turkish officials to discuss plans and search efforts.






Family of Sarai Sierra|AP Photo











NYC Woman Goes Missing While Traveling In Turkey Watch Video









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Giordano Interview Fallout: What Happens Next? Watch Video





Sarai Sierra was supposed to fly back to the United States on Jan. 22, but she never showed up for her flight home.


Her two boys, ages 11 and 9, have not been told their mother is missing.


Sierra, an avid photographer, left New York on Jan. 7. It was her first overseas trip, and she decided to go ahead after a friend had to cancel, her family said.


"It was her first time outside of the United States, and every day while she was there she pretty much kept in contact with us, letting us know what she was up to, where she was going, whether it be through texting or whether it be through video chat, she was touching base with us," Steven Sierra told ABC News before he departed for Istanbul.


But when it came time to pick her up from Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, Sierra wasn't on board her scheduled flight.


Steven Sierra called United Airlines and was told his wife had never boarded the flight home.


Further investigation revealed she had left her passport, clothes, phone chargers and medical cards in her room at a hostel in Beyoglu, Turkey, he said.


The family is suspicious and said it is completely out of character for the happily married mother, who met her husband in church youth group, to disappear.


The U.S. Embassy in Turkey and the Turkish National Police are involved in the investigation, WABC-TV reported.


"They've been keeping us posted, from my understanding they've been looking into hospitals and sending out word to police stations over there," Steven Sierra said. "Maybe she's, you know, locked up, so they are doing what they can."



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Is Obama about to blow his climate credentials?






















The US president could be poised to approve the doubling of imports of tar sands oil, one of the filthiest fuels on Earth






















FACED with rising anger from environmentalists last year over his plans for a transcontinental pipeline to deliver treacly Canadian tar sands to Texas oil refineries on the Gulf of Mexico, the CEO of TransCanada, Russ Girling, expressed surprise. After all, his company had laid 300,000 kilometres of such pipes across North America. "The pipeline is routine. Something we do every day," he told Canadian journalists.












But that's the point. It is routine. The oil industry does do it every day. And if it carries on, it will wreck the world.












We need not rely on climate-changing fossil fuels. Alternative energy technologies are available. But fossil fuels, and the pipelines and other 20th-century infrastructure that underpin them, have created what John Schellnhuber, director of Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, describes in a new paper as "lock-in dominance" (PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1219791110). Even though we know how harmful it is, the "largest business on Earth" has ossified and is proving immovable, he says.












The question is how to break the lock and let in alternatives. Schellnhuber, a wily and worldly climate scientist, has an idea, to which I will return. But first the tar-sands pipeline, known as Keystone XL in the parlance of outsize clothing. Proponents say it would create jobs and improve US energy security. But for environmentalists in the US, the decision - due any time - on whether it should go ahead is a touchstone for Barack Obama's willingness to confront climate change in his second term.












Superficially, Keystone XL doesn't look like a huge deal. Since 2010, there has been a cross-border pipe bringing oil from tar sands in northern Alberta to the US Midwest. But this second link would double capacity and deliver oil to the refineries of the Gulf for global export. It looks like the key to a planned doubling of output from one of the world's largest deposits of one of the world's dirtiest fuels. And because the pipe would cross the US border, it requires state department and presidential sign-off.












Environmentalists are up in arms. They fear leaks. No matter what its sponsors suggest, this is no ordinary pipeline. The tar-sands oil - essentially diluted bitumen - is more acidic than regular oil and contains more sediment and moves at higher pressures. Critics say it risks corroding and grinding away the insides of the pipes. The US National Academy of Sciences has just begun a study on this, but its findings will probably be too late to influence Obama.












If there is a leak, clean-up will be difficult, as shown by the messy, protracted and acrimonious attempt to cleanse the Kalamazoo river in Michigan after tar-sands oil oozed into it in 2010.












To make matters worse, the pipeline would cross almost the entire length of the Ogallala aquifer, one of the world's largest underground water reserves, from South Dakota to Texas. Ogallala is a lifeline for the dust-bowl states of the Midwest. While TransCanada has agreed to bypass the ecologically important Sand Hills of Nebraska, where the water table is only 6 metres below the surface in places, a big unseen spill could still be disastrous.












Climate change is still the biggest deal. Extracting and processing tar sands creates a carbon footprint three times that of conventional crude. Obama would rightly lose all environmental credibility if he were to approve a scheme to double his country's imports of this fossil-fuel basket case. Yet he may do it. Why? Because of fossil-fuel lock-in. Changing course is hard. Really hard.












Part of the reason for the lock-in is the vast infrastructure dedicated to sustaining the supply of coal, oil and gas. There is no better symbol of that than a new pipeline. Partly it is political. Nobody has more political muscle than the fossil fuel industry, especially in Washington. And partly it is commercial. As Schellnhuber puts it: "Heavy investments in fossil fuels have led to big profits for shareholders, which in turn leads to greater investments in technologies that have proven to be profitable."


















The result is domination by an outdated energy system that stifles alternatives. The potential for a renewable energy revolution is often compared to that of the IT revolution 30 years ago. But IT had little to fight except armies of clerks. Schellnhuber compares this lock-in to the synapses of an ageing human brain so exposed to repetitious thought that it "becomes addicted to specific observations and impressions to the exclusion of alternatives". Or, as Girling puts it, new pipelines become "routine".












What might free us from this addiction? With politicians weak, an obvious answer is to hold companies more financially accountable for environmental damage, including climate change. But Schellnhuber says this won't be enough unless individual shareholders become personally liable, too.












Here, he says, the problem is the public limited company (PLC), or publicly traded company in the US, which insulates shareholders from the consequences of decisions taken in their name. Even if their company goes bankrupt with huge debts, all they lose is the value of their shares. The PLC was invented to promote risk-taking in business. But it can also be an environmental menace, massively reducing incentives for industries to clean up their acts.












"If shareholders were held liable," he says, "then next time they might consider the risk before investing or reinvesting." More importantly, it could prevent us being locked into 20th century technologies that are quite incapable of solving 21st century problems. Fat chance, many might say. But just maybe Keystone XL and its uncanny ability to draw global attention will help catalyse growing anger at the environmental immunity of corporate shareholders.




















Fred Pearce is a consultant on environmental issues for New Scientist



































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New Zealand firm defends milk safety after chemical find






WELLINGTON: New Zealand's Fonterra, the world's largest dairy exporter, said Monday that its milk was "100 percent" safe to drink despite tests finding trace elements of an agricultural chemical in milk powder.

Fonterra, which reported revenues of NZ$19.8 billion (US$16.6 billion) in the 2012 financial year, said tests had revealed low levels of dicyandiamide (DCD) in some milk samples.

Chief executive Theo Spierings said the DCD levels were 100 times lower than those permitted under European standards and the company was taking steps to reassure international consumers that there were no safety issues.

"Everything that has been exported out of New Zealand is 100 percent safe for consumption," he told Radio New Zealand.

He said suppliers of DCD, which is used to reduce greenhouse gases from dairy herds, had voluntarily agreed to suspend sales of the chemical last week.

Fonterra is sensitive about milk contamination after a partially owned Chinese subsidiary, Sanlu Group, was embroiled in a scandal involving melamine-tainted baby formula in 2008 that killed at least six infants and made 300,000 more ill.

Spierings said Fonterra was in touch with authorities in key markets in Asia about the latest findings.

"We are in contact with Chinese authorities, with Taiwanese authorities and these authorities are adopting the same standard as what we are talking about for these products," he said.

"We will do testing and they will do testing."

With the dairy industry contributing about 25 percent of New Zealand's exports, Prime Minister John Key was keen to stress that the country's milk was safe in order to avoid an overreaction by consumers.

"You'd have to drink the equivalent of a swimming pool full of milk to have any issues whatsoever," he told commercial radio.

"Of course in international markets, which are fragile, there's always concern (about consumer fears)."

-AFP/fl



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New iPad 4 reportedly in the works -- perhaps a 128GB model




Are you ready for an iPad with beefier memory?


A new fourth-generation
iPad with Retina display -- and perhaps as much as 128 gigabytes of memory -- is being readied for release, sources tell 9to5Mac. The upcoming slate would not be a new design but rather an addition to the current fourth-generation line, with the same color and wireless combinations as the iPad 4, these unnamed sources say.


Pricing is unknown, but the new model is described as a "premium SKU" (stock keeping unity) that would join the current lineup of 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB iPads. A source at a large U.S. retailer provided 9to5Mac with what is purportedly a new SKU listing for iPads that includes a fourth model labeled as "Ultimate" to join its current lineup


CNET has contacted Apple for comment and will update this report when we learn more.


9to5Mac suspects the new model will have 128GB thanks to code found in the
iOS 6.1 beta 5 that references a compatibility with 128GB iOS devices. The discovery was first noted yesterday by @iNeal on Twitter.



That tweet led Jeff Benjamin at iDownloadBlog to extract the iOS 6.1 and compare the System Partition Padding values found in old iOS 6.x firmware. What he found was an additional field for 128:



9to5Mac notes that if this purported iPad is in the works, it might be not be intended for the general consumer but rather perhaps for government or even retail use.

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Doomed Dolphin Speaks to New York's Vibrant Wildlife


By the time New Yorkers spied a dolphin swimming through the superfund sludge of the Gowanus Canal last Friday, it was too late. The marine mammal didn't even survive long enough for a rescue plan to come together. First sighted on Friday afternoon, the dolphin perished at 6:00 p.m.

The reason the marine mammal died, and why the dolphin swam up the polluted waterway in the first place, is as yet unknown. But the sad story of the wayward creature highlights the strange nature of New York City, the global epitome of urbanity. Hidden within Gotham are native carnivores, marine mammals, and even species that have scarcely been seen before.

Marine mammals are arguably the most high-profile of New York City's wild residents and visitors. The Gowanus Canal dolphin was only the latest to venture within city limits. Just a month ago, a 60-foot-long finback whale (Balaenoptera physalus) became stranded in the Rockaway Inlet of Queens. The emaciated animal died the day after it was discovered.

There seems to be no singular reason explaining why marine mammals such as the Gowanus dolphin and Queens' finback whale wander up the city's rivers or strand on beaches. Each case is unique. But not all the city's marine mammal visitors suffer terrible fates.

In 2006, a hefty manatee (Trichechus spp.) took a long jaunt from its Florida home up the East Coast, including a detour down New York's Hudson River. The sirenian survived the trip, continuing on to Cape Cod before reportedly turning back south to a destination unknown. Hopefully the manatee didn't encounter any great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) on the return journey, a marine predator we know patrols the waters off New York.

Of course, New York City's whales, seals, and occasional manatee can only skirt the city along its shores and canals. You likely won't see a seal caterpillaring its way along Broadway.

Yet the city's interior also hosts a strange accumulation of wildlife, including native animals that are carving out spaces for themselves in the concrete corridors and exotic species that we have introduced to city life.

Coyotes (Canis latrans) may be the cleverest of New York City's hidden wildlife. Thanks to camera traps, and the occasional police chase through Lower Manhattan, researchers are keeping track of the wily canids and studying how they are so successfully taking up residence in many of the nation's cities. "Most small, urban parks will likely hold a pair and their offspring at most—coyotes are very territorial," said Cornell University ecologist Paul Curtis.

The secretive carnivorans bring a welcome element to urban neighborhoods—an appetite for rodents—and are experts at cracking open new niches alongside people.

Black bears (Ursus americanus) may be next. The bears have proliferated in northern New Jersey in recent years, and in 2010, a black bear came within three miles of the George Washington Bridge, a major thoroughfare between New Jersey and Manhattan. The bear obviously would have eschewed rush hour traffic and the tolls, but the local population is so bountiful that it's not unreasonable to think some enterprising bear might eventually wander into the big city.

Strangely, you may actually be more likely to run into a crocodylian predator in New York City than a black bear. New Yorkers have a nagging habit of importing—and losing-alligator—like caimans and other reptiles within the city.

In 2010, an 18-inch long caiman took refuge under a parked Datsun in Astoria, Queens. No one knows how the reptile wound up on the street, but given the trend of owners buying cute crocodylians and later dumping them, someone may have abandoned the poor little caiman.

This would hardly be the first time. In 2006, another little caiman was found in the leaf litter behind Brooklyn's Spring Creek Towers, while "Damon the Caiman" swam around a Central Park lake in the summer of 2001. These caimans are only some of the most famous—according to a New York Times report, the Brooklyn-based Animal Care and Control deals with about ten caimans each year.

Many other unusual and exotic animals have romped through New York. Under some of their most notable animal celebrities, the city's Parks and Recreation department lists guinea pigs, boa snakes, and even a tiger that escaped from a circus in 2004 and ran down Jackie Robinson Parkway before his owners were able to get him back.

The Big Apple even contains species that have never been documented before. No, not the ballyhooed "Montauk Monster"—actually a rotted raccoon—but a distinct species of leopard frog. Described early this year, the cryptic amphibian was given away by its unique mating call.


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'Barrier of Bodies' Trapped Nightclub Fire Victims













The bodies of the young college students were found piled up just inside the entrance of the Kiss nightclub, among more than 230 people who died in a cloud of toxic smoke after a blaze enveloped the crowded locale within seconds and set off a panic.



Hours later, the horrific chaos had transformed into a scene of tragic order, with row upon row of polished caskets of the dead lined up in the community gymnasium in the university city of Santa Maria. Many of the victims were under 20 years old, including some minors.



As the city in southern Brazil prepared to bury the 233 people killed in the conflagration caused by a band's pyrotechnic display, an early investigation into the tragedy revealed that security guards briefly prevented partygoers from leaving through the sole exit. And the bodies later heaped inside that doorway slowed firefighters trying to get in.



"It was terrible inside — it was like one of those films of the Holocaust, bodies piled atop one another," said police inspector Sandro Meinerz. "We had to use trucks to remove them. It took about six hours to take the bodies away."



Survivors and another police inspector, Marcelo Arigony, said security guards briefly tried to block people from exiting the club. Brazilian bars routinely make patrons pay their entire tab at the end of the night before they are allowed to leave.






Germano Roratto/AFP/Getty Images











Brazil Nightclub Fire: Nearly 200 People Killed Watch Video






"It was chaotic and it doesn't seem to have been done in bad faith because several security guards also died," he told The Associated Press.



Later, firefighters responding to the blaze initially had trouble entering the club because "there was a barrier of bodies blocking the entrance," Guido Pedroso Melo, commander of the city's fire department, told the O Globo newspaper.



Police inspectors said they think the source of the blaze was a band's small pyrotechnics show. The fire broke out sometime before 3 a.m. Sunday and the fast-moving fire and toxic smoke created by burning foam sound insulation material on the ceiling engulfed the club within seconds.



Authorities said band members who were on the stage when the fire broke out later talked with police and confirmed they used pyrotechnics during their show.



Meinerz, who coordinated the investigation at the nightclub, said one band member died after escaping because he returned inside the burning building to save his accordion. The other band members escaped alive because they were the first to notice the fire.



The fire spread so fast inside the packed club that firefighters and ambulances could do little to stop it, survivor Luana Santos Silva told the Globo TV network.



"There was so much smoke and fire, it was complete panic, and it took a long time for people to get out, there were so many dead," she said.



Most victims died from smoke inhalation rather than burns. Many of the dead, about equally split between young men and women, were also found in the club's two bathrooms, where they fled apparently because the blinding smoke caused them to believe the doors were exits.



There were questions about the club's operating license. Police said it was in the process of being renewed, but it was not clear if it was illegal for the business to be open. A single entrance area about the size of five door spaces was used both as an entrance and an exit.





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