Japan hopes Russia summit can bring momentum on island dispute

By Steve Gutterman

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hopes talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday will revive efforts to end a territorial dispute that has prevented the nations signing a treaty to end World War Two.

Japan also expects Russia to present a proposal for Japan's participation in building a pipeline connecting East Siberian gas fields and a planned $38 billion Vladivostok gas hub built by state-controlled Russian export monopoly Gazprom.

It is unclear whether Abe, whose talks with Putin will be the first full-fledged Russo-Japanese summit in Moscow in a decade, will leave with progress toward either of those goals, despite areas of interest that converge.

Japan is the largest importer of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and sees Russia as a strategic partner as it looks to diversify and cut the costs of LNG imports, which shot up after a 2011 disaster at its Fukushima nuclear plant.

Russia is seeking to firm up its footing in Asia as it warily watches China's growth - despite warm ties with Beijing - and the U.S. "pivot" to the Pacific. Russia could use Japanese money and know-how to develop its sparsely populated far east.

But Russia's interest in increasing commerce with Japan will not necessarily lead to progress in the dispute over four small islands in the Pacific, known as the Southern Kuriles in Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan.

The islands were seized by the Soviet Union after it declared war on Japan in August 1945 and days before Japan surrendered, forcing about 17,000 Japanese to flee. They are near rich fishing grounds.

The dispute has prevented Russia and Japan from concluding a peace treaty and clouded ties ever since.

Senior Russian and Japanese officials have discussed the territorial dispute repeatedly in recent years, including at bilateral talks between the heads of state on the sidelines of international meetings, but have made little apparent progress.

"I would like to agree on a new start to the protracted negotiations on a peace treaty," Abe said in an interview shown on Russian state television before the visit, speaking through an interpreter. He arrived in Moscow on Sunday.

Russia has frequently signaled that Japan should focus on economic relations and not get too hung up on the islands. The Kremlin last week repeated its message that a solution to the territorial dispute is not a prerequisite for increased trade.

"The Russian side proceeds from the position that dialogue (on a peace treaty) should be held in a calm, respectful atmosphere in parallel with the development of the entire range of Russo-Japanese relations," Putin's press service said.

Dmitry Medvedev, the ally Putin steered into the Kremlin for a four year term in 2008-2012, and is now prime minister, angered Japan by making the first visit to the islands by a Russian president in 2010.

Japanese officials have suggested economic ties would develop faster if the territorial dispute were resolved.

Abe will be accompanied by a 120-strong business delegation, Japanese Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroshige Seko told Reuters last week. He said one aim was "to convince Russia of the merits of having a good long-term relationship with Japan."

"Through forming strong personal ties between the leaders, we want to make Russia feel that by quickly solving the Northern Territories issue, Japan can contribute to the development of Russia and Siberia in particular," Seko said.

Abe's trip follows two months of talks on expanding gas-supply agreements in which Japan has been pressing Gazprom to present a detailed plan of the Vladivostok project that would spell out the potential role of Japanese companies.

Seko said Japan wants to sign up to 20 memoranda of understanding between Japanese and Russian companies during the visit, but that a major deal on the Vladivostok project was unlikely.

The Kremlin said the leaders will discuss international issues including tense situation on the Korean peninsula.

(Additional reporting by Antoni Slodkowski in Tokyo; Editing by Stephen Powell)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/japan-hopes-russia-summit-bring-momentum-island-dispute-210820427.html

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Hubble brings faraway comet into view

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

The NASA Hubble Space Telescope has given astronomers their clearest view yet of Comet ISON, a newly-discovered sun grazer comet that may light up the sky later this year, or come so close to the Sun that it disintegrates. A University of Maryland-led research team is closely following ISON, which offers a rare opportunity to witness a comet's evolution as it makes its first-ever journey through the inner solar system.

Like all comets, ISON is a "dirty snowball" ? a clump of frozen gases mixed with dust, formed in a distant reach of the solar system, traveling on an orbit influenced by the gravitational pull of the Sun and its planets. ISON's orbit will bring it to a perihelion, or maximum approach to the Sun, of 700,000 miles on November 28, said Maryland assistant research scientist Michael S. Kelley.

This image was made on April 10, when ISON was some 386 million miles from the Sun ? slightly closer to the Sun than the planet Jupiter. Comets become more active as they near the inner solar system, where the Sun's heat evaporates their ices into jets of gases and dust. But even at this great distance ISON is already active, with a strong jet blasting dust particles off its nucleus. As these dust particles shimmer in reflected sunlight, a portion of the comet's tail becomes visible in the Hubble image.

Next week while the Hubble still has the comet in view, the Maryland team will use the space telescope to gather information about ISON's gases.

"We want to look for the ratio of the three dominant ices, water, frozen carbon monoxide, and frozen carbon dioxide, or dry ice," said Maryland astronomy Prof. Michael A'Hearn. "That can tell us the temperature at which the comet formed, and with that temperature, we can then say where in the solar system it formed."

The Maryland team will use both the Hubble Space Telescope and the instruments on the Deep Impact space craft to continue to follow ISON as it travels toward its November close up (perihelion) with the sun.

###

University of Maryland: http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/

Thanks to University of Maryland for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127887/Hubble_brings_faraway_comet_into_view

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Galaxy goes green in burning stellar fuel

Apr. 23, 2013 ? Astronomers have spotted the "greenest" of galaxies, one that converts fuel into stars with almost 100-percent efficiency.

The findings come from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the IRAM Plateau de Bure interferometer in the French Alps.

"This galaxy is remarkably efficient," said Jim Geach of McGill University in Canada, lead author of a new study appearing in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. "It's converting its gas supply into new stars at the maximum rate thought possible."

Stars are formed out of collapsing clouds of gas in galaxies. In a typical galaxy, like the Milky Way, only a fraction of the total gas supply is actively forming stars, with the bulk of the fuel lying dormant. The gas is distributed widely throughout the galaxy, with most of the new stars being formed within discrete, dense 'knots' in the spiral arms.

In the galaxy, called SDSSJ1506+54, nearly all of the gas has been driven to the central core of the galaxy, where it has ignited in a powerful burst of star formation.

"We are seeing a rare phase of evolution that is the most extreme -- and most efficient -- yet observed," said Geach.

The results will provide a better understanding of how the central star-forming regions of galaxies take shape.

SDSSJ1506+54 jumped out at the researchers when they looked at it using data from WISE's all-sky infrared survey. Infrared light is pouring out of the galaxy, equivalent to more than a thousand billion times the energy of our sun. The galaxy is so distant it has taken the light nearly six billion years to reach us.

"Because WISE scanned the entire sky, it detected rare galaxies like this one that stand out from the rest," said Ned Wright of UCLA, the WISE principal investigator.

Hubble's visible-light observations revealed that the galaxy is extremely compact, with most of its light emanating from a region just a few hundred light-years across. That's a big star-making punch for such a little size.

"While this galaxy is forming stars at a rate hundreds of times faster than our Milky Way galaxy, the sharp vision of Hubble revealed that the majority of the galaxy's starlight is being emitted by a region with a diameter just a few percent that of the Milky Way," said Geach.

The team then used the IRAM Plateau de Bure Interferometer to measure the amount of gas in the galaxy. The ground-based telescope detected millimeter-wave light coming from carbon monoxide, an indicator of the presence of hydrogen gas, which is fuel for stars. Combining the rate of star formation derived with WISE, and the gas mass measured by IRAM, the scientists get a measure of the star-formation efficiency.

In regions of galaxies where new stars are forming, parts of gas clouds are collapsing due to gravity. When the gas is dense enough to squeeze atoms together and ignite nuclear fusion, a star is born. But this process can be halted by other newborn stars, as their winds and radiation blow the gas outward. The point at which this occurs sets the theoretical maximum for star formation. The galaxy SDSSJ1506+54 was found to be making stars right at this point, just before the gas clouds would otherwise be blown apart.

"We see some gas outflowing from this galaxy at millions of miles per hour, and this gas may have been blown away by the powerful radiation from the newly formed stars," said Ryan Hickox, an astrophysicist at Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H., and a co-author on the study.

Why is SDSSJ1506+54 so unusual? Astronomers say they're catching the galaxy in a short-lived phase of evolution, possibly triggered by the merging of two galaxies into one. The star formation is so prolific that in a few tens of millions of years, the blink of an eye in a galaxy's life, the gas will be used up, and SDSSJ1506+54 will mature into a massive elliptical galaxy.

The scientists also used data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the W.M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, and the MMT Observatory on Mount Hopkins, Arizona.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. J. E. Geach, R. C. Hickox, A. M. Diamond-Stanic, M. Krips, J. Moustakas, C. A. Tremonti, A. L. Coil, P. H. Sell, G. H. Rudnick. A REDLINE STARBURST: CO(2-1) OBSERVATIONS OF AN EDDINGTON-LIMITED GALAXY REVEAL STAR FORMATION AT ITS MOST EXTREME. The Astrophysical Journal, 2013; 767 (1): L17 DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/767/1/L17

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/rDyS8XB5HOM/130423153744.htm

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Hagel: Israel did not tell him of intel on Syria

CAIRO (AP) ? U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel indicated on Wednesday that he was caught by surprise when Israeli officials publicly revealed their assessment that Syria has used chemical weapons in its civil war.

Hagel told reporters that his Israeli counterpart, Moshe Yaalon, did not alert him to the assessment when they met in Tel Aviv on Monday. The assessment was announced publicly on Tuesday by a senior official with Israel's military intelligence office.

"They did not give me that assessment; I guess it was not complete," Hagel said after several hours of meetings with senior Egyptian officials on the fourth stop of a week-long Mideast tour. "So I have not seen the specifics of it" or discussed it with Israeli officials.

He said he and Yaalon discussed the issue of Syria's chemical weapons, but Hagel would not elaborate further.

The Obama administration has said Syrian government use of chemical weapons would be a "game changer," implying that it might, if confirmed, compel the U.S. to get more directly involved in the civil conflict.

Hagel said that Washington is looking for "real intelligence" on the issue of Syrian chemical weapon use.

"Suspicions are one thing. Evidence is another," he said. "I think we have to be very careful here before we make any conclusions, draw any conclusions, based on real intelligence." He said his comments should not be interpreting as questioning the validity of other counties' intelligence on Syria. The important point, he said, is that "the United States relies on its own intelligence ? and must."

After his meetings in Cairo, which included talks with President Mohammed Morsi and the Egyptian defense minister, Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, Hagel flew to Abu Dhabi on the Persian Gulf.

Hagel said his Cairo stop was important for reinforcing U.S. support for the Egyptian government's transition to democracy and its efforts at economic reform.

By including Cairo on his first Mideast tour as defense secretary, Hagel was highlighting the Obama administration's hope of preserving influence with the Egyptian military as the country struggles with its transition to democracy.

Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel. The U.S. is deeply concerned, however, that continued instability in Egypt will have broader consequences in a region already rocked by unrest, including in the increasingly lawless Sinai Peninsula.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hagel-israel-did-not-tell-him-intel-syria-184631082--politics.html

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Pink full moon Thursday: Who gets to see it?

April's full moon is traditionally called the 'pink moon,' a reference to pink phlox, one of the earliest flowers of spring. This week's 'pink moon' might actually appear pinkish in Europe, Africa, or Asia, where spectators will see a partial lunar eclipse.

By Joe Rao,?Space.com / April 22, 2013

The Earth's shadow passes across the moon during a lunar eclipse above Cape Town, May 4, 2004, creating a warm salmon glow. Thursday's lunar eclipse will be less complete than the 2004 eclipse, and won't be visible at all in the Americas. The 'pink full moon' itself, the first full moon of April, will shine on everyone with clear skies.

Mike Hutchings / Reuters / File

Enlarge

This month's full moon, which falls on Thursday (April 25), always reminds me of one of the first times I viewed the April full moon

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When I was very young boy living in New York, there was a popular television weathercaster by the name of Carol Reed. While not a meteorologist, she had an upbeat personality and always finished her reports with what became her personal catch phrase: "And have a happy!"

One evening, Carol commented that it would be clear for everyone to get a good view of that night's "pink"?full moon. When it got dark, my mother accompanied me outside expecting to see a salmon-colored moon, but all we saw was a full moon that looked the way it always did: yellowish-white with not a hint of pink.

While I don't recall the year of this episode, I can state most definitely that it took place in the month of April, since many years later I learned that traditionally the full moon of April is called the "pink moon," a reference made to the grass pink or wild ground phlox which is one of the earliest widespread flowers of the spring season.

So on Thursday night, when you look skyward at this year's version of the "pink" April full moon, remember not to take the term literally!

A bit of an eclipse

While this month's full moon may not look pink, if you live in Europe, Africa or much of Asia, you will notice something a bit different about it, because it will take place on the night of a lunar eclipse.? ?

Unfortunately, in North America, none of this eclipse will be visible, since the actual instant of full moon occurs on Thursday afternoon (April 25), when the moon is below the horizon.

Beginning at 2:04 p.m. EDT (1804 GMT), the moon begins to meet the Earth's shadow; a little over two hours later it arrives under the middle of that shadow. By then the moon will have just risen and will be visible low to the east-southeast horizon as seen from Ireland, and will be setting over south-central Japan in the morning hours of Friday, April 26.

Feeble at best

If we were to rank a total eclipse of the moon as a first-rate event, then what is scheduled to be seen on Thursday for those living in the Eastern Hemisphere would almost certainly fall into the third- or even fourth-rate category; in fact it might add new meaning to the term "underwhelming."

During the first 110-minutes of the eclipse, the moon's northern hemisphere pushes ever-so-gradually into the Earth's partial shadow, called the penumbra. The outer two-thirds of this are too subtle to detect; but then perhaps by 3:30 p.m. EDT (1920 GMT) you may realize you are beginning to detect the ever-so-slight gradient of a soft grey darkening around the top of the moon.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/g3o4BcG_2QU/Pink-full-moon-Thursday-Who-gets-to-see-it

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Close Your Menu for a More Satisfying Meal

If you agonize over your entree choice at a restaurant until the moment the waiter takes your order, you might not enjoy your meal as much as you should.

Recent research details an experiment that asked participants to choose a piece a chocolate from a variety platter. Participants who closed the platter immediately after choosing a candy expressed greater satisfaction with their choice versus those who left the platter open. The effect was more pronounced as the number of choices increased.

The lesson to take away from this is to make a choice at dinner, and then put the menu away. Spending extra time contemplating your other options will only make you second guess your decision once your food arrives. This is especially true at restaurants with big menus and lots of potential choices. As someone who asks to choose his meal last at the table to get a few more moments to choose a meal, I'll definitely take this advice to heart.

Closing Your Menu After You Order Could Make Your Meal More Satisfying | The Consumerist

Photo by ssuaphotos (Shutterstock).

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/WukvTsk7kR4/close-your-menu-for-a-more-satisfying-meal-476544615

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Ezekwesili turns pastor; seeks economic empowerment for women ...

The former minister made the call in her church message Sunday.

Nigeria?s former minister, and a former World Bank Vice President for African Region, Oby Ezekwesili, has called for economic empowerment of women in Nigeria for national development.

Mrs. Ezekwesili, now a pastor in charge of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, FCT One Province, made the call on Saturday in Abuja during the provincial sisters convention 2013.

The convention has as its theme as ?The Dependable Sister in this End Time.??

Mrs. Ezekwesili, now a fierce critic of the federal government, said that poverty was a manifestation of the lack of empowerment for women in society, adding that more than 60 per cent of poor people in the country are women.

?This is leading to feminization of poverty which is the deeper manifestation of poverty among the female gender,?? she said.

Mrs. Ezekwesili, who said that a large number of women across the globe relied on white-collar job for income, noted that the effort had not solved their problems.

?If women were empowered to do more, the possibility for economic growth and development will be enhance,?? she said.

She urged for more training and higher education opportunities to be given to women for self improvement in order to aspire to higher paying jobs.

Mrs. Ezekwesili added that women should be provided with resources and skill that would enable them gain and retain employment to build their career.

She urged women to ensure that they realize their full economic potential and make adequate use of it for the development of their home, church and the nation at larger.

(NAN)

Culled from Premium Times

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Source: http://www.osundefender.org/?p=98593

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Touchfit: GSP leads iOS Apps of the Week

Did you hear something? Oh that?s just the sound of another round of the top iOS apps of the week hitting your screen! This week?s list is led by a fitness app brought to you by a professional mixed martial arts fighter. If freaky fitness isn?t your thing we?ve also got apps for clothing, currency conversion, expense tracking and an update for a social network app worth checking out.

Touchfit: GSP (the GSP stands for UFC fighter Georges St-Pierre) might not get you as ready to rumble as its namesake, but it certainly will do its best to try. GSP features 500 video exercises designed to help you improve your strength, power, endurance and flexibility. The app uses a mix of gymnastics, bodyweight exercises and high intensity interval training to create its workout sessions and evolves after each session to suit your pace and fitness ability.

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Also on Appolicious

Founded by Anna Jarvis in 1908, Mother?s Day is just around the corner. Zinio?s tribute to mothers offers magazines for the wonderful diversity that is ?mom.?

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LinkedIn?s 6.0 update isn?t exactly a major overhaul, but the app does come with a new, simpler design schematic that allows for greater interaction from its main screen. Users can now invite, follow, like, share and comment on content that is right on their update stream. New customizable navigation also allows for quicker access to preferred features on the service. Additionally, users can now follow ?influencers? to get access to original insight and content that is posted to LinkedIn.

Although ModCloth has been a fixture on the iPad for a while, the app finally got its iPhone app released this week for users who want a more mobile shopping experience. The app functions similarly to its iPad counterpart ? users can browse through styles, favorite items, share items via social networks and also buy items via the app?s secure checkout. Whether you?re looking for vintage dresses, shoes or handbags, ModCloth wants to be your destination app, and now with its iPhone version released, it just might be.

Frequent international travelers will want to pay attention to Currency ? Made Simple. The app converts U.S. currency into over 160 other currencies with the tap of a button. Currencies can be searched via currency name, country name or country code. Currencies can also be added as favorites for quick reference. Currency ? Made Simple also has six months of historical data on currency conversion rates to help users make decisions on the best time to convert money.

Having trouble keeping track of your daily latte expenses? Cents ~ Micro-Expense Tracking looks to alleviate the issue with a handy set of quick-tap buttons that allow you to easily log your minor daily expenses. Users can create custom buttons or edit the app?s pre-set expense buttons to track things like lunch, coffee, train ticket and drink expenses. You can then view your expenses in handy charts by week or by month to see just where your money is going.

---

Best Educational Apps, Handpicked By Experts

Appolicious is pleased to introduce appoLearning.com, where parents, teachers and students find great education apps.

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Source: http://www.appolicious.com/tech/articles/13419-touchfit-gsp-leads-ios-apps-of-the-week

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Boeing 787 Dreamliner flights to resume

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Boeing's beleaguered 787 could be flying again within a week after federal officials approved a fix for its batteries, even though the root cause of a fire on one plane and smoke on another still isn't known.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Friday it would send airlines instructions and publish a notice next week lifting the 3-month-old grounding order that day. Airlines will be able to begin flying the planes again as soon as the new systems are installed and they have approval from safety regulators in their own countries. Dreamliner flights could resume within a week, the agency told members of Congress.

Boeing is eager to get the planes flying. It has stationed 300 workers on 10 teams around the world to do the work, some of it beginning on Friday, 787 chief engineer Mike Sinnett said on a call with reporters. It will take about five days to install the revamped lithium-ion battery system on each plane, he said.

The FAA gave Boeing permission last month to test the revamped system, which includes additional insulation around each of the battery's eight cells to prevent a short circuit or fire in one of the cells from spreading to the others. The new system also includes enhanced venting of smoke and gas from inside the battery to outside the plane. A strengthened box to hold the battery is an effort to ensure that if a fire were to occur, it wouldn't escape to the rest of the plane.

Boeing has completed 20 separate tests of the new system, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta told Congress earlier this week.

The system involved in the emergencies in January had been extensively tested, too.

"We always learn more as we dig deeper into things," Sinnett said. "We have learned a lot about how to test batteries, and to be conservative" in testing.

Boeing had delivered 50 planes to eight airlines in seven countries when a fire erupted in a battery aboard a Japan Airlines 787 parked at Boston's Logan International Airport on Jan. 7. Nine days later another incident forced an emergency landing in Japan by an All Nippon Airways 787. That prompted the FAA and other authorities to ground the entire fleet.

Boeing said new batteries and kits with the parts for the new battery systems have been shipped to Boeing supply centers around the world and are ready to be installed. The 787s will get the fix in approximately the order they were delivered, Boeing said.

The FAA's action directly affects the six 787s flown by United Airlines, the only U.S. airline with the plane. But aviation authorities in other countries are expected to follow suit swiftly. Boeing deferred questions about approval in other countries to those aviation authorities.

United Airlines already has domestic 787 flights scheduled for May 31. Spokeswoman Christen David said no other schedule changes have been made yet. Its launch of Denver-to-Tokyo Narita flights is still planned for June 10, but that will depend on installing the battery fix by then, she said.

"We are mapping out a return-to-service plan, and we look forward to getting our 787s back in the air," she said by e-mail.

LOT Polish Airlines spokesman Marek Klucinski noted that they need permission from the European Aviation Safety Agency to resume flights. He said they hope that a decision on Friday would mean they can resume flights in the middle of next week. LOT has two planes, one in Warsaw and one that was stranded in Chicago by the grounding.

Boeing has orders for 840 of the planes from airlines around the globe. The grounding halted deliveries, which were expected to resume "in the weeks ahead," after it installs the changes on planes at the two factories where they're assembled, Boeing said. It still expects to hit its target of delivering at least 60 787s this year, and that the battery issue "will have no significant impact" on its financial guidance for the year, the company said.

Boeing shares rose $1.84, or 2 percent, to close at $87.96 on Friday.

The plane's grounding on Jan. 16, an enormous black eye for Boeing, marked the first time since 1979 that FAA had ordered every plane of a particular type to stay out of the air for safety reasons.

The 787 is Boeing's newest and most technologically advanced plane. It is the world's first airliner made mostly from lightweight composite materials. It also relies on electronic systems rather than hydraulic or mechanical systems to a greater degree than any other airliner. And it is the first airliner to make extensive use of lithium ion batteries, which are lighter, recharge faster and can hold more energy than other types of batteries.

The 787 has two identical lithium-ion batteries: One near the front of the plane, which powers cockpit electrical systems, the other toward the rear and used to start an auxiliary power unit while the plane is on the ground, among other functions. The rear battery was involved in the fire and gushed smoke on the plane in Boston, which had recently landed after an overseas flight. It was the front battery that failed on the plane in Japan.

Every item that is part of an airplane, down to its nuts and bolts, must be certified as safe before FAA approves that type of plane as safe for flight. The two events have raised questions about why the FAA and Boeing didn't uncover problems with the batteries before the FAA certified the plane as safe for flight in 2011. In recent years, the FAA has relied to a greater extent on designated employees of aircraft makers to conduct the safety testing necessary of certification. Some aviation safety experts have questioned whether FAA has the in-house expertise to oversee the safety of cutting-edge technologies that haven't been in planes before.

Lithium batteries are much more likely to experience uncontrolled high temperatures that can lead to fires if they are damaged, exposed to excessive heat, overcharged or have manufacturing flaws. Despite their safety risks, they are increasingly attractive to aircraft makers as a way to cut weight and thus improve fuel efficiency.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the Boston battery fire and the process by which the FAA certified the 787's batteries were certified as safe. The board has scheduled a two-day hearing beginning Tuesday at which FAA and Boeing officials are slated to testify.

NTSB officials have said the Boston battery fire began with a short circuit in one of the battery's eight cells, leading to uncontrolled temperatures and short-circuits in the rest of the battery's cells. Firefighters who responded to the incident reported dense clouds of white smoke and two small flames on the outside of the box that contained the battery cells.

___

Freed reported from Minneapolis. Associated Press writers Monika Scislowska in Warsaw, Poland, contributed to this report.

___

Follow Joan Lowy on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AP_Joan_Lowy

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/faa-approves-resumption-boeing-787-flights-192550397--finance.html

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CBS Twitter Accounts Hacked, Tweeting Suspicious Links

At least 3 CBS-affiliated news accounts have been hacked, apparently by a rabid conspiracy theorist who wants the world to believe that President Obama is aiding Al-Qaeda. Accounts for @60minutes?@48hours, and @CBSDenver?have all been hacked, some tweeting?suspicious?links (don’t click on them). Screenshots below. CBS is apparently working with Twitter to get the situation under control.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/88r7BzWMVqM/

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Justice official: No reading of Miranda rights

WASHINGTON (AP) ? A Justice Department official says the Boston Marathon bombing suspect will not be read his Miranda rights because the government is invoking a public safety exception.

That official and a second person briefed on the investigation says 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will be questioned by a special interrogation team for high-value suspects. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to disclose the information publicly.

The public safety exception permits law enforcement officials to engage in a limited and focused unwarned interrogation of a suspect and allows the government to introduce the statement as evidence in court. The public safety exception is triggered when police officers have an objectively reasonable need to protect the police or the public from immediate danger.

___

AP Intelligence Writer Kimberly Dozier contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/justice-official-no-reading-miranda-rights-023235072--politics.html

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GE 1Q earnings rise on NBC sale; Europe drags

In this Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013, photo, a General Electric logo is seen on a refrigerator at Green's, a furniture and appliance store, in Albany, N.Y. General Electric Co. reports quarterly financial results before the market opens on Friday, April 19, 2013. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

In this Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013, photo, a General Electric logo is seen on a refrigerator at Green's, a furniture and appliance store, in Albany, N.Y. General Electric Co. reports quarterly financial results before the market opens on Friday, April 19, 2013. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

NEW YORK (AP) ? General Electric Corp. earnings rose in the first quarter on rising profit from selling aircraft engines and transportation equipment and the sale of NBC. But results were held back by economic conditions in Europe that were even worse than expected.

GE reported net income of $3.5 billion, or 34 cents per share, on revenue of $35 billion. During last year's first quarter, GE earned $3 billion, or 29 cents per share, on $35.2 billion in revenue.

Adjusted to reflect earnings only from continuing operations, GE earned 35 cents per share. That's in-line with what analysts expected, on $34.5 billion in revenue, according to FactSet.

GE CEO Jeff Immelt said in a statement that operations in emerging markets and the U.S. performed as expected. But Europe ? which was expected to be bad ? worsened. Revenue in the region fell 17 percent, Immelt said.

Europe's struggles hit GE's sales of power generation and water treatment equipment especially hard. Revenue for that division fell 26 percent in the quarter, and profit fell 39 percent.

Profits in the oil and gas segment and GE's tiny energy management division also slipped in the quarter, offsetting profit gains in aviation, healthcare, transportation and home and business appliances.

Overall, sales of industrial equipment and services fell 6 percent and profit fell 11 percent. The company's sale of NBC added earnings of 8 cents per share, while profit rose 9 percent at GE Capital, the company's finance arm.

GE shares were down 69 cents, or 3 percent, to $21.97 in trading about 90 minutes before the market opened Friday.

Immelt acknowledged in the statement that GE expected the first half of this year to be difficult, but he said he expects performance to improve later this year.

GE is in the midst of shaping itself into a more focused conglomerate that sells and services industrial equipment and appliances. It is shedding divisions such as NBC Universal and shrinking its banking operations. GE sold its 49 percent of NBC Universal to Comcast for $16.7 billion in the first quarter. Earlier this month, GE announced an agreement to buy the oilfield equipment maker Lufkin Industries Inc. for $3.1 billion, as part of a push to grow its oil and gas equipment division.

That push appears to be paying off. Orders for oil and gas equipment rose 24 percent in the first quarter. Orders for aviation equipment, powered by a new jet aircraft engine, rose 47 percent.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-04-19-Earns-General%20Electric-1st%20Ld%20Writethru/id-a96511f9f3c5438ba6e57474c1a64525

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Death toll in Iraq cafe suicide attack rises to 32

BAGHDAD (AP) ? Iraqi police and morgue officials say the death toll in a suicide bombing inside a Baghdad cafe has risen to 32 killed and 65 wounded.

A suicide bomber set off his explosive belt inside the cafe Thursday night. It was packed with young people enjoying water pipes and playing pool.

Police said Friday that some bodies were found in a back street because some people were thrown out of the cafe by the powerful explosion.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.

Violence has been on the rise ahead of Iraqi provincial elections set for Saturday.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/death-toll-iraq-cafe-suicide-attack-rises-32-092802384.html

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Google Bans Selling or Lending of Glass

If Google thinks any of its new Google Glass owners have been flogging them on eBay or loaning them their to friends it has the right to remotely deactivate the tech spectacles, according to the Ts & Cs in the contract this first wave of buyers have agreed to. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/sMPSdiLxw90/google-bans-selling-or-lending-of-glass

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Detecting autism from brain activity

Apr. 17, 2013 ? Neuroscientists from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and the University of Toronto have developed an efficient and reliable method of analyzing brain activity to detect autism in children. Their findings appear today in the online journal PLOS ONE.

The researchers recorded and analyzed dynamic patterns of brain activity with magnetoencephalography (MEG) to determine the brain's functional connectivity -- that is, its communication from one region to another. MEG measures magnetic fields generated by electrical currents in neurons of the brain.

Roberto Fern?ndez Gal?n, PhD, an assistant professor of neurosciences at Case Western Reserve and an electrophysiologist seasoned in theoretical physics led the research team that detected autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with 94 percent accuracy. The new analytic method offers an efficient, quantitative way of confirming a clinical diagnosis of autism.

"We asked the question, 'Can you distinguish an autistic brain from a non-autistic brain simply by looking at the patterns of neural activity?' and indeed, you can," Gal?n said. "This discovery opens the door to quantitative tools that complement the existing diagnostic tools for autism based on behavioral tests."

In a study of 19 children -- nine with ASD -- 141 sensors tracked the activity of each child's cortex. The sensors recorded how different regions interacted with each other while at rest, and compared the brain's interactions of the control group to those with ASD. Researchers found significantly stronger connections between rear and frontal areas of the brain in the ASD group; there was an asymmetrical flow of information to the frontal region, but not vice versa.

The new insight into the directionality of the connections may help identify anatomical abnormalities in ASD brains. Most current measures of functional connectivity do not indicate the interactions' directionality.

"It is not just who is connected to whom, but rather who is driving whom," Gal?n said.

Their approach also allows them to measure background noise, or the spontaneous input driving the brain's activity while at rest. A spatial map of these inputs demonstrated there was more complexity and structure in the control group than the ASD group, which had less variety and intricacy. This feature offered better discrimination between the two groups, providing an even stronger measure of criteria than functional connectivity alone, with 94 percent accuracy.

Case Western Reserve's Office of Technology Transfer has filed a provisional patent application for the analysis' algorithm, which investigates the brain's activity at rest. Gal?n and colleagues hope to collaborate with others in the autism field with emphasis on translational and clinical research.

Gal?n's collaborators and co-authors of this study are University of Toronto's associate researcher, Luis Garc?a Dom?nguez, PhD, and professor Jos? Luis P?rez Vel?zquez, PhD.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Case Western Reserve University, via Newswise.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Luis Garc?a Dom?nguez, Jos? Luis P?rez Vel?zquez, Roberto Fern?ndez Gal?n. A Model of Functional Brain Connectivity and Background Noise as a Biomarker for Cognitive Phenotypes: Application to Autism. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (4): e61493 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0061493

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/VRnXi5yCy-Q/130417185539.htm

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5 French execs in breast implant scandal on trial

Apr 15 (Reuters) - Leading money winners on the 2013 PGATour on Monday (U.S. unless stated): 1. Tiger Woods $4,139,600 2. Brandt Snedeker $3,137,920 3. Matt Kuchar $2,442,389 4. Adam Scott (Australia) $2,100,469 5. Steve Stricker $1,935,340 6. Phil Mickelson $1,764,680 7. Dustin Johnson $1,748,907 8. Jason Day $1,659,565 9. Hunter Mahan $1,553,965 10. Keegan Bradley $1,430,347 11. Charles Howell III $1,393,806 12. John Merrick $1,375,757 13. Russell Henley $1,331,434 14. Michael Thompson $1,310,709 15. Kevin Streelman $1,310,343 16. Bill Haas $1,271,553 17. Billy Horschel $1,254,224 18. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/5-french-execs-breast-implant-scandal-trial-063819912--finance.html

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Media frenzy on marathon investigation

A heavily armed United States Marshall stands guard outside the Moakley Federal Court House in Boston after the building was evacuated, Wednesday, April 17, 2013. The U.S. Marshals Service in Washington says the courthouse was evacuated due to a bomb threat. Spokeswoman Nikki Credic-Barrett says authorities are conducting a security sweep. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

A heavily armed United States Marshall stands guard outside the Moakley Federal Court House in Boston after the building was evacuated, Wednesday, April 17, 2013. The U.S. Marshals Service in Washington says the courthouse was evacuated due to a bomb threat. Spokeswoman Nikki Credic-Barrett says authorities are conducting a security sweep. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

NEW YORK (AP) ? For about an hour Wednesday afternoon, people could flip through different television channels and hear completely different accounts of the investigation into the Boston Marathon explosions: Some news organizations reported the arrest of a suspect and then took those claims back.

CNN, Fox News Channel and the Boston Globe said that a suspect in Monday's bombing had been arrested. The Associated Press said a suspect had been taken into custody. Within an hour, the FBI denied that a suspect had been captured, leading the three news organizations that had reported the arrest to back down from those claims.

The AP, while reporting the federal denial, said that its original source was standing by its claim that a suspect had been taken into custody. The news cooperative said its source was a law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity.

ABC, CBS and NBC all broke into their regular programming to report progress in the case, but did not say there was an arrest or someone brought into custody.

The frantic afternoon presented another example of news organizations being embarrassed by a race to report information under intense competitive pressure. It was reminiscent of the day last year that the Supreme Court handed down its decision on President Obama's health care plan, when both CNN and Fox initially got the ruling wrong in their haste to report it.

In Wednesday's scenario, CNN's John King had jumped out early around lunchtime, saying that a department store's surveillance camera had helped law enforcement spot a person dropping a container on the street that was believed to be the second of two bombs that detonated near the race's finish line.

King reported at 1:45 p.m. that an arrest had been made. The Boston Globe tweeted the same thing at 1:53, attributing it to an unnamed official. Six minutes later the Globe sent out a second tweet, saying CNN was the source of its arrest report. Fox News Channel's Megyn Kelly said at 1:55 that the network had been told of an arrest.

The Associated Press sent out a NewsAlert at 1:53 saying that an arrest was imminent. At 2:14, the AP said a suspect had been taken into custody, but did not say there was an arrest.

The three biggest broadcast networks jumped into the story with cautious reports of progress within five minutes of each other shortly before 2 p.m. NBC reporter Pete Williams was insistent that news organizations reporting an arrest had jumped the gun.

"From the beginning of this, this has been the hallmark of this story ? information going in totally different directions coming from normally very reliable sources," Williams said. "We can't just flip a coin on this."

At 2:15 on MSNBC, Williams said that "at the end of the day, somebody is going to be right, because every news organization is reporting something different."

King's exclusive then began to be shot down by three different CNN reporters giving their own on-air reports: Fran Townsend, Joe Johns and Tom Fuentes.

As Chris Cuomo was saying on the air that "we don't know what's right or not right at this point," the onscreen crawl was still reporting that an arrest had been made.

CNN spokeswoman Barbara Levin noted that the network had three credible sources on the local and federal levels for King's initial report. "Based on this information, we reported our findings," she said. "As soon as our sources came to us with new information, we adjusted our reporting."

On Fox, Kelly was dialing back that network's arrest claim, noting the conflicting reports. At 2:15, Kelly told viewers that two law enforcement officials had told Fox there had been an arrest.

"Other news outlets ? some are reporting that an arrest has been made and some are reporting that that is not the case," she said. "Here's the truth: We don't know ... We just want to be transparent with you on the information that is coming in a breaking news situation that seems to be anything but clear at this moment."

The Globe at 2:40 p.m. reported that both the United States attorney and Boston police said there was no arrest.

The FBI statement denying the arrest, which was transmitted on the AP wire at 2:59, quieted the television chatter about whether a suspect had been captured.

During his initial reporting, King had said that law enforcement officials had told him that a "dark-skinned male" had been spotted leaving the package believed to be a bomb. King said he was reluctant to give that description, which can inflame racial sensitivities. An hour later CBS News contradicted him, tweeting that authorities are seeking a "white male" as a bombing suspect.

None of the news organizations named the officials that they were speaking to during their reporting.

Amid the confusion, the Columbia Journalism Review offered a one-word tweet: "Sigh."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-04-17-Boston%20Marathon-Media/id-0ae5a5ea68ee4b0d8d35b6627d6933c7

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Latest 'Dancing' elimination is nothing to laugh at

Adam Taylor / ABC

Comedian D.L. Hughley and pro partner Cheryl Burke were eliminated Tuesday.

By Drusilla Moorhouse, TODAY contributor

More Maks! More Val! More ? Andy Dick?!

Tuesday's "Dancing With the Stars" results show devoted extra airtime to hunky brothers Chmerkovskiy and declared surprising fan favorite Andy safe, so nearly everyone was a winner.

Except, of course, for D.L. Hughley. The comedian and his partner, Cheryl Burke, were sent home after placing in the bottom alongside boxer Victor Ortiz and Lindsay Arnold.

(Soap star Ingo Rademacher and Kym Johnson, the first pair declared in jeopardy, were spared.)

After a rocky relationship with the judges -- especially the harshly critical Len Goodman -- D.L. was rewarded with a standing ovation from all three fault finders.

Even Tom Bergeron praised the comedian: "I know this has been a bit of a roller coaster, but I applaud how well you've handled the criticism, my friend," he said. "Really."

Hughley left with a good-natured crack at his "verbal assaulter": "Len, you need to watch your hip action," he teased about the elder statement's show package. "The hip replacement Bruno said I should have, I'm willing to you."

Fortunately, we saw much more of Val and Maks' hip action than from Len or D.L. Tuesday night.

First, Len granted the wish of Jacoby Jones -- and viewers who wanted more Maks -- by asking the NFL star and Karina Smirnoff for an encore of their jive. (Anna Trebunskaya partnered with Maks, but he also gave his former fianc?e another kiss after the dance.)

Another bonus? Val heating up the dance floor with Oksana Dmytrenko after a commercial break!

The cherry on top of this delicious Chmerkovskiy sundae came from some practice footage, which could sub as a preview for the Ukrainian brothers' reality show. (Make it happen, TV gods!)

"When something's wrong with him, I get b------ at like it's my fault," Maks grumbled, and said Val escapes their mother's wrath only because "I don't let anything go wrong with me."

"Bro, you're one big wrong already," retorted Val. "My whole life!"

(More hilarity ensued when they each threatened to tattle to "mama" and "papa." Adorbs.)

The other performances of the night included Tristan MacManus and Witney Carson dancing to The Band Perry's "Better Dig Two," Tyne Stecklein and Jeremy Hudson twirling around Kerli as she sang "Love Me or Leave Me," and Selena Gomez getting sweaty while she appeared to lip-synch her new tune "Come and Get It."

Next week, Stevie Wonder will be in the house! Tom revealed that the dancers will perform two group routines, with Team Paso taking on Wonder's "Higher Ground" and Team Samba performing to "Superstition."

Asked about his preference, Andy delivered a wisecrack that left even Tom speechless.

"I want to be on your team, Kellie," he told his co-star, "just so we can call it Team Pickler Dick!"

"For the first time in 16 seasons," said the Emmy-winning host, "I got nothing."

What do you have to say about this week's results show? Tell us on our Facebook page!

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Source: http://theclicker.today.com/_news/2013/04/16/17784328-dl-hughley-eliminated-from-dancing-with-the-stars?lite

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Ill-Advised: Researchers Agree Puzzling New Bird Flu Should Be Taken Seriously

It's time to commit to memory a new combination of H and N influenza numbers. Since it arrived on the scene H7N9 has vexed researchers and shown it can be deadly to humans

By Helen Branswell

Scientists from China's national avian flu reference laboratory have found the virus by testing chickens in live animal markets. Image: Flickr/Povl Abrahamsen

An influenza A virus called H7N9 exploded onto the global infectious-diseases radar on April 1 when the World Health Organization revealed China had found three people infected with a new form of bird flu. Since then 77 cases (as of 1 P.M. EDT, April 16) have been confirmed, and the virus has spread from China?s largest megalopolis, Shanghai, and several surrounding provinces to the capital, Beijing, more than 950 kilometers to the north. And cases have proliferated at a startling pace: Infections with H7N9 have already outstripped the total number of H5N1 bird flu cases seen in all affected countries last year.

Whereas the new virus doesn?t seem quite as deadly as H5N1 (fatal in about 60 percent of known cases), it still packs a scary punch. To date 16 people have died from H7N9, and many others remain in critical condition. So far, at least, mild infections from this new strain are in the minority.

?This is very, very severe disease?and rapidly progressive,? Timothy M. Uyeki, an influenza epidemiologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, said last week after Chinese doctors published a report in The New England Journal of Medicine on the first three cases. ?It?s similar to H5N1, but it?s a little hard to make comparisons based upon three cases and limited data.?

The new virus has flu experts on high alert. Like H5N1, the H7N9 avian virus doesn?t appear to spread from person to person; researchers think it is jumping to humans from infected birds. But the latter has already acquired some genetic changes that suggest it is at least partially adapted to spreading among mammals. For instance, researchers have found a change at the receptor-binding site that dictates which types of cells it can infect?those found in birds or those found in the human upper airway, where seasonal flu viruses attach and invade. H7N9 is gradually becoming more adept at invading mammalian airways.

The World Health Organization is watching the situation closely. Given the mutations in the virus and the rapid accrual of cases, the agency is preparing for the worst. ?When you put it all together, this is a quite serious signal for us. And there?s nothing which has lessened the seriousness of that signal over the last few weeks,? says Keiji Fukuda, WHO assistant director general of health security and environment and the agency?s senior flu expert. The Geneva-based organization is working to determine what needs to be in place if H7N9 vaccines must be made and used as well as how quickly antiviral drugs could be deployed if the need arises.

The big question: Will H7N9 be like H1N1, the swine flu pandemic that took off with an explosive start in April 2009? Or will it be like H5N1, a virus that occasionally jumps from poultry to humans, posing a lingering threat?one which has yet to morph into a major public-health threat, but never goes away either.

It is too soon to tell which path the new virus will take. In fact, H7N9 has some qualities that may put it in a category all of its own. Topping the list is the virus?s low pathogenicity (?low path,? in flu-speak) in poultry. It doesn?t kill chickens and other domestic birds; at this point, it doesn?t even appear to make them sick. H5N1 is a high-path avian influenza virus?it wipes out poultry flocks. High-path viruses are hard on farmers, but dead birds at least help authorities locate the virus so they can attempt to eradicate it. In contrast, H7N9 is virtually invisible in the environment. Scientists from China?s national avian flu reference laboratory have found the virus by testing chickens and pigeons in live animal markets, but authorities still do not know how far this virus has spread or how many types of animals can be infected.

?This is a really, really going to be much more difficult to deal with," says David Halvorson, an avian influenza expert and professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota. ?You don?t have this mortality to help guide you, so you have to run around looking for a virus in healthy [animal] populations. And then once you find it, what are you going to do? Chances are you?re going to have it all over the place. It?s way worse than a high-path virus."

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=3e426295c71421d973f316fea0eb0d80

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Biofuels are 'irrational strategy'

14 April 2013 Last updated at 20:29 ET By Matt McGrath Environment correspondent, BBC News

The UK's "irrational" use of biofuels will cost motorists around ?460 million over the next 12 months, a think tank says.

A report by Chatham House says the growing reliance on sustainable liquid fuels will also increase food prices.

The author says that biodiesel made from vegetable oil was worse for the climate than fossil fuels.

Under EU law, biofuels are set to make up 5% of the UK's transport fuel from today.

Continue reading the main story

?Start Quote

It creates a financial incentive to buy refined palm oil, cook a chip in it to turn it into used cooking oil and then sell it at profit...?

End Quote Rob Bailey Chatham House

Since 2008, the UK has required fuel suppliers to add a growing proportion of sustainable materials into the petrol and diesel they supply. These biofuels are mainly ethanol distilled from corn and biodiesel made from rapeseed, used cooking oil and tallow.

Deep fried fuel

But research carried out for Chatham House says that reaching the 5% level means that UK motorists will have to pay an extra ?460m a year because of the higher cost of fuel at the pump and from filling up more often as biofuels have a lower energy content.

The report say that if the UK is to meet its obligations to EU energy targets the cost to motorists is likely to rise to ?1.3bn per annum by 2020.

"It is hard to find any good news," Rob Bailey, senior research fellow at Chatham House, told BBC News.

"Biofuels increase costs and they are a very expensive way to reduce carbon emissions," he said.

The EU biofuel mandates are also having hugely distorting effects in the marketplace. Because used cooking oil is regarded as one of the most sustainable types of biodiesel, the price for it has risen rapidly. Rob Bailey says that towards the end of 2012 it was more expensive than refined palm oil.

"It creates a financial incentive to buy refined palm oil, cook a chip in it to turn it into used cooking oil and then sell it at profit,"

"It is crazy but the incentives are there."

There are also worries that taking EU land out of production to grow rapeseed oil in particular is creating more climate problems than it solves. The more fuel of this type that is put into cars the bigger the deficit created in the edible oils market. This had lead to increased imports of palm oil from Indonesia, often produced on deforested land.

"Once you take into account these indirect effects, biofuels made from vegetable oils actually result worldwide in more emissions than you would get from using diesel in the first place," said Rob Bailey.

"Plus you are asking motorists to pay more for the fuel - it makes no sense, it is a completely irrational strategy."

Biofuel benefits

The European Biodiesel Board (EBB), which represents the industry across the EU, said it was aware of the problems caused by the mandate. But it believes that biofuels have many positives.

"Blaming biofuels for all the troubles in the world is a bit too exaggerated," said Isabelle Maurizi, project manager at the EBB.

"It has brought lots of benefits. It has improved the security of our diesel; it has reduced EU dependency on animal feed imports, thanks to the rapeseed we grow for biodiesel."

"If there was no biodiesel farmers would just make their land idle - no food, no feed!"

As the UK hits the 5% of liquid fuels mark, the government faces some difficult decisions on how to move forward on this issue as it faces tripling the costs for motorists by 2020.

Insiders suggest its preference would be to try and get agreement in Brussels on the impacts of indirect costs which might constrain what counts as biofuel. However getting agreement from countries with powerful agricultural sectors who benefit from the current arrangement will be difficult.

"When you have a lobby which includes the agricultural sector and the oil sector it is very hard for Governments to make a U-turn," said Rob Bailey.

Follow Matt on Twitter.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22127123#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

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89% Beyond The Hills

All Critics (76) | Top Critics (30) | Fresh (68) | Rotten (8)

The final shot, with windshield wipers struggling to clean away a torrent of muddy water, suggests that no human agency is great enough to handle this world's misery.

"Beyond the Hills" seethes with astonishment and rage at a broken society marooned between the 21st century and the 16th.

It is a haunting movie, dealing with superstitions, possession, even exorcism, one in which Mungiu poses no easy answers, because there are none to be found.

If you long for the bleak intelligence of an Ingmar Bergman film, where humankind is deeply flawed and God is indifferently silent and the landscape is cloaked in perpetual winter, then Beyond the Hills promises to be your cup of despair.

There are no easy villains or heroes in this sad and slow but forcefully told tale, which exhibits the same humanity Mungiu brought to 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, his abortion drama that won the 2007 Palme d'Or.

A film that asks its viewer to consider the nature of good and evil, love and trust - and trust that turns into something like blind faith.

When the ill and unstable Alina returns to the monastery, just so she can be with her beloved, Beyond the Hills becomes a species of those exorcism movies that audiences gorge on, only done with a realism and ambiguity usually missing from the genre.

What makes this movie unique is that it holds literally everyone in the film accountable for the unfortunate goings on.

It's an exorcism movie for everyone who thought, after Mungiu's gruelling abortion buddy-movie 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, that this guy should do an exorcism movie

It's an enigmatic and austere film from a region where political, sexual and religious repression are as stifling as the sooty air.

Mungui's rigorous approach to filmmaking isn't a ton of fun to watch, but his ideas stick with you.

It delivers an emotional punch, in what its director has called a story about the sin of indifference.

Such is the rigorous and high-minded nature of Romanian cinema that even a real-life exorcism story can inspire something loftier than a horror movie.

Heartbreak at a Romanian convent

...Cristian Mungiu has taken a real life event...to consider deeply human philosophies such as freedom vs. discipline, love vs. security, the choices facing those without financial recourse and the hypocrisies of organized religions.

I found it riveting to watch and fascinating to think about afterwards.

An undeniably tough watch.

Stark, deadpan, and darkly dry.

With this viscerally involving drama, acclaimed Romanian filmmaker Mungiu (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days) tells another strikingly original story of women caught between old and new world beliefs.

Mungiu is not preaching - he is telling us what can happen when people are trapped within their own emotions and circumstances. Remarkable.

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/beyond_the_hills_2012/

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