GUARDIAN Mon, 19 Dec 2011 09:19:48 GMT
Electronics giant pins hopes on next-generation handheld console, the PlayStation Vita
Sony has ended one of its worst-ever years on a high note, with the launch of its cutting-edge handheld console, the PlayStation Vita, in Japan.
Several Tokyo shops opened at 7am on Saturday to mark the PS Vita's debut, although attention was focused on the Tsutaya store in the trendy shopping district of Shibuya, where the machine's first official customer was presented with his purchase by the world's most high-powered shop assistants, Kaz Hirai and Andrew House – the former is executive deputy president of Sony and chairman of Sony Computer Entertainment, its video games wing, while House is president and CEO of SCE.
The PS Vita was certainly well received in Tokyo: Kensho Monden, one of the first people to buy it, said: "I think its screen, in particular, is very good. I've bought Ridge Racer, and I bought the 3G version [the base model is Wi-Fi enabled only, but in Japan, Wi-Fi hot-spots..
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
GUARDIAN Thu, 15 Dec 2011 17:30:01 GMT
This Brazilian mystery bird is has no white in its plumage, despite what its name implies
Black-fronted nunbird, Monasa nigrifrons (protonym, Bucco nigrifrons), Spix, 1824, also known as the black-fronted nunlet, photographed at Ariau Amazon Towers, 35 miles northwest of the Manaus, Brazil (South America).
Image: Dave Rintoul, 21 May 2011 (with permission) [velociraptorize].
Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 400mm lens, ISO: 500, 1/100 sec, f/9.0
I encourage you to purchase images from the photographers who freely share their beautiful work with us.
Question: This Brazilian mystery bird is part of a group that was named for its plumage. Can you identify this bird's taxonomic family and species? Based on the structure of its bill, what do you think it feeds on?
Response: This is a black-fronted nunbird, Monasa nigrifrons, digitally captured as it basked on a hotel railing.
This species is a member of the taxonomic family, Bucconidae, or puffbirds, so named for their abundant loose....
| | | | |
GUARDIAN Wed, 14 Dec 2011 20:22:15 GMT
Durban Climate Change Conference showed that Obama's pledge to restore the US to a position of leadership has fallen flat
"You've been negotiating all my life," Anjali Appadurai told the plenary session of the UN's 17th Conference of Parties, or COP 17, the official title of the United Nations Climate Change conference in Durban.
Appadurai, a student at the ecologically focused College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, addressed the plenary as part of the youth delegation. She continued: "In that time, you've failed to meet pledges, you've missed targets, and you've broken promises. But you've heard this all before."
After she finished her address, she moved to the side of the podium, off microphone, and in a manner familiar to anyone who has attended an Occupy protest, shouted into the vast hall of staid diplomats: "Mic check!" A crowd of young people stood up, and the call-and-response began:
Appadurai: "Equity now!"
Crowd: "Equity now!"
Appadurai: "You've run out of...
| | | | | | | |
GUARDIAN Tue, 13 Dec 2011 11:56:47 GMT
An outstandingly clear and precise study of the 'dual-process' model of the brain and our embedded self-delusions
A human being "is a dark and veiled thing; and whereas the hare has seven skins, the human being can shed seven times seventy skins and still not be able to say: This is really you, this is no longer outer shell." So said Nietzsche, and Freud agreed: we are ignorant of ourselves. The idea surged in the 20th century and became a commonplace, a "whole climate of opinion", in Auden's phrase.
It's still a commonplace, but it's changing shape. It used to be thought that the things we didn't know about ourselves were dark – emotionally fetid, sexually charged. This was supposed to be why we were ignorant of them: we couldn't face them, so we repressed them. The deep explanation of our astonishing ability to be unaware of our true motives, and of what was really good for us, lay in our hidden hang-ups.
These days, the bulk of the explanation is done by something else: the...
| | | | | | | |
GUARDIAN Mon, 12 Dec 2011 14:56:26 GMT
Corporation says shots of newborn cubs in wildlife centre, rather than their natural habitat, were 'editorially and ethically justified'
The BBC has denied misleading viewers in its Frozen Planet series by using footage of newborn polar bear cubs shot at a wildlife centre in the Netherlands rather than in the Arctic.
The fifth episode of the highly praised programme, which ended its run last week, cut from footage of a male polar bear on the Arctic ice to a female inside a den caring for just-born cubs. As the view shifts the presenter, Sir David Attenborough, says: "But on lee-side slopes, beneath the snow, new lives are beginning."
Some newspaper reports claimed this was potentially misleading for viewers, who would assume all the footage was from the wild. John Whittingdale, the Conservative MP who chairs the Commons media select committee, said he felt it would have been better for the programme to be "entirely open".
He told the Daily Mirror: "If this was not filmed in.....
| |
GUARDIAN Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:30:02 GMT
This African mystery bird's name indicates it once was thought to be part of a very different group of birds (podcast included)
White-breasted cormorant, Phalacrocorax lucidus (synonym, Phalacrocorax carbo lucidus; protonym, Halieus lucidus), Lichtenstein, MHK, 1823, also known as the white-necked cormorant or as the (African) great cormorant, photographed at Hora Lake Kilole (Lake Chilotes), Debre Zeyt, Ethiopia (Africa).
Image: Dan Logen, 26 January 2011 (with permission) [velociraptorize].
Nikon D300s, 600 mm lens, f/4, 1/5000 sec, ISO 640
I encourage you to purchase images from the photographers who freely share their beautiful work with us.
Question: This African mystery bird's name indicates it once was thought to be part of a very different (and unrelated) group of birds. What group of birds might that be? Can you identify this bird's taxonomic family and species?
Response: This is an African white-breasted cormorant, Phalacrocorax lucidus, a species that was only...
| |
FASTCOMPANY Mon, 12 Dec 2011 10:19:42 EST
Breaking news from your editors at Fast Company, with updates all day.
New York Times Launches Election App. Preparing for the 2012 elections, the New York Times has released an iPhone app that will curate news, list polling data and candidate information, and eventually offer live election results. The app will have its own designated editor, the Guardian reports. The app is the latest in a string of new ways that news organizations are seeking to survive in the digital age. --NS
Newton's College Notebook Goes Online. Sir Isaac Newton's college scribbles have hit the Internet. Cambridge University uploaded about 4000 pages of a notebook, including several pages of notes from which Newton's legendary theories sprang. You can flip through the pages of the book, crammed with Newton's pearly cursive writing stretching from end to end, here. Stay tuned for more, though--Cambridge University has plans to port their entire Newton collection to the Web in the next few months.........
| | | | | | | | |
GOOGLE Sun, 11 Dec 2011 21:10:00 GMT
After two weeks of tense negotiations, and several all-nighters, a deal to address climate change was finally reached at the UN climate summit in Durban as the sun rose Sunday morning.
The agreement offers a way forward to a treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which will see its carbon-emission limits expire at the end of December 2012.
But the Durban deal falls far short of creating a mandate for ambitious emissions cuts, as pushed for by environmentalists and EU negotiators. Instead the more than 190 countries involved in COP 17 negotiations have agreed to work towards "a protocol, legal instrument or agreed outcome with legal force," which is to be adopted no later than 2015 but won't come into force until after 2020.
Talks were supposed to wrap up Friday but continued through the night, and then Saturday night, before exhausted negotiators finally agreed on a deal Sunday morning.
There were major hurdles along the way, with the US, India and China clashing........
|
| | | |
GUARDIAN Sun, 11 Dec 2011 04:33:00 GMT
Delegates clashed over attempt to make agreement legally binding until deal was struck in pre-dawn hours
Countries have agreed a deal in Durban to push for a new climate treaty, salvaging the latest round of United Nations climate talks from the brink of collapse.
The UK's cimate change secretary, Chris Huhne, hailed the deal, finally struck in the early hours of Sunday after talks had overrun by a day and a half, as a "significant step forward" that would deliver a global, overarching legal agreement to cut emissions. He said it sent a strong signal to businesses and investors about moving to a low-carbon economy.
But environmental groups said negotiators had failed to show the ambition necessary to cut emissions by levels that would limit global temperature rises to no more than 2C and avoid "dangerous" climate change.
The EU had come to the talks in Durban, South Africa, calling for a mandate to negotiate a new legally binding treaty on global warming by 2015, covering all...
| | | |
GUARDIAN Sat, 10 Dec 2011 23:00:09 GMT
From the sublime Fire in Babylon to Mario Balotelli's ridiculous hat, what to put in people's stockings this yearDVD & BLU-RAY
An absolutely bumper year for sport on film was dominated by two disciplines. Cricket gave us Fire In Babylon (all titles available at amazon.co.uk), a rousing account of the 1970s West Indies side, of their brilliant cricket and, importantly, its part in their assertion of pride amid the racial and post-colonial politics of the time.
Politics also sets the scene for From The Ashes, the gloom of Britain in 1981 providing a backdrop for an historic series. It's a gripping story, entertainingly told, but the real treats are the Australian contributions – amusing and enlightening. It doubles up with the The Ashes Series 2010-2011 Box Set, a mammoth celebration of an Aussie defeat that simply never gets old. The included two-disc documentary is also excellent.
Motor sport also provides some compulsive viewing. Senna is as good a sporting film as has ever.....
| |
GUARDIAN Fri, 09 Dec 2011 08:56:51 GMT
Plus the Economist on the video games industry, and the mobile web in numbers
A quick burst of links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology teamThe new Twitter (RIP Tweetie) >> Daring Fireball
John Gruber isn't a fan of the new iOS version of Twitter's app, which began - three years ago - as a third-party app called Tweetie. He goes through the four tabs (Home, Connect, Discover) and finally "Me": "Oh boy. Stashed into this tab are your profile, your direct messages, your Twitter Lists, and the interface for switching to other Twitter accounts. This tab is the conceptual carpet under which Twitter swept everything that didn't fit under "Home", "Connect", or "Discover"."
The point being that Twitter has ceased to be a way to just message people.The new, new Twitter: 10 big takeaways >> SplatF
Dan Frommer sums up what the new Twitter is about, and why. Note that not everyone has the new interface yet.What Eric Schmidt actually said >> Julian Yap
His comment about......
| |
GOOGLE Fri, 09 Dec 2011 11:16:00 GMT
Ilargi: Last night, in a fancy location in Brussels, - no, you're right, they probably had it €500 a plate catered, can't take the risk of venturing out into the real world where the people live they're supposed to represent-, one bullet-proof limo after another arrived to deliver the honorable hoi polloi from 27 EU countries and their servants for an informal gala dinner during which they could, in hard-fought peace, discuss the maximum extent to which austerity measures can be taken in various member countries without provoking outright civil war.
Security costs? Just a few million bucks; what are you insinuating? We do this every week.
And I'm thinking: the limo's may be bullet proof, but they're certainly not fool proof.
It links up perfectly with something the Polish Prime Minister said to his MPs this week: "You're either at the table or you're on the menu."
Only, he meant his country's government should have a say in what goes on (not just France and Germany). He did....
| | | | | | | | | | | | |
GUARDIAN Wed, 07 Dec 2011 14:06:00 GMT
Climate sceptics parachute in | Royal rumble | COP18 | A more welcome LordClimate sceptics parachute in
Phew. What would a good COP be without a small band of deniers to act as grit in the oyster of global ambition? Just as it looked as if South Africa might be denied its intellectual cabaret act, in parachuted climate sceptic Lord Monckton on Tuesday. Literally, from 3,000 feet. M'lud and his best friends at the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, have lined up Senator Inhofe, Marc Morano, of ClimateDepot.com, and assorted South African free marketeers to talk later today. Monckton, was described this morning by a chum as "freshly rested from his parachute jump" and said to be planning to explain why it would be a mistake to adopt a new treaty in Durban along the lines of the failed Kyoto protocol. Can't wait.Royal rumble
This is serious. What has happened to the corgis? The British pavilion in the underground car park here is pretty grim, so how better to cheer it up than....
| | | |
ARSTECHNICA Mon, 05 Dec 2011 20:43:00 GMT
This week, NASA is playing host to a conference dedicated to the results pouring in from Kepler, its first dedicated planet-hunting probe. The space-based telescope spots planets as they pass in front of their host star and temporarily reduce the amount of light from the star that reaches Kepler's sensors; ground based observatories are then used to confirm these planetary candidates. Right now, that confirmation process is turning out to be the big hold-up, as Kepler has identified over 2,300 planet candidates, of which only 28 have been confirmed. But NASA has announced that one of the confirmed planets sits in the habitable zone of a sun-like star.
The initial period of planet spotting was heavily biased towards heavy, Jupiter-sized planets, which were the easiest things to spot. Kepler has completely changed that; the vast majority of the planet candidates are either Super-Earths or Neptune-sized, and just over 200 candidates are roughly the size of our own planet.........
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
GUARDIAN Mon, 05 Dec 2011 07:26:24 GMT
Richard Branson says aeroplanes have few 'filling stations' compared with other transport, making it easier to supply them
The world's 7,000 airlines could switch to low-carbon jet fuels much faster than other transport because aeroplanes have very few "filling stations", says Richard Branson.
"Unlike cars where there are millions of filling stations, there are only about 1,700 aviation stations in the world. So if you can get the right fuel, like mass-produced algae, then getting it to 1,700 outlets is not so difficult," Branson said in an interview with the Guardian from the British Virgin islands.
Branson, who announced last month he hoped Virgin would soon be able to use waste gases from industrial steel and aluminium plants as a fuel, said the industry should aim for 50% sustainable fuels by 2020.
"I would be very disapointed if not. Once the breakthrough takles place, getting to 50-100% is not unrealistic. Aviation fuel is 25-40% of the running costs of airlines so the....
|
GUARDIAN Mon, 05 Dec 2011 13:56:01 GMT
WDM report, 'Power to the people?', details how money from the UK aid budget has been used by the World Bank to finance a Mexican wind park that provides cheap electricity to Walmart
UK climate aid is being used to produce cheap electricity for the US multinational Walmart, according to the World Development Movement, prompting the UK government to respond that it had not seen "any evidence" to justify the claim.
A WDM report, 'Power to the people?', details how money from the UK aid budget has been used by the World Bank to finance the La Mata and La Ventosa wind park in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, one of the World Bank's flagship Clean Technology Fund (CTF) projects intended to develop low-carbon technologies. The UK government has provided £385m in capital to the CTF from its overseas aid budget, 14% of the CTF's total funding.
Electricity from the 67.5MW wind park is being sold at a discounted rate to Walmart, the world largest company and owner of Asda in the UK. This is..
|
GUARDIAN Mon, 05 Dec 2011 18:33:14 GMT
Tian Tian and Yang Guang are adapting well to new £250,000 home at Edinburgh zoo after nine-hour flight from China
Edinburgh zoo has said the giant pandas Tian Tian and Yang Guang are settling in "very well".
After their marathon, nine-hour overnight flight from Chengdu, in China, to Edinburgh, they adopted the normal routine for jetsetters, sleeping for several hours at a time and grazing lightly while their body clocks readjusted.
Yang Guang, the male bear was described by his keepers as the more gregarious and outgoing of the pair. He spent his first night "scoffing bamboo like there's no tomorrow", according to the zoo's head of animals, Darren McGarry.
"Tian Tian is a bit of a sweetie. She is much more relaxed. She is a smaller panda. She likes to spend a lot of time away from the keepers.
"Yang Guang is a big ray of sunshine. He's a huge panda, really impressive. He spent a lot of time eating last night and seemed really happy, as he was scent-marking his enclosure to...
| | | | | | | | | | | |
GUARDIAN Sun, 04 Dec 2011 19:41:07 GMT
• Wind turbine construction down by half on last year
• Rising energy bills result of higher fuel import costs
The construction of new renewable energy generation capacity has fallen dramatically, as the big six energy suppliers pursue a "dash for gas" policy that could put the UK's climate change targets out of reach and leave households with higher bills.
The number of new wind turbines built this year is down by half on last year. To date, 540MW worth of new turbines, on land and offshore, have been built this year – the equivalent of about 400 onshore turbines. Across the UK last year, 1,192MW of wind capacity was added.
The pipeline of new projects has also stagnated – this year, 2,058MW of wind farms were submitted for planning permission, compared with 2,080MW in 2010, and the number approved dropped markedly, from 1,366MW in 2010 to 920MW.
This contrasts with the 30GW of new gas-fired power stations that are at planning stage. These will require tens of billions of.....
| | |
GUARDIAN Sun, 04 Dec 2011 12:00:00 GMT
Books, books, beautiful books! This is a list of biology, ecology, environment, natural history and animal books that are (or will soon be) available to occupy your bookshelves (or your library's bookshelves) and your thoughts.
Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
~ Arnold Lobel [1933-1987] author of many popular children's books.
Compiled by Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, the Birdbooker Report is a weekly report listing the wide variety of nature, natural history, ecology, animal behaviour, science and history books that have been newly released or republished in North America and in the UK. The books listed here were received by Ian during the previous week, courtesy of various publishing houses.
New and Recent Titles:
Doughty, Robin W. and Virginia Carmichael. The Albatross and the Fish: Linked Lives in the Open Seas. 2011. University of Texas Press........
| | |
ENGADGET Sat, 03 Dec 2011 23:15:00 EDT
We know you've got questions, and if you're brave enough to ask the world for answers, here's the outlet to do so. This week's Ask Engadget inquiry is coming to us from Mark, who needs the stream, If you're looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.
"I'm tearing my hair out trying to find networked media players that meet my needs for under $200. I want to be able to stream Netflix, Hulu Plus and Amazon Instant Video and play music from Slacker -- I'm not interested in Pandora. I'm struggling to find anything that works with Slacker. In addition, I want to be able to stream MP3's from a Windows 7 Ultimate machine on my network -- preferably wirelessly, but wired is possible. The killer though is that I have a large number of video files in MKV, MP4, M4V, WMV, AVI and DVD ISO. Any ideas? I got nothing from Aardvark before Google shuttered it." Listen up, streamers -- take a five minute break from whatever Netflix marathon you're....
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
GUARDIAN Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:36:54 GMT
The game's creative director and head writer, Ken Levine, explains the philosophy and politics behind this shooter
It's a strange sensation, preparing for an interview with Ken Levine. Whereas most interviews with developers in the gaming industry usually revolve around game mechanics and technological innovations, the questions aimed at Irrational's creative director usually involve the story for his new game BioShock Infinite. Levine's last game, you see, used high-end literature as source material and immersed players in a world that posed political, philosophical and social questions, while bombarding the player with bullets and boss battles.
BioShock, was one of the best games in the year it was released. In it players took on the role of the only survivor of a plane crash in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean who found himself transported to the undersea city of Rapture. There, they found a society founded on the Objectivist worldview of an industrialist named Andrew Ryan,....
| | | | | |
GUARDIAN Thu, 01 Dec 2011 12:04:45 GMT
The world's poorest communities have begun to experience extreme weather outside the natural variability of African climate. Without a rapid reduction in emissions, the continent faces calamitous temperature rises within this century
We are right on the equator, but Speke, Moebius, Elena, Savoia and Moore, the five great glaciers of the Rwenzori Mountains of the Moon, glint in the bright Ugandan sun. Usually lost in the mists that cloak the 5,100m peaks, they are the only major ones left of the 43 that were mapped and named in 1906. The area covered by snow has plummeted from 996 km2 to less than 4km2.
Surveys suggest most of the glaciers shrunk by nearly half between 1987 and 2003. They will be measured again in January, but air temperatures in all the high tropics have risen several degrees in a few generations and, says the British hydrologist Richard Taylor of University College London, it's likely that the equatorial ice known to the ancient Greeks will almost certainly all..
| |
GUARDIAN Thu, 01 Dec 2011 08:00:00 GMT
When you bring together people, communities, like-minded NGOs and companies, really big changes can happen
About four years ago, we installed a wind turbine at the River Cottage cookery school and working farm in east Devon. It stands proud at the top of Higher Cart House Hill, looking down over our orchards, cows and sheep, turning gently or whizzing frantically, depending on the weather. While it can't give us all the energy we need, it provides some power almost every day and can fulfil between 30% and 100% of our energy needs depending on how breezy it is. On blowy days, it's very nice to know that our laptops and fridges are ticking along without needing to draw on some fossil fuel-fired power station.
The good feeling of creating your own energy is, I know, something that more people in the UK would like to experience. Up and down the country thousands of people are getting together to find ways of generating renewable energy. They are pooling resources, be it a field, a....
| | | | | | |
GUARDIAN Wed, 30 Nov 2011 19:20:46 GMT
'Green policies will only be adopted if they do not cost the voter - not so much the Tories ditching the huskies as catching a ride with them only if they are going their way'
When David Cameron invited Dame Fiona Reynolds, the head of the National Trust, into Downing Street recently to talk about planning reform, little was resolved. When the meeting broke up, the prime minister is supposed to have said to her by way of an explanation for any bad blood, that his hands were tied. That, on this, he couldn't really control the chancellor.
For many involved, the government's new planning proposals are an indicator of a wider attack by George Osborne on the green agenda. In this row, they don't know whether the prime minister is hiding behind Osborne's skirt as the pair go for growth. In this theory, the chancellor has made a tactical decision – that riding roughshod over green policies is the best way to prove they are pursuing growth, just because it's a vivid display of action.....
| | | | | | | | | | |
GOOGLE Wed, 30 Nov 2011 14:42:11 PST
AT&T's Samsung Focus S is one of the premier Windows phones available in the U.S., or anywhere.
AT&T is carving out a niche for itself as a friend to Windows Phone.
In the last month, it's released the mammoth, terrific HTC Titan, the low-cost-but-high-value Samsung Focus Flash, and the sleek, premium Samsung Focus S--in my opinion the most appealing all-around Windows Phone to date.
There's good reason this Windows Phone 7.5 handset scores high marks. It's got nice internal specs, high-performing dual cameras (1.3-megapixel and 8-megapixel, respectively), and Samsung's brilliant 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus screen. The specs aren't surprising. After all, the Focus S is essentially the Windows Phone version of AT&T's highly-rated Samsung Galaxy S II, minus the little green Android.
It may be neck-and-neck with the Titan on most features, but unless you're thirsting for a huge 4.7-inch display, the Focus S' size is more universally appealing. Watch the video, peruse the.......
| | | | | | | | | | | |
GUARDIAN Wed, 30 Nov 2011 15:06:06 GMT
No more slating your employer online - firms and employment tribunals are finally getting to grips with social networking
Thinking of badmouthing your employer or work colleagues on a social networking site? After the case of the Apple employee, whose dismissal for doing just that was this week upheld by an employment tribunal, you'd be well advised to think again.
On the face of it, social networking outlets such as Facebook and Twitter might appear to offer people an arena for venting their spleen on any issues, including gripes and grievances about work.
But although they may well be your own private views, such forums are often viewable by anyone, and you may face repercussions from your employer if you choose to write about work issues, regardless of whether it's from your desk, home or mobile phone.
Many companies now have a social media/blogging policy as part of their contractual terms with employees, providing clear limitations about the permissible contents of a....
|
GUARDIAN Wed, 30 Nov 2011 15:43:23 GMT
With climate change already claiming human victims, the world must get an agreement out of the UN conference in South Africa
The United Nations' annual climate summit descended on Durban, South Africa, this week, but not in time to prevent the tragic death of Qodeni Ximba. The 17 year-old was one of 10 people killed in Durban Sunday, the night before the UN conference opened. Torrential rains pummelled the seaside city of 3.5 million. Seven hundred homes were destroyed by the floods.
Ximba was sleeping when the concrete wall next to her collapsed. One woman tried to save a flailing year-old baby whose parents had been crushed by their home. She failed, and the baby died, along with both parents. All this, as more than 20,000 politicians, bureaucrats, journalists, scientists and activists made their way to what may be the last chance for the Kyoto protocol.
How might the conference have prevented the deaths? A better question is, how might the massive deluge, which fell on the...
| | | | | | |
GUARDIAN Tue, 29 Nov 2011 13:48:30 GMT
Tokyo Electric Power rejected report warning the nuclear plant could be at risk from 10-metre high tsunami, media claim
The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant ignored warnings that the complex was at risk of damage from a tsunami of the size that hit north-east Japan in March, and dismissed the need for better protection against seawater flooding, according to reports.
Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) officials rejected "unrealistic" estimates made in a 2008 internal report that the plant could be threatened by a tsunami of up to 10.2 metres, Kyodo news agency said.
The tsunami that crippled backup power supplies at the plant on the afternoon of 11 March, leading to the meltdown of three reactors, was more than 14 metres high.
Evidence that the utility was unprepared for the tsunami, despite previous warnings, came as the firm announced that the manager of the Fukushima plant, Masao Yoshida, was being treated for an unspecified illness and would leave his post....
| | | |
BHASKAR Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:22:18 GMT
Washington: For the first time, scientists have discovered shifting sand dunes and ripples all over Mars, a finding which suggests strong winds keep the sandy surface of the Red planet much more active than ever imagined.
Images captured by NASA spacecraft Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter showed that wind-blown sand dunes moving across the Martian surface, sometimes up to several yards at a time, the scientists said.
"Mars either has more gusts of wind than we knew about before, or the winds are capable of transporting more sand," lead researcher Nathan Bridges, a planetary scientist at the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University in the US, said.
"We used to think of the sand on Mars as relatively immobile, so these new observations are changing our whole perspective," Bridges was quoted as saying by SPACE.com.
Scientists have long known that the red dust on Mars can swirl and blow about in many ways, ranging from vast dust storms to small whirlwinds, called dust.......
|
FASTCOMPANY Mon, 28 Nov 2011 18:30:23 EST
First there was Fast Company's "The 10 Best Amazon Reviews. Ever." Now, due to popular demand, we present, with a nod to Christmas, "10 More of the Best Amazon Reviews. Ever." These reviews are not just a staple of consumer criticism, they've become an elevated form of crowdsourced art. Why Amazon? Well, you can find just about anything--from pepper spray to a relaxation capsule, coyote urine, a yodeling pickle, and a rubber bladder catheterization model male bladder--and the House of Bezos invites customers to share their insights in pez-dispenser-sized nuggets of ... oh, what the hell, they're funny!
Here are 10 more favorites.
1. Spice up your day
D-Bag of Liberty gave it 5-stars, calling it "the Cadillac of citizen repression technology": "Whenever I need to breezily inflict discipline on unruly citizens, I know I can trust Defense Technology 56895 MK-9 Stream, 1.3% Red Band/1.3% Blue Band Pepper Spray to get the job done!"
Dan complains that "despite Fox News........
| | | | | | | |
|
|
Boot up: Galaxy Nexus Android review, BlackBerry PlayBooks 'stolen from Indiana truck stop', and more
The 2012 media watchlist
2011: Shift happens
Alan Turing: My Favourite Scientist
Thames water quality re-analysed
Amazon Kindle Fire With Ice Cream Sandwich?
Santa Claus Uses an iPhone 4S and Siri [VIDEO]
PHOTOS: Inside A Sleek Bachelor Pad In The Heart Of Buenos Aires
Death toll from flash floods in Philippines rises above 650; 900 still missing
Charity received just £5,500 in 2009 from £1.9m trade in old shoes
Birdwatch: Short-eared owl
Stray showers of mercury getting into food chain
Firms press EU over carbon price
Govt plans crude oil from plastic
Chopper over Taj causes flutter
Do BYO data centers make sense anymore?
Study: Family History Of Alcoholism Raises Risk Of One-Man Show
Open-Minded Man Grimly Realizes How Much Life He's Wasted Listening To Bullshit
Opinion: We Need To Do More When It Comes To Having Brief, Panicked Thoughts About Climate Change (by Rhett Stevenson)
Opinion: And To Think, No One Believed A Website That Puts People In Dangerous Physical And Sexual Situations Could Succeed (by Craig Newmark)
What The Business Of Video Will Look Like In 2012
Apple Reportedly Buying Up 8-inch Touchscreens to Build Smaller iPads
Amazon Fire sales growing despite critics
Report: Apple developing 'mini' iPad
Of Course The Guy Behind The 'All-American Muslim' Boycott Is A Former Porn Addict
Apple's struggle to defeat Amazon set to be exposed by European ebook inquiry
21st-century publishing builds on a healthy radical tradition
